Radical Discontinuity

Without much research,  I took a big leap — jumped off a cliff and I went to a new kind of retreat.  I thought tantra + shamanism:  two great tastes that taste great together, what could possibly go wrong?  And My intuition was right. It was immersive and hugely cathartic. i let go of *so much stuff* I didn’t realize I was still carrying. I would have to write a whole book about it to convey everything that happened.

But I don’t want to.

I really don’t have much interest in writing about it, except for the pleasure of remembering the details.  I feel no need to process it. I understand what happened and it was good.  I feel changed, I feel things have broken loose and are shifting a lot now. So I don’t want to stop and write about it.

I want to go Live it.

Floofy

About two weeks ago, I wrote...
——-
Master and Princess are going AWAY.  We're going on a RETREATY thing and it involves AIRPLANES and super groovy WOOwoo peoples.  And we are sposed to bring a buncha SCHTUFF with us, and even though we will prolly be NEKKID a lotta the time we are sposed to not forget to bring Goddess Clothing.

WHAT'S  GODDESS CLOTHING?  Princess doesn't have any GODDESS clothing, do we?

So we gotta go get some FAST and we gotsta look on AMAZON.  And it took forEVER cuz stupid AMAZON gives you pickchurs of stuff and it is NOT what you ASKED FOR.

*rolls eyes*  Dumb amazon. Why do they DO that!

But we found some FUN stuff.  We founda pair o big floppy HAREM pants that have ELephants on em, and they said they are GREEN but they look like they are BLUE, and Master says maybe it's the POOTER screen or maybe they meant TEAL, and you never can TELL, so we took a CHANCE.  And then we found a dress, it's all colorful and FLOWY and it's mostly PURple but with OTHER colors too, and it has an innaresting HEM and...

IT'S VERY VERY FLOOOOFY!!!!

Princess luvs floofy.

And Master said it's not TOO expensive.  Espeshally considering it's GODDESS clothing an all.

So we got that too.

AND WE REALLY HOPE IT COMES ON FRIDAY LIKE THEY SAID.

Yep.

Princess LIKEs all the Floofy schtuff.  It makes her wanna TWIRL.

And Master got her some other stuff, cuz Master thinks maybe princess doesn't know how to be MAD, cuz that was always the GENERAL's job but prolly princess should get BETTER at that, and learn HOW, even if Unkey is being a poophead and not DEALING with her.  So Master got us an adorable, cute, cartoony bat that looks like a yellow BUG with EARS plus a mooshy ball so princess can WHACK SHIT when she needs to to get out her GRESSIONS and her EEEE motions.

Speshally when she doesn't have REAL boy balls to play with and her GRESSIONs. *giggles*

And Master got her a BOOK, it's kinna a JOURNAL, but it's the best journal EVER cuz it tells princess to mess it UP!  Like... rub her DINNER food on one page.  And float another page in WATER or cut it UP or make it into a PLANE or write on the EDGEs.  And ROLL IT DOWN A HILL.  And SWING IT ON A STRING AND BONK the HOUSE.  And put one page in her pocket when she washes the PANTS and then tape the messed-up washed-up page BACK IN THE BOOK.  And eat some colorful CANDY and then put her TONGUE on the page, and turn THAT into a PICKCHUR. And and and and  all KINDS of things!  Princess likes to distructify stuff, and she is always EXTRA nice to BOOKs, she canna WAIT to destructify this BOOK.  And Master forgot she bought it a WHILE ago already, so when it showed up it was like a perfect SURPRISE!

Master has a new TRICK too, when she buys something for Princess, she includes a little MESSAGE for Princess to read, and then it really feels like a GIFT.  Master is pretty SMART these days.

Greatest Hits

It's been just over a month since a metamour hit me.  Here’s what a wrote about a week after it happened.
——————-
It was dark, at a party at their house, they were drinking, I don't know how much.  I said something to Unkey that I thought harmless.  We were standing shoulder to shoulder jammed up at the door, about to go out to skinny dip in the pool.  I was looking at him as I spoke, then WHAM!  His primary partner -- my metamour -- walloped me from behind on the blind side.  It felt like a full windup wallop on my right ass cheek.  I spun around and half yelled:

HEY!!  CONSENT!!  I don't let HIM hit me, I don't see why YOU should!

