Monday, November 28, 2005
At The Black Sheets (Pt.1)
It's a Saturday night and we're on our way into the Mission District of San Francisco for a Black Sheets sex party. This outfit has been around for a long time, they know how to throw a good party.
Our first difficulty is easily negotiated on this night: we actually find a parking place not far from the house. Makes you feel like you've found gold coins lying in the street.
When we arrive at the house where the party is being held, we see a few people already lining up outside. An odd-looking group. Different types totally than you would see in Los Angeles, for instance. These are people who don't really care that much about appearances. After all, the first thing they make you do inside is...well, strip, basically. So what you wear to the party is neither here nor there. We see big people, small people, older types, younger ones.
Some of them appear experienced about these things: one couple actually whip out toothbrushes and give a quick pass through as they wait in line.
Tell me you would ever see ANYONE in L.A. doing this!
It's only a little past 8 p.m. but the crowd is forming. They let us inside in groups of about ten. The "check-in" area is upstairs, in the mid section of the house. Here we pay our $20 per person (since we went last December, it is now $25). They give you a brown paper bag to stash your clothes in. Space is at a premium in the check-in area. If you're not careful, or if you're really lucky, depending, you can be bending over to remove your shoes and find the ass of the guy or girl alongside you practically in your face.
God, I hope that's not the only foreplay we get here tonight.
I like the fact they separate folks from their clothes right away. It really speeds the erotic atmosphere on its merry way. At the Barry and Shells parties in Oakland, everyone comes dressed rather well. This makes the mood quite different. It becomes more of a social party than a sex party, and I am not in favor of keeping the clothes on people.
At the Black Sheets, they give you a choice: either go naked, or sport some "erotic attire." I would love to have someone take pix of D and I, but photography is strictly a no-no at these events.
The house is several stories, one of those tall but narrow San Francisco houses. We notice down the hall from the check-in area is a kitchen with a modest buffet spread out. It disappears rather quickly.
We move upstairs to the top floor, which is the main socializing area. We saw one couple having quiet sex in a corner, but generally there is not much of that here. People hook up here, then head off to more appropriate play areas later on.
Glass doors lead out onto a deck with a hottub, filled already with a number of men and women. Big big men and women, for some reason. I am not at all sure I want to get into a tub with them. The asian tsunami is too recent in my mind, my sarcastic nature might get the better of me and I'll start mumbling jokes/comments about water displacement and what not. I might drown.
Our first difficulty is easily negotiated on this night: we actually find a parking place not far from the house. Makes you feel like you've found gold coins lying in the street.
When we arrive at the house where the party is being held, we see a few people already lining up outside. An odd-looking group. Different types totally than you would see in Los Angeles, for instance. These are people who don't really care that much about appearances. After all, the first thing they make you do inside is...well, strip, basically. So what you wear to the party is neither here nor there. We see big people, small people, older types, younger ones.
Some of them appear experienced about these things: one couple actually whip out toothbrushes and give a quick pass through as they wait in line.
Tell me you would ever see ANYONE in L.A. doing this!
It's only a little past 8 p.m. but the crowd is forming. They let us inside in groups of about ten. The "check-in" area is upstairs, in the mid section of the house. Here we pay our $20 per person (since we went last December, it is now $25). They give you a brown paper bag to stash your clothes in. Space is at a premium in the check-in area. If you're not careful, or if you're really lucky, depending, you can be bending over to remove your shoes and find the ass of the guy or girl alongside you practically in your face.
God, I hope that's not the only foreplay we get here tonight.
I like the fact they separate folks from their clothes right away. It really speeds the erotic atmosphere on its merry way. At the Barry and Shells parties in Oakland, everyone comes dressed rather well. This makes the mood quite different. It becomes more of a social party than a sex party, and I am not in favor of keeping the clothes on people.
At the Black Sheets, they give you a choice: either go naked, or sport some "erotic attire." I would love to have someone take pix of D and I, but photography is strictly a no-no at these events.
The house is several stories, one of those tall but narrow San Francisco houses. We notice down the hall from the check-in area is a kitchen with a modest buffet spread out. It disappears rather quickly.
We move upstairs to the top floor, which is the main socializing area. We saw one couple having quiet sex in a corner, but generally there is not much of that here. People hook up here, then head off to more appropriate play areas later on.
Glass doors lead out onto a deck with a hottub, filled already with a number of men and women. Big big men and women, for some reason. I am not at all sure I want to get into a tub with them. The asian tsunami is too recent in my mind, my sarcastic nature might get the better of me and I'll start mumbling jokes/comments about water displacement and what not. I might drown.
What is with the big women at these parties? After attending several, I have come to the conclusion that I will probably rarely find any slim women I can play with. Where do the slim girls get to, I wonder? Not that I harbor hateful thoughts to the big people of the world. If they want to look that way it's ok by me, but in terms of these parties I would like to see a few more body types other than just huge. I've gotten flamed for such thoughts before by women, who think it's great that big girls can get out of the house too and find love. And they do seem to find action at these parties.
