Gentleman and I were discussing the subject of party clothes earlier today. I have a handful of legacy fetish items but mostly I can’t wear them right now. Maybe in a few hundred miles. We’ll see.

We were looking at various items of clothing and I kept pulling faces. It’s hard for me to imagine myself dressing in a way to encourage a lot of sexual attention at this point. It freaks me the fuck out. I’ve been dressing as unsexy as possible for a long time. My wardrobe is childishly fun more than it is sexy. I do have a handful of pieces because of hunting last year. See previous reference to maybe I’ll wear them again after a few hundred miles.

Very little of what I own makes me feel sexy. I like wearing split crotch bloomers under layers of skirts and knowing that I can have sex without bothering to get undressed. That’s fun for me. It’s a very specifically coded kind of sexy that most people won’t be able to read at any kind of distance. Mostly I just look very modest and conservative. I like to wear my hair long but braided up. I look like a religious conservative.

I now have less than two weeks until I am going to a party. I don’t have much on between now and then. I have time to think about clothing. I keep wistfully thinking that I want to feel sexy. I don’t know what that means though.

I can’t help that growing up I heard over and over “If you go out dressed like a street walker you’d better come home with money.” I believe if I dress in overtly sexually suggestive clothing I’d better expect to be harassed. I expect to have to be ready to fight if I go out wearing slutty clothing. Amusingly I would not be very tolerant of a man stepping in front of me to fight for me. I might knock over the earnest would be knight in my zest to get to whoever was fucking with me.

Dressing slutty is inviting fighting. It takes a very specific kind of mood before that feels sexy for me. I have to feel strong and DTF with pretty much everyone and anyone.

I don’t think I have that kind of boldness in me right now. I wish for it. I miss it. I don’t know that I will have that again.

What makes the me I am right now feel sexy? Mostly I feel desire in my body and clothes are fairly irrelevant and we simply rip them off. That’s been true for a long time. There has been no point in trying to appear sexy because it made absolutely no difference in any way shape or form. Gentleman is like Noah in this regard. They just don’t care that much about clothing or appearance. Which is great! It’s very convenient having relationships with people who are fine with me being the low maintenance bitch I am in terms of frippery and hygiene. I can (and do) dress up but mostly I wear a few basic outfits with high practical value and little to distinguish them.

I don’t feel sexy. I feel like I want to have sex. I feel like I have been absolutely blessed in this life with partners who are as antsy to have sex with me as I am with them. Hallelujah and thank Cheese.

I haven’t been in a relationship with someone who felt meh about having sex with me since I was 22. I feel good about the trajectory of sex in my life. The orgasm gap in my relationship is (apparently) more like a cricket score. This was a new idiomatic thought process for me. Now I know there are wickets (10) and runs (however many you get away with). Ah. Sure. I can get away with hundreds.

Pretty much all of that sex happened without me feeling particularly sexy. I felt horny. I feel an unholy amount of spontaneous sexual desire. Feeling desire is not the same thing as feeling sexy.

Years ago I was up at one of the house parties in Seattle and this woman walked through the room. Her hair was long and super dark black and it shimmered in waves. I thought, “she has actual fucking flowing raven locks”. Her hair seemed like the sexiest thing on the entire planet to me. I don’t think I have ever felt as sexy as her hair looked to me.

My hair is going grey and I can’t be arsed to do anything about it. Besides, my hair was always just a dark brown. My curls are neither completely proper spirals nor fun waves. I’m a tangled mess most of the time if my hair isn’t in a braid.

I don’t think the route to sexiness comes through my hair. I really miss the braiding that used to happen when I worked fair/faire. (Different weird reenactment shit. One was a Victorian Dickensian Christmas fair and there were a bunch of Renaissance faires. The dancing was so much fun.)

Dancing makes me feel sexy.

I feel deeply amused and powerful when I observe how intimidated people are by the bog witch shit I wear. I feel like “ha ha ha I am scaring you”. It’s silly. It’s also perversely sexual. I’m not wearing anything revealing in any way shape or form. This is desexualised clothing for the world. Yet I feel sexy in it.

I feel sexy when I feel like Mrs. Whatsit. I feel powerful when I feel like I am toying with someone’s perception of the world. Amusingly, I got a lot of this with Engineer. I’m glad that I am still talking to him. It feels weird to say it, but I feel like he treats me the way I treated my Shaman. He comes to me with ethical dilemmas and I force him to talk it through on his own. I have only questions, no answers. I don’t have to live with the results of any of his decisions so i should have no voice in what they are.

