I'm still taking a break, really I am...

If I mentioned that it was about 9:30am and I had forgone the coffee today and gone right to pina colada wine coolers, would you think less of me?

It's an awful gray and rainy day here and the only thing that looks good to me is the soft wear on my cream colored sheets, tangled up in my cinnamon colored comforter. I could really love the constantly growling rumble of thunder and the ping and patter of rain against the house if I were mixed in among those bed covers and the tips of my fingers traced a certain spine from it's skull base to it's final rounded destination.

It's been too long since I've had the pleasure of sharing myself completely with someone else. Not just the sticky touches, not just the trembling rise in physical need but the word by word seduction of two minds.

Something to think on...

I am still taking a break. No one get excited. I thought this might break up the monotony for those of you who are still here, checking in daily, wondering when I'll be back.

As I may have mentioned, my youngest sister, The Pretty One, who is not quite twenty, is engaged. She is supposed to be married in January to a young man who I hate. It isn't fair that I hate him. Hell, I hardly know him. But I know all about the vast, cavernous distance between the dream of marriage and the reality of marriage. Anyone who insists on dangling my darling, naive, little sister over that gorge goes directly on my shit list regardless of his war hero status or his rippling abs. Huh. War hero: A heavy drinking, childish, brutish, twenty four year old airman, who joined the Air Force because he didn't have anything better to do and was sent (much to his dismay) to the desert to clean sand out of the high tech equipment used by service men with much higher ASVAB* scores than his. Sorry, I'm getting away from my point here.

*ASVAB is the Armed Services Aptitude Test. The test indicates which career fields are best suited to individuals joining the military.

I came across this poem in one of the anthologies I own that really echoes my feelings about her up coming wedding.

Poem Not to Be Read at Your Wedding ~ Beth Ann Fennelly

You ask me for a poem about love
in lieu of a wedding present, trying to save me
money. For three nights I've lain under
glow-in-the-dark stars I've stuck to the ceiling
over my bed. I've listened to the songs
of the galaxy. Well Carmen, I would rather
give you your third set of steak knives
than tell you what I know. Let me find you
some other store-bought present. Don't
make me warn you of stars, how they see us
from that distance as miniature and breakable,
from the bride who tops the wedding cake
to the Mary on Pinto dashboards
holding her ripe heart in her hands.

Time Out

I need a break from daily blogging. You may have noticed that my posts have been unusually short and the content relatively flimsy.

I am in transition. My personal space, my daily routine, my long and short term goals are all shifting. It's a good thing but a distracting one. Or maybe it's the blog that is distracting. Either way I'm going to back away for a little while. For some reason this Sarah McLachlan song is stuck in my head:

Black and White

unravel me
a distant cord
on the outside is forgotten
a constant need

to get along
and the animal awakens
and all I feel is black and white

the road is long
the memory slides
to the whole of my undoing
put aside
I put away
I push it back to get through each day
and all I feel is black and white
and I'm wound up small and tight
and I don't know who I am

everybody loves you when you're easy
everybody hates when you're a bore
everyone is waiting for your entrance so
don't disappoint them

unravel me
untie this chord
the very centre of our union
is caving in
I can't endure
I am the archive of our failure

and all I feel is black and white
and I'm wound up small and tight
and I don't know who I am

everybody loves you when you're easy
everybody hates when you're a bore
everyone is waiting for your entrance so
don't disappoint them

everybody loves you when you're easy so
don't disappoint them

don't disappoint them ...

It fits in ways I can't explain and some that you can probably guess. Play nice while I'm gone kids.

Thinking you up

My best friend believes that if you think about someone hard enough and long enough you'll magically draw them to you. She calls it thinking someone up. I admit I've seen it happen. Often when I have a loved one on my mind, they call out of the blue or show up in my e-mail inbox or I later find out that they were, for one reason or another, thinking of me at the same time.

How far can this magic reach I wonder? If I suddenly find myself preoccupied with someone I haven't seen in a long time, did they think me up?

Separation Anxiety

Today was the second trial run of preschool before my daughter starts the five day a week program on Monday. She has talked about school all week. She has talked about playing in the park and getting to use the computer. She excitedly talked about seeing her teachers again and showing them her new dress and her new boo-boo. (The boo-boo being a crusty scraped up knee, earned when she went leaping down the concrete steps out of her grandparent's house.)

