21 to 2

A Complete Sexual History

The first time Stefan and I had sex, it was meant to be a rebound. Six years of marriage had just ended without closure, and I needed comfort. I needed a chance to reap the benefits of being alone in the midst of all of the bullshit of it.

He had the air of a stud, sexy and available. A few weeks earlier, he had left Nick and me at the bar, saying, “I've gotta go see about a girl.”

An hour later, he met us back at the Compound. “She was passed out.”

After just a few late nights of whiskey, weed, Perkins, burritos, coffee, movies, jokes, and more honesty than I've shared with anyone I've known less than six weeks, it was clear that behind the promiscuity he was a god damn sweetheart. After the first night, I knew this wouldn't end with a rebound.

“How many girls have you had sex with?” I asked him that first night. I wasn't sure if I was curious or concerned, but it seemed an appropriate question.

“Twenty-one.” He grinned a little sheepishly. “You make twenty-one. And you? How many guys?”

I returned the sheepish grin and rolled over so that I was staring at the ceiling, avoiding his eyes.

“Two.”

“So that makes me--”

“Number Two.”

Number 14 called him last week while he lay in bed with me. He checked the caller ID on his phone, rolled his eyes, and looked at me.

“This is my life,” he said reluctantly.

He only dated her for a brief period, but they have been friends for a long time. She had been in his bar that night, wasted, this girl with a job and a fiance, who never drinks. When he told her he was leaving town for the summer, she burst into tears.

“Oh my god! I'm going to miss you so much!”

He smiled and served her a glass of water. “It's not really a big deal. I'm coming back in a few months. Our relationship won't really change. At all.”

“I'm going to miss you so much!”

She wouldn't leave the bar without a hug, and she came back to knock on the door after she was kicked out.

“You've got to just go home,” he said. “Get home and sleep this off. We can talk in the morning.”

She called him four times before he left work, and he finally answered on his way home.

“We're having an afterparty!” she shouted drunkenly into the phone. “Come over!”

“I'm tired,” he replied. “I'm going home.”

He didn't answer when she called again. Four times between two-thirty, when he lay down next to me, and three a.m., when he finally turned his phone off.

“How is she still awake at three a.m. after leaving the bar so drunk?” I asked.

“She's gotta be doing drugs... she doesn't do drugs. I don't know. She's bored and unhappy.”

“I think we're at that point in our relationship where I should find your old girlfriends on Facebook, look at their pictures, and see how much prettier I am,” I mused a few days later.

“Oh, you probably don't have to do that to know,” he replied. “I can just tell you about them if you want to hear it.”

That sounded like it would get weird. Of course I wanted to hear it.

“It was just a string of sad and lonely people. Just sex,” he admitted. “We were satisfied to leave each other silently in the morning as long as we never had to spend a night alone.”

When I came to the Hart Compound the week before Christmas, Number 20 had left a tray of cookies at the door, an apology for Nick Hart. They called her “Ivy League”, a snob from Harvard who was entertained to be slumming around with them. She called Nick an asshole and Stefan, with disdain, “a bartender”.

They come into his bar a lot, more than any of us knows, I think.

He came up to me at the bar last night, lowered his eyes, and said, “There are five of you in here right now.”

I grinned and looked around, trying to imagine who the others might be. Number 19, 15, 9, 16, and me. I didn't know who any of them were, and none of them knew that I was there.

Number 19 was crazy. “I hooked up with her the night before she went into rehab and was diagnosed a paranoid schizophrenic.”

Number 9. “We were two sad and lonely people incapable of having a relationship. We had sex twice in one night, and moved on.”

Number 15 liked to do a lot of cocaine. They enjoyed a lot of late nights, talking and boozing until 7am.

Number 16. “That was just a one-night thing. A one...afternoon thing, actually. Word on the street is she loved to lick guys' assholes. She didn't do that for me.” He shook his head.

Number 18 was one of those Madison bicyclists who doesn't wear deodorant.

“She was beautiful,” he assured me, “and clean. She just didn't believe in underarm hygiene, apparently.”

I nodded and kept my face blank. Yeah, it was definitely going to get weird.

“How many girls have you had sex with, Lady?” he joked with me to refresh the mood.

I looked him in the eye with a straight face. “Four. Never alone. You know.”

