Highly Contagious

After feeling not great the past few days, I took a half day off work and Now-hubby brought me to Urgent Care. One of my coworkers had already been out last week with strep throat, so I didn't have the highest of hopes in regards to my own wellness.

Downside? Yes, I have strep throat.

Upside? The nurse complimented me on my deep throat abilities during the throat swab. ("Oh, you're very good.")

My recommended course of treatment: 5 days of Azithromycin and 24 hours sick leave from work.

Which means I spent a bit of time this morning shopping for new sex toys. It's been awhile since I've added to my collection, I have a bit of extra income during the summer, and I've always wanted a butt plug with a jeweled base. Also treated myself to something made of glass, because that's a material I've wanted to experience but haven't as of yet. (I'll leave it up to your fantastically perverted minds, dear readers, as to which one I got.)

The rest of the day was spent in a weird state of not-quite-sick, not-quite-well stress. I had already taken 2 doses of the medication and was feeling better. I didn't, however, have the energy to accomplish anything beyond finishing Nurse Jackie and getting a few more episodes in on The Affair. Credit to my fantastic mental quirks for each time I tried to lay down and rest only to anxiously fidget for 20 minutes before getting back up. Difficult to sleep when my internal voices are running the show. The ones that echo out of the past on how if I was really felling sick I wouldn't be able to get out of bed. Or if I'm feeling so much better then why isn't anything getting done around the house today?

Those sentiments were repeated often when I was growing up. They weren't always directed at me, but were said enough within earshot for me to internalize them. People who are feeling sick are probably exaggerating, and there's absolutely nothing worse than having to take care of somebody else. I'm getting much better at shutting those internal voices down. When Now-hubby and I were first living together, me even thinking about taking a sick day could have been an all-night emotional ordeal. Today, when Now-hubby got home from work, I only cried for 10 minutes over the laundry before going into the kitchen and asking if I could have a hug. I don't know if I'll ever reach a point where I don't have to frantically fold laundry on the pretense that if nobody else is going to be mad at me, I'll just be mad at myself. It's bolstering to know that I'm still making progress, and that I can handle a slightly weakened immune system without having to completely impair my emotional system as well.

The Very Spark

Abandoning all pretense, I just saved plans into Google calendar as "DP Date," because that's what the date is going to entail and I didn't want to waste keystrokes trying to be clever about it. I'll save the Sahara-dry wit for you all, dear readers.

Last Saturday, one of the other gentleman "on staff" at the gang bangs and I reached official peak boredom while downstairs watching a bunch of dudes' naked butts meander for spots around the women playing that evening. We started whispering play-by-play commentary to each other.

"Ah, here comes the rookie draft pick. He's an unknown talent, but he's showing promise."

"Jim, can we get the playback on that?"

"That's a strong contender for 'Fuck of the Night.' Definitely making the highlight reel."

There was also a new girl that evening who chastised me for being "mean" to one of the participating gentleman while I was chatting with him during social hour. Which just goes to show that, regardless of setting, my incredibly winning personality shines through.

Said gentleman and I actually know each other really well. He's used to my acerbic verbosity as an indicator of emotional affection. I relayed the information to him that I had been "kind of mean" and begged forgiveness in the prescribed method - on my knees.

Yesterday evening, I spent a fantastically platonic time with Newcastle. You know, because not everything in my life is blowjob innuendos. 

It's been a long time since I've written about Newcastle. This is not because we haven't been seeing each other. We didn't have to discontinue our friendship after we made out at a mutual friend's birthday party and he said he wasn't interested in being part of an open relationship structure. We did, however, spend a bit of time talking it over. Because there's one misconception about my "sexy" lifestyle that trumps all others: I'm more likely to wear out my jaw talking about all the intricacies of what everyone's doing and how everyone feels than I am to suffer strain due to the genitals I'm interacting with orally. 

The eventual summation: I'm a gigantic slut who's still got a significant crush on him. I'm also capable of respecting his relationship preferences and maintaining a platonic-ish decorum when we hang out.

