A Matter of Need

The other morning in bed, I got myself off by imagining you and oral. A fairly normal (and regular) routine except you weren’t going down on me. You had me in your lap, hands on my waist and lips to my ear, while I closed my eyes and listened to a hypothetical description of what it’s like to get me off with your mouth. The words felt more rumbled and purred than actually said, but the meaning came clear across.

You’re familiar with every sound I make: that sharp gasp at the first bottom-to-top lick, the softer iteration for when you delve inside with your tongue, the drawn-out sigh at the circles you draw around my shy, peeping hood, and those steady little intakes of breath—a slow-building crescendo—that give away how close I am before the breathing abruptly cuts to choked-off moans.

My scent fills up every corner of the room: the initial rush, so bright and heady, wraps around your head, squeezes tight, and locks you in. You can almost taste it—except, you’re too full with the rest of me. A milky slick that sits so sweetly on your tongue, coating your chin, lacing the inside of your mouth, trickling down your throat, all messy, all mine. You can’t ever get enough.

And you murmur how indescribable it feels to press your lips against my clit, its fleeting contractions baring a shapely nub one second and retreating the next. How velvety smooth my lips are, easy to nip and easier to suck. How easily you predict the timing of my orgasm by the rigid arch my back freezes in, waiting for an internal cue to begin a freefall: the whole-body shudder that starts deep in my belly and frantically spreads north until you have to hold me down so the entire bed doesn’t shake.

The sight of me twitching and trembling to cool down, the flesh between my thighs still flushed rosy. You know every sign, and I believe it because you told me all of this—or at least the you in my mind did.

That was such a confusing 90 minute phone call. His voice gets incredibly thick when he cries.

-----

I slept with 3 different (new) people in a 7-week period.

-----

These guys are just tiding me over for Something Else. I wish Asher was that Something Else; at least there wouldn't be any more guessing or speculation. But he's not. No matter how hard I try to bend him into becoming This Guy I could have a Future with, he isn't that. Won't ever be that. The part of me that knows better always stops the part of me that doesn't, thank god. But also goddammit.

-----

I'm all shook up.

I was your primary the whole summer?

And here I tried so hard not to think about that possibility too much.

Reminders

I don't listen to certain songs.

I don't drive by certain places.

I don't wear certain clothes.

I don't look at certain things.

I haven't in months. It's annoying.

#nomoredreamsplease

I've had three this week and none of them good.

I am so tired of crying about you when I drive at night.

What He Got Away With

1. I text him. He replies two days later. I text him. He forgets to reply. 

2. He goes down for five minutes, fucks me until he comes, and watches while I finish myself off. Repeat. 

3. I am upset with him over something. I don’t bring it up because the last time I did that, he ignored me for a week. 

4. We schedule a meetup. I hold my breath until five minutes before the appointed hour because I never know if he’ll cancel at the last possible moment. 

5. I cry. He insists we’re “just talking.”

6. He has the sweetest mouth and says the most careless things. 

7. I try not to care. He actually doesn’t care.

8. He doesn’t touch me in public. 

9. I let my walls down. He torched and salted the earth beyond it. 

10. He saw me cry.

he gave me the summer I wanted

Timeline So Far

November 2

December 10

December 20

March 25

May 3

May 13

June 30

July 2

July 8

July 23

Clockwork

What does it take to have a stable, reliable, predictable, semi-romantic arrangement in my life?

Am I asking for the moon here?

This was us

“

I once knew a man who came on very strong at the beginning of relationships, but couldn’t seem to help closing his heart as soon as a woman had opened hers. I have heard that kind of behavior referred to as an “addiction to the attraction phase” in relationships. This man did not maliciously go around hurting women. He sincerely wanted to be in a genuine, committed relationship. What he lacked were the spiritual skills that would enable him to settle down in one place long enough to build anything solid with an equal partner. As soon as he saw human faults and weaknesses in a woman, he would run. The narcissistic personality is looking for perfection, which is a way to make sure that love NEVER has a chance to blossom. The initial high can be so heady, so tantalizing, that the real work of growth which needs to follow the initial attraction phase can seem too dull, too hard to commit to. As soon as the other person is seen to be a real human being, the ego is repelled and wants to find somewhere else to play.

At the end of a relationship with someone like this, we feel as though we’ve taken cocaine. We had a fast and exciting ride, and it felt at the time like something meaningful was happening. Then we crashed and realized that nothing meaningful had happened at all. It was all made up. Now all we have is a headache, and we can see that this kind of thing isn’t good, isn’t healthy, and we don’t want to do it again.

