Swings & Roundabouts

Singledom or Coupledom? The Diamond Geezer reviews the dichotomy with his experiences every year on November 3rd, the anniversary of his last break-up. Nine years to date. His lists the pros and cons as follows:

"Some might say that we single people are missing out on the joys of coupledom, and maybe we are, but I'm convinced that there are equally many positive points to being single:"

Single: You get the whole duvet to yourself.
Coupled: You don't need a hot water bottle.

Single: There's half as much ironing to do.
Coupled: There's twice as much ironing to do but somebody else might do it.

Single: You can hoover the carpet when you think it needs doing.
Coupled: Somebody else hoovers the carpet before you think it needs doing.

Single: Nobody ever tells you that the kitchen must be repainted and the bathroom must be retiled.
Coupled: Two people can repaint the kitchen or retile the bathroom far more quickly than one.

Single: You never have to waste a Saturday doing what somebody else wants.
Coupled: You never sit around on a Saturday wondering what the hell to do.

Single: You can play your music collection really loud, even the track that nobody else likes.
Coupled: Your music collection is twice the size.

Single: You can watch whatever TV channel you like, without arguments.
Coupled: There's someone else on the sofa to snuggle up to.

Single: Nobody complains when you burp, belch or fart.
Coupled: Somebody points out when you have dandruff on your shoulder.

Single: You don't have to put up with somebody else's niggly annoying habits.
Coupled: Somebody else puts up with your niggly annoying habits.

Single: The toilet seat is always where you left it.
Coupled: The toilet seat isn't always freezing cold.

Single: You never come home to a blazing row.
Coupled: You sometimes come home to a cooked meal.

Single: You get to eat the whole ready meal for two yourself.
Coupled: It takes just as long to cook for two as it does for one.

Single: You can spend all your money on yourself.
Coupled: There are two salaries coming in and only one set of bills.

Single: You can walk away from a flatshare, any time.
Coupled: You can afford a mortgage, together.

Single: There are no important birthdays or anniversaries to accidentally forget.
Coupled: Somebody actually remembers your birthday.

Single: You never have to buy useless presents for your partner, just for the sake of it.
Coupled: Somebody buys you presents occasionally, and it's the thought that counts.

Single: You're allowed to flirt with people in the street.
Coupled: You don't need to flirt with people in the street.

Single: You never have to spend entire weekends being polite to the in-laws.
Coupled: Your in-laws are always ready to provide advice on your faults and shortcomings.

Single: You can still have a riotous social life in your 30s.
Coupled: You can still have a riotous social life in your 60s.

Single: You have no friends to go out with because they've all partnered off and are staying in.
Coupled: You don't have to go out with those annoying friends you had while you were single.

Single: You don't catch every sniffle, cold and flu bug off your partner.
Coupled: When you suffer a major cardiac arrest, somebody actually notices and dials 999.

Single: You never get left all alone and desolate because your life partner's just passed away.
Coupled: When you get old and infirm, you don't end up in a care home because there's nobody to look after you.

Single: If you meet the partner of your dreams, it's not too late to marry them.
Coupled: Nobody ever meets the partner of their dreams, so better to get married before it's too late.

Single: Being coupled is restrictive, stifling and a sign of personal weakness.
Coupled: Being single is unnatural, lonely and a sign of personal failure.

Single: You never get your heart broken.
Coupled: You sometimes feel your heart leap.

Single: You can have sex with anyone you like.
Coupled: You can have sex whenever you like.

Single: The bathroom is always free.
Coupled: The bedroom is always full.

Single: You can lie in bed in the morning for as long as you like.
Coupled: There's a very good reason for lying in bed in the morning.

Single: Nobody sees what you look like first thing in the morning.
Coupled: Somebody loves you despite what they see first thing in the morning.

Single: You never discover that your partner took another bloke to the company's (very expensive) Christmas party, having insisted to you that "plus one" on the invitation was a misprint. Not that I'm in any way bitter, you understand...

Hmm, jury's still out, I reckon.

Frustration

Physical, mental, emotional. The opportunities with D have been few & far between, and our last session involved a return trip for him to his room at 1 in the morning that was Benny Hill-like in his farcical attempts not to get caught. There would have been no point returning to my room - I had drifted into the arms of Morpheus with a smile a mile wide, and wouldn't have heard him.

But since then? I have expended a ridiculous amount of mental energy on worrying about the Ciderman. It has reminded me in a way I'd rather not have been reminded that I miss having someone to worry about. However, if/when that happens, I'm afraid I must insist that it is someone who is willing to worry about me in return. To be fair, his personal life has taken a turn for the Jeremy Kyle - but DNA tests will have to wait another 6 months yet. Is this something I want to be in the middle of? Most certainly not. However, he is so damned pretty - but alcoholic. He's been great at accompanying me to various gigs, but by the time we get home, he's pissed and he falls asleep. And I lie away worrying about him. NOOOOO. I want rampant, mostly meaningless sex where I can slip a bit of emotion (affection, tenderness etc) under the wire without having to admit it to anyone. Including myself. This is all going horribly wrong.

But I put my arms round him and feel the muscles at the bottom of his spine and my knees go weak. I saw him walk out of his house with his hair and coat blowing in the breeze and nearly came in my knickers! He looks fantastic - and while I don't just want him for his body, I sure don't just want him for his problems!! And I went back on the pill, which has flattened my libido to a shadow of its former self. Just can't bloody win...

Joke

Going around the interweb: I'm getting DSS sex - I get a little bit every few weeks but its not enough to live on. Christ - this is like being married, but without the dirty socks. So slightly better?

Advice?

Hmm, so this situation with S. We have set a date, I kid you not. 2 weeks time. So I have a fortnight to try and work out how to make sure he has a good time & I don't traumatise him for life. I've warned him that the first time with anyone new (regardless of how experienced both parties are) has a high potential to be anywhere from rubbish to at best improvable. I've also said that I reckoned the main aims were to be comfortable, leave smiling and not feel like life wasn't ever going to get better. Full sex may or may not be a part of that. I've mentioned that overexcitement is to be expected and is no bad thing, as the next time a couple of hours later will be slower. I've said that even if he isn't expecting it, stage fright can creep up - everyone has experienced condom wilt, but hey, at least he'll be giving it a go. God i've talked this down!

I've laid down that affection and laughter are part of the deal - I'm not a pro doing it for money, and what I get out of it is knowing that he will always remember his first time - I hope with a smile. So to all the guys out there, how would you have wanted your first time to go? 

Cultivation

Good heavens, is the "Wobble" post the one I've left up for nearly 3 weeks? Meh - life continues. 

I've been on what might be considered disturbingly close to "a proper date" with the Ciderman. Since then he's been out of the country & its been a long week. I've missed him quite a lot, but its given me a chance to reflect, to try and separate out what I hope he's like from what he might actually be like and most of all to get my head around the fact that I really could risk getting involved again. Whatever that means.

There's been an "opportunity" with D, which was enjoyable, but necessarily brief as the hotel was crawling with the rest of the department. However, that has now got to the inevitable difficulty where any progression involves an increase in intimacy, and there's no point. Sometimes the futility of it makes me sigh, but he's nice, reliable and takes me out to dinner, so, one evening at a time. And he does do a delicious job of biting my nipples. However, its difficult to relax when my gasps & moans of pleasure might be overheard by my department director, my line manager and 3 dozen assorted others. 

Further, a new situation has arisen with... lets call him S. S is another, younger, work colleague who has developed into a very good friend. However, he has some bedroom issues, and we have discussed a type of Mrs Robinson scenario as a confidence boost. He claims that apart from having zero experience (which I'd guessed) due to confidence issues, he had also, until this week with someone he's interested in, not kissed a girl for over a decade. Surely not! Despite his obvious heterosexuality, he's very in touch with his feminine side and would hate to put any woman in an awkward position and generally impose. Perhaps a mature, experienced, unfazeable older woman is precisely what is needed to administer a short sharp metaphorical slap round the head to move things along. Of course, it could all go horribly wrong, we could regret it bitterly and generally make things worse, but hey, I think "Ah fuck it!", and he is slowly starting to be less risk adverse and take a chance. So we'll see. 

And that's about it from the world of the hair monster. I still haven't solved my lack of pub-mates, but more violin-playing opportunities are slowly coming about. The garden is slowing showing the benefit of a bit of TLC (that's the back yard, not the lady-garden!) I guess one might say that the lady-garden is having a better time of it than my brain at the moment. Training up young S could be amusing for it, but might screw me (& him) up. But well, this is the year of doing things differently, so bring it on. I hope Ciderman rings next week though.

Wobble

Feeling very, very low tonight. I don't know why, but I let the Ciderman get under my skin, which is a predictably stupid thing to have done. But I don't often meet people I want to talk to, who interest me, who aren't 10 years older than me and married.

This evening I spent in the company of two nice couples - late 50s/early 60s. 20-odd years older than me, and reminding me with every shared joke, every sentence that they finish for each other that I will never have that. I will never grow old with a person by my side with whom I've spent the majority of my adult life, who is the father of my children, who remembers that disasterous holiday we had 30 years ago, who planned the house extention with me etc, etc.

