Writing Nude

I write erotica.  No.  Scratch that.  What I really write is love poems to Lola.  Really, really, really long love poems.  So long that, to the untrained eye, they read like prose.

Niel Gaiman once said, “If you’re only going to write when you’re inspired, you may be a fairly decent poet, but you will never be a novelistbecause you’re going to have to make your word count today, and those words aren’t going to wait for you, whether you’re inspired or not. So you have to write when you’re not inspired.”  I don’t have a problem with this advice in general, but part of the problem is that when I’m not inspired, a certain detached, disinterested, distant feeling comes over me with regard to my writing.  I hesitate to say “objective,” because that implies a truth to the judgment and, for the life of me, I pray that that cold view of my writing is not true.

I struggle to capture exactly the feeling I get at these moments of disenchantment, but there are a few readily available examples of how I feel about my work that I can offer.  If you’ve ever seen The Big Lebowski, then you may recall the “modern interpretive dance” scene where The Dude watches his landlord, Marty, perform.  It is painful and comic to watch.  But it means so much to Marty.  That’s certainly part of it – if Marty was an author and not a dancer.

Another analogy is thinking thoughts when very stoned as compared to reading those thoughts when sober; some crucial élan vital is missing.  A third analogy is that of being naked.  One can be nude with one’s lover and that can be magnificent, or one can get caught naked in public, as often happens in humiliation dreams.  The difference between nude and naked is as great as the difference between consent and coercion.

Being nude is easy.  Writing is not.

But then there are also times like now.  Last night Lola and I went out to a party with some friends.  She wore her jack-pot top that prominently displays her cleavage and she wore her tight jeans with heels.  She looked good and I wasn’t the only one to notice.  Most of the evening her eyes sparkled and her teeth twinkled as she chatted and laughed, throwing back her long hair and touching the arms of those she liked.  She flirts.  And I love seeing it.  I watched her from afar and occasionally I sidled up next to her sliding my right hand over her round butt.  I wanted her all evening and the longer we stayed the more I wanted her.  But I’m not as young as I used to be.  The witching hour approached and my energy for performance and social settings dwindled.  I felt fatigued on the ride home.  Lo and I were traveling in the back of a cab and she was clearly not ready for the night to end.  She kissed me and reached down between my legs.  She reached between her legs and she enjoyed the thrill of being just out of sight from the driver as she made small-talk with him.

We got home and I got in bed, loving her, but needing sleep.  She joined me, naked, and feeling dejected by my drowsiness, pulled out her Hitachi, phone, dildo, and began her nightly bedtime ritual of self-pleasure.

In the morning I awoke before she.  She was curled in the fetal position facing away from me.  I was wrapped around her, holding her tightly for it was a chilly morning and we needed each other for warmth.  My hand roamed over her soft skin from her shoulder down to her breast, feeling the flesh of her tum and over her round hips.  I wanted her.  My rod was stiff between my legs, protruding into her.  She was down for the count.

Desirous of her, but respectful of her sleep, I snuck out of bed, washed up, made my coffee, and set up my little writing nest on the couch and began to compose this lustful literary tribute to her, my muse.  I know that when she wakes she will be full of passion for me as I will be for her.  And when I read these words to her, she will find them flattering, beautiful, and inspired.  That will make up for all the disenchanted moments when I look upon this massive encomium to Lola as if written by someone else.  My love, my longing, my lusty imaginings and my self-critical eye will all be aligned.  All shall be well, at least until the next wave of despair, alienation, and disenchantment plumes within me.  But, until then, I’ll take what I can get – of Lo and of writing.

I’m an Addict

 

Lo, as everyone knows by now, has her drug of choice: sex.  I have mine.  Now you may be thinking that my drug of choice is Lo, and you wouldn’t be wrong about that.  But my addiction to Lo needs to be placed in a bigger context, a larger frame, a wider understanding of love and addiction.

I am one who is addicted to life.  Now that may sound tautological since just about everyone who is alive wants more of life – I mean, it’s the one thing we just can’t live without, right?  But not everyone living is really alive.  Are you alive?  Are you really alive?  Are you living life to the fullest?  And by that I don’t mean climbing Mount Everest, skydiving, or falsely claiming to adhere to the trite banality of “living every day like it’s my last.”

