Coming Home

“Hi,” said the owl with his head so white,
“Another day and a lonesome night,
I thought I heard a pretty girl say,
She’ll court all night and sleep all day.”

We were singing that in the van as we rounded the corner Saturday night, headed for home. Monsieur was at home, making something yummy for dinner and I knew what it would be. It was his delicious beef and lamb and venison stew, and before you say it, yes, that’s little baby calf and woolly fluffy lamb and Bambi, dammit. I loves me a big bowlful of Disney.

We rounded the corner, as I was saying, and though the temperature was over 35° F there was a little patch of ice that my rear wheel slid across and cause my back end to fishtail and slide. I overcompensated, like a greenhorn inexperienced driver, and ended up spinning around the other way, facing the wrong direction with my van’s tail end in the drainage ditch, stuck. I spun my wheels only for a second, and then got out to make sure I was truly stuck. I checked all three kids, then turned off the ignition and called Monsieur.

“Can your Volvo bio-diesel station wagon pull a Dodge minivan out of a ditch?” I asked. We were only two minutes by car from the front door, on the loop road. However, it would have been a forty-five minute walk on a muddy road with three small boys.

“Not likely,” he said. “P equals MV squared, I always say. In times of great inclinations such as this, I recommend a man who could pull a train.”

In ten minutes, Skip the Gay Rancher, our friend and neighbor showed up on his Ford 846 tractor with a tow bar and chain. Monsieur was riding on the tow bar. He hopped off and helped Skip to hook the chain around the axle of the minivan. The boys stood by in the sleet and watched. They could not be convinced to sit in the warm van during such an adventure. They watched, all their faces the image of seriousness.

We were towed out in a moment, and we thanked Mr. Skip and invited him to dinner with us, which he refused in a good-natured way. But he did promise to stop by for Christmas Day.

All of use piled into the van. Monsieur took the wheel after I asked him to, not trusting my luck. He drove us home while we finished singing our song:

“Hi,” said the jaybird sittin’ in a tree,
“When I was a young man I had three.
Two got sassy and took to flight,
And the one that’s left don’t treat me right.”

It was dark, darker than I thought it should be and then I remembered, one of the longer nights of the year had already begun and it was only 5:20 in the afternoon. No, it was in the evening. The sun had gone down behind Blue Hill. I thought to myself how different the rain in Texas was, so much colder that the snow in Kansas at this time. In a week’s time, the Texas rain would give way and the cold weather would be gone. I was getting used to it, the winter that didn’t come and the cold snaps that did. I had my gloves on. I hugged my knees to my chest and thought of home. I looked up and the house was covered from the eaves to the shrubbery in white, purple, red, blue and green Christmas lights. I know I had stopped calling Kansas home but I still called it “back home,” as in, “I probably won’t be going ‘back home’ this year.” Now, Kansas is “my parent’s place” and all I could think last night was, “It’s great to finally be back home after a long day.”

“Oh, my goodness,” was all I could say.

Through the rain it looked like a postcard. The lights twinkled and glimmered in a shimmered, watercolor effect. The kitchen light was on, and there was a fire burning outside in the fire pit. It smelled of burning pine needles and cedar logs, and of chestnuts.

When we got inside the air was heavy with the smell of ragout and rising bread dough, and of brandy cooking in something sweet.

“Yum,” I said.

“Mmm,” agreed the Littlest Two of the Three Boys.

“I need to put the rolls into the oven,” Monsieur said. The Bigglest Boy went to go wash his hands immediately, as he was expected to participate in all bread making. That is his kitchen lesson this month. Normally he would have kneaded and rolled out the bread, but we had been late doing Yule shopping, plus we had been stuck in icy mud coming home.

“I want rolls,” added Littlest Boy.

“You get dinner, with rolls and green salad and bean-beans, as soon as it’s ready,” assured his daddy, pointing him out the kitchen door and giving his little bottom a gentle but firm shove.

“And zert,” continued Littlest Boy.

“For dessert, there will be Papa Noël cake,” Monsieur said.

“Mmm,” said the Two Littlest Boys in unison. I led them away to wash up.

After dinner I sneaked out to haul in my gifts to Monsieur as he washed up the boys, hiding them in my underwear drawer wrapped in a newspaper. I then pulled out the gifts to the boys, carefully hiding them under the Big Bed.

This year, we’re doing two things a little differently. Instead of making Christmas lists of what we’d like to get, we make Christmas lists of what we’re going to give. Also, instead of spending the day playing, we’re going to Monsieur’s church and volunteering with a food bank, sorting some canned and boxed food. So I’m taking some joy in what I’m giving this year.

We went downtown to the Dell Community Center for latkes, klezmer, dreidels and gelt. We brought our Round Mountain Menorah to light, and I met a lot of people Monsieur hadn’t seen in years.

For some reason, Monsieur wants us all to have our passports in order and ready for a trip at any time. He says that work may end up causing him to take an assignment overseas, but he doesn’t know where or for how long. Last time he was out of town for work, he was gone for two weeks; we got fussy and missed him terribly. If it should come to that, he wants us to be a long, all of us. I’m cool with that. Also, I’ve never been anywhere except Florida and New York City, and I wouldn’t mind seeing some of the world, should it happen.

Meanwhile, we’re holed up, the rain tap-taps the windows, I’m in my plaid flannels, the Bigglest Boy is wrapped up in three blankets and thinks I don’t know that he’s reading the Discovery flight reports under his blanket with a flashlight. I’m going to go and gently remind him he’s not going to be able to get up on time if he stays up reading.

I’m then going to ask for one good thing from Monsieur, the one thing I always want, that one thing that can make me sleep more soundly than warm cocoa with a shot of cognac.

Have yourself a Merry little Christmas.

armistice day

This post began as a reply to Agony, but it deserves its own post.

We’re looking only at the therapy because we really don’t wanna play with meds right now. Monsieur has vetoed that, and he’s the daddy, I’m just the … well, I have veto power about some things too, but I’m gonna go with his instincts on this one. We really, really don’t know much of the long term effects of these meds, is his argument, and there’s a very good chance that he’s going to have to get along without them, should he decide to be an American and play the Great American Health Care Crap Shoot Lottery. He may someday wind up on no insurance and dependent - even hooked - on meds that are $200 a month in a crap economy. Then he’d not have the means to deal without; no experience with reality on the terrible, ugly level and how to find that happy place.

I’m putting what he said in my own words, as I didn’t write it down when he said it, but that’s the gist of it.

To all of you, thanks. Bigglest Boy and I’ve been talking and he’s OK with me. A little. Sometimes. He agreed to call a truce because we both have decided to live in this house; him because he was born there, me because I just think that it is my destiny.

I hope it’s a truce, and not a cease-fire.

Agony

Bigglest Boy has been going to therapy. You might remember that he has had major issues. He’s such a good student and all, but I know a lot of kids, growing up, who were good students but had terrible behavior. I’m trying to be understanding but the rage & destruction really scares me. I don’t know what to do with him sometimes; I send him to his room but lately he’s been so scary that I’m afraid to do that. I’m afraid… I’m afraid to even say what he might do when he’s full of that loathing.

Yesterday, after a bad day at school when he was separated from everyone else for the entire day. When we went home the Two Littlest Boys were allowed to paint and make designs and decorations and Bigglest Boy had to sit in the kitchen and read. Bigglest Boy had to bathe before dinner, which he hates doing, and an outburst at dinner meant he had to be separated from the table and he had to eat with his daddy in another room. I can’t control him and I think the only thing that keeps him in line when his daddy is around is a realization that there’s someone else in the house who is stronger than he is.

Bigglest Boy is now much, much stronger than I am. He is eight years old, he is almost five feet tall and weighs about 98 lbs. However, he can throw a large, solid oak glider rocker that looks like this all the way across a living room. When he did that, it missed me by maybe half a foot. It scared me. It caused me to think that the other kids aren’t safe from his anger. When he is away from other kids and he is sent to his room, I try to talk to him but all he could do was cry. And it wasn’t a child’s cry, it was the serious, self-loathing cry of someone ten years older.

“I wish I were dead.” “Why don’t you just put me in jail?” And finally he came out and said, “I really just hate you.”

“Why do you hate me?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I just wish you weren’t here, and I was in jail,” he sobbed.

“Why do you wish you were in jail?”

“I wish you were in jail, too,” he said, through his sniffles and tears.

“Why?” I asked.

“Because you’re bad. Because you make me angry. Because you killed my mother.”

I couldn’t even take a breath when he said that. Did he really think that?

“Why did you say that?” I asked. I tried to stop from crying but it just started pouring out. I was so furious at him, while I tried to remember that he’s just a little boy. He’s eight years old.

“Because you hated her,” he said, and he turned and pressed his face into his pillow, and punched the pillow as hard as he could.

“I never, ever hated your mother,” I said, trying to keep my voice calm. “I loved her more than any friend I ever had.”

He sat up, turning around slowly and looking at me like I was poison. “More than Daddy?”

I thought about it, and said finally. “Yes. Well… I don’t know. A lot. I don’t know. Well, about the same, if not more than your daddy.”

He looked away.

“A lot,” I repeated. “I loved your mama a lot.”

He lay face down again and cried. I asked him if he wanted anything, and he shrugged, not facing me. I tried to touch him gently on his shoulder, but he moved away quickly.

“I should take your shoes off, if you’re going to lay on the bed,” I said softly.

