Friday, September 25, 2009

F Word



Jens Lekman


Would you stand up for this kind of beauty?
'cause this kind of beauty won't stand up for you.

It won't lift a finger for some lazy dreamer.
Here it comes, the average dirty word.
Pardon my French.

Abby Winters



Larissa and Silvie

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

Firewalls

When I first began this blog nearly five years ago, I had no conception of how anyone would find it, much less read it. I told a few friends about it. I knew only two sex blogs, each written by friends; I was new to sex blogs and anyway, there just weren’t that many around. Otherwise, I wrote into a void. Since no one read my blog, I felt I could write honestly, telling stories for a few friends and anyone who came upon them.

Pretty soon, though, that void took on a face. A reader wanted to meet me for sex. This surprised me. Was this even allowed, I wondered? I agreed to the date with her—and then another, and another—and before long, it turned out that my sex blog had found my new girlfriend.

Then my girlfriend started a sex blog. She invited me to have sex with her girlfriends, and they started sex blogs. Other sex bloggers caught wind of our burgeoning network and wanted to join in. Word got out among friends at my sex parties, and many of them started sex blogs. We all wrote stories about one another. Within a few months of beginning my blog, “Jefferson” was getting laid all over the Internet. It was all in fun, we felt, safely behind a filter of anonymity.

But then I transgressed on a taboo I didn’t know existed. I blogged love. This caused some upset in my new circle of friends, as my love was directed to someone no one knew. Some wished me well. Some were anxious that this new relationship would put the brakes on all the fun. Others were jealous. My girlfriend was understandably frustrated. The upset happened off blogs; everyone talked to each other and, with varying degrees of success, we worked it out. Love was okay. It didn’t mess us up.

Inevitably, as the number of sex bloggers grew, I encountered those who enjoyed the adrenaline rush of blog drama. In time, I learned to identify the red flags of bloggers driven by accusation, upset and vitriol (hint: this cohort is largely comprised of poor writers whose emotional vocabulary is routinely limited to extremes of elation or outrage). I learned to keep my distance.

In my personal life, I found my presence in so many sex blogs to be the cause for occasional upset among the people I cared about. Someone might reasonably be jealous to read about her lover having sex with someone else. This was exacerbated, in my circle, by the fact that so many women I dated had met one another at my sex parties. They had witnessed me having sex with other partners. They read about private moments in blogs. This was a given, but granted this access to my other relationships, they could watch closely, looking for giveaway signs of love and intimacy.

It was hard to predict what would trigger upset. A girlfriend read in a blog that a partner and I had hot sex and afterward, we went to a museum. The girlfriend was jealous: why had I never taken her to a museum? A girlfriend read in a blog that a partner and I had hot sex and afterward, I served scrambled eggs. The girlfriend was jealous: why had I never served her scrambled eggs?

I struggled to sort through such reactions. I could offer to rectify perceived slights with offers of field trips and scrambled eggs—and in this way, attempt to be all things to all people—but ultimately, it felt that anyone who regarded such minor revelations as indicators of favoritism was probably ill-suited to be in a relationship with me. My private life was just too public, and too much of it written by others in blogs over which I had no oversight. Over and again, I found myself repeating variations on a theme:

“I have sex with multiple partners. I write about it on the Internet. Some of my partners write about it on the Internet. I am single. I am bisexual. I am nonmonogamous. I am under no obligation to report my dates to anyone. Most people really enjoy knowing me. But if discovering evidence of these facts on your own will hurt you, please do not seek a relationship with me.” This is the truth. It must bear repeating, as I repeat it over and over.

Obviously, it is absurd that anyone would find evidence of favoritism in something so mundane as the serving of scrambled eggs, much less conclude that such favoritism means I don’t care about the person who went without scrambled eggs. In real life, not everyone gets the same thing. To want every single thing that everyone else gets, plus something else—something more and unique—is to assume a platinum-level membership in my life that doesn’t really exist.

