I am... sore.

I think I say that fairly often. Sore, exhausted, tired, babbling.

615AM, Saturday morning, GV8 texted me. Essentially ordering me to be home (his home) before 2AM, after clubbing. Beautifully hot. Hotly beautiful, even.

I spent the day, oddly enough, squiring around aforementioned navy man who has taken up residence in the room across the hall from mine. He... he's got game. Natural game. I fell completely into my usual masculine dandy role when I deal with such men and trucked him around town on my errands so he could learn the lay of the land, while we talked sex and pick-up. Teaching him terms, offering suggestions, pointing out places to go to pick up girls.

I think I might need a new hobby.

Dressed up for the club for once. Vaguely Catholic school girl. Ended up, pre-club, being serenaded by a songwriter I met while walking across Wilshire. Apparently a successful one. I don't listen to R&B, so I wouldn't really know.

But, once more, getting to the club, my apathy took hold. In a new way, though. I just couldn't bring myself to care about the opinions of the people around me, so I ended up acting my usual self with a bit of social dancing, made several new friends and a yummy, yummy man was among them, which led to lips and hips locked on the dancefloor.

Great face, great body, great style.

Good times.

Left him, though, for GV8. He snagged my number from another girl though, so texting has been happening. I've yet to return, but I will. I'm not rude, just busy.

My apathy did lead me to try something new.

Was introduced to a rather attractive rocker, shook his hand, stared at him a little bit, then smiled, apologized for staring so much, but he really reminded me of my dad.

Which wasn't actually that true. But his expression was priceless. I've decided that is going to be something I'm going to have to do often. He spent the rest of the evening just... shocked. Hysterical.

Sunday, hit Amoeba, Groundworks, Borders, the farmer's market on... Ivar? Picked up some orange honey for some oral work with GV8. Snagged lunch with a friend of mine, a retired model/dominatrix. She pointed me in the direction of a kink-friendly psychologist in my area, so I'm thinking of visiting her to deal with reconciling my submission issues and working on reframing and/or accepting GV8's need for a sexually open relationship. My friend is also buying me pole-dancing lessons for Christmas. She says it's an amazing workout and she wants a workout partner.

So we'll see how that goes. I've never had any strong urge to learn how to work the pole, but it sounds like something fun to learn.

Spent the rest of the afternoon working on school stuff and cleaning GV8's apartment. He broke part of the bedframe, I can only assume with someone else, so I pulled that up and got him to put in a replacement board so the bed would stop dipping.

Note: that man has a lot of socks. Jeez.

We went out, afterwards, to see the Hollywood Christmas parade, stood on Vine, making out, watching the show, trying to identify B-list celebs, checking out the cheerleaders. The best moment of that parade, though, was when a homeless guy in a wheelchair decided to get on the parade route and do it backwards, very fast, being followed by cops who weren't sure what to do, cheers errupting for him. It was fantastic.

...I wish I could remember the name of the restaurant we went to. It was amazing. The atmosphere was so like what I imagine a speakeasy to be. Food was great, live music was great, so mellow. Sitting on red velvet couches, reclining into GV8's chest, feeding each other bites of our meals, talking about life, about trust, about love.

Started talking about Darkeyes, the damage that was done to my ability to trust and fully submit... it was surprising. He actually seemed to get a little angry about what Darkeyes did. My mellow, mellow man, angry. Amazing.

It was a really good night.

Walked down Sunset Blvd, undergoing the post-parade clean-up. It was closed, so I took a few shots of it looking like the apocalypse happened. No people, no cars. Crazy.

Back to the apartment, more rubbing, made use of the honey, orgasmed like crazy due to his tongue.

It's rare for me to orgasm with my partners. I don't know if I've mentioned that before. It's not something that really bothers me, though it occasionally bothers the men I sleep with. I simply don't care. I can get myself off, so sex, for me, is more about being with the other person and experiencing them, their body, their pleasure, than looking for my own.

Not that I mind having a good orgasm with my partner.

Just isn't a goal.

But... he let me go down on him. He hasn't since the split. It's been a no-cock-zone.

Which was then turned into a no-sex-zone.

But, this morning, we had sex. And I'm not quite sure what that means.

Everything he does, everything he does, has a purpose. I don't know if I unlocked the key to his pants when I told him I wasn't going to push the sex issue because I respected his decision, or what.

It was so nice, being with him this morning.

Laying in bed with him last night, his arms wrapped so tightly around me, telling me that he loved me.

But that doesn't mean that he'll stay. He still doesn't know if we're going to be good long-term. Still doesn't know if he wants to be with me.

...however, plans for next weekend have been made. And I'm staying with him again tonight.

Anyone else, I'd say he's just using me for the sex, until I wise up and go. But he can get sex from several different sources, simply by picking up his phone. He has ass on tap. And, as cliche as this sounds, he's not like that. He doesn't use.

A man with integrity.

Who knew that I'd find one of those?

And not just one that talks about it. He doesn't. He just has it. In spades.

It feels oddly ridiculous to me. To say, "This one is different, this one isn't like all the others."

Especially with his background.

Sounds stupid and naive.

But I'm not worried. I've been exposed to enough men in a variety of ways to look past the words, to piece together the actions, the ideas, the movements.

He's next to perfect.

For me.

I'm in love.

He likely won't keep me.

But, gods, do I hope he does.

I can't imagine, can't even create a fantasy, of a better man to spend my life pleasing, serving, loving.

My parents have faux-rented the guest room to a young Navy man who is working security somewhere up the way while waiting to be called back... to duty? I've never been in the military or really dated a military man, so I'm not sure what they call these things. But I hear he's a bit tatted up and attractive, so the next few months could be amusing.

No, not in that way.

Just the standard, "there's a hot man running around in a towel upstairs" way.

It doesn't feel like Friday to me. It feels like it should be Sunday, with how drained I am and how much has gone on since Wednesday.

I've been reading a decent amount of poetry. Derrick Brown and Mindy Nettifee. They're amazing. I saw them perform a few weeks ago alongside another favorite of mine, Buddy Wakefield. So good.

On Wednesday, after we talked, GV8 had to take one of his friends to the airport, which is when I posted about what had been going on, from his computer.

I popped his laundry into the washer and walked up the street until I spotted a sushi place that seemed like it could be decent.

The food was excellent, presentation was amazing, and, apparently, the sushi chef liked how enthused I was about his raw fish artwork that he sent over a special plate of various types of sashimi on the house.

It was... really good. I hadn't really been able to eat earlier that day, I think I had an orange and half a sandwich (which caused nausea), so by the time I was able to sit down to dinner, it was passing 7PM and my body was wrecked by the parade of emotions I was putting it through.

I sat there, eating amazing sushi, a non-rice roll I had never tried before, reading Nettifee's Sleepyhead Assassins... not quite unwinding, but relaxing as much as I could. Her words, her imagery, they're so soothing to me. I'm going to be posting my favorite verses from my favorite poems in here sometime soon.

Walked back to the apartment and moved the laundry into the dryer. He came back just as I was going downstairs to get the dry laundry, I saw the loft was open and lit, so I wandered in.

We talked while I put his laundry away, then he showered, and went to bed still wearing his briefs. There was a no-naked-time rule being enforced. I showered, then slid into my customary tight black wifebeater and black and white striped underwear.

Curled up in bed beside him after massaging his calves and arms for an hour or two, and he pulled me deep into his chest, both arms around me, spooning.

I could have laid that way for hours.

I matched my breathing to his, the unsteady rhythm, just a little off each time, feeling us rise and fall as a unit.

Around 130AM, a noise sounded outside. Fearing someone was trying to break into the loft, he got up quickly, went used the restroom, and dressed. A hoodie. I didn't think about it. I know I should worry somewhat, and I did, but something that that man does very well is take care of himself, no matter what.

False alarm.

We woke early in the morning, Thanksgiving.

I don't remember what we talked about, though I'm sure we cuddled and kissed, but he suddenly rose and told me he had a challenge for me.

A challenge?

He said he was going to take a shower, and when he got out, he wanted me to please him in whatever way I felt possible and necessary, for as long as I felt was necessary, without ever touching his cock. He wanted to see if I could do it, what I would do, without his prompt. He said I was sexually proficient, but he was concerned that I did not know how to please him without sex.

Which... sounds odd, I suppose, without the backstory.

I've had a hard time showing him affection on more than a physical level. Not just sexual, mind you, but also platonic physical contact. I'm comfortable, so comfortable with touching and pleasing. I'm confident in what I do and that the men I sleep with want me to do the things I wish to do. There's no smothering in sex, especially if you're pleasing someone. I worry about smothering. I worry about coming off too clingy, too dependent, too submissive, as I mentioned early.

So I show love, I show care, through my body.

Which meant I never felt really comfortable doing anything special for him that wasn't in the bedroom.

And, really, there's not a good deal of things that are one-on-one that I haven't already done, as long as you toss male submission out, and any of the wilder, less hygenic fetishes.

So there's only so much "special" to be had on a pure activity level.

He felt I wasn't understanding him because of this. Because he's so dominant and wants that person serving him and I, I was so trying to restrain that part of my nature, which meant we entered into this situation where I was only focusing on the sex.

Which most men would enjoy.

But then there's that "more".

He finished his shower, got out, dried, suggested music (which made me feel like a moron because I should've thought of that on my own), so I went out to my car and got my copy of The American Dollar's "A Memory Stream". Fantastic album.

I started at the feet. To the calves, to the thighs, to the ass, flip over, the muscle the runs along the side of the shins, top of the thighs, head every so often laying on his stomach, kissing each part as I finished the rub, moving to the hands, the forearms, the biceps, flip over, to the waist, the back, the shoulders, the neck, his entire body coated in oil.

Two and a half, three hours.

My arm is still sore, it hurts to text, and I'm not even going to attempt to pick up any sort of writing implement.

Tongue sliding up from the lowest part of the back to the top of the neck, my body following. Back down, rimming. So many people shy away from it, and I understand, but it is an amazing, amazing, amazing sensation. I won't do it for most people, though, and I won't do it for that long.

Back to the feet, my foot fetishest. He loves it. Nuzzles, licking, suckling, nipping at the smooth calluses. Fingers, palms, ears, lips, rolling hips. Another hour or two, I work over his body with my hands and mouth, making sure to seek out the backsides of joints, the places that so few people touch that are extra-sensitive.

