Honestly, though? Winning this thing (that I didn’t even know existed before last week) makes me a little uncomfortable. I mean, I’m really honored that I was, and did, but…well, that much attention makes me a little (and sometimes a lot) uncomfortable.

I know–”Bullshit, Jade!” you say. “Look at what you write here, look at how you expose yourself, look at the pictures you show, the things you say, how you love to go to events and have the guys do awful things to you in front of all those people! Don’t go trying to say you don’t love the attention. (And if you don’t, what the hell are you doing blogging in public about it?!?)”

And you’d be right. I do love a certain kind of attention: attention from people that I know will at least see what I do for what it is. This is my life. I do this stuff – and write about it – because I love it. I love the Guys, I love the things we do, we are happy and joyful and content and we’re…just us. Part of us is this “freakish” stuff we do…but to us, it isn’t freakish at all.

I don’t write this stuff because I’m a freak. I don’t write it to be a freak-show. I don’t want my blog to be that.

I want it to show…the power and strength and beauty and, yes, sexiness, of what we do, who we are. Fuck, I’m a 46 year old woman with three grown children, and I’m having the best sex of my life.

But I am also living the best life I could imagine, the life of my dreams.  I am involved in a deep, abiding, loving relationship with two incredible men. I have a family, and want to teach my children to be good human beings; to love and to allow themselves to be loved; to care; to have open hearts. I struggle like anyone else with self-image issues, with fear and selfishness and longing and unmet potential and anger and sadness.  But every day is a fresh start, and I am living my life exactly as I choose, in a world that sometimes values conformity more than it should. I want people to see that part, too.

Not just the “dirty, freaky” pictures.

This is what the RFT  had to say about my blog:

“Pieces of Jade is the dirtiest, freakiest sex site out there and, we warn you, not for the squeamish. We’re not sure how the site got its name, but we’re guessing it’s because author “Jade” is so eager to showoff every “piece” of her body (especially the naughty ones) and floridly describe what she’s subjected said pieces to lately.”

You know, I don’t mind being characterized as the “dirtiest, freakiest” sex blog, I suppose. I mean hell, it is a sex blog, and I write about my sex life in the most graphic of terms.  And I don’t mind the reference to posting pictures of my body and all the awful/wonderful things that get done to it. But I feel like they kind of missed the point of my blog, by focusing on the spectacle of what it is we do. Don’t get me wrong – I love posting my pictures, and I love knowing that people get off on them.  But my blog is about so much more than that.  And I hope that the people that come here because they’ve seen the link in the RFT will see that.

Their comment about my name, “Pieces of Jade,” speaks to this misunderstanding perfectly.

The name “Pieces of Jade” is not about how many “pieces” of my body I am “eager” to expose. Pieces of Jade comes from the fact that when I started this blog, 3 or 4 years ago, I started it so that I could write here about this one “piece” of my life in a place that was about this one piece of me, the kink piece, and that alone.

The whole point is that this – what we do, who I am here in these pages and with W and in my sex life – that is just one piece of me. One part of my life. A “Piece” of Jade.

That’s how it started out, anyway. And that’s where the name came from.

It has come to be so much more than that, though. It has become a chronicle of so much more than who I have fucked and when. Of how W uses me, or lets me be used. Of the games we play and the kink we get up to.  And if I am to be recognized as a “Top Blogger” of any sort – I want it to be because of that. Because I am unafraid to lay it all out here, the Good, the Bad & the Ugly. The things that work, the things that don’t. The things that I get off on and that get the Guys off. The dynamic within which our relationship lives, and the relationships outside that dynamic.

I hope…that anyone that comes here for the “freak show” will go away understanding that. I don’t imagine that too many will. As Ad said, “People come for the wank material, Jade. If you don’t want to be wank material, don’t post the pictures.” And he’s right…but the truth of the matter is that if people get off on what I write or post…I am okay with that too. Honestly. Hell, probably the main reason I write is to get W off. So I am good with that. But maybe…just maybe a few of them will also see that there’s more to this than just wank material. Than just the freak show.

And if so – then I can live with being a little uncomfortable.

Unfortunately the Boychild has less understanding of this…hobby…of ours.

A recent conversation at the dinner table went something like this:

The Missy: My shoes came in, Momma! They are smokin‘!
Me: Cool! What are they like?
Missy: (describes)
The Boychild: Okay wait, didn’t you just get a pair of shoes last week?  What do you need another pair for??

The Missy and I look at each other. Duh!

Missy: I have, like, 15 pair of shoes.
Boy: Fifteen! Why does anyone need fifteen pairs of shoes?!?

She and I look at each other again.

Missy: You’ve never seen Mom’s shoe collection, have you, Little Brother?

Boychild glances down the hallway, towards my room, where I keep most of my “normal” shoes, my boots, my runners, my “low” heels (3-4 inches) and a couple pair of “emergency” slut heels. (Cuz you never know.)

Boy (uncertainly): Um, yeah…
Missy: No, I mean her real collection. The one she has at W’s…

She goes on to describe what may seem like an exorbitant amount of shoes. The Boy goggles. And shakes his head. And snorts.

Finally he says: What do you need all those shoes for?  What do you do with all those shoes?????

And I sit there with images in my head of what I do DO with all those shoes.

And that, as W says, is just a start.

Nope, I don’t think I will enlighten the Boychild on this one.

And…possibly not the Missy either.  ;-)

Hope you all have had a very Sinful Sunday!
Click below to see who else is participating. :-)

I don’t understand how the simplest things elude him at times.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t cheer you up,” he says. I know he means it. He wants me to be happy, just as I want him to be happy.

So I do things that I think will make him happy. Like my Sinful Sunday post. That was all for him. I knew he would read it and it would make him smile. Like posting about my new shoes, like getting my new shoes, like wearing them to bed and posting about that. I know the things that make him smile, and I do them.

How can he not know what makes me smile?

“I’m a 91 Jeep,” he says.

It doesn’t take a Corvette to make me smile, to cheer me up. I’m actually pretty fucking easy. (As I think I’ve mentioned numerous times.) A word, a command, a bit of control expressed. That’s all it takes.

Is that too much to ask?

