poetry

quarterlife crisis decisions

“It is our decisions
who make make us who we are,”
she used to say to me. Sometimes
that is all we have. The ability
to decide. To choose.

Even with all the social
inequities, we all still
get the same basic things,
in this life here on this planet:
our brains,
our bodies,
and time.

It is what we decide to do
that makes all the difference.

So what am I doing here?
What am I going to decide
to do with my time? What
are the particular ways
that I would like my mind
to grow and change
and evolve and work?
I do have some ideas,
but it seems like – that
age-old cliche – life
gets in the way.

I need focus. Laser-beam
steady focus, pointed precise
direction, precision. I’m not sure
how to gain or maintain that when
everything seems related to what
I want to do, where I want to go.
I’m not sure how to cut things out
when I so enjoy every aspect, the
book group, the writing group, the
drinks with friends, the parties,
the concerts – then of course there’s
the practical parts, the health,
exercise, eating right, taking care
of my body, then there’s money,
there’s my “career” –

all of this hanging in the balance
and I have to decide
decide
decide
what to cancel, what to prioritze
what to celebrate, what to remove
from this delicate balance

poetry

This I believe

My poem “Me in a Nutshell” was recently published through NPR’s website This I Believe. The poem idea was inspired by a few other poets, namely Alix Olsen and Staceyann Chin, both of whom have poems where they use the repetition of “I believe” as a way to discuss their own values, personality, and approach to life & the world. I started collecting little snippets of sayings and philosophies and writing them all down in one place, and after a few years of letting these ideas stew, this poem came out.

Me in a Nutshell

I believe love is the closest we get to divinity
I believe in waiting patiently on the corner for the light to change
I believe in being kind

I believe that as birds fly, and fish swim, humans create;
it is our ‘natural’ mode of operation
I believe the opposite of war is not peace, it’s creation
I believe creative expression is a way to get to know
what we don’t know
that we already know

I believe in finding common ground and elevating the discussion
in wanting what I have and giving what I need
I believe in asking myself how it is that I will come alive
because that is what the world needs

Read the rest of the poem over at This I Believe. (Thanks to Louise Crawford, who saw me read this poem & encouraged me to submit it!)

miscellany

music to fuck to

If you like sexy music, music to get the sheets dirty to, music that turns you on, you’ve gatta check out Sarah Fimm‘s track Sexual Animals. It came onto a random shuffle mix this morning & I … got all flustered (let’s leave it at that).Want some more sexy songs? Here’s my sexmix from a few years ago, though I would probably update it to include a few more things now. It’s a good start though. What would you include?

1 Melissa Ferrick – Drive (remix)
2 Madonna – Erotica
3 Joan Osborne – If I Was Your Man
4 Sophie B. Hawkins – Your tongue like the sun in my mouth
5 KD Lang – Constant Craving
6 Massive Attack & Madonna – I Want You
7 Janet Jackson – Would You Mind
8 Tori Amos – Raspberry Swirl
9 JJ Cale – Closer To You
10 Lamb – Lusty
11 Tattle Tale – Glass Vase Cello Case
12 luscious jackson – mood swing
13 Supreme Beings of Leisure – Last Girl on Earth
14 Nightclub – french kiss (DJ Scot project mix)
15 mazzy star – fade into you
16 Melissa Ferrick – Drive

miscellany

is that inspiration, or are you just happy to see me?

Submissions are still coming – and for a top like me, well, that’s music to my ears. I’m even beginning to write out a few of them. And though I did say the new contest entry deadline is August 7th, I plan on having at least one for you on Monday, the 6th, and then the other four finalists will follow.

(I may pick more than five of these to write up. They’re just all so damn good! But don’t hold me to that – it’ll depend on my time and motivation, too.)

A few notable recent submissions include: me in a fedora, with a rockabilly femme blowing me behind the counter at a diner, and a buxom blonde femme on the beach, with as much force & restraint as I can stand to include.

This is oh so much inspiration! Thank you, sincerely thank you, for all the ideas.

Let me clarify something from that last post – it sounded so depressing when I was looking over it this morning. And though I’ve been very emotional, and crying, I haven’t quite been sad, if you know what I mean. Maybe I’m pulling through the other side of something. I’m not sure what’s really going on or why I’m feeling so sensitive – I wish it was as easy as explaining that I’m PMSing and it will pass and change as soon as I start bleeding, but I actually just stopped bleeding, so that’s not it. Maybe it’s just all the changes, all the adjusting. It is taking some time to acclimate, to reach equanimity again.

journal entries

vulnerability and simplicity

It feels … vulnerable, I think, to write anything but sex right now, given the amount of traffic the Sugarbutch Star contest is getting. I’m worried you’re all coming here for the sex, so to talk about feelings or emotions or my whole twenty-something-quarterlife-crisis crap would be a disappointment!

But then I think, well, this is a personal sexblog, after all, and it’s kinda nice to know the person you’re fucking, you know? The more of their psychology you know, the better the sex.

My evenings are a strange combination of extreme vulnerability and sex these days; I printed out all the Sugarbutch Star submissions I’ve received so far (a dozen!) and am spending some time looking at the details, trying to choose my favorites, trying to decide which stories I would write the best. I was reading over the printouts on the subway on the way home from work tonight, and definitely noticed more than a few of my crowded sardine-like co-passengers peering over my shoulder at words like cock, orgasm, fuck, rough as you can give it, I’m on top, you fuck me, in your bed …

Oh good god damn. From a purely selfish standpoint? This contest is amazing. I love hearing you tell me what you’d like me to do to you.

In the words of Flight of the Conchords: Thank you ladies. You didn’t have to say that.

The other parts of the last week or so of my life have involved lots of crying, drinking, and aloneness. (Not to be confused with loneliness, though maybe there’s some of that underneath as well.) Commercials, film trailors, reality TV, even the fucking Simpsons have all been making me cry. I watched Premonition last night and was crying at every desperate look of love from Sandra Bullock to her dead/dying husband.

Everything is hard hitting. It is as though I have no defenses, no skin, no protection between myself and the world. Everything goes right through.

That’s not horrible, I suppose, in that I’m glad to be feeling. I think I’ve broken through some sort of shell that has been keeping me held together – take that away and there are a lot of cracks to exlore. You know those toys where the little critter is held by a tension string, and you press your thumb into the base of the toy and release the tension, thus the critter falls apart? Yeah, that’s me.

I’ve had some character study revelations about myself lately, things I’ve wanted to write about because they seem significant and important to the further development of my twenty-something finding-myself self. (I’m almost over that, right? I’m almost already found? I’m so ready to be thirty.)

One is that I need to figure out how to tell the truth more often. And not just a kind way of “not lying”, but actually expressing what it is that I’m thinking and feeling, my reaction to what’s around me, the people I love and care about specifically. One of my deeply held values is to be kind to people, to not hurt people’s feelings, especially those I love & care about, and I often find myself not quite saying what it is that I mean, or want to say, because I’m concerned about hurting someone’s feeling, overstepping my bounds. It goes along with my ideas of not giving advice, too, which has also been a philosophy of mine – only to give specific advice when it is particularly requested, not just to bust out with “you know what I think you should do is …” without explicit invitation.

But I want to unlearn these things. These are deep-set values of mine, perhaps, yes – and I want to be kind, good lord, of course – but sometimes, it is more important to take a risk, put myself and my opinions out there, to offer up what’s really happening in my mind. And I don’t think I do that often enough.

(Thanks, by the way, to my fluffer femme spy who listened to me work through some of these ideas this afternoon.)

Two, the other thing I’ve been thinking about lately and kicking around in my mind and having various crises over, is that I am really fucken busy. But not just busy – overextended. My therapist told me yesterday that she is continually surprised how much I volunteer and give away my time for little (or no) money. I live the life of a freelancer, she said – I am balancing so many projects, organizational involvement, interests, and obligations that I no longer have any time for preparing fresh food (what a luxury), yoga in my living room, a fucken bubble bath, lazy masturbatory Saturday mornings, cleaning my bathroom, organizing my files or books or music, tossing a feather toy around for my cats …

I am currently balancing too much. So I have begun to simplify, simplify, simplify. I need my time back. I need calmness back.

My schedule, and my obligations, are going to change. I’m working on it.

My roommate is out of town for the next week, and I’m looking forward to having the apartment to myself. I suppose it would be best if I had a girl or two in my bed to entertain, but that may or may not happen, whether or not I get my nerve up to reply to any other craigslist ads. That is, whether or not I can read between the lines enough to know that I am not actually replying to an ad Callie placed.

There must be another way to meet girls, I swear. I guess I’m going to have to practice my bar game.

miscellany

Five Random Facts/Habits About Me

Post No Bills tagged me. I’m not a big fan of these, but I think she’s rad so I’m playing along. Except, I’m going to post 5 instead of 8.Here’s the rules.

1. We have to post these rules before we give you the facts.
2. Players start with eight random facts/habits about themselves.
3. People who are tagged need to write their own blog about their eight things and post these rules.
4. At the end of your blog, you need to choose eight people to get tagged and list their names.
5. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

Five Random Facts/Habits About MeLet’s keep it interesting & make them sex/relationship/gender facts, shall we?

1. I wasn’t really the tomboy type growing up, as I hear is a common narrative for butches. Growing up in a small town in Alaska, though, the gender spectrum is quite different than the urban or suburban or farm spectrum, dictated by the natural environment more than by gender roles

2. I identified as bisexual in high school, but didn’t come out & start seriously dating/fucking women until I was 20. I won’t rule out dating (or fucking) a man sometime in the future, but he’d have to be quite spectacular in order to get my interest, and phenomenal in order to keep it …

3. The first girl I slept with had the same birthday as me, which is partly how we met. Two of my major loves have also been Aries girls, born within a week of me. All three were born in different years than I was (which was 1979, making me 28)

4. My erotica has, so far, been published in four book anthologies and one (erotic) literary magazine

5. I have slept with eleven people. Hence the “aspiring” part. Let’s see if I can’t at least hit fifteen by the end of the year, shall we?

miscellany

just what you wanted

Well hello, new visitors! Thanks for a few strategically placed links (don’t I wish I’d emailed out a press release for this two weeks ago! Well, live & learn), I’ve got all kinds of folks stopping by.

So, in case you’re new, here’s what’s going on.


I’m running a contest to be a guest star on this here sex blog. That means:

  1. You submit some of the elements of an erotic scenario (i.e., sex scene) to me, including: characters, setting, basic plot (what should we do to each other?) [NOTE! the deadline’s been extended to AUGUST 7TH, due to my lack of PR planning]
  2. I will pick my TOP FIVE favorite submissions and write out the full stories
  3. Readers will vote on their favorite
  4. One lucky favorite will get a special prize, from me (wink wink)

If you’d like to read some of my erotica, to get a feel for what kinds of things I do to others, and what they do to me, here’s a list of my favorite scenarios and my top posts:

Let go, just let go
Desire so overwhelming …
Distracting myself (three parts)
In which Sinclair bottoms (three parts)
What I would’ve done
The prettiest girl in the place
Bully
New Year’s Eve
The beginning, again
Guilty fantasies
Craving something sweet

miscellany

get fantasizin’!

