The Basics

I know within a few minutes of meeting someone whether or not I want to fuck them. Something in their smile or their posture or the way they greet me either gives me a boner, or it doesn’t.  I usually need to hear a hello or a few words to warm me to the idea of being intimate with someone – but when The Engineer walked into our dorm room in Rwanda, one glance was all it took.  I’d been restlessly horny all day, and I thanked the universe for dropping a tall, handsome man conveniently into my room.

We were the only two in a twelve-bed dorm; he asked if I wanted to join him for dinner, and I fantasized about him in the shower beforehand, sliding fingers through my slippery folds. When, after two beers, he asked if I’d like another, I said, “No, and I don’t think you should have one, either – I think we should fuck first and then have another.” The bed creaked and banged against the wall as I rode him; I’m 100% sure the entire hostel staff heard my moans and whimpers, and I didn’t care. We went back out and had a celebratory beer before bed while chatting about our travels.

It was supposed to be a one-night stand.  He was supposed to go off on a hike the next day… but he stayed.  We spent the day walking along Lake Kivu, coming back to the hostel to fuck in the shower and on a bunk bed ladder (great for the height difference!), then changed rooms and fucked in the bay window, in the bathtub, on the huge bed.  We slept next to each other, waking up early to have sex one more time before I walked to the Congolese border.

I came back to our guesthouse in Rwanda three days later, then shortly took off for another hike the day he was returning from one; he stayed.  When I returned, he was sitting in the common area; he didn’t expect to see me, so when I ran in and flung myself into his arms, it took us an hour to get off the couch.  We went to Kigali together and spent four days mostly eating, drinking wine, and exploring each other’s bodies instead of the city (corporal tourism?).

He took me to the airport at midnight, and it was a hard goodbye; when you develop feelings for someone while in a novel or challenging situation, the feelings can be pretty intense.  We stayed in touch every day after that; when I messaged him asking him to come to Barcelona in July, he said that July was too far away and he wanted to see me sooner… and then proceeded to spend four days traveling overland by boat, bus, and minivan from Zanzibar to the southern end of Lake Malawi, where we spent a week on the beach, drinking cocktails, swimming, fucking like field mice, and being super handsy in public.  By the end of that week, after telling folks in the guesthouse that we were on our honeymoon (it sure felt like it), I was in deep.  We both were.

He took me to the airport again in Lilongwe, and the goodbye was much harder, even though I was sure we weren’t done seeing each other – and we weren’t. He called me when I was in Spain to tell me he was coming to Ireland with me at the tail end of my trip.  He flew over his home to travel with me in a country he’d never been to, even though he was homesick. He met me at the airport with roses; we rented a car and spent eleven days driving through the countryside, staying in bed and breakfasts, cooking for each other, listening to amazing live music, and playing.  We dropped the L word on day five after walking along the Cliffs of Mohor, and when we parted, he gave me a framed photo of us that he’d taken with his phone on the second day we’d been together back in Rwanda.

I’m not someone who believes in fate.  I don’t believe in soulmates, and I certainly don’t believe in The One. But I do feel pretty lucky that we happened to be in the same place at the same time.  Being with him is so easy; I feel emotional security AND physical lust at the same time, which is strange and wonderful.  I feel prioritized, valued, and deeply cared for, and that’s something I haven’t experienced since the last time I lived in the US.  This is good.  It’s really good.  And it’s not over yet – not by a long shot.

Gratuitous sex stories to come!

El Nido

Last post before I depart!  I thought a travel sex story would be fitting.

I’m not someone who loves Valentine’s Day, nor am I one who scorns it.  For me, it just comes and goes like the tides.  There is one Valentine’s Day, however, that is forever etched into my memory, and thinking about that particular day will always make me smile.

Two years ago, I was travelling in the Philippines; I was sitting at a bar my first night on Cebu, and I started talking to the gentleman next to me.  Our conversation flowed so easily that it felt like we’d known each other for years; we skipped the small talk and jumped right into deep conversation about our travels, life philosophies, families.  We laughed and talked for hours, then agreed to meet the next night.  I arrived that night with a huge group and dragged him from the bar to our table… then proceeded to ignore all the people I came with to talk to him.  I felt so drawn to him – to his laugh, his easygoing nature, his penetrating questions and openness (maaayyyybe to his extraordinary body as well).

