You fall in love.
You fall in love with a star in a different constellation, city, state, relationship. Her lovers have good credit and dark hair. She meets you in the back room of your cunt, in the crevices you left unturned. You fuck her in the armchair before the fireplace when her lover is away, pull down the laces of her mouth, and shove your hand into the bruised cuff of her cunt. Her face is a quick flush of heat, lips purple from your teeth. You blind, bind, beat. Her geography wears at your nipples. You map her in reticent bodies, know a crystal glass by how it sings beneath your moistened fingers.
When you are not fucking, your generosity knows no bounds. When you have no more money, you share your food. When you have no more food, you give good advice. Everyone tells you, you should be a therapist.
You have been lying since you were six. The Marquis de Sade was all about presentation. Your origin is a story your mother used to quell the troops. Your luteinizing hormone will not release the eggs. Cunt judgment. The gynecologist laughed. You were eighteen years old and she thought your dickless state was a joke. You are not a joke and you have your own dicks. You refuse to make love. Take the consumptive tunnel and give it a fuck. The edge of the tub, the arm of the sofa, your brother’s rocking horse, fruit, vegetables, tongues, fists, nipples, fingers, toes, toothbrushes, bottles, candles, handles, plastic, porcelain, silicone, glass.
You are not injured. You are not healing.
You are taking it lying down.
Notes to You
Michele Elliott
day one:
girl,
first day here. flight was manageable. these accommodations are far superior to the last conference. just getting settled from the airport. gazing out the window over the lake. thought about those scars on your body. the scars on your neck. imagined kissing them. pressing my lips against that raised mark.
you like me to mark you. you enjoy the marking as play. the making is even more exquisite. I wonder how you got those other marks. (you linger in the safety of your secrets.) and I wonder what it would be like to let go and cherish those marks. (those not made by me.) permanent. to kiss them. maybe the one on your neck. really kiss it. kiss the one beneath it. pull you close and tight. give and know the giving is received, without hesitation. no questions. simply become that cherished moment. become the one cherished. would you give yourself to me?
6 days until I see you again.
day two:
shhhh.
in my bed, kitten. the hot summer air surrounding us. after a long day of workshops I imagine you here. gently licking my mosquito bites. massaging my tired limbs until I force you to stop. I feel desire in your hands. smooth and press it into my flesh like expensive oils. I know that you can’t not touch me. if I said no, would you seal your desire from me? or give it to me, knowing it’s your desire that feeds my endless hunger?
show me your desire. submit in honesty. like a kitten pulled by the scruff of the neck, you go limp with desire just to see me smile. will you focus on minutia if it pleases me? wait all day in one place if I ask it of you?
5 more days until I see you again.
day three:
let’s revisit one of the nights before I left.
I called you late and you came over immediately. hitchhiked from the outskirts of the city just to get to me. barely inside the door I had you tell me of your travels and then strip down in silence. fold your clothes neatly in a pile on the floor while I watched. it was lovely, knowing what you did to get to me. I could smell the excitement on your skin. I made you sit in the middle of the floor, bare ass on cool, hard wood. you squirmed and I frowned at you. so shy and unsure, brown skin blistering under my gaze. and still I made you wait, because it was delicious.
eventually I had you sit on the low stool. the one I had refinished just days before. I told you that you would be breaking it in. ass on the edge, knees bent and open. I told you some of the nasty things I could do to you. and we both watched your wetness form, grow strings heavy with gravity, fall and collect itself in tiny pools on the floor…
4 more days…
day four:
later, I had you crawl on all fours, ass in the air, inviting.