By 1PM, we're both naked, reclining opposite each other. He loves to watch me masturbate. His feet stray near and, for once, I don't shy away. I carefully let my toes stroke his balls, he orgasms twice.

With all of that, there's still the no sex rule.

I think it's a combination of him knowing that we can't keep it "just sex", that it always ends up becoming more, connecting us more, and a sentiment we both expressed at the split, that if we were to attempt to take a few steps back to just having sex occasionally, it would be a massively letdown from the intimate lovemaking we enaged in, that it would feel too wrong, too awkward.

And he doesn't know where we're going.

Later that night, Playboy texted me. Wants to come down next weekend. Then Pseudonym Pending, though I slept through that, then Restaurant Retard (I need to come up with a better nickname than that if he ends up recurring) the next day.

I suppose I should be glad of myself, that I've not had a guy I wanted regularly just one-night me in some time. Even Mr. Brush-off was up for more, and I would've been okay with that if he had not had a "it's complicated" girlfriend pop up.

GV8 has texted me a few times since that morning, talking about scheduling, the dessert I got for him, his hopefully upcoming vasectomy. I'm trying not to worry about it.

Forced myself to go out, grab dinner, see a movie, then meet up with some friends.

I forgot how much I keep to myself, socially. I could go out, and I do, but more often than not, I just keep to myself, hole up with a book in a coffee shop and people watch, not really wanting or needing to interact with anyone.

Wandering around, looking at the Christmas displays in stores, eating on a patio to watch the people bundled up in their California winter-wear walking by, listening to the Christmas carols being pumped into the air.

It's a weird experience, from March to now. March through, at least, May, was a non-stop exercise in awful for me. Out every night. Social obligations through the roof. No alone time. Three months without a night to myself. I'm surprised I did not go insane and flee the country. At least now I get weekends, if I force it.

I'm fairly sure I'm going clubbing tomorrow. I think it will be good for me to get out and move, work more on trying to get into the moment instead of thinking non-stop about everything but what I'm doing. Let go that vaunted control and trust in myself.

We'll see. It's 130 in the morning and I'm hitting that babbling stage. I should hire someone to write a CliffNotes version of every post and put it at the top so people have this mad wave of text flooding their monitor.

Oh well.

Tomorrow will be another day to see what I can do with this life. Let's see what happens.

Just dance...

Sometimes I feel like I post too much.

But that's the way it goes.

Anxious.

Which is, of course, nothing new. Just something I have to swallow down and keep the manifestations in my actions controlled.

Hard to do when a sexy manbeast is texting you wondering if you're free tonight.

And you end up sending back something along the lines of, "Yeah... maybe Sunday. I'll let you know. Can't be all marked up."

I want to say I know GV8 wouldn't care.

And he wouldn't... care. That I was out frolicking on a night he is off being busy working on the club.

If things were smooth.

Which, as has been noted, things are the least smooth they've been.

It's intent. It's how I spend my time. It's showing him what is important to me.

So I turned him down. And will likely turn him down again on Sunday, unless GV8 texts me to tell me that we are a no-go. And then that man will be my angry, objectifying sex.

Which he's good at.

So it works out.

GV8 is... busy all weekend. Construction. Bad timing on my part, I suppose. So I'm going to be sitting here, twiddling my thumbs, waiting for the week to begin. A paper to write, a movie to watch (for class), and then a essay summary to produce.

Not too bad. Easily distracted when emotions run high, though. Brings down the quality of my work.

Saturday, I'm thinking of going clubbing. I'm a bit on the fence, because my body is so exhausted from the stress of the last few days, I really don't want to push it with my heart.

But... I left my pants in Silverlake two weeks ago. And the friend that I left them with is also going to the club. So that'll save me a trip.

Mmm, contentless post where I gather my thoughts and do nothing of a productive nature.

I'm shakey, to be honest. Worried about the whiplash of rejection, a rejection that I feel is imminent. I can't let my hopes get up that he'd actually have me back, and I can't really imagine him doing so.

Who would have thought I'd be this shaken up over a guy?

C is shocked, I'll tell you that. She's so used to me charging over and through, twisting through the men, with mild impacts occuring that, on the surface, do nothing, and are swallowed down into the back of my brain.

And yet I sit here, moping. Wondering. Waiting. Pacing.

Distance is created with time and duties. All I can do is hope. There's no prayer in my life.

And what does prayer accomplish, anyhow? It's a meditation, a rationalization for how things turn out. It allows that faith in a higher, controlling power, remove the anxiety of one's own lack of control. That it will be okay, to quoth Lady Gaga.

I can't believe I just did that. So lame.

It's nearing 6PM. I've knocked my weekend free, once more, from social constraints. Easier to do without a steady partner in my life, though that isn't always a good thing.

I'm afraid of what GV8 is going to do. How much this is going to hurt.

But I'm going to have to take it. I'm going to have to be brave and open myself up, knowing that it's more than likely he's going to shut me down.

And I'll survive.

Wounded for a time, but... but what? Something trite that I keep telling myself? Wounds happen? Right. Wounded, but I'll heal? Scar tissue or fractures? Solidifying into a mass. Internal cancer?

I'll be wounded, and time will continue to move on. I will do the best I can, because there is no going back. I can't stay in one moment forever, I can't mope or wallow my seasons away. Time will continue rushing and it is my decision to heal myself or to cauterize those wounds that men make. I am in control of how I handle this. I've been here before, in other ways.

Whatever happens, I will trust that I will take care of it. I will trust that my support network is strong enough to hold me when I plunge down, and that I'm strong enough to control the fall.

I will, ultimately, be in control of how I handle myself. We all walk around with shiny scars or oozing wounds. We medicate ourselves in different ways.

I need to be okay with this.

I need to be okay with him leaving me like I left him.

I need to trust and love myself.

Faith.

In a week or two, I will be walking wounded.

My mother tells me that "these things will pass".

Because that's what time does. It heals wounds, enables us to forget the immediacy of the emotion.

But the emotions aren't ripples, fading away into nothingness. They get stored within us, impacting other ripples, changing the shape of the water's surface.

I've just dropped a rock into my pond.

I heaved it over my head and slammed it down. I've always been so good at shocking the system, making waves. Emotions slosh over my edges, bleeding out into my interactions, driving needs.

What is to say that I should not take up one of the offers for sexual companionship this weekend? GV8 would never know.

But that is a weakness of mine. It's how I de-stress. I read, I watch movies, I cuddle, I fuck, I dance. That's how I de-stress. When I'm angry, I walk, I run. Pound it out of my system with rapid heartbeats.

It's not always healthy, though. Not always good.

And it's so easy to turn to. Options, they are available.

But I need to get a handle on it. I need another way of relieving stress, another source of comfort. I have them, I need to explore them.

I need to keep sane this weekend. I need to keep healthy and happy (as much as I can) and do what needs to be done. Prioritize.

And next week, I'll see GV8. The axe will likely fall, but I know that.

At least I tried. At least I did what I've never been able to do before.

I'll just hold still and let him swing, for a clean cut.

Wish I could shut my playboy mouth...

I.... am wiped. Emotional exhaustion translated into physical exhaustion, muscles still sore from being held tense to the point of tiny vibrations for all my waking hours since Wednesday morning.

Now it's Friday.

I've been in the office since 745AM. Plugging away.

GV8... I don't know. I have no idea what is going on. Trying to be okay with that. Trying to steel myself for the phone call telling me that this is not going to work out.

Panic flooding my body, waves of anxiety battering my brain, trying to communicate to him in a calm, coherent fashion.

Never able to articulate exactly what I was trying to tell him.

That we were never able to keep it only physical.

That every time we tried to back off, tried to keep it distant and monitored, we'd keep coming back, keep on that path into love, into emotional involvement.

I've never done that with a lover before. I'm too good at the withdrawal game. Too good at my checks and balances to ever get caught like that.

And, with his 400+ sex-partner/two serious relationships ever track record, I think it's safe to say that it doesn't happen often to him either.

It means something.

It's so rare.

I don't know what he's doing today. I don't know if I will see him again, though I hope I will. I've packed a bag for the weekend on the off chance that he might want to see me. Of course, I usually have a bag packed for the weekend for "just in case" adventures.

Things were... really hard on Wednesday. My system, as I mentioned, has not yet recovered, and food consumption is... risky. I'm not exactly unable to keep it down, but eating is rather unpleasant.

And, as you all can probably tell, my coherency and writing ability have hit all-time lows. Fractured, disjointed sentences, repetitive words, generic crap, I just can't think right now.

I bought him dessert from the restaurant my family went to for Thanksgiving. I stole a fork (which I, sadly enough, feel guilty about) because he hasn't gotten his silverware unpacked, drove to the apartment, put it in the fridge, tied the fork into the knot of the bag, left my copy of Richard Lange's This Wicked World on his bed, and a note on his computer letting him know there was something in the fridge for him. And that I stole a fork and he's corrupting me with his criminal ways.

Anxious about what the future will bring, my control-freak nature attempting to be leashed because there is absolutely nothing more I can do but wait.

Proud of myself for finally facing that fear, that fear that has kept me so in line since... who knows how long? I felt like I took a sledgehammer to the wall I have erected inside myself and a tiny brick fell out.

But it was the hefting of the hammer that meant the most.

Afraid that, if he rejects my suit like I think he will, that my fears will solidify even further, and I will have to fight myself from withdrawing even farther from future men in my life.

Wondering how badly it will devestate me.

And what I will have to do to keep that tiny hole in my wall from being filled again with the schrapnel from the fall-out.

Feels like I've laid tiny emotional grenades in myself, waiting for the footsteps to track over them.

I'm going to call him on my lunch break and see if he wants to see me tonight.

And try to deal with it when he likely says no.

But I'm going to keep putting myself out there until he says no. No matter how afraid it makes me, I'm going to do this.

I will face this.

I will not let this wreck me.

I will not let my fears control me.

I will become more than this.

I will learn to love with my whole heart again.

I'm at GV8's place.

Rather, the apartment he got for me... before our first split, that now is his primary place of residence.

We spent almost three hours last night talking, trying to sort out where we were, where he thought I was. Completely over him. Done with. Moved on.

How hurt he was that I bolted, left him with a bare minimum of explanation, then never bothered to talk to him about it again.

My fear, my overwhelming fear that jumpstarted my system and caused my mad dash.

