I walk in the door at ten pm, drop my keys on the table, and take off all my clothes. I stride directly to my bedroom, and pull the bottle of lube out from the top drawer of my bedside table.

I don’t know if it’s because it’s a Friday, or because there is a new moon approaching, but everyone on the streets today seemed feral and crazy, and I am no exception.

Lately I’ve been climbing the walls.

An early birthday gift in the form of a powerhouse vibrator has served me well. Beyond well, really. It makes my teeth rattle, and gives me mind-shattering orgasms in a matter of seconds, one after another, but on this particular occasion, I want to kick it au naturel, because I’m afraid I might be growing dependent.

I prop myself up on pillows so I can see myself in the mirror at the foot of my bed. I spread my legs wide, digging my toes happily into the feather duvet. I squirt some lube on my fingers, and grab the book of erotica from where I keep it on the dresser.

I start by stroking myself slowly, with my index and middle fingers. The anticipation of getting home and getting naked has already made me a little wet. I randomly open the pages of the book and start into a story. Something about a whorehouse, and a couple who pay to watch other people have sex. I’m trying to get into the story, but my mind keeps drifting…

I’m thinking about someone I only know in pictures, and in Skype conversations. Someone who I’m slowly piecing together in email exchanges, and instant messages, and shared URL’s and anecdotes. Someone who I believe to have an appetite as voracious and adventurous as my own, and if this is true, someone very rare indeed.

I’m thinking of a Wikipedia link I followed today that led me to the definition of a new term. “Teledildonics”; sex toys that can be plugged into a computer and manipulated remotely through the magic of the Internet.

This discovery may have changed my life today.

Sometimes when we talk, he jokes about being a new robotic specimen engineered in Japan, and this is where my mind goes now. I shudder as I imagine an android, built to my specifications, that for all intents and purposes looks like a real person, but has no actual purpose other than servicing me. Home repair and maintenance, meal preparation, and fucking me stupid.

It’s soulless, but there is a part of me, in the darkest corners of my brain, that is intrigued.

I’m really wet now, and thinking of our email exchanges of late. Our brains are the same when it comes to sex, there is no faking that. Some of his suggestions are things I’ve fantasized about for a long time, and I’m a little nervous hearing them named by a stranger. I get shivers just contemplating the possibilities.

I slide a finger slowly inside myself as I continue to gently stroke my clit in soft circles. It’s never the same, my own finger. Never the same as the first time someone enters me, in languid, reverent exploration. I imagine this moment and consciously slow my breath, focusing on fueling the heat radiating from my belly. Exerting a little more pressure, and increasing my speed,  I send my thoughts forward, reaching out, willing him to feel what I am doing wherever he is at this moment. Deep inside me, my muscles clench, involuntarily, gently gripping the finger still inside, and I practice this a couple of times, smiling a little to myself. I love this trick. It is so subtle, and it’s the fastest way to gauge someone’s level of arousal while we are fucking. If they can feel it, I know they are present.

I try to focus my thoughts, but the images are floating at me in rapid succession now. I think about kissing him for the first time, slowly and languidly. I think about his lips, discovering my neck and collarbone. I think about the way his skin will feel, how he will smell, taste, move. I try to imagine him naked, try to imagine what his hands look like, how strong they are. How long his fingers are. How thick they might be.

My pussy is on fire now. I play over and over in my head one specific image from an email earlier. Something I never expected  would illicit such a visceral, primal response. I imagine this scenario and soon the heat is spreading up from my pussy and radiating over my breasts, and my throat. My face grows flushed and hot. I can’t stop myself from groaning softly as the waves begin to radiate from within my core. I imagine him sliding slowly into me as I start to cum. I think about cumming all over him, pulling him gently, deeper inside me. When the urge to pull my hand away is strong, I turn the finger, still inside, and crook it gently, seeking out the little pocket that makes me gasp sharply. I don’t stop. I pretend my own hands are his, and I’m no longer in control. I’m undone, and floating now, and it is bliss.

When I am still again, I send a silent message into the universe, and I drift off towards a deep and peaceful slumber.

In the interest of giving something new a chance, I decided to go out on a proper date. A third date. He was kind of cute at brunch, and I thought it would be a smart idea to give this nice, traditional Italian man with a decent job a fair shot.

We were about a half-hour into a platter of antipasto and a glass of mediocre red wine at a remote Italian restaurant. The waiter was ignoring me, and speaking only to my date, who thought it strange that I would be offended by this. I considered him across the table. His long limbs. His hairy wrists. Suddenly the air in the room changed, and I could see very clearly everything that was in his head. He immediately had me pegged as a crazy redhead who might be a fun sexual conquest, but certainly not to anyone to be taken seriously. I had forsaken Catholicism for heaven’s sakes!

