Ah, the Mac

Still behind. Still trying to catch up. Not helped by the computer change-over. Thank you all for the wise advice. I have to say, the shopping experience was less than thrilling - I got a lot of "Mac is so great/easy/fantastic/drink this Kool-Aid!" and not a lot of what I needed to know to need to run this sucker.

I feel a bit lied to, because the thing I perceive Apple touting all over their ads (and the thing I hear from my Mac-cult friends) is "It comes with everything you need! No more pesky shopping for software! No more uploading!"

Well...it comes with a lot of bright shiny toys. And if I want to build a website for my cat, or start a band in my garage, I'm set. But as far as the programs I actually need to use to do my business on a daily basis - word-processing that can pick up all my documents from Word, spreadsheets and so on...those have to be bought separately. Just like PC. And let's not get started on the 600 emails I need to rescue from Outlook Express...

At least I've managed to open up my documents, so I'm hoping to get you back to your regularly scheduled blog sometime tonight.

(If right click isn't important, why is there anything at all that can be right-clicked to? If right click is dumb, make another way to do everything! If you need right click, support it with a button! Auuughh!)

The only thing keeping me from chucking it out the window is that I may yet return it.

Strikeout

This is the end of the story: I walk back to the hotel alone, the snow now a fine, driving crystalline miasma that pierces through my jeans, my leggings, hunches me down to the narrow vision of the sidewalk of the next six feet, the hurried glance at the crossing signal, the white man still flashing go-go-go as I cautiously run the last fifty yards, all grace gone in the effort to achieve, at least, the door.

***

Kieran is the most enthusiastic dancer in the room. His hands on my waist, on my ass, draw me into the leg-straddling grind that passes for dancing these days (old enough to say “these days,” old enough to not recognize most of the songs) but also twirl me in and out of his arms, speak to me with his fingers that sing along, mouthing money and booty and all my ho’s as well as I love you and you’re so fucking beautiful you’re so hot. He buys me a ginger ale, he asks me repeatedly if I’m a cop, because I don’t drink. He’s a Native, I am the only light-skinned, thin-featured, light-haired person in the room of “you wanna see some wagonburners?” asked the Iranian doorman as he ushered me past frisking and metal detectors and a $25 cover. Turns out it’s the after-party for the Pow-Wow Gathering, everyone here played lacrosse all day, shook their tailfeathers on the stadium floor, shared stories and beading techniques while I drove through snow to get to the Big City, checked in, went out, passing the first two clubs (long, huddled lines of thick coats over bare legs, the last smoke in line before getting in), thankful the hotel is only two blocks away. I followed the Power Girl list, I crunched and pushed up to all of Behind The Music: America’s Next Top Model until I glowed, I showered, I changed pants three times and settled on jeans, I bought my own first ginger ale, and I am going to get laid.

Kieran takes a break, joins his friends, dances with other girls, dances with me again after I dance alone and with another man, an ironworker who abandons me when it turns out I don’t smoke anything, either. I am beautiful tonight, I am wearing my favorite top (turns out there’s a hook that keeps it closed in front, didn’t find that out until I got back to the hotel), I have good hair, I am made up the right amount, and according to Kieran I am fucking sexy. If nothing else, I will have had two hours of cardio, interrupted only by a wait in the bathroom to take off the leggings beneath my jeans, I am finally warm enough.

We talk, as much as one can in a club. He says, You are so beautiful. I thank him. He says, Where are you staying? I tell him my hotel. I tell him, You should come home with me. He says, I would never let a girl like you slip through my fingers. He asks when I want to leave. Maybe half an hour? I say. He asks what I do. I tell him he won’t believe me, but he touches my arms, my waist, my thighs with both his hands, and believes me. Kieran kisses me, and his lips are as strong and soft as his hands on me, I cannot wait to have him in me and on me and under me, and then he asks,

How come a girl like you is single?

And that’s the part of the story where no matter how literary I can be with telling what may not have happened but is the truth, no matter how I can bend the world with words, fingerpaint the pretty picture from the primary details, I cannot fail to tell the fact.

I’m married. I’m in an open relationship.

And Kieran, who describes himself as a bad, bad boy, who claims to do bad things, turns out to have a strong moral conviction that it’s wrong to mess with another man’s wife.