We met again the following night – same place, same time – and as we were chatting on a porch underneath a full moon, a photographer asked if he could take pictures of us “while we were flirting and the sparks were flying.” Yes, of course, we said, laughing.  As he walked away, I put my hand on Neil’s leg and said, “Just so you know, I am flirting with you.”  He smiled nervously and we continued to talk until I absolutely had to go.  He walked me out; we were both planning on heading to another island around the same time, so I asked him to come north to meet me when he got there.  Sadly, he said, he was heading south, but he’d keep in touch and maybe we could meet up for a day before I left.  I grabbed his hand, leaned into his ear and tipsy-whispered, “No – you need to come up north so I can fuck you.”  He kissed me lightly on the lips and said he’d try to make it.  We said our goodbyes; I didn’t sleep a wink that night thinking about how his strong hands would feel running down the length of my body.

Fast forward a week and a half.  I have just arrived in El Nido; I’m walking back to my hotel, and who should cross my path but the one person I’ve been wanting to see this whole time?  We hug, we laugh, we beam at each other.  He tells me that he was warned not to go south because there was political turbulence, so instead he came north, hoping to run into me.  Looks like the stars aligned!  That night, we had dinner on the beach, the surf literally touching our toes.  We ate freshly-caught fish and drank fifty cent beers by candlelight and talked like children do when they have a secret language.  The wait staff finally had to tell us that we had to leave – they were closing.  We looked behind us to see that they had taken all the other tables and chairs off the beach and we hadn’t even noticed.  I looked him in his clear, blue eyes and asked if he were going to take me home with him some night that week; he asked what I thought about tonight?  I kissed him in response, and we walked uphill to his hotel, me in bare feet.  We got a bit lost along the way – the good kind of lost.

We spent the next three days going on adventures (sightseeing, kayaking, snorkeling, making out in secret caves), eating amazing food, and fucking like bunnies.  My last day in El Nido happened to be Valentine’s Day.  That morning, I got a massage, bought a dress (a rarity for me), tweezed and shaved my travel body, and told him to come to mine before dinner.  As an avid fan of Dan Savage, I knew it was best to fuck first – so when he arrived, I was only wearing a sarong, which quickly got flung aside.  Even with the air conditioning on, we were soon covered in a slippery layer of sweat, which we’d earned.  We relished every inch of each other’s bodies and slid all over each other in the heat of the tropics until we were starving and exhausted.

Time does seem to sprint by when you’re enjoying yourself, so I remember the night in flashes: We’re sitting at an Italian restaurant overlooking the ocean, devouring pizza and sipping on cocktails.  We’re dancing at a club, our bodies jumping and bouncing to pop music along with a packed crowd, rum and cokes in hand.  We’re outside, dancing in the ocean to cool off, spinning and dipping.  We’re sitting on an old, overturned, wooden kayak, making out like teenagers.  He’s facing me toward the ocean and putting his arm around me and asking if I’d ever come back to El Nido – and if he were there, I’d be back in a heartbeat.  We’re walking back to his hotel at 3:00 am to fall into a deep sleep in each other’s arms – but not before taking silly pictures with each other on the balcony. We’re waking up at 6:00 am to the sound of church bells, and I have to go.

I’ve had interesting Valentine’s Days before and since, especially while traveling, but I can’t imagine any topping that night – a night that felt perfect.  A night that capped off a magical movie-like travel romance in an idyllic setting.  A night when the stars aligned.

 

Over My Head

I’ve been waiting to post this for a long time; it was inspired by this Girl on the Net post.  When I saw that the Wicked Wednesday prompt was “Follow Your Heart,” I thought: it’s time.  It’s non-fiction and not very wicked, but I can’t think of a more appropriate prompt for this piece.