He didn’t argue, so I slipped his shoes and socks off. He flexed his feet, which made his toes creak and crack like an old man’s. I squeezed his feet, one in each hand, and he sighed. I took that sigh as an okay, and kept rubbing his feet, which felt like bags of rocks; they were so knotted and tense. I had been squeezing and rubbing his feet for about five minutes when Monsieur stuck his head in the door. I looked up and smiled at him, and kept rubbing Bigglest Boy’s feet. Monsieur smiled back, and closed the door.

Bigglest Boy had stopped sniffling. When my hands got tired, I stopped and I said gently, “Feel okay?”

He nodded into his pillow.

“Still hate me?” I asked softly.

“I don’t know,” he said.

I took that as a positive sign, and told him he could come back downstairs with us when he was ready.

Your Correspondent Returns

I am back from the grazing-, oil- and cotton-leases of Corn Hole, KS, and am home in the grazing-, oil- and cotton-leases of Hill Country, TX.

Yes, we visited The Sod. We stayed at the Pee and Em’s, and my daddy even allowed Monsieur and me to sleep in the same room. Not like there was any chance that Monsieur’d give me any loving, what with my penchant for Rather Loud Noises during the physical act of love.

Monsieur survived Midwestern hospitality with great aplomb. He successfully won the approbation of My Seven Aunts by remembering all of their children’s names flawlessly, and also won the approval of My Five Uncles because he is able to talk about Big 12 Football despite the handicap of being born a foreigner – and a French one, at that.

“He’s all right,” said The Uncles, each in his own way, which is as close as this taciturn bunch gets to hoisting Monsieur up on their collective shoulders and giving him a victory parade.

“Let me know when you’re tired of him,” whispered my very-married Aunt Louise, with a wink.

The boys were spoiled with breakfast cereals and presents, cable TV and all of my old Disney videos. They didn’t let it spoil them much; in fact, Bigglest Boy was heard to tell Littlest Boy, “I think we’ve watched enough TV today, don’t you?”

At some point when Monsieur and the boys got corralled into going to fetch groceries with Daddy, Mom sat me down and, while we snapped some green beans, she asked me if I will always be “doing your teaching and whatever else it is you’re doing with the kids.”

I just said that I didn’t have any immediate plans to change.

“I’m just checking to make sure you are happy,” she said, “and you don’t miss being just a student without the responsibilities of a classroom or houseful of kids.”

I don’t remember what I said to that, but it was something along the lines of, “I’m fine, very satisfied with what I’m doing, and I find it very rewarding,” – which I do, actually.

She talked about her teaching years for a bit, and how she stopped when she got pregnant, and then she said, “Are you still using birth control? You can tell me it’s none of my business if you want.”

I blushed beet-red, and bit my lip to avoid sneezing. “No, I went off that a couple years ago,” I said. “But he um, he uses birth control.”

“Well, that’s good.” She looked around and then whispered to me, “I never could get your daddy to use those things.”

“No, Mom, I mean, he’s had a vasectomy.”

“Oh!” my mom said, startled. “Is it … is it permanent?”

“Pretty permanent, as far as those things go,” I said, trying to reassure her.

“So … so if you wanted to have kids, he’d need to have surgery?”

“Probably. But I don’t want to have kids,” I reminded her.

“Right,” she said. She poked through the beans, making sure she hadn’t missed any.

“We’re not even married…” I continued.

She looked up at me from over her bifocals. “Not yet, anyway.”

On the street where I live

Meta: here are all the posts I’ve begun and have had to end abruptly. Sorry for the incoherent format. Wait, no I’m not; it’s a blog.

I think this time of year is why people live in Texas, because it’s chilly at night and nice and warm in the afternoon, sort of like a mild spring day in the Midwest. There’s been rain so the creek’s been running. Even though the road up Blue Hill is twisty-turny and has had huge ruts in it – not anymore, the grader has come and smoothed it out, here’s a picture of last year’s flood crossing.

Here’s a picture of the view above Monsieur’s car.

It’s really beautiful here; here are some flowers which bloom in November.

Ranching, a bit of oil, and cotton are where the money is here, because it’s so dry but when those rains come this winter we should be ready. Skip the Gay Rancher says it’s likely to be a wet winter.

Wet winters can be good, if the rain and other wet come all spread out, instead of all at once. Any rancher will tell you that he’s really just a grass farmer, and the ones up here are wary of feedlot ranching. They like to feed them on grass and some clover and hard feed. Their poop goes right back into the food chain, and they, in a sense, eat it the next spring.

Monsieur, like most land owners out here, leases a bit of his small acreage out to cattle and other stock grazing. It’s very good for the land, especially if the stock is rotated out with alfalfa.

Those trees you see in this picture are called cedar trees. They’re not like the cedars you see up in the American Northwest; they’re not much good for anything except fence posts, mulch and firewood. Thousands of years ago most of them would have been trampled or eaten by herds of bison before they had ever gotten much higher than your knees. Cattle don’t eat cedar saplings though. They do fertilize them, and the rest of our back yard.

The main reason I haven’t posted in so long is that I didn’t want to turn this into a mommy (or stepmommy) blog.

I've been getting immersed in teaching and childcare over the last month. Middlest Boy at 5½ is turning into this whiny, negative little poop. It’s hard for him, because his older brother tends to get all the attention (mostly negative, for things like throwing tantrums – and rocking chairs).

I’m trying like crazy also to get a couple more kids to get their multiplication tables memorized. I think it’s just one of those things that they’re going to have trouble with.

But this isn’t a teacher blog either.

So, I’ll go on about my love life, which is really extraordinary. OK, to me, anyway.

Extraordinary is such a Monsieur sort of word; it’s something he would say.

Monsieur is a really extraordinary daddy. He’s also an extraordinary musician, well a performer anyway. I’ve known better guitar players but he tends to look at songs like I look at scenes and you don’t go for technical perfection in diction or virtuosity, you go for the feeling – which is why he complimented Maggie so well on stage.

I didn’t do very well while Monsieur was gone. I don’t mean with the kids; I expected one of them to act out in some way because Daddy was out. I didn’t expect a rocking chair to come sailing at me, though.

This tree is a reminder that it is just turning fall here in Texas, where we are still here and doing very well. I will try to post a bit more soon.

Daddy's home, I'm still here

Yes, I’m still here.

Monsieur came back on schedule, after being away on business. I missed him, awfully. I was glad to see him and I told him so. I even let him relax and catch up on his sleep, as he was pretty badly jet-lagged. I waited a whole day before I pounced on him, like a cat in heat.

I also surprised him, I think. I had, at some point, resolved to be able to give him a decent BJ, instead of the licking/stroking I’d been managing. While he was gone, I got out my biggest toy and practiced sucking it.

Anyone spying on me with a hidden camera late at night that week would have been rewarded with the sight of a redhead, lying on her back or her side, trying to get her mouth around a huge black dildo.

It helped, a bit. When I got the chance, while Monsieur was going down on me, I turned around under him and sucked his cock right into my mouth. Somehow I managed to relax and let it happen. I dropped my tongue into the floor of my mouth and just let him work it in. I didn’t ever get it into my throat, but I bobbed my head and sucked it without chewing it up too badly. He was surprised.

“That was impressive,” he allowed, when he turned me around to take me.

“I’ve been practicing,” I said, and he bit the back of my neck very wonderfully before plunging into me.

I’ve been pretty well buried by my school teaching, and also with handling and wrangling the boys. I’ve got a two-year-old who climbs everything: bookcases, curtains, bare walls. I heard a noise the other morning and got out of bed to check on it; Monsieur was outside but this noise came from the living room area. I went in there to find Littlest Boy hanging from a chandelier. He had piled up boxes on top of chairs and climbed them, then reached up and grabbed hold. The sound I had heard was cause by his swinging feet kicking the boxes out from under him. He was hanging there, giggling like it was the greatest fun and as if he wasn’t suspended eight feet over a tile floor, about to plummet to a certain head injury.

“Littlest Boy,” I said, holding onto his feet, “you don’t hang from the ceiling fixtures. That’s dangerous.”

“But I wanna go upsy-down!” he protested.

I did not argue with him, as he is only two, but I could not actually pry his fingers loose until I got up on a chair and worked each finger away from its vise grip on the chandelier.

“You’re not to climb in the house,” I reinforced. “When we go to the creek or to the park, I will help you climb trees, the playscapes, the rock quarry, the thirty-three floors of the Frost Bank Tower…”

“I wanna go outside,” he said.

Monsieur came in to see the piled-up furniture and boxes, and figured out the whole scheme immediately. He apologized, and took Littlest Boy outside with him to help in the garden.

Middlest Boy had a wonderful Halloween. He dressed up as the Green Arrow and Littlest Boy dressed as a little leopard. I was Bo Peep, and took them to the circle of neighbors who gather in the fork in the road and we had Trick or Treat, then we set up our own little stand and gave away the candy that we didn’t want.

Bigglest Boy was not especially happy when his daddy was away for that week. One night he threw a tantrum, a fit, and finally a rocking chair. I had been trying to confine him to his room, just so he could cool down, but he wasn’t accepting my authority and he picked up a glider rocker, lifted it over his head, and threw it across the living room, where it broke. It had missed me by about a foot.

I managed to confine him to his room after that.

I think he was more surprised that he could actually pick up and throw a glider rocker than anything.

