When I think of you, I can't help but think of them. A wish. A fantasy out of nowhere. Our unborn children, holding hands, in the night of the abandoned playgrounds, theme parks, places forgotten a long time ago and left to the wind, weeds, and rust. Then, irrationally, I'm angry with you for not feeling the same way. Then I'm angry at myself for being irrationally angry. It goes on like this.
*
"Good morning, SUNSHINE!" It is a text from Lana, who sends me one every morning. It's become a joke between us, my hatred of the mornings to a person who gets out of bed at 6 every day. Usually by the time I'm up to get it, it's been hours, since.
"Ugh." My usual response. Usually around noon.
"Do you like traveling?"
Alarms. Alarms. Alarms.
"No. You?"
Long pause.
"Yes. Why do you hate traveling?"
"I'm claustrophobic."
"Why are you claustrophobic?"
"Because my mother had a late term twin abortion and I spent nine months in the same womb my brothers were murdered in, with their pain screaming in my brain."
"WTF?????"
"Oh. Sorry. Forgot I was supposed to be funny all the time. Um, I'm claustrophobic because I had a babysitter with huge tits who liked to suffocate me with them! Waka waka."
"Thank god! You scared me!!"
"My material is dark."
"Do you like horse riding?"
"Hate it."
"Fine!"
"FINE."
"Make out with me when you get better, ok?"
"Sure."
*
I'm going to the gym early in the morning, everyday for a burst of cardio in addition to my evening training sessions, and a Pilates reformer class asap. It won't be long before I'll be able to blow myself, people.
Also, soon to come, conversations with my brand new, $200/hr Beverly Hills psychotherapist.
Wednesday, January 7, 2009
Tuesday, December 30, 2008
The Twenty-Ninth Post
Soon, then, the compartments will swallow you like they do, they always do. First you will be in a large compartment so vast I won't even realize it's there. Then, that compartment will shrink. And narrow. And shorten. Before long, you will be in a small room, in a mansion full of many rooms, where it won't hurt, though you'll be a tooth in the gears of my divine discontent machine. Then I'll write horrible love stories that end in abandonment, and betrayal, and death, and you'll watch them on the screen, or read them somewhere, and wonder if they were about you.
You really hurt the fuck out of me.
You really hurt the fuck out of me.
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
The Twenty-Eighth Post
Oh Comely - Neutral Milk Hotel
Oh comely, I will be with you when you lose your breath,
Chasing the only meaningful memory you thought you had left.
With some pretty, bright and bubbly terrible scene
That was doing her thing on your chest.
But oh comely,
It isn't as pretty as you'd like to guess
In your memory, you're drunk on your autonomy.
It doesn't mean anything at all.
Oh comely,
All of your friends are all letting you blow,
Bristling and ugly, bursting with fruits falling out from the holes
Of some pretty, bright, and bubbly friend
You could need to say comforting things in your ear
But oh comely,
There isn't such one friend that you could find here.
Standing next to me,
He's only my enemy
I'll crush him with everything I own.
Say what you want to say
Hang for your hollow ways
Moving your mouth to pull out
All your miracles aimed for me.
Your father made fetuses with flesh licking ladies,
While you and your mother were asleep in the trailer park.
Thunderous sparks from the dark of the stadiums,
The music and medicine you needed for comforting.
So make all your fat fleshy fingers to moving,
And pluck all your silly strings, bend all your notes for me.
Soft silly music is meaningful magical,
The movements were beautiful, all in your ovaries.
All of them milking with green fleshy flowers,
While powerful pistons were sugary sweet machines.
Smelling of semen all under the garden
Was all you were needing when you still believed in me.
Say what your want to say.
Hang for your hollow ways.
Moving your mouth to pull out
All your miracles aimed for me.
And I know they buried her body with others,
Her sister and mother and five-hundred families.
And will she remember me fifty years later?
I wished I could save her in some sort of time machine.
Know all your enemies.
We know who our enemies are.
Goldaline, my dear,
We will fold and freeze together
Far away from here.
There is sun and spring and green forever.
But now we move to feel for ourselves inside some stranger's stomach.
Place your body here,
Let your skin begin to blend itself with mine.
- Lyrics by Jeff Mangum
It's an ugly and uncomfortable song, but it's also beautiful and serpentine. If you have it, and listen to it with the volume up, you hear someone in the studio (an engineer? a producer?) yell, "Holy shit!" at the end. Intentional? Or recorded on the spot? This song, and the album, "In The Aeroplane Over The Sea" were said to be inspired by the life and writings of Anne Frank.
Oh comely, I will be with you when you lose your breath,
Chasing the only meaningful memory you thought you had left.
With some pretty, bright and bubbly terrible scene
That was doing her thing on your chest.
But oh comely,
It isn't as pretty as you'd like to guess
In your memory, you're drunk on your autonomy.
It doesn't mean anything at all.
Oh comely,
All of your friends are all letting you blow,
Bristling and ugly, bursting with fruits falling out from the holes
Of some pretty, bright, and bubbly friend
You could need to say comforting things in your ear
But oh comely,
There isn't such one friend that you could find here.
Standing next to me,
He's only my enemy
I'll crush him with everything I own.
Say what you want to say
Hang for your hollow ways
Moving your mouth to pull out
All your miracles aimed for me.
Your father made fetuses with flesh licking ladies,
While you and your mother were asleep in the trailer park.
Thunderous sparks from the dark of the stadiums,
The music and medicine you needed for comforting.
So make all your fat fleshy fingers to moving,
And pluck all your silly strings, bend all your notes for me.
Soft silly music is meaningful magical,
The movements were beautiful, all in your ovaries.
All of them milking with green fleshy flowers,
While powerful pistons were sugary sweet machines.
Smelling of semen all under the garden
Was all you were needing when you still believed in me.
Say what your want to say.
Hang for your hollow ways.
Moving your mouth to pull out
All your miracles aimed for me.
And I know they buried her body with others,
Her sister and mother and five-hundred families.
And will she remember me fifty years later?
I wished I could save her in some sort of time machine.
Know all your enemies.
We know who our enemies are.
Goldaline, my dear,
We will fold and freeze together
Far away from here.
There is sun and spring and green forever.
