TwiddlyBits' Sex Blog

Tonight, Dangly & I attended the monthly San Jose Rope Bondage Peer Workshop. Seeing as how this is the weekend for the Dore Alley Fair, we were the only ones there!

However, that just meant that we got one-on-one attention from the host, Jon.

I was hoping that there'd be other people there - I would have liked to watch a suspension, or flirt some more with "Jeremiah" who was at the rope class last week (which we still haven't posted about, have we? I'll ask Dangly to do that.).

Despite the fact that we had this whole big room to ourselves, we had a great time. Jon is really nice & knowledgeable & very willing to answer any questions Dangly or I had about the ropes.

Dangly started out tying a rope corset onto me because he wasn't happy with the way the one he tied last night turned out. Jon gave him some pointers & the "problem" was solved.

Untying the corset, Dangly next decided to do a full decorative harness on me. He first used the 50 foot white nylon rope, then worked in two 30-ft natural hemp ropes down my legs, then with Jon's help, used our 30-ft "statutory grape" hemp rope to fashion an ass harness for me.

Before tying the ass harness, Dangly said to Jon, "Do you have any ideas about tying a harness around her butt? [Jon gets up and walks around behind me to look.] I mean, it's just such an ... inviting ... canvas, I have to do something!" Jon replied, "Hmmm, I see what you mean. Let's do this...." and they proceeded to tie, Jon leading & Dangly following along.

I teased Dangly a little later, after I'd had a chance to see myself in the mirror. "I see what you mean about my ass - just a vast expanse waiting for something to be done to it" I said. "Oh, I wouldn't call it a 'vast expanse'," Dangly said. "Smart man!" I replied. :-)

Anyway, after all of that, it was time to untie me, pack up the ropes, thank our host & go home. Pictures? Yeah, we got those - and would have had one more, but Dangly accidentally deleted it. Ah well, next time!

[UPDATE: There are THREE pictures there to click on, not just one!]

If you happen to be the 450,000 visitor, please grab a screen shot & send it to me!

I just realized that I forgot to tell you what happened after I got home from my nooner with RB!

I IM'd my husband at work & asked him if he wanted me to shower right away or wait for him to come home so we could shower together. He thought about it for a minute & decided that he'd rather shower with me.

When he finally got home, I attacked him at the door, nearly ripping his shirt off of him so that I could caress and suck his nipples - being with other men always makes me *super* horny for Dangly! I unbuttoned his pants, pulled them and his panties down to his ankles, and then sucked his cock as he grabbed my hair in his hands and fucked my mouth.

Standing up, we headed to the bedroom where he tossed me onto the bed and fucked me until I was nearly screaming in orgasmic delight. (I love it when he does that!)

After making love, we showered together, gently washing the day's cares away, then headed out for beer and pizza.

Gotta love days like that!

****

I also forgot to mention that while I do have 2 First Dates lined up for next week (Tuesday & Wednesday), I also have a date with F on Monday. (F was the young man who helped fulfill my fantasy of DP!)

****

Oh, and the results of being tied up earlier? See for yourself.

RB and I were supposed to meet for lunch on Monday, but some business came up & so we postponed our meeting until Tuesday.

I met him at his office. He's just recently moved in - and it's a one-man operation right now - so he has minimal furniture. We chatted for a little while, then kissed and fondled each other, our kisses growing hungrier as we went. His hands caressed my body, hugging my curves and sliding over my thin summer dress.

We broke apart & he led me to the one piece of real furniture in the room - a big leather gliding recliner. I sat in it & giggled while trying out the gliding action - it slid so easily back & forth!

He kneeled down in front of me & unbuckled my sandals. He slid them off of my feet & kissed my ankles, working his way up my legs until he was kissing the inside of my thighs. He held out his hand to me to help me stand up, then reached down to the hem of my dress. I raised my arms and let him lift it over my head.

I stood naked before him. He took half a step back to look at me, a smile on his face. I took half a step forward an kissed him, then nuzzled into his neck, gently nibbling his shoulder as I peeled his shirt off of him.

Finally, we were both naked. He gently nudged me backwards into the chair and bent down to put his face in my pussy. He spread my labia with his fingers and massaged my clit, looking up at me to see my reaction. I moaned and leaned back fully into the chair, it's soft leather slowly warming to my skin. He touched my pussy lips with his lips & I scooted until I was sitting at the edge of the seat and put my feet up on his shoulders.

