Thursday, October 25, 2012

Half Naked Thursday: I Love Myself

I'm not perfect. That doesn't matter. I'm strong. My body feels good, and my heart is happy. I think these pictures capture all of those things about me. Perfectly. 








The gorgeous, talented, and infinitely charming Cricket Burwell took these pictures. Be sure to take a look at her site, www.cricketburwell.com, and do visit her Etsy shop for amazing re-stayled taxidermy creations.

Saturday, August 25, 2012

The Pearl Is In the Lotus

It was the second-to-last week of the semester, and Gene suggested Telephone. It was just the kind of disarming thing he’d do, to make us play a silly children’s game. Our small class of high-school seniors went along with it, of course. There was very little we wouldn’t do for Gene. Even the skeptics among us had been seduced by his lectures, mixing history, philosophy, world religions and what seemed to be his own brand of gnostic gospel.

The class was simply titled, Religions. Our hippie boarding school, strictly secular, allowed teachers the leeway to devise their own curriculum. I’d signed up for Religions on the advice of friend, who’d told me Gene treated his students to dinners at his house with wine and hot tubbing. What she hadn’t mentioned was his incredible personal magnetism. He did not only teach about religion. He offered his students the experience of religion, through his own, mystic person.

It was true, though, about the dinners. Midway through the semester (after Siddhartha, partway through the Bhagavad Gita) he drove the 10 of us out to his house, built into the side of a small Vermont mountain. He’d built it himself, of course, out of hand-hewn logs. We sat around his long dinner table by candlelight. The soup and bread his wife served us seemed permeated with the love Gene radiated. We were giddy on the Chianti he’d poured. We watched the sunset through the tall dining room windows. “Remember this moment,” Gene told us. “Look around at the people around the table. Feel the spirit we all share.” We looked at one another, meeting each other’s eyes. “I want you to fix this moment in your mind,” Gene said. “Say it with me. ‘I will never forget.’” We repeated it, all together. I will never forget.

It worked. I will never forget that night. I’d wanted to sit near him at dinner, but he’d taken hands with Alice and Poplar on the way in, leading us all in a hilarious dance around the dining room before settling at the head of the table with one of them on either side. I’d landed halfway down, perpetually handing butter and salt back and forth. I tried to breath into my jealousy. Be Here Now, I told myself. A knee bumped mine. Red-headed Cooper sat at my right. Had he touched me on purpose? I shifted in my seat, letting my leg graze his again. Would he move away? Easily distracted and sexually innocent as I was, the question of Cooper’s interest occupied me through much of the meal.

The stars were coming out as we devoured the last of the excellent apple pie Gene’s wife had baked. “Who’s up for a dip?” Gene asked. “The hot tub seats 8, if we get cozy.” I thought maybe I could arrange to sit next to Cooper, since Gene was clearly out of my reach. “If you can’t be with the one you love/Love the one you’re with!” ran through my head. I mentioned it was a hippy school, right?

Outside the night was cold and bright with stars. The moon was a far-off sliver. We hurried to undress as Gene uncovered the steaming cedar tub. Cooper called a casual goodnight to us all, not singling me out. “I’m loaning Cooper my night binoculars,” Gene told us. “He’s going to see the owls that live in my upper meadow.” Gene was done readying the tub, and was stripping off his clothes. I felt self-conscious removing the last of my underwear. Skinny dipping was an ordinary enough school activity, but there wasn’t usually a teacher along. I lowered myself into the concealing water rather more quickly than my skin would have liked. Gene, who turned out to have had swim trunks on under his clothes, got in beside me.

“Let’s all take hands,” Gene suggested, “And pass a blessing.” He squeezed my left hand, and, guessing his meaning, I squeezed Poplar’s hand. There was a laugh as the blessing went around, and another as it came back the other way. I sunk more deeply into the water, leaning my head on the side and looking up at the stars. Gene still held my hand. It felt electrified. A current ran from his palm right up my arm and into my heart, making it race. “I want you all to think about the transmission of spirit,” Gene was saying. “We’ve been studying the written word and oral traditions. But just now, we passed a blessing around that had nothing to do with words. I think it was bigger than words. There’s some holy truth to be found here, tonight - right now.” We were silent, listening. Gene let go of my hand, but moved his arm behind my waist, pulling me closer to him, resting his palm against my right hip.

“Let’s do a little silent meditation, here, and try to really experience the spiritual connection we share. In about 10 minutes, we’ll talk some more and share our experiences.” There was a murmur of consent, then silence. Over the bubbling of the whirlpool jets I could hear the slight rustle of breeze in the trees and the distant rush of a car going by. I closed my eyes. Gene turned his body towards me and pulled me back against his chest. Both his arms were around my waist. His palms burned against my belly. I felt incredibly naked. “Rest,” he whispered in my ear. “It’s alright to let yourself go a little, Penny. I’ve got you.”

I was thrilled and elated and terrified. What if he accidentally touched my breasts? What if he touched them on purpose? “Rest,” he said in my ear, and I tried to let myself sag back against him as if I wasn’t rigid with fear. He rocked me, then. Side to side, holding me firmly. It felt almost fatherly. I was ashamed of the throbbing I felt between my legs. This was supposed to be a spiritual experience!

