cigarettes, gin, and lust.

Experimenting in excess

How can one possibly be expected to focus on homework when sitting in a 30-year-old, paint-splattered art studio, listening to the Beatles, with the Painter and the Musician creating all around? That is an unreasonable assignment for the Editor, and so I have put aside my computer for a moment and picked up my journal. I can't really think straight, anyway, through this hangover and lack of sleep, trying to piece together the details of last night that I know are floating in my mind somewhere.

I know that the night ended with Lacey. I know there was gin and PBR, cigarettes, tequila, sex, a sauna, students all around ready to party after the week of restraint...I should more clearly remember the daytime hours that preceded the night, but the combined cognitive effects of alcohol and lack of sleep are stunting my brain's ability to solidify the connections that would place this story in my memory. It was an Editor's day: writing, reading, Editing the novel, coffee and cheap food, movies, and yoga. The soundtrack of the day was Butch Walker, The Lately, Johnny Cash, Sublime, The Films. The day started unexpectedly in the wee hours of Friday morning and ended long after bar close this morning. In one continuous stretch of twenty-four hours, I was able to pack in every bit of productivity and fun I had planned for the whole weekend, and I am left wondering what to possibly do with the next two days.

“I desperately want to fuck you.” The Doctor's call woke me yesterday at four a.m. I could hear the truth of it in his voice.

I let out a shaky sigh.

“Vulgar, I know,” he added sweetly before I could reply. “But true.”

I grinned to myself. God dammit. It was a terrible irony that his desperate cries through this distance only made me want him more.

I hadn't seen the Doctor in three weeks. Three weeks. Lust was fully clouding my mind at this point; my vibrator no longer had the charm it once had. Everything seemed cold; I longed for human touch, to be held and kissed, the warmth of another hand on my flesh, another being to absorb the desperate heat that radiated from every pore at every moment of my day. The desperation was driving me mad; I had been drowning it out with alcohol for about two weeks, but even that was losing its power.

This lust and desperation had taken over my mind; it kept me awake at night. I was keeping myself as busy as I could, but it was no longer enough to distract me. I needed to give in. I needed to experience pleasure, decadence, superfluous pampering of my body, heart, soul, mind, all of my senses. No mechanical orgasm or weak buzz was enough to replace the hands of the Doctor. Nothing would be, but my mind continued to search for something to give in to, something made of primitive pleasure and depravity in an attractive package.

I tried gin. I was pre-gaming at the Painter's house, and she is a fanatic of the gin and tonic. That was tasty, but not satisfying. I was in no mood for smooth, tasty booze. The Musician offered me PBR; it was cheap and simple, a touch of bitterness. That was more like it; my body needed the sting of bitterness. I drank cheap, harsh tequila shots with the Painter's roommates. That was fucking disgusting. Such a painful version of my favorite shot was a shock to my system, a body that heard the word “tequila” and began to salivate in anticipation.  Perfect; in the absence of the pleasure they lusted after, my senses needed a jolt now and then to clear the clouds in my mind.

The Musician offered me cigarettes all night, as usual, and I refused. The first three. By his fourth cigarette, the house was filled with Coasties curling their hair and a hipster poet naked under a barbeque apron. I was getting frantic texts from a friend with boy troubles. The Lust Beasts had begun to arrive, reminding me of the easy opportunities I was passing up as I waited for the next visit from the Doctor. Fuck this scene. I joined the group of guys hiding on the porch drinking PBR and shivering in the fall air. Before he could offer again, I asked the Musician for a cigarette. That was satisfying; my mind relaxed and cleared a bit as my hand fell comfortably into a position that held the cigarette and my beer while I talked.

It's a damn shame that the things are so filthy, because they are really fucking effective and so damn cool. Throughout the night I smoked around six cigarettes, and I have quickly found that this is a shocking amount. “You don't even smoke!” one friend exclaimed. “That's a lot.” Why the fuck would I do something as stupid as smoking cigarettes if I were only going to tease myself with one? Where is the satisfaction in that? I was ready to give in, and that meant enjoying the freedom to smoke like a fucking smoker. Cigarettes came as the relief I needed to distract me from the damn Coasties, hipsters, drama, and lust for a few hours. Primitive pleasure, depravity, and attractive as hell.