********

The next morning, I lie in bed, waking after four hours of fitful sleep, waking again and again to check the clock, the phone, the clock again, make sure I have not missed the call from Fucked-Up Guy, my early breakfast date. Last night we would have met, but when you have custody, you’re subject to the vagaries of your sixteen-year-old sitter’s social life. After two weeks of Facebook poking and subtle messaging (does the girlfriend still have the passwords or doesn’t she?) we have finally made a date, which he breaks without calling.

The ex is still the last man I fucked. This is not OK.

This is not OK.

This is not OK.

Sweet. And Uncomplicated. And Pirates.

Sweet and uncomplicated. That’s all I need. No owning, no taking, no teasing, no hurting. Just sweet. And uncomplicated.

I go to a party. Flat-iron my hair, new black top in which my breasts look smashing (thanks again, Be-My-Real-Friend), the one pair of jeans I own ($10, resale store, Yonge Street, 10 years ago), black spike heel boots, pretty bra and panties just in case. Power Girl is my wingman. She will keep me from choices of desperation. I have consulted her, I have consulted Beautiful Girl, what I need is “something sweet and uncomplicated” (and oh god the terror, what I need is a man who will not want to touch me there, so that I do not have to text or worse call Lover and ask, may I? because the answer may be no, or worse, yes, or worst, it’s not my decision to make).

It is a pirate party.

There are skulls and glow necklaces and black flags and hats with plumes and for some reason, plastic Viking hats. There is a pirate trivia contest and games involving whoever has an animal on their drink bottle or is holding a face card or is wearing something red. There is, of course, booty. And an hors d’ouevres table with grown-up pate and salmon mousse and tiny circles of ham with Dijon and my favorite, devilled eggs. It is dork-tastic. Geek-a-licious. Spectacu-nerd. And it is sweet and uncomplicated. The hostess is incredibly nice. The host is an ex-lover (and then I walked away from the club where we all shot pool and you had to walk the other way with your friends who didn’t know and I ended up on my knees for the man now hosting, in the alcove of a public building, within sight of the window where Husband awaited my return and never looked out, and oh how you held my throat with your hands while I told you how I spent that time kneeling). I tell the host that, were it not for his obviously happy relationship, I would be making a play, and he concurs. Sweet and uncomplicated.

I talk to an engineer. I make him tell Power Girl the story of the iron ring that engineers wear, made first from the Twin Rivers Bridge and then from the Mauritania and now from stainless steel, the ring that rubs against the paper on the working hand and reminds them all that human lives depend on doing the job well. The engineer is cute, talkative, nervously dorky, fun. Sweet. Uncomplicated. While he talks I scan the room, Attached, Attached, NotGoingToBeGame, NotMyType, Attached, AlrightGoodEnough is standing in front of me finishing the story of the ring.

I don’t win the trivia contest. But Good Enough and I flirt throughout, sharing answers (I’m still competitive enough to start hiding my paper when the questions get tougher), moving towards and away. I catch him eyeing my cleavage, and I stand too close to write my name on my quiz paper while holding it against his chest. He plops a plastic Viking helmet on my head and I warble a few bars of "spear and magic helmet!". I'm pretty sure that counts as a pass.

At midnight, lasagna comes out, and there is a renewed rush to the buffet. I talk to a girl who lost her beloved pet rat. She has a tattoo of the rat, she was born in the year of the rat, twelve years before me. I don’t have the heart to tell her that as a February baby, she was probably born in the previous (Chinese) year, rather than the one she thinks. Later I’ll look it up for my own curiosity, and in the meantime, she is happy. I drift by Power Girl, who is trapped between two Francophones who haven’t showered. She gives me the eye, I give her the eyebrow, she gives me the shrug, might as well, nothing better and he’s clean and cute and a not-stupid. Good Enough turns into a pumpkin, and when he hugs me goodbye, I whisper in his ear, “any chance of a shag?” He asks me to call him next time I’m in town. I know it’s over, but I give him my card anyway.