Eventually, Gene unwound himself from me and I leaned against the side of the tub again. He announced the end of our meditation, and began leading a discussion. I had nothing to say, and for once he didn’t prod me to join the conversation. Though he tended to gesture with his hands when he spoke, he sometimes rested one on my knee. I felt as if I had truly received some kind of religious grace.

“The thing I hoped you’d get from tonight is that you are all holy. And when holiness comes together, when we’re present together, we can reach a place of communion with God, or Jesus, or Buddha, or nature, or whatever you want to call it. See if you remember this one, because it will probably be on the final exam--” A groan went up from everyone.

“I know you all hate thinking about that. But it’s ALL final exam, people. Every day. Really. Are you with me?” Nods and laughs indicated assent. “So here it is, gnostic gospels, straight from the mouth of Jesus via St. Thomas to me to you. ‘I am the light that shines over all things. I am everything. From me all came forth, and to me all return. Split a piece of wood, and I am there. Lift a stone, and you will find me there.’ That’s about you. ‘I am everything.’” We were quiet. A few months ago, I would have laughed at this as spiritual mumbo jumbo. Now it made perfect sense. The light was in me. And Gene wanted to share it with me.

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

The semester was almost over. Gene gave us our class period off to work on our final papers comparing foundational works from any two major religious philosophies. I’d chosen the Upanishads and Gene’s favorite, the gnostic gospels of St. Thomas. It wasn’t going well. Without Gene’s enthusiastic exhortations to look more deeply, the teachings lost their transparency and became just nonsensical words. In my ignorant hands, the ideas were not moldable clay for building but impenetrable granite.

“You have to take yourself out of the equation,” Gene told me when I went to him for help. “You’re intellectualizing to the point where you can’t let the meaning in.” I felt frustrated. He wasn’t helping me. Maybe it was all meaningless. Gene must have sensed my feelings. “Wait while I go through Poplar’s draft,” he suggested, “And then I’ll have time to work with you.”

It was a long wait. I sat on the floor in the hallway and reread my highlighted texts. I was resisting their meaning, I knew I was resisting. My old cynical self was at war with the spiritual being Gene had awoken in me. Eventually Poplar reappeared. Her face was flushed and I wondered if she’d been crying. “Are you okay?” I asked, but she kept on walking as if she hadn’t heard me. I stared after her. Poplar was usually so light hearted.

“Thou art that,” I heard, and turned to find Gene looming over me. I’d doodled those words all over my notebook. It had been one of the first concepts we’d studied, and remained both my favorite quotes and a source of continuing annoyance. “Thou art welcome in my office,” Gene said, smiling down at me, and I awkwardly took the hand he proffered and rose.

Gene’s office was a narrow, oblong closet at the back of the classroom. One side was lined with high windows and a built in desk. True to form, Gene had installed a shrine on the desk and placed pillows on the floor instead of using a chair. “Welcome to my nest,” Gene said. I attempted to imitate his graceful transition from standing to cross legged. “Push the door shut,” he suggested, “So you can lean on it.” I arranged myself against the door, and Gene moved forward until our knees were touching. His nearness was intoxicating. He was looking into my eyes. I tried hard to look back, though I found their paleness unsettling. It wouldn’t do, I thought to myself, to let my eyes wander to his lips. Of course, to think it was to do it. His eyes twinkled. Did he know I’d been thinking about him kissing me?

“Tell me about Thou Art That,” Gene said. I blushed.

“It’s an essential Buddhist truth,” I ventured. “It means we’re all part of Buddha nature.”

Gene leaned in towards me, his hands on my shoulders. “Not part. It means you--and I--ARE the unknowable, infinite, ecstatic everything.” His eyes pulled me into them, limitless as the sky.

“I want you to try a lotus meditation with me,” Gene said, not dropping my gaze. I nodded.

We were sitting cross-legged, face to face, knee to knee. My long hippie skirt draped over my feet. Gene moved it back casually, and took my top calf in his hands. “Shift this here,” he said, unfolding my knee and lifting my leg over his. He did the same with my other leg, then uncrossed his legs, too, and moved closer to me. I was half reclined against the door, legs half spread. my thighs resting on top of his. His legs wrapped around me, his ankles supporting my lower back. My heart pounded. My nipples pushed hard against their confining layers of fabric.

Gene had the half smile he often wore during teaching, an abstracted sort of smile as if he were reciting a mantra in his mind even as he talked with us. He pushed my skirt all the way up my thighs and placed his hand flat over my panties, thumb against my vulva. “I’d prefer your skin,” he said, tilting his head questioningly. I tried to speak, but only a strangled gasp came out. I nodded instead. Gene moved his hand to the same position but inside my panties. His palm crushed my pubic hair against me. His thumb was firm over my clit and the top of my vulva.

“Close your eyes,” he said. “I want you to picture yourself as a seed. You have hard, hard skin to protect you against the sun and the cold. But now you are in the water, the perfect place to grow. It’s time to soften that hard skin.” His thumb pulsed, just slightly. Pulse. A beat. Pulse. “Breath,” he said. “Breathe deeply and listen.”

