The Middle-Aged and the Misguided

(I haven't forgotten Tourist, we'll get back to him...)

Oh, Circus Guy...

In my inbox, after I responded to a mass forward from him (why would you include your whore of choice on your visible cc list?) and told him to check Snopes:

Hello [Whorename]. How have you been? I bet your doing good--you have a lot going on with your [real job] and things. Ive been well keeping busy at work and playing golf when I can. I miss you but cant afford your donation. Would love to see you again. If you are out my way and have a little time for me please let me know.Maybe you can be generous and let me go for 250kisses.
Love ya,and hope to see you soon.
[Circus Guy}

When I last saw him, my rate was $275, and after I had a really enjoyable time with him in which I overstayed more than an hour at no charge, he whined about the price and criticized how I deal with money.

I really don't have the heart to tell him I now cost two grand...

Adventures in Tourism

It’s all about the shoes. Lurking in the clearance rack, waiting for me to try on other pairs, Shelli Segal, Chinese Laundry, don’t try the ones you want first, it scares them into being the wrong size (that’s how I found my wedding dress, antique silk-satin bias-cut, in a Goodwill in upstate New York).

Patent. Tortoise-shell. Slight platform, four-inch heel. They are beyond fantastic, they are sexy superkeen doubleclearance, and with my birthday month frequent shopper coupon, they are…wait for it…ten dollars and fifty-seven cents.

The shoes come home and get packed into my whorebag, under the new panties bought so the client can keep them, new bustier bra, tan stay-up lace-top stockings and The Plan. Action One: Pit stop at the adult toy store on the way (since the local Satin Dolls is dimly lit, understocked with cheap jelly product and charges a dollar to go in). Action Two: Swoop by Target for sparkling Italian soda and Chessmen cookies. Action Three: Check into the Sheraton, reserve a conference room, put on the shoes, head for the sidewalk.

Tourist’s fantasy is that I’m a businesswoman on a break from a meeting, getting some fresh air. He’s used the word “classy” about five times to describe what I should look like, so it’s grey Miss Sixty just-enough-spandex-to-hip-hug pencil skirt to the knee, white tailored blouse curving in at the waist, low ponytail, tan stockings and the shoes. Which…

…I can’t walk in. In the store, they stayed on bare feet just fine. With Hanes thigh-highs coming between us, it’s a no-go. Every step and they slide off my heels, I walk out of them three times on the way to the elevator. Out the lobby door, drunkenly swaying, pigeon toed and shuffling in an effort not to lose them. Pit stop at the car and I masking tape the insides, which helps a little but not a lot. Off to the sidewalk in front of the hotel. I stagger as gracefully as possible down the block, turn and come back, a car pulls up beside me.

“Can I give you a ride?”

He’s new to this “acting” thing and it takes him a minute to process that yes, I am thankful for the ride, no, I do not want to really go to the drug store for shoe-related supplies, yes, he should offer to take me to lunch as per our agreed-in-advance plan. I don’t actually find him all that attractive, though he’s not a dog by any means, just not my type, and I’m a little trepidatious when he parks far from the restaurant entrance, thinking, 1) oh dear, is it blowjob time already? and 2) I’m not sure how I’m going to make it all the way to the front door. He leans in to kiss me, and I have learned by now it’s up to me to control tongue and penetration from the first kiss or it’s just trouble later. LFK, they call it on the whoreboards, a little bit of tongue, not so much desperate high school sophomore who practiced on the couch cushions and big sis’ Beauty Barbie head.

“May I see your foot?” he says, and I swivel sideways in the leather-seated Audi, ice-cold air blowing up my skirt. He takes my leg reverently into his hands, kisses my calf, massages gently up and down my lower leg. His mouth moves lower, kissing my instep through the stockings. And then…well, I feel like a babe in the woods. Because I’ve heard about it and seen pictures and sure, feet and shoes are probably one of the most common fetishes, but I’ve never actually had someone lick my shoes before. Which he does. Quite a bit. Soft little pink tongue lapping away at my tortoiseshell peeptoes. He leans back for a moment and sighs, and I take my foot out of his hands, rub the side of my shoe against his penis through his businessman’s slacks. “Don’t you dare come yet,” I hiss at him, remembering his penchant for tease-and-denial. “I won’t,” he whispers, leaning back in his seat. When I take my shoe away, he shakes. For a moment, I think he’s having an epileptic fit. He tells me that it’s like orgasm, but without ejaculating. For a Midwestern boy from a family so morally conservative he doesn’t speak to them any more, he’s certainly got an affinity for Tantra…



Tomorrow, Part Two.