A tall, good-looking older man approaches us and introduces himself. He reminds me of Barry Bostwick, the actor. Nice bod, one of the few in-shape people here tonight, unfortunately. He seems quite happy to find us here, although he is not really our type. Too straight seeming. Right away he starts commenting how we look fit too, and describing other parties where all the people look like us.
"This is more of a local community type of thing," he adds. He sounds pretty plugged into the party scene. Actually, as we start going to more parties, we find we run across people again. That happens. There really is a party circuit.
TO BE CONTINUED
Thursday, November 24, 2005
What's With Those Italian Stallions? (Pt. 2)
Even G's parents were pleased with their son's marriage to a much older woman, or so G told me later. He had a vague notion the three of us could have enjoyed a threesome of our own. But then he would say things like, "I'm not sure how the two of you would get along."
Trust your instincts, guy, I thought. He probably was. I trusted mine too, and took a pass. I never did meet her.
G was an interesting person for me to see alongside D. They were a study in contrasts. I could not avoid making comparisons, and much as I liked G, I knew he was a diversion. It was going to be D who figured much more prominently in my life, and still does to this day.
Even little things, like the way they slept at night, were different. G was more like me, a bed hogger extraordinaire, and he tried to keep all the sheets on his side. D was always considerate with me.
G told me about a girlfriend he had once when he lived in the South. They were passionate but rather hard with one another. They did everything with heat and vigor, especially the fighting. There was lots of fighting. At one point, she grabbed a kitchen knife and came after G. It was that kind of thing.
I probably would have stuck a knife in him too, given enough time. G was an egoist. Part of me liked that about him. He was his own man, he was independent of me. Part of me also hated that about him. We would have dukked it out too, had we continued. The problem would have been that neither of us knew how to back down. Much as I love fire and brimstone, I realized the two of us would not be good over time. Bad train wrecks might ensue.
With D, it was a lot nicer. D knew when to back down. I could be a real bitch, and if it were left up to me, this relationship would not have gone very far. But D figured out how to navigate around me. Gradually over time he pulled me in. What D had to learn was how to stand up to me. Now he does that. He can tell me off royally when I start getting high-handed about things. And D was bisexual, that was a major bond between us. G calling himself bisexual was just a passing fancy, and I think he knew that. He was at heart a straight guy.
But G became a bit of the fly in the ointment between D and I. After my first night with G, it happened that D came over to my place. He happened to notice the half-empty bottle of wine inside the fridge door, and he commented on it.
"Oh. You had company," is how he put it. D is very sensitive about things like that. I had to fess up, and I said I had gone out with G.
I knew D was annoyed by this, although he was still determined to give me free rein. He just didn't like what I did with it. Even to this day he still harbors animosity about G. I did not repeat my little experiment with other guys after that. G pretty much worked it out of my system.
I hope he is still happy with his older woman. I know I am quite content now with my younger fellow.
- - - - - - - -
Trust your instincts, guy, I thought. He probably was. I trusted mine too, and took a pass. I never did meet her.
G was an interesting person for me to see alongside D. They were a study in contrasts. I could not avoid making comparisons, and much as I liked G, I knew he was a diversion. It was going to be D who figured much more prominently in my life, and still does to this day.
Even little things, like the way they slept at night, were different. G was more like me, a bed hogger extraordinaire, and he tried to keep all the sheets on his side. D was always considerate with me.
G told me about a girlfriend he had once when he lived in the South. They were passionate but rather hard with one another. They did everything with heat and vigor, especially the fighting. There was lots of fighting. At one point, she grabbed a kitchen knife and came after G. It was that kind of thing.
I probably would have stuck a knife in him too, given enough time. G was an egoist. Part of me liked that about him. He was his own man, he was independent of me. Part of me also hated that about him. We would have dukked it out too, had we continued. The problem would have been that neither of us knew how to back down. Much as I love fire and brimstone, I realized the two of us would not be good over time. Bad train wrecks might ensue.
With D, it was a lot nicer. D knew when to back down. I could be a real bitch, and if it were left up to me, this relationship would not have gone very far. But D figured out how to navigate around me. Gradually over time he pulled me in. What D had to learn was how to stand up to me. Now he does that. He can tell me off royally when I start getting high-handed about things. And D was bisexual, that was a major bond between us. G calling himself bisexual was just a passing fancy, and I think he knew that. He was at heart a straight guy.
But G became a bit of the fly in the ointment between D and I. After my first night with G, it happened that D came over to my place. He happened to notice the half-empty bottle of wine inside the fridge door, and he commented on it.
"Oh. You had company," is how he put it. D is very sensitive about things like that. I had to fess up, and I said I had gone out with G.
I knew D was annoyed by this, although he was still determined to give me free rein. He just didn't like what I did with it. Even to this day he still harbors animosity about G. I did not repeat my little experiment with other guys after that. G pretty much worked it out of my system.