Even as I tried to address these assertions of upset, I met people who were comfortable with what I had to offer. They knew about my blog; they generally met me through it, and if not, it was freely offered. They read about me in other blogs and appreciated that confirmation of my essential honesty. As promised, I was indeed having sex with other partners who were indeed writing about it. Some were pleased if I wrote about them in my blog. Others requested that I not do so.

In respecting the requests of those who preferred to remain off-blog, I found myself with a secret life within my secret life. Everyone knew about the partners at my sex parties. Everyone knew about partners who wrote about me in blogs. But in addition, I had sexual relationships that flew under the radar. I had sexual relationships in private. I had intimacy, just like anyone might.

This allowed me a better perspective on the public sex life I had introduced in this blog. Here, I knew to take care in blogging love. I adopted strategies of subterfuge by telling the truth without necessarily revealing chronology or naming full casts. In my private life, I could be less guarded. I wasn’t worried about truth or love being used against me. I could be more content in trust.

With my intimacies, as with my family life, I erected firewalls between the façade of “Jefferson” and my private interiors.

This proved a good precaution during the upheavals of last summer. During a year-long custody case based entirely on my sexuality as revealed in this blog, I sat silently in court as my ex-wife’s attorneys tried to build a case against me, decrying a life they knew only from what I had chosen to reveal. As a few bloggers used my misfortune to stoke a flame war, a former drinking buddy claimed special insights based on our six-year association. She later admitted she really had no direct knowledge of my life in the preceding three years; her assertions, she confessed, were based on hearsay and second-hand gossip from biased sources. Her confession went unacknowledged by those distracted by the few busting more furniture for the bonfire.

The makeshift torches outside my firewalls burned out their fuel, scorching effigies without singeing flesh. I fretted about the flames before realizing, as embers cooled, that none of it had anything to do with real life. For me, real life and online life are clearly distinct from one another. Apparently, this is not always the case for others.

Now, I’d like to tell you a story. I’d like to talk about something that happened to real people, in a real time, in a real place. You’ll recognize some of the people in this story, but a few will come as a surprise. To tell it properly, I’ll need to breach my firewalls in certain areas. Rest assured, the interiors will remain intact.

Wednesday, September 02, 2009

Hot Dads: The DILF Anthology



Hot Dads: The DILF Anthology


Apparently, I was one before I knew what they were.

I was once having a snack with my daughter, listening as she gabbed away about her best friends in school, when I became aware of the woman at the next table listening in. She grinned to hear my daughter talk and laughed along at my responses. As I paid the check and we prepared to go, she leaned forward to touch my arm. “Can I just say, the two of you are simply adorable?”

“Oh! Well, thanks!” I stammered. “That’s very nice.” I smiled back. She continued to smile, still touching my arm and saying nothing more. “Okay, well, I suppose we should get going . . .” I stood and held my hand out to my daughter, who had watched the exchange intently.

“Who was that?” she asked as we walked out.

“A nice lady,” I shrugged. “Evidently, a very nice lady.”

I later related this to a friend. “Was that just a ‘nice lady,’ or do you think she was . . . I dunno, saying something?”

“Of course she was saying something,” she replied. “You’re attractive, you’re nice to your kids and you don’t wear a wedding ring. That makes you a DILF.”

“A ‘DILF?’”

“You’re so clueless,” she sighed. “You know what a MILF is—a mother I’d like to fuck. Well, a DILF is the daddy equivalent.”

“Oooh. That’s a new one to me.” I sat back and put my hands behind my head. “Gee, this sheds a whole new light on all the nice ladies at the playground . . .”

She shook her head. “Incorrigible.”

Well, incorrigible or not, I am now an anthologized DILF, thanks to editor Lori Perkins at Ravenous Romance. Hot Dads: The DILF Anthology includes my story “Not This Time, Daddy.” It won’t be appearing on my site, so you’ll need to drop in on Ravenous Romance to read this tale of obtuse romance.

You’ll also get stories from a dozen other contributors. As the advertising copy suggests, you’ll read about dads who are “gay and straight and even bi. You'll find thirteen stories of hot dads in these sizzling pages, from spy dads to a dad who has a thing for orgies!”

