Hands Down

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Almost Cut My Hair

This past week, my good friend Viviane asked me out to the Pleasure Salon, as she always does. The Salon is a convocation of likeminded sex positive people that meets the first Wednesday of every month at a bar in NYC called The Happy Ending. Over the last few years, I've gone once or twice, usually with the specific intent of meeting up with sex bloggers that I've been in contact with. Large group social gatherings are usually not my forte, and this one was, I'm sad to say, no exception.
Viviane, who is a heavy hitter in this milieu, introduced me to tons of people who she thought I should know or meet, and my terminal shyness took over once again, as I became a wallflower and watcher, the latter being what I really like to do the most. There was birthday cake for a woman hitting a major milestone, and forty spanks for her from anyone that wanted to participate. And I just watched, content for the most part to be the voyeur once again.
Everyone wears a name tag of sorts with their screen name or blog name or something like that, and Mistress Lynx started to chat me up about my name, a pretty woman with a kind and winning smile. I wound up gassing on ad infinitum about where the name came from (a closely held secret with obscure origins) and realized that most of my references were way past her age group, as I tried to explain to her who Jackie Gleason and Art Carney were, and so I faded back into the wall once again. I did listen to a guy next to me ask a girl if it was the first time there for her, one of the oldest opening lines in the book, but strangely, in that environment perhaps, worked wonderfully well for both of them.
But the whole evening made me realize once again that when I talk to people I have to be more interested in them and what they have to say, and not to talk about what my friend The Lawyer labels his favorite topic, himself, and that it wasn't necessary for me to play match that anecdote with everyone that I spoke with.
Oh, and the title of this post? Comes from a song writen by David Crosby and recorded long long ago by Crosby, Stills and Nash---I almost ended this blog last week, wrote a final post and saved it, planning to edit and post over this weekend. But events have conspired against that, and I'll continue along, perhaps (and hopefully) posting more frequently. I want to go back to telling the story of Not Enough, I want to say things here that can't be said anywhere else, I want to write about my fascinations and obsessions.

The End of The Season-Part Three

We managed to support each other in our effort to reach the street and find a cab, each of us leaning against the other, my right arm around her waist and her left arm over my shoulder, both of us feeling the body warmth that an evening of alcohol had produced. By luck we found a cab in just a few minutes, and I opened the back door and fell into the seat closest to the curb, as she walked around to the driver's side and spoke through his window, telling him where to go. My head rested back against the seat, and I paid no attention at all to where we were headed, content to be led and taken to whatever location she had in mind. She slumped against me, her head lolling over against my shoulder, her breath hot against my chest. She rested a hand high up on my thigh, her fingers making little wave-like movements, and I started to get hard, despite the night of booze.
We stopped in front of a non-descript six floor walkup building, and we continued to walk side by side, as she unlocked the front door. She must have paid the driver at some point, but I was drifting in and out, assuming little responsibility and less control as things progressed. We walked down the hallway, through a door, and down a short flight of stairs. At this point my antenna went up and I started to be a bit concerned. As a born and bred New Yorker, I knew that the only thing you might find in the basement of a walkup building was the boiler, and I felt that sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach, the "I'm not in control and I don't know where this is going" feeling.
She unlocked the door and pushed me into a tiny dark space, a subterranean studio apartment barely large enough to hold the mattress on the floor. There was a waist high bookcase next to the mattress, and a pullman kitchen against one wall. There was one doorway that I could see, probably for the bathroom, and if there was a closet it wasn't obvious to me.
But the surprise, in this tiny space, was the wall facing the door.

The Summer So Far

I have spent more time in doctors offices in the last two months than I have in the last several years, more time prone with diagnosed and undiagnosed illnesses and syndromes and symptoms than I ever thought possible. I've had aches, pains, lethargy, inability to concentrate on anything meaningful. As a self-employed professional, it's all meant precious little services being performed in May and June, which has led to relative poverty in June and July. I've missed payments to be made for the first time in my adult life, through a combination of inattentiveness and a lack of cash.
I've had serious chest congestion brought on by adult onset allergies, which put me on powerful steroids (no, not that kind) and an inhaler, which I'm still using periodically. I spent the beginning of July with temps up to 103.5 (inside my body, not outside on the street lol), with such violent shivering and quaking that She thought it was The Exorcist demon inhabiting my body. In the process, I've ruined a pillow and wound up sleeping by myself for over a week, until I began to heal---the ultimate diagnosis was bacterial, cured by Cipro, which I had kept in the medicine cabinet left over from my most recent climbing trip to Ecuador.
My ultimate diagnosis, as the germs stopped moving around my body, was prostatitis, and in the process of visiting the urologist (and yes, I was among the youngest patients there) I was diagnosed with Peyronie's Disease, which is really a syndrome/symptom and not a Disease. And I'll leave it up to all you good souls to look it up on WebMd.
There has been little thinking about sex, even less sex, and almost no good sex...but that's all changing this week, as She and I are on vacation and will spend the time almost exclusively with each other. And I'm finally back to thinking about lust in a meaningful way.
Speaking of lust, try to catch a movie with Tilda Swinton called "I Am Love," if it comes to your local movie theatre. I thought it was about a middle aged woman caught in a stultifying marriage who meets and falls for a man half her age, the friend of her adult son. I saw it with Her, and She didn't understand why the younger man would fall for the older woman. But see it for yourself and think about what you think.
I'M BACK, yet again

