Saying the "F" word

If there is one thing two people never discuss in an extra-marital affair, it's feelings. Feelings are not supposed to happen. The affair is supposed to be "just sex" or "just play" or something other than a situation that makes one feel anything emotionally.

So, this morning, as I was venting about my confusion over the personal questions in my last job interview, Lucky Bastard spoke up....and declared that, when we are involved in activities that require he please me, he begins to have feelings for me.

I really didn't know what to say to this. I was confused. I mentioned, "well, I don't quite understand what you are telling me. Perhaps I shouldn't call you any more."

"No, no, no, no, no....that's not it" he said, "this doesn't have anything to do with that, or with anything you've done. But it is why I keep asking you to bring in other people..."

So, it comes down to this again. Bringing in another woman, or another man, has been one of his continual requests. And a request I continually deny. I never quite understood it other than that he might be looking to have more than he is entitled to (I know alot about swinging and how those relationships work), or that he, in some way, may want to degrade me. It is, however, about him needing a firmer delineation between his life and his sex...Because now his sex is beginning to feel real, like part of life.

But I can't allow third parties. I can't allow myself to give a performance for anyone's benefit; and my particular days of wildness are packed up and put behind me. I don't have much interest in threesomes or orgies or "playing" with people I don't know or am not attracted to. I spent most of my life doing that and didn't get much out of it other than a rather curious dossier on sexual experimentation and a host of failed relationships.

One thing, too, that he doesn't understand--that even if it were high kink, and even if he were paying for the pleasure of my company, he still might have feelings. It happens. I've talked with many men who fell for professional dominants only to be told that what they experienced was a very complicated show staged to keep the income coming in.

So, Lucky Bastard and I talked more. He made more of his feelings...and the "f" word seemed at times to be more than he wanted but less than he needed to admit to. He asked me how I felt about it, and I told him I was honored by his admission, and that few men had expressed this sentiment to me before.

It was all I could think to say.

Now, I am fairly detatched and dispassionate about this whole thing, not just his feelings. I guess my perceptions of the situation are rooted in the socio-economic realities of our differences. How could a man from the right side of the tracks, good-looking with all the advantages of upper-crusty life, with a beautiful, well-situated wife and beautiful children and beautiful homes in two states be attracted to a little nothing, white-trash bohemian like me? Why would he feel his lifestyle threatened by feelings for me? I don't have much to offer him...I have no trust funds or social connections or abilities to host dinner parties or acumen for making polite small-talk with the kids' soccer coach. I live in my own little world, scraping by on a crappy retail salary and a little help from a friend, deluding myself that I'm "artistic" and have some kind of writing talent and that if I could just get it disciplined or rooted out or whatever I could make something of myself. But I couldn't stand next to him at a social function and make him shine--because if I opened my mouth about my degree in Religion everybody would think I'm some kind of holy-roller or something. I couldn't go out to weekends in the Hamptons because I burn. I don't ski, I don't play golf, and I get tired on long hikes. I'm a wickedly bad housekeeper and a nomial cook. Worst of all, I speak my mind and say things I shouldn't in polite company.

And he'd be an idiot to leave behind the prosperous connection he made when he was in his 20's for a woman who simply taught him the pleasures of his own body when he was in midlife crisis.

Sex isn't love...it is a fleeting, ephemeral, chemical reaction. It doesn't conquer anything or mean anything more than what it is at the moment.

We have great moments...and they do not constitute anything that could be construed as love, even if there are "feelings" attached.

Feelings, in this case are only chemicals. A good shower with the cleansing soaps of common sense and rationality can easily wash them, and me, all away.