Feeling Vulnerable

Dan shaving me makes me feel very submissive. I feel so helpless and exposed lying there with my legs spread while he applies the cream and gently runs the razor across my skin. It's all I can do to keep from closing my legs and begging him to stop.

I'm afraid he'll nick me but he never does. Sometimes it tickles, though. And sometimes it feels really really good. He admonishes me, "don't move, Amber" because I'll involuntarily twitch here and there. I try to obey but sometimes I can't help but jerk back a little. Dan frowns at me and orders again, "Amber! Keep still!".

After he finishes, I can't stop touching myself; it feels so wonderful and slick. Dan had me wear one of his button down shirts so he could see my bare mound any time he wanted. We have an "L" shaped couch and I sit sideways and across from Dan when we watch TV. He asked me several times to "show yourself to me". And I'd blush and slowly open up my legs and lift his shirt while he admired me.

It makes me feel very vulnerable to him. I love it.

While making dinner later that night, it was so hot I clipped my hair up to keep it off my neck and I heard Dan say, "Oh my god!" I looked up to see him staring at me.

"You are so beautiful right now, with your hair up, some of it falling down a little. I want you to keep it up like that for tonight, Amber."

I blushed again and looked down, pleased but embarrassed.

When he gives me orders and praises me like that, it makes me feel vulnerable, too.

I like feeling vulnerable to Dan.

A lot.

I think it makes me a better wife. And certainly a better lover. :)

***********************
Saturday night we played Rock Band at the neighbor's house again and, coming back from their house around midnight, I tripped over a sprinkler head and skidded on our cement front walk. My right arm has road rash and I banged my knee really hard; at first I just lay there, rather stunned. I couldn't even get up right away. Dan was very concerned, "Are you all right?" I said, no, I wasn't. I said I was pretty sure I hadn't broken anything but I couldn't get up for a few minutes.

We were both surprised when we saw the damage; I had blood running down my arm and my leg. Dan told me to strip and go into the master bathroom while he got his kit. He cleaned my wounds, made me take Advil and drew me a hot bath. When I got out, he dressed my wounds, too.

Yesterday we threw a party we'd been planning for some time for my ex's side of the family to officially meet Lily. 20 adults and three children were here and my knee slowly swelled up during the day as I ran limped about, busy with hostessing duties. When it started hurting more, around 7pm or so, I lifted my dress a little to see how it looked and even I was shocked at how swollen it had become. Everyone else winced and made sympathetic noises. Lucy was particularly upset. "Mom, sit down!"

Dan bade me sit down and prop up my leg while he got an ice pack for it.

I guess I won't be kneeling at his feet for a while. Boooo. :(

After our guests left, he did a semi-cleaning of the mess and this morning cleaned up a lot more. I tried to help this morning but for some reason, I'm even more stiff and sore today than I was yesterday. Dan is out with Jake right now but said he wants me to stay off my knee as much as possible.

I'm so grateful he takes such good care of me. I am a lucky, lucky wife. :)

Better Than Evar

The disappearance of my submissive desires and feelings was only temporary. Dan has very much taken on the mantle of his Domly-Dom-Goodness again and I am once more his obedient little sub.

Well. *Most* of the time. Heh.

It's true what they say; you can't do this kind of thing under stress. When Dan withdrew into himself after his layoff, I could not follow and I could not help. Not at first. He had to be ready to snap out of it and I couldn't submit to him until he did. I tried but...you just can't submit to someone whose head isn't in that place.

You know...it's a lonely feeling to be sub and not be able to submit to the one you love. Or to try and fail, over and over again. To watch your efforts tumble and fall and know you've made things worse.

It's scary and lonely and painful. I mourned the loss.

But Dan's self-confidence is back now, gloriously back and I thank all the gods for it.

Not that we do a lot in this area, at least compared to so many others. And yet, what we DO do means so much to me. The significant looks and the demanding touches. A sharp smack on my ass as he passes me in the kitchen while I'm doing the dishes. That sudden icy stare when I forget myself and my place. I stammer and stumble through my apology and I am forgiven; sometimes with a slap, sometimes with a kiss, sometimes with a knowing, sardonic grin. His big male hand wrapped around my neck or gripping my long hair, bending me back, his expression deadly serious, telling me I am beautiful, telling me I belong to him and him alone.

