Say my name

“Say my name.”

The pause takes forever; I’m afraid he won’t give me what I want. And then, coming out of him like a cloud, a breath, a whisper. My name.

Comma.

“I want to make you come this morning.”

Sends me over an edge I didn’t even know I was near.

Naked puffy vagina

My knees were up against my chest. He was on top of me, inside of me, lovely and full of course, but something else, something different, something… an extra frisson. It was Thursday morning. I’d shaved on Saturday — completely. He liked that. He liked the black stockings and the garter belt, too. I like that he likes them, love the little extra gasp that he made when I turned around after unzipping my skirt, letting it fall to the floor. Black lace, black garters, sheer black stockings. A cliche. But flattering. And the gasp. Worth the gasp. Female power.

Worth keeping my shoes on, even, for a few minutes. High heels are easy to hold onto, when you’re pulling your ankle over your head.

This morning, though, five days after the fact, five days after the smooth shave, was different. Shaving carries consequences. Consequences not as dramatic as unprotected sex, perhaps, but consequences nonetheless. Hair removal of all kinds, in fact, carries consequences. At the very least there’s stubble, razor burn. If you shave. If you wax — well, if I wax, I don’t know about those Glamazons on Sex & the City — but if I wax, I end up with a painful, unsightly collection of ingrown hairs. The pale, delicate white skin at the place where my thighs and my torso and my cunt all conjoin, becomes marred by red bumps. It’s not sexy. As my brother-in-law says to his daughter, “You can’t stop the beard.”

I definitely can’t stop the beard. I’m descended from hairy Vikings, hairy Mediterraneans, slightly-less-hairy Celts. I marvel at women who remove all their hair, all the time. Do their lady bits just grow desensitized over time? How is that a plus? And what about the drip factor?

Whenever I think about pubic hair removal, I think about one of the earlier pieces in The Vagina Monologues. It’s a bitter story, told by a woman whose husband was unfaithful, and insisted that she shave her cunt. She talks about her naked puffy vagina, how it made her feel little, like a little girl, to cut all the hair away.

I realized then that hair is there for a reason-it’s the leaf around the flower, the lawn around the house. You have to love hair in order to love the vagina. You can’t pick the parts you want. And besides, my husband never stopped screwing around.

And there is a nakedness, a puffiness to a shaved cooch. It’s missing something. Missing a lawn. A lawn is a good metaphor. The vagina, you know, it excretes things. It has runoff. It’s also like that thing we named after it: a delta, always draining stuff. Fluid moves through it. Without hair, it’s extra tacky, extra sticky. You can’t sleep without your panties on, or the sheets get all funky.

But it’s also extra sensitive, like the back of my head feels when I get my hair clipped close. The lovely feel of a car’s headrest against my smooth, close-clipped scalp. The lovely feel of the water beading at the cleft of my labia majora in the shower, dropping right to the spot where my clit nestles beneath my naked lips.

Naked in the mirror, without hair, utterly open, exposed. Excellent on camera, the curly joining of the lips around a ridiculously large porn-star cock as a woman rides reverse cowgirl, her hipbones like blades, the tendons running from her cunt to her thighs, all hard and plastic and yet still engaging, enthralling. Still the sacred work of sexuality.

And this morning, with a five-day stubble on my lips, the feel of Bran’s cock inside me, and the area around his cock — what do you call that on a man? — the base of his cock, the foothills of his cock, hairy and beautiful and against my skin, I could feel him, feel his skin against mine, extra sensitized and naked and exposed.

“It feels so good,” I gasped.

“Maybe you should do it more often,” he said — meaning shaving.

How easy it is for a woman to give away her power.

Rule one of assfucking

“Rule one of assfucking,” he said, “is that it has to come last.”

His belly was covered with his own come. I’d just come back from the bathroom, unhooked the harness, disposed of the condom from the newest addition to my pegging arsenal.^* I was feeling pretty pleased with myself, even if he did have to request extra lube. I’d managed to get the damn apparatus on in a pretty reasonable time frame — the leather harness, even, which feels classier even if it is a bit more awkward to put on. And I’d been patient and…

…the feel of my finger in his ass. Hot. Warm. Close. Mine.