He treats me a lot like I treated Vicki. Well, sort of. Vicki kept her clothes on 100% of the time. I feel this weight over my shoulder. I have this responsibility to perform the behaviour I was antagonised into articulating as correct. I don’t have the right to tell other people what is right or wrong. I can only ask questions and decide how close I want to stand to them.

Vicki was sexy even when she frankly needed a shower and to change her dang clothes. I wish I could channel power the way she did. She lived so securely in her sadomasochism that there was never a doubt that she had power in a given scene. It didn’t matter if she was submitting or dominating. It didn’t matter if she was displaying masochism or sadism she had power. In that way I wish I could be more like her. I wish I felt entitled to embody my full power no matter what I am doing.

I don’t want to be exactly like any of my mentors though, not really. I don’t want what they lived. Not because they are/were wrong, but because my path is different. It’s not a repudiation. I like different things. We were always only going to be holding hands for a little while.

What makes me feel sexy?

The way Noah looked at me made me feel sexy. It had nothing to do with what I wore. It had to do with his perception of my soul. Noah looked at me as if I had all the terrifying power of a God. He believed that as much as I had the power to give love and life and nurturance I was even more capable of destroying and harming. He looked at me with awe.

It’s fun that Gentleman is currently working on how to send the right kind of signals for me to understand he is feeling interested in me. He’s getting way more grabby and assertive and verbally silly and it’s really great. I feel besotted. He is such a kind and wonderful man. I love that he puts himself out there in the world even when he doesn’t feel fully confident. He does it scared. His bravery and willingness to try new things make me feel really tender and loving towards him. I want to keep coaxing this bravery. Explore! Have fun! You only get one life. Get every morsel of joy out of it.

If I were a monogamous human being this would be the time when my brain would start to filter out other humans. It would alter my attraction pattern. However, I am not a monogamous person. My brain creates a big sturdy container that looks promising and like it has potential for a great deal of awesome over a long term. Then my brain looks a fraction of a degree to the left and sees vast amounts of self that is not in any kind of container and then there is some vertigo and oh holy shit balls no. No.

I don’t want to leave those parts of me in the dark. I miss them. I love them. I love them enough to not let go of them even though it would be deeply convenient for people who love me if I did. I love these pieces so much that I held on to them through over a decade of hypnosis and NLP work trying to force my brain into only desiring one man.

I’m not saying any of this as a criticism of Gentleman. The man sat very still and waited for me to complete a house chore before he left. He knew if he stood up to go I would get distracted and not finish the task. That shit is pretty magical. He made sure he kept me company so I could get a little bit more accomplished and head into the week with a lighter load. He is a super rad boyfriend and I’d like to keep him.

I’m really happy with this relationship. I feel pretty fucking seen in a lot of really deep and profound ways.

I also feel like the parts of me that fit inside this relationship represent a very small fraction of who I am. I feel guilty and ashamed of this knowledge. I wish that I had come factory standard instead of being so fucking extra.

I think the parts Gentleman puts into this relationship are a very small fraction of who he is, too. I am not trying to be self centred here. We are middle aged fuckers. We both have history and stories and complexity.

This is all tied up.

Throwing bait in the water is a complicated thing. I have inched my personality out in person here in the kink community while Noah was alive. Luckily most of the hyper local people don’t really read my writing (phew!) so they have gotten to know me in tiny pieces. In person I am a lot more reserved than you might expect. I wait to be approached. I ask a lot of questions and deflect questions I receive with non-answers or partial answers because my stories are all so complicated. Pull one tiny thread and who knows what fucking thing will fall on your lap. I endeavour to avoid trauma dumping so that means I have to be careful what stories I tell. I am genuinely afraid of being the reason someone else’s nervous system gets dysregulated so they can’t participate in fun.

I want to feel sexy. So much of feeling sexy is in being looked at and desired. I confess that even though it is great that this fella responds as if I am equally sexy in my comfy jammies and a bathrobe as I am when I dress up sometimes I want to feel like someone appreciated the effort. I write about the mixed feelings I had in relationships with fetishists. It was difficult being simply an object and not a person. I didn’t like the way I was appreciated more in latex and high heels. I find both fairly fucking uncomfortable. They are both challenging on a sensory level for me. But gosh I appreciated one lover I had very briefly who took like two hours to undress me every time. Sex took, like, four hours. It was amazing. Undressing was part of the show.

