F4TF: first times

The questions:

What was the first overtly sexual act you performed on someone else or had performed on you? How did you feel about it afterwards?

There are a couple of firsts that I wouldn’t quite define as “overtly sexual”: first kiss (woo!); first time a guy touched my breasts (yawn).

I think the first overtly sexual act would be receiving cunnilingus. And the weird thing is that I have absolutely no recollection of the event.

I can reconstruct it up to a point: I’m certain that I know which boyfriend it was (a good guy, we’re still friends). It probably happened at my place. He would have initiated it and I would have allowed it: I wouldn’t have thought to actively want it, and even if I did, I would have been struck mute and unable to ask for it. I’m quite sure I didn’t come. I’m pretty sure he went down on me more than just the once.

It’s curious to have a blind spot about something that was, both at the time and in retrospect, so significant, and I wonder if I blocked it out because of my general sexual shame. Objectively speaking (if objectivity is remotely relevant in the context of deeply emotional issues), it wasn’t a negative experience, and cunnilingus would be the first sexual act I did with many if not most subsequent boyfriends. So, all in all it was a positive experience.

If only I could remember it.

See who else is talking about first times here.

Gawan: Intro to Flogging

As promised, Gawan brought a flogger with him. With black suede falls about 3/8″ wide, black suede covering the handle, and silver hardware, it looked entirely BDSM-y. Surprisingly so, in fact. He’s no slave to tradition (sometimes even actively subverting it), so any color would have been possible. Now, hot pink would be highly improbable, but it wouldn’t have come as a total shock. On the other hand, he recognizes the power of symbols, especially if they tend to increase hotness: if a black flogger contributes to the mood, then that’s all to the good. But I’m guessing that his primary reason for choosing this flogger has more to do with function and feel. Hell, it could be his travel flogger for all I know.

I’m not sure whether it was day or evening, but I have a recollection of the warm and intimate glow of the bedside lamps. Our room was decorated in warm tones: mango and blush on the walls, bedspreads of cinnabar and gold. The room was not cool — the air conditioner was barely up to the task at any time of day.

I was nude, face down on the rumpled white sheets, hips elevated with two pillows, when he gave me a safe word. It wasn’t the standard “red”, or any other safe word that I’d heard before. I repeated it to myself a few times to make sure I’d remember it, especially since it was novel and my mind would soon be elsewhere. It sounded a bit silly, the sort of thing that, if I found myself under enough strain to need it, the mere saying of it would break the spell of seriousness and lighten the mood at least a little.

I’d never had a proper safe word before. Explicitly being given special means to stop meant that we were — that I was — officially starting. This was, at least in some sense of the word, real.

He began slowly, caressing my back with the falls of the flogger. That was… good. Delicious, even. I sighed my enjoyment. Then he began to rain light blows on me. It was heavy enough that it must have started to color my skin, but it still felt pleasant.

After this point, my recollection is hazy at best. I could have been a more objective observer if I had clung to ordinary awareness, but that would have sacrificed some of the fullness of the sensation. Objectivity be damned, I wanted to feel. So I let go.

And I could have reconstructed it if I’d revisited the experience soon after we finished, but it didn’t seem all that noteworthy at the time. It wasn’t until much later, when Gawan told me that I seemed to have dropped to somewhere near subspace, that I tried to fill in the gap.

So, what happened? The blows must have become heavier, no longer pleasant as such but not actively unpleasant. I would have been focusing on managing the sensation the way I do with a deep tissue massage, which feels uncomfortable yet satisfying because I know it’s helping. In those moments when a knotted muscle is being probed with, say, an elbow, I’m entirely focused on the treatment, breathing deliberately through it and making an effort to relax into it because if my attention wanders, it hurts more. I could never doze off during a treatment — in fact, I feel very alert — and yet afterwards I can barely remember what was done. I think this must be what was happening during the flogging.

The details return when it got heavier. Occasionally he threw in a sharper blow. Those stung. I flinched. I gasped. But I never felt like I was getting close to calling a halt.

He went on for some time — how long, I have no idea — but as far as I was concerned it was over too soon. When he was done, he casually put the flogger down. On the bed. In front of my face. I knew the placement was entirely deliberate, and I did my best to hide my smile.

