eating the bread of idleness

...has been my habit far too much of late.  Ok, it's not like I didn't get out of the house today.  That's not what I meant.  I went to JoAnn's & picked fabric & patterns for dresses for my girls (2 patterns, 4 dresses & they are going to look adorable!).  I stopped at the farmer's market by the mall & visited with Ali at the Brother's Products stand for a bit before going into the bookstore to wait for my niece to finish her writing assignment. I even worked on a task that I picked up for GWW. The thing is, when you put all of that time together, it's only a couple of hours, maybe 6 out of the 16 or so that I have been awake.  What did I do for the other ten hours?  I can take out another hour for eating (all meals).  Finished book 1 of "Tom Jones" by Henry Fielding (& learned what the phrase nolo episcopari means).  Maybe drifting is something I need to learn how to do, but it just feels odd, to be so disengaged...or maybe it doesn't feel odd at all & I'm finally starting to feel uncomfortable about that. Hmm.

Ali at the Farmer's Market -

• obviously tired today.  It was the end of the market & he just wanted to sit & relax.  was charmingly honest about this
• is maybe 25 - very handsome Jordanian (black eyes, shining dark hair, slender, quick friendly smile; his very strong nose saves him from being merely pretty)
• decided that I was a sympathetic listener (apparently, my motherly aura was particularly strong today)
• left Jordan mostly against his will before he turned 16 - his parents divorced when he was a toddler & his father went to America.  Just before his older brother was due to turn 16 (& be required to serve in the army - at 16!), his father returned to take the boys to America.  He didn't want to go, didn't want to leave his mother, but his brother really wanted to go.  Mom took a stand and said that either both boys went or neither did.  Ali was convinced to see his brother's side of things & they moved with their father to Indiana. (I don't know if he ever saw his mother again.  He did say that she is dead now.  She must have loved him immensely to send him away so firmly.)
• Life with Dad & the Step-mom (African-American woman with 3 kids of her own) was not good.  No English.  Trying to fit in with Dad's new family.  Culture shock.  The beatings (his word - may or may not be as severe a word as it sounds.  He clearly contrasted his experience with his father to his mother who never laid a finger on him & bought him gifts to make up for the one time that she yelled at him in anger.) began within a month or so of arriving & continued regularly regardless of success in school.  Some of what he said sounded so familiar, so similar to what another person has told me about his own father (who is Lebanese), I wonder about some elements of the culture...some of the expectations.  Anyway, older brother turned 18 & left, never to darken their door again, & Ali had to deal with Everything by himself.  He tried reporting the abuse to the school counselor who then told his father...the beatings continued (needless to say).  When he was 16, his English languge teacher reached out to him, treated him like a human being, & helped him emancipate himself.  He was surprised at how quick and easy the process was, only a week.  His father was surprised when the police came with Ali so he could gather his things and move out.
• He finished high school, worked full time when he could, graduated early at 17.  He was motivated by the fact that the police told him that if he didn't succeed, then he would go right back to his father.
• When he turned 18, he went a bit wild.  Stopped college.  Stopped working.  Just played.  Traveled with his best friend to New Orleans where they lived for a year and a half (good times).  Then moved to Michigan for a time (where all of the Arabs live, according to him).  When they got to Michigan, they were so glad to have familiar food that they each ate two full platefuls at the restaurant where they stopped.  The waitress there took them under her wing, showed them around town, helped them get work and a place to live, cooked for them once a week, and was effectively a sister to them (though she indicated that she was willing to be otherwise, they didn't want to mess up the friendship).  They stayed there for a time, then moved on to Chicago, South Dakota, California.
• In settling in Socal, he & his friend moved in next to a family that seems to have adopted him.  They feed him, check in with him, helped him finish college.  He's not alone even though his blood family is not around (this was important to him, he mentioned it several times).
• He talked often about how kindness really matters.  People have been kind to him, and blessed him all through his life.  He tries to be kind to, to give where there is need.
• Do all Middle Eastern men talk so much?  or have I just been lucky to meet two who do?