I narrowed my eyes, offended at first.

“Oh…” he murmured, “you can look at me like that any time you like.”

He stood at about 6’3, and was in decent shape. He was articulate, and mildly amusing, and more than a little dorky. The girls he usually dates seriously are never the ones he can be sexually liberated with, I guessed.

Let’s face it, I was only being neighbourly.

“Let’s go to your place.” I suggested. “We can drink some wine, and you can tell me about (insert something mildly interesting from some earlier conversation that I was paying minor amounts of attention to.)”

He all but jumped up from the table. For a moment I told myself that going to his apartment doesn’t mean that I have to put out, but then I almost chuckled. I realized that I was curious about what he’d be like as a lover, but not even remotely interested in spending time with him again. This is a rare, rare experience for me, and in the interest of self-discovery, I decided to see where it would go.

As we left the restaurant, I walked in front of him slowly. I wore a clingy dress, and I knew my ass was out of control. It occurred to me that he might be a spanker. I stopped abruptly, pretending that my shoe came loose, and he rammed into me, crotch first.

“Whoops!” he blurted out, sheepishly. A girl with big hair, seated in the window glared at me.

He drove us back to his condo. It was in the same building as my ex-boyfriend’s mother, who coincidentally is also Italian. I prayed that we would run into her in the hallway. He lead me through the lobby with a protective hand on the small of my back, which I figured was to check and see if I was wearing underwear. I was.

He busted out some wine and some decent chocolate, and we sat politely on his couch. I realized that I felt like an early night, and I had to work in the morning. I climbed into his lap and began kissing him. Suddenly, his politeness was gone. He was grabbing at me with his big hairy hands, reaching in to scoop out a breast, hoisting me up from the couch and unceremoniously plunking me down on his bed. His hands were everywhere. On me. In me. Not fumbling, exactly, but not terribly deft either. And the talking. Oh, the talking…

When someone is good at dirty talk, it is a truly beautiful thing. In fact, I think any sincere attempt from someone I’m really attracted to is marvelous. I guess the mitigating factor here was that I was on the fence, rather than convinced, about this guy.

“Do you like how I touch your pussy?”

“Do you want to suck my cock?”

“Do you want to take off my clothes?”

I had to fight to not roll my eyes, as he could barely wait for an answer to any of these questions. I felt like I was part of a strange ceremony played out several times before. Like standing, then kneeling, then standing while reciting homilies and scripture and really having no idea why the words were said in the first place. Everything lost all meaning.

I realized that in order to get home at a decent hour, and to maintain control of the situation, I would have to take over. He was indeed a spanker, and was a good one at that. A true ass man need never be asked to administer a spanking. They can’t help but make contact. It’s like trying to hang on to bubble wrap, but not pop it.

I made him lay down, and then I removed his boxers. I felt totally and completely detached, but set about putting my mouth on his cock while he gave the most inane play-by-play of my actions.

Don’t get me wrong, I love giving head. I really do. And I’m spectacular at this, but I had vacated the premises so to speak. I continued cooing and making the most ridiculous comments, convinced that I sounded like a total sham, but he seemed none the wiser.

He stopped me, and said “Oohh…careful love, I don’t want to cum yet.”

That was it. His use of the term ‘love’ seriously offended me. One doesn’t drop the L-word lightly in my universe. My social experiment was over, but I still wanted to claim victory.

“But I want you to cum for me…pretty please?” I purred, and this time I did roll my eyes.

It didn’t take long, and he was completely thrilled with himself afterward. We got dressed, and then I attempted to finish my wine, which somehow turned into a slow dance in his living room to old soul music. I softened a little. It was really tender, and sweet. He suddenly seemed really happy, and really happy to have me barefoot in a summer dress slow dancing with him in his living room. Maybe I had pegged this all wrong…

After the dance, he began to kiss me again, and I gently pointed out that I had an early start, and should probably head home. I suggested a cab, but he insisted on driving me. Guilt began to creep in. Maybe he really did like me, and maybe he saw more to me than I gave him credit for…

The drive home was more inane conversation, with a little bit of chat about dating. I made a quip about how it’s always been hard to reconcile my love of hedonism with my desire for tradition. I suppose I was trying to rationalize my incredibly friendly behavior for his sake, in case he was perhaps more interested than I had gauged.  He glanced across at me, casually lay a meaty hand on my thigh, gave it a possessive squeeze, and said “Don’t worry baby, nobody’s trying to put a ring on your finger here.”