Cards on the Table (and a bit of The Code)

The first night. Midrange hotel bar. Green felt cloths. Warming trays of meatballs and chicken wings and mini eggrolls shining moistly in their own grease, nothing I can, at this moment, eat.

He comes and hugs me. Fucked-Up Guy. First hand, two years ago, end of the event and we flirted over bad burgers and catered potato salad and he drank open bar while I nibbled orange slices and maraschino cherries out of a fruited Shirley Temple. He wanted a shower before the long drive home, I offered my room (I once bought ten pairs of underwear shopping with his girlfriend, hoping that new lacy things would make Husband love me again), he considers for a moment and shakes his head, “If it’s the first time, it shouldn’t be rushed,” he says and when the beer begins to wear off he’s on the road, headed for good fathership.

Second deal, we’ve Myspaced a bit but nothing committed, neither taking the step of recognizing or asking what’s going on. In the bar, Fucked-Up Guy launches immediately into the story of his relationship, Chapter Now. They are living separately, she could no longer stand how he minimized his email every time she walked into the room. He gave up all his passwords, he has to be good, she might be watching. He and I have never had problems finding sex on the road, he’s having a hard time knowing whether to enjoy being separated or practice being better at being together. I can’t tell, so I ask, after the second time he mentions his room number, “I’m not sure if I’m supposed to be respecting your limits or pushing you over the edge.”

“I don’t know, either.” He’s rueful, he has no cards in the hole. I’m strung up like a high E wire, It’s been three weeks of housing close enough to not bother to pack my toys, shared time, shared car, so much work I can’t even step into a bathroom with a likely prospect. The meet and mingle drifts to a close, I’ve located my room, Fucked-Up Guy calls over his shoulder on his way upstairs, “I’m in Five-Oh-Three!” Raise. I call his bluff, and spend the evening giving myself a facial. The kind that comes from Wal-mart.

The Code
Play with your equals. Don’t use superior ability to overwhelm the young, the inexperienced, the awestruck. If they’ve never played this game before, take the time to find out what they think the rules are, what they hope for, what they fear.

Don’t take advantage of people when they’re down…

The next day, shoulder to shoulder, I end up kneeling in front of him several times, innocent context made naughty by my look. I ask, “Let me know if you want to be shoved.” “Last night I wouldn’t have had any resistance,” he says, looking down at my upturned face. “I know.” It’s not fun to play if you know you’ll win. Uncertainty is the spice, the goad, the challenge. Why play with someone who has to be coddled along? Raise, raise, raise. Strike your strongest blow and lose your balance when they pull... “I’m your friend, first,” I say. “If it happens, great. If it’s weird for you, tell me, I won’t be hurt.” Fucked-Up Guy knows I’m cool with whatever happens, he knows I know it’s not me. “That’s why it has to be now, in daylight, this is when I can make a real decision,” he says. We are playing with all our cards on the table. The question is not who is bluffing, but can we assemble a decent hand from what we’ve got.

That night, he’s drunk and dressed as a queen. Don’t ask. Again, I sleep alone, restless, strung out. I’m also not so much flirting as enjoying a barely concealed antagonism with another fellow on this project, BitterMan. I like assholes, every now and then I get a thing for someone who treats me with slight contempt. It’s a challenge.

The next day, Fucked-Up Guy smiles, rearranges his schedule to leave early, whispers, “thanks” in my ear. “I don’t take advantage of drunks,” I tell him and he laughs. We take a group photo. I lean against him, his body is so strong and solid, his hand around my back, he jokingly reaches for my breast and stops, my hand on his ass. There’s something so reassuringly big about him, I feel like I am leaning on a wall of comfort. I want this. Just not today.