I mean living intensely.  Feeling acutely.  Spanning the extremes of emotion, exploring the treacherous terrain of thought, loving with passion and depth.  Do you do that?  Or do you go about your humdrum day as if dreaming of a life without ever living it?  Is the closest you get to real life the vicarious thrill of observing it in others – whether on TV, the movies, or in books?

Well, this isn’t about you.  This is about me and my addiction to joie de vivre.  My love of Lo and all of her endearing idiosyncrasies is an extension of my own personality which oscillates between the extremes: manic-depressive, bi-polar, emotional rollercoaster ride, whatever you wish to call it.  This amusement park of life’s possibilities can be euphoric and energizing or catastrophic and terrifying.  Often both.  Loving Lo is one part of it.  But it also encompasses my relationship to work, money, and most pervasively, art.  My writing is an obsession, an addiction, a compulsion, a release, a mania, and also my great downfall.  I do everything for it and it does everything for me – everything, that is, except provide me with any semblance of stability.  The only constant in my life is my perpetual state of peril.  Perhaps that precarious existence leads to the anxiety and the anxiety to stress and stress to the manic-depressive episodes.  Maybe it’s all a vicious circle.  I don’t know.

But one day Lo might wake up and come to the insight that I’m no good for her.

We recently watched the movie Battle of the Sexes together and it cut to the quick for me.  It is ostensibly the story of Billie Jean King’s fight for women’s rights and the focus of the movie is on her much hyped 1973 tennis match with Bobby Riggs, dubbed “The Battle of the Sexes.”  However, despite a powerful performance by Emma Stone as Billie Jean, Steve Carell steals the show with his portrayal of the manically compulsive gambler and former tennis star, Riggs.

In the movie there is a scene where, at the insistence of his wife Priscilla, he goes to a Gamblers Anonymous meeting.  I’ve taken a little liberty with the dialogue from that scene:

 

BOBBY: My name is Bobby and I am an addict.               GROUP: Hi, Bobby.               BOBBY: At least that’s what Priscilla says. She’s gonna leave me unless I quit gambling. Puzzles me, though, that word: “Gambling.” Whenever Priscilla gets a car out of the garage, she’s gambling big time. Never checks the mirror. Sticks it in reverse. Puts her foot down, right out onto the highway. Jeez Louise, that’s gambling! But here I am, Gamblers Anonymous.               FACILITATOR: And your point is what, Bobby?               BOBBY: My point is this: Life’s a gamble, right? That’s the thrill of it! You know, you folks aren’t here because you’re gamblers. You are here because you are terrible gamblers. Well, let’s face it, that’s the problem. You lose, and that’s why you’re here.               FACILITATOR: Okay, Bobby…               BOBBY: I’ve been looking at you guys yammering on about all of your stuff and…“Oh, woe is me” and “This is terrible.” But you know what the problem is? The problem is you don’t have a “thing.”               FACILITATOR: Can we just…               BOBBY: They don’t have a thing. They need an edge. You need an angle, an inside track, something. . . that’s gonna turn you from being a gambler to a hustler.               FACILITATOR: All right, Bobby, thank you.               BOBBY: From a loser to a winner. Why should we give up the one thing in life that we really love? Why should we give up what makes us come alive? We just want to feel alive, the thrill of the chance, the risk of losing it all or cleaning up. When Priscilla pulls her car out of the driveway, we don’t call that gambling because she isn’t aware of the risk, or she doesn’t feel it. But we, we know the risk, we take the risk, we feel the risk, and we love the risk. Life’s a gamble. We just bring the gamble front and center, we make it more intense and that makes life more intense.  There’s the difference. These folks don’t need to stop what they’re doing, they just need to get better at it.                Later in the film, as you might have surmised, Bobby not only didn’t stop gambling, he took it to new heights by bringing his gambit public on live national television and, with the greater stakes, Bobby’s mania grew as well.  Priscilla finally had to get out of the maddening relationship.  In that scene the following exchange takes place:                 PRISCILLA: Bobby, I love you.               BOBBY: Well, I love you, too.               PRISCILLA: I love how you make me laugh. I love your crazy ideas and all your schemes. And the way you walk into a room and you fill it up. I love the way you make me feel. I miss that a lot. But. . . I need a husband. I need someone who is steady. Someone that I can rely on. And that is not you. And that’s okay. It is more than okay. It is wonderful, because that. . . is who you are. I just can’t be with that person anymore. I just can’t. I’m so sorry.               BOBBY: No. I’m sorry.                That was the scene that really brought it home for me because I could see Lo saying those very words to me.  They all seemed to fit.                But one of the fascinating things about the movie is its hidden symmetry.  Just as Bobby has his gambling addiction, so too does his nemesis, Billy Jean, have her own obsession.  As her husband, Larry King, tells her lover, Marilyn Barnett, late in the film, “Tennis is her true love. If you get between her and the game, you’ll be gone.”                 It’s fucked up, but Lo loves me, at least in part, because of my writing.  But it is my love of writing that may lead to losing Lo.

