Note: for those of you reading this for its erotic value, be warned--it's at least as much psychology. It's all mind-fuck baby, yeah.
*****
Likely as not my life is only about one-third lived, but there are times, a lot of them lately, that I feel so old. My body used to be beautiful--strong and lithe enough to do some meaningful squirming on the dance floor. It's been battered now, shows scars of birthing children, effects of years of mental torture by my chosen mate, and corresponding years and beyond of the resulting eating disorder. By the time I quit puking about everything, I didn't know how to quit eating. I still don't. Food was really my only creature comfort, for a long time; that and memories of my other former companion, sex, which is of course out of the question now. If men really do think with their penises, since when did penises grow eyes? But that's another story.
By the time I was 21 I'd already acquired as many lovers as I'd ever have, minus one. I was rather proud of my record at the time, before I'd really had it pounded into me that men prefer virgins. Even though I'd been brought up being told "nice girls don't," I always figured nice girls were boring and what a man really wanted was someone to could fuck his brains out. That's certainly what I wanted. That, and someone who could fuck with my brain. Not in the way that people mess with each other these days, out of spite or boredom. I wanted to connect.
It's too damn bad I wasn't born a lesbian. I've had a few women friends with whom there an honest meeting of the minds. As for the men, I seemed to gravitate to ones who KNEW they were better than me. There was one who wouldn't touch me with anything except his foot, although he did tie me up once (for an art project). One married me for the opportunity to prove his superiority to himself. Then there was Ian, who was never that way. Maybe I can be with him again, in words, like those in the song that we danced to so many times, right here, right now.
It was during the summer, not surprising because it seems my sap runs the highest in summer. We were both 21. Young and dumb and full of cum, as the saying goes, thinking we'd arrived because we could drink legally in public. He was still in college; me, a drop-out. Met him at work, too, another no-no...but who cared? I'd half-assedly been eying him and chatting him up for a few weeks when I, always the aggressor, invited him to what we all considered neutral ground--girls' night out. As in, one guy and six chicks at the local heavy-metal watering hole. You can't say he wasn't brave. Maybe he was flattered, or looking for an opportunity to prove himself. After all, would anyone as obviously intelligent, well-mannered, soft-spoken, and to be honest, rather androgynous as he be straight? Nobody at work could figure it out. Unlikely, but I had to find out for myself.
Whatever the case, talking to him a few times proved that we thought similarly. He was perceptive and sensitive. And nice, another rarity. He wrote; I wrote. To make a long story short, he was. Straight, I mean. I think. I still don't know for sure. In a way, it always felt unfinished. The problem was, I thought we were perfect together, but I was too scared to tell him. With good reason.
Basically, ignoring all of "the rules" about (not) being a player before that term was ever coined, I was shackled mentally and soon to be more tangibly to someone else, who was looking for surcease of his own pain. Naively, I thought I could help this second man, but rather I became his bane. It brought out the worst in us. I was going down. In flames. I saw it coming like a fist to the jaw, but couldn't remove myself. Instead, every couple of days I disappeared down the road to Ian's place, to escape for a few hours at a time. In the calm before the storm, Ian and I danced around our issues and sought each other on a plane altogether removed from reality. So for maybe a total of two, two-and-a-half months: Idyllic, sweet, sexual-par-non, and then gone. It became a piece of personal memorobilia that nagged at me for years.
I've sneaked bits of it into my work over the years. Once I got caught blatantly writing about it which provoked my by-then husband to have a fling in a fit of rage. Later, I'd use the memories to get me through endless days of being a stay-at-home mom....
So are we writing psychology or erotica here? I don't know; a little of both? It has to be to do anything for your mind, not to mention your not-so-cerebral parts. And he did. So let me tell you the short story of how we got together, before we really had to think about what we were doing. Cue the music, probably "Enter Sandman" by Metallica. Is this romantic? Hell, no. I thought I was after hot sex. The rest was subconscious at the time. I'll have another double screwdriver--gasoline with a splash of sour rinds in that joint--and le's (sic) dance.
That particular night, Ian's black shoulder-length hair hung down in his face, not clubbed back like at work, and he hadn't shaven. 'So, the cherub gets dirty,' I thought. I was wearing my old stand-by, a black silk tank dress hiked up as far as I dared, black ankle boots, and a smear of black kohl around my eyes. He had on a tee-shirt with the sleeves rolled up, and black denim bib overalls (z. cavaricci, very 'in' at the time) with one strap deliberately left undone. He didn't fit in with the Levi's-and-leather crowd, this new-waver. I didn't give a shit--that would make it more interesting. Six women surrounded him and he danced with us all, one at a time. The regulars at the bar knew me as a hot dancer . I made Ian watch me, too, with whoever asked. It was all very laid-back but with an edge, buying rounds, bitching about work, drinking stories, the usual. Another of my favorites got played, probably "Hard to Handle" or "What I Like About You" --something with a fast beat--and off we went again, down to the main floor. Even his dancing was unique. He kept his head down and his feet moving in some kind of internal abbreviated fly-boy groove.
Unable to help it, I was analyzing what he'd be like in bed; you can always tell by how a person dances. This one would be delicate, painstaking in his technique, and incredibly imaginative. After a few minutes he started sneaking looks at me from under his heavily fringed lids. I pretended not to notice, concentrating on my presentation. My moves combined force with fluid. No one knew if I was doing aerobics or about to break into a strip tease. My long blond hair made a good accessory to toss around too, or to head-bang with and I used it my advantage.