In the Offing

I am no rock -- I am no island

Neysa.Lee@gmail.com (Neysa Lee) — Mon, 02 Feb 2009 06:09:00 +0000

I've had a number of intense and enjoyable experiences lately. I don't regret anything I've done, and I'll happily keep doing it. There is a missing element, though. Its absence is beginning to create an anxious sadness in me. I despise admitting it, but it's there, and I'm afraid that the longer I deny it, the worse I will feel.

I think that to feel better, I soon need to experience sex with someone who wants me. In other words, I miss having sex with someone who seeks intimacy with me; who is interested in more than rough or transgressive or exciting sex; who wants to share true intimacy, the kind it's difficult to experience without really knowing someone and wanting to make them feel good out of some measure of respect, tender regard, desire for communion. . . . And someone who wants me specifically -- not just because I'm the person who is willing and handy.

Don't get me wrong. Casual sex has been great for me, and I don't want to stop. But I can't live on casual sex alone. I need more than that. If not always, at least occasionally. I suppose it's a sort of defeat to admit it. I didn't want to write it down or say it out loud, I know that much. It makes me feel weak, and I hate letting my insecurities show. I wish it were the case that I felt my inherent worth strongly enough that I never needed to have it affirmed by someone else. Apparently, it is not.

The real question is whether, in the absence of such a partner, I can deal with sex in other contexts. I have been able to so far. But this gnawing disquiet has crept in, and I don't know what to do to rid myself of it.

The photo is mine -- taken on the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska.

What's it all about

Neysa.Lee@gmail.com (Neysa Lee) — Mon, 19 Jan 2009 01:03:00 +0000

Hello, ~~walls~~ blog.

Here is it, the year 1/25 over already, and I'm just now updating? I'm a bad blogger, but then, it gives me lots of room for improvement.

So, hi! Holidays: complicated, enjoyable, maddening, and ultimately revelatory. The revelation? Live for yourself. If you have to have respect, make sure you can respect yourself first. Then damn the rest. So sayeth the prodigal daughter.

But let's talk about something else. Let's talk about what happened when I introduced Alfie to one of my favorite Austin dive bars.

I suppose some background is in order. I call him Alfie, short for Alfalfa, because he calls me Spanky. And if I tell you that he's read this blog (y'all wave to him), I don't have to explain why he calls me that. He answered an ad I threw out on Craigslist some weeks ago in a moment of poor impulse control -- well, he didn't so much "answer" it as he sent an absurdist stream-of-consciousness reply set on a European train speeding through various cinematic vignettes. Smart guy. That's pretty much all it takes with me, you know. Intrigued from the get-go.

So we corresponded via email for a while . . . and verily, it was fun. He's a literary type, new to Austin, eclectic background, basketball fan (Yes! Thank you, god!), entirely crushable, and I wanted to sleep with him. As the days went by, I began to wonder why he didn't suggest getting together. After all, in my ad I had been pretty straightforward about what I sought. I fretted to a friend that I was misreading him. I didn't really know what to do. He had me off-balance. Was I missing signals? Was I supposed to brazen out the situation and set a date? Somehow, though, I didn't want to end our email-only flirtation, which was plenty erotic in and of itself.

But finally one night, in the midst of a flurry of rapid-fire email during a Spurs game we were both watching, it was established that we both like dive bars, that he had not yet visited an Austin dive bar, that I knew a good dive bar not far from either of us, and then he typed the magic words -- do you feel like introducing me to a corner dive bar?

Reader, I did.

I got there first and sat at the bar, sipping a glass of wine (the only other thing on offer besides beer) and eavesdropping on the conversations around me. Nervous energy impelled me to speak to the couple beside me (who were wondering aloud about the outcome of a certain game), and I was still engaged in conversation with them when Alfie entered the bar--tall and slender with sandy good looks, younger looking than his years. I knew it was him immediately, but he walked past me (perhaps assuming that I was with the people I was talking to). I waved him down and he smiled and returned, taking the stool next to mine.

We talked of this and that, the jukebox played, the atmosphere was friendly, and the little thread of attraction that had spun between us grew stronger as our conversation wheeled, making lazy, ever-smaller circles toward the heart of the matter, moving us somehow closer so that his knee pressed against mine while we spoke of our first childish forays into the mysterious world of sex. I confessed to reading too much too young, most of the content sailing over my head except in the case of Xaviera Hollander's The Happy Hooker, lifted off a neighbor's bookcase one night while I was babysitting and devoured in equal parts horror and wonder. I admitted that the bestiality had traumatized me. I told him about my father's mortification when he had taken me with him to the movie The Missouri Breaks, thinking it safe enough for an 11-year-old, only to be confronted by a scene where a man fucks a woman up against an alley wall -- no nudity, but plenty for my father to sweat about nonetheless with a curious daughter by his side.

Suddenly Alfie became animated, recalling a book he had encountered in his youth; an autobiography by Charles Mingus, a free-flowing impressionistic account of his early years, filled, so Alfie said (for I was unfamiliar with the book), with scenes of uninhibited passion, including one memorable passage--

Here he paused and said he didn't want to be overheard, so I bent my head in toward him. I could feel the heat coming off his body. He leaned in and told me in a low voice what he remembered reading, how the narrator had been in a car with a woman and had reached across her for the glove compartment, and how his hand brushed across her lap, how he felt the dampness, how, when he explored further, he realized she had either "peed herself or comed" she was so wet, and how he knew at that moment that she was a "freak" like him -- how he commanded her to masturbate while he pissed on her luscious breasts, how he reached for the bag he kept under the seat and pulled out a whip . . .

