tumblers and toys

At the risk of veering too far from my recent deep, angsty, not-even-especially-useful navel gazing....

What gets to me is words, stories, scenes set in writing.  I thought that sending my husband examples of these - what excites, stirs, ignites me - would be a good way to communicate with him -and also would save me from saying any of it out loud to his face.  Didn't work that way though.  Too many words for him.

Pictures can capture my attention, but not nearly in the same way or to the same degree as writings.  Not enough words for my taste.  

Eventually though i started sending him links to tumblers.  And boy - did that work for him.  I guess he's just more visually oriented :)  

He takes what i send - and goes off on his own with it.  I imagine he does some exploring and linking and looking around from there. We don't discuss.  But it's a start of a way for me to communicate to him what impacts my psyche in all of this.

It's subtle, and indirect - i suppose it would be far simpler for us to sit and examine pictures together, discuss them, parse it all out together....  But - well - part of the truth is that would be very difficult for me to do - to talk about - to admit to his face.  But also - I do- but i really, really don't want to influence, or even know, what he chooses to do or which directions he chooses to go.  

So it works - kind of - but it's a risky thing for me too- if i send him to a particular tumbler that has things i find intriguing on a particular day, i'm sure he notes what those are.  He probably even reads my message that says, "i like this or that, but some of the other things on here i find unappealing or frightening or perhaps even horrific."  But there's the very real risk that those unappealing, frightening things are the ones that will catch his eye.

So - it's imprecise, and carries some risk for me.  But I know my feelings and i know that having him do to me only things i've asked for would just not work - my head would go to bad places instead of good ones.  And yea - the edge of fear of the unknown is kinda hot too.  

And like any good husband - he plays up that edge to his advantage.  Last week a box came which i was to keep away from the kids - but not to open myself either. 

This week he pulled out and put into use one of the new toys - and that went way, way in my favor.  We (I say we - really - all the toys are his, none are mine)... We didn't have a decent vibrator.  Now we do (he does).  Yea for me!

He also showed me the other toy, the one he's going to let me ponder and stew about for awhile.  "Frightening" did catch his eye.  That one is all for him.   But sadly i'm the one who'll be hooked.

completely useless bit of overthinking

A whole stream of thoughts occurred to me this morning.

We stayed in bed this morning til after 8 - that just never, ever happens.  This stream of thoughts occurred to me when my husband told me i needed to learn "not to fight it."  I told him i don't feel like i'm fighting - but he's got a definite idea of what is me fighting it and what is me finally capitulating.

Maybe context would help.

Once he realized i was awake this morning, he pinned my hands above my head with one hand and started exploring with his other one.  Stroking turned into pushing and pinching and then into plunging. Sucking became nibbling became biting - hard.   He takes his time with this - i think he likes it.  He gets me very quickly to a point that I am all response - no conscious thoughts of initiating anything, even if i could.  I move and moan and open myself to him, to what hurts, and to what feels so tantalizing - all swirled together, nothing in my head but listening and wanting.

But there are some sensations that i'm convinced my body can't handle.  Too much stimulation when i'm already so - stimulated - is just too much.  With my head out of the equation, my body can't process it and, I suppose, fights against it.  I think this is what he is talking about.  I have to re-engage some part of my consciousness and force myself to relax, to accept, to feel what is happening.

I suppose this is something that he will keep pushing and i will keep trying to figure out.  My rush of thoughts though, as incoherent as they are, had to do with this who does what during sex.

The "who's in charge" question is not really what i mean.  We fixed that some time ago - and now - well - life is good.

But - i think about submission, especially in the context of serving - and to me that sounds like providing sexual service - i.e., doing things for him and to him that he likes, the way he likes, when he wants... And that feels pretty easy really.  I can do that.

I think about way, way back when i was dating - i was a dork - i didn't date much - but it was a process of back and forth - taking turns between doing and letting the other person do, some mutual combinations of the two.  Well - that was the good parts - there were of course the ones who tried to insist on getting just what they wanted then being done.  The back and forth was a good part of married sex also.  This makes it sound unappealing - that's not what i mean - but it is different.  

There was one person i went out with a few times, until i got very scared - afraid of my reaction to him though, not afraid of him actually.  He did to me.  He made me wait, he made me be still while he explored and touched, he made me experience, he made me feel - so many sensations, and then urges.

And this is what my husband does to me/for me now.

As much as i now love being played with, being used, being made to experience all those sensations, being made unable to respond in kind - this is harder for me than doing would be.  For the worse parts of our married sex life, sex consisted of me doing or not doing.  In my head, at the time, it seemed like i was doing what a wife was supposed to do - giving her husband pleasure.  The idea of letting him take his pleasure was not on my radar, and if it had been, i don't think i could have accomplished it.

My guess is that different people want different things, that what is difficult for some is easy for others, what some find fascinating and pleasurable, others would see as tedious and no fun, what i find as the easy cop out - others probably struggle with, what i work to relax into, others might find as the cop out.  It is interesting that it has meant a complete reversal for both my husband and me - and ironic that in submitting i serve him by letting him pleasure me.

