For you I wear my Sunday best on Tuesday...

I've been listening much too much to a particular De/Vision song called What You Deserve. For some reason, the lyrics catch me just right.

I was introduced to this song recently, through my clubbing friend.

See, a few weeks ago I was out at a club and this other song came on (don't watch that video, by the way, I'm fairly certain it's crap, but the song is good) and I was blown away by the beat. Much dancing ensued.

My clubbing friend, by my request (which was delivered when I saw him walking by the edge of the dancefloor, watching me dance, stopped, screamed at him, "WHAT IS THIS SONG?!" and he shrugged and I said, "FREAKING FIND OUT!"), got the song information and told me he'd burn me a CD with it on it.

The next time I see him, he gives me this CD which he turned into a mix CD of songs he could see me dancing to.

...I'm not sure if that's sweet or creepy. Currently going with sweet.

He does love to watch me dance.

So... maybe creepy.

It was bizarre, listening to that CD. Songs that had been my favorites months ago, years ago, and new songs. A wide variety of genres, too. Yet he nailed it, for the most part. It was a CD of club songs.

Started making me wonder how many days (weeks?) of my life, hours all added up, that I have spent on the dance floor in various clubs through Southern California.

I'm coming up on eight years of clubbing. When there is a "retro" room at a club, chances are that the majority of songs they are spinning are songs that I danced to in clubs when I was 18 or 19, when it was me and one of my closest friends out going several nights a week, coming back blasted out of our minds with exhaustion more often than not.

After I settled down with Stuntcock, then he settled down with his partner, then I escaped mine... it was just me, running solo.

But that's what I like to do.

Darkeyes and I went clubbing every week while we were dating, with him insisting on me teaching him how to dance, if he could ever be taught. His lack of rhythm and body awareness, and his complete inability to take criticism, no matter how well intentioned, meant that I was stuck with a clubbing partner who could not dance, who usually ended up injuring others with his dancing, myself, with all my years of learning how to dodge and move around others, included.

He was that bad.

How embarassing for me.

Anyhow, I went out to a club last Sunday, a big event. Showing up early and knowing people working the event led me to volunteer to help. So, for a good hour+, I was working the line at the door.

Yes, that's right.

I was an honorary doorwoman. I entertained myself in the wait by making sexist comments and making fun of the patrons. It went over oddly well.

After the initial crowd died down, I escaped the door and went to enjoy my evening.

Where some man tried to pick me up with the following line:

"Do you ever find yourself missing someone else's cat?"

...
...
...

This was followed by the worst physical escalation I've possibly seen in the last several years, which consisted of him leaning towards me (even though we were outside on the patio and I could hear him just fine), putting his crotch on my hip, his chest on my shoulder, and half-shouting into my ear about this cat and how I have to see pictures of this cat on his cell phone, which, against my protests, he showed me.

This was when I hunted down my still nickname-less clubbing friend and told him he had to play the role of boyfriend/lover until this guy got off my back.

Sidenote: I'm normally okay with telling people that I don't have interest in them and to cut it out, but some people are so socially inept that to tell them such things is to provoke an argument as to why they are unworthy of my interest. This was close enough to one of those men that I did not wish to do this.

Oh, and while I was running around dodging this guy, that guy I one-night standed last November was there giving me the eyeball and I was polite and fine until he spent the length of three songs watching me dance, making me wonder if he was going to leave another creepy voicemail on my phone with the message being, "Hi, I was... uh... watching you... uh... dance... and I was... uh... wondering... if you were doing... anything... uh... later tonight."

This, this is what happens when you pick up someone at a club. They might be good looking (apparently he was a vampire extra on the (second) season finale of True Blood , so, yes, he's hot enough), and they might past as socially competent, but this was fail.

Also, when a man keeps the used condoms because he believes in his pagan ways that consuming his own sperm is a way of cycling energy, you just leave. You go, "Thank you for an odd, odd, evening and for bruising my cervix but I am leaving you and your sperm-filled condoms here, good-bye." And then you run.

