Secret Confessions of a Smart Girl

I slowly swam up to consciousness with the feeling of a mouth on the back of my neck and the hand that had been wrapped around my body moving between my legs.

I must have turned my head, or moaned, because I heard his voice softly next to my ear, “Oh good. You’re awake,” as he moved my leg and slipped himself inside.

Gentle, and then not so gentle, as we moved in the slow, twilight realm between sleep and awake. His hand left bruises on my hips; my arm wrapped backwards around his neck and tangled in his hair. I silently begged.

Tension. My spine bowed to push my lower body more tightly against him. His teeth buried in my shoulder and his fingers pressed deep into the muscles beneath my skin. Explosion. Release.

Now, lying here, skin to skin, still entangled, wrapped in his heat, breath on my neck, possessive hand around my waist, I start to slip back down, down, down to the land of dreams. Stillness overtakes me and my eyes that opened so recently in pleasure close once again in sleep.

I don’t have to get up for hours.
–
I had another really good date this weekend, with the same person who has inspired quite a few recent posts. I think it’s made me sappy. Just to feel more like myself I will mention that a dominant female friend of mine gives whole new meaning to the phrase “scary pregnant lady.” She’s violent even without the hormones, but with the hormones…. Whee! She derailed my productivity entirely last night by describing how she wanted to cut me again, and then fuck me with a knife with another one at my throat. It was very hard to resist jumping in a car and driving up to see her right then. I want to suffer, scream, and bleed… maybe in a few weeks.

I am ridiculously suggestible. I am one of those people who can not help but yawn if I hear someone yawning at the other end of the phone, let alone see them doing so next to me. Ideas get into my head and they stick. Stories, dreams, and conversations become almost as real as reality. It’s one of the reason it’s so easy for me to get fixated on things. I write the future in my head and then I have to make it happen. If I can’t make the universe align with what I think should happen than I either let the stories go… or I get crabby.

I went on a fabulous date the other week, but there were two factors that led to some extreme post-date frustration. The first factor was two weeks of e-mail that amounted to really good foreplay. (Not only because we talked about sex. We did talk about sex, but the sheer brainpower also was a huge turn on.) The second complication was that when we finally managed to go out (he’s busier than I am!) I was sick, and so I didn’t kiss him. I wanted to. I informed him of this fact, but discretion seemed the better part of valor. So… frustration. I can live with frustration. But he had put this idea into my head…

Morning Sex.

It wasn’t even while we were talking about sex. In one of our earliest e-mail exchanges he mentioned being a morning person. I am not a morning person. I informed him of this. He mentioned something about being unable to not wake-up with the sun rise, but being perfectly willing to crawl back into bed and keep me company. I responded that sex is one of the few acceptable reasons to wake me up in the morning if it isn’t an emergency, and *poof* just like that I had morning sex on the brain.

It won’t go away. It’s not so much that I’m fantasizing about morning sex with him. I am a bit, but I recognize that the likelihood of having an even remotely realistic sexual fantasy about someone I haven’t even kissed is pretty much nil and I don’t want to weigh any future encounter down with excesses of expectation. It’s that I’ve been waking up early and the first thing that I think about is sex. Or I’ll go to sleep fantasizing about waking up and having sex. My sex drive is always high, but in the time since this idea got lodged into my brain it’s been absolutely ridiculous (which is one of the reasons I’ve been reading the Anita Blake books. Fantasy fodder. Plus, in the later books they have sex pretty much every 10 pages so you can stop reading after one scene, sleep, wake up and have another one to enjoy)

The thing is… I really like morning sex. If I sleep in the same bed as someone I’m attracted to, it’s pretty much guaranteed that when I wake up I’m going to want to fuck them. In fact, I’ll often wake-up early and the urge will be so strong that I won’t be able to go back to sleep because I’ll be spending too much conscious effort trying not to touch them. The idea that I might be able to find a partner with whom I could have regular morning sex is an intoxicating one*. Casual sex partners aren’t good for morning sex. Morning sex is “getting a good night’s sleep with someone you care about and then jumping their bones when you get up” sex. Or lazy weekend “we can just enjoy each other” sex. Given how awake I usually am (not) in the morning it also tends to fall lower on the violence scale than I generally prefer, but at that hour it’s nice. Quiet.