The submissions are pouring in – by which I mean, I have six. They’re good ones, though, all of them. People, you’ve got today & tomorrow, get crackin’. Or should I say, get fantasizin’.Some notable new submissions include: a sexy fat femme in a swanky hotel bar that then retires into a suite, complete with withholding & begging; and what happens to me after a femme top arrives with her dick & harness in her purse, ready to use this. (Gulp. Holy. Crap.)

There were some folks I had hoped to hear from, especially those of you in the New York sex blogging scene. Perhaps I didn’t shout the contest from the rooftops enough?

Well – I suppose I have now. (Thanks Dacia!)

miscellany

female bloggers who rock

The lovely Ms. Sexcakes has tagged me in a meme, which actually I think is my first one. The theme is, female bloggers who rock.So, I’ve been thinking about this, going through the lists of the female bloggers that I read, making a list of the blogs I read daily, the blogs I wouldn’t want to be without, and then I started thinking about the sex blogs I love, and the queer women who I read and identify with. And, strangely enough, nearly all of those are separate lists, with very little overlap.

So my question is, where the hell are all the dyke sex blogs?

Yes, I know there are plenty of sex blogs out there where women write about having sex with women, but very few of them are explicitly queer, and also include discussions of queer identity and/or culture.

And, dammit (damnit), I’d like to find these blogs. If you know of any, let me know?

… And now we return you to your regularly scheduled meme.

  • bird on the wire: a collage blog of personal musings, music, and art, with photographs, occasional Simpsons hilarity (“Should we kiss to break the tension?”), and healing heartbreak. Also, she just happens to be my best friend. So of course she gets top billing.
  • Flying Truth: Dylan was one of the first readers here at Sugarbutch who commented regularly and continuted to contribute to my own thought processes, discussions, and revelations, and I really appreciate how much she keeps the conversations going. Her own blog is a collection of personal musings, from Harry Potter to her puppies to butch/femme identities and relationships.
  • Madeline in the Mirror: one of my first sexblog crushes, cause she’s so freakin articulate, and sexy, and bold. She doesn’t update as often as I (and many of her fans) would like, but when she does it’s always worth it. Also visit her at Mad Words.
  • Lusty Lady by Rachel Kramer Bussel. ‘Cause she’s always got something to say, usually either sexy, insightful, intelligent, or just about some sort of fantastic cupcake. Seems like the sex blog/sex writing world in New York City is centered around six-degrees-of-RKB. She’s quite the staple in this community, and she blogs frequently, regularly, and brilliantly. Also because she’s smokin’ hot.
  • Waking Vixen by Audacia Ray. Dacia is not only a blogger, editor, and sex worker these days, but also a published author and a porn director. I especially like how her explorations and musings are a window into the fascinating subculture of porn and sex work.
  • And one to grow on, ’cause I can’t leave her out: Viviane’s Sex Carnival is another staple in the sex blogging community, always insightful & interesting.
miscellany

loose ends

I don’t think I was very clear about this whole contest entry request thing. I’ve had more than a few emails and comments about how much detail I’m asking for, and I am realizing that I should’ve given an example for what kind of information I’m looking for. I was hoping the form would help with that, but that ended up not being so clear either (and then had a character limit, and was cutting entries off).

So, to be totally clear: this is an example of what I mean when I’ve said details and lots of information:

Characters: Sinclair & Claire Danes. Claire: redhead, petite, great legs. Particularly proud of her pouty mouth, that could be a nice detail somewhere.

Setting: Central Park & Claire’s apartment. We are both in the park to watch a free concert and catch each other’s eye. Claire approaches Sin, flirting insues, Claire invites Sin to walk her home.

Story: Claire is very bold and asks Sin up for a nightcap; proceeds to seduce her with jazz music, fingers in Sin’s hair, a short skirt. When Claire gets Sin to the bedroom she gives Sin a blowjob and then straddles Sin, fucking until they both get off. Claire then ushers Sin out kinda fast and laughs at her attempt to get her number.

See? Some major things for me to elaborate upon, major plot points and details, but not TOO much. I mean, if you want to write the story yourself, you are welcome to do that – actually, I may have another contest in the works (possibly – we’ll see how this one goes) that plays out that scenario. You’ll have to hold onto your hat for that one.

One more thing:

Say you’re a little kid and you wake up in the middle of the night, and out of every window you see huge flames, fire, crackling wood, glowing red and orange. Scary, right? You think the world is ending. You think the entire world is on fire. You panic. Your parents are already engulfed in it and your dog is probably gone too. All you can hear is tree limbs falling and snapping.

Then, your door opens. Your mom comes in. “It’s okay, honey,” she says, “it’s only a forest fire.”

Get it?

That’s why this is only a broken heart. Because for the past two months it has felt like my world is ending. My sense of self is crumbling. Things I thought I knew were wrong, and twisted, and twisting my very sense of reality. But I had a moment this week when I realized this is only a broken heart this is not the end of the world, this is not the end of love.

I hate being misunderstood. Add that to the character study of myself.

PS: Sugarbutch hit 50,000 hits sometime this morning. Thanks, readers. Despite my occasional bitchings about details and misunderstandings, I really appreciate the comments, feedback, and presence of everyone.

journal entries

oh so misunderstood

Because I was worried that my comment on “only a broken heart” would be misunderstood, and because it was, I am reposting here a comment I made on that last post:

I’m not saying “only a broken heart” in order to dismiss it, or to belittle it, or to make it mean less, or to diminish the experience. yes, of course, a broken heart is a big fucken deal (I mean, obviously – probably the most traumatic thing we humans go through, aside from death & trauma).

but what I’m saying is this: I have been struggling for quite some time with the elaborate, complex emotions, feelings, resentment, hurt, pain – all that crap – and I’ve been struggling, forcing it, really, to mean something cosmic and soul-deep and all-consuming and infinite.

but really, it’s just a broken heart.

see what I’m saying? now, that is NOT to say that I don’t think there are bits of the cosmos, the soul-deep, the all-consuming inside of a broken heart. I do.

but what I’m doing is naming this experience. putting it into a little box called “broken heart” and closing the lid and putting it on the shelf. it’s only a broken heart. that’s all this is. I’ve wounded; I will heal.

poetry

a tiny revelation

I want this to be special
I want this to be totally unique
and meaningful
and singular.
But really,
it was only love.

And this is only a broken heart.

miscellany

how to get your love on

… When you’re single and you’ve finally made it past the age when you’ve felt both love’s deepest tongue probings and also its most random horror-flick slashings, past the age when getting moronically drunk every weekend and hooking up is the ultimate goal, and you’ve had enough sex to fill a thousand porn movies, and everyone around you is no longer on some sort of giddy, wide-eyed first-adult-relationship must-get-married must-have-babies track of impossibly optimistic utopian desire, what it means, at least for me, is that you get to become this odd sort of sounding board — a blank slate of love’s warped potential, a reason for others to extrapolate on the nature of love and life and sex and how goddamn difficult/ wonderful/impossible it all really is.

– Mark Morford, How to Get Your Love On

dirty stories, fiction

Bully

You are face down, ponytail bobbing, wrists and ankles tied to my bedposts, the simple steel I won from my last breakup. Since then, I have fucked five women in this bed. You are the sixth.

Does it matter how I got you here? Whether I wined and dined you, bought you indulgent fruity mixed drinks, a delectable dinner, your body now satiated but wanting other fullness, wanting me to stop fingering my fork spoon knife glass napkin ice cubes and begin placing my hands carefully on your skin.

Or perhaps I simply ordered you over here, sent a car to your apartment and was waiting downstairs when you arrived at mine, paid the driver, removed my dark tie from the tight collar of my baby-blue button down and slipped it over your eyes. Leading you up two flights of stairs without your sense of sight.

No matter. You’ve been here before. Nothing really to see.

I am tempted to rip seams, pop buttons open with force. You know how you bring that out in me.

Instead, I make you wait. Drag the thin fabric of your shirt along your skin, slow as I can. You can’t see, but you can feel me, my breath on you, my hands, my rough thumbs waiting to dig bruises into your upper arms, stomach, hips.

My collection of floggers hang from a swirl of Victorian iron on the wall next to my bed. I choose my favorite: black, thin leather, red deerskin flanks in the center. My name is carved into the handle: s. i. n.

You’re stripped, aside from my dark blue schoolboy tie around your eyes. I know it’s not foolproof, other blindfolds are more efficient. I don’t mind the glimpses you steal.

You see me strip down to loose, soft cotton jersey boxers and an a-shirt. Have to have my arms free if I’m going to beat you, after all. My cock pokes through the single button in the boxers. You like it when it does that.

I smell like summer and sweat, and I’ve been drinking tequila again, on the rocks, just a little. You smell sweet. Fresh. Clean like linen. My mouth waters and I imagine my tongue tracing the curves of your lower back, up to your shoulder, the back of your neck.

I stand gazing for too long, and you begin to squirm.

“Be still,” I say, and put one hand on your ass, trace it down to the back of your knee. “I’m going to hit you now.”

You let out a puff of air that is a whimper and a sigh. Your skin tenses and you try to counter by keeping your muscles calm.

“Relax,” I say, “or it’ll just hurt more.”

I want you to count to fifty, but wonder if that’s too many. I like flogging with an end in sight. Otherwise I go into that physiological trance state where I find rhythm and forget to stop.

I begin counting in my head. One – thump. Two – thump. Your muscles begin to open but still wince just before the leather makes contact.

Five – thump.

Six – thump.

The leather makes a small whoosh through the air. I’m being gentle, mostly just a tap, letting gravity pull the tassels to your skin, your ass, your thighs.

Whoosh – ten – thump.

Whoosh – eleven – thump.

I begin to throw a little more arm strength into the flogger and you grunt with an “uh –“ wincing a little stronger.

At fifteen I pause, run my hand, fingers, palm, along your skin. Tender where I’ve hit you hardest. You inhale sharply and arch your back to the touch, like a cat.

“Your skin looks beautiful,” I say. “It’s beginning to pinken, a little, at the edges.” My mouth is at your neck and I kiss you a few times, find you panting, tongue swollen.

“More, darling?” I ask, an offer and a question. You turn your face toward the sound of my voice, bite your lower lip, and nod.

“Oh – yes – please – ” you manage.

You do beg real pretty. I’ll never forget your legs wrapped around me that night I refused to slide inside you until you begged.

You’d said, finally: “Oh baby, your cock is so sweet, so sweet and hard, fill me up with it, baby, shove it in me, please, pump it in me, let me milk it, let me squeeze it hard till you come inside me, oh please I want it – I need it – I wanna be filled up – please put it in, please.”

It was the way your eyes flashed on that last please that did it to me. Finally sent me over desire’s edge to where I had to take you.

Tonight, I’m ready to hold out.

I switch up my rhythm so the flogger first hits my back over my right shoulder, then your back and exposed ass, then I catch it with my left hand. Easier on a Saint Andrew’s Cross than lying down, but I like the way it stings my palm. Plus I can gauge the strength of the blows this way.

Shoulder – ass – hand. Twenty.

Shoulder – back – hand. Twenty one.

Shoulder – ass – hand. Twenty two.

You’re writhing a bit, whimpering at the blows, occasional head back open-throated gasp when I land somewhere particularly hard.

Shoulder – back – hand. Twenty five.

I decide to go to thirty. Your skin is reddened to how I like it, ripe, your hips are making these nice S-curves and I want to fuck your ass.

