I know he’ll never love me.

“Do you want Emma to suck your cock?” I whispered in his ear as we lay naked in front of the roaring fire, the cock of which I spoke nestled deep inside of me.

He raised an eyebrow at me. “It’s ok with me if you do. I can ask her,” I kept whispering.

“Yeah, sure,” he mumbled back into my ear and thrust his hips up into the soft undersides of my thighs. I giggled and kissed him and rocked back, smiled into his neck with my lips. We didn’t want Jack or Emma, who lay naked on the couch and entwined in their own lovemaking, to hear our little discussion.

Minutes later, I silently motioned her over between his legs while I kissed him deeply and his hands played with my breasts and my slit. Her icy cold hands gripped his shaft and she fell on him like the good little slut that I wanted her to be.

His eyes flew open and I smiled down at him and crushed back down on his mouth as if to say, “I give this to you.”

She sucked and whimpered on him and I lay down beside him on the couch. Jack positioned himself between my thighs, slipped two fingers deep inside and started to lick. The Neighbor and I looked deeply into each other’s eyes and held hands. Each one of our free hands resting gently on our own busy lover’s head.

I noticed Jack’s technique had changed since our last meeting. I moaned and gasped matching TN’s own moans and gasps. My insides lit up and I felt pushed to the brink, but pulled back and begged off.

::

Jack and Emma are old playmates of mine. She’s a scandalous 20 (and a half) and he’s now a ripe 28. I first saw them pale, luminous and naked two years ago when Emma was barely legal, barely past the look of innocence, and barely palatable.

I’d met Jack first, through Troy, and he’d made a Christmas night two years ago extremely memorable for the both of us with his Neighbor-sized cock, open mind, and penchant for licking things.

He’d only just met Emma online at the time and offered her to Troy and me as an additional play partner after more of our trysts proved we were a solid threesome. Troy and I (36 and 38 respectively at the time) were slightly mortified by her age, but we trusted Jack and agreed to meet her.

Her racer-back swimsuit tan lines belied the straight lines of her hips and the crab-apple sized breasts only seemed to imitate a full curve. Fully disrobed, I was horrified to discover she was clean-shaven. She couldn’t have looked more like a 14-year-old girl if she’d tried. She was slack-jawed at my pendulous breasts and wide, soft hips. “You’re so beautiful,” she whispered gingerly reaching out to caress a bare breast. I could hear the yearning in her voice and the acknowledgment in her eyes that — in that moment — I was the woman, she was the girl.

I pushed her down on the Persian rug and slipped a finger inside and found her nub hugged by the naked folds of her vulva. I stroked her from the inside and softly, methodically lapped at her above ground. Soon, she was convulsing around me and gripping my ears. I would never touch her pussy again despite one more tryst with her, Jack and Troy. I simply couldn’t do it. She was too young.

When things between me and Troy melted into a hot, shitty mess they kept out of the fray and remained stalwart supporters of my hunt for adventure and sex. They never lost touch with me and I even helped Emma out when she needed career advice — that’s the benefit of being twice as old as someone: you’ve got basic life experience and knowledge.

Knowing that Jack and Emma live the “lifestyle,” I felt comfortable reaching out to Jack when the sex-party opportunity came up with TN at the end of December. They’d invited me to one or two over the years, but without a trustworthy partner all to myself I always declined.

And so it came to pass that Sunday afternoon the four of us lay sprawled about my living room naked save for their socks and my footwear.

::

In the days leading up to “brunch”, as TN and I had begun to call the foursome, I had revealed much about myself to him. I insisted that he listen to my concerns and I encouraged him to share his with me. I was determined to not go into this letting him think I didn’t need handling. Because I did and do need handling. I’m not a robot that can be programmed, I am human and flawed and weak and strong just like anyone else.

The biggest mistake I made in playing with other women in the past with other lovers was leading everyone to believe that I didn’t care, that I was impermeable to hurt feelings, that I could feel no jealousy. I wanted TN to know with no uncertainty that he had a job to do and that was to make me feel special and preferred.

He assured me that he knew this and that he would be happy to do just that. We didn’t know what we’d end up doing with Jack and Emma, but we promised to communicate our desires throughout the long afternoon. “We’re best friends who fuck,” I’d told Jack when he’d asked what was up between the two us.