But I'm back to the old problem, I'm too young to be old and too old to be young. While the 30-somethings cluster round the pub with friends, I realise I have none to do that with - they are all the old smug-marrieds. While any younger friends I have are having fun, I seem to be always refusing a pint in order to drive home. It's become ingrained over the last 25 years - its what I do.

The most wonderful, memorable weekend of my life was spent, 9 years ago at a music festival. It wasn't because the bands were great, although they were. It was because, after rushing to get there, after sorting out the kids, and making sure the shopping & washing was done, I dashed over to the campsite to wait for the next item on the checklist of things to do.....only for the realisation to dawn that there wasn't anything. I could just: put the car keys down, get myself a pint, dance in the sunshine and repeat - for the next 36 hours. It was revelatory. For a day and a half, I wasn't responsible for someone else, running children here, collecting them from there, organising stuff. It was the first time in my adult life I'd ever had that much time to myself. I was 31. 

Occasions since seem few and far between, which is why I feel I have turned into the most boring, prematurely-aged old bag known to mankind. Its like I know there's a life out there, but have no idea how to access it. How will I ever meet someone? This post is self-indulgent and whiny and I'm not even pre-menstrual, which is even more worrying, really.  

The Hand

He teases my clothes off me, laughingly undoing my bra, giggling as my breasts fall into his hands. But sooner or later, his eyes will find me, drill into the centre of me. His hand reaches out and unambiguously closes around my throat, constricting, squeezing, choking. I gasp - surprise, fear - yes, but undisguisable desire. My mouth drops open a little, lips wet with the previous kisses. My eyes open that bit wider - my heart hammering in my chest. I am pinned to the spot, by his hand, by his look. All I can do is gaze at him, knowing I can't resist, knowing that he now controls my every thought and action. All I can do is gaze, and silently beg him to fuck me. Now. Hard.

The Seduction - Part 2

In the story so far of how I came to be having this sordid little affair with D, I've mentioned in Part 1 how, as Hot Chocolate said, it started with a kiss. Well after this episode, November came and went, as did December with nothing more than blushing smiles and the sort of terribly mild flirting that your maiden aunt couldn't object to. But the idea was out there - floating between us, invisible but tangible. Come the start of the New Year, following a Christmas card and a NYE text, I thought the time had come to move things on a step or two. Christmas had convinced me that I was up for an affair, and without a doubt I found the thought as exciting as I did scary. So I ensured I was booked into the same hotel the night before a department meeting, and mentioned it in passing. The information definitely had an effect - he jumped and stuttered.

There were a number of us staying there and we'd agreed to meet in the bar at 7:00pm. Shortly before 7, the room telephone rang - it was him. He offered to escort me down to dinner and mentioned that his room was handily just across the corrider. Come on over, I said. A minute later came the knock. Pretending I wasn't deeply nervous, I opened the door and played it cool. He strolled straight past me and took a short tour of the facilities. I watched him with one eyebrow raised in a quizzical smile. I was taken aback and a little scared by his air of insouciant confidence. He looked like he spent most evenings walking around women's hotel rooms, and my conscience gave a twinge. That little voice of common sense that we all do our best to ignore started whispering that he was probably a total player who might have shagged every woman in the company. Still, we were only going down to the bar together, right?

During dinner, first his foot and then his thigh pressed against mine. Hmm, this is quite nice and not too scary, I thought. I generally relaxed and the evening passed pleasantly with the anticipation held level. A few glasses of wine later and I was ready to stroll back upstairs. His arm round me up the corridor, I wondered how you negotiated the etiquette of suggesting something improper, and if he would, or I should or what. To my relief, he asked if I was going to invite him in for a cuddle. YES, I thought, that's perfect. A nice, non-threatening way of suggesting something. I mean, as much as I might fancy doing it doggie-style in front of the mirror, no-one is going to condemn me for agreeing out loud to a cuddle! Gentlemen readers - remember this.

So it was that I found myself, for the first time in ten years, engaged in a passionate kiss in a hotel room with a man who was not my partner. Worse, a work colleague. Worse still, someone else's husband. At this point, my resolve began to waver. My thought processes went something like this:

"Ohhh, I really shouldn't be doing this! I work with him and its all a bit close for comfort and when work affairs go bad it can be hideous. What if anyone finds out? My reputation at work will be shot. Oh this is so not a good idea. How do I get out of this? I can't really without making a total scene and I really shouldn't be doi..Ooooohhhhhhh GOD that felt good...... but what was I was saying? Oh yes, I met his wife at the Christmas party the other year and she seemed really nice and I really should not be doin.. OH MY GOD - HE'S JUST UNDONE MY BRA STRAP WITH ONE HAND - HE IS A PLAYER!! I bet he does this all the time!! I don't even know if I really fancy him, I mean it seemed like a good idea earlier but now I don't know if the reality is really what I want and I really shouldn't be doin.. AAAAAHHHHHWWWWWwwwwww CHRIST that feels fantastic.... yeah where was I? Oh yes but that's not the point, I know K and I haven't been getting on, but this really isn't going to help, and I know what I'm like, I will give up on trying to make it better with K and sort out our problems, if they can be sorted, if I've got this distraction but this is so not a good idea on so many levels an..... OOOOOAAAAAHHHHHHHWWWWWWWW....oh, fuck it - I've got a live one here!" 

And the rest, as they say, is history.

The games we play

Now I have blogged before on here how I (somewhat irrationally) cannot sleep with two men concurrently - that if I start anything with someone new, it marks the end of an old relationship. But I've never been a married man's mistress before (at least not without any expectation of that status changing). 

Last week was a funny one - a situation arose at work which I was getting very wound up about. Frustratingly, if I hadn't been screwing D, he may have provided a practical solution, but we had both previously agreed to avoid any situation in which he might become my direct manager again, for reasons of ethics. Or morals. Or whatever. However, a resolution that involved him was almost so obvious it was starting to raise eyebrows that it hadn't happened, and that was starting to reflect badly on me professionally. Typical - I knew this liaison would not improve my career, but I didn't think it would negatively impact it, even without being discovered. How naive.

So in the hotel after work, my heart wasn't in it. And worse, he noticed. Worst still, he understood, listened to me and sympathised. We have our boundaries and that crossed mine. Someone actually caring about how my day went and listening is alien. It makes me realise that there's something wrong with a life when a woman gets to the age of 40 without having experienced that before. That makes me feel sorry for myself and that makes me absolutely furious. I hate any suggestion that I might by wallowing in self-pity - I am not a victim. So I got up and left; drove home illegally fast, listening to Marilyn Manson. The one thing I wanted more than anything that night was not to spend it alone. The one thing I refused to do was admit that fact, even to myself.

But my slutty guardian angel was looking over me. Shortly after I got in, I got a text from one Cider Man - did I want to meet him for a pint and a round of pub games? Yes - yes I did. Lager & pool was just what I needed. He's going through some changes himself. So I got exactly what I needed: a warm body to curl up with, a chance to sooth my own soul by comforting someone else. All without having to admit to any emotional vulnerability myself. I rock!

Oh and today I charmingly knocked sufficient heads together so that the difficult situation at work has hopefully been resolved. Its just best when everybody does what I want!

The Seduction - Part 1

I have been poking around the blogosphere this week and am particularly enjoying RiffDog at Ashley & Me. His writing is very accessible - humourous and addictive. It's seriously making me reconsider my writing style & content - more sex required? His descriptions of his various first dates reminded me fondly of the first night with D, and perhaps you good readers would like more detail of what happened.

As a recap, D is a married man with whom I work. Last November, in the bar after a departmental awayday, he unexpectedly kissed me goodnight. On the lips. In my natural surprise and confusion, I pinched his bum. Rewinding further, he used to be my direct boss. I really enjoyed working for him - he was relaxed but totally professional. The sort of boss that you want to work that bit harder for and I was rather in awe of him. In fact, when the reorganisation was announced and he told me I would no longer be working for him, a look passed between us - a complicated look, perhaps speaking of thoughts that were less about manager to subordinate and more of one adult the equal of the other. But the moment was fleeting, departmental lines were redrawn and for a year or so, we had no reason to be in contact.

Another reorganisation later, we found ourselves in the bar at the end of a long boozy night. Not even alone - a couple of others were there too. Which is why his kiss goodnight so totally confused me. We work in quite a macho, conservative industry - not a touchy-feely media-lovey-type world, so this was definitely not normal. I floated back to my hotel room like I was being borne along on a cloud. Did he mean it? What did he mean? Was I mis-interpreting it? He surely wasn't making a pass, was he? Yes - I know the blokes reading this will be thumping their heads against their screens screaming, "Of course he bloody was!", but you have to realise. I'd been in a committed relationship for nigh on 10 years. In all that time I'd barely looked at anyone else (apart from Cider Man here) and certainly no-one had made a pass at me. In fact in the previous few months, as things went downhill between K & I, the realisation of this was starting to grate. I wondered out loud to friends if this was because:

a) I'd been giving off "I'm taken" vibes,

b) because I was so out of practice that I didn't notice subtle indications, or

c) was the problem in fact that I had the body of a teletubby and a face like a smacked arse?

