69+1

Here are 69+1 short stories about pleasure, life, and love.  Some of these aren't stories at all.  Some are sentence fragments, thoughts and mini manifestos.  Some are not true and some of them are a blend of fact and fiction and some are just lies.  Be Pleased. 

1. Autonomy is sexy. 

2.  After visiting 53 cities in the United States and taking international trips to Burkina Faso, Bermuda, Panama, Puerto Rico,  UAE, Thailand, Sri Lanka, and Spain…I have never taken the liberty of having a one night stand, ever. These places have beautiful people.  Tall, slim, men with nicely arched eyebrows and gold herring bone necklaces.  I have a trip coming up at the end of July. It’s never too late to avenge a grave indecency against the free love movement and a woman’s right to bed a stranger.     

3.  If I believed in HELL, I’d send you on your way there. 

4.  “Sex is the inception of each new moment, the erotic union of the physical & non-physical.”

 5. No junk food, No Candy, No Bread…no life. 

6. I’m seeing four men but I only have to remember two names.  Greg and Justin.  I win! 

7.   Sex is not cerebral. 

8.  A dark cloud always finds him on sunny days. 

9.  Numerology: Humanitarian, conscious and enlightened

10. The buzzing of the alarm clock wakes her.  She stands walks over to shut it off, then plops back onto the bed to put on her running shoes.  She always puts them on first, then her panties, pants, sports bra and head band.  She hasn’t washed her hair in weeks, and it’s tangled.  She goes into the bathroom, takes a pair of scissors and clips a knotted wad of hair.  Strands fall into the sink.  She skips breakfast and pours a full mug of black coffee.  She palms two blue pills, drops them into her mouth and swallows.  There is a knock at the door.  “Who is it?” She asks.  No answer. She cracks the latched door and spots those black Calvin Klein dress shoes.   There is a suitcase next to his feet.  “Are you going to let me in, or should I stay in the hallway?” His head rests against the doorframe.  “Did you take the blue pills, this morning?” He asks.   She closes the door.

11. I have another phobia.  The walls began encroaching around my head and the soles of my feet started to itch.  I’d felt this feeling once before when surrounded by piles of naked bodies at a swingers club.   Instead this time, I didn’t pass out. 

12. Wild hair, Georgia red skin, even though he was born and bred in the great blues city of the south.

14. It was the worst habit to have.  Taking money from his wallet while he was sleeping, wasn’t really stealing…if he would gladly hand it over anyways? 

15.  I think the biggest secret I’ve ever kept would be about my husband’s boyfriend.  He’s mine, too. 

16. No matter what time of day or night, white power decorated her chest and neck.  I’ll never forget her smell, not as long as I live and then maybe even after that.  She was fun, we played, we bickered, and we were so much alike.  Our shape, the way we handled men, her spice and urge to travel and be free.

17. Karsai Nei Tsang: A therapeutic Massage happened in a hut in Chaing Mai.  A 70 year old woman named Porn (pronounced Pawn) directed me to lie on the table and butterfly my legs.  I obeyed and focused my eyes on the scurrying lizards scaling the ceiling.   I didn’t know what to expect.  I knew she would insert her fingers into my vagina to massage pressure points and release stagnant energy trapped in my pelvis.  I had plenty of questions to ask, none of which she could answer.  I only knew how to say “help” and “where is the bathroom” in Thai and all she could do was smile. 

18. He has his own rhythms about life.  Some I tried to change in the beginning are the characteristics I’ve grown to appreciate the most. 

19. I can’t go.  I had to dog-sit Dilan, a 12 year old golden Labrador with food allergies.  He walked in my shadows and scratched at the door while I peed.  He was the neediest k-9 on the planet.  He ate only chicken vegetable stew, pulling the scorched meat from the bones had worn me out.  This dog dined better than me. Fast food, crackers and old Starbursts that I found at the bottom of an old purse made up my meals.

20. We shared bracelets, cups of water and boys all the time. 

21. Yemayá represents the mother of all living things.  She owns the waters. Her number is 7, a tie into the seven seas. Her colors are blue and white, and her favorite offerings are melons, molasses, sugar cane syrup, whole fried fishe and pork rinds. She hangs on the edge of my dreams during every full moon.

