slipping.

blogging is hard. it requires some form of honesty, and that honesty can become habitual. and personally expensive.

i’m writing this as i check (even though i’ve long since subscribed) debauchette’s blog to see if she’s come out of hiding from her own punishment for being honest (thanks gawker, for ruining this rare treat for the rest of us, btw).

in my case the honesty comes in the form of discussing the the various illicit facets of my life that i’ve intentionally kept apart because i fear that merged they would overwelm me, as well as those who are important to me.

it seems my fears where correct.  in the last two weeks i’ve:

• starting consuming cocaine in public, which has resulted in my consuming quantities of the substance that can no longer be confused with special treat status
• i’ve recombined drugs and sex in a way i’d decided i’d never do again
• i’ve told not one, but two people of my crack trials years ago, losing a friend to worry each time
• i’ve kissed a boy, in public, causing a stupid amount of scandal that was highly avoidable
• i’ve asked a friend for help in finding heroin, causing future awkwardness

none of these things are particulary scandelous. but they defy my approach to life. i compartmentalize, hide parts of me from others, in an effort to push the limits along as many dimensions as i can without losing control.

it takes discipline. i thought i had that discipline. i used to have that discipline.

what’s changed is this blog. other than random musings in the shower, there’s never been a forum for me where i united different thoughts i had into coherent musings, and it appears to be an addictive, and hard to
go away from. the new mental coherence is infecting my real life, and i’m unsure that i’m comfortable with that.

i haven’t told the speakeasy girl about a lot of these things, but it lies there inside me, trying to get out. i used to stifle random “i love you”s post sex and intimacy. now i’m fighting back more personal statements. this is not a person with whom i should be sharing an interest in heroin.

i’m just not sure how to back off of this new path but i can’t keep it up this way. secrets are made to be that way, even if the secrets are relatively benign. i have a public persona i’m uncomfortable killing off in the name of personal honesty.

so anyway, i’ve slowed down posting on this blog while i get my inner monologue in check, and, er, inner

homecoming. present tense.

men behaving badly. tonight’s theme. bachelor party.

we meet at a steak house, of course.

i’m still staggering from meeting with her last night. distracted. horny. hurt. that was the last time, we both know it. all predictable but i’m feeling bad for myself thinking that tonight he’s fucking her instead of me.

i can’t talk to these boys about her, i’ve used up my sympathy card on this front. and it’s really not an event that should be centered on me. we’re here for doug.

my previously mentioned past issues of masculinity are on display – maybe due to the fact that these friends are from my past. i work my way down the table, away from the competition to be alpha male for the evening, towards chris. chris, importantly, isn’t interested in contesting his dominance either. we sit and chat about anything other than the knicks.

i believe that the last time i was in this situation they were talking about the knicks, too.

i not happy at these sorts of events. testosterone is flowing, bringing out the worst in my friends and i’m trying to avoid it. alcohol, beef and, oddly, cheese, are what the event is calling for. also women but that’s quiet now.

i order a steak. share an order of mushrooms.

whiskey seems to be the drink of the day. that’s fine. i like that. i order one, two, three, four. i start to lose count.

i’m midway into convincing morgan into engaging me in a conversation on michael chabon and “the wonderboys” place in it his oeuvre. we’re both making shit up though, way to drunk to be meaningful. jesse complains at our nerdiness. we need to “get our man on”, whatever that means. why does doug have these friends? i’m so screwed. this evening ends badly.

“strip club”

oh fuck, that was inevitable. i guess it’s better than “poker club”.

an aside on strip clubs:

i don’t like them them. and not for any theories regarding feminism and exploitation. i’m happy to hear why i should respect those arguments though.

if you’ve ever handed over $100 to a woman for writhing briefly in you lap, you’re aware of who holds the power in this relationship. i’m confidant that while the job may not be fun, it’s a better alternative than most jobs. at least at the quality levels i’ve attended. they control the situation, if they’re any good at it.

none of which is to suggest that i’m powerless against their wiles or that its not completely free will that brought me here – everything here is on me.

i’ve got no issues with strippers themselves, either. they seem very nice. it’s a job like anything else. i bet the are basically pretty sexualized girls i’d love to know outside of this situation. the very few i have known bear that theory out.

i don’t like these places because they don’t work right. name another sex worker activity where the probability of orgasm falls closer to zero as the quality of establishment increases.

