Coffee Break / Blind Lady

"Meet me in 5." I was driving and called a friend last minute, wanted to catch up and grab a cup of coffee. I was never good with planning but I was very good at being spontaneous.

I drove to Philz in North Berkeley, gourmet ghetto area on Shattuck, diagonally across from Chez Panisse.

My friend got a call from his teenage daughter, who’s in Maui vacationing. He's fantastic with her and I envied his relationship with his daughter.

"Are all good fathers not so great husbands?" I asked as I sipped my large philharmonic, medium sweet, with cream. The place was crowded, every seat was taken with laptops and iPads, so we found a bench by the bus station, a block away. I had a view of Gregoire, my favorite French take out restaurant in Berkeley. Best lamb chops.

"I suppose there are different rules for husbands and fathers."

"You are not a great husband." I remarked.

"How so?" He responded, but didn't expect me to answer.

"Well, you know… multiple affairs. That would be a pretty common definition of a 'not great husband.'" But what do I know? I'm not a guy." I was only an observer. I was always curious about a man's mind: Men who were fathers, husbands, held prominent positions at work, but had an artistic or intellectual side; men who had multiple roles to play in life intrigued me. I studied them carefully, at arm-length. I suppose I was trying to understand them now where I failed before.

A blind woman came by. She asked if we'd seen any bus passed by.

It was the second time people asked us of that question. You sat too long at a bus station’s bench, you became the time keeper of the bus. Bus 18 just came and went. I told her so. The next bus won’t be there until half an hour later. She was going to be late for work.

"We will give you a ride." He told her. Then he turned to me, and said, “Let’s give her a ride.”

"OK." I was not usually like that.

But I felt good. Doing good deeds for perfect strangers in need felt good.

I didn't want any negative shit.  I was done feeling sorry and withdrawal from the world. I was done from all of that negative energy stuff.

"Why so many American women are so angry all the time?" He asked.


He excluded me from that population.. It was not the first time people excluded me from the generic definition of an “American woman.” I had not thought of myself either a Chinese or American. I was simply, me. An odd person, with peculiar interests and was extremely open about certain aspect of my life, yet knew how to keep private things private.

A while back, someone said to me - "You appear to be dissatisfied." That comment troubled and frightened me. I felt something, and that something was raw and powerful and it threw off the balance I had with the universe. I have since dialed back; I knew it was not the right emotion to experience, at least not in that environment, in that context, with that individual.

I vowed not to complain, not to be negative, not to change anything or anyone and not to have any expectations for anything or anyone. I would not burden others with my own dissatisfaction. I turned off my emotions because it once hurt like motherfucker. The saddest part was that I was the only person in pain.  The world went on as if nothing happened; the person I was suffering for had ab-fucking-solutely no clue. In fact I suspected if he knew it, he’d enjoy it, he wanted to see me suffer, he probably derived immense pleasure from knowing that I longed for him, loved him, and would have done everything for him, and yet he felt nothing of that sort for me. So I fell cliché in love. I thought that all I ever wanted was for him to hold me and say to me, “everything is going to be OK. I love you too and I will take care of you.”

As it turned out, he didn’t say any of it, nor did he have to, and everything did turn out to be okay as it always did, and in the process, like any respectful woman, my heart hardened, I became rightfully cynical, sarcastic and I declared that I was suffering from temporary insanity. Nothing a little drug and time won’t cure.

This experience, along with many others, became a story that started like this: “Once upon a time…” Yes, of course love stories were fairy tales and belonged to fairy land.    

And as you would expect, we went on, he and I. The one whom I thought I loved, we went on for a long while, we met up, we fucked, he told me that I was his. I continued to love him in the way I knew how. I said nothing, did nothing, and if I caught myself feeling something more than the primal feeling, I stopped myself. I imagined a future with him in it. I imagined this would be the last time I’d feel passionate about someone, and I imagined one day he’d love me back. And that imagination stayed alive after he was long gone.

We dropped the old blind lady off at her meeting place. She was grateful. She liked sitting in a convertible. It was a nice ride. She said. It was a warm day.

I then dropped my friend off and said goodbye. He had stuff going on in the evening. He was a wonderful father. I liked that. He's a horrible husband. I didn’t mind that, because he's not mine. He's a good person, conflicted but a good person.  He had no expectations of me. And I was grateful for that. As long as he didn’t ask me how I felt about anything.

I liked to stay theoretical with people these days. I was very good at offering advice, and unwanted opinion to others, so long I was not asked of “how do you feel about it?”

"Any movie you want to watch?" My friend asked of me just before he had to go.

The last movie I watched was an art house foreign movie.