I think about wearing lots of layers for seducing Pretty Lady. My cunt will not be easily accessible. Oh holy shit no. My cunt will be the very last thing on the menu. It will be earned with thousands of words. I don’t need to take any clothes off at all to rub one out. I am a miracle of orgasming ability. There had to be some fucking benefit to all my weird health shit. Woo.

This party coming up on the east coast is uhm, not like a date with someone who already finds me thrilling. Let’s be clear that I assume that the most likely outcome is some awkward conversations that don’t really go anywhere and no play. I don’t know people well and I have very consciously held myself back for most of the years I’ve known them.

I don’t think I have it in me to strut in like I am hot shit and you should try hard to get me. I think that requires a level of security and being known that I currently lack.

The thing is, I haven’t earned regard here. I have not been in anyone’s life all that much. I don’t go to anything bigger than our Thursday munch every month. I know the two men who are the regulars at that munch very well. I’d be ok strutting in front of them because they would grin and tell me to have a good time. They wouldn’t act like it was for them. They would simply be my friends. Mostly I do not have the right to act like I am someone anyone should like. I have no idea how I am going to fit in with the social community in larger Scotland over time. I assume I will be disliked by a lot of people. There are already a couple of people who significantly dislike me and I’m ok with that. It feels inhibiting though.

How do I feel sexy walking into a room full of mostly strangers by myself when I don’t have any particular faith in this moment that I can be sure if any of them will like me in 10 years? I could strut into a Second Saturday party in the Bay without hesitation even though I don’t know most of the people. I don’t need to know everyone. I need the anchor people. I need my friends. I have not put in the time to have many friends over on the east coast. I’m not there for an event every year.

I have very particular metrics in my mind right now with regard to short/medium/long term goals. Yes, I am absolutely interested in Mx/Ms/Mr Right Now. Mostly I am looking for who is going to become a bigger part of my life. I don’t have a deep and broad network of friends yet. I haven’t put in the time. I haven’t shown up and been witnessed. I haven’t been the witness of other people’s stories. People will think I am hot shit based on whether or not they observe me to be. I don’t get to dictate that. I don’t get to act like me earning that off screen has any value whatsoever. Social capital is not transitive like that.

Frankly, I’m so out of practice at all of the skills of topping that I should not be trusted more than any other newbie. My muscle memory has gone to shit in the time I was married. Any amount of raising my arm was met with extreme hostility and force. I didn’t have to actually hit anyone. Any kind of threat was absolutely the same. No, hitting my friends in a consensual bdsm scene wasn’t permitted; if anything that was even more forbidden. Noah probably would have been more forgiving of me spanking the kids than he would of me spanking a friend. It would have seemed like a mistake, not a choice.

How do I feel sexy when I feel so insecure? I feel the lack of connection to the community here. I was not allowed to join in more than I did; I was allowed the Kids. What I got was somewhat grudging. Noah resented me wanting kinky friends because I want to flirt with them if they are old enough.

I am sad that one of the people I had hoped to hide behind will not be at the party. I haven’t made many friends on that coast yet but I count this person among them. We’ve talked a lot over the years. This is most unfortunate for me on an entirely selfish level. Such is life. I will go anyway. I have to start somewhere.

I am spending far too many brain cycles wondering what I want to wear. I went hunting as a slutty bog witch. It was really fun.

This is not that.

I do not want to walk in as if I assume I will ever have any kind of power over anyone present. I want that genie in a bottle. I am not Vicki to ooze power over anyone who came nearby. People who had their own power met hers as equals and she never played dominant pissing games. Ok, she usually didn’t. Sometimes she did. When she did she won. I don’t think I have arrived at having this kind of personal power. I feel like I forfeited any sense of power by how I handled this last rape. I feel like a failure. I feel like I failed to have any power at all. I feel like a stupid piece of shit. I didn’t handle that in a way Noah was proud of. I made the last 5 months of his life very hard. I feel deeply ashamed of wanting to reach so hard for new connection right now. It feels like I am trying to avoid sitting and home and stewing over what a complete piece of shit I am for failing Noah.

I do not know how to feel sexy walking into this environment right now because I am not sure how to walk in with any kind of feeling of power. I think the two are tied together for me. There is power in being submissive, a slave, and a masochist. The power does not only reside on one side of the slash. Perhaps I will spend a lot more of my life being sadistic in the future. All of these expressions come from personal power. I’m afraid both of attracting the wrong thing and attracting nothing at all. I couldn’t tell you which would be worse. If I go in hoping to make friends that’s really about as optimistic as I should be.

