Glitter. Real Stories About Sexual Desire From Real Women (17 page)

I had started missing Vancouver since I left, feeling like I had two homes. I wanted to split myself so I could live in both. With Gita back in my life there was the pressure to move back to Vancouver. I told her I didn't want to get married, that it was something I wasn't sure I ever wanted to do. It was too dangerous to do just for me to get citizenship. I couldn't guarantee to her or myself that things would work out between us enough to take that risk.

I visited again, for only a week that time. Going back to Vancouver was amazing, but this was Gita’s home. I had been through so many things while we were apart, while she visited Arizona it was like a fun vacation. Now that I was where she lived, I saw the cracks again in our relationship. I saw this strange possessiveness that hadn't been there before. I discovered she had been using drugs, and lied about some of the things she did when I was gone. My sexual and BDSM experience had increased ten-fold, and I couldn't fit her into what I wanted in a Daddy anymore. I came back to Arizona conflicted and disenchanted. I thought I had become the person I needed to be when we were together before. Perhaps I was, but she wasn't what I needed anymore. I felt less attracted. She felt me pulling away, even over the phone. It may be why she became so possessive, calling me constantly, checking up on me, desperately grasping for me as I drifted away.

I had fallen asleep on my couch one night, sick, exhausted from work. My cell phone was next to me, but I had it on silent. She called me fifty-one times that night. The voice mails ranged from worried to outraged. I was frightened, and suddenly grateful that she was so far away. The next day, on the phone was just yelling, insulting me, trying to tear me down, that I was a liar, and a gold digging whore. I was already gone. I had nothing to say. I couldn't be her girl when as a Daddy and a girlfriend she was losing control.

It’s been seven years since then. I don't think of her often, but I remember the good times the most. That first spanking, walking on her arm in downtown Vancouver on our way to dinner, the intense late-night conversations, and the first time I blushingly called her Daddy.

It’s Just Sex

Bella

Single mother, variety performer, and theatrical producer who came of age in the 90's.

The night I was supposed to be finishing up my Glitter submission, I was having booty call sex with a dwarf instead. Ten years ago I would have considered that sentence a punchline. Now it's my life.

The first part of my childhood was spent being raised by my Mexican Catholic grandparents. It was a very loving, but horribly repressed environment. When I was eight I moved in with my 29-year-old father and spent the rest of elementary school and all of high school under his incredibly strict, emotionally unavailable tutelage. My mother had been MIA since I was three, thanks to the fact that she enjoyed locking me in a closet while she got high with her gentleman caller of choice for that week. My stepmother was kind at times, but seemed to mostly view me as a source of resentment. Any psychological study will tell you it's no surprise that I went into show business. Or that I enjoy rough sex and bondage.

Trust me, I tried to conform. I tried to be the good little Catholic girl who was also devoted to her family. I became a wife at 21. The moment it came to walk down the aisle I knew it wasn't what I wanted to do, but I felt it was too late. Too much money. Too many guests. Too much riding on that day and my shoulders to make my family proud. Besides, the church was beautiful and I looked great in my dress, so I went through with it and stayed in it for eight incredibly unhappy and unfulfilled years. I was miserable, a shell of a human being, and a huge bitch. I would say I lost eight years of my life, but to be honest, those years shaped everything that my life is now. There are two reasons I can never call my marriage a mistake. The first reason is my daughter who was born when I was 26. She is an amazing child. Her spirit is gorgeous and she is everything a person should be. The tears stinging my eyes as I type are a testament to the pure, unconditional love I have for this little girl. Being her mother has taught me what connection and family really is and I will forever be grateful to her for that.

The second reason is what this story is really about. Me. After I separated from my ex-husband, I began to really discover who I was. I don't think that would have happened had I not been so unhappy to begin with. My divorce began the realization of what my life truly was meant to be. I discovered theatre again and then slowly began to discover vaudeville, variety, sideshow, and circus. I finally figured out how to release all the art that had always been inside me. Sharing my theatrical visions, my body, my voice, and my soul keeps my heart alive. One of the effects of feeling so great and being so comfortable in my own skin? Great sex. Once I started to love every part of myself, inside and out, my sexual encounters became more fulfilling than ever before.