I liked foreign movies, art house movies, or anything science fiction.

I watched movie only with him. In the dark, his hand would hold mine, tight, as if I belonged to no one to him. I would put my head on his shoulder, and I never let go of my hand from his tight grip. He reminded me that was how we started, he had asked me out to watch a movie and it became a tradition. Something I’d do with him only. I was stubborn like that.

Movie watching could be an intimate experience. I did not do movies with just any friend.  Sitting in the dark with someone who’s not your partner next to you seemed bizarre and unnatural to me. I liked the outdoors, daylight stuff with my friends.

Like drinking coffee and giving a perfect stranger, an older blind lady a lift.

Garden of Eden

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I will be with you, until eternality, part of the time, always

She laid her head on his chest, bare, breathless, her wet hair, towel dried only, long dark brown hair spread all over his body, her eyes staring at the ceiling, for a moment she forgot where she was. The walls were white, the bedspread was white, the nightstand, also white. She noticed there was no TV in the bedroom, nor anywhere in his apartment.

“You don’t watch TV.” She said.

“No, I don’t watch often. I got rid of the TV in the living room.” He said, his free hand caressing her wet hair, he massaged her head gently, as if she’s a pet, his pet.

“Hello pup.” He greeted her earlier, in a low whisper, in the restaurant.

He invented nicknames for her each time they met up, she took her time to digest and got used to each nickname, and then he changed them on her. Only one nickname remained consistently, he called her “baby.”

In her latest dreams, she dreamed of him as a father, to a son, and she thought how mature he had become, to be a father, to be someone other than the young man she knew once who was only good at one thing, to look good. She remembered a Sunday brunch, fifteen years ago with him, and how he took her into the neighborhood shops to browse for shoes and clothing afterwards. He examined each piece of clothing carefully, and reviewed the stitches on them, he would comment on the shoes, how he liked the style, the way the length of the trousers were cut. He said trousers, not pants, she noticed how he had funny ways of expressing things, as if he was just ever slightly not American. She liked him because of it. He had an European lineage and spoke foreign language, and it appealed to her, she liked Europeans. She also admired his fine taste in clothing. Until that morning she never knew that neighborhood existed, it was up and coming back then, unlike now, completely yuppified. Back then it was full of trendy but independent shops. She later returned on her own and with others, to shop there, to buy unique clothing but never with him, it was the last date they ever had back then. He had a high fashion taste; she wished that he was gay, and that they could remain friends for eternality, her gay boyfriend. She imagined that they’d travel together, and go to bars, he’d help her scope out straight men and she’d help him scope out gay men, they’d have a fabulous time, they’d be loving each other, platonically and affectionately, till eternity.

Then something changed.  She met someone, she got married, had children. He remained unmarried, moved away and then back. She continued to wonder if he was straight, he was pretty, even prettier than she was and she was rather attractive, once.

They were both young once.

Sitting in her therapist’s office, she was discussing the latest books. She liked to talk about literature, current events, and economy, anything to distract the real reason that she was there. To explore her troubled past, her conflicting self and her complex present.

“So the latest popular book is ‘Fifty Shades of Grey.’ Have you read it?” Her therapist said.

“No, I read a review from the Atlantic Monthly, it was about how princes were all control freaks and the only way princesses could be together with their princes is to give up who they are and change themselves into what the princes want them to be. They used this book and the Twilight trilogy as examples. I decided not to read it. It sounded a bit of a downer.”  She elaborated.

“I am reading it. I don’t think you should read it. It’s actually quite mellow comparing to your life. You’ve lived it.” Her therapist said in a calm voice but Tessa could tell that her therapist was baiting for her reaction.

“So I was told. The BDSM part of the books was quite benign, nothing compares to what I’ve gone through with B, it’s the psychological part that I could relate. I went through it with B. I suppose that’s too close to home for me to read it.”

Tessa replied, now waiting for what her therapist had to say next.

“Nothing like what you went through. Or should I say… still going through?” Her therapist was relentless.  They had much catch up to do. Therapist went on holiday and Tessa had not been in her therapist’s office, the one on Embarcadero, for four weeks.

“Still going on. If that’s what you meant. I know that I said that I had ended it. But it didn’t. It took a different turn a couple of months ago. I wouldn’t call it ‘going through’ per se. It is what it is. I don’t expect our dynamic to change. I like it. He likes it. We have come to terms with this. I should say, I have come to terms with it. This is who I am.”

“Well, as I said, no need to read this book. You can write your own, but not now, much later, not now.” Therapist concluded.

