- “I wasn’t trying to be manipulative. I wasn’t trying to exert power. Of course, there is a power dynamic: I pay her to stretch with me. But. I think (I hope) Persephone knows that my relationship with her is in no way contingent on her allowing me to buy her clothes, or to see her as I might wish in those clothes.”
- “… [I]t’s of course possible that, while I wasn’t trying to be manipulative in what I said to her about my desires, she is being manipulative in sharing with me. Maybe she’s sharing these images not because she wants me to have them, not because it turned her on to send them, but because she likes good stuff, and I’ve bought her some, and she wants more.”
- “I want to imagine that taking the photos, sending them to me, imagining what they might do (they did do) to my cock made her cunt at least twitch a little, maybe ache, maybe throb. Maybe moisten. Or if not quite so bodily a response, that the process at least excited her in her mind.”
- “Persephone told me, recently, of a dream she had in which she confessed to herself a certain capability for manipulation. I want to imagine she and I are far from that.”
Four passages from my recent post about Persephone.
And now, a couple from a subsequent text exchange, in which Persephone was telling me her reaction to that post:
Persephone: “I thought it was great – accurate but not overly objective, stylized in your voice, and fun to read. If you’re asking why – It’s because I know you’ve been patient and understanding with me and my modesty. The photos were a thank you.”
And then, two minutes later…. “And perhaps, in the pursuit of a little job security. Stretching with you has made a positive financial impact and you have my gratitude for that as well.”
N: “So I was right. Ish.”
P: “Yes, you were.”
N: “(Maybe that dream also related to me)”
P: “Oh yes? I’d be curious to hear you connect yourself to my dream.”
N: “I did in the end of the post!”
P: “As you said, we are far from that.”
As P typed that previous text, I sent this one: “I hypothesized you did it because you want more stuff. That’s not EXACTLY right. But it’s close enough for government work!”
We now had two strands to our text conversation going, as sometimes happens.
In response to my ‘government work’ text, P responded “Haha close enough indeed.”
And in response to “… we are far from that,” I asked, “Far from what?”
P replied, in this strand, quoting my original post: “Persephone told me, recently, of a dream she had in which she confessed to herself a certain capability for manipulation. I want to imagine she and I are far from that.” She added, “I don’t long for more workout/stretching gear so not quite on the money, as you noted.”
Here, the conversation broke down. It seemed to me that Persephone was telling me that if I wasn’t quite “on the money” in imagining she wanted more stuff, I was right that her ultimate motivation was money. The dream to which I alluded revealed Persephone to have, in a previous relationship, been somewhat deceptive – to herself, as well as to her partner – about her motives, shading them to allow him to imagine possible outcomes he craved, even as she had no desire for those possible outcomes. In reality, her partner had accused her of this; in the dream, she seemed to admit to herself that he might have been right. I meant to be suggesting that here, Persephone was sort of doing the same thing with me with the photos (even if she was somehow “coming clean,” to an extent, with the words above). She was allowing me to imagine that what I wrote in #3 above might be true.
The conversation continued. I wrote, “I guess I was wrong about the part where I imagined you know my affection/desire for you has nothing to do with your wearing clothes I buy you. [What I wrote in #1 above]. That my continuing with you is in no way contingent.”
Her response made it clear we were, somehow, talking past one another: “Nope, you’re wrong in that regard. You could never purchase another thing for me again and nothing would feel as though it had changed. I look forward to our sessions.” I wasn’t saying that her participation was contingent on my buying her clothes; I was saying that she imagined that my continuing participation with her was contingent on her pleasing me in this particular, explicitly sexual, way.
I ended the conversation, feeling text wasn’t serving us well, and we agreed to discuss in person, when next we meet.
All this shit is so complicated, largely because of the power dynamics of sex work, which I so desperately want to escape, but which, in the end, are inescapable.
A few bottom-line observations:
- Persephone works for me. I pay her to stretch with me. Regardless of how much I enjoy it, that remains true.
