Officially, Intermittent

I did *try* to write every day. And mostly, I did actually write at least something. And then was felled at the knees by lack of internet, lack of privacy, and much mental time occupied by being The Boss.

So yeah. This is now an intermittent blog. I can't keep letting you down, Gentle Readers, by saying I'm going to do something and then not doing it. So when I do, I'll make it as good as I can. And I'll also not kill myself by saying, oh, don't post that until it's perfect, because that way inaction lies.

Where am I now? In a secret location (let's note that it's a major honeymoon destination), shacked up with the Ex. I know. Dumb, dumb Mandy. So far there's only been minor shortness of breath. And really, who knows? The part of me that says, hmmmm, you're* kind of self-involved and a little bit boring and really, the sex had been going downhill, is strongly considering making this a last hurrah. The part of me that thinks, hey, never know when you'll be hit by a bus, would rather not end without closure. I'm working on having Part A strangle Part B but then the thought of choking just turns me on.

Where will I be Thursday? Possibly in a Midwestern City with Big City Lover. We're texting it out.

Where will I be the first weekend in June? With Fucked-Up Guy, plotting and planning to give my team-members and his fiancee the slip so we can shag intensely and silently in shared lodging.

Where will I be all year? Why, on the road, of course. That big beautiful pond full of fish, maybe one of whom will touch the thing in me that needs it beyond my control...

* * *

Quote of the week: "I never learned in health class that wiping front to back thing, and that's why I got a gall bladder infection that almost killed me..."

Words to live by.

* * *

*note intentionally ambiguous pronoun

Day Eleven: Motorcycles

(Because tonight I rode in a tank top and jeans in a no-helmet state, legs wrapped around the driver (no pegs), arms wrapped around him, speaking softly into each other’s ears. Harley Nightster. I want one.)



* * *

Last year. My ex-student comes to visit, his Harley still not paid off, the loan from his ex-girlfriend one last tendril in his new relationship. He takes me for a ride around town. I lean into him, young, handsome, talented, totally fucked-up, and wish I was younger and the kind of girl he likes. A minivan pulls in as the left lane ends and he politely drops back.

“You could have made it,” I say into his ear.

“If I didn’t have you I would have.”

“Don’t stop on my account.”

* * *

Two years ago. Bike rally, Fourth of July. Kentucky. Three other girls and I watch fireworks and lounge on a riverbank. After the finale, we want to ride. Two of us have never been on a motorcycle before. "Come on," I say, and we head through the parking lot full of black and silver and red and yellow and every tattoo-like tank-paint job imaginable. I see a group of men. “There’s four of you and four of us,” I say to one. Wanna give us a ride?” We figure they’ll spin us around the block, nice to meet you, have a nice night. But fifty yards out of the lot My God I’m in fake pleather pants, not even vinyl, Power Girl’s in a halter top, two girls in skirts they pull left instead of right, onto the highway, into the fog. Fireworks are still distant in the hills, other towns not finished “GoAmerica!” yet. None of us have helmets. The bikes rocket up to 90, 95, 110, 135, I stop looking.

I realize, this could be it. One pothole, one bad bump, one careless motorist, we will all die. We don’t know these men, they might take us to their secret gang hideaway…does anyone have a secret gang hideaway any more? If one of us got separated, we’d have no way to find them…

Halfway, we pull into a Conoco to fill up, get Power Girl a pair of sunglasses. I ask my new friend, “So, how do you all know each other?”

“We don’t. This is th’ first time we rode together.”

“But I thought you guys were together! You said, yeah, we could all ride with you all!”

“Well, I didn’t figure they’d say no.”

* * *

Fifteen years ago.

My boyfriend Doug, chosen largely because he looked like my brother, takes me home from seeing the director's cut of Blade Runner. Lakeshore Drive, Chicago, and we rocket down the eight lanes by the water, the light on his jacket, my miniskirt, very MTV. Hair in the wind. Sunglasses at night. Doug deals with a traffic slowdown by striking up the middle of the lanes, and the cop who pulls us over is so disgusted he stomps up, huffs out, “If you want to kill her you should put her in front of the bike,” and stomps back without writing the ticket we richly deserve.

Later that week, I am in the parking lot of a grocery store, buying what I buy every week in college – cheap steak, eggs, potatoes, macaroni, canned tomatoes, broccoli, oatmeal, raisins, half and half, exactly twenty dollars every time. I set the bags in the back seat of my hatchback and watch a beautiful motorcycle cruise the parking lot – it’s the first time I’ve ever seen a reproduction vintage Harley, brand new and antique, everything shiny and silver and art deco turquoise.

“You want a ride?”

I do very much want a ride and since I am 19 and away from home and getting more reckless by the day, I hop on. It is wildly different from Doug’s tiny, shaky Kawasaki. This is like riding a bus, so stable and solid. The rider is an elementary school janitor, he has saved for twenty years to buy this bike, this machine, this moment of “wanna ride?” and the 19-year-old blonde with the nice tits says yes.

* * *
Twenty years ago.

I leave school, cut third period gym, walk down the road across the interstate where it becomes not a nice part of town (I am just now remembering this, this started as a story about motorcycles and joy and risk and wind and maybe a meaningful moment about the janitor) and hitch the four miles to my boyfriend’s house. I am fifteen. He is twenty-eight. I think that this makes me very, very cool. He lives with his mother, he has a six-inch scar from heart surgery as a child. We fuck on his bedroom floor. He is my third partner, he is “friends” with my second partner, but not friends enough not to go after his girlfriend. I make tickmarks by their names in my pink address book, once-twice-thrice-more. He takes me back to school in time for fifth period after lunch, English, which I never miss. People know I cut, but they do not know why. They know I am the girl who answers too many questions with too many words in class, the girl whose parents won’t let her get contacts, the girl we call names and put things in her locker and shove in the halls when teachers aren’t watching. They do not know about my cool grown-up boyfriend and my cool sex life and what I do when I am supposed to be showering with everyone else because I am sick of getting marked down for not showering, not being able to show a wet towel.

* * *

Yesterday.

“Want a motorcycle?” asks Power Girl.

“Ummmm…maybe?” because I already know this is a Candy Mountain moment, and I will be grumpy Charlie while Power Girl fills my world with magical wonder.

“Lie down on your back on the floor!” and everyone gets giggly, I can tell we have all had motorcycles, and yes, I should have a motorcycle, it will be good for morale, whatever it is.

She grabs my ankles, puts her foot in my crotch and jerks my legs up and down while going, “Vroom! Vroom!”

I laugh. Everyone laughs. The Boss played, and everything is OK. And The Boss plays as hard as she can, hoping the outside and the inside come closer.

Day Three: Postscript

We sleep back to back, pressed tightly against each other. 5AM and lobby call for us both.

Folk Rocker goes to the door, still damp, still wrapped in a towel, and peeks out to see if there’s anyone in the hall. Clear, and I step past him, one more kiss and water drops in my eyelashes. I head down the hall towards the elevator, and as I lean in to press the button, I hear “psst!” He leans into the hall, blows me a kiss, and I smile all the way through the lobby and the cold to my car.

Day Two: Little Postcards

(Finally)

Also, there is a paragraph in here that has previously been posted, but this story is where it belongs. Indulge me.

* * *

I go to a big city and meet Folk Rocker. It’s been a year. We have exchanged photos and flirty emails, texted occasionally, finally we end up in the same city at the same time again, both for our respective jobs, though I am fudging, my job is technically over, I have other reasons to want to be here.

