The Overture of an Apple

I'm in the shower, prepping for a date, the first in a while, and I'm spending a little more time down there, par for the course for me before a date, just some extra scrubbing, sanitizing, honing in on the particulars. I want to make a good impression, I suppose, want to spruce things up a bit, just in case, you know, just in case things get interesting later on and there's a chance my cunt will see some action, a little after-hours enjoyment, and if my date's inspired, shows interest, hey, I might let him wander down south a little, yes I just might, angle my hips accordingly if we start kissing a certain way, might clue him in that it's alright to explore elsewhere, I've got no problem with that if things are going well, and I want to make it pleasant for everybody, myself included, don't want to worry about what he'll be seeing or sensing or sniffing down there, don't want to think about any sort of mess or mishap.

And as I'm soaping up again, throwing in a little Suave Freesia Conditioner, for insurance, I'm wondering what my date will think of this, if, at some point, either tonight or some other date should we make it past this one, if he will gather courage and make his way to the triangle source of it all. If we will get to that. And I'm wondering what he'll think and what he'll do, if he will kiss me shyly, uncertainly, not wanting to offend or impose, if his hands, in slow motion, will part me as his tongue explores, discreetly, the acreage there. If it will be like archeology, a mindful sort of digging, his mouth finding the fingerprint of my desire. Or if he will dive right in, undistracted, purposeful, tongue coiled around my clit, face fervent and concentrated, if he will pin my shins with his arms, fingers etching my calves, if there will be no evolutionary revelation, just his hunger and my obedient cunt.

And I'm wondering what will make me come faster, if wine will dilute my resistance to orgasm, or if I will want to buttress the tipsiness of either alcohol or yearning with a little patience and poise. I'm wondering if I will be timid or passive or lenient, if he will be judicious or unforgiving, if we will agree on this when the night spins out its last hours and our minds close themselves for renovation and our bodies plead for remorseless release. I'm wondering this in the shower, pre-head, pre-fuck, pre-pleasure, knowing my cunt and its duplicitous nature, how easily things could turn for her, and have, how the important, clarifying decisions of sex always come from these headquarters, not the ones upstairs, how quickly I can close up, awkward, unwieldy, can become impenetrable if my pussy senses danger or, conversely, how fuckable I am if the conditions are right, an orchid flourishing in the greenhouse heat and moisture of a unisoned longing.

And maybe this is why the antiseptic session under water, this pre-date mikvah, I'm starting over, after all, clean cunt, mostly clean conscience, and plenty of distance between this guy and the last, who fumbled the ball a little, I have to admit, relinquished too much, gave me all the keys to the sexual kingdom and it turns out I didn't want that responsibility, didn't want to be the only one choreographing this dance, wanted some input, insight, innuendo even, and things died down so quickly as a result, my cunt and her attendant libido ushering themselves inside again, away from all the multi-tasking. But it made sense at the time, still does, the kind of sex that gets me hot is a mutual pursuit and occasional capture, two bodies twinning and untwinning themselves in perpetual chase.

My ex-boyfriend, used to call me "Ginger," my cunt anyway, and it was more than just the color of it, it was as if Ginger were some secret nether goddess wielding ancient curative powers, a Scylla and Charybdis, Arachne, Athena, Aphrodite all rolled in one. "How's Ginger," he'd murmur at night, wanting the narcoleptic effects of sex before sleep, or when morning came and the urge for fucking won, decidedly, over breakfast, it would be a kind of permission he'd ask for before meathooking into my hips, and I would answer for her, depending on my mood, depending on the pendulum swing of my sex drive, "She's open for business" or, when things started getting bad, "She's not available right now."

And it's true, it was Ginger who turned out to be the oracle of our undoing, clenching and seizing up during our last half-hearted tries of loving each other, trying to tell me, to convince me, to leave, and I thought something was wrong, something medical and foreboding and my fault, and I would tell him it was a lubrication issue, it hurt too much and he'd go down on me, totally devoted, wanting to fix things, to fix us, and my cunt wouldn't comply, not in the way she could have, and our fucking left us mute and wanting, I'd fall asleep sore, confused, and wishing for a quick repair.

And it came, I suppose, the repair came, but in another man's bed, secretly, illicitly, somewhere in between our unraveling and my departure, and I was grateful for the reminder that I still worked down there, that the pulse hadn't disappeared entirely. It mattered less to me that I was fucking someone else - it wasn't the sort of sex that meant anything more than what it was - and it made sense afterward, the difference between fucking with commitment and fucking in a vacuum, how simple it could be, really, the simplest of arrangements, and why, in lieu of perfect worlds and conflict-free relationships, this wasn't too shabby at all, I might actually do better at this kind of sex, just letting go, just giving in to the whimsical instructions of my own cunt, appreciative of an audience with fewer expectations and therefore free to come and go, and maybe freer to come, I was selfish that night in that man's bed, lay prone and compliant as Ginger authorized a visit from his mouth, and I bit my tongue and tensed for a second orgasm, then a third, wanting more than I could bear, really, a delusion of orgasmic grandeur, I was lustful and greedy that night, hoping to forget the painful uncoiling of love, its fallibility, and not wanting this to end, this desperate, disorganized whirlpool of sensation.

It did end, of course, it all ended, had to, sex that spectacular is meant to be temporary, and relationships made lopsided by the muting of one lover's desire eventually sputter to a halt, too, and I'm thinking of this now, in the shower, thinking how hard it is to get the balance right, how the body sometimes sprints forward so quickly, the heart resistant perhaps or just needing more time to adjust to the merger. Or worse, I think, how we convince ourselves that coupling will make us less lonely, give us more meaning, a sense of purpose or identity, and so what's the big deal about sex in the long run, it slows down eventually, gets de-emphasized by the time retirement rolls around, sooner even, impossible to keep that sort of thing up anyway so stop dreaming about a lifetime of great fucking, not gonna happen, there's no way a body can last that long.

But a first date is just the beginning, I suppose, one of the only beginnings I can still have, and that is why this preparation, that is why the freesia-scented, fresh-scrubbed cunt, and the meticulous unraveling in my mind of the scenarios of sex, if it comes to that, and the permutations of the evening, should it come to something else, and that is why I want it all, eventually, would rather not choose between one or the other, I'll take the sentimental convictions of couplehood, the chance at that penultimate equilibrium, I'll take that, yes. But it's more than that, I want my cunt exposed, pulsing, whispering its urgencies, I want Ginger's ticking heart to keep on ticking, I want the chaos that concluded Eden, the disorder that took place on that cheerful, pastoral scene when Eve, half-eaten apple in hand, saw herself for the first time, felt, perhaps, the thrill of her own curves, the profanity of her sex, the embryo of pleasure taking shape as she strode, scandalous and liberated, towards Adam.