Fuck Noir

It was one of those weeks when I was feeling low rather than feeling Lo.  A depression had settled in and, too depressed to do anything, I felt like trying to shake it was as futile as anything else I had tried to do in my life.  Dark thoughts.

Lo had been trying to seduce me all week.  “Fuck it out,” she’d say, “you’ll feel better after.”

“Lo,” I’d reply, “you know that depleting my Chi energy through ejaculation is a certain method for moving my mood from the ground floor into the basement.”

“Well, then just don’t cum.  I’ll cum enough for the both of us!”

Though I found her determination amusing, it did little more than evoke a wry smile from my lips.

As a direct result of my lack of amorous affection for her, Lo felt no desire to keep herself primed and ready for a good romp – with me or anyone – and she let her hair-down-there grow out.

Coming to bed one night, I saw her lying naked over the covers.  “Wow,” I remarked, unaware of the words escaping my mouth, “you’re looking very 1970’s!”

She immediately pulled the blanket up and over herself, saying, “I suddenly feel a cold draft.”

I can be cruel when in the throes of depression and so I responded with, “You shouldn’t be cold, you have a warm fleece.”

I climbed into bed and opened a book.  Beginning to read next to her, she turned to me and said, “With that facial hair you look like a movie villain.”

“You know, don’t you, that the villain of every story is the hero of his own story?”

“Yeah, well you’re the villain – even in your own story.”

“I can live with that.  You know that Milton’s great dilemma when writing Paradise Lost was that he had drawn the Devil in such a villainous way that he became the most compelling and interesting character.  God didn’t have a chance when the Devil was on stage.”

“Really?  Milton?  Really?  You are the most literary narcissist I ever did meet!”

“I take that as a compliment,” I said to her.

She reached over, more lovingly this time, and she said, “Daddy, you really do need to trim your beard.”  She rubbed my rough beard with her hand and tugged a little on it.

“When did you masturbate?” I asked.

She looked guilty and then said, “A little while ago.”

“When?”

“Just before you came into the bedroom.  How did you know?”

“I can smell you on your fingertips.”

“Well,” she replied, “if you’re not going to finger me, then someone has to.”  As she said this, she moved her hand down to my crotch.

Never one to miss a moment to spoil the mood when my mood is foul, I called out, “Why are your hands so cold?!  Were you giving the Ice Man a handjob before he cometh?”

She wrapped her legs around my bare legs and I felt her feet on my feet.  I followed my first question with another, “A foot job too?”

“The Ice Man has a warmer heart (and bigger dick) than you!” she said, rolling away from me and grabbing her phone.

I fell asleep to the tap-tap-tap of her texting with someone.

The next day was Saturday and it was a beautiful spring day.  Lo was up and about and I was lying on the couch in the living room.  Lola approached me like a puppy and said, “Come outside with me!”

“No.”

“Yes.  It’s so bright out there.”
“But it’s so dark in here.”

“Look,” she said, opening the blinds, “it’s the first beautiful day of spring!  Let’s get out and enjoy it!”  She proceeded to open all of the blinds and the windows to let the warm breeze flow through the room.

Like a vampire mortally injured by the light, I got up to leave.

“Where are you going?” she asked.

“Are you going to come in the bedroom? – Because I’m going to take a nap.”

“I’ll probably cum several times. . . anywhere.”

“That’s what I was afraid of,” I said, as I went to the bedroom and locked the door.  She followed and was nonplused at finding the door locked.

“Let me come in!”

“No, no!  Go, go!”

“I’ll come in, you’ll cum in.  It will be even!”

“No.”