I hope he is still happy with his older woman. I know I am quite content now with my younger fellow.
- - - - - - - -
Monday, November 21, 2005
What's With Those Italian Stallions?(Pt. 1)
Did D and I start out intending to be polyamorous? Actually, this word was not in our vocabulary back around 1990. I am not sure the word had even made its way into polite conversation at that distant point in time. But yes, we rather loosely inched our way forward into togetherness with the vague idea that we could/would continue to see other people.
I was not at all sure I wanted a permanent relationship. I had to think about that for quite a while. D was my first long-term partner, male or female, and for a while I resisted his efforts. I just couldn't imagine I was in a relationship. With a GUY for Christ's sake. That took a lot of getting used to. Maybe a woman would have provoked the same response.
He was careful to leave me my independent ways, but it was clear he wanted to be with me, in every sense of the word.
Part of my resistance was to take up with other males. That was how I met G, a twenty-something Italian boy who worked at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
D and I met him originally as a couple. G felt he was bisexual, and he decided he wanted to explore with a couple. We met at a coffee place in Marina del Rey for the first time.
G was rather handsome, with a strong, muscular build and a pleasant manner. He had the body of a dockworker, but he fancied himself an aesthete. G liked poetry and he wore black.
D was uncertain how bi the guy really was, so he confronted him right away. Meaning D took G back to my place, I forget where I was headed that day. But this was fine with me. D wanted to check him out ahead of time.
What transpired between them was that D came on quite strong to G, as a way of testing him. G was half-way there. They had oral sex, but anal sex was not something G was quite ready for. So D left feeling disappointed.
"The guy's just a bi-oral type," D tells me. We decided he would probably not be good couple material. Too bad, because G apparently had one of the biggest dicks D had ever seen.
He should not have told me this. Being the size queen that I can be at times, I was immediately curious.
So a few weeks later, unknown to D, I called up G at work. He was thrilled. We arranged a date. I think that time I fixed dinner, then we roamed around the Santa Monica Pier that evening before heading back to my place.
G was indeed the largest guy I had ever seen. What was even better was that he liked women a lot, and he was a really good lover. G was probably mid to late 20s. Any guy who is that good in the sack when he's that young is a guy who has been lovingly brought along by (probably) older women. He especially loved being with older women. At the time, I was nearly twenty years older than he. He was five years younger than my partner D.
Unbeknownst to me then, G was looking for a wife. After he and I parted company, he ended up marrying a co-worker at the museum, a woman who was even older than I was. She had been married before, her children were grown and gone. She had always wanted to be with a younger man. The last I heard, the marriage was going along swimmingly.
TO BE CONTINUED
I was not at all sure I wanted a permanent relationship. I had to think about that for quite a while. D was my first long-term partner, male or female, and for a while I resisted his efforts. I just couldn't imagine I was in a relationship. With a GUY for Christ's sake. That took a lot of getting used to. Maybe a woman would have provoked the same response.
He was careful to leave me my independent ways, but it was clear he wanted to be with me, in every sense of the word.
Part of my resistance was to take up with other males. That was how I met G, a twenty-something Italian boy who worked at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.
D and I met him originally as a couple. G felt he was bisexual, and he decided he wanted to explore with a couple. We met at a coffee place in Marina del Rey for the first time.
G was rather handsome, with a strong, muscular build and a pleasant manner. He had the body of a dockworker, but he fancied himself an aesthete. G liked poetry and he wore black.
D was uncertain how bi the guy really was, so he confronted him right away. Meaning D took G back to my place, I forget where I was headed that day. But this was fine with me. D wanted to check him out ahead of time.
What transpired between them was that D came on quite strong to G, as a way of testing him. G was half-way there. They had oral sex, but anal sex was not something G was quite ready for. So D left feeling disappointed.
"The guy's just a bi-oral type," D tells me. We decided he would probably not be good couple material. Too bad, because G apparently had one of the biggest dicks D had ever seen.
He should not have told me this. Being the size queen that I can be at times, I was immediately curious.
So a few weeks later, unknown to D, I called up G at work. He was thrilled. We arranged a date. I think that time I fixed dinner, then we roamed around the Santa Monica Pier that evening before heading back to my place.
G was indeed the largest guy I had ever seen. What was even better was that he liked women a lot, and he was a really good lover. G was probably mid to late 20s. Any guy who is that good in the sack when he's that young is a guy who has been lovingly brought along by (probably) older women. He especially loved being with older women. At the time, I was nearly twenty years older than he. He was five years younger than my partner D.
Unbeknownst to me then, G was looking for a wife. After he and I parted company, he ended up marrying a co-worker at the museum, a woman who was even older than I was. She had been married before, her children were grown and gone. She had always wanted to be with a younger man. The last I heard, the marriage was going along swimmingly.
