My editor suggested I needed another five stories. She told me in terms and words and pages but I worked backwards and came up with the number five. I needed five more profiles. I had spent three days beginning new tales of sexual debauchery only to grow bored with them before they were done. I don't know if it was full on writers block but I needed some new ideas. I build my characters from real people and I don't know, I guess I had already made every woman I know a slut. I guess I need to meet more people.
I posted the ad online. My responses were funny and sad at the same time. I said simply I was doing research and was interested in talking to sexually liberated women. I wrapped it up with "Are you a slut? Tell me why." I probably shouldn't have used the word slut because most of the responses were guys. At least half of them sent pictures of their penis. I had at least one story idea.
I was deleting one after another when I came across it. It was promising. She caught my attention when she asked if I needed her real name. I replied that I didn't, that I would love to hear her story. She replied within minutes. She could meet that day. We arranged to meet when she was off work. She wasn't close but the drive wouldn't be bad. She suggested a bar and told me she had red hair and would be wearing a leather jacket.
I spent the afternoon despising my closet for being too small, the clothes inside it for being old and boring and my belly and ass for expanding until the few cute options I actually owned no longer fit. I ended up in Jeans and a T-shirt. I wore my hair up and put on the one pair of boots I have that don't hurt my feet. The only thing I really knew about this woman was that she would have on a leather jacket so I wore my leather jacket. I left early. I arrived early. The bar was charming in a simple pool tables large patio picnic table sort of way. I ordered a beer and waited.
She was late but not so late that I felt inconvenienced. I had finished a beer and was waiting on a second. I guess I am as predisposed as anyone to judgment and based on her emails I expected her to be younger. She was about my age. I would come to learn she was almost dead on my age, older by only 23 days. As first I would have said she was heavy, the jacket and billowing skirt gave the impression she was a bigger girl but when we sat down outside at a picnic table and she removed her coat I saw she had a nice figure. Her breasts were full but not large. She wore a crochet top with a plunging neckline. She didn't tease with a push-up bra and cleavage like most women today, like I do, but instead wore no bra. I guess I am fixating on her breasts. I will move on by just saying they were alluring the way they casual swayed beneath the top. Her arms were fit in the sleeveless top, her shoulders seemed strong like a swimmers. I could see how men would find her attractive. I found her attractive.
She had red hair, it was longer but pulled up in back. It struck me as though it was redder than it should be. I couldn't hold that against her, mine is blonder than it should be. I couldn't help but assume she was crazy. Aren't all red heads supposed to be crazy?
She didn't smile. She ordered a much stronger beer than the lite beer I was drinking.
"Do you mind if I smoke?" She pulled a pack of cigarettes and a lighter from her purse. "Of course not. You probably want to get the full picture of me for your research. Well, you can mention that I smoke. It is an indication of my addictive personality."
I had no idea where to start. "Thank you for meeting me."
"Honestly, I just thought your post was so off the wall I wanted to see if you were legit." She took another long drag, she seemed to be sizing me up the same way I had been studying her. "You are older than I expected." Another pause as she finished her cigarette and stubbed it out." I was expecting you to be some college student working on a research paper. I planned on being judged by some twenty-two year old girl who didn't know her cunt from a hole in the wall. Shit, did I say that? That sounded awful. I'm sorry."
I didn't want to interrupt but she had stopped talking and the quiet felt awkward. Hardly. No college paper here. I'm just looking for stories from sexually liberated women."
"Sluts."
"Yes. But 'sluts' in a good way."
"Are there right ways and wrong ways to be a slut?" She looked at me with an honest curiosity. Her eyes were a dazzling shade of green. They weren't a mixture of blue and brown or even gray, they were a deep green. I made a note 'houseplant?' as though I could think of something better at a later time.
"I think so. I think a woman can make mature decisions about who she wants to sleep with. I think a woman doesn't need to be locked away as a wife and mother saving herself for one man to use for his own gratification. I think a woman should be as free as a man to identify her sexual needs and find ways to meet them. " I really believe that. "Within reason."
"Within reason." She lit another cigarette. I would end up having one eventually. Cigarettes keep coming up as I write this. I am going to end up with a habit. "Who decides what within reason means."
"Whatever you can get away with before your husband throws you out of the house?" Shit. Two beers.
She laughed aloud. She had a deep, honest laugh. "I had problems with staying within reason, then."
"You've been married?" I asked.
"Twice. They couldn't handle me."
"You cheated?" I felt my line in the sand fading. I so far had avoided stories of infidelity. I guess I thought I could tell the tale of being a slut without having to go down that path. It was feeling as though that wasn't going to happen.
"I'm a slut. Certified card carrying one. I couldn't keep it in my pants either time. Oh well, it is what it is."
"Certified slut?"
"Diagnosed sex addiction. I am also bi-polar, depressive, and if you believe the last one, borderline sociopathic."
"God, sociopathic?" Maybe this wasn't a good idea.
"Yeah. She said I didn't ever consider how my actions would affect other people. I stopped seeing her after that. I do consider my actions. I spend long nights doing nothing but considering them. Of course, that doesn't stop me from doing it so I guess maybe she's right." She looked sad. "Of course, when I just said to hell with it all, I am just going to live like I want to live, the bi-polar crap went away. So did the depression."
"That's good."
"I think so. So. Let's get to this. What do you want to know?"
