Falling in love was not part of the battle plan.

I know that a lot of people are waiting with bated breath for news of a reunion between the Admiral and me.

The bad news is that I don’t have that good news, yet.

The good news is that the Admiral and I are at least still talking. And we are not, not flirting, which is probably another good sign.

But beyond that? I don’t think either of us wants to rush anything right now, which has to be understood.

Monday night, and as I wrapped up on my last diary post, my music player played Cascada’s Truly Madly Deeply Pop Radio Edit. It took me back to a moment in my past, sat in a bar in Cornwall with the long-distance boyfriend that I was seeing at the time, the song playing in the background. I knew at that moment that the man that I was with wasn’t the one I really wanted to be with. He wasn’t a bad guy, he just wasn’t my guy.

He was too nice, and I like my men with a bit of bite. Not too much, just enough that you can spar. Enough that you can laugh together.

I was on the train back to Bristol that following Saturday, and Levi was waiting for me at the train station with an umbrella and red roses. It’s still one of my favourite stories to this day.

Well, Monday night the song made me realise (again) that I do love the Admiral. Maybe it scared me quite how much.

Of course I told him about the moment, with the music video, and of course he posted the song on the Lovehoney Forum after I’d posted what I’d been listening to on the “What Are You Listening To Right Now?” thread. Of course I saw his post, and of course that led to me dancing around the flat like an infatuated idiot to Merry Clayton’s “Yes” at 2AM.

But you know, nothing confirmed yet.

I haven’t felt this kind of love for a human since I fell in love with Master Levi in 2006, and maybe it scared me because perhaps I could see a future. Our future, and I didn’t know how that was possibly going to go, with two husbands.

Love isn’t always this dreamy feeling it’s made out to be in fairy tales; sometimes it’s frankly fucking scary. It’s unpredictable and uncontrollable, and I don’t do well with things that can neither be predicted nor controlled. Especially when they have hurt me before.

But I can face my demons, I just needed to be objective about them. I needed to step back and gain a little bit of insight.

I think my main concern, and I feel as though I can say this now, is that I felt as though I was holding the Admiral back. The Admiral has lived perhaps a slightly more… adventurous life than what I have, and I knew about that from the very start. So I feared that someone with a wandering eye may not be willing (or able) to give me the same sense of security that I need, and that I normally try to give to my partners, so that they can feel secure too. I mean, if I’ve been betrayed before, then what keeps it from happening again?

Like I say, scary, unpredictable and uncontrollable.

But the Admiral is absolutely right: he’s not B. That forces me to do something a lot of people are too afraid to do: it forces me to face my fears, by staying with them, rather than running away from them. It forces someone who said she’d never fall in love again, to allow herself to fall in love again. It forces her to make herself vulnerable, and to trust him, even when her trust has been broken before.

And that? That’s fucking hard. I know a thing or two about Exposure & Response Prevention, facing your fears and handling uncertainty — I did it in therapy for my OCD. But putting your heart on the line after it’s already been broken? That’s hard.

My other issue was that perhaps the Admiral is a lot more sexual than Master Levi, and I’m simply not used to that level of being desired. Master Levi does desire me, and we do have sex, but he’s quite fine with sex not more than once or twice a week, and he’s certainly not as open about it! I’m simply not used to a man who comes to me with bedroom ideas!

I also realise the contradiction in that I was finding the Admiral’s high sex drive somewhat challenging to cope with. Yet, here I am, and him being who and how he is doing absolutely nothing to reduce my desire for the man!

Additionally, I realised Monday that ours is the longest relationship I’ve had that didn’t begin with us having to fight for it. Maybe I’m wrong, and the battle I actually have to fight is with myself.

I only hope he’s worth it.

Tuesday morning, Master Levi is hopeful for a development. I’m pragmatic as I ever am.

“How are things?” he asks grimly.

“Things” — he doesn’t want to name the elephant in the room. It makes me smile.

“Well, we haven’t launched an armada against one another yet, so I’d say we’re off to a good start,” I say dryly. He chuckles.

“He is the Admiral,” he says pointedly. “Don’t put anything past him.”

“And my name is the one who launched a thousand ships,” I reply, “so if he wants to do something that monumentally fucking stupid, then I at least hope he’s got a big…”

Master watches me, worried for what I’m going to say next.

“Fleet,” I wink.

Master laughs again and shakes his head at me.

I spent some time watching clips from The Great again on Tuesday — the satirical, fictionalised comedy-drama about Catherine the Great — and because it has a certain annoying, uncanny familiarity to my life right now. Catherine envisions marrying (and falling in love with) Peter the Great, and ruling Russia with him, yet she doesn’t realise how infuriating a man who is so infatuated with war and power can be. Peter loves her too, but he is convinced she’s delusional for wanting peace and harmony instead of conquest and great power for Russia.

And I’m seeing history repeat itself — for me, not for Catherine.

I’ve fallen, again, for a man who doesn’t always want peace either. He likes war, he even “Swiss-cheese’s” (virtual) warships for fun, and despite my insistence that war is a mutually-terrible option.

And he? He is my prisoner too. I captured his heart, and his attention.

You were warned, Admiral.

Master Levi likes shooter games too. In fact, so much so that I’ve even had to implement a noise curfew because it’s quite hard to sleep in a small one-bedroom flat that sounds like an active warzone.

I prefer peace: I trained in self-defence, using only necessary force, communication and negotiation. My nervous system quite likes peace, too. Hence, it’s not a fan of infuriating conquerors that try to upset the status quo.

But like Peter, the Admiral was determined to capture my heart. And like Catherine, I was determined not to let him.

Well if I can’t kill him, then I shall have to imprison him indefinitely.

So like Catherine, I’m now furious at myself (and him!) for somehow wanting something with my “prisoner”. I’m even more furious at myself for being so goddamn turned on by him!

There may or may not have been an orgasm yesterday, and an utterance (however inaccurate) of how sex toys were most definitely invented to prevent a woman from surrendering to her “whim”.

I know that my wish to break us up came as a shock to the Admiral, and I do regret that things went the way they did. I think it was a shock to me too that, when I said I felt we should just be friends, the Admiral asked me if I was calling “pumpernickel” — our safeword. It made me realise then that perhaps we both had different ideas of what, or how, we were.

I have said that I would like to reevaluate things “sans dynamic” — just the two of us, with no kinky fuckery, at least not until we’ve got the foundations sorted. The Admiral has said he needs some time to think about things and work out what went wrong, and I fully respect that.

But that didn’t stop me from tormenting the Admiral yesterday while he was trapped in his “blue and yellow hell” — IKEA.

The Admiral loves winding me up, so I saw my chance for some revenge. I played the devil’s advocate, pointing out that his wife needed time to consider the potential options before making a purchase. Well, shopping is an important business, y’know? 😉

Truthfully, I hate shopping too, and most men will be pleased to hear that I am very much a “does it fit? Does it look okay? Can we afford it? Yes? Done!” kind of shopper. I’m a practical shopper!

But if it serves as a tool with which to wind up my men? Well, then I’m suddenly quite the fan.

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