Nothing he had thrown at me had felt terribly challenging. I hadn’t needed the safe word, nor had I expected to. I had been confident that he would have a fair sense of how far to go the first time and to be able to read my reactions, and he worked comfortably within my limits, despite the fact that I didn’t even know where those limits were.

Later he said all my reactions showed that I enjoyed it. That surprised me. All of them? Sure, the caresses and the light blows were clearly well received, but what about the focus and the flinching? I wouldn’t have described that as much of a demonstration of enjoyment. So either he misunderstood my body language (which seems quite unlikely), or he knows something that I don’t. Maybe I should ask.

They say that you should leave the recipient wanting more. If that’s true, then mission accomplished.

TMI Tuesday: sexy

 

This is my first TMI Tuesday. Today’s questions, yoinked from the TMI Tuesday blog, are as follows:

What is sexier…

1. Arms or shoulders? It’s close but I’ll go with arms, especially forearms.

2. Ass or legs? Legs. I don’t object to ass, but very few of them catch my eye.

3. Pussy or dick? Why? I don’t find the mere sight of genitals particularly sexy – it’s too obvious. But I’ll go with cock, because I’m straight.

4. Feet or hands? Why? Hands. They are expressive, and there are many, many good things that hands can do. I don’t have anything against feet, though.

5. Muscles or brains? Brains, no question. I need someone who is interesting, who I can have deep conversations with, and who has a good sense of humor.

Bonus: Do you think you’re sexy? I think being sexy is partly appearance and partly an attitude of sexual or sensual confidence. I think I’m attractive, but I don’t often feel sexy.

 

“fresh” Boobday

Hyacinth over at A Dissolute Life Means… runs a meme on the last Friday of every month, which she calls Boobday. The purpose is “for us to honor breasts of all shapes and sizes belonging to all types of folks.” Click the icon above for more info.

Boobday inspired the first photo that I posted. This month I’m participating in the Boobday round-up — the theme is “fresh”.

How is this “fresh”? Well, as it’s my first time, I’m a fresh face. Or chest, at any rate.

Head on over and check out this month’s collection of lovely “fresh” boobs. And if you do drop by, leave some comment love.

Dark Ages 9: Three strikes at the club

[Or, “Sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll”]

Back home, I started hanging out at a new, low-rent (and low-ceilinged) live music venue. It was a shoestring affair in a basement under a restaurant, with scrounged furniture, no staff, no till and no liquor licence. I even helped out a bit behind what passed for a bar, selling soft drinks in cans. It was an alternative kind of place, which is probably why I earned such side-eye for wearing dress pants and a fitted blazer. But hey, I successfully stood out.

Strike 1

One weekend at the club, I met Tiny Tim. He was short (though still 3 or 4 inches taller than me), not much to look at, but entertaining and had the gift of the gab. We left together to grab some food at the only place that was open at that time of night: a much too brightly lit, late-night sandwich shop. After chatting for a bit, we went back to his place. Slept with a guy the day we met — another first.

I came over the next day and tried to help him with his French homework. This whole thing already seemed like a bad idea but as far as I was concerned we now had “a relationship”, and it seems I’m nothing if not loyal. It was awkward. We saw each other again later and slept together again. As much as it pains me to admit, the event stands out as actually feeling kinda good — I think because I was very tight and he was very small. (I don’t imagine he would have taken that as a compliment.)

The last time we got together, he got warmed up but I wasn’t interested in follow through. He was the first (and last) guy to complain to me about blue balls (a term had never even heard before), in what appeared to be a bid for a blowjob. I figured that was his problem and not mine. In all, this was a one-night stand that took an agonizing three days to die.

A couple of days later, I slept with Bad Boy one last time. Why? I have no fucking clue.

Strike 2

Surfer, a part owner of the club, was good looking, tall, fit and had long dirty blond hair. On the weekend following Tiny Tim, I found myself back at Surfer’s place at the end of the night. I must have seen some potential for a relationship (I never did get the point of actually deciding to have a one-night stand), and sleeping with him seemed like a reasonable idea. And then we got naked and I found he was… whiffy. Sleeping with him now seemed like a not very good idea, and yet I still went through with it. It seemed too late to call a halt, and on top of that I didn’t know what I wanted anyway. If there’s no real line, you can’t tell when you’ve crossed it.

