First draft, wrote and finished today. Trying to use a new style / technique which was to try to capture the mood without too much of a definition by using adjectives. Not sure how successful I was with this attempt. This is a first conscious attempt anyway. Call it a practice run. Also, there were a bit of a sexually explicit write up thrown in. Clearly my inhibition has gone down a notch as I've gotten older.
"If poetry and other art forms truly bring about a 'confrontation
with our deepest self,' an unanticipated consequence emerges: the
neutralizing of passion. In writing about love, as in the writing about
grief, overpowering obsessions and emotions are more quickly understood
and assimilated. Once we understand them, we are less driven to ponder
them. Love letters, then, may be an antidote to love." - Opening Up The
Healing Power of Expressing Emotions, James W. Pennebaker, PhD.
1. Valentine’s Day Eve – His Point of View
He had not expected this. Not at all. The way he had imagined, she’d show up, and they’d go and have dinner, and then afterwards, she’d leave because, after all it was the Valentine’s Day eve, and he had not planned all of this out, he had planned to travel the next day, he was waiting, somehow for her to initiate this, and he’s been torn, he had been absolutely devastatingly torn about this. He wanted to see her, but there was just never a right way to tell her that.
He sensed that she was pulling away. She was intellectually distancing him from getting too close to her. It was not ever an obvious move on her part, but he could sense the level of detachment. The frequency of emails dropped significantly. She used to write, a lot, and shared her thoughts freely. She was obvious about her feelings and desires. She told him how she felt. Then she stopped. It was as if she wanted to leave this to be a purely physical thing. He thought that they had a go with something grand, but he was not sure anymore. He wanted her like no other.
He wanted to be with her, until the sun went down. Until THEIR sun went down, until the end of the day. But he did not know how to tell her this, or anything remotely similar, he had never been in a situation like such, to be involved with a woman who was married, had children, lived a full life, a life, until recently, did not involve him.
2. Valentine’s Day Eve – Her Point of View
She looked at the clock, it was 9 AM, Monday. She had not seen him for exactly 14 days. He had disappeared, again, from her life. Prior to that, one week, she saw him three days in a week, and she liked it, to be so close to him, even though she did not spend any nights with him, she saw him, did things with him, met his son, and that was more than enough. She liked those quick visits, the constant exchange of information, the closeness developed not just through sex, but through communication, interaction. She liked interactions: one that involved active components, like ping pong, you sent it to the opponent, your opponent hit the ball back to you, and it went on and on. The free flow of information exchange, the “getting-to-know-you” bits. They did not have frequent interactions.
They really did not communicate much. He was a man with few words. He rarely emailed. When he did email, he wrote short sentences. She knew though, when he did write, he meant something. He wanted her. She started to figure that part out. He needed time to recover, after each of their encounters. And then he needed her, yet she couldn’t tell. It was as if he was also somewhat shy in asking her and telling her that he wanted her. She couldn’t tell if and how much he wanted her, until he told her that night.
“Then it builds until I can’t take it anymore.” He told her how he felt after being separated from her for sometime. He said in such a way that it lacked convincing power. It was as if he was also detached, as if he was talking about a volcano activity that occurred in the Big Island, and not his feeling towards her.
She wanted him, constantly. She wanted to be with him, incessantly. She wanted to be part of him, simply. How did she get there, she didn’t know. She visualized the integration of two of them into one. He spooned her, his hardness pressed inside of her, and his arm wrapped around her, her small hands holding his. There was always the desire to become a constant force in his life. But she didn’t want to burn the candle out right away. She wanted to be that constant fire, constant light, without overwhelming him. Use as needed. Do not exceed recommended dosage.
3. His Singular, Uncomplicated Life, Complicated
He was considered good looking. He took good care of himself. He barely ate and he exercised whenever he could. He looked young for his age. In fact when she met him for the first time over a decade ago, she thought he was the same age as she was. He was 7 years older. She liked the age gap. She married someone who’s about his age, only slightly younger, by about 8 months. But he knew that he looked better than her spouse. He always knew that was his asset. The perfect face, the fit figure, the fashionable attire. The way he carried himself. He was disciplined. He watched his diet, he slept 8 hours a day, and he worked hard. He maintained his physique, he maintained his work / life balance. He was always looking for something to occupy his mind with. He read, he read a lot. He went out, hang with friends, did his run, biked a lot. He was an intelligent man who had his own firm, who decided to live an uncomplicated life, a life of one.
Then he got an email from his old fling: someone whom he had not seen for sometime, someone whom he kept very loose in touch with. Someone he reached out, every few years. He liked her. But it was not that they had anything but those few quick, spring dates, that went into the early summer, and then fizzled out, memories were blur for him. He had dated many young women then. Those were the good old days, where he was constantly approached by aggressive or non-aggressive women, he was in demand. He moved to this city in part for it. He liked his life then. It was uncomplicated. He was good at women. He liked women, and they loved him.