But now we move to feel for ourselves inside some stranger's stomach.
Place your body here,
Let your skin begin to blend itself with mine.
- Lyrics by Jeff Mangum
It's an ugly and uncomfortable song, but it's also beautiful and serpentine. If you have it, and listen to it with the volume up, you hear someone in the studio (an engineer? a producer?) yell, "Holy shit!" at the end. Intentional? Or recorded on the spot? This song, and the album, "In The Aeroplane Over The Sea" were said to be inspired by the life and writings of Anne Frank.
Tuesday, December 16, 2008
The Twenty-Seventh Post
I'll tell you about the woman I love, then.
We've known each other half our lives. I turned 34, two months ago. We met in high school. Actually, no, I saw her on a bus on the way to my high school orientation, she and her best friend, sharing a seat. Later, they turned out to be my classmates. I had a huge crush on her best friend for about a year. But Cheryl I formed a subversive, special bond that happened not in the classroom, but over the phone, at night. And after high school was over.
One night Cheryl made me jerk off on the phone for her. We were sharing sexual fantasies. I think I told her something about wanting to eat a cherry out of a woman's pussy. She told me she thought it was romantic. I told her my cock was hard. She asked me to touch it. So I did. Made me tell her how I jerked off. So I did. Made me tell her how it felt. And how it felt when I started to cum. So I did. And then I went away to the Army. She went away to another country. Then so did I. And we wrote. And we lost touch for eleven or twelve years. And a year ago we found each other on Facebook.
Two or three weeks ago we were on the phone. My cock was in my hand. I was close.
"You remember how you told me it felt?" She asked. She sounds so very beautiful, so lovely her intonations are. "You said it started from the base, worked its way up your shaft, till it exploded out your tip."
She'd remembered word for word.
"I love hearing you cum," she said as I shook, and shook, and shook. "You'll have to send me a video, or something."
She and I are biracial. In the same rare combination of ancestry. I don't know anyone else who's like us. She doesn't either, except for her sister. She's gorgeous. Petite, delicate of bone structure, but strong, athletic, olive-skinned. She makes me ache when I look at her pictures. Looking just like she did, half our lives ago.
We have the same birth month, so we're the same star sign. And while our birthdays are different, numerology says the 3rd and 21st (2+1) are the same.
We've lived similar life paths--her moving out of country to one continent, me to another. Loveless, failed long-term relationships. Emotionally disconnected partners. Experiencing them similarly. We dropped Catholicism for the same reasons. Had the same mother types. Were confused by the same racial epithets.
We have the same sexual desires. Share the same attitudes. Non-jealous, non-monogamy, hard and rough fucking; long, slow, deep fucking. I want to watch her fuck another man, she wants to watch me fuck another woman. I ask her if, say we were in a tangible relationship, would she want me to not fuck anybody else. And she says, no, you're a sexual person, you mustn't be caged, you should be allowed to fuck whoever you like, if your heart stays with me.
We make each other feel so, so good. So easily. A message. A text. A word. A song. I know when she's down, I know why, and I know what makes her feel good. It's the same thing that would make me feel good. I know how she's felt, why she's made her choices, and how, because I've done the same.
But, she's married. And for some reason, though I'd kill a thousand men to be beside her, it stops me to make her leave her man, even if she's unhappy, or disconnected, or dissatisfied. She has to want to do it herself. And, frankly, there are days I feel broken enough I'm not certain I'm a better alternative.
But I love her, deeply and truly. And she more than arouses me, I can feel my biology when I think of her. And, our rare sameness makes me want to reproduce with her. Propagate our species. The only person I know in the world with whom fucking wouldn't be interracial. Our children would be the same as us. For some bizarre reason, that somehow seems significant to me. It never, ever has before. Or with anyone else.
*
So I'll tell you more about the woman I've been fucking, Lana. I saw her again last night, late. Arriving at her home 10 minutes after she got in from a party. We stood in her kitchen, talking, two glasses of wine between us, till I asked her if we could sit on her couch.
She's a really good-looking woman. She's not pretty, or dainty, but she's sexy, and attractive. Really gorgeous eyes, this long, dark, Sicilian hair. Big, round ass, which is quite different from the girls I've slept with, so it's an interesting and nice departure. Her stomach is smooth, ridged in the middle with that scar. Her breasts aren't large, but are full and soft. I like her dress sense, and last night she looked hot in a moto jacket, jeans and boots. Later, I got to see her teddy. She's got good taste in underwear, too.
She's quite uncomplicated, being that she's been through what she's been through. Quite my opposite. She laughs at this, saying the difference is obvious, and owes it to my being an introvert, and her, not. She asks my MBTI score. I give it to her, an introvert type. She gives me hers, an extrovert type. Tells me they both make a good pair. At first, I wince inside, when I think of the things Cheryl and I have in common, but I also chide myself for being reprehensible, out of the moment, and frankly I was starting to get sick of myself, my broken heart, and everything else. Lana was cool, and was being cool. And so I allowed myself to appreciate her.
She's got a good heart. And does charity work. She's a type A personality, which I in turn give her shit for, and she laughs. An overachiever. I laugh. She takes a laugh well. That's something else we have in common. She has 200 people working under her. I don't. She's out of bed by 6 in the morning. I'm crawling into it. She's got her shit together. Me, um...
She asks about my ex. I tell her. She tells me she gets it. She asks about my mother. I tell her. She gets it. I believe her, too. She asks me why the fuck my body's so sore, and I tell her what I did at the gym prior to our meeting and she laughs and rolls her eyes. "But you're fit!" she says. Yes, but, results and all that, I explain. She shakes her head. "That's you being very _______", she says, ________ being what my late father was, kind of nailing it, though I'd never thought of it that way. I realize she's probably right.
We fuck easy, like a sharp knife moving slowly in a hot stomach, till she shudders and cums. "Cum all over my ass," she gasps. I fuck her till I can't move, then collapse beside her. "Did you cum?" she asks, putting a hand between her legs, feeling for my semen, finding none.
"No, I do this thing, it's a retrograde ejaculation," I lie. "It's very _______," I say, bringing it back. "We're all born knowing that trick."
"Really?"
"No. Hello."
