So, after thinking really hard about the situation, I decided I needed to stop seeing Woody. Turns out, in the process of “dumping” him, I discovered what a good decision this actually was. But, the whole situation was 50000 shades of awkward.

I had to do it over Skype because he doesn’t live out here, and so I felt kind of guilty about it. But, I couldn’t keep this going. He continued to do things that made me feel uncomfortable after I’d had long conversations about why I did not want him to do those things. He claimed he was a feminist, but made massively misogynist comments all the time. Despite the fact that we had some really fun evenings, I knew I had to shut the whole thing down.

(Not to mention he referred to his penis as “Him.” Shudder.)

Except, everything went wrong:

He answered Skype naked. NAKED. So, I broke up with a naked person.
He informed me that his primary had just broken up with him this week, so I felt awful…
…UNTIL he tried to persuade me to dump my boyfriend and be his girlfriend…
… which started with the phrase “no offense to your boyfriend, but…”
He did that sketchy thing of sort of like, “oh, but we can still like talk and text and do all the stuff we were already doing, right?” (No.)

So, ah, that was my evening. I broke up with a penis.

I’m going to go eat some cookies now.

The Party Sub, Part Eleven

I wish I could say that the evening ended on this amazing note and Sir and I came home and fucked each others’ brains out. But this wasn’t really the case. I had a wonderful night, but a lot of things compounded by the end of it made it a little rough.

I was tired, subspaced and starting to experience a pretty extreme sub drop. I was feeling some shame. When Sir and I tried to fuck in the loft, I couldn’t even get wet. I sucked his cock, but I kept getting distracted and nervous. There were some people up there messing around as well, and for the first time I was hyper-aware of it and it made me really insecure.

So, Sir just let me lie down and he held me, kissing me behind my ear and letting me come down from everything. Star came upstairs and cuddled up with us, and at some point the three of us just fell asleep.

When we woke up, I got dressed and Sir and I gathered our things and left. In the cab back, I started to feel better and even a little proud of myself. While I had left the party being quiet and a little short, by the time we were on the road, I was chatting and gushing and going over the night.

While I dropped a little bit the next afternoon, in the weeks that have passed, I realized how brave I was and how I really opened up to this new experience. If nothing else, I’d say I totally went all-in.

The takeaway is I’m kind of addicted to these sorts of parties and next time, I’ll know a little better what to expect and how to handle all of it. Because, yes, I’m going to make sure there’s a next time.

Ivy’s First Trip to a Dungeon, Part One

Yeah, you read it right. And while getting ready was not nearly as glamorous as this gif and mostly took place in a public restroom, it happened.

Craftsmate and I picked pseudonyms, practiced all of yesterday calling each other them and headed out that evening to a BDSM club. Naturally, I was completely nervous heading in and just about panicked when Craftsmate left me alone within the first fifteen minutes to find the men’s room.

This was for a number of reasons, some being:

I was severely underdressed and was starting to realize it. Or maybe overdressed. It’s hard to tell. Because people were wearing significantly less clothing than I but it was significantly more ornate. I had on a blouse, a skirt, stockings, boots. I don’t really own any fetish wear and agh I don’t know but yeah.
I had no idea where to look because literally everywhere I turned there was some crazy stuff happening. And so I kind of stood alone fiddling with my skirt and trying not to die on the spot after going face-to-face with literally one of the biggest penises I have ever seen in my life.
Some guy came up and tried to be social. Apparently “so, what do you do?” is not an appropriate or specific-enough question for a BDSM club.
Then this girl ran over to me and was like “OH! I know you!” And I just about peed my pants and I was like, “NO THERE IS NO WAY YOU COULD KNOW ME NO I HAVE NEVER BEEN HERE BEFORE I HAVE NEVER SEEN YOU IN MY LIFE BEFORE.” And then she’s all, “oh, nevermind, you just look like someone” and some nearby woman was like, “don’t mind her, she’s trying to hit on you.” Cue the blushing.
And then, right before Craftsmate finally finds me, there’s some guy literally screaming on another floor. So, ah. There’s that.

We wind up sitting with the girl who had just approached me while she emptied out this huge bag she was carrying to show us the absurd plethora of toys she was lugging around. After watching her explain her hoard to us for a while, Craftsmate and I decided to slip away to one of the more secluded areas to mess around for a bit.

(Oh, and happy 2000th post to meeee.)

During a talk about the fetishization of exclusivity in popular media.

Me: Anything that affords an exposé into the Ivy League is always massively successful.
My friend: Like what?
Me: …can’t think of anything off the top of my head.

Easing out the Kinks, Part Six

Followers, this whole poly thing is very new to me.

There was a lot of stuff unsaid and just a lot of stuff we couldn’t say because Penthouse’s family was hanging around. Stuff as simple as the fact that I was wearing the clamps, which Craftsmate figured out anyway, to the issues that had come up. Of course, the moment we all couldn’t speak freely, I suddenly decided I could handle communication. Usually, the idea of it makes me a little nauseous. I’m a bit too eager to avoid conflict.

So, there we were on the couch. Craftsmate had his arm around me and Penthouse was holding my hand. It was this weird moment where I realized just how new to this I am and just how much I really am playing it by ear a lot.

And so I am always flattered when you all claim I have my shit together and I’m a good example or an expert or a reliable source. But, gosh, guys. I’m stumbling in the dark just as much as anybody else.

