Mid-Process

On the abundance I tucked away

I press play again.

And he’s right here. His voice in my ear, guiding me. I feel the depth of it — the texture, the weight — in my stomach first. My knees buckle a little. But I find steadiness in his words. In the pace at which he speaks. Firm and gentle at once.

He knows I have a voice fetish. He knows what his voice does. And he’s using it — not to seduce me toward him, but to move me toward myself. My why wasn’t enough that day. The motivation wasn’t there. I couldn’t reach my own desire, couldn’t activate it. So I asked him: what would you tell me if I was struggling to get to the gym today? How would you get me there?

And he got me there. With just his voice.

“…Perform for me.”

I press play a third time. I use the erotic charge of those words as an anchor. Not a command from a lover — an offering from someone who has known me for over twenty-five years. Someone who kissed me in back hallways in high school, a sly secret we kept from our friend group. We weren’t dating. We weren’t a couple. We were friends who enjoyed sneaking off and finding each other. And now, decades later, his voice arrives through a phone speaker and does what my own self-talk couldn’t — it gets me out the door.

It’s almost 9pm in Mérida and I’m at Parque La Plancha. I just finished playing cards with friends and laced up my rose gold skates for the first time since I arrived. Tonight’s the night. I’m skating, gathering my balance and muscle memory and trying not to bust my ass. I wrap my arms around a pillar to stop myself, pull out my phone, and see that he sent me a voice note.

A different he. My Dom.

I press play, still holding the pillar, and his joy floods through as I’m finding my footing. Skaters glide past me and the excitement of the park matches the excitement of his voice.

“Welp, you said abundance, and sure enough abundance was met. First off she looked better than what she did in her pictures. And it was just a vibe from the beginning…”

He tells me about the laughter, the ease, how they talked about their partners openly. How he brought me up in conversation. How, without prompting, she told him she’s a huge Prince fan. “I was like yoooo! This is absolutely nuts. And I was just like ‘yeah, The Beautiful One, loooves Prince.’”

I’m beaming from ear to ear. I record my response right there, one hand still holding on the pillar:

“Abundannnnce! I’m so excited for you! Just the joy in your voice… that’s so dope. And any woman who loves Prince is dope. We just come with a particular vibe.”

I tell him I hope she comes to his party. That he deserves it all. That I hope this continues to be fruitful for both of them.

Then I keep skating. I set up my tripod to capture the moment — my very first time skating in Mérida, still learning how to go backwards without falling. His joy warm in my chest. My body remembering what it can do.

Parque La Plancha + my fave rose gold skates.

The next day we get on the phone and he tells me more. How they linked up to get tested together. How she doesn’t know anything about kink and he can see himself introducing her to a whole new world. He’s animated, open, thinking out loud. The conversation is largely about her.

I listen. I ask questions. I’m genuinely curious. And then I ask the one I actually need answered: how do you feel about your capacity to hold our dynamic and this new connection you’re making?

He tells me it won’t be a problem. He compares it to how much time and attention his former sub required and how that transition freed up more of his capacity for me. It lands as reassurance — mostly.

And then I look at the time. I was supposed to meet a friend for dinner. I just missed her call. I end our call, more abruptly than I intended, and rush out the door.

I had been so present to his moment that I lost track of my own.

The restlessness doesn’t arrive during the joy. It arrives after. Not as jealousy — I check for that and it’s not there. Something subtler. A hum I can’t name yet.

I notice that I receded. Not dramatically. Not painfully. Just…quietly. I gave my time, my attention, my full presence to his moment until I lost track of my own plans. And it didn’t feel like sacrifice while I was doing it. It felt like generosity. Like grace. Like being a present partner.

It’s only afterward that I notice the shape of what I did.

And in the same breath, I notice something else I’ve been holding. Quietly. There’s a reconnection happening in my own life — a voice from twenty-five years ago, the echo of stolen kisses in back hallways, voice notes that move me toward myself in ways I’m still learning. Abundance arriving from a direction I didn’t expect.

And I tucked it away. I didn’t share it with my Dom. Not because it’s a secret. But because I wasn’t sure what it was for yet. Whether sharing it was honest or competitive. Whether I wanted him to know because it was true or because I wanted him to feel something. I couldn’t land on a single clean answer. So I held it.

I tucked my own abundance away and I’m not sure why.

I’m not performing composure. The happiness is real, and honest. The excitement I felt for him at that park — that was felt with my whole heart. And the restlessness that arrived the next day is real too. Not a contradiction. Just the honest mess of holding more than I was taught to hold.

I’m learning that abundance doesn’t always arrive neatly. It doesn’t wait until you’ve finished processing the last wave before sending the next one. It shows up from multiple directions at once and asks you to stay open to all of it without ranking… without performing… without editing yourself down to the version that’s easiest to witness.

I don’t have a resolution. A part of my work is letting myself be seen mid-process, before I’ve finished figuring it out. Not composed. Not collapsed. Just in it. I don’t want our D/s dynamic to only hold the polished version of me, because eventually that starts to feel like a performance even if it never started as one.

So…I’m tending to something I can’t fully name yet — a restlessness that lives right next to joy. I asked a question about capacity and received an answer that hasn’t quite settled in my body.

Both things true at once. All of it.