Using my Words

(Note: I am typing this more for my sake than for an audience, so…you’ve been warned)

(Hmm, Independence Day.  What an odd day to write this…but it works for me…)

So, lemme start with some background:

1.       (distant past) Once upon a time, when I was young, I wrote down how I felt about a person in a letter to my brother-in-law.  The notebook wherein I had written said letter was found, and I was openly mocked by 15 or 20 people, including the person that I had mentioned having feelings for…since then I don’t put important stuff into writing if I can help it. In addition, because of my own reticent nature and upbringing by older parents, I tend also to repress verbally when it comes to sexual matters.  I’m not quite so tied up and Victorian that “legs” become “limbs”, but it is far too easy for me to “lie back and think of England” mode rather than to use my not inconsiderable vocabulary to express my sexual needs and give my partner direction.  (Yah, I don’t have issues there, I have subscriptions.  I’ll have to unpack that eventually.)

2.       (somewhat recent past) The dear friend who helped introduce me to kink encouraged me to “learn how to use my words”.  He worked with me to get me to be able to speak more about my feelings and/or needs.  So, anyway, one (several) of my challenges on this path relating to courage is to speak – to my partner, of my desires generally and specifically, and to write.  Write anything.  Analysis.  Desires.  Whatever.  So, this is me writing.  It won’t be brilliant or moving or erotic (sigh.  In fact, inane is the adjective that’s coming to mind at the moment), but it is something that I need to learn to do.

3.       (very recent past) This week has been so very interesting (in that Chinese kind of way), and a great deal of scar tissue has been activated by events entirely out of my control.  All week, I have fought to keep myself from slipping back into that old crazy, because NOBODY needs me to go there (least of all me).

Alright, that’s the background.  Now, to the point…

This morning, we were curled up in bed, and my sweetie was simply holding me, being respectful of my stress.  Normally, this is a pretty easy thing for him, but he really went hard at yesterday’s fighter practice and that gets him amped.  So he was trying to comfort me while holding back his own urgency.  This wasn’t fair, clearly, but neither would me rolling over and “thinking of England” have been (an unfortunate tendency of mine).  Today I tried the “and” approach, hoping we could both get what we needed.  First, I asked if he could stroke my skin in long, slow pets.  These are still comforting, but since I am a sensation hog, they also woke up my sensual side, got me purring and wanting more.  Yay for my first use of words.

We lay there spooning, his arm curved above my head and our hands loosely clasped there.  Another suggestion came to mind.  I asked him to shift his hand slightly and grasp firmly around my wrist.  The contrast of the secure grip with the soft, sensuous pets distracted me even more from this week’s internal monologue of nuts.  Trapped by my wrist being held slightly above my head, I turned my body in, to get more petting, which was becoming increasingly intimate. 

I asked my sweetie to wrap his leg around mine, further pinning me in place and in a position that left me both secure and exposed.  This completely re-focused my attention to matters at hands and ramped up my interest levels intensely.  Both of us soon found a certain noisy satisfaction.

(ok, latent Victorianism kicking in for a sec, sorry, but in case you haven’t been keeping count, this now makes three instances of using my words to express specific needs or wants.)

But, he wasn’t done yet, as is often the case.  We curled up once more, panting a bit, and he continued that maddening long, slow petting.

Needing to focus, I asked my sweetie to grasp my neck, just at the collarbone, and to give some of the weight of his hand to my chest.  This is a pin that feels like it could be a chokehold without ever truly becoming one.  With his thumb and forefinger just putting the slightest pressure on my jugular vein, and his meaty hand bearing down just enough on my windpipe and sternum, I could only freeze.  Every bit of my attention riveted on his hand and getting oxygen.  In slow, halting words, I explained to him exactly what was happening in my head and where I was focused.  He listened carefully and responded.

This time the orgasm nearly bowed me double, and I’m afraid I clawed him right on a bruise left from practice.  He didn’t seem to mind.

I still need to suss out why that neck grip works (though I’m sure I know folks who could explain it).  It seems to have a similar effect when you are training a dog and want them to be calmer. (Not touching that)

So, today I used my words and it worked. J And I’m writing it down and leaving it out there.

…Independence Day…yep.