TO BE CONTINUED
Thursday, November 17, 2005
The Fly On The Wall: At The Bathhouse
As my partner D is a bisexual man, he likes bathhouses. They represent nearly all of his sexual encounters with other men. As I am a bisexual woman, I am often left feeling jealous as hell that there aren't places like this for women. He and I have joked about how we should walk into his favorite bathhouse here in the south bay area, and try to convince the Powers That Be to let me come in with him. For one thing, it would certainly freak out a couple of the guys who run the place. They like D and think he's totally gay. My coming along for the ride would turn things topsy-turvy. They probably wouldn't go for the idea, so we haven't tried it yet.
But often I wonder what it would be like to be, so to speak, the proverbial "fly on the wall" and go along for the ride anyway. How does a bathhouse work?
For starters, you throw down your bucks, usually around $21, maybe a little more in some places if you want your own private room. You get a locker, you change clothes, you can hang in the general public areas around the hot tubs, saunas, pool if they have one.
If you have a private room, the drill is you keep your door open, you lie there on your bed, which nearly fills the room of course. You hang out and see who's likely to wander by. If you make the right eye contact and click, a simple smile can serve as an invitation to your man to come on in. Or men, depending if you find a gaggle of like-minded boys.
Now, usually during this "getting to know you" moment, you're lying there stroking yourself. At least D is. Sometimes he says the guys may just sit around together, waiting for someone, anyone, to make a move. D is usually a good icebreaker, he's ready to go, he'll be stroking himself as a way to stir the party up a little. He likes his Intended to be ready for action too, and is unwilling to spend time getting the guy there.
D says there is little verbal discussion. Girls, did you HEAR that?? No endless PROCESSING, praise be to Allah. The experience is not going to be buried under a pile of verbiage.
D usually always finds what he wants, sometimes it takes him only half an hour, or less; other times, he has to hang around for a while. Until he finds his man. Usually he wants to be the Bottom. This works out generally for him, as he has a pleasant manner and appearance. Well and good, but what really counts in this world is his rather huge set of balls and a very nice-sized dick. One of our threesome boys back in L.A. just flipped over the balls. He wanted to hold them. D let him. Roger Federer would feel at home serving up these balls on a tennis court. Usually the guys see D's equipment and they want HIM to be the Top. But his goal is normally to be the Bottom.
But somedays, you go to a bathhouse and EVERYONE wants to be the Bottom. Those days happen, no? So usually D is agreeable to being the Top. He can be a good switch. He's had plenty of practice over fifteen years with me.
Sometimes he runs across guys who can be a real pain. They don't take "no" for an answer. I love hearing this part of it, nearly all women can relate to the experience of being hounded by creeps. It amuses me to hear that males can have these problems too. D deals with them swiftly and clearly, usually with a wave of the hand, or a simple comment like "Move along, fella."
Am I worried about his safety? I get asked this a lot from gay women, who think I am playing Russian roulette. Bathhouses provide ample safe sex supplies, and D uses them religiously. You have to. What's disheartening to hear is that he often sees lots of guys who can't be bothered to put on a condom. D won't deal with them at all. Where have these guys been for the last two decades? Actually I would rather not know.
I would rather he hung out in a bathhouse instead of some other, more dangerous public place, like a parked car, or someplace like Griffith Park in Los Angeles, a major cruise and drug area. He's never been beaten up or robbed, and I would like that to continue.
Frankly, I feel assured that D practices safety. We have done this for fifteen years now. So I deduce that we must be doing a few things right.
Some of D's encounters generally sound so hot and exciting that I ask the question, "So does anyone ever trade phone numbers?"
Silly woman, no, they don't. It's a one-time affair. That's probably why it's so perfectly hot. I am a creature who gets attached to my pleasure sources. I have a good time, I want more. I tend to be more conservative, I like to think I may not always find it "down the road," I want what I had last night. D's attitude is that there are always boys out there in the ocean, and tomorrow is another day.
Anonymous sex can really be a thrill and a half. I am always looking for avenues to translate this attitude into the wacky World of Women.
Sadly, it gets lost in translation.
- - - - - -
But often I wonder what it would be like to be, so to speak, the proverbial "fly on the wall" and go along for the ride anyway. How does a bathhouse work?
For starters, you throw down your bucks, usually around $21, maybe a little more in some places if you want your own private room. You get a locker, you change clothes, you can hang in the general public areas around the hot tubs, saunas, pool if they have one.
If you have a private room, the drill is you keep your door open, you lie there on your bed, which nearly fills the room of course. You hang out and see who's likely to wander by. If you make the right eye contact and click, a simple smile can serve as an invitation to your man to come on in. Or men, depending if you find a gaggle of like-minded boys.
Now, usually during this "getting to know you" moment, you're lying there stroking yourself. At least D is. Sometimes he says the guys may just sit around together, waiting for someone, anyone, to make a move. D is usually a good icebreaker, he's ready to go, he'll be stroking himself as a way to stir the party up a little. He likes his Intended to be ready for action too, and is unwilling to spend time getting the guy there.
