Day 8: Tsunamis

Hi there! Did you miss me? I've missed you. I'm sorry I've been away so long. This post has taken a while to bubble, simmer, and be ready. Today, I want to get naked with you. Like, really naked. Not the kind that removes the tangible clothing shell, but the kind that actually leaves me exposed. The kind that brings you into me. The kind that connects you to my skin, my liver, my undefinable me. The kind of naked that probably won't get you off. It doesn't get me off, anymore. And that's the problem. This month is supposed to embrace self-love, celebrate it, bathe in its stickiness. In trying, (yes trying! can you imagine trying to love yourself, rather than just doing? - maybe you can), I'm not bathing, I'm drudging through muck and murk and a whole lot of sticky that's more like pond scum than the sugary sweet that gooks at the tip of my fingers after the loving. I cry after sex now- partnered sex, self-sex, it doesn't matter, I still cry. I cry for my lover, because I don't think he actually wants to be there anymore, between my legs, where he used to fit, but has a hard time squeezing his face or cock into now. Obligation sucks. I cry for myself. Pity's worse. And self-pity, fuck, self-disgust, is the 7th circle of hell. Liquid nitrogen cold in the core, like the Devil with Dante. But yet here I am. 

The idea of having sex makes me nauseous, makes me anxious. Dwelling on the how, the maneuvering, the positioning, the what might feel good for both, what might feel good for me, mostly what might get him off or if he will. Why am I so worried about getting him off? As if sex is the only thing keeping him around. Jesus. But I remember what it was, what it used to be, how it used to be. Before, when he fit me. When I fit myself. Could reach all parts without lift something, moving it out of the way, working to stretch down and around. My hands have become forklifts for my body, not the gentle caressers and committed lovers they used to be, I want them to be, I need them to be. Before. When I wasn't competing with who I used to be, and just was. There. In the moment. Existing and happy wrapped in his arms, in my own.

But the idea of not having sex- not making love-, makes me hurt. On a level so profoundly, I'm not even sure my fingers know how to describe it. I need that connection. Physical as it is, emotional as it is, soulful as it is. The thought of not being wanted, by your lover... by yourself. That clings to the lining of your gut, curls up and bores in. It's toxic.

Why am I even bringing this up? This project is about self-love, about self-sticky, about SELF. Well, maybe it's part of the healing, the getting through the loathe to get to the love. All of it. But it's also because it affects how I come, or if I come at all. Not just the physical abilities of stretching my arms over a belly I never used to have and don't know what to do with. Or breasts that create their own mini grand canyons in my shoulders with their bra straps. Or in between thighs that have grown into their own redwood trunks and legs that never seem to open wide enough to get through them. But because this is what I see, in my head, if I can't find that one fantasy to hold on to. This is the silent film that plays in the background, black on a white wall, motioning and clicking its way into my attention, until I can't focus on the fantasy and I focus on the reality. And the feeling, the feeling that before had sprung so easily, that shot so triumphantly from me, is lost in the madness of disappointment and anger and self-doubt, and unloving. The idea of pleasuring myself (or being so), of being worthy of pleasure in this body, when I so obviously (at least in my own head) can't return that pleasure, can't return that appeal, the allure, it eats me. Consumes, breaks down, regurgitates, then starts the process all over again. Like cud in the four stomachs of a cow, but never actually passed through. I've always been a people pleaser, a caretaker, devoting my energy and my importance to the feelings and thoughts of others. So what happens when I can't please? When I'm not pleasing?

This was the epiphany I had at 4am Sunday night/ Monday morning. Unable to sleep, laying belly down, hips propped on the floor next to our bed, quiet tears staining my face and my pillow, trying to get off while my boyfriend slept soundly three feet above me. This was why I couldn't bring myself to masturbate Friday, or Saturday, or most of Sunday. But there I was, when it clicked. Feeling deconstructed and handless. Trying to envision myself in a fantasy, being pleasured, being with him. And it wasn't working, and my mind kept slipping, back to that old silent movie, the click click click of 8mm film more focused and sharp and demanding than the digitally enhanced porn I tried playing in my brain. But I was so damn determined. I needed to feel good, even if it was only physical, only temporary. I needed it. At 4AM on the floor, I deserved it. So I switched gears, left the fingers and grabbed the big blue turbo vibrator (7 levels and types of clit stimulations and one powerhouse of a rotator for the inside- though I never really use that particular function), switched pornos and focused on me doing the pleasuring. Of me using my mouth, sometimes just as a disembodied head sprouting over the side of the bed. Or of me, in my old body, my 4-years ago body that first brought love I wanted to me, dancing and touching myself for him to watch, for him to enjoy, to yank and squeeze and stroke himself, watching the old me, pleasuring him until he exploded, in my mouth, on my chest, all over me.

