Here’s the thing – I originally decided to blog this journey after I discovered how many wives out there are in the dark – their men do this behind their backs. But I’m realising, in this form, this piece of writing will probably never reach them, and it’s probably just frustrating the pornseekers. So I’m going to pull back from this for a few months till I figure how to proceed, also because another project has come up demanding urgent attention.

I think it’s interesting that the two guys who have responded here seem perfect to discuss with each other and share that way, without me in the middle. So I’m stepping back and suggesting that is what happens next, either here in this space through the comments, or in private – if you both tell me you want each other’s email addy‘s I will supply…

Thanks for the love and support shared in other comments – 3hf sorry your ‘confidential’ appeared briefly before being deleted – system automation issue. If you want to discuss anything further with me, feel free to initiate that.

As for all the rest:

Bye now everyone, see you down the line.

-x-

I will be back next week with a decision…

This is all a big challenge for me, but I have two choices really. 1) I can bewail it and feel like a victim or 2) I can assume that my husband is meant to be my husband and is helping me adventure into places i would not go on my own initiative, and assume that is something to thank him for.

In the name of intimacy and comittment, both to marriage and to life itself, I choose option number two.

And in the name of intimacy and commitment, before I write any more, I am wondering who you are, readers. I don’t need names or any identifiers, I just want to know why you are here.

My blog stats suggest to me that a lot of the traffic this blog gets is ‘mistaken’ as far as I am concerned: people searching for bdsm porn etc. If that is all, then I would rather make this a private journal. But if there is someone out there genuinely sharing in this who would really like to keep sharing the journey, then that makes it worthwhile to keep writing in this form. So. I’m going to wait for comments before I write more. If you want your comment to remain confidential, just start your comment with the word ‘confidential’ and I will then read and take note of your comment but delete it afterwards, not publish it. Okay?

All for now. Love to all of you, even the porn surfers -x-

He loved it. In the end he just wore some black jeans and a leather jacket, in spite of the heat. Conservative but acceptable. He didn’t touch, but he looked and he listened, and even chatted – but just a little.

He said it was mostly social, just a bit of play that was more performance art really. Most of what he saw was a bit foreign to him and out of his erogenous depth – like a woman with a LOT of skin to offer having needles rather clinically stuck through it at precise points and then ribbon patterns woven through. Sounds like a combo of acupuncture and hairdressing if you ask me. Too weird. I can’t see the point, no pun intended. Reminds me of the Hindu Kavedi festival but without the trance or the redemption. Or maybe I’m making assumptions again. Maybe the big girl got both! Maybe some of this is a Western way to do the same thing?

But somebody did do a ‘suspension’ – a woman tied up and hanging from a scaffold – not a hog-tie, though, he said. Apparently you need to learn a lot and preferably be a seasoned climber to do suspensions. (I get the feeling we may take up climbing soon. At least that would be a way to explain to my mother why we suddenly have lots of rope in the house, and bolts in the walls if he gets his way!) And somebody did get a caning, but it was a woman caning a man, so that didn’t rev his engine as much as the other way round – but yes, he still liked it.

Overall he loved what he heard, as people chatted and discussed over their assorted non-alcoholic beverages. It all made sense. He felt at home.

I feel a wonderful sense of anti-climax. I am relieved to have him home and so matter-of-fact and I believe every word and suspect nothing. And yet I was also hoping he’d be disappointed in the reality of things. But he’s more inspired than ever.

I guess that’s better found out like this, now than some time in the future in another way.

I asked him to tell me about everything he saw, as I searched and searched for some kind of common ground. He suggested that instead, I join the site and do the checklist of interests – that should take me through all the main stuff and I’d have to think about how the idea of it made me feel.

I reckon if we are going to do this, we are in it together. So I guess that it’s time to sign up.

I can hardly believe I’m saying that. Me. Putting up a profile on a BDSM site.

Whatever next?

I am nervous as hell. You know it really helps that I am doing this blog. I can’t tell any of my friends or family. But if I ever needed someone to chat to, it’s now. Z is great, but you know, I honestly don’t tell him more than the barest minimum. He’s a priest, dammit. He doesn’t need that woman behind his eyes too.