D says there is little verbal discussion. Girls, did you HEAR that?? No endless PROCESSING, praise be to Allah. The experience is not going to be buried under a pile of verbiage.
D usually always finds what he wants, sometimes it takes him only half an hour, or less; other times, he has to hang around for a while. Until he finds his man. Usually he wants to be the Bottom. This works out generally for him, as he has a pleasant manner and appearance. Well and good, but what really counts in this world is his rather huge set of balls and a very nice-sized dick. One of our threesome boys back in L.A. just flipped over the balls. He wanted to hold them. D let him. Roger Federer would feel at home serving up these balls on a tennis court. Usually the guys see D's equipment and they want HIM to be the Top. But his goal is normally to be the Bottom.
But somedays, you go to a bathhouse and EVERYONE wants to be the Bottom. Those days happen, no? So usually D is agreeable to being the Top. He can be a good switch. He's had plenty of practice over fifteen years with me.
Sometimes he runs across guys who can be a real pain. They don't take "no" for an answer. I love hearing this part of it, nearly all women can relate to the experience of being hounded by creeps. It amuses me to hear that males can have these problems too. D deals with them swiftly and clearly, usually with a wave of the hand, or a simple comment like "Move along, fella."
Am I worried about his safety? I get asked this a lot from gay women, who think I am playing Russian roulette. Bathhouses provide ample safe sex supplies, and D uses them religiously. You have to. What's disheartening to hear is that he often sees lots of guys who can't be bothered to put on a condom. D won't deal with them at all. Where have these guys been for the last two decades? Actually I would rather not know.
I would rather he hung out in a bathhouse instead of some other, more dangerous public place, like a parked car, or someplace like Griffith Park in Los Angeles, a major cruise and drug area. He's never been beaten up or robbed, and I would like that to continue.
Frankly, I feel assured that D practices safety. We have done this for fifteen years now. So I deduce that we must be doing a few things right.
Some of D's encounters generally sound so hot and exciting that I ask the question, "So does anyone ever trade phone numbers?"
Silly woman, no, they don't. It's a one-time affair. That's probably why it's so perfectly hot. I am a creature who gets attached to my pleasure sources. I have a good time, I want more. I tend to be more conservative, I like to think I may not always find it "down the road," I want what I had last night. D's attitude is that there are always boys out there in the ocean, and tomorrow is another day.
Anonymous sex can really be a thrill and a half. I am always looking for avenues to translate this attitude into the wacky World of Women.
Sadly, it gets lost in translation.
- - - - - -
Monday, November 14, 2005
Ms. KAR (Pt.4)
At the point where I met my friend Ms. KAR, my sexual ties to women had occurred in clusters over the years. Nearly all of them began as friendships. Somewhere along the line, we spilled over into new things. Most of these occurred as a one-time thing. You know, we got drunk one night, we were feeling horny or ornery, or both, there were no men around at that particular moment. So....off we went. The next day we segued just as easily back into the friendship. A lot of people came and went in my life that way.
Ms. KAR stayed the longest, in part because we had a common thread that united us, our directing workshop. Then there was her work doing acting, commercials, modelling, and the ubiquitous thing called "runway work." I was involved in cranking out scripts, pitching projects, scoping out agents.
She and I ran around L.A., doing our respective things, meeting up for a coffee or lunch or dinner and trading war stories. I took her to see movies that I felt she should see, because of the acting or the directing or the movie itself. Ms. KAR got dragged to Anna Magnani movies, I introduced her to Glenda Jackson.
Bad illegal substances also brought us together. Beyond the usual pot that K and I always seemed to enjoy. One night, a Saturday night, I went over to M's agency office, located on the Sunset Strip right where it curves, and across the street from Wolfgang Puck's Spago restaurant.
M was having a private party, with K, and another black friend, C. C had brought along some stuff I had never tried before. But when I took my first puff from the pipe offered to me, and I saw the smoke curling up the glass bowl and into my lungs, I knew this was some amazing stuff. I had to go sit down. Suddenly, it seemed like all the curtains in my head had dropped away, and everything felt intensely open and brand-new. Freebasing rock cocaine does that to a person, I discovered.
It was an incredible high. It also became an incredibly risky thing to partake of on any sort of regular basis. C, the black friend of M's, became a good friend of mine. But he loved this stuff too much. He and I started smoking on our own, without other people. We would hang out and talk our way around the universe. His views were always interesting to me, and we discovered we travelled well together.
But C got to dropping in on me at home every two weeks or so, then every ten days. Not only was this new habit becoming expensive, it was getting to BE a habit, and that concerned me.
M was also starting to enjoy himself a little too much with the stuff, and Ms. KAR and I did our own little intervention. We distanced ourselves gradually from both men. Other people came into K's life. She got proposals of marriage from a number of men, none of them were really in the running though until G came along. He was a young, confident rock video director with a zany sense of humor and a love of surfing. After a few months of dating, Ms. KAR said yes.