i’m also aware that the stripper hates you. and within the transactional context, don’t really believe that i’m going to be the client to change that.

fuck it, though. i’m here until the end. we’re going to a strip club. maybe it will be a good one.

and it is.

these women are gorgeous, smart enough to keep my intoxicated mind engaged, and savory. the holy triumvirate of sex organization.

i’m screwed. this will be costly. i order my $10 whiskey and put on my best ironic detachment face. it won’t hold off the girls, but it should keep my friends at bay for a while. i roll my eyes as we all pitch in for doug’s first lap dance. i feel bad about that later, he’s really entitled to feel however he wants tonight. and really, these girls are exploiting us, not him. he’s feelings are pure tonight, just horny exuberance. one last hurrah before this constitutes cheating on her.

this goes on for a few songs. i’ve lost count of songs, drinks and $20 bills leaving my wallet. i only know my watch doesn’t say 2 a.m. yet. i can’t leave.

then mona shows up. dan’s seen my grimaces, knows my finances, and has found, what is by any reasonably reckoning my ideal girl and paid for a dance. out of the blue she takes my drink out of my hand, splits my legs apart and pushing her ass into my groin.

my entire plan until this point has been to get drunk and avoid temptation. this is not avoiding.

she’s hot. perfect even – at least if perfect is a facsimile of last night’s sexual error. rail thin, small breasts, brunette, beautiful, maybe edgier than who i look to date now. in a hall filled with buxom blonds she stands out. market differentiation. madison avenue could use this girl.

21, she claims, and looks exactly like what i would have dated at 21 – albeit idealized.

i didn’t ask for this, but i’m now starting to rationalize, looking for reasons why she might actually want to fuck me. she says she likes heidegger — though i think dan put her up to that. is it really fair when hot women and your friends conspire against you?

more writhing into my cock. i’m hard. i’m sorry.

i agree to go upstairs for some fee i’m not sure i understand yet. dan’s prepared to lord his wall street job over me to cover it – i wave him off with an arrogant flair, my lone alpha moment.

we now have 15 minute alone. 15 minutes, i maintain even now, i don’t really want. didn’t want when i entered. won’t want later either.

also, my wallet will be empty, but hey, at least i got her fee down to just all the cash i had.

she starts to dance, and then quickly, ohmygod her tits, firm, in my face. pressing.

i’m naive but i wasn’t expecting this effect. not at all. i just needed to get away from my friends. but this is nice, i can’t lie. i’m getting hornier, and falling under her spell. i try to avoid saying any awful cliches. try to keep the conversation light.

for 5 minutes we talk as she pushes knees, thighs, tits and ass into me at various points. we chat. she’s in college, swears it’s nyu, philosophy major. “likes older men”, natch. i’m very hard. completely aroused. i want this to be real, want her to care about my job, my arousal. i want to fall for her mirage.

she smiles in a way that makes we realize she sees past me, and knows where this conversation is going three steps ahead of me. i’m nothing new here. i really shouldn’t have expected to be unique i suppose.

then fucking fuck, michael’s upstairs too. some giant boobs blond chick is commandeering him.

i’m uncomfortable now. for some reason i’ve decided this experience should be private. this commodity, staple of american titillation – i’m entitled to have it independently. i’m, of course, an idiot, but this isn’t a situation i know very well. i skip these things as often as possible.

i briefly resist the temptation to flee. but when mike gets his third warning about “hands” i freak out a bit and stand up too quickly, almost hitting my hed in mona’s. i apologize. in truth she was doing a great job, and i was aroused, but my arousal is for me and my partners. michael ruined it.

i need to get away from him. i really can’t see him staring at blondie’s tits anymore. seeing his leering smile. i get up, leaving my 15 minutes worth of cash on the table and a kind word, and walk out, down the stairs, leaving my friends behind in the club.

i stink of strawberry. or raspberry. when it’s this artificial who can tell.

i bum a cigarette off a russian mafioso type outside the club and breath in the relaxing nicotine. waves of tension release.

have i mentioned i hadn’t smoked in 2 years? i hadn’t. that’s fucked now too.

my mind wanders to her. i want to call her. talk through this with her. it’s a horrible idea, i’m pretty sure she’s dead set against strip clubs, and certainly wouldn’t have any sympathy from me. and at any rate she’s fucking him back into consciousness from his business trip now.

