The Calculus of Non-monogamous Relationships

A few nights ago, I wrote a long post about some realizations I'd had recently in my current relationship. When I woke up the next morning, I decided it might be too personal to publish, especially in the eyes of my partners, who are more private people, though I knew I still wanted to publish something that touched on those realizations, however obliquely, as well as address other general issues in poly. This is my attempt at that. Also, my current relationship is all 3- non-monogamous, open, and poly, so that is what I am speaking from. I tried not to use them interchangeably though because they are not the same thing. Non-monogamous covers all three, but not all poly relationships are open (as in an exclusive committed poly triad where those three people are only with each other) and not all open relationships are poly (as in people who have sexual contact outside of their main love relationship, but aren't looking for love relationships outside of their primary love relationship.) Every dynamic is different so your mileage may vary.

Lately, I've found myself in a weird position. That of being a grown-up, one that other people sometimes even look to for advice, as if I was some kind of expert. That is super weird to me because I've spent so much of my life looking at other people who seem to have it so much more together than I have. Half of the time, when someone does ask for advice, I don't feel like I have much of an answer to give them. This is especially true when it comes to issues of non-monogamy. Just because I'm doing it and it is working doesn't mean I feel like I have very good answers. Then again, sometimes I think they're just asking me the wrong questions, questions that I have no answer to, that largely no one has good answers to. That's probably because most people ask me how they can find a unicorn or how they can help their partner find other partners. My answer to that is "fuck if I know. I just kinda fell into this situation. None of us were looking for it but it just kinda happened." No, what I have more answers about is how we're still together, though that might also not be helpful for everyone. Just as with BDSM, I came to non-monogamy and openness and poly with a good deal of theoretical knowledge, only to have found that practice with real people in the real world is very different.

There's a meme I see pop up online from time to time about "Don't make someone a priority if they only make you an option." I've seen this cited by people who came into an open or poly situation that didn't work out for them as how they now view open or poly relationships, why they won't be involved with open or poly people, etc. In fact, I recently had someone close to our family, who is really supportive of our family and our relationship tell me that the whole reason she won't allow her and her husband to be open/poly is because she didn't feel like he would continue to treat her like a priority if he had other options.

Let's get one thing straight right off the bat: I am not the great poly proselytizer. There are a million ways in which it is a lot of work. No matter what version of non-monogamy you are practicing, it is more work and complication than monogamy. If having a relationship with one person means multiplying by 2, non-monogamy makes things more complicated exponentially. It's not calculating trajectories for two objects out in space. It's orbital mechanics for a whole solar system, with planets and moons for each planet. Even within my own little triad, we all have different reasons why it works better for us, but that doesn't mean that it is for anyone else. The people who didn't feel like they were made a priority in the non-monogamous, open, and/or poly relationships they were in are completely justified in not wanting to potentially repeat that by being in another one. 

On the other hand, I would also say that maybe it wasn't the non-mono/open/poly that was the problem. Maybe it was the people involved and/or differing expectations for the relationship. Most of you reading this probably know that The Professor, Ginger, and I had several months of "break" in our relationship at the end of last summer and during last fall. When I would tell people that I wasn't living with them anymore and that I was dating other people, most people responded with some variation of, "So you figured out that type of relationship doesn't work/wasn't for you, huh?" (Though there were a few people who hinted they thought it was over because "well, he didn't chose you," which I largely ignored.) Nope. There were lots of issues. I realize now that some of them were even with how I felt about the poly dynamics, but it was never poly itself. No, most all the issues were ones of differing expectations and unexpected limitations, which I think that every relationship goes through. New relationship energy makes you want to give the moon to your partner and even convinces you that you can. Then reality sets in and it's difficult to admit not only that your partner can't give you the moon they promised but that you can't do it either. Now imagine you have two partners that you can't give the moon to and who just told you that they can't give you the moon either because, well, you're all a bunch of fucked up people with lots of baggage and limitations. I'll admit, I went out looking for someone to give me the moon I thought I wanted. While I met some very nice people, I largely found that they didn't really have moons to give me either, even if I had wanted to take a moon from them. More than that, I realized that all the things my partners could give me, while not the unrealistic things we'd initially promised, were given in love and pretty fucking awesome. I'd already realized that when I then got a moon accidentally anyway. 

One of the other things I think about with the above meme is if the person posting also made the other person's other relationships a priority. When talking to that above person who knows my family personally, I told her that it could be difficult, especially when one of us gets the new relationship energy with a new person, but we really try hard to communicate about our needs, so that no one feels like they are left behind. Some people feel like they are bad at poly when they don't feel compersion (the opposite of jealousy, when you can feel joy seeing your loved one love someone else.) I think it's more in how you deal with the jealousy and/or envy that you will feel at some time. We regularly schedule time where it is just two of us together, in all pairings. Not just "yeah, we sat around and watched tv just the two of us" kinda nights, but nights were you are actively participating with that partner. When I first came into the relationship, I knew the nights that Ginger had off work and respected those as time they had together. Even when I lived with them, I'd often plan weekends out of town or stay at my parents and do laundry on nights that were reserved just for them. As my schedule was much more flexible, the Professor and I largely didn't have to schedule things as tightly, though Ginger and I often had to because our schedules and sleeping hours would clash. The times that I attempting dating other people, I made sure to give undivided attention to them as well. 

Even with all this fairly good communication and compromise skills, sometimes you still feel this tug of "ugh, this thing really bothers me, even though it's unreasonable and there isn't a way to change it." A few days ago, I wrote a long post about an issue I had like that. While I decided the long version was too private to post, I am going to try to summarize my part of it here. For much of the relationship, I was bothered by what I thought was unequal sleeping arrangements. For me, the difference between a casual sexual relationship and a romantic relationship was if I felt comfortable sleeping with someone and did on a regular basis. At Ginger and the Professor's old place, there was a master bedroom with a queen, later king, size bed and a guest room with a double bed. Even once they got a king, it wasn't comfortable for all three of us to share a bed. I didn't usually sleep at the same time as Ginger, so we rarely shared a bed. Sometimes the Professor slept with me in the double bed, but more often than not, he'd sleep in "their room." Now there are many reasons why this was not an unreasonable situation. First of all, because of differing sleep schedules, it wasn't actually like he slept more with Ginger than with me. More often than not, he was sleeping alone. Even more than this though, he had very justified reasons for not wanting to sleep with me. We are both big people and the double bed just isn't big enough for us. Even when we could sleep in the bigger bed in the master bedroom, I snore and talk in my sleep, both of which prevent him from getting much sleep at all. Even knowing all of this, there was this thing that nagged at my brain and said "you aren't equal because you sleep alone." 

When I wrote the post a few nights ago, after we had all gone to bed at our new place together, me in my double bed in my room, them in the king size bed in the master bedroom, I realized that them sharing the same bedroom was actually much better in many ways. For a few months after I got pregnant, the Professor slept in the bed with me every time I was over. (Must be a male "must protect the pregnant lady" urge, combined with the fact that I wasn't snoring as much anymore.) It was really sweet for the first week or so. Then the annoying started to creep in. "Fuck he keeps stealing my pillows." "How did I end up with only 6 inches of the bed?" "Damn, I was really planning on watching some dirty porn and masturbating tonight, but he had to be all sweet and want to cuddle and now he's asleep! When will I start snoring again so he won't want to sleep with me!?!" Then there's that I love having my own space. I got used to having something that was just mine in the apartment that I had for the last year or so. There was no argument over bedrooms when it came to this place. Master bedroom would mean sharing and I didn't want to share. Yes, my bedroom isn't large but it's my sanctuary and I also have the "family" room downstairs for most of my books and such. Finally, just like I need the space to myself, I have realized how it makes their relationship, a relationship I was welcomed into but that already existed, stronger and more secure. We are going through some growing pains right now. While we are welcoming a child into the relationship, it is not how we planned it originally, which puts unique strains on all of our bonds. Ginger is also growing an existing friendship into a romantic relationship, which is unique both in that she hasn't had more than a few dates with anyone outside the relationship but also that there is hopes of it being a long-term addition to the family, not just a passing thing, which is what the Professor and I tend to go for. This is a time that could be especially precarious for their relationship and I want to do everything in my power to help ease that, even if that is just making more space for them to be together, no matter what they choose to do with it or not do with it. I've learned the hard way that I can't "fix" things between them, any more than Ginger can fix things between the Professor and I or the Professor can fix things between Ginger and I. The best we can do is make space and time. 

