Monthly Archives: January 2014

relationshipping, the sex

The last time

Inpatientis a mindfuck.

I never know that the last sex will be the last sex.
It’s a hollow shock once realization hits.

***

We break up.
Oh, right, we did buy those tickets for the show next week.
In another state, hotel room for the night.
We decide to go.
Ol’ times sake.

We sit at a famed meat-and-three joint on the road to the show.  We’re quiet, but able to maintain conversation.  Things feel comfortable for the first time in our post-break-up world.  I look out the window, breathing in the cloudless Missouri sky; it’s a beautiful blue and suddenly—

Her: What?  What is it?  Why are you looking like that now?
Me: I’m just processing…you really want to know?
Her: Yeah, you got obviously sad and quiet all of a sudden.
Me: It just hit me that we’ve had our last sex.
Her: Silence.  Whoa this is weird; she’s never at a loss for words.
Me: What’s up?  Are you okay?
Her: I thought we’d have sex tonight, you know, because…it’d be the perfect ending.
Me: Seriously?!  But we’re broken up…and I need to process that and…I just…can’t.

She’s affected, which surprises me.
Slow tears roll down her face, which floors me.

Neither of us eat anything else and as I pay for the check she gets on her phone.
She’s texting her crush, who happens to live not so far from where the show is.

I can count the number of days we’ve been broken up.  She has a new crush.  Why the hell would I think she’d want to have a last sex?

She drives.
I think.

A meaningful last sex sounds sweet but sweet sentimentality like this is not a language I speak.  As she grieves over a last sex that won’t happen, I recall and play our last in my head.  Only because it was fairly recent am I able to remember any of the details: she came, I came and a plastic bottle, one-third full of orange-colored Vitamin Water stands on the edge of the platform bed.  Wow, that was our last time.  That the damn bottle of Vitamin Water is the most detailed part of last sex memory indicates how unremarkable it was.

***

A decade of sex: many firsts, orgasms, toys, locations, positions, the list goes on.
I believe in the decade of messy, innocent, funny, awkward, loving, real moments…not in a perfectly designed last memory as my heart still breaks.

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relationshipping, the sex

A meaningful first

My eyeballs need cocaineis possible.

“Sometimes I’m grateful that the first time I had sex was someone I was in love with but sometimes I think it set me up for years of disappointment,” says my insightful and beautiful soulmate.

I ponder this as first sex is on my mind this week.  With each new person, the sex changes; it’s always a totally different experience and not fairly comparable in the context of relationships.

I don’t have expectations of grandeur when it comes to first sex.  It’s been boring, unexpected, romantic, fun, exciting, drunk, awesome, exhausting, curious, painful, sweet, incredibly nerve-wrecking and possibly…love?  Never the same and always revealing.  What can I say, the nekked is an interesting tell, from grooming habits to…well, the naked truth.

So no grand expectations but in a relationship, evolution is crucial.  How it evolves depends on the other person and navigating that how has been the most fun and fascinating thing.  I learn about myself, my person, limits, curiosities et al.

Toys?  Sure, but not all and which ones really depend on my person.  And not all the time.  Public sex?  Why not?  But just how much of an exhibitionist is (s)he?  These are interesting reveals.  Cabs are fun, galleries and theaters too but as they give way to tiny, red-bulb bathrooms and I’m increasingly missing a warm bed and lazy sheets, a limit is within reach.  Then there’s open relationships.  Some, like S, can do this beautifully whereas I end up confused and emotionally drained; great in theory but a mess in my practice.  Or, You want me to tie you up?  Not a problem until I realize that I’m terrible at knots which is kind-of a problem and when it’s either do my damn knot homework or move on, I walk.  Then there are the myriad variations within the realm of two people simply doing it.

Oh relationships…sometimes the sex is disappointing and the ending even more so but looking back, I don’t remember the mediocre or even bad sex.

I remember the awkward sweetness of youth, fumbling out-of-sync, habits and routines, random on-drugs camping, the laughter, rocky boats, staying silent, the cocoon of stars so close to the equator we are floating in the sky, the most comfortable bed ever because it’s ours.

I remember making up, rainy days, early mornings, late nights, breakfast in bed, different beds in different cities, states, countries and seasons changing.

I remember the love.

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random love, the sex

Let’s talk about sex

InpatientBut where to start?

How about one of my firsts.
I was 19 years old.

Me: Wait, what’s his name?
BFF: ***.  He’s really cool and he wants to meet you since he’s ***’s (her boyfriend’s) best friend and you’re my best friend and you happen to be in New York.
Me: Sure, why not.  I’ll see when I’m off this week.  I’ll let you know how it goes.

I know this guy likes to party, way more and harder than I do so my judgy mind expects a strung-out skeletal raver-kid who could be beautiful or with fucked up speedy teeth and bad skin who can’t stop scratching himself.

He’s actually much more wholesome-looking than I expect and quite polite but that could just be an effect of his charming English accent.  The strangest thing is how safe I feel around him and maybe it’s nothing more than my internal radar believing that if I don’t acquiesce, he won’t sex.  Either way, I trust him enough to easily “sure,” when he asks if I want to party.

His friends live in a way too fucking cool for school apartment in a doorman building and they’re already SMAAaa-shed.  Actually, considering that they haven’t left their place for almost three days, they are in that dreamy-haze state that saw wasted over 36 hours ago.  We’re just in time for nitrous rounds!  But I stick to my familiar weed and alcohol as he snorts, smokes and rapid-inhales a motley assortment until he’s blue in the face.  He stays blue-violet long enough that not only am I worried (of course I’m worried) but his friend who showed up god-knows-when is worried, until said friend takes a hit of something and disappears into his own high world.

