Thanks for all the lovely comments on those last few posts; I have plenty to say about this crush, this long-distance romance, the desires of courtship, of getting to know someone.

But! Amidst the ridiculous sappy love shit, I have a new erotica story I am particularly excited about, and that’ll be up later today. It’s called The Houseboy’s Rebellion and it is, of course, written for Miss DD. Custom smut is so much fun.

I also want to make a few announcements.

#1:

Welcome my lovely friend Ariel? Ariel!; she’s posting brilliant rhetoric on things like radical love, where she asks: what do you owe the person you fuck? What to do with the friends with whom you have ambiguous boundaries or desires? Among other things:

I believe in lightning bolt love. I really do. Right down to the soles of my feet. I talk about polyamory and nonmonogamy but really if I found someone who lightning bolted my heart to the sky I wonder if these would become theoretical discussions.

… Oh I just love her turns of phrase. More over at Ariel? Ariel!

#2:

You may’ve noticed the facelift on Miss Avarice’s lovely blog recently, I’ve meant to mention it, specifically the header image, which I designed. And I can indeed confirm that those are Miss A’s shoes - specifically, the shoes she braved New York City subways in when she visited me (ahem, I mean, this fine city) in October.

#3:

While I’m linking, I may as well mention that Miss DD made me a mix CD this week, complete with the cover image of my hands bound together in her leather wrist cuffs. (Yes, I sent her some of the photographs she took of me.)

The mix is really lovely (whole tracklist is posted over at her chronicles), and tells a story from the opening track “I’m Not in Love” (the Tori version, of course) to “Think I’m in Love” in the middle, to “This is Love” by PJ Harvey as the closing song. But? It also has “Come to Daddy,” “Nasty Little Thoughts,” “Smack my Bitch Up,” and “Crazy Bitch,” so clearly it is not all sappy ridiculousness.

Kinda like us. Go figure.

She wrote these things as her game-plan strategy, yesterday:

1. let myself be excited about you while maintaining some realism
2. enjoy the moment and not try to control or predict outcomes, but also not put any expectations on this (the “be present and mindful” strategy)
3. date when i want to but not for distraction
4. back off the emotional rollcoaster a bit and just focus on accepting this for what it is

And today, I keep coming back to that list, articulate and succinct, attempting to really feel it in my heart, not just know it in my head.

The Muse - my best friend here in New York, another femme spy, if you will, the one who keeps buying me amazingly fantastic ties, the latest being a hot-pink number that is flat at the end instead of pointed (is there a technical word for that style of tie? probably) - The Muse ran our composite charts, and we discovered that we are pretty much astrologically compatible:

… a feeling of “fatedness,” that this relationship is going to play an important role in your lives, even if it is not a long-term relationship. You will be exposed to the most basic and profound aspects of your own and your partner’s inner nature. Both of you will experience psychological changes through this relationship. In a sexual relationship, physical sex assumes an unusual importance. Sex is likely to be seen by both of you as an experience that transcends ordinary reality.

The composite Moon in the twelfth house requires the two of you to do a great deal of work that most couples are unwilling to do. … If you don’t seek out the truth, your relationship will give you the feeling that you have been defeated in life by forces you don’t understand.

In a love relationship, the expression of love will be quite intense, with a powerful quality that will transform both of you in some fundamental way. Your love will not be light and gay but something very serious that involves both of you at all levels of mind, body, and soul.

I wouldn’t necessarily let astrology make or break anything, but I think it’s an interesting tool to give articulacy to the feelings in a relationship, or one’s own sense of self. Strange how it can sometimes feel so spot-on.

She’ll be here next week (six days) for four days. And I’m sending out my own mix CD to her shortly - glad I got hers first, some of the songs actually overlapped.

So, I did (of course I did), and we did.After two whiskeys for me, two beers for her, and almost two hours of conversation, Joy (as she will now be known) said, “So do you want another drink, or should we get outta here?”

“I’m good. Two whiskeys is enough.”

“Alright then.”

We walked out of the comfortable, dark classy dive bar. “Are you leading me, or am I leading you?” I asked.

“Oh, I’m taking you home now,” Joy answered.

I laughed. “I see.”

We continued the conversation on the way to her apartment in Queens, and things moved quickly once we got there. Before I knew it she was blowing me, then on top of me, then fucking me to glorious orgasms.

My favorite moments were when she had her guard down. When she snuggled against me. When her voice changed and she was open, laughing and open.

Later, she said, “Have you been wearing that all night, or did you just put it on when you we got to my place?”

“I went home after work and changed.”

“You don’t wear it to work then?”

I shrugged. “I don’t much find I need it there.” We laughed. “I debated wearing it tonight, actually.”

“Really? Why?”

“I didn’t want to be too … presumptuous.”

“You didn’t think I was a sure thing?”

“I wouldn’t assume.”

“Aren’t you a gentleman. So why did you?”

“I decided I wanted to be prepared, in case.”

“I do have a backup, you know.”

“I’m sure you do …”

“So, you’ve been wearing it all night. At the bar.”

“Yep. You couldn’t tell? I’m glad it was … subtle. I always feel like it’s very obvious.”

“I couldn’t tell. And I was looking.”

We talked about gender a bit, too. She wanted the update on the gender rant that I’d told her about last week, and I tried to articulate what I’ve been thinking about. There is still more for me to write.

She doesn’t really consider herself femme. Her sense of gender seems very much tied to the history of her body, actually; I don’t quite understand it yet, but she’s very articulate and interesting, and I would like to know more.

