"Kisses are for Lovers"

"Trying to keep you off balance ... is just the evil version of sweeping you off your feet. (Thomas Rayfiel)"
I just read that line over breakfast this morning and it kind of smacked me in the face.
I really need to learn all the different faces of topping from the bottom and control manipulation. According to Derek, it comes in about eighty five thousand different forms, from the obvious (Tool trying to change my name or presenting all the things that catered to his own fantasies to me as the hard and fast rules for what BDSM was and wasn't about, banking on my lack of experience to keep me from questioning it) to the more subtle (a slave or submissive who is obedient but takes their sweet time carrying out a task). Or, in the same vein ... one who's prone to things like sporadic contact and dropping off the face of the planet periodically. And that quote just might perfectly sum up why I've been putting up with it.
Brooke was dating two guys when I apprenticed to her. Ben* was sweet and reliable and openly adored her, sending her daily "thinking of you" text messages which inspired snorts of disgust and which she frequently read aloud in a mocking, singsong voice. Brendon* was elusive and distant and inspired such behaviors in Brooke as dialing his number and listening to it ring and go to voicemail twenty eight times in a row ... for the specific purpose of allowing him to find the twenty eight missed calls from her - all made within two minutes of each other - in his call log.
Brendon was the reason I saw her break and give her vulnerability permission to emerge for a brief moment. Granted, it took her under five minutes to pull it together, but before that, I got the works: first, a text sent from their private dinner for two about how he was barely even talking to her and the admission that "I'm so hurt right now," then the screaming, crying phone call on her drive home, and finally, the seat next to her on the edge of her bed when she got there, stroking her hair and catching her tears with my fingertips ... until she caught herself in the role reversal because "(she was) supposed to be the one taking care of (me)." When I left L.A., I reminded her, "Plenty of people pay good money to worship you ... so don't spend too much of your time settling for anything less anywhere else." Which I thought was incredibly sweet and insightful and adorable of me at the time, but like so many other things ... it's easier said than done.
Case in point? I'm new, I'm young, and (while, obviously, I have my insecurities just like everyone else) most would say genetics have been kind to me. I have no shortage of attention from submissive males, and the simple act of checking my email is a daily exercise in equal parts of ego boost and annoyance.
So, naturally, I decide to make my play for the one who goes disappearing on alternate Tuesdays.
And it sucks, 'cause after last weekend he was doing really well, too. I was even prepared to cut him some slack because he was starting a new job that entailed a six day work week, but even with that, he was still keeping in pretty regular contact ... even if it was just to text me to say good morning before work. It was all looking really promising, and it made me happy because it also looked like just maybe he really did want to prove to me that he could be mine. But now, he's back to his old charming habits and has gone M.I.A. Yet again. And that little game? Has gotten really fucking tiresome. And twenty eight missed calls all within two minutes of each other is kinda not my style.
My last correspondence with him was a very polite text message last night (sent after he had ignored two or three previous text messages between Sunday night and Monday), informing him that if there's any way he can get out of work next Sunday, Derek is planning a bondage party. John's a huge bondage slut, and I still need to learn how to handle rope properly. Usually I just stick with restraints (conveniently hooked to the headboard of his bed), and I don't really even do that as often as he'd probably like, both because we do a lot of breath play and also because I like the feel of his hands on my hips. Anyway, the text also contained the postscript that this would be the last text message I would be sending his way unless or until he decided to become responsive again. I've been a bitch about that in the past, but this time, I was sweet as cherry pie. Now, one of two things is going to happen: either I'll get a text or email apology from him within the next few days, likely something along the lines of, "work's been kicking my ass, and I've been passing out as soon as I get home," or that text message will be the last time I interact with him in any way, shape, or form. Because seriously? Fuck this noise.
I was wandering through Borders yesterday and flipped through a paperback in the erotica section with the storyline of an escort who gets picked up by a dominant woman who awakens the escort's submissive desires. I didn't feel especially compelled to buy it (all those sex scenes are too extra cheese for my taste), but one excerpt stood out. In it, the submissive is bound, the Domme leans in close, and right when she thinks she's about to kiss her, she pulls away and tells her, "Kisses are for lovers." I have every intention of stealing that one now: "Kisses are for lovers ... and as far as I can tell, the only thing you really seem to have any interest in being to me is my part time guinea pig." And then I'd really love to hear how exactly he'd go about trying to tell me I'm wrong. Yeah, as fantasies go, that one's kind of boring. But know what? Plenty of people are begging me to show them the slightest attention on a daily basis. So why would I settle for anything less anywhere else?
My saving grace is my excellent willpower. I do this in vanilla relationships, too. This New Year's Eve was when I decided I was done with all the back and forth, on again off again nonsense with my last girlfriend once and for all. We still talk, but she hasn't been able to suck me back in since ... and not for lack of trying on her part. And it was actually just a few days after that when I first blurred the lines between play and more for myself with John. I'd been inching my way there since I ended up at his house around four AM on New Year's Day (that was the first time I ever bit his bottom lip ... a pretty regular occurrence these days, but up until that point, I had still been all about keeping everything separate ... well, with the exception of utilizing his warm body for spooning purposes, anyway). And a night or two later, curled up on the bed in our now-familiar position, I asked him, apropos of nothing, what he wanted.
"I want to learn how many different laughs you have," he told me.
If not necessarily the sweetest thing I'd ever heard, that one was definitely well within the top ten. And the most appropriate thing I could come up with by way of response was to turn and kiss him full on the mouth ... our first kiss. But when he requested another one before I left the next day, I told him no and didn't relent for a good couple weeks before letting it happen again.
"Is this fucking with your head?" I asked him the second time around, "'Cause I can hear the argument now: 'If you don't want to be a kinky girlfriend, then why do you act like one?'"
Of course, he assured me it was fine, that he was taking everything at face value: "Did you notice how after I asked that one time and you said no, I never tried to initiate anything? Everything is completely up to you."
Well, if that's the case, then I guess it's "up to me" to decide that kisses are for lovers and that since, quite obviously, he isn't mine, there will be no more. Maybe I should have simplified things even further for him: "proving it" equals being there. And, no, I am not actually naive enough to imagine that that would have made the slightest difference.