California Reaming - A Woman's Adventures In Polyamory

Girl Bars

2007-01-15T14:19:00.000-08:00

My first gay bar was in London, in the late 60s. You had to like do the little dance they made you do back then at the door, you had to "join" as if it were a private club. Which it was. Legally it made things easier. Thank God I walked in with another American girl from the youth hostal. A straight girl, but she was there in London studying at RADA. An actress, ergo, an adventuress. Gay bar? No problem for her, off we went.

It helps when you go there with someone. Otherwise I found hardly any of the women ever talked to me. This set me to wondering all sorts of strange ideas, ranging from my mouthwash isn't working tonight to maybe I am not defined enough, not butch or femme looking enough. But that has nothing to do with it. It's just the nature of the beast.

Of course I thought the problem was with me, until I started reading Camille Paglia, the social critic and literary maven. And self-identified lesbian. She writes about exactly the same thing - of walking into dyke bars and being pretty much ignored. Other than the one or two gay boys hanging around, because they WILL talk to you. What's that all about?

Camille was not a bad-looking woman, and neither am I. It's just women can be so...quaint with other women. Again, I am left marvelling that women meet up at all with each other. And again, I find myself saying, no wonder monogamy is such a crucial thing in lesbian life, because you realize how hard it is for ANYONE to hook up. When they do, they want it to be like Leavenworth. Lock and key and forever and ever till death do us part. Actual death or lesbian bed death. Whichever comes first one supposes.

On the other hand, I met one of my best female friends ever in a dyke bar in San Francisco around 1969. This was at Maud's, which was a classic hang-out for dykes. PBS even did a show on Maud's when it finally closed down. It was a fairly roomy place, with a nice pool table where I learned basically to play a mean game of pool. I did this when I discovered few women would talk to me.

The bars can differ depending whether they are in L.A. or San Francisco. I have only seen one in New York City, and that was mid afternoon on a Saturday, so probably not the best time to get a gander of what it's like. The bars in L.A. maybe have women who are a little more dressed, and they may be more into the beautiful look ticket. But not by much. The attitudes are still pretty clique-driven.

Boy bars were a lot more fun. I visited a few of those too with various friends over the years. The energy level seems higher, the dancing more animated. More people actually talk to you.

But try as I will, I can never remember picking anyone up in a bar. I met people there and we might meet later, but nothing ever panned out.

And that is probably why dyke bars can seem pretty forlorn places. I don't know if I would even want to walk into one, just to play pool. This past year I have met two women in bars. One was a fellow writer, the other was coming out of a long relationship. Neither one went anywhere.

The first bar was the Lexington in the Mission District of San Francisco, the only full-time dyke bar left in the city. The other was at Mecca, a more upscale dining place with an elegant circular bar.

Funny how the women don't seem any more secure from one place to the other. No wonder they make me so uncomfortable.

- - - - -

Manly Men And Their Manly Protuberances

2007-01-05T11:15:00.000-08:00

Guys may not always have it so lucky when the conversation turns to sex. Even though they probably want that to happen. It may not always reflect honor upon them. Their manliness more often than not ends up being examined under a high-powered magnifying glass.

Take for instance the public talk that goes on about condoms. We like to poke fun at the need for such contraptions, but in the end we are all probably using them. But the humor can fade from racy talk like this, particularly when we get a news story out of India that might make a guy - or two or three - think twice before making jokes about condoms. Not that Indian guys do that a lot. They are actually pretty inhibited in a country where sex is a rather conservative topic.

One night recently on the MSNBC ticker tape, I saw a caption of a story out of India, about how the men there were not buying American-made condoms after all. Not because they were inferior, or over-priced. But because the average sized American condom is too big for most Indian males.

Ooohh, I thought. I wonder if this story made headlines back in India. Probably not. Not the sort of story you want bandied about.

Did this apply to Pakistan too? After all, they are right next door, and they are all of the same historical family tree. But you probably couldn't report a story like this out of Pakistan. If they hate us now, just wait until word of their puny private endowments gets out. Al-Qaeda and the rest of the Muslims there won't leave us alone. Talk about your run-up to World War III! Southpark can make fun of the tiny pee-pees of Japanese men, and their skit one month after 9/11 about Osama and his small privates was one of the most hysterically funny and biting pieces ever to hit the airwaves, but this is getting serious now.

So this is why I think the reporting powers that be chose to focus the story on India. They are more likely to have a bit of a sense of humor about such things.

Sort of.

Men in our country would not be amused one whit if they were subjected to similar scrutiny. But it's ok to pick on the Indians I guess. After all, they're the ones now with the jobs. Our jobs, that is. Is this how we get our own back on them?

Men are sensitive about size. Many aren't, fed no doubt on hope generated from hearing women say, since time immemorial, "Well size really doesn't matter that much."

I'd like to find the woman spreading those rumors and give her a good smack to the side of the head! Actually, maybe it was a man who started that rumor, but he attributed it to a woman. I would not be surprised. Because most women I remember ever talking with about this subject felt like I did.

You may not need a salami as large as the Eiffel Tower, but you certainly won't ask it to leave the bedroom.

I must have more of a gay boy's head than I could ever realize. And one of the ways this is true is when it comes to sizes. I love big. It is part of what I like to look at in penises. Along with shape, thickness, curvature. General loveliness. I have been fascinated about male members since before I left the womb.

The horrible thought occurs to me: my childhood fantasy of becoming a man someday was really about my wanting to get close to more penises. If I were a man, I realize now, I wouldn't be boffing women. I would be chasing men like a flea chases the fur of a cat, looking for a place to land.

- - - - -

Death Fucks

2007-01-02T10:58:00.000-08:00

Years ago when I first read James M. Cain's classic noir potboiler, The Postman Always Rings Twice, I remember hearing shocked reactions, and feeling some myself, over the scene where the anti-hero, our insurance salesman hero, fucks the heroine in the car right after they've beaten in the brains of her husband.

Eeewww, I thought, is this possible? Is it right that people could do this? More to the point, is this NATURAL for people to do this?

Well, one thing about growing older is that your mind expands to allow for many more possibilities than when you are younger. Those possibilities extend to peoples' sex lives and practices.

Now I am of the opinion that these so-called "death fucks" are indeed the natural route for humans to wander down. Before the question I phrased in my mind was, "How could ANYONE remotely think of sex when you've just basically beaten the brains out of a guy and now they're all over we presume the front seat of the car?"

Now the question gets answered, "Oh, of course they would have sex, what else?" Because the intensity of the first act brings into being the possibility of the second occurring now. That is just the nature of the beast. When death is at hand, nature, human nature, has to step in and counter that wave. Getting a hard-on is a way of doing that in the face of people getting hammered right and left.

If you don't want to trust literature to see this effect, you can go look at the news stories that came out of New York City after 9/11. Statistics show that the birth rate shot up nine months later. Why? Because the night after the attacks people apparently went home or somewhere and fucked like rabbits.

We could say, well they should have been comforting their kids, or their friends, or they should have been doing a, b and c. But in the end, they were fucking.

The deepest parts of peoples' psyches cracked open, their survival mechanisms were nukked in some critical way, they responded in utterly logical, perfect unison.

In the face of overwhelming, vast numbers of dead, the only way forward is essentially by harnessing the urge to create more life.

Go Team Humanity!

- - - - -

The Loves Of Our Lives

2006-12-29T12:00:00.000-08:00

Since re-entering the wacky world of online girlie dating three years ago, I have observed how nearly all the lesbian women I run across seem driven by one consideration. It is not about sex, unlike gay men, who not only seek that out but find it with alarming alacrity. Rather it is about finding the partner of their dreams. Hetero couples engage in this too, but with lesbians it has been elevated to an art form almost.

The Quest For Love. It ranks right up there with the Quest For Fire, one supposes. Well, how do the ladies make out generally? Generally, I would say not very well. Mostly because I think they are looking too hard. There is the scent of quiet desperation.

The real problems occur, lo and behold, when a gay woman thinks she has located Ms. Right. Now the best is yet to come. There are a lot of jokes within the community about how gay women, almost singlehandedly, support the U-Haul businesses out there. Because as we all know, once a lady finds her lady, a moving van is not far behind. Hhmm, as we check our watches we see the girls are right on schedule to move in with one another and start living on top of each other and, in essence, really really having fun together.

I am being quite sarcastic here, because I find so many of these living arrangements head south pretty rapidly. The intensity of the desire to nest really skewers everything, I feel. No relationship could survive with that hefty amount of expectations piled atop it.

As I go through the women's personal ads on Craigslist for the San Francisco Bay area, I notice a now-large number of ads of women who just want an NSA relationship. That's No Strings Attached for you. So maybe the times are a changin' and younger lesbians are no longer so hell bent to find the perfect lover.

But there is another larger group on Craigslist who are searching for that. Since I am partnered with a male, most of these women figure I am poor dating material. As one of my former lovers stated in her email when she blew me off, she didn't see "where this could go." Well, there are many places such relationships can go; all it takes is a willingness to explore the possible paths, which I thought this particular lover, J, possessed. But apparently I was wrong.

I tend to like the dyke crowd when I play with women. I am not so interested in other bi women, mostly because they all seem so one-sidedly femme. I need someone a little butch of center for life to work for me. But this narrows my chances of finding someone in the lesbian community.

So I get to observe them a lot instead. I remember noting, when Mayor Gavin Newsom in San Francisco allowed gays to marry last year, that there were a number of fine-looking women down at the courthouse. Dave and I commented about one early female couple in particular. The one woman reminded me a lot of J. The other one was very appropriate for her too, I thought. So I watched them and I felt jealous. They seemed so compatible.

Well, lo and behold, we find out much later that the pair got divorced three months after the "wedding."

These looked like smart, educated women who were old enough to know their own desires. How can it be that THREE MONTHS later things have fallen apart? This is mind-boggling to me.

Is this what the drive for monogamy does to people? Well, to lesbian people anyway. Maybe someone ought to whisper something nasty into these girls' ears, like "You don't need to buy the whole cow just to get a little milk from her." Of course I will get flamed for saying this in many circles, but you have to wonder. Because the desire to be monogamous obviously conflicts with the desire to be more sexual. And when these two elements butt heads, break-ups are almost inevitable.

Why can't the gay girls be more like the gay boys? For the one group, monogamy is etched in stone; for the other, monogamy means you can cruise with your male partner. The fact that, in the States, the two communities don't really socialize that much anymore makes this gap seem wider. This is sad, because each group has some valuable perspectives to offer the other.

- - - - -

Sanctimonious Lesbians

2006-12-22T15:10:00.000-08:00

Oh, happy day when one can wake up to the subtle strains of NPR on the airwaves, in this case to imbibe the personal accounts of people who submit various opinions on various topics.

Today I heard a lesbian woman waxing poetic about her relationship with her lesbian partner. It all sounded lovey-dovey hunky-dory, until I got to the bit where some moralizing crept in.

Why would anybody want to put themselves through a heterosexual relationship in an attempt to find intimacy, she argued. She spoke about looking out the window of her apartment and across the way in other windows she would see couples sitting across from each other. Men and women couples. Surely, because they are men and women, they cannot have the same level of intimacy that I, a lesbian, can have with another woman.

Well, ok, maybe they can, she goes on, but it is more of a struggle because they are innately different, therefore the chances of finding true intimacy diminish. In case you weren't paying attention, Mother Nature just drove a stake through your aspirations.

Darn! And just when you thought it was safe to go back in the waters of heterosexual dating! Bummer!

But wait a minute here, why should I assume that because we are identical, as she puts it, on "a cellular level," that we therefore have an inside track on intimacy?

Hhmm, let me count the ways...I've had about a rough dozen female lovers in my life (and mostly rough it was, ruff ruff). More than the male partners by a good distance. Yet I would never presume to say we had good intrinsic communication skills because we both happened to be female. In fact, mostly the opposite.

So what's the deal here that lesbians seem to have this need to claim the higher part of the mountain for themselves? Do they regard men as being so low on the genetic totem-pole that there is little good any woman can wring out of their bloody hides? Probably, in many cases. You see, for many lesbians, it is not enough that you claim you are lesbian, you have to rain on the parade of the heteros as well. Especially the men.

There is a lot of this rather gratuitous chat that goes on among lesbians, I find. It is very annoying. It would be more annoying if it were true, and even more so if what the women claim for themselves were actually true.

But I would argue that mutual understanding is arrived at, not because you have reduced points of conflict, but because you may, God forbid, have more.

I would argue that you grow more as a person when you have a certain adversity flung at you every so often.

From personal experience, I can tell you that living with a man gives you that, as a woman. It has made me a lot stronger, as a PERSON, to live with someone who is quite different from me, biology aside.

Think of it as something akin to a roaring good tennis match. Roger Federer would still be the supreme player he is because he's Roger, but he will become even better if he has a Rafa Nadal around to push him, to get in his face, to rattle his cage. To bother the lad the way Dave has bothered me over the years.

Men do that with me, there is conflict; women on the other hand don't, it's too easy. And because it's too easy, it becomes, for me, rather boring.

To translate it into sexual terms, I also think one's sex life can be very interesting when the couple has a lot of issues going on. You patch things up in the bedroom.

In some lesbian relationships, the intimacy can be so complete and soothing that it drowns those instincts that can lead to hot sex. You end up with a lot of what they call Lesbian Bed Death. Or to put it another way, I think familiarity does indeed breed contempt.

I am realizing now why that topic fascinates me so, why some part of me feels anxious when I write about it. Because I want to keep the image alive in my head that I COULD have partnered with a woman. But I realize I never could have, because I required something different. I required a situation that had many points of tension built in, not that I tried to create that, or that I even wanted it. But once there, I saw how it worked for me.

Somehow being woven into a cocoon of lesbian intimacy was just too claustrophobic.

Quick, how do I get out of here???

- - - - -

Heidi and Mike, Out At The Ranch

2006-12-19T14:38:00.000-08:00

If you're a woman, and you're in need of some sexual refreshment, as it were, why something wicked your neighborhood comes. In the form of former Hollywood madam Heidi Fleiss, who is back in business, again, only this time she has set up shop in Nevada. Probably a good thing, I seem to recall she had a fair number of problems plying her trade in Hollywood environs a few years back.

But hey, she did her time, she paid for her crimes, such as they were. Now she has found a new partner in crime, boxing heavyweight champ Mike Tyson. Also a former ex con, as you will recall from even further back when he did time, among other things, for raping a woman who went to his hotel room one night.

The New York Daily News reported recently, with a certain air of amusement, the fact that these two are now in cahoots. Heidi wants to open a brothel in Nevada, for women customers, and Mike has been hired to be her Number One Stud Muffin. As she put it to reporters, "(He's)..going to be my big stallion," A name has already been picked out for it. Heidi's Stud Farm. How novel!

Mike chimed in with his two cents, saying, "I don't care what any man says, it's every man's dream to please every woman...and get paid for it."

Of course, since this is a brand-new adventure, we have no idea yet how it will play out. But let's hope it is an idea whose time has come. Once when I was in Bangkok, I heard about a brothel where women could go for their fun. It sounded like a neat idea, and I am sure there are such places scattered across the globe. I always figured if it were close I would go and try it out. I never did locate that particular brothel.

Nevada sounds close enough. I wonder who her clientele would be? Obviously women who are not only unhappily partnered, or not partnered at all, and well-heeled. What would it cost to go there? Will Heidi stake out a path of the places already in Nevada, like the notorious Mustang Ranch, now closed? Or will she try and make it a whole new concept, because women are the clients? Would she situate it close to Las Vegas, or would she be angling for a different crowd further away? After all, the women may not want their watering holes, pardon the puns, to be situated anywhere near where the men go. But maybe you start in Vegas and catch a limo from there. I smell limos in this equation, don't you?

Inquiring minds want to know. I also want to know who her other lads will be attending these women. Mike Tyson must be the sort of guy you want if you're into a Rough Trade type of evening. Mike always was a forceful kind of guy. Hopefully he'll appreciate the need not to give the girls a split lip on their way out. Some veneer of savoir fair, however thin, would still be required.

Will she have theme nights? Or theme boys? What "type" would I go for? Will it be a cabaret sort of theme, where guests and worker bees mingle happily, over nibbles and cocktails? Will there be group scenes, or is it likely to be one on one?

God forbid they should get girls like me, who want to pack along their strap-ons and whip them out for use on the appropriate boy. Will the appropriate boy be open for such dalliances?

The prospect sounds fascinating. I wish I were Heidi's personal assistant or bookkeeper or press person or something so I could get a gander of how something like this gets off the ground. And it will get off the ground, no doubt about that.

Times have changed enough, and women have enough money now, and the chutzpah to go with it, to utilize a luscious service like this.

Go Heidi! Go...ah...Mike...well, sort of maybe. Not my type. However, if she wants to install someone like Daniel Craig, the current new blond James Bond, why I guess I'll just have to break down and go.

- - - - -

A Birthday Orgy, Follow-Up

2006-12-15T14:46:00.000-08:00

So Dave and I left the birthday orgy for E with the sense that we would probably not want to go back. Actually, more like we probably wouldn't be invited back, since neither of us consented to...well, let's say it this way, we chose not to honor our host on his big day. In fact, it was annoying to me especially that he was expecting everyone to service him in some fashion or another. I wouldn't go there because I do not find him attractive at all.

I have no idea how he landed his wife, B. She is attractive, fit-looking, maybe not quite the hot babe who was described to me before we met, but not bad in terms of the group we were in. Alright, he has a decent-sized dick I suppose, but he's one of those hairy guys who's really, really hairy, and that's where I check out. I'm not prepared to spend an evening doing defoliation work before I get to the main event. Thanks. I mowed the family lawn as a kid. That was enough.

Then about a week after the party we get an email from E, quite a friendly one, and he seems to harbor no bad feeling at all. In fact he's inquiring if we had a good time, he mentions how he wanted to play with both of us but he noticed we were preoccupied throughout the evening. He also wrote to pass along the names of a couple who apparently wanted to meet us. He encloses their email address. He says if we don't want to write directly to them, he can mediate and pass along our email to them.

Dave and I scratch our heads a bit before replying. Who the hell were J and L? And what's the deal that they are too chicken shit to talk to us DURING the party? Why after? Sorry honeys, the horseys have left the barn already. This sort of kid's stuff happens a lot in the lesbian world. You can go to a party of all-women and people seem hesitant to approach other guests, but then the week after on Craigslist you find the postings...."I saw you at the party and you were so hot, I wanted to approach you but....but...but..."(you can fill in whatever excuse here).

Well, couples can be scaredy cats too. We just don't have a clue who this couple is. But we are hoping it was the hot pair who walked in just as we were about to leave. In fact we had some brief interraction with them and we both seemed to feel things might develop had we stuck around. But we were whipped and somewhat disappointed, and in a mood to leave. So we did.

I write back to E and inquire of him who these people are. He describes a guy we don't remember at all, older, some grey in a long mane of hair. American Indian fellow there with his partner L. I have no recollection of them at all. But apparently we made quite a hit with them.

I ask E about the hot couple, the women was named O, but her partner's name escaped me over the noise. E tells me his name. Cute. I don't want to rain further on E's parade, but I want to indicate to him that the couple we really dug were this pair, not his pair. E gets that sense, he describes the boy as her "escort" for the evening, meaning I guess they aren't exclusively monogamous together. Good. E gives no indication he has played with them personally, but he seems to like them, he thinks they are hot too, they have been to a few other parties and E knows people who know the guy quite well.

It seems like E is setting us up to have to go through him some more if we want to get in touch with them again. I don't go there; I would rather just run into them somewhere else. If it's meant to be nice, it will be nice, no need to push the river. So I play nice-nice with E, letting him know we appreciated his efforts to entertain his guests, and hoped that he had a good time on his big day.

As for the email address, we decide not to write to this anonymous couple. What's the point in writing to people we don't remember ever meeting? We may run into them again too. Hopefully they'll have the balls to say something directly to us.

After all, you are at a sex party, aren't you? What's the point in taking off your clothes if your minds are still too inhibited to introduce yourselves?

- - - - -

A Birthday Orgy (Pt.4)

2006-12-07T14:35:00.000-08:00

Dave and I are at a sex party that's not really a full-tilt sex party; tonight we're having trouble getting the ship off the ground. I wonder how E, the birthday host, is feeling about things. Part of why Dave and I thought of staying home was because we knew already from meeting E that neither of us was attracted to him. What expectations though would he have of the guests? We were uncertain.

Well, midway through the evening, we find out what E's hopes and dreams consisted of. His wife B makes an announcement that we all have to pay homage to E on his birthday, and we were all expected to come up one by one and do "something nice" for our host. That's left up to you.

The minute she announced this, I noticed a number of people on my side of the room reacted. And not positively, either. There was a shuffling and moving around of bodies suddenly. As if we all had heard the hostess' request and we were looking for the nearest exit. Good, thought I, we are not alone in wanting to avoid E at all costs.

Have you seen the movie Borat? Then you will remember the gross but hilarious scene where the two guys are rolling around naked on the bed. That's who E reminds us of. Sorry to say. Look, we know this is a freebee, it didn't cost us anything to come here, we're not contributing to the room rental. But still. I am not going to do anything I don't feel for doing.

Dave takes a slightly different view. He tells me he is prepared to go up to E, who is lying on the rollaway bed we inhabited earlier, and take his dick in his mouth for a minute or two. He thinks I should do the same. One woman just went up and gave him a few spankings with her flog. Even belting the guy good won't coax me into battle. No way says I. We move to a discreet corner of the room and hope nobody notices us and calls us out.

We end up near the front door, watching all the birthday greeters approach E, when the doorbell rings. We reach for it, and in comes our perfect couple. Too bad we're in a mood now to cut and run. Dubya can't do that in Iraq, but we're ready and able to do that at this party.

But this couple look great. Vivacious and upbeat. She is named O, a great stage name if ever I heard one. Nearly shaved head, nice earrings, a nice dress showing off a shapely but trim body. Her guy is more problematic. He is absolutely flaming, lean and fit with cowboy chaps open in all the right places. He looks quite manly, until he opens his mouth to introduce himself. His voice is horrifyingly fey.

Dave's comment later is, "So what's the point in dressing up like you're ready to fuck any guy up the ass for miles around, and then you open your mouth and out comes this girlie voice? What kind of advertising is that?" Was he affecting it or was it for real? Unfortunately we conclude the latter.

But the woman, O, is lovely. She says to us, "We saw you two in the lobby earlier tonight, and we said to each other 'I bet we know where THEY are going.'" I quip back, well, what took you guys so long in getting up here? Oh we stopped off for some....fun...along the way (I forget how she put it exactly). When I introduce myself to her she wants to hug me, then runs her hands up my arms. "Oooh, your skin is so soft!" she says with enthusiasm.

Goddamn! Just when I meet a woman who is willing to put her hands all over me in the first few minutes and we're already in a mood to take our leave! We could have stayed, but we realize our time has past. If we played with this couple, it would feel weird given the people who would be hanging around watching us. The party has shaken down too thoroughly at this point, we know what we will get, we know what we have gotten so far. We don't think things will improve. So we are prepared to go.

What's amusing is that this new couple seems to have made a command decision pretty early. In a few minutes they are already down to business, she is on her knees sucking his cock in amongst the chaps. They probably took a quick look around, decided it was going to be the two of them, and away they went. They were playing just a few feet from Dave and I. We were standing, stroking each other against the wall.

But we just didn't want to get embroiled with this couple in the middle of this crowd.

The other guy, R, who I was also hesitant about meeting again, finally walks in. True to form, he gives Dave and I a wide berth. That is fine with us. I was prepared to say hello politely but even that did not have to happen.

I look over and see the hostess, B, is getting a lot of attention from several guys on the floor. But again, it is light play, lots of touchy-feely, a bit of oral play but not really even that. Just quiet adoration. Who's actually going to fuck her, I thought. Who does she WANT to fuck her?

The people again are just, for the most part, overweight and out of shape or just plain unattractive. And the mood is just too low-key for us. Dave has told me so much about his bath house encounters that I am of the opinion that I want that intensity too. When it's not around, I want to pack my bags and leave.

So, we pack our bags and leave. But I cast a hope out there to the universe that this couple will come our way again sometime.

- - - - -

A Birthday Orgy (Pt.3)

2006-12-01T14:15:00.000-08:00

Our host E at several points tries to engage Dave and I. Dave finds his attentions creepy. He has run across this more than I have. E comes up to me later to ascertain I am having a good time, and I politely suggest I am capable of doing that without his attentions. He seems to take this ok and wanders off somewhere.

There is another older guy, stout but strong looking, who unfortunately is bounding around in a G-string and socks. Dave loses all erotic interest when socks enter the picture. It's funny how many guys wear them even in porn films. How erotic is that? He notices me from the get-go, as Dave and I both observe. Several times he comes over to say, "Anything you need, why just let me know." Okay, I reply, you'll be first on my list.

We notice that at this particular sex party there is no porn running at all, anywhere. Usually a videotape is running somewhere, why not after all you are at a sex party. It helps create the mood. An oversight? Don't know.

I also notice, upon opening the fridge, that there are a few bottles of bubbly and tons of bottles of Gatorade, but nothing at all with caffeine. We could use some.

Maybe I mention these two things because, in their own way, they contribute to why we felt the party was something of a dud sexually. Just not enough heat to go around here. So naturally there's an absence of caffeine and lust. Looking around the room, I don't even see guys with erect dicks. Except our Asian guy, we looked around and realized that he and his hard-on had disappeared. But what's the excuse of most of the other guys?

Clearly though, it is a crowd that seems pretty well acquainted. We can identify the other players who, like us, are not quite yet "regulars." There is H, a rather attractive blonde there with her boyfriend, a sullen dark-haired guy with a tight pair of black shorts and a pot belly hanging over it. H is wearing a sheer body stocking. I notice her first in the kitchen, she is standing next to Dave and they begin a conversation. I am amused and curious to see where this goes, so I stay back a ways. Dave's shaved head look can be attractive to certain women once they get by his often scary expressions.

Dave always says he does not find that many women at these parties who are attractive to him personally. His fear in fact is that some woman will want him that he is not interested in. He is much more able to deal with the men. H is attractive enough, and I detect a pique of curiosity in her about Dave. But then he calls me over to settle a question they are debating, so H realizes now I am the other half of the team. But I don't think on retrospect this would have gone anywhere.

H and her boyfriend seem very out of place. Both of them refuse to get totally naked. So they compromised: she wore a body stocking, he had his short shorts. Depending if they like what they see around them, those outfits are easy enough to get out of. But as the party goes on, we get the sense they aren't going there. They are not that thrilled with the participants either, and the outfits stay on. At least Dave and I are naked, but then that's just us.

Dave sees one or two guys he might be interested in dealing with, but one of them, a black guy, seems new and out of place too, and he's leaving soon anyways to work a graveyard shift. The other guy is youngish and handsome, with a pony tail. But he wanders around with a bemused expression, somewhat interested but mostly just looking.

Dave wants what he finds at the bath house, but this is not the crowd at all for that. The energy level is quite different.

After Dave gets me off he wanders off to the kitchen and I settle into a large sofa chair, where I can watch A now turning his attention to his friend P, who observed us playing earlier. I like watching two guys. Especially when they spend so much time on foreplay. Hell, Dave and I spend so little. A gets on top of P's stomach and they rub loins for quite a while. Just when I am starting to get bored, A finally gets off from the top position and P fucks him from behind.

But in fact, I see only one other couple fucking while we are there. An older guy is seated in a sofa chair, and an older fat woman with long grey hair is seated atop him. That's it, folks!

TO BE CONTINUED

A Birthday Orgy (Pt.2)

2006-11-27T13:36:00.000-08:00

We discover that the pull-out bed Dave and I are lying on has a rather iffy mattress. How could they even use this in a proper hotel? But they do, somehow. Hey, there's a real bed in the bedroom, but most of the partygoers are already in the living room, so here we be too. We feel like we are playing around on the back of a camel. You can feel the springs just below the surface.

Dave and I decide we'll test out this alleged bed. No sooner do we plant our cute little butts when we are joined by a youngish Asian guy, completely erect already. He half sits, half lies across from us, smiling expectantly. You just keep smiling, baby. Dave sends a no-no signal immediately by getting up from the bed. The guy takes the hint and goes. I ask Dave later, what he would
have done if the guy had not gotten up. "Well I would have said something," so he was glad the message got through instead.

Our friend A comes over and we lie as a trio, me in the middle, a guy on each side. A recalls how I have been pining for a sandwich. Only A does not seem all that interested in playing. Dave puts A's hand on his dick, but A moves the hand away and starts rubbing Dave's back instead. Was this too soon? A really likes the touchy-feely stuff, whereas we are more likely to reve up sooner and want to "get on with it."

Both guys start stroking and touching me, and it feels very nice. I wish we had a camera, because all of us look pretty good physically lying there. I have no idea what the other people are up to. The room is full of talk and a mix of music that is pretty damn good, spun out by the wife B. Dave starts performing oral sex on me but I am feeling so distracted by the talk and noise around that I don't think I can get off at this point. I was not focused, so I stopped Dave and thought we would come back to it later.

In the meantime after breaking off with me, Dave reaches for A's cock and starts to suck it, then finds out it needs a bit of a cleaning. With all his bath house experiences, one would think Dave would encounter one or two uncleaned dicks along the way, but such has not been the case. They have a ton of showers and water galore at a bath house, and the guys avail themselves of that routinely. So what's the deal with A that he can't clean himself before a sex party, for heaven's sake? Dave ceases and desists with this operation. He is quite surprised at what he finds.

We shifted positions, and then Dave plays with me with his fingers, one finger inside, then two, licking my clit along with the finger play. Because of our positioning, Dave found this angle a strain on his neck, so we shifted again so Dave can focus his mouth on my clit. He's trying to find my G-spot with his fingers, and comes close, but that is too intense for me. He removes his index finger and leaves the middle one inside me.

P, a friend of A's that we have met once or twice, is also seated on the bed with his drink, watching the proceedings calmly, without feeling a need to play. P is also into massage work. He is a tall, thinnish guy in his forties with a small neatly trimmed beard. Low key.

I am finally able to focus and overcome the effects of the pot. Dave and I realized it had been a while since we have had sex while we are stoned, or at least I am stoned. It takes a while to fit yourself back into that head space.

Success comes pretty soon this time, now I am in the mood and not distracted and I am focused now. It's a very pleasant come.

TO BE CONTINUED

A Birthday Orgy (Pt.1)

2006-11-20T02:09:00.000-08:00

So Dave and I end up going to the birthday orgy after all, after a bit of a debate first.

The party is given by the wife, B, of the guy whose birthday it is, E. Last time I saw him he had major amounts of hair on him. Now he was nearly bald, and gone was most of the moustache. He had a stubble too and looked like he just recently fell out of bed. A weird looking guy that I definitely do not want anything to do with, so this is why I was a bit uptight about attending. What to do about E.

How did he get this woman, B? She is not bad looking, probably the nicest looking woman there besides me. This is the runner woman I have heard about but not yet met. She is probably late 40s, good legs as you might expect, a rough sort of face but attractive, and short curly brown hair. She's heard about me too.