He raised one eyebrow, surprised for a moment, then nodded. “Sure, I know.” Number 12 and 13 were roommates.

He met Number 11 while he was working at the Essen Haus. She was there with a bunch of girlfriends. They all ordered pastel-colored drinks that tasted like fake fruits. She ordered Scotch on the rocks, so he asked her out.

“The first thing she told me about herself was 'I'm never with a guy longer than three months'.”

After they had been dating that long, she finally asked to be his girlfriend. He accepted, but broke up with her the next day.

“I couldn't get that three-month mark out of my head. It was over.”

He met Number 7 on MySpace.

“I had just moved to Madison after a string of failed relationships in Ohio. I was lonely; I wanted her to be my girlfriend so bad.”

Number 8 was his girlfriend for a year when he was twenty-four. They had the same birthday, but she was four years younger. When they visited her parents for the holidays, he had to sleep on the couch in the basement.

“I'm disgusted with myself right now,” he admitted to me. “Sixteen girls in three years?”

“Fourteen of them in the last two years,” I pointed out.

He shook his head. “I could have done without most of them. Just you. And Number 8, she was my girlfriend. And Printer Girl; I guess that worked out. She gave me a six-minute joke.”

Printer Girl was Number 10; she was staying with his neighbor. She was cute, and her fiance had just dumped her. Stefan knocked on her door around four a.m. New Year's Eve, glanced to the guy on the couch behind her, introduced himself to her, and said,

“Anytime you want to fuck me, I'm right upstairs.”

A few days later, she was at his door. “No one has ever said anything like that in front of Mike.”

Number 3 “is currently trying to get me involved in a pyramid scheme. She told me she's starting her own business, and I can make a lot of money.”

Number 4 had lots of tattoos and she was fat. But she was nice, and they both liked Alkaline Trio.

He met Number 5 at a house party and just slept with her once.

“She was in high school. I thought she was eighteen,” he told me.

Number 2. “I had sex with her in the back of my van in the parking lot of her boyfriend's church. She was almost off of her period,” he added. “Her boyfriend wanted to murder me. Because we were friends. But, he stole her from me first.”

He has loved Number 6, Number 1, and Number 21.

He dated Number 6 for two years, until she left him for a rockstar. He fled to Madison to start over, and later brought her here to try again. They signed a lease and opened a bank account. They lived together for six more months, until he left her for his art.

“We still keep in touch. She does a lot less drugs than I do, so it usually takes her longer to call.”

Number One is raising his son.

I am probably just as crazy as the rest of them; only Number 22 can tell that.

Number 21. Our paths crossed with impeccable timing; two artists wanting to avoid the next lonely night, willing to accept the bitter truths of the past, living this moment without a thought for the next because every moment we've ever planned has passed by in spite of our plans.

We'll hold onto his twenty names and my six years, and move onto tomorrow with neither ignorance nor shame; and against the odds, we'll avoid sleeping alone for one more night.

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.

Country USA (or CUSA, as the kids are calling it these days)

My weekend was Country USA Friday night followed by family pictures in the country town of Redgranite on Saturday morning. In order to deal with both, my goal was to become rowdy enough to get arrested at Country USA and miss family pictures for being in jail overnight.

A country music festival in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, is close to the last place I ever want to find myself on a Friday night. Redgranite, Wisconsin, however, is the last. So I chose the less offensive of the two and hitched a ride in my friend's suburban to CUSA. I put on a sundress and moccasins, hoping I wouldn't be mistaken for an actual country music fan.

It was my sister, the quintessential small-town girl-- Lutheran, an elementary school teacher, with a good Christian boy on her arm and a head start on her 401(k)-- who had begged me to join her. She went with a group of friends from high school to Country USA every year, and she loved to play the part-- lacy cowgirl hat, short jean skirt, and faux snakeskin boots. She lured me there this year with the promise of free admission and cheap beer. The opportunity to encourage my sister to break the law by sneaking me in without paying was too good to pass up.

We met her in an empty parking lot a few miles from the festival grounds, where she pulled out a ziplock bag filled with CUSA wristbands of all colors from the past seven years. Of course, they rotated colors with each year, but they chose from a small spectrum, apparently. She dug in to find bands that matched this year's color for my driver and me, sliced the sides, and slipped them onto our wrists. She super-glued them back together, so they looked as if they were snapped on as they should be. She accidentally glued my driver's wristband to his skin, but he's a tough construction worker from central Wisconsin, so he didn't even wince when she tore it away without warning.