Several Hail Marys later, and it was like the whole thing never happened.

“Blessed art Thou amongst women…”

Watching you in the mirror, moving like a cat, the former vestiges of your swimmers’ shoulders rippling under the black spidery veins of your tattoos. The soft, anguished sounds you used to let slip from between your perfect lips. I miss your soft, sweet mouth, and your tentative kisses. I miss your taught stomach and that funny little ring in your navel; so feminine. I miss the way you felt, bare inside the heat of me. I miss the way you would put your mouth on my ear, and so gently and urgently coax me to cum, how it would make me explode in hot waves all over you. I miss letting you into the deepest, darkest depths of me and languishing in the growing shade of you, luminous against the inky black of the terror perched in perpetuity upon your shoulder.

My forehead is cool against the glass of the streetcar window. I’m listening to the early music of Leonard Cohen, and my transit trip feels like a music video. With my iPhone set to shuffle, I’m trying to read messages from the universe, and I don’t like what “Stranger Song” seems to tell me.

There are butterflies in my belly, and a slow, steady, pulsing heat radiates from somewhere deep within. I’ve come to associate this with my rising Kundalini energy, and I consider myself to be deeply enlightened as I sip at the jasmine iced tea blend purchased from my neighbourhood Starbucks.

I’m wearing the strapless denim dress with the mermaid tail that makes my ass look like a full, ripe peach, and shows my sun-kissed, freckled shoulders to perfection.

He’s invited me to his house for the first time, and I can’t remember when I’ve been this nervous.

We’re in the early stages, so I have no idea what page we’re on; if it’s the same, this could be spectacular, but I’ve come to be spectacularly cynical, and so I wait to see where all of this will lead.

I dismount, and an on-coming taxi screeches to a halt inches away from smooshing me on the pavement. With one manicured hand I flip the startled driver the bird. He yells something out of the window about my ass.

It’s hot. Finally. Spring has lost the arm wrestle with summer, and I’m safe to wear open-toed shoes. As I lower my bird-flipping arm, I realize that my new all-natural deodorant isn’t working so well. My own sweat smell is mingled with the fresh scent of chamomile, and I’m not so sure that’s a good thing.

I have a trick in these situations. I’ve never told anyone this before. Moments like these, I shower, apply a healthy layer of Johnson and Johnson’s baby oil to my entire self, and then with two fingers I dip into my pussy and dab a little of my own juices on my pulse points. I have no idea if this works for anyone else, but the very idea that unexpected parts of me might smell like sex makes me absolutely crazy.
Of course, the expectation of sex on this particular occasion might be wildly presumptuous.

His house is old, like mine. It has a stone exterior, wrapped in ivy, and the garden is overgrown and unkempt. It’s vaguely spooky and I rather like that. An orange cat eyes me from the weeds and then raises a paw and grooms itself disdainfully. He’s waiting on the steps with a cup of coffee, and a freshly rolled joint. He smiles that smile, and I’m instantly glad that I decided against underwear.

I extract Leonard from my head and tuck my iPhone into my hobo bag for later. I pick up my skirts before stepping up daintily and placing a feather-soft kiss on his lips. He makes a low, happy grumble, like a big cat.

We sit, and he sparks, and we smoke. Pot and my intense sexual energy are perhaps one of the most volatile combinations that I know, and of course he has no idea about this. I decide it will be a good test of his mettle, and of our potential.

He invites me in. The place is clean, but disheveled, which I also like. He has houseplants; something I also find promising, and there is a bowl full of fresh berries on the rickety kitchen table. The light is soft as we creep towards dusk, and his paintings are everywhere. Where there is no space left to hang, huge canvasses lean against the walls. In the living room, the furniture is pushed to the perimeter, and a massive drop cloth is spread out on the floor. Various pots and tubes of paint are piled on a nearby table, and I see that he has an airbrush set up in the corner of the room.

He offers me a drink, and I accept a glass of ice water. He is detail oriented enough to include a slice of lemon. The condensation is already dripping off the glass when he hands it to me. As I take a sip, an icy dribble spatters my cleavage, and his eye is drawn to my breasts. I arch a brow, and he blushes furiously. His embarrassed smirk sends a hot wave over my entire self.

We make small talk. I love these moments. My belief is that men do this because they feel bad that they are so focused on the idea of fucking us. They want us to believe that they are deeply interested in anything else. It charms me because all I can think about is the idea of fucking him. However, the sound of his voice is like melting butter, so I’m happy to listen to the details of his day. Finally, there is a natural, comfortable silence, and he looks to the drop cloth.