I increase not just the muscle power I’m putting behind the flogger but also the velocity. Harder. Faster. You cry out. Twenty seven. You gasp and cry out again. Twenty eight.

I grab your hair, a neat twist in a ponytail, and lift your head slightly, my mouth by your ear. I drag the flogger along your inner thighs.

“Quiet,” I mutter.

You sigh and shudder. “Bully – “ you whisper, not intending for me to hear you.

I want to growl, but instead I push your cheek to the soft sheet and hold you there by the back of your neck, aiming a few blows between your legs.

Leather on labia. My favorite.

You’re whimpering again. I loose count and take five, six quick whaps to your cunt and inner thighs. You are making noises that sound like exquisite agony.

I step out of my boxers, they’re in the way, lube up my cock from the pump on the bedside table and moisten two fingers, then kneel between your thighs and lube your asshole, fingering the crack of your ass. I slide the thumb of my left hand into your slick wet cunt and can feel your clit under my index finger, so I set it there and rock it gently back and forth. The heel of my hand spreads your labia and tilts your pelvis back and up. Serves you to me like a feast.

You moan. The blindfold has slipped over your head and you’re watching me from over your left shoulder.

I slide one finger, then two, into your tight asshole while leaving my other hand still, fingers inside you. You groan a little and press into me a bit harder. Slide those fingers out and I touch the tip of my dick to your tight hole and you swallow it, open to it, and I can feel the muscles stretch and pulse when the head of my cock pops in, the shaft of it sliding easier through the tightest places.

You are still moaning. Sounds from your mouth as you grind back into me and wiggle your hips against mine. You’re almost on your knees and elbows now, hands gripped around the ties that hold you to the headboard. Lower back arched, still a little pink.

I let go of the cupped grip on your cunt and find your hipbones with my palms. Push you from me and pull you back so I don’t have to clench, just you, pulling your ass down onto my cock, feeling the resistance in your tight hole. It’s so good fucking you this way. Thighs and ass clenched, clit rubbing against the base of my cock every time I thrust inside. Easing forward so my thighs hit yours. Working in and out faster, a little, harder, my body an S-curve from knee to stomach, not just in-out but rolling against you. You are open-mouthed screaming into the pillow and asking for more, harder, oh god, fuck me, fuck my ass and I slap against you, once, twice, both of us groaning.

My head rolls back, my back curves, slapping against you harder as my orgasm comes closer, the resistance of your ass offering me tight pressure every time I thrust inside. My hands still hold your hips, your ass, the sitbones of your buttocks as my cunt pulses, cock fucks.

You can feel it in me. “Do it,” you say, “come in my ass, fuck me till you come, do it harder, thrust inside me –” and I groan, yelling oh god oh god yes, fuck, and shudder against you until I’m spent, throw my arm around your waist and collapse on top of you, kissing your neck, your shoulders.

I breathe heavy as my body calms, then slip out, untie you. You curl next to me, knees and arms between us as we both lay on our sides and I gently finger your wrists, ankles, the places you were bound, and your back, shoulders, ass. Places I hit you. Tender.

“Alright?” I ask. We gaze at each other.

You smile. “Course.” You hold my cheek in your palm and I kiss your thumb. “You?”

“Mmmm.” I manage. Spent. You didn’t come, this time. “I’ll make it up to you in the morning,” I promise, grateful you’ve let me take what I’ve been craving. I’ll give you whatever you want.

You run your fingers through my short boy hair. “Damn right you will,” you say, and pull the covers up over us both.

miscellany

restless

I couldn’t sleep last night, which probably had something to do with the incredibly strong cup of columbian coffee my sister poured me at nine pm, mostly with the intention of sobering me up – we’d been drinking white wine sangria since the early afternoon and I began to fade.I thought I was revealing something to her when I was drunk enough to talk about my sexblog. I was going to begin discussing how it was I could make some money offa this bad boy.

Instead, she already knew about the blog, and I revealed nothing.

This place is getting less and less anonymous. I’ve discovered that my “anonymous” gmail address actually displays my non-anonymous gmail address right next to it. Oh, I was warned about this. I should’ve paid attention. I guess I figured nobody would really notice.

Well, they noticed.

This is not the first time this has happened to me. I’ve had a dozen or so “anonymous” journal sites online since 1996, and each time, after about a year, the site begins to get more and more traffic, more and more readers and commenters, and then my identity becomes more and more blurred, until I finally either completely reveal my name and such or I shut the thing down completely.

I don’t want that to happen here. I’m having too much fun.

But, on the other hand, I don’t want my name tied to this site. The things I discuss here are too personal.

So, I couldn’t sleep last night. Was up until three am, then awake again at five, at five thirty, at six am when it started raining, at six thirty when my cats decided it was chase time, at seven, at seven thirty when I finally got up.

Today, I am restless.

While putting myself to sleep, however, I spent some quality time with Alison Tyler’s new anthology Love at First Sting, which is fabulous. And I began and ended a new erotica piece. Watch for it.

miscellany

small glitch in the star contest

I was just looking a bit closer at the entires so far, and I have some bad news — I think the form cuts off at a certain character count. There are a few of you that I think got cut off.

I’ll be emailing you. But meanwhile, email me your submissions: aspiringstud@ gmail.com

miscellany

submissions, so far

I’ve got four submissions so far. Keep ’em coming folks! Ten more days and the polls are closed.

So far, I’ve got some of the following ideas: a photo shoot, a dark & dirty bar, a back alley, a bathroom, a hitchiking scene, power tools, my bedroom, a femme, a straight girl, a “tough boi” working as a gardner. I like ’em all … it’s going to be hard to pick my favorites (assuming I get more than five submissions at all, of course, which I’m still a little nervous about).

poetry

hemlock

I am delicate. This tough guise
comes along with the collared shirts –
briefs – jackets in mud puddles –
but it is only a performance.

Do not mistake it for the same gauge
of pressure it takes to bruise
the skin of my heart. Purple

gives way to red gives way to pink.
Even the strong language I take in
too deep because I have no wall up
between me and you. I have no wall

up but you can’t tell how transparent
I am when I have cried, when I have
asked a question, turned a door handle

so you did not have to. I want to take
care of you. I want to take care of
myself, so invisibly that you won’t notice,
then take care of you. But that is not

realistic. I know. I am sensitive,
affected by all the madness marching
around me. I cannot get away from it

some days. Some days I am eaten alive
by the bees in the hive, some days I am
the hive through which everything flows.
I carry around words like brutal and

punished in a notebook and touch the
letters when I need a reminder of
the damage that can be done, can not

be undone. Phrases yielded like
knives. I refuse to use my words
as weapons, though I could, I could
cause hurt, could leave scars. Instead

I choose to swallow, don’t let it out,
don’t let things go, there is no way
to know what the words will become

once they leave my tongue. Possibly
dandelions, possibly stinging nettles,
possibly a poisonous cup of hemlock.
I drink it all down myself instead:

then there can be no misinterpretation.

poetry

four chambered heart

I have said you give me
wings

I have said
though I have been collecting
feathers, downy
and sweet, flight and contour
and semiplume feathers,
bristle and filoplume
feathers, it was you
who gave me the map,
the blueprint, for the verb
to soar, to take off
and land, to catch a ray
of wind
and float.

I have said
you take me to such peaks,
take me to the apex
of mountains,
looking earthward
toward valleys
where everything
is exact,
organized,
acquiescent
I could continue

with hollow bones and unfolding
migration flying, nesting,
cracking open, a four-chambered
heart, ruby breasted flocks,
hovering
perching
But I was raised not
to believe

in pride. I don’t know
what it’s like for others
to take credit
for my efforts,
no matter how much
my triumph was aided
by your maps, your
supple caresses, your
careful slices of leather
cut around the outlines
of my feet
for my landing.

This flight is my
victory

And while you are calling
to me from the clifftop, yelling
claims to my own ascending
moments, the air is so clear
and still
all I can hear
is the pulsing
cadence
of my
own
wings.

poetry

what happens when a friendship ends

You tell me, look in the mirror
all you’ll see is betrayal
but the words
aren’t yours to give. The reflection
shows no bones labeled betrayal

nothing close – the only label
with B is beauty and that comes
straight from the sternum. I once
dreamed a horse, a dappled grey

on the beach in early morning golden
light, luminous, galloping, look , I say,
look a horse, coming like a click-clack
echo in a subway tunnel, that’s not a horse

you say, that’s a bird, see the wings?
The mandible, the crown, the
coverts of the wings – I thought I
knew you. Thought our realities were

concentric overlapping circles the way
we had inside jokes in the first
hour. Once you have sucked the silver
threaded foundations of me up and out

through the trepanned hole I allowed
you to drill into my forehead, where
will that leave me? Where will that
leave you? You told me we were circles,

but you are not – in fact, I am not
either, I am a sphere, an opaque crystal
ball, I can tell your fortune, read
your palm, your tea leaves, your

seven years of bad luck from that mirror
you smashed and said I did it. The betrayal
wasn’t mine. The horse will prove that,
when it is not a bird after all, it’s long

long legs leaping over sand dunes
like it’s avoiding puddles in the Village,
the tangled mess you left behind.
Unimportant, no time for that now,

here is the dappled grey, ready
and saddled, and I will
get on that high horse,
get on that wingéd high horse,

and ride.

based on this piece of art, and a recent complicated situation.

journal entries

famous femmes I would fuck in a heartbeat

I’m particularly thinking of women who are out as lesbian (rather than bi – if I counted bisexual celebrity women, that’d be a very different list), and are particularly feminine. Though, again, it’s harder to identify the femmes in the celebrity world, because all the women are more feminine than usual.

  1. Portia de Rossi

  2. Shar Rednour

  3. Shelley Jackson

  4. Heather Corrina

  5. Leisha Hailey

  6. Tristan Taormino

… the famous femmes are hard to pinpoint! Others that aren’t on the list: Michelle Tea, Cynthia Nixon (really femme?), Kristanna Loken … Sure aren’t very many of ’em.

Nor are there very many famous butches, really; that’s a short list. I can think of Jenny Shimitzu, k.d. lang, Ellen, Melissa Ferrick, Melissa Etheridge, Rosie, Alix Olson, Michelle Rodriguez, Pamela Means … but most of these women probably wouldn’t identify as butch. That’s still a frightening identity to have in the public eye.

Got any to add?

miscellany

sugarbutch star: form submission

I’m sorry to say, the form is cutting off entries. I’m working to rebuild it. Meanwhile, please email me your submission – aspiringstud@gmail.com.

Include:

name
email address
characters
setting
plot
your URL (and if it’s ok to publish it, if I write up your story)
& any ideas for the prize you may have

Thanks!!

miscellany

be the next sugarbutch star

Here’s how you could be the next Sugarbutch star:

Email me (aspiringstud at gmail.com), leave a comment, or fill out this form with your scene scenario.

