Archive-name: Bondage/njlist12.txt Archive-author: Nurse Jones Archive-title: The List - 12 of 20 The List Column One Item 19 I'm still catching up on these entries. He was on holiday last week, so we spent a lot of time together and I couldn't write. Since he went back to work on Monday, I've been able to write up the events of last week. It's Wednesday now, and tomorrow evening is the end of my month. Or his month, depending on how you look at it. Yesterday (Tuesday) I asked him if we could continue for a while longer. I have been "bottoming" for a month now, and I have thought a great deal about Column Two. I have decided I am not temperamentally equipped to "top." (Will ya listen to me? A few weeks ago I had never heard the term "bottom" and now I are one. That's what reading a.s.b. will do. I gotta education now.) He turned me down flat. He thinks that the List should be sa- cred--if we start bending the rules, the bottom won't know what he/she can depend on anymore. I suppose that's true, but still, if both agree... He also thinks that a month straight (perhaps 'continuous' is a better word) is enough. Maybe he's right there. I think I would like to do this on special occasions rather than continuously. But I don't want to stop just quite yet. The month has been delicious. Still, I think if both agree, it ought to be alright. He just won't agree, so I guess we won't go on. -*- J told me to prepare a special meal for Tuesday night. And to take special care in preparing myself. He wanted to be surprised. I must have a pretty poor imagination, because the only thing I could think of to do was to try out the harem costume I had made. I am almost ashamed of it now. When I decided to make it, it seemed so appropriate to what we were doing, but it seems like such a juvenile fantasy by comparison with the things we did subsequently that it was a cliche before I had a chance to try it out. But I went through with it, so I'll put it down here. I think that the only two ideas I have contributed--the harem dance and the raggedy-anne eye makeup--were imaginative failures on my part. J rescued the makeup idea and made it interesting by taking charge; he is too kind to say so, but even I find my ideas mundane by comparison with what J has done. I take that back. Suppressing my own gag reflex with an anesthetic was a stroke of genius. It was also the product of a twisted mind, but genius nonetheless. And the forest goddess--that was my idea too. Maybe I'm not so dull witted. Anyway, I would rather be the one that is entertained, rather than vice versa. I intended to treat J like a king that night. I cooked food that I could feed him by hand, a morsel at a time, and I dressed the part of a harem girl. To go with the outfit I had made, I had bought a cheap Indian silver belt that kind of drooped down in a kind of decorative v-shaped chain mesh loincloth, and a necklace of the same mesh. I had wrist and ankle bangles and rings on my toes and fingers and a (fake) ring in my nose. I was looking pretty dark and persian by then anyway, thanks to the tanning lotion. My makeup was perfect and elaborate: slanting persian eyes, rouged nipples, a jewelled navel, a beauty spot, a veil, obscenely long, fake nails, a black wig like a huge wild mane, jewel hanging in the middle of my forehead, sandalwood perfume, da woiks. I waited on him hand and foot from the moment he walked in the door. I bathed him, put conditioner on his skin, rubbed his back, served him drinks and stuffed him with hors d'oeuvres. I lit incense. I lit candles all over the house. I turned on exotic music and danced and wriggled (and jiggled) circles around him. I stripped as I wrig- gled, removing everything but my pendants. The wig came off last during the grand finale. When the music finished I prostrated myself at his feet (well, next to the sofa since that was where he was reclining, sultanesque) and asked to beg a favor of him, in the approved slave-like manner. I asked quite seriously to be excused from column two. I offered to let him do anything to me if only we could go on a little more with column one instead. I offered to let him put a ring in my nose--through the nostril or (even more kinky) through the septum. He hasn't done anything that is permanent to mark me as his. Tatoos were on the List, but he didn't make me get one. I offered. I had prepared a long mental list of things he might want to do to me, and as I babbled my way through this list, he sat in complete silence. When I finally ran out of words and faltered to a halt he remained silent. Finally, I told him he could do anything to me that he wanted. Any- thing. Still no response. I really don't know what else I could have said or done. I think I may have irritated him a bit by going on about wanting him to continue "topping." Finally, he told me to stop trying to discuss it, and that Column One would be over on schedule as agreed. I protested that I had been begging abjectly like a good slave should and it wasn't fair to stop me. That was dumb of me. Obviously a good slave would have shut up when told to do so. He told me he was going to punish me for mouthing off, and he did. I think he did this to make me WANT Column One to be over. The List Column One Item 20 He locked the ball gag on me and led me into the bedroom where he told me to sit in a half-lotus position. We took a yoga course togeth- er (one night a week for nine months) and we are both pretty limber, although not as