Educating Bunny

Then he surprised me beyond belief.

"If you want to buy a plane ticket, I'll go there and give you that wish, lol."

Dumbstruck. Are you serious?

"Lol, sure why not? I've never seen San Fran, and you've earned it."

I LEFT MY HEART IN SAN FRANCISCO

And that's how Race ended up coming out here two months ago, for a 48-hour visit. Originally he said he didn't want to sightsee, just a couple of icons to note while driving past. He didn't want to walk around, he just thought we'd spend time at my home chilling. He put me in charge of planning a super weekend, and I intended to pull out all the stops.

I wanted to do all the things he had done in our sessions; I wanted bondage and other scenes we'd talked about. I wanted to use the spreader bar and be raped; I wanted to deep throat him and bathe him and take care of his every whim and need. He said I'd finally get to do all the things I'd always wanted with him, skin to skin, moan to moan.

I told him I would buy his ticket, but wanted talk about the flights before I booked one. Then I didn't hear from him for two weeks.

In a BDSM connection, some of the raw fears, fetishes, and desires are admitted up front to let the other play on them. When that happens, the dom(me) usually gets to test the depths of the sub. He or she discovers how deep these things are (too deep, shallow fetishes or something else). The sub learns how honest (brutal) the dom can be ... or not. If both parties play out the scripts (the dom has desires and scripts too), they both get a better appreciation for each other. It is scary. Telling someone your weaknesses, so they can act on them is scary. Taking responsibility for acting on the fears and fetishes of the other is also scary.

But it's honest.

Any BDSM session is an emotional exchange and has few of the problems of porn or simple obsessive imagination. , I didn't want to have sex for sex's sake or BDSM for BDSM's sake. It takes chemistry to do right ... just like dancing. Above all, there must be chemistry. The idea is that the dom is in control and decides what's going to happen and how and how far. It's his prerogative to dictate how far the play goes. It's the sub's responsibility to make sure it doesn't go too far for her. I wanted the whole potato.

Where was he? Was he playing me? I was so angry - I was done. I felt duped, what was this all about? Then I heard briefly, he left a message on the IM chat asking if I'd booked the ticket. No, I said, I wanted to discuss times and flights first. And so we confirmed the plan, and he would arrive in two weeks.

I set out to cleaning, making everything perfect. Bought new sheets, towels, clothes. He had described how he was going to inspect me all over, how I must not have any orgasms the week before he came in. He gave me several instructions, and I adhered to all of them. I anticipated a weekend filled with great sex, good food, interesting convo, and 24/7 time together. I didn't believe it would really happen, however, until I saw him at the airport.

I was a nervous wreck the day of his arrival; he texted and called that morning to say he had missed his flight, but had booked the next one, and was a moron for setting his alarm to p.m. instead of a.m. He assured me he would be here. As instructed, I wore a dress without undies, ready to be probed on the way home. He had been very specific about the fact that denying me any release for a few days would make it all the better when he came in my mouth for the first time, and that would bring me to orgasm most likely, even without any penetration. He asked if I still had all of my bondage equipment, which I did, and if I was excited to put it to use finally.

"Didn't think it'd ever happen?" he asked. And no, I didn't ...

And there he was. He was adorable - small, mean, and filled with spirit as he had once told me. Charming, talkative, highly intelligent. He observed everything with a photographic memory. He was entranced by the Bay Area, and decided that he wanted indeed to explore The City the next day. I live sixty miles away but it was fine with me; I had always wanted to be part of a couple in that city.

When we got to my house he made himself neatly comfortable, inspecting my entire home with random joy. He obviously had been raised well, and I had made my home picture perfect. He praised my photography, my furniture, my dinnerware, my cooking, my cat. He loved my back yard, the warm weather, the stars at night. Drinking heavily - he said he was an alcoholic - and smoking, which normally I would never allow around me, he became affectionate and could not stop thanking me for bringing him out. I sensed he was embarrassed that he had had me pay for his ticket, as he said he would pay for lunch and parking (and anything else) during his stay. He kept repeating what a perfect day it was, how he had not been this relaxed in a year, and what wonderful energy there was.

He wanted a massage, so that was how the sex began. But it was vanilla, and all those things he promised we would do, didn't happen. He pounded on me and his cock was delightful, but there was no tenderness, hardly any kissing, and none of the eroticism of those early scenes. The sex was mechanical. We never got into my toys and after the first two times we had sex, both on the evening of his arrival, penetration didn't happen again. When I asked him for oral, he denied me. He wouldn't even tease my clit.

