Sometimes it hurts.

Recently, I made the decision to break things off with someone I was walking a dangerous line with.
It was a mutual decision, because he couldn't give what I needed, and I wasn't willing to let myself grow gradually more and more resentful of not getting my needs met.
I wasn't willing to harm his current relationship, and he wasn't willing to harm mine.
So we walked away.

It was the right thing to do.
The grown-up thing to do.
The ethical thing to do.

And that doesn't make it hurt a damned bit less, any time I let myself think too hard about it.

In Praise of the Vulnerable Man

This is just made me cry.
This is my husband. This is my Rush. This is my Mate, who is not afraid to cry in my arms.
This is the man I love, whose strength to be vulnerable allows me to give the same to him.
This man who trusts me enough to be vulnerable, is the man in whose arms I can be.

You are the bravest man I’ve ever met 
You unreluctant at treacherous ledge 

You are the sexiest man I’ve ever been with 
You, never hotter than with armor spent 

When you do what you do to provide 
How you land in the soft as you fortify 

This is in praise of the vulnerable man 
Why won’t you lead the rest of your cavalry home 

You, with your eyes mix strength with abandon 
You with your new kind of heroism 

And I bow and I bow down to you 
To the grace that it takes to melt on through 

This is in praise of the vulnerable man 
Why won’t you lead the rest of your cavalry home 
This is a thank you for letting me in 
Indeed in praise of the vulnerable man 

You are the greatest man I’ve ever met 
You the stealth setter of new precedents 

And I vow and I vow to be true 
And I vow and I vow to not take advantage 

This is in praise of the vulnerable man 
Why won’t you lead the rest of your cavalry home 
This is a thank you for letting me in 
Indeed in praise of the vulnerable man

I love you. I trust you because you trust me.
You are my safety because you understand the courage it takes to bare your soul. 

Quiet Night In

We have been teasing, toying, and playing all day.
Text messages and pictures, low laughter on the phone. I know that you want me, and it is mutual my love.
But first, there is life to put to rights: cooking for the rest of the week, caring for our child, cleaning up the house, a shower and hair dye for me, shaving with long, slow strokes of the razor until my skin is pink and smooth and as soft as massage oil can make it.
There is the shower for you, and clean sheets for the bed, dealing with the small mountain of clean laundry.

But finally, finally, there is me, and there is you and there is nothing else.
There is your body against mine, the wild-shy look on your face and the predatory glint in mine.

There is my low chuckle, "I think you've missed me, sweetheart," and your whispered affirmative.
My order to welcome me back, by kissing every inch of my body.
Long, slow moans as you obey, beginning at the arches of my feet. I am infernally ticklish, and detest being tickled, but in the years we've been together you have learned to touch me without my most dreaded response, and my low, throaty sounds are entirely those of pleasure tonight.
Unsurprisingly, you linger at the juncture of hip and thigh, teasing my warm pussy with tiny kisses and heated breath, before following orders and moving on.
Across the flat planes of my belly, in the hollow of my hip and curve of my waist, along the sensitive undersides of my breasts and gentle teasing kisses to my hardened nipples.
Long, slow caresses of your tongue to my neck, until I grab your face and drag you in for a kiss of my own. Your almost-innocent smile of pleasure, thrilled at pleasing me and my answering grin of delight.

Kneeling across my chest now, giving me the show I requested. My hands roaming your body, teasing your nipples, stroking your thighs, toying with your balls as you stroke your cock. My fingers in your perineum, tongue flicking across your cockhead, your indrawn breath.
"Cum on my breasts, love," my quiet order.
Your moaning assent, head thrown back and eyes closed. Your body spasming, heat splashing across my breasts and trickling along my throat. My soft sound of pleasure.

Your body, lying across mine now, cooling cum sticky on our pressed-together chests. My body moving against yours in demand.
"You're not finished yet, love." The words alone enough to harden you again, but not so large now, not so thick.
I am 120lbs and built to proportion. I love to be fucked hard, but my cervix can't take another round of rough sex tonight, not when I seem to only ever attract well-endowed lovers and my Rush is certainly no exception.
We have learned, though, that the second erection is not so long, not so hard, and much easier on my still-sore body.