Here’s some of the things you should probably include:

  1. Characters: you & me? You & me and a third? You & your partner, written by me (could be a nice gift)? You & someone you’ve always wanted to fuck? [* Please do leave a description of the characters so I can write in at least a few details. Sending a photograph to me is another option.] Include the name you’d like your character(s) to have (especially if it’s different from your own).
  2. Setting: the easiest for me might be my bedroom, because I know what it looks like. But other ideas include: your bedroom, a bar, club, beach, hiking trip, sex club, office, elevator … If you want it to be specific, be descriptive.
  3. Plot: And what, pray tell, shall I do to you? Or what shall you do to me? Anything goes. If you’ve read some of my sex writing, you probably know what I like to do. You can, of course, leave it up to me, but the more specific you are, the more of a challenge it’ll be for me to write it, and the more likely I will be to pick your story to flesh out.

Let me know to what extent I can make your identity public, as well – I can use your pseudonym, I can link to your blog, I can use a completely unrelated name.

Also include any particular ideas about the prize – I’m still working out those details.

And I think that’s it! Any questions?

So, c’mon, inspire me, turn me on – bring it on!

journal entries

sex with a boy?

I may be getting quite the boycrush on Joe My God … and rumor has it (ahem, he told me) he’s into butches.Now, you readers have been quite forgiving of me lately, considering I just slept with another top – I was fully expecting the comments about how I’m ‘not a real top’ to start coming. (And the femme top told me she did get some of those comments. I wonder if that’s a gender thing – a form of sexism. Mhm.) But what would you do if I decided to fuck a gay boy?

I probably wouldn’t. First, there’s the penis issue. Then, there’s the sweaty boy smell. Sorry to say it, but not only are those not turn-ons, they are explicit turn-offs. No offence, boys – it’s one of those physiological things.

Joe’s got some awesome radical politics, though, which I do find quite sexy. Ask him sometime about the much-needed collaboration between the queens and the butches, the dykes & the gays.

miscellany

sugasm #88

The best of this week’s blogs by the bloggers who blog them. … This Week’s Picks:Kinky To Vanilla
One For The Guys
When A Client Dies-Part 2

Mr. Sugasm Himself A Porn Store Clerk Speaks
Editor’s Choice Love at First Sight

More Sugasm Join the Sugasm See also: Fleshbot’s Sex Blog Roundup each Tuesday and Friday.

BDSM & Fetish Bombshell (The Big News) A Cock and a Smile Dreaming of suburban spankings Featured Fetish – Ropes (Shibari, Bondage, Ropework) Fooling around The Gain, pt. 4 – The Exchange How I Went To Prom And Soiled The Pretty Pretty Dress I Found In The 2007 ‘Cosmo Girl Prom’ Ms160 judges a Princess competition… My (Af)fair Lady Naughty webcam fun with Griz and good girl The Panty Controversy Party Girl Power Exchange (will I or won’t I?) San Francisco, part 6 Slutty sight Summer School When Daddy Gets Home Tonight

Sex Work Clients Say the Darndest Things

Thoughts on Sex and Relationships Bald = hot Kinky Vanilla On abandon The Origins of Monogamy and Jealous Pretendy Sex Seduction – from the eyes of my spouse Three years

Sex News & Reviews Polyamorously Perverse, Gracie’s Been Sleeping In Your Blog Slip of a Girl Right Hand Ring Bling Contest

NSFW Pics, Videos & Audio The Best A Woman Can Get Chantelle Fontain Nude Gemma Atkinson Half-Nekkid and Supporting the Troops Keana Exhibitionist (Hegre Art) Last night More Lindsay Lohan Bikini Pictures Tuesday’s Tits for the Troops WebMistress Feature Gallery: Party Girl

Sex Advice Closed Due To Flooding?

Erotic Writing and Experiences After Midnight Cyberecstasy The Driving Urge Fantasy Forth! “Twin Celebration” First kiss In which sinclair gets off The Love of Sea Glass Palm Springs …. Friday Finale! Story: The Birthday Party Test Your Strength Watching you

miscellany

the contest starts tomorrow

Soo, I’ve received a big of feedback about the header – glad y’all like it. The whole reason I created it, actually, is because I’m working on a little reader contest, and I want to have a tile ad you can (if you, you know, feel so inspired) post on your own site with a link back to here.

And what is the contest, you ask?

Well. Ahem. It will be …

It’s a reality blog contest, of sorts. Here’s how it’s going to work:
  1. You, the readers, will enter the contest by giving me an erotica scenario that you would like for me to write
  2. I will pick my top 5 scenarios – five finalists – from the submissions, and write all of them
  3. Judges (probably you readers) will choose the best story out of the five finalists
  4. The winner will be awarded something fabulous, to be determined primarily by geographic location. If you’re in the New York City area (or nearby), I would gladly take you out for dinner & drinks (and, of course, the possibility of acting out the scenario). If you’re in another part of the country, we may have to do some creative negotiation

Some fine print:

Anyone can apply, regardless of age, gender, sexual orientation, kink, geographic location … or any of those other things (ability, class, race – they seem to be less relevant to mention overtly, but still don’t matter).

The more explicit the scenario, the better for my writing. Photographs are welcomed, especially if you want the scene to be about you or someone specific.

You may be asking, why is she doing this? Primarily, I’ve realized recently that I write better erotica scenes when I have some sort of template, some sort of plot already played out, which is partly why writing about what actually happened is the easiest. Getting from A to B to C is easier when I know what A and B and C are. So really, this is primarily to ask you to be my muse for some (hopefully) good erotic writing.

This is also because the femme top I dated recently said I should really make tee shirts that said I was a Sugarbutch star, (and I actually may do that, and I owe her a big thank you for that idea), and we had some great conversations about a slut phase (it’s coming, I can feel it). I’m trying to stay inspired in my sex life and sex writing, and I thought this might just be the way to do it.

I’ll accept submissions for two weeks, until the end of July, and then pick my favorites. I will post a more elaborte how-to-apply tomorrow. Meanwhile, any questions?

miscellany

links to lovers

I’ve been revising the links/lovers sidebar over there on the right hand side of this page this weekend. I’ve tried to include you readers who regularly comment, as well as the sexblogs that I read regularly.If you’re a regular reader, and I’ve missed your site, will you let me know?

Also, if you have any spectacular fantastic (preferably queer/lesbian) sex blogs to recommend, let me know that too. I haven’t had the time to surf lately that I used to (and I surf less & less sex blogs at work these days), so I’d love to hear what’s new out there.

Have I mentioned lately that you can subscribe to Sugarbutch via Feedburner? If you already have me on a RSS reader, please add this feed instead of the blogger feed.

poetry

the trowel

we spent all weekend
digging clams at ocean shores
on the oregon coast
sand between our toes

you forgot to get dressed

I watched you belly-down
on the bed
staring at the TV so
unselfconscious
I wanted to feel
the full fist of you again

staring out at the open ocean
so flat
so seamless
I’m hiding from you in here
in this chair
this lampshade
hotel grade
I haven’t forgotten

the things you promised
to desire when the fire
went out, the beach
went dry, the waves
stopped coming and
coming

I laid my open palms
on the table
took the metal pail
from the porch
and began
with a trowel
prying open
the clamshells
one
by one

dirty stories, real life

in which sinclair fists

I know – finally! Part three of three

“So,” I begin, “can I touch you?”

She doesn’t hear me. I have a tendency to mumble. I wasn’t certain the muscles in my mouth were recovered enough for the minute movements of forming sounds anyway. She sighs softly, relaxed, her entire body weight laid out over mine. A change from most of the evening where she seemed a bit tense, guarded. I want more of that. Want more of her eyes open and clear.

I shift my head to nuzzle her neck, draw her chin-length brown hair back behind her ear and whisper, a little louder, “Can I touch you, now?”

She’s a top. (Have I mentioned this?) I wasn’t sure what kind of permission she needed to give.

“… Yes.” She breaths out.

I kiss her neck, and that tender spot by her ear, and she offers me her mouth, soft, supple. Offers me her tongue, her tender inner lips.

She is still in charge here. Calling the shots. Even when I take her (later) she is somehow in control, commanding my movements with her body. There is little surrender in her kisses, her sighing moans, the movements of her body. Instead she keeps tight subtle control.

(Which makes me want to take it all the more … but I am hoping there is time for that, later.)

She slides her hips off mine and turns with me so I am on top, still kissing, kissing, lots of kissing, this girl likes to kiss and is so deliciously good at it. Soft and open, then demanding, then fierce.

I grip her hip bone in my right hand, turn her thighs. One knee between hers, gently pressing, nudging her, but I don’t do much because she offers me her open legs, offers me the curves craving my hands.

“Can you fist me?” She asks from under her eyelids, laid back over the pillows of my bed.

I grin. It is what could be called shit-eating, and I’m glad my room is dark. It sounds like more of a question of my abilities than a request, is it possible for you to rather than please, which makes me want to do it all the more.

“I can try.”

I move my mouth and lips and tongue on her skin, her neck, her jawline, her perfect breasts (seriously, I’ve never seen felt touched sucked any breasts more perfect, areolas dark, small nipples but more than a handful of curve – I’m usually so into legs, and did I mention she has perfect legs?), and I slide my fingers over her bare lips, the small patch of hair above her clit, her labia smooth and slick and I wet my fingers, trace circles over her clit, lazy curls down and around until I slide two fingers inside, soft, easy, slide inside and she parts her legs, pushes against me and I add another finger, three fingers now and she’s moaning against the pillow, turning her head to her right my left, trying to keep quiet, keep quiet, remembering we are not alone in my apartment but beginning to forget herself, forget her body. And her eyes are open, open.

I disentangle and get lube from the bedside table. Slide my hand inside again, four fingers this time, tight at the knuckle and I let her push against me to open further. I leave my thumb on her clit for a while and she presses down on my hand until I tuck my thumb and I keep pressing inside, sliding past the widest part of my hand where my fingers join my palm, that’s the hardest place, usually, I’ve found.

She’s shaking and her hands are gripping the blankets and resisting me, a little, when I press in harder, trying to get those last two inches of my palm to my wrist.

The fit is inexact. She is tight, and small. Width isn’t the issue (as I have found it often is), but the depth – even with my fingers curled she doesn’t have enough space inside, my knuckles are already hitting the back of her cunt, her cervix, the smooth walls of her and I’m still pressing inside, still only halfway down my palm.

This is the painful part, the stretching of the opening to allow the widest part of the fist through. After the fist is through to the wrist, usually, usually, the pain goes away and there is just fullness, such a feeling of space and being filled. But if I cannot get my palm in further she is just going to stay in pain, stretched at this uncomfortable in-between. I begin to think she can’t take it.

“You are so close,” I whisper, hovering above her, the angle of my arm not allowing me to lay myself out on top of her, which is what I would prefer. “Just relax.”

She whimpers a little, gasping, moving her mouth to make these sounds without sound coming out, still trying to be silent. I’m still pressing against her and she opens a little on my hand, I add more lube through the tunnel my curled fingers make but it doesn’t help much. I leave four fingers inside and pull back, just to the knuckle instead of half of the palm, and begin thumbing her clit again, all the folds of her labia pulled tight and thrumming. I circle and tap and gauge her reactions.

She grips my forearm and shoulder hard, grips the headboard, grips the sheets and the side of the bed, presses against me, hips wild sometimes tight sometimes releasing. The muscles of her cunt grip my hand tight and her stomach contracts, pulsing, that curling motion, and she begins to get louder, sounds from her throat and cunt, groaning and trying to stay quiet, she turns her head into the pillow, moans into the fabric, presses it with her hand against her mouth.

I want to hear her scream.