When he had finished recalling the passage that had so impressed itself upon his young self, we sat in charged silence. It was getting late, soon to be closing time. Alfie indicated that we should go, that I should walk with him.

I slid off my bar stool, dopey and heavy-lidded with lust, knees wobbly, face warm, every nerve suffused with anticipation. We walked out to my car, which was parked on the street right next to the building. I motioned to the parking lot behind the bar, where a lonely vehicle sat. "Is that your possessed Explorer?" (In an earlier email he had claimed his vehicle was possessed by a demon because the side door had flown open, depositing his fresh laundry on the street.)

That's the one, he told me, and we started walking toward it, and I knew why were were going there, but I didn't know what would happen. It was chilly but not bitter outside. I noticed the stars overhead; the bare-branched silhouettes of the trees against the dark sky. I had leapt off the cliff while I hadn't been paying attention -- now there was nothing for it but to fall.

When I walked behind the vehicle to go to the passenger door, Alfie followed me and pushed me up against the car with his body, pinning me. He held my arms and I ground against him. My skirt was short and I wasn't wearing underwear -- he could have raised it and fucked me right there, and my mind flashed on the scene in The Missouri Breaks. That was what I wanted, right then, as cold as it was outside, but Alfie guided me to the door and I got into the car. He got in on his side and in that deserted parking lot he pulled my sweater over my head and we set about the business of finally getting to know each other.

He caressed my breasts, and I closed my eyes, enjoying the little jolts of sensation. He lifted them out of my bra so that they were exposed but jutting up and out, and he toyed with my stiff nipples. He pinched them, then, and I gasped and shuddered as his grasp tightened. He pulled and I cried out. Shh, shh, he said, and he stroked me gently, only to pinch and pull again, even harder, and my body arched, then I bent toward him, trying to escape the tension by moving toward it.

I had a brief flash of genuine "fight-or-flight" reaction. I wanted to get away from the pain, and I wasn't sure I would be able to. I think I may have inadvertently hit at his arm. Please understand -- he wasn't pushing me. I was pushing myself. And then his hand was between my legs and I was eager, pushing forward to meet his fingers, which slid easily between my slick, swollen labia. He finger fucked me, my cunt so wet it made liquid noises, and I came with his fingers inside me.

Then I was pulling at the waist of his jeans, and he helped me free his cock so that I could kneel with my head in his lap and suck. My mouth was dry, so I pushed him deep until I gagged, to stimulate the flow of saliva. Then with his hands in my hair I sucked, nursed, licked, and stroked. When he came he was deep in my mouth again, and I could feel the throb of his cock as it emptied, strong regular pulses like a slowing heartbeat, and his semen slid down my throat.

In a dream I pulled on my sweater, straightened my clothing, smoothed my hair. I was high -- there's no better word for it -- floating in a cloud of satisfied cravings and ongoing sensation as he walked me back to my car. (When I had opened the passenger door and he responded by opening his, I had asked hazily, oh, are you going to walk with me? to which he had replied, grinning at my state, what kind of cad would I be . . .?) He kissed me good night, or good morning, and I drove home, no doubt a hazard to myself and others, although had I been pulled over no substance would have registered.

I've been able since then to obtain a copy of Mingus' autobiography. Last night I read the remembered passage aloud to Alfie in person, while he laughed softly in my ear and toyed with my breasts.

I do have the most ridiculous good luck with Craigslist, it's true.

Happy HNT redux

Neysa.Lee@gmail.com (Neysa Lee) — Thu, 01 Jan 2009 15:07:00 +0000

Our suggested theme from Os for this Thursday is "favorite HNT picture of 2008." I started HNT relatively late in the year and participated sporadically, so my choices are limited. Nonetheless, I'm happy with this picture -- the first I ever submitted for HNT. I took this while I was in Australia this summer, at the beginning of what has proved to be a very grand and ongoing adventure.

Happy New Year to all y'all!

Pinter on truth

Neysa.Lee@gmail.com (Neysa Lee) — Fri, 26 Dec 2008 05:44:00 +0000

Harold Pinter died of cancer yesterday at the age of 78. Below are excerpts from his acceptance speech for the 2005 Nobel Prize in Literature.

In 1958 I wrote the following: "There are no hard distinctions between what is real and what is unreal, nor between what is true and what is false. A thing is not necessarily either true or false; it can be both true and false."

I believe that these assertions still make sense and do still apply to the exploration of reality through art. So as a writer I stand by them but as a citizen I cannot. As a citizen I must ask: What is true? What is false?
* * *
I put to you that the United States is without doubt the greatest show on the road. Brutal, indifferent, scornful and ruthless it may be but it is also very clever. As a salesman it is out on its own and its most saleable commodity is self love. It's a winner. Listen to all American presidents on television say the words, "the American people", as in the sentence, "I say to the American people it is time to pray and to defend the rights of the American people and I ask the American people to trust their president in the action he is about to take on behalf of the American people".

It's a scintillating stratagem. Language is actually employed to keep thought at bay. The words "the American people" provide a truly voluptuous cushion of reassurance. You don't need to think. Just lie back on the cushion. The cushion may be suffocating your intelligence and your critical faculties but it's very comfortable. This does not apply of course to the 40 million people living below the poverty line and the 2 million men and women imprisoned in the vast gulag of prisons, which extends across the US.
* * *

I believe that despite the enormous odds which exist, unflinching, unswerving, fierce intellectual determination, as citizens, to define the real truth of our lives and our societies is a crucial obligation which devolves upon us all. It is in fact mandatory.