Plus, sometimes you get to go back to sleep again afterwards… or eat pancakes. That’s a really nice way to spend a weekend morning. Hours in bed fooling around, talking, and sleeping followed by pancakes. Can’t beat that. Except maybe with waffles. Oooh. And the funny pages. Sex, comic strips, snuggling, and waffles. And maybe bacon. Bacon makes everything better… except ice cream, because that’s just wrong.

You know, sometimes I wonder if it seems schizophrenic to people the way I alternate between gentle waffle-laden fantasies and things like this. Then I realize that I don’t really care. When I’m feeling optimistic, I believe that I can find someone, or someones, who will think of the diversity as an advantage.
–
*“You’re getting regular morning sex? I hate you. It’s not fair. You don’t even like morning sex.”
“I like this morning sex.”
“Shut up.”
“It’s really good morning sex too.”
“You are a sadistic bitch.”
“That’s why you love me.”
“You suck…”
“Yes I do”
“… and you are no longer my friend.” - Transcript of a real conversation between me and a good friend of mine a few months ago. Yes, girls do talk about sex. Sometimes in excruciating detail. Then we have cookies.

I’ve been rereading the Anita Blake books this week. I loved the early books in the series as books, and I quite like the later books in the the series as porn, but the middle books (where I’m stuck now) aren’t entirely satisfying as either. So I read them, get caught up in the fantasies of violent, bloody sex, and end up feeling really, really frustrated*.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about fear and trust. Not entirely because of the books, although those themes are certainly an issue. It started because of something an ex of mine posted in his livejournal. I don’t think it was about me, but I’m not 100% certain, and the niggling doubt got me wondering. Not because I would have been offended if it it was about me, but because if it was I didn’t know if it was true.

He was writing about a girl who was turned on by fear. Specifically, in this instance, of a girl being turned on by the snap of a singletail near body parts where no whip was supposed to go. I thought to myself “I don’t remember that, it’s not me, and although that would turn me on it’s not because I was afraid…” but that’s not strictly true.

What turns me on is the combination of fear and trust. It’s not an easy balance to find, but there’s a great deal of power inherent in walking that line. Fear, real fear, doesn’t turn me on. If I think someone is actually trying to damage me then it’s not going to make me hot. On the other hand, if I trust someone enough that I truly believe that they won’t damage me and they can still scare me… oh baby.

Of course, trusting someone like that, alone, is hot. Even without the fear, really trusting someone is an enormous rush. It’s one of the reasons I’m sometimes a lazy negotiator. I don’t generally trust people enough to go to a place where I can’t enforce my limits and so I don’t feel that much of a need to have them spelled out and iron clad. While playing with Adam a few months back, someone who I had not negotiated sexual play with, he said to me something along the lines of “I’m going to make you beg me to fuck you and then I’m going to say ‘no’.” He did, and I did, and he didn’t, and that was incredibly hot. No, that’s a bad example, there was definitely fear there too.

It’s an aspect of submission, I think. I’ve said before that not wanting something doesn’t make the thing in question any hotter for me. That’s true. On the other hand, having someone want something from me enough not to care if I want it unquestionably does. I think fear comes into that category. I can’t imagine specifically negotiating a scene that is designed to scare the pants off of me, but I can imagine playing with people who will take things places that terrify me. I don’t even need to imagine it, I can remember it.

There’s another kind of fear play that really gets to me, though, and this is the kind that the Anita books make me wet just thinking of. The kind of fear play where it’s all about passion and control. I like knives. I really like knives. I like to play with knives with people who like knives in ways that anyone in their right mind would consider to be both literally and figuratively edge play. And one thing I like, other than the sensation of the blade against my skin, and the knowledge of how easily it could slip right through, is seeing the look in someone’s eyes when they’re teetering on the edge of control. I like watching them want to push just a little harder, just a fraction more, and seeing them hold themselves back. I like seeing the look in their eyes when they realize that there’s a little part of me that wants them to do it too, that we both want to see the blood pour red across my skin, and the way the world stops completely for a second as the two of us don’t even breathe for danger of stepping over that line of control.

