Someplace I've never been, part 1

Josef Breitenbach
For Ever and Ever, 1938

What do you need to know about me in order to understand that what I did with the man from New York was a shock to my system; a willful reversal of nature?

When I search my own memory for clues, I see flashes that illustrate the paradox I suppose I'm trying to complete. In reverse chronological order:

Lying in bed with Rick, my head is on his chest, so that when he speaks his words seem to percolate through him and into me. He tells me, "You don't seem to have any sense of self-preservation."

My soon-to-be-ex-husband says, "You have no idea how strong you are, Neysa. You'll be all right -- you'll see." He sounds as though he is trying to convince himself. Then he starts to cry.

I find my mother's journal when I am barely old enough to read. Of me she writes, "Neysa weeps at the drop of a hat for anyone else. She cries for the people who lose on game shows. She cries for the animals she sees crushed on the highway. But when she herself is hurt or angry, she closes up. She refuses to speak. She will not cry. That's when I look at her and see myself -- when she turns to stone."

* * *

In the stifling heat of late August (hard to believe it was only a few weeks ago) I browsed page after page of dismal listings in Craigs List. It was late evening, and I was hungry for something I had no name for. Ever since my return from Australia I had been restless; disoriented; desperate for some grounding experience, preferably sex. And then one listing caught my eye. The author was in a similar state of unrest, judging by the tone of exasperation struck in the first line of his ad. It went something like "Well, I've just waded through a metric ton of spam. Are there any real women on Craigs List in this city?" He went on to write that he was from out of town and looking for someone sane and . . . submissive.

::frisson::

There was more. The ad was terse and intelligent. I answered him with an email titled "real and sane." I told him I didn't know whether I was "submissive" but that the idea was very attractive to me. I attached a photograph. It was getting late on a Monday night, and I expected nothing to come of my little exercise in forwardness, so I started to get ready for bed.

Shortly thereafter I heard the chirp of my email alert. He had responded. He wanted to know the following:

1) Will you inform your boyfriend about meeting me?
2) When are you available to serve me? The sooner the better.
3) Are you prepared to be restrained? To be blindfolded?
4) Are you prepared to follow my orders without question?

Reflexively I recoiled from the word "serve." I don't "serve," I began to sneer internally before I caught myself. I made myself let go of the word. I tried to imagine being restrained. I felt my face flush. I wrote to him and answered in the affirmative to all questions.

We wrote back and forth a few more times, and then he had this to propose:

Finally, if you really, really want to earn my trust, you could set out to meet me tonight.

Later, of course, I would read any number of essays and forum posts on sites about dominance and submission that classify such a request as a red flag; a classic warning sign; a signal to run, run, run in the opposite direction. Fortunately, by the time I uncovered this sober, responsible advice, it was far too late to follow it.

After a minor amount of dithering, I indicated that I would be willing to meet him, even though it was after midnight on a Monday. On a school night, I think inanely to myself.

And my acquiescence is met with this:

When you are showered, put on a skirt, no longer than knee length, with no underwear. And a shirt that buttons up the front.

Email me when you are ready to leave.

My blood turns to needles of ice. You idiot. What have you done? And suddenly I realize yes, that's exactly the point. This is something I am doing. I will do this. And once in motion, I cannot stop. It isn't even a promise I make to myself; it just is. This is what will happen. I will shower. I will dress as he requested. I will email and tell him I am ready, and he will tell me where to go. I will gather my purse and my car keys and walk out the door without saying a word to Jeff and I will start the car and put it in reverse and I will back down my driveway, back through the years when life was just something that happened to me, and I will deliberately go to a place I have never been.

To be continued

Getting it right

I'm writing something. It's hard to get it right, though, and I want to get it right. I want it to be as true as it can be, even if truth, as Tommy Smothers said the other night, is merely "what you get other people to believe." I would like to at least make sure that it's what I happen to believe as well. So if anyone is out there, I beg your indulgence. It shouldn't be too much longer.


In the meantime, I'll offer these baubles:


Pearls of wisdom from Peridot Ash

and

a picture I took in Alaska.

The gathering, part 2

Part 1

I don't remember what they looked like, these people who first took the floor. Well, I don't remember what the man looked like. I want to say he was wiry . . . perhaps he had facial hair . . . maybe he wore a black t-shirt with some suitably sinister or hardcore graphic printed on it, but faded. The women are easier for me to see. One is blond and somewhat heavyset. One is smaller and brunette. The dark-haired woman removes her clothes and stands facing the cross, which is set up at one of the corners of the center floor. The blond helps bind her to the cross -- I don't remember how. Cuffs, ropes -- I'm not sure. It's rather dark, and unless I want to move closer, I can't make out all the details. No one else in the room seems to take notice of the activity on the floor.

Once the man has everything set up to his liking, the blond takes her leave, chatting with friends. The man begins to caress and lightly spank his willing captive, obviously arousing her. Soon he is whipping her. If she makes any sound, I cannot hear it.

Meanwhile, another man has moved his equipment out to the arch which stands in the very center of the room. He is joined by a woman who wears nothing but a g-string. The woman is very large, probably well over 300 pounds. Many of the people here are people who are not supposed to take off their clothes -- at least not if public convention is to be believed. They are people who would be described as fat, or ugly, or plain, or old. If their pictures appeared in public, say, on YouTube, the censure would fly: "Cover that shit up!" "I may never have sex again!" "Dude, nightmare fuel!" If you need more examples, just go look at the comments to any Deadspin entry. Yes, yes, didn't you know? Only the beautiful have sexual desires. Only the young are desirable. And only models take off their clothes.

This, incidentally, is one reason you won't see me posting the usual sex-blog fodder for illustrative purposes, e.g. the artful black-and-white photographs of exquisitely slender and impossibly young nudes contorted into poses of ecstasy and agony seen on tumblrs such as Beautiful and Depraved or Bend Me Over. (Let's pause a minute while the stampede of readers clears out so I don't have to shout to be heard -- there we go.) I enjoy them just as much as you do, rest assured. I love Abby Winters, too. But those pictures are easy to find for those who want them, and I'm sick of the definition of erotic beauty being confined to what is essentially 1% of the world's population, if that. And god bless Curvaceous Dee. But back to the action.

