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.

Bits and Pieces

...I've just been interviewed by my lovely namesake Mandy Hardy, over at Sexy Blog Reviews. If you'd like to check it out (and see a fun picture that hasn't been posted here) it's here...

...San Francisco is lovely - a bit dark early for my taste, but the architecture is like nothing I've ever seen before and the activities I'm here for are challenging and fun. I'm debating whether a one night stand with some cute local boy might cure the last of my broken heart...

...I text Tourist that I'm thinking of him. He texts back, "What made you think of me?" Since "I thought of another client and that made me remember you, too, since I'll be in your state soon and I'd like to score an appointment with you, O deep-pocketed-but-boring-one," is not really the best answer, I respond with "I saw some super-high sexy heels in a shop window!" He texts back, "can i see a pic?" Fortunately, I took a photo of some shoes a few weeks ago for the boy-who-was-Lover's approval...

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!

Coffee, Gentle Readers?

I will be in San Francisco this weekend. If you would like to meet for coffee, drop a line.

A note to those who care (thank you) - right now, the blog is about four days behind my actual life. This is a good morning, this is a good day - I can't swear there won't be another abyss (or at least a small fissure) but I have come through to the other side and things are much, much better. One more already-written bitter post to go, and then we'll all step forward together into the lovely fun world again.

I'll be holding my hand back for you still finding your own way.

Flashes

So I get these…flashes. Call it too many years of paying attention. As a 15-16-17-year-old I told fortunes on the street, it was my self-created summer job, between selling shoes and the accessories store. And yeah, half of that, 70 percent of that, 90 percent of that is crap. It doesn’t take a genius to look at another teenage girl and say, “Your parents don’t understand you.” “Ohmigod! Becki! She’s so right!”

But every now and then, something happens.

Last year, prior to his departure, I told a friend about getting ripped off on his travels, that he would have it happen twice, once small, once large. Two months later I spent ten days strongly suggesting he put his cash into travelers’ checks, and when his hostel roommate got his PDA, phone, porn, new jeans, and 1500 euros on Day Eleven, I did not say “I told you so.” The guy was pretty slick – even took the respective chargers, leaving behind the cord for the phone that was being carried by my friend.

I’ve come bolt awake, shaking, before dawn three mornings in a row. No light coming in the windows, not hungry (still), don’t have to pee. Just – present. I see Lover’s next trip. I see his thing with Cute Girl. I see dead people, yeah, whatever.

Are they earthshaking? Maybe not. One thought would be nice to know for his trip, maybe save some frustration, but it wouldn’t kill him. But the other – I could be way off base, or it could be a huge thing forestalled by some simple precautions. Or maybe my subconscious is just trying to make trouble.

So the question becomes, where is my moral obligation? Is this – I hesitate to call it sight, it comes in words, in the form of a question phrased in the affirmative, answered, why, yes - truly something vital? Or merely my brain’s frantic, jealous attempt to connect? If I say nothing, and something happens, have I hurt someone through non-action?

- - -


In older times, and sometimes still, mad people were sedated in a “wet pack.” Nurses and orderlies used strips of linen to bind the struggling, thrashing patient to a board, then mummify them in wet sheets, stop the jerking, the running, the flailing. If you got a little better, sometimes they would let you have your arms free.

Maybe that would stop the shaking.

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).

OK...

...we're gonna try for daily again. Or at least several times a week. It's a cheat, but here are some recommendations of things I've read lately.

Compartments is back! With a new focus (she's assembling a book) and some new stories. Always a little on the dark side, she's not shying away from the unpleasant bits, just as before. I know a lot of Gentle Readers found me through her list of Prostitution Blogs Worth Reading. That page has been updated, so maybe there's someone new you'd like to discover?

This week there is a rather intense story, The Wounded, at The Provocateur, which resonated a lot with me. I'm not kidding about intense.

I'm not normally a video porn girl, but Tom Paine's got a fun, fun short clip of cowgirl that is really sexy. Very NSFW.

