Fast Away

Tomorrow is New Year's Eve. I've always hated the holiday. Nothing like enforced merriment. But the week between Christmas and New Year's is a whole other thing. This year I was struggling with bad bronchitis, but usually the week bursts with erotic portent. The deliciously possible year end fling is ever elusive, but for that one week its promise dangles like ripened fruit pleading for plucking before it drops to the ground; bruised, bashed, and broken.

It was a year. Another year. For the first time since the recession began my work profits were respectable. I left life as a kinky single man about town and committed to care giving for my dying wife. While my personal life has become something of a shrunken and muted fugue, I find the experience of helping my wife to be sustaining and profound.

I asked her the other day why she thought I was so good at it and without missing a beat she said it was because I was "into S&M". She thought I was erotically driven to serve and help for her has tapped into that motivation. It is so ironic that what drove us to separate has provided the glue to our current relationship. It's so not sexy, but I get a deep satsfaction from my efforts.

So with my personal work star on the rise, her life is in a continuous downward spiral. Two opposite arcs with no chance of a future meeting. I sometimes have fleeting glimpses of future fantasy. But for now I look forward in a most bittersweet way to the coming of a new year and my continued life in the moment.

Date Site D/s

In these days of work and giving care I have little time for kink, dating, or even time to daydream and fantasize about meeting Mistress Right. Life feels like one massive to do list that I'm always falling far, far behind on. But somehow I manage to stumble on and get things accomplished.

But I still have my on-line dating profile up. I've actually updated it to let visitors know I'm taking care of my wife. I've also actually come out and said outright that I'm a kinky, submissive guy looking for the perfect dommy girl next door. Not that I'm going to get any takers, but I check from time to time and do searches for fun.

And so it was that I went on the site a couple of weeks ago and did a search for the personality trait of kinkiness. The site has loads of questions to answer and it catagorizes responses to come up with a personality profile. It rates characteristics like aggressiveness, coolness, wealth, physical activity, and conventional morality as against a norm of other site users. The profile is displayed as a bar graph ranking you as either more or less pronounced than the average. Among the character traits is kinkiness. Their kinky sex questions are general but not too bad. Some of the questions are ridiculous but what do you expect.

Anyway I did my search and started looking at the results. The "Girlfriend Store" spit back many usual suspects who I'd checked out many times before. Then, there was Mistress Alex! And we were a 99% match! I've only met her once at a kinky literary soiree evening at Glint and liked her very much. Who am I kidding? I thought she was incredibly hot, smart, and sexy. I loved it that she actually came up to me and said she liked my writing. I'll do anything for anyone who likes my writing!

I immediately looked at how we matched on the sex questions as the site allows that sort of filter. After so many disappointing "fits" our answers to kinky sex questions matched almost perfectly.

"Would you like to have your partner strap on a dildo and put it inside you"

She No - Me Yes

"Preferred Position?"

She Top - Me Bottom

"Would you consider a relationship as master or slave?"

She Yes, as master - Me Yes, as slave.

And after so many comparasions that didn't fit it was such a refreshing experience to see a real match. I sent her a nice note saying I liked her profile and hoped she was having fun. She sent a quick thank you. So even though it's not going to be spontaneous combustion I am grateful to Alex for answering a massive number of date site questions to allow me to see how a real match connection with a dominant woman would work.

After I was done with my little comparasion the site offers an Amazon.com like service akin to "if you liked Alex, you'll like these women as well". I checked down the list and there was Mistress Veronica! Maybe we'll take over this date site after all!

Have A Heart

Yesterday I took my wife to the movies. We saw the excellent new Bond, Skyfall. She went in her wheelchair for the first time. It was an adventure, but really quite easy. The chair, with some strategic alteration, could be Bond hardware it's so high-tech. Cost more than my 2009 Subaru Forester. Yes, I know it's a lesbian car and I'm its very proud owner.

Anyway we made it to the theater way more quickly than we would have if she had used her walker. Just last weekend she almost fell in the street as she rolled over an uneven manhole cover. I was able to grab her just in time before she hit concrete. Nothing like being credited with savior status. We took the elevator up to the IMAX and just as we were about to get off the movie attendant who just happened to be there stopped us and said we could go up to the wheelchair access level. We got to be the first ones in the theater.

Great to have a spare chair to pile coats on and sitting in the back row at the huge screen was perfect. When the movie ended we just waited for the crowd to drain and took the elevator to street level and came home.

I wish all of this process was as easy and fun as seeing Daniel Craig Bond about.