"I knew you were fucking lying, okay, I just acted like I didn't."
We talk. She puts her head in the crook of my arm. I start to tell her about the scene in "True Romance", Dennis Hopper explaining to Christopher Walken why and how Sicilians came to be the way they are, but she's snoring before I'm halfway there. I ease myself out from under her. Tuck her in. Leave quietly after groping for my clothes.
In the morning I get a text: "Sorry for falling asleep on you last night!"
"You missed a good story."
"I heard it. Like listening to you."
I smile. What a charming liar. Forgiven of course, for the sweetness of intent alone. But still she deserved a little shit.
"What was it about?"
"Um."
"Busted."
"I had an almost 24 hour day! I'm serious, I was so tired."
"I know. But, busted."
"What was it about?"
"Doesn't work over text. Save it for when we meet next."
"Date, time."
"Relax. I'll have my peeps call your peeps. We'll work something out.
"Fine."
"Fine!"
"FINE!"
She's great fun.
Tonight, I got a message: "Goodnight, Writer."
"Goodnight, Sicilian."
She's growing on me. I could dig being her Friday night (or Monday night, as last night's case may be) guy for a while.
We've known each other half our lives. I turned 34, two months ago. We met in high school. Actually, no, I saw her on a bus on the way to my high school orientation, she and her best friend, sharing a seat. Later, they turned out to be my classmates. I had a huge crush on her best friend for about a year. But Cheryl I formed a subversive, special bond that happened not in the classroom, but over the phone, at night. And after high school was over.
One night Cheryl made me jerk off on the phone for her. We were sharing sexual fantasies. I think I told her something about wanting to eat a cherry out of a woman's pussy. She told me she thought it was romantic. I told her my cock was hard. She asked me to touch it. So I did. Made me tell her how I jerked off. So I did. Made me tell her how it felt. And how it felt when I started to cum. So I did. And then I went away to the Army. She went away to another country. Then so did I. And we wrote. And we lost touch for eleven or twelve years. And a year ago we found each other on Facebook.
Two or three weeks ago we were on the phone. My cock was in my hand. I was close.
"You remember how you told me it felt?" She asked. She sounds so very beautiful, so lovely her intonations are. "You said it started from the base, worked its way up your shaft, till it exploded out your tip."
She'd remembered word for word.
"I love hearing you cum," she said as I shook, and shook, and shook. "You'll have to send me a video, or something."
She and I are biracial. In the same rare combination of ancestry. I don't know anyone else who's like us. She doesn't either, except for her sister. She's gorgeous. Petite, delicate of bone structure, but strong, athletic, olive-skinned. She makes me ache when I look at her pictures. Looking just like she did, half our lives ago.
We have the same birth month, so we're the same star sign. And while our birthdays are different, numerology says the 3rd and 21st (2+1) are the same.
We've lived similar life paths--her moving out of country to one continent, me to another. Loveless, failed long-term relationships. Emotionally disconnected partners. Experiencing them similarly. We dropped Catholicism for the same reasons. Had the same mother types. Were confused by the same racial epithets.
We have the same sexual desires. Share the same attitudes. Non-jealous, non-monogamy, hard and rough fucking; long, slow, deep fucking. I want to watch her fuck another man, she wants to watch me fuck another woman. I ask her if, say we were in a tangible relationship, would she want me to not fuck anybody else. And she says, no, you're a sexual person, you mustn't be caged, you should be allowed to fuck whoever you like, if your heart stays with me.
We make each other feel so, so good. So easily. A message. A text. A word. A song. I know when she's down, I know why, and I know what makes her feel good. It's the same thing that would make me feel good. I know how she's felt, why she's made her choices, and how, because I've done the same.
But, she's married. And for some reason, though I'd kill a thousand men to be beside her, it stops me to make her leave her man, even if she's unhappy, or disconnected, or dissatisfied. She has to want to do it herself. And, frankly, there are days I feel broken enough I'm not certain I'm a better alternative.
But I love her, deeply and truly. And she more than arouses me, I can feel my biology when I think of her. And, our rare sameness makes me want to reproduce with her. Propagate our species. The only person I know in the world with whom fucking wouldn't be interracial. Our children would be the same as us. For some bizarre reason, that somehow seems significant to me. It never, ever has before. Or with anyone else.
*
So I'll tell you more about the woman I've been fucking, Lana. I saw her again last night, late. Arriving at her home 10 minutes after she got in from a party. We stood in her kitchen, talking, two glasses of wine between us, till I asked her if we could sit on her couch.
She's a really good-looking woman. She's not pretty, or dainty, but she's sexy, and attractive. Really gorgeous eyes, this long, dark, Sicilian hair. Big, round ass, which is quite different from the girls I've slept with, so it's an interesting and nice departure. Her stomach is smooth, ridged in the middle with that scar. Her breasts aren't large, but are full and soft. I like her dress sense, and last night she looked hot in a moto jacket, jeans and boots. Later, I got to see her teddy. She's got good taste in underwear, too.
She's quite uncomplicated, being that she's been through what she's been through. Quite my opposite. She laughs at this, saying the difference is obvious, and owes it to my being an introvert, and her, not. She asks my MBTI score. I give it to her, an introvert type. She gives me hers, an extrovert type. Tells me they both make a good pair. At first, I wince inside, when I think of the things Cheryl and I have in common, but I also chide myself for being reprehensible, out of the moment, and frankly I was starting to get sick of myself, my broken heart, and everything else. Lana was cool, and was being cool. And so I allowed myself to appreciate her.
She's got a good heart. And does charity work. She's a type A personality, which I in turn give her shit for, and she laughs. An overachiever. I laugh. She takes a laugh well. That's something else we have in common. She has 200 people working under her. I don't. She's out of bed by 6 in the morning. I'm crawling into it. She's got her shit together. Me, um...
She asks about my ex. I tell her. She tells me she gets it. She asks about my mother. I tell her. She gets it. I believe her, too. She asks me why the fuck my body's so sore, and I tell her what I did at the gym prior to our meeting and she laughs and rolls her eyes. "But you're fit!" she says. Yes, but, results and all that, I explain. She shakes her head. "That's you being very _______", she says, ________ being what my late father was, kind of nailing it, though I'd never thought of it that way. I realize she's probably right.
