Hm.

At the Nerd Station once more, my eyes bleeding from the overabundance of white on PD's desktop wallpaper.

White. Eesh. Who came up with that one?

PD's ex and her husband are downstairs watching Family Guy, I hear their laughter from here.

Spent the earlier portion of this evening with a friend I hadn't seen in a few weeks, catching up, watching comedy bits and I managed to con him into watching the first episode of "Glee" from which he may never recover.

Also chopped off a foot of his hair so he could donate it to Locks of Love. Check that off my nonexistent bucket list: brutalize friend's hair.

I keep thinking back to the other night.

I don't remember what we had been doing. But we were down in the kitchen, PD sitting on the counter by the sink, me in a pair of his sweatpants and a black wifebeater, barefoot.

I suddenly had a craving for vanilla bean ice cream, which I relayed to him.

He groaned at me, cursing me for planting this idea in his head. We were exhausted, it was almost midnight, and I was barely functional.

He gave me a pair of his sandals, I tossed my car keys at him, and he drove us to a Yogurt Land in Little Tokyo, me half-dozing in the passenger seat as he handled my car.

Parking lot, we get out, wander over to the Yogurt Land, my hair messy, chest braless, his arm around my waist. Guides me in and we grab one bowl, vanilla icea cream and bits of mochi on one half, cheese cake ice cream and brownie bites on the other, two spoons. Taking turns eating our portions while sitting in bed until they melted together and I passed out.

He says I crawl up onto his chest like a cat when I'm asleep, curl into the place where his shoulder meets his chest. Runs his fingers down my tattoo, that barely perceptible raised skin down my side. I never remember this, I'm always too far gone.

He tells me many things, things I never expected to hear, things I've never thought of. I look at him and it's like he's got a script full of things to say that will make me melt, echo through my brain.

Not normal, girly romance sayings, though he does those as well.

But the baser things.

"I love how you smile after each time I hit you."

"You were built to be fucked from behind."

That latter one sounds like an insult, made me laugh, but when he explained about genitalia positioning, Mr. Porn Director himself coming down from the mount to explain sexual logistics, it made me purr.

When he told me he wanted to protect me and abuse me.

So few people will understand that, truly understand that place, I don't even want to try to explain because I'll just get moral and psychological lectures, telling me that this need I feel, this need I've always felt, is some twisting of my psyche, and that I can be "healed" with love and magical unicorns that shit rainbows and lactate poptarts.

As if liking something that isn't considered mainstream immediately makes it a psychological deviation.

We went out on a date yesterday, went to Amoeba, to see MicMacs, then for Thai before returning home to bone each other silly. For a man in his early forties, his refractory period is quite short. I'm impressed.

On the drive to the theater, my sister called to invite me to join her and her construction worker on a double date. That lead into my mother grabbing the phone from her and lecturing me on getting the hell away from yet another nonmongamous man. PD was laughing the whole time at my squirmings.

But then, the tables turned when his mother called him and I was allowed to answer the call. Talked to her, introduced myself, poked fun at him to her for robbing the cradle.

Entirely weirded him out. Turnabout is fair play, or so I'm told. And he gave me the phone.

We somewhat decided, or had decided for us, that we are An Item a few days ago.

Then, over the course of the last week, multiple comments and teasings, the "boyfriend" and "girlfriend" titles came up. Repeatedly. Harassingly.

So, we semi-had that discussion.

It's certainly there if I want it.

But I haven't technically had a boyfriend since Darkeyes. My ex never declared his intentions or defined our relationship other than by us fucking or not fucking, then by us being engaged.

I never realized how much that impacted how I viewed us, viewed our relationship.

And the thought of stepping into that "girlfriend" role again terrifies me. Especially considering how things went down with the ex.

I really am a bit of an abused puppy. Bad behavior, dump. Monitoring behavior, determine it's bad, dump. Boundaries are completely undefined, but if they are crossed, dump or punish. Never given the rule book until a screw up is made, then punished.

I'm afraid of doing anything that isn't completely respectful and distant.

It's ridiculous, but it does panic me.

And we're still waiting for me to calm down and heal enough to have the "monogamy" discussion. Which who knows how long that will take? There is that stressful pressure of a potential unspoken deadline of healing, of how long he'll keep before he gets fed up with my slow going.

Trying to call him my boyfriend is hard. I'm a tangled mess of relationship issues right now. "Boyfriend" title to me changes dynamics to places that, even when we were briefly engaged, my ex never let us go. I never felt allowed to go.

PD is giving me leeway to do what I need to do, experiment, determine my own boundaries, which no one I can think of has ever let me do. It leaves me feeling adrift, and I know I'm just going to have to keep doing what I want to do, test the waters, then wade in a little deeper.

Scary, but no progress is made if you don't step forward.