The masochist's guide to novel-writing.

Ah, that time of the year seems to be rolling around. That's right (or "write" for those who speak only in puns), it's time for NaNoWriMo! I can't thank Jake enough for suggesting I enter this. It seems to be precisely what I need to get back in the writing thing/start and finish an actual project.

Here's the deal: starting November 1, I have to write on average 1,666 and 2/3 words a day until midnight of the last day of the month for a total of 50,000 words (about the length of a small novel). If I should succeed, I shall receive a nifty web banner to add to my blog as well as a printable certificate. It's not so much about the glory but the fact that I could pull off such a task. I shall start uploading on the NaNoWriMo website to track my progress. Granted, there's no way for them to prevent "cheating" but since it's not a contest in the technical sense, it's an honor code. Even if I'm not exactly an "honorable" woman in the traditional sense (what with the premarital sex and all), I do keep my word (or at least try to).

At the very least, I have a reason to write again (other than as my only ticket out of splitsville, Midwest). So, here are my ideas:

1) In the not so distant future, all "ethnic" foods will be banned in this country to encourage "cultural solidarity." And with them, all "ethnic" restaurants will go the way of the dinosaur: Thai, Chinese, Indian, Mexican, even Greek and Italian food? Forget it. In order to encourage people to eat in a more "family" environment, government sanctioned "Mom and Pop" restaurants will open in their wake serving old people buffet type items. "But isn't spaghetti and pizza Italian? Even hamburgers and hot dogs were German once, right?" Blasphemy. This is America, learn to eat American food. Besides, in order to strengthen the family unit, the bland horrible cafeteria food will only encourage mom to stay at home and cook. After all, a woman's place is in the kitchen.

But of course, like all totalitarian regimes, there shall be a resistance, in the most American way possible: Capitalism. Curry powder will be worth its weight in gold on the black market due to sanctions and bans on imported food. A "pan-Asian" restaurant in some nondescript town in the Midwest will help spark a rebellion by refusing to close its doors despite city council officials throwing the book at the second generation Filipino family living there. A little girl who once grew up ashamed of the "weird, smelly food" her parents lovingly packed for her every day for her school lunch will find pride in who she is, as she discovers what it means to be an American. For you see, once again, I will be yet another author who questions what it means to be American.

Meanwhile, a quirky female detective (the return of Jane Francisco perhaps?) with a taste for the past and a nose for trouble (ah, pulp cliches) will investigate what connects everything from a corpse found by the docks on some East coast port riddled with bullets and clutching a bag of tumeric/saffron/something colorful and exotic to the family restaurant in the Midwest.

* I may actually hold off doing this story until I do more research concerning spices, food and the like. It might not be good, but I at least want it to be delicious.

2) The lifetime of a building. I'm thinking of titling it "312 E Main" or some random address I come across in my wanderings. Here, I will experiment with setting and how a building can be a character in a story. Every chapter will take place in the building over the years from when it opens as a movie theater or restaurant or something and transforms over the years until it finally gets torn down amid protests to preserve it as a historical site. I figure here I could cheat a little as if I was writing a series of short stories as opposed to one continuous story line. Maybe I could play around with it and not write the chapters in chronological order. Either way, I'll need a lot of characters and a lot of dialogue and setting descriptions.

* This one I may go with since it seems more conducive to the spontaneity of NaNoWriMo.

So everyone who's doing this, bona fortuna!

Conversations with My Characters, Take 1

Right now I'm a bit bogged down in trying to complete at least the Alex/Rachel storyline of Variations on a Theme. So, I figured I'd try to have a conversation with Alex Maxwell to try to get to the root of it.

TIME: Night
PLACE: On my apartment balcony.

ME:
So, what do you think?

ALEX:
What do you think? Since when do you give a flying shit about us? We're just your pawns to put in place and make you some bucks.

ME:
...and I can't even do that right. This isn't about me though. This is about you, your story and why it isn't working.


ALEX:
You tell me.

ME:
I really couldn't. Otherwise why would I ask you?

ALEX:
(sighs and takes out a cigarette)

ME:
Since when do you smoke?

ALEX:
(lights and takes a long drag, holds cigarette at the between his index and middle finger at the knuckles) You should have been paying better attention. I know you wrote me to be the "type" who wouldn't smoke, but pushing us all off to the side for almost a year gave us a lot of time to pick up some interesting hobbies. You thought that your little breakup with what's-his-name messed you up? You have no idea what it's like to be completely cast aside and have nothing better to do, nowhere to go. I won't even get started on Rachel's coke addiction.

ME:
(laughs nervously) I'm sure her parents would be proud of that.

ALEX:
Speaking of parents, what the fuck is the deal with mine? You wrote my mother to be the stereotypical first-generation Filipina mom, to be the version of your mom you lived in fear of for years. All I know about my dad is that he's white. Is he even still around? I won't even get started on my brothers...

ME:
Please don't...I wanted to make your storyline as little about family as possible.

ALEX:
Right. And me having to comfort Rachel through the ordeal with her adoptive parents and her biological parents had nothing to do with family. Let me guess, my dad is the stereotypical WASP who keeps a cool distance from his family with a gin and tonic every night and working nights at the office or screwing his secretary.

ME:
I don' t know, I never thought--

ALEX:
Damn straight you never thought. We're not real people. You didn't make us that way. I don't feel real. All you did was make me into the male version of all the insecurities you had growing up, the insecurities you have in relationships. Worse yet, you divided those into both me and Rachel. And trying to put in my "favorite" music professor in at the last chapter as the "voice of reason" who makes me realize how wrong I've been about Rachel, what the fuck? Was this an attempt for me to find a father figure considering my father's rather noticable absence in the story, or what?

ME:
I had no idea--

ALEX:
That's all you ever say, isn't it? "I didn't know." "I had no idea." You really do sound like a broken record. Not to mention the tenuous way you tried to tie music into this story. What the hell sort of composer am I supposed to be anyway? It's amazing that I could get anything done consider all I think about is Rachel.

ME:
But you love her, right?

ALEX:
Damn right I do, and I don't understand why. You did this to me. You made her to be the only woman in the universe for me. You made me to be hers. But here's what I don't get, if we're so good for each other, why can't we be together? (looks at ME in a way halfway between pissed off enough to punch a wall and broken enough to slip up and let out one tear...just the one).

ME:
I don't know. That was the point. No one is supposed to know why some relationships don't work.

ALEX:
Well then, why did you have to fuck with mine for this experiment? You know full well how when someone becomes your everything, how much it can fuck you up when they decide to leave.

ME:
But Rachel didn't leave you. She's right outside your practice room almost every afternoon.

ALEX:
You made damn well sure that things couldn't be the same between us after that proposal-- which should have worked perfectly, I might add.

ME:
You forget that I was the one who wrote it.

ALEX:
And wrote that it failed.

ME:
But she stayed with you. There has to be something there, right?

ALEX:
You tell me.

ME:
I had so much hope for you two, that maybe if I could get it to work with you, I could--

ALEX:
Get things to work with what's-his-name?

