control
6:54 p.m.<>2001-10-28

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so much of sex has to do with control. being in control. being out of control. taking it. relinquishing it. sharing it. there is nothing more exciting than having complete control over your lover. unless it's your lover who has complete control over you.

i thought of this as i was reading over my last entry. on the surface, it would seem to be clear who was in control the other night. after all, it was she who was tied to the bedpost and writhing against the mattress, not i. but it's not that simple, is it? for although i was the one who had fastened the knots, and i was the one who had stripped off her clothes, and i was the one who was making her move the way she was moving, it was she who had control over me. because i had to be responsible. i had to bring her pleasure. i had to justify and maintain her trust. so who was really in control?

it's the same thing when our roles are reversed, when i'm the one who's bound made to watch, to writhe, to moan. even though it's the sweetest type of torture to be unable to touch her as she undresses before me, slowly and seductively, even though it's delicious agony when she bites my lip harshly or gives my nipple a vicious twist, she only has the most superficial control over the situation. she's the one who has to work. all i have to do is lie back and enjoy.

so when we play our little games, she and i, we do nothing more than deal in illusions of control. defining the boundaries of those illusions is tricky. and fun.

it can also be exciting and fun to have another person exert control over you. a few years ago, before i met jodie, i was dating a girl named erica. by all appearances a demure, almost conservative young woman, erica could nevertheless be uninhibited and even reckless when the mood struck her.

i remember one afternoon when she and i took a walk in a park that was just off our college's campus. it was late spring, just before the semester break, and classes had just let out at the elementary and secondary schools, because the paths and clearings were overrun by kids. erica and i were sitting quietly on a bench overlooking the little manmade pond in the middle of the park, when i noticed that one of the buttons on her blouse had come undone. at the angle i was sitting, i could see the underside of her right breast through the small opening in the blue oxford shirt. the color of her bra was lavender. although she and i had already been intimate on several occasions, i found myself sneaking peeks at that tiniest inch of her exposed flesh as if i were a high school freshman leering at my homecoming date.

i pointed out the undone button to erica, and told her that she looked sexy like that. that i wanted her. "oh, yeah?" she challenged me, arching a blonde eyebrow.

from that point forward i belonged to her. we began kissing passionately on that bench by the pond, in full view of children and their parents. when we finally broke the kiss, my face was burning. blood pulsed in my lips, as if i had been hit in the mouth. erica's golden bob, normally so carefully arranged, was in disarray. when she grabbed my hand, i remember, both our palms were slippery. although i was nervous about being caught, i let her lead me a few hundred yards into the treeline, where she told me to undress completely. we were still close enough to the footpaths and bike trails that anyone could have come across us, yet there was no way i could have stopped what we were doing. we made quick, rough love there on the ground, erica's body standing out pale against the dark hues of the tree roots and the soil. though i tried to remain quiet as possible, she was more vocal than i had ever heard her. she seemed to enjoy my discomfiture as her loud groans and yelps floated among the trees, certainly within earshot of the kids we could hear playing just a short distance away.

self control, of course, is even more important than the kind erica exerted over me. without the exercise of self control, the bonds of trust between you and your partner become frayed, and you lose the ability to defer your own enjoyment in favor of another's.

this was clear to me some months ago, when jodie and i traveled to philadelphia to visit amy for the weekend. it was the middle of the night, a few hours after the three of us had collapsed in a sweaty, exhausted heap on amy's bed. i was awakened by a touch on my face, and i opened my eyes to find amy looking at me, very much awake. jodie's soft snoring sounds indicated she was still sound asleep.

with some embarrassment, i realized that while i was sleeping my hand had come to rest between amy's legs. we lay there in the half light for a long time, staring at each other in silence while my hand remained where it was on the soft curls of her mound. slowly, with my heart thudding in my chest, i began to rub amy with my middle finger. she said nothing, but smiled slightly.

what proceeded took place in complete silence. except for the small, back and forth motions of my questing finger, amy and i remained utterly still so as not to wake jodie. amy's body, normally so physically expressive during sex, betrayed no signs of her growing arousal other than the increasing moisture under my hand and a thin sheen of sweat on her wide, white forehead. i stayed on my stomach the entire time, my face resting on my forearm and turned toward hers. as i touched her, as her orgasm came closer and closer, amy's blue eyes grew wide and frantic with the effort of staying still. when she finally came, the cords on her neck stood out and she bit down on her lips and squeezed her eyes shut, but she made absolutely no sound. throbbing and unsatisfied, i touched her again and again, watched her scream silently twice more before we both fell back to sleep.

when we told jodie about it the next morning, my beloved was amazed that she had slept through the whole thing, but she was more amazed at amy's and my boldness. "that's so wild," she said, shaking her head in disbelief. "i know," amy replied. "i don't know what was the matter with us. we were just totally out of control last night."

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