In the space of one week, I had slept with three different guys. It would have been one thing if that’s what I was trying to do, but I was trying to have a relationship and failing miserably.

Strike 3

I tried to take a break from the menfolk, with little success. I met Drummer at the club, and he offered me a cup of tea (at his apartment down the block) and a shoulder to cry on. He was really sweet. Until I slept with him a week or so in, and then things weren’t so good.

One fine day I did acid, and at some point during the trip I dropped by Drummer’s place. He had this hat that he didn’t want anymore and asked if I wanted it. It was an ethnic, woollen thing. Too big, but kinda cool, so I accepted it. In the evening when I was coming down, I went by the club and ran into Tiny. My inhibitions were fairly low so I proceeded to give him shit and told him that if I’d known all he wanted was a one-night stand, I wouldn’t have had anything to do with him. I have no idea what impression it might have made on him (or anyone else nearby), but I felt somewhat empowered for a change.

The thing with Drummer lasted about three weeks before he dumped me. Turns out he wasn’t actually nice, he was just skilled at appearing nice until he got what he wanted. Although this wasn’t the first time I had been manipulated, I didn’t see it coming because Drummer played it so much more elegantly and deliberately than Bad Boy had.

The fallout: small world moments

Tiny Tim was working with my friend (and ex) Lucas, decided to dish about me, and named names. I don’t think Tiny knew that I knew Lucas, and I don’t think Lucas believed it at first. I was mortified to be outed.

And that hat from Drummer? Stolen, possibly the very day that he gave it to me, from a store a block away from my house and that I went to regularly. Which I discovered when I went into the store wearing the hat and caught grief about it from the staff person.

Fuck!

Dark Ages 7: Bad Boy (still) and Dude

As payback for the oral he’d done for me before, Bad Boy manipulated me into giving my first blowjob. He pushed and pushed, and I eventually gave in. It was in his car, on a muddy dirt road outside of town. Afterwards, we had to turn the car around and we ended up getting stuck in the mud, so I got home quite late, and my dad was pissed off and waiting to have an argument with me when I got back. Fun times.

Things got weird(er) with Bad Boy and I started to not recognize myself. During the summer, we had a major fight and ended up half-dressed and shouting at each other in the street. I had always been bookish and reserved (still am). What the fuck? He made me crazy.

Sometimes when I was with him I got upset and frustrated. I don’t remember what would set me off, but I’d feel like I wanted to say something or do something but I was frozen, like all the words piled into each other at the back of my throat and none could get out, or maybe there just were no words. I was thrumming with trapped energy and frustration, feeling overwhelmed. To bring myself back to my body and sensations that I could manage, I’d usually punch a wall. One time when I was already worked up, he said my behavior embarrassed him. That only increased my frustration and explosive emotions. (We were out and there was no wall. Things might have taken a different trajectory if I’d punched him.) I’ve never had this kind of interaction with any other boyfriend before or since.

For a long time, I felt like I needed to be with someone, but at some point I started feeling like it had to be him. That was new. And weird, because I wasn’t actually that happy being with him. It was almost like an addiction.

Around Christmas, I ran into Dude (remember him from that New Year’s Eve party?) and we hung out a bit. He came over and we sat on the couch and talked. He started to put the moves on rather aggressively, so I backed away and told him I had a boyfriend, but he wasn’t deterred. (He should have listened to and respected my words, but now I wonder if my doubts about my relationship with Bad Boy made me sound unconvincing.) Dude insisted on kissing me, at which point I pushed him away. It wasn’t pleasant but at least he got the message, backed off and left.

I’d had a birthday recently and was now legal drinking age. My interest in drinking immediately waned; I suppose most of the appeal was the rule-breaking. Then I found out that an acquaintance was doing acid and suddenly that seemed like a great idea. Bad Boy helped me source it and was there when I dropped for the first time. Once (the first time?), he wanted to have sex but I didn’t and told him no. He said I wouldn’t remember it, and I gave in. Well, I remembered everything, including the fact that I didn’t want to and I didn’t enjoy it.

(Years later, I learned that it was sexual assault because intoxicated consent isn’t valid consent. I felt shitty about it all over again: I’m now a victim, a statistic. I agonized about whether to report it but never bothered, and now I know it would never have gone to trial anyway. I’ve come to terms with it all, at least.)