His ankles were on my shoulders, and I was leaning over him, trying to be gentle, to be sensitive, to be all the things men are supposed to be when they’re fucking a woman… and his ass, the feel of my being inside of him. Yes. Just as gorgeous as it ever was being inside a woman.

I wanted to fuck him face to face, even if it did feel awkward. I wanted to see his face, feel his skin against mine. I eased the head of my cock inside him, gentle, gentle, sway with the push, with the rhythm, with the in-and-out.

The leather straps around my thighs were loose.

I don’t think I asked him if I could go deeper — he’s always so considerate of that with me — I just pushed. Hoped for the best. His hands were on his cock, mine on either side of his head. Thrusting, regular, gentle now. Barely thrusting any amount of time before he said he was going to to come.

“Do you want to come? Go ahead and come,” I said, shoulders up high above him, hips down low between his legs.

“Oh, can I come?” he said, eyes closed. Face — beautiful agony.

“Yes, come,” I said. “Please come… COME!” And saw him spurt all over his belly, put my hand over his on his cock, wouldn’t let him go, licked his nipple, pushed him through his no’s, pushed him past the initial rush and into the aftershocks. Pushed through no to yes.

Rule number two of assfuckery: If you can’t take a little poop, then you shouldn’t be pegging. This is why latex — gloves and condoms — are as essential a part of assfuckery as lubrication. As is ready access to running water.

He was in no condition to fuck me after that. I do love him fucking me, but it was okay, really. Because I’d been feeling like a bad switch, been feeling like too much of a girly girl. Been going down easy and letting him do all the work. All the fucking.

I think all women should be expected to peg. I think it would give all those I’m-not-a-feminist-but-I-like-to-make-derisive-remarks-about-my-husband bitches some good food for thought. Fucking is hard work. Fucking well, paying attention to the needs and the pleasure of your partner, is even harder work. And men, frankly, even when you’re fucking them, aren’t nearly as demanding as women are. Women’s bodies — mine included — are like high-performance sports cars. They require constant tinkering and more than a touch of intuition to get them working properly. When they do, though, whoa. Men’s bodies respond well to tinkering, too, don’t get me wrong. But the ignition is usually pretty easy to find.

Eventually I broke out the Hitachi, and he and all my stuffed animals watched me moan and wail and mess up the sheets. It was what I wanted at that moment, even more than the burning-flight feel of him inside me, thrusting me into yes. I wanted his head in the crook my shoulder, watching me, admiring and unafraid, as I pushed my body into high gear, pushed it up and out, past no and yes and into pure sound. Into pure… something.

Some distant part of me still shrinks from letting him see me do that. From letting him see the deep and endless capacity for pleasure in my own body. But all he says is “you’re awesome.” All he says, later, is “I liked watching you come.”

And all I can say is… yes.

^* I’m not getting paid to say this (I’m not even getting free sex toys for saying it), but I feel the need to tell all you dear readers that the Mistress Silicon Dildo is an excellent step up after the Bend Over Beginner kit. Once you’ve trained your victim’s partner’s sphincter to relax and let you in nice and easily, you’ll quickly become frustrated with the shortcomings of the ol’ fingers and other implements. Now I finally understand why gay men are such size queens! The nice thing about the Mistress, in addition to being the awesome product of a female-owned, sex-positive small business, is that aside from a semi-realistic head, it’s got a nice, medium-width, smooth shaft. Perfect for ass-fucking.

Absence makes the mind grow dirty

Stupid Bran has some stupid work stupidity that is keeping him from his primary purpose in life, which is to please me.

You would have been so proud of me on Saturday. After dinner I marched myself right off to my car instead of trying to distract him from his work. It was kind of endearing, actually, the way that he couldn’t bring himself to say “you have to leave now.” Instead, he said the other thing that will send anyone with an ounce of social skills out the door: “you can stay as long as you like.”

I’ve been enjoying some solitude. And some quality time with friends, the sunshine, the October colors, and a farmstand or two. My old roommate from Cambridge and I get together once every few weeks and I entertain her with outrageous stories. We both had a big long belly laugh at the offhand comment I made about Ace having an amazingly high tolerance for pain — sometimes I forget there is a whole world of people out there for whom pain is not part of courtship.