Apparently, all her enthusiasm was more hypothetical than literal. When she woke up this morning we had this conversation:

Little One: I can't go to school on Friday.
Me: It is Friday silly, you go to school today.
Little One: No! I not go to school!
Me: Why not?
Little One: I go to the store with Mommy.
Me: Mommy's not going to the store today. I have work today and you need to go to school.
Little One: No! I will cry.
Me: It's ok if you cry a little but you'll have fun too, right? On the park and playing computer?
Little One: *silent frown*
Me: Don't you want to see your teacher?
Little One: No. I want chocolate milk.
Me: *sigh* Ok. Let's have some chocolate milk and we'll talk about school after.

I had hoped that chocolate milk would sweeten her disposition. It did not. She cried big, slippery tears all the way to school. After much bargaining with her she told me good bye between sobs. At least I didn't cry this time.

As I drove home I kept telling myself that this is good for her. She needs to interact with other kids and I can't provide that for her at home. She needs the stimulation school can offer because she is bored here at home all day. Truth is, I need this. I need to start feeling like I belong to myself for a few hours each day. Still, I felt heavy all the way home. Like my t-shirt was made of stones.

Do jalapenos cause nightmares?

Last night I dreamed that I received a call from the dean of the college where my husband works. She informed me that he had not been showing up for work and that he was fired. When I confronted him with this information he confessed that he had two other wives, one who had a baby with him. He said he hadn't been at work because he was trying to spend time with all three wives, including me. He just kept laughing while he told me. It was like an incredibly funny practical joke to him. My daughter was standing in the door way crying. She kept saying "I want a brother!"

I woke up to a tickle around my face and found a tiny black beetle crawling into my ear. (Go ahead and squeal, EWWWWW. I did.)

Anyone care to analyze that? Please tell me tiny black beetles aren't messengers of disaster or something.

This is why law abiding citizens don't trust cops.

Last night when I finally headed home after having a wonderful dinner with sunShine it was nearly 10pm. Thank god for the gallon of iced coffee I picked up at Dunkin Donuts (hazelnut flavored if you must know but only because they were out of toasted almond) because otherwise I would have fallen asleep on the way home. It was after eleven when I pulled off the interstate and hit the very small state road that runs past the family farm.

I had just crossed my county line when it happened. I was driving along minding my own business and suddenly from the opposite side of the road two headlights appeared and then headed straight for me. This car had been sitting on the other side of the road lights off, laying in wait. It swung in behind me and began to ride so close on my bumper that I was afraid it would hit me. I was a woman alone, in the pitch black dark on a very deserted road with some maniac trying to ram my car, I was terrified.

I had been going about sixty miles an hour. The speed limit there is fifty five. I wasn't doing anything wrong and this car, who was now weaving around behind me at very close range was not topped by flashing blue lights so I had no reason to believe it was a cop car. I was very close to home so I sped up, thinking I had to get into my personal drive way before this nut hit me. If I could just get onto our dirt road I could lay on the horn alerting my family and surely the crazy serial rapist or thrill killer would be deterred. Worse come to worse, he'd get shot by my husband or father in law before he could do me much harm.

This terror went on for a solid mile and a half, me steadily gaining speed and the car right on my ass the entire time. I was doing 80 and could see my street sign when the asshole state patrol man decided he'd had enough fun and hit his siren. I was completely frazzled and thought about making him follow me to my drive way before pulling over. However, he was insistent, revving up along side of me and pointing to the side of the road with his dome light on so I could see his big hat and serious face. I pulled over. I was not relieved by the fact that my stalker was a police man. A cop who will harass passing motorists in the middle of the night obviously has a twisted definition of serve and protect.

I was shaking and crying when he shined his huge mag-light in the window asking to see my driver's license. He made mention of the county listed on my plates not being the same as the county on my license. I explained that we had just moved. He told me I was speeding. I timidly told him I wasn't really speeding until HE started chasing me. He snickered and wrote me a warning. I had a sick feeling in my stomach as I turned down our road. I have never been so happy to see the porch lights on at both the family houses as I crossed the cattle gap.