Everybody froze, then the room emptied as folks went to the pool.  I was shaken and a few minutes later, literally shaking, my ass still stinging, so Master told him we need needed a hug, and he gave one.  And they he was very nice to us the rest of the night, and he even cuddled me in the pool for a while.  Metamour was busy with other things it seemed.  She never even said she was sorry.

There’s been near silence about it despite my half dozen requests made through different channels. I have debated contacting her directly, but want to talk to him about it first.  Meanwhile...

Princess has gone away.

I am guessing she felt unsafe.  And I begin to suspect she is angry with him, and doesn't know how to be angry at all, much less at him.  Pissed off is more the General's territory.

The General is angry for sure, first it was just at the metamour but the longer this not-talking goes on, the more it's becoming about his silence.  It's become an equal issue.  Master feels like we have done everything there is to do.  We have been talking to friends and that helps some but... we need him and he is MIA.

It's not a one off.  The metamour about a month ago gave me a talking to, also with alcohol involved, which made clear there is a poly problem.  That lead to me concluding I shouldn't come around the house so much.  Then when I walked in for the party last week, she was verbally aggressive.  And then a few hours later, WHAM!  This is an escalating pattern of aggression.

I can say this much:  this relationship is certainly bringing up old issues for review.

There is one way of looking at my Dominance as being a way to ensure men don't hit me.  D/s involves one party agreeing to submit, so it reduces the likelihood of being hit in the first place, and the agreed-upon role gives me extra backup whenever there is any kind of a problem.  I could invoke the role in addition to my own personal consent, and that feels like insurance of a sort.  I have never had a concern a subby might hit me.

I can count on one hand how many times I have been hit as an adult:  this was #5.  (1) Maybe 6 years ago, the first time something like princess came out a little, her partner back then once swatted her ass hard as she leaned over a washing machine to reach up for something.  He got yelled at.  We have a back injury, you cannot hit us.  It's not cute, or endearing, or funny.  (2) Then another time that same guy did what was supposed to be a sensual bondage scene with us, and he single tailed our foot.  We said YELLOW, told him it hurt and it was not OK.  He did it again before he let us go.  Master got rid of him after THAT.

(3) Last year, at the start of princess and Unkey, she poked at him and he smacked her arm in retaliation, maybe harder than he realized. That made her feel weepy. She told him and he apologized and that's how he learned she cannot handle being hit. (4) Then this year at Fusion, he was drinking a little and we were hanging out on the porch of a cabin while it poured down rain.  I bent over to pick something up and he smacked my ass, much like the dude years ago.  What is it with men?  I know it was probably meant to be playful, but it doesn't change that I don't like being hit. I spun around, raised my voice a little and said something like "Don't hit me, you know better!" and Master faceslapped him with a backhand/forehard combination she uses to play with subbies, good technique, not hard, she made sure not to use a hand with rings on it, and only just enough contact to get his attention through the alcohol without hurting him, mostly a surprise, just enough to set the boundary, make the point. I felt really bad about it afterward, even though I was sober and in full control, and it seemed appropriate in the situation.  I've never responded like that before, it was a kind of progress to have responded with a fight response rather than just freeze. I felt fine about how it played out, he seemed unconcerned, so I gave it no more thought.

And then my metamour hit me. (5)

I already have been feeling emotionally unsafe and avoiding her, and their house.  Now I'm almost afraid to be in the same room with her; that's irrational but I have to respect it.  The aggression is escalating and it's a surprise every time.  The inability to predict makes it feel scarier, the randomness.

But what gets me is him. How can I let princess have a partner who does not protect her?  And this week, he has not seemed inclined to protect her from his partner, he's done nothing to suggest he has every spoken with the metamour about it.  Heck, for all I know, the metamour doesn't even remember it. That's a Big problem. Princess has run away and hidden for a week, I've told him this, and he isn't even trying to help look for her. 

MasterMe can make a little sense of why he might choose to ignore this, what he might be thinking, I do have some sense how the partners of people with anger and substance problems might think -- but princess can't understand.  She never did. 

