(Cole) 2/9/14:

Good day (or night) to all!  I must apologize.  I know it has been over two months since I have written a post, and for that, I am truly sorry.  Sometimes the stars just don’t line up.  Also, sometimes I just can’t seem to wrap my head around what I want to say, and other times I have too much to say and it overwhelms me.  There is, however, no excuse for it, and from now on I will try to be more diligent, especially because an outage is upon us and Marge will have practically zero time to keep up on her always entertaining and mostly on-time posts.  So, enough groveling, let me just get right back into it! 

I learned a new term the other day.  I just love learning new things, don’t you?  The term is “philophobia” and it is described by wikipedia as the fear of being in or falling in love.  I think I have it…

I don’t know how you people deal with this emotion called love on a daily basis without going completely insane.  It’s exhausting to care so much about another human being!  The thing that I can’t quite seem to grasp, is why is it only driving me crazy now that the Rapist and I are together and out of the closet, but before, when everything was so ambiguous and secret, that though it was driving me crazy that he wouldn’t submit to my terms, I really never questioned his love for me.  It’s completely irrational, and my anxiety is off the charts!  I love him so much that I feel emotionally out of control, and I do not enjoy feeling out of control.

I wouldn’t be so bold as to say I have never been in love before.  I’m not enough of an expert on the subject to say whether I have or not.  The thing I can say for certain is that I most certainly have never been in love to this extreme extent, and it’s making me act like a crazy person.

  For one, when in relationships with “the others” that I may or may not have loved, I wore the pants in the relationship, held the cards, was the boss, however you want to say it.  Not all of my relationships, but my most serious ones. 

I was the one who would say “jump”.  I’m not saying it’s the other way around now, or even that we don’t hold similar cards.  Things are just different.  The playing field has changed entirely, and I’m trying desperately to gain my footing, to figure out where, exactly, I stand. 

He’s smart, the Rapist.  Smart enough to have been listening from the beginning.  Smart enough to remember what I said I wanted, and smart enough to understand that what I said was the truth and if he didn’t play by my rules I would no longer want him.  Interesting.  So then, one would think that I was the one holding cards.  Yes, one would think, but it doesn’t always feel that way to me.  He gives me everything I want and need, everything I asked for, he does everything I instructed him to do, but now all of the sudden, it isn’t enough. 

No, that’s not true. 

It is enough, but I want it to not be enough for him.  I want him to want more.  But he is too clever to make that mistake.  He knows damn well that if he gives me too much, if he’s too good to me, that I will lose respect for him and, “no longer be attracted to him and therefore, no longer want to fuck him”.  I told him this once, close to two years ago, and he never forgot it.  I will never get used to him going out and getting me a paper in the morning, because he won’t do it often enough for me to take it for granted, which I simultaneously love and hate.  I love that he is kind and caring enough to get me a morning New York Times, because he knows how much such a simple little gesture means to me.  At the same time, more often than not, he will tell me to fuck off and get it myself, because he knows my biggest relationship fear is taking the other person for granted.  Once people start taking the other person for granted, the entire relationship begins to unravel. 

Every time he offers to get me a paper, it’s a treat, a wonderful surprise, and I’m terribly grateful and appreciative.  He gives me just enough.  No more.  No less.  Like I said, he’s clever, or perhaps maybe just obedient.  I can’t put my finger on it, and I’m slowly turning into a lunatic because of the ambiguity, which makes my heart pound with happiness, fear, and excitement.   

As crazy as this relationship is making me, I have to say I prefer the unrest I get from being with the Rapist than the terrible monotony I felt in my marriage.  I guess a part of me likes the tumult.  At least it makes me feel.  I had grown used to being numb all the time, in my marriage, at least.  But numbness is easy to control.  Intense feelings are not. 