I left my laptop and my journal in the car-- no sense in risking everything I've written at the hands of rowdy hicks. I tossed a hat and a sweater in my bag, packed a bowl, and tucked the pipe in the side pocket. Surely taking weed into a hick party was a good way to be arrested quickly. Hicks hate hippies.

We left the Suburban in the empty lot-- we'd have to pay for parking if we took it in-- and packed into my sister's tiny Saturn, a comical position for my driver, who was almost six and a half feet tall. We drove in to the campsite without a hitch, although my sister freaked out when the “guard” at the gates requested to see the snapped sides of our wristbands.

“What if they noticed the glue?” she asked later. “Then they wouldn't have let us in,” I answered. “Shit.” They hadn't even checked our bags, or the trunk. These hicks were probably all armed with shotguns, maybe compound bows; and they were never going to find my pot with such lax security.

We drove along the dirt road toward my sister's campsite, a slow drive with the hordes of drunks that occasionally swayed out in front of the car to mosey along aimlessly from campsite to campsite. I caught glimpses of Confederate flags, pickup trucks, and camouflage as we passed the other sites. I was in deep now.

We finally pulled in alongside her RV, and greeted the dudes lounging in lawn chairs next to it. Each was at least three-hundred pounds; one had a 36-ounce Country USA 2010 plastic travel mug full of Busch Light, and the other had a cowboy hat tilted to cover his eyes as he tried to nap in the chair.

“I have NEVER drank at 8 a.m. before,” he said to my sister. “And now I'm feeling it. I've got to be done for the night.” It was six o'clock in the evening.

“You just have to keep drinking to avoid the hangover,” I said to him. “You don't feel it until you stop.” I headed straight for the RV from the car, to the liquor cabinet, and pulled out a bottle of Captain Morgan. This place reminded me of high school.

I poured drinks for myself, my driver, and the hungover fat guy. “Are ya sure you don't want a little more rum in there?” my driver asked, pointing at my cup.

“Right now, I really need the caffeine from the Coke,” I answered, but took a small pull from the bottle to satisfy him before I set it down.

My sister ducked into the RV for the hors d'voures she had prepared for the weekend, and came out with an empty Tupperware dish in hand. The fat guys had eaten it all. “That was the second batch I made this week!” she scolded them.

“It's alright,” I said. “The coolers are still full of beer; we've got plenty of sustenance.”

My driver nodded as he sipped his Captain and Coke. “While you're over there, grab me one o' them Busch Lights, will ya?”

My sister obliged and took a Miller Light for herself, and we settled into our lawn chairs to down these first drinks. Soon the rest of the crew came wandering back from swimming in a nearby lake, a few girls my sister had gone to high school with and some guys I vaguely recognized as graduating a few years behind me. I carried my half-empty drink to the table and topped it off with Captain. Drunk and giddy high school acquaintances could not be tolerated on one weak drink and some caffeine.

The girls put on cut-off jeans over their wet suits and patted their hair dry with towels from the RV, while the guys started to stack cups on the table for a game of beer pong.

Two nineteen-year old girls I didn't recognize at all stepped behind the RV in their bathing suits and ran bottled water through their hair to wash out the muck of the lake.

“Let us know if you need any help over there, girls!” my driver shouted to them. He was at least twenty years older than the rest of us, but his wife was a nagging bitch who had stopped speaking to him two weeks before when he was at the bars until 2 am without calling her after work. She had been sleeping on the couch and had left town for the weekend to stay at her sister's place farther north. He was a decent guy who would likely never touch these girls, but he was ready to drink some cheap beer and enjoy whatever show was going to be put on for him tonight.

The girls giggled in that virginal, nineteen-year-old tone that says I'm not gonna say no, but I shouldn't say yes.

Someone turned on a portable radio and tuned it to the local country music station. Between cheap and shallow songs was live coverage of the festival we were at, radio DJs encouraging everyone listening to “come on out” to the Copenhagen tent, etc. Between this hawking, they played commercials. Once everyone was gathered near the beer pong table, I walked over and tuned the radio until I heard Pink Floyd. I sat back down. No one seemed to notice. One of the nineteen-year-old girls was calling for a partner, and she grabbed my driver's hand and dragged him to the table.