________________________________________________

At the time I met Banger*, I was deep into lesbian territory.  I hadn’t been physically intimate with a man for four years and wasn’t planning on it anytime soon; however, when I opened my door and saw him standing there one cold February afternoon, I felt my heart leap in my chest.  He was my type: Tall, bespectacled, bookish.  At least – he was the type I’d had before I stopped dating men.  I panicked and reacted to how handsome I thought he was by being overly cheerful and energetic.  I didn’t really know what to do with my sudden and strange urges; it had been so long since I’d had them.

Over the next year, I developed a massive crush on him, but never said anything; he was always dating someone, and I was supposed to be gay.  We became close friends and confidants; we worked together, shared an office, and lived in the same building, so I saw him all the time.  We’d go out for kimchi stew or barbecue together and chat; a couple of times we went to a noraebang (private room karaoke), just the two of us, drunk on rice wine, and sang songs late into the night.  He made me giggle.  Not laugh – giggle.  The kind of laughter you share with someone when you have inside jokes or find something hilarious that no one else would laugh at.  We could be silly together and really honest with each other because we weren’t trying to get into each other’s pants.  It was brilliant.  Spending time with him was so easy – a breath of fresh air.

He went home for vacation that summer, and I found myself acutely missing his company.  I could feel a kind of dull ache inside of me at his absence.  When I went home for Christmas, he kept in contact with me the whole time I was gone.  The night I got back, there was already a message on my phone welcoming me back to Korea and asking me to dinner.  We spent the next three nights on his bed, watching 90s movies and drinking boozy hot cocoa.  It felt like those times in uni where you’re trying to be physically close to a crush without admitting you like like each other, because what if the other person doesn’t feel the same?  The second night, I asked if I could put my head on his shoulder.  I couldn’t even remember the last time I had cuddled with someone, and it ignited something in my body that I was wholly unprepared for.  My insides exploded with an unstoppable force, and my panties were literally soaked by the time I got back to my apartment.  The next night, as I was stroking his arm, my brain stopped working and my body took over; I grabbed his face and kissed him, and it felt like everything fell into place in that one moment.  My lust was a champagne bottle uncorked.

I went away for a couple of days after that; when I came back, we spent hours making out and exploring each other’s bodies before falling asleep.  At first morning’s light, I told him that I desperately wanted him inside of me.  I hadn’t had penetrative sex with a man for five years at this point; I thought I would need to take it a bit slow or that it might even hurt, but because I was so highly aroused, it felt so. fucking. good.  Like eating an ice cream cone on a scorching summer day.  Like the first time you try ecstasy and you find yourself floating in joyous spacetime.  Like the first day of spring after a long, hard winter.

He called me; he asked me to spend time with him; he held my hand in public, and that’s when I think I fell.  I moved to another city shortly after we first hooked up; it was hard going from seeing him every day to seeing him twice a month, especially now that we were being intimate.  I found myself feeling lost in the behemoth of all these emotions I hadn’t felt in years – a tsunami of love and desire.  I had a real libido for the first time in forever.  I was drowning in hormones, and I didn’t know how to get to shore.  I felt crazy.  Suddenly I was being cautious with every word I said to him, scared that if I said or did the wrong thing, all of my joy would vanish.  He would disappear like a magician into the void of a magic box.  I tried to stop myself from feeling, tried to put tape over a waterfall, but I had already contracted emotional ebola and I was bleeding out.

Over the next couple of months, we had the most incredible sex I’d had in a decade, and I experienced orgasms I couldn’t even believe were real.  We fucked everywhere in my apartment, cuddled next to each other on the couch to watch videos, and only came up for air to go out to eat and build up our energy reserves so we could make love again.  If oxytocin is sex vodou, he was a houngan and I was ready to dance with snakes.  He brought me back from the dead.

My friends were baffled.  They said:

“I’ve never seen you this happy.”

“I’ve never seen you this way!”

“You’re glowing!”

“I’m surprised at how… mushy you’re being about this.”

“I never expected to hear you being so sentimental.”

“I’m impressed – not because it’s a guy, but because you like him.”

“It’s kind of nice to hear you say that you feel something again.”