Then, life caught up with him. It was not that he was not interested in dating, he did date, he dated whenever he could, but he wanted someone to be there for him in a way that did not cause any stir in his emotional well being, did not affect his regular, singular life, and he wanted someone to realize his fantasies. Fantasies that he thought of often, but not something he’d bring up, because it was unconventional, kinky, perverse and spectacularly exciting.
4. Her Simple Desire, Not Simple, But Fulfilled
She thought of the possibilities of hooking up with him. The uncomplicated fun, the fling after another short-lived fling. He would just disappear afterwards. She would not be tangled up in this; she would fuck, leave, and be okay with everything. She didn’t expect any emotional component to it, she was able to handle him fourteen years ago, and she knew that she could handle him just as well today.
She asked him out this time. She remembered the first time they met, years ago. He had asked her out. They hooked up right away, they had sex, they had more sex, and they met up in other states, and they fucked some more. Sex was uncomplicated with him, he did not have any emotional attachment with her; nor she him.
It would be okay this time too. She told herself.
They kissed. Not the first date, the first date, was benign. In fact she already forgot the name of the wine bar, where they met up. She had no expectations. She was assessing the situation. He too was assessing the situation. He had not seen her in that light, the fuckable light. She had not seen him in that light either.
They caught up on their first re-date. They went to a restaurant after. He ordered food for them. He was cautious, a little on guard, and he drank wine constantly, as if he needed it to calm his nerves. She found it interesting. They talked, caught up and he went into a conversation to describe how they first met. She couldn’t remember at all, but she did remember him talking about it.
She wanted to be kissed, was all.
He dropped her off and said goodbye. She remembered thinking. He did not kiss me. I had no chemistry with him. I wanted this, but what was this?
The next date, they went to a museum, and they saw something that they liked, it was not the artwork, it was the two of them. He picked her up, and he looked at her in those six-inch heels. He watched how she walked in them. He wanted to take them off, and have her legs wrapped around his neck, and he’d enter her that way, deep penetration, she’d lie there, looking at him, with her brown eyes, waiting, anticipating for his next move. She saw him looking at her heels. The way a man who wanted to bed a woman would. She understood instinctually, that there was chemistry after all. She wondered what it would be like, to wrap her legs around his neck, so that he could enter her. She also thought it might be nice if she could turn her back on him, so that he could enter from behind. She enjoyed being fucked from behind, the most. She parked that thought, as she caught him stealing a glance of her six-inch heels.
“Let me drive you back.” He offered. Instead of dropping her back at the BART, he offered to drive her back to her house.
“OK." She was surprised.
As they entered the parking garage, and into his car, he leaned over and kissed her, on her lips. She did not object, but she was not turned on in a way that she should either. He had never courted her before. It was all purely physical. The kiss, felt hurried, and forced, as if he was trying to test the water, to see if she resisted.
For her, it needed to be emotional, psychological and physiological. She needed constant emotional connection, it did not need to be lengthy emails, but she needed a man who could communicate, to instant message her, to say hello to her, to stay on her mind. She thought she had that person, until that person, went insane on her. She suspected that person was in the end, too upset that she couldn’t be his, his alone. He didn’t like sharing. There was never a chance this could have happen with him. She thought. He never wanted me that way anyway. He wanted me for sex, for sex only. If at all.
He drove quickly and as they entered into her city, he offered to take her to his boat, to check it out, since it’s docked right there.
She entered the gate and onto the boat.
He started to take off her clothes.
They kissed. They fell onto the seats. He took her to the back of the boat. He started to undress her. She kissed him back and begged not to have sex.
“Not tonight. No sex, OK?” she said, she was half naked. He removed her panties, and rubbed himself against her.
“OK, baby, whatever you say.” He rubbed his hardness against her warm puddle. She couldn’t help but thinking this was all wrong. I had not expected this.
“Please don’t. I don’t want to have sex, not yet, not now.”
“OK, that’s alright. We don’t have to have sex.” He responded. And with that, he entered her. Just as she expected, he was hard, strong, and deep. She let out a sigh. This was unexpected, but it felt right. She was wet as a puddle. She was melting, winter had thawed over and spring was arriving.
“I wish there were some ropes to tie me up with.” Without even thinking or processing her thoughts, she blurred it out. He got up to look for ropes; you’d think that in a boat, this would be an easy feat, but no such a thing. He saw a flicker in her eyes.
He knew that he had met his match. He took mental notes. He wanted to know how far he might able to take this non-relationship out for a spin.
