Snakes and ladders

I have a new crush. It exploded out of nowhere when I wasn't expecting it.

It wasn't because he's gorgeous, although he is. Sure, he's striking, but not my style. His eyes are deeply set under shelves of eyebrows, and he doesn't photograph very well. But when he laughs, his face transforms from being scary good-looking to being childlike. It melts me.

When I heard him talk, when I heard the places our stories overlapped, our passions overlapped, my vision receded in a rush to a zeroed focus on him. Tell me more. Tell me everything. He's ahead of me on the same path, and I want to hear his stories.

We sparked. I could see the interest in his eyes. Not a bed interest, but a human interest. You're different. I'm curious. The energy was hot and flashing.

I want to follow him around. I get distinct tailing urges on some crushes. I want to learn from you! Teach me; let me imitate you! I want to be you!

But, he's married, so even the intellect crush is an unacceptable crush. He relaxed when he was drinking, let himself talk uncensored, talk to me like we were alone. But both of us would flee, afterwards, avoiding being alone together, avoiding any more. He's smart. He knew early enough to bolt before temptation could appear. It seemed like reverse psych, the way being careful to behave and look right made the craving peak. I was freaking out, pacing with the ache of wanting more, and never getting it. Ultimately, the unfulfilled want, as time ran out, became a hole of longing in my chest that energy rushed out of, making me tired, irritably sad. Unrequited. All the questions hovering in the air.

Married. I had the fortune to have a friend nearby observant enough to leap between us, when we were talking deep, with something to divert attention back to her. Also, concerned enough to bring up his wife in conversation, randomly and often, obviously hoping to remind me he had one. Transparent and infuriating. I felt chaperoned.

I miss him. I don't know when I'll see him again; there's little chance of talking online like we could in person. I feel like I've lost something, like of the two diverging roads I was meant to catch the other, but was blocked somehow. It was out of my hands. Now the loss aches. I am Jack's emptiness and longing.

.......

The absence of my boyfriend is very painful in the background of my life. I fear his feelings have changed, that I'm losing him. The silence leaves room for me to fear what happened last summer may happen again. I think about what I've chosen, to still be with him. I wonder if I've left the door open for him to hurt me again.

I don't like talking about him, because it reminds me of what I'm unsure of. Not just him, but the construct of our relationship. How sound is it? What is it founded on again?

I'm so proud of myself

I went to a movie and sat by a stranger.

I came in late, stood at the back while my eyes adjusted, and looked for a guy sitting alone. I was lucky he was almost in the back row, because I was afraid of something embarrassing happening and having everyone behind see.

First I chickened and sat a couple seats off in the same row. I wanted to be really sure his girlfriend was not gone peeing or something. My heart was pounding with what I meant to do. It was very scary, but I wasn't about to kick myself through the film for not having enough balls. Then in a lull, I moved over and asked if I could sit beside him. He looked vaguely startled but didn't hesitate.

During the movie, I wanted to touch him, or at least look at him. I had barely a glance to go on, but I was pretty sure he was cute. It was impossible to turn from the screen to look at him, and we never even brushed arms.

When we walked out together, and introduced ourselves, he turned out to be really very cute. Totally my style. Soft-spoken, maybe a little shy.

Some small talk poured out of me until we reached the sidewalk, then we pointed in opposite directions and parted. I wonder if it could have gone someplace completely different. I was really kicking myself by the time I was a few blocks away for all the leading lines I didn't use. I was so damn tired I had no wit; no spunk. I was already on my heels, though, afraid of coming on strong.

What are the chances that we would both pick the same movie to go see alone, that he would choose a conveniently approachable seat, and that I'd be willing to be so bold, for the first time? I wish we'd talked more, that I'd learned his whole name, asked whether he had a girlfriend, asked where he was going from here, asked if he wanted company. Maybe there was a reason we met.

The worst possible outcome is never getting rejected. It's not knowing what could have been.

Girls who used to be fat never lose that extreme need for validation. I need attention - everybody's attention - right now! Tell me I'm cute! Tell me I'm cute!

I completely can't handle it. I look away like they're drunk and taking their clothes off.

I can't even pretend to comfort; pour out a little confirmation and pat them with it like suntan lotion.

It must've been the ringtone that woke me, but I don't remember the sound, only jolting awake, noticing the cell phone stuck under my thigh in bed, screen glowing. I don't recognize it as my boyfriend's before I snap it open reflexively. On his phone, a text message just appears on the screen when it's received. I miss you so much. Pls call me soon! From Kristi.