And suddenly, I wanted to know what we were.  Not where it was going – I knew he was moving back to England in the summer – but I wanted to know that he had romantic feelings for me like I did for him.  That I wasn’t alone. That I wasn’t crazy.  I told him that I had real feelings for him and that it was freaking me out.  He said he hadn’t had romantic feelings for anyone in years and didn’t know if he could.  I, meanwhile, was feeling ALL THE FEELINGS ALL THE TIME, and it was so completely isolating.  I tried meditation, breathing, yoga, sleeping pills, processing with friends.  Nothing could take away the anxiety of loving someone when I didn’t know how he felt about me.  My pain started to become stronger than my joy, but I held on because the high was so powerful.

When I told him that I felt like I’d changed from someone he actually cared about to someone he was just sleeping with, his response was, “Yeah, I guess that’s just part of the changing nature of relationships, you know?”  When I asked if I could say that we were dating, he responded, “I don’t know.  I mean, you can say whatever you want, but I don’t know.”  When I said that that had hurt me, he said he was sorry I felt hurt.

We kept having these amazing weekends together, but I was in pain all the time.  It’s hard work loving someone who doesn’t love you in the same way; it takes everything from you.  Confidence, dignity, pride, joy, sanity.  Laughter.  Self-worth.  I knew that he cared about me a great deal; he wasn’t good at expressing that with words, but he showed it by doing things like serenading me with a song sacred to my heart that he learned just to play for me, or by choosing to spend his last weekends in Korea with me.  But I was in a different place.  I understood for the first time why people want to give up everything to be with someone.  Why they’ll move half a world away.  I wanted so much to spend my life loving him despite knowing deep down that we probably wouldn’t be compatible in the long run, and that was unnerving.  He told me shortly before he left that he loved me – and I truly believe he did – but continued to introduce me as his friend, which was confusing at best and devastating at worst.

The day before he left, he asked me: “What now?”  I don’t know, I said.  I wanted to say that I wanted to be in a long-distance relationship with him while continuing to date other people here, but the idea of him saying no to that was too crushing to consider.  So I just said that we’d keep in touch, keep loving each other, and hopefully one day down the road we’d meet again and create a second chapter in our story.

We tried to be friends after that, which in hindsight seems like the biggest mistake ever.  His responses to me became less frequent and shorter; we still talked, but it wasn’t the same.  I finally told him right before Christmas that I was deeply in love with him and that it was too painful to try to be his friend.  That I needed a break.  We talked for a long time and hashed things out – then emailed a week later and talked for hours again and hashed more things out – and in the end, he said he was still attracted to me, but didn’t know if that translated into romantic feelings.  That he just assumed I was over him.  That it would be logical to have romantic feelings for me, but feelings aren’t logical.  That he didn’t know if he could be emotionally supportive of me.  I got angry about it all and my anger hurt him; he thought I was diminishing the ways he cared for me just because his feelings weren’t as intense as mine.  He loved me – just not in the way I wanted to be loved.  We left the conversation on a positive note, and agreed that the friendship we’d had before was worth working on.

It took a long time and dating other people (and a thorough reading of More Than Two) to wade through the layers of love and loss I felt… but I made it to the other side, and when I did, I came out stronger.  Not that defensive kind of stronger where you swear you’ll never let anyone in again, which is where I was before I met him, but the kind of stronger where you learn how to open your heart and love completely, accept and really feel your feelings, and vow to work on knowing what you want and how to communicate that.  Where you breathe deeply and let your walls crumble to the ground around you in tiny pieces.  Being that vulnerable and crawling through the darkness that came after were both transformative experiences.

I started writing this blog while I was seeing him because I wanted him to be proud of me for doing something creative; it has since turned into something I’m proud of myself for doing.  I’m grateful for that.  We’re still friends, and the friendship feels easier now.  My heart feels so much lighter when I talk to him.  He lives with someone he’s dating now; that was hard to cope with at first, but a month or so ago I suddenly found myself feeling genuinely and deeply happy for him out of the blue.  We should all get to love in life and be loved in return – even the people who have hurt us.

 

*Not his real name, obvs.  This is what a few of my friends started calling him after I initially and hesitantly told them I was “bangin’ a dude.”

 

Patience

This crazy thing is happening right now, and it’s pretty wonderful: I’m not having sex.

I’ll let that sink in.

