... And RELAX

Ecstatic release, just as the doctor ordered. Have I mentioned how much I love Nice Guys?
And one Nice Guy, in particular, who, let's face it, is the reason I am still in the Goldfish Bowl, and have not freaked out and run away already. So good to have sanity, friendship and sheer rampantness all in one place! So hooray for that.

Only three weeks left til the big move though, and so much still not sorted out. Guess I can't relax all that much yet. I am looking forward to getting into my new place, and just not having anything hanging over me. I am sure it won't all be roses, but that alone makes it seem a lot more bearable.
Plus I have been talking to a couple of online friends who live not all that far from where I will be, and I know Duchess will be there, and Cad, and some other old friends, so with luck I won't be entirely short of people to spend time with. Fingers crossed, with my right hand back in working order, and trips to see a few special people, I might even manage to keep the old libido under control, too.

Oh isn't it nice? I am so optimistic when I'm post-orgasmic - just hope I can keep it up!

Give me that telephone book, damnit!

In which I am screaming silently with frustration.

Well, there goes my four day limit, sailing blithely by like a swan floating along a cool, crisp and swift-moving river. Unfortunately, like the swan, all is turmoil beneath the surface. It is years since I went this long without sex, or at least some sort of close contact, and I don't think I have been without an alternative (that is, some way to please myself) since puberty. Eek!

Gosh oh gosh oh gosh, how am I going to cope with being single? I am wanting to smash crockery and destroy the universe already. Not to mention tear the clothes off certain people and rub myself against them frantically.

Things are very definitely not helped by the fact that my right hand is out of action (I sprained it badly the other day) - of all the things I have managed to train myself to do left handed, self-pleasure is not one of them. I think I may just have the worst timing in the world. Too-Much-Information this may be, but try as I might earlier I could not get myself off. I will have to have another go later though, or I really will be screaming at people tomorrow. I could possibly cope with the lack of sex if I had an alternative release, but this is just too much.

T is gorgeous, but aloof, and I have promised myself no more post breakup sex unless he makes the first move. He has said yes the last couple of times I have asked, but I just lose a little more self respect each time I do. Yes, sex might be my reason for being, but I still believe I should control it and not vice versa, and simply going for the nearest available person - that is not respectful of either of us. I still very much love T, and want to be certain that we are playing for his pleasure too, not just mine.
Same goes for Nice Guy, too. I am trying desperately hard not to pressure, despite being turned on as anything whenever we're in the same room. I have made the mistake before of presuming that someone else wanted sex, or even just physical closeness as much as I did, and accidentally making it seem like a chore rather than a joy to be shared. I have so much to give though, I feel like just overflowing all over the place.

At least I have shared virtual hugs and kisses with Duchess, with the promise of real ones in person when I get back there in a few weeks time. It is such a lovely thing, just to be close to someone that way. Especially someone as inwardly and outwardly lovely as she is. I am so glad to know her, and indeed all of my friends, near and far. They remind me that the world is not such a bad place after all. (You too, J - I know you'll read this - virtual hugs will have to keep sufficing until we meet in person, but I am sure we will one day)

I will be optimistic about this - I am sure the release of all this tension, when it comes, will be nothing short of ecstatic.

Humbugs and Sweeties

In which I am frustrated and low, but gain a new friend.

Well Christmas went better than i had worried about, perhaps not as well as I had hoped. Alcohol is a bad bad thing, and I am reminded once again why I avoid it most of the time.

Probably not everyone's idea of Christmas - sharing a cabin with a newly ex-boyfriend, whilst a current lover sleeps next door with his ex-girlfriend who doesn't officially know what is going on, and a bunch of other friends a few doors down who definitely aren't meant to. Still, the parts of it that I managed to forget about sex, it was good fun. The fact that there were no aging relatives, no kids, no sprouts (we had chinese food for Christmas dinner) and none of the usual rubbish that comes with the season definitely made a refreshing change. Bah humbug, indeed!

