things to do while i can.

i got an email from a reader after i wrote about the artist becoming disgusted in me. it was warm and friendly and reminded me that there’s a lot of value of exploring the darker corners of my psyche while i’m alone, while it’s easier [i added the later reason].

and with that, as a model of inspiration and self-motivation, here’s a list of fucked up things, rooted in the darker side of my life, i might try to do while i can, while there’s no one who cares about me to stop me, or object. i’ve also added my pre-arranged excuses for failing to try them:

• smoke heroin, possibly also shooting heroin (fear of needles, difficulty procuring either grade of shit, trying to slow down my chemical life)
• explore, and perhaps complete, a financial transaction for sex (fear of, well, future disclosure, not clear how to go about it ethically)
• engage in (#)-some sex, preferably with someone(s) i have a long term interest in (lack of bed-mates)
• engage in anonymous group sex (lack of access, a bit intimidating)
• fuck a (cel|blog)ebrity (lack of prominence, lack of being interesting, general shyness, why?)
• sleep on the street for a few days with a camera to document the experience (lack of street edge, completely unprepared, it’s a cliché)
• slut around (check!)
• take pictures of someone that might qualify as pornographic (lack of ability, lack of anything to contribute to the genre)
• visit the real middle east (reasons too numerous to count why i’m a poor candidate for this right now)

i’m generally hopeful to expand this list as i move forward.

slutting.

I’m one of the firm belief that, to re-write a tolstoy bromide, all prudes are prudish in the same way whereas sluts are all slutty in their own ways.

i’m currently interested in why i’m a slut. this may be interesting for some. there are stereotypes about men and might make this seem like a simple quest. perhaps based on yet more bromides about wild oats.

i disagree.

i can only speak for myself. i do have friends who have sought bedpost, belt, or even (in one case) internet notches, but i cannot relate to that. conquest for it’s own sake is, frankly, boring and too much work, anyway.

despite what it may seem from this blog, i’m far more easy than sexually prolific.

for me it’s about expression and intimacy. i see something in someone and want to know them better. i used to say i fall in love a little bit every time i fucked someone. having actually fallen in love i don’t believe that is the case anymore.

lust isn’t the right word either. and some of me falls behind with everyone i sleep with. (that may be cribbed from a mark bianchi lyric, but i haven’t the energy to check) i spend a little bit of time recovering afterwards. repairing myself.

i react to a “narcissian” image of something i recognize within myself. something i want to nurture, explore or understand better by getting closer to someone else, rather than myself. there is also a physical component.

my interests, my inner core, lives at the seams of most identities people seem to don on themselves. i’m professional in work that most find boring, but my personal interests are far more creative and artistic (in the really academic way that maybe many others would find boring, too). i’m ridiculously happy with the worst drugs, but avoid behavior that would lead to any lifestyle changes – and hence avoid most other users. my affection for the so appropriately termed haute-pervure that’s difficult to share, and so forth. this makes me feel lonely, or at least singular, frequently.

it also means don’t relate well to most people. i’m only partially interesting to and only partially interested in most people. i think this makes me seem cold to many. but i just can’t maintain a long term interest in what feels to me as a one-dimensional conversation.

but i’m the warmest sucker for someone who sees the pattern, and can make sense of me. or someone complicated enough to hold my interest.

when i meet someone like that i want to make the most of it, even if only briefly. and the best way i have to express that interest is fucking someone. i’m sure there are other ways, but most fall under “tell” not “show”, something i’m not particularly interested in. (though i can whisper sweet nothings with the best of them.) there aren’t many ways you can show someone how close they can get to you. sex is one. and it works for me.

there’s also the pure physical aspects. how much closer can you really get with fingers, cocks, tongues are actually inside each other? how can you beat that for intimacy? if you can make someone moan, or gasp in pleasure, what else can you do for them?

i don’t expect to be close to someone permanently. not the way i operate when my head-space enters slut mode. but i like knowing i’ve gotten closer. i like watching someone flush up as you figure out what turns them on. it makes me feel like i understand them.

if someone can do the same for me, i feel a little more understood. i have bad experiences, awkward ones for awkward reasons. invariably i find i assessed the person’s core wrong. they weren’t who i thought they were.

there’s almost nothing that makes me more sad.

another issue is the sinking feeling after i come that this was a mistake. that i got blinded by something else – drink, drugs, or general arousal – and mistook something superficial for a sign of depth and complexity.

i’m not going to suppose this behavior is normal or healthy. and it has it’s social and emotional costs. i’m getting more used to becoming judged. especially as i get older and the “wild oats” story cannot be worn as a disguise.

but it’s working for me now.

how i actually pick you up.

i see you at the party, sitting quietly. pretty. listening to friend chat about something, i can’t remember what.

i lose track of you for a while. i have people to catch up with, news to get, give. broken promises to make up for, and more promises to make now.

i see you later, though. and you see me, you smile at me, i think. i hope. it’s a lovely smile, wide, friendly, genuinely happy.

it’s surprisingly attractive, your happiness, a break from the normal seriousness.

i sit down with your group. make the introductions. get your name.

we chat and folks leave to get more drinks, leave us alone. we deal with the small talk.

