I don't remember how I got on my knees; obviously I either dropped to them, or he put me there, but origins became incidental once the enormity of his cock found its way into the warmth of my mouth. I reached around with both hands and grab on to his ass - hands that spend most of their time in my normal life clicking away at a keyboard in a cubicle. In here those hands were the worshiper of his hard, perfectly muscled body. I squeezed his cheeks and pulled him forward, deeper into my mouth, until I thought I might gag, and then I pulled back. I'm never that bold - not in the boardroom or the bedroom- but in there I didn't need to be myself, I needed to be his, and the woman he wanted would treat his cock like she were its servant.
Before I'm finished he lifts me to my feet with two hands under my arm like I weighed nothing, and on my feet I just reached the bottom of his chin. But height didn't matter because he lowered himself to meet my lips, and wrapped my body with his arms as he did so. I didn't realize that I was in the air, and that he had lifted me up, but before I knew it my feet had left the ground below, and as he pulled me in I snaked both legs around his body. I still remember how fucking good he smelled; not a scent that you could buy in a store, just him.
Before I knew it we were both naked. Who can remember the details of those things when a man like him is holding you; his cock as eager to be buried in your wet pussy as it was to be buried in your mouth. Who cares about clothes, or how they got off, or where they up in a messy pile on his floor. None of that mattered. Clothes were an abomination; a social construction for decent society, invented to suppress the truth of monuments like this: that we are nothing but pleasure beasts, and our only real job is to make our bodies feel like they felt that night. The rest of it - the bills and the dates and the mindless TV shows- all mere distractions from the truth; the collective lie we tell ourselves to feel less dirty than we really are.
But that night we both knew the truth, and he slid inside me I felt completely satisfied; the girth of his manhood so thick that it filled me, and I had to bite my lip to stop from screaming in pleasure. The longer he was in me the less tight it felt, his thrusts slow and methodical at first, then getting so fast that I thought I'd come at any moment.
I surprised him - and myself- when I put my feet back on the ground and pushed him onto his back on the bed. It was a small bed, but we didn't need much space. I knew that I wanted to ride him, and I knew that he wanted the same, so I climbed him effortlessly, swinging my left leg over his hips, and guiding him back inside of me with my right hand. Even being as caught up in the moment as I was, I still caught all of the little things that let me know how good I was; the quick and subtle rolling of his eyes, the bite of his lips to avoid yelling out like I know he wanted to; the minuscule (almost imperceptible) beads of sweat that lined up across his hairline like an army in perfect formation. I don't have that sort of confidence in myself. That wasn't me at all. But we met in the dark, and the dark let me be whoever I wanted to be.
Just the other day my gorgeous best friend - the one I dread standing next to for fear of being considered 'the funny one', was telling me to 'put myself out there', and reassuring my insecure self that there were plenty of guys whose type I was. That was all code for 'I'm hot and you're...whatever euphemism for 'not hot' you find most satisfying, and there are many: cute, beautiful in my own way, a different kind of pretty...blah blah blah. I've heard them all, and they all hurt. I wonder what she would have thought of me last night, as I climbed atop this beautiful stranger with all the confidence of a climber about to scale Everest.
I rode him until I came. It sucks to admit this, but I didn't care how he felt in that moment, I felt sensations I had never known before, and it was all that mattered to me. I felt the building tension and magical release of the orgasm he gave me; but more than that I felt wanted, I felt...beautiful, and I never wanted that to end. It did end, of course, it always does. But that's what memories are for, right, to remember the times in our lives that we can't replicate very easily. Last night was a memory that I won't soon forget, and one that I know he won't either.
We met in the dark; in a room designed to hide the truth of who we really are, and in another we found that truth, and submitted our bodies to one another. Soon it will be light out, and none of this will have ever happened, and the wickedness of reality will erase all that's transpired between is. I never got his name, he never asked mine, but what did our names matter? We shared something more intimate than a collection of letters our parents had decided on decades earlier. Our names didn't matter; our jobs didn't make any difference; our dreams and ambitions were just abstractions that could wait until another day to be entertained.
I can see the sun rising now, revealing all that was hidden, and hiding all that in plain sight. By the time it’s fully risen I won’t be her any longer, I’ll just be me – the girl everyone thinks they know; the one who smiles politely and is always so considerate of others. I’ll be the girl with the hot best friend who gets the second (or third, or fourth…) cutest guy at the bar; the one who’ll marry the nice, sensible guy with the good job, and who’ll be the complimented constantly for being such a great mom one day. When the sun finishes rising I’ll be the me that I recognize from the mirror; the good girl who doesn’t do things like I did last night –with him. But that’s okay, that’s the way it’s supposed to go, and I’m just fine with it. But I know that I’ll always have the memory of last night, of that place where we met in the dark, and of the way he made me feel.