The woman in the beautiful corset spots me and comes over to say hello. She seems worried that I'm sitting alone. I promise her that I don't mind and that I'm content to observe. As the night wears on, various people exhort me to "mingle." I will, I tell them, eventually. Eventually.

And the space in the middle of the room begins to fill. A woman is practicing her craft on a long-haired man who kneels, naked, on all fours on a bench. She is thwapping him rapidly, regularly with a stick. She pours something on his skin and he shrieks. This makes her throw her head back, lift one heel, and laugh in delight. I see caning and cupping, fire play, knife play, and above all, whipping and flogging. Although the air is filled with the sound of snapping, cracking, moaning, and squealing, somehow the atmosphere of the place remains subdued. I'm told by a number of people that this is a smaller than usual crowd (I'm guessing there were 75 to 100 attendees). "Folks are resting up for the Hallowe'en party," one man shrugs. Everyone seems to have tattoos. I feel hopelessly vanilla.

My corseted friend comes up behind me and puts her arms around my shoulders, and I lean back into her embrace, grateful for the contact. "You need to go talk to people," she implores.

"I have been," I protest.

"No, you need to go ask," she says significantly. "You're just here all . . . sweet and cute. You shouldn't just sit here."

"I don't know what I would ask for," I tell her truthfully.

Soon after that, she is heading for the raised stage area with a handsome long-haired man. He has a serene face and a positively beatific smile, which makes the beating he gives her that much more riveting. She undresses and he cuffs both her hands to a single hook above her head. He uses mostly floggers, at one point holding one in each hand and twirling them both against her skin like a mad conductor. When he does something that elicits a louder than usual shriek or scream he pauses, one hand on her skin, and whispers reassuringly to her. Once they are finished, he uncuffs her and they hug for a while, talking and laughing. Her skin is red where she has been beaten, but her face is flushed and happy -- she seems exhilarated. The other submissives or masochists I've seen finish up tend to retreat within themselves and huddle under blankets in their partner's arms. Not my corseted friend. She had a damn good time. Her eyes are sparkling.



For the first time that night I am captivated. I see something I want. It wasn't that the activity was any different -- it was the result. That, I thought. That is how I would want to feel.

Not long after, I left. It seemed to be a good ending note.

The gathering, part 1

In the end it was not so much about sex as it was about kink. I'm beginning to understand the difference.

I left the house last night still grinning from Jeff's Snow White crack and found myself singing along with Gram Parsons once I got on the highway rolling east. Oh lord, grant me vision; oh lord, grant me speed. . . . The smile faded from my face as I passed the giant warning signs: DO NOT TRAVEL TO HOUSTON AND BEAUMONT. LIMITED FUEL AVAILABLE. Still.

I found the place easily enough -- passed the entrance the first time by, but other than that I had no problem. Handed in my ticket at the door and signed not one but two release forms stating that I understood the rules of engagement and that I released the hosting organization of liability for any harm.

Inside (air conditioned, thank christ) the lights were low and club music throbbed (at a bearable level -- again, thank christ). In the middle of the large room stood various frames and equipment: crosses, tables, benches, and an arch. When I arrived the equipment stood empty. All the party goers stood in small groups near the food area or sat at the tables along the walls. Many people had brought bags, cases, and other containers from which they occasionally drew items to enthuse about in conversation -- a whip,a flogger, a violet wand.

Who was there? A true mix of people. Most plentiful were men and women in what appeared to be their 30s and 40s, but there were younger and older faces as well. A good number of the men wore black -- black jeans, black western shirts, black cowboy hats. Women wore everything from jeans and t-shirts to slinky PVC dresses. Corsets abounded, and the prettiest one I saw, custom-made, was modeled by a woman I had spoken to at last week's munch*. Bodies ranged from the lithe and slender to the enormously obese; faces ranged from the sweet to the scowling; skin colors were mostly white but some black and brown as well.

*Can we just get this out of the way now? I hate the word "munch." I'll use it, because it has a specific meaning in the BDSM community, but it makes my lip curl just to type it. I don't know why. I'm like this about certain words. Others words I hate: come spelled "cum," "play" as in "play party" or "play partner," and another (nonsexual) word that I can't even bring myself to say, let alone write. Call it my own hard limit.


The atmosphere was somewhat subdued, and I am not the chatty type. I didn't want to risk annoying the few familiar faces I saw by barging into their conversations or lurking at their elbows. I found the ice and the water, put some cheese and a few crackers on a paper plate, and took myself to an empty table, where I arranged myself in a chair and watched. And waited.

At the table next to mine, a women in a black corset laced up the back sat unmoving and unspeaking. A man stood behind her silently stroking her long hair with his hands, over and over. I began to take in individual images as I sipped my cold water. Everyone seemed to be waiting for someone to start a scene. I wondered idly if there are people who prefer to go first, to set the standard, so to speak, and people who prefer to go last, to leave an indelible image. Like an ice-skating competition. A genial-looking middle-aged woman approached me -- ah, wait, a man. I knew him. He had been a bit too eager to ascertain my preferences at the newcomers' meeting a few days earlier. Tonight he was wearing a curly blond wig and a dress.

I greet him by name and he politely corrects me -- tonight his name is something else; something feminine. I correct myself, and he tells me I'm looking nice. I thank him, and he observes that I have the perfect smile for a Domme. Something about the corners of my mouth, he says, are so perfectly cruel. This makes me laugh. I'm sorry to let you down, I tell him, but I'm not the cruel type. He compliments my boots and lets me know that should I need anyone later to lick them, he'd be happy to. Well, thank you, I say. He lingers a moment uncertainly and then indicates that he needs to move on. "I'm greeting," he says apologetically, and I tell him I understand. And off he goes, his blond curls bobbing.

There is stirring a few tables over from me. Two women and a man move to one of the crosses. It seems the festivities are finally to begin.