The End of The Season-Part Two

We sat side by side, in profile, trading quips and bon mots, buying each other drinks for quite some time, little realizing that the groups we had each come in with had both dwindled down to just a few people, and then just disappeared, all of our friends having long since called it a night. At some point, by mutual agreement, we decided to move to the bar, and continued trading drinks back and forth, each of us with a pile of bills in front of our respective drinks. The continued consumption of hard liquor took its toll quickly once we moved to the barstools, and we moved closer to each other, leaning into each other, perched on our outside elbows, shoulders side by side, body warmth travelling back and forth. I could feel my lips getting numb, always a sure sign for me that I was getting drunker than drunk, and I began to have a bit of difficulty focusing on what she was saying.
Suddenly, she reached behind to the back of my head, and pulled my face closer to hers. I offered no resistance, and we posed in that position for just few seconds. I could feel her warm breath as we sat with mouths no more than an inch or two apart. Her breath reeked of all the booze she had consumed during the night, although I'm sure that I didn't smell a whole lot different. She tilted her face to the left and mashed her lips against mine, forcefully pushing her tongue into my mouth, aggressively attacking my lips and tongue, softly biting my tongue and lips, then harder, then hard. I moaned softly, almost more of an exhale, something only she could hear, remaining stationery, hands at my sides, compliant, my mouth open, sucking her tongue deeper, asking for more. She brought her other hand to the side of my face, gently caressing the area just below my jaw.
"We're done here," she said. "It's time to move on." And I knew this for what it was, taking it not as a suggestion but as a command. I worked hard to get off my stool, now feeling the full force of all I had to drink, the room less than stationery, my legs and focus in general somewhat questionable, but my intent pinpointed on doing what I had been told to do. I followed her to the door of the bar, hoping that we could find a taxi somewhere, not sure where we were going or what we were going to do once we got there.

The End of the Season-Part I

I'm a CPA, and back before I opened up my own practice I worked for a medium sized accounting firm in midtown. During tax season, we were required to put in long hours and sacrifice weekends to get the work done on time, with 12 hour days being the norm, and Saturday disappearing to the onslaught of work. Our firm made it a practice to finish a day or two before April 15th, sending the clerical staff to the post office to mail out the extensions and sending the accountants out to dinner and to get drunk, usually at some bar close by where we could all sit together and bitch at one another and commisserate about all the time sacrificed to put money into the partners' pockets.
We started early that evening, around 7 or so, the ties loosened or lost, sleeves rolled up and jackets disappeared. The wait staff was told to keep 'em coming, and it wasn't long before my Irish whiskey and soda count climbed over five. We sat at a round table, back to back with other round tables full of large groups. I'm normally a quiet guy, a counterpuncher in conversations rather than a loudmouth, my comments being mostly quick asides and sharp rejoinders to the ongoing conversation.
And so it was close to ten before I noticed her, the woman sitting with her back to me who kept looking in my direction, trying to get a clear view of my face. She wasn't my type at all, a round pie face with short brown hair, sallow colored skin, a small underbite. She wore an old-fashioned leotard top with the traditional scoop neck, and her breasts were pushed up by a half bra into what being perky, the tops showing out of the leotard and the outline of the half bra was clearly visible. The look was completed by a pair of lowrider jeans with a 2 inch zipper, the jeans struggling to cover the high cut of the leotard on her hips.
We finally managed to catch each others attention, and I raised my eyebrows in the universal "what's up" greeting. She pivoted slightly so that she was facing me sideways, and commented on my sarcastic wit and caustic comments. I was drunk enough at that point to tell her to mind her own fucking business, but she said it so nicely and with such a come hither smile that I also turned sideways to continue the conversation, offering to buy her a drink as I turned.

Cheek By Jowl-A Rant

I live in New York City, and have lived here basically all my life, and I've grown up with all the inherent baggage that comes with that, the New York accent (which I struggle to defeat), the New York quickmouth, the ability to drive in city traffic and not be panic stricken, the concept of that small area of private space that we all carry and that nobody enters, the knowledge that I live and have always lived in what I think of as the city of finalists. We understand the concept of "lead, follow, or get out of the way."
Lately though, I'm not so sure.
I am dismayed by the number of private conversations to which I have become an unwitting and unintended party. I use a cellphone as much as the next person, but try to keep my voice down or cut calls short when I'm on the subway or the bus. But I know so much more about people's lives than I ever wanted to, whether they're talking to their parents, their children, their lovers or spouses, their employees or employers. And I'm so not interested in the details of your lives, your pithy evaluation of your date over the weekend, the argument you're having with someone else, the way you're tearing someone a new one because they didn't finish some task you set for them. It goes on in elevators, on the street as I walk, in the bathroom, in every conceivable location---I'M NOT INTERESTED IN YOUR PRIVATE LIFE, DON'T INCLUDE ME IN IT.
We also have our own pedestrian version of driving while texting---texting while walking down a crowded city sidewalk. It's not as life threatening as blackberry use while driving, but it's equally dangerous, as a multitude of citizens now walk down the street with their heads down and their thumbs a-flashing. GUYS, IT'S THE SAME AS DRIVING AND TEXTING, LITERALLY TAKING YOUR LIFE (AND MINE) INTO YOUR OWN HANDS---HEADS UP!!!
And don't get me started on the people who seem to think that they're centurion sentries, and stand in the subway doors and don't move as the doors open, only tilt their bodies somewhat sideways to allow others to squeeze on and off.
But enough ranting and raving. I'm back to posting, and I DO have stories to tell.