Feels like I have secret super powers

It's been a really really long time since I felt like I could write here. But I can't not share this small thing:

I had this experience after an intense day of play where it really hit me hard how profoundly amazing and different my life is because of BDSM and kink. We were pulling out of the parking garage and saw these two random neighbors walking into the elevator carrying groceries or something, and I had this sense and understanding that they... just a few feet from us... wouldn't know what we do or who we are even if we were standing right next to them.

It was like I suddenly realized that I have a secret life, secret powers, this secret source of happiness and meaning... things that regular people like those neighbors don't see, and don't know.  And it's not that I'm hiding it out of fear or shame.  It's more like... if I ever tried to tell them, I know they wouldn't understand. It was tickling all kinds of childhood fantasies of discovering you have magic powers, or could fly, or things like that. I sat there and watched these neighbors get into the elevator and I felt like that had become reality: I'm different. We're different. We have something special and magical.

I made a joke to my Sir... something like "look at all the Muggles!" and we both laughed, but I mean it seriously. :) I feel like I'm part of a hidden world, and it feels like belonging.

Dame and puppy play with rope, belts, and blood.

(Warning: this post includes talk of period blood.)

I learned all kinds of new things about my switchy, kinky brain the other night. Fiance and I had plans for kink, but the unexpected arrival of my period forced us to change our plans--not because sex during shark week is gross (it's not), but because the cramping and fatigue I get on day 1 fucks with my brain and I was pretty sure I'd have no chance of really getting into the right headspace.

So we opted for a slightly kinky stay-at-home date night with dinner, wine, and rope instead. Fiance put me in a simple chest harness most of the night that still gave me full range of motion and felt absolutely amazing to wear. I took dozens of pictures... here's just one of them:

We didn't stick to our original plans at all. We just resolved to just "see where things go" and how I felt as we snuggled, messed around, watched Firefly and drank.

And this "see where things go" plan ended up being spectacular. It let me just sort of let my brain go where it wanted to, and holy hell, some magical combination of the wine and the rope and maybe even my period pushed me into a very dommy mood pretty quickly. I stepped into a version of Dame that I'd never met before, and with Fiance's consent, I discovered the magic and pleasure of thwacking puppy on the ass with my own belt. The sounds. The reactions. Him letting me know that I can hit him harder, and the thrill of trying to do so.  There was this incredibly intense emotional aspect to it. Each time I brought my belt down, I wanted to immediately kiss and touch the place I'd just hit. There was this play between several high-intensity voices in my head "did I hurt him?" and "I want to do that again." and "oh my god I love this man so much."

I can't touch that belt now without smiling. I wear it nearly every day.

For the first time, I let my head play with the idea of puppy being "mine" in that very dominant sense you see in all the kinky tumblr feeds. And that was kind of thrilling. Surprisingly so. I felt more than a little bit unleashed in a way I'd never felt before. Not beastial, so much as completely unmonitored, completely free to take joy in what we were doing, and how we were fucking.  Dominance as an act of unabashed, unrestrained wanting, consumption, worship, and pleasure. I felt this intense need to cherish him in this violent and all-consuming way. It was otherworldly. I felt like a rockstar, or an artist, or some other kind of burning and bleeding thing.

And there was blood, of course. This wasn't the first time we've fucked on my period, but this was the first time that seemed to add to the intensity of what I was feeling instead of just making me distracted and self-conscious about staining something. For some reason, being in Dame's dommy headspace made it spectacularly hot to see the mess I'd left on him when we were finished. It looked like a painting--thick red oil paint smeared across a messy, fleshy canvas... my puppy entirely spent and exhausted, panting on the bed.

It was incredible. And with his permission, I took pictures. And no, you can't see them. No one but us can see them. But I will treasure them. Cherish them. And maybe someday I'll put a real paintbrush to real canvas and create something inspired by them. Something besides this blog post, and the marks he left on my skin to remember the night by.

Three things that helped me get back on solid ground

(This post is kind of "Part 2" of the previous post. Read that first.)