“i live most in ___ and come back here frequently, i’m more or less a ___”

“32″

“i know jake”

you tell a joke and we start laughing. i think it’s beautiful that i can’t remember who touched who’s leg first, who started to press our thighs together in a covert suggestion of attraction.

not subtle enough though. we get disdainful looks from friends as they return with stiff drinks. i think they’re directed at me.

man-slut. the one who ends up in these situations way too often, the one making out in the back of the bar, dark corners, what-have-you. already back at work after my hiatus in “monogamy and commitment”.

i am easy. i guess they haven’t forgotten that.

it reminds me to worry that you don’t know about me. but you make a quick joke about ass-fucking and how you like to get desires out of the way early on. early on like now.

i’ve decided we might be of like minds.

the little matter of the artist bears down me briefly, bringing damning guilt as my hand plays over yours. holding hands like school kids. school kids whispering about ass-fucking.

we can’t leave yet though, i have friends i want to talk to, and sex distracted as i am i’m aware of the rudeness of just leaving with you in tow. we end up holding court, friends circling by to talk to us.

we chat for hours and still we leave as soon as we can, late at night, hungry for each other. hail a cab because you live in queens.

queens. new lands.

first time sex together. awkward. dark. sounds of unzipping in chaotic orders, each of us prioritizing each other’s body parts in difficult orderings, each primaly needing to see the other. at least i’m not worried its not really mutual attraction.

i work your shirt quickly while you undo my belt, bending forward to work on my fly. i’m trying to finish the last of your buttons, dragging you back up – bending me down. you give me a quick look, eyes flashing, and throw my arms off, away from your blouse.

“time for that later”, laughing.

my pants fall down, i’m still standing back up from a bend, lose my balance and fall.

you stand still, biting your lip.

frivolity. it’s the funniest thing we’ve ever seen, me pants-less on the floor, you over me, until i pull you down on top of me.

giggling.

kissing. lips pressing. wetting each other.

laughing.

licking. tongue on cock, pussy.

chuckles.

we get around to fucking, but there’s so much laughter and chuckling its a bit slow going. it’s nice. sex has been coming out of a dark place in my life lately. this is different. happy, silly.

sex should be goofy silly sometimes. i feel more alive tonight.

later, i hold you a bit, but it’s not tender in any way. each of us keeps smirking and looking at each other until we can’t bear it and we laugh out loud.

the levity drops out when i leave. it was nice. no future. but i’m leaving a little bit of me behind with you. some of me existed in those special moments of laughter.

making my past more complicated when it should be cleaner and more nimble is becoming a habit – one that’s going to hurt me later.

right now i just not excited about restricting myself, not interested in fitting in my friends norms. though they may be right. there’s no future here, but it’s fun. and funny.

how i try to pick you up.

i’m not great at this, but it’s necessary. we have to meet each other somehow.

i’ll look at you, i’ll have figured out something about you that you seems fascinating.

fascinating is key.

i’ll be nervous about it, my eyes wandering over you — too much would be creepy and weird, too little and i’ll miss something interesting about you, maybe the key bit that will get us talking.

i’ll hope to catch your eye, and i’ll flash a smile. it will be shy and emo-kid-esque. i’m not yet clear if that end up giving you the right impression of me or not.

i’m enough of a coward that i won’t move forward if you don’t smile back.

god help us all if there’s no alcohol available. you’ll be forced to hearing me write/re-write/edit/re-edit my words as i’m speaking. it makes it hard to understand me. a few drinks takes out a few steps, cutting it down to write/re-write.

i’ll comment on what you are reading, listening to, watching, wearing whatever i can figure out, with whatever words i can muster. there’s almost no chance i’m not at least a little nervous. i’ve gotten better at hiding that though.

if we’re at a bar, i’ll wait for you to go up the bar, or break away from your friends. in an art gallery, i’ll find the piece i like best and see if you won’t come close to it, so i can talk to you about it. if we at other places, well i’m not very good at other places yet. i can’t master the sidewalk pick up, i can’t work that fast.

it’s an embarrassingly large amount of passive effort to get around to what’s a pretty defining active expression. and part of what it means to be a man in our culture.

this was way easier when i smoked. the volume of “hello nice to meet you may i bum a cigarette”-s in life are countless. the numbers of them that have lead to emails or phone numbers aren’t countless, but aren’t bad.

i’m thinking about all of this, because i need to be more careful about the type of people i date. they need to match all my lives, not just the one or two in play at the time. and that means i’m going to have to become more engaged in selecting my dates, seeking out the ones that fit all of me. i’m not sure how to determine that yet though.

practice will tell, i hope.

there may be other ways, though. you, the girl from the Boat that wrote her number on a coaster and threw it at me as you walked out. pure impulse, all risk. that was a fun idea. i’ll be calling you, if only to figure out why you picked me.

i wish i had thought of that. maybe my approach is just too contrived.

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.