“So…” he begins.

“I have a request, and I hope you don’t feel like I’m putting you on the spot. If you’re not up for it, you can absolutely say no.”

He’s blushing again.

“What?” I inquire, mischievously.

“I’d like to paint you.”

My heart stops. I can’t breathe. There is something so moving about this, that I’m not sure what to say. I’m also confused, because all evidence seems to point to him working in abstract.

“Um, of course. Yes.” I stammer, fighting to remain cool. I have an inexplicable lump in my throat.

“Excellent” he says, both pleased and relieved.

He takes me by the hand and leads me to the canvas on the floor.

“Here. The light is perfect.”

He stands back and looks at me. There is a lamp off to the side, which he switches on, then drapes with an orange scarf. My very white skin is suddenly golden.

“Uh, do you have some way to put your hair up?” he asks, as he starts to open pots of paint.

I’m really stoned. I can suddenly feel this. I can also feel a rivulet of moisture trickling down my inner thigh.

I nod, afraid to open my mouth, and I remove an elastic from my wrist and pile my hair on top of my head. I take another sip of water, and realize that I’m shivering, although the room is rather warm.

“Do you want me to just stand here like this?” I ask, and my voice sounds funny in my ears. I’m really stoned.

He nods, and smiles reassuringly at me. Then he moves towards me.

“I do have a request though…I’d like to paint you without any clothes on.”

Again, I feel the heat. We haven’t seen each other naked yet, and the idea of being naked in front of him for the first time, under the scrutiny of his artist’s eye is intense and fiercely arousing.

I nod, mute now. Too stoned to talk. Anything I say will sound foolish.

He moves behind me. Places his large hands on my shoulders. I notice his nails are a little long again, and remember how he likes them this length so he can create texture in his work. I’m feeling a little overwhelmed, and not so steady on my feet. His breath is on my neck and millimeters from where the slope of my shoulders begins, I can feel the soft bristle of his beard. Again, the soft, low rumble. Like a tiger, purring.

“You smell incredible.” He whispers as he slowly undoes the zipper on the back of my dress.

I hear him inhale sharply as he realizes I am totally naked beneath the soft cotton. I can feel him against my thigh, and he is hard. I can also feel that there is a lot of him.

The dress falls to my feet with a soft crumple. I step out of it and he is staring at me. Oddly, I don’t feel shy, or self-conscious. Not remotely. In fact, I feel powerful and vibrant. I’m really stoned. In my mind, I feel like a priestess. I smile at this idea.

“Beautiful” he murmurs.

I notice an antique mirror on the far wall. I see the reflection of my naked self, in the waning sunlight streaming through the window, bathed by the golden glow of the lamp. My generous haunches are soft and supple, my breasts pale and rosy. My body is a strange combination of blushing innocence and ripe fertility. On a whim, I shaved my pussy entirely, and I love how willing, and available it looks without its protective fur.

“Stay right there, as you are.” He says, moving to the table stacked with paint and brushes.

He moves towards me with a medium sized sable and a pot of bright blue. This is when I notice there is no canvas set up. He sees the dawn of realization, and he grins. Then he locks my gaze with his and draws a fat, solid line from the base of my throat to the top of my vulva. The paint is very cold.

I’m stunned, and it feels like a portion of my brain has exploded. I’ve gone from shivering to full on trembling, and as he comes at me with a pot of white acrylic he looks concerned.

“Are you cold?”

I shake my head ‘no’.  He smiles sweetly, and dips three fingers into the pot, scooping out a generous blob of paint. Staring intently at me, he works the paint into his hand, and then slowly, so slowly, cups my left breast in his paint-filled hand. I have to close my eyes because the sensation rocks me to the core. I whimper involuntarily as he works the paint over my nipple. It smells vaguely of plastic, and baby oil, and summer sweat, and, well, a bit like my pussy.

“Oh god.” I whisper, so excruciatingly aware of how wet I’ve become.

I open my eyes to look at him, and he has changed. His normally calm and peaceful countenance is now transformed. He is fierce, and piercing, almost frighteningly focused. This only serves to arouse me further.

He continues this way with various colours, applying each with a different method, to a different part of my body, always deliberately avoiding the area between my legs. Some highlights include a fan brush that he sweeps with feather-light strokes behind my knees, and then all over my ass, and the base of my spine. I am dripping onto the drop cloth now, and not remotely ashamed of this at all. I am on fire from head to toe, and in my fucked-up state, I am imagining throwing back my head and scorching his ceiling by simply opening my mouth and exhaling.