My first whatever that was

Before I left for the secret rural location tonight, I asked Jeff how I looked. His verdict: "You look like S&M Snow White."

I managed to bring myself to leave the house nonetheless.

As for the party, it was quite a scene. I didn't participate, but I spoke to many people and saw (and heard -- sound is perhaps the most important element) many things that I'll describe to the best of my ability tomorrow. I didn't drink before I went and I didn't drink while I was there. I wanted to keep my senses sharp.

And now I'm home, lounging on the couch with my dog, drinking a glass of Tempranillo, writing this little update, and catching up on the sports scores. And thinking. I wonder if I'll be able to remember my dreams for once.

Walking forward in the dark; one hand on the wall

Photo by puss_in_boots

It seems I have been Fleshbotted. I went from having a readership in the single digits to receiving more than 600 900 hits, and still counting. I'm unnerved (for reasons that should be clear if you read the first post ever made on this nascent blog); a little frightened; a little flattered. All of which is to say, it's exciting. And hey -- hi.

::little wave::

Now I'm going to try to pretend to myself that no one's watching.

Tonight I'm going to my first -- well, now. I don't know what they're called. Party. Big party at a secret location attended by a large number of people who are into various sorts of kink. What are those called?

Well, whatever they're called, I'm going to one tonight. I don't know what I'll wear, and I won't really know anyone there. My plan is to attend as an observer and learn a thing or two about myself and about other people. I'm looking forward to it. I'm also nervous enough to throw up, and it isn't even noon. Wish me luck.

And then I took another step

A little over a month after the events of my last post, I was in Australia to visit friends. Before I left, I checked the Sydney craigslist. It was pretty desolate, but there was one listing that caught my eye. I emailed the writer -- we'll call him Mr. PK -- and he emailed back, and there was a verbal attraction. We exchanged pictures and lo, there was a physical attraction. And that was how I found myself arranging my first assignation with a married man.

All my life I was one of those women who swore that I would never, never sleep with someone who was in a committed relationship. When I was married myself, I never strayed. I never wanted to. I'm not sure when I changed my mind, or why. I think it was a long, slow, and imperceptible turn around that corner. And maybe it doesn't make sense, or maybe I'm just rationalizing, but in this case, I didn't think that what I was doing was harming a relationship. If anything, I was helping one. For whatever reason, a woman had lost interest in sex with her husband. He obviously still loved her. He also obviously adored his children. He had no desire to end his marriage. At the same time, he had no desire to live his life as a eunuch. He wanted to find someone he could sleep with -- not just anyone, but someone with whom he could feel a connection yet not feel pressured to establish any kind of relationship. As it so happened, a woman from the U.S., one Ms. Neysa Lee, was looking for someone she could sleep with -- and she had the same requirements. Be someone interesting and intelligent who is most definitely not looking for a relationship. It suddenly all seemed so rational.

Once I arrived in Australia, Mr. PK was giving signs of cold feet, and I began to worry that his conscience was gnawing at him. I emailed him and told him that I would understand if he elected not to carry through with our plan. I have nothing to lose in these situations, after all -- but he is a married man with two young children upon whom he dotes. He wrote back, "I wouldn't stand you up, darlin', how rude would that be?" (I love the easy charm Aussies exude in general and the casual way Mr. PK in particular called me honey or darlin' . . . it reminds me of certain areas of the South.) I wasn't convinced he would show, but I decided I would go to the hotel anyway. If worst came to worst, I would have spent a quiet few hours on my own reading. Besides, I adore hotels -- strange ones in strange cities especially.

Well, this one certainly was strange. It was nice enough, but felt somehow like a cross between a Japanese capsule hotel and a Victorian-era train station. The view out the window was of a lovely slice of brick wall and part of an asphalt roof. I had been running around downtown Sydney since early that morning and decided to check in a bit early (around 1 pm) because I was tired of carrying my shopping bags and my feet hurt and I wanted to savor that nervous anticipatory jangle of nerves that was starting to creep into my head. Once I got the room keys, I dashed down the street to an internet cafe and sent Mr. PK a note -- "Room 505. You don't even need to call first -- there won't be any record you were ever here." (For I had sprung for the hotel room as well. How thoughtful of me, right? I'm so not the clandestine type that I kind of got a kick out of arranging it for someone else.)

I had elected to dress casually -- just a pair of slim trousers and a comfy sweater (or jumper, in Aussie talk), with a pretty chocolate-brown bra and matching panties underneath. I kicked off my shoes and laid across the bed (king size, of course, and it damn near filled the room) and read my book, or tried to. First I played with the futuristic power system (activated by the room key), all glowing buttons and motion-detecting sensors. Then I had to explore the bathroom, the entertainment system options, the clever mini bar hidden behind the wall. I finally managed to settle into my book, and with only one page to go, there was a tap on the door. I peeked through the peep hole and it was Mr. PK holding a bottle of red wine. Good man!

I opened the door and he stepped in. "Perfect timing," I said, waggling my book at him. "I was on the verge of having nothing to keep me from panicking." He kissed my cheek and offered the wine. "I hope you brought a corkscrew," I said.

"No need, love, this is Australian wine," he replied with a grin, and twisted off the top. We filled the two glasses from the bathroom and toasted each other. He frowned. "It's usually a bit better than that," he said.

"That's all right," I reassured him. "It's good enough for the job at hand." That made him laugh. I scooted over to make room for him on the edge of the bed and my wine sloshed onto the WHITE duvet cover.

"Oh hellfire."

"They've seen worse," he said, and took my glass. Then he kissed me, a good kiss -- soft, warm lips, a gentle flick of the tongue, and it went on and on. Suddenly we were both relaxing into it. This was going to work out just fine.

"How would you like to get this started?" he asked.

"That's pretty much up to you," I said, rather sorry not to have time to spend hours just kissing him. "You're setting the agenda today. Given your situation, I think it's only fair."