Yes, there was oral for him, and I was so happy to comply. Yet outside the bedroom, he couldn't stay away from his iPhone, the news on CNN, and from the computer. He was filled with nervous energy and our conversation was, in his words, wonderful. He enjoyed my food, and did the dishes. He didn't leave a trace. I asked what the BDSM lifestyle was like and he said we were living it. For the first time since my husband had died, I felt like I was in a real relationship. It was divine.

But in truth, there was little emotional or sexual intimacy. I had confessed that my greatest fear was sexual inadequacy, and I was so nervous with performance anxiety, I didn't cum. I felt he was disappointed but I couldn't tell; I felt it was my fault because he said he certainly knew he was good at what he did. He even corrected me during sex, and I took it. I didn't know whether I was sub or person. I was kept off balance the entire weekend.

We spent a fabulous day, however, walking around Ferry Plaza, Fisherman's Wharf and the Marina, and came home not to sex but to the news. He began drinking again, yet he opened up about his family, his work, his passions for live concerts, his finances. He was wholly interested in my life, even my Limoges. We were close in so many ways, and yet there was no BDSM. Finally, that evening, I put on a pair of patent leather pants to show him my outfit for the Cyndi Lauper concert, and that must have triggered something because he ordered me to the bedroom with my pants down, onto my knees facing away from him so that I couldn't see his face, and found a bamboo back scratcher to spank me with.

It hurt like hell; as he spanked my pussy, he yanked my hair and head up to his mouth and whispered twice, "I'm not going to hurt you!" He kept asking, "This is what you wanted, right?" I said Yes My Lord, and then he penetrated me anally. I enjoyed it, but I still couldn't cum, I was in such a state of shock. He spanked me in front of the mirror so that I could see what he was doing, and left some welts that I thought meant he didn't want me to forget him. It was brief, and he seemed pleased. I didn't know anymore which end was up. I just kept feeling him pulling away.

We discussed our session later, Race saying that he would never get off a plane and tie someone up, that BDSM is all about relationship and respect. I told him I wouldn't have brought him out here if I thought it would be only one time, that I could not do that, and he agreed. He said that it had to develop in small steps, and so I thought that meant we would be seeing each other again, despite logistical challenges.

We spent that evening on the couch watching his favorite band on his iPhone, as he sang to me and kissed my nose and threw his legs over my lap while I massaged him and put my head on his shoulder. I was head over heels in love with a man I knew could not be mine. He seemed to have had a wonderful time.

When he left the next day, I had a strange sense at the airport that it was over. When I said "See you online," his look of confusion made me feel like something had been ripped from my heart. I went to the ocean and watched a pod of whales swim past; right then I knew I had given my soul to him, that this pattern about wanting a man so desperately was an addiction that would take my life away if I didn't resolve to understand what it means to be a submissive woman who gives her power away, and to men who don't even deserve her.

THE WOUND OF IMPERFECTION

And so I began my descent into the most severe depression of my life, the one that I vowed would be the last over a guy who didn't give me what I wanted. But this dark night of the soul was more than that: It was the fact that I needed to understand the wounding of women, why we are so afraid that men will run away if we don't give them everything they ask for. Why we are so subservient and accommodating and pleasing, so afraid to be powerful. Why we are considered bitches if we express a strong voice, and how we hide our creative energy in codependency and fear of rejection.

I've had a meditation practice for more than twenty years, and my depression was so great, all I could do was surrender. I could not understand, as week after week passed, what had happened. I blamed myself for not hearing from Race: I must have been imperfect, I must have been a lousy fuck, I must have been too old, and so on. My mind didn't let me rest; my self-criticism and self-loathing were impenetrable. I came down with a bad cold and bronchitis; unable to work out at my climbing gym, I was forced in on myself in the depths of a rainy winter, with no recourse but to resolve that I needed to confront once and for all how I gave myself away, and learn how to love myself enough that I could end this addiction to wanting young guys in general, and to Race in particular.

It's been a painful two months, but my detox has been fruitful. Thanks to the blessings of wonderful friends and healers, I've discovered the many wounds that women carry, but also the ways men are scarred, and different from women. I understand and accept myself so much more now, that although I haven't completely gotten over Race - or the anger over feeling dumped and not knowing why - I am so much stronger and emotionally stable than I've ever been.

