Muscle Memory

This seems to be my week for dating--4 guys in 7 days. So far, the young man (Will), is the only prospect, although the one tonight has me intrigued.

Yesterday I went out with a man who picked up my submissive tendencies (back in January, and I kind of blew him off, then I forgot why I'd blown him off and agreed to go out with him before I realized it probably wasn't a good idea). He pushed for dominance, and it repelled me. I could see that 3 years ago, I would have melted into his arms. He pushed just hard enough to make me very uncomfortable, but not so hard to make me slap him. And yesterday, I was turned on (if you define that by damp panties). But that was 20% of my reaction. The rest was a screaming "This is not a safe man for you" that ran into my bones, into my muscles, into the fiber of my being. I told him I wasn't comfortable and he said "I'm not into pain--you had too much pain, that isn't me."

That was true, as far as it went, but it was an intellectual response to this emotional clutching. I wasn't strong enough to tell him to stop it, but I knew from 15 minutes in, or so, that I would not see him again.

I used to do gymnastics and we had to do something over and over and over to learn "muscle memory," so our muscles knew it was safe. The first time you do a trick on the balance beam, you are all in your head--you can't think about what you're doing--it is all about not falling. And once it is in your muscles, it is easy. Of course you can do it. It is safe, it is home. I seem to have had the opposite experience, but it is just as powerful a visceral, instinctual response of anything in gymnastics ever was.

I don't miss being submissive, but I do miss that pure eroticism, that hunger, that instinctual way of being. If I could get back in touch with that sexuality without submission, I'd love it.

I used to have a sex-drive like a teenage boy. I was insatiable. I was frankly concerned when my ex and I stopped having sex twice a day and started only having sex once a day. I wanted more.

But the only way I've known that hunger was through submission. Now I seem to be turning into a much more typical American woman in her late 30s. Cuddling, yes. Kissing, sure. Sex, when he wants it.

Maybe someday I'll find someone who can command that side of me, who can help me let go of the learned muscle memory and back to the primordial desire. John could have, but he never did. And maybe I won't. Maybe I'll be a vanilla woman who isn't all that sensual. It seems a waste, but I suppose it just makes me more like most other women.