22. That barely constitutes a decent blow job. 

23. Six Word Story: You have two hands.  Squeeze harder! 

24. Lingam. 

25. My sexuality is Sacred. 

26. The hotel room was packed full of people and my friend’s moans were too loud for me to bear.  I was working with about 2 hours of sleep after binge partying over the weekend.  I grabbed a pillow and jacket and stepped over naked bodies to make my way into the bathroom.  I lined the tile floor with two bath towels and laid my feet towards the toilet.  I don’t know how long I was asleep, but moments later he came into the bathroom.  It could have been any number of boys, the last I checked 5 had slept over.  I wanted it to be Mario.  Please, please be Mario.  After fumbling and fondling, I knew it was him. Mario.  He had long thin extremities and a leaner body than the rest of the boys.  I’d wanted to fuck him since the 9^th grade.  Before I was completely sure what fucking really was.   “You’re a virgin, right?” He questioned.   Of course not, I thought.  I’d lost my “virginity” three times since my 17^th birthday. 

27. She chose to take the blue pill. 

28. “This will be the last time we ever speak.”  I hung up the phone, closed my office door and crawled beneath the desk to cry. 

29. I lost myself among the street vendors and blind singers in the market.  Thousands of people were there buying trinkets and nick naks.   I found the perfect wooden phallic statue for a friend back in Atlanta.   A pregnant woman holding a toddler walked up to me and touched my finger tips.  Her eyes said she needed money.  I gave it to her.  All of the rest of the money I had stuffed inside of my fanny pack. 

30. “Naked, Drunk, and Writing,” by Adair Lara revealed why short stories, and personal essays are not anecdotes.  For the last week, I’d read this book, waiting for the author to strip down to her birthday suit, with a pen in one hand and a bottle of Vodka in the other.  It hasn’t happened yet (but I still have 200 pages to go).   Instead I learned that a story incites change from a character through an epiphany.  From that moment the character, me in this case, changes and responds to the outside world differently.   Before Derek came into my New York hotel room, I thought I’d changed. 

31.  Hi, My name is Darius Ever Truly, I’m from Memphis, TN. 

32. He died the way we met. From a stab wound, alone, and surrounded by dark light.   That eerie backwards way that time ticks.

33.   My sexuality is Pure. 

34.   Six Word Story: Toss the rules.  Unleash your life. 

35. I am an adjuster.  If a sexual position hurts, doesn’t feel good, I squirm and contort my body to make the session more pleasurable.  In Sex Therapy Session #3, the exercise involved standing (clothed) with my partner, and him doing a series of light-heavy touches of different speeds, all over my body.  With each touch, I had to vocalize, with words  (queen moaner here) whether the touch was enjoyable, how it felt, what he could do to improve, or if I flat out would prefer anything over that particular touch.  From head to toe, I gave instructions of “oh, I like that, that feels nice….lets add more pressure or…um….no….that’s not my thing, please stay clear of my legs and knees.”  I learned that I hold tension in my legs.  Light touch builds even more tension, makes me antsy, and then I want to kick or knee whatever is closest.  This exercise taught me what words my partner responds to, and the HUGE difference of what he thinks I’m feeling and what I am actually feeling.  Then we had to switch and that is a story for him to tell. 

36. I’m convinced she’s crazy.  But aren’t most women in love? 

37. I tip toed to the door and pressed my eye against the peephole.  There he stood.  Wide eyed, and sort of sweaty.  He’s chunkier than last time.   Before I closed the door, we were on the bed and his face was pressed into my panties. My floral printed “old lady” dress was pushed above my waist and my mouth watered.    First, I wanted to resist.  I tried by squeezing my thighs around his head.  I wanted to yell, “stop!” between smiles and snickers, but there was too much spit in my mouth to speak and I didn’t actually want Derek to stop.   I don’t remember because soon enough his face was deeply pressed into something else.

38. Some of our memories aren’t actually our memories at all.  They are a culmination of fantasy, photos and things people repeat to us over and over again. 

39. Your organs connect to your emotions.  Smile at your Liver. 

40. Yawa was a rail of a man.  I always imagined shamans to have a little fat on them.  A round belly, and solid stout legs, and thick neck.  This shaman was tall, with extremely long arms and legs and dark smooth skin.  He was from South America and had to loop his belt around his waist twice. 

41. On the west side of the world a Karsai Nei Tsang is called a Yoni Massage.  In Atlanta, there is an Urban Legend about Piondexter.  He stands nearly 7 feet tall, as a giant, he has a gentle,magical touch that can make ANY woman squirt. 

42.  Yab::Yum::heart2heart Yin::Yang

43. The man rang the doorbell for a second time, but she didn’t budge.  She sat still, on the sofa and used her pointer finger to stir her cooling coffee.  She sucked the coffee from her finger and leaned her head back into the cushions.  The blue pills started working.  He’d been gone for 9 months.  She woke up in the middle of the night to an empty bed.  

44. I fiercely defended my change to Him.  Him and I went back and forth about whether or not I could maintain fidelity.  I had a bad track record, several indiscretions, a threesome, and a stint with a married friend.  But this time was different.