If such a determination is not embodied in our political vision we have no hope of restoring what is so nearly lost to us – the dignity of man.

Crimble

Neysa.Lee@gmail.com (Neysa Lee) — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 13:31:00 +0000

Have a merry one, whatever you should celebrate, and I'll see you on the other side (if you promise to miss me just a little).

xoxo

N.

The best part

Neysa.Lee@gmail.com (Neysa Lee) — Sun, 21 Dec 2008 05:48:00 +0000

What I've enjoyed most about these past months, this stage, this phase, this transformation, whatever you want to call it -- what I've enjoyed most are the people I have met and the stories I have heard.

The Encounter by Serge Sunne

Far from being an interior exploration of my life and desires, this has been more than anything else an exploration of what a vast array of experiences different people have. I find myself fascinated more than ever with the divine comedy. I'll never tire of it. It is in others that I find myself -- it's when I forget myself that I find myself most fulfilled.

I'm learning. That means I'm living.

Kink for All

Neysa.Lee@gmail.com (Neysa Lee) — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 14:43:00 +0000

KinkforAll (coming to New York this March):

Anyone with something to contribute or with the desire to learn is welcome and invited to join. When you attend, be prepared to share with others. When you leave, be prepared to share it with the world.

I don't promote or review or lobby or accept money in exchange for anything (as I've explained here) for promotion's sake alone. If I quote or link, it's because I've been moved enough by something to believe it's going to make your lives (and mine) richer for knowing about it. Given who all is organizing KinkforAll and what it's all about, I think it sounds pretty damn fabulous. If there is some way I can go or contribute, I will, but for now I think the least I can do is spread the word. Go. Read. Think about it. Seriously, how can you resist?

I lied

Neysa.Lee@gmail.com (Neysa Lee) — Tue, 16 Dec 2008 22:09:00 +0000

The next thing I post won't be mine at all. Rather, it's a poem by Denise Levertov that struck a chord.

The Mutes

Those groans men use
passing a woman on the street
or on the steps of the subway

to tell her she is a female
and their flesh knows it,

are they a sort of tune,
an ugly enough song, sung
by a bird with a slit tongue

but meant for music?

Or are they the muffled roaring
of deafmutes trapped in a building that is
slowly filling with smoke?

Perhaps both.

Such men most often
look as if groan were all they could do,
yet a woman, in spite of herself,

knows it's a tribute:
if she were lacking all grace
they'd pass her in silence:

so it's not only to say she's
a warm hole. It's a word

in grief-language, nothing to do with
primitive, not an ur-language;
language stricken, sickened, cast down

in decrepitude. She wants to
throw the tribute away, dis-
gusted, and can't,

it goes on buzzing in her ear,
it changes the pace of her walk,
the torn posters in echoing corridors

spell it out, it
quakes and gnashes as the train comes in.
Her pulse sullenly

had picked up speed,
but the cars slow down and
jar to a stop while her understanding

keeps on translating:
'Life after life after life goes by

without poetry,
without seemliness,
without love.'

This is what it's like to live among those who care mostly about appearances. "You're beautiful, so I want to fuck you." "You're hot, so I want all my friends to see me with you." "Wear this so I'll be more attracted to you."

It's life without poetry; it's an inferior and sickened language.

Undersharing

Neysa.Lee@gmail.com (Neysa Lee) — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 03:13:00 +0000

"Oversharing" is something I can't be accused of lately, which is a good thing, because who wants to be accused of a neologism? Up until just the other day, I had planned to write an entry titled "Sex Takes a Holiday," because it certainly had for me. It seems to be the case in general around the end of the year for people who, like me, aren't currently in any kind of defined relationship. I am neither family nor friend to my sexual partners in a season that places emphasis on spending time with both. But then the man from New York saved me from going without, and I decided that I've got it pretty good, considering.

However, since that intense couple of hours a fortnight or so ago, I have spent a lot of time being (and feeling) somewhat reclusive. Not for any particular reason -- it's just how I've been. I'm not unhappy.

But, like Eileen, who wrote about this recently on her own excellent blog, I don't like letting so much go unwritten. I feel an obligation to the part of myself that is represented here. I have a habit of thinking out long entries in my head and then letting go of the ideas, and I don't like it. It's lazy. So even if I'm not currently sexually active, I'd like to keep writing . . . that is if you, my dear imaginary readers, wouldn't mind. (Hearing no protest from the imaginary readership, the author proceeds.)

Now that I've said that, I will proceed to post more links to things other people have written! A sense of Irony. I has it.

This post by Figleaf (as well as the posts it refers to) have laid the groundwork in my mind for a rant I have tentatively titled "In Defense of Adultery." Whether I ever end up writing it or not, this is a topic well worth wrestling with (and if you could pin it to the mat and break its arm, I would cheer you on).

I don't know what to say about this post from the magnificent Bitchy Jones except that every word of it resonates with me. Every fucking word. I live on the other side of the fence when it comes to sadism, but I don't know that it matters in this context. This is how I would like to write when I grow up, by the way. She is fearless. Read her whole blog, and you will see what I mean.

And here is another fearless writer, Peridot Ash, who beautifully and succinctly addresses the issue of guilt from the perspective of a sex worker.

And next time, I promise to post something of my own.

Fur

Neysa.Lee@gmail.com (Neysa Lee) — Thu, 11 Dec 2008 14:31:00 +0000

My grandmother had a mink stole from Sakowitz. I never saw her wear it, but when she died, it was given to me. I have a hard enough time wearing leather, so fur is, as you might imagine, out of the question. Now grandmother's stole lives in my my closet, beautiful, outdated, and unpopular--but oh, how soft it is against the skin. . . .