Yeah, I’m a big girl.  But no, it’s not a “good deal.”

I went shopping tonight for flat or low-heeled boots, since I broke the heel on my favorite black ones. Ad’s response when I told him: “Thank God W’s out of state for it – you won’t hear his scream of anguish as you swipe your card.” There’d have been no cry, however.

Final score: flats – 0; red high heels – 1.

That’s right, I went for flats specifically and I still came home with high heels.

As penance I am sleeping in them tonight.

I have a family: children, sisters, parents.
I read books (even ones with no sex in them.)
I crochet.
I have houseplants and a garden.
I hike. I run. I play board games.
I even (gasp) watch television occasionally.
I work and go to school and clean house and do laundry (not often enough, but oh well, life is short.)
I have a neurotic dog and am allergic to cats (tho I love them.)
I’m a really good cook, but not a chef – I can follow a recipe but not create one.

I adore my children.

I never wanted children when I was young. Never babysat, never took care of the neighbors’ kids, never did all that mooning and dreaming about getting married and having children.

Course then I was the one that ended up moving in with my boyfriend when I was barely 16, but at least I stayed in school (though I graduated early) and never got pregnant. At least until I was 20. Then along came my eldest – and I fell head over heels in love with him.

Still, I never planned to have more children, and in fact, I made the choice not to have a second baby with my first husband. I knew that having that baby would have sentenced me and my firstborn to a life of violence and misery with him.  I sacrificed my unborn child so that my son and I might escape, might live a better life, one without fear and violence in it.  I have never regretted that decision.

Then along came my daughter and my second son…what an amazing thing a family is. These three individuals that I brought into the world…

They are a joy that is nearly inexpressible.

Besides just being a joy to me, though, I recognize that I have an obligation and responsibility to them, as my children, but also as human beings whose way of seeing the world, and interacting with it, I have a chance to influence.  I take that responsibility seriously.  “I will always be truthful with them,” was one of the promises I made. I will never say, ‘That’s not talked about,” or “You’re too young to understand,” or “Nice girls/boys don’t talk about that/think about that/ask about that.”

I am not my mother’s daughter in so many ways.

In my house, no topics are off limits, as long as they are discussed with respect for each other’s opinions. Debate is encouraged – as long as you can back up your opinion with reasoned argument, logic, and sound thinking. And honesty, no matter how painful, is of utmost importance.

They’re kids. Honesty doesn’t always come easily – but we work on it.

Openness, it turns out, is easier.

“Kids won’t want to talk to you about those things (sex, drugs, emotions, drinking, failure, hopes, dreams, money…etc etc.)” people said.

They couldn’t have been more wrong.  They talk about everything. With me, around me, with each other. No, they don’t share with me every nuance of their emotional landscapes. They don’t share with me every detail of their feelings or actions. I don’t expect them to. But they share enough, and far more than most kids do with their parents.  And I welcome whatever it is that they want to talk about, even if it makes me uncomfortable (because I am my mother’s daughter, it does make me uncomfortable at times. But that, too, is important. It is a learning/stretching and growth for us all.) I let them know that any topic is safe, and in return for their openness, I offer them mine. If they want to know, I tell them. I don’t hide my relationships or opinions from them, and I encourage them to challenge those opinions, to question them, to form their own.

Topics of conversation are wide-ranging and varied, from (at the dinner table last night) discussion about a recent Supreme Court decision, to Roe v Wade, to state rights and the death penalty, to what a President’s most important/lasting contribution is.

Tonight’s topics were:

• Writing, and why being an avid reader makes one a better writer
• Pros and cons of different types of birth control
• The challenges of writing flash fiction and non-fiction
• The story about Newt Gengrich wanting an open marriage, and the concept of ethical non-monogamy and how it applies (or doesn’t) to that situation
• Death, and how different people deal with it
• My shoe addiction
• The Missy’s growing shoe addiction
• The fact that the Missy and I are both pushovers for puppies, and that as long as Ad isn’t around to say, “No!” we both need to stay away from them, or we might find ourselves homeless when he gets back to discover we brought home a new puppy.

We also talked an awful lot about sex. We talked about:

• The fact that they suspect their Dad and stepmom have become almost celibate, but Ad and I obviously aren’t, and if it’s because I have another relationship that Ad’s and mine is still good. (Consensus was that it works for us, but that doesn’t mean that it’s the only way to keep a long-term relationship hot.)
• The Missy’s FWB/Booty Call relationship
• Her and my synchronization: apparently she is an afternoon sex girl, as am I. (Her FWB is not. Her: “Maybe I need to find another boy for afternoons.”)
• The phrase “vagina dentata” came up (I didn’t even know they knew what that meant) as well as the phrase “I didn’t know a girl could get a boner.”

And my 16 year old son talked about his shock at discovering recently how much pubic hair a girl had. I won’t go into the specifics of his encounter, that’s for him to share (or not), but suffice it to say that we were talking about his first explorations into sexual experimentation, and, apparently, it came as quite a surprise to him that a girl would have quite that much hair down there.

This was in a conversation that I was not an active part of, so I didn’t speak up at the time, but it did bother me on one level, and later I brought it back up to him.  And this is why I love that “openness” thing between me and my children. He and I could talk about it, with maybe a smidge of discomfort, but still – neither one of us shied away from the discussion.  (And no, I didn’t go into all the “safe sex” stuff. We’ve talked, specifically and in detail about that, and about the costs and potential emotional risks for him and the girl with whom he eventually has sex with.) What bothered me was his impression that a 16 or 17 year old girl shouldn’t have hair down there, or least very much. And the reason this bothered me was because I knew that he’d gotten that idea from whatever pornography/media he has seen.

In Writing Erotic: lived vs mediated experience, Remittance Girl talks about the essential unreality of pornography:

Yes, in porn, the actors are actually penetrating, ejaculating, etc. But they are actors. They are having sex in order to produce a piece of entertainment for others. They fuck in positions that allow camera access. They withdraw and ejaculate where the camera can capture it. This is not how people actually have sex. This is how porn actors producing porn have sex. 

