A September Entry in the Harem

Stephen reminds me of a giraffe: tall, long-limbed, wide-eyed, and sooty-lashed. He evens walks like one, generous strides made in a leisurely, nimble-footed gait while I have to break into a near-run to keep up. He rumbles rather than speaks, his voice never rising above the lowest note I can personally manage, and talks in dry, restrained asides, like he’s always joking to himself. Pale-skinned, pale-eyed, pale-haired—he’s as white as they come. He’s a funny, strange man. (But fit! Always fit for me it seems.)

His pert, red mouth flushes prettily after going down on me and parts open with still more longing when I press the crotch of my worn underwear to his face. He gives a full body shudder then, slowly rocking back and forth as if he cannot quite believe that this is happening to him. Neither can I. The laugh that bubbled up in my throat as he told the things he wanted me to do him, good god! Such vivid, painstakingly crafted images described from one pervert to another: this blue-eyed, blonde-haired man kneeling in the corner, wrists bound behind his back, a deep black gag between his lips, and an intricate chastity cage holding his 7” cock in place, quite spellbound by the sight of me writhing in his bed with another man. He’s an interesting one, for sure.

He already has a longterm girlfriend who’s currently toiling away somewhere on the West Coast so while circumstances keep them apart, I’m free to explore with him entirely new fields of sexual deviancy: voyeurism, cuckoldry, bondage, etc. There’s an endless amount of speculative discussions about our potential late at night; hopefully he’ll stick around long enough for me to tick a few more things off my bucket list. I rather enjoy his debauched ways. 

When I (didn't) Know, remix

When did this all even start? Was it a conscious, deliberate decision? The best I can manage is to narrow down the timeline to the April visit of this year, the month I was connecting with Nathan in that feverish, intense freefall. He was there to anchor me, I suppose—is that quite right? No, he was my confidant, my reality check, my…reminder? During one phone conversation, Nathan asked me if I’d ever give up everybody in order to be with one person, and the first person I thought of was Asher.

Could I have done it? No really, could I have truly done it? I nearly did. The temptation to be uncontested #1 in someone’s life for once was almost overwhelming. I’ve never had that, the unassuming confidence of coming first, occupying the highest rung on a list of priorities I wouldn’t even need to consider. What did it feel like, having that kind of security? To always know your place? Deep down, I knew I could be that for Nathan, and he for me. I liked him so fucking much. But for how long? How long before we’d begin the inevitable slip-slide down each other’s lists? Before we fought? Before I came to resent him for keeping me tied, before he came to resent me for having such a storied sexual history?

There were too many variables. Then again, Asher isn’t exactly variable-free either. No relationship is—but he’s the one whose variables I’m familiar with. That’s not the sexiest reason for choosing one person over another, but remember, Nathan ultimately didn’t give me the ‘luxury’ of choosing. On the last night, I essentially cried into the phone for two hours while he told me in the softest voice imaginable why he was preemptively ending our whatever-we-could-have-been. And in the morning (that I somehow, fitfully slept through), I called Asher so he could murmur and let me tell him all about it in a voice that sounded as swollen as my eyes. Then I spent the rest of April with him as I had already planned on doing anyway. We left things as they were, and did not quite leave them as they were.

Maybe that entire month taught me to value what I have now: leaning back into the curved space his body makes when he curls around me to watch a movie, hearing the low hum of almost-petulant want at the back of his throat whenever he pulls me into his arms, laughing (or groaning) too loudly at an article he’s linked, running my fingers down the shirt I bought as his Christmas gift (the one he now inexplicably wears for half of my visits), tasting myself on his lips, closing my eyes to sleep after a phone call with him—let’s try that earlier question again. Would I have given all of that up?

I still don’t know for sure, but it would surely have been the most difficult decision I’d have made this year. 

When I Knew, Deep Down

We were on the bed, and Asher was 3 seconds away from dozing off when I realized this night marked the end of a full year of not having seen Chance. My last encounter with him happened late-April ’14 in the parking lot of the Lenox shopping mall at 10pm—not difficult to fill in the tawdry blanks. Since then, I had cut off contact with him for good and struggled for the rest of the year to not think of him every day as my emotional interior mended itself bit by bit. An entire year without setbacks or reneging. I didn’t text him, call him, or try to contact him in the obscenely numerous ways I could have through social media. I didn’t look him up to see the latest updates in his life either. All I had to myself were a very mixed bag of memories.

Half of them were filthy and exhilarating; the other half was one long lesson in manipulation and neglect. When I wasn’t over-the-moon happy, I was miserable, waiting for him to reply to my messages and photos, pretending to hate him, vowing to end things and not, arguing with him and feeling the sting when he’d ignore me afterward for days, beating myself over what I’d *maybe* said or done to upset him. It was a miserable year with a wretched human being for whom I had very strong feelings. The ordeal was over though. I would never have to make feeble excuses for his toxic behavior again, never put myself through the wringer for someone who couldn’t give half a shit about me, never look at him and wonder what went on inside that abusive mind. It was all fucking over.

The finality of it hit me then.

I silently cried while staring up at the ceiling as the tears slid down the sides of my face and onto the sheets.

Asher heard me sniff too loudly, and at seeing my face, a deep line appeared between his brows. He didn't look shocked. “What’s wrong?” He was already half-asleep.

I sighed. “It’s been a whole year since I ended it with Chance.”

He only nodded and rubbed a tear off my cheek. I leaned into his hand, closing my eyes. Maybe this entire set-up—talking about an ex like you still miss him while in bed with your current partner—would have felt wrong with anyone else. The next words slipped out without warning.