I knew what you wanted. needed. but I had worked you over so hard the day before. I wanted to be sure you were sure. you’re still so new to this. so I drew you a bath with fragrant oils. let you soak away the muscle cramps and strains. gave you a glass of wine and washed your body slowly. lingered over the fresh bruises that made you so proud. I took pleasure in your joy and accomplishment for having me mark you. display ownership. spoil. pamper.
your body a glistening mixture of water and oils, I had you crawl back over to the stool. back to the same spot you inhabited earlier, only this time I sat on the stool, legs spread wide. I beckoned you forward to the spot I had marked off with masking tape before your bath. back to the little pool of your wetness cooling in the night air. you sniffed it so lovingly, ass high in the air on display. I had you lie flat. and then slowly, exactly as I instructed, you gently lapped up your sweet treasure.
couldn’t get enough. I had you get in my bed for the first time. you rolled your body around on my sheets. I demanded that you come for me while I watched. then I dressed your naked flesh in my overcoat. tucked your hungry body into a cab. into the early morning light. sent you home to think. to remember.
3 more days.
day five:
it’s been a very long day.
events went well into the evening and I find myself a little tired. I think about your tongue, kitten. how eager and persistent it is. so willing. inviting. your pussy is not always so open. sometimes you hold back from me. is it fear? is it too much for you? or too little? where is your heart, little one? do you protect it from me? bundle it off somewhere like winter coats in mothballs? it’s always summer with me, if you are warm and willing. if you show me your promise. submit in spirit and posture. shut out the world, little one. hush. I can give you what you desire.
2 more days.
day six:
your message said that I already have you.
that you feel greedy, hungry for the chaos created by my touch, my belt, my bite. you said that you can hide nothing, deny me no thing. that your heart feels safe. and that you are afraid and shy and confused. I need to be sure that you are sure. this is not just a game. it is everything. I want all of that wild spirit you keep trying to hide. when you are helpless is when you are the most powerful. this is the moment I want. everything. upturned and vulnerable tearing back into me, demanding more. hungry you to match insatiable me.
that first day I took you. at the party. in the basement. we’d only been dating. barely. I took you in the basement. you had a little to drink, were talking a lot of trash. and I could only smile. I took you in the basement. ripped down your pants. bent you over the table, worked you over hard with the flat end of a big scrub brush. while everyone else was upstairs—unaware—you screamed and cried out. you struggled, confused and excited. you didn’t care who heard you bef me for more while I pulled your hair and made you say it. you didn’t care who heard you wail and open up. and when I let you go and you slumped down to your knees—and spontanously thanked me—I caught a glimpse of you. a mirror reflecting desire. yes. I need to be sure you are sure.
1 more day.
day seven:
I am packing to come home now.
you’ll accept this message from my hand. I dreamt of you last night. dreamt of dressing you. selecting your clothes. watching you slip them onto your body. I play with you along the way. tease you. work you up and make you wet. I take you out to a restaurant where I meet some of my friends. me laughing with them. you quiet. docile. you sitting at my feet. my friends disturbed, anxious about your submission. when they ask you what you get from all this you answer simply, she is my reward. that is everything. that is enough.
you as my girl. my kitten. doing whatever I ask. seeking always to please me. s
peaking only when spoken to. looking to me first. using your eyes to ask my permission to do anything. I know what you need. look to me now. eyes downcast. service. my pleasure your only concern. obedience the meat you cut your teeth on. desire an insatiable balm. you are bound to me. broken by me. set free.
Meeting Eros
Carol Smith Passariello
Photographer is a term Rosanna interchanges readily with professional voyeur in describing her work. She invites the public into private moments through the lens. Her latest exhibit at the SoHo Blaze is titled “Everyday Eros.” From the looks of the crowd, she is finally getting lonf-overdue recognition from the New York arts community. Critic types, agents, and press are crawling all over the room.
When I’m finished people-watching, I turn to the amazing photos lining the whitewashed walls. In the images are extreme close-ups capturing the facial expressions of people going about their daily lives, experiencing the world through their senses: a woman caught up in the delight of sucking the sweet juice from a ripe papaya, an old man inhaling the yeasty aroma of freshly baked bread, a child listening to the magical sound of the sea in shells.