"You're the runner," she says to me initially, then I explain that actually I am more shaped by cycling. We fall into instant conversation on certain pro cyclists and their doping problems. These days, that can be a lengthy conversation. Throw a rock somewhere, anywhere, and you can knock a drugging cyclist out of a tree.

I look at her and I look at her husband E, and I shake my head. Maybe that's why they party. She may no longer be sexually attracted or involved with him, but they can party together. I like that. It has a very French feel to it; they're good at that.

The party is in a suite at a big chain hotel in San Francisco. A handful of people are already present when we arrive, most of them in some degree of nakedness already. The suite is booked from 8 til 2. Let's get crackin' I say.

Dave and I have had a couple of hits in the rental car before we walk in, so I suddenly get the munchies and head for the food. It looks alarmingly good to me. Little finger foods along with fruits and veggies, dips. Champagne that has to be diluted with juices to stretch it.

About thirty people are expected, and it seems most of them arrive at various points. This is an older crowd, an offshoot of the famous Black Sheets party crowd which recently closed down their parties. But not a very attractive crowd at all, as Dave and I realize nearly immediately. Now, I am not saying that because they are older; older has nothing to do with it. There are a lot of hot-looking older types, men and women, running around now; they're just not here at this party.

Our friend A is there. He gives his own private little massage and sex parties over near the Haight-Ashbury district. He is nearly the only other attractive person there male-wise. You can get a closer look at A here.

He seems to realize we are about the most attractive people there. He has seen us at several parties now, and he was involved in an afternoon's aborted play we had together. So he knows a bit about how we are sexually as a couple. He came over to us after we had said our hellos, gotten naked basically and then settled in on the pull-out bed in the living room of the suite.

Dave and I have been in this position before. Someone has to kick these cretins into action, it might as well be us. Our friend A wants to help us out.

TO BE CONTINUED

To Party, Or Not To Party

2006-11-16T12:17:00.000-08:00

So my partner Dave and I are debating whether we should go to a play party up in the city this Saturday night. It's been a while since we have been to one. Why? Well, since the Black Sheets crowd closed down, there hasn't been a thrilling abundance of sex parties. A few people have tried to step into the breech, with mixed results. Maybe we are just getting wised up - we have found that the people we were running into were not the sorts we would go back for.

Who wants to go to a party where you see basically out of shape men and women? Sometimes we wish we were back in L.A. There is definitely a better look among that crowd. We were not finding what we wanted, so we have backed off.

Anyways, the party we are thinking of attending is actually a birthday party being hosted by the guy himself, and his wife. I wrote about them briefly a ways back in this column. They are throwing the whole thing in a suite in a hotel, with finger food and about thirty five people attending. All gratis. So that's the good part.

The bad part is, I am not at all attracted to the host. In fact, I find him rather ugly and swarthy and hairy. I never met his wife, but I have been hearing about her for a while now. She was usually gone out of town running marathons somewhere. So I deduced she probably is the hot-looking member of the family.

But do I want to deal with him as part of the process of meeting her? Another factor is that someone else will be there who really coveted me and Dave, we tried to set a date once for a threesome, then we backed out. Because on further review we felt we were not that attracted after all, and decided not to go further down the road with him. He was probably rather miffed, I would be. We wrote and told him in plenty of time that we were having second thoughts. We never heard from him again.

We know he will be here at this party. He will probably avoid us, and we him, but still. Would you put yourself through this?

So we are debating the matter. The party is free, but we still need to reserve a car. Ours is on life support and we try not to extend it beyond our usual daily errands around town, and Dave getting to work locally at the shop when he works here in town.

At this point we are leaning towards going. I think it is important that I learn more about saying "no" in certain situations like this. I visualize having certain discussions with people at the party....what if a guy said, "Can I eat you out?" That I am ready for. Most men are not all that good at that, sorry to say. I would reply, "No thanks, I want 'the main course' instead; or, "No thanks you're not my type;" or, "No thanks you're not my type and I'm looking for something else tonight."

Or, what happens if I really like the wife of our host? I don't want to feel obligated to deal with him too as a way of going to her.

You catch my drift. Sticky wickets, these. Nancy Pelosi should have this can of worms to deal with on her desk!

But Nancy doesn't, and I do. I think we are going to go to the party.

Expect a full and hopefully juicy report next week!

- - - - -

Edy (Pt.3)

2006-11-13T15:07:00.000-08:00

So my attempts to date this woman Edy end up going nowhere. I am left wondering why my current lover Gerrie made that comment, "You could have her if you wanted her" sort of thing. Because it wasn't true. Maybe she was miffed and decided to get back at me for having flirted with Edy in the girlie bar. Maybe she said it knowing full well I would work up a good head of steam going after Edy. And all for naught. I don't think Edy was ever really interested. Women often give out vibes of touchy-feely when they haven't any intention at all of going there. Beats me.

It took me a while to back away from her though. Until that point arrived, I spent lots of nights in the bar hoping to speak to Edy again. I noticed most of the other women paid me no heed. I was puzzled about that, and when I inquired of one older woman that I sort of knew she replied, "Well they think you're not really a lesbian," she said. "They think you go out with men."

Hrumph. My secret was out. I identified myself as a girlie girl back then, but along the way I realized that it was more likely to be men that I had sex with. Women were just too much trouble, even way back then. Like it or not, my love life was settling in to something I could more easily manage to do. That did not seem to include a lot of women. These women in the bar picked up on that, obviously.

They were all somewhat cool to me. Some of them even made jokes about the People's Park riots going on in Berkeley back then. "Awwwh, poor girl, they took away your park," I would hear. Or some such thing. Dykes can be really snotty, and very inbred. Thank God I liked playing pool, because otherwise there was just no point in my being there.

Eventually I wandered away from the bar, I finished school and started working in hospitals. One night on my swing shift I happened to read the local newspaper, and that was when I found out what happened to Edy.

Do you know how you can pick up a newspaper and casually scan it and then for some reason your eye falls on something, something rather obscure, and you suddenly recognize a name? I have had that experience several times already in my life, and it is scary in its uncanniness.

My eye fell on a small news story tucked away on an inside page. About a robbery attempt and a shooting in a local bar. I was horrified. It was all about Edy. Edy was dead. Several guys came into the bar, probably knowing it was a dyke bar, and tried to rob the place. Edy tried to grab the gun away from one of the guys and it went off, mortally wounding her. She was brought to Highland Hospital, where I worked. Thank God I was not on duty that night. I might have had to go over and do admitting papers on her.

But Edy did not make it. She died in the O.R. You were so hot-tempered, I thought, what are you doing trying to grab a gun away from a guy bent on robbing you? I thought of her little boy. Who was going to raise him. I thought of Betty, the bar owner. No longer Edy's lover but the pain must have been great for her.

I put the paper down and burst into tears.

- - - - -

Edy (Pt.2)

2006-11-11T11:20:00.000-08:00

So I've met Edy in a local Oakland girlie bar, and I definitely feel smitten and interested in knowing more. I find out she is something of a free woman, whatever male was in her life long enough to give her a little boy is no longer in her life. Her female lover seems to be mostly just a friend. Betty was her name, and she owned the girlie bar where we met.

Betty was kind of an interesting woman in herself. Reminds me lots of my friend N in L.A. Older, slim, salt and pepper short hair, definitely butch but not oppressively so. I can feel sort of the attraction but at this point in my life I really don't recognize how certain butch women attract me very much. With some of them, there is just a little space where I can insert my own often butch little idiosyncracies. Without it threatening them. I would never call myself a femme with an edge. But I can't call myself a butch either. I used to think I was, but not really.

My then lover Gerrie referred to me as a "naive butch." I guess that is the best-fitting label at this point in time. It is Gerrie's comments about Edy that fuel my desire to try and go out with her.

But Edy ends up being all tease and no tonnage, as it were. Now I would recognize the signs immediately. It was a flirtation for one night in a bar over pool, period. It took me a bit to wake up to that fact.

In the meantime I tried calling her, I got a haircut, I met her little boy, who does look quite Indian. Edy is part Cherokee, although you would be hard-pressed to wonder which part. Turned out she had quite a temper, but I don't want to give away my ending just yet.

But I can never get her to say yes to a date. I feel like a klutz. Often I have gotten myself enamoured of women who are either not available to me (mostly) or are not going to be appropriate for me (less often, I like to think everyone I pursue is appropriate for me). This is at the heart of my attraction for females. This neediness.

What is the point of this neediness, I wonder? It gets me nowhere. I need to learn how and where to jettison it when it first starts rearing its ever so attractive but ultimately ugly head.

I try to busy myself with my classes at the university, which have now begun in earnest. We're in the middle of the People's Park riots which occurred on campus as part of the late 60s political melee that went on in Berkeley back then.

Makes you wonder how I found time and inclination to moon over a girl. But mooning over women was something I did well back then. Too well.

- - - - -

Edy (Pt. 1)

2006-11-05T10:44:00.000-08:00

There was a certain relentless quality in how I perceived my agenda and carried it out in the late summer of 1968. I had moved up to Berkeley from L.A., after having lived and worked and travelled in Europe and the Middle East for two years.

Life at home in L.A. seemed intolerable to me after the freedom I had found in Europe. I lost my virginity, such as it was, to both a man and later a woman. Living at home with mom and dad and two younger sisters was not going to hold me. I gave up the idea of going to film school at UCLA, where I had already been accepted, and applied to Berkeley for English literature.

Berkeley in September 1968 had already been, and was about to become again, the hotbed of radical activity we knew it to be. Somehow I was aware of all that, but it moved on a different plane from where I was. I had three months before my classes began at Cal, and I was going to make the most of the time. I was going to meet as many gay women as I could lay my hands on, or their hands on me.

So I settled into my cheap digs ($50 a month)at a Chinese women's rooming house on Channing Way, and proceeded to have fun. First off, I placed an ad in the local rag, the Berkeley Barb. I met my first lover in America, Ingrid, who lived down the coast in Pacific Grove. And Jerrie, who was a divorced mom living in Berkeley with her young daughter.

One night when I was dating Jerrie we went out with some friends to catch the opening of Easy Rider. We stood in line and kibbutzed with hordes of other patrons, eager to see the hot new movie of the fall season.

Afterwards we headed over to the local girlie bar in Oakland. That's where I met Edy. At the time she must have been around early 30s. Edy was slim and fetching, with streaked and dyed silver/blonde hair swept up. Edy could do things like that, she was a hairdresser by trade. Do you remember how Janet Leigh looked in Psycho? Well that was pretty close to Edy.

On that night Edy was holding forth on the bar's sole pool table. The woman could play pool. That's how she and I met. I plopped my quarter down on the edge of the table and waited my turn to enter the fray.

Our first match was a close one, and Edy won it. But it was one of the few times in my life at pool that I was not sorry I lost. Because she and I became acquainted. Edy in fact flirted with me nonstop over the pretty colored pool balls. It had a touch of the sarcastic to it, which I always appreciate. where there is sarcasm there is wit, where there is wit there is intelligence. And the absense of boredom.

Jerrie looked on, and was not amused. She knew exactly what was going on, and what Edy was up to.

"She likes naive butches," Jerrie said to me. "She likes you, you could have her if you wanted her."

It was a comment that, looking back on that night, seemed calculated to stir up trouble. I probably would not have gone ahead with what I did had Jerrie not said that.

TO BE CONTINUED

George, Again - A Follow-Up

2006-10-23T15:28:00.000-07:00

Our boy George is back in the news again, and no, I don't mean THAT George in the White House, but George Michael. Flamer,gay boy adventurer, trouble-maker. Last time we caught up with George he was getting arrested (again) for soliciting sex from a man up on Hampstead Heath. This time George gave another interview in which he extolled the virtues of pot smoking.

See what I mean? He's trouble, and nothing but. My kind of trouble. I am something of a rather steady smoker myself at this point. It helped my appetite immensely after I went through my ruptured aneurysm period and all the follow-up surgeries that pretty much gutted my appetite for food.

So I can relate to George's plaintive wail, which he gave in an interview this past week. As George puffed away in the presence of his interviewer, he pronounced himself wonderfully pleased that he had discovered pot.

It keeps me "sane and happy," says George.

What's not to love about this guy? He loves the scrambled brain effect too that comes with pot smoking. Personally it also ushers in for me probably the most creative moments of my day. George is out there in every sense of the word, and the world's cutting censorship does not phase him one iota.

My only regret, again, is that he is sexual nearly exclusively with males, it sounds like. Boo hoo. How many times in my life have I been disappointed, not to say annoyed mightily, that an attractive male is off-limits to me because he is totally gay?

Do you suppose there may be females out there like him? Who defend their private life vigorously and don't care if it spills over a bit into the public arena? I like to think so.

It gives me hope. Go George!

- - - - -

Home Alone, My Zucchini And I

2006-10-20T14:31:00.000-07:00

Dave left last Saturday for work on the road in Dallas. Just for the week. So here I am, three days along and I'm feeling horny and ornery and I've decided to act on it. But when I look around for my toy bag, I remember Dave saying something about needing to take my bag because something was wrong with his.

But did he take my toys too? Surely not. He has his toys, I have mine. Except he neglected to tell me where he stashed my toys. I started looking in various likely places, but could not find them.

So, now I'm really getting horny and even more ornery. Nothing like having your plans go awry to make a girl really really determined to have fun. Even if she doesn't see yet any visible means of penetration, as it were. And penetration was what this woman wanted, and nearly immediately, yes thank you very much.

Then I recalled the large zucchini I had bought for use on the following day. In a meal, that is. I let myself wander mentally back to my feral pre-pubescent years, when I had discovered my mom's vegetable drawer in the fridge. I had written about this experience earlier in this column.

I practically flew to the fridge and pulled out the cold but gleaming veggie that would soon be my means of impalement. Maybe not so cold though. I washed the item carefully and did a little trimming of one end to smooth it out, then I deposited it in a tall glass of hot water to take the chill off it.

Then away I went, amused and happy that I was indulging once again in a fine bit of self abuse. Dave has been with me at home since last Christmas, so my inclinations are really to take advantage of his presence while he is there. Playing with myself happens only rarely at such times.

Only I had to make my way carefully now, as the zucchini was a bit larger than I had thought it was. Large sizes are pretty good in my book, but maybe there comes a time when enough is enough already. This may have been one of those nights.

But I persisted, and finally inserted it. I wanted to do it without lube, and I did. After all this preparation, it did not take long before I got myself off. What an orgasm, I thought. It was really intense, mindblowing almost. One of those things where you feel free of time and space and you're just roaming around the universe.

Later I told Dave about it, and he is amused and pleased. He's always trying to fit large dildoes up his bum in his spare time, so he can relate to this. Playing with partners is nice, we decided, but diddling yourself can be a tremendously rewarding experience too.

It feels personally very centering, and we like that.

Altamont, 1969 (Pt.3)

2006-10-16T15:27:00.000-07:00

The Altamont free concert that the Rolling Stones threw that winter was probably the event of the year. It came together slowly over the preceding ten days or so, aided along by hoi poloi lawyer, Melvin Belli, and various other persons in the rock and roll field.

On that day in early winter you certainly needed a motorcycle to get to this event. The traffic was a monumental jam from about the outskirts of Oakland all the way up towards the Altamont Pass, which is about an hour drive east of Oakland. Stop and go, bumper to bumper. I flew past cars and in between cars. I smiled a lot at the people stuck in traffic. The world was headed out on that day to see the Stones.

Back then I wore paisley bellbottoms, a yellow button-down shirt and a yellow sheepskin vest, and short black boots. I had purplish-tinted aviator glasses and longish flowing blonde hair. I thought I was the shit. A woman in my dance class thought I looked like Mick Jagger.

Now here I was on my way to seeing the REAL Mick Jagger. You could probably not get away with tossing an event like that today. It was just too free-flowing a thing. Parking was basically anywhere you could, by the side of the road. I got in pretty close, parked my cycle, and staked out a decent spot for myself halfway up the hill.

It was still pretty early in the morning, like around eight o'clock or so. I think the concert was supposed to start around noon. I was a bit tuckered out after my previous night's dalliance, so I stretched out on the grass on my blanket and in a few minutes I was gone. Asleep, or passed out, if you prefer that. Either way will do.

I woke up to the sounds of the Jefferson Airplane, as they were known back then. I could have sworn Grace Slick was rasping directly into my ear, it sounded so close. Did she do threesomes? I wondered. Grace sounded like a ballsy kind of girl. No way I could sleep anymore. I looked around and nearly passed out again. The hillside was now packed with a billion people, it seemed. Where did they all come from?

And more to the point, where the hell did they all PARK?

My paranoia about crowds started to get the better of me. I didn't think I could survive this event. Hell, it had barely started, it was a little past noon, and the Stones weren't scheduled to come on until after dark. Already I was feeling whipped. Something said to me that I should go. Go I did.

It was probably good I left. We all know the bad stuff that happened later that night. The rockumentary film "Gimme Shelter" brought it all home to us about a year later. The Stones got the Hells' Angels to serve as bodyguards, and being the bad boys we all knew them to be, they got carried away with their new job title and stabbed some poor slob to death. He had a knife too, I recall, but it was an unfortunate ending. Glad I missed all of that.

Somehow I managed to find my motorcycle in among all the cars parked haphazardly by the side of the I-80. I went home and practically fell into bed, thinking I could sleep for a week, at least.

As far as my couple D and J went, we never did get around to another threesome. It just did not seem to work out time-wise. I developed a school-girl crush on J, but I knew she was not all that inclined to women so I did not push the issue. She was a very sweet, but rather conservative woman. Once I went up to the house and she and I just hung out; I remember she baked some blueberry muffins for me. That was nice.

But I did continue to play with D. He had decided he would rather fuck me that J, who had introduced us.

There was fallout, of course, and not just the concert. My ex lover J was rather pissed when I told her about the threesome. She wanted it to be her, and I had beaten her to it. But it was her suggestion, and she regretted that, no doubt. Since I had met the wife and D, I could have told her the chemistry was not quite there with her.

She and I were pretty much done with each other by now. Looking back on my time with her, I could see that I was vulnerable to being taken for a ride. J seemed to be an early sample of a polyamorous woman, she went out with men and women, and she went out with women even when she was seeing a "regular" woman. When the tables got turned on her though, she didn't like it.

But then, who would?

Altamont, 1969 (Pt.2)

2006-10-13T14:51:00.000-07:00

That first night with D and J was our only night together as a threesome. But it was a lovely experience.

D came onto me, and we started to have intercourse while J watched. J was really into watching. I discovered I was really into performing, and so was D for that matter. My lover G was correct about him, he was the best lover I had run across too. He was not all that big, but he certainly had been married for a while, and that showed in his expertise.

He fucked me for a while in the usual missionary position, which happens to be my favorite position of all when I am with a man. Why am I such a fuddyduddy about the missionary? Well, pardon me, it works for me. Very well, thanks.

D knew instinctively what some guys know, also instinctively, but what many guys never get to: that women like grinding movements, men like in-out. His ex-wife had trained him well.

He must have realized though that I didn't quite get off on the first fuck, so after he came he pressed his pubic bone directly on top of mine. After a minute or two of this, I came alright, and boy did I.

J was very impressed. For some reason she did not allow her ex to fuck her that night. But she was certainly all eyes.

I would have loved to have spent the full night there, but the Stones were giving their free concert at Altamont Pass the next morning. I did not plan on missing that, so after our little romp I rode home and caught a few hours of sleep.

When I woke up and went into the living room, one of my two roommates, L, with whom I had been intimate for one night some months earlier, was sitting on the sofa weeping copious tears. Her lover and our third roommate, K, was giving L grief. K was going out with one of my friends, S, with whom I had also been intimate on one occasion. Basically these women and I were friends, and we crossed the line once together. That was cool with everyone.

For some reason that morning the sight of L boo-hooing over her lover stepping out on her just pressed all my buttons. I gave her hell. "Don't just sit there and cry about life, get out there and do something to get yourself out of this funk," I think I said, or words to that effect. She yelled back with just as much vigor. "Listen, asshole, this is my life and I'll bawl if I want to," said she, or words to that effect. It never occurred to me to ask her if she wanted to see the Stones. Why bother? She was in such a funk it would have been a downer for all concerned.

The Stones deserved better. They deserved me. So I got out of that place and left L to stew in her tears and headed off to Altamont.

TO BE CONTINUED

Altamont, 1969 (Pt.1)

2006-10-10T15:48:00.000-07:00

My first sexual experience with a couple occurred in the winter of 1969. I had just graduated from Berkeley, and being uncertain about grad school yet, I decided to go to work for a while full-time. Until I could really make up my mind and decide what I wanted to be when I grew up. I landed a job in a local hospital. Before I had worked part-time during college as a ward secretary at Alta Bates Hospital. That got my foot in the door. Being a good speller, my second hospital job took me into radiology transcribing.

The hospital was quite a place. My immediate boss was a gay woman, and our boss in the department was a woman I ended up having an affair with.

In between all these comings and goings, I had also put an ad in the local paper, The Berkeley Barb it was called. That's how I met one of my longer relationships of the time, G was her name.

G and I developed our own little quirks in our relationship, which did not turn out all that well. But along the way she did me some good by turning me onto her current male sex partner. G, I should mention, was also bisexual. Even though the word was never part of our currency back then. Most of the people I knew had relationships with men and women.

Isn't that nice to hear? And they never felt a need to have to identify themselves. We just did it, baby.

G's male friend was named D, who was an insurance adjustor who was going to law school at night and studying for the bar. G remarked to me of him, "He is the best male lover I think I have ever had."

Hhmmm, said I, expressing probably way too much curiosity for my own good. D and G had started sleeping together, and it was their intention to bring along D's ex-wife, J, with whom he was still on good terms. Good enough to still have sex with her on occasion.

But before they could develop their little threesome plans, G suggested I call D and try him on for size, so to speak.

I did. In fact, D and his ex and I all made a date together. I rode up on my motorcycle to J's house in the Oakland Hills. We all liked each other. We liked each other so much we ended up in bed together.

It was fun. But when I told my lover G about it the next day, she got really pissed. I had beaten her to it and she realized she had jealous feelings after all.

TO BE CONTINUED

The Crushes

2006-09-28T15:49:00.000-07:00

My head was full of different affections for different people when I was growing up. For some reason I never really doubted my abilities to make sense of it all. It must have felt natural in a way for me to feel attracted to boys and girls. The attraction felt different at times. With boys I admired them usually from afar, but it seemed to me more of an identification thing I had going on with men; I wanted to be like them rather than that I wanted to be loved by them. With boys, I knew I could be a reasonable human being.

With girls, I could see already I was going to be anything but a reasonable human being. My heart went pitter-patter at an alarming rate when a fetching female wandered into my vicinity. Like K.D., who was a dark-haired beauty in my water polo class in high school gym. I knew I was attracted to her, and she even picked up on that at one point.

Mostly though I had crushes. Elizabeth Taylor was one of my first big ones. See, already I had narrowed it down to brunettes. No blondes for me. Something about that gorgeous face and those violet eyes. I was there for the ride, along with Nicky, Michael, Michael #2, Eddie, Richard, John, Richard again...I know there was a construction worker in there somewhere, but by the time he wandered down the pike I had moved on from Liz.

Closer to home was when I started viewing the films of Ingemar Bergman. I fell absolutely in love with his tall blonde leading lady at the time, Ingrid Thulin. She was one of the ladies who enjoyed quite an international career in films like Visconti's The Damned. She was very cerebral, and even though she was blonde I realized we had something intellectual in common. So not all blondes were evil and wicked for me. I tend to like Swedish women a lot. This goes back to days in film school, when I worked closely and very well with a Swedish director, a female, who had actually been raised in Paris. They are very down to earth and I love their good-natured, capable sensibility. I feel and look like I am one of the clan.

Much as I would like to meet a jock woman, someone like a Navratilova, or a Mauresmo, a lot of jock women types just don't do it for me. My friend N in Los Angeles is right about this: we may love our sports, but we may often not love the women who are performing them. There has to be something more cerebral for me. There needs to be that balance.

So now my perfect woman would be someone like social critic Camille Paglia, who's definitely got the brain power, the sarcasm, the writing ability - and - and - she feels studying pro football should be part of every literate woman's education.

Besides, I love her stories about going into lesbian bars and being ignored. Except by the gay boys of course, who are the only people who speak to intelligent women in dyke bars, it seems.

Quel domage!

- - - - - -

On Being Bisexual (Pt.1)

2006-09-21T12:50:00.000-07:00

As a woman, I would like to say that my early forays into bisexuality were the result of a few excellent women friends, or lovers. But actually, my guides into this realm were male figures.

I probably first said, "Oh, so THAT'S what I am," in my English graduate seminar in D.H. Lawrence at San Francisco State. We're talking early 70s here. Our 15-or so member class and prof were ploughing through Women In Love, Lawrence's classic tale of two sisters who find love and destiny in the arms of two male friends. Each of the pairs is nearly a polar opposite in terms of Lawrence's overall intention. One couple is on the fast track to hell, the other is more mundane perhaps, but also more capable of finding happiness.

But there is a fly in their ointment.

The love of one person is not going to be enough. Birkin and Ursula are left alone together at the hearth in the novel's wistful yet contentious final scene, with Birkin mourning the loss of his friend Gerald. He has committed his own strange form of suicide, by crawling off into the snow and sleeping until death. At last Birkin is finally able to express his love for the man.

But Ursula is shocked, and immediately threatened. The man is dead, but she knows an attack when she sees one. Even if it is coming from beyond the grave.

"You can't want the love of both," she cautions him.

Her view is the typical heterosexual view of the gay world in general, as it turns out. The gays threaten us because of the ease with which they lead lives driven by libidinal impulses. It is absolutely hateful to the straight world. The fact that people could actually want BOTH is the sticker for most of the straight world. That is very threatening. At least when a gay man wants another man, that is more understandable than a man who is married to a woman and still desires sexual contact with other men. The one is something society can now deal with; the other is still a scary proposition from hell.

Marriage was erected in part I maintain to keep us in check and overcome potential personal chaotic impulses. But still, we're talking Katrina floodwaters here, we need to erect even more defenses.

A good dyke is not enough.

Society attempts to censure itself here, we cannot simply act mostly on our sexual impulses. Chaos would ensue. Channelling needs to take place.

This is what the character of Ursula is arguing.

Birkin would say in rebuttal that the trueness of the impulse will direct the arrow's flight, it will chart out its proper course as it goes.

Ursula longs for hearth and home, and children. She wants the storm of upheavals that brought her and Birkin together to be done. This is an image of womanhood as being more traditionally compliant, and able to bear children.

Her sister Gudrun is very different, more intellectual. Lawrence made her an artist as well, and quite a good one; this is the highest being in his firmament, the artist. And it is to Gudrun that we turn to in the story, at least as far as the women go. Personally, it is around her character that our interest and feelings coalesce.

I obviously felt a world of empathy with Gudrun, but very little towards Ursula.

Gerald is Gudrun's lover, the powerful tycoon who lives as the embodiment of Nietzche's "ubermensch" ideal, the blond alpha male who can only know the world, and himself in it, if he is dominating it.

Birkin is the smaller, slighter man, the dark one, sickly perhaps, since he is a stand-in for Lawrence himself here. But at least he is in touch with his need to live life in the physical moment, even if he is floundering at the novel's beginning in his attempts to achieve that.

Nowhere in the novel does the word "bisexual" creep out. But there is a fascinating scene of nude wrestling between the two men, wherein it becomes clear that the bond between them is flavored with the homoerotic.

Clearly, Birkin wants more from his friend Gerald. But even he does not quite know how to express that.

How many times was I with a woman friend, and I felt the vibe that said, "Let's take this one step further?" What would that have looked like? I was uncertain at the time. Like Birkin, I knew I had feeling for this person. But what exactly does it want to be? Where does it want to go?

My first forays into bisexuality were framed around issues like this. I didn't know what I was doing, so I looked around me for guidance. Literature was certainly a good start.

Soon, I would start writing "literature" of my own.

- - - - - -

The Dark Side Of Polyamory (Pt.3)

2006-09-18T11:47:00.000-07:00

At this point in time my friend M seems more inclined towards answering men's personal ads; she seems to have given up on the women. Haven't we all. She finds, as so many of us bisexual women do, that things just work out easier with men.

Towards Dave, M seems to harbor odd feelings. I think part of her feels attracted, but whether it is to him specifically, or to me because we are attached, I cannot say. Her vibes are strong and we can feel them, but they seem to go in many directions.

I think it is more a matter that M is attracted to the idea of us as a couple. After all, from what I can see, we are something of a port of safety in stormy seas of sexual relationships. We've been together a while, and we seem able to separate and go off our own paths for a bit, and then reunite without problems or repercussions. People who are interested in polyamorous relationships wonder how we do it.

The answer is we try not to make a big deal out of it. I think sometimes M wants the theoretical to meet the practical, and I don't know if polyamory can be fitted into too many preconceptions. We are also fortunate in that both Dave and I are both equally bisexual. That helps. We feel no need to get bent out of shape over his bath house adventures, or her dating adventures online with other women.

Would you rather live in a social experiment or be just an average person trying to establish relationships? One at a time even?

M seems to want it all. At least she aimed high. But what M needs to look at is how her own personality gets in the way of what she is going after. She comes on very strong, and I think we are not the first people to fall back into a protective mode when we are with her.

For Dave, M reminds him a lot of his mother, at least in her behavior towards him. He finds her increasingly hard to deal with. His intention was to simply enjoy her as a friend and an occasional pot connection.

In some ways, we could say Dave and I are really not that polyamorous. He does not take after other women. I do not really go after other men. This is our little quirk I suppose, that makes all things tolerable. It would be interesting to see someone come along and challenge that situation.

- - - - -

The Dark Side Of Polyamory (Pt.2)

2006-09-08T14:33:00.000-07:00

When I first met my friend M she was embroiled with a male friend and a female one. Actually, she began with the female, and along the way they brought in the male counterpart. The results here did not go well. The male and female gravitated together, and M was out in the cold.

Trouble ensued, there was a nasty falling out among all concerned. Restraining orders were taken out and the fur began to fly. I was one of several friends who accompanied M to court. Yes, polyamory can end up in the courthouses of America. Just so you know what you're getting into(!)

I was happy to lend my moral support to M, but the whole episode left me scratching my head. Her ex male friend was an east coaster, from a well-to-do family apparently but he was coasting along on a knife's edge. He liked his drugs, serious drugs, and with his habit he needed to constantly be in touch with people he could mooch off. This is where M came in.

When I asked what she saw in the guy, she replied he was "charismatic." I guess charisma still goes a long way in life. I like charisma too. But unfortunately the word has come, in my frame of reference, to mean "trouble." As in "drama." Sometimes I think this is why I am so attracted to Swedish men, among other Scandinavian types. They are considered boring by many women, even some Swedish women. But I find boring may get you farther than charisma.

M should have realized earlier on that her male friend was out to wring whatever he could from her. Meanwhile, the ex-girlfriend was siding with him against M.

One day in the rain M and I drove the girlfriend's bicycle over to where she was staying, and M proceeded to dump it in the gutter in front of the house.