With things like this, you really want to sit down with a girlfriend for a solid hour over a strong cappuccino with a double grappa on the side. I just can’t do that. Not with this. And a secret diary never feels like you’ve truly told someone.

So. Thanks. Right now, invisible as you all are, you feel like blessed company in a dark and peculiar time.

This Saturday night we will find out what he’s made of. Sunday night I will tell you how it went.

The one thing helping me keep things in perspective is how nervous he is. It’s so sweet – for the first time ever, I am seeing him all girly – honey, he doesn’t have a thing to wear!

He is like a little piggy smelling mud. I can feel his skin itch.

I can’t now tell him not to go. I probably should, but I can’t.

Actually scratch that ‘probably should’. If he doesn’t go to this thing and watch other real people at it for real, not in stereotyped porn pics and flicks, how can we ever know whether it is just fantasy, or something he really needs to do?

This is actually the easiest way for us to find out at least that much, before even having to tackle the possibility of playmates etc.

We have begun discussing the possibility of me going along with him.

Problem is – we will have to leave the minute the sitter calls to say B has woken up. And that is likely to be within an hour of arriving. With the ticket prices what they are, and for two of us, it hardly seems worth it.

Also, what I can’t figure out is which is worse – him going without me and me sitting home imagining things and never being able to know for sure whether he has told me the entire story. Or going with him and knowing I’ve kept him out of trouble, but having the entire story burning behind my eyes along with that not-so-comfy woman and her ropes. What if it utterly revolts me, and totally turns him on, and what if watching him get turned on by that freaks me out so bad I can’t ever face him again?

Of course I could go with him and then leave when B wakes up, and leave him behind, having seen what there is to see so I know what he’s talking about later, and having shown all those women he is well and truly married…

I have called Z and made a time to chat with him tomorrow. But fat lot of good that is likely to be. I think we are a bit beyond Z’s usual territory by now.

AAAAAAAK.

What would you do?

I was imagining a nice sedate room with people mingling, drinks in hand. Of course the dress code would be a bit heavy on the leather, and the well dressed might have collars, since I’ve learned that is a feature of bondage and domination, or B ’n D as we in the know like to call it. Tra-la.

Gulp. He just read me the party rules.

They include things about “no ejaculation outside of a condom.”

They include guidelines for negotiating for your turn to use the stocks.

Stocks. Not flowers. Not trade-able shares. Not a generic term for supplies.

Big wooden jobby with holes for your hands and/or feet and/or head. Locks down so you can’t get away. Keeps you nicely bent over. That sort of thing, with variations.

Stocks. Oh yes I know those. A bit retro – popular in the middle ages, weren’t they? But coming back into style just like bell-bottoms and platform heels seem to every other decade. Every well furnished house should have some. Maybe we should get some. Like putting in a bidet, really, but without needing a plumber to come hook up the water. Which room should they go into, I wonder? Come in handy for those hard to hold yoga postures, I’m sure.

Stocks. Got that. What else?

You can buy floggers there (proceeds to animals in distress). How handy.

But must bring your own sex toys.

Naturally.

Anyone in a collar is a slave and may only be approached indirectly through their master. Failure to observe this rule will result in being asked to leave. Oh how interesting. Must remember that then. Isn’t local etiquette twee when travelling abroad.

Isn’t this all so cute and quaint.

I’m not sure which is the strongest urge in me: to throw up, or to start screaming and never stop.

B takes this opportunity to wake and start to fuss. Must run and be a mum, come what may.

Comingggg!

Then one of the women invited everyone to give their opinion of her latest artwork, and put it up in a space we could click to. It was a new-agey picture of a woman walking next to a soft-eyed brown bear, under a big full moon. HUH? No whips or chains? It didn’t even look like it was heading for anything in the bestiality department. Not at all. Not exactly the work I’d expect from a potential bunny boiler. Bunny hugger more like.

I said something about the gentleness of the picture and MM asks me if he can post that, I say yes.

He posts it starting “My wife here says…”

This woman doesn’t say anything about the picture comment. She just says “Hey, I’m delighted your wife knows you are on the site. Too many men use kink as an excuse to screw around.”

I don’t know why that surprised me so much. I guess it must be that expecting demons getting people thing again. Women are women everywhere, apparently. They don’t like cheaters.