For our date, we went out for conveyor belt sushi (our seat reservation number was 69, because even when I'm behaving myself, the Universe isn't.)

I bought him a milkshake on the way back to his place and teased him because the girl working the register clearly thought he was cute. We spent the remainder of the evening sipping whiskey while watching Clone High and the commentary track on a few Rick and Morty episodes.

Home Alone

Update on testing status: I had my appointment this past Thursday. The gyno, along with a lecture about using condoms, did a cervical culture STD test. I'll go back in three months for a blood test (incubation periods for HIV being longer than for STDs that are tested by a culture test). 

In the meantime, both boys are gone for the weekend. Now-hubby has been off at Lakes of Fire since Tuesday night, and Frisbee left Friday night for a tournament with his club team. Here's what Willful Girl gets up to when she's on her own.

Friday night, I went as the +1 to a hotel party with a gentleman I know from the gang bangs. He had arranged it, invited one other couple he knew, and then that couple invited a couple they had played with before. Sex party networking at it's finest.

Highlights of the night included the husband from couple 1 and I unofficially taking over the hotel front desk for a bit while we waited for couple 2 to arrive. Ordering birthday cake for a gentleman that came in during our front desk take-over only to deliver it to the room he had said he'd be in and unwittingly stumbling upon another sexy party. 

Birthday boy was sadly not in the room (either I misremembered which room he said he'd be staying in or he lied about it). Hilarious coincidence nonetheless. The wife from couple 2 and I shared the cake in the hallway. Waste not, want not.

The wife from couple 2 and I then headed back to our appointed sex party where I took her into the bedroom. I sucked on her nipples and played with her clit while she gave her husband a blowjob. I put on a latex glove to finger her and experienced the amazing feeling that is a woman's orgasm around my fingers. 

I drove myself home around 2 in the morning, because Saturday morning at 9 am I had another gentleman coming over for morning sex and I wanted the pretense of sleep before that happened.

I actually set an alarm for 8:30am because if I have the chance to at least wash my face and brush my teeth, I feel moderately more sexy. 

Said gentleman arrived right at 9am, and we spent the next hour engaged in various activities including me fucking myself with a dildo while I gave him a blowjob. Near the end of our time together, he bent me over doggy style and slid his fingers in my ass while he fucked me. I had an orgasm that reduced me to jello, and after he left I fell back asleep for another few hours.

Fallable Girl

This past weekend I pitched my metaphorical tent and went back to frisbee camp. (Well, there's cabins at the campsite, so I wasn't even pitching a literal tent, but...you know. Dick jokes at any cost.)

The gentleman I had met last year and I spent the week leading up to camp exchanging text messages about whether we were going to revisit our extracurricular activity schedule. As I was dragging my suitcase and a 24 pack of Modelo across the fields to the cabin my team had claimed, he yelled across from the entrance to another cabin where he had reserved the entire cabin just for us and pushed two beds together.

We'd also spent a bit of time discussing different things we'd be interested in trying this year, since we were planning on having more than just one evening to fraternize. That first Friday evening, I spent an astounding amount of time going down on him (my request). Then he pushed me face down into the mattress and fucked me in the ass (his request). This was all before the bonfire officially kicking off camp had even been lit. After rejoining the group, drinking around the fire, and eating some classic campfire food, we went back to the cabin and snuggled in the pushed together bed.

Saturday morning, I woke up to his hands running across my body and him kissing the back of my neck. I am a sucker for morning sex. There's something incredibly intimate about being probably at the most unappealing part of your day and not caring at all. (Seriously, just getting past somebody's morning breath sometimes... Not to mention puffy sleep face and how messed up your hair gets.)

We had left the condoms on a table across the cabin last night. After several minutes of him fingering me, me reaching back to stroke his dick, I arched back and he pushed into me. And I...didn't stop it. He didn't cum inside me, but there was a decent amount of continued, unprotected intercourse.