A Crisis of Faith

Last night I lay in the tub trying to soak away a days worth of dirty dishes, four loads of laundry, and the smell of beef, onions and garlic I absorbed while preparing dinner. I brought a Tom Robbins book into the bathtub with me. A novel I've been meaning to read but hadn't unpacked until last week. Two water stained pages later I found myself asking my pink disposable razor, "where does he get this stuff?" Reading Tom, I am painfully aware that I will never be able to create or control imagery as he does. For that matter, everything I read is full of striking allegories and all the other highschool English vocabulary words to which I should have paid more attention. I am ashamed to admit that for all my fumbling insistence that I know what I'm doing I have to look up such words to verify their meaning.

Lately I am overcome with self-consciousness about what I write. I have decided I am not nearly as good as I think I am. While I know you all have and will lavish me with compliments I must balance your praise with a certain humble cynicism. Anyone who would give my pathetic attempts a good review is likely seeking, or trying to keep my friendship, my allegiance, or trying to fuck me in either the physical or figurative sense. This is the feeling that keeps me from going the next step. This absence of faith drives me away from the very activities that could lend credence to my abilities.

It's like in my second year of college when my favorite English professor demanded that I submit poems for publication. After they were in print along side the work of several other students he began inviting me to gatherings with other writers. Most of them were other students, my peers, my competitors, my sworn enemies. Being at these parties and meetings made me sweat and bite my nails. The other guests always seemed completely at ease, laughing quickly at jokes and puns cleverly devised from literary knowledge and nodding thoughtfully while discussing poets I'd never heard of. I would excuse myself early from these events and drive off in tears feeling so inadequate that I could barely stop myself from crossing into on coming traffic to relieve my anxiety. I stopped going to these functions. When circumstances made it necessary to leave college I let my fragile network of supporters fall apart.

So now, this fear once again manifests itself in one from or another. Everything I create seems incredibly boring to me. Each phrase seems an asinine attempt to make the potential reader believe the wheel is a new invention. Every vice and virtue, tragedy and joy I could describe has already been expressed by a thousand people who are better read and better spoken than I could ever hope to be. I realize that each writer, including me, has his or her own unique and charming voice, a special point of veiw the reader can learn from. Still, you never really hear your own voice. It vibrates in your head and is filtered through the web of your narcissism, distorting it until you don't recognize it read back to you. Knowing this, I find every excuse not to write one more over used plot or cliche character. I look at the graphic sex scene I've described and I'm repulsed by my lack of originality. I delete entire posts before they are published. I rip pages out of my journal and I send entire word documents to the recycling bin.

This may sound like an obvious attempt to solicit petting from the hands of my loyal fans but it's really not about needing praise. It's about owning up to my weaknesses. It's about confessing my total lack of self confidence to the very small crowd I've long tried to impress. See, while you were distracted by the shiny object in my right hand, I hid my lack of talent with my left. In admitting imperfection I give myself room to improve. We are all cowards behind the shield of our loved ones, our achievements, our scathing wit, good looks or whatever illusion we can conjure. I am just stepping out from behind my protective gear for a moment.

What goes up must come down

Thank you everyone for wishing me well on my birthday!

My birthday party, the first of it's kind in many years, was an overwhelming success. Friends and family came from all over, some of them driving up to five hours to be there. By the end of the day the total guest count was 34. I didn't even think I knew that many people! My in laws put on an amazing country bar-b-que and once we had all stuffed ourselves we split the crowd in two. My friend from Florida who I've known for 15 years, her husband and three kids, two of them three month old twins, sunShine and her husband, my husband's criminal but charming first cousin and my extremely animated yankee neighbor retired to my house. Corona with lime, good conversation and side splitting laughter kept us up way past our bed time. I got gifts and I loved them all. However, the best gifts were seeing both my sisters in the same day, comparing adulthood with the only friend who's known me since I was a virgin, hugging sunShine and rubbing her growing belly, seeing my husband smile, talk and keep everyone laughing with his rarely unleashed sense of humor.

I will be having a nice quiet dinner with sunShine soon because it was impossible to catch up during the excitement of Saturday night. I haven't been able to check my PMB but I have been informed that there are packages and cards there. I'm planning on getting them tomorrow and I can't wait. I did receive poetry and a breath taking black and white photo from my girl crush in Tulsa. Thank you, beautiful!