Indeed, the whole process shrinks life, both hers and mine. I work and caregive. While I console myself that it is time limited, the limit is the remaining lifetime of someone I love so it feels like the ultimate predicament. I spent the morning looking at profiles on FetLife. I've tried following some posts and commenting there but I find it difficult to make a connection.

Oh well, it's a sunny mild day after Frankenstorm hammered us and then the cold slapped us for good measure. I'll take a walk and dream of better days past and brighter days future.

So, Am I Really And Truly A Lifestyle Kinkster - Redux

I started this post earlier today and accidentally hit the "Publish" button before it was finished. I instantly deleted it so I'm starting all over. Such a techno-wizard, though I'm still getting used to composing my posts on my iPad. That's my whiny excuse and I'm stickin' to it!

Aarkey has a great post about looking for a domme. Perhaps I'd more accurately describe his message as readying yourself for Mistress Right rather than specifically searching for her, finding her, and winning her. For me, his post fed an on-going internal debate I've been having over whether or not I'm really a lifestyle submissive or something else. While there is no "one size fits all" in any kind of relationship, the hallmarks of a D/s relationship lived in lifestyle fashion have recently given me pause. I know for sure I'm not a slave. I'd be constantly bridling at the complete lack of say. I always want a respected and valued participatory voice.

That said, I do think it is quite possible for me to meet a dominant woman who is a top in the sheets as well as in the streets, but who views me as a loving and equal partner in life. It's a lot of pressure and responsibility to always run the show. I'd feel protective of her and would want to contribute to and be supportive of any decision making process. I'd want to be heard and respected. Truth be told in all three long term relationships I've had, the women ran the show. There just wasn't a bdsm base to the coupling.

In the scene dating that I've done I've always done the asking. I've viewed it as offering myself for consideration. My dates never seemed to mind and I felt chivalrous and avant by taking the first step. With the limited time I have I just can't afford the commitment to "community service" that would put me on dommy radar screens. I've really liked the process of looking. I try not to take it seriously and have come to believe that it's enjoying the ride that counts. And if I like the scenery and the adventure, I'm not bound to the result. If it happens great. If not then I'm having a good time.

In the end, with all my monkey brain whirling about could I really ever measure up as a true lifestyle submissive in a Female Led Relationship, it's all about the chemistry. If we set fire to the rain I'll do anything for her.

Pound The Alarm?

This evening I was supposed to have a sneak away, clandestine, liason with Strawberry Blonde Baby Domme. We'd been out for dinner a second time at a restaurant right out of a movie set for an Edgar Allen Poe short story. Tucked back in a cellar corner in front of an open storage room shuttered with a iron barred door we plotted hotel dalliance. Ms. Berry Baby is a single mom to a teenager and I'm caretaker to my dying wife. Venue is a challenge. We had plotted an evening of CFNM based tease and denial. Easy and hot. Excitedly I made the res and informed her we were on. But as the week grew longer in the tooth and the reality of Saturday night began to really sink in, I realized I just had not plotted and planned well.

My window of opportunity? My wife was going out to the theater with friends. So what do I have? Three hours tops? There was the "can-I-get-away-with-it" obsessiveness. Gotta bring my own shampoo, soap, and product. Gotta have a cover story that accounts for whereabouts if I'm spotted. Gotta put it all on a card that will not have a statement she might see. And then there was the I've got to watch the clock factor. And finally, I'd go from sexual sub-space to helping my wife undress for bed with no reentry time. I just couldn't go through with it.

Mind you, I don't think it's cheating. I had no misgivings or doubts about my sexy playmate. I just wanted to be sure I was going to enjoy myself. And I didn't want my wife to find out. It would really hurt her. Somehow I think I'd forgotten I wasn't living alone. I suppose desire will do that to you.

So I cancelled the res on Thursday after talking about it in therapy. I swear therapy just sucks. I really can't do any serious sexy self destruction if I'm spewing it all out at my shrink. I texted Ms. Berry Baby and said I was deeply disappointed but my window of opportunity had shrunken. I did really want to see her though and suggested we meet in the hotel lobby for a drink. She very quickly responded yes, she'd love to do just that. However, half an hour later she said a different plan had emerged and she needed to be downtown at 9pm. Since we weren't spending the night together would I mind rescheduling? I replied sure, no problem.

But like a slow double take I began to think to myself that her response was mercenary. We both have limited play time and she'd probably gotten a better offer. But it just struck me as weird that we were going to see each other and should it matter whether it involved taking our clothes off? Not getting any from you but oh hey, I have a better offer and I'm outta here.