“Your hard shell is softening, layer by layer, breath by breath. You feel something awakening inside you.” His slow pulsing caress continued. “It’s growing, emerging with every breath. You become aware there is mud all around you. But Above you, above this muddy pool of dirt, mud and filth, you can sense sunshine and air.”

I wondered if my arousal was the filth. His thumb was making slight circles now. I was growing wet. “Penny,” he said, refocusing me. “You are beginning to grow roots. Can you feel them? Wiggle them into the earth.” Oh god--was he telling me to wiggle? His palm rocked against my pelvis. Involuntarily, my hips jerked a little against him.

“A stem is rising from your heart.” he went on. “It’s growing up towards the light and air. A bud is forming.” His voice lowered. Though my eyes were still closed, I could feel that he’d leaned in closer to me. “Feel your bud swelling in the warmth of the sun,” he said. His thumb plowed downward, between my pussy lips, and rose again, slick. His voice continued. “Feel your petals beginning to unfold.” Everything in me was rising, rising. “Soon you will burst into bloom. Soon all the walls will fall away. You are opening.” I was opening. My petals were unfolding. I was floating toward ecstasy. “You are a lotus,” Gene said, “One with creation.” I quivered and shook and burst into beautiful bloom.

-------------
That night I wrote my paper in one, feverish sitting. Both philosophies called for unmediated experience of the divine within. I felt lifted out of my old life into a world of spiritual unity and enlightenment. I couldn’t wait to see Gene again.

I turned in my paper to Gene’s office mail box that weekend. He’d promised to return them at our next class period, Wednesday. It felt like a long wait. I masturbated each night with alternating thoughts of Gene kissing me and a lotus blossom unfurling inside me. When Wednesday finally came, I rushed to class, hoping to be there ahead of the others and have a minute to greet Gene properly. I wasn’t sure what that proper greeting would be - would he take me in his arms? Kiss me on the forehead like the disciple I was? But I wasn’t the first to arrive. He was already in conversation with Conner and a raised hand and smile were all he could spare me. I took my seat at the far end of the table.

“Today I want to talk again about transmission. The semester’s almost over and I’ve thrown a lot of words at you. But in some cases, words just obscure the truth. We’ve talked about how different versions of documents come down to us through the ages, and how the great truths are expressed over and over again in different traditions. Even in our small circle, words can be distorted, can’t they.” There was a murmur of assent. “So to further our understanding, we’re going to play a little game of Telephone.”

Wonderful Gene leaned over to whisper in Conner’s ear. I envied Conner desperately. Conner gave Gene a questioning look, then leaned over to Anna. Anna whispered to me. The words filled me with a glow I tried not to show. Still, I couldn’t help a glance at Gene. He winked. I turned to the boy on my left and repeated, as clearly as I could, “Penny is a blooming white lotus.”

He repeated it to Poplar. I could hear the edges of his whisper. Poplar turned red and stood up fast. She was staring at Gene. “Penny?” she said, in a stricken voice. “Penny?!” She hung there for a moment. We all did. And then she turned and slammed furiously out of the room.

I sat there, agape. Alice got up and ran after Poplar.

“What’s so bad about being a lotus?” Conner asked. I felt sick. I looked at Gene, but he was handing back papers and didn’t meet my eyes. “Class dismissed,” he said. “Good job, everyone.” I sat, numb and miserable, and left as soon as my paper landed in front of me. I got an A, I noted. I didn’t look inside to read his comments.

There was a substitute for the last few classes of the year, during which we read aloud from a standard World Religions textbook that had never been brought out from the closet before. Rumor was Gene had been fired for getting students high. We girls knew better. I tried not to think about it. But every night, despite the shame, or maybe, over time, because of it: I masturbated to the fantasy of sitting on Gene’s office floor, his mouth on mine and his thumb buried deep inside me.

Read at the August, 2012 BedPost Confessions

Friday, July 20, 2012

Unrequited

My attraction to him is a one way street. You'd think I'd mind, but I don't. He flirts. He hugs me hello. He even offered to kiss me once, but it was an inconvenient time and it seemed sort of like he was doing me a favor.

When we're out, he's constantly looking for the next pretty girl. He gives our conversation only perfunctory attention. Then his blue eyes crinkle charmingly at the corners as he laughs and I'm wet despite myself.

I find I enjoy this unrequited romance. It feels like seventh grade, when I sent my crush a card signed, Your Secret Admirer but made the mistake of adding a smiley face with hearts for eyes. Dark eyed Rakesh, a confident eighth grader, had seen me make that exact symbol many times during our afternoons as library volunteers. "Thank you for the card," he said, and rolled his eyes at my efforts at denial. I lived out the remainder of that spring in an agony of embarrassment.

I've learned since then: there's nothing wrong with letting people know you like them. It's exceedingly rare that anyone takes offense. In fact, most people will be flattered enough to like you back, at least to some degree.

I don't think Jed dislikes me. Quite the opposite. I imagine he considers me, when he considers me at all, a casual friend. I just don't hold his interest.

Meanwhile, I'm at liberty to enjoy looking at him.