“Yeah, that’s a great way of saying it,” TN had agreed. It’s as good as any place from which to start this kind of play.

Our friendship has deepened tenfold over the course of the last few days and nights. Going to my dominant place forces me to trust him and him me. We’ve leaped over months of struggling for power to an easy, confident place of floating on the water’s surface with the gentle sun warming our topsides and the cool water licking at our skin. It’s like a vacation.

I have bade him to do household chores while wearing a butt plug, withheld sex and orgasm from him until he earned it, watched him masturbate and reddened his bottom to my own hand’s detriment. My heart has grown strong from these exercises; it all makes sense now. He needs me to be his mother, his lover, his boss, his caregiver.

Lucky for him, this is me on an average day to any stranger on the street, save for Lover. Rainbows burst from my soul as I watch him do my bidding and eager to fulfill my fantasy and earn my praise. And in some darkened corner of my being my need to be a good girl — a good girl — is fulfilled.

As a child I was never right for those who loved me. I was too ______. My parents did the best they could, but they were damaged individuals who had an easy target to blame in me. Today, I work hard at unweaving the quilt in my heart that states that love = rejection. To hear that I am enough, that I have done it right, is my greatest quest in this life.

Whether I hear it from myself someday (ideally) or partner with someone else who fills my ears with their pride in me (hopefully), it is this lifetime’s journey.

So, imagine my elation when TN brought me to climactic highs, his hand buried deep inside of me, my teeth chattering with orgasm as Jack and Emma watched from the floor and he whispered, “Good girl, Hy. GOOD. GIRL.”

And imagine my crushing dismay when, after they had left, he compared one of Emma’s orgasms to both of mine and said hers was “hotter” because she seemed to “let go” more than me.

::

The danger for me in all of this was, from the start, feeling left out, pressured, or generally not interested after having gotten everyone in the same room together.

Neither Jack nor Emma are particularly attractive to me. He’s tall, hairless and has a quirky asymmetry to his features. Emma is lithe and mousey and wears frame-less eyeglasses throughout a sex act, her under-bite cutely unavoidable.  However, I’m wholly attracted to their energy and “game for anything” attitudes.

I believed TN would go out of his way to make me feel comfortable and he did. Jack and Emma did, too. More than once I found myself the bowl of milk from which three hungry cats lapped. It was overwhelming and flattering to be the main dish and I struggled with feelings of guilt and pleasure simultaneously.

After our clothes had been shed, and parts stuck in other parts and eyes darted to other bodies, TN offered to bring out the Hitachi. He plugged it in and I lay on a towel beside the dismayed and already tired looking Christmas tree. He hooked his fingers inside of me and I instantly started to cum. No preamble, no climb, just ORGASM. There, on me and in me.

I shook and rattled and cried and broke out in a body blush. TN seemed to puff up as if to say, “This is my woman,” and I was so prideful of what I could do for him, so happy.

Emma took a turn next and I pinched her little nipples and caressed her thigh as the boys watched with wolfish stares. She moaned and arched and came just as she had earlier with Jack’s mouth latched between her legs.

Later, I went again and drenched the couch with my juices, getting my greedy, desperate fill of TN’s lustful words and hot hand inside my body.

Then Emma took another turn. I sat cradled in TN’s arms on the couch and Jack hovered over Emma. She turned on the toy and started her climb. She began to grunt like an animal and arched her back. Her eyes rolled into the back of her head and I could only see the whites. I giggled and took a sip of my water, uncomfortable and slightly embarrassed. She climbed for at least a minute making — what I thought were — completely ridiculous sounds. I was reminded of a snout-nosed animal looking for its lunch on a forest floor. I could practically smell the overturned dirt.

Finally, she came. Her chest and face flushed red and her guttural noises became even more animal-like. She went limp and tossed the wand aside still buzzing. I reached down and flicked it off.

“That was fucking hot, Emma,” TN said earnestly. I assumed he was just being nice; no one could have found that spectacle hot, could they??

But I was wrong.

::

One thing I did wrong with Troy in all our play was not insist on aftercare. Troy was a bad man and used me like his hand: ignored me until he needed me for something. And because I was hell-bent on not admitting to any vulnerabilities and needs I didn’t get myself taken care of. But this time it was different.

