Me and Poly (And Monogamy, and Sorta-Monogamy)

So, what am I, anyway? I am complicated when it comes to the subject of monogamy. Personally I don’t think I’m one of nature’s 100% monogamists, but I’m not fully cut out for full bore sharing.

A recent fetlife thread asked readers to justify monogamy, which I think is a good leaping off place. Why pair off when you can have many people?

I’ll start be saying how you set your relationships up are your own business. When it comes to polygamy style serious relationships, rather than more fluidity on who can do what to whom, the practical reality is that even in cultures where polygyny is normal and accepted (and the ones where polyandry happen are eeny-weeny and generally involve marrying several brothers) the majority of couples still live in monogamous pairings. In that case it’s usually due to division of resources, much how we associate having a mistress in the infidelity sense with a certain sort of wealthy male.

Of course poly as what us kinky folk get up to appears not to have the serious drawback of polygyny cultures- which is that an artificially maintained woman shortage makes controlling access to wives come at the detriment to the development of the women as individuals. Poly kinksters, on the other hand, tend to be well educated egalitarians who like to have complicated sex, not tribalist patriarchies, although the all too common ‘one penis policy’ phenomena is what I’d call seriously suspicious. I’m looking at you “yes you can fuck all the woman you like and me too!” dudes.

But, not digressing the point is that even in cultures with no barrier to stacking spouses, is that it tends to be the less common model because it’s harder to pull off.

Poly is perfectly valid and viable- for some people. I think if I were critical of anything it’s that multiple serious, equal significant others is really time consuming!

Now the argument is of course that love multiplies and that love is not finite, and I agree with that. However, as much as we use kids or friends as an example, plenty of people have a favoured child even if they don’t want to admit it, or a best friend among their friends.

Me going poly boyfriends means that I would need to split my needs and energy between one or more additional persons. This on top of having friends, a job, hobbies, etc. The statistical odds of having two people who also get along with each other, who meet my needs the way I want, etc… are so vanishingly slim I don’t think of it the way that I don’t plan my life around becoming a Member of Parliament or winning a lottery. And if I have a someone, I won’t be particularly obsessed with making sure we have a someone else set up just in the dynamic I envisioned. No ‘looking for a bisexual girl to complete our family’ here.

But in my personal life, I fall somewhere into the muddy waters of not purely tied up with one person for all sexual activity but not into a fully open, no questions asked deal. For one thing I have some fond, long term play friends. Technically that makes me poly in the way that all the women I’ve had sex with makes me bisexual. To be precise I have a long standing friends with benefits relationship with three people, actually. That has transcended all three of my couple relationships and given a couple more years will be longer than my longest dating relationship. Hell, my friends were extremely eager to bring Wildcard on board (and horrified I might be lost to vanilla land if I did get a boyfriend after Strong) so I gather they like me too.

And I think that we all set our limits on a spectrum, even people who ID as mono- for example some couples do not allow for porn, while others do. Of course some couples don’t allow for opposite sex friends (and some couples don’t allow for any friends at all and those ones are CRAZY!). Some couples do threesomes only. Myself, I am mostly focused on emotional fidelity and the really complicated issues of my own jealousy.

On a purely fetish perspective I like the idea of whoring my male partner out. This ranges from sending him off on his own devices, to handing him off to women on loan, like property. “You, look after her needs!”

A sticking point I’ve seen come up is when the guy has tastes that are decidedly not you, but it’s only happened to me under odd circumstances. The Ex hated my often wild witch hair and disapproved of my lack of STEM major, but I don’t think a new woman or an alternative woman is what he wanted as much as inevitable annihilation of me as an entity with a personality. Strong, on the other hand, had a major red head fetish, and his anxieties about that pretty much were the problem more so than me never having a desire to dye my hair, even if he wanted it- I didn’t feel worried about competition, but he was in a constant tizzy about how sooner or later I *would* be jealous. It turned into a case of having to ask if the person was having a relationship with me, or with their anxieties, with me serving as a prop to justify them.

In the end, in that case, after having the red head thing be brought up to the point where it was actually starting to grate on my nerves, the hardest part there was possibly not having permission to actually you know, feel something about it because I was being preemptively accommodating to someone feeling bad about me feeling bad in a hypothetical future. This, while being perfectly happy to have Strong go out on jaunts to hook up with other women for his non-sub side.

