Glitter. Real Stories About Sexual Desire From Real Women (16 page)

Sex as a Fancy Tool

Melinda

I'm a twenty-something, working-class wage slave who pulls overnight shifts so I can be a stay at home mom during the day. Married for four years to a wonderful man who's just as fucked up as I am, only about different things. Mother to one who had the tenacity to make it and three that didn't.

My early life was one long lesson in not trusting men. I’m the daughter of a single mother who quit dating once she found out I was on the way. I sat through the beatings from my grandfather and watched him do the same to my cousins. Watched as my uncles beat my aunts and cousins. Watched as my friends’ dads beat them. I was molested in day care for a year. I used to spend the night at my best friend’s house solely because her dad didn’t have the guts to molest her or her sisters as long as I was there. That same friend and I later narrowly escaped an attempt at gang rape and murder. And the only reason I, unlike many of my friends, didn’t barter my body to the neighborhood pedophile was because I knew I’d never be able to come up with a good lie to tell my mom about where I got the Nintendo he was going to give me for services rendered.

All that was before my tenth birthday. When I hit puberty shortly thereafter, I was appalled at the strange new feelings. I wanted to be around boys but I was scared shitless of them. I joined a fundamentalist Christian church because they taught that being gay was a choice. I thought maybe I could take their ‘gay cure’, reverse it, and live happily as a lesbian. Which of course didn’t work. Nine years of trying desperately to be attracted to women only gave me a deep appreciation for breasts. And even then I usually like my own better. I realized that unless I wanted to be alone for the rest of my life, something had to change. Therapy, and lots of it, helped me get over my intense fear of men. One of my assignments from my therapist was to try to make male friends. That was how I met my husband four years ago. We’ve only ever been with each other, and we’ve had lots of sex. We were, respectively, twenty-two- and twenty-three-year-old-virgins. We had a lot of catching up to do!

But I have to say that I still don’t really ‘get’ sex. Sure, I enjoy it once we’re doing it. I even have great orgasms. But it’s always a means to an end for me. I’m emotionally detached from the entire experience, and more than once I’ve caught myself dissociating mid-coitus. I’ve never wanted just to have sex. If we’re having sex, I have an ulterior motive. That might be trying to conceive. It might be a bribe or hubby’s reward for a job well done. Hell, it might even be just to get him to stop whining about why we haven’t had sex in a while. I’m ashamed to admit this. I really, really wish I could just get over it already. But I have no idea where to begin, especially since asking for help would mean admitting to my husband that I’ve never been into it. I want to want it. I just can’t seem to figure out how.

P.S.

It's been a year since I originally wrote the above, and I'm a bit ashamed to admit that nothing has changed. It doesn't help that battling infertility made me think of sex as even more of a chore than ever.
 The years of trying to conceive drilled into me a mus
t-
ge
t-
pregnant mindset. Two years after finally getting a sticky pregnancy, I still find myself absentmindedly noting the state of my cervical mucus. Still checking out sales on Robitussin, prenatal vitamins, Vitex, and ovulation and pregnancy tests. Still noting every tiny twinge and every spot of blood, and wondering if it's implantation.

But after three miscarriages, life-threatening pregnancy complications with the one that did stick, four days of hellish induced labor, both of us nearly dying during the c-section, then the NICU stay…I cannot do pregnancy again. Not ever. This second-rate baby factory is closed! But because in my fucked-up head, sex = TTC (trying to conceive), I'm scared of it for a whole new reason. And at any rate, having a co-sleeping toddler isn't exactly conducive to working on your sex life. I am still holding out hope that sometime in the future, I'll get the chance to work out my issues. I think I owe it to myself to see how awesome sex can be when you truly want it.

Feminist and Submissive?

Picky Britches

Mom. Feminist. Submissive.

I’m a free-thinking, strong-willed, bra-burning feminist. And I’m a bottom in the bedroom. I like to be owned. Stand me in the corner and scold me, please. Excuse me? I know. I get it! How am I furthering the cause for women when I’m bending over and asking to be whipped by a man? Well, here’s the thing.
I
to
p
from the bottom. Aren’t I clever? You see, being sexually submissive is a choice. It takes great sense of self, enormous trust in my partners, and massive amounts of communication. It is something I want, so I go forth in getting it in a safe manner.