When my body (except my poor, throbbing pussy) is fairly covered in paint, some of which is caking as it dries, he sets down his tools and stands back to consider his work. I can see that he is rock hard. An idea occurs to him, and he moves towards me.

Slowly, so slowly, and very gently, he draws his fingernails over my belly. He is tracing mysterious patterns over my abdomen, and I feel in this moment like he is marking me. Like he is claiming me in some ancient, primal way. I am panting, I think. I feel like the room is slipping away beneath my feet. He looks at me, all his focus like an arrow, and then he looks directly at my vulva.

“Oh…” he breathes, and then moves away to the corner of the room.

He comes back with the airbrush and just as I begin to formulate what will happen next, a freezing cold, delicate mist of forced air and paint brushes my labia and my breath is entirely gone. He explains that the paint is vegetable based and perfectly safe between short, targeted blasts that eventually find my clit and I cannot help but moan audibly.

Abruptly he stops. He sets aside the airbrush and comes at me with a spray bottle. Moving slowly around me, he mists me from head to toe, softening all of the paint that has begun to dry. When he is satisfied, he tosses the bottle aside.

“Lie down” he commands, and I do as I am told.

He pulls off his t-shirt, and then unbuckles his jeans. Just as I am marveling at the fact that I’ve managed to find yet another man who has sworn off underwear, the heavy thickness of his cock is released and thinking is no longer possible. I am nowhere now, and it is too late to return.

He lies down beside me and frees my hair from the elastic. His mouth covers mine, and the way his breath and the fur of his upper lip mingle near my nostrils makes me writhe in furious anticipation. He wipes the paint from his hand onto the canvas, and then cups my vulva in his palm. My wetness makes him groan, and I can feel his hard cock on my thigh.

“Please…” I manage. “Please…”

Again the low, purring rumble.

He works my clit with his index and middle finger, exactly the way I do, entirely un-coached by me. The magic of the pot takes hold, and I am almost instantly cumming all over his hand. I still can’t explain why this is so much easier when I am stoned, or why once it starts, it happens again and again in waves until I insist on stopping it by begging for mercy, but suffice to say, I’m very selective about who I get stoned with.

He’s between my legs now, and looking at me for permission. I take hold of him, wherever I can, and nod in the affirmative. He enters me slowly, his hot, thick cock filling me completely. He smells ripe, like sweat, and I completely love it.

We fuck like we are possessed. Sometimes I’m on top; sometimes he has me pinned beneath him, holding my arms securely above my head. We are covered in paint, the drop cloth is covered in paint, and our sweat is smearing the colour together into a muddy wash.

I feel him radiating from his belly, deep into mine. I feel like I am above myself watching us couple like animals all over his living room floor. The sounds that escape me are strange in my ears, like they are from somewhere far away, yet they are so familiar, and comforting. They are the thread that keeps me tied to the action unfolding in this room.

I feel him thickening, tensing, growing very hot inside me. He is throbbing and the realization that he is going to cum sets off another orgasm of my own. The low, sweet sounds of his release are deeply comforting, deeply primal, and I instinctually enfold him in my arms when he collapses on top of me.

Eventually there is a slow, hot shower, several jokes about a performance art installation, and a freshly washed round two, but for now I’m very, very glad that I wasn’t run down by that taxi.

Thursday night is for sipping white wine and catching local bands in bars crowded with smiling faces. I have new hair, the air outside is crisp, and the promise of summer is whispered in the scent of the post-rain breeze.

The band tonight is sweet, and equal parts whimsical and melancholic, and as the music fills my heart I remember exactly who I am. I am smiling; effortlessly, abundantly.

My eyes scan the string section on the back riser of the tiny stage. The quiet, gentle bass player is wrapped elegantly around his acoustic instrument, and I’m fixated on his fingers. They are thick, and strong, and deliberate. My first lover played the upright bass.

From my corner of the room, where I sit alone, I am transported back oh so many years to a time where I felt rather like the way I’ve been feeling lately – free. I am unfettered by romantic responsibility, ready to eat up the world, stoic, and poetic, and open.

The world of sexuality had just opened up to me, at my bidding. I’d circled its gate for a long time; tentative, watching. When I met my first lover, I knew I was ready to finally step inside.

He was ugly, but electric with a playful, enthusiastic sexuality. Getting naked and familiar were two of his favourite past times, and he did both as frequently as possible. He had a penchant for the classic porn of the seventies, so when he first saw my small, perky breasts with their rosy, generous nipples he was thrilled. He also insisted I grow out my pubic hair, as his love for bush remains unrivaled to this day.