Something came back to me from a conversation we had way back somewhere. K said she knew a number of other models who basically said "yes" to marriage in large part because they were tired of all the hassles. Tired of fending off single guys, tired of dealing with tycoons like J who were great at making money, but little else. She met a guy who really did love her and would work like a dog to take good care of her. Personally I thought the move was a bit too early, but it seemed to work out.
I lost track of K in the late 90s. She and I oddly enough both went through our periods of health crises, she with Hodgkin's disease that was not diagnosed properly, at first; me with a ruptured aortic aneurysm. We had been out of touch for a while, and when we got back together we discovered we had endured our life-threatening issues at exactly the same time. I remember her telling me how great the Screen Actors Guild had been during her illness.
They even paid for a wig to cover her head during the chemotherapy. Actors can be called flaky, I suppose. But you can't say they don't look after their own.
TO BE CONTINUED
Ms. KAR stayed the longest, in part because we had a common thread that united us, our directing workshop. Then there was her work doing acting, commercials, modelling, and the ubiquitous thing called "runway work." I was involved in cranking out scripts, pitching projects, scoping out agents.
She and I ran around L.A., doing our respective things, meeting up for a coffee or lunch or dinner and trading war stories. I took her to see movies that I felt she should see, because of the acting or the directing or the movie itself. Ms. KAR got dragged to Anna Magnani movies, I introduced her to Glenda Jackson.
Bad illegal substances also brought us together. Beyond the usual pot that K and I always seemed to enjoy. One night, a Saturday night, I went over to M's agency office, located on the Sunset Strip right where it curves, and across the street from Wolfgang Puck's Spago restaurant.
M was having a private party, with K, and another black friend, C. C had brought along some stuff I had never tried before. But when I took my first puff from the pipe offered to me, and I saw the smoke curling up the glass bowl and into my lungs, I knew this was some amazing stuff. I had to go sit down. Suddenly, it seemed like all the curtains in my head had dropped away, and everything felt intensely open and brand-new. Freebasing rock cocaine does that to a person, I discovered.
It was an incredible high. It also became an incredibly risky thing to partake of on any sort of regular basis. C, the black friend of M's, became a good friend of mine. But he loved this stuff too much. He and I started smoking on our own, without other people. We would hang out and talk our way around the universe. His views were always interesting to me, and we discovered we travelled well together.
But C got to dropping in on me at home every two weeks or so, then every ten days. Not only was this new habit becoming expensive, it was getting to BE a habit, and that concerned me.
M was also starting to enjoy himself a little too much with the stuff, and Ms. KAR and I did our own little intervention. We distanced ourselves gradually from both men. Other people came into K's life. She got proposals of marriage from a number of men, none of them were really in the running though until G came along. He was a young, confident rock video director with a zany sense of humor and a love of surfing. After a few months of dating, Ms. KAR said yes.
Something came back to me from a conversation we had way back somewhere. K said she knew a number of other models who basically said "yes" to marriage in large part because they were tired of all the hassles. Tired of fending off single guys, tired of dealing with tycoons like J who were great at making money, but little else. She met a guy who really did love her and would work like a dog to take good care of her. Personally I thought the move was a bit too early, but it seemed to work out.
I lost track of K in the late 90s. She and I oddly enough both went through our periods of health crises, she with Hodgkin's disease that was not diagnosed properly, at first; me with a ruptured aortic aneurysm. We had been out of touch for a while, and when we got back together we discovered we had endured our life-threatening issues at exactly the same time. I remember her telling me how great the Screen Actors Guild had been during her illness.
They even paid for a wig to cover her head during the chemotherapy. Actors can be called flaky, I suppose. But you can't say they don't look after their own.
TO BE CONTINUED
Monday, November 07, 2005
Ms. KAR (Pt.3)
My dear friend Ms. KAR had always had one or two really close women friends in her life. She knew how to be a good buddy. Tomboys know how instinctively to do that, and she and I were both tomboys.
As our friendship developed, I realized I was feeling a lot of intense feelings about K. But it became clear to me that there were various other people in the picture, and it was going to be a case of Share And Share Alike.
I was going to have to deal with M, her theatrical agent at the time. M was a portly, gregarious black guy, with a ton of energy and a gift of gab up the wazoo. K looked up to him and wouldn't make a move without his input.
M saw Ms. KAR as a potential meal ticket. He viewed me as, well, someone he would have to deal with also. M started hearing from K tales about this P woman, me. It was P this and P that. I seemed to have made an impression on her, so M turned his attention to me. He managed to deduce that I was a somewhat crazy older blonde, highly educated and interesting to hang around. And I rode a bike. He knew before we met that I was probably falling for his protege, the way lots of people had done before.
As our friendship developed, I realized I was feeling a lot of intense feelings about K. But it became clear to me that there were various other people in the picture, and it was going to be a case of Share And Share Alike.
I was going to have to deal with M, her theatrical agent at the time. M was a portly, gregarious black guy, with a ton of energy and a gift of gab up the wazoo. K looked up to him and wouldn't make a move without his input.