Things were very rough, but they are better now. Things are not the same as before, which I expected, and feel is normal and right--I've landed on a different shore from the one I was flung from, but I do feel like I'm on solid ground again.

This morning, Fiance observed that this was probably one of the fastest recoveries he's ever seen me go through, which made me feel really good. It made me realize that the years of work on my mental health and happiness weren't all unraveling, and weren't undone. The way my brain is wired really is different now compared to where it was before.  The "default" state of my brain really is higher, and the moments of happiness aren't the temporary things anymore. The crisis moments, the depression moments, those are the things that my brain recognizes will pass.

This makes me happy.

When Fiance said those things to me, I realized that there were three key things that are different in my life right now that I think helped me get back on my feet.  And they showed up in the last few days in three key things that happened. The order I describe them in this blog post is not the order in which they happened though. In my mind they are all part of a kind of simultaneous experience of getting better. Yes, maybe the third in this list made the other two possible...chronology is a real thing... but I would not be as whole as I feel right now if it weren't for all three.

Thing one: did work that I love.

First, I went back to work yesterday, and this particular work that I do makes me feel fulfilled and capable and strong on levels that no other work or job I've ever had does. I walked out of the office that night feeling nearly whole. Feeling like I had expertise and control over something important and that I was helping other people have better lives...

Walking out of work that night reminded me that my future in-laws don't get to decide what's right for me in my life. Even if the judgments I felt like they passed on me through Fiance's second-hand retelling of their conversation was wrong, this experience helps remind me that no one, not even parents or in-laws or strangers on the internet can decide or judge me for the choices I've made in my life to be happy.  They don't know how much my work fulfills me, and fuck them if they think I should be working "more hours" or bringing home more of a paycheck. Fuck them for implying that my choices aren't "fair" or show "selfishness".

So the first thing that's different is I have work that makes me feel a lot of dignity and self-respect, and so I found myself on solid ground emotionally on at least one front more quickly than I thought I would. It helped reinforce to me that my choices were right for me, and I should fight tooth and nail to keep doing this kind of work.

Thing two: voiced my very last secret fear.

The second thing that happened is that during one of our emotional conversations, Fiance and I talked about the very very last hard thing that until now I've left completely unvoiced, and unstated.  I won't get into exactly what that difficult scary thing was, except to say that this scary thing felt like I'd been sitting on a nuke that could go off and destroy everything if I let it out. I felt like it was something I could only confide to a therapist... someone legally required to keep it secret, and who could then help me understand it in a safe environment.

Well, I told Fiance about it. And he listened, and we talked about it, and the end result was not the destruction of our marriage-before-it-started. The end result was a mutual commitment to each other, and a promise to him and from him that even if any part of my now-not-secret-fear were true, we still want to get married. He's still my foundation, and my life partner. His dad and stepmom don't get a say in whether or not we get married.

And suddenly I realized the nuke would never go off. That it hadn't been a nuke at all. Maybe it was just a big brick with the word "nuke" spray painted onto the side. Or maybe in some relationships, it would have been a nuke, but in this one, it's just a dud, and that fact... the fact that THIS context, THIS relationship makes it possible to transmute the most destructive secret I've kept from him into something more benign... it helped me understand how "forever" this relationship is.

There was more to our conversation, but it stemmed from voicing that fear and talking through it. And so this second thing that happened was that I landed back on solid ground in terms of my relationship with my primary partner, my Fiance, and I have no more secret fears. I have nothing else to fear, no more sources of anxiety regarding my relationship with my Fiance. And so I feel like I'm on solid ground again.

Thing three: polyamory.