“Do you like me the same way I like you?” The question hung in the air. I cringed at the neediness in my voice. Was it so bad, craving a bit of certainty with the people you care about?

“I do,” he rasped softly.

“The exact same way?”

“Exact same way,” he repeated.

I blinked back more tears. My “okay” came out like a sigh. 

The night was late by then, and the moment briskly segued into dressing ourselves and me getting in my car for the hour-drive home. I didn’t think much of that night at the time, figured we had an intense moment and that would be that. Thinking back on this months later though, I think this is when something in our relationship shifted—a subtle deepening of how we relate to each other, laying the groundwork for what I told him at the end of the summer.

This is probably when I knew, deep down, that I love him. 

What I Didn't Have The Strength to Write at The Time of Occurrence

We spent a few hours at a park near his apartment while the sun was out, and the air stayed cool. There were children playing by the lake, dogs catching frisbees in their mouths, and a swatch of gently inclining lawn we could stake a blanket on. I couldn't make this shit up if I tried. When we weren't talking, we were laughing; when we weren't laughing, we were quiet, letting the April afternoon pass us by in cloud-after-neatly-formed-cloud. I remember combing my fingers through his hair as he curved an arm over my hip, uncaring of how many people could see. He smelled clean, like aftershave and warm laundry, and later, in his room, his hands and face smelled like me, lingering oh-so-tartly and sweetly.

I suppose I wore his scent too, in my hair, the crooks of my elbows and inside of my knees, the small of my back, and the center of my forehead where he kissed me so many times. He told me, amid the self-inflicted tangle of limbs locked around each other, that he really liked me. I said it back and let myself imagine a summer of equally eventful dates. I thought I was strong enough not to let my mind wander that far. But I also thought that he meant everything he said. At the end of the night, I kissed him goodbye in the car and left him for what I didn't know would be the last time. That day was the closest to perfect I've had, and I'm terrified of how long I must wait until the next one.

small milestones

Last May I had a conversation with him about dating more later that summer, to which he agreed easily, but with a caveat of sorts that this was highly unlikely to evolve into a conventionally monogamous, committed relationship—best summed up in his exact words, “I love being around you, but I don’t love you.” I didn’t raise much of an objection at the time. We’d known each other for barely half a year; what was there to object to? That summer (well-documented in these archives) passed by uneventfully, and so did the rest of the year as we continued talking, connecting, staying in touch—learning more about one another and growing closer as a result.

Should this week have surprised me then, when he came back into town for a visit, and we fell on each other, starving for tangible contact—his, mine, not anyone else’s, not at that moment—ruining his bedsheets, wrapping arms around the other afterward, and I, carefully holding my breath before gently exhaling, telling him how I’ve felt for the past few months? If the previous sentence sounds rambling and leisurely, that is because it intimately parallels my own emotional journey through what has been the steadiest, most stable sexual/romantic arrangement with a partner thus far. The feeling came in time, nearly two years in the making, and didn’t take me by surprise so much as tap my shoulder one day to say, “I’m sorry it’s taken me such a while to show up, but I’m here. I am here.”

I wasn’t sure I would tell him until Tuesday afternoon when we both reclined there in bed with his head on my chest and my fingers combing through his hair. When I didn’t feel afraid, I knew that it was okay to say the words, even if he didn’t return the same sentiment, even if I’d be exposing myself in the biggest way since Chance, even though that was my very first time telling anyone—out-loud—that “I love you (a little bit.) Don’t be scared because I’m not scared either.”

“...I love you (a little bit) too.”

Time changes things and the nature of things so quickly. 

I just miss him

ABK

His name's Nathan, and he messaged me a little over 3 weeks ago. We've been on the phone every night for 2hrs since then. He told me last Saturday on our 3rd date that he really likes me. I still haven't slept with him yet. We decided to take things slow.

...I'm in such unknown territory here. And Asher's back in town too until May 1. Guess I'm juggling 3 men for the next month.

One afternoon during the Christmas week that he was in town, we watched another episode from yet another show he had gotten me hooked on. Afterward, his hand slid up my leg, and we wasted the rest of the afternoon keeping half our clothes on while both our shirts pooled together on the floor beside his couch. I was on top, hair sticking out in every direction, my hands fingering the waistband of my skirt, when he gazed up and blurted, "You're really beautiful."

I was so taken aback that my only response was a hastily stuttered "Well thank you" and did something with my legs to keep him quiet. He's never given over to little sentiments like that. Later, I asked him why the momentary lapse, and he didn't have a satisfactory answer--"I just felt like saying that."

I'm glad he did, but I wish he hadn't.

Flavor of The Month

August 2014/Dragon*Con Weekend - Jason the lawyer, slept with him in his room at the Hilton. Met again for another session in October at the Sheraton. Liked to eat ass, had gorgeous sleeve tattoos. Extremely smart in his studied field, but your average run of the mill racist.

September 2014 - Brady the architect, went on 3 dates with him, slept with him on the 2nd. Skinniest guy I've been with yet. Sweet, but too passive.

October 2014 - Jeff the mechanical engineer, met with him twice. 1st meet a failed attempt at sex for multiple reasons (most of which I lay at his feet), 2nd time a success of sorts. Broke it off due to his unearned arrogance in the bedroom.

November 2014 to present - John the WholeFoods manager, tried and true submissive who services me whenever I'm in the area. Zero complaints with him. Probably the best oral I've enjoyed.

December 2014 - Asher was in town, rest is self-explanatory.

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I put up holiday pictures on facebook and tagged the single one I have of me and him. Look, it's proof. Not every guy in my life is a dirty secret.