He can - but can I?

He can get me where he wants me.

We've spent the past three years learning that - he to move me around to the way he wants me, and I to cooperate with him when he does.

I'm not sure that's quite enough though.

Cooperating with him is a step, it's something, but it's fairly passive - more work sometimes, but mostly not.

It feels good, I like it, i want his hands on me and his power over me.

But it's destructive to the Us - for me to wander off and wait for him to come get me.

I have to learn to get myself to where he wants me.

either/or's

"Ow. That really hurts."  "But you like pain, right?"   So - either i do or i don't -  except clearly it's not that simple.

"Do you like that girl?"  "Well..."  "Yes or No, which is it?"  No - i don't "like" it - it's not pleasant or enjoyable, it's difficult even;  but i desire it, crave it, need it...

Those sorts of contradictions i seem to be able to hold all at once - and he understand that.  He uses them to goad me and sometimes rattle me, but he knows they aren't either/or - they are, against logic, both.



But other things maybe really are either/or - even though in my head the truth of both sides is clear at the same time.

Either it's about him - or it's about me.
        (But - he wants to take care of me, he is happier if i'm happier, blah, blah, blah)  

Either i want him to be in control  - or i want him to do what i want, when i want.  
        (He needs to know what i want in order to have all the info he needs to be in control, right? 
        And i'm supposed to ask for what i want, right?)

Either i tell him all of what i think or how i feel and then let the rest up to him, or i have an agenda and expectations.  
        (Ya know - this one is just hard - we are so practiced at providing the right information the right
        way to get towards what we want out of an interaction - it is just so damn difficult to disattach
        the expectations)

Hmmm.... in my head those all seemed so complicated, like some riddle with two right but opposite answers.  Written out - they seem, well, not so unclear.

What i ran up against this past week was enormous desire - out of the blue i was overwhelmingly and unreasonably needy. I was constantly aroused - but beyond that i wanted to be used, beaten, degraded, conquered.  It was a desire in my skin and my bones, not just in my head.  I hadn't felt that way in a very long time.  I was obsessed and completely certain that this was a need that, if left unmet, would leave me crashed and burning and unable to function.  In my mind - it was his responsibility - his only possible course of action - to fix me, to meet this need, to beat me and use me and conquer me.

But he didn't.  Partly, circumstances just didn't allow for that, and partly - it just wasn't what he chose to do, at least not how and when i thought he should.  I communicated my feelings, my needs, my desires. Then I hinted and probably whined. I had all this need, and it was being left - unmet, unsatisfied, unresolved - i was being left - needing.  I swirled around in my emotions and panicked that i would be lost in the storm.  But what i couldn't bring myself to do was just come to him with the cane and ask, or present myself to him quietly and openly.

And yet - here i am, functioning, connected, fairly calm, if not a touch chastised and a little bit ashamed.  It's interesting: either he meets my needs, or he doesn't.  Except - i need to accept that he decides, it's not about me, my expectations aren't the important factor.  He does meet my needs, even when it feels for all the world like he isn't.

intersecting planes

Mind-body. Or maybe emotional-physical.  Or abstract-concrete.  Interactions of elements on planes that hadn't crossed each other previously.....

I'm INTJ - in this case emphasis on the T for thinking (vs. Feeling), and maybe N for intuiting (vs. Sensing.)  I do live most comfortably in figuring out and analyzing, thinking things through, etc.... I know it's more complex than this, but i think of myself as fairly concrete and rational.  It's not that I don't have emotions, it's just that i'm not especially adept at dealing in their realm.  In fact, i have very little handle on them and am too often at their mercy.

The mind to body connection i get - specifically, the way he plays with my mind and the way that arouses me, leaves me wet and with a terribly empty, wanting to be filled feeling.  He can say a few words, give a look, make a small suggestion, put me in a tiny predicament.... and my body is right there, listening, waiting, thrumming.

It's the body to mind thing that still floors me.  It's related to the "why is sex so important anyhow?" thing - which also still completely floors me.

Last week i was a bit cranky, had a little attitude, was a bit on edge and kind of wound up.  This is what led to the "Making me submissive" (see previous post).   I hadn't admitted to myself how overwhelmed, stressed, and disconnected i really felt.  He put the cuffs on my wrists and ankles, then left me working. That's the first body to mind intersection - i do understand operant conditioning - but it still surprises me that the feel of the cuffs changes my mindset so easily.

Later he called me to the bedroom, there were a few barely under my breath mutterings, but i went.  I imagined there would be spanking, and implements i don't care for, and probably tears.  I didn't wanna - but i knew that really i needed it and it would be good for me and good for us - i was angry and sulky but also glad he was making time and doing it.