So that's my excuse for a grown woman lying awake wondering if the man who kissed her full on the lips liked her at all. Honestly, the thought seemed so bizarre and unlikely - I'm still laughing at my innocent bewilderment.

So after a good half hour's thought - I'm blushing here - I sent him a text of "Nice bum". And felt terribly shocked at my behaviour and instantly embarassed and convinced I'd made a total fool of myself, that I'd utterly misinterpreted an innocent, friendly kiss and I would probably be formally reprimanded for it. Breakfast was a trial. We studiously avoided catching each other's eyes and I decided that if confronted I would plead alcoholism. Or something. The conference session the following day was mercifully short and we left the hotel without a further word being spoken. The following day I got to work to find a short email from him: "Sorry - I should have said something yesterday. I'm out of the country, back Wednesday week." Well what did that mean? Did that mean that I would get the formal dressing down when he got back? Would we both draw a discreet veil over an embarrassing yet minor incident? I decided that least said was soonest mended and resolved to put the episode out of my mind. Which worked, until the day he got back. He came round to my desk, stood in front of me and eventually looked me directly in the eye. I looked at him.... and as the huge, goofy grins simultaneously hit our faces, I knew that whatever happened between us, things would be alright....

Sublime Symphony of Passion

With the benefit of the distance of days, I can now being to consider my response to Prom 24 last Monday - a concert that began oddly but finished with magnificence. 

The first half kicked of with Bach's Toccata & Fugue, but for Orchestra with Organ accompaniment (arranged by Sir Henry Wood - the instigator of the Proms at the Royal Albert Hall). This seemed a waste; when the organ at the hall is cranked up, you realise that this strange building with its acoustically idiosyncratic design was actually constructed as part of, and an extension to, its organ. The organ is the pulsing heart of the building, which is why under-utilising it in that monument to the organ - Bach's Toccata & Fugue was a wicked abomination.

This was followed by a further abortion - a Violin & Horn Concerto by a raving Victorian lesbian. Tokenism at its worst. There's a reason there are no Violin & Horn concertos in the standard repertoire - it doesn't work. The horn drowns the violin. Its pointless. Its not worth the tube fare. Its a waste of everyone's time, patience and earwax. Add in the fact that there is no discernable melody for the orchestra (the inimitable BBC SSO) to get their teeth into, and my irritation overflows. But the second half - oh the Gods of passion smiled down upon us lucky souls in the hall that evening. Euterpe melded with Erato to produce an experience that will live with me til my dotage. 

My spies tell me the 29 year-old conductor Stefan Solyom was so hyper before the start of his proms debut he threw up, but focused his mania into a stunning, tear-jerkingly mature performance of Rachmaninov's 2nd Symphony. The third movement in particular, when he discarded his baton in favour of naked-handed direction produced sublime, synaesthetic out-of-body moments. He understood that nothing should come between bare skin and the sound. He pulled the music from the air, phrase folding over and in on itself as the orchestra danced to the hypnotically sensual sounds that was so much more than the sum of the parts. The music swirled around the hall like a tangible thing - almost glimpseable in its profound physicality. Like ripened corn swaying in the breeze; as the band swayed forward into each phase the audience, like mesmerised odalisques continued to echo that motion under the direction of the the devilishly powerful Svengali Solyom. He controlled the thoughts, the actions, the attention, the life-force of thousands, sending us flying on the zephyr of passion-made-sound until he brought us back safely to land and the spell was broken by shouts of bravo.

I make no apology for the use of the term synaesthesia. Good music should, must be experienced by all the senses simultaneously with erotic, angry passion. Violins should stroke the neck, brushing finger-tips extended by cellos teasing down and round to the breasts, the nipples. Clarinets should caress the backs of the knees, up and down the rear and inner thighs. Oboes and bassoons should be breathed in - the smell and taste of their sound internalised. Lower brass resonates in the bones, the pelvis, the spine. Good music, be it classical or rock should be visceral. It should lift you from the moment you are in, far above the Earthly concerns, liberating, freeing, making all things & dreams possible. For that experience on Monday evening, Solyom & the BBC SSO, I thank you.

Life Begins

Here I am, a woman in my prime, and you know what? Forty is fab! My confidence in myself is growing by the day. I can wear low-cut tops without thinking I'm being obvious or mutton-like (does that translate across the Atlantic?), simply because it doesn't really cross my mind. I have soft, round, gently tanned, welcoming full breasts - why shouldn't they see some of the light of day in the summer? I smile at everyone I meet, and they smile back. I'm walking around in my own little sunbeam at the moment, and that light is reflecting upon all the people around me.

After my serendipitious meeting with the Cider Man in town last week, we "hooked up" a few evenings later. It was such a pleasant change to spend time with someone different - met a few of his friends, went somewhere new, had a laugh, and had some incredible oral sex. I'd forgotten he had a tongue stud! Trust me - what all your friends say about tongue-studs is true. Every woman should have access to one at least once - and once you do, you'll want it again and again and again.... And he's nice, and he stayed the night and I had a fabulous time. He can come again - fnarr, fnarr. You know, his back had the softest skin I've ever stroked....

I am so unshakeably sure that I don't want a relationship at this point in my life. I want to cherry-pick the good bits: flattery, attention, plenty of sex, and you can keep the dross: Match of the Day, bickering about who's turn it is to go to Tescos (translate: Walmart) and whether his mother's coming to dinner. I guess that makes me perfect mistress material for the time being. Certainly D is very keen to give me my first fuck of my forties this week.

My social calendar is filling up - quiz nights, BBQs, chamber music, rock nights & tonight - the Proms. I'll be on my own, and enjoying it all the more because of that. Beethoven and Mahler, teutonic delights at the Albert Hall. All in all, I feel like the cat that got the cream. Is life allowed to be this good?

Crossing the Rubicon

I have stepped across the divide, swum defiantly & purposefully to the other side. I have crossed the Rubicon - I am 40. Although it feels odd seeing it in black and white, mentally I'm fine with it. I celebrated with the offspring. Tonight, we're off to eat and drink with friends before ending up in a club to dance like diseased monkeys. Ah, one of the many advantages of having been a teenage mother that the reactionary rag, the Daily Mail, forgets to mention!

I said goodbye to my thirties in style. D booked into a country house hotel and to continue the incapacitated animal similes, we fucked like crazed ferrets for hours. Then we went for a stroll round the grounds, laughingly considering patches of long grass for privacy and daring, had a drink, had a meal, and did it all over again.

The last month has been an extended dry patch. Holidays interfered with our usual arrangements, which was tortuous. I'd forgotton how randy I get in the sunshine and there was nothing I could do but lie semi-naked on the sunlounger and fantasize. So a proper reunion was highly anticipated. I'd had the chance to warn / titilate him with tales of my near all-over tan, hard fought through sessions of topless car-washing, gardening, pool-cleaning and shed painting. 

I was starting to get anxious that the tan would fade before it had the chance to be shown off, but I was able to parade; naked, laughing, brown and blushing for my lover. I told him that I hadn't been able to sleep the night before through anticipation, but I'd solved the problem by fantasising that he was licking champagne from my breasts. So he obliged for real. 

Its soooo pleasurable to touch, feel, stroke, rub my cheek against his stomach, feel his cock in my cunt, his teeth on my nipples. To touch someone, to be touched. To fuck and be fucked. The end of my thirties was spectacular. Can my forties live up to it?

Six Month Check-up

Looking back over the blog, I thought it might be worth doing a mid-year review to follow up from my New Year's Eve post. But its all so damn good! What a difference 6 months has made. From feeling trapped, defeated and negative, I'm now feeling positive, vibrant and alive. Ok, I'm not a grinning sunbeam every moment of every day, but then, would you want to hang out with someone who was? Or ring the local funny-farm and advise them to bring their biggest net?

So here we go - Midsummer Joy

Emotional
Living in my own space and skin, occasionally lonely but pretty content. Having an affair with that married man, but as long as it stays within its boundaries, all is good. I know where I stand and as long as I know when my next shag is coming, I'm fine. Involved enough to be edgy when I don't know where he is when I was expecting to see him at work and he's elsewhere. Involved enough to not particularly be interested in actually sleeping with anyone else, but not so hung-up that I spend my weekends & evenings pining. Yup, could be a LOT worse.

Professional
Brilliant! The shake-up in my personal life has left me feeling so much more positive and in control of my life and this has been reflected at work. My boss and I are getting on better. I bounce around like I'm walking on air, and I get noticed. I've been approached by the director of another function to transfer to his area to bring my unique blend of skills with me. Just need to negotiate a payrise now.

Family
One darling is living at home, and we're having such fun. Its so relaxed, we never row. She cooks, I shop, its no hassle. She says I'm the best flatmate she's ever had. Well, if you will hang out with born-again Christians, don't expect to be asked out down the pub too often. The other one is too far away for my liking, but she's doing what she wants and is pushing her way through life in the direction she wants to go. I can't help worrying, but then that's my job as a mummy. She's great. 