And then the real me, the current body, current mind me, exploded with the him in my head. Massive, wave over wave from my solar plexus down the arteries in my stomach, through my torso, coating the sides of my uterus then out. All over the sticky head of my chattering blue dolphin, a torrent of ocean swells being pushed out of me. And when the tidal wave stilled, and I thought I was done, a slight movement, maybe even a residual spasm of a muscle, and then another, unexpected but welcomed orgasm, rippled quietly through and out. Then finally, I closed my eyes and I slept, in the pool of my own slick, electric and humming against my thighs and belly.

This is not a disclaimer or an apology, but I am putting it out there:

I also tend to get exactly like this, just before my period. I'm a PMS'ing mess. Not that I necessarily want to be the first to walk hand in hand with the idea that women's hormones rage during menstruation (or just before) and that that's the reason for all our "irrational" behavior, but it DOES fuck with my self-worth and bubbles everything I try to suppress, or get past, right back up.

Day 3: Finding the Right Spot

I didn't come yesterday. Didn't want to. To be honest, I fell asleep before 9pm on the couch, so that kinda shot any evening opportunity I might have had, or wanted, dead. So, when my eyes flew open this morning, I thought about last night and felt a little ripple of disappointment flutter through me, before I reminded myself that self-love, for this month's project, is not limited to just one type, it's how I want to define it, recognizing all my needs and not apologizing for any of them. That not touching myself for one day, when my body clearly had other plans, is perfectly OK.

Yesterday, I didn't find the "Right Spot", not the one that would wobble my knees, riddle my flesh with goosebumps, puppeteer my muscles and force a scream from both sets of lips. Not the one where my body, tender and out-of-sync lately: sore back, complaining knee, protruding belly, swollen thighs, could relax into, steady itself and luxuriate in the idea, and act, of self pleasure. Not the one where my head settled the muck, my brain cooperated, and my emotions allowed it. For me, as I guess it may be with many other women, the "Right Spot" isn't just where that special nest of nerve endings waits at the end of a bump to be stroked and coddled, but it's finding the right frame of mind, the right overall physical feeling, the right moment to allow ourselves that peace, that space, that time we need to enjoy being with ourselves, being in ourselves, and hell, sometimes, if we're lucky, being outside watching ourselves. It's the Sweet Spot. The universal G Spot. The one where we may be able to stop time, forgive (or at least forget) everything that's bothered us that day, and dive into our own pleasure-- finger and feel our own worth. Yesterday, I didn't find the spot, so I found the escape of sleep instead.

But this morning, this morning was different. Almost immediately after that initial disappointment, my mind switched gears, my body perked and my ears rang full with the Siren song adrift and carried to me from the shower. No one ever escapes a Siren. Despite my desire to jump in fully clothed and go at it, I slowed down, breathed out, undressed. Hell, I even washed and conditioned my hair, and degritted and de-drooled my morning pillow face. Then, with a quick ear to the shower wall to hear any stirrings from the next room, I let loose the spout from its cage, and scooted down, skin hot against the cool of the porcelain. I started narrating again this morning, drifting more into the words of my head than into the electric impulses being conducted from the shower through the pulsing water to my flesh. So I closed my eyes. I pulled a curtain down between the noise of the spectators in my head and the actual performance, the pleasure. It was like cutting the nerves, cutting the feeling (in my flesh and in my mind )from everything else but what was going on between my legs. In the back of my mind I knew I had to be quick, relatively speaking. Already running late for work, and knowing the shower wasn't really going to be free for long, the urgency added to the need, to the want, to the tingling.


I didn't let it go, I wasn't ready yet to come, to watch the feeling wash away with the water, down the drain. I held on, fingers clenched around the grip, squeezing as I would a bent neck or a fleshy head. Today, with eyes closed, I saw myself more amiably, found the Right Spot, then moved the wet mouth, rubbing back and forth to stimulate then stop, stimulate then stop, right at the cusp. With my hesitance to release, and wanting more after not feasting on myself last night, the fantasy came. And hard. I saw me how you see me, how you would see me if you burst through the bathroom door for your morning routine and popped your head around the flimsy shower curtain just to stare at my nakedness, like you usually do. I saw my legs spreading into a smile for you. And then felt them clench, knees kissing, thighs tight and pulling the showerhead harder against my swollen lips. My fantasy slipped, migrated from the simple visually pleasing stimulation to a harder, dirtier, kinkier one, ripping out the stomach of my emotions. Overpowered, and covered in you, I rocked back and forth against it, rubbed myself in it, skin hot and flushed, tingling and prickly against the slick porcelain. Eviscerated and raw, I came quietly, letting the mouth with no voice do all the screaming this morning. And when my no-voice finally hushed, I fell slack-shoulder against the curved elbow of the tub's embrace, and the showerhead bucked and whirred its excitement at my coming. My fingers uncurling against the force of its exhuberance, it celebrated all over the bathroom walls and on the floor, as if it too was coming, as you did in my head, in the wake of its dominance over my prone body.