Her body quiets and she presses her hand to my wrist, signals me to slow and stop. I shift my body forward and lay out next to her, holding her, her arms around my neck, my hand resting between her legs.

“Do you want a break?” I ask.

“Does that mean, do I want to stop?” she breathes heavily.

“… Yes. Stop, or a break?”

She nods, eyes closed, catching her breath, body quickening, quieting. I stay still with her for a while, curled around her, lightly touching the sides of her body, the swirl of her hip, her stomach, my arm draped across her body. She fingers the back of my neck, kisses me. Eventually I have to get up, my shoulders and arms and elbows and wrists are all cramping from the … vigor, and I need to stretch them, loosen them.

“I think you’re bleeding,” she says, when I come back from the bathroom in my robe. She’s laid out on the bed on her side, head on her arm. Body exhausted. It’s almost four am.

“I’m … what?”

“Bleeding.”

Oh. “Sorry, I thought I’d stopped.”

She shrugs. I take care of that bleeding thing and return to bed. She snuggles against me, so sweet, no pressure, just gentle presence. We stay in various states of wrapped around each other all night, and I wake to her blue eyes in the morning.

I walk her to the subway. Her hips feel incredible under the bend in my elbow, under the palm of my hand. We’re laughing and flirting and I don’t quite want to see her go.

“Hey hey hey!” yells some guy on the sidewalk as we walk by. I feel so obviously draped in sex, I’m not surprised.

“I’ll fight ya for her!” He calls after us.

Not a chance, buddy. I want to yell back. She’s mine.

dirty stories, real life

in which sinclair gets off

Part two of three

It’s a challenge for me to be explicit about the sex I receive, for two reasons: there are a select few friends of mine, who I know offline, who read this, and while I am very happy to talk about my sex life, I usually don’t offer up the same level of detail as I do in my writing; and two, I feel a lot more embarassed & vulnerable talking about my own body, my own feelings and sensations, than I do about giving pleasure to someone else. This is, I suppose, part of why I am a top.

The reason I mention that is because I’m going to attempt to be explicit here about my own experience. (That is your fair warning, childhood friends.) You may remember from the last time I tried to write about being topped that I skirted around the juicy parts. So, in the interest of being a better writer, and in the interest of wanting to turn this girl on as much as possible before I see her again (Saturday), I’ll do my best.

(And those paragraphs above, those are called foreplay. And procrastination. Ahem.)

She – this stunningly hot fuckable gorgeous femme top – goes down on me, fingers teasing the opening of my cunt, her lips and tongue pushing back my labia before sucking my clit. She keeps me distracted finding the most sensitive underside places and working her mouth slick along the folds and edges.

I felt like a turtle on my back. Acutely aware of how funny (I feel) I look when being fucked this way, knees bent feet on the bed, hips pressed forward, stomach tight, often one hand behind my head, holding onto the bars of my headboard or the back of my neck, holding my head up, contracting at my stomach so it occasionally seems like I am doing situps. Mouth open and gasping, quiet, be quiet. Pressing against my muscles and bones, pressing deeper onto her fingers, into her mouth, muscles hard and contracted.

But her mouth keeps me from thinking of this for longer than just a flash. Her fingers inside me, two, three – more? – I can feel the resistance of my cunt at the opening, though I want to feel more inside. Want to feel full of her. Her mouth still warm and moving hard on me, the bones of my pelvis pressed against her jaw I can feel the electricity of the space where our bodies are connecting.

With her tongue she fucked me. Hard and thick. Made my eyes roll back, head roll back, back arch, toes curl.

She doesn’t wait long, but rips the condom open, snaps it onto my cock, which she has in easy reach between my legs. Something tightens momentarily in my stomach and chest: I haven’t been fucked with a cock in years, literally years, but I remind myself to relax, I love what she’s doing with her gentle long fingers, want to feel more, love the way my cunt muscles contracting leads me to deeper vibrancy in my clit and, consequently, orgasm. I don’t think about my knees bent in the air, instead only concentrate on the soft head of my cock nudging its way inside.

Fuck I remember this. This pulsing in & out, this thrust inside, this fullness, this pinpoint of pleasure concentrated on my clit and swollen cunt. She pressed that cock inside me hard. I felt every inch of it sliding in. It’s not particularly large, but I felt out of practice, it was shockingly blissful, an impailing, an opening, something thick for me to press against.

She worked it in & out of me with a new speed & pressure, less exploration than her fingers, more force. Left her mouth on my soft spots, sucking, at times hard, sometimes tender, the muscles of my pelvis pulling. I arched my back to get deeper into her mouth.

After moments or minutes or hours (I, my body in a blissfully state resembling pulled taffy, can’t tell), she pulled out and said she was switching to her hand again. Her hot breath on my lips. Still sucking and she knew what to do. Her fingers expertly twisting, thrusting. I noticed myself in that sit-up position again, curling my body into a C shape and pressing my cunt into her mouth deeper. My right hand still behind me, behind my head or sometimes pulling on the headboard, left hand on the back of her head, tangled in the longish hair that fell in her face, touching the back of her head where her dark hair was recently cut short.

I let my hips thrust, fucking her mouth. The detail of her tongue so precise.

I was wrecked, buzzing, wrapped around her if only energetically and not physically, wound tight like a top. (Or, should I say, like a bottom – though not really, more like a top being fucked.) I wanted to scream, wanted to let my whole body release & rip.

I have to be quiet. It’s two am, roommate is asleep, assuming we have not already kept her up. Instead I bottle my noise and feel my body strung tight and then plucked, soaring for a moment before releasing, shuddering against her before grabbing her hair, hard, my fist pulling her up to me by the back of her head and she slid up my body, lays herself over me, curls around me.

Oh lord and this was perhaps my favorite part. The small of her back in my hands, her soft skin, the curves of her hips and ribcage, back of her neck, the feel of her weight on my chest and pelvis, such comfort, such comfort, so I just shudder and release, it takes me embarassingly long to stop breathing heavily and shaking with bodily afterquakes so I just feel her weight on me, the comfort of skin, the tender way she kissed my neck and face, and I grinned and laughed and giggled between whispers of oh god and fuck and ohh, and held her tight.

dirty stories, real life

in which sinclair bottoms

Part one of three

I’d never been with a girl who identified as a top. All the girls I’ve slept with, while some of them were more toppy than others, have absolutely been on the submissive side – and that tends to be one of the things that draws me to them. I know how to read those signals. I know what the lowering of the eyes, looking up at me under her eyelashes, means.

I’ve been topped, don’t get me wrong. And generally, I like getting off, I like giving my body over to let someone else touch me, to guide them to what feels good, to let myself get to that moment of fully physically letting go.

I hear this is actually fairly rare, for a butch top. I don’t know what to tell ya about that. We’re all different, I suppose.

Point is, I’m not entirely unfamiliar with submission – but, at the same time, it is not my ‘default’ mode. It is not where I am most comfortable, these days, and it is not my impulse most times. But, as you probably remember from the few times I intentionally bottomed in my last relationship, it’s hard for me to do and, even, harder for me to write about.

So what was I going to do with this stunningly fucking hot femme top once we got to my bed?

This is what kept rattling around in my head as we took (sexy) public transportation back to my (ghetto) apartment.

I thought, it won’t make that much difference that I’m a top and she’s a top. It won’t change much between us. We probably won’t have a heavy SM scene, and that is what I tend to associate primarily with topping and bottoming – dominance, and submission.

But already, the making out at the bar was a little different. I wasn’t calling the shots. She was responding to me, yes, her lips changing mouth opening tongue teasing in accordance to mine, but there was something else underneath it. A force coming from her. The way she kept control of it all.

“Open your mouth,” she ordered, only barely pulled away from my lips, I could feel her breath moving against my mouth as she said the words. She kept her hands on my hips, my ribcage, positioning me where she wanted me. She sucked my tongue, hard. “Like your tiny cock,” she whispered into my ear, grinning. She bit my bottom lip, drew blood, leaving teeth marks inside that I continued touching with my tongue all night.

Most of the time, it made me want to take her all the more. Fight her for control, push her down and restrain her arms so she couldn’t restrain mine.

Sometimes, though, I sunk into the refuge of submission, the giving-over of my body and mouth and, later, cunt. I not only let her guide me through the kisses, I tried to ask her to. Tried to ask her with my body and gestures and movement and open mouth.

I spent the evening fighting my impulses, the ones to take control. Push her down on the bed and tilt her pelvis back to slide my hand inside. Instead, she flipped me onto my back (I stopped struggling), and said, “Do you have something you want me to fuck you with?”

I inhaled. Sharply. Caught off guard, not the first time that night. “Yes, I think … I do.” Damn. Submission stirred somewhere deep in me, my stomach, between my legs, and I wanted her to take me like that, wanted to feel full, feel splayed open, feel cradled. It made me feel exposed and vulnerable, but I trusted her with my body in a way that felt new, considering I barely knew her. Maybe that’s why it was safe. Maybe it was because of the way she knew how to touch me, knew how to unwrap my breasts, finger the back of my neck, press against my thigh, just how I like it.

And I was suddenly grateful she knew how to take control, I was feeling fuzzy-headed and uncertain around her. Was that the submission? Could be. I certainly don’t usually feel that way when I’m in charge. I got my pink cock out, wrestled in the toybox to find an unlubed condom. I’d never been fucked with it.

She eased back on top of me, hips against mine, legs scissored together. Hands on my hips, my inner thigh, my breasts. Squeezing hard, sometimes painfully. I loved it. Brought me to the edge of my body and made me cry out, made everything sensitive, made everything feel. I attempted to keep quiet.

Her kisses made my vision and the palms of my hands blurry and taut. It was hard not to press her shoulders to the bed and ease my thighs between hers, press her knees apart. Tear at her hair. But there was also such sweetness, such precision, such tenderness between us – I wanted that, too, but I wanted more, I wanted to feel her pressing me open from inside, I wanted my cock in her mouth, I wanted, wanted, wanted.

Desire rose and fell on an isotope slope, gripping me fiercely. She knew just how to pull want from this body of mine. After a particularly efficacious kiss, I spiraled, eyes rolling, hips bucking. I couldn’t stop thinking about how it would feel to be opened by her.

“Fuck me,” I whispered, as she held herself above me, inches away, “please.”

Her eyes flashed and she grinned. Held my gaze, my open face, steady for a moment. “Can I go down on you?”

“Oh, god yes,” I breathed out. Please do, yes, god yes, echoed in my head, and though she may have liked it I’d (further) begged, I was glad I didn’t say it. It was hard enough for me to ask for it once.

How did she know so well what I like? … It occurs to me now that she’s read, among other things, the extensive sex survey/interview of myself, and there is a lot – quite a lot – of personal preferences listed there. I should send that to all my lovers before we fuck. (Just kidding.)

journal entries

kiss & tell

The inside of my bottom lip is still swollen and a bit tender where she bit hard. And I’m bursting to write about it. Instead, perhaps I’ll write about something else: kissing & telling.