And how I wanted him in my life again.

He's not sure.

Which is... good. He's undecided, on the fence, unable to make up his mind, with convincing arguments for and against.

And I know it is likely that he will not take me back. I left him. I walked out on him. I'm a muddle of damage that I've not yet fixed. I admit this, I've told him this.

But I took a step.

At work this morning, I realized I needed to see him, needed to talk to him, needed to show him how I felt.

For the first time in my adult life, I chased a man. I lowered myself to that position, showed my belly, and launched myself at him.

Which is why I left work several hours early, saying it was a family emergency. And drove up to Hollywood, let myself into the loft-soon-to-be-club, to find one of his employees doing construction without him. I ended up, after his employee left, sitting outside of the apartment building, back against a brick wall, reading, looking up at every car that passed, wondering why he had not returned my call or my two texts (his phone died).

And then he showed up.

Surprised.

Kissing and holding and me failing not to cry.

We talked. And I took another step, another confrontation of my fears, and told him that I loved him.

Because I do.

Because he deserves to hear it. He deserves that much, whether or not we get back together, he deserves to know that he did get to me, even with my attempts at detachment, that I did love him, did care for him. And I did not need to hear it in return. I did not expect it to change his mind, I was not looking for an answer that he has yet to give me.

I needed to breach that wall in myself. Admitting vunerability, risking rejection, showing up unannounced and uninvited, and then opening all those walls that I've learned to maintain around men, especially those I care for the most.

I need to accept that, probably Friday, he'll tell me that he's not willing to invest the time and emotion into me. That the six months we were together where I did my damnedest not to show how much I cared because too often in my life my submissive nature has caused my partners to view me as a doormat and hold against me how I was a strong, independent woman until I gave into them, until I allowed that submission. The disrespect that accompanied that. The accusations of, essentially, false advertising, even though they were sexually dominant males.

I leapt.

I'm frightened.

But I did it. I fucking did something that I've never had the courage to do before. I put myself on the line. I offered him me, and was willing, am willing, to deal with his likely rejection.

Because I needed to do it. For me and for him. Because he's the most amazing man I've ever met, not just dated, but came in any sort of contact with. A supposed one-night stand into a realization that we, we could fit each other. We do fit each other.

My fears hold me back so much, from doing all the things I want to do for him. Worried, fearful, that he'll see me as weak, that he'll look down on my need to please and serve the man I am with. Groundless fear, in his case.

I'm damaged. I let my damage possible ruin our relationship. I let fear drive me without even attempting to restrain it. I disrespected him, showed a lack of faith, a lack of trust in him and our relationship. I'm going to do my best to fix it.

It's likely I'll end up hurt, bawling my eyes out, soon. Alone, rejected by the one man I've met that fits me better than I ever dreamed of.

But I was willing. I was able to do this. I spent all day in panic mode, my body basically rejecting all food, trying to bolt, shaking all over, with stressful chest pains, and I fought it, I stabilized, I did what I needed to do and I did not let self-doubt provoked by fear dissuade me from my course of action.

I'm getting better. I'm so rarely proud of myself, and maybe I'll take this back when he turns me down, but I am so damned proud of myself for doing this. Conquering this.

This makes me love myself. In a way I never felt before.



Progress.

We might be getting back together.

...we might be getting back together.



But then, we might not.

Afraid either way.


More later.



Wish me luck.

Another fine moment in the life of V...

Hiding in the bathroom at work and crying over a guy.

Office Bathroom, City of Emo-Ville
Population: V

Last week, two very unrelated people stopped and asked me why I chase pain.

I stopped and thought about this for a bit, then came to the conclusion that pain is something I feel comfortable with. You get used to being hurt, you expect getting hurt, so you hurt yourself before others can hurt you.

Logicalish? On an emotional survival level yes. It's control. It's not as bad because you are doing it on your own.

So I settled on that conclusion.

A few days passed.

Friday came, and I wanted to wait out the Friday-night-in-LA traffic, so I decided to go see a movie. Checked out the various theaters around, then came back to An Education. Wasn't really sure what it was about, but I kept hearing wonderful reviews.

So I opened the synopsis to see it was about a younger woman, heading for college, seduced by an older man. Criminal type.

My heart stuttered.

Was this me? Would this cause me pain? Did I really want to do this?

I deliberated for a few hours, while winding things down at the office, before deciding that I probably would. Drove to the theater, just a few miles from the office, and as I was parking, my anxiety reaching a mild pitch, I thought to myself:

Why am I anxious?
I am afraid.
What am I afraid of?
The emotions that this movie could invoke in me. What it could make me feel.

I turned off the engine and got out of the car.

The emotions that I have, the regret, the longing, the feelings of fear that I may never meet another man as wellmatched for me as he was, that incredible fear that he, he was it. That I would spend the rest of my life wondering. That the female lead in the movie, in the end, might choose the man over her boring life, and live happily ever after, and that it would make me cry. Again.

Things that make me (or have made me) cry, on an entertainment level:
-The ending of Swing Kids
-When Mufasa dies in The Lion King
-Two particular scenes in the musical: Wicked
-The Disney version of Old Yeller
-The end of Sweet November
-Batteries Not Included, when the little one dies
-The acoustic version of Stabbing Westward's Waking Up Beside You
-Rawl's novel, Where the Red Fern Grows

I cry like a little bitch. Totally do.

Anyhow, that was a massive derailing.

I was afraid of the movie, I was afraid of the ending.
I've been hesistating going up to certain areas of Hollywood because I don't want to deal with the memories.

It hurts.

But I realized it was fear, fear of emotion, fear of pain.

Pain happens. None of us dodge it.

And those emotions, the ones I'm so good at supressing, are still there. They will still come out, when stimulated, no matter what I do, no matter how much I convince myself that it was for the best, or that he wasn't that great, or just to forget the way he made me feel.

It reminded me of why I chase pain.

Because life hurts.

Because I've been plagued with anxiety my entire life and I've let it impact me so much, so damn much. Which means any new situation, any new place, is going to trigger a mild to major flight-or-fight response in me.

And it is my job to recognize it, to not run, but to encounter and address.

And it is my job to determine whether a situation is truly hazardous, or if it is simply the anxiety triggering the adrenaline.

My body, my chemicals, fight me living the life I want.

So I know that things will hurt me. I know I will step into situations where I cannot tell if my instincts are speaking to me or just another imbalance. And I'm going to do it anyway.

Because I have to learn. Because I have to know how to survive. Because things are going to hurt unless I burrow up in my room, and even then loneliness can find me.

I live and chase pain, I chase awkward, I chase my anxieties down streets until I find them and dispell them or trip and crash into the pavement.

That's what I have to do.

Otherwise, I wouldn't do anything.

Blank screen.

Sitting on my bed, black sheets.

I bought this bed when Darkeyes and I broke up. We broke up at night, slept in the same bed, the next day I popped on Craigslist and found a new queen-sized pillow-top mattress and box spring for $350. Drove up to Beverly Hills with a friend and loaded it into her truck.

The two of us struggled up to my third floor apartment, with the multiple switchbacks on the stairs, and I dropped it in my new room.

The dresser to my right is from my grandmother's house. Cedar, or something resembling it. They kept it in one of their guestrooms, the one intended for her wheelchair-bound mother, they designed that whole back half of the house for her visits. Handicapped toilet, shower they could put a chair into.

Matching lamps, art-deco, industrial-looking desk, $900 office chair, all for free from a friend that was moving back to Detroit.

Bookcase, bought by Darkeyes to hold my mounds of books after a fight with my father that involved me rapidly needed to have a storage space for them. It was one of four that was carted from my parents' house to Burbank, where the back went flying off on the freeway and my best friend stopped traffic to get it, running across the cement.

Glass-fronted cabinet, from my mother's mother. She collected seashells and displayed them in this cabinet in her condo in the Valley. She later lost her marbles to age and had to be put in a mental facility for like-minded seniors.

A white dresser, another from my father's mother's house. Belonged in the guestroom that was built for my father's sister, who killed herself a few months ago. Gun to the head.

Wooden filecabinet and matching bookcase, from my father's father. Died when I was 13. Multiple strokes, diabetes, I remember kicking my family out of the hospital, telling them to get food and get out of that place for a few hours. I remember feeding him vegetables, him not recognizing me. I remember when he did recognize us, look at the plastic band encircling his wrist, realizing his life was over, even if he wasn't dead.

The majority of my furniture comes from the dead, it seems.

Two of the blankets on my bed are from my father's parents. One was on the couch in my grandfather's office. An atrocious, uncomfortable thing. Brown and orange knit monstrosity. I love it. The other, a red and black plaid that was kept in my grandmother's trunk, we'd curl up in the backseat of her car under it when it got chilly. I remember looking at Christmas lights, driving around her neighborhood, under that blanket, but that memory could be constructed.

I spent last night with Pseudonym Pending.

The poor guy was exhausted and stressed as hell. I walked into his living room, saw him sprawled across the couch, and was amazed he was still awake.

We were planning on having a night of frisky frolic, but he wasn't up for it. Understandable. He was going to cut out on me, but I don't keep lovers for the sex, I keep lovers for the contact, the humanity, and to help me keep my mind off the crater that becomes so defined in winter.

I needed that touch. I needed the skin to skin.

I did not need the sex.

An Entourage marathon was on. I've never seen the show.

I got out the grapeseed oil and spent nearly two hours rubbing him down, hands to feet, front and back. My ex-lover down in San Diego, the masseuse who taught me more technique than what came naturally, would be proud. Finished him, of course, with a stellar handjob. Ever since GV8 taught me how to do that well, I really can't get enough of it. It feels wonderful in my hands, the movements, the oil, the slickness and heat. I never thought I would enjoy handjobs anywhere near as much as giving head, but there you go.

In the morning, we showered and grabbed coffee at a Starbucks I used to frequent when I went to community college just a mile or two from his house. Hadn't been there in a few years.

There's always that awkwardness for me, when you're first establishing a physical relationship and then you step into a public sphere.

Some men don't like PDA, even with their girlfriends. They feel uncomfortable even when holding hands. So if you get one of those guys as a regular lover and you even think about touching them in public, they'll freak.

Others are like me. I hold hands, I kiss, I grind, I grope, I hug, I sit in laps, I launch, I suck fingers, etc. I cannot get enough of touching someone I'm having sex with. But I refrain when it makes them uncomfortable.