Hobbies
Bugger the gym - not been near it this year. But I go out walking most Sunday mornings with some friends. Much more civilised. And I've joined a trio to play classical music, and am investigating joining a folk group for general laughs.

The future
Well perhaps that Ayn Rand was on to something. I have indeed turfed K out, sprog minor has moved in and its even better than I dared hope. My indian summer of whoring about is available to me if and when I want to explore that option. Talking of which, went out last night and bumped into Cider Man, (he of my February shinannigans) who was very keen to give me his number. Meanwhile, although I can't afford Australia, I shall be visiting my sister in SA later this year. So no longer stuck. I have options. I have control. I have a big smile. I have a hangover.

Wants and Needs

The secret to contentment is to understand the difference between Wants and Needs, apparently. A number of books have been written on the subject, not least Affluenza, by Oliver James which warns of the difference from a material perspective. But how does this play with emotions - which do we need, and which do we merely want? Is the question even valid? Personal fulfillment suggests that we each have a "right" to all the positive emotions, and shelves of self-help books suggest that we can insulate ourselves from the bad with the right "positive mental attitude".

But where are the boundaries? Is it right to pursue your emotional wants, to elevate them to needs, regardless of the pain it causes others, or ultimately yourself? Or are they the same thing? My heart was wrenched reading this blog-post. I'm sure there are those that would condemn S for willingly involving herself with a married man - regardless of the heartache she could inflict on the wife and on herself. But how can the hardest heart not weep for her? To fall in love with someone unavailable is one thing, but to want to be with the man you love, comfort and nuture him, bear his children to fulfill your biological destiny is much closer to a need - sex and procreation are as much a basic human motivation as hunger & thirst. To have found the love of your life, only to be told he would rather live a half-life with a woman who does not satisfy him is surely the ultimate slap in the face. Worse - surely it is taking the very core of you and shredding it, trampling the pieces into the mud?

I suppose I am feeling wistful after reading this article. Am I alone in reading this article on an American married couple that decided to have sex every day for 101 days and be astonished that the response from her friends was so negative? I crave some sex, some affection, some tenderness, touch, trust, intimacy, to "sink in, trusting, to their pillowy ephemeral depths and to whisper, in the dark, to the comfort of flesh" as Z so beautifully puts it. Such a fundamental need, such a seemingly unachievable ambition, a want - the pursuit of which eliminates any chance of contentment. 

Quest for the Holy Grail

The holy grail of human existance is predicated on the fact that, as John Donne was perspicacious to point out, no man is an island. Or woman for that matter. While Harriet Harman gets her knickers in a twist over the differences between the sexes (she seems to feel there are none, just a male conspiracy to "keep the little woman down"), I think more of the similarities, or at least, the complementariness of the sexes. 

Whilst I leave dissection of Harman's arrant (and dangerous) nonsense to others to complete, (Ms R for instance has a few, sharp words to say on the matter), the subject of today's rather wistful post is the need to find that other, complementary person - the one that fills the physical and emotional void at the centre of each of us. While women seek to fill the void more literally than men, metaphorically the need is the same in us all. Someone who fulfills us physically, who takes care of us emotionally, who gives and accepts our touch, affection, passion and lust. Who cares for us, even we care for them. Maybe the need to nuture is stronger in women, but is it not balanced in our lovers by an equivalent desire to protect? 

Yet the more we reach for this ideal, total, all-encompassing 'other', the more of a mirage the existance of such an individual seems. For whilst we dream of Gods and Goddesses to place on pedastals, we are each of us aware of our own mortal failings. While we have a tendancy to expect perfection in others, we are only too aware of our own feet of clay.

Experience tells us that we will never find all we want and need in one person. But hope springs eternal, or else we make bitter compromises, risking stability for danger, family for fun. We compare and contrast, are kind and cruel at the toss of a coin, each of us at times taking turns to be pursued and pursuer, so rarely the two roles combining in serendipitious fate. So the chase goes on - we are careless that we are the object of someone obsession, whilst the object of our own continues their own life mostly oblivious to us. Or you share an obsession, but its pointless, cos its not going anywhere - its as much of a mirage as a Platonic ideal (as opposed to platonic - if I'm not getting my philosophical constructs confused and generally talking out of my arse. If I am, blame the Kronenbourg).

So what is the answer to life, the universe and everything? Is it 42 married lovers, in the faint hope that if you don't spend too long with any of them, you can maintain some shreds of emotional detachment, and kid yourself that it isn't a synonym for emotional emptiness? Or do you pursue the hunt for the "one, true other", and spend the majority of your evenings sobbing into the sofa? Or do you just marry the nearest person, and try to forget you ever had needs and hopes beyond Tesco and the school run? Christ I'm depressed! That's what seeing K today does for me. That and the fact that I haven't seen D for a week and won't for another two. My efforts at pretending to myself that I'm not slightly pining are wearing thin. 

Sweet Seventeen

This week gift to feature writers and bloggers is the publication of Mira Kirshenbaum's book, "When Good People Have Affairs". From the reviews I've scanned, the thrust of the piece is the argument that extra-marital affairs are so widespread, that it is ridiculously simplistic to label adultery (and by extension, adulterers) as bad. Rather than the certainty of black and white, it might be better to take a slightly more shaded view of the motivations, reasons and explanations for affairs, and avoid the knee-jerk, "They've cheated so its over" point of view.

Ms Kirshenbaum lists 17 reasons why people cheat. For ease, these are: Break-out-into-selfhood, Accidental, Sexual Panic, Let's kill this relationship (and see if it comes back to life), Mid-marriage crisis, Trading up, Heating up your marriage, I just need to indulge myself, Ejector seat, See if, Distraction, Surrogate therapy, Do I still have it, Having experiences I missed out out, Revenge, Mid-life crisis and Unmet needs.

She further suggests that you should stay with your partner if your affair is a heating-up-your-marriage affair, let's-kill-this-relationship-and-see-if-it-comes-back-to-life affair, do-I-still-have-it affair, accidental affair, revenge affair or midlife-crisis affair. However, she says that you need to think carefully about whether to stay with your primary partner if your affair is of the following kinds: the break-out-into-selfhood affair, unmet-need affair, having-experiences-I-missed-out-on affair, surrogate-therapy affair, ejector-seat affair.

Now whether this taxonomy of reasons is completely exhaustive, I don't know. Where does, "Well, he asked and I was a bit pissed and quite flattered" fit in? And the categories are obviously not mutually exclusive - my affair with D ticks several boxes, both for me and for him I imagine. Still, most of the ones on my side are in the "split up" category, and a number of his are from the "stick it out" side of the fence, so there's a nice bit of post rationalising.

Further the author is wholly convinced of the wisdom of NEVER confessing the affair, perhaps a route that Titus, the Lazy Philosopher wished he'd taken in hindsight. Still, if the affair is of the type to give the marriage a kick up the arse, how do you establish that yes, you really are that pissed off and things really must change if the other party is blithely unaware?

I find the entire subject quite fascinating from a philosophical stand-point. I was quite flabbergasted to read in the Guardian this particular quote: "'Adulterers are neither kind nor good people, so what sort of sympathy are we supposed to give them?', said Leila Collins, a psychologist who has given relationship counselling for 15 years. 'A good person doesn't betray their loved ones. A good person who is unsatisfied in their relationship ends it before starting a new one.'"

What? Are you barking?? And what exactly qualifies Ms Collins to go busybodying around in other people's lives? I'm not talking about the bit of paper she may have tacked to her office wall, I'm talking about some tangible life experience, wisdom and compassion. Are you telling me that one placement of a penis negates a lifetime of selflessness, devotion and duty? Total bollocks. But yet, the pain, hurt and devastation that the discovery of an affair can have is not to be denied. But to read that a bit of dissatisfaction is apparently sufficient reason to jettison the other parent of your children and doing so in pursuit of a new relationship makes one a "good" person is not only ridiculous, but both naive, dangerous and destructive.

Cuddle Time

Last month I mentioned my Dichotomy - that life was pleasant but without extremes. Part of the upside was my saggy, baggy, deaf old cat. This morning I found him dead in his basket - 19 years of memories consigned to the incinerator. I'd expected, in my usual non-sentimental style, that when then time came, I would simply bag him up and drop him off at the council tip, but this morning, I uncharacteristically came over all mawkish, and paid £65 to have him lovingly cremated.

Wow, is there ever money in dead pets - I shall bear it in mind if I ever need a career change and feel I could manage to keep a straight face long enough. It was almost worth the money for the comedy value - the ever-so-sympathetic-wily businessman says: "Would you like to lay him out in the Chapel of Rest or shall I? You can take as long as you want to say your final goodbyes." Me: "Errr, can't you just take him away, he's starting to smell..."

Strangely enough, almost the last person to see him alive was D - he had a free evening and popped over to the house. His first visit to the house & the first occasion that wasn't a fumble on expenses. Life, eh?