I asked her about how she said she didn’t fuck like a femme, and she laughed - she said, “I have no idea what I meant. I would’ve said anything to get you to leave the bar with me at that point.”

I laughed too, and told her the story of this exchange that happened last week, the morning after Joy & I first slept together:

me: mmmmornin (that’s me mumbling)
femmecolleen: Now THAT…that is adorable. Sleepy Sin.
me: yes. sleepy. and hungover
femmecolleen: ::heh:: What were you up to last night?
me: got laid
femmecolleen: Nice!
me: picked up a beeeautiful girl at a little bar party [ ... ]
femmecolleen: So, how’d it all come about? You saw her and you were all like, “Hey, baby, that shirt’s very becoming on you…of course, if I were on you, I’d be coming, too.” ?
me: ahaha, that was exactly it! how’d you know? damn, did I use that line on you?
femmecolleen: Heh. It was a line a friend of mine used on me (jokingly) in high school. It’s still my favorite tacky pick up line.
me: well, so I met her at a party a few weeks ago, and knew she’d be there last night. she definitely made note when I arrived, and came over and sat next to me
femmecolleen: Oh, honey. So when you said YOU picked someone up in the bar, you were just a big liar.
me: um. yeah. she totally picked me up.
femmecolleen: ::sigh:: you butches are such easy marks sometimes.

The version I told to Joy was more succinct. A playful way of telling her how much I knew she’d worked it that evening.She walked me to the subway around midnight. “You really don’t have to walk me there,” I protested, “I’m sure I can find it. Just tell me where to go. I take direction well.”

She looked at me coyly. “You sure do.” I laughed. “Sorry,” she said, “you walked right into that one.” Indeed I did. Set it up intentionally, in fact. Joy - it is clear - is very much a top.

“Is that going to be a problem?” she asked as we were walking to the subway.

I paused. Hesitated. Not exactly, but I’m a top, and my topping identity is the newest in my roster, so it is not so solid. Also, I’m not sure what to do when someone is not … surrendering. My force, my knock-down take-out style of fucking isn’t quite working with her. Which is okay, I’m adaptable, adapting. But it has meant that there is something missing, for me, something that is not quite satisfied. I can’t place it yet. She’s very sexy, very good in bed. And yet … something.

I hesitated a little too long. “No?” I said, not really sounding confident, getting lost in my head with ideas around identity, topping, bottoming, surrender, and that question of What We’re Doing Here Anyway.

“Your hesitation does not exactly instill confidence,” she laughed, eyes warm.

I tried to explain. “I do consider myself a top, but I’m not stone. I like to get off.”

“So I noticed.”

Although it kind of occured to me that perhaps I want to be stone for a while. Try it out. Continue to get better at this making-girls-come thing, at this chivalrous attention, this game of picking girls up in bars (which I have clearly not mastered, nor ever really attempted).

When we got to the subway station, she said, “Since you’re so good at taking direction, I’m going to tell you that you’re going to email me this time.”

“Alright,” I agreed.

Now I just have to figure out what to say.

I got my very own Fluffer Femme Spy this week, a good femme friend of mine in Seattle who has given me all sorts of useful tips & advice as we’ve been talking about my relationship. (I’d like to think my butch perspective is useful too, but who knows.)Really, I highly recommend every butch have one of these. She goes up there with my handkerchief and my boots as butch necessities. (And I mean that in the greatest way.)

As she put it:

Job duties include:

• Pumping up the egos of fragile, doubting butch friends
• Flirting, subtly, but just enough to get noticed and stroke said egos
• Giving helpful hints about where to get the good, cute, not too expensive, meaningful jewelry
• Providing advice about where/when/how to pop Important, Lifechanging Questions
• Offering Femme Insight during Relationship Crisis
• Giving guidance on effective apologies
• Reassurance before/after sending scary emails
• Other duties, as assigned

We were talking about Valentine’s Day when this all came up, well, among other things. And just for the record? There are some things I would really like to receive for Valentine’s Day (or any other holiday/present-receiving activity, really) - things that I wouldn’t really buy for myself, but that I would love to have. Such as:

• silver flask, very plain
• nice bottle of scotch that I’d bust out for (very) special occasions
• a men’s accessories case
• monogrammed handkerchiefs (yeah right, but hey, a butch can dream … )

Though some elaborate sex scene - a fantasy of mine brought to life? - would probably top everything. Although really, as long as I get laid I’m pretty satisfied. Wow, and now that I’m looking through Red Envelope online, there are a whole lot more of the men’s things that I’ve never seen. These hidden message collar stays are badass. And a monogrammed brander? That’s hardcore, and kind of makes me uncomfortably turned on.

When I asked Callie what it is she would want for Valentine’s Day, ideally (though I did mention that I’d already gotten her something and so it wouldn’t probably change what she was getting, I was just curious) she mentioned lingerie (”whatever would turn you on, ’cause that’s what it’s about, anyway”), and jewelry.

Speaking of lingerie … I gave Callie a copy of the story I wrote about our New Year’s Eve encounter. She … liked it, very much, to say the least. She said she’d forgotten about unbuttoning my shirt, and loved reading what the night was like for me. She’s never been with someone who was so into her femme role before, so that I am turned on by lingerie is kind of a novelty that she is really enjoying. So much, in fact, that she went out today and bought some new lingerie, that I am informed I will like, very much.

And, uh, hell, I’m enjoying it too.

Okay, one more thing, just in case I’m the butch spy for some of you femme readers: call me handsome, and I’ll seriously melt for you.

And speaking of you so-called femme readers: what would you just melt for, this Valentine’s Day? What do you always wish someone would’ve given you, but never have received?