the obsession

i love skin.

i love biting skin, feeling its thickness and strength, its fragility.  i love the way skin smells on different parts of different bodies, the way it blooms out so clear and damp after a warm shower.  i salivate over the tawny, olive skin of my slightly jewish husband.  pale-to-translucent porcelain skin takes my breath away.

there is nothing i love more than nuzzling another person with as much skin as we can possibly share.  noses and necks and collarbones and breasts and bellies and thighs, the backs of knees and insides of elbows,  fingers and knuckles and palms, intertwining, cupping, brushing…  yum.

i love foreskin and scrotum, so thin and elastic, and yet so impossibly strong, holding life and pleasure and pain.

i love the tiny, almost invisible hairs, the way they feel against different body surfaces.  i love the texture of thicker hairs.  i marvel over scars, large and small.   there’s magic in the way a tattoo can be looked into, to see the depth and the fading and imperfections, the pores winking out of unexpected color.

skin is the place we meet.  where we feel.  what separates us from and joins us to the rest of the world.

oh for god’s sake

so it’s been four weeks and three days since the boy texted me, saying that he’d be back in town in four weeks.  i figured it was totally done with, and was content.

apparently, he needed to have the last word, so i got a hostile message today that included such endearing phrases as:

“should never have touched [your marriage] with a 10 foot pole.”

“please respect my decision as well as my relationship and do not try to contact me.”

“another time and place.”

well, let’s clear this all up, shall we?  you didn’t touch my marriage.  it touched you.

did i try to contact you?  have you heard from me in 4 weeks?  um… no.  if you don’t want to talk to me, then why are you talking to me?

and as for another time and place…  do you honestly think i have any interest in or hope for a future relationship with you?  are you fucking kidding me?

my darling husband said it best:  despite some pretty impressive attempts, he’s still a 20-year-old girl.

hope you’re having fun, dude.

the quiet times

it happens in the course of mundane life. the kiddo, the different schedules, the small sicknesses; they all settle around you, an aura of stress. you are exhausted.

the sex dwindles out. sometimes even the kisses get lost in your haze. as awful as it is, there are times when you almost forget to look at each other. holding it together is tough.

it’s a miracle when you suddenly start wanting each other again. it’s like walking around in a crowd with your head down, and then looking up and seeing your best friend standing right in front of you. it’s crazy, but while you were in the depths of whatever funk you got yourself in, the best way out of it was living in your house, sleeping in your bed, and kissing you goodbye in the mornings.

how can it be so easy to forget the perfection of your union? looking at each other again, holding each other, feeling each other… good god, there’s nothing like it in the world.

it’s more thrilling than the first time. remembering how perfectly his waist fits your hands, marveling at the way his head comes right to your breasts when you cradle it in your arm. the sex is a miracle. to sink down with the body that belongs with yours, in yours.

you come together.

you come together.

you come together.

and then you spend the rest of the day sappy and drunk on a fresh new love affair with the same old person.

paranoia

is it a little far-fetched of me to be nervous that the boy has found this?

the thought just occurred to me. i probably have nothing to worry about. i mean, i know i have nothing to worry about – i have nothing to hide. then again, i would sort of like to know that my personal space is intact.

sigh.

old school

i was a teenage lesbian.

okay, so i was a teenage lesbian-identified bi girl who just kept ending up with crushes on boys.

but still.

it really struck home today when i heard the indigo girls’ version of romeo and juliet and i just started sobbing.  aaaaand then i listened to it like four times.

do the queer kids even listen to indigo girls anymore?  god, i love them.  and not just because i’m nostalgic.

loving

polyamory is many things to many people.

to some (and these are the folks i tend to have little patience for), the word is an excuse for an inability to commit or have meaningful relationships with others. it’s often more about the sex than anything else (polyfuckery, i’ve heard it called), and i’m not convinced that it’s anything more than a phase for most of these people.

for many people, sexually manifested polyamory is both very sensible and fulfilling. different libidos and schedules are often very difficult to align satisfactorily, and it is, in reality, very unlikely that most people will ever find one person who can address all of their intellectual, emotional and sexual needs. it makes good sense to allow ourselves to complement relationships with other people who can make our lives more whole and satisfying.

everyone who has entered into a polyamorous relationship has a different experience. everyone will have a different (even if ever-so-slightly so) definition of what polyamory is, and how it works or doesn’t.

i think i can explain how i came to be polyamorous, or came to understand and accept that i am.