“Be mine, my sex-slave. I want to be your only outlet.” He demanded.
“Yes. I will be yours and yours only.” She demurred.
That was nearly five months ago. And they’ve gone further than he had expected.
5. The Experimentation of Watersport
He pulled her up.
“Sit up baby.” He had pulled her up from the floor, they had been fucking on the floor, he had drunk a glass of wine before she showed up, and she tasted it in his mouth, the aroma of white wine. Now she could taste it in the warm wetness that was drenching her face, her hair, and her body. She took it all in. She found it to be incredibly liberating. He had let it go in its entirety. She felt it on her tummy, dripping down, warm, aromatic, then dripping into her pussy, her eye liner had been smeared all over her face, she felt wet, aroused, liberated, and slightly dirty. The way any sex slave would and might feel if the master had demanded such game.
She liked it. He stuffed his cock in her mouth. She could still taste the last drops of wetness. She liked how it tasted, she sucked on it, hungrily. She wanted his cock, the erect yet depleted cock, she sat on the floor, sucked on it, drenched in wetness, in his wetness. She smelled like him. She was his dirty little girl. She was his, very much his, in every possible way. She could do that all night, that being the sucking part. Sitting there, her crotch on the floor, now collecting his wetness, combined with her own wetness, it was intoxicatingly sweet.
This was exactly how every woman should be fucked, she thought to herself. Completely letting go, let the man to give everything he could give to her, she would take it all in, for that was the ultimate high, to belong to someone, to exchange every fluid that one could exchange, in her case, to receive; in his case, to give. It was a new high.
They move their action to the bed. He fucked her hard, she came. He came. They collapsed in each other’s arms. They rest. She was feeling sticky.
He said “let’s shower”.
6. The Shower
The shower stall was spacious. It had two showerheads. He always let her take the one inside. She liked hot hot water, he liked lukewarm water. She stood under the hot steamy water, hands sticking out. He poured shampoo onto her palm. She scrubbed her hair, her sticky, damp hair.
“Conditioner please.” She asked. He squeezed the bottle; she received the creamy conditioner and rubbed it into her hair.
The water rinsed it all away.
“May I have some more?” She asked politely, as if she was asking him to fuck her some more.
“Sure”. He gave her some more, squeezing the bottle, and this time when she received it and she rubbed both hands together, before slathering it onto her hair. The water was rinsing the shampoo and conditioner all away, the foam on the tub slowly forming, creamy, like something else she felt earlier, when he came inside of her. The room was quiet. She did not speak. He did not like to talk afterwards. She had nothing to say anyway. They did not exchange lengthy conversations.
At that moment, when she watched the foam forming, he walked closer to her, away from his showerhead, into her steamy hot water territory.
"The water is too hot." He said.
"For you, maybe. Not me.” She said.
They didn’t talk all that much to each other. Their exchanges were often cloaked in a non-verbal communication way.
She felt that he understood her subliminally. He adored her, effervescent but unsure of himself, in some ways; in other ways, obstinately and resolutely, he carved a small piece of his life, and allowed her in.
Their encounter was exciting always, but sometimes it glowed sadness.
“You are shy sometimes, but you are not shy. That’s strange. Interesting.” He would remark. She couldn’t tell if his tone was dismissive or genuine. She never appeared to be shy with others; it was the vulnerability seeping through. She hated that part of her, the part she tried to hide by embracing brazenness with gusto.
But he liked that part of her. The shy part of her. He just never told her.
She felt that should the circumstance be different, they’d still be the way they were today.
Part of the intensity came from desperate longing, resulted from distance and circumstance; part of the passion, came from the despair lingered over unfilled desires.
He could never really have her. Nor could she him. Such dynamics ran at the core of their relationship.
He was holding a black soap bar, he started to wash her body, he washed her as if her body belonged to him, he washed it carefully, thoroughly, as if he was washing his car, his pet, his child, or himself, as if she was an extension of him. She let him. She watched him carefully, as if she was supervising him, as if she had doubts of his ability to do a thorough job. But she did want him to wash her clean. That was the way she remembered at the end of the movie, Secretary, except that she was not in a tub, and he was not outside of the tub, they instead stood in a shower enclosure together, spacious shower enclosure for this part of the city neighborhood, a shower enclosure perfect for the two of them, creamy earthy peachy walls against white décor, simple, sparse, bathroom, one she’d been in for a few times, one she used on occasion, when she stayed overnight, when she had to get ready in the morning. One she shared with him.
