Barak Broke My Brain and I'm Still Standing

I went to 2013 Twisted Tryst South, also known as simply "camp", knowing I was going to scene with Barak, and terrified. The details of why are in my previous post "Tryst Terror".

Barak and I had communicated boundaries, expectations, and my evolving understanding of why I said yes to the scene over the four months prior to Tryst, and he reviewed my boundary summarization right before our scene Friday evening.

But before that, Thursday night when they arrived, Barak and his lovely wife Brat_Sheba and my husband and I had shared hugs and introductions and a lovely nerve-rattling moment of Sheba offering to give Barak ideas of how else to make me dizzy, to which I responded something like "you are not good people!" But then more honestly, I said with my voice starting to tremble "I don't know if it's possible for me to take this thing that has been so scary and devastating and find some way to let some aspect of it be sexy, but it's worth a shot" and Barak held me for a moment with his eyes and said "It is".

I went to sleep Thursday night sick from the road motion, in mild shock and denial that I was actually camping, and pleasantly surprised that I had been able to help a bit with setup. But not less terrified.

Friday afternoon, crossing camp between classes, Barak ... fucked with me. He hugged me, then started happily pushing and poking and holding me, his hands in my hair, on my shoulders, my hips, my neck. He held my head with his fist in my hair, and got close enough I could feel his breath and his desire to kiss me, but he didn't kiss me. He may have said something, too, I'm sure he did, but it was lost in my disorientation. I knew he was watching my responses, building a muscle vocabulary between us, seeing how much balance I had as a starting point. But also, just as importantly, he was ~deeply enjoying~ doing so. I could feel him leaning into me, pulling me to him, wrapping around me, and I could see his grin and feel his eyes appreciating me even as they were assessing me.

Predator, meet your willing prey...

I didn't know at the time how else to put it, those three minutes passing at camp, other than "he just ... kinda ... fucked with me" until I went to their class "The Art of Drive-By Domming" about building and maintaining energy between negotiated partners by enjoying tiny brief mini-scenes on a rolling basis. There in class, I realized he had "drive-by dommed" me. Neat.

I had scattered conversations with my friends from home and others who had read my terror note on Fet about the scene coming up. As I articulated different aspects with different people, I started pulling together understandings, flashes of insight.

Much of my correspondence with Barak before camp had the feeling of "no, no, no, I don't think you understand, this isn't sexy at all. This is devastating and terrible and I will feel bad for days afterward, maybe incapacitatingly so" and he kept responding with grins and the word "lovely" and telling me it made him salivate and made his cock twitch.

Which made me call him unkind names.

Which seemed to amuse him.

This pattern both did and did not help me.

It often made it more difficult to breathe.

Then at the drive-by domming class, I saw him make other people dizzy and disoriented, heard him say how much he enjoyed knowing he had made someone physically weak in the knees, and I was able to feel the connection with his demo partners in class. And I could see similarities to what he was going to do to me. And then finally, oh! I could feel the possibility that our scene could be a powerful exchange of control and trust to someone who loves the willing exchange of control and trust, and I was able to catch a glimpse as to why that might be sexy for him.

Also, it helped that a few people new to the story said "yeah, that's kinda hot" or grinned when I said about Barak, "What kind of a monster jerk face are you for wanting to do this to someone?"

At some point someone said "Nah, I'm a ~good~ person who enjoys doing ~bad~ things to people who ~like~ it".

Oh. Well. Sure. When you put it like that. Now it's blindingly obvious.

I had told Barak, repeatedly, in our emails, that I needed to believe that he wanted this, and it would help if he wanted me, as well, that it would calm me if he kissed me or let me feel that he was hard. And that sexual energy would help me stay up longer.

So throughout Friday, my perspective shifted subtly from "my vertigo is a destructive force to be avoided when possible and I'm doing my best to live despite it" to "my vertigo is a part of me that maybe has the potential to be enjoyed, and although I'd certainly rather not have vertigo, as long as it's here, I might as well allow it to give sexy shivers to a very responsible sadist who enjoys disorienting people." It was a tentative shift, but it shifted.

As starting time drew near, I purposefully isolated myself where I could see Barak approach.

He walked up with a grin, holding my gaze as soon as he was in sight, with power and purpose and calm emanating off each step. It's hard to be too terribly anxious or distrustful with that much dead fucking sexy heading your way, y'know?

He told me he had re-read my summarization; we discussed choking and tap-out signals, whether or not I needed my glasses, visual testing for nystagmus (an involuntary rapid eye movement that happens with drunk and dizzy people), and setup logistics. It was comforting to hear him toss out medical terms.

I had said I wouldn't be able to start until I had seen in his eyes that he "got it" and I did see that he was taking it seriously, that his whole mind was engaged, and that he was focused on reading me. But I had big questions in my head I needed answered in person before we started: Do you understand why this is so real-world scary for me? What do you get out of this? Why do you want to do this to me?

I was about to draw my "okay let's do this" breath to ask those final questions when he drew his "okay let's do this" breath and said to me, as near as I can remember, something like this:

"I understand that you will be feeling the effects of this scene in your body for days, and feeling the effects emotionally even longer. I know this illness has been damaging to you. To do this, to play with your vertigo like we are about to do, this takes an extraordinary amount of trust, and I am honored that you feel enough trust with me to ask me to do this with you.

I want you to know: I take that trust and responsibility seriously. This isn't something I have a chance to do often, if ever. This is a big deal. This is edge play for me."

I felt it, the truth of it from him, the hunger for it from him. And I was floored. And humbled. And held. And honored. And seen.

And then, before I could let him know that he had just fried my last resistors, he continued:

"But even if we weren't going to play this way, I also need you to understand that I find you incredibly sexy. Your body has everything that turns me on. You have a beautiful face. And the way you move is amazingly attractive. Even if we weren't doing edge play, I would still want to make your legs weak by playing with you."

My mouth dropped open and I laughed, too stunned to tell him he had answered my Big Questions perfectly, too happy to be the object of his desires like that, and too busy watching his eyes light up because he could see that I believed him.

He reached for the back of my neck and pulled me to him for a truly wondrous first kiss, pulling me onto his lap to grind me onto his thigh while we made out. I was in heaven.

Until we heard a crazy cracking noise, and I felt his gaze break off me, and I turned around, leaning against his chest, to see someone cracking a giant whip ... that was on fire. "Well, that's something you don't see every day" I said, hoping he would understand that I didn't all begrudge the focus shift. I mean, honestly. Bullwhip. On. Fire. "No, you don't" he laughed and we watched together for a few moments, lost in the beauty and brutality of it.

When he pulled me back to him to kiss me again, it cracked crazy behind me again and he broke and said "oh wow" and I realized there was a brand new bonfire there next to him where there had not been a bonfire a moment ago. "He just lit that bonfire with the whip." Oh, Tryst, how we love you.

Since we were well and truly distracted now, we moved ahead with next-step logistics: I'd choose a play space with a suspension point, he'd get his rope bag, I'd gather my husband and The Gang who wanted to watch, and we'd reconvene. About the time I realized I wanted to go to the bathroom beforehand, I also realized that Barak had joined the fire whip guys to take a turn or two, and we nodded our mutual "oh hey it's gonna take an extra minute"s to each other across the field.

SB, one of the organizers, whose class on the energy and psychology of BDSM I had attended where she talked about kinksters with hunter instincts and shorter attention spans predisposed to seek adrenaline rushes (of which there are lots), wandered by and asked if I'd seen the bonfire get whip-lit, crackling with her own happiness as she asked. I explained the situation, and her closeness with Barak was obvious to me in her responses. We stood together watching him throw the fire whip with childlike wonder and glee, and I said "As distracting shiny squirrels go, a whip on fire is a big damn sexy shiny squirrel. Ya gotta admit that. Anybody who would keep him from going and throwing that..." and SB completed my thought with a sigh, "... is an asshole." And we nodded together, lost in the memories of lovers we had both had who had wandered off from us and followed their bliss, and how it was wonderful and heartbreaking and annoying and yet how much awesome fuel they provide when you finally occupy the totality of their gaze again.

I think of it now as the calm before the storm, when Barak gathered his wind through the fire.