Still, I was furious.

“That was your mama’s chair!” I cried. “Your mama’s rocker! Your grandfather bought that for you, when you were a baby!”

I cried for a while, with the other two boys gathering around me and trying to calm me down. I felt as though I wasn’t doing a good job, and that he would eventually end up more and more distant from me, no matter what I did.

Bigglest Boy calmed down immediately, and quietly went up to his room when he was sent there.

I didn’t tell his father, until he had come back home. When I did, I was rather frightened on Bigglest Boy’s behalf.

“Don’t be angry,” I begged him. “I’ve already yelled at him enough.”

“Thank you,” he said, “but this is quite inexcusable. I need to punish him in a way that is fitting for what he has done. Don’t forget,” he added as he went upstairs, “that he threw a chair, and that he threw it at you, and his younger brothers could also have been hurt. We do not harm women, and we do not harm children.”

Bigglest Boy has been restricted from all television since then, for a month, and must perform community service, gathering trash with his father on the roadside every weekend and every night for 50 hours.

Thanks to all who have written me, wondering if I'm OK and we're OK and if I've fallen off the planet or something. I'm fine, I promise. We're fine. Everything is very, very good.

Occupational Hazard

Occupational Hazard

a play in one act
by
The Yearning Heart

dramatis personae:

Pati Ent, female, mid twenties, college grad. Intelligent, cute, good-natured.

Doctor Hand, male, late thirties, gynecologist. Charming, professional, gentle. Really good looking, but all business. Think of a straight Graham Chapman who looks like John Corbett.

Nurse Oyl, female, fifties or older. Has seen it all. (Or so she thought.)

Setting: The OB-GYN examining room. As the curtain rises, Pati Ent is having her vitals and stats done by the Nurse; throughout the following, she’ll be weighed and have her temp & BP taken.

Nurse: Looks good. Pressure’s good. You’ve put on three pounds, nothing to worry about. Looks like it’s all muscle anyway. You could kinda stand to put on a few more before you’d have to worry about anything.

Pati: What I’m worried about is my … my PC muscle.

Nurse: [distractedly, filling out the chart] You’ve been doing your Kegels?

Pati: Yes! yes, that’s just it. I first started to exercise them three times a day, and then I moved up to once an hour. Now it seems like … like they’re taking over. They’ll clamp down clench and grip and … and I won’t be able to unclench.

Nurse: [frowning] … hmm, well, it might be nothing, but when Dr. Hand comes in we’ll be sure and tell him about it. OK? [exit]

[Pati slips into the gown and sits on the examining table. Dr. Hand and Nurse enter.]

Doctor: Ms Ent? Hi… I’m Dr. Myron Hand. [reads chart] Ms Oyl says you’ve got a little muscle spasm going on?

Pati: Not really a spasm, more like a Vise-Grip, living in my cooter.

Doctor: Clamps down, eh? Any pain?

Pati: No, actually, it feels kinda good! but I am afraid when it won’t let go.

like a good cowgirl

Doctor: Lay down on the table there. Feet up in the stirrups, like a good cowgirl. Comfy?

[The examining table must be placed, for the sake of the actress’ modesty, so that we see from Pati’s point of view. We can only see the top of Pati’s head, and her knees open with her feet in the stirrups.]

Now, Pati, have you tried the Brazil nut test?

Pati: No, I don’t think I’ve ever heard of it.

Doctor: Yes, trying to hold an object about the size of the common Brazil nut in your vagina, and squeeze it out. [puts on examining gloves] Think you can do that?

Pati: Oh, sure. Never tried it with a Brazil nut before.

Doctor: Well, it’s not necessary to use a Brazil nut [takes cellophane wrapped object from the nurse] but since I have plenty of these sterile surgical Brazil nuts [ripping the package open] we’ll just see how that involuntary spasm presents itself.

Pati: Sure.

[Doctor reaches under Pati’s robe and inserts the nut.]

Doctor: Now, just bear down on that, doing a Kegel, and try to use your muscles to push it out.

[sound: piece of plywood being ripped apart]

Doctor: Great Scott! Incoming! [He grabs the Nurse by the shoulder and forces her to the ground. Brazil nut shell fragments fly out from under Patient’s robe and fly over them, hitting the wall behind them and shattering the wall clock.]

Pati: I’m sorry, Doctor. I can’t control it anymore.

Doctor: [amazed and shaken] That’s … that’s all right, I’ve just never seen such … such tone.

[Pati is embarrassed.]

Doctor: [cont.] You’ve got to learn some control, there, Pati! [takes another surgical Brazil nut and unwraps it.] Now, let’s try it again and this time not quite so hard.

[Reaching under Pati’s gown, he places it and then stands back]

Nurse: [gets out two pairs of safety glasses and hands one to the Doctor] Better wear eye protection, first, Doctor. [These should be heavy-duty, military grade tinted green safety goggles.]

Doctor: Right you are, nurse. [They both don goggles.] Now, Pati, gently is the word here. Just try to slowly bear down, and …

[A cracking noise is heard, then crunching, then with, a loud bang, shell fragments come flying out. The two medical professionals hit the deck again. We hear the sound of nuts being chewed and swallowed. ]

a large shell fragment embedded in the lens of his safety goggles

Doctor: [Now he has a large shell fragment embedded in the lens of his safety goggles. He examines the damage to his room.] Only shells. Do you see that? No nutmeat. That thing has got to be stopped.

Nurse: What are you going to do?

Doctor: [dramatically] I’m … going in. [He opens Pati’s robe and, reaching forward, carefully probes with a gloved finger.]

Nurse: Be careful, doctor.

Doctor: It seems to have relaxed. … hmm… odd, it’s almost as if it ate the Brazil nut. It isn’t possible; there must be more Brazil nut in here -

[Suddenly, his finger is gripped and pulled in. The doctor grimaces in pain.]

Nurse: Pati! Let go! Stop it! You’ll break his finger!

Pati: I’m not doing it!

[a look of terror on the Nurse’s face, as she tries to extricate the doctor’s finger]

Doctor: [screams]

[The Doctor is being pulled in by his hand. His arm disappears within, then quickly he is sucked in with a wet slurp. The highly enhanced sound of a dental vacuum sucking up petroleum jelly would be good here, with appropriate bone-crunching effect.]

Pati: [horrified] Oh my God!

Nurse: [looks in] He’s gone.

Pati: [crying] I’m … I’m so sorry.

Nurse: There is nothing you could have done. [looks back in] [to herself] That thing is not of this world.

Pati: But … but what about Dr. Hand?

Nurse: [Still staring between Pati’s legs] Dr. Hand knew the risks when he majored in gynecology. [Pause] He was, after all, a professional.

FIN

Connection

Yes, whatever. So I hung out online a lot this weekend. He knew I did; I was DJing at Lady Ann’s when he popped on PalTalk with a PM and asked how the boys were doing. I called him back on his cell, which was cool, and he kept checking: is all well, did I remember this or that, how’s the money holding out, oh by the way there’s this pre-made dinner he made and it’s in the downstairs fridge.

Plus:

• miss you,
• love you
• miss you again
• miss you more

French baritone. Yum. Sounds so good on the phone. His accent gets thicker when he’s all tired and jet-lagged and it’s like a shot of DC current running from my clitoris to the base of my brain and back. And he’s not micro-managing me, he cares.

Yum.

“I wish you were here,” I said, after a pause.

“I wish you were here, and Grandmother and Grandfather were at home, caring for the kids. I’m more alone in this place than I ever have been anywhere,” he added.

“What would we be doing, if I were there?” I asked him.

A pause. “Wonderful things,” he said, finally.

“When you get home, I will need you.”

“Yes,” he said.

“Inside me,” I continued, whispering.

“I know,” he said, simply, “don’t worry.”

“‘Don’t worry’ like, you understand? Or ‘don’t worry,’ you’ll take care of me?” I persisted.

A pause.

“I’ll take care of you,” he said. “Be good, and be well. Don’t stay up too late on chat, all right?”

“Yes, monsieur,” I said.

“You will need your rest this week,” he added.

“Yes, monsieur, I’m about to log off.” I said goodbye to the chat room and exited.

“You will also need your rest for when I come home,” he added. I could hear the smile in his voice.

“I – yes, monsieur,” I said. I blushed. I sneezed.

“Salud,” he said, with a knowing little chuckle.

“Merci,” I said, then added, “Merci. De tout.”

“For everything?” he asked.

“Yes, monsieur,” I said.

My man's gone now

My man’s gone now,
Ain’t no use alistenin’
For his tired foot-steps
Climbin’ up de stairs. Ahhhhh, ahhh

Ole Man Sorrow
Come to keep me comp’ny,
Whisperin’ beside me
When I say my prayers. Ahhhhh, ahhh
Ain’t dat I min’ workin’·
Work an’ me is travellers
Journeyin’ togedder
To de promise land.

Monsieur is out of town on business, and I never really grasped how hard he works around here, how much he does.

He left at noon, leaving a few meals in Tupperware that I can pop in the microwave. The house was spotless and the sinks were shiny before he left. I know all Emergency Procedures, and I know whee the Panic Buttons are, in case there’s any trouble I can hit one of six strategically located buttons, and an alarm goes off that would be loud enough for an air raid siren.