I wish the weekend had ended with some sort of tender moment between my husband and I but instead we had a weird argument last night. Well I'm not sure if "argument" is the right word. I was in the bath chattering away about the weekend while he brushed his teeth and got ready for bed. He made an angry remark about something I said. I asked him to explain what he meant and he became so angry that he stood over the tub screaming and pointing at me for 15 minutes. I was not just hurt but shocked because I honestly couldn't figure out what in the hell I had said to make him so furious. We went to bed mad and I had a hard time sleeping. He barely spoke to me this morning.

Thirty

Well, today is the big day. Funny how certain ages seem so old to you until you actually experience them. Thirty feels awfully young this morning. As if this day was not already momentous enough it is also my daughters first ever day at preschool. I am so nervous I feel sick to my stomach. Never in her little life have I left her in the care of anyone besides a grandparent or beloved aunt. If she cries when I leave her I think I'll have a full blown break down in the hall outside her classroom door.

A Dark Mood (sexual content)

I had fully intended to write some warm, sensual, sappy piece of fiction this morning but quite frankly I am not in the mood. I feel dark today. I'm a little angry, a little frustrated, a little sick and tired of trying to ignore my own needs just because everyone else does. It's not like me really, this almost insane selfishness. It is not only my nature, but my job as a wife and mother to anticipate the needs of others and see to them before my own. It is my personality to be tolerant of the ones I love no matter how their actions or lack of actions hurt me. Well fuck that. Fuck them.

Today isn't a day for romantic trysts or emotional confessions. Today is a good day to suck off a stranger. Find a chat room and look for someone local to meet at a really sleazy motel in the next town over. Maybe someone old enough to be my father. Just some dirty old man who is just looking for a wet hole and someone who will squirm beneath him until the viagra wears off. (I am venting here people, no one take this too seriously.)



Pulling up in the office drive I was struck by just how worn and dirty the place was. The brick facade was crumbling in several places and there were boards over the scortched windows at one end of the U shaped Easy Rest Motel. The neon sign flickered and hummed like a bug zapper informing insects that it still had vacancy for a few more electrocuted exoskeletons below it. I entered through the glass door that held a sign informing patrons that the desk clerk did not keep large bills in the register nor did he have access to the safe. You have to wonder if the caliber of criminals that would hold up a cheap motel would really heed such a warning.

"I am meeting someone here. He left a key for me." I said, suddenly realizing how nervous I was and pulling the long coat I was wearing around me. The clerk eyed me knowingly, looking me up and down. What kind of girl wears a knee length rain coat on a warm, clear evening in June? The kind that isn't wearing much underneath it.

"Name?" He asked bluntly. I had the overwhelming urge to bite my nails. I didn't know whether the clerk meant my name or his but I didn't really know his name. I doubted he had checked in as sugardaddy_55. The clerk stared at me demandingly. "Name?" He repeated, saying it slowly for emphasis, as if I might not be familiar with the English language.

"My name is Christine." I said with a dry mouth. I should have given sugardaddy_55 a fictitious name. Of course I wasn't exactly thinking clearly or I wouldn't be here in the first place. The clerk slid a key at me from across the counter with a smirk. The big green plastic tag had a big gold 10 on it.

The room was cold and dark. The only light was the setting sun filtered through the heavy, grimy drapes that were pulled across the big window. I leaned against the door, breathing heavy in anticipation of the reckless and unsavory behavior I was about to indulge in. He sat on the edge of the bed, his back to me. I could see his wild and graying hair and his pale, pudgy flesh. He was nude. He was smoking. I nasty habit I never liked and I coughed as the cigarette haze surrounded me.

"Are you wearing what I asked?" Was the greeting he gave me, not even turning to look at me.

"Of course." I replied. We had already discussed the way this would go and I had agreed to be compliant. I opened the rain coat, it's plastic protection had held in my nervous heat and I was sweating slightly beneath it. The minute the cold breath of the air conditioner touched my skin I was covered in goosebumps. My nipples protruded lewdly from the pink fabric of my short cotton nighty. It was trimmed in white ruffles and ribbon, purchased earlier in the day from the discount department store he had suggested.

"Come here and show me." Said the gruff voice from across the room. He did not turn his head until I was nearly at his side. He looked at me then, his sharp, ice blue eyes appraising me lustily and licked his lips. "Perrrfect." He purred and reached out pulling me to him.