I pick him up at his hotel, the lobby sleek with stripes and overstuffed chairs, the breakfast room at one side. We both need the same bank, we plan to “hang out” at my hotel. He has been so equivocating in email, so sometimes taken aback by me, that I am treading carefully. I have no plans.

The phone rings, I always take Husband’s calls. I drive and chat, Husband’s ill, I suggest a cup of tea, a hot shower, I tell him it will be alright. I worry that I sound like I’m speaking to a child, that I’m being rude to my passenger and rude to my husband, having a private chat and trying to wrap it up reasonably quickly at the same time, worried that I sound like a mom. Soothing is done and I press the button. As I fold my phone, Folk Rocker says, “I’d give anything to hear my wife speak to me like that, so tenderly.”

I can’t imagine any other way.

* * *

My favorite hotel in Big City, a suite, brand new, lucked out on Hotwire. He pulls my suitcase while I check in, we go to the room, explore the possibility of room service. He draws me to the bed, we make out a little, his mouth large and open over mine. He’s nervous, he’s not comfortable with cheating, I am happy with anything, I am happy with nothing. I have no expectations. I have surprised myself that after a long hunt, I am honestly, truly, delighted just to spend time, I have no desire to push him or nudge him or draw him into one single step that betrays himself. He is over me and under me, gentle, sweet, hesitant, and in my head I write off sex and content myself with a cuddle, just as he puts his left hand on my wrist and presses it over head and his right hand on my throat begins to squeeze. And then I have been rolled over without knowing how I got here other than the heavy fingers in my hair, and he is behind me and above me, his mouth on the back of my neck and his hand coming around to my breast.

* * *

I am learning a new language.

It takes him awhile to get hard, which I prefer. I am used to younger men, I am used to older men popping pills, taking my sore pussy a second time, a third, ready to go again right after the bang. This fortnight I have been with four men and each time there was a moment where they slowed. I am puzzled, and then Folk Rocker says, “don’t want to come yet, feels so good…” and it all falls into place.

* * *

I suck his cock, bent over him, kneeling beside his hip, mouth warm and wet, him warm and smooth and slick on my tongue, the head his penis velvet-textured like the skin of a blueberry, the little drag of skin on taste buds every time. His hand reaches, holds back the curtain of my hair. I put my hand on his, gently, it’s ok to pull a little and he takes the cue, tightens his fingers on the back of my neck (so primal, so hindbrain) and pushes until I gag. I come up for air –

“I’m surprised. I didn’t think you’d like it rough.”

“I like it all ways. You seem like you’d like it rough.”

“Yes.”

And then his hands are on my shoulders, pushing me on my back, prising my legs open and his cock thrusts into me hard, catching a little at the entrance of my pussy, that first thrust that speaks of virginity every time.

* * *

He’s fucking me from behind, first standing while I’m on the bed, then kneeling between my calves. I hear a noise, I feel a sensation and realize he just spit on me. Spit. On my ass. Holy shit, this man watches too much porn…no, wait, it was actually…kind of nice. Close. Like the time I took Lover into the bathroom, took his hand and held it against my pussy while I peed, so very intimate…

* * *

His room, past midnight (I agonized a little over whether to come at all this late), he’s packing for the next leg of his journey. I curl on the bed, watching him pack, watching his rituals so like and unlike mine, so hard to feel at home on the road unless you fight for it to an absurd degree, I have pictures of my cats and Husband, a light blanket that feels the same on every bed.

“I want to hear you sing “I’m On Fire” sometime.” He already does a little Springsteen occasionally.

As he picks up things from the desk, the bedside table, the coffee table, lays out tomorrow’s shoes, pants, he sings it softly, his voice husky with late and drink and the show:

Hey little girl is your daddy home
Did he go away and leave you all alone

And right now there is no place better in the world than being up too late, listening to this song, listening to this man.

Day One: Aftercare

There is the blank page.

There is the empty notebook, the block of time constantly rescheduled, filled in, replanned. No time to write, so busy! So busy…

I have been having a writing holiday. Taking four weeks to travel, restore my spirit, see the world with new eyes –

(that’s a lie)

Not much has happened around here, the sex has been marital, the adventures limited –

(liar)

I haven’t written because I have been focusing on my marriage, on my husband, exploring Amsterdam, Paris, my sacred city Bruges, reveling in the Northern European cold, the white and startling snow that followed us from city to city, “I don’t know whether to say Merry Christmas or Happy Easter” from our tiny gay host—

(also a lie. Fact, but a lie.)

I’m debating whether to continue whoring. Continue sleeping around. Continue blogging. Continue writing—

(closer)

I am afraid. For the first time in my life, I am afraid to write, afraid of what will come out – this from someone who used Columbine as material, triumph coming at last from the memories of the days when I would have done the same. I cannot eat, it is dangerous to open my mouth. Telling the first word means telling them all; I don’t know if I can stop. The poison dissolves me from the inside, wracking my guts, destroying my sleep, calling me to the Dread, the lure of the medicine cabinet, the icy road, the rope, the knife, the gun.

There is something in BDSM called aftercare. It’s when the parties involved calm down, come back to “normal”, release each other from their roles. Mostly, it’s the dominant partner bringing the submissive partner back to a place of equality and comfort, soothing their wounds, their ruffled spirit, their mind.

Ex-Lover used to be very good at this. “Good girl,” he’d say, and I felt approved, that my efforts to please him, to scream when he wanted, to fight against screaming when he wanted, were well-received, pleased him as much as they took me down the dark hallway of terror and release. For four years, he cut me open and sewed me up, told me when to do the job myself, put me back together. Not just with my clothes off, but in my head, my daily life, tormentor and refuge, hell and hope. I fucked no one else without stepping outside my body, recording the scene for him. Lately for you, too, Gentle Reader.

I debate for three and a half weeks whether to see him in Europe as we planned. There is the pleasure of making Cute Girl uncomfortable, the worry on what the time together will be like, the sense that this is senseless, there is no friendship to be had, no going back. Finally, I weep with my best friend in her foreign city, I weep with Beautiful Girl via Skype, and I change one plane ticket. I will go only to the city that finishes my trip, wait in the airport, get the next flight home I can. I tell this to Ex-Lover, first via text, then phone to be polite.

He meets me in the city, taking a train some six hours to be there. We share a room, a bed, a walk through a street festival, oranges, chocolate lemon rind, meals he orders in the language I do not speak. We sleep on separate sides, we dress in the bathroom. We see the church. We decide to go to another city, where we meant to spend time. And there we take long walks, hold hands, share candlelit dinners, look at views, have conversations. Everything is as it always was, except we do not fuck. Or kiss. And in the night he says to me, “roll over and I’ll hold you,” like he always did. He wraps his arms around me, so tightly one of us is drowning, one of us cannot breathe. Three nights next to each other, three days side by side.

And still, there is his girlfriend nervously texting, trashing my company (for which she works) on her not-so-private-as-she-thinks blog, snarking at me in email for business decisions I made after weeping and then clear-eyed asking my partner to choose, to be even-handed, to be fair fair fair enough to cut off my own finger lest she think I’m pointing at her.

And still, there is everything there always was. Right down to

I love you.

I love you, too.

And in the night his hand reaches across my body, he mumbles in his sleep,

mine.