We fuck easy, like a sharp knife moving slowly in a hot stomach, till she shudders and cums. "Cum all over my ass," she gasps. I fuck her till I can't move, then collapse beside her. "Did you cum?" she asks, putting a hand between her legs, feeling for my semen, finding none.
"No, I do this thing, it's a retrograde ejaculation," I lie. "It's very _______," I say, bringing it back. "We're all born knowing that trick."
"Really?"
"No. Hello."
"I knew you were fucking lying, okay, I just acted like I didn't."
We talk. She puts her head in the crook of my arm. I start to tell her about the scene in "True Romance", Dennis Hopper explaining to Christopher Walken why and how Sicilians came to be the way they are, but she's snoring before I'm halfway there. I ease myself out from under her. Tuck her in. Leave quietly after groping for my clothes.
In the morning I get a text: "Sorry for falling asleep on you last night!"
"You missed a good story."
"I heard it. Like listening to you."
I smile. What a charming liar. Forgiven of course, for the sweetness of intent alone. But still she deserved a little shit.
"What was it about?"
"Um."
"Busted."
"I had an almost 24 hour day! I'm serious, I was so tired."
"I know. But, busted."
"What was it about?"
"Doesn't work over text. Save it for when we meet next."
"Date, time."
"Relax. I'll have my peeps call your peeps. We'll work something out.
"Fine."
"Fine!"
"FINE!"
She's great fun.
Tonight, I got a message: "Goodnight, Writer."
"Goodnight, Sicilian."
She's growing on me. I could dig being her Friday night (or Monday night, as last night's case may be) guy for a while.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
The Twenty-Sixth Post
"I guess if you don't want to talk to me, that's fine," says my mother on the VOIP line. I roll my eyes and breathe.
"Look, we spoke 5 hours ago. And I just spent 2 hours at the gym. I'm really, really tired."
"I know, I know. Okay." There's an uncomfortable pause. "Call me tomorrow, then."
We hang up. I won't call, of course. Because she'll have called three times by this time tomorrow, and if I don't pick up, I'll get the barrage of text messages, emails, forwarded spam, and the phone will ring till it's an obscene hour and I finally pick up because it'll just be easier to talk to her. Even if she'll ask the same fucking questions, make the same comments, ask me for the same answers, and repeat the same information, the same statements: "I miss you, do you miss me? I haven't seen you in a long time, will you turn on the webcam? Are you sure you aren't exercising too much, you'll hurt yourself?" the way a borderline parent would do it--with no regard or attention to my responses, nor the plain sight to see how absolutely infuriating and frustrating this continual spousification really is.
A self-injury counselor told me several months go, "It's a miracle you aren't a serial killer, because you should be. You should be someone who hurts people. A lot. A sociopath, maybe."
But I was there because I just hurt myself. Or used to. I haven't in months. But I'm not off the hook. I'm no different from the lifelong alcoholic trying to stay sober. I take it one day at a time.
At his advice, I started doing a little volunteer work. I had the choice of doing anything I wanted, so I decided to do something involving children. The first place I attempted to volunteer at was a children's hospital. I was going to read stories to children in the cancer ward, but part of the application process involved a drug screen, so that went out the window. I joined an organization that assigned volunteer tutors to shelters, halfway homes and motels occupied by displaced or impoverished families.
When I met him that very first time, he was shy, this kid. Beautiful boy, skin so dark, his features so regal. Neither of us knew what to expect from the other so I asked him what his best subjects were: Math, and Science. What his worst were: English, and Writing. How come, I asked. He said he didn't understand certain words, and had problems spelling, so he couldn't be a good writer. I frowned inside. I was familiar with grammar school teacher writing standards and those never a good writer made.
"This is what you do. You get your hands on anything you can read, and every time you see a word you don't know, you write it down, you look it up in your dictionary, and you make a sentence with it."
In three weeks, the dude was looking up words his junior dictionary didn't have. He'd grin at me with pride, and I'd raise an eyebrow, impressed. I would come to learn that Silas, 9, learned very, very fast. He had the pattern recognition. He felt things out. And yeah, he needed a little help with his reading because he'd miss certain words, but I told him to guide the lines with a fingertip and that stopped. Two weeks ago he showed me his report card. English and Writing were now his best subjects. Now he's entering a three-page essay contest to win a laptop. He's got a good shot.
A couple of days ago, in class, we went over the possible topics for the competition. One of them was, "What are you grateful for?"
"I want to do that one. I already did like a four paragraph thing for school."
"You wanna expand it so it's three pages?"
He nods. "I had four things I was grateful about."
"What are they?"
"My mom, life, family," he looks at me, "and you."
"Um."
I stared at him, with widened eyes. He smiled. I think my jaw might have dropped.
"Really, that is...that is just...that is just really, really sweet of you, Silas. Wow. Thank you," I manage.
"Yeah so I'm going to write all of that."
"Yes, and maybe we'll think of a couple more things, right? Like you dad, maybe?"
"Oh yeah! I want to mention him now."
"And maybe a black president? Because of all the new opportunities that could exist that didn't before?"
"Definitely!"
"Alright!"
"Can I draw an idea cloud?"
"You can do it however you want. Do it your favorite way."
So I watch him, still stunned, as he draws idea clouds. It makes my heart ache, or hurt, in a good way. And, I guess it makes me want to do the opposite of run.
Later, I text it to Lana, who gets no voice signal up in the hills.
"Underneath the facade of your comical perversions," she texts, "you're really very sweet."
"Don't fall for it. The sweetness is the facade."
"Party in Hollywood tonight. Come if you're bored. But you probably have to do writer stuff. Writer."
"Exactly."
"Fine. Are you thinking about kissing me?"
"Not really. Kissing happened five minutes ago. I'm up to burying my cock in your cunt."
"Friday."
This whole time, the thoughts in my head, my heart, far away and with someone else.
I'm going to vaporize some ganja and then go to bed. I climb in the morning.
"Look, we spoke 5 hours ago. And I just spent 2 hours at the gym. I'm really, really tired."
"I know, I know. Okay." There's an uncomfortable pause. "Call me tomorrow, then."