North wind

Neysa.Lee@gmail.com (Neysa Lee) — Wed, 10 Dec 2008 03:28:00 +0000

Today it was nearly 80 degrees Fahrenheit, and tonight there are needles of sleet pelting the window behind me while I write. I love the sudden change.

I didn't sleep last night -- it just didn't come. I felt unsettled all day today, and grew more and more distracted and effusive and uncharacteristically . . . oh, I don't know, flighty until this afternoon when it hit me what was going on. This is the second week of December. In another few days, it will be the day my younger sister was killed on an icy road on her way home from Christmas caroling -- thrown through the rear windshield of the car in which she was a passenger. It was a long time ago, when I was only 22, and I'll make my way through the anniversary, as all the other people all over the world do with the losses they suffer. What continues to astound me is how thoroughly I can forget the actual reason for my mood, and how insistently my body pulls me back to that place and demands that I pay attention. It usually takes me a few days of struggling with strange bouts of nerves, regrets, floating off to take stock of my life, impulsiveness, and (I'm sorry to say after all these years) anger--fierce, fierce anger--before I realize what the underlying reason is; what the upcoming day is. Once I do, and this happens every year, every year like clockwork, mind you, I feel the shock all over again. I cry -- again, angry tears, unfair, unfair, she was the best of us. And then, inevitably and gracefully, like a merciful benefaction, my mind and my body are back together, and relief and something more akin to acceptance and natural sorrow sweeps through me. And then I try to remember what her voice sounded like and what her hair smelled like, and I look at my own hands because her hands looked just like mine.

It's remarkable how often this anniversary coincides with an ice storm or the first hard freeze of the year. I suppose it's natural. It all makes sense.

The door closed on a lot of things -- or perhaps I shut it myself -- as a result of her death. There was no more writing, no more sex, no more music for a long time. Now I try to share these pleasures and delights of life with her as best I can by allowing myself to experience them. I think that this year, finally, I'm doing a damn good job of it. What there is of her in me, what earthly material we had in common, I'll have that forever. She used to say, half-laughing, half in despair, "I'll die a virgin!" She did, at 16. So she's along for the ride, no matter what I do or who I'm with. Alors, allons-y!

A SLUMBER did my spirit seal;
I had no human fears:
She seemed a thing that could not feel
The touch of earthly years.

No motion has she now, no force;
She neither hears nor sees;
Rolled round in earth's diurnal course,
With rocks, and stones, and trees.

Captured

Neysa.Lee@gmail.com (Neysa Lee) — Sat, 06 Dec 2008 04:13:00 +0000

He took pictures the last time he was in town, too, remember? The pictures he took this Wednesday are better. More intimate. More explicit. I keep going back to one in particular -- he had held the camera down close to my face while I knelt before him, lost in the act of sucking his cock, occasionally leaning into his thighs to keep my balance, my hands cuffed behind me. No, I didn't notice the flash this time.

My eyes are closed, lashes dark against my pale skin; my hair lies in Medusa streaks across my face, upon my shoulders -- there are even some tendrils clinging to his wet shaft. His worn jeans are pushed down. He has a tattoo on his thigh. The picture was taken at the moment I have only the head of his penis in my mouth, the moment between up stroke and down stroke, my cheeks hollow. I can see the blue veins in his cock and the light freckles scattered across my bare shoulder.

It's a very good picture.

I want to write about the way he came into the room and steered me straight to a chair, settling me into it and pulling my arms behind me, cuffing my wrists, kneeling to bind my legs to the chair, all done wordlessly, deliberately, purposefully. Then he stood close behind me and when I tried to turn my head to see him, he turned it back to face frontward.

I want to write about later, when I probably should have said something about the wrenching pain in my shoulder, and the metal cuffs digging into my back where I laid upon them while he fucked me, my legs over his shoulders, but didn't, because I didn't want him to stop.

Maybe I will. Maybe I'll write about it in detail, trying in vain to capture every image, every sensation, every fleeting thought. Maybe I'll even admit that I cried a little afterward while I laid on the bed next to him, my head turned away in a vain attempt to hide my vulnerability. I hadn't ever done that -- cried as an immediate reaction to sex. It frightened and thrilled me to let it happen.

Happy Half-Nekkid Thanksgiving

Neysa.Lee@gmail.com (Neysa Lee) — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 16:54:00 +0000

It's a mild day in Austin, overcast, and the air is soft. Here I am in my backyard this morning before I went to meet my folks for breakfast. I suppose I should rake the leaves, but they came in handy as a background, and the cardinals and blue jays and doves seem to like having them there.

click to embiggen

Later today my family will gather for the traditional meal, and then some of us will go to the big game, while others will gather at my house for wine and conversation. Happy Thanksgiving to you, wherever you may be, and may you have much to be grateful for.

I was the glass

Neysa.Lee@gmail.com (Neysa Lee) — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 15:22:00 +0000

This is where I had the dream, in the gray light of a rainy morning.

Can't shake a dream I had last night; or rather, a vignette from one of several intricate dreams that flowed one to the other, connecting all the disparate rivulets of my life into one stream that ran into an unseen, enigmatic ocean.

I dreamed I was dreaming, and had a blood orange, and I halved it, giving one half to West Coast who was lying next to me in bed as I dreamed. He didn't even look at it (how could he ignore that color; that scent?), but stretched out his arm and in one hand crushed the fruit, sending a stream of dark juice onto my belly. The juice was copious, it pooled, it stained the white linen sheets, and he crouched between my legs and drank it in thirsty swallows. I woke from that dream within the dream feeling like an empty vessel, but there was no time to understand, for I was already being swept into another dream.