An aquarium smashes in slow motion behind my eyes. Vomit in my throat, I frantically navigate with both thumbs into his call history. Yes, this is his phone. My phone number is listed as Home.

Three more text messages saved from Kristi - frantic pls call me's; then i miss you in my bed.

I'm standing on the shoreline facing inland, and the tide had just rushed out behind me. A billion gallons of water, in one blink of comprehension.

When I grow up, I want to be promiscuous.

My boyfriend has been away for a long long time, and my body has a real problem with that. We disagree.

My lust is becoming an emergency, spilling over into the inappropriate. My hunger is aroused by solitary words, by one back of the hand vein, by a slim collarbone clearing a t-shirt, by women, by old men, by isolated bits of people.

I'm prowling tonight, my crouch and pounce instinct awakened by the horizontal denim ripples in the front of a man's jeans. I think about running my fingers up and down beside the fly, across those corrugations hardened into the fabric by habit, pushing slightly on the bulge, almost female, the pressure from inside split by the double seam.

I think about what's inside the jeans, invent, almost see the velvety pouch that reacts like the skin of a snake to touch- twitching, wrinkling, recoiling slightly, then melting again. Mmmmm.

My boyfriend has a crush on the girl from Mythbusters. I don't know her name. I refuse to learn her name, because that would make her more real.

We watch Mythbusters often. It's a good show. But that red-headed, pig-tailed skirt has got something that my boyfriend wants, and it irks me. I know he loves her; he makes no bones about it, partly because he's just that guileless, partly because it amuses him that I care.

"She's on tv," he says, meaning that she's no threat because she's unlikely to ever be flesh and blood in the room with us.

"But if you ever had the chance, you'd leave me for her, wouldn't you?" I ask.

"Yes," he says, simply, obviously. He really does have a big crush on her.

I scrutinize her every time. I don't think she's THAT attractive. I believe, on self-confident days, that I am easily more beautiful than she. She's small, not especially stylish. Sometimes she has acne under her makeup. She does have that red hair.

"Why?" I demand in frustration. "Why!?"

His voice gets a little whispery. "She's on a science show," he says. "She blows things up."

Oh my God, do I ever love him.

I know why men have narrow hips.

I'm a fountain of lust.

A man walked into my life the other day and demanded that I hire him. The timing was right and I acquiesced for a day. We worked together in a heat wave, the sweat pouring off of us before 7am. He's not my physical style. He's fairskinned, blue eyed, a little hairy. Slightly padded - not runner lean at all. Very redneck, very Albertan. All the clipped words and shortened sayings, the distinctive accent that no one hears but me, that sounds like they're holding half of their mouth still on purpose.

But there's something about his posture, something about his hands. Definitely something about his laugh, deep and rolling, unapologetically booming into the heat of the day between us as we told each other stories.

He's tall, big, confidently wearing the skin he has with all its flaws. He has some life under his belt. Possibly he's intelligent; I'm not sure how much brain he's hiding. He's hardworking, that's sure, keeping up with me easily. And talented. He has no idea how unusual it is for me to give another worker my trust so fast, without covertly monitoring their technique and craftsmanship. I knew he knew what he was doing, and he gave me the same trust. So we worked well together, teaching each other a few shortcuts.

He was after me for sure. There was a moment at lunch when he stared at me over his mid-air sandwich with his jaw still, and I knew he was feeling a surge of amazement, zeroing want in on me like a zoom lens, deciding I was special. He was lookingat me like he'd never seen one of me before, and then he said just that.

That same night I was at the club with my friends. I saw him arrive, holding hands with a younger, blonder, heavily mascaraed girl who carried a purse and made a bored curl of her liplined mouth. I looked away swiftly, then only moments later he was behind me, alone. "So good to see you..." He was near me often over the night, as I danced and wandered in my usual independent way. So often (and I didn't see his girl again) that it crossed my mind that it was only a random touch I'd glimpsed them share. Near the end of the night he brought me a drink, then sat directly behind me as I danced. I felt him his eyes devouring me, like I was his private dancer, and I tried to block it out, let the music seize me and erase self-conciousness the way I like to dance. He interrupted, grabbing my elbow.

"I'll see you later," he said. "I've gotta take off, my friend's freaking out." He gestured in a general way towards the bar. I wondered if he meant the girl. We arranged to make contact the next day, and said goodbye. But he wasn't gone yet. As I was being accosted under the ugly lights by everyone I knew, now drunk enough to be uncensored, I saw him sitting at a table with my friends. I lingered away from them longer though, and he disappeared from there.