I mean, it's been coming up on a year now and he's still trying.

So I see him and he's watching me and I'm pretending I don't see him because I take my glasses off when I dance and, eventually, he realizes that I'm not going to be stopping anytime soon so he wanders off and I hang out for another song before stepping off the floor to find my friend out on the patio, who tells me he's not going to be joining me for out usual post-club dinner, and I'm walking with him back into the club asking why not and the one-night guy overhears us so I'm standing there going fuck-fuck-fuck.

Because, after ever club I see him at, he always approaches me to go home with him and I always turn him down because I have other plans.

This leads me spending the end of my evening (when I'm not dancing) clinging to my friend like his penis is the best thing in the world and no other will satisfy me.

While on the floor, the guy who tried to pick me up with the cat comment (and the conversation had continued from there), joins me on the dancefloor and says, "I'm going to blame (insert clubbing friend's name here) for this."

Just this obscure, flailing shot in the dark, declaring interest, nodding that he had been "defeated" by a better male, etc etc lameness.

So I looked at him with my best confused-blonde expression and said, "Huh? What do you mean?"

He smiled at me like I was a dope, this condescended grin, and said, "Ah, nothing," like he was the Most Mysterious Man In The World.

This was, mind you, after he saw me with my friend, which was before he decided to take offense at my inavailability and strut by me, then plant himself two inches away from me with his back to me, staring into space for a good three minutes before strutting away.

Men, men are morons.

While all of that stupid male crap was going on, I was running interference for my clubbing buddy, whose ex-girlfriend of four years decided to show up to the club with her new boyfriend (mmm, two day rebounds), which sent my friend into all sorts of emotional melancholy so I was running around checking on him constantly, harassing him, flirting with him, making fun of people with him so he'd keep distracted.

Along with the rest of the usual club madness. Drunks, staggering, dodging lit cigarettes, dodging morons on the dance floor, and then some girl taking to me strongly and wanting to dance with me and be all "oooh, lesbian sexy" with me which was... something I don't engage in. But then the DJ joined us on the dancefloor and she cut that out.

Interesting night.

Overly long, pointless journal post.

But at least I'm not saving used condoms for dessert.

...I'm caught between laughter and... well, more laughter, I suppose.

My reputation continues to follow me through the years.

So I bit that guy's lymph node in half? He told me where to bite and how hard to bite and I did.
So I left bite marks all over that other guy's penis when I convinced one of my female friends it would be a good idea for the both of us to go down on him? He liked it.
So I broke that that one guy's nose on my pubic bone? He had a big nose.
And when the other guy pulled a muscle in his thigh and was down and out, that wasn't at all my fault. He was in control of the positioning. Sure, he was an acrobatic performer and in top shape, but still...


And then I get a text from someone in that social circle.

"What are you doing this weekend?"
"I'm going to -----. You as well?"
"Yeah. Having a BBQ on Sunday, a bunch of my bros will be there. You should come."
"Stop whoring me out to your friends. What time?"
"Call me."

"Hey, Fox, what's up?"
"About 40 of my friends are coming in from out of town. Thursday night we're having a party, Friday night we're going to -----, Saturday night we're getting rooms at the ----- Hilton and trashing the place, Sunday is the BBQ. 2PM."
"I have a date Thursday and Sunday. Saturday and Friday nights are good. I'll be there."
"Ditch your date on Sunday, come to the BBQ."
"You're just trying to even out a sausage fest, Fox."
"My boys are in from out of town for the weekend, V."
"And you're hoping I hook up with one or two of them to make sure they have fun."
"Well..."
"Stop who--- crap, I'm at work. You know what I mean. I'll think about it. I don't want to hook up with a bro."
"They're not bros."
"I hope not. I'll think about it."
"2PM. My pad."
"I know."

I like how he doesn't deny it. How he just wants to impress his boys, show them a good time, and he's calling his single female friends to do that. And he knows that if I did hook up with them, that I would be cool with it being a one-timer. Because he knows I'm not batshit clingy or emotional, and I've got a reputation for wildness.

