Category: Life with Belle

Stuff that really happened to Thumper and/or Belle Fille

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Good boy

Rule number 13 from Thumper’s Big Book of Blogging (Random House, 2008) is to never apologize for not having blogged in a long time. So I’m not going to do that. What I will say is I’ve been very busy at work in the kind of way that saps my brain and leaves me without a lot of gas in the blogging tank.

So. An update. Belle left me unlocked for more than a week. She let me out for the typical R&R and I found I had a small wound on the bottom of the shaft that needed to heal up and it took at least five of those days. Probably from some pinching and a badly situated weld on the bottom of the tube. The “don’t play with it” rule wasn’t really an issue because the little fucker hurt too much when I took it in hand, but sometime near the end of the unlocked period, I discovered whilst showering that the little fucker had healed sufficiently that I could, if I wanted to, play with it.

And I did.

So I did.

Not for too terribly long. Long enough to make it spurt in a non-orgasmic way, though. Then the guilt. Which made the pressure drop so that the stupid thing went soft. So, to recap, I haven’t come in over five months and desperately want to jack off but knowing I’m not supposed to but having done so anyway was enough to totally kill my hard-on. Training!

I did tell Belle about the transgression. She muttered something about punishment but never followed through.

Sunday, I had to go back in. I had been out for nine days and that was enough to be used to the feeling of being free and seeing the penis rather than the steel every time I went to the bathroom. She told me I had to go in on Sunday but had fallen asleep before checking and making sure I was. The thought of staying out one more night was a tempting one, but as I settled in for the night the subby nagging bit in the back of my mind told me to get up and put it back on. I left the key on her nightstand.

Monday night, Belle said to me, “That’s a good Thumpie, putting yourself back in like that.” I made a noncommittal whiny grunting sound.

“You’re better when you’re locked up,” she continued. I felt a pang of submissive reaction and avoided looking her in the eye. “And you know it,” she whispered, “don’t you?”

I melted.

Yes, of course. It’s true. By the end of that week out, I would see myself naked and unlocked and think, “Man, it’s good to have that thing off. Why do we even have to use that? What a pain.” Today, I got out of the shower and saw the shining steel between my legs and thought, “I’m a good boy,” and felt all the way down that locked was more natural than not. Funny how that works.

Last thing, then back to work. In that not awake but not asleep dream state we can find ourselves in in the morning, I dreamt today that I was jacking off again. I was edging myself and really enjoying it and then thought, “I’m just going to do it. I’m going to jack off just for the pleasure of jacking off.”

“But what if I come?” I asked. “What if I get too close to the edge?”

“Then I come,” I thought back. And I started to stroke it. I felt it get hard in my hand. It lengthened the best it can and swell up and I felt the locking of the orgasmic mechanism inside me and the ejacualte presure start to build for the shot across my stomach.

Then the bite of the Steelheart woke me up. I wasn’t jacking off. I wasn’t going to come.

I’m a good boy.

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Lizard’s lament

Last Thursday I went for a 5k run while wearing the Looker 02. Usually, this is not a problem, but on occasion I find the urethral insert can irritate me. It’s hard to know when I need to apply a bit of lube to it beforehand and when I don’t. I needed to this time and didn’t so I had to take it off.

Belle wanted me in the Steelheart anyway, so it was all good. Except that we couldn’t find the Steelheart. She looked in the place she keeps all the devices when they’re not in use and didn’t see it so I looked in the various spots I stash them before cleaning them and giving them back to her. No dice. I emptied drawers looking for it. Several times. I looked in places I knew it couldn’t be. It was really bugging me. She told me I put it in a sock or something (which I had zero recollection of and didn’t think was right). I stayed out all that night.

Next day, after my shower, I looked in Belle’s spot. There is was. And I’m the one who never finds things where they’re supposed to be.

Anyway, the Steelheart does something to me that none of the other devices do. It’s the real deal. It’s totally enclosed. It’s totally inescapable. It’s her favorite. My entire mindset changes subtly. In a way, it’s the most authentic of chastity experiences.

After spending the better part of three weeks in the L02, the Steelheart is a more demanding experience. It’s tighter and harder to sleep through the night in. When it clutches the erection, it’s more vice-like than either the Looker or Jail Bird. It’s just that much harder to hide in my pants. That little tube means business and doesn’t want me to forget it.