I had hoped he and I would broach these deep issues slowly, gently, through consensual playfulness that allowed us to build trust gradually, softening the gritty edges of the issue.  His partner's non-consensual wallop threw us both in the deep end.  I don't know how we are going to recover.  I'm capable of forgiving. but it requires emotional work from both sides.  Understanding, apology, commitment not to do it again.  So far, it seems all I'm seeing is pretending it didn't happen, and perhaps hoping I will just drop it.  Not good.

My responses to these events are clues to other things that happened at a young age in moments I don't consciously remember.  Maybe if I can work on it there, I can find the right choices here.  I'm going away on a highly woowoo retreat soon, maybe these things can work together to break a logjam I have carried around a long time.  It might build on the energy work I did at camp, dredge the new energetic connections and make them deeper, stronger, more resilient.

Or maybe I'm overthinking the whole thing and it's time to confront this as a simple attachment choice and say: a partner that will not stand up for me is a partner I refuse to keep.

The Physics of Quest

I'm pushing, I know that.  Fifty feels like a pivot year, I want to move as quickly as possible to find... whatever is supposed to come next, whatever this new Phase is meant to be.

"There exists in the universe something like The Physics of the Quest -- a force of nature governed by laws as real as the laws of gravity or momentum.  And the rule of Quest Physics maybe goes like this:  if you are brave enough to leave behind everything familiar and comforting (which can be anything from your house to your bitter old resentments) and set out on a truth-seeking journey (either externally or internally), and if you are truly willing to regard everything that happens to you on that journey as a clue, and if you accept everyone you meet along the way as a teacher, and if you are prepared -- most of all -- to face and forgive some very difficult realities about yourself... then truth will not be withheld from you."

I happened upon this quote today and it feels like what I've undertaken, a truth-seeking journey, internal.  I definitely am treating events as clues and working hard to see the teacher in who I meet.  Am I ready to face and forgive the most difficult realities about myself?  I might be approaching that point, yes.

Something has happened recently, something... that I believe should not have happened.  And it has been handled in way it should not have been handled.  I am resisting the easy narrative, I am resisting the urge to call them categorically Wrong.  It's really tempting.  I realize I've been working to treat these as clues, as teachers.  But it's hard to find a better narrative, one which is emotionally true, fair, without excusing what should not be excused, one that opens a door to the next steps.  We shall see.

Some kinds of pain

you cannot look at directly

only just

out the corner of your eye

like the dimmest of maybe stars

when the velvet night’s

soft swaddling embrace

is clear

Enough

If you know Enough to turn aside

minutely

to become aware

of their pull

Now dead heat

thrown off long ago

at last

has reached you

along the only path it has

Caught

in the only cup

you can hold

to receive it

before it continues

as it will

and you do the same

it only has to happen once

to be heroic

when the Gorgon comes

that someone

seeing it will all end

in disaster

Somehow

with wise mystery

Knows to angle the shining shield

as a glinting weapon

to not-see

All

Reflections

you need to know

more things

in the living

dark wood

Can be navigated

after long enough

If you are patient

And

Whatever you do

Don’t watch where you are going

but Go

Still

Knowing

we navigate

Peripheral vision

Re-Parenting

Late May -- I read and listen a lot to experts about complex PTSD, developmental trauma and such.  That was true before The Flood at Unkey’s house, and in the weeks afterward it got more Intense for a while.  I recently encountered someone who said, when you shape a kid in this way, at some point, it’s hard to fix it in childhood.  It becomes something that gets set aside, back burnered, until they are an adult.  And when they are an adult with adult resources, they basically can choose to have a second bite at the apple.  That’s the healing choice. It won’t fully un-do it, but through the miracle of neuroplasticity they can heal.  And the job before them in adulthood boils down to this... 

They need to find a way to get themselves successfully re-parented.

Now obviously this is key to the Princess exploration MasterMe is doing. It’s both happening with Unkey and within Myself as I create a relationship with Princess. It’s also happening with improvements with my actual parents who thankfully are still around and available for some of this.

But what stopped me in my tracks was this idea of seeking successful re-parenting in adulthood.  Not because I am doing it now, but because I did it once before.

Un-successfully.

Readers of the blog will have seen some references to someone I have called the predator.  When I was in college, he was my first adult relationship.  It’s a long story I don’t choose to go into here in depth, but perhaps it could be nearly summed up by calling it Very. Very. Bad. Poly. 