Oi. I have never had nasty break-ups with exs, so this was quite an eye-opener. But who needs it.

M says to me, "I don't want you to think that I have drama like this all the time in my life, because I don't." But after knowing her for about two years now, there seems to be nothing but drama going on around her.

This tends to make me cautious. Is polyamory at fault here? The ex-girlfriend made a squeak to M about "you see what your polyamorous stuff leads to" sort of thing.

I try to see the whole forest in all this, and not just a tree or two. Or three in this case. Polyamory is neither good nor bad. The people involved are what make it so. And in this case, the personalities involved were just not destined to be harmonious. In this lifetime or any other.

M finally got over him, and her. But these are costly battles. I hate to see good people have to go through them, but in this case, for M, it was something she had to work through and she finally did.

TO BE CONTINUED

The Dark Side Of Polyamory (Pt.1)

2006-09-04T15:31:00.000-07:00

Polyamorous relationships are not always the ideal way for everyone. Even though my partner Dave and I seem pretty well-suited to this lifestyle, I do not assume that is true for everyone. Take for instance our friend M, who wants very much to be in polyamorous situations, but when she encounters them they have ended up rather disastrously.

M is late forties, Jewish, about 5'3" 140 pounds, with long thick salt and pepper hair. Her mom died and left her with a shitload of money and a house in Santa Cruz, so she does not need to work. She has time for community projects. Unfortunately though, the community is not always ready to deal with someone as out there as M is.

She identifies as bisexual, and polyamorous, has never been married or had children. Currently she seems to spend more time looking for suitable males than females. After all, we all know how hard it is to get women into bed. Much better to pursue men when you want sex.

Recently M was involved in a steering committee that was interested in raising the minimum wage in Santa Cruz County. M ran afoul of the woman who seemed to be in charge of the committee. I could not quite pull all the details out of her, but suffice to say that whatever M did to the woman, it pressed a lot of buttons.

The woman fired M from the committee, and refused to even engage in further conversation about her dismissal. What was the reason given? Well, apparently the woman felt M was sexually harassing her.

This is a serious charge. The sort of charge that can lead to trouble with the law. Clearly, whatever happened, it happened in such a convincing way that the woman wanted nothing further to do with M.

What do I think really happened? It's a personality thing going on here. M is really forward with people, she comes on very strong. I don't mean to imply she is a stalker personality, but her sense of boundaries is not always impeccable. This causes problems.

"I know my boundaries," M remarked to me once. I thought about that, and realized it was the truth. But M knows boundaries because, unfortunately, she seems to always be testing them.

She comes on way to strong for many people, and I think the woman on the committee was feeling cornered by M, and she reacted.

I met M nearly two years ago, on a women's hiking group here in the south bay. My first impressions were that she was a strong, capable woman with a good head on her shoulders.

That impression has been shifting gradually ever since. I thought I had made a new friend but was feeling pretty casual about how often we had to meet. M seemed to want a lot more of my company than I had intended to give her. So I probably sent the wrong messages myself to M. She seemed very needy at times, and talked a lot about needing the support of other people. I tried to offer that.

But M grew so assertive. When I joined Dave for a Memorial Day Weekend in New York City, M made a request of us. She wanted us to bring her a gift from our trip. I was more than a little surprised by her brazenness. I would never ask anyone to bring me back a gift from their trip. The thought would never even occur to me. But it did to M. We obliged her.

More and more M has insinuated her way into our lives. It would be different if she could be cooler about our relationship. But her sense of neediness seems so great that it spills out into all of our social interactions.

I am feeling very guarded about her now. How to proceed from here?

TO BE CONTINUED

Tidbits From The Daily Grind

2006-08-31T16:35:00.000-07:00

An interesting array of small news items have been cropping up lately. This according to the NY Times June 23rd, 2006 edition.

For instance, in Japan nearly 31% of people between 16 and 49 have sex only once a month. So, does that one timer make up for all the other sexless nights? Well, we wish we could say so, but apparently when couples did have sex, they did so for "no particular reason."

Sounds fabulously sexy, no?

No. The Japanese are increasingly worried about this trend. Figures show that the population rate fell to an all-time low: 1.25. It should be 2.1 to keep the overall population from declining. So, start crackin' and eat your spinach.

In this regard they are right up there with the Italians, who are also de-populating themselves at an alarming rate. No one wants the responsibilities of marriage and child-rearing. The single guys can just as easily live with mom. As we all know, mom is still the ultimate goddess in the Italian home.

Up in Canada in the same Times' edition, it was reported that the country has raised the age of consent from 14 to 16. This was done primarily to curb older male predators. But the Canadians wisely decided to put in a key exemption to the law, which allows kids of say 14 or 15 to still have sex with someone up to five years older than they are.

Would we devise such a loophole down in the USA? Of course not, silly. We are still trying to get out from under the delusion that children that age should not be doing anything at all of a sexual nature.

Unless you want to just show off your new fetish wardrobe. Which brings us to the third Times' story of the day, the fact that the Style section is running a story on "Kinky Chic Extends Its Dominance." The paraphernalia of the BDSM crowd is now going mainstream.

Those little black collars? You see a fair number of chic women wearing them out at night. And I don't think they are dominatrices on their way to a rendezvous with a client.

Got a yearning to play an extra in "Braveheart" in the scene where they all moon the Brits? Well, just hang onto your Scottish garb. That's a fetish thing too and it is one of the hotter outfits around now. I remember fondly one of our early experiences at a sex party, where one of the participants was running around in a kilt. "Do you wont to have a wrestle," he would inquire of people, in a charming brogue. We declined, but we thought the outfit was snazzy.

Good to know you can hang on to your old chains, leather and whatnot and it will be back in fashion. Sooner than you think. Or may want it to be.

- - - - - - - -

Sans Degree, Sans Wife

2006-08-28T15:50:00.000-07:00

Apparently life in the good old US of A is going to continue to be tough for men. For instance. A lengthy NY Times article from August 6, 2006, entitled "Facing Middle Age With No Degree, And No Wife," reports on a growing trend in this country. (The link unfortunately only takes you to a Times' article that you have to pay for). For men nearing middle age, roughly from 40-44, over 18% of them will never marry if they don't get college degrees.

These men are still single, and likely to stay that way. The reasons for this are complex and probably more numerous than the Times' story detailed. But in broad terms they looked at the fact that women are now quite independent in many ways from men, not the least of which is economic independence.

Reproductive biology has also made it possible for women to live lives that can be totally removed from significant male others, if they so choose. Single mothers are a pretty common norm nowadays.

So, from the women's standpoint, there is not such a big rush to get married. From the men's standpoint, there are also many reasons to stay single. Everyone is catching on to the fact that, in spite of how we like to trumpet the clarion call of happy marriages, not everyone out there is happy being married. People feel they don't have to do it anymore to be a decent, Godfearing person. Single can be good.

People are also not marrying because shacking up is proving quite satisfactory in many cases. A lot of men and women are choosing just to avoid the fray of marriage altogether.

I for instance have never really seriously considered getting married in my life, even to Dave, who I have been with over 15 years now. Mostly because I so enjoy using the phrase, "We choose to live in sin" with people. The reaction I should add is nearly always highly positive. I know I am with him because I want to be with him, not because I have some stamped piece of paper saying I am yours and you are mine. The prospect of having a lovely white wedding and walking down the aisle never ever appealed to this broad.

I am not alone.

But what the Times' article unfortunately did not go into was the simple reason that people in general are not marrying so much. Let alone those single guys who aren't college-educated.

They are not marrying because they cannot hook up with other people. It is a real problem in our society. Sure, we have our independence, economic and social, we are free to come and go and do pretty much what we want. But we can't hook up.

Look at how we live these days. Who has time for much of anything? We love to work like dogs to keep running with the Joneses, we love our computers, the Internet, the things we find there. Including some rather nice porn.

Who needs to go out? Well, we do, especially if we would like to meet some new swimmers in our local pool of available sex partners. But our life habits are taking us further and further away from opportunities - which used to be quite plentiful, I can even remember them - for basic, decent human interaction.

It just doesn't happen that easily anymore, or all that much. Whether you have a degree or not. Whether you are an ugly puss of a guy or a Brad Pitt type. It just is not that easy anymore.

Not that guys should rush out to college in new droves, with the idea of finding a bride. They are not. In fact, college itself is turning into a province of the female. They stay in school in greater numbers and graduate more easily than do males.

There are still reasons why everyone, including males, should probably consider some college, at least. Whether you snag a woman or a man or not. College is still a finishing school of sorts, you learn more social as well as intellectual interaction with your peers. That is a good thing.

If nothing else college will offer ideas on how to use your leisure time. To do things other than just hanging out with a few beers and a few boys on a Saturday night.

- - - - - -

Bad Boy Goats, The Enemy Within

2006-08-14T21:37:00.000-07:00

Every so often a story leaps out at you from the smoldering morass that is "Mess-o-potamia" that seems to encapsulate perfectly how things in general are going to hell in Baghdad in a handbasket.

Take for example this tale of the goat. Well, a number of goats probably. We like to think that more than one critter could cause so much consternation.

A story recently on NPR about the continuing deterioration of the daily living situation in Baghdad involved Shiites and Suniis once again dukking it out. This time over what I guess we would call animal husbandry efforts. Now the Suniis tend to be the ethnic group who raises goats, mostly in western Baghdad. The Suniis are regarded generally as a more affluent group than are the Shia, who in turn seem more religious in ways.

Problems arose because it is apparently the rutting season for the goats, and they are doing what male goats do everywhere during that period. Consequently their sexual organs are prominently on display at times.

This annoys the hell out of the Shia, and now that Saddam is gone they feel they can start to throw their weight around after years of oppression under his rule.

So they want, and are demanding, that the Suniis who own goats put diapers on them.

Or else we kill you.

I kid you not. I find it interesting they want to kill the goat owners, not the goats themselves. I guess we should say that's decent of them.

Meanwhile, in other, even more depraved corners of Baghdad, certain vegetable sellers in the markets are getting death threats.

Why? Because one happy wag arranged his zucchinis in what the offended Shia termed a "provocative manner," so that the produce resembled erect penises.

Hey, from my happy girlhood discoveries about the power of zucchinis, you don't need to preach to me, I am there already. No displays needed.

I suppose when record numbers of people died in sectarian violence this month in the country that it is no time for frivolity.

On the other hand, it is probably exactly the time for frivolity. When the world is crumbling around you, isn't it time for a little thought turned towards erections? As a way of contradicting the madness around you?

But will it be enough. Don't know. We'll see how many goatherders survive the rutting season in Baghdad.

- - - - -

Life With Dave

2006-08-10T15:32:00.000-07:00

Today I want to explore a bit more how polyamory works between my partner Dave and I. This I will attempt to do in the context of the question, how do we fight when we fight?

We really haven't fought in any significant fashion for a while, even though Dave has been in town from working on the road since last Christmas. We have managed actually to be quite cordial for the most part during this time. Usually he goes out to work three-month gigs at a time, with occasional weekends home.

For myself, it is no problem when he goes. Much of my earlier life was pretty much spent living alone. I still like it and gravitate towards it when Dave goes. It's the little things I especially like when he's gone. Like turning on the radio at night without needing earplugs. I have somewhat insomniac habits; I like hearing voices babbling to me at night, preferably suave-sounding voices with British accents. Often I end up hearing the BBC. That can put me right out. I also love hogging the bed. I don't sleep well physically with people. Ideally I would like twin beds pushed together. He feels the same way. But we sleep together when he is home.

The other night he and I got into a good, hostile fight. Over sex, I think. But other things factored in. We were a bit stoned, and I got a bit confrontational. As I tend to when I am stoned.

The argument started actually over a tennis match I wanted to watch, and it happened to fall during Dave's beloved BBC news broadcast. As this was a week that was chocked full of potential terror threats and gummed up flights, war in Lebanon and a close Senate election in Pennsylvania, Dave wants to get the latest. Because of these same things, I want to lose myself in tennis. It is the only pure thing that seems left in life, sometimes.

So he and I started off fighting over that. He accuses me of being selfish (quite true). I say he can read the BBC online. By the time we see it on the TV, it is often hours out of date anyways. We often end up talking together over the television anyway.

Somehow we quickly segued from TV into sex. Before I knew what I was doing, I was voicing a certain anxiety I have been feeling of late. D has been saying how attracted he feels right now to men, and since he is home from the road he runs down to the Water Garden bath house here in San Jose.

Usually I am fine with Dave when he gets this way with guys. Because he is always still interested in boffing me, so I am happy. But for whatever reason lately I was not feeling so secure. Hence, this little set-to.

All sorts of strange thoughts flit through my head in vulnerable moments like this. Could our relationship evolve to a point where Dave may want to be more with men than women? Where would that leave me? Would that leave me finally in a position where I would want to find another woman? Or another man? But still have Dave? Because I always want Dave. I keep coming back to that very basic fact.

Just how many people do I need on my own personal poly train?

I get anxious in the conversation about this and start wondering outloud if I should not look for "reinforcements." What if you keep on going with this interest in guys, I say to Dave, and you just...keep on going with that. Should I be worried? Will you come back, I wonder.

That is kind of how my mind works the issue. I get emotional and anxious over sex. It's a very important issue in our lives. I like having sex. It improves my disposition a ton to get boffed on a regular basis. I love my pleasure sources and become inordinately attached to them. Any thought of my little train being disrupted puts me in somewhat considerable angst.

So, all this stuff came out. It got to be quite contentious. I kept sounding nastier, Dave got more defensive. Our roles seem to switch. I fight like the male in this situation, he gets teary-eyed. This unpleasantness lingers, and since we started this at night, it went into the night.

Into the next morning, when usually we can both climb down off our high horses, make amends, and patch things up.

The patching up part is especially important. But for me, I see it as an opportunity to clear the air. We talk over what happened, how it came about, and as we talk we can see already the storm has passed. It's good to talk this out, because you want to see the clouds recede on the horizon.

It is never good to just sweep things aside and assume everything is nice-nice. There is a lot of good work between couples that can emerge when you sort out the detritus of the battle later on.

Back to tennis, in a sense, because you are akin to a player after he's come off the court from a tough loss. He can take a shower and relax a bit, but then his coach has to sit him down and talk to him. You pick the effort apart. You want to be more on top of things next time you go out.

Dave and I try to adopt that spirit, because it is healing, it is cleansing; it is a learning experience. And once we've done this work, we can kick back and relax. It gives us both a wonderful burst of energy to carry on.

Tennis, anyone?

- - - - - - -

Do You Know Where The Kids Are?

2006-08-07T15:52:00.000-07:00

We're sucking up culture today here, folks, in the form of writer Mary Gordon on Bill Moyers' PBS television show. The show was already under way when I tuned in, so it took a little bit of figuring out to realize where they were at in the dialogue.

Ms. Gordon was apparently speaking about Osama bin Laden, and the sense of disgust he developed toward western culture in general and American culture in particular. A disgust that Ms. Gordon shares to some degree with him.

She was speaking of the social mores in America at large, and decrying how so much in our culture seems on a downward spiral. Take, for instance, the state of our Feral Youth. As Ms. Gordon explains it....

"...There are some things in the world that disgust me to the point of despair...some of the things that kids will do on the Internet now. Somebody was telling me about young girls from very good schools who will photograph each other having sex, and put it on the Internet, so that people can, you know, see them having sex. Thirteen, fourteen year-old girls are doing that. And I see something like that, and it makes me despair. And I think there is something so wrong with this culture that, wipe it out. Start from - start from zero. It's too corrupt."

The first part of her statement had me on her side, but the more she spoke the more I felt an unpleasant tone creep into her voice. The lady finally protested so much that she gutted her own argument.

Methinks the heavy hand of nunneries is nigh.

Now American civilization may indeed be going to hell straightaway in a handbasket, but I am not sure that the sexual antics of thirteen-year-olds are going to be the proverbial last straw, as it were. You could read the kids as being like kids in any generation - ready to stick it in the eye of the older folk. Kids rebel.

Maybe what those teenaged girls are rebelling against is that they don't want to end up like mom and pop, at least in America, where married couples on average have a miniscule amount of sex every year. Not that playing a numbers game is any solution, but it may be fuelling some of this youthful behavior.

After all, these are the girls who will probably grow up to be better educated than the males in their lives, since that is what women are doing nowadays, they are surpassing men in all sorts of ways. Soon the gap between the sexes will be even wider, fewer people will be hooking up compatibly, marriage will continue to decline.

Hell, no one will probably be having sex. So, bring on the kiddies and their truncated version of Internet porn. Because this may be the only idea of sexuality that we get.

After all, most adults are telling kids pretty much non-stop, to NOT be rushing headlong into sexual connections. The kids obviously just tune them out.

Adults try any number of ways to separate kids from their sex organs. "It's better if you wait for that special Someone." Or, "It's better when you love the person." And if that doesn't work, then let's cut to the chase and just hammer them with, "You can catch diseases and die."

I find the Pleasure Argument especially insidious. To return to Ms. Gordon for a moment, she phrases it in terms of young people "having all sorts of sex that they can't possibly really connect to pleasure."

Of course they can't do that, but why should they? Finding the deep pleasure Ms. Gordon is talking about takes time, effort, luck, beyond just the basic compatibility of two people. But in the meantime, what's wrong with lusty, sweaty rolls in the hay? Do we need a heavenly choir going in the background every time we hit the sack? The kids don't think so, and good for them that they don't think so.

Is there a trace of envy in the grown-ups today as they view their offspring? So coddled, pampered and cocooned all their lives and into young adulthood. Do we wish we had lived childhoods where we were having sex more often, at least? Never mind about putting the pix on the Internet. We would be happy if we had the imagination - and the nerve - just to swap them among our friends, post them on our bedroom walls or try and sneak them into the class yearbook.

Kids have plenty of imagination still, and the fact it extends now into sexual realms that we did not experience in OUR growing up should not be a green light for us to beat them up for their behavior. Sorry, Mary, you are a good Catholic girl and a good person I'm sure. But your angst is misplaced.

After all, where there is libido, there is life. Keep your paws off my gonads, please. Now, where's the damned cameraman when you need him?

- - - - - -

Sunday In The Park With George

2006-08-03T13:18:00.000-07:00

No, not that George, not our Dear Leader. I am referring to another, happier George, namely George Michael, the Brit singer and entertainer. Lately George ran into more trouble with the police during his nocturnal roamings around Hampstead Heath in London. He was in the process of soliciting another man for immoral purposes when he was caught. He had a similar offense some years back, in a park in Beverly Hills.

I try to suppress my jealous feelings that he, as a male, can do this, while I, a female, cannot. At least probably not too safely. The public outrage over George's behavior was best expressed the other night on a television entertainment show, which featured a buxon, very straight woman interviewing George.

Her train of thought ran something like this. "But what about your so-called life partner, aren't you being unfaithful to him?" she queried. No replies George, his long-time male partner has no problems at all with George stepping out. Dare we suggest, he is probably doing the same. My friend N tells me there are numerous partnered gay males who do this, stay together as a couple while having hot sex with other people. Lesbians could take a page or two from them. Or a whole book for that matter, instead of getting all caught up in their knickers over non-existant issues of "fidelity." I admire the men their civility in sorting things out.

"But what about your safety?" continued our ever so feminine bastion of decent heterosexual values. "Aren't you putting yourself at risk?" Not at all, says George, trying to keep his cool. "I have been doing this off and on since I was a teenager, and never once seen violence."

You mean you are having casual anonymous sex with other men and nobody's like, ever clocked you one? In other words, NO repercussions? God, the nerve of some people! As if the public could allow this only if the man were beaten up afterward, tarred and feathered and maybe staked out on an anthill.

He probably should have whipped out his dick at that point in the interview, just to show her that his member was intact.

So you get the point hopefully, that what George was talking about was not nearly as reprehensible as the woman asking the questions. George in fact strikes me as a very cool guy.

He reveals this in his next breath, when he says back to the woman, "Talk to me about violence when you can't, as a woman, go into a club these days without holding your hand over your drink for fear of being drugged." Oooh, well said, baby. You go, George. The man has a well-developed female side, it would appear.

Well, but he's not going to be lady-like now in regard to his interviewer, who finally gets chastised royally. "We should not be taking questions like this, from straight women in particular." Good bitch slap, that one. George goes on to wonder outloud why heterosexual women just don't "get" the idea of cruising. As if heterosexual men do. Well, they may get it intellectually at least, but the fact it's butt boy stuff they don't like.

Personally, I always thought cruising was cool. I realize I wanted to be a man - not so I could boff women - but probably chase after other men. They had more fun in life, and that included sexual fun.

If anything about George's little ramble bears commenting upon, it is his choice of partners. The guy he picked was shown on the TV too. A skinny older runt of a guy wearing awful shorts, with a pot belly, glasses and hair that has never seen the light of a good hair day. A working class bloke.

Why him, Dave and I wonder outloud. We can understand everything about the encounter except the weirdness of the guy, especially given that George is rather handsome and could boff anyone he wants.

And who he wants is this guy. Go figure. Maybe it's just the guy's averageness that appeals. Or the fact he is working class. Not exactly rough trade, but there is probably something appealing about having sex with someone like this. Was he the only guy hanging around that night? Did he have a big dick?

See, these are the questions that nosey female reporter should have been asking. Because all us inquiring minds out here really want to know.

Go George! Too bad you don't do women. Or do you?

- - - - - -

Cat Up A Tree

2006-07-31T00:19:00.000-07:00

We used to live in an old studio with a small yard that had a big tree in the middle of it, with a swing. Our little cat Hillary climbed it one day, then realized that Simon, the fluffy male who lived in the front unit, had come and positioned himself directly under the tree, blocking her way down. She was going to have to encounter him if she ever wanted to get down out of the tree.

So I look out my window and watch their little girl-boy games, and you have to wonder about the humans in all of this. Their games have a similar feel. Men everywhere are always trying to position themselves under that tree somehow, hoping the female in question will: a) trip over them, b) scurry past them somehow, or c) just accept the fact that he is going to be inevitable in her life.

I had a male friend, R, that I met through work at a hospital once in Berkeley. He was a sardonic guy who wasn't much of a talker. That's probably why he adopted the strategy he did with me. His communication skills were not that developed, but he knew how to position himself at least. And position himself he did, trying to catch me at a good time, hanging around and watching me. Guys do that a lot when they don't know how to talk well enough.

I am not sure which I would prefer. Guys who talk their way into your bed, or guys who work their way there by increments, through their efforts at strategery, as our dear leader would say. It's an active thing but it plays as somewhat passive too. You're the one tripping over THEM because they have arranged it.

Usually I get the feeling I can be intimidating to men without trying too hard. So I guess it is not surprising when they resort to strategery. It is sometimes amusing to witness, because I can see the wheels turning as they work on their dilemna. How do they get my attention, but without being too obnoxious?

R took the laid back approach, even though we did lots of things together, adventurous things. Like riding our motorcycles around together, going skinny-dipping up along the Sacramento River, or sailing his yacht in San Francisco Bay. That should have buoyed his confidence, but he still seemed not interested in being too direct with me.

The closest he got was saying to me one day, "Well, in case you want to know, I've had a vasectomy." He no doubt said this in the hopes I would feel safer about bedding him. But I didn't. My interest in him totally dropped from this moment onward. He could not get me pregnant is basically what he said to me, and I must have had hidden resentment about that. Because afterwards we never did move towards sleeping together.

I escaped his "trap," but did I really want to? Women often are meaning "yes" even while they are saying "no." So what's a boy to do?

Continue to hang by the tree, I guess.

- - - - - -

How'd A Girl Like You Get To Be A Girl Like You? (Pt.1)

2006-07-27T11:28:00.000-07:00

This title actually comes from Cary Grant's line to Eva Marie Saint in Hitchcock's classic thriller, "North By Northwest." It occurs about two thirds of the way through the film, after he's just figured out her duplicity and flung it back in her face. I thought it might be appropriate to use for this piece, which outlines a little how I came to be the fine bi person I am today.

What were the things along the road that pushed me towards being a bisexual person? As I look back now, there were brightly colored pebbles everywhere on my path, calling out to me to stop and collect them.

Like being athletic, for starters. Sports seem to augment the natural aggression people have. Every girl who plays sports almost always is a tomboy type. But did that mean I was inclined to like women? I am unsure. Not necessarily, but in my case it certainly helped the cause along. I may not be all that butch, but I have more aggression than most women, and I have been accustomed to acting some of that out physically in my sporty life. I used to think most dykes were really into sport, but I find that does not occur so often. The real jocks are still the straight women, by and large.

Being a Gemini probably introduced me naturally to the idea of duality in the universe. Our minds are constantly being pulled this way, then that way. After a while you start to really think that it's all about ebb and flow. While this may leave you without a really strong "home base" to land on, you certainly seem to have more fun than the rest of the peasants out there.

Home life always plays a role too, and having observed my parents rather unhappy marriage over the years I began to see the ways in which they contributed to my bisexual outlook. My father wanted a son, but ended up with three daughters. Being the oldest, and the most athletic, I became the Substitute Son. My mother saw in me a defender and an ally in her ongoing battles with my father, so I got drafted. She encouraged my tomboyishness too. After all, a girly girl daughter is not as good an ally as a girl who knows how to fight.

So my family inclinations played into my development. For this I am thankful. Of the three daughters, I feel I'm the one who has had the most interesting life. Even though the two younger girls are better off financially and materially, and exhibit to the world the air of middle-class happiness. I was the one who ran around and did stuff and had weird things happen in my life. I hesitate to use the term "Black Sheep" of the family, but in some ways I was.

Now though I see my upbringing has paid off. All the notes in the symphony turned into major chords and it sounds quite nice, overall. I recall an astrologer saying I would get my goodies later on in life, i.e. finding Dave when I was mid forties, feeling more at home in who I was. And being more certain than ever that I was a bisexual person.

TO BE CONTINUED

Boys Who Waffle

2006-07-24T15:18:00.000-07:00

This past weekend Dave and I wanted to line up a person of the male persuasion to join us in some sexy fun. That turned out to be something of a tall order. We realize that part of the problem is where we live. San Jose is not exactly a bastion of liberal activity. Just because we have Silicon Valley here does not necessarily mean that sexual relationships have advanced as fast as our technology, sorry to say.

The town started much like the San Fernando Valley, with a heap of orange groves and not much else in a dry, rather hot landscape. It feels redneck to me still. Our neighborhood is actually in Campbell, a quaint little community just west of San Jose. Bush-Cheney signs were on display in yards around Campbell during the election, so don't go assuming the San Francisco Bay Area is uniformly awash in liberal persuasion. It is not. People here seem conservative, white, often big physically and generally not anyone we would want to hang with.

Our efforts to find a third wheel have failed before when we search this area. We run across rather conservative guys, who like to think they have a wild streak somewhere, deep inside, if only they had the chance to set it free. Wannabees, in other words. Many of them are south Asian, guys from India usually, who sound unhappily married and are looking for fun. That is too much of a cultural stretch for us.

One guy keeps answering our ads, even though we say we are not interested in Asian guys. He's probably not bi at all, but he sounds so unhappily married that he probably will, literally, try anything. He sends us the same picture too, of himself standing in front of a car on a car lot, dressed in a suit and tie. Only this last time he blocked his face out of the photo. No "private" photos did he share with us, and because he answered an ad he had no business answering, he gets the Delete button almost immediately.

Maybe we should have answered him and suggested that he try another photo. I can't imagine too many couples want someone who has the feel of a used car salesman about him.

Then we run across Steve, who sounds like our cup of tea, with the requisite photos and a nice-sounding attitude. He looks fairly tall, he looks fit, not a hairy guy, clean-shaven. Nice dick. We trade photos and everyone agrees we can agree.

But as the emailing goes on a bit further, we start to wonder about our boy Steve. This time we placed a very precise ad, making it clear that we were both bi and had done this before, and we wanted someone who had also done an "advanced degree," if you will. He seems to be a player, but then he lets loose with the fact that he loves being a bottom.

Dave begins to feel nervous; he is about 90% inclined to be the bottom when he is with other males. He will "top" the right boy, usually a femme type of boy with a butt as cute as mine, or a really muscular sort of guy with a great bod. But usually Dave prefers to be the bottom.

Two bottoms can't make a right, I guess we say here. Dave writes back to Steve, delving further. If we both want to be bottoms, can we both find what we are looking for? Could I find what I am looking for, Dave asks. Steve writes back that while he loves women, he just happens to prefer the bottom role when he is with men. But he is prepared to be flexible.

OK, so we greenlight the project and write to Steve suggesting he pick a place between ours and his where we can meet for a drink and size each other up.

But we never hear back. Steve must have gotten a bit scared by our questions.

He really must have been a bottom.

- - - - - - -

Polyamory, Now More Than Ever

2006-07-20T15:54:00.000-07:00

Wasn't that someone's campaign slogan once upon a time? "Now, more than ever...." sort of thing. I know it was, I just can't recall who the chump was who fit that slogan. But it seemed appropriate to me today, as I wonder about what polyamory can do for our lives, and how we can encourage it in the face of some disturbing trends.

As an avid reader of the New York Times, I tumble onto articles which remind me of how scary this country can be. On May 7 of this year, the Times ran a huge article, "Contra-Contraception" by Russell Shorto. I won't provide a link to the article, since it is one of those membership things. Screw the abortion debate, apparently now we have to worry about whether we women are going to get knocked up every time we want to have sex because a growing number of people question the value of contraception. Swell.

What outlets are we going to have left? Everyone's kicked the smoking habit now, drugs are still frowned upon, we have to be more picky in what we eat, and sex can quite literally these days kill you. At least we can still drink. For now.

But this anti-contraception impulse has me worried. It's just another way the Puritans resurrect themselves in this country and rain on the parade of the rest of us. Why are they upset with contraception? Because it seems to lead couples - even married couples - to the dreadful notion, God forbid, that maybe sex is just meant to be pleasurable in and of itself. Without a link to procreation.

But wasn't this why contraception was invented in the first place? To free us up so we COULD enjoy the experience without having a kid tag along for the ride? What came along to sour the grapes?

Probably the Christian Right, which now seems right up there with the Catholic Church as the second leading terrorist organization in this country. These guys don't want anyone to have fun, certainly not sexual fun. They looked around and said, "We're going in the wrong direction as a country, and our sexual mores have a great deal to do with that. We're tired of the promiscuity and we're going to do something about it." At the root of all this I think we come back to that age-old favorite, hatred of the female. Does any rational person out there not get that this is all about controlling women? And in particular, their reproductive capabilities?

Where have you been, darling?

Hence the things taking place now. The appointment of new judges to the Supreme Court who are going to have far-reaching effects unfortunately. The passage in Wyoming of an extreme anti-abortion law. The contemplation of state measures to ban gay marriage.

And lest we think the rest of the world is immune, the Times reported around the same time that Indonesia is cracking down on pornography. Indonesia is the world's largest Muslim country, and no doubt the new law arises from this fact, even though people refer to the place as Muslim light. There is no such thing as Muslim light, but that is another story.

Suffice to say the lawmakers there are weighing laws which would identify new things now as "pornographic." Which could mean anything from a woman's forearm being bared in public to x-rated films.

