I might be alone on this. My fellow authors might understandably be flabbergasted (and mortified) by this topic.
However, this blog is written by women, right? No, I do not intend this as a debate on whether we should be called or call ourselves ladies, girls, hotties, wives, bottoms, subs, spankees, women, chicks, or any other myriad of labels assigned to our gender. It's just that I believe that all of the authors of this site are of the female persuasion. Not that our gentlemen (and not so gentlemanly) friends and observers don't enjoy the blog - but there are a few topics that truly are generally confined by culture and modesty to discussion among women, and I need to write about one of them.
[Hint: If you can imagine anything related to the female body as the least bit squicky, perhaps you ought to skip to the next article.]
I don't always have a devil on my left shoulder, but she does show up there. Regularly. Predictably. On Day 29 of my cycle, she pops up from the nether regions of my consciousness and makes my life - and C's - a literal train wreck until she disappears approximately three days later.
When I'm at her beck and call, I worry. I can't focus. I am easily distracted by any manner of silly concerns. I anger easily and cry for no reason other than I've been hugged. I'm afraid that one of a thousand disastrous scenarios will come to pass. I experience fatigue and muscle soreness and my appetite ranges from not hungry at all to starving, within a matter of minutes.
When she departs, my posture straightens, my range of movement approximates normal and the red carpet unrolls before my eyes.
Let me give an example. C and I agree that we don't want to have another baby for another two years or more. We have numerous reasons. Occasionally I do indulge in a few minutes of baby lust, but an hour or so later I'm back to normal. However, not so many moons ago, my cycle had a spasm and I ovulated late.
This is an occurrence so rare that I can remember the previous time it happened - March 2002.
I was momentarily blindsided by the fact that I hadn't needed to pitch the red tent. I recounted, thought about the obvious answers and seemed to center on just one. Pregnancy. After all, we use a form of birth control, but I'm not on the pill. Except, we hadn't misused it. C and I started to discuss the possibility that we had miraculously stumbled among the 0.1% failure rate. Or rather, I discussed it and he waited patiently, offering words of comfort at various moments but not surprised when I didn't feel comforted.
I was, in a word, petrified. My last pregnancy was not easy and did not end well (though the little girl who came from it is incredible). Indeed, I was less scared about the possibility of a newborn than about the pregnancy itself; I pictured three or four months of bed rest with a toddler and a dog in the house, being unable to pick up or carry our little girl, months of guilt over burdening C with a number of chores that are generally mine. I cried, I worried.
I took a birth control test that had survived from before A was born and it was negative.
It had expired eight months prior.
I continued to worry and I showed some of the classic signs of first-trimester pregnancy. I worried. I couldn't focus. I was easily distracted by the world around me when I needed to concentrate. I went from angry and tearful to ecstatic and thrilled every fifteen minutes. I started to think about all the things that could go wrong. I was sleepy all the time and my muscles ached. My appetite went through the roof, except when I felt nauseous.
I bought another home pregnancy test. It was negative, too, but the fear that I was 'in the family way' persisted.
And then the devil on my left shoulder handed me her card on the way out the door.
My reaction? No, not relief. I was disappointed. I hurt. I grieved. I wept. I completely confused C, who - being the gentleman he is - has never punished me for hormonal abnormality. That little devil had convinced me that I was pregnant, despite scientific evidence to the contrary. Even though I'm not ready to have a baby, I was upset that I wasn't going to.
Now, if this contradiction had occurred at any other time of the month, I would have gotten a spanking - either at my behest or his. And yet I, or at least my little devil, continue to make life a living hell three days a month.
Many women apparently experience this irrational compulsion to emotion. But I've since noticed other, less obvious signs that are also related by hormones to my cycle. For the first week, I obsess about something: spanking and other kink-related interests, cleaning the house, work, spanking and other kink-related interests, why X or Y or Z was behaving strangely, or even spanking and other kink-related interests.
For the second week, I endeavor to be apathetic about as many issues as possible. If the carpet needs swept, it will still need vacuumed at the week's end. If I need to go to the grocery, I put it off as long as possible. If I need a spanking, I'll wait to be offered one instead of asking for it. I avoid work. And by the end of the second week, I crave chocolate.
This is, so to speak, the fertile period, and my hormones kick into high gear. The craving has been so reliable that I formerly used it as an indicator to try and conceive. Besides chocolate, I'm likely to rebel, either by being over-sensitive and easily hurt, or by reacting to imagined slights in anger. This is fantastically true when I haven't been spanked (or, um, f----d) as I wish. This is generally the period where I demand the most attention from C, be it strict or gently considerate, whether he has the energy and time to give it or not.
For the fourth week, in honor of post-ovulation, I cry at Cheerio and tire commercials, I kiss the baby a lot, I seek comfort spankings and I react with dramatic guilt when I act or do something that annoys C. My submissive, pleasing soul is at her forefront.
And then the little red devil sneaks up from behind.
Now, I don't expect a lot written discussion about this; the truth is, I'm writing it more in the way of a confession and reflection (that's why its in the Musings category!) than as a question. Still, I've wondered if other women can relate their kink/sex/discipline/punishment desires and needs to their hormonal levels. Surely, I'm not the only one - isn't that the primary finding of the blogosphere?
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