I’ve been thinking about it: I don’t really know what the rules are. I only know that, on occasion, the chivalrous guys in films or in literature say things like, “I don’t kiss and tell.” This seems to be one of those straight social dating conventions that I have somehow never really understood, like the waiting-to-call after a date, the I’m-not-interested games, etc. (Living with my straight sister has brought all sorts of new social dating conventions into my life. Actually, I’ve never lived with a straight girl before, and the only straight boy I lived with, I was dating at the time. Since then I’ve only ever had queer roommates. Interesting …)

This kiss-and-tell thing seems to be for straight men more than anything else. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen straight women (I’m racking through the Sex and the City archive in my brain – surely, if straight women do that, it was depicted in that show) talk about kissing and telling, and there’s little hesitation to talk about how the kissing was, or even how the sex was, between women. And, do we see this as rude, when women talk about sex? No – at least I don’t – I see it as HOT.

When men talk about the sex they had, though, I do sometimes see it as rude, because of the way it is depicted. It’s different to see a guy sit down with his friends and say, “Wow, I had a fabulous date on Friday, and we ended up going home together – gosh, she was so great in bed,” than, if he said, for example, “Dude I totally hit that, she was beggin’ for more,” (which is not the best example, but you get the point).

So that means, for me, it’s actually about the respect given to the people these folks are sleeping with. I imagine I could hear women – straight or gay or queer or whatever – talking about a sexual escapade and be totally offended by the rude, lewd, lack of respect, more than who is actually doing the talking.

Even so: it is so much more common to hear (straight) men speaking inappropriately about their sexual conquests, probably (ya think?) because of the sexism in this culture, not only the treating-women-poorly thing but also the notion that women aren’t inherently sexual creatures, that we are either/or mothers or whores. There’s also that machismo guise within masculinity that says that you’re a “real man” if you conquer women.

Well so, it would make sense, then, for “I don’t kiss and tell” to evolve out of that type of culture, as a social convention to keep the lewd sexual misogyny in check.

So how does it apply to women, if at all? And how does it apply to lesbians?

I mean, to a certain extent it is incredibly tacky to talk about your sexcapades with your friends. For example, if you start sleeping with your best friend’s ex, you probably shouldn’t go into details about how you fucked her up the ass with a strap-on last night. And if you happen to be dating your buddy’s sister, he probably won’t want to know how she likes to be roughed up a bit.

But aside from disclosing the sexual details of people your friends actually know (which, it seems, shouldn’t be disclosed primarily because it’s private information. Which is interesting, that some things are more private because a friendship exists, rather than keeping a stranger’s details private, which isn’t as important), how much is it okay to talk about sex?

I like sex. Not that I expect that to be a surprise to you, but I love talking about it. I love hearing about what other people think and do, because hey, I just may learn something – not only about my friend, and what they like (and that can sometimes be incredibly deep held beliefs, psychological complications relating to other aspects of their personality, which can be fascating) but I also might discover more about what I like. Or I might understand something in a new way, I might “get” a fetish or sex act in a way I never understood before.

Also? It is oh so important to be open and honest about what’s going on in our sex lives, I think, because a lot of strange damage can be done there. A lot of healing can be done, too – but it’s similar to the reason why I believe we should talk about our relationships, in depth and often, with our close friends. Our friends (one would hope & assume) watch out for our best interest, and if something strange is happening, if red flags are going up and up and up, hopefully our friends will be able to tell us those things. Our relationships should be socially monitored. And, perhaps, so should our sex lives, to a certain degree.

So. Back to kissing & telling. I think that means, for me, I believe in talking about my sex life.

Not that you’re surprised, I know. I’ve been writing about it here – explicitly – for more than a year. But I’ve never quite gone all the way into the kiss & tell argument, so I’m glad to now know where I stand, and why.

But I’m still not going to tell you what happened Saturday night.

(At least, not until she gives me permission.)

miscellany

public service announcement

Here’s the deal:This workshop, Celebrating the Body Erotic, is the ‘level one’ beginning of the Body Electric School, and it is phenomenal. I have participated in workshops through Body Electric since 2001, and have done CBE three times, Power & Surrender once, and assisted at CBE twice. it has sincerely and deeply changed my relationship with my body, my sexuality, my sensuality, my spirituality, and my relationship to other women’s as well.

(I can speak much more to that. Ask me anything.)

This is the ONLY women’s program being offered this year in the US. Body Electric School offers men-only and mixed courses as well (and many many more of them), and usually is able to offer 2-5 women’s programs, but funding and management is tight (I don’t really know what’s going on, but this is what I’ve gathered) and the Women’s Programs are in danger. I am so, so saddened by this idea, and want to promote and encourage and talk up a STORM about this upcoming CBE workshop, with the hopes that it will entice even ONE more woman to come and participate.

It’s not cheap, I know, for a weekend (especially those of you who may have to travel to come here), but I can’t say enough how much it is worth it. It is a safe, beautiful space for breakthroughs, healing, moving on, looking back, unsticking anything that is stuck, making connection, growing, evolving, becoming beams of light.

I don’t know yet to what capacity I’ll be going to this workshop – I may be attending.


The Body Electric School Announces
Celebrating the Body Erotic for Women
with Alex JadeOctober 5-7, 2007, New York City

I am excited to extend an invitation to you and the women you know to join in a circle of women for an opportunity to explore, discover and celebrate empowered sexuality, self-defined eroticism, spiritually integrated eros. You will feel welcomed into a safe, serious, and playful space where we respectfully honor boundaries and experience ourselves as powerful, expressive and sacred.

In this weekend program of carefully designed embodiment practices women will:
– explore the innate wisdom of your body
– expand awareness, sensation and pleasure through conscious breath, movement, touch, and communication, where each woman’s choices and rhythms are honored
– learn how to more deeply tune in to your body, mind, heart and spirit: to receive more fully from yourself and others, and to give without losing yourself
– learn to give and receive full-body massage and to focus on the healing potential of sensual/spiritual energy
– learn from your own and others’ unfolding, and feel awed witnessing and supporting our uniqueness and commonalities

This full weekend workshop is for women of all ages and sexual orientations who are ready to learn about their own power to illuminate and enjoy sexuality.

Men, please pass this information on to your women friends. They will always be grateful for your thinking of them.

Debi

Workshop Title: Celebrating The Body Erotic for Women
Tuition: $375 per person ($340 if paid in full by Aug. 15)
Registration: $100 non-refundable deposit per person due three weeks before eventThe workshop starts Friday evening and ends Sunday evening.

Contact: Debi Soler
New York City Coordinator
646-245-4371
passionjustice@gmail.com

poetry

Ginkgo Biloba

The first time I kiss her, it is
June. Under a hazy lazy sky
the sun is yawning its descent.
Under the ginko tree that grows,

has been growing, outside her
apartment for decades, a hundred
years, more. How many lovers’
first kisses has she seen,
how many breakups, how many babies

pappoosed, welcomed to the world?
Green paper leaves the shape
of fans tossing the wild to the wind,
winding strings of silkworms around

tree trunks, slick bark the shade of
the sky before it rains. And her eyes
are the sky after. The pavement after.
My heart is red construction paper
that could blow away with another

exhale, if only her lips would come
close enough. Closer.

journal entries

4. the update on sex

(That’s what you were really waiting for, isn’t it? Isn’t that what brings you back here?)”Do you swing?” I asked her to dance. She looked up at me slyly, a little shy, from the picnic blanket.

“A little. Salsa I’m better at.”

“Let’s go. Over there?” I nodded to a slight clearing in the crowd nearby.

I can tell a lot about someone by the way they dance. Not the grind-and shimmy club dancing, though that has its own sets of tells, but partner dancing: a fine art.

First, there’s her grip on my hands, her form, her resistance. Her hands should be gently placed over mine, not gripping or clinging on, but soft. There should be enough resistance in her arms to allow her body to be carried by whatever minute movements I make.

Then, there’s how she responds. How her body takes direction, how well our bodies talk to each other.

Last, but not overlooked, is her feet. I can’t see them (nor should she – we should maintain eye contact, ‘dancing cheek to cheek’ as they say), but I can tell where she puts them and I can tell how well she can pick them up, anticipate my movements, follow my body lines.

I’ve danced with women who have been taking classes for months – years – who were not as good follows as those who have never had lessons. It isn’t only the lessons – it’s also compatibility, syncopation, inner rhythm.

This girl at the picnic, we didn’t dance well together. She kept trying to lead, so I would back up and follow, but she wasn’t a very good lead, and kept doing follow moves, which encouraged me to lead. I couldn’t keep clear what was happening between us.

We walked back to the picnic blanket, joking, when the song ended. I knew what she’d be like in bed – awkward, pushy, in control but attempting to be submissive. And honestly, that’s not what I want.

If only I knew what I did want.

journal entries

3. the update on dating

I have two dates in the next week.

One is with a particular femme top that I have been noticing from afar for quite a while – more than a year now. She’s a damn good writer, and she reads this blog. So that’s all I’ll say about that.

The other is via a craigslist personal ad which began, “I like being pushed up against the wall by queer masculine types who have good radical politics.” We’ve had some lovely correspondences, so far.

I’m not sure I actually know how to get involved with a girl sexually and not emotionally, so this dating thing will be a challenge. And after the shock of yesterday, I am definitely not ready to get too involved emotionally. This is going to have to go slowly, slowly, slowly.

It’s going to take some practice.

journal entries

2. the update on my personal character quest

I’m having a lot of realizations about the makeup of my own character. Therapy has been a fabulous tool for that (thankfully, I was wary), and having a best friend again that I can talk to, who understands what the hell is going on, who provides insight & is rock solid in her own sense of self & life & experience – I am so grateful for that.

1. Semi-permeable Membrane (scientifically defined here, if you don’t remember 9th grade biology)

I have a tendency to over-empathize with people, to the point of taking on their emotional status over my own. I let things in much too deeply. I feel too hard, sometimes. I am seriously effected by my surroundings. I think it might be why I am so sensitive to clutter & mess, and crowds, and high levels of emotion.

I was thinking about this a lot Friday night, about why it is I take on other people’s emotions & burdens. It’s not because I feel at fault, but somehow I do feel a responsibility to make it better, to help, to support. (More on responsibility later.) And I actually think the reason for that is – forgive the vanity – because I feel like I am incredibly privileged, with a relatively easy life. I’m blessed, loved, taken care of; my parents provided for me; my deficiency needs are, and have pretty much always been (aside from sex, perhaps), met. So I feel some sort of obligation – privilege guilt? – to help others.

In Mahayana Buddhist philosophy, Bodhisattvas take an extra vow of not attaining Enlightenment (Nirvana) before all sentient beings have achieved complete Buddhahood. I kind of think about my empathy, my ‘semipermeable membrane’ abilities, in those terms somehow, there’s a connection.

(I’m still working through all of this. I feel like these are only the beginnings of thoughts/ideas/character trait analysis.)

2. Connection

Because I am so empathetic, I actually tend to connect with people without them knowing I’m doing it. Okay, one could perhaps argue that “connection” between two people has to occur somewhat consensually, and both people have to feel it/recognize it, but considering what I’ve witnessed lately regarding connection (especially forced connection), I think it’s pretty interesting to consider what kind of connections we make on a regular basis, what our ‘default’ modes of operation are, how we work. By which I mean, how I work.

So. I connect with people without them knowing it. On a train, I see someone reading a book I’ve read, and I can read their face their body language their emotional state and connect with them over the experience of reading that book. In a group of people, I listen and watch and observe the stories and tales and conversations before I join in, but that doesn’t mean I’m not connecting with what is going on, what is happening.