So do I pound the alarm that this girl seems too self centered or do we plot a "long lunch dalliance"? I'm still torn. Then again, if she reads this her new plan may not involve me at all. Ah the edgy life of an anonymous sexual politics blogger.

The EverReady Bunny Needs A Boost

So there I was happily groveling on my hands, knees, elbows, hips, and stomach, eating my sushi dinner from in between She-Who-Visits french manicured toes. The spare foot ground my cock into the marble floor. She had made a show of insisting it be "covered" so the condom, with whatever the hell "pleasure enhancer" is, would keep me from actual contact with the sole of her beach worn foot. So as she fed me with one foot and pushed and polished me with the other, we were both caught in perverse bliss. Pedidexterous is her term for her prehensile hooves.

Then all of a sudden, I went limp. Actually, it was agonizingly gradual. I got distracted and eventually I was reduced to flaccid, floppy, frustration.

"Hey Thumper, this is not like you. What's going on?"

What's not going on? Like, maybe I'm tired, (I had packed the car that morning, driven us from Sanibel to Miami, and unpacked us to the condo); or maybe I was distracted because worry for my wife creeps in unexpectedly, (she has great friends who come by when I'm away and a part time caretaker who helps out); or perhaps I was distracted by going to work the next day, juggling She returning her on-line shopping rejects, and getting her to the airport. Nah, nothing going on. But I was not to be deterred.

"I have some Levitra! Let's experiment with better living through chemicals!", I eagerly suggested.

"Oh no, I don't believe in that, even if it is doctor prescribed. Last thing I want is you having a heart attack on me."

"But what about all the meds you take? It's a momentary solution for a momentary problem."

"No, and that's the end of it."

Seemed a little rigid...okay roll your eyes and read on.

Mind you, fifteen minutes before we left for the airport yesterday She got me naked and she foot fucked my brains out to my first orgasm in two and a half months.

But the whole thing got me to thinking that there really shouldn't be any stigma or fear attached to adding a little extra charge in the tank if it's needed. And these marathon chastity sessions are just unnecessary.

Ah well, mostly I'm blessed with a dog's dick; happy, wagging, and loyal. I was just disappointed She didn't want us both to continue our bliss on this rarest of evenings together.

Finding FetLife

I really don't get FetLife. I love the concept but the place just seems so massive with little opportunity to participate in a real time, on-line community. I also imagine that most people join to meet other people with similar interests, to find play partners, and to search for the elusive special someone. While the site has discussion groups, the posting architecture is cumbersome. When I used to post on Max Fisch I so often felt either immediate or semi-immediate personal contact. I admit to not really giving the FetLife discussion process much of a chance, but it just hasn't worked for me.

The site operators seem to have purposely made it extremely difficult to search out play partners. I can't do a search for dommes between 45 and 65 in the New York City area. This is a big drag. It seems to me that this is pretty basic and would be of tremendous use to all members.

However, this failing has not deterred me and in spite of my critical whining I have had more success on FetLife meeting attractive kinky women than with any other method I've used. It just takes obsessive compulsive desire, of which I am blessed with plenty. You can search by city, state, or country so I just click on NYC and I'm immediately shown 40,237 profiles displayed 16 to a page. Then I begin scrolling in search of connection. And so it was last weekend when I sent a message to an attractive domme. Since I am a veteran of this sort of effort I really expect very little. Dommes get massive amounts of email and IMs. Responding to each is a huge time waster. Plus, I've been told that lots of the communication is not high discourse.

But I got a response and we met for coffee. I arrived early at the cafe and found a seat. It was such a nice day there were no outdoor tables available. Just as I went to sit down she walked up and just stood in front of the place. I had a perfect view from the big glass front facade. Petite and sexy she wore a form hugging white strapless summer dress and carried a large brimmed straw hat. She had long, strawberry blonde hair and an easy, confident looking manner. I just looked.

Then I got up and introduced myself and from there we just talked up a storm. We discovered we'd both had difficulty "converting" non-kinky partners. She had a great sense of humor, a keen intellect, and a mischievous smile. When she got up to get something from the counter and the sun light hit the back of her dress I could see she wore a tiny black thong.

It is always tremendously liberating to be "who-I-am" sex-wise on a first date. She asked what I was into to gauge our compatibility and confessed to being a recent convert to domming, having been a sub for most of her time in the scene. She had all sorts of enthusiastic plans to learn the craft and I immediately offered myself up to guinea pig for her.

We both lead very busy lives but as we parted we promised to be in touch. Later she texted me in response to my electronic thank you note and said she looked forward to seeing what sort of trouble we could whip up. So just maybe, despite my contrary mewling, FetLife isn't such a bad place after all.