I started unexpectedly seeing someone new a few weeks ago; he’s an acquaintance whom I’ve known for years, but have never particularly felt attracted to.  We were sitting in a bar and chatting one night; I mentioned that I was cold, and he took my hands to warm them.  That felt pretty nice, so I just left my hands in his.   A bit later, when I was telling him how lovely that felt, he kissed me out of the blue – which was shocking, as I’ve always considered this guy to be a little shy and socially awkward.  The kissing was pretty nice, too, so I asked him on a date… and then I asked him to spend the night.

He told me that he was happy to stay there, but he didn’t want to compromise his morals.  See – this guy is religious.  Not in a church-on-Christmas kind of way, but in a bible-study-small-town-Baptist-church kind of way.  I’m barely even spiritual, so… it’s interesting.  Making out with him in my bed and not being able to touch his dick was a glorious kind of torture; I was soaking wet all through the night and really relished that heightened state of arousal that I’m so used to curing with release.  This time, it just built and built and built, and I could feel the sexual energy coursing through my body for hours.

That was two weeks ago.

This guy has spent the night at my house three times, and I haven’t seen him naked, and… it’s been kind of amazing.  He asked me to slow dance in my living room and to walk around to look at Christmas lights.  He takes his hat off when he walks in my door.  He went a half mile out of his way a few days ago so he could walk me home, and he kissed me at midnight on New Year’s Eve (the first time in over ten years I’ve been with a date on NYE).  He’s an old-fashioned romantic and I am LOVING THE FUCK OUT OF IT.

We’re not compatible for a million reasons (God is not a fan of my libido, for one), and I’m leaving the country in six weeks – but for right now, being wanted for my company rather than my cunt feels healing, and being with someone who loves slow dancing is even better.

Winter Wonderland

Alex pushed her front door open, the cold air blowing porch snow in around her ankles.  She banged her Docs against the step to knock the packed snow out of her boots and hurried inside; Jen followed close behind her, wrapping her arms around her lover’s waist.  They were flushed from one too many cocktails, from stumbling home over half-shoveled sidewalks, from the conversation they’d had on the way.

It was Jen who’d seen her first.  Who had watched her, gliding like an angel toward a pool table, the yellow bar lights swimming around her closely-cropped honey hair adding to the effect.  She stared at the woman’s shoulders, pulled back in confidence – her smile, gleaming and glorious – the ease with which she pushed the cue stick through her hooked index finger as she bent over the green felt, a bit of cleavage poking out of a tight white button-down shirt.  After a minute of trying to get Jen’s attention and being unsuccessful, Alex had followed her gaze over to the beautiful stranger, now shaking hands with the loser of the game.  She leaned into Jen’s ear and whispered, “She’s a looker, huh?”  Jen, still in her reverie, just replied with an “Mmm.”  Their stare lingered a minute longer before Alex said, “Babe? She’s fine as hell, but now we’re just being creepy.”  That was enough to get Jen to laugh and break the spell.  Jen turned toward Alex, cupped her face, and kissed her full on the lips, trailing a hand down between Alex’s breasts.  “Let’s go home,” she said.

On the walk home, past lit-up duplexes and technically-illegal-but-still-used parking chairs, Jen dropped the question into the snowy silence around them: “So hey, babe.  Have you ever wondered what it would be like to have a threesome?  I mean… just wondered, you know?” Alex smiled.  “You mean with someone like the woman you were just stalking?” she asked.  “Well – yeah,” replied Jen.  “I mean, she was hot, right?  What would you think about bringing someone else in just for a night?  Just to see what it was like?”  “I think that I’d like to think about it,” replied Alex.  “For now, let’s just focus on getting home!”  The wind swirled and howled around them, flinging flurries this way and that.  They quickened their pace.

Once they were in, coats, hats, mittens, and scarves lying on a pile on the couch, Alex turned on her electric fireplace; they put a few blankets and pillows on the floor and lay down in front of it, snuggling close together to get warm.  After a couple of minutes of staring into the electric blaze, Alex brought up their prior conversation.  “So – if we were to have this hypothetical threesome, what would you want it to look like?”  Jen felt her pulse quicken and her cunt warm.  She turned to look at Alex.  “You mean, what would I want to happen?”  “Yeah,” replied Al.  “What would you want to do with her?  With me?  Would you want to watch, or be watched?  How involved would you want her to be?”