With him I was comfortable. I never felt pressured, which I’m sure had something to do with the fact that he was having his needs satisfied from so many other sources. When the time came for us to go further, it was completely my doing, and he was careful to be sure I was ready. I was seventeen and he was twenty-four.

He taught me how to cum. Despite endless hours of my own exploratory work, I had not yet arrived in The Promised Land. My very best efforts with the detachable shower head yielded fantastic results, and I thought I had experienced the Big O many times over, until my first lover threw open the shades and showed me an entire world undiscovered, right on my doorstep.

We were in his car, in the parking lot of an empty baseball field, at night. He was stretched lengthwise along the back seat, and he was wrapped around me, behind me, with one arm around my waist. It was warm outside, and I was wearing a skirt, and with one hand he slid my cotton panties to my ankles, which I obligingly untangled from my feet.

His fingers stroked me, tested me for wetness, and when he was satisfied with the results, they slid inside me, slowly. These fingers were thick, and long; like bratwurst. He made sure both his fingers and my pussy were sufficiently basted, and then, as he bit at my neck and shoulders, he pressed his index finger and his middle finger to my clit, and applying pressure, began to rub.

The strength of his fingers is still the closest substitute I’ve found for the delightful pressure of rushing water. He was careful to not repeat the same motion for any significant amount of time. Just as the sensation began to overwhelm me, he would switch back into slowly dipping into my pussy. With his free hand, he had wormed his way into my bra, and was playing non-commitally with my left nipple. The left has always been the more responsive of the two.

Remaining details are fuzzy. I remember enjoying the sensations. I remember him whispering profanity in Italian into my ear. I remember everything starting to get warm, with a heat that seemed to generate from some internal place just below my belly-button. I remember that warmth building into friction, like a tightly clenched fist, which suddenly and miraculously began to clench and unclench in hot, pulsating waves.

I went away. Whatever was happening to my body took me somewhere, and I felt as though I was looking down at myself, and hearing the unbelievable sounds I was making through someone else’s ears.

I credit my first lover with my overwhelming curiosity and enthusiasm. I also credit him for my ability to appreciate both sexes as potential partners. I credit him for my love of thick, circumcised cock, and retro porn. I credit him for my love of Italian, and dirty talk.

And its his fault too that I can’t watch someone play the upright bass without getting just a little bit wet.

I tipped a cabbie five bucks because he saved my life tonight, and because trying to find someone to love is utter shit.

The reflection in the full-length mirror propped against the wall at the foot of my bed is that of a woman, in her thirties, looking pale and drawn. Her face is illuminated by the soft blue glow of her laptop, and to her right the amber light of the side table casts an orange glow around her head.

My cell phone lays mute on the side table; the table with the amber-glowing light. Writing is tricky at this particular moment because my blood is coursing with THC.

The night started out so well. You ordered food, you made me tea, and we sat close on the couch and watched movies, really good movies.  You kissed me beautifully. Finally. Of course now I remember you walking me down the street at the end of our first date, into the shadows to hail me a cab and give me a chaste peck on the lips. I thought you were just a little bit shy…

You showed me into your apartment, and I didn’t think it was at all strange that your bed was actually a mattress in the middle of the living room, and that you didn’t seem to have a bedroom. I didn’t really get the full tour, so I believed you when you said your actual bedroom is under renovations.

You left me alone in the apartment while you ran down the street to pick up your laundry. I made tea. I read your Vegan cookbooks. I smiled at your homemade fruit fly trap.

You came back, flipped over the mattress, and dumped your laundry all over it. I offered to help you fold it.

The food we’d ordered arrived. You abandoned the laundry and set up the movie we had planned to watch. Suddenly I remember you told me you did laundry earlier this week. You must have fallen behind in your chores. Perhaps because of the renos.

The movie was playing, but the DVD menu screen was looping because you had something you needed to tell me before we could eat, or settle in to home theatre mode. In India you met a girl. She lives there, but grew up in Hawaii, and you met her on the last day of your trip because of a family connection. You are communicating long distance, in the interest of getting to know one another, and you are telling me this because you have to be up front about it. You’re not sure how you feel about her yet; whether there is a connection or not. I glanced at my hands, luminous and bluish in the flickering light of the gigantic projection screen. When I asked if your parents are really traditional, you told me they love you and will support you in whatever you decide.

I waited for you to finish your disclosure before I started eating. At this point, we had already split a pot cookie from B.C. that you bought over the internet. You also own a hookah.

My fractured rib begins to throb.