Leaping to obey when he pats the couch next to him at night, biding me to come sit and snuggle while we watch TV.

Telling me, "You are happiest when you just do as you're told, Amber."

Saying, "All wives should be subservient as you are to me, Amber."

Multiple swoons.

Little things, really; nothing major, nothing earth-shaking or involving leather or farm animals. I can't remember them all but it's the little things that matter.

They aren't "little" to me.

Not to mention the sex.

Have you heard the news?

Sex!! It's really great, I highly recommend it. Thumbs up from Amber!

Oh I missed "us" so much.

And I'm so glad we're back.

**Update an hour or so later**

Dan just finished shaving me! You know..."down there". *winks* I'm smooth as a billiard ball, as Captain Picard's head, as a baby's bottom, as smooth as silk, as butter, as Michael Jackson's gold coffin, as smooth as, as...well...

Damn Smooooooth

"Merkin Maintenance" Dan calls it but he hasn't done it for months, now. Thank god he did it again; I had a Sheena of the Jungle thing going on. Well, I'm assuming. I never saw Sheena's, um...thing. Vage. But I'm assuming it was pretty wild.

The Golden Calf

Logging into my news feeds just now I was disgusted to find all five of my CNN "top stories" were about Michael Jackson's funeral. It's not just CNN: BBC and several others featured it as at least one of their top stories, too.

World news. A musician croaks and the world goes nuts.

WTF?

Look, don't get me wrong. People die. Yes, it's terrible.

Guess what? We're all going to die. Every one of you reading this is going to die one day. It's inevitable.

And yep, it's sad. Especially for those left behind.

Michael Jackson died at only 50 years of age. I get it. Nobody I know, including myself, wished ill upon him.

But this media circus?

All this spectacle? All this coverage? All this...tacky, over-the-top far too public grieving?

Where is the honor in this? Have we no sense of propriety anymore? The public can be a maw of need, a wasteland of indignity, a vacuous, sticky pit. And the media feeds on this need, like a greedy, slavering succubus.

I hate to break it to you, but...you do understand it's someone's death every single second on this planet, right? Somewhere in the world, at this very moment, someone is crying their eyes out because their loved one is dead.

But there is no golden casket. No media hounds filming their grief. No websites or TV news shows covering where they might bury the body.

Because their grief doesn't need validation.

It belongs to them and them alone.

Weekend Fun

Thursday afternoon, after getting several faxes from vendors announcing they were closing Friday for the holiday, it dawned on me that *Friday* was the official day off for Independence Day and not Monday as I'd originally thought. Since Dan and I run our own schedules, we both declared a holiday for ourselves and, Friday afternoon, Dan and I met Lucy and Lily at one of our favorite bistros for lunch, then Lucy came over here and we hung out in the backyard while Dan spent some much needed male "cave time" in the garage.

At least until our relentlessly voluble neighbor from a few doors down came barging in through the open garage door to tell Dan her cat had lost his collar again and had we seen it?

Which is fine for her to ask but the woman never shuts up. I mean it, she never takes a breath or waits for you to reply to anything she says. It's just blahblahblahblahblahblahblahblah *non fucking stop*. Everyone around here avoids her like the plague. The neighbor next to her (he is between her house and ours) said that he has to make sure the coast is clear before he goes out to get his mail. If she is getting her mail at the same time he goes out to get his, oh brother, he can't get back in his house again for ages.

I saw her in Whole Foods once, talking a mile a second to one of the food servers and the food server just had this panicked look on her face..."Somebody help...please? HALP ME!"

I am sorry to say I averted my eyes and fled with my cart as fast as I could before the neighbor saw I was there.

Hey, at least she was getting paid for her suffering.

So poor Dan was stuck with this neighbor in his face blathering for several minutes until he finally made some excuse about the phone ringing and disappeared in the house. With her *still* talking at him. Then he came out in the backyard with us, eyes very very big.