"Ride me, my love. Fuck me until I cum."
I love the eagerness on your face at my words, love your joy in pleasing me, in pleasuring me.
I love the ease with which you slide into me, no stretching now, no soreness or pain. Only the warm weight of your body inside of mine, the joyful fullness of your cock in me.
Your hips moving, face intent, my fingers finding my clit almost unnecessary because you keep hitting that spot, keep stroking me over and over as you kneel up with your hands on my breasts and your hips pounding into me but there is no pain now, only pleasure, and soon I am spilling over the edge and moaning against you as I shake and cum and cry out your name.

Overdue update

Hmmm so much for that 'writing here more' project.

Short version of the last few months:

Jack and I have broken up. We are still best friends, but it was past time.

Airen and I have also broken up. We're also still friends, although we're taking the time to let a little distance heal things.

Boywonder and I are still together. Our dynamic is evolving, but mostly we're vanilla partners who switch a lot in play. (Although come to think of it, I owe him a good beating for his birthday earlier this week...)

Yeah. And now to my next post for the rant I came here to write about subspace and consent.

Loss

We're in the car, and driving home.

My home,not yours anymore and that is its own special kind of pain.

You're talking about the woman you loved, the woman you still crave despite the pain she caused you and the scars you still stroke on nights when the loneliness is too much.

I am sympathizing with you because I have my own scars, my own secret could-have-beens in the middle of the night.

"...it's the most intense things I've ever felt," you tell me, and I shudder in response.

"I've felt it three times," I tell you. "Once for Wolf," whose strong-safe arms are no longer- can never again be- in my life. "And two other times."

I know the intensity you mean. The obsession- and yes, it is obsession. Your brain releases the same chemicals during the early stages of a relationship that are released during an obsessive episode for an OCD person. The craving for them, for their bodies, the meeting with their minds, the brush of their soul against yours.

The fierce craving for their touch, the need to touch them, to mark them and show the world that they belong to you, that they love you and they are yours and you are theirs and yes!

"You're lucky to have felt it so many times," he tells me.

I glance at him, pretty and dark and hurting. I know what he means- that I am lucky that having felt it more than once, I know I can feel it again. Know that the loss of it once is not the loss of it forever. But the words won't come past the lump in my throat.

"You get past it," I tell him. "You go to bed hurting and you wake up hurting and you go through the motions hurting- eating and drinking and working and playing- and you know it won't ever go all the way away but you hold on to the little things, the little pleasures."

"It's different for you," he says. "You have someone."

"It's not like that," I respond. "It doesn't make the pain less. But you cling to the little things. The taste of tea in the morning, the rush of caffeine in your body. The taste of chocolate on your lips. The accomplishment of learning a new skill. It doesn't take away the pain, but it makes it bearable.

"And when you think you can't stand it anymore, when you think you're going to call them in the middle of the night, you remind yourself why they're not there anymore. Why they're gone, whether they chose it or you did. In the middle of the night, you hold on to anger or hurt or fear or whatever it takes to remind you because sometimes they're the only things that are stronger than the craving for them."

After all, foolish boi, how do you think I keep from calling you?

3am

You are making small whimpering noises in your sleep, little puppy-like snuffling sounds as you move across the bed seeking my warmth. The rice paper that covers your bedroom window blocks little light, and even now at 3am I can see your face relaxed and childlike in sleep as you search for me.

I love that you search for me, that you seek in me safety, and warmth, and comfort.

It makes me want to wrap you up tightly in my arms and keep you safe forever, and it makes me want to rip you from sleep with a hand over your mouth and another pinching shut your nose before I ride you into oblivion.

Mornings

It is in the mornings that I wake to find you gone.

It is in the mornings that I reach, warm and fuzzy-minded from sleep, to cuddle you and wake abruptly to the lack.

It is in the mornings, with their 5 hour time difference, too early to call and reassure myself with your voice, that I feel how far away I am.

It is in the mornings, quite and peaceful and utterly lacking in your warmth, when I let myself weep.

An apology and a memory

Beloved one,

I woke up yesterday with tears hot on my cheeks, fear clawing at my chest like a beast trying to rip its way out through my ribs.

I knew that you would leave, knew that you would walk away as surely as I knew the taste of bile in the back of my throat.

There was no doubt in my mind that before day's end, I would lost you.

