Raj and Amy

Sexual language

2008-11-28T18:23:00.005Z

There are those of us who have fallen terminally in love with language. We savor the step of a sentence that balances perfectly on the tongue. We taste the cadence of the well turned phrase, or the right word, rightly used. We lose sleep over our grammatical infelicities, a period that should have been a question mark, or some accidental misspelling. We agonize like wild over a comma, dropping it at ten o'clock in the morning, restoring it again at seven-thirty in the evening: a full day's work. We punctuate our grocery lists. For us, happy are excursions to the dictionary. Paradise is a vast library, or dipping a quill in a well of Italian ink. The pitter of fingers on a keyboard is a poor substitute for the scratch of a favored pen over heavy paper, or the ring and the zip and the slap of a typewriter. Still, it is music, and it is art.

But what is the language of sex?

I don't know.

Pleasure in bed is somehow transitory. It lasts for a time, and then it dissipates. We bathe in its radiance and find ourselves renewed, yet the afterglow fades. We remember fondly, but pleasure is always present tense. Indeed, the present tense that matters is not even our own. It is the pleasure we give that signifies. It is the heaviness of a lover's breath, the flushness that paints a lover's skin, the muttered imprecations offered back, grunts and groans and wet, squishy sounds, the sheen of sweat, the way the scents do change, the quickening pulse, how a lover's face contorts into a rictus in advance of the first spasm, and the ecstatic paroxysm, accompanied by its triumphal roar: these are what endow sex its quality. And what language is this?

We find sex in our nakedness, imperfections visible, and are received, flawed as we are. Sex is a binding touch. Skin pressing on skin, breathing conjoined, limbs entangled, we find acceptance in this act. What matters is that we are invited by another to share and to partake. We are offered the solace of companionship and asked to collaborate in its design. We are, for a time, no longer alone, and the fact of this having happened, we retain afterward. The names we give to the things that we do: futuere, pedicare, irrumare, gamahuching, tête-bêche, feuille de rose; fucking and licking and sucking and getting it on rough; other things unlisted and other things unnamed: these annunciate the truth and the accident of our redemption.

There are certain sounds, I have found, that are native to every language. Though they trip ineloquently from the tongue in moments of passion, in the instant of sudden and unexpected delight — these are my favorites.

Things I like

2008-07-24T14:25:00.007+01:00

I like how you tease the penis through my underpants, the grip of fingers at the scrotum, how your touch traces the vein up and up and up. I like the way the fabric darkens and dampens with the suction of your lips (soft) and the little spot of precome, which oozed from the tip that your tongue gingerly tastes. I like when you nose me from below and nuzzle your face at me and the warmth of your body huddled so near.

I like the pressure your lips exert along the sweep of my shaft; the kisses you are able to apply to my groin with my penis imbedded in your throat; the rhythm of your breathing while you hold the cock inside, unmoving. I like how your tongue stretches to tickle my balls; how that tongue whirls around the underside of the shaft on the upstroke; how it flicks over the frenulum at the crest; the way it rasps down my length as you fall. I like the silkiness of your spittle; how your cheeks bow and bulge; how you slap them; the way your mouth rotates as you fuck your face on to my prick.

I like running my fingers through your hair, gathering it together in a bundle, and rubbing your scalp for luck. I like stroking your back and shoulders, bending to slap your buttocks, and holding your breasts, weighing them, pulling and twisting the teats. I like wrapping my hands about your neck in order to feel myself moving there, underneath skin and muscle.

I like when your chin is all sticky and wet. I like the flush of skin, a brow furrowed in concentration, sweat beaded there, and on the upper lip. I like the guttural sounds, you gulping for air. I like how your fingers caress and tug at my balls; how your thumb taps the perineum; how you claw at my buttocks when I force myself inside. I like that finger of yours shoved into my asshole. I like those lazy figure-eights your nose traces against my pubis; how your nails scratch my thighs; how your teeth nip skin; how you lip the sac. I like the way your eyes look at me, conscious of the power you wield, conscious also of the power you yield. I like that you are unashamed to lick where I piss. I like that you are generous enough to accept my semen over your tongue. I like licking the sperm from your lips.

I like as well to reciprocate.

Sugasm #139

2008-07-12T17:49:00.002+01:00

The best of this week’s blogs by the bloggers who blog them. Highlighting the top 3 posts as chosen by Sugasm participants. Want in Sugasm #140? Submit a link to your best post of the week using this form. Participants, repost the link list within a week and you’re all set.

This Week’s Picks
Flunking A Call
“I fell silent again and tried to think. What did he want?”

Revision
“He seemed… perfect. ”

Shaving, revisted.
“I don’t do it for society, for anyone who will or will not be seeing it. I do it for me.”

Mr. Sugasm Himself
Sugar Bank

Editor’s Choice
Exploitation, objectification and breaking the law…

More Sugasm

Join the Sugasm

See also: Fleshbot’s Sex Blog Roundup each Tuesday and Friday.

(Sugasm participants should re-post all the links above within a week. The following links may be excluded as long as you include all the above links.)

Scene from a fourth of July foursome

2008-07-10T04:39:00.006+01:00

Fingers tugging on the sac, Jen made love to the erection. The heat of her kisses blanketed the penis. The spittle that reflected the lamplight made my dark skin gleam.

As Jen sucked me, I watched Amy next to us, sucking Diego. She slavered over his prick. Though Amy had the hand span of a pianist, her fingers looked small on his penis. The grip of one hand couldn't squeeze around his girth. Her mouth accommodated no more than the glans.

"Here. Try this," Diego said.

He lay on the carpet supine and brought his knees up and apart for Amy, who positioned herself between them. The new angle helped her catch the trick of it, and she went halfway down the shaft, her hands masturbating the rest of him.

Hunched over Diego and giving herself orally to his pleasure, Amy looked inviting. I tilted Jen's head away from me and rose from the couch. "Follow," I told her. Moving to Amy's rear, I raised her to her knees and entered from behind. Amy squeaked at the sudden intrusion of my cock in her vagina. The words she spoke were lost, however; she mumbled them around the shaft in her mouth.

I fucked Amy for a few seconds, then presented the penis to Jen for suck. Her cheeks ballooned and collapsed, the tongue sliding along the underside of the shaft, her pursed lips applying pressure near the base. As Jen sucked the taste of Amy from my skin, the slickness of pussy coated her chin, combining with the saliva already present. So it went, my cock alternating between cunt and mouth. Each time, I allowed Jen to suck me longer and buried myself deeper within her throat.

"Let me fuck you," said Diego to Amy.

"Throw me a condom, too," I said as she rummaged through her bag.

The black square packet proved impossible for me to open. I bit at it with my teeth and succeeded only in tearing away a piece of the border at one corner.

"Give it here," said Jen. Her nails made quick work of the wrapper, and she rolled the condom on.

As with Amy, I entered Jen doggy fashion. I took her in long, steady, metronomic strokes. When I hit bottom, I spun my palms on her buttocks and pressed my weight down on her from above. She thrust herself back at me from underneath, which set her breasts to wobbling.

The distinctive pleasures of two cunts and a mouth disposed me to orgasm. I squeezed my eyes shut and listed the primes to keep from coming.

When I opened, I glanced at Amy and Diego. He was still on his back. Amy sat on top. She faced away from Diego, but was supported by his hands on her hips. The entrance to her pussy stretched wide to admit the cock inside. Amy torqued her pelvis in a circle as though she were dancing. The muscles in her thighs stood in relief as she squatted and lifted from his prick.

Apparently, Diego was nearer to the precipice than I was. When he informed Amy that he was going to come, she scrabbled off of him. "In my mouth," she said. "I want to taste." Dragging the condom off, she used her left hand to hold the cock upright and latched her lips on to his tip. The semen filled her mouth to overflowing and dribbled over her clutching fingers, and still she sucked. Her wedding ring caught the light.

I had buried myself to the balls in Jen and stopped moving in order to watch them finish.

"Fuck me," Jen said, craning her head backward. She captured my lips in a kiss. The muscles of her cunt tightened on the sides of my shaft. I went back to counting primes.

I lasted five more minutes, and when I came, we had shifted positions so that I was lying on top of her.

As I recovered my breath in post-coital splendor, I noticed Amy and Diego spooned together. They were lost in wet kisses. I smiled and set to work licking Jen's pussy so that she too would come.