One day, I’m going to have the opportunity to play with someone who likes knives as much as I do (a very rare commodity), and who I’m also willing to fuck (or be otherwise sexual with, another rare commodity), and very bad things are going to happen. Glorious, dangerous things involving steel and skin, passion and pain, fear, frustration, and control or the lack thereof. It makes me growl just thinking of it.
–
*Which I can’t do anything about because my friend’s two dogs are staying in my house and won’t let me out of their sight. I might corrupt them or something. *sigh* Puppy love is great, but it’s not quite what I’m in the mood for at the moment.

Today it was so beautiful out that I had to climb a tree. I was wearing a short skirt and knee-high leather boots at the time, but I had absolutely no willpower. There was a tree. It needed to be climbed.

I love this weather. It’s so cool, and crisp, and you can walk for hours without ever feeling too hot. It’s the season of long boots (my major fashion weakness), fun jackets, and silly scarves instead of functional ones. I always feel so free in fall. Like I can do anything.

Janie Blooms has it exactly right. This is the kind of weather that makes me hold someone’s hand and run through fallen leaves, kiss under the moon, and snuggle under the same jacket. Normally my fantasies are indoor fantasies involving violence, lust, and pain, but this weather gives me softer moments and outdoor fantasies more suited to romantic comedies than kinky porn.

There’s nothing wrong with a little variety, I suppose, and when winter comes I’ll want to be inside once more. Right now, however, I love fall.

Sometimes I scare myself with how much I want things. Feeling the desire click in is almost like pain. Focus narrows, breathing shifts, and all of a sudden nothing else matters. I want it, and I’m going to make it happen.

The really frightening part?

I’m talking about a job ad.

It didn’t help that my mood was already primed by the fact that I’ve been rereading the Anita Blake books and just got to the one where she finally gives in. All that violence, sex, and tenderness in one little book is just what it takes to get my juices flowing.

“I don’t mind a little pain, either.”

“I noticed.”

And then the phone rang, and I got up to answer it and walked away from the bedroom and the potential for release. I spoke on the phone and walked to the computer and saw the opportunity that was so precisely what I want to be doing and being advertised by someone I know likes me and suddenly I wanted it like I want passion and I want pain - with every inch of my body. But it’s just a job, and all you can do with a job is apply for it and assume that nothing will ever happen, which takes too little time and too little energy so the literature induced lust, and the excitement of potential, are just swirling inside my body making me want to fuck, or fight, or scream. Or write… which is just crazy because how is it that pouring words out on a page could possibly dissipate passion as thoroughly as reading them arouses it?

The thing is, it can. I may never understand it, but it’s as the Cheshire Cat says, “We’re All Mad Here.” When I first read “The Cat Who Walks Through Walls” and Richard told Hazel that no one chooses to be a writer, people become writers because they can’t help it, that he knew a man sitting in room going slowly crazy because someone had cured him of his writing but not his need to write, I didn’t get it. I do now. Writing is a drug to me, yes, a way of dealing with things I can not cope with any other way - depression, passion, pain, hope, loss - but it’s also a compulsion. I have pulled off the side of the road because it was either get my thoughts down on a piece of paper or fail to be able to maintain enough concentration to drive. There are times when I need to write so badly that if I don’t have a pen or keyboard I’ll scratch words out with rocks on concrete.

Like so much else in my life, it goes both ways. I can write myself into a fervor, and I can write myself back to solid ground. Sometimes it amazes me that not everyone has moments when they are so filled with words desperately needing to escape that they can feel the consonants pressing against the inside of their skin. Maybe we’re not all mad here. Maybe it’s just me.

Sometimes I hate dating. Even when dates go well, they’re often exercises in frustration, although, ironically, the bad dates can be an awful lot of fun solely as story generating devices. When I finally met my lovely poly couple it was after a humorously bad date and I called them to drag them out for coffee to wash the taste of it from my mouth and my brain.

On the other hand, rarely, I love dating. There is a middle ground, of course, when I go out on a date with someone, have a perfectly nice time, and come home without any strong feelings about it, and really that’s the category that most dates fall into. They’re not mind-blowingly awesome, they’re not fun but frustrating, they’re not painfully dull or so awkward I run out into a rainstorm to put myself out of my misery, they’re just nice. Two people going out and having a good time in a way that’s enjoyable, but nothing to write home about. But sometimes, dates are actually wonderful. Sometimes I have so much fun that I find myself smiling secretly about them two days later with a warm fuzzy glow in my chest, wanting to do nothing more than lie on my bed with my eyes closed and relive moments or imagine them.