So what I'm getting at is poly is hard. It can be really fulfilling and I think that everyone should at least know that non-monogamy, open relationships, and poly relationships are things that are out there, even if they decide that it is not for them. And I am completely useless at finding unicorns, as I can't even find an outside FB/FWB that I feel comfortable with at this time when that should theoretically be much easier. It takes people really communicating, even if all they can say is "I'm feeling sucky about x. It may be unreasonable. Let's find a reasonable way to deal with it." As Ginger and the Professor have often said, it takes you wanting the relationship more than you want to not be vulnerable. It takes people who are able to actively put the health of the other relationship(s) first sometimes, even when it doesn't look like it benefits them directly. It takes knowing that every dynamic is different, both those between individuals within the group and the groups themselves. It means that things won't always be equal, or at least won't always look equal, and that sometimes you won't be the priority. At the end of the day, it's about what works, for you as an individual and for you as a group. 

Choosing The Price You Pay

It's difficult for me to say if my uncle was an introvert or an extrovert. Sadly, I can't ask him now. He did like to spend his time alone, would spend days at the lake, just drifting along in his boat. He loved living out in the country where he could be alone with the stars. But he also had many friends. Not just acquaintances, but people who were close to him. The sister of a friend of his came from 10-12 hours away, so she could help us out while he was in hospice, cooking us food, just being a shoulder to cry on. In those last years of his life, he had a hard time keeping up with all the people he wanted to talk to, between treatments and just being sick and tired, but he tried. 

I am not my uncle, however. I sit solidly in the introvert camp. Being around groups of people drain me. Even being around just a few people can be draining after a while. As the Professor, Ginger, and I plan on moving in together before our first child comes, I know that I will have to lock myself away in my room from time to time, veg out for hours to recharge when I need to. I'm glad we found a place where I won't have to share my bedroom with anyone, even my child. 

I have a few close friends. Two female friends who live in the metro, who I talk to more on facebook chat than anything else. Moneypenny lives four hours away, who I text with a few times a week (maybe) and try to see once a month. TyRoy spends his weeks 2 hours away and his weekends in the metro with his new wife, who I don't get to see very often because of our schedules and who I really should email more often. Occasionally, I'll talk or text with MP, more since I've been pregnant and he's concerned about how I'm doing. That's about it. Here and there, I will text with acquaintance-type people, but that's about it. It isn't a very large group.

I've tried branching out. Last fall, I tried to get out in the bdsm community as well as date through online sites. While I met many nice and fun people, nothing serious came of it. I stopped dating altogether just before I found out I was pregnant and then I stopped going to bdsm community events when my work hours changed and I started dealing with being pregnant. I was very overwhelmed and really retreated from more casual acquaintances, rather than have to expend more emotional energy on anything else. 

In the last few months, once I started to get adapted to this new 2nd shift schedule, I tried once again to find people that I could connect with through online sources. I was really lonely when I got off work, since none of my current friends are usually awake when I get off work. I just wanted someone to talk to, like you would with any friend after a long, tiring day. But I wanted someone who I had things in common with, who it was easy for me to talk to, who I didn't feel like I was always justifying my life to. I wanted someone it was easy to chat with, just like how it feels when you strike up a friendship with someone in any other context. But just like when I was dating last fall, I don't really have the emotional energy or the time in my life to expend on people I don't feel are a good fit for what I'm looking for. I know that sounds incredibly dismissive of other people and maybe it is. On the other hand, during neither period of time did I think that the people I chose not to have relationships with were not worthy people, in and of themselves. Even the people I had the worst dates with or the worst correspondences with still have good qualities and should have friends and romantic/sexual partners who they connect with. Hell, if I had unlimited time, unlimited emotional energy, and wasn't an introvert, I may have had successful friendships or other relationships with them. But I don't and we didn't. And, as much as I don't want to rob others of their own ability to choose to be in my life, I do feel like it is better for them to spend time with and on people they have a chance of a friendship or relationship with, instead of someone who probably won't be able to give them what they are looking for, or at least not for very long before she had to disappear again.

The older I get, the more I see the prices you have to pay for things, the trade-offs that have to happen. One of the big things you learn in DBT is radical acceptance, which is acknowledging how things actually are in this moment, so you can stop struggling with how it shouldn't be like this and start dealing with how it actually is. That means realizing your limitations and the limitations of the situation you are in, so you can either work within that or change how you see the situation. It's where you start to make the trade offs that you have to make to be an effective, not crazy adult. 

Sometimes, it means being selfish, knowing how much you have to give and only giving that to the most important people and things in your life, even when there are other people or things that are just as worthy or deserving. Sometimes, it means hurting other people's feelings, because they want to be someone you take a chance on, just like they are ready to take a chance on you. Sometimes, it means passing up a lot of opportunities, especially ones that you don't think are sure things, for ones you do feel more confident of, only to have those blow up in your face. Sometimes, it means being picky. Sometimes, it means being seen as a bitch or stuck up or difficult. 

And sometimes it means realizing that you'd rather be lonely because the price you'd have to pay to not be lonely is higher than the price you pay being lonely. 

There's one of those cliched self-help sayings that says that a person won't change until the pain they feel to stay the same is greater than the fear they have of the change they'd have to make, or the pain of making that change. For myself, this has definitely been true. I didn't put in the hardwork to change my life until the pain of that life was greater than my fear or change and the pain I worried I'd experience if I changed. Right now, I have to acknowledge that I'm not there in dealing with this loneliness. And I accept that I am actively making this choice. I'm not acting like there are no good people out there, for friendship or romance or sex. I'm not acting like there are not awesome people who would take a chance on me. I'm not saying that none of this makes me come off as a kinda shitty or difficult person, or even that I'm not those things. Just that I'm not willing to make this trade off. At least not right now.

Bad Touch

What a difference a few weeks make. Just a few weeks ago, I was here approaching my latest slutty-phase while also trying not to hurt people in the process and now i have forsworn dating for the immediate future.

A good percentage of that has been because I would rather spend my time alone, getting the feel of being on my own again after so long, than to spend my time and energy talking to strangers. But I have also run into another issue that has made me take a step back from dating.

I don't want people to touch me.

It's not really an active thing. I don't walk around thinking that I hope no one brushes against me or being terrified of someone trying to shake my hand or hug me. No, it's more that when people are touching me I really wish they weren't and I'm often wondering how much longer they will be touching me and how I can get out of this gracefully, without seeming crazy or frigid, and without hurting the other person's feelings.

At first I just thought it was a dating thing. Or who I was dating to be more precise. I went on a few dates with a vanilla guy and, when we did start to fool around, I felt really uncomfortable and stopped things because it just wasn't turning me on. I just kept wishing it would stop. Or that I would start to feel something. I  thought this was because it wasn't rough or aggressive like I was used to. We talked for a week about what we could do to make it work for both of us but, when it came time to go back to his house, I panicked and went home instead. This was the guy who I really liked otherwise. The most recent guy...well, all i could think of the whole time was how to get rid of him, how to stop him from touching me without being a bitch,  how I was going to wash my face where he'd kissed. I still feel sort of bad about the fact that he was really into me and my instinct was to run away. It's not like he was a gross guy, not like he had poor hygiene or bad breath. Just this thing in my head was going crazy.

But if it was just dates, I could chalk it up to not being in a place for dating, perhaps subconsciously still feeling like I belong to the Professor, or some other thing like that.  But it's not just with near strangers on romantic dates. Last weekend, Moneypenny was in town for some other activity and he managed to make time to hang out with me, to go out to dinner and see my new place. To be honest, I was hoping to cuddle with him. Because of illness and time constraints, I haven't been able to cuddle much with the Professor when I see him. Ginger and I are still working our way back to a platonic cuddly place and haven't seen much of each other either. Moneypenny and I have been able to be well-behaved lately, to not take things to a sexual place, and I've been cuddling with him for what is now almost half my life, so I thought it would be a safe and comforting thing to do. But no. It felt weird too. Thinking about it today, even hugging my folks lately has felt more like work than comfort.

While planning this post,  I kept thinking about how I would know when it's ok again. I have a hard time dealing with situations where I might normally be fine with the touching,  where it might be something I'd like to experience or get to explore, where it's with someone new or fun or interesting. I don't know how to tell the person that my mind might be interested but there's something broken. At first,  I thought it was a lack of attraction, a chemical pheromonal thing. Still a problem I couldn't easily explain but at least it was a problem I felt would be fixed when I met the right person. Now it's pretty much everyone for reasons I don't know. All the sudden I'm that frigid chick I never wanted to be. And forcing myself to keep trying seems like a bad idea.