i have very high standards when it comes to friends. that’s not to say that i don’t enjoy spending time, hanging out and talking with people. but the ones that my heart calls friends are incredibly special people. i can’t adequately explain what it takes for a person to get into that place in my heart. all i know is, i can easily picture myself being completely in love with any one of these people. i’m not saying that i am, necessarily. in at least a couple of cases, i know that it would be a bad idea. but i can see it happening, very easily. i guess it’s more than friendship. these people are my family. that whole “chosen tribe” thing.

so with loving my friends so deeply, where does that other love come into the picture? well, what happens when one of those friends clicks just a little more than the others? endless deep conversations and all that? when that happens with someone, especially someone you also feel physically attracted to, it firmly places that friendship outside of the realm of comfort for most people in “monogamous” relationships. then somebody sends somebody a hot photo, then there’s a flurry of nudity on some instant messaging system or another, and the next thing you know you want to start something more than just conversation and flirtation.  and yet, somehow, it has no bearing on your primary relationship.  it’s like there’s another you, one that needs to explore things with this other person.

for me, polyamory is this simple: loving people is who i am.

and if i find myself loving somebody, it feels wrong to shut that off or ignore it. it’s not me. i don’t need to date or sleep with other people, but it would be dishonest of me to pretend that it’s not a possibility, or that i won’t want it. and no, i haven’t had sex with anyone but my husband for four years. i’ve kissed two other people in that time, and i loved them, but they’re out of my life now. i’m sad that it didn’t work out, yes, but i’m also glad that i found out why it couldn’t work.

my days

i don’t have the easiest schedule in the world.  i wake up every weekday at four a.m., while my husband and son are sound asleep.  i dress quietly in the darkness and tiptoe downstairs (as much out of fear of stepping on our resident mouse as of waking anyone).  i leave the house at five, with any given percentage of a pot of coffee already sloshing around in my belly.  there’s an hour-long bus ride and another hour at work before there’s even a hint of sunrise.  i usually work between four and eight hours, then there’s the hour commute back and a mandatory shower because my workplace smells…funky.  in the bad bad bad way.  twice a week my husband works in the afternoons, so the entire morning is rushed and stressful.  i come home in a bad mood (which is usually amplified by some godawful bus experience or another), and the poor husband has to suffer my murderous glare as we try to get lunch together before he leaves.

but when he leaves, a magical thing happens.  i am clean.  i am fed.  the child is fed, and can be sat down with a movie in the living room.  i get “personal time.”

you can practically see the golden glittery light of fairytales surround my bed as i lay back on the pillows.   sometimes, if i’m really, really lucky…  it’s quiet.

breathing freely is a miracle in this world.

there are days when i use this time to nap.   there are times when i can’t keep my eyes open anymore, and all i need is to be curled up in a blissfully empty bed, under blankets that are not being hogged by anyone else.

the best days, though, are ones like today.  no one needs me for anything.  i even remember to take the laundry out of the dryer so i don’t have to interrupt myself.  i have a guaranteed hour of peace and quiet.  to a lot of people, this won’t sound like a lot of time.  to many, it probably wouldn’t be nearly enough.  to me, it stretches forward, something vast and indefinite.

i pile up the pillows and recline like a goddamn queen.  just a lazy reach to one side and there’s a vibrator in my hand, all plugged in with a washcloth rubberbanded around its head and ready to go.  that first orgasm is always fast and tense, just enough to brush away the surface stress and start feeling things a little more.   the next one takes patience, to breathe through the jolting hypersensitivity to a place where tension really starts to melt.  i’m almost never satisfied with one or two.  sure, they leave me with that high singing feeling behind my eyes and a little more bounce in my step, but it takes four or five good hard comes to get me where i want to be.  in the middle of that magical final one, you’ll almost invariably find me on my knees, gripping my njoy hard enough to make dr. kegel himself proud, yelling things that might not be words and shaking like a leaf.  it must be a beautiful thing to behold.

i collapse back onto the pillows, but not for long.  i float out of the bedroom to do the requisite washing, and in the mirror all i see is a transcendent smile and rosy cheeks.  it’s like the morning never happened.

reality does descend before too long, because there will always be a tantrum over some forbidden non-toy, or a blood sugar meltdown when the little one is too excited about life to eat his snack.  it’s a cycle of ups and downs, and i just need to keep remembering that my time is never more than a couple of days away.  most of the time, it’s worth the wait.

oh. my. god.

as i’ve mentioned before, i’m a fan of cock.  i’m also a fan of men with visible but not overlarge muscles, and i’m getting to be pretty friendly with body hair.

and those are all of the reasons that i now need to own vintage ’70s playgirl magazines.  i mean, just look.  as for the ’80s and ’90s ones on the site…  well, they’re just plain hilarious.