I should get paid for this.

I'm going to dress up, do the make-up, hang out, flirt, spin a few heads, and if I actually find someone worth my sex, then we're solid and, if not, that's fine as well.

Which means I have an excuse for cancelling on Ev. Relief. Because I don't want to sleep with him anymore. I don't want to deal with a recurring partner that I have to play a role for.

Maybe that's why I like one night stands so much.

Maybe?

That is it.

I don't have to be anything that I don't want to be. I get, for once, to be me.

Ten black stars at my window pane...

This is one of those moments where I just give up.

I mean, being female, I'm obviously more prone to emotional attachments. It's biology.

But, really, come on. How many of my ex-lovers have expressed that they feared I was becoming attached to them while we were sleeping together?

So, in a recent email conversation, SFPlayboy tossed out this:

It's funny, though; I kind of worried when you were here about you getting attached, too. You do have that monogamist impulse, deep down. But I should remember that you'll pretty much follow my lead in all things, and can take it even if you do form too much love (which you're still not THAT likely to). You're everybody's Scarlet Woman, I swear.

Sweet of him to say, but I still have this lingering annoyance. When have I been anything less than honest? When have I faltered? My track record for emotional attachment to lovers is spotless. I've never done it. Why? I don't take lovers that have the potential for relationships. If I meet a man, I will know very quickly if he's relationship material (for me). If he isn't, but I still enjoy his company and find him desirable, he gets slid over into the physical companion category, and he will stay there until our time ends.

You know, I don't think I've ever been with a man who has truly believed me.

And what am I supposed to say?

"I picked you because you've got a significant dealbreaker against you. I picked you because you're attractive enough to sleep with, and enjoyable enough to spend time with. I picked you because I'll never had any interest in you past friendship because something is so very wrong about the two of us together. You smoke. You drink. You have a habit of cheating on girlfriends. You can't hold a steady job. You're too optimistic. You don't have much of a future. You have no drive. You can't drive well or at all. You smoke pot. You're so mentally damaged that I can't imagine entwining my life with yours on more than a temporary level. You're not dominant enough to keep me happy in a relationship. You have mommy issues. You have a child. You have a crazy ex-wife. You're not experienced enough in bed. You have no confidence."

I can't exactly tell my partners those things. It would be fairly needless and hurtful.

So I just tell them that they're not my type. Or that I don't fall in love easily. Or that things would never work between us. Or that I'm really not ready for a relationship at the moment, but would like some companionship.

Because I don't think guys can handle me as a lover.

It's true.

I'm too affectionate, too easy with my body, too at ease in cuddling and bonding without ever going over the edge into love. I can spend every weekend with a man, having great sex, going out, talking into the night, and never feel more than friendship.

When a man tells me he's not looking for a relationship, I take him at his word. When he tells me that he has no interest in forming romantic entanglements with me, I trust that he knows himself well enough for that statement to be honest and accurate.

So why do men have such a hard time believing me?

Why does each one think that something is going to be different with them, that my experience and self-knowledge means nothing when I become involved with them?

Do I seem unaware of myself? Do I seem delusional? Do I pass myself off as dishonest? Do I seem inexperienced?

I mean, I must be doing something if this has happened with almost every single one of them.

When I was in SF with Playboy, he was the one that initiated hand-holding. I love holding hands, but I know that, for many, it's a sign of greater emotional intimacy. So I refrain.

When Stuntcock and I broke up when I was 20, I spent the weekend down in San Diego with one of my longest-term lovers. I used him for emotional comfort, for cuddling, for getting used to a new body, new lips, new cock after a year and a half of the same ones. It was awkward, but I knew I needed to get past my accustomedness with a body I would never touch again.

And my lover let me. He helped me.

But never once did I think of dating him. Never once did I think of love.

And then I came across a wonderful man who was perfect and supportive, who helped me heal the wounds that Stuntcock left on my confidence. I spent almost every other day with him for months, met his friends and family, just as he met my friends and family.

