I am no rock -- I am no island

I've had a number of intense and enjoyable experiences lately. I don't regret anything I've done, and I'll happily keep doing it. There is a missing element, though. Its absence is beginning to create an anxious sadness in me. I despise admitting it, but it's there, and I'm afraid that the longer I deny it, the worse I will feel.

I think that to feel better, I soon need to experience sex with someone who wants me. In other words, I miss having sex with someone who seeks intimacy with me; who is interested in more than rough or transgressive or exciting sex; who wants to share true intimacy, the kind it's difficult to experience without really knowing someone and wanting to make them feel good out of some measure of respect, tender regard, desire for communion. . . . And someone who wants me specifically -- not just because I'm the person who is willing and handy.

Don't get me wrong. Casual sex has been great for me, and I don't want to stop. But I can't live on casual sex alone. I need more than that. If not always, at least occasionally. I suppose it's a sort of defeat to admit it. I didn't want to write it down or say it out loud, I know that much. It makes me feel weak, and I hate letting my insecurities show. I wish it were the case that I felt my inherent worth strongly enough that I never needed to have it affirmed by someone else. Apparently, it is not.

The real question is whether, in the absence of such a partner, I can deal with sex in other contexts. I have been able to so far. But this gnawing disquiet has crept in, and I don't know what to do to rid myself of it.

The photo is mine -- taken on the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska.

What's it all about

Hello, walls blog.

Here is it, the year 1/25 over already, and I'm just now updating? I'm a bad blogger, but then, it gives me lots of room for improvement.

So, hi! Holidays: complicated, enjoyable, maddening, and ultimately revelatory. The revelation? Live for yourself. If you have to have respect, make sure you can respect yourself first. Then damn the rest. So sayeth the prodigal daughter.

But let's talk about something else. Let's talk about what happened when I introduced Alfie to one of my favorite Austin dive bars.

I suppose some background is in order. I call him Alfie, short for Alfalfa, because he calls me Spanky. And if I tell you that he's read this blog (y'all wave to him), I don't have to explain why he calls me that. He answered an ad I threw out on Craigslist some weeks ago in a moment of poor impulse control -- well, he didn't so much "answer" it as he sent an absurdist stream-of-consciousness reply set on a European train speeding through various cinematic vignettes. Smart guy. That's pretty much all it takes with me, you know. Intrigued from the get-go.

So we corresponded via email for a while . . . and verily, it was fun. He's a literary type, new to Austin, eclectic background, basketball fan (Yes! Thank you, god!), entirely crushable, and I wanted to sleep with him. As the days went by, I began to wonder why he didn't suggest getting together. After all, in my ad I had been pretty straightforward about what I sought. I fretted to a friend that I was misreading him. I didn't really know what to do. He had me off-balance. Was I missing signals? Was I supposed to brazen out the situation and set a date? Somehow, though, I didn't want to end our email-only flirtation, which was plenty erotic in and of itself.

But finally one night, in the midst of a flurry of rapid-fire email during a Spurs game we were both watching, it was established that we both like dive bars, that he had not yet visited an Austin dive bar, that I knew a good dive bar not far from either of us, and then he typed the magic words -- do you feel like introducing me to a corner dive bar?

Reader, I did.

I got there first and sat at the bar, sipping a glass of wine (the only other thing on offer besides beer) and eavesdropping on the conversations around me. Nervous energy impelled me to speak to the couple beside me (who were wondering aloud about the outcome of a certain game), and I was still engaged in conversation with them when Alfie entered the bar--tall and slender with sandy good looks, younger looking than his years. I knew it was him immediately, but he walked past me (perhaps assuming that I was with the people I was talking to). I waved him down and he smiled and returned, taking the stool next to mine.

We talked of this and that, the jukebox played, the atmosphere was friendly, and the little thread of attraction that had spun between us grew stronger as our conversation wheeled, making lazy, ever-smaller circles toward the heart of the matter, moving us somehow closer so that his knee pressed against mine while we spoke of our first childish forays into the mysterious world of sex. I confessed to reading too much too young, most of the content sailing over my head except in the case of Xaviera Hollander's The Happy Hooker, lifted off a neighbor's bookcase one night while I was babysitting and devoured in equal parts horror and wonder. I admitted that the bestiality had traumatized me. I told him about my father's mortification when he had taken me with him to the movie The Missouri Breaks, thinking it safe enough for an 11-year-old, only to be confronted by a scene where a man fucks a woman up against an alley wall -- no nudity, but plenty for my father to sweat about nonetheless with a curious daughter by his side.

Suddenly Alfie became animated, recalling a book he had encountered in his youth; an autobiography by Charles Mingus, a free-flowing impressionistic account of his early years, filled, so Alfie said (for I was unfamiliar with the book), with scenes of uninhibited passion, including one memorable passage--

Here he paused and said he didn't want to be overheard, so I bent my head in toward him. I could feel the heat coming off his body. He leaned in and told me in a low voice what he remembered reading, how the narrator had been in a car with a woman and had reached across her for the glove compartment, and how his hand brushed across her lap, how he felt the dampness, how, when he explored further, he realized she had either "peed herself or comed" she was so wet, and how he knew at that moment that she was a "freak" like him -- how he commanded her to masturbate while he pissed on her luscious breasts, how he reached for the bag he kept under the seat and pulled out a whip . . .

When he had finished recalling the passage that had so impressed itself upon his young self, we sat in charged silence. It was getting late, soon to be closing time. Alfie indicated that we should go, that I should walk with him.

I slid off my bar stool, dopey and heavy-lidded with lust, knees wobbly, face warm, every nerve suffused with anticipation. We walked out to my car, which was parked on the street right next to the building. I motioned to the parking lot behind the bar, where a lonely vehicle sat. "Is that your possessed Explorer?" (In an earlier email he had claimed his vehicle was possessed by a demon because the side door had flown open, depositing his fresh laundry on the street.)

That's the one, he told me, and we started walking toward it, and I knew why were were going there, but I didn't know what would happen. It was chilly but not bitter outside. I noticed the stars overhead; the bare-branched silhouettes of the trees against the dark sky. I had leapt off the cliff while I hadn't been paying attention -- now there was nothing for it but to fall.

When I walked behind the vehicle to go to the passenger door, Alfie followed me and pushed me up against the car with his body, pinning me. He held my arms and I ground against him. My skirt was short and I wasn't wearing underwear -- he could have raised it and fucked me right there, and my mind flashed on the scene in The Missouri Breaks. That was what I wanted, right then, as cold as it was outside, but Alfie guided me to the door and I got into the car. He got in on his side and in that deserted parking lot he pulled my sweater over my head and we set about the business of finally getting to know each other.

He caressed my breasts, and I closed my eyes, enjoying the little jolts of sensation. He lifted them out of my bra so that they were exposed but jutting up and out, and he toyed with my stiff nipples. He pinched them, then, and I gasped and shuddered as his grasp tightened. He pulled and I cried out. Shh, shh, he said, and he stroked me gently, only to pinch and pull again, even harder, and my body arched, then I bent toward him, trying to escape the tension by moving toward it.

I had a brief flash of genuine "fight-or-flight" reaction. I wanted to get away from the pain, and I wasn't sure I would be able to. I think I may have inadvertently hit at his arm. Please understand -- he wasn't pushing me. I was pushing myself. And then his hand was between my legs and I was eager, pushing forward to meet his fingers, which slid easily between my slick, swollen labia. He finger fucked me, my cunt so wet it made liquid noises, and I came with his fingers inside me.