In what I'm considering the Universe's applause, or at least acceptance, of my morning's coming, before I left the bedroom for the last time, dressed and notebook in hand to distract me from a full workday, I opened a book of poetry for my daily writing inspiration, and fell at once to this poem:

you asked me to come: it was raining a little,

and the spring; a clumsy brightness of air

wonderfully stumbled above the square,

little amorous-tadpole people wiggled

battered by stuttering pearl,

leaves jiggled
to the jigging fragrance of newness

--and then. My crazy fingers liked your dress

...your kiss, your kiss was a distinct brittle

flower, and the flesh crisp set

my love-tooth on edge. So until light

each having each we promised to forget--

wherefore is there nothing left to guess:

the cheap intelligent thighs, the electric trite

thighs, the hair stupidly priceless.

-e.e. cummings

Day One: Commitment Phobe

I've made a commitment, maybe even more of entering into a covenant this month, to a community, to myself, promising to respect myself, to be patient with my body, to understand my desires, to still my mind, listen to my flesh and to feel, through every pulsing, the importance my own touch.   I want to engage in self-love, to put myself up on that pedestal, on top, where I've always belonged, not subjugated to someone else's body, someone else's desires. Promises of a month-long retreat, into myself, into the folds of my own skin, into the soft bounce of my own flesh, into the wet heat from between my legs. Promises to come on my own, my own two fingers leading me South in a journey of discovery, recollection, renewal.

And so I embarked on the first step of my journey. I came this evening.  Twice, so far. But only once by my own devising. I spent all day thinking about it, thinking about just how I'd inaugurate this month-long celebration of me. Knowing I'd have at least a partial evening to myself-- would I be on the couch panties off, dress still on, in the shower, in a chair at my writing desk, or prone and exposed on the bed? I chose the bed. I guess out of habit more than anything else. A return to something known and comfortable. All lights in the apartment off, except the small Burlesque Leg Lamp, throwing soft light through its fishnet leg and with a small thrill in my stomach about being caught mid-bucking, I tore at my clothes, hearing the material moan as I pulled it over my shoulders and stretched around my head, unable to get my dress off quick enough. I wanted to moan too. I wanted more than that.

Orgasms come for me, fairly quickly. Sometimes small and soft, tiptoeing up my thighs and whispering out from my lips in tiny ripples, leaving little or no trace of their passing. Other times, they're loud, obnoxious, in (or on) your face guttural roars starting from multiple locations- from the base of my spine, from my toenails, my nipples, my earlobes, and all converging at my pussy and spewing forth in geysers. These kinds of orgasms, this type of coming, this is what I yearn for, panting and covered in sweat, blinded, throat sore, body tingling and exhausted, begging for recupe time, and still greedy for more  These are the orgasms I prefer, the ones that push me through the hard times. But these full-body convulsings and dam-bursting moments are hard to elicit at the tips of my own fingers. And tonight was no different.

Laying on the bed, hands running over my body, I began to think rather than do. I'd committed to this practice, to this discovery, to working on breaking the dam and coming Victoria Falls at the coaxing of my own hands or even vibrators, rather than rely on your fingers, or better yet, your tongue. But as my hands moved, I heard myself narrating, relating my story, my movements, hoping that I could sound sexy in my own head, push myself over simply by sharing myself and thinking about how or what I'd write when I sat down to relate this experience. I began to narrate all the things I wanted to think about, then all the things I didn't. I couldn't commit to a single fantasy, to a single thought that would jerk in my mind, and at the tip of my clit, that would elicit a yelp or a gasp from my lips.

And then I wasn't alone anymore.  I heard the apartment door open and close, and footsteps on the hard...wood. And I thought of you,you not knowing I'd rolled onto my stomach to press my finger firmer against my clit, not knowing I was listening to you from our bed, listening for the sounds you make when you're pleasuring yourself, my ears subbing for voyeur eyes. Or better yet, thinking of you catching me, the urgency forcing me to move my fingers faster and grind my hips deeper against the flannel sheets. Then the vision of you actually catching me, joining in with my hand hard pressed behind your neck, cupping the base of your skull, tongue still lapping while you peer up through eyelashes dripping wet with me. And I came, finally, mind clear of all images but that one, I came quick and with little wet though blood rippling, and tiny muscles spastic. I couldn't commit to myself on my own, not tonight, not this time, not to come how I wanted- laying exhausted and eyelids fluttering in a pool of my own slick.  But, with you in my head, I did come that first time. Little as it may have been, I was not a failure.

And then the second time, when you finally did discover me, and wanted to know what I was doing. And I still wanted more.