I dropped acid 4 times in the space of 5 weeks because suddenly I couldn’t think of anything else I wanted to do on a weekend, which freaked me out a little. I felt trapped — not really by the relationship (although that must have been a big part of it), but by life generally.

I also got sick: I developed a bunch of canker sores all over my tongue and the inside of mouth. I could barely eat because everything was either too sharp or too acidic, and I could barely talk because the feeling of my tongue against the inside of my mouth was too painful. The doctor never did figure out what it was. I wonder if it was from stress.

Eventually, Bad Boy and I decided to take another “break” though we continued to hang out sometimes. For a while, I fully expected that we would get back together, but we never did. That was a bullet dodged, but I wasn’t out of the woods yet.

I wear stilettos to wash dishes

I bought my first pair of stilettos last summer.

I started wearing them while cooking and doing dishes so I could get more steady on them and eventually wear them outside.

Although I feel confident in them now (as much as I can without graduating to practice in the wild), I still enjoy wearing them to do dishes sometimes. But now I’m not sure if they’ll ever leave the house…

 

a most pleasant fuck

My bottom is still pink from the heat of the bath. All I’m wearing is a short robe, jacket length, barely decent. In a playful mood, I want to show off a little.

He gestures: I’m to lay across his lap. He raises the hem of the robe and admires me, stroking and squeezing. “Would you like some spanks?”

“Yes, I think so.”

He begins, light and even, a gentle warm-up. My firm bottom jiggles pertly under his hand.

Round two feels pleasant, and I know I’m starting to get wet. (I used to wish I had an ‘on’ button. It seems we have now located it.)

Round three is a little heavier, a little sharper, but still adeptly even. Each spank is followed almost immediately by a small sharp tingle verging on pain, which launches an inner mini-monologue: I’m getting spanked + it feels good + ooh, that smarts a little + this is naughty + mmm. When I’ve had enough, I let him know and he stops immediately. The area around the crease of my thighs is pleasantly pink and warm. We disengage.

He announces, “I’m going to be a bit bossy.”

“OK,” I whisper, trying not to let the corners of my mouth turn up too much.

“On your elbows and knees.” I get into position. “Now, use your vibe.” We’ve talked about using the vibe during sex before but hadn’t yet tried it. For now, I’m to see to myself while he occupies himself with a condom.

When he’s ready, I’m ready too: slick, relaxed and welcoming. He slowly slides his length in then methodically reams me out, holding out as long as he can. I attend to my clit with the vibe, which takes much of my concentration, but I can feel that the vibe makes his in-and-out delicious. When he can hold out no longer, he finishes and collapses beside me. I continue with the vibe, he begins to work my g-spot with his fingers, and I come after just a few strokes.

I few minutes later I realize that I still want. I resume the vibe and the warmup. He joins in a few moments later and begins to slowly finger-fuck me.

Many orgasms are fickle, but this one seems to be manufactured with precise German engineering. The sensation begins well and improves steadily. When I get close, each cycle of the vibe takes me up, up, up, step after measured step. The workmanlike climb gives no hint of the luxuriant peak to follow: I’m surprised at the intensity, and the sounds I’m making feel somehow distant. Shyness hovers around the back of my mind but blessedly sticks to the shadows. A momentary wave of vulnerability and sunshower of tears, and I’m done.

Indeed, a most pleasant fuck.

[This post appeared in e[lust] 66.]

Dark Ages 3: Tall and Drift

Tall was 6’2” (a full foot taller than me), athletic, good looking, with a shock of thick black hair — he looked like a model. And he was smart.

An early winter evening, we’re alone at my place. I very deliberately complain about my sore shoulders. Taking the bait, he tells me he had taken a course on massage — a lie. But he thought he needed some justification beyond my hinted invitation. Perhaps he honestly believed that the massage was his idea…

He had a curfew (the only person I knew who did) but snuck out of the house routinely to be with me. His place was about a 15-minute walk away (at my pace), but because of his long legs and the fact that he always jogged when he came over, it only took him about 5 minutes. He literally ran to me! He was a good guy, I thought I was in love, and maybe I was.