I crunched on the vegan, spelt crust, soy cheese sprinkled pizza. It tastes nothing like pizza, but I thought it tasted good because I’m convinced it’s the healthier choice.  You have a vast array of herbal teas and you practice yoga. You must know how to make healthy choices.

We watched the movie, which was awesome. So awesome in fact, that I decided you too must be awesome because you seemed to be affected by the same moments that affected me. I even cried a little at the end. I felt very cozy, and at home, but a little bit sorry that I wore such a short skirt because I can’t tell if you’re snuggling me, or trying to get a look at my crotch. The knee socks, it would seem, were a really bad move.

After the movie we watched the surprise ending. I convinced myself that it was inserted as a measuring aide to determine how stoned your date currently is. I think I failed. Or passed. It’s hard to say which.

We watched the deleted scenes, and lamented the poor sod that had his clever scene edited from the final cut.

We got “super nerdy” and began to watch the commentary. Asking a chick if she wants to watch DVD commentary must be a measuring aide to determine how badly she wants you to try to get into her pants.  If she agrees, it’s because she could care less about the commentary, but would like the background noise while you fondle her. I failed this one, for sure.

You kissed me. It was ridiculously delicious. I knew it was over for me. We started making out, our tongues tasting like homemade ginger beer (because whatever else would you drink with vegan spelt pizza?) You did this amazing thing to my neck and jaw with your mouth. I felt like you were testing me for ripeness.

You ran your hands up my stomach. I hate my stomach and it always kind of freaks me out when people touch it. You seemed to like it though, really.

You slid my sweater down over my shoulders, and you undid my bra. You slid down the cup of my French lingerie (the first to have seen it since I brought it from Paris, I was saving it for someone special…) and you lapped at my nipple.

The special features were now over. At my request, you slid in that unbelievable nature series shot with amazing technique. By some twist of fate, we end up in the midst of a scene describing the mating patterns of various mammals. The creatures are huge on the giant screen looming over us. We resumed our making out, with a soundtrack of rutting creatures in the background, in surround sound.

You saw how much I like this. You grew enthusiastic. You made lovely sounds, and when you looked at me, I knew I was melting. I loved the way you kiss. I miss the other brown boy’s hair for one second because it felt like silk, while yours seems coarse and wiry. Soon your lips were pressed against my underwear and I could feel your hot breath on my pussy. You came back up to look at me.

“What do you want me to do?” You whispered in my ear.

“Mmmm…” I managed.

“Tell me.” You said.

“I want you to eat me.”

“Say it again.”

“I want you to eat my pussy. Please.”

You smiled and made a very throaty purr. You lingered over my breasts again, and began to nip at them, and lick at my nipples with your tongue. You stopped. You looked at me.

“You are an ancient soul.”

My breath catches. This is the moment that psychic in Peterborough two years ago was talking about.

“You are an ancient soul.”

“You think so?” I whispered, unable to swallow.

“I know so.” You were looking deep, deep into my eyes, then you kissed me again.

You worked your way down my belly, sliding my skirt up over my hips. You buried your face in my crotch. You were teasing me. When I began to get into it, you stopped and nipped your way up my thigh. I knew I was going to have bruises the next day, and that makes me even more excited. You stopped just when it started to really hurt, and returned to my pussy, gently. I started to feel like I was going to come. I started to come. Just as the cart tipped down the hill, you stopped abruptly.

I thought it was a game. I looked at you, stunned, then began to pout.

You slid back quickly and shoved my knees together. It didn’t occur to me that your roommate was coming home until you hissed “QUICK”. Thankfully I could grab the blanket and toss it over me. I’m not sure if I was fast enough.

I knew you lived with a woman. In my mind, she was older and well, more, um less…older.

She looked eighteen, this Sam. Gamine, petite, sexy brown girl with close-cropped hair and kohl rimmed eyes like almonds. She had a burly boy in tow. They brought you the take out fries I heard you order on the phone. Two hours ago. You introduced us. She was very relaxed.

I realized “You’re an ancient soul” must have actually been “My roommate’s coming home.” Something deep, deep down inside me crumpled and the air that once made it buoyant hissed away in surround sound, like the animals still rutting in the background.

You head with them to the other room and I try to hike down my skirt, and fasten my bra smoothly.

We were alone again.  Under the blanket together. Soon your hand was stroking my crotch. You whispered “do you want me to put my fingers in your pussy?”

“Yes” I murmured.

“Tell me.” You said, and you looked up at me with those eyes. Those ridiculously huge eyes.

“Please put your fingers in my pussy.”