And then we rolled. Chairs got in place, my husband's submissive agreed to keep track of my stuff, SB got us barrier gloves in the right size, Barak returned with his rope bag and started rigging the tie off and release hardware, The Gang assembled, I gave hugs, I finished my caffeinated vitamin water...

And I took a "let's do this" breath and walked over to my husband.

We had realized in the week leading up to Tryst that Barak wasn't just playing with me, but also with him. Throughout our ten years together, we've had a few moments where we have held each other with all our focus, and then walked through a doorway fully intending to change our lives, hopefully for the better. It only took the briefest of glances to know we were about to have another one of those moments.

In that instant, Barak was merely one part of the ongoing answer to my husband's four years of heartfelt prayers of "make this better for her, somehow, please". I'm sure we said something, but I never remember what we say in those moments.

Then I walked away from him, feeling carried by his love and support, the love and support of The Gang who had gathered there, and the love and support of my sister and The Gang back home and ex-callers and blog readers who couldn't be there but who were holding their breath wanting the best for me nonetheless.

The play space we chose was a big square suspension brace that looked like it held lights for an outdoor music performance: a silver upside down U of industrial sturdiness set on a tarp which defined our play space on the ground. It looked like a stage atop a hill. Barak had rigged a tie point well above his head, out of my reach.

I took a final "let's do this" breath as I watched him do the same. We both grinned. I stepped onto the tarp.

He asked me if I wanted the chest harness comfortable or uncomfortable as he was peeling my clothing off me. "I ... uuuh ... I don't ... I dunno" He grinned. I had clearly just chosen uncomfortable.

I asked about my shoes, on or off, and he answered "yes" which was totally fair since I hadn't chosen a harness. I peeled them off, and glasses too eventually, until I was completely naked except for a plastic version of my wedding ring that I didn't mind if I lost.

He chose a slightly scratchy rope and bound my chest tight, with one line of rope above my breasts and one line of rope below them, and I couldn't watch him rigging to see what connected the lines, but I had scratches between my breasts afterward. Something on my back secured to the rigging overhead, as if I were on a short leash. We had discussed the setup, me having a safety rope so if my legs went out, my chest harness would catch me, but neither the harness nor the leash would restrict my basic movement. Clever.

As I was getting tied and Barak's focus was on weight-bearing mechanics, The Gang made some joke resulting in one member moving her chair away in a mock pout. "Hey, no pouting during my scene!" I yelled at her, and she yelled back "you just pay attention to the bad man, there, missy!" and everybody laughed.

I assured Barak that he would have my full attention once I was rigged and he chortled and said low under his breath, threateningly, "oh, I know". I blinked hard. And blushed.

He finished rigging me, and asked me to lower my weight down until the chest harness took it all, and it did, and I was a ball hanging on a leash for a moment - an unpleasantly scratchy ball with rope biting into my ribs and armpit fat while Barak pushed my shoulders to test more force, but I was safe. I stood back up.

He stood in front of me, and I started to mumble incoherently about how my husband starts scenes with a question and Barak grinned, pulling me toward him out toward the edge of my leash, until I managed to say "Barak" and he paused. "Angela" he replied. "Will you please do this thing with me, and incapacitate me for the next few days?" I saw his heart fill. He resumed tugging me to him while he stepped backward until I was stretched to the edge of my leash and the rope was biting into my chest and it was getting a little tough to breathe. "Yes, Angela, I will."

And he let go with a push, and I sprung back, stumbling into my footing, yelping and grinning, and we were on.

Between that and my third orgasm, it gets blurry.

I have dozens of sensory memories, but the sequence is impossible to reconstruct. I think now that I was standing for about 20-30 minutes, but it felt like much much, much longer.

He stretch-tugged me to the end of my leash again until I gasped for air, and he said "I'll start gentle" a few times as he hurt me until I finally said "you're lying to me, you jerk face" which made him laugh.

He kissed me often, possessively sometimes, brutally others, reassuringly once or twice, holding me on tiptoes by a fist in my hair, or leaning me backward so far my leash was holding some of my weight, or pulling me close, or shoving me away.

He spun me, pushed me, showed up where I didn't expect him to be, made my head go where I didn't expect it to be. It felt like he was tripping me, fucking with my feet, but I intellectually think he never did, that instead he "fucked with my feet" by moving my upper body in ways that made my feet feel confused.

I would feel myself suddenly still, and open my eyes to the rig and the sky and the sensation of his thumb digging into some pressure point as I could barely see him in my peripheral vision. His eyes never left me.

I grabbed for him sometimes, to pull him closer, holding myself up on his strength, wrapping my arms and a leg around him, begging him with my body to be inside me, impaling myself on what Sheba gave words to the next day as "just because I don't have a physical cock doesn't mean I can't fuck you with my energetic cock" and yes, that's exactly what I was fucking when I was crawling up him like that, his energetic cock.

He hurt me, slapping my flesh, including a few open-hand-full-swing-back blows to my breasts that made them feel like tits, like flesh hanging off me, instead of personal symbols of feminine power and beauty. The slaps were shocking and stunning and almost always followed by a shove.

His thumbs and knuckles and fingertips kept driving into my hips and breasts and ribs and thighs and shoulders, causing me to squeal and growl and flinch away and buck toward and curse. At one point, he was behind me, grabbing my hips but digging his fingertips in toward my groin, causing ongoing bursts of pain, and he growled into my ear, "press your ass back against my cock, dammit" and when I did, he shoved me over into my chest harness and slammed his body against me.

"Can you feel how hard I am?" he asked over and over with my hand suddenly against his pants, a bulge so sturdy I could trace the lines of it, feel the underside of it at times, almost wrap my hand around it, so I did, stroking and tracing and encouraging and welcoming and wanting it. It calmed me. It gave me strength. Even though I haven't seen his cock undressed, I'm a big fan of it.

He would go away, leaving me panting and catching some steadiness, followed by the sounds those black nitrile medical barrier gloves make: that squeaking stretch, that sudden snap, and then he would touch my soaking wet pussy, at first purposefully over-stimulating my clit to get me to back away from him into the leash so I was stretching and hurting myself to get away from him, then later pressing fingers inside me until I was pressing back against him, repositioning the angle for my pleasure, growing that wave.

Before he made me climax the first time, he backed off me several times, feeling me rise then leaving me suddenly, with a squeaky snap to let me know the glove was off and he was done. The first time caused in me a laugh and a declaration "that's just rude". The second was more of a growl, with some cursing. The third was me lunging at him against my leash, desperate to get him back.

I yelled at him a lot. I called him a fucker, a jerk face, a sonofabitch, an asshole. I shoved him away from me, kicked at him, hip-checked him, body slammed him, pressed my elbow into his gut.

I bit at him, not to hurt him, but to warn him, I think sometimes, or to have yet another point to steady myself against the tipping onslaughts. I clenched his shirt between gritted teeth in pain or struggle or pleasure, or all three mixed.

Or maybe I bit his shirt to taste his sweat, to have pride that I was making him fucking work for it dammit. I did, too. I made him work hard.

I laughed a lot. So did he. He taunted me, poked at me, surprised me, and I let myself be amused, startled, annoyed, flattered, full of lust. I relaxed back against his chest and pulled him into me by his pants. I remember the texture of the fabric so clearly.

I didn't want to see a crowd, didn't want to open my eyes if I was at an angle where I thought I might see them, because it wasn't about them or for them and I sure as hell didn't need to process anybody's emotions but mine. But sometimes sympathetic laughter or "ooooo"s would come from places where I didn't think people were, and it made me happy.

I didn't need to look at The Gang who knew the story behind the scene. I could feel them just fine without sight, holding their breath, holding my husband.

I tried not think of how hard it must be for him to be watching me. I told him he didn't have to, before camp, that he didn't have to watch. Maybe that's what I said in our moment, "I know this is hard for you, but I'm so grateful you chose to be here". If that isn't what I said, it's what I should have said.

I saw my feet a lot. I would look at them to steady myself sometimes, I think. Or maybe then I just wouldn't see the crowd. But also I found myself suddenly facing my feet with the chest harness biting into my skin far more often than I expected to. I realized days later it could have been partially because Barak likes the way my ass looks when I'm bent over.

