We stood two or three feet away from the scene, and were watching. The person before us was sitting on a chair, their hands lashed into wrist cuffs with a grip on them, the cuffs lashed to a giant chain spiderweb. An 8g lock ran through their septum piercing, attached to a chain, and the chain also was attached in turn to the same web. The top had their throat on the bottom’s neck, claws running down over their skin.

I looked over at the older woman next to me, and we looked back at the scene. All three of us were me.

I was the bottom. I was myself, standing and watching the scene. I was the woman, long gray hair, standing at my side. We were one and we were three, and in the immortal words of the Beatles, we were all together.

She turned to me and asked me what I was doing. That I didn’t really want to be in the scene, that it wasn’t working for me, so why was I there. I spun tales of how long it had been since I had gotten to bottom. Of how much I had wanted to be chained up by my nose. And yet, and yet I understood. She and I talked about how I was disassociating, and that that was a sign that it really wasn’t working for me, now was it?

Your erection, your wet cunt, they are part of a gift, she said. When she said it, she was not talking about my phsyical reactions, though that was part of it. My/our engagement in reality, my being fully present, my being passionate, my being here, now, now… it is a gift. When my body and essence reacts, it is because my flesh knows something that my mind may not be aware of. It is like wandering through a produce isle, and my body stopping in front of the oranges, or carrots. My hand reaches out and picks one up.

It is not because I think I want a carrot, or orange. It is because my body knows I need that thing inside me. That it is part of me thriving as a creature. When I am hard, am wet, am present, am engaged – it is because my body knows I need that experience. That it is part of my path, my best good, my truth. This is what she/me was telling me.

She asked me why I was settling. But she was not talking about the scene that was clearly not working for me, as I stood a few feet away and watched fist blows landing on my unmoving body. My pale skin was turning pink, and my breath alternated in time with the top before me, who was playing with my body in ways that I have liked in similar ways before. I stood a few feet away, and listened as she asked why I was settling… because I do, so often.

I want to get laid. I want to play. I have these thoughts, these hungers, these desires. And yet, I know that I keep gravitating towards junk food play, interaction. That is not to say that the scene was not hot conceptually. It is not that it was not what I wanted. But it was not what would nourish me in that moment.

I shove a chocolate bar in my mouth, when really what my being needs is to get up, have a glass of water, journal for a while, have a good conversation with others, read a book, go for a walk. Why do I shove the chocolate bar in my mouth? Because it is full of tasty tasty sugars. Because the story of the chocolate bar is what I want. Because my tongue becomes happy. Because…

My reality is “because” does not nourish me

When my battery is on low, I settle for the amazing chocolate bar before me. It is amazing, beautiful, tasty… but it is not the nourishing kale and tofu salad with basalmic garlic dressing and that glass of carrot/orange juice that leaves my whole being smiling. If is not a single piece of dark chocolate melting on my tongue.

The being whose lips taste of hard cider becomes a single piece of dark chocolate sliding between my lips, a night later, and I remember the lesson. Deep conversations, good music, shared truths, and a perfect kiss on a cold night.

 

I watch the scene again, chains frozen in space, breaths silent and still. The world pauses, and she and I continue to talk. As I AM who is myself who is my higher power stands there beautiful, she asks me why.

Love. Truth. Capacity.

I try to come back and do not succeed. I stare on as the body does not move, pain somewhere in the scene that the body has turned off from experiencing, as I watch on. My lips finally move as I begin to slip back in, my flesh an old friend I am curling up with in bed. I curl up behind me, big spoon for my own little spoon.

My lips speak of the fact that I have been gone. My lips speak of wanting to say I am sorry, but knowing that it is not true. My top understands with such grace, and we share thoughts on connection rather than play as I try to come back. Two spoons start to settle into the drawer of my self.

It is two nights later, and I am sitting on a leather couch, in front of a heater, and she is smiling behind me on the couch, curled up like a big spoon, with me as the little spoon.

I have a story that I am a top. I have a story that I am a bottom. I have a story that I like sex. I have a story that I am a hedonist. I have a story that I am an ecstatic body practitioner. I have a story that I am a good friend. I have a story that I am a writer. I have a story that I am a teacher. I have a story that I dance with mental health. I have a story that I am fearful at times. I have a story that I am powerful. I have a story that I like to travel. I have a story that I can’t do it. I have a story that I can do it. I have a story. I have a story.

She curls up with a book next to me on the couch, and lets me sit with it. She is now and future and past, and she is he and beyond. She’s in a warm black robe and a flowing blood red night gown. Her gray hair is pinned back, and wears rings on most of her fingers. I want to know what she is reading, but I know it is none of my business.

My friend who is my teacher through being on the path that he is on and I am on the path that I am on and I am sitting with him for two days and I were talking. That our passion and bodies and flesh are profound tools, but that not everyone has the discernment to know when it is a hard on, and when it is a truth-on. I speak the word truth-on, and my cock leaps.

I want to wake up into my truth-ons. I open my third eye and turn back and look at her next to me and she smiles, kisses me on the lips, and thanks me as her wife. I am married to myself after all. It can be a tumultuous open relationship at times, but she and I have learned to sit while I type and she reads, while he reads, while we sit in silence together. While I listen to Omar Faruk Tekbilek and think of mango juice, and she remembers the moment where I first danced to this music too. My body remembers it, we all lick our lips, and I go back to typing.

I am she and she is me and my flesh is me and we are all together.