"If you really want to know, I'll tell you. But you should know me by now--I'll be blunt."
Go ahead.
"Well, first...I like you. You're smart, you're funny, you're...there's a lot there I'd really like to get to know better."
I sense a "but" coming...
"But...I don't want to fuck your mind, you know?"
Okay...
"I mean, just looking at you, being around you, I can tell you're very vanilla."
Meaning...?
"It doesn't matter how many Arcade Fire albums you have or how obscure your DVD collection is, that's just...I just know, in the bedroom, you wouldn't be adventurous at all. Guy on top, girl on top, that's about as far as you'd go. Yeah, you mentioned having a thing for pleated skirts and knee socks, so you've got a Catholic schoolgirl fetish--"
In fairness, that particular fetish involves Velma from Scooby-Doo.
"--so you're into light role-playing, but I doubt that you go anywhere interesting with it."
Define interesting.
"You know what I mean. And I'm not wrong about you, am I?"
Well, again, define interesting. I don't know what you're into, but I know every woman is different, and every couple. Maybe you think you're not the type of girl who needs a lot of foreplay, but--and may I just say, this is a weird conversation to be having at an IHOP; shouldn't we be sprawled across a bed half-undressed, contemplating whether to go further?--you've never been kissed by me, touched by me, caressed by me. Maybe I'm vanilla, but I could be brand name instead of generic...and this is officially the worst metaphor I've ever devised.
"It's okay, I get your point, but honestly, vanilla doesn't interest me in any form. Foreplay, hugging, kissing, fuck that, it's great but it won't get me off."
Maybe not, but it can still be nice.
"Nice. I don't want nice. My sexuality is very important to me, and I would need a partner to get that. What I want is...I'm a submissive. I'm also a masochist. I like to be beaten, I like to be whipped, I like to be...I like to hurt. I've been spit on and pissed on, everything short of shit on, and maybe I'd even do that. I can only come when I'm dominated, but I know I'm in control, because first of all, it's my choice to participate, and second of all, if it goes too far, I have my safe word."
Uh...Okay.
"You think I'm a freak, don't you?"
I have a Velma fetish, who am I to judge? But I am wondering...how it works. I mean, do you say, you know what, I feel like being pissed on today, or does he just do it?
"I can't know what's coming. He has to totally dominate me. I have to be totally under his control."
That...doesn't sound healthy. I mean...if that's your kink, fine. Go somewhere and have a little session. Some people go to analysis, you see a sadist. Fine, whatever. But in a relationship...
"Well, that's the thing. I have a regular dom, but he and I aren't...He has a girlfriend who isn't into that lifestyle, but she accepts that he is, and I have no interest in him beyond...what he can do for me. He's the only person who can make me come. I haven't been able to make it work in the context of a relationship. If it's a guy I'm dating, and he knows me and likes me, he can't give me what I need because he doesn't want to hurt me. And if I try dating a guy and telling him ahead of time I'll be seeing my dom once or twice a week, he can't handle that. I come home with gashes on my tits and my ass is black and blue and I don't want to be touched. Even though I tell them about it ahead of time, it freaks them out to see it. It's physical evidence I've been with another man, and more, that I've enjoyed it.
"And you'd be like that. You couldn't handle it either way."
No. Probably not. But I have a question.
"Like I have any secrets left."
I just wondered...do you ever think you could make a relationship work? I mean, do you honestly think you could find a guy who would do this to you, and still be boyfriend material?
"I think it's possible, sure."
I mean, if a guy gets off on beating women--
"You forget, we'd have rules."
Sure, in the context of what you do now, in a more-or-less controlled session. But with a boyfriend or husband, a guy you'd be living with, who can say the rules apply? What if he wants something and you don't? And he thinks your refusal is part of the game, and he beats you and you don't want to be beaten? He'd get off on it, and maybe he wouldn't care about your safe word. His desires may overtake whatever rules you'd set.
"It's a risk I'd take, but it's a risk I'd have to take in order to be happy."
So what you're saying is, the ability to make you come is more important than the ability to make you laugh, or to stimulate your mind. The pleasure centers in the naughty bits are more important than all the other parts of the body.
"Not more important. But as important."
But I get the feeling you'd be more impressed right now talking to a dull guy with no sense of humor if you thought he could get you off.
"Not more impressed. More excited maybe. But I want it all: A smart, funny, loving guy who knows how to...you know."
Good luck finding that.
"I'm weird, I know. I'm fucked up, but I can't change who I am. I'm sorry."
Nothing to be sorry about. But...this is it, right? We're about to go our separate ways?
"I think so."
Then what's weird is that we won't be dating. Usually the only women who latch onto me are the fucked up ones.
"That's what makes me unique."