And porn stars are displaying their bodies (and modifying them) for entertainment value. Yes, some women shave their cunts (hey, I do.) And some women don’t. It is the expectation by someone who is young and inexperienced in the real world that what he sees in a porn video is reality, that bothers me.

W and I have had this discussion numerous times. He thinks that, (to a degree) access to images of sexual intercourse are good, because it undemonizes sex. It makes sex a “normal” thing, which it is and should be. (And shows a young person what goes where and how to do stuff.) And yet I have always struggled with that, because while I get off on porn occasionally myself (see some of my earlier musings on porn here: I’m a woman, and I like porn and over on Eden Cafe: Pro-Porn) I also know that it portrays sex in a hopelessly unrealistic way, and frankly, I don’t want my son to be one that learns about sex from it.  Sex is about so much more, and is so much better than pornography. I want his experiences to be authentic, and for him to compare those entertainment images with reality could hopelessly skew his reaction to the reality and his potential pleasure in it.  As I said in my post The Normalization of Kink, or Why Everyone is Taking It Up the Ass

I do agree that there is a very real concern there that this “normalization” of what have always been considered transgressive sexual acts (anal sex, BDSM, guys coming on a girl’s face) may create a culture in which men assume and expect women to be into those things, as part of normal sexual relations, just because, well, you know, “everyone does it.”  That’s as wrong as painting it as a bad, wrong thing in the first place. 

But I go on to say,

But…well hell, isn’t making sex–and any and all of its various flavors–not a taboo topic what I’ve been trying to teach my own children? All sex was taboo in my house growing up. Hell, all bodily fluids and functions were. My sex education? “Keep your legs crossed.” Um, gee, thanks, Mom.

So obviously I am conflicted about the value of pornography.  What I want, I guess, is for it not to be the only way my children understand and learn about sex (and relationships.) Just as I want them to know that there are as many ways to have a relationship as the human heart and mind can conceive of, I want them to know that sexual experience is as wide and varied as the human body and heart are.

And so I have to be willing, unflinchingly, to discuss those topics with him.  Because porn is out there. Nothing I say or do is going to keep my son from seeing it, if he really wants to.  But I want him to know there is more than that, and that just as a television show or movie is not reality, and no matter how “real” porn looks, it ain’t. And the reality–even the hairy, messy, smelly part of reality–is so much better.

And so I talked about porn, and pubic hair, and men and women and sex and reality and love and intimacy with my son last night.

I think we’re both better for it.

I’m a list girl, and right now I am trying to manage the myriad and multiple tangents of my life without one. In fact, I need several lists.

No, not one of the lists W is making me do. At the moment he has me working on three different lists:

1. Boys Jade Has Fucked
2. The Shoe Slut List (Shoes I’ve Been Bound or Fucked In)
3. States I Have Had Sex In (or States I Still Need to Have Sex In)

(Anyone sensing a theme there?  Also, he, too, just likes lists.)

We’ve also been working on my Kinky Bucket List, but that’s more “doing” the list than creating it.  And in fact, I can mark off one item in that list. But I’ll tell you about that later. ;-)

What I really need to do is get myself organized with writing. I have blog posts to do. I have short stories to write. I have an author interview to complete. I have flash fiction to write. I have two articles and an essay to complete for various websites.  I have a title and concept for a monthly column to come up with.

I also need to make a to-do list for this weekend, during which time I will be completely freaking alone (no Boys) for the first time in ages.  If I don’t make “to-do” and a “to-get-done” lists, I know myself well enough to know that I will simply curl up in bed and be sad and lonely the entire time.

I suck at being alone.

Also, I may as well make a list of all the nasty, dirty, perverted ways W fucked me up the other day, before my massage.  Yeah, it really does warrant its own list. That bad, bad man.

So I suck at being organized, but life is good.

And now, on to the lists!

List 1: Recent Successes -  3 short stories accepted

1. “Vegas Lights” (voyeur erotica set in Vegas)
2. “A Lesson Learned” (switchy spanking story)
3. “An Incentive for Penny” (spanking story)

The last two are for print spanking anthologies and the first is for an audio, e-book and print anthology. Here’s  the audio blurb (my first!) that I did for that. (Hmm, I just realized this may be the first time most of you have heard my voice.  How…intriguing.) ;-)

http://audioboo.fm/boos/626816-vegas-lights-audio-blurb

I’ll have more information on the book itself and where you can buy it soon.

I also got a spanking story (another first!) accepted by Rachel Kramer Bussel. She was the editor on Orgasmic, and submitting the story was a direct result of having finally met her in person in Las Vegas and talking to her about the anthology.  Actually, all three of the stories I got accepted were a direct result of connections I made at the Erotic Writers Conference in Vegas.  While the stories haven’t paid for the trip by any means, it’s heartening to know that I had such positive, tangible, results.

The last story I got accepted was also a spanking story edited by D. L. King. There wasn’t a real connection with the conference, except that I had met her there, so when I saw that she was seeking stories for this anthology, I didn’t mind trying to write it on short notice.  “Knowing” her made me feel more comfortable sending something to her in a genre (spanking) that I hadn’t written much in.  It turns out that she is also doing the print version of the Vegas book, which was a fact that I had overlooked, but was a nice surprise.  She’s been great to work with, and suggested edits to both stories that helped a lot.

As with most of my stories, the Vegas story was drawn directly from a real scene. No, it didn’t happen quite that way, but there was a handsome, shadowy man with a cigar making a woman disrobe in front of a bank of windows. (I’ll let you guess who that woman was.)  Was some other woman watching from the hotel across from us? We’ll never know.

The spanking story for Rachel was definitely a different type of story for me, and highly fictionalized, although the germ of it was in a real life event.  No, I haven’t gotten switchy (no desire to Top anyone!) but the headspace was a fun one to fool around with.

