Jealousy. And, probably, total irrationality.

V has become addicted to Twitter. So have I, truth be told, but my addiction is nothing like his. A few weeks ago he had an idea to use it as a kind of self-marketing tool, to get to know, charm and eventually ingratiate himself with the local Twitterati prior to starting his business - drumming up a little network.

Though he never said this, I assumed he meant people in the same business as him. And of course, I watch his tweets, and most of the people he tweets back and forth with do indeed seem to fit that category. But there's one or two that just don't fit. And one in particular who sticks in my craw.

She has nothing to do with V's career area. She's not funny. She doesn't say anything intelligent or insightful. She tweets meaningless drivel every two minutes, most of it conversational stuff aimed @peoplesheknows. She uses "lol " all the time. He hates lollers.

From her Twitter name, I can assume that she's in her late 20s, and she's local. Her picture is a cartoon of a young woman wearing a ball gag and an expression of, to paraphrase my parents' Joy of Sex, "erotic surprise". As far as I can see, there is nothing apart from these two qualities that might endear her to him.

She does "hang out" on Twitter with some of V's career peers, so I suppose there is that - perhaps he needs to read her stuff to know what's going on. Perhaps she's just one of the popular Tweeters around here (though fuck knows how she's swung that) so he wants to stay on her right side.

But it's driving me crazy, and it's the ball gag that's doing it. When V and I first got together, one of the catalysts was a shared interest in BDSM. Our pre-RL-meeting cybersex was full of the stuff, and on the Sunday afternoons of our first few weekend-long dates, he would tie me to various pieces of furniture and spank me. That seems like a distant memory now. Two different people. Back when I was hot and he was hot for me.

He once told me, while we were still doing the online dance of the seven veils, that "it's hard to treat someone like your fucktoy when you respect them". Of course, I thought "Oh, it'll be different with me". But it's not. We couldn't get any more vanilla. We're so vanilla there's actually no flavour at all. If he's unable to get his freak on with someone he loves, is he dipping his toes in the idea of even thinking about someone else?

I suppose half the problem is that we're such homebodies that I've had very little exposure to him having exposure to other women. It's comforting in a way to cocoon ourselves like that. But without testing those boundaries, I have never built up a resistance to jealousy and a confidence that he only has eyes for me. Of course, these days he rarely shows signs of finding me attractive, much less wanting to treat me like his fucktoy, so it's not really surprising that I'm paranoid.

There is no apparent flirtation between them. Of course, my paranoia reminds me that Twitter has the capacity for private messages. Goddammit. Shut up, paranoia.