This woman is recently divorced, hmmmm...I wonder why?

Poker Friday night with the neighbors was a blast; I broke even, Dan unfortunately got cleaned out. I would have been pretty much cleaned out myself except I went all in on a weak hand, figuring I had nothing to lose and lucked out on the flop with a three-of-a-kind and won the pot. YAY ME!

Then we all came back to our house and played Rock Band until 1am. Such fun! Our neighbors had never played it before and they were screaming and doing high fives after we'd complete a song! In fact, they went out Saturday and bought Rock Band for their own Wii and they played it with their kids all weekend. Now apparently we are going to do Battle of the Bands via wireless between our houses. How cool is that?

After they left, I wanted to play even more Rock Band but Dan said it was late and time for bed, so off I toddled obediently. Although after all the wine we'd had (they are wine buffs, too; much wine was opened, I rather lost count), I was probably more staggering than toddling.

Consequently Saturday we all had a bit of a headache but nobody minded. It was WORTH IT!

Yesterday I got to watch Lily while the kids went out on a "date" and for the first time ever with me, she was fussy. Which was okay, babies do get fussy, god knows I know the drill, but she refused to take her bottle, too. In fact, when I tried to feed her, she scrunched up her face and howled bloody murder. I mean, she got *mad*.

Which made me feel terrible.

I finally gave up trying to feed her and walked her around singing to her while hugging her to my chest instead until she fell asleep but when she woke up, she looked at me with the most sorrowful expression, so sad, it broke my heart. She has this pout, you see, and she sticks her lip out and everything. And tears! Clearly, she wanted the Real Thing and not some stupid bottle.

Oy. Little one.

Nana Teh Failed at Teh BreastFeeding. Nana is sorry! But I don't have a working boob to give you, kiddo.

She was ever so happy to see her mommy at the end of the day, along with the all-important boob.

So was Nana!

***************************

The other morning I woke up with a memory from when I was very little, possibly around 3 years old or so. Somehow I had gotten my feelings hurt although I don't remember why now. All I knew was that nobody loved me, nobody cared. Deciding I needed to run away, I shoved the kitchen chair against the refrigerator, crying profusely the whole time, climbed up on it and grabbed a loaf of bread off the top. Then I went outside, got on my little red tricycle and took off for Regions Unknown; the bag of bread dangling from one chubby fist clutching the handlebar.

When I reached the end of our block, I stopped dead. Eyes blurry with tears, I looked back at our house but I could no longer see it. Looking ahead again, I knew I wasn't supposed to cross the street. Yet, turning the corner and continuing down the sidewalk past Spooky Neighbor's Homes We Didn't Know seemed to be hugely scary since I only went this far with my mommy.

You know, the one that didn't love me anymore.

Too scared to go forward and too stubborn to go back, I burst into loud sobs, feeling very sorry for myself.

That's when I heard my brother say, "What are you doing, Amber?" I can still hear the humor in his voice as he said that. He is 8 years older than I am and old enough to be able to think what I was doing was pretty funny.

My reply was more loud wailing, so my brother simply turned my trike around and, with his hands on the handle bars and one foot on the back part, propelled me back home.

This became a oft related story in our house growing up. Not so much because I tried to run away at such a young age but that I'd had the foresight to take supplies. My brother still marvels to this day that I'd planned it out so well, with food for my trip and all.

Well. A girl has to be prepared, I always say.

****************************
At long last, all the skies are turning blue again for Dan and Amber. After 18 months of BS, we are finally preparing to settle with the IRS (FUCKING FUCKERS FUCKERHEAD DICKWAD ASSHOLE SHITS! Ah yes, I feel better now...), the kids' weddings are only a lovely memory, Lily is safely here and Lucy is safe as well, the emotional and financial fallout from the death of Dan's mom is behind us. Dan has come out of his doldrums from being laid off in April and is working hard at the business, I have come to terms with my tinnitus after a year of it and it no longer tortures me day and night. Most of the time I don't even hear it anymore, which is a huge relief as you might imagine.

