The Devil I Love

"In the end, I was the mean girl
Or somebody's in between girl
Now it's the devil I love
And that's as funny as real love"

- Neko Case, "Hold On, Hold On"

We're taught that love wins. Love trumps evil. What if you're in love with evil? With the wrongness of things? 

Love doesn't always conquer all. There are a ton of people who have lots of love in their lives, and are still living with discomfort, shame, dissatisfaction, disappointment. Loving someone doesn't mean you get what you want, or that your needs are being met. Raven Kaldera talks about falling in love with a dynamic, rather than a person. It can lead to disappointment, being in love with a concept represented by a person, rather than a person themselves. But maybe it's possible to be satisfied with this, but I don't see how - people are not static and have, unfortunately, faults and biases and egos. 

It's a little chicken-and-egg: Did you fall in love with a person, or did you fall in love with your Owner/Master/Mistress/submissive/slave? Are you even "in love"? 

I am attracted to wrong. I am attracted to subversive, gritty tough darkness. I long for emptiness, and restriction, and shadows. These things, these concepts do not make me happy, but they are necessary for my happiness. Halloween is coming. 

*Tarot card "The Devil" by Wren McMurdo

world in a bubble

i've lost interest in debate. i've lost interest in arguing about terminology, what i may or may not be, what's "right" or "wrong". i've lost interest in the gossip, the politics of online blogging.

mostly i'm interested in making sure i've hauled in enough wood for the night, the kitchen sink is clear of dirty dishes, and the coffee grinder is ready to go when needed. sometimes i put on clothes.

i'm happy as a clam.

i know it can't last forever. i know this is something like a honeymoon period, when it's all just joyful and sweet, and sometimes tears leak out of my eyes because i'm stuffed full of happiness and it just has to come out somewhere. it's work to leave the bubble - a trip to town takes a while anyway, so it had better be necessary, so it doesn't happen very often. i'm more often than not shoveling the car out for no reason other than to be outside, because it's fun. yeah - i know. it'll get old eventually.

i don't have anything kinky to say. i don't have much to say at all really, except the tea is sweet, the fire is cozy, and i couldn't care less if i'm marked or collared or a sub or a slave. it doesn't matter. it only matters that it's working.

(photo credit: Elessar Tetramariner's "world in a bubble")

that throwuppy feeling

you know how when big risky decisions get made and you hope and hope and hope you've made the right one and that the path will go forward in the direction towards utopia and beautiful sunsets and very little angst?

that the things that get left behind weren't for the best anyway and the struggles you'll get instead will be infinitely more valuable and love will come in waves upon waves on your head and on the ones around you?

and you can't even risk looking backwards because that makes you even more dizzy?

like that.

a slight modification

seven things i am afraid of:

1. your disappointment.
2. my own temper.
3. getting overweight again, irreparably so.
4. becoming too familiar with you.
5. becoming too distant from you.
6. that the chances we take will hurt everyone we know and love including ourselves.
7. not taking that chance.

i can't say that i am ready and willing and all-hot-fired-up for risk. everything i do these days is risky - there is so much riding on each and every decision that is made. i consult you obsessively, second-guess myself and then reassure myself and then wait for your reassurance to be sure.

i think somewhere along the way you taught me to trust myself as well as you, which is a gift i can never even come close to repaying.

gunshy

i have not yet learned whether or not my instincts are correct. i've fucked up too many times on too many important things to trust myself. maybe that's why obedience comes more naturally to me than independent action.

head, heart, hand

intellect, emotion, action

i'm glad you're feeling it, too. i know you are no different in this regard. yet again, we're on the same page.

a bedtime story

i have never been as amazed by someone's hands.

i don't wear a collar. and if i'm honest, this is just fine with me. i do have your collar - i rarely wear it. it's a sweet black leather strip with a lovely silver ring on it - perfect for leashing your loyal bitchproperty. but it's a tool, not a symbol.

i also sleep by your side. sometimes curled up my cheek resting on your back. sometimes hugging your hand with you curled around me like i'm a cunt-scented bedtime snuggly. your hand rests sometimes on my hip or back and there is no forgetting that you are there, and always the wispy memory of your snarl "mine," as i drift off to sleep, my lips puffy and sore and throat scratchy and cunt leaking.