At the elevator after a long and flirty dinner, I know BitterMan is hunting PowerGirl and we all know it’s not going to happen, but I’m past the point of reasonable caution and I stop for a moment. “Let me know if you’re up for it.” BitterMan is blindsided, it takes him a minute to process. “What?” “I lobbed a pass. You missed it.” He’s so not into me. I’m busted, flushed. I pace my room, debate calling for a second try, and foolishly do it, leading to only more embarrassment. Fortunately, it’s Harry Potter night. So I drive into the fog and search the city for a book I’m pretty sure I can’t get either, the white air around me veiling my humiliation.

Rape Fantasies

Jeans, work boots, stubble. I’m naked. I’m on a pool table. Green felt rubbing my knees raw, unflattering fluorescent tubes in the over-table light. A man under me, his cock slick with the semen already in me, his hands below my hipbones, grabbing the place where legs and body meet, sliding me back and forth on his body, his belly rubbing my clit. Another man stands at the table edge, impatient for his turn. There are other men, their faces in shadow, their hands rough and eager on my breasts, my ankles, pinching my nipples, pulling my legs apart. Some of them are betting on how many times I’ll come, how soon I’ll come again. “Fuck her with this,” says one, light flecking in his eyes and on the beer bottle in his hand, “This’ll make her come.”

That’s what makes me come, what pushes me over the edge if I’m almost there. Sometimes Lover is there watching. Sometimes he’s the one who’s given me to the group. Sometimes it’s more subtle, Jodie Foster on the table in my place, surrounded by chanting low-rent rednecks.

When I babysat, I always hunted for the porn. The Bechtels kept theirs in the bathroom – the main bathroom! Right there under the counter next to the hot rollers! – and Hustler was much, much better than Playboy if you didn’t really care about Norman Mailer. The picture in my head still: a blond prison guard, breasts falling out of her ripped bluegrey institutional-yet-flattering jump suit, the men holding her down careful not to obscure the shot. Later I found Brit porn better still, actual penetration instead of the thick black cock frozen inches from her pussy. She asked for it…


On my knees again, a tavern this time, straight out of Blackadder. The worn-smooth wood of the table under my hands while I suck at the cocks thrusting into my face, my hair already sticky with come, sweating, face a mess of tears and spit and everything else, the men are laughing and shouting. The youngest one is the leader, he takes his sword and thrusts the hilt into my pussy. “Let’s see you fuck that, slut.”

I mentioned the commonality of “rape fantasies” in the hearing of a puzzled friend of Powergirl’s.

“Why would anyone want to be raped?”

“Not by a stranger with a knife, but being overpowered, or someone wanting you so badly they have to have you no matter what.”

I played rape with my ex-lover Writer, I play it with Lover, even with new men there is power and gratified hunger in teasing them until they snap, grab my arms, pin me against the wall or the bed or the hood of the truck, wrists above my head while the other hand slides up my skirt, inside my panties, inside my pussy to see how they make me feel, thrust their wet fingers into my mouth, the pressure that says suck for me.

Rollercoasters do it for me, too – the metal frame shaking, did some old guy assemble this on the weekend with a ratchet set? – sandals and water bottle in the cubby, safety bar down hard, the floor drops away, bare feet dangling and the cars whip around, never screaming, just breathing hard. Maybe this is the day that makes headlines.

First bent over the dirty white sink, then on the floor of the theme park bathroom right after closing, I’ve gone back for something forgotten, a purse, a bag, it doesn’t matter but that it’s something the ride attendant makes me beg for, first playfully and then in earnest as he roughly lifts my skirt, sets me on the counter, his fingers leaving red marks on the inside of my knees, a red mark across my cheek, “Shut up bitch. I’ve been thinking about this all day…”

Will met me in a Laundromat. I’d like to think I was wearing my tight black spandex crotch-length minidress, horizontal slits from bottom of breast to collarbone, because it was the only thing clean, but more likely I was just being eighteen. I sat on the sidewalk, legs out, back against the window while he chatted me up. That night his fingers in me hard, his sister turning the TV up louder and louder and the neighbors calling over to find out if she was OK. The next night Taco Bell, and in the tall weeds between that parking lot and the next we made out, me play-resisting and Will pushing back my hands, prying open my mouth, holding down my shoulders until suddenly I was fighting for real in panic and terror, trying to keep my legs closed while he pulled back my hair, opened my thighs and took me, his excitement enough to come in a quick minute, then adjusting our clothes, back to the car, and me quiet for a long time, realizing, this could really happen to me.