I guess for me the point of jealousy is whether or not the person was into me and the degree they are- like there is always going to be an alternative that is always appetizing to that person- and this won’t even always be sexual. Like people will have friends, and hobbies, and jobs, as I was talking about earlier, and I’d be a bit miffed if I lost out to a minecraft server or the like. The point where I will get insecure includes- where I think the person wishes I was X while I was Y (latest soul crushing fear: wishing I had a particular appearance characteristic, but putting up with it for my generous personality and stunning brain); and if their fondness for X precludes me, as in the case of something being more important than me.

And yet, I can’t do the “get X need met outside the couple!”  Like, there’s plenty of cases of seeing other people get what they want outside the boundaries of a relationship, either they have a kink partner in a vanilla marriage or a sexual partner to deal with an asexual significant other, etc… But for me I end up feeling if that’s a deal I’m being offered I’m liable to start looking very pointedly at the door.

And yet outsourcing doesn’t bother me if it’s a partner going elsewhere. I just want to be wanted, but i can be more flexible about their needs than how mine get met.

It’s bizarrely complex, isn’t it?

BDSM Play Party Fun Times & Flogging Practice

Three dominant women on one bottom, flogging lessons, a really slutty outfit, public sex. How was your weekend?

Whip, whip, whoops!So, last weekend I went to one of Montreal’s classier dungeons for a BDSM play party- that’s coming from a part of the quadrant of the scene that I participate in, although the means by which you get an invite to this particular party make it a semi-private event. The dress code, happily in a sea of fetishwear obligations, is to wear what makes you feel sexy. You’ll see an artist rendition of roughly what I choose, albeit from the back, which shows the cute bow but not the sparkly pasties.

And I brought Wildcard.  Dear reader, that’s the man who is being recently inducted into my wicked life of hedonism. New and yet not new to BDSM, this party was his first spot of public fun.

He also had his first munch that week, which for reasons I won’t get into, had its own hilarity attached. A polite summary is that we are Trying To Do Things Right, including the Going Slow bit, with a sideline in Avoiding Gossip. The result on that front is mixed, given my habits, and overlapping acquaintances, but it’s The Principle Of The Thing.

But, shocking scandals of my lovelife aside, what about the party?

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Review: Little Submissions Collected Short Stories Pt. 1

Go buy this please.There are few writers more influential on my own femdom stories than Vague (Jerry Jones), of Little Submissions. Imaginative, violent and loving, he manages to capture both all the playfulness and the creative cruelty you can find in D/s done right. And, I had the good fortune of a long term fan of his stuff to be gifted with a review copy of his first release of collected short stories. Woop!

This release is a cleaned up and edited version of his earlier works (now with fewer typos!). If you’re cheap, you can head on over to his blog to read them, but if you want to support one of the hottest creators of free femdom erotica, I really urge you to shell out for the ebook.

It’s available in digital format, and from what I understand, he’s hashing out a deal with Lulu for a dead tree version. Maybe that’ll be ready in time for Christmas- if so i’ll update the links.

One of the main things that I like about all his stories is that the doms aren’t just into it, but sloppy wet and masturbating all over the furniture. You’re not going to get any sneering “Need a real man!” types here, rather that he writes his women as having a fierce love or the men who take the full brunt of their attentions. And, in turn, the subs are into it, but gratifyingly capable of a full range of reactions. One of his strongest suits in his writing is hints of the dynamics of a healthy couple with a lot more going on then their sex lives, and generally his characters feel like people with hobbies and needs and wants outside the margins of the text.

Here are some of the stories that Vague cooked up, because there’s a lot of stories in this anthology:

In “The Explanation” She tells him why she hates classical music but would love making a spectacle of him at the symphony, to the detriment of his tux. In “New Rule” she denies him the bed until he provides an erection and fucks her, then callously sends him back to the floor until he begs to be locked up. “Pennies” makes orgasm denial romantic, a rare achievement. “Telling Stories” didn’t make me come, but it made me laugh, and many of his other tales mix brutality, imagination and an absurd but true to life thread of humour that makes him, bar none, one of my favourite writers.

Category: Anthology of Short Femdom Stories
Rating: o~o~o~o~o (5/5)
How I Got It: Free copy from author!
TL;DR: D/s, between F/m couples (possibly the same couple)  or imaginative F+/m and F/m scenarios that are often rough, heavy and hard, but universally consenting.