“Hypothetically?” Jen asked.  Alex nodded.  “I’d want you to direct the scene.  I’d want to start out with the two of you taking my clothes off, then you telling her what you want to see.”  “And what do I want to see?” Alex asked with a mischievous grin.  “You want to see her warm me up.  You want to see her lap at my nipples until I’m begging to have the rest of my body touched.  You want to see her caress my inner thighs, teasing me until there’s a stream of fluid running down my pussy because I’m so turned on.  You want to see her graze my outer labia, making my heart pound, and then lick my clit just once so I’m trembling all over – and then you kiss her so you can taste me on her tongue.”   

“Like this?” Alex asked, pulling Jen’s leggings and boy shorts down, spreading her legs just enough, and lapping once over the inside of Jen’s labia and up over her clit before kissing her.  She loved the lemondrop taste of Jen’s cunt.  Jen closed her eyes and breathed shallow breaths, letting her body take over.  She continued talking as Alex continued to taste her: “You lick me slowly and steadily until I come in your mouth, and then you tell her that I’m hers to fuck; she leaves on a tank top, her nipples hard underneath it, and puts on a leather-harnessed strap-on.  She puts a pillow under my ass and works her cock inside of me, rhythmically pumping; while she’s doing that, you hover over me, kissing her.  Long kisses.  I struggle to crane my neck up enough to run my tongue along you, but you… won…” Jen gasped, groaned, bucked her hips up to Alex’s waiting mouth, and finished – “’t let me.”  She collapsed, hoarse moans escaping her.  “I can feel the heat of your cunt on my face; I can’t reach it with my mouth, so I slide one finger inside, then two.  I run them along my lips, making them sticky with your juices, and suck them clean.  You stand up while I’m shuddering from being fucked and walk around to the back of her, sliding one hand up the front of her shirt to gently pinch her nipple and massage her vulva with the other hand until she’s too close to coming to keep fucking me.”

“Then what?” Alex asked, now sliding her fingers in and out of Jen’s cunt, curving her hand so that her heel would rub against Jen’s clit.  “I told you -” said Jen, a dreamy smile on her face – “you’re directing the scene.”  Alex leaned in and kissed her before whispering, “But you’re the one with the imagination.  Babe, you have the sexiest brain of any girl I know.”  “Thanks, love,” she replied, pulling in Alex for another kiss.  “Let’s talk more realistically about this when we’re sober; for now, I just want to feel you all over me.” “Done,” said Al, pressing her whole weight into Jen, hot now under the blazing light of the fire.

 

 

Inspired by the following lyrics from “Winter Wonderland” (which I know isn’t technically a carol, but it popped into my head!):

Later on, we’ll conspire as we dream by the fire

To face unafraid the plans that we made,

Walking in a winter wonderland

One Down

Still in a sex haze from a long, giddy night of pot and orgasms that stretched into a morning of devouring all the leftovers in my flat before devouring each other, I lie silent for a minute, listening to the door click behind him as his footsteps run down my stairs outside.  Everything is perfectly still and calm; I can hear birds chirping and see the first rays of sun starting to penetrate the sky.  It’s too early for traffic – and besides, no one would be out on a Sunday morning.  Except him.  Perhaps whistling while he walks; perhaps listening to music.  Definitely thinking about the way I taste.

I reach into my nightstand drawer and pull out a Batman stationery pad, flipping it open to the first page on which I’ve written the beginning of a list:

Double butt plug

Saran wrap fuck

Bound, spread-eagle fuck

Pegging…

The list goes on.  I’d written it after a long conversation we’d had a few weeks prior in which we spent hours talking dirty about the things we wanted to do together.  I had snapped a quick photo of it with my phone, sending it to him as a kind reminder; sure, there were things I had in a mental life-long fucket list of unlikely situations, but he was a rare and beautiful partner: the kind I could suggest any fantasy to, knowing he’d be game.  I wanted to have a special fucket list for us. 