When Power Girl and I head downstairs, he is waiting in the lobby. I know he is waiting for me, so we drive him home. Two streetwalkers cross in front of the car, and I observe that this part of town is full-service girls, short skirts and no tights. The ones further down are head and handjobs, and they wear leggings and high boots. Good Enough says he doesn’t connect with it, and I ask, paying or selling? Neither. He has friends who are “polyamorous,” and he doesn’t think he’d ever be able to do that, either. I feel Power Girl’s psychic signals in my head: don’t tell don’t tell and are you really sure you want to do this babe in the woods? She's pled sick, we drop her at the hotel, I already know it’s not going to happen, that the level of honest I have to be I can’t not be will cause him to run screaming, possibly literally, now I’m only deciding whether to bother enlarging his world.

I stop at his corner, he tells me he’d like to get to know me better, he’s ruined two relationships in a row by moving too fast. I think:

I cost $1500 and you could have had me for free.

There are a dozen people at least who’d love to see my face, let alone fuck me.

I can give pleasure like you wouldn’t believe possible, even without the extra whore/porn touches I often throw in.

He says: “Thanks for the ride.”

I say:

“I’m married.

I’m polyamorous, though I hate that word and wouldn’t choose it.

There’s a reason for the “one” in “one-night-stand.”

You’re welcome. Sleep well.”

Le Roi Est Mort

Last night:

"Sorry, I’m just tired."

"You know, it wouldn’t be a big deal except that for nearly four years, ‘never too tired, middle of the night, God I didn’t think I had it in me,’ has been perhaps the defining characteristic of our relationship."

This morning:

"I love you so much."

"If that was enough, I wouldn’t be sleeping around on my husband."

The only question remaining is what, if anything, will arise from the ashes.

Today I Am...

1) Crushing hard on a Kiwi who plays the ukelele.

2) Bitter that I'm not better at my job.

3) In another time zone.

4) Out of love.

5) Totally thwarted in #1.

6) Wearing a totally ridiculous outfit...

7) ...that I am paid to wear.

8) (Not like that)

9) Alternately loving and hating my hair.

10) On the edge of tears.

11) Behind on a big project.

12) Transported by said Kiwi playing "Sweet Child Of Mine" on said ukelele

13) (Including the guitar riff)

14) to another girl.

15) (Context is important)

16) Contemplating starting a Facebook.

17) Definitely out of love

18) and calling on Beautiful Girl

19) to help me stick to #17.

20) Because if he puts his hand on the back of my neck, it's all over.

21) Craving Thai salad rolls

22) which will be made for me by a tiny Laotian woman

23) whom I think understands how much I love them.

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.

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…”)

AUUUGGGHH!

I plan a non-whore-related meeting and a get-to-know-you dinner with Ramen guy around a meeting with Circus Guy.

Circus Guy cancels, via email, last night.

So I move my real-life meeting and my dinner.

I call Circus Guy just to say hey and to try to get a reschedule. Evidently, talking to me gets him fired up again, and the meeting is back on. I reschedule everything else, find a hotel, and am headed that way.

BUT, after I knew I wouldn't be fucking, I had a junk food splurge and am now burping half a bag of chips and some onion-cayenne-dill dip.

Let's hope I don't fart my way through the evening...

I'll keep you posted.

Hit Me With Your Best Shot

I had meals out with three men yesterday. Two of them picked up the check. The third one I slept with. What's wrong with this picture?



First meeting - Client for lunch. He wears a blue sweater that brings out his eyes, he's sweet and a little nervous and laughs at my jokes. I eat half a salad (fortunately, as it turns out) and we plan a hot-tub appointment for next week. Later that day, he sends me an email-

Subject line: WOW
That about says it all, wow...

Hey thanks for lunch. It was an absolute pleasure meeting you. The only downside is that now I have to wait until Tuesday to see you again. Well at least that allows the anticipation to build. As I hugged you goodbye, I could only imagine the sensation of holding you close, lightly kissing and caressing your neck, you turning your head and the first kiss....

Okay so I'm not a writer, but you get my drift.

Slightly cheesy in phrasing, yes. But the man is a FINANCIAL PLANNER. He made some EFFORT writing that. He risked making a fool of himself because I talked about being a writer and he thought words would please me, and he tried to do something I would like.