This trend is probably going to continue. Just because there is a palpable measure of unhappiness abroad in the land now, and people need to take it out somewhere.

Why not sex? Isn't that the one big firecatcher for all of us? The thing we all congregate around like moths to the flame even while we're passing laws left and right to protect us from ourselves?

At times like this, I almost hesitate to say, why the hell weren't we colonized by the French?

- - - - - - -

Asheville, N.C. (That's "Assville" To You)

2006-07-17T13:56:00.000-07:00

In February 2001, Dave was working in Knoxville, Tennessee, building the HGTV channel. His company flew me in for a long weekend, and after puttering around Knoxville for a bit (lots of good eats, at least), we got it into our heads to take the rental car and drive east into the Smoky Mountains and visit the town of Asheville.

Asheville has a certain reputation as being a great place for dykes to hang. And dykes hang here, that's for sure. They are falling out of the trees, in fact. Dykes are so plentiful here that, according to one older male on Craigslist who answered me inquiry about what the life was like there, if you are not female and not a lesbian and not paired up with anyone, you will make few - if any - inroads in this neck of the woods.

This man was a writer, and he said it was a good thing he travelled a lot because he despaired of ever meeting compatible women in Asheville. The ones who aren't partnered up are pretty gay.

So Dave and I figured we would check out a town devoted to dykes. We were not disappointed. The girls were out in force on the Saturday we drove into town. Asheville is a small place, we parked near the center and just walked around. Everything is pretty much right there.

Lots of little quaint coffee shops and eateries, bookstores, curio stores for the tourists. One area of downtown, in front of the Wachovia Bank, seems modelled after Wall Street, in New York City. Complete with a tiny bull and the names of the streets that border on Wall Street.

The big tourist attraction here is the Biltmore, the Vanderbilt estate, a fabulously well-appointed mansion apparently where the Vanderbilts of New York would retire when things got hot in the city. My mother was quite annoyed that Dave and I chose not to visit the Vanderbilt pad. Hell, I've seen San Simeon Castle, in California, I've seen lots of great pads. One more I can live without. Especially since I don't get to live in it. My mom is a closeted monarchist. She likes those places and always wants to hear all about them.

The attractions Dave and I like are more about counting the roaches lying on the sidewalk outside a popular club in Asheville (signs of pot and those who like it). Or large crowds of biker boys flying through town (where the bikers are, you know there are more illegal substances). Or noticing a large rehab facility on the edge of town. Where there's rehab, there is also hope.

But we were there to meet dykes. And they seemed to want to meet me. One rather attractive, short-haired blonde walked by us on the sidewalk, gives me a big smile and a warm and throaty "hello," completely ignoring the fact I am with a guy.

I love being fresh meat, don't you?

Like I said, friendly girls here. Apparently from other postings I read on Craigslist about the life here, lesbian life in Asheville mostly goes on behind closed doors. What else is new? Lesbians living flamboyantly like some of the gay guys do is never really going to happen. Unfortunately.

So in Asheville, you probably have to work your way into the mix around town. Get to know who has the good parties. And hopefully, indulge in a fantasy or two that not every woman is already tied down. Or tied up, if you will. Surely, hopefully, there are a few single ones.

The town has a wannabe flavor of Berkeley, or Boulder, or Santa Cruz, minus the beach of course. Dave says, "Gee, you should have worn your Berkeley T-shirt, they'd be falling all over you." Berkeley is still THE SHIT according to some people still. I dunno about that, for my money the town is dirty, crime-ridden, long past its heyday and basically awash in a sea of political correctness and organic vegetables. Every once in a while I get the urge to visit it again, but not much. I think I might like to go see my old English professor, who taught my great Chaucer class. She has now clawed her way into the Dean's Chair of the English Department and I always thought I would drop by and say 'hi.'

As we roamed about Asheville that Saturday, checking things out, Dave and I asked ourselves if we could live here. It seemed a little too rural for us urban urbanites. Besides, they do get some winter here, and with the elevation there might be bouts of snow. In summer, the area is awash in recreational types, looking to hike, mountain bike, canoe, fish, whatnot.

But what would we do here? A more appropriate question might be, what happens if you fall out with lovers and want to move on? Is there somewhere in Assville to move onto? Or do you just have to find greener pastures altogether? Because from witnessing shenanigans that go on in a place like Santa Cruz, also somewhat small still, I can say that all small towns generally come together on that score. Make sure you can be happy with the smallness, and get ready to have everybody, quite literally, get familiar with your laundry, dirty or otherwise.

Besides, my dear friend E spent several years in North Carolina, and it is pretty redneck she says. And if you are not living in someplace nice and cultivated, like an Asheville, then the rest of the state you'll hate, according to her.

Sounds like just one big hog farm. Maybe Dave and I will squeeze a few more years out of California. Anonymity can be nice too.

- - - - -

Liz (Pt.3)

2006-07-13T13:27:00.000-07:00

Looking back on this experience with Liz from the vantage point of what I know about myself today, it seems that I realized I was just not attracted to her after all.

Up until we went to bed together, I thought I was attracted. Maybe that should have read, "the unattainable." And therefore something attractive. After the weekend was over, maybe my curiosity was satisfied, and I was ready to move on. Maybe the whole thing was as simple as that. In which case I probably am something of a churl, it's the same behavior I have castigated males for over the years. Slam bam thank you and have a nice day sort of thing. Women could do that too, and maybe I was just one of those women.

Ugh. I just couldn't tell myself that at the time. I find it difficult telling myself that now. But that may simply be the truth. There are really very few women I am ever going to be physically attracted to. J in Berkeley and Ms. KAR in L.A. were the two strongest contenders for my affections that way. Liz was not.

So what drew me to her in the first place? Physically I would never go for someone like that now. Maybe a mother thing, since she was so much older than me.

My friend J gave me lots of good advice. As she saw my affair, this is how she described it: You thought you liked Liz, you tried things out for size, and then you realized you could not go there. There was nothing for me to feel guilty about.

But work was shot to hell. I did end up getting fired. We were just too uncomfortable now around each other, and she had all the power. This was well before sexual harassment issues were even being focused on in the workplace, let alone discussed. I just wanted to get away from her. I felt as if some huge iron gate had shut down in my mind. I had to get away, as if my life were in danger.

What would I do differently? Well, open and thorough communication can solve nearly everything. There should have been a lot more of that. Like my lover J did, in Berkeley. You negotiate. You talk about what you each want. Do you need to move in together? Live together? Are you going to be monogamous? What about the younger partner and her child?

Liz went back to her, as she should have. And I moved on. Chastened by that experience, and now feeling leary of women and their capacity to suck people into whatever maelstrom they have going.

Lesbian drama. It's right up there with Shakespeare in terms of dramatic intensity, I suppose. Even if it doesn't always win you an Oscar.

- - - - - -

Liz (Pt.2)

2006-07-10T14:50:00.000-07:00

My first weekend with my new lover Liz felt very harmonious and complete to me, at least on first glance. Even though it was a gloomy weekend weather-wise and the house seemed filled with the presence of her younger long-term partner, who was away with her son for the weekend. I was positively basking in the glow of feeling I was loved and wanted by Liz. The path to our being together seemed clear and secure and inviting. But what exactly did that mean, and what would it all look like? I had no idea, and I should have. It got me into trouble being so naive. I was dealing with my own sex but for all I knew I could have been wandering around the surface of Mars.

Then the other shoe dropped, at least in my own mind. As the week progressed at work and I began encountering Liz in my daily tasks at the hospital, I found my mind wanting to make a complete U-turn. Was I getting cold feet? Did something happen to change my mind about my feelings for Liz? Nothing had occurred for me to feel that way, and yet I could feel a strong urge building inside me to want to get away as fast as possible. I had no idea what this was all about. To this day, I really don't have a clear idea.

I tried to analyze how I felt about her. And what I wanted from her. Why couldn't I control my emotions more, and channel them down the path I wanted to go, which was (I thought) to be in a relationship with a woman?

Liz apparently told her younger partner about me. It was not a happy scene, but obviously Liz's feelings for me were growing enough for her to want to warn her partner. The partner then phoned me, wanting to meet. To "talk things over." I declined. One of the things I have learned is that when a third party comes along and creates waves for a paired couple, it is rarely if ever about the third party. It's all about the couple. My response to her was basically, deal with your issues the two of you, I am not part of this relationship you have constructed for yourselves over time. Your issues are your issues, and you should be working on them. Without my help.

Wow, here they are, bickering about me, and I'm not even sure I'm cut out for any of this. Is it just that I really want and need my freedom after all?

I started feeling guilty about "leading on" my new friend. I had to work through that. I realized that I had undergone a big change in my feelings, and unfortunately I think I berated myself inside for not fully knowing why my mind was playing tricks on me like this. I wanted to back out of playing ball with a ball I myself had started to roll down the path. The fact I didn't quite know what was going on here psychologically did not necessarily imply I deliberately tried to harm Liz with my attentions.

But try and tell her that. Things got unpleasant at work. People who did not know our full story (only my immediate supervisor, the gay one, knew) were picking up vibes.

The head radiologist commented to M, my immediate boss, about how Liz really seemed to have a bug up her ass about me. She went from baffled to angry in the space of about a week too. She even called my friend J, to ask her opinion, whether to go after me or give me more space. J suggested the former. I do not know if I would have said that or not.

If I was backing away from Liz because I picked up something about her that was making me want to go, that was one thing. If it was a withdrawal due to cold feet from stuff in my own psyche, well then that was a whole other can of crawdads.

A tale for another day.

TO BE CONTINUED

Liz (Pt.1)

2006-07-06T14:05:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I am aware of feeling powerfully attracted to certain women, but I am not always sure exactly what the nature of that attraction is. Or what I want from these women. This uncertainty has led me down the garden path on several occasions, and I end up backtracking and making people feel annoyed with me without intending to do harm.

One of these women was named Liz, whom I met back in my Berkeley days when I started working in hospitals. Unfortunately, it did not end well between us. More unfortunately, she was my boss at the time. Never a good thing to play with the boss. I should have known better. But the power angle was probably a lot of the fuel at the time driving me onward. Usually I don't combine work and pleasure, but on this occasion I crossed the line.

The radiology department needed a new chief of the technical staff, and Liz was hired. I was about 24 at the time. She was around 40. Liz was a strongly built, fairly tall blonde with a rather in-charge manner. A bit butch of center but not oppressively so. I have never really ever been attracted to other blondes myself, so I don't know what happened this time but something happened.

I found her rather compelling and we began making flirtatious movements in each other's direction. We had no idea if the other person was gay or not, but our instincts said "yes." The other supervisor directly under Liz was M, who was openly gay. M had hired me, and we got to be somewhat chummy. M and I knew we were both gay, which is how I was identifying myself at the time. M got to witness this dance going on in the department between Liz and me. It amused her, at first. Until the trouble set in.

On the way into the affair, I invited Liz up to my Berkeley lair in the hills above campus for dinner. At that point we spilled the beans to each other, and talked about our sexual histories. So we knew each other was gay. Liz revealed she had been in rather a long relationship with a young woman my age, K, who had a young son. But things did not sound too happy on the home front, as Liz described them. So I did not enter into this relationship feeling like I was necessarily a homewrecker type. Others might not agree with this assessment.

My best friend at the time J got to meet Liz over pizza one day at lunch. J had misgivings, I sensed without probing, although I took that mainly as their personalities being quite different. J had not seen me involved seriously with another woman before, in the rather short time we had known each other.

Now she would learn how I progressed at these things, having told me so much of her own love life at the time herself. She was there for me at a time when I would need a lot of support.

I was about to embark upon a weekend alone with Liz, her young partner and the kid had gone away for the period to visit relatives. It seemed like such a gloomy weekend, in retrospect. It was not yet spring in the bay area, that was still struggling. The place seemed dark to me, and it felt rather strange in a way, as if the missing person still had a presence here, and that was complicating things.

The word "forlorn" wants to creep out. Perhaps not the right tone for a first weekend with the woman you say you want as your lover.

TO BE CONTINUED

One Or Two Reasons (Or Three Or Four) Why I'll Never Be A Lesbian (Pt.1)

2006-07-03T14:48:00.000-07:00

Feeling snotty today, are we, hence this particular title. I got started down this train of thought by delving into Camille Paglia's "Vamps And Tramps" collection of essays late last night. Camille always derails me, she's just that kind of female. I would have loved to have met her, and have an affair with her. I discovered her this past year, and in so doing I have finally found a woman who shares a lot of my sentiments, especially about gay women and the nonsensical things they get up to.

As I read away last night I remember thinking, "I could never have been a lesbian, really." There were points in my life where I thought it could have taken place, but the older I've gotten the more convinced I am I just wasn't cut out for it.

Cut out for what, pray tell? Just how do I see the lesbian community that I like to think I am a part of, at least every now and then? At this point, I am probably very prejudiced against them. For me it just does not seem like mentally they are a very healthy bunch.

Recently a number of things have fired me up. Last weekend I received an invite to attend a pool party for an over fifty lesbian group here in the South Bay. I thought I had deleted my membership, but the email arrived anyway. I had attended my first function with a friend over a year ago, and it was not particularly inspiring. My bi friend M and I walked in and realized immediately we were terribly out of place. She and I mumbled excuses and fled.

It's a little disconcerting when you walk in to a new group of gay women and they're your age, but they don't look or act anything like you. Nearly all the women looked ill, or otherwise like they had just been discharged from hospitals. What on earth have they been doing that they look so decrepit? I feel I have little in common with them.

For me, I find it utterly unfathomable why so many gay women let themselves go. It used to be, back when the feminist movement was revving up, you'd hear gay and straight women rant and rave against the traditional beauty standards we all had to live up to. Still do to some degree. But is there anything wrong with looking good, just to please yourself? Or other women? It's a pain in the butt to put on makeup and dress up, but frankly, I like doing it. It's a change from my usual grungy sporty self, with wildly flowing blonde hair and a constantly changing array of tan lines. I like to transform myself into someone my usual associates don't recognize too often.

And what about the fatness that seems to invariably accompany the sad sack looks? Fat to me is a fortress, as much as emotional aloofness is in a person. Either way you can't get in. These are strategies designed to keep people out. So how do these women find partners? No wonder lesbians are so overwhelmingly into monogamy, because it is nearly impossible these days to find a compatible partner. Once they think they have her, they hang on for dear life. Which then raises other issues.

Hrumph. Anyway, this group of women invited me to a pool party. I scratched my head, wondering a) how many of them would actually bring a swimsuit (and no, it won't be a nude swimming session, and who the hell knows if they even OWN swimming suits), and b) I have this awful suspicion I will be the only one actually swimming. This I know for a certainty. Given the chance to swim, I am there, anywhere, anytime. Been that way since tininess. My mother would have to come and fish me out of the sprinklers, I would ride my trike into the middle of their flow and park and smell the flowers. I was always the last kid out of the pool too. My limbs might be near frozen, but I didn't care. I was having fun.

But swimming with this pack of girls would not be fun. So, as you might guess, I am not going to the pool party.

And I am especially not going when they aren't going to let ANYONE have a friggin' drink of anything, wine or beer or spirits. "We're scared," that's what this policy says to me. We've been around so many alcoholics and otherwise dysfunctional women in our community of lesbians that we just can't take a chance anymore. So all alcohol becomes verboten. Drugs like pot? Don't even ask.

Once again I butt up against the strange dichotomy I see with many gay women. On the one hand they are sexual outlaws, in society's eyes. But in their personal lives, they seem to be very conservative. Me they have endless problems with. I am not only bisexual as a theoretical proposition, but I live with a guy. Alright, so he's queer as hell but he's still a man and why aren't you using condoms? This is the reaction I get. Maybe that's what moves me against them. I try to remember the women who are in this age group that I know, like my friend N in L.A., and P over in Santa Cruz. They are not like this crowd at all, and neither am I.

But how the hell do we add to our numbers??

TO BE CONTINUED

London, 1985 (Pt.3)

2006-06-29T14:50:00.000-07:00

One of the enjoyable things I learned about in working for S was how the world treats you. Especially when you are rich and famous. It was amusing to see and hear how people reacted. Sometimes it drove S around the bend.

"You know," she starts fuming to me one day, "Just because you earn some money, people out there think you've suddenly forgotten the price of light bulbs." They think that, in amongst all your dinero, you won't miss one or two bucks here and there. Wrong. S was smart with her money, in spite of the efforts of others to separate her from it. And they come at you from out of the woodwork.

Take her plumber, for instance. S had trouble during the winter with the pipes in her house; they ruptured during the cold weather. The guy tried to fix things, but it just wasn't quite....proper. Then he has the nerve to sit down and write S a three page letter, basically saying that, because she had lived in many places and was used to a higher standard of living, she should not expect quite the same when she was at home in London. Well, please forgive me for breathing. She gave me the letter to read. It was rather amusing, in part because you would not expect plumbers - in the States at least - to write such nice English. OK guy, maybe you should not have become a plumber. But you are. So fix the stuff already and quit whining.

Even when you have money, it seems life is still not perfect. I poke fun at the Brits in general, and London life in particular. It's like living in the Third World, I joke to S. Except we don't get the fruit and the great beaches. Sadly, S is inclined to agree with me. The Brits are a monumentally inefficient bunch. In spite of Margaret Thatcher's best efforts at the time to whip them into shape. I am pleased to think of the fact that S did not pick one of her own, she picked me, the American.

Most evenings S relaxed at home, but on several nights she would go out to visit friends or some other activities. She had a cab service to pick her up. Out front S had her own car parked, but we never used it. Not once. And this after she had me put onto the insurance policy, just in case S and I went somewhere.

I meet T, S's long-time boyfriend. He is some ten years younger than S. Good for you, woman. T works at the British Museum. And he looks like he does: neatly trimmed beard, nice looking guy. He seems like a really straight shooter who enjoys S's company, rather than her money. I compliment S on her choice. She is pleased with that. Some weekends he stays over.

It's midway through by three month stay with S in London, and I plan some shopping sprees. I rarely shop at home, other than thrift stores, which I enjoy mightily and make out like a bandit in. I can navigate through them easily. Malls are not my thing. But London is the place for clothes horses, so out I went, determined to replenish my wardrobe for some time to come. When I get home S wants to inspect my loot. She is impressed I've managed to pick up a white tuxedo jacket for $25.

Near the end of my stay I get a chance to wear the finery. S and T and I go out to the current posh restaurant downtown, a French place. While there S has to say hello to people she recognizes. One dark-haired guy at the corner table with the horn-rimmed glasses looks vaguely familiar. It's Harold Pinter, one of my long-time culture heroes. S says hello to him. He's divorced now from Vivien Merchant, and is seated tonight with his current love, Antonia Fraser.

Over dinner S suggests I take a vacation when I finish my work with her in London. Where would you suggest I visit, I inquire. She ponders for a long moment, then says, "Tunisia."

We've talked a lot about the Middle East, S knows I have spent time there and seen most of the countries. After a summer of rain in London, I am more than ready for the late summer heat of North Africa.

So I book a package and fly into Sous, then by bus to the resort I am staying at. Not many Americans here at all, and the one or two I do meet seem like ripe CIA material. Instead I find three groupings: the Brits, the Germans, the French. Separately housed of course.

When I head out to the beach on day one, I make a rather surprising discovery. The women are all running around topless. My mouth drops open. S had told me ahead of time that she did not think foreign women did this, not in north Africa even at a resort. But lo and behold, they're doing it now, and not to be the odd man out, I yank my top off in nothing flat. Now we're living!

The Brits are the most forlorn-looking creatures on the beach, they look sadly out of place. Like very unhappy white bunny rabbits. For some reason, they just don't tan. The French are behaving in their usual animated and stuck-up fashion. They're just crazy. The Germans I probably feel most at home with, even though I don't speak the language. Give them a ray of sun and they're there. As naked as they can get. They LOVE the sun, and they have the tans to prove it. Real outdoor babes. Funny thing though, after healthy exercising and a bit of sunshine, what do they do? They light up cigarettes when they're taking the elevator up to their rooms. Amazing. I ask them politely if they could refrain, but they look at me as if I were crazy. Only recently do I hear that the Europeans are finally starting to crack down on smokers. It's taken them far too long.

It feels good being back in a hot Muslim country. And Tunisia is a Muslim country, no doubt about it, but Muslim light. They are a good-looking people, and I like going into the town of Sous and threading my way through the souks. I know enough French to get around and enjoy myself.

Near the center of town I stop for a cold drink, and happen to spot a really beautiful Tunisian woman making her way down the street. She is an absolute stunner, and she's dressed in western clothing. Her long dark hair is pulled up, she's wearing chic sunglasses. No veil for this little darling. No one seems to care what she's wearing.

I have a sudden impulse to follow her, to see where she goes, maybe to speak to her. But it's too bloody hot, I am enjoying the shade too much and the cold drink is irresistible. This part of the world is too hot to chase women. Were I on the other side of the Mediterranean, it might be different. But here the climate drives everything.

Tunisia concludes a wonderful summer. I fly back to England, rendezvous with S and getting my final paycheck before I fly home.

S heads off to her little studio apartment in Monte Carlo, where she will write the book itself. I get a postcard from her a few months later, showing a dinghy resting on the beach. It reminds us both of an episode from the book.

And that lesbian scene? Well, it did happen when the women are holed up on the island. S gave me no hints as to how it would progress. But when my copy of the finished novel came, I got to see for myself.

Why is it lesbians are always hotter on the page than they are in real life?

- - - - - -

London, 1985 (Pt.2)

2006-06-26T15:07:00.000-07:00

My employer in London, a writer named S, had broken into writing as a newspaper woman. Her first big novel made a ton of money and went on to be one of the first big TV mini-series in the early 80s. It was a potboiler, pure and simple. But it managed to buy her a nice four-story townhouse in the happening part of London at the time, Camden Town. The Regents Park Zoo was quite close by, and if you happened to be alive around 4 a.m. or so, you could be serenaded by the stirring sea lions.

After our first day or so of working together, I had to confess I had not read her first big book. S laughed. "Don't worry, neither have I, really." She could tell it was not my style either.

But even if you're writing for a schlock market of housewives you still have to pull it together in a realistic fashion. The research really does have to count.

As the novel got under way, S had already decided to make one of the women bisexual. This was the character Susie, a flashy little blonde who seemed to have an eye out for every man around, tied down or not.

This seemed an odd choice to me and I had no hesitations about telling S that. One of the things she appreciated about me was that she saw I had no qualms about offering comments and criticisms. Intellectually I ran very well with her. I knew story and characters well enough to know what they needed to have along for the ride.

The Susie bisexual angle did not work for me at all, and so I argued that point with S. Not that Susie couldn't ever be bisexual; it's just the way S had drawn her was not yet convincing enough. She finally agreed with me and removed the bisexual bit.

Then S went in to the meeting at the studio with the Big Wigs with her first draft. As you might suspect, the first thing out of their mouths was, "So what happened to the lesbian angle?" S argued with them that it made no sense, but they didn't care.

Hollywood loves its lesbians. Especially the studio heads. And lesbians it will be. Back into the story went bisexual Susie. S and I just laughed. We're just whores doing a gig. Now get out of our way and let us lie down and do our thing.

S let me do my thing pretty much in my private time. She gave me the run of the top floor of her townhouse, which was actually a suite of rooms, with bedroom and a nice sitting room with a fireplace and bath.

S inquired politely if I required anything? I wondered outloud if she knew any...well, sources for illegal substances. She did. Presto bingo, right at five o'clock in the evening the doorbell rang and I happened to be right there to answer it. A neatly dressed young man was standing there. "I heard it was something of an emergency run," he said. The Pot Man Cometh. Thank you, sir.

Unfortunately I decided to be nice and offer S a finder's fee, of sorts. So I rolled her a nice big fat joint which she took to bed that night. I never expected her to smoke the whole thing, but damn if she didn't. It would have lasted me nearly a week.

"I couldn't move," she tells me the next morning. "All I could do was just....lie there in bed," she moaned. Gulp. You need supervision, I tell her back. We had a good laugh over that experience.

Then S inquired, "Would you like me to fix you up with some men?" As if not to sound too forward she added, "Mind you, I'm not suggesting that this will be a stud service, but I do know some people." Why can't it be a stud service, I should have quipped back. This surprised me. Because basically I hadn't thought about sex in London for the three months I was going to be working there. And basically because I was surprised she assumed I was heterosexual, something not many people took me for back at that time. Maybe she was politely giving me the benefit of the doubt.

Of course, now, I would have said, "Hhhmmm, men, yes, please fix me up." And about a week or two after that adventure, I would have gone to S and said, "Well that was fun, but how about a few good women? Surely you know some lesbians, don't you?" I mean, that's what writers are all about, isn't it? They know all these weird types. Still, it might have surprised her. A little bit anyway.

But I was still a bit shy at the time, and quite enamoured of my friend, Ms. Kar, back in L.A. I did not know where that situation would go, but while in London I had planned on nothing really sexually for myself. So I thanked my employer for her kind offer, but said I would take care of that myself.

Of more immediate concern to me was where the hell would I do my sporty stuff? And what sporty stuff would it be? S had already put her foot down about my bringing over my bicycle. Probably a wise move, as I would have had to readjust myself to driving on the left again and that would take a bit of time. So I gave up on the bike and found a local pool where I could swim my mile and a quarter, and a local Y where I could weight train. In between I ran about five miles through the city streets of London several nights a week.

We worked an eight hour day in S's office that overlooked the little garden she had in back. For some reason it rained nearly every day that summer in London. The temperature would be fairly warm, so the window would be open as we worked, and when the rain started it came down with such a cool hissing sound. Hell, monsoons sounded just like this. And sometimes the rain came as thick as it did in an Indian monsoon season. Our tropical story of women in danger was impinging upon our life in London.

The research was the biggest thing we worked on. I had lists of places to call and people to bother. I told S it was good she hired a woman like me, because I had been to the tropics and was enough of an outdoor girl that I could relate to what the women in the story were going through. If she had hired some prissy type who had never made it out of London, it would have been a disaster. I was the perfect tomboy for this.

Our interviews were quite fascinating for this book. The major coup we achieved was getting two Royal Marines to spill their guts for us over the course of a long day. Aided and abetted by a fabulous Indian meal at a restaurant around the corner, then followed by hours at home in the living room, plying the Manly Men with some damn good Scotch. They spilled their guts alright. We summoned a London cab at the appropriate time, poured the two guys into it and pointed them toward Victoria Station. We assume they made it home OK. Wonder what their wives thought.

S had learned in advance that the Royal Marines take pride in not spilling their guts about. Our pair's job was to provide p/r for the public, but of course in these matters it seems their real job is to obfuscate whenever possible. Hence our copious efforts to wine and dine and basically seduce them. Intellectually of course.

The question I wanted to ask them really occurred to me later, namely, "How many ways do you know to kill people?" They had that look about them. One of them looked a lot like John Newcombe, the tennis great of the early 70s. With long sideburns and a handlebar moustache.

I like to think S got good value out of me. I know she did. Early on she had told me about her last assistant. A British woman whom S seemed to know a bit before as a friend. But it didn't end in friendship, that's for sure. One night S came downstairs for a late-night nibble and happened to find her assistant standing at the xerox machine, copying portions of S's diary. My mouth dropped open and I started to laugh. It was so bloody cheeky I just had to hahaha may way through it.

S liked that I reacted that way. "I could tell right away that you were a 'normal' person," she said to me. She liked that. She wanted that in her next assistant. She liked my level of good old American get-up-and-go. "The people over here don't seem to have a work ethic anymore," she complained to me. I was about to say that few persons of decent repute had ever attributed a work ethic to moi, at any time. But I held my tongue. I think she was confusing my energy and chutzpah with a more truly Protestant thing, which is not me. When I am working creatively though, I am happy.

S loved Americans, and had spent time there. She had spent time everywhere. It sounded like a lonely life though, at times. S had been married in her salad days to a really big figure in the world of architecture. Now a Knight. Their divorce had been rough. S had two sons by the man. J was a hot young clothing designer in the London scene, a dead ringer for David Bowie in his Thin White Duke stage, same type of deep voice actually. And flaming to beat the world. Gay as gay could be. But a fun guy. You were doing well when you got an invite to one of J's parties. He had a house just down the mews street from his mother. I met J when he dropped in one day. I came home from a run and saw a hot-looking young man, all in white, doing a shoulder stand on the carpet of S's study. Nice ass, I was about to say. But thought better of it. After all, he could be anybody.

The other son, S, I only spoke with on the phone. Apparently my deep voice intrigued the hell out of him. "Mother, is that your assistant? My God, that voice!" He wanted to meet me but it never quite panned out, I don't recall why. S took after his mom, and had gone into the newspaper business.

His mother had one of the best editors in the business, Michael Korda, son of the famous 1930s film director, Alexander Korda. "When you've been critiqued by MK," she told me once, "usually you want to go and open the nearest window and throw yourself out." Exactly what you want from an editor worth his salt. If you're not on the knife's edge of life and death with your editor, then it's probably time to find another one.

TO BE CONTINUED

London, 1985 (Pt.1)

2006-06-22T11:31:00.000-07:00

In the spring of 1985, I had an opportunity to work for a rather famous writer. She and I had met on the Sony Pictures lot in Culver City, California, back when it was called Lorimar-Telepictures. The studio had flown her into L.A. to write an outline for a mini-series, after which she was going to return to London to write the novel version of said story. I had recently graduated from film school, and to pay the bills I signed up for the studio temp pool. The powers that be recognized my writing background, and hooked me up with this lady. I was to be her assistant, typist, and generally her second brain on the project.

They stashed her at the fabulous Bel Air Hotel, a place I had not been to before our meeting of course. Why would I go there? I can't afford it. But if you can afford it, and you want to go to L.A. and not have anyone know you're there, you probably want the Bel Air. It's a lush, sprawling Mediterranean-style hotel, with lovely bougainvillea, a large swimming pool, and privacy up the wazoo. Orgies could be going full-tilt in the suite next door, but you'll never hear them. And we certainly made no peeps ourselves, other than the shuffling of papers. Lots and lots of papers. Between shufflings, we ordered lots of room service, who arrived with big pots of wonderful cafe au lait that we drank like water and ten dollar hamburgers, served covered on a silver tray.

I watch S try and eat her hamburger. Actually, she takes her knife and fork and cuts it in half first. I tease her about that. Before I'm done with you you are going to learn the proper way to eat a hamburger.

The writer's name was S, and she had rather antiquated methods of working. Even by 1985 standards, when computers were just coming along. She liked writing in long hand, then having the notes typed out. S explained to me why she would not want to buy a computer.

"My methods don't suit me on a computer," S said one day. She would literally cut out and scotch tape the strips of paper together. I understood immediately and felt the same. When I would come to write my own material later in the decade, I relied a lot on what I learned from S. Like her, I would start my ideas in notes in long hand. Then I would type them out on the simple computer I had back then.

S made a joke one day, about how the studio execs would go ballistic if they ever knew how she really worked there in those long days we spent working in her suite of rooms at the Bel Air. Didn't Jack Kerouac also end up with a huge roll of paper on a spool that was the first draft of "On The Road?" We literally had a roll we could push across the floor.

