One time--I don't remember exactly when--he read a whole bunch of past postings from my blog. I woke up to a number of e-mail responding to blog entries of previous months, and felt hopeless because I could do nothing.
And then, the blog remained unspoken. But I also think we'd never be exploring in this direction if the blog hadn't been there. It seems to me that time and again, my insecurities have demarcated boundaries with him. And occasionally things I have said have been interpreted through his insecurities. (It amazes me that he has any--he seems to me to have his life together so well. But I suppose we mirror each other, in that we seem, on the exterior, to be operating really well, but underneath feel less together.)
So for the first time in over a year, we blurred the boundaries between the intimacies of our e-mails, the friendliness of our face-to-face conversations and even a little bit of my insecurities of the blog.
He started it! ;) I seem to have this belief that men want what they can't have, and since John knows I'm interested in him, that makes me less interesting. I think he went off with that chick from Texas last spring because she was new and shiny. But once he broached the topic, we sort of let everything come out.
My fear is that he isn't attracted to me. That he wishes he were because I have my life relatively together, and it would be easier (no, not easier--he knows me well enough to know that nothing is easy with me--vital, engaged, exciting, but not easy), but I'm not some damsel in distress. And intellectually he might like to be with someone that isn't looking for someone to 'save' her. But he said that isn't the case: "Patience isn't rejection."
I said something along the lines of "you could have gotten me in bed a year ago. And I tend to think men go after what they want."
He replied: "I've had fast-food, and either of us could go out for a quarter-pounder. But this is too chefs planning a gourmet meal."
And he also made it really clear that if we ended up together (and neither of us knows if we would--we still haven't kissed--what if I hate the way he kisses?), he would not push me in the S&M area. Nothing is required of me. I actually said (and I don't remember all the details of the evening--it has the hazy fog of a 1920s filtered film) but I'm not usually this blunt: "If it makes me wet and you hard--we'd have to find ways to include it."
I believe (and I think he knows I meant well, whether or not he agrees) that he had to have a chance to play and explore the kinky world when he finally found it. I was the first person he talked to. And I, at the time, felt like an abused puppy. I needed tenderness and gentleness before I could get in touch with the masochistic side of me, which is absolutely there, even if I almost never admit it. I couldn't enthusiastically play with him. And now, when I'm in a much better place than I was, I still wouldn't be able to go to the depths that he would probably enjoy exploring. But then I absolutely couldn't.
So I told him something along those lines. And I said "After the Republican slapped me." I didn't tell him this, but when my ex and I got back together, I said flat out--"I never want to be slapped on the face again as long as I live." And the ex said "OK." And a couple of times he psyched me out, but didn't slap me, was tender, but the psych out was enough and I numbed out and he stopped even playing in that direction. Only ever tender with my face. And it started to heal that part of me.
And Saturday, John tapped me ever so lightly on my cheek, and then left his hand there, and I nuzzled it greedily, like a kitten. I think that is the first moment I've actually surrendered for him on a kinetic rather than an intellectual level. And then he looked me straight in the eyes and did it again, and I didn't flinch. "It's the person, not the action" he said. I don't love that and I doubt seriously I'd ever ask for it. But somehow I was a little stronger for it.
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