Age of Aquarius

Last Tuesday V came up to me and said "I will pay for everything you need except food, so long as you come to New Jersey with me this weekend."

Okay.

V and I are Large Dorks (tm). There's a role-playing game down there that gets held about once a month. V played regularly while he lived in NJ; I've also played when I had occasion to find myself down there. It's a great experience, tons of fun, it's just in South Jersey and so it takes a long, long time to get there. I agreed partly because I love playing this fucking game, and partly because car trips with V are always entertaining. So Thursday afternoon after running some last-minute errands, we started our trek - we wanted to avoid Friday Shore traffic.

The drive down was uneventful, the game that weekend was fabulous. I've been a performer all my life, and now that I'm out of school, the chances for a good performance are few and far between. This is one of them, and I prefer to grab it with both hands. About the only thing I wish is that some people who also play would learn the difference between me and my character, and refrain from treating them as one and the same in the parking lot after the game is over.

The thing is, the game is draining. It's a lot of effort to keep up a character all weekend, and it's played by a lot of people. Lots of people, for more than a few hours at a time, makes for a very drained and cranky and unhappy and unsocial french. When I was younger, I didn't realize this, and there are many, many less-than-pretty incidents in my past when I was done being around people and didn't have the smarts to retreat. At least now I've learned where that limit is and can take appropriate action.

I was close to that limit on Sunday, after the game, but V's family was having a Father's Day barbecue over at one of his cousin's houses. Since I've met them before, I agreed - strangers are always more stressful; these people were on a level of "distant family", so I knew it would be fine if I showed up there, ate, chit-chatted politely but didn't stay overly long.

After the barbecue, I was done and pretty much wanted to go home. V, who is a far more social creature than I am, wanted to go out and see a movie with a bunch of his friends that he doesn't get to see anymore, living in Boston as he does. He was so excited about it, I couldn't turn him down, so I agreed.

Let's just clarify two things here: I was done being around people, and I didn't really have the $9 to spend on the movie ticket right then.

Had those two circumstances not existed, I might have actually enjoyed the movie as I was watching it. Instead, I sat through the movie, uncomfortable, and more bothered than amused by the gags in the film, listening to the crowd of people around me laughing hysterically. That doesn't really bother me too much. What bothers me is that I was so fucked after the movie that I nearly broke out in tears in the fucking lobby of the movie theater. For someone who prides herself on the fact that there's only two people on the planet who can make her cry, and even they can't do it regularly, that's pretty fucking pathetic.

V, bless his heart, managed to rein in the immediate response to get pissed at me for distancing myself from the group and being less than civil, and realized that something was very, very wrong and I needed to get out of there. He hustled me out to the car, where I immediately started shaking and crying my eyes out. I told him to just drive for a while, and then the only coherant thoughts I had after that were that I didn't know exactly what the fuck was going on, and I really wanted to call J.

After I'd calmed down enough to speak again, V and I opted to drive home instead of staying the night at his parents'. It was 11 at night, and we had at least a five hour drive ahead of us, after being up since 9 in the morning on about 7 hours of sleep. Brilliant fucking idea, if I do say so myself. But we really just needed to be home.

We made it home at about 4:30 in the morning, tired as fuck-all, but safe and sound and without incident. J was up, because his sleep schedule makes no sense to anyone including him, and that was good. I know I bitch a lot about the boy being blockheaded, but damn if he doesn't know when I need him. First thing he did when he saw me walk through the door was grab me and just hold me in his arms, as I felt all the tension and jangliness of my nerves from earlier just flow away. He made sure I got into bed, and then crawled in after me, just holding me and listening to me babble and get it all out - whatever it was, I think I was getting a bit delirious by then, because I don't remember a thing I told him. Regardless, I was calmed down enough to sleep, and sleep well. But I was drained enough that I slept for all of about five hours on Monday.

One of the reasons I love this boy, one of the reasons I want to stay with him approximately forever, is that he grounds me. Whenever I'm stressed, whenever I have too much extra nervous or angry or sad or otherwise negative energy pent up in my mind and body, one touch from J - zzzZAP! - is all it takes to eliminate it. He just such a calm, centered person, no matter how much I throw at him, that doesn't change. He's just there. He's there for me, when I really need him the most. I feel better just being around him. And despite all the other frustrations and imperfections, that's really the most important thing.

Since I fell for You

I started dating J four years ago this past April (that makes me feel old). It was a culmination of nearly an entire year of me trying to get him to date me, but that's not the story I'm going to tell today.