On days like that I do my best to tell my over-thinking annoyance of a brain to shut the hell up, and sometimes it even listens.

I like being on the bottom of a kiss.

There’s something about having a partner who is taller than me, or hovering above me, that makes me feel sexy and vulnerable.

I like looking up.

Kissing someone from above, tilting their chin up towards mine, or fisting my hand in their hair to force their neck back makes me feel dominant. Which is fun, sometimes, taking control, but I like being on the bottom, and not just for a kiss.

When I’m with partners who are physically smaller than I am, not a rare occurrence since I am a tall women who is attracted to a diverse range of women and men, I tend to place my body on a lower level to theirs when I am physically aroused or seeking contact. I kneel, and lean my elbows on their legs. I lean against a wall, legs angled out, so that their face is above mine when they come close. It’s not conscious. It’s just where I like to be.

I like being on the bottom. It makes my instincts make sense. Tilt my head up, eyes wide, lips open - expectation. Chin down, eyes raised - invitation. Dropped gaze - submission, shyness, or shame. It’s where I want to be when things are heating up. Looking up.

I have a weakness for the written word. A good book, for me, is actually an experience that I live rather than simply sterile words on a page. I suppose that is, in part, why I read so little non-fiction outside of work. With no story I cannot be transported. Why on earth would I want to give up the joyful journey?

All the getting soaked by rain and sitting for hours afterward in air conditioned rooms this week took its toll on me, and I have come down with a dreadful cold. My preferred method for dealing with being sick enough that work is impractical, a border I crossed sometime yesterday morning, is to sleep as much as possible and read when it is not. At times like this, I tend to pull out my old favorites, and after wandering around the house for a bit staring at bookshelves I settled on the Caroline Stevermer series “A College of Magics.”

I like these books very much. The characters are terribly sensible and responsible, while still being more than a tad whimsical and wicked, and they have a truly delightful sense of relationships. Relationships which, by and large, are completely asexual without being at all judgemental about the sexuality that goes on around the fringes. That’s not entirely true, I suppose. In both of the first two books the more sexual characters tend to have other faults as well, but it doesn’t feel like a morality issue. Anyway, that’s not really the point of what I wanted to write about.

I have, ever since I was a child, often lived my life through books. It’s not so much that I was sheltered as that in real life I was ugly and unpopular and when I was reading I was whomever the author wanted me to be. So, given a choice, I preferred living life in print or on stage, where I could be someone other than the gawky girl in the glasses who no one paid much attention to other than to mock. It both prepared me wonderfully for the world and left me woefully ignorant about actual human interactions. Even to this day, I still often think things will unfold like they do in stories. I know they won’t, but I tell myself tales of possible futures and imagine living them in the moments that carry me from day to day. It’s a horrible habit, and because of it I often doom myself to disappointment. Most of the time, life doesn’t unfold the way it does in books, and even on the days it magically, wonderfully, does, the days when your dreams are right to hand, there is usually some subconscious realization that tomorrow it will all return to the mundane. Still, those moments are glorious, and if you can’t achieve them through good works or great ambitions you can always relive them on the written page.

Often, what draws me to a particular author, series, or book, is the way in which it deals with relationships. I find it fascinating the way in which what appeals to me has changed. When I was younger, when I was full of hormones but empty of experience, I used to read certain types of books for the sex. These days, I as often as not find myself skimming over the sex to savor the sense of connection. If I am drawn out of my reader’s reverie it is less likely to be with thoughts like “I wish I could feel that physical sensation” and more with thoughts of “if only I could get that sense of peace and belonging.” Having learned that there can be wonderful, fulfilling, crazy, dangerous, even mind-blowing sex in the real world, I need it less from my literature. I have not, as of yet, had the same sort of transformative experience of translating literary to real world love. In books, I can get my sex out of context from turned down pages, single chapters, or even semi-legible printouts. That’s true in life as well. I’ve become substantially more skilled at dropping into peoples worlds for brief moments of passionate connection. Love, though… is context. It’s not about the moments so much as the huge pools of daily existence that frame them. New relationship energy is easy. Day to day happiness is something I am often tempted to believe is something that is solely the provice of books, or at least of other people.