She had heard from friends who read the book and said the trilogy was “mommy porn.” She did not need to read “mommy porn.” When it comes to porn, she had particular taste, acquired taste, something, as she learned, was not as unique as she thought it would be. She and B shared surprisingly similar taste, where she had not explored, when B sent the links to her online, she’d watch them and like them also. B introduced her to online porn. She used to watch them on tapes, still the same VHS tapes she’s owned for 20 years. She didn’t know Internet porn had become free, instant and every single kink is in there, she liked kinks. The kinkier the better. She concluded that B and she had been influencing each other in their collective taste in porn and been exploring the sexual boundaries through porn watching. She believed him when he was not around and when he couldn’t be with her that he missed her. The way they stayed connected with each other was through watching porn on their own. They found new sites and new porn and shared them with one another. Such was one aspect of their peculiar relationship, one that stemmed from a rather unexpected beginning.

“The timing was perfect.” He used to write to her. She didn’t know what it meant, but she knew now. They both were at a place where they expected little changes to occur in their lives and therefore they could operate a relationship that had no boundary.

One meeting in the North Bay, she was sitting next to him when he told her that he liked how they started. How they started was from a dinner in a nondescript restaurant in the South Market, more of a bar really but it had served food. She insisted on paying and he dismissed her gesture and said, “You have not been taken out much.” She laughed and admitted that was indeed the case. “No, I’ve been married for the last decade.”

He paid the bill, and as they walked out on the uneven street, crossing over to the parking garage where his car was parked, she extended her arm out naturally to be held by him. They had not otherwise been intimate, yet there was a sense of familiarity that she felt instinctively existed despite the fact that they had not been physically involved for fifteen years. He held his arm out to catch her arm. It took her instantly back in time. She felt like a lady, and was taken care of, properly. It felt like a date, not two very old friends catching up.

“I can go from here. I can take the BART home.” She stopped as they approached the BART stop.

“I can drive you back.” He suggested.

“It was out of the way.” She was surprised. The first time they met up he had dropped her off at a BART station.

“OK, that’s very nice of you.” She took up the offer.

As he opened the passenger door, she sat in his car, watched him closing the door, and was impressed by his manners. Not many men opened doors for women anymore. He’s a bit old school that way. She buckled in. He got in. But instead of turning on the engine, he leaned towards her unexpectedly, and kissed her on her lips. It felt tender, but tentative, as if he was testing the water, she didn’t resist. So he pressed on, kissed her some more, and she let him.

They didn’t end up in her house, they ended up in his sailboat docked in the marina, there was when something happened.

“I can’t have sex.” She begged, yet she had her clothes half off, her skirt hiked up.

“No. We won’t.” He promised, as he said that she felt him, firmly inside of her. She opened herself to welcome him.

As he was inside of her he made demands. For someone who had not seen her for so long, for someone who was only possessing her for the very first time, he made unreasonable demands.

“I don’t want you to have sex with others. Not even your husband. Just me.” He said.

“Okay.” She stared at his beautiful face, agreed.

“I want to be your only outlet. I want you to be my very own sex slave.” He demanded.

“Yes.” She answered.

“And I want you shave your pussy for me. I want you to be completely bare.”

“Alright.”

It was that fateful evening that things had changed. He made demands to her unlike other men she’d ever dated. Granted, she had been out of the dating pool for over a decade. But it was also unlike the version of him she remembered fifteen or so years ago, when they first dated. Back then he made no demands. He only wanted to have some fun. So did she.

But this was different.

They saw each other, sometimes more frequent than others, but intensity remained.  Unlike her other relationships in the distant past, she longed him more as the time progressed. He desired her more, as it appeared. They never went through lover’s quarrel, per se, if they ever had moments of doubts, emotional up and downs, they never confronted each other. They made declaration of love to each other, they tested the water with the boundaries of their sexual adventures, they found the more envelopes they pushed the more they desired each other.

“Tell me, how does it work? How do you function?” Tessa’s therapist asked her.

“I don’t know. I just do. I suppose we all have moments of doubts, we are worried about disappointments. We are worried about losing one another, but I can’t speak for him. I just knew that my life is incomplete without him in it. I need him like plant needs water. But if he chooses to leave me, I would be fine. I would live on.” Tessa said reflectively, recalling the peaks and valleys of her emotions throughout this relationship she’s formed with B.

“I had thought I could cut the cord. Leave him. I made peace with myself after having those thoughts. I think I was afraid. I was afraid that I’d fallen in love. I had to reset. I was getting rather emotionally involved with him. I was getting clingy, and I was expecting him to be more than he was. I stopped expecting. I came to terms with it. With him. After I reset.” Tessa continued.