Enjoy, and see you tomorrow...

(Cool calendar from a group of artists honoring the work of filmmaker Wong Kar-Wai.)

Live Through This

And this is the flip side, the sitting at the computer knowing that hey, if you can just write some porn it will all be ok, the readers will stop deserting you for newer, fresher content and you’ll have the satisfaction of knowing that someone likes you, someone still wanks to you, but all you can do is try to make the solitaire game come out right, over and over again. Because the thing that stops me from being a really good whore is the truth, and the thing that stops me from writing you, Gentle Readers, some damn good porn, submit to Sugasm, make it all glossy and fun, is the truth.

And the truth is, I want to die.

Monday, I wake, weeping. Husband cradles me, wants to know what’s wrong. And so I finally tell him – I broke up with someone. I worry that I’ll never be their friend again. And Husband, the strongest man I know, soothes me and holds me and tells me that it will all be ok, it’s just my pride. We go out together instead of alone, and spend time, spend money. It’s lovely. I decide, midway through Target, I Am Over It, which is what I text to Lover. Beautiful Girl reminds me in a long chat, don’t give up your power, don’t let him be your equal, this has been coming for a long time.

Tuesday, Lover texts me, Will It Make It Any Better to Know That Cute Girl and I Have Imploded? This makes me happy, of course. They have finished because she logged on to Facebook at 8:39, saw all the public flirting with Yet Another Girl, and finished him at 8:51.

Tuesday night, I unavoidably see Lover. I resolve to treat it as a first date, and I am not impressed. I’ve dressed, new shoes, new top, taken pains to look like Not From the Discard Pile. The way he speaks of women does not impress me. He is slightly unkempt, not on time, takes the last bite of asparagus. We are cordial. My allegiance shifts slightly, how dare he pick Cute Girl over Yet Another Girl because the plane ticket costs less? Do I want to even be friends with someone who plays the game this way? Our ability to be polite is hopeful.

Wednesday, Cute Girl learns through a complicated and high-school-reminiscent system of Facebook, Myspace, and LiveJournal comments that I have been her lover’s lover. She and I talk. I make it clear I’m not mad at her.

Thursday Lover calls me, wistful. We again discuss a week in winter in Foreign City. He reminds me of special times we’ve shared in the place he is now, texts me about songs on the radio that have to do with the Us That Was, laaaahh da da da daaaahhhh…

Friday, when I have been sick all week through all of this – truly, snottily, nastily sick, not just heart-sick – Lover rings again to see if I will mind his seriously dating Cute Girl.

Well, let’s see.

What he can do:

- Date my friend/co-worker without any social disapproval, since we have been secret and must remain so.

- Suck her in deep before she even knows she’s screwing me over.

- Continue to flirt with lots and lots of other girls in a way that I will have to be aware of, that will be unacceptable to Cute Girl, and that I can’t pass on to her because 1) I will look like a jealous bitch (which I am) and 2) she’s a big girl.

- Force me to continue being “friends” with him so there won’t be talk.

- Force me to continue working with her so there won’t be talk.

What I can do:

- Nothing.

And thank God for writing, thank God for words, thank God for the few, the brave Gentle Readers sticking it out through what by now looks like the cover of Hole’s first post-Cobain album, because as I write the urge to count out the number of NyQuils it would take onto the counter fades and in comes righteous anger. Thank you Cyndi Lauper, thank you Dresden Dolls, thank you PowerGirl and Beautiful Girl and Secret Scientist who are there and Computer Girl who would be there if I called. Thank you Husband, for telling me it’s not OK to bring this into our home, but loving me anyway while I can’t stop crying, can’t get out of bed. Thank you Lover’s Ex-Wife, because this is what your end was like and I was part of that. Thank you Be-My-Real-Friend, because Just Clients don’t listen to me whine like this. Thank you patient S and D from GC, thank you G, whose emails haven’t yet been answered, who send hugs, who trust anyway. Thank you words like bricks, building the wall, the shelter, put up the yellow triangle on the door because this relationship is now radioactive and while half my heart (ok, more than half) wants to take pity, let him in, it’s only until the world ends, there is no room, no room, I only have enough left for me and anger.