Second meeting - at the Shooting Range. Client, a self-described 'Geezer', reminds me of my Grampa before he got a little angry with dementia. He's got that spry, chipper, wry sense of humor, where he says outrageous things just to see what I'll do. We suit up with safety glasses and special earmuffs that electronically muffle noise when shots happen but let us hear each other's voices the rest of the time. Geezer teaches me how to load, aim and fire a .22, a .38 and a Glock 9mm. I am most accurate with the 38, but darn pleased that in fact I hit the main part of the target most of the time. At the end of our shooting session, he shows me what appears to be a fanny pack but is actually a quick-draw holster for a small handgun. I find it suddenly terrifying that people with permits can walk around wearing something like this.

Geezer then wants to take me to dinner - it's only 4:30, and my first thought is, well it is Early Bird Special time and he's probably AARP as well as NRA...he tells me about his foster kids (!?!), we eat 2-for-1 steak dinners and I am impressed that he tips the waitress $10 on a $22 check. He wants to take me snowmobiling and book me for a weekend.

Third meeting - I go see Big City Lover, complete with hour drive to his hotel from where I am, which is already an hour from home. We go get food - he needs it, I have soup and another half a salad - and I'm dreading the arrival of the check. See, BCL and I have had a couple of conversations about his position on chivalry, which is officially 'men and women should both be nice to each other', but which seems to translate as not holding doors or coats or picking up checks. Not that he doesn't do these things at all, but that he doesn't do them consistently one way or the other.

When the check arrives at Meals #1 and 2, both Clients not-so-subtly lunge for it, their body language indicating that the waitress has made a crucial tactical error by setting the folder squarely in the Gender-Neutral location on the table. With BCL, however, the check sits there, mocking me for driving, for the intention of head. But eventually, I reach over and say, "Well, I think it works out about the same, shall we just go halves?"



I hate going Dutch. I hate it with the burning heat of a thousand suns. I would rather pick up the check myself than work out who had the second glass of wine and did it cost more than half a shared dessert. With Husband, I usually carry the (joint) cash, he gets doors and coats. Lover feels strongly enough about 'man pays' that the last time I went to see him he put gas in my car. (When he was married, we went halves by me booking the hotel in advance while he paid for meals and on-the-spot expenses. Now, when I occasionally demur at a dinner or treat, he reminds me I am less expensive than was the marital mortgage.)

Here is the thing. I understand if the existing societal conventions, so useful to most men in providing simple, easily recognizable signals that say "I Value You," are not BCL's cup of tea. But I don't find that he's replaced those conventions with any other method of telling me that I'm worth more than as a non-complicated romp. After many years of Good Sport Sex, I have finally met a string of guys (personally and professionally) who treat me like my pussy is the Publisher's Clearinghouse Prize, and they are willing to subscribe to Sewing Circle, Cooking Lite and Teen Vogue to increase their chances of winning. It does not sit well with me to be with the guy who gives his kid the stickers and tosses the entry form saying, "Nobody ever wins that shit anyway."

Back at the hotel, we check our respective emails, he admires my bra (whore-wear), and we get into bed. For a while, we gently touch. His eyes are closed, and I think, ok, maybe we'll just go to sleep. I roll into his body and his hand wraps around my pussy like lightning. I watch his hand in my panties as an observer. The fingering starts to turn me on, and I roll over, kneel between his legs and suck. His eyes are still closed. His cock is very smooth, the head very dark. I straddle him, pull my panties (also whore-wear) aside, and lick my fingers to help him in. I had forgotten why I fuck him, and the answer suddenly comes back - the way he moves his hips, an incredible circular motion that fills me and rubs me and hurts just enough. He comes. I come. We stay there until I need to turn the heat down in the room, and when I go to the thermostat his come slides out of me, pools in my panties. I debate mailing them to Lover but think it will probably take too long, the smell will be gone.

We sleep. In the morning, he gets up earliest, sends email, gets dressed. He leaves a little before I do, for the job that brought him to town. I miss the part about being held as I wake up.



In the car today, after meeting yet another client, I finally get the balls to call BCL and tell him that I need to know he values me. Somehow, the conversation ends up with him sounding perfectly reasonable and me feeling whiny.

But I'm home tonight...

Sure, Yeah, I Own This Body...Don't I?

Big City Lover is in town. He has fetched up about 90 minutes distant, in for a week while Husband is gone (pure coincidence). He would like me to come and see him.

If I see him, we will probably fuck.