We hang up. I won't call, of course. Because she'll have called three times by this time tomorrow, and if I don't pick up, I'll get the barrage of text messages, emails, forwarded spam, and the phone will ring till it's an obscene hour and I finally pick up because it'll just be easier to talk to her. Even if she'll ask the same fucking questions, make the same comments, ask me for the same answers, and repeat the same information, the same statements: "I miss you, do you miss me? I haven't seen you in a long time, will you turn on the webcam? Are you sure you aren't exercising too much, you'll hurt yourself?" the way a borderline parent would do it--with no regard or attention to my responses, nor the plain sight to see how absolutely infuriating and frustrating this continual spousification really is.
A self-injury counselor told me several months go, "It's a miracle you aren't a serial killer, because you should be. You should be someone who hurts people. A lot. A sociopath, maybe."
But I was there because I just hurt myself. Or used to. I haven't in months. But I'm not off the hook. I'm no different from the lifelong alcoholic trying to stay sober. I take it one day at a time.
At his advice, I started doing a little volunteer work. I had the choice of doing anything I wanted, so I decided to do something involving children. The first place I attempted to volunteer at was a children's hospital. I was going to read stories to children in the cancer ward, but part of the application process involved a drug screen, so that went out the window. I joined an organization that assigned volunteer tutors to shelters, halfway homes and motels occupied by displaced or impoverished families.
When I met him that very first time, he was shy, this kid. Beautiful boy, skin so dark, his features so regal. Neither of us knew what to expect from the other so I asked him what his best subjects were: Math, and Science. What his worst were: English, and Writing. How come, I asked. He said he didn't understand certain words, and had problems spelling, so he couldn't be a good writer. I frowned inside. I was familiar with grammar school teacher writing standards and those never a good writer made.
"This is what you do. You get your hands on anything you can read, and every time you see a word you don't know, you write it down, you look it up in your dictionary, and you make a sentence with it."
In three weeks, the dude was looking up words his junior dictionary didn't have. He'd grin at me with pride, and I'd raise an eyebrow, impressed. I would come to learn that Silas, 9, learned very, very fast. He had the pattern recognition. He felt things out. And yeah, he needed a little help with his reading because he'd miss certain words, but I told him to guide the lines with a fingertip and that stopped. Two weeks ago he showed me his report card. English and Writing were now his best subjects. Now he's entering a three-page essay contest to win a laptop. He's got a good shot.
A couple of days ago, in class, we went over the possible topics for the competition. One of them was, "What are you grateful for?"
"I want to do that one. I already did like a four paragraph thing for school."
"You wanna expand it so it's three pages?"
He nods. "I had four things I was grateful about."
"What are they?"
"My mom, life, family," he looks at me, "and you."
"Um."
I stared at him, with widened eyes. He smiled. I think my jaw might have dropped.
"Really, that is...that is just...that is just really, really sweet of you, Silas. Wow. Thank you," I manage.
"Yeah so I'm going to write all of that."
"Yes, and maybe we'll think of a couple more things, right? Like you dad, maybe?"
"Oh yeah! I want to mention him now."
"And maybe a black president? Because of all the new opportunities that could exist that didn't before?"
"Definitely!"
"Alright!"
"Can I draw an idea cloud?"
"You can do it however you want. Do it your favorite way."
So I watch him, still stunned, as he draws idea clouds. It makes my heart ache, or hurt, in a good way. And, I guess it makes me want to do the opposite of run.
Later, I text it to Lana, who gets no voice signal up in the hills.
"Underneath the facade of your comical perversions," she texts, "you're really very sweet."
"Don't fall for it. The sweetness is the facade."
"Party in Hollywood tonight. Come if you're bored. But you probably have to do writer stuff. Writer."
"Exactly."
"Fine. Are you thinking about kissing me?"
"Not really. Kissing happened five minutes ago. I'm up to burying my cock in your cunt."
"Friday."
This whole time, the thoughts in my head, my heart, far away and with someone else.
I'm going to vaporize some ganja and then go to bed. I climb in the morning.
The Twenty-Fifth Post
This body, once thin, stiff with pain from a freeway collision, a previous illness, a back injury in the military, is now lean, and strong. And getting stronger. My trainer and I work three days a week, and we indoor climb two days. And now I'm looking at a Pilates Studio for something twice a week. To work out the muscles I don't hit at the gym with the weights and the resistance. I go now for no other reason that I'm addicted. I'm supposed to go to a screening tonight. But if I do, I'll miss training. So I cancel the screening.
Michael, my trainer, shows me a large muscle group. Tells me they're full of endorphins waiting to happen. I laugh. He laughs. He's my drug dealer now. We both know why we do it. I pull and push. Raise and lower. Breathe. Grunt. Growl. Roar. A trainer at an adjacent station with his client looks over and nods in respect. The weights so heavy sometimes, I think my fingers will break off. But this car needs to be lifted, because someone's trapped underneath. This wall needs to be pushed, because it's closing in on us. Each repetition is the first one. 7, for the first time. 8, for the first time. 9, for the first time. When you're only lifting that weight for the first time, you have loads to spare. It's a mental game till your body calls your bluff. Then, Michael takes the weights off quickly, silently, and I collapse, and then laugh as I feel the muscles go into shock. He laughs, too. Drug dealer. Junkie.
Have I mentioned that love is hard, sex is easy? I admire you, with your healthy, functional relationships.
My phone buzzes. A text message from Lana. "In SF for work. What are you doing?"
"Tutoring at the shelter. The future of a Negro child rests in my hands."
"Too much. Thinking about kissing you."
Relax. She's just trying to say she wants to fuck you again.
"When do you come back to town?"
"Tomorrow night."
"What are your plans Friday night?"
"Don't know."
"Whatever they are, they can end like last time."
"Who's they?"
"Your plans. Keep up."
"Ha. I like you."
Panic. Alarm. Eject.
"You know I can read everything you say right?"
"Haha. Funny shit, Writer. See you Friday night."
I figure I have a climb scheduled Saturday morning, so I can get out of staying again. And a once-per-week past-midnight fuck that ends in me crawling out of her place shouldn't go anywhere dangerous. I figure.
