The Letter E

My relationship with drugs is a strange emotional tangle. I want to understand it, but most days it's a mystery even to me. I keep inspecting the threads, and sometimes I manage to pull one or two out of the knot, and it gets a little smaller. I'm not really sure who dropped the ball of yarn down the stairs, or when, but eventually I will get it all organized. Maybe if I lay out the extant thoughts, it will encourage more. This may be a lot of disorganized rambling, but if so, it would mirror what's in my head on this subject with fair accuracy.

I've already gone over my family history with alcohol. I'm sure that plays a part, but it confuses me that I get far more uptight about drugs than I do about drinking. (When I say "drugs," I'm referencing the recreational use of any non-alcoholic substance, legal or illegal.) Logic would have me with an emotional trigger against alcohol...but no. I've been drinking for years, and I understand it. As long as I and the people around me are using alcohol responsibly, I'm supremely unconcerned about it.

I'm touchy, however, about any other substance. My reactions are part, "I don't understand [empathetically speaking]," part, "Why would you do that?"

I believe that people should be able to do what they want to their own bodies, and at the same time I feel a deep concern about people who want to be high, that gets voiced as, "Aren't you satisfied with the world we've got here? It's amazing! Just look around."

My personal history with drug use is very limited. The first time I tried smoking pot, I was 19, and it did nothing for me. I got some amusement out of watching my friend Mario talk about how pretty the snow was. I tried again a few months later, with a coworker from a strip club, and nothing happened then either, except that I got exceptionally angry about something stupid a couple of hours later, and my then-boyfriend told me it was probably a side effect.

I tried again at 21, on the trip to visit Alejandra that ended up so awkwardly, and got another load of absolutely nothing. At that point I decided that pot was obviously not for me, and pretty much forgot about it. Kevin and I developed a habit of leaving parties when people went to go smoke. It was usually late enough that we had had our good party time anyway, and we were usually the only ones not interested. It was never a "stomp off in a huff" kind of leaving; just an, "Oh, it's that time, I guess we'll go home." The habit stuck with me after I got rid of Kevin.

My next experience was being offered a smoke by Aiden and Shelby when we first got together. I've already gone over that story, so I won't rehash it.

In the category of harder drugs, my experience is even less. Kevin was addicted to a whole lot of things when he was in his teens and twenties, both prescription and non-, and he told me stories about some of the awful things that had happened. By the time we met, he'd been clean for quite a few years, and was proud of that fact. When Aiden came into my life the first time and my relationship with Kevin fell apart, Kevin suggested giving me E as a way of putting it back together.

I wasn't pleased with that suggestion. In fact, it disturbed me deeply, for several reasons. The biggest was that he thought drugs were an okay way to address a relationship problem. The second is that he wasn't going to do the E himself; he was just going to feed it to me. I felt like he was trying to activate sort of cheat code in my brain, to reprogram me to be infatuated with him because he was desperately unsatisfied with reality.

The third issue was that his own experience with E had been a bad one, landing him in an ice bath in the emergency room. When I asked him if that might happen to me, he theorized that because I have weird issues controlling my body temperature anyway, there was a pretty good chance it would.

I took that combination of factors to mean that he was okay with potentially killing me if it meant I might fall in love with him again. False love, mind you. Drug-induced "love," that he assured me would be permanent.

I didn't take the E.

I'd read descriptions of good E trips that sounded like fun, and I'd had enough interest previously to have written a novel based on the results of an unintended E trip. (They say to write what you know, and clearly research was needed.) But after that stupidity, I just put the interest away in a box, along with a few other things I had to accept that I'd never do as long as I stayed with Kevin. (Among the other contents of that box: fuck a hot guy. I distinctly remember the day I sighed and gave up on that one. God I'm glad I took the lid back off my box...)

When Aiden and I were back together again, I remembered that he used to do E. I considered asking about it, then told myself that was a dumb idea if I'd ever had one. We were adults, and I should damn well act like one, not like someone who never grew beyond high school.

One night I activated the Power of Drunk Texting, and thoroughly confused Aiden by asking him something like, "Do you still do the things you used to do?"