Some guys don't like giving the impression that they are "with" a girl, because it eliminates their chances with someone they've been flirting with, someone they want to be flirting with. I understand this completely.

So you get that awkward, this-is-the-first-time-we're-going-out-in-public-together, what-the-hell-are-the-physical-boundaries? I don't initiate contact, so if the guy doesn't, I refrain. Follow his lead, never go further than he does.

Another moment of awkward is the first time you sleep over. I tend not to, because I feel it's violating the physical territory and morning routine of my partner. Most men, I've found, don't really know what to do with themselves in the morning, when a girl is over. Cuddle, kiss, dress quickly? Shower together? Brush teeth together? Eat and run? Quickie?

Adding a new person in is... disconcerting for some.

And I know me. My boundaries are... lacking. If I'm sleeping with someone, I have no body boundaries, I have no personal space boundaries. They've been in me, they've passed all other limits, there's no point in going back. There's a lack of emotional connection for me, I know this well, so if I'm holding a guy's hand, it means nothing other than I feel like touching them in that way. But then they sometimes get worried.

You know, because I'm female.

I've ranted about that more than once in here. About my male friends getting worried, having that talk, disclosing that they had been very concerned, that I was getting too close to them.

Falling in love.

And no matter how many men I've been with in the past, no matter how long I've had some of my lovers without more than friendly emotional involvement, it doesn't seem to matter.

Somehow they're more special.

The only lover I've had that I've ever come close to falling in love with was GV8.

And as soon as I realized that was not going to work out, I bailed.

It's tricky, being me.

Sounds a little egocentric.

But it's true. The balancing act between making guys feel special and cared for, but not too much. And none of them are the same. One will be perfectly comfortable introducing me to his friends, family, meeting my friends, my family, holding hands, kissing, seeing movies, going out to events and meals. Another will only want to see me when we're having sex. Yet another will be okay with holding hands and kissing in public, will be fine with curling up and watching a movie, but no friends, no family.

So if I'm sleeping with, say, three guys at one time, I have to keep track of which is comfortable with what. And none of them want to know about the others, even the ones that just want the pure-sex, bare-minimum friendship set-up, where knowing about the others would make them worry less, but they can't bear the thought of it.

Which makes sense. I don't begrudge them that at all.

Last winter I was cycling through five men and dating a lot, with the occasional one night stand.

Zat was in Studio City, sound engineer. I could call him, text him IM him, to talk about personal problems. He loved to cook, so I'd go over there, we'd kiss, cuddle, watch Iron Chef all afternoon, not even always have sex. Wouldn't hold hands or kiss in public. Really didn't want to know about the other guys. I never spent the night there.

VG was in Playa del Ray. Video game producer. Loved to hear my torrid tales. Never held hands, kissed, anything, in public. My choice on that one, oddly. Just felt odd. Hung out, bullshitted, talked video games and books. Mildly worried, I think, that I would fall for him. Later went to ask me out, relationship-style. Verbally cockblocked him before he could get it out and imbalance our friendship.

Hardwood Floors, Hollywood, poet, server, bartender. Hot. Beyond hot. Rarely talked on the phone, rarely emailed, no IM. Would meet up, do dinner, breakfast, lunch, hold hands, kiss, hug, screw our brains out. He didn't seem to care or worry about others, or about me falling for him. He understood the game.

Blond and Studly, unemployed hotbody in Orange County. He could have been professionally hot. Beautiful man. Hung perfectly. His whole body was art. Meet up, cuddle, kiss, would never go out in public. He knew my reputation, wasn't worried about any emotional developments on my end. Could not understand why I wasn't pursuing him. The only reason I ever spent the night there was because sex would end up lasting until 5AM and I'd need to crash before driving anywhere.

SFPlayboy, nutritionist, occasional accountant, San Fran resident, PUA. We do not see each other enough. Can't believe it's been almost a year. He is comfortable enough to play the boyfriend role. Complete access, complete comfortability, complete faith in my ice-princess being. Well, now. He wasn't always. Grocery shopping, meeting friends, cuddling, teasing, cooking together.

Five different men. Five very different levels of comfortability.

And me. With my lack of boundaries, and constantly needing to remember that others have them.

It's work. It's a hell of a lot of work.

It wasn't work with GV8. I asked him, PDAs? And he basically required them, needed them. No boundaries. No worries. Relaxation. Physical enjoyment. Mutual understanding.

So we woke up this morning to the alarm on his cellphone going off. Sounded like Jamaica was trying to wake him. Curled up into his body, softly rolling my hips, running my hands over his torso, up his neck, cresting the back of his skull, lips against his brow. Thirty minutes of touching while he dozed in and out.

In the shower, he scrubbed my back. Suprising, but good.

Coffee, sitting in the shade under an oversized umbrella, talking. Me, trying to determine where our public boundaries were set. Failing to do so.

See, I have this issue. If I'm regularly or semi-regularly sleeping with someone, I generally like them. Okay, I always like them. Otherwise, I wouldn't be sleeping with them. So I like to spend time with them, show them things I think they'll like.

But then, more often than not, they think I'm doing more than that.

Which leaves me sitting there going, "Uh... no. You like X. This is like X. So I wanted to show you this. Because I like you. Because I like it when you're happy. Because this will make you happy. This logic thing... it's working out for you, right?"

Anyhow, back to our broadcast.

Unexpected kiss goodbye. Wasn't the smashed-up-against-one-of-our-vehicles-grinding-the-morning-away kiss, but it was still good. Helping with the boundaries.

And, right now, I can hear GV8 in my head. Telling me to be who I am, do what I want to do, and stop trying to please everyone around me by conforming to their boundaries instead of asserting my own. Do what I want to do. But I hate making other people uncomfortable. And I know that how I am, sexually, is something uncommon enough to cause concern in the male populace. And I know I have more control than the male populace. And more experience. Which means I know that some guys get incredibly unnerved if you grab their hand in public. Or go to kiss them. They wig.

Because so many of them cannot combine a female they're fucking with a female that enjoys the affectionate things.

Example A: After the DP, Pseudonym Pending and I curled up in bed, cuddling, while The Broken Prince used the restroom. He came back, walked into the bedroom, took one look at us and said, "Oh no, no cuddling. DP is fine, but no cuddling. That's just weird."

He was genuinely disturbed by the idea. Pseudonym and I just looked at each other, with this kinda "WTF?" expression. You know the one. The one that someone would give you if a blue deer bounded through their living room being chased by a pack of baby pixies.

For some, it's probably a respect thing. Cuddling is for girlfriends, or for girls that you've had to seduce into your bed. Girls that require effort to get into their pants. They've earned the cuddling. If you're like me and you see someone you want, so you take, you don't usually get respect, at least until they get to know you. I suppose it's like cuddling with a prostitute. You're laying in bed going, "Why the hell does this chick have her head on my chest? Doesn't she know I'm here for the sex? Isn't she supposed to be without emotions or need for non-sexual physical contact?"

It is what it is.

I am what I am.

It's not a lack of respect for myself. It's a lack of respect for the social rules defined by insitutions that I don't agree with and a love for sex and physical contact.

I don't know where Pseudonym's boundaries are.

And maybe I should do what GV8 advised: assert my own boundaries. Be who I want to be. Stop molding myself to the desires of whichever man I'm with at the time. I am not going to spend the rest of my twenties as a single girl conforming to other people's desires, taking lovers that only satisfy me in one way. I only have so much time. I'm a pleaser, true, but others can please in return.

Anyhow, it's nearly ten. I need to be up at six or so. Eight hours is my minimum and this week, with the holiday, is going to be killer. My industry is going to be insane for the next three days, so I better be functional.

Also, completely unrelated sidenote, MAC Cosmetics' holiday collection, the pigment set "Sexpot" is an absolute dream. I love that company's products so much. I might get a second one, just in case. Beautiful.

I have this theory.

This theory that all of those dreams created in relationships before they failed, all of those plans that went through, the things you failed at while desperately hoping for success, the life you envisioned for yourself, all of those things build up inside you, hollowing out a crater in your chest, filtering into your stomach, into your blood, pulsing to each limb, your body weighed down by hopeful promises the future was unable to keep.

Winter is hardest for me.

The cold air solidifies all those shattered bits and they weigh down my movements.

I heard a poet say that if a heart truly broke, his would be a pile of red confetti by now.

I feel that way, sometimes. Like my spirit is leaking out of me, trailing behind my body in the form of insubstantial dust motes before being carried away by currents of air. Pieces sliding off my skin while I sleep, waking in the molt of my dreams, of the person I could have been, should I have pursued a particular path, if certain words had not be spoken aloud, if an action had been taken instead of withheld.

Winter brings me memories.

Autumn seems so promising. Transition between extremes, shifting winds, scents of leafy decomposition and soil.

Summer is heat, the countdown of degrees to autumn, is the long days spent roaming, free and easy.

Spring makes me uncurl from the womb of cold, feeling the temperature trickle up, measured in decimals by mecury. Waiting for things to change.

But winter, winter is memories and empty nights, interrupted by the occasional male figure.

Last year, it was Hardwood Floors. It was poetry, it was 48 degrees and kissing perfection under a streetlight on Beverly and Fairfax. It was maroon sheets and his gold-sheaf hair, his clay-scuplt face and wild eyes. Heat and perfect rhythm.

The year before was Darkeyes, my resentment, his apathy towards the holidays unless they involved parties and booze. I celebrated the season alone, watching Rankin/Bass films.

Two years ago, it was AJ. It was playing rummy with his parents, playing dangerously without condoms, the giant stream-lined reindeer his mother designed arching into the sky across their frontlawn, tethered to the ground by white christmas lights, illuminated reigns.

Three years, four years, Rick. Rick meant Idaho. It meant snow. It meant cracking the window of the basement room open an inch, just to get the breeze he desired as the hot pipes beneath us heated the house. It meant running around on all fours in two feet of snow, making mounds, knocking them over, then falling over myself, laughing like an idiot in the winter sun. It meant launching sleds down a frozen driveway, taking ATVs into the mountains, moving frozen logs and ducking our wind-reddened faces under icicle-weighted branches.

Five years? Six years? Who was impacting me? Who kept me warm on the front porches of southern California?

Even when we forget, our bodies remember.

Shedding snowflakes of memories.