A Note from the Author
I hope you enjoy the sparse number of original words I can offer in between books. Inspiration comes from all sorts of odd places – so much so that I’ve denied my normally analytical nature and decided to not even question it. If you’re looking for a source, I re-read an absolutely brilliant short piece of writing by Zadie Smith, entitled Two Men Arrive in a Village, published on the New Yorker Website. This is about as unrelated to what I wrote as another piece of writing can be, but I can’t recommend this piece (and all of her work) enough. The inspiration wasn’t in the content, but in the narrative style, which I tried to pay some sort of terrible, unworthy homage to. I liked the idea of no context – of telling a very narrow, brief story that also somehow speaks to larger themes, but giving the reader as little as possible. No character names, no real setting, not backstory – just the narrative. The woman can be any woman; the bar they meet can be found on every street corner in America. It isn’t much – certainly nothing so worthy to be called a ‘short story’ (although it is short), but a bit of a writing exercise for all of you to enjoy, and I hope that you did.
Ghost
Love seeketh not itself to please
Nor for itself hath any care
But for another gives it ease
And builds a Heaven in Hell's despair
Love seeketh only self to please
To bind another to its delight
Joy in another's loss of ease
And builds a Hell in Heaven's despite
---William Blake, The Clod and the Pebble
I still see you from time to time. Is that odd? Am I going crazy? I guess with you I was always a bit crazy, wasn't I? But then again, that's what a love like we had can do to a person. Sometimes I think about who I was before we met, and I don't even recognize him. That guy - the me in the old pictures that don't include you - that guy was lost; he was asleep; he was just a hollow body, convinced of his false life force, when, in reality, he had no idea what life could really be.
I remember that I saw you on the train, of all places; did I ever tell you that? Yeah, I know what you'd say to that - I hate the train, and when I have to take it I just blocked out the world with a good (or bad) book, or a carefully chosen playlist on my phone. You knew me so well, that's true enough, but even still, the train is where I saw you for the first time, even though you didn't see me. I don't know why that day, of all possible days, and I guess it's a silly question to ask. Does it even matter? I could b
e sentimental and call it fate, but you know I never believed in that sort of thing. What I do know is that our story started there, for whatever reason.
It ended up that we worked only a few buildings away from each other in the city - but in the city that's a lot farther than it sounds. A few blocks might as well be different cities entirely- places so geographically close yet so very different that it's no wonder we never ran into each other. The train is the great equalizer - where city strangers can become temporary companions, each off to their respective home somewhere in suburbia. Even though you thought we met at that bar a week after the day I'm describing, I always knew the truth. I mean, technically, the official account of our meeting is correct - we did shake hands and say hello and learn each other’s names for the first time at that bar, on the corner just off of Main Street, but the director's cut of our story has me adoring you from the 4-seat-over afar during the height of rush hour.
That's where I'm sitting now, thinking of our beginnings, and seeing you where you can't possibly be. I must be losing my mind because I can actually see you; sitting there as you always did, so unlike me in your interest in the world, and in the people that surrounded you. Where I just wanted to get home and away from the smelly bodies who had no business touching shoulders with me after a long day at work, you'd always sit there, just talking to whoever- that infectious, bright smile on your face, mystifying whatever lucky soul happened to have taken the seat next to yours. That's what caught my eye at first, truth be told. I never said this to you when I had the chance, but it wasn't just that you were beautiful (which you were, beyond description), or that you looked ever so vaguely familiar from who-knows-where. No. what held my gaze, and kept me looking up when everything in my introverted body was screaming for me to look back down, was the expression on his face. I don't know his name, and I never will. Knowing you that was the first thing you asked, after introducing yourself like you always did to strangers. I bet if I had asked you about this all those years later you still would have remembered his name, and I could refer to him properly, whereas now he'll forever be him in the cast of characters. Whoever he is or was, I remember how he looked when he looked at you, as you made those little gestures that I'd come to memorize without you even knowing about it.
You know the ones: how you'd throw both palms upward to the sky, looping in towards your body, and then back out towards whoever you were talking to; how you'd pull you hair behind your left ear when you were stuck on what to say next, and look up for just a second or two, as though you needed that time to process what to say next. I even remember you doing that thing with your head - that weird, 45 degree angle you'd make when you didn't want to answer a question you'd been asked. There were so many more things like that, but it makes me sad to think of them all now. But I remember noticing them so clearly when I first laid eyes on you, even though it would take months - even years - to know exactly what they meant. I'll always remember that about you- and whenever I see a woman who moves like you used to move (as if that were even possible), for a split-second I'm back, sitting on that terribly uncomfortable train seat, staring at you as you spoke to a strange man.
Memory can be such a complicated thing, can't it? Why do we remember the things we do, yet forget things that were equally important? Maybe we need to forget, it's just safer that way. And maybe a love like we had requires a finely honed ability to block out the pain of when things don't go the way we intended. I get it, but still. Whole years spent in each other's company: mornings in bed; hours on the couch in front of the TV fighting over which show to watch; hospital beds with sheets across you neck and a doctor presenting me with a screaming little person we created together. All of those images and countless others are in my database of the life we once had; the one where I was complete and you weren't just a ghost on the train.