I remember once when he was messing with my sense of location, poking and slapping and yanking me around, and I felt a sudden window to plant my feet, BOOM. Solid. In almost a squat, like a runner catching breath after a jog. And his next poke or prod or push just sank into me with no effect, and I thought "gotcha you fucker!" and I momentarily relished my victory. It's possible I gloated. I'm sure my expression gloated.

I realized later that every time I got my solid like that for a moment, he would pause. And let me gather. One breath, probably, maybe two. And then get back to fucking with my feet.

He made me come, standing on my feet, balancing against him at unstable angles, with my head snapped back, or suddenly slammed bent over my harness. I didn't know if he would let me finish or stop abruptly and spin me off. He would growl into me or pull me to him with a "yes" or suddenly smack my ass to hear me yelp.

I said only two things of any significance, and those were the two moments I will remember most clearly.

"I don't wanna crash yet." I was having. so. much. fucking. fun. I felt beautiful and sexy and amusing and captivating and wonderful and strong and delightful, and I felt it creeping up on me, the inevitable vertigo crash. I denied it first, then fought it, found my balance, gathered energy from The Gang, shoved Barak off me, but I wasn't winning. It was growing up my back like a heavy warm blanket, and I could feel my legs buckling, my knees weakening, my sense of things getting dimmer. I said it quietly at first, where probably even he couldn't hear. "No. Please. Don't. I don't wanna crash yet."

Then it welled up inside me, the words, and I felt them, every time I've ever wanted to say those words, but I didn't because it is too fucking heartbreaking to hear someone you love say that to you when there is nothing you can do to help. Car rides. Plane rides. Parties. Movies. Crowds. Life.

"I don't WANNA crash yet." I said it louder, spit it through my teeth, and he heard. I started crying, a sputtering, choking cry. He gave me a breath to pause, to feel it, to let it well up inside me stronger, then fucked with me to topple me back. I can't imagine the strength of will in that shove, because I know he heard me, I know he felt me, and I know he believed me.

"No! NO! I don't wanna crash yet dammit! I don't!" I said it loud enough for others to hear now, as he kept coming into me, toppling me, and I heard the stifled sobs from The Gang.

"NoooOOOOO!" I yelled at him, and I flung my body against the ropes and wailed at him with everything I had, "FUCK. YOU. I DON'T WANT THIS. I DON'T WANT TO CRASH YET. FUCK YOU!"

And as the ball of fuckyou spilled out of me, he crashed into me and wrapped himself around me and growled at me, "More - give me more, dammit" and forced a kiss onto me and shoved his cock against my hand again and I could feel the pulsing through the thick canvas. I couldn't shove him away, so I found my feet and I pushed against him while sucking his tongue into my mouth and absorbed all the rock steady he was feeding me.

I had my feet again. For now. I had them.

And I had a new thought.

"Fuck you, I'm still standing" I gasped as he broke from me, trembling, weak in the knees, struggling for air, feeling the blanket inside me weighing me down.

"Fuck you! I'm still standing!" He came at me again and I slammed him away. "Fuck you. FUCK you! I'm still standing!" And just as surely as I had been yelling out my fears the moment before, I raised my volume, not caring who I interrupted, declaring my momentary victory. He spun me, stinging, hard, brutal.

"FUCK! YOU! I'M! STILL! STANDING!!" And he crashed back into me suddenly gloved again, filling me with pleasure and lust and growling into me "Yes. More. Give me more." The orgasm was wrenched from my guts as I shoved against him, growling.

After I came, he shook me with what felt like a slap and said "I need more! Focus! Breathe!" And smothered me facing him, repeating over and over "More. Focus. Breathe. C'mon, I need more. Focus. Breathe. Give me more. More. More. Breathe. Focus." And I let him hypnotize me into steadiness again, before he shoved me away with a lip-licking grin and a nonchalant "good".

But after the third orgasm, my knees buckled. He steadied me for a few moments, then released me and backed away. I felt the muscles going weak, and I thought "I could call it. This could be it. I could go down now, safeword out, say I'm done, and I'll still spin for days. Nobody would blame me. Everyone would still be happy for me. I could just let go." My body was begging me, screaming at me, to stop.

But I couldn't come this far for that. I paused against the aching harness, my legs locked apart, arms straining to hold my chest off my thighs, multiple muscles shaking.

I pushed. To stand. I could neither think nor say the words "fuck you, I'm still standing" but at least I could do it. I reached above my head for my leash to support more weight with one arm and pulled up on Barak with the other. He released a breath he had been holding, proud of me, I could feel it. The Gang and the crowd released the same breath, and Barak pulled me toward him by my shoulders, slowly, steadily, back to the end of my leash again, just like when we started, holding me there, bruising against the rope, until I either grinned or cursed at him, and then he let me go, stumbling, into another round.

It didn't last long. The outcome was clear and inevitable; I was going down. But not without another fight. He tussled me until I was almost spontaneously buckling, then he snapped on another glove, pressed his face against mine, looked into what I can only imagine were glassy, unfocused eyes, and said, "all that matters here is that your cunt is wet. And my cock is hard." He slid his fingers inside me easily, put my hand against his cock, and he wasn't lying on either account. "Your wet cunt. My hard cock. That's all that matters." I gasped against him, bracing my forehead on his chest, as he chanted to me "your wet cunt, my hard cock, your wet cunt, my hard cock ... wet cunt, hard cock, wet cunt, hard cock ... wet cunt, wet cunt, wet cunt" while shove-curling his fingers deep inside me, my clit resting the weight of my torso on the heel of his hand, and when it welled up inside me, I could feel the vertigo crash behind it, or in front of it, mixed into it, and I knew I was down.

But wow. What a way to go.

He got me off the rig safely, until I was lying on the ground. I opened my eyes and I could barely focus. "I can't see you" I said and he asked me to repeat that. "No, wait, I mean, I can't figure out how to look at you, because my eyes" He was so swirly and jumpy, kneeling over me, and I started mumbling "I don't have it anymore. I can't focus it away. I can't focus it away anymore. I'm sorry. I don't have enough" and he caressed my body tenderly, letting me mumble, letting me feel, and then reached for another glove, and said "you don't have to focus it away".

I know I laughed weakly, my arms protesting like noodles "no no no I don't, I can't come again, I don't have it." But he grinned at me, kissed me, slid my legs apart, pressed his chest into mine, and toyed with my guts while I spun inside my head, murmuring to me to let it all go, dig deep, give him just one more, let it come.

I remember my back arching when I climaxed that last time, as if it had a will of its own, my hands grabbing helplessly for something to hold onto, feeling him ripping it out of me, letting it rip through me, feeling my muscles shred and my will disintegrate.

And then. I was done.

He poked me, pushed me, kissed me, held my face to look at him, and no muscles responded. I tried, they just... Didn't. He said later my eyes were crossing. I tried to answer his questions when I could understand them, but moans were the best I could do.

He kissed me, and I felt a mint slide into my mouth, and his hands turned into business, snapping off the last glove, which sprayed my own pussy juices into my face. I attempted to tell him he had just splashed me with my own cum, but I'm not sure I succeeded.

"When... " I said, with all the force I could muster. "When..." He mirrored back, hearing that I was trying to say something important.

"When we're done..." I said. "Yes we're done" he replied.

"Could you call him over ... So I can say I'm ok?" He petted my hair, and I felt his gaze turn away for the first time since I stepped onto the tarp.

I heard voices, which later my husband said was Barak offering him a mint, probably as a way to assess how steady he was, and a way to welcome him into our space, and maybe to help him ground. He declined the mint and knelt down beside me, holding my hand.

"I'm okay" I said, in my strongest voice, which I'm quite certain sounded pitiful. "I know" he said, through tears. "You're so strong and you fought so hard and you're so much more than okay. You're my strong little mad thing on a leash." and we all laughed.

Somehow, although I attempted to talk them out of it with "just let me sit here for hour and I'll be okay to ride a taxi (golf cart) back to the tent", they decided to strap me to a medical back board. Since I could barely even roll over onto the board, perhaps it was a wise choice.

Regardless, the back board taxi ride was cool as hell - I got strapped in, lifted into the golf cart propped up like a dead pope on display, held in place by Barak behind me and my husband walking beside me on the side, and I rode that way at walking speed through the main drag of camp, with The Gang following behind like a devastatingly sexy Swiss Guard. I was told people stared in confusion, but since we were all joking and laughing, I don't think anyone was worried.