The third thing that happened is a thing that makes me feel so very strongly that polyamory is a thing that needs to continue being a part of my life, and my marriage. My other romantic partner came over for lunch, and I cried and told him about the roughness and pain and fear and the massive emotionally violent breakdown I'd had after hearing how coming out to my in-laws went.  I cried, and I was vulnerable and broken, and then afterwards he helped put me back together again. There were kisses and snuggles, and I believe that these kisses and snuggles were so profoundly healing precisely because they came from someone who loves me and who is NOT involved in the thing that was hurting me.  He was an outside person who could just listen and be invested in my emotional state, and could love me and touch me when I was ready for that in a way that I simply couldn't have had if polyamory weren't a thing in my life. It was a profound kind of healing moment that I needed badly, and I don't think I could have gotten in any other way. 

I never felt like I was on shaky ground with regards to how I feel about polyamory being right for us, but this experience gave me a concrete example of exactly why it's so very right. So very healthy for my brain, and my health and my relationship with my Fiance. Because of that experience, I could be more open and vulnerable and brave and strong with my Fiance, and it was the very next morning and the very next day when Thing one, and Thing two happened, and so I can't help but credit this poly afternoon as the real turning point for me, even if I can only recognize it as the turning point in retrospect.  

I have the urge to re-tell some of this experience in terms of the allegory from my dream in my last post, but I don't think I could do it without diminishing this. Something about the dusk not being dusk at all, but actually being those moments before dawn. The sun rose. And while the sunlight didn't make the waters my adrift house was floating on less dangerous, it gave me more energy to rally, and keep things together while I figured out how to install a rudder and a sail. Or something. See? It sounds reductive. Diminished told that way... sorry about that.  

Things were very rough; they are better now.

Someone ripped my house up by the foundation and set it adrift in the ocean

I haven't blogged in ages. Not because I haven't wanted to... more because things were going very well... so well in fact that writing about them here, in this pseudo anonymous space would have felt a little shallow. A little reductive.  Poly things took off. I've somehow found myself living in a world where I can have a Fiance and another romantic partner at the same time.  Many joy. Very magic. Wow.

I came out to my mother about us opening our relationship, and how much of a spectacularly positive thing that has been for me and the Fiance. My mother said all the right things. Gave all the right kinds of support. She sent us a book about love. She said she'd let me know when she was ready to get pictures or talk to the Fiance or hear more so my news could be "really real" for her. Many joy. Very magic. Wow.

Then Fiance came out to his dad and stepmom. And they did not say all the right things. Did not give all the right support. They raised issues and complaints and concerns about me, about the very nature of our relationship, and none of that was expected. It's ripped a crack in something very foundational in me, and I'm sort of set adrift now. For a little while after hearing about their conversation, I felt like my life, all of it, was over. I felt like my marriage was over before it'd even started.  It's been a shattering few days. I'm barely holding it together. But I'm working on it. I came back from a breakdown that had me collapsed on the floor making terrifying animal noises in record time, and I'm researching therapists, and I am working hard not to close up and lock everything down in my brain again. Keep the protective walls at maybe waist high instead of going up to the sky. Some minutes I'm fine. Some minutes I'm strong, and I have my feet under me. But then some minutes I'm just crumpled in a corner crying.

Like now.

Last night I dreamed.  And the symbols in the dream were so obvious... so transparent... that I couldn't have made them more plain if I were a bitter, disenfranchised high school student with a creative writing assignment.

In my dream, someone ripped my entire house out by its foundation and used a couple boards like a lever to shove it into the ocean before anyone could react, setting it adrift at sea with me still inside. I was angry and I was scared and I was bitter. It was some kind of twilight. Like just after sunset. Visibility was bad. Waves were relatively calm though. There was no wind, but the white foam when waves broke on the beach were like reminders of past and future storms.  The house floated upright, and I had some amount of confidence that it would hold, but not for long. Only for as long as my anger held and I kept my wits.

I looked over the edge of my roof, or perhaps out a window, and I could see sharp and jagged rocks just under the surface of the water, but I was smart enough to know how to time the movement of the house so that a swell could carry it over the top of them. Get us to a place where we wouldn't be in immediate danger. I felt clever. But it felt like triage. I'd saved us for this moment, but at a cost.