I we fuck, I will have to tell him I am a whore. BCL and I generally have condom-less sex, he knows I have another lover with whom I also have condom-less sex (they have met, warily) and occasional lovers with whom I have covered-sex and I have promised to tell BCL if that situation ever changes. You see, BCL has a child. So it is not just his own well-being at stake, but also that of a charming young lady only recently un-grounded for her forbidden forays into Myspace.

I don't want to fuck. I especially don't want to drive 90 minutes in sleet, arrive after dinner-time having bolted something in the car, show up at his hotel room, and fuck. Or worse yet, have a scene about me being a whore, supportive or otherwise.

I agonize about this. He is in town all week, I do want to see him but I don't want to fuck him - he unintentionally burned me rather badly regarding a place to stay the last time I was in Big City. And I'm sort of 'off' him, having burned him right back by not turning up the next arranged time to see him. And I don't want to do it without at least dinner and chat. And, and, and.

What is the problem here? Why do I not feel I have the right to say, "by the way, I'm happy to spend time with you but I'm not up for sex tonight/this week/ever"? Why do I feel - as I have felt my whole life - that if you show up, you fuck? Why do I feel like I am being a Bad Sport if I don't want to put out? That I have some how assumed the obligation to provide Premium Access to any man who provides me with more than one dinner, access that cannot be revoked for Any Damn Reason I Want?

During high school, I had more Good Sport Sex than sex I wanted to have. And half the sex I wanted to have was really just I'd Like To Be Held Sex. But now I'm an adult. I've learned how to come, pretty much on my own demand, I have negotiated with myself and my husband and my lover to get to the relationships I feel comfortable with, I have gone down some amazing pathways (more next week! stay tuned!) to the sex that blows my mind and makes me feel adored, worshipped, blessed. In my 'real' life, I'm known as a shark negotiator you don't want to mess with, a girl whose Super Power is "No-One Says No." I've even set up a little business providing Premium Access.

So I summon up all my will and courage, call BCL, tell him I've been in a minor car accident and reschedule for tomorrow.

I am woman, hear me roar.

The Two-Client Day

What do you call a black pirate?
A pirate, you f-in racist!

So when I started, I thought, I will never see more than one client in a day. Ever. I'll just feel like a whore, and not in the good way.

Drove over to a major city to see a client - it's been a booked appointment for about three weeks. I've had numerous phone calls with the client, he found out my real name and what I do (I foolishly made one phone call on my regular phone, before I got the prepaid working) and while it was at first a freak-out, it has been a relief to have real conversations and not lying conversations. I know his real name, he uses his business email, I'd seen a pic, etc.

We chat pleasantly over salad and coffee at the local TGI McGillicuddy's Good Time Emporium (slooooow service) and head back to the hotel. I like my room, fluffy duvet, nice sheets, finally a place that understands that in a room for two people, those people may want more than one slender towel apiece.

When we step in the door, he puts on the chain lock, shuts the drapes, drops the money in front of me as I'm putting on music and is all over me. DFK apparently means "shove your tongue down her throat" and all I can really do is keep my mouth open and go with it. I feel like I am a lousy kisser, since anything I attempt ends up being contrary to his thrusting pattern. But I like him and he's smart and nice, and I've driven all the way over here, and we've had good conversations.

He takes off my clothes and sets on my pussy like a starving man. Will someone please notify mankind - and I don't mean that in the 'including womankind' sense - that while there are some girls who get off on having several fingers thrust hard inside them while you go down on them, you may want to start gently until you know her? And get a damn nail file? (Later, there is blood on the sheets). Why don't I say anything about this at the time?

He urges me verbally to come. It's so clear that he is not even paying attention to what might make me come that I just fake it.

Yet I am still reasonably enjoying being here. We trade and he comes in my hand during oral. A brief rest and he's good to go again. Condom on, cowgirl, mish, cowgirl, mish, they always love putting my feet by my ears and he comes again. Resting and chat. More mish - he may have come again here - then on to standing up against the wall and finally more oral for him. I'm kneeling, so I duck my head and spit into my own lap while he's still breathing hard. During all this, I come twice. It's interesting to have gone from being the girl who could never come (25ish partners in the first 5 years before I got a lover who cared enough to take the time and I could help him figure it out)to being in the place of, ok, I'm in the right position and we're rubbing the right things, it'll be less frustrating to come than not to.