I lost my virginity at 17 on the floor of my bedroom one weekday afternoon. From that two minute experience on, every intimate moment was about trying to get the love and attention that my father had never bestowed on me. So, in essence, I was having sex for my dad. In case you didn't know, having that idea in the back of your head really hinders trying to get off. Learning to love myself and coming to terms with the lack of relationship between my father and I gave me the freedom to focus on pleasure. Up until I was 32, I had never had sex outside of a committed relationship. One night stands were not in my database. Again, it was because sex wasn't about pleasure for me. It was about fierce attempts to gain intimacy and acceptance. Losing that crutch opened me up to realize that sex can be JUST SEX. That was amazing. The booty call mentality is so liberating. I'm still picky about who I choose to engage with. I love pleasure and excitement, but I love my health more. Plus the fact that I have plenty to live for and a little girl who counts on me is more than enough to ensure that I'm always careful. 

A dear male friend of mine put it best when I expressed the fact that I was surprised about how comfortable I had become with sex and multiple partners. He said, 'You're doing what most people do in their twenties, except you're in your thirties and being smart about it. That's good.' He's right. I see my sexual liberation as empowering. That sentence feels so cliche, but it's true. Knowing that my body is beautiful and that it deserves to be ravished and worshiped makes finding pleasure easy and fun. Bondage used to be a way to escape responsibility. If I was helpless during sex, it removed all traces of Catholic guilt. Now I relish the fact that I love the way leather straps feel against my skin. The sting of a whip followed by the caress of a gentle hand is heavenly.

I no longer have shame in admitting my fetishes. I have no shame in admitting I love sex. I love the exploration and the excitement of the new. This is not to say that I will never again enter into a committed relationship. Some day, I know I'll find the right person to grow old with. The best part is knowing that when I do find that person, our sex life is going to rock. He will learn what my body responds to and enjoys because I won't be afraid to ask for it. It will be a life of acceptance and love because I accept and love myself. I am a confident and powerful woman who isn't afraid to take risks or to push the social taboos of a repressed society. And thank god for that, because my dwarf is one of the best lovers I've ever had.

Firsts

Lauren Marie Fleming

Lauren Marie Fleming (aka Queerie Bradshaw) writes about sex, politics, the law, and sometimes shoes, at
QueerieBradshaw.com.
Her writing has also been featured in CurveMag.com, Autostraddle.com, Vice.com and Nerve.com. This is an excerpt from her upcoming autobiography.

The first kiss is where you get to know someone. And every kiss after that is a shadow of that first one.

Betty Draper (January Jones)
,
Mad Men

My very first kiss was in preschool for a popsicle. I don’t remember the kiss much, but I do remember that popsicle. Then there was the plethora of spin the bottle type games, including a special one we made up called ‘pass the tic-tac’, my personal favorite. The first real one happened when I was twelve. He touched my boobs, I touched his thingy, it was hormonal and full of the insecurities of puberty. When I kissed my first woman a few years later, I was even more nervous and excited than I had been at twelve.

One would think that this awkwardness would go away, but it hasn’t. Reaching that first kiss with someone is still just as thrilling for me as it had been back in junior high. The slow movement forward, checking to see if they want it as much as you do, praying they want it as much as you do, then the excitement as you feel that they do want it as much as you do. Kissing used to be such an intimate thing for me that I would save it only for very special people. Periods of my life have been marked by anti-kissing decrees and I have had sex with people without our lips ever touching.

Nowadays, I’m not as anti-intimacy as I used to be, but I’m still just as sensitive to kissing. I can tell how much I like a girl by how long it takes me to kiss her. If she makes my clit throb, I’ll grab her and have at it right then and there. But if she makes my heart twitter, I may never even attempt a hug. The night I first kissed Tsunami, we laid in bed, slowly getting closer and closer, until we finally had no choice but to meet. The tension was so strong I thought nothing could ever top it.

Then I kissed The Wind.

Over a year of flirtatious texting and intimate conversations led us to finally meet in her bed late one cold San Francisco evening. Cuddled up in every blanket she owned, I spent hours naming her body parts in Italian until she finally let my lingua meet hers. The Wind had a way of making each kiss feel like a first. The tease and tension of her tongue kept me in anticipation for years, and the dark shadow kisses Betty Draper talks of never crept their way into our love life. The mouths that I’ve met since The Wind have been nice, but nothing has blown my socks off in the stomach churning intestinal twisting way hers used to.

It was thinking about that kiss that made me start missing The Wind. But more than that, it made me start missing intimacy and physicality with an emotional connection. Masturbating is great, it really is, but there is no machine to replace kissing, trust me, I’ve looked. So, I upped my game, looking to find someone to kiss.