It could be a blow to my ego. The women he wants are taller than me, more polished, more tattooed, more explicitly, pin-up ready sexy. I could think about all the things I lack that would make him want me. Why don't I use his disregard to run myself down?

Maybe I'm too busy enjoying the tingle of an itch that will never get scratched.




Saturday, July 14, 2012

The Composer

It was done--tonight's symphony. Tim looked up from his laptop with an anticipatory grin. It was true, composing was part of his day job, but he took satisfaction in his work. And there was a special savor to writing a piece for someone he knew personally.

Tonight's piece would test out his newest modifications to the machine. Over the last few weeks, he'd created a new sensation module and programmed it into his composing software. When he'd finally sat down to write today's symphony, he could feel the rightness of the new element. Today's composition would have a richer tone than any he'd written before.

He got up and stretched, then moved to the boxlike machine that took center stage in his office. There were just a few more adjustments to be made before he met Amity for dinner. He moved the seat down to fit her stature and rechecked the small screws that fastened the newest part of the apparatus. He'd already brought in clean towels. All that was left was to make sure the data had transferred and the symphony played smoothly. His laptop was already queued to begin playing in test mode as soon as he pressed the machine's power button. He'd chosen the round white button with a sense of irony: it had been made to ring a doorbell. In this case, ringing a doorbell was an entirely inadequate metaphor.

With an almost inaudible hydraulic sigh, the machine came to life. Tim opened the front access panel so he could more fully assess the movements of the components. Buzzes, whirs, clicks, and tiny puffs of air being released hinted at the music Tim heard in his mind. It would take the melodic moans and sighs and shrieks of Amity to truly bring it to life.

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

Tim's machine always startled Amity a little when she walked into the room. He had the top of the line Orchestral, of course, but he'd modified it in so many ways it looked less like a luxury device than a 20th century artist's rendition of a time machine. Lights blinked, mysterious plastic and metal parts protruded. The side panels were off, of course, and tangles of wires ran down the machine's four-foot height to spill onto the floor. It would be a humorous sight, if she didn't know exactly how intense an experience the machine could deliver.

Tim hadn't told Amity anything about the new module. She wondered what part of her body it might be intended to stimulate. It always seemed to her the machine did everything imaginable - and then Tim would come up with something more. With a shiver of anticipation, Amity undressed.

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

Amity was so beautiful naked. Tim spent a moment admiring her, before coming to give her a kiss and help her into the machine. The Orchestral had been designed for easy self operation, but Tim's unending tinkering made his version a bit more difficult to enter. Amity ducked her head to avoid some low hanging cables and seated herself on the towel-covered platform. She lifted her feet to avoid some loose wires as he spun her to face the front of the machine. The genital armature would need to be readjusted a little, and he still hadn't perfected the auto-engage on the toe grip. That had been last month's new addition. Amity hadn't thought it would add much, but she found herself very much mistaken. It's amazing how sensitive the nerves are on the feet.

At last he had everything adjusted and was able to close the front access panel. The last steps were to latch the headband and wrist belts from behind. Technically, these modifications were not approved by the company. Safety was paramount to Orchestral Instruments. A bound "listener", as machine users were euphemistically called, could not end their experience at will. But, understanding the diversity of their market, they closed their eyes to Tim's occasional moonlighting in secondary-market accessory design. The head restraint, in particular, was a safety concern. Still, Tim often made more from such off-brand add-ons than he did from official Orchestral modules. And Tim never left his test subjects alone in the machine. Their biometrics unspooled on his computer screen, and he watched them with rapt attention as he listened to his work being performed.

-----------

Every sensation had an instrument. Every touch had a tone. The best of Tim's pieces could be played in a concert hall without anyone knowing their secrets. The reverse was true, too: A great piece of music, fed into his software, would create an extraordinary experience. The kinks of that, so to speak, had a bit more to be worked out--Tim felt the machine did not yet have its full complement of instrumentation--but the day would come when one could simply feed in Beethoven or Mozart and feel the music as naturally and completely as it had rung in the composer’s head.

Inside the machine, Amity would be hearing the notes through multiple speakers as she felt the experiential analogs stimulate her nerves.The music would seem to guide and control the sensations, though in fact they were one in the same. Perhaps even colors and shapes would appear inside her closed eyelids, as her mind struggled to make sense of the complexity. Synesthesia is the natural state of a mind being overloaded. A well composed piece could induce sensual immersion unmatched by any other form of stimulation. Tim, watching Amity’s biometric readouts as the music began, listening to the small moans and sighs tonight's symphony was already eliciting, was himself deeply aroused.

Tim had often debated with himself about his response to his work. As tester, he ought to remain detached. And yet the joy of his work was in vicarious experience. Why else would he bury himself in endless hours of code and tinkering, composition and isolation, if not to enjoy giving others the most perfect sexual experiences anyone could imagine? And, too, many of Orchestral's customers purchased his symphonies as gifts. Though the machine held only one listener at a time, many users had appreciative audiences. Tim was, in a way, calibrating the experience for them, too. And tonight... well... tonight required his vicarious immersion. He'd written himself a part in the score.

