“You remember too much, my mother said to me recently. Why hold onto all that? And I said, Where can I put it down?” – Anne Carson, “The Glass Essay.”
“Miele” Series
memory
“Good. Now repeat to us, very slowly and in great detail, all the ways in which you are a sick, filthy slut.”
I remember when you made me do this just to you.
That alone was humiliating enough.
I still blush and squirm thinking about it.
She touches to remember. Where she had been grabbed, where fingers caressed, where knuckles turned white around hair. She explores herself like a cartographer, mapping out experiences it her mind to recall the topography of evenings past. Most of the time, it’s roughly to scale. Others, she just can’t seem to replicate exactly what had been done. But no map is ever completely accurate, it’s only an interpretation of the lay of the land.
I hate the expression “we were goofing around and then we started hooking up”. I think it’s stupid. I don’t get how it works. I can’t imagine that you just sort of fall on someone and start making out with them.
But, um, that’s exactly what happened last night.
I was over at her room. I know, I know, I know. I said I wasn’t going to do anything with her. (Forgive me, tumblr, for I have sinned.) But she had clearly defined the lines of non-monogamy with her guy and they had both explored some other stuff with no negative repercussions. This changed the climate immensely.
Anyway, we were kind of goofing around on her bed. I know this was baiting it, but I was lying there and thrusting and faking sex noises when she told me that she was concerned about her neighbors being able to hear her through the wall. She climbed on top of me to shut me up. I rolled over back on top of her. We kind of started making out. You know how it works.
We keep this up for a while. Kissing, touching, giggling. It’s light and sweet and fun.
So how did this wind up in probably one of the most intense spankings I’ve gotten in a while?
I’ll get to that, I promise.
Since this story went over so well with you all, I’ve decided to write down another similar memoir. Why? Because my sex life does not always run as smoothly as tumblr makes it seem and sometimes really awkward stuff comes up. Things aren’t always pornirific.
Take, for example, my first threesome.
A friend who I was getting intimate with and I really wanted to try to have a threesome. However, we were scrambling to find a third party and just couldn’t turn up the goods. At first, this may have been because our standards were absolutely ridiculous:
- He needed to be male, as we just figured there was way too much taco at the party in the first place.
- He needed to be on an equal playing field with us intellectually.
- He needed to be unattached from any other women.
- He could not be one of my or her exes.
- He had to have a general respect for lesbianism more than just the simple male-gaze “two chicks making out” sort of fascination.
- He needed to like some of the same authors and musicians as us, which we had listed out and assumed that mutual taste in literature and music would equal a sort of ying-yang feng shui experience that we would all be buzzing from afterwards.
- He needed to be at least an 8 on our individual scales of attractiveness and he couldn’t have a beard because that kind of scratch plus eating pussy was on par with one of Dante’s rings of hell.
- And so on and so forth with increasingly ridiculous criteria for what would be a one-time, completely random sexual experience.
We turned up with no one. The people were either too close to us to be threesome material or could not meet the list of standards we had set.
So, we decided to lighten our approach:
- He needs a functioning central nervous system.
- He needs a penis with the ability to get erect.
It was like we’d taken the safe-search off of google. Suddenly, half of the population that was our age had met the requirements for a threesome. But, we still held out. Our schedules were kind of busy and we just couldn’t bring ourselves to pick someone.
And, then, finally, the threesome happened to us. This sounds positively Biblical, the whole waiting for grace thing and then being granted it when you stop pushing so hard and trying to make it on your terms. Which is actually super appropriate, as I had just left church and was headed over to hang out with her and one of our mutual friends.
I honestly wasn’t really in the mood to hang out that day. I hadn’t gotten much sleep the night before for whatever reason and I felt like I had been hit in the face with a brick for waking up to go to church that morning. I probably should not have even been driving, I was so exhausted.
Which is why, when I arrived at my friend’s place, I almost fell asleep on the couch. And then at her kitchen table when we decided to eat something. And then on the toilet when I went to use the bathroom. So, my friend finally declared that we should all just take a nap for a little while.
The three of us climbed into her bed. He was in the middle, we were on either side of him. Before I drift off, I notice her looking at him with this sudden realization. It was as if she were going to say, “dear me, (redacted), I just realized you have a functioning brain and a functioning penis. How could I have not seen it before?"
And then I fell asleep.