Lucy and I are closer than ever because of Lily, the rest of our "kids" are also close to us. I have finally found personal closure over my ex-marriage after 11 years of guilt (as I wrote about a few posts back). I'm able to reach back into the world again; going to the gym again, meeting up with friends, just enjoying being alive.

Best of all, Dan and I are close again too. Our love of life and each other is back.

It's been a rough, rough couple of years but we came through it.

Together.

Good Times

I had a 90 second orgasm the other day while we made love. Well, that's how long Dan says it lasted; I have no clue how long it was since my brain was on the Planet Extreme Erotic Pleasure and no longer capable of measuring time.

I'm not even sure what brought it on; it just felt so good to have him back on top of me again, inside me, riding me, talking sexy to me, looking up at his face and watching his massive shoulders rising and falling above me. I found it hard to keep my eyes open although I wanted to watch him; all I could do was whimper and gasp and writhe about in ecstasy, then all of of sudden, BANG! My orgasm hit me out of nowhere, zooming up, cresting, I couldn't think or breathe or anything and then...it just kept going. And going and going and going and I was thinking, "It's gotta stop, soon, it's gotta, oh god, it's not stopping, it's not stopping, oh my god, oh my god" and yeah...

I think that's a personal record. :)

Like makeup sex, sex after a semi-hiatus is really really GOOD SEX!

Dan's smiling face gradually came back into focus as I slowly came back to myself again. Confused and disoriented at first, I asked him what had happened. Because honestly, I didn't even know for sure at that moment.

"You came, baby. Really hard." Dan's expression could only be described as a cross between satisfaction and smugness.

Dimly I remembered he had talked to me throughout, calling me his "Good girl", which had increased my pleasure. Suddenly, I was very tired, to the point where I felt I could fall asleep right there underneath him.

"I'm sleepy, Dan," I murmured, as my eyelids became heavy and my legs relaxed, slipping down his thighs. Dan never stopped his rhythm.

"That's too bad," he replied, "I'm not done with you yet. Put your legs back around me, because here we go."

Obediently I wrapped my legs firmly around his hips while he plunged into me again and again, until his own shattering climax. Now it was my turn to feel proud and smug as I watched the pleasure spasm across Dan's face and listened to his groans.

Spent and exhausted, we rolled away from each other. Tired, sweaty...

But very very happy.

****************************
Tomorrow night we are playing poker with the neighbors. We have this really neat black felt poker tabletop to play on that I got for Dan as a Xmas present a few years ago. We all buy in with $20 each and play Texas Hold 'Em until we run out of money or it gets too late to stay up any longer. It's a lot of fun and this will be the second time we do this with them.

The best part is, home is only a "stumble away" for us. And since they collect fine wines and so do we, there is quite a bit of tasting and sharing going on every time we all get together, so it's a good thing nobody is driving!

Saturday we are pretty much having an open house for family/friends and hopefully play lots of Rock Band throughout the day, followed by Dan the Man making BBQ burgers on the grill and I'll serve my famous potato salad.

Sunday we are watching Lily while Jake and Lucy go out on a movie date. OOOO! Spoil spoil spoil that girl! :)

Monday, dunno...we have nothing planned. Maybe the coast. Maybe the lake. Maybe a hike. Or margaritas at the local Mex restaurant.

It all sounds good to me.

Apropos of Not Much

Celebrity Deaths

I see the media is going to milk the recent attention on celeb deaths for all it's worth. I'm already getting CNN bulletins on the death of Billy Mays and some other guy I've already forgotten the name of. I don't know who the fuck Bill Mays was. Okay, so he did infomercials; so? I mean, I'm sorry he's dead at only 50 but it's hardly CNN "breaking news".

What's next?

"Breaking news! Bill Smith, the guy who did set designs for the 'Oprah' show between 2001 and 2005, DEAD at 56 from an overdose of paint fumes!"

"BREAKING NEWS! Melanie Jones, the woman who picked out the shoes Sarah Jessica Parker wore on 'Sex and the City' DEAD at only 49! Police are asking her podiatrist, who has mysteriously disappeared, to turn himself in for questioning! TUNE IN AT 11 FOR MORE COVERAGE!"