I grab a pen and with a steady hand cross off the phrase “good ol’-fashioned anal” before ripping the sheet of paper out of the pad and neatly folding it into its own envelope.  I write his address on the cover and put it aside for the moment, relishing the memory of sitting on top of him in the dark, his breathing shallow and yearning, as I lowered myself slowly onto his cock. I had slid back up almost immediately for more lube; once that was in place, delightfully messy and slippery, I found it much easier to slip him inside of me.  I could feel every throbbing vein on his cock against my tight muscles; I turned on a wand and sat on him, telling him to hold still while I brought myself to climax.  Once I’d come, my whole body relaxed, and I could start gliding along his cock – back and forth until I felt comfortable.  Until I wanted it deeper.  Until I came again, my whole pelvic floor contracting against him – which is when he lost it, moaning a guttural moan I’d never heard before. One of desperate release drawn out of him like a spirit.

My hunger not quite satisfied, I roll out of bed, throw on some sweats, and settle on grabbing a bagel down the street.  I clip our list onto the mailbox on my way out the door for the mail carrier to pick up the next day and giggle at the thought of her opening it or trying to use the light to see what’s inside.  On the way, I hear dull church bells ring in the distance, and once again I think of him; I hope he’s made it on time.

Be It in the Theatre

The first time I ever saw The Rocky Horror Picture Show in a theatre, I was fifteen years old.  I had watched it on television on Halloween with my family (Thanks, gay uncles!) and just HAD to see it live.  I was hooked.  My bad-influence friend (We all have one, right?) and I put on shoplifted negligees, fishnet stockings, strappy high heels, and heavy makeup, and teetered over to the theatre with her stepfather, who agreed to walk us there to assure the staff that we had parental permission to see the film.

Not that we needed it.  As soon as we hopped into line, the guy playing Eddie sauntered over to us, looked down, and said, “Hey.  You girls virgins?”  “Nope,” we staunchly replied, not wanting to have to participate in the virgin contests that we’d heard about.  We wanted to seem cool. Yeah, sure, we’ve done this before.  No bigs.  Her stepfather almost had a heart attack, which sent us into fits of giggles as we tried to explain to him that Eddie had meant Rocky Horror virgins, not actual virgins.

As soon as we walked into the magnificent and ornate theatre where the movie was being shown, I felt my heart leap into my chest.  Home, my head said, over and over, and my heart repeated it.  Home.  I’m home.  So many people were walking around the theatre, hugging each other, making tasteless jokes and sexual innuendos, laughing hysterically.  Some people were dressed like the characters, some dressed up in leather and lace, and some folks were just there in jeans and sneakers.  Everyone seemed to fit in – no matter who they were or what they looked like, everyone fit, like a quilt.  I knew it right away: these people were my people.  The first time you find home is electrifying: you can feel all your nerves light up, connecting you to the people and the space around you, and you’re floating and so grounded all at once.

At fifteen, I don’t think I understood every audience participation line and joke that was made that night, but I got most of them, and the next time I went back, I yelled as many as I could remember.  I found audience participation scripts; I joined fan clubs and discussion groups, ecstatic that there were other people who loved dark and bawdy humor as much as I did.  I started going as often as my parents would let me, eventually going almost every weekend.  I participated in born-again virgin contests (Great concept, no?) and costume contests and amateur night.  I got to know some of the cast members, who treated me like a little sister.

The guy who played Frank-N-Furter is forever burned into my brain as the first adult I ever felt pure, unadulterated lust for.  He was all swagger.  There was sizzle in his smile, and he prowled when he walked.  He owned that role and looked So. Fucking. Hot. in that leather jacket and corset I almost couldn’t contain myself.  I ogled him week after week, fantasized about him at night, probably wrote in my diary about how badly I wanted him.

It came as quite a shock when years later at an anniversary show – years after I’d last seen him – he walked up behind me, tapped me with a riding crop, and drawled, “Well – look who’s all grown up.”  I think I faintly squeaked, “You remember me?!” Yes, he assured me – he did.  As an adult looking back now, I think it’s likely he got teased by other cast members for having a teenage fangirl.  I thought my staring was happening on the sly – we always do – and it never is.