Will raped me twice more, both times in the context of our relationship, anally, and with the memories lasting longer and more pleasantly than the acts. The first time was among my first anal, no lube other than what came out of my pussy, no condom, thrusting in with me on my stomach, protesting until he finally said, “You can have it in your ass or I’ll put it in your mouth.” I couldn’t sit for days without the memory. The second time, the front seat of his car (bench seat, older car) we were making out before breaking up, parked in a field in the woods where kids in upstate Eastern states go to do that sort of thing. Later, “I thought you wanted it, you turned over so easily.”

He’s still in my top three lovers of all time. None of your business. 90th percentile or better.

I’ve never been raped by a stranger, but I’ve felt coerced or badgered or worn down quite a few times and escaped date rape once, I think before penetration but the memory is distant and all that remains is cold terror in the front seat, parked at the end of the runway to watch the planes, a tan and muscled body holding me down. My rapes are fantasies, men I liked and wanted to fuck, just maybe not right that minute. No-one holds a weapon to my head, and their whispered “hold still” comes from longing and not contempt.

Emma Kelly and her husband Scott write about cuckolding, his “tiny” penis, the way she fucks other men while he watches. The photo of her white body wrapped around Don the Marine carved from wood, his brown skin playing half my rape fantasies and every stereotype in the book, made me wet when it first flashed on my screen. The first man I cheated on Lover with was black, we played that fantasy for weeks afterwards, going in the space of days from,don’t ever fuck anyone else again, that’s my pussy to describe it for me while he came.

He doesn’t have to be black. He doesn’t have to be better endowed. He only has to be there, and the fear of being replaced by something bigger, better hung, just better, becomes an erotic plaything, something to wank to rawness over, just as the fear of strange cock, strange skin, strange hands, the unthinkable and constantly present unreality of me-and-a-gun-and-a-man-on-my-back every time I walk home from the station alone becomes rape fantasies, multiple solos, the shove over the brink of pleasure.

Motorcycle gangs who offer me a ride and waylay me to the hideout. The Hispanic guys at the carwash, covered in soap and water, bodies sliding over each other and me. Brit boys on a stag who find me lost in the alleys of Prague. Malkovich as Valmont, Rickman as anything. Force, dirt, darkness and power. Lust overpowering all.

Now I remember. The Southern Town Girls Club. After the fair, the leader of the volunteers, a man I crushed on for months, sleeping in his shirt long after it stopped smelling of him. The women who lived with him wore collars, I aped them with a homemade necklace, a blue bead on a leather thong. After the fair, dressing up and playing and finally having friends because they were from different high schools and friends because they were older than me. After the fair, in the room where the punch cups lived, the last of the red bug juice poured down the drain, the yellow barrel coolers hosed out and turned over to dry. After the fair, a man to whom I owe a major life skill and thus can never purge. After the fair, on my back bent onto the table, “that’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?”

Thank you for the skill. Bought and paid for, Dan.

Thank you, don’t come again.

Yeah, What She Said

If you've been following the comments on Late..., or the interesting little sort-of-dialogue-mostly-people-shouting debate about the ethics of

1) Sleeping with people who have partners versus picking up strangers through the internet, and

2) Whether one of those practices entitles the doer to moral high ground over the other, who can be characterised as Wrong, Stupid and Bad People,

you may want to check out Emma Kelly's latest. Thanks, Emma.

Ahhh...a Meme...The Lazy Writer's Friend

I’ve been tagged by the Dark and Lovely Nia! I haven’t done a meme before, I don’t think, but I’m pleased to have an excuse to sit and write between a long work day and one more work obligation (that I’m looking forward to) before bed and catching up on sleep, oh my god I can’t wait to sleep more than four hours tonight…

Seven Random Things

1)It makes me very uncomfortable if the waitress doesn’t like my table. I hatehatehate it when, for some reason, we’re not “good” customers for her (and it’s always a her), because I don’t ever tip less than fifteen percent unless the service was bad enough to speak to the manager about, and I prefer twenty. So when the service is timely but attitudinal, my nature is in conflict, which is probably bad for my digestion. I also wish I could wear a little sign that says “I know I’m a single person with a book taking up your table. I plan to compensate you for that. Now stop giving me attitude.”

2)When I lie about being late or absent, I choose my reasons very carefully because I worry that it will really come true to punish me for lying. (Nothing like a compassionate God, eh?)