Right after we started dating, and I'd given out my first blowjob ever, we were cuddling on my dorm bed, staring up at the Christmas lights I'd strung from the ceiling.

"Are you a virgin?" he asks.

Given that this was my first serious actual relationship, I wasn't sure how to answer. Sure, I knew I should be honest, but I wasn't sure how he would take it. I had a feeling it would be okay, but give me a break, I was 19 and nervous.

"For now, yeah."

He seemed to consider this. It was mildly reassuring to me that I was not immediately dismissed out of hand.

"Planning on changing that anytime soon?"

That really didn't surprise me. I knew he'd slept with his ex, and that he'd very much like to have sex with me. But giving my rearing, I was still very unsure of the entire "sex before marriage" deal. On the other hand...

"Not really."

And it was okay. I wasn't pressured at all. It was cute, really.

Over the summer, I had decided that I was going to have sex with him anyway. I informed him of that choice in September. Oddly enough, he was more upset that I'd said yes. He was worried that I had felt pressured (which was about as far from the truth as Singapore is from here), and didn't really want to, but only wanted to to make him happy. That sweetness and concern for me was one of the many things giving me sharp shoves over the edge.

Yes, I wanted to make him happy, but I had the time to think through it, and decided that I wanted to go through with it for reasons besides that. I was curious, I knew he'd treat me right regardless of whether I fucked him or not, and I had a strong hunch I was going to be with him for a while anyway.

About a month later, we'd had a fight. I don't remember what it was about; I just remember that I was angry and hurt over something - probably him not calling, that was the problem du jour back then - and had expressed that in very clear terms. He wound up sending me flowers. God I miss that! For those of you curious, yes, I do have enough of a romantic streak in me that I dried the bouquet. It's currently hanging from my ceiling. It's one of the many reminders I have that this boy and I are stupid over each other.

We were talking on the phone, and were going through the kiss-and-make-up stage planning. I'd had an idea I wanted to try for a while, but I wasn't sure how to broach the subject. I wanted him to tie me to the bed, and then have sex with me. I wasn't sure what it was called - well, I knew the term "bondage", but hadn't done a whole lot of reading about the subject, and certainly wasn't familiar with terms like "submissive". I just knew that I'd thought about it, and I really liked the idea of having him tie me up and ravish me.

The conversation worked around to how we should have make-up sex, and I decided that I'd just take the plunge. Being honest had worked before, so why not try it again? I mentioned that I had something to ask him.

"Maybe when we have make-up sex, you could... maybe tie me up to the bed and then have sex with me? You know, if you want to, and if you don't, it's not a big deal, it's just an idea."

Dead silence.

Ohshitohshitohshitohshit, I thought. Now I've freaked his shit out and he's going to break up with me and he hates me and I'm way too weird for him and he hates me and he's going to tell everyone what a freak I am and-

"Yeah that sounds like a good idea."

I found out later that he was quiet only because he couldn't believe that I had asked him for that - mostly because he was interested in that as well, and couldn't figure out how to bring up the subject. He was a lot happier about it than I realized at the time.

Four and a half years later, it's gone a lot beyond "Do you think maybe you could tie me up to the bed?" We're not using clothesline anymore. We've got a lot of rope, and lots of other toys - two whole full drawers with, with the rope housed separately. We've found a lot more things that we like to do together beyond just tying me to the bed. And I've learned to be a lot less fearful of telling him what I'd like - not that I don't have plenty more fear to work through!

Just about every day, I'm glad that I got brave enough to ask for that. Sure, at one point one of us would have brought it up, I'm sure, given that we were both interested in activities of that nature. But I'm glad I brought it up when I wanted it. It reassured my fears about my suitability for him - and his for me. It showed me that he was going to be a lot harder to scare off than just about any other guy I'd met.

And it was really goddamned awesome make-up sex.

Coming up for air

J and I have kissed and made up - he apologized to me for making a mess while I was gone, and I apologized to him for being an unholy bitch for three days. Maybe one of these days I will grow up, be mature, and not go into a three-day horror-fest because of some dishes and newspapers, but I am not figuring on that day being any time soon.

Since we've made up, I got to do that bone-jumping I was looking forward to all week, and it was a-mazing for a number of reasons. First and foremost, it was put off for a while, so I was craving it moreso than usual. Secondly, it started off with a round of make-up sex. Make-up sex is one of the best things on the planet. It's sex, but it's sex that you're all emotional about, because you're reconnecting with the person you love that you were just fighting with and you want nothing more than to make them happy in return for the shitfire you just put them through, and they're trying to do the same to you. If it weren't for the fact that I really don't like fighting with J, I would have make-up sex all the damn time.