Easing out the Kinks, Part Five

When we got back into Penthouse’s, his family was home. I hoped the flush had died down in my cheeks as I hung up my coat and we went to go hang out in his bedroom.

While we waited for Craftsmate to arrive, Penthouse received a text from Popcorn. I asked him to say hi for me and he handed me his phone and told me to say hi for myself. For some reason, for how much bravado I can have with men, I get really bashful when it comes to flirting with women. This is especially the case when it comes to Popcorn, which Penthouse finds hilarious. So, he always tries to encourage me to flirt with her a little.

In the middle of this, Craftsmate called and said he was downstairs. Being a little mean, Penthouse put the clamps on my nipples, though significantly looser, and told me I would have to tell Craftsmate all about it as he tucked the chain discreetly into my bra. While I started blushing, Penthouse and I took the elevator down and found him waiting in the lobby.

I was happy to see Craftsmate, but I was unsure how stuff would pan out after some tensions had arisen a few days prior. He gave Penthouse one of those bro hugs and claps on the back before leaning down to kiss me.

The elevator doors closed and we began the slow climb up to Penthouse’s apartment in what was probably the most awkward, loaded elevator rides ever.

“I think I want to kiss you,” Craftsmate said one night about a month ago while in bed with me.

The last time that I had happened, there was a little bit of an episode, as you may recall. So we had agreed to be play partners and not kiss or be emotionally intimate. Which was all fine and good until there would be nights he would sleep over and we would wake up curled into each other and I would feel some little pang of something growing in my throat.

That night, the lights were already out and I couldn’t see him. “Are you sure? I’m not sure my ego can handle you freaking out over this again.”

“Yeah,” he replied, “yeah, I’m sure. I want to kiss you.”

I climbed over him to get out of bed. “I’m going to the bathroom. Think it over and when I get back if you want to, maybe we will.”

When I returned, he confirmed that he was still on board about it. I was a bit embarrassed at how nervous I suddenly felt. It was too dark in my room and we bumped noses. The entire kiss was awkward and reminiscent of a middle school playground.

Somehow, that felt about right.

Fuck Baseball, Part Five

I was really, really enjoying what was going on with Craftsmate. On a lot of levels. I was blindfolded, tied to the bed, having my nipples played with, and being condescended to. Just about every part of that is an A+ in my book.

Except that stupid creeping feeling came up again where my brain went “well, he didn’t even try to kiss me, so he must not respect me at all”. Except, I didn’t particularly want to kiss Craftsmate. He’s a fun friend and an interesting activity partner, but I just didn’t feel too terribly inclined to kiss him.

But I’m lying there and thinking, “well, here’s the natural progression of stuff and we’re not doing the natural progression so this is wrong and I am a whore”.

Which is, uh, how I felt with that guy from my frat that time we hooked up. Even if kissing did kind of clash with the intended activity.

But I asked and he kissed me. Awkwardly. We were both uncomfortable and it was plainly obvious that neither of us particularly wanted to. And so I made him untie me and I proceeded to freak out about how sleazy I am.

So, uh, sorry to put a damper on the sexy for a moment. But, yes, it’s honestly how that went down and I wasn’t particularly proud. But, I think it’s important to share this stuff with the sexy. And, we got to talking and, yes, I promise, there’s a happy solution.

The other night, I was at Craftsmate’s place just hanging around. It was later at night and I had originally intended on just going to sleep, but he invited me over to hang out and so I came over in my pajamas. We were chilling when there was a knock on his door.

Because I was in my pajamas, I just stayed in his room while he went to go to the door. I was sort of tired, so I pulled up his sheets and when he came back in to say something about people, I just sort of told him I was going to sleep.

In my defense, I’d had a really, really, really long day.

I woke up about an hour later to hear voices in his kitchen and finding that I had to use the bathroom. Naturally, I felt super awkward just walking out of this kid’s room in pajamas. I heard that they were planning to leave soon and so I tried to bide my time, but I eventually just had to walk through rather quickly to get to the bathroom and hope I wasn’t seen.

On the way back, I was sort of awkwardly stopped and said hello. The Prodigy was there and I tried to awkwardly be like, “haha yeah we’re not fucking I just needed a nap” but that’s never really, uh, convincing.

And I know I’ve got nothing to be ashamed of. We’re not fucking and it was just a weird moment with some people who, besides the Prodigy, I’d never seen before. So, it wasn’t the biggest deal in the world, but I still felt sort of crappy. I knew it was silly to. However, the feeling kind of crept up and afterwards Craftsmate and I had to have an awkward “okay that was uncomfortable but not awful” conversation.

Oh, shame. You’re a dick.

Growing a Pair, Part Four

Somewhere near the end of being flogged, I got really awkwardly subspaced. I say awkwardly because this wasn’t performed with any sort of D/s mindset or frame. It really was me just checking out what the flogger was like.

So, suddenly I’m all quiet and sort of drawn within myself. I shiver a bit when he runs his fingers over the marks to make sure they aren’t raised. Silently, I inspect them myself, mulling over in my head how to get myself out of this space before things get super uncomfortable.

I think, at one point, I was biting onto the knuckle of my index finger. Super. Leave it to me to get really awkwardly subspaced while standing on top of a desk.

“You would, Ivy,” I kept saying in my head. “You of all people would.”

So, I guess I sort of learned there’s no such thing as a casual flogging for me.