Pleasure not Peak

The rules the tonight were clear. I was to masturbate, but I was not allowed to orgasm. There was no specific timeframe provided, only that I had to masturbate long enough to feel sexual frustration.

And I did. Five times I got to the very edge and backed off, stopped all activity. On the fifth round, I felt the spasm of an orgasm and knew I had lost sight of the line between almost and there.

Two rather extraordinary things happened during that night’s play:

1. I came to realize that basically all of my masturbatory fantasies involve me begging a nameless, faceless man to penetrate me; and dildos simply are NOT the same
2. There was as much emotional and psychological pleasure in the act of denying myself orgasm as I often experience in denying myself food.

This first, of course, had me thinking that I was right where I wanted to be and this experience was as good as I felt and believed it to be.

The second had me pondering a number of things from the early desert mystics, the ascetics, who experience ecstasy, albeit religious, in their lifestyle of self-denial and self-flagellation. It brought home more powerfully the sacred nature of sex and intimacy for me.

It also had me wondering what is about the denial of physical pleasure that is such a powerful source of emotional satisfaction to me.

Because the focus of our play this night was on pleasure (orgasm-denied), I was able to experience masturbation in a completely different way. There was none of the straining anxiety to reach my peak. As my desire built, knowing that I could not have an orgasm allowed me to shift my focus and touch, to continue enjoying the pleasurable sensations without building to the point that demands release - at least initially. Once I reached that point and backed away, the game of pushing the limit and retreating that ensued was so incredibly gratifying.

This was also the point at which my partner asked, quite politely, for a full body shot of me in the black lace panties I had purchased that day. They were labeled “tanga” but honestly are constructed more like cheeky style panties. And thigh high stockings if I have them. And I do. With a seam up the back and lace tops. All I needed at this point, I thought, was a black garter… But I feared that would interfere with his enjoyment of the panties. He also informed me that the next day I would not be wearing panties.

This made me hot.

Control

It was only our second night of playing when I began to feel the anxiety. It was discomfiting, this idea that my needs and desires are valid and that I have a right to have them met, that I have a right to relax my rigid control and unrelenting standards and fall into the moment and allow myself to trust another to care for my needs.

I wanted to call and talk to him about these things. I wanted to sit in the tension on my own and sort through them. On the one hand, talking to him had the potential to build further intimacy and trust; but if he wasn’t interested it had the potential to drive him away. On the other hand, the desire to talk to him about tit might just have been a desire to seek comfort and reassurance and numb the discomfort of being cared for.

Ultimately, I decided it was largely both. I wanted to avoid my own uncomfortable truths about how deserving or undeserving I felt in regards to being taken care of in any capacity and I wanted to build more intimacy by sharing how I was feeling with him. Because the connection was there. I blame the geese.

Still, I felt like our engagements were lopsided. I wished he could be physically present with me to hear me sigh his name when I climaxed. I wished to be able to give him anything. Though I knew that giving him control of my orgasms met his needs, it almost felt too easy, as though I was giving so little and gaining so much.

Eventually, I broke down and sent him a text asking if his needs were being met. He didn’t respond and after ten minutes, I decided to begin writing to try and sort out my own weird feelings about the lopsidedness. I wanted to distract myself, as well, from the anxiety of wanting a response. I wanted to call him. I really wanted to call him and talk through it. In some ways, I wanted to call him just to hear his voice.

In the end, I was glad I didn’t. He had told me earlier in the evening that if I awoke in the middle of the night he expected me to have a third orgasm. When I sent the text inquiring whether his needs were being met, he didn’t respond for nearly four hours. His text, finally arriving at three in the morning, woke me from a sound sleep, effectively ensuring that I would have a third orgasm.

It felt like it took forever to reach that orgasm. The next morning I was quite sore. I didn’t know if I was over stimulated or if I had abrasions on my clitoris. It did, however, serve for the rest of the day as a reminder of the ecstasy I had experienced the night before.

Once my partner did text, I realized that if I had called or asked for a timeout to sort through my own uncomfortable feelings, I would have been doing so, at least in part, as an effort to take back control of this part of our play. Counterproductive to my goals - giving up some level of control in some area of my life, to just be less controlled and controlling because I knew that my rigidly structured engagement with the world wasn’t good for me.

At the same time, I didn’t know if total surrender to another in any are of life is good or healthy. I knew it felt good as an idea and had unexpected consequences as a lived act. I knew that I could easily take back control and us it to control my feelings of discomfort by removing the stimulus for those feelings. Feelings of discomfort and confusion, though, aren’t all bad. And I knew that that in taking back control of the situation in order to control my feelings would deny me the opportunity to learn about myself as I struggle to understand the root causes of my emotional response. Letting go and learning more….trusting that my partner will respond in his time…trusting that my need will be met or they won’t….knowing that I’ll be okay either way.