I woke again (and finally) to rain and the knowledge that a decision had been made for me by a dream.

So sure am I, I even took a picture. I don't want to let myself forget.

Porn breakfast

Neysa.Lee@gmail.com (Neysa Lee) — Sat, 22 Nov 2008 17:26:00 +0000

This morning's breakfast, a berry and brie danish from the Sunset Valley farmer's market.

Sexual healing

Neysa.Lee@gmail.com (Neysa Lee) — Thu, 20 Nov 2008 21:52:00 +0000

I had recently lost my cat Vasily to cancer, I had been recovering too slowly from a monster cold, my work week had been truly disastrous, and I was under the gun to get a large fund-raising event organized. Not a day had gone by for two weeks when I hadn't dissolved into tears at one time or another. I felt haggard. I looked haggard. My skin is normally clear, but stress had created two delightful zits on my face. I had dark circles under my eyes, I was mired in a perpetual bad-hair day, I needed a pedicure -- your basic wreck, is what I was.

So when I got the email from Mr. LQ asking whether I would like to get together for maybe dinner and definitely sex, I had to think about it. I felt unlovely and undesirable -- was this a good idea? Before this summer I would have made my excuses and told myself I needed to wait until I was in the right frame of mind. But things have changed, my dear imaginary readers, and so I did something once unthinkable. I accepted. So I wasn't at the top of my game. Was I going to feel any better if I hid at home? I needed to feel good; I needed to make someone else feel good; I needed to get out of my head. I emailed back and said his plan sounded lovely. The rest fell into place quickly: next day, 6:00 P.M., same hotel.

Mr. LQ and I had met once before a few weeks earlier. It had been brief, intense, enjoyable -- a whirlwind few hours with very little talk and a lot of sex. As I drove toward the hotel and our second assignation, I imagined pulling a Blanche DuBois once I got there. I could drape the lamps with scarves to create flattering light. Maybe use my hands a lot, sort of flutter them around to distract from my various physical imperfections. The idea made me grin. Poor Mr. LQ would have to wonder what kind of freak show he had invited over.

But here's the thing: as soon as I got there, everything was all right. Just like Curtis Mayfield sings it -- "have a good time, 'cause it's all right." I walked into the hotel room, dropped my purse in the chair, and turned around to tell him it was good to see him again. He smiled, kissed me in greeting, then pushed me up against the wall and pinned my arms above my head with one hand while he freed my breasts from the plunging neckline of my dress with the other. Then he bent his head and sucked my nipple into his mouth and ohhhh yes, this was exactly what I needed. Instant and total immersion.

He stopped long enough to pull my dress off and pushed me right back up against the wall, now sucking the other nipple while I sighed and writhed and tried in vain to grind against him. He took my forearms and pulled me toward him. "Here," he said, "here," and pushed me down until I was kneeling in front of him. I took his cock in one hand and licked up the length of it, then around it, then pulled it into my mouth, sucking in earnest. We stayed this way a while until he suddenly withdrew, reaching for the condoms, and pushed me forward upon my hands and knees, where I waited, panting, the synthetic carpet somehow both rough and oily feeling, until he was thrusting into me.

And so it went . . . and went . . . from the floor to the bed, hands, mouths, cunnilingis, fellatio, finger-fucking, ass-fucking, tit-fucking, and in between bouts of sex there was conversation. He had brought his computer equipped with satellite radio, and classic jazz and swing floated through the room. This time around we had time to get to know each other. We twitted each other about politics. I heard about the evolution of his career. He heard about my grandfather's life as a bandleader. And all the while we talked he was either running his fingernails over my skin (bliss) or fondling me (more bliss), occasionally giving me a lazy spank. Sometimes I caught myself humming or singing to the song on the radio. Sorry, I told him. It's a compulsion. "I don't know what advantage in life I get from knowing the entire Harold Arlen songbook, but I know it."

"It's an advantage," he assured me.

While we had been talking his hand had wandered down to my cunt again, his fingers parting and stroking me. I reached down and pulled his hand to my lips. I took his wet index and middle fingers into my mouth and sucked them slowly; lavishly. His cock twitched hard against my thigh, and suddenly I was seized with the desire to feel it in my mouth. I moved quickly to kneel between his legs and used my breath and my tongue to tease him, taking him all into my mouth at times, other times nibbling about the tip just to hear him moan. Slowly I settled into a pattern, and then all that mattered was the connection between us.

I don't mind giving head at all, but there are times when I'm giving it simply because I know that's what my partner wants at the moment. This wasn't one of those times. I needed to be doing this. I was utterly absorbed. It was my own little work of art. I didn't want to make him come too fast; I didn't want to get it over with -- I wanted to be doing exactly what I was doing. You don't hurry art.

I could tell when I hit a perfect rhythm because he would start to tremble. He held my hair back from my face in his hand like a thick single rein. I breathed through my nose so I could keep my mouth on him without stopping. Now and then his cock would hit the back of my throat and I would gag slightly, feeling my mouth constrict around him. Sometimes I would force the issue and take him so deep I gagged, because I liked the flow of saliva it triggered. With my hands I toyed with his scrotum, his testes, his perineum, soft fingers, the hint of a fingernail, increasing the pressure as he approached climax, laying off, then increasing again.