Laundry, dishes, Littlest Boy’s first change at 5 AM. Water the chickens, milk the cereal and rotate the laundry again. It’s not hard work, but it’s steady, and he normally does it while I’m swinishly asleep. He typically gets up with reveille, and I stay in bed until 6 or even 7 sometimes, when I wake up to homemade chicken sausage and omelets.

No omelets for me this morning, it was my rubbery scrambled eggs, which no one touched and I don’t blame them. Littlest Boy was up and out of bed like a little jumping bean flavored Pop-Tart™ all night. “Where’s my daddy?” he would cry. He kept forgetting that daddy was away. “Will he come back now?” No, not for some days. I can relate, sweetie; I can’t sleep without your daddy either.

At least he gave me yummy yum before he left. Plenty. I’m once, twice, three times a-laid.

Still, a taste of the bone, right now, would be just what the doctor ordered, what the butler saw, what made the preacher hopping red.

Secure

Yes, we talked. I talked at first, and Monsieur listened, as that’s his way. For someone who can make idle conversation in seven languages, he’s remarkably taciturn when it comes to his feelings; me, I can speak only one language well, and just try to shut me up in that one.

Monsieur talked about the pending lawsuit that he’s facing, and how he feels betrayed by the people he worked for. Basically he is being sued because the company who is suing him didn’t do what he told them that they should do. They are being fined by their state regulatory agency, for not following the law, and so they’re suing him almost out of reflex. It’s a nuisance to them, but it’s his livelihood, his home, everything he’s worked for that he has to fight. Monsieur is worried that, if he ends up losing his home and land, he’ll have to move into town into some rent house or apartment, crowding his kids all in a smaller place, living under the eyes of neighbors. He is afraid I’d feel crowded and without the lovely house and huge backyard, his kids would be unhappy, and that I’d just up and leave. He knows I’m kind of needy, and thinks I should have things that I don’t have here, and that I would rather be in graduate school and dating younger men, working in theatre and having fun.

And he has to go out of town and be away for almost a week, which is bothering him, because he hates where he has to go, but he’ll do it because if he doesn’t take this job, he won’t be able to finance his defense lawyer.

I was hurt by the suggestion that I’m so needy and would be happier with things and with someone else, and the idea that I’d just leave him because of a change in address. But to my credit I shut up and I listened. At some point, I just held him. He was quiet, and he sighed in such a way I thought it was a sob. I hoped, prayed, wished, he would cry it all out.

I’ve never really seen him cry, even through all this, even after Maggie died, I never saw him really cry. His eyes got red sometimes, his face went from this ashen gray to a bright pink, but no sounds, no weeping, nothing. Me, I cried all the time. I cried when we went through Maggie’s clothes, to give them away. I cried when I had gathered up her mascara and lipstick, when I had found the one shade she showed me and said, “I call this Cock Sucking Red, you should borrow it sometime,” with a wink. I cried months later when I had found a Jamie Cullum T-shirt wadded up under the upstairs bathroom sink, that smelled of her sweat and that cheesy almond oil she used on her skin. I had closed the bathroom door so the boys wouldn’t walk in on me, held it in front of my face and cried.

Monsieur talked to me about a lot of things, about Iraq and Fiji and West Africa and some of the horrible and wonderful things he’s seen and been through. He talked about being young, in France and being thought of as American because he was born in California. As a result, he styled himself as an authority on all things American to the other kids. They couldn’t play cowboys or gangsters without him; since he had been born in America, only he knew how they really wore their hats, how they really drove their cars, how they really shot their guns. He became the technical advisor for playing anything that had an American theme, from cops and robbers to rock and roll.

I listened to the story of how his whole life, he never really felt like he belonged in what they told him was his own country, and never felt at home in America either. He speaks French with an accent, and he speaks English with an accent. No matter where he went, he was marked a foreigner, a stranger in a strange land, slow of speech and slow of tongue. He wandered across Europe, playing American pop songs for Germans, playing Irish folk songs for Hungarians, playing anything for anyone.

He casually mentioned some girl’s name I hadn’t heard, someone who had let him sleep in a spare storage shed when he was down and out, and I asked him about her. I wasn’t trying to pry, I just said, “tell me about her.”

At first he rather shied from that, but I asked him gentle questions, why she let him stay, what did she do? What was her story? She was married to a man who drove a semi-truck from Scotland to Turkey, and who was gone most of the time. I asked him if he had slept with her, and he said he had. I asked if he had loved her, and he said, “I tried very hard not to, but men are weak that way. Most women can decide for themselves whether to fall for the men with whom they have affairs of the heart; men are not able to differentiate as easily and that is their failing.”

There were many affairs, he said, but no girlfriends. He did not manage to date women, to have a girlfriend, or to hold a full time job. He joined the army almost out of distraction, thinking he needed to learn skills and come out with “knowledge under the fingers”. He ended up in Mechanized Infantry, and though he was very highly regarded, came to hate it as he was deployed to Kuwait, then to West Africa and Fiji. His team’s job was to be the first to go into an area and make sure it was secure.

“How did you know when it was secure?” I asked him.

“When they stopped shooting us. When everyone who could fire a weapon or plant an explosive was either captured or dead. When the construction battalion people could come in, and rebuild the bridges that were destroyed, and set up communications.”

I didn’t reply. I held him.

“I finished my time, and left, less sure of myself than I was when I went in. The sound of a round being discharged, gives me a feeling of untold grief.”

“Is that why you don’t let your boys have toy guns?” I asked. “Is that why you don’t keep a gun in your house, even against wolves and coyotes?”

“Partially. I don’t want my boys to have romantic notions about firearms. Also, such weapons are terribly imprecise. Let them discover this when they are older; should they become interested in such things.”

“Some people would describe you as a pacifist,” I whispered.

“Some people like easy labels,” he replied. “Besides, I know of few combat veterans worth their weight who would truly enjoy the sound of gunfire, or who would not like to see war’s end.”

We talked until late at night, me in his arm laying my head on his chest. I listened to his deep baritone, not saying much of anything, just listening. He would pause and I would think he was asleep. Then he would start again, speaking so softly and so distractedly that it was almost like listening to the ocean. A wave of murmurs, and then a pause, a few breaths, repeating at odd intervals for hours. His chest was a seashell against my ear, making each word resonate; we were on top of the blankets because he was so warm I needed nothing but his voice around me. My hair cascaded across his chest and onto the blanket around him. I wanted to shield him from the world.

There was a long pause, and he said, “When we met you, that time, at my sisters’ house, and you were her roommate…” he paused.

“Yes,” I said.

“I felt so ashamed, of how I wanted to see you again,” he said almost inaudibly.

“I know.”

“I felt myself becoming what I was, someone who not respect the marriage, someone who would seduce a girl, and I was ashamed. Even when Maggie would talk about you as a good friend, I was not receptive to that. I did not want her to be close to you. I did not want you to be near her.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t know at the time.”

“Old habits,” he said, and did not finish the sentence. Then he began again, “Of the two of us, she would have said that she was the more likely to sleep with someone else, and before I had met you, I would have agreed. She could not contain herself very well. But, with you, I was the more tempted, and the guilt is more burning when we met you because you were still very much a child.”

“I was nineteen, past the age of consent,” I said, somewhat defensively.

“But not past the age when you could have been objective,” he said quickly. “For a married man in my mid thirties, married to a woman like Maggie, to look at a girl of nineteen, it is criminal.”

“You can’t help how you feel,” I said. “I wanted you and Maggie. I flirted with you and Maggie. I tempted both of you. I knew what I wanted. I shouldn’t have done it. I didn’t know it was causing you such conflict. I was not ...” I looked for the word.

“You were not yet grown up, for one,” he said.

“No, I guess I wasn’t.”

He paused, breathing somewhat deeply, and I thought he might let go and finally cry.

“Yet you were so alive, so full of joy. And you were ... you are ... so beautiful. So beautiful.” He held me tighter under his arm, and my arms went around him. I held him tight.

“You have no idea,” I said, finally, “how much I need you to tell me that.”

He rolled over me and kissed me. His mouth was warm, and his lips were searching mine, and he moved against my body and kissed me like he meant it. Most guys kiss me like they’re trying to turn me on, because they want something. Which is okay. When Monsieur kisses me like he kissed me, it was like I was the center of the universe, and he wanted nothing more. He kissed me like I belonged. He kissed me like he loves me. My arms went around him, he was my darling, he was my everything.

“I’m sorry that – ” I began, between kisses.

“Hush, ma belle douce,” he whispered and kissed me.

“But I’ve been so bad,” I protested.

“Still yourself,” he said, “you were never bad.”

“But, I just wanted to ... I mean, I was only thinking of myself,” I said, through tears.

“You have every right to ask for what you want,” he said, “and not to apologize.” He kissed me.

My tears were streaming down my face, but I didn’t talk. I didn’t deserve him. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t stop crying.

“You are sad?” he said, finally. He pulled away and looked into my eyes.

“No. Yes. I don’t know,” I admitted. “I feel guilty.”

“Yes, as do I, but that is only because you have a good heart. I see who you are. We see the good in you. The boys see your intent. They are loved. We are loved.” He kissed me. “And so, you are loved.”

My arms and my legs went around him and I held him as close to me as I could.

“How can you stay with me,” he asked, “if I don’t take care of you properly?”

“How can you think you don’t? I get all I need, if not all I want.” I closed my eyes as tears streamed from them. I kissed his cheeks, and they were wet. I don’t know if they were wet from my tears, or from his.