Thirdly, it was amazing because I begged. Yeah, that's right, I begged. I begged for sex, I begged for cock, I begged for an orgasm. Excuse me for a moment, because just thinking about it is getting me hot and horny again.



I don't always beg. Okay, well, I always begged that one weekend, but other than that, it's fairly spontaneous. I'm not always in the mood - nor am I always capable of speech (yes, the sex is that good; no, I have no qualms about mentioning it). But the circumstances, to my mind, rather called for it. I felt that it was a good way to show J that I still loved and respected him, my behavior of the past few days completely aside. And as I mentioned above, I love doing it.

There is something unbelievably honest and submissive and true about begging to get fucked, about begging to be allowed to cum from fucking (or anything else). I think it requires a lot of knowledge about who and what you are (J's slut!) as well as a certain amount of courage to admit what you want (cock! fuck mefuckmefuckme!). Let's be real here, true sexual freedom is not the norm, and good girls don't even know the words "cock", "fuck", etc. and so on, much less verbalize their desires for them.

That's part of the reason I don't always beg. I'm not always that in-touch with my inner submissive. Some times, the public persona is firmly in control, and I meet J as an equal, in bed and out. Things are still okay if I do. But I can't help but notice that when I do beg out of nowhere, he seems to like it an awful lot.

And the Girlies Wanna Scream

Gods, got back from my parent's yesterday and I want nothing more than to turn around and go right back. Which is the first time that's ever happened, as I recall.

Vinnie and I had an absolutely fabulous time. We didn't even do so much of the touristy stuff - which we were thinking about, as Vinnie's never been to my hometown - but instead pretty much sat around the house, slept, ate, and completely ignored any and all worries. I needed that. Desperately. We played video games, watched my brother's DVDs of Family Guy and Aqua Teen Hunger Force, ate far too much of my mother's food, and slept at random times in random places.

The only problem was that Vinnie and I were so relaxed and slow-moving by the end of our week, we wound up missing our flight back here - well, the plane was still there when we got to the airport, except that they'd already locked out the flight and we had luggage to check. We got put on the next available flight, which left at 7 in the morning, and called my mother to turn around and pick us back up.

In our infinite, mature responsible adult wisdom, Vinnie and I decided to stay up all night, because we had to be at the airport at 5 the next morning. I was sick with a lovely sinus infection resulting from allergies, so my brain wasn't working too well. That's why I agreed. We flew back here and finally got back to our house at about 11 in the morning.

It was pretty good - sure I was tired as fuck, and sniffling and in slight pain, but the house was all cool, despite the sweltering heat. I'm figuring, awesome, we'll just run to the bank a minute, then come back here and go to sleep in the excellent coolness of brick and tree-shading.

But see, then I walked into my bedroom, to find the week's newspapers scattered all over the floor, and the desk covered in glasses and food wrappers. Then I walked into the kitchen to get a glass of water for my dehydrated self, and was greeted by a sink full of dishes, with satellite settlements on my counters. Being full of sick and tired and hormones, I burst into tears.

So no, I have not jumped Jay's bones yet, which I had been planning on doing all week. About all I have done with him is cry and yell and be bitchy, because it is beyond me how in over a week it could not have occurred to him at all to maybe put the papers into the bag in the living room so conveniently set up for that purpose, or to maybe wash a dish or two because he knew his flatmates were coming home and perhaps they'd want to cook. That level of blatant disregard of other people's needs and concerns is just foreign to me - especially when it comes to people I'm relatively fond of.

I'm not entirely sure he understands why I'm so upset either. Okay, sure, it is amplified in part because I'm sick and emotional now anyway, but even without that I'd be irritated. It really would have been nice to come home to a place that was around the same level of clean as I'd left it. He said "sorry" to me last night - not "I apologize for messing up the place and being an inconsiderate boor" but just "sorry". I asked why he had said that. He stared at me. I'm one of those people that thinks that if you're apologizing, you should know what you're apologizing for. Kind of gives it more meaning, you know?

He continued to stare at me as I started crying my eyes out again. I find that helpful, the staring at me. It really does a lot to make me feel like a worthwhile human being with thoughts and feelings of my own, as opposed to some machine that has started malfunctioning for no apparent reason and with no apparent way to fix it.

We've discussed this in the past. We've also discussed how I can be a very scary person even when I'm a good mood - I'm not a small person by any stretch of the imagination, and I know how to throw both my physical and emotional weight around. But what Jay doesn't seem to realize, no matter how many times we go through it, no matter how many times I tell him, is that just staring at me - essentially ignoring me, which he has also done - just makes things worse.

