Tags

, , , , , ,

“What are we doing?” I ask.

“I’m stealing thirty minutes” he says, his voice full and drowsy. “I need to just hold still.”

We are laying on the bed, where he has made me cuddle up beside him, my head tucked on his shoulder, his legs pinning mine to the mattress. He begins to drift off to sleep.

I sigh impatiently and push myself into a sitting position. We haven’t spent any time together today, so those thirty minutes are mine and I do not want to spend them sleeping. “What’s wrong?” he asks and my voice is stilted and hesitant as I reply “I’m lonely. We haven’t spent any time together in awhile.”

“Jim warned me about this” he replies. His tone makes it clear he is impatient. “You don’t feel that simply lying beside each other is time spent together.” He gives me a wicked grin as he says “We spent an hour together this morning, so no complaining.”

I nod my head sadly and leave the bed. He rolls over and clutches a pillow as I return to the living room and the warm couch that awaits me.  MN is anything but careless, and I know his lack of reaction isn’t because he doesn’t realize I’m feeling neglected — no, it is worse than that, it is because he doesn’t care how I feel about it at all.  How dare he take my thirty minutes, I think, anger and resentment filling my heart.

*****************

6 hours earlier

“Easy. Don’t be afraid.” He whispers, using a soft voice and touch to soothe me. He has startled me awake, his hand firm on my thigh as he moves me from the protective fetal position I sleep in to one that gives him access to my pussy.

My panties are pulled to the side and a finger enters me, the thick, rough length pushing past dry tissue, stinging as he forces my body to accommodate it, make room for it. I whimper and he pushes harder, his voice growing impatient as he commands me to relax, accept the invasion, find pleasure in the pain.

“MN, don’t hurt me.” I whisper, begging and demanding all at the same time. We’ve had a rough few days, our time taken up by family and work engagements, my emotional masochism on a rampage that makes me overly sensitive and prone to having hurt feelings from every interaction. The emotional ache has left no room for physical pain.

He ignores me. “You like it when daddy touches you” he croons softly.

I know this game. We’ve played it four times this week already, and it is only Tuesday morning. If I don’t play along, it will go badly for me. I can either adopt the role of a little girl being molested by her daddy, a little girl who loves it and is ashamed by it all at the same time, or I can get hit. It is the nature of our relationship – I keep my captor happy and my captor keeps the pain to a minimum.

But it isn’t pain that makes my tone softer and my words more childish, makes my gestures become girlish and young. It is the fear of disappointment. Because this dark role play is the only focused interaction I am getting lately that isn’t full of criticism.

The molestation continues for an hour, MN cajoling and blackmailing, and finally raping, his fantasy little girl, who I’m playing, but who isn’t me. “I am not the role I play,” I think to myself the entire time. I am a vessel for this illusion. By the time the hour is up, I feel completely objectified, hidden within my own body, my personality of no consequence.  This time together was not for me, because I didn’t exist within it.

********

The thirty minutes are up, and MN meanders into the living room. “I’m going to get the boys from the school bus” he says, and laces up his shoes. He is out the door before I can reply.

I still sit on the couch, still resentful and sullen. The half hour hasn’t dulled my feelings. Those thirty minutes that he stole from me are gone. Our morning had been full of sex, his sex, in which my presence only mattered as long as I performed perfectly, a doll taken off the shelf for his amusement. Our afternoon up to this point was spent in the same home, but not together. I’ve been on the couch, using it as a sick bed to fight a persistent flu that I just can’t seem to beat. MN has been in the office, his fingers clicking away as he does research, writes, and converses with friends. I laid down at his feet at one point, curled around the spokes of his chair, seeking attention like a neglected kitten. I received a literal pat on the head for my efforts, and a smile that was full of impatient indulgence, but impatience none the less.

My mind fast forwards to what the busy evening will look like: homework with children; family coming for dinner; cleaning up and doing dishes after the meal; stories for bedtime; and finally his absence from the house for a play date. I realize that there will be no more thirty minutes for me today, and tomorrow will be a 12 hour work day. Any hope I had for his focus on me as a person drips away with the tears that fall of my chin.

He is back home, children in tow. Once he has them settled and doing homework, he leans down to pat me on the head. He sees my tears and impatiently barks “Great, just what I fucking need.” I hide my tears behind the curtain of my hair as I go off to the bedroom to lay down.

*********************

MN wrote about time recently, quoting an oft-used passage from the Bible:

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven….

Ecclesiastes cautions us to practice prudence and patience, teaches that all things have their place of belonging, and most importantly, espouses that time is a generous and boundless thing.

But what if it isn’t?

In a standard monogamous relationship, you fight about children, money, and sex. In a non-monogamous relationship you fight about time and priority. Which partner gets what time, and how much of that time, and how will that time be spent? Who has priority when time becomes scarce? If you only have an hour to spend in the day, who’s hour is it?

While pondering this I remember MN never said “I’m stealing thirty minutes from you.” He said very clearly “I’m stealing thirty minutes.”

I’m struck by the realization that when he said he was stealing thirty minutes, he didn’t mean he was stealing them from me. He meant he was stealing them from his day – thirty minutes outside of everything he wanted to accomplish today to relax and hold still.

MN is on his play date now, and my heart is heavy and filled with longing as I reflect on the fact that he had extra time to spend tonight, and specifically chose not to spend it with me. He gave it to someone else.

What he has taught me this week is that I don’t own his time, not even thirty minutes of it. It isn’t mine to hoard, to hold on to, to feel resentful over. Simply put, it isn’t mine. I am property, just like his time.

It is easy to teach a person that they don’t own a tangible good — you simply take it away, and the physical act of removing it from their hands is a clear reminder that to the victor go the spoils; but with the things you can’t touch or hold on to, that you don’t have a physical reminder for, it is much more difficult.  It takes a nuanced cruelty to get the point across that a person doesn’t own something they can’t see, can’t feel, can’t materialize.

*** Disclaimer: MN and I are in a consensual Master/slave relationship that is purposefully built on a foundation of healthy emotional masochism and sadism.  We are both fulfilled by his emotional cruelty, which is always thoughtful and deliberate, with an eye towards the overall health of both our relationship and ourselves.

Related articles