your hands always touch me in your sleep. like a key for a lock.

on the one hand

all things are not equal. this is a rule of life, of physics, and of relationships - no matter what the flavor. where there is a lack in one place there is an overage in another. it's just the way it works.

you cannot love her the way you love me. nor can you love me the way you love her. i understand this - all things are not equal.

the ease with which you love her does not come easily to us. there is a past, a history, a pedestal to balance on. we have had only a tentative time with a multitude of factors, and she is not the same as me, and we will never be equal.

different and equal, which has never been the same thing as fair.

but this isn't always fair, is it.

this sounds like i am angry or sad or dissatisfied, and it's none of those. i'm just now reaching an understanding that you asked me for earlier that i did not achieve then.

nothing more than this.

"I'll never be able to thank You in any way other than to be myself."

-bitchwhore4

revisit

Today i revisit my own post, compersion - a love story.

there's nothing quite like being able to exclaim with giddiness "go, go! and take condoms!" to your owner.

i keep waiting for the bout of nausea to set in, when the world tips sideways and the idea of standing up straight and facing the day and the rollercoasters in it seems impossible. but it hasn't happened yet. i'm thrilled, i'm fascinated, and i'd do almost anything to be riding in his back pocket watching.

(photo credit to the website "poly matchmaker". yep.)

cheesy ode to ownership

i don't have anything sexy to say. no big scary scene to report, no emotional access gate openings.

what i can say is that daily, i am impressed by my owner, just as a person. just who he is, what he's about. the cool thing is that he's one of those people i just - like to be around. makes me feel good about myself, and who *i* am. i'm so over not feeling good about myself, and i can't tell you how nice it is to wake up every day and recognize that he has, actually, made me a better person by simply being who he is.

i'm lucky, and grateful, to have such a person in my life.

the right phrase

"...a love so violent it was almost it's opposite."

-A.S. Byatt, "Babel Tower"

quietly

quiet quiet there are people that could be listening and may not be but it's no matter because what it is for us isn't any different if they're listening. sometimes when you don't want me to have a voice i turn inside-out and every sound and color is as sharp as your teeth biting my skin. quietly quietly

yes i cling to your arm yes i do that i touch it and stroke it and i pay attention because i may not get another chance because i am grateful for just the small moment of sweetness when you let me show you that i am not just owned because i can't not be but because i.chose.you.

paraphrased

k: he holds your hand?
me: puke. i mean, yeah. he does.
k: do you dislike it because you just dislike it or because you don't trust it?
me: hm. both. i dislike it because i distrust it. it always used to feel like bullshit.
k: yeah, i get that - me too.
me: it scares me.
me: i'm terrified of i don't know what.
k: you know what.
me: what? what am i scared of?


i am a thing on the way

i see you everywhere
your eyes on me
you're a watcher a thinker
i'm a thought
that crossed your
path in hope
a crisscross on my skin
marked that you met me there
once

study this one [note to self and others].

what pixie has to say about submission, love, polyamory, and sacrifice. here.

get what you give

"can you feel your heart pumping
when it goes fast, you go fast
when it goes medium, you go medium
when it goes slow, you go slooooooow..."

-LS

i've had a few people recently point out that i'm very lucky in my relationship with my owner, and that i've found some balance and peace lately. there's no question that i am very, very lucky. my owner is an amazing person, we seem to be fitting together very well so far, and despite the every day challenges of daily existence, i'm a better person all around for this. there's a note of envy sometimes with the comments, and sometimes i hear the question behind it.

it's pretty simple, i think. you get what you give. it doesn't really matter the particulars of what you're looking for in a relationship, ultimately - because you're only going to receive what you're putting out there. so, my shop-worn faux-zen advice:

- want someone to love you? love yourself.
- want someone with an aesthetically beautiful body? make damned sure you're pleased with your own.
- need financial security in your partner? be able to support yourself if it comes down to it.
- want someone who will be obsessive about controlling your every move? be able to keep your own self under control when necessary.
- looking for someone who is happy? BE happy.

BE happy.

(song credit to a beautiful and happy 5 year old who's wise beyond his years.)

a taste

my owner is a sex god. yes indeedy, he is. look what he gave me.

okay yeah i feel like one of those cheese-o-rama "subbies" warbling on and on about how wonderful Master is, but hell. my owner is wonderful.