But there’s a reason why we’re attracted to relationships such as this. We were drawn to the illusion of meaning. Sometimes someone who has nothing to offer in a real relationship can come on like they’re offering the world. They are so dissociated from their OWN feelings that they have become highly skilled performers, unconsciously playing whatever part our fantasies prescribe. But the responsibility for our pain still remains OUR own. If we hadn’t been looking for a cheap thrill, we wouldn’t have been vulnerable to the lie.

How could we have been so stupid? That’s the question we always ask ourselves at the end of these experiences. But once we’d had enough of them, we admit to ourselves that we weren’t really stupid AT ALL. We suspected this was a drug. The problem was, we wanted it. We saw exactly what the game was with this person, usually within the first fifteen minutes, yet we were so attracted to the high, we were willing to PRETEND we didn’t see it, for just a night, or a week, or however long it lasted. The fact that someone said to us, “You are so fabulous. You’re such a wonderful woman. This is such a great date. How lucky a guy is to get to date you,” when he’s only known you for an hour, is a blinking red light to any thinking woman. The problem is, the depth of our wounds can be so great—we can be SO hungry to hear those words, because deep down we suspect that they’re untrue—that hearing them can cause us to put aside all rational consideration. When we’re starved, we’re desperate.

”

—	Marianne Williamson

(No) Comparison

I find that there’s never a lack of things to talk about with Asher. Either he’s on a 15-minute tangent about articles he’d read that week or I’m on a half-hour ramble about some pop culture minutiae that only he would understand. Whether we’re on chat, phone, or in person, the conversation doesn’t stop. Unless he interrupts me with a kiss, in which case, we’ll just continue the dialogue while tearing each other’s clothes off anyway. Afterward, he lifts himself off me, gently tips over to a side of the bed, and becomes the big spoon to my little spoon. It’s what he always does. My body used to tense up at that. 

The vibe between us flows easily. I’m surprised by how comfortable I feel around him. The last six months of constant interaction with Chance wrung my nerves out, shattered any sense of security or awareness of our situation to the point where I would second-guess myself on second-guessing myself. With Asher, I’m not confused or uncertain. I know where we stand. His person—and everything that comes with that—is a known entity devoid of mystery or speculation. I could weep for the sheer relief he brings with him. 

In bed, he’s attentive in ways that Chance never was. I see him quietly file away every gasp and breathy whisper that slips from my mouth as his long, clever fingers rub little half-circles between my legs. He remembers what I enjoy, how I liked to be touched, and doesn’t switch to his preferences until I give permission. To be sure, the hours spent in his room aren’t the desperate, frenzied couplings I had with Chance, but maybe I’m tired of that. Maybe this is what I need right now, for now. Not love, not nothing either. 

Companionship.

I'm going to trust my judgement. I have to trust my judgement.

A Year to the Day

This was the week I started talking to him last year.

All through May, I was really happy. I was surprised by how happy I was, actually, at meeting someone who wanted to know me more and wanted to scale the walls I've raised over the years. I was so happy that I didn't even recognize the emotion for what it was until he vanished for two months. And when he came back, hat in hand, apology email in my inbox, I waited two weeks before resuming communication. The sexual undercurrent soon returned as well. Again, I fell into that happy, swooning period in August where I knew something had to give.

Labor Day Weekend was exactly what I wished for. The subsequent weeks were not. Looking back, I should have permanently cut my losses over our phone call in the beginning of October. I gave him an ultimatum that I reneged on after barely another month of silence, his absence a thrumming presence in my head while mine must have hardly registered in his. By then, he had already moved on from whatever he may have felt in the initial time of knowing me, but I was only just sinking into my obsessive, hopeless mire. Everyone called it but me.

The slip-slide into sin occurred in the first two weeks of November, which I pretended to be shocked by when I knew perfectly well that he would be willing to keep me around as an easy, reliable sex friend and nothing else. I held on to our friends-with-benefits arrangement through December and January (all the while juggling multiple personal/familial crises) because I couldn't bear to have him leave (again). That's but the foremost reason. The rest of my excuses are too numerous and shameful to name just yet. I could only watch myself make false promises to stop doing what I was doing. 

I wasn't strong enough to break things off. He took the decision from my hands by accepting a job offer in another state and moved at the end of February, but not before meeting me one last time (or so I pretended.) We spent an evening in a hotel room--which sounds better than what the room looked like--and were each other's firsts. I committed his every groan and lip-bite to memory, filed away the filthy things he murmured, savored the kisses he dropped on my cheeks, forehead, and hair the way one would savor a tender whip-lash on their back. I cried when the hours ran out; he did not.