S told me one day something I have never forgotten, about writers and writing. And she knew all the big people. William Peter Blatty (whom she called Billy), Neil Simon. William Goldman. There were three or four other people, men and women, that S lumped in the group. Herself included. That group consisted of the top-flight writers that Hollywood would pay big bucks to come up with stuff. It's only a very small handful of people and they all seem to know each other.

S said to me, "You know, people think writers are always worried about people stealing their ideas. But we don't think about that. We have ideas up our wazoos. But they are very reluctant to share their methods with people." For S, the method was everything. I understand what she meant. Writers really never run out of ideas. Ideas are cheap. But the method by which one treats the idea. That's what counts.

The story was an interesting one. Basically, an early version of the TV show"Lost," only with women. A group of couples attend a business conference on a Papua New Guinea style island. While there, the island goes through a military coup. The husbands and wives get separated, the husbands are all lined up against the wall and shot. The wives run for their lives into the jungle, where they have to survive until they can be rescued. Robinson Crusoe with broads. Swell.

It was interesting to see how a best-selling writer puts together a book. S was from a background in journalism; she had been the first woman editor of The Observer. S was known for her impeccable research, and this is where I came in. Having spent time in the tropics, I had managed to acquire about a quarter of the diseases the women eventually came down with. Things like dengue fever and leishmaniasis, the latter being especially horrific. You start with infected sand fly bites, and quickly proceed from there with scratching, germs arriving and before long you have open, oozing sores, mostly on the lower legs. Lovely. Sepsis and death set in if you don't stop the infection in time.

The research was quite staggering in its array and variety. Lots of things I could describe to S already, like what the air is like in the tropics just before the monsoons hit. Suddenly, there is this calm, followed by a sudden hiss of rain coming down in sheets. She had travelled the world a lot too, so we could bounce off ideas about the places we had seen and how they actually were.

As an American, I was also useful to S about life in the States, when we go through our sporting seasons, what game is played when. Background research that I could help her flesh out.

And of course, being we have hot-blooded women cloistered together in a remote location, one has to ask, "So, where's the big lesbian scene?" Or scenes, if we want to be really hopeful.

Well, that was there too. Albeit with a number of misgivings.

TO BE CONTINUED

Would You Like That With A Twist?

2006-06-18T16:23:00.000-07:00

What does my partner Dave like to laugh at? His humor is strange, sometimes stranger than mine I think.

He has carried around this little cartoon for quite a while now. It is illustrative of Dave's humor.

The cartoon is from an old Hustler Magazine. Of all things. And it has nothing to do with sex. Of all things, considering the source is my man Dave.

It shows a crowd gathered to watch a man being burned at the stake. Medieval times. It's all very matter of fact. Before the poor victim succumbs, a man in the crowd points to his potato, now baked in the embers, and says to the burnee, "Hey would you mind kicking out that potato for me?"

My sample is (probably) even worse. It shows a redone version of that classic news photo from the Viet Nam War, of the naked little girl fleeing down the road, her clothes burned off from the napalm. Only now the cartoon highlights what the Walt Disney people were trying to do circa 1990, as reported in the New York Times. If you are ready to believe this, Disney wanted to create a theme park on the east coast, consisting of nine playlands, with themes ranging from the impact of slavery on America right up to the wrenching era of the Viet Nam War. God, what goes on in the minds of these people anyway?

The cartoon is brilliantly reworked from the news photo, so that the naked fleeing girl and other villagers are now joined by Goofy, happily running along the road too.

Holy Christ, I said when I saw the cartoon. This is one of the most damning cartoons I have ever seen in my life. Although the Iraq War recently reminds me of another cartoon, maybe by the same guy, who knows.

This recent cartoon apparently aroused the wrath of the Pentagon and Donald Rumsfeld in particular, as it shows an amputee lying in a hospital bed, being visited by The Man From The Pentagon. He says to the soldier, "Now you're battle hardened."

People yelled and screamed about this, but in our book it's a brilliant cartoon. Can anything say more resolutely how stupid the war in Iraq has become? This cartoon nails it. Sorry to say.

Humor for Dave and I most certainly revolves around pain. That's just the way it is.

That's a twist of the knife you're getting, by the way. Did you think it was really a lemon?

- - - - - - -

Beachside Babe (Pt.3)

2006-06-15T14:56:00.000-07:00

My friend P and I head up to Harbin Hot Springs up above the California Napa Valley. P has been there many times. I have never been there before, in fact I had never heard of the place. And me who had lived in the San Francisco Bay Area for most of the late 60s into the late 70s.

Harbin was a hippie hangout back in the early 70s. Now the crowd arrives more in BMWs and they are definitely more gentrified. Harbin is a large spa, clothing optional. Meaning you get to run around naked in the main tub areas. They have a large-sized heated swimming pool, a large hot tub and smaller ones, saunas, cold plunges. For extra bucks they give a whole gamut of massages, body work, whatnot.

The Human Awareness Institute crowd seems to have discovered this place too. We arrive Sunday early afternoon. The weekend crowd is leaving, the kids are going home too. It's a more raucous place on the weekends, and according to my friend P it can sort of turn into a sex party if you're lucky and happen to be there on a Saturday or a weekend night. So we get to see Sunday, and a bit of Monday too. Monday is much nicer. Quiet, few people. But on the weekend there is definitely a more cruisey feel.

The large hot tub is dimly lit and quite lovely in the evening, and a goodly number of people are in it. P gives me a sample of "watsu," a kind of water massage. Your partner holds you against her chest in the water, and gently twirls your body in the pool. It feels very relaxing and calming. Of course, if you are a male, you are more than likely to get an erection. If you don't there's something wrong with your masseuse. It's a very sensuous experience.

P gets a Swedish massage while I chat with an interesting older British woman in the communal kitchen. You can stash your purchases of food in the fridge. The kitchen is large and has all the cooking utensils one would need.

Unfortunately P and I have a rather contentious debate just before retiring for the night in our tent that P has brought along. For about $25 bucks, a person can camp alongside the creek, and use all the facilities. It's a great deal. So we've pitched the tent, smoked a joint, and next thing I know we are in the middle of a debate.

About anger, whether or not it is useful. I say yes, it is a trigger to alert the person. Of course what we do with our anger is another matter. But in and of itself, I think anger can be quite a useful thing. P does not agree with me. She finds it totally destructive and a negative force from the get-go.

Ah, P, you are truly a child of the 60s! And I am no longer. Trent Reznor and NIN and Ministry occupy my soundwaves now. Screw the classic rock.

So we argue, and smoke the joint, and I tell P about how angry I felt recently, after a night alone in the city. You don't want to spend much time in San Francisco now after dark. It is just getting too dangerous and dirty a place. Crime has soared there now. I had dropped a friend off, and while waiting for a light to change I saw some black guys who started throwing rocks at my car. I managed to get away, but it was a scary moment. I told P that part of me wanted to gun the car up the curb and into the bastards. She was quite upset with me.

Wow, numerous times in my life I run across women who have a hard time dealing with anger. Mine or anyone else's. P and I close the evening on humorous notes, finally, and we both end up sleeping well.

I don't think it's caused inharmony in the weekend. We head back to town. On the way we have another discussion about Disney's Bambi movie, and what a traumatic experience it was for P and I as kids. I said I was going to go and post something on Craigslist, like "Did You Survive Bambi?"

I enjoy P's company. But we seem not to have a long shelf life together. We start slacking off in our pool playing. I run across P at a few Santa Cruz socials, but then she seems to drop out of sight for a while.

Friends say she had to have sinus surgery. After she recuperates, I know she was eager to head back to work. She had no health insurance, so working off her medical bills was probably at the top of P's To Do list.

She heads up to north Berkeley to stay for a while with her daughter, and I do not see P after that. I enjoyed the woman. She had the right kind of head. In the end, I don't really know how she saw herself. Was she bisexual? Lesbian? Queer? Those words did not seem to need to cross her lips. She just did her own thing, and inspires me to carry on in the same fashion.

- - - - - - -

Beachside Babe (Pt.2)

2006-06-12T14:48:00.000-07:00

Last time I began writing about my new friend P, who lives over in Santa Cruz. We never became lovers, although the idea seemed to be hovering in the air, I thought. Perhaps for her too. It's just I don't think we knew what to do with each other.

Other than to play pool. Which we did on a pretty regular basis last spring. But why not go down the other road too? You know the thoughts occur, especially when you meet another gay or bisexual woman and she is seemingly unattached at the moment. For some reason though we did not, and perhaps it was better we did not.

I could probably describe P as being somewhat polyamorous, and probably bisexual as well, at least at some points in her life. After all, she tells me she has a daughter, now married and just delivered of a baby herself this year. P seems to have several women floating around when I first meet her.

One of them is named B. B drops in on P one day, and as it's a rainy day with not much cooking outdoors, the cooking moved indoors, as it were. They ended up hanging out and then having sex together. It all sounded wonderfully casual and easy the way P described it to me. Why is she describing this to me, I wonder. Am I being sent a signal? I am unsure.

P describes herself as a very "sex-positive" person. That was another term I had not heard until about a year or two ago. At first I thought I had misheard. Isn't everyone sex positive really? No, they are not. Again, it is a term that seems specifically derived from the lesbian community, the same that is afflicted with that other malady, lesbian bed death.

Do gay men describe themselves as sex-positive? I wonder. I think not. Women, don't you love them?

P tells me she has been to older age lesbian functions, and she does not fit in at all. I can see why. The same reason I don't. We are both fit, physically very active, and sexually very active. The group in our area is full of very decrepit gay women. Very few keep themselves even remotely together after forty, it seems. It is sad. She and I feel no sense of common experience there at all.

For my friend P, her situation may be complicated by the fact she was raised in England until her teens, her U.S. military father was stationed there. So she has a great British accent, and given her deep voice and looks, she reminds me very much of the singer Marianne Faithfull. She is well-educated, and well-travelled.

Another experience that impacted her strongly occurred in the late 60s, early 70s. P lived on the original commune of that era in Tennessee, called The Farm, I believe. This is probably what makes her different. Not the fact she is gay, or bi, or polyamorous. But that she came out of that hippie era. The counterculture ethos stays with you, even if you do make heavy inroads into yuppiedom.

P hasn't gone down that road, thank God. She is a free spirit. I recognize her as such.

P works as an independent contractor restoring old houses in Santa Cruz. It is very physical work, and she says she does not need to do anything physical beyond that to stay in shape.

P turns me onto one of the two best sex parties I have attended. It's connected with the Human Awareness Institute people. I had not heard of them before, but after attending the party up in the Sebastopol area I decided they were a fun and pretty crowd to hang with. I let P know I had a blast.

Not many lesbians or bi women seem to really dig sex parties. Monogamy is more likely to be their order of the day. P is unusual in this regard.

I am curious about her friend A. P tells me something about her. Apparently she is very bi, and at a point in her life - late 40s now - where she really feels a need to develop ties with men. That's probably a hormonal thing, I can relate to that as I recall my feelings in my forties. Your body is getting ready to enter menopause, so it's telling you, "It's now or never, baby." If you want to have a baby, that is. Not that A does, but obviously it's a feeling that moves her towards male persons. A sounds not very successful though, at least at this point where P is describing her friend to me. She had a rather odd blackout too when she was with a male sex partner. She woke up the next morning with nary a clue as to who the guy was or how she got there. Wow! We girls and our blackouts, what's going on here? Our guardian angels have to do a little overtime when we get in that mode.

So sorry. Apologies all around. Is this what they mean by the Wages of Sin?

TO BE CONTINUED

Beachside Babe (Pt. 1)

2006-06-08T00:41:00.000-07:00

My friend P lives over the hill in Santa Cruz, and we started hanging out together a bit last spring. She had put an ad on Craigslist, just looking for a woman she could play pool with. I had been looking to get back into it myself, so it was good timing. She was not quite as good as me, but she was improving fast, so we had some good matches down the road in Capitola at Fast Eddie's. Tuesday night was a freebie for ladies.

P and I found a number of things in common. She is also over fifty, and in great shape too. Everything about the woman is imposing, starting with her height. She is about six feet tall, big-boned but lean, with a slow and relaxed way of walking. Her hair is cut straight down near shoulder length, ash blonde. Usually she likes to wear a colored bandana over her head.

Her voice is very deep and distinctive. Before we met, after I had spoken with her on the phone to confirm our meeting time, I told a friend that this P woman sounded like a tranny. I wasn't sure. But then she may have wondered about me, since my voice sounds really deep too.

I'm glad we did not let our voices get in the way! Meet we did. P rents a room in this big old house near the university. It is huge and spacious beyond belief and it is very easy to feel lost in it. P's room is up the wide wooden stairs, and has a view overlooking the ocean.

But it's not the view of the ocean that really grabs me when I first enter the room. It's those gorgeous color photographs on her wall I'm looking at. Gawking might be better. Pictures of P and some of her circle of lesbian and bisexual women friends. Doing all sorts of yummy erotic things to/with one another, like fisting each other, wearing strap-ons, and just having fun in general.

They are mind-boggling, beautiful pictures. Both lovely to look at and very erotic. The combination is wonderfully achieved. I almost feel like bursting into tears. This was what I was looking for when I re-entered the fray of female dating again. Experiences like this.

Immediately I want one of the photos. It shows P and her friend A, a lovely looking girl in her early 40s, with long curly auburn hair. They are lying side by side, naked, gazing happily into one another's eyes. It is a beautiful photo, because of the energy there between the women.

P is pleased by my reaction, but not surprised. Everybody reacts that way apparently. But she says she would have to ask A's permission; they are after all quite naked, and A doesn't know me from Adam. Or Eve, I guess we're talking.

Those photos. I can't get them out of my mind. We go off to play pool but those images.

I think I want to work my way into P's Inner Circle of friends.

To Be Continued

Summoning the Gods

2006-06-05T14:20:00.000-07:00

Last time I was continuing to write about my friend N, who tells me she is doing visualization work with her yoga instructor to call into her life a female partner. I have always been of the opinion that these are useful exercises, and sometimes quite effective. Over the years I have also busied myself with astrology and the Tarot.

Part of me now feels these things reflect something about our need to control our environments. I felt like I did not want to leave anything to chance, so I went looking for certainties. But really, there are none. And there should be none. The universe does not seem to work that way.

If I am going to sit down and visualize a lover, it is going to be someone who probably I should not be involved with anyway. What I am visualizing in other words may have little to do with who might really be appropriate for me. I only think they'll work out. Too much ego talking, perhaps.

I want I want I want. Can't we hope someone can be called into our life in just a general way? Do we need to spell things out in great detail? And if we can't get what our first choice is, so to speak, can we be happy with the second, or even the third?

For instance, I know that my brain could never have programmed Dave, my partner, into my life. I was not capable of visualizing a male other than someone who was a lot like me, with many sporty interests, maybe a yen for lots of foreign places and travel, a love of intellectual things and a passion for films.

When I met Dave I was busy placing personal ads to meet someone who was quite atypical from him. He has told me himself that, had he read one of my ads, calling for a guy who could cycle fifty miles on a bike, he would have said, "Fuck this bitch and the great outdoors and the horse, or bike, she rode in on."

I never would have found him had I persisted in my egomaniacal way of phrasing my personal ads. And yet Dave has turned out to be just exactly what the universe would and should have ordered up for me.

The fact he was bisexual was more than I could have hoped for. It was always in the back of my mind I suppose that a bi person would be the way for me to go. He would "get" my attraction to other women, I felt. And he would grant me permission to pursue those interests, as I would grant him the same rights with other males. So I lucked out in finding a guy who was even more happily bisexual than I was.

I had not necessarily intended to look for a younger man, either, but it worked out that way. Looking at my chart, I can see astrologically that this was certainly in the cards. My 7th House of Partners reveals all: a Gemini sun, indicating a partner who comes to me much later in life (when I was 45), the planet Uranus closely conjunct the sun (indicating highly unusual things about this partnership, and also a fierce measure of independence). Uranus is also the ruling planet of Dave's sign, Aquarius. Mercury is also conjunct in this mix, indicating younger persons. It also indicates a relationship based on communication and mentality.

So, he was there all the time, but I just had to get out of the way and let his train come into the station so to speak.

Maybe this is what I want to tell my friend N in Los Angeles. We rarely get what we want, in exact terms. But like the Stones' song, you do get what you need. It takes some pains to see through the stuff I think I really want, as opposed to finding out what it is I may need. And people seem frightened of their needs. We would all much rather go after the "wants," just because it leads us to think (falsely) that we are in control.

That lovely UPS package we are waiting on from the universe takes its own damn time. And it arrives in ways we might not imagine, in a form we may not be capable of recognizing, or at a time when we think it's bloody inconvenient.

But before we send it back to the manufacturer, maybe we should give it a chance, and be open to what the possibilities are. There may be a real gem waiting for us at the bottom of the soup bowl.

- - - - -

Those We Can't Have (Pt.3)

2006-06-01T13:57:00.000-07:00

My friend N in Los Angeles is looking to find a woman friend, and I figured I would keep my eyes open for her. I spend lots of time on dating sites for women, and I see lots of profiles. Why would I want to help her find someone when I feel like I want to run around the court with her myself, so to speak? Well, it feels like less of a sting to me if I could manage to hook her up with someone appropriate.

Who is appropriate? Recently N wrote to me describing some visualization work she is doing with her yoga instructor. N is big into yoga as well as tennis, and in fact visited an ashram in southern India to take a yoga course earlier this year. They are working on calling up images of whom N would like as a partner.

She writes to me that she is not especially interested in dating a tennis player type, or a jock for that matter. Why, I wonder? Are they too big and bubbly? You know, the softball types of girls. That's usually about as far as the gay women get with sports. On the other hand, I thought I would always love to hook up with a woman who shared my athletic interests especially.

But maybe N is on to something. Maybe jocky girls just don't work out, after all. N writes, "I am interested in someone who has a creative profession, makes enough money to buy a house with me, is femme, can have a political and cultural conversation on the level of someone who reads the New Yorker and the New York Times, and is stylish and interested in sex. If you find one of those, send her my way."

Hell, if I find one of those rare birds I'll keep her, sorry N. Can't you hear the humor in her words, and realize why it's there? Women like this, straight or gay, just don't grow on trees. Especially in the dyke world. I feel for N. She has herself a chore. Being late fifties and a woman as well-travelled and educated as N is, she is going to have problems finding a lover. But I think N is quite a catch. Can't we even be fuck buddies? But that's not even possible, I no longer live in L.A.

In my Magic Wand World, I would like to go there, at least once with N. To see what that experience with her is like. It reminds me of moments earlier in my life, when I would arrive at a certain point with a number of my women friends. We were compatible in many respects, but quite often they were not interested in going further. Why can't be just be friends, they would say. I didn't understand either why we just couldn't be friends. But something else was pushing me to move further up the mountain, as it were.

Carl Jung wrote once about a dream where he was in a vast house, and he could explore all the rooms, except one. That was off limits. I feel this way often with women. Our friendship is like a vast house, I want to go inside all the rooms. I don't want to hear, "This door is closed."

N and I talk pretty intensely about this over the phone one night. "We have discovered so much," I find myself saying. We have many interests in common, and it has been so interesting discovering them that I ask myself, what else could we discover together? It feels unique to me to find a woman like N, and I certainly want to go into every room in the house. She's an explorer, and so am I. And yet this door stays closed.

Suck it up, I tell myself. You are a big girl. Indeed I am. And I have done a lot of work on myself, psychologically speaking. Fifteen years ago or so, this situation would have felt overwhelming and highly unpleasant. Now it is annoying. It sits far more comfortably on my shoulders than before.

After N and I have fully expressed ourselves to one another, we feel we can continue our friendship at least. It has become a very rich and mentally stimulating one. Usually I am not interested in hanging around if a woman is not inclined to go a sexual route with me. But N is compelling enough that I find our time together rewarding. I write to her that this may in fact turn out to be one of the richest female experiences I ever have in my life.

And sex will not rear its Medusa-like head at all.

- - - - - -

Those We Can't Have (Pt.2)

2006-05-29T15:24:00.000-07:00

Last time I began writing about my friend N in Los Angeles. I have grown attracted to her in the two plus years that we have known each other. N is a totally completely gay woman. I like that. I like women who are completely separated from men in their intimate life. If I am going to be with a woman, I want the full package deal. A woman who is gay and makes no bones about it. And preferably someone just a tad more butch than I am.

But that may be one of the problems that makes N a difficult person for me to pursue. I am bisexual, and I live with a man. That is usually a complete deal breaker for most women I try to date. Even some of the bi ones prefer that I be "unattached." Well, goddammit, sorry ladies, I ended up with a guy while I was waiting around - and waiting around - for Ms. Right to show up.

In the meantime, I wanted some sex, and I turned to men since they are the one group on the planet who like having lots of sex. Other than gay men of course. I threw my lot in with them. It just was too hard for me to meet women at the time, although I was looking too for them when I met Dave. The guys got there first. Guys tend to do that, I notice.

Then I run into women like N, and I think, what would life have been like if I had met her...what, some twenty years earlier? Somewhere in the back of my mind, I have been a little afraid of running into women I might REALLY like. I feel afraid of some part in me that would just go a bit crazy given the right opportunity. To the point where I would want to jump ship and bail on Dave to run after a woman. I know I have that tendency and it scares me.

When I first met N, she was embroiled with someone almost thirty years younger. Good for her. I knew the lover a bit and she was a nice, sharp girl, a pre-med student. I knew they were embroiled because the first night I met the steering committee I noticed N putting a hand all over her younger friend's backside. She didn't even seem to care whether she was discreet or not. I was both amused ("What do these two need a sex party for?") and jealous (Maybe someday a woman will put her hands all over me like that, I said to myself). My lover J pretty much did that with me. But I had not discovered yet that I wanted N to do the same thing with me someday.

I find after I move north that N and I have developed a really fruitful correspondence. Now that I am safely living out of town, there is a freedom and security I have that allows me to express myself fully with N. My feelings continue to grow for this woman, who eventually reveals that she has broken up with her younger lover. Apparently I had really misread them: I thought the student wanted a more open relationship, when instead it was N who did not want a heavy commitment. Go figure. So maybe it's N who is the polyamorous one, after all. Or maybe there are some deep-seated issues there that prevented her? But I know she has been in at least one rather long term relationship with a woman. Close on 14 years.

Sometimes I find it difficult communicating with N. This happens sometimes in person, and over the phone. I listen carefully to her speech patterns, trying to thread my way through them. Do I hear something of a speech impediment? Sometimes I think there is a blurred quality to her speech. Our email correspondence is heady and intelligent and quite on the mark, but when we have to verbalize things, I sometimes think we are on different pages. Maybe I tiptoe around N too much. And yet she experiences me, at least it appears in person, as a high speed express train. And that may have led me to not see, or choose not to see, the signals N said later she was putting out. It bothered her that I didn't seem to get the message she was not interested.

At first I found this a bit puzzling, I guess in part because her signals did not always feel clear to me. I would feel myself moving one way in my opinion, then in the opposite way. It confused me. I am easily confused. I need so much probably from women that I concede a lot of my power over to them, even before we start interacting in any meaningful way. I feel like I lose my normal rational, objective, evaluative Gemini self. I guess I am trying to see, I need the influence of women but for some reason it has always been very elusive. I so wanted to have good relationships with other women. I asked the universe for oranges. But they gave me apples instead. They gave me a number of stellar male persons who influenced my life, and pretty much convinced me that I was, pretty much, a heterosexual after all, at least in terms of my primary sexual experiences.

Lump it, girl.

When we last saw each other a year ago in L.A., I was aware of being rather shy with her. N happens to be rather reserved emotionally. Moon in Capricorn is not an ideal position for a woman's horoscope. It tends to have a restrictive influence on a woman's feelings. So given my shyness and her reserve, it was an odd encounter. I found myself in the position of trying to draw her out, even as I was drawing myself out too.

What would it be like to be with someone like N? My mind wants to draw a blank part of the time. There's the fear, again. The other part of me salivates at the thought of hanging out with a woman who shares a lot of the things I like. My nature is intense, and when I like someone I like doing lots of stuff with them. The thought of spending time with another woman who is into tennis like I am is a very attractive thought for me.

I mean, we won't be going out at all during a two-week, Grand Slam tennis event. We'll eat, walk and talk tennis non-stop for that time. And of course, watch it! Life as we know it on the planet will practically stand still during this time.

We'll do the jock-tennis thing. I love the thought of it. It's hotter than the thought of hot sex. But if we can work that into the mix too....why....?

TO BE CONTINUED

Those We Can't Have (Pt.1)

2006-05-25T13:29:00.000-07:00

So, what kind of woman would I like to be with, in an ideal world? I am not sure if I have a type yet, I debate that. Oddly enough, the one woman I have met whom I really dig is a woman I am not having sex with at all. Hrumph! How the hell did that happen? Believe me, I scratch my head about this one. My friend N lives in L.A. She is a trim little squeak, a Mighty Mouse with muscles. About 5' 4 or so, around 120, shortish in other words with short curly salt and pepper hair. With a fine, absolutely Roman sort of nose. We could make a good physical contrast, as I am taller and blonde. But we are both really fit women.

N is that nearly extinct species, a lesbian who is actually into sports beyond just softball. N loves tennis. It's a big love she and I share, as N began her own blog all about tennis, and I have ended up being a contributor to it. N is unusual though because she is far more than just an avid jock. She's interesting, educated and well-read. Well-travelled too. Loves chess and opera. I felt blown away that there are actually cultivated and athletic gay women like this. Usually it's the prerogative of the gay men. Somewhere, in my very Roman fantasies, that is, she and I are gay boys at heart, and we're hanging up at the villa with Luchino and the other boys. Luchino being Luchino Visconti, the now deceased Italian film, stage and operatic director. Well known for his connoisseur-ship, I guess we could say, of beautiful young men, talented or otherwise.

At first though I was uncertain how I felt about N, or how she felt about me.

How did we meet? Tennis was one avenue, but actually it was sex parties that threw us together. N and I were part of a planning committee of a small group of women who wanted to rent space for a monthly, ongoing girlie sex party. Since we all know, or are about to know, how obnoxious that proposition can be, suffice to say that N and I moved beyond that. The group disbanded, broken up by the usual lesbian lack of testosterone or whatever it is that makes commitment and follow-through possible. And N and I discovered our own interests in common by this point.

So why are we not rolling around in the sack now? Well, sadly, for a variety of reasons, the main being N has no interest in going there with me. Another one is that my partner Dave and I left L.A. to move upstate, and this occurred right around the time when N became a real person of interest to me. But in a way that was a necessary part of the discovery process. We started an email correspondence, ranging over a variety of subjects, and through that I discovered how much I valued N's friendship. But the woman lives in L.A.

N grew up with two sets of parents, the birth ones, and the adopted ones who raised her. Her birth father was a famous Italian composer, I recognized the name right away and brought it up among the steering committee women. Maybe I should not have waxed so enthusiastic in public about my discovery. N seemed rather reserved about it all. I felt like I had outed her in front of the steering committee, although it seems some of the women have discovered who she is related to.

One night she and I meet in Hollywood to check out a possible sex party venue. The place is a real dive, and we quickly take our leave of it. N invites me up to her place, where we chat for a while. Or at least I chat for a while. N seems very reserved, and I feel like I am working hard to hold up the conversation. Later, I feel annoyed, and I write to her, why did you invite me up when you then seemed not to want to talk with me?

On another occasion we experience another miscommunication, which leads me to believe N has hung up the phone on me. This is really annoying. How can I work with this person as part of our group? Now I wonder if I can. But to her credit, N takes my flaming well, she even calls me up to make amends. She happens to catch me when I have imbibed a few hits of pot, so I happen to be very loose and free in what I say to her. Very uncensored. It is during this conversation that I make noises about wanting to come on to her at a sex party. "Well, I don't know about that," says N. I hadn't meant to say it, but it tumbled out. Again I have the feeling N is annoyed with me.

Where would I have wanted to go with this woman? I speak of it as a past tense thing because N seems clear that I am not for her. Besides, I live in the northern part of the state now, she is in L.A. One moment I ask her, am I too butch for you. No you're not, I hear back, but that's not the issue.

I am too afraid to ask what the issue is. So I assume it is her not being attracted to me. You could probably toss in, as an undercurrent at least, the fact I am bi and live with a man. N is strictly gay, and I knew that from the outset. But I also sensed that she had a vastly more tolerant view of bi women than some of her compatriots. Still though, N may be a woman who likes being tucked in at night, after all. Every night, preferably. I don't know. I know she is looking now herself.

We're all looking, all the time.

TO BE CONTINUED

"J" (Pt.6)

2006-05-22T14:04:00.000-07:00

My mind still plays over my ex female lover, J, in Berkeley. I am trying to analyze how and why we got together, what could have been worked better if I had the chance. J knew I had a male partner, I was very open about that, and she seemed very able to deal with that. One moment she even commented to me, "You speak of your partner with so much respect and liking," she said to me one night, speaking very slowly, weighing what she was saying. She got it, I decided. And she was OK that I had a male in my life. It blew me away, frankly. How many gay women are EVER going to say that about a bi woman and her male partner? J took it exactly the way I had hoped she would: the fact I play fairly with him should suggest I can do the same with a woman.

But in the end, when we parted, J made the comment, "I don't know where this can go." Maybe J realized how difficult it was
to be in a polyamorous situation, for her at least. She thought she could do it, perhaps, but when push came to shove she could not. Maybe it looked too complicated after all.

So, how did I anticipate our relationship proceeding, if it had been able to proceed? I had written to J that I visualized us getting together every six weeks or so, or whenever the mood struck us, meeting someplace between L.A. and San Francisco, enjoying more lovely weekends together, then going back to our respective lives. Like "Same Time Next Year." I could see us doing at least a year of rendezvous like that, enjoying each other's company in romantic places, but without getting caught up in the stuff of each other's life. This seemed very conceivable, in my book. After a year, we could reevaluate where we felt we were, and where we wanted to go from here. Or some such thing. Anyway, that was my rough plan.

I am also remembering another thing J mentioned. There was a woman she had always wanted to be with, but had never been able to approach. "I just felt there was no hope," J told me. It seemed too impossible. But in her dealings with me, I think the impulse to approach this mystery woman hit J with some force. Our two encounters seemed to embolden her. I have a feeling that after J and I parted, J would try to approach this person. Who knows, they may have pulled it off. It makes me feel kind of lousy though. I mean, I didn't want to meet a woman and fire her up a bit only to see her go off to someone else. But wasn't I doing that too with my partner Dave? Sauce for the goose etcetera, as they say.

Maybe we all want what we can't have. But when we get it, we may not want it after all. Women are funny that way.

J told me another story that my mind locked around. As part of her job, she got a lot of travel perks. One of them involved a cruise on a yacht in the Mediterranean with four other women. Four other gay women. Wow, I said to J, how cool is that? My mind was eagerly racing, my thoughts went something like this: alone for a week on a large yacht, with women who are cool and friendly and gay, and all you have to do is sunbathe, eat, sleep, swim, more sunbathing and...and...lots of fucking, yes?