Of course, after a certain level of friendship, intimacy, sharing has been established, I fully expect a shared connection, mutuality, two way street, et cetera. But like anyone, I seek human connection, and I get it softly, subtly, from people without ever disturbing them.

3. “Do Your Best”

Not much of a segue here, but this is another piece of the puzzle I’ve been uncovering.

My parents always said they didn’t care what kind of grades I got, as long as I was doing my best. My best, especially when it came to school, is usually pretty much 95% – usually quite successful. It took me until college to learn to balance important things, life against school against work against romance, that sometimes it actually is more important to stay up until 3am with your girlfriend than it is to study for the next day’s test or get to work on time. I would think, “I’m not doing my best,” but really, I was being the best girlfriend I could be (to continue the example), and sometimes that meant sacrificing other less-important things.

My best, though, also has often translated into a sense of responsibility. For example, I sense that someone has a need, and I know that I’m capable of filling that need with very little cost or compromise to myself. So I feel like “my best” would be meeting that need, helping that person.

4. Responsibility

Which brings me to responsibility. I haven’t really figured this one out yet, only that it keeps coming up for me over & over. It’s related to my ‘semi-permeable membrane’ability, and related to ‘doing my best’, but I’m not sure what else is behind the responsibility.

So, more on that later.

poetry

the very idea of a bird

quote from a poet friend who is also very into birds …

The very idea of a bird is a symbol and a suggestion to the poet. A bird seems to be at the top of the scale, so vehement and intense his life. . . . The beautiful vagabonds, endowed with every grace, masters of all climes, and knowing no bounds — how many human aspirations are realised in their free, holiday-lives — and how many suggestions to the poet in their flight and song!

John Burroughs (1837 – 1921), Birds and Poets, 1887

dirty stories, real life

what I would’ve done

Since we didn’t, since we couldn’t, let me tell you what I would’ve done.

First, I’d want you on your knees in front of me. I’d want the back of your head in my hand. I can still taste the back of your neck from when you sat in my lap, leaned back into me; still feel your haircut, those short hairs around the edges of your ears, under my fingers.

I’d want to unzip unbuckle unbutton slow and watch you watch me. Like you did on the couch, I saw you. Strawberries in your mouth. Bourbon. The shrimp I didn’t try.

Honestly, I’d want to know what you want. I’m a gracious top that way: my favorite scenario would be the one where you tell me what you’d want done to you, and I’d do it. I’d put my own flare on it, you can bet – but you’d get what you asked for.

So what is your fancy? What do you want? Here this is the quiet piece in me, the one that sits back and watches you, the one that takes photos and sucks the cap of my pen, that is all aflutter to know.

But I don’t know. You know I don’t. We operate communicate with a guise of lust and girl-intuition that takes us along the narrative just fine, but we’ve never had that kink/sex conversation over coffee. Likes, dislikes. Secret fantasies. Perhaps we never will, it isn’t really that kind of thing between us. And though I can have at you through your writing (honestly, what comes – ahem – to mind is cocksucking, something I would oh so happily oblige, you know, if I must) I still don’t really know what you love.

So.

Given that I don’t know, I will do what any top would do: improvise, and take.

It becomes about me, quickly, in this scenario then. But that’s okay (it works for me, at least). And I have found, underneath most fetishes, the underlying desire is often the same: we all want to be wanted.

And you know I’m a top. You know how I seek to take. I said it last night (to you) but I’d (eagerly) say it again: I know how to take you. And you’d want that, wouldn’t you? You’d give me your (eager) permissions, that look in your eyes in your face open willing coy submissive and that’s all I ask for, that’s all I need to set my own desire in motion, that tiny moment of permission and submission.

And oh what would I do to you?

Oh what I would do to you.

miscellany

a nice little tea party

I attended a lovely little pervert’s tea party on Sunday.I walked in to a lovely circle of sex bloggers and felt like a minor celebrity; there were familiar lovely faces I hadn’t seen recently, and I met a few new fascinating characters too, had some great conversation.

And the food! Lord, you sex bloggers know how to … put things in your mouths.

I was spoiled by two particularly cute boys, who brought me an avocado. And eventually, the out-of-town guest arrived and the evening got quite a bit more interesting.

Thnaks, Viviane & all, for the lovely lovely time.

reviews

gather ’round, kids, it’s story time

Naked on the Internet: Hookups, Downloads, and Cashing in on Internet Sexploration by Audacia Ray
Seal Press, 2007

You know how they say that the first test – and drive – of new technology is porn? Well, we folks who have been around on the ‘net for a while know a lot about all the various aspects of sex on the internet, and there is a lot to tell.

Dacia’s relatively new to the online sex world, by her own admission; in her introduction she gives a brief history of her own path to blogging and the ‘net, which began in late 2003 and took off in 2004. This is not to overlook, however, that she has become a major player in the sex blogger circles, especially here in New York City. And having been on the periphary of those circles for a few years now, myself, I know the kind of pull and influence and impact she has had.

It makes sense, then, that as a social scientist interested in sex and technology and the internet, Dacia would come to writing and researching a book like Naked on the Internet. In it, she chronicles all sorts of online sexual explorations and avenues, gives a history of where the internet has come from (BBSes, telnet boards – remember those?), and even some hints at where it’s going (cyberdildonics come to mind).

For me, the most interesting content were the chapters on online dating and also the sex blogging, partly because that is where I am the most connected, and also because (it seems) that is where Dacia has the most knowledge and presence as well. Other parts of the book were much more of an observed subculture then organized and reproduced for the sake of recording the various aspects of sex online.

This book is unique and singular – since online sexuality is, though extremely common, still quite taboo, there have not been a lot of studies or records kept of what is happening, how people are using this new medium, yet. I have no doubt that it will continue to be explored and we will keep gaining new insight and cultural significance from the online sex world, and that it will have – and already has had – a significant impact on a whole era’s sexual growth and, ahem, sexploration.

Don’t forget to visit Waking Vixen, or check out Dacia’s other recent accomplishment, the film The Bi Apple.

ps … I was interviewed for this book a few months back, and a couple of my quotes are in there, oh, somewhere.

poetry

How to Survive Your First Year in New York City

(work in progress) 

I Summer

Immediately in the city everything is just as hard as you’ve always heard it is: the disgusting humid summers. Finding an apartment. Getting a job. Locating friends. But the subways become easy, once you get the hang of it, and Manhattan is comprehensible, once you orient yourself. Be careful not to over-orient: you will change.

Invest in an air-conditioner. August will be brutal.

Distract yourself by going to every Brooklyn roof party you can find. Ask everyone for their New York survival tips. One boy with great hair says “a solid pair of skater shoes” ‘cause they’re so durable to the constant new relationship of your feet to concrete. A German girl who’s lived here ten years says, “an expensive, fancy pair of headphones” that she puts on before she leaves the house and takes off only when she gets to where she’s going. An older woman from the West Coast says “nature shows” remind her of the earth and essential oils give her that sense memory. A young queer boy says “a day bag, a perfect day bag,” with pockets for all the survival tools you need for the city: book, notebook, pens, subway map, Manhattan map, metro card, water bottle, wallet, hand sanitizer, tissues, smokes, cell.

Search everywhere for these tools. Your search will teach you the city. Do not stop until you find them.

II Fall

When the leaves start to become undone and summer’s oppression begins to unravel and the tourists leave, go to the park. Buy a skateboard or roller blades or a bike or a Frisbee. Borrow a dog.  Promenade the West Village with a pretty girl, any pretty girl. Fall in love, that’ll help.  Best if she knows the city better than you and can take you to her favorite Mexican restaurant, dive bar, dance club.

This is good. Keep yourself occupied. But be careful not to get too comfortable in her world: you won’t be there long. Do not assume you will get to keep anything from her, other than the memories. You are still making your own New York. Join some organizations, make some friends, make some art, take up time. There is so much to be done here.

Keep trying to figure out what you’re doing here. Once you figure out what you’re doing here, you will know how long it will take to do it, and then you’ll know when you can leave. But you won’t know until you know. And it always takes longer than you think.

III Winter

By the time the first snow falls, you will have an idea of what your own New York looks like. Re-read Colson Whitehead’s The Colossus of New York and remember that it is only after your favorite Thai restaurant becomes a coffee shop that the city will begin to show you its ghost.

This is a good thing. But winter is a hard time here, and you will loose two of the four of the following: your job, your apartment, your community, or love. It is hard to hold more than two for very long in this city. Watch the New Yorkers, they have these four balls in the air constantly but rarely touch more than two at a time.

You may loose the girl. The one whose hair swirls, whose breath you feel all the way to your toes. This will hurt. That’s okay. Feel it.

The girl you want isn’t in New York anyway, the girl you want would never live in New York. She’s too tender, sensitive to the overstimulation, just like you. But you can take it, for a little while. You can learn to put the armor on, and then take it off again.

This is how New York makes you strong.

IV Spring

When you’ve finally given up on the trees, they will start greening again. It is time for a few more things to hop into place. Your sister will become your roommate and you will learn so much about your childhood. You will begin to watch and understand how what you take into your body effects you. You get a friend, a best friend, suddenly, an instant connection, someone you call when something big happens, someone who is usually free for beers at the pub on the weekends.

This city may exhaust you, but you will never exhaust it.

journal entries

a study of my own character

Sometimes we all wonder how things come to be. A chain of events: A leads to B leads to C leads to Z. Each life is made up of big decisions and each day is made up of a million little decisions. What shirt to wear, what street to walk on, what to eat for lunch. Now all of these seemingly inconsequential choices may change your life forever. But who can handle that kind of responsibility? It would paralyze you to think about it. So you have to trust your instinct, what the Greeks might call your character. You better pray to whatever god you believe in that your character knows what the hell it’s doing.

– opening monologue from the 1997 film Playing God

I’ve been thinking a lot about character lately. Not only because one of my long-term goals, especially now that I’m getting back in touch with my own life path and am less preoccupied with throwing all my emotional/mental/creative/romantic/leisure energy to someone else, is to write fiction – by which I mean novels. More than one. And I love character studies, it’s one of the reasons I love writing, reading, psychology, drama, humans, living.

That sounds cheesy, perhaps, but it’s true. Sometimes I realize how much all my interests come together to aid me in what I really believe is my own life’s ‘higher purpose’: writing. And encouraging personal expression. (I have lots more to say about that, but I’ll save it for another time. Most if it is still formulating anyway.)

So, I’ve been reading Getting Into Character: Seven Secrets a Novelist can Learn from Actors by Brandilyn Collins, and it’s not just any actor from which to learn these secrets, but the famous Stanislovsky “method acting” approach. Very interesting stuff, I tell ya.

(I’m also reading Reading Like a Writer by Francine Prose which I’d also highly recommend. Trying to keep myself inspired literarily. It seems to be working, though I haven’t been generating much work that I would call particularly notable.)

And I think I’ve also mentioned that I’m in therapy, and have been seeing the same therapist since mid-April or so. I really like the idea of long-term therapy, but I’ve never actually been with a therapist longer than a few months. I tend to get discouraged because I’m pretty good at being able to put together a narrative for my life, I’m pretty good at drawing my own conclusions and making my own connections, which I think is what most people get out of therapy. So I’ve been trying to wrap my head around what it is that I could get out of therapy, how to approach it, what the ‘arc’ of the story with my therapist would look like.