Then I was pulling at the waist of his jeans, and he helped me free his cock so that I could kneel with my head in his lap and suck. My mouth was dry, so I pushed him deep until I gagged, to stimulate the flow of saliva. Then with his hands in my hair I sucked, nursed, licked, and stroked. When he came he was deep in my mouth again, and I could feel the throb of his cock as it emptied, strong regular pulses like a slowing heartbeat, and his semen slid down my throat.

In a dream I pulled on my sweater, straightened my clothing, smoothed my hair. I was high -- there's no better word for it -- floating in a cloud of satisfied cravings and ongoing sensation as he walked me back to my car. (When I had opened the passenger door and he responded by opening his, I had asked hazily, oh, are you going to walk with me? to which he had replied, grinning at my state, what kind of cad would I be . . .?) He kissed me good night, or good morning, and I drove home, no doubt a hazard to myself and others, although had I been pulled over no substance would have registered.

I've been able since then to obtain a copy of Mingus' autobiography. Last night I read the remembered passage aloud to Alfie in person, while he laughed softly in my ear and toyed with my breasts.

I do have the most ridiculous good luck with Craigslist, it's true.

Happy HNT redux

Our suggested theme from Os for this Thursday is "favorite HNT picture of 2008." I started HNT relatively late in the year and participated sporadically, so my choices are limited. Nonetheless, I'm happy with this picture -- the first I ever submitted for HNT. I took this while I was in Australia this summer, at the beginning of what has proved to be a very grand and ongoing adventure.

Happy New Year to all y'all!

Yoga for bloggers

Well, for this blogger in particular. And it's not so much yoga as it is what I hear so often in yoga class. A precept, if you will. A general rule of action. And that precept is:

Don't compare yourself to those around you.

I read so many blogs, and there are times that I catch myself longing for what others seem to have. One writer who triggers these longings with almost clockwork regularity is Ms. Inconspicuous. It starts with the way she writes, which is elegantly, fluidly, and sensually. And then there is her physical reality (as evidenced by the photographs she has posted of herself) -- young, lithe, clearly aware that she has the sort of body that ignites desire and lust (as evidenced by the comments on said photographs). The real longing, though, hits me when I read about her relationships with the men she sees. The operative word being "relationships," you see. While I am certainly friendly with a number of the men I've slept with this year, I want at least one of them to hunger for me the way all her men seem to hunger for her. I want some romance, goddammit.

Along those lines, whenever I read Eileen or maymay's blogs, I find myself craving the sort of connection they have with each other. The love there is palpable. The fact that the love is sometimes tender, sometimes fierce, is indescribably arousing to me. Yeah, who wouldn't want that . . . you know?

And of course the trouble with comparing yourself to people who are so unlike you (besides the colossal waste of time it represents) is that you will inevitably find yourself wanting. Not young enough, not pretty enough, not scintillating enough, not inspiring enough. I want to be someone's muse, I wail to myself. I want to inspire poetry. "I want, I want, I want." There I am at the center of the universe. And that way, I have to discover over and over again, lies only misery.

Inspire yourself, I tell myself (once I can make myself heard over the whinging). Think about what you truly love in other people. Is it their youth? Is it their beauty? Of course it isn't. It never has been, nor will it ever be. Why (this is me still talking to myself, understand) can't you allow yourself the same standard? Be the kind of person you love? Turn your gaze away from the mirror and delight in others?

I can do that, I realize.

And I can breathe again, and I don't feel hopeless. And it is then that I appreciate those who have what I don't for who they truly are -- beyond the superficialities. Because the truth is that if these people who inspire such longing in me didn't have the depths of soul and intellect -- those qualities I truly love -- that they do indeed have, I wouldn't be reading their blogs in the first place.

“To love is to stop comparing.” - Bernard Grasset

Cela est bien dit, répondit Candide, mais il faut cultiver notre jardin.

Pinter on truth

Harold Pinter died of cancer yesterday at the age of 78. Below are excerpts from his acceptance speech for the 2005 Nobel Prize in Literature.

In 1958 I wrote the following: "There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false."

I believe that these assertions still make sense and do still apply to the exploration of reality through art. So as a writer I stand by them but as a citizen I cannot. As a citizen I must ask: What is true? What is false?

* * *

I put to you that the United States is without doubt the greatest show on the road. Brutal, indifferent, scornful and ruthless it may be but it is also very clever. As a salesman it is out on its own and its most saleable commodity is self love. It's a winner. Listen to all American presidents on television say the words, "the American people", as in the sentence, "I say to the American people it is time to pray and to defend the rights of the American people and I ask the American people to trust their president in the action he is about to take on behalf of the American people".

It's a scintillating stratagem. Language is actually employed to keep thought at bay. The words "the American people" provide a truly voluptuous cushion of reassurance. You don't need to think. Just lie back on the cushion. The cushion may be suffocating your intelligence and your critical faculties but it's very comfortable. This does not apply of course to the 40 million people living below the poverty line and the 2 million men and women imprisoned in the vast gulag of prisons, which extends across the US.

* * *

I believe that despite the enormous odds which exist, unflinching, unswerving, fierce intellectual determination, as citizens, to define the real truth of our lives and our societies is a crucial obligation which devolves upon us all. It is in fact mandatory.

If such a determination is not embodied in our political vision we have no hope of restoring what is so nearly lost to us – the dignity of man.

Crimble

Have a merry one, whatever you should celebrate, and I'll see you on the other side (if you promise to miss me just a little).

xoxo

N.

The Graduate

I arranged to work only half a day today so I could take advantage of an opportunity to rendezvous with a fresh-faced lad I had managed to sift out of the Craigslist ads (I'm getting pretty good at that--is it ridiculous of me to be somehow proud of that skill?). We had met last week for lunch and there had been a promising spark of the physical variety.

It might not be fair to skip ahead, but that's what I'm doing. My blog, my rules. We were lying in bed, and somehow the conversation turned to superheroes. He was . . . a little too knowledgeable on the topic. And enthusiastic. And suddenly he seemed very, VERY young. I ventured to ask his age.

26?

26?!?

"What?" burst from my lips, as I raised myself on my forearms to look at him, the single interrogative syllable rising to end on an inflection at the upper register of my speaking voice. "I thought . . . I thought you were at least . . . older!" At the shake of his head I slumped back to his chest, moaning about Mrs. Robinson.

"Ch-yah, not quite," he ventured. He was faintly puzzled, grinning, torn between amusement and worry that I was seriously distressed.

"You're the Graduate," I groaned.

"Aw, come on," he said with a laugh. "No, I'm not."

Well . . . maybe not. But on this blog you will be.

Panic

I have never depended on the kindness of strangers.

Let me clarify --

When people are kind to me or compliment me, my chest tightens, my throat constricts, and tears instantly threaten to spill . Over the years I've learned how to disguise the panic (although I've never learned how to keep my face from flushing) and say "thank you" or return the sentiment, but the It isn't false modesty or even seemly humility. It's genuinely fucked up is what it is, and I know that I will have to find a way past it.

The best part

What I've enjoyed most about these past months, this stage, this phase, this transformation, whatever you want to call it -- what I've enjoyed most are the people I have met and the stories I have heard.