It’s difficult to describe the way I feel when I get home from being with him, how I feel even driving home after a day or night with him.  Everything just feels different, enhanced, and as I said, sort of out of control.  My body feels hot and tingly all over.  Colors are more vivid, song lyrics have more meaning.  Everything is the same, but intensified, magnified, and I feel totally out of it and spacey.  It’s sort of like being on LSD.  Not all the time.  The feeling is not perpetual.  It comes and goes, but I feel it most intensely the few hours following time spent with the Rapist.  And then not long after, like the proverbial moth to the flame, I find myself wanting another dose of the “drug”.  Il est ma came…  http://youtu.be/2iM_VyeFHoI

In a way, I’m glad that he continually challenges me, keeps me guessing, wanting, fretting, and wondering what will happen next.  Before he made his decision to come out of the closet, a part of me was nervous as to what would happen should he finally agree to.  The devious side of me, the side that is always looking for a challenge to take on, wondered if once I finally got my way the “game” would be over and he would no longer intrigue me.  I wondered if once I “had” him, I would still want him…             

Though the Rapist puts up a very good front, there are a few very obvious chinks in his otherwise impenetrable armor.  The most obvious is his insane jealousy.  He doesn’t like when I go out with friends.  He tolerates it, of course.  I think he knows me well enough to know that the only place he can boss me around is the bedroom.  There are certain shirts he says he would rather I not wear when he is not with me (I’m a fan of letting the girls hang out without support/restraint, depending on the situation).  I know he knows that such silly suggestions are futile, but I believe he sincerely would like for me to consider his requests.  When I recently told him that I joined a gym and that I needed to get some clothes to do yoga in he said I was to wear baggy sweatpants and an oversized t-shirt.  I smile and laugh, as we both know that is not going to happen.  I do think it’s kind of cute though, but only because it is merely a suggestion and not a serious command.  He knows better than to try and command me to do something… unless we are both naked…   

 Also, the other day, he asked me if I would ever cheat on him. 

     Well, I have certainly made a lot of mistakes in my life, as I know you have too, and there might exist some reason for him to be skeptical of my fidelity and faithfulness toward him, but I assured him what happened in the past was to stay in the past and that I have no desire to repeat the mistakes of my past.  I assured him that, as I was not legally bound to him in any way, if I were no longer satisfied with him, I would just leave him and seek my pleasures elsewhere.  I am not obligated to love him, I simply choose to.  He doesn’t make me feel trapped, and if he does I can just dump him.  Shit, I don’t even have much at his house!  Mostly just kitchen supplies, so it would not be difficult to grab a few things and bounce.  As I tried to reiterate this to him, it became apparent that this was both a comforting and disturbing statement, because while it stated that I would have no reason to stay if I was no longer happy, it also stated how free I was and how little control he had over me.  He likes his liberty, and the fact that I don’t smother him, as do I, but it also makes him uneasy.  He wants to be free himself but to control me.  I want the same thing, yet I know if I could control him, I would no longer want him.  It keeps me in a perpetual state of malaise, but also excitement.  Perhaps I have finally met a worthy adversary.  One reason that leads me to believe this is true, is that, after close to two years, he continues to intrigue me, so much so, that even though a “blast from my past” has recently contacted me and has been dangling himself in front of me, I haven’t taken a bite. 

     This is a man whom, ten years ago, I wanted so bad, and he wanted me as well.  Instead of hooking up, however, I left and went to school in southern France, and I wanted him still when I returned, a year later, but I ended up with his best friend instead, my now ex-husband, Martychist, and this other man and Martychist stopped speaking just before Martychist and I got married, and that was the end of that. 

     Anyway, this man, we’ll call him the Exhibitionist, for whatever reason he just recently contacted me on Facebook, to see what I was up to after almost ten years.  I was cold and standoffish right off the bat, but he softened me after a while, and we began casually conversing. 

Let me just say, he looked GOOD!  The years have treated him very well, and I believe he looked even better now than he did ten years ago.  His thirty-five years have been very agreeable.  He has numerous tats, still has the same ruggedly “pretty” face, and you can tell that he works out because his body is incredible!  Long story short, though I didn’t exactly want to be speaking with him, it was painfully difficult to ignore him.  Every time a message from him popped up in my facebook inbox I couldn’t resist responding, though a part of me knew better.  I later told Marge what was going on, expressing that I felt slightly guilty about it, and she assured me it was nothing more than harmless flirtation.  Though in part she was right and it was nothing more than flirtation, the idea that it was harmless didn’t feel exactly accurate to me.  I felt that I was messing with something that should probably stay in the past.  And I was right.  It didn’t take long for him to proposition me. 