Well, no, actually. It seems to have crossed their collective female minds, but they decided not to go there. What's up with that, I asked? I could not for the life of me fathom why they let that opportunity slip by. Weren't they horny? Weren't they in such close quarters that....well, the ladies were tripping over their lustful fantasies? No again. The fallout may have seemed too threatening to them, since they were friends and wanted to stay that way. Gay boys in this position would be balling each other day and night, but the women? They dangle their feet in the water and chat.

Oh well. They needed a troublemaker like me on board. I like to stir pots, pots of all sorts and shapes and colors.

Someone invite me on a cruise, please, and make me the Entertainment Director.

- - - - - -

"J" (Pt.5)

2006-05-18T13:34:00.000-07:00

A number of weeks go by, and I hear nothing from my new lover J in Berkeley. I begin to wonder what is going on with her, but I hold my water, at least for a bit. More time passes, I send a couple of emails, and then decide to phone her one night long distance. I am very hesitant to do this, but on the other hand, how would I know if anything had happened to her? Then I get an email, basically saying that lots is going on in her life, and it is not good. I knew from before that J's father was approaching Alzheimer's, and the family was looking for a place that could care for him properly. This caused a load of worry for J, who was very attached to her family. She is one of those strange creatures, a real San Francisco native, born and bred there. I also knew that J's job was in jeopardy, the only job she had ever had since graduating from Berkeley. She worked for a travel agency. Well, more than just a travel agency - they plan the entire trip for you, beyond just tickets and the usual. J loved her job, and her boss, an older woman who had grown quite fond of J.

So, it seems I have caught J in the midst of all this happening. I have the sinking feeling too that she is not wanting to continue our relationship. But she seems to be talking around it. Then we finally manage to arrange another meeting, when J flies down to visit her sister in Los Angeles. I am assuming that J will stay with me at least one night, but even that is not to be. Seems I have made assumptions I should not. J does come by, my partner Dave is on the road at this point in time, but J does get to meet my two black cats. With six front toes. She enjoys a pasta dinner I have cooked for us, and we talk.

But J had not planned on staying the night. I feel rather foolish. She is staying with her sister down the coast. We lay plans to get together the following day. J wants to go visit the new Getty Museum in the Sepulveda pass area of west Los Angeles. Now, the Getty figures in our history together. My personal ad talked about hanging out with an equally useless, sarcastic woman, "lolling about" on the lawns of the Getty. J loved the comment, and always remembered it.

"Well isn't it time we lolled about on the lawns of the Getty?" she said, so off to the Getty we went. J has her sister's snazzy red convertible on loan for the day. The top is down, and I can't help thinking: we must make an interesting female couple tooling about in that thing. We do the museum ticket, then drive back to my place and talk some more.

Somehow, we are not going to the heart of the matter, yet the moment feels like we are wrapping things up. Later, looking back on this encounter, I see it as J trying to find a graceful way down off the mountain. I am an interesting person for her to deal with, but apparently I arrived at the wrong time, wrong place sort of thing.

"I want to encourage you to explore further with other women," J says. I appreciate her consideration. She does like me a lot. But I wish she could be more direct. I am left wondering. What is going on, really?

We hug for a final time. I never see J again. I believe I wrote to her again, but the email back from her makes it clear now. "I just didn't see that this could go anywhere," I remember she wrote. "This" being the two of us, the implication being that, since I am already partnered with Dave, J is feeling there would be no room for her anyway. So maybe just as well we both move along.

I am puzzled, baffled, lost in the sauce. And feeling terribly disappointed. Alright, so the woman has problems in her life. I find sometimes that those are the times when I want sex the most. J does not seem to respond that way. She has a full plate, and as she explained, her energies need to go into dealing with major life issues, like her job, and her family.

"I know that sounds strange, considering how I was climbing all over you the last time in the cabin," says J with a rueful smile. I recall very well how she was climbing all over me. But now J wants to move on, into an uncertain future. I have to let her go.

Dave understands how forlorn I feel. He doesn't get it either. Women are strange, we both concur. He supports me as best he can, which is pretty good. But it takes me a while to get over the hurt of losing a woman of the quality of J.

But apparently, we could not go places as a couple because my primary relationship is with a guy. And on top of that, her own turmoil precluded J having any sexual relationships at this point in time.

It's been two years now this past April since I met J. She remains a compelling figure for me in my search for a woman, because she was so close to what I feel I want and need. Educated, athletic, outdoorsy, emotionally sensitive, great sense of humor and she got mine too. She handled me, physically, like a man. Something very definite. Not that she was heavily into identifying as butch, but J had both energies going on. Physically, J opened up a world of possibilities to me for how women could be together. I liked that part of our connection a lot. It really showed me things. If for nothing else, I am very grateful she ushered that new physicality into my life.

Women like this don't grow on trees, I discover. But somewhere, in my little personal garden of Eden, there are women like this out there for me.

The hunt goes on.

TO BE CONTINUED

"J" (Pt.4)

2006-05-15T14:44:00.000-07:00

Back in L.A., I slip back into daily life but find myself thinking a lot of J in Berkeley. We correspond a bit via emails, I wax enthusiastically over how much I like her, and enjoyed the weekend together. This is a little too much enthusiasm for J, I pick up the sense that enthusiasm may equal entrapment in her world. We appear to overcome this momentary hurdle.

Around six weeks later, we plan another rendezvous. J's friend has a cabin in the foothills of the western Sierras, and we make plans to meet there. We pass another great time together. Earlier in this column I had written about the strange blackout I experienced here. It began shortly after J and I started to have sex, almost immediately upon my entering the cabin. Was it altitude? The long drive north? Low blood sugar? Actually, I think I was so looking forward to this meeting that I may have just...blown a fuse, of sorts.

Apparently I missed about two hours of some hot-sounding sex. J told me all about it later. But she was alarmed when she realized I had "checked out." I was alarmed too. This had never happened to me before except once, and that was a traumatic event when I had to rescue my little sister from our family swimming pool. I pulled her out, but my mind just completely blanked on the entire episode. Good to know one can still function in those situations!

But J may have been alarmed by my strange "departure." Wouldn't I be if the roles were reversed? I might wonder about the mental make-up of the person. But in the moment we had another great time. Even if I couldn't remember it. J tells me I was sucking her clit at one point and inserting several fingers inside of her. Then I rode the dildo again, with J on the bottom.

"For a dyke, I'm really into penetration, aren't I?" jokes J. This is the first woman who has shown me that compelling sex does not happen only between men and women. But I am aware that J handles me almost like a man would. Very definite. She is a good mix of male and female qualities, as I feel I am.

We have some lovely, quiet moments in the cabin that weekend. At one point we hug each other out of the blue, and I feel the emotion well up in me, and hear myself saying, "I don't want to move in with you, J, I don't even have to live in the same city. But I know I want you in my life, for as long as I am around."

I remember holding her then, and J seemed to grow very still as she took in the words. Then she spoke slowly, "Well, I don't know if I can make any promises," or something close to that. Was she annoyed? Did she feel encroached upon? I felt I have made it clear that, while I really like her, my life was with a male, basically, but that when I was with a woman I want to be fully and intensely involved with her. Unfortunately I am getting the message a little that a surfeit of emotion may not be wisest here. It bothers me that I can't show more of my true feelings. This is not why I wanted to hook up with other women, just to hide my feelings.

And yet...we are having such a lovely time together. We spend an afternoon hanging out in the large hammock, suspended over the deck outside the cabin. It feels lovely and connected, no need to do or say anything special, or be anything in particular. My partner Dave is on the road working on the east coast, and I am here in this hammock, somewhere east of Visalia, in the foothills of the Sierras, with a woman I really want to continue hanging out with.

TO BE CONTINUED

"J" (Pt.3)

2006-05-11T13:49:00.000-07:00

This is the story of my encounter with J in the spring of 2004. We hit the sack together on our second date, after a day of hiking in Marin County. Our connection seemed to be moving along swimmingly. J has been celibate for nearly a year, and before that she had been in an eight-year relationship with another woman. She also told me that, on an average of every ten years, she hooks up with a man. Not intending to, it just works out that way. I have met a number of so-called lesbians who seem to end up in bed with men, and ten years is the number mentioned a lot. What is this about? Some bizarre lesbian ritual wherein they let themselves be pulled along by biological influences? I have deduced that even lesbians realize sometimes how difficult it is to get lesbians into bed. Or women in general for that matter. So hooking up with a guy may be a way of getting some sex, at least. Of course they probably won't share that tidbit with any of their dyke friends. That would leave them very "declasse" as the French people are want to say.

My friend L, with whom I was staying in Oakland on this trip, told me once in L.A. that she didn't want her lesbian friends to find out she was sleeping with men too. Now, it didn't matter if her male lover knew she was sleeping with women, that was OK. It's just the women don't care for that at all. Go figure.

J was a classic dyke in that she pretty much liked women as her sexual partners. But she did not seem to harbor hostility towards men, or those bisexual women like myself, who were even partnered with men. So I thought J was a creature fallen from heaven; women like this don't grow on trees, so I was very pleased we had started off on such a strong footing.

Our first night together was very sensuous. A lot of rolling around, rubbing of bodies together. Kind of like massaging, but without the hands. This night also marked my first experience using saran wrap for protection when I went down on J. Being a child of the late 60s had really spoiled me. We never had to worry about any of that crap back then - safe sex, AIDS, even sexually transmitted diseases were rarely encountered in my world. So saran wrap and dental dams were obnoxious but now necessary accoutrements for any sexual encounter.

J pulls out her worn harness, puts it around her waist and I climb on top of her. She has this really neat purple dildo, with an interesting curved shape, not all that huge. Just really interesting looking. As if the makers were trying to create something penile without it necessarily looking penile. After all, we are fine upstanding lesbians who love penetration, but we would rather try and forget that it's a penis we would really like inside us. Let's call it something else, and let's make it look innocuous.

It's vastly amusing to me, a bisexual woman, the conniptions that lesbian women go through sometimes to clean up their act and make things all so politically correct. They may hate "bio cock," as they term it, yet will go out with a butch who will fuck them properly with a synthetic version. Some of them make a big deal out of "packin," as they term it. Then you'll find questions being posed on Craigslist and elsewhere, about how and where a serious gay girl can wear her "toy" out in public without getting arrested. And some girls even will explain to you, in total earnestness, how they prefer the toy dildo to the real thing.

"After all," as one girl says. "A synthetic one is always reliable, you don't have to wait for it to get hard, you don't have those icky male emotions tagging along to make trouble." My reply is usually about like this: Well, it may be less trouble, but often to me it is not as interesting, because I LIKE those messy emotional things that factor in with a guy. I LIKE that he's not sometimes the superhero he likes to think he is. I LIKE sometimes that he does not grow erect upon command. It makes for a more poignant connection in a way.

But the dildo that first night with J delighted me no end. So we played and rubbed and kissed and rolled around and laughed some more, then remembered the dykes upstairs and tried to keep it down. It must have been three something when we finally nodded off.

In the morning, we take a bath together in J's antique claw-foot tub. Cool! Then she makes an ample breakfast, with sausage and eggs. I get the feeling J wants to fatten me up a bit. I'm all for that. J is a Taurus, a sign very compatible for my planets, which are scattered over Gemini mostly, with Mars and Venus conjunct in Taurus. A constellation which ensures J and I will be climbing all over one another for a while to come.

I eventually have to take my leave of J and drive back home to L.A. It's a sweet leave-taking, but we are looking forward to our next encounter, without having to worry about when it will be. I am in seventh heaven and mostly sing my way down the I-5.

Finally I've discovered a woman I really like, and am physically attracted to. And she to me. A huge weight seems to have displaced itself from my mind, once and for all.

TO BE CONTINUED

"J" (Pt.2)

2006-05-08T11:26:00.000-07:00

My first date with J seemed orchestrated in heaven. It was all so easy. We both sensed we could fit, and that we were attracted. Over dinner we found many things we had in common. We laid plans to go hiking the following day. I said goodnight to J and drove back to my friend L's house in Oakland, where I was staying for the weekend.

L is a bisexual friend I have known for over fifteen years. Well, perhaps that's not the best label. She was bi when we first met, in fact she met her current guy about the same time I was meeting my partner Dave. There has been a certain synchronicity of events over the years between she and I. Right now though L wants to find a butch woman. She is having as many difficulties as the rest of the gay community in finding what she wants. Women are such a pain in the ass sometimes.

L is upset that I didn't go home that very night with J. "You know you like each other, right? So why the wait?" But I was glad we waited. I liked the sense of anticipation. And I knew there was something there to anticipate.

Next morning I meet J at her health club, where we start the day right with an advanced yoga class. Then we drive up into Marin County and hike a trail going up to Mount Tamalpais. The day is lovely and the area is green and very beautiful looking. Although I lived many years once in the bay area, I had never been up to Mount Tam, as the locals call it.

We hike and talk, talk and hike. J goads me to talk about T.E. Lawrence (of Arabia), who I had mentioned had been a strong influence in my early life. J is intrigued, because I have talked of Lawrence as a man who could foreshadow how people could become in the future. Engaged yet detached, intellectually gifted but highly emotionally aware. This hike has turned into a real discussion, and I enjoy the give and take. We've climbed down into a quiet, tree-ringed little valley beside a small creek, and stretch ourselves out there as we talk.

Later, on top of the ridge, we are gazing out at the ocean and the vistas. J turns, smiling to me, and says, "I feel like reaching out to you." We hug in a slow and sensuous fashion. I have the feeling J wants to do me right there on the top of the ridge, but we can see people hiking about in the distance. We are not that private up here. We desist.

On the drive back, we stop by the road to check out another scenic view. J seats herself in back of me on the grass, putting her arms around me in an affectionate hug. There are people all around us, rather straight people, and this feels strange for me. Public displays I have always been somewhat cautious about. But I like J's initiative, in fact I am kind of digging it.

Later, back where my car was left, J and I "negotiate" the evening to come. I leave it to J to take the lead, she knows her way here. I grew up in an era where negotiations like this never had to take place, really. Mainly I sense J does not want to have anyone making unreasonable demands on her, or showing up next morning at her door with a U-haul. I am of a similar mind.

I go back to my friend L's to shower and get ready to spend the night with J. She lives in a charming old duplex in Berkeley. Her dyke landlords are upstairs. J has warned them ahead of time that she may be bringing someone home. They are highly pleased.

I remember the night with much fondness. Mostly I remember how much laughter there was between us. We felt for sure the upstairs neighbors were being kept up most of the night. We did not even get started until around midnight.

We undressed one another, we rolled around together, we climbed on top of each other. It is so interesting but so strange for me to be with another woman again. After something like...well over ten years? And the last time did not really count, as it was part of a threesome deal I hooked into back in L.A., early on when I met Dave. An Israeli couple.

So J was definitely a very big step up in my scheme of things.

TO BE CONTINUED

"J" (Pt. 1)

2006-05-04T18:26:00.000-07:00

Earlier I began writing about J, my first significant female relationship since I got back into the swing of girlie dating online. She answered my sarcastic, out there kind of personal ad that I had placed on Craigslist. Actually, it was a good friend who saw the ad, and passed it on to J. We started emailing one another.

J sends me a picture of herself from a yachting cruise she had undertaken the year before in the Mediterranean. Mischief seemed written all over her features. Trim body, nice rack, in a sundress, her arms upraised in a kind of "So?" expression. Short curly brown hair, turned up nose, brown humorous eyes that looked out upon things with confidence and yet a desire to find out more. I liked her look a lot. She liked mine. I sent her my Gym Rat photo, of me seated, strategically naked, on my Weider home gym. Short curly blonde hair askew as if the owner lived in a perpetual wind tunnel. Bizarre tan lines. The face mostly like an Everest climber, all white around the eyes, ruddy brown elsewhere. Lines for cycling, lines for skating, and swimming.

J tells me she and other women participated in operating the South Fork Sluts, a group of white water rafting women who lead groups of women down the local rivers. She sounds trim, outdoorsy, educated, well-travelled, and she gets my sarcastic backdoor approach to things.

You could say I believe in long distance relationships. J lived in Berkeley, my old stomping grounds. I drove up from L.A. in spring and we made plans to meet in a local eatery in the Montclair district.

Later, J asked me, out of the blue. "So, when did you first realize we were going to be...." I forget how she put it. I don't know how I would have put it. What were we? And without hesitation, as if it were one of the clearest, most truthful things I could ever say about anything in my life, I said, "When I saw you coming down the street toward me, that first night at the restaurant." I must have said this with such authority that it probably worried her, I could sense a kind of...almost a slight physical reaction on her part. She had gone fishing, and lo and behold. She caught something.

We proceeded according to her experience, which was far greater than mine with other women. She had been in an eight year relationship with another woman, which had ended a while earlier. Now that she had decided to try and date women, she seemed to have a clear agenda, and I thought I did the wise thing in letting her set the tone of that. I could follow. I sensed she had some issues around dependence, and being independent. So I tried to reassure her. I was partnered already with a male, and he was a life mate. I wanted a passionate female friend, but one who does not require me to necessarily merge myself into her life. I certainly had ample room in my emotions for a female friend. "An intimate friendship," is what J voiced she wanted. I liked that a lot. We were on the same wave length, I thought.

TO BE CONTINUED

Going Out With "B" (Part 4)

2006-05-01T12:02:00.000-07:00

So my lovely weekend on the Russian River has run afoul of feminine mischief, mystique, mayhem. Whatever. B tells me she does not want to continue down the path of having a sexual relationship with me. This in spite of her having initiated our encounters together. She tells me all this in an email the next morning. I am quite stunned. What on earth has brought this about?

With men, there is a certain logic. Because men seem so far more eager to have sex, when they do get it they seem to be realistic about life. They had a good time, they want more. That's logical. But with women it seems that the introduction of sex brings a certain chaos that clouds the sensuality and ushers in a certain confusion. A lovely weekend seems obscured by the things roaming around in B's brain.

I attempt to find out more. Now B claims she just wants to be "friends." I find this very hard to swallow. Why did you lead me on then, I ask. She is sorry about that, she realized too late that she is not into "casual sex."

Casual sex. Hhmm. So that's the problem, eh? What do people mean by that? My friend N in L.A. says that since I am already in a primary relationship with someone, anyone else I have sex with is going to be necessarily "casual." My take on the term is more emotional: in no way do I have a casual attitude at all about sex with women. It is such an unusual thing for me that when I do run across it I am anything but casual about it.

And besides, I tell B. She is still living with her ex, I was making no demands at all on her about that, and it still made no difference to her.
My feeling is that B had two lovely encounters with me, she had a good time, and what's more she KNOWS she had a good time. But now she wants to go. Or to at least "just be friends."

How do they switch the tap on and off like that? I used to think that men did this a lot, but actually women do too. And I just happened to tumble onto my second woman in six months who pulled the same stunt on me. That's really what rankled in all of this event with B, the fact that my judgment was being called into question here. Why did I end up picking two women who reacted to me pretty much the same way?

On the one hand, I thought both would be happy that I was not going to move in with them anytime soon. Both women seemed independent and preoccupied with things in their own lives that they did not need all this. Cool. Both of them said they were not bothered by my being bi, or being partnered with a man. That also seemed true to me at the time.

But obviously something changed. Maybe B got in over her head. That stuff happens. I just wanted her to acknowledge it truthfully. She tried, but it was difficult for her. And B is in therapy, so she has no doubt learned some skills at communicating this stuff by now.

I ran into women who, ultimately, did not really know their own minds and desires, after all. Shit happens. I am very disappointed. I had good times with B; I wanted more. She opened the door to sex taking place; then she wanted to close it.

In a moment of anger apparently, I write to B that she's just a fucked up Catholic girl after all, and that's too bad. Later I regret that. I ask her via email if she can discuss with me her feelings about not wanting sex. But I never hear back from B. The Catholic comment was a mistake. And clearly B did have issues regarding her partner, she did not want her finding out we had been together. Why I don't know, since B had claimed there was no problem there.

I understand now why (some) men want to kill us. I would too. Sometimes.

- - - - - -

Going Out With "B" (Pt.3)

2006-04-27T13:03:00.000-07:00

After a lovely day fucking around with my new girlfriend B at a local bath house, we return home to my apartment. Dave is there, he and B get to meet. She seems quite amiable with him, and he with her. They share a keen interest in pot, if nothing else.

B is about 5'3", trim, short dark hair, nice body. Soft butch. Early 40s. The mood is very amiable between us, and we look forward to future outings.

We make plans, again at B's behest, to head up to the Russian River for a weekend away. It's cloudy, rainy weather, but it feels appropriate somehow. Weather for indoor activities. A quick stop in Sebastopol for some sandwiches, then we roll into the town of Guerneville and check into The Inn at the Willows. It's an old, funky lodge on the river and just off the main road. We get a quaint corner room that looks out on three sides of yard. Large, grassy stretches in front with huge trees leading down to the launch platform. It's quiet and lovely, definitely off-season and a good time to be here.

We do the usual weekend things, stroll around the small town, check out bookstores. Bought B dinner at a local pizza parlor that features a pretty good cabaret with a big black woman who can belt the songs out.

That night we heat the room and play around. Back to that dildo and more sucking of said dildo. I notice B really likes to rub her clit a lot harder than I would care for, ditto her nipples. Again, I come when I am on top of B, with the dildo inside me. I love doing this, and since it works better with a female, I am going to milk this one, as it were, for all it's worth.

We nod off and sleep like logs. In the morning, B gets a massage, and I start my new Swedish thriller novel by Henning Mankell, The Return of the Dancing Master. The owner says we can stay another night, on the house, but we can't. Then he offers us 10% off our next bill. Cheap, that's what we think.

We drive westward from Guerneville, following the river until it hits the Pacific, then drive south. We get lost a number of times. It seems we are talking and enjoying the drive too much to pay attention all the time. A good sign. Back in San Francisco, we have club sandwiches in a little diner near the Sutro Baths, just above the Cliff House.

That night I reflect on a lovely weekend. Dave is so pleased I have met a woman who seems half-way reasonable, like a man, almost. He appreciates that. I do too. She has met Dave, she has no problems with pot, she likes sex, her ex presents no problems apparently, so, we're all a go, yes?

Well, no. The next day I send a thank you email to B but for some reason it gets stuck and can't be delivered. In the meantime, I get an email from B. Basically saying, I love all this, but I can't have a sexual relationship with anyone.

"I just don't need casual sex at this time," B writes. I am thinking....whaaaaattt?? Casual sex? Gee, I didn't realize it was just so casual. What is going on with this woman?

Like it or not, seems like we have some processing to work our ways through. Lucky us.

TO BE CONTINUED

Going Out With "B" (Pt.2)

2006-04-24T12:11:00.000-07:00

So B asks if I can scope out some hot tubs around San Jose where we can play, and she will treat. I locate an interesting venue on Saratoga Avenue, called the Grand Central Hot Tub. It is somewhat rundown, more like an aging big motel that got converted into a bath house facility. For around fifteen bucks, we got a room with a raised bed, complete with hot tub, sauna and shower. Simple and functional, without pretensions. The black woman at the front desk barely bats an eye at the image of two women renting a room. This place is used to it. Perhaps they feel pride, who knows.

Before we get there, B wants to pick up some sex toys, so we stop off at a local toy palace on our way. She picks up a new dildo, and comments that the glass pipes offered in the store too are a really good deal.

B is an avid pot smoker. It is one of the bonds we have discovered we have in common. We take a little puff in the car first.

Well, the hot hot tub. I get to play like my partner Dave does when he goes off to the Water Garden here in San Jose. An absolutely lovely place from all his descriptions. We don't get that here, but that's ok. It has a funky quality that fits right in with our nefarious activities.

We start right in playing with the strap-on and the dildo, and even though B is pretty clearly a soft butch-identified woman, she does not object when I use the dildo on her at one point. But she clearly enjoys using it more with me as the bottom, and I am clearly happy to oblige.

She slips it in briefly inside me, then takes it out, then re-inserts it. I love this with guys, and for some reason this is what I get here too. Hooray for our side.

Then I get this strange inclination. Maybe it's just the dildo is right there, in front of my face, and I naturally do what many a girl does with a cock in front of her face. Be it bio cock or otherwise. I took it in my mouth and started to suck it like there was no tomorrow.

This is somewhat hypocritical of me, having just recently ranted and raved to some woman on Craigslist about how ridiculous it was for women to suck other women's "cocks." What's that all about, I screamed. It's so phony and pretentious and blah blah blah.

You know, crow tastes good, right along with that silicone, or rubber or whatever the thing is made of. I was ready to eat crow. Or whatever else, and it turned out that B was a dyke who loved her dick getting sucked. Perfect. This relationship could go somewhere, I'm thinking.

Then B turns me on to a new sexual maneuver, she gets on top of me and ever so lightly slides her body over mine, rubs her clit directly over mine. The sensation is soft and indirect, but amazingly stimulating because of that, probably. This is so new I don't think I can come this way, it would take me a bit longer if I were really going to go for it. But right now, it just feels very luxurious as it is.

I'm lying there thinking about how great women are, how with guys the sensations come at you so much more directly. Whereas with other women there seems to be a lot more subtlety involved, things come at you more indirectly, and I appreciated the difference.

I finally get myself off riding the dildo on top of B. I would like to do this with Dave, but I tend to like very little movement. Sometimes almost none at all. For guys, it's hard to do a lot of this and still keep an erection. So it's a fine line with men, but with women and a toy, the Slow Boat to China approach works just fine.

We finally check out of the Motel From Sodom and Gomorrah, and head home. Both of us seem aglow. But we're not madly in love, we don't need a U-Haul, our respective worlds have not split open. It was just good decent fun.

I was looking forward to the next round.

TO BE CONTINUED

Going Out With "B" (Pt.1)

2006-04-20T14:17:00.000-07:00

A year ago last November I met "B," a gay woman in her early 40s who was in the same all-female hiking group I joined. I did not feel any attraction at first, especially given that I arrived on the first hike with another bi woman, and we found basically a hiking group of dykes, pretty much. We felt our chances of hooking up might be pretty compromised by that. In fact B made a remark about all the bi women posting under W4W on Craigslist, and whether or not they should even be posting there when most of the women are dykes otherwise on those boards. So I began to feel she was pretty much a hardcore dyke who did not care for bi women.

But as time went on, and she and I talked and walked and walked and talked, I got the sense she knew me from somewhere. It turned out she recognized me from my personal ads online, which tend to be very distinctive. B started making cute jokes about "pole-sitters," my term for bisexual people and whatnot, so I finally asked her if she had answered any of my ads. She did, one of them, I answered back apparently but then nothing further happened. I don't remember why. But it seemed like B was interested in dating, but then changed her mind.

Then we met in person(!) Small world, huh. Now we start with this undercurrent of flirting going on, and I gradually become aware that B is emailing me a lot, like, nearly every day. We start flirting and revealing more about our lives. I tell her about my break-up with J, the Berkeley woman I had met nearly seven months earlier. I mentioned how hurt I was when J ended our connection, I even told her about the strange mental blackout I had while I was spending a weekend with J. B seemed curious, and interested. We were on our way to forming a good and open friendship.

I wanted B to know, even though I am bisexual, that I am not a flake who's just scoping out women to throw into bed with her boyfriend. I tend to get rather apologetic around these women, and I will bend over backwards to reassure them. B did not seem to need the reassurance, but she got it anyway.

Then I tell B about my interest in going with Dave to sex parties. She's quite intrigued, and even asks me what I do at these parties. Then she sends me an email saying, "Well, I'd like to come on to you at a sex party...with your permission, of course..."

Upon reading this, I fly back with, "Dammit woman, you'd fucking better come on to me at a sex party or I will be so disappointed, and so will my mother and she probably won't ever let me play with you again, hrumph." Or some such phrasing. B laughs her head off at this. She finds me interesting and amusing, and I get the sense she is definitely attracted. But where do we go from here?

B lives with her ex, a pleasant woman named M who I have met on the group hikes. But they have no sex anymore, and are together basically because of the joint property they own and all their aged animals. This arrangement has worked because B and M have not really tried to look for other people. My coming along represents a bit of a change for B.

Yeah, I know I know, people tell you, "Don't hook up with women who are still living with their ex's." But since I knew both women, I could see the deal and understand it, I thought. B seemed free and clear to me.

More time passes, we are into the new year now, and getting more flirtatious. Then B proposes a date, she has just bought a snazzy new-used, bright red BMW and we tool up to San Francisco to take in the film, Vera Drake. And why not take an ex-Catholic girl to see a film about an abortionist? said I.

We really seem to get along. I find B very easy to deal with. She really appreciates my strange sense of humor, and that's worth a ton to me.

But where do we go from the movie? Well, next up on B's list of "Things To Do" is visiting a local hot tub establishment.

Okay, we all know what THIS means. I think I'm going to get laid. What do you think?

TO BE CONTINUED

Those We Say "No" To (Pt.2)

2006-04-17T12:28:00.000-07:00

In Berkeley in the late 60s I worked for a while as a medical transcriber in a local hospital. One day a medical salesman came in and happened to see me as I worked the front desk in reception. When I left to go into the back to begin my transcription duties, the guy followed me into the room.

He was my type for sure, but his level of aggression was way too much for me to cope with. How aggressive was he? Well, how about he locked the door, for starters, always a move designed to make a girl's heart go pitter-patter with fear, if nothing else. Then he plopped himself onto one of those little stools with wheels and spun himself across the room to where I sat at my Royal typewriter, nimble fingers ready to tap away. He wedged his knees around mine, pinning me into my chair, and he looked directly into my eyes.

"Hello," he says, in his best seductive manner. He wanted to ask me out on a date. But I was too flustered and mostly speechless. He finally left, and I breathed a sigh of relief, and wondered sadly why he had to come on so strong.

He really was my type. A slim, Robert Redford type of blond, with horn-rimmed glasses which happily did not make him look intellectual at all. But the aggressiveness really put me off, and he finally left.

Not long afterwards I went to a party at my friend A's place. Her usual interesting gatherings of friends, Berkeley students/professors. One young man was a violinist, but he came on like a big-game hunter. I remember he looked like Al Franken, only cuter. Again the horn-rimmed glasses. He was dark and good-looking with curly black hair and a very intense manner.

He asked me for a date, he begged, he was so honed into me it was scary. He literally chased me out into the street as I practically ran for my car, both of us uttering a trail of "please go out with mes" and "no I won'ts" and "go aways" and whatever else I might have yelled.

My friend A was rather amused by the story when I told her the next day. He really seemed like a decent guy, she said. So what is it about me that turned him into a far more...well, agile fellow?

Like I said earlier, I can understand aggressive guys, even if I don't care for it. The quiet, passive ones are even worse. They look at you with these adoring eyes, worshipful eyes. What did I do to deserve this? Somehow I end up feeling slightly guilty, as if I had bludgeoned their poor mothers to death or some such thing. I should be nicer to them, I tell myself, but why? What purpose would it serve?

I don't want a cave man, but I also don't want a guy who just leaves everything up to the woman. But maybe it works out that way no matter what.

For some reason my directing instructor's humorous quip comes back to me....