Getting Started

I met my partner at work. Not my pastoral work. My day job. Which, in an area where most pastors are less than part-time in their churches, is a necessity.

My partner started working for the same company that I did just seven weeks before I left that job to pursue additional vocational training in a specific area of ministry. No one knew I was leaving and I did not want anyone to know. So, I went about business as usual and tried to be as welcoming and friendly as possible to the new members of our team.

Our first encounter was in the foyer, in front of the elevator bank, on the third floor of our building. Our breaks overlapped that day and we stood shoulder-to-should just watching the geese in the duck pond out back and chatting. Maybe we chatted. I don’t remember. We might have been totally silent. Actually, I think we were mostly silent. Regardless, we said nothing of significance. We just watched the geese and the ducks in the duck pond.

After about ten minutes, he turned to me and said, “Well, it’s probably time I go back in.”

“Okay,” I responded, smiling shyly at him. Immediately the timer in my pocket went off, and I said, “Oh, it looks like my time is up as well. I’ll walk with you.” So, we walked to our stations. And we began to converse by instant message.

It was never anything major or significant. Just random, friendly, “How’s your day going? What about squirrels? Hey, did you hear about the turkey?” kind of messages.

Until my last day. “What kind of music runs through your head that makes you want to tap your feet in the middle of the most boring part of your day?” I asked. Because this is the kind of question I’ll spring on anybody out of the blue. Because I wanted to shock him enough to make an impression. Because if he answered and didn’t tell me I was a lunatic for asking such an off-the-wall question, I wanted to tell him I was leaving and give him my number.

He remarked that about the only time he really has music going through his head is in the shower.

“Oh, so you’re a big fan of Bert’s ‘Rubber Ducky’ are you?” I asked.

“Man, I haven’t thought of that in years,” he replied.

“You’re welcome.”

And then, he told me he was leaving for the day and gave me his number.

*****

At the end of my shift, I got in my car and headed home. I packed my dog in her crate and tucked her in the backseat. The rest of my stuff was already loaded. Then, I picked up my travel companion for the next thirteen hours and began the long drive to my summer home.

We texted during my move. I explained that I was moving for the summer, vocational training for my life as a pastor. We discussed our notions of good and evil in brief and this opened the door for his confession: he’s into kink. I spent a good portion of the drive fantasizing about sex with him and the orgasms I had were phenomenal.

Three days later, knowing the insanity that was to be my life for the next three months, I offered him my orgasms. I gave him control of if, when, and how I would cum every time I would cum for the duration of the summer. He accepted.

So, we began a careful dance focused entirely on my pleasure.

As a goal oriented individual in all areas of life, sex and sexuality was never any different. The point of sexual encounters was to have an orgasm. Do it right, and an orgasm would never take more than three minutes. Do it really right and an orgasm can be accomplished in under ten seconds. Quick and efficient and goal accomplished sex or masturbation was my specialty.

This was not the kind of sex I was to be having with myself and with my partner via text for the remainder of the summer.

Slow the fuck down.  Pleasure for pleasure’s sake. No orgasm until I was positively begging for it. The third, fourth, fifth time he’d talked me through whatever stimulation he’d decided I needed that night to get me to the very brink before stopping all activity and requiring that I rest, relax, and enjoy the anticipation, never knowing if the next time I touched myself would be the time he would finally permit release.

Hours and hours and hours of sex play. My entire life changed.

At first it was confusing and guilt-inducing. Not the sex or the orgasms themselves. At that point I’d had enough sex to last me a lifetime (or so I’d thought) and I had orgasms all on my own as often as possible.

Rather it was that being the responsible, controlled, rigidly structured individual that I am, I had voluntarily permitted, requested even, someone else be entirely responsible for my pleasure - that it come at his word, at his command. There was peace and relaxation, joy even in not having to be responsible for some small area of life. It was lovely to know in this exchange, my pleasure was all about me. Sex with another person that was all about me. I did not have to service him. I did not have to work to please him - only pleasure myself as he permitted.

And yet, I found myself anxious that I wasn’t doing it right, that I was somehow breaking the rules of the game. That I should have an orgasm, that exquisite pleasure should be mine and mine alone…it felt selfish.

Shouldn’t this be mutually pleasurable? Isn’t it bad that it’s all about me? Or at least wrong, unfair, selfish? I didn’t do anything to earn the right to be cared for like this - my pleasure and needs being first and of greatest importance.

If I had wanted lots of orgasms that were all about me, I could certainly have achieved that all alone, without inviting him into it.