Basically, at an exceptionally naive college age, I backed myself into a situation where I was in a V shaped poly relationship, and the problem was his wife didn’t know - because he persuaded me to lie about it. And we were basically living together; I had my own room in their house for some time.  In today’s terms one might have thought they had a Don’t Ask Don’t Tell relationship to which I was a perhaps subconsciously recognized party. But I don’t believe the wife saw it as an open or poly marriage.  And after years in it, I found out the foundation of my own involvement was also built on an edifice of deception.

That was thirty years ago.  Every spring is a reminder on some level of the start of that relationship; the flowering beauty of spring  was no small part of my seduction.  But the point I want to make is this recent realization:  part of what happened, the reason I couldn’t leave the predator for so long was... re-parenting.

He and she gave me a home. I had a little room under the eaves of their solid Craftsman house, with a nice candlewick quilt on the twin bed and morning sunshine. It was a solid 1920s house with a yard, trees, beehives, garden, garage, classic car tinkering, cooking, baking, a dog, a cat, a porch, books, a loom, a cedar closet, birdfeeders, friends, neighbors, Sunday night spaghetti dinners. She and I went antiquing. He and I went to garden centers, and for drives in the old Volvo. The door was always open to me. I could even walk from the train station.  I loved that place with a fierceness.

I had run away to college halfway across the continental United States to escape and for three years I had floated along alone, not connecting with anyone. certainly not men. until he picked me up.  And though I fell for him, I also fell for the home they gave me.  I was essentially a stray, a lost college kid far from home, and they took me in; they were pretty clear that was the intent.  They always wanted their house to be a refuge, a safe harbor for their friends, and all else aside, they were successful in that part of the mission.

The Princess flood freakout and Unkey seranade that night, plus that researcher’s comment about seeking re-parenting made something new happen:  for the first time in 30 years there is a level on which I can feel a little bit ok about the predator.  He still was a predator, but I understand now what I got out of it.  I was in it for the re-parenting.

Unsuccessfully.

Because when it ended spectacularly, it took my new home and parents with it.  Which was in some ways bigger and more devastating than not having it to begin with.  Privation is one thing, you don't know any better.  Deprivation... well, now you know what you've lost.  So now I understand why it did so much damage and why even now three decades later new layers in it can appear.  But for the first time, instead of chalking it up just to being colossally stupid and naive (*waves at the General*),  I feel - frankly - Proud.  Yes, I chose the wrong people, but choosing re-parenting at 19 was a good choice, even the right choice.  There was a wisdom at work in me, and I can claim it now.

Successfully.

I feel a pull like that toward Unkey's house.  What I don't know is whether it is real or just wishful thinking. Time will tell.

Magic Saunas and Sofas

Mid-May:  Something interesting is happening lately.  I am realizing how isolated I am. I always sort of knew it in an abstract way, but as I grow and connect more, I realize the magnitude of disconnection is tremendously larger than I had seriously contemplated.  When I lived with E, we were out socially a lot but being out didn’t mean I felt connected. Now living alone in My house, I go out less but in the last year or so, I connect more.

In between, I just sort of float in space, like a space walker who slipped away from the shuttle, there’s just enough connection to everything else that I don’t float away entirely and disappear but it’s not much. Absent a serious partner, I go days, weeks, if work is hot and I’m sick, it can sometimes easily be a month in between moments of real connection with another human. If you raise the bar to significant, emotional, meaningful, personal, IRL connection with a person, it can be multiple months. There surely were points in My life where it has been years. The answer depends just on how meaningful you define the threshold has to be. But I’m realizing that many perhaps most people inhabit that connection zone daily, and apparently I don’t usually.

I noticed recently that I felt lonely. And then I realized that’s a new sensation. I have long been - and said aloud that I am - entirely comfortable being alone WITHOUT feeling lonely. Yet as I connect more and get a frame of reference I realize that maybe I simply blocked that channel of awareness a long time ago.  This is part of why relationships have been such a challenge: they generally have provided the vastly disproportionate amount of that connection and when each relationship ends, I’ve reverted to the floating state.  It’s been a high stakes game. The deeper I feel the connection, the more it deviates from My baseline, the more devastating the end. 