Sugasm #138

2008-07-01T19:31:00.003+01:00

The best of this week’s blogs by the bloggers who blog them. Highlighting the top 3 posts as chosen by Sugasm participants. Want in Sugasm #139? Submit a link to your best post of the week using this form. Participants, repost the link list within a week and you’re all set.

This Week’s Picks
You’re going to come for me.
“I imagined her, bound. Wrists behind her back, whimpering.”

Champagne Orgasms
“I cry out, begging for him to stop, begging him not to”

Tie one on
“He slipped his hands under my blouse and teased my nipples and breasts with his strong hands.”

Mr. Sugasm Himself
Sugar Bank

Editor’s Choice
The Look

More Sugasm

Join the Sugasm

See also: Fleshbot’s Sex Blog Roundup each Tuesday and Friday.

Gustav Klimt Nachlass

2008-07-01T03:08:00.004+01:00

We are at Amy's parents' for a few days. As Amy said, I mostly slept on the flight to the States. I usually pass out on airplanes. (A membership in the five mile high club is still in our future.)

When we reached Chicago, we deposited our stuff at the house, which is in the suburbs, and returned to the city to meet up with a friend from graduate school for dinner and drinks. Amy, who doesn't sleep on planes, was dead tired by the time we got home. Staying up late this way killed any residual jet-lag though.

While Amy and her parents were out having dinner this evening, I stayed in to take care of some work. (For one thing, our taxes are extremely late!) When I took a break, I noticed among Amy's bookshelves, cluttered with the volumes we left behind on the move, a catalogue from a Klimt exposition.

The paintings are by now iconic of fin de siècle Vienna, the Secession movement, Art Nouveau. It's the drawings I found engrossing tonight.

The important ones, the ones he sold, he signed in capital letters, the given name sitting atop the surname, the U indistinguishable from the V:

GVSTAV
KLIMT
The lesser works have an extra word added beneath: NACHLASS.

Where Egon Schiele twisted and exaggerated the human form, Klimt is essentially honest. There is a cleanness to his line, an economy in the gestures that belies their weight and occasional messiness. In these sketches, I see verisimilitude.

Klimt likes the same things I like: a woman with upturned buttocks; a nude (seated or standing) raising her arms high above her head thereby bringing the breasts to prominence; a woman lying on the bed: naked below, her thighs apart, a hand on the pubis, the fingers in an arch: reaching, seeking, finding. He likes two women in tandem, asleep and spooned together — lesbianism when it still had the ability to shock.

I remember my first time watching two women at play, observing how they made love, the smoothness of the motions, the fluidity of movements, foreplay stretched out like the hours of the night, kisses and touches, how it is all grace and glide. I remember having two of them to command, instructing them to 69 or finger each other or tribade for their pleasure and mine. I remember joining them, the way their attention converged on my cock, being in one and then the other, the velvet grip of one woman's pussy so different in juxtaposition to the next.

Jen cradled my balls in her hands. Her fingers brushed the perineum while her lips wrapped about my shaft. She prepared me with saliva and tongue and placed me inside Amy's anus. She kissed us both while we fucked and cleaned my cock afterward. We are spending Fourth of July weekend at Jen's. She has a new boyfriend.

Gustav Klimt worked in his studio "surrounded by mysterious, naked women who, while he stood silent before his easel, wandered up and down his workshop, sprawled, lazed about, and made the best of the day, always ready at a signal from the Master to hold obediently still whenever he spotted a pose, a movement, that attracted his sense of beauty when captured hurriedly in a quick sketch." I wonder if the Master had sex with the models in his drawings, with two (or more) at once.

Would that a life in physics were the same. I could use the distraction between one page of equations and the next.

Maharaja

2008-06-29T23:48:00.008+01:00

Waking

Even the man who is happy
glimpses something
or a hair of sound touches him

and his heart overflows with a longing
he does not recognize

then it must be that he is remembering
in a place out of reach
shapes he has loved

in a life before this

the print of them still there in him waiting

--Kalidasa

We're flying back to the States for a few weeks -- an important family wedding for me, research opportunities and visits with once and future colleagues for Raj.

Raj sleeps in the middle seat. He let me have the window because I like to see what's happening outside the plane. With the advent of this blog, I also need privacy while I type. I'd rather not offer the chintz-skirted matron in the aisle seat a glimpse of Raj and Amy in creation.

So often people fantasize about sex in planes. It just seems too obvious to me (if attempted in the cabin) and too smelly and uncomfortable (if attempted in the bathroom). I type instead, and I sit with my legs uncrossed and slightly apart. Beneath the airline's fleece blanket, Raj's hand has drifted, warm and heavy, to rest on my thigh. It's as if he checks my compliance in his sleep.

I think about my maharaja.

The maharaja fantasy is one of my earliest. It goes back to when I was about fourteen, had seen Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, and had read a few too many of my aunt's Bertrice Small harem bodice-rippers. I craved a swarthy, silken exoticism not evident in my small Midwestern town. I craved powerful, sensual, demanding men not evident in my small Midwestern town.

My maharaja grew up with me. At first he was a delicate but imperious teenaged prince, smooth cheeked, with knowing brown eyes and sensual lips. He was haughty until he fell in love with my ivory curves, my virgin's sexual curiosity, and my spunky intelligence. I touched myself as I imagined his erection straining against violet silk trousers. I came imagining him on top of me despite my maidenly protests, entering me, thrusting, rubbing his cock against my moist clit until I came, plunging back into me, ejaculating.

Sometimes he thrust between my breasts, spattering my chest and neck. I loved it as much as he did. Sometimes I would open his silken trousers and take his tawny length in my mouth. I would let him come as he pleased, down my throat, on my cheek, in my hair.

I became his only wife, gliding about in silk saris and jeweled earrings by day, being seduced and conquered each night. We lived happily ever after among filigreed archways, sandalwood incense, vibrant flowers, and dancers in sherbet gauze.

Over time I grew darker, wiser.

My maharaja is still slim in build, still has smooth-shaven cheeks unlike his bearded predecessors, still has knowing brown eyes. He has many wives, but he calls for me the most. He could have his way with any of his harem, but he claims his darker urges are only satisfied with me. I understand the dark urges. I share them. Even if I fight him, that is part of the pleasure for us both.

He ties me with silk or shackles me with iron. If I have misbehaved he spanks me, or stripes me with an English riding crop, and strokes himself until he creams on the scarlet marks. I am left wanting, empty, until I suck him to a second arousal.

Sometimes he takes my ass, directing me to touch myself in front. The tight, pounding climaxes in both my passages are incredible. We watch our straining bodies in a gilt-framed mirror, light and dark flesh throbbing against sapphire silk sheets.

We play chess together. When I win, we switch for a while, and I may request that he bring me to orgasm however I wish. If he wins, I must compose a new song and perform it with the sitar at a dinner. I am a shy performer, but he finds my lyrics thoughtful, and my melodies sweetly sad.

His wives he usually leaves alone while they are pregnant, but he continues to come to me when I swell with his child. He comes to me, and in me, and on my ripening breasts and belly. He ties me with oriental rope designs to accentuate my new proportions. I struggle against the bonds, delighting in his eyes upon my plump, vulnerable flesh. I am swollen, sensitive. The baby is heavy within me. I crave fucking, but he has forbidden me to masturbate. He wants me hungry for him at every moment.

I have made the ultimate submission, nurturing his seed inside me, but I feel myself becoming a new, mysterious, and powerful figure. And my maharaja has made his own submission. I've been bred by him, and I am changing, but still, he needs me.

God. I could go on. I haven't mentioned our fucking atop the palace roof, beneath a full moon, where anyone might hear my cries and glance up. I haven't mentioned swimming naked in a warm scented pool with him, and diving beneath to suck his cock as long as I can without a breath. But I'm too hot and bothered right now. If I unfold my own blanket and lift my skirt a little...his hand is so close...

I wonder whether Raj will mind if I awaken him.

The return

2008-06-24T23:14:00.009+01:00

"Hi. It's me. I am at the airport."

"Don't tell me. The flight's delayed."

"No. I'm on time for a change."

"When do you get in?"

"Two hours give or take. Want to meet me?"

"It's raining."

"Wear a raincoat. Wear only a raincoat."

"You want me to come barefoot?"

"Oh. OK. You can wear shoes, too. But nothing else. I mean it."

***

Amy met me outside HM Customs. When I kissed her, I felt the unrestrained motion of breasts beneath the trenchcoat. Pulling her to me, I kissed her again, and with her body pressed up tight against mine, I reached my hand into the space between buttons to feel skin I had not touched in three long weeks. Her tit fit the mold of my palm exactly. I scissored two fingers on the nipple, pulling as my tongue spilled past her teeth.