Silly people.

Recent coochie conditions have also contributed to a drop in the GOP (Gross Orgasm Product). But the antibiotics have begun to work and I woke this morning thinking about Bran. Specifically, Bran’s body. I began to treat it as a mindfulness exercise; a quiz to gauge the effectiveness of all my hours of study. The surprisingly soft feel of his short-cropped hair, indeterminate color between brown and grey. The crinkle of his eyes. The ski-jump of his nose. The scratch of his cheeks. Slightly irritated gasp he makes when I lick the smooth side of his neck. Moans that happen sometimes when I penetrate his ear with my tongue. Freckles on the shoulders.

The lovely shoulders I could spend hours looking at, touching. Perfect curves of the muscles, the way they bunch and relax. I could sink my teeth into them. Sometimes I do.

Particular scent of his underarms, light dusting of hair. Bran scent, better than anything to be had within a bottle. Simian arms, slightly longer than mine, perfect for climbing trees, walls, ladders. Perfect for twisting my right wrist behind my back and pressing my body to his own. Perfect for binding to the top of the bed.

This is where the fantasy kicks in. What I want to do to him.

I want to do to him.

Not to get even for that time I lay with my knees bent up onto the couch, because getting even implies revenge — and revenge is not something to seek for an enjoyable experience. But reciprocity is important. Keeping the balance of power is important. Equitable distribution and contribution of resources is important. I love laying back and being a pillow queen. And I also love the other thing. I want both/and the vanilla and the chocolate. And strawberry and pralines n’ cream as well.

So this is what I think about at 6:00 am, with both cats crying their early-morning duet of hunger:

He is naked. I am wearing my long black skirt, a turtleneck, brown tights and my brown high boots. I take the belt from my bathrobe and loop it over the hook on the back of my bedroom door, dangle it down the other side of the door. Close the door and make him hold the belt. I don’t tie him in. This is an exercise not in bondage but in discipline. In training. And following orders.

“Don’t let go of the tie,” I say.

With the door shut and his back to it, with his hands grasping the strip of terry cloth, his arms fold above his head. He is naked. Half-erect. It’s a bit chilly for him, but not for me because I am fully clothed. His nipples are two hard points. Because of the cold or because of something else.

He closes his eyes. He doesn’t like to see my face when I hurt him. Why does he think I am going to hurt him?

Maybe because my riding crop, my little red whip with the feathers on the end, and a length of sailing line are lined up on the bookcase behind me.

“Open your eyes,” I say. I am standing right in front of him, my face inches from his. With the lift of my boots, I’m about half an inch taller than he is.

“No,” he says, but in that gasping way, the way he’s been saying it more and more often, which I don’t take seriously.

“Open your eyes,” I repeat. I take his face between my hands. His eyes are bright blue, worried. I kiss him on the lips.

“What do you want?” I ask him.

He doesn’t want to talk. He doesn’t want to tell me. Bran is so much better at communicating without words than me. I know what he wants — or part of it, anyway. I am just tormenting him. Pushing him to the edge of his comfort zone. When he opens his mouth I push my tongue inside it, fuck him with my tongue for a moment. He begins to undulate — this is one of the things I love about Bran, his intense physical response to me. When we are sexual, he moves like a woman, if a woman had a man’s body.

“Hold still,” I say, and place my hands on his hips, which have begun to buck.

I slip a blindfold over his eyes. He doesn’t like it. “It’s okay,” I tell him. “I won’t hurt you.” Much.

I run my fingernails down the outside of his arms and the sides of his torso — gently, to create sensation, not to scratch. His reaction is instantaneous. He’s terribly ticklish.

“Ah-” I say. “Hold still.” In the same voice he uses on me. Daddy voice.

The fantasy dissolves right around here, into some biting, some teasing, as I try to drive him past his discipline. Ultimately I wouldn’t mind him throwing me to the bed and fucking my brains out. But it’s all just sex in the head. It doesn’t even really touch my body. I get up and feed the cats.

Is it still dirty if it just makes me feel all mushy?

