Exorcism

It was a couple of years ago. I wasn’t sleeping – the sudden and high-profile death of a friend and mentor had propelled me into the spotlight, and I was completely unprepared for it. Suddenly my words were being quoted in all the papers and everyone – EVERYONE – knew my name. I spent my days working tirelessly to help the ones my friend left behind and I spent my nights desperately searching for distractions from my crushing grief and fears for the future.

It was at night that I met my stalker. He was a fellow insomniac, one of the late-night denizens of alt.com, a mystic poet whose vocabulary made him sparkle in that sea of obscenity. He had lived in jungles and tundra and now resided in an abandoned schoolhouse hundreds of miles from me. We shared obscure poetry and old religion, and cybered kinky fantasies that kept the ghosts away in the wee hours of the night. As the weeks clawed their way into history, we grew closer, and there was talk of future visits, of conversations in the flesh both mundane and perverse.

He was witness to my first cybered orgasm, one that was felt in real life as well as written on the screen. Before him it had always been words with nothing behind them, a good story, but not real. For him, in the sad, cold light of a monitor, I jerked off to an imaginary friend I could neither see nor hear, but who was as close as my keyboard, and offered a moment’s comfort in my aching dispair.

We met up regularly online for a long time, spinning tales and talking mysticism. But there was one night I couldn’t make it, and the next day he threw obscenities at me that were so vile I can’t bring myself to write them here. I apologized for being unavailable and he apologized for his outburst, but then it wasn’t long before it happened again. And again. I discovered my mystic had never learned patience, or how to share, and the more attached he grew to me, the more abusive he was. It confused me – I couldn’t conceive of how I could inspire such need, such obsessive greed for my attention. I rationalized, I forgave, I told myself it was partially my fault, but the pattern never wavered, and his promises to be good never stuck. The more I pulled away, the more he swore at me. The more he swore at me, the more I pulled away…until, at last, I disappeared forever.

Did he know why I left? I can’t honestly say. I told him how much the verbal attacks scared and hurt me, but he was deaf to it. I regret that I couldn’t give him closure, or whatever parting gift he deserved, but, in the end, I just couldn’t find a way to do the right thing for *both* of us, so, given that I had to make a terrible choice between us, I realized I had to live the rest of my life with me.

However, he would not be put off. He has continued to contact me, and I’m slowly learning how to block his attentions from all the various online channels: IM, Facebook, alt and email. And every time he contacts me, I feel like I’m back in the thick of it, and I curse the tears that belie my inner torment.

I’ve thought often of how fragile I must be. I’m a teacher – I’ve been threatened by students and parents and coaches and even other teachers. I’ve had death threats and students with voices who “didn’t like me.” I should be able to handle a few words, a few angry syllables, on the screen, and yet…every time, it twists my stomach up in knots.

Last night he snuck in through a crack in my security to contact me again. I said, as I always do, “please do not contact me anymore” and he responded with

haven't you missed me at ALL?

I think about you all the time!

and I never understood why you left me...

and I felt doubly crushed. One by the memory of what we had and what was lost, and one by the sadness I have that he might really never understand what happened, to see his part in his own pain.

So, now I need an exorcism, a release from the guilt and the pain. I need forgiveness for my weaknesses and permission to be free of him. I want to absolve myself for leaving someone who was mostly a very good man, but sometimes a very weak man. It’s never hard to leave the pain behind – it’s the moments of joy before the pain that I mourn so bitterly.

Heart, we will forget him,
You and I, tonight!
You must forget the warmth he gave,
I will forget the light.

When you have done pray tell me,
Then I, my thoughts, will dim.
Haste! ‘lest while you’re lagging
I may remember him!

--Emily Dickinson

My Favorite Magazine

I was listening to the Foo Fighter’s version of Darling Nikki in the car today when I was reminded of this line:

I met her in a hotel lobby, masturbating with a magazine

When I first heard the song (the original by Prince), I was just barely 14. I had never been kissed, although I had held a boy’s hand through an entire play. (He was a theater kid, too, and he made me feel both giggly and like throwing up every time he came near me.) I knew the basics of sex from black and white drawings in science class and one rather confusing story from a friend of mine who claimed to have “done it” in order to keep her boyfriend from breaking up with her, although her somewhat shaky knowledge of anatomy suggested that “it” was perhaps something other than sex. (Regardless of what they did or did not do, it didn’t work – the boy had a new girlfriend by the following Monday.) And, believe it or not, I had never masturbated before in my life, although I did have a working understanding of how one would go about doing it.