My favorite collection of Rosanna’s is “Mother’s Milk” where she features nursing mothers and their babi different stages of disrobing, feeding, and enrobing. But I think her most meaningful work is the collection of self-portraits she did after her mastectomy, reconstruction, and subsequent deconstruction, called “My Breasts, My Self.” In some of the shots she is pale, breast-less, bald, and rail-thin from chemotherapy, but she still recorded her journey through cancer for the world to see.
True artists are so generous with the truth, and that opens them to hihg praise and low blow. They are also painfully and pleasurably aware, which often leads them to live between states of elation and periods of deep depression. Rosanna turns every traumatic loss into an opportunity to tell a story. She also turns careless glances into meaningful images. Any way you slice it, the sister’s main motivation is to bring life into focus.
Icould never bare my breasts for the camera now, but I posed for Rosanna with my newborn daughter ten years ago. I had some lovely titties back in those days. I gave the best of my tits to my daughter, who is now the proud owner of prepubescent buds. Thank God tight tits aren’t a prerequisite for sexy. Shit, I put a good bra on and never miss a beat. Everything else is still standing at attention, and while I may be rounder than some, after a couple of kids, one must be thankful to still be in the game. The third party of our trio, Chloe, could still pull it off. Even after breastfeeding twins, she has the perky tits of a fully blossomed teenager. God bless her.
Rosanna used us as her subjects in another one of her projects—a series of shots called “Play Group” where we are shown playing with each other and our children: seesaw, hula-hoop, hide and go seek, tag, doctor, Marco Polo. Rosanna showed us how young and sexy we look when we smile and romp with abandon. Playfulness is the found of youth, and apparently it is also the prelude to fantastic sex.
I met Rodney seven years ago though our mutual friendship with Rosanna and Hampton. Rodney had gone to school with Hampton, married another classmate, and moved to the West Coast. When I met him, he was in the middle of of divorcing her and had moved into Hampton and Rosanna’s suburban hideaway temporarily while he looked for a place in the city. They set us up on a blind date to double with them on a weekend in Martha’s Vineyard, and we’ve been inseparable ever since. I swear that man had to have been starved for both sex and food for his entire marriage. Apparently food and sex were one and the same enemy, not to be overindulged or taken lightly. He’s getting plenty of good eating now, literally and figuratively. I don’t know how a marriage is supposed to survive without good food and good sex. Shit, it’s hard enough to recommit to the daily grind. To do so while still in search of satisfaction would seem nearly impossible.
Tonight we’re gathering at Rosanna and Hampton’s house for an “after party” celebrating the opening of Rosanna’s exhibit. We don’t really need a reason to party, but we party harder whenever we have a legitimate excuse. Everybody’s kids are back at our house, where we have Rosanna and Hampton’s oldest daughter, Sydney, in charge for a small fee and a pizza delivery.
When he opens the door Hampton’s hair is an ocean of relentless waves, tumbling away from his forehead, carelessly revealing a sinister widow’s peak. Everything beautiful about the male anatomy follows that downward-pointing arrow: his intense eyes, then his generous lips and neck and shoulders and chest and back and forearms and horn-playing fingers. But he’s off limits because we’re both married to mutual friends. I know he’s attracted to me too, but as I tell my husband all the time, I am merely reacting to what I can see but can’t touch, to what I can smell but can’t taste. Other men are just like food to me. Good to look at, great to smell, and hard to resist.
After a few dirty martinis, champagne toasts, and polite conversation, most of the fifty or so people in the room start their goood-bye hugs and kisses. The few who hang around start up clandestine conversations about one another, cloaked as critical analysis of the laws of attraction and the true nature of mating in the animal kingdom. When we notice all the men in the room staring at the only single woman left at the party—Chloe—Rosanna and I come to the conclusion that we are witnessing the results of our own big mouths. Women do most of the work for other women by telling their husbands and boyfriends all about the sexual escapades of their friends, thinking they’ll be turned off by promiscuous behavior. The only thing those men get from those conversation is hot on the trail of some got-to-be-good pussy with plenty of practice. I don’t talk to my husband about my women friends unless I want him fantasizing about them while he’s fucking me.