Back at the tent, they stood me up, unwrapped me, and guided me wedged between two gorgeous strong men, who bore almost all my weight, to a reclining chair facing into the woods, where I could be alone in quiet.

Well, except for everyone who loved me hovering around, worried. "I'm good. I'll be fine" I assured them once my water and applesauce were in place.

I said goodbyes and thank yous to Barak, who later told me he went and slept for an hour and a half. I declared that since I had done a scene so intense that I needed to be carried away from it strapped to a stretcher, I was "totally fucking metal" and threw ridiculously weak horns. I asked if anybody needed to process with me, and they all laughed and said together "tomorrow" as they trickled away, so I assume it was a feeble-sounding offer.

My husband came back a few times to check on me, telling me he was proud of my bravery and strength. I reached for him, serious, nodding, and said "I learned it from watching you" which made him laugh from the bottom of his belly, pat me on the head, tell me g'night, and walk away, shaking his head in faux exasperation that I had mocked him, but reassured.

I dozed in and out, with crazy vivid vertigo-coma dreams, until it got darker and colder and I had to pee. I knew someone would check on me soon, but I thought I'd try, so I leaned forward to un-recline my chair, grabbed my walking stick, and pulled up. I was wobbly, but I was up.

I stepped onto the tarp no later than 8:10. I was passed out in my chair by 9:30. And at 11:20, I was standing, dammit.

The bathroom was halfway to the dungeon, so I went there after I peed out of sheer orneriness. My husband's submissive was at the dungeon, freshly finished from giggle-wrestling the third sexiest man at camp (behind my husband and Barak), and she was covered in bruises and red spots, and astonished to see me up.

"Whaaaaatcha doin?" She asked with no small amount of alarm. "Standing, gawddammit" I answered belligerently. We bantered until I realized her play date had no context for my loopiness, so I drunkenly told him the story, including excessively pointing at him for emphasis. When I said "so Barak broke my brain for a few days" he responded "that's kinda hot" and I shot back "what the fuck is wrong with you people?" I also flipped him off, although now I'm not sure why. I also head-butted her on her freshly bruised nipples like an old goat annoyed by something but too tired to properly slam into it. I was amused by myself.

But I needed to lie back down. I had witnesses at least. I hadn't seen Barak, but he would hear about it.

Saturday, I needed to be talked down from feeling like my confusion and incoherence would ruin camp for everyone else. I had been expecting to be down for the count, but I could still stand, so therefore my body wanted to be around people, build new memories, not miss out. Barak and Sheba and Sheba's energy circle and my husband and my husband's submissive all finally helped me piece it together that although Barak broke my brain, I would not break camp by wandering around in a haze. I was not that damn important.

After the bonfire, I did a solo scene I called "I'm Still Standing Dammit", in which I literally wandered through camp, chatting with folks, then drifting off when the words got confusing, absorbing what I could, but the whole time thinking "I'm still standing, dammit. So there". I was up until almost 1 am.

In my tent, I tried to zip my sleeping bag for 20 minutes before I gave up and creatively arranged a blanket. In the morning, I realized I hadn't pulled down the sliding part of the zipper: I had literally forgotten how zippers worked. That made me feel better that even though I was standing, my claim of being incapacitated was valid after all.

Although Barak and I after-care touched-base a few times Saturday and Sunday, the one I needed the most was when I asked for reassurances: Are you happy we played? Yes. Is there any part of you that wants to fuck me? It's all I can do not to bend you over this picnic table and fuck you senseless right now. Awwwww. Thanks.

But the aftercare drive-by which meant the most ended with me thanking him for changing my life for the better. "We do that every time we touch, don't we?" he asked. "Yes, but, I'll remember this one." It caused a good grin on him.

After camp was over and we were back home in our favorite celebratory restaurant at dinner, it took three people to formulate the thought "Fry .... from .... Futurama" (I got the "from"), and I let myself believe that maybe my crash wasn't all that much worse than other people's event drop after all. I figured I would probably know how zippers and math and decisions worked again around Wednesday or Thursday. That's probably not all that bad.

And I thought of the third sexiest man at camp, and wondered idly maybe whether he would want to giggle-wrestle me into a broken brain if we are both at camp again next year.

And there. There it was. The change we hoped would happen, although we didn't know exactly what it would look like: me accepting my vertigo into my sexy.

I smiled to myself, too incoherent to explain why. But I knew. I understood. I believed: we did it. It worked. We did it.

I said a thank you prayer for husband and Barak and Sheba and The Whole Gang and for my strength, which, as Barak said after the fact, but my husband had understood as it was occurring: my strength was the part of me Barak was playing with all along.

Bless you Barak, you unimaginably competent and sexy beast of a sadist. Thank you for helping me see myself.

As it turns out, I'm standing.

Meds and Trains and My Missing Superpower

When I was a manager, I encouraged people to find their "superpower". As an example, I said mine was "English translator of English" -- I have an unusual ability to help technical people understand the business side of things, and vice versa.

Apparently, my Missing Superpower is: Keeping People Informed Of My Calendar. I told about five people I was traveling. Everyone else was confused and ignored. I'm really sorry. In my defense, I was using all my energy trying not to be terrified of traveling. It sort of worked (not really).

I just got back from Chicago. I went there for a long-overdue checkup with my dizzy doctor to discuss my horse tranquilizers. He told me about a new habituation treatment that involves a rotating chair and synchronized visual input, so even those with the most severe motion sickness can tolerate treatments in the chair, and apparently after five sessions of just an hour each, 100% of the people in the study had full recovery to allow them to travel without illness!

So while I wait for him to build a hurl-a-whirl chair (as my sister called it... heh), I'll stay on my ridiculously low doses of barbiturates and continue to make incremental improvement, and then wipe out my improvements by over-extending myself socially, or by traveling, which wipes me out, but I love seeing people and changing scenery, so I'll keep doing it!

Speaking of traveling, the car ride up to Chicago was as difficult as expected, but the pleasant surprise was how well I tolerated the elevated train to get to and from downtown -- better than a car! I felt like I could predict the motion of the train (both acceleration and deceleration, but also side-to-side) more accurately than expected.

Then the big success was getting home via train, which was over 2.5 hours of constant motion. Oh, sure, I looked like a zombie shuffling off the train, my voice was flat, my speech was slurred, I was confused, and my muscles were weak, but I still felt like I could direct my body in case of an emergency. That opens up a new realm of possibilities for me, because I can theoretically get all the way to Houston on my own if I gave myself enough recouping time between the train to Chicago, the elevated train to O'Hare, and the plane to Houston. Exciting!

Summary: Sorry I forgot to tell you I'd be traveling. My doctor's visit was fine. If you have brain-drunk-vertigo, Trains > Cars > Planes (FYI: as far as I know, I am the only person in the world who has brain-drunk vertigo, so this information has extremely limited usefulness).

How'd It Go?

Last Wednesday I had my Social Security disability hearing for my vertigo, covering the period from March 2009, when I got sick, to July 2010, when I started working as a phone sex operator. Beforehand, my lawyer prepped me what to expect, and we went over the evidence to ensure my she had the important findings at the top of her notes.

We discussed whether to tell the judge I do the generic "phone consulting" or to tell him I'm a phone sex operator. The reality is, I chose this profession not only because I'm a giant slut who loves playing with callers' sexual energy, but also because I can set my own hours, I can rest when I need to, and I can't sustain any visual effort longer than about an hour. That leaves... ummm, well, phone sex! My lawyer advised me to play it by ear, but if it came to a choice of "the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth" then of course, I had to tell the judge.

Five minutes into the hearing, I was saying, "I'm a phone sex operator, Your Honor." He snortled, blinked, and asked, "Excuse me?" I repeated myself, "I do phone sex, Your Honor." I could feel myself blushing, and panicking slightly about whether or not it was the right choice. He raised his eyebrows at my lawyer as if to say "Nice curveball, counselor", but declined to comment.