He's decided I'm one of his all-time-favorites. I think he's ok, though he has shed quite a bit of bodily hair in my sheets.

So...after an hour of lunch, two and a half hours of private time, and coming a minimum of three times, he gives me my basic fee, no tip, and I have to remind him about reimbursing me for the hotel. !!??!!

This is not his fault. I need to change my price list. The answer to the question, do you think people will take advantage of me if it's a one-price-however-much-time situation? is YES. And it's not even taking advantage, because I set the deal. My level of resentment clearly indicates a change must be made. So now I am calling appointments 90 minutes flat. Still more than most SP's, not so much that I'll feel used.

After he leaves, I pour coffee into the bed and call the maid for new sheets.

I decide I must do something about this level of resentment unfairly directed at Client #1. My pussy is sore as hell - I tend to be fairly tight, and the client has done rather a lot of hard thrusting. But I weigh the possibility of money against pain and money wins.

So I set up a coffee with Client #2, with whom I've exchanged emails. I don't actually know if we will do anything, but at least I can maximize my time here in the city. I go get dinner and get ignored by the waiter, as often happens for a single diner. While eating, I read the paper and find out that a touring Cirque knock-off is in town, so I figure if the coffee is short tonight I'll go, or perhaps tomorrow to the matinee.

Client comes to the TGI McGillicuddys, which is jammed,no hope of sitting any time soon and as he walks in the door, sparkly eyes and shy smile, mischief rises in me and I say, "Let's go to the circus."

I tell him we can go Dutch, since I have sprung this on him, but he's a good sport and gets both tickets. We watch the show, I tell him my real name, I tell him what I really do, and I happily bitch about the quality of the acts and the lame between-act choreography, and point out the really hard tricks (I'm a big circus fan). He's sweet, he's a gentleman, and having taught two daughters to drive, he says "OK, get over to the left lane--when it's safe". He tells me he wants to see one lady on a regular basis. I ask him why he doesn't get a girlfriend. Oh. He's married. Oops.

At the circus, I say to him, "OK, it will sound like a line, but I do find you genuinely attractive and I'm really enjoying being with you." He thanks me. I say "Since I know that sounds like a line, I'll also tell you this, at the risk of sounding like a racist instead of a liar - one of the things I find really attractive about you is that you are mixed-race, and that's a big turn on for me."

I tell him he's off the hook if he wants to go home afterwards - I've had a great time, and he has, too. He opts for the hotel. We look at pictures from my last trip. We have long, slow oral in both directions - he has the right mix of firm and gentle and I tell him that while I almost never come from oral, he makes me feel like it's a possibilty. There is a lot of touching and kissing and stroking - he has great hands. He stops himself from coming several times, and I tell him, "you get more than one shot." He says, "I only have one shot in me tonight." Eventually, I ease him into me - his cock is huge, long and thickening towards the base - and he comes immediately. For which he apologizes. I don't say it, but my sore, sore pussy is relieved.

We stay there talking for a long time - I tell him about Amsterdam and the red light district, he tells me about his daughters. He says I remind him of his mother, but it is not nearly as creepy as you might think, given that is cock is in me at that point.

He, also, gives me the minimum, plus $5, more a function of not having change than a tip. But I do not resent him his six hours (three private) because I have had a nice time, and there was a real connection beyond, OK, you're reasonably interesting. I am ok sleeping in sheets we've been in. I even debate not bothering to take a shower, though the shower wins.

The thing is, I have this naive, romantic idea of the sacred whore. The idea that sex can be a healing, nurturing thing that can deepen a person's self-awareness and change how they look at themself. I've been with people in my personal life where there was great joy and great love, even though we were not in love. Sometimes I never saw them again. Sometimes I have stayed connected to them as friends or lovers.

Seeing my second client was joyful and fun and spontaneous and romantic and exciting. I felt cared for, and I cared for him. The money was nice - I wouldn't have driven over here without some money - but had the evening ended at the circus, had I paid my own ticket, I still would have had a lovely time, and I think he would have, too. My job in his life, should he see me again, is to help him have a good time and feel like someone adores being with him and wants him. And I can't do that unless I really feel it, so I'm glad I do. No, it's not as intense or as deep as being with someone I've picked out myself, or with Lover or Husband, but it is really there.