After a few hours' pre-gaming at the house, the group headed downtown en masse to find a bar. Floating along in my buzz and clouds, I didn't realize where we were headed until I almost followed the crowd through the door of the loudest, reddest, sports bar on State.

"Wait a minute!” I exclaimed as I stopped short in the doorway. I turned to the Lust Beast standing closest behind me. “Do you want to go somewhere else?”

He nodded, relief in his wide eyes. How had we found ourselves following Coasties around to bro bars for the night? Lust is bad for the brain.

“I'll call Lacey,” I said as we turned to leave. “We can meet her somewhere.”

“Lacey...?  Is she single?” He was already grinning eagerly.

I pointed a stern finger at him while the phone rang. “She's mine tonight.”  I had been wanting to indulge Lacey's bi-curiosity for months now; it was time.

He raised an eyebrow at me, then held his hand out to shake mine. “Oh, it's on.”

I shook his hand as Lacey answered the call, and we made plans to meet her at a dive a few blocks down. That was more like it. We bid farewell to the Painter and the Musician and left the Coasties behind.

We ordered a pitcher of PBR and crowded into a corner booth and waited about ten more minutes for Lacey to show up. When she did, there was a guy at her side, whom she introduced as her boyfriend. I caught the Lust Beast's eye. He groaned, and I held back a frustrated laugh as she slid into the booth beside us. We spent a short time catching up; I hadn't seen her all summer, so there was a lot of small talk to be had before any of us could dive into blatant flirtation. When she and her boyfriend stepped up to the bar for another round, I turned to my competitor.

“You know that means I win,” I said, indicating the boyfriend with a glance.

He sighed and nodded. I wasn't as sure of my chances as I sounded, but we both knew he had no hope of hooking up with Lacey this night. We toasted and finished our beers, and he headed home when the first pitcher was gone. When the couple returned, I continued the small talk and tried to decide how far to take it. I wasn't really available for a threesome in the Doctor's absence, but I wasn't sure I would get any time alone with Lacey. Besides that, even though Lacey had always been flirtatious in the past, she had this boyfriend to go home with now, so her bi-curious interest may have waned.

But, she looked at me all night with the wide, longing eyes that I remembered from Spring, and they invited me to try out the sauna at their apartment building as the bar closed. A sauna, you say? What a lovely perk in downtown housing. That ought to satisfy my need for decadence, at least.

In the sauna, there was drinking, flirting, petting, kissing, sweating. I had the sense to drink a few glasses of water, and that combined with the sauna's heat began to cleanse my body of the night's booze and cigarettes. I stayed committed to waiting for the Doctor's next visit, so I didn't follow the couple back to their room. I toed the line and gave in to Lacey's touch, allowed myself to share in the heat and lust that radiated from her longing eyes. My night was topped off with a few minutes of giving into this passion, wrapped in her arms with her mouth pressed against mine, entwined in our bathing suits and towels, hair falling loose from the sauna's steam. I drank the moment in, lived on the passion for a few minutes. I ran my fingers desperately through her hair and over her half-exposed breasts and her thighs and back and shoulders. Three weeks of loneliness were driving my exhausted and drunk mind, this need to give in bursting from my pores and loving the flesh and the smell and the kiss and the touch and the desirous eyes of the woman in my arms.

The eyes of the Painter become much more dreamy as she moves to a spot in her painting where the realistic structure of the building she's painting must melt into the atmosphere of the fantastical world around it. No longer glancing to the photo that was guiding her, no longer searching for accuracy in the details, but CREATING now, purely from some place in the mind, simply creating what this part of this world will be. Quizzical and imaginative, eyes that are not looking in front of her but inside of her, for just a moment. Eyes lost in the depths of an artists' world.


These are my Quiet Days, and I am giving into them as they come to me.  A damn good story is always floating in the air, and I cannot ignore it.  I will stay awake for it, I will find it in a sauna at three a.m., I will set aside these mundane obligations to capture it in the middle of this art studio in the middle of this artists' life.