His hand on mine, my hand on his cock,

yours.

We ride together on the train, he sees me to the bus. I lose my head, I’m nervous, I say, still yours, just a little bit. Still mine, just a little bit.

He turns three times as he walks away.

I am happy. I think I am happy. And then there is the long ride over the ocean and I pour out into emails what I do not even know is in me, I realize I am shaking in the corner, raw and beaten and the man who is excellent at making the hot girl writhe beneath his hand has no time for the bloody creature at his feet, there are new games to play, a fluffy new puppy to pat and love, and I watch everything that should have been mine (all anger comes from should thoughts), everything I need to come down, unspool, release, be let go, let out, told that was enough, that was good, it’s time to go now, watch it all be given away.

I am waiting to come down. I am waiting to be released. It’s not enough to walk away, to be my friend, to plan things that feel like dates and thread me on. I have spent four years learning to stay wired until he fades the dimmer and it is not enough to simply flip the switch.

He texts:

I feel like once you’re serious about another lover things will be easier with us…I keep hoping for simple solutions to complex problems, and that one would require nothing from my lazy ass

I can’t come without weeping. I can’t touch anyone else without remembering his hand on me, starting the recorder in my head. I don’t see another serious lover in this picture.

He is not worth it, and I know this. Beautiful Girl knows this. My best friend knows this. He knows this. I start a phone call, “Maybe we shouldn’t be friends any more.” The call finishes with plans reaffirmed, plans to talk again soon, a request for my schedule to make that happen.

So I will write. I will hide the limp and swallow back the poison and open up the vein to dip the pen. I will write for you, Gentle Reader, and for me. There are things in the notebook waiting to be shaped, notes from time with Be-My-Real-Friend and Secret Scientist and Folk Rocker and Big City Lover and Zurich. Some of them are lovely, full of drippy porn and happy laughing faces.

Thirty days. Every day. An obligation to you and myself.

And then - ?

Perhaps I will be done with him.

Perhaps I will be done with me.

Journals

Next week, I go to Amsterdam. It's to be a long-delayed honeymoon for Husband and I, his first time to Europe, my eighth? Ninth? And as per usual, I dig through old notebooks, smiling at who I was, rewriting the note that begins them all:

Remember, you were afraid and lonely when starting the trip. It's OK to be that way. It will pass.

The former me is very reassuring to the present me.

I make lists of things to see, my favorite cheese shop, a store with hats, the photography museum. I contemplate whether this year will be the time I try space cake, visit the live sex show, consume substances more altering than ice cream, though even Euro convenience store ice cream gives most drugs a run for their money.

I turn the page, and there is the first night I spent with Guitarist, who lately sends me emails with photographs of his cock, messages no less sexy for their simplicity and bad phonetic porn spelling, and codes to good software for the mac (it's like I've joined a cult - when do I get the sneakers?). I wrote:

Changed in the bath - earlier, in the lobby, "I hope you don't think - I'm not getting fresh or whatever." Asking me about my deal [with Husband]. "You're a very adventurous person." And later, "Let's get adventurous." Jewish men are the best lovers, the first time I came [age 19, partner number 37], no wonder they're God's chosen people [thank you Wex]. Kissed hungrily. "I love how responsive you are." Pinched my nipples. So sensitive in his nipples that he gasped. Turning me over, taking my pants off on all fours, thrusting his fingers inside me, still tender from ex-Lover's hand days earlier. Rolled me over, went down on me, very good. Went and smoked in the bathroom, brushed his teeth, came back and it burned my pussy, so intense, I could have come but I think I didn't want to. He finger fucked me again, very good. "I really like my hands, I'm proud of my hands and forearms, I think they're my best feature." I sucked his fingers, took them into my throat, he was excited by that. Went down on him, told him he could come (in my mouth) if he wanted to. "Yeah? In your mouth?" He stood by the bed, I knelt, he asked me to look up at him, open my mouth, he slid on my tongue and came over my face, in my mouth, rubbed it on my face. "That's so hot. That was so hot." In the morning, we made out, I gave him more head (last night, I worked my way down his body, kissing his side, under his arms, put my fingers in his ass, sucked his balls), he came in my mouth, holding my head down to take it. It was amazing. He walked me to my car, I said, despite my being an inherently slutty person, I really like you. You're the only person I've slept with in Europe. He said the same. It was nice. He was nice. I say nice too much.

What I remember most is the look on ex-Lover's face when he read it, later, in another city, in another country, another place. For years after, I could make him harden by opening my mouth, rubbing his cock on my tongue, and looking up.

Bits and Pieces

Gentle Readers - I am so darn cold...I'm in a geographical location right now that just involves being cold all the time, and it's sapping my will to live. I swear I'm trying to write, but between the cold and the cold and the worrying about gaining weight and the cold and the working 15 hours a day and the being around other people and the cold, it's been challenging. Until such time as I pop out something better, I hope you will enjoy this. Just keep hitting "random"...

* * *

...I'm working with a member of a local team who is 100% Survivor Called, They Want Their Fan Back. He has long straight hair with poufy bangs, tight jeans, and wears a lot of vests. He has become less openly skeeve-y since the last time I worked with him, now appearing merely socially inept and wanting to play a flirting game he hasn't properly learned rather than oozing slime over every woman he meets. As I think this, while executing some work tasks with him, my hand brushes his and I realize, shit. If I was sixteen/fifteen/fourteen, I would have dated you. And not the you at that age, the you now. We'd have made out in your backseat, you'd have picked me up on your motorcycle when I cut Gym, it would have been you coming over when I was babysitting, asking if you could "just see if it fits." Sobering...

* * *

...due to some wacky phone zone issues, I'm not able to call ex-Lover. And work has been busy enough to keep me from texting much, or emailing at all. Which is a lie. If I wanted to badly enough, I'd make it happen, just like always, slide into the bathroom, the closet, get five minutes alone however I could. But there's a new stage happening, sliding up on me like a Prague pickpocket. The footsteps get closer, closer, why doesn't this guy pass me? The sidewalk's plenty - oh! and then I check my bag, change purse, postcards, pens, notebook, camera, what's missing is trust.

Ungentle Thoughts

(Should they happen by, I hope that each of the three men I was with this week will assume this bit happened to one of the others…)

I’m fantasizing before I come. I often do, calling up the faceless strangers who watch me on the stage, the pool table, the bar, in the back alley. And in the crowd of eager hands, eager mouths, suddenly there is Lover’s face. I change venues, now it’s a club, I’m in another ring of grasping fingers, the collar around my neck. Follow the leash to the hand that holds, the arm rising to a familiar shoulder, Lover’s face again. Change. The hand that holds the bottle, his again. Change. The hand across my face, across my ass, twined in my hair, the voice in my ear, low, murmuring, come now, come for me, and I do.

Zurich (again)

(there would be photos, except that there is mac.)

I take a plane to Midwestern City, a place of ice and ugliness, where I am going to see Zurich. Lately he has been unusually unguarded. I find myself hoping, hoping that we will connect, that he will say he likes me, that I will feel worthwhile. He is handsome, and when he wishes to be, charming. He looks like Michael Keaton. I want to curl into his arms, I want him curled into mine, I want to touch his skin, and see him breathe more slowly. I want, I want, I want most of all to be what he wants.