My nerves were frazzled by this bizarre game I was playing. Every thing in me screamed that this was a very very bad idea. Except for the devil in my right ear who was cooing about how good a strange cock would feel inside me. That slippery voice that said I was going to enjoy every minute of this old geezer shoving his ash tray flavored tongue in my mouth. My pussy, agreed with an throbbing pulse and drooling lips. The man was groping my breasts through the soft nighty. With a hungry sounding moan he began to kiss my neck and the exposed flesh above the sweetheart neckline of my gown. I sank into the sensation. My eyes shut tight, letting my body respond as it would and letting that impish voice drown out the moral and sensible warnings in my head.

The pink, girlish shortie gown stayed on. My new found friend discovered with his roaming hands that I had not worn panties. Although this had also been at his requested he acted shocked.

"What a slutty girl you are!" He exclaimed pushing me down across the bed roughly.

"I think you need to learn a lesson." He rambled on as he pushed the ruffles of my night gown up around my hips exposing my bottom. I knew he was going to spank me and I whimpered as I hid my face in the stained, royal blue and yellow flowers of the bedspread.

The first smack stung. The next was a little heavier. He continued, the crack of his palm against my reddened flesh a cadence. The stinging seemed nearly unbearable but each swat made me wetter, made me squirm and rub my swollen clit against the squeaky queen sized bed. His voice rose and fell, telling me how bad I was, how dirty I was. I felt tears leaking from my eyes. My pussy's wetness was now puddling on the synthetic material of the bed covering. By the time he stopped I knew my backside was fire engine red, I could feel the outline of his hand print in a dozen different places across my ass. Now he reached beneath me feeling the slippery proof of my excitement. I humped his hand. Desperate for a taste of relief, the need for which drove me here in the first place.

Sitting behind me on the bed he pulled me up to sit against him. I spread my legs as his hand found my clit again. He looked over my heaving breasts, moving the pink gown so he could watch his fingers slip in and out of my needy cunt. He murmered to me "You love this don't you?" and "God your pussy is so tight and hot, I can't wait to put my cock in it." My own murmered replies became less and less coherent as I reached climax. Finally I felt the intense grip of orgasm and the sleazy, dark motel room melted away, taking with it all my aggravations and anxieties. Riding the wave of pleasure I forgot all about unrequited affections, absent lovers, and the seething sexual frustration that seemed to permeate my life.

Excuse me for a minute while I throw a tantrum

Some pointers for my husband who will never bother to read this anyway unless he is provoked by some paranoid delusion:

1. If I ask you to help me put some aloe vera gel on my extremely sunburned back a gentle touch is mandatory. I realize you didn't want to help with it in the first place but have a little sympathy, will you? My arms don't bend that way and my skin is on fire. Do you want me to ask someone else to rub my bare skin down with something slippery? I didn't think so.

2. Furthermore some touching of any sort outside of the mandatory hug and peck would be nice. I know you had to touch me that way for an entire 4 days on our vacation but you've had plenty of time to recover.

3. Would it fucking kill you to pay me a compliment? I don't mean saying "You look fine" when prompted by a question about my hair or clothes. Think about it for a minute. I am sure you can find SOMETHING attractive about me that you are willing to vocalize.

4. Get a clue. I can name five people who appreciate me more than my own husband does. That is sad.

In the dark, I like to read his mind...

There was no reason for me to have trouble sleeping last night. I was genuinely tired when I crawled into bed around 10pm. Yet, I did not want to turn out the light. I find being alone in the dark with nothing but my thoughts dangerous. So I left the bedside lamp on and wrapped myself in the distraction of a book. I read, my eyes stinging and worn out until my husband, who had not been paying any attention to me at all since we came to bed, suddenly stopped snoring and demanded I turn out the cursed light or go somewhere else to read. Realizing that it was now nearly midnight and that my daughter would be up demanding chocolate milk in less than seven hours, I put the book down and switched off the light.

Each time sleep would slip around my mind certain sounds and images would rudely enter my early dreams, uninvited. I finally talked myself out of these dreams, as I've done many times before and fell into a black, quiet slumber for a few hours.

At just past 3am I woke up in a sweaty tangle. My pillows were hot. I threw off the covers and laid there waiting for the bedroom fan to cool my damp skin. Oddly enough, there seemed to be no movement in the humid air so I got up and shuffled through the dimly lit house to check the thermostat. 72 degrees as always. I decided I must be having some sort of hormonally driven hot flash and went back to bed. Laying there, my pajama bottoms suddenly felt too tight so I stripped them off and tossed them to the end of the bed. I tossed and turned for another half an hour before deciding that my t-shirt was itchy. So I shed that too and laid there finally cool and comfortable, nude except for a pair of faded, black, low-rise panties.