He wanted to shower together, which I was more than happy to do. We undressed together in front of the bathroom door, draping our clothes over a chair. Oh, he was lovely. At some point later in the afternoon he described himself as "a good chunk of bloke," and that he was -- tall, well-built, dark curly hair on his head and his chest, and (I seem to have the best luck in this department) a great cock, already hard, uncut (although that was hardly noticeable), straight, long, thick, and glistening with pre-ejaculate. When I started to take off my bra, he offered to help. I let him. "Nice," he commented as I shrugged off the straps. I told him I was glad he approved and he snorted with amusement. I think I was something of a puzzle to him -- but a good one.

He started the shower (at my request -- "there's probably some strange Australian trick to getting the temperature right, so you go first") and I stepped in to join him. Warm water cascaded over us as I ran the soap and my hands over his skin. I soaked a washcloth and ran it over his shoulders, back and chest, squeezing the water out. I soaped his cock and he closed his eyes in pleasure. So sad to think that no one was touching this cock on a daily basis! I decided I would make this a cock-centric experience for sure. I reached under and dragged the washcloth between his legs, then abandoned it in favor of my hands, lathering his balls, caressing his perineum, soaping his asshole. He pulled me into his arms and we slid together and over one another, and it was all I could do to keep from climbing onto him then and there to hook my legs over his hips and beg him to fuck me against the shower wall.

He spun me around suddenly and started to wash me with his hands, holding my breasts, pulling me back against him. I felt him hard behind me and then he was pushing me away so that he could get his hand between my legs, his fingers slipping easily into my swollen pussy. He wriggled another finger up my ass and I gasped, leaning forward against the glass of the shower door. I've just had a Brazilian the day before, so everything was soft and exquisitely sensitive down there.

"Are you all right?" he inquired softly, and oh yes, I told him, I'm fine, it's wonderful, I'll tell you if I'm not fine, so don't stop. And in response he pushed deeper, finger-fucking my pussy and my ass while I moaned. He kissed my shoulder. "Come for me, there's a good girl," and I did, and I almost could right now just thinking about it. He slid his fingers from my still clenching body and I turned around, pulling him by the hand out of the shower.

"I want to get horizontal," I said, and wrapped him in a towel. We barely paused to dry off and then we were tearing the covers off the bed and I was telling him "lie back," and he did with a sigh and a smile, and I knelt beside him, first just using my breath and my hair to tease his cock.

"That's it," he muttered, sounding a thousand miles away already. "Don't hurry, love."

So I went slowly at first, but I wanted him in my mouth too much to keep that up for long. I tongued his meatus and he bucked. I moved myself over to crouch between his legs and he rubbed his cock against my breasts. I squeezed them tight together and let him watch the head of his slick cock appear and disappear between my tits, then I let go and sucked him into my mouth, combining my saliva with his fluids, getting him good and wet all over so that I could hold him in my hand and drag the broad flat of my tongue all the way up from the underside of his scrotum to the tip of his shaft and back down.

"You've got some talent," he gasped, and damn straight, I thought, but didn't want to stop long enough to say anything. I took him into my mouth again and pulled him in deep, grasping the base of his cock tight with my hand and sliding my fingers up to follow my lips as I moved up. "Fuck . . ." he moaned, and I looked up to catch the expression on his face, unguarded and blissful.

"My balls, lick my balls," he asked, and I did, sucking them into my mouth, playing over them with the tip of my tongue, tugging on his cock with my hand. He raised his legs and grasped me under my arms with his hands, pulling me in tight. My face was buried now in his crotch, and I realized what he was after -- there was his asshole right in front of me. So -- here it was -- my first rim job. He had a rather sweet little asshole (as they go, I suppose), pink and clean. I probed it with the tip of my tongue and was surprised by how soft it was. I pushed harder and made firm little circles around it, hoping I was doing the right thing. Judging by the sighs and moans, I was. I licked, I sucked, I pushed, I bathed that little ring and then his entire perineum, and realized I was enjoying the hell out of it, not least because he was reduced to a quivering jelly save for his rock-hard cock, still held in my hand.

I moved back up to pay attention to his dick and settled into a rhythm. He pulled me up -- "I'm going to come if you go on that way."

"Isn't that the point?" I say.

"Well, when you put it that way . . ."

"Want to come in my mouth?"

"Please."

I smile and go back to my ministrations, rough and hard as I dare with my hands and my mouth. He starts to pound back, moves his hands down to my head and holds it, guiding the pace, fucking my mouth, and when his orgasm starts I'm keeping up but oh my god -- he comes and comes and comes, I feel it gushing down my throat, and I can't swallow it all, so I try to hold it in my mouth while he has what sounds like an absolutely glorious climax -- he's shuddering and thrusting, unnnnh, unnnnh unnnh!, his head thrown back, and I've never seen (or rather felt) so much come in my life. It's fine, even pleasant-tasting for come, but there's so fucking much of it! I wish I could have seen it gush. It would have been spectacular. Once he's finished he relaxes, falling back into the pillows with an amazed look on his face. I gently draw my mouth away from his cock and some of the come I haven't been able to swallow falls from my lips onto his groin. "Man found dead in Melbourne hotel," he begins weakly. "Cause of death --"

I hold up one finger in the international symbol for "one sec!" and head for the bathroom. He laughs, realizing the situation.

Once I clean myself up and rinse out my mouth, I return from the bathroom to see he has straightened the bedclothes and pulled them up over himself. He holds up the duvet for me and I dive under while he pulls me close with one arm. Snuggle time . . . sweet. I let my fingers play against the soft hair of his chest while he strokes my back. Times like these I wish I could purr just like a cat. Instead I settle for a happy hum of contentment. "So," I hear him say, "what did you think the odds were that I wasn't going to show up today?"

I pull back a little so I can study his face. "That you weren't going to show? Mmmm . . . I'd say I was leaning toward 50/50 yesterday, but when you wrote and said you wouldn't stand me up, the odds went down to 30/70. But I wasn't certain until you knocked on the door. You were definitely skittish about something."

He shakes his head. "You certainly don't play games. Are you always so honest?"

"Usually. Unless game-playing and intrigue has specifically been requested. Are you requesting it?"