Last night, I was standing behind her in the kitchen as we made dinner. I reached around her with one arm pulling her close and put my other hand down the back of her pants. I felt the soft curve of her ass on one side of my hand and the hard curve of the device on the other as its contents surged and my knees got weak. I may have made a little moaning sound.

The Steelheart really is her device. It’s not at all mine. Knowing that makes my subby heart hum and thrum.

I got out this morning for the (currently) regular weekend activities. The penis was already hard so it did that slinky-snake-out-of-a-can trick where more came out than could possibly fit. Then I couldn’t get the A-ring off. I had to lay there and try to change the subject in my crotch just enough to give the hydraulics a bit of a break. Once done, I was able to turn my attention back to Belle.

The penis was leaking expectantly. I said something to Belle about how she always lets me out for sex on the weekends now. She said something about being a creature of habit and asked me if I’d rather not be let out. I told her before she presents the key I think about how hot it would be if she wouldn’t let me out but once the device is off I want inside her desperately. She told me she thought briefly about not letting me out this morning. The she grabbed the stiff penis and I stopped talking.

Her choice of orgasm delivery vehicle this morning was Big Blue. I got it on and again felt the odd tightness of it. How it grips the entire erection hard but simultaneously inhibits any other sensation. Belle mounted it and again made sounds she doesn’t make when it’s just me she’s fucking. She came with Blue balls-deep inside her and I never felt a thing. She told me how much she likes her new toy. I told her how happy that made me.

The first time Belle fucked Blue, she didn’t fully engage with it and came quickly. The second time, she fucked it well and good, but I didn’t get the chance to fuck her without it on until the next morning. This time, I was still hard and raring to go when she told me I could go in. And what I felt when I did took my breath away. She was so open. The big blue cock had pushed the walls of her pussy out in all dimensions in a way I never had. I could feel the penis moving through Big Blue’s shadow. She didn’t grip me as hard and I felt no “bottom” to her.

And the thought of that. That this cock that gave her so much obvious pleasure was so much bigger than me and filled her so much more than I could. That its presence in her moments before me made her feel like an entirely different woman. The memories of the little sounds she made when filled up by that cock, sounds I never heard before, and the look on her face while she was riding it, a look not quite like any I’d seen before. All of that hit me in a matter of seconds and I was as close as I could be to shooting my load right there. My brain was on fire with it. The knowing that the way bigger not-me was so satisfying to her and my lizard brain hating that and screaming about it and wishing both that Big Blue had never been bought and that I had a cock that was 7″ long and 2″ wide but feeling that I obviously did not and, all the while, the higher bunny brain totally getting off on the lizard’s torment and the idea that I was not and never would be equipped to pleasure her as well as that big blue dong.

I could barely fuck her. Every time I started a rhythm, I had to stop. I was right on the edge the whole time. Belle asked what was wrong and I told her that she felt different and how close I was. She smiled. Wondered aloud what I’d be like if she let me. One, two, three strokes and I’d be there. And I wanted it. I wanted to fill the space made by the big dick in her with my seed. My whole being was crying for the chance. But no, of course not, she said. Of course I wouldn’t come.

Shortly after, she told me I had to stop. But I didn’t want to. I wasn’t even close. I wanted to come. I wanted to try and fill her up. I wanted to mark my woman’s pussy that some other had been in. I know that’s not what had happened. I know it was actually me that fucked her with the big blue dick. But my lizard brain felt it differently. She had been violated. She needed to be reclaimed. And she wasn’t going to let me do it.

Laying next to her, grabbing and gripping my balls and the still-hard shaft, my brain actually hurt from the clash of emotion and desire and, undoubtedly, hormones and brain chemicals. I wanted back in there. I wanted to pump her full of me. But I wanted her to tell me no. To leave me wanting. To leave the lizard screaming.

FUCK, it was intense. In the best possible way, of course.

I know I’ve recently said I don’t suffer from blue balls all that much anymore. But I am right now. My groin hurts from the unreleased desire to reclaim Belle. As it should, I suppose.

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Mailbag

LadynMonkey asked…

Right now, I have hubby in an “off the shelf” bird cage until his Jail Bird is done. Unfortunately this means he is able to get a partial erection inside the current cage. I have made the decision to remove his cage for teasing when I an dragging our the teasing for hours. Do you feel this is a good idea? I mean how long can a guy be squashed in the cage turning deep reddish purple? It can’t be good to have him hard like that for 3 hours at a time, right?