I answered questions: Could I work from home as a PSO? Yep. Why could I be a PSO in July 2010? A combination of physical therapy and medicines improved my condition enough. Why couldn't I be a PSO between March 2009 and July 2010? The vertigo precluded concentrating long enough to sustain intense dialogue. How much do I make as a PSO? I've averaged only a few hundred dollars per month more than if I were still disabled and collecting Social Security disability benefits (my monthly average has been decreased by all the time I've taken off for my moves, but also, my monthly benefit amount was substantial because I made a lot / paid a lot into Social Security before I got sick - I think I maxed out my SS contributions for the last 8 years of my IT career).

Why can't I do my old job, be an IT Manager? I thought about opening a wall of SQL text, reviewing discombobulated spreadsheets with inconsistent data to import into a central database, reading hundreds of emails a day, running a project team meeting starting with "guys, we have a problem, and I have no clue how to solve it"... and I started to cry. Crying made me panic about seeming disingenuous or manipulative, and made me embarrassed to be crying, which, of course, only made it harder not to cry. Great.

There were more questions. The judge had clearly read my medical evidence, and knew what he wanted to uncover during testimony. I didn't interrupt him, I tried to stay on target, summarize without missing critical subtle details, and not let it distract me that I was starting to spin, stutter, feel foggy, drop words. The timing was horrifying, yet poetically impeccable: I was having a concentration-triggered vertigo crash in the middle of my disability hearing. Things were getting blurry, but I had to hang on enough to answer questions.

The judge thanked me for my creativity and willingness to work, which I thought was odd until I considered it later: I'm sure he sees a lot of people who are just trying to scam the system or get out of working to be lazy. But there I was saying, no, I really genuinely couldn't work for 16 months. But then I could work, so I did. I work, making less than a third of what I used to make. I work, making only 10% more than I would make if I were not working and on disability. But I can work, so I do.

Then he said "I'm granting disability for the closed period of March 2009 to July 2010. Counselor, are you all right with that?" My lawyer looked surprised, stammered, and said, "Yes, Your Honor". And then she was gathering her things and the judge was saying "This concludes the hearing" and I had the feeling I should leave the room, but there were things we had reviewed before the hearing that had not been stated, and my attorney hadn't given me the chance to tell the narrative I had been practicing... and what the fuck was going on?

Thankfully, something in my rational mind overruled my panic and said "follow your lawyer" so I packed up, stood up, turned around, stumbled into the wall, and drunkenly made it into the attorney consultation room. "What happened? Why didn't we... my narrative..."

She said calmly, decisively, and slowly, "You won. He said yes. He granted your disability. You're done."

"What? When? You said that wouldn't happen..." Then she laughed as my brain caught up, and trying to look professional instead of delightedly happy as she explained that the phrase "I'm granting disability" means he affirmed my total disability in the months I couldn't work, and granted me benefits.

My legs gave out; I had to sit. For two and a half years, I faced repeated denials of benefits because neurological vertigo is wickedly hard to prove. A part of me didn't believe the day would ever come when anybody would give me any disability benefits whatsoever.

Over the past few days, I keep having a feeling of dissociation from the reality of what has happened, followed by huge rushes of emotion: relief, gratitude, anger, joy, frustration, peace, and giddy giddy giggling.

The money will be exactly enough to: repay my mom and sister the money they've loaned us, pay off the last of my student loans from my MBA classes (I didn't finish my MBA because I got a management job without one), pay for the last step of the dental work I've been putting off for months, and then pay for about 10 celebratory dinners at in the $50-and-under range. Perfect.

So, how'd it go Wednesday? It went perfectly. I'm barely starting to come out of my shock at how perfectly it went.

I deeply appreciate each and every note of support I got. Thank you. Thank you more than you know.

So. Now I need to figure out how to get this damn blog back on track. Phone sex, Galiana. That's what people are here to read about, phone sex. Try to write about phone sex next, would you?

You know I don't make promises, but I'll try.

On The Road Again

Tomorrow, I'm traveling back to Austin to have a disability hearing. Although the timing was unfortunate, I'm very glad it's been scheduled and that I get time to explain my weird, complicated case.

I spent the first six months of my vertigo visiting 17 doctors and a physical therapist, looking for diagnosis and a cure.

In months 6-15, I tried a series of medicines, to varying degrees of less-than-total-success, but I also extended the lessons I learned in physical therapy to try to develop coping patterns of activity / rest.

In month 15, I felt good enough about the balance of occasional medicines and my physical therapy gains to attempt to make a living at phone sex. I was not at all sure I could do it. Some days were better than others. I'm still so grateful I was able to make it work.

The hearing will ONLY cover the time period before I started working (months 0-15). I genuinely believe that I could not have worked any sooner - it took that long for the right medicines and therapies to do their thing. Plus, Just Say No to attempting to defraud the government.

So the hearing will be hard: I'll have to remember in vivid detail a difficult period of my life.

And it will be wonderful: I'll get to remember in vivid detail how much more I can do now, and celebrate being the kind of person who chooses to do everything I can do. I choose to work, even at 1/3 of my former salary most months, because I can, and I love that about myself.

And I am traveling on my own, something I feared I could never do again. I'm not gonna lie, it's gonna suuuuuuuck to be on a plane again. But it sucks less than never traveling again. By a lot.

In the meantime, we're happily unpacking our new home to make one room functional at a time. The bedroom works REALLY well!! Yay me!

The Fuckatorium 3.0 will be spectacular, but has not yet been properly equipped or decorated. I can't wait to show it to you! I'm going for a very sparse look, with only necessities. The idea is to keep as little as possible in the room so it's video-ready at the drop of a hat if I get the urge. Less clutter = more videos (I hope). It's a unique room, with deeply sloped walls that obviously used to be part of an attic, 9 feet wide by 22 feet long with deep red walls - it's striking!

So I'll be offline and unavailable for calls Tue, Wed, Thu, but available by appointment only Friday afternoon. I'll probably be offline Saturday, and back on Sunday. Then next week, well, next week is when the real fun starts again: establishing my new pattern. I am so incredibly looking forward to next week!

Care and Feeding of Galiana

Too much want

In the probably-forgettable movie Made In Heaven, seen in my impressionable youth, a new soul falls in love with a guy named Mike in heaven, and then, after she's born and grows up, although she doesn't remember him directly, she writes a children's book called "The Care and Feeding of Mike". The sweet little phrase stuck with me, and now when I think of care, I think "The Care and Feeding of..."

Urg. I have so much want.

I want to continue the dialog I entered into with my celebration of male submissives post, reading others' spectacular writings and leaving comments that make me seem like I know what I'm talking about. I want to keep engaging with Fizz and Chaos of Lab Coats & Lingerie, lose myself in the archives of KittyStryker's recently-Janes-Guide-approved PurrVersatility, help Alisa research to fill in the blanks of her archiving efforts at KinkInExile, encourage Tomio to keep writing, and pathetically attempt to keep up with all the insights and research spread by the inspirational maymay, knowledge worker extraordinaire, the one who drew me into this particular dizzying world of rhetoric and ideas to begin with by the brilliantly evocative MaleSubmissionArt...

Maymay, by the way, is also the one who helped me realize the value of contextual linking. I recognize the irony of having no links in that sentence. (trivia: I am always certain I have used the word "irony" incorrectly)

But back to my insatiable want... I want to write more about fairness and negotiation and respect in relationships, BDSM and vanilla. I want to share my observations about community-building from years of church and BDSM groups and playing MMORPGs. I want to start podcasting. I want to release more videos that are like visual podcasts. I want to open an Ask Galiana blog so I can pretend to legitimize my compulsive need to share my perspective.

I want to take series of pictures enjoying my body as I strip out of constrictive clothing to show that I can still celebrate my physicality even though my medicines packed on an extra 15 pounds I didn't intend to gain.

I want to spend every moment with my family for these last couple of weeks while I still live in Houston with them. After 21 years away, it has been soul-nourishing to live in the same town again for 6 months, just barely long enough to develop habits of including each other. I will miss the casual ability to help, and to feel feel caught up.

I want to be spending enough time over the phone with my husband, who is away from our current home, working in the place where I'm moving at the end of the month, to stay emotionally connected to him during this busy time, so we don't get too snappy or resentful.

I want to sort through the crap in my home that we didn't have time to sort through when we moved here in March, and I want to recycle, donate, sell, and throw away as much as possible before we pay by the pound to move it cross-country. I am disturbed by how many belongings we have moved multiple times and never used.

