Seeing My Partner Again

So, I finally got to see my partner face-to-face again. This also meant that I got to touch and be touched by him for the first time. Oh, heavens. It was good.

Of course, I was nervous at first. We met up for coffee first at a local shop and after an hour or so of chatting - really feeling each other out and deciding if the chemistry we’d thought we’d felt some two months before had been felt and was still viable.

It was!

But things were different now. I was more affectionate and willing to touch people. I was more willing to invite touch from people. I was, for the first time in my life, able to appreciate affection for the sake of affection.

Still, I don’t know if it was because he knew of my general avoidance of touch or because we were in public, he didn’t touch me. I initiated small touch, brushing his arm, allowing my foot to brush his leg when I crossed my legs, and waited for his response. He didn’t seem to mind my touching him, but he certainly didn’t recoil from it.

When we had finished our coffees, I asked what his thoughts were on the next ten minutes. We had hours together, so, what did he want to do next?

We had previously discussed getting a hotel room that first night - we had roommates and wanted to minimize disruptions to others. He pulled out his phone and we looked at options.

Having chosen a hotel, we drove over, purchased a room for the night, and didn’t leave again until check-out some 18 hours later. And it was good.

It started slowly. Gentle touching. Nervousness on my end. Uncertainty. I had so little experience with sex in general, and here was a beautiful Adonis willing to tie me up and spank me if I asked, willing to have sex with me or not, leaving it to me to set the pace and ask for what I want, refuse offers for what I did not want.

Kissing, a massage, a gentle touch, him feeling out my body and testing my responses, my touching his body and marveling at the feel of his skin.

And I’m confused.

Sacrifice.

That’s what my best friend said to me. When I told her about my experience with the presenter, about that workshop, about the first kiss and it’s perfection, about the second kiss and what happened and how it was so more than everything and connection and the universe and a thin place where I experienced God in myself and in the presenter and a co-mingling of that divine reality and who understands that because even I didn’t, and how much I had wanted to have sex with him but had committed to not having sex with other people while my partner and I explored whether or not we were suited to a long term relationship.

Sacrifice.

That is what she saw in my decision to honor my arrangement with my partner. And when I heard her say it, I knew it was true. That is what I had done. I had sacrificed something I had wanted desperately, I had sacrificed something I actually needed in this transformative experience of becoming more authentically myself. I had sacrificed that need to honor someone else.

I was kissing my partner and I was overwhelmed by the fact that he didn’t kiss me the way the presenter had kissed me. Touching him didn’t feel like touching the presenter. I hadn’t had sex with the presenter, but I knew in that moment, I couldn’t have sex with my partner this first time, because suddenly, our interaction was tainted by the presenter's presence and I mourned the sacrifice I had made.

Though I grew up in a conservative congregation of a liberal protestant denomination, I’ve had Catholic guilt for as long as I can remember. And it raised it’s ugly head. Guilt at thinking of another man. Guilt at wanting things I wasn’t allowed to have. Guilt at regretting choosing what was better for me - honoring my commitment in exploring a possible long term relationship in a monogamous fashion rather than choosing the pleasure of a single fixed-point-in-time relationship.

Fuck! I can’t fuck when I have this much guilt and confusion. Confusion because the presenter is NOT an option. Was never an option for anything beyond a one-time experience. Not an option even for that now. He should not be playing a part in my thoughts, but there he was, mucking things up.

I chose, very intentionally, to focus on my partner. On our time together. On this moment, as it was possible that this moment might lead to another.

Skillfully, artfully, his fingers began to dance over my body, coaxing from me first one and then a second orgasm in rapid succession.

Not long after, as a third began to build, my legs wrapped around his waist, he asked, “Is it okay if I enter you?”

Panic, from nowhere I could immediately discern, overwhelmed me. “No,” I said, as my legs fell away, my entire body tensed, and I withdrew from him. “Hey, it’s okay,” he said gently. “It’s okay. Just look at me.” My eyes were closed and tears were beginning to pool in the corners, threatening to spill over and slip down my cheeks. “It’s okay,” he said again as I opened my eyes and looked into his.