The other spanking story was another first for me: an absolute, complete piece of fiction, not based off any real incident in my life at all. Well…until the end, when W got out his cane and decided to act out the last scene, “just for research purposes.” But that was after the fact. ;-)

List 2: More “Success” - I am a finalist in the Riverfront Times nominations for St. Louis’ “Best Sex Blog”. The finalists:

1. Momfia
2. Pieces of Jade
3. Sex + STL
4. The Beautiful Kind
5. The Life and Charlotte Times

The winner will be announced Tuesday at an awards party (for which I haven’t received my invite yet, although I’ve been told I should be getting one.) This nomination is a mixed blessing. I’m terribly honored, and yes, I love my stuff to be read, but I am not sure I want it read/stumbled upon by my coworkers. Since it’s an online article and the nomination is buried pretty deep in the article, there’s probably not too much to worry about, but still.  You never know.  Thankfully I don’t have a chance in hell to actually win, so I won’t have to worry about being in the print version of the RFT when they announce the winners.  That’s also made me a little gunshy about going to the awards party, though. I am sure there will be pictures of it posted…do I really want to take that chance? (Another blog post to add to my list, I suppose.)

Anyway–congrats to all the nomination finalists! I couldn’t be in a finer group of sexy people!

List 3: Upcoming Writing Deadlines

1. Tricks for Kicks – sex with rewards, money or other benefits
   Deadline: Feb 5, 2012
2. Wild Girls, Wild Nights: True Lesbian Sex Stories
   Deadline: March 1, 2012
3. Show Me -Sex in St. Louis Anthology
   Deadline: April 1, 2012
4. Mammoth Book of Erotic Quickies
   Deadline: April 15th, 2012
5. Best Bondage Erotica 2013
   Deadline:  May 1, 2012
6. For The Girls Flash Fiction
   No Deadline

List 4: Online Publications/Articles

1. Eden Cafe – Dollification piece
2. Domina’s website – unnamed column draft (TBD)
3. Bedhead Grafitti (a new call for monthly essayists)
4. Guest blog for the Voyeur promotional blog tour

List 5: Stuff to Do While the Boys are Gone

1. Xcite author interview
2. Shop (yoga/ice skating stuff, new shoes?)
3. Crochet project for my boss
4. Author bio for Domina
5. Ice skating/bowling/movie with kids?
6. Art Museum
7. Taxes
8. Writing
9. Vlog?
10. Put oil in my car
11. Order lotion
12. Clean bathroom
13. Take the Boy driving
14. Find new findings for my lock and chain
15. Organize and make a list of all blog posts in my Drafts folder
16. Work on W’s Lists

List 5.5: Things W Has Told Me To Do While He is Gone (you didn’t think he’d leave and not give me at least one or two tasks, did you?)

1. Wear a buttplug (my choice) to work for at least 2 hours (is he aware that I can wear my Njoy for 6-8 hours at a time?)
2. Use some other larger insertable (again, my choice of implements) in my ass at some point during the week
3. Make serious headway on at least one of my writing projects
4. Make headway on the new blog architecture

List 6: Blog Posts

1. Swinging (part 2)
2. Basement
3. This past Monday
4. Living “fearlessly” and the nomination
5. 12 Kinky Days of Christmas Outtakes

So, really, I have more than enough to keep me busy, right?

Right.

Now I just need some boys to flirt with. ;-)

Oh wait! I almost forgot. The list you all have been waiting for, I’m sure.

List 7: The Dirty, Nasty, Perverted Things W Did to Me Monday (blog post forthcoming)

1. Tied me in a ball tie on his dirty floor
2. Fisted me in said tie
3. Bossed me around all day
4. Strung me up by my wrists and whipped me
5. Batted me about with the big meaty thumper-stick
6. Fucked me on his kitchen floor
7. Choked me
8. Pissed on me
9. Pissed in me
10. Took me to dinner in a metal bra
11. Force fed me alcohol
12. Fucked me in the ass
13. Tied my hands behind my back and made me fuck him cowgirl style
14. Took lots of nasty pictures

I’m sure there was more…things got a little fuzzy after a while. ;-)  But now…I’m off to get some work done, before I kick off the weekend!

That’s how it started. Innocent words.

Okay not so innocent, since at the time I was straddling him, sliding his cock in and out of me as I listened to his words in my ear.

But anyway.

Four hours later I was face-down on a massage table, naked under a thin sheet, imagining exactly what W had told me to about my massage therapist.

Reality: He’s young. Like really young, with over-sized tortoise-shell glasses and the kind of facial hair that you aren’t sure is actually deliberate, or is maybe just an accident of shaving.  Also, he’s short. But that will come into play later.

Unbeknownst to W, I’d deliberately made this appointment on the evening of the day that he was leaving, knowing (hoping) that I would have been at his house, playing, the day before.  And I had been, and we had played–a lot–and so my plan to get a massage right after was a good one.  Most people would avoid an unknown massage therapist after having been beaten, whipped, strung up by their wrists and knocked around. But me?  Nawww…

W was leaving for a week. I wanted to feel every bruise, every whip-stripe, every mark and pinch and place that he’d thumped me with the big meaty thumper-stick or mauled me with his hands. I wanted to remember his hands in my hair and his growl in my ear and his fingers finding all my tender spots.

I wanted that boy to make me remember.

So I made that appointment deliberately, knowing that every time my little massage therapist found a sore place, every time I felt his hand wander over a welt or a bruise, I would remember W’s hands or tools there, and smile to myself in pleasure–even as I winced.

And I did.

Fantasy: “Imagine him getting hard as he touches your body. Imagine his hands rubbing a little too close, his fingers straying…”

The sheet is so thin. When he comes in, it lays across my skin so lightly, and I’ve tucked it in just snugly enough, that the landscape of my rings is visible beneath it, curious ripples and rises, dips and shapes between my legs, where none should be.

He looks away, but he can’t unsee the shapes, can’t unknow that something is there.

His cock twitches, a wholly unexpected (and unwanted) response.

I shift, hide my rings, make him question he ever saw them.

The massage begins.

As his hands press into those tender spots, into those bruises that W has brought to the surface so well, I moan and shift again, unable to help myself.

“Is that okay?” he asks.

“Oh yes,” I reply, my voice a sigh, muffled by the face cradle. “I…like it.”  I feel his momentary hesitation as he considers this response. Then I feel his fingers trace the line of a welt on my back, the work of the vicious little quirt. This is not a massage technique, this curious, questing stroke of the fingers.