On the tube into the city, I gripped the inside of Amy's thigh halfway up, where the trenchcoat ended and the flap separated. A long time ago, I told Amy that when she was with me, I wanted her legs uncrossed and partway open. This was why.

As I filled her in about the last days of my trip, my fingertips sketched abstract patterns on her skin.

In the apartment building, on the steps of the fourth floor landing, I untied the sash of the coat and unbuttoned her. I knelt to kiss her lips and tasted salt wetness there. We climbed the final two flights of stairs with her coat draped over my arm.

Once inside, I fucked Amy: her mouth, her cunt. We kept changing positions, and it required all the self-control I possessed not to sperm in an instant. I took her on the sofa with me on top and with me below. I took her on the coffee table from behind. I had Amy bent over the desk; Amy kneeling on the floor, sucking my balls while I pressed the shaft flat against her face. I took Amy on the bed, on hands and knees at first, then sprawled on her back and pinned. Her head dangled from the mattress when I skull fucked her. I came imbedded in her throat, scrotum at her nose, my hands forcing her face to my groin. She took the orgasm in great swallows that I felt in my spine.

It was beautiful. She was and is.

Sugasm #137

2008-06-24T15:22:00.003+01:00

The best of this week’s blogs by the bloggers who blog them. Highlighting the top 3 posts as chosen by Sugasm participants. Want in Sugasm #138? Submit a link to your best post of the week using this form. Participants, repost the link list within a week and you’re all set.

This Week’s Picks

I can only be what I am.
“It’s strangely refreshing, to really submit and give up that control, and not have to make decisions.”

Over the Edge
“He tells me to hold still, in that soft, controlling voice of his.”

A Story Told Out of Order and Out of Character - Part 4
“You thought you could just come to my room and tease me?”

Mr. Sugasm Himself
Sugar Bank

Editor’s Choice
A former slut examined

More Sugasm

Join the Sugasm

See also: Fleshbot’s Sex Blog Roundup each Tuesday and Friday.

Reclaimed

2008-06-20T21:27:00.011+01:00

"I have a little idea," says Camille. She glances at the webcam.

She'd come over for wine after a few private forum messages. We assumed no poses, played no roles - we were just two girls who'd hit it off and wanted to talk away from the noise and demands of the clubs. She came straight from work, still wearing a respectable black skirt, knit top, and scarf. She didn't try to touch me. We curled up at either end of the sofa, facing each other, sipping wine; we exchanged only teasing foot pokes when the confessions and ribbing got too serious.

We talked about my distress last weekend, and the conclusions I'm reaching about my body, Raj, sex, and everything. I mentioned my upcoming webcam date with Raj that night. He was due home in a few days. I wanted him to anticipate his return.

So: "I have a little idea," says Camille.

At nine sharp Raj skypes in. I am kneeling before the camera in a black thong and bra. Camille kneels behind me, peering over my shoulder. She has stripped down to simple red boy-cut panties and a snug white camisole. Her figure is lean; she has not much need for a bra. Her red hair hangs long and silky down her arms. Nutmeg freckles sprinkle her pale limbs, her chest. I want to touch the skin, to feel the texture of such freckling. I resist. I know I'll have a chance later.

"Pleased to meet you, Mr. Raj," Camille purrs. She runs her fingers through my hair, then takes a handful and pulls my head back. She kisses my neck, rubs her cheek against mine. "Your wife owes me a second try. We thought you would like to watch. Amy, love, do you have anything to say?"

From behind me, Camille's hands drift to my bra, scooping my breasts from the cups. She kneads my nipples. I'm already creamy with arousal at what we're doing. I know the thong is moist within my folds. "Come home soon," I manage.

Idly hefting the weight of my breasts, Camille adds: "We know this is unexpected, Mr. Raj. Amy would like to give you the option of watching the show in privacy. As a masked observer. Especially since you don't know me. Do please shut off your camera if you prefer. Pour yourself a drink while I..."

She pulls my head back farther and angles in for a tongue kiss. Her hair drifts across my arm, my hip, raising a frisson of gooseflesh. She smells like ginger, still. She tastes like pinot noir and a hint of lip salve. I whimper at the strain of the position, at the newness of her against my body. I whimper because it arouses me to whimper.

She does me first. The camera watches; Raj watches, in Geneva. I sit at the foot of the bed. Camille binds my arms tight behind me with the same black cords Raj had used years ago. I spread my legs for her. Ropes encircle my knees and are knotted to the bedposts. I am splayed for the camera, my breasts high and bare, my pussy shielded only by the black thong string. Camille rolls it aside soon enough.

"God. You're already soaking the quilt."

Camille pulls her camisole over her head and tosses it aside. Her breasts are delicate mounds, her nipples copper coins. A tall, confident huntress, she pads to the toybox. With a small smile she selects a dildo -- the brown one, thick and ridged. She perches beside me at the foot of the bed and suckles my nipple. As she sucks, she slides the brown cock inside me. I squirm and moan, leaning back on my bound arms, trying to ease the cock's entry. I am wet enough to take it all, but not before some struggle.

She shoves the cock into me again, again. "Show him. Show him how much you miss him." I cry out, humping against the thrusts as well as I can. My breasts bounce with my efforts. The ropes at my knees are strained; they leave red marks in my flesh.

"Good," Camille says. She stuffs the cock inside me one last time, pressing it in deep, hard against my womb. I can almost feel it pushing my belly outward. She rubs my clit. I scream when I come. God, oh god.

She caresses my cheek and kisses me again. Long, slow...fingers tease my waist, stroke my sweating thighs. I pant against her mouth. She eases the dildo from my body; my cunt still spasms around it. I groan at the pleasure pain of its withdrawal. But it's her turn.

Camille unfastens my knees, but my arms remain tied behind me. Now she sits on the foot of the bed. She is naked. Her red panties have joined her camisole in a corner of the room somewhere. Her long legs are spread; she leans back comfortably on her elbows. I kneel between her calves, my back to the camera. I think Camille has done some attractive knotwork with the cords. I must be a pretty picture for Raj: black knots, the hourglass of my waist and hips, the dark thong in my cleft.

Mellow with wine, glowing with orgasm, I lick Camille's ginger-furred folds. I am tentative at first. She does not direct me, but she encourages me when I do well by moaning and shifting her hips forward. I taste salt, smell tang and ocean. I drive my tongue inside her and rub my nose against her clit. "Good," she says again. She teases her own nipple with long fingers, the copper round becoming a stiff point.

I tongue her clit, again and again. Camille's gasps become reflexive. Her belly undulates; her thighs are taut. I fuck her with my tongue again. I roll my face from side to side, my eyes drifting shut as I delve into the scent and wetness of her. She comes with a single jerk of her hips. Her thighs clasp my head. I am imprisoned, my face buried in her pulsations.

"Good," she sighs, one last time. She releases me, flops back on the bed. "Turn the camera off, love."

She has not untied my arms. I rise with care. I lean down toward the camera, wink into cyberspace, at Raj, and begin shutting everything down with my tongue.

A sexual dream

2008-06-17T22:41:00.019+01:00

I haven't been sleeping well.

I am in the hotel. The heater — it's on though it is solstice week — hisses in the night. Neither bed in the room offers comfort. There isn't a body beside me to share her warmth.

I think of you, Amy. I dream of you.

You are on the floor, on your knees. Your legs are spread. The moisture that has dripped from your cunt has darkened the carpet.

I am standing behind you. I am bending forward. My hands are on your breasts, measuring their balance, weighing them. I slap a tit. It causes you to wince. The curve reddens where I have struck the skin.

"No hands," I instruct. "If you move, I will hit you again."

My fingers wrap in your hair. I clutch you by the scalp and drive your face forward over the cock that is in your mouth. I force it into your throat. I tell you how to fellate the man's shaft. I show you how I want it done.

The man is a stranger to us. I don't recognize his face.

The lips that work his shaft, they are pursed and swollen. Spit dribbles down your neck. Your eyes are against his belly. I raise your arms behind your back by the wrists, which I have clapped together, and press my weight against your head. Because you move your shoulders, I reach down to spank your ass.

The vision dissolves before I see it end.

Imprint

2008-06-16T22:02:00.007+01:00

Raj,

I'm sorry I didn't answer your call tonight. I'm not ready to talk yet. I don't know what there is to talk about, really. We've had an agreement from the beginning and you've done nothing wrong within it. I'm the one who has done wrong, laying my sulk across your pleasure like a damp grey veil.