I began to relax again. As my third orgasm pulsed through me, I began to settle back into the mostly comfortable state in which I had began when I first removed my bra and panties earlier in the evening.

“When you asked to enter me, were you thinking vaginal or anal?” I asked.

“Vaginal,” he said.

“Oh. I’m sorry. I’m just not ready. I thought I would be but I can’t. I might be more okay with anal.”

“Only when you’re ready,” he said. I knew that we would not be having penetrative sex that night. I struggled with feelings of guilt - had I set up a situation where it was expected? Even so, I believe in body autonomy. I had a right to say no. But I wanted to have sex. Didn’t I? Well, yes. Sort of. But it was terrifying. Not in the act itself, but I knew I could walk away after everything that had already happened and be okay. But we had agreed not to get emotionally involved straight off, to take things slow in that regard, and there was no way I could have sex with him and not be immediately and powerfully emotionally bonded.

So, we didn’t have sex. Because I knew that I couldn’t compartmentalize the sex with him the way I had been able to with my previous partners. And that in part had to do with the intensity of the second kiss with the presenter. It opened something in me and I couldn’t close it. I couldn’t exactly redirect it to my partner the way I wanted to, but I knew that sex would not be clinical. I was already thinking about the fact that I regretted sacrificing that experience and I knew I would be thinking about how that might have differed. This wouldn’t be fair to my partner.

I did, however have three or four more orgasms. I’m not sure. I lost track in a whole puddle of blissy-bliss.

Using his skilled fingers a third orgasm followed. When we were done, had both taken care of other bodily needs, we cuddled and watched a movie. I think a fourth orgasm followed this and then we mostly just lay in bed together. I stroked my partner to orgasm as well.

My partner remarked that he could tell I was still nervous because I hadn’t asked for anything in particular yet. I asked for what I wanted and he said it wasn’t the right time. My partner does not know what it cost me to ask him for what I wanted. He doesn’t know the whole of my history or the sexual abuse during my teen years, or the things my abuser/rapist said to me that completely fucked with my head and forever screwed up my feelings about my genitals or the degree of body dysmorphia I experience specific to my genitals both as a result of the things that man said to me as well as how my whole body has changed as I’ve lost weight.

My partner has no idea that when I asked him for what I wanted, I was making myself more vulnerable to him than I had ever before made myself vulnerable to anyone. Not just because it took a lot of courage for me to ask because of all of the above, but because I had become emotionally invested in the answer. His refusal because of “timing” wasn’t just a matter of not having my desires met; it was the most hurtful thing he could have said to me because it felt like a complete rejection of the enormous vulnerability I had offered to him.

So, I’m left with questions and he’s left without information and I’m afraid things are going to get really screwed up really quickly because I don’t know how to tell him at this juncture what happened to me when I was 15.

Though my partner had turned down my first request for what I wanted, when he next used the bathroom, I pulled out my anal beads and asked him to cuff me with his medical-style restraints and use it on me.

With my hands bound behind my back and my ankles bound together, I was on my stomach. My partner applied lubricant to the beads and to my ass and began to slowly insert the beads. I needed more and pulled my knees up under me, giving him greater access. It still wasn’t enough for me, and I pressed back toward him while pushing my hips higher in the air, moaning with pleasure as each graduated bead entered me.

Moaning and writhing with pleasure, restrained though I was, I begged him for more. And he gave me more, inserting the whole toy one bead at a time before slowly removing it and reinserting it. I knew I would come soon. I wanted more. I wanted everything. I wanted the dildo he had brought that matched the general dimensions of his own substantial penis.

Wet as I was, my partner added lube to the dildo. The problem, however, is that I was on my knees. While I have previously enjoyed doggy-style, the reality is everything just gets tighter when I’m on my knees taking it from behind. This is fine when my partner has an average to small penis (as both of my previous sexual partners had). But my particular anatomy does not accomodate large penises doggy-style and my partner is substantially larger in girth than the average man. Which means the dildo he brought that matches his dimensions is also much larger in girth than the average man.