Kink Conundrum

I was interviewed for the Masocast last week by Axe. It was really fun. We had a great, wide-ranging, time-got-away-from-us, chit chat about my blog, dating kinky, my life as a client, my wife, and the one true burning question - are lawyers really all kinky or just most of us?

I have a conundrum though. Axe gives everyone the option of requesting edits or just saying that they don't want the piece to air after he sends it out for approval. I told my wife where I was going and what I was doing. I didn't lie. I struggled to lie. It would have been quite easy. But I just didn't and I felt better about being straight-up and honest with her. However, she now knows where to find the Masocast. If the piece runs then so many if not all my secrets will be revealed in the gory, self-indulgent, detail of my writing here and my yapping to Axe. It will no doubt hurt her.

I've asked her not to listen to the piece because it will hurt her and that only prompts more questions. I've certainly told her enough about me and my kink. I no longer feel horrible guilt about cheating on her with pro dommes. I'm not searching for an expiation of conscience. I liked talking to Axe and I felt like I was contributing to "community discourse". But is unnecessarily hurting my wife worth that contribution.

Selfishly I like the idea that a bunch of people would listen to me if the podcast aired. No doubt some would take issue with things I said. Others would like me. Could Mistress Right magically email me and just have to meet me? I think not. The upsides seem comparatively trival to the downside.

I vetted the idea of going on the Masocast in therapy and she was supportive. Something about how in order to caretake I had to have my own life. But this part of my own life seems to hold the danger of more hurt than help at a time when all my wife needs is my help.

Oh I get to twist in small circles about this for awhile. Just thought I'd share.

Top In The Street - Bottom In The Sheets

I have spent my life chasing after strong, smart, snarky, sarcastic, funny, life of the party girls who seem to me like they just must be dominant women in the bedroom. Needless to say I have been wrong. Dominance can be nurtured and nuanced and cultivated; but you can't hook up with a take-me-I'm-yours kinda gal and turn her into a domme.

I was reminded of this the other night when I went on my third date with a woman who was just my type. Third date land is in my book getting to the point that the nasty nasty should be at least lurking around the corner - otherwise we're either friends or we go our separate ways. Not always. Sometimes I'm sure it's slower and organic, but for me third date is a landmark.

Even my date's name suggested the kinky. Let's call her Livia Lashes - and honestly her real name is way better. Anyway, I'd dropped hints here and there and she dressed up for the date in a strapless white summer dress that hugged her atheltic curves with a possessive desire. Nice white heels and some great tastefully studded bracelets perfectly accessorized her fetching look.

"So Advo, if I'm going to date you what are you into in the bedroom?"

So I gave her what I thought was the most innocent and conventional of my desires; my love of retro-lingerie. She said she thought that was practically every guy out there. And then launched into a perfectly sensible explanation as to why that didn't work for her. Some girls don't like the dress-up thing. Now I can live with that, but I can't live without the attitude of dominance. I asked her if she knew anything about kink or bdsm and she said "you mean the dominatrix thing"? And she quickly added no, she knew nothing about it.

We had a perfectly fine evening after that and I persisted in trying valiantly to get the flirt on. But the wheel had spun and there was no jackpot. I even tried to coax a real kiss as we said goodbye and received a little peck on the mouth. I instantly sexualized her witholding.

But Ms. Lashes and I are going nowhere but the dreaded friendship land. I shouldn't be so flip. Good friends are hard to find and I like her alot. And in the end, we put it on the line and we know where we stand - or at least I'm sure I do.

And so the hunt for Mistress Right continues - in a very play it as it lays kind of way. If it happens wonderful, if it doesn't I content myself with enjoying the ride.

The Next Move

So here I am, moved back in with my wife and trying to figure out how to keep up the search for a connection to the kink. I suppose it's not so much "community connection" I seek but rather to keep in touch with friends, make new ones, and have the occassional possibility of a fetish fling of some sort or another. While I don't feel that I can really search out "dating" opportunities, if something organic happened I'd be open to seeing where it led. So a "put-myself-in-harm's-way" strategy seems key. Just the hint of potential can carry me for weeks, sad as that may seem.

She-Who-Visits and I are conspiring to do our annual pilgrimage to Sanibel. She and her husband left corporate type jobs in NYC to be dive instructors in a Caribbean paradise. Now, ironically, they are both back in the hustle on their island and work worse hours than some of my big law bretheren do in NYC. So I know she's looking for a little R&R.