And I want to keep feeding off the energy of my callers, take luscious escapes of fantasy and pleasure, lose myself in the delicious focus of luxuriating in the erotic rhythms of wants and needs and secrets and lusts. I feel useful and sexy and empowered and strong and capable when I spend time having phone sex.

And on the days of the move, I want to be at the top of my game, ready to do whatever needs to be done, strong and willing and able.

Days? What do you mean day? The next 3 weeks include these separate days: hub's last 4-day trip where he has to finish packing everything that is his and sorting everything that is ours, 4 days of paying an underemployed friend to help me pack, movers taking our stuff, my hub driving away with the car and the dogs, my flying up to *static* and him driving me to our new home several hours from there, our stuff arriving at our new place, and a great friend from college arriving to help me unpack for a few days.

Oh, and I'd like to do all that without having any vertigo crashes, please. Because having massive physical limitations is completely inconvenient right now. Could I just not have vertigo for a bit?

Dear Galiana,

Please read The Care and Feeding of Galiana. It goes something like this: Galiana needs, at a minimum: water, food, down-time to let her brain rest, and, separately from the rest, sleep. If you could also work in "having reasonable expectations for herself," that would be peachy.

Love, Galiana

I feel like I'm considering dropping out of a bunch of stuff that just finally got rolling, and I don't want to let any of it go. But that is the thought pattern of people who drive themselves crazy from inexperience, and, for better or worse, I know better.

So I will put my activist urges on a shelf, carefully schedule blocks of time with family, resign myself to still having clutter after we move, watch my days-between-blog-posts climb again, savor the escape with the callers who catch me on the phone, email the ones who let me know they missed me, and do the best I can to get through this as productively as possible.

A Year and A Fortnight

Galiana A Year and A Fortnight ago

I started taking phone sex calls July 15, 2010, a few days after my husband took this picture of me in our kitchen to test the camera on his new phone. I hadn't yet started writing my first version of my listing, because I didn't yet know about NiteFlirt, but I had applied with a couple of dispatch phone sex services.

I wrote blog posts about my quarter anniversary and my six-month anniversary. Then on July 15, 2011, I completely forgot to write about my 1-year anniversary. When I realized it, two very socially busy days later, I figured I'd wait until my blog anniversary (8/15) and do something then.

On July 24, 2011, I got an email, with the subject line, "No?" and content of, "No big, one-year anniversary blog post?"

I felt so loved. When I saw the email on my phone, I was having lunch with my mom, casually checking to see if anything time-sensitive had happened in the past hour, and she immediately said, "Well, THAT got a reaction, what was that?" I got choked up while explaining it to her. Although she certainly wishes I were physically able to do other types of work, her response was a very supportive, "Awwww. That's very sweet. I like him."

So much has shifted since I started being a phone sex operator.

A year ago, both my husband and I were working from home in Austin, where he could be in charge of letting the dogs in and out of our quarter-acre back yard. The big yard also meant that ensuring they had enough exercise was as simple as taking a 15-minute break to play fetch, or rile them up via tug-of-war until they chased each other along the well-worn path around the perimeter.

My husband also took care of all the shopping for groceries and necessities. So I was free to lounge in the Fuckatorium for 10-12 hours a day, waiting for the phone to ring, writing blog posts, and hanging out on IM chat in case I could entice someone that way. We had friends in Austin, but I rarely went out socially more than twice per week, so most of my time was free to feel sexy and take calls.

Since then, we've moved to Houston, where I am more social, because my family is close by, which is awesome and emotionally nourishing, but puts a strain on me vertigo-wise. My husband got a fantastic job which requires a lot of travel, so I have much less financial pressure, but more responsibilities: chores, groceries, dog parks.

I started taking horse tranquilizers, which has obliterated my capacity to multi-task (thus the death of my casual IM chatting), but has helped ease my vertigo symptoms drastically, allowing me to go from about 30-40% pre-vertigo capacity to 50-60% pre-vertigo capacity. My increased ability to get stuff done means I regularly overshoot my medicines and wear myself out like the overachiever dork I am. Silly Galiana.

So these days, I'm logged on for phone sex less often. Although there still are bills relying on my income (including the extremely motivating category of "my spending money"), the reality is that I'm not a full-time phone girl anymore.

I think one reason I missed my anniversary is because I couldn't figure out what to put here. It seems anti-climactic to say I've gone from full-time to part-time. I still can't tell which story needs to be told. So I'm making this up as I write, feeling my way along, hoping it turns into something coherent here soon. (We can tell, it shows)(Oh hush, there's no need to be rude to yourself)(Ummmm, too late for that).

Plus, I wanted to have something special to offer, or announce, like a commemorative picture set or a "if you do this then I'll send you free minutes" kind of a thing, but nothing stood out to me as The Perfect Celebratory Offer.

In fact, I meant for this blog post to end a few paragraphs back until I figured out The Perfect Celebratory Offer, but now my Inner Therapist and Inner Writer have conspired, and have momentum, and well, who am I to stop them on the principle of posting an anniversary blog post on an actual anniversary date? Pffff. Details. So on we go.

Of course, there are numbers I could share, because I'm a data girl:

* Callers I've blocked (which means they can no longer contact me): 4 - I am happy that number is so low.

* Customers: 781 - although people who delete their accounts don't show up, so it's actually a tad higher than that.

* Most times someone has called me: 57 - I am supremely confident in my ability to get him aroused and leave him satisfied.

* Highest amount I've made from one customer after NiteFlirt's percentage: $2707 - and it is a different guy than my 57-calls customer, and about a quarter of that amount is from pay-to-views and tributes. Not bad for a girl who doesn't advertise for financial domination, right? And if you're wondering if it's you, then no, it's not you, because he knows his financial totals with me, because the money is part of his fetish.

* Verification of the 80/20 rule (80-ish% of my revenue comes from 20-ish% of my customers): yep, almost exactly.

* Overall Revenue from non-calls: about 5% - pretty good considering I don't do nearly as much to advertise my pics and videos as I could, and I never ask for tributes unless I'm doing something custom.

* Times I have rewritten my main listing: 18. Well. That's just embarrassing.

* Calls: 1840, which technically averages out to a little less than 5 per day, but I've taken off a lot of days (Slacker)(Shut up)(No, you shut up)(No, you shut up yer shuttin' up)(/giggle), so really it's a bit higher than 5. (And yes, these parentheticals are real conversations I have with myself)(Psycho)(No YOU!)

Although numbers can sometimes tell a story, in this case, they don't do justice. Not by a long shot.

A year and a fortnight ago, I thought I was more submissive sexually than dominant. After repeated exposure to the raw, powerful lust I can inspire by bringing my leadership and management skills into the bedroom, I now find the thought of a man kneeling before me, offering his mind and body as my plaything... distractingly, exquisitely, deeply arousing.

A year and a fortnight ago, I thought I would never find sexual stimulation in humiliating another person, and even if I did, I wouldn't be very good at it. After making someone come twice in ten minutes from scathingly deriding his lack of sexual adequacy, leading to an adrenaline-fueled big fat POW of an orgasm for me while I told him he could never get me off that well, I concluded I had been mistaken.

A year and a fortnight ago, I thought I was pretty savvy about kinks. After weekly exposure to new fetishes and the fetishists who crave them, I am no longer surprised when I am surprised.

A year and a fortnight ago, I wondered if my size XL body would keep me in such a small niche in the market that it would not be worth the effort to be a phone sex operator. After being begged to get on cam, produce photos, and shoot videos, I have found even more to appreciate about my body.

A year and a fortnight ago, I didn't know if I would ever be able to financially provide for myself in case of an emergency. After I knew I could, the relief and sense of empowerment has been profound.

A year and a fortnight ago, after a year of not working and not being able to go out in crowded public spaces very often, my circles of social and professional connections had contracted, and I missed the feeling of meeting new people. After developing at least a dozen crushes on callers, and at least a dozen mutually supportive co-worker relationships, and making so many connections that I have to turn off chat because I can't multi-task enough to keep up with the barrage of friendly interaction requests, my social meters are pleasantly full any time I wish.

A year and a fortnight ago, I deeply missed feeling useful. I can't explain how frustrating that was for me, and how much energy I spent trying not to feel useless.