Of course,  the Professor is the exception to this. *facepalm* I'd like to be getting over by getting some strange but even if I had the patience to deal with strangers I can't imagine enjoying anyone touching me right now. I'm not sure if I'd enjoy playing with someone else right now or not. Usually play for me is always wrapped up in sex and I wouldn't want to play with someone if I didn't also want to have sex with them. But maybe I could do play that didn't involve skin to skin contact. Right now I'm mostly just wondering outloud. I have no idea. I just know I really want to be touched but I really don't.

What I'll be looking for when I start looking again

This was originally posted to my fet account last night but I wanted to share it here too. I don't think it's any more sexual than anything else I might typically post here.

I have been accused of being overly picky,  too dismissive, or just an outright bitch in the early stages of dating. On the one hand, that might all be true. On the other hand  however, I don't want to waste anyone's time, nine or yours, and I have a pretty good idea of what I want and what I don't want. Though I'm willing to excuse some things based in chemistry, I also know that chemistry only seems to happen when many of these things are in play. 

As of writing this, I'm newly single and I'm trying to get out in the community more, meet more people,  see more of what's out there, hopefully find other s-type (and maybe D-types) that I can form closer friendships with, particularly so that when I am in another relationship and experience new or weird feelings after play,  I have someone to help me work through it. (Yes, I know that sounds selfish. I'll try to bring something else to the table for my new friends.) But even though I'm barely out of my last relationship,  still trying to figure out how you get your heart back out of a M/s relationship actually, i have still had men interested in me. I thought I'd write this so that those men can see if we might actually be compatible before ever wasting anymore time.

The first thing that has to be there is the ever elusive "chemistry." That is something we wouldn't know before being around each other, but I want to make sure I warn people that if I'm not feeling it, I won't date you. It's not just getting along kinda chemistry that I'm talking about. It's that "even your sweat smells good" and I don't have to try to want to have sex with you. It's a pheromone or biology or whatever, something I can't explain and we can't do anything to create. And if I don't feel it, or you don't feel it, there's no point in going further.

Next, I am not looking for any casual play partners, or casual partners at all. The kind of things I want to do and the kind of relationship I want to have requires more trust than I could give to just a casual play partner. Also, while it is still a possibility,  I would like to attempt to have a biological child as part of the family I am trying to create for myself. Yeah, I know, I'm probably scaring off a good 70% of the men out there off, but that's kinda the point, right? If that's not something you want, then you shouldn't try to date me at all. I'm actually more worried about men who'll try to use that as a way to get out of using protection. Haha. Nope. That's a surefire way for me to not date you as well.

I haven't even touched on kink or roles, have I? First, i wanna make sure you get past the above things because if you try to use the things I'm about to write before im serious about you, I'll be the one doing the slapping. So what kind of kinkster am I looking for? Well, I'm greedy. I want a Dominant Sadistic Daddy Master. More than ever I realize that the dynamic between two people is developed between the two of them and no two dynamics will be the same. But I like a Sadistic Dominant in the bedroom/for play. My eyes are always bigger than my stomach when it comes to masochism but I would like to keep pushing my limits, deepening and widening my experiences. My idea of foreplay is making out while you pull my hair, candles are for pouring wax, I can make my own bubble bath, and I do not 'make love,' no matter how much I love you. I like scenes but I like even my sex on the regular to have some bit of that dominance to it. In our everyday out of the bedroom I have found that I do desire the stability, consistency,  challenge, and accountability that a 24/7 power exchange relationship affords, though I don't have particular protocol or hard and fast rules that I believe must be there. I don't need micromanaged. I don't need to keep traditional gender roles. In fact, I can't cook worth a shit, so I'm hoping you can. I don't need, or even want, for you to make all the decisions, especially without consulting me, but when I follow your orders or rules, I have to be able to trust that you are making decisions that are ultimately best for us and for me, not just whatever is best for you. I kinda also like a little bit of Daddy sprinkled in there. Baby me when I'm feeling sick, pet my hair when I'm down, have me call or text you when I get somewhere so you know I'm safe, be proud of me when I reach my goals and support me getting there.

I think that's a pretty good primer on what I am looking for which, with my profile, should eliminate us wasting each other's times. As rude and dismissive as this might sound, I would like to add that i dont think that men that don't fit what I am looking for are bad men or people or partners. I just don't think they are going to be good partners for me, nor me for them. And that is ok. The choices I make do not reflect on if someone else is deserving of love ir a relationship in general or of if they are doing their kink right or wrong. It is just what I think is best for me right now. I'm a big girl who has friends and loved ones to protect her already. I don't need a savior or a knight in shining armor or for you to tell me that I don't know what I want. But if you're still interested after all this and all the above doesn't disqualify us from each other, then, when my heart is a bit more healed, maybe we could date.

Miss Her More

I think I miss her more. I mostly don't have to miss him. A part of me feels like I might never have to miss him. If I'm still a good and respectful girl who doesn't bring crazy into his house and is stubborn enough to be around through his crazy, and will still give porn star head, a part of me suspects that he and I could wander in and out of each other's lives forever, even if he can't be a primary or secondary partner for me or be my Master.

But she is different. I feel like just my presence might stress her out. She and I make plans to do something outside of the house, at this point once a week, but early mornings are best for her and I am notorious for oversleeping. Because he is largely stuck at home,  she has seceded that realm to him. So I can come and go as he pleases to spend time with him, which is usually while she is asleep or at work, and I largely avoid encroaching on her time when I am there.

Last weekend I was out on a date with someone who knew a bit of the breakup and that I was still un-tangling myself from things. He asked me where I wanted to be in a year. One of the multiple things I brought up was wanting to be in a larger family. It was a date and I didn't want to scare him off by having him think anymore than he might already that "I'd like to be more on my way to having a child," which he already knew was something I wanted, meant "In a year,  I want have trapped you and be popping out little You Jrs." But I while answering the question,  I realized that it wasn't just that I wanted to be having a baby sometime in the near future, but that I wanted more of a family than just my parents (and my step-father's parents who don't really see me as their grandchildren.) I know we can't have the family we imagined, but does that mean we can't have the one she talked about wanting with close but not sexually-involved friends? Living near enough to help each other parent? Just because the three of us, and by extension the two of them and me and whoever my future baby-daddy is, can't be a romantic grouping, why does that habe to eliminate the other dreams we had of a poly-family?

I miss that dream and feeling like someone had my back and I had theirs. I miss cuddling and watching our tv shows. I miss waking her up at night before she went to work. I miss getting to do things for her, feeling like I eased her load. I miss getting to hear her beliefs and ideas, many of which are vastly different from my own. I miss seeing her be amazing and wishing other people could see it too. I miss getting to feel natural around her, though now I'm always so worried that I'm gonna fuck her up that I'm not sure that's in the cards for awhile. 

Yeah, I definitely miss her more than I miss him.

Why I Can't But Why I Still Want To

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"Well O.K. Then, Don't Cry"

I am probably still too emotional and close to things to really make sense but I feel like if I don't get something out and on paper (so to speak) I'm going to burst and I need a way to sort through my feelings.

'cause someone you don't know
is someone you don't know
get a firm grip, girl
before you let go
for every hand extended
another lies in wait
keep your eye on that one
anticipate

...

if there's anything I've learned

all these years on my own

it's how to find my own way there

and how to find my own way back home

The set-up: So Ginger is out of town on a much deserved vacation, after she drops her son back off at his father's house. My parents have just come back from a two week trip during which I took care of their dog, which meant never being away from their home for more than eight hours and never gone overnight. The Professor and I had made plans last week that we would do some more hardcore play Monday night and into Tuesday, since Tuesday is the only day that I didn't have to work. I was really excited because I have all these things I want to explore but he hasn't been in a headspace to play, and honestly I probably haven't at times either though I will usually play anyway and deal with consequences later. This was supposed to be the first getting-our-toes-wet-again playtime. But evidently the Universe had other plans because I got my period over a week early on Monday and he was having allergy and breathing issues. So not only was there no play last night (Monday night) but there ended up being no sex of any kind, period. Now I knew that later today (Tuesday) the Professor was supposed to be going out to dinner with his mom and sister, who are visiting sort of unexpectedly from out of town, but dinner with his mom is almost never until 6 or 7 o'clock, so since his breathing was better, I had had hopes that we would at least get some frisky time, or even just cuddling time, especially since his breathing had been better today. Then his sister calls and says that she's outside. Right now. "Well, I guess I better put on some real clothes." "You might want to take your collar off too." "Oh shit I almost forgot about that. I just get so used to it being on while I'm here."