I'm in a strange space right now: hurting deeply and feeling immature for it, yet unable to help myself.

Something in me has changed since our wild dating days. The word that came to mind was "imprinting" -- like when baby geese hatch, they latch on to a parent-creature in their early hours and follow it around henceforth. It's ridiculous, but I worry that I've become sexually imprinted so that I only want you. Only you will feel right kissing me anyplace, touching me everywhere, mounting me, coming inside me.

I flirt far and wide. I masturbate thinking about anyone from Pierce Brosnan to Legolas the elf to the clerk at our favorite wine shop. But I like the wanting more than I'd like the actual thing. I haven't yet felt the urge to go back to someone's apartment, get naked, and open my entire body to them. To learn how to please them and how to get them to please me. To let them see me sweating, smeared, exhausted after a climax. To fall asleep next to them and smell their breath the next morning. You're the only one I want that way.

A little game like I shared with Camille is different. I played with her that night because I needed to be wanted, especially by a smart, selective someone like her. But I would do it again and enjoy myself. Indeed, I would do more, with her and with others, because it would please you. It would thrill me to be watched and encouraged and directed and admired, then taken home to be yours again. But I don't know that I have the urge anymore to pursue solo beginning-to-end seductions when I am away from you.

Am I becoming old? It seems too much like work to do such a thing. I can't see myself in Amsterdam next month fucking a businessman I've met at a bar, no matter how dashing and witty he was and how horny I was. Too much effort, too much awkwardness, too many questions, too many loose ends.

I don't know if I'm making sense. It's getting late. I'm not drunk, but I had a little too much coffee at Monmouth while I drafted this entry and it has made me touchy and scattered.

Love,
Amy

Trentemøller - "Moan"
Trentemøller - "Miss You"

Dear Amy

2008-06-15T23:14:00.018+01:00

Dear Amy,

I am glad you and Camille had fun. I find it curious that you were submissive with her. You aren't always with other women. She sounds like someone I would love to meet. Heather, too. You will have to take me sex clubbing when I get back.

Most of my friends in the professional community know that I am married. I keep the ring on when I am with colleagues and in my pocket when I go out alone.

I have known Catherine for five years. We met at a summer school when we were both students. She is defending her Ph.D. this August and starting a post-doc in September. I had my ring on that night. Catherine knows that I am married. Further explanation was neither requested nor offered.

It was weird with Catherine after the fact: sitting with her during seminars, making conversation between talks (social and work), having dinner (in company). I like her. I am friends with her. There's zero romantic interest on my part. A second encounter is exceedingly unlikely. Things have changed with her though. It's an odd balance now. My footing is suddenly unsteady. It may be years to recover.

Know that you are enough, Amy. I don't want anyone else. It's a lousy analogy, but as drunk as I am, it's the best I can offer tonight: Just as a diet that consists exclusively of the best dishes prepared spectacularly by the greatest chef in the world but only in the Italian style leaves an absence, so also does sex with one partner to the exclusion of all others. We are large. We contain multitudes.

I am not at all jealous when you get good sex from someone else. I rejoice in the fact of your orgasms.

As for the rest: we will speak about it before I write it.

It's raining in Geneva. I am to bed.

Love,

Raj

Camille

2008-06-15T14:11:00.010+01:00

We have rules, and Raj and Catherine remain within them. Still, I choked down loneliness -- and niggling discontent -- when Raj called to tell me about her. It was not a good conversation; I was all bright monosyllables. Oh! Ah! My my! Sure! No! Yes! Bye!

It was even worse to read his intimate writing about her.

I am not the libertine I would like to be. I tell myself that Raj was sampling Catherine and her brown nipples on his travels, as I might sample ceviche or foie gras or other things we don't keep in our fridge at home. Still, a little voice whispers, aren't I enough? I contain multitudes.

I have said before that I am prideful.

My mother, a homemaker, was able to accompany my father to most of his conferences. To Warsaw she went, and London, Toronto, Jerusalem, Orlando, Detroit, Aachen, others. He gave papers and heard papers; she shopped, toured, and charmed his colleagues; he and she dined together then went to bed together. I assumed that my mother went for the companionship and to encounter new parts of the world. Was she also keeping an eye on my dashing, curious father?

I have wished to be as free-spirited as Robert Heinlein's affectionate, orgiastic characters. I want to be pleased when my husband makes love to a strong, shapely, smart woman -- pleased not only because he is pleased, but pleased because if she's delicious he'll bring her home to share with the rest of us. I have not reached that level.

I prickled with sick green energy as I dressed for my club night with Heather. I wore the blush latex dress that my husband had given me as an anniversary present. In a fit of devil-may-care, I wore only pale, gartered stockings beneath - no panties. I considered removing my wedding ring, but at that moment, my cell rang: Heather was in a taxi waiting below. Better to leave the ring on anyway, I decided. It would provide a good excuse if I found someone at the bar too pushy. I wondered if Raj ever removed his ring. If he didn’t, how did he speak of it to people like Catherine?

Heather and I danced alone, and we danced together, playful, never quite touching. Then we sat at the bar with drinks while she introduced me to people whose usernames I might recognize from the fetish forum we frequent. Camille made the most impact. She was a tall, rangy redhead, her long hair coiled up and held with black sticks, her hazel eyes twinkling beneath smoky eyeshadow. She wore a slender black suit, a crisp white shirt, and a black cravat. She reminded me of Marlene Dietrich. She smelled like ginger and black tea.

Camille and I talked about my home in America, and the American print exhibition at the British Museum. We talked about her upcoming trip to Japan and her penchant for Japanese erotica. I mentioned Michael Manning. She collected him already. She left after a friend patted her elbow and whispered in her ear, but she left with a disappointed moue and hopes that she'd see me again at the club.

By agreement, Heather and I parted ways at around midnight. I was comfortable with the layout of the club by then, and she had an appointment in a private playroom with a group of friends. I danced a bit more although my feet were weary in spike heels. I must have been enjoying myself too much because I earned the attention of a creepy guy in his sixties: crumpled smoking jacket, no shirt, leather pants, watery eyes, and a cat o' nine tails in his pocket. I decided it was time to leave. I had my phone to my ear to call a taxi and was weaving my way to the coat check when Camille called out to me.

"Amy, love! Join us."

Her table was large but crowded, a bouquet of leather straps, metal rings, medical costume, Victorian corsetry, speculative gazes, laughing faces. Several people sat on laps. I didn't know where to go until Camille patted her own lap with a sly grin. Creepy smoking jacket guy melted away, knowing he'd lost his prey.

A bartender came to take fresh orders and clear away the hodgepodge of empty glasses. I ordered a glass of pinot noir. "Am I too heavy?" I asked Camille.

"Pfft. Little thing. I can bear it while you have another drink. You'll likely find my lap too bony before I find you too heavy."

"Are you like Santa Claus? Can I whisper what I want in your ear?"

"Ask, and I shall decide if ye receive."

"New kink! What do you want in her ear?" some jokester asked.

It was all mild teasing. I didn't have any requests in mind. I simply enjoyed Camille's laughter against my bare shoulder, her breath against the nape of my neck, her delicious scent. She is one of those charismatic touchers: her long hands were busy, sensual, but never offensive. She traced idle designs on my latex-clad thigh, she caressed my hair, she patted my side to emphasize her points. She even toyed with my taut nipple through the latex cup of my dress. No one at the table blinked.

Conversation in the cozy circle meandered from Tolkien to U.S. politics to embarassing childhood moments to tales of lost virginity. Somehow the issue of marriage came up: same sex marriage, polygamy, the point of marriage, all of that. Someone asked about my ring. I explained that I will never find anyone else who grips my spirit like Raj, but also that we were curious people in a big world. We wanted to remain open to new sensations and personalities. I shared our basic rules for extramarital encounters: Try everything -- anyone, that is -- once, and the fun things twice, but no more than that. Full disclosure. Protection is mandatory. There must have been something in the wine, though. I found myself telling everyone about Raj and Catherine away in Paris. My voice faltered. Camille changed the subject to the summer's upcoming films, but I rose from her lap and made my excuses. It was time to go home.

"No, Amy! Stay. Love. Michael, make her stay."

The gothic waif beside us slid under the table. He wrapped his arms around one of my calves and one of Camille’s calves, a human shackle.

"Will you stay?" she whispered in my ear. I nodded.