I want to feel sexy. I want to feel seen and appreciated. I don’t want to feel afraid. In order to not be afraid I have to feel safe. I don’t believe scene spaces are ever fully safe spaces. I go there to drift around in the ocean of predators and prey and see who is living in this little ecosystem.

What kind of predator am I?

Oh. Oh that is an interesting question. After thinking for at least 13 seconds I’m going to go with lazy. I am a lazy predator. I like to know the history before I step in old shit. I am a predator who usually hunts predators. This is how my soul is deeply tied to you, Ale. I hunt for people like you. I deeply appreciate and value that you never fucking sugar coat how you feel. I find affirmation of my humanity in the ways we reflect opposite sides of the same coin. You understand my need to be a victim. I hate being a victim. It is a thing I feel unable to escape. I, at times, have learned to embrace being a victim because in its depths I find more about my strength and power than I do in any other way.

This is where I fear I am wrong and Vicki is right but I don’t know that I can follow her good example. Vicki taught me that power emanates from a person like heat from the raging inferno of a soul inside the meat sack. I experience my power coming from relationships. My power doesn’t exist in a vacuum. I have power only in as much as I have the power to help, to harm, to create, and to destroy parts of other people.

I think of you and I feel such shame. I harmed you. I was cruel and inflexible and overly demanding in ways I was not entitled to be. I failed you.

I am so afraid of this power that sparks to life and begins to burn and rage at the tiniest sign of connection. It’s like watching a pilot light go from being barely a flicker to being on full blast. Someone wants me to look at them. How delightful.

I am afraid that it is a terrible thing to be touched by the power within me. I appreciate the way that folks in my in person life are commenting prodigiously on their appreciation of my mothering. That’s nice and all, for people who actually deal with my family to think I’m doing well. I inhabit the power of this role uneasily and with great caution. I am terrified of fucking this up. I am now all they have. Someone else can’t fix what I fuck up. Not really. There used to be someone here watching me, giving me course correction advice. Letting me know when I was getting too heated or loud. Now it is just me. Am I gentle enough?

It is very hard that the relationships in which I have the most sense of power are entirely ones where I am terrified of crushing a delicate soul I love very deeply. It’s part of why I was so hard on Noah. He was the only sturdy soul in my network I could really unleash on. It had to be done in ways he permitted.

He wouldn’t allow me to push him to the edge of his boundaries because him exploding was even less permitted than me exploding. I am not trying to say I had the worst deal in my marriage. Noah was also in a very constraining box.

I am saying that I am stepping into a different environment where I have no sense of my place. I don’t want to come in my mother/auntie vibe. I don’t want to. I want to come as a peer. I want to come as someone who both initiates and receives desire.

For many years I have said, “Anyone who speaks at my funeral is required to start with ‘Krissy was a motherfucking bad ass’ and if they don’t, boo them off the stage.”

I don’t feel like I am truly inhabiting that. I feel weak. I feel vulnerable. I feel deeply unworthy of ever being loved. I failed Noah. How dare I walk on as if I am a whole creature.

I am not a whole creature. I am a sundered being. I am a tree that was twinned for many years before a lightning bolt took my love from me. I miss Noah. I miss the certainty of that container. I miss feeling that secure in being loved like a wildfire. I was ok with being burned if that was the price of that relationship. It was worth it. I miss Noah. I miss Noah but he is gone and I have to carry on. My day job takes a lot out of me. I need to fill my bucket.

I need to make myself happy. This is a pragmatic understanding. Most of my life depends on me being a cheerful, upbeat, optimistic soul. It doesn’t work when I am deeply depressed and buried in anxiety. I start being poor at my job.

I want to feel sexy but I don’t know if I can. I know that it is tied to my sense of power and my happiness but it depends on relationships. I can’t walk into a building and assume anything about anyone. Sure, they are there but they aren’t there for me. They are there for their own story. I am very afraid of finding out there is no story arc overlap potential. I am afraid that I am not walking into the building with any sense of personal connection and anchoring. That means flirting feels like inviting a fight when I don’t know anything about the turf the fight is happening on. That feels so dangerous and stupid.

I want to feel sexy. I am afraid I will only feel afraid.