Still not gone. Against a wall, the girl with both arms around his neck. His arms were at his side, his posture resistant. She was leaning on him, on her toes to reach his height. I slyly watched (and I don't believe he saw me seeing), while she put a hand around his neck and attempted to pull his head down to kiss him on the lips, stretching herself up instead to do so when he wouldn't bend.

Some primitive centre in my brain twitched its reptilian head and thought he was kinda attractive. I smiled to myself, at myself, as the beautiful girl pouted her madeup mouth, draped her arms and head against his chest, then talked up to him, her back in a lovely S-curve to press her hips into his and her head cocked, clearly wheedling for something. He was still standing as though she wasn't there at all.

I was curious all night, wondering if he'd taken her home after I left, if he was fucking her now, his sweat dripping off his nose onto her face. That really turned me on. I started wondering if he'd paid her for her performance, since it piqued my interest so effectively. But then, he hadn't known I'd be there.
.........

I love it when a man shows up when he says he will. He appeared in the morning on time, and immediately resumed his aggressive flirting campaign. He asked to be paid in kisses, then asked to take me for dinner, cheekily hinting his attraction while his eyes tried to pin mine down. I looked away, demurred.

He reminds me of a gladiator. I can picture him in armor. Shoulders back, arms long and loose, tanned the colour of ale the way fair men do.

I want to wrap my legs around his waist while he stands in that spear-carrying posture, his hands instead holding my ass like a bowl in front of him, pulling me into and around him. I want to slide my skin against his in our sweat, slick and frictionless as we drip with the work of fucking in the heat, tired but energized.

Men have narrow hips so that they better fit between a woman's legs.

I met a man who made me comtemplate whether or not he was attractive enough to make Holey Soles acceptable footwear.

I decided not. Holey soles are never acceptable footwear.

Target

Please, Americans who may read this, be aware that I am aware there are many alert, sensitive, critically thinking and questioning people who live in the USA; many who wish for social change, personal change, global change, and work to effect that change. I've met many. However, there are many more I have not met, and I see their footprints.

I'm about to make generalizations about Americans. Please do not take offense if this is not you. But, are you any part of it?

I was south of the border the other day. I was in Target, an unexplored new territory to a Canadian. I could smell vinyl, and soap, and as I looked halfheartedly for the footwear section, dog food. It made me feel dirty, and I had to flee.

A hundred little panics started to flutter in me. The columnar shelves were too tall, imposing. Huge objects appeared in many multiples, rythymic parades of furniture. Products were tangled, dropped, kicked out of the aisle, unmaintained. The signs all screamed in stentorian fonts, and every aisle terminus was a cleverly seductive, manipulative campaign to inspire want. Meant not just to inspire desire but to suck it out of you against your will, like breath, to convince you you NEEDed this gadget, this multipack.

And everywhere, the fat people sighing and slowly sleepwalking the aisles with laden, outsized pushcarts, about to spend more than they have. You can smell the credit card debt, with heavy overtones of despair, and subtle hints of rage and desperation. Some of them are toting their small offspring who may soon become the object of angrily transferred helplessness and impotence.

There is some masochistic complicity between the store and the people in it who agree to slide, and buy, and give up their lives for plastic products. The store invites, pleads, seduces its consumers like a siren, who allow their want to outgrow what they can afford, let their bodies outgrow health and self-love, balloon into sluggish hatred and paralysis.

Like a girl saying No but meaning Yes, wanting to be taken, they hand over flat-pressed plastic rectangles and try to inhale.

I got my labia pierced.

It was rather clinical, like the doctor. Gloved hands being very cautiously gentle. Except for the pierce, of course.

It hurt. I was nervous. But the pain is so brief, and really not bad at all. Every day I get bruises that hurt more. It's just the expectation and the imagining. Really, I think it should hurt more than it does. It should be a remarkable event to get pierced. Be an event of the psyche, to labour through the pain and choose this adornment in commemoration. But it's as easy as getting your legs waxed. Easier.

It seems sort of odd to choose to open your legs and discuss your pussy with a stranger (it's not the doctor's, where you have to). And there's no acknowledgment of the sexual nature of what you're doing. Heavy breathing, moaning, relief... lots of similar features of sex.

As professional as it all was, I think the intimacy of the act got sublimated; now I have a crush on the guy who did it.

I remember everything we chatted about, the way his voice changed a little after I told him what I wanted, the way he was focused and careful but still clearly enjoyed doing this piercing, the way he grinned at his work, and the way his fingers gently explored my outer pussy and rolled the lip to be pierced between them in prep.