I joined a cast in university, then another, before dropping it once I became old enough to go to pubs on Saturday nights.  Rocky Horror and the people I met there helped shape who I am more than I can ever know, I imagine.  I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the end of the film – the song “I’m Going Home” – and how touching and earnest a song it is in the middle this weird, sexual sci-fi and horror parody.  I am going home soon – and for me, part of going home is going back to that theatre and that movie and being thankful that I had a space as a young person where I could embrace and relish being exactly who I was.

As there’s quite an overlap between sex geeks and RHPS fans (and Pagans and Trekkies and Ren Faire people and kinky people…), I know some of you have Rocky Horror memories, too; what was your first experience with it?

Friends with Benefits

The first time I fucked a friend who I had zero romantic (or sexual, for that matter!) interest in was on New Year’s Eve, 2002.  I don’t remember why we left the party and went back to his place; likely we were outside smoking together and he said he needed to get something, so I opted to go with him.  We were both drunk, but not too drunk – just drunk enough to be warm and aroused. The night was still young – not quite midnight.

We went into his bedroom to get whatever it was he needed to get, and then… honestly, I don’t remember what happened next.  I remember we were kissing, and he was smiling, and then we were in the shower, and then we were wet and fucking on his bed.  I remember discarding a condom wrapper on the floor and laughing about how no one was missing us.  I remember how nice it felt to be intimate and sexual with someone without any expectation that it would happen again but also with care for each other’s feelings and pleasure because we’d known each other for years; how I didn’t worry that it would affect our friendship.  I didn’t think about where it would go or what I should do to make him happy, because I just wanted it to be what it was in the moment – an authentic connection, a mutually-enjoyed sensual experience.  Every time I saw him afterward, we would share a secret smile that said, “Thanks – that was lovely.”      

I’ve been thinking about this lately because I recently opened up a couple of friendships into sexual relationships, and both have been truly amazing.  I’ve always been strict about compartmentalizing my life; I suppose I still am in some ways.  But I refused to mix friendship and fucking because I was always afraid of hurt feelings.  Now that I’ve had my heart broken a couple of times in the past few years (and I mean really fucking broken), I’m not so afraid anymore.  I’m still here.  These broken hearts have improved my communication skills and opened my heart and body to new ways of experiencing love, friendship, and intimacy.  I definitely don’t want to fuck most of my friends, but when I do, it feels like a safe space in which to explore, to feel sexy, and to be cared for without so much on the line. 

Also, one of these new friends with benefits is a service sub, and how can you say no to that?

Connection

My very, very favorite thing to do is go blues dancing.  More than driving on lost highways.  More than eating the toastiest bagel on a winter day.  More than sex.

Yes.  More than sex.

Dancing with a good partner is what makes me feel most alive and in my body.  It makes me feel graceful and beautiful and sassy and carefree and so incredibly intimately connected to my partner, even if (s)he is a total stranger.

I’d take a great dance over good sex and a good dance over mediocre sex any day.

I desperately wish people still went dancing on dates.

For lots more favorites, click the lips below!

*Sorry for the crap quality of the photos; they’re stills from a video shot in a dark swing dancing venue.

Bonfire

I had a beach bonfire with a group of students a couple of weeks ago; as the fire died down and we finished licking the s’mores chocolate off our fingers, everyone grew quiet and stared up at planes flying over us.  We talked about where the planes were likely coming from and going, and the next place each of us would visit.  I asked my students where they saw themselves in ten years.  One said she’d be working in Germany, though she wasn’t sure what she’d be doing.  One said she’d be an office worker, and one said she would own her own kindergarten.  One said he would be in sports medicine.  The others couldn’t answer; they had no goals, no plans, no ideas.  I wondered if I could honestly answer if they turned the question around on me — definitely not.  I don’t even know where I’ll be in three years, let alone ten. 

We continued looking up into the stars, listening to jazz on my tiny iPod speaker, breathing in salty ocean air, and contemplating the future as the last embers faded on the wooden pallet in the center of our circle. 

It was a moment of bonding without speaking, out in the open, away from the city lights and with no phones or computers in sight — just face-to-face human connection.  We could all use a little more of that.