Abruptly remembering himself, he digs in, denying the damage to my skin, to my body, erasing it with the heel of his hand.

I gasp.

“Breathe,” he says.

I do, and the scent of my arousal, and more, the smell of W’s and my sex, of W’s semen in me, of my own juices, wafts up to me.  Because this is something else that I have done: not washed our lovemaking from my body, knowing the odor – man, woman, sex, semen, girl-come and arousal – is pungent; unmistakable.  The massage therapist, this boy, must smell it too.

His hands push, pull, dig in. He is rough – perhaps rougher than he might be otherwise?  He adjusts the sheet lower on my back as he begins working in that area, and below. The sheet slides back, revealing the top of my misshapen tailbone. His hand brushes across my buttocks. A professional, clinical touch? I think not, by the sound of his quickening breath. As he leans far over me to reach all the way down my back with long, smooth, strokes, I feel the bend of his waist against my arm, my shoulder – and more. Is that a hardness I feel there? A bulge? The fact that he is short is to my advantage. I pretend to need to shift; rub my shoulder along that bulge.

Feel his sudden stillness.

Perhaps recalling himself to his professional capacity, he moves away abruptly once more.

His hands on my thigh now, lifting up one leg to slide the sheet under and around, exposing my thigh and one buttcheek.

A cheek freshly whipped and criss-crossed with the marks of that whipping.

There is no mistaking the sharply indrawn breath I hear. I can feel his intense interest now, the heat of his eyes on my skin, the questions in his mind.

Or perhaps there are no questions, for when he resumes massaging me, it is with something close to ferocity, pressing and kneading the welts and bruises until I cry out.

“Breathe,” he says again, his voice quiet, but harsh, demanding.

I do. And I feel his hand moving ever closer to the vee between my thighs. Now it is me whose breath catches, waiting…waiting.

And then it happens. I feel the backs of his fingers brush against the sheet-covered rings. I feel them move, imagine the tiny clink of them striking together, feel the slide of my pussy lips against each other. Because I am wet, dammit.

He goes absolutely still. Takes a deep breath.

There is the tiniest chiming sound from somewhere.

“I…” he starts, then stops.

He swallows. I breathe. I feel him shake himself out of the trance-like space we have both fallen into. He reaches over and pulls the sheet carefully back up to cover my form. “I’m sorry, but our time is up,” he says.

A short time later, after I have dressed, and shaken his hand (him hardly able to meet my eyes) and used the restroom, I pass by the massage room on the way out the door. The door to the room is closed, but I hear the unmistakable sound of movement inside. I pause just outside, listening intently.

And hear a very soft expulsion of air and then a deep, drawn-out sigh. I smile. I have no doubt, were I to check those sheets we just used, that they would be sticky and wet – and not only with my juices.

We had that kind of scene last night.

The weirdest part was, he didn’t even realize that the pain wasn’t the okay kind for me.  He knew it was an unpleasant situation – but he puts me in a lot of unpleasant situations. He knew it was uncomfortable, and in time would end up painful – but he puts me in a lot of positions that grow uncomfortable and finally painful. He knew it wasn’t my favorite thing – but he does lots of things that I don’t necessarily like. Most times all those things are expected and part of why I do what I do…it feels so good when it ends, right? LOL But seriously, sometimes there is a kind of odd pleasure in enduring something simply because he wants me to; or in trying to endure it for as long as I can because I know he’s waiting for me to break, and, stubbornly, I resist.

We both like to push at that at times.

I actually thought he knew how bad this particular thing is. I was shocked when I realized, after, that he really had no clue. I mean, it’s really not one of those “extreme” things, and, for most people, is not a big deal. He was shocked that it was that awful for me (though later he said he shouldn’t have been, the clues were there in other times we’ve played, and in how my body reacts to other kinds of play in that area.)  I never said anything because I thought he knew, and was doing it on purpose and, in the headspace we were playing in (mildly punitive) I couldn’t speak up. (Not that I was gagged, but that, in that headspace, I couldn’t speak up with a mild complaint. Even if it wasn’t so mild.)

Until I did, loudly crying out his name, which is usually a “very loud orange” as he calls it.

It was so bad that the entire time it was happening, I was thinking: “I’ve finally found a limit. No more, not ever, period.” I’ve never thought that. I’ve never even considered limits with him, not since the beginning.  No sooner had he released me from it, though, and I was already backing down from that stance. I don’t like to limit him. If he really wants to do a thing to me, I do not want to limit him. Especially with something as innocuous as this.

So what was this horrible-awful-really-bad-terrible-no-good thing?

Clothespins on the tips of my nipples. (And, in this case, connected to a point above by lengths of twine.)

I know, I know. I love clothespins. And zippers! He’s always been downright stunned that I like zippers. So…a clothespin on a nipple? That’s easy-peasy, BDSM 101 stuff, right?

Not so much. It was the thing that almost made me opt out of the rest of the weekend playing with a friend of his that he had brought in specifically to play with and use me one weekend. It’s the one thing that is almost intolerable to me.

“Almost” being the key. And my own stubbornness being another key. And my thinking “He must know how awful this is!” so I never specified how awful it is for me, being yet another. And the fact that he has never played with someone else that has had that adverse a reaction to it–and in fact, has always considered it a “low level” kind of BDSM play–being yet another. (That thing I mentioned in the clothespin piece I linked to up there, about individuals not perceiving pain the same way? Yeah, that.)

Are you seeing what I’m seeing? A whole of lot little things coming together to form the perfect storm: one pissed off, unhappy, not-going-anywhere-good-in-the-scene Jade.

And before you think it: no, it’s not that he doesn’t “know how to put them on right.” He knows very well exactly how to put them on. I just have very very sensitive nipples. (I also think that in his previous experiences with them, he may have run into the exceptions rather than the rule, though, because every female I’ve ever talked to says that clothespins right on the tip are nearly unbearable…but I could be wrong about that.)  And no, it wasn’t that he wasn’t paying attention. I take a lot of misery and pain at times. He knows this, and he knows, in that fucked-up way that this works for people like me, that I want to take it. That I may be miserable in the moment, but I don’t want it to end.  As soon as he realized that this was not one of those times, he ended it. (And even so, I did tolerate far longer than I wanted to, because I knew he was enjoying it, and, even in that awful headspace, even in the midst of it, I still wanted him to have that, to be able to enjoy it, in spite of what I was feeling. That, in the end, was the only pleasure that I got out of it. Holding on just one more minute, because he liked it.)  But as soon as I couldn’t tolerate it one minute more, as soon as he realized that it wasn’t the “good pain” that we both enjoy, he stopped things and brought me down.