Crater icing over, the water expanding the hollow of your chest before freezing for the coming months, aching with cold.

I try not to be lonely.

I like to say that I never feel lonely, only alone.

And then the excitement of autumn comes, and then winter climbs on my back and I remember when there is no one to share my joy, to share my family, my happiness, my memories. Christmas movies are watched alone, curled up by myself under blankets. I walk residential streets at night, admiring the Christmas-laden houses, the lights I love so much, seeing the families walking together, their children trailing at their feet or perched on a set of shoulders, sharing the emotional magic the holiday season brings.

I go Christmas shopping alone. I love to wander the malls and sit on benches with hot chocolate, watching the bag-heavy shoppers, listening to the Christmas music that leaks in from hidden speakers, the line wrapping around wreath-bedecked pillars leading to Santa and grown men dressed in festive tights and pointed shoes, jingling with every step. I sit in front of the Christmas tree and read by the fire, the words constantly shifting as the lighting changes with the erratic dance of the flames.

I wrap my gifts on Christmas Eve, hurriedly, amused that I always put it off to the last second.

I wake up in the morning and walk downstairs, my favorite blanket around my shoulders, dragging on the floor. One of the few times breakfast is made, hot chocolate procured, I drink out of a mug with a ceramic snowman inside, his tophat revealed first as I sip. The fire goes, the tree's lights are plugged in, the cats wage war on wrapping paper, bows, and the occasional ornament if no one is paying close enough attention to yell before that paw hits the round glass.

We take pictures, we laugh, my father repeatedly leaves. He does not like Christmas. His father was born on Christmas. Jazz plays in the background, in the family room. I usually stop and dance with him to cheer him up, on the balls of my feet, shimmying across the dark wood floors.

And then it's over. We shove the paper into bags and put it into the recycling. My mother takes the pile of bows she has horded during the denuding process and puts them back into storage for use next year. Presents are stacked and moved to their needed locations.

Usually, afterwards, we will go to my cousin's house in Rancho Santa Fe. I always try to drive seperately. I love the curves of the 5 freeway as it winds down the coast, coming to touch the beach and then heading inward, only to do it again and again. I put in a CD, turn on the heater, and roll down the windows for the drive home, letting my face freeze, letting my singing get dragged out the window to the ocean.

This year we're staying in Los Angeles. The Jonathon Club. I'll likely try to drive seperately, if only so I can spend Christmas night sitting on the patio in the back of Hotel Figueroa, looking at the sky of downtown LA.

Letting the weight of the ghosts of lives that could have been climb down from the crater in my chest and sit beside me. Wondering if it will all be worth it in the end. Wondering if I will have to redefine happiness in order to be happy. Thinking of those alternative futures, those lines of reality that could have kept moving even without my presence, if I should have stayed on them, if I could have stayed on them.

And if this is all truly for the best.

Friday night.

I'm in bed. Movie playing in the background, laundry running downstairs.

It's amazing how excited I am about not being out. That not going out, not feeling forced into social interactions like I am pretty much every day of the week, is the blessing.

Really, this is bliss.

Went and caught An Education after work today, waiting for the traffic to die out. That movie started off so well, was so glorious, and then... the ending... I just couldn't get behind it. Pretending like things never happened.

You can pretend all you like, you can act like your life did not, for some time, deviate from the normal course that your peers' lives took, but something happened, and that will stay with you, no matter what lessons you think you've learned.

The male lead reminded me so much of GV8. The life of crime, the life of luxury, the charisma. I still miss that.

I realized, sometime today, that I'm waiting, truly waiting, to run into an immovable object of a man. The one who stops me, the one who owns me. I'm wild because I can be, I live the way I do because I enjoy it, but I also like the image it produces.

I would fall at the feet of the right man who stopped me and said, "No, you're mine."

Damn romantic submission. No matter how much I try to shove it down, it creeps back to the surface.


Tomorrow, I'm, admittedly, catching the new Twilight movie. Before you gasp with shock and horror, please be reminded that I am female. Please also note that I have the most horrible weakness for high school romance movies. Hillary Duff's A Cinderella Story? Yeah, I've seen that at least ten times.

Homework, studying, reading, activities that I will refer to as "coffee-shoppery".

Play date with Pseudonym Pending in the evening. He's bringing in another guy next weekend, or so the hope goes, so we can do DP again. I might become an addict. Something about having that heat at your front and your back, your nose full of the scent of man... makes you feel at perfect ease.

Well, makes me feel at perfect ease. You might not like it so much.

Sunday is up in the air. Might have another go-round with the retarded restaurant man. Might be mellow, stay in and watch movies, let my body recoop. The latter is probably a better idea.

I was supposed to go out with C last night, kareoke at some dive bar.

But my heart knocked me down for the evening.

Leaning against her kitchen counter, trembling, drinking the liter of milk I purchased that is, for some reason, supposed to help.

Chest pains have become a daily occurence.

Trembling, soft body shaking, yes, I know you.

Malnutrition, exhaustion, too much coffee. I'm lining up for a trip to the hospital.

I could go to the doctor again, but that will involve time that I should not take off work, and the best he can do at this moment is give me drugs that have more side effects than benefits, unless, for some reason, surgery is needed.

I remember New Orleans. Sampling coffee at every place I could find, the heat and humidity weighing on my shoulders, up early every day, exploring the city, out way past midnight in the French Quarter, finally having it catch up with me in some well known bar that I can't remember the name of. They all end up sounding the same.

The pain. Finding an air conditioner vent and leaning my face against it, letting my body rest against the wall, shaking violently, tears streaming down my face, trying not to panic over what my body was doing, counting the seconds between inhales and exhales, trying to slow it down.

My boyfriend being furious because I cut his evening short with my medical problem.

Holding it against me for months and months after.

Spending the next 24 hours unconscious in bed, and the rest of the trip exhausted, weak, and trembling. Starting on a several mile spleunking trip and realizing that if I had another attack, I would not be able to get out of the cave and to a hospital in time... then waiting outside for the hours the rest of the party spent underground.

I know I shouldn't push myself.

I know that I should cut back the caffiene and let my body do what it must do: be tired, tired enough that I take naps at my desk and I go to bed by 8 while it recooperates.

Two more months.

I have to make it two more months.

And then I'll be able to have a regular life again.

Must contain rage at receiving passive-aggressive emails sent from spurned gentlemen suitors.

It's a double whammy. (Mmm... double...)

I blog a lot, I suppose, compared to the average blogger. I've had this blog for less than a year, and I'm almost at 250 posts. That's completely normal for me.

So, my other, now defunct, blog, on a bigger site with much more traffic, had a decent fanbase with a fairly equal male to female ratio.

Invariably, I'd get messages from men, usually in my area, telling me that I understood them better than anyone else, that we were the same person, that we were soulmates, that we had to meet, that I got things that no other person on this planet would "get".

In fact, the very first email I received because of this blog was exactly that message. And the man who sent it, long gone by now, reacted poorly to my "thanks, but no thanks" response.

This blog was never supposed to "go public". I was never going to use the account associated with it to make comments on other blogs. That wasn't the plan. It was supposed to be my quiet place to write and think.

But things changed.

I'm glad they did.

Anyhow, derailed.

Blog --> creepy emails --> annoyed V

It seems vaguely ironic to me that the men who have messaged me in the past with that declaration of similiarity are acting so far from what makes me comfortable.

But I'm polite. I'm always polite.

You sit there, staring at your screen, fingers hovering over the keyboard, wondering how you are going to compose your response. If I felt like digging into my sent messages, I'd toss up some examples. Mostly polite: "please stop re-inforcing your idealized image of me based off of text and the occasional image" combined with a "whoa there, cowboy" sentiment.

Sometimes they get bitter and angry. Easy to deal with.

Sometimes they apologize and want to get to know you, but that nearly always circles back round to their intitial desires and they're really doing a poor job of hiding it. You keep up a light conversation, but they'll keep edging to more, keep hinting, keep suggesting, until you finally decide that you're wasting time, not just your own, but his. And you stop contact.

But they keep emailing.

And emailing. Getting more and more snarky as their mask slips up.


Which is what I received today.

Just writing you to see how you were doing? I'm transitioning from my job. I think I first wrote you like a week before I got my job. 8 months later, I'm outta here. Strange.

But you probably don't care.

I just checked in to see if you had written a new blog posting.

And, to some, this probably looks like a mostly innocent email.

But since I've received prior emails, seen how he writes, see how he interacted with other readers, I can tell you it's very much not.

And it irritates me on two levels.

1. He has so little respect for me, that he's so focused on his insecurity that he's starting to lash out.

2. That I attract men like this regularly. I hate it.

You would think, with what I write, with the level of self-analysis that I go into (which I don't find to be that deep, but that's me), with my rants about men, about sexuality, about social/sexual interactions, about keeping your insecurities/rage/depression/psychosis internal and taking responsibility for the way you feel, that I would not get men who are convinced that I'm The One for them and then do exactly this.

So much of what I rant about, stuff that he's read, is contained in this letter.

And he's so caught up in his fantasty of me that he doesn't even notice. Isn't truly reading what I have to say.

"I'm transitioning from my job."

Transitioning has multiple meanings, all of which I would have to respond to in query, or flat-out ignore, if I chose to get back to him. Has more positive connotations than negative, but there is that potential of being laid off. He was writing, he was a writer, professionally (though not books), and he knows this fascinates me.

"I think I first wrote you like a week before I got my job. 8 months later, I'm outta here."

Not accurate. He emailed me a few months before he got that particular job. After he got it, he became more passive-aggressive with me, so I trailed off contact. He's referencing that silence here.

"But you probably don't care."

...I'm sorry, but I've got to call the wambulance for this one. Jeez. Could he be more of a little kid? Whine whine whine, pass-agress super-twin power activiate.

Who does that? If he hadn't gotten so creepy and fixated on me, if he had listened to me when I told him I wasn't interested, he wouldn't be in this spot.

"I just checked in to see if you had written a new blog posting."

And then the double-back! He's only there for me. He's only interested in the blog. Which is, and has been, dead for months. Will continue to be dead because of those types of emails.

I have this mild fear that I'm going to be running around Hollywood and Highland one of these days and he's going to spot me, recognize me, and accost me. Not physically, but verbally. Maybe physically. Maybe he'll tranq me from his balconey, drop one of those metal loops dog-catchers use over my shoulders, haul me up over the railing, and chain me to his bed.