45. My sexuality is Magical.

46. No ice.  Over 90 degrees and my face is melting into my hands. The closest cup of ice water would take a bumpy 60 minute tuk tuk ride to the city. Being in the bush, is hell.    

47. I need food.  I need a bed.  I need booze. 

48.  Sinner and a Sage

49. She rubbed her hand over the sheet, pressing into each wrinkle wondering where he had gone.    At morning light, he still had not returned.  She called his cell phone, his job, his mother, friends, and even the woman he left her for once or twice…nothing.  No one had heard from him, or seen him.  She replayed the events of the day before, over, and over again…

50. Sex. Love. Liberation

51.  Make Love, Not Porn. 

52. Six Word Story:  Stare gaze. Eat cherries in season. 

53. I’d found myself, again, and for 6 months straight I buried that unchanged girl beneath excessive kick boxing classes, yoga, and candle light mediations.  He didn’t believe I possessed the capacity to change and now as I lay under the sheets naked and highly disappointed after approximately 59 seconds of sex, I didn’t either.  

54. I threw away my vibrator today.  First, I wanted to have a ritual and bury it in a shallow grave filled with lavender and sunflower petals, but I had to downplay her importance.  So I tossed her into the kitchen garbage pail and threw a left over smoothie on top, to seal her tomb. 

55. Sex is Penetration. 

56. The blue pills are xanax.  She had been taking since his disappearance to cope and he knew.  He had been watching her.  He knows she hasn’t started seeing anyone, gone to work, or done much since he left. 

57. After 13 hours of irritation, teeth clenching, and sobbing I have no idea that withdrawal symptoms would be this fucking bad.  I booked this trip as a self-imposed drug detoxification program.   I don’t smoke or drink, but I’d basically given up my life for two men.  Detoxing from being love sick, from two penises, and toxic spit fire fights.  

58. My sexuality is Mine. 

59. We felt like two stars in a constellation. 

60. I kept shifting and rearranging my legs in the tiny airplane seat.  I sat with folded legs, then one on the ground, and one pretzeled underneath my butt.  I just couldn’t get comfortable.  The man next to me was going to visit Bangkok to meet a Thai woman he’d met over the internet.  He was following in his father’s footsteps. His mother moved to New York City in the late 70’s to marry his father.  They went onto have 3 children, and after 30 years of marriage, she left his dad for an old boyfriend she had in Thailand.  I smiled and wished him good luck and favor on his nuptials.  He could tell I was in distress and offered me a sleeping pill.  I wanted it.  Bad.  I wanted to swallow one and not wake up until my trashed- heart had healed, but declined.  The last thing I wanted to wake up to was his fat hairy hand in my yoga pants.  “No thank you, you’ll probably need them for your new wife, it’s her first international flight, right?”  He laughed and flashed a sandwich bag full of tiny white tablets.  “I’ve got enough to put this entire plane to sleep.” 

61. “Bitch!  You put roots on me.  Some kind of spell.” 

62. “You can’t be under a spell, unless you want to be.” 

63. He owns a gun and fires it into the air under full moons and cool December winds.  He is completely in my space now.  Last night was our first time.  Foreplay consisted of watching Zane’s Sex Chronicles on Showtime.   I rested my feet in his lap, a position I take to inconspicuously dick measure.   I eyed the simulated sex scene on television and inserted small talk between her pillow muffled moans.  I wanted to fuck him and get it over with. I needed our first time to be our last.  It would be awkward and awful, and I could send him on his way, shut my heart back down and continue chasing meaning in meaningless sex.  He touched my heart center and my feelings poured out of my eyes.  He caught them one by one with the same hands he used to shoot a gun.  I love him and he’s a goon. 

64. I didn’t care if he’d been dead for over 5 years.  I wanted to see him. 

65. Six Word Story: Please, don’t bite my face again. 

66. Sex cannot be constricted by any one definition.

67. Stars dropped from the onyx sky and bounced on the cabin floor like candied Skittles.  I ate them all. They tasted bright and slid down my throat like thunder and lightning. 

68. My sexuality is Natural. 

69. I went to visit Akilah yesterday and chilled with the Africans in America.  It was lovely.  The kids performed a play about traveling to outer space.  One of the twins stole my flip flops, which he eagerly returned once I asked for them back.  Baby Fatimaah pulled and dangled on people like a tree, smiled with her father’s teeth and chewed barrettes, marbles, and phones.  She wobbled around the world with her eyes wide open and her arms reaching and embracing the space around her.  She sat on my lap and drank shots of koolaid, the red kind. 

 

+1.  I want to go everywhere and eat everything.