So, none of this is a reflection on him, or his abilities as a Top, or as my lover, to read things rightly or to act rightly.

It just ended up, accidentally, being a real downer of a scene for me.  I finally did “very loudly orange” out of it, and he took me down, and hugged me, and held me, and eventually fucked me, and it was all okay. Oh, and later he flogged me and made me come, screaming like a banshee, but that was after the Good That Came From the Bad. Well, the orgasms and all that were good too, LOL, and yes, they were a result of us talking about the bad, but it is the communication that came of all this that I’m really referring to when I say the “Good” thing that came of it.

See, I’ve been needing to talk to him about a couple things for awhile, but haven’t found the right way to do it.  That scene–and being unhappy with it–gave me the opening I needed to be able to talk about what’s been bothering me on a wider scale.

We do lots and lots of different stuff, something you’re probably familiar with if you’ve read my blog for any length of time or followed me on Twitter or are friends with me on Fetlife.  But, there are some specific things that W really gets off on, and that are at the “core” of his kink, if you will, just as most of us have core things that fuel WIITWD. Not exactly a fetish, and he does lots and lots of other things too, but kind of his “thing” is predicament-type bondage scenes and devices. Although what we do often leads to sex, or to orgasms in-scene for me, and oftentimes involves him sticking it in occasionally, he doesn’t usually tie me up for sex, or whack at me and fuck me while I’m tied, or use toys on me sexually. He doesn’t actually do a lot of humiliation play (tho it might seem so here, but that’s probably because that tends to get me viscerally, where I live, and so I write about it more often.)  He also doesn’t do a lot of “mixed” scenes, for instance mixing some not-as-severe elements of bondage with different kinds of impact toys or implements, or if he plans to, he usually makes the bondage so severe that we never get to any of that, because I break before we can. He’s kind of a separatist that way. If he’s going to do bondage, he does bondage until I’m wiped out. If he’s going to do impact play, he sets me up for that and does that. But when he does intend to mix them, it usually doesn’t happen, because if he’s going to tie me, he just can’t resist really tying me. And then I (sadly) give out long before he can get to any of the “fun” stuff.  Like shoving things in my holes, or hitting me with toys, or doing other degrading, filthy things to me. The things that I like. As I said one time to him, “If you tied me just a little less severely, you could beat me up more.” LOL

But I was serious.

I’m not complaining; I’ve known all along that this is his kink, and for the most part, I dig it too.  I get off on the severity of predicament bondage, on the mind-fuck of it and the creativity of it. I get off on him getting off on it. And rope, whether severe or mild, really does something to me.

But.  (And here’s where we get to that “needing to share something that’s bothering me” thing…)

As much as I enjoy that…I probably enjoy impact and humiliation play more. For me, what I, personally, like, is a good rough-her-up-smack-her-around-hit-her-with-things scene. I like the immediacy and barely-supressed control of physical violence. I like the feeling of being whipped, flogged, cropped, caned, singletailed, paddled, spanked, etc. I like being tied down for the express purpose of using my holes: mouth, ass and cunt, as receptacles; for cocks, for toys, for objects. I want my holes used and stretched, filled.  I like to be used in other ways – pissed on and in, ejaculated on, made to demean myself by accepting these actions and by being made to do others, pissing on myself or in front of someone, accepting an enema (and either enjoying it or not) touching myself, masturbating, offering my body for use.  I like to be hit, slapped, knocked around and thrown down, then fucked thoroughly while my face is ground into the dirt, or made to withstand a whipping or a beating until I can barely stand up. I like the “basics” of BDSM, you know, a spanking that starts out slow and builds up into a good hard one with hands and wooden spoons and paddles or crops or a flogger, then a nice hard fuck afterwards.

Sometimes, I don’t want to be half-killed in some spectacularly intense bondage scene. Sometimes, I just want to be tied up and fucked. With maybe a little slap-and-tickle thrown in there. ;-)  Sometimes I want the rope just to be there because he needs to hold my hands out of the way.  Sometimes I want a good wrestling match in the bed, til we’re both panting and exhausted – and we haven’t even got to the part where he shoves his cock in me.

This is not to say that those things don’t happen (you only have to read back a few months to see that) but…maybe not as often as I, personally, would like. And…I want it to happen more. And I needed to say that to him.

The thing is, we had an issue where I needed something (more D/s interactions when he was away) and, after a lot of us trying to work it out, he finally admitted, “I just can’t do that. It’s not me. If you have to have that, find someone else.” I didn’t know if he meant “instead of” or “in addition to” but either way, that’s not what I want. So…I have to accept that he can’t or won’t do things that way. I love him, and he gives me everything else I need in BDSM, so…there’s the compromise for me. I’d rather live without that (and it isn’t just in the long distance times) than try to find that elsewhere, because I like our balance, our Three, who were are and how we all work together. I don’t want anyone else in the mix. So…I accept that that is not something I can have, and I find other ways to get that need fed (frequent play sessions help, since there are elements of non-physical D/s there, and the physical Domination/subjugation also feeds the need.) And he does know about this need in me, and does, to the limits of his own personal comfort level and abilities in it, try to help me find ways to get that need met.  So there are compensations, and it all balances out.

But having just been through this adjustment in my thinking, and having heard this from him: “It’s just not going to happen,” did make me cautious about saying anything about this other.  I don’t want to hear that again. I don’t want to be told/to know that my needs don’t match, and aren’t going to be met, by him. And that I should get them met elsewhere.

I was a little gunshy about being open about my needs for different kinds of play.

But then the Bad Scene happened, and when I realized that he hadn’t had a clue about how awful that one thing was, I also realized something else:

He’s not a mindreader.