Now, after a year and a fortnight of listening to confessions, playing catch with complex balls of emotional and sexual energy, gaining proficiency in dozens of kinks, and - most importantly - helping hundreds of callers make the transition from "I'm so horny I can't fall asleep, but I'm too distracted by thoughts of my crappy day to finish myself off alone" into the far more pleasant "Oh, wow, that felt good and /yawn and /stretch and /whew, finally I can sleep! Thank you, I needed that", now I feel extraordinarily useful as a buddy, a confessor, an outlet, a supporter, and very clearly, as a sleep aid.

(Oh, no, really, this blog post does not need the Galiana Sleep Aid commercial now playing in my head. Please turn that off. Seriously.)

You, and you, and you, and you, and especially you, you all made my first year and a fortnight as a phone sex operator possible, and fun, and exciting, and enriching, and sexy as fucking hell. Thank you.

(So what's the special offer gonna be?)(Oh, for fuck's sake, I just wrote a lovely little ending. Can we leave it at that until I figure out a worthy offer later?)(Sure thing... ya slacker.)(NO, YOU!)

Adjustments

I took a while off from blogging (several of you dropped me a note to ask if I was okay - thank you!) for a few reasons, which can be summarized in this statement:

I had a bit of an adjustment disorder

(the wikipedia article is pretty good for explanation)

In the two months before Feb 15, we knew that we might need to move, and that my husband might need to find a different job. In the three months between Feb 15 and June 15:

• we found out we would need to move (adjustment to new home)
• we moved - not just into a new home, but from Austin to Houston, which was somewhat unexpected (adjustment to new city)
• I had to figure out how social I could be living closer to my family without trashing myself vertigo-wise (adjustment to changes in social opportunities)
• my husband got a job which required him to be mostly in Austin, even though I was in Houston, so we went from spending almost 24/7 together for two years to being in a long-distance relationship (adjustment in primary support relationship, adjustment in living arrangement logistics, adjustment in finances)
• after a week on the new job, my husband got a better offer for a better job which requires him to frequently be out of state, which required a whole host of logistical adjustments (adjustment in primary support relationship, adjustment in living arrangement logistics, adjustment in finances)
• I started a new anti-vertigo medicine which seemed for a while like it might give me a life free of vertigo crashes, so I significantly ramped up my level of physical and social activity (adjustment in health and activity level)
• I had a severe vertigo crash on the new medicine, which was, to put it mildly, hugely disappointing, and it helped me realize I needed to re-think the level of activity I had been attempting to maintain on the new meds (adjustment in health an activity level)

It was a lot to adjust to. Apparently I needed a bit of time to obsessively play DungeonRaid on my iPhone and wander around Houston dog parks engaging other pet fanatics in long conversations about training tips and breed-specific behaviors.

I am in week six-ish of my "new" horse tranquilizer anti-vertigo medicines, so I will now stop calling them "new" and will heretofore simply refer to them as my medicine. 

I am absolutely delightedly grateful that my meds my have allowed me to go from an activity level of about 40% of my pre-vertigo potential to about 60%. I thought for a while that I was gonna get 80% and I won't lie, I didn't take it particularly well when I found out that 80% was out of reach. 80% would have been nice.

But 60% is a damn fine improvement, and I plan on enjoying the hell out of it, now that I seem to be mostly recovered from the shock of losing the dream of 80%.

The most peculiar change, is what happens when I push it too far: before I get dizzy, I get sleepy, as if the sedation effects of the horse tranquilizers kick into high gear, accompanied by an intense craving for baked sweet goods like donuts and cupcakes. If I don't rest immediately, I'm out of commission for a while with dizziness and nausea. Well, maybe the nausea is caused by convenience-store-quality pastries, like plastic-wrapped honey buns and powdered sugar donuts. It's hard to say, really.

But I am a lucky lucky woman indeed: I can do more, my recovery rest periods are shorter, and I am more productive overall.

Well, as long as I don't reinstall DungeonRaid...

Happy

A long-time caller, one of my very first, and a good friend, wrote to me, with a subject line of, "Happy". He opened the email by saying "I was reading your blog and I read about your new medicine. I smiled a lot. I'm still smiling. I'm incredibly happy for you."

What followed was a long email, with fun pictures embedded, detailing some wonderful days he has had recently, and some moments that had given him great pleasure: treasured times with loved ones and new friends. He's a fantastic storyteller, so it was a delight to read, and I felt honored that he had shared his private moments with me.

He closed it with, "Still, none of that compared to the joy I felt when read you felt better."

I keep re-reading that sentence, and it keeps making me cry. I think I'm starting to let myself hope that my new medicines might work out long-term. Somehow, this sentence helped make it real for me: I might be feeling a little better.

Thank you for being happy for me, love. And thank you for telling me.

Continuing to Overshare

Warning: this blog post is long, emotionally complicated, and contains almost nothing at all about phone sex (Inner Slut: sheeeeeeesh, again? The Rest of the Gang: Oh, hush, you.)

When I started phone sex and started blogging honestly about my experiences, I got a lot of positive feedback for being "real" (although every woman who answers a phone sex call is a real person, so I kind of hate that term, but I understand that it means that I use my own pictures, and the only lie I tell is to give myself a stage name).

The potential downside to oversharing (possibly one could say even: compulsive oversharing?) is that if you need some privacy for a bit, people get worried about you.

I've never done well at updating people during transitions. Why bother, when it's all about to change anyway, right? I know, that's not helpful - the least I could do is say "I'm in transition," which is what I've tried to do lately, with varying degrees of success.

So here's what has been changing: in February, we made the decision to move to Houston March 1 and for my my husband to get a job outside the house. Since then, (1) we moved (2) he has accepted and started four different jobs (3) my social schedule is totally different because my family is here, and (4) I may or may not have found a medicine to help me with my vertigo.

I have yet to feel settled in any way since about Feb 15. That's a long time to feel unsettled.

The details of the hub's job churn are unimportant here, but the churn itself has been significant because every week has brought significant conversations about our choices and what might be changing. It is hard to "be here now" and live the life you have to live today when you're spending the day trying to project into the future to plan.


In math, a Cartesian product (aka product set) is the combination of all possible choices, so the Cartesian product of (Ace through King) x (spades, diamonds, hearts, clubs) = 52 cards, each of which has a unique combination of a value and a suit.

I've been doing Cartesian products on my life... and it's been a bit overwhelming. What if he gets a job here, and I do this, and then this offer comes through, and we shift that...

In happy happy news, though, seeing my family more has been amazingly wonderful. Not so happy: it's been hard on my vertigo - I have definitely pushed myself more than once. Totally, utterly worth it. No doubt.

So that brings us to the horse tranquilizers... I didn't think they would work, honestly. I have tried more than 30 medicines, only two of which have been helpful, so odds were good that these wouldn't help much either.

Let me backtrack a bit: after I got vertigo, before I started phone sex, my doctors and I worked out a list of dozens of meds to try, and a protocol for trying them. I visited two doctors once a quarter, reporting on all the bizarre, rare side effects I had, and getting prescriptions for the next round of test drugs. We all figured that one day, we'd stumble on something that worked, but none of knew which one it would be.

Then I had a few really unpleasant drug trials, which ... ummmm.... discouraged me from continuing to try new drugs, to put it mildly. More accurately, my response was along the lines of, "Fuck that shit, I'm better off limiting how much I do instead of ever feeling that way ever again."

So I stopped trying new drugs. And shortly thereafter, I started phone sex, and it gave me a convenient excuse to keep stalling. After all, I didn't want to figure out that the medicine gave me nausea or hallucinations or mood swings while I was on the phone with a caller - it's funny to think about it, and if I were writing my life as a movie, I would totally have that happen, but it would be horrible if it really occurred.

So in the transition between the hub's third and fourth job, I realized that I was too stressed about those upcoming changes to be feeling sexy enough for phone sex, so I might as well try a medicine that doubled as anti-anxiety, right? Hmmmm, let's see, what's on the list of prescriptions I already have? Oh, hey look, barbiturates! Perrrrrrrrfect.

So I've been seven days now on a very teeny tiny miniscule dosage of a barbiturate. Like, if I were maxing out the anti-seizure dosage, I would be taking approximately 100 times as much... so really, it's an extraordinarily small amount.