Even bi? Scorch!

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Shampoo



Elvis Perkins in Deerland


And, for good measure, the reason I can't get a meeting in Hollywood. Let's face it, I fucked 'em all.

Wednesday, July 08, 2009

Abby Winters



Alena


Here's the uncropped version of my blog avatar.

Monday, July 06, 2009

Office

She often told me that I pushed her limits. Every now and then, she pushed mine, intentionally or not. So it was when she confessed a desire for sex in her office building, a corporate skyscraper in midtown. “I’m your man,” I said, swallowing two quiet anxieties that have trailed me since childhood—mild vertigo and a too-highly attuned respect for authority.

She had already caught a glimpse of my discomfort with heights one evening as we made our way through a crowded opening at the New Museum. We had collected glasses of absinthe and wedged ourselves into a place on the slender rooftop balcony. She was telling me a story when I suddenly grasped the wall behind me. “Are you okay?” she asked.

“I’m fine, it’s nothing,” I said, hurriedly gulping my drink. My eyes were focused over her shoulder.

“What?” she turned. “What are you looking at?”

“It’s nothing, really,” I said. She looked at me querulously. “Okay, look. You see that guy holding the toddler? Over by the railing?”

She turned her head. “Sure. Cute kid.”

“Yeah, well, that cute kid is bored and squirming and the guy isn’t really paying attention. I can’t help imagining the kid going over the railing.”

She looked at me. “Seriously? He looks safe to me.”

“I know, it’s my thing.” I diverted my eyes from the child. “I get this vertiginous feeling at times and imagine heights exist primarily to provide places from which to fall.”

“Oh, I hate that feeling, too. Should we go inside?”

“No, let’s stay out here. Hang on.” I moved to the railing and peered over. The Bowery waited for me seven floors below. A wave of anxiety passed over me, causing my heart to race.

She came up behind me. “That’s brave of you.”

“Cheap thrills,” I admitted. “I always do this at the Guggenheim, too. The interior walls along the ramp tilt out at a slight angle. Now, that’s just death’s way of making life fun.”

We soon made a date for office sex. Eddie Izzard was playing Radio City Music Hall, which happened to be near her office building. She proposed that we take in the show and then repair to her office, which would presumably be empty at that hour. I agreed. Throughout the show, my mind flashed forward; I would soon be having sex with this lovely, kinky woman, I reassured myself, and the odds of getting arrested for it weren’t really all that great.

Afterward, we shuffled out among the crowd, laughing about the show. We hadn’t walked far when she took my arm. “Here it is,” she said. “Are you ready to do this?”

I looked up and drew a short breath. “Yes. Let’s fuck in your office.” I took her hand and followed into the lobby.

She stopped to flash her identification card to the security guard, explaining that I was a client stopping in to pick up a package. He looked me over. “That’s fine, but you’ll need to get a visitor’s pass for your guest. After hours, those are only issued at the main desk, other entrance.” She confirmed the location and thanked him.

I looked up as we approached the main entrance. The company’s logo moved across a series of animated screens. “That’s going to look so dated in a few years,” I said. “It’s a wonder they did something so . . . flashy.”

“If it gets old, they’ll just scrap it off and put up something else,” she replied, waving a hand as if to erase the facade. “This company is over a century old and they have more money than God.”

At the main desk, we faced five guards. One took my driver’s license, scribbled some notes and returned it to me with a plastic badge. “Keep that visible at all times,” he instructed me.

“Yes sir,” I said, attaching the badge to my shirt. I tried to look like someone who had business to conduct at this late hour and not like someone trespassing for sex.

Back at the original entrance, the guard looked at my badge, looked again at her identification and allowed us to pass. I admired the blue-chip art on the way to the elevator.

When the doors closed, she pushed the button to her office’s floor. “I’d suggest we get started in the elevator, but . . .” she raised her eyes. “Video cameras.”