That ought to have been our goodbye. I had the chance to fade out gracefully, but persisted in texting, IMing, emailing--longing for somebody who had long stopped wanting me. The meeting I instigated a week ago was my wake-up call.

-----

A lot about ending this hurts. The emptiness. The loss of something familiar. The knowledge that I tried to build a connection with someone that went beyond sex, and failed in a spectacular fashion. The fear that I'll take a very long time to replicate what and how I felt with him. The regret of realizing what could have been if I'd only said or done a thing differently at such and such point in time. The hard lump I have to swallow when reminiscing about last may and acknowledging that for a little while, I was very happy in a way that I haven't been with anyone else thus far. 

Somewhere in the middle of those slow, wretched months, I was in love, and he did not feel the same. 

That's why I am moving on and taking time to love myself before making any further moves.

Judging by how often I find myself in compromising positions with men in my car, I should probably sterilize the interior.

I found out he was back in town the day of, which is say yesterday afternoon. What did I think would happen after grabbing a seemingly innocent drink?

I had my fun though--and so did he. Pretty sure I was going to crash while I was driving back to the car deck, but he swatted me away every time I tried to pull his hand out of my pants.

I made him pay for that later.

I miss him. Goddamn him. I miss him.

Every time I think about sitting down to write about him my chest gets too tight, and I put off the slow process of drawing out the poison for another day.

Self-Portrait

When I see myself in the mirror every morning, a few breakouts are sprinkled along my hairline and between my eyebrows. The shadowy circles under my eyes have been carved on from poor sleeping habits and anxiety. My feet shift restlessly, rough, calloused heels rubbing against each other. As I change shirts, I can’t help but study my armpits, the skin there darker than the rest of me, nearly the same shade as the sensitive flesh of my innermost thighs. Sometimes, my hands wander and gingerly prod the additional breakouts erratically scattered across my back. Sometimes I scratch the places where they’ve scabbed. Then the underwear slides past my knees, and I have another area to scrutinize.

My mons pubis is discolored and scarred from years of plucking, pulling, and other painful hair-removal methods. I hated the way it looked when I had just begun puberty. All through high school, I systematically groomed myself, breaking the skin often because I was careless so it’d bleed, scab, scar, and score yet another mark on the tender triangle of flesh between my legs. I don’t exactly volunteer this information right before I sleep with someone, but I usually try to dim the lights by the time the both of us are naked. 

None of my partners have ever breathed a single comment about any of the things just mentioned though. I have moments of doubt, in the split second their eyes flick down to drink in the sight of me, that they’ll see what I see, spot what I spot, hate what I used to hate but now merely agonize over. They never say a word. They open their arms, draw me close, kiss the curve of my neck, and my insecurities fade into the background again. 

Maybe they never notice them. Maybe they do, and don’t care. Maybe they see them and like them for what they are: every scar, every mark, every scab, every discolored dot of flesh—a collection of tiny (im)perfections that coalesce into someone flawed. Like me. Maybe none of it matters once the clothes come off because there are telltale faults on the landscape of their bodies, and when I see them, I realize how quickly they’re forgotten in the wake of exploring other secret corners. 

The older I get, the less important my body issues become. Eventually none of this will mean anything at all.

I suppose you did break my heart.

Scattered

"We still have time. I want to see you as badly as you do me. I just don't want to be sick when I do it."

Well, time's running out. And I don't think you'll ever want to see me as badly as I want to see you.

-----

I want to hold your hand in public. Yep, that was an actual thought that formed today, and I came very close to dashing my head against the wall--for all the good that would have done. An entire mini-album of us in various compromising positions? Been there, done that. A single memory of an intimate, non-sexual touch in public? No. How do I ask that of you? I'm typically allergic to PDA, but here I am, longing for something so...small. My chest gets tight when I consider the very real possibility of not seeing you at all this month. I'd do anything right now for a guarantee that I can say goodbye in person before you move on the first.

-----

I'm not going to miss this.

-----

I'm going to miss you.

Marietta, Ga

IP Address: 209.179.66.81

Who are you?

I remember every person to whom I've given this blog link. You, however, I can't seem to recall.

Playlist

1. Like a Star - Corinne Bailey Rae
2. Glory Box - Portishead
3. Do I Wanna Know - Arctic Monkeys
4. Weathered - Jane Weaver
5. Pink Matter (feat. Andre 3000) - Frank Ocean
6. Daisy - Brand New
7. Fantasy Man - The Swell Season
8. Volcano - Damien Rice
9. Night Diving - Thrice
10. One For the Road - Arctic Monkeys

Bonus: Fin - Pavement

Sigh

I'm going to spend the next 4 weeks oscillating between being okay with him moving away and not being okay with him moving away.