He sat up in bed, and, turning around to make sure that the door was shut tightly, he lifted my nightgown, grasped the gusset of my panties in one hand and pulled. I lifted my hips, sniffing my tears, and my panties were pulled down and off of me. He leaned back down and kissed my neck, my collarbone, my shoulders. My nipples crinkled and my heart leaped in my ribs. I pressed against him, realizing I hadn’t showered all day and I hadn’t shaved my legs, or down there, since Wednesday. I was a bit fuzzy. I hoped he didn’t mind. He didn’t seem to. He pressed against me, and I felt him against my vulva. His cock.

I wanted to tell him that it was all right. He kissed my breasts and my voice didn’t come. I wanted to tell him that we didn’t have to do anything. He sucked and nibbled my nipples. I gasped, instead of saying that if he felt sad or afraid it was all right.

But all I could manage to say was, “Don’t.” I didn’t mean to say that, because he stopped.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, and started to move off of me.

“No! ‘don’t STOP’, I meant,” I said, and, holding him by either side of his head, I put his lips back on me where they belong.

He kissed his way down, teasing my navel, then bit my tummy, gently. He started to move down and I said, “I’m, um, not shaved. Sorry,” I added. “I haven’t been very – ”

“Don’t be foolish, you’re beautiful, from your toes to the top of your head,” I heard him say, his voice muffled in my mons, the smooth baritone wafting up from between my legs, blending with my scent. His lips found my stubble, and despite my self-consciousness, I pulled his face tighter to me, half hoping that he wouldn’t be able to tell so much how stubbly I was.

“Besides,” he added after a while, “I haven’t shaved today either.” His mouth stayed closed as he kissed me there. I was swollen and I could feel the pulse in my sex, under his insistent lips. He held his lips to my labia, not opening them, just holding his face against it, while my nails went up and down his neck, and my fingers entwined in his hair. He kissed it again. I loved it, despite the heavy friction of his stubble against mine. Or maybe because of it.

His tongue emerged, licking the outside all over, running over the stubble on my labia. He licked me open then licked me shut. I wanted his tongue inside, his fingers, his cock. I ached to be penetrated but he lick, lick, licked it instead. I was slishy wet, running down his face, pooling up under me. Still he licked, up and down, all the way to my butt. I was afraid I wasn’t clean but he insisted, his face burying itself in my bottom, kissing, sucking, even biting me. My head spun and I felt like I was floating on clouds.

I writhed, bit my lips, tried to move but he was holding me down. I wanted to cry out but my tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth. I finally managed to say the single word, “Stop,” and he stopped instantly.

“Nooo,” I protested, finally, gasping. “Don’t stop; I meant stop... stop teasing me.”

He looked up at me. “I am not teasing,” he said. “Not in the sense that I think; usually teasing is more of a sense of not allowing you to have your hopes satisfied –”

I mashed his face back down into my pussy. “Shut UP!” I screamed. “Suck. Lick ... there. My clit, and inside, I need to be fucked, fuck it, fuck me, fuck my OH GOD yes,” I cried, this as his tongue plunged into me, filling me with its warm prehensile girth, spreading me, making me delirious.

“I need to suck you,” I said. He held his tongue inside me and shook his head. I looked down, into his eyes. “I need you in my mouth,” I said.

He pulled his face from me, looked up and said, “Not tonight.”

I was crying. “Please. Don’t just ... please don’t just eat me; I must be fucked.”

He moved over me. He held my hands up over my head, and holding me by his wrists, he positioned his cock, thick and bobbing, between my legs. I captured it with my thighs, squeezing it hard and trying to work it in my pussy using only my quadriceps. I looked up at him, defiantly.

“You better fuck me,” I said. “Oh, sweet godamighty, if you don’t fuck me you are going to have one angry girl in your bed – ”

He held one finger to my lips. “Hush, sweetheart, you’re should not talk so,” he whispered.

I kissed the finger, then sucked it, writhing, moving against his cock. “Now,” I insisted. “I’m past ready.”

“Impatience is very becoming on you,” he smiled.

“I wish you’d be coming on me,” I said, smartly.

He didn’t say anything to that, but let go of my hands. He held his cock against my swollen pussy lips and was still. It felt like a warm, wet, iron bar. I moved against it, pushing down, reaching down to spread myself, enveloping it, opening up, moving against its immovable head, until it slowly filled me with

One.
Smooth.
Stroke.

His held thumb against my clit, his half-lidded eyes on me, and did not move.

I writhed against him more, lifting my hips, then my legs and locking them around his back He was motionless. I looked up at him, breathing through my teeth, trying to get him to move by stimulating him and gripping him with my Kegels, but he was as motionless as a lump of granite. A very sexy, well-defined, tall, dark, and hot lump of granite.

My hands went to pinch his nipples, then I bent forward to kiss him. He kissed me as gently as could be, his lips touched me like butterfly wings, like the eyelashes of an angel, which was as bad as his motionless body to me right then. I grabbed him by the back of his head, and pressed my lips tight to his, sucking his tongue. I felt a pulse in his cock, and he rubbed his thumb against my clitoris, lazily, not as fast as I wanted but very hard. Thump. Pause. Thump. Pause. He pinched it, rolling in his fingers, and I came, my vision going black as I cried. When I could see again, his hand was over my mouth and he was moving in and out of me, slowly, deliberately.

“Yes, angel,” he said, letting go of my mouth.

I don’t know what I said. I cried. I gasped, calling his name, calling for JesusMaryMoses and probably my Mommy, too, for all I know. I came again and held him, crying, crying, crying out. He watched me, and then a surge went through him and then into me. He filled me up, completely, holding me close to him as it pooled inside me and ran down my legs, down my crack, onto the sheet.

“Oh!” I cried, voicelessly.

“You are all right?” he asked me.

I nodded, unable to speak. He held me there, until I fell asleep with him still inside me.

When I woke up, it was morning, a sheet was over me, and my legs were apart. I was weak as a newborn lamb. I was unable to see straight, make a fist or walk properly. I staggered to the bathroom, not remembering anything right, and I sat on the toilet, unable to pee for many minutes, until everything relaxed.

Security

I was getting nervous, and here’s why. Monsieur has to go out of town next weekend. He’ll be gone a week from yesterday (next Friday) until the following Tuesday. He has been bent out of shape, not so much as anyone would notice but I’m getting used to his odd ways and I can tell when something is bothering him. I asked him before if I had said something wrong, if I had done anything, but it’s not me, he assures me. I tried to believe him. So night before last I cornered him, and let into him.

He’s had the coin for a week now, and hasn’t redeemed it. What’s up? I asked him, don’t we have a deal? Are you mad at me? Did I say something wrong? do I smell bad? All I got was one syllable answers.

After pressing I find out that he’s being sued. It’s work-related, and he told me he did not want me to worry and that it’s an occupational hazard of his job. He said he gets sued every other year or so, and usually it’s nothing, it’s a very common occurrence and usually comes from a company or firm trying to cover its own ass. This time it might be a tough case, though. He’s got a good lawyer, not his regular family and business lawyer, but a specialist who deals with this sort of thing. It will likely cost him a pile of money that he doesn’t have.

“When did you find out?” I asked him.

“Initially, about a month ago,” he replied. “On Monday, I found out that they may have a difficult case, and it could go badly.”

Of course, I felt slighted, for no reason at all. My immediate reaction was, “Why the hell didn’t you tell me before?”

“I probably should have.”

“‘Probably’?!?” I wanted to punch him. I let into him. I felt slighted, like I didn’t deserve to know. “When were you going to tell me? Were you going to tell me? This is the kind of thing I need to know. I deserve to know. You can be secretive and mysterious with everyone else, but I refuse to let you keep this kind of thing from me. Are we in this together? I need to know that. Why do I have to pry things out of you?”

He tried to answer each question but I was not letting him finish. He sighed, and his eyes were looking down as he admitted he didn’t want me to worry, blah blah blah.

“I’m ALREADY worried, damn it. I need to know what I should be worried about!” He stared at something on the floor. “Jeez, I keep thinking it’s me, or you’re not into me, or I’m doing something wrong. You need to talk to me, like, well, like I’m somebody, and not your damned babysitter.”

“It may go very badly. I may end up losing my business, everything – and I don’t know if you would care to stay with me if I have nothing.”

“Monsieur, listen to me. First of all, for such a brilliant guy, you’re an idiot. Look at me.”

He looked at me.

“I’m. Not. Going. Anywhere. OK? I mean, I would if you were going to throw me out. Are you planning on throwing me out?” I asked him.

He didn’t say anything for a little too long, and I said, “Look, fine, I can go. I can stay with friends, or my daddy. I don’t have a car now, so I’d need to take the bus up to Wichita – ”

“Please, don’t be dramatic,” he said, “and please, stay. I am rather … confused by this, and I confess I don’t know what will happen. But whatever happens, please stay.”

I felt like such a bitch. My ire was raised, and I couldn’t calm down. To my credit, I counted to ten, and said, “Are you still going on that business trip?”

“I am not in a position to turn down work, right now,” he said.

“All right, then.” I sat there. I wanted him to put his arms around me, but I couldn’t ask him to. I wanted him to kiss me and let his heart pour out to me, but I wasn’t about to ask him to. I want him to be crazy in love with me, but I can’t make him. I sat there.