- She wants to continue to work for me, so she’s trying to please me.
- She knows I like seeing her body in various outfits, explicit and less so, and so she imagined sending me the photos she sent would please me. And, she imagined that “pleasing me” is “good for business,” that it will “keep me coming back.”
I’m a complicated customer, though.
Pleasing me surely is good for Persphone’s business. But I fear she misunderstands what might please me, that she is repeating the mistake she made with that previous partner about whom she had that dream. He accused her of “toying with him.” At the time, she thought he was wrong. In the dream, she confessed to herself, he had been right: because she had wanted what he had to offer her, she allowed him to imagine that she wanted a different (sexual) relationship with him. When, in fact, she had no such interest. In the dream, or in her reflections after the dream, it seemed maybe she had been toying with him.
Persephone doesn’t imagine she’s “toying with” me. But. I feel just a little toyed with. The arc she took me on (she allowed me to take myself on?) when I received those photos did not feel good. Initially, I thought she might, actually, have been turned on taking and sending them, that there might, actually, be something of a sexual connection (rather than a commercial connection) developing between us reflected in the intimacy of those photos.
Her subsequent explanations revealed two motives, though, neither of which was anywhere near her groin: first, gratitude, appreciation: I’ve been good to her, patient, understanding, and she wanted to thank me. And second, she was operating tactically, making a business decision.
I don’t want to be unappreciative. I don’t look gift horses in the mouth. As a gift, those photos were super hot. They just were… mis-calibrated. Sometimes, women have sent me incredibly hot photos they had taken for other people, in other relationships, or that they were sending to multiple guys. There just is no photo in the universe hot enough to arouse me if I know that to be true about it. Persephone’s photos made my cock hard not because the photos were hot (notwithstanding the words of aesthetic and bodily appreciation I wrote). They made it hard because they allowed me to imagine she wants to give me what I want. Not in a “I want to give him a present” kind of way. In a “I want to please him kind of way.” And not in a “I want him to want to keep employing me” kind of way,” but in a, “I want his cock in my mouth” kind of way.
You’d think, by this time, with literally decades of experience as a consumer of all sorts of services in and out of the sexual realm, I’d have let go of the fantasy that, in a fundamentally commercial relationship such as ours, it ever might be possible to transcend the commercial and to reach the purely emotional and sexual. But, you see, the problem is, I have too much experience with it actually doing so. Including Charlotte. Sarah. Ashley. Just in the last year or so. And a lot more where it’s definitely been somewhat murky/hybrid.
It’s not fair of me. I recognize that. I’m a bit of a dick here. Years and years ago, I wrote about a misunderstanding between me and the Porcelain Doll. It was very similar to this. I wanted to believe our relationship had transcended, grown past, the commercial phase. I was wrong. (And Ferns rightly called me out as a dick in that case.) In this case? I wasn’t hoping we had grown past the commercial phase. I’m happy to continue paying Persephone to stretch with me for as long as our mutual circumstances permit. Hell. Not happy. Excited. And that is true if I never see her nipples through fabric again, if I never buy her a revealing outfit again, if all we ever do is stretch in PG outfits. No less true. And, maybe, I think, even slightly more true. About which more in a moment.
This all is complicated: because she values the economic aspect of our relationship, because it’s the reason for our relationship, she’s constantly thinking about how to ensure its security, how to make sure it continues. Because I’m me, my privilege allows me to worry, instead, about the emotional and sexual aspect(s) of our relationship. There is, to be sure, a real relationship there, of sorts. With an emotional component, and with at least the hint of a sexual one, if attenuated, if paid.
I don’t want to label Persephone’s behavior as “toying.” That was the word her previous partner used. It’s one she owned up to in her dream. I don’t think, honestly, that’s a generous characterization of what happened here. I think what happened here was, genuinely, a misunderstanding. Persephone thought she was being appreciative, expressing gratitude. And yes, doing so in a way that was, perhaps, not uninformed by tactics.