Well…you might be asking the wrong guy that question. In my opinion, as long as nothing’s gone numb or turned blue, everything will be fine. I don’t know that I’ve ever been raging hard while locked up for three full hours, but I’ve spent many hours in that state (hundreds) with no ill effect.

The other thing I’d found is, with time, his dick will become “trained” and not get hard while locked up, even if he’s super turned-on. That happens to me all the time. The same situation will leave the penis tiny and flaccid while inside the cage and stiff as a board outside. The body adjusts.

So currently we are just getting to one week locked and denied but I’ve decided for the next few nights of tease sessions I’m going to remove the device for a couple hours and then he can lock back up when I’m done.

Whatever works for you guys. There’s no one right way. Some guys are always locked up, some only during the day, some for certain periods but not others. Find what’s good for you and don’t be afraid to try new things.

Also did/do you whine to Belle about the pain from getting an erection while caged and wince and complain “omg that hurts”? Do you want to be told to deal with it? Told poor baby all locked up and hard, that’s too bad I’m not letting you out?

Er, yeah. I whine. I want her to know I’m suffering and I want to hear her say that’s what I have to do. One hundred percent. As long as you’ve established a safe word or some other indication he can use when he really needs out for some reason, just tell him to suck it up. That’s what he probably wants to hear, too.

Devilsfan wrote…

It has been a long time(about 10 years)since I was last in chastity and I am kind of nervous..Any suggestions for someone who is returning to the lock and key after a long time away

Ten years is a long time ago in the world of chastity. What kind of device were you in back then? If you’re nervous, I’d go with one of the silicone jobs. They’re pretty tame. If you want to be a little more serious without breaking the bank, check out the CB-6000 (or CB-6000s).

You don’t say if you have a keyholder now or not. I’m curious about that. Also, why did you leave chastity? Did you have a bad experience? So many questions.

A reader named Joe and I have been corresponding. Several question came up…

I know what having blue-balls feels like (and rather enjoy the feeling for a day or two), are you in constant pain? If so, how do you deal with it – both physically and/or emotionally?

When I was being weaned off regular orgasms, there were times when my balls hurt like fuck. Seriously tender and sore. It would come in waves and, if I remember correctly, was associated with new record lengths of denial and after being edged and teased (or just left to stew after getting Belle off). Nice warm baths usually made me feel better. Eventually, though, whatever part of me that was hurting got used to it. I still have the occasional feeling of blue balls, but without the pain usually. Just a “full” feeling down in my sack. Like there’s a lot of stuff backing up. I suspect all this is what’s caused my balls to be bigger now than they used to be. Maybe the pain was just the various parts stretching out and becoming accustomed to not being regularly relieved of their contents.

So, physically, not that big of a deal anymore. Emotionally, it was really hard at first. There are so many more hormones in me and, oddly, they usually make me act out in a more stereotypically female way. I’m more sensitive, easier to feel slighted, quicker to anger, etc. All that emotional sensitivity would make me susceptible to feeling like a freak. I didn’t understand why I felt how I did or need what I needed and when it was difficult for Belle to interpret me, I felt it was all my fault. Lots of crying back then. Not anymore. We’re good now. I don’t feel like a freak (at least, not in a bad way). But I still have surges of high emotion. Still carry around those hormones.

Is the perceived permanent state of arousal a myth, or do you ALWAYS feel turned-on?

It is a bit of a myth. When you’re first starting out, you do feel it all the time. It’s a palpable high. Then you get to come and it all crashes down. Each denial and orgasm cycle, it takes just a bit longer to feel it again and the high isn’t as high. Eventually, you get to the point where the denial high requires longer and longer periods to build to a level where you can feel it. Past that is a different plane of existence. You find that even with no release, there are rhythms. I’ll go though periods of feeling intensely horny most of the time (going though one of those now). They last a couple to several days. I’ll can also go through periods when I feel almost asexual. Those are horrible. Luckily, they’re the least common. The most frequent feeling is one of having a hair trigger. I can go from zero to 80 in three seconds. So it’s not so much being horny all the time as it is being able to get REALLY horny REALLY quickly.

From the dates on your blog—and from what I’ve read thus far—you’ve been doing this a while. In all sincerity, do you miss: 1) the ability to orgasm, 2) the ability to achieve an erection, 3) anything about your sex life prior to the introduction of chastity?