He asked me the next morning what I meant, and I winced and told him not to worry about it. Maybe I even claimed I couldn't remember what I meant. But somehow, eventually, it came out that I had been referring to E, and I admitted that I was interested. He said they had something whose street name I no longer remember, but somehow I memorized the chemical: 2,5-dimethoxyphenethylamine. (I got serious about doing my research.) We never did do whatever that was, but one day he asked if my interest extended to "other things." I said please don't hint around, just specify, and he specified acid.

I thought about it and said why not. Shelby asked me during a car ride whether I really wanted to do it or whether I was letting him push me around, and I assured her that I wouldn't let anyone push me around on that particular subject. I was grateful for her check-in.

On a lazy afternoon, we dropped the acid. I baked cookies while we waited for it to hit. We played with a hula hoop. We drank some wine. Nothing happened. Long story short, the doses weren't as strong as Aiden thought they were, and we ended up taking three hits each. Everything was hysterically funny, and I couldn't go to sleep when I was tired...and that's about it. The most spectacular feature was the boredom. I didn't see any dragons, and I finally got to sleep around 5am, mildly annoyed that it couldn't have been earlier.

At some point during the long night, Aiden handed me a glass jar full of ice and smoke and told me inhale it. He explained to my confused look that the ice cools off the smoke so it doesn't burn. I did as he told me, and succeeded only in reminding myself just how disgusting pot smells and tastes. Yuck. Why do people do this again?

A few months after that, there was the Meltdown. Two months further along, I agreed to be a supplier for my mom to ease the suffering brought on by the chemo, then deeply questioned myself for a couple of days. Shelby finally pointed out that I was mixing up the medical and recreational use camps, and I felt much better after that.

Caught up to last weekend, Aiden had procured some E. Shelby and I came home from an afternoon of brewing mead with Eben, and within five minutes of walking in the door, Aiden said to me, "You know what I think we should do tonight? We should roll."

That term was new to me, but I figured it out from context. I didn't say yes or no. When Shelby came downstairs, he said the same thing to her. We sat and ate dinner in relative silence, while a ping-pong ball careened around in my head, knocking against the inside of my skull. Yes, no, yes, no, what the hell, I wasn't prepared for this!

When we finished eating, Aiden went upstairs, and Shelby checked in. "No," I said, knowing that I was a level of freaked out that would lead to bad things. She nodded and said she had sensed that.

Aiden returned with a bottle and said, "So, shall we roll?"

"No," Shelby and I answered in unison, and he looked slightly taken aback, but said that was fine. He said that today had seemed like a good day because we didn't have to be anywhere tomorrow, and I said that while theoretically today was fine, springing the idea on me without warning wasn't going to work. The suddenness of the whole thing somehow triggered panic, and I had a moment of needing to prove that I could still control my own situation by saying no. (What am I, two years old?)

That treatise brings me up to date on the logic and events side of things, but doesn't do much to explain the mess in my head. I think I'll have to go a more poetic and less structured route to express that. To be continued...

On Consent

I have the sort of relationship with Consent that isn't acknowledged by well-intentioned sex-educational materials that say things like, "You have to have explicit consent, every time!" I get where they're going with that, and I don't fault them; I'm as against rape as any human with a heart. Particularly with a new partner whom you don't know well, the line between "fuck yes" and "god no" is often not a line at all, but a foggy field. The safest assumption is obviously to wait for the "yes" before the "fuck."

I'm rarely one to shy toward safety, however. I'll generally choose adventure over being comfortable. And how will I ever know what fun might be hiding in that foggy field if I don't take a step in and a wander around? Fear can be a hot button for me. My wiring is a little crossed, and I don't feel bad about it. Apologizing for who I am is pointless and only leads backward.

Aiden has made it clear that he's uncomfortable pushing the consent boundary. If one of us says we're sleepy, or simply doesn't respond to a neck or a shoulder gripped firmly in his teeth, it doesn't go any farther. Sleep is had, and sex is not.

I respect that. He explained to me a while back what the Trust looks like from the Dom's perspective: the faith that the sub will communicate, that they won't call the cops if something goes wrong in scene, that they won't deliberately mistranslate between the outside world and the private one.

I do respect that caution. But sometimes I don't want to be respected. I trust you to respect me in daily life, and to judiciously lay that respect aside when the moment is right.

Sometimes sleep is necessary; sometimes one of us isn't well (I promise not to eat any more pumpkin bean cake), or has to be up early. I don't say no all that often. But even then, sometimes it's a white lie. It's a challenge. It's a test. It's not really a no. I don't know how to communicate that to you, though.