3)There are people who have words I wrote tattooed on their bodies. I find this both thrilling and deeply humbling. It’s a lot to measure up to.

4)I dislike all dogs except pugs, which I think are actually cats in dog suits.

5)My dad used to tell me, “You know, there are people who have never been in the newspaper or on TV.” This was totally bizarre to my ten-year-old self, since I was in the press in one form or another about five times a year as a kid, both incidentally and for achievements.

6)My regular job requires me to be pleasantly nice to lots of strangers, often at times I wish were personal and off the clock. Whoring requires me to be exceptionally nice to people with whom I might not otherwise spend time at all. I love writing because I get to say exactly what I think in the way I want to say it. Or possibly completely lie about what I think and have people believe it anyway. Yay writing!

7)Nobody knows that the reason I’m aloof at social gatherings is that I’m actually terribly shy in groups. As a young woman, this manifested itself as inappropriate comments and desparately not-funny jokes. As an adult, I'm better, but after about an hour, I really have to spend a long time in the bathroom before I can face the mayhem again. I think people suspect I’m a snob with constipation.

Late…

…in the morning, there is media, there is more media, there is handling and being handled. There is trying to find something everyone can eat. There is unlikely to be a nap – no rest for the wicked. Day Off is not listed until Tuesday. There has not been a Day Off in two weeks. I’m glad to be coming back to the blog, though, an anchor in my day to rest with.

I have been thinking about the question of Code, starting to jot down what my own ethical/moral code might be, scribbling out questions that chart the edges.

How much is it one person’s responsibility to look out for the morals of another? If I deem myself a guardian of your relationship, is that an ethical obligation or an egotistical assumption?

Whose job is it to tell a cheated-on partner what’s going on? Is it anyone’s?

Is any greater good brought into the world through clandestine relationships? Does it matter? Should it matter?

How much are we responsible for what we inflict on others in pursuit of our own pleasure and fulfillment?

Hopefully a short post here and there, but I’ll warn you my brain is mush and my hands full until Day Off…

Bits and Pieces

...One of the greatest feelings in the world is, after resolutely remaining as asleep as possible while the children across the aisle watch a bad, loud dvd with their father hovering over them in the aisle, forcing everyone who passes to whack me in the head with their rear end (and damn, despite the bathroom being on the other end of the plane there are a lot of passersby) and then waking for real, bleary, dry, hoping against hope that we are more than three hours – halfway – through the flight, and hearing, “Flight attendants, please prepare for landing, crosscheck...”
...here’s what makes a well-paid job: 1) Providing services not available elsewhere (whoring, specialized medicine); 2) High levels of personal danger when carrying out the job (logging, drug dealing, whoring); 3) Lack of willing job applicants (air conditioner repair, whoring); 4) High level of personal responsibility for the service recipient (medicine, whoring)...
...On the continuing theme of Mandy’s Not A Very Nice Person Now Is She, I made an intern cry yesterday. In the middle of an intense part of our job, I sent her to get me something I urgently needed and used a nasty tone of voice. After the hoo-hah was over, I noticed her teary and apologized profusely, explaining that no, it wasn’t her and in fact she had done fabulous work all day, and my tone had nothing to do with her performance and everything to do with my hyped-up state of mind. There were more apologies and a cash bonus later for all as our client was very pleased, and other people who work with me let her know that yeah, sometimes Mandy does that and it’s so not you. Internship Lesson for the Day: sometimes the boss is a bitch. There’s nothing you can do but your job until it blows over...
...On the continuing theme of Mandy’s A Self-Aggrandizing Egomaniac, one of my favorite quotes: “If everyone likes you, you must not be very good.” Discuss.

The Necklace

I find myself in a funky, artsy southern town, with a quilt shop on every corner and cobbled streets. Shining like a lost koruna in the street (and about as out of place) is one sleek, minimalist, polished-concrete-floored gallery of stainless steel jewelry, handcrafted by the gay couple behind the counter. I think, perhaps I will buy Lover something from here. We’ve been a bit disconnected, challenged by distance and lack of coordinating schedules, and I’d like to give him something heavy and expensive and permanent, but not intended to be worn all the time (see gold earrings). I choose a necklace, but intend to come back later and pay cash following a time of agony about whether or not I want to a) buy a meaningful present for him at all and b) spend that much money outside my household.