i fumble over my phone for other numbers in the right timezones i can talk this through with. failure. behind me are my closest, if also most estranged, friends. i need new ones for this new phase of my life.

i bum another cigarette. but this one costs a dollar. i smoke it down to the nub almost burning my fingers before holding out the hand to hail a cab and return to brooklyn, where i belong. i leave doug behind, i’ll apologize at the wedding.

i’ll feel like an asshole tomorrow, but maybe that will displace my jealousy, my need to undo the past and be in her bed that’s consuming me right now.

homecoming. future tense.

i wasn’t supposed to head straight to you after i landed, but text messages and emails changes things, and now, in the dark, i’m dealing with the fallout of canceled plans and trying to hail a cab from the airport to fort greene, trying to remember the shortcut around the BQE.

we’ll meet in some new wine bar, the sort that wasn’t there when i lived here, and we’ll spend a few hours trying to outdo each other on wine knowledge, a sport at which i haven’t a shot at beating you. we’ll chat about your new job, my new job, avoid mention of the artist and him. we’ll likely need to be there a while to drink past the unresolved feelings of betrayal and hurt we each have and remember why these meetings keep happening.

i think i might have loved you once, and i certainly know i could have loved you, if i’d given it a chance, but the window is closed. you have him now, and why you are risking him on me i’ll never understand, but i’ll be grateful for your reasons.

we won’t make a move at each other until we leave the bar, and then take a turn down one of the darker, more intimate streets off dekalb, where i’ll pull you in and kiss you aggressively, knowing that you respond to that.

it will be a race to see which one of gets to push the other one against a wall, pinning them there, kissing even more intensely, but i know it will be you that first takes my hand and guides it down into your pants, while i nervously look around to assure myself that the street is empty.

your moaning. i still hear it every now and then in my mind, in my dreams. i can’t wait to hear it again. i’ll work fast so i can hear your voice in my ear again.

making out will slow us down, it’s not far to vinegar hill, but at the pace we’ll be going, stop-starting, throwing each other passionately against random walls, it usually takes an hour or so before we reach your home.

when we get home, unless something has changed, i’ll go down on you early on, until you need me inside you and throw me against the bed. i love how physical we get, every move we make just filled with so much intentionality, so much force. i’m always amazed that we discovered that we could throw each other around like this, no discussion, just assumptions about each other completely borne out.

as we fuck, i might look around for some trace of him, a picture, a card — something. i’ll regret it if i do.

after we come, maybe a few times, we’ll quickly leave each other’s arms, neither one of us much for cuddling together and you’ll make it clear its time for me to go. i’ll wash up a bit and get dressed, we’ll kiss each other again with a passion that might get us undressed again, but might not, and eventually i’ll leave.

during the cab ride to where i’m staying, i’ll be embracing your scent, both perfume and sexual, on me. i’ll start to be consumed by the thoughts that i’m blocking out right now. that we aren’t ever going to fall in love. that i’m fucking my past, trying to undo wasted time and mistakes with my cock, and its not going to work.

i’m comfortable being a man-slut right now. i have my motivations, and i’m old enough to know the window on this behavior must be closing so its a last chance to act this way. but i wish i wasn’t working through my history, revisiting my memories, and was working towards a future.

the artist is back home. i don’t think i’ll have betrayed any of her trusts, we haven’t made any commitments yet, and i think she has something else on her mind anyway, but i should still be focusing on someone new, someone to forward with rather than trying to get a do over on my past life.

i love my history though. i love them all. it’s going to be hard to avoid that feeling, hard to turn down a chance like this again.

single.

single again.

i didn’t expect this to happen. and certainly not now. but here i am, and it’s fairly impossible for me to take or give all the blame. the pain and blame are mutual.

32 and single. not really a problem the time i’m in new york, but a real issue in the other parts of the world i spend time in – daddy’s getting over the hill. but all in all, i’m attractive, in shape, and intelligent. so things should go well…

except i’m more or less a perv. so there’s that.

and i haven’t been on a date in 7 years. so there’s that, too.

fuck.

last time i dated, we had twin towers, my friends traveled in packs, and generally speaking, the girls came pretty easy.

i’m betting things have changed since then.

we’ll see how it goes. i have my charm, the internets, and, well, little else on my side.

i think it will work out just fine.