He buried his face in my cunt, moaning and humming, going at it with gusto! His fingers found their way into my vag and were soon followed by a dildo he kept handy. I urged him to press harder with his face - I like a lot of pressure - and to nibble me with his teeth.

He took his face away & pulled out a vibrator - like a bullet vibe, but larger - then pressed it against my clit. Lubing it with my juices, he pressed it against my asshole, then slowly slid it into my anus.

His tongue resumed its dance on my clit as the vibrator buzzed away in my ass. He pumped the dildo in and out of me as he licked and sucked me. I grabbed his hair in my hand and pulled his face close into me.

He again pulled away from me and came up with yet another vibrator, this one a miniature pocket-rocket model on a keychain. He held it between his teeth and pressed it against my clit - I showed him how to tell if it's in the right place (my clit ring buzzes happily against it!) and he used his hands to work the anal vibe and the dildo. Soon I was gasping in orgasm, clenching the dildo with my cunt and squeezing the vibe out of my ass until it fell on the floor.

I pushed him away and put my feet back on the floor. I thanked him, then kissed him, licking my juices from his face.

Excusing myself for just a moment I went and got my "Bag o' Joy" from my purse. Squeezing a bit of lube into my hand, I knelt down next to him and started rubbing and kneading his cock and balls. He groaned in pleasure at my handiwork.

He got up to sit in the chair and I sucked & bit one nipple & pinched the other with one hand while rubbing his cock with my other hand. He asked me to back off of the cock-rubbing saying that he would come too soon if I continued. I reluctantly complied.

I dug into my Bag o' Joy for a non-latex condom (Avanti polyurethane - lubricated, but no nonoxynol-9 (yuck!)) and a stretchy jelly cock ring - purchased new just for RB. Taking the condom out of the package, I figured out which side was "in" and put a dab of lube into the reservoir tip. Placing it onto his cockhead and rolling it down a little way, I wrapped my mouth around his glans and rolled it down as far as I could with my lips, using my hands to help me. After he'd helped me get it down to the base of his shaft, I took the ring and used it to secure the condom in place.

I directed him to lie on the floor. Straddling him, I guided his cock into my pussy & raised and lowered my hips, rubbing his dick into my punani & his shaft along my clit. I writhed & laughed in pleasure.

After a little while of this, he asked if he could take me from behind and I agreed. Climbing off of him, I knelt on hands and knees on the floor while he took up his position behind me. He reached for the dildo and lubed it up then pressed it against my asshole.

"My ass is a delicate flower!", I reminded him. He chuckled and agreed as he slowly pushed the dildo into me. Working it slowly back and forth, he asked me to tell him when I was ready for it to go deep. I was soon ready and he pushed it all the way in, then pushed his pole into my cunt. "God, that's tight", he exclaimed. "Yeah, fuck me", I replied. He pumped himself into me as I clenched his shaft tightly. "Oh yeah, I love the way you shudder as you come!", he said as I panted and grunted, my face and torso turning as red as my hair. Soon he had reached his limit and was shuddering himself as he came. He caressed my ass and hips as we both came down from our orgasmic highs.

After laughing and giggling a bit together, we cleaned up, got dressed & headed out for Dim Sum. We agreed to not let our next meeting wait for 8 months!

After saying our goodbyes, I phoned Dangly to let him know I was ok. "I'm safe and I'm happy", I said. "And a good time was had by all?", he asked. "Most certainly!"

****

Speaking of lunch dates, I have 2 dates lined up for next week. These are both "First Dates", which means that there will be no sex - we're just meeting to see if there's any chemistry between us. If there is, then we'll be scheduling time to get to know each other better, if you know what I mean [evil chuckle].

****

I haven't mentioned it, but I'm sitting here writing this post tied up in a chest harness, a light crotch harness and a tight rope corset, complete with arm bindings (with my hands free to type). I wonder what Dangly's going to do to me now that I'm done writing this post? I guess I'll have to write about that later....

I love the PantiesPantiesPanties blog. I love the style in which Brett & Hiromi post, a pervy-fun badinerie. I especially love all the pics of Hiromi in panties!

Sometimes Brett will post a pic of their panty drawer. See how everything is neatly folded and organized, even to the point of using drawer organizer thingies? Impressive, isn't it?