I return shortly before closing…except that they are already closed. There is no phone number on the window, or on the front of the business cards face up on the display table inside the window. They are not listed, as a business or as proprietors (their names are in the window). Myspace to the rescue, and later that night, I reach them at home and they agree to open up the shop for me. Gotta love small towns.

This time, I have Husband with me, as he has come along on this primarily business trip. We have also been rocky, and I add to my purchase a heavy bracelet as well as the necklace I claim is for me, or possibly for a girlfriend if I can bear to give it up. The bracelet has a dull sheen, and I tell him, I will get it engraved inside, I will have them put, I would marry you again in a minute. Husband is moved, we are both connected. Lately, it has been a very clear connection. I wear the necklace out of the store, and am indeed half in love with it myself.

* * *

Lover has a new friend. That kind of friend. I call her the Hershey’s Kiss. You know, like when you really, really want chocolate, and you’ve promised yourself that you won’t burn calories on crap, you’ll hold out for Belgian dark chocolate, not that sugary crap that gives you a headache and a weird feeling in your mouth, but then you find that bag of leftover Halloween candy or maybe there’s a bowl on the receptionist’s desk and it’s just…soooo…easy…

This is demeaning to her and unworthy of me.

I’m supposed to be this liberated free spirit, fucking my way around the world and far, far too busy and happy to be jealous and irritable that Lover is FUCKING SOMEONE ELSE.

I meet Lover in another town, one of our last private meetings for months. He has driven a long way to see me. I have told a lot of lies to see him. The necklace burns in its tissue in my bag, and at first, I think, well, no. The hello kiss is nice, we take it slow, he’s very respectful and supportive of my numerous conversations via cell with Husband, who is having a rough night/week/marriage. Good food, a good walk, good conversation. Caution.

It’s not that something’s missing. It’s that something’s there. Focus is divided. He is only with me, yes, but I am also with her. When his cock slides into me, I wonder how tight her pussy is. When he kisses me, I think about how she’s an easy come, it strokes his ego that he got her off with kissing. When he goes down on me, I worry that I take too long, it’s unfulfilling, the few times – very few – I actually come this way aren’t enough.

I sleep all night in his arms, thinking only a few times, do you do this with her? We have already decided that the boundary is no anal, that’s saved, and he tells me fancy dates are also only for me, TGI Fridays is fine for her. I feel a prickling of female solidarity. If I’m truly out for maximum happiness for others and not solely my own selfish gratification, it would be nice if other people had nice things, too, and not just what they’ll settle for, machined corn syrup lowers him and me both.

In the morning, he is actually fucking me when I ask when he’ll see her again. This is not as stupid a question as you might think, given that they live in different states, she has a full-time not-traveling job and he is not due back in her state for quite some time.

She’s coming to see him in three weeks.

He blathers on about how she’s not up for a relationship, he natters about how they’re both only into this part time thing, he whinges about how it’s not a big deal but it would be rude to back out now, and I’m weeping in the shower, washing him off me, packing my things, blind with pain and fury and the realization that men are utterly, utterly stupid. Then I put my contacts in.

A brief note to my Male Gentle Readers: GIRLS WHO TRAVEL TO ANOTHER STATE TO SEE YOU ARE INTERESTED IN MORE THAN A QUICK FUCK. No matter how “busy” or “not into commitment” she is, no matter how many “other people she’s seeing” or “doesn’t have time to see,” NO GIRL NEEDS TO LEAVE HER CITY, LET ALONE HER STATE, FOR A QUICK FUCK. Your friendship isn’t that good. If she doesn’t have another reason to be there (and “my girlfriend was coming up anyway to see her boyfriend in your city” sure doesn’t count – who the hell wants to be a third wheel on a fuck trip?), this is not a no-strings-attached fun time. They may not be the strings you’re expecting to dodge, but trust me, they’re there.

I round up my things in the hotel room, I can’t bear to have him touch me. He says, “I’m terrified that I’m going to lose you.” I say, “you already are.”