Unfortunately, my newly attained freedom from clothing did not help me sleep. It seemed that every inch of my bare skin had become an awakened erogenous zone. Everything from the sheets to the stripe of starlight that snuck past the curtains to illuminate the milky white curve of my breasts seemed arousing. I turned over on my stomach and hid my head in the pillow wondering if my husband would hear if I screamed my irritation into it. Instead, I quietly found another form of release and drifted off to sleep. The dreams I had worked so hard to rid myself of earlier came back like thieves who were apparently just casing the joint before. I woke up angry with myself for letting them in.

The Memory of Things Lost

It was not quite summer, just before my 16th birthday when a skinny, sandy haired, pimple faced, neighborhood boy began calling and inviting me to walk here or there with him. I knew him because he got on the school bus at my stop. A fact that should have seemed suspicious since Dan lived on the other side of the air base, several bus stops away from my corner. He had also passed me a series of notes over the seats of that bus. The notes made ridiculous claims about him wanting to be smothered by my big beautiful breasts, which were unusually large for a girl my age. The notes also swore that he was in love with every voluptuous inch of me. In my insecure and virginal ignorance I believed every single one of the letters to be a cruel joke. I had been taunted this way before. For example, in the 8th grade a popular boy in my class told me he wanted to take me to the Valentine's dance. When I accepted that invitation with breathless excitement he yelled out "NOT!" sending his friends into a fit of laughter and applause. There were several incidents like that in my early teens and by fifteen I had learned a sort of bitter pessimism that protected me from such horrors.

Still, when Dan asked me to hang out with him that warm night I was bored and feeling desperate. I had just been dumped by another boy, a really ugly and unpopular senior that had tried to end my virginity in the murky, swamp-like woods just a month or so earlier. I had been so uncomfortable, so unattracted to him, that his attempts were futile. His pencil thin but youthfully hard member had battered away at the delicate, unlubricated door of my womanhood but did not gain entry. The school year was ending. I had been shamed by my involvement with the older guy and I was nearly friendless. A walk with Dan was better than an evening spent weeping by the radio in my room.

That walk led to a second one and then a third. After that there were constant calls and more notes passed until the last day of school. Being too young to drive we walked all over the base on dates, going to the movies, getting ice cream at the BX and swimming in the community pool. His attention was different, better, than anything else I had experienced. Seven days after my sixteenth birthday he invited me to his house to eat dinner and watch a movie. As I walked up to his house that steamy summer afternoon I noticed that his family car was not in the drive. My heart thumped in my chest and I wondered if he had stood me up. Had he forgotten about inviting me? Or maybe he lied and the past month had been one big practical joke.

With a shaking hand I rang the door bell and was relieved when he opened the door right away. He stood there with his sun bleached hair and dark tan, grinning like he'd just heard a scandalous secret. He invited me in and the house was oddly quiet. I inquired about his parents and twin brother and sister, who usually greeted me noisily. He winked and told me they were gone for the weekend. Even as young and inexperienced as I was I knew what he must be thinking and my face felt as hot as the Georgia sun despite standing in the air-conditioned hall. I wasn't so sure I wanted to go through with what the situation implied and my mind swirled with uncertainty. Seeing my trepidation he leaned and kissed me gently. The alarms going off in my head grew quiet and then disappeared. He led me into the kitchen where he had managed to prepare spaghetti for the two of us. The food was not memorable but the creamy peach colored rose he gave me afterward was, being the first flower anyone had ever given me.

I found myself standing in the kitchen doorway, caught up in an endless kiss. It was never the sloppy wet invasion of normal teenage kisses with Dan. He was a natural. His tongue darted playfully against mine. The electric tease of his teeth and lips sent new sensations coursing to the tips of my nipples which stood proudly erect from my delicately pink, button front blouse. When his arms slipped casually around my waist and his hands found there warm way to the back pockets of my khaki shorts I felt a quiver between my legs and a warm wetness growing there. It seemed to go on forever and the more aroused I became, the weaker my knees felt. I had been touching myself for years but no one else had ever brought my body to attention that way. My head spinning, my knees giving way I knew I had to get off my feet.