“Then at least come out.  Look, to get out of this depression you need to do something.”

“Well, I’m not doing you.”

“That was my first suggestion, but I’ll settle for going for a walk or to the gym.  Physical activity will help.”

I unlocked the door.  She entered the bedroom.  “Fine,” I said.

Getting ready for the gym, I put on sweatpants and a sweatshirt.

“You’re not really going to wear that, are you?” she asked.

“Yeah, why?”

“You look like a senior-citizen mall-walker.”

“And?  I’m just going to the gym, not a cocktail party.”

“And won’t you be hot?  Aren’t you going to break a sweat in that?”

“Oh, gosh, I certainly hope not!”

She was naked and sitting on the edge of the bed.  “Come here,” she asked seductively, spreading her legs and putting her hand between them, using her fingers to spread her pussy lips.

“No.”

“Don’t you want it, Daddy?”

“No.”

“But I want you.  I can see the outline of your big, thick dick in those sweatpants.”

“Lo, what are you going to wear to the gym?”

“Come here and I’ll tell you.”

“No.”

“Please.”

I gave in and walked over to her, convinced she wouldn’t succeed in her seduction.  As soon as I was between her legs, her knees clamped on my legs, capturing me and holding me tightly.

“Lo, you’re a human Penis Flytrap!”

“I think you must have Adult ADD.  One of the symptoms is relentless bad puns.”

“You’re saying I have AADD?”
“If you want to put it that way.”

“Sounds like my report card from high school.”

“You see, perfect example!”

“I heard once that among entrepreneurs there is an inordinate proportion of people with Adult ADD.  I heard that those entrepreneurs are good at multitasking and that they surround themselves with lots of competent people who stay on task.  That’s what I do.  I’m a captain and I have a lot of first mates.”

“Oh really?”

“Well,” I said more kindly, “my dear, you’re my first first mate.”

“I’m my own captain.  I’m no one’s first mate,” she said, putting her thumb to her sternum, pointing to herself proudly.

“Captain, eh?”

“That’s right, and I like to be surrounded by lots of semen.”

“And you say I have bad puns.”

“Give me some semen, Daddy, please,” she asked, pulling my cock out from my sweatpants and putting it in her mouth, to no avail.  Having failed in her attempt, she then got on the bed on all fours, flaunting her ass in front of me.  “What do you think?” she asked, looking over her shoulder at me.

“Booty-full,” I said.

“Punny,” she said sardonically.

“Honestly, Lo,” I said, “I wish that I felt well enough to put my penis in your vagina.”

“Daddy!” she exclaimed, feigning shock.

“I’m sorry dear, I couldn’t think of a more poetic way of phrasing that.”

“That’s ok.  I like the direct route.”

“Are we going to the gym or what?”

“Yes,” she said, “because if we’re going to go to a nude beach this year, then we have to get in shape.”

We?” I asked.

“Yes, we.  Us.”

“I’m in a shape.  In fact, I think I look flabulous.”

“Flabulous?”

“Yeah.  I might not have abs.  I might have flabs, but they look flabulous.”

“Well, then,” she said, “at least I feel like I have to get in shape.  I think I gained four pounds this winter.  Does it show?”

“Lo, you know that I would be happy if you gained forty pounds!”

“That’s nice of you to say but. . .”

“You know, there’s a kink out there called feederism, or something like that, where gaining weight is considered sexually arousing?”

“So, I have to get fat in order to get you up?”

“I’m not saying that.  I’m just saying all bodies are beautiful bodies.”

She rolled over on her tum and asked, “All?”

“Well, dear,” I corrected myself, “yours most of all.”

“That’s more like it.”

On the way to the gym, I remarked to her, “I was listening to Billy Joel the other day.  Some of his lyrics are just brilliant.”

“Like, ‘I heard about sex but not enough’?”

“Of all his lyrics, that’s the one lyric that you remember?”

“It speaks to me.”

“Well, I was thinking about the song, ‘I Go to Extremes.’”

“What about it?”

“It speaks to me.”

When we got to the gym, Lo wanted to start in the weight room.  Our gym is co-ed, obviously, and in the weight room there are lots of big, burly men who love to look at themselves in the full-length mirrors that surround the room on all the walls.  Lots of mirrors.  There are, of course, some women who, truth be told, also like to look at themselves in the mirrors.  They just don’t make as big a show of it as the guys do.