OK, now take a look at Dangly's panty drawer. Still neatly organized, though he loses points for not using those organizer/separater things. He has some panties that he folds one way & other panties that he folds another way - don't ask me the difference; I've never been able to figure it out! Only Dangly knows The Secret to that Mystery. All of his bras are neatly stacked, too. The drawer's a bit too big for his method, so the stacks are a little mis-aligned, but he gets an A for effort.

Now, look at my panty drawer....

Well, as you can see, we're back. It's been a rough week - this site was down for 6 days when indecentblogging.com's server bit the dust while the webmaster was away on his honeymoon. We've switched to a new webhost & really appreciated our friends in the blog community who relayed our plight to our readers so that you would all know that we weren't gone for good, but were having "Technical Difficulties". We also appreciate those readers who sent emails inquiring about us - were we ok? did we get "discovered"? we miss you! etc. - it's great to know that so many people missed us & cared enough to write!

I have a lunchtime meeting set up today with RB, a man I met on AFF & had a tryst with back in November. We tried to get together yesterday, but his job interfered & we had to postpone. Such is life.

I hope to have stories of hot sex when I get home this afternoon! Stay tuned!

Here's one of those "everything but the kitchen sink" posts:

Dangly has surprised me. He is turning into quite the top! The other day we were sitting in the office and I noticed him looking at me funny, so I said, "What are you looking at?" He answered my question with a question of his own, "Is it the *rope* that you like, or is the feeling of being restrained?" "Both!" I replied, "Why?" "Because I'm thinking that we might like to get some leather cuffs; you know, the kind that hold your hands to your waist." That's just one example. I keep catching him looking at me in that pensive way, a half-grin on his face, and I know he's just thinking about how to tie me up or what new clippy-clampy thing to try on my nipples. (Last time he tied me up, he incorporated one of my favorite vibrators in the harness, then had me kneel on the bed while he spanked me both gently and not-so-gently.)

Speaking of clippy-clampy nipple things, Natalia at MyPleasure.com has sent another package of toys to review. We're going to play with them over the weekend & post the review next week.

And also speaking of rope, the More Than Curious Kit from TwistedMonk.com arrived today, so we'll be all set for our class next Thursday (Hope to meet Lioness there!). I should post a picture of our fast-growing rope collection!

Of course, the Number 1 thing on our mind about the class is: What will we wear??
;-)

Inspired by Suki's tale, I printed out her instructions & showed them to Dangly.

"Well, what are you waiting for?" he asked, so we went into the bedroom.

We actually have two 25-foot lengths of cotton rope (with poly core) that we bought when we lived back East - we've used them exactly twice to tie me to the bed & let Dangly eat me out without being able to get away from him. It's soft rope and useful if you don't want to leave any marks, but it doesn't have the same feel as the hemp rope. If you're a sensualist like me, you'll understand what I'm talking about.

Using the illustration as a guide, I wrapped and knotted the rope around Dangly. Dammit! 25 feet isn't quite long enough to complete the wrap on him! Hmm, is the purple hemp rope longer? I unwrapped the cotton rope and got out the purple stuff and proceeded to wrap Dangly up again.

It was indeed longer than the cotton rope, but still not quite long enough. However, while I was pondering what to do next, Dangly suggested, "Why don't you go look up some cock and ball ties?" "On the internet?" I asked like a fool. "Uh, yes," he replied.

So, back to the office I went.... and got utterly stymied. I couldn't find any pictures or descriptions about how to tie cocks and balls - although I found plenty of information about all kinds of evil & nasty things to do to them once tied.

I also found these step-by-step instructions for tying a body harness as well as Twenty Ways to Torture a Penis.

Returning to the bedroom, I got out the 4mm crimson rope and proceeded to wrap it around Dangly's bits. He seemed to be pretty excited by this (if you know what I mean) and helped me out by holding his cock out of my way when needed. After a little bit of trial & error, I managed to wrap his balls until they were bulging - not an easy feat since he was so excited his balls were drawn way up -, then wound the rope a few times around his cock before tying the ends of the rope into the purple harness.