The Encounter by Serge Sunne

Far from being an interior exploration of my life and desires, this has been more than anything else an exploration of what a vast array of experiences different people have. I find myself fascinated more than ever with the divine comedy. I'll never tire of it. It is in others that I find myself -- it's when I forget myself that I find myself most fulfilled.

I'm learning. That means I'm living.

I lied

The next thing I post won't be mine at all. Rather, it's a poem by Denise Levertov that struck a chord.


The Mutes

Those groans men use
passing a woman on the street
or on the steps of the subway

to tell her she is a female
and their flesh knows it,

are they a sort of tune,
an ugly enough song, sung
by a bird with a slit tongue

but meant for music?

Or are they the muffled roaring
of deafmutes trapped in a building that is
slowly filling with smoke?

Perhaps both.

Such men most often
look as if groan were all they could do,
yet a woman, in spite of herself,

knows it's a tribute:
if she were lacking all grace
they'd pass her in silence:

so it's not only to say she's
a warm hole. It's a word

in grief-language, nothing to do with
primitive, not an ur-language;
language stricken, sickened, cast down

in decrepitude. She wants to
throw the tribute away, dis-
gusted, and can't,

it goes on buzzing in her ear,
it changes the pace of her walk,
the torn posters in echoing corridors

spell it out, it
quakes and gnashes as the train comes in.
Her pulse sullenly

had picked up speed,
but the cars slow down and
jar to a stop while her understanding

keeps on translating:
'Life after life after life goes by

without poetry,
without seemliness,
without love.'

This is what it's like to live among those who care mostly about appearances. "You're beautiful, so I want to fuck you." "You're hot, so I want all my friends to see me with you." "Wear this so I'll be more attracted to you."

It's life without poetry; it's an inferior and sickened language.

Undersharing

"Oversharing" is something I can't be accused of lately, which is a good thing, because who wants to be accused of a neologism? Up until just the other day, I had planned to write an entry titled "Sex Takes a Holiday," because it certainly had for me. It seems to be the case in general around the end of the year for people who, like me, aren't currently in any kind of defined relationship. I am neither family nor friend to my sexual partners in a season that places emphasis on spending time with both. But then the man from New York saved me from going without, and I decided that I've got it pretty good, considering.

However, since that intense couple of hours a fortnight or so ago, I have spent a lot of time being (and feeling) somewhat reclusive. Not for any particular reason -- it's just how I've been. I'm not unhappy.

But, like Eileen, who wrote about this recently on her own excellent blog, I don't like letting so much go unwritten. I feel an obligation to the part of myself that is represented here. I have a habit of thinking out long entries in my head and then letting go of the ideas, and I don't like it. It's lazy. So even if I'm not currently sexually active, I'd like to keep writing . . . that is if you, my dear imaginary readers, wouldn't mind. (Hearing no protest from the imaginary readership, the author proceeds.)

Now that I've said that, I will proceed to post more links to things other people have written! A sense of Irony. I has it.

This post by Figleaf (as well as the posts it refers to) have laid the groundwork in my mind for a rant I have tentatively titled "In Defense of Adultery." Whether I ever end up writing it or not, this is a topic well worth wrestling with (and if you could pin it to the mat and break its arm, I would cheer you on).

I don't know what to say about this post from the magnificent Bitchy Jones except that every word of it resonates with me. Every fucking word. I live on the other side of the fence when it comes to sadism, but I don't know that it matters in this context. This is how I would like to write when I grow up, by the way. She is fearless. Read her whole blog, and you will see what I mean.

And here is another fearless writer, Peridot Ash, who beautifully and succinctly addresses the issue of guilt from the perspective of a sex worker.

And next time, I promise to post something of my own.

Fur

My grandmother had a mink stole from Sakowitz. I never saw her wear it, but when she died, it was given to me. I have a hard enough time wearing leather, so fur is, as you might imagine, out of the question. Now grandmother's stole lives in my my closet, beautiful, outdated, and unpopular--but oh, how soft it is against the skin. . . .

North wind

Today it was nearly 80 degrees Fahrenheit, and tonight there are needles of sleet pelting the window behind me while I write. I love the sudden change.


I didn't sleep last night -- it just didn't come. I felt unsettled all day today, and grew more and more distracted and effusive and uncharacteristically . . . oh, I don't know, flighty until this afternoon when it hit me what was going on. This is the second week of December. In another few days, it will be the day my younger sister was killed on an icy road on her way home from Christmas caroling -- thrown through the rear windshield of the car in which she was a passenger. It was a long time ago, when I was only 22, and I'll make my way through the anniversary, as all the other people all over the world do with the losses they suffer. What continues to astound me is how thoroughly I can forget the actual reason for my mood, and how insistently my body pulls me back to that place and demands that I pay attention. It usually takes me a few days of struggling with strange bouts of nerves, regrets, floating off to take stock of my life, impulsiveness, and (I'm sorry to say after all these years) anger--fierce, fierce anger--before I realize what the underlying reason is; what the upcoming day is. Once I do, and this happens every year, every year like clockwork, mind you, I feel the shock all over again. I cry -- again, angry tears, unfair, unfair, she was the best of us. And then, inevitably and gracefully, like a merciful benefaction, my mind and my body are back together, and relief and something more akin to acceptance and natural sorrow sweeps through me. And then I try to remember what her voice sounded like and what her hair smelled like, and I look at my own hands because her hands looked just like mine.

It's remarkable how often this anniversary coincides with an ice storm or the first hard freeze of the year. I suppose it's natural. It all makes sense.

The door closed on a lot of things -- or perhaps I shut it myself -- as a result of her death. There was no more writing, no more sex, no more music for a long time. Now I try to share these pleasures and delights of life with her as best I can by allowing myself to experience them. I think that this year, finally, I'm doing a damn good job of it. What there is of her in me, what earthly material we had in common, I'll have that forever. She used to say, half-laughing, half in despair, "I'll die a virgin!" She did, at 16. So she's along for the ride, no matter what I do or who I'm with. Alors, allons-y!

A SLUMBER did my spirit seal;
I had no human fears:
She seemed a thing that could not feel
The touch of earthly years.

No motion has she now, no force;
She neither hears nor sees;
Rolled round in earth's diurnal course,
With rocks, and stones, and trees.

Captured

He took pictures the last time he was in town, too, remember? The pictures he took this Wednesday are better. More intimate. More explicit. I keep going back to one in particular -- he had held the camera down close to my face while I knelt before him, lost in the act of sucking his cock, occasionally leaning into his thighs to keep my balance, my hands cuffed behind me. No, I didn't notice the flash this time.

My eyes are closed, lashes dark against my pale skin; my hair lies in Medusa streaks across my face, upon my shoulders -- there are even some tendrils clinging to his wet shaft. His worn jeans are pushed down. He has a tattoo on his thigh. The picture was taken at the moment I have only the head of his penis in my mouth, the moment between up stroke and down stroke, my cheeks hollow. I can see the blue veins in his cock and the light freckles scattered across my bare shoulder.

It's a very good picture.

I want to write about the way he came into the room and steered me straight to a chair, settling me into it and pulling my arms behind me, cuffing my wrists, kneeling to bind my legs to the chair, all done wordlessly, deliberately, purposefully. Then he stood close behind me and when I tried to turn my head to see him, he turned it back to face frontward.