"Fuck me, no. Please keep doing exactly what you're doing -- it just seems a little too good to be true, you know?"

"I really don't . . . but it's okay."

He puts his hand in my hair and presses my head gently down onto his chest. "You were right -- there were a few hours yesterday when I almost changed my mind. Then I decided fuck it, I'm going. I've been afraid something's gone wrong with me; with the wiring; I don't know, something -- I was afraid I wouldn't be able to come, or it would be this pitiful dribbling -- that's all it's been for so long."

Interesting -- a total misread on my part. I thought he was feeling guilty when it was actually performance anxiety. "God, I hope you know there was nothing pitiful about THAT," I say. "That was -- well, that was like a goddamn Apollo launch."

"Fuck, I KNOW!" he exclaims, almost sitting up. "It was unbelievable -- you don't know how relieved I am that this . . . this SIDE of me is still alive!" He is laughing freely now. His delight is infectious. He leaps out of bed to pour us more wine and I snuggle down on my stomach, my head on my arms, stretching luxuriously. We talk for a while more -- he tells me several extremely funny stories about his sexual escapades as a teenager. We're not under the covers anymore -- he's lying on his back next to me, propped up against the headboard, occasionally touching himself in that completely unselfconscious way some men have in bed that I love, love, love, and I'm on my stomach, head turned to face him while I listen, occasionally lifting myself to one elbow for a sip of wine. It goes without saying that he needs this time to talk -- yes, partly to recharge physically, but also to say everything he's been needing to say for the past few years. It would be better for him if he could say it to the right person, but maybe this is good practice. I don't mind listening at all -- in fact, it's one of my favorite things to do. I collect life stories. I don't use them for anything but my own understanding, and I treasure each one I hear. This is the best way to hear them -- in bed, in an afterglow of intimacy, surrounded by a paradoxical feeling of fatalism and safety.

But he stops talking after a while, and then he's holding himself over me, one knee between my legs, kissing my neck, my back, biting my ear, letting me feel his cock growing hard against me.

"You have no idea how wet I am right now," I murmur beneath him.

"Yes I do." I hear the smile in his voice. "I can feel you against my thigh. It's gorgeous." Then he pushes suddenly with his knee, hard, forcing my legs further apart, rubbing his leg full against my cunt, which makes me groan and writhe. I raise my ass and he rubs his cock against my pussy, then presses it, freshly lubricated, against my asshole.

"All right?" he asks.

"More than," I say, and he starts to push in. He can't get in, though -- he's thicker than my West Coast lad, so I'm not surprised. He uses his thumb and finger, rubbing my sphincter, stimulating and softening it, and tries again. I strain to open for him, and he slides in, then pushes past that tight inner ring. This is a harder surrender for me, because of his size. I take deep breaths and he slides all the way in and we are both suspended in our own worlds of sensation, motionless, adjusting . . . he starts to move out and we both speak at the same time -- "that feels good, so good" -- and then he is fucking me, slowly at first, but soon aggressively, pounding into me, and I'm whimpering with pleasure, reaching back to clutch his thigh and then between my legs, barely touching my clit, and he comes with a growl. After he pulls out he turns me over, pushes me down, and buries his face between my legs, taking what feels like my entire vulva into his mouth, and I come almost immediately, my hands in his hair, pushing against his face while he lashes me with his tongue.

We fall apart and he starts to pull me to him again, but I stop him to say, "I have another one hovering just under the surface, and I hate to waste a good orgasm."

"Mind if I watch? Or can I help?"

"You can do both," I say nodding toward my breast.

"Come here then," he says, and pull me to lie between his legs, my back against his chest, and I lean back in the recliner of his arms and start to masturbate, my fingers fluttering over my labia, brushing my clit, then harder, more direct, and when I feel the waves forming I tell him now, and he pinches my nipples, harder I say, harder, and he does, and I am crying out and shaking, the strings pulled tight from my toes through my cunt and ass, straight up to the top of my head, and I keep coming until I can't take it anymore and the strings are cut and I'm like a rag doll. I roll off him and onto my stomach, hugging my pillow and drifting happily in nonthought.

"Your ass is really tight," he comments, stroking the cheeks of said ass, and I try to keep my face neutral.

"Is that good or bad?" I ask lightly.

"Oh, GOOD," he answers. "Really good."

Well, that's all right then, I think. No need to tell him this was only my second time! I watch him adjust his cock, still not entirely flaccid, and reach down to touch his foreskin, watch how it moves. "Still checking out the package?" he asks, amused.

"Well, yes, in a way," I explain. "Yours is only the second uncircumcised cock I've seen. I honestly couldn't even tell at first, but I guess that's because you were already erect. The foreskin is thinner than I remember it . . . but it was probably 20 years ago that I saw my only other one. But listen -- you've got a great cock."

We talk about circumcision in general, sex in general, and somehow get onto the subject of his life as a self-employed entrepreneur. There are benefits, of course, to being your own boss, he says, but he misses traveling. He misses time off; time away from life. He can't leave for regular vacations the way other people can. The stress he deals with, he starts to say, and doesn't finish his sentence but just thumps his chest where his heart is. I nod. "Now this," he says, gesturing at the room and at me, "this is the best fucking vacation I've had in years. Just these few hours. This is wonderful. I'm relaxed. I don't have anywhere else to be. I'm doing exactly what I want to be doing." He falls silent and I stay quiet, watching his face.

And then we talk some more. This time he wants to hear more about me, he's trying out different labels on me, trying to classify me, an understandable instinct. He calls me a wordsmith, one of those brainy types, and he's greatly amused to hear I'm the first of my family in five generations to have lived outside the state of Texas. As soon as he starts to talk about my writing I gently shut the door. He's dismayed that I don't write anymore. I write plenty, I tell him -- I just don't write "for the sake of writing." He talks a bit more about his situation with "the missus." There's bitterness in his voice, a tinge of anger, even, when he describes their sex life (or lack of it). He feels betrayed, in a sense. A man shouldn't be reduced to jerking off in the shower for two years, he says. And there's something else. Last night, he says wryly, his wife asked him if he was having an affair. I open my eyes wide. No, no, he says, it's nothing she knows about or suspects. It's just that I haven't asked her for sex lately. So I told her I was tired of asking and being put off -- it makes me feel belittled, it makes me feel bloody fucking small. So why should I ask?