He is finishing some work when I arrive, surrounded by people who adore him, are impressed by him. I watch him work, watch him reassure, lead, goad, coax. I am silly, I am proud to leave with him, leaving the girl who wants to walk with him behind. The cold makes us both gasp, his car follows mine, we run to the door of the hotel.

“You know, you could have parked farther.” He’s deadpan as always.

“I didn’t think you could run it.” Two can play bitter and acerbic.

We walk in, Hotwire has graced me with a four-star glass tower, the last time I was here was with Ex-Lover, not the best surprise but at least I know my way.

“This is way nicer than anywhere I would have taken you.” He’s right, but in fairness, the last two beds we shared were booked by his clients. Elevators whoosh us softly to the twelfth floor. Going down the hall, he texts his wife.

“How are things going?” I ask.

“We’re allowing each other space. Mostly by not talking to each other.”

The room is well-lit and warm. He starts the shower while I call Husband, check in, share the day. I get in the shower and Zurich’s touch surprises me, I am always slightly astonished when he reaches out, volunteers anything. His hands soap my back, the curve of my neck, my ass. He kisses me, the water on my back, his tongue in my mouth. His skin is soft, his hands callused, I love his hands.

We go to bed, good sheets, good mattress, Zurich flips channels, “Should we fuck to Home Shopping or Crossfire?” then turns it off. We kiss for a long time, his mouth gentle on my face, my ears, the side of my neck. He moves down my body, licks my nipples, takes them in his mouth, pinches with his fingers don’t worry it can never be hard enough runs his hands along the sides of my body, kisses the inside of my thighs where they meet my body, moves his mouth over my pussy, his tongue wide and soft. He’s good, he’s always good, but it’s so hard to come this way without feeling I’m asking for too much, taking too long. I pull his head up, he kisses up my body, I sometimes wonder if men do this to take away the taste, but I like tasting me on you. I roll him over and take his cock in my mouth, so sweet and hard. Suck him, lick him up and down until he laughs, “Sex, please!” Roll on the condom (always a little sad, but he has more to fear from me than I do from him) and slide on, his cock rising into me, filling me, hurting just a little as it connects with my cervix. I come almost immediately, the velvet of his skin against my breasts, my thighs, my belly as I lean in. Shaking, crying a little, release is still immense in my heart, in my head, almost more so than my body. He sits up, gathers me into his lap, I fold my legs around his back and we rock eye to eye, pelvis to pelvis, his favorite position. Roll over for mish, he tucks my legs over his shoulders, thrusts into me, I can’t remember how he came, what it was like, the look on his face, just that I was still trying not to cry, to make a scene.

He gets up to toss the condom, comes back and lunges for his underwear, he can’t stand to be naked in front of anyone else. I tear them away from his hands, “No! I like you naked!” He dives for them, we wrestle, I pull away and hide them in the bathroom. In the night, he finds them when he gets up to pee, puts them on, holds me in his arms.

I mumble in my sleep, “wake me before 7 and I’ll kick your ass.”

He waits until 7:15.

(Laughing)

So I have another pseudo-deep whiny-whiny post already written, and it will eventually see the light of day.

But not yet.

I am lounging in the syrup of once again being with someone where I replay what happened in my head in the car, the next day, as I fall asleep, it distracts me from eating, I pause with food on my fork and get temporarily lost in the warm glow of memory all the more precious for being fleeting, tenuous, likely to be recaptured eventually from mutual desire, but unlikely from circumstance.

Notes were taken, porn will be written - but I beg your indulgence for a few hours, while this swirl of sensations and skin-tingling memory settles into transcription. You'll excuse me if I am disinclined to reach that point...

Text Interlude

I have just finished 28 days of fairly vigorous work without a day off, (highlights included 78 children, David Duke, two oyster bars, the Lincoln Monument and believers speaking in tongues, not all at the same time) and skipped out on my plane ticket for the sake of warm weather for a few more days...I'm getting caught up, including here. Thank you for your patience.

***

I text: Flying into Midwestern City, where shall we meet?

He texts: Meet you Wed night in Hometown.

I text: Spend the night or just hang out?

He texts: Spend night

I text: OK. I have a conspicuous car. Any chance of a city further from home? Makes me jumpy.

He texts: Lol. You pick.

I text three more times trying to figure out where is good, and then: It s like planning the invasion of Normandy.

He texts: You make plans as you need. I be when/where you need me.

I text: You re the best :) How can I ever repay you...?

He texts: Tee hee hee

Yum.

Yum, yum, yum.

Fragments

This is when I think of him:

When I brush my teeth
Eating an avocado
In the cities of New York, C_____, N______, Chicago, Louisville and Ann Arbor
In the state of Mississippi
At rest areas
In sex shops
While driving long distances
While shaving my ass
While brushing my hair
While toweling off after a shower
As I wake up
As I go to sleep

***

Looking across the table at Beautiful Girl and Zurich, her skin so smooth and soft, his eyes so blue, her laugh so lovely, his face so open and unguarded (rare). I sniff the beers they try, none of them suit me, Miss Half-OJ-Half-Ginger-Ale-Please. I will see him soon, outside of her company. I will see her soon, outside of his company. I will see later but still soon my best friend, a continent away. My best friend has also recently broken up, finished by her get-over-the-previous-bad-relationship-boy, finished the contents of her liquor cabinet and the contents of her medicine cabinet in one go, not enough to do the job. I call her, I tell her, wait for me. We’ll bring boltcutters and jump from Hornsey Lane Bridge together, the city spread out before us. I am only half joking, only half cheering her up. That’s the half that would never choose plummet-to-a-sharp-stop as the means. Nor guns, gas, water, automobile. Not sure enough, too messy, too protracted, can’t stand not being able to breathe. (Might as well live, right DP?)

I’ve never been drunk.

I’ve never been high.

What I am is addicted to drama. Addicted to mattering, meaning, having the cock that tells me so.

Maybe coke would be less draining. Probably more expensive. Maybe not.


***

I am in the company of others 24 hours a day, and have been since New Year’s. Down side: hard to carve out time to write, to connect with lovers, to think, to be all moody. Up side: hard to carve out time to be all moody. Hard to inconvenience others with feelings, tamp them down, bottle them up.

I am sharing a bed with Beautiful Girl – in the night, I lie with my head next to hers, smelling the scent of her face cream. I am too tired, too tiny, too alone to wrap my body around hers, throw my arm over her shoulders, place my hand on her belly. But even so, her smile is the first thing I see in the morning. I head for [the workplace] with a carload of people, we go inside, we work together in a way that makes me remember how I love my work. Power Girl is there beside me, and Beautiful Girl, and Secret Scientist and Hairline Boy, and all of us are focused, intent, something larger than us is happening, something larger than can happen alone.

We share dinner together, passing back and forth to the salad bar, we cluster by the restrooms chatting in little groups. Zurich is heading out to meet a friend in the city, he hugs me, he leans in and whispers, “I’m not shooting myself in the foot am I? I’m not missing out on you-me time?” No, I tell him, this time, no time alone. Next week? Midwestern City? We make tentative plans.

I am ridiculously pleased.

Fourth Base

The apartment is cold, I cradle the coffee cup in my hands, my girly mix of half milk and lots of sugar coursing through me while we make small talk about our job. He’s funny, he’s honest, he doesn’t have a deal with his on-again girlfriend and he makes sure I know that.

I like knowing where I stand.

And where I stand right now is on the brink. The Dread’s been coursing through me for some days now, I step to the edge of the dock and step back, step to the edge of the icy water and let it lap my toes. This is what I need.

