give and take

[it's disclaimer time again. this one's gonna get dark, it's gonna get VERY adult. i have some depths-plumbing to do. so for the benefit of those who either don't like the dark stuff or just don't want that much information, i'm putting this entry behind a jump. proceed if you want to; skip if you don't.]

i suppose all sexual relationships are about power, at least on some level. i'm not the wildest girl out there, having spent most of the decade that's devoted to sowing wild oats as part of a supposedly mature relationship, but even in my limited experience, i've picked up on the dynamic that arises when you shed your clothes and your inhibitions. but it hasn't been until recently that i've fully come to embrace what true power brokering in bed can be. my old relationship hasn't been about sex for a long, long time. when you lose respect for a man, your desire to sleep with him has a funny way of vanishing right along with it. sleeping with him became a duty, a tacit admission that, yeah, i'm here, but i am not happy about it. law school teaches that a spouse has a duty of marital congress. that's about as hot as it was at the end, too. marital congress. yeah, baby. give. it. up. heh.

but then came the new opportunities i've had lately. it started, i won't say innocently enough (because there's nothing innocent about what we do), but simply enough: we got together, we went to dinner, we made a cursory effort to pretend we weren't going to get naked, then we got naked. lather, rinse, repeat. comfortable, pleasurable, but nothing earth-shattering. he's the first man in my life who's had both the ability and the interest level to reliably get me off every time, so that's been a bonus.

and then a funny thing happened a few months ago. we moved from a simple friends-with-benefits construct, casually hooking up, into a full-blown sexual relationship. no holds barred. one night he said to me, "i have no idea what i've been waiting for, but i've wanted to fuck you for a long, long time." and there we were. that was a total game-changer. from that point forward, we've moved mountains together. and while you'd think that sex would introduce an emotional connection - most people experience a deeper "romantic" attraction when they start having sex with their partners - that's not precisely what we experienced.

it's been a steady evolution, but he and i have become more connected, but not by romance or touchy-feely loving stuff. rather, we've gone deeper into the power dynamic that we've always had between ourselves, even LONG before he kissed me the first time. every friendship has a top and a bottom dog. that's the way things are. the difference could be paper-thin or a mile wide. in our case, he has always been the boss. it's a function of our personalities, really; i'm a pleaser, more diffident, more willing to roll with the punches, whereas he brooks no dissent with his worldview. so when we started screwing each other, the structure stayed in place.

not that i'm complaining. when you're a person who has to take care of everything in your life, whether you want to or not, there's something so freeing about having power wrested from your hands and not being able to do a damn thing about it. the last few times we've been together, i've finally coaxed the boss out of him all the way, and he's risen to the occasion like nothing i've ever seen. (god. no pun intended.) he's let out his inner alpha male in ways that bring me, literally and figuratively, to my knees. the darkness we've plumbed together has been the most electrifying sex of my life. no two ways about it. and there's a weird empowerment in getting dominated when it's exactly what you've always wanted a man to do to you.

he relishes his role. it lets him act out impulses he's always had about me. he throws me around his bed. he barks out orders, taunts and teases, wields his power mentally and physically. he laughs out loud at the dominion he holds. he says to me, "oh, this borders on cruel... but i think you like that." and i eat it up like sugar candy. unbelievably so. when he finishes with me, he's left his mark, sometimes with scratches and bruises, but always with the just incredible power of the climaxes he draws out of me. and he loves every minute of it.

so that's the real lesson. i've actually gained so much confidence from being with him like this. in the context of his bed, he said to me once, "there's no way i can objectify you. you objectify yourself." yeah, when we're in flagrante delicto, maybe. but there's being a sex object in bed, and there's taking the confidence to demand what you want from someone when you're stripped bare and completely vulnerable and translating it into empowerment in my life. i've used this confidence to make friends, improve my networking, and yes, carry on a couple of more flirtatious dalliances here and there. a little confidence can be a dangerous thing. but if i can build my ego flat on my back, held down and begging for him, so be it. do your worst, lover. i'm so, so ready for it.