After that I felt more comfortable. I guess my preconceptions are being challenged, and maybe that’s a good thing. I guess only time will tell.

I sat and they chatted some more. I even logged on from my own machine across the room and began to join in.

“You coming to the next charity fundraiser?” one of them typed.

“Sure he is.” I replied from my place of newfound confidence. A nice way to meet these nice bunny huggy people and socialise a bit, and give some cash to animals in distress. Of course with B being the wakeful little bean he is, and needing me to settle him, MM will have to go on his own. But I am starting to feel that’s not going to be a problem. I think I’ve been making assumptions about the kind of people who get into this.  My husband is a lovely person – maybe some of the others are too. As long as he tells me everything about anyone he meets, we should be fine.

He has promised to keep me in the picture every step of the way. I’m still trying to decide if that is really a good thing. Shudder.

I considered being the silently knowing wife. The rest of my life. But as far as I am concerned, that is not what marriage is made of. For better for worse, and trust that in the end even the ‘worse’, when tackled with love and determination and honesty, will turn out for better. That’s my philosophy.

So.

I sat him down when little B was asleep. I told him about the picture still burned into my mind. I asked him what was going on. I even confessed to spying into his profile.

My heart was hammering bile into my throat while I waited for him to meet my eyes and answer.

It took a long time. I waited, and in the silence all I could feel was the soft innocence of our child sleeping in the room next door, his sweet and total trust and love for his daddy. All I wanted, all I want is to keep that real. Whatever it takes. Can I? Is it real? Has it all been a charade?

Eventually MM said Yes, this is something he wants to do. No, he doesn’t think it’s a phase, and no he doesn’t think it’s just a fantasy. He knows I don’t feel the same and he’s been afraid to talk to me about it, because he loves me and doesn’t want to lose me. A woman’s heart can only melt at that. Really. Even if her man is a sick bastard who wants to do weird and horrible things to other women.

He didn’t say much, but he never does. He was really vulnerable, and that touched me. It feels weird because it contradicts the picture of the man who can also want to be so abusive. I can feel that the man I love and that B loves, is real, not a fake. But this other man in MM is real too. How can that be?

I left it at that for the night and went to bed. Next morning I packed little B into his stroller and went to the mall for the morning. I bought little B a toddler juice, and a foil balloon shaped like a cat. (He calls cats ‘mao-mao’ and is mad about them. No we don’t have one. MM is allergic.)

I bought a dozen organic eggs and a punnet of imported blueberries. B and I ate the blueberries while sitting on a public bench in front of the cinema entrance. We watched the children and their moms queuing up for movies.

You are not allowed to take in refreshments unless they have been bought right there. The only things on sale right there are fizzy sugared drinks, sugary sweets and chocolates, popcorn, ready salted. They have only recently started stocking bottles of mineral water, and often run out. Not a single piece of fruit. No oatmeal cookies. I have never questioned this. The mothers we saw also did not question this.

B and I ate the blueberries, unwashed, and watched the strollers and the balloons and the spiderman suits going by.

I find myself wondering about MM’s childhood a lot.

Yes his father used to beat him. Back then belts and cattle whips were discipline, only fists and bricks were child abuse.

And yes his mother was an emotional absentee. To this day she thinks love means putting your photo in a heart-shaped frame; family communication equals sending a personalised Christmas card every single year, and forwarding spam.

I guess this urge in MM makes sense. I knew all that about his background before we got married, and I could feel that this kind and intelligent man he turned into in spite of it all, still had scars. But I guess I thought those could all just be healed out with love and gentleness. Apparently not.

Ironically I find myself feeling much more open about the idea of letting him hook up with a playmate than I would have thought. Maybe it’s just that I sense that this is never going to go away until he lets it out, and I sure as hell don’t think I could stay married to him if he ever let it all out on me. A sacrificial victim? I could never do that to another woman – deliver her up to suffer for my sake. But if she really truly honestly wants it? I don’t know. I still find that hard to believe in. But maybe. It would certainly get me off the hook. And maybe even get… that… out of his system.

But what kind of damaged woman wants that done to her? What would such a person wreak if let near my family and home? Pictures of boiling bunnies flash in alternation with her grimacing face, behind my eyes.