I want to write about later, when I probably should have said something about the wrenching pain in my shoulder, and the metal cuffs digging into my back where I laid upon them while he fucked me, my legs over his shoulders, but didn't, because I didn't want him to stop.

Maybe I will. Maybe I'll write about it in detail, trying in vain to capture every image, every sensation, every fleeting thought. Maybe I'll even admit that I cried a little afterward while I laid on the bed next to him, my head turned away in a vain attempt to hide my vulnerability. I hadn't ever done that -- cried as an immediate reaction to sex. It frightened and thrilled me to let it happen.

Happy Half-Nekkid Thanksgiving

It's a mild day in Austin, overcast, and the air is soft. Here I am in my backyard this morning before I went to meet my folks for breakfast. I suppose I should rake the leaves, but they came in handy as a background, and the cardinals and blue jays and doves seem to like having them there.

click to embiggen


Later today my family will gather for the traditional meal, and then some of us will go to the big game, while others will gather at my house for wine and conversation. Happy Thanksgiving to you, wherever you may be, and may you have much to be grateful for.

I was the glass

This is where I had the dream, in the gray light of a rainy morning.










Can't shake a dream I had last night; or rather, a vignette from one of several intricate dreams that flowed one to the other, connecting all the disparate rivulets of my life into one stream that ran into an unseen, enigmatic ocean.

I dreamed I was dreaming, and had a blood orange, and I halved it, giving one half to West Coast who was lying next to me in bed as I dreamed. He didn't even look at it (how could he ignore that color; that scent?), but stretched out his arm and in one hand crushed the fruit, sending a stream of dark juice onto my belly. The juice was copious, it pooled, it stained the white linen sheets, and he crouched between my legs and drank it in thirsty swallows. I woke from that dream within the dream feeling like an empty vessel, but there was no time to understand, for I was already being swept into another dream.

I woke again (and finally) to rain and the knowledge that a decision had been made for me by a dream.

So sure am I, I even took a picture. I don't want to let myself forget.

Porn breakfast

This morning's breakfast, a berry and brie danish from the Sunset Valley farmer's market.

Sexual healing

I had recently lost my cat Vasily to cancer, I had been recovering too slowly from a monster cold, my work week had been truly disastrous, and I was under the gun to get a large fund-raising event organized. Not a day had gone by for two weeks when I hadn't dissolved into tears at one time or another. I felt haggard. I looked haggard. My skin is normally clear, but stress had created two delightful zits on my face. I had dark circles under my eyes, I was mired in a perpetual bad-hair day, I needed a pedicure -- your basic wreck, is what I was.

So when I got the email from Mr. LQ asking whether I would like to get together for maybe dinner and definitely sex, I had to think about it. I felt unlovely and undesirable -- was this a good idea? Before this summer I would have made my excuses and told myself I needed to wait until I was in the right frame of mind. But things have changed, my dear imaginary readers, and so I did something once unthinkable. I accepted. So I wasn't at the top of my game. Was I going to feel any better if I hid at home? I needed to feel good; I needed to make someone else feel good; I needed to get out of my head. I emailed back and said his plan sounded lovely. The rest fell into place quickly: next day, 6:00 P.M., same hotel.

Mr. LQ and I had met once before a few weeks earlier. It had been brief, intense, enjoyable -- a whirlwind few hours with very little talk and a lot of sex. As I drove toward the hotel and our second assignation, I imagined pulling a Blanche DuBois once I got there. I could drape the lamps with scarves to create flattering light. Maybe use my hands a lot, sort of flutter them around to distract from my various physical imperfections. The idea made me grin. Poor Mr. LQ would have to wonder what kind of freak show he had invited over.

But here's the thing: as soon as I got there, everything was all right. Just like Curtis Mayfield sings it -- "have a good time, 'cause it's all right." I walked into the hotel room, dropped my purse in the chair, and turned around to tell him it was good to see him again. He smiled, kissed me in greeting, then pushed me up against the wall and pinned my arms above my head with one hand while he freed my breasts from the plunging neckline of my dress with the other. Then he bent his head and sucked my nipple into his mouth and ohhhh yes, this was exactly what I needed. Instant and total immersion.

He stopped long enough to pull my dress off and pushed me right back up against the wall, now sucking the other nipple while I sighed and writhed and tried in vain to grind against him. He took my forearms and pulled me toward him. "Here," he said, "here," and pushed me down until I was kneeling in front of him. I took his cock in one hand and licked up the length of it, then around it, then pulled it into my mouth, sucking in earnest. We stayed this way a while until he suddenly withdrew, reaching for the condoms, and pushed me forward upon my hands and knees, where I waited, panting, the synthetic carpet somehow both rough and oily feeling, until he was thrusting into me.

And so it went . . . and went . . . from the floor to the bed, hands, mouths, cunnilingis, fellatio, finger-fucking, ass-fucking, tit-fucking, and in between bouts of sex there was conversation. He had brought his computer equipped with satellite radio, and classic jazz and swing floated through the room. This time around we had time to get to know each other. We twitted each other about politics. I heard about the evolution of his career. He heard about my grandfather's life as a bandleader. And all the while we talked he was either running his fingernails over my skin (bliss) or fondling me (more bliss), occasionally giving me a lazy spank. Sometimes I caught myself humming or singing to the song on the radio. Sorry, I told him. It's a compulsion. "I don't know what advantage in life I get from knowing the entire Harold Arlen songbook, but I know it."

"It's an advantage," he assured me.

While we had been talking his hand had wandered down to my cunt again, his fingers parting and stroking me. I reached down and pulled his hand to my lips. I took his wet index and middle fingers into my mouth and sucked them slowly; lavishly. His cock twitched hard against my thigh, and suddenly I was seized with the desire to feel it in my mouth. I moved quickly to kneel between his legs and used my breath and my tongue to tease him, taking him all into my mouth at times, other times nibbling about the tip just to hear him moan. Slowly I settled into a pattern, and then all that mattered was the connection between us.

I don't mind giving head at all, but there are times when I'm giving it simply because I know that's what my partner wants at the moment. This wasn't one of those times. I needed to be doing this. I was utterly absorbed. It was my own little work of art. I didn't want to make him come too fast; I didn't want to get it over with -- I wanted to be doing exactly what I was doing. You don't hurry art.

I could tell when I hit a perfect rhythm because he would start to tremble. He held my hair back from my face in his hand like a thick single rein. I breathed through my nose so I could keep my mouth on him without stopping. Now and then his cock would hit the back of my throat and I would gag slightly, feeling my mouth constrict around him. Sometimes I would force the issue and take him so deep I gagged, because I liked the flow of saliva it triggered. With my hands I toyed with his scrotum, his testes, his perineum, soft fingers, the hint of a fingernail, increasing the pressure as he approached climax, laying off, then increasing again.

I don't know how long I did this. At one point my jaw became sore, but I ignored it, and soon I didn't feel it. Finally the intensity of his shaking and thrusting pierced my reverie and I realized he was about to climax. He came with a loud series of groans, and I kept him in my mouth, waiting for each spurt of semen. It was a long, drawn-out climax, and I loved being able to read the intensity of it in his cries. When he was finished, I released him gently and slowly from my mouth, and stayed where I was, my head resting on his thigh.