After my last orgasm I was fractured. I balled and cried and sobbed into TN’s arms. “It’s ok, Hy, it’s ok. You’re a good girl, Hy. You’re good,” he crooned to me and I split open even more. In that very moment I realized that’s what this is all about: I want to be good. I want someone to think I am good — the best — that I couldn’t possibly do better than what I just did, that it is enough and he knows it.

He held me and kissed my temples, stroked my hair and let me shake with tears and pain. I knew I could cry forever, but was painfully aware of my audience. I couldn’t think, I didn’t want to talk, I wanted to be alone. I barely even wanted TN there; I wanted to go and cry. But I had guests.

After a brief stint in the hot tub, Jack and Emma went home. It had been 6 hours since their arrival.

TN and I climbed into bed and snuggled and talked about our day.

::

He didn’t reach out and strike me with his comment about Emma’s orgasm being hotter on purpose. He wanted to defend her when I gently made fun of her by admitting I was glad that when I lost my shit I did it in a different way. I recoiled instantly and shut down, layer by layer. I heard myself screaming at Me to come back, to not let this one, errant sentence take away the beauty of the entire day. And before I turned my back on Me entirely TN grabbed me and said, “Can I ask you for one more thing, Hy? Please?” His voice desperate.

I felt exhausted and worn out. What else could he possibly want from me?? I nodded anyway.

“Will you please forget the last 30 seconds ever happened?? Please?? Please just think about what I did for you today, Hy. Only for you. Think about cumming and crying and all of us sucking you.” I told him I would.

And then I told him how much it hurt to feel like I wasn’t enough to him and how I was jealous of Emma when he seemed to enjoy himself so much and how I was embarrassed by that because I wanted to experience full compersion, not jilted acceptance. “Then why are we going to the sex party??”

“Because I’m curious and I want to explore it with you. I trust you like no one else. If you just give me some kind of hand signal that you find me to be the most beautiful woman in the room and that you still want me more, even if you’re fucking the shit out of Cindy Crawford I’ll be ok with it. I know I will. It’s just I get overwhelmed with this sudden, ‘Oh my God, what if he doesn’t want me anymore?’ feeling.”

“How about this? Why don’t we go to the sex party and just find a woman for you to fuck? I won’t touch her unless you want me to and I’ll just fuck you while you fuck her.” And that’s what we ultimately decided on and I let go of his silly words of comparison.

::

Aftercare is as important as expectations, I now realize. In opening up and sharing my vulnerabilities, my hurts, and my fears I allowed TN to bathe my hurts with love and tenderness. “Please don’t be mad at me, Hy. This is all so new to me. I’m going to screw up. Just know that I care about you and don’t meant to hurt you.”

“I know, and thanks,” I said. “I just wish I was more like you.”

“What? Emotionally cut off? But that’s sort of like having a hardon forever and never cumming. Sometimes it’s awesome and sometimes it fucking sucks.”

“Were you ok with Jack going down on me? Did you feel anything?”

“No. I didn’t feel anything, Hy. I rarely do.”

“Oh.”

And it was then, while lying in his arms as he kissed and talked to me and occasionally squeezed me closer, that I realized he does not and never will love me.

He did things for me he’ll never tell another soul, he held my hand as it happened, he cradled me as I battled a tidal wave of hurt and realization in his arms, we’ve dominated, loved and hated each other for months now, but somehow it was at that moment it became a truly lost battle.

After all of this he remains behind a 28-year-old wall of denial and protection and I will never be able to break though. Never. He is lost to me.

::

He has come over every night this week to kiss and touch and cuddle. Tuesday he topped me and had me in my typical puddle-like state. Last night I made him cum – despite himself – in my hungry little mouth, his own mouth stuffed with a warm, chocolate chip cookie I’d baked him.

I am calm and mostly ok. I feel pressed against the glass and am struggling still for some space. I will ask him outright if he’d like spend New Year’s together or not. I’m ok with either. I might’ve just held my breath in the past.

I don’t know how I feel about him anymore, my brain is a quagmire of emotion and confusion. The deep mellow I feel has spread to my fingertips. I no longer feel bereft as I did Sunday night and Monday. I am ok and will be.

I continue on this journey looking for that voice to tell me I’m good enough. I wonder how long I’ll be looking.