When I am angry and hurt, the best possible course of action is to have it out with me, and let me vent. Then we can get through the argument and get back to the sexing. The worst possible course of action is not responding to me, because that just screams "I don't care" to me, and that hurts worst of all.

Unfortunately, that is Jay's strategy for everything - back away, leave it alone, don't say anything, let it go away on its own. And in four years together, with the occasional fight to prove the points I articulate to him on a regular basis, this has not changed one iota. It makes me want to take my dullest wooden spoon and scoop out his entrails via his eye socket.

So I am pissed and hurt and frustrated, and as I said earlier, I want to turn around and get back on a plane to my parent's house, despite my general tendency to want to stab people after a week there. My mother has food, she has central a/c, and she knows how to pay attention to people when they need it. Maybe instead I should send Jay there for a month, so perhaps he will finally learn something.

You can keep this suit of light

My training in biology, psychology, and to a lesser extent, sociology, has taught me that you cannot separate the three - not completely.

Someone comes to you, they're clinically depressed. They have a psychological condition. Underlying this could be a chemical imbalance; a physical cause. It could also be caused by the environment in which they're living - family that's emotionally manipulative and abusive, an unfulfilling job, a lack of space to call one's own - a sociological, community cause. The main problem is the psychological one, but in a way it's just the symptom of the underlying physical or social problems.

To properly treat it, then, you have to treat all of it. Prescribing an anti-depressant treats the symptoms, and may help with a physical cause, but it won't do a thing for anything else. The generally accepted "best" therapy for depression is a combination of therapy - to treat the social causes - and medication - to treat the physical causes and alleviate the symptoms. It addresses the entire person, and the entire problem.

So it's really no surprise to me that the sociological factors in my life are affecting my mental and physical states so strongly. For various reasons which I will not enumerate here, I am worried. This worry brings my natural anti-social tendencies to the forefront of my personality; I believe the last time I left the house was about a week ago. I'm not even particuarly in the mood to converse with my closest friends - not that I feel I have much to say at any rate.

Mental states can be physically paralyzing; I'm smart enough to know that I'm allowing this anxiety to be. On the other hand, I realize that at least at some times, I'm forced out of that paralysis. One of those is when I finally manage to cook, which will be much more often now that V has moved in. To wit: we had roast chicken, mashed potatoes and gravy, from-scratch crescent rolls, and brown sugar asparagus for dinner tonight - well, last night; I haven't slept yet. And I was happy! We sat around the table, talked about things that most people wouldn't consider polite conversation - one day and already we're talking about sexual practices my mother would likely deny the very existence of - and enjoyed ourselves and our dinner. I wasn't thinking about what's causing me worry, I wasn't off in the corner curled up with a headache, I wasn't grinding my teeth, I wasn't cranky.

I did get confirmation that V believes that I am a Domme, too. I remarked that I'd been hurried when I made the rolls, and J mockingly said that they were horrible and that we shouldn't eat any, he'd just have to eat them all so that we'd be spared the horribleness. I said, "well, you'll just have to beat me later." V: "More like you'll be doing the beating." I put on my faux innocent look and said "...maybe". V crowed in truimph "We can smell our own." I didn't bother correcting him; I switch, that counts, right? He's here for one day and already the subject is coming up.

But back to the previous train of thought. Another thing that will kick me out of my rut forcibly is that V and I are flying out to my parents' tomorrow. The main reason is that a close friend of mine is getting married this Saturday, and V and I are going to the wedding. J couldn't get off of work, so V is escorting me instead - which is fine with me, V is a better dancer! But it's also my parents' 25th wedding anniversary, as well as the first weekend in recent memory that both of my siblings will be in residence at the same time as me. My brother is also bringing his girlfriend, so the house will be overflowing with people. In that sort of situation, it's not likely that I'll be allowed to sit on the couch all day and avoid everyone. It'll be good for me, even if I'll miss J terribly.

It also means that I won't get to play with J at all for a week - admittedly, when I'm stressed out, it's not what I want anyway, but I've a feeling that once I get forcibly cheered up I'll be craving it. I'll just have to jump him when I get home, and in the mean time flesh out a few ideas I've had floating through my head.

Maybe even when I am not in my best and brightest mental state I should get myself in my best and brightest physical state - which usually involves rope, leather, and lots and lots of sex. Endorphins are much better than any sort of happy pill a shrink could prescribe anyway. And J's much better looking than a lot of doctors.