I Ask You...

What would Valentine's Day be without another installment of the adventures of Advo and She-Who-Visits?

Ahh, Valentine's Day. I must just be one of those guys who doesn't have a feel for the day. It always just seems to me like such a made-up Hallmark holiday. Forced romance - now there's a fetish for you! There's such an outsized expectation for such little actual payoff. Plus, there's never anything in it for me except downside. On the one hand, expectation is sky-high. Anticipation leaps from romantic prospect like a nasty jolt from a TENS unit to the sincere offering of effort. If I succeed, I've managed only to do what's expected, whereas the dial-turned zap of failure looms large, always ready to electrocute everything.

Wait a second. I sound like I'm enjoying this a bit, don't I?

Last year I totally missed She's boat when it came to Valentine's Day. I remember the horrible feeling when she called and asked me where her flowers were. It literally took me months to paw dig myself out of the doghouse. I vowed I'd change things this year.

So I started early as I related on a previous post and began sending her store bought Valentine's cards which I personalized and customized. Sometimes I'd paste some song lyrics into the card. On others I would find images of places we'd been or restaurants we'd eaten at and I'd add them. I had fun and some of the cards were really pretty well done. So I sent them off in batches with the total card count coming in close to the day of the month upon which this wretched holiday falls.

I loved making She her cards. I felt the whole process bring me closer to her every time I did one of my little arts and crafts offerings. I pasted an image of a death-by-super-chocolate souffle we'd shared at Capsuto Frères with a description about its "precarious rising" and admonished her to refrain from peanut gallery comments about other such similar "risings". I glued in Patti Smith lyrics about love's angelic, lustful disguise. I made lots of x's and o's.

Then I sent her flowers on Thursday, just to make sure she got them. Red roses, circus roses (red with yellow and orange tips), and yellow callas. My message was about how flowers were fleeting, furiously fun, and completely evanescent. Beautiful, like our time together.

Thursday I was home, cramming more law into a brain that feels it is leaking the Rule Against Perpetuities, Promissory Estoppel, and the Homestead Exemption from every orifice of my tired, tired body. She wrote me a nice email in which she proclaimed the flowers just lovely, but She allowed as to how she liked the cards much better than the flowers. Soooo much effort She praised. "I just loved them!"

"I love pleasing my Valentine", I replied

"Then you should have sent a plant", she answered

Oh, She, you really love me. You met me halfway!

advo-i-am

A Feeling ...

At the risk of sounding like a broken record, I've had a feeling recently that one of the things that has drastically changed for me about my kink is that my life has integrated with it and it has integrated with my life. A couple of fresh, up-to-the-moment, interactions recently reminded me.

First, MTO posted a piece on her blog about "Summoning". She wrote about the appeal of just snapping her fingers and a guy would appear - summoned - to do whatever it was she wanted or needed. She talked about how this is something of a recurring guy fantasy and something that held a draw for her too. But the practical realities of the day-to-day always seemed to intrude.

I commented that I'd had this recent reverie that I had packed it all in, moved to She's island paradise, and become her butler/gofer/general dogsbody. MTO's reply included this remark;

...part of what makes any play partner compelling, at least to me, is the fullness of his life. That he brings something to the table besides adoration and service. I absolutely believe that one of my most valuable attributes as a Domme is that I’m more than just a domme.

Later in the week, I was talking about missing She with my shrink and how I was tired of the remaining secrecy that's attached to my relationship with her. Shrink said that my relationship with She is so much broader and richer than just a "kink thing" and what more would I want anyone to know? Isn't the rest of my relationship with her just private? I mean, my wife knows that I have a happily married, dear friend, who's name is She (I mean her real first name - the wife snooped a pretty vanilla but heartfelt email on the BB - so she knows She's first name), and who lives outside the country. Do I really need her to know about the kink stuff?

And with those two remarks it really dawned on me that I actually live a pretty well integrated life. I can't tell you how much better it feels than even three or four years ago when pretty much everything I did about perviness was hidden or secret. Private doesn't mean closeted away. It just means private.

Anyway, for what it's worth, I totally agree with Ms. Troy Orleans. What makes for interesting play partners, friends, and people in general is a fullness of life. Just a feeling I got...

Can You Say Fergie?

What Is It They Say About Early Birds?

This year I've started early. I promised She last year that I would. Well, what I said when she was so disappointed in me for not properly observing Valentine's Day was, "Just wait until next year." So I've started early.

Papyrus in Soho has a sale on V-Day cards. Buy three get one free. I got six free cards. Plus a bunch of ninety-eight cent stamps, song lyrics to paste into the aforementioned cards and a perverted editor's eye to making the Hallmark holiday hum with the vibrancy of the depraved and deviant. Oh okay, I'll let a couple of vanilla "I love you" cards slip through my debauched revisions, but I think it fitting to mark this made up holiday in this fashion. Plus, so far She loves her cards.

This time last year she started her new job and kind of stopped focusing on me. It hurt and I whined and pined. This year she's moving to a new place and very busy at work. To say the least, I'm busy too. But last year we came through a time when we veered apart only to come together and become closer and stronger. So this year I have lots of quiet trust that our bond is strong and true.

As well, a good chunk of my motivation to study and pass my second bar exam is to be in a position to see She more often. It's not the only reason mind you. We could incinerate and I'd still want my condo with the waterview and parking spot for the convertible. But the thought of her in the picture makes the pain of bar study that much more righteous.

A kinky woman friend said my study was a true act of devotion to my domme, and said that she hoped that She appreciated it. I hope She appreciates it too. But the most important thing is that I know it is, at least in part, a deep act of fidelity and love for a woman who changed my life. Then again, there's also breakfast on the terrace in February in a t-shirt and shorts ... She or no she.

Oh who am I kidding? She has me wrapped around her little finger!

This Ain't No Lay Down

My friend Ms. Mahwah Kiss claimed the other day that the reason I have been in so much pain over the sale of my coop and separation from my wife is due to my kinky proclivity to serve a dominant woman. Ms. Kiss maintains that because I am compelled to serve, my inability to sustain alpha-provider status is causing all manner of heartache. The lovely Ms. Mahwah believes she knows this about me because one afternoon when we met for coffee, I insisted on having her sit while I served her coffee and a snack.

I declared, "See, you get a servant when you get involved with the likes of me."

"Hmmm," she mused, "Well I like that!"

Anyway, her whole take on my emotional state these days got me thinking that maybe she was onto something. Even though I do not have a kinky relationship with my wife, there are developed aspects of my bdsm personality in my bond to her. I can recognize my hurt pride for now in not being able to continue to provide as just that - hurt pride. But I have to admit that the depth of my sorrow might be related to a need to serve. At least the thought helps me to manage the ordeal and feel some honor that my submissive side is so actively engaged.

Which brings me to my next point. Since when is submission all about the lay down? Recently, a dominant woman friend confided that she had bottomed a bit and that she loved it because she got to lay back and do nothing. She got to just bliss out in a pleasurable release from any responsibility. Now I suppose there are aspects of sub-space which match up with this description. Certainly, the dominant is often the planner, the decider, and the actor. But I gotta say that for me, submission is very engaged and interactive. I figure out how best to compliment my domme's style, accomodate her preferences and meet her needs. For me, this is the very heart of active submission.

Indeed, there are lots of times when I play with She and she's doing nothing and I'm doing everything. Maybe if I mess up I get punished. But I'm all about being an a vigorous, dynamic bottom. Unless I'm wrapped in Saran wrap...

Come to think of it, just tie me up now and I'll lay here and moan.