I left Lacey's house last night far from satiated, still longing for the Doctor, but exhausted and satisfied to end this day and its outbursts of excess. I wandered in my haze back to the Painter's house, where the Musician met me at the door. We tiptoed through a maze of sleeping Coasties in the living room, and he laid out a bed of blankets on the floor of the Painter's room for me. After he lay back down in the Painter's bed, I found his jeans on the floor and fished a cigarette from the pocket. I stole away to the porch and the brisk cold and called the Doctor.

“I desperately want to fuck you,” I whispered sleepily into the phone, laughed drunkenly, and lit the cigarette.

booty call.

Well, I've never done anything like this before. I know what you're thinking: That's what all the girls say. But, really, I haven't; you can trust me...If I had done it, you'd surely have read the story by now.

I had spoken to him earlier in the day. He had been getting drunk and fucking with a poet I'd hooked up with a few months back. He was always a little jealous of that one, and today he was on the poet's website posting rude comments to the latest poems. They were all true; the guy was an awful poet, and a pretty dull lay on top of that, but he was a friend, and there was no need to fuck with someone's art in the public eye like that. I called him around 3pm.

“They sent all of the stories back!” he shouted into the phone without a greeting. He had been trying for months to get some short stories published in a local magazine, and they had accepted a few into a second trial round the week before. Shit. No wonder he was so sour. “I've got no money, no food, only cheap vodka and a few beers in the house.”

A writer's life, no doubt.  I offered my sympathies and told him I hoped he'd feel better and have a good night. I didn't mention the poet; he deserved a scapegoat. He mumbled a few more complaints and hung up with an abrupt goodbye.

I went home to work for a few hours on the novel. I checked my mailbox and found a check I'd been waiting for all month for a chapter I'd edited the month before. It was for fifty dollars more than promised, with the enclosed note, “Impressive work; we'll call you for the next one!” I poured myself a celebratory drink with my own cheap vodka and sat down to work. After 1000 words, I poured another drink.

Around 8pm I thought of him again...sitting at home alone with shitty booze and a shitty day on his shoulders. I had cashed a fat paycheck, and I was just sitting on it. Most of it was already earmarked for upcoming bills, but I could afford to splurge a little.

I tossed my journal, a sweater, my copy of Delta of Venus, and some cash into my purse. I ran outside to catch the next bus downtown. I walked quickly from the bus stop to make it to the liquor store near his house a few minutes before they closed. It was the only one in town that carried his favorite whiskey. $30 a bottle. It's no gem, but it's a hefty price for a writer who has to choose between that and electricity for the month. I pulled the purple ribbon from my hair and tied a bow around the neck of the bottle. Now it was a gift, and worth the price.

I walked the last few blocks to his house, unsure if he'd even be home. He wasn't answering his phone. I laughed out loud. In such a sour mood, he might even be angry at me for showing up unannounced. He'd have the whiskey, though, and he would be over it quickly.

As I approached his house, I saw the light was on inside. He was home. The back door was open for a bit of relief from the summer heat, and I caught his eye through the screen door. He had to look twice, and I grinned. He was surprised, and he was happy, and he was drunk.

He didn't get up from his chair in the living room, so I let myself in.

“Hello there,” I said.

“Well, hi,” he replied, still surprised. He finally set aside the notes he'd been working on and turned to face me.

I held up the whiskey. “I brought you a present. Don's check finally came today, and I needed to squander it a little.”

He nodded and took the bottle, set it on his desk. “I've already drank quite a bit of booze, though,” he said with a shy smile.

“That's alright,” I answered. “There's always tomorrow. If you're busy...” I gestured toward the scattered notes in front of him. “I can head out.”

“Oh, well, you're here now. You might as well stay for a bit,” he replied unceremoniously and stood from his chair. He grabbed a flute of wine from the desk and downed it in one gulp. He turned on my favorite music, and dimmed the lights. I giggled and closed the blinds, pushed the door shut behind me. I hadn't even put my purse down yet.