So Bran came on my face last night. I opened my mouth and caught some of it on my tongue and everything, just like those scenes in porn movies I always fast-forward through. He was straddling me, and it got all over my mouth and my face. Instead of swallowing it, I pushed it out and felt it dribbling down my chin. But even though he was gasping and caught up, I didn’t want it to end yet. A woman’s orgasm can go on for a long time, and I think men are probably more like women in their ability to have multiple, full-body orgasms than we think. So I grabbed his cock, slick with his come, and worked it even as he was coming.

“No,” he gasped, racked with pain/pleasure of climax.

“Yes,” I insisted, and worked it, worked it, with my hands or my mouth or both I can’t remember. He was still on his knees above me, and unable to move. Even though I was supine, pinned below him, I was the one in control. He began to shudder and jerk. Too much. I began to worry that maybe he was going to have a heart attack, remembered those times when I myself felt like I was going to short circuit — but my body can take so much more, it seems, before I reach that point.

I put my hand against his heart, worried. Pushed him back to make him lay down. He collapsed to the side, but with his knees still bent. I still had his come all over my face and chest, but I didn’t want to get up for a washcloth. He was still convulsing, jerking, trembling, his knees half-pulled up, effectively keeping me at a distance. The convulsions — I couldn’t tell if it was just the aftermath of pleasure, or something more sinister.

I lay next to him, still covered in come, and tried to soothe him. Shushed him, gentled him with my hands. Too soon for cuddling. I was worried.

It reminded me of the time he burst into tears as he came inside me, and from the back, when I couldn’t hold him, couldn’t really see what was happening with him. He’d been fucking me up the ass, and I had to run off to the bathroom. When I came back, he was sitting on the side of the bed, still… not dazed, but not right.

“Are you all right? You were crying.”

“It just… it just reminds me how easy it is to lose control with you.”

Losing control can be a good thing. But safety… I can’t stand the thought of something going haywire with his body. I want him near me, and in good health, for a good long time. The thing about being in my 30s is realizing that it’s not going to be forever, or even as forever-ish as everything seemed when I was younger.

Eventually the jerking stopped. It was probably just the aftermath of orgasm — it’s certainly happened to me plenty of times. “I’ll be right back,” I said, and got up to clean myself up. Came back with a warm washcloth for him. And lay there beside him, head on chest.

“I like you,” he said, and the words were even more heart-warming than those other ones, the ones that go with all the hearts and flowers and Harlequin romances.

“I like you too.”

“I like having sex with you.”

“And I like this part here, too,” I said, snuggling my head in the spot between his armpit and his chest.

“It’s all part of it…” and the two of us settled into the light sleep, the afterglow, of an orgasm that comes not just from wild monkey lust, but from love-making.

Love doesn’t just sit there like a stone; it has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new.

Just from the act itself

“Now I have a hard-on,” he complained. I’d persuaded him to come back to my house even though he was tired and wanted to go home. He was naked, curled across the bed so that I had to push him over to make room.

Poor thing. Hard. In bed with a nakey female who may or may not be interested in sexing him up.

I slipped under the covers and pushed and prodded him until he was under them too. He complained like my cat when she doesn’t get fed on time.

And we lay there, both mid-week-late-night tired.

I turned off the light.

“Nooooo!” he said.

“I’ll turn it back on when it’s time for you to go home. I’ll drive you to the T, like I promised.” And I butted his shoulder with my head, then turned away, onto my side, and hugged one of the stuffed animals on my bed. He began to pile them all on top of me. I have about seven stuffed rabbits, and all of them have names that start with “O”: Oscar. Omnia. Oliver. Olivia. It’s a little game we play, burying each other under all the blankets and pillows and stuffed animals in my bedroom. His bed, by comparison, holds a wrinkled sheet, an ancient nubby blanket, and a furniture pad he uses when it’s really cold.

To turn on my side like that, away from him, is a coy thing to do. I turn my face away, but I turn my ass toward him, and depending on whether I want to tease him or arouse him, I might press my callipygian^* rear end against him. If he’s on his side facing me, it’s a very strategic location.