"Oh baby." He laid there breathing hard, eyes closed. "Oh baby. That was incredible. That was . . . that was . . ." His voice trailed off. I flipped my hair up onto his chest, then dragged it softly down over his stomach and groin, listening to his breath catch when strands caught on his sticky thighs and cock. Then I did it again.

"That feels so good," he muttered.

"I know," I whispered.

Finally we were both completely still. I reluctantly rose to clean myself up and caught a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror. I was smiling, flushed, disheveled -- a million miles away. When I came back out we lolled about still naked, watched Saturday Night Live, happy, spent, and giggling. Then it was time to go home. We dressed, and when I paused at the mirror to smooth my hair, he said, "You look great." I rolled my eyes and laughed. He walked me out to my car, kissed me good night, and we went our separate ways.

In the car, I looked up at the clock and read the time: midnight exactly. Six hours of nothing but pleasure, and I was feeling . . . really good. Really fucking good. When I got close to home I realized that I was famished, so I decided to stop at Kerbey Lane for some gingerbread pancakes. But when the plate was put down in front of me, I took a few bites and then I didn't want any more. So I paid, assured the waiter that nothing had been wrong with the food, and went home, pleasantly jangled and buzzing.

The next morning, while I was getting dressed to go to dim sum brunch, I saw that I had a bruise on my neck, courtesy of a long, hard kiss from Mr. LQ. There were some scratches at the base of my throat -- not from Mr. LQ but from my cat Nora, who forgets herself and loves her human a bit too fiercely at times. And of course, the zits were still there. But I didn't look haggard. I sure didn't feel haggard. I felt just fine.

I haven't cried since.

Mulling

Should I go to Dark Odyssey's Winter Fire Weekend in February? It looks wonderful (I adore Tristan Taormino, and she's one of the organizers), and there's an emphasis on Tantra (an area I would like to know more about). I guess the argument against attending would be that I won't know anyone there. (Might that also be seen as an argument for attending?) Also, I'm scheduled to go to New Haven on the 16th, so I would have to make a few travel rearrangements.

But it looks like so much fun . . .

::longing sigh::

For anyone waiting for some writing on the subject of recent sexual escapades (you know who you are), it's on its way -- but today and tonight are going to be frantic for me (big fund-raising event takes place tonight), and then I will finally get some breathing room. I hope.

This post was brought to you by the left paren symbol and the right paren symbol, and by the number 8.

Morning sun

I'm sitting, drowsy, curled up in the corner of my sofa, using my laptop (as I always do these days -- the desktop sits unloved, covered in dust) to update, and thinking about what to write next. This corner of the sofa is bathed in sunlight on winter mornings once the leaves have fallen, as they are now beginning to do. So for now it's a dappled light, rays breaking through occasionally full force when they reach a leafless spot on the mulberry tree as the sun rises. I don't feel quite rested, and I'm putting off going to work. I'd rather sit here and write.

But I can't, and I have places to be after work, too, so the words will have to keep until tonight. My cat Minou has no such constraints on her time, however, so she, lucky thing, will stay on the windowsill above my bed, dreaming in the morning sun.

Oh, how I needed last night

Not to be a tease (maybe just a little, but honestly, it's an unintentional consequence--can I help it if you enjoy it?), but I don't yet know whether I can write publicly about last night. I can say this: after two weeks of doubt, sorrow, and anxiety, it was such a delight to revel in pure pleasure for six hours.

Is there anything better than lolling around naked creating an impressionistic performance piece made of sex, lively conversation, sex, laughter, skin, fingernails, sex, and sensory overload?

No, not chocolate. The first person to say "chocolate" will earn a less-than-gentle love bite from me.

Kama sutra chocolate bar by Barlovento Chocolates

I'm not just saying it for effect

I mean it when I say that books taught me how to live. No one else would (or could) tell me the things that Turgenev, Tolstoy, Austen, et al. told me when I was young and searching; thirsty for all the instruction I could soak up.


"In the street, forty paces from me, at the open window of a little wooden house, stood my father, his back turned to me; he was leaning forward over the window-sill, and in the house, half hidden by a curtain, sat a woman in a dark dress talking to my father; this woman was Zinaïda.

I was petrified. This, I confess, I had never expected. My first impulse was to run away. 'My father will look round,' I thought, and I am lost ...' but a strange feeling--a feeling stronger than curiosity, stronger than jealousy, stronger even than fear--held me there. I began to watch; I strained my ears to listen. It seemed as though my father were insisting on something. Zinaïda would not consent. I seem to see her face now-- mournful, serious, lovely, and with an inexpressible impress of devotion, grief, love, and a sort of despair--I can find no other word for it. She uttered monosyllables, not raising her eyes, simply smiling--submissively, but without yielding. By that smile alone, I should have known my Zinaïda of old days. My father shrugged his shoulders, and straightened his hat on his head, which was always a sign of impatience with him.... Then I caught the words: 'Vous devez vous séparer de cette...' Zinaïda sat up, and stretched out her arm.... Suddenly, before my very eyes, the impossible happened. My father suddenly lifted the whip, with which he had been switching the dust off his coat, and I heard a sharp blow on that arm, bare to the elbow. I could scarcely restrain myself from crying out; while Zinaïda shuddered, looked without a word at my father, and slowly raising her arm to her lips, kissed the streak of red upon it. My father flung away the whip, and running quickly up the steps, dashed into the house.... Zinaïda turned round, and with outstretched arms and downcast head, she too moved away from the window.

My heart sinking with panic, with a sort of awe-struck horror, I rushed back, and running down the lane, almost letting go my hold of Electric, went back to the bank of the river. I could not think clearly of anything. I knew that my cold and reserved father was sometimes seized by fits of fury; and all the same, I could never comprehend what I had just seen.... But I felt at the time that, however long I lived, I could never forget the gesture, the glance, the smile, of Zinaïda; that her image, this image so suddenly presented to me, was imprinted for ever on my memory. I stared vacantly at the river, and never noticed that my tears were streaming. 'She is beaten,' I was thinking,... 'beaten ... beaten....'

'Hullo! what are you doing? Give me the mare!' I heard my father's voice saying behind me.

Mechanically I gave him the bridle. He leaped on to Electric ... the mare, chill with standing, reared on her haunches, and leaped ten feet away ... but my father soon subdued her; he drove the spurs into her sides, and gave her a blow on the neck with his fist.... 'Ah, I've no whip,' he muttered.

I remembered the swish and fall of the whip, heard so short a time before, and shuddered.

'Where did you put it?' I asked my father, after a brief pause.

My father made no answer, and galloped on ahead. I overtook him. I felt that I must see his face.

'Were you bored waiting for me?' he muttered through his teeth.

'A little. Where did you drop your whip?' I asked again.

My father glanced quickly at me. 'I didn't drop it,' he replied; 'I threw it away.' He sank into thought, and dropped his head ... and then, for the first, and almost for the last time, I saw how much tenderness and pity his stern features were capable of expressing.

He galloped on again, and this time I could not overtake him; I got home a quarter-of-an-hour after him.

'That's love,' I said to myself again, as I sat at night before my writing-table, on which books and papers had begun to make their appearance; 'that's passion!... To think of not revolting, of bearing a blow from any one whatever ... even the dearest hand! But it seems one can, if one loves.... While I ... I imagined ...'