"A man chases a woman....until she catches him."

That's encouraging to know. No matter who much a woman feels under assault from a new male, as it were, nothing really will ever happen until the woman gives her approval.

End of that story.

- - - - - -

Those We Say "No" To(Pt.1)

2006-04-13T13:36:00.000-07:00

Usually people like to talk about their sexual conquests, the "notches on my belt" sort of thing, or the so-called "trophy wife." Not so frequently do people talk about the "ones that got away," or the ones we tell to go away.

Being my usual perverse little self, I of course am more fascinated by the ones I let get away, the ones I told to yallah, sod off, bugger off, or otherwise take a hike somewhere new. I was really surprised at the sheer numbers, men and women, I managed to diss over the years. And it was really about their attitude. If they had not been so assertively in my face, well who knows.

There was this Italian kid on the Lido in Venice, January 1967, where I went with several other American kids for a day of sightseeing. Personally I found Italy rather beautiful in the middle of winter, the crowds are gone and you actually get to mingle with some of the locals. I found the Italians are especially keen on mingling. They really do like blondes. Travelling throughout Italy, I got a lot of people asking, right off the bat, "Swedish? Are you Swedish?" with a hopeful air. I soon learned how to play it: those Swedish girls come to Italy and make trouble for the rest of us blondes. So I decided to make my Americanness front and center; after all, we're the women who boss our men around, and the Italians don't like that. So they think twice about us American girls.

So my friends and I ran into these two Italian guys, out for a stroll around to see what trouble they could find. One of them seemed keen on me and was not at all interested in hearing "no."

I seem to run across two kinds of guys: one kind tends to be very very passive, they hover around and try to position themselves directly under my feet, as it were. Hoping I will trip over them and discover the diamond in the rough, lurking just inside their silent demeanors. The other group does just the opposite: they come at me as if they were crusader knights storming a fortress. They seuss out correctly that I'm the sort of woman who can only be taken by seige. In a way I can understand this point of view. I would probably adopt it myself if I had to deal with me.

Now, the first group may sound easier to deal with, but I am probably more drawn to the second category of guy. Because they think like I would in this situation.

This Italian kid was in this category. Very aggressive, even though he spoke no English at all, and I spoke no Italian and neither did my friends. The fact we were a mixed crowd, with several males along, did not deter these two interlopers. They saw women they could bother, and they were going to bother them.

The aggressive boy was rather beautiful, I am wondering why the hell I did say no. He was slim and lean, with eyes of a light, dazzling blue color that you don't see a lot of in Italy, even near the northern border with Austria. His hair was longish and curling around his shirt collar, and it was as blond as mine. He must have thought we would make an attractive couple, and he zeroed right in on me. He said something cheeky-sounding in Italian, and that probably made me look sulky, because then he took his hand and placed it under my chin, shaking it playfully from side to side. He seemed to be scolding me. He was cocky. If he hadn't have been so cocky, he might have had a chance. But he was, so I scolded him back and we got away from them.

TO BE CONTINUED

On Being Bisexual (Pt.5)

2006-04-10T10:31:00.002-07:00

After I left my friend E in the south of France and returned home to Berkeley, California, I never saw him again. We did not even stay in touch. We both seemed to sense that we had moved apart, and we let it go.

D had the lesbian relationship with her ladyfriend she had been searching for, but it did not last very long. Then she and I lost touch.

I wondered what E did with his heiress, finally. Then I moved on with life, until about two years ago, when I posted a personal ad looking for another woman on Planet Out. Someone wrote back to me, rather cryptically. Instead of sending a picture of herself, she sent one of a young man, nice-looking, around early 30s.

"Do you recognize him?" the mystery woman asked me. I certainly did not, I thought my lovely ad was being drooled over by male persons, and I did not like it.

Undaunted, the woman gave me a further clue. "You used to babysit him, about thirty some years ago."

Wow, that's when I pieced things together. It was D. She had recognized my photo, and she referred me to her ad. D looked just the same too, pretty much, which is why and how we recognized each other.

D and I met for lunch in the Piedmont section of Berkeley. We caught up, as if nothing had changed. Sadly, E was no longer living. Apparently he put on a bit of weight in his later years, and died of congestive heart failure. He had married the Milkmaid, it lasted for a number of years and they were rather compatible, after all.

E's death suddenly brought tears to my eyes as we munched our way through the Thai food. I had not realized how much emotion was still there. But little B had grown up rather well, his mother finally managed to track down where his father had taken him (to the Caribbean, apparently). For some years she lost touch with them altogether. This was a long and tortured story, she did not want to belabor me with the entire thing.

Little B was now over six feet fall, like his father, and he looked very handsome. He lived in Florida, and had fallen in love with a young woman who was leading him a very fast pace. I don't want to use the pejorative term pussy-whipped, but it sounded close. His mother supported him as much as she could emotionally, and I was very pleased to hear of the strong connection they had formed.

As to further relationships, D was looking, as I was. She was a year or two older than me, so we both knew what are chances were - at age 60 - of finding compatible, fit women. D was still very slim, very much a Sandy Duncan look-alike. Very pleasant and sweet personality.

Why was I not attracted to her, I wondered, as I did thirty years before.

One of the mysteries, I guess. We are still in touch with one another to this day, I am happy to say.

Maybe sometime she will get a chance to meet my Dave. Somewhere there she will see in him I think a continuation of E's spirit.

- - - - - - -

On Being Bisexual (Pt.4)

2006-04-06T15:32:00.000-07:00

My friends E and D have separated, D left her young son with E in France and returned to the States to take up with another woman. Under French law, she lost all rights vis a vis her son. She knew that. She was ready. She gave me her return ticket. I flew to Paris in the fall of 1972, then caught another flight down to Nice. E was there to pick me up at the airport, and we drove westward along the coast to St. Tropez.

In winter St. Tropez is barely recognizable as the chi-chi place it becomes during summer. E's rented villa was up in the hills, about half an hour out of town. They even had their own pool, a rather large rectangular one. In this wintry time, it was filled with leaves. They sunk into the depths and cast weird patterns across the pool sides, reminding me of the French classic film, "Diabolique." I half-expected a body to waft up sometime during my stay.

I seemed to spend the first several days getting in sync with local time. On the first evening, E had some of his friends over, a couple consisting of husband and wife who ran a restaurant locally, and E's new friend M, a tall, good-looking young Frenchman who was into renovating old houses for rich Americans to snatch up.

We ate local food that first night. Real local, in fact. I was not yet a foodie, so it was lost on me. Wild dandelion salad, home-made camembert, little birds roasted and eaten whole, captured with cute little nooses that the birds stepped into, unsuspecting, so well concealed were they. I was so jet-lagged the evening quickly went into blur mode. But I was still alive enough for later, when E and I finally had sex together.

He was surprisingly small, but like several other small guys, they make up for it somehow, someway. He was a good lover for me. He showed me something I did not know before, that my body was ready to come again sooner than my mind thought it was.

But I soon discovered there was another presence in the villa, in the form of a woman living in England whom E had met, and was falling in love with. Her husband had died, she had her own family money. In milk cows. It was oddly appropriate, I felt, and soon took to referring to her as, The Milkmaid. But E was uncertain how real she was with him. He would discuss her with me, he valued my judgment. I tried to stay neutral, and what else could I do really, I had never met the woman, she sounded like quite a different person from me. I probably offered my standard line, "You never know what sort of person you really have until you start to share space under one roof."

It certainly applied to my situation. E and I probably both realized early on that we were different people in the two years since we had been together last. Gone was the more carefree spirit of San Francisco in the late 60s, with the carefree sexual identity too. Although E made a joke or two about M, our handsome new acquaintance, I could see that there was no room in his life now for bisexual space.

And he seemed more cautious as a person. D's leaving him was probably done at the right time, for both of them, but it must have stung a bit. It left him uncertain.

His fears were getting passed on quickly to his son, B, who was then three years old. He too had changed since I had played with him as a toddler in Marin County. E seemed to remind him a lot that his mother had left them. It was all done very subtly, of course, but you could feel the damage being done. E and I never degenerated into outright bickering, but we could feel the tension there. I had brought some of my art things along, I was copying a Van Gogh painting, of the Old Man in the Hat, with my box of oil pastels. I learned a lot at the time from copying the masters. Somehow being in that villa led me along a new view of the drawing, it got progressively darker now, the old man's brows acquired deeper furrows. He was not only gazing out as if over years of a life lived, but he seemed to be standing on the edge of an abyss, and what he saw below looked very dark.

It seemed an appropriate reflection of my situation. When the painting was done, I was ready to leave E and his villa, and his angry young child who now seemed fated to grow up feeling resentment toward
all women.

There was nothing to stay for here. Somehow I felt a huge chunk of my life had shifted, and I was now seeing it in the rear-view mirror.

TO BE CONTINUED

On Being Bisexual (Pt.3)

2006-04-03T13:32:00.000-07:00

Bisexual men have always been appealing to me. Even before I knew what they were. Maybe they were always there, just around the corner, waiting for me. They began to mirror my own situation more fully than some of the women I was meeting at the time. I was feeling myself to be bisexual, more and more, and it was via men that I started to piece it all together. My friend E was one of these bisexual men I met in the late 60s, early 70s.

One thing I need to mention about E was that he had a weight problem before we met. He was quite huge. Then he went on a diet and took charge, and lost a lot of weight. When I met him, he looked pretty good. Still big, but in an acceptable way. I mention this because the weight loss made changes in his head. He started to look around and see that people would be attracted to him. And he would be attracted to them. It probably reworked his thinking about his wife, D. Not that he was a total philanderer at this point, but it gave him new ideas.

When they first hooked up, E and D went looking for another couple just like them, a bisexual couple. They quickly discovered such a item does not grow on every tree. That's when they started exploring individually.

It was not until they moved to the south of France to live, around 1971, that E and I finally ended up in the sack. We had come close before, his wife D had nearly interrupted us one afternoon by coming home earlier. She had no problems with me diddling her husband, but it did not sit quite well with me. D really liked me and wanted to jump my bones. But for me the chemistry just never came along. It was an odd situation. I liked him, but not her. Not that way. It was sad, and I felt sad about it. It should have happened, on paper at least. But it couldn't.

The pair settled in a rented villa outside the seaside resort of St. Tropez. They were going to hang out there for a while. B was then about three years old. My friend D's desire to be with women was now nearly overwhelming. It became this way after living for a while in France. Pulled up from her normal American roots - and D in many respects is more of a True Blue American woman than I am by far - she could perhaps finally face her desires and take the risk of finally choosing. She had met a woman through a personal ad in the Berkeley Barb. How she managed to land that in the south of France I have no idea, and did not think to ask. D was ready to leave E, and her son, to go and be with this woman, whom she had never met. She arrived back in the bay area, dropped by to see me in my Berkeley Hills lair, and gave me the return half of her roundtrip ticket to France.

"He really wants to see you," she said. D proceeded to embark on a relationship with this woman, which lasted for a while. And then like nearly all the lesbian relationships I have heard about, or witnessed, they break up. The whole thing takes on this ritualized kind of lesbian mating dance: they draw together in animated anticipation, they separate with appropriate angst.

At this point in time, I was beginning to think rather cynically I suppose that most lesbian relationships were inherently doomed to breaking up, because there was not a strong enough dynamic, like testosterone, say, to hold it together. I know I will get major flak for this, but I sense this is the area of the problem, even though I feel I have far to go in defining it.

I kept my mouth shut about all this though, and took the airplane ticket.

Soon thereafter, in the fall of 1972, I flew to Europe for my second trip.

This proved to be an extended vacation of several months. I had quit my job as a medical transcriber, and no unrequited love(s) were holding me back, I could move to my own personal agenda.

Maybe it was something about that villa, it's low-lying rectangular shape that made you feel like you were forever walking from one end to the other, it became kind of creepy there in the winter, when the cold winds came and the days were nearly always overcast. Hanging out there with E was not what I thought it would be.

He and I had become entirely different people in ways in the intervening two years. But that we had yet to discover.

TO BE CONTINUED

On Being Bisexual (Pt.2)

2006-03-30T20:53:00.000-08:00

My bisexual friend E was introduced to me by his wife of several years, D. She was also bisexual, which is how I met her - at a women's rap in Berkeley one night, around 1970. There were a lot of gay and bi women in the group, so it had a cruisey kind of atmosphere. D and I clicked as friends, she soon made it plain she hoped for more with me, but I am not into other blondes. She was pert, intelligent, looked nearly exactly like Sandy Duncan and drove a car like a man.

"Well, you'll have to come over and meet E," she said to me enthusiastically. It seemed we had a lot in common. My romantic intentions were focused on another newcomer there that night, a really gorgeous woman I have written about elsewhere. I was about to embark on entanglements with her and with this new person, my friend D's husband.

So I went over to their house in Marin for dinner. D sent me the menu ahead of time for my approval. She was really into cooking. I remember she got me started with escargots. It was a great meal. The house was great. It had been designed as a class project out of the Department of Architecture at U.C. Berkeley. Lots of wood and glass, nooks and crannies, a shower that looked out on the woods. You get the idea. D and E were living the the dream life, in Marin County, Land of the Hot Tub. In a great time to be in the Bay Area of San Francisco. relatively free of cares, financial or otherwise. They were yuppies before yuppies were invented.

It was easy for me to feel right at home here. E and I hit it off fabulously. D was quite alright with our moving together; she seemed, in fact, to almost be giving it her blessing.

We flirted a lot, and once we made a furtive attempt at sex. D came back sooner than expected, and fortunately we heard the car. She nearly walked in on us. There were no other attempts, at least not at that point in time. I was feeling a bit guilty about D, that may have held me back.

E's feelings toward men were of interest to me, so we had many conversations about how he saw himself as a bisexual person. It was an easy thing with him. He was from a wealthy enough background, educated enough to be comfortable with who he was; his life experiences had given him that, without too much difficulty. Other than the Swiss boarding school incident, which E spoke of with sarcastic good humor. He seemed to let it not bother him.

If people had any questions to ask him privately, he would be happy to answer them. He didn't make a big deal out of who he was. He did not see his parents very much. I got the impression he had been a trying boy before boarding school; this had simply been the last straw.

Now I know two people, male and female, who have been kicked out of so-called "fine" liberal schools for sleeping with members of their own sex. Is there a record for this somewhere?

At the time E was keen on this young strawberry-blond folksinger, male, who had a gig in a North Beach nightclub. We went down to the city one night to hear him sing. Later, he went out with E, D went out with her friends, and I babysat little B at their home. I heard the two guys come back later, I had already gone to bed. Then D came back from her night. The guys were stoned, and laughing and fighting over who was going to get the last of the box of Screaming Yellow Zonkers. For those of you not familiar with the trivia of the early 70s, this refers to the carmelized popcorn now known as Poppycock.

It was a crazy existence. But my curiosity about how E would be as a lover was going to have to wait. I was preoccupied with a lady love, whom E also knew, and that occupied me rather fully at the time.

TO BE CONTINUED

On Being Bisexual (Pt.1)

2006-03-27T20:51:00.000-08:00

My first entry into the realm of the bisexual was in the late 60s, early 70s, and it came oddly enough because of males in my life.

One of them was E, from a prominent east coast family. He had been booted out of a prestigious prep school in Switzerland for fooling around with other guys. His father was very annoyed. He had made his fortune in railroads, and he was going to be damned if his now worthless son was going to get any more money than he deserved to indulge his new interests. So he put E on a budget of only $35,000 a year. In terms of 1971, this went a rather long way.

He basically lived without working at anything, in a house in the farthest reaches of the San Rafael woods in Marin County, California, with his wife of several years, D, and their year old son, B. I had actually been introduced to E through his wife, with whom I was already becoming good friends. But sadly, I did not feel the same interest in her that I did in him, as it turned out. She seemed to accept this with equanimity nonetheless.

E identified quite freely as a bisexual male. He seemed to have no hangups about it and I looked for that as a good sign at the time. It was an omen to me that the guy had some sense of stability about him. He freely admitted to needing men and women. But in terms of daily life, he did what many bisexual men do, they marry women and pretty much live heterosexual lives with their wives, with forays outside of the marriage for their male company. His wife was just discovering that she was a lesbian, and beginning the process of shedding her heterosexual lifestyle.

I got to be good friends with them all. I would babysit little B sometimes when his parents went out. At the time I rode a motorcycle, and I would make the now familiar jaunt up from Berkeley into Marin. I spent a lot of time with them as a couple, socially, and with E alone. We would drive around in his Mercedes, talking about our endless stream of topics we talked about, politics, travel, living abroad, and of course, relationships, gay relationships, hetero, bi. He was a triple Gemini, I am a native of that sign too, so we had much to talk about with one another. He was fun and attractive, in a big, burly, Oliver Reed kind of fashion, circa early O.R. of 1971.

And he was fun in the sack. I was fascinated to see how such a creature operated in practice. I was about to find out.

TO BE CONTINUED.

A Perfect Couple

2006-03-23T23:28:00.000-08:00

One of our friends, female, once remarked of Dave and I, that some people would indeed be envious of our relationship. "A lot of people would like to have what you guys have." By that she meant not so much the sexual peculiarities of our relationship, but our sense of openness and willingness to communicate.

We function best when we can just air everything out, as completely as possible. Of course this presupposes a certain amount of sang froid, or courage, if you will, to look at things closely and in detail in order to understand them and what you must do next. I've learned this over time, and it was one of the first things I inflicted upon Dave. I insisted that we always air things out as completely and as early as possible. This is the best policy, and he pretty much sides with me now on that.

Another one of our friends, also female, commented just recently that, of all her friends, we are the only ones who seem to be getting the poly thing right.

I had to think about that one for a bit too. What ARE we doing right, if anything?

For Dave and I, it helps that we keep the spirit of exploration and experimentation front and center as much as we can. I know this helped me early in our relationship, when I was not sure I even wanted to be in a relationship with a man. Like Samantha in Sex And The City, I was of the opinion that I didn't do relationships either.

But here I was, in one. My shrink gave me good advice going in. "Think of this as an experiment," she said to me. I took her advice and I am taking it still. The experiment is still ongoing. Maybe this gave me enough of a sense of independence that I could make it work, at least for me. Other people may have done it differently.

We have another thing going for us too, I think. A kind of built-in "safety valve" of sorts. Dave is really not that interested in other women, other than one or two he was casually involved with early on in our relationship. And I am really not that interested in other men, beyond the one or two I saw early on as well. So a lot of potential jealousy may have been eliminated at the outset.

Would it bother me if he really DID get keen on another woman? I don't know how that would play with me, it would depend on the woman I suppose, his reaction to her. And while he likes seeing me with other men, Dave would have some problems if I zeroed in on another guy.

So this potential source of trouble is contained, we feel. The playing he does with other men, and that I do with other women, is perfectly acceptable and never gives cause for alarm.

So we can say, rather truthfully, that we are indeed a poly couple as far as our same-sex relationships go. But so far we have not really explored in great depth the connections we could have with our opposite numbers.

It's not that I dream about this exactly, but I am aware I don't avoid it, either. It all depends what the genii in that magic bottle is shaking up next for us. If it's anything like he's served us up so far, well we should be quite happy.

- - - - -

A Poly Tale

2006-03-20T12:38:00.000-08:00

The setting is Marin County, early 1970s. The main characters in our drama are Robert, Mariana and Clea. Robert is a surgeon, early 40s, married to Mariana with two children. He is a chronic philanderer, she has lived life somewhat in a bubble. Vaguely aware of his cheating on her, she prefers to hide her head in the sand.

Robert begins an affair with Clea, a rather independent woman who is an artist. Concurrently with this, Clea forms a friendship of her own with Mariana. The couple do not know of the other's interest in the new woman, until Mariana decides she would like to invite the "new" woman home to meet Robert.

Clea discovers her lover is actually married to her new friend. She finds this somewhat dismaying, although she does not let on to Mariana. Neither does Robert, who feels rather amused by the whole situation and he's determined to work the two women to his advantage.

Over a night of dinner and hot-tubbing, the mood turns more intimate, and the trio end up having a sexual encounter together.

The story develops into the love affair between the two women. Clea continues to see Robert, but the women decide to keep him distant from THEIR own little secret.

This continues for a while, until it can't anymore. When Robert discovers that his own wife is seeing Clea on her own, he is hurt and angry. What is sauce for him was not supposed to serve as sauce for his wife too.

The couple don't divorce, but the story ends with the wife reaffirming she will stay married to Robert, but continue her own separate affair with Clea.

"You can't have the love of both men and women," he tells her in the final scene.

"I think I can."

"No you can't, it's not possible."

"We'll see," she tells him, as we fade quickly to black.

This was the screenplay story that got me into the American Film Institute in the early 80s. It also got me my first agent.

And oddly enough, nowhere in the script does the word "polyamorous," or "bisexual," or "gay" ever occur.

How odd is that?

- - - - - -

"Brokeback" Marriages

2006-03-16T13:06:00.000-08:00

Right after the Academy Awards ceremony, the New York Times in its March 7th, 2006 edition ran an interesting, long story on married heterosexual couples who are not what they seem on the surface. They referred to them as "Brokeback Marriages," drawing on the recent film, "Brokeback Mountain."

For those of you who have been in Outer Mongolia recently, enconsed in your yurts, you've missed the hottest "date" movie of the year, and the odd thing is that it's a "gay cowboy" movie. "Brokeback Mountain" is a film about two cowboys who fall for each other, but are pretty hetero otherwise. They marry and father offspring. But life is not swell. They still have feelings for each other, so the illicit relationship continues over time, over wives, over children.

So the Times dropped in behind the slipstream of this marital brouhaha, and discovered - lo and behold, wonder of wonders - that our brave cowboys are not alone. Many couples share their predicament. The husband discovers he has a bisexual streak and he wants to diddle a boy or two. The wife gets all freaked out and can't handle things. Often she ends up feeling hurt and angry, and from there it is but a hop and a skip into divorce court.

As the readers of this column may have noticed, I am inclined to take a different viewpoint. So I sat down and penned a letter to the editors at the Times. Basically saying, I was terribly saddened by the reactions of decent, well-meaning people. Is it to be assumed automatically that every married man having illicit sex on the side with other men is gay? Why is there no room for a bisexual option? That was my point. So much unpleasantness and outright misery could be avoided I think if people can really look at the situation and see accurately and in detail what is really going on there. Because that is the only way a path to communication can be opened up that is meaningful.

When I hear stories like the Times reported, I feel so incredibly lucky I met my partner Dave. I knew going into the relationship that he was bisexual, and active, whereas I was bisexual but had been inactive in recent times. We were both ok with that.

To the point where I even contemplate, and dare I say, look forward to, him bringing a guy home for the two of us to entertain.

For me, the fact I can even contemplate doing this would blow away a lot of the women in the Times article. But that's the charm of our relationship, we share love mates at times as part of the process by which we affirm our tie together.

I want to sit these women down and talk to them, and suggest something radical to them: you can have the same.

- - - - - -

This Poly Thing, So What's It Do For Me?

2006-03-13T16:45:00.000-08:00

Is there a perfect state of polyamory? Yes, I would think there is, probably among a group of like-minded people. My perfect scenario would be a handful of compatible people, along the lines of six men and maybe three women. For some reason, I like the group to be topheavy in the male department. Maybe because I visualize the men getting along better, therefore we'll add a few more of them. Women do not get along so well, in my experience, so I tend to want fewer of them. But the other two in the group besides me will be really "cherce," as Spencer Tracy remarked once about Katie Hepburn.

Of more importance though I feel is having a common group goal, or interest going on, that everyone in the group pursues, in some form or another. I think this makes for more harmony. My "ideal" polyamorous situation would probably look like the Bloomsburys did. This was a group of English literary and artistic figures, who coalesced at the turn of the last century. They practiced their art together, and their sex lives too. Some were bisexual, others appeared more gay. A few were even hetero. They may not have actually lived under one roof all the time, but they did hang out together a lot, and everybody's dirty laundry got washed in the general washing that went on a lot in their circle. No secrets among friends, as they say.

Having a common goal is a really important thing when we talk about planning perfect polyamorous situations. People need to be focused on something outside of themselves. The Bloomsburys probably achieved more fame as a group with their social activities than they did as artists individually. But art can offer such a coalescing situation. Sport would be another. I enjoyed my days competing in swimming and cycling, because the teams hung together and it made life more interesting. Not that we pursued further sexual agendas, but we could have. The seeds were there.

The Living Group, as I am want to call it now, would also have a variety of ages. I foresee older and younger people being together, as well as male and female. Children? Well, that might work, although I think they complicate life, and in my ideal state I would prefer the kids to be elsewhere.

So what sets this apart from any other commune of the late 60s or early 70s? Is this like a commune? Having gone through that era myself, I found communes to be vastly overrated and susceptible to many problems. Most communes seemed over-whelmingly hetero, and whatever promise they may have shown early on probably got trounced just by economic realities. A lot of communes try to pay their way by working the land, but it takes a great deal of time and energy to make a living from farming. The leader of the Sivananda Yoga Farm, which was located near Grass Valley in the 70s, told me that. They tried to grow crops and raise goats. Goats are cute, I think, but they are a pain in the ass. Just ask the farm's neighbors, who spent a lot of time chasing the critters away from eating their grass, and crops, when they got the chance.

San Francisco today is revealing a city trying out new living arrangements. "TICs" are the new wave. Tenancy-in-Common, they are called. Where people buy space in a communal type of loft arrangement. This is not intended to further polyamory, since each "unit" is separate unto himself or herself. But again, the seeds are there if the occupants care to pursue them.

I had a group of interesting friends in the early 70s, so these thoughts came up often for me. We talked about it among ourselves, but as far as actual steps....well, those we never took. Our life arrangements were already pretty well etched out.

Like the Bloomsburys, we hung out a lot together, but in terms of our living space, we pretty much kept our separate existences.

- - - - - -

Negotiations

2006-03-09T10:00:00.000-08:00

I met J about six months after I started prowling around on Craigslist. Prowl being the operative word here. Because she was my first real female in a long long time, I probably exaggerate her impact on me. But she had an impact. I find I miss her, and think about her often. It stunned me that I would meet such a quality woman so early in my life as part-time dyke.

J had nearly everything one could want in a woman: a fine brain plugged into the world and curious about everything; a ballsy kind of personality that was rough but engaging, somewhat butchy but always fully remaining a woman; she got sarcasm, especially my sarcasm. This especially is important to me.

I'm like Woody Allen in "Annie Hall" that way. When I joke about cooking lobsters, I want my new girlfriend to laugh. If she doesn't get my humor, well.....Well. Then I am afraid our relationship may be called into question.

The first picture she sent me showed her standing below deck on a yacht, in a sundress with her arms upraised, as if to say, "So?" I took one look at that picture, and I said, "Mischief." The woman had mischief written all over her features. I liked her look immediately. The feeling was mutual.

J had even gone to Berkeley as an undergraduate, as I had, although she came along over ten years after I did.

J also provided the physicality I had always been looking for from another woman. But I wasn't really sure what exactly I wanted sexually because I had never seen it. Even if I felt sexually attracted to women, I was still unsure in my mind if the experience would be as compelling to me as sex with a man.

J overcame that hurdle for me. There was a strong physical chemistry here. I was attracted to her, in large part because we mirrored each other physically. She was nearly exactly my size, about 5'6", a few pounds more than my 120. She was fit and she had muscles. This sort of blew me away, at first. A girl who could actually wrestle with me. A girl with muscles too, and a love of the outdoors.

J was in her early 40s, over fifteen years existed between us. But that barely mattered. We seemed to click. We met in Berkeley on a Friday night for dinner in the spring of 2004. I broke a tooth that night on an olive pit. It was probably a foreshadowing of things to come, I don't know.

But before we could climb all over each other, we had some dealmaking to conclude first. I believe they call it the "negotiation process."

We parked in her car outside her health club on that first night, and we negotiated. What did we want from this relationship? It went more like that than it did, "Who's going to be the top/bottom whatever." It wasn't about the sex, although we did both agree that safety was paramount.

J wanted to make sure we both understood and were clear. No U-hauls. No unpleasantness. No commitments. We would enjoy each other without feeling a need to build castles about it.

I found it all fascinating, since I have never sat down so formally and negotiated stuff like this before. You get to live like that when you're a Child of the 60s. We grew up just doing things. Like sex. Who ever thunk it that you would have to negotiate over sex?

No more falling into bed willy-nilly. What you lost in spontaneity you (supposedly) gained in the certainty that unwanted damsels would not be parking the U-haul out front of your door the morning after.

Is this really progress?

- - - - - - -

My Vegetable Garden

2006-03-06T12:40:00.000-08:00

As I see the Big Picture, it's all the fault of those damned vegetables. Especially the zucchinis. I could have been nearly the world's best dyke, if it weren't for my rather early discovery of the joys of Veggie Sex. From there, it was just a hop and a skip to men and THEIR vegetable gardens, as it were.

It was by accident that I discovered my mom's vegetable drawer in the fridge. I did not give two whits about cooking. I went in there prowling around, looking for the thing with the perfect shape that would turn the trick.

What inner prompting led me there? How did I know what to do with the damn thing? No one had told me anything, I somehow pieced it together on my own. Through my reading (I continually had books jammed against my nose at this time) and my own bodily feelings, I had come to the conclusion that I wanted something up my vagina. And hurry it up, dammit.

I discovered the zucchini. The perfect instrument of impalement for a young lass of 12 or so. No one told me what to do with the damned thing. I somehow figured that out on my own. Some instinct told me, it belongs right HERE.

Before I discovered the zucchini, I had experimented with other "objets d'art." One afternoon I deprived my parakeet of his water tube. It was so long and shapely, and I discovered I could heat it up first by filling it with hot water. He wouldn't miss it for a few minutes or so. And if he did, well, tough. Yet another item for yet another male to get over.

I tried bananas too, they had a softness that felt good, but more often than not they would split open. Retrieving banana goo from your innards can be a hassle. No fooling! So I was happy to tumble on to the crisp firmness of the zucchini. I could put it in a glass of warm water and away I went.

The new "toys" brought new situations into my fevered little pre-pubescent brain. When I was on my back with the zucchini, I definitely visualized myself as a female, no doubt, and I loved every minute of it. I was accompanied in my dreams here by a variety of male people. "Group sex" was probably forming too in my head. It was all so easy.

But I discovered I also liked having the zucchini inside me as I lay down on top of it, and most definitely then I felt myself as a male. It was powerful. It was fascinating. And the "people" I was on top of were women people.

I liked where my head was at, although sometimes I wished my feelings to jack myself off were not so intense. I loved school, and now it was interfered with sometimes by these new thoughts. I would sit in history or English classes, my favorites, and start fantasizing about what fun I would have at home if only this damn class would end already(!)

Given the great time I was having with my new "homework," I naturally assumed every other girl out there was doing exactly as I did. Penetrating themselves with the world of objects. Such of course was not the case. I found this out much later, starting with my middle sister. To my amazement, I learned she did not even THINK about touching herself, with fingers, until she was 18. That was when her periods started. Mine started much sooner, at 12. While this annoyed me no end, I also realized my sex drive probably kicked in much sooner too. That was a good thing.