ME:
That's really none of your business, but I guess I walked into that one.

ALEX:
(flicks the cigarette off the balcony)
You walked right into that one the minute you thought of me and Rachel. We're not you. You gave us life, or at least tried to, but you didn't give us enough. I know Rachel and I were there for each other for some of the most trying parts of our lives, but there has to be something else that connects us other than that, or the fantastic sex we had in college.

ME:
I guess that's why it's not supposed to work.

ALEX:
But of course, I want more than anything for it to work. It was the only purpose you gave me in this damn story. The music just seems superfluous in comparison, just an empty sensual metaphor to parallel with the main show of this car wreck of a failed relationship. You wanted me to be the type of Asian guy girls of any race could fall for. I just want Rachel no matter how she sees herself. You didn't need to make me hapa just to give me side identity politics-related angst.

ME:
I thought that it would be the main thing driving you two apart, how she's established herself in the Asian-American community where you just couldn't relate to anyone. I thought it would be just another example of how her outgoing nature conflicted with your introspective nature.

ALEX:
You're just making me emo and it's royally pissing me off.

ME:
(looks away toward the bridge)
Fuck.

ALEX:
You've got a lot of re-writing to do before I'd even consider letting you turn this in anywhere. I know that I love Rachel. She loves me. But you are right, sometimes things just don't work out when they're supposed to.

ME:
Well then, why are you making such a big stink about it though?

ALEX:
Because there's a better way of doing it. You wrote us to be so wrapped up in each other that it completely screwed with our realities. Show the reader that. Make them understand that before it was ok that we had our different circles, different ways of doing things. Show them that we have lives outside of each other, but that things will be irrevocably different once we part. Otherwise, who the fuck cares? Why would you write this story? Why would you create us?

ME:
(smirks)
Now who's being emo?

ALEX:
Shut the fuck up.
(lights another cigarette)
This conversation is over. It was your damn idea anyway.

Well...that was helpful?

The Spider Man and I

I fumble in a final search at the bottom of my jumbled purse for one of my lighters. Damn. Oh well, he'll have a light. I also have a matchbook in my leather jacket pocket, but it doesn't have the same allure as the flint flick of a lighter. Leaving my still-unzipped purse on the cluttered kitchen table, I open the front door.

I hang around the outside of my apartment looking down from the front balcony. This is one of the few occasions where I don't bother locking the door. The others are when I go downstairs to take out the recycling or garbage or when I go to do laundry. He'll come soon, the Spider Man. He'll come bearing a pack of Kamel Reds and a lighter so we can get this otherwise mundane weekend evening started.

Sure enough, he comes, always wearing dark clothes. Sometimes I worry that some dumbass drunk speed freak is going to hit him one of these nights as he crosses the street from his place down the alley to mine by the bridge. When we're both in each other's sights, we keep staring. I wonder if I need a new contact lens prescription. He seems blurrier than usual as he makes his way up the brown-painted wood outdoor stairs.

The first thing he asks me is if there are still enormous spiderwebs covering my building. I tell him I don't know since it's so dark. He looks at the lighting fixture above my head and points out the seven or so orb webs surrounding it as moths hover around the light. At some point, he tells me that this is one of the few reasons he's glad that he's short, so his head doesn't run into the webs. The moths seem to have no problem flying around and into the webs.

And this is why I call him the Spider Man. He's no superhero. He's just a guy with a preoccupation with spiders. After a brush with death resulting from a brown recluse bite as a kid, I can hardly blame him. Now as an adult, although he would hardly refer to himself as one, he hunts the wolf spiders around his duplex. 710. A really big one with an egg sac on its back. I vaguely recall the details of his last hunt as chronicled in his online journal. This is why I call him the Spider Man.

The first thing I ask him is for a light. He obliges with a flick of a green lighter similar to one I had for awhile. Maybe I left it at his place during one of my late night visitations, but I don't feel like asking him about it. After all, who knows how many green plastic lighters there are in this town. I tell him that I feel like a character in a film noir with my black leather jacket and pretentious British cigarettes (Dunhill lights, in a package of 20 Class A cigarettes minus the five I smoked earlier this week). I blow a bit of smoke into the light fixture causing the moths to rearrange their well-hidden positions on the brown wall. They pass into and out of the spiderwebs as easily as they pass into light out of shadow and back again.

For awhile, we watch in rapt attention at this live, in-your-face nature documentary of the cruelty of nature. Not so much the cruelty of the spider against the moth, but vice versa. He jokes about how the moths are being teases. I refer to them as the "catholic schoolgirls" of the insect world, flaunting about in their pleated skirts, barely covering their panties but giving enough of a glimpse to know what you're missing. I never went to Catholic school, but I still had the skirt.

From the look of it, the network of orb webs are a family complex. There are two larger spiders and several smaller clones around. The two larger spiders are probably females. The father was probably not so much a deadbeat dad who left the house as soon as the kids were born, but the first meal for the children. With him gone, everyone has to fend for themselves, which is probably what it would have been like even if he was still around. At least this way, they get one meal out of their father. Sometimes the large mama is lucky and hauls in a big catch of dusty wings and a bloated carcass. Even the little ones have to work to survive. In a tiny, nearly-ruined web still barely visible on the edge of the light, one of the little ones has caught a mosquito.

After awhile, my neck starts to creak. He tries to crack his neck and comments that he could possibly break his own neck in the process. I tell him that he shouldn't since I don't think I could dispose of a corpse as easily as the spiders can, that they probably wouldn't like him anyway since he's already been tasted.

I start to think of the brown marks slowly taking over his body since that first bite. I remember all the times I ran my tongue along his ribcage and stomach, all the times I ran my fingertips down his back. I didn't even know it had spread to his back until he turned on the light once after our late night visits before he put his clothes on to leave.

I think about the mark I had willingly had inflicted onto my back in bold blues and yellows. Maybe that was why I did it, to see if I could finally understand him. Then again, we've always been completely different creatures and gotten along fine with our limited understanding of each other.

The moths stop flying about and he and I are long finished with our cigarettes. We go in my apartment and fuck as usual, but this time, I don't lick his markings. I'm sure he's been tasted enough there already.

Why I Risk Death by Lethal Injection

I can't help but think "poor little guy/girl" whenever I see a spider peering up at me with those several compound eyes and crawling about on those spindly legs. This counters my roommates' instinctual response of "gaaagh! kill it!" instilled by horrific documentaries and internet photos of what supposedly happens to you after being bitten by certain spiders. Usually these photos are more fitting for flesh-eating virus after-pictures than a brush with an arachnid. Since we are hardly entomologists - even though my roommate is a biology major who took an internship studying the Japanese Beetle - we have no idea which are the harmless, "cuddly" spiders like Charlotte from "Charlotte's Web" or which ones are like the brown recluse which caused the rather distinctive scarring on my friend Mike's body. Naturally, this is a completely different story, but I'd like to think he wouldn't have been the same interesting person without his brush with death at a young age.