I was ready to wander. I could see a game of beer pong any day of the week in Madison; I wanted to go find some freaks. I knew they were out there. I stole my sister's giant plastic novelty mug and filled it with three cans of beer. I screwed on the top and tried a sip through the thick plastic straw. This was going to be a classy night. I told my sister I was leaving to wander and to let my driver know. He was busy in his third game of the beer-pong tournament, easily crushing these kids with years of drinking under his belt and not a bit of help from the drunken giggling girl at his side. My sister glanced over at him and rolled her eyes.

“How are you guys getting home?”

I shrugged and waved a hand at her. “Looks like he's winning, so we should be alright.” I smiled and patted her on the shoulder as she shook her head and raised a skeptical eyebrow.

As I left the campsite, James, my sister's boyfriend, called to me “Where you headed?”

“Out to wander! I want to find some freaks to write about!”

He glanced to the beer pong tournament, then to the sleeping fat guys, and back to me. He scrambled out of his chair and followed me as I hit the dirt road. A simple country boy, but he was quite a few degrees above most of them in intelligence. And he was a former Marine, once a personal guard to George W Bush; he would be good to have around if any of the hicks got out of hand.

I started to count the Confederate flags as we walked. Four in the first six campsites we passed. Also, fourteen American flags, three American-flag T-shirts, and one American-flag bandana.

As we rounded the corner to the next dirt path lined with campsites, I heard “Incoming!” and turned to see a jello shot in a plastic cup flying my way. I caught it and looked farther back, to the guy sitting on the tailgate of his truck who had tossed it to me.

“Jello shots!” he shouted, and tossed one to James.

“Thanks!” I shouted back, removed the lid of the cup, slid my pinky around the edge, toasted James, and sucked the jello out. It was a huge shot, about 4 ounces, so I was prepared for it to hit me pretty hard. But it just tasted like blue jello. For those people who want to drink but don't like to taste their liquor-- for the girls. It was a lot of blue jello to consume without the burn of cheap vodka to cut through the sweetness, and it made no dent toward my drunkenness. I was never going to get arrested this sober.

Down this path, I counted twelve more Confederate flags and thirteen American flags, and walked past an old man sporting a yellow thong and an American-flag bandana. I shivered and held in my chuckle until we had passed him. Curly gray chest hair, scraggly beard, and burnt-out drunken eyes. This was the kind of man who gives drugs a bad rap, the kind of man Squares picture when they hear the word “hippie”: old, worn, burnt-out from decades of uneducated experimentation. The kind of drug user that existed before the internet.

I was surprised when I saw hot tubs-- multiple people had brought hot tubs and set them into makeshift decks at their campsites, and the bot tubs were now filled with groups of middle-aged country folks. Smart people, drinking and relaxing and keeping away from the chaos and filth all around them.

People who believe in Hell are the freakiest kind of sinners. The fear of God forces them to repress all desires throughout most of the year, only to break free and let them fly out in chaotic bursts of lewd drunkenness on special events like this, where it is “allowed”. They could walk around in thongs and bathing suits, drink shots from strangers, and hit on passersby-- all the things they would never be allowed to do come Monday. All of these, in their minds, were grouped with sexual harassment, racist insults, and drunken violence; so, unfortunately, these came out in the chaotic burst as well, making these parties a slimy stew of dark desires and despicable sin.

“Show us your boobs for a beer!” came another shout as we ambled down the path. It was a general call to all passersby; a group of younger girls in bathing suits walking the opposite direction giggled and waved at the campsite as they passed by. I checked my mug; it was getting light, so I decided to investigate the offer.

Six guys of various ages were gathered around a wooden sign hand-painted with the words “Boob-o-meter”. Below the title were pairs of circles cut out of the wood, gradually growing in size along the plank. I approached, and one of the younger guys grinned at me.

“The bigger the boobs, the bigger the beer, sweetheart. Wanna show us what you got?”

I smiled back at him, then glanced back to where I'd left James. He had turned away and started to chat with a random camper down the path.  Nice, decent Christian boy, sister.

“What's the deal?” I asked.