"Try everything once," she murmured. She shifted me a bit in her lap. I draped my arm around her neck. Beneath a sheltering drape of black tablecloth her hand dipped between my thighs. I was already hot and moist there, held snug in pink latex.

"Naughty girl," she said, approving of my nakedness.

Our tablemates discussed Prince Caspian, the new Harry Potter, and other upcoming blockbusters. Camille pleasured me. Her fingers were sensitive on my clit, sliding along my folds, plunging into my wet center. Her arm barely moved. I knew what was happening, Camille knew, and Michael certainly knew; but the others at the table appeared oblivious. They were either lost in their own games, or they chose to ignore my tremors of pre-orgasm.

I could feel Michael against my ankle. His penis had stiffened in his PVC trousers. "He's hard down there," I whispered to Camille.

"Please him if it pleases you."

I slid my foot from its shoe and massaged Michael with my stockinged sole. Overwhelmed by the sensations of Camille's fingers on my pussy and Michael's erection against my foot, I came quickly. I gasped against Camille's neck. She pressed her knuckles into my spasming cunt until the climax subsided. She drew her hand up discreetly, took a casual sip from her martini. My fluids smeared the glass. She regarded the marks with a wry smile.

"I think you've left a puddle on my trousers. Serves me right," she murmured. She raised her fingers to my lips. They smelled of rubber and pussy. "Kiss," she ordered. I obeyed.

I don't know what became of Michael. I had forgotten him. He released our legs soon afterward and hopped up from beneath the table. He kissed Camille's wrist and headed for the dancefloor. I still feel a bit selfish. I hope he found his own release later. Perhaps he brought himself off under the black tablecloth.

I slid into Michael's chair, feeling like a casual old friend while I finished my wine. Neither Camille nor I acknowledged our experience, but when I did finally stand to leave, she winked.

"Fun things twice," she reminded me.

I smiled back, leaned down, and kissed her. Not bad at all. Her breath was sweet. -- Robert A. Heinlein, Friday

Catherine

2008-06-12T10:40:00.004+01:00

The wireless connection at the hotel wasn't working properly last night, so I went back to the conference center at the university to send off some e-mails to collaborators in the States. It was a tricky proposition to get into the building at 10 pm, but I managed to talk my way past the security guard at the main gate. (I guess I do speak French well enough!)

I bumped into a woman from the conference named Catherine, a graduate student from Stanford, who was there for a similar purpose. Once we finished what we needed to do, the pair of us decided to hunt up a drink and a bite to eat and descended upon a tiny café in the Latin Quarter.

There was a rinky-dink barely-in-tune piano in one corner of the room. Between dinner and the nightcap, I had just enough wine in my system to shed any inhibitions about playing, but not so much that I missed all the notes. Catherine tried to sing along. She has a lovely laugh.

Her hands worked my shoulders as I played, fingers smoothing away the knots.

The inevitable happened around two, once the café closed. My hotel was nearer, but we wended through the rain-slick streets to hers, holding hands as we navigated the city.

At 8:30 in the morning, three hours ago, I touched her knee through the white cotton sheet, the flat of my hand following her thigh up and up and up. She parted legs for me, and I cupped the center with four fingers and combed the hair on her mons and kissed her compact breasts. The nipples were little pebbles, brown and solid, the one on the left pierced through by a silver hoop that hung from it like a door knocker. I wrestled a condom on and fell on top of her and fell into her, and collecting the hair from her forehead, flattened it down and slipped my tongue past her teeth. Catherine's eyes opened wide as she wrapped her legs about mine and compressed her cunt around my penis and fucked me back.

She is still in bed, pink and naked and unshowered. We have missed the morning session of talks. If I wake her, I think she will blow me.

Red Playhouse

2008-06-08T23:22:00.012+01:00

As I was washing dishes today I was hit by a memory that belied parts of my recent comment on early awareness of my privates. I claimed I was aware of them, but asexually. Not that they were hungered for or coveted, but that they were in danger of inappropriate regard.

I remembered the red wooden playhouse in Mrs. Hart's kindergarten classroom. I remembered the day I was wearing my little plaid dress. I had been engaging in a silly quarrel/flirtation with Simon Anslow on the school bus for days; but that day, I took it into the classroom. It was play time. While other kids rocked in the wooden boat or built forts with cardboard blocks, Simon and I wandered into the red playhouse. I had a sudden inspiration. I smirked at him, then put one Mary Jane on the east windowsill, lifted myself up by means of an interior roof beam, and put the other Mary Jane on the west windowsill. I was, in effect, straddling the playhouse interior.

Simon went down on his knees, looked up my skirt at my panties (what were they that day? Wonder Woman? Strawberry Shortcake?), and made his "heaven eyes." I had known he would -- a slow, sly smile and swooning eyeroll. Pleased, feeling delightfully naughty and bare, I wiggled my hips from side to side while he looked some more.

Christopher invaded at that point. He looked up, gathered the situation, and with a little gasp he claimed he was going to tell on me. I hopped down and sauntered out. Christopher never did tell. We're friends to this day. He's a gay man living in San Francisco. I hope I didn't turn him off girls.

The point is, I wonder what my motives were, what my impetus was. I don't think my intent or my enjoyment was sexual. I was not aroused. I didn't know what sexiness was. But I did know in a flash of insight that Simon would want to see up my skirt, and I savored the power of being able to thrill him with what I was hiding. Perhaps I was simply roleplaying behaviors I had seen on my mom's soap operas, wanting that kind of approving, desirous male regard for myself.

This requires more thought.

Maybe it was more about the panties than about the genitals. Maybe I thought Simon coveted the rare sight of my panties, not the hint of what lay beneath. It may have been true. Among the young, fascination with (or awareness of) genitals often sublimates into fascination with underwear.

Girl on the Metro

2008-06-07T16:49:00.002+01:00

There was a girl on the Metro today. The snugness of her shirt emphasized her chest, the abundant breasts amplified by the straightness of her back, which didn't touch the rise of the seat. She held the posture of a pianist. Her hands played the smoothness of her thighs.

Her skirt was short as hope. Her movements tugged it higher.

She knew that she was being watched, scrutinized, desired — and not only by me. She expected this attention, this hommage. Her lips pulled up with a conscious smirk.

When do women become aware of their sex, how it is hungered after and coveted? It is a power they wield. Those who submit, do they give the power up? Does it increase in its abdication?

Remembering Paris Too

2008-06-05T08:01:00.007+01:00

I was...startled to see Raj's most recent entry. I fought the urge to call his cell: Take it down. Fuck. Find a web cafe and take it down. It's hard to see myself painted that way for the public: a yapping doggy in heat, humiliated in front of the pucker-mouthed French ladies next door -- and whoever else might have heard our animal noises in that close building. Raj has taken this blogging game deeper than I expected, faster.

I thought what happened in Paris would stay in Paris. I was vulnerable, in a strange place and a strange time.

But...Raj. I am equal to whatever you can imagine.

I'm too on-edge to write sex at the moment. I will write about the Afterward.

If the play is rough, Raj takes care of me afterward. I'm a person, not a plaything to lie broken, abandoned until desired for future amusement. Such treatment does not excite me. Raj does not ask me to lie at his feet all night, naked, abraded, covered in semen, and then to cook his breakfast in the morning and serve him on my hands and knees, the tray on my back, only the word Master on my lips. He makes better breakfasts, anyway.

No, our play is confined -- usually -- to moments in the bedroom and opportune branch locations, like the hallway in Paris. It is more intriguing that way for both of us. Where is the thrill, the challenge, the respect if one of us submits throughout life and the other dominates? Even in the bedroom, our roles are not set in stone.

As I was saying, Raj takes care of me. After the long a tergo pounding he gave me, I was tender. I'm a fair-skinned, sensitive girl and I can get cock burns even if I'm juicy for it. Not to mention knee burns. He drew a warm bath in the little tub and assisted me to it. My legs shook. He chose a bottle of wine from his friend's stash and poured me a glass, then sponged the pungent smells of unwashed fucking from his body. I sipped my wine and savored the pulsing sting of my own beaten sex as I lay in the clear water of the tub. A chunk of lavender soap perched near my arm. I anticipated fresh, clean skin and an evening on the town. My jet lag had vanished.

He kissed me on the back of my neck. While I lingered in the tub he would bring temporary sustenance from the Boulangerie Paul, with its arrangements of breads and oranges and jam pots like Dutch still-lifes. It was Wednesday so the Louvre would stay open until ten. Dinner after we'd window-shopped along the Rue Saint-Honoré, and then he wanted me to look at, among other sultry things, Le bain turc by Ingres.