Despite the extra lubrication, he didn’t even get the entirety of the tip in me when I told him it was too much, he had to stop, I couldn’t do it. It’s really a pinching sensation that I experience and it’s painful. At my prompting, my partner removed the toy and used his fingers to massage my g-spot instead. And I had my fourth or fifth orgasm that night.

After releasing the restraints coupling, my partner headed to the bathroom to clean the toys. I stretched out on my stomach and enjoyed feeling like I might never move again. I reached for my water bottle to find that I had emptied it earlier in the evening. My partner was kind enough to notice and refilled it for me. I drank half of it at once. I get so dehydrated when I play.

We both curled up in bed and snuggled naked. We both slept off and on, shifting position but always maintaining contact. It was nice.

Around 2:30 or 3:00 in the morning, I awoke and felt the two litres of water I’d consumed after our marathon sex. After voiding my bladder, I crawled back into bed and snuggled against my partner again. “Is everything okay?” he asked, my jostling the bed having roused him close enough to consciousness.

“Just using the bathroom,” I told him. He used it himself and when he returned, I asked, “May I have one more orgasm tonight?”

My partner again used his fingers to massage my g-spot until I was writhing and moaning and aching with pleasure, but I couldn’t quite get to the point of orgasm. I was still a bit dehydrated, tired, confused (oh, so confused!), and my body overwhelmed by all of the sensations from earlier in the evening. I reached down and began to massage my clitoris as he continued stroking my g-spot. Eventually I came and collapsed in a puddle of sexual satisfaction.

When we got up the next morning, we both showered and brushed our teeth and dressed. Then, he sat in the recliner to put on his boots and I curled up in his lap. He held me.

“Oh, drop sucks,” I said.

“It might not happen,” he told me.

“No. It’s going to happen,” I replied. “I can feel it starting already, right here,” I told him as I touched the center of his chest.

He told me his theory of drop being primarily related to cognitive dissonance and how perhaps on a subconscious level I was rejecting the bondage even if consciously I had believed it was acceptable to be cuffed.

I agree to a large degree on cognitive dissonance being a major factor in the drop experience. I did not, however, tell him that all of the cognitive dissonance I was feeling was because of my inability to keep the presenter our of our experience and not the experience my partner and I had actually shared the night before. And because of the vulnerability issue.

But, he held me and stroked my back as I curled in his lap with my head on his shoulder, feeling safe and accepted enough that I did not cry. I actually went about my day feeling good and confident and healthy apart from the presenter continuing to come back to my mind and remembering the cost I had paid there when I sacrificed the opportunity to have sex with him.

I texted my best friend about how much I regretted it and how confused I felt with regards to my partner now that I couldn’t let go of things with the presenter the way I thought I would. “You made your choice. You can’t go back and change it now, so there’s no point in regretting it,” she texted back. And she’s right.

So, I keep moving forward, focusing on what I have here, now, in front of me. Trying to discern if I’ll moving back to to my summer home single or attached by the end of the year. I keep telling myself I have to put the presenter to bed, stop thinking about him, stop holding onto the connection that was created when that powerful energy exchange took place. For the record, while I’m good at moving forward and focusing on the here and now when I keep myself busy, the letting go, the putting it to bed, the releasing my feelings of connection to the presenter…I’m not so good at those things.

“Exploring sexuality is better as a marathon than a sprint,” the presenter has said.

I keep focusing on my partner and moving forward slowly with him. I keep focusing on the idea that I can treat my relationship with the presenter as a marathon as well. No need to sprint toward him with the need to experience the things I sacrificed in our first encounter. I’m not done with him yet. I’m trying to take the long view of things. Eventually, I’ll see him again, if for nothing else, needlework and pictures. And if I don’t, I know that someday, with enough time and distance, without consistent contact (which the presenter is clear he doesn’t provide), the intensity will fade and he’ll become a memory that I will cherish forever as my first experience in this life. Eventually, I tell myself, I won’t want to go back.

In the meantime, I’ll continue to explore things with my partner. I’ll keep moving forward, with or without him. I’ll keep moving forward with or without either of them. I’ll continue to learn more about myself. I’ll continue moving forward, making it a marathon, rather than a sprint, and enjoying the fellowship of other runners I meet on this journey.