Whore Sex Vs. Not Whore Sex, Episode 3

Art by Yummei

(before the breakup)

All of the political world has descended, so instead of the funky boutique hotel I want, I get the Embassy Suites. It’s fine, it’s Hotwire, the linens are nice, but it’s not as special as I want it to be and so I already feel guilty going in. Last night I lay with Lover, just lying there together, because when you’re booked, the merch has to stay in good shape. I told him I was conflicted, that had Be-My-Real-Friend not given me a deposit, I might have continued to delay, defer, not go through with it. The money is yet unspent in the zippy pocket of my red suitcase.

Give the money back, says Lover. It would be a great ending for the book.

Something in me knows it’s not that easy. The whore wants the money. The writer wants a better climax before the denouement. And the selfish, selfish girl inside me, the one who knows she thinks only of herself, of what’s easy, convenient, wants to show her dad she can so think of other people. Be-My-Real-Friend has laid an alibi, arranged time off. It would be selfish to waste it, and waste is bad, let alone selfishness.

Lover sleeps and I lie awake and stare at the too-close ceiling. I don’t know how I’ll fill the hours tomorrow, what to talk about, how to be with my real friend. A cold is creeping into my throat, up the back of my neck, and Lover has been handing me glasses of Emergen-C morning and night for two days.

The next morning, an idea comes, and I book tickets to – of course – the circus. I debate a limo there and back as well, but it’s more than I expect, and ya gotta watch the net. Be-My-Real-Friend meets me at the hotel, 23 floors up around the noisy atrium, a banquet of black professionals trickling in through the revolving doors. There is less constraint this time, we’ve had lunch last week, we’ve spoken on the phone. We kiss, he undresses me, I undress him, marveling as always that there is a whole class of people for whom undershirts are a way of life. He goes down on me, it’s pleasant but not as dreamy-dreamy as the last time – of course, it is only three in the afternoon. I go down on him, and then we fuck. With me on top, he reaches around to touch my ass and I shoo his hand away.

“I thought you liked buttplay.”

“I do, but it’s one of my few areas of fidelity.” This is saved for Lover, and I feel badly denying Be-My-Real-Friend his desire to please me, make it good for me, make it real. I come for real, solid but muted, and marvel over the careful balance of letting go into the personal and staying present in this moment. I err on the side of personal to make up for the rebuff. He comes, too. We go again. We dress, depart, and sit in traffic for awhile. This is a surprise for him, I hope he likes it, I’m nervous, it’s taking longer than I thought to get there, I am wasting valuable horizontal time.

We arrive as some acrobats are moving into their finale. There is a hula-hooper, in white harem garb. Her body is beautiful, elegant, hard. Clowns, some actually funny. The first half finishes with a juggler who is so good, so classy and sharp and self-deprecating that I mentally compose a fan letter offering him a freebie. (Turns out he’s married to the hula-hooper. Perhaps just a nice note.) All the while, my attention is divided, wanting him to enjoy it, lose track of time, lose track of being in public. I think I’ve made a mistake, it’s too public, it’s too much time out of the date. We leave at intermission and suffer the drive back to the city. When we reach the hotel room, he has to go home. I am a terrible whore, I think. And this is it, this is why I can’t be his Real Friend. Because in the end, he’s paying me for sex. He’s there for that reason, and no matter how much we enjoy chatting on subjects of mutual interest and musing on the stupidity of elected others, there is one thing that must happen, that must be the focus of our time. Real means the possibility of dislike, unfriend, differed tastes in time-spending.

Lover comes with more Emergen-C. I feel unethical about even letting him into the room. But the bitter, grainy tea calms my throat enough to make tomorrow morning a possibility rather than an obligation. We sit and watch TV while I drink tea, not touching, not talking much, just being. In less than an hour, I’m alone.