A few years ago now I decided I needed to “play the field” instead of dating one person at a time intensively. That lead to realizing I could have multiple simultaneous connections which made each better because it took off a good bit of the pressure to make any specific one WORK. And that has led to accepting the possibility of an open relationship and having poly partners. 

I had a wonderful day this weekend with My Big, his partners and a group of their friends, brunch at their house and then a trip to the Korean sauna complex. And now I’m thinking, no, I’ve had this backwards. I should NOT be living alone in My own house. It’s not just that the dirt crawl space is bad for My asthma and unhealthy; this whole approach may be unhealthy. Maybe I more than perhaps most absolutely NEED to be in a group housing environment, maybe I NEED poly partners, in this atomized urban society with my atomized emotional environment, maybe I need to fucking SURROUND Myself with opportunities to be with My people. Just as I breathe a lot better at the sauna for the obvious reason of the humidity, I also breathe (emotionally) a fuck ton better when I am with My kink tribe, surrounded by their humanity. Maybe I withdrew on purpose without understanding what it meant, maybe it was a necessary developmental stage and I’m simply ready now, maybe it just worked out that way when I could afford to finally not have the burden of roommates I couldn’t afford to be picky about. Either way I’m realizing how much My current approach may not serve Me well right now and how it reinforces My core tendencies, closing off a lot of learning opportunities.  

It's hard to notice and think about your own internal operating system.

Which is a nice intellectualized way of saying: I think I’m scared.  This connection to Big feels so good. Plugging into his house and their circle feels so good, the people are kind, it all feels so healthy, and it feels so easy, I certainly have not succeeded in creating such a circle.  E was good at that and I benefited but we’ve been apart long enough I can no longer ride those coat tails. So it feels good, so good to be with Princess’ Big and in his circle, but wow, it is starting to feel scary good to like it and want it and begin to crave it. Thirst for it. Like someone in a desert approaching what seems a lush oasis of water and praying it’s not a mirage.

I noticed yesterday that I find it uncomfortable to be in groups because it’s so unclear what’s happening, the “herding cats” problem.  It’s like an uncomfortably chaotic family, on some level I find Myself waiting for the pater familias to come in and start knocking heads, clear everything up, stop the interpersonal tension, but it doesn’t happen. The annoyance of the cat-herding is real but I noticed it clears up when I’m clear about what I want, and express it. “What are we gonna do?  I dunno what do you want to do?”  When I said at the spa: “I really want a scrub and they can take Me at 6pm, is that ok?” Then that became an organizing principle. It lead to (honestly not Me saying, but Big taking ownership of Princess wishes and being Princess advocate in a place I have trouble advocating for myself and saying): ok, she needs to be in the pool 30 min before and it will take 30 min to do, so who would rather eat in an hour and who would rather wait til 7?  

Suddenly all the pieces fell into place for the rest of the event.  Suddenly it wasn’t chaos.  This doesn’t sound mind blowing but... it’s a core thing I’m working on, that in childhood I couldn’t figure out in the situation how to make Myself heard and get My needs met. The connection to the Big and his circle is giving Me a safe and sane context to see how these things work, see them in a new way that helps Me do it again differently, navigating now from a knowing that bubbles up from inside Me and feels authentic, instead of as a cognitive puzzle I puzzle in My head up above but cannot often be sure I’m solving correctly, because I cannot connect the puzzle down to an inner answer about what’s Right for Me, much less what is right and fair to anyone else.  It’s just too complicated a puzzle to solve alone, I cannot know all the variables, My responsibility is just to offer My piece.

I’ve had other experiences recently, one with a wonderful fellow female Dominant, who is married to her delightful partner. We had a cuddle pile under blankets on the sofa one weekend, watching a little TV, napping together on each other on a chilly day. I’ve not really DONE that before. That in combination with some recent reading seems to have sensitized Me. I see now, I can recognize the sensations, the feeling of mammalian nest, soft lively energies in a pile being together, enjoying the gentle contact, getting primal food and touch needs met together. Sexuality not a flicker in the energy, just nest.