At the time I didn't notice I had attraction to him, but afterwards, I had clear memory of it all, and wished I could replay it, be back there without being distracted. I actually thought "What else could I get pierced?" so I could go back, and then told myself I was being ridiculous.

I want to flirt with him, hug him hard and long. At this point, he's the only real world person who knows I now have a steel ring tucked against my clitoris. I hope he thinks of it and it turns him on. I hope he thinks of his mouth on it. I wonder if he gets a charge out of knowing about people's unseen piercings; of knowing he did them.

I wonder if he was hard? I think at least a deep, erotic kiss would be in order to note the shared intimacy of such a piercing. He didn't even pat my arm comfortingly.

I'm on a going-out spree right now

I am a compliment sponge. And thankfully, they keep on coming. From strangers, from friends, from drunk boys and bartenders. It's enough to keep bringing me to the bar. Like a fix, when I need it - going out is almost inevitably an opportunity to recharge the ego's batteries.

It's so lovely and beautiful and I'm so grateful. One part of me is a completely open and accepting "Thank you (I deserve it, yes I do)", another part is questioning why: "I have cellulite on my thighs, and there's a skinny nubile female 10 years younger and 10 feet away, and you're sincerely, bashfully, telling me I'm the hottest chick in the club tonight?"

I am reminded of Madonna's Material Girl- "Experience has made me rich and now they're after me".

Something must be working for me, and it's fucking awesome.

The slower the hotter.

I love the boys who make their moves so slow you hardly notice.

At a party that had seen better hours, I had an easy chair to myself, facing 3 boys slouching on a long couch, their legs splayed in that easy male way, hands loosely wrapped around beer bottles. I found myself feeling dozy, and wishing for some touch. A moment after the wish, I stood and crossed the room, pushed the knees of two of the guys apart to make room for myself, and slid tightly into the space between them.

"May I?" I said to the one I did not know yet, knowing from the shy glance he'd given me earlier he'd be thrilled. On my side a little to fit between the men, I was turned towards the one I knew better, and he was turned away from me, so that the length of his nearer leg was almost on top of mine. He ignored me. My other leg rested almost in the lap of the man I knew less, and I turned my head to him. With a sigh and comment of tired satisfaction, I closed my eyes and sank briefly into a light sleep.

As I came and went from my unavoidable doze, the new boy bumped my open hand from my leg to his, took it in his, abandoned it, then imitated my loose fist and put his hand on my leg. Then moved it back to his. He was clearly at a loss for what to do with his hands, and they would flutter out to touch me then retreat. Endearing. I tucked my shoulder and arm under his arm and let my hand settle decisively on his leg; his hand stayed on his leg too, leaning against mine. I burrowed a little lower in my nest of male limbs and found a soft place for my head on his shoulder.

He picked up my hand at one point, squeezed and released it. He was pulling single fingers of mine loose and straightening them. I objected that he seemed to be examining my ragged, unpresentable hands, and he displayed his crooked labourer's hands to me in conciliation. His hand was hot and damp, and he opened his fingers wide with palm flat, inviting me to interlock my fingers in his. I didn't want to. I made a fist instead and held it against his palm, hoping he would close his whole big hand over mine the way I like, but he didn't. Instead he opened his hand on my knee, then took it back timidly; replaced it, snatched it back.

The man on my other side wandered off, and his place was taken by a girl who also sat tightly to me. I straightened myself out, so now my open legs were leaning outward against his on one side and my friend's on the other. I was slouched lower on the couch than he, so his hand on my leg landed mid thigh. His hand was fiery hot, and I suddenly became acutely aware of the current running through that tentative point of contact. I hugged his upper arm to me in encouragement, locking his hand in place on my thigh and hiding my face in his loose jacket. And that's when it really began.

He was playing a nervous game, as though he wasn't sure how I'd come to be there, or what he might be able to do. The pressure of his hand pulsed - he would almost lift it to take it away, then with a burst of confidence, grasp harder, pressuring my leg between his hand and his leg, then almost take it away again, then resqueeze. A slow, tense rythym. And each time, his hand would creep a fraction more to the inside of my thigh, and his hand would spread out and take a fuller grip. I started to die with the tease of it, as he retreated and then revealed his hunger. All my circuits came on- my nipples jumping, my lips tingling, my pussy tensing. I started to have to fight myself not to moan. I was still feigning light sleep, and didn't want anyone but him to notice how turned on I was. My hand that had been wrapped around his bicep gripped and clenched and finally closed to a desperate grip on the fabric of his sleeve, my open, breathing mouth pressed into his arm hard. I put my free hand lightly over the wrist of the hand in my leg, and he put his other hand over that one.