M saw Ms. KAR as a potential meal ticket. He viewed me as, well, someone he would have to deal with also. M started hearing from K tales about this P woman, me. It was P this and P that. I seemed to have made an impression on her, so M turned his attention to me. He managed to deduce that I was a somewhat crazy older blonde, highly educated and interesting to hang around. And I rode a bike. He knew before we met that I was probably falling for his protege, the way lots of people had done before.
"I think she's gay," K said to M about me. She and I had not really talked about our sex lives early on, so she was guessing here. At that time, I really did not have a sex life. I was mainly preoccupied with my two loves, long distance cycling and screenwriting.
M could see the writing on the wall. His feeling was that K needed exposure to different things in her life, especially if she were going to carry on with the acting. She would run across a lot of gay women, and M wanted her to be prepared. I was a tool in these plans. He figured he had better meet with me and see where my head was at.
Over lunch one day at the Old World Restaurant on the Sunset Strip, he and I arrived at an unspoken pact. I could say, in retrospect, it was more like a deal with the devil. But it got me K, which was what I wanted. I would have to go thru M if I wanted K. I was prepared to do that.
M spent most of the lunch praising Ms. KAR to me. "She's perfect material to be a bisexual woman," he told me. He could have added, "And you can have her if you play your cards right." He didn't, but that was certainly the unspoken subtext between us.
Did I have so little self-confidence that I saw no other way? Yes, probably, sorry to say. Maybe I could have landed K on my own, but at the time she relied heavily on M's advice, both personally and professionally. So M kept me dangling over her, and he kept her tycoon boyfriend J in the same position.
M would talk to K the way an experienced older woman would groom a younger protege. He talked a lot about powerful men, and the role women played in their lives. Take Donald Trump, he would argue. The guy spends his life climbing over people and companies to get to the top, and now he's there, but there is one final thing he needs. He has everything but the Babe. When you've taken over the business world and made your mark, what's left? You want the trophy wife on your arm.
If the woman is smart, she knows this instinctively. She'll play her cards well. She's the prize, and he's just a piker.
"He has to come in the door the correct way," M liked to say.
Norman Mailer put it this way. "God dealt women all the cards, and he dealt them right between their legs."
Women who tolerate abuse from males have somehow gotten these rules ass-backwards. They forget that they, in M's words, are "the gift."
Of course, Ms. KAR probably realized a lot of this on her own. But not all of it, or she would not have been so susceptible to M's preachings. She took his advice as holy scripture.
My feeling was that M was certainly correct in his interpretation of male/female relationships. But why did a woman need to hear it from HIM? That was the fly in the ointment. He wants to make the woman he's coaching strong in her dealings with other males, where he can manipulate and pull the strings.
If they are indeed the "gifts" to men that men think they are, then why would women need someone like M? Aren't they able to navigate on their own? Apparently not. M was always in charge.
Easy to see, in retrospect. But at the time neither K nor I probably had enough belief in ourselves.
We signed up for M's "crash course" in successful living. K was too insecure personally to function totally on her own, I was getting mired in a crush that became one of the more intense things of my life with girls.
We were easy pickings. She and I both caved in to our respective needs. We gave just about all of our personal power away.
TO BE CONTINUED
Thursday, November 03, 2005
Ms. KAR (Pt.2)
When my new friend K and I started hanging out together in L.A., it became apparent early on why she wanted to go into acting. She had a small speech impediment, a kind of stutter. You hardly ever noticed it, until she felt incredibly pressured by situations. Then you could hear it in every sentence she uttered. Painfully so.
It represented a challenge to her, and Ms. KAR liked challenges.
About the time she and I became acquainted, she began one with J, a youngish 40-something tycoon. The guy was cute, but short. And like many short guys, it ruled a lot of his life. He was aggressive in running his company, but withdrawn emotionally. He made Fortune Magazine's top 40 list of hot business guys on the way up. He drove a black Rolls Royce and lived in an expensive high-rise apartment on the Wilshire corridor in west L.A.
Many women had tried to land him. K probably came the closest, before she realized he had severe emotional problems and declined to go further with him.
She told me a story about him once, where J took a woman he had just met to a posh party in New York City. The woman, apparently unbeknownst to J, had a bisexual streak in her. She met another woman at the same party, and after a short discussion the two of them decided they were going off to amuse themselves in another part of the mansion.
Yum yum. I like this story, don't you?
This did not bother J, at first. He thought the women would invite him along. He asked if he could watch. They basically said, fuck off, and away they went.
It was the most cutting rejection J had ever received in his entire life, so he told K later. I feel his pain. Women can be mean, although part of me would love to meet a woman under those circumstances. But I don't think I would diss my own male partner.
I found it interesting that J told Ms. KAR that story. Why did he do that? I had my own thoughts, so I asked her. She interpreted it exactly the way I did, which was that J was looking to repeat that scenario with Ms. KAR. Only this time he would not be tossed out of the bedroom.