I don't know how long I did this. At one point my jaw became sore, but I ignored it, and soon I didn't feel it. Finally the intensity of his shaking and thrusting pierced my reverie and I realized he was about to climax. He came with a loud series of groans, and I kept him in my mouth, waiting for each spurt of semen. It was a long, drawn-out climax, and I loved being able to read the intensity of it in his cries. When he was finished, I released him gently and slowly from my mouth, and stayed where I was, my head resting on his thigh.

"Oh baby." He laid there breathing hard, eyes closed. "Oh baby. That was incredible. That was . . . that was . . ." His voice trailed off. I flipped my hair up onto his chest, then dragged it softly down over his stomach and groin, listening to his breath catch when strands caught on his sticky thighs and cock. Then I did it again.

"That feels so good," he muttered.

"I know," I whispered.

Finally we were both completely still. I reluctantly rose to clean myself up and caught a glimpse of myself in the bathroom mirror. I was smiling, flushed, disheveled -- a million miles away. When I came back out we lolled about still naked, watched Saturday Night Live, happy, spent, and giggling. Then it was time to go home. We dressed, and when I paused at the mirror to smooth my hair, he said, "You look great." I rolled my eyes and laughed. He walked me out to my car, kissed me good night, and we went our separate ways.

In the car, I looked up at the clock and read the time: midnight exactly. Six hours of nothing but pleasure, and I was feeling . . . really good. Really fucking good. When I got close to home I realized that I was famished, so I decided to stop at Kerbey Lane for some gingerbread pancakes. But when the plate was put down in front of me, I took a few bites and then I didn't want any more. So I paid, assured the waiter that nothing had been wrong with the food, and went home, pleasantly jangled and buzzing.

The next morning, while I was getting dressed to go to dim sum brunch, I saw that I had a bruise on my neck, courtesy of a long, hard kiss from Mr. LQ. There were some scratches at the base of my throat -- not from Mr. LQ but from my cat Nora, who forgets herself and loves her human a bit too fiercely at times. And of course, the zits were still there. But I didn't look haggard. I sure didn't feel haggard. I felt just fine.

I haven't cried since.

Mulling

Neysa.Lee@gmail.com (Neysa Lee) — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 13:35:00 +0000

Should I go to Dark Odyssey's Winter Fire Weekend in February? It looks wonderful (I adore Tristan Taormino, and she's one of the organizers), and there's an emphasis on Tantra (an area I would like to know more about). I guess the argument against attending would be that I won't know anyone there. (Might that also be seen as an argument for attending?) Also, I'm scheduled to go to New Haven on the 16th, so I would have to make a few travel rearrangements.

But it looks like so much fun . . .

::longing sigh::

For anyone waiting for some writing on the subject of recent sexual escapades (you know who you are), it's on its way -- but today and tonight are going to be frantic for me (big fund-raising event takes place tonight), and then I will finally get some breathing room. I hope.

This post was brought to you by the left paren symbol and the right paren symbol, and by the number 8.

Morning sun

Neysa.Lee@gmail.com (Neysa Lee) — Mon, 17 Nov 2008 13:28:00 +0000

I'm sitting, drowsy, curled up in the corner of my sofa, using my laptop (as I always do these days -- the desktop sits unloved, covered in dust) to update, and thinking about what to write next. This corner of the sofa is bathed in sunlight on winter mornings once the leaves have fallen, as they are now beginning to do. So for now it's a dappled light, rays breaking through occasionally full force when they reach a leafless spot on the mulberry tree as the sun rises. I don't feel quite rested, and I'm putting off going to work. I'd rather sit here and write.

But I can't, and I have places to be after work, too, so the words will have to keep until tonight. My cat Minou has no such constraints on her time, however, so she, lucky thing, will stay on the windowsill above my bed, dreaming in the morning sun.

Oh, how I needed last night

Neysa.Lee@gmail.com (Neysa Lee) — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 15:17:00 +0000

Not to be a tease (maybe just a little, but honestly, it's an unintentional consequence--can I help it if you enjoy it?), but I don't yet know whether I can write publicly about last night. I can say this: after two weeks of doubt, sorrow, and anxiety, it was such a delight to revel in pure pleasure for six hours.

Is there anything better than lolling around naked creating an impressionistic performance piece made of sex, lively conversation, sex, laughter, skin, fingernails, sex, and sensory overload?

No, not chocolate. The first person to say "chocolate" will earn a less-than-gentle love bite from me.

Kama sutra chocolate bar by Barlovento Chocolates

I'm not just saying it for effect

Neysa.Lee@gmail.com (Neysa Lee) — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 15:40:00 +0000

I mean it when I say that books taught me how to live. No one else would (or could) tell me the things that Turgenev, Tolstoy, Austen, et al. told me when I was young and searching; thirsty for all the instruction I could soak up.

"In the street, forty paces from me, at the open window of a little wooden house, stood my father, his back turned to me; he was leaning forward over the window-sill, and in the house, half hidden by a curtain, sat a woman in a dark dress talking to my father; this woman was Zinaïda.

I was petrified. This, I confess, I had never expected. My first impulse was to run away. 'My father will look round,' I thought, and I am lost ...' but a strange feeling--a feeling stronger than curiosity, stronger than jealousy, stronger even than fear--held me there. I began to watch; I strained my ears to listen. It seemed as though my father were insisting on something. Zinaïda would not consent. I seem to see her face now-- mournful, serious, lovely, and with an inexpressible impress of devotion, grief, love, and a sort of despair--I can find no other word for it. She uttered monosyllables, not raising her eyes, simply smiling--submissively, but without yielding. By that smile alone, I should have known my Zinaïda of old days. My father shrugged his shoulders, and straightened his hat on his head, which was always a sign of impatience with him.... Then I caught the words: 'Vous devez vous séparer de cette...' Zinaïda sat up, and stretched out her arm.... Suddenly, before my very eyes, the impossible happened. My father suddenly lifted the whip, with which he had been switching the dust off his coat, and I heard a sharp blow on that arm, bare to the elbow. I could scarcely restrain myself from crying out; while Zinaïda shuddered, looked without a word at my father, and slowly raising her arm to her lips, kissed the streak of red upon it. My father flung away the whip, and running quickly up the steps, dashed into the house.... Zinaïda turned round, and with outstretched arms and downcast head, she too moved away from the window.

