Deep breath. And... relax. Here goes

THANK YOU @NowIveDoneIt @Jessica Alexander @Chaz69 @Open2njoy @Headtrip amd @cshorts. What a lovely, lovely set of kind and thoughtful messages! The last few days have made me think a lot (I know I often over-think things) and your messages have been calming.

Today didn't go at all as planned. We went out to the shops late morning and two cars had a minor biff in the supermarket carpark. The owners got out and started shouting at each other and started a bit of a scuffle. Lots of bystanders but it was My Pete who waded in and firmly broke them up, giving them stern but polite words. I was very proud of him. Unfortunately, someone had already called the police so we had to spend a while giving statements but in the end the police thanked him, and amazingly so did the two silly drivers, which is a pretty amazing result! I couldn't help thinking about him wearing his cage while all this was going on.

I was thinking as we came home how I used to worry that his willingness (and wish) for me to take the lead sexually might spill into other parts of our lives, which neither if us has wanted. The other day, we were choosing some boring furniture thing and I noticed that he listened to what I had to say but didn't display any particular deference. And today, he took the lead ahead of all the other people around. It made me feel relieved and very pleased and reminded me how I've always enjoyed the 'caged animal' fantasy. When we got in, I put my hand on his cage and I told him how I felt about all this, which went down well.

Long kiss, and of course he soon hinted that I might unlock him. I said I felt it was too soon.

He's gone for a celebratory beer with his pals.

Sal

 

Thank you @BarbCD - that's a lovely way to put it. Sal

 

Last night after a little light canoodling, My Pete suggested I might enjoy the feeling of ‘being filled’. I was definitely the mood but I told him it was too soon so we couldn't unlock him. He looked forlorn for a moment then said, "How about Mummy Bear?". We both laughed. 'Mummy Bear' is the mid-sized of the three Vixskin things (I can't bear the 'd-word'). I do realise it’s a silly name for one of these things and we'll probably need to change it. Anyway, I found myself saying yes and agreeing to him using it. He took it out of the drawer and yet again I found it rather creepy. Oddly enough, the smaller one (Little Bear) and the crazy-big one (Daddy Bear) were less creepy, even though Daddy Bear is monstrous. I think it’s because Mummy Bear is the same size as My Pete and the ridges and things make it creepily lifelike, and yet of course it’s not. I disguised my feelings and he went off with it to the bathroom to stick it in hot water.

Then there was all the palaver with the harness and bits and pieces to hold it in place, with the real one still in its cage. Frankly I would have lost interest, had My Pete not been so eager. I remembered all the advice, from Laura and others to be sure to treat the fake thing exactly if it were the real thing. That’s very odd at first – more than odd – downright bonkers. But gradually the creepiness reduced, and the excitement increased. When I had it in my mouth I could tell he was very excited – the way he was watching me was exactly as if it had been the real thing. Then he just asked, “Now?” and there he was inside me, with me reminding him to slow right down.

Here's a big admission and I’m not sure how I really feel about it. When he entered me, I couldn’t tell the difference between this and the real thing. At least not at first. He was obviously excited, which made me excited too. But… Sorry to be graphic, but I’ve never been able to come just with the in and out motion – it’s the more circular motion when he’s in quite deeply that does it for me. But with a strap-on that doesn’t seem to be possible because instead of My Pete’s pleasingly fleshy pubic bone etc, there’s a load of straps and rings and paraphernalia, which just hurt.

We stopped and he looked disappointed. I gave him the signal – a little tap on his head – and he responded immediately and delightfully slowly. Afterwards, I explained what had happened and he said that he saw this as an engineering challenge and would try and fix it for next time. We laughed at that.

We kissed some more and I asked him if he felt frustrated. Of course he said yes and I put my hand on his cage and said ‘Good’. I noticed his cage was a little wet and I asked him if he had come. He said no, but that when he had entered me with Mummy Bear (yes, we do need to rename it!) it had felt very intense. I asked him to tell me more about how it had felt and he said that it had been frustrating, weird, exciting and at the same time totally without any pressure to ‘perform’. I said that maybe we’d do it again, especially if he gets the engineering sorted.

We had a shower, I took it out for an airing and a wash, shaved a bit under the ring and put on some cream and waited for him to go soft enough to put the cage on. All locked again and feeling lovely and close. I had mixed feelings about seeing the Three Bears (and Pinkie) the next morning though.

Sal.

 

Back at the beginning of April, My Pete mentioned that his sleep was being disturbed by the fact that the small amount of space in his cage allowed him to get the beginnings of an erection - enough to start pulling on the cage and wake him up. We talked about getting him a slightly smaller cage to fit on the same ring. I left it up to him to decide and order it if he wanted to - I'm still not a huge fan of the mechanical side of the project. Anyway, it arrived today. We just had an after-work shower together and he's wearing it now. It doesn't really look so different. The best bit was watching him while he went soft enough to put it on. That really is such a simple pleasure - a lovely feeling of control (and for him, being controlled) and not a gizmo or gadget in sight!