Somehow, we achieve détente. And I arrive at a solution. We will break up. I’m not sure if it will be only nominal, if the convention will be enough to relieve the sick, burning jealousy in my stomach, but I have to do something. I will see him one more time this month, and then we’re done. If we want to get back together after he sees her, perhaps. But I can’t be his if he’s with someone else. And the thing I value most about Lover is being utterly, completely his.

A brief note on hypocrites. I AM ONE. I’d like to be able to fuck whomever I like and have them only fuck me.

Breaking up seems, thus far, to be working. I don’t think about Lover fucking the Hershey’s Kiss. In fact, I don’t think about him much at all. I’m certain this is a compartment of some kind, but really, I’m a bit busy for pain right now. And hey, if subpar chocolate is worth using up the calories you’d spend on the good stuff, well, at least it was easy, cheap and available when you needed it.

I gave him the necklace. I told him I hoped it would be something he’d like wearing, and that he could never wear it around Husband.

(“It was worth, at most, five hundred francs…”)

Second Date (still secret)

Mexican food. Good Mexican food, served by actual Mexicans in a strip mall outside Southern City. Secret Scientist comes last, someone’s showoff car had to be pulled from the ditch (to the delight of all his friends). I’ve saved the seat by me, Power Girl and our colleague Picky-Picky across the table, warm chips, medium salsa, guacamole so good I scrape the bowl with my finger and for once, I’m not the only one.

Secret Scientist sits in the inside seat, there are rabid fans on the patio, he’d rather not be accosted, some days being a musician sucks. We’re girls, we’re used to freezing out people we don’t want to talk to.

Amazing food, his hand on my thigh, my hand on his under the table. I catch the waiter by the bar, pay cash for the meal, it’s Picky-Picky’s birthday, Secret Scientist has bought a couple of times already, Power Girl can leave the tip. Deep-fried cheesecake split four ways, just a few bites is enough.

“Secret Scientist’s going to drive me home, I’ll see you there.” Bless Power Girl, she understands, often more than I expect or deserve.

He cleans out the front seat of the pickup, the drive for home is not long enough. The chat is wide-ranging but also constrained. I look. “What?”

“Ummmm…I don’t mean to offend you, but I have to ask…is this because you’re curious?”

Bi-curious? Curious about his cock? Huh? Oh….that’s right. All at once, Circus Guy is on my pussy, his eyes closed, Big City Lover swivels inside me, my father opens the door to Andre, looks him up and down, “Couldn’t you find anyone from our side of town?”

I say, “I’ve had black lovers before.” He’s relieved and ashamed, I let him off the hook – “We don’t know each other that well. It’s a fair question.” Because that’s the deal when you’re a slut – it’s not fair to be offended by the need to know, to confirm details that would come out over time. Ready to fuck, ready to forgive.

At the place I’m staying, we sit in the drive, the night is warm and slightly humid, still grey with dusk at 9pm. The truck might have been a stick, or maybe there was a big console, I don’t remember, I only remember that reaching across to touch had to be a choice, no accidental brushing was plausible. It’s been a long time since I’ve sat in the passenger seat and stretched out goodbye.

We talk about when we’ll see each other again, tours of duty intersecting, how far we’ll go when the time comes that we can be alone, strange city, a bed. We talk about race. We talk about things we like, I tell him I’m in love with my husband, I tell him I’m a whore.

Here’s what I like. I like that a man who specializes in a field that requires him to be very aware of all the dangers of sex with strangers would like to fuck me anyway. I like that a man who has a girlfriend (she’s hot, and she can probably kick my ass) thinks he would be jealous of my quarry when he sees me hunting.

The truck gets humid. I crack a window. The CD plays like a soundtrack to the moment of making him touch me. Or rather, touch me more.

I double dog dare you, I say, and there is his hand sliding up my thigh, I’m damp with sweat and anticipation, his fingers slide inside me and I make a noise under his mouth. I suck his fingers, sliding my tongue around the base of his nails, taking his fingers into my mouth, into my throat. He kisses me again, his tongue probing my mouth and with a rush I realize he’s tasting for my taste. It is sublime to be this wanted.

I look at him and laugh. “What satisfaction canst thou have tonight?” the quote itself a tiny betrayal of the man to whom I quote that play, and then I slide out of the truck, still laughing.

He waits, sweetly, comfortingly, until the door is opened to me, as if a bad high school date is wiped from history, replaced by something sweet and clean and still weeks from the sell-by date.