I like to think that I am smooth at picking up a gal, but I’m really not. It’s so hard to go up to someone and ask for their phone number. I’ve gotten better at it for sure, but at this point in my story I was still batting zero for taking home a girl from a bar. The cheesy pick-up lines never work on me, so I assume they don’t work on others either. Sure, my dad may have stolen the stars and put them in my eyes, I may have lost that loving feeling and I’m sorry you’ve lost your number, but you are going to have to come up with a line less canned and more honest if you want to take me home. And I knew I was going to have to come up with something unique for other girls as well.

Thinking it might be my in, the angle that wins me the gals, I tried the whole “I’m a sex blogger, I’d love to write about you” thing online to a few people I thought were hot. I can’t blame them for never emailing me back. When that failed, I tried it on a waif blonde in a leather jacket and dark makeup at a local lesbian bar. The minute I saw her walk in, I was smitten and talking to her took mustering up all the courage I had in my body. In the most nonchalant, confident manner I could handle, I did this:

Me: “You’re gorgeous. What’s your name?”

Her: “____________” (This isn’t blank for anonymity. Being horrible with names, I have actually blanked on what hers was.)

Me: “Hello, __________, I’m Queerie Bradshaw. Are you single?”

Her: “Yes, I’m single.”

Me: “Would you like to go out on a date sometime?”

Her: “It’s new.” (Meaning she’s newly single, I rightfully assumed.)

Me: “That’s cool. Want to hang out as friends sometime instead?”

Her: “Sure. I guess that would be fine.”

Me: “Would it be pretentious if I gave you my card?”

Her: “No.”

Me: “Here’s my card. I’m Queerie.”

Her: “I got that the first time. I gotta go see my friends. Bye.”

That is literally the whole interaction we had at the bar. I, not too shockingly, never heard back from her. I have a long way to go before I’m Rico Suave with the ladies. I was short and nervous, and should have asked for her number instead of giving her mine. Rookie mistakes. At least I tried with her, though. The day before this, I went to a Mexican food restaurant and spent the whole time drooling over the tatted up butch behind the counter. I talked to her, flirted a bit, and then left without saying a word about my desire to have her take tequila shots off of my naked body. I’ve always been told it’s impolite to hit on people while they’re working, especially if they’re serving you, but as soon as I left I regretted my manners.

I’m beginning to think it takes a bit of some pushy brusqueness to pick up a stranger. Maybe that’s just what years of watching romantic comedies has taught me, but maybe there actually is something to the bold, outlandish pick-ups I’ve heard about. My new theory is that blatantly hitting on people is more successful than subtle seduction. I’m starting to believe that Joey Tribbiani on Friends had it right when he’d sit down uninvited next to a girl at a bar, give her a smirk and say “How you doin’?” Forward, blunt, sassy and honest may be the best way to go, and the best place to go for that is the internet.

Tired of striking out at bars and coming home with only boxes of toys and my thoughts for company, I put two ads on Craigslist at the same time: one searching for “Just Friends” and the other searching for “Just Sex.” Ironically, the responses to the Just Friends ad produced creepiness (“I’ve lived here for six years, it would be nice to finally have a friend”) and the Just Sex ad introduced me to some fun new people.

When up in Portland for burlesque gigs or a simple escape from Eugene, I often studied – yes, I actually studied during this whorish period of mine – at a cute little patisserie on Alberta street named Le Petite Provence. The waiters knew me and we chatted often about legal ethics and croissant ingredients. I was safe and in my element there and so I asked Costello, the most promising responder to my “Just Sex” ad to meet me there. Costello’s response to my ad was sexual without being creepy, and after a few interactions on email, I knew I liked her; which was why I was shockingly nervous as I sat there waiting for her to show up for a quick tea date.

I know that I’m a big bad sex and dating blogger and I should be able to go out into cafés around the world with confidence and ladies on my arms, but the reality is dating is a scary thing. As I waited for Costello to show up, the story of the Stone Butch Daddy (SBD), one of my very first, first dates, went reeling through my mind.

It wasn’t exactly a blind date, but it may as well have been. I was working the door at Miss Kitty’s Scratching Post, a monthly lesbian strip club in San Francisco, when we met. I wore a camo corset, lacy bottoms, fishnets, platform shoes and a sticker that said “Ask Me for My Number.” That outfit got me two dates, one with the fabulous performer Alotta Boutté (who later became one of my best friends) and the other with SBD (who I avoid to this day).