[Around this time, my mom informed me that she was pregnant, which didn’t seem to have been planned. She took this opportunity to tell me that she would “take me to the doctor” if I wanted. I got her drift, more or less. She didn’t seem to be overjoyed about the pregnancy, and she sure as hell didn’t want to be there talking to me about sex. Mortified, I declared that I was still a virgin; it was the best possible answer to an awful and unstated question. This conversation probably could have been somewhat more awkward, but I’m not sure how…]

In late spring, a group of us drove to a nearby city for the weekend to attend a high school drama festival. Who knows what the accommodation arrangements had been, but Tall and I conspired to be by ourselves in a room together one afternoon. A first for both of us: we tried to have sex. Although this was something we had both chosen, I was much too uncomfortable and tense and dry. ‘Sex’ came to the party with ‘should’ again, and they both ended up acting like assholes.

We successfully lost our virginity to each other on Mothers’ Day. (In subsequent years, I’ve repeatedly had the devilish thought of sending him a card.) Of the act itself, I don’t remember anything beyond thinking “this is not great at all”, and probably “why do people like this?” We were in the basement at his place, and his older brother came home around the time we finished. Tall shouted “Don’t come downstairs!” a couple of times, and he didn’t, but we couldn’t have been much more obvious. I’m fairly sure he smirked at us later.

Tall kept coming to my place after curfew and we’d just hang out. Things were cooling off — physically or emotionally or both, I’m not sure — but at the time I assumed that not wanting to be physical meant I had fallen out of love. (I now recognize it for a sexual shame pattern.) We were together for about 7 months, then agreed to split when he went to his dad’s for a month during the summer. I was choked when he met a girl on the plane and started seeing her immediately. I imagined, in vain, that we might get back together when he came back to town. I don’t know whether I was hurt because I was in love or because of the sting of rejection.

That summer, I got a bit part in a community theatre musical and met Drift. We flirted, drifted together, had some pleasant times, drifted apart again. This relationship was uniquely low-key. I have only one clear memory of him:

At my place, on my bed, in the dark. He’s sitting cross-legged and I’m sitting on him. We’re making out, I grind gently on his erection. No pressure, no ‘should’, just… nice.

I never knew him well, but I don’t think we had much in common. It probably happened because I wanted to be with someone and he was there.

Ah, high school. The events are generally bland, the emotions intense, and many of the memories cringe-worthy. For better or worse, things got more interesting in university.

Dark Ages 2: Lucas and Guitarist

Lucas and I had become good friends. And then…

Late summer nights, black velvet sky, occasional glimpses of northern lights. Hanging out with friends who didn’t know what we were up to. Exchanging secret, knowing glances. We should, we shouldn’t… Should we?

In the late summer, a few months after First moved away, Lucas started going out. I broke it off about three weeks in because I didn’t want to ruin the friendship, but we couldn’t keep our hands off each other and were back together a week later.

I think Lucas must have been the first guy to give me oral, but I’m embarrassed to say that I have no recollection of the event. At some point I got in my head that we would have sex (not that I particularly wanted to); I told him and he bought condoms, but it never happened. Just as well: this was the first (but certainly not the last) time I connected ‘sex’ with ‘should’, and put pressure on myself. I don’t know why Lucas was ‘should’ while First had been ‘shouldn’t’ — maybe because we got along better?

Perhaps I realized deep down that we were better suited to be friends, but when I broke up with him after three months, the timing was entirely down to the fact that I wanted to pursue someone else.

I tried out for the school musical for the first time and got a lead role. Blondie was the other female lead and her boyfriend, Guitarist, also had a major role. I got to know him, spent time with him.

Just the two of us at his place, an older house with wooden floors. Chilly night outside. The warm glow of lamplight inside. I sat on the shabby couch. He sat beside me on the floor, playing guitar and singing a song that he had written, sometimes looking into my eyes. I almost believed that he had written it for me.

He told me that he and Blondie had split; I dumped Lucas to date him. For three days.

Guitarist and I went to a party at Blondie’s house, and he dumped me. Another first. I was gutted, the emotional pain so intense that I figured it must be love and told him so (cringe). He was back with Blondie the next day. In my agony, I skipped school.

Of course I hadn’t loved him and I may not have even liked him all that much. It was the flat rejection that knocked me on my ass, regardless of the source. As excruciating as it was at the time, I had almost completely forgotten about him and being dumped — how’s that for perspective?