"And what did she say?" I ask.

"Nothing. I told her no, I wasn't having an affair, and that's all she cared to discuss." He shrugs. I wonder whether I should tell him that he's the first married man I've ever slept with, but I decide to hold my tongue.

And we talk about the U.S. and the elections and his businesses and I'm enjoying myself immensely because he's intelligent and passionate in his beliefs but there's the damn clock catching my eye, and I know he has to leave soon.

"Philip," I say, for that is his name, "time is of the essence. As much as I'd like you to stay, you've got to get out of here. Whatever it is you want most, we need to do that now. Nothing is off limits. Take it."

He doesn't hesitate. He puts his hands on either side of my face and starts to push me down toward his cock. I guess he sees a flicker of surprise on my face, because he stops and says, "I wanted to fuck you, I wanted to sit you on my face and feel you come, but the way your mouth felt on my cock--"

"No no," I interrupt him. "It's fine, it's great, I'm flattered -- I just wanted to make sure that's what you want most."

"Fuck yes -- I'll be living off these memories for years."

That makes my heart twist for him. I hope not, I really do. What a waste that would be. I'm already at work on him, now, and he's so responsive it's downright inspiring. I give him the full reprise and this time after the rim job I slip my finger in his ass, gently stroking in and out, my other hand grasping the base of his cock, looking up as often as I can to watch the expressions move across his face. Our eyes lock at one point and it seems to get to him in some way -- I'm not sure whether it turns him on or unsettles him, but suddenly I can't watch him anymore as he is full-on fucking my mouth, using his hands to move my head up and down, pure dirty animalistic force, and he's grunting with each thrust while I'm struggling to breathe, fighting the need to gag, willing myself to take every thrust and open my mouth, my throat, let him in as deep as he can plunge and just as I'm thinking I'll have to bail he stiffens and explodes again in my mouth, groaning and shuddering, not quite as overwhelming an ejaculation as before but still kind of amazing, especially for a third climax in as many hours.

I can swallow this time, and I hold his cock gently in my mouth until he is completely limp, and then let it slip slowly out between my lips, cupping one hand over his balls, leaving my head where it is, my hair spread over his groin, holding the moment still. Then I raise my head and roll onto my back, and we lie side by side, catching our breath, thinking our own thoughts, sex-drugged and not quite present in the moment. I notice vaguely when he wipes a drop of semen off my lower lip with his index finger.

He takes my hand, a sweet gesture that pings a heartstring, and says simply, "Thank you." I don't say anything, just squeeze his hand in return, and we lie there in silence until we both turn our heads and simultaneously spot the idiotic grins on each other's faces and laugh.

I glance once more at the clock. "I'm in no hurry, but what time did you say you needed to leave?"

He follows my gaze to the clock and -- "Shit, I needed to be on my way 10 minutes ago." He's out of the bed and into the bathroom in a matter of seconds.

While he washes up, I find my book and read the last page, the only page I had left to read when he knocked on the door. I read carefully, and then lay the book aside, thinking.

He's out of the shower and drying off. I sit on the bed wrapped up in a sheet, watching him. He dresses, puts on his watch, and pulls me to my feet. "Flick us an email, darlin'," he says in a low voice, and hugs me. I fling my arms around his neck and return his hug fiercely, wanting him to feel just how much I want things to be all right for him. He kisses me hard and then I let go. And very quickly, just like that, he's out the door and gone. I sit for a moment, but just a moment, and then I shower quickly, dress, gather my things, and leave. On the tram I can't stop smiling.

We've exchanged a few brief emails since, but I don't expect us to stay in touch. I hope he feels good about this when he thinks back on it (and he will). I feel good about it. I would do it again. In fact, I probably will.

It started this way

At some point this year I developed the nerve to think of myself as a sexual being. This meant that all my years of reading, thinking, dreaming about certain experiences as belonging to that part of the world that wasn't my life was over. In short, my propensity to live in my head and imagine experiences had to end. No one gets younger with the passing of time. And it remains to be seen whether my imagination will trump actual experience. So far, the experience wins.

I love a man who lives on the West Coast. He's known for almost a year that I've wanted to find out how anal sex feels, and he made it clear that as soon as I was ready to try, he was ready to help. Early this summer, I was ready to try. I went to him in June for one of our weekends.

He talks to me quietly while we fuck. I like that. He tells me what he's going to do to me, he asks me what I want, he tells me what he wants. Not constantly, but naturally, as part and parcel of whatever we're doing. He stays engaged. It's erotic beyond belief.

You should know . . . he has a gorgeous cock. Nicest one I've ever seen, no lie. About a year ago, before I had met him in person, we traded some pictures. He very sweetly took one of his dick, and I wasn't prepared for the attack of pure carnal lust it inspired in me. I'm not typically a cock worshipper, but his deserves hosannas and palm leaves. To each her or his own, but his cock is and always will be, I think, my ideal. Lucky me. And since I use an IUD and we're both clean, no condoms come between us.

I tend to visit him rather than the other way around. He lives alone on weeks that he doesn't have his kids, and I have a housemate. My ex-boyfriend, actually, which is . . . well, it's not a problem, but it doesn't exactly allow for full-throated sexual abandon, either. And I have a peculiar sickness -- I love traveling, I love airports, I love airplanes, for chrissake. So I fly into Oakland and he picks me up. Usually we go straight home and end up against the wall just inside the front door or on the carpet in the living room (scandalizing the kitten his children have recently brought to live at his house) before we manage to wrestle our way down the stairs and into the bedroom. This time, though, he takes my hand and we go to the bedroom, quiet and shy like teenage lovers. He leads me to the bed where I sit on the edge and undress hm while he stands before me. I can feel the heat rising off his skin.

