The electricity is out in half of the apartment due to a minor misjudgement by your author. This means that my maglight assists me in selecting my wardrobe (yes, I do dress myself in the dark), that I wrote last night's post and this post by candlelight, and I get to shower by candlelight.

Fortunately for me, I did a bit of decorating last week, so candles are easy to come by.

Current preview of the apartment: my faux fireplace.



This is what I get to write by. Pretty damn cute. I'm (currently) planning on getting a Sylvia Ji print to hang above it... she definitely is one of my favorite painters.

But back to my weekend.

The shower incident had passed. I had tamed my savage beast, for the most part. We slept side by side in my canopy bed, sheer white curtains framing us.

We don't sleep well together. We just don't line up. And his body is, while lovely to look at, too hard to be comfortable. Resting my head on his chest feels like I'm resting my head on a warm, breathing cement block.

It's hard not to think of GV8 at times like this, the way we synch, how easy it is for us to move together, be together.

I took him to Hollywood the next morning, driving up La Brea as he read the chapter on the Masculine Dandy from The Art of Seduction to me. We hit the usual stops: Amoeba, the Arclight, Cahuenga, down the boulevard, past the characters, over to Graumann's, the back down the boulevard once more, into the Scientology center, then to Vine, poked our heads into Cafe Was (a favorite restaurant of mine), ran into Borders, then back to my apartment to change and get ready for the club.

As we walked through Hollywood, we talked pick up, talked girls, social dynamics, sex. He told me I had changed a lot since we last met, had become significantly more dominant, wondered if I'd lose my need to submit and become a domme.

I tried to explain.

Tried to explain what happened with GV8, how much that had changed me. Tried to explain how the knowledge I gained about myself in the short period of time we were together impacted me so intensely that I could feel myself changing.

I felt... crass, almost. Full of ego, full of self. Bragging.

Before I met GV8, it was rare for me to meet a man more sexually experienced than I was. Even when I did encounter those few, the sex was lacking on a basic level. I've found that, without that emotional connection, the majority of men are looking simply to get off.

Which, one would say, is a major obvious "duh" statement.

A resounding "duh".

The difference between myself and those men, between GV8 and those men, is that getting off is not the end-goal. Orgasm is something you can do by yourself. Most men, give them a Playboy, 30 seconds, and some lotion. That's all they need. They know their bodies well, they know their rhythm, the pressure, the grip.

They've got it. And they should.

So you bring another person into the mix, engage in sex, or sexual activities, and men are still going straight for that orgasm. So now instead of having their own experienced hand, they've got someone who doesn't know their body and usually doesn't quite know what they're doing. Whoopee. And all the effort a guy has to put into that: time, money, manipulation, passing shit-tests, dodging cock-blocks, they've got the girl and they want to get off.

Really? You just invested all that and you're still aiming for that orgasm like a dedicated missle?

Where is the art? Where is the play?

Where is the poetry?

You've got a whole new body to explore. You've got a entire universe inside a person, all their experiences, all their ideas of pleasure, of ways of touching, ways of stroking. Then you combine your own experience, ideas, touches with theirs, and you've created something between you, something that will only exist between the two of you with your select combination.

Who cares if you orgasm?

This is about pleasure. This is about spending hours, if not all day, finding out ways to make yourself and your partner feel amazing.

You know, for more than just the lead up and that three to ten second burst.

Something that annoys me beyond words is when I'm having sex with someone and I can tell their entire being is not focused on the sex, but on the orgasm. That face guys make, the one that crunches their eyes down, clenching their teeth, they fall into that spectacular steady rhythm and their faces turn various shades of red as they pant through flaring nostrils until finally they shudder, cry out, curse... and continue to pant.

It's like watching someone run a marathon.

A very short marathon.

You can see the look in their eyes, the goal line where nothing else matters. They've abandoned you, they've abandoned pleasure, they've abandoned exploration. They're done. They're sprinting towards that finish line like the ground behind them is rapidly disappearing, like Ed McMahon is holding an oversized check for 5 mil written out to them, like a golden ticket is hanging out from their Wonka bar just past that line, like Nordstrom is having their biannual sale and they're ready to battle for those heels, ladies.

Before him, I was above average. I knew what I was doing, knew better than the majority of girls my age. I had the basic philosophy down, knew the principles, the ethics.

And then he taught me more.

He taught me so much more.

In what little play I've done with men in our various off-again-on-again stages that peppered my relationship with GV8, I've found that I now exceed past what I expected. My performance is more. My knowledge is more. My technique is more.

I already had a hard time finding men that would suit me, that would be able to match and fulfill my basic ideas of sex.

Now it seems like... very few could touch me.

I hate how egotistic that sounds. Gods, I hate it. I hate saying it. It's almost embarassing for me. For some reason, I can't allow myself to have anything that remotely resembles an ego. I keep holding myself back.

Let's try this.

I'm damn good in bed. I'm experienced, I'm well-taught. I have a natural skill at touching, at rhythm. My oral, my hand jobs, are gorgeous. I blow minds. It's something I've perfected, something I love doing, love being good at. I play a near perfect mix of devoted lover and sex-hungry slut. I'm open and willing. I communicate. I don't judge my partners when I'm with them, I work with them.

I feel like what I learned from GV8, especially since I've been able to put it to practice a few times when we were on hiatus in November, especially since SFPlayboy was shocked and could tell the difference between how I used to perform and how I perform now... I feel golden. I feel above. I feel like I could grab any man and rock him without really trying.

That's pretty cool. Feeling so confident about something.

And it comes from GV8. His experience, his desire, him choosing me, the man who never settles down, never keeps a steady lover because he likes to cycle through so many, because most women, he says, aren't worth sleeping with more than a few times, certainly not regularly.

But I was. No matter how often he tried to push me away, he kept coming back. Until it got too serious. Until I almost snagged the man who would not be snagged. Until he had to sit down and determine if he was willing to alter his plans for his life to be with me.

Beautiful.

So I communicated this to Playboy as we walked, expressing my frustration at how I feel like I can't talk to anyone else about this because it feels like I'm bragging, feels like I'm so self-centered, so egotistic.

He told me I wasn't bragging. That I had done it, that I was doing it, that I would do it in the future. That I had changed. I wasn't being boastful, just... examining.

It still strikes me as odd, how much I loathe the idea of having an ego, of being seen as having an ego. Is it better to be overconfident or underconfident?

I'd say overconfident, but others might disagree.

I dragged him into the Scientology center as we headed back to my car. I charmed the man at the counter, talked, smiled, laughed. Took the "stress test", deliberately played the rountine of the sweet, innocent girl with a bright outlook on life, honest past the point she should be, but chugging through, just to throw the guy for a loop. I'm so good at that one.

Playboy watched as I shifted from being his weekend companion to cute and girlish, then back again and again we went through the Scientology intro and our guide would occasionally leave us. He watched me lie through my teeth about having a dinner reservation we were late to, about how he was such a sweetheart to be taking me out to dinner since I was so very broke and couldn't afford the Scientology handbook, quickly checking my phone to toss out the nearest fifteen minute mark for our reservation. Polite and friendly smile, wide upward eyes, chin slightly tilted, open body language, and then we left.

But I found, once we arrived back at my apartment, the shower incident had not been enough education for my companion.

He had to test the waters again.

I was ready.