Why A Special Protocol To Approach Dominant Women Is A Dumb Idea

Brief break from emotional gut spilling and porn, for something that was sitting in drafts- a rant on why it’s a bad idea to try to develop a universal approach for doms.

This one gets bandied about on forums a lot- how to reach out to dominant women in a way that’s not offensive to them. I already talked about some advice about how to meet and approach dominant women but that was more general and really, does not address something that comes up all too much. Periodically, someone will ask:

“What if we had special codified instructions?”

or

“Wouldn’t it be great if there was a special set of steps so submissives could learn how to be good subs and show they were the bestest?”

No. No. This is a completely unworkable idea. The suggestion is usually presented as a way for the more-submissive-than-thou types to differentiate themselves from the common herd, usually by someone who thinks their dominance exemplifies them in some manner and is the be all and end all of their personality. It’s also a viewpoint that makes no room for switches.

Thus, schemes are proposed suggesting the sub should come as a penitent or present themselves like they were petitioning the pope. This is primarily the lamentable tendency for people to think in terms of fantasy BDSM societies or like kink has to redefine your social patterns. Now, I’m as silly as the next person, so hardly in a position to throw stones at all the kajiras, and live and let live tends to be the functional truce for the kinky but…

I’m just going to come down, categorically, and say that unless this is protocol night at your local dungeon, starting up a power exchange dynamic before you’ve established a relationship has no good attached to it. Sure, artificial social hierarchies are fun, and kink as a subculture has some constants, but take even collaring.- collars are used to signify everything from attached monogamous relationships to simply submissive leanings, to fashion statements. You just can’t force everyone onto the same page.

And presumed supplication to dominance sets up a number of problems. First of all, it’s domism. It perpetuates the general power of dominant identified people well outside the boundaries of sensibility and awards all doms power over all submissives.

The power dynamic starts after you two agree on it. Sure, it feels good to say “how can you hope to be a submissive for someone if you ignore my ‘no dick shots!’ request in my profile!” but the reality is that people who don’t respect your reasonably boundaries would probably be bad doms or bad switches or bad lovers in general.

Reader Letter: Second Thoughts After Pushing A Limit

We have our second ever reader letter! SecondThoughts is brave enough to share their experience with exploring limits and what can go wrong.

Hi Miss Pearl,
First off, long time lurker, first time poster. Me and my play partner, are both newish to BDSM. We were discussing for something trying to push one of my limits. but when came to try it I started having second thoughts. For a number of reasons, I didn’t say anything and while everything turned out fine, it still left me feeling uncomfortable that I hadn’t said anything.

 

To get to the question. Is there anyway you recommend, for telling your dom that you may be having second thoughts or that you need more time to be mentally ready. Without completely breaking the mood or pulling out your safeword? I know honesty is the best policy, just wanted to get the opinion of a more seasoned person. Thank you for reading,
SecondThoughts

 

Hi SecondThoughts!

It’s always a challenge when you’re on the fence about something- especially with the pressure to expand limits and boundaries (kink.com is particularly guilty of this one, trying to get extra oomph from declarations like ‘limits are mostly mental’). But your limits are part of your ability to consent. People who are incapably of saying no can’t say yes.

For those of you who are completely new to kink, a limit is a “nope, no way, can’t do it” act or behaviour. It can range from the sensible (no children, pretty much everyone’s default limit) to the highly specific (no face slapping!). Some people further break down limits into hard limits and soft limits. The former means something that will never, ever happen and the latter means that the person might be open to doing it, in a long term, supportive situation where they feel safe.

Limits exist for lots of reasons. Maybe you have a medical problem that makes it impractical to do a particular thing like prolonged bondage, an allergy or a phobia. Maybe something is particularly sensitive. Sometimes it’s something the person just isn’t comfortable with, no complicated explanation needed. Some people enjoy the idea of playing “without limits” or feel that their limits interfere with their ability to submit. There’s a word or someone who is literally down for being murdered, and that’s not romantic and trusting. In practice the ‘no limits’ crew get away with it basically by relying on the dom to have the limits. Playing with the fear ‘what if s/he goes too far?!” is not my thing, although a lot harder to do in F/m anyway- especially if you are emotionally healthy with each other.