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

Tim had been right about the extraordinary nature of tonight’s score. It took only a few measures before Amity’s rational mind began to fade away. The orchestra had begun with her toes, her most recently discovered erogenous zone. Clarinet and violin had licked and sucked, as a slow drum beat pulsed around her breasts. It was impossible to tell if the attendant throbbing in her belly had been the bass reverberating or the emergence of arousal.

Amity’s slip into pure sensation was aided by her utter immobility. Her forehead was locked against the front panel, her hands tied behind her back. Twin tubes encased her breasts, with tiny electrode-embedded clips lightly gripping her nipples. Her waist was belted to the seat so she couldn't damage the delicate mechanisms that embraced her clit and teased her labia. And soon, she knew, her cunt and ass would be pinioned between dueling invaders. Her legs were, in theory, free, but her two longest toes were held in a delicately inescapable grip.

A harp sent shivers along her spine, and then a single, clear, pure note sounded, a concert piano, and something cool touched her lips. So, this was the new component: a mouth piece. No wonder Tim had been so excited to have her try it out. Oral stimulation was something that had never been satisfactorily realized by machines. At best one might find a pacifier like knob intruding, something to suck and bite in the heat of passion. Amity liked those, but so much more was possible. If Tim had created something he felt was worth testing, it was sure to deliver.

To highlight his new creation, Tim had written in a piano solo. He watched the biometrics eagerly, as the mechanical tongue began to explore Amity’s mouth.

Amity opened her mouth as the tongue pressed against her lips. She tested it with her teeth. It was pleasantly bitable without feeling like it might be damaged by her teeth; perhaps made of silicone over metal. It slipped into her mouth, thinner than she’d expected, more flexible. The tip met her tongue, withdrew, and entered again. Unlike a real kiss, Amity realized, there were no lips. She’d have to mention the lack to Tim. The music gained force and the tongue claimed more of her focus. It swelled in her mouth, like a cock waking from slumber. Amity sucked on it, drooling a little. Alarmingly, it continued to swell. Rampaging chord progressions echoed Amity’s heart as she began gasp. “Tim wouldn’t let me choke,” she told herself. “He’s watching; he wouldn’t let it hurt me.” Despite these thoughts, she found herself struggling against her restraints. Was the machine malfunctioning? The tongue was thrusting now, and Amity gasped for breath. She tried to clamp her teeth on the thing, but found it slick and hard now it had stretched to its full girth. It forced her mouth open painfully wide and pushed against the back of her throat. Amity choked, and the tongue drew back.

Amity’s breath came hard and fast. She wasn’t really hurt. The tongue subsided a little and moved more languidly. Other instruments rejoined the symphony, one by one. As the strings began, again, to tingle within her nipples, Amity realized how aroused her fear had made her. Low woodwinds moaned and throbbed. Her body thrummed and sang. She could feel a baton against her pussy (Orchestral eschewed any other term for the “vaginal and anal stimulators”). Her labia opened and closed against it, as if to pull its gently vibrating shaft inside her. Her ass was already being tantalizingly stretched by a staff the size of her pinky. It would grow, she knew. It would grow, and throb, and thrust deeply inside her. She hoped.

The music rippled in and out of minor key. Amity’s mind’s eye conjured up storm clouds and gusts of wind. The tongue had changed shape again, forming a ball in her mouth that filled it completely without blocking her breath. The two batons inside her warred against each other almost painfully. Amity felt herself riding into a jagged orgasm, sharp and jarring and bone-achingly spasmodic. She cried out through the gag in her mouth. The constriction of sound seemed to free something in her, and she screamed in a way she’d never allowed herself to scream before. Her cunt hurt from clenching its phallic invader.

The music fell and rose again, drums beating heavily. Her nipples were being sucked and pulled intensely, her breasts constricted. Jangling tones sent flickers of pain into her spine, while a sweet, high clarinet still drew faultless pleasure through her clit. The rod in her pussy only pulsed gently as the one in her ass rolled and battered at her. Amity was close to another orgasm, as shattering as the last, when the tongue suddenly shrank and slipped away. She hadn’t realized how tightly she’d been clinging to it. Her eyes flew open in alarm. And then light flooded in as a small hatch opened where the tongue had been, and something warm touched her mouth instead.

Amity opened her mouth eagerly. The light disappeared, blocked by Tim’s body. His warm, human shaft tasted wonderfully sweet. For a moment, Amity lost touch with the music, wholly absorbed in the texture of Tim’s cock against her tongue. As it drifted in and out of her awareness, the symphonic storm passed. Luminous tones spoke of sunlight emerging. A warm, golden feeling grew in Amity. Her veins were full of honey. The transcendent sensation that swelled and shook her was hardly even recognizable as orgasm. Tears ran down her face. Tim cried out and thrust into her. His cum pulsing into her mouth mingled with the last melting notes of music. It was over.

Tim withdrew from her mouth slowly. Amity had responded to his composition even more intensely than he’d intended. He wanted to treat her tenderly. He opened the box, released the wrist and head restraints, and took Amity awkwardly in his arms. She draped herself against him, sleepy and satisfied. “There’s something you’re forgetting,” she mumbled against him.