I had grown much older during the last month; and my love, with all its transports and sufferings, struck me myself as something small and childish and pitiful beside this other unimagined something, which I could hardly fully grasp, and which frightened me like an unknown, beautiful, but menacing face, which one strives in vain to make out clearly in the half-darkness...."

Bootless cries

Whew. It was one of those days, y'all. Every step I took felt misplaced; every word I uttered felt mistaken. It started this morning at work, when the last of four days of rancorous, unproductive meetings confirmed my every fear regarding the political morass that has engulfed public education in this state. It continued through a few hours of fund-raising for the nonprofit I sit on the board of directors for. It's not the most popular cause in the world, I fear. We're not helping babies or homeless kittens or sweet old people or retired racehorses. How much fun is fund-raising for a controversial cause in this financial climate? Oh . . . about as much fun as an icepick through the kneecap.

So by tonight, I was on shaky ground. All it took was some intense conversation on a difficult subject, a couple of stiff drinks, and a few kind words from a sweet friend to start the waterworks. Ugh. I said my goodbyes to the group and headed home. On the way I remembered to stop at Ruby's and pick up some ribs for Jeff, so I did make one person happy today. Hooray.

Blargh.

All right. Tomorrow. All better. Deal?

Sleep writing

János Vaszary, c. 1930

Aha. Just woke up from restless dreams with a sore throat and mouth (shredded the roof with movie popcorn earlier), and decided to get out of bed long enough to pound some orange juice and play typey typey with my laptop. Just to keep the sense memory of writing active, I suppose. . . .

Still somewhat off-balance between the lingering effects of the Black Death and the emotional sledgehammers lobbed my way last night by Rachel Getting Married (which I would like to see again, so if you can deal with the fact that I might turn into a puddle of tears roughly two-thirds of the way through the movie, sure, I'll go with you), so I haven't written anything save a few Tumblr updates. I'm also trying to finish The Last Shot and I've already started Revolutionary Road -- both startling in their excellence and clarity if having nothing else in common. So I'm chewing on a lot. How about you? What has got your brain occupied lately?

Bluebird of happiness

I finally got the people at Twitter to fix my account, but the only way I could do it was to obliterate my old account and start from scratch. So if I used to follow you on Twitter and don't anymore, that's why. I'll try to find my old contacts and add everyone back to the list, but feel free in the meantime to add me. There's a link over yonder in the sidebar. -->>

That said, I'm a singularly unrewarding, intermittent, and kind of boring Twitterer, so I certainly won't take offense if you choose not to follow me.

Q and A

I've been asked a number of questions via email and instant messenger and idle conversation, and several keep popping up. So in case anyone else out there is wondering, here are some of the answers. And if reading about me bores you, click on <<-- this picture instead.
Q: You live with your ex-boyfriend? Is he okay with what you do? Does he know about your blog?

A: Yes, I live with him (and have since 2002), and he's a great friend to me, and he's okay with what I do. He knows about this blog but prefers not to read it. He is dating someone else, and I'm glad he's got someone. While he prefers a slightly more traditional style of life, he's both supportive of and happy for me.

Q: Do the people you write about know that you write about them?

A: Yes, and several of them have actually commented here. Which, I might add, I think is seriously cool of them. Full discolsure: one person who appears here doesn't know about this blog, and that's West Coast, aka the real thing. It's complicated. Too painful. So I have my pockets of cowardice.

Q: Why do you tell them?

A: I made the decision fairly early on that I would get permission to publish anything of an intimate nature about anyone else. I have several reasons for doing so. I want to try to write as objectively as possible about my experiences -- I think that's the only way to learn from what I'm doing. If the people I'm writing about can call me on any inaccuracies or missed subtleties or differences in perception, that keeps me honest. And somehow it seems only fair that they have some say over how they are portrayed to the world, even if their identities are protected. Know wha'm sayin'?

Q: Yeah, but if you know they're reading what you write, doesn't that restrain what you write?

A: I try not to let it. I realize that I lack the perspective (not to mention the credibility) to claim that it doesn't affect what I write in the least. All I can say is that I try my best to write what actually happened as though no one is reading. That's one reason my writing is about what's inside my head so much -- a lot of times, it's the only thing I know for sure really happened.

Q: Has anyone said you can't publish what you write about them?

A: Not yet. I'm very grateful for that.

I do have some new experiences to write about, but I have been stricken with the plague. Once the buboes shrink and the bleeding from the eyes slows down, I'll update.

Beautiful night

Supporters of President-elect Barack Obama react to his victory
at the Indiana Democratic Party election night event in Indianapolis,
Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2008. (AP Photo/AJ Mast)

What a strange and somehow appropriate night to start yoga again. When I left for class, things were looking good. By the time I got home, it was all over but the shoutin'.

It feels so good to be proud of my country after such a long time. I'll feel a hell of a lot better if Proposition 8 is defeated in California, though. Fingers crossed.

Daaaaamn, Precinct 332!

My precinct has already had a 65% turnout just for early voting thus far. And there was a line at the polling place this morning. Way to represent, 78704!

Yet another reason I will never live anywhere in Texas again but Travis County.

Marked: an open letter

In which I try to explain last night to those who would be uncomfortable with the direction I am traveling; in other words, just about everyone I know. No, I won't tell my friends outside the scene (save a few trusted ones) or, god forbid, anyone in my family. But if I did, this is what I would say to them. (A warning: the pictures, taken this morning, are behind links for a reason. Don't click if you're uneasy with this subject in general. Really -- don't.)

It's the marks that frighten people. If it weren't for the marks, I don't think y'all would have a problem with what I did last night. Truly now, were I to take you aside and say, "I finally got to experience it, and guess what? It felt so good. Meditative. Cleansing. It was like inhaling a paradox! He used a crop and a cane and floggers, and oh, I don't know, have you ever had a deep tissue massage where it hurt and felt good at the same time? It was like that, and afterward I felt like I'd been on vacation," what would you think?

You might think, Yeah, I get that, I guess. You might shrug one shoulder and smile crookedly and say, Hey, I'm glad it worked for you, but still not my thing, man. A rare few of you might hug me and say, That's wonderful! I'm so happy for you!

But what if I were to show you this and this? Would you recoil? Would you be frightened for me? But . . . why? Those are just marks. Nothing has changed. The first paragraph still holds true, but now there are some welts and bruises to show for it, that's all. I wasn't struck any harder than I was the first time I told you, nor did I suffer. Far from it.

Let me back up. Last night I went to the Voyagers party, arriving a bit late, sometime around 10. I had to park a quarter of a mile away, so I knew it was going to be crowded, and it was, but not intolerably so. I didn't see many people I knew at first glance, but soon familiar faces began to emerge in the crowd. Most people were in costume, the mood was decidedly festive, and I worried for a moment that I had made a mistake. I had considered not going at all because my sorrow over Vasily is still so raw, and I'm prone to bursting into sudden tears, but then I had decided what the hell. If I cry, people will just have to deal with it. Hiding for days and not talking at all about what is happening in my life is how I've dealt with grief my entire life. Things are changing, yes?