His balls looked so inviting so I lightly scraped my fingernails over and around them, tugging on them and enjoying their weight in my hand. His cock seemed to strain toward me begging for some attention, which I eventually bestowed. Still cupping his balls, I took his cock into my mouth and ran my teeth over its length. Dangly shivered and grabbed my head, pulling my hair and holding me close to him. I reached one hand up to pinch and tweak his nipples and he gasped and held my head tighter as he started thrusting, essentially fucking my mouth.

I let his cock fall out of my mouth & stood up. "Sit down," I said. Dangly sat on the bed and I pushed him back so that he was leaning on his forearms, his cock standing straight up, his balls still bulging in the rope. I straddled him and maneuvered his cock into my pussy, then lowered myself onto him.

His eyes rolled back in his head and he laid all the way back, holding onto my thighs with his hands, gripping me as I rode him, up and down, in and out, grinding my pussy into his pelvic bone and all the lovely rope, clenching his cock with my cunt. It didn't take too long before his writhing culminated in an intense shudder as he came inside me.

"I think I must swell up when I come," he gasped. "Are you ok?" I asked, concerned. "Yes, but I could *really* feel the rope!" he replied.

Dismounting, I wiped the come off of his pubic area ("We got come on the ropes!" I exclaimed. "Probably won't be the last time," he replied.) and unwrapped his cock and balls, taking him gently into my mouth as I cleaned him.

He stood up & I unwrapped the rest of the rope, re-coiling it for storage. I rubbed the marks on his skin and we hugged and cuddled for a while before bed.

(Dangly tells me that I can actually wrap tighter than I did - we'll have to keep experimenting.)

"The After Effects"

After I dropped Monk off at the airport on Thursday morning and after having lunch with Dangly, I spent the rest of the day in thought. What had I learned from this experience? Where did I want to go from here? My thoughtfulness continued through Friday when I came to some decisions.

But, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Thursday night, Dangly & I sat down to discuss what had happened on Wednesday night. I asked Dangly what he thought about everything. He said that he found it extremely hot watching what Monk did to me. He was excited by my obvious enjoyment & echoed my thoughts that Monk was worthy of our trust - checking in with us, and just generally being a caring & considerate person, even when he's being a total rat bastard. ;-)

I asked Dangly how he felt about being tied up himself. He paused for several seconds before replying, "I'm not sure if this makes any sense, but I think it would do more for me if it was more *intense*. I'd like to experiment further with it."

For my part, I learned that I truly enjoy the feel of the rope on my skin & the sensations of the various tools and implements being used on me. HOWEVER, I never felt like I went into "subspace". When Monk was doing things to me, I stared him hard in the face, ocassionally snarling or growling - one time he had to remind me, "Breathe!" - but I was never in danger of "slipping away".

Conferring with Dangly on this, he suggested that perhaps the closest I come to "subspace" is when I'm being bitten, either on my shoulders, or on the back of the neck, something which Dangly has been doing the past couple of months at my request (but which Monk did not do). I think he's right - when he's biting me, my eyes kind of roll up into my head & the orgasms roll over me as I shudder in bliss. It's like time stops & I'm just floating on a sea of existence.

I also learned that my body can "take" a lot more than I had previously thought. I learned that there are "plateaus" of "pain" - just when I thought "it hurts too much" (and would have made Dangly stop), the pain suddenly disappeared & was replaced with a feeling of warmth as the endorphins kicked in. This happened several times. I did finally stop him, but it was farther along than I expected it to be & now I'm not sure if I couldn't have gone even farther.

Additionally, I learned that I really did enjoy tying Dangly up. I wish we had discussed it beforehand so I would have had a clearer idea at the time how far I could go - I was really afraid of hurting him when he didn't want me to.

Am I a sub? I think not, at least not completely. Am I a dom? I think I lean in that direction, even if I'm not completely there yet. It's certainly something I'd like to explore - possibly tie other boys up, too. Maybe learn to do some wicked things to them....

I said that by Friday, I had come to some decisions. It's really more than that. By Friday morning, as I thought about what I was feeling, I came to the realization that I felt like I had had a "conversion experience". I felt like I was tingling all over, like each breath I took was brand new - like my lungs were brand new. It's as if I'm standing on a threshold. The door has been opened & before me stretches a large warehouse with shelves and shelves of interesting things stretching as far as the eye can see. All I have to do is cross the threshold and start picking things from the shelves, deciding what I want to keep and what I want to pass up. It's amazing the way this has affected me; I'm truly surprised at the depth of my feeling.