The “toying” thing happened on my end, in my head. Because of my fantasy that the relationship will grow to be more (and perhaps because of Persephone’s awareness of that, and desire, if not to indulge it, at least not to extinguish it – again, for tactical reasons), I took myself on that aforementioned imaginary arc, starting with “I make her cunt ache,” and ending with, “I’m just a wallet.”
So I’m not accusing Persephone of anything. I think her motivations were, if not pure, at least as transparent as the bodysuit through which she showed me her nipples. No. Instead, I’m realizing something about my own preferences. As hot as those photos were, I would have preferred not to receive them. I don’t want to receive more such photos from her. And, I’m not even sure I want to continue to see her in revealing outfits when we stretch. I think I do. But I’m not sure. I need to think further about it.
The thing is, what turns me on is power – not the power I have to buy, but the power I (might, but evidently don’t) have to make her want to wear those things for me for reasons that emanate from her body and not – or at least not exclusively – from her checking account. When she reveals her sole motivation to be financial, ultimately, that makes me feel powerless. It makes me feel… like a john.
And that’s a shitty feeling.
Of course, I know, I know, I am a john in this relationship. But I work hard to avoid that sensation, and I want her help. That’s why I insist so hard on the principles I articulated in #1 above. It’s genuinely true. I’ve stopped stretching with women. I’ve stretched long times with women. In neither case has duration been informed by their compliance. I fucking love compliance in non-commercial relationships. I don’t seek it in commercial ones, because I’m so sensitive to the distorting power of money, it makes me feel dirty to seek it.
So. Persephone. Here’s my fantasy configuration of our relationship. I’d like to discuss it with you, and, if possible, I’d like your help in maintaining it:
- Commercial: you stretch with me. I pay you to stretch with me. We chat while we stretch. Perhaps I make gentle requests about what you wear. Shorts? leggings? t-shirt? sports bra? no bra? something that features your pretty breasts? Sure. But. That’s it.
- Personal: Anything that happens outside of the 20-30-minute stretching session that isn’t purely logistical, or that happens within the session that is more explicit, revealing, or exciting than what I described above, has nothing to do with relationship #1. (Chinese walls of this sort are, ultimately, fantasies, I know, but I want this particular fantasy, and I want your help in maintaining it.)
And then, within the context of that personal relationship, I don’t want anything from you that doesn’t affirmatively please you – not as a worker, not as a person assembling an income, but as a woman, with a mind, and with a pussy – to give me. If it doesn’t please you along those axes, I don’t want it. Please don’t send me such photos. Please don’t allow me to buy you an outfit to wear if it won’t turn you on to show me your pretty body in it.
You imagine your indulgence of my fantasies is “in pursuit of a little job security.” This is where you are, demonstrably, incorrect. Or at least, unwise. Your job security comes, as I said very early on, from your honest, transparent, communication. Not from your allowing me to imagine true things you know to be untrue. If anything, that pushes me in the opposite, self-protective, direction.
I think, for now, I want to suggest that we focus on talking this through a bit more. Because I want us to continue. But nothing that has happened between us has made me more likely to stop stretching with you than the two times you’ve briefly allowed (encouraged?) me to imagine, incorrectly, desire/willingness/openness on your part that does not exist.
Boundaries
All this makes me think it might make sense for us to have the following exchange:
N: Is there a universe in which I get to devour your cunt?
P: No.
N: Is there a universe in which you suck my cock?
P: No.
N: Is there a universe in which your pleasing me gets you off?
P: No.
It might well be that, if we establish those principles definitively, it can provide me with the… safety… that I would need. Conversely, a more nuanced and comprehensive set of answers also could help. But. Maybe not?
Postscript: Persephone and I had a good, useful conversation in which she established definitively that, as much as she may like me, the motivational zone I touch in her is her wallet, not her cunt, and that our relationship will not transcend the stretching sessions we have. Fair enough. I am truly grateful for this clarification.