Axe is going to interview me for the Masocast in a couple of weeks, so I'm looking forward that chat. He's the Charlie Rose of bdsm and I'm thinking it will be big fun to talk to him. And then hear myself when it goes public!

I'm hoping to have dinner with my former dance partner and former kinky date set up. Even though there wasn't a love connection I do really miss our weekly turns around the studio floor. And I miss her. Plus, even though there's no chance of any shennanigans, she's way hot and I just like deluding myself into believing that she missed me so much that she'll grab me, drag me back to her place, and have her way with me.

I went to a Recovery In The Lifestyle AA meeting in South Florida. This October will be 30 years of sobriety for me. AA used to be a big part of my life, but I gradually drifted away from it. It was fun to reconnect and say, "Hi, I'm Advo and I'm a kinky alcoholic"!

I think getting my flirt on just a little will improve my feeling of being sucked back into a situation that I didn't want to leave in the first place, but once I did I was just fine. Time will tell.

The New Chapter

So the move is made. My bachelor pad is history and I'm back on the UWS. Still crazy as I'm running back and forth between NY and FLA. But that's good as I ease into the transition of living with my wife again. Flew in last night and arrived home to my wife and two of her friends drinking Cosmos and eating Greek take out. It was actually nice. As much as I loved the mancave the trade off for independence is lonliness.

I actually registered the little Bimmer convertible on my first go around at the Magic City DMV. Sunshine State plates baby! Spent the 4th in my condo alone watching hundreds of little fireworks displays from my panoramic terrace. Went out with my broker who helped me find the condo. She has a woman friend who wants to meet me. Broker Babe has no clue that I'm kinky so this is probably a vanilla set up. It's not like I'm serious about anything. I could meet Mistress Right and what would I do?

Still, I need to have a life. It can't be all caretaking and work. I just have to work at it. As much as I've trained myself to socialize for the business dollar, I'm awful at organizing to see friends. So the date thing hedges against the downside of independence.

My big Julie Newmar poster looks great in the FLA condo and my box of hemp rope and other kink accoutrements arrived from the West Village pad. It's a new chapter so let's turn the page.

Some Quality Trouble

I feel like I used to when I ran competitively and pretty much would sprint flat out the 3.5 mile silly corporate challenge races in Central Park. The aerobic became the anaerobic and with no real breathing capacity my muscles would just carry me by some out of body masochistic determination to finish. Such is life when moving back in with a woman who just two years ago I decided I did not want to live with anymore.

But things change and while I'm not really going back to my marriage, I am looking forward to spending time with someone I love dearly and who truly needs me. I hate giving up my mancave and unwittingly may have already spent my last night there earlier this week. But like practically everyone, financial realities don't allow me to carry four homes. Jeez, realistically, there are income cycles where I'm lucky to hold one down. So a big part of the move is confronting the money thing and shuffling slowly to some sort of semblance of a practical, prudent, and pragmatic care about the pecuniary.

Ho hum.

But life could be so much worse. We'll live in a really great place. There's a little terrace where I can smoke my cigars. I get my morning river run and there's a killer view. But I won't be dating and alone time will no longer be just a quick cab ride away. It is a loss and a sacrifice, but worth it to be able to care for my terminally ill wife.

To look at her last night at the concert we went to you'd never know she was so sick. She was happily enthralled with Mavis Staples and Bonnie Raitt. And I thought that if Bonnie can look so hot and sexy at 62 then I can too. I don't need to feel that life is over - just a new chapter to begin.

Bonnie gave good patter between songs last night. She introduced one number by telling us that there was a time in her life when she was looking for some quality trouble and that she found him. So just because I'm giving up my single life for that of a caretaker, doesn't mean that I can't keep my eye out for some quality trouble.

You just can't make your heart feel something it won't.

New Perspectives

Last weekend I hosted She-Who-Visits and her friend who I'll call Swinger Girl in my Magic City condo. They were up from their idyllic island paradise for an intensive, off-island shop-a-thon. They arrived last Friday but alas, work kept me from preparing a proper welcome and I did not arrive until early Saturday morning. When I entered, I knew my place was not my own. Greeting me in the foyer was a pair of summer, strappy wedges. Hmmm...it's a sign. No shoes inside for the weekend. The visiting She is totally OCD about cleanliness. They had left early for one of the massive malls and a marathon of buying things that can't be found in Caribbean paradise.

Throughout the afternoon I re-organized so that I had servant's quarters in my little study nook as they had commandeered the bedroom. I laid out a nice little cheese and crackers spread for their return so we could nosh a bit before our dinner reservation in South Beach. Time passed. Shopping prevailed and they arrived back, glassy eyed and exhausted from their enforced version of super-mall sweep.