(and i swear my boobs are not as big as they seem in this pic.)

wonderful. sex god. don't forget.

pioneers

it is indeed a new world. figuring in polyamory, power dynamics, gender issues, heteroflexibility, and social responsibility, it turns out i'm juggling a lot. for the most part i muddle my way forward, and on occasion realize i have no idea what the hell i'm doing, i'm just doing my best. there's not a lot of role models in this arena, and we all have to make our own way.

i think i'm taking a slight left fork in the road of polyamory, in that i'm starting to look more closely at the theory that it's not really about setting up a particular family style, as much as it is being open to the possibilities each person i run into brings with them. if i threw everyone into a big pot and called it an open family, would that suffice? in the past year i've changed my opinion about a hundred times about what it is i think i'm searching for, and maybe i should just stop searching and enjoy.

i've faced the fact that if i had a choice in the matter, i still probably would have chosen egalitarian heterosexual monogamy. as hard as that is, submissive heteroflexible polyamorous ain't such a piece of cake either.

compersion - a love story.

totally lifted off the TSR boards, here.

"In the growing American poly demographic, a language and culture is starting to sprout. One of the new terms that has been invented and is going around is "compersion".

Compersion was invented as a term for what could be roughly considered the opposite of jealousy. It has been described as "knowing that your partner is getting it on with their other partner down the hall, and feeling nothing but happiness that your partner is having a wonderful time". So that is, ideally, what one gets out of one's lover's polyamory: the knowledge that they are getting their needs met, are having a great time, and are generally happier for this being in their life. One would assume that one would like to see one's beloved happy in all possible ways, yes? I would assume that would go especially for those whose submissive lives center entirely around one's beloved.

Of course, in order to achieve compersion, you have to first be able to look at your own needs and figure out which aren't getting met. Some you may be able to get your partner to help meet ("I really need for there to be one sexual activity which is special for us") and some you will probably have to work on purging. The big demons in the latter category are usually social programming. We are told, by our culture, that sex is the coin in which we are paid to show how much a lover cares about us and is committed to us. In polyamory, that coin doesn't have that value any more (which means that it tends to become time and attention spent instead), and people often have to go about deconstructing that social/mental construction.

One also has to give up on the Cinderella/nuclear family/people in pairs like shoes and socks romantic myth. As in, give up on it entirely. Kiss it goodbye. Let it go. Mourn it. Have a funeral for it, scream and cry and bury the fucker. Realize it for the social construction that it is, realize its purpose in being constructed, and that you do not need it. Acknowledge also how much of a hold it has over you, from the little girl in the bride gown pretending to get married and live monogamously ever after to the mystique of "going steady". Then, when you're done mourning it and you've uncrossed your fingers behind your back (where you've been pretending that you didn't really need to let it go), start thinking about what Love really is. Look at your relationship and say, "Is there enough love here to make it work even without that dream?" You'll probably be surprised.

Then find yourself a new coin and ask your lover to pay you in that. Time and attention? Special privileges? What says "primary" to you that isn't bound up with monogamy? Stretch your thinking. Then, when all this is done, you can start to work on compersion - see how happy it makes your beloved to have both of you. Not her, not you - both of you. Love it because it makes him so happy.

This is the only road out of that hell that I know of."

-Raven Kaldera

for a friend

compost

i picture you among the debris
she left
turning it over and over until
it's something rich for you
to grow again in

10 things i learned so far

1. that i mean it when i say it.
2. it's not so easy to say it in the first place, so i'd better think carefully first. leading to...
3. think before i speak. loose lips sink - subs.
4. labels suck, and i don't care what you think i am (or not). it only matters what he thinks, and what i think. rest of y'all can eat my dust, i'm not waiting for you to catch up.
5. the things i don't want to do are what i consider edge play for me. they may be tiny things to anyone else, but that's where he pushes my so-called limits.
6. i will not go backwards.
7.pain does not make me wet. submitting does.
8. love came secondarily, not primarily, and that's ok. love as an afterthought isn't such a bad thing.
9. love is not a guarantee or a promise. it just - is.
10. i'm stronger than anyone realizes. except him, maybe. he realizes it. now i realize it.