That night, he was on his back. But he turned, and there was tumescence.^*

He pushed against me. We began to rock, gently, side to side, and then to undulate^* from the hips. He kissed the back of my neck, and I sighed. Reached around to kiss his face, his stubbly cheek, turned onto my back, and he rolled onto me, pushing his hard-on into the delta of my thighs, my legs clamped tight.

It’s flattering how easily he stands to attention for me. But I wanted something else. Something less… cock-centered. I wanted him to put it away and lick me, worship my body. I was feeling small and neglected. Giving out, out, out, but not receiving.

“Please lick me,” I said.

“I don’t want to tonight,” he replied.

“Okay,” I said. But it wasn’t okay. Inside me, beating against the walls, was the little girl shouting IT’S NOT FAIR!!!! I always go down on him! He thinks we’re uglybadstupid, he’s just using us! NO!

I told her to be quiet, to go play outside. I told her we’d sort it out later. I’ve learned the hard way that there is a time and a place for that kind of conversation. And in bed, with one partner aroused and comfortable, is not the time.

He pulled back, on his knees, and looked at me there in the moonlight. He pulled my legs apart and I let him, guided his hands into the cleft between them.

“You’re so wet.”

“Yeah.”

And he worked his finger back and forth into the slickness, pulled his thumb up from the honey-pot to the little button at the top of my folds, where the inner lips meet.

“Please,” I said. I was excited, halfway to orgasm. I wanted his mouth on me, to feel the warmth of his face against my holiest of holies, to feel that softness, wetness, to feel the friction of something soft that would make me burn, burn me up, move me through and out and under. But this would do.

And I came — did I need to put down a chux? I can’t remember. It wasn’t the kind of orgasm I’d wanted, but I came.

He leaned over to the bottom drawer of my nightstand for a condom. I leaned forward, to take it, to unroll it over his hard-on, to take him in my mouth, but he pushed me back, and I went down easy, and he was there, skin against skin, and slick and hard at the doors of the temple, and I held him there, pushed the head of his cock against my clit, rocked with him there, wanting more, wanting more before he entered, until one or both of us tilted our hips and he was inside, he was inside me.

The friction of the fucking always makes me feel like I’m flying. Or burning. Or moving through a tunnel. It takes me by surprise every time. He fits me perfectly — not too big and not too small. Just right, my Goldilocks Bran, and I was moving back and forth under him, trying to fuck him from below, and he laughed and pushed my hips still, and then he was saying, “Come!”

“No,” I said, spoiled girl, turning my head from side to side. “No. Not yet.”

“Please come,” he said. “Please come, (and he said my name),” and I came, because he asked me so prettily, I came around him then and clenched him tight and screamed and soon afterward he was coming too, head twisted to the side, the aaaagh that almost sounds like pain but it’s not, it’s a pleasure so intense you can’t distinguish it from pain, and then we were both still, and I didn’t want to let him out of me.

“I don’t want it to slip off,” he said. It’d happened once before. So I gripped the roll of latex at the base of his cock, and he slumped over to the side.

I got up to pee, and to bring him a warm washcloth.

“I hope you didn’t mind that I didn’t want to…” he said. “I just wanted us to both come… from the act itself.”

And I was in his arms, and I understood, and I loved him. Heart to heart, skin to skin.

^* I have hereby fulfilled my quota of GRE-level vocabulary words for this post.

Sex as the result of intimacy

We had our first fight this week. It was hard. We survived.

“I’m afraid you’re going to write me off as damaged goods,” I said, my voice tiny.

“I don’t think you’re damaged goods,” he said. “Not any more than anyone else I know.”

He cared enough to tell me he was mad. I cared enough — I was brave enough — to explain the less-than-rational thinking behind my freakout.

On Saturday night we went to Harvard Square to see Neal Stephenson read from his new book, and I got to introduce him to one of my good friends.

Afterward we took the bus back to my place. My place went ’splodey this week. He sat there on the edge of the bed while I changed the sheets. “How do you feel?” he asked.

“A little ashamed,” I replied. When my head’s not right, my house gets dirty.

“I don’t think you have any reason to be ashamed.”

“Well thank you for saying that. I’m sure I’ll stop feeling ashamed any minute now.”

I couldn’t say it to him, but the shame is mine. Mine mine mine. It rises up from its little pool underground and all I can do is pick up the stuff I don’t want to get waterlogged until it subsides. And change my socks afterward.