This was the very first time in the over five years I've known She that we'd had a guest. Swinger Girl was so incredibly nice and sweet. It was almost painful. I set out the hors d'oeuvres and was invited to sit at their feet by the sofa.

"Why don't you give her a foot massage", She ordered. "And tell him if he's doing it wrong because he's just not very good."

Swinger Girl was immediately appreciative and grateful for my sincere and hearfelt efforts.

"No, no, no!!", She laughed. "I've invested far too much time training him for you to be so nice and ruin it all!"

And so the weekend went. I waited on the them hand and foot. On Sunday I drove them to what seemed like nineteen different malls and a Walmart. I carried their packages to the car. I ferried them from J.C. Penny to Kohl's. I had a great time in the first real social interaction She and I have had together.

I used to be She's client. Now I am her dear friend and submissive on the side. I left them to go to work on Monday morning. Saying goodbye to her is much less painful as I know our relationship is a deep, long-lasting, lifetime current. When I got down to the car there was a $20 bill in the cup holder. Gas money? From She? Certainly one of the sweetest things she's ever done. Financial times are hard and I have upcoming medical expenses for the care of my dying wife. She really shouldn't have.

As luck would have it, Swinger Girl had one more internet shopping package that arrived that morning at my office. I jumped in the car and drove it home to the condo as they were not leaving until later that evening. When I got upstairs the two women were deep into packing their booty just so to look to island customs as though it was just their clothing from a seventeen week stay stateside.

"Was that gas money you left me?" I asked. "I should report you to the authorities that oversee your team. So sweet, but you are slipping, aren't you?"

She got a dark look and immediately grabbed my wallet out of my back suit pocket and took all my cash. I was horrified. I truly am a nitwit sometimes. My silly attempt at humor had deeply offended her. I should have thanked her profusely for her sweetness and yet my pride and shame at not being the earner that I once was, even though I know it's the economy, had gotten the best of me.

She made me beg and plead for my money back which I did with serious conviction. Eventually she relented. She took two five dollar bills and ripped the corners from them. She said we'd each keep one to remember this moment. I pecked her on the cheek. She grabbed me and hugged me and I was gone.

Later that night when I got home there was a note. She left me two more ten dollar bills and the torn five with the corner taped onto the note.

"Here's some more for something nice and a little more for an emergency."

And she signed it with a heart.

New perspectives and a future with a complex and dear friend to share it with in fleeting, borrowed, weekend bursts. Mean girls...they are so deliciously good.

Priceless

She-Who-Visits and a friend are planning an excursion off their idyllic island paradise. Plan was they'd come up on a Friday and stay until Monday as it was some obscure holiday, the remnant of an ancient colonial incursion or some global banking conglomerate. Plan was I'd play chauffeur-gofer and they'd let me sleep under the bed at the condo. Trouble is I can't get down until the Saturday. She and I spoke last night.

"So you're coming down alone, but you can't get here until Saturday, do I have that right?", she inquired sharply.

"Yes, that's correct", I answered on her crisp examination query.

"Well, we aren't sure we're going to use you, but would you like to be in the running?"

Priceless! You just can't teach that, it's hardwired. She probably didn't even realize how many of my erotic triggers she pulled with that one phrase. If she decides she has no use for me there will be no tears from me as what I need exists in all that infused that one little off handed phrase.

Hope Springs Eternal

I don't know what it was about yesterday but some of my terror and anxiety melted away. I mistakenly thought, "Good feeling for the first day of spring." Only a month behind the vernal equinox am I. Last week I'd had a nice conversation with She-Who-Visits as we both commuted to our jobs - she on her idyllic blue water isle and me, drop topped in the Magic City. I talked to her about actually looking forward to moving back in with my wife because each morning and meal with her has become precious. "I'm so glad you are getting to do this," she said with sympathy and real enthusiasm. Me too I said, me too.

And then yesterday morning I had this giddy optimism that I'll figure this all out. Things will be okay. I have great friends who I'll stay in touch with and have been talking to, hanging out with, or connecting with on-line. I'm a dramatically changed person in the past two years. Though I'll miss my black and white poster of Julie Newmar when I leave the man-cave in June I realize I don't need to announce my kink with home decor anymore. I just am. And I'm much more open about most everything with my wife. Though I won't date for the time being, it doesn't mean I have to stop having dinner, lunch, coffee, or drinks with my domme friends and subbie guy buddies. And who knows what outlet I'll figure for my kink. It's a work in progress and I'm creating it as I go.

