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“Is this A Thing?”: the continuing conversation

It could have been one of many conversations that UK Muse and I have had over the past two and a half years, on Skype or in person, naked or clothed, doesn’t matter. We have managed to keep a spark alive across the Internet, with glitches and sound lag and all; and then right up close, under the same blanket, has its own powerful magic, too.

It didn’t matter where the conversation happened, but it would have been about sex, tangentially, kinda, not directly and unrelentingly, more kind of dipping in and out of fantasy or prophecy or just random wack-ass things that one or the other of us comes up with, off the cuff, to tack onto our games. It’s all seething underneath our public skins, I mean, I’m sure it does for a lot of people, but there really is something about the way that he and I talk together that feels like all of that filth is right there, just beneath the surface. All we have to do, one or the other of us, is poke it, poke a hole in it, and it wells up.

And so then one of us did poke a hole in it, with whatever comment, we went a little further, or we took a tangent, an unexpected twist on what we already play with, we just kept talking, stream of consciousness, and the words just slipped out of one of our mouths, and that’s when the other person said it.

“Is that A Thing?”

The answer that came next depended on what we were talking about; it depended on the feel of the air that suddenly both thickened and sharpened between us, a space where a previously undiscussed act or look or object or phrase appeared between us, and neither of us knew what the other would answer, neither of us would have had any clue, because from the very beginning we have surprised each other, from the very fucking beginning.

“Wait, is that A Thing?”

Rarely has there been a solid Yes, because it’s always a question, a possibility, that we didn’t expect until suddenly there it is. But also rarely is it an immediate, resounding slap down: “no fucking way.” Usually it’s a “Mmmmmmmaybe?” or an “It might be” or simply “I’m not sure.” We know that the hesitation alone is not enough to rule anything out.

“Whoa. Is this A Thing?”

In the space that follows this question, there is a real rush for me, pure adrenalin as we look into each other’s eyes. Suddenly, there is a little part of him that is a stranger again, or some place that I didn’t even know existed. We are both cautiously, simultaneously lifting our freak flags and making ready to set them out a little further. Or leaving them in place; that’s also possible.

The conversation is what gets us to this exciting spot. It’s not just one conversation, I guess, it’s an ongoing one that circles and loops and weaves its way through the other separate conversations. This simmering undercurrent is about who we are and what we mean to each other, what we like and what we positively crave and what makes us feel nervous because WHERE THE HELL DID THAT COME FROM and how it feels to watch each other closely in moments of release. Inevitably, because we keep talk talk talking—I mean, we go off the map on the regular—the conversation keeps going places we don’t expect.

“No, really, is this A Thing?”

The question has become less scary over time, and mostly just exciting. After two and a half years, I’ve learned to trust him in those wide-open spaces where neither of us knows. I know that he will tell me the truth, and I know that I can tell him mine, and we won’t flinch or say eww.

It’ll just be, more likely than not, some variant of “I don’t know, let’s find out.”

*****

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