I wake up an hour or so later to fell a hand on my butt under my dress. I kind of blink a few times, looking over my shoulder, and see the two of them smiling at me. Then, they start making out. I think this is sort of an invitation, but I decide instead to just fall back asleep.
He pinches my ass. I open my eyes again. I try to go back to sleep. He slaps my ass. I groan and mumble out, "I just want to take a nap.”
Now, you have to know that I literally will never elect going to sleep over messing around. I am notorious among people I’ve been with for never wanting to sleep, which really means never wanting to stop playing around. But this was different. I was deliriously tired.
This is why the two of them assume I am trying to be coy. So he kind of rolls me so I’m between them and they’re both kind of trying to make out with me and grope me as I attempt to sleep. Please don’t interpret this as rape. I was getting plenty aroused and I was very much into him. But, by the same token, I was really flipping exhausted.
Finally, I just tell myself that if I just keep my eyes closed and do this threesome stuff at the same time, it’ll be the best of both worlds and will totally work. This works for about three minutes of sexy pawing and shared moaning before I start to drift off again.
At this point, there is also heated debate about switching spots. She wants to be in the middle. He would like to be in the middle, also. The middle is apparently a coveted spot. But, I am way too tired to roll over or do much of anything about the fact that I am kind of being, in their words, the threesome brat.
Nobody wants to be known as the threesome brat. Threesomes are all about teamwork and this automatically makes you a bad team player. And while it was clear to me that I had to take one for the team here, I just wanted a gosh darn nap.
Finally, my arousal overpowers my tiredness and I’m able to put my best foot forward. The only issue is we have no idea what we’re doing and there’s always a third party kind of at a loss of what to do/where to put themselves. Threesomes rarely work as well as they do in porn. You just run out of spots and someone’s left clamoring for a cranny they can slide themselves into.
We finish a few “rounds”, by which I mean we try a few different permutations of people-arrangements until someone orgasms. Lather, rinse, cum, repeat sort of deals. By this point, my thighs are literally soaked in myself. I am practically shivering from it all. She’s smiling like a kid on Christmas. The threesome is a success. The uphill struggle is over. Everyone’s happy, I am swimming in post-orgasmic bliss and reveling in the fact that despite the rocky start, this may be one of the best encounters of my life, and things just can’t get better.
Except I fall asleep again.
In my last waking moments, it wound up that I’m kind of the odd man out at this point. I kind of crawl around them on the bed like squirrel searching for a buried nut. Then, I just get tired again, curl up on the edge of the bed, and fall asleep to the sounds of her sucking him off.
This is apparently terrible threesome etiquette. Once a threesome brat, always a threesome brat, I suppose.
I really am at a loss again as to a moral for this story. I guess don’t get tired and have a threesome. Or be awake when you have a threesome. Or just don’t get tired.
This tends to be how I remember my more drawn-out forays into really intense sessions. Everything comes in flashes. Moving snapshots. Fade in. Fade out. Fade in. Fade out. Often it’s out of order. Often it’s incoherent. When I try to go over it and move things around, I can’t always quite pinpoint the order.
But what remains is the effect. And while the memory comes fractured, the feelings are fluid. And that’s really all that counts, isn’t it?
I wonder how these words leap out at him when he looks at the page. The process of him finding his own poetry and feeling in the books he reads is beautiful. The words are beautiful, too.
I remember
us.
Beautiful
and
exhaustless
we loved.
Both hands
full of
life,
we loved.
The summer before college, I was hooking up with this guy. He wasn’t anything special, but we kind of enjoyed each others’ company. I was rigid enough for him to enjoy some structure and he was loose enough for me to kind of let go. Besides that, we really weren’t particularly suited to each other. We don’t talk anymore, but that’s besides the point.
We had this bright idea to try to make out with Pop Rocks in our mouths. Why? I don’t know. We were post-high school and thought we were awesome. I really honestly have no idea why we wanted to do it and I can’t even offer you a reasonable explanation at all for it. It was idiotic.
Procuring the Pop Rocks was more of a task than expected. No stores near us sold them. We checked whatever convenience store we stopped in before retiring to whatever parking lot we usually wound up in. But, our search for Pop Rocks turned up unfruitful each time.