He's hard, and already wet. I pull him toward me and nestle his cock between my breasts. I put my arms around him and embrace him fiercely. He pushes me back and we lie down together, and then he's pulling off my jeans. He puts his mouth over my mons, my panties still on, and I stroke his head. He bites me gently through the cloth. "You're wet," he says.

"Since I got off the plane," I say, and pull him up.

Now, we didn't get to my ass the first go-round, or even the second or third. So should I cut to the chase?

We had showered and dressed and gone out to dinner, and now we were back. He had promised me a massage, so I cash in my chit.

He sits astride me and I purr under the pressure of his hands. I can feel him against me . . . his balls brushing against my back as he raises himself and leans in to work on my shoulders. He scoots back and I feel his cock lying against my sacrum. I picture it between my cheeks and wriggle beneath him. He's getting hard . . . I can feel it. I arch my back and rock subtly.

Suddenly he has gripped me by the hips and pulled me into a kneeling position in front of him. He's rubbing the head of his cock against my cunt, but I'm so wet I can barely feel it. "Wait, what about my back rub?" I mock-protest.

"Shhhhh," he says, and suddenly pushes deep into my cunt.

"Oh God . . ." My hands are clutching the sheets, the pillow, whatever they can reach. He fucks me slowly and deliberately until I'm on the verge of orgasm, but when he feels me rock back more frantically, he pulls out and twists my hair in his hand.

"Tell me what you want . . . "

At the moment I just want him, inside me, on me, anywhere, and I'm not even thinking coherently enough to understand what he's asking. "I want -- you."

He pushes against me, his hand still in my hair. He kisses my back. "Where do you want me?"

Oh god, this is it. Am I ready? Will it hurt? Yes, probably, and "Fuck me, sweet boy, baby doll, fuck me in the ass," is tumbling out of my mouth.

He probes gently and I wait, wishing there was a mirror so I could see what was happening. I am intent on deciphering the feelings. He gets the head of his cock just inside my ass and I can feel it pressing against what seems to be a wall until it occurs to me to bear down, open and relax, and then he is past the ring with a delightful release, almost a pop, and holy fuck, this feels different . . .

There's a sudden wild notion that I have to go to the bathroom. I try to relax into the sensation, realizing that it's a reaction and not a reality. Slowly my body makes the transition along with my brain from confusion to pleasure and oh, is it good.

He holds still, and I can feel my ass contracting wildly around his cock. "Are you all right?" he rasps.

"Yes, yes, yes, it feels amazing, go on," I pant. "Do it, do it, do it --"

That's all he needs, and "Fuck," I whisper as he slides all the way in with a slow thrust -- it feels like segments, almost, as he slides past that tight ring, pop, pop, pop, pop. The feeling when he pulls out is disorienting, and then he pushes in again, and I hear myself crying out -- in pleasure, not pain. "That is good. So good." Then he is fucking me, not holding back but not out of control, and I am losing my mind with sensation.

"I can feel every fucking inch of you," I tell him.

"Does it feel good?"

"God yes. Does it feel good to you?"

"You have no idea," he says.

I'm amazed that there's no pain. None. He's afraid he'll hurt me if he lets loose, but I promise I'll tell him if he does. I want him to do whatever he wants. I want him to come fire. I reach between my legs and he says yes, come for me my own, and I do almost immediately. The contractions of my climax combine with the rhythm of his cock and I'm lost somewhere I've never been before. This is what losing my virginity in high school should have been like. This is what it feels like to be satiated.

I'm going to come, he breathes, and good, I say, good, and he asks are you sure, and I say yes, I want you to, and I can feel that, too. It burns a little around the ring of my ass when he pulls out, but that's the only moment of pain I experience the entire time.

"Do you mind if I--"

"Go ahead, sweetheart," he says, because he knows about my orgasms. He puts his hand gently over mine as I bring myself to a quick second orgasm, and pulls me into his chest while I shudder. Then, as I move straight to the third, he pulls my nipple into his mouth and sucks until I am back to earth again.

"I like number three best," he murmurs against my breast.

"I don't even know who I am right now," I sigh.

The kitten is sitting in the doorway watching us. I pat the bed and she pads over, hesitates, then turns tail and runs out of the bedroom. We burst into simultaneous laughter. We're giddy, elated, exhausted.

And we spend the next 48 hours, lather, rinse, repeat, unwilling to leave the bed except under duress ("I'm starving," "Take a bath with me," "I'm dying of thirst"). In between sleep and sex we watch a couple of episodes of Arrested Development because I love his laugh, and he asks me to sing Ellington and Strayhorn, Mercer and Carmichael, which I do until we both drift off.

I don't know why it didn't hurt, because later this summer (with someone else), it did. Which wasn't bad -- just different. Maybe it didn't hurt because I love him so damn much.

Fuck. Why? Fuck.

I had so many other things to write about tonight, but I just found out that David Foster Wallace hung himself and for now, this is what matters. I can't begin to describe how hard this hits. I'm so sorry. So sorry.

Let the man speak for himself:

All the things that my parents said to me, like "It's really important not to lie." OK, check, got it. I nod at that but I don't really feel it. Until I get to be about 30 and I realize that if I lie to you, I also can't trust you. I feel that I'm in pain, I'm nervous, I'm lonely and I can't figure out why. Then I realize, "Oh, perhaps the way to deal with this is really not to lie." The idea that something so simple and, really, so aesthetically uninteresting -- which for me meant you pass over it for the interesting, complex stuff -- can actually be nourishing in a way that arch, meta, ironic, pomo stuff can't, that seems to me to be important. That seems to me like something our generation needs to feel.

Kokesh-me

My friend M. just got back from a trip to Japan. She very kindly brought me a beautiful little Kokeshi doll -- see?




So I brought it home and showed it to my housemate, Jeff.

Me: Look what someone gave me today!

Jeff: Aw, that's cool. And it looks like you!

Me: . . .

Jeff: It does!

Me: How so?

Jeff: . . .

Me: . . . ?

Jeff: You know, the hair and . . . trailing off

Me: You think it looks like me because it's scowling.