I have now been introduced to Nice Guy's ex, Snippet, she is small, feisty and warm hearted, and pretty much how I had imagined from what NG had said about her. I probably have not made an amazing first impression, considering I managed to get drunk (to be fair, she was the one pouring the drinks!), get upset and go running off, damaging myself in the process, and causing NG to get very worried about me and go out searching at silly o'clock in the morning. Got back to face the pair of them trying to bully me into admitting that life is worth living, which I think just made me all the more tearful, being on a serious low in self esteem, and not feeling I was worth all the fuss, but in soberness now I appreciate the effort. NG cleaned up my grazes and checked nothing was broken (in a slightly sadistic manner, but I thoroughly deserved it, I am sure) and Snippet railroaded me into staying over, no doubt so they could keep an eye and make sure I was OK.

I have been struggling very hard to remain optimistic, lately. It's not that I really believe anything awful is going to happen when I move out on my own, but I find it all so hard to picture. Not having been really single, or indeed lived alone, at any point in my adult life, it is going to be hard getting used to just not having someone there all the time. All the more reason to go and do it, of course, but I can't convince myself it is going to be easy. Nice Guy being so damn lovely doesn't make it any easier, either. I'm going to miss him horribly.

At any rate, I like Snippet, and (crossing my fingers, here) it seems to be somewhat mutual. I'm hoping we can spend a little more time together as a group before she leaves. I am desperate for a little bit of alone time with NG, as well, but I don't know how feasible that is going to be between now and New Year. I may just have to be tough, and hold on until then.

I am at least proud of myself for not having torn any telephone books in two, yet.

Going to extremes

In which I take an enforced rest from having rampant daily sex... Damn.

So from a fortnight of sheer abundance, thanks to Nice Guy and morning tea, tomorrow marks the start of a week of probable celibacy. NG's ex is out visiting, and we are all (NG, ex, T and I) going away for Christmas with some neighbours who don't know the full story of what's going on.
Because of where we are, things have to be kept discreet to the point of near paranoia. Plus NG points out it is somewhat rude to be engaging in public displays of affection in front of exes (or indeed, any invited guests, friends, relatives, whatever), and we will have one each on the trip.
Very frustrating - to have T there, in fact sharing a room with him, who is gorgeous and friendly, but a closed book to me now, and NG as well, constantly in view, but not allowed to touch, and knowing all too well what i'm missing out on... cruel and unusual torture!

Still, if I can keep my mind off sex, the next few days should be fantastic fun, knowing how well we all get along, and it will be fascinating to meet someone who has been special to NG for a long time. Can't help but remember everything that came of the last time I met a lover's ex, and all that came of it, and indeed still is (Busybee and Duchess, that was - both of whom still having a very special place in my life).
Mixed feelings, then, but I am determined to enjoy what I can, over the Christmas period, celibate or no.

And on that note - Merry Christmas to everyone, and I shall see you in a few days - Will be incommunicado while we're away due to lack of internet. Wish me luck again!

x

Willpower? Who's He?

In which there is further rampantness and wistfulness, and failure to get things done.

Managed to take *some* positive steps towards sorting out things around the house today - still a long way to go, though. I've been distracting myself to avoid dealing with things I don't really want to, and I find I'm showing signs of addictive behaviour.
Nice Guy has had almost no time to himself lately - I have had very little chance of social contact lately with anyone else, but I am a little disgusted at myself having been following him around like a puppy.
Isn't it always ones own faults that are most annoying in other people? By golly I hate needy girls. Space needed, definitely. It is just the fact that I am leaving in four weeks time that has let me excuse it to myself for this long. Still want to make the most of it, but I think there *is* such a thing as too much of a good thing.

So this evening, the plan was to give NG a night off and get on with things at home. It actually did go well, until a bit later on, when I'd spent a few hours throwing junk out, and had a late dinner, and felt like socialising a bit - so I text to see what he's up to, and end up inviting myself over for a cup of tea. He is kicking himself when I get there, because he wanted some alone time, and couldn't say no to me, and I am kicking myself for not staying at home and working, as I know I am busy tomorrow.
It came so close to actually being just a cup of tea, too, but there is just so much chemistry at the moment that willpower on both sides crumbled and I ended up not leaving until after 1am. Damn. Fantastic, wonderful evening, but once again no work done - I am useless for most things after sex.