He says, “So I was hoping maybe we could hook up.”

I say, “That’s why I’m here.”

“Come over here.”

I cross to the other couch, he kisses me, first with the firmness of a confident often-lover (though he’s not, this is the first time he hasn’t fucked it up, if he was more than ten minutes off the highway I’d have thought twice) then wrapping his arms around me and placing my body under him on the couch, kissing my face, my neck, my hair, sometimes my mouth, I use my hands in his hair and he groans and sweeps me up, standing, carrying me to the bedroom, so tall and strong and fit that for once I don’t care how much I weigh in his arms.

The bed is made. Points, I think, and then I’m on my back and he’s on me like a wolf, his hands on my neck, my back, my breasts, under my shirt, my shirt is off and his mouth is on my nipples, sucking hard, biting softly, his other hand squeezing not too hard and then he’s reaching for my zipper. Jeans off, he pauses for a moment to admire my panties (yes, chosen). “Nice,” and then they’re off and his mouth is on my pussy, his fingers fucking me hard in a way that walks up to the edge of pain and observes there, though he’s not trying to hurt me, not like…

And then his fingers are in my ass and this accelerates oral to a whole new place, a place where if I wasn’t shy with new people, wasn’t worried about taking too long, I could come. I nearly do. I can’t ask for more, I’m not in that place, and this is so overwhelming my senses almost shut down. He comes back to kiss me and that taste is me on his lips, so familiar and yet so foreign on a different mouth. His fingers are in me again and if this keeps up the pain will be the wrong pain, the wrong person, so I push him back and take off his shirt, take down his pants, and good grief, new record, his cock nearly as thick as my wrist rising from clean shaven skin, sweet-smelling, sweet-tasting, and I suck him with all my desire to please him. Tongue around the head, wet mouth around him, draw him into my mouth, my throat, only able to go halfway before I gag, draw back, force down again. He’s loud, he likes it, I slide one hand up and down his cock, gently pinch his scrotum, press into his perineum with the other. He pulls me off, rolls me over, slides into me I brought condoms, I’d really prefer… and fucks me hard, the feeling is not pain but intensity so hard tears well up, coming from release of tension, release of waiting, release of The Dread. His sweat drips onto my breasts, I’m loud, he’s loud, high and low-pitched grunts and moans, I can’t tell whose voice.

I roll him over and slow down a little, rubbing my clit on his body in the way that makes me come, knowing I have to come, and when I do – the slow build, the burning in my thighs, the burning in my belly, the burn that starts in the center and spreads out, pushing back for that little pain, forward for the drag of pleasure, back for stretching and spreading around his cock, forward to release a little, catching like a rachet, never slipping back completely – the tears flow down my face, I come hard, opening and burning, shaking and weeping.

He is not freaked out by this. Or at least does not tell me if he is.

We roll over again, back to mish, he pulls my legs over his shoulders and starts to fuck me so hard I know I can only take it for a little while, he’s too big for this to be easy. He comes in me, almost as loud as me, and we roll over and laugh, lie together, warm enough.

He says, “Your body is so young. So smooth and white. I feel like a teenager again.” I’m pleased to be thin and pale, pleased to not worry about a flattering angle when I get up and walk to the bathroom and back. I pinch his nipples, suck on one, move down to his cock and start again, feeling him harden in my mouth. He takes me from behind, first on hands and knees and then pushing me down into the pillows, my legs together, thrusting into me so hard my body checks out to observe for a moment, noting how intense this is, and yet it does not right now register as pain. He pulls out, he’s soft, it’s been awhile for him, too. He’s rueful, wants to fuck me with his fingers, but I’m fine, this is enough. We lie on the bed and tell each other one-liners. We talk about doing this again sometime. The phone rings, his son’s Christmas pageant starts in a few minutes, and I need to get back on the road. We shower. We dress. I am sore, I am content, I am Dread-free for a little while.

Home run, no. But a respectable fourth base.

Betrayal

Cartoon from Gaping Void.

You know a guy likes you when he also sends flowers to the three other girls in your working social group so no-one will notice that he likes you…or at least, that’s how things work in Lying Cheating Slut – I mean “Open Relationship” Land. Deutschefuck. Yemeneverywhere. Ivory and Lots of Other Colors Coast. Secret Scientist tells me later that he felt his original impulse to send me flowers would be noticed. I did, in fact, notice the subterfuge, and was stroked that he effectively bought me some damn expensive roses.

It’s the last night he’s along on our sort-of-tour, and for the past three nights I’ve been sleeping in his bed, nothing dirty or even naughty, no touching of bits, waking to his gentle hands smoothing my hair away from my face, sneaking back to my own room past The Gossip’s room between us. The lack of solid sleep – every rollover is a new surprise, there’s a man next to me? where am I? I didn’t pick these awful sheets did I? – is a trade off. Back on the other side of the hall, the spider crack in the ceiling mocks me until exhaustion claims me as a bedfellow, sleep mask tight across my eyes to keep from waking at first light, generally unsuccessfully. At least in bed with Secret Scientist, I can sleep by two, wake at six, and avoid both calling ex-Lover and agonizing over whether to call him.

Group dinner tonight, a nice local place, local specialties, local waitress waiting past kitchen close and waiting again as we sort out a seven hundred dollar check between three cashes and five cards. Sometimes sharing a table with rock stars is more trouble than the comps are worth. We go home. We narrowly evade a game of Never-Have-I-Ever that starts with “Never have I ever had a (slang for member of my work team) in my bed,” and go for a walk on the shore. A pang – ex-Lover’s probably doing the same five hundred miles away, bet he’s not alone either. Another pang – I’m still in my best suede boots and I’m not sure wet sand is doing them any good.

Secret Scientist tells me how he ended up here, the journey from a European sport to sociological research to music. (No, Tom, he does not play the guitar. It’s a bass.) We admire the moon on the water, we comment on the stars and light pollution and projects our respective teams should work on together. And then we go home.

I’ve told him I want to feel his skin on mine, no tshirt and shorts between us. When I come to his room (my roommate finally snoring) his dark skin glows in the low light, the curve of his ass into the lines of his thighs a sculpture for my patronage. I have condoms in my pillowcase. He comes to me and gently takes off my shirt, drawing it over my head, kissing my bare breasts. His hands on my back pull me towards his mouth, warm and wet, his lips firm on my nipples. He slides his fingers into my waistband, taking down the thin jersey of my jammie pants, and as I step out of them, he gathers me in his arms, sets me on the bed. It’s cold, and that focuses my attention on his mouth on my pussy, his tongue broad and flat and taking me back to a moment in line at the theatre bar I want to lick your pussy until you scream…. He must remember, too, and his hand slides up my body to cover my mouth. There is wet and heat and soft tongue pushing slightly too far while my body catches up and my brain checks out. I don’t come, I rarely come from oral, but I come damn close, mouth open under his hand, the taste of his fingers in my mouth.

I pull his face to mine and lick his mouth, tasting myself and him on his lips, sucking me off his tongue. He kneels close to my side and I see his cock in the dim light, thick and black and long enough that at dinner one of my workmates looked down at his jeans with no underwear and said half-shocked-half-amazed, “Well! There it is!” I cannot take him fully in my mouth, I lick and suck the head, no taste but clean skin and salty arousal. I wrap my hand around the base and urge him further into my mouth, pulsing my tongue along the bottom, feeling him lean into me, his cock in my throat, gagging me as he gently thrusts. “Sorry, carried away,” he says into my ear, and I take him from my lips long enough to tell him, “Fuck my mouth.”