Chloe is a freelance journalist. She’s always good for starting some shit on the scene with her loaded, open-ended questions that she calls “critical queries.” When the party has boiled down to the usual suspects—Rodney and I, Hampton and Rosanna, and Chloe and Sam—she introduces a game where you pull a name frome a hat and as graphically as possible describe the person’s most attractive qualities: an intellectual version of spin-the-bottle. The trick is, if you get someone you simply don’t find attractive, you can pull one more name, but that’s it. And once you’ve chosen, you have to keep your eyes closed so that people won’t catch on from your eyes focusing in on the subject of your description. We start in a circle and pass the basket counterclockwise.
Chloe pulls first. “I pulled a woman, but let me see. Her hands are delicate massage masters, goose bump raisers, tantalizing teasers like tiny feathers all over the back of your neck.”
Rosanna and I smile at one another, simultaneously raise our hands, and begin to wriggle our fingers seductively in the air like exotic dancers.
Hampton fishes around in the basket and pulls next. “I pulled a woman too, and thank God because I’m not trying to describe what’s sexy about a man.” He closes his eyes. “OK, she smells good. Like the way an open flower leaves an invisible map for bees. It just draws you in and you want to find out where all that sweetness is coming from.”
Then it’s my turn. I am afraid everyone will know exactly whom I am describing, so I hold back. “He’s the kind of man who clearly loves his wife but won’t take his eyes off of you until he knows you get the message that you’re absolutely beautiful to him.”
“That was weak,” Rosanna says.
“Yeah, girl. Now you know you can do better than that, Meena. Come on,” Chloe says.
“OK. You asked for it,” I say and close my eyes again. “His hands are basketball palming, waist holding, ass squeezing, take-your-breath-away big.” When I open my eyes, all the men are looking at their hands and stretching their fingers to make their hands look bigger. “I knew y’all were going to do that,” I say and pass the basket.
Rodney pulls twice. I am tuned into every syllable. “I never thought about hitting it for real because all hell would break loose, but the thought of it is en
ough to make me wonder how soft her lips might really be and if kissing them would be considered grounds for divorce. She’s the kind of woman who makes you have to fight yourself not to get hard in the middle of a crowded room because when she talks to you all you can imagine are those juicy lips wrapped around your dick.”
“Oh, shit,” Hampton jumps up to give Rodney a high five.
“Well, it seems like the brothas are getting the hang of this game mighty quickly,” Rosanna says.
“Shit, I just hope one of them is talking about me,” I add with a laugh.
“Me too,” says Chloe.
Then Sam pulls. He is looking straight at Rosanna. “Every time she kisses me hello she puts her arms around my neck and pulls me in just close enough to know how easy it would be to swoop her up and wrap her big, pretty legs around my waist.”
“You’re supposed to close your eyes, Sam,” Rosanna says.
Then Rosanna pulls and closes her eyes. “Whenever he speaks to me, he looks me straight in the eyes. I like that he is not afraid to really see me. I like that he seems to enjoy what he finds when we are eye-to-eye.”
“Well, that’s everybody. Do we want another round?” Chloe asks. Everyone is digging the feeling and she gets a unanimous yes. We pass the last of the champagne for refills. Only this time no one is waiting for the basket.
“When he pours me a glass of champagne he makes sure the bottle is far enough away so the bubbling liquid splashes around the sides of the flute and creates a miniature tidal wave. I love that because even after I catch the overspill in my mouth, there are a few droplets on my chin and bare cleavage for him to wipe away. He skips the napkin and licks his fingers after,” Rosanna says as she stares at Hampton.
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