And you did. And I came. Again. I reached for you as I came, quietly, and you put my hand on your hard cock. I could feel that it’s my favourite kind. Thick, not too long, nice round head. I started to unbuckle you, but you stopped me. You unzipped instead, and guided my hand to the hole. Stretched taught over your dick were your silky boxers. I couldn’t find the hole, but that seemed to be just fine. I realized you like the way the fabric feels on your rod, so I started to pinch the head, rhythmically. You shivered. I started to cum again, and in walked the roommate.

“This dessert is the bomb.” She was eating something orange and sticky looking from a take out carton. “Lee made it tonight, he’s like a total genius.”

She gave you some, and then offered some to me. I took it and said thank you, and put it in my mouth looking her straight in the eye. She looks like a pixie. You told her how “subtle” the flavour of the dessert was. I’m not sure how that’s possible, since the portion in your mouth, and the portion in the tray that you just stuck your fingers into now tasted like my snatch.

I started to wonder if I should go.

You asked me if I was close to coming, and I told you I came three times. You seemed surprised. I asked you if I should go. You seem disappointed. I tell you I have to get up for work. Then my gut took over.

“You can come with me.” I said.

You looked at me. Then you said:  “But you have to get up early tomorrow.”

It was suddenly a Meisner class. You were repeating, verbatim, everything I said.

“I have to get up at nine. It’s not that early.”

“It’s early for me.”

“You don’t have to come.”

You looked at me.

“I want to. I can’t tomorrow, I have an early thing on Sunday.”

“You can come another time.”

“No. I’m coming now.”

I went to the bathroom. I actually did have to pee, but I also knew that this is what I was supposed to do in this moment. Vacate the room. When I returned, I sat beside you.

“I have an early morning now too. I have a photo shoot for ten. Why don’t we say Monday or Tuesday?” you said.

Of course.

“Ok.” I nodded.

“I need my shoes.” I added, quietly.

As I put on my boots the roommate returned to pick out a movie to all watch together. Two more large men arrived. They all looked Jamaican. I don’t know if that’s relevant, but in my post-orgasmic, pot-induced state it seemed to be.

You told me quietly that you’d walk me to the hall.

I said goodnight to everyone. I was polite, even if I did just come all over the couch they were about to sit on.

In the hall, you whispered to me:

“The first time I stay over, I want us to linger in the morning, and go and get brunch when we wake up, with nowhere to rush to.”

I zipped up my coat.

“Why are you sleeping in the living room?” I asked.

You explained that you had to finish setting up. You say “My room will be set up soon.” Very pointedly, I think.

“What, exactly IS your living situation.” I asked

I suddenly realized I sounded like the jealous female. I’m not. I just don’t want to be lied to anymore.

“Oh no, it’s absolutely not that. I’ve known her since she was twelve. I know her family. She’s like my sister.”

“Ok.”

I said “How old is she now?”

“She’s 22.” You said.

You’re 36. I think… I’ve never been good at math.

“Ok, well. You’re welcome to come to the party tomorrow.” I offered.

You mentioned again the early day for you Sunday.

I felt like a whore.

I said “talk to you soon?” with a pathetic inflection. It felt like a limp handshake.

You asked me if I was ok.

“Yeh. Totally.”

I walked  halfway down your street.

I tried to hail a cab. It passed me. The light was on, and it practically hits me in the street. It pulled up to another cab. Its light was off. The driver said something to the other cabbie. That cabbie slid up to me and offered me a ride.

The cabbie spoke practically no English, but he had a GPS system. I told him my address. Unfortunately, my street is one of many in my immediate vicinity with the word “Indian” in it. He programmed the wrong Indian into the GPS. I predicted an evening completely over-run by getting lost, searching for the right Indian. It’s a theme.

I was pissed, and stoned, and freaking out a little. The driver turned before he’s supposed to, and I corrected him sternly. My gut tells me he’s nervous, and feeling a bit overwhelmed by his current job situation. I think about the kind of life he may have left behind; the very real likelihood that he has several degrees, and can speak multiple languages. I softened.

My stoned imagination concocts a story about him deliberately trying to take me the wrong way, because he plans to kill me. When I soften, and then react to him with kindness, he is moved and changes his plans, depositing me gently on my doorstep while his gleaming machete continues to wait in the trunk.

I’m grateful for his change of heart, and sympathetic to the loneliness and emptiness he feels in this new land. He’s well versed, and over qualified, but the language is rusty, so he must rely on a semi-accurate device to guide him. Every now and then, I’d like to hack someone to pieces too.

I tipped him five bucks for saving my life, and I hoped he’d use it to buy decent coffee and maybe something decidedly unhealthy to snack on later, when it gets more difficult to stay awake.