All-male brothels for women

I was reading a commentary by Ariel Leve from the Times earlier, on the subject of Heidi Fleiss' new venture in the Nevada desert - a brothel for women. Her column, although amusing, missed pressing most of my recognition buttons. Perhaps its because she's from New York. Apparently, she can't sleep with someone without wanting to talk on the phone afterwards. Talk? To someone you've just slept with?? Christ alive, we're British, don't you know. We don't talk - we go to the pub, we get pissed, we pull, we sleep with someone, we bump into them again, stuff is repeated and sometimes shuffles in embarrassed fashion into something resembling a relationship. Certainly no talking involved though.

There again, women from across the pond seem rather hung up on "dating", whatever the hell that is. Some Canadian bint was slagging off British men as "too polite, too repressed and too misogynistic" and has written an article called "The Tragic Ineptitude of the English Male" implying that British men are drunken women haters. Despite not actually ending up in bed with one the whole time she lived here (surely frigid?), she is cashing in on her lack of first-hand knowledge, xenophobic misandry (yeah the irony completely passed her by, but then Alanis Morrisette highlighted that Canadians never really had a firm grip on the concept) and general cultural missing-the-point to turn this drivel into a TV series. I'm sure the Canadians will lap it up.

Personally I know nothing about this dating malarkey; my history is all around long-term serial relationships. They all started with a shag, because then you both know where you are, and assuming neither of you actually blow your nose on the curtains, it then morphs into a relationship, (because you didn't chose a flaky feckwit to start with) and its just less trouble to carry on with the one that's there & willing, rather than cast about for someone new. Its not clever, its not exciting, there's a high percentage of danger of ending up spending your Sundays in B&Q, but hey, at least you get laid and the opportunity to go halves on a curry on a Saturday night. Perhaps I settle for too little, but many of my friends seem jealous of what I had. 1 marriage, 2 long-term relationships, 1 one-night stand that dragged on for a week (damn I'm good!) and the current entanglement. And not a single date.

But one thing she said did pull me up: "If I announced I’d like to have sex with no expectations, demands or agenda - I’d have to turn men away." That I suppose is exactly what I am doing currently - I have no expectations, demands or agenda in this fling with D. Why would I? He's married and staying that way, with my blessing. But according to her I should be beating them off with a shitty stick, as the saying goes. And I guess if I advertised the fact that I was that accommodating, I would be. Somehow though, it is a bit sad though that I have given up articulating even to myself what an expectation, demand or agenda might look like. It seems so fantastically pointless including someone else in your plans, even a hypothetical person. Is that just giving up?

Becalmed at sea

I'm aware that my rate of posting has dropped off recently. This is mostly because I have nothing new to relate - there are only so many ways I can put "Saw D - shagged him". I have been attempting and failing to drum up a social life. I have identified that what I need is not a man, but a life. Unfortunately, all the good times outside of a bedroom I have had recently feature an offspring or two, and that is no way to proceed long term.

I have seen K a couple of times - I've even been in his new flat. That was.... a lot to describe in a simple blog. As a word association dump to give you an outline: Heart wrenching, bitter, detached, lonely, impatient, superior, guilty, miserable, quietly chuffed, relieved, horny, ashamed, motherly, lover-ly, nurturing, reluctant, exultant, sad, tiptoe, irritated and vindicated were some of the emotions and descriptive words that go part way towards summing up my feelings during the time it took to get a guided tour and drink a cup of coffee. Bottom line is that its over and he's not my problem any more, and worrying about him is detracting from the energy I need to rebuild my life. Tough but true.

D has been making considerable efforts to ask me my movements and invited me down for a "visit" at his hotel on my way past. I'm not sure he wanted me to stay all night, but I decided I would. I probably won't next time - good grief, hearing his snoring is a relief because it means he's stopped fidgeting. Temporarily! But I like him, oh I like him lots.

Over the weekend I called in to Hay, just to claim some literary boasting points. Unfortunately, we just missed Ian McEwan's discourse on "On Chesil Beach" (which is really rather poignant if you want reminding what crap sex is like). Whilst she was pottering round the poetry shelves in the various bookshops, I found myself browsing the Mind Body & Spirit sections, wondering if there was a way to magic up a social life. I came across a white (whoops, nearly typed that as shite....a Freudian finger-slip?) magic book of spells. I read the one that claimed it would draw my lover to me for ever. Well, even if I could be arsed to assemble the petals and rose oil and whatever, I'm not sure I'd want him hanging around all the time. There was also one for getting rid of a rival - you wish her good things apparently (and assemble even more crap) and she'll scoot off after them and leave the object of your joint desire alone. But then I decided that if by some coincidence, writing on a chicken's egg in green ink at moonlight were to coincide with a marriage breakup, I'd feel too guilty to get in there anyway, so best leave well alone. Too apathetic to make a good witch, I guess!

Tease

There is something so deliciously naughty about having a serious, in-depth, work discussion with your lover in his office, whilst wrapping your ankles around his and inching your skirt up bit by bit until sudden changes in his facial expression and his tone tell you that he's just glimpsed a flash of your suspenders. God bless visually obsessed men.

I'm one of them

I have recently been chewing over the issue of part-time lovers. Now it seems eminently sensible to me that in lieu of a full-time lover, I could substitute with enough part-timers to make a full-time equivalent. I have no moral objection in my particular case - I have made no commitment to anyone. It's rational, sensible, logical even, and I am a rational, sensible and logical hair-monster. But unfortuately, I'm just not wired that way. I have NEVER been able to regularly sleep with two men concurrently. I have no idea why, I just can't, and never mind the physical frustration, I'm finding that fact intellectually frustrating! I have managed a one-night stand in the same week as the start of an ongoing relationship, but I just can't ride two horses, so to speak.

However, through some nonsense at work, I dug out my Myers-Briggs personality type. Hmmm. It's like someone has been following me around with a tape-recorder and noting things I've said out loud to include in the profile. It even predicted what CDs I would have in the car. How does my attitude to unexpected invitations so correctly define me as a Vaughan Williams devotee? I'm an individual, damn it, and I took the Shostokovitch out of the car last week, so Ha, you were wrong there.

It said that my type had a similar attitude to music as they did to sex. I have said to D that music and sex are the only times I completely lose myself in a moment. It also said that my type "may analyse his/her own thought processes as if his mind and body were separate from their conscious self". Also that "They seek patterns and logical explanations for anything that interests them". So that will be why, as K was forcing me down onto the concrete path, careless of the cuts and bruises I sustained in his sudden rage, I was thinking, "Aha, this is the second time with me, the third time I know about, and you can triangulate from 3 occurances. Interestingly, the pattern appears to be doorways - each time he's kicked off, it has involved pushing someone out of or through a doorway. What's that about?" Someone more in touch with their feelings may have just thought, "Fuck this for a game of soldiers, I'm off." Funny lot, us INTPs.

But it does say that we are very loyal and faithful and entirely straightforward in relationships - never bother with game playing. See - we're not that bad. What's even better, I've managed to be one of the few INTPs that's not a trekkie - I'm almost human! Don't know that any of this is going to help me solve my shag dilemma though.

Saturday Mornings

As has become the new routine, I am woken by my regular weekend visitor, a fat lazy wasp that never disturbs me on a workday - doubtless it is busy itself. But on Saturdays and Sundays it likes to pay a friendly visit and hovers above the curtains as the dawn chorus breaks, and with a sigh, I reach for the empty pint glass and paperback and hope none of my neighbours are out for an early constitutional as I prance naked in front of the bedroom window, trying not to trap any of its legs against the glass.

Today however, he obviously only had time for the briefest of hellos, before sinking back behind the curtain and according to the diminishing buzz, found his way out again. That left me sleepy but not tired, awake and alone on a Saturday morning. I tensed and stretched, yawning and wriggled sideways to find a cooler bit of sheet. Having a superking-sized bed to oneself, there's always a cooler bit somewhere.

Arching my back, I feel the duvet brush my nipples. Naked, warm, luxuriant, relaxed, one's thoughts turn to what nature intended Saturday mornings to be for, apart from saving wasps from human peril. The memory of teeth teasing that pink flesh is subconsciously echoed as my hands creep towards them, pulling, pinching, squeezing, twisting. The thoughts come thicker, fast, the warmth spreads. Writhing now, I imagine hands, tongues, fingers. Kiss my shoulders, I inwardly demand and twist over to offer an bared blade to my imaginary lover. I stroke my own neck, flicking my hair back to give the phantom easier access. I wonder how wet I am below, but resist from exploring there...yet.