I let my family think we were dating so they would not be alarmed at the amount of time we spent together, but we were just friends, friends who happened to have a lot of sex and spend lots of time together.

Nothing more.

Then I met Rick, and our physical friendship ended.

That particular lover, like others over the years, told me a year or two after I ended things, that he had been slowly falling in love with me, even though he warned me before we started our relationship that love was not part of the equation. (I think it was, "V, you better not fall in love with me because I don't fall in love and I don't want to hurt you." My reply, "It's not me you should be worrying about. And I'll remind you of this conversation later, jerkbutt." No, I'm not the most mature person.)

He's getting married in September. He called to tell me about it to invite me. I received the invite a few days ago, it's in a 1920s design that is rather cute. I have no date, but I prefer it that way.

I suppose I should stop railing against the inevitable: as long as I am sleeping with someone, they're going to be afraid that I'm going to request a committed relationship from them, whether or not I show any affection. It doesn't matter that I wing for them. It doesn't matter that I encourage them to ask other girls out, or teach them tricks in bed so they can please future partners. It doesn't matter that I'm sleeping with (usually several) other guys.

It's only when it's over do they believe me.

I should get them to write letters of reference for me.

"Yes, I was one of V's lovers for x-amount of months (or years). Yes, I think she might just be a sexbot." And then I could have it notarized.

Love without pain isn't really romance...

22.

We're in bed, lying next to each other on plaid flannel sheets, catching up on our breathing after a no-holds barred tickling match. I turn my face towards him. I've never been this happy, this content, with my life, with a man. I've been living with him for a little over two years. He's my life. We talk about marriage, about children. We're happy and growing. I never thought I would find a man who I could truly trust and love. Never thought I would find someone like him.

He looks at me and I smile. Our cat, a chubby black and white male I picked out from the pound the year before, had retreated to the chair by the bed in order to escape our wrestling.

"I want to break up."

I laugh at him, "Right, of course."

"I'm serious."

"Sure you are." He stares at me. He's not smiling. "Wait, you're serious? This isn't a joke?" starting from my throat, numbness starts to overtake me as I watch his mouth for the hint of a smile, "This isn't funny. I don't understand."

"I'm not ready for this. It's getting to that point where I need to propose or let you go. I'm still too messed up. And you're so intense. You're consuming my life and I'm not ready for that. I need to figure out the crap inside my head."

I get out of bed, the numbness expanding down into my chest, and start putting on my clothes. The bed frame that he bought for me as a surprise while I was in Alaska, the matching bedroom furniture I had to get a team to carry up the stairs in the condo to get into our bedroom when he was in New Jersey, the walls my mother, sister, and I painted while he was out of town as a surprise, our cat that he bonded so intensely with, it all becomes a featureless blur spinning out of my vision.

The cold reaches my legs ten steps from the bed and I collapse to the floor, my string pulled out.

This isn't reality.

Tears start, breathing shifts into high-gear. Ohgodithurtsohgodohgod. I start hyperventilating, something I haven't done since the abortion five years prior. The memory slides into my head of the nurses telling my seventeen year-old self that I would need to slow my breathing or I would pass out and have to stay in the clinic even longer.

I slow my breathing. Remember yourself. Where is that switch, where is that switch he told you would always be there? How do I turn this off again, it's been too long. He said I would always be able to find it. WHERE IS MY SWITCH?

I find something in me, something resembling that cold ennui that haunted me for years. It's close, I reach and I shut down. I'm stronger than this, I've been through worse than this.

No one, however, has caught me by this much surprise.

Using the doorframe, I get shakily to my feet. I'm okay. It's off. The pain is a steady echo in the back my skull but I can ignore it until I get to safety, until I get out of here.

He steps into my vision and I break, the echo turning into a roar that vibrates through my skull, shattering the foundations I so hastily laid seconds before.

I hurt. I'm yelling at him through my tears. I haven't shouted at someone since that night.

My back is against the bathroom door and I can't get my body under control and part of me is screaming inside my head that I need to get it together, that I need to gather my beast to me and get through this because I can handle this if I would just let myself.