“What is it, Amity?”

She breathed in his scent: sweat and sex. His shirt was soft against her cheek. What had she meant to tell him? A fragment of melody came to mind and she hummed it into his neck. Tim joined in, adding the next phrase. Amity felt an answering surge of arousal. “Take me to bed,” she said. “I want your skin this time.” Tim bent to undo the belts and clamps of his mechanical wonder, and carried his lover away.

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Promises, Promises

I've had a bit of a shaky week. Maybe some of it was hormones, I don't know. I lacked my usual relaxed attitude, that feeling of centered calm that lets me greet the successes of my friends with compersive joy and accept their occasional offenses with equanimity.

Which is to say, I lost my temper. Quietly, privately, I raged. Being rather pathetically uncomfortable with anger, my default is to turn it against myself. Thankfully I've learned to stop myself from self-harming behaviors. (Well, unless you call scarfing large quantities of chocolate self harming. It's an okay choice, I think, relatively.) Instead I slept a lot, moped on friends' shoulders, and waited to feel better.

Of course, things that cause rage don't generally just go away on their own. They have to be looked at, and examined, and understood. They've got to be Addressed, and not while half asleep and sick on sugar overdose. I did a bit of journaling. I let myself vent. And I think I figured out the issue.

I haven't been writing. I haven't been working on any personal projects. I've poured energy into my job, BedPost Confessions, and being a mom. And then, tired out, I've collapsed on the couch. Every. Single. Night.

I don't watch much TV, but I read and tweet and surf and add things to my Amazon wishlist. I while away the evening until I'm too tired to get ready for bed, and then go to sleep miserably wishing I wouldn't have to get up in the morning. It's nothing out of the ordinary, I know. It just--finally--got to me.

I've got things to do. Books to write. Stories to tell. Filth to spread delicately on lily-white computer screens in patterns of perverted beauty. So. I'm recommitted. I will spend an hour a night on work that is mine only. And you, my beloved readers, will reap the benefit.

As a token of my sincerity, here is the first part of a story I've finally completed and which will be fully edited later this week.

The Composer

It was done - tonight's symphony. Tim looked up from his laptop with an anticipatory grin. It was true, composing was part of his day job, but he took satisfaction in his work. And there was a special savor to writing a piece for someone he knew personally.

Tonight's piece would test out his newest modifications to the machine. Over the last few weeks, he'd created a new sensation module and programmed it into his composing software. When he'd finally sat down to write today's symphony, he could feel the rightness of the new element. Today's composition would have a richer tone than any he'd written before.

He got up and stretched, then moved to the boxlike machine that took center stage in his office. There were just a few more adjustments to be made before he met Amity for dinner. He moved the seat down to fit her stature and rechecked the small screws that fastened the newest part of the apparatus. He'd already brought in clean towels. All that was left was to make sure the data had transferred and the symphony played smoothly. His laptop was already queued to begin playing in test mode as soon as he pressed the machine's power button. He'd chosen the round white button with a sense of irony: it had been made to ring a doorbell. In this case, ringing a doorbell was an entirely inadequate metaphor.

With an almost inaudible hydraulic sigh, the machine came to life. Tim opened the front access panel so he could more fully assess the movements of the components. Buzzes, whirs, clicks, and tiny puffs of air being released hinted at the music Tim heard in his mind. It would take the melodic moans and sighs and shrieks of Amity to truly bring it to life.

...to be continued...

Monday, March 26, 2012

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Head

"No," she said. "Hand me that pillow."

He wanted her in the bedroom. From the moment he'd heard her car pull up he'd been hard. She'd pressed herself against him as soon as the front door shut, greeted his kisses open-mouthed. But when he'd tried to lead her down the hall to his bed, she'd resisted.

Women delay sometimes, even ones who want you. But for her, it wasn't normal. She was so submissive, so seemingly enthralled by his every touch. Up until this moment, taking the lead with her had been as natural as it was new to him. Had he made a wrong move?

He looked at her quizzically, searching for signs of annoyance. "The pillow," she repeated, jerking her head towards the couch at his back. He handed it to her. "Thanks," she said, dropping it by his feet and sinking to her knees. His belt buckle was undone before he'd fully grasped the situation. He leaned his back against the door. No reason to resist. His zipper was undone and his boxers down with the same speed he'd planned to use to pull off her dress. She gripped the base of his cock.

He looked down at her and she smiled, licking her lips. "Look," she said, gesturing with her chin. His entry-way mirror reflected them, her mouth opening to take him in, her eyes glinting at him mischievously.

He watched as she ran her tongue around the head of his cock. Then he closed his eyes as her mouth engulfed him.  He felt her gag against him, and then the flow of spit erasing the slight roughness of her tongue. Her muffled groan made him throb. "I've got no technique," she'd told him once.

"I'd choose enthusiasm over technique, any day," he'd answered. Her mouth sucked and slobbered, licked and thrust. Her hand spread slickness around his balls and the base of his shaft. It was impossible to know exactly what she was doing. He opened his eyes again to check the mirror, but her hair obscured most of her face. Instead, he saw how her whole body was shifting up and down as her mouth moved, as if she were fucking someone underneath her.