She remembered being asked to hold his cock while he did his business, the last time. Standing up, she held him, she found it erotic, completely natural. Then she asked if he could do something for her. She did the asking by sending him videos, specific kind of videos. She knew that he would not judge. She knew he’d go there with her, as he did with the rest of the games they played. She initiated some suggestions, and mostly he just went there naturally. When he slapped her, hard, leaving marks on her butt cheeks, when she screamed because of the pain she had to endure, it was exactly the kind of euphoria she had been looking for all her life and was afraid of asking. And he did, more so than she expected him to go, drenching wet, make up smeared, face and mouth filled with his wetness.
And she loved every moment of it. She wanted more of this. Then she wanted to do certain things with him. He wanted to have anal sex with her. She tried it once with him, and it was painful. But she’s been watching porn at his absence. She wanted that, that was the ultimate go to place, for him and for her. She wanted to do everything that he wanted, thought of, or not thought of. She belonged to him. She showed him, and he understood. He could take her anywhere he wanted her to go. She would be following.
“You are mine.” He said to her.
“I AM yours, and yours only.” She replied. She knew, life would go on, circumstance would change. But one thing was for sure, she belonged to him, body and soul. He understood that, she knew he did. It was an understanding that required no words.
7. The Obligatory Valentine’s Day Chocolate Truffles
She asked him to button her dress. Her silky black dress. He obliged. He handed her a box of heart shaped chocolate truffles in a bow tie.
“Happy Valentine’s Day.” He said. He almost looked nervous.
She was feeling bad.
“I have nothing for you.” She said.
“You’ve given me plenty.” He replied.
She kissed him, adoringly, gently. They were almost a normal couple. If he chose to be with her, if she chose to leave her family to be with him, they’d almost look cute together, normal, cute, and conventional. No one would need to know, what they liked behind closed doors.
8. A Reverse Date
He took her out for a date. A reverse date, a date that occurred after sex had taken place. He liked that more. They couldn’t go on a normal date, he got too agitated. They tried it once. They left the theatre 10 minutes into it. When he needed her, he needed her right away. It was always that urgent. She knew that about him. He wanted her the way fish needed water. She knew that about him. It was how she felt when she was with him. Simple logic applied in this relationship. Nothing was new. Everything had its order in this universe. They were each other’s release valves.
The Belgium restaurant he liked was closed on Mondays.
They ended up in a small Italian restaurant, the one that was open. The weather was getting chillier, and the streetlights were dimmed. It felt wintery all of sudden. The warmth from the shower had been replaced by the freezing air, it started to drizzle.
Conversation with him was not as easy as she thought it would be.
“I have nothing to say to you.” She declared.
He looked almost hurt, he raised his eyebrows and lowered his glasses, and was looking at her in a funny way, trying to interpret what she meant by that.
“Before I saw you, I had so much that I wanted to say to you. But then I am with you, I don’t know what to say, where to start.” She confessed.
The truth was, she had felt so much, yet nothing would come out right. She longed for him and got anxious, she hit a wall and bounced back. He caught her when she was on her way up, to feel like herself again.
He tried to carry on the conversation by telling her a story.
She laughed. He made her at ease again. She knew that he cared about her. He may not say much. But he always wanted to make her happy. she could feel it in her gut.
“I could stand to see you more. Like once a week.” She said. This was true.
“After seeing you and after you leave, I get anxious, and then the feeling gradually tapers off, after I don’t see you for a while, I don’t get as anxious.” That was the essence of what she wanted to tell him.
“I am the opposite. It gradually builds up as time goes on. Until I can’t take it anymore.” He told her.
They were the most communicative couple in the world.
“Perhaps we should meet in the middle, like trying to see each other once a week.” He offered.
“That’s aspirational.” She looked out the window. She would like to believe him but she knew it would be difficult, more him than her. He had a chaotic and unpredictable schedule. She suspected that there were days he could have seen her. But he did not ask her. She wondered if their intensity over their interaction was based on the lack of predictability. Neither one of them wanted to really change it, it brought the two of them closer. The non-communication communication. The lack of ability to convey how they truly feel prolonged the desire of wanting each other.
But the underlying theme remained constant. While they have not changed the dynamics, she instinctively knew that she was right about them being in sync this time.
She knew that he knew she belonged to him. They had nothing but time to write their story.
9. The Vision of Future
They retired to his apartment after dinner.
Walking up the marble stairs, he said, “It was nice. Our nooner. But we all have to work during the day. When we retire, we can fuck in the middle of the afternoon.”
“Then we take a nap and eat dinner at 4:30 PM.” She responded.
The future, while unknown, he had planned to have her in it. He told her once, in that hotel that he had asked her to stay with him in, “We’d be fucking in our fifties.” She believed him the first time. She planned to have him in hers as well.
She read it somewhere - "At the end of day, we just wanted to have someone to hold our hands when we die. No one wanted to die alone."
She wanted to be that person, whose hand he was holding, when he was dying.