“I told B, the last time I was with him, that when he said that he loved me it really royally screwed me up. I don’t do emotions well. B said that he didn’t do emotions well either. That conversation reset us. I think. I had not felt this passionate about someone in a long time.  I think it’s largely sexually driven. But it has becoming more. We have more things in common than we had realized. The dynamic of our unconventional sexual relationship, was, and is still the dominant force.” She stopped. Realizing that this was getting to be a bit too personal, even for her shrink.

For a while he dictated the game. Each sexual act a fantasy of a sort. He defined the terms, she followed.

Act I – Bondage and Spanking

B took out the rope, tied her up, he did the figure 8, using white nautical ropes, tied her hands and then her legs, she couldn’t move, and the ropes were tight, making red marks on her wrists and ankles. He turned Tessa on her stomach, as she lied flat, he spanked her hard, leaving hand prints on her butt cheeks. She screamed. He covered her mouth. “Shhh… Quiet.” She felt that she was imprisoned. His sexual slave, as he said that she’d be. He then turned her on her back, lying on the edge of the bed, he took out his cock and let her suck on them. He jammed it deep and it choked her, he smiled. She was teary eyed. Then he turned her over again, and this time, with his hand covering her mouth, he entered her from behind, forcefully. She wanted to scream in pain, but no voice would come out.  She felt wet, as he thrust in and out of her, until she was wet as a puddle. She moaned softly as her own liquid lubricated him. He came inside of her. Afterwards, he untied her, cuddled her in his arms, and said “Good baby.”

Act II – Making a Film

“We will exchange Christmas presents, after you get back.” He told her. He had been traveling. Then she was gone on holidays.

She went to see him the day after Christmas, presents in hand. He lit candles around his apartment. She arrived to find neatly wrapped presents. She loved the necklace he bought her, it was her favorite to this date, it was understated, yet very much her. She knew he always had impeccable taste.

When the gift exchange was complete, he led her to his bedroom, where he had set up the video camera to film them. He tied her up, inserted dildo, blind folded her, he filmed her naked body as his hand examined her bare private parts. He demanded her to shave her pussy, and ever since they started their relationship she shaved religiously. He liked her that way, he remembered how she had shaven when they first met fifteen years ago, he still liked the very bald her. He then filmed as he spanked her hard, her butt cheeks red with his hand print.  

“I tried to spank as hard as I could.” He would later confess. “It hurts so bad, for days I could feel your palm on my butt cheeks. I liked it.” She’d reply. “I know baby, I know.” He cuddled her as she smiled.

He then filmed her sucking him and then being fucked. He finally tried to fuck her ass. He told her from the very beginning that was the ultimate. He wanted her ass. It hurt like hell. She screamed.

He edited their film, and uploaded it to a secure server so that she could download it. She didn’t see him for quite sometime after that, but for the longest time, she watched their sex video while masturbated.

Act III – Fantasies – Fulfilled

By late winter they were seeing each other semi regularly. He took her to a sushi restaurant, and it turned out to be one of her frequent places with her ex lovers back in the day.  She didn’t want to tell him the location had brought back unwanted memories, but she didn’t know a new beginning of a sort was going to form.

“Tell me about your deepest sexual fantasies. I want to fulfill them.” Tessa whispered into B’s ears as they sat at the sushi counter. He always wanted to sit next to her, there were tables, where they could sit across from each other but he didn’t want those tables. She was beginning to notice a pattern: when they were together, he needed the close proximity with her. He needed to hold her hands while sitting next to her. It helped that they didn’t have to bump into each other - they were both left-handed.

“I wanted you to hold my cock as I pee.” He whispered into her ears.

That same night they tried that.

She sent him videos of porn of golden showers. She sent him German porn. Women drink piss and then get fucked.

“I want to try that.” She wrote.

They tried that. At first he pissed on her body, then the second time on her hair and her face. By the third time, in her mouth. She was drenched and she loved the taste of his pee in her mouth. She enjoyed drinking his pee.

She knew that they had crossed over normalcy at that point.

He sent her squirt videos and demanded her to pee. She tried. She found it liberating.

She wanted more. She had a list of fantasies. She wanted sex with another woman and B. B wanted that too. She wanted to play with a pregnant woman with B. She wanted to suck on a lactating woman’s tits while being fucked by B. It appeared that B wanted them too.  They found new sites for each other.  When they didn’t see each other, they wrote to one another about their sexual desires, unconventional ones.

There was no boundaries. B wanted largely the same thing as Tessa. In retrospect, the bondage and spanking were just the beginning. Who knows where this would lead?

