“It’s a fine ass, isn’t it?” Matt teases. I’m resting with my chin on my hand and I’m deep in thought, I wasn’t even aware that I was staring. I’m too engrossed in SAS: Who Dares Wins to think about what I’m doing.
“I was just watching the pro-“
“You were staring!” he laughs, “you were having a right bloody gawp at his arse!”
“I… was admiring the asthetic?” I smile.
“The asthetic?”
Oh brother, is nothing sacred anymore?
“There is a look a girl likes” I sigh, “the all-black; black jeans, black boots, black shirt, black belt. I call it the Dom look, because I immediately associate it with Doms and Dominant men.”
“You like being yelled at, too?” Matt asks almost mockingly.
“No, and you know how I feel about that. A leader leads, a manager manages and a boss, bosses. You can be a leader or a boss here, choose wisely” I smirk. Just like that, she’s back in control.
“I don’t mind direct and frank, but yelling? You know how I feel about that. You know my parents used to yell at me and you know that I just switch off to it now. People can yell at me all they want, it doesn’t make me any more cooperative. I listen to requests and I follow instructions, I don’t take orders.”
“Sometimes” he mutters.
“Sometimes” I agree.
“I like keeping you on your toes almost as much as you like keeping me on mine, Mr S” I giggle.
“Brat!” he chides, we laugh.
There is something about that programme, something that calls to a curious submissive side of mine. It’s not a kidnap and interrogation fantasy exactly, contrary to popular belief. Perhaps it’s to be put in a situation where I really get to know myself; my strengths, my weaknesses, my talents and capabilities. I mean, not those talents exactly, but generally. There’s something about the psyche of those men – firm enough to push where needs to be pushed, still soft enough to care.
In an odd kind of way I feel as though I could get along with the SAS: Who Dares Wins guys, at least on a friendly level. It probably wouldn’t be a deep, lifelong friendship, no – I am not of them – and yet I feel as though in some ways my mentality would be sort of… accepted, tolerated, maybe even liked. Delivered in the right manner I can take questions, criticism, feedback, thoughts. Just because I’m sensitive, doesn’t mean I can’t hold my own. The likes of Jason “Foxy” Fox and the former DS Ant Middleton, I think we could get along. I think new DS Rudy Reyes would do my head in, just because he is so far up his own arse. A team leader is not the most important person, they are an important person among other important people. A car doesn’t move forward just because the motor started spinning all on it’s own, it needs the gears as well.
Would some of the challenges bother me? Probably not really. I’ve abseiled in my time, hiked plenty (including with heavy loads, as a Girl Guide and under mother’s leadership), crossed all kinds of bridge structures (some of them quite high up), swam in rivers and oceans and done assault courses too. Early starts and “beastings” are kind of a way of life when you’re raised by Drill Sargeant parents, too.
My health isn’t what it used to be though, so it’s not that I wouldn’t be willing to try them so much as that I would struggle.
My biggest problem – and I have always said this – is that I don’t know when to give in. I am tenacious, and I have always said that I wouldn’t fail the course so much as I would need to be removed from it, for my own sake as much as everyone else’s. I would be a liability to my team in an interrogation situation and that’s not right. I don’t care about people getting in my face and yelling at me, I’m more than used to that and I ignore it now. I don’t care about being blasted with a cold hose, do you really think the Boy Scouts vs GIrl Guides water fights were merciful? “Cold” water is but a state of mind. That’s why the Dominants that I play with need to be aware of me and the need to stop me sometimes. “Stop” hits me hard but I know that it’s sometimes necessary, for their wellbeing and mine.
I did get myself into a state again on Tuesday, with everything going on in the world. I’ve been actively avoiding the news and yet something in me told me that I should be scared. I’ve had dreams, at least twice, that things were going from bad to worse in Ukraine.
So I stole a peek.
I wasn’t exactly wrong.
I’ve been here before, I know I have, several times in fact. I also know that for every time someone tells me “we’ve been here before” then I somehow refuse to listen.
I know “what is” and not “what if?”, yet that gets followed by a “but”. Followed again promptly, of course, by another “what if?”
“The next time you ‘but’ me I will tan yours for you, understood?” Matt warns. I nod.
But what if I’m right this time?
I can’t continuously be wrong.
I know that realistically speaking then I’ll probably be adding this one to my catastrophic thinking sheet in a few months time, by my own volition or not.
On Monday mother asked me if I would like to go dog walking this week, and I promised that I would consult my planner and get back to her in short course. Tuesday morning I messaged her to tell her that, weather permitting, then Wednesday was a possibility. Come 10PM and I’d still had no reply.
Strange.
I checked a few times but it just said that the message had been read and so I left it at that. I don’t like to double-message people too often, not unless it’s a non-urgent “thought you might like this” sort of thing or a “stuck in traffic, be there in ten”. My mother enforces decency and respect from others, but it seems she’s much less keen on giving it.
A new rule for 2023: I don’t chase people anymore. I send them one message and then I carry on with my life. I reply to replies now, not silences.
9:30AM on Wednesday and the phone goes. I know exactly who it is.
“Hiya, are you ready to go dog walking?” Mum asks.
“I wasn’t sure what the plan was so I’ve already filled my day” I say coolly, I don’t apologise this time. Another rule I’ve set myself: don’t apologise if you’ve done nothing wrong. It changes the A to a B, the Apology to a Boundary. Try communicating.
I feel amazing, stronger, better, more confident. I set a boundary and I (indirectly) said no. I didn’t drop everything to appease Mummy like I normally would. This feels good.