“Oh, right,” I said, noting the glossy dark hemisphere in the ceiling. “Say, there aren’t cameras on your floor, are there?”

“No.” Her brow furrowed. “Well, not that I’m aware of.” My stomach dropped as the elevator halted.

I followed as she led me past long rows of empty workstations. I knocked on a desk as I passed, listening for the solid report of good wood. Identical offices banked the opposite wall, each with a fine southern view of midtown, none with any sign of occupancy. “Does anyone actually work on this floor?” I asked.

“Yes, we’re all grouped in the back. This area has been pretty empty since the last round of layoffs.” We passed a kitchen area stocked with drinks, snacks and two espresso machines. A glass wall revealed a library with shelves of oversized art books. “No one reads them,” she told me. “But we keep ordering them to impress clients with our brainy décor. We have a huge budget for books. I can barely find enough to order.” She pointed to a top shelf. “See? I cheated and ordered two copies of Rem Koolhaas’s S, M, L, XL. Had to spend the money somehow.”

Her desk was located with a cluster of others in a open space near a corner window. Fluorescents burned overhead. “I wanted you to see my work space, but I think it’s too exposed to actually do anything here.”

I looked around. The room was the length of a city block. “Yeah, I wouldn’t want a guard to come in here while we’re . . . in flagrante.”

“Come on.” She took my hand and led me back down the way we had come. I followed her into one of the darkened empty offices. She shut the door. “Now, this is better, right? Like our own private office.”

“Yeah, this is much better,” I smiled. I stepped closer. We kissed, her mouth opening to mine. I took her shoulders and turned her, pushing her back toward the window. She scrambled to pull herself up to a ledge. “That’s good, that’s good,” I growled. “Now spread your legs.” I ran my hands under her dress as she did so, moving along her thighs to her bare pussy. “So wet,” I smiled into her kiss. “But let’s get it wetter.”

I grabbed the nape of her neck in my hand and pulled her forward. Her arms scrambled to break her fall. I grabbed a wrist in my free hand and pushed her to her knees. She got the message, righting herself and watching eagerly as I unzipped. She took my cock in her mouth. I looked over my shoulder, checking that the door was indeed closed, noting the glass wall that revealed the hallway beyond.

I put my hand back to her neck, forcing her head back and forth rapidly, listening to her gurgling gags. Saliva ran from her lips to her chin. “Good, good.” I pulled back and shoved three fingers into her throat. “Now, that’s the slick stuff, back here,” I said. I stroked my well-lubricated cock. “Here, follow me,” I said, tugging with the fingers inside her. She crawled forward, coughing on my fingers. I dropped my pants to my ankles and sat at the desk. “Now,” I said, releasing her. “Suck my cock.”

She groaned and crawled forward. Her eyes rolled in pleasure as she returned my cock to her throat. “That’s good, that’s good,” I said, stroking her hair. My eyes were drawn to the window, looking up at the offices across the way. I wondered at all the blowjobs that must happen in midtown offices. How many in a year? How many in a decade? Numbers ran though my mind as her drool gathered in the leather seat under me.

I leaned forward and reached under her dress. Wetness ran down her inner thighs. “Okay, you’re ready,” I said. “Get back on that ledge and give me something to fuck.” She hurried to comply. I bent to take a condom from my pocket, kicking off my shoes and pants as I opened the package.

I listened to her groans as I thrust into her, my eyes closed. She grabbed at my head and, instinctively, I opened my eyes. There, far below us, was Radio City Music Hall. I felt a wave of panic and looked up, focusing on the General Electric sign blazing at Rockefeller Center. That’s good, that’s good, I thought, letting my eyes drop again. My skin tingled. The only thing between us and our demise was the sheet of glass I now banged with her body.

“Thrill junky,” I murmured, pulling out.

She groaned, confused. What had I said, she wondered, trying to focus. Suddenly, two fingers were inside her. Another followed. Her eyes widened and captured mine as she realized what I was doing. “Oh, no, no, not that,” she said. Tears came to her eyes. She had taught me, long before, that “no, no” was not her safeword.