Now last weekend when she came over the first time, it didn't feel as weird because Ginger and her son came in shortly after so everyone was there and it wasn't just him and I. Wait. Let me back up. So the Professor was brought up in a very strict, conservative, evangelical Christian church, which he calls a wacko fundie cult. While all the kids have strayed from it, his sister went back to help her get clean and sober from drugs and alcohol. His brother, while not in the church, is fairly successful, lives far enough away that he really only comes back for holidays, and was always the golden boy. The Professor is seen as the black sheep and it seems to be magnified by the religious context that his mother and step-father view everything. They have told him that the reason he has so much trouble in his life, why he isn't doing better job-wise, money-wise, and even physical health-wise is because he has strayed from God and that everything would be better if he would just come back to the church. He has come a long way from who he used to be in so many respects but they refuse to give him any credit for that because he still isn't in the church. But he loves them and they are still his family so he tries to have as good of a relationship as possible with them, which means not talking about a great many things. While I am totally out to my family, which is made easier by the fact that it's just my parents and I really, the Professor and Ginger come from more conservative backgrounds than I do and both worry about members of their family shunning them if they were as out as I am. (Ginger is kinda in the middle of the Professor and I's extremes as I know her family, have done family events with them, and one sibling even knows exactly what I am to her, but she maintains a don't ask don't tell policy at this time with most everyone, and they just assume I'm a really close friend.) I'm sure that it's bad enough in his parents' eyes that he lives with Ginger outside of wedlock, but for them to know about me would be even more detrimental to the relationship. Over the holidays, when his brother came to town and stayed at the apartment while I was there, the Professor told him, but I don't envision him telling his sister, at least not while she's so caught up in the religious sect of his parents and living so close to them. Back when I first moved in, which was right around the holidays, I was very insecure about all of this. Rationally, I understood both the Professor and Ginger's positions with their families but it made me feel like I was less than in the relationship. Now that things are set up differently and will be for awhile, it underscores that the relationship is different, but I know that I am not less than anyone else, that I am not loved less, and that they would stand up for me if they needed to, which is really what is important to me.

All that said, today still felt sucky. Like I cried for quite a bit kind of sucky. Like I'm crying as I write this kind of sucky. While I would like to get to know the Professor's sister better, to get to see him in that dynamic, I also thought that she probably wanted to get to hang out with her big brother on her own and that she probably wasn't expecting some random chick to be there. And that is probably exactly what she thinks I am, some random chick. Or, to be even more honest, some random trick. Before his sister got sober, she spent more than enough time around her brother and his friends to know, generally, what he was into and how his relationships went. I told the Professor that I was going to leave so they could hang out together and, despite the evil bitch in my head wanting to turn it into a "but I really wanted him to say 'no, stay and hang out with us' so I'm going to be mad that he didn't" kinda thing, that is completely unfair. I know that I would have been even more uncomfortable staying and they probably did want time to hang out together. At least she did or she wouldn't have come over by herself before dinner. But I had a bunch of stuff that I had wanted to do before I left, including have some sexual or cuddle time, all of which I had to just drop. I walked right by his sister with my overnight bag, after having come from the kitchen where I was starting the dishwasher. I was also going to run up to the convenience store with the Professor so he could get some cigarettes. As he said that his mom and sister probably wouldn't stop by there for him to pick them up, I ran to the store and back, rather than leave him with one cigarette. I felt so stupid when I came back. All I could think was what his sister must be thinking, "Who is this slut that he has staying overnight while his girlfriend is gone? Doing his dishes, running and getting him cigarettes? She's obviously ashamed to have been here, since she's leaving as soon as I got here. And she should be. I saw her just a few days ago being all good friends with his girlfriend. She should be ashamed of herself." Last week, the Professor and I celebrated being together for one year, a year with plenty of struggle on everyone's parts but where I love them more than ever, even if things don't look how we planned for them to. It's really difficult for me to remind myself that all that hard work wasn't meaningless when I feel like I'm probably just seen as some trick.

Last Friday on Facebook, I re-posted this list that a friend of mine had posted a list called 15 Things You Don't Owe Anyone At All (Thought You Think You Do). It includes "You don't owe anyone an explanation for your living situation", "You don't owe anyone an explanation for your sex life" and "You don't owe anyone an explanation for your relationship choices." I re-posted it with the following (long) comment "My friend who shared this said she doesn't usually read or share these things but this spoke to her. Obviously it spoke to me too & though it is about not owing an explanation, I wanted to throw my 2 cents in. 
Several things in my life right now are not how I had been planning them to be, plans I'd been sharing for months. It's been difficult and embarrassing to have to explain why this is to people, especially in my work situation where I am not completely honest about my relationship. Maybe this is partially my fault bc I wear my life on my sleeve. If I hadn't told anyone about the plans, they wouldn't have known when it fell through. What's been just as hard is that people in my life want to blame my significant others or the kind of relationship (or just my bf if that's the only one they know about) and it ends up feeling like I'm protesting too much when I assert the truth, that I am still really happy & in love & that they helped me a great deal through all the problems & that they are also disappointed with how things went. I don't really know how to straddle that line between "let me share my happy/share my life events so we can build mutual trust" and "I dont really want or need your negative opinion on the people I love or how I live/love/fuck."" It's still really difficult for me. Obviously. No, I don't owe it to his sister to tell her who I really am to him. Nor does he. If she went off on a tirade about me, actually calling me some random trick out loud to his face, I would expect him to stand up for me and at the very least say, "You don't know her. You don't know the situation. She's someone Ginger and I care about very much and she isn't doing anything to hurt either of us. Anything more than that is none of your business." I don't think he would let that shit slide. (And I know Ginger wouldn't.) But it sucks. Just like it sucks when people in my life blame things not working out as planned on it being a poly relationship or just on him (mostly those are people who only know about him, but sometimes not.) For the most part, you get to say that once, after which I will explain as much as I can depending on what you know why that isn't the case, and then I'm going to tell you, very nicely, that I don't want to here that bullshit again. It's always more complicated than you know, even if you know everything, or think you do. (Which, yes, is something I should remind myself more often when I butt my nose into other's people's business too.) But I have a client that I just can't seem to get to STFU about how he thinks that it's all the Professor's fault. Look, it's nice that you're on my side and acting like my grandpa and all, but you don't actually know what the relationship is at all and I don't feel like I can tell you, much less also tell you about all the fucked-up shit on my side, not to mention that some of it was just that things out of our control happened long before we met and continue to this day, like his health issues, like my mental health issues, like the management at the apartment being shady assholes, like me hurting my back right as all the moving stuff was about to happen which put even more stress on an already stressed out me. He might have been the one who chose to talk to me, to pursue something with me over a year ago, but everyday that I'm with him, I chose him, and Ginger and this situation, over and over again.

So now that I'm at the end of my story, I'm not really sure what the point is or where it leaves me. For so long, I spent so much time cultivating this attitude that I didn't really care about what others thought and the idea that that was why I was so honest about who I was so early into all kinds of relationships. But I think it was really that I would rather they dislike me for who I really am than dislike, or even like, me for who I'm not. If the Professor's sister wanted to dislike me or think I'm a horrible heathen for being his whore in the true context, I think I would be much less upset than I am now. It's the idea that she might think I'm just some random fuck of his and that I would do it behind Ginger's back that I think digs in deep. I can't get to the point that the Professor and Ginger are at where they don't care what people might wonder or gossip about as long as it doesn't negatively effect how the people treat them or us, because what our relationship(s) are or aren't isn't really any of their business. I'm not upset with them for this attitude or think they should change it, it just isn't how I feel. Just like I am not saying that the Professor should have or even could have done anything different, especially while attempting to keep the current relationship he has with his family and I completely understand that, but that it is also true that, while not his or anyone's fault, I'm hurting. I guess I just needed to get it off my chest. One of those DBT lessons that sticks in my head is that two seemingly contradictory things can be true at the same time- nothing could have been done any different but I also felt like I was probably being judged in a way that erased all that we've all been to each other over this year.

everything i do is judged
and they mostly get it wrong
but oh well
'cuz the bathroom mirror has not budged
and the woman who lives there can tell
the truth from the stuff that they say
and she looks me in the eye
and says would you prefer the easy way?
no, well o.k. then
don't cry

On being His

When making cutting off some jeans to make shorts

Me: I hadn't thought to cut them off before because they're going to be kinda short. Can't wear them out but I could wear them around the house. He has this thing for denim. 