My hands cup his ass as he leans over me, twisting his hips as he slides in and out, over my tongue, back in my throat, me sucking as best I can while he takes my mouth. He pulls my hair harder than he means but not as hard as I like, pulls me off him so as not to come yet. There’s more he wants, more I want. I roll the condom on him, it’s from my whorebag, I’m thankful to always buy extra-large, the clients like it. He’s over me and though I seldom come from mish, I want this, I want to look into his eyes, watch his face watch mine as he slides in. He is the second-biggest cock I’ve ever felt, and when the head is in me it’s already pushing me apart. He gently swivels, opening me, making room for him, and with each turn he thrusts gently a little deeper, pain following pleasure following pain following pleasure, and when he’s nearly halfway in I grab his hips and thrust onto him, feeling his skin catch mine on the way in, feeling the rawness of having come, having closed up again, the delicious forcing of the gates. The size of him pushes against my cervix I’ll be bruised there tomorrow, but right now that tiny trigger of pain is enough to bring me to the edge again. I am open and raw and needy and vulnerable and it is easy for him, even unknowing, to touch the right place to make it happen, hard and often.

He slides in and out, we watch each other’s eyes, I recall holding off on missionary with ex-Lover, too intimate, too personal, wait and see. But now that part of me has been split open and I think, once a cheater always a cheater, how’s this for cheating now? Each time he thrusts I feel my cervix yield, my insides lengthen to hold him, push my clit against his body until I have to hold him to me, circle on him, rub and rub and rub until I come, the warmth rising through the little pain, my head arching back then forward to put my lips on his, murmuring into his mouth, so good, so very good..

He hasn’t come yet, and he eases out and rolls me over. I come halfway to my knees, lift my pussy for him, feel him part my flesh and bring his mouth to my rear end. He kisses me there, on each cheek, then brings his mouth to my ass. Panic shoots through me, this is cheating and then I think of what ex-Lover is probably doing now and still the urgent voice that tells me, “this isn’t yours to give.” It is now. Secret Scientist licks my ass, probes his tongue around and around and then inside, licks his own finger and presses gently. I press back, push, push out to let him in, feel the gentle suction draw his finger forward. A second finger slides into my pussy and there is that feeling of full, doubled, pinched, possessed. He takes the finger from my pussy and adds it to my ass, my own wetness easing him in. Do I want this? Perhaps, perhaps, and then the third finger slides into me and makes the answer yes.

Secret Scientist and I have talked about anal, he knows I love it, he knows it’s not been mine to give before. Maybe he also knows more than I do about what I need right now. This flashes through my brain and at the end of thought there is the tip of his cock against my pussy, pushing into me again as his fingers still stretch my ass. For a few thrusts, I am full to oblivion, unable to do anything more than try not to cry out, wake the house with this sharp joy. And then I’m empty, disappointment succeeded in an instant by the feeling of his cock gently set against my ass. I reach my hand back, pull my ass open for him. His hand on my wrist, he leans over my body and whispers in my ear, “Are you sure?” I do not say yes, I only push back on him, trying to make an involuntary muscle draw him in by choice. The tip passes into me, that first gasp of what am I doing? This doesn’t go here! and then he slides and swivels, slides and swivels and I am more full than I have ever felt, his cock so large inside me that all the pain is pushed away with pain and there is no room for ex-Lover in this inn. He can’t fuck me quickly here, there is barely enough room for him to be there at all, and I pull his hand to my head to push my face into the pillow so I do not scream. Six long slow thrusts, every one a sacrifice I never thought I’d make to another, and then I feel him shudder, silently, and the condom fills.

He pulls out, unwraps, and we lie together, his hand on my breast, his arm around me, his other shoulder under the pillow and under my neck in the way I always worry makes their arm fall asleep. He kisses my hair, my ear, my cheek, and I think about what we might have done, what I imagine we did instead of his voice in my ear, “I’m not ready.” Well, I am ready. Ready for his mouth on me, his hands on me, his cock in any part of me he wants to take. But he is right, that is wrong, and too big a burden for any man, even one whose lineage was bred to bear.

I call him the next week. “Thank you. I know it’s hard to turn down a naked girl. I wasn’t offended.”

“Yeah, I was hoping I wouldn’t upset you.”

“You were right. We’re not ready, and I wasn’t in a good place to make that choice. It was wonderful just sleeping naked together. Thank you for being my friend first.”

“I’m glad it’s ok.”

“We’ll get there someday.”

“Yes.”

Yes.



***
Photo from Hectik.com.

Art by Jenny Holzer

For four years he has been refuge and that is what I miss. Not the romance, not the two best dates ever (Bouley/Avenue Q was one), not the sex, the thrills, the submission, not the semi-lucid dream state fucking over the hotel bathroom counter in Columbus watching my own face and his over my shoulder in the mirror, kneeling in the doorway in Tampa while he fucks my mouth, curling in a dim dorm room at the scholarly conference with his fingers in my ass, calling him texting him later I’m still bleeding...but refuge.

I am Husband’s refuge, and now my own shelter is filled, rain running down my collar as I’m edged out by someone else cuter, smaller, the new baby the new kitten able by birth or design to be more helpless, more in need, a greater claim. If I turn there now, try to make a place a little further from the fire, it’s whining, crowding, no longer a safe place once they don’t love you any more. I wake in the night, I would call him, I would text him, but that’s her place now, be soothed by his sleepy voice in the dark.

Before dawn, earlier still for him in another time, I text: So difficult to know when to call and when not…you are still partly filed under ‘refuge’.

His reply: Have a safe flight!

By the time Do you need refuge? comes through, I have already observed the fasten seatbelts sign and all electronic devices are turned off and stowed. By the time I read it, I am again sane enough to call, in quick succession, Beautiful Girl, Secret Scientist, Be-My-Real-Friend (try replacing your habit with another, less harmful behavior). I have just enough brain, enough self-respect left to not text back, yes.

Cooking With Mandy: Get Your Ass In the Kitchen Slut and Spend Some Quality Time With Your Husband Pasta with Shrimp

I know, the name is cumbersome but I find it effective.

You need:

The Killers: Sam’s Town
Sweet onion the size of your fist or bigger
Box of baby or cut-up portobello mushrooms
Bag of baby spinach
Box of angel hair pasta (I like Barilla because the box is pretty)
Pint of whipping cream
Olive oil
1 pound of uncooked shrimp
A small block of really good Parmesan cheese, don’t skimp here!
Whatever leftover white wine is lying on the bottom shelf of your fridge since you only know one person who drinks white and they’re out of town and by the time you have another party it will be – does wine get stale?
Large pot
Large sauté pan with lid – not just a frying pan, because the deeper sides of a sauté pan will later be helpful
Sharp knife
Pasta drainer
Cheese grater
Slotted pasta scooping spoon
Sauté-ing implement of choice – I use whatever flattish utensil is in the big jar on the counter

Put on The Killers and wash your hands. I actually plugged my little ipod into the dock of one of those dock-your-ipod boomboxes and hit shuffle, but while I was peeling the shrimp, songs kept playing that reminded me of Lover (Vindicated, Suerte, Scusami, Jesus Christ why did we listen to so much music?) and it was a pain in the ass to keep washing my hands to press skip. So just go with The Killers. It’ll still remind me of Lover but you probably don’t have the same associations.