Sal

 

Hi, thanks for your kind words. I don't really like the mechanical side of things very much - I still find all the devices a rather off-putting, although much, much less so than I did at first when I found the whole thing yuck and even a bit frightening. My fantasy would be to have the control wand feeling of power without needing any device.

My Pete is an engineer and I think he rather enjoys choosing gear, so he's researched everything and I don't really ask anything about it, other than whether or not it's comfortable. I know we started with a flimsy thing that someone recommended as a toy in an adult store. (The 'gateway drug'!) Then Cherry Keeper with quite a bit of trial and error to get the size, then stainless steel to match that . I know it was from the US and made to measure and it cost a lot (but I don't know how much). He has (we have?) just started experimenting with a second cage - a little smaller - that fits onto the same ring. Sal.

 

Meeting Laura for early evening drink later. Suddenly feeling nervous and jumpy. She got in touch - I think she wants to talk about her partner. Deep breath....

 

Forgive another long post. As always, I use this to get my own thoughts straight.

I met up with Laura today for an early-evening drink. I’d been feeling nervous about seeing her, but I needn’t have been. The first thing she said, looking all serious, was, “I want you to know… that… my bum still hurts and I’m still sorry”. We both laughed and by the end of the first gin and tonic, any tension was completely gone.

We chatted about everything and nothing – Ted Lasso, people who do crystal healing, our bonkers politicians, what we did for the Coronation, what we’ve been doing at work. It felt easy and fun. I asked he about her partner and she said things were a bit better but she wasn’t sure whether he was just going off her, or whether he was just becoming less interested in physical relationships generally. It felt odd seeing someone I think of as being super-confident, clearly questioning her own attractiveness. I joked that maybe locking it away for a bit might focus his mind in the right direction. She said that she would enjoy that feeling of power, the same way I do, but she honestly didn’t know whether her partner would enjoy it or not. I said she should just get a cheapie like we used to have and next time there’s some misdemeanour to give the excuse, she could playfully cage him and gauge his reaction. She said she might try that and commented that here I was giving her advice – a reversal. It’s always easier to solve problems for others than oneself.

She asked about My Pete and our Project. I said that other than a serious setback when a naughty female predator had distracted us, it was going well. But I laughed as I said it and didn’t feel the slightest bit angry anymore, which surprised me a lot, and her I think. I told her how things were going, the slight creepiness I felt about the Vixskin additions to the family, my concern that he and I would get too used to using them, the whole pegging thing and above all, my occasional but quite serious worry that I’m not properly in control, or at least not in the right way. She asked me a lot about that. It felt good to be able to offload half-formed thoughts. I said I was still worried that he would become emasculated and the project would spill into the rest of our lives. She asked if had any evidence for that (the lawyer!) and I said not – in fact a couple of events recently had reassured me. She told me to stop worrying about that and concentrate on feeling confidently in control.

She said that it was a lot more complicated than just deciding what I wanted and then communicating that to him, because of course, his excitement would feed mine, and mine his., so deciding what I wanted wasn’t a simple matter. And also, she said, I had a responsibility for his pleasure as well as mine. She said that in most jobs, it was not only expected that one should project confidence, but doing so actually means that the job gets done better as a result. A doctor projects confidence, the patient believes in the treatment, and everyone is better off. An actor on stage exudes confidence and the audience just goes with it. If she doesn’t the audience have a dismal time. She said that this was massively true as a barrister, where she had to project confidence to make tribunals believe what she said on behalf of her clients.

She asked me when I had that kind of feeling of confidence with My Pete right now and actually there were quite a lot of examples – when I command him to come, when I watch and wait as he goes soft, and the special moment when I turn the little key. She asked how I felt when he was really squirmy. I said that was really fun – in those moments I felt confident and in control and that both of us were immersed in the moment and enjoying ourselves – and aroused. She said that there are lots of things I could do to reinforce this a lot of those things might help my own confidence and therefore add to the fun for both of us.

She asked me what made My Pete squirm more – controlling when he can be hard, or controlling when he can come? Strange question, I thought. But after thinking about it, I had to say the former. And which did I think he finds more arousing? Again, the former. And which did I find more exciting? I said I really enjoyed being able to command him to come but if I had to pick, then my fantasies are most often about controlling when he can get hard. She said she wondered whether his interest in the Three Bears might be as much to do with their unfailing rigidity as with their size. I mentioned that he had said when he was using one of them as a strap-on, that it took away any performance anxiety. But I again mentioned that I didn’t want him to grow dependent on the Three Bears, and neither did he.