limber as the teacher. She was incredibly flexible but a little too much into eastern mysticism for our taste. It's hard to find a yoga teacher that doesn't debase the discipline by mixing it with some mystical cosmic theory involving universal truth, beauty, peace, harmony, virtue, and vegetarianism. Yoga could be defined as exercise corrupted by morality. That's not why we quit, though. We enjoyed it despite the incense and ceremony. Maybe I'm too midwestern. I hate to keep blaming everything on my upbringing. Maybe this time it was good old-fashioned narrow-mindedness. But just because I'm narrow- minded doesn't mean the mysticism wasn't bullshit. So anyway. There I was in a half-lotus and J strapped my shins together so I was stuck that way: right ankle on top of left knee, left ankle beneath right knee, two belts wrapped around several times and buckled. Then, in some kind of weird symmetry, he strapped my forearms in a similar position behind my back. I guess you could call it the corruption of yoga by immorality? He left the bedroom to get something; I thought he was going to leave me that way for a while but he came right back. He flipped me over on my face so that I was "kneeling" with my rear end in the air at one end and resting on my chest, shoulders, and the side of my face at the other end. Talk about awkward and degrading verging on painful. He got the hot water bottle and a collection of rubber hoses out of the bathroom. I figured he was going to give me a repeat routine like he did before with the water-filled condom (way back in "Item 17", was it?), except this time he inserted two hoses into me, one with a condom, one without. "You said I could do anything to you. Anything at all," he said. "Lets see if you still feel that way tomorrow." He sat me back on my hips again and began filling the condom inside me just as before. I could feel it expanding. When it was full, he tipped me over onto my chest again and removed the tube from the condom, just as he had considered doing the last time. The water-filled condom was inside me, acting as a kind of plug. It was held closed by a rubber band with a string tied to it so it could be pierced and drained later. For now I was plugged. There was no way I could expel anything that large. He tipped me back again so I was sitting on my rear in this enforced half-lotus position, and began filling me through the second tube. As I became fuller and fuller I eventually became unable to hold my stomach in any more. I had to relax and let my abdomen distend under the water pressure. My stomach protruded and filled my lap. The hot water bottle was suspend- ed four feet overhead and I couldn't prevent the flow by pushing back; neither could I stop the flow by clenching my rear opening: the tube would not collapse. Before I became uncomfortable he stopped the flow, took out the gag and unstrapped my legs. It took me several moments of intense pain and whimpering to straighten my legs after being in that position for so long. I thought he was through with me, that this was all he was going to do, but I was wrong. He stood me up, strapped my ankles close together so I could only take the tiniest of steps, and locked my arms to an overhead chain. I watched while he taped a loop of the water tube to the flange of a vibrator and put it inside my sex with the tube between my clitoris and the flange. He taped it in place. Then he moved a chest of drawers nearby. I didn't know what the hell he was doing. Then he started the flow and turned on the vibrator. "What are you doing to me?" I asked. "You can stop the flow by pressing the vibrator against the edge of the chest of drawers," he said. He put the ring gag in my mouth. At least it wasn't the ball gag again. I began filling up. After a while I began to feel uncomfortable and pressed against the tube, which transmitted the vibrations directly to my clitoris, but it stopped the flow. Something gurgled in my abdomen and the discomfort disappeared, but I continued to press lest it return. As I pressed against the tube I tried to ignore the vibrations. I discovered I had to press quite hard to stop the flow. After about ten minutes I was unable to stop the orgasm and while I tried to regain control of myself I began filling up again. I went back to pressing but had another orgasm after a few minutes. That was the last one I had that night. After a while the vibrations just got so tiresome I had to step away and let the flow continue unhindered. I watched my stomach slowly distend to become a belly. It grew until I began to look pregnant. I kept looking from my stomach to J, trying to ask with my eyes when he would stop it. >From time to time I made little incomprehensible mewling noises, not really trying to talk, but expressing my growing discomfort. Several more times I began to feel uncomfortable but each time my stomach gurgled, the discomfort passed, and the flow continued. I know that the length of the tube was too short for the water pressure to do any damage, but I finally felt so big and heavy I had to let out a moan. He let it go a little longer. I couldn't tell if the water pressure had equilibrated with the pressure inside me or if I was still expanding, but he finally stopped it and took out the tube. I had been clenching to prevent any leakage around the tube, and after he had removed it I still tried to stop the humiliation of the water leaking out and running down my legs. But I needn't have wor- ried. I