So when I first heard the song, I was very, very confused. I remember wondering how the hell it was possible to masturbate WITH a magazine. What, did she roll it up really tightly? Wouldn’t it be too thick? Wouldn’t you get paper cuts in very unpleasant places? And what sort of hotel would let you do something like THAT out in the lobby?

So, for 10 or 15 years I carried an awkward image of a hot girl/woman doing terrible things to a periodical and then, one day, I heard the song again while driving with my husband and I suddenly yelled out, “*with* a magazine! *with* a magazine, not WITH a magazine!” I imagine my husband thought I was insane, but I was thrilled to finally realize the poor girl wasn’t trying to shove Road & Track up where the sun don’t shine.

Now if I could only work out how he shoved a bunch of wild horses into his pocket, everything'd be perfect...

Bad Boy Kyle

Kyle offered to take a few pictures for me yesterday, and I happily accepted, offering suggestions as to setting and content. What appeared in my inbox a few hours later was a collection of almost 3 dozen photos that blew me away.

Of course, I just had to share a few. Call it bragging or just wanting to share his sexy goodness with the world...these are some damn fine pictures.

Kyle the handy man caught with his pants down:



This is what happens to boys who don't know how to behave around a lady:



What's wrong, Kyle? Cat got your tongue?



Kyle calmly explaining all the things he's gonna do as soon as I untie him...



...but why on earth would I do that?

HNT - Curves

When we fell into bed together, I quickly grabbed my camera
because I wanted to save this picture forever:



With Kyle above me, I have the most beautiful view in the world.
Skin like cream against my cinnamon thighs,
perfect round breasts that beg to be kissed and caressed
and then what you can't see -
strong sexy thighs that thrust and grind,
a round ass and loving arms,
lips that adore me, eyes that seduce me
and a smile that illuminates his love in the dark.

Shower Games

I stepped into the spray of warm water and let it wash over my body, feeling my nipples harden from the shock. As I enjoyed the warmth streaming down over my breasts, I called to him,

"boy, come here," and his expectant face appeared from behind the shower curtain. "Get in, boy, I want you to soap me up," I said, to his obvious pleasure.

He stepped into the shower quickly and found the liquid soap. He poured a generous amount into his hands and rubbed them together to warm it up. Then he looked up at me, eyes blinking as the water bounced off my skin and hit his face, and waited for my command. "Yes, boy," I directed, and he placed his strong hands on my shoulders and slowly ran them down my chest, circling my breasts and cupping them gently before sliding down my belly and letting a few fingers lightly glance over my sex. He got down onto his knees to continue caressing my skin, leaving whirls of white foam in his wake. Strong fingers pulled at my thighs, manipulating pressure points and expertly relieving the stresses of the day.

I grabbed a fistful of hair and pulled his face to within inches of my cunt, but he kept working, massaging my calves with the palms of his hands. I could see him sputtering as the water hit his mouth, but his eyes were fixed on me, on the lips that were swelling with desire at his touch.

Abruptly, I pulled him by the hair to a standing position and used one hand to shove him against the cold tie wall. His ass jerked back, shocked by the cold, but I pressed him against it firmly, dropping my other hand to grasp his hardening cock in my fingers. Staring into his half-lidded eyes I began to stroke him, watching his breathing as it became more and more labored, his chest as it started to rise and fall with need, his lips as they curled up off his teeth, making him look more wolf-like than human. With practiced hands, I pumped his cock hard, stroking and squeezing and loving the feel of it growing beneath my touch. I raked my other hand across his chest, leaving bright red lines in the shape of an R as I felt him nearing release. And then, just as his thighs tightened and his head tipped back to let loose a roar, I let go.

"Stop, boy."

He stifled a cry, but knew better than to argue. He looked up at me with desperate, pleading eyes.

"Go clean yourself up, boy. Your Mistress is going to take you to dinner. Be quick about it and I might allow you your orgasm tonight when we get home."

In Ignorance, the Fall

Compared with starting a land war in China, my lapse in judgment had been small. I was home by myself, feeling lonely and it began as these things always begin – a cute boy and innocent conversation. Yes, it was on Fetlife, and, yes, we each scanned the other’s profile for pictures and kinks, but, despite the setting, it all started without any depraved intent save distracting me from a bit of jealousy I was feeling at the time.

Our correspondence continued on, but increasingly less innocent. We talked of kink, which isn’t that remarkable, because I talk about kink with a lot of people, but we were talking about hopeful desires, not just idle possibilities. He and I had little in common except parenthood and a love of no-holds-barred force, and we chatted off an on about favorite scenes and experiences. We discovered a friend in common, and I realized I had heard about my new acquaintance before without realizing it. Chatting became a daily ritual, checking in and saying hello, sharing a few words about family, life and kink and then signing off to go face the world.

