The coffee arrives at my table. I stare, nervous, at the steam wafting up from the cup. I'm sitting here waiting for her near a large window. The cold, wet, chill of the grey outside palpable on the left side of my body and the warmth of the inside heating on the right.
She arrives. She seems to be in another emotional frazzled state. She sits in front of me and orders a tea. She smile arrives as she brightly engages me, "Hi. How are you?"
This isn't going to be a fun conversation. "Good. What's up?" Foolishly, I take a sip of the scalding coffee.
"I wanted to talk about something, and I don't want you to jump the gun but shutting down or leaving. I want you to make a decision. I want you to base that decision on the knowledge that if you decide yes that I'm going to follow you."
Wtf! I'm already confused. "Ok. Back up. What?"
She leans in to make her point as if the urgency has become the mainstay of this conversation, and her brightness has disappeared. "Ok. I feel like I can have the total relationship I've been searching for between us, just between us. But I don't want to scare you with that sentence, so I've been holding it back. You seem like you're gonna bolt every time I feel like I'm prepared to talk about it." So now the tense conversation unfolds.
I shift in my seat, clearly uncomfortable. I enjoy how much she clings to me, submissive to please me, holds me on a pedestal, all very sexy traits. This is the trade off. "Yeah."
"Why do you get annoyed whenever I want to have an emotional conversation? I feel like I'm walking on eggshells, stepping so carefully as to not upset you, but then I can't be myself. I'm more focused on you, which is good for you in the short term, but blocking myself from feeling comfortable that we aren't making long-term progress."
Ouch! I can feel that twinge inside. Take another sip, not as scalding hot. "Look, I'm busy with work, my goals, my life. I can only give you so much attention."
"That's fine. I'm not upset about that."
"Then what do you want?" I lean into this conversation, elbows hanging off the edge.
"I want you. I crave you. I just want some consistency."
"And I have limited time available." I underscore my point.
She re-starts. "I have this ideal relationship in my head that I want to work towards. I don't know what yours is because I have to pull even a five minute conversation out of you, but you enjoy me pouring myself out to you. You pick and choose what you like, what you can tolerate easily, and ignore my needs. But then you say that you want to be someone I can lean on and depend on inexhaustibly, and not be phased by my emotions. That you'll just move on unscathed by my tears. But then you claim that you love watching me cry. Is it that you like watching me cry when you force humiliation on me? That you wish it didn't cloud my emotional states and shower the emotional conversations?"
I smile. I like her twists with words. Her writing is more elaborate. I think she has to reign herself in when she says the words aloud. "I don't know."
She re-starts. "I want you to try and engage in the conversations I start before you judge if it really hurts us or you. Ok?"
"Like what?"
"If I ask you a question, stop your barriers. Don't think that I'll use your words against you. If you really feel I might, caution me with a consequence that is in your favor. You have all these ideas that you don't have the total confidence to act on; well, now you have a reason to enact those consequences in a very real way to you and to me because we will both be after something we want. And the things that you don't have total confidence in doing I find very attractive because it shows your vulnerability, which drives me insane with want, and the potential for your kinks to heighten the emotional submissive response in me." She begins sipping on her tea. When it arrived, who knows.
All I heard was a lot of impassioned words. Some of it sounded like the thoughts I have but don't say. I nod.
