Nothing happened

Sexuality is a complicated thing, whilst my desires have never been simple, they have always, at least, been reliable. Not so much these days. I spent a night this weekend with the Knight of Wands being cosseted and reassured that I don't always have to have sex when I invite someone over and that not feeling up to it is fine. Equally, he was quick to add, should I feel the need then I should certainly pick up the phone. So that helped my general state as well as my ego. The trouble is that I have a couple of hang-ups over the sort of words we encounter in our early teens that are used to make us feel as if we should have sex when we might not want to. Prick tease. Leading someone on. Aside from the fact that I like to be honest and open from the outset, these words have been little black clouds in the back of my mind.

I don't want to start something I can't finish. I don't want anyone to feel as if they have been misled. I don't want to lie. Which cuts both ways of course - I'm not going to lie and say I feel like having sex when I don't want to. I'm not going to have sex if I don't want to. Which means that there are going to be evenings of comfortable awkwardness.

I say comfortable because we are both friends, we know each other and each other's bodies well enough to be able to lie naked side by side without the twitches and tremors of the new and unknown. Equally we are confident enough in each other and what we want to trust that we mean what we say. And yet there was awkwardness too. I found it hard to reach out for him or touch him, even just on the shoulder or to loop my arm around his waist in the morning to say "hello". Because the little black cloud in my mind reminded me not to. In case I was "teasing". It didn't matter that I knew, logically, that he was fine, that he understood where I was at the moment and more than prepared to just be around, to be two adults sharing the same space.

It feels odd to have such a response to nothing happening. Which is essentially what did occur. But I'm cagey on a number of levels. The Photographer and I are in a strange (difficult) space at the moment, something I'm still trying to work though, and this is having a knock-on effect both on my general desire for sex and play and for my feelings about myself and my confidence. He is my main partner, so when things are tricky with him I'm naturally cautious about anything I do with anyone else - again, I don't want to give anyone the wrong impression, or say things from a position of emotional (or otherwise) uncertainty. It's a lot to hold in one head, which is probably why I'm see-sawing a lot at the moment. Maybe it's my own uncanny ability to read a lot into nothing, but certainly Knight of Wands noticed it too and is being very supportive. It was probably a bit much, a bit too soon, but I don't regret it - I learnt a few valuable things about my sex drive and my state of mind. More connected than I had previously thought, so all the more reason to put time and effort into looking after them both.