I jump in front of hurtling shoes. I allow potentially venomous creatures to crawl on my skin unscathed. I slowly slide open balcony and backyard doors as if handling an unmarked package left in front of a federal building. Why? It could be due to a superstition I read about how it is unlucky to kill spiders. Part of me thinks this is based on scientific fact since spiders catch other insects, the ones which are more likely to give you diseases due to their unhygienic ways. I figure that a small risk of stinging or being injected with toxic venom is worth not having to worry about botulism all over my kitchen countertop.

Also, I just relate to them. Wouldn't anybody? Spiders perform a useful, if little-known or underappreciated, service. I'm just the dumb kid in the mail room to most people. But somebody's got to send the books out to customers. Books don't just materialize out of thin air as soon as you place that online order, although I've received emails and phone calls from people who seem to carry that attitude.

So please, for all the dumb kids in the mail room, all the waiters and busboys, all the street sweepers and garbage collectors, please don't kill the spiders. Just do the kind thing and brush it into a glass, a small piece of paper, or even your hand if nothing else is available, and set the little guy/girl outside. They just might repay you by helping keep out the mosquitos, moths and houseflies.

If you don't, I'll bite you. After all, it won't be too hard to track down where you live since we keep your address and order on file.

On Needle Freaking

I invented the term "needle freaking" to explain my seemingly bizarre fascination with puncture injuries and the strange high I got while donating blood. A chill runs up my spine just thinking about the surgical steel needle running parallel to my arm until it forms an acute angle, penetrating my skin and tapping vein. A thrill would come over me as soon as I saw the words "Blood Drive" chalked on the quad or on fliers posted around campus. I looked forward to going in for blood work.

During the actual act of blood donation, I would lie there in pure bliss, feeling a cold - not hot - wave wash over me. I felt like my life was draining out of me, yet at the same time, it made me feel more aware of how alive I was. I would watch the blood course from my arm, down the clear plastic tubing into the pouch which always reminded me of a clear Capri Sun container. One time, I got up afterward to get some orange juice at the refreshment table and watched myself fall as nearby volunteers caught me and wheeled me over to a cot. I don't know which experience was more exciting, watching myself fall, or finding myself carried off almost instantaneously.

I used to watch documentaries about body suspension and how the experience was so intense that people would feel like they left their bodies, as I did the one time I donated blood a bit too fast. Scientists explained this by the fact that if pain is at a certain level of intensity, the brain releases endorphins, causing a pleasant high. A lot of these documentaries also covered ritual tattooing around the world, using simple implements like a hollow needle and wet ashes.

Some time during last summer, I decided that I wanted to take the next step in my fascination with needles and get a tattoo. After numerous schedule postponements due to my work schedule and the fact that Tilt (the owner of New Life who did my tattoo) forgot that he had something else going on that weekend, I finally got it done today.

It wasn't quite what I expected. Everyone I knew kept asking me if I was sure I wanted to do this. Even the people at New Life asked me if I was sure I wanted to get a tattoo. Yet I know I have no regrets and will not have any concerning this experience. I think life is just one opportunity after another to find new experiences and either learn from them or gain as much pleasure from them as possible. For awhile, I sort of saw this as my own rite of passage, as other cultures have used tattoos, but I remember that Adam at New Life says that usually people here tend to get tattoos due to aesthetic than any symbolic meaning.

This was definitely not like donating blood, since people weren't exactly nurturing. For one thing, when I said that my roommate had come to hold my hand, Tilt (jokingly, of course) said "No holding hands! If you pass out, you'll take her with you." I guess they act that way to add to the ambience of the tattoo place, or maybe some of them really are just jerks. Things were pretty cool for the most part, except for the random jabs at my roommate. I probably should have stood up for her and asked "hey, why are you being such an ass to my roommate?" but I didn't.

Also, the pain wasn't like donating blood either. Instead of a low, dull throb for a few minutes, it was a sort of whinging repeated sting. I knew it would be different, especially considering I was being stabbed with a needle countless times at a rapid speed. I honestly don't know how my tribal "counterparts" in the Philippines or elsewhere could deal with non-machine tattooing, with someone just stabbing your skin with a hollow needle slowly, sometimes on the face. I didn't really expect to feel any more "grown up" than before, but I figured I wanted something to commemorate my graduation.

I'm not sure which hurt worse, the actual tattooing or the antiseptic ointment they used to keep things clean, which felt a lot like how I imagine pouring gasoline on my skin and tossing a cigarette on it would feel. I definitely appreciated the attention to hygiene though. I expected pain, but seemed to be making a much bigger deal of it than anyone really wanted. However, I think the real reason for my alarm was that for some reason, my chest felt tight and I had difficulty breathing. With the occasional gasp of air and clutch at the chest, I would be all right in between needlings. The sensation reminded me of how I imagined the pavement feels when being jackhammered. I felt the rumbling on my shoulderblades, spine, and the back of my ribcage. It reverberated, shooting needles of pain that seemed to shoot through my organs and bounce back on the other side.

Occasionally people came in to talk to and just hang out with the artists. One girl was a bit drunk after a tailgate. There were some visuals of T&A with the unveiling of various tattoos. I sort of felt a bit concerned for Jenna since as she told me later, this definitely wasn't "her people." In all truth, I don't think they're really mine either. After all, above all other things, I am a tourist. I hung around UC Hip Hop and Illini Film and Video but never really got "involved." The woman next to me was getting a cardinal tattooed on her shoulder. She said nothing, and I think laughed once or twice at my frequent wincing. Tilt asked Jenna if she was named Jenna like the porn star Jenna Jameson, which people have asked her in the past. This naturally resulted in a conversation about porn and "getting off." Everyone knows how freely I talk about sex, but for some reason, I wasn't as comfortable about it, what with the occasional nervous laughter. Of course, if I wasn't comfortable with it, I figured Jenna probably wasn't either.

Three hours and $275 bucks (plus tip) later, it was finished. Joel, the apprentice (aka cute Asian guy, but you didn't read that here), bandaged me up with what looked like scotch tape and a paper towel with a layer of stinging antistptic and cocoa butter beneath it. As he was patching me up, he gave me the rundown of what I would have to do. The bandage would have to stay on overnight. Sunday, I would have to keep it as clean as possible using dye and fragrance-free antibacterial soap and dry it off with paper towels since bath towels harbor bacteria which would cause infection. I would have to keep it clean and dry for a couple of days and then start using cocoa butter around Tuesday or Wednesday.

Needless to say, after three hours in the chair slouching and getting repeatedly stabbed with a needle, I wanted to get out of there. Granted, I could have asked Tilt to do more, but I honestly wouldn't have known what to ask for since I thought it looked great the way it was. Not to mention the fact that I don't think I could have taken anymore needling or blatently abrasive/offensive dialogue hurled at either me or my roommate.

Still, a lot of it was fun. It was a bonding experience for me and Jenna since she went to get me water and drove me there and back. She also reinforced the scotch tape with medical tape. Liz wished she could have been there since she had to go to work but got to hear about it as soon as I got back. For now, we're ordering a pizza and watching movies.