He sat there, for a while, and then said, “Will you try and get a good night’s sleep, tonight?”

“I suppose,” I said, “if I can.”

“You’ve been up late every night this week. On the computer,” he added, pointedly.

“Yes,” I said.

You’ve been whoring in the damn chat room, he didn’t say.

I wouldn’t be whoring in the damn chat room if you would fucking notice me, I didn’t say.

I went to bed, my face to the wall.

It ate at me all day, all night yesterday. I stopped into Lady Ann’s just now, hoping to get a little attention from a random patron. I sat there for about five minutes, not flirting and talking about nothing.

Then I considered what it would look like if the shoe were on the other foot. Supposing the man were in the chat room every night, pretending to have sex with a half dozen of girls a night, because his own, real life girlfriend was ignoring him in bed. And suppose the real life girlfriend knew all about it, and knew all about what he was doing, and let him because she didn’t know what else to do.

I felt like such a bitch. I left Lady Ann’s, I didn’t say goodbye.

He was about to go to work, and I stopped him.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “You work hard. I work hard. I love you,” I added.

“I love, adore, cherish you. I can’t show it the way you need me to,” he said. His eyes were red.

“I don’t care. It’s OK, I’m sorry,” I said.

“You have said or done nothing for which you need apologize

“I don’t care. I’m really, really sorry –“ I began.

“I’m sorry too,” he said.

“ – and I love you –”

“I love you, too–”

“And let’s not stay up late tonight. Let’s go to bed, and just talk. We don’t have to … to do anything,” I added.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

I nodded. “I’m very, very sure.”

Doing My Part for the Effort

I sure am getting a lot of hits from the government and related providers these days. Someone at Halliburton checks on me at least every week; also, I get a whole lot of hits from the military and from the Dept. of Justice.

I love it.

I rather wish someone would name a bomber after me, or put my ass up on the side of a tank or a jet or something. I’d feel like I was Betty Grable.

[waves] Hi, guys!

First BJ

On 10/03/06, a Dear Reader <emailma@sk.ed> wrote:

Did you do oral before you went "all the way"? What was it like your first time?

I knew my first real boyfriend since fourth grade. Regular readers will remember him as the first guy I slept with. I will always call him Keith in this blog because when he is holding a guitar he looks like Keith Richards from behind. The resemblance fades when you walk around to see him from the front, when he starts to look like Matthew McConaughey with hat hair. He was a real sweetie in school, but he was kind of geeky and shy and girls picked on him a lot. As a result he wasn’t very good with girls. We were close friends from the moment after I tackled him in 5^th grade flag football during PE and my team got penalized for it.

“Where did you learn to tackle like that?” he asked.

“I have an older brother and three other male cousins,” I said. “It’s the only way I can get seconds at dinner.”

We were friends up through high school. He didn’t even know how ask me out on our first official “date”, so I tricked him into it.

We were walking home from somewhere; it was getting cold and he let me wear his coat over my sweater. It was 1995, October, I think, and the wind blew from the north pretty hard. This was in central Kansas, where when the wind blows directly out of the north in the fall, it comes straight in off of the Arctic Circle with nothing to stop it except for the occasional farm house and some barbed-wire fence. I was 14 years old. He was 16. I kept re-applying that cheap lipstick I used to wear all the time to avoid chapping my lips. He was in a Tool t-shirt. He stuffed his hands into his jeans pockets and shivered every time the wind blew. He looked like such a dork that he was irresistible. At this time, he hadn’t even kissed me yet. Such a dork.

“I was, um, gonna, well, I don’t know if this is the right way to um, you know…” he began.

Poor guy, I felt so bad for him

“C’mon, doofus, it’s just me,” I said. “What’s up?”

“Nothin’” he said.

We walked on.

“Well, look, if you want, you can asked me down at Braum’s. I’m hungry and broke, and there’s nothing to eat at my house. You got both a driver’s license and twenty bucks. Run me over there in your dad’s old truck, buy me a burger and ask me there. You can swing a burger.”

“‘Kay.” he said.

After we were at Braum’s and I ate my Junior Burger and most of his fries, I asked him what he wanted to say to me earlier.

“Oh, nothin’,” he said.

“No, really,” I said, “what did you need to know?”

“I don’t remember,” he mumbled.

I punched him in the arm. “Bullshit,” I teased him. “You were going to ask me out, weren’t you?”

“No!” he said. “You’re only 14.”

“Don’t lie to me, dorkus,” I said. “I’ve known you since 4^th freaking grade. You can’t take a punch and you can’t lie. So don’t try.”

“Well, whatever,” he said.

“Where are we going out next?” I asked him.

“Next?”

“Ya, next. This was our first date, you know.” I wiped my lips with a napkin.

“Is this a date?” he asked me.

“Sure, it’s a date,” I said.

“Do you kiss on the first date?” he asked.

“Nope, not if it’s just a burger at Braum’s,” I said.

“I bet if I took you to Larkspur’s I’d get a blowjob,” he said, chuckling.

I waited till he smugly took a big swig out of his root beer, then I punched him in the arm, sending crushed ice into his face and down his shirt.

So, I tricked him into asking me out, because he didn’t know a good way to do it himself. He also didn’t know a good way to break up with me when he wanted to see someone else. He still feels bad about it, and often mentions it on the rare occasion I run into him if I go back home. Good, I think. He should feel bad.

But while I was still a high school girl, I played with him, making out, teasing, etc.

Eventually I’d get to seen him naked. A few times, after intense make out sessions, he was so turned on he couldn’t stand it anymore. Usually what he did was to excuse himself, go to the bathroom, and come back all flushed with his hair messed up. I knew what he’d been doing in there, and I wanted to see what it looked like. So once after he and I had been heavily humping each other, and he said something about “going to the bathroom,” I said, “I want to see you pee.”

“I’m um, well, you can come with me but if you do I might not be able to pee,” he said.

“Why?” I asked sweetly. “Are you going to jack it off instead?”

He looked mortified.

“If you do, can I watch?” I asked.

His eyes lit up, and he and I went to the bathroom, where I sat on the toilet lid, he lowered his pants and went for it. I enjoyed watching his face, and seeing his hand go so fast, and our eyes met when he came. It was very intense, and made for a nice little stroke-off for me later when I was alone. Because, I wasn’t about to do that in front of him. I’m a good girl.

One thing he taught me was that, if girls don’t know anything about what turns a guy on, guys know even less about how to ask for what they want. I realized that when I was 16 and I found a porn picture on his computer.

“Hey, what’s this?” I asked him.

“Oh, that, uh, that’s, uh… ” he stammered.

“It’s a blowjob, is what it is,” I said, smiling.

“Uh, well, someone sent that to me, I think,” he said, turning red.

“Oh, quit lying.” I looked at it. She looked like she liked doing that. It looked sexy. “I’m gonna close it, if you don’t mind,” I said quietly.

He didn’t say anything, so I closed the file and went back to doing what I was doing before.

We didn’t mention it. But later, when we were on the phone, flirting and turning each other on, I said that I’d like to learn how to do it. To him. Like, tomorrow.

We made plans. I was scared to death. I was a nice girl, and nice girls didn’t even do that to their husbands. But I also knew what boys liked. And I also thought to myself, it looks like fun. All day, and all night, for days, I thought about having him in my mouth. I couldn’t get it out of my mind.

One afternoon we had free time. It was a teacher service day, so a school holiday. My mom worked for the district, and wasn’t going to be home for another three hours. I seized the opportunity and called him, told him to meet me at his folks’ barn, in the old feed loft.

It was stuffy in there. There wasn’t any feed in there, since I don’t think they had any livestock. There was an old horse blanket, and a few bales of hay.

I was suddenly very nervous. So was he, I am pretty sure. I made some noise like “uh, well, here we are.”

“If you don’t want to, it’s OK – ” he began.

“I didn’t say I didn’t want to. It just feels … I dunno, weird, to be here. I wish it weren’t so hot in here,” I said as I looked around.

He saw the loft vent fan switch, and went over and turned it on. A breeze began to blow through the loft, and cooled us off. He smiled at me.

“OK,” I admitted. “I’m nervous.”

“Let’s not do this,” he said. “Maybe we could just, I dunno, treat this like it’s our own place.”

“Our own place?” I repeated.

“Sure,” he said. “You know, we never really have a chance to be alone together. There’s always people around. This is nice.”

He went on, talking about nothing for a long time, telling me jokes, and not calling attention to me or my body. He didn’t try to kiss me. He made me laugh. His voice broke a couple of times, though. I could tell he was nervous, too, and when I realized that, it was like the ice melted.

I threw my arms around him at some point, and kissed him, hard. It surprised him, but after a minute he forgot his self-consciousness and started putting his hands on me. All over me, his hands went, trying to get me out of my pants or get up my shirt. After a few minutes of that I got on his lap to keep kissing him. I could feel how hard he was, and at some point I wiggled on it and smiled and said something like, “Is that for me?”

“Is what for you?” he asked.

I wiggled again.

“Oh … yes. I mean, yes, that’s for you. If , um, if you want it.”

I wiggled again. “Let’s see it,” I said, “and maybe I will.”

He stood up and slipped his pants down to his knees. I looked at his lap. It looked … well, like it was just a part of his body. Skin. Wrinkles, veins, pores. Hair. It looked perfectly normal.

“That doesn’t look so bad,” I said, half to myself.