Twice I bit his arm through his jacket to cut off a groan of pleasure as he pulled my leg gently and innocently into his and his hand moved a millimeter down, closer to my begging pussy. I contracted my thigh and lifted the taut muscle under his hand, hoping that my ragged breathing would be seen by others as sleep. My eyes were still closed but I wanted to see him now. I'd barely glanced at him before settling beside him when I was hoping only for some male warmth.

I could feel his breath and knew his head was tucked down over mine, the brim of his hat a shield. I lifted up my eyes, but I could only see his lips without moving my head. I could have lifted my mouth only a few inches to his to kiss him. I bit my lip instead and lifted my eyelashes high, trying to see as much of his face as I could. His hand was so low on my inner thigh now that his fingertips were almost under my leg, and his wrist was about an inch from my inseam.

Still continuing to hug my leg, and holding a couple fingers of my free hand authoritatively, he craned his neck to find my eyes, and smiled sweetly. It was too intense, and I averted mine. I got an impression, though, of sweet, cautious innocence and delight. He was thrilled with what he was making me feel, and thriving on it. I was aware, now, of the fabric of his coat, the logo on the zipper toggle, the brand of his shirt, the age of his belt, the style of his shorts and shoes. Now, I was caring about who he was. He was tall, bigger than I, about my age, dressed in baggy clothes. Judging by the arm I had a grip on, he was on the skinny side but strong.

His hand settled another tiny bit, and the heel of his hand made contact with the inseam of my jeans, his wrist grazing the thickly layered denim of my fly. I almost came, letting myself rock into that touch once, almost imperceptibily, grasping his sleeve for dear life, my whole face buried. I was dying, screaming, moaning on the inside, holding it all in. "It feels so good," I told him. "Your hand on my leg...feels so good," I breathed. He made a question sound, making me wonder if he had any idea exactly how fucking hot I was from just the ultra-slow travels of his one hand on my thigh.

When a feeling of perfect contentment with every element of my life combines with an elevated sense of stimulation or joy, I feel a light switch on, like the sign on top of a cab, only a burst of radiant warmth that floods and surrounds me. This halo effect defines moments that I wish would last forever, that I live to experience. Many situations, sexual and non-sexual, can create it, but all are peak moments of simple, secure perfection.

I breathed and drank in the palpable warm joy I was in, living and floating on the closeness and pleasure, as the erotic pressure of his hand stayed between my legs, brushed the outside of my jeans, transferred a feather light touch to my wanting, soaking, furnace hot pussy. He has the distinction of actually making me so wet it soaked a little through my jeans. Oh god.

Such intense longing under the mask of casual innocence, such heat and desire made possible by a mutual pretending that we were harmlessly snuggling, such intimacy made possible by being strangers to each other. Not knowing each others' messy mental constraints, just feeling the uncomplicated instinct of our gloriously desirous bodies.

Soft rough stubble

My boyfriend has been away for me long enough to get prowling skin-hungry and for every contact I get to be electric and monumental. I have every intention of honouring him, and am only looking for the gentle caress of attraction acknowledged. But oh, the fine gray line.

My friend and I coerced a friend of hers to come with us to a party. I didn't know him, but I wanted to. I'm a sucker for men wearing white. It makes them look bigger and bolder. He was pretty cute. Warm, conversational, and blunt. He was commenting on girls' asses; we talked quite plainly about things he was attracted to. My girl friend was getting cuddly - that stage of drunk, and in pulling both of us into her, pulled us close to each other too. At one point, she and I were perched on the arms of an easy chair, sandwiching him between us, his arms around us both. As we leaned together to whisper, my breast pressed against his head. I could feel the texture of his ear through my thin shirt slightly rub my nipple.

He pressed the side of his head into me like a cat then. I felt the stubble of his cheek roughly drag the fine fabric of my shirt and bra, and his ear ripple again over my now-hard nipple . His hand came alive where it had just rested on my thigh; the fingers differentiated and dug into my leg with a hungry grip. I ignored him, still talking to my girl, as he nuzzled into me, swooping his cheek against my yielding breast. His hand started stroking my thigh involuntarily, his fingers and sometimes his thumb alone digging gently into me, and running the length of his reach.

Oh, the warm tickling pressure between my legs in response. So delicious.