Contentment is a skill. I know people who have it in abundance, who have no need to do the next thing all the time, who are simply happy with who they are and what they’re doing. I envy them. I think I may have the least aptitude for it of just about anyone I know. It’s not just about love and relationships, in every aspect of my life I am always thinking about what it will take to climb the next height even as I celebrate each triumph. There are very few times when I can turn off that piece of my brain. When I read. When I dance. When I make music. When I submit. I cherish those moments that engage me fully, and it is odd to be a person who so thoroughly values both her intellect and the things that help her completely turn it off.

It’s nice to step into other worlds for a little while and do the things I’d otherwise be sure to fail at. Whether it’s sailing across windswept seas with Capitain Hornblower, cooking cherries jubillee for dragons, or creating happily ever afters with three children and a veritable zoo. Then, when the books are done, it’s nice to remember there are also things at which I excel… and to go do them. For now, however, it’s time to return to bed, books, and blissful escapism. Tomorrow is not long distant, and, since I cannot afford another day of shameless lazy indulgence, I am going to embrace this one while I may.

A friend of mine asked me to put out a call to say that a national TV show (medical talk show) is looking for someone with an uncurable STD (preferably herpes, but not necessarily) who would be willing to talk about living with the disease on air. If you’d be interested in doing so, or know someone who would be interested, or just want more information please contact me via e-mail at smartgirlsecrets at gmail dot com and I will give you more information and forward you to the relevant individuals. Please feel free to repost.

Edit: I’m also to say that she will not be passing on the names/contact info until she has had a chance to watch at least one episode of the show to make certain it’s not obviously exploitative.

I live life with a commentary track. It’s pretty much the opposite of being in the moment. I’m almost never in the moment - I’m usually reserving some portion of my brain to pay attention to what I’m doing instead of just doing it. I noticed this yesterday, at an audition, and once I started noticing it it just got worse and worse. When I’m acting, I tend to think of it as being “meta” - noticing how I’m playing a character and consciously adjusting it instead of just doing it. I’m much better when I just do it - jump fearlessly into someone else’s body with both feet - but sometimes it’s hard to turn the narration off. There are days when it’s harder to be fearless.

One of the things I like about kinky sex is its ability to overwhelm my capability for observation. I have more fun when I can turn off my brain too, it’s not just a reign for talent. Sometimes I think it’s as though the gestalt me has only so much energy to go around - it can fuel my body and my soul or my mind… but not necessarily all at once. It’s not so much that turning my brain on turns my body off, but the second I start running in that parallel track too something goes away. It’s as though by noticing what’s going on I lose the ability to fully experience it. Which is a more accurate summation of the issue… I don’t need to turn off my brain, I just need to keep it focused on one thing at a time.

I think this may be at the root of why I sometimes have difficulty having orgasms with other people. I start thinking about it too much. Mind you, this sometimes happens when I’m trying to have orgasms with myself too, but I have a field-tested remedy for that problem. There are certain pieces of erotic literature that are pretty much guaranteed to get me off. It doesn’t matter how many times I read them, I fall into the story and the sex and *boom.* I stop thinking about anything else and all of a sudden it becomes easy.

I love the times when I’m with someone and all of a sudden everything collapses into the present. It’s exhilarating talking, arguing, listening, snuggling, fucking, dancing, fighting, anything when that’s the only thing going on into your brain. I tend to remember those moments a long time. Even when there’s nothing sexual going on, the feeling of connection - to another person, to the moment - gives a similar sort of thrill. I experience the same kind of excitement, sometimes, when I’m making music with a group and everything snaps into place. Time flies when you are the harmony, the conversation, the dance, the sex, the moment… and then it passes and everything is fragmented again and demanding of comment.

Kink makes it easier to find those times. When the pain moves from excruciating to exquisite. When your brain stops thinking that it wants to give in and just does it. When your focus moves two feet to the left, or into the next room, or wherever it’s supposed to be that is entirely outside yourself. To an extent it has to do with intensity, but not entirely. It’s slightly circular logic, but kink works for me when it demands my ability to be present, and because it demands my ability to be present. That’s why I fantasize about the things I fantasize about:

A slap across the face
Teeth locked on my shoulder
Hands holding me down
Knife to my throat
Whip cutting my skin

They are things that are impossible to ignore. They are things you live instead of thinking about, because you can’t afford to be distracted. They are things that tie you to the moment… nothing meta about them at all.