Time suddenly morph-warp speeds as happens when drugs happen and as we’re sitting in a diner eating many plates of pierogies, I need to decide if I want to have sex with him because his friend is asking him if he needs a place to crash.  He still feels safe to me and as tends to happen when shared experiences take place, I feel close to him.  So why not?  Yeah, come back to my crappy dorm room.

He uses a condom.
I intake sharply as he decidedly fucks me.
He cums.
All in all, he’s pretty sweet and gentle.
I reach for a cigarette and quickly become lost in thought as I inhale delicious nicotine.
He joins me for a smoke- “Oh, right!”- because that’s what you do after a fuck?
He crashes, thank god.
I go to the bathroom and look at myself in the mirror.

So that was that.

He didn’t say degrading things that make me feel inadequate and dirty.
I didn’t fix my eyes on a single, burning bulb, willing it to render me blind to erase what was happening.
I had no problem looking at him the next day, directly in the eyes to say, “I’ve got to go to work so you’ve got to go.”

It was devoid of any meaning.
That it was a meaningless act made it absolutely meaningful; a first of many in the realm of sex.

My first one-night stand was the first time I had sex.

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open relationship, relationshipping, trans talk

I’m the Q

You are a slutpuppy“Bless your heart but you are so not a lesbian,” says S.

The fact that we can have this honest conversation is huge.
The fact that S can have her sense of humor about a hurtful point of conflict is even huger.

Until this moment, S would often wonder why I couldn’t stay attracted to her if she’s still the same fabulous person on the inside and I was in a lesbian relationship for a decade.  In her shoes, I’d wonder the same thing but the best truth I’ve got is: the attraction cooled to something tepid within me and tepid is a pretty lame concessionary temperature for a love relationship.

I nod and recollect, ” ***(my long-term ex before S) said the same thing when we were dating.”
S shakes her head and pats my own.  “It’s really LGBT-supportive and I love you for it but you are not gay.”

I concede this point.

Before S, I maintain that I fall in love with the person, not the gender.  Although that statement pretty much announces my bisexuality, by mentioning gender, I qualify being a lesbian and/or having been in a lesbian relationship.  It’s as though I can’t commit to simply being gay, even though I was in a lesbian relationship for a decade.  No wonder my long-term ex wouldn’t call me a ‘real’ lesbian; it took over half the length of that relationship before I’d say was a l-l-lesbian.  
Then we broke up.

As S transitions, I am forced to dissect how true this ‘not the gender’ assertion is.
It’s not so true.

Without a doubt, my relationship history defines me as bisexual.  However, every person I have dated since S and I have open-relationshipped and broken up has been male, which then makes me feel like a bit of a liar if I call myself bi in the present.  But the second I identify as a straight girl, I have a feeling the universe will find a way to have the last laugh.

So.

In my apparent quest to self-identify, I’ll go with queer.
I’m the Q in LGBTQ.

Because one sure thing is that my past, present and future sexual identity and experiences sure as hell (will) fall outside the hetero-defined mainstream.

Thank. God.

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trans talk

Did I ever tell you

HOW can you think it will stay the samethe first time I saw S en femme?

***

She is so nervous.  So much so that the first time I’m supposed to see her as a lady, she can’t do it.  So we put it off for a few days.

S is afraid I will reject her, judge her, dismiss her very early steps into transitioning.
I have my own insecurities.

Will I instantly feel differently towards her?
What will my reaction be?
Will my face give away any number of emotions- disappointment, relief, apprehension, rejection- that hit my heart?

I text her a heads-up and slowly make my way home.

Usually when I enter the house, I receive an insta-greet but tonight, we are both beyond trepidatious.  I have to call out; she’s nowhere in sight.  She’s in the bathroom, readying, steadying herself to come out.

It’s one thing to tell me she’s trans.  It’s another thing when I see evidence in the way of heels, makeup, clothes strewn about.  It’s another league of confrontation when I am about to see him attired undeniably as a female.

I am so anxious, I feel queasy.
I tell myself to calm it because odds are, S is more nervous than me.

And she is.

She super cautiously opens the bathroom door and so gingerly steps out.  She can’t look at me.

I take her in.

I give her an honest, deliberate once-over, starting with her nude pumps and traveling up to her above-the-knee dress.  I gaze at her bare arms, her wrists and her poor hands are trembling.  It hits me just how nervous she is; I look into her eyes and I barely notice her makeup, which I know took serious time to apply.

She is wide-eyed and terrified.

I immediately take her in my arms and give what I hope is the most reassuring hug ever.

“You’re so nervous…”
She can only nod, fear still screaming from her eyes.
“It’s okay.  Really.  You look different, more natural than I expected.  I love you.  We’re okay.  I’m so glad you came out to me.”

She finally starts breathing.

Phew.

This is the first time I’ve seen this side of S.  I’m not talking about her physical transformation; I’ve never seen her so vulnerable before, so unsure and emotionally scared.

It then hits me.  The emotional transition process will be a time to face feelings that we often choose to deny or gloss over because they’re rather uncomfortable little fuckers.

And thus the adventure begins.

***

Happy New Year, beautiful readers!!!
2014’s adventures will be decidedly different but no less honest- yikes and cheers!

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