I was happy to see De'Juan show up. He's appeared in these pages before; I just didn't know who I was writing about at the time. In the weeks since then, I've had fun hanging out with him and various others; singing corny songs from Monty Python's Flying Circus and Hee Haw over groans of protest from said others; having blessedly intelligent conversation. Does it hurt that he's fantastically hot and possessed of a serene, unassuming confidence? No. No, it does not. By the way, he looked mmmmarvelous last night in a dark shirt, tight leather pants, his hair pulled back, and a heavy chain draped like a bandolier across his chest.

At one point we were standing next to each other, leaning against a wall in a room with a bed upon which one woman straddled two bound men, while standing beside us in the corner another man and a woman were finishing up a scene with, from the sound of it, a decidedly happy ending for her. In the midst of this decadence, De'Juan and I were whispering. He asked me whether I planned to play that night. I whispered back that I still hadn't worked up the nerve to approach someone and ask them. He asked whether I would like to play with him. I'm surprised the others present weren't annoyed when my eyes lit up the entire room. That is to say, I whispered, "Yes, I would love that!"

He started to say he was playing with A. later that night, and at that moment the couple in the corner finished up and lo and behold, one of them was A.! He laughed at that, and suddenly I was at the front of the line, since A. would need some recovery time. He suggested that my first time be private so I could talk and ask as many questions as I liked and we could adjust and go at a different pace if need be. I agreed -- though, as it turned out, I doubt I said more than six words during the whole scene. I meant to talk and be proactive and inquisitive, honest. It's usually impossible to stop me. I'm Hermione effing Granger in even the most unlikely situation, always piping up and interjecting and asking what's that and how come and why not, but . . . well, no, not this time.

The private room opened up and in we went, and he closed the door with a "Sorry!" to the people standing in the hall, and once that door closed I was whoosh, sucked into that heightened reality where something is happening, it's really happening, don't think -- act. The heels of my boots clicked loudly against the tile floor. De'Juan turned to me with a smile, and over the blood rushing in my ears I heard myself ask, "What should I do?"

"Undress," he responded kindly, and I, like the shy person in strip poker, started to fumble at the patent leather arm cuffs I wore, they being the least revealing thing I could possibly remove, asking, "Everything?"

"You can keep on the accessories," he said, and I asked his help in unzipping my corseted blouse (I was wearing the S&M Snow White outfit again). I shed my blouse, my skirt, my underwear, and that left the thigh-high fishnets, the patent leather boots, the arm cuffs, and my grandmother's red beads. Fearful that the beads might get caught on something, I took them off and laid them on the bench. De'Juan asked me to kneel on the pad at the foot of the bench and, bent over, to lie upon the bench. I did, slightly propping my head on my crossed arms. All I could see was the tangle of my hair, the leather of the bench, and my necklace twisted like rosary beads in my fingers. I extricated my fingers and pushed the beads slightly away but still within reach. I didn't want to accidentally break the string.

De'Juan knelt so that he was at face level with me and asked if there were any medical issues or concerns he needed to know about. No, I told him. He explained that he would build up slowly, keeping an eye on me to gauge my pain threshold, and confirmed that I knew to say "yellow" when I reached the edge of what I could take and "red" to say "stop now." I nodded and we exchanged a smile, and then I laid my head down and took a deep breath. And he began.

He did something very reassuring -- during nearly the entire scene, he kept one hand on my body, moving it as he moved, giving me a sense of where he was at any given moment. It reminded me of the way I keep my hand on a horse's flank and rump as I move about it so that it always knows where I am. Another thing I appreciated was that with each new instrument he would run it down my back, allowing me to get a sense of what he was about to strike me with. I didn't know what was being used, but afterward I asked him to show me and tell me the names, which he very kindly did. I don't know whether I can remember the whole order, but here's a sense of it, anyway:

There was a light flogger that felt soft and tickly at first, then began to sting faintly as he increased the delivery rate and force of each blow. My skin started to warm, and it was almost relaxing. I felt my breathing deepen and slow, and despite my determination to focus on the sensations and experience rather than analyze, my mind very quickly leapt into abstraction. The flogger was followed by a crop, then a cane, first tapping, then thumping, finally stinging enough to elicit a heave of breath or sigh from me. Now and then it felt right to turn my head or rock my body slightly from side to side as the intensity increased. It was rhythmic, and even when my muscles tensed in anticipation of a blow or when my body jerked in response to a particularly sharp blow, my mind was calm. It reminded me of the calm I feel when I'm traveling once I board the airplane. I'm there, and whatever is going to happen is going to happen. I am along for the ride. At the same time, I felt safe, because I knew I always had the power to make it stop if I needed to. I think that knowledge is what made it possible not to need to stop -- tu comprends? Smiles would come unbidden to me at moments -- euphoria cycled across the landscape of my brain now and then, criss-crossing through my thoughts like a ribbon. Some of those thoughts were light; others were dark. I caught myself struggling to capture the sensation of Vasily expiring in my arms and let my mind rest on that briefly, then retreated. I thought briefly of Rick; but my mind didn't want to stay there, and I let it go where it wanted. There was certainly an element of sexual arousal for my part. I felt myself grow wet, but it seemed an organic side effect rather than a lust, if that makes sense. At times I wondered what thoughts were going through De'Juan's mind. There were even times -- prepare yourselves -- when I didn't think at all. Hallelujah, right? I'm grinning right now just typing those words.

The Josephine-knot paddle and the kangaroo flogger were lovely in completely different ways. The paddle had a delicious weight to it, and it felt wonderful on my back. Eventually it felt completely different, especially on the sides of my ass (where I currently sport some interesting marks). And the kangaroo flogger was just intense. At one point he used two floggers at once ("mad conductor indeed," he commented with a smirk when he was showing me the floggers later), and my breathing sped up, I arched my back, and my hands went cold and tingly. I came close to pleading yellow, but instead I drew a sobbing breath and felt my whole body quiver, and he stopped, running his hands gently over my skin while the fractured pieces of me fell back together inside. He came to the side of the bench and knelt to speak to me, moving my hair gently away from my face. "Are you all right?" he asked. I lifted my head and felt a smile burst across my face. "Oh yes," I said, beaming. He was smiling, too. "Want to keep going?" he asked. "Oh sure," I think I said -- I know whatever I said was slightly goofy and vague.

He started again with a flogger in each hand, and I stretched my arms forward with a sigh, sinking into the sensation, stretching all the way out, and then I slightly amazed myself by arching upward to meet the blows. But it was a short-lived embrace of the moment, as the floggers whirled faster and faster against my skin, and the burning became intense, and I felt myself toss my head, my body beginning to protest. He stopped and stroked my skin again, and came to speak to me once more. I propped myself up on my elbows, dreamy and smiling. Thank you, I said, several times, if I recall correctly. Thank you. He sat on the bench and we embraced, not talking much, just (at least in my case) savoring the endorphin rush and snuggling.

I can't imagine a better first time. I was with someone I trusted, he gave me a range of sensations and refrained from pushing me too hard, and afterward he was kind and patient. Just perfect. I hesitate to call what I experienced kneeling against that bench "pain." It was a type of physical impact, requested by me and expertly administered by someone who knew what he was doing. Pain to me is the way I felt a few days ago holding Vasily in my arms while the vet administered the shot. That was pain -- it was searing, relentless, out of my hands, and because those feelings are unbearable the mind eventually goes numb. Loss is pain. Grief is pain. Regret, anxiety, remorse -- all of those are painful, far more painful than a measured and thoughtful thwack of a cane.