Until, finally, one day, I was out jogging with my father and we stopped into a store to get a bottle of water. There, by the counter, I saw the Pop Rocks. I nearly died. Dream realized. I bought them, only to be awkwardly asked by my father every so often if I was going to eat them or not.
That weekend, we got together to try out the Pop Rocks. We were both just so excited about it, not because of the fact that we were going to make out with Pop Rocks involved, but because we had finally found them after what seemed like forever.
He dipped his head back and poured some into his mouth and leaned in to kiss me. At first, it was kind of whatever. Just random popping and unintentional munching noises. Then, his tongue hit the roof of my mouth and trapped a huge one in between. It burst hard, cutting his tongue and the top of my mouth. It hurt like a mother.
We both kind of eased away from each other and didn’t say much after that besides the occasional “are you okay?”.
Moral of the story: I don’t know. Don’t make out with Pop Rocks in your mouth?
The first time I got tied up in an intimate situation, we planned it ahead of time. I counted down until that day with bated breath, the crawl of X’s across my calendar becoming more nervous and hesitant as it drew nearer. I was tempted not to show up that day. I shook when I showered myself. I could barely clasp my bra or pull on the tights I picked out as to pull off a skirt in the crisp fall weather.
He led me up to his bedroom and closed the door. We laughed uncomfortably. Expectation hung in the air as I removed my boots and then my stockings so they wouldn’t get runs in them. I smiled awkwardly as I stumbled out of them and folded them, placing them on his nightstand. Next came the earrings, my class ring, the cardigan I was wearing. I ignored the chill that had set over my body as I sat beside him on the bed.
I playfully put up some attempt at a fight as he set to work. He had my arms pinned behind me rather quickly and used my stockings to bind them in a knot that paid homage to his Boy Scout years. I fought a bit harder when he tried to thread one of his thick winter scarves between my teeth, but he finally won. The fabric was overwhelming and the knot held harsh against the back of my neck.
I groaned, I squirmed, I explored. I twisted my wrists about and tried to push the scarf out of my mouth with my tongue. I couldn’t. I let out a frustrated huff when he found my own scarf in my purse and set to work on my ankles. I wasn’t sure what I wanted at that point, but I’m fairly sure it was contact aside from the act of binding my limbs.
But, when he had finished, he merely got up and left the room for a few minutes. It was then that I noticed he had me positioned in such a way that I was looking into the mirror on his wall. I’m not sure if it was intentional.
Either way, the effect was sobering. I saw myself. My eyes wide over the scarf, my chest pushed out slightly from the way my arms were bound, my legs lined up neatly, my body covered in goosebumps and shaking slightly with each breath. He returned and I set my attention over to him briefly before returning my attention to my reflection. I was transfixed. I looked just like myself and nothing at all like myself at the same time.
I don’t know if it makes any sense, but it was almost as if I were saying goodbye. Or maybe it’s better described as “hello”.
Primping for Playtime
Model: Isabella Belden
Copyright: LoveBondageLadies.com
I try to keep my rants on here to a minimum and I try not to solicit anyone for anything. I understand that I sometimes bring forward issues here and offer an opinion. I apologize if I have ever offended anyone or if I have disappointed anyone by straying away from the sort of levity and sexuality that I’m sure you come here for. And I apologize if the rant/solicitation that comes up feels inappropriate for this environment. You’re more than welcome to unfollow. And I apologize for how personal this gets, but I really cannot think of any other way to communicate how important this is to me.
Recently, such institutions as Planned Parenthood and Title X were threatened with the possibility of losing funding. These organizations continue to face this threat, even after the major budget vote that took place. I don’t care about your opinion on abortion, because these institutions offer far more than this service alone. For some people, this will be the only place they will get correct information on their sexual/reproductive health and rights. These organizations offer STD testing and a wide variety of other services that are simply irreplaceable.
But some argue that these are very replaceable, that normal clinics exist and that there is no need to “dump funding” into these institutions. It’s very true that you can get an STD test at a normal health center, you can find reproductive information online, and that none of these other options are connected with abortion. This is all very true.
However, I would argue that these places are simply not prepared for the unwritten aspects of this job. Perhaps I am narrow in my own experience and from the positive feedback that I have heard from a wide variety of people who used Planned Parenthood and other Title X-related institutions for these purposes. But, by the same token, I cannot help but feel that if these clinics could honestly do the job that Planned Parenthood does, Planned Parenthood would simply cease to exist out of a lack of necessity. I don’t think that a normal health center is equipped for the job that Planned Parenthood must take on.