After the Korean spa trip, late evening, Big, his primary partner and I were the last ones around, sitting on the three seater sofa watching TV.  We began and could have remained 3 facing forward. I swear that’s how My family always watched TV, facing forward, well behaved, each alone on their square island of cushion. We ended with me on one end mostly facing the other end, Unkey reclined between My legs, resting his back on My torso, Me taking the initiative to pet his hair, give him a little pillow, and slide a hand under his shirt a little, his arm reaching up for My other hand; My left leg wrapped around onto his left, his left arm helping support it; his legs across the lap of his primary partner, and my foot nudging her too. We stayed that way a long wonderful while, it felt like an electric vehicle must feel at the recharge docking station.  I marvel at how I have lived at all with so little of this.  How different the world looks from that position on the sofa rather than facing forward.

And I notice too how I got from one to the other. It was My back injury, My weakness.  I cannot turn My neck enough so I needed to shift My body to look at him comfortably. Honoring that in Myself required Me to turn toward them, and we kept adjusting our individual selves until we found a balance that worked for everyone.  I needed to turn so I did; he supported me and realigned to me in a way that intersected us together with her. It was so nice.  I usually resist My pain, I don’t want to be the one to ruin the balance for others. I don’t want to be a Bother. But last night it felt like a bigger and more organic process than just me; I’m not able to ruin it. What I can do is resist the process unfolding to make it not work for Me.  It’s a different choice.

It happened earlier in the day too, now that I think of it, in a different way. Unkey emerged from a particularly hot sauna and Princess beelined for him. His face lit up, she offered him her icey slushy mango freeze, he was soaked thru from the heat. He drank it with pleasure. Then he said: I have an Idea !  And even though he knows Princess can NOT take much heat, he pulled her back into the same 175 degree sauna, just for a minute, and she LET him (which was brave of both Princess and MasterMe). It was made of red clay and had a perfect dome ceiling inside, maybe a 20’ diameter room made of clay stone. 

We sat together in the special spot he had discovered and he sang a note, then Princess listened to the sound in her head and heard another note and she sang that one. So they sat in the super hot rock dome room alone together and sang, and then our friends came in and we sang more and the friends each picked a note and the mix kept shifting as each person ran outta breath and it was like buddhist monks chanting or something and it was beautiful.  And then a stranger came in and we kept doing it, and they didn’t join but afterward they said they really liked it. And it was magical.  Unkey and Princess made magic together. Not just for them. Not just with friends. Also with a stranger.  That’s EXTRA magical.  Unkey has good ideas.

Same thing, each person adding their piece, everyone organically shifting and adjusting and the whole thing together beautiful, the shared space bringing itself into tune through each of the people.

And then as SOON as we stopped singing Princess realized the floor was TOO HOT for our BUTT, and everybody was TOO HOT, and we got OUTTA there.  But it still was magical.

Smelly Feet

Unkey’s house was hosting a MUNCH, and he invited us to GO.  

It’s a group I’ve wanted to connect with, but they often meet a prohibitive distance away.  On the day, I couldn’t seem to get Princess off the dime, and I was having some trouble figuring out why.  It seemed to be something to do with being in a big, unstructured group around Unkey.  When I’m near Unkey, Princess comes to the forefront in me, but that doesn’t mean he is feeling Unkey-ish.  I know it takes him a bit of effort to tap into that for me;  this began as him service topping me and I am careful to remember that reality.  He is growing into the dynamic with me, but it’s a stretch, and I don’t want to push us. I rein Princess in when it seems necessary.

So I suspect I was just NERVOUS basically, about going to this munch because we felt CONFLICTED.  I wanted to be at the EVENT, and be near HIM, but I knew he would be playing host and not in Unkey headspace and I was maybe anticipating Princess feeling abandoned and stuck, unable to process it with him as it occured.  This is sort of our deal, when we are together, I am truthful with him about what Princess says and feels, and we manage her together if needed.  Also I had a persistent headache.

So I couldn’t get us out the door to the munch and eventually MasterMe told Unkey we had a problem with Princess and he said something like:  just get yer butt over here!  So even though we were not properly ready in several ways (shoe issues, no real potluck contribution, no makeup), Master just kinda grabbed some stuff into huge BAG for all contingencies, and threw Princess in the car and we WENT, headache and ALL.

When we got there, everyone was singing and playing cuz it is a musical kind of munch.  I held back and off to the side, feeling discombobulated.  He came and said hi to us and all, but he was in host mode and that was OK.  Master let Princess stay on the edges with her headache, and decide how she felt about the whole thing.  We chatted briefly with some people and deflected a guy or two. Mostly we were deep in observer mode.  Princess wanted to take her shoes off but she didn’t like that her feeties were kinda SCHTINKY and she felt very EMBARRASSED about that.  This was one of the issues that Master had bulldozed over on the way to showing up.

