Marina has provided me with something like unprecedented inspiration. She’s made my cock hard, she’s made my mind whirl, she’s made my heart ache. I’ve put her to spectacular use, learning about my desires, my needs, and my fears. I’m grateful to her for all she’s given me. She’s been generous and cruel; vulnerable and inscrutable; compliant and bratty.
Here’s where things stand today: she’s pursuing a relationship with W, a fellow closer to her age, in the same place she is.
Me? I’m a married guy, far away. Thousands of miles away in normal times. Millions of miles, in COVID times. W can offer her all sorts of things I can’t, not least of which are his mouth, his cock, and his fingers. But more, too, of course.
I’m no competition for him, and, honestly, I’ve never tried. All I’ve tried to do is to present Marina with an option for hotness. Our hotness-to-drama ratio has been a bit off ever since she and the rest of her home state unwisely started easing up on the whole quarantine thing. I’ve struggled with losing her; she’s struggled with maintaining the (admittedly somewhat overwhelming) degree of communication I require.
I have no idea what the future will hold. She and W may well ride off into the sunset. That ride may include a non-monogamous bit of space that allows for me. It may not. She and W may burn hot, bright, and fast, and she may or may not return to me at all. I can’t know.
What I do know is this: Marina helped me learn the dangers of abandoning my own needs. In my hunger for her, for her overwhelming generosity, for her smoking hot body, for her gigs of porn and her clever, vulnerable, curious mind and open, generous heart, I made a few signal errors. My biggest error? I allowed her to dictate the terms of our relationship – and to do so not with thoughtful, elaborated, words, but through unprocessed, raw actions.
She never said, “I need this and not that; that and not this.” Instead, she took what she wanted, she gave what she wanted. I enjoyed, for the most part, giving her what she took. I enjoyed, for the most part, receiving what she offered.
The problem, for me, was that all of this was outside of, alongside of, separate from, what I wanted, what the stated arrangement was.
I don’t blame Marina. This all is my fault.
My job was to elicit her boundaries, to live within them. I failed, utterly and completely at this. Not so much at the “living within them” part; at the eliciting them part. I could see – far more clearly than could she – what she needed, what she wanted, what she was capable of. But in my pride, in my stubbornness, I insisted she speak aloud what I knew in my body, in my heart, in my mind, in my cock. This was cruel, as she lacked the vocabulary, the intimacy with her own needs, to do so.
If, when, Marina returns to me, I will not make this mistake again. Our boundaries and limits will be clear. I will establish them. And we both will live within them.
In the meantime?
I’ve been having a super-lovely vacation stretch in paradise. Surrounded by people I love, my family, my friends.
No gripes here.
I’ve lost something I value. And, I’m a big boy. Loss hurts. But there’s no love without loss, no joy without loss, no pleasure without loss. Nothing lasts forever, and there’s nothing that’s purely good (or purely bad).
I’m grateful for Marina. She’s been a spectacular gift to me. And, for now, at least, she’s gone.