I want to dig a little deeper, and touch on something that I know many people worry about, because I’ve worried about it myself. Where is the line between being a sub and being a doormat? My partner leaves welts on my ass with his belt, bruises on my thighs where his fingers hold me still. Is this abuse? Not to me. And I know that because I was formerly abused. I was bullied, belittled and raped. Not my choice. Not my fault.

I have found, in my current, safe relationship, that our sexual play has been just the therapy I needed to find myself, to regain my power, and to actuall
y
enjo
y
sex again. Logic may say to regain control, it would be therapeutic for me to top a man, to take him in the ass with a strap-on, smack him around, make him my bitch. And yes, for some, that is something they can do in the bedroom,
or
dungeon
,
that heals them. But for me, with a naturally submissive nature, topping just doesn’t feel good.

Just because I’m a rape survivor, just because I was degraded by a former partner, these things do not get to move me out of my natural inclination to be submissive. Being submissive didn’t cause those things to happen. They happened because I gave my power to the wrong person and it was abused.

Nothing centers me or brings me more sexual pleasure, than placing myself in my husband’s strong hands. We have clear parameters. We communicate constantly. He knows my triggers, and is keenly aware of even the smallest display of body language that says ‘danger’. We have a safe word. We discuss our play before it happens. My safety is always at the center.

Being lovingly stroked and cuddled doesn’t bring me sexual pleasure. I require intense stimulation and often pain in order to orgasm completely. I love being told what to do and letting go of all my worries and mental lists. I love the headspace where I leave the stress behind and am calmed by being controlled by someone who loves me. Is there something wrong with me? Has abuse molded me into some sort of Stockholm syndrome victim? I used to think so. I used to be so ashamed of what brings me pleasure. Luckily, I’ve fought through the self-loathing. Life is too short to chastise ourselves, to feel guilty over pleasure. I am who I am: a strong woman, finding pleasure and power from the bottom.

Waking Up

Nina Potts

Nina Potts is writer from Phoenix, Arizona. She lives there with her partner Dianne and their fur children. She writes stories of her childhood, travels, horror, and erotica. This is her first formally published work.
 You can learn more about Nina at NinaPotts.com.

I had stopped drinking beer for breakfast. I was still hurting myself, still cutting my arms with my shaving razor once a week. The Ikea bed in our basement suite apartment was always cold, metaphorically and literally. I had become used to the cold, it is one of those things Canada is known for. I had adapted to the weather, though I missed home. I never thought I could miss an Arizona summer. Suddenly I was craving blazing heat on my skin, reminding me of easier times, of an easier life. I wanted to lay on a hot concrete patio as my skin turned pink, to feel the sweat in the small of my back and along my hairline. I wanted that relief of walking into a building and feeling the air conditioner roaring in my face. I really just wanted to feel something other than misery.

Sitting at my work cubicle, feeling exhausted and still slightly drunk from the night before, the headset I was wearing was crackling. I began the irritating task of following cables to electronic bits, trying to find something that would make the headset normal again. Finding nothing, I ducked under my desk. The satin lining of my wool skirt was cool, and barely covered my knees of the scratchy flat carpet. I fiddled with wires and tried to be quiet, even possibly coordinated enough not to bang my head on my desk as I finally reset the power to my computer and phone. It didn't occur to me that I might look strange, on all fours under my desk. As I backed out and pulled myself up, I noticed I was being watched by someone. She looked ridiculous: an orange baseball cap, a lumpy knit sweater with various shades of orange, green and brown striping vertically. Her nose was big, with a slight crook, big lips too. She was staring at me, blatantly, even smiling. It wasn't a friendly smile, more an expression that did not mask what she thought of me in that position. I enjoyed it. It wasn't that I shouldn't enjoy it, it was that I didn't think I could. I felt too dead inside, too constricted trying to hold all of my emotions in check to be presentable to the world.

Months before that day, I discovered that my long-time girlfriend had been cheating on me. I knew. I had known but pushed it away, wanting to ignore it, wanting to take her for her word that she would never. She loved me more because I wasn't her type, even when she cheated on me with girls who were ‘her type.’ I wanted to be the strong woman who left. I deceived myself, lying to the world that we would work it out. That it was a mistake. I was so caught up in believing the lies I had been fed, that even with proof otherwise I wouldn't give up the perfect life I had created in my mind.