The willpower thing is hard - At least if I make a promise to someone else then I do stick to it. It's promises to me that are harder, my sense of responsibility doesn't always extend to looking after myself. Pleasure now is so much easier to justify to myself than denial now and pleasure later. Just another thing to work on.

That's not to say I will stop asking for things I want - makes a whole lot more sense than feeling resentful because people fail to read my mind and offer, and I always take no for an answer, however disappointed I may be. I just need to work on wanting things that are actually healthy for me.
As wonderful as impromptu late night orgasm-fests might be, I suspect that getting some work done and my packing started would have done me more good.
Damn, I hate being a grown-up.

There will be tea in the morning, and then tomorrow evening will *definitely* be alone time - I need to find my vibrator, for one thing - poor Alice is buried somewhere in the horror that is my room. Otherwise, I think I may just go insane over Christmas week. NG will have his ex staying, so there will be nothing from that quarter, I am not really sleeping with T these days, and I swore to avoid anyone new until I leave the Goldfish Bowl.
I know a week sounds pretty small, but I have barely gone four days without sex in a number of years, and had a fairly nasty accident the last time, through sheer distraction. So I am perhaps a little phobic about it, based on that experience.

Ah well, I am a rational being (most of the time), and I know that lack of sex will not suddenly cause the world to end, however much I personally may feel like destroying it. There may be many new additions to my fantasy blog at the end of the week though. All that libido has got to go somewhere!

Repeat after me,
"There is more to life than sex,"
"There is more to life than sex,"
"There is more to life than sex,"
"There is more to life than sex,"
"There is more to life than sex,"

A mantra for the coming weeks, I think.

Nothing much to say right now

Everything I said last week still applies, really, except that it is now near enough two weeks since I got back, and I still haven't started packing properly. At least I have arranged a place to live for when I leave here, even if it is only a temporary basis, it is my own space, and it will be so much easier to look for somewhere else when I am local. I may have no belongings to keep there, but it will be mine!

Things with T are good, though the boat hasn't been rocked much yet. We will still need to go through a big list of what we had jointly and work out what he is keeping and what I will be taking with me. Still need to work out what exactly is happening about the house, too. It is hard for me to even think about, as I tend to just shut down under that sort of stress, but it is going to have to be done at some point.

Hard to believe how close we are to Christmas. I have done nothing about presents or cards at all this year, and feel totally un-festive. My relatives and close friends are well used to not getting presents until a month or so after most dates, though, since I am rather disorganised. So I guess there is nothing new there really.

I have been talking to Nice Guy about things in the far future, at least on a theoretical level, about how things might work between us after we have both left the Goldfish Bowl . It does bring up a lot of mixed feelings. My gut feeling is that there is real potential there, but I have lost so much confidence in my own judgement lately that I can't trust that, and the word 'rebound' echoes in the back of my mind when I consider it. Add to that the fact that he is moving to precisely the town I was so desperate to get away from, and B and my family are still going to be there, it all starts to look so complicated.
It is a long way off though, and I am well aware of how much things can change in even a week, let alone my year of being single.
I have never been very patient, but I think this might be one thing I have no choice but to wait and see about.
For the moment, we are making the most of the time we have left as neighbours here in the Goldfish Bowl, and there is still a great deal of tea, bacon and orgasmic bliss, whatever the future might hold.

Time, the great healer?

In which there is rampantness, wistfulness and a complete failure to get anything useful done.

Well, it has been a week since I got back to the Goldfish Bowl, and I am still no farther with packing to leave, but more sure that I am going.
I have spent a lot of time with Nice Guy, roughly on a daily basis, and stayed over a couple of times. He continues to surprise me with sheer enthusiasm, experimentation, and a straightforwardness that I find hilarious at times, but very refreshing. The last week has involved trying out a couple of things that I have been dying to for ages, and at least one that I hadn't thought I ever would.
I'd love things to carry on just as they are, which actually makes me realise I really need to keep my promise to myself and be single for a good length of time, or risk ruining something lovely by constantly wondering if I should have.