I've discovered that women are conditioned to believe that God is man, and that man is god. I myself was raised to believe that my father was always right, and that I wasn't to disturb him or to cause him any stress because he was the breadwinner. I watched my mother give up her prodigious talent as a concert pianist to raise her children and attend to her husband's every need. I watch women today, no matter what the age, feel insecure that their committed partners will really stay with them, or that they will be faithful and monogamous.

We are all wounded. Women have a need to be perfect; men have a need to be strong. One of my friends has continually asked what I want, and what I feel that Race, or any guy, has that I can't provide for myself. I have searched several incarnations of this question, the answers ranging from validation and attention to living my life for me because women are the weaker sex, so strong men can do it better. What I now believe is that I thought that because I am a woman, I didn't have the energy, the power, the permission, the strength, to live my own life fully. That somehow a guy could do it better. So I would try to give my life to him to live for me - and no wonder they all ran away! Who would or could take on that kind of labor? It was childish, but I had never understood the root of my suffering until Race's disappearance forced me to my knees.

Today I see how women feel they have little freedom to not be responsible for caretaking others - especially men's feeling; inadequate permission to pursue their own creative energies, including not having children if they don't feel called or prepared to do so.

I see how men are raised without good relationships with their fathers; how they are always trying to prove how masculine they are, which generally means stoic and unfeeling and incapable of true emotional intimacy. I see how they truly want to please women, how they need to feel trusted and intelligent and able to fix what's wrong and to solve problems. I see how confused they are, and how they don't understand women at all.

I see how both sexes are so afraid of their own power that they continually give it away in unhealthy addictions and lack of self-love. Neither sex really feels they are good enough or capable enough; there is always self-judgment and lack of self-worth. We exaggerate and hide and armor ourselves, afraid to take the only risk that truly matters: to live our own best lives, and to not look outside ourselves for happiness or completion.

I now understand that Race didn't run away from me, but from himself. He saw his shadow, and got scared. I truly believe that being with me, someone who so unconditionally cared for him and listened to him, opened something in him that, sober, he could not face. This awareness saddens me more than anything because there is no way to share with him not only what a wonderful person he is, what a shiningly beautiful man he is coming into being, but also how much I appreciate this ultimate mindfuck.

His distance has forced me to confront the suffering I've endured since I was a little girl, wanting to be rescued from the very thing that is my most priceless gift: being who I am as a woman, now at midlife. I've been so afraid of being powerless as a woman, that I never really came into my own sexuality and sovereignty until now.

Race indirectly gave me the gift of what I understand BDSM is all about: power exchange. I don't know why it was not possible for him to dominate me, but I like to think it is because he truly met his match. He just didn't have the emotional tools to handle what he discovered when he met me in person, or to be able to tell me afterward that he couldn't continue, that it was time to move on. I think he discovered that my true nature is not to be subservient, especially in the sense of giving my power away. But nothing was ever said.

Now that I have some wonderful domme experience under my belt - stay tuned for further developments - I have more compassion and adoration than ever for Race and how confusing it must have been to come here and have his patterns and plans overturned by an energy and a connection in person that were not expected. I learned a lot from him about domination, but I do it differently. I learned from him to treat my subs with respect and playfulness, and consider it an honor to be entrusted with their secret desires and shames. I have even given one of them my name, Bunny. I thought it was time to pass it on.

But I am no longer addicted, not to Race, not to young guys, and not to BDSM. The funny thing is, now I could truly be sub to Race because I understand how to play. I understand the difference between fantasy and reality. I understand my wounds and the wounds of everyone I know. I still think he could take me into subspace, in person, but I doubt that will ever happen. Anyway, I've moved on. Or, I am in the process of it, I hope.

Most of all, I understand the gifts that Race gave me in forcing me to confront my self-loathing, to see that mirror in him, and to know that his disappearance was not about me at all. It never really is; we are only living our own lives as best we can at any given moment. I can finally go offline now, bruised and battered but wiser, knowing I am capable now of healthy relationships with men. I am myself now, coming into my own as a sexual woman at midlife. I am no longer desperate, needy, or submissive.

I have a new view of men and of my power as a woman. I've decided that I will no longer put up with bad men any longer. I know what I want and I'm going to find it. I'd thought that if I had only one gift to give to Race, it would be gratitude. Now I'm thinking: No, better yet. I'd like to be his Mistress Lilith. I've got my finger on his button now.