He kind of rubbed it, and I wanted to touch it. I reached over and he moved his hand away.

It was smooth, and felt like, well, like skin. I looked up at him, and his eyes were completely glazed. I ran my finger up and down its length. He gasped, and his eyes rolled back a little.

I had no idea what to do so I just leaned over and took it in my hand and pointed it in my mouth. I licked it a few times, and sucked its tip like a Popsicle.

“Ungh,” was his response.

I kept going till my jaw hurt. Looking back, I was awful, resting my head on his lap, not giving it consistent suction, ignoring the rest of him, and not pacing myself. My mouth was sore and snot was starting to run down my nose, I felt like my hair was all tangled and I just felt gross. Hey, I was 16 years old, remember.

“I have to stop,” I finally said. “I’m sorry.”

“It’s OK,” he said. “But I can’t stop.”

“I know,” I said.

I leaned back and he kind of licked his hand and then his hand went to his cock. He started to rub it, his hand a blur. I thought he would hurt himself, he was going so hard. Still, watching it turned me on, the way his stomach muscles tightened and flexed, and then suddenly something appeared on the tip of his cock, and then flooded out onto the floor of the feed loft. He moaned.

“Wow,” I said, impressed at the quantity.

He didn’t say much, but wiped his hand on the horse blanket. “Sorry,” he said, “I just can’t go then stop like that.”

I nodded, saving the information for future reference. I wished I could rub one out really quick, but didn’t want to do it in front of him. I waited till I got home, got into the shower and rubbed myself raw for a good twenty minutes.

Visits

It’s been two weeks since I last posted anything meaningful. Not that my ass isn’t meaningful. We’ve been busy. I’m so busy I’m not even going to spell check this before posting it, a first for me.

Two weekends ago Maggie’s parents came from Houston to visit. They are very cool. Her mom is a great dancer. She was born in Yennan (sp?), China, and moved to Taiwan. Her dad is from Korea. He’s a jazz musician and plays saxophone, piano, and probably a million other things. He also learned English by watching American TV and collects old comedy stuff, like old National Lampoon magazines, Saturday Night Life scripts, and other harmless stuff.

When I first came here to stay, I don’t think Grandmother wanted me to stay here. At first I thought she thought I would be bad for the children, but later I came to find out that she was afraid she would lose her grandkids. Since that hasn’t happened, and Monsieur makes his boys talk to their grandparents once a week and write them letters and send them cards and so forth, they’ve stayed in touch and will always know who their grandparents are.

I think Grandfather was a lot more understanding about my staying here and was always trying to charm me and get me to laugh. He tells the worst jokes I have ever heard, and yet I laugh anyway. He’s like a Mel Brooks movie, only Korean. He tells these corny old vaudeville jokes and keeps the boys giggling. When they left the boys definitely felt his absence, and told each other “knock knock” jokes to make up for it.

I had met them at Maggie’s funeral, and also last year some time we took a trip to Houston so that the boys could visit their grandparents and also NASA Space Center. Back then I don’t think Grandmother said three sentences to me the whole time. I wasn’t sleeping with Monsieur, at least not openly, and she treated me like I was the hired help, which I suppose I was. Grandfather was more open and warm. “Good to see you again, beautiful,” he said to me.

Now Grandmother much more willing to confide in me a bit, usually to complain about Grandfather and his eccentricities. Mostly good-natured complaining, I think. Once she asked me if there were anything I wished I had. “Just Maggie,” I said, and she nodded. “She was our music,” she told me. She misses Maggie something awful. They both do.

Also, they brought Grandmother’s parents for a short while, from California somewheres. When the Great-Grands came, they all stayed in a hotel in Johnson City but while it was just Grandparents they stayed with us in Littlest Boy’s room. I learned how to say “thank you” in Chinese (xie xie but I never did pronounce it right).

Also, also, also, the other sign that Grandmother had thoroughly warmed up to me – she and Grandfather recommended that Monsieur and I spend the evening out by ourselves, which we did – the WHOLE night. Monsieur booked a room at the InterContinental Stephen F. Austin Hotel (Google it!), which is awesome.

We had a huge suite way up high, a view of downtown, and a huge bathtub, which we made good use of. He brought a bunch of music on his laptop, which he set up in the corner and had running all night. I can’t begin to tell you how wonderful he made me feel with it all, and after dinner, when the music was on and the wine was poured, he didn’t talk about kids or work or money or really, anything that would take his attention from me.

But for now, I gotta run to church, and the rest is a story for another time when I have thirty minutes to type it out, and another thirty minutes alone that I can just work out the tensions that retelling such a story might cause.

Anyway, xie xie to Grandmother and Grandfather for watching the kids all night, and letting us have an entire night off.

Template change

While I'm trying to figure out the Beta Blogger, I had to apply one of their new "Dynamic Templates." I don't like it either. I'll jack with it later.

EDIT: jacked with it, still hating it.

EDIT 2006-09-28: Jacked with it some more, figuring it out. This ain't your mama's HTML.

Oh, To Be His Snake's Woman Partner

This was in my Lady Ann’s Brothel message box this morning:

After I/she/you came to know Your advertisement’s details
nPerish come I train you that be honored builder we progress so that by the official demand of the marriage languid be created my snake’s woman partner
Languid prepared for is a question or which an inquiry you should know him
With the pure of a greeting
emailm@sk.ed
Or
otheremailm@sk.ed
On Jehu or He/they makes my correspondence strong if you don’t decree the connection across the position
I hope for the answer spoliation or an obligation

I now have to run this through my Magic Comprehensive Syntax Analyzer, and see if I can extract anything coherent out of it in any way whatsoever.

If you do find this and you are the original author, you speak in strange whispers, friend. Please be aware that I prefer standard English or broken French for all further communications.

Out of my head

I’ve been getting into this, sort of roleplay lately. I guess you’d call it roleplay.

Have you ever closed your eyes and pretend it’s someone else?

I sometimes close my eyes and pretend that I’m someone else, a very different woman in a different place, and Monsieur is giving to me while I’m bent over a park bench.

It feels good.

...that sweetie who rang up my fast food...

While he plunges in and out of me, I’ll suck my thumb and pretend I’m sucking that sweetie who rang up my fast food that afternoon.

While Monsieur fucks me.

He grips my ass with both hands, making a noise of growling low and then my breath gets ragged and oh sweet gods it hurts and I bite my hand and pretend it’s some sweet chica tenderly kissing my lips, to take away the pain/pleasure of Monsieur’s insistent cock.

While Monsieur fucks me.

In my head, the chica is making a running commentary, “She’s really starting to get red, Monsieur … I don’t think she will be able to handle it … bite her a little, Monsieur, maybe that’ll help … does it hurt, Yearning Heart? It should hurt a little at first, that way you know he’s really inside of you….”

While Monsieur fucks me.

Where does she come from? How does she intrude into my thoughts like this? I don’t know, but she is in my hand as it moves to one of my nipples, squeezes it and plays with it, making it erect, swollen, tender; she makes me suck my finger until it’s wet and then she takes my wet thumb and index finger, moves it down to my hungry, naughty clitoris and holds it prisoner in her/my hand. Her green eyes flash as contact is made with my very liquid center. She smiles. “She’s going to come,” I hear her say matter-of-factly to Monsieur.

While Monsieur fucks me.

“Unghodddddd…” I cry.

Monsieur grabs my ass, pulls my hips to him and then holds me there. I’d rather he would move, because he’s just buried inside me. It feels like I’ll split open.

While Monsieur fucks me.

“Please, Monsieur,” I cry.

“Oh, you do please Monsieur,” he whispers in my ear. I can feel the whiskers on his chin against the back of my neck. “You please Monsieur so, so much.” He holds me there. I can’t take it. My mouth is locked agape, no sound emerges, and I feel his cock swell, still unmoving, and he holds me tight against him. I can’t take it. I want to plead, beg, tell him it’s too much, but I can’t talk, I can’t move, I’m impaled, imprisoned, can’t move….

I feel a pulse going through the shaft inside me and finally I feel him fill me with a gush. As it pours into me, he slowly pulls out a little, giving me some breathing room, and it leaks out of me. I imagine we are on the stage in my old high school, my graduating class, all my old teachers are watching and some whispering to themselves, “I told you she’d be a hot fuck.”

While Monsieur fucks me.

He gasps, so quietly I barely notice, my heart pounding in my ears. My chica kisses my cheek and says, “you’ll be fine, darling.” I close my eyes as the last of my orgasm bubbles through me. Monsieur’s hands are so warm, and they envelope me and slide over my body, still bent over. My eyes come back into focus and we are in the bedroom; I am bent over the bed and holding the sheets so hard I have pulled them half off the bed.

It slides out of me and leaves me gaping open. I’m deliciously sore, chafed. There is a mewing sound and I realize it’s me. He takes me in his arms and I curl up, closing my eyes. He places the gold coin in my hand and closes his hand over mine, and I wonder where all these images come from; why I think such naughty things, who have I become, and why do I become a completely different person.

While Monsieur fucks me.

More Rules of Engagement

This was my post that I started last week, and never finished. It ended up being a conversation with Monsieur instead.

My dad irons more than Monsieur boinks me and I need boinking. Well, no, my dad doesn’t iron that much; still. I need boinking. And not him going down on me until I get off a couple times and he says, that’s it. Then he holds me until I fall asleep. He needs to take me; that other business is like, not it. It’s good, don’t get me wrong, but, he’s gotta give it up. I do a lot for him. C’mon, this is just, what? 30 minutes, twice a week? Is that asking a lot? I ask you.