But when I talked to you in the morning, I pasted the smile to my face, letting myself take honest joy in what I knew would be my last conversation with you as Mine. I reveled in your sleepy voice, high and soft and rough with sleep. I bathed in the soft sounds of joy you made when I told you that I loved you, wrapping them like spun glass in the recesses of my mind, a tightly held balm against the pain I knew would come. I listened to your rustling movements in bed, seeing you in my mind's eye sprawled in your soft sheets, and I smiled even as tears burnt the backs of my eyes.

And then I went about my day, I wandered alone in a city 3,000 miles from my home, idly watching the people around me. I noted their movements, smiled reflexively at those who greeted me, and all the time my mind was full of you, full of all that I knew I would lose. Your face, soft and open when I'm inside of you, your smile wise and kinder than you'll admit when I am small and frightened. Your hands small and quick and nervous when you clean. Your tremulous smile when I kiss you as a man, and your slow, wicked grin as you ride me. Your face lighting with passion as we chat for hours about the things we love, your narrowed eyes and manic smile when you hurt me, your shy eyes when you curl up tight against me. A hundred thousand images flashed before my eyes and broke my heart a hundred times over: you folding clothes, obsessively neat. You at work, focused and proud. You curled close to me, watching a movie. You hurting me, mad eyes and tender hands. You spread out before me, a feast for my senses. You shopping, movements graceful and restrained. You at my dining room table, laughing and talking. You grinning sideways, that delicious, wicked expression. You on your couch, primal and barely restrained. Every image a glass shard in my heart, ripping me slowly, inexorably open. Over and over I saw you, everywhere that I looked. Architecure I wanted to point out to you, dresses I wanted to laugh with you over, pretty boys with their hipster hair I wanted to laugh with you about. Sad murals I wanted to share with you, good food, all of it wrapped around my heart like barbed wire and I bled inside.

Finally, with heavy steps I came home to talk to you, dreading every step, afraid of every word I'd have to write. When you greeted me, I was both afraid and joyful. I leapt into the conversation because I knew that if I didn't, I'd never have it. I'd give in to the temptation to conceal it from you, the nagging hopee that maybe I wouldn't lose what has become so precious to me.

Every keystroke punctuated by a tear, by a stabbing sensation in my chest, by the certainty of loss.

...and then you didn't.

Then you were quiet as you conferred, and you simply accepted in me what I cannot accept myself.

And then you told me that you love me, and the tears spilled out, spilled open in me and my heart was still bleeding but it was marked by joy now and the disbelief that this was really happening.

Were you truly still here? Would I still really be able to hold you, be able to taste your lips and hear your precious voice? It was too much, too deep, too sudden,and I couldn't believe it, couldn't process it, could only curl into myself a release the shaking sobs that had hidden inside of me all day.

I still have trouble believing it, still have to reach sometimes for the twine you had me tie around my wrist, my tangible reminder of your love and your presence.

I still keep waiting for you to change your mind, to look at me with horror and disgust, and just as you told me so long ago in the darkened car... you prove me wrong. Every time.

I've never been so grateful to be wrong before.

I love you.

Image

The image, a week old now, won't leave my mind: you, spread in naked glory across the warm hardwood floor of your home, the sunlight streaming behind you and bathing you in light as you wrap your legs around me and drag me deeper into you. Your mouth, that hot little 'O' of pleasure and need, the small sounds dragged from your throat by the movement of my cock inside of you. Your face flushed with arousal and your eyes glazed in desire...

I can't get it out of my head,and nor do I really want to.

Empathy

Aching inside, struggling with the need to run to one I’ve loved deeply, fighting the urge to hold them even knowing that it isn’t what he needs.

Angry for their pain and sympathetic to the cause of it, a whirlwind of emotions, own fears mixing with his pain and the mixture caustic in my throat, in my chest. I want to make it better!

….and I can’t.

No one can. Time, they say, heals all wounds, but Time is a harsh Master who forces suffering until he dispenses healing at his whim... and even then the scar remains.

It’s cold and dark outside and I don’t care, I want to walk through it to hold him but I know that in his own pain he would turn away because pain so enveloping can’t be shared, can’t be halved.

...it doesn’t make the desire any less strong.

From postsecret

You know who you are- I love you.

Missing him

I am having trouble tonight.

Trouble accepting that he is gone, trouble knowing that he is not in my arms tonight and will not be again.

It is a day for regrets: foggy and bleak, everything edged with a grey soft focus lens.

In the store today, I accidentally sprayed myself with the cologne that the man who raped me wore.