Her: What do you mean?

Me: (shrugs) He just thinks denim is really hot.

Her: (sigh) I don't know why you don't just wear something because you like it.

When talking to my therapist about sleeping with other people or dating-

Me: (disappointed about not having sex) I had even gotten permission.

Her: Permission? Why do you have to get permission?

Me: (exasperated that I have to explain this) Because that's how the relationship works.

Later-

Me: We're going to work together to find me someone I can see on the side.

Her: Why do you keep looking to other people in deciding who you date or have sex with? It's like you don't trust yourself to make these decisions on your own.

Me: (now even more frustrated) Because that is how the roles work. Because the only sexual encounters that I've had since I met him were the ones where I had not just his permission but his blessing and encouragement. (sigh because I can see that she still doesn't understand.)

While most people I know have some idea that the Professor and I's sexual relationship is a bit out of the mainstream, it is still difficult when I'm faced with these kind of situations. Even when I am fully honest, most people outside of the lifestyle do not understand. But because we do not stand on much protocol or formalities, I am not sure many lifestyle people would be accepting either. Hell, sometimes I am not even sure I understand it, but after these incidents, I feel the desire more and more to write about what it is like for me.

I was just supposed to be a side play partner but things just got away from us. Pretty soon I went from exploring being a sub to wanting to be his sub. But I was still determined that it was something you did in the bedroom, not who you were. Initially when discussing names to call each other, I turned down the idea of calling him Master and him calling me slave because of all the connotations master and slave have in our culture. 

Then we had a really bad night, the first night together where my particular self-destructive brand of crazy came out screaming. When the smoke cleared, he held me tight and growled into my ear, "You don't get to hurt yourself. You are my property and you don't get to damage my property." The next day, I wore my collar and served, probably for the first time when neither were related directly to sex. And I knew that I wanted to be more. I wanted to be His. I wanted to serve him. I wanted not just to follow his orders but anticipate his needs. I wanted to push myself in learning how to please him more, better. Shit, I don't feel like I'm doing this justice. 

On the other hand, he's not one for protocols, excessive formality, or micromanaging. He doesn't want to pick out my clothes everyday, or even for them to be clothes he particularly likes. He doesn't want to have to tell what to do everyday, or that I should do my chores and how I should do them. As much as he feels that the responsibility of being a Master pushes him to be better, just like it pushes me to do better, we recognize that we're both human and not nearly as good as we want to be. Hell, I just asked for a new rule today which I am about to break in ten minutes. (I am really bad about getting up on time. I am hoping that a bedtime will help. Of course, I have to follow it for it to do that.) 

But being His means that I want to be stronger for him, to live up to his ownership, to deserve it. It means paying attention to the little things, to remembering when he says he likes something so I can replicate it later. It means knowing that he grew up in a culture where only bad girls wore blue jeans, guessing that the only girls who wore short cutoffs were probably whore, and knowing how much he likes bad girls and whores. It also means knowing that he likes a girl next-door look too and cultivating that when I can as well, because what I want is for him to want me, to know in my head that even if he isn't doing anything about it (yet), he thinks about my ass every time I walk by in those white shorts that are neither short nor tight. 

It means having consented to have to get permission before I have sexual contact outside of our relationship, even though it is an open poly relationship. He is nowhere near as strict as most Masters are with their slaves and I often get permission to do what I would like with who I would like. But he is there to protect me from my worst urges, from being unsafe, from disregarding warning signs of an unsafe situation because I'm horny or destructive. And I know what punishment will happen when or if I disobey. I would have to pull some crazy horrible shit to end our relationship. Mostly, I will just get a severe punishment. Not the fun kind. He is also there to encourage me when I'm exploring things I can't explore with him or just getting a little ego-boosting strange. But, for me, being His means that I don't want anyone more than I want him. It means that he's rolled me completely and I am His, even if he doesn't choose to use that as strictly as he might. 

Our situation is much different than we had planned it would be even two months ago. I am living away from him, on my own, the rewards and challenges of which I plan to write about in a later post. I am not sure we will ever be able to live together day to day. (More that I'm not sure I will ever be able to live with anyone day to day.) He has said that he does not want this to be the end, that we can find ways to make our (M/s) relationship stronger. He chooses to believe this and I choose to believe in Him. 

"Every Love Story is a Ghost Story"-DFW

This is not a love story. At least not in the way that this term is taken today. At the end, the girl doesn't get the boy (or girl, in this modern age.) At this point, it is a little early to tell what the girl does get. (And she's not a girl either. She's a woman. She's over 30. Not only is she older than her mother was when she had her, but she's older than her mother was when she remarried and did her 'happily ever after,' even though we should all know by now that 'happily ever after' is only the start of all the real hard work. Though of course we always forget that.)

But maybe it is a love story. Because the girl, wait, scratch that, woman has found love. Lots of love. Love she didn't think she'd find again. She found two people to love at the same time. On the same date that was supposed to just be for a side fling D/s relationship. (She was supposed to marry a lawyer and start having kids, but that didn't exactly work out like the fairy tale it was on paper.) So she did find love and people who wanted to commit to her and start a family, though not the traditional kind of family but a family nonetheless. She moved in and they started making plans for getting a bigger place, one to fit the three of them, allowing them each space and privacy and give the visiting child a place of his own too.

But this is not a love story because it doesn't end there. Love stories always end there, at the happily ever after. The woman has two major shortcomings. One is that she doesn't work a job that allows for her to work enough hours to pay (what she feels is) her fair share, at least not without working so much that she has a nervous breakdown. Which leads us to her second and larger shortcoming- she's crazy. I'm trying not to put this in a derogatory way, but just the facts. She is bipolar and has borderline personality disorder. To say the least, she has a low tolerance for distress and doesn't have as good of an ability to bounce back as the average person. She's doing better than she has in the past and she tries to work on being better but things are as they are right now and she will probably always be this person to some extent.

This is also not a love story because her lovers also have shortcomings. Not cute ones that resolve themselves by the time they decide to be together or ones that the lover is miraculously able to change by the time they coming running through the airport to stop their lover from leaving. Nope. These people are who they are as well. She knows this and loves them because they are who they are, though, like everyone, sometimes she'd like them to do something(s) differently. She tries for unconditional but she's not perfect. Mostly she just tries to not be one of those types who wants to change a person. But as things got closer to moving day, everyone was stressed and had turned inward and away from each other. "This is just how they are," she told herself. "It will cycle back and everything will be fine after the move."

This is not a love story because they didn't move. The apartment complex was gonna screw them and they decided not to sign the lease. They were a week away from moving, half packed. While they felt triumphant in not getting screwed and working as a family, they were now further away from their goal of living together in a larger place. And the woman was still just as worried as she had been before about being able to afford her share of any place they got that was big enough. Hell, if anything she was more worried. The place that they thought they could afford was only that way because they screw people out of money. Everyone else was still stressed and turned inward. She was so lonely. Every night she went to bed alone. There was very little physical or sexual contact in the household, which was what she craved to keep her head straight, to feel loved and wanted. It's not that they didn't show her or tell her that they loved or wanted her, just that it wasn't in a way that she could take in. That first week after she had a heavier schedule because she had told her work she needed more hours to afford the new apartment. She caved under all the pressure. By Friday, she missed a shift, no call no show. Only a compassionate coworker who's son has bipolar saved her job, or so she is hoping. She started to spiral into that suicidal depression she had struggled with all her life, blocking everyone out herself.