"Can we sit down? My feet are tired." I whispered into his ear between kisses. My feet weren't exactly tired but I didn't know how to tell him I was so excited I felt like I might faint.

Without a word he led me to his bedroom and although my mind threw out a thousand objections my body followed obediently behind it's new desire. The mattress was old and soft, the sheets cool and clean. Everything seemed to happen in a slow blur. My blouse fell away as if by magic and I my hands tugged the t-shirt off his body without me thinking about the consequence. His erection was obvious, straining against his shorts, a dark wet spot forming. Our mouths were everywhere. His lips touched my bare breasts, sucked in my nipples which had become painfully hard. I found myself whimpering and moaning, sounds I was not accustomed to nor could I control.

When I realized our pants and underwear had been tossed aside and his hips were pressed against my thighs I should have been afraid. I should have remembered the awkward and painful night in the woods beneath someone else. This, however, was completely different. The weak light of sunset poured through his bedroom window and he continued to rub his body along mine. Panting and kissing he didn't try and force my legs open or talk me into going further. I simply felt hungry in away I never had before and opened my legs without being asked.

What I remember most about that moment of entry was the heat and feeling full, stretched. It didn't hurt, not in the mythical proportions other girls whispered about, although I would be very sore later. The friction of our bodies together, the groaning sounds of our pleasure and the very new and intense feeling of being penetrated was overwhelming. If I had an orgasm I do not remember it but I remember his. I stared in awe of his tensing body, an almost agonized expression on his face melting into a blissful gratitude as he looked down into my crying green eyes.

Afterward I sobbed in his arms, sure he'd dump me before the summer ended and my reputation, which was already sketchy, would be ruined for good. He did his very best to reassure me and told me he loved me, a promise I couldn't really believe at the time. I'm not sure I ever really believed it, even after he slipped the cheap gold band on my finger the day I turned eighteen. Our life together was a rollercoaster of surreal highs and crushing lows. If we had not divorced at the tender age of 23 we would be celebrating our 12th wedding anniversary on my birthday. Will he even remember? Does June turn his mind to sticky Georgia summers and the brine scented Mississippi coast? Will he catch himself wistfully trying to recall the face of the girl he called Pretty Baby for more than 8 years?

I hope so. I hope that he is endlessly haunted by every smile, caress, and salty tear he shared with me.

One last lame post before the weekend

I read a book when I was young teenager about two kids that were trapped inside their home during a catastrophic flood. The flood waters picked the house up and carried it along the river for several days. I can not remember the name of the book but I am pretty sure if the torrential rain we've been having the last 3 days does not subside I will find myself in the same situation. This lovely modular home I'm living in is going to make one hell of a party barge.

It is 9:23 am. I should be at the bank. I should be running errands. Instead, I am in my pajamas, unshowered, cranky and if you must know, crampy. I comforted myself with a bowl of cream-of-wheat for breakfast. Apparently, I am the only non-hispanic person in the south who eats cream-of-wheat. I was raised on the stuff. My mom used to melt chocolate chips into it as a special treat. Here, everyone eats grits. I find grits, well, gritty. Not to mention, my in-laws like their grits with cheese or bacon and often serve them at dinner, especially with fish, which seems terribly bizarre to me. In the one local grocery store, which is relatively devoid of variety and short on selection I actually had trouble finding cream-of-wheat. I eventually discovered it in the ethnic foods section under the name Farina.

In boring you with my thoughts on breakfast cereal I realize that my posts this week have been really lame. I have several excuses, including exhaustion, health issues, and the fact that I am totally absorbed in a book I'm reading, Handling Sin by Michael Malone. I promise this will be the last mind numbing post this week and maybe next week will be better.

Wishlist

Here's my Amazon wishlist for those of you interested.

Half-Ass Posting (my heart's just not in it today)

Those of you who only hang around here waiting for me to post something naughty are once again out of luck. Normally, I'd tell you to go read yesterday's post at Heads or Tales. However, Thomas is woefully behind schedule lately. Apparently he's tied up at work. Well, not literally. If he was I'm sure he'd chronicle the experience typing with his nose or more likely tongue if he had to.

I am weary and tired to my bones today. I haven't had a good nights sleep in a week between vacation, waking early to drive off in all directions, running errands and staying up late doing this or that for one person or another. I am beat. If I could have three wishes right now I wouldn't choose anything terribly grand. I'd want a full body massage complete with a happy ending, a beer (Killian's Irish Red) and a nap. In that order.

