Very rarely are other people's dreams interesting...except when they're about sex. This week, dream analyst Lauri Loewenberg tackles a mysterious reappearing ex.

I have been having dreams about my ex-husband lately. I am kind of confused because I keep wondering if leaving him was the right choice and now I have these intense dreams that are so real it scares me. All the dreams I have about him are different but they all involve sex or heavy petting. And sometimes we do crazy things during sex that we never did while we were married. I would really love to know what is going on here because I am in a relationship now that I have been in over a year and it just all of a sudden started happening.

Should she go back to the well, or is she just dreaming in rose-tinted glasses? Find out after the jump (right after you send us your own dreams!):

I saw Vince Gill, Winona Judd, and Bebe and Cece Winans perform this together live on Oprah last week. The song put to the images here is even more moving - enjoy!

I am going to take a moment to explain in better detail how this journal works, in the hopes that more people will comment as a result.

Hello all, I am the Top. I am a male, dominant (formerly switch) type. I've been involved in the BDSM lifestyle for a while, now. I am in my mid-30s. I am heavyset and employed in the Tech Field. I live somewhere in the US.

In mid-june of 2007, I started playing with, and then entered into a long-term relationship with my full-time submissive/slavegirl/slaveboy, who in this journal is referred to as "The Monkey". She is biologically female, but identifies as genderqueer. Thus, both sets of pronouns are used interchangably to describe him. See what I did there? It happens often. Most times, if I'm talking about someone, it's the monkey. Most other people are mentioned by name or reference.

The name "The Monkey" comes from a fight club reference, as one of our first scenes involved shaving all the hair from her head, as when I first met her, it was a nasty, crunchy, been-dyed-and-bleached-too-many times mess of pink, brown, and a few other shades in there. For those of you that have not seen Fight Club, the reference is "shaved like a monkey ready to be shot into space".

On the mechanics of this journal -- it is a shared journal, where we both post as the same user. Livejournal lacks the ability to have multiple users "masked" on a journal, so the easiest way to tell who's writing it, if the tone can't imply it, is to look at the tags, which we endeavor to keep up to date, i.e. "entries written by the monkey, entries written by the top".

You may notice from time to time that we actually will cross-comment on our own entries (within the text of the entry), conversationally -- if that happens, the inline comments are thus that I always comment in bold, and the monkey always comments in italic.

On OUR anonymity -- we do not use our real names. Places we visit are kept reasonably vague. People we know are always referred to in pronouns.

On YOUR anonymity: Comments are always screened. If we reply to a comment (which causes it to be unscreened -- I hate this feature), we rescreen it immediately. The journal's "friends of" list is hidden, so you cannot tell by looking at this journal's profile page which freaks are reading it.
(Of course, people can find YOUR profile page and find it, or use things like google searches, but it's still a much harder problem) -- and it's difficult to cull the full member list.

Additionally, if even THAT bothers you -- we post publicly, all the time. Which means you could bookmark the journal and just read from time to time, or you could plug the journal's RSS feed into something like google reader.

We love comments, we really do -- to be honest, we do what we do for US, to chronicle the time -- but we both enjoy imparting knowledge as well. So don't be afraid of letting us know what you think!

I'll leave it to the monkey to integrate this info into the journal's bio, as well as some kind of "first post" that always shows.

Our inbox is overflowing and we'll never get to all the lonely hearts, so each week, one reader's fate will be left up to the masses. Answer this reader's question by filling out the poll after the jump:

Is a one-night stand really worth it? I mean, yeah I WANT it. But will I feel bad about myself in the end?
--Casual Sex Confusion

Friday, before I came home, the monkey expressed an interest (over IM) in playing that night. In fact she begged. Which I love.

We did...rather a lot of impact play friday night. Crop, Flogger, Paddle, bare-hand. I mainly tried to focus on the ass, although a lot got done over the back and lower thighs. She built up rather nicely, and while she squirmed a bit, and yelped a bit, she was trying rather hard to work through it and did well.

Saturday was spent just lounging around the house, watching some classic Kubrick movies, A Clockwork Orange and Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, cuddling and spending time...we got to bed surprisingly early.

She's been looking at toys a lot online. It's my version of window shopping. I do this a lot in general. This upsets me, because I want to buy them -- but money is a bit tight now. She wants a new set of cuffs, preferably vegan, like these or these, but I don't like a good portion of what's on the market -- perhaps this requires a separate post, with some reference pictures. Personally, if I were to get her anything, I'd like to get her a nice set of gorean shackles, and just have them worn full-time. How about a link to some examples for all the readers who aren't familiar with Gor? Sleepable, showerable...and easily attachable to a set of chains I'd just keep permanently attached to the bed-sides.