My heart sinking with panic, with a sort of awe-struck horror, I rushed back, and running down the lane, almost letting go my hold of Electric, went back to the bank of the river. I could not think clearly of anything. I knew that my cold and reserved father was sometimes seized by fits of fury; and all the same, I could never comprehend what I had just seen.... But I felt at the time that, however long I lived, I could never forget the gesture, the glance, the smile, of Zinaïda; that her image, this image so suddenly presented to me, was imprinted for ever on my memory. I stared vacantly at the river, and never noticed that my tears were streaming. 'She is beaten,' I was thinking,... 'beaten ... beaten....'

'Hullo! what are you doing? Give me the mare!' I heard my father's voice saying behind me.

Mechanically I gave him the bridle. He leaped on to Electric ... the mare, chill with standing, reared on her haunches, and leaped ten feet away ... but my father soon subdued her; he drove the spurs into her sides, and gave her a blow on the neck with his fist.... 'Ah, I've no whip,' he muttered.

I remembered the swish and fall of the whip, heard so short a time before, and shuddered.

'Where did you put it?' I asked my father, after a brief pause.

My father made no answer, and galloped on ahead. I overtook him. I felt that I must see his face.

'Were you bored waiting for me?' he muttered through his teeth.

'A little. Where did you drop your whip?' I asked again.

My father glanced quickly at me. 'I didn't drop it,' he replied; 'I threw it away.' He sank into thought, and dropped his head ... and then, for the first, and almost for the last time, I saw how much tenderness and pity his stern features were capable of expressing.

He galloped on again, and this time I could not overtake him; I got home a quarter-of-an-hour after him.

'That's love,' I said to myself again, as I sat at night before my writing-table, on which books and papers had begun to make their appearance; 'that's passion!... To think of not revolting, of bearing a blow from any one whatever ... even the dearest hand! But it seems one can, if one loves.... While I ... I imagined ...'

I had grown much older during the last month; and my love, with all its transports and sufferings, struck me myself as something small and childish and pitiful beside this other unimagined something, which I could hardly fully grasp, and which frightened me like an unknown, beautiful, but menacing face, which one strives in vain to make out clearly in the half-darkness...."

Bootless cries

Neysa.Lee@gmail.com (Neysa Lee) — Fri, 14 Nov 2008 05:10:00 +0000

Whew. It was one of those days, y'all. Every step I took felt misplaced; every word I uttered felt mistaken. It started this morning at work, when the last of four days of rancorous, unproductive meetings confirmed my every fear regarding the political morass that has engulfed public education in this state. It continued through a few hours of fund-raising for the nonprofit I sit on the board of directors for. It's not the most popular cause in the world, I fear. We're not helping babies or homeless kittens or sweet old people or retired racehorses. How much fun is fund-raising for a controversial cause in this financial climate? Oh . . . about as much fun as an icepick through the kneecap.

So by tonight, I was on shaky ground. All it took was some intense conversation on a difficult subject, a couple of stiff drinks, and a few kind words from a sweet friend to start the waterworks. Ugh. I said my goodbyes to the group and headed home. On the way I remembered to stop at Ruby's and pick up some ribs for Jeff, so I did make one person happy today. Hooray.

Blargh.

All right. Tomorrow. All better. Deal?

My last Sugasm

Neysa.Lee@gmail.com (Neysa Lee) — Sun, 09 Nov 2008 04:33:00 +0000

I've decided not to participate in Sugasm anymore. I think it's a cool concept, and Radical Vixen is to be lauded for keeping it going, but it doesn't work for me. I've noticed that very few of the people who are voting bother to read my submissions. No, that doesn't translate to "I'm miffed because they don't vote for me!" I mean they don't even form an opinion of my writing because they never read it in the first place. How do I know? Because StatCounter shows me which page people land on. If the participants were following the permalink to my Sugasm submission, that's the page that would be showing the traffic. So, for example, since there were 47 submissions to (and therefore 47 voters on) Sugasm #152, I would expect 46 people to land on "Marked: An Open Letter" (my submitted post) when they followed the link mailed out to all the voters. Guess how many visitors to my blog entered via that specific link between the day the Sugasm voting list was emailed out and the day the Sugasm results were posted? Eight. Yep, eight out of 46. And while there is certainly a boost in traffic to my blog once the participants post the Sugasm results, that's not what it's about for me. That's never been what it's about. I wanted to be read by and hear from other writers, not just garner a bunch of random hits from disinterested surfers who flee as soon as it becomes evident that there aren't any pictures of naked people on my site. The value for me in participating in Sugasm was the opportunity to interact with and receive feedback from other writers and readers, and, with any luck, to improve my understanding of sexuality in the context of life -- my life in particular. Maybe that was an unrealistic expectation. Meanwhile, I diligently read every submission and voted for the ones I thought were best regardless of who wrote them or how far down on the lengthy list they were. That may have been a naive approach.