I have seen less of T, even though we are still living in the same house, as he tends by choice to leave for work long before I get up, work fairly late, and go to bed very early, so he doesn't socialise that much. We have spent some time together though, and shared a bed on Sunday for the first time in a while, which was comforting. We did find ourselves going over those sore old topics again in the morning, because of talking about how to divide up the house, but held off from it becoming a huge blow-up, and had makeup sex afterwards. NG noted the scratches down my back later on.
There was snuggling on the sofa last night, as well, whilst watching Star Trek, and we talked about my coming back to visit later in the year.
I am slowly accepting that we were not really compatible in the first place, and I think so is he - that we were wanting very different things from the relationship, and both trying to push each other to fit in moulds that weren't suited. The letting go is hard, but I think it makes it easier for us to be friends - finally accepting each other for what we really are, and not so much ending, but finding a different way to be in each other's lives. I love T enough to want him to be happy, and I will support him in finding that without me, if I can.

Nice Guy is still struggling with the idea of being the 'Other Man', despite all reassurances from me, and from T (not helped by his not having been sober enough to remember T's). Hopefully things will simply carry on going smoothly, and that will wear off. This is my life, though, and unexpected complications seem to be around every corner lately, so I can only cross my fingers, rather than give any absolute assurances that nothing will go wrong.

At any rate, between the pair of them there is a whole lot of emotional stuff going on, which I realise I am not going to get past if I stay in the same area, so however much I might hate the idea at the moment, I will have to take the leap of faith and go. I have at least made some little steps towards a place to live when I leave here, so that is a positive thing.

We all went to a big social event on Friday, which was lovely, but made me feel a bit low, just thinking how I'm going to miss things. I nearly cried when one of the ladies there came up to me and said she had heard I was leaving, and that she thought the place needed people like me to liven things up. After all the issues I have had with being myself here, it just really hit me. Irony, sweet irony.
Still, it made me rethink my plan for leaving without any sort of comment - I guess I will have some sort of leaving party after all. Just need to work out what to tell people about exactly why I am leaving.

Christmas could be very odd, as well. T and I are going to spend Christmas Day, and the couple of days either side, away with a group of people which includes Nice Guy and an ex-girlfriend of his and a few local friends who officially have no idea what is going on between the three of us (though whether they will have guessed is another question). It could be either very pleasant, or absolute torture depending on how things work out. No doubt it will be more fun than spending the season with my family though, either way!

God, it took me almost all day to write this. I am so distracted lately, I can hardly get anything done. Hopefully the next week will be more productive.

Gosh

Um, yes.

Gosh.

That is all.

Back in the Goldfish Bowl

So I am back, for better or worse, for six weeks. Time to pack up my things, sort out my life, and try to work out where I go next.

Nice Guy came to pick me up, and it was very lovely. He brought a picnic of sushi, wine and tea, and parked the car along the route at a lookout point with a gorgeous view of the sea. We ate, and drank, and kissed and watched the sun go down. It was all rather beautiful.
I find myself desperately resisting using words like 'romantic' where NG is concerned, we are both rather wary of relationship type things, at the moment, and I think rightly so, but I think that's the word that best fits, really. It is so sweet to be treated, every now and then (that does make twice in two days, thanks to Duchess, as well, but otherwise still a rare event!) . Makes me glad I brought him back a little something from my visit, too.
Of course, what went on after dinner might not fit in most people's category of romance, just damn good fun, so that probably balances things out!

Caught up with T later on, had hugs and I nearly burst into tears, and wasn't sure why. Then he helped me get my new laptop set up, and then I messed up the evening by being tired and emotional and prodding him into going over old ground, which really didn't help things. At least there were hugs.

Have a breakfast date with NG tomorrow, looking forward to that. Then I have to get back to reality and work out what I am going to do in the next six weeks. Much work to do, things to chase up, and a lot of junk to throw out ready for my new life. Oh, and some work on what exactly this 'new life' is going to be, and where might be useful as well.

It will be a strange few weeks.