Diary of a Likely Call Girl

In the UK, Belle de Jour’s book is “the Intimate Adventures of a London Call Girl.” In the US, Puritan-founded nation we, it’s “The Diary of an Unlikely Call Girl.” I read it, and found myself thinking, ok, active and varied sex life, time as an exotic dancer, broke and in the big city, this is ‘unlikely’ how?

I suppose for the average white-bread book shopper, being white, middle class, educated, not addicted to any drugs and not burned with a curling iron as a child qualifies as unlikely to enter a sex-based trade.

I’m white. Middle class. I have a BA and an MFA, one from an excellent school and one from a state school that was convenient and close. My parents live in a nice house, and I live in as nice a house as my parents (an amazing realization when it hit, btw). I don’t do any drugs – I’ve never done any drugs. I’ve never smoked a cigarette except for that two weeks in 9th grade when I really wanted Cindy to like me and even then I couldn’t figure out how to inhale. I don’t even drink (alcoholism on both sides of the family, plus I dislike the taste, plus I was so unpopular in high school that learning to choke down beer wasn’t going to help). My parents were not abusive, though they demanded high standards (“6A’s and a B? Why did you get a B?) and there was rather a lot of teenage rebellion on my part.

But…

Age 6? 7? 8? I surprised a man later arrested for pedophilia (Disney World babysitter, no less) by kissing back and asking for more kisses.

I actively – as actively as a thirteen-year-old can – let a friend of a family friend seduce me into a handjob with some mouth in the car on the way home from a canoeing trip.

When I did something to the car – can’t recall if it was a ticket or a mashed bumper – in 11th grade, possibly 10th, probably 10th, and my parents told me I couldn’t drive again until it was paid for, I called up an older friend (30’s at least, or prematurely all grey) and told him that I would have sex with him for $100. I remember coming out of the bathroom in his apartment having changed into a red silk shortie slip and high heels, nervous and shaking, I remember having missionary sex on the pallet bed in the corner of his unfurnished apartment, I remember another night he drove me 5 hours to my first rock concert, I was supposed to be spending the night at Becky’s and instead I slept the whole way back on the floor of the white van…



I started exotic dancing as a senior in high school. I was not popular. No-one openly admitted it if they thought I was pretty. I left school at 2:30 and worked the 3-10 shift (a shift I made up myself, always the creative worker) and danced in a teddy stolen from my mom’s drawer while guys told me how beautiful I was. One day my English teacher gave me a lift to work.

Dancing turned out to be a good way to make money between high school and college, and between college and more college. Long after I stopped, I still kept my thigh-high boots, combination lock and pasties in a box, only a few years ago admitting that I was now too old, it wasn’t a back-up job any more.

I read Mayflower Madam and was impressed by Sydney Biddle Barrows’ desire to run an escort agency as well as any business could be run. I read Belle de Jour and was not impressed by the lack of literary climax in her book, but noticed that she was certainly popular.

And I started thinking – could I make money as a dominatrix? Well, probably, I play that role well, but there’s not much market for it where I live, and it looks awfully complicated to set up a dungeon and build a clientele, let alone acquire all those props and costumes.

So this is what’s left.

I’ve been blessed with muscular intimate parts, a decent body and the ability to playact. I have a husband who pretty much loves me no matter what I do, though I’m sure not telling about this one, and a lover who knows all about it but also knows it doesn’t count, unlike the men I personally fuck to turn him on. I have a Safety Friend.

And right now I am fending off 30 private messages on one board and 10 on another, hearing that someone’s saying something bad about me in a secret area of a board (I can’t think why), and stressing about turnaround times on emails so I won’t give lousy customer service or alienate a potential client. I’ve always said, I’m never going to work less hard at anything I do, so I might as well work for myself. I can’t give less than a good job.

I think it’s going to kill me.

Slogging Onward

Have sent off two more emails - both responded later that night - seems so far that almost everyone gets back to me on round one, but not sure what's happening in round two, after I respond. I've sent pics to two. Sent a price to two. Am trying to follow a plan of "let's meet for coffee first and then see ifyou want to go further" but perhaps this is just letting them chicken out?

I don't feel very professional. I feel a little desparate.

I'm tempted to put up an ad - so far the Craigslist in my (small) town has erotic services for only one girl, who posts repeatedly. Still, I think there's something to be said for an initial screening process.