Sunday, August 29, 2010

The Morning After

I'm fairly sure I've mentioned that many years ago (probably 20), when my beloved and I were making a very early experiment in an FLR (and I'm not sure the term had been invented at the time), she asked, "So how would today have been different if we had been doing this stuff?"

At the time, and for many years after, I had no answer. I think I'm beginning to develop one.

For the past two-and-a-half weeks, my beloved and I have been exploring a different understanding of our relationship. There's been much more sex involved than I had anticipated (mostly for her, some for me), a lot of talking, and a lot of experimentation in terms of behaviors she wants from me. In short, it's been just about top-of-mind for me, and I'm guessing only slightly less for her.

For us, that couldn't last. Not for bad reasons, but because we both have lives and interests and activities. So ironically, when things were all in flux, with kid summer schedules, separate vacations, etc, it was easier for this to be the most prominent thing between us.

Today we're off doing all sorts of different things and FLR needs to become part of our existing lives, not replace them. I think we're succeeding at that, slowly, since it's early days.

If you followed us around for a day, the most salient thing you'd see would be our daily check-in, which right now seems to be happening right before bed, but is designed to happen any time in the evening. And our going-to-bed ritual, based on the fact that the bed has become hers, to which I am only allowed by invitation.

We're testing out a mantra for me to repeat when entering and leaving the house. I'll report to her on that on Sunday evening and she'll decide where she wants to go with it.

And I'm responsible for some personal care items for her - mostly culled from the now-defunct Ms. Rika web site - massages, cell phone maintenance, cars, wallet, etc.

What's much more important, however, is what's different between my beloved and myself:

1) I'm 100% here. Expanding on what I wrote a few posts ago, I have no privacy in my thoughts. She can (and has, once or twice, to my great delight) ask at any time what I'm thinking and get and uncensored answer. And I will ask questions and volunteer reactions and emotions, so that she knows that there's nothing going on in my head that she isn't party to.

2) My beloved is exploring this FLR or power-relationship or whatever-it-is with me. She is looking for information from me, and on-line. She is looking for what works for her in all this.

3) Because we're unequivocally in this together, she can say, "That's too much" or "I don't want to go there" and I don't take it as a rebuke; it's more communication and expectation setting. If there's something in "there" that's really important to me, it's my responsibility to unpack it and find the essence, so we can talk about it.

There's more to this, but I don't think I'm going to get it today, and would rather have this posted than wait for it to be perfect.

I have two great fears, and our communication helps keep them under control. One is that I'm doing this "alone" - that is, it's all in my head and she's just going "unhuh" enough for me to maintain the fantasy in my own head. Fortunately, I have to report to her every day on how the day is going, and once I do that, it's impossible for me to get deluded that way. Rather, I keep being stunned by how much she's doing for me.

The other is that she's engaged in this, but she's laughing at my silliness all the way along. Again, I got to ask her that directly this morning, and she cleared me up: She's amused by the power disparity, when I have to do things and she doesn't. I hadn't realized that she was noticing, and I'm tickled pink that she is, and that she finds it amusing.

There are two places I hope we get to. One, I've mentioned to my beloved, and she sees it as plausible: That she gets to the point where this style of relationship works well enough for her that she would be reluctant to "go back." The other I haven't had a chance to mention yet: that at some point during our daily review, she brings up something I should have done that I wasn't aware of. In other words, that she's expecting more of me than I realized. Not that I fell down on the expectations I knew about, but that she expects more.

Other bloggers have noted (and disappeared after noting) that once one really starts in an FLR, there's not so much time left over for blogging. That's my experience. There have been several occasions when I had something I wanted to blog, or some subject that I wanted to cover, but by the time I get a moment to do it, things have moved on. I'll attempt not to disappear, but will be interested to see how much blogging I do.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Jamie- Very interesting post. I'm liking her amusement and not wanting to "go back." Btw, the idea of dice outcome to pleasure yourself without your hands excites... what works best for you there?

Jamie said...

Weave refers to a subsequent post in which my beloved wrote that the idea is for our FLR to be the most important thing in my life. Just to satisfy the titillation factor, I'll say "thrashing around on the bed." I thought it up long long before the dice brought it about and it was fortuitous when it happened. I was glad my beloved was there to see it.