Eventually it became clear Princess was not going to relax about the smelly feet problem.  So I looked around the big open living space.  Wash my shoe inserts in the kitchen sink? Oh, HELL no.  I’d go home first.  Wash them in the guest half bath?  Maybe but it would take a while and possibly inconvenience others or worse attract unwanted attention.  Hrm. Ah-HA ! The sink in the laundry room, which has a door. There’s soap, an appropriately utilitarian sink, privacy. I can be in and out and no one will ever know, and then I can really start attending this party.  I’m sure if I asked Unkey, he’d be OK with it. Good plan.

So I went in, closed the door, and feeling a little guilty for being a slightly bad guest, I washed the orthodic insole things.  I was drying them by standing on them when I realized the floor was wet. And then I realized the sink had leaked.

A LOT.  Everywhere.

Shit. Shit. Shit.

Now Princess starts freaking out, and the General wakes up from his nap.

I hustled out to the munch; managed to attract Unkey’s attention across a room of 30 people without catching anyone else; urgently pulled him to the laundry room; and he hustled off to provide towels.  After I did an initial wipe up, I really panicked, and had to pull him back over. There wasn’t enough water on the floor, nothing close to how much I had put down that drain.

I had to ask him if maybe the water could be falling down into the semi-finished basement below.  They had had something similar happen before in a different spot. We scampered down, trying not to raise suspicions.  And there it was, a big puddle on the floor. Some furniture was wet. A big oriental rug was touching the puddle. He got me more towels.

He didn’t say a whole lot, we just levelly and quietly dealt with it without disrupting the party and then he entrusted MasterMe to finish the job, while he went back to running the event.  I mopped up, propped up, did everything I could to Fix It.

I was down there in the McMansion basement alone a long time, the water was the easy part.  

Then I had to mop up Princess.  

She was... devastated. 

And the General was pissed.  

And Princess was sure Unkey either was mad at her or was going to be mad at her, either did yell at her or was gonna really yell at her, and she was afraid.  She was a bigger puddle than the water itself. And just pummeling herself for flooding Unkey’s HOUSE!  How could she DO that!  The General was using words like stupid and bad guest and such.  And I had one HELL of a time convincing them that Unkey was ok, we were ok, it was ok. They did NOT believe me. I wasn’t sure I believed Myself at that point.  But he hadn’t blown up at me and he hadn’t been hostile, he’d been studiously neutral, which I hugely appreciated.  And I realized...

... this is it.  This is ground zero of my PTSD.  

Princess has assumed the crash position because she is SURE the most important man in her life is going to lose his shit IN HER DIRECTION and she is BRACED for it.

That was... sobering.

Poor Princess.

Yes, she was devastated.  I was down there at least half an hour working to screw my head on enough to go back upstairs.  I did. I went and sat amongst the music makers, they did another half dozen songs. I kept to an edge, and basically stayed social on the surface and withdrawn everywhere else until most all had left and Unkey came over and asked how everyone in there was doing.  He had a sense it wouldn’t be great.  I let him know it had taken some doing, and in his fascinating quiet way he let me know he grasped what I was saying.

Someone I used to know rubbed my shoulders a bit for the headache but had to go for a playdate.  Then I was naked in the hot tub outside on a March night in the mid Atlantic. Wearing my silly sauna hat. Nekkid with a half dozen people, not talking a lot but holding it together, sitting next to Unkey in the bubbling water for 40 minutes, with my headache and a bruised Princess,  just feeling close to him, letting him pet me under the surface, feeling connected.  Slowly believing he doesn’t hate Princess, he still luvs Princess the same as before she flooded his new house.

As the evening ended, it was just me, Unkey and his primary partner (PP) in the house. She gave me an ice pack so I could cool down the headache before driving.  I was lying on the floor with my feet on the sofa seat, stretching a little.  Unkey came in and started playing piano, not talking much but I was talking to him, sort of a running commentary about the music and how he was playing it.  His PP came over and offered me a footrub which I gratefully accepted.