couldn't have expelled the water if I had tried to, plugged the way I was. He took off the gag, freed my ankles and released me from the overhead chain. With my arms still strapped behind my back I couldn't reach the string between my legs, but I was free to walk wherever I wanted. Immediately, I went to the bathroom, but I couldn't expel the condom or the water. Not a drop. I had a pee, though. It didn't help. In the mirror I looked like I was about four or five months pregnant. I felt incredibly distended and all I could think about was getting the water out of me; of course I was powerless to do so. I felt so ungainly and bloated. I couldn't even walk naturally with my abdomen distended that way. I waddled back out of the bathroom to confront him. "My God," I whimpered, "what have you done to me!?" I started begging him to let the water out. He left me that way, though, and actually made love to me in that condition. I suppose I should say he used me to satisfy himself: I didn't get much out of it. He just sat me on the edge of the table in the living room and pene- trated me while he stood between my legs and I lay back on the table waiting for it to be over. At least he didn't put his weight on my abdomen. I didn't have an orgasm, and he didn't seem to care. When he was through with me he freed my arms. I cradled my stomach in my hands and started to rush to the bathroom. "Wait," he said. I stopped, but didn't turn to face him. I just stood there shifting from foot to foot, wishing I could get back to normal. "You're beautiful when you're worried, too," he said. I tried to regain a measure of composure, steadied myself, and turned to face him. I still held my abdomen in my hands as though it were fragile enough to burst. "Okay," he said, releasing me. In the bathroom, I pulled gently on the string until I could puncture the condom with a nail scissors. The condom emptied quickly and so did I. I'm sorry if I can't dress this up and make it sexy and entertaining, but I didn't feel very sexy or entertained myself. I had told him he could do anything he wanted to me, but I think (hope) he chose to do this to me in order to get me to change my mind about continuing with him as top. Or maybe J has better associations with this sort of thing than I do because he has a prostate to be stimulat- ed. Maybe a pretty nurse gave him an enema once. Ask Freud. I was not turned on by it. Okay. I endured it, I wrote about it. I consider myself to be pretty liberal on most issues. I don't think anything is so obscene that it justifies censorship but this, to me, was pretty gross. I felt ... well, defiled. I define obscenity as whatever produces an erection in a judge. At least I felt that way up to now. I'm not so sure I feel that way any more. Maybe what J did to me was obscene. Maybe he meant it to be. I concluded that if he were to continue as top, I wouldn't want to explore that particular avenue any further. Maybe that's why he did it. I probably gave him the idea anyway when I cleaned myself out for anal sex. But I don't want to do that scene again. I don't. The List Column One Item 21 He made it up to me the next day, though. I guess he wanted me to know how good it could be if we followed the rules. When I say good, I mean it was the best ever, and the scariest. Earlier I said he brought me to the edge of serious pain. Well, this is it. By Wednesday evening I had started to turn a quite dark shade of brown from the tanning lotion. Quite dark. He still had me putting it everywhere. My scalp, my face, in my ears, everywhere. I think the pills are starting to kick in, too. It is starting to stain the bed sheets. They'll be ruined unless it washes out. Those in his room were a disaster after the scene I am about to describe. I had just finished rubbing in my third dose when he had me sit on the edge of the bed and buckle on the waistband of the leather (un)chastity belt while he put on knee and ankle straps with a pole to separate my ankles. Then he locked my wrists to the back of my collar and doubled me over by chaining my knee straps to the front of the collar. This exposed my nakedness completely. He arranged me face down on the bed on my elbows and knees with my rear end in the air and then chained my collar to the head of the bed and my ankles to the foot. [NFTF: I still can't believe I'm writing down what we did, sometimes. Sorry to interrupt, but the thought just hits me from time to time.] Then he spread my knees and tied them to the sideboards. I was unable to move in any direction, couldn't roll over, couldn't do anything but kneel there with my bum in the air and wonder what would come next. He began loosening my rear end, this time with a massage oil. I really get into it now when he manipulates me with his hands. He knows exactly what to do. He is able to masturbate me as well as I can myself when my hands are free. Of course he teases me instead, but he is as familiar with my body as a violinist is with his instrument. He can be almost casual about the way he turns me on. I don't know if you've been able to tell, but over the last month I've become pretty docile about what I will let him do to me. Sure, I fight it, but my struggles have become a matter of ritual--on occasion fueled by real apprehension, but the List really has protected me from anything approaching serious damage. This night was different. I was straining to see what he was doing behind me, twisting my head left and right