Less talked about, but just as valid, are a dom’s limits. My hard limits are kids, pets, permanent harm and things that could give you e-coli. Amputations and breaking laws are both things I have zero interest in doing or dealing with. I also have a bunch of things that I might do, but are decidedly edge play for me- for example decorative, lasting body mods. At this juncture I won’t have anyone branded/inked even if they ask nicely, but maybe with the right person who was already demonstrably into personal adornment and to whom I knew it was a long, healthy relationship, I might. I won’t take a single tail to someone either, but I might if I knew I wouldn’t put their or my eye out in the process.

From the context, SecondThoughts was trying to explore a soft limit and discovered that, during and after trying it out this clearly wasn’t something that worked for them. So, what to do? There’s a lot of pressure there on the sub- nobody likes feeling like you’re wishy washy, and even if your dom is very easy going, if you’re into obedience it can be emotionally hard for you to cry off mid-scene.

Sometimes things just don’t work out right in the moment and it’s not anyone failing, just not the right thing for that second. Many people use a multi-step safeword system for this reason. That’s the stoplight system red for ‘stop right now!’ and yellow or amber for ‘caution!’. You can discuss with your dom how best they want you to communicate when you’re just not feeling it. No reasonable dom wants to do genuine trauma to their partner so, while I usually don’t speak in ‘shoulds’, your dom should be understanding about this situation.

Psychologically speaking though,  it can also be easy to have pride in your ability to endure, so it can feel like you are failing when you admit that something is a bit much for you.  Things like pain thresholds can feel extremely competitive for people- with the perpetual war between “heavy” players and “soft” players. The counterpoint to feeling like what the dom says has to go regardless of your recovery after is that dominants are not telepathic.

On of humanity’s greatest strengths is our knack for communication- it extends from being able to function  between fundamentally different people who speak different languages, to being able to empathize outside of your species and guess what a dog is feeling or when a plant needs extra attention. However- even if you are hardcore into people as property, if you want to own someone, if your sub is a person that means one of the biggest gifts they can give you is their perspective.

Some of the tricks people use include asking the sub to keep a shared journal, or making a post-scene discussion part of aftercare. In an ideal world everyone would just be able to talk about stuff, but remember that there’s no shame in developing special rituals to make it easier to discuss things.

Now if you want a little more reading on the mechanics and function of safewords, I also recommend this post from Clarisse Thorn, who talks about Safewords and Check-Ins.

Just remember, accidents happen. It’s not just avoiding mistakes that is important, but how you handle things after something does go wrong.

Friday Femdom Fiction: You Can’t Get What You Want

Nature made her curvy and gave her the will to make men weak. In a kinder world, she would have been as yielding and plaint as the supple softness of her body. Instead, she’s learned that she loved the way it let her lead and torment. She fed off them, desired their desire, often more than she wanted sex.

Sex, after all, was a messy process, occasionally rewarding, but her body demanded being handled just the right way and so few met her standards that she had gotten used to failures. It was, in her private mental estimation, easier to make them suffer for her and take that as a more nourishing food for her libido. Tonight, she was on a date. He was sweet, and funny, but tonight she felt like seeing him beg and saying no.

The dress she wore wrapped around her, skimming but never squeezing, tailored in imitation of the contrasts of her body. The walked together, arm in arm, him supporting so that the spikes of her heels wouldn’t trip her on the cobbles, feigned fragile need for him, like a lure. From time to time she’d brush up against him, sharing her warmth.

He wanted her, but they had done little more than kiss, and once his hand had crept over the top of her ass, enjoying the way that the taper of her waist made it a natural gesture, but he didn’t dare push further.

Instinctively, he seemed to know she dropped boys who were pushy: “Please, I’m going to fuck you!” They would threaten, and then she, seeing the game was too much for them would gently ghost away. She considered herself kind, and would tell them forthright, “I like to tease.”

She liked him, in her way, liked the line of his shoulders and the masculinity of his walk. He was the right mix of hesitancy and desire and desire for her, at least to be one of her victims. He’d earned that right when he had, one night three weeks ago, edged up against her at the party.

So she started her campaign to destroy him with little touches, not enough to seem anything other than innocently interested. In her opinion, men didn’t get touched enough, and it was another weakness. Pet them, massage them and they folded.

He took her home, dutifully, up to the walkway before her apartment building. They kissed, and she gave a playful laugh. Her mouth strayed from his, to his chin, then his ear, tongue tip testing when she saw him tense.

Those curves shifted as she squirmed her body, rubbing against him. It turned her on and made her wet to see the change in his breathing as her hip found his crotch, bumping gently. A few wriggles and she noticed she was making him properly hard.