In the end, I sort of wish I had taken pictures of the process of my tattoo. It was interesting to see how the colors were coming together. I can't wait until it heals and I can show it off or keep it hidden as I please. I always figured it could be a secret sign of some sort since only a few people would be able to see it (unless I start wearing halter tops again). Maybe I'm just being overly romantic. Hell, everyone at New Life saw it, so it's hardly a secret to them. I remember Paul joking to me "is it 'Paul' on your inner thigh?" when I told him I was getting a tattoo. Of course it's not. I was amused at the fact that the conversation Jenna used to try to distract me from the wincing and get me to laugh again was asking what I was "going to do about him." I figured I wouldn't really "do" anything about it. Nothing puts you into more perspective than having ink injected repeatedly into your skin.

Ok, I'm starting to ramble more than usual. Here endeth the lesson. That is, if there was anything to learn from this.

Ah, Sweet Complacency

I may be young, but I'm damn obnoxious, so that has to count for something.

My general policy of complacence and anti-social disorder hasn't made me any friends or helped me keep whatever few ones I thought I have, but I figured I'd take this evening to muse on a few things as opposed to getting shit-faced with my friends like I did last year (I think I may have finally outgrown that).

By no means do I claim that any of the following list is an accurate portrait of the world population. I'm just saying that out of the few people I've encountered, I've noticed rather similar patterns. I've noticed that there are generally three types of people (at least on this campus in my various "circles" of acquaintances). Also, by no means do I mean that all people who fit in these categories are entirely the same, nor am I claiming that everyone I'm grouping acts this way all the time...just enough of the time to warrant categorization. All I'm pointing out is a broad sweeping generalization while slightly inebriated.

1) "I try too hard and want everyone to like me." This describes my ex-boyfriend Chris and my older brother Moses. These are the people who feel like they have to be everything to everybody. They don't like hurting people's feelings, or more accurately, making themselves look bad, often at the expense of the truth in Chris's case. Chris's two favorite catch phrases are "just one more take, I promise" and "I don't want to hurt you so I'll leave out rather important bits of information concerning other women I'm seeing." Ok, I've never actually heard Chris saying it, but it does make for a rather accurate paraphrase.

Moses is a bit different since he's actually successful in his many endeavors, at least career/education/art-wise. He's the sort of person who will go out and try everything and do quite well in the process (what with the full-ride grad school, potential record deal, crowds of fangirls, etc.). He doesn't waste time moping about what he's going to do, but at the same time, he still falls under the category of "trying too hard" at least where women are concerned, being a gentleman/borderline doormat in relationships and failing to make a move out of the worry of "ruining a friendship" or "being taken the wrong way." See also: AJ, the guy who wants to be everyone's best friend.

2) "I don't really give a shit what other people think." These people seem to get it. For some reason, I lumped my roommate Jenna and Paul in this group despite how radically different their personalities are. These people don't have what Jenna refers to as "angst." They simply don't bother wasting time on it. My roommate Jenna doesn't drink and doesn't feel particularly pressured to, but at the same time, doesn't lecture people about how "bad" it is unlike other people I've met who claim that they don't care what other people think, but seem to do things to provoke them anyway. She also doesn't bother dating or showing interest in the opposite/same/whatever sex. In contrast, Paul drinks, smokes, engages in unprotected sex, etc. For awhile, I was tempted to categorize Paul as one of those guys who puts up this sort of front (you know, "asshole for the sake of being an asshole," but unlike myself, he's moved on. He got how temporary this whole college thing was. Even after an existential crisis or two, he seems relatively unscathed.

...and then there's me: #3) Anyone who knows me is probably rolling their eyes at me thinking "Jeez, you always have to make yourself the odd one out. Why can't you just accept that you're like everyone else?" I'm the sort of person who does care what others think, but doesn't really do much to change when it's stuff that matters. Paul, et al. gave me the rather obvious advice of "if you don't like how things are, why don't you change them?"

I think I'm the sort of person who "doesn't get it." Whenever anyone tells me about all the supposedly amazing things I'm capable of doing, I start to wonder if we're thinking about the same person. My parents, my professors, and my friends seem to think that I'm something...just something. Either that, or they tell me these things in the hopes I'll feel better and pull myself out of my rut on my own.

It all comes back to the question Mike/Honk raised once about how if we're all supposedly "the best and brightest" what do we do once we figure out that we're not? Resign ourselves to entry level jobs and hopefully working up to middle management? I know people can make a good living and be happy where they are. I feel like the female protagonist in either a D.H. Lawrence, Kate Chopin, or some other "bored housewife" trope with this rather unfulfilling malaise. I know this isn't new territory for me, but I figured writing about it was better than talking.

And speaking of Mike/Honk, I think that may be the only thing we have in common. We're just floaters, maybe like Bartleby the Scrivener wanting something "different" but never really quite getting there since we're too lazy/complacent to look for it. At least Honk seems to be getting past that now. As for me...feh.

Maybe I don't want something "better" per se, just something different. Some people fall in love. Other people live in their work like my mom does. Others devote themselves to seemingly hopeless causes, just to feel like their existence has meaning.

The funny thing was, for the most part, I used to be ok with knowing that my existence was meaningless. Heh. Maybe I'm growing up after all.

yay for pr0n

"The Sound of Her Voice"

Someone, I’m not sure who, said that love makes people do strange things. Fuck that. It’s complete bullshit. It certainly wasn’t love that caused me to sit in the bathroom stall at work with my cock in one hand and my cell phone in the other. If anything, blind, uncontrollable lust makes people do strange, if not completely stupid, things.

“I want to fuck you so hard right now…brace you against the door and fuck you from behind.” I grunted, convinced that any minute now, my boss would kick the door down and fire me on the spot.

It all started with a phone call, from some girl I only vaguely knew from college. In all truth, I wouldn’t have remembered her if not for the sound of her voice. It was low, throaty and mature, as if someone transplanted the voice of an old-movie starlet into the body of a voluptuous 21-year-old. By all rights it was a one-night-stand, and should have stayed that way, but in my drunken stupor, I somehow gave her my phone number. A couple of years later, that would come back and bite me in the ass.

“Hello? Who is this?”

“Sorry, I just found this number in my phone and wanted to see who it was before I deleted it.” Bitch probably had it planned all along.

I don’t recall anything about that first conversation other than how hard I had gotten, remembering her as the girl who could get her legs over her head while I plowed her into the bed. For all I knew, she was not only unable to do that anymore, but fat and unattractive. That thought should have stopped me dead in my tracks. Yet for some reason, the conversation had steered in the direction of sex, resulting in the beginnings of our current “arrangement.”

“Where are you right now?” Her words always came out so slow and deliberate.

“My bedroom.”

“Take your pants off. I want you to make yourself cum.” Hearing her say that nearly made me cum before I could even touch my pants.