In case any of you have forgotten there are now only 8 shopping days left until my birthday. Don't know where to send your gift? E-mail me, I've got one of those private mailbox thingies. Of course any of you willing to mail me gifts probably already have my home address. Anyway... Just thought I'd mention. It has been suggested by family members that a pig roast should be held here in honor of my birthday. They intend to invite all the crazy locals along with my handful of friends and family. We'll see... I am not so sure I like the idea.

Gynecological Rant

For those of you who are squeamish about women's health issues or generally bothered by subjects that fall into the TMI category (of course, if the later applies to you probably shouldn't be reading this blog at all) now might be a good time to go read your other favorite blogs. I spent the last 3 hours or so being prodded and penetrated by my new gynecologist and I am feeling rather cranky about the whole affair.

I am a good shepard of my health and faithfully endure my annual exam much like I endure the gritty torture of my twice yearly cleanings at the dentist. However, like the rest of us, I generally avoid doctors, especially the OBGYN type. For those of you not in the loop, that's a doctor who practices obstetrics and gynecology, or as my husband, who is better educated than the majority of the people I know, says.. "a wimmin doctor." Still, when something hurts, or goes numb, bleeds when it shouldn't or doesn't bleed when it should I am forced to drag myself before the white coats and submit to a litany of questions, accusations and humiliating procedures.

I have had bad luck with OBGYNs. The only good one I ever had was the one who oversaw my fertility treatments and delivered my daughter. He retired after contracting Hepatitis C about 6 months after I gave birth. Since then I have seen a handful of physicians who all gave credence to the concept of "practicing" medicine since none of them seemed to have a clue what they were doing despite their confident facades. This particular round of doctors tried me on three types of birth control pills, none of which are actually being used for contraception but to treat some other malady and all of which have caused me more harm than cure. If you're wondering why an otherwise healthy woman would need to see a gynecologist so frequently I'll assure you that it's not because of my scandalous past or present behavior nor is it a kinky fetish I like to indulge. I have an endocrine condition that causes my ovaries to malfunction. It has a name, it's complicated, it's prevented me from ever having more than one child and regularly causes me pain and aggravation.

So after enduring this last unsuccessful experiment in medication for six months I find myself suffering from a number of unpleasant side effects and decide it's time to once again find a physician who'd like to practice on me. Seeing as how we've moved I had to find a new doctor which, as it turns out, is probably a good thing. I sat in the office explaining to the good doctor and her lovely, nodding, smiling, appropriately compassionate assistant what was going on. She asked which contraceptive pills the previous OBGYN's had prescribed and as I answered she popped a hand on her hip and began to shake her head scoldingly. Letting out a long sigh she scribbled away at my chart. Apparently the contraceptives prescribed to me as a means to control my ovarian problems are the wrong sort of contraceptives for the job. In fact, they are contrary to the job and may possibly have made my condition worse. My unspoken response to this news was, fucking fabulous! Why am I not surprised?

Instantly I found myself physically examined and sent down the hall for an ultrasound. A vaginal ultrasound. For those of you who lack vaginas or simply have never heard of this procedure it's pretty simple. The same sort of tool used for a traditional ultrasound is molded into a nice wand shape and inserted into the vagina to get a grey and black, blurry image of your insides. The wand looks like any long skinny dildo. They even roll a condom over it before they stick it in. The part I love is when your laying there, feet in stir-ups, ass hanging off the table and they say to you "Now just relax..." as they molest you with this thing. I had to fight my urge to say to the radiologist, a girl who couldn't have been more than 19, "Honey, that's what they all say!" I really think they ought to invest in a pair of vibrating, latex bunny ears for this thing. If your going to shove something inside of me I at least want a little forplay, would some clitoral stimulation be too much to ask?

Having undergone the fully body cavity search I was allowed to dress and given numerous follow up appointments for blood work (more prodding) and future examinations (more molestation) and a prescription for yet another type of contraceptive pill, the right one this time according to the doctor. As I was paying my co-pay at the window it occurred to me that this doctor is practicing just like the rest of them, so who knows what fresh hell awaits me after I ingest these latest pills. I drove home with a giant headache and the annoying sensation of sticky, medical grade lubricant squishing out of me.

I am not happy.