Two weeks away

Got the Dido song 'Sand in my shoes' playing in my head as I type. Two weeks away, and it really does feel like the whole world should have changed, but I'm going back to - I'm not even sure quite what.

I am both excited and nervous to be going back for the Goldfish Bowl - it's only for six weeks, while I pack up my things, look for jobs and flats online, and avoid seeing any relatives over the Christmas period (I will be wearing my 'bah humbug' hat, no doubt), but then... it's only for six weeks - eek!

Six weeks, and then I have to start a whole new life again for the second time in only a few months. Six weeks to my being free and single, and standing on my own two feet, and six weeks until I am saying goodbye to both T and to Nice Guy again, and for a much longer time.
That last gives me some very mixed feelings.

While I've been away, I have been in daily text, phone or email contact with NG, sometimes all of the above, and our discussions have been quite... interesting, to say the least. I just don't know how things will actually pan out when I am back there in person, as we are still supposed to be rather secretive about things, I think, because of the peculiar situation. I would like to spend a lot of time together (roughly, all of it), and try out many of the things that have been mentioned, but the practicality of it is something I don't know about. I guess that is something to work out when I get there, though, and NG knows how things work out there better than I do, so I will see what he thinks about things.

It will all be so odd - living with one man, seeing another, and having promised that I will keep a low profile for the next few weeks, effectively monogamous, even though I am technically single. Christmas could be a very strange time indeed, this year.

On the positive side of things, the existence of places like Coffee, Cake and Kink makes me feel better about leaving the Goldfish Bowl - all of the places I am looking to live and work are within relatively easy reach of London via public transport, so I could pop in for visits on weekends, at least. Very different to where I have been for the last few months. The people we got talking to on Saturday were fascinating, and for the first time in a very long while I had the feeling 'here is a place I belong'.

A and I arrived there at around five, intending to stop for a coffee and then head back to his for food. We got chatting to other customers, and ended up staying until after the place officially closed at 11pm. The people we were chatting to included a 'professional victim', a reluctant domme, two founder members of a university fetish society, and a bisexual/polyamorous rights activist (who is taking a break to study physics - my geek detector almost exploded at that point, I must confess!).
**edit*-oops, got that the wrong way around, our activist is already qualified in physics, and now studying psychotherapy, silly me!*

I left the place on an absolute high, with a pocketful of email addresses and a lot of fascinating new ideas, having been talking non-stop for many hours about an impressive range of topics, from literature, film, Broadway shows and kids cartoons to the intricacies of electro-play, the correct use of a bull-whip, and whether or not there is a real need for safe-words in BDSM, to well, all sorts of fascinating things. We were still nattering when we left, and could probably have gone on for many more hours even after we had to split off in different directions at the tube station.

It was a good few more hours until sleep, A and I stopped for food on the way back to his house, and had finished eating and watched most of a film before A decided to play - and even after all that time I was still in the same near-orgasmic state I had been in since the conversation turned intellectual. By the time we finally slept I was on a high of a sort I had not achieved in many, many years. Just a shame we aren't really suited as a couple - the man doesn't even own a kettle!

When I move back, I will be taking all my friends to CCK, or at least all of the open-minded ones, anyway. Actually, I think I will take all of them - the rest clearly need a bit of a shock!

I have already had emails from two of the people I met there, and have just sent off a message myself to a third. Hoping there will be many positive consequences of that wonderful evening yet to come.


Some (very) random quotes:

"Stop throwing dildos at me! "

"Does it count if you're not conscious?"

"We used to call her Snow White and the Seven Dorks"

"... gonads felt up by anyone."
"What?"
"We were talking about the Pope."

"The lady who owns the gallery was my Grandmother's bisexual lover"

"It's basically a small, portable Tesla coil..."

"I realised there was no hope for me when I found myself comparing monogamy with Windows"

"Please do not lick the books"

I am in love!

With this place - www.coffeecakeandkink.co.uk - the best coffee shop I have ever been to.

Many hours of fascinating discussion with interesting people. Not to mention excellent tea and coffee (I was there long enough to sample both) and very tasty cakes. Best evening I have had in a long time. Will go into more detail later, just had to share!