I Did Not Expect to Feel This Way When a Creepy Guy Invaded the Zoom!

 

These days, what even IS a body adventure? I know I should be working on my No-Contact High Fidelity proj and learning the knots on Thursdays, but the sense of hopelessness that’s pervaded my snuggle-outlook since Quarantine Crush is hard to shake. I think a lot about what quarantine-long lack of touch (Aside from some very special occasion exceptions (Like, say, friends are alive after being boxed in during a police-incited riot…) Sweetie and the cats are the only people I can hug or high-five. And the cats are TERRIBLE at high-fiving!) is doing to my brain and body. I’m not really sure what my psyche is up to, but I think it’s time to figure it out.

 

Yesterday, I was “at” my favorite Zoom book talk, sponsored by our local bookstore/coffeeshop. I like to go and mostly mute myself, hear what some local strangers are reading, occasionally unmuting to chime in about a book or invite everyone to a march. This week though: WHOA!

 

We were listening to a lady talk about the cool workbook that comes with Life Before Slavery when, OHNO! I looked up from my doodling to see: A naked, face-hidden white guy playing with his erect penis!

 

“It’s so small!” Exclaimed the lady who was trying to talk about her book. Though I’m resolutely against size-shaming, I so much admired her bravado and he definitely deserved worse! It was just kind of normal-sized, lovely even though it belonged to an invasive, rapey creep. They muted his video feed and we aimed to get back to books.

 

I felt awful for the moderator and for the rest of the group. After a little nervous laughter and dismay, we went back to our talk. I was a little more chatty than usual and was happy to make some new friends for the first time in a while and add some more books to my TBR.

 

What that guy did to our Zoom was evil, violent, hateful and invasive. I can’t believe anyone could be that callous, selfish and cruel to anyone, let alone a neighborhood bookstore!

 

Stepping back and looking at my own physical and emotional reaction, though, I am shocked, SHOCKED and a little alarmed. Though I guess a delayed reaction may come later, I felt no fear, no triggers, no jangled sense of helplessness. What my body felt about being subjected to this nonconsensual cam guy was:

 

…Yay?

 

It could be an adrenaline thing or a self-protective bravado, but I think my reaction is more base, if I can use that word in a non-judgmental way. What stayed in my body for the rest of the evening and a little bit still today was/is a clear, quiet physical happiness. It almost feels like…health.

 

Against all ethics and reason, I felt a sense of possibility and joy. Later, after the talk was done and I finished the dishes and played my phone games and caught up on the news, I had some very nice personal time, with a further-reaching, more hopeful imagination than I’d had in a long time.

 

There were some more sense-making things contributing to that healthy feeling, to be sure. An old friendship dragged itself up yesterday from the Bernie scrap-heap (Hi Pagan Boy! Welcome back if you’re reading!) and I spent a few hours at my own (not the same one) bookstore job for the first time since March. It was a generally good and progress-y day.

 

But. this invasive, creepy moment was the most personal sexual encounter I’d had since those nights taking Quarantine Crush’s songs the wrong way. It was the nearest I’d gotten to getting friendly with a penis since… when was Comedy Guy? Like a year ago at least! In spite of myself, something was fulfilled in me, a glowing little (yet regular-sized) puzzle piece of joy fitting neatly into my Sacral chakra. I have no excuse.

 

I think the take-away here is this: It’s time to stop neglecting my sex drive and my kink. As creative as I’ve gotten with working and socializing remotely, I think there’s a lot of room for improvement in my virtual sex life, which doesn’t currently exist beyond swiping through Bumble and Hinge. I want whatever I find to be consensual, private, and personal of course, but just as surprising and stimulating. I’ll let you know how it goes!

In Which I Realize I Am Really Lucky to Have Had My Adventure Years: Part Four

Back during my divorce summer, when I swam away from Sweetie and came to the realization that what I really wanted was a husband, what I wanted more than anything was a man to play with me in the waves. Wherein Sweetie was grumpy at the prospect of fighting the surf, I wanted someone strong and vital who would change into the water the way I did. I had a vision of being picked up and carried and kissed in the water. This night came so close to that picture that no wonder I ended up diving into him.

When we got back from dinner, it was dark and a huge orange moon was rising over the pretty/samey houses on view from his back yard. He’d told me many times that I didn’t need a bathing suit, but I’m still in my privacy phase. I wore my pretty blue one printed with hydrangeas. I am at my heaviest right now so I felt a lot of worry that he wouldn’t be attracted to me anymore when he saw my thighs.  We sat at the edge of the pool with our feet in the water on the little swim-out seat.