Now we were out in deeper waters, with those sharp rocks between us and safety.  There's no way to get back to the same solid ground we came from. So I started scanning the coastline, found we were in some kind of bay. There's a peninsula made of... paper I think, to our right. It's hard to see it in the dusk. And I have no way to steer the house there. And if we made it, the new coastline might actually be made of paper anyway and sink the second we tried to land.  I knew we needed to find a new place to be. But I didn't know how. We needed help.

Someone (a version of me?) wanted to jump overboard with a vague rationale of paddling or pushing the house by hand back to shore or swimming back to land by herself and running away.  I don't know if I told her no (I wanted to). I don't know if she jumped. But I remember thinking it was a stupid idea and would get her killed.

Sometimes dreams are nonsense. And sometimes they are just straight-up re-tellings of your emotional state.  Which I guess can be cathartic. I guess this can be therapeutic. Writing about it now feels good.  Makes me feel a little better.

I feel like this dream is a way all the different versions of me in my head (and I've got a lot of them) are trying to affirm to me that they know how I feel. They understand what I'm going through. And they are doing their part to process things, use the machinery of my brain and all the symbols at its disposal to just "be with me" and empathize. 

Or something. I don't really know how to end this blog post... there's no wrap-up. No moment where I land on something hopeful right now. Except to reassure you (and myself) that I am okay. I'm going back to work today after the long holiday break. And I've gotten replies and referrals from several kink and poly friendly therapists. That's not nothing. But I know that I will not be able to see my Fiance's dad or stepmom again for a long time. 

Need to squee....

My favorite twitter person just followed me back. :D

*swoon*

@pandoras_mouth, I love you so very much. :)

Birthday kink, and our "you'd be a spectacularly bad lesbian" joke

Last weekend was Fiancé's birthday, and as I've tweeted elsewhere, the VAST majority of my gifts to him this year were kink related. :) I can't tell you how much fun it was to wake him up in that outfit, and let him be the one to decide how I was going to make him late for... anything else we had planned that morning (I was about to say 'late for work' but it was a Saturday).

And we also threw a party at our apartment and everyone we invited showed up. Fiancé wore a bow-tie! He looked amazing, and adorable, and a little like the 11th Doctor, but much less dopey. :)  Crush helped cook, and prep, and that was lovely on so many levels. There were tickle fights and hugs with other amazing beautiful wonderful people that I wish I could spend every waking hour sort of orbiting. :) And then there was the spectacularly unexpected hour or so when Crush's wife fell asleep on my shoulder and I didn't dare move or speak, worried I'd break that spell.  Even though I know she's not interested in me in that way, that hour (or year... hard to say how long she was there) made me feel so amazing.  I felt trusted in a way I've never felt before, especially because not only is she a dear dear friend that I want very much to be closer to, she is also Crush's wife. More than once I had to try not to cry. Haha (I am such a dork.)

I still have a few more gifts for Fiancé coming (*shakes fist at vendor for being slow*), but Monday night was my second kink-related gift to him: I dressed in a corset, tights, skirt and heels, made dinner. On the table was a wrapped gift: a length of Twisted Monk's October Limited Edition Blood Drop rope (now sold out. Sorry.). I timed it in such a way that everything was ready when he walked in the door, and had all these pseudo plans of just pretending like everything was normal.  It was ridiculously fun, but the cooking-in-heels-and-corset thing taught me several new things related to my kink brain that I didn't know before...

For one, I think the "service" aspect of subbing doesn't do anything for me. I wanted to try it. Try to be a "good sexy housewife" just to see what that felt like, and I'm glad I did. But while I was cooking, it just felt like any other birthday prep work. I still felt good doing it, was excited for him to come home, but it contributed absolutely no kink-level things or arousal-level things or anything else beyond what I'd experienced doing this in vanilla.  Plus, cooking in heels was absolutely awful. That made me grumpy. Remind me never to do that again. 10 minutes after he arrived, I had to kick off those fucking shoes and spend the rest of the night sliding around in tights instead.