So, those decisions? I've boiled it down into a couple of Starter Rules. "Starter" because I realize that things change over time - I may change my mind about certain things, or discover new things - but one has to start somewhere, have a baseline as it were.

I've decided that only 2 people are allowed to tie me up: Dangly & Monk. I am not comfortable with the idea of anybody else doing that to me. I know I can trust them completely & that they will take care of me.

I've decided that I don't want Dangly to call me dirty names (like "slut" or "whore" or things like that). That's just not something I want in our relationship. On the other hand, Monk is welcome to call me those things if we ever play again (which I hope will happen from time to time as the years pass!). As for other people, I don't know yet; I'll have to take that on a case-by-case basis.

Spanking? Dangly & Monk, definitely. Others? Again, I don't know yet.

I want to make it clear that I'm including Monk in this list simply because he introduced me to this & proved himself to be worthy of my trust - I'm not trying to imply that any kind of relationship exists between us. Certainly, if I ever have the opportunity to play with him again, I will take it, but I'm not presumptuous enough to "expect" it to happen.

Dangly & I have decided to take some classes on rope bondage. In a couple of weeks, we'll be taking Beautiful Bondage with Waldemar - I just ordered one of Monk's "More than Curious" kits and it should be here in time for the class.

We're also planning on taking some of the "After Hours" events offered by Good Vibrations, including one taught by Midori called "The Art of Feminine Dominance" and described as "Elegance, power and confidence... learn how to be a finer domina -- or how to better serve one. Tonight, Fetish Diva Midori shares her personal secrets of the feminine art of dominance, including psychology, politics, practical exercises, techniques and fashion. This class is open to all genders harboring the powerful woman within, from the novice to the experienced player."

We're looking forward to seeing where this leads us....

I know that some people have been waiting not-so-patiently for this post (Hi, Odalisquek!), but I wanted to take my time to digest everything that happened and to discuss it thoroughly with Dangly. We went out of town for the long holiday weekend & that gave us the perfect opportunity to talk about a bunch of different aspects & what it all meant to us.

I will have to divide this into 2 parts. The first part is "While Monk Was Here." The second will be "The After Effects".

Let me begin by answering the $64,000 question - Did Monk & I fuck? The answer is "No, we did not".

Now that that's out of the way, let me tell you what did happen.

I will admit to being nervous about meeting him. Actually, I'm not sure "nervous" is the right word. Excited, yes; curious, yes; perhaps a bit scared about what might happen, most definitely. I'm afraid I get a bit clinical & detached when I feel like this. It's like I'm watching myself from the outside, waiting to see what's going to happen before feeling it or commenting on it. I'm not sure if this was off-putting for Monk or not; if it was, I apologize because I really did have a wonderful experience with him.

It was a beautiful California day - not too hot, not too cold, perfectly sunny. I picked Monk up at the airport and drove him to see his supplier. Monk was frustrated that they didn't have his full shipment in, but slightly mollified that they had at least some raw stock there. He was able to load up two large duffle bags and a large box full to take back with him so that the scheduled Death March could commence without delay.

After business was done, we stopped for lunch & chatted. I wasn't surprised to find Monk to be an excellent conversationalist - from his writing "voice" and from the emails we've passed back & forth over the past several months plus a phone call a couple of weeks ago, I expected we'd get along famously, and we did. We share many common interests - B grade horror movies, RHPS, Monty Python, Sci Fi, music, etc. - and so there were never any uncomfortable lags in conversation.

He didn't even pick on me for taking a wrong turn on the way home & adding about 20+ miles to our journey! Of course, the added 20+ miles was mostly along the beautiful California coast highway, so what's to complain about? ;-)

Along the course of our conversations, I shared that Dangly had at first been a bit uneasy with the idea of Monk visiting with his ropes. Dangly had been watching my growing infatuation with Monk over the past several months & confessed to being scared about it. When I asked him what he was scared of, he confessed that he was afraid that I would find out that I really liked some things that he (Dangly) wouldn't be able to provide for me (however, he was perfectly willing to take a "wait and see" approach to it all). Monk expressed surprise that I was the one who wanted to be tied up. He said that he had expected me to want to tie Dangly up! More about that later....