This is not a love story because the woman is leaving. It's not unreasonable for her to ask for the things she asks for. (At least for the most part.) And it's not unreasonable for them to say that they can't give her those things, at least not right now, at least not at the level she needs them. But that leaves her feeling lonely and unloved by people who are just in the next room. Which will leave her resentful and angry before too long. The woman has a friend who has space to rent out in her house for pretty cheap and, though it is her friend, if she can't pull her weight there, it will only be her who eats ramen noodles every night and her credit that gets fucked up. (Update: the woman's friend's therapist doesn't think it's good for two crazy chicks to live together so she's not really sure what she's going to do. )

This is not a love story because the woman knows that leaving could mean the end to their story. Though they cry together and reassure each other that they are still together and it will actually be more special when she comes to visit because they won't have seen each other for awhile and they'll be all over each other as soon as she walks through the door and they are making plans for how to actually shore up their relationship, she knows this could be the beginning of the end, the slow death of what they had but could not sustain. The woman has seen lots of movies and love stories don't end with the heroine alone with her two cats in a two room mother-in-law apartment on the other side of town. But the woman knows she'll kill herself if she stays, that she is killing herself with each night that she masturbates and then cries herself to sleep when the people she want to have sex with are just twenty feet away. The woman knows that it is killing them too. That there isn't enough for them to care for her hurt in the ways they do and care for themselves and/or each other too.

So this is not a love story.

Making it up as you go along

So I've been doing this DBT thing for well over two years now. For the past six months, I haven't been going to the weekly (more educational then process) group, mostly because of a lack of time, though my therapist was fine with it because I had been through the whole course several times. The skills that are taught in the group are to help guide you when your own coping skills and 'common sense' lead you astray. (I mean, you wouldn't be there if both of those things hadn't lead you significantly astray for a significant part of your life.) Just like anything, when you consciously use it enough, some of it will start to become second nature. 

I knew this week would be tough. When I moved in before Ginger, The Professor, and I had a new, bigger place that could accomodate the three of us and Ginger's son, I knew that it would be tough to stay at my parents' house again for a full week, especially during the holidays, which are already tough. It seems that when things are tough for me, I feel like they pile on and the list just gets longer and longer. Reasonable mind know that this is more how I see things than how things really are. As The Professor paraphrased yesterday, "Rain falls on the just and the unjust alike," and everyone has several shitty things going on in their life at any given time, just as they have several great things going in their life at any given time. But the point of dbt is to teach you skills you can draw from to get through those shitty things. 

 So this weekend I used some "pleasant experiences" to get me through this week. I have felt very distant from the Professor lately. He has been dealing with illness, the holidays, and just generally being "in the hole." It hasn't just been him, though. I also have had little energy or time for anything that wasn't necessary, usually plopping down in front of the tv when done. Having the weekend and the apartment all to ourselves, with the exception of some time Saturday when I had to work, we spent the whole weekend in rather intense play. I was happy to have the time to work on our Master/slave dynamic, which also helped to shore up our relationship all around. I believe that it helps everyone to feel like they belong and to have reasonable responsibilities appropriate to their abilities and place, whether that be in your employment or in your home. It might not be something we think about very often, but it is important all the same. I think these roles help give us both those things and this weekend reminded us of them. We also talked a little bit about how it would be more helpful for me to have a strong hand this week, for him to push me to be productive, rather than provide a sympathetic ear or leniency. I always do better when not home if I feel like I have to keep my shit together to help them out, like I try to do when they have a play weekend planned, when I want them to just enjoy themselves rather than have to worry about me. 

But this morning it just wasn't enough. I couldn't stop crying, could barely drag myself out of bed to go to the funeral, couldn't bear to look at myself in the mirror while brushing my teeth before my shower. My therapist likes to promote the IMPROVE skill for distress tolerance- Imagery, (find) Meaning, Prayer, Relaxation, One thing at a time, Vacation, Encouragement. In the book, they talk about Imagery as being daydreams or remembering nice places, those kinds of things. But I had developed something else that I use as Imagery, though it might sound weird. I would imagine another me. She was the embodiment of all my reasonableness, calmness, and ability to comfort. She would talk down my panic and distress and anxiety. She would even stroke my face and my hair. When no one else knew the right thing to say, she did, because she was me and deep down I knew what I wanted to hear. 

But sometimes it needs to be someone else that helps you. Or that part of someone else that lives inside you. Like when I needed the part of my uncle that lives inside me to tell me that I needed to get over the fears about being with Ginger and the Professor because they were causing me to suffer when deep down I had already made the decision to be with them. 

Today it was the part of the Professor, the part of my Master, that lives in me that I needed. I'd spent so much of this weekend with his words in my ear that conjuring up his voice wasn't difficult. He wrapped a hand around my wrist and held it to my heart. He told me that being a good girl was more than just what I did at home but it was doing what I needed to do out there in the world, but that he knew I was a good girl and he wouldn't ask me to do something that he didn't think I could do, so I needed to get cleaned up and go. I could cry as much as I needed to while there, because that was ok, but I needed to go. That is when my tears stopped. No not for the day, but until I got to the funeral, when I got to have a good and proper cry, because I was good and properly sad, over the loss of my client and all the losses it reminded me of. 

But, as I told the Professor later, it reminds me that I need to keep in mind that being a submissive, being a slave, doesn't mean I am not strong. It is a controlled (by me) giving up of control, not a giving up of strength and I am stronger because of it, that sometimes I must be stronger just to do it. As much as anything else, the roles that he and I have developed and are developing are coping mechanisms that I do truly believe help me (and I hope help him) to deal better with our lives, our sexualities, our demons, and our love. But just as the dbt skills work to point me in a better direction than I had before, there is trial and error, adaptions for each situation and individual, and no one right answer. 

I did go to the funeral. I cried shamelessly. I saw the casket to the gravesite. I ate lunch and reminisced and laughed with the family. The struggle never ends. The important part is that you are still struggling. 

Vicious Voice in my Head: Bad Date Edition

There's no reason to love me. And no sane man would trust me. Who wants to have and to hold what's been bought, what's been sold, just to love me? There's no reason to know me. And what good man would need me? Who wan'ts to peer through the dust and forget all the lust, just to love me?

What does a girl like you expect would happen?  The things you want, the things you like, putting it all out there like you do, do you really think any man is going to treat you with respect or kindness?  I mean, how could he? You were lucky that this one talked to you like you were a real human being.

what kind of paradise am i looking for? i've got everything i want and still i want more.

And why are you put there slutting it up anyway?  Don't you have a lovely boyfriend and girlfriend at home who love you? And doesn't he give you sex how you want it but still manage to love you and care for you and be tender with you? A girl like you couldn't expect to get that anywhere and you've found a home where you do, so why are you going outside of it? Oh, because everyone is feeling off right now and no one is up for fucking? It hasn't even been a week, wasn't even half a week before you started seeking out ways to slut it up. You can't wait that out? What is wrong with you?

Because I revenge myself all over myself. There's nothing you can do to me.

Acclimating

Getting what you want is never how you think it will be. Even if your brain isn't in the clouds, your heart still is. Or at least my heart is. Fucking hearts. You can't tell those assholes anything.

I'm as moved in to the apartment with Ginger and the Professor as I'm going to get right now. Moneypenny took my cats, though they might not last with him because of his allergies. They will have a new home one way or another though. (Different story for a different time.) I have all my daily stuff there now. Ginger's son comes to visit over his winter break so the room will revert back to his ownership. I haven't put anything up on the walls so it will still make him feel like it is his room. I'll probably move all my stuff off the dress and night stand when he comes too. Of course after he leaves, until we get a new place, I'll make it more mine. 

But now I'm there 6 nights a week. They'd be fine with me being there every night but I like spending one night seeing my parents, doing laundry, and having a slightly shorter drive for work. Also, I choose to do it on the night Ginger always has off every week so they have time alone together. It's not guaranteed that they'll use it for play or sex and it's not like they can't do that with me there, as I'd be asleep most of that time anyway, but Ginger is still shy and I like knowing that I'm not standing in the way of anything. 

But even though I was spending 3-5 nights a week there before this, the adjustment has been more difficult than I expected. Even though my brain knew things would get more everyday, more subdued, even though I'd written about that knowledge, even though the Professor had tried to reinforce that before I moved in by making it more everyday and less "everytime that Ava is here is special," my heart (or maybe some other part of me) still thought "Yay! I'll be there all the time! Ginger and I can cuddle and kiss all the time. The Professor and I will play and fuck all the time and then he'll catch me up on the tv shows he likes in between. And it will be magical and sexual. And we won't feel like we have to schedule any of it anymore because I'll always be there. Yay!"

Yeah... life doesn't work like that. I have to work and my work schedule changes weekly. We still have to schedule everything. We just got to see Hunger Games: Catching Fire yesterday because that was the first non-football day we all had time off at that same time to go see it. And the Professor and I aren't always fucking or playing because we know that I'll be there tomorrow night and the night after so we don't have to push ourselves if we aren't feeling like it. (And, to be fair, the Professor really hasn't been feeling well lately, first a cold and being out of his medication, and now we're all just eating horribly and smoking too much because of the cold weather.) Ginger and I seem to be getting less time together and I'm not sure we are really getting more intimate. 