     I won’t lie and say I wasn’t tempted.  Here was someone I had desired for a really long time.  Someone who understood that I was in a relationship and was basically offering me what would most likely be epic, no strings attached sex that no one would ever need to know about, and on top of it all, he lives in the bay area, so I wouldn’t even have to worry about bumping into him and having any awkwardness.  It may not have been cheating, only just conversing with him, but it’s a slippery slope, and honestly, one I’d rather avoid at this point.  If I really am in love with the Rapist, why would I want to risk losing him?  So that I can be safe and emotion free again, like I was with my ex-husband?  So I can avoid the inevitable ups and downs and the possibility of getting hurt?        

     Yes, a part of that does sound very enticing.  I could continue to live my life that way if I so choose.  Live my life the way I did when I was married.  Put my emotions on the back burner, or even better, the freezer. 

So, as out of control as I felt, driving home from yet another epic “adult sleepover” chez Rapist, hoping a deer wouldn’t jump out in front of me because my brain was too post-sex-retarded to react in time, I found my brain and heart at violent odds with each other.  My brain knows that allowing myself to love him is emotional suicide, but my heart doesn’t care.  All my heart wants is another hit, just minutes after my last hit, and with his scent still lingering on my skin, enough to keep him constantly in my thoughts, but not enough to keep me satisfied with nothing more than the faint memories of the time we just spent together.  So then why even bother with love, when I can have emotion free sex and not have to worry, stress, or fret about my emotional well being when I can choose to go back to my old ways of only caring about the physical?  Well, because I am in love, and unfortunately for me, love does not listen to reason… 

    

     I know that it probably seems like the sex most often outweighs a lot of other very important aspects in my relationships.  And while I wouldn’t go so far as to say that it outweighs all of them, I will say that sex is a very important factor.  It is, in large part, what lead to the demise of my marriage.  My ex-husband was incapable of providing me with what I needed sexually, though I would also willingly admit that I was equally unable to give him what he needed as well.  But after all, how can you “make love” with someone you are no longer in love with, and probably never were in the first place?  And in his defense, how can you fantasy rape the virtuous, angelic wife that you would one day hope to be the mother of your children?  I mean, I’m not saying that I want to get tied to the bed with a ball gag in my mouth every night!  I’m just saying that variety is key to any lasting romantic relationship, and not only does the Rapist have no problem handling the entire spectrum of the sexual experience, he has even shown me that I can indeed “make love”, slowly, passionately, intimately, and still get off.  Something I have never before experienced…

     So back to the sex, and the temptations that accompany an incredibly sexy, enticing, no strings attached proposition, one would think that the question at hand would be: After ten years of sexual tension, would the Exhibitionist and I experience fireworks once our bodies finally collided?

     The answer is: Of course, you idiot!  No doubt!  But if I already have fireworks, why go searching for more?   

     The question of whether or not I would enjoy him needn’t even be asked.  Someone who, two years ago I would have been panting for like a dog is offering himself to me on a silver platter, and I wouldn’t poke him with a stick.  It didn’t take too long for me to realize that I needed to sever ties.  I may not be the most brilliant person, but I’m quick enough to realize that if I can’t be trusted in the throes of temptation, I should eliminate the temptation altogether.  And I have done so.  I have literally told the Exhibitionist to “fuck off”, and he has done so.  A part of me wishes I could tell the Rapist.  So that he would be proud of me.  So that he could trust me.  So that he could perhaps finally grasp how much I truly love him.  But he wouldn’t get it.  He wouldn’t appreciate my restraint and honesty.  He would only get jealous and angry.  I just wish there was some way I could prove how devoted I truly am to him, because all he ever seems to do is doubt me, and doubt can go both ways, and doubt is incredibly infectious…