Jeff: Noooooo. Nuh-uh.

Me: Mmmm.

Jeff: I never said that.

Bring it

I'm looking forward to Ike. As the barometer plunges, so rise my spirits.

I've been through my share of hurricanes, growing up in Houston. When Alicia hit, I gathered with friends in a Woodland Heights cottage, where we dropped acid and went outside to cling to trees and have the laughter torn out of our mouths by the screaming wind. The next morning I went downtown to marvel at the scene: streets knee-deep in shards of glass; rivers of glass sparkling in the skyscraper canyons.

When I moved to New York a hurricane made landfall there (Gloria, I believe) for the first time in 50 years. We had a boat we kept in Northport -- a 28-foot Dutch-built wooden sloop. My ex-husband, a Gulf Coast boy himself, was afraid of the damage the dinghy would do bashing over and over against the hull, so together we drove the valiant, ancient Plymouth out to Long Island, our headlights the lone counterpoint to the thousands and thousands streaming inland. Once we got to the marina, no one was there to take us out to our moorage, so J. stripped to his underwear and plunged into Long Island Sound to swim out and sink the dinghy. I stood on the shore in stinging rain and rising wind and utter dark and wept, convinced he would drown. He did not, and the dinghy was sunk, and the boat was saved, and New York was spared the full force of the storm.

There is no green anywhere else like the green of a hurricane sky. It's impossible to capture on film -- I've tried and tried. It's a watery, liquid green, but deep and strong, too, and in it even the enormous grey thunderheads look overwhelmed and pallid.

I vaguely remember a dreadful, dreadful hurricane, one of the C's, Celia, maybe, or Carmen, that came ashore while I was staying with my maternal grandparents in East Texas, so east we were pretty much in Louisiana. I say it was "dreadful" because that's what the grownups said, but in my heart I rejoiced with every flicker of the lights, and when the electricity failed we lit candles and burned them all the way down, then lit some more -- it took time in those days to get your power back, especially after a hurricane. I would beg to light the candles because I loved the faint sulfurous smell of the burning paper match, the pop of the wick as it caught fire, the curl of smoke when the match was blown out.


I'm really looking forward to Ike.

Must remember to buy some candles today.

Ice

I spent a pleasant morning, energy singing through and around me. I was a vibrating wire stretched taut, working on three interesting projects, flirting via email, and conducting assorted office interactions, all on no sleep, plenty of modafinil, and a growing conviction that I can sail through the roughest of waters without letting on that it's an effort.

Because he's been invisible, you see. But then I saw his name. He must have logged on somewhere, because up came the little notification on my screen -- "Rick is online."

Oh. Well, never mind, I'll just . . . should I send him a message? No. The last words I said to him were the words I want to end with. I was sweet, and I promised that I still love him. And I do -- I wouldn't make an empty promise. Not about that.

No point in tempting myself. If he wanted to talk, he could reach me easily enough. Best to close IM altogether, and so I did. And that's when I should have eaten something, because I couldn't eat last night, but first I wanted to log into webmail and see if he might have sent a letter. Not because I was expecting one -- just to cross it off the list, so it wouldn't be a distraction while I worked. No, he hadn't, good, didn't think he would, but what was it he said in July while I was in Australia? It's here somewhere. . . . but no, before that even, when we were still so feverish, so elevated by each other, so sure.

Oh, look at this one. Jesus christ almighty, why did he say things like that? Why would you say things like that to a woman and then let her go? No one's ever written to me like that. Surely no one will again. And if they did, why would I trust them? Look at how it turned out with you, my own. So many letters you wrote . . . who would believe someone could write that much about love and never say the same thing twice?

Oh, baby boy. You can't say things like that and then not fight to make it work.

A wave of nausea at three p.m. drags me out of this torturous reverie, and I know I have to eat something. I stand arms akimbo in front of the microwave while my plate spins inside. People greet me as they walk by. A co-worker calls me vivacious, of all things. They have no idea, because I am a ship, I am in full sail, no one can tell that the smell of reheating food is so revolting it threatens to bring tears to my eyes. I don't want to eat. While I wait I chew on some crushed ice to relieve the gnawing in my stomach. I feel the bits of ice slide all the way down, down my throat, down my esophagus, I feel them land like pebbles and melt in my stomach, leaving cold spots deep inside. Oh yes, cold feels so much better. I carry my plate to my desk and choke down a few bites, but it's just too much, and I throw most of the food away. I miss the comforting spots of cold. So discrete. So tangible. I'll wait until I'm hollow again and swallow some ice. I'll freeze myself from the inside out.

Eyes wide open

Insomnia by Alicia Czechowski


If depression is "the black dog" and "the noonday demon," what is insomnia? I want a suitably striking metaphor to describe this "vigilance without intentionality" that kept me up all night. This means a brutal day at work ahead. Thank christ I have Provigil on hand. Well, thank Dr. Farmer, if credit is to be given where it truly belongs.

Ah -- I'm sitting by an open window and it has started to rain. It's been so long since we had rain that I couldn't figure out what that hissing sound was. I had to stare at the pecan tree until I saw the drops bouncing off the leaves to understand what was happening.

How to end a scene

Tonight's perfect Mad Men moment: the way the Rothko painting stared impassively after the "skinny-dippers" when they left the office.



And they so blithely unaware.

One small step

I have a fierce hatred of my own writing. Given that I am an editor by trade, that's probably unsurprising. It's also, I've decided, unhealthy and irrational, two qualities I scorn in other people.

Thus is born a blog.

Neysa Lee is not my real name, but it's close enough, and it is an identity I have become increasingly comfortable wearing as I delve under my own skin and force open; unfold; explore what I haven't ever had the nerve to explore. It seems a shame now that I left it so long. . . .

And let's make this clear from the start: when I'm writing, the editor is on holiday. She has to be, or not one word from me would ever be committed to paper or screen. Even with the editor out of the way, this isn't going to be easy for me. Keep that in mind, dear nonexistent reader, and have mercy.

Now. Let's begin.