Is it any better now? Well. From the outside looking in, it’s the same. From where I’m sitting, it’s better. I hope it’s better. Anyway, Monsieur either is trying to be better or he figured out a really good way to hold me at arm’s length again.

I’m easily conned, maybe. Maybe not. I still have Lady Ann’s.

---

In other developments … a woman who knows Monsieur and is probably hopelessly in love with him has found this blog, and thinks that I’m less than desirable stepmom and girlfriend material for this family. To her, I say, welcome, but please leave the hate comments outside. You’re perfectly welcome to comment, but please do so in a way that is constructive and not cutting. This is why I have removed your comment below.

Mariko, if you think I’m afraid that you’re going to call Monsieur and tell him what an awful woman I am, well, I suggest to you that you should give it a try. I’m not going to live my life in fear of him finding out who I am and what I do; besides, you know how smart he is and please be sure that he is perfectly aware of what I do in chat rooms. He also knows how much I love his children. What are you offering him? Wouldn’t he have accepted your offer instead of mine, more than a year ago?

I’m sorry it didn’t work out between you two exactly the way you wanted it, but that does not give you permission to come into my space and trash me and act the juvenile bitch.

I apologize to the rest of you readers, but I have no other way to talk to this woman but on this page. [Smiles] Let’s just move on, shall we?

Redeemed

Well, I gave Monsieur the coin the other day, and he redeemed it last night. I wish I had time to go into it but it’s really busy here right now. It was good, I will say, and also … well this is kind of odd but there was this feeling of power I got afterwards that is hard to describe. I was stretched out on the bed, afterglowing, and Monsieur got up to use the bathroom. My back was arching, I was stretching and feeling wonderful. He came and stood over me and dropped the golden Sacajawea coin on my belly. It was as though he was paying me for it, in gold. I felt like a temple courtesan or something. It turned me on.

Under our rules of engagement, I have to hold the coin for 1 week before I redeem it again. Just knowing I’ll be able to, that there are rules, and that there is a framework for me asking for sex without actually asking for sex, makes me feel good. He’s wondeful.

Out of the Wilderness

I don’t know what made me so brave; maybe something got knocked into place when that fat kid punched me in the face the other day.

I sat down last night with Monsieur and just laid it out straight. He’s a good man, the best boyfriend I’ve ever had in my life, he’s a great dad, a good teacher, and I have little or nothing to complain about. Except.

I’m not getting enough sex. Oh, boo-hoo, how bad can that be, you ask. Well, it can get kind of bad. It makes me feel unattractive and I find myself looking at other couples wistfully as they kiss in the produce section. I know they just got it good the night before, and possibly again that morning. I’m envious. I don’t like it. I am worth it. I’m worth having.

I’m still keeping myself up. I ride my bike down to the highway and back every other morning. I do my crunches faithfully, twice a day, twenty reps each time. I do my Kegels four times a day, twenty reps each time. I bathe every day, I wash my hair every other night, I brush it faithfully. I check in the mirror. I look all right.

I pointed all this out to Monsieur, and I kept my temper down. I didn’t cry, like I thought I would. I didn’t accuse him of anything. I told him how much I loved him and how much I appreciate him.

It’s just, well, seeing him come out of the shower every night and the water dripping down his chest and legs, seeing him drying his body off – c’mon, I’m human. If you deprive me of that body, I’m going to resent it.

He had, at one time, agreed to be more attentive to that need and not to let me get so deprived, but he has not been doing the duty lately. So, I told him. I tried to use terms like, “I want,” “I need,” “I must have,” “I don’t want,” and so forth. I didn’t accuse him of anything. I tried my best to keep myself calm and my voice level.

The main thing I stuck to, my main point, was that I don’t want to ask for it all the time, every time, and risk rejection. I want him to just take me. Once a week, minimum. If he were to do that, I might feel more comfortable about asking for it other times. I don’t know if I’m a product of social conditioning or what, but I like it when the man is The Man and I am The Woman. I don’t like being thought of as a sex object all the time, but for twenty minutes or so, once a week, or twice a week even, would be a nice change of pace, and I’ll let him know if I get tired of it.

I think he took it very well.

After about a half an hour of give and take, he seemed to have an idea. He went into his room, opened his dresser drawer, and came back with a small gold coin, which he put in my hand.

a small gold coin, which he put in my hand.

“What’s this?” I asked.

“Actually, it’s a Sacajawea dollar,” he said. “But, I want you to hang on to that. When you want me to ‘just take you,’ as you say, you give it to me. After I take you, I will give it back, for you to use the next time.”

I looked at it in my palm, then I looked at him. “You can’t just … ” I trailed off.

He sighed. “Apparently not. I think, like I said, I have this foolish, subconscious belief that I am taking advantage of you. Also I am trying to get myself over the idea that you are the same teenager that you were when I met you. And also, well … ” he began, then he looked away.

“You still feel like you’re cheating on Maggie?” I asked.

He looked at me. His eyes are so brown. And last night, at that moment, they were so liquid and so deep, they looked like melted bittersweet chocolate drops.

“I am not very good at getting over some things, some ideas,” he said. “I, like you, am a product of years of conditioning, too.”

We talked for an hour or more. It was good. I hung on to Sacajawea, and put her in my pocket. Perhaps she’ll help to lead me out of this wilderness, and maybe she’ll do a little translating between my language and his.

Well, I am Irish, you know.

I am officially freaked the freak out.

Today was perfectly gorgeous, what with that Arctic cold front that blew through yesterday and plunged our temperatures down from 100+ ° F. to a bone-chilling 93°. (That’s about 38 C down to 34 C for you metricians.) Naturally, since we hadn’t been able to be in sunlight for the last 6 weeks, I decided to take the boys to the city, to a park on the southwest side, and let them romp & play.

It was all good for about 45 minutes. There were a number of elementary age kids playing and a few older ones sitting around looking tragically criminal. I was helping Littlest Boy in his climbing adventures; really just spotting him for my own peace of mind as the little lemur can climb up a brick wall if I let him.

Bigglest Boy was about 50 yards away climbing a tree, and Middlest Boy was chatting up some little girl (and that kid’s got some game, if I’m any judge of 5-year-olds) and all seemed peaceful.

I was just getting Littlest Boy off of the playscape when I heard something and turned to see five or six of the older kids around Bigglest Boy. One of them, who looked about 16 and quite chunky, turned and punched Bigglest Boy right smack in the face. I yelled “Hey!” as Bigglest Boy went down, screaming and holding his hands over his face. The other kids swarmed over him, looking for all the world like a pack of jackals. I left Littlest Boy, yelling at Middlest Boy to stay with his little brother, and covered the 50 yards to Bigglest Boy in about 5 seconds.

“Get off of him!” I said, pulling on the kid who punched him.

“Fuck you, bitch,” he said, not turning his head around to look at me.

Something red, like a curtain of rage, went over my vision. “Fuck me?” I said, with a little laugh. “I don’t think so. Fuck you!” I took a running leap, and jumped on him, grabbing him by the ears, face, hair, and I think a bit of his nose, twisting his head around and shoving his body into the dirt.

I took a few punches from him, and he probably outweighed me by a good fifty pounds or more, but between my momentum and my hands in the soft fleshy parts of his face, I got him off of Bigglest Boy and pulled him away.

A few moms and a dad came running and got both of us separated and to our feet. Bigglest Boy was screaming with his hands over his eyes. I let them know what I saw; the punk’s nose was bleeding and I had a slight cut on my lip. I got Bigglest Boy out of the way and didn’t really look back to see what damage I might have done.

I was gathering up kids and our supplies when a mom cornered me.

“You hit my kid?” she asked.

“He punched my kid. In the eyes – ” I started.

“That don’t make no difference. You hit my kid and I press charges.”

“Bring it,” I said. “No, wait, let me help.” I dug out my cell phone. “Here. I’ll dial the police for you. You tell them what happened, in your own words. Don’t leave anything out,” I added.

“I don’t need no police,” she said, “you just stay the fuck away from my kid.”

I looked at her. “I bet you don’t,” I said, my voice low. “If a 160 lb teenage kid hits my kid in the eye, I will chew through you, your family, and six cops just to stop him. Not only is your kid bigger and meaner than mine, he’s stupid as you if he thinks I’m scared of either one of you.”

“He ain’t no teenage, he only eleven,” she argued.

“Well, then he’s fat, too.” I turned and immediately got everyone into the van. I was seething. I called Monsieur and he set up for us to meet at the pedi’s office.

Turns out that kid, the eleven-year-old, is on probation. He isn’t allowed in the parks without his mom being there, and she wasn’t even anywhere near him when he punched Bigglest Boy. I should have called the cops.

Bigglest Boy has a patch on his eye and we’ll have to put this anti-biotic cream goo into it twice a day. It’s agony for him, he can’t see or even open the eye because it’s so sensitive to light, but the doctor says he should be okay in a couple of days.

I’m still furious.

I don’t think Bigglest Boy knew what I was capable of. Actually, I don’t think I knew, either. But the kids sure are responsive and obedient tonight.

I have bruises on my arm where someone grabbed me, a cut on my lip and I’m sore as hell. And I am freaking.