And then there is that drive. Right past rock n' roll palaces, sharp drops and dangerous curves.
Michael, my trainer, shows me a large muscle group. Tells me they're full of endorphins waiting to happen. I laugh. He laughs. He's my drug dealer now. We both know why we do it. I pull and push. Raise and lower. Breathe. Grunt. Growl. Roar. A trainer at an adjacent station with his client looks over and nods in respect. The weights so heavy sometimes, I think my fingers will break off. But this car needs to be lifted, because someone's trapped underneath. This wall needs to be pushed, because it's closing in on us. Each repetition is the first one. 7, for the first time. 8, for the first time. 9, for the first time. When you're only lifting that weight for the first time, you have loads to spare. It's a mental game till your body calls your bluff. Then, Michael takes the weights off quickly, silently, and I collapse, and then laugh as I feel the muscles go into shock. He laughs, too. Drug dealer. Junkie.
Have I mentioned that love is hard, sex is easy? I admire you, with your healthy, functional relationships.
My phone buzzes. A text message from Lana. "In SF for work. What are you doing?"
"Tutoring at the shelter. The future of a Negro child rests in my hands."
"Too much. Thinking about kissing you."
Relax. She's just trying to say she wants to fuck you again.
"When do you come back to town?"
"Tomorrow night."
"What are your plans Friday night?"
"Don't know."
"Whatever they are, they can end like last time."
"Who's they?"
"Your plans. Keep up."
"Ha. I like you."
Panic. Alarm. Eject.
"You know I can read everything you say right?"
"Haha. Funny shit, Writer. See you Friday night."
I figure I have a climb scheduled Saturday morning, so I can get out of staying again. And a once-per-week past-midnight fuck that ends in me crawling out of her place shouldn't go anywhere dangerous. I figure.
And then there is that drive. Right past rock n' roll palaces, sharp drops and dangerous curves.
Monday, December 8, 2008
The Twenty-Fourth Post
I'll call her Lana. And her juices were drying on my sticky fingers like fruit sap, as I drove down the canyon from her home at 4.30am last night/yesterday morning. I was also heartbroken--I'd fallen in love with someone, and it hadn't worked out very well, and I was recovering, or attempting to recover, and so I drove to fuck Lana in an attempt to fuck this other woman out of my system.
It was easy. Love was hard. Love is impossible for me. Sex, though, very simple. In this case, Lana showed up on Facebook a grand total of about 10 days ago. I'd met her about 8 years ago, at a friend's housewarming party. She'd a boyfriend, then, whom I learned post-coitus she'd been married to for a month, until she caught him fucking a couple of post-ops in a swingers' party on the DL. But, coming back to 10 days ago, Lana shows up on FB and I add her as a friend. She posts a message on my wall with "cutie pie" somewhere at the end, which I assumed was friendliness and little more. I'd met Lana years later at another party, and she was engaged to an IT guy with a fat paycheck, while opening a boutique in Downtown.
I wrote her back. Told her I liked her picture. She wrote me back, reciprocated the compliment. I can't remember what the banter amounted to, but there seemed a fair amount of flirtation, before she took off to NY for Thanksgiving and some dancing with the girlfriends. I asked her number and gave her mine, teasing, inviting her to drunk dial me when she came back late.
Over the course of last week, she'd send me a text message here. I'd send her a text message there. She invites me out for a coffee. I decline, saying I prefer a later arrangement. She invites me out for a drink. I accept but suggest we have drinks at her place instead. She tells me I'm too much. I tell her I am, but she expected that when she decided to talk to a slutty-looking boy on the Internet. She laughed, but agreed. And acquiesced to drinks at her place, late. Something about the way she articulated herself, her phrasing of things, made me ask her in a text message: "So...Type A Alpha Female, right? Yeah, you are."
Seconds later, her response: "Um, yeah...Bad?"
Mine: "Not at all. It's just I could smell it a mile away."
Hers: "You are too much. I'm at work, silly."
"Wouldn't want you to feel guilty of a crime."
And then she sent me something completely refreshing: "I live my life completely guilt-free."
And so I sent: "You know there was once a group of people who lived their entire lives completely guilt-free, and do you know what they were called? Nazis, Lana. Nazis."
Seconds later, the phone rings. It's her. I pick up, she's screaming with laughter.
"There are no words I can think of to respond to that text, so I just wanted to call and tell you you fucking cracked me up. Bye." Still laughing, she hangs up.
I smiled. Love was hard. Love is impossible. Sex, though...
At 10pm last night, I sent her a message: "Hey. What are you doing?"
"Birthday Party. Friend's."
"It's time we sunk our teeth into each other. Let's meet tonight, late, when you're done with our social obligations."
A beat later: "Ok."
At 12.45am, she called to give me directions. At 1.30am, I pulled to a spot slightly up the hill from her house. I walked into her driveway. Heard the radiator in her roadster ticking and put my hand on the rear compartment where this particular car's engine was located. Warm. Very warm. Didn't need to feel the brakes to know they were hot and that she'd raced up the hill. I hit the doorbell and stood far enough from the keyhole so she could see. I looked slightly away in feigned obliviousness but she opens the door without looking.
"Hey," she said, standing there. She looked a little spent from an evening of alcohol and screaming, but she was sexy, like I remembered her.
"Hey," I replied, and smiled. I noticed the flash light in her hand. "Is that for self-defense?"
"No! I lost the case for my cell phone, and I just got it. It's so frustrating. I think it's underneath my car, I got out in a rush and must have dropped it. Do you mind if I try and look?" she asked.
We both go to her car. She peers underneath with the light, then goes over to the passenger side, pulling the seat down and looking in the tiny back. I open the driver's side door, reach my hand in the darkness under the driver's seat, and my hand falls immediately on the leather case.
"This it?" I dangle it up in the air with two fingers.
"Yes!"
I toss it to her. "Aren't I the good luck charm?"
Five minutes later, we were making out in the kitchen of her 50's designer pad. She was a little drunk, rubbing herself all over me, using her body against mine, pulling me into her.
"I like your lips," she said. She put her hand in my shirt, rubbing it across my chest and onto my shoulder. "Feels nice."