1) Yes. But the five to ten seconds of bliss isn’t worth what I get in return for not coming. If I could somehow come and then take a pill to feel denied 15 minutes later, that would be perfect.

2) YES. I love having a full erection. But…I really fucking like how it feels to be locked up and constrained. I like rolling over in bed and feeling the steel shift and pull me around and how nice and hard it is to lay on and how it squishes the penis and how it’s always there in my pants and how sometimes, if anyone was looking, they’d be able to see it (if they knew what it was). I also love all that because it’s how she wants me to be. She’d rather I be locked up than free. That means a lot to me.

Since she keeps me locked up almost all the time now, I’ve come to feel that being locked up and constrained is normal and being floppy and free isn’t. A real erection is a treat (and usually associated with her wanting it). The stifled one is what I’m supposed to feel. Honestly, when she leaves me out for more than a couple days, I really miss the feeling of a tight and straining tube. It almost feels like I’m cheating. Like I’m being indulged.

3) The only thing I really miss is the ability to jack off whenever I want to. And I want to all the time. But it’s not just not allowed, it’s impossible since I hardly ever get out when she’s not around.

Was this an expected/desired outcome; i.e. that your interest be abated?

The only thing from which my interest has honestly abated is orgasm. All other interests of a sexual nature (ALL of them) are greatly enhanced.

There was no way I expected way back when the CB6K first landed at our door that five years later I’d always be locked up with no hope of coming. The desired outcome was a more fulfilling sex life and emotional connection with Belle. We got that. in spades. But I guess that’s how life is.

More Mailbag posts. Have a chastity question? Ask away.

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Five

I totally missed the occasion of this blog’s fifth anniversary. It was October 12th.

I got a very nice and very long note from a reader this weekend and he said towards the end that he was going to go back to the blog’s start and read the whole thing through. Every time someone says that I get kinda self-conscious and embarrassed because I know I’m terribly repetitive and, especially compared to the early stuff, somewhat contradictory. But many of you apparently continue to get something out of it and I, too, feel the need to keep going, so I guess I should get over it and just appreciate how this blog has facilitated the evolution and understanding of me to the benefit of my relationship with Belle.

This quote from Bill Petterson seems like a relevant observation:

You can’t really blame people for preferring more of what they already know and like. The trade-off, of course, is that predictability is boring. Repetition is the death of magic.

It’s still isn’t boring for me to come here and show off for all of you and there’s still flashes (for me, anyway) of magic. In that way, this blog is a reflection of life. Repetitive, contradictory, sometimes boring, occasionally punctuated with real wonder, but ultimately worth the effort and better than the alternative.

Onward.

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Nurturing my nature

Today, I’m feeling it. More than usual, lately. That sort of random and free-floating non-orgasmic anxiety that results from extended denial. I keep thinking about the penis. Keep having flashes of needy images. It out and hard in my hand. Stroking. Just jacking it. Sometimes while being fucked. A lot of non-specific erotic explosions at random moments.

The rule of Belle’s that I don’t play with it unless she tells me I can doesn’t much matter recently since I only get out of the device at those times she wants to fuck me. Typically, I get out the night before and am back in before noon the next day. I don’t have any opportunity to obey or cheat. I might be out four or five days in a month. So it’s a moot point. This morning, though, I expect I would have cheated. I have the need to feel a hard penis and milk it. To lick up my own ejaculate and feel it silky smooth over my tongue. I feel the need for some me-time. The time I don’t get anymore.

I am not complaining. Instead of getting to feel the pleasure of jacking off, she allows me to enjoy the feeling of being in her pussy. That’s the only penis-centric action she’ll let me have. In a weird and unexpected way, it’s frustrating because she’s taken away the way all men first realize what sexual pleasure can be. All men masturbate (those who can, anyway). The popular culture will tell you it’s a poor substitute for fucking someone, but in fact, a lot of the time masturbation is done only for the joy of masturbation. I can’t even remember the last time I masturbated like that. I think it was right after she let me fuck her and then allowed me to ruin an orgasm for the sake of my prostate. So, she was right there. Since then, though, only her pussy. Intentionally or not, she’s ratcheted up my already well-developed dependance on her for pleasure.

She’s nurturing my nature.