as he prepared his latest entertainment. When I saw, my apprehension became fear. Several times in the past, I was punished for some infraction of a trivial rule that was made up for no other reason than as an excuse to punish me. Sometimes I was little rebellious, too. Now, he does these things to me without feeling the slightest need for a pretense. It isn't punishment anymore, it is just for his own pleasure. Or fascination. I can accept that, too. Except this time he was stretch- ing the point--literally and figuratively. Finally, I saw what he had been preparing me for. "You're not going to put that in me are you?" I squeaked. "Mas- ter?" I added hastily. It was an enormous dildo. Or it looked enormous to me. Up to now, he was the biggest thing that'd been inside me there, and he isn't made of hard unyielding plastic. This- this thing- was appreciably bigger than he. Words like monumental spring to mind. Heroic. Legendary. I began struggling and protesting, but even when I threw my weight against the straps it did nothing but tip me from side to side a bit. I couldn't even fall over, and I certainly couldn't straighten up. He loosened me some more, but I was finding it difficult to cooperate. I continued my futile struggles. The SIZE of that thing was all I could think of. When he started it in, I knew I would have to cooperate as much as I could, and I tried, I really did. I stopped struggling and tried to relax. He spread my cheeks and I relaxed enough for it to get started, and at first I thought I could stand it. It was tapered a little. But just as I thought I had taken the whole diameter, he edged it in a little further and I gasped a real gasp. "Its too big," I cried, "I can't take it! It's stretching me!" I strained forward away from it, renewing my ineffectual rebellion, but the way I was tied caused me to just lift my rear in the air more. I couldn't wriggle away. I kept begging him to stop, but he just waited until I settled down and adjusted to the sensation, and then he continued to insert it. I cried out again. I was being stretched open to the point that I almost wondered if I would be damaged. I know intellectually that the human body is very resilient. People have checked into the ER with much bigger (and more interesting) objects than that inside them (a small bust of Mozart, for example, but that's another story. You can imagine the bad puns about music lovers gone bust, etc.), but I wasn't able to intellectualize this. All I knew was that I was being invaded, it was too big, I couldn't expel it, and I couldn't stop it. When it was finally in all the way to its flange, I felt extreme- ly fragile, stretched to the absolute breaking point, and very, very full. He buckled the crotch strap in back, holding it securely inside me. I couldn't do anything about it with my hands locked to my neck. He unchained and untied me from the bed so I could straighten out. I couldn't sit up. It would have damaged me. Probably not really, but it certainly felt that way. Well, some are born great, some achieve greatness, and others have greatness thrust within them. [Note from the Future--but not very far in the future: he told me a few days later that he had showed me one dildo and inserted another smaller one. Still, the one he DID use was as big as he is--and quite a bit less forgiving. I guess this was what the folks at A.S.B. call a mindfuck.] He took off the separator pole but left my wrists locked to the back of my neck. It took some slow and ginger creeping about on my part before I was able to stand up, and even then I could walk only with great difficulty, slightly doubled over. He put the tiny chain between my nipple rings and led me by it into the walk-in shower in his bathroom He didn't turn on the water; he massaged more oil into every crevice of my body. He even worked it under the belt that held in the dildo. In the bathroom mirror my completely hairless, brown, oiled body was quite a sight. I looked like some kind of primitive polynesian native captured and taken into slavery. He attached a fine chain--actually a necklace--to the chain between my nipples and used it as a leash to lead me out of the house. It took only the slightest tug to lead me wherever he wanted to take me. For one panicked moment I thought he was taking me to the car (I would have had to go), but he just led me on a stroll around the yard like a pet being taken for a walk. I walked--almost hobbled--haltingly behind him. I was doubled over slightly, trying to keep from being stretched unmercifully by the dildo. And the nipple leash. It was sunset after a light rain and the atmosphere in the yard had that luminous greenish-yellow cast that sometimes comes for a few minutes when the air is clear and fresh and the sun is near the horizon behind the trees. The grass was wet under my feet and glowed with the intense green of new spring growth; the woods around us were dark and smelled of wet leaves. The air was still and comfortably warm, and it was too early in the year for mosquitos. We smelled the flowers and he picked two purple azalea blossoms and tucked one into each nipple ring: in the twilight and against my golden-brown skin they seemed to have a fluorescent glow. All these sights and smells were just as intense as the emotional uncertainty, the apprehension, and the full, stretched physical sensations I experienced as he led me around the yard. I gasped sharply from time to time as my nipples and my distended