Other things I learned that night were how incredibly hot it felt to be in bondage and continue to do pretty mundane things. We watched an episode of The Newsroom with me in ropes next to him on the couch, and it was for some reason thrilling to have to struggle to figure out how to drink my champagne, and have the ropes tighten and grip me in new and interesting ways when bringing the glass up to my lips. And Fiancé's smile when he'd see me struggle, and how he'd keep hold of the loose end of my rope... just thinking about this makes me want to go shopping for a collar and leash, and buy him a million books on bondage so he can learn new and exciting ways to tie me up for activities that have nothing to do with sex. :) *swoon*

The sexytimes part of the kink night also taught me new things, some of which I won't get into because they are just more "yes, I liked that" and "no that didn't do much for me".  But one thing specifically I think is worth writing about: at one point, he made me taste myself, which may not seem weird, or boundary-pushing (because I know that tasting body fluids either on accident or on purpose sometimes happens a lot in vanilla sex) but for me, this was one of those Big Moments where I had to really fucking pay attention to how my brain would respond.  And having that happen recently also gives me an excuse to finally write the blog post I've had sitting in a half-draft state for weeks... I've been wanting to write about my fear of lady-fluids for a long time, but each time I almost hit publish, I chicken out. Well, not this time, bitches. I've got you now.

*ahem* here we go....

In the past, my fiancé and I have joked a lot about the fact that I'd be "a spectacularly bad lesbian". For years and years, pretty much forever in fact, even after I finally accepted and internalized my bisexuality, I've been pretty grossed out by the smell and taste of my own pussy. It was a very strong dislike. So strong that I used to really freak out if my partner tried to kiss me after going down on me.  With each new partner, I started integrating "Okay, and if you go down on me, you have to go brush your teeth afterwards before you can kiss me again" into the usual conversations about birth control and STDs.

And, inevitably, I'd get the funny look, and once or twice the question, "But aren't you bi?" Yes. I'm bi. And yes, I'm afraid of pussy. Shut up. Do you want to fuck or not?

It always felt to me like this embarrassing black mark on my sexuality. It made me feel a lot of doubt about my identity, and made me even question the validity of my own feelings... Even my "can't-eat-for-days" and "throw-up-with-nervousness-before-I-see-her" crush on The Woman, who blew my mind and made me feel more swoony than any other person of any gender I've ever crushed on before or after.  

This fear of tasting pussy made me doubt everything I felt about women. Like, maybe I'm not really bi. Maybe this is "just a phase".  And even worse "maybe I'm just crushing on women for attention". I was a walking, talking, breathing, case of biphobia, and no small amount of self-hatred for it.

Eventually, I kind of learned to hate myself less for it and just accepted that perhaps some people just can't handle the taste and smell, and that it HAS to be sort of common... but I'm pretty sure this continued to be a big part of why I was never brave enough to actually express my interest, or confess my crushes, to anyone but my journals, my livejournal (in pseudo-anonymous ways) and trusted guy friends (who no doubt got off on all my pining and swooning).

Fast forward, oh... 10 or so years from then to now, and not much has changed. While I've had countless crushes on women, I've still never had a girlfriend, never had meaningful sex with a woman, and my Fiancé always rinses his mouth after going down on me.  The difference these days is that I feel like this phobia is pretty childish. I'm an adult. And my juices are not gross. No one's juices are gross.  The rest of the world seems to be able to either push past their dislike, or as what seems more likely, actually deeply enjoy the taste and smell, so why can't I?

So, bit by bit... I started pushing my own boundaries. Secretly at first. Tasting myself on my toys and hands after masturbating. It was scary. But I was brave. It was gross and weird and strange... it turned me right the hell off for the most part, but I kept trying, kept pushing boundaries.

I reached a turning point not too long ago when while enjoying some solo time, I tasted myself and pretended it was the taste of a girl I was crushing hard on. And that was spectacular. I'd reached some kind of breakthrough.  For the first time ever, I felt the anxiety about all of this melt away.