Last year, I had an STD scare. My partner, at the time, found out from his former partner that she had Herpes II. Although I had not exhibited any symptoms, I was still horrified. And, with no Planned Parenthood around, I decided to make an appointment with my University’s student health center to get tested.
The days before my appointment were inconceivably difficult. I was tense, I was nervous. I overreacted to even the slightest blemish on my body. I researched the virus, the symptoms, the medications. I wanted to be fully prepared before my appointment and I made sure that I was so.
My appointment began in the basement of the health center in the office of one of the nurses. She had me sit down and repeat to her my concerns. I had no issue with this. I told her about the present situation. I told her I was not exhibiting any symptoms, but that I had found that there was a window in which I would not show these symptoms and I wanted to get tested. My partner, who did not attend my school, was waiting outside for support. He had made his appointment for a few days after mine, at a Planned Parenthood near his home.
I was very clear with her what I wanted: a test for Herpes II. But, she insisted she had to ask me some questions. Which was fine. I understand that it’s standard procedure. However, the next question came completely out of left field, “have you had sexual relations with someone of the same gender?”
I told her I had, but that I was sure beyond a doubt that I had not contracted anything. All of my prior partners either had been tested or simply had not been with anyone else before me. I had been, up until this point, very careful. I explained to her that what had happened was simply a hiccup, a sudden misstep in a history of being incredibly careful.
She responded coldly, “I’m putting you down for an HIV test, too.” She looked me over for a second before adding, “and gonorrhea and chlamydia as well."
I understand that was she was doing was simply trying to eliminate the possibility of another STD. But I wasn’t showing symptoms. And, more importantly, she didn’t ask. It wasn’t an offer, it was mandated. And it was solely on the basis that I had engaged in sexual relations with a woman.
I really can’t put words to how she spoke to me. Her demeanor, her tone, her behavior. It seemed strictly business to her, while I was clearly at an incredibly precarious place. I could feel myself trembling through the whole consultation. I had started crying when I told her that I was normally so much more careful. She didn’t offer any condolences. She didn’t even offer me a tissue.
When I told her I was humiliated and concerned, she told me, "there’s really nothing to worry about. If you have herpes, you just have to stay on a prescription to keep down the symptoms.” I looked across her desk and saw a picture of her daughter. Young, beaming, radiantly innocent. I wondered how she would feel to one day hear from her daughter that a nurse at her University – a place where she had let her daughter finally leave from under her wing, a place where safety and support is expected – had told her in a deadpan voice that she would just have to be on a medication for the rest of her life. Like it was no big deal. Because, you know, she clearly brought it upon herself.
I got sent to another room to get the blood-work done. The women in the lab didn’t say much to me, just pricked and stuck. Which was fine until they asked me for my insurance. I had two cards and I was not entirely sure which one to give them.
“Looks like you’re going to have to call Daddy,” one said with a sneer.
They watched as I tried to keep my composure while calling my father and tried not to give away exactly what I was getting blood-work for. I assured him I was fine. I was mortified. I could not believe that I had just heard that.
By the time I had settled everything and walked outside with my partner, I was in tears. I found out a week later that I was negative for everything, as was my partner (who elected to be tested for everything else when he was given the choice to). It was a relief, but I could never really get over how I had been treated that day.
I’m not asking for pity here. As traumatic as the experience was, I am using it instead as evidence and not a plea for attention. I’m asking that you support Planned Parenthood and Title X programs because they, unlike a regular health clinic, are trained in the lesser known, but sometimes more important, aspects of processes just as this.
My friends who used Planned Parenthood were granted the sort of mercy, sympathy, and dignity that I was denied in my experience at my University’s clinic. The environment at such institutions is, as opposed to my experience, non-judgmental. A gentler hand is extended to those who need to be handled gently, whether they are coping with the sort of scare I had, handling a pregnancy, or seeking out information on their sexuality that they cannot find anywhere else. People who work for Planned Parenthood and these other organizations are trained to exhibit the sort of qualities that people in these situations absolutely need to witness.
So, I ask that you write to your legislature to support these programs. I ask that you help to push to widen Planned Parenthood’s scope and provide for more locations. And, if you disagree with me, I simply ask that you treat the programs and those who use them with respect.