I want to be explicitly clear that this wasn't a forced situation. I'm not putting any blame on him and I'm trying to manage the amount of guilt I've felt about it since. It was a situation that shouldn't have happened, and I'm endeavoring to move forward responsibly.

Step one: Tell Now-hubby and Frisbee about it.

This was honestly the most difficult part. Even though they're amazingly understanding men, I had no idea how they were going to take this. It's one of our relationship guidelines that I'm fluid bonded to them, they're fluid bonded to me, but we use condoms when having sex with other people. Again, I'm incredibly lucky to have these two particular men in my life. Now-hubby was disappointed but knew I was already doing a decent job mentally berating myself. Frisbee told me it was okay not to be perfect and that telling him was the important thing. Both men have decided they're going to use condoms when they fuck me for the foreseeable future until -

Step two: Get myself tested.

Unless you're worried about pregnancy, there's not a lot you can do immediately after the fact when you've engaged in higher-risk sex. I had to tell the scheduling woman at my gynecologist's office this, which was surprising. She wanted to schedule me for an appointment ASAP after asking me sotto voce if I, "had reason to be concerned." Granted, she's only in charge of the schedule book, but being aware that incubation periods are a thing seems like it should be fairly important to know in any facet of an office that provides women's health services. (Here's a helpful little graphic about common STDs and their incubation periods.) I scheduled the appointment for a few weeks from now and we'll move forward depending on what the results say.

Blow out the candles

For the few of you who've wandered here from my guest-spot on The Swingset, welcome.

It's Now-hubby's birthday weekend, and it also happened to be his Friday. Which meant he and I went out to a delicious sushi dinner Friday night once I got home from having an after-work drink with Frisbee. After dinner, Now-hubby and I walked to one of the local, small liquor stores that seems as if all its employees have a dress code including beards and zip-up hoodies over flannel button-downs. If it's not an IPA, they probably aren't able to give you any recommendations.

Yesterday during the day, Now-hubby went to the arcade with friends while I had Ultimate club team tryouts. Then, in the evening, Frisbee and I went to ye ol' gang bang and Now-hubby had the house to himself to do...whatever it is he does when he's on his own.

I offer this brief account of our weekend plans to help illustrate an aspect of nonmonogamy that I think tends to get overlooked, especially by those taking their first tentative steps into it. It's one of those things that's always in the periphery when I hear other people talk about their relationships, but a few isolated cases during the week put it back center.

Being in an open relationship is fundamentally different than being monogamous, but there are basic tenets of healthy relationships that should be present regardless of format.

It's difficult to elucidate without getting too long winded and cyclical. To briefly describe the pattern I've noticed that frequently leads to a stumbling block: Single person begins dating other single person. Either (or both) single people decide to make the relationship "exclusive," which means the establishment of the "couple" entity. It's weird, because the individual people are still there; you can see them; when you can get them away from their significant other it's even almost like they're sort of the same person still. But there's also this new "couple" amalgamation, and everything starts to be stupidly different because of that attachment.

It's the loss of autonomy within a relationship. Annoying within the monogamous structure, but a complete and utter obstacle when it comes to being open. Beyond the utter repugnance that is unicorn hunters, it is incredibly difficult to be open and conduct the entire relationship as a twosome. I feel as though couples get into that monogamous headspace and then decide to open up, but are unprepared for the amount of change that their relationship structure needs to undergo. (Disclaimer: Fine. I'm sure some of you are making it work as a twosome. Kudos. Congratulations on all the extra work you have to put in to maintain the blissful deceit that you're not like those other couples.)

Something as basic as going on a date with another person becomes needlessly complex. Arguments arise because the individual tastes of both partners need to be considered. They've been romantically operating so long as "we" it's almost impossible to retroactively change and have individual opinions again.

I'm not saying this one weekend should be a guidepost for everybody considering nonmonogamy. Club tryouts and arcade games do not a perfect relationship make. We still struggle through our own bullshit. I do think it's important to maintain oneself as well as one's relationship. Keep your own interests and opinions. Preach it, mama.