Another of the guys set three plastic cups on the top of the Boob-o-meter plank, three sizes, growing larger along with the cut-out circles below. The bigger the boobs, the bigger the beer. I looked down at my own chest; I didn't even need a bra with this sundress. This would probably not refill my mug. I laughed and approached the larger end of the sign as another guy poured beer into the cups.

“What do you think?” I said, stepping side to side along the holes.

The guys shrugged and grinned. I don't think too many women were actually taking advantage of their deal, so they were pretty intrigued. I paused in front of the largest beer and raised an eyebrow at the old guy standing behind it.

I glanced back again and saw a golf cart coming down the path, carrying four festival guards and a city cop. I pointed them out to the guys.

“Damn,” I said. “I probably shouldn't do this in front of the cops!” I giggled with the most modesty I could fake to convince them of my innocence. “I'll have to catch you on my way back through.” I smiled and shrugged at their protests and drunken reassurances.

I was interested in getting arrested that night, but I definitely didn't want to show these bastards my tits. As I turned to leave and the guys turned back to their campsite, I grabbed the largest cup of beer from the sign and popped the lid of my mug. I filled the mug with the beer as I caught up with James down the path.

“That's a big beer,” he said skeptically, and we both laughed. “I'm a good negotiator,” I replied.

Around the next corner, a group had set up a full-service bar under a tent that spanned four campsites and were handing out free tequila shots. The sign posted next to their tent read “Tequila makes her clothes fall off”, which, I later learned, is the title of a Joe Nichols song. This country music artist also sings a song called “If Nobody Believed in You”, which includes the line “What if God quit tryin'?” Classy, freaky sinners. James and I drank free tequila shots, and I was asked but not required to make my clothes fall off, and we kept walking.

The sun was just starting to go down, and the music was going to start soon, so we started to make our way back to my sister's campsite. The beer-pong tournament was finished; my sister was wiping the splashed beer from the table, and most of the crew around had dispersed to other campsites or toward the main stage. The nineteen-year-old chick was passed out in her bathing suit in the RV. My driver was drunk now and singing along with the country music on the radio.

“Gettin' ready for Toby Keith!” he said, pointing a stern finger at me as I approached.

I fucking hate Toby Keith, who was headlining that night; but the driver and I hadn't partied together in months, and he was having a good time, so I was willing to put up with the soulless, corporate-cock-sucking singer for one night. I had weed, and tequila always mollified me.

The four of us headed toward the main festival gate with a can of beer each. We'd have to finish them before reaching the gate or they would be dumped out, my sister warned us. I grabbed an extra to tuck under my dress as we went in. If they saw me with it , maybe they would at least kick me out before the show started. My driver finished his beer as we passed another golf cart of cops, and he leaned over to say hello to one of them, patted him on the back and asked how his night was going. As we walked away, I asked how he knew the guy.

“I don't,” he answered. “I just wanted to toss my empty can in the back of their rig.”

As we entered the festival grounds, he actually did know one of the gatekeepers who was snapping on our second set of wristbands, ever the small-town man. As they caught up on the twenty years since high school, my sister and I were able to walk in with our half-full cans of beer unmolested. I didn't even bother hiding the second one, and no one stopped us. I resigned myself to watching Toby Keith play.

The roped-off area for the audience around the main stage was already full by the time we arrived, and the crowd had spilled out to the sides. Festival guards were patrolling the area, pushing the crowd to condense toward the ropes to keep us from spilling out and overwhelming the festival grounds. Why it was important to keep the crowd that was here for the show from blocking the cotton candy tent, I'm not sure, but we stepped to the side and crammed in next to the ropes with the rest of the latecomers.

I'll admit that, as the string of opening musicians played through the first hour and a half, I threw an arm around my sister and side-stepped, line-danced and maybe even do-se-do'ed a step or two, toasting my driver with my giant travel mug of beer. And I thought I was prepared to keep dancing even for Toby Keith, feeling drunk and high enough to swallow my rage. But while the rest of the crowd cheered as he came on stage in a Ford pick-up truck in front of a giant American flag singing the words “We'll put a boot in your ass; it's the Amuurican way!”, tears welled in my eyes and I stopped dancing. Jesus Christ! Fucking freaky fucked-up sinners.