Which would actually be kinda hot.

How a boy feels...

Realized last night, after posting, after being texted by Mr. Pseudonym Pending, that I'm hypersensitize to my male (platonic or sexual) friends.

This year has been, not exactly a nightmare, but a frustrating tangle of my guy friends admitting, in one way or another, deeper feelings for me.

Feelings I have not returned.

And, sure, you're sitting there, all logical-like, saying, "Well, so what? You can't force yourself to have interest for another person. You didn't lead them on or anything."

Guys love to try to white-knight me. I know this.

They feel incredibly special and close to me when I talk to them about the things going on inside my head, my conflicts, my vunerability. They think that we're bonding more than I bond with others, that I'm sharing special things, that I'm showing trust in them, that I'm seeking them for advice, that our friendship is deepening.

What they don't realize is that I'm not sharing special things. They're things I discuss with multiple people. I'm not opening up. My walls are immense. The bonding they're feeling is created inside their own head because other girls don't act like I do. Other girls don't do this. Something must be special, something must be unique.

And I'm incredibly physically affectionate with my male friends. I express myself through touch. So it's not unusual for me to curl up in bed with one of them, to put my head in their lap, to press my thigh against theirs when we sit next to each other, to rub their backs when they twist something, to walk with shoulders rubbing, touch them when I want to show them something, hands on their shoulders or lower back when I want them to move.

I touch a lot.

So I end up creating this male-female relationship where I am very physically affectionate and comfortable with them, where I'm revealing "secrets" and "vunerabilities" and, in turn, they are revealing actual secrets and vunerabilities while attempting to "fix" me, doing shared activities, going out to movies, meals, clubs, concerts, and it becomes this near inevitable thing where I'll get a phone call, a text, an email, or be stopped for a "serious conversation".

And then I feel horrible.

I feel like I haven't laid down enough boundaries.

That I should have brought up the men I was sleeping with more.

Or made "you're such a good friend"-type comments.

Because I'm the aware party. I know what I'm doing. I know that I'm triggering these things. I've seen this before, done this before.

I'm the responsible one in this situation.

For not just laying it down as soon as I see those signs start cropping up. The probing questions about my relationships, the physical contact that isn't casual on their end, the attempts to save, the insulting of the men I sleep with. Tiny of dozens of little fractures that they make in an effort to break the shell of the platonic friendship I have enforced upon them.

It makes me feel like I'm committing emotional statutory rape.

Because they don't know what they're doing. They don't have the experience. They're children.

When I got that text message on Saturday for the DP, that night I went out with my clubbing friend. The one who made me the mix CD of songs he could see me dancing to. The one who guest-lists me at the clubs. The one who I run to when one of those guys at the clubs will not leave me alone so I press up against him and whisper in quick panic "grab me, act like you're my boyfriend, NOW" so I don't have to spend the next few hours dodging those men who can't read my body language. The one who I talk to when I'm upset, the one who tells me about his family, his life, his issues, his female problems.

He's expressed interest in me. He's asked my friends about me.

He's warned others off me. Not aggressively, but enough.

So I just dumped the DP on the table. Like it was just another day in the life of me. Which it kinda is. I left the club early, hugged him goodbye, he knew where I was going. Left shortly after I did, actually.

I hate having to build these walls.

I hate the barriers.

I hate worrying that I'm going to end up hurting yet another of my friends.

I hate the body language, the behaviors, the predictable words.

The sinking feeling I get in my stomach when I realize they're going for it, my mind racing to figure out a way to verbally cockblock them without embarassing them, without damaging our friendship, without insulting them or rejecting them outright.

This is something I loathe.

I hate rejecting men. I hate the damage it does.

I hate feeling like it's entirely my fault.

But what am I supposed to do? Completely change my social behavior? Never express myself with them? Never be truly affectionate? Keep awkward, physical walls in place? Declare the minute I start hanging out with a man regularly on a social level that I'm not going to date him ever, so-please-don't-even-think-about-it-thank-you?

Who am I supposed to talk to, if not my friends?

Or am I only allowed to talk to my straight female friends so this doesn't occur?

There's got to be a better way to handle this.

I don't like these feelings of guilt that crop up because I have knowledge and awareness that these men do not. Amusingly, if they did, I'd find them desirable.

Which makes perfect sense.

It happened earlier this week with the text I mentioned in an earlier post, I'm still trying to stop the slow descent with my clubbing friend, one of my oldest friends told me on Tuesday that he loves me as much as he loves his girlfriend of four years. I know, I've known for a long time, that he has been in love with me. I did not realize the level.

Then there was Redding, who went so incredibly wrong. Near obsession. Near stalkery, even when I flat out told him no, never. Near begged him to get over it.

And all the other little incidents that I've had to stop, gloss over, with others.

It's no wonder I don't respect most men.

You'd think I'd be a pro at this by now.
You'd think I'd have the zen by now to know that this happens and there's nothing I can do about it so I need to stop worrying and watching for when the next one starts to go.

Apparently not.

I hate rejection so much, I squirm when I reject others.

Another thing to address.

Topics of debate.

This blog was supposed to stay anonymous. My face, my name, was never supposed to be associated with it. No one that knew me in life, no matter how close, was supposed to have access to this corner where I scribe my thoughts into pixels.

But last night I found myself in bed with The Broken Prince's friend (psuedonym still pending), sliding my teeth along his ribs, admonishing him not to be one of "those guys" who worries about what I'm going to write here.

Already, I know that's a doomed thing.

I've seen it often enough.

So do I screen myself?

Or do I hide?

This is supposed to be honesty in text.

And there's always a part of me, always, that is disconnected and examining the events and interactions that take place around me or that I am part of.

That's how I am. That's how I've always been. Maybe I'll change in the future. Maybe I won't.

Each man I sleep with has a different impact on me, has something different that they bring to the table, even if it's only slightly different.

I worry, I worry a good deal that this is just going to cause pain.

Not to me.

I'm fairly emotionally shut off at the moment, from the male sex. Enjoying my singledom, knowing that there is likely a man in my future, but not anytime soon. And there shouldn't be. I need to grow as myself, without a great impact coming from another person.

Lying in bed with him, talking, touching, licking and gently nipping.
Massaging his back and listening to his thoughts.

Genuinely enjoying myself. Genuinely engaged.

But part of my brain examines. Part of my brain takes our interactions in its palm and rotates it around, checking the angles, checking the material, comparing it to past interactions.

I know the meaning behind the words.

I've heard these sentiments before.

It's patterns. It's falling into patterns.

And just then, I deleted a line. Too deep.

Self-disclosure is bonding. I'm silent and questioning because I like to learn, because people are fascinating and oh please don't let me hurt him. Please keep it simple. No emotions. Keep it a clean fight, no hitting below the belt.

We talked of his stresses, we talked of his life, we planned another threesome with another of his friends. We laughed and cuddled, fucked and moaned as one.

I forget what it's like, the worry of performance. I know I intimidate most men. More often than not, my partners admit it to me at one point. That they're worried I'm judging them, that they're worried they're not up to par.

What am I supposed to say?

On one hand, I've had some amazing lovers. Lovers that blew my mind. But these were extraordinary men with high levels of experience and lifestyles and confidence levels that lent to sexual exploration that allow them to be as they are.

As I am as I am.

On the other hand, each body is different. The touches are different, the feeling is different, the mood created, the baseline emotion. It's a dynamic between two people, which means that just because you sleep with one man in one way does not mean that either of you will be able to recreate that experience with others.

Sex is something I do. Sex is something that makes me breathe, makes me live. The touch and the heat, traveling someone's skin with my mouth. Afternoons spent in bed exploring pleasure.

It's what I am.

And I hate that the men I sleep with worry so much about it. So damn much. I'm here to enjoy myself. I'm not comparing them to anyone else, I'm focusing on being in the moment, in being with my partner. Why would I expend the brainpower on mental comparision?

No, this did not happen last night.

Some things just reminded me of the frustration.

I haven't slept with many people since I met GV8. The difference in attitudes is strong. I miss his confidence. I miss his simple enjoyment.

But that's the way it's going to be.

It is not easy to find men like that. It's not easy to be like that. He was exceptional.

I left around 1230AM, arrived at C's place and nuked a hotdog, starving.

Padded across the hardwood to her bedroom, nudged her awake with the cellphone she left on the coffee table, reminded her to set her alarm. Looked at the two naked people sleeping next to her in bed. Wondered if the 23 year old male knew how lucky he was to be enjoying three- and four-somes with C regularly. Ran my eyes over the Russian girl. Smaller breasts than I would have expected. I turned off her bedroom light and showered.

Cell phone had four text messages on it. Makes me twitch, reminds me of men that would not leave me alone, would not accept no for an answer, worried about rejection, though I know (hope?) he's not doing that.

High points for asking me to text him when I arrived at C's. Few men do that. Some might criticize it, but I find it a positive. Reminds me of my family, reminds me of friends concerned about my behavior, reminds me that not all men are simply lust trapped in skin.

Even though sometimes it's just another move in a complicated game.

I wonder what I'm doing. I'm going to have to pace this. Instinct says that to meet up too often would be bad, long-term.

I can't help my ice princess behavior. I'm not going to force myself... force myself to what? Force myself to try to feel for someone, anyone, who would not suit. Having respect for both parties, realizing what would and would not work.

Heh, GV8 has taught me more than I realized.

Smiling, nodding, knowing.

I feel trapped, almost. Between what I am and what I portray.

Remembering back to conversations had over linoleum, the quick social shifts, dancing between flirt and serious, depending on who was in the room. No thought, no effort, just the usual dance.

Makes me feel almost broken. But... not.

The hurt that this could cause, that my dual nature brings, causes me regret. Causes worry, causes shame that I would be so selfish to be myself and hurt another, instead of sacrificing what I want to be in order to make another happy.

I'm so good at making men feel valued.

Because I do value them. I do treasure them. I do care for them. I am there when they need me, not out of obligation, but because it is what I do.

But I withhold parts, I withhold pieces that hurt, that cause pain. The disconnect. The examiner. The mechanic, the tinker, the engineer.

So we breathe.

So I breathe.

I breathe and hope that I can maintain honesty here, even when I know it could hurt, even when I know that the things I think, say, and feel are constantly misunderstood because it's hard to grasp for most. Tweaked? No. Just different.