Anyway, we got back to my place to find Dangly home from work. After he got cleaned up, the 3 of us headed out to the local pizza pub for dinner. I was pleased to see that Dangly got along with Monk about as well as I did - but again, I'm not surprised; they're both genuinely nice people.

After dinner we headed home again. Monk got out his bag full of rope and other things (and what a lot of other things! but I'm getting ahead of myself...) and showed us some of his toys. Ropes and clips and weights and prickly things and soft things and hard things. Quite a smorgasbord, to be sure.

Dangly suggested that I take off my nice top before getting tied up. I looked inquiringly at Monk and he told me to take off as much as I wanted to, so I took everything off - I wanted to really *feel* everything & felt that keeping any clothing on would dampen some of the sensations. (I asked Dangly to take pics as the evening progressed & I'll link to that Gallery page at the end of this post.)

Monk showed us some simple "two-column" ties - tying up my wrists, my feet, my thumb & big toe, then moved onto a beautiful chest harness. While tying the crotch rope, he mentioned that one of the beautiful things about hemp rope (besides how wonderful it feels on one's skin - not course or prickly, but pleasantly rough) is that it transmits vibrations really well. Dangly went and got one of our small bullet vibes & Monk tied it into my crotch rope. I only complained about it when the batteries died... and when the 2nd set died, too.

I got tied up in about 4 or 5 different permutations that night - including some wonderful almost macramé-style weaving along with the chest harness, as well as a fun hog-tie. Along the way, Monk would demonstrate different things that are possible to do to someone who's tied up - either hauling them up, manhandling them with the rope, pinching various bits, stimulating bits with an assortment of prickly objects, tickling them mercilessly, etc.

I do want to say that Monk is a WONDERFUL top. He genuinely cares about the health and safety of his bottom. Throughout the evening, he would check in with me to see how I was doing, as well as check in with Dangly to see how *he* was doing watching all of this (and check in with Dangly to make sure the noises I was making were good and not "help!" noises). I feel privileged that my first real experience with bondage was with someone as skilled and knowledgeable as Monk.

What about Dangly? Well, he got tied up, too! Between one of my sessions, Monk showed me how to tie a chest harness onto Dangly, then tied his arms behind his back. Dangly is *very* flexible and was able to cross his arms and lift them pretty far behind his back without discomfort. In addition to the chest & arm ties, Monk guided me through some cock & ball ties. When asked about how he felt about the ties, Dangly just kind of shrugged. Monk opined that since Dangly is a transvestite and is accustomed to "tucking" his bits back while "dressed", that he has pretty much done CBT to himself for many years. Dangly *did* enjoy the Wartenberg wheel run along his balls as they were bound - at least, the evidence suggested that he did! ;-)

Still tied up, Dangly said, "I think this would be more effective if I was blind-folded." Like a perverted butler, Monk suddenly had a blindfold in his hands which I put over Dangly's eyes. Still playing butler, Monk proceeded to hand me objects and toys to apply to Dangly's bits in various ways. I'm afraid I was a bit conservative - Dangly & I hadn't talked about tying *him* up beforehand and so I didn't want to over-step his boundaries. (I had filled out a "Yes/No/Maybe" list a few days prior, but Dangly had not.) I did take the opportunity to sit Dangly down on the couch & suck his cock - Monk told me later that humming "O Canada" was very silly. I was just trying to get into the holiday spirit! :-)

After releasing Dangly, it was my turn again. I had requested that Monk bring down "The Unused Toy" & now it was time to experiment. Without going into explicit details, I will just say that after getting tied up again - tighter this time! - the feeling of the cold steel against my skin was simply heavenly. *happy sigh*

After we were done playing - it had been a good 3-4 hours of rope fun - Monk again showed us his Mad T0p Skilz, this time via his "after care". He cuddled me on the couch, stroking my hair and telling me that I was "beautiful" and that I had been a very "good girl". I felt almost cherished & truly appreciated the time and care he took to make sure I understood that things that had been said & done were all in kinky fun.

The next morning, after seeing Dangly off to work, Monk & I chatted a bit more about the previous evening's activities before cleaning up & going to the UPS Store to ship the big box of raw stock back to the Abbey. After that, I took him to the airport & he was off. I came back home for a short time, then went and had lunch with my dear, sweet husband.

Oh, that Gallery I promised? It's here.