I rested my head against the tile wall and closed my eyes. I was alone in the apartment, but I heard street sounds, neighbor sounds. I wondered what they had made of our sounds. I slid the soap along each limb, over slick wet breasts, rubbed it gently across my vulva beneath the water. I smiled. I would wear the prim black linen shirtdress that fell to my knees.

Somewhere in the Louvre, just before closing so we'd not lose time with the art, I would let him stroke me underneath. I would be wearing only thigh-high stockings, and no panties to conceal my swollen moist center.

Remembering Paris

2008-06-04T22:43:00.032+01:00

Raj here again.

It's conference season. I am flying to Paris tomorrow. I will be there for a week, then in Geneva for about two more weeks.

I miss Amy when I travel. I miss the sex, of course, but more than that, I miss someone to talk to about the day, someone to squabble over the newspaper with in the morning, someone with whom to share a meal at night, a glass of wine, a kiss in bed. I miss my best friend.

The last time I went to Paris, Amy came along. We can't always arrange this, alas.

My old officemate from graduate school is now a banker. He has an apartment in the city that he lent to us. It is in the first arrondissement, north of the Seine, a few blocks from Chatelet les Halles.

We flew in from the States. I sleep easily on airplanes. Amy does not. She was cranky when we landed, frustrated at the delay of the bags on the carousel, grouchy about the heat on the train into the city. But being inside Paris, in the embrace of St. Geneviève, cheered her up considerably. We sat at the café nearest the Metro and had a glass of wine to celebrate our arrival.

My friend's apartment is small, about 300 square feet, on the ninth floor of a slender building. We reached it through narrow streets. The elevator in the building is tiny. The pair of us barely squeezed inside with our suitcases. Three sides of the interior are mirrored. I pushed her against the back one. Tongue claiming the mouth, possessing it, I kissed her hard. My hand was on her throat.

When the elevator shuddered to a halt, I sent Amy to her knees. I threaded my belt around her neck. "You can crawl," I told her.

It took me two trips to carry the luggage from the elevator to the apartment. As usual, Amy had packed more than she needed. I left her by the door, waiting. I heard French through other doors in the hallway. As I opened our door, the neighbors left the next apartment. They saw me with the suitcases, my hand also clasping the end of the belt. They saw Amy on hands and knees.

"Je marche la chienne," I said. Amy's face turned red. She followed me inside swiftly, wordlessly.

The apartment is a single room. The kitchen is an alcove to the side. The bathroom contains the bathtub and sink and also the washing machine. There is no dryer. The clearance to the tub is inches. The room with the toilet doubles as a closet. It is as small as the lavatory in an airplane. There is no proper bed either. The sofa folds out. This is Paris living.

I perused the shelves, found a CD to place in the player. Monk's Dream. Mine.

I instructed Amy to strip and divested myself of my clothes. Amy wore only earrings and my belt. When I was naked, I squatted to my knees and mounted her from behind. We both needed a shower, I realized.

As I fucked her, I directed her to bark.

She didn't sound like a dog.

The secret is to suck the air in instead of blowing it out. I learned the trick from my father and confided it to her.

Better.

I took her hard.

One hand was on her breast, grasping for leverage. The other used the purchase the belt provided to drag her pussy backwards onto my prick.

Amy yelped. She keened and wailed. She was a bitch dog in heat, a mongrel pooch rutting on all fours. The walls of her cunt tightened about my shaft when she came. But I shagged her through the orgasm and fucked her for long minutes afterwards. Her body staggered under the weight of the thrusts, elbows giving way at last. It was my turn then to make canine noises. I barked a series of staccato grunts and spilled against her womb.

Through the window, from a distance, the gargoyles of the cathedral (ugly, beautiful) watched us kiss.

Firsts

2008-06-02T06:32:00.013+01:00

Even at that first glance through the café window, I noticed the glint of confidence and mischief in Raj's eyes. I considered posting a witty Missed Connections ad on craigslist. Instead, some dark angel must have been watching over me, making sure he joined his colleagues at the club a few days later.

It wasn't Raj's kind of place: Sisters of Mercy, Thrill Kill Kult, men and women in eyeliner and vinyl, floggings happening somewhere behind the back bar. I'd have expected a guy like him to hover in his striped buttondown shirt with his startled grad student buddies, nursing his drink at the edge of the dancefloor, gawping at the latex clad women but never making a move. I was wrong about Raj.

He didn't hunt me on the dancefloor. He wasn't one of those drunken desperadoes who slipped behind me and "danced" with me by rubbing their flaccid crotches against my ass. No, he perceived the vibe of the club: many prefer to dance alone. And not all who dance alone are lonely. He got a drink at the bar, watched me for a while. Between songs, he stepped onto the
dancefloor and curved a light hand around my waist.

"Join me when you're ready," he said, and walked away. As though we already knew each other, as though he knew I wasn't done dancing, but he would wait because we had business together.

I managed a few more songs. Really, I wasn't done dancing. But I felt his eyes on me, and I felt the thick heaviness of anticipation swelling between my thighs.

The first dates, the first sex: I won't describe them now; maybe they were too private, too clumsy at first, too exploratory.

I will talk about the first kink.

We had met at a fetish club, but I went there for the music and fashion and freedom. Raj had attended just that one night for sociable reasons. I wanted kink badly, but secretly, and I wasn't sure how to raise the topic.

I wanted kink badly with Raj. That glint of confidence and mischief; his murmured commands in bed -- lean down so I can fuck you deeper -- there -- yes; the spank when I'd titillated him throughout dinner then pretended I had to grade papers for the rest of the evening. But how does a reserved Midwestern girl like me ask to be ravished?

Raj was to attend a department reception until 9:00. I made my preparations during his absence. Vanilla tealights flickered in amber glass, subtle space music drifted from my laptop speakers, and I donned a demi-brassiere and thong of cranberry velvet that made me feel glowing and beautiful. I lay in bed with The Story of O to pass the time. Coiled by my hip were four lengths of thick, soft black cord.

He was late. I fell asleep with the novel spread across my face. The tealights guttered into darkness. The laptop went into hibernation. At around 11:30, I felt him nuzzling me awake.

"Amy. Amy," he whispered, and nipped my ear. He held up a black rope. "Did I miss something?"

I was disoriented, embarassed by then. I lashed out to protect myself. "You missed your chance. Fun party?"

He switched on the bedside lamp. I blinked, pulled the comforter over myself, over the sassy bra and thong. My cheeks were hot.

"I don't think so, and no. Put the blanket down and spread your arms."

"I don't think so, and no."

"Now, Amy."

That glint... I pushed the comforter away and spread my arms above my head. With surprising deftness Raj knotted a cord around my right wrist and fastened it to the bedpost; the same with the left wrist. I tugged at the bonds, testing them, liking the feel of my skin writhing on the bed, liking the sensation of my breasts and core so vulnerable. Raj smiled faintly and scooped my breasts out of the brassiere. They pouted, rose and pearl, above the shallow cups of cranberry velvet.

He tied my ankles, too. I won't tell you our safeword, but after he had tied my ankles, he kissed my belly and whispered that I should choose one. Quickly, before he became distracted. After I announced the word, he knelt between my spread legs and he kissed me lower, and lower. He had left my thong on. He worked around it, nuzzling and tonguing against the velvet until I was aching, then shifting the moist elastic band away from my clit and pussy so he could tongue there, too.

He remained fully clothed. His suit jacket was dark against my pale skin. When I came he buried his face in my shuddering dampness, and his necktie brushed the wet puddle beneath me. As my breathing slowed, he slid the tie from around his neck. He examined the stain, shrugged, and proceeded to tie it around my mouth as a gag -- but not so tight that my maiden safeword would be inaudible.

He pulled his cock from his trousers and fucked me then, without mercy. He bit my neck; rolled my nipple between his fingers while he pounded into me, and I came again, pulling the cords taut and shrieking against the gag. A few more thrusts, his cock thickened and hard as oak, and he spilled inside me. His sweaty shirt crumpled against my bared breasts as he rested atop me. I let him rest for a long while, my limbs still splayed like a fuckdoll's.

He raised his head and kissed my mouth, the gag wet and scented between us.

