!C for Cassie
---
agk's phlog
8 June 2021 @ 0035
---
written on OnePlus2
while Cassie sleeps
---
She fielded questions about how to identify
abuse in power-exchange relationships. Healthy
power-exchange relationships may look abusive to
courts and family: control over finances,
bruises, etc.
Cassie has so much care and love for women and
skill hearing unasked questions. When I got home
I called an ex-girlfriend just to read aloud all
my notes from that leather womens group. That
was the first time I met Cassie.
Months later she strode up to me at the bar. I
sat on a stool with a woman on my lap. Denim and
leather, cared-for boots, butch and confident,
Cassie said "I want to play with *you.*"
"Me or her, Sir?" I asked, my Sir a reflexive
reaction in the presence of a woman carrying
herself with so much discipline and power.
"You," she said, gaze steady, feet planted.
"Top me or bottom for me?"
"Tonight, top you," she said.
I checked with my date. Then, still awed, I
asked Cassie, "What do you want to do to me?"
She wanted to hit me with fists and palms while
I faced a rail on the far side of the stage. I
unfolded from my barstool and my date stood.
"May I watch?" my date asked me. Fuck yes, of
course. Cassie punched me til I bled.
By the time Cassie picked me up at the bar we'd
been seeing each other at community events and
talked some. I'm sure she'd been hearing my
deferential tone. I'm sure she'd seen the awed
and ravenous way I tried not to look at her.
Our ways of life, it turned out, fit together in
hoped-for and unexpected ways. Playing turned
into dating; lust opened into love. She visited
my house. My then-fiancee who is now my wife
enthusiastically encouraged our relationship.
Since then I've finished final papers in her
living room, sat with her when she was sick,
drank her tea, and took her lashes.
On the afternoon of my wedding to Evy, Cassie
hung out with my dad for hours. They ran through
their repertoires of country and folk standards
at a picnic table with a guitar. A woman's power
derives from the nature of her relationship to
her vulnerability.
We encourage and challenge each other in
professional and personal pursuits. We listen to
each other. She hears what both my body and lips
say. She loves me. I love her. I love to be
loved by her.