He moved to the loveseat next to his desk. It struck me for a moment how cheesy it was to make love on a piece of furniture with such a name, but it did seem to fit. It was a deep red, like wine, plush and worn, filthy, stained with years of lovemaking.

“I was about to go to bed,” he said as he sank into the couch.

I dropped my purse on the ground and slid out of my shoes. I joined him, sliding my knees to either side of his lap and kissing him softly on the forehead.

He looked up at me with tired eyes. “And here you are, all aggressive...like a cougar...Not that kind of cougar! A baby cougar. A cougar cub.” We laughed at the reference; I smiled softly as he stumbled through the words. “A lioness,” he finally said firmly. That was the one. Tonight, I would be a Lioness.

So I kissed him hard on the mouth as he lay comfortably on the couch. I pulled off his shirt and his pants, then stood to remove mine. I moved quickly, but was sure to give a small wiggle as I turned away from him and slipped out of my panties. Once we were both naked, I pounced again with a huge smile on my face.

“I'm just really tired, but as long as that's alright with you...” he said, returning my smile sleepily.

I bit my lip and looked down at his swelling penis. “I think we'll be alright,” I answered. He had doted over me plenty in the past, and he'd had a hard day. I owed him this night.

I pressed myself against him for a few minutes until he was hard, then I slipped down between his legs and took his cock into my mouth. He ran his fingers through my hair, gripping harder as his erection grew, then reached down for my breasts. I coaxed him to lie down on the couch with my free hand, and swung myself around so my feet rested near his head. He groped desperately now at my breasts, my face, my thighs, as I sucked him harder, ran my teeth gently across the tip of his penis. I love doing that; it always makes his body stiffen with surprised pleasure.

He was beginning to wake up, and I was becoming excited from touching him. He finally gripped my thigh hard and kissed me on the neck, then slipped a finger inside me, my flesh already wet, ready for it. I moaned with my mouth around his cock, and he slipped another finger inside, then another. I gasped, and he asked “Is it too much?” I shook my head and closed my eyes, tightened my lips around him and sucked him in deeper.

We continued this, speeding up until I came, squirting onto his hand, causing his erection to stiffen in my hand. I moaned louder. He ran his fingers all over me, through the come, across my clitoris, sending shivers up my spine. I kissed him hard on the mouth, biting his lower lip. He kissed my neck, my ears, my shoulder, my forehead, my nipples.

He was wide awake, and I wanted to come again. I sat up, turned my back to him, straddled his legs. I slipped my own fingers inside of myself for a moment, then guided him inside of me and pressed my moistened fingers against my swollen clitoris. We were fucking now, thrusting and moaning, screaming, using each others' bodies to garner the most pleasure for our own. It was at least 80 degrees in the house, and our bodies were slick with sweat. After I climaxed again, we paused, his cock inside of me with my muscles pulsing around it. He sat up and kissed my body again, covered my damp breasts in his hands and squeezed gently with his fingers, bit my earlobes and breathed warm air across my cheek with his nose. I closed my eyes and let out a low moan as the world was shut out around me. We moved in slow motion now, his hands on my skin, his breath on my face, his pelvis softly thrusting his penis around in my satiated flesh.

We rested for only a moment; he still hadn't come. Alcohol is more sustaining than Viagra for a younger man, and he was lucky to have the Lioness to lie with him tonight.

I went to the closet for a condom, handed it to him, and searched for a bottle of lube. I found one, almost empty, in the drawer of his desk. I shook it at him and smiled to tease him as he pulled on the condom.

“That's mostly from you,” he assured me. I giggled and nodded skeptically.

I mounted him face-to-face this time; we were feeling quite intimate after forty-five minutes of fucking. I let him thrust inside of me at his pace, which quickened and intensified rapidly.

“I think you're the one who's an animal now,” I whispered into his ear.

He stared hungrily into my eyes, then scooped his arm around my waist and dextrously flipped me on my back, slipping my legs over his shoulders and swooping in at me below my feet. He was thrusting hard and fast and steady now; I was kissing him hard and fast on the lips and the cheeks and the shoulders and the neck, clawing his back and shoulders. He reached up and grabbed my hands gently, one by one, and pinned them to the couch above my head. I was bound in place by this animal now.