Now the memory of his smell, the rasp of 5'o clock shadow as I rub my cheek against thin air. Leading my my jaw, I'm moving, twisting, rubbing as if I were a pet cat impressing itself against ankles. Flipping over onto my stomach, the ghostly feel of lips on my back, a tongue following the contours of my spine, down then up again. Hands pushing my hair away from my nape as I lift my neck in offering to his touch. Eyes closed, I trace the outline of my own jaw with a thumb, lost in imaginings, memory chasing sensation following fantasy. I am vaguely aware that I gasp audibly as my finger sinks past the initial resistance into a hidden lake of physical response. I waste no time in spreading it over my cunt lips, the tops of my thighs, bringing the finger up to my mouth to taste and savour, wiping fresh juice across my upper lip, tracing out the hardened nipples. Again rising in space so the highest points of my body are those two peaks, and my crotch. Up, higher, more, faster, and on and on. A blur of reality, a kaleidoscope of images and my moment is upon me. It builds and builds, the threat of the orgasm ending mitigated by squeezing my thighs tighter and tighter against my hand, bucking, throbbing, pulsating, a universe of sensation collapsed into a pin-prick black hole of time. Allowing myself to relax, to come down, to smile lazily into space, I replay special moments we've had together, I claim all the mattress, starfished with the duvet cast back. And as my mate the wasp considers another assault on its enemy's base camp, I make a mental note to add bleach and olive oil to the shopping list.

The Dichotomy

Life is pleasant. I have, for company, much of the time, a delightful daughter who is witty, amusing and delightful. I also have, for the purposes of random stroking and fussing over, a fat, neutered, mostly deaf old cat. There are no highs, and the lows are controllable. For amusement, I have a low level affair with a co-worker. Its very civilised, mildly flirtateous when others are present, carefully worded arrangements to meet and enjoyable sex when the occasion arises. Mentally, if one can stay away from obsession, it's all quite pleasant. It gives one a reason to dress up for work, it brings a secret smile to the lips.

So why would I crave pointless obsession, wild passion, hopeless romanticism? Surely that way lies madness. Who would want the dizzying highs, if they are inevitably followed by excoriating lows? Who would need the overwhelming fixation which blots out all other concerns, who would want to be incapable of concentrating on work, hobbies, other pleasures? Who might want to invoke overwhleming passion in someone else? Who indeed, to what end?

All dressed up

A quiet week - I had need to be away 3 nights recently, but nowhere near D. Last night I consoled myself with a spot of retail therapy in a huge M&S - my credit card is still whimpering softly as it cowers in the bottom of my handbag. I took the purchases back to my lonely hotel room to try them on. New lingerie and heels and no-one to parade them for. I looked pretty hot too.

Return of the Jedi

I'm back - after a week of non-blogging. What have you missed? Well, to follow on from my last post, I decided last Friday to take the initiative and plainly ask his movements this week. Alas, there was to be no overlap, but in the middle of diary comparison, he looked up and with a complex sweep of facial expressions, asked "So - you still want to carry on seeing me then?" I stuttered an affirmative, parenthetically checking that he still wanted to see me.

Nevertheless, the weekend was not one adorned with a stiff upper lip. It was probably the lowest I've felt this year. That bloody rollercoaster keeps on trucking. I think it was partially due to the fact that having painted all the walls, there was nothing to do but sit and stare at them. And snivel, pathetically. Also a feeling that I may have screwed it up with D, by acting so offhand, he'd assumed I wasn't interested.

Still, I got it out of my system and I've felt more positive as the week progressed. I've separated out two issues in my mind:

1. My biggest fear is that I become so clingy, craven and omnipresent, the human equivalent of that bit of cellophane that you can't shake off your fingers, that I end up irritating him and embarrassing myself. Currently, in my efforts to avoid this horror, I behave very off-hand to the point of rudeness, especially immediately after sex, when at my most emotionally vulnerable. The reality is that I am so hyper aware of the possibility that it is very unlikely to occur, and this fear is easily communicated if the need arises.

2. I have been recoiling from any D-related happiness with the alacrity of a scalded cat. In my current, isolationist mood, I am deeply suspicious of allowing happiness to exist as a result of this affair. I want, unrealistically, all my happiness to spring from an internal well, of which I am in control, rather than be at the mercy of external emotions. Essentially, I want to be able to make myself happy, rather than let my happiness or otherwise be reliant on someone else (cos they're all unreliable bastards, yadda, yadda, yadda, yawn). However, friends and lovers are meant to make you happy! Its not D's fault if I'd forgotten 50% of this equation. I am simply grateful if a friend rings, I'm not terrified of the subsequent consequences of acknowledging that good feeling. I just go with it.

I'm sure this sounds a little mad. Ok, a lot mad. But I guess its part of the break-up recovery stuff. Anyway, once I'd got this straight in my head, I was delighted to find a "hi how are you" text and to enjoy bathing in the warm glow of happiness. Cos its undeniable, when he smiles at me, or I get an unexpected text, the sun comes out in my little world. And, wouldn't you know it, he got stuck away this evening, let me know, I was due to be driving right past anyway on my way back from a training course, so I invited him out for dinner, and myself in for an appetiser first. Smiling again.

Communication

Time to be honest with myself - is this affair doing it for me? Am I hiding behind my determination not to appear clingy and vulnerable? Is it stopping me from pointing out that a fortnightly shag with minimal contact in-between is not making me feel better about myself? The problem is, I can rationally understand that using work email or comms is stupid, that affairs limit contact time and points, but nevertheless....

Part of it is my history - I seem to have ended up with the sneaking suspicion that every man will treat me in a way I feel is crap, unless I intervene and have the difficult conversations, which, being a coward & unconfident, I don't, til far too late. It seems unfair to suspect everyone's motives as being negative, and of course the possibility exists that they don't see it as crap at all. I'm not specifically referring to D here.

Still, Tuesday night, I was in the mood to take it slower, as I hadn't seen him for a week. He was eager to go straight to it, and I can't blame him as the week before, the roles were reversed - he'd been surprised at my urgency. His ebbing jetlag this week meant it would have been a cruelty not to have dispatched him back to his own duvet as soon as I'd finished with him, but something's missing.

On the other hand, I see the way he looks at me in the office. Before his recent trip, we had a conversation, mostly about my career, and it was so damn inspiring (temporarily - the effect has worn off now!) Verbal communication is so complicated compared to sex - the latter is so bloody easy, its a shame its not the be-all and end all of life.

Then

Sitting here, I stroke the crust, the scab of too affirmative attention. Just the underside of the right nipple, just in little patches. And as I stare into space, the faint smile on my lips matching the warmth below, I remember...snippets, snapshots, glimpses? A sensation of heaviness, lying across him, one arm trapped underneath, the other without the energy or urge to defend or push away. Physically fucked out, mentally floating away, untethered to reality. I am powerless to protest, incapable of speech. Longing only to wantonly acquiesce and to submit to those nails and those teeth that grate, twist, puncture and torture. The only sound I can form is a betraying whimper of desire. The only conscious thought is....more.

The Good-Mood One

The hormones have delivered, I'm cheerful today! The offspring are back from their two-week jaunt: tanned and exuberant, babbling in Italiaise and bearing gifts of food and wine. Sometimes I sit back and marvel that I; a short, round, antisocial, misanthropic Hair Monster managed to produce two such sophisticated, sociable, culinary-enabled polyglots. If it weren't for the obvious height genetic influence, I'd assume a mix-up at the maternity ward.

Anyway, they've swept off to play with their little step-brother & sister for a few hours and I plodded off to the shops. I live at the bottom of the hill, at the cheaper end of town - to get anywhere interesting on foot, one has to perambulate past the posh houses and tackle the gradient. A couple of years ago, this was a challenge to which (to my shame) I was unequal. Attempting the hill would leave me breathless, panting and with stabbing pains in my shins. Eventually I decided that if that was the state I was in in my mid-thirties, how much pain and discomfort would I be storing up for myself come retirement? So although Hair Monsters are not gerbils, and the treadmill is not their natural habitat, a gym membership was lashed out for, and some determined exercise and stretching routines mean that I can at least now nimbly nip up the hill. Still. But only just, 'cos that membership has been collecting dust for the last 3 months.

I'm in a money-spending mood, unfortunately. This isn't fantastic, considering my newly straitened circumstances, but occasionally, needs must and in celebration of my newly single status, some new makeup and extra perfume was purchased. This is in addition to the £100 frittered away over the web at Figleaves during the week. Those little scraps of silky nothingness arrived this morning, and are delightful. I have a major presentation coming up at work in just over a week. We each have our own version of smoke and mirrors. Mine will be to distract the audience from criticism of my proposal with subliminal consideration of whether I'm actually wearing suspenders under my new dress. Oh the delights of working in a male-dominated industry!

Whilst in town, I scoped the coffee-shops for pulling potential. I chose one on a corner, with plenty of windows for people watching opportunities and ensconced myself at a window seat with a cappuchino and a book. This is part of my longer-term plan for the single life - become a regular and force myself to talk to people. There were a couple of blokes there together, obviously there to pass the time and watch the world go by. I was idly wondering if they were straight, mentally discounting the one with the facial fungus, despite his rather dishy bum, when a woman in a wheelchair manoeuvred her way into the cafe. She charmed the staff, clocked the other one as someone she recognised from her gym and chatted them both up for the next half hour. Well, if she can do it with gammy legs and a speech impediment, I've really got no excuse. Its humbling when a cripple is doing better at pulling than I am! So on the mental checklist - make the cafe a regular stop, and go back to the gym.