Once the sheets were changed, he sat down to take off his shoes. I was suddenly hot, so I took off all my clothes but my panties — the ones with the little ruffles, which I’d put on for him, because I know he likes them.

We’re not ripping each other’s clothes off anymore, and that’s okay. We can be naked together and not sexual.

And there was still the separation between us, the fallout from the week’s mishegas.

We drifted into sleep, and in the morning I brought us coffee and toast on a tray. We read books next to one another. Whenever I moved to get out of the bed, he’d loop his leg around mine. “Come back,” he’d say, and it warmed my heart to hear it.

Later, as I lay on my side, he rolled over to spoon me. I felt the muscular hairiness of his legs against my own smooth, soft ones. His arm draped over mine and made me safe. His chest, strong, his belly, soft. And his cock began to swell against the small of my back.

Good girl/bad girl

“Am I a good girl or a bad girl?”

“I don’t know. Which one do you want to be?” He’s like a tai ch’i master — he moves with the motion of the other, but always, ultimately, firm, in control. I want him to tell me. But I know which one I want to be.

“I want to be a good girl,” I say. And maybe this is why he doesn’t tie me down. Because good girls can keep still. I’m eager to please.

Being a good girl is hard, though. Bad girls get punished, but they also get restrained. They don’t have to restrain themselves.

Later, I’m talking to him on the phone about military service. “One of the reasons I didn’t join up is because I didn’t think I could cut it.”

“I think you could have.”

“Well, I don’t like taking orders.”

“Yes you do.”

He’s got me there.

Just lay there

“Just lay there,” he says.

I am on my back, naked except for dark blue satin panties. I am laying on a blanket on the floor, knees bent and lower legs on the couch. He stands above me in his birthday suit, his cock erect.

It’s against my every instinct to just lay there. I pride myself on being an active participant. I look on women who just lay there with scorn. They’re a discredit to their sex. My desire (female desire) is strong and powerful, like the ocean — eternal, slow-moving. Bran’s desire is like an oak tree: strong, straight up and down, sustained. The ocean ebbs and flows with the moon. Oak trees grow, burst forth into bloom, die, and are reborn.

I lay there. Open. Exposed. Not helpless, but accepting. To accept a gift is to open yourself. To be vulnerable. I have issues with vulnerability.

But I know this man. This is a man I know. To be vulnerable with him is not the same as exposing myself to a stranger (like, say, hypothetically, some asshole multimedia designer I meet on Craigslist who orders me to strip and suck his cock while he’s fully clothed, zips up after half an hour, and asks me to drive him back downtown). I am safe with Bran. He’s been vetted and approved.

He leans over to kiss my lips, gentle kisses, mouth half-open, no tongue, butterfly kisses, again and again. I do my best to just lay there, to keep my hands above my head, my hips and torso still, my ankles and my knees together, bent above me.

And his kisses make me rise, like wind over water. Small sounds escape me, my body undulates of its own free will. Again and again I force my hands to lay still above my head, until I can’t stand it any more and I reach up to him. He takes my hands, gently, gently, and places them back above my head, holds them down. With love. I need him to hold me down. I want to be free within the circle of his arms.

Truth, love, beauty

The mind-blowing orgasms continue apace. And I’m in love. I am loved – by friends, family, and a wonderful man. By the Goddess.

Truth and beauty: those are trickier right now. Beauty is still there.

Truth is subject to perspective. But I did something I’ve always had tremendous trouble doing yesterday. I spoke my truth. My emotional truth. Bran makes it easy. Well, no, not easy. But Bran doesn’t negate my truth. He doesn’t try to talk me out of it. He just offers his perspective.

After crying and talking for about half an hour, just as things had settled down, I blurted out something I’ve been thinking of and pushing away for months.

“I wish you told me you loved me more.”

He looked pained. It was a tough week for him — he bears up under the pressure, but I could see the strain. It was all I could do not to apologize for having wants and needs. God/dess knows it didn’t seem like a good idea to have them when I was a little girl.

But I didn’t.

And I know he loves me.

I feel loved. In all sorts of ways.