I also just spend more time working on the everyday working of the house. When I was just visiting, I would help out with stuff around the house but it was over and above. Now this is where I live and there are things that bother me more than, or earlier than, it bothers them. It seems unfair to come into their house and start telling them to do things differently. So I often take care of the things that are bothering me. I'm not complaining about doing those things, just that I spend more time and energy than I used to with these concerns. But so much time is spent on the day to day that I don't feel up to doing my own personal shit that I mostly just want to either have sex or veg out in front of the tv.

Yesterday was particularly tough. The Professor had gone to bed late the night before (and, as he told me later, has only been able to get 2-3 hours of sleep at a time before waking up) so it was difficult to get him up in the morning to go to the movie. But it was something we'd been planning on doing as a family for weeks, so he dragged himself out of bed and wasn't even too grumpy, all things considered. I had hoped he'd wake up over the course of the movie and we'd get some sexy time alone when Ginger went to bed, bu it was clear on the ride home that he would be going to bed when we got back home. This put me in a sad and lonely mood, then several things went wrong and my mood completely tanked. (I've been having a difficult enough time with my moods, I suspect because of the season.) Ginger cuddled with me a bunch but she had to go to bed as well, to maintain her third-shift sleep schedule. 

When everyone was asleep, I became increasingly depressed and lonely. I tried being productive, doing dishes, putting up the Christmas decorations I got from Ginger's mom, but it didn't help. I ate a bunch of food I didn't need. The only thing that saved me from drinking without permission was thinking about the Professor's disappointment. And that I had some Coke to drink instead. But I looked at pages of Craigslist ads and downloaded Blendr, thought about just having some random hookup. I was sure I'd be back before anyone woke up and no one would even notice. Later on that night, when I still felt lonely, even though everyone was technically awake because they were half asleep and in their own world, I had a horrible solo session where I just felt shameful and unfulfilled. I was too empty to even cry. 

Doesn't help that I'm not feeling very desirable. I know that part (all?) of it is the crazy. I can't see to hang on to someone saying they desire me for more than 5 minutes. But I've lost this weight and yesterday I looked really cute and little (for me) but no one noticed. No one wants to have sex with me right now. Even TyRoy, who is now single, doesn't want to have sex with me now. Well, like everyone else, he does but he doesn't. 

Ginger and the Professor half-joke that I'm greedy and a nympho. Maybe they're right. I think at this point the emotional component has pushed me from "looking for extra" to the compulsion to do bad things. 

Dammit! Where is all the sin of living in sin?!? How did it all get so boring and day-to-day so fast? And worse yet, how did it go from him wanting me all the time to sometimes barely feeling like he knows that I'm there. 

Addendum: Spent all afternoon looking at OkCupid and Blendr and Craigslist. I think I feel more empty and hollow than I did before. 

The Evil Bitch in My Head

Two faces have I
One that laughs one that cries 
One says hello one says goodbye 
One does things I don't understand 
Makes me feel like half a man 

At night I get down on my knees and pray 
Our love will make that other man go away 
But he'll never say goodbye 
Two faces have I 
-Bruce Springsteen

I haven't talked much about it yet on this blog but my relationship with The Professor is even more complicated than just being polyamorous, than just me also having a relationship with Ginger, who was his girlfriend when we met, than just all three of us having a relationship too. He's also a Dominant, while both Ginger and I are submissives. Actually, when he and I met, we were just supposed to be casual play partners. Things don't always happen according to plan, this time for the better. Obviously, it is still early, only four months in and we are all still working out our dynamics, as couples and as a whole, both in and out of the bedroom. Obviously, as a couple of almost four years, The Professor and Ginger have their own established dynamics and roles. He and I are still working out ours and, but we've touched on something that we both want to explore further, even one we want to let bleed out from the bedroom into our everyday life. We are trying to explore it more. We had definite plans to spend my first two full days off (yesterday and the day before) in intense exploration of the new roles. But it's never really that simple.

Because they both have ample experience with "the crazy," both as crazy people themselves and from dealing with crazy people in their lives, I am not quite as difficult for them to deal with as I have been for previous romantic partners who have never had to deal with the crazy. To my surprise, I regularly underestimate how much they will understand and how patient they can be, especially when I act out because I am feeling insecure or overwhelmed. Which I seem to always be right now. First I was overwhelmed simply by the new relationship. Then by the certification class that I've been doing for the past month. Last week, because of the end of class crunch as well as working over the weekend with a rather difficult client, I wasn't able to get back to 'our place' from Wednesday afternoon until after my final class on Monday afternoon. So I was feeling especially overwhelmed, which leads me to wanting to act out, and because I wasn't with them, I was feeling insecure, which leads me to want to act out.

Understanding and patience can only go so far. Especially within the bdsm dynamic that The Professor and I are exploring. When he is just my boyfriend in an open and honest poly relationship who knows that he's dealing with a stressed out crazy girlfriend, he's so far been more understanding that I could have asked for. (Same goes for Ginger.) But when he's Sir or Master, things are little bit different. Sirs and Masters expect obedience. Even when you disobey because of the crazy, there must still be consequences. Mostly, I'm a good girl. A large part of it aren't even things I'm trying to do but things that I just do naturally. But there's this other part of me, the part that wants to act out, to do reckless things, to say "fuck you, you're not the boss of me" when someone tells me to do something. The Professor likes to call it the evil bitch in my head, likes to say that the real me is the good girl but the evil bitch in my head gets in the way. "I don't want to break you but I do want to break her. You can be such a good girl or such a bitch. I prefer the good girl."

The problem is that you can't break her, or at least you can't break her without breaking me too. After some intense play, this was the conclusion we reached. I also realized that The Evil Bitch in my Head is there for a reason. She is supposed to keep me safe, or at least in control. Now, it might not be in the most life-effective positive-coping-mechanism ways, but she still has her role in my life. When I feel overwhelmed, she helps me blow off steam. When I'm feeling insecure in a romantic relationship, she reassures me, "Yep, everyone leaves, you might as well blow it up yourself by doing something or someone that will make you feel better right now," which at least gives me back some sense of control. When someone orders me around and I start to feel put upon, she is the one who refuses to move and says "Fuck you, that's why." Ok, ok, so none of this is making her, or me, look any better. The best thing I can say is that she isn't as in control as often as she used to be and that I am more likely just to let her take over my brain now than I am to let her take over my whole life.

Of course, I have no idea how to tame her enough to not get into trouble, so I can be a good girl all the time.

A Little Secret- I'm Not So Nice

You said that you thought I just did it to be nice, at least some of the time. All I could think was that you grossly misread my motivations.

Granted, sometimes I do it absentmindedly. When resting my hand on your arm or your knee, before I know it, I'll find myself petting you. 

Like many things, sometimes I do it just because you tell me too. With a crook of your finger, I follow you to the bedroom. When you strip down and lay on your stomach on the bed, I do what is expected of me. Gladly. Sometimes it leads you to relax. Sometimes it leads to sex or some other play. But either way, I am not doing it because I'm nice. 

At first, it was the one time we were just two people, when you were just my boyfriend not Master or Daddy or Sir. It disarms you. It's the one time I can feel somewhat in control, even if you initiate it. Very quickly, you can't think enough to give orders. I set my own pace, decide what to touch and when. When you haven't initiated it, I know that a minute of stroking your back through your shirt will lead to it coming off and a few passes of my fingers under the waistband of your boxer briefs will lead to them coming off as well. It shows me that I can do to you what I know you so easily do to me. 

But ultimately, I do it simply because it turns me on. Because I feel the little, and not so little, noises you make touch something deep inside me. Because you can make my breath stop when your breath becomes shorter and faster as I get closer and closer to particularly sensitive spots. Because it makes me wet to feel you start to tremble when I stay in particular spots just a bit too long. Because I get to see how long I can go just touching you, when I know that just a few well placed kisses will get me a whole new set of things I yearn for. Believe me, I definitely do it for me.

But I don't do it because I'm nice. When it's just you and I, there are very few things I do because I'm nice. I would have thought you would have known that by now. 

And don't even get me started on why I do it to her...