I wanted to call him, wanted to whimper in remembered agony and hear him soothe me.

I saw makeup today, lovely bronzed earth tones to suit his golden skin and I wanted to buy them, wanted to paint him like the beautiful whore that he is....... only not for me, not anymore.

Most days, I understand that what we have chosen is right for both of us. Most days, I love him and accept his choices with reasonable grace.

But today I don't want to. Today I woke up afraid and hurting and missing him with a fierce aching sense of loss that nothing assuages.

Today, I miss him.

Actaeon

Actaeon and I are no more.

We are still very close friends, but he is no longer my boi.

We're okay. I'm okay, so please don't worry.

Actaeon is 23. He will be awarded his Master's degree in his chosen field this upcoming May. The entire world is open to him, and he deserves the freedom to explore it- without the emotional fetters of a relationship as committed as I seek.

I love him. He loves me.

That is not in doubt, nor has it ever been- this is a mutual decision, and we respect one another's needs.

Gods, that sounds like counseling psycho-babble! But it's true. Yes, I'm hurting and grieving a bit, and so is he. But it's a clean wound, and beginning to heal already as we help one another through it.

What this means for the future is that we will still hang out (he's coming over this weekend again), we will still play some and attend events together, but the commitment of a relationship is no longer there.

In 'formal' D/s terms, we've gone from a Master/slave relationship to being a Top and bottom who are also very close friends.

I'll start hunting again for a boy soon, but not until after the Holidays. It's too stressful, and I won't put Jack through that over the Holidays.

Meanwhile, I'm planning a Winter Solstice Party and possibly an Orphan's Christmas Dinner.

I love you all :)

Good morning, beautiful

It is morning, in your bed and sunshine is streaming in through the window. I can only think blearily that it was supposed to rain today...

You are wrapped around me, a clinging liana vine boy, your naked body pressed tightly to mine. I free my arm slowly and stroke your hair while you blink at me in sleepy confusion. Are we waking up? Am I just petting you?

Good morning, beautiful

How was your night?

Mine was wonderful with you by my side...

I cannot help it, love for you is swelling up in me, and I pull you in closer to me, draw your heavy head to my breast and lay it there while you wrap yourself around my supine warmth. Your fingers are stroking my neck, your toes moving along my bare legs, and we are warm and soft and drowsily aroused together.

When I open up my eyes and see your sweet face

It's a good morning, beautiful, day...

This.... this is what I love, you wrapped around me: your warmth sinking into me, fingers brushing the little hairs on my arms and your cock drowsily aroused against my hip as your lips press into my neck from habit as much as desire.

Good morning, beautiful

War stories

Her hands are tender now, on his olive skin. She can feel the pain just beneath the surface, the festering wounds on his soul. As her hands pass over each scar, she feels his memory of how it was gained: here, the comrade he couldn't save.  Here, the terror of the heat and fire around him. Here, the secret fear of having let down his men. Each of his wounds cut her as she feels them, but she welcomes this pain, letting it wash through her and bring a new understanding of this man she loves and the experience of not only him, but others whom she loves as well. 

Pain is the price of this kind of wisdom, and she will pay it gladly for the knowledge of how to help him and wisdom to apply it well.

She strokes his skin gently. 'Who heals the healer?' she asks him, a question her hands offer the answer to.

Slowly, carefully, struggling with the urge to push, to pull, to force the wounds open, she gives him love in exchange for his pain, caring in exchange for his fear, acceptance in exchange for his guilt.

She knows this pain now, feels it in her own soul as an echo of his and she lets her heart guide her hands along his still body. She finds each scar, each wound, and presses it, gives him the space to gasp and whisper its origin. 

'Wounds of the soul are no different than those of the body,' she whispers to him. 'When covered and hidden and kept from light and air, they close over but fester beneath. Only when they're opened, exposed, and cleaned with tears do they heal.'

Each wound that she finds she shows him, loves him, gives him a safe space to be vulnerable in the ways he couldn't there, with them, with those for whom he is responsible. With each wound he opens to the air, he bleeds tears which clean the memory, the wound.

With each baring of his soul, she holds him through the tears and she kisses him tenderly. The brush of lips less an invitation than a reassurance that she loves him no less for this vulnerability, admires him no less for this pain, respects him no less for these wounds. 

And slowly, slowly, they heal together.