Be-My-Real-Friend returns the next morning, and we have a lovely romp, but three more goes and I’m terribly sore. I want to make him come with my mouth, but it doesn’t always happen, for him, for many men. Once more he slides into me, I change positions to rub less on the soreness of my pussy. I’ve been up for awhile - have to rise, change into cute jammies, brush my hair and teeth, put on just enough makeup to look like I wake up beautiful, and move into the other bed before the phone rings to say he’s on his way up. I realize before he gets there that there’s an envelope on the TV, I hadn’t even noticed the night before. I don’t touch it yet, not before, not while he’s there, he may yet want it back, it can’t be mine until I did a good job.

When he departs, I am sorry. Sorry to have wasted some of his time, to have been unable to receive, less than perfect. There is then a hot shower, last minute internet, the claiming of the car from the valet, and the hope to do better, to be worth it, unwasteful, unselfish.

If I Was Smarter...

...I wouldn't call after midnight to say goodnight when I realized at 10:52 that he was going to stay the night with her. Heck, if I was really smart, I probably wouldn't call at all.

(I don't know how I know. But that's when the psychic alarm went off.)

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Being Broken-Up

…It’s true what they say – eat less and exercise! I’ve only been on the Break-Up Diet for four days and the pounds are melting away! Follow the simple, three-step plan of food that tastes like cardboard, long city walks alone through the streets you once shared, and just plain ol’ not remembering to eat, and you, too, can lose five pounds in four days. He-llooooo, cheekbones!

…Why not take this time to reconnect with other loved ones? Four years is finally enough distance to phone Writer, the long-term boy prior to this one, and give best wishes to him and his lovely post-me wife! And when I’m in need of human contact at Oh-God-Thirty in the morning so that I won’t dial Lover’s number that one more time that mentally dons rappelling gear atop the Cliffs of Insanity, it reminds me that Secret Scientist is just finishing his Starbucks run and ready for my call. Thanks, friends!

…How about taking up a new hobby in your now-copious free time? Drive to a distant city and explore documentary photography at 3AM in the Meatpacking District! Jog moonlit paths in Central Park! And hey, did anyone say “post more often to your damn blog, you lazy bitch?”

…Learn more about grammar by replaying all your recent conversations in your head and analyzing the exact degree of offended, bitter, jealous or lonely you should be! By listening carefully to old voice mails, timing phone calls for when you’re sure he’s out with that adorable ‘other woman’, and reading old love letters stained with his semen, you can derive hours of misery from just a few pages of material!

…If you’re having trouble staying with the plan, try enlisting a buddy to be your coach! Ask them to make you a CD of “bestrongstaybrokenup songs”, or call them every time you feel the urge to dial your ex's number. Whenever my phone rings, Power Girl takes it firmly away from me and tells me not to answer or she’ll rip my fingers off – she’s such a tease! Eventually, she’s going to find me texting in the closet, but for now, Gentle Readers, that’s our little secret…

(he still wants to be friends)

Keywords

Remember when I wrote about rape fantasies? Well, "rape fantasies" is the number one search term for finding this blog. Beating out "sex" by a factor of five to one.

Evidently, it's a more common interest than I suspected...

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.

Bits and Pieces

…Here’s how I know I am not jaded beyond repair. Power Girl and I spend the night in a Ritz-Carlton, and the first fifteen minutes is just us squealing over the toiletries. “Oooh! Shower gel!” “Look, the blow dryer has it’s own little bag!” “The bathroom is huge! You take a shower and I’ll take a bath at the same time! ”…

…Driving in a new city, where things are a bit more aggressive. My friend says, “Remember, when you change lanes, your blinker is not asking permission, it’s signaling intent.” It works…

…At a get-reacquainted lunch with Be-My-Real-Friend, he indicates that he’d like to make an appointment, and to that end, would like to give me a deposit. I, still unsure if I still even want to be doing this whoring thing, ask if he wants to put the money on the prepaid Visa he got me. He whips out cash. I think, gee, you’re awfully certain, and then realize umm, Mandy? You are a sure thing. That’s what being a whore is…

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.