Her body rocked hard as I fisted her, her back pummeling against the glass. Her face was in full ecstasy, haloed by red neon against the sea-black sky. I felt her clench against my fist as warmth flooded from her body, splashing against the ledge.

I slowed, then stopped. Her body went limp as I pulled out, as if my fist had been the only thing holding her erect. Her sobs were audible now, lowering into the range of human hearing. I held her as she recovered. Far below, a solitary taxi sped up Sixth Avenue.

We kissed. “Come on,” I said quietly. “Let’s go home and fuck in bed.” She nodded, drying an eye with the back of her hand.

We dressed and gathered our things. I put the condom and its wrapper in my pocket. “Don’t want to leave any evidence,” I said.

She ran a finger over the puddle on the ledge. “Yes, well, other than my DNA.”

I fastened my belt. “Should we clean that?”

She grinned. “No, let’s not.”

We washed up in the ladies’ restroom and raided the kitchen. I made a cup of espresso to drink on the way to the subway.

The guard wished us a good night as we left. She leaned to my ear. “We forgot to bring out a package,” she whispered. I laughed at the dumb luck of pulling off sex in her office.

She wrapped an arm in mine as we waited to cross the street. I took my last sip of espresso and looked at the cup. Glancing up, I saw the same logo swirling across the screens on the building’s façade. “Lehman Brothers, Lehman Brothers, Lehman Brothers,” I mused aloud. “You come for the office sex, you stay for the coffee.”

She laughed as I tossed the cup into a wastebasket and stepped to the curb.

Training of O



Amber Keen and Maestro

Sunday, July 05, 2009

Tweets

It was the shining affair of that dismal season, and it played exclusively on Twitter.

Lyle was a butch lesbian who identified as male. Susan was a straight woman with flowing blonde hair. Lyle lived in the Pacific Northwest. Susan lived in Southern California. They were each married to others and parents to small children. They were also sex bloggers.

At the time, I had closed my own blog in order to focus on a custody case. My ex wife had discovered my blog and was using it—and its stories of my sexuality—in her second bid to take my children from their father. The story of this custody case had caught the attention of other parents who blog about their sex lives. Many sent their sympathies. A few went so far as to close their own blogs for fear of similar consequences.

As it happened, sex blogging underwent a transformation during the time I was offline. Twitter had quickly emerged as a popular social media, allowing users to maintain an online presence in bite-sized nuggets of one hundred and forty characters. Bloggers naturally gravitated to it. The format was well suited to those who approached blogging as diarists. Rather than develop ideas and stories by crafting paragraphs, they could now narrate their lives in real time. For those who enjoyed the attention to be gained from maintaining online personae, Twitter provided the narcotic of immediate gratification. Tweets allowed constant reassurances of one’s own fabulousness.

Still, in most hands, Twitter seemed irretrievably banal. Followers of sex bloggers now found themselves enmeshed in the minutia of daily lives. From morning coffee through mid-morning paperwork to late afternoon ennui to television viewing to a final “goodnight, tweeps,” nothing seemed too minor or too personal for public consumption. I’m bored. I’m horny. I love these shoes. My stomach hurts. I’m crossing Third Avenue and I can’t find a cab. There were bloggers whose disclosures allowed the charting of every meal, every irritant, every bowel movement. Readers once entertained or informed by sex bloggers now found their eyes glazed at the evaporated boundaries of personal revelation and the apparent loss of meaningful texts.

Yet given a new print medium, worthy narratives will inevitably emerge. So it was with the romance of Lyle and Susan.

As the Pacific Coast woke each day, Lyle and Susan were among the sex bloggers who would pipe into a morning already underway for their cohorts to the east. Gradually they took note of one another, Lyle giving a gentlemanly nod to Susan, Susan replying with tongue-in-cheek flirtation. After some light banter, Lyle would head to his job with Susan’s affectionate peck on his cheek. Their interactions became a part of my own routine, like a radio talk show playing the background as I worked.