By nature, I’m all about sexual service. I want her to have pleasure above mine at all times. Even before we initiated the D/s overlay to our relationship, I always wanted her to come first. I’m obsessed with her pleasure. Big Blue is, to me, a natural extension (so to speak) of that desire. In any event, I’m wired to please before anything else. The denial and the chastity and the rest have all reinforced and extended that inclination. The other night, right after she got off on Blue so well, she told me I could fuck her. But, even though I had been hard as a fucking rock before Blue, I couldn’t get it up after. Not because I didn’t want her. I did. But we had been to a nice dinner before coming home for sex and I knew that, had I been on top fucking her, she would have been uncomfortable. I couldn’t stop thinking about that. I’d roll off and she’d play with the penis and I’d kiss her face and hold her head in my hand and the penis would start to stiffen but as soon as I got between her legs, it’d go flat again.

It even extends to why I like to fuck her. Of course, for all the obvious reasons, but also because I know she likes to be fucked. I know she likes to feel me on her and pumping into her. She like to feel my ass muscles flexing and my moderately hard and muscular arms wrapped around her, holding her close and tight. Basically, she get’s off on the feeling of a big man having his way with her. So, in my mind, half the reason I fuck her is because it feels good to me and the other half is because it feels good to her. That thought never leaves my mind. It can’t because if it does and I get too much into the part I feel I’m playing and I’ll lose control over my ability to stop the orgasm that invariably wants to manifest.

What I’m saying is, I don’t know that I’ve ever fucked anyone in my life for my own sake. Not once that I can recall. I’ve never used anyone as a hole for me to put the penis in. That’s just my inclination. I have been used as a hole more than once, but even then, I don’t have residual bad feelings about those times. To a certain extent, sex has always been about service to me. Now more than ever.

It’s even extended to a rewiring of my autonomic orgasmic responses. When I’m locked up and she comes, I start to feel the effects of the post-orgasmic refractory period. She comes, I feel sleepy and laconic. If I had an erection, it goes away. Rarely am I so turned on that this doesn’t happen. If I’m not locked up and she lets me fuck her, the quasi-refactory period starts after she tells me it’s time to stop. Often, I can feel that it’s time to stop before she tells me. Even when I’m still in her and having a good time, I can feel the penis start to lose pressure.

I even feel as if I know her orgasm as well as I ever knew mine. Sunday morning, after the night with Blue, I did as I usually do and tried to get her off before she was going to let me have a do-over from the night before. I could tell that it wasn’t going well. She asked for Pink and I, shortly after turning the little vibe on, knew it wasn’t going to work. I can just feel it. Like I’m tapped into her pleasure centers somehow. Enough to know that her orgasm wasn’t a lost cause so that I went back in with my fingers and got her off in matter of just a few seconds. I knew where and how to touch her. I knew that it would work.

I know I’m rambling.

I think about chastity and denial and how I sometimes wonder why everybody doesn’t live this way and why it’s good for some but not others and how sometimes, like with us, it goes really fucking deep and ends up with me never wanting to be allowed to come, forever wanting to come. Sexuality is such a crazy thing. So complicated. Infinitely complicated. Trying to interpret it is like trying to identify the individual pieces of glass while looking through a kaleidoscope. Seems to me that, when it comes to successfully using chastity and denial in a relationship as we have, it would be helped if at least one of the partners thought as I do. Pleasure is a service. Theirs should be a priority over your own.

You have to start somewhere.

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Belle’s big blue boyfriend

As I’ve recently mentioned, Belle’s admitted to me that the penis is not, as she’s previously said and occasionally still says, strictly speaking, perfect. She claims not to be into really long cocks, but she does like some girth. The penis on me, while not freakishly thin, is on this side of average girthiness. So, in my continuing quest to provide Belle the optimal sexual experience, I picked up an Oxballs Dude Cocksheath. My review forthwith.

Continued after the jump thanks to several totally NSFW images…

Continue reading “Belle’s big blue boyfriend”

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The end (and the beginning)

The other night, in the middle of the night, I was seriously fucking horny. Like, the kind of horny that wakes you up. I kept finding my hands on Belle and putting them under her bed clothes and generally getting all worked up by feeling the hot, smooth skin up and down her ass and up her back and all that. I’d fall asleep for a bit, wake up and do it again, the tube would get all full, then I’d fall back asleep.

Next day (yesterday, actually) I asked her if I was bugging her when I did that. I didn’t want to bug her but honestly couldn’t stop myself in that half asleep horned up state without her coming out and telling me to stop. No, I wasn’t bugging her, she said. She kind of liked it.