He said, “I think you’re scared of what’s gonna happen after this.”

“After the pool?”

“I’m scared too. I’m out of practice.”

“Me too, high five!” I may be more shy in some ways, but at least I’m still a high-fiver. “What I’m really scared of are the bonding chemicals that are gonna come afterwards. Because science.”

He didn’t seem to object to the bonding chemicals. Honestly, every step of the way, I was sure that he liked me. I still kind of am, though that doesn’t explain how things turned out. When I stepped into the pool, I put my foot down weird, so that the edge of the seat smashed me between my toes. My middle toe hurt so badly that I wondered if it was broken. Nonetheless, I jumped the rest of the way into the deep end, a little conscious of the nondainty splash I probably made.

After a few minutes of watching me swim (I loveloveloved when he watched me swim. I love the satisfied way he admired me—it’s been a long time since I’ve been looked at like that.) he jumped in too and it was like something I’d already lived, like I was fitting into one of my life’s puzzle pieces. The water was cold and it was a breezy evening, but the shivers came from somewhere down deeper. He held me and kissed me gently until I said “I’m torn between being really turned on and really cold, do you want to go in?”

I borrowed his shower to rinse off the chlorine and he lent me his scratchy grey robe. I wished I had nice warm pajamas to change into, but instead, I had nice warm him.

It hurts to remember how right our bodies felt (one of my poets wrote in a poem once that bodies are the easiest ways to fit), how well he kissed me, the softness of his skin, the scratchiness of his beard, the strength of his arms. More than anything, I loved remembering how sometimes sex just runs itself, how at first we knew what to do with each other like it was destiny, and in its own way, it was. I’ve never been more ready to have someone inside me, never this sure that what I was doing was real. I felt free to look in his face, in his eyes, and saw only kindness there. The barriers I’ve almost always felt to connecting with men were not there. It felt solid and sweet.

There were hardness issues at first, which he explained by saying that he had trouble with condoms, that he wasn’t used to them. It seemed bonkers to be talking about not-condoms at this (or any) stage of things and I felt a little surge of impatience. I was kind of like “Well, welcome to my world” but sympathized/rationalized that maybe he was just missing married sex. It tugged at my heart strings but at the same time I was (in my head) like dude, just grow up.

The hardness issues worked themselves out in good time, he lost all tentativeness and hard and long and perfect—that feeling that’s so delicious that I can’t even deal with how much I want it, how much I miss it. He pulled my hair and pinned me down and went deeper and I looked up at him and saw someone who was mine, not somebody else’s boyfriend whom I’d have to turn in at the end of the night like in the poly days. In that teensy spate of time, he belonged to me, there was nothing and no one else, and the inside of me was (just for right then) sated and quiet.

This happened a few more times until we ran out of condoms, at which point he mentioned again that what he really liked going without. He said that, although he didn’t like blow jobs (You guys! Was I really willing to give up blow jobs for someone? Yes, I was.) (Also, did he really not like them or just want a bargaining chip? Gross line of thought.) he might “Let me try it,” but I said no thanks, there were plenty of things he was enthusiastic about for me to do. (This turned out to be perfectly not the case in the end, but we’re still several posts away.) Because he kept perseverating about the no-condom thing after I’d said no a couple of times, I told him I was scared of him again. I asked him about his fantasy of being sleep-ravished, he wouldn’t do that to me, would he? “Not if you don’t want me to,” he said,

“Because then I wouldn’t be able to say yes…” I honestly wasn’t sure he saw the problem.

I slept badly. He snored and my body was so far beyond awake. Although he’d brought me an ice pack for my toe, it was throbbing. If it had been up to me, we’d have stayed up fucking and snuggling and chatting all night. I tossed and turned and apologized for tossing and turning. I got him to turn off the radio and all of the devices that beeped at random intervals.

I had maybe two hours of sleep and was awakened at six AM by an alert-in-every-way J. listing off the things we could do about being out of condoms. “We can not have any more sex today, we can go without, or we can go to the drugstore and get more condoms. Are you coming with me?”