Entitlement

The quality of the writing on some other blogs: The Naked Truth, Bittersweet-Me never fails to impress me - how they manage to capture a moment in time, freeze-frame it, spin it out microsecond by microsecond, describe and make explicit the implicit, the subconcious with clever metaphor and simile and I tried to mentally photograph moments to describe here, but its no good. I get lost in the moment too completely and it slides through my mental grasp like a wet paintbrush over the bit of carpet you didn't cover.

Alas, the discreet hotel was full, so his secretary booked him into the usual, goldfish-bowl one. I bowed to the inevitable, and got a different secretary to book me in too. Despite the fact that I have spent less time thinking about him this week, seeing him occasionally during day between meetings made me realise that I was absolutely gagging for it.

We rushed away from work to check in early - to get a couple of hours' peace and quiet, and we made good use. Orgasm followed hard upon orgasm but as the count rose higher, so did the emotional overload. Too many hard orgasms can make me cry even at the best of times, and this is not the best of times for me - vulnerable, rocky and unstable are all words that wouldn't be out of place to describe me at the moment. At least I didn't break into full-on, snot-snorting sobbing; let's be grateful for small mercies, but it was touch and go at one point. I was so pathetically pleased to be with someone, for a touch, for a conversation, for him.

"Has it been very quiet indoors?", he gently inquired. He knows the offspring are away, to return on Friday. What could I say? That, yes, it has been, and sometimes that's ok and sometimes it isn't. Again he mused out loud on how long I will want this reality, how long it will be enough, how long I will want him. I wonder too - the stubborn, invulnerable, fuck-em-all part of me thinks that I shouldn't settle for the precarious state of mistress for a second longer, that I should need nothing and no-one unless they are prepared and free to court me fully and properly, and that I should demand nothing less for myself. But the human, vulnerable needy me that I don't like to admit exists realises that as little as this is, its a precious something, and its removal would leave a gaping void. No promises, no expectations, I told him. One occasion at a time - that way there's less room to get hurt, even though we all know I will be.

I want to say to him that I was touched that he'd bought champagne the other week, even though we didn't get a chance to drink it. But if I did, I might go on to admit that I was so touched, because no man has ever bought me champagne before, and fatally, go on to wonder out loud if that was because I wasn't that sort of woman, or because I don't attract that sort of man. I can't decide which answer is more depressing.

Oh I have the grots tonight, it must be hormonal. I promise in a day or two, I will post happy, positive posts. My ceanothus bushes are poised to burst into glory, the Mexican Orange Blossom is pregnant with budding beauty, the aquilegia is verging on colourful delight. The occasional snow-flurries can't stop the march of Spring and now the decorating is finished and BST-lit evenings are here, fresh air and exercise will prod your blogger into better moods, I promise.

The Past, The Present

Today started like the last few, with a steely determination to finish the interminable decorating, which I have. Give it another few hours for the gloss to really dry before I rip off the masking tape and I can reassemble my living room. Rehanging the curtains was a relief and the sofa covers are washed, clean and replaced. It won't be long before my house will be my home again - new, improved, lonely?

I met K for lunch today. Ostensibly to transfer temporary ownership of the paint stripping heat gun, but also to chat, to explore. I had no concerns about the meeting - he did. He confessed to nervous shaking. But he looked good. Losing nearly 3 stone suits him and the antidepressants seem to be kicking in. He's more positive, more relaxed, more like his old self.

And it is my turn to be depressed. I realised that I do miss him a fair bit. I certainly miss his cooking; I think I'm getting scurvy. Most of all, I miss the life we should have had together. Before his first visit to the counsellor, he canvassed his ex-wife for her opinions on how he was to live with, which he repeated to me. It just confirmed to me that we should never have got together in the first place - she remembers him as social, fun to be with, sulks that lasted no more than an afternoon. Why did I get the rough end of the deal - what is it with me? Perhaps now he'll go back to the happy person he used to be, before I screwed up his life. Oh I know this is negative thinking, but part of me wishes that I had some security, some certainty, something reliable.

Tonight I had a ticket to go the Barbican to hear Midori play the Britten Violin Concerto. I had been looking forward to this hugely - I booked it up the weekend K left. When I mentioned this to him this afternoon, he offered to come with me, and started complicating the simple pleasure I was looking forward to. In the end, we decided that he shouldn't come, but it still took the edge off the whole experience. Rather than looking on it as an adventure, I was just watching the couples, wondering I would ever be one of them, in a happy, stable way. Crap. There is a theme - see/speak to K and I'm down afterwards. Despite the fact Midori was breathtaking.

Gadget Glory

I can be just a little bit geeky sometimes, and I've just treated myself to a new toy: a Logitech DJ media streamer. Its fantastic! Nearly all my music is stored on various pcs but who wants to listen to music on the pc speakers? The transmitter is currently plugged into my daughter's desktop upstairs, the receiver is plugged into the hi-fi down here and I can search her pc and listen to all her Nine Inch Nails tracks. Ok, maybe not, but I have most of a pc littering up the spare-room. I just need a new motherboard, or to sufficiently cannibalise what's already there and I can leave my spare hard drive plugged in up there and listen to it down here. Cool!

Expectations

After a couple of days characterised by frequent episodes of "Angry & Bitter 10 Minutes", accompanied by spontaneous sobbing fits, I woke this morning feeling much calmer and more peaceful. Yesterday evening I was full of self-pity and dramatic internal declarations that I would not stand for being ignored and that I would not be at D's beck and call, pathetically waiting for crumbs of attention.

And this morning, when our paths crossed at the distant office, I was cool, possibly even frosty. I put him out of my mind for the rest of the day, but bumped into him later. I knew he was staying over tonight, so was prepared that, despite Monday's stammered excuses that there would be a lot of people at the hotel and he would need to entertain, he might have a change of heart and invite me back. And of course, he did. Did your intrepid blogger crack? Of course she bloody did, the pathetically easy tart! I thought about the state of the motorway at that time of day and considered the pleasure of a stop-over of a couple of hours with benefits, and smiled, "Ring me when you're leaving".

Ring he did, but to apologise that he had been called into another meeting. I said I'd give him half hour and if he wasn't out, I'd go, which is what I eventually did. He rang again when I'd been on the road a while, hoping to persuade me back and apologised again. I mentioned that he'd seemed much more distant since Easter, and I had been wondering if he wanted to continue our arrangement. Again, more apologies, but more interestingly, the promise of a night next week in a more discreet hotel. We shall see.

In a comment, Akrazael wrote that she was grateful for being in a relationship herself as a guard against how possessive she might otherwise become. I am utterly useless at caring for 2 people at the same time. It would be helpful if I could, but I have failed to achieve this state on a couple of occasions in my life. I'm astonished that I waited as long as a month to ask K to leave after sleeping with D. If it had been a ONS, then perhaps, but knowing that I had every intention of doing it again put the mockers on continuing the relationship - what was left of it - with K.

Which begs the question - how long will I be happy being the "other woman", and how will I transition from that state to a more conventional relationship with someone who is free to form one, when I'm ready to? Why have I finally decided to stand up for myself against what I perceive as K's inconsiderateness and lack of appreciation, only to form a relationship of sorts with someone who can only spare me specks of time? Well I think the answer is the heading I've given to this post. A full-time, serious, one-on-one relationship carries huge expectations with it, and if there's one thing I think my life has taught me, its that putting expectations on the behaviour of others is a waste of time. Or maybe that's a self-fulfilling prophecy, I don't know.

I do know however that in contrast to the complications of negotiating wants, needs and expectations in a full-time relationship, having a fling is wonderously, seductively simple. The unspoken expectation is of pleasure, for a short, allotted few hours, and nothing else is promised. It might be implied, it can be bargained for, but the bottom line is that you meet, you have a great time, you part, you have some good memories, and if all else is equal, you do it again. I like that, I understand that and right now, that feels strangely honest for an activity derided as cheating.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

Addendum
Reading back the first paragraph, I think I need to clarify that my misery and bitterness were caused by mulling over the gap between what I had hoped from a long-term relationship with K and what I ended up with. Yes, I wanted to guard against being pathetic again, but I wouldn't want anyone to think I was gnashing my teeth that an inevitably short-term affair might have already reached its conclusion!

Protein Feed

Gloomily inspecting my first obvious wrinkle in the mirror this morning, I identified why my skin elasticity has taken a turn for the worse recently. To my horror, I realise that I've only swallowed twice so far this year and we're in April already. At this rate, by my birthday, my face will look like a crackle-glazed wardrobe. This is a dreadful turn of affairs, I don't actually think I can go much longer without.

Up, Down and Sideways

I have no idea how I feel today - at any given moment I am seconds from either tears or laughter. K is just plain miserable - i got 15 texts in 12 hours from him over Saturday night/Sunday morning. I am giving him some support, but I need to keep back some energy for me. I miss - if not him - then the security of a relationship, of a future. And of all things, I'm mourning the lack of holidays - 10 wasted years with him - what was it for?