All I can say is, I have a safe word. It's not "No," and the only experiment that would cause a true rift between us is ignoring its use.

The Edges

We bumped up against that wall again this weekend, the one that pushes him harder than it pushes me, where my boundaries are farther out than he's yet explored. I got annoyed and full of, We just had this conversation - why are we having it again?

He attacked me in the bathroom and we had a bit of a showdown. The entertaining kind that was mostly arm-wrestling and glaring. Then I got in the shower to wash off both the sex and the fight, and he followed me, and kept talking. Unable to get over it while it was still being poured on my head, I shut down and refused to talk, and finally started crying while trying to explain that the shower is not an okay place for this conversation.

Once I was dry and clothed again, I was together enough to thank him for pushing me and for opening up and admitting that he was nervous, and reiterate that it was not the wrong thing to do, it was just the wrong place to do it. He said that we're still learning, which is an attitude that I should use more often myself.

And we are making progress; I shouldn't overlook that fact. On Saturday evening he pinned me to the bed and started biting my side, digging his teeth in and tickling me with his tongue until I was shrieking and flailing. Shelby came in from the shower to see what all the commotion was about. I yelled and gasped and beat the wall until I couldn't deal anymore and yelled for him to stop. And he didn't. He kept right on biting me while I kicked and screamed and laughed, and it felt so good to be ignored.

When we were first falling unexpectedly into a relationship many years ago, he pulled me into an experience of BDSM that I hadn't had before. I'd played with handcuffs and hot wax and what have you, but I'd never felt what I've come to think of as the "real thing" - the power exchange, the intensity, the shift in perspective that comes with trusting someone so completely, even when you're scared of where it all might be going. I don't remember how the subject of BDSM ever came up between us. I don't know how he sensed that it was where I needed to go. I just remember him asking if I wanted to call him Sir, and answering, "Yes, Sir" without hesitation, because there was no other answer.

From that experience I learned to follow him; sexually, at least. He had more experience, and a mysterious but thrilling way of knowing what I wanted even when I didn't. He led me into things, told me how it was going to be, told me his deliciously twisted plans for me, and I ate it up. It was thrilling, and terrifying, and beautiful.

Even after we broke up and didn't speak anymore, I couldn't fill in the hole he had carved for himself in my psyche. Kevin ordered me one time to call him Sir, and I flat-out said no. When he asked why not, clearly sensing a storm behind my refusal, I told him that was Aiden's name. And he apologized, further cementing my knowledge that he wasn't worthy anyway.

When Aiden and I got back in touch last year and and were spending lots of time chatting about this and that, getting to know each other again, he mentioned that I should remember what it looked like when he took the leash off the Dom side of himself. I brushed it off with a demand to know why he would want to remind me of that. From the other side of a computer keyboard, it was easy to feign a screen of disgust over what was actually a powerful wave of, Oh god, yes please.

We've gotten to go many more places, play with many more things, and take our sweet time doing it over the last year, more so than we ever could have the first time around, when both of our lives were in uproar. He's made good on a handful of his threats, and proven that he knows a thing or two about how I work, both physically and mentally.

Apparently we've now explored enough that we're reaching some of his untested boundaries, instead of all of mine. Knowing that's the explanation, the grumpiness is giving way to a desire to hold hands and go exploring. Sometimes even I need to be reminded to look for the silver lining. I do love a good adventure...

Coming Around

I guess I panicked a little more than was necessary about the whole "death of passion" thing...but that's been my experience in the past. The first few weeks or months of a relationship are great, and then it gets boring. I don't ever want to be in a Hallway Sex relationship, where the partners just say "fuck you" as they pass in the hallway. Perhaps wanting to be conscious has led via over-correction to paranoia.

Aiden pointed out to me today that he's a bit new to this too, saying, "The D/s dynamic I have with you is the deepest and most intense one I have ever sustained. And sometimes I get wrapped up in the fuzzy being in love with you."

My first reaction was to point out that I tend to forget that, because it doesn't exactly add to the effectiveness of his Domination if I'm reminding myself that he's new to it.

But after some further consideration, I realized that reminder may have been exactly what I needed. Not to trigger my sympathy or what have you, but because the realization that he doesn't feel he has all the answers already makes me more willing to help find them.