At midnight, a torrential downpour struck the state of Wisconsin, and we were all instantly soaked. Summer rain, though, you can survive, especially with enough alcohol to numb your senses; so we stayed until the end of the show. Toby Keith had fireworks shooting up from the stage behind him, and the sky was streaked with lightening above us, and the crowd went wild as thunder clapped and added unplanned intensity to the stage show. The jumbo screens were streaked with the rain, and water flew from the hair of dancers crammed in next to me, and pooled into mud at our feet.

My sister stayed sober somehow and insisted on driving us home, dashing my last hope of getting arrested that night. As we pulled out of the campground in her Saturn, my driver rolled his window down and stuck his head out in the rain, letting the downpour splash in at me in the seat behind him. As we drove past the other soaked concert-goers heading to their campsites, he wiggled his fingers in the air, dancing as best he could in the tiny car, and sang.

"Hey!” he pointed back at me in the rear-view mirror. “Thanks for coming out tonight.  Even though your mother is gonna be pissed to see you hungover in her pictures tomorrow.”


"No worries,"  I replied, watching the hordes of soaked drunks in bikinis and cowboy boots stumble across our path.  "Hey, I could've been in Redgranite tonight."

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.

welcome to the shit show.

“Is this confusion the price of loving an artist?” she asked me.

Fuck. I hate tending to a woman with a broken heart. It's like being a doctor who has to inform a patient she has AIDS. “Tell me there is some way to make it go away, doctor...”, and all you can say is, “I can help you live with it, but it will never go away. You'll survive, but you'll be slowly dying inside.”  Heartache. Some fucking virus your lover gives you that can't be cured, always present, fucking up every relationship to follow, eating away at your life.

“Yeah,” I answered, not what she wanted to hear. “I think confusion is the price of being in love with an artist, and being an artist. There will always be these things you have to work through. But it's certainly cheaper than the price of being alone or being with a Square. ”

Given the choice, I think I would prefer my lover give me AIDS.

Here I sit, on the couch; the cat cozy, clean, and friendly curled up next to me; my lover nearby at his computer, working.  We are both taking time to write on an afternoon off from our day jobs.  It's sunny outside. I've already had a good meal and a cup of coffee.  I have no place to be all day.

All of us are wishing, in a way, that it could be just as simple as this moment. Wishing, though, that we could live an artists' life and have this simplicity. But to have simplicity would be the death of our passion, our inspiration, our art.

Art is not born of order and calm; art is born of chaos and passion, and those fucking hurt people. Country music has the formula right: the harder the life, the sweeter the song. But we can all tell the difference between the real stories and the contrived bullshit, and we don't want to hear the bullshit.  We need the art.  We need the song this artist will sing about the life that is breaking this woman's heart.

Still, though, it's all so goddamn stupid. Any other animal would surely choose death before putting itself through such torment voluntarily. Only humans are dumb enough to have cultivated the ability to feel emotion-- to have studied it, analyzed it, encouraged it; to the point that we thrive on it, require it for life, live for the shit that we breed from it-- relationships, and art, and ideas.

And everything that human culture loves requires this goddamn shit show of chaos and passion to exist: our celebrities and their art, our preachers and their enlightenment, our teachers and their wisdom. The world is in love with the artists' life, although most couldn't possibly survive in it. I'm pretty sure that most of us living it aren't certain we can survive in it. But we are certain that living any other way is guaranteed death, and we're too stubborn to settle for a simple death. So we make our way through the shit show, and share our goddamn art with a world ignorant of the price.

“Sorry for your pain, dear,” I mumble, as if this will mean anything to her. I guess I'll just offer her another hug and be sure to write her story.

squares and rockstars.

"We're not EXACTLY rockstars," the Taxman said as we headed to the hot tub early Sunday morning.  Someone had said "It's great to be rockstars," partying all night, and the neighbor's hot tub open to us at all hours.  This assertion by the Taxman sums up my evening with the Squares.

Well, there was sex, drugs, and rock and roll that night, for sure.  There was dirty dancing and hookups in dark corners; wine, beer, jello shots, and weed; two live bands playing great music we could dance to.  Partying followed by great food with friends followed by naked hot tub.

In a way, I guess, one could call it a good night:  no one went home mad, no one cried, no one had any sex they don't remember, there was no mess left anywhere, and nothing was broken or lost.  I imagine this is how the Squares see it.  "We partied an appropriate amount."  The Taxman's calculation.