Gita was a rock. No matter how much I tried to lie, she broke in. Just that look on her face, staring at me in some smug, amused, slightly sexual way, put the first small crack in my mental image of my life. I didn't like her. She was rude, brash, and loud. When she walked she stomped, big combat boots or tennis shoes, I could hear her coming down the hallway at work. She was short, too short. And bald. And she smoked. And she stared at me every day like she was having sex with me while I was working. I talked to her at work, and even gave her my phone number. She wanted to have sex with me, and let me know it. I liked it, feeling desired, feeling like I was someone worthy of having. She wanted to take me out for coffee, and didn't care that I had a girlfriend.

I said yes to coffee. I told her up front that I was not going to have sex with her. I wasn't interested. It was just coffee, and a walk to the beach. In my head I reminded myself that I wasn't sleeping with her. She wasn't attractive enough, but there was something. Her swagger, the way she guided me with her hand at my lower back when we walked downhill. She walked on the street side, old fashioned chivalry with a booming laugh. She held nothing back, and did not care what anyone thought, letting every thought out. I liked the flirting and the attention more and more. I liked the look on her face when I told her I was kinky, that I wrote erotica, and I wanted to be spanked. We were at the beach so long. It got dark, and even colder. I let her kiss me, and that submissive part of me began waking up, sinking down to let her take over. I let her take me into her small apartment, I let her spank me.

Every moment after that blurs into days and weeks of tawdry, passionate, kinky sex that trashy romance novels are made of. I didn't run away from my girlfriend to her, and she didn't ask me to. I didn't hide what I was doing either. I practically paraded her in front of my girlfriend, as proof that I was good enough for someone. A part of me felt justified. The rest was a chaos of resolution, disgust at my weakness in staying with someone who lied so much, self-awareness, and the sexual gratification I had craved all along but never finding someone who could be what I needed.

I remember the exact moment I decided I couldn't stay with Terri anymore. I was riding the bus home from work, looking at the buildings and shops. Crowds of people together. I felt so calm. I knew that I couldn't stay with Terri anymore. I also knew it was time to go home.

I moved out of our apartment, I took my dog, and accepted Gita's offer to stay with her for the month until I moved back to Arizona. That single month was the best time I lived in Vancouver. I became attracted to those things about her before that turned me off. I liked her baldness, and the way she stomped when she walked. I liked that she was ten years older than me. She was Lebanese, and I liked hearing her slight accent suddenly start when she talked to her mother on the phone. She quit smoking even before our first date because I didn't like it, and I didn't know. I loved how butch she was, and that she was proud of it too. I loved her rough hands. I didn't want gentleness, secrets, or lies. There was no way to lie to her, she saw through it, she saw when I was lying to myself. Mostly, she saw me in a sexual way. I spent that month talking, eating, and shedding years of repressed sexual energy.

Gita and I had both been involved in BDSM before, but never in a relationship, and our conversations were completely honest. Neither of us were formally trained, which did cause some issues. We didn't know about aftercare, but our scenes always led to sex which led to resting together after, so in our own way we did have aftercare. We found our way. My every fantasy was open to her. We flowed in and out of our Daddy/girl roles when together, whether in the bedroom, out walking, or having dinner. Everything felt natural and easy, calming part of the chaos I was trying to tame.

We role played my ultimate fantasy at the time, which involved myself as a teenage girl, with a teacher who convinced me to give him my virginity. Just acting it out I could barely follow the scene. I wanted so much to be touched and taken right away. She kept me in my place until exactly when she wanted me, stripping me down, taking advantage of me and responding just as I had played the scene in my mind a million times.

When slightly alone she could hardly keep her hands off me. I have an exhibitionist streak, and working in the same office made that dangerous. I loved sneaking to the bathroom, her hand over my mouth to keep me quiet, with our boss in the next stall over. I wore skirts more often. I laid on her couch reading Shakespeare naked, teasing her when she was busy with paperwork and bills.

She quickly learned that I had multiple girl sides, one a non-sexual little girl who loved to play and color, and another, bratty sexual teenager. We both found out that I would misbehave to be punished, which made her stop punishing me. I soon wanted to do nothing more than make her happy all the time, and leaving Vancouver became harder.