Lo likes looking at everybody, including herself, and, this particular morning, I found out in the worst of ways, she liked to be looked at as well.  She went right for the bench press and, asking me to spot her, she got on her back under the bar, her feet flat on the floor, her legs spread, and she asked with great deference, for my advice on lifting the twenty pounds (plus the weight of the bar, of course).

I gave her a few pointers and then stood behind her head, my hands cupped under the bar just in case she needed a little boost.  She looked up from the bench where her head was perched perfectly between my legs.  Had we been alone at home, she would have had a perfect angle for some fun play.  Her tongue ran across her sparkling white teeth and she mouthed the words, “Oh, Daddy!” as her eyes roamed to my crotch.

I rolled my eyes, but soon saw that some of the guys in the gym were stealing glances our way.  “Lo, try to get it up, will you?”  I honestly didn’t mean to say that.  I was talking about the bar, but it just came out that way.

“I’ve been trying all week,” she said.  “I think that with this good, hard, steel rod, I can make some progress.”  She went to lift the bar and lower it to her chest.  With a controlled exhale, she pushed the bar back up.  “That was good, right?!”  She was very excited by her accomplishment.

“Excellent!” I said, trying to be encouraging.  I looked up and noticed more guys’ eyes looking at her.  Was it that her legs were spread?  Was it that her face was down by my crotch?  Was it her breasts heaving as she lay flat on the bench?  I couldn’t tell what the interest was, but across the room the guys doing curls with free-weights, causing their already large biceps to bulge, were looking right at Lo.  It seemed like she was giving them inspiration.

After bench pressing, we did a few other strength exercises and we didn’t exact quite as much attention.  She told me that at the top of the hour a yoga class was starting and she encouraged me to join her in it.  “Yoga will be good for you.  It’s known to reduce depression.”  Reluctantly, I agreed.

In the yoga studio, the mats were arranged in five rows of four deep.  People gradually entered and chose their spots and began stretching out.  Lola took the front-center mat in the room and told me to take the spot behind her.  I did so.  I tried stretching.  Touching my toes was a challenge.  When the room was full, the instructor came in and she stood right in front of Lo.  We began easily enough and all was fine, until “Downward Dog.”  That’s when I figured out what the guys in the gym were looking at – Lo wasn’t wearing any panties!  Here little green yoga shorts were loose-fitting enough for her pussy to peek out when doing the bench press and now at yoga.  She looked over her shoulder at me when she came out of the pose and she knew that I knew what a bad girl she was.  Needless to say, part of my body was not as limber as it should be for yoga after that.  I think that I wasn’t the only one to notice my little slut’s slutty ways.  I played it off like I wasn’t with Lo.  Who?  Her?  That one in the front row showing her joie de vivre to the class?  Nope, don’t know her at all.  I’m just right behind her for the best view.

When the hour was over, Lo made it clear to the class that I was her man and she was my hotwife by grabbing my arm and congratulating me on getting through the entire class.  She looked down at the protrusion in my sweatpants and said, “I think you need to walk that off.”

I gave her a deriding look.

All the way home, she walked in front of me wiggling her little ass.

When we got home she said, “I’m so wet from working out.”

“I bet you are,” I replied.

“I’m going to take a shower.  Care to join?”

“No.  I’ll take one later.”
“Fine,” she said in a huff, “I was going to masturbate in there anyhow.”

“I figured.”

She was in there almost an hour.  When she was done, she walked stark naked into the kitchen and began slicing a tomato.

Hearing her futzing about, I came into the kitchen and asked, “Did you take a shower?”

“Yes.”

“Did you jill it?”

“No.  I made myself smooth.” She turned from the counter toward me and displayed her silky white skin of her mons pubis to me.

“Then why aren’t you bent over the bed?”

“Because I’m making you dinner.”

“Can’t I have an appetizer first?”

“Oh, now you want it?  What happened to your depression?”

“I’m just asking for a small taste to whet my appetite.”

“Just a taste?” she asked, incredulously.

“Yes.  April is abstinence month.”

“Really?  Since when?”

“I just proclaimed it such.”

“Well, this month sure won’t last long.”

“I’m telling you Lo, it’s Celibate City for me.”

“Forget it, Daddio, it’s Vaginatown.”