I tweeted something about that the next day:

Yesterday, wanted to tweet "I taste myself and pretend it's her", but chickened out until now. Feeling braver. #crushinghard

— Inner Jane (@InnerJane) October 10, 2015

But that breakthrough was a little short-lived.  My changes aren't always straight lines, and this particular fear and anxiety still hasn't gone completely away (and I have some theories as to why, but won't post them here... if you're interested, and you are one of the few people who know who I am in real life, you can email me or IM me about this.)

But the long and short of it is that Birthday Kink Night was another sort of breakthrough/turning point for me in this area. Not in quite the epic way the first one was, but hearing the words "I'm going to make you taste yourself" from someone I love and trust so completely while also deep in subspace was a pretty fucking fantastic, and a pretty safe way to keep my brain from flipping its shit.  It did break me out of the headspace for a second or two, but only really enough for me to realize that I didn't hate that. So, I took a mental note, congratulated myself on the babysteps I was still taking after sort of relapsing over the last few weeks, and then continued to enjoy the night.

As an epilogue, I'll also mention that corsets are cool. (Read that in the 11th doctor's "bowties are cool" for added effect.)  Even cheap Halloween-quality corsets. I took pictures, but of course I can't share those with you... but the fact that I happily took some kind of reminds me of the breakthroughs I talked about in my last post. :) I'm still this "different person" that I became after my transformative Adventures at the Strip Club day and didn't careen back to reality with a crash or revert back into some older, more reserved version of myself after coming down from that high. This, and many other things in my brain right now, makes me very happy. :)

I went to a strip club last night.

I went to a strip club last night. I went to a motherfucking strip club. I. Me. This girl who not that long ago used to cringe and hide her face any time anyone made an even slightly dirty joke out loud. This girl who maybe just 2 months ago could barely muster up the energy to have sex with her Fiance about once a week.  This girl who couldn't even say the word "penis" out loud with a straight face. This girl. Me. I.  I went to a fully nude, fully insane, fully amazing strip club.

And it was spectacular. It was fantastic. I had the most mindblowing time, and got to meet and flirt and smell some of the most amazing women. In the car ride home, I think I yelled out something like "Holy shit, there's no question about it. I'm totally a raging bisexual back here." I can't remember everything. There was no alcohol involved, but the night was such a blur of color and flesh and elevated heartrates that I'm sure it will be weeks from now and I'll still recall new details that will thrill and excite me. I can't tell you all the stories. But I owe this experience to two very very dear friends who took Fiance and me there as a most fantastic and inspired engagement gift... I still have no fucking words, but they both got a lot of hugs and snuggles and I wish I could do something, anything to really truly thank them in some way that does justice to how that experience transformed me.

And... and... going to the club wasn't the only mind-blowing thing that I did yesterday. I sort of changed three times yesterday... ("A day of three changes?") Sort of bolstered by the anticipation of going to the club, and also sort of bolstered by the unabashed desire just to try it and see how it felt, I shaved everything... and I mean everything. With a razor. Fiance was there, helping me. Supervising. Helping me touch up places I couldn't see or reach. Telling me I was a good girl when I needed to sink slightly into subspace in order to really fully trust that the blade wasn't going to cut me.  It was a fantastic and amazing experience, and afterwards I felt changed for the first of the three times.

I looked at myself in the mirror after shaving and just said "Who the fuck am I?" with this massive grin. I think I even yelled something like "holy shit, I have a pussy!" while looking at the color and texture of skin that I'd never actually really seen before. And in this really deep belly sort of way, I felt this glow... this unabashed glow that I can only attribute to actually discovering that I like myself.