Peace

2008-06-01T21:58:00.033+01:00

Lord Raj decorated his private office in a spartan manner. The lone ornament in the room, a painting from one of the Third Rim worlds, adorned the wall behind him. Radiocarbon dating placed it at 25000 years old. The colors weren't in their original condition — indeed, it was a matter of some controversy among exo-art historians what the original colors were. The sun that rose was red, that much was inarguable. The beach was rust, the sky pink, the ocean green. The molecule that gave the water its color wasn't the chlorophyll of Old Earth, but magnesium had a way of appearing in different biochemistries. The eye focused on the form in the center of the painting, which was a different shade than any of the others, darker, deeper. What was it? Was it an abstraction or a thing created? Architecture? Did it once live? Was the painting even intended to be art or was it something else? From statues, it was known that the civilization that had made the painting was tripedal and had up to eight other appendages, similar in form and function to elephant trunks, but more adept at the manipulation of objects. The rest of the physiology, the internal structure was unclear. Whatever the shape was meant to represent, it arrested the idea of beauty for Lord Raj. The beauty was foreign, its aesthetics alien. The civilization that had fabricated the work had disappeared, wiped out by war or disease or ennui. He had lost himself in contemplating the form in the center for hours. He knew that Senator Aime must have done so as well. The painting had once been hers after all.

On Lord Raj's desk there was an old chess set, sixty-four squares of brown and green marble, pieces of onyx and ivory occupying four ranks. Lord Raj poured two glasses of the rich red Arbansian wine that he knew was Senator Aime's favorite and gestured to the seat opposite him where the white pieces stood arrayed. "The war ends tonight. The winner of the match sets the first term of armistice and then we alternate." Lord Raj wiped his hand over his forehead. His eyes opening wide, teeth clenching, nostrils flaring, the muscles in his chest tightened and a spasm made his shoulders tremble as he disconnected from the webmind for the first time in two decades.

If Senator Aime would kill him with the weapon she had brought to his office concealed between her breasts, she would do so now when he was beyond the reach of systems. Instead, as he knew she would, she switched off from the webmind also and sat opposite.

He raised his glass to her. "Audentes fortuna juvat," he quoted and took a sip.

Chess lacks the subtlety of cychess. The possibilities are more limited. Before moving to the networked challenges, in political education, everyone first trained with the simple games: chess and go for strategy, some species of cards to learn the art of the bluff, sawaratomi, which taught humility (because there was no way to win) and calculation (because some ways of losing are to be desired over others). From his study of Senator Aime's records, he knew that she had been the superior chess player in her youth. He theorized, but did not know for a certainty, that she hadn't kept in practice. He studied the game in his spare moments in preparation for the possibility that they would have this duel. As therefore he was in better form, his sense of fairness allowed that she must move first.

The King's pawn opening established that she had accepted the conditions of the competition. He answered with the Caro-Kann defense.

They played in silence, neither drinking the wine, for each knew what was at stake in the contest. His head was curiously light outside the net stream. At the twenty-second move, he gained a pawn at the expense of a marginally inferior board position. Though Lord Raj attempted to consolidate the middle, by the thirtieth move, when white forced the exchange of queens, it was clear that he had overextended his piece advantage and must lose.

Control of the "neutral" grain worlds would be the first condition of the armistice, he knew. There was no way out.

Senator Aime contemplated the board. "We both know I have won," she said, speaking for the first time. The voice had a singsong quality, faintly taunting. She smiled at him in her absolute supremacy and toppled her king.

Lord Raj raised his head in admiration. The other chess game had been equally well played. He wouldn't push an advantage that he had won under such conditions as these. She knew him well enough to understand that of him.

Between them, and before the bottle of wine was emptied, they hashed out the terms of armistice. It was a fairer agreement than he would have thought possible. Had he won the game honestly, he would have insisted on all the grain worlds. Had she completed the game instead of surrendering on the threshold of victory, the even terms of the accord would match the odd ones in their severity; the war would resume in a matter of months because the truce would not sustain. As it was, she had forced them into a compromise that could conceivably last.

He expected that she was the better sawaratomi player as well. He had never managed more than 340 points and 46% before being defeated.

They placed their personal seals on the document and transmitted into the webmind. Instantly the worlds knew. The battle fleets stood down, though still wary and circling. The markets reacted. Politicians opined. Media bleated. The planets spun, and the stars shined. The Indoasian war council would grumble at some of the stipulations to which he had acceded, but he knew he could force it through. Senator Aime was Imperatos-in-waiting, the ruler of Americos already in all but name. She had the power to impose this peace on her end also.

They contemplated the accord in the webmind together. The shield dropped and he flashed past her eyes for an instant before she restored it again.

Images. A pool of water, deep as longing. The scent of the sea. The sensation of being held down, drowning, lungs gasping for air, for breath, for space. The taste. Of what? Her ecstasy, is it? No. His. But it's hers, too, hers and his.

"There is a second war we have been waging, milord," she said lightly, nodding to the painting on the wall.

"Shall we negotiate a second armistice then?" he asked her.

"I suspect the terms of surrender would be the same." Senator Aime undressed. Clothes the black of space, the color of mourning fell to the floor. She regarded him a moment. Setting the laser pistol taped between her breasts on top of his desk — he would fuck her with it, make her suck the barrel — she went to her knees before him.

An introduction

2008-05-31T12:27:00.026+01:00

Hi. I am Raj. This blog for Amy and me was my idea; now I find that when I set fingers to the keyboard to write, I have nothing to say. It's the purr of traffic on the street outside I hear, the Magnificat from the Vespro della Beata Vergine from two small speakers in the corner of the room, Amy in the kitchen opening the cupboards, the hiss of lunch on the stove, the patter of rain on the window rather than the pitter of the keys before me.

Well, let me explain why I wanted to do this, and (perhaps) as I proceed, I will find a thing to say, a thing worth saying. Like most people of my acquaintance, I like sex. I like sex a lot. Amy and I have had in our past and ought to have in our future our share of adventures. I wanted a record of this, a chronicle of the things we have done, the things that we dream of doing, a chart of the intersection between fantasy and reality, a snapshot of the way things were, evidence of the present. I wanted a place to talk about sex with Amy.

We are exhibitionists, she and I, but we traffic in words instead of pictures. You, dear contemporary reader — if you exist — you are witness and voyeur, confessor, possibly an onanist. (We don't mind. Indeed, we are flattered. So have a blast!) You, dear anthropology graduate student of the future writing a paper on the sex lives of early twenty-first century academics, you have found the right place. I hope what you read is helpful.

How did I meet Amy? She says my memory is all wrong. She can tell her version of events if she chooses once I relate mine.

The first time I saw her was at a café. Ubiquitous white buds were in her ears. She sat reading Les Liaisons dangereuses. The wind whipped the edge of her skirt, which wrapped around. When she raised the tall glass mug of coffee to her lips, she caught me looking through the window to the terrace outside. My eyes were on those legs. She crossed them tighter. She smiled.

The second time I saw her was at a club. She was dancing. She moved with an easy, with a leonine grace, an elegance in the movement of her limbs, stately despite the truly awful music, the beat alive in how she stepped, the sway of hips. The tops of her breasts reflected the light when it flashed her way. Even when sober, I am not the most coordinated of animals. But I wanted to touch her. And I did.

We sleep in springtime in the city with the window open. The curtains are gathered at each side. The view looks on to the next apartment building, the flats stacked on top, row upon row. We wonder sometimes if we are watched in the rising motions, the falling ones, all the ablutions of love.

Amy woke me before the alarm clock rang. Her fingers brushed at the margins of the thicket of pubis. Bladder heavy, penis half-stiff, her touch circled around. The hair tugged up, the skin like the sea with troughs and crests. She avoided the center.

Our mouths exchanged the first breaths of morning. I held her breasts. The grip of her two hands alternated on the shaft leading it to erection.

"No more hands. Bring me off without them."

I expected her to suck me. I expected her to sit and lower her pussy on top and fuck me with it. Instead, Amy flattened herself over me. Her cunt petaled open against the shaft. Lubricated by her wetness, she rubbed herself against me, as though we were adolescents screwing in our jeans, as though we weren't naked, as though we weren't married, as though dancing obscenely was the only way to dance. The friction against her clit augmented her moisture. I bit her shoulder when I came.

Amy kissed the semen from my chest and belly. I scraped the whiteness from her skin with the side of my index finger and brought it to her to lick and suck.

We will dance again tonight. I am sure of it.

There's that question DeLillo asked in Underworld. Is cyberspace a thing within the world or is it the other way around? Which contains the other, and how can you tell for sure?

They are the same. As we shall see.