The yellow glow of the light beside the door gave everything a warmth. His grip on her got tighter, and she made a slight move to pull away, only to turn so her back was to him but he was still holding her. She arched her spine, and made a small noise of contentment as she began to grind against him.

The same trick of nature that made her soft of body and hard to please had also made her sensitive. She was teasing herself as much as she teased him, feeling herself get more and more into the connection they were building together. It was just a simple thing, rocking, right-left, the writhing coming from a pivot at her waist and a flex of her slightly bent legs. She gave another deep sigh, focused on him and how he was starting ot have trouble staying upright.

Then, as she expected he broke first. “Please… please can I come upstairs?”

“No.” She smiled and kissed him one last time, pulling away, fingers brushing him over the front of his pants. “I’m sure you will be thinking about me later.”

~~~~

This one was 3/4 finished, so while I am not the happiest with it I still packaged it up to post. In reality there’s a part of this story that’s very true- grinding up against men is a favourite activity of mine and I do adore teasing. I could probably do it for hours 

Like what you read? Want your own femdom stories? Click here to order a custom erotica story.

 

Topping From All Angles (And A Bit Of How I Dom)

Let’s talk about topping from the bottom.

Recently I did tentative discussions about stuff with someone about kinky fun times- the usual things about what happens to whom, and how. and, over the course of very gentle exploration, we discussed that there were things he liked, yes, but he didn’t want me to think he was topping from the bottom.

A bunch of people are weighing in on this particular dispute topic right now- the danger on emphasizing the negatives of that term. Snarksy blogged about it, where as over on Twitter @MsCrosswords from Beyond the Valley of the Femdoms was talking about the challenge of a partner who thought he wasn’t allowed to ask for stuff. At all. I’m old enough, in terms of participating in the online kink stuff, to remember when the term was not out of favour in the circles I run in. To be precise, “Topping from the bottom”, when I first encountered it, meant the phenomena in which the one who is receiving the topping (the bottom) or the person who is ostensibly submissive, is calling the shots in some format.

Back in the day, it was often a term used for a punishment dynamic gone wrong, where the rigidity of the rules meant that a masochist was getting rewarded for doing stuff the dom really didn’t want. It’s also was expanded to refer to the phenomena of the laundry list, something that seems mostly particular to F/m more than M/f.  In that case, it was a  series of demands based on the sub’s perception of D/s in exclusion to what the dom wanted, often with poor desire to respect boundaries. It’s good to have a term to talk about this problem, right?

So how can this go wrong?

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Post Mortum Of My Relationships To This Date

So various things happened to me over the last month or two, which has strangled updates down to a trickle.  In the first place work decided to be a pain in the butt and then laid me off. Then stuff happened regarding Strong and other… stuff.

It makes me introspective about my life choices, especially in light of what i’m watching other people go through. I am of the philosophy that two people in a relationship both play a role in creating the dynamic you play out, which is not the same as shared culpability should one person abuse the other, but the dissolutions and breakups we have, and the errors we make are still valuable lessons.

Some people like the high school boys I dated, were just nice boys- the first one I was maturing from girl to woman still, and too loopy for a relationship, while the long term high school boyfriend was sweet, but the take away there I got was not to date anyone dumber than you, because you had to respect someone you’re with. Nocturnal was an exercise in working out what I should and shouldn’t tolerate. In hindsight, if you aren’t used to being respected, you can mistake neediness for being important.

With Strong and why we broke up: As far as my perspective on the situation, not all relationships are stable or meant to last, and I went into it with the suspicion that our gulf in ages meant that we were in different places but more to the point, his tendency to precisely box everything off to control it was going to fight our D/s connection, while his communication style didn’t allow for candid admission of failure. To be exact I was his training dom, a safe woman who wouldn’t gut him in the process of him finally getting to feel loved and wanted for his vulnerabilities.

As far as my part in our breakup, since I am, shall we say, not a fan of conflict, there was little I could do in this circumstance beyond letting it be as it would be. I’d like to think I’m still a net positive on his life. And and I forecasted, from our initial connection where I crawled into his head, that was unsustainable, and he got himself increasingly walled off to the point where, as of the end of June, I was dealing with manufacturing my own happiness again. Which is to say, a very gentle  and lucky way to find yourself breaking ties with someone.

