I'm stretching my boundaries some, these days.My sexuality has always been a complicated and fleet-footed critter. Just when I think I've got down what I like and what I want, it changes. It's fluid, turbulent, resisting containers and labels and all of my efforts to pin it down and tell it to stay.
I think I'm bi. I think I'm a lesbian. I think I'm kinky. I think I want to be vanilla. I think I'm poly. I think I'm polyfidelitous. I think I'm a top. I think I'm a bottom. I think I'm a switch. I think I'm too sassy for my own good.
And every time I experience a significant swing in what I want, I spend some time hating myself for it. Resenting the change. I'm not sure why; I suppose I get comfortable where I am, and any change means that there are a whole bunch of people who need to be told what's up.
And, yeah, I've shifted again. I'm still not sure to where to, but the relationship between Chris and I has clearly become something more than even best friends, though what it actually is we're currently leaving undefined, because the language simply doesn't have the right words.
I put my hand over his heart chakra and flow my mind into the tips of my fingers. In this state I can "see" the bond between us, greens and blue and pulsing lazily, like a heartbeat. On impulse, I follow it down, opening my shields and giving just the slightest push as I follow the bond to the other end.
And for a moment that lasts forever we are perfectly in balance. He catches his breath as he feels me under his skin, my consciousness whirling slowly around his center. I am separate from him, this is no merging--and yet we're in this moment separated by only the knife-edge of our identities.
It's been a long time since I've touched a male like this. It's been a long time since I touched anyone like this.
After a moment I withdraw; I know better than to leave myself here too long. But the bond remains, as it always does.
This is the fruit of something that happened six years ago--something that only recently have we both grown up enough to deal with.
I have no idea where this is going or where I'd want it to go. It's in motion, but there's no clear destination, and i think the motion itself may be the destination.
This is a time of reconnection, of reaching out to everyone I have relationships with. Yesterday, the azaleas in my front yard burst into bloom, fire-pink blossoms nearly obscuring the green leaves. The bluebells are in bloom, as well. Spring is here, and I, for one, am happy happy happy. I am abruptly in love with everything and everyone and my whole life again; such are the wages of daylight savings time. Love's a tricky thing, but in my current mood it's very simple to adore everything.
fictional:I rose up through dream and fitted myself back into my body. Something's wrong. My mind lay lightly on top of my body, passively gathering what data it could. My hypnogogic switch was still fully engaged, and for the moment I couldn't move.
With the ease of long practice, I suppressed my panic at the paralysis. I could throw the hypnogogic switch whenever I wanted, but when I did, the changes on my breathing and demeanor would be noted by even the most casual observer. What if someone was watching? Was I in danger?
My skin told me that I was lying on cotton sheets, on my back. My sheets at home were soft flannel, so I was obviously not home. My skin felt oddly muffled and slightly itchy, for whatever reason. My ears picked up an electric hum, unidentifiable. It could be anything. My vision through my closed eyelids told me that the light was dim but the room I was in was certainly not dark.
My nose offered no current smell of a human other than me in the room, but I did smell antiseptic, stainless steel, and something that might have been a small amount of water somewhere near my head.
All right, then. i probably wasn't in any immediate danger. I flowed myself into the space that is my hypnogogic switch, and a few seconds later my control of my body returned. And I opened my eyes.
A bare ceiling met my eyes first. I sat up, slowly, warned by a distant ping in the muscles of my back that moving quickly might not be a good idea. I was in a small, somewhat bare hospital room. Next to me was an IV stand without any bags of solution on it and a table with a glass of water. I was suddenly, ragingly thirsty, and gulped down the water without a second thought. I wanted more, immediately. But I was confused. What on earth was i doing here?
I could feel a distant panic start to set in, and I ruthlessly suppressed the emotion. That would do me no good. I wanted more water, I wanted to find out where i was and when I was, and I wanted to find out what I was doing here. Preferably in that order.
My skin still itched. When I scratched the back of my hand, I was surprised that something was coming off my skin, torn off of it by my fingernails. Lookings closer, I seemed to have a thick grey coating on my skin. Another moment of study and I determined that the coating was actually layers of skin, coming off of me as if it were a peeling sunburn. Only it was thicker than any sunburn-peeling skin i'd ever had.
I tugged experimentally at the skin i'd pulled up in my scratching. it came away from my body easily, revealing pink, healthy skin underneath. I felt oddly satisfied; peeling myself was always the highlight of healing from a sunburn. I continued to strip the old skin off of my hand and arm. I appeared to be shedding my skin like an end-of-season snake.
I was suddenly aware of my scalp itching, as well, and I started scratching that without thinking about it.
a piece of scalp, hair attached, came off in my hand.
Luckily, I'd already firmly suppressed my emotions so the nausea and panic were fleeting. I stared at the clump of long brown hair in my hand--the skin the same color grey as what i'd been peeling off my hand a moment before. I touched the place where I'd scratched, and I realized that the reason I was itchy was because there was hair growing on my new skin, prickling as it looked for a way out. I was suddenly possessed of an intense urge to strip the old skin off and without hesitation I slid out of the high hospital bed, stood up, and started shedding.
My entire body was covered with that sheet of old skin, and it all came off easily--the only really disturbing but was my hair, but noticing that my eyebrows came off when i peeled my face was very odd. I was feeling very strange, my panic ruthlessly suppressed, standing naked with skeets of my own skin littering the floor around me. When I'd stood up, the lights in the room had brightened, and I realized there was a bathroom nearby.
Getting myself a refill for my glass of water, i glanced into the mirror, and was transfixed.
The face in the mirror wasn't the one i'd stared at every day for twenty-five years. It was leaner, with more cheekbones and the ghost of new eyebrows growing in. My head was completely bald, except for a shadow of dark hair on it.
The rest of my body was similarly changed. What had happened, here? I stared distractedly down at my feet, which seemed to be farther away than usual.
Just as I was starting to seriously think about taking the lid off of my swiftly growing panic, there was a knock on the door of the hospital room. Grabbing a robe that was hanging near me and putting it on, I walked out of the bathroom as the door opened.