I realize that there are many bloggers who hope to generate some sort of income or use their blog as a springboard to a book deal or something along those lines. It makes sense that the driving force behind their blogs would be self-marketing and that their goals would revolve around generating as much exposure as they could. I am not one of that camp, however. I believe it is ultimately restricting to write under those conditions -- to write under any condition. And that is why you will never see an ad or a "tip jar" or a vibrator review or a wish list or anything but my own naked words on this blog. Believe me, I harbor no delusions about supporting myself as a sex blogger. Nor am I looking to score free sex toys or win any popularity contests. I reveal what I reveal because part of me wants to be known -- in exchange for nothing save knowledge of myself and of others, if I'm fortunate enough to hear from them. I do this to do it.

I want honest feedback, not publicity. I can get that without the benefit of traffic I receive solely by virtue of being on a list of random links to sexual material. If I wanted to belong to some sort of community (and I'm not sure that I do), it would be the whole wide world of writers, not the narrow community of sex bloggers. In fact, as I've mentioned before, it feels somewhat forced and unnatural to me to write JUST about sex. My sexual experiences don't exist in a vacuum.

Enough navel gazing! Here is the latest Sugasm, and the last you will be seeing here. Of course I'll continue to read Sugasm, and I encourage anyone who enjoys erotic writing to do the same -- I've encountered a number of talented writers via Sugasm that I'm happy to read regularly. Some of them are good enough (in my opinion) to have earned a place on my list of links over yonder.

Sugasm 152: The best of this week’s blogs by the bloggers who blog them. Highlighting the top 3 posts as chosen by Sugasm participants. Want in Sugasm #153? Submit a link to your best post of the week by emailing me directly at radicalvixenatgmaildotcom Participants, repost the link list within a week and you’re all set.

This Week’s Picks

Sugarbutch Star: Maze - The Girl in the Red Dress
"She’s the kind of girl who brings out the worst in me."

treat or … fuck
"He looked like I had just given him a car for Christmas and he gently took my hand and led me upstairs."

A Life Exposed and Amplified
"We were breaking the rules and being dirty."

Mr. Sugasm Himself
Sugar Bank

Editor’s Choice
I told him I loved him. He gave me a pen.

More Sugasm

Join the Sugasm

See also: Fleshbot’s Sex Blog Roundup each Tuesday and Friday.

Sleep writing

Neysa.Lee@gmail.com (Neysa Lee) — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 09:22:00 +0000

János Vaszary, c. 1930

Aha. Just woke up from restless dreams with a sore throat and mouth (shredded the roof with movie popcorn earlier), and decided to get out of bed long enough to pound some orange juice and play typey typey with my laptop. Just to keep the sense memory of writing active, I suppose. . . .

Still somewhat off-balance between the lingering effects of the Black Death and the emotional sledgehammers lobbed my way last night by Rachel Getting Married (which I would like to see again, so if you can deal with the fact that I might turn into a puddle of tears roughly two-thirds of the way through the movie, sure, I'll go with you), so I haven't written anything save a few Tumblr updates. I'm also trying to finish The Last Shot and I've already started Revolutionary Road -- both startling in their excellence and clarity if having nothing else in common. So I'm chewing on a lot. How about you? What has got your brain occupied lately?

Bluebird of happiness

Neysa.Lee@gmail.com (Neysa Lee) — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 16:30:00 +0000

I finally got the people at Twitter to fix my account, but the only way I could do it was to obliterate my old account and start from scratch. So if I used to follow you on Twitter and don't anymore, that's why. I'll try to find my old contacts and add everyone back to the list, but feel free in the meantime to add me. There's a link over yonder in the sidebar. -->>

That said, I'm a singularly unrewarding, intermittent, and kind of boring Twitterer, so I certainly won't take offense if you choose not to follow me.

Q and A

Neysa.Lee@gmail.com (Neysa Lee) — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 23:35:00 +0000

I've been asked a number of questions via email and instant messenger and idle conversation, and several keep popping up. So in case anyone else out there is wondering, here are some of the answers. And if reading about me bores you, click on <<-- this picture instead.

Q: You live with your ex-boyfriend? Is he okay with what you do? Does he know about your blog?

A: Yes, I live with him (and have since 2002), and he's a great friend to me, and he's okay with what I do. He knows about this blog but prefers not to read it. He is dating someone else, and I'm glad he's got someone. While he prefers a slightly more traditional style of life, he's both supportive of and happy for me.

Q: Do the people you write about know that you write about them?

A: Yes, and several of them have actually commented here. Which, I might add, I think is seriously cool of them.

Q: Why do you tell them?

A: I made the decision fairly early on that I would get permission to publish anything of an intimate nature about anyone else. I have several reasons for doing so. I want to try to write as objectively as possible about my experiences -- I think that's the only way to learn from what I'm doing. If the people I'm writing about can call me on any inaccuracies or missed subtleties or differences in perception, that keeps me honest. And somehow it seems only fair that they have some say over how they are portrayed to the world, even if their identities are protected. Know wha'm sayin'?

Q: Yeah, but if you know they're reading what you write, doesn't that restrain what you write?

A: I try not to let it. I realize that I lack the perspective (not to mention the credibility) to claim that it doesn't affect what I write in the least. All I can say is that I try my best to write what actually happened as though no one is reading. That's one reason my writing is about what's inside my head so much -- a lot of times, it's the only thing I know for sure really happened.

Q: Has anyone said you can't publish what you write about them?

A: Not yet. I'm very grateful for that.

I do have some new experiences to write about, but I have been stricken with the plague. Once the buboes shrink and the bleeding from the eyes slows down, I'll update.