"BREAKING NEWS! SOMETHING IN YOUR HOUSE MIGHT KILL YOU! TUNE IN AT 11 TO SEE JUST WHAT!"

Whores. And not the good kind.

Slang

I love language, the fluidity of it. I love the way new words and slang terms crop up out of nowhere, how slang morphs language in totally new directions. Love the playfulness, the creativity of it.

Like LOLcat-speak, ghetto-speak, tech-speak.

As long as it's used in appropriate settings. For instance, although I LOATHE reading text-speak outside texting, since I now have a blackberry, I understand why people use it. Reading, "r u cming 2 get ur hmwrk?" on a cell phone is one thing; reading it in a blog or in any format other than a cell phone is quite another.

As in, please don't ever do it outside of the appropriate venue because it makes me want to spork your eye out.

Saying, "hells to the yeah, biatches" or, "dude, yo, why don' you be chillin and shiat" is fine at a party. Not so fine if you're in your professional capacity or in any kind of formal setting.

Or, if all you know is slang.

Not cool, not cool at all.

But if you are like me, and you enjoy the way language can evolve in ways one cannot predict, well, that's just all kinds of sick and full of win-n-awesomers.

Slang, I <3 you and I has a ginormous lubs for you. How it comes from nowhere and suddenly sweeps the country, or the world, and there isn't a damn thing the dictionary police can do about it, it all just f-a-s-c-i-n-a-t-e-s me.

Next time you are tempted to slam slang, remember; it's a spontaneous form of expression that is not only a tribute to the human spirit, it's free and damn it, it's hella fun.

So chill the fuck out and shiat like dat, yo.

Dan's Book

When Dan gets published (the powahz of positive thinking, yo!), we'll see if we can somehow let you guys know. It would kill the Dan and Amber blogs, at least in the way we've been able to write so freely in the past, but Dan's work is just so good, it wouldn't be fair to those of you who have been reading us for so long to not tell you.

Especially since, along with a heart-poundingly good plot and amazingly real characters, Dan writes the best X-rated romance I've ever read in my life.

No lie.

Besides, even if our sex lives (and yes, I'm speaking of the hot-n-steamy DD-y, D/s-y parts, lol) came out after Dan's book had become a bestseller, they say all publicity is good publicity. If we are very lucky, we'd get caught up in the vicious maw of the media, mocked endlessly on various gossip websites, a viral YouTube parody would be made and we'd end up being twittered about to death.

A girl can dream, can't she? ;)

Saturday Goodness

It's supposed to be in the 100's here today. Which isn't all THAT unusual but the weather has just been odd so far here in NorCal; May and June were mostly cloudy and chilly but no rain which we desperately need in this area due to drought. As a result, lots of people are letting their lawns die (our lawns are hanging in there, but nowhere near as green as we usually keep them) or razing their yards and putting in wood chips with shrubs instead.

So we've only had maybe 3 or 4 days total of our typical nice, sunny, high 70's spring/early summer weather over the entire last 3 months or so and now we're struck by a heat wave. Yeesh.

In other news, Dan has really taken off with his business. He is networking and passing out business cards everywhere he goes and he has already gotten several jobs as a result! He's beyond excited about this; he's just never had to market his skills before and it took time for him to get up the courage to try. He says every time he approaches someone and they respond positively, he gets braver about it. He's actually getting a huge kick out of it.

I know just how he feels, it's one of the reasons why I enjoy my job so much and why I'm so good at sales/marketing. It's extremely validating to have people appreciate you for you. For your knowledge, for your skills, for your personality. People love attention, we all do. When you call someone by name and tell them that you have a wonderful service or product to offer, when you do that the right way, with honesty and friendliness, almost everyone responds well. It's very validating and I often get a "high" from the contact I have with my customers.

Getting paid, and paid well, for chatting and bonding with wonderful people, then selling them wine at the end, well...that's just a Big Ball Of Win and Awesome, better believe it.