Fill the pot with water and put it on to boil.

Put the sauté pan on low heat and pour in a little olive oil.

Cut the onion in half and then cut it up in thin wedges. Break up the pieces and throw them into the sauté pan. Leave them alone and don’t stir – I’ll tell you when!

Start peeling the shrimp, unless you were smarter than me and bought them already peeled. Muse how there’s nothing like the texture of the female parts, except maybe a fresh fig, and that’s really more of a metaphor.

When the onion sounds “sizzle-y”, give it one quick stir, just to change sides.

Sing along to “When everybody else refrained, My Uncle Johnny did cocaine,” and speculate on whether it would in fact take away your pain, and if so, how much it would actually cost to stay high until the end of the month when maybe you wouldn’t care anymore. Imagine what you’d wear at Studio 54. It probably involves lamé.

Keep peeling shrimp. Call your significant other to help, which will be a lovely shared moment and get your mind off the cocaine. Imagine them at Studio 54, and do a little disco together in the kitchen. Then stir the onions again.

When the water boils, throw in the angel hair pasta and time it for one song or four minutes.

When the onions are brown around the edges, add the mushrooms, wait a minute, and stir.

Take the pasta out of the water with the pasta spoon and drop it into the drainer, leaving the pasta water in the pot. I know this sounds counter-intuitive, like not constantly checking Myspace to find out when you get moved out of the number one friend slot, but trust me, it will pay off with a similar lack of heartache. If you can manage it. Which I can with the pasta but the Myspace thing already stung me in the lip.

Add a little tiny bit of olive oil to the pasta and stir it around to keep it from getting sticky. Then add some hot water to the pasta water and put it back on the heat – voila! You’ve saved waiting for that sucker to boil from nothing again. Insert your choice of metaphor here.

Give the onions and mushrooms another stir, then add the whole bag of spinach on top. Pour in about a cup of wine and put the lid on the sauté pan.

Toss the shrimp into the boiling water for as long as it takes to pour something to drink and set the table for two.

Toss the pasta into the sauté pan and mix it all around. Drain the shrimp in the pasta drainer (you can dump the water this time).

Pour the whipping cream over the pasta-veg mix and salt and pepper to taste. Add the shrimp and ménage everything.

Dish out pasta. Top each serving with a generous grating of Parmesan. See if you can stay focused on the person you’re with for the duration of dinner. Bon attention!

Mandy's Mailbag

----------------- Original Message -----------------
From: ZurichDate: 02/11/2007

I've had a beer.

Im at [place I work].

Just saw your new photos and wonder what I DONT have to be invited along…

and I want to fuck you lots.

ok?

--Z


This one’s easy.


--------------------Reply------------------------------
From: Mandy
Date: 02/11/2007

I've had a Nyquil. It's numbing the pain.

I'm in [my town].

You weren't female or possessed of [unique skill]. But there will be good jobs coming up.

I'm in too much pain right now to return the last sentiment wholeheartedly, but trust me, it's in there somewhere. I'll check back in a couple of weeks...

Loved the last pic you sent!

Mandy

--- Original Message ---
From: Circus Guy
Date: 23/10/2007

Hello [Whorename]! How have you been. I haven't heard a peep from you in a long while. How's the [realjob] world?? Have you been in my area lately? Would be nice to see you again you don't have to put me down so. I haven't been doing much lately just working hard, i could really use a vacation. Send me a line or two from time to time and let me know if you are in my area so i can come and see ya.
Hope your well
Circus Guy


Ooooo! Subtext! My favorite! Let’s see…ummm…he wants to fuck me. Just a guess.


--------------------Reply------------------------------
From: Mandy
Date: 2/11/2007


Hi Circus Guy! Nice to hear from you :)

(clearly, my plan of ignoring your emails has only stirred your ardor)

I got to see the circus when I was in [City]

(WITH ANOTHER CLIENT WHO DOESN’T TRY TO MAKE ME FEEL GREEDY FOR EXPECTING MY AGREED-UPON FEE),

which was neat - they are a small, one-ring show, but very good. I have been gone for a few months and just got back - I'd love to see you sometime later in November maybe?

(Like if I happen to be passing through your city and have two hours to kill at my old rate?)

I'm not really doing a whole lot in that line anymore

(I don’t do hourly, but hey, neither do you, Mr. Overstay),

and what I am doing is on a bit of a different scale

(I cost five times as much as the price you bitched about),

but I'd love to see you at our previous arrangement if that is workable for you

(You will pay my full rate and you will pay the hotel, mofo).

Hope to see you sometime soon :)

(And teach you to distinguish between ‘your’ and ‘you’re’, after all, cunnilingus only gets a man so far in life!)

[Whorename]

-----------------------------------------

Meanwhile, Brit Boy has contacted me, out of the blue. We dated circa 3 B.H. (Before Husband), meeting in the passport line at the Hoek van Holland/Harwich Ferry, in the days when sleeping on the boat was better than paying a night’s lodging. Lounging uncomfortably in the reclining chairs in the sleeping room, he passed me a card, having written, come here and kiss me, Holly Golightly… I did… Now he’s agonizing about his latest affair, and thinks I’m the one to ask for advice:

…here's what you introduced me to (the non-rude stuff obviously): New York, Bagels with Cream cheese for breakfast, lapdancing (bit rude), guns in shops (your dad had one!), Janes Addiction, US Road Trips, sex in swimming pools (v rude - and slippery as I recall) and Lincoln Town Cars. And flower deliveries!

And total admiration for someone who just got on with things. Just like that. "Here's the problem; here's what I need to do; here's how I do it. Now. Done it!"

Prevarication [nickname only my father, brother and special lovers may use], still my middle name!

X Brit Boy

It’s a lot to live up to.



(Nyquil photo from Everything That Remains).

Zurich (now the words)

Zurich (now the words)

In the car, on the way to Decaying Midwestern City (aren’t they all?), I say, “It’s nice to get to know you better.” I have cancelled a business meeting that would require taking my own car for exactly that reason. He says, hand on the wheel, jeans, black t-shirt over the shape of his working arms, his chest that looks as though he makes his living in a way that muscles his chest (he does), “There are a lot of things I’m protective of.”

“There are banks in Zurich less protective than you,” I say, and smiling, move my hand above his knee.

Two years ago, we knew each other casually. He invited me to a private place at his work, kissed me, lay me down in a hot, dim space, pulled my soft shorts to one side and went down on me. He wasn’t dressed in a way I could return the favor. Later that night, I met him in his hotel room, breaking my not-in-my-hometown rule, the sex was fantastic, our manner to each other stiff, neither wanting to commit to the first “I like you” words, both wary of giving away too much to our new, meanly witty acquaintance.

What I remember: the room was a handicapped room. I had met Lover in the same room two weeks before, the vagaries of coincidence. Zurich fucked me for a long time, mish, cowgirl, from behind with his cock big enough that I cried out and pulled away, puzzling him when I asked for more. We sat in each other’s laps, face to face, inside and wrapped around each other, his favorite, intimate and apart at the same time.

Zurich sends me a Myspace survey, the e-equivalent of the note in sixth grade, Do you like me? Check YES or NO. I answer the questions, delighted that someone’s interested, filling in the cute, the silly, the sexy, the banal.