I know, WTF, right? He’s supposed to be. He’s supposed to “know me better than I know myself”! (Gak.) The fact is, he can’t read my mind. Even, sometimes, in the middle of a scene. Or an argument. Or a discussion. And I realized–maybe he doesn’t know that I want to do these other things. That sometimes I miss “BDSM 101″ type things. And I realized that even if he did say to me, “You know, I’m really not interested in doing those things,” as he did about the D/s, I–and we–would survive. Because I know him well enough to know that, if he knew how much I wanted and needed something, he would do as much and what he could, and be honest about what he couldn’t or wouldn’t.  I said one time that it is necessary in a relationship to be able to say what we need/want, at the risk of hurting the other person or eliciting an unfavorable response. We have to feel safe enough within the relationship to be able to be honest, or we can never know that we are being honest–either ourselves, or the others in the relationship.  We have that, here. I just forgot about it momentarily. Those clothespins reminded me.

And I got my BDSM 101 flogging.  He even used cuffs! (Or maybe it was 201, because he’s got to throw a little edge in there, yanno? Like, oh, flogging my pussy, too. ~smirk~)

I’ve had swinging adventures before with the Ex. Only a few times though, because he really didn’t like them.  We both preferred three-way, either MFM or FMF.

I’ve come to realize I still do.

It seems like swinging–two couples, four people–should be balanced, and that that balance should make things easy. Each couple pairs off and does their thing, right?

Well sure, sort of.  Of course, our particular situation was a bit odd to start: three men and two women. But still, it was pretty close to swinging, with the other woman getting to enjoy my two guys while I got to be with her man. In theory that should work…and in practice, it did, to a degree.

But honestly?

I’m just not into swinging as a concept. I don’t want to be separated from my guys while someone else does me. I don’t care if they’re doing someone else, I’m cool with that, and in fact find it hot to watch. But I want to be right there with them when they are, engaged, interacting–or at least snuggled up in the bed next to them enjoying the show while they are.

There were a couple of things that made this very hot for other reasons though–and those all had to do with kink.  Using kink to corrupt swinging kinda works for me. Kinda. But…I’d much rather play on the hard end of the coercion scale. It’s not that I don’t like the couple we did this with, I do, quite a lot. And it’s not that they don’t have a kinky side, they do, and that’s cool. But really, being coerced was really what made it work for me.

But what Ad said to me, and what I have to agree with him about, is that, although the actual “getting down” with other couples in the typical “swapping” scenario is not an ideal way for either of us to have sex, being in that atmosphere is great, and we both love it. Going out to a bar, or hanging out, with a group of lifestylers is much preferable to any vanilla gathering. We can talk and flirt with others openly, I get to get my sexy on, Ad gets to be the touching, affectionate person he is, and the topics of conversation aren’t censored. I can flirt with both my men and talk openly about who we are and what we do, and even about our unusual sex lives.  The sexy dancing, the teasing and flirtation and open admiration of others is lovely.

Neither one of us wants to not do those things.  But neither one of us enjoys the negotiations and sometimes awkwardness of getting from sexy talk and flirtation to actual sex (nor are we especially skilled at it.) And if we do manage to get there, the truth is that the “swapping” part of it, where we aren’t actually sharing the experience with each other, is also not our preference. He, too, wants me to be involved, to be there, “assisting.” He also gets his greatest pleasure and gets most turned-on by having me being an active part of his sexual encounters.

So…I don’t know what that means for future forays by he and I into this. I’ve told him that whatever he is comfortable with is fine, that he won’t be judged if he doesn’t want to “perform.” But that may not actually be the case. Swinging is about swapping, an exchange, tit-for-tat, right? So, given a situation where sex is happening, there might be expectations. I just don’t know. I’m not experienced enough in these things yet to know.

Of course there are the non-sex parties. The meet and greets at bars, the dances, and the cruise will be one long party where nothing is expected but what you want to make of it (many of the folks on the lifestyle cruises are “lifestyle friendly” not actual swingers, who just enjoy the sexy, permissive and sexual atmosphere–much like Ad!)  So those things are cool. But the rest…we’ll see.

And as for me…well…it’s all bound up in kink for me, and without kink, the swinging part just doesn’t work. Now a drunken Jade being used by several men at a party would be hot too…but again, that isn’t (usually, from what I can tell) how these swinger things or the swinger dynamic works. So…we shall see.

Anyway…on to Saturday night. Which was fun, and did work on several levels for us all.

Let me give you the set-up.

We arrive at their suite at the hotel right on time. There is another couple there, and we all get to talking, and then another couple arrives, and then one more.  It was fun getting to know some of the Midwest people that are going on the cruise in November, but I know as the evening goes on that the real show is going to be happening later, after everyone but us leave. The couple that is hosting the party is a couple we played with before on the ship, and that W had played with even before that.

So I knew what the expectations were, and even more so, I knew what W’s expectations of me were.  I had, in fact, been fulfilling those expectations all night so far. I was dressed very sexy, in an extra short dress, stockings and garter belt and super-high heels, and no panties.  Something that I wasn’t flaunting, but…there might have been a glimpse or two here and there. The fact that I was wearing stockings and heels while everyone else was in jeans was not lost on any of them, I’m sure.  But I hadn’t tried to dress sexier than them–it was a swinger party, I thought everyone would be dressed up.

And also…regardless of what anyone else was wearing, I knew W wanted me to dress sexy, so that’s what I did. He wanted to be able to show me off, so I wore something that would turn heads.

I was also doing my damndest to charm and flirt with everyone, male and female, because I knew that that would please W as well.  It wasn’t hard to do, actually, because the desire to be liked, to be loved, by everyone is a deep one for me.  So, really, I was just my natural, people-pleasing self.  And actually, that size group is ideal for me and puts me right in my comfort zone; any larger and I start to feel intimidated and end up withdrawing.

My guys were holding their own as well, being friendly and flirting with our hostess quite a bit, making everyone comfortable with the concept of having an “extra guy” around (which was easy because hey, they were obviously interested in our hostess, which attention I think she loved.)  I was very proud of my guys and saw that the other women there knew how lucky I am to have them both – and also that I share.  Happily. :-)

There were a couple of funny moments during the evening too.