I grab her by the hair with one hand, and tilt her head slightly back. She yields, her mouth opening. I kiss her as I close a hand around her throat. I make the kiss last. I let go.
"Okay," she said.
"Okay, what?"
She looked at me. "Well, do you want to stay here in the kitchen...?" She let the question hang.
I grinned. "Ah. I see. Well, Lana, would you like to give me the tour?"
"Yes," she said, taking my hand and pulling me behind her. "That's what 'okay' meant. See."
I laughed, as I followed her up the stairs to her bedroom.
I was burying my face in her covered cunt now, she was cooing and moaning, and then I unsnapped the buttons on the crotch of the lace teddy she wore under her skirt and blouse, and my tongue sank in the butter of her wet cunt, and disappeared immediately in her slick void. She tasted great, like citrus, and smelled faintly of sweat, and musk, and piss. I took her lips in my lips. I took her clit between my teeth. I made her cum that way, then I fucked her with two fingers till her body shook.
Later, I had her legs spread, knees pushed towards her ears, with my erect cock sliding in and out of her pussy, and put a hand behind her neck and pulled her head forward.
"Look. You look at that. You see my cock?"
"Oh fuck. Yeah. Yeah I see it. Fuck yeah I see it."
Afterwards, we laid under her plush sheets. Her leg rubbing against mine, her head in the nook of my shoulder.
"What happened to that IT guy I met that you were engaged to?"
"We broke up a couple years ago."
"Sorry."
"No. Don't be. I had an eighteen inch, thirty pound, cancerous tumor removed from my stomach, which the doctor said would take me a year to recover from. And it left a scar going down my middle, and one day he looked at me and told me I was the biggest loser he'd ever known. I told him it'd be the last shitty thing he ever said to me and left. He's texted me since then but I don't give a shit. They're all fuckers."
I clenched my jaw. It had too many echoes for me. Echoes of my own illness, years ago, when my body was wracked in pain, when I couldn't move, when my joints hurt; how it destroyed the relationship I'd had then, and turned my partner against me. I ran my hand down her stomach--I'd missed the scar earlier in the darkness, and had somehow managed to kiss every part of her stomach but the middle. But I felt it now, like a vertical line splitting her evenly down the middle. It felt like the scar from my appendectomy, raised faintly from the skin, and smooth.
"They cut me open like a piece of meat," she said. "I'll always have this scar."
I wanted to tell her I thought scars made people more beautiful. And that hers was absolutely lovely. But I didn't. These are the words that form the building blocks for someone to fall in love. Instead I said, "Good for you, leaving that trash. He sounds like a real asshole."
"Can you stay?" she asked, after a while. She was getting sleepy.
"I can't, I have to wake up early for a climb," I said, lying--I'd already had my climb the previous morning. It was almost 4.30am and I wanted to sleep in my bed. I kissed her, then her forehead. "You sleep well. I'll lock the door behind me." Her eyes were closing.
"I like you. Stay next time okay?"
"Okay."
I padded down her stairs. Checked myself in her bathroom. Remembered the broken condom wrappers and used rubbers strewn on her floor around her bed and wished I'd remembered to toss them for her so she wouldn't have to the next morning, but didn't think it was worth going back up and disturbing her for.
The driver in the Porsche 911 Cabriolet racing up Laurel Canyon well past the witching hour gives me a look of surprise as he sees me blow past him, going downhill in an Infiniti twice the size and weight of his Teutonic open top, and disappear around the turn. I take off the traction control on the wet, winding, two-laner, so it's just me, the wheel, the slick road, and chance, as I let self-preservation be the sole-guiding instrument that pilots this all-wheel drive, physics-defying piece of Japanese engineering. I break traction doing a sharp left bender but only for a second; the car's as smart as I'm reckless, and spreads the power evenly between the wheels, so the only thing that happens is I'm doing 60 before I pull out of the turn. I feel everything through the wheel. This car would tell me if I drove over a piece of lint, and under which tire.
Blowing through the green lights, heading back to my side of town, my eyes dart at every intersection, my instincts on high alert, reflexes waiting to hit the brake pedal, flick the wheel, in the presence of an unseen, hypothetical drunk driver coming in from the side who might decide to run a light at this time of the night. I'm not afraid to die from something awful. I'm afraid I'll barely survive it.
It was easy. Love was hard. Love is impossible for me. Sex, though, very simple. In this case, Lana showed up on Facebook a grand total of about 10 days ago. I'd met her about 8 years ago, at a friend's housewarming party. She'd a boyfriend, then, whom I learned post-coitus she'd been married to for a month, until she caught him fucking a couple of post-ops in a swingers' party on the DL. But, coming back to 10 days ago, Lana shows up on FB and I add her as a friend. She posts a message on my wall with "cutie pie" somewhere at the end, which I assumed was friendliness and little more. I'd met Lana years later at another party, and she was engaged to an IT guy with a fat paycheck, while opening a boutique in Downtown.
I wrote her back. Told her I liked her picture. She wrote me back, reciprocated the compliment. I can't remember what the banter amounted to, but there seemed a fair amount of flirtation, before she took off to NY for Thanksgiving and some dancing with the girlfriends. I asked her number and gave her mine, teasing, inviting her to drunk dial me when she came back late.
Over the course of last week, she'd send me a text message here. I'd send her a text message there. She invites me out for a coffee. I decline, saying I prefer a later arrangement. She invites me out for a drink. I accept but suggest we have drinks at her place instead. She tells me I'm too much. I tell her I am, but she expected that when she decided to talk to a slutty-looking boy on the Internet. She laughed, but agreed. And acquiesced to drinks at her place, late. Something about the way she articulated herself, her phrasing of things, made me ask her in a text message: "So...Type A Alpha Female, right? Yeah, you are."
Seconds later, her response: "Um, yeah...Bad?"
Mine: "Not at all. It's just I could smell it a mile away."
Hers: "You are too much. I'm at work, silly."
"Wouldn't want you to feel guilty of a crime."
And then she sent me something completely refreshing: "I live my life completely guilt-free."
And so I sent: "You know there was once a group of people who lived their entire lives completely guilt-free, and do you know what they were called? Nazis, Lana. Nazis."
Seconds later, the phone rings. It's her. I pick up, she's screaming with laughter.