He told her that story as a way of feeling her out on the subject. That was our "take."
I never did meet J. But the more K told me about him, the more it sounded like he and I had a lot in common. My own sexual identity at that time was not quite on an even keel, and neither was J's. But I felt like I was further along in being comfortable with things.
J may have been a somewhat closeted bi guy. K told me he really liked having anal sex. K did not have strong feelings against this particular sexual activity, she had not experienced it very much at all. But it was the way he went about it that turned her off the whole thing. It bothered her that he seemed not to like physically facing her when they had sex. This became a subtle metaphor I felt for how she came to perceive J. He was stunted emotionally, as he felt he was physically, by being short. For K, it became a sign that he could not really accept her, emotionally.
Had I been as experienced then as I feel I am now with this style of lovemaking, I would have told her that anal sex can be quite erotic, it feels deeply connective in a way that regular intercourse does not. At least for me. It does not have to have a power element going on. My partner D and I probably explore this region as much out of curiosity as for adventure. I never feel that dominance/submission is the main element when D and I have anal sex.
But K did, and it really troubled her that J liked so much of that. Even had she switched positions, and been on her back, it probably still would have felt like a power situation. Just because J's personality made it that way.
In his early life, J had very little control over anything. He came from a Jewish family, fairly well off, in Czechoslovakia. They fled when the Russians invaded. J remembers how they stowed away on a freighter on their way eventually to Israel. He was about six at the time. His mother hid him in a crate on the deck, gave him a peach and warned him to not toss the pit away onto the deck. That would have revealed his hiding place.
When you're a terrified six year old and your world is already falling away around you, and all you can cling to is the pit of a peach, I guess you would want to grow up and become the baddest kid on the block. Whether in boardroom or bedroom.
TO BE CONTINUED
It represented a challenge to her, and Ms. KAR liked challenges.
About the time she and I became acquainted, she began one with J, a youngish 40-something tycoon. The guy was cute, but short. And like many short guys, it ruled a lot of his life. He was aggressive in running his company, but withdrawn emotionally. He made Fortune Magazine's top 40 list of hot business guys on the way up. He drove a black Rolls Royce and lived in an expensive high-rise apartment on the Wilshire corridor in west L.A.
Many women had tried to land him. K probably came the closest, before she realized he had severe emotional problems and declined to go further with him.
She told me a story about him once, where J took a woman he had just met to a posh party in New York City. The woman, apparently unbeknownst to J, had a bisexual streak in her. She met another woman at the same party, and after a short discussion the two of them decided they were going off to amuse themselves in another part of the mansion.
Yum yum. I like this story, don't you?
This did not bother J, at first. He thought the women would invite him along. He asked if he could watch. They basically said, fuck off, and away they went.
It was the most cutting rejection J had ever received in his entire life, so he told K later. I feel his pain. Women can be mean, although part of me would love to meet a woman under those circumstances. But I don't think I would diss my own male partner.
I found it interesting that J told Ms. KAR that story. Why did he do that? I had my own thoughts, so I asked her. She interpreted it exactly the way I did, which was that J was looking to repeat that scenario with Ms. KAR. Only this time he would not be tossed out of the bedroom.
He told her that story as a way of feeling her out on the subject. That was our "take."
I never did meet J. But the more K told me about him, the more it sounded like he and I had a lot in common. My own sexual identity at that time was not quite on an even keel, and neither was J's. But I felt like I was further along in being comfortable with things.
J may have been a somewhat closeted bi guy. K told me he really liked having anal sex. K did not have strong feelings against this particular sexual activity, she had not experienced it very much at all. But it was the way he went about it that turned her off the whole thing. It bothered her that he seemed not to like physically facing her when they had sex. This became a subtle metaphor I felt for how she came to perceive J. He was stunted emotionally, as he felt he was physically, by being short. For K, it became a sign that he could not really accept her, emotionally.
Had I been as experienced then as I feel I am now with this style of lovemaking, I would have told her that anal sex can be quite erotic, it feels deeply connective in a way that regular intercourse does not. At least for me. It does not have to have a power element going on. My partner D and I probably explore this region as much out of curiosity as for adventure. I never feel that dominance/submission is the main element when D and I have anal sex.
But K did, and it really troubled her that J liked so much of that. Even had she switched positions, and been on her back, it probably still would have felt like a power situation. Just because J's personality made it that way.
In his early life, J had very little control over anything. He came from a Jewish family, fairly well off, in Czechoslovakia. They fled when the Russians invaded. J remembers how they stowed away on a freighter on their way eventually to Israel. He was about six at the time. His mother hid him in a crate on the deck, gave him a peach and warned him to not toss the pit away onto the deck. That would have revealed his hiding place.
When you're a terrified six year old and your world is already falling away around you, and all you can cling to is the pit of a peach, I guess you would want to grow up and become the baddest kid on the block. Whether in boardroom or bedroom.
TO BE CONTINUED