By the time I left home for good and headed for Europe at 21, I felt I knew my own body rather well. Even though I was still a virgin in not having been to bed with a man, I suppose technically speaking I no longer was. I never had the pain or unpleasantness that so many women seem to have with their first times.

That's also when it dawned on me that I was rather different from other women. They waited for the men to deflower them. I took the bull by the horns and did it myself.

And having done that, I knew that men were out there, somewhere, and more experiences were coming. As it were.

- - - - - - -

Lunch With A

2006-03-02T10:10:00.000-08:00

Last week Dave and I visited our friend A in San Francisco. We met him through his monthly bisexual "massage" parties that he holds in his apartment near the U.C. Medical Center. A is a really super fit older guy, and we have coveted him for a while. We played with him at the first party we attended, and we wanted more. Today we figured we would hit the new De Young Museum, grab a bite and play with A. He sounded quite willing.

Off we went, for a bowl of soup and sandwiches first in a place near A's apartment in the upper Haight. Then we walked over to the museum and mingled with the tourists. Sight-seeing can take it out of you sometimes. The walk took its toll, particularly on A we discovered.

Once back at A's tiny one bedroom, the mood seemed mellow and relaxed. Naturally, being men, the two men left it up to me. I wasn't sure where the vibe was exactly, but I thought we could proceed into erotic play. So I suggested that.

Clothes came off, the guys amused themselves massaging me. Then Dave went down on me and got me off pretty quickly. Then we started fondling one another, I got up on top of A on the massage table and proceeded to ride him for a bit. Dave played with my ass from behind, but he hesitated getting up on the table. They weren't made for three people.

We migrated onto the sofa, then into the bedroom. But as we moved along, it became apparent A was not fully engaged. He tells us that normally at this time of day he takes a nap. Great. The more Dave and I were ramping up, the more A seemed about to fade into oblivion. His mood seemed far more touchy-feely. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but we were here for the main event, if you will.

A was being affectionate and dreamy about the whole thing, we were being intense and erotic. Two different wave lengths. Dave told me later that he sensed it might not work with him and A. Both tend to want to be bottoms.

"I kept trying to overlook the fact he has white hair and a beard," Dave told me later. He was trying to get up the wherewithall to fuck A, but it just wasn't going to happen.

"I think I scared him," says Dave later. Men have trouble saying "no" sometimes too, I realized later. If we had interrupted his naptime, he should have said something. People who can take naps in the middle of the day I find...well, odd. Maybe I am just jealous. I have to be really really tired to nap during the day. During vipassana meditation retreats was the only time I could nap, because they keep you so close to a sleep-deprivation state. A few minutes and I could nod off.

But A seemed to be in another place. I should have realized that when I first laid eyes on him in his tie-dyed T-shirt. "So, you've been over to Berkeley," I was going to say jokingly.

That defined the day perfectly. He was back in the era of Flower Power. We on the other hand were faster than a New York minute.

No hard feelings, and we seemed to part on pleasant terms. But it was disappointing. We are discovering, Dave and I, that we tend to be more sexual than many of the people we are meeting at these little events. We knew A liked us, and we liked him. But sometimes, even that is not enough.

You still need to catch them in a "perfect" moment.

- - - - - - -

The Best Orgasm Ever

2006-02-27T10:32:00.000-08:00

What IS the best orgasm ever? I like to pester friends with this question, because I think the answer can change over time and space. Over genders too. And depending if you have a partner or not. Or maybe two or three or a room full.

For me the perfect orgasm probably includes a touch of the extraordinary. Something from out of the blue.

One of my more spectacular "Big O's" occurred shortly after I first got to Berkeley. I was seriously identified as a dyke by now, but every now and then I would get a yen to have a good swift poke with a male person.

So one day I answered a guy's personal ad in the Berkeley Barb free press, we met for coffee, we decided we could deal with each other. We went back to his residential hotel and proceeded to fuck ourselves silly.

This was only the second man I had been with, and I knew going in that this was going to be a much more rewarding experience than the first time.

Condoms? What's that? I knew it was a good time of the month for me, so away we went. Life was simple back then. We didn't even worry about diseases.

My guy was a banker, with neatly trimmed blond hair and wire-rimmed glasses. He was horny as hell and I could sense he would come sooner rather than later. I could feel him come inside of me, and even though he tried to stay in he was starting to slip away from me.

Just as he escaped, I started to come. The effect was so startling it knocked out everything else in the room for me. Suddenly I could feel my muscles closing around on...nothing. Just gripping the air inside my body. It was mindboggling, because there was no resistance being offered, there was no penis there for my muscles to engage around.

It was one of the strangest, most unique orgasms I have ever had. My banker and I had sex two more times that night, and I came both of those times too. But for some reason, that first one was the real charm, the thing I remember about that night.

All those muscles contracting, of their own accord, in a space all their own.

But good orgasms weren't going to be enough to keep me around if the guy wanted to start getting cosier with me. Like this one did. He wanted to start dating, and that's when I said bye bye.

I don't even remember his name, and yet he provided me with one of the more intense sexual experiences of my life.

- - - - - - -

A Bower of Sapphic Delights (Pt.2)

2006-02-23T10:11:00.000-08:00

We're back in the SOMA district of San Francisco for an all-girl sex party which occurred last weekend. There were around fifty women, plus a few worker bees, myself included. My task was to be Safety Monitor, checking up that everyone is practicing safe sex. I knew when I volunteered that it would be a good gig. Not much to do, as I expected not many women would be playing.

And why weren't they? Most of them seemed to know each other, but most of them are femme, maybe they just have trouble approaching other women. There were butch-looking women, but the two groups didn't seem to be mingling.

At an early point in the evening I hooked up with a woman I did know slightly, N is her name. Attractive, femme, maybe late 30s to early 40s, with a husband at home I have never met and a son around 13. She identifies as a polyamorous and a bisexual woman.

N wants to do some erotic massage at the party this night, and I decide to grab the last slot in her datebook right when I get off "duty." But since the other women don't seem terribly anxious about signing up and getting the play under way, N suggests I move my time up. Since I am supposed to be working, I figure I should clear this first with the hostess. But N says she's done that already. Cool! A woman who actually wants to get down to business! I'm in love already. Or is it just lust? I like this N. She is funny and quirky and a little ditsy as I can be.

So off we go, she has me lie down on a single futon upstairs, in the "play area." She sits cross-legged beside me, so her right hand can rest on my clit, while her left hand rests with the thumb at the entrance to my vagina. With her latex gloves on and a bit of lube, she starts lightly massaging my clit with just one finger. It feels really swell, not hurried, no heavy pressure, totally relaxing. Of course as she moves along I start to feel like maybe this could go somewhere, I hadn't set out to get myself off, but now that we're here.....or on the brink....

N asks if I want it faster, or harder, or anything different, but I reply I am quite happy. I love the subtle indirectness of the sensations. N will not attempt penetration with her other hand unless a) the person directly asks for it, or b) the thumb just "slips" in, as we suppose thumbs are want to do sometimes.

In the midst of my increasing interest in my new-found friend, I discover another couple has joined us upstairs. A somewhat butch woman and her femmer associate. Well thank God some of those troops crossed lines and fraternized!

But where is everyone else? The party started about nine, it is now after ten, and N and I have the honors (still) of being the only people playing.

I am really getting turned on with N's finger going about its business, and I decide I am going to cum with this. She makes comments to me as she works, noting the heat coming from my pubic area. Don't burn yourself, little girl, I want to say. It's been a long time since I was diddled by another woman and it feels wonderful. There is more to life than fucking, happy to say.

I thank N profusely, and smiling offer to return the favors when she is done later on.
She seems very pleased with the offer, but later on people get into the swing of things, and N finds herself busy. I will catch her at another party. This is one woman I like a good deal, we may have some things in common. At every event of this social group I've attended, N has been there.

Was there any other play? Later on I migrate back upstairs, and discover three scenes going on. I plop myself down on the free sofa with another woman, and we watch. Having gotten off already, it feels lazily luxurious to watch other people, and recount your own feelings of sexuality.

Several of N's friends and their friends are playing on one futon, three of them, they are all attractive to me. One of them is really thin, with tits even flatter than mine. A real carpenter's dream, as they say, flat as a board and easy to nail. I love that look. At the next party I am going to work my way into this group. These are quirky girls who don't look ultra-femme but aren't die-hard butches either. Somewhat androgynous middle grounders, I call them.

On another mattress is a really striking couple: a tall, lean older woman, with shoulder length grey-blonde hair, getting fucked by her much younger top. A femme looking girl but with a really short haircut and definitely a butch manner. They are locked in a close embrace, the femme has some kind of solid-looking harness around her waist, really wide and hefty-appearing, and she's grinding her hips close atop the older woman's hips. She pulls the woman's nipples rather aggressively as she fucks her. Hot damn! I could watch these two all night! Somewhere, there's some younger woman out there for me, I know it. Whether I really want that or not, I am not sure of. Just looking around for now, thanks. Nothing wrong with the older woman either, I feel myself looking at her a lot.

So, down to business now, and the key question: would we want to go back to this party? Yes, I would, because there is potential there. At each party now, I am finding my comfort level, exploring new ways of getting off, feeling the attraction to different types of people. I try to set reasonable goals at each party, so each goal takes me a little further along the road to...what, happy sex-party going? One supposes.

But at one point on this night, I had the sudden sensation of being back in high school, at the prom, when the girls would all be seated in a row, waiting for a guy to ask them to dance. Literally, we had about eight women seated in separate chairs, all in a row.

Waiting to be taken, we suppose. Maybe next time we should ship in a truckload of hard-core butches, and arrange for them to do just that.

Who says girls can't stage a Gang-Bang?

- - - - - - - - -

A Bower of Sapphic Delights (Pt.1)

2006-02-20T14:20:00.000-08:00

My friend A threw an all-girl sex party the other night, and I want to tell you a little about it. A is a big big woman with a vibrant personality, and she has managed to pull together a bisexual women's social group here in San Francisco.

The party took place just south of Market, on a narrow and rather scary-looking street. Homeless guys, layabout types and clubgoers all seem to exist in this area, more or less happily. I take a drive around the block, wondering where I can chance parking. There's a place right in front of the building, but I don't like the street, so I park on the well lit one at the end of the block, and walk carefully to the house.

Once you're inside the place, it's like a completely different world. High-techy place, with tall ceilings and a pleasant atmosphere. Downstairs is for socializing and snacking. Here there is also a small bedroom for coats and porn watching, and a living room at the far end with a sofa and futon. People can dance here and make out, but the more serious action takes place upstairs.

Since this is a bisexual group, there is a certain flavor to the women. Many of us are attached to male persons, but we know pretty much that we love the other half too. Does this give women a certain "look?" Or style? I believe it does.

These are femme women, for the most part. Girls you can tell who love to put on their lacy lingerie and high heels and parade around. And because the group founder is a big girl, that sets a certain tone also. Many of the girls are big, but enjoyably so. Such is not often the case at these parties, as you have heard me complain about before.

How do you get big girls who are actually enjoyable? It's the style with which they carry it off. It says to the audience, "I am big but I am beautiful and I like it, now get outta da way." They have balls, chutzpah, the personality, or whatever you want to term it. Somehow it allows them to carry it off.

I can't help noticing though that some of these women have boobs as big as my little butt. Some of them were really more like bowling balls they were so huge. So, at the risk of sounding churlish, what on earth does one DO with boobs this big? If you're a woman, that is. I know guys like to rub their dicks in amongst the mountains, what else is new. But what do women do with big boobs when they're worn by other women?

Drop me a line someone and enlighten me. Once I had the bright idea that a really creative babe could insert her breast at least partially into another woman's vagina. This would depend on the breast, I suppose, and how small/big or firm/loose it was. But I have yet to test my theory.

There was another, smaller group of women. These were the butches, the ones with the short hair, the dumpy outfits. In general a totally different vibe. I am curious as to how they arrived here tonight. My hunch is that A happened to be selling tickets for this party at a particular lesbian bar in San Francisco noted for its butch clientele, and some of them picked up on the news.

A girlie sex party is news, so this undoubtedly got the girls' interest. A lot of them would probably never want to date bi women in any serious way. But hell, a sex party? That's different, it's a one-time thing, not a U-Haul franchise, so they would feel OK in joining in.

But the problem at the party was, the butch girls were not exactly beating a door to the femmes. I don't know why, but they weren't. The two groups stayed by themselves. It was probably a play on what happens at hetero parties, where the guys sometimes fade into the woodwork in the presence of dolled up babes who babble on together in their own little world of fashion and shopping and whatever else they happen to be into.

There were other types of women present too. The ones my partner Dave refers to as "quirky girls," with the odd looks, usually arresting, usually older, more often slimmer than not. It's all my fault, I know, he says I have ruined him for younger women. Or even those his own age. So sue me.

There were a few black girls present, and they held their own well. So overall this party had good diversity. My friend A was aiming for around 50 women, and she got them, although some of them did not show up. The tickets were something of a hassle for the women to purchase, as A wanted to sell the tickets herself so she could meet each person. You have to do that if you're throwing a party - in someone else's nice house - and you want to keep control of things. Screening is a necessity.

The entry fee was also complicated by a rather detailed listing of party do's and dont's which were handed out to participants when they rsvp'd themselves. A really wanted to make sure that the rules were clear and able to be followed.

Again, it's not that this is anything unusual or new for a sex party. There are always rules. It's just that these seemed more rigorous than usual. I had offered to volunteer to work the party, so A assigned me the task of Safety Monitor.

The S.M. gets to roam about the Bower of Bliss, shining her flashlight into the eyes of lust-induced females and onto their private parts, to ascertain all the children are playing nicely - and safely - together.

Well, except I wasn't given a flashlight. It wasn't needed anyways. The girls, unfortunately, were entirely too well behaved.

TO BE CONTINUED

On Cruise Control

2006-02-16T09:56:00.000-08:00

Recently Dave and I ran across an interesting personal ad on Craigslist. It was written in response to an earlier personal ad.

The original ad apparently started like this...

"Re: Want a girl to join me and my boyfriend for a day at a hotel..."

It was posted under W4W, and like many couples searching Craigslist for a woman for a threesome, they got flamed by this woman below...

"Hello, I'm Julie, your Cruise Director, and I just want you to know you'll find exactly what you're looking for over in Casual Encounters. If you don't find anything there to suit your needs, then may I suggest Erotic Services.

Thank you. Have a nice day."

Dave and I sprang instantly into readiness, and we wrote back to the woman, whom we felt destiny had called upon us to fuck silly. And vice versa.

We wrote: "Hey, Julie, ya wanna come over and be our Cruise Director? You can take me all ways with your strap-on (me being blonde, athletic, good-looking, nice legs). Then you can bend over my little queer friend here, 6' 160, shaved head, and fuck him like no man ever has.

What say you?"

We did not hear back from Julie. That was sad. She sounded just our type. A manly woman.

- - - - - - - -

A Scenario (Hers)

2006-02-13T12:04:00.000-08:00

Last week was Dave's birthday, and I am creating my little erotic scenario for him. Here's where we are so far...

I start with you in the shower, you're making yourself as clean as possible so that I may make you as dirty as possible.

When you emerge from your bath, I place a bowl of cherries in front of you on the floor, and force you to kneel beside them. It's only because I am being good to you that I let you watch me, as I insert one cherry after another up my pussy. Then I handcuff your hands behind your back, and force you as I continue standing to eat the cherries out, one at a time.

Since you're still handcuffed, it will be easy to move you over and drape your belly over the preacher curl on the gym, so I can play with your backside. Using the flog, I start to whip you lightly, over your ass, your back and down the legs. With each pass, I start to vary the pressure, growing harder with each blow, then making it soft.

I talk to you, I ask if you know what you are being punished this way. You agree that you have been thoroughly bad, and need to be whipped. I oblige you. The pain increases from the whip, until you start begging for me to lay off.

If I am feeling especially good about life, I'll leave off the flog and run my hand over you. Just for contrast. Do not, repeat, NOT get attached to it. It's just meant to keep you off-balance.

I undo the handcuffs in order that you can put on your leather accoutrements, your collar, your cockstrap. Now I position you on your stomach over the small table, so your butt is in the air. I put on my harness with dildo and proceed to slap you with it. I weave my hands in as well, slapping your butt, and - more lightly - slapping your balls from behind as they hang down.

As I lube your butt, I start playing with the dildo around your anus, tempting you, teasing. Putting just the head in, then taking it out.

"Give me some more," you beg. You are ignored. Then I amuse myself rubbing my body against your backside. The leather from the harness and the studs bore into your flesh.

I take the small electric butt plug, and give you a taste of it. I let you lubricate it, then I insert it inside your bum. As I turn it on, I reach around and play with your firmly gathering cock, and balls, until you're almost ready to come.

Then I abruptly stop, and flip you over on your back. I tie your hands overhead to the gym legs. Then I take off my harness with dildo and I start to sit on top of you, sliding your big dick inside my pussy. I'm ready for whatever, but still I'm not going to let myself come right away.

I take some time riding you, grinding my hips over you, pulling and slapping your nipples as I do. I remove your dick from inside me, then I reinsert it. You want to come but I am not going to let you.

Yet.

To show you my independence, I strap the dildo onto you. I begin to ride it. I can grind the dildo to my heart's content. I don't need to worry about long strokes with you, a male. Because I don't give a fig. It's not about you anyway, and I tell you so. You have no choice but to agree.

You're my Hot Babe and mentally I am fucking her as I ride the dildo. Finally I let myself come on top of you.

Now I'll take my harness and toy back, thank you very much. I put them on me again. I order you to roll over on your stomach, after first removing the handcuffs so you can do this.

Now I do allow you to play with yourself, as I mount you from behind and fuck you with the strap-on. You are happy beyond belief as I ride you, sometimes slowly, sometimes faster, harder and then softer, always keeping you off balance.

When you seem to have had enough, I finally give you permission to come. You oblige. I let you clean the dildo with your mouth.

Shower.
Cocktails.

- - - - - - -

A Scenario (His)

2006-02-09T11:35:00.000-08:00

Dave and I are constructing little adventures for ourselves. This is what he has in store for me....

"You arrive home after your long bike ride pleasantly charged. You peel off your damp clothes and pee. Your body is glistening with sweat and the scent of your pussy and pits begins to fill your nostrils as you stand by silently awaiting orders. Since I feel you're old enough, I allow you to adorn yourself with the collar, wrist and ankle bracelets.

You stand. I attach the rod to the ankle straps, keeping your toned legs apart.

"Touch yourself," I command. "Spread your lips and rub that big clit."

"Yes sir." You always respond with "Sir." I inspect you. You feel my hand on the small of your back, slowly moving up between the shoulder blades. I touch the back of your neck as I smell you. What a beautiful stink. I blindfold you. Then you start masturbating as I tell you about just how bad you've been. I put you on your knees and you sense something is about to happen.

The cloud of unknowing.

"Don't stop rubbing, blonde!"

"Open your fucking mouth!" My cock pushes into your mouth and you suck hard. I pull it out and slap your face with it. Back in it goes, out again. In. You slobber all over it. "Beg for it. Say 'I want to suck your cock.'"

I spit in your mouth and stuff your face. You're very good and I nearly cum. But I don't. I help you to stand. "Keep them spread until you're told."

I begin using the flog very lightly on the backs of your thighs. It's a series of tingles as I move up your left leg, across your ass, and down the right. Each time I approach your ass you get a little more excited. I hit each cheek slightly and move up, focusing on your back.

I bring a mirror in and position it so you can see your hairy pussy pried open. It's very wet, with a white cream moistening the hole. The flog skims across your chest and lingers at a nipple. I swat it, and then swat the other, beginning a rhythm. You stand holding your pubes, feeling the sting on your nips.

I move to the back again, and after I drift downwards to the butt again, I place down the flog. I tell you to rub your ass with both hands and you oblige. I kiss you deeply. I put something in your mouth to suck. You make your new toy nice and wet and warm and I take it out of your mouth and lube it and place it up your asshole. It goes in smoothly. The plug is not large at all and yet feels wonderfully full inside.

I put you on your back and shackle your arms above your head to the gym. I sit on your face and make you rim me. I pull on the rod attached to your ankles and spread you as if on a rack. I turn around and stick my hard dick into your hairy twat. I lean up and start to fuck you. You feel me in one end and the butt plug in the other. So full!

I work your clit and push your tits down. You're sweaty and slick and love the feelings. You start moaning as my bone crushes your sweet spot. I pull at your breasts and slap your exposed armpits, my cock in your smelly puss as your body begins to tremble.

"I'm gonna cum!" Your pussy shakes as you let out deep sounds. You're as taut as a teenager.

I flip you and pull the plug. I fuck your ass nice and cum inside, my hands around your throat.

I make you squat over your blue tub and fart the cum and debris out of your ass.

Then shower.
Cocktails.

TO BE CONTINUED
- - - - - -

Those "Bi-Oral" Guys

2006-02-06T15:15:00.000-08:00

Recently Dave and I attempted to find a guy to play with us. We resorted to our usual iniqitous ways and went right to Craigslist to post an ad. A handful of various people turned up nearly immediately. Thank God, the men are still a lot swifter on the uptake than the women I've tried dating on Craigslist. We sift through the ads, several flake out on us, but we arrange to meet G, a forty something guy who sends us his pix revealing a fit looking bod and a great looking dick. We're there.

But G gets nixed by my partner Dave the minute we lay eyes on him in front of our local bar. The guy looks really rough, with that battered, almost beery kind of look that says, "I luv my liquor, and it loves me." I was glad Dave took the lead in this, but he picked up right away that this guy probably didn't have a bisexual bone in his entire body. What would be the point from Dave's point of view? The guy is flying under false pretenses, he will pass himself off as bi because he wants to get close to the woman. One look at this guy and you could sense he would have a tough time landing a woman on his own. With a couple, much of the groundwork has already been done. You simply hitch a ride on their wagon.

Lately we've noticed this trend in a lot of the male persons we are meeting. Guys seem willing to try just about anything on these singles' boards. When we lived in L.A., we noticed the variety of men who called themselves bisexual. We thought it was some kind of fluke, at first. But now it feels like something is going on. There is always a lot of pressure to hook up with people, but hook ups that are mutually satisfying seem to be fewer and farther between these days.

My last therapist commented on this to me. Basically she noticed this trend too, via the stream of people filing in and out of her office. Since about 1990, she says, people have had a really hard time connecting. You hear the bitching about this on Craigslist all the time, especially under the "W4W" section. But men and women are having tough times too.

So, if a guy can't hook up easily, but he wants to get laid, what options does he have these days? We've offered some alternatives here, via sex parties, bath houses and threesomes.

We all know that many males frequent bath houses who are not strictly homosexual, but for a lot of guys that's just too gay.

Sex parties are a good alternative, most of the parties are hetero oriented, they could hook up with a woman there. If they want to spring big bucks to get in, and assuming the party allows single guys.

Threesomes would be the best way sometimes for a guy to get alongside a woman. And if they aren't very "gay" around the edges, well, that can be accommodated too. As long as the other male is not too demanding in what he wants. After all, any normal red-blooded guy could close his eyes and allow his dick to get sucked by another male. And less frequently perhaps he would suck another guy off, maybe even top him too. We find most of them want to draw the line when it comes to their taking it up the bum.

Dave and I decided we wanted to bypass this group of males. We want to try for something different, like advertising under M4M on Craigslist. This way we are likely to get a guy who is more interested initially in Dave rather than me. But he can deal with me also. It's just the emphasis will be shifted from two men mostly clustered around the woman, to two men attracted to each other in the foreground and the woman a little more receding.

We think that is an equation worth exploring. We know already that a couple posting on the M4M board is far more likely to land a genuinely bisexual male than the "Casual Encounters" section, which teems with straight guys looking to hook up with M/F couples.

Who knows, we may even have a "queer" experience.

- - - - - -

Eros Party: Hetero Chubby Chasing

2006-02-02T13:41:00.000-08:00

Recently we lost the Black Sheets sex parties here in San Francisco. They decided to take a break from things, so various and sundry persons were eager to fill the void they left. One crowd got together, someone knew the new owners of the men's bath house, Eros, and they managed to rent the place for a night for a private sex party.

We approve of the move to start such a new party, and while it mostly came together as planned there are a few issues that need addressing to make it better next time.

The guy who put this together asked for feedback after it was over, and Dave and I added our two cents. Big mistake it seemed, as the guy posted my comments on his club site. Various friends of his, who were also in attendance, flamed me good.

Why? Well, all because of the Whales. Whale is a term I picked up from my friend A, it describes big big big people, women in particular as they are usually the prime offenders. You've heard me rant and rave before about some of the huge women who attend these parties. They are an eyesore, and I had no problem saying so. Many people took offense. I responded that I think there is a place at a sex party for big people, they do get action at these parties, although I doubt if they do otherwise. But why do they have to be overwhelmingly fat? And this is the case. Can't we get a few other types of women to attend?

The guy in charge wrote back to say, bring your friends if you want. But my friends I know would not want to be at this party. They are not chubby chasers. They tend to be lean and fit and they want to find scenes with other lean and fit people. If I were balling my friends, which I am not, usually, not on any steady basis, then I would not be needing Eros, would I?

Since any good sex party will ascertain ahead of time, either by questionnaire or something similar, what types of people they are getting, why not add another category? Along with gender, sexual orientation and your experience with prior parties. That category would be how each guest would characterize themselves physically.

If I were a guy, cruising around for info on what sex parties I should think about spending my bucks on, I would want to know a bit about those parties ahead of time. Like who attends, is it more male than female, are the people attractive, or at least a good mix of all sorts of types.

You would not want to attend a party like this unless you are really into heterosexual chubby chasing. Because that's what you would have gotten here.

Unfortunately, this party had an outstanding number of fat women. There were two of us who were thin. Me and a woman named B apparently. We discovered this later. Our friend A pounced on her in a hurry and absconded with her svelte person. They have known each other for a while, and have played together over the years. She is married, her guy attends these parties too, but tonight he was elsewhere apparently.

Dave was disappointed because the queer guys were really not here tonight, and the ones who were queer, or seemingly gay, were heading for the door about the time we were.

We all expected something akin to a Black Sheets party, lots of queerness, more variety of types of people, more faggots in attendance, and certainly better music. The Eros party had a really strange mix of music. Everyone yelled later about that, so you can bet the music will be addressed.

The fat women? I don't know. For me, it is more than just an issue of fatness. Just recently I had a conversation with a player who feels the same way I do. "There are a lot of issues going on with them besides just the bigness stuff," he tells me. You get a whole can of worms too. I could sense that coming through as I read the web page and all the comments from (surprise) the big women in attendance.

So, why do I say there may be hope though for this party? Because hopefully they will attract a wider variety of people. Hopefully they will persuade the Eros owners to create a community play space. The nooks and crannies at Eros are cool and nice for twosomes, but if you want to invite a few other people over there's simply not enough larger play spaces. More and larger play areas. Not just cutsey bunk beds.

Did people fuck? A few of us did. Where A took his thin little honeybunch I dunno, it was a really SECRET hiding place I guess.

At one point Dave had me up against the railing by a bunk bed and was taking me from behind, me about a foot off the ground hanging onto the slates of the boards and he standing up behind me. He said it was a great visual. I could look through the slats and realize we had drawn a small crowd. People are always cruising and milling around at these events, checking out the action. Someone said, "Gee, this must be where everyone fucks," said one wag facetiously.

Some of the people we recognized from other parties. But apparently the mood was pretty consistent at the end: we need to have more of the Black Sheets flavor next time.

Better music, better variety of people, more queerness.

We appreciate their effort, we want more next time.

- - - - - - - -

Dave Does The Water Garden

2006-01-30T12:09:00.000-08:00

His name is Dave, my partner in crime, and he has now decided he cares not a whit if I mention his name in these columns. He says everyone at work knows he's a crazy kind of guy anyway, so what the hell. Crazy is his nickname in his contractor field, which is electronic construction. Crazy covers a lot of transgressions, even that of Dave's being bisexual. Here he is. Today Dave went off to the bath house here in San Jose, called www.thewatergarden.com. A very nice facility apparently. Guys even drive the hour down from San Francisco to come here.

Today Dave comes home with a smile on his face that I recognize well by now. He's gotten ploughed royally, it says. He's very pleased, the cat who's just swallowed a canary. Or two.

Today I have real cause for jealousy. Dave had four guys today. One after another. I can barely MEET a woman every four months, and trying to get them into bed...well, sturm und drang galore. So I am sitting here feeling morose about life. But I may as well describe his wonderful time. After all, SOMEONE is having a wonderful time, and that's the good news.

His first guy was a muscular, beautifully built white guy. From France. Dave decided ahead of time that he didn't want to get off with the first guy today. He arrived early, and had an hour to kill before he took his AIDS test offered there. He didn't just want to fire off too soon and then have to hang around that hour. So the first guy just worked him good without going all the way.

After about half an hour of Dave getting seriously pummeled, the French guy stops to say, "I have to go soon," he says. "What do you mean you have to go," exclaims Dave. "I have to meet someone," the guy says. Dave wraps his legs around him. You are going nowhere, my good man. Alright, ten more minutes, the French guy decides. Time flies. "Now I really have to go," he says laughingly. Out he goes.

In between Guy One and Two, Dave pops by to take the free AIDS test offered. Then back into the fray.

Dave heads back to his own private room, and soon another guy appears at the door. Asian guy, tall and lean, with a lovely curved dick (to the right, for those keeping track of these things). They indulge themselves with a bit of oral play at first, then the guy puts on a condom and fucks Dave for quite a while. Then he pulls out and asks to come all over Dave. Permission granted of course, and boy does he ever cum. A world of cum, enough that two towels are needed when it comes to housecleaning later. Apparently it was a real water hose effect, Dave has rarely seen such a load. He shot it every which way.

Next Dave heads for the steam room, where he runs into an older white guy. The guy sticks several fingers up Dave, who tells me he is squealing with delight. A crowd of course gathers in the steam room to watch. He got interestingly violent, lightly slapping Dave's nipples, then he pushed Dave's face into his armpits and Dave licked them as commanded, Commander. The guy had pecs, a great set of them apparently, he took Dave's head and held it between them, as if a woman with big tits were squeezing a guy's dick between them. The play got lighter, then the guy moved on.

Another guy, cute asian guy with a swimmer's build, comes into the steam room, very sensual, lots of roaming hands, light kissing. The guy has a beautiful body. For some reason the asian guys come right to Dave. This has happened a lot to him in these places. He finds they are the most sensual group of men he deals with. It's like they are re-creating the male-female sensuality ticket. The guy and Dave started rubbing, licking each other, Dave handles his cock and jerks him off. Then Dave gets down on the floor and the guy positions his butt so Dave can get his tongue up the guy's ass. "I nearly swallowed him whole," he says later. Finally Dave gets off as his face is buried in the guy's bunghole.

Whew. I'm feeling exercised mightily, and I wasn't even invited. Dave asks that I caution Dear Readers: this was an extraordinary day at the bath house. He does not get this all the time. Just so you know.

Kind of makes you wonder what a slow day is like, huh?

- - - - - - -