We had one bottle of wine between four women.  One refrigerator of bottled beer for seventy-five people that ran out after we each had three.  Maybe four people smoking weed and only one guy with a pipe.  Not a single person smoking cigarettes.  No one drinking jello shots but the groupies because they tasted too much like vodka.  The lights were on in the house all night.  The house was ninety degrees, and the only two people I knew there (and the only ones not busy grinding with someone they wanted to hook up with) kept stepping outside for relief from the heat.  Even during the best songs!

The room was full of private-school music majors who had nothing in mind but who they would fuck that night, where, and when.  They weren't used to "outsiders" playing at their house parties, and they gave little energy to the band.  The music they talked about amongst themselves was their upcoming end-of-year recitals.  This crowd reminded me of a pianist chick who, when asked to step in for the keyboard part during my friends' band practice one time, responded, "I'm classically trained, and I don't want to damage my form." Musicians; but students, not rockstars.

Mistakes were made.  I didn't order any drinks at dinner before the show.  No one warned us, the "outsiders", that when these kids party they pre-game to shit-faced ahead of time, so the house doesn't supply a keg.  Just a few beers to keep everyone going until the hook-up hour.  The girls and I went with the practical choice of buying only one bottle of wine, assuming only we would drink it and beer would be abundant; we didn't prepare for the possibility of sharing or having no beer.  We stopped drinking early on so we could all drive home, but didn't resume the drinking once we were home, and we ate a bunch of food.  We spent a lot of time eating and chatting as the sun started to come up, and by the time we made it to the hot tub it was practically daylight, and we were all practically sober.

We were only in the hot tub for forty-five minutes, not enough time for it to warm up completely, so it was lukewarm the whole time.  The band members brought their girlfriends along, so no sexiness in the hot tub at all.  Though, when the Taxman had uncharacteristically called for naked hot tub and a late night, sexiness is certainly what he had been hoping for.

"I've never been to the hot tub with the Editor and not the Doctor before.  This should be interesting."

Well, Taxman, you have nothing but fantasies.  Any hope for achieving those you dashed yourself in your own mind before we could even get started:  "We're not EXACTLY rockstars."  You need to expect your dreams to come true and make something happen.  It was not interesting, not like you imagined.  It was far too real; lukewarm water and pale white bodies we could see with sober eyes in the morning sun.

Rockstars are meant to be seen in dim light through a smoky haze.  Never after dawn, and never sober.  They have groupies on their laps at 3am, not girlfriends-- unless their girlfriends have groupies, too.  Rockstars don't take a break for fresh air during the good songs.  Rockstars have the ability to see their dreams as possibilities and make them reality.  Squares can drink all night, dance to rock and roll, make great music, stay up until 5am, and get naked in their neighbor's hot tub.  Without the anger and the crying and the hazy sex and the mess and the broken shit and the extra booze-- without the passion-- they're just... Not exactly rockstars.

frenchie freedom weekend. part two: the life.

(Read Part One)


So, this is our weekend, the story of me and the Doctor, Frenchie, The Lately, Freedom, Wisconsin, and how we wound up sharing this artists' life non-stop for the last eight weeks.


I have to sometimes launch straight into a list of the shit that existed on a weekend like this, just so that I can remember to include it all.  It is less than eloquent for the Editor to post a bit of writing direct from her stream of conscious, but this is the only way I can truly share the events of this weekend.

Sam, the Doctor, and I met up with a friend who fell for Frenchie like the rest of us simply through our stories.  The four of us met Frenchie at the bus in Madison at 2pm on Friday; we all skipped class or work to get the weekend started.  We packed into our car and drove the two hours to Freedom, where we met up with the entourage of artists bred in the neighborhood where Sam and the Doctor grew up.  In the house at one time were this initial crew of me, the Doctor, Sam, and the French girl; the sage and original rockstar who sired Sam and his family of musicians, the chick who had sex with the Doctor and me and stole Sam's songs, her boyfriend, the Taxman, and a badass sax player we grew up with.