He's talking to me, soothing tone, explaining what happened, how he's been thinking about this for the last three months, watching us interact, trying to determine what to do. That he still cares for me, but he needs to focus on himself.

It's a fountain of words streaming from his mouth. I latch on to the cadence of his voice and my tears slow, then cease. I count the seconds of my breath. Three seconds in, three seconds out.

Focus.

I'm calm enough to drive. I toss some clothes into a bag. When I reach my car, I call my mother and let her know that I'm moving back in, and that I'm on my way now.

The next day, my mother, my sister, and myself show up to the condo with bags and boxes. We wipe it clean of me within a few hours. I call him to let him know we're done and he can return home.

I don't unpack those boxes for a over a year.

... ... ... ...

24.

We're in bed together. Tan cotton sheets. We're lying on our backs, distant.

"I think this is as far as we go," he says to me.

"I know."

A single tear rolls down my cheek and I fall asleep.

... ... ... ...

25.

We're standing in our kitchen. I'm moving out in a week. Mostly packed, it's just the kitchen and larger furniture.

"I don't want to lose your friendship."

"I'm sorry," I tell him, though I'm not and we both know that I mean that I'm sorry he treated me so poorly that I will never speak to him again once I am finally out of this apartment.

"I'm going to miss your wit and intelligence. I'm going to miss dancing with you at the clubs."

"Why did you do what you did?" and, again, we both know exactly what I'm referring to with that vague statement.

He leans against the kitchen counter, back inline with the kitchen sink.

"I thought you could take it."

"You thought I could 'take it'," images of me ripping off his head rush into my mind, but my body language betrays nothing as I continue to pack in the dining room.

"Yeah. You're so strong. You could take it. You're good with pain. I thought I could do what I wanted and you could handle it. Apparently you couldn't."

"I'm sorry I failed to see the point of sticking around in an unhealthy situation while you continued to treat me like your psychological punching bag. I'll try to do better next time." Asshole, I mentally punctuate.

The next hour and a half, while I pack, I get to listen to a whining speech from a man I never should have dated about how much he will miss my friendship.

When he goes out of town the next weekend, the weekend I'm moving out, he tricks one of his friends into staying at the apartment while he's gone in order to babysit me so I do not attempt to steal any of his belongings.

... ... ... ...

20.

"You got drunk and cheated on me with two of your female friends?"

"I plead the fifth."

"Right. Well, this is over."

"See you, space cowboy."

He would end with a running joke.

... ... ... ...

18.

When he slammed me in the car door the first time, I thought it was an accident.

The second time, it caught me across the chest.

The third time, I caught it in my hands.

When I ran, he caught me. I bit him. He threw me to the ground by my hair, bits of gravel stuck in my forearms.

When he locked me in his room and held me down on his bed, pressing into me with his body, I got a hand free and took my distress out on his balls. I continued to bite anything that I could sink my teeth into.

... ... ... ...

18.

I was stupid.

Looking so desperately for a man who wasn't like the last one, I stumbled into idiocy.

It still embarasses me to realize how naive I was. To get stuck in a hotel room in the middle of the day with a man I just met? That I was so hoping would erase the taint of the previous one?

I was so innocent. So stupid. When he switched a finger for a cock, I told him to stop. I told him he wasn't wearing a condom and I did not want to have sex and he knew that, I had told him earlier.

I wasn't savvy enough to realize the situation I was in.

He didn't listen.

... ... ... ...

17.

"Flip a bitch," he calls out, then roughly turns me onto my stomach while his friend watches from the floor.

We popped some pills and went at it, them taking turns with my body.

I still cannot get those words out of my head.

... ... ... ...

25.

I'm lying in bed, alone. Black sheets.

Cool pillow beneath me, phone pressed against one ear.

His voice slides into me, "It's like you're designed for pain. Something about you, something about your life, it's like you've been set up for pain. This is how you are strong. This is what people see in you. An ability to handle pain."