“Oh, okay then. Perhaps another time” she says, another time indeed. Funnily enough I hear from her not ten minutes later once she’s investigated why that miscommunication happened (she was waiting to see what the weeather was like). Of course I afford her my side of the story – if you don’t tell me what you’re doing, you can’t expect me to know!
I do need to catch up with mother at some point, and really that’s about setting some boundaries on other things. I know I said in my last post that mother and I are both on the BDSM scene now, but there needs to be certain levels as to how far our conversations on the topic can go. That she’s socialising or found someone to play with? Great! That she’s wound a guy up and told him that he can punish her? I’d prefer not to know.
Things are largely back on track between Bill and I now. Maybe we spooked ourselves a little bit, but the most important thing is we didn’t just give up and call it quits. It builds trust and it strengtens that connection. Baby steps, just like Bill said, this is good.
Bill was there for me yesterday as I hauled myself around in a fatalistic state of mind. What was the point in writing? What was the point in editing? What was the point in anything?
More than one war in the world, sadly, Bill reminds me.
He’s not wrong.
After sunset last night, I stepped outside to assess the bulbs of the outdoor lights in the front garden. For some reason some of them look a little bit dim from inside, but once you’re outside, they all seem to glow about the same. As I wrapped around the corner I bumped into Martin, and naturally he stopped for a chat.
“You’re supposed to turn them off before you take the bulbs out” he reminds me.
“Well I’ve done this four times now and I haven’t gone pop yet” I say with a smile. Martin has a soft spot for me, that I know, even if he won’t admit it. It’s an ‘actions not words’ kinda thing.
If I’m out in the back garden, sometimes Martin mirrors me. If I walk down to the garden shed to fetch something, Martin will walk down the garden – on his side – while talking to me. If I come back up the garden, Martin will follow suit. Sometimes I even act like I’ve forgotten something and I recourse parts of the garden, just to test my theory out. For his part, Martin never misses a step.
I like to call it “taking the neighbour for a walk”.
Nice? Sure, no, but it’s kind of entertainng and it affirms my theory.
Martin and I have a love-hate relationship; Martin feels it’s his right to have whatever he wants and for my part, I simply want to be respected. Martin has bullied me a few times before, including reporting me for things that weren’t actually breaches of my tenancy (I just wouldn’t give him what he wanted) or reaffirming several times that I’m “not my type” (again, his actions say otherwise). I’ve pulled a few power moves of my own – like reporting his messy garden – to put him firmly back in his place. Needless to say, we haven’t had an issue since. I don’t want a fight with Martin, far from it, I just want to be respected. Sometimes the only way to be respected, in whatever format, is to remind people that every pussycat has claws. Those claws can really hurt you if you don’t respect them, y’know what I mean?
At current Martin is in a throuple. For the most part he seems happy and, if it is indeed real (I haven’t seen any women around here) then I am really happy for him. He deserves to be happy and loved but the people he’s in love with deserve to feel loved and happy, too. That’s the real caveat there.
Because of my own arrangement, polyamory is something we discuss quite often and quite openly. Martin’s arrangement is completely different to mine but it’s still nice to have someone who I can have those converations with.
“Yeah, so like I was saying you share Bill with Matt” Martin says.
“Oh no,” I smile, “Matt and Bill share me”. I see his eyes boggle and his brain scramble. That poor, poor man.
As it turns out, then both of Martin’s women are bisexual and all is well and good for so long as they don’t want another man in their life, then they have to choose. I get flashbacks to days gone by and I smile – I give it a year.
Granted it helps when your men are on very, very good terms with one another, but I digress. Sometimes even too good terms, by the way. That’s probably the really scary part.
As we talk I accidentally drop one of the spare LED lightbulbs on the footpath. It smashes with a loud pop and I instinctively bend down to pick up the biggest piece.
“Oh don’t touch that! You’ll cut your fingers” Martin warns, again I smile to myself. Why would he care so much if he supposedly didn’t care at all?
I do like Martin, we can get along quite well and his protector instincts are even quite sexy, but for as much as we can get along then he’s also got an overinflated ego (he bodybuilds) and that’s highly unattractive. Confidence and knowing your worth is one thing, but pulling other people down to make yourself feel better? Yeuck.
By nightfall I wrap myself up in my own “poly puddle”. It feels good to be loved by two men – two wonderful, amazing, loving men. Even if they’re not much to some people, they’re everything to me. They’re both closest friends of mine turned partners, and somehow that’s just the way that works. There’s a certain shame that comes with thinking about fucking your best friend for the first time and yet paradoxically and in whatever way, that’s just my life now. I am theirs and I belong to them. To my pack.
For whatever reason then the mind flips to Sir and leather driving gloves and riding crops, to pet play and breeding. I suppose that this was Sir’s effect on me, or perhaps the effect of both of them combined, or something. This is just the way I am now. Kept. Their pride and joy, but also their pleasure.
Sir enjoys taunting and teasing me with thoughts and possibilities, and I accept them. It’s interesting, curious. Who’d have thought my other best friend could bring me to heel?
It’s shower night, and I know how shower night inevitably ends. It does things to Matt, almost as though my smelling clean is unjustifiable and a woman like me should only ever smell like sweat and male satisfaction. I need to smell like my purpose in life, even if I don’t look like it. It’s a reminder to me and a warning to others: She’s ours.
“It’s a double filter coffee kinda day, Kitten. I forget why” Matt says this morning.
“That-” I begin.
“No” Matt warns, placing a finger on my lips. “Don’t say it. You don’t need to say it”. I give him my most frustrated look but somehow I obey.
“No, Kitten” he mutters as he brushes my hair from my cheek, “there’s a good girl”. I sigh deeply and bow slightly to kiss the base of his thumb.
What just happened?
Whispers Of A Phoenix 