I would not be with them, with you, if I did not wish to be.

I will not lie to you, to myself.

I will not hide the part of my brain that drives others off.

I'm going to do this right. I am not going to give into fear, into anxiety.

I have double motives, triple motives. I watch. I wait. I like to run veins, roots, into social connections in order to solidify my position. I like to catch people by surprise. I cause cognitive dissonance whenever I can because I like to mess with people's perceptions.

I will be that girl.

I will slip between the roles that I know. Lover, confidant, teacher (though this one has grown so, so old), companion.

I will watch porn with you. I will offer threesomes, I will spend hours going down on you. I will point out the hot girls as they pass by, I will give you road head, flirt with your friends, go through your mental porn folder and tackle your sexual fantasies.

I will be kinkier than you. I will be more perverted. I will be more experienced. You'll question yourself, and I'm sorry. It's not what I want.

I will be your designated driver, your masseuse, your patcher of wounds. I will listen to stories you don't feel comfortable telling other people with an open, nonjudgmental ear. You will be able to tell me the worst things you've done, and I will simply listen.

I will go camping, hiking, swimming, biking with you. I will go to your gym and work out with you. I will go down on you and bring you beer while you watch football. I'll play video games with you, possibly even beat your high score. I will beg you for quarters at arcades and fail miserably at minature golf while challenging you to another round of air hockey.

I will debate philosophy with you. I will challenge your theories, challenge your ideas, read the books you recommend, see the movies you want to see. I will beg you to go to horror movies with me but continually bury my face in your shoulder and squirm in my seat. If the theater is mostly empty, I'll climb into your lap. If the theater is completely empty, I'll slip a condom on you.

I will stay up all night with you, or leave you alone. I will not argue or complain about your guys' nights out. I will keep my own social life, but allow you in. I will make sure that your friends like me and inform you if any of the girls in your social groups want you.

I will pay for my own meals, my own movies, my own outings, without question. It's not your job to provide for me.

I will support your decisions, your choices, even if I don't agree with them.

I won't drag you to chick flicks, won't drag you shopping, won't make you listen to me rant about drama between Betty and Janet. I won't cling, I won't beg, I won't whine.

When you have a social event, need a companion, I will put on the cocktail dress, the heels, the hair, make-up, nails. I will be charming and social. If your mother keeps bugging you to meet a nice girl and you want her to back off, I will happily meet her, all smiles and loving devotion. If she cooks dinner, I will help with the dishes, help clear the table, help serve dessert.


But I will keep my own mind. I will be watching. I will be analyzing, thinking, wondering, theorizing, planning, engineering. I will likely be judging everything you do on some level, comparing and contrasting. My emotions will never grow past a friendly love. I will squirm away and lay boundaries. I will keep you aware of my other partners, not in detail, but enough so you never think to lay more claim to me than I've allowed you.

I'm going to know exactly when you screw up in bed. I'm not going to particularly care, but I will be aware. I will know your experience level near immediately. I will get frustrated when I have to guide you through motions and positions.

I'm never going to want a relationship with you, and it's not because you're lacking, but because it's how I function. The more you try to convince me, the further away it will shove me from you.


There's so much to say.

I feel like I'm laying out a guide book, possibly a rule book.

The Way of V.


And it's funny. I keep going to publish this, and then adding to it. Because I am more than a companion, I am more than a bit of mental disconnect. I do care, I do love, I do worry and wonder about my partners. I want the best for them. Fearful of rejection when/if Mr. Pseudonym Pending sees this.

I cannot help the way I am.

Just have to embrace and start accepting the sum of my experiences.

I was reading Angels In America during my lunch break today. It's a quick, two hour read, and is soaked through with the author's political opinions, but I do love the characters and the views they bring to the table.

There are several amazing quotes in play. Some long, some short, but things that make you stop and think. I had several I wanted to post here, but I don't have the book by me at the moment, and only one has really stuck with me today.

"The body is the garden of the soul."

That can be interpreted in a number of different ways.

And it's a common sentiment I've heard expressed many times over the years in various fashions.

I've noticed that the people who usually bring up their own variations of this line have fairly similiar ideas of what it means.

On one hand, you have your health nuts. I don't mean that in a negative way, but as that stereotype that it brings to mind. People very dedicated to keeping their bodies in good shape, keeping them healthy, not polluting them with junk food, alcohol, drugs, whatever they deem unhealthy from whatever health philosophy they have picked up.

On the other hand, you have the people that say the state of the body reflects the state of the soul. That a person who does not take care of themselves, or does not appear to take care of themselves, has some sort of unresolved mental issue(s), and those that take care of their bodies are healthy individuals without that inner damage. I can quite easily bring up individuals that both support and refute this claim.

On the third hand (yes, this is a multi-armed creature), you've got this odd combination of the two that comes together in this moral/sexual beast.

Maybe that last sentence should have started with "but in the chest cavitity".

Which sounds amusing, but if you look at it as a centerpiece-combo between the two ideas and then really nail it in with idea idea of the heart being the soul, it makes perfect sense.

Those that believe that, when a person engages in sexual activity with a person they aren't married to or do not love or do not have intentions of marrying, they are soul-damaged, and they are doing further damage to themselves by miring their being in the degradation of their bodies.

That this sexual activity that is not based on love and/or commitment is, essentially, trampling one's garden. A sign of mental dis-ease. No, not disease. It's like "unease" but even better.

So you get the girls that are looking for validation, the girls that hate themselves and are trying to hate themselves even more, the wild girls that will bone anything that moves just to have a distraction from the distaste they have for their lives, or the girls hoping that one night with one man, any man, will keep them feeling not so alone.

This is where I say that I do not believe it is the activity itself that causes the damage, but the social framework we are raised with in regards to sex.

Which means it is not sex that is inherently damaging, but the social values that our social institutions place on sex.

Which, in turn, means that as long as a person finds sex to be morally wrong, a sin, something that gives them value based on desirability, something other than what it is: a physical act, then engaging in sex that does not fill the parameters that a person has for it to be "okay" will have a negative impact on the person engaging in the behavior.

So, if the body is the garden, then it is the "soul" that dictates what grows from what we plant.

The guilt.
The self-loathing.
The internal conflict.
The anger, which flows internal and external.

It is our beliefs, given to us at childhood, that carry this.

It is so easy for some of us to toss off the religion we were raised with because the world has many religions, many belief systems. It's not "dirty" to talk religion. It's not "dirty" to experiment with different spiritualities to find what works for you.

But to question sexuality? To engage and try new things?

Your culture is telling you what is acceptable for you to do with your body, and if you do otherwise, you get poisonous plants springing forth inside your own head.

Saturday night, I was concerned that I was making an unhealthy decision. That I was hiding my hurt over GV8 from myself, that I was looking for that validation, that indication of desirability from two men. Something more. Maybe that I was damaging myself.

And then I realized, afterwards, that I wasn't.

There was no feelings of shame, no feelings of regret, no soul-dirt, no bad aftertaste lingering in my brain. I did not feel dirty or used. I did not feel as though I had done something immoral or gone too far.

I simply felt at peace with myself.

I felt at peace with the act of sex.
I was perfectly content, even happy, with knowing that I had been doubly penetrated by two men.
I was relaxed and okay with knowing that I could have been any of a series of interchangable women for, at least, one of them. Just a set of holes.
Wondering how much effort of logistics it would take to do a triple-p.

Zen. Untangling those last few webs that haunt my garden's corners. When the value of sex comes not from the society around you, but from yourself.

Gorgeous bliss. Finally free. My reality has solidified.




This is who I am. This was always who I was going to become.

One of my male friends asked me out last night.

Fortunately, it was through text, immediately after we got off the phone with each other, so he couldn't see my face or hear the tone of my voice.

It was, of course, a no. I try not to sleep with men that I have to teach, that I have to be gentle with, or that I would simply eat alive. This particular man has more mental issues than I do, especially concerning his self-worth and relationships, so it would have been incredibly tedious and probably drama-filled for me.

Tedious, I can do if I'm feeling generous. I'm very patient.
Drama, I cannot do. I refuse to participate to the point of abandoning friends, hang-outs, entire social groups, if I have to. Drama only affects you if you let it.

Anyhow...

I had called him to get his take on the disconnect on Saturday.

I've been finding this rather frustrating.

It's rare enough to find people damaged in the right way to understand this, the right way so I don't have to explain, justify, rationalize, only to have the concept go completely over their heads anyway.

But I tried anyway. Different viewpoints are good, allowing for angles that you had not considered, angles outside your experience.

Massive failure.

Another notch added to the internet, the only place I can talk to myself about this.

I miss having someone to talk to with ease.

But that's the way things go.

The positive thing that stemmed from his asking me out was that I was out to dinner with another male friend that I was mildly concerned might be edging that way. So I got to do a mini-rant that allowed me to express my distaste for my guy friends asking me out. I probably could have ranted better and gentler, but I was not really thinking at the time, having gotten caught off-guard.

My friend's text was... it was very polite. It was a thought out mini-paragraph that explained, very briefly, why he thought we should go out, and inquired if I was interested at its conclusion.

Sharp contrast to the text received Saturday afternoon, asking if I would like to join The Broken Prince and his friend for fun and frolic.

It's different ways of playing, I suppose.

The Prince certainly knows me, my buttons, better than my friend, though I've had that friend for about twice as long.

Surprises me. Going against one's instincts, going against the knowledge one has, in an effort to be polite and respectful. If two equally attractive men approached me in one of the clubs and one asked me if he could buy me a drink and spent the next twenty minutes trying to charm my number out of me and the other simply walked up to me and told me that we were leaving right now to go back to his place, the latter would be significantly more successful than the former.

I make this very clear. My friends know what I go for, know what does it for me.

But he could not move past it. He could not take that knowledge and use it.

Probably because, like most men, he doesn't believe me. He doesn't believe that I know my own desires, and that I act on those desires when I deem the situation safe and healthy. Having sex with a man who I know likes it rough, likes to punish, yet he won't go full-out on me because he's afraid he's going to hurt or scare me... I find it annoying. If I take the time to communicate what I want, which I do, and they do not trust me to know my own desires, they are not allowing me responsibility for myself.

Which means I can't respect them.

Odd logic twist there, I know.