Sunday...I woke the monkey up at about 8am, feeling a bit randy, and told her I was going to be piercing her nipples. I clipped her paws behind her back, snapped another clasp on her ankles, and put a blindfold on her. She begged me not to -- quite a lot, and yelped when the needle finally poked into her. So I stopped.

((An aside: I should mention that I'm about to talk about someone new: Potential Slavegirl. I talked about her in my last post. She knows who she is. If any other of my readers (who I've been flirty with in the past) think I'm talking about you, I'm not.))

I sat, upset for a moment and growing worse. Upset at the fact that she has another friend who has...less personal barriers against agression. Less filters, who doesn't have a problem hurting her. I wrote about him here. I was becoming upset at the fact that I have another potential submissive (I'm sure you'll hear more about her as time goes on) who I felt would accept this piercing willingly, heck, would do anything to have this piercing done. I grew upset at the fact that as many times as the monkey has told me that she is mine to do with as I please, that this is such an issue. Sir, you encourage me to vocalize any hesitations I have. And I vocalized all this.

And then I told her "this is a problem, pull your shirt up, and look away. Okay, take a breath, little pinch now...and...done." The needle slid in, effortlessly, behind her nipple. I let it sit for a moment, checking her for any signs of shock -- but there were none. She was fine. No crying, no bleeding...no anything. Just my monkey, with a long hypodermic needle through her nipple. We spoke about it for a few moments, and then the other one was pierced as well, just as easily.

I joked, pondered a bit about also piercing her clit hood, but, well, one day at a time. Anyway, once that was done, there was some really decent sec, then I held her, rubbed her nipples up against the needles from the inside -- fucked her some more after she sucked on my nipples. She tells me the endorphin rush was amazing. I love getting pierced professionally. I just have to remember to have the same attitude with play piercing and HOLD STILL. The needles came out just as easily, and we showered and did the usual sorts of things.

I mentioned sometime during that interlude that I really want to get my hands on the real piercing needles (which do hurt more) and pierce her nipples with jewelery for a day or so -- make her wear something tight so the rings show. Which kind of feels like a waste to me. Why not just pierce them permenantly? Because you like binding? Maybe pierce her tongue temporarily if she misuses it ie: is sassy (although doing the tongue requires specialty hardware). If I'm going to be doing a lot of this, I'll probably make the investment in an autoclave for the jewelery (we'll always, ALWAYS use single-use needles). If not, a pressure cooker is a good substitute. A worthwhile investment anyway -- sadly I won't trust a thrift-store pressure cooker. I don't think we have one of those.

It turned out to be a regular day -- more lazy weekend lounging -- a lot of good talking about a lot of things...and a lot of feeling so proud of her for getting past this.

Her second orgasm of the night, before dinner, was had while I gripped her by the hair and the collar, and she humped against my leg, like "a good little puppy", barking and growling the whole time, telling her of all the things I'll have her do with Potential Slavegirl, how they'll interact together...how I'll have them play with each other for my amusement...how I'll have girl A plow girl B, while girl B goes down on me...how I'll fit them with nice, matching shock collars...how I will train her to be the absolute comeslut (cumslut?), not allowed to get off until everyone else has. It was nice, dirty talk. But...dirty talk that could be realized, if things work out.

Dinner, another movie. Mundane stuff. She had some ice cream that she had to lick off a plate on the floor (no hands). She's had to do that twice this weekend...it puts out her butt so nicely for croppage. And I really love eating off the floor or from the Top's hand.

Oh yes, did I mention? Yes, you did. Okay, so I like mentioning itWe acquired a crop from one of my favorite little places. It's been...my favorite toy. Useful for all sorts of things...waking the monkey up...motivating the monkey around the house...whacking things to startle the monkey...gently slapping the monkey's cheeks (pick a set) when she's being just a little difficult...turning off the light switch without getting out of bed...tenderizing the monkey's ass before starting in with bare-hand.

Once we got to bed, around ten (with my new work schedule, that's later than I'd like), she got me off nicely.

When I woke her up at 4(!!) in the morning, she got up quickly and laid out my clothes, and we cuddled for a bit. I loved holding her. She tells me that that particular hour was too early to take her meds (which I guess is okay -- but if she doesn't IM me by about 10 and tell me she's done so I'll be upset). I did so at 11:30. Eep.