What did I want to know? I guess I should have planned better. I should have had prepared questions. "You know, I really didn't prepare for this at all." I admitted. I looked down at my notebook as if it would help. I started boring. I found out simple boring stuff. She was 42. She had been married twice. She had no children, she liked them but found she could get her fix playing with her nieces and nephews. She was the youngest of four and said her shrinks all suggested she fucked around to get the attention she had never gotten as a child. She called bullshit. She had a good childhood and still had a positive relationship with her father.
"Is it so wrong to just like getting laid?"
"God, I hope not."
"Are you a slut?" she asked me. I blushed for god sakes. I am just ridiculous at times.
"Yeah, I think I am."
"Married?"
"Yes. Twenty years."
"Christ, how do you slut around. You cheat?"
"I have." I answered in almost a whisper.
"Still cheat?"
"God no."
"How do you slut around. Women?" She was doing a much better job of interviewing me than I was doing interviewing her.
"We, um, we are in the lifestyle."
"Swingers? Crap. You don't look familiar."
"You are in the lifestyle?"
"I take it you aren't in the market for a unicorn?" She did smile now. It was a small smile and slightly flirty. We had never gone looking for a single bi-sexual female.
"No, just couples. Mostly small parties."
"You bi?" It didn't seem a come-on.
"No. I um. I like the guys. Maybe a little I guess."
"So you will put on a little show for your man. Make out and suck a titty." She seems vulgar in print but she was far more casual in person and it didn't feel that way.
"Sometimes."
"I run into that all the time. The wife says she wants to be with a girl but really he wants to see her with a girl. So you don't go down on women?"
"I um.. I have..." I was blushing again. She smiled at me.
"Just not your thing though... It's okay." I guess that was it. I wanted to say more. I wanted to explain. I guess the storyteller in my wanted to give her something entertaining and the slut in me wanted to brag. I needed to stay on topic though.
"So you are bi-sexual and play in the lifestyle. You said infidelity cost you your marriages. Have you cheated a lot?" I didn't like my question, I felt like I was being accusatory. I wanted to take it back.
"Lets get more beers, I haven't seen the girl." She left the table and went to the bar. Watching her walk away I was taken both by the way her ass shifted as she walked. Beneath her skirt her hips rolled back and forth in a sashay that made me think of proper women in skirts doing what they could to be appealing beneath corsets and bustles and flowing gowns. Her hair was also much longer than I had suspected only having seen her from the front. Long deep red curls cascaded down her back. The back of her blouse plunged as deeply as the front and her pale skin was dotted with freckles. I'm not into girls. I've said that right.
She carried a tray like a professional server and distributed two beers and two shots of yellow liquid smoothly without any hint at effort. I suspected tequila and declined. "I've read magazine interviews. I am the celebrity so you have to go along with what I want. We are doing shots." She sat back down and I choked down the tequila trying not to throw it back up. I gulped down half my beer to keep it down.
"If this isn't a research paper, what is it? Are you a magazine writer? 'Sexually liberated women' makes it sound like an article for some alt magazine."
"No, nothing like that." I felt the liquor. I don't do shots. I don't typically drink three beers. Later I would see the booze in my notes, my handwriting becoming slowly less legible. "It just for some silly stories."
"You write dirty stories?"
"Erotica." I corrected. It was only since I'd been working with an editor that I myself stopped considering them just 'dirty stories.' "It is an anthology of stories about women who are proud to be sluts."
"And you ran out of person stories and fantasies."
"Kinda." I answered too easily. Fucking liquor.
"Do you want to know about my gang-bang experience?"
"Sure, I guess..." I scribbled notes as she told me the story.
"It was right after my second divorce. I don't even think the divorce was final. I met a guy. God, some guys just suck, you know what I mean. I know I was using him. He was okay looking but wasn't that smart. He ran a tire store for christsakes. We were out late and pretty fucked up. I don't do drugs, not anymore, but I did then. He said he could get some coke. Have you ever done coke?"
I shook my head. I was busy listening.
"He knew a guy. We went to the guys place. I know I did a line. I might have done more. I guess I knew by the way Ray talked what was expected. I didn't give a shit. I was sorta okay with it really. Up to that point I had only been with two guys once and it was a long time ago. I was okay with it really. You had two guys?"
"Kind of my thing." I don't wink but I did my raised eyebrow thing.
"So I did a line or two and I was feeling good. Like, if you have never done coke I don't know how to explain it to you but yeah, I was down to fuck and pretty much went straight for Ray. I was on my knees in this shitty apartment and I am going to town, sucking dick like a pro and then the dealer, he is there and his pants are just gone. He had this ratty old T-shirt on and I remember thinking it was kind of gross but fuck it. I was thinking about fucking and sucking at the same time."
"Fuck yeah." Shit. Yeah, I said it.
"I guess I didn't know the other guys were there. I don't know if they came in after I had started or if they were in a back room. I was fucking scared but shit. You know what? That was the thing. That's what got me off?"
"Being scared?"
"Yeah. I mean, I was terrified. Who were these guys? I just had no fucking idea what they were going to do to me. I had the high on, so everything was just ten times more intense. I remember... So, I remember I felt like I had to suck everyone. I felt like that was the challenge. I had to have every cock and I wanted them as deep in me as I could take them, you know what I mean?"
"Not like giving head, like being fucked." I added. I knew.
"Fuck, that's it exactly! Thank you. I wanted them all to fuck my mouth. It's... I remember this one guy. He didn't want head. He kept like, pushing me away and I wasn't going to let him. I told him if he wanted my pussy he had to let me suck his dick. He gave in. I sucked him too."