rear portal alternately claimed my attention. There is a small grassy path that leads down to a little azalea- bordered glade in the woods. It really is lovely: the azalea bushes are as old as the house (more than fifty years) and are monstrous. Earlier, without telling me, he had spread a big blanket on the ground in the clearing, and it was there that he led me. While I stood in the middle of the clearing, he took off the tiny leash. He knelt in front of me and took off the ankle and knee straps, and then stood to release my wrists from the ring at back of my neck. My hand went to the strap between my legs that held in the dildo, but he took my hand in his and guided it to his sex. I could feel he was rigid inside his pants. He told me to undress him. I did, kneeling as gracefully as the device inside me would permit, and taking off his sandals and pants. When he was naked he knelt beside me and helped me to lie back on the rough wool blanket where he unbuckled the belt from my hips and pulled it gently away. I was wearing nothing but the collar and the enormous device inside me. Gently, he lifted and parted my legs, and with excruciating slowness, he entered me. I spread myself further, welcoming him. His lovemaking was particularly tender, perhaps because these are the last nights of our scheduled month, perhaps out of consideration for the device inside me. Perhaps it was just the mood set by the azaleas surrounding us and the glow of the sunset. Together we climbed lazily from plateau to plateau, seeming to wander aimlessly from one sensation to another without searching for a climax. It was a languid and unhurried journey. We built to the slowest, sweetest, most tantalizing crescendo. At some point he rolled us gently and put me on top so he could manipulate the thing inside me. It was as though he were leading me at exactly the pace he wanted, waiting, hesitating on the edge of a precipice, approaching the abyss from every angle without plunging in. Normally an orgasm is something I strive for; this one we both knew we could have together any time we chose, so we delayed, teasing ourselves, looking into the depths and pulling back again and again, staying near the edge longer and longer with each visit. Finally, we looked into each others' eyes and knew it was time. We both smiled secret little smiles with just our eyes and then turned inward together to look down into the depths and wait hand in hand on the very edge for it to come to us and take us together. We both knew that if either of us so much as twitched it would set off a landslide and carry us over the edge together. Still we waited, looking into each others eyes and knowing together about this secret interior world we shared. Finally a little surprised gasp escaped me and I went out of focus, falling away from him into the depths, but that tiny gasp pulled him over the edge with me and we were falling together. We didn't lose control, we just didn't bother keeping it. Instead we just fell together forever. Somewhere far above me I could hear someone crying out. It might have been me. -*- Okay, so I got carried away writing that, but it was the best orgasm I have ever had, bar none, so I'm entitled. I didn't do it justice, but that's still the general idea of what it was like. I can see why the french call it the little death. I remember thinking fleetingly how foolish it is to TRY to have an orgasm. They're so much better if you just let them happen. Imagine if a symphony orchestra's objective was to reach the end of the music rather than to concentrate on playing the other bits. Kind of defeats the purpose, and yet sex has been so goal- oriented for me. "Achieving" an orgasm is subtly ingrained in the way I think and it is a hard attitude to change. Obviously, I'm working on it. Afterward, we were a long time recovering. Or maybe we were just enjoying the floating sensation that comes after. See? There I go again. It wasn't really over, was it? We had just passed a crescendo in the music, but the music was still going on. IS! IS still going on. Sheesh! You could miss your whole life just by not paying attention. The sky, the azaleas, the treetops, everything seemed to be bathed in the same afterglow I was experiencing. Eventually, I wobbled to my hands and knees and after a while stretched languidly the way a dog does on all fours. He ran his hand down my back to the end of the device and touched it lightly, moving it just enough to make me react again. Eyes closed, I waited on my hands and knees with him lying next to me on his side, head propped on one hand; he watched my face closely while he slowly removed the thing from me. I concentrated intently on enjoying/experiencing everything as he inched it out, fully aware that he was watching me. I savored every millimeter of it, and rather than just taking it out he helped me, reading every gasp and shudder, every bitten lip and arched back, every sudden breath, every movement. He has always known that the journey is far more important than the destination. I shuddered through several after- shocks and when he came to the end, the suddenness of it slipping completely out left me twitching and contracting on my own with no stimulation other than that of my own mind. I was so far gone I wasn't sure if it was even out of me. I collapsed onto the blanket and he cuddled and stroked me while I settled back down to earth. I ended up sprawled face up on the blanket looking up at the