This continued until our “conversations” became almost nightly. It always seemed like I was doing most of the talking, or at least making most of the noise. She never told me she was fingering herself, but I always got off on the idea that we were engaging in mutual gratification. It started in my bedroom when she would call late at night. Then she called me in random places, like when I’d be out eating. I actually dropped my fork and ran to the bathroom to take her orders, which varied between touching myself or telling her the filthy things I wanted to do to her. When it followed me to my workplace, I wasn’t sure whether or not I should try to draw the line and end it there, but all 7 and ¾ inches of me told me to push that boundary. After all, how could I refuse someone who wanted my cock so badly that she’d call me at any time to get it?

“How hard is your cock right now?” She had a thing for interrogation and detail.

“It’s…so…hard.” At a time like this, one can hardly be expected to be eloquent.

“I want you to run your fingertip along the head of your cock and taste your precum.” The colder and more distant her voice sounded, the more I thought I was going to lose it.

It tasted a salty and bitter. Apparently the vegetables she had told me to start eating weren’t working. I imagined her tongue running along the head of my cock and told her that.

“When I want to know what you’re thinking, I’ll ask.”

As usual, I wasn’t sure what to say, but kept stroking myself.

Some may wonder why I would subject myself to this, or if I was so desperate for sex I’d take anything I could get. I’m no Brad Pitt, but I’m not repulsive either. I’m about 6’2,” a bit on the lanky side. If I wanted to, I could chat up someone at the bar and take her home, but the last time I did it, I couldn’t get it up. The girl tried stroking me, sucking me off, but it was only when I heard her voice in my head that my cock shot up like the Fourth of July. I fucked the girl I was with until she got off a couple of times, but I couldn’t cum. All I could hear in my head was her voice telling me “not yet,” which is what she usually said to me when I said I needed to cum. Even back when she and I had actually had sex, her moans and sighs were low and soft. As for my present partner, she started spewing ridiculous talk about how she wanted me to cum in her cunt and how good my cock felt in her. It was the sort of dirty talk that got me off before, but all it did was nearly make me go limp.

Fortunately, my cell phone rang. The girl I was with told me to turn the phone off with her slightly grating, whiny voice, but like hell I’d miss this chance to finally get off. She stormed out of my apartment calling me a freak, but damned if I needed her anyway. I passed out that night on my bed with cum and lotion all over me.

“I’m so close…” Any minute now, somebody would walk into the men’s room and hear me.

“Not yet.”

“Please.” My cock was starting to turn pink and raw. I spat on my hand for more lube.

“Not yet.”

“Unnghh…” I was beyond words at this point. The bones in my wrist may as well have ground into powder.

“Not yet.”

“Aaagh…” It felt like the muscles in my arms were about to snap like rubber bands from cramping so hard.

“Not yet.”

Completely Pointless Adventures in Urbana part I

Sometimes it's funny how the smallest of adventures can brighten up an otherwise crappy day. It's also a bit funny how catching the wrong bus can result in one of the above mentioned adventures.

So, today I got a pink slip and kicked out of work. I wasn't fired, per se, but I did get a written warning for the Sunday when I "forgot" to come into work. That wasn't why I got kicked out though. Apparently my penchant for not taking breaks and pulling overtime has gotten me in trouble with the higher-ups so between today and tomorrow I can only work five more hours to keep my regular 40 hour full-time schedule. The sad thing is, I was really behind on work despite working overtime.

Instead of getting off at 6pm (or 9pm as of late), I got off around 2pm. I treated myself to a nice dragon roll from Sushi County (surprisingly good affordable sushi place on campus) and dropped my paycheck (which had a large chunk of it taken out in taxes) off at the bank (so I can pay rent/various debts).

I walked halfway down Green Street when I realized I wasn't wearing the hoodie I had put on to keep away the early late-august morning chill. I would have been all right with leaving it at the bookstore and picking it up later if it wasn't for the fact I had left my apartment keys in the pockets.

By the time I got out of the bookstore, my black and red saddled Chuck Taylor-clad feet were feeling as raw as the tuna roll I saw someone eating at Sushi County. Not knowing the bus schedule, I figured I'd just catch the next bus and hope it ended up somewhere near my apartment.

After riding around parts of Urbana I never knew existed, I ended up in the familiar territory of downtown Urbana. Since the used bookstore there had been closed when my parents and I were there to eat at the Thai place on weekends, I decided to get off the bus before it took me even further away from my apartment. There, I found a copy of Little Red Riding Hood in the Red Light District by Manlio Argueta and You Will Know Our Velocity! by David Eggers (as recommended by Alex).

I also decided to drop by Mirabelle, the local bakery, to pick up yet another treat. The tiramisu was quite good...mascapone be damned for its 90% fat content. My heart may hate me for it later, but it was completely worth it.

I had a conversation with the guy who was working there. Come to think of it, I should have caught his name or at least his major since he's a student here. He seemed to know quite a bit about Latin American history since I mentioned that Little Red Riding Hood in the Red Light District took place in El Salvador sometime around some political upheaval. He basically started an intermittent conversation with me by asking about my books. I mentioned liking some Russian authors after he mentioned that one of the jobs for the CIA from the Cold War he had heard about was to read Russian novels to see if there were any code words to trigger cells into action and such. He asked me if I had read any Tolstoy (which I haven't). Naturally we were interrupted by other patrons and by me taking a seat outside and enjoying a tiramisu and coffee while reading the Argueta book. I vaguely touched on the Freudian interpretation when he mentioned the sociopolitical innuendo of the original story.

When I went inside again to dispose of my plastic container, fork and paper coffee cup, the guy offered me another cup of coffee since he was just going to dump out the container before closing. I accepted despite knowing my lack of tolerence for large amounts of caffeine. I got a bit twitchety, but all I really wanted was an excuse to continue the conversation. The store owner came out and we ended up talking about making it in this country. Apparently, he started the bakery with $2500 he borrowed from his aunt and six months leave from his old job.

That made me think about things on my walk home. If I really want to write, what's stopping me? There were many books in that used book shop by authors I had never heard of, and yet they were probably getting by. I also remembered what the guy (first guy I met) said about how usually great writers usually have something extraordinary happen in their lives which can make them a bit antisocial or eccentric (this was after I mentioned Gogol in the Russian author part of the conversation). So, what's to stop me from making something extraordinary happen in my life?

Maybe it's me.

Then again, I can't help but think about how if I didn't log too much overtime at work or how if I didn't catch the wrong bus, none of this would have happened. I wouldn't have the two books. I wouldn't have had that conversation with the guy who works at Mirabelle, nor would I have learned the partial history of the bakery's owner.

The vague thought that I could be happy here (amended with the addition of the phrase "for a year") occurred to me as I was walking home from work earlier this week. I know I'll have to leave, and with that, have a plan. But for now, I think I could be happy.