Not sure what we talked about then, but I mentioned something to the effect that if I ever did bug her too much, she could always just let me come and I’d be manageable for a little while. She scoffed at that saying I’d also get all moody and pissy and grumpy and she preferred the hot and horny version of me over that. She keeps saying that I was a pill after she made me come over July 4th, but I still think I was pretty OK with it. Whatever.

That led me to asking something about when my next orgasm was going to be because if there’s one thing a guy in denial likes to talk about it’s his denial. We’re all over that shit. A few other things were bandied back and forth before she just came out and told me something she’d already decided.

I wasn’t going to come again.

She won’t go so far as to say “never” because that’s a long time. Suffice it to say she has no plans whatsoever to let me come and is inclined to leave me in my current state indefinitely. As far as thinking about orgasms or wondering when they might happen or whatever, I might as well stop because they’re not on the table. They’re not next to the table or under the table. They’re not in the room with the table or in the house with the room with the table in it.

Of course (OF COURSE) as soon as that sunk in (while I was hugging her and kissing her neck and generally feeling very submissive and lucky, etc.) a little part of me suggested I remember what an orgasm felt like. I tend not to think about that, but now, for some reason, it seemed OK. So I did. I thought about the mental fireworks and the wave of release and the euphoric afterglow and…how I would not be feeling that again. At least not intentionally. At least not for a really long time.

I remember back when we first started at this and my denial periods could be easily counted in hours and reading about guys who were permanently denied orgasms and how I thought, OH JESUS FUCK WHO WANTS THAT!? It was both scary but, I should have known, terribly stimulative. But here we are. I have no problem admitting I’ve wanted this. I think it’s the next logical extension of the path we’ve been on.

Some might wonder what the point is of living a permanently denied life. Some might think that taking the orgasm out of the equation might somehow alter the outcome such that its no longer appealing. Basically, some guys, even denied and locked-up ones, might still like the idea of occasionally coming (or, at least, the promise of it). I get that. That’s not me.

I’ve changed a lot. I’ve stopped directing my desire for sex at Belle as if its something she owes me. I still want it, yeah, I and still feel OK making her know I do, but I don’t feel compelled to push her on it and don’t feel in any way slighted if she doesn’t produce. Not like I used to. I’ve written on this recently so I don’t need to dwell, but at some point, I feel like I passed the “me” phase of sex. Now it’s minimally “us” and, more often, “her.” And to me, that’s what’s natural and right. Orgasms change how I feel about that. They short circuit it. I don’t want to come because when I do it fucks with how I like my brain chemistry to be.

I guess what I’m saying is I’ve willingly traded in my ability to orgasm so that I’m left in this constant state of needing and wanting and totally subsuming my needs to her will. For some people, that might sound scary or even unhealthy. It is, for me, the most total and comforting and satisfying submission I can imagine. We have sex when she wants. Period, end of story. How she wants. Period, end of story. The only release and climax I get is whatever I can sap off of her when she comes. I don’t come because doing so upsets the balance we both prefer.

I’m not concerned about the health implications. I ejaculate plenty. At least if “plenty” can be defined as “every week or two when she lets me inside her and the penis leaks semen right after I get close to coming.” It’s kind of like milking, really. Or ruined orgasms. I get myself up to the edge and then stop and it comes out. Lots of it. Prostate problem solved.

Now that we’re here, I’m going to try and change my behavior a bit.

  1. I will never ever ask Belle if I can come. Not once. This is the bed I wanted and I’ll have to lie in it.
  2. I will never ever tell her I want to come, even if I do. She already knows me well enough to know when I’m feeling that way. She can assume that if I’m fucking her, I will be feeling an intense desire to come in her.

I don’t know why I feel it’s important to do these things. Maybe it’s because she’s made this decision and I need to show that I respect it and will live by it. Maybe it’s because in the past I may have sent mixed messages and I don’t want her to feel even a microscopic iota of guilt or doubt. Maybe it’s to show that I’m ready to live like this, fully and completely. It almost feels like a new commitment between us. A new level of marriage or something. As marriage is an outcome of dating, this new commitment is an outcome of our several year experiment with denial. The next stage of the journey is starting.

So, you know, NO, I’m not going to say this is the route everyone should take. But I’m very happy she’s decided this is our route. I’ll follow her right along it until she decides to take us in another direction.