Instead he went for the large plug.  From my body's reaction to the cold lube onward i was resistant. And of course - resistance is futile (i had to - sorry). He pushed, slowly but with force.  I was in pain, i was fighting it, and i was fearful, fearful of the part where it burns the worst - and mostly fearful of the feeling that always overcomes me once it seats fully in. Because that physical moment and sensation has always made me instantly and overwhelmingly submissive, all other feelings and emotions disappear. I am completely his.

That is for me the strongest example of the body ruling the mind.  Of course it's not just the physical that has the impact - it is a huge imposition of his dominance that particular action is.  And others work the same way - spanking of course, but also his touching me when and how he pleases, his hands on or even near my throat.  It may be painful, or arousing, or just claiming - but he can use all those physical sensations to put my mind where he wants it.  I find that fascinating.

making me submissive

One of the biggest changes/tools/things-my-husband-has-learned-to-exploit has been getting me feeling submissive.  Because, for me, feeling submissive means charging through and past whatever stressed, irritated, wound-up, or otherwise unwelcome attitude and emotions may be ruling my world at the moment.  For me to get truly to submissive, all that other noise has to be obliterated, not just walled off or pushed aside.  And he understands this.

Kitty wrote a brilliant post about submitting vs. being made to submit, or following vs. being made to follow.  I have watched myself struggle to learn how to follow or submit without the being-made-to part because that has always been what my husband wanted.  He has never deviated from this.  But there is absolutely and undeniably a thrill, a high, a charge, and a huge turn on in the being-made-to.

Part of the evolution has been in my coming to believe - down deep in my core - that he does want my submission.  This belief makes me want to offer exactly that: he wants my submission so i offer it, he doesn't want to fight me for it so i don't want to make him.  I know - and I've known all along - that whenever i pushed back and tried to get him to force anything out of me, it was because i needed him to prove he really wanted it, that i wasn't giving something so overwhelming for no reason.  Not so mature, but i guess it's the process i had to go through.

And if that makes it sound like i now manage some blissful, idyllic, strife and doubt-free submissive existence - well - my husband could refute that notion if he could stop laughing long enough to list the many ways i miss the mark.  I try.  He knows i try.  Sometimes the best i can do is to be open to getting past the attitude or bad mood or whatever-it-is when he does the magic he does to get me there.  I often can't get myself there, but if i fight him, i'll never make the leap, so cooperating with the process is sometimes the best i got.

Which brings me back to the tools/things-he-exploits/magic-he-does to get me to the point of submissive.  It does, in describing it, sound like forcing my submission, exactly what i said he won't do.  It is different.  There have been the rare occasions that i just couldn't "get there" and he stopped.  It's a subtle but really obvious thing - the difference between struggling but trying to keep up and struggling but sitting down and refusing to move at all.  He won't force, he expects me to try.

But there are an awful lot of actions, words, sensations, situations, things he can do to me or demand of me that will push me through all the other feelings i might be fighting with.  For us - this is what i sometimes need; maybe he sometimes needs to have the opportunity to do this - i don't know.  Sometimes i do need to be conquered, but i have to let him do it.

Cycles

I participated in a professional seminar of sorts last week and one of the activities was to identify why we were at the point in our careers that we were. This drove home something that I have always known about myself: I have never had my ideal future mapped out in my head, I make each big decision as it comes.  I have a very strong sense of who I am, what I value, what I enjoy, and what my strengths and weaknesses are. As choices present themselves, I choose based on that moment.  This has led me into two different careers that I love and my current job, which I really love.

It has served me in my personal life as well.  I try to do things and make decisions intentionally, but not at all towards a pre-determined path.  And I am incredibly fortunate in the people and relationships I have in my life.

The trick with this way of going through life though seems to be recognizing when the big decisions are there to be made. I am certain I have missed those moments before just as i know i have made poor choices at different times also.   Sometimes circumstances are such that the need to make a choice is unavoidable.  Other times, the feeling that a change is coming just starts to grow and take shape until it is inevitable.  That's the case now.


I started this blog three years ago in September.  The several years prior to that had been a time of intense focus and concentration on me, on my goals.  As that work started to bear fruit, my focus shifted, very unexpectedly, to us.

The past three years have been a lot of thought and learning and work, by both of us, and about "Us".   A blog would seem, at face value, to be all about "me," but in fact it has been a very big help to the work on us.

And the "us" is pretty stable now, engaged, excited, connected, stronger by far than ever before. And now?  I feel us looking outward now.  There's another shift coming or it's already in the works i think. We are not at a destination we had been waiting for; we are ready to be and do things we weren't before though.



I looked back at some of my first posts in September three years ago.  This was what i hoped then, and it has indeed come to be.


i woke up again at 3 this morning and couldn't fall back asleep
i lay there thinking about you - imaginging/remembering your hands on me
your hands feeling me, making me feel,
moving my body to where and how you want it
i ached to have you there and not imagined

this is something very new
previously i cringed at the thought of what you must feel touching me
so i never really experienced the feel of you on me
and i dont think you felt right to take command of my body

i never had this kind of aching before
now i can't imagine going back
i think you feel the right of it now
i hope it is pleasing for you 
i hope it becomes part of you