On her way out of the club, SBD approached me and asked if I liked ice cream. I replied that I love ice cream. She then asked if I liked motorcycles, and, like the good little SF femme I was, I replied of course. Then SBD asked if I wanted to go get ice cream with her on her Harley.

I creamed my pants and gave her my number.

The day of the date, SBD called me to say that the Harley wasn’t available after all. Turns out she didn’t actually own a Harley, she just worked in a Harley repair shop and thought she could borrow one for the night. Strike one. Begrudgingly, I agreed to pick her up. If I wasn’t getting a Harley, at least I was getting some ice cream. Yet, it turned out ice cream was out of the question too. She was hungry, and insisted we go get some sushi instead. Strike two.

Strike three through ten happened while waiting for an hour and a half outside in the cold SF fog at the particular sushi joint she had to go to, even though the one down the street was great and had no wait. Once inside, she refused to let me order for myself, told me she was my daddy and it was her job to make decisions for me, and that she thought I’d make perfect arm candy to take back to live in the back country of Hawaii while she grew pineapples and I made dinner and watched her work on her (nonexistent) Harley.

At least she paid.

The complete disappointment that came from SBD led to my future fear of first dates. I thought I was getting ice cream on the back of a Harley, but instead got myself into what was a now humorous but then horrible situation. As I sat and waited for Costello to arrive, the ‘what if’ worm dug its way through my brain thinking of all the ways this date could top that first date in ridiculousness. So what did I do when Costello arrived? I awkwardly spewed the whole story of SBD as soon as she sits down.

I’ve been told I’m an over-sharer before, giving way too many details than needed and speaking of things most people consider highly private. I’ve been told this often makes people uncomfortable around me. Luckily for both of us, Costello found the story to be funny. I liked her instantly for this. I liked her instantly for many reasons, most of which centered around her sharp sense of humor.

Once, when I first came out, I posted an ad on Craigslist seeking another female for a date. When I showed up for that date, the person turned out to be a creepy guy impersonating a girl to try to get lesbians to sleep with him. When I turned him down, he told me I was a sinner and he was going to give me his cock to save me from hell, but now that I turned it down I would instead burn. This is just one example of the multitude of experiences I’ve had with men impersonating women online, this is just a sampling of the kind of shit lesbians put up with regularly.

That guy’s cock may not have saved me from eternal damnation like he had planned, but it did save me from many other potentially dangerous dates. He taught me the importance of meeting in familiar public places and having an escape route. My date with Costello was no exception to this rule. I chose Le Petite Provence because the waiters knew me well and I planned a meeting an hour after our rendezvous so I had an excuse to leave if things went badly.

But things did not go badly. They went the opposite of badly. They went swimmingly. We got along so well that I invited Costello to accompany me to a burlesque show that evening. The show must have not been too impressive because I only vaguely remember it. Was I in I or was I just watching? I know Pumpkin was there and that Costello and Pumpkin got along wonderfully as well, which was a good sign to me. I remember there was a lot of laughing. And maybe we all danced together. I’m not sure about the dancing, but I am sure that I wanted to invite myself over to Costello’s house that night. Badly.

The problem with being a law student was everyone started expecting legal help from me. I wasn’t allowed to give legal advice until I passed the bar, but that didn’t stop people from asking for it. At the very least, I was still on the hook for emotional and intellectual support in the legal realm when friends needed it. A friend of mine and his boyfriend had recently ended their relationship with a fist fight, a call to the cops and restraining orders. The next morning, I was supposed to get up early and accompany him to his hearing. His need for help and my brain’s need for sleep before I encountered a judge on the bench trumped my desire to go home with Costello and so I went home alone, without even a kiss.

It was two weeks before I made it back to Portland and by that time Costello and I were ready to go. We had emailed and texted constantly and the sexual tension was good and tight. We met for dinner at a Thai place that had better reviews than the food deserved, and talked for an awkwardly long time after our meals were done. For a reason I can’t remember, we decided we just had to go teeter-tottering, and went to a local park to satisfy our craving. I’d hoped for some slide or swing sex, but alas, no moves were made, just awkward moments of tense hesitation.

Still dizzy from spinning swings, we went back to her place under the pretense of seeing what On Demand had in the way of movies. Pretense turned into reality, though, when we made it through the whole fabulously camp
y
Spice Worl
d
without a single wandering hand. Again, just awkward moments of tense hesitation.

Moving on to looking at sex toy websites, I inched closer to her yet still didn’t feel a response. When we started looking at porn sites without a move being made, I thought we were doomed.