Then there's D. He's been elusive, to say the least. Over the Easter weekend, his wife accused him of having an affair - obviously he denied everything. Apparently his 'performance' takes a while to recover after I've finished with him. Also I'm sure there's more to it that he hasn't said. So, due to my schedule and his, it was only accidental that we ended up in the same place last week, and he has declined a possible opportunity this week. He mentioned a chance the week after, and I was ambivalent. I'm currently feeling rather like an unpaid prostitute, on the basis that, as we all know, they are paid not for sex but for going away afterwards.

I want to crawl under the duvet and hide away, but I can't even close the curtains in the living room, til I've finished painting and put them up again. Its taken 5.5 days just to strip off all the bloody woodchip wallpaper, and there seems a mile of glossing to do. Sigh. On the day he left, I told K that I intended to start decorating. He looked around and admitted that we could have done it together years ago. Then he hit me with, "You should have nagged more." Sheesh - and they say there's no pleasing women - shame he didn't appreciate my numerous wonderful qualities when he had the chance.

Happy Easter

Its been a good one - spent entirely on my own, but in the company of beer, chocolate, the radio and about 30 square metres of peach-coloured woodchip wallpaper to strip. Doing the latter is quite cathartic - not my favourite distraction, but therapeutic nevertheless.

Of course I did have to drag myself away from a pornucopia of web-based smut this morning. The essential finale to this was a wank, sitting on the floor in the living room with my nose pressed to the window, knees spread wide. My breasts were pressed up against a warm radiator below, which in turn hid my blushes from passers-by, of which there were few, due to the inclement weather. Pity.

 

Six word memoir

I've arrived - I've been tagged, thanks to Akrazael. My six word memoir is:
Passionate about life, music and independence.

The rules are:
1. Write your own six word memoir
2. Post it on your blog and include a visual illustration if you’d like
3. Link to the person that tagged you in your post and to this original post if possible, so we can track it as it travels across the blogosphere
4. Tag five more blogs with links
5. And don’t forget to leave a comment on the tagged blogs with an invitation to play!

I'm tagging Titus Pepper, Duke Orsino, Ro, Ms R and the Naughty Secretary . Over to you guys.

Freedom

Now that I am officially single, and "of a mind" to play, I am mostly thinking in my spare time about cock. Seeing cock, holding cock, sucking cock, fucking cock. I am mentally running through the cock-owners of my acquaintance and considering the possibilities. I am aware that I could launch myself like an Exocet through their lives, and I should be wary.

There's F, a good friend who put in an early bid when he found out that I might be coming back onto the market - but I am also close to his girlfriend, so that doesn't feel right. There's Y, who so desperately needs a confidence boost, but I really must not go back to giving sympathy shags and really, he needs a full-time girlfriend, not a session with an older woman who will confuse him.

Work in general is already delivering complications enough. Orchestra would deliver my choice in septuagenarians. Hmm... new hunting grounds required?

Meme of the day

As Duke Orsino and Z have given this a go, I thought I'd bounce on the bandwagon...

Greed:	High
Gluttony:	Medium
Wrath:	Medium
Sloth:	Very High
Envy:	Low
Lust:	Very High
Pride:	High

Take the Seven Deadly Sins Quiz

Curry & Chocolate

Last night marked the first hotel-based escapade I've managed with D in a couple of weeks, what with the moving out of K. There have been a couple of car-seat shenanigans, which makes one shake one's head with minor embarassment that all these years further on, you're still acting like a randy teenager. But there's nothing quite like a full-on, mattress-enabled hotel-room fuck to remind you that age has its compensations.

The entrance and egress to the hotel was complicated by the fact that half the senior management team were staying there again, and at some point someone will twig that D & I keep shuffling off to dinner by ourselves. As I pointed out, after a staggered, comedy-routine escape, we were either going to have to pack it in, get a bit smarter at booking hotels or just take out a full-page ad on the company intranet and have done with it. As it was, I had to smuggle out the gift of the chocolate egg he'd bought me, if only because he'd been out at lunchtime and met a colleague who'd stayed with him while he bought it. Eventually we escaped, for a pie & a pint for him, shiraz & curry for me.

But the necessary irritations of the mechanics of work affairs aside, the compensation is the moments of time-arresting pleasure. The countless orgasms are delicious, the novelty of cumming through having my neck kissed, my nipples pinched, helped along with penetrating fingers, tongue and cock is joyful. The memory that sticks with me though is D falling asleep; two fingers still buried deep in my warm wetness, head resting on my breast where his teeth had been teasing my nipples. Pulling him to me, cradling and rocking him to temporary oblivion makes me wistful - that urge to protect, tend and nurture is so strong. I have to remember that like a library book, I'm only borrowing him for a few hours - I have to give him back.

Still, back indoors for the long Easter weekend, I'm embarking on that enterprise that traditionally marks the time of year or the end of a relationship - decorating!

Power

I am a woman in charge - in charge of myself, my space, my sexuality, my time, my attention, my body. Power displayed by men is purportedly an aphrodisiac for women - but I never really grasped my own power over men before. This year has been astonishing, I am newly aware of lines of men desparate to sleep with me. It's amusing, it's astonishing.

I could have them all, I need none of them, I may choose some of them. Casual cruelty could come as easily as warm affection. Why didn't I realise the extent of my power 20 years ago? But perhaps I didn't have it then - time, experience, wrinkles and carefreeness of survival pipping the carelessness of youth and naivity.

My lover jumps when I walk into the office - he finds excuses to talk, to touch, to smell me. He is distracted, infatuated, overwhelmed with lust. And I smile, safe in my power, enjoying every single minute. If we meet this week, excellent. If not, it will wait. I can wait.

The Aftermath

So, the deed is done, I am now officially single. K and his stuff have gone, leaving behind a beautiful letter, a huge bunch of flowers and the crap furniture. Amazing; he's had 10 years to buy me flowers, why wait til the morning I throw his arse out?

I can't quite shake the suspicion that as soon as I have the house straight and everything sorted, I'll think, "Hmm, that's better, now when will K be home to see it all?" I'll miss his smile, but I've missed that for ages now. Part of me thinks I'm being incredibly selfish, immature and unrealistic to expect a relationship where we were both happy. From the example of my parents' marriage, judged a "success" by society simply due to its length, I learnt that I never wanted to spend my adult years in the poisonous atmosphere of the silent war, like I had my childhood. But that's often where we ended up, unless I folded.

Apart from the sly attempts to meet women off the Internet  (and lie about it), the passive aggressive silences and the occasions when the aggression had nothing passive about it, it was the emotional manipulation that wore me down. Strangely, it was often around food. K had very definite ideas about the purchase, the preparation, the cooking, the time and location of eating and the clearing up afterwards. Neither I nor the off-spring were that fanatical in our beliefs about any of it, so to keep the peace, we'd go with the flow, mostly.

But it was extremely difficult to point out the difference between the reasonableness of the request (can someone wash up afterwards) and the unreasonableness of the full-on sulk if he didn't immediately get his own way. Sometimes people get phone calls straight after dinner, and so don't start the washing up for an hour or two. That shouldn't be an "issue" but it always was. It was so difficult to point out that there was nothing wrong with requesting that we usually eat early due to his work schedule, but there is something wrong when no-one dares have a life or arrange anything after work for fear of upsetting his cooking schedule. Try to make the point, and you are bombarded with the reasons that his request is reasonable, and it is. What's not reasonable is a 4 day period of only speaking to answer questions with a grunt because someone forgot to mention they'd eaten the last of the bran-flakes, despite there being a cupboard full of other cereal. Or something equally petty., but he could never see that.

So I was left with the choice of continually rowing over petty, nonsensical trivia, or not sweating the small stuff and giving in. The problem was that the expectation became set that emotional manipulation works, and the situations in which it was deployed spread and spread. Thursday night, we had the classic, "Either you share a bed with me tonight, or you'd better look after my sleeping pills for me." No direct threats to kill himself, just the wild implication in the hope that emotional blackmail would get me onto the same mattress as him once last time. The joke is that after Monday's heart scare, I'd promised to spend one last night, just cuddling. I don't mind doing something freely offered - I object strongly into being manoeuvred into the same thing. "This - is precisely why you're moving out on Saturday." I tartly informed him.

Waiting...

In deference to the current situation, I didn't stay away the night before today's monthly meeting that has become a bit of a regular fixture, but got up at sparrow's fart to drive there instead. D was there, of course, and the challenge of touching each other with a room full of potential witnesses was the name of the game. On a tour of a new facility, he managed to sidle up behind me, and I rubbed myself against him in passing a couple of times. The most fun was in the lift - squashed in at the back gave us 8 floors-worth of opportunity to touch, rub and hold hands.... childish, but amusing.

However, his faced dropped when I mentioned that I have tomorrow booked off. Its the final packing for K & I said I'd help out. But next week, I will be free to pursue this affair to my heart's content. I hope I have more sense than to sit around and wait for opportunities to do just that - but if the alternative is "speed-dating", I may take up hermitry full time.