She said she thought there were two things to concentrate on. First, helping me to feel in control and able to project that confidence in such a way that he would sense it consistently and even more than he does already. And second, to reinforce that his ‘performance’ is my responsibility and that he doesn’t have to worry about it and indeed that he mustn’t worry about it. I need to explain to him that I can enjoy the Three Bears, or him, in different ways and that I need him to trust me that I want the real thing. But that doesn’t mean I can’t engage in the occasional mind-game to keep him on his toes. (I mentioned at this point that I’m not sure I could enjoy Father Bear, given the size and she just said, “Practice on your own and you’ll probably get used to it – he bought it because he finds it exciting – and you do want to excite him, yes?” I said I didn’t want to feel disappointed with the real thing, if I got too used to the Three Bears and she just told me not to be so silly – that it’s just an occasional thing for fun but that I should make sure he uses the real thing often enough, albeit at my choice. “Don’t leave it for months, for goodness sake!”)

And then she reeled off a load of little examples and ideas for amplifying my feeling of control and playing on what makes him tick so that each of our roles would be reinforced. I admitted I’d been a bit lax about following Laura’s previous advice – for example making sure I use height difference when I can, or sitting, clothed, while he’s standing and exposed. She said measuring him wasn’t just about size – every man’s boringly predictable hang-up - but about staying hard, (every man’s other predictable hang-up, perhaps with more reason) which is why having his legs over the arms of the chair was a good idea – everything about that position amplified my control and his relinquishing of control to me and it’s much more difficult for most men to stay hard in that position. But she said to make it very clear when he eventually softens that it’s not his fault (even though he will think it is, whatever I say) that it is my responsibility and that this part of him is shared between us. She was at great pains to point out that relinquishing control isn’t the same as becoming submissive, especially in all the ways that people use that term.

She suggested some other things, all of which seemed simple and fun and don’t seem to require any special extra equipment (which I told her I don’t like much) and I wrote down a little list of stuff to try. One thing she suggested was so brilliantly simple and I knew immediately the effect it would have on My Pete. I’ll save the description for sometime in the next few days when I’m going to try it.

Laura repeated, her advice to do lots of little tiny things to project my confidence, to make sure both of us understand that his ‘performance’ and responses are my responsibility and that this part of his anatomy is ours and not just his.” I do keep forgetting that, but when I remember, everything seems to be easier. And she said to make sure I get lots of feedback from him – asking him questions about his intimate responses (preferably while cfnm) will be exciting for us both and in itself projects power. Gosh.

She (only half jokingly) suggested that when My Pete is totally desperate (to get hard, let alone come) and in the condition that he’ll agree to anything, I could perhaps ask him if he’d talk to her partner about chastity. I said I’d asked before and there had been a flat ‘no’ and she said she was only kidding, although I could tell she wasn’t.

By this time we were onto our third G&Ts and it was almost time to go. I feel like I’ve had a brilliant pep-talk and I got a text from her afterwards saying how much she’d enjoyed the evening and thanks for my advice etc!

My Pete’s out with the chaps this evening and I’m feeling optimistic and happy – almost enough to do a solo experiment with Father Bear, but not quite.

Sal

 

I wish I'd had a louche aunt who could have told me this 20 years ago! Sal

 

Since seeing Laura, I’ve been trying to take her advice. In any sexual context, whether it’s just flirting, or anything more substantial, I try been trying to be consistent about casting myself in a leadership role. I’ve previously found, and she reminded me, that it’s not just about how My Pete regards me, but how I regard myself, that matters. The more confidence I project, the more he’ll respond and the more I’ll enjoy it and the more he’ll enjoy it, etc etc. It’s amazing how all the little things mount up – using my height, having him sit a little lower than me, being clothed while he’s more exposed and of course giving confident instructions. I have also been trying to reinforce that that part of him is ours and not just his – which is quite hard to remember!

Yesterday, we were fooling about on the sofa and I realised we had all the time in the world to try one of Laura’s suggestions, when she pointed out that controlling when he’s hard is even more important than controlling when he can come. I took his cage off and he immediately (and gratifyingly, as always!) sprang to attention. He asked me if I wanted to be filled and I said yes, very much but I said that I wanted to play with our joint property for a while. Of course, he was only too willing.

I asked him to keep his hands behind his head and relax and then just played with it, with just two rules. Only ever touching or rubbing the lower third (ie never near the most sensitive bits) and only enough to keep it hard, never more than that. I’d been warned that it would take a lot of concentration (from me) and would take ages. I hadn’t counted on quite how much I’d have to concentrate or quite how long it would take! The moment he started to wilt, I squeezed a bit harder or said especially naughty things in his ear. GradualIy, it needed more and more effort to keep it hard and took less and less time to go soft each time. I didn’t time it, but it must have been well more than an hour before he was pretty much completely soft, despite my lower-third fondlings. In all our time together, I don’t think I’ve ever really played with it in that condition! I asked him how it felt and he said he couldn’t explain. I said it felt great to me – which it did – completely controlling but in a loving and attentive way. After a few minutes more, I just said, “Let’s pop it away, shall we?” And a few moments later, the cage was back on. He asked me what happens next, and I just said “Mummy Bear would be nice” and off he went to warm her (it? him?) up.