I had wanted to have a fun fling and go home to heal. I didn't expect to develop feelings that might even be love. I didn't think I could love someone so quickly, when I was still so broken inside. I extended my stay a few more weeks, saying that I wasn't ready to see my family after a failed relationship. I surprised her with a tiny Charlie-Brown-type Christmas tree. We got each other gifts, a watch for her that I knew she would love, and a digital camera for me. It wasn't what I had originally wanted, but it was brilliant. I had so many pictures to take home with me, of her, my friends, and all of my favorite places in Vancouver. When I got home I could send her pictures of Arizona, my friends, and teasing pictures of myself in various outfits or positions. She wanted me to come back, to get married so I could stay. We had an argument that night. We both had quick and loud tempers, and her studio apartment filled with shouts about my changing my name if we got married. It was a part of me I couldn't give up, I couldn't change my name. It was me, it was where I came from, I couldn't give that away. We made up, but it stayed with me, a worry in the back of my mind.

After New Year’s I came back to Arizona. It was harder than I thought to leave. Part of me wanted to stay, but the parts that were still broken were calling me home.

I stayed with my best friend until I found a job and apartment. Gita and I had decided to have an open relationship. Neither of us were jealous sorts of people, and we both understood that having sex with someone else did not have to have a relationship attached to it. I had fun, my best friend was single, I liked going out and hitting on girls with her. Gita liked hearing of my exploits, the dirty things I let others do to me. No matter how anyone touched me, I was still her girl, and she was still my Daddy.

We were so drawn to each other, and the sexual attraction so deep that I was only home three weeks before she surprised me with a plane ticket to visit her. I went back to Vancouver for two weeks. We both had bought some books on BDSM and were eager to use our new expertise.

She was still working early mornings when we rented movies one night. For my teenage girl side she go
t
The Princess Diaries
2
. She needed a nap, and had no desire to watch the movie. I couldn't help giggling during the movie, unintentionally waking her. She instructed me to be quiet, or she would duct tape my mouth, which she knew I didn't like the smell of the tape. I was so good, so quiet. When the movie was over I carefully and silently went to turn it off. She woke up, and before I could think about it a hushed “hi” slipped out. I knew I was in trouble, even if it was an accident, my eyes wide I clamped my hand over my mouth. I don't remember what her movie was that we stayed up to watch, but I remember the smell of the tape on my mouth. I stayed quiet and still, trying not to fidget. Afterward she rewarded me, taking me from behind with her strap-on, letting me be as loud as I wanted.

We pretended to be tourists on her day off before I left, visiting Granville Island, and the Aquarium at Stanley Park. We made plans for me to return in a few months with some saved-up money, get married and work on changing my citizenship. We didn't talk about the name change issue. The day I left again, I was supposed to take the bus to the airport. She surprised me again, calling a taxi and riding with me, savoring every last moment we had.

I came home and started a job with an airline in their call center. I made more friends, including another Daddy/girl couple. Being around them made me feel safe and sane, when I knew so few people could understand Gita and I. There was still all of my baggage from my past relationship that surfaced every day. Somehow, in trying to put myself back together, to see if those pieces of me that broke were still me, I got lost. I had old feelings for my best friend, and I knew she had them for me. If I had been honest with myself, paid attention to how I felt inside, I would have known that it was a mistake. Gita was furious, but I dated my best friend anyways.

She called me a liar, and I was. I didn't know it, that I was lying to myself, and I had lied to her. I thought those feelings for my best friend were gone, when our relationship at college ended, it still left untied strings. I thought we could put them back together, even though I knew that she wasn't into BDSM and couldn't be that for me. She wanted to be that, but it wasn't in her. I ruined our friendship, breaking up with her only a few weeks later, feeling horrible about myself. I felt like I had taken advantage of the feelings she had for me, and my need to be with someone who wanted me that was not a whole country away.

I spent over a year trying to figure out what I needed. I made a mental checklist of things I wanted in a person. I learned how to take care of myself before anyone else. I lost my way a few more times. I had one night stands. While with Terri I had been a stripper for some time, financially supporting us. I went back to it, and although I was in a better mindset this time, it made me colder inside. Having to separate myself from who I was and who I needed to be at work. I found a new best friend, another femme. I had friends that were close, that I could confide in. That person that I was still becoming when I met Terri, and lost while trying to be what she wanted, suddenly was here. I was me, I knew what I liked and didn't like. I knew when I did something why I was doing it, and to self-reflect. The little girl part of me was lonely, and the adult part of me felt like I needed to talk to Gita again.

After a few phone calls we picked up where we left off. It was like we had never been separated. True to her nature, she surprised me again and came to visit just after Christmas. I loved showing her where I came from, the things I loved about Arizona. I loved waking up feeling safe and protected every day. She loved my new best friend, and being out with us made Gita feel proud with two sexy femmes by her side. I wasn't broken inside anymore, I was stronger.