One: Ad is sort of hidden off to one side in the kitchenette. A couple arrives and gets the intro to W and I and the other couple. They start talking, and suddenly Ad steps out from the kitchen. “Oh!” says the guy of the couple that had just arrived. “Who are you?!?” (It is obvious from his tone that he’s thinking “single guy alert, single guy alert!”) “I’m Ad,” says my guy. “Ohhh…and um…” the other guy fumbles around for a moment, trying to find a way to ask it nicely. “He’s one of my guys,” I chime in, from the living room. All heads swivel my way. “That one,” I say, pointing to W, “and that one,” pointing at Ad, “are my two guys.”  I swear he looked totally flummoxed for a moment. Then, “Wow, you get two, huh?” “Yeah,” I say. “Actually, Ad insisted I find another one.  That’s how I got W.”  A moment of dead silence, then nervous laughter all around, and we all move on.

Two: One of the women asks me about the tattoo I have on the back of my neck. “That had to hurt!” she says. “Oh, well, uh…” I start to say, trying to find a way to say I liked it without actually saying, “I’m a freak!”  W doesn’t have those qualms, though, lol. “Well there’s something you need to understand about Jade,” says he. “Jade likes pain.” Another momentary silence as they all consider just what kind of creature they have in their midst.  Then the nervous laughter, and we all move on. Until the man next to me says, quietly, “So, you like pain, huh? What kind?” W knows how to flush them out, doesn’t he?  Now it’s my turn to be flummoxed. How much/how little do I say?  “Let’s just say,” I finally reply, “that I’m a very kinky girl.” And leave it at that. I can see his interest is peaked all night though, though his wife is decidedly less warm to me after that. That could be because she isn’t feeling well, though.  I guess we’ll see.

But sooner rather than later everyone starts to leave…and it’s just me, Ad, W, and the hosting couple, our friends.

And then the real fun begins…

(to be continued)

I recently responded to a thread on the Fetlife group “Sluts, Cunts and Whores” that seemed to me to be a good topic to bring over here. The group doesn’t often come up with much in the way of “thought-provoking” content/discussions, but as a submissive woman that identifies as her Owner’s slut, and that endeavors to behave in ways that please him (which generally translates to being a sexually-charged, exhibitionist, provocative and promiscuous piece of “girlmeat,” as he often calls me), one of the answers to the question made me think about my own sexuality, and how it jives with my need for outside (his) control.

The question was, “As a submissive person, how do you prove you are a slut?” (paraphrased somewhat by me.)

Honestly (as with most of the questions in this discussion group) I think the OP was actually trying to solicit salacious stories, which, you know, is all well and good (from my perspective.) As I noted, the list isn’t known for mind-blowingly intelligent discussion. I think most of us are on there to read tales of sexual promiscuity and good old-fashioned sluttery. ~shrug~

(As an aside, I always love it when people respond to these threads as though the OP’s shouldn’t be soliciting these kinds of responses.  As though the list members are too highbrow to entertain someone’s obvious calls for salacious tales of um…sluts, cunts and whores… /snark)

Anyway, one of the responses actually got my (I’ll admit, sometimes over-active) brain cells firing.  In it she said, “It encompasses owning my sexuality.” And I got to thinking about that.

I consider my sexuality to be “owned” by my BDSM partner. That is one of the tenets of W’s and my relationship. But, I do consider “owning my sexuality,” owning my identity as a sexual woman, with needs and desires of my own, and owning the right to express and have those needs fulfilled, a principal of being a “slut” in the best definition of the word as expressed in the anti-slut-shaming movement. If being a sexually adventurous, active and proactive woman makes me a “slut,” then I wear that title proudly.

So how does that jive with being “owned” sexually by another? Does it/can it?

I contend that it does.  Following is my response to that thread:

I love the idea of “owning my sexuality,” and I think, when I started exploring the BDSM lifestyle, that really was at the heart of it. Taking responsibility for my own sexual pleasure, accepting who I am, what turns me on, what I need to be fulfilled sexually. In seeking out the BDSM lifestyle I truly found–and owned–my sexual self. But in doing that, an interesting thing happened…

I discovered that at the core of my sexuality is a need for submission, to feel someone else’s control, and that to feel fulfilled sexually, to be turned on, I had to turn over the “ownership” of my sex to someone else. Seems counter-intuitive, doesn’t it? But it works for me, and when I was finally able to acknowledge and accept that, I started on the road to true sexual fulfillment.

Part of giving someone else that control is allowing him to dictate how my sexuality will be expressed. I love sex, and am a highly sexual woman. And, in fact, I can be pretty slutty (in my own understanding of the definition of the word: being promiscuous-and even indiscriminate-sexually.) But I also have a lot of inner blocks to behaving that way, a lot of conflict about what it means to me as a “good” person to behave that way, and end up with a lot of guilt about being sexually promiscuous and in enjoying those encounters. Being forced by the dynamic of my relationship to do so, because he desires it, because it turns him on, allows me to abdicate that responsibility in a way; and also reinforces that I’m still an “okay person” if I behave that way, because this person that I love and trust and respect–still loves and respects me, maybe even more so, after I have done so.

So how do I “prove” I am a slut? By behaving exactly as he wants me to, when he wants me to. By doing those things that turn him on, even if those things make me uncomfortable, whether that is flirting with someone(s), exposing myself in some way, allowing him to expose me in pictures, dressing provocatively, going out on dates with strange men, giving a blowjob to someone simply because he tells me to, or fucking men that I know and that I don’t. What he expects of me is different depending upon the situation, but I endeavor to prove myself to him every time there is a situation in which he has either given me explicit instructions in how I am to behave, or when he has not, but in which I know what actions & behavior will please him.

So while it may seem counter-intuitive for me to say that I both own my sexuality and that my sexuality is owned by him, to me it makes perfect sense. I get hot and bothered and get to have lots of good sex and behave in “slutty” ways, he gets the slut-girlfriend that he has always wanted, to use and have used by others, in exactly the ways he has always wanted.

Later, maybe I’ll share how that all worked out in “real world” application this past weekend. ;-)