"There are no words I can think of to respond to that text, so I just wanted to call and tell you you fucking cracked me up. Bye." Still laughing, she hangs up.
I smiled. Love was hard. Love is impossible. Sex, though...
At 10pm last night, I sent her a message: "Hey. What are you doing?"
"Birthday Party. Friend's."
"It's time we sunk our teeth into each other. Let's meet tonight, late, when you're done with our social obligations."
A beat later: "Ok."
At 12.45am, she called to give me directions. At 1.30am, I pulled to a spot slightly up the hill from her house. I walked into her driveway. Heard the radiator in her roadster ticking and put my hand on the rear compartment where this particular car's engine was located. Warm. Very warm. Didn't need to feel the brakes to know they were hot and that she'd raced up the hill. I hit the doorbell and stood far enough from the keyhole so she could see. I looked slightly away in feigned obliviousness but she opens the door without looking.
"Hey," she said, standing there. She looked a little spent from an evening of alcohol and screaming, but she was sexy, like I remembered her.
"Hey," I replied, and smiled. I noticed the flash light in her hand. "Is that for self-defense?"
"No! I lost the case for my cell phone, and I just got it. It's so frustrating. I think it's underneath my car, I got out in a rush and must have dropped it. Do you mind if I try and look?" she asked.
We both go to her car. She peers underneath with the light, then goes over to the passenger side, pulling the seat down and looking in the tiny back. I open the driver's side door, reach my hand in the darkness under the driver's seat, and my hand falls immediately on the leather case.
"This it?" I dangle it up in the air with two fingers.
"Yes!"
I toss it to her. "Aren't I the good luck charm?"
Five minutes later, we were making out in the kitchen of her 50's designer pad. She was a little drunk, rubbing herself all over me, using her body against mine, pulling me into her.
"I like your lips," she said. She put her hand in my shirt, rubbing it across my chest and onto my shoulder. "Feels nice."
I grab her by the hair with one hand, and tilt her head slightly back. She yields, her mouth opening. I kiss her as I close a hand around her throat. I make the kiss last. I let go.
"Okay," she said.
"Okay, what?"
She looked at me. "Well, do you want to stay here in the kitchen...?" She let the question hang.
I grinned. "Ah. I see. Well, Lana, would you like to give me the tour?"
"Yes," she said, taking my hand and pulling me behind her. "That's what 'okay' meant. See."
I laughed, as I followed her up the stairs to her bedroom.
I was burying my face in her covered cunt now, she was cooing and moaning, and then I unsnapped the buttons on the crotch of the lace teddy she wore under her skirt and blouse, and my tongue sank in the butter of her wet cunt, and disappeared immediately in her slick void. She tasted great, like citrus, and smelled faintly of sweat, and musk, and piss. I took her lips in my lips. I took her clit between my teeth. I made her cum that way, then I fucked her with two fingers till her body shook.
Later, I had her legs spread, knees pushed towards her ears, with my erect cock sliding in and out of her pussy, and put a hand behind her neck and pulled her head forward.
"Look. You look at that. You see my cock?"
"Oh fuck. Yeah. Yeah I see it. Fuck yeah I see it."
Afterwards, we laid under her plush sheets. Her leg rubbing against mine, her head in the nook of my shoulder.
"What happened to that IT guy I met that you were engaged to?"
"We broke up a couple years ago."
"Sorry."
"No. Don't be. I had an eighteen inch, thirty pound, cancerous tumor removed from my stomach, which the doctor said would take me a year to recover from. And it left a scar going down my middle, and one day he looked at me and told me I was the biggest loser he'd ever known. I told him it'd be the last shitty thing he ever said to me and left. He's texted me since then but I don't give a shit. They're all fuckers."
I clenched my jaw. It had too many echoes for me. Echoes of my own illness, years ago, when my body was wracked in pain, when I couldn't move, when my joints hurt; how it destroyed the relationship I'd had then, and turned my partner against me. I ran my hand down her stomach--I'd missed the scar earlier in the darkness, and had somehow managed to kiss every part of her stomach but the middle. But I felt it now, like a vertical line splitting her evenly down the middle. It felt like the scar from my appendectomy, raised faintly from the skin, and smooth.
"They cut me open like a piece of meat," she said. "I'll always have this scar."
I wanted to tell her I thought scars made people more beautiful. And that hers was absolutely lovely. But I didn't. These are the words that form the building blocks for someone to fall in love. Instead I said, "Good for you, leaving that trash. He sounds like a real asshole."
"Can you stay?" she asked, after a while. She was getting sleepy.
"I can't, I have to wake up early for a climb," I said, lying--I'd already had my climb the previous morning. It was almost 4.30am and I wanted to sleep in my bed. I kissed her, then her forehead. "You sleep well. I'll lock the door behind me." Her eyes were closing.
"I like you. Stay next time okay?"
"Okay."
I padded down her stairs. Checked myself in her bathroom. Remembered the broken condom wrappers and used rubbers strewn on her floor around her bed and wished I'd remembered to toss them for her so she wouldn't have to the next morning, but didn't think it was worth going back up and disturbing her for.
The driver in the Porsche 911 Cabriolet racing up Laurel Canyon well past the witching hour gives me a look of surprise as he sees me blow past him, going downhill in an Infiniti twice the size and weight of his Teutonic open top, and disappear around the turn. I take off the traction control on the wet, winding, two-laner, so it's just me, the wheel, the slick road, and chance, as I let self-preservation be the sole-guiding instrument that pilots this all-wheel drive, physics-defying piece of Japanese engineering. I break traction doing a sharp left bender but only for a second; the car's as smart as I'm reckless, and spreads the power evenly between the wheels, so the only thing that happens is I'm doing 60 before I pull out of the turn. I feel everything through the wheel. This car would tell me if I drove over a piece of lint, and under which tire.
Blowing through the green lights, heading back to my side of town, my eyes dart at every intersection, my instincts on high alert, reflexes waiting to hit the brake pedal, flick the wheel, in the presence of an unseen, hypothetical drunk driver coming in from the side who might decide to run a light at this time of the night. I'm not afraid to die from something awful. I'm afraid I'll barely survive it.
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