!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.