To the Person Whose Phone Number is Now My Land Line

Hey,

I know, as a college student with no money and a little-appreciated and low-paying job (Seriously, I work at the textbook store...even I hate it when I won't give someone any money for their beer-damaged, out-of-date textbook that they most likely stole from under their roommate's mattress so they could get more money with which to buy more beer to spill/vomit on their roommate's textbooks.), it's easy to get into serious debt from credit cards. They're made of shiny plastic and fit in your wallet better than a huge ass wad of cash...not that I've ever seen a huge ass wad of cash, but it's not bloody likely that you have either. Perhaps since it's so small, you don't feel like you're spending as much money as you are. In that case, I suggest that you start carrying around cash and paying for things in cash, preferrably in the smallest denominations as possible so it feels like you have more money than you actually do. However, if you should attempt to buy books at the place I work paying only in pennies, I shall be forced to shove said beer-soaked textbooks through your "exit only" door.

Anyway, that's the problem. As much as I relate to your financial misfortune, I tire of your creditors leaving a bajillion (it's such a ridiculously high number that I had to call Merriam Webster to add it into the dictionary) messages on my answering machine, not to mention calling me when I'm either a) eating dinner, b) having sex, or c) eating dinner while having sex. It seems that no matter how hard I try to explain that I am not the person whom they are looking for nor does anybody of that name even live with me, they still call back. I just hope that I didn't manage to tranfer your massive amount of debt to my name when I signed up for this phone line. I know I just spent $120 on pants this weekend...but they fit so well!

But that's beside the point. I'm doing fine racking up my own obscenely exorbitant amount of debt all by myself. I don't need to be reminded of that by those who are trying to get you to pay off yours.

And another thing, for some reason, I keep getting calls from so-called charity pledge drives. They've never mentioned your name, but I certainly hope that you have nothing to do with this. I know that charity begins at home, but did you perhaps think for a moment that all your donations to the Police Officer's Guild #97 and what-have-you could be a potential cause for all of your financial problems?

At any rate, for my sake (and the sake of the guy I'm currently boning), please pay off your shit. I'm tired of my afternoon quickie being interrupted by hearing an unsettling mechanical voice booming from my answering machine or cordless phone receiver. Because of this whole debacle, I'm about ready to scrap the land line and finally cave in and get a cell phone (I already have the cell, but am debating on eliminating the land line). Undoubtably, said cell phone rates will plunge me into debt as well.

Sincerely,
The person who currently has your old phone number

Anyone care to make a suggestion?

I usually try to keep this blog just as a "work only" space, without involving my life, but all will make sense in a moment, I promise.

I spent about eighteen years of my life in Springfield, Illinois. For the past three or so years, give or take holidays and breaks when I went back to see my parents, I've been living in Urbana, Illinois to go to school at the University of Illinois. At most, these two "cities" are an hour and a half apart driving distance from each other.

In other words, I spent a great deal of my life in the Midwest. Needless to say, I want out.

The last time I left the country was my junior year of high school. My high school Latin Club went to Italy and Greece over a span of 18 days. It was the first time I felt free of my parents, of the general feeling that I was just a stranger who didn't fit in since all of us were tourists. Before that, my mother took me to the Philippines when I was two years old. I recall little of this trip.

So, here I am now, 21 years old and freshly graduated from college. In all truth, I could have done study abroad. Hell, even now there's the possibility of applying for a Fulbright Fellowship which would allow me to study in any country and write on any topic, perhaps even leading my own writing workshop. Yet something is holding me back. For some reason, I completely neglected to complete a draft of my application and ask for letters of recommendation from instructors/employers who undoubtably would have provided them for me. The same thing happened in all my applications for grad school (although my instructors recommended that I "see the world" and "experience life" first before re-selling my soul to academia) and Teach for America (although some people I've known in the program hate it).

At any rate, something is holding me back. All my life, it seems like someone's been there to hold my hand through everything. My parents insisted on escorting me by train all the way up to Chicago, taking the L to O'Hare and waiting for my plane with me when I went to Italy. Even when I was there, tour guides and chaperones regulated my movements in the country. I have never really been anywhere outside of Central Illinois on my own terms.

Granted, there was always the random invite to places a bit closer to home than Italy or the Philippines. Tom invited me to visit him in North Carolina before he moved to Amsterdam. Paul tried to get me to come up to Chicago just for sexual purposes. Yet it never occurred to me to just buy the ticket, pack a bag and make a long weekend excursion of it.

This is where the writing thing comes in. I mentioned earlier that my professors recommended that I "see the world" first. This is definitely a good idea since I've been in a rut writing-wise for awhile now. Nothing here inspires me anymore. I used to be able to just walk across the quad, smile at a stranger and want to write a poem about it. Now it seems like I really am just going through the motions.

Yet I still feel like something's holding me back. I wish I could understand what it was so I could break free of it, and thus, this place. I don't ever want to be one of those people who grows to love their prison, or depend on it to the point where they can't leave. I'm so afraid that I'll never really be able to do anything on my own, that I'll never grow up just like the girl in the "fairy tale" I wrote.

Maybe because once I leave, I know I have no intention of ever coming back. Maybe it's because I want to make sure everyone I could possibly miss will be gone or otherwise distant from me. I always tried to keep people at a distance with the justification that it would make it easier for me to leave.

But I'm still here.

So yeah, if there's anyone who'd like to see me, I'd be glad to keep you company until I figure out where I really want to go. Sorry about all the angst, but this really has been bothering me lately.

An Autobiographical Fairy Tale

Once upon a time, there was a little girl. She was raised to believe that she was a princess, and her father was a great king. For her own protection, he locked her in a high tower and wouldn't allow her to leave or do much else until she grew up. Unfortunately, the girl never did. She was always too young to leave. The only company she kept were the characters in the books she read. She thought, as her father did, that reading would prepare her for the dangers outside, but she never was ready, never did grow up. One day, her father left her. Somehow, with the help from someone outside, the girl was able to leave the tower. She did grow up, at least in appearance, but all who met her remarked on how distant she seemed, as if she wasn't really there, wasn't really real.

For you see, the moral of the story is that she needed to leave on her own to truly grow up. Her father had kept her there for so long that even though she was finally able to leave, part of her would always remain locked in that room.

Confessions of a Student Film Production Assistant

Ok, since I suck at revising, I've just been trying to write things a chapter at a time and then I'll go back and revise (mostly to cut out shit I'll most likely repeat). So yeah, here's the second chapter of my current project. Note: I changed the name of the lead actor from Phil (which sort of distressed the guy I based him off of) to the more obviously Jewish David.

“David, the Lead Actor: Take Two”

Midterms suck, that’s all there is to it. I didn’t even want to bother going to class that week, let alone go to filming at night, especially since after the weather got colder, the outdoor shoots had long stopped being fun. Still, in between writing papers for my English classes and studying for my intro to East Asian Culture midterm, I was out there in the cold along with the other disgruntled cast and crew members. What is even more amusing about the weather situation is that the entire movie is supposed to take place over two days at the end of summer. Cameron even had to write in some bullshit dialogue for the “zombie expert” addressing the leaves changing color and eventually completely falling off the trees.