After greetings and dropping off our bags at Sam's, we headed across the court, where the rest of our family was frying fish, because it was Friday in Wisconsin.  The entourage hung out here for a bit to get drunk, then made its way en masse to the Colonial House for an after-hours jam session.  Jamming at the Colonial House with a host of other characters, all of whom I don't know, maybe fifteen of us in all, some of us just there to listen.  Valentine sang some French things along with the sax player's improv lyrics to the tune of "Sweet Home Alabama".  Alabama, France.  Sam serenaded us all and made us long to never leave this old basement and this hodge-podge of musicians.

Saturday morning.  The crew at Sam's house headed to Appleton to start recording.  The Doctor and I stayed in most of the day to argue over some spousal bullshit, but resolved to cut it out at about four o'clock and headed to the studio, where our forced smiles soon turned genuine as we shared Kerrigan Bros wine with the band and Frenchie.  Frenchie immediately changed into the Doctor's morph suit when we arrived and looked mysterious and ridiculous for the rest of the day.

Sam writes and sings the songs for The Lately, and the music we heard that day was awesome.  And the producer worked with a touch of genius and played badass mandolin for the album.

From the studio we headed to Freedom to watch the sage play a show.  A cover band at a small-town Wisconsin bar is always a fucking great night.  Frenchie turned to me and said, "I am probably the only French person here."  I laughed and said, "Yes, of course you are."  "That is soooo cool."  French-accent.  She got quite drunk as everyone bought her drinks with the hopes of getting to know her a little better, and she'd had no dinner.  She danced sexy and French in a black dress, put her arms around me for the slow songs, and kissed me on the lips with no warning.  So French.  The band introduced her to the crowd as "all the way from France", and she was glowing.  She got too drunk and headed to the bathroom, put her fingers in her throat, and puked.  Someone told me she was missing, and I headed to the bathroom to ensure she was alright.  She was puking and women were lining up to use the bathroom, so we headed outside, behind the building.  She handled herself well while drunk and puking, a touch of French class in the back alley of a Freedom bar.  A cop was called to the bar to break up a hick fight, and he saw her sitting there and said, "Looks like she's pretty sick" and went inside.  I led her away from the building then, and the Doctor soon got worried, found us, and took us back home, where we filmed her for an hour being wasted and singing "Shoestains".

Soon, the rest of the crew made it back home to meet us, and we all changed into our bathing suits and headed across the court to sit in Sam's neighbor's hot tub, by this time a Freedom party weekend tradition.  Traditionally, however, we go naked.  This weekend, we started in our suits, maybe because Frenchie was technically a 'stranger'?  The Doctor was the first to remove his shorts and the only one naked for a while.  Then Valentine started to tease me and remove the tie on my bikini.  Then she kissed me.  Wanted to show me what "French kiss" means.  It was wonderful; it's exactly what you imagine.  So, through flirting and teasing, we took off our suits, and the boys quickly followed.  We were in the hot tub until 6am, drinking wine, kissing, melting, and recovering from the previous18 hours of drinking.

Sunday was Daylight Savings, so we lost an hour somewhere (try to explain that to the French one, and you'll quickly realize how absurd it is).  Slept two hours and headed back to Appleton for a bit more recording.  The Doctor and I headed back to Madison around noon, stopping at a small-town Wisconsin diner for day-after brunch:  French toast, burgers, and cheesecurds.  French toast, along with a host of other so-named crap, is not French.

Sunday night, when Sam and Valentine came back to Madison, was chill times at our house.  We enjoyed Frenchie's company, even sober, ensuring the beginnings of a solid friendship.

Monday, the Doctor, Sam, Valentine, and I ate Indian food for lunch, wandered around the zoo to enjoy the beautiful day, and went shopping at the Dig n Save.  We continued the bender mildly that night with wine, American Honey Whiskey, and PBR.  Valentine had a new cute hat from the Dig n Save that I wore all night, and before she left our house she cried, "I'm not leaving that hat!", tackled me onto our bed, said "I'll trade it for a kiss", French-kissed me, and fled.

I had to work the next day, and she caught a bus back to Chicago.  We have talked to her via Facebook and Skype each day since; she's coming back to Madison next week to celebrate Sam's birthday.  She wants to live in the US, and our current plan is to find someone to marry her in a ceremony performed by the Doctor, so she can stay and work and gain citizenship after two years.  (Yeah, apparently that's really how it works.)

We don't know yet how this story will play out, but Frenchie will be in America for another two months.  It's only been seven days.- 3/18/10