A comfortable, confident man who knows himself, knows his desires, is aware of his sexuality, will be much more likely to trust in their partner to know what they want, and if that partner turns out to be not so aware of their desires... he knows how to reign it back. He knows the signs, so he does not worry. He respects the person in bed with him enough to communicate and trusts that she'll tell him if it is going too far.

That's my theory.

However, there is also the other side of this. Where the woman is a typical (yes, I know, I'm insulting my own sex again) girl who has been, like usual, repressed in her sexuality and experience so is not quite aware of her desires and her limits and is unable to communicate them (at least without innuendos and blushing profusely), so the man has to sit there and be gentle (theoretically) and guide and hope that he won't frighten her off with his normal male desires.

People make too much of sex.

It ends up tangling everything up.

Turning it into self-damage. Damage of others. Misunderstandings. Drama. Power plays. Religious and social intolerance beaten into all of us from the time we step out of our mothers. Women are taught to fear sex.

To fear pleasure.

That strikes me as so wrong. So unhealthy.

I'm not advocating free love. For the very few of you who have met me, I'm quite obviously not rolling the hippie lifestyle.

Safe. Healthy. Aware. Respectful. Communicative. Sex.

I think if I arrange those letters around, I can get a rocking acronym.

SARCHS

...sounds too much like a candy. Or a disease from Asia.

Anyway, that's enough of rambling on that topic. I do it enough, I know.

This weekend is looking exceedingly, pleasantly empty of social activities, which means it's likely that I'll be making pleasureful plans to top of a weekend full of studying and writing papers. Walking around with bruises for a week, especially during Thanksgiving, always proves entertaining.

Still mulling over Saturday night. I enjoyed myself, just wondering the potential social ramifications that might fly my way. Also missing a conversation partner on the topic.

Was reading a book (shocking) and there was a line in it that I really dug: "This is who I am. Now let's see what I can do." Reminding myself that I am something a bit different, which means options are open to me that are not open to other people. Wondering how I am going to explore those paths.

Many things to cover this morning.

Friday night, I was supposed to go attended a show with The Waitress.

I ended up cancelling those plans, feeling full of mope, needing to isolate, needing pillows and blankets piled up on me with a chick flick full of mindless, illogical romance.

Well, that turned out to be PMS induced. Figures. Body betraying me again on my monthly fight to stay sane and stable for a few days.

I ran by C's place to pick up an item I left behind. I had forgotten she was having her three lovers over for dinner. Two boys I had met before, and a red-headed Russian chick that was an avid fan of my other blog, so I had been avoiding meeting her.

Avid fans creep me out.

I sat on the floor, looking and feeling like crap, catching up with one of the men who I had not seen in a couple of months. Pulled me into their physicality, squished between two men with the Russian girl stroking my hair as I climbed and allowed the physical contact I need so much to keep me relaxed and okay to wash over me. Body heat and skin. Rising scents, teeth nipping at hips.

I left, having blocked one of the neighbors' parking spots, then returned after parking on the street, realizing that time spent in full body contact with C's partners was the least stressed I had felt all week, and I needed more of it.

It was good.

I drove home at 10, having laundry to do, knowing I would not have time to do it on Saturday morning.

My sister was fresh home from Japan, her boyfriend over. I tossed my clothes into the washer and curled up on the couch, watching TV for the first time in, at least, a month. VH1 was doing a marathon of "heavy" metal music videos, and I latched onto it.

Respect for BulletBoys gained.
Respect for Judas Priest lost.

Saturday morning was a rush of errands, a quick break to have lunch with a man I am going to refer to as The Broken Prince. Dramatic, I know. Accurate enough. I'm still mulling everything over.

Down to Huntington Beach for a double birthday party. Steak and booze, one thing I love, one thing I hate. It was good to be with friends I don't see often enough.

One of them, essentially a brother to me, I've known since I was about 17. He's a couple of years older than me, can't remember how many. He's been dating this girl, who I really like, for about six years. We went out on a booze/mixer run shortly before I had to leave, and he started talking to me.

About sex.

About how, for the last few years, sex with his girlfriend has been non-existent. She has no desire for him anymore, and he's worried, feeling undesirable, wanting to share something more that just sex with her, but that vaunted love-making.

So we talked. I tossed game theories at him, ideas at him. It's going to be a work in progress. He's planning on proposing to her soon, and... yes. Difficult spot to be in.

During the party, I received a text message/booty call. Very blunt, which is something I respect. Direct communication, no games.

So the booze/mixer run turned into a booze/mixer/condoms run.

My friend was laughing about the text, about my casual acceptance of it, while we hit up a drugstore. And then he said to me something along the lines of how I tend to see several men at once, sleeping with some of them, and how I'm so not relationship material.

That drew me up short.

He knows me pretty well, but when I spend time with that particular social group, it's usually when I'm single and playing the field.

I'm coming to realize how difficult it is to explain how I view sex and relationships, and how I function in relationships... and how I'm viewed.

I'm the guy. I'm one of the boys. I've always been one of the boys. It's masculine dandyism. Men relax around me because I'm like them, because they can tell me things they can't tell other guys (because it would be emotionally weak) and that they can't tell other girls (because the girls would be shocked and judge them for their behavior). It's standard.

So my guy friends see me do what I do.

The multiple casual sexual relationships that I have no intention of going any farther in.

The emotional disconnect.

The sexual banter and objectifying of my partners and theirs.

The inability for anything to shock me on a sexual level.

Trying to explain to him my need for monogamy, not even bothering to bring up my closeted romantic nature. It would be too fantastical for him.

I think that most men expect women to behave one of two ways: searching for that Relationship or searching solely for casual pleasure. There's not a lot of inbetween. A girl like me should not have any interest in anything long-term in their eyes, or deserving of it, or even capable of it.

Truth be told, if I met that man who I felt would be good, that I felt I could bond with, I would, without a second thought, spend the rest of my life working on our relationship, being with him, sleeping with only him.

Until then, though, I see no reason to curb my behavior, other than the potential for STDs, and I'm always safe. As safe as one can be and still be sexually active, that is.

After I left the party, I headed up to Los Angeles, going to The Greek to catch Diavolo's show. Good stuff. Freezing out, though. I huddled next to my club friend and we warmed ourselves by mocking the DJ and his crappy house music by busting out sarcastic dance moves for a good twenty minutes. We totally got complimented on our performance, too.

The show shifted to clubbing, moving on the dance floor at a favorite venue, trying to let go, just be in the moment. Training myself to stop detaching from everything. It's hard, it's very hard, going from the constant observer to the participant.

But it's easiest for me to do it when I'm dancing.

So I practiced. Whenever I felt my mind wandering to the other dancers or the men standing by me, I would just force myself to stop thinking about it, start thinking of the beat and my body.

It worked. It worked really well.

I left at midnight to join The Broken Prince and his friend for some DP.

Finally, yes, finally, DP can be checked off the list of things to do. My delayed birthday present. An unexpected offer, an unexpected adventure.

It was a mild conflict for me. A man I just met and a man I had never met. The dynamic of the three of us together. My own safety. The mild concern of if I was agreeing to the invite because I felt the need to somehow validate myself, that the pain from GV8 was still echoing in me, or if I sincerely was just anxious about trying something new with new people.

If it was a healthy decision or an unhealthy one.

And then how it would impact my friendship with The Broken Prince.

If he would, indeed, be one of those men that would immediately write off my opinions, my ideas, because I "obviously" did not value myself. Because I did not wait the prescribed time before going "sure, you and your friend can totally ream me".

If it was desire for me, or desire for the image I represented.

Memories of SFPlayboy rising to the surface, knowing that he, at least initially, wanted me for my other blog's popularity, not because of who I was. A trophy for his collection.

I showed up at 1AM.

I met his friend. I was relieved. His friend was wonderful, completely put me at ease within seconds. This was not, at least for me, going to be a matter of being used and tossed out.

Eventually we made it into the bedroom.

There's that awkwardness, that wondering of dynamic.

And I realized, watching and listening, seeing The Prince slide off his shirt, undo the chain that rested around his neck, that he wasn't quite with us.

That he wasn't in the room.

I wonder if I would have noticed if I had not been aware of this tendency of his prior to that night.

Looking up at his face, at his eyes, our shared blue, wondering, almost knowing that this wasn't a matter of me being used, this wasn't even about pleasure. It was him feeding demons, and I could have been anyone.

I touched his face, surprised by a kiss placed into my palm.

Back into his eyes. Wondering where he was. Wondering what he was doing to himself. Wondering if I should hate myself for knowing this and aiding him in that quest. It's almost like assisted soul-rape.

A line from an IAMX song slides into my mind, "Who put the mess in your head..?"

Remembering doing this to myself, remembering years ago.

We're both good at hiding these things from others. Watching the social shifts.

He didn't hide it from me. Possibly because he was too tired. Possibly realizing what a disservice it would be. Possibly because he didn't find me worth the effort of hiding it.

I don't know. I do know that it's more likely that whatever theories I come up with, they're probably wrong.

I'm not here to save anyone. I don't heal wounds, I only listen.

Slow, rhythmic pumps, distance between bodies, eyes that are so far removed from the current time as he eats away at himself. Unredeemable, is that the goal?

That's the question, isn't it? The things that drive a person to destruction: what is the idea of that destruction? The finality of execution. How do you define your destruction, and what will that destruction bring you?

Two people asked me within a twenty-four hour period, why do I chase pain?

Things to think on.

Afterwards, The Prince passed out in bed and I joined his friend (pseudonym pending) in the living room, curled up under a yellow blanket that reminded me strongly of Big Bird from Seasame Street.

We talked for awhile. Just life and sex stuff, the dynamic the three of us had in bed, the disconnect with The Prince. We had two conversations over the course of the night, the first one standing on his front porch while he had a cigarette.

He said to me, "You're here for him."

I said to him, "I figured he brought me here for you."

Shaking with cold, chatting into the late night/early morning air.

Life is damaging, some of us aid that process.

Remembering what it was like when sex was an unhealthy activity for me. It has been so many years since I punished myself by using others. By letting others use me.

Those sentiments: "you're here for him" and "he brought me here for you".

Realizing the twist. I was there for him, but he did not bring me for his friend necessarily, but to help drive another knife in. The knowledge was there, I saw it. I saw the days of my 16 year old self piled up, the sheets, the carpet, the furniture I was bent over.

Pressed a hand to his face, knowing that was the closest I'd get to his mind that night.