And then the second of three changes happened. A lightswitch in my brain flipped from off to on, and despite the fact that for my entire life, I swore I'd never ever let anyone ever do this to me (not even a future life partner after being married for a million years), I decided I wanted to take naked pictures of myself. Naked pictures. Of myself. Explicit ones. Very explicit ones. I. Me. This girl who used to hate her body so much that the thought of ever there existing any kind of even half-nude or sexualized picture of her used to send her into a massive anxiety and panic attack just thinking about it.  But for some reason, yesterday, I wanted to. I needed to. So I did. :D Fiance helped with angles and poses and also helped with making sure my phone didn't auto-upload any of these images to the cloud.  We must have taken a dozen or so... some with rope (purple of course!), some without. Some up close, some zoomed out. None showed my face, and none were very good, but they were mine. My naked pictures. I'd never felt so fucking powerful before that moment as I did right then, zooming in and out looking at my own god damned cunt in high definition.

I don't have good words to process any of this. I don't think I've had nearly enough sleep to process any of this.

After we got home from the strip club last night, I had to just pause looking in the mirror at one point and just be *baffled*.  Somewhere in the club, somewhere between learning how to tip properly at the stage and learning what it's like to have this gorgeous tattooed woman who just made you feel so much teasing you in a private dance so intense that it ends in involuntary tears and many laughter-filled hugs (I am not making this up. While I wasn't sobbing or anything, I can honestly say I cried a bit in the arms of a stripper!) I changed for the the third time in a day.

When we got home, I found myself having one of those incredibly surreal moments where you look at yourself in the mirror and you see someone totally different from who you were the last time you stood there. Like the night before and after losing your virginity... I remember pretty distinctly looking in the mirror before sneaking off to meet my friend (yes, I lost my v-card to a friend rather than a boyfriend. I'm actually pretty damn proud of this.) and thinking to myself something like "the next time I am standing here, looking at myself in this bathroom mirror, I'm going to be a changed person."  I don't mean this to say that losing my virginity was some kind of mythic, epic thing. (It wasn't. It was actually pretty disappointing and frustrating, but that's another story.) But even so, I marked that moment with this mirrored eye-contact with myself and just marveled at how I was about to do something sort of huge and different and personal and in that romantic-narcissistic headspace all 16 year olds live in, I felt and believed that after that point, I'd be changed forever.

And last night after coming home, I had one of those exact moments but sort of in reverse. I looked in the mirror and saw myself as a changed person. Wholly changed. "Who the fuck am I?" I said with an uncontrollably huge smile. Just a few weeks ago, I'd never have even fathomed that I'd be doing and thinking and being in the ways I have been lately.

And I'm so fucking pleased with myself over all of it. Every single thing.  I had the most spectacular time last night. I wore high heels all night and didn't die (although I'm sore as fuck this morning... but that COULD have been from the wild sex after coming home... not sure if I can blame the heels). I fell in love over and over and over again with the women on stage, chatting with us, doing acrobatics and dives and flinging their underwear at my friend next to me.  I got to watch as a stripper in full Harley Quinn cosplay and character grabbed my Fiance by the tie and dragged him off to be molested (I think when he came back, he said something about how he'd never ever been so hot for a woman threatening to murder him before.)

I'm still more than just a little bit stunned by it all. I can't expect to process this all in one post. I am sure I'll be thinking about this for weeks... I know that for days and days to come, I'm going to be thinking non-stop about the stripper who treated me oh so well and gave me the most spectacular hugs, celebrating with me the fact that it was my first time there by being so incredibly warm and generous with her smiles and body and laughter.  She told me afterwards how thrilled she'd felt to dance for me because of how enthusiastic and genuinely into it I was. We hugged and she said I was her "favorite" to dance for, and even if she says that or something like that to all her clients, she made me feel it. She made me feel like she understood me, my nervousness and enthusiasm and the happy dizzy feeling she was making me feel on a level that I had no hope of really understanding for myself just then, or maybe even ever...

I really don't know how I'm going to return to my "normal life" after this. It's 9:35 am on a random Sunday in October and I have two very large stacks of papers to grade and lessons to write, and dishes to do, and laundry to fold, but all I want to do is just continue to bask in this afterglow... write some smutty fiction, and put my black high heels on again and walk around in them for just a little while more.