All In

A few Saturdays ago, when I wrote this, I have to admit that there was also something else that happened on my way to work. My uncle was in the car with me, riding in the passenger seat with me on my way from my night of sex and play to work. Yes, I know how this sounds. And I'm not necessarily saying that it was his ghost or that I actually saw him. Maybe it was just the part of me that came from him that manifested itself in my passenger seat that morning. At the time, I felt like he was there because he didn't want me to feel any emotional dissonance over the really amazing night and how strongly I was feeling for this guy, even though it wasn't the way I had thought things were going to go. I became less sure of that when I found out some news about people in his circle and it stirred up a bunch of feelings about his loss. Now I'm sure it was the former because he showed up again in my car this morning, as I left the same apartment and that same person, after an even longer and more intense time period. When all I wanted to do was to run away, my uncle was sitting there telling me not to run. 

In this dating thing, I had some specific ideas about what I wanted and, by gods, I was not going to settle for less. I wanted a primary romantic long-term relationship partner, who was also more dominant in bed, and hopefully who was also into the idea of a monogam-ish relationship. And, somehow, he managed to find me. Just at that wrong time. Someone else also found me, a real Dom in a long-term polyamorous relationship, who seemed more than happy to just play with a fairly inexperienced submissive while she found her white picket fence. Of course, that isn't what happened either. We got along well over lunch and I melted the first time he touched me. Not only has he been a good Dom to me so far, but we get along like gangbusters outside of the sex and the play. And I really like his girlfriend. After my last experience with a couple, I wasn't at all interested in having a triad, or larger poly, relationship. When the option came up with someone else that I really liked, because it would have started different, I thought I might as well at least talk with the other person in the proposed relationship. But I wasn't interested in coming into an established couple. Then I met his girlfriend. 

I have only two emotions

Careful fear and dead devotion

I can't get the balance right

Throw my marbles into the fight

Each time I am there, I stay a little longer and things become more intense. I start to have deeper feelings for both of them, though obviously more for him because we are together longer and share a physical relationship. I love being there. I love being with them. How I feel about them, but especially about him, seems completely out of proportion to the short amount of time we've spent together. But they want me back.I text What do you want with me?  When I want to own you comes back as a response, I stop breathing. In the dark, he whispers to me that, if things were all the way he wanted, I wouldn't leave there. How can that not be appealing after all the men in my life who tell me how great I am but that they don't want to be with me. Especially when I think he and her are so great.

And this freaks me the fuck out. When I really like someone and they like me back, I rush in head first. Then, the push-pull, fight or flight, only made worse by the borderline, kicks in and I feel the need to poke it with a stick to see if they overcome my push, thereby proving that they really want me. 

The temptation 

To take the precious things we have apart

To see how they work

Must be resisted for they never fit together again

So there was my uncle, sitting there, telling me not to run, to see this through, despite the situation not being the one that I had originally envisioned, reminding me of all the love he had in his life by accepting what came into it. 

I just wish not running wasn't so hard.

I'm Not a Good Poker Player

There are some things that seem to come completely naturally to some people, but that I can't seem to wrap my head around.

When you're with someone, especially in a new romantic situation, and they seem to be saying the exact right thing, how do you not question if they have just read you well enough to know what will stroke your ego and make you pliable to their will, even though they are secretly laughing at you in their head or behind your back?

Anticipate- Ani DiFranco
you are subtle as a window pane
standing in my view
but I will wait for it to rain
so that I can see you
you call me up at night
when there's no light passing through
and you think that I don't understand
but I do

we don't say everything that we could
so that we can say later
oh, you misunderstood
I hold my cards up
close to my chest
I say what I have to
and I hold back the rest

'cause someone you don't know
is someone you don't know
get a firm grip, girl
before you let go
for every hand extended
another lies in wait
keep your eye on that one
anticipate

dress down get out there
pick a fight with the police
we will get it all on film
for the new release
seems like everyone's an actor
or they're an actor's best friend
I wonder what was wrong to begin with
that they should all have to pretend
we lost sight of everything
when we have to keep checking our backs
I think we should all just smile
come clean
and relax

if there's anything I've learned
all these years on my own
it's how to find my own way there
and how to find my own way back home

Last Night's Underwear in My Back Pocket

It's weird the things that make you feel grown up. Well, it's weird to start with that I'm 30, 31 in 3 days and don't feel like a grown up. But I live in my parents' basement and don't have a full-time job so that contributes quite a bit. Also, felt much more grown up when I was married, even though same living situation, but I was so-and-so's wife. I digress

It's weird the things that make you feel grown up. Leaving someone else's house in the morning makes me feel really grown up. When I was younger, I thought I'd have a slightly different slutty phase than the one I ended up having. One like in the movies or on tv, where you drink a little too much and go home with someone you picked up that night at a bar. Now, to my recollection, I have never done this. What they never tell you is that picking up people in bars is hard unless you have really good game, which I don't. The internet has been the savior of my sex life. Without it, I would be able to count the people I've fucked on my fingers, which, to me, would be very sad. But hooking up with people on the internet is different and happens at all kinds of times that aren't last call. Also, let's be honest, if those people were in a position to attract a potential mate, if they had things like a job or a place of their own, or they were unattached, they probably wouldn't be trolling Craigslist for ass in the first place.

Or maybe they've been more attractive to me because they didn't have the potential for me to be in a long-term relationship with them. Now that I'm looking for something long-term, and I'm ruling out people who can't host, I'm having a different experience. I didn't do it right with Troy. I didn't really plan ahead. I had to go to work the next morning but I didn't bring my get-ready bag or a change of clothes in my car. I also drank way too much and left my own car at the bar. Of course, it still worked out just fine. After a night of too little sleep, I grabbed a quick shower at his place and he drove me back to my car. I even had enough time to change at my own house before I went to work. Still not optimal however.

Neyo lyrics
If she leave the club with me
Then her maturity
Gonna make sure she follow me in her car
She's so responsible, she gone make sure
She leave in time to get home, get ready for work

I did it better last night. To be fair, this night was slightly more planned. With Troy, I had myself convinced it wasn't going to happen that first night. With (doesn't have a name yet), we had arranged that I would stay the night because that was the only way we'd have time together, with my work schedule. I had a small (for me) duffle bag with what I thought I might need. I had even planned out where I would stop to get a quick sandwich and my morning energy drink on my way to work. And now I'm sitting in a parking lot close to work typing this on my phone, as I have to twenty minutes before my shift starts. And I feel great.

fourteenth street and the garbage swirls like a cyclone
three o'clock in the afternoon and I am going home
F train is full of high school students
so much shouting
so much laughter
last night's underwear in my back pocket
sure sign of the morning after
...
maybe I'll live my whole life
just getting by
maybe I'll be discovered
maybe I'll be colonized
you could try to train me like a pet
you could try to teach me to behave
But I'll tell you, if I haven't learned it yet
you know,
I ain't gonna sit, I ain't gonna stay

On repeat: Crash My Party

Yeah, I don't think I need to add anything else....

Crash My Party - Luke Bryan
It don’t matter what plans I got, I can break ‘em.
Yeah, I can turn this thing around at the next red light
And I don’t mind telling all the guys I can’t meet ‘em.
Hell, we can all go raise some hell on any other night

Girl, I don’t care. Oh I just gotta see what you’re wearing.
Your hair, is it pulled up or falling down?
Oh I just have to see it now.

[Chorus:]
If you wanna call me, call me, call me.
You don’t have to worry ‘bout it baby.
You can wake me up in the dead of the night;
Wreck my plans, baby that’s alright.
This is a drop everything kind of thing.
Swing on by I'll pour you a drink.
The door’s unlocked. I’ll leave on the lights
Baby you can crash my party anytime.

Ain’t a spot downtown that’s rockin’ the way that you rock me.
Ain’t a bar that can make me buzz the way that you do.
I could be on the front row of the best show.
And look down and see your face on my phone.
And I’m gone so long, hang on. I’ll meet you in a minute or two.

[Chorus]

If it’s 2 in the morning
And you’re feeling lonely
And wondering what I’m doing...

[Chorus:]
Go ahead and call me, call me, call me
You don’t have to worry ‘bout it baby.
You can wake me up in the dead of the night;
Wreck my plans, baby that’s alright.
This is a drop everything kind of thing.
Swing on by I'll pour you a drink.
The door’s unlocked. I’ll leave on the lights
Baby you can crash my party anytime.

(Call me, call me, call me)

Baby you can crash my party anytime.