I stopped off for coffee and a donut on the way in. I don't feel it's out of the question to have part of her routine be to get that stuff, but I might just invest in a Keurig system (just for the commute -- I don't generally like Keurig because it's so wasteful, but it's so effortless that the tradeoff and cost might be worthwhile). How about a link for the readers who don't know what a Keurig is? I had to look it up myself.

And so, tragically, my guestblogging stint on Boing Boing comes to an end. Thank you to Cory, Mark, David, and especially Xeni for inviting me and letting me blog unfetteredly, as I am wont to do. My entire life is going to be downhill from here, I'm pretty sure. You can peruse my guestblog archives here.

aries (Mar. 21st-Apr. 20th)
You will think you have found love--or at least really good sex--this week, but it won't last, because they're lying to you. Hate to make you feel like you've been kicked in the nuts now, but it's better than feeling like your heart's been ripped out through your esophagus later, right?

taurus (Apr. 21st-May 20th)
We have one word of relationship advice for you: Google. It's not nosy--we all do it. And in your case, you might just be very glad you did. Just remember: don't believe everything you read...unless it's written by us.

gemini (May 21st-June 21st)
Easy come, easy go. Who knows what the hell is going on with your love life--the revolving door to your bedroom is spinning so fast, everything's a blur. You might want to consider changing your sheets.

For those of you who may have been under the impression I've seen and done it all, here is a list of things I've never done. Note that not all of them are likely, or even advisable, to do. I have never...

• eaten a pork pie, coronation chicken, or a scampi (whatever that is). I don't remember ever having had a banger, though it's possible I did and have since purged the experience from my memory banks.
  
• had a threesome with two men (preferably bi). Definitely have not accidentally done so and purged the memory of the experience afterwards. This upsets me probably more than it should.
  
• tried drugs, apart from:
  a. the time in book 1 when a client was using poppers, and I'm not sure that counts, and
  b. alcohol. Obviously.
  
• been to Liverpool. And until a fortnight ago, Wales would also have been on that list.
  
• been able to remember my mother's birthday. I am usually good with dates, so this is particularly unusual.
  
• found negligees exciting. Let me see, you want me to take off my clothes, put on clothes, then take those clothes off straightaway? And what was the problem with good old knickers, stockings, and bra again?
  
• imagined what my wedding dress might look like, or what my children's names would be, or what my first name would look like next to someone else's surname. (That said, in the last 24 hours I have identified an ale that should be served at my wedding, should such event ever occur. Priorities, people.)
  
• chosen mayonnaise when salad cream was an option. Ever.
  
• caught my parents having sex. And now they're divorced, never will. Whew.
  
• been attracted to a man who didn't, at least in some small way, remind me of my father. In its most basic incarnation this usually translates as significantly taller than me.
  

It can be difficult to find the time to check out everyone's HNT photos. In this regular feature, I showcase my favourite pics of the week. If you like them, please visit the blogger in question and let them know - I certainly have.

It's not all about the pictures. HNT, that is. I mean, pictures make up a good deal of it, but often the images that impress themselves on me the most are also ones where the writing has also appealed to me. Here, then, are some words with pictures.


HypersexualGirl: I remember the first time my sweetie saw me wearing this. His mouth actually dropped open a bit. He embraced me, ran his hand over the slightly nubbly fabric, and declared it the hottest thing he'd ever seen.


Cowgirl: Baby, take off your coat...real slow / Baby, take off your shoes...here, I'll take your shoes / Baby, take off your dress / Yes, yes, yes / You can leave your hat on. (no, Cowgirl didn't write anything to go with her image - but I could hear this in my head!)


Britni: When I was 6 years old, my best friend told me it was "funny looking." When I was a teenager, my mother told me she asked a doctor when I was younger if mine "looked normal." These statements always stuck with me, and I thought that I had an abnormal, ugly vagina. The normalized image of the cookie cutter vaginas in porn did nothing to make me feel better about how I looked.


13Messages: If there is success to the plan, then my HNT submissions will be a bit braver in how much I reveal of my belly. People refer to blogging as naval-gazing; in my case, it quite literally is. (from his previous post)

If you missed them, here's your chance to visit earlier favourites:
All the way down
Artistic Nekkidness
Connected
Breasts to imagine

hnt, photography, sex blog