War

2008-05-30T21:11:00.007+01:00

It is Earthyear 2819. The Americosian and Indoasian Empires are at war. Twenty colony planets, forty civilian space stations, and countless land, air, and space vessels – from gracile stealth fighters to behemoth battle hangars – roil between the powerful metanations.

Senator Aime Purcell of Americos and Lord Raj of Indoasia have grown a private war between them.

It began in 2817 when Lord Raj’s forces defeated Senator Aime’s squadron during her attempt to reclaim a fertile grain moon orbiting the planet Hawking. Lord Raj made the defeat particularly humiliating when he took Senator Aime’s top-of-the-line fighter for his own – and used it to lead an unexpected attack on the Senator's summer estate in Antarctica.

Aime’s hangars, turbines, and food gardens became a useful Old Earth foothold for Indoasia. Aime’s art collection was crated and carried to Lord Raj’s home planet. The contents of Aime’s closets, drawers, and vanity were packaged piece by piece in crisp white tissue, sealed with Lord Raj’s mark, and smuggled to her by untraceable means. The message was clear: I know you now, and I am watching you.

By 2818 Senator Aime’s forces had blasted a dozen loaded cargo ships departing from Lord Raj’s industrial ring. Lord Raj had triggered a demoralizing media expose of the Purcell clan’s corruptions. Senator Aime had taken Lord Raj’s only brother prisoner and announced his death – no one but Aime and a few trusted handlers knew the truth behind that. After studying the technology of Senator Aime’s lost fighter, Lord Raj transmitted a virus to her new vessel, causing her command console to infect ten valuable pilots with irreparable cybrain malfunctions.

In 2819 Senator Aime, with the help of a hacktank of bright teenagers, found her way into Lord Raj’s personal network. While her body lay still in her quarters, her mind and avatar explored his personal and professional lives with blithe freedom. She glanced at what he’d ordered for breakfast; the temperature of his shower; his bedside reading; which captains would be joining him in the war room that night; and what they would discuss. She congratulated herself for this valuable information. She found media sniffers set for her name, along with a cluster of images and articles. The teenaged Aime in a formal rose silk gown, posing with her clan of brothers and sisters and even her father, the Imperatos Allan Purcell. The twenty-one year old Aime in uniform, grinning beside her first fighter. The twenty-five year old Aime accepting a Senator Tertios sash. The thirty-two year old Aime speaking before the Forum, already a Senator Primos due to her victories and service.

And then Aime was trapped by the network. Lord Raj himself held her connection captive. She could not escape. Even if a colleague missed her at dinner and hunted down her body, her consciousness could not be withdrawn. She feared for the life of her physical body, vulnerable, wasting away in her quarters. She feared for the life of her mind, forever trapped, even tormented in her enemy's lair.

Lord Raj had other plans for her. He did not address her, but entered a game of cychess with her.

It was a quick but thoughtful battle – each uncertain of victory until Lord Raj fell prey to Aime’s elegant trap. She had won, but while he held her captive and unable to command her fleet, two cargo vessels of equipment had made it away from his industrial ring. He released her.

After that, between battles and maneuvers, they joined on the exonetwork for silent games of cychess. They also followed each other in the media, never confessing it to each other, but knowing it of each other. Aime had, in her secret heart, found Lord Raj’s dark, serious visage intimidating yet handsome. He was an imperious rajah in a new world, a new time. She wondered what he would be like in ecstasy, or even in fury: not absorbed in the cold calculations she had come to expect during their war.

They never used the cychess conversation function -- until one night. Aime had put up a long fight and fallen defeated after a cagey dance of queens. In the convo display appeared coordinates and a landing code: Lord Raj’s suspected private base, and the key that would let a single vessel approach and land.

Aime did not acknowledge the information, but her mind simmered with the gamesmanship of it. She would have to trust that she would not be ambushed; he would have to trust that it was she who would approach: not an assassin; not an explosive. She did not acknowledge the offer, nor did she intend to use it. Still, to meet him, just once; even if only to look him in the eye and think, I know you. I am watching you. I am equal to whatever you can imagine.

That night she lay naked on her mattress. A serious portrait of Lord Raj in uniform hovered in her cyware. She cupped her bare breasts, pinching and rolling the pale pink nipples between her fingers, imagining his mouth was there, and there, and then his teeth…his lips twisted somewhere between anger and amusement at her obvious desire.

She scratched her fingernails slowly down the space-pale skin of her belly, raising pink welts. She spread her bent knees as she began to massage the moist furred folds around her clitoris. She wrapped her lips around her free middle finger, pretending it was his finger, pretending he was fucking her face with his taunting hand. She slathered her tongue around the finger, gasped hotly against it, tempting him to replace it with his cock. And he did: another finger, two; he knelt above her neck and pushed his cock down into her mouth, into her throat, thrusting, thrusting, gagging her as she pleasured herself. She climaxed and he came, groaning, gripping her hair to lock her head in position while he pumped her mouth full of warm viscous salt. His semen stained her chin, her cheek as he pulled out.

Senator Aime rolled onto her side, closing her eyes against her own embarrassment. The cyware image of Lord Raj vanished. He would never know of this fantasy, thank God; and thank God he did not possess the talent to read minds. She tucked her desire-scented hand beneath her pillow and drifted into fitful sleep.

Two weeks later the Imperatos Allan Purcell died -- Senator Aime Purcell’s father, protector, sponsor, and guide. The Americosian Empire called for a mourning truce, and the Indoasian Empire, for the most part, agreed. They could afford to be gracious. In the turmoil following the great Purcell patriarch’s death, Americos would surely be vulnerable.

Senator Aime responded to no requests for cychess. Handlers sent generic acknowledgement in response to Lord Raj’s short message of sympathy. But two days after the funeral, a special landing code registers on Lord Raj’s network. It is late, the hour for scotch and paperwork and reading and privacy, but Aime is ushered without question to Raj’s quarters.

She is dressed in simple black, a snug high-necked silk blouse and trim trousers of fine black wool. She has coiled her heavy hair at the nape of her neck. Her face is a pale oval, her eyes tired but watchful.

Audience

2008-05-29T19:42:00.009+01:00

There was one exception: Melisande.

Genius requires an audience. For all his cleverness, Delaunay was an artist and as vulnerable as any of his kind to the desire to vaunt his brilliance. And there were few, very few, people capable of appreciating his art. I did not know then how deep-laid a game they played with each other, nor what part in it I was to play. All I knew was that she was the audience he chose."

-- Jacqueline Carey, Kushiel's Dart

I won't go into the plot of the sadomasochistic Kushiel series, but this quote by itself rang true with me. I identify with Delaunay. I am not necessarily a genius at anything I do, but I do like a perceptive audience; I perform better when I know that I am being watched by appreciative, understanding eyes.

Someone once said, "You've got to dance like no one's watching, work like you don't need the money, and love like it's never going to hurt." A nice plan, for the most part, but I always dance best when I know that eyes are on me.

Raj knows this. It was he who requested this blog. Not for me, those private paper journals kept locked and hidden beneath the mattress. Here I write for Raj and with Raj, for our mutual enjoyment and edification and so that we might savor the frisson of public regard. You can't watch us fuck, but I hope you will enjoy watching us think -- and watching us think about our fucking.

I am a firm believer in celebrating oneself for one's skills and accomplishments. Who better to understand the nuances of the spicing of a dish, or the turning of a seductive sentence, or the moody shading of a watercolor, or the syncopation of a dance step than oneself? However, much pleasure also rests in the sharing: in realizing that out in one's audience, a few treasured people will savor one's subtleties, talents, and intriguing decisions.

Raj, my husband, is the treasured audience I chose for my life: my career, my cooking, my fantasies, my failings, my physical body whimpering in orgasm. I am honored to be the audience to his life, in turn. He is both perceptive audience and thoughtful performer.

I will not write details about where I work or what I do, and I will post no photographs. I don't want a reader shouting "Amy! Raj and Amy!" if I'm spotted on the Tube. Besides, isn't it more fun to imagine that the twinkly-eyed girl selecting oranges at the grocer's could be Amy? I like to think about ordinary people that way: to imagine secret stories around them. That one works for the CIA. That one has a dead body in her basement freezer. That one was Tap Dance Champion in 1983. That one writes a smutty blog.

I will tell you that I'm 27 and that I work in the museum world. I have been married to Raj for a bit over a year, after two years of dating and engagement. I am strongminded and prideful, a lioness who submits to no one but the lion. Raj is my lion. We have recently crossed the Atlantic and taken a flat in London.