For about half an hour, I laid on the floor with the ice pack I needed for my pain; being comforted with touch and my Unkey serenading me on the piano.  Not far off how my dad used to like me to play piano for him on a Sunday afternoon while he laid down.

Unkey and I even have the exact same piano.

It’s taken over a month to write about this, because it was a very deep experience. The depth of my... terror... about the flood.  And the depth of my... I don’t know what to call that good stuff... in that last half hour.  I realized that while my childhood had that terror, it had none of the comfort.  I really don’t think I have any memories of feeling as safe, supported, nurtured, accepted, you name it, within my family of origin in childhood, as I did right then with Unkey and his primary partner.  It was a balm.

It... glued something together in me.  It allowed something in Princess to solidify.

And then I went home.  

MasterMe said:  Good job, team. Good work tonight.

Princess said:  Good job, Master.

Butterflies

March 2019 -- One night Princess and Unkey had a DATE night, on a stupid Wednesday. They had some yummy FOOD he brought, and then they cuddled, and Princess showed him the little booklets of temporary tattoos MasterMe had gotten for her about a year ago in the ART store.  It seems like somehow Unkey is more comfortable with Princess being the one to get the ball rolling when they finish dinner and wanna start being playful. It seems like MAYBE Princess’ enTHUZiasm helps him get in touch with his own playfulness, and then once that happens, we feed off each other.  But... If she doesn’t initiate then we can stay in friend mode and we end up naked talking about cloud services or sumptin NILLA.  Which is still GOOD, but that’s not a PRINCESS idea of FUN you know.  So Princess asked Unkey as an opener if he maybe would like to put a temporary tattoo on her and he said YES!  

Princess is always so PLEASED when Unkey likes her IDEAS. Well, he really LIKED this one!  He did a butterfly. And it was good, so he thought we needed a SECOND one, to be balanced and even you know. And then he JUST KEPT GOING!!  So Princess tried to lie very still while he put them on her BACK, and her BUTT and her THIGHS.  And you know, Unkey got INTO it, he was all serious-playful, being really careful to make two straight lines of evenly spaced butterflies from her shoulder blades down over her BUTT almost to her KNEES!  He used them all UP!  TWO whole BOOKS!  There musta been almost twenty butterflies on Princess. And they were beautiful.  And. And...  he got a little silly BOSSY, telling her to hold them up, and be ready for the next one, and count.  And sometimes he would slide a finger or two in her and make her WIGGLE and MOAN, cuz he likes NOISES from Princess. And then things got sexy here and there in a very sweet way.

When we were almost done cuddling and it was almost time for him to go HOME, Princess got the idea Unkey should have a tattoo TOO!  She wanted to kinda MATCH, and she wanted to have him have a nice MARK from the date TOO.  He wasn’t too SURE but he INDULGED us, so we put a nice swirly henna colored circle on his HIP.  And we pressed it nice and FIRM like the directions say for THIRTY seconds so it LASTS.

It was So. Much. Fun.  Princess is very happy with her Unkey.

And THEN, the next day, Princess noticed in Master’s fet feed that Unkey posted a picture of his Tattoo!!  But he was DISCRETE and didna say how he GOT it.  MasterMe and Princess were at an event when we saw it and we got all silly-happy-smiley and lovey-DOVEY and it was hard to explain WHY to the people at the munch near us.  But we were all glowy and almost a little WEEPY.  Princess kinda HOPED maybe he might do SOMETHING like that but she still make a big loud GASP when she saw it, and started bouncing around.

And then she told Master: we should post the BUTT-erflies !!  

Now... Master does not historically put naked photos of Herself out on the interwebs. It’s not her THING. But even Master had to AGREE that the photo Unkey had taken of all the butterflies was a VERY good photo of us.  So She made a SPECIAL EXCEPTION.  And RIGHT AWAY we started getting likes on the photo, and comments on the photo, and then Unkey made a silly sneaky comment on the photo TOO!  Princess was bouncing all OVER the place.  We got more likes and comments and schtuff on the BUTTerflies than we ever did on anything else we ever posted, it was COOL.

We don’t have a good ENDING to the story, there’s no MORAL to the STORY or nuthin.  Princess just wants to say she LIKED it a LOT.  And she thinks Unkey and her are a good team when it’s a quarter past silly.