His eyes

Empty. Scrubbed clean by pain and penance, body bearing the marks and heart the healing. 

It had hurt, and she'd considered crying, "Mercy!" but always, the look in his eyes stopped her. One part madness, one part rage mixed with pain... and one part love. 

It was the love that undid her, the love that made her offer her throat to his hands, her wrists to the rope. 

The rage she could have fought, the madness feared, the pain lamented... but the love... it was the love that undid her, and brought her to her knees for him as she had never knelt before. It was the love that reminded her to breathe through the pain he gave her, let her accept the penance without anger or retribution. Let her welcome it.

It was the love that made her hate herself for hurting him, and love him the more for forgiving her.

The chain around her neck, drawing tighter until air was a struggle.

The hands slapping her thighs, until she gritted her teeth in pain and the need to twist away.

The knuckles in her breastbone, making her writhe in agony.

Part of her wanted to fight, wanted to struggle, wanted to hurt him for bringing this pain to her... but even that part quieted when she looked into his eyes. They paled in his madness, in this grip of sociopathy, of love. Wide as they were when she hurt him, but different somehow.

Still beautiful.

And still filled with love. 

It was the love that undid her. 

Overdue: an anniversary

Friday was the Spring Equinox. 

I spent the day staunching the hemorrhage that was Jack's sister's wedding, and had neither time nor energy to stop and think of anything save the next disaster to stave off. 

So it was this morning before I woke to soft sheets and sunlight on my face, and I remembered:

it was on the Equinox, 6 months ago Friday, that Lucivar and I first bared our souls to one another... rather by accident, I think. 

It was on the Equinox half a year ago that I held my knife to his throat for the first time, and told him the tale of wolves in packs. That I named him my wolf-pup.

It was on the Equinox half a year ago that he fisted his hand in my hair and brought me back into balance. 

It was on the Equinox half a year ago that I first began to love him. 

Happy anniversary, Lucivar. 

I'm sorry that I missed it.

Conversation

"I'm still scared of being 'too'."

"Too what?"

"Too anything. Too needy, too scared, too loud, to fucked up. I'm still scared I'll be too, and you'll get tired of it and leave."

*long silence*

"That's your cue to say something comforting, you know."

"I know, I'm trying to think of how to say it."

*long, scared pause*

"We've been together almost three years, and we've been through some... really... rough times. And that tells me that we have what it takes to spend the rest of our lives together. Which is good, because I want to."

*random hysterical bawling/laughing*
(which by the way.... bad idea while the person you're clinging to while you do it is driving)

Samhain

Today is Samhain.
Today is the day when from the moment I wake to the moment I drug myself to sleep, the faces of those I have lost whisper behind my eyes.

My mother, with her drunken good-night kisses and bitter naivete.
My Mema, with her ever-open arms and deep-rooted faith in a vengeful, loving God.
My Nana, with her soft heart and steel spine.

Vainkitten, with her her darkness and her naivete.
Ranger, who shared my life and my home without judgement.

My brother, who I believed loved me.

Oh, there are others. There are so many others. Joseph, who sang to me, "Sober," trying to warn me about his own untrustworthiness. Wolf, my once-consort, who still is in my life but not in the way that either of us would like. Jewel, who loved me with a deep and abiding love, and whose heart and loyalty I broke. Sunny, who never once stopped challenging me.
Some of them I don't even allow myself to think about anymore, and I probably won't remember until tomorrow morning.

There are more- there are always more. But those are the ones whose names aren't merely written on my heart today, but carved into it.

Tonight, while everyone else is at the party, I will lay the table for the Dumb Feast, and I will eat my dinner surrounded by my ghosts. I will close my eyes and see them in front of my face, and I will speak to them. I will tell my ghosts that they are not forgotten, that they are still written in my soul, and that their memories are still cherished.

Happy Samhain, my friends.

Dinner and a show

Tonight, after our brusing conversation with Gloria, Jack and I decided to go out together to dinner. A treat we can't afford, but needed anyway. So we drove out on the causeway, and had dinner at Oysterella's, sitting out on the patio to watch the sunset over the bay.
It was... wonderful. Moments like that remind me why we are still together through everything.
The food was amazing (they even pan-fried my grouper for me) and the bread pudding was absolutely phenomenal.

And the company was... bliss.

We've promised one another more nights together like that. Although preferably, without the hefty dinner bill ;-)