-----

In the end we're just too incompatible. My temperament's pretty much the opposite of his. But I knew it. I knew he felt something. You don't have that kind of intense sex with someone without feelings on both sides.

-----

Let this go. Let this go. Fucking let this go and be a healthy person dammit.

The Talk

"There are several reasons why we could not work out as a couple:

 

1) you live quite far away, and meeting you regularly would be a big challenge.

2) You are in a completely different place in your life. You have a lot that you seem to want to change, which is great for you. But I can't see myself dating someone who doesn't take control of her life to make necessary changes.

3) This entire dialogue has been one of the biggest reasons I don't think we'd work. You overthink things in my opinion, and I tend to be a lot more relaxed as a rule. I feel on edge when I talk to you, because I never know if I might say something that you'll bring up in a conversation 6 months down the road that bothered you or made you think X, Y or Z.

 

In general, what I need in a partner is someone who has her shit figured out, and someone who can make me feel calm and relaxed. I don't know that these things would exist with the two of us.

 

You are extremely smart, capable, and self-aware. Much moreso than I was at your age to be sure. And I admire all of those things. I also find you extremely attractive, as you know.

 

But those things would only go so far in a relationship."

 

-----

 

I can't say I vehemently disagree with any of those things. 

A Text Message

He got the job in Tennessee. I suppose all that's left is to wait for him to tell me he's moving. Then we'll drop off contact, and can forget all about each other.

Yes. This should be what I want.

Listening to: Night Diving by Thrice

I wish I could tell you all the things I've had to keep to myself. Last night I was with you again, the second time in a month, and after we had our fill of each other, we twisted the sheets haphazardly over us while our legs got even more hopelessly entangled, and I could have soundly fallen asleep in your bed (in your arms) as the music softly played from your desktop.

I didn't though. Of course I didn't. I'm always leaving you, always a temporary guest in your room and if I hope for something more permanent than a few snatched hours, I don't even whisper the words aloud to myself on every lonely drive back home, with my knuckles pale on the steering wheel and my mouth pursed tight from the ache in my chest. I never present anything but a casual, level-headed front to you when all I've ever been since May is a young woman burning up with too much want and unspoken passions.

Were I a braver person (to either face my own desires or your decidedly cooler attitude towards me, I can't say), not a single meeting would pass without you knowing the full scope of my longing: the fever your touch instills, the desperate way I claw your back as if to claim what isn't mine, the breaths I hold as my fingers trace the line of your jaw and commit the shape of your eyes to memory. I wouldn't be afraid of the strength of my feelings, and you wouldn't be afraid of the intensity of this side I've tempered for years.

But who could see this nature, my true nature, and not shy away for fear of being consumed by it? Who could--who would--want someone like me, once they learn the truth? Would you? Dare I entertain the thought? I don't. I won't. At the very least I can be honest here.

Monday Night

He was waiting on the porch when I got out of the car, watching me make my way up the stairs. As soon as I reached the top step, we smirked at each other and exchanged two lines about my driving before he grabbed my bag strap and pulled me to him. His beard scratched my cheeks, but I hung on tight anyway and breathed deep so I'd remember his aftershave for later, when the need to recall him (and the moment) would become too unbearable to put off any longer. I pressed harder against him as I felt his hands slip past my coat to grip my hips, and eventually dipping beneath the waistband of my pants to cup my ass. Despite the temperature, the air felt less chilly then, and I shivered for an entirely different reason.

-----

Once we’re in his room, he takes to exploring me with reckless abandon. For that single, precious hour, I let myself succumb to his touch and ban every anxious thought from my mind because with him, I never know when we meet will be the last time we meet. My nails trace new pathways down his back. His hot breath dampens my collarbone. The brutal dexterity of his fingers, wickedly curled as they slide in and out of me, steals any attempts at coherent speech. Sweat beads on the small of my back, makes the hair stick to my forehead, cements us to his dark gray sheets. 

The liquid heat between my legs spread warm over my thighs, and when he looks up, my knees hooked over his shoulders, he wants to see me staring. And I do. I’m entranced. But the intense expression in his eyes causes me to glance away. After that, I keep my eyes shut and open my other senses to accommodate the fullness of what I’m experiencing. When he finally replaces his tongue with his length, it is not pain, but the sweetest of aches that coax the ragged moans from my lips. As for the rest of what occurs, some details are too visceral to record even here. 

During the drive home, I swear I can still taste him in my mouth.  

-----

I burn and burn and burn whenever I’m with him. How long until the fire reverts to ashes again from yet another disappointment that seems an inevitable part of our up-down cycle?