Soon, things began to heat up between them. Susan would sign on, alluding to too little sleep following long conversations with Lyle. Lyle would sign on with ardent greetings to the woman he now referred to as his darling. Inquiring readers soon learned of late-night webcam sessions, exposed flesh and feverish desires. With the blessings of their respective spouses, Lyle and Susan began to plan a meeting in real life in which their long-distance online affair would be consummated in the flesh.

If Twitter was primarily devoted to documenting nothing, here it had fostered the creation of something real—Twitter had made lovers of two strangers. And in doing so before an enraptured audience, Twitter had provided optimism and excitement in the form of a real-life soap opera. People who would never meet Lyle or Susan came to care about them.

I was among the many who wished them well. I’m a sucker for romance and there was no question of genuine affection between my online friends. Certainly, I could relate to the passions they felt, as I had been in their situation. I had met friends and lovers, and even fallen in love, through instant messages and webcams. I knew the joy that online romances can bring to real life.

Several years ago, I received an email from a reader then in college in the Midwest. She was funny and engaging and, as it happened, we got along famously. In time, she came to visit me in New York. Anna Smash and I became lovers.

Anna started a blog in which she wrote about our friendship and romance, among other aspects of her life. I decided not to write about Anna in my own blog, preferring to keep our relationship private. She visited now and then and as I introduced her to my friends, many remarked on the bond between us. “Well, yeah,” Anna would say. “I’m totally smitten with Jefferson.”

“I’ve got an absolute Smash Crush,” I would sheepishly admit.

Over the years, Anna and I have had I-don’t-know-how-many threesomes. I arrange orgies for some of her visits and preserve intimacy for others. Our shared curiosity about BDSM grew together and we’ve established a great trust in that; so much so that when she became deeply involved with her boyfriend, she wanted him to learn to be her dominant by being together with us.

Anna and I keep in touch when we’re apart, as friends do, and we look after one another. She knew I was stressed about my custody case and she was going through a rough patch with her boyfriend. She came for a visit and for several days, we locked the doors to the rest of the world. We talked, laughed, made love and took care of each other. On the day she left, we both felt sated and content.

Later, she called me from the airport. “Everything is screwed up,” she said. “I’m not going to make my flight. I should’ve left earlier, maybe made a different flight, but as it is, baby, I’m stuck here for a few days.” I told her to come back home.

While I waited, I signed online. Everything in and out of New York was delayed due to weather. Checking Twitter, I saw a message from Susan. “New Yorkers, can you help? Lyle is trapped at the airport until tomorrow.”

I sent Susan a note. “Everything is socked in. Can I help?”

Susan was quick to reply. Lyle was stuck on a layover on his way to Florida and needed a place to stay overnight. “I’m running an orphanage for waylaid travelers,” I said. “If Lyle needs a roof overhead, send him my way.” Susan conveyed the message. I spoke with Lyle, explaining that my friend Anna was also delayed and heading back to my place. “I’m sorry you’re in a bind, but I’m glad to meet you no matter the circumstances,” I said. “Come on over. I’ll buy you a drink.”

Lyle was the first to arrive, about an hour later. He smiled when I opened the door, holding a wet hat in one hand and extending the other. “You just rescued me from Third World conditions,” he smiled.

“Glad to do it,” I replied, taking his hand. “Come in and let’s get you settled.” Lyle picked up his bag and I showed him to a room. He changed into dry clothes as I poured us two bourbons.

As we got acquainted, I told Lyle a bit about Anna, explaining that she was also a sex blogger and we had originally met online, like him and Susan. The mention of Susan lit up Lyle’s face. “Jefferson, it’s like nothing I’ve felt,” he said. “I love my wife, and I’ve talked with her about this. I love my wife and I would do anything for her. But this thing with Susan, it’s like . . .” he paused, searching for words.

“It’s lust, buddy,” I suggested. “It’s lust caught up in love and it’s for someone you know so well and you’ve never even met.”

Lyle laughed. “That’s exactly right. And that makes no sense, does it?”

“Maybe not.” I lifted my glass