I was curled up beside him when he told me about her, a submissive who wanted a discreet affair. With my head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat, I tried not to freak out. I stopped talking, my afterglow dissipating as her presence filled the small spaces between our naked bodies.
My relationship with the Boy Scout was only four weeks old, and I was still in the stage of giddy excitement where I always wore makeup and he had yet to see me wear the same outfit twice. We had our full disclosure conversations and knew who the other was dating and fucking, and he had already met my girlfriend. The last thing I wanted to do was be demanding or difficult or, God forbid, high maintenance. In the darkened bedroom after our first time as Dominant and slave, no way in hell was I about to give words to my thoughts. That’s when my emotional baggage opened up and I felt those old wounds being pushed. Old arguments, old tensions; they filled my head and I started to panic.
I confess that I can be competitive and jealous, but I’ve learned to use it as a roadmap to indicate what I really want. When I feel the green eyed monster creeping up behind me, I take a hard look at my interactions. Do I need to ask for more time with my partner? Do I need more communication? If something with my partners gives me a twinge, I’m constantly asking myself why. I have learned the hard way that I can’t compromise honesty or transparency. It can be uncomfortable and exhausting plumbing the depths of my feelings, but I knew coming out of my last poly dynamic that I needed to change some things about myself if I wanted to build healthy, fulfilling relationships in the future.
I pondered what the Boy Scout had shared with me regarding the sub and tried to define what were remnants of old relationship triggers and what was currently raising my hackles. I even called Nikki to bounce some ideas off her. She observed, “the only time you worry about other women is when they’re submissive.” She was right, dammit. So being the giant organizational whore that I am, I sat down and wrote out my fears. I even numbered them. Seeing it in black and white, it was obvious that there were two main concerns swirling through my brain; I require complete honesty and transparency from myself and my partners and the Dom who may someday own me can only own and collar one slave and that will be me.
It sucks shit to have to communicate to your sparkly new boyfriend that you have demands, that I prescribe to a poly construct but that doesn’t mean that everything he does is just peachy keen with me. Or that we’re just beginning to explore our D/s dynamic but partnering with another submissive is out of the question for me. It sucks even more to have to bare an ugly wound from a previous relationship to the person you’re attempting to impress with your wonderfulness. I had to say something though. If I was quiet and suffered in silence, I would be choosing a well-worn path to heartbreak. Those damn mile markers are tattooed into my heart, so I hit send and waited to hear back that my fears were outrageous. I waited for the Boy Scout to turn tail and run.
I’m reading through our ensuing text conversation and am amazed even now. We ended up on the exact same page, and he confirmed that it was OK to not be OK. He would rather have me say I couldn’t do something than gloss over it and have it blow up later. I was so relieved that I may have cried a little bit. (But I was home alone so it didn’t count!) I’m writing this post with a lighter heart, and I can even say the following with a steady voice. I require that if you’re going to be in my bed and in my heart I need absolute honesty and transparency between us and with our partners. And if this slave is going to her knees and gifting You with her submission, she must be the only one wearing Your collar. Wow, I rather like the sound of that.