Combined with this recent, more serious literary focus of mine, I’ve begun to see therapy as a form of character study for my own self. The point isn’t so much to change myself, at least not at this stage. The point is first to watch my own stories, to listen to my own stories, to notice the patterns and recurrences and sticking points and issues and whatever else might come up. To begin to bring to the forefront some of my unconscious character traits, the ones that I am so far inside of that I don’t notice.

You know, like how you have to leave your home country – or, hell, your home state – to begin to understand and notice what the localized culture was where you grew up? I have to have some new perspective, a fresh glance, at my own self, in order to get an accurate gauge of my character.

I think getting a new perspective on your own character, re-setting or re-defining your own character, is why people like falling in love so much – or, at least, maybe it’s why I like falling in love. I get to tell my best life stories all over again. I get to explore and express my views and outlooks and ideas about life and love and worship and desire in slightly new, sightly refined ways each time. I get to see someone else’s life presented to me in a beautiful way, and get to shine my own life back at her. It’s a personal study of character: mine, and someone else’s, someone who is particularly interesting, and intriguing.

Problem is, I suppose, that sometimes those character studies are terribly inaccurate. What we present is a selective view of ourselves, of course. Sometimes we present ourselves under false pretences. Sometimes we have even fooled ourselves into believing that we are something we aren’t. Sometimes those guises can be kept up for a long time.

And sometimes, someone else can seem so appealing, so shiny and authentic and intelligent and connected to me, deeply, that I begin to believe her, rather than believing myself.

I know, I know: you all have told me that I’ve listened to myself all along. And you’re not wrong, I know I’ve been voicing my suspicions from the very beginning of this relationship. But there’s still something there I can’t quite put my finger on. Because, see, despite my voicing my concerns, I was so high, soaring so high and felt so limitless with Callie. My own character developed in serious, shattering ways, ways that I feel like I’ve been waiting for for years. In some places, I was willingly torn down, willingly built back up. In other places, she attempted to tear me down and I wouldn’t allow it – there we had conflict. Yet other places in me she put a springboard underneath and I flew, I soared, I rocketed up to a new level, felt things I never expected to feel.

Maybe I’m being vague here. I’m talking about sex, and gender. I’m talking about the ways that I felt like such a powerful, strong, capable top with her. The ways that I was able to take control, harness desire, my own and hers. The ways that I was butch. The hundreds of tiny moments in our interactions where she was femme and I was butch, and I made so much sense, I made so much sense to myself, sometimes for the first time. I’ve always done these things – I’ve always taken care of the women around me, my friends and family, I’ve always been the one to open doors and flag down the waiter and refill a water glass, but suddenly it had purpose, it had reason, it had some sort of intense sex and gender play behind it, and it was so, so hot.

I should be grateful to her for all that growth in me, but it’s still hard to actually feel it, not just know that I should feel it. I’m still too angry. It was as if the lenses all came into alignment over the last four weeks or so of our relationship and then everything became painfully clear.

And there’s still something here I can’t let go of. I hate that she continuously bubbles up to my conscious thoughts when I’m doing nothing, walking down the street, reading a book, sitting on the train. But there’s something underneath all of this that I haven’t figured out yet, and so I haven’t let go.

What is it?

Something to do with my own character. Something to do with figuring out who I am in the world, who I am as an adult, a woman, a caucasian queer/homosexual/lesbian/dyke, an American, a butch, a top. She helped me make shifts in my very identity make-up, shifts I’ve always wanted to make, but she changed other things too – and now I am having difficulty navigating the world, making all those millions of tiny daily life decisions unconsciously and trusting my character to pull through, because I’m so skeptical of what she has left me with.

How much of my changing was conscious, and intentional? How much of it was for me, and how much was for her (under false pretenses)? How do I figure out what she has changed in me? Sometimes I fear it has run deep, deep within, where I gave her so much permission to go. Where are the places that I wanted to change, where are the places she changed for her own gain?

So, I am beginning an official character study of myself. Through therapy, through writing. I’ve always done it through writing, really, but now I’ll just call it “official” and maybe it’ll get me somewhere new.

Meanwhile, like the buddhists and yogis say, I’m still trying to remember to breathe into where I’m already at, and accept it.

journal entries

ready to take flight

My sister willingly sketched the tattoo out on my shoulder with a permanent marker, and I love the way it looks. This will happen this summer.I have not dreamed of her the last few nights. I barely thought of her today. I did speak about her last night to a friend, but that was partially because I was tipsy (mojitos are so perfect for hot Saturday afternoons) and partly because this friend had seen me through this relationship, from the beginning, and had a lot of useful things to say about love and me in love and what it was like to witness the two of us together.

Here’s the thing. I love being in love. Love it. That seems like a silly thing to say because, duh, doesn’t everybody love being in love? But the truth is, no, not really. Some people run from it. Some people don’t seem to know how to recognize it when they have it. I have the advantage of being a queer woman in this case, since us dykes are known for our u-haul instantaneous declarations of forever, though there are plenty of us who are not like that. I, however … seems like I am one of them.

I’ve been thinking about it, and here’s a bit of my relationship history:

14-19: Serious relationship with a boy, the only boy I’ve ever been with. I think I’ve referred to him as “Mike” here on Sugarbutch (I should make a post to keep track of names). My bisexuality was never a secret; at first, he loved that I was really into women, but as the relationship went on it became less about him and more about me potentially leaving him to be with women, which I eventually did.

19-23: Came out as queer, went back to college, generally single. A few relationships in this time lasted longer than a month, and plenty of scars to show for it. But this whole time I was in love with my best friend. that’s a long story, of course, but the whole time we were in these deep emotional negotiations about how we’d “eventually” get together and “eventually” be perfect for each other, when in fact I was being strung along. I believed her every time.

23-27: With The Ex-Girlfriend, who is a semi-frequent character on Sugarbutch.

27/28: Six months with Callie. Our relationship overlapped with the Ex-Girlfriend’s, as you may remember.

So really, aside from those few first years of my queer adult self (which only half count, since all my emotional/romantic energy was going to one particular girl), I haven’t been single in my entire sexual history.

See what I mean, that I love being in love? I do. I can’t help but be a poet; I am so interested in the inner emotional lives of people, I love to have that access to one particular beautiful person in intimate ways. I am tempering those impulses in me to sift through my phone book, my email and myspace and friendster contacts, and find a date, someone to flirt with, someone I can reach inside of for a while.

I’m beginning to take pictures again. That’s one of the first things that seems to slide off the table when my schedule is otherwise full: spending time with myself, just looking, seeing things, objects, people, places, my own face and skin. I miss that, it’s nice to have it back.

I’m also writing more. This past week I’ve been in a creative overdrive, writing stories and poems that I’ve wanted to write for a long time, years, in some cases, and all sorts of things are coming out of me. I’m remembering my talents. Using them to make sense of things. Thank god.

There is so much more to discover about me. I love what I’m finding when I take myself out, ask myself questions, hear my own stories. I have more ideas and themes and impulses and inner workings in me than this single life of mine can hold. No wonder I felt so much pressure in that last relationship – I had no time for myself, and it takes a lot of time to pursue all of my interests.

poetry

me in a nutshell

Related to the Life/Lines post, though not quite the same thing, I’d like to offer up my poem Me in a Nutshell which was an “I believe” poem. It uses many, many quotes from various sources, mantras of mine, inspiration, quotes (it ends with a different Mary Oliver line, in fact).

 It was published online at This I Believe through NPR.

Me in a Nutshell

I believe love is the closest we get to divinity
I believe in waiting patiently on the corner for the light to change
I believe in being kind

I believe that as birds fly, and fish swim, humans create;
it is our ‘natural’ mode of operation
I believe the opposite of war is not peace, it’s creation
I believe creative expression is a way to get to know
what we don’t know
that we already know

I believe in finding common ground and elevating the discussion
in wanting what I have and giving what I need
I believe in asking myself how it is that I will come alive
because that is what the world needs

I believe in keeping rocks in my pockets
to remind me to stay close to the ground
I believe stones and aerial maps of the ocean floor
teach me to fly
I believe to be free is not merely to cast off one’s shackles
but to live in a way
that respects
and enhances
the freedom of others

I believe in leaving everything and everyone and everywhere
just a little better off then when I found it
I believe when we let go of who we are, we become who we might be
I believe in paying my library fees

I believe in psychics, astrology, epigraphs
crossing fingers at cemeteries
lifting feet when going over a bridge
ice cream on the hot days
I believe in swimming at the glacier in the summer
and chomping icebergs like snow-cones

I believe asking for – and getting – someone’s consent is sexy
and knowing the pleasure you want and how to get it
is subversive and revolutionary
I believe gender and power and play is what makes the sex hot

I believe stretch marks and scars are beautiful
because they tell the history of the body
I believe the body is a temple to be worshipped
that we are not separate than the earth, but rather from the earth
I believe it feels good to shit outside

I believe in cranberries, avocados and cashews
in redheads and black ink
in leaving a trail on an unmarked canvas
in drawings on skin
in tiny yellow flowers under the chin to check if I like butter

I believe in watching the media, pop culture, consumerism,
and celebreality with a critical eye
I believe in turning off the TV
I believe in accessories: shoes, belts, bags, scarves, glasses

I believe growth requires the temporary suspension of security
in second chances and red balloons
I believe in wishing on the full moon and faery rings
and dandelions gone to seed and eyelashes
and shooting stars and lovers’ laughter and birthday candles

I believe very few people are actually out to get us
but are rather just distracted by their own
human-drama-bubble of daily life
I believe differences are the only way we learn
I believe intentions do matter
I believe in giving people the benefit of the doubt
but still protecting the gentle red ribbed cage
around my heart

I believe you and I are not mistakes, we are stardust

I believe in unfolding my own mythology
like an origami swan
asking every day:
what will I do with my one wild and precious life?

poetry

“you do not have to be good”

The Poetry Thursday prompt today is on Life/Lines, which the Academy of American Poets did a collective project with and defines as such:

We each carry lines of poetry with us. Words that others have written float back to us and stay with us, indelibly. We clutch these “Life Lines” like totems, repeat them as mantras, and summon them for comfort and laughter.

Anytime I think of my favorite poetry, poems that changed my life, significant lines of poetry, I always, always, always think of Wild Geese by Mary Oliver. And while I can think of a dozen – two dozen – more poems that have profoundly affected me (Under a Soprano Sky by Sonia Sanchez, Eating Poetry by Mark Strand, Otherwise by Jane Kenyon, Diving into the Wreck by Adrienne Rich), it is always Mary Oliver that I come back to when I have to name just one, and it is always Wild Geese.

At first, it was the opening lines:

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
for a hundred miles through the desert repenting.
You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.

The simplicity of it. The miracle of letting go of suffering, and only allowing your body to “love what it loves.” Gorgeous. As if Oliver lept from the pages and plucked a diamond from my heart cavity and said, look. Just look what you have inside you.

But lately, it’s been the ending:

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting —
over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

… that has really gotten to me. No matter how lonely or alone, or scared or tiny or uneffective you may feel, you still have a place in the family of things. You still have one particular little pinpoint of light on the map, on the earth.

I’ve carried this poem with me for a long time.