1) Your Name: Mandy

3) Single or Taken: N/A

4) Favorite Movie: Run Lola Run

6) Favorite Music: Crappy pop on the radio, stuff Power Girl plays in the car, Peggy Lee

7) What word or phrase would you say best describes you? Right now I'm really referencing "thou shalt not bind the mouths of the kine that tread the corn" a lot.

9) Rate yourself out of 10 as a person and explain why? 7. Smarter, prettier and more talented than average, but with a slight egotism, deceitfulness and selfishness problem.

11) Tell me one odd/interesting fact about you: Won fifth grade spelling bee. Has secret recipe for pork chops.

12) First impression of me? Asshole. But really attractive.

16) Would you feel comfortable sleeping next to me? You're a little warm, but overall, yes.

17) Would you let me bake you a pie? Strawberry-rhubarb, please.

19) If you had 1 day to spend with me before I died, what would you want to do? Practice [job-related skill] and fuck.

I Myspace him back. He answers as fast as I did.

1) Your Name: Zurich

3) Single or Taken: I am my own man

4) Favorite Movie: Robocop

6) What word or phrase would you say best describes you? Bitter acerbic wit

7) Tattoos and/or Piercings: none

8) Why did you add me? Trying to get my round 2 with Mandy

9) Rate yourself out of 10 as a person and explain why? I am a 6...I was much higher once...but I am not the man I used to be...

10) Tell me one memory we have shared together: Overly warm dark place... and I kissed you and gave you oral sex...and you said "thanks"... I thought that was cool.

12) First impression of me? In a hurry...trying to impress...think she might be attracted to me or very chatty...hard to tell.

14) If you didn't know me, & you saw me in the street - What would your first thought be?
Great smile.... even upsidedown

19) If you had 1 day to spend with me before I died, what would you want to do? Skip the [job-related skill] swim and fuck...

A few months ago, he catches me at a bad time. More recently, he stalks more cautiously, makes me feel wanted and not just demanded. We have a business reason to get together. Phone calls are brief and in company. I text him:

Sorry to be distracted, underslept. I’m genuinely looking forward to seeing you.

He texts back, me too possible naked time! and follows it up with that was supposed to be a question.

I watch him work. He is authoritative and solicitous, a good combination. We’re reserved, polite, professional.

Today, I turn up at his hotel, as invited. He greets me at the door in a shirt and towel. I step out of my shoes and his hands are on my back, his mouth on my mouth. A teen comedy plays on the TV, an idiot blonde drama queen wreaking havoc all around her while the men in her life scheme to calm her down. Zurich is on me, in me, around me, his cock as long as Lover’s and hard, hard, hard, widening at the base and leaving me sore inside and out. The feeling of mild pain as he presses into the back wall of my pussy is what pushes me over the edge. He comes silently, and immediately gets up, flushes the condom, puts on his pants – he hates being naked, I don’t know why, he’s beautiful. I do know why, he’s recently not fat anymore.

We drive. We talk, more in this 90 minute drive than ever in our cumulative time together. It’s not deep, just personal. Which, for him, is the Marinas Trench. Which, for me, lets me lower the wall of don’t-let-him-see-you-be-weak-he’ll-stab-you-and-laugh. Which is probably what he’s afraid of, too.

“I’m all go,” he tells me. He’s not the type to flirt, to take turns in the game, he’s the type to take you up on a mild offer, the casual bait for a long play snapped up and there’s Zurich in your boat, holding you in your own net. Quick like a bandaid, pain or pleasure and at least it’s done, at least you know.

The hotel at the other end of the trip is a marble-lobby throwback to the days when commercial travelers stayed here for weeks at a time. Our room is grandly called a suite, the air conditioner is a wall unit mounted at floor level and cools only the space between the bed and the window. It’s hot even by the open window. The fetish club is in the basement, at the bottom of a dizzyingly fast elevator ride. He has changed into another black shirt, this time with collar, black jeans, boots. I have agonized over the Suitcase of Potential I brought with me, finally deciding, you can never go wrong with schoolgirl.

In the club, the ceiling is barely above our reach, the dance floor lightly thronged with hot goth girls in outrageous outfits. I hadn’t known what to expect, it is the Midwest after all, and I’m surprised at the range of clothing choices – there are the goth girls, a large contingent of black trench coats, a medium-sized schoolgirl quotient (at least I guessed the dress code right), and a group of what look like older frat boys in shorts and t-shirts. I’m bemused that there’s apparently no dress code. When the DJ announces that the participants in the fetish show should go backstage, all the hot goth girls leave the dance floor, thus solving the disconnect.

We watch the fetish show. There’s a scene with anime girls frolicking and then being attacked by a giant scrotum monster (there’s a fuzzy grey suit and two guys with one penis-shaped arm each involved), at which point they reveal themselves as Sailor Moon and one girl scares off the monster with a metal-bikini grinder act (she uses a grinder to shoot sparks from her steel bra). There’s a threesome where the two guys hook up while drunk and carry off the girl to parts unknown, via the one foot of wing space at the side of the stage. There’s a fire-eater who blows fireballs under the scary low ceiling and does body lights off a “slave girl”. There’s some sort of whipping act that I turn away from. In between, the slave girl crawls across the stage floor with scene title cards in her teeth. It’s interesting, and parts of it are amusing and even entertaining, but it’s not sexy. It’s not just the legal distance between groins and mouths, or the lack of connection between the “slaves” and the “dominants,” it’s the disconnect between reality and play-acting.

When I turn away from the whipping scene, I see a couple leaning against a square concrete pillar under the low ceiling. One of them is a young man, college-age, stocky and gentle-faced. One of them is either a boyish young woman, or a girlish young man in drag. (S)he’s in a tank top, a knee-length cotton madras skirt, flat sandals. He’s in the ubiquitous black jeans and black t-shirt. Her back is against the pillar, he leans into her, kisses her hair, her ears, her neck. Her face is sweetly upturned, her eyes closed, and there is the look I know, I remember, the look that says, you like me. I like that you like me. I’m not a little girl anymore. It’s the sexiest thing I see all night.

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.

Breadcrumbs...

Into the city, towers, lights, trailers for a movie production, the pit that used to be the World Trade Center, and the convergence of the universe continues when the really nice guy who saw me struggling to park paid for the garage.

I leave these clues in case I do not return...yeah, melodrama. But as I head inward, it comes to me, how much should it be work and how much should be magic? Lover has been very, very good to me. Dinners and adoration. Shows and support. And now, we're both finding that it's effort to want the other. My bitchiness overwhelms my prettiness. His quirkiness threatens to subsume his power over me.

I've lost a pet - stay with me on this - and it's the only pure grief I've known. I've been lucky that no-one close to me has (knock wood) been taken away (yet). The decision to end my cat's life rather than watch him suffer was wrenching. Last week, Powergirl came home, put her suitcases in my living room, walked across the street, broke up, and returned fifteen minutes later. Quick, like a bandaid. In that way, she's tougher than I am, not knowing whether to fight and work and struggle, or to say, this is a side relationship. This is not meant to be fought for, it's meant to happen beautifully like the blooming of a flower, and then when it's done, it's done. We broke up once before, in the morning, on an island, and circumstances led us to be in each other's company for the entire day afterwards. It was that same wrenching grief.

This morning, before I left my other life, I recut all the stems of the roses in the dining room vase. So little effort for a few more days of pleasant loveliness.