Headed East

Towards...

Man Who Loves Stars
Be-My-Real-Friend
Secret Scientist and his sidekick Hairline Boy
Fucked-Up Guy
Another one I haven't named or talked about yet

and

Lover.

Away from...

Tourist, looking forward to a fly-in.

Power Girl, in the aftermath of the world's fastest breakup, still kind enough to describe the difficulty as "a mutual lack of compromise" instead of "no matter how many days I go to church with you I won't be a housewife or move to the political right."

Beautiful Girl, once again in thrall to a Penis Flytrap.

Husband, whom I am very, very sorry to leave. He's made me a mix CD. I'll probably cry.

Fragment

Eleven of us. Two on this bed, two on that, several sprawling on the floor, the suitcase bench, the armchair, lounging against the doorway to the bath. The jacketed waiter has brought glasses on a linen-draped tray and the new guitar shimmers, pickups gleaming and the body gently aglow. We turn down the ipod and the amp, he plays unplugged - "Dark Lady, hellish angel," "out of time..." The lyrics fade out the open window, his cellphone glows as he resurrects the words.

Later there is the story of the man we all know who climbed out the window and then, locked out, emerged from the fire escape into another room, padding past sleeping guests through to the hall, the elevator, security later arriving at his room to see him in his hotel robe, covered in fire escape grime and leaves, 'can't imagine who that could have been, don't you chaps havce decent security?'

At two we turn to pumpkins, sleepy hugs goodbye, sleeping on the short drive, leaving, having left.

Sugasm #92 (picked pic)

Mon 13th Aug, 07

The best of this week’s blogs by the bloggers who blog them. Highlighting the top 3 posts as chosen by Sugasm participants. Want in Sugasm #93? Submit a link to your best post of the week using this form.

This Week’s Picks
Do one thing every day that scares you…
“What I didn’t know-that it would turn me on as much as it hurt me.”

Interview With Deborah Jeane Palfrey, AKA The DC Madam
“I wanted to see coverage treating sex workers as just that-workers.”

Rough Sex - with pictures
“She bites, she writhes, she moans, she claws- none of which she can remember after.”

Mr. Sugasm Himself
Keep Britain Tidy, Gimp

Editor’s Choice
In Her Mind, the Pigeons Were Always Fucking

More Sugasm
Join the Sugasm

See also: Fleshbot’s Sex Blog Roundup each Tuesday and Friday.

Thoughts on Sex and Relationships
Bear
Homosexual myths
Sexual powerlessness
That Thorny Bisexual Thing….
Weird things happen every day

BDSM & Fetish
Asking For A Caning
Bully (working title)
The Challenge, part 1
Command
Every blog should have a slave…
Half-Nekkid Tattoo 2
Happy HNT - Tit flash in a boat
Heel!
Overpower, part 2
Request, granted

Sex Poetry
Heaven is a place
Tonight I’m going to
Vodka Confessions

Sex Audio & Podcasts
Musical Intro #2: sexual nostalgia (Mixed Media.)
Nobilis Erotica 29 — Someone New

Erotic Writing and Experiences
Catalina loves Penelope and Odysseus
Devil’s Last Dance (PJ story)
The Dream
Film
I’m A Woman Man: Episode 5 - Hands
The Most Famous Cock in the World
My slum goddess
Vignette: 3 #2

Sex News
The Birth of The Eye of Venus
Errotica archives
Which One of My subs Is This???

Sex Humor
Kink In The Mainstream - Family Guy In Texas

NSFW Pics, Videos & Audio
Black
Britney Caught topless with a Stranger in Hotel Pool
Half-Nekkid and Proud to Be Me
Half-Nekkid Thursday: Begging to Be Spanked
Red Handed Porn
Zurich (nsfw)

Sexy Mandy courtesy of How About Now?