He came back eventually with the harness on (which I hadn’t intended) and Mummy Bear ready for action. And bless his cotton socks, sometime over the last day or two, he’d only gone and adapted the thing so that instead of my most sensitive spot rubbing painfully against parts of the contraption, there was a layer of nice soft slightly squidgy stuff that he’d somehow attached! Remembering the advice always to treat it as if it were the real thing, I had him stand in front of me while I sat on the edge of the bed and inspected it and made various cooing noises.

It actually felt very nice! I didn’t have any residual guilt because I knew he’d been played with for absolutely ages and My Pete seemed relaxed and gentle and didn’t try to hurry it. I was pleasantly surprised by my body’s reaction.

Afterwards, lying in bed and eating chocolate (when other people have cigarettes) he asked me how it had felt and I said that thanks to his clever engineering and circular skills (rather than just in and out) with his ‘tool’ (haha) I had enjoyed it a lot. I said I’d especially enjoyed the feeling of control I’d had, that had felt very special. He said that being kept hard like that for so long had been surprisingly satisfying. He said he’d realized after about half an hour that I probably wasn’t going to let him come but he’d just ‘got into the zone’. He said that when he’d gone totally soft in my hands he’d felt humiliated at first, but then enjoyed the feeling of another bit of sexual responsibility being taken away, and then humiliated again when I had told him that we should ‘pop it away’, and then pleased again when he realized it’s what I had wanted. He said it was a bit of a rollercoaster and that the ‘weird extended foreplay’ (as he put it) made using Mother Bear much, much more exciting. He said that he’d been a bit wet afterwards. I asked if he’d come in his cage and he said not, but that he had just ‘leaked a bit’. I asked if it felt ok and he just gave me his goofy chocolatey grin and said it was more than ok.

This morning I could tell from the way he was looking at me, that he's pretty desperate. I told him I liked him being like that.

Sal

 

We had an interesting discussion about size this morning. Not My Pete's size, but the size of his cage and how it affects him. Since we frst experiemented with a 'toy' cage (which was miles too big) about a year and a half ago, he's had a few models of various lengths.

He recently noticed that there was often a little gap between his tip and the end of the cage and thought it would be easier to pee neatly if he had a slightly shorter model. And he was also finding that his sleep was being disturbed (mostly when he was very desperate) as he could get the beginnings of being hard enough to start pulling. Since the slightly shorter one arrived he's been experimenting with both, two days or so at a time for each. He asked me which I prefer but until we had the conversation this morning, I had no preference - I could hardly spot the difference to be honest, so I've left it to him to choose which he'd like.

He says that the slightly smaller one does occasionally make it easier to pee but actually doesn't make that much difference. He said it's a bit early to say but he thought he slept better in the smaller one because any erections are 'nipped in the bud' so he doesn't seem to expand enough to start pulling. At this point, I'd lost concentration on what he was saying because I didn't really mind which he chose - whichever felt more comfortable. But then he said that he thought they each affected him differently, mentally. That woke me up!

He said that the recent experiement had confirmed what he'd thought when we tried various cherry keepers a while back. He said the smaller one, while physically marginally more comfortable, seemed to suppress his libido. He said he felt that because sexy thoughts are so bound up with his physical response that when the physical side is totally constrained, it seems to affect his mental response as well. And because his physical response was in turn tied up with his maleness, he thought the smaller one made him feel somewhat emasculated and he was worried about this feeling spilling over into the rest of our lives. The slightly larger one, allowing him to get the merest beginning of an erection feels more like the 'caged animal' that we discussed at the outset of our project, rather than having his 'sexuality completely squashed'. He said that with the smaller one, he finds that he thinks about sex less than when he's wearing the larger one!

The difference betwen the two cages hardly seems significant to me - probably about a centimetre, and yet he's reporting a fundamental difference in his mental state! I found this amazing. I said that unless the occasional sleep issue or the pee thing became serious then I'd much prefer him in the slightly larger model - I want him desperate, frustrated and aroused, not squashed and emasculated. He looked extremely relieved! I said I'd keep the smaller cage though, "in case I change my mind and decide you really need it". Cue the frightened rabbit expression!

Sal

(I'm also posting this to the bit of the forum about devices, in case others have the same sort of experiences or can make any recommendations about other things to try)