I'd been talking to kinky friends about kink relationships and the problems we all face in forging them. Yesterday I just had this overwhelming feeling of hope and optimism that we're all in this together. Is it one big campfire sing along? I think not. But we're all out there working it and we have each other to help us along the way. And for that I am just eternally grateful.

Anyway, for musical diversion I've hung on to this Pat Benatar clip as it's kind of like a ruined orgasm - the most deliciously wicked of tease and denial "punishment".

True Heart Service

If you'd seen us you'd think we were on vacation; a happy family reunion in a hot springs mountain retreat. But death cloaked the blue skies and sunshine like an indecorous winding sheet. Her parents in their 90's; her brother a cancer survivor; a manical bike touring, hard pedeling uncle wheeling headlong through a defiant bucket list; and my wife with her terminal diagnosis. And me...

I help her onto the toilet in the unisex handicapped bathrooms that dot an airport like havens for the afflicted. I adjust her underwear and pull up her jeans. I grovel on the floor to make sure she slides into her shoes comfortably. I latch her seat belt. I always allow an hour more to get ready as we have to move slowly.

I think about sexualizing all this but I can't. The whole process makes me horny though. I crave humiliation, orgasm control, cuckolding, and being lovingly laughed at as her rejected loser while She-Who-Visits fucks another younger more virile man before my lust filled eyes.

It's all in my mind as I cut up her steak at dinner and dice her salad so as she raises the fork with her shaking hand less romaine falls to the plate as a frustrating reminder that this is only going to get worse. Some say she is lucky to have me.

But it is I who am lucky to have her. Ironically blessed to render true heart service in pure and unerring love.

Except for the fantasy dream sequence part where she denies me orgasm until I learn to comb her hair properly.

Restart - Cutting Out A Graceless Heart

It has been such a process, this decision. Two years ago I was looking for an apartment in Manhattan, cut adrift. I faced a separation that my gut knew was right and I searched to find a home and a haven. The little slice of the West Village I burrowed into is precious to me. Though many would mutter that at his age he should have so much more, I know it is a tribute to my resourcefulness that I have supported my separated wife, myself, my office, and my business.

But now I have more decisions. I love being single and trying to find Mistress Right. But my wife is slowing - withering away - and needs my help. At first I dug my hamfisted heels into the ground. I won't move back, I won't. I'm happy where I am.

But when I see her struggle to even pull up her feather light, elastic-like, jeans and I rush to her aid - I know there is one choice. So come June I'll pack up my bachelor pad and put everything, including my never-been-used-on-me Twisted Monk hemp rope and Victor Tella baby single tail, into storage and move back in to take care of her.

Until another life I shall cut out a graceless heart and trust that time will provide a restart.

Do You Have The Time To Listen To Me Whine?

I feel particularly disconnected from my kink. Granted I'm busy: caring for ill, separated-yet-undivorced wife; running a business in two cities; dealing with trying financial realities; recognizing I'm not ready to meet Mistress Right. But for the first time in a long time I feel cut off and sort of lost. Even fantasy eludes me. Why can't I just sexualize all this stress? I used to do that all the time and it made difficult times so much more fun.

I went out on two semi-kinky dates the other week and wasn't even inspired to write about them. Desire suppressed infects my creative juice to write about exploits, such that they were. Maybe it's just coming to terms with the idea that if I like her well enough to play, then it's a "relationship". That connection will vie for the time I have to spend with my terminally ill wife. While I feel no need to tell her I'm still going on dates, I'd feel compelled to tell her if I found someone I really liked.

And that would really devastate my wife, even if I were clear that she came first. I've already ended or cut short more than one promising connection over just not knowing how to deal with the knot.

It's ironic that I feel more protective of my marriage in separation than I did when we lived together. Funny what a terminal diagnosis does.

It's pretty clear I'm going to have to move back in with her. Even getting dressed is an exhausting event for her. I dread it, but it is the right thing to do.

With all this going on, no wonder I'm feeling less than libidinous. Perhaps I should expand my on-line dating profile. I'm an attractive, athletic, man; anxious, lacking in libido, and virtually unavailable. No wonder I'm feeling disconnected. Who wouldn't?

Twenty Plus

When my computer boots up it automatically opens to MSN. Invariabaly there is some vapid top ten study that I get sucked into before I go about my web surf. Something like, "The Top Ten American Cities For Beautiful People". Oh yeah, major league intellectual stuff.

So this morning I sign on and there's a top ten study about lasting relationships so I'm scrolling through the amazing insights. One entry claimed that the intensity of couples "in love" actually increased once you hit 20 years. Yeah right.