Dan's just getting started in the world of offering personal skills and services directly to a grateful public instead of behind-the-scenes to an uncaring, soulless corporation and I know he's going to love this.

I can already tell from his soaring confidence and good will.

Plus Dan's writing again; really writing! A book concept he has long wanted to explore. He wrote over 40 pages the other day; just going at it all day and late late into the night. Some of you might remember that I met Dan through reading his online books. He's one of the best suspense/romance writers I've ever had the privilege of reading and I've long felt more than a little guilty that when he fell in love with me, he stopped writing fiction altogether.

He still has fans who write him from all over the world and he hasn't written anything new in over 10 years. I cannot WAIT to read his new work.

Not only that, but this time he is going to try and get published. He didn't have the belief in himself to even try before, despite the thousands of fans he's garnered. Now he does believe. So who knows? Dan's book may be the next "Twilight" or "Harry Potter" phenomenon.

Except with much bigger balls. Heh.

The other night while Dan was busy writing and being all creative and shiat and I was in here listening to my music collection, he dropped this in my gmail chat window:

"Amber, thank you. Thank you for believing in me, for kicking me in the ass when I needed it, and most of all, for being there for me as a wife should. Thank you for your confidence in me, your love for me, your absolute devotion to me. We're going to be OK, I know it, I feel it, I'm living it. You are an amazing wife, and I am blessed to have you."

I teared up and wrote back that I adore him so much, that he means the world to me.

And he does.

I am so lucky to have him, so, so lucky.

As for me, dumping the two large albatross' around my neck, the IRS and self-blame for my ex's mental illness, has released a huge weight I didn't fully realize I was under until I let go of them. I am now able to contemplate ways to get the IRS situation facilitated faster without getting all hysterical or panicking. Not only that, but my ex wrote me today how he was hurt that our son didn't call him on Father's Day (and that's a whole 'nother blog within itself; basically, our son, now 27, is deliberately distancing himself from his dad for many reasons I won't go into) and I was able to calmly write my ex back that I didn't know Ray had not called him but if he's upset to go ahead and write Ray or call him and ask what's wrong.

And I did THAT without any emotional fuss, too.

Someone told me the other day that it isn't the bad things that happen to you in life that matter, it's the way you react.

Think on that; isn't that great? It's not WHAT happens to you but how YOU react to it.

I love that.

Yesterday Lucy, Lily, Cory and I all had "girl's day" over at Cory's house. Cory hosted us very well, we had an amazingly good time chatting and gossiping and laughing and once again I'm so proud of her for growing up into such a poised, gracious young woman. Now 25 she has grown in self-confidence and it's just great to see.

We all played with Lily, who dozed off and on but never really took a real nap. Although she is such a good baby, it didn't matter. She never fussed. She mostly cooed and kicked her legs a lot and waved her arms and giggled. I made her giggle the most; Cory took a movie of it and I can't wait to show it to Dan.

Lily at 2 1/2 months is a HUGE flirt. As are most babies, I think.

She's so adorable. I could just nom nom nom her forever. Delicious!

When my son Ray came home, Uncle Ray held Lily too and made her squeal and coo.

You know...seeing the look of utter love on my kids' faces as they gaze at little Lily fills me with such joy, it's almost unbearable. I turn to pure mush inside and I have to blink back tears sometimes.

It's one of the most wonderful experiences of my life. :)

I finally came home around 6:30pm and my beloved Dan was waiting for me with open arms.

"I want you to tell me everything, especially about Lily," he said eagerly.

So I did. :) TWICE! :)

Last, but not least, we took the reckless plunge and ordered Rock Band from Amazon. Before we were borrowing Ray and Cory's game but we decided we just had to have it for ourselves because it is a SERIOUSLY totally fun kick-ass fucking game. I play lead or vocals, Dan plays bass guitar or drums.

Aaaaand the UPS guy just got here, right NOW! (yup! Saturday delivery BABEEEEE!)

We're gonna rock some serious shit tonight, BOOOOO-YAHHHHH!

PEACE OUT! *'trows the goat'*