All I wanted was to be asleep and I had this creepy obligated feeling-- he was treating his morning wood like a contract I’d already signed, possibly in my sleep. And I was PISSED that he mentioned going without again. I was beyond trying for patience and snapped “Not unless you want BABIES,” knowing he didn’t. Now I can’t help but wonder—did he not know how this thing works? How could he be married with kids and still seem like he skipped seventh grade health class?

“Just because I said it doesn’t mean it’s a real option. I honestly don’t think not having more sex is an option either.”

I jumped out of bed, found his robe, and ran down the steps. “Help me find my glasses, I need to get out of here now.”

“Wait, what? So you’re not going to my U.U. fellowship with me?” (Oh for Christ’s sake, just fucking call it church!)

“I’m not going anywhere with someone who says I have no fucking choice.”

I was too tired and upset to drive home so I lay down on his couch in the scratchy robe and cried. His golden-eyed black cat came over to see me, rubbed his ears against my hand. J. didn’t even bring me a blanket until I sniveled for one. He went out to get me some coffee and I simmered down.

When he got back, we talked and somehow made it back to cuddle mode. I had to give him credit for staying calm and weathering the triggers—I still couldn’t be sure if it was him or my baggage causing them, probably a combination of both. We went and got condoms, a picnic breakfast, and a toothbrush for me so I could make myself more comfy. We fucked through the morning and then dragged ourselves out of bed to go jump in the pool. It was a sunny, dazed feeling of fear, judgment, and bliss.

I wanted to accept him, to embrace him without fear, to honor his (sometimes) generosity and the eagerness of his gorgeous penis, but I couldn’t stop finding reasons to be afraid.

Next time: My heart opens and I let him in.

Gifts From the Ex-whatever

So that’s a tiny little bit of a leftover bruise from almost three months ago. It used to be a whole forearm full of (consensual) bitemarks. Bill’s not around, but he’s still in my heart, and I miss him. I know he’s been the villain of this story so far, but this story doesn’t really need a villain. I feel like if I’d met him a few months later, I’d’ve known what to do with him, but then, if I hadn’t met him, I would never have known what to learn. I can’t promise that I won’t use him for compare-and-contrast anymore, but I just wanted to acknowledge how much he contributed o the overall project that is me.

1. He taught me to say out loud what I liked. There was something about him that brought filthier and filthier language out of my mouth, and I appreciate that so much. It comes in handy every day, in both writing and sex.

2. As someone with trauma in my past, I’d always treated my body very delicately when it came to sex. He taught me that I’m strong and I don’t need to be quite so careful. With that came hair-pulling, spanking, name-calling, and even aftercare, though I didn’t know it was called that.

3. He showed me that first dates can be romaaaaaantic, rather than (well, in addition to) awkward. Every time I’m downtown, I remember how he bit my hand (best first move ever) and then pulled me in for the most amazing hair-pull-y kiss on a busy Christmastime street. He had the strongest arms. He told me I had a kissable smile. We made out in the park and by the river and it was aggressive and hot and beautiful. It’s just nice to know that that can happen. (Just an aside: tonight’s my first first date in a few months. Wish me luck!)

4. On our second date, he came over and watched Breakfast at Tiffany’s—“watched” being maybe too strong of a word. There’s this part where Paul Varjak is hollering at Holly Golightly that  "Okay, life's a fact, people do fall in love, people do belong to each other, because that's the only chance anybody's got for real happiness."  It was probably a coincidence that he was kissing me so wildly and breathlessly during that part of the movie, but it really made it sink in just how very much I want to belong to a man.

5. This is hard to put into words. I’ve had this fantasy for a while of being overpowered, taken, ravished. I’d stop short of calling it a rape fantasy because I definitely want to be in on the plans, but what I want is something scarier than passion. Sweetie is very bothered by the fact that I want this, understandably so. She was a rape crisis counselor for years, and she can’t separate my fantasies from her need to protect me.

So it’s a part of myself that I’ve felt guilty about, like I’m not doing a good job of protecting myself or I’m being a bad feminist or even a bad humanist. When Bill dropped duct tape into the conversation on, like, the second email, I felt like he recognized part of me and even like he liked it. It was part of what was so addictive about him. All these years I’ve tried so hard to make myself into a nice girl, and here was somebody who liked that part of me I’d been fighting. The fact that he liked that part of me helped ME to like it, and it brought me a little closer to healing from my past. And Sweetie and I have made a bunch of progress about it, too.

So, I know you won’t read this, but thank you. I hope I can continue to do a good job of moving on.