This is only the third time I've gotten to seven days, and the other two times ended up having no effect at all. To say I'm encouraged would be a vast understatement.

But I am super cautious about getting my hopes too high. There are lots of activities to try before I know how this stuff affects me in every situation. And the efficacy can wear down, so there are dosages to play with. And side effects can show up over long-term usage that are not immediately apparent. So even if it ends up being helpful, I'm a long, long way from a definitive answer about exactly how it will be helpful.

But that's the caution. Here's the good news: I'm less dizzy on my horse tranquilizers, and I seem to be able to do more activities in a day. On Thursday, I drove in to my sister's, had lunch with her and a friend, helped her de-tangle and sort and organize her jewelry, stayed long enough to greet the nieces after school and be silly, drove home, loaded the dogs in the car, went to a dog park, came home and made dinner, and still felt good enough to go out and get a milkshake. Lunch and jewelry would normally be pushing it for me. Soooooo. Yeah. That's a big deal.

Here's the bad news: chatting and writing seem to be taking a hit. I can't make myself want to log on to chat, and when I have, I am quickly overwhelmed. It just moves too fast for my newly-mellowed brain. And obviously, all the blog entries I have planned have been languishing as well.

Here's more good news, though: I have had a few phone sex calls, and I seem to be fine - I'm no more incoherent than usual, and although I'm a bit more laid-back, that doesn't hurt me. I try to stay relaxed on the phone anyway, so I'm not sure anyone will notice. Family and friends have said they would assume I was a bit sleepy at worst - I can live with that.

Even more good news: I'm nowhere near un-dizzy enough to do data analysis or technical management again, so I'll be sticking with phone sex as a means to pay my portion of the bills. I have tested being in multi-way conversations, like I would need to do if I were facilitating even the simplest of team meetings, and I'm a giant fail. Also, the computer work I've done suggests that sustained data analysis is still way way way out of reach.

So my phone sex schedule will continue taking a back seat to doing the science of figuring out if I can fix my brain somewhat. It'll come back. Eventually. Somehow.

But I wanted to overshare with you, sort of as an explanation for not being available more often, and sort of to share my extremely preliminary joy with you. And sort of just to keep alive my grand tradition of having a phone sex blog that contains almost no sex... dammit. I will fix that some day, I swear.

Buried Blog Post

Because I feel like I've written about my vertigo too much lately (and had too much vertigo lately, which has caused me even more erratic schedule than usual), I buried a new blog post by "publishing" it on Feb 1.

Plus, by burying it, the post won't hit rss feeds (they only look back 30 days), so nobody will stumble on it - I only want people to read it if they are genuinely interested in the topic.

The blog post is Meeting In Person, and it spells out, in extraordinary detail, every single last one of my complicated thoughts about the complicated topic of meeting a caller in person. Help yourself if you have way too much time on your hands.

Buried Blog Post

Heartbreak and Phone Sex, Part VI

This time, the heartbreak is for me.

As I've explained vaguely elsewhere on the blog, I have mysterious neurological vertigo which makes me feel drunk all the time. And every now and then, it causes other glitches as well, as if my brain's electrical systems got fried: I mix up words, I can't finish a sentence, or writing no longer translates into words.

Or, in extremely rare cases of extraordinary exhaustion and vertigo combined, I have little episodes where I don't make sense for a few seconds, as if I've drifted into another reality, and I hallucinate a bit, as if I haven't slept for days.

The basic theory behind my vertigo is that my neurons in part of my brain aren't recharging fast enough, so once they fire, they need more time than normal to right themselves. So when I do certain tasks which require certain types of concentration, those neurons wear themselves out and become unable to fire after a while. As neurological impulses are re-routed to pathways which are not designed to handle those processes, chaos ensues.

In the flesh, sex makes me understandably dizzy -- fucking is a wiggly thing to do with a lot of sensory and visual stimulation, but as long as I'm rested when I start, I can have satisfyingly rambunctious sex for about an hour before I need to take a breather. Each round gets a little shorter until I give up completely after about round four. It's not ideal, but it works.

Writing, doing data analysis, and riding in cars work about the same way.

Phone sex has the advantage of mostly just being wiggly in my head -- I can keep fairly steady when I masturbate (although I do thrash some even when I'm alone, and when I'm on camera, I thrash like I do in the flesh, because I find masturbating on camera so ridiculously sexy).

So phone sex almost never triggers the deepest kinds of vertigo for me: most conversations don't last an hour; I almost always have time to rest between calls; one call is almost never cognitively similar to the next call, so different neural pathways get used, so the part of my brain that got tired on Call 1 can rest up during Call 2. So I often can go a whole night without needing to log out to grab a breather at all.

All of that is good - I can do this phone sex job because it almost never dizzy-fries me.

... almost ...

That's such a persnickety word, isn't it? Almost.

I've had three callers who trigger my vertigo to an unfortunate depth. They have the following things in common:

• they like to talk for more than an hour at a time
• they like it when I do most of the talking
• what they like is repetitive in some way
• they like me because I bring freshness and creativity to their somewhat repetitive request
• their request does not focus on trading orgasms or engaging in direct sexual activity

For example, I have a caller who loves to talk about a woman having orgasm control over a man: cock tease and denial, blue-balling, and forcing interrupted orgasms when the male is allowed to climax, to ensure male sexual frustration remains high. He likes to repeat topics and questions, because he says the repetition helps enforce his will to remain in chastity, yet he loves that my answers are slightly different each time I give them.

Emotionally, I love talking to him, because I have to search for new phrases and metaphors, and I feel creative and smart and powerful to be able to play with him in such a specific niche space.

But physically... well... I hallucinated with him once. I don't think he knew that's what it was. It might have sounded like I drifted to sleep and starting having one of those dreams that was somewhat based on reality. I apologized for drifting and said I'd spaced out, and let him know I needed to head to bed at the next time we got the one-minute warning.

I felt guilty and weak for not being able to give him what he wanted. Then I felt angry for beating up on myself. Then I realized I was beating up on myself for beating up on myself, and that made me sad. And then I decided if I was too uncontrolled to stop having feelings about my feelings, I should call it a night and go the fuck to sleep already.

He's doing nothing wrong. I'm doing nothing wrong. It's just an unfortunate series of events, a peculiar twist of circumstances, the exact unforeseen set of parameters that cause the program to start throwing errors.

Another one is new. He's adorable, happy and fun. He wants to do role plays where I objectify him. I get to be creative, and bitchy, and have fun with the situations and the characters and the descriptions... and he wants long stories, at least half an hour long each. And he wants two. Or three. Or four. I've told him I'm running out of ideas, but it's not true. After two stories tonight, I found my cognitive processes in a rapid downhill slide, and the situations themselves no longer made coherent sense to me.

I don't know how to tell someone, "I'm so sorry, but fulfilling your fantasy accidentally makes me stupid."

It's fucking... unfair, dammit. Or, as one of my favorite callers says, usually in amusing contexts, "Dammit so much." But that's seriously how I feel. Dammit. So. Much.

I want to feel like a badass. I don't want to be fragile. I love the gusty, lusty, go-hard-or-go-home attitude that I almost always have when I'm on the phones. I want to tell one more story, answer one more question, repeat that patter one more cycle, and not have to rest. I don't want to have to feel so damn human so often, with all the dumb limitations that dumb humans have. Can't I be a robot or a machine that never breaks down?

Yucky.

And yet, I know I need to keep myself off of the slippery slopes that lead to real downtime. I'm not helping anyone with those.

So. If I send you here, to read this blog post, and I tell you that you are one of these types of callers, I will have to impose time limits on you. I'm sorry.

I don't want you to worry about me: (a) worrying is the opposite of sexy and (b) I know how to take care of myself and stop the slide from happening, that's not your job. Your job is to enjoy the time we have together, and not take it personally when I have to go.

Please, please, please, believe me: I wish, I wish, I wish, with all my heart, that I could hang with you as long as you wanted me to. If I didn't enjoy our time together, I'd break up with you and tell you to find another provider (yep, really, I've done that several times), but I'm not doing that.

I want to share the thing we have. I do. I just need to do a little less of it.

I'm so sorry. I know it's for the best, and yet, it breaks my heart a little for both of us.