Some random words escaped him and his hands instinctively went to her head to guide her. Her wet hands grabbed his as soon as he touched her hair, and he let her push them back against the door. She was using him as a brace, pulling herself into a intelligible rhythm. The incongruity of her position struck him wordlessly, her fierceness as she knelt in front of him, gagging and drooling and moaning over and over. And then he thought nothing as her hands moved to grab his ass and thrust him into her, his hands gripping her hair in helpless need for control. His orgasm surged through him. Her mouth licked and sucked and swallowed him as his body pulsed and shook.

The door dug into his back. Her mouth was in front of him, so he kissed it, tasting the slight bitterness of his come. "Want to go in the bedroom?" she asked. He followed her.






Saturday, February 25, 2012

Crushing Out

I've had the kind of crush where I'm always scanning the crowd for her. The kind of crush that makes my heart  founder and my face flush when I see her walk into the room. If I talk to that kind of crush, I can barely meet her eyes. Even if we're good friends, I'm half-afraid the whole time that she might see how much i like her.

I've had the kind of crush that's mostly misery. Where I want him all the time, even when we're together, even when we're fucking, always wanting more. The kind of crush that makes me stalk his blog comments and google his name repeatedly. Those crushes have woken me in the night, heart racing, thinking I might have missed his call, as if that would be an irredeemable loss.

A few lucky times I've had the kind of crush that make the world brighter. When I think of her, I feel relief, like the sun's come out on a cool day. There's desire in there, but it's mixed with peace. See me smiling dreamily? She crossed my mind and there's nothing else I need to make this moment perfect.


Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Lube and Orgasms


If you are in Austin, come see Orgasm, Inc. next Wednesday! You have to reserve your ticket in advance at www.tugg.com/events/201

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Ramble about Wrongness

The previous post was hard for me. It was hard to formulate what was going on in my mind, and painful to write down.

I really hoped that publishing the story would help me dispel some of the lingering shame I feel. A lot of times, blogging has worked that way for me. I post something, and I feel free. It lightens me just to put it out there, and when people comment saying it resonates I feel almost celebratory with relief.

Instead, I've felt scared, naked, and hideously self conscious. I thought about taking it down. I'm pretty sure that would just make me feel worse. I don't want to hide. I don't want to feel that I have to hide. I believe I have nothing to be ashamed of, and I don't want to coddle my irrational feeling of shame.

I asked a friend to read it. "What did you think?" I asked. He said he couldn't tell if it was consensual. He wasn't sure if it was supposed to be a happy story or not. He was uncomfortable. I concluded the story must need editing. It should be clear--starkly clear--that my stepfather's actions were the cruelest kind of abuse: the kind that presents itself as love.

I sat down to edit the story tonight. I can't see where to add a line, a word, a paragraph that explains. I don't want to make that story an educational piece for those unfamiliar with the various dynamics of sexual abuse. I'm surprised to think I might need to.

I guess that's a good sign for my own healing. To me, at least, there's nothing ambiguous about a grownup man in a position of trust having sex with his teenage stepdaughter. It's destructive. It's wrong. But for those it's not so obvious to, here is a list of a few of the things Howard's charade of love cost me:

Having a father figure I could rely on
The opportunity to develop sexually on my own time line
Trust of, intimacy with, and respect for my mother
A sense of safety in my own home and bed
The ability to be honest with my peers
Access to mental health care (because revealing my situation would mean his arrest)
The ability to connect with others physically
The ability to feel sexual pleasure

I've won a great number of these back, through hard work and with the loving patience of friends. As I said in the original post, I don't generally feel the need to think or talk about this part of my history very often. For the most part, I've moved on.

For the most part. Because I clearly felt the need to write Red Tide. And I needed, just as much, to hear from friends and readers that they understood my story.

As a young girl, I took the shame and horror and fear of that experience and turned it in on myself. I felt shameful, disgusting, and tainted. I was hoping sharing the story would help dispel the last of those feelings.  It hasn't so far, but I'm still hoping.

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Red Tide

Red tide is a common name for a phenomenon also known as an algal bloom, an event in which algae accumulate rapidly in the water column resulting in discoloration of the surface water. Toxicity varies.




I should post a warning. The following contains graphic scenes of …

Fuck it. Take your chances. This is non-fiction. The sensitive should abstain.

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

Last week, I went to the urologist. That’s too much information already, isn’t it? Bear with me. It gets worse.

I went to the urologist for a vague complaint my doctor felt needed further investigation. I had my period, and cramps, and almost cancelled. The doctor was booked out a month in advance, though, and I thought I’d better just go and get it over with.

After handing in a urine sample, the nurse told me I needed to undress for a pelvic exam. “I have my period,” I told her and she shook her head with a motherly smile.

“The doctor doesn’t mind. He won’t be using a speculum. Just hop up on the table and it will be over in a jiff.”

“I have a tampon in,” I told her. I was embarrassed. Mortified, actually.

“You can just toss that out. I think I have some more here in this drawer.” She pulled out a monster sized Tampax with a triumphant flourish, laid an absorbent white paper cloth over the end of the table, and left me to it.