I didn't know what to do with the sexual energy the experience unleashed in me. I've never taken Ecstasy, but I think it must feel a bit like I felt after I had dressed and emerged from the room. I wanted to kiss everyone. I wanted to give everyone blow jobs and massages. I wanted to fuck everyone. That feeling faded relatively quickly (right around the time my butt started to feel sore sore sore). Someday I'd like to experience a scene that culminated in that type of release, but not for a while yet. For now I would rather hold onto it and use it as fuel. And there is a lot yet to wrap my mind around.

The rest of the night, I would duck into the bathroom whenever it was empty, lift my skirt, and take a look at the welts and bruises, growing impressively more colorful with each passing minute. My ass smarted, but I wasn't in pain. Just a bit sore. (I believe I have established for once and for all that I bruise easily. I look like I was mauled, but I really wasn't.) And it turned out to be a stroke of luck that De'Juan scened with me first, because afterward I got to watch him do much of the same and more with A. They used a cross rather than a bench, and she was standing (and obviously they were public). I stretched comfortably across the bed and watched him use the tools he had showed me earlier. I was still a bit floaty, and I drifted in and out of focus. I remember at one point, early on, he did something and she reacted and he got the biggest smile on his face, and that in turn made me smile, and I wondered if he had smiled that way while he worked me over. (I hoped so.) As he worked, A.'s skin began to glow. I think (although it's hard to say) that she was taking a significantly harder beating than I had, and now and then she would cry out and grip the cross or sag from her wrists (which were bound above her head). When he finished and began to free her, I quietly left the room. I know now just how valuable that time afterward is, and she deserved that time alone. (What I don't know is how important that time is to the dominant partner in a scene. Is it just as valuable; just as necessary to soothe the swollen braid of nerves and revel in the chemical high? I imagine it depends on the individual.)

Now and then I would pass De'Juan in the hall or see him across the room and a big grin would break out on my face. He would grin back. I felt enormously grateful to him, and when I finally took my leave, hugged his neck and kissed his cheek and whispered "thank you" one more time. He thanked me! I didn't feel as though I had done anything to be thanked for . . . but I am going to make cupcakes later this week and take him one on Thursday. Will that make us even? ::wee smile::

I was wide awake by the time I got home. Jeff was at his computer, and I, still a bit giddy, announced, "Guess what I did tonight!" I believe his response to my brief tale was an exaggeratedly (in)sincere, "That's greaaaat. Good for youuuu." Imagine the first words of each sentence in a higher register, the other words in a falling tone of resignation. Heh. He did not want to hear about it.

Good thing the clocks went back, because I didn't go to bed until after 4. Then I lay in bed awake -- and on my stomach! -- for a while, drifting in thought. I think that's when I had a little bit of a recoil effect, which I had dreaded somewhat, because what goes up must come down, and coming down for me can be a scary proposition. But it wasn't that bad, and it was short-lived -- no bad dreams. I shed a few tears for Vasily, wished for a moment that I had someone to snuggle up to; someone there to know that I was asleep. And then, just like that, I was asleep.

This morning I felt quite cheerful and energetic. I woke up early and charged my camera (yeah, yeah, I'm turning into quite the little picture taker, I know), started some laundry, went outside and sat in the warm sun with my black-and-white dog and my black-and-white cat (I didn't set out to make them match, but it amuses me that they do), and rubbed my dog's belly with my foot while I thought some about Vasily and what I would like to do with his ashes. My ass is already a little less sore -- I barely notice the soreness unless I sit down without thinking, and even then it's more like a nudge, a reminder of what happened last night.

And if it weren't for the marks, you would never know it had happened at all, any of it -- unless I told you.

Hard times

I've got a crisis on my hands involving a critically ill and beloved critter, and I've been pretty focused on that. It doesn't look good right now -- we'll see. Chances are that I'll remain more or less shut down for the next few days. I'll be back -- I'm just saying I need a little time.

That's my boy. Send him a good thought.

Update: My proud, elegant companion slipped the surly bonds this afternoon. I will miss him more than I can say.

Sex and politics

My fiscally conservative friend was online this afternoon sporting a new link in his profile. I followed it to a critique of Obama's proposed economic policy. The following conversation ensued.

me: Oh, you are spoiling for a fight with that link, kiddo. I don't care how hot you are, I call foul. By the way, has anyone explained to McCain that we already "redistribute" wealth in dozens of ways?

Him: what's the logical disconnect? That our poor waiter "can't afford it?" Well, the homeless guy needs it more. Why shouldn't he get it? it's ok to stick it to certain rich folks because they can afford it is a stupid argument. when the rich already pay for around 30% of the US government.

me: The logical disconnect is that someone making a quarter of a million dollars a year is not in the same economic straits as a waiter. The disconnect is that Obama is talking about reducing taxes for a huge majority of the people, and the experiment linked to is strictly relative.

Him: a homeless guy is in worse economic straights than the waiter.

me: Nobody is saying it's "okay to stick it to rich people"

Him: sure they are.
"We want to take from those of you making mor than $250k/year and give it to people who need it" is welfare and it's at the butt of a gun. I call bullshit socialism.

me: All right, one point at a time. First, your link. Look at it like a Venn diagram or something. Do you understand my point? About how it's not strictly relative?

Him: right. you're basically saying that a waiter is too poor to be able to redistribute his wealth, but a small business owner isn't. Check.

me: So is unemployment insurance bullshit socialism? What about health insurance? Insurance in general?

Him: I'm against Hillarycare. And unemployment insurance should be opt-out for workers - if I want my cash now and to take my chances, I should be able to do so, yes.

me: (By the way, you know I adore you)
oh my god, I can't believe you're going to fall back on "Hillary" as a bogeyman

Him: I have a friend in England.
She was just diagnosed with a lump in her breast. Big big lump.
Eight weeks from now, she'll be able to see a doctor.
huzzah socialized medicine.

me: Your arguments will sway me much more if you don't resort to Republican hysteria and use terms like "socialism" and "Hillarycare"
Can your friend in England opt to pay a doctor to see her sooner?

Him: if one is available and not too tied up by required NIH (or whatever) appointments.

me: So she can pay for better care?

Him: sure. but I don't want to pay for her care at all. except for herd immunity related issues.
but healthcare isn't the issue.
Robin Hood government is.

me: Ah, then we won't ever reach any kind of understanding on this, because we basically have different philosophies. I do want to pay for health care for people not as well off as I am.

Him: it's moot anyway. Obama already had the election given to him by a despicably unbalanced and dishonest media.

me: Last I checked, the right wing had their own "news" network. It's called Fox.

[Here the argument continued for roughly half an hour, with both sides deftly holding their own. I regret to report that common political ground was not reached. However . . .]

me: Well, anyway . . . I figured that with the link up you were looking for a discussion. Hope you enjoyed it.

Him: I did. I'm all turned on. where're you when I need to throw you over something to work out my aggression?

me: Still in my jammies like the lazy liberal I am, sitting on the couch, that's where.

Him: damn lazy libruls, expecting us to work hard to pay for their cadillacs and bon bons.

me: Now I'm all turned on, too.

Him: I remember when I was dating M____, one day she was going down on me and I whispered "Trickle down economics works, you know" then paddled her ass. I've never gotten that good a blowjob outta her before.

me: Ha!

There you have it, America. Sex can bring us together.