And ten minutes later as I am getting ready to leave for Miami I can't help but cry. I don't cry much in public or to anyone who doesn't really, really know me. But I thought that the idiot MSN study got it right. Okay, my wife is terminally ill. But somehow even if she weren't, I think I'd still feel an increasing depth of feeling. Everything is colored by the tragic unfairness of her illness. But there's just something that's right about the power of time. Even if it's not perfect. Even if there are significant holes there's something irreplacably valuable about somebody who has been right by you for twenty four years.

Then again, a little kink is a fine thing...

Undating

I've concluded that I'm virtually undatable. Whatever "dating" is these days, I'm just not there. While I am separated I spend lots of time with my wife. There is no sex connection. No shared kink or ignition spark of the erotic. But my time with her is profound. Even as I struggle with the uncharitable feelings of the "resentful caretaker" I am a vastly better man for giving myself to her protection.

With each woman I've "courted" I've been totally honest. Separated yet undivorced, I care for a dying woman. She is number one. You are a distant second. Unless I'm her distant second, it doesn't work.

So then I appreciate my relationship with She-Who-Visits all the more. We're connected but lead totally separate lives. It works in its almost total and complete absence of expectation.

I'm entering another change phase. Will I move back in with my wife to care for her as the inexorable cruelty of her disease continues to destroy her body? And I've got to get real on a financial level. Things are not "turning around". The new reality is survival. Not a time to support four homes. Warren Buffet I ain't.

It is again time to let the feelings wash over me and try to enjoy the ride down the rapids of the mucky, dirty, chop of a river that is my life.

Compartments

One of the themes of my writing has been how I've struggled to live as integrated a life as I can when it comes to my kink. For so many years I hid it away in a dark closet and it only really came out when I snuck around to buy the latest issue of Screw Magazine or DDI and then obsessed on when and where to see which domme I was for the moment enthralled with.

Now, while I certainly don't broadcast to everyone in my social and professional circle that I'm a shoe licking submissive fetishist, most people who know me, both vanilla and scene, know I'm a perv. For myself, I much prefer this less compartmentalized, "one-life-to-live" sort of approach. Sex and what I do, or more accurately what I'd like to do, in the bedroom are private things, not secret shameful things.

But over the course of being more "out" I realize that there are all sorts of lines people draw in their own lives around who knows what about their kink. Or for that matter, how much any given kinkster will reveal to another fellow traveller about their vanilla life. I totally get it and how much anybody choses to share is totally up to them. But even accounting for the need to be discreet because of the "ick factor" of a kinkster lifestyle, I wonder is there something appealing about compartmentalizing for its own sake.

It can be fun to create different persona and be different people in diverse social circles, right? A fantasy role lets you escape the day to day grind of life's mundane responsibilities. It's a mini-vacation or a form of freedom, isn't it? Plus, you get to reveal or protect aspects of your personality as you see fit, which is often a good thing, no?

I suppose I could agonize over where someone's lines in the sand are. Will I offend them? Have I already messed up said something or written something I shouldn't have? Will they ever speak to me again? Can I tip toe through these tulips and not lose my balance?

I try my best to respect other people's boundries and appreciate the compartments of their lives that they feel comfortable sharing with me. And while discretion is said to be the better part of valor, revelation under the right circumstances is an optimistic act of hope.

If Heaven And Hell Decide

I think one of the hopes many of us have is that this year will be "better" than last. We'll make more money, we'll get healthier, we'll go to the gym, we'll be all around better people. My wife is on the phone as I write this and just said to a friend, "what I know is 2012 will not be better than 2011".

For her and the inevitable physical toll her disease will continue to take there is no clean slate. Just a certainty that the downward spiral will continue. But as I listen to her voice, she's so connected to this person on the phone. She's really living the life she has. And that's inspiration enough to me that maybe my life will be richer if I muster the courage to be there to help her.

Last week I had lunch with a domme friend who suggested I read a series from the New York Times Magazine about regular people who died this year. I recommend it too. My wife and I read the series together this morning. She cried so much at the first couple that she couldn't make it through the series. Each highlighted how death can strangely provide hope. We all face it. Our own and the death of those we love. As the article suggested, death is the most democratic of experiences.

So my hope is that I can be there and go the distance. Since I hope it will be a long haul, I have to figure out how to take care of myself as well as take care of her. Shrink has a care giver group for me. So far I'm not moving back in with my wife entirely; so I have my bachelor digs in the West Village. And I've got friends.

So in the midst of the reality that for my wife 2012 will not be a "better" year - for me - it may be awful enrichment.