I pulled out my tampon and wrapped it in paper towels. Blood soaked through them instantly. I shoved the bundle deep into their trash can. There was a drop of blood on the floor. I did my best to wipe it up with a tissue. I got up on the table before pulling off my panties the rest of the way, and wadded them up behind me for security.

The doctor was knocking before I’d finished pulling the sheet over me. The nurse came in with him, standing over me comfortingly as I lay back and put my feet in the stirrups. The doctor’s gloved finger entered me easily and felt around. He pulled out less carefully than he’d entered, and it hurt my sore insides. I caught a glimpse of his bloody glove before he deftly turned it inside out and threw it away. Probably the whole exam took 30 seconds.

The nurse put out a box of baby wipes as she left the room. There was less mess than I’d feared, though the trash can held gaudy splotches of red. I got dressed. “Come back in two weeks to discuss your test results,” the doctor told me.

These details are not relevant: I drove to work only to find I’d soaked through the giant tampon and pad. I drove home again to change my pants. I spent the rest of the day in bed with cramps.

This one is: I’ve been dreading going back next week. I don’t want to see that man again.

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

It came to me in the shower last night: The memory of my stepfather’s face, painted red with my menses.

I was 15. I can’t recall how it happened that my mother didn’t come along on our weekend trip to Cape Cod. Howard had arranged it somehow, engineered her disappointment and my delight. We'd daydreamed of going away together. I wanted losing my virginity to be special, not furtive. When we arrived at the converted mansion that was to be our hotel, we checked in as honeymooners.

We stashed our luggage in the antiques-filled room and headed out for an early dinner. When we got back to the room, with plans for massages and a movie and... that act...  my period started, days early. It was even heavier then than it is now, and the cramps were unbearable. Advil didn’t touch it. Howard went to down to the bar and then out to a liquor store to find me Kaluha and a box of milk. He put his warm hands on my stomach and hummed songs for me until I was able to relax again. Was I happy to be there with him, I wonder? I can’t remember any feeling beyond the physical.

He'd been waiting for this night. For my finally being willing to let him inside me. I wanted him to do it, because he’d done it before. He talked about being gentle. He had theories about technique. And I wanted it done, so I wouldn’t have worry anymore about his satisfaction with our sexual encounters. In my mind, having sex meant I'd be freed from obligations. I wouldn’t have to handle that throbbing, purple-tipped protuberance that seemed to always need satisfaction. I wouldn’t have to look at it, or to feel its too-thin-skinned smoothness against my tongue. With intercourse he could hide it inside me, and take his pleasure while I closed my eyes and tried to smile.

Both of us thus eager, we waited for the Advil and Tylenol and alcohol to do their work. When I began to relax, Howard brought towels from the bathroom to put underneath me, and smoothly pulled down my underwear and red-sodden pad. I was propped on down pillows against a carved, Art Deco headboard. The musky smell of my blood was thick in my nose. Howard licked me. Looking up, lips grotesquely red, he told me he liked the way I tasted. “The towels,” I said. “The hotel-”.

“They’re used to it,” he told me, and went back to lapping against my clit. He pressed his little finger into me slowly. “Now I know why they call it a flow,” he said. "It looks like a river." He was smiling delightedly, face covered in gore.

He finally wiped his face and arranged his body over me. His first thrust slipped up against my belly. His second felt like he’d hit a wall inside me. The third, knife-like, penetrated. He held me tightly as he thrust. Our stomachs slid wetly, sticky with blood and his sweat.

Afterwards, wiped clean again, my wounded body bundled back into layers of padded underwear, Howard pulled my head onto his shoulder. “How do you feel?” he asked.

“Fine,” I told him. I didn’t want to talk. I didn’t want him touching me. I thought of the mound of bloody towels and washcloths on the bathroom floor.

“It’s normal, you know,” he told me, “For a girl to feel upset after her first time. Angry, even.” I felt disgust, for our bodies, for the act, and most of all for myself. I wanted to sleep in the other bed, despite the soiled sheets. I didn’t want to be weak. I didn’t want to cry and let him think this moment meant something.

“I’m not mad,” I said, and kissed his cheek.

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

The next day over breakfast the hotel gave us sad news. A red tide had come in, and it was not safe to swim. There were dead fish along the shore, and it smelled of rot. We walked through the village, every quaint New England building filled with tasteless tee shirts and sea shell art for sale. Howard bought me a pair of cheap sunglasses and we ate dinner at one of those old-fashioned seafood and steak places where there are never any surprises.

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

All this came back to me in the shower, a composite flash of memory and the clear congruence of images: his red lips, the doctor’s bloodied glove. I hadn't told anyone about that trip. I hadn't thought of the disgust I felt, and how I sometimes feel it still.

I don’t live in the past. I’m not a victim or a cripple. I’ve paid my dues in therapy and bad relationships and tears. I’ve found my way to celebrate sexuality in myself and others. It’s just--every now and then--some moments creeps out of the past and demands to be seen again.

The doctor, though.... I don't think I'll be seeing him again. He can give me my diagnosis over the phone.