EXT. MAIN QUAD—NIGHT

SAMANTHA

(rubbing arms)

Brr. It’s cold out here. There must be some evil in the atmosphere.

SAMANTHA claps her hands rhythmically and does a high kick as ZOMBIE EXPERT and CARL stare at her in disbelief.

CARL

So anyway, yeah, what’s the deal with that?

ZOMBIE EXPERT

(in painfully obvious fake British accent)

I’ll explain, but I don’t think you’re going to like it…

Cut to shot of ZOMBIE HORDE lurking through trees with people throwing MASSIVE AMOUNTS of LEAVES and STUFFED ANIMALS at them from off camera.

ZOMBIE EXPERT (cont’d v.o.)

Samantha, you’re not entirely wrong in your deduction, as banal as it may seem. In order to harness their undead strength to the fullest potential, zombies must drain the life of everything around them, including plants, small squirrels, and other landscape features.

Cut back to SAMANTHA, CARL, and ZOMBIE EXPERT on QUAD.

SAMANTHA

(shudders in horror, clinging to CARL)

Oh God! Those poor squirrels!

“And cut! Perfect!” Cameron gave a thumbs-up and switched off the camera.

“Finally.” Lisa muttered as I threw the flannel blanket over her shoulders. “David, where’s your flask?”

“No drinking!” Cameron shouted and then pointed at me. “You. Make sure she doesn’t drink at all tonight. I want her clear and coherent for the kidnapping scene.”

“Aye-aye captain.” I rolled my eyes and gave him the one-finger salute. Sometimes I wondered if I didn’t sleep with him later that year, would Cameron have ever even remembered my name? I reached in Carl’s jacket pocket and took the vodka. “Give me that damn flask.”

After I took a swig of the vile liquid (David was a cheap bastard), I handed it to Lisa. “Take it easy though. Just drink enough to keep you warm…or at least trick you into thinking you’re warm.”

“Thanks Mom.” She wryly smiled and took a swig before giving it back to David.

“You fucking bitches drank the last of my vodka.” Maybe David had a right to be indignant, but he was the only member of the cast allowed to wear a coat, just to maintain his “anti-heroic” image, I suppose.

I usually didn’t bother with a coat since when I’d run around getting or setting up things, I’d get so hot that a coat would just be one more thing to carry. However, during the downtime in filming, as another production assistant put it, it was “so cold my nipples are going to fall off.” If anybody notices the shadows or light wavering in the background while watching the film, that would be because I was shaking from the cold despite the heat radiating off of the cheap lighting rigs.

During the day, however, I played the part of the mild-mannered college student: going to class and trying to stay awake in large lecture halls with the heater either broken or on overdrive, choking down prison-grade cafeteria food and typing at my computer. More often than not, I was typing at somebody via AIM as opposed to typing a paper.

David [2:42 p.m.]: I’m horny

Me: and this is my problem because?

David: wanna fuck?

I had to give the guy credit for being forward. It certainly beat having a guy pretend like he was interested in a relationship with me when in all truth, he just wanted a reliable fuck. Then again, I had class in almost fifteen minutes. After either sleeping through or skipping most of the lectures, I couldn’t really afford missing out on class right before the next paper assignment.

Me: I’ve got class.

David [2:44 p.m.]: quit being such an apple polisher and just come the fuck over. I’ll be here until 4.

I slammed my laptop shut before grabbing my bookbag and running out the door. The next fifty minutes sitting in class were horrible. I had forgotten to put my American Literature anthology book in my bag, so I had to look at the passages from the book of the guy next to me. The plus side was that it gave me an excuse to lean in closer to him since I had had a crush on him since the first class I had with him a year ago. The downside was that this was probably the fifth time I had asked the same favor that semester. There was also the matter of that voice in my head. You know, the evil one who tells you to do all the things you know you shouldn’t even want to do, let alone actually go through with doing. I like to call her Vivian.

“Come on, he does have a point about you being a goody-goody. What did you get on your last paper? An A?” I could practically see her there in a bright scarlet, tight-fitted dress with a slit all the way up to the thigh sitting beside me with one arm around my shoulders.

“An A-.” I gritted my teeth as I “thought” my seething rage at her.

“Well, there you go. You’ll most likely do better on this paper since you’ve been particularly enthusiastic in discussion section lately.” She cooed slightly while making her insinuation of my growing attraction to the guy sitting next to me, an attraction which had resulted in an unusual interest in Hawthorne’s idea of sin in discussion the week before. “So why don’t you just sneak on out of class and head over to David’s…you have been getting antsy lately, right? Midterm week grinding down on you, pushing those urges to the surface after too many coffee-filled nights alone; just you and the laptop and Whitman…although I don’t think old Walt could do that thing with his tongue that David could…”

“Stop.” I blinked, and she was gone. “Fine. I’ll go after class.”

For the fifteen minutes remaining in that class period, instead of falling asleep as usual, I found myself fidgeting in my seat, constantly shifting which way my legs were crossed. I was tweaking like the one time I drank about seven cups of coffee to give me the push I needed to write a twelve page paper on the Gothic double in Poe’s short stories the semester before.

If I actually bought into the theories of that coke-headed quack Freud said about the id, ego and superego, then I was convinced that Vivian was my id. She was awfully hungry and horny a lot of the time. If she was my id, then whatever was constantly yelling “what are you doing?” in my head while the wind beat my face with ice pellets was probably my superego. Still, like my roommate Beth, my own good sense and conscience wasn’t exactly the best at keeping me at bay.

“Yo.” David gave me a nonchalant head-nod as he let me in. Sometimes I wondered if he used the “yo” or “’sup” purely out of postmodern irony or if he really was that skeezy.

“Hey.” I dropped my backpack on the floor. Before the door closed behind him, he pushed me onto the bed.

Maybe it was my midterm-week antsyness or maybe it was just the fact that I was still wearing my black wool pea coat with his heater turned up, but I was burning. Either that, or it was the intensity (whether imagined or not) of the situation. Literally, it wasn’t a case of “he had my clothes off without so much as a ‘hello’” since there was the obligatory “yo.” However, I never experienced anything like that before. In all truth, I think I felt even hotter with each article of clothing removed. Fortunately, despite my befuddled state, David wasn’t wearing his usual suit, but a more laid back t-shirt and flannel pajama pants. As soon as I undid the drawstring and pushed the pants past his ankles, he seemed to “spring into action,” as it were. In other words, he didn’t seem to like wearing underwear when he was just chilling in his room listening to music. I think that afternoon, he had Absolution by Muse on his computer playlist. We got started right around the second track, “Time is Running Out,” which seemed oddly appropriate for the situation.

Once again, I was lying on his bed naked, with David pinning my arms above my head. He was naked save for the t-shirt I couldn’t get off. It seemed that his patience had completely worn once he stripped me. Even though it was a winter afternoon, there was still a substantial amount of gray light streaming in through his blinds. I felt even more vulnerable than I had that night about a month ago, perhaps because I didn’t have the shield of inebriation to protect me. I felt his weight bearing down, mostly on my wrists, but also where our hips met. David forced my legs apart with his knees, and without so much as a kiss, he rammed his cock in completely. No foreplay=no natural lubrication=fucking ouch.