You've been gone for...too long now, longer than I want to think about, for reasons that will never make sense to me. I hope that wherever you are that you're as I remember you, sitting in that seat, radiating happiness. Our love will never make sense, and most likely I'll never stop asking myself unanswerable questions. But no matter how sad and old I get, sitting on a train and pining for what once was, I'll always have that unmolested memory of first time that I saw you there, such a very long time ago.
Blog Posts
To My Readers
12/18/2016
So this is a follow up to a Facebook post I made in my readers group the other day. Not so much a follow up as an elaboration of the sentiment that can't quite be encapsulated in a Facebook (or any social media) post. This isn't me gushing, or pandering, or writing words that people want to hear, but rather a genuine feeling that begs to be expressed. So after that build up, here we go.
It's a strange thing to have "readers." It isn't strange that people are reading, mind you, but endlessly weird that they're reading a book that I wrote. I was thinking about this the other night while shopping Amazon for books that interested me. I put about 20 in my cart and then promptly realized that I was crazy (and not rich), and therefore had to hit the "Save for later" button about 18 times. But in that process of one-clicking I took time to read reviews, check out author bios, look over numbers of stars, and all the things conscientiousness readers so before spending hard-earned money. And then it occurred to me in all my dissociative bliss: people had gone through that process with a book I wrote! I was, for my readers, on the other side of that exchange I had engaged in since before I can remember. In other words, I was the author, and they were considering the words in my mind and heart to fill the digital pages of their Kindles and iPhones.
And then I had two feelings rush over me simultaneously: a tremendous sense of responsibility to make sure I was putting out the best product I could; and a feeling of gratitude like I had never quite felt before. Sometimes writers can get so caught up in the sacrifice and demands of writing that we think someone owes us something - almost as if we've borrowed against our own time and effort, and now it's our readers who must repay that creative debt (with interest) in order to make our time worth it. But it doesn't work like that; not even a little bit. I realized that to write well I had to accept (and almost anticipate) that no one would read what I wrote. That isn't the same as being pessimistic or planning to fail. What I mean to say is that I had to write what I had to write, and not try to please anyone in particular, hoping to pander to an audience to make money off of them. And once I did that, at least so far, I've found my own form of success. I want to reach more people, and I plan to do so as the months and years roll along, and as more and more book covers bear my name, but until then I say this to my current readers: thank you so very much for making this possible.
---Christopher
Thanks for being my 10%
1/1/2017
Here's another one inspired by Tim Ferris (@tferriss) - or, rather, one that Tim wrote about in his bestselling book, The 4 Hour Work Week. What I'm going to do is add to what Ferris did, by applying the principle to writing and other aspects of my life. If you'd like to read about this at length, I suggest looking here. * “The 80/20 Principle: The Secret to Achieving More with Less” (Richard Koch)
Now on to how I've begun to make this actionable. But first, a brief explanation of the ratio.
If you're not familiar with the theory known as the Pareto Principle (often called the 80/20 analysis), Pareto was an economist who noticed an overall societal trend whereby 80% of the wealth of a society was concentrated in the hands of 20% of the population. This is a gross oversimplification, but because this isn't an economics lesson I'm choosing to give the broad strokes of the theory - if you'd like to know more there are countless books/articles besides those I've linked, including the Professor of all America - Wikipedia! Or just Google "Pareto principle" or "80/20 rule".
The beauty of this principle, like all actionable theories, is that it extends past a lesson in college Econ, and can be utilized on our lives. To being with an example Tim Fe
rris has discussed and written about numerous times, he would ask himself, 'What 20 percent of customers are responsible for 80 percent of my purchases" - or some similar analysis (the ratio works in both directions). Here's how I've used it as an author, which will help explain the founding of my Facebook group, Harlan's Readers, which you can join here:
80/20 as an Author
So, because I'm a skeptic by nature and like to test the validity of any advice/self-help, when I read about the 80/20 rule (which is sometimes skewed to 90/10) I decided to just do a casual analysis of things in my life to which it might be applicable, specifically my burgeoning career as an author. So when I do giveaways, or post blogs like these, or host an event (like my cover reveal or release party for Impressions of You), or even ask people to sign up on my newsletter, I notice that it's largely a very small sub-set of my general "Facebook Friends" (upwards of 4,000 +, the overwhelming majority of which I've never interacted with in any way). When I started to do the (very) rough math in my head, applying Pareto's Principle to my readership (which I'm defining as both actual people who've purchased the book, but also those who just generally interact and seem supportive of me as an author) I started to see about a 90/10 split relative to all the "friends" on Facebook. But it's from this 10% that Harlan’s Readers was (and continues to be) formed. Rather than appealing to 4,000 people, I'm attempting to make 10% the focus of my attention, and in doing so (as many of you reading this may be members), I hope to grow my readers through your support, reviews, and recommendations, which you've all been very generous with so far.
Impressions of Me (Impressions Series Book 2) Page 19