stars coming out in the evening sky. After a while he clipped the tiny necklace-leash to my nipple-ring chain again and we got to our feet. After he led me back into the house he told me to dress for him while he cooked a light dinner. I held everything I have up in front of me in the mirror, and nothing looked right with my dark brown skin. The white cotton outfits (the robe and the tight-fitting one) looked wrong. The thong was too artificial. A moment of inspiration and I had made a g-string-like loincloth out of twisted scraps left over from the cotton robe. The white looked great against my darkened skin. He thought so, too. Eating dinner at the oak table with candles and formal silverware while dressed that way was a turn-on, for some reason. I almost wished we could do it at a formal restaurant just to see the look on the other's faces when J led me in on a leash. Of course I wouldn't really... unless I could be sure we wouldn't get arrested. I wonder how I would look in a fig leaf? There is a fig tree in the yard. I ate with my fingers, just for effect. The List Column One Item ... none This will be my last entry. When we were making love yesterday (Thursday) evening, it was vanilla sex and, although I didn't realize it, it was exactly (to the hour), four Thursdays ago that we started Column One. He rolled us over so I was on top and said, "Time to start column two," and that was that. I mean, we went on to have our vanilla orgasms and they were all very nice, I'm sure, but it was clear that it was over at that moment. I wish the final episode in this little drama could have been an erotic Gotterd„merung, but it didn't work out that way. If you want an orgasmic Ride of the Valkuries, read Item 20 again and try to imagine how it was for me. I suppose that I don't have to even make any more entries, since the chains are off now, as it were, but I'll finish this one. After that, I suppose J will be the one making the entries if I can bring myself to do it to him. Now I can safely admit that I skipped the last two days of tanning lotion (okay, so I lied in my last entry), and I have been scrubbing my skin raw to get it off, but I still look brown-yellow. I haven't even started to look blotchy yet. It'll be a while before I can go out of the house, even with a wig. It'll be a week before I even look like Sinead O'Connor. I am still not ready for this topping business. I'm afraid I'll ruin J's image as my Master. Or my image of him as my Master. Also, after J's little trick with the condom, I'm not sure I want to contin- ue as bottom either, unless we work out a new List and stick to it. I feel like I should say something profound at this point, but I'm not a profound person. Mostly I feel pretty silly. I know myself a little better now, but maybe it is only the shallow that can truly know themselves anyway. I could quote someone ELSE profound if I could just remember who said it: "Young girls already know all about love--it's only their capacity to suffer for it that grows." Except that this hasn't really been suffering for me. I don't know if I have lost J--or the person I thought was J, or what. I think I might leave him if he doesn't have the strength to keep me. I also might leave him if that last little condom trick of his was a glimpse of the real J rather than a mindfuck. I haven't figured that out yet. If he did it because of himself rather than in spite of himself, I'm history. So goodbye all you people at A.S.B., obviously the only reader- ship this little account will ever enjoy. Here's a big kiss. No kidding: I am going to make a little circle on the screen below and press my nipple against it as a goodbye kiss. I know it's electronic and through the net and has been stored on a diskette and it's a different monitor and all, and you'll think me a bit flaky, but it's a real kiss nonetheless, * * * * * * * ___ * * (_) * * * * * and I really pressed myself against the screen. You may not know it, but you all deserve a kiss for helping me get through the last month, even if you didn't even know I existed. It was good to know there were other people out there discovering themselves, and that some had already done so and seemed to be normal anyway. But don't get any fancy ideas: kiss or not, it's just a monitor and I'm still a devout midwesterner, Somewhere down deep where J just hasn't quite hit bottom yet ;-). Bye, "M" -*- I found this note on the kitchen table yesterday. I have added it to the end of this document because it explains itself. Two weeks have passed since we finished "Column One". I changed our names in the note, and the deleted part was too personal to post. If I post this at all. We'll see. Shit. "J" -*- J I am leaving for a while. It isn't because of the last month. I liked it--almost every minute--probably more than was healthy for me. It was the two weeks after we finished that got to me. I guess I just need a dose of reality. Funny, but the last two weeks have been the unreal part. That scares me a little. I feel like I am convalescing from a disease that I would rather not have had cured. There is an empty place in me and I haven't decided whether it is best left empty. I'm going to visit Connie and see her kids. After that I don't know, but I'll try to call. I took a wig and two suitcases. The rest of my stuff is in my bedroom. Will you keep it for a while? I should have gotten a job at the hospital. If I come back I will have to, no arguments. (deletion) Love, M Fin --