For a brief few months before that, Strong had the rare gift of being able to have more impact on my happiness than I could have on it independently, and then I went back to making me happy. I dissolved our D/s agreement when I was no longer helping him, but also as a confirmation that I had learned some of the lessons I was supposed to learn from the Ex.

The Ex is one of those cases where it can be hard to talk about it because of how embarrassed and ashamed that sort of banal awful makes you feel when you survive it. It can be completely inexplicable- how did I let someone treat me like an idiot domestic servant, deny me sleep to the point of contributing to academic issues with my education and exacerbating my emotional health problems, while letting them so terrorize me that I completely unable to resist them? They are not, what you’d describe, as intimidating.

Well, the profoundly fucked up childhood I grew up with sure as heck did not help. Let’s be honest, when you learn your relationship models from a situation with abuse and enablers, it makes it much easier to ignore the what-the-fuck-are-we-doing?! feelings the insanity of an abusive dynamic engenders until you are enmeshed. That’s a hard other thing to talk about, because I don’t want sympathy for the shit that occurred at this juncture, and I’m leery of being treated like I’m dangerously crazy because I survived it- or not being taken seriously because someone hurt me.

The Ex was, to be honest about things, not all bad, but he was a horrible match for my own anxieties and vulnerabilities. If, in a love match, you can feel like you found a key for your lock, the Ex and I meshed his issues and controlling streak with my yielding , appeasing approach. Yes, while a dom (TM), generally speaking I tend to take stuff that’s not in my control and let it slide. I’m not one of those True Leaders people like to brag about being.

If you’re going to get all metaphorical about stuff, I’m a water person. I don’t make walls, I flow around stuff and find my own level. I can certainly be disturbed, but just as much as I can get all choppy and disturbed on the surface, but I can also take in and soak things pretty well.

Strong was an earth person, who put walls up absolutely everywhere, and locks people into them. The Ex? Fire, maybe? At once burning bright, but so fragile, needing to be sheltered and to consume constantly to survive. All appetites and needs, which was fascinating to my dominant/nurturing streak, but no brakes on the devouring aspect.

Wow, this is getting long. I’ll continue after the jump.

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Myself, and Moving On

Pretty, pretty...

Let’s talk about my love life, these days, shall we?

My nails bite into his back, but he takes them, sharp as they are, and he is unbreakable. His skin in thick, the muscle underneath taut to the point of hardness. I stab and press and nothing makes him yield, but gradually, with my strength into it, I feel the start of a pliancy. He’s tough, and there’s a challenge there, beyond simply getting a reaction, to help melt away the wiry solidity into something completely supple.

I’m white as a snowdrop against the sallow-sand colour of his skin, my body soft where he is hard and rough. Our bodies slide together in a way that meets and balances, although he is taller, I can lift him without excessive effort, not just because of his lightness but because I’ve always been fairly strong for a woman. My head fits well against his chest, nestled against his shoulder, and my arms around him, seatbelt-safe. His hands, casually playing around my waist, find the exact place on my spine where the muscles and bone carry things too heavily, pressing until the always-ache I’ve learned to ignore lets go.

I lean over the foot of his bed, stretching, and watch his slender, straight legs, upside down. I like to look at the ratio between the spareness of his body and the breadth of his shoulders. I like the way his eyes are hooded and long lashed, and the delicate sculpting of his nose. I like the gravel in his voice, and the way he looks at me, sometimes wanting, sometimes with a hesitant vulnerability like he’s not sure quite what he’s doing, but most times just hard to read as he’s usually pretty closed off. That, in itself, is a challenge, since I’m used to being the one knocking reactions out of people.

We try little bedroom games, what works and what doesn’t, but just as much, we talk about all the things that tell who you are, a few pieces every time, and twine up together, in a lock-knot of limbs.

I am happy, although it’s very much a situation built on shifting silt, as mercurial as one might expect given the circumstances. It’s not a safe and stable meeting, and I don’t feel sure footed with him, at once sharing myself with as much flayed honesty as I can and on the other hand, keeping some restrictions on the impulsivity and carnal impishness that defines me. We are not sure what we are doing, not sure what I am, other than that I am there and present at this moment, where I can help.

So I make myself into the safe, accepting stillness that I learned how to be a long time ago, and I tell him that for now, I’m in charge, until the storm has passed us by. On the balance, the trade off is knowing him with nothing in the way of illusions, in the rawness of a crisis, and finding nothing lacking in him or his response to it. So there’s that.