He was fucking me now, and I was screaming and gasping with the raw pleasure of it. I had been the Lioness, but I was now his doll, pinned in place as he thrust hard and deep, taking my breath each time. I struggled as my arms felt the impulse to embrace him, my fingers to claw at his flesh, and the rush of the struggle sent adrenaline through my body, exciting every nerve he couldn't touch. He held me fast and fucked me hard until he came, pressing himself deep into my soul in the midst of the black hole we'd created in the world around us.

He never screamed or grunted or moaned when we made love. He just fucked with such intensity and desperation that I could feel his pleasure growing, and then he stopped. With a hard, slow, deep thrust; and I could feel the throbbing of his penis as he came inside of me.

And, as always, a soft kiss, and he slowly lowered his body to mine on the cushions as his energy evaporated with his erection. He loosened the grip on my wrists, and I enveloped him tenderly in my arms. After a few minutes of kissing, cuddling, accepting the exhaustion that was heavy on our bodies now that the adrenaline of arousal had dissipated, he walked away to clean himself and fill a glass of water. I lay on the couch and watched upside down as he walked around the house above me, still slightly in slow motion-- a woman's orgasm always takes a little longer to subside than a man's. He downed a glass of water without a break, then collapsed in the chair at his desk. At some point, the glass of wine had hit him, and he was wasted now.

“Do you mind if I use your shower?” I asked. “Of course not,” he replied, and I sauntered in a haze toward the back of the house while he flipped on a movie in the living room.

His bathroom was sparse, and a little dirty, reassuring me there was no woman of the house. I started a lukewarm shower and stepped in. I ran my hair and my face under the water to cool off, rinsed my sweaty body, and held my mouth under the stream of water to rinse the taste of cock from it. It was a fine taste, in the moment; but there is no need to go around with the taste of cock in your mouth all night, interfering with your dinner and what not. His soap smelled undoubtedly like Man, and I lathered it in my hands and scrubbed myself briefly with it. I patted myself dry with one of the used towels hanging on his rack, wringing out my hair over the tub. I checked my face in the mirror and wiped away my melted makeup. I wrapped myself in the towel and walked back to the living room, my hair still nearly dripping wet.

I kissed the top of his head as I walked by, and gathered my clothes from around the floor. I dressed slowly, still naturally high from the orgasms. It was pouring rain outside again, for the third time that day, so I sat to watch a bit of the movie and wait for it to pass before heading outside.

“You're not walking home alone, are you?” he asked as he lay down drunkenly on the couch.

“No,” I answered, slipping on my shoes. “I'll catch the bus downtown.”

“Good.” He closed his eyes. “I worry about you. You're too brave.”

I smiled and bent over him, brushed back his hair, and kissed him gently on the forehead. “Don't worry about me, dear. I am only brave when I feel safe.”

My knees were wobbling when I left the house. I was glad I had actually left in time to catch a bus. I grabbed a sandwich from the late-night market downtown; a decadent thing with tomatoes and avocados and alfalfa sprouts, thick soft bread. I love a plush meal after sex, with all of my senses still aroused. I ate half of the sandwich as I waited for the bus, and tucked the other half away to save for the next day. I had squandered quite enough; tomorrow I would have to go back to being thrifty, living like a poor artist, and this would be an incredible treat.

An old man who looked maybe half-crazy took a seat beside me at the bus stop as I jotted notes of the night in my journal.

“What do you write about?” he asked.

“Sex, drugs, and rock and roll,” I answered, without looking up.

He stared at me for a moment, then looked away without another word.

I tucked away my journal once I got on the bus. I was beginning to come down from the high of the evening. The fluorescent lights and arctic-cold air-conditioning of the bus came into harsh focus as I traveled across the empty town. Once home, I trudged up the stairs to my room, tossed my keys on my dresser, started a pot of coffee, and poured another cheap vodka drink. I had a story to write.