I couldn’t look anywhere except into those intense hazel eyes of his as he pounded me into the bed. He was a non-blinking fuck machine. I’ll never be able to explain exactly why I was so drawn to him. Maybe it was that look. He gave me the same looks when we were on set before and after the first encounter. It wasn’t a look of longing or any particular fondness. At first, I was convinced that he hated me for being an incompetent production assistant, despite my knowing that that was a completely unfounded insecurity. After awhile, I realized that he was sizing me up the same way I eventually did to him. I used to look at him wondering if he liked it better on top (which he did) and which of his buttons I would have to push for optimal effect (the spot behind his ear and the small of his back).

After awhile, I couldn’t even look at David when we were on set together. I had the naïve notion that I could turn invisible at will, that if I couldn’t see him, he couldn’t see me. I was also paranoid that someone else would notice the way he and I looked at each other and draw a fitting conclusion. The looks he gave me said so much despite the fact he never said more than two words to me on set. His eyes would scan, lingering on occasion in a couple of places as if the layers of fall clothing I had were completely nonexistent. When we made eye contact, it felt like he was asking me if I wanted to sneak off to another room to fool around while the others could set up lighting, the job I usually did. I would usually return the glare in challenge, as if I didn’t believe he would actually have the balls to do it. Sometimes hunter, sometimes prey, but either way, I did not want to be the topic of discussion as soon as I walked back to my dorm for the night after filming. At first, I attempted to only go to filming on nights when I knew Cameron was shooting scenes which didn’t need David, which were few and far between. I got a bit guilty after reading his away messages which often begged and pleaded for anybody who was “even available just for an hour” to come to filming. So, I usually went, and tried to be as quiet and invisible as possible, creeping around door frames during indoor shoots and around trees during outdoor shoots when I wasn’t setting up the light box or putting gore makeup on the zombie extras. Fortunately, it worked since David and Cameron spent most of the time talking to each other. After all, we were working on a film. I don’t think anybody knew about any of my indiscretions unless I had mentioned it off hand much later.

However, when David and I actually were alone together, as was the case here in his room, I could afford to take a little more liberties in playing my part. After a little bit more of David staking his position in the seemingly unending power play between us, I decided that I wanted to shift things and be on top, but of course, I could hardly do anything about it in my position. He even pinned me down further by moving my arms down at my side and bearing his full weight on top of me. At this point, he had been fucking me at a maniacal speed and I could feel the heat of his chest searing his sweat-soaked t-shirt to my skin. It felt like the more I struggled, the more he pushed against me. Two could play at this game. I locked my legs around his, thrusting my hips upward, riding him in reverse. This did two things: 1) it caused even further penetration along with the right alignment to simultaneously hit my clitoris, and thus resulted in my first actual orgasm by his hand, or cock, more accurately; and 2) caught him off guard enough so I could roll him onto his back and get on top.

“You fucking bitch…” I heard him mutter under his breath.

“Come on, you were losing steam anyway.” I smirked, pinning his arms over his head. “Let’s see how you like it.”

“Just shut up and ride me already.” He wrenched loose and grasped my hips with his hands.

I sat up and leaned back, undulating my hips to match his guidance. Since I generally don’t like people telling me what to do, I started slowing down the faster he wanted me to go. I could tell he was about to come because he had stopped looking at me, but I wasn’t about to let him off that easy. His hands wandered from my hips up the sides of my body to cup my breasts. His left hand continued wandering to grasp my neck. For that moment before his hand started moving again, I was terrified, but somewhat exhilarated at the idea that he was one of those guys who got off by strangling girls during sex. I felt his fingers grasp through my hair before tracing my cheek. David ran his thumb along my lips before slipping it inside. As I bit his thumb, I could feel my own climax building. The stretch in my legs stung, but it was worth it to get his cock as far inside me as possible. I could have gone for the quick explosive orgasm, but that most likely would have set him off as well. Instead, I went for the slow, aching burn. I started to moan despite myself, considering I don’t really want guys to know if I orgasm or not. Let them sweat out their own sense of inadequacy.

At this point, David had had enough of my teasing. He took my wrists, sat up and bent me backwards on the bed. Gasping, I knew I wasn’t going to have the slow burn I wanted, or much of anything but the old in-and-out routine until he got off. When I opened my eyes, I saw his lips curved wickedly, eyes gleaming in the fading afternoon light from the blinds. He pressed against me again, pinning my arms to the bed as he kissed me.

David bit my earlobe and growled, “I’m gonna come” before releasing my wrists to support himself on his arms. I already came once, but I still wanted more from him. It didn’t look like I was going to get anything more from him that day. For one thing, I don’t care what you’ve read, but the simultaneous orgasm just doesn’t happen. D.H. Lawrence lied. Maybe this occurs in some wonderful parallel universe where women always have orgasms and men can experience multiple orgasms in one sexual encounter without stopping for the refractory period. In this universe, the simultaneous orgasm doesn’t exist, at least not for me. If the guy was at least mildly courteous, he’d wait for me to get off before finding his own release. If the guy was fantastic beyond all reason (which was rare), then he’d see how many times he could get me to come before getting off. In David’s case, as in most general cases in my life, I had to take what I wanted from him before letting him finish up. I generally didn’t like it when guys would come inside me so I’d either insist on condoms or suck them off, but David caught me by surprise.

David emitted something halfway between a sigh and a grunt, perhaps to try to maintain some sort of masculine composure. I have to admit, I prefer it when the guy makes some sort of sound during sex. Otherwise I have no idea if he’s done yet. Even with the wrinkling of the forehead, tightly shut eyes, creasing of the brow and drop of the jaw, sometimes it’s hard to tell if he’s there or just almost there. When he collapsed on top of me, I could feel his heart racing, the sweat still hot on his t-shirt. By this point, I had already cooled off, so I pushed him off of me, grabbed a handful of tissues from his bedstand and cleaned myself off before dressing.

Still naked from the waist down, David took a cigarette from the crumpled pack of Parliaments on his bedstand and lit it as it stood at attention between his lips. He said nothing as I walked out the door. I don’t think he even looked at me.

Another delightful quickie...

So at work today, I randomly got high off of the fumes from sealing book packages in plastic shrink wrap and thought it would be hilarious to come up with double entendres which really aren't double entendres at all. Needless to say, about everyone near me at the counter decided that shelving books was much less painful than being around me for another second longer.

It doesn't have the same effect without the :wink wink nudge nudge: tone of voice, but here goes:

I'd like to run a troubleshooter on that program.
I'd like to put some mustard on that sandwich.
You would like to put a sticker on that book.
I'd like to tie that shoelace.
I'd like to dust that shelf.
I wouldn't mind taking a bite out of that sandwich.


Shit...I can't remember any more than that.

Confessions of a PA Take One

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