Then he had a dream about me. A really, REALLY good dream.

Now, it’s important for me to point out that poly does not mean I get to, or want to, fuck everything on 2 legs. Poly is an agreement between loving partners to consider other possibilities should they come up. Kyle and I had met while still seeing other people and married to others, so the question of boundaries had never been broached. But, at the same time that I was getting to know my new friend, Kyle was growing closer to someone else, and suddenly we found ourselves adrift in uncertain seas. Neither of us wanted to actually impose, or even suggest, restrictions on the other, except for the little voices inside each of us that were begging for them. New partners can be scary and threatening no matter how adult and reasonable everyone wants to be…inside where we carry our insecurities, we fear the partner who might steal our beloved away.

So Kyle and I talked. We wrote and chatted and talked and wrote some more. We opened up and admitted to things we imagined ourselves too timid to ever say out loud. We were courageous and loving and that 3-day conversation was one of the best and bravest things we’ve ever done together. In the end, we agreed to no official restrictions, but I offered to nip things in the bud with my new friend, because it had the potential of taking energy away from Kyle and my husband in a way that I wasn’t sure I had room for in my head. I felt sorry to end things, but sure that it was the right thing to do.

It took me 2 days to start up that final conversation with my new friend, because I wasn’t sure where to begin. I wasn’t even sure someone could end something that hadn’t really started, and, that, in itself, intimidated me. So I began with the truth, and told him about my conversation with Kyle and that, horribly, we could “still be friends.”

And this was when I lost my way.

He was sad, he said, sorry we couldn’t continue. We both silently reflected on all the imaginings of future meetings that would have to be abandoned, all the possibilities that would no longer be ours. With terrible dread it dawned on me how much larger this friendship had been to me, and I felt terribly foolish to be so surprised at discovering my own feelings. How had I convinced myself this would be easy? How could I not have known the size of it? However, I was not completely off the path yet - there was still a chance at salvaging my intentions.

But I didn’t say goodbye like I should have. I stayed, enjoying a bit of silliness with my new, now ex-, friend. We joked about getting over each other, and considered what “just friends” might look like, if it was even possible. We talked unguardedly, like friends, and then my feelings slipped away from me.

I wanted to scream at him, “why can’t you just tell me I’m awful, call me a cold-hearted bitch, and be done with it?” The gentle, open way he responded made me hate myself for what I was forcing myself to do.

Of course, I did the only thing that could have possibly made this mess worse. I told Kyle. I admitted how hard it was, how surprised at myself I felt, and he responded with kindness, understanding and guarded shock – if it was hard, he reasoned, then there had been more to it than I had let on. I apologized over and over for not knowing myself, and prattled on about feelings and conflict. The things I said were not, by any stretch of the imagination, making things better.

Truly, I started out wanting to do the right thing, and, yet, managed to do the most wrong thing possible. Kyle was left wondering about my feelings, and my new friend was left believing it was over. In a moment of choice, I had the power to make one of them happier, and yet I managed to hurt them both…not out of malice or spite, but out of sheer, blind ignorance.

Know then thyself, presume not God to scan;
The proper study of mankind is Man.
Placed on this isthmus of a middle state,
A being darkly wise and rudely great:
With too much knowledge for the Skeptic side,
With too much weakness for the Stoic's pride,
He hangs between; in doubt to act or rest,
In doubt to deem himself a God or Beast,
In doubt his mind or body to prefer;
Born but to die, and reasoning but to err;
Alike in ignorance, his reason such
Whether he thinks too little or too much:
Chaos of thought and passion, all confused;
Still by himself abused, or disabused;
Created half to rise and half to fall;
Great lord of all things, yet a prey to all;
Sole judge of truth, in endless error hurled:
The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!

-- Know Thyself by Alexander Pope

Censorship

Something curious happened over the weekend to my twitpic account - I was censored. Now, I've known for some time that the pictures I was posting were pushing the boundaries of the terms of service, but I had also noticed that a lot of other folks were getting away with an awful lot of boundary-pushing of their own, so I figured, heck, why not? Over the past few days, I was answered with a bit of quiet censorship. Without notifying me, the folks at twitpic quietly deleted some of my pictures.

What's surprising is the nature of the censorship. Only some of my pictures were deleted, and not necessarily the ones I would have thought. For example, this was deleted:

But this was left for all the world to see:

I find this rather curious. Is an open mouth really more indecent than thinly-veiled nipples? Have the folks at twitpic finally realized that breasts should be celebrated and not condemned? Or, as I suspect, did they respond to an anonymous complaint with some superficial pruning, leaving my older, but just as scandalous, photos intact?