He told me last week that he was enjoying an image in which I sat in front of him, telling him my sexual fantasies, while he slowly ordered the removal of my clothing one piece at a time. That's one of the most terrifying things he's ever said to me, and even though we were sixty miles from each other at the time and he wasn't asking me to do it then, I had a knee-jerk fear reaction.

Talking face-to-face is hard for me. Talking about my fantasies is also hard. The thought of combining those two things made me want to cry. I had an image of myself sitting down, clamming up, trying unsuccessfully to force words out, and then just freaking out and crying shamefully. That's what I did last time someone put me in that position.

A few days later I wrote the I Want entry, partially because it was on my mind and I felt like writing something hot, and partially to head off Aiden's threat. "There's nothing to say - I've already told you everything."

But my thoughts have changed a little. It feels less like a pressuring threat with today's new considerations and more like he's legitimately looking for ideas. So, I have one more that didn't make it into the poetic written record.

Ask me sometime. In person.

...maybe feed me a glass of mead first.

I Want

I want you.

I want you to want me.

I want you desperate, and desperately.

I want to tell you no and have you ignore me.

I want to do bad things with you, things that we shouldn't be doing. I want you to do bad things to me.

I want to be afraid. Of getting caught, of falling, of getting in too deep. Of you and your twisted mind. I can't emerge from the water until I've been under it.

Make it last.

I want you to take what's yours, and what's mine. Ignore my silly arguments. Tell me how it is. Tell me I can take it or leave it, but the things on the table are what they are.

Push me. Challenge me. Make me.

I want to go where we aren't allowed. I want to be a breath away from getting caught.

I want to know that there are consequences.

I want you to take a stand.

I want to dare.

I want you.

Sparky Is Dead

I drove Shelby home from my own town the other night, and we had a remarkable stream of Productive Conversation the whole time. We talked about lots of things over the course of the hour-plus drive, but the moment that sticks in my head was something she said while making the point that she sees Aiden as a very mutable person who sometimes mysteriously forgets who he used to be.

"He asked me the other day, Skylar wants me to be more dominant and I don't really understand...how do I do that?"

For a moment I was speechless, before blurting out something like, "Are you fucking kidding me?"

Sir has forgotten who he was. My dom - uncapitalized not in error - lost the spark. I saw it going, but I actually managed to have a little faith for once and decided he was just doing it to tease me.

See where faith has gotten me. Maybe being a cynical bitch all the time would be less disappointing.

He made some effort this weekend in the direction of being rougher with me, but I don't know how he's going to pull this one out. If there's one thing in which I have to have absolute trust, it's that my Dom knows what he's doing and has a plan. If he's just lost and wandering, I'm not going to put myself in his hands.

The whole assertive, confident, cocky Dom thing was what made him so exciting in the first place. Adrenaline and intrigue are what I got hooked on. And without that...I don't think there's a whole lot of attraction left.

Shelby said she got over losing her respect for him. She says that about most disappointments - "Yeah, I was angry. And then I got over it." I don't have that. I can't just give up. If I really do lose all the respect I've ever possessed for him, it'll be over. If he's no longer interested in my submission, or in being my Dom, I'll be heartbroken. And I'll go away.

I'm worried about where it's all going. Maybe moving in with them is a mistake. At least I know where I stand with Shelby; she and I have a pretty steady boat most of the time. Aiden's changing just puzzles the hell out of me. I don't understand what happened, and honestly, I'm kind of afraid to hear the answer.

Of all the places I could've imagined us ending up, "slow boring death of passion" wasn't one of them.

Random vs. Seldom

As good as the sex is with Aiden, sometimes I realize it's become a little normal and I'm itching for that extra something...the pain, the fear, the "unpleasant" things that make it so much sweeter. I was prodding him last night via instant message, and he told me, "Random reinforcement, doll."

"I have a hard time with random when it's also seldom," I replied. Not every sexual encounter has to be kinky. Vanilla is a flavor, after all; it isn't a blank sheet of paper. But when it becomes a little sprinkling of kink on a background of vanilla, I get twitchy.

One of the things I found most exciting when we got together was the taste of upcoming exploration. Sometimes it feels like he's forgotten about that. That's when I poke and prod and get annoying and bratty, and eventually escalate to spanking him just to get retribution. He's so hot when he gets that angry glint in his eye.