Act IV – Proper Date

Emotion was a different animal all together. It tied with the sexual act, and anyone who thought emotions and physical intimacy could remain separate was either fooling himself or herself or was a social path. When the emotion got caught up and when both parties had trouble expressing them, it became a rather mind bending torturous act, battle of self-consciousness. Anyone who thought that they could be immune to emotions when their sexual act had crossed over from normalcy to fringe would know that the bond between two individuals who shared the deepest, darkest sexual act and then fulfilled fantasies that they couldn’t or wouldn’t fulfill with others were deep and intense, not easily severable, and therefore, emotions would inevitably be tangled up in this type of relationship.

In a profound way Tessa found her emotional involvement with B, especially with the large amount of time of separation and lack of communication in between their meetings had made her unable to fulfill her normal responsibility as a mother, a wife and a professional. She was also rather involved in athletic activities, and it had caused her to become unfocused. She was becoming dependent on every email she’d get from B. And when he dropped off from the face of the earth, she wondered if she repelled him, if their relationship had met its expiration date.

So the next act was entirely unexpected.

“Would you like to go on a proper date with me?” B wrote.

Their pattern had been Tessa cabbing over to B’s apartment, for either a nooner, or quick fuck at night before they parted ways.

A proper date, as B would define it, was the opposite of a “Reverse Date.”, which was a term B used to describe each of their formal encounters. They’d fuck, then go out to eat. Not a movie, not an event, but just the act of sex, intense sexual fantasy fulfilled, never time for anything else. Afterwards, if they were hungry, they’d go out to grab a bite to eat, each time they were depleted, and each time they wished to never have gone out.

As it turned out, a proper date was exactly the way B needed to reverse their course.

The date was proper alright. It started with dinner, then a show, then a night at B’s apartment.

The show was somewhat intellectual, something that B and Tessa shared in common, something that they had failed to recognize that they had in common.  In the dark theatre, B held her hands so tight, for once she realized perhaps her fear of losing B was unfounded, perhaps they had meant for each other, part time, always. Perhaps she just needed some patience to ride this one out.

After the date, he wrote back, “Thank you for the lovely night, it was fun as always.”

It was the first time Tessa felt that he truly respected her. She knew that their sexual dynamic had always been a S&M type, she was the M in the S&M. She wanted that but not outside of the bedroom. She wanted the greater emotional connection to be built not just on the sexual attraction. After all, she knew that couldn’t be the only thing that they had in common, and as it turned out, it was not.

Act V – Game Changer

Several weeks passed. Tessa did a lot of self examination, as her shrink went on vacation, she explored the ways she handled their relationship and realized that her intensity repelled B. She realized also that her feelings for B would not change, regardless distance, time or circumstance. She also realized that love, was not a word that that needed to be muttered out loud and it could come in different forms. Once Tessa relaxed, and reduced her expectation in this relationship, she found the reality was not grim as she once thought. The moment she became relaxed about it, so did B. They went on another proper date. One she suggested. Dinner, an art house movie, the good n’old fashioned non-conventional sex afterwards.

Tessa started to develop her social life outside of B. She didn’t expect B to understand why she needed diversion and distraction. She just needed it to maintain her sanity, so that she would not be obsessed with B, when they were not together, Tessa expanded her friends circle, refocused on her work, reprioritized her life and started to analyze less about the meaning of this relationship but rather focus on expanding her own network and horizons. She became involved in the San Francisco Indi music scene, met new male and female friends, and continued to do the things she loved to do. Some, as she discovered, were the same as B’s. But she didn’t want to make a big deal out of it; she realized perhaps all along the intellectual side of common ground would catch up with their sexual compatibility.  She didn’t want to force things to happen.

But she felt something else. She felt that she might have a chance with this after all. When she first set out on this journey, she wanted a sexual adventure, along the way, she realized the man she’s involved with may be more than that, perhaps the depth of bond was always beyond the surface, perhaps what they had in common was more than they had led on, and they both felt scared of what they’d discover. A journey that took many months to set on the right course, an unexpected turn that led to more than they first bargained for.

What then? What’s next? Tessa asked herself.

She knew one thing that she didn’t know before. She knew that the more she knew the less she knew. She knew she could only control her moods but not her feelings. Her feelings for B grew over time. They shared more things in common.  She stopped obsessing over the meaning of her relationship with B. She decided to enjoy it. She stopped worrying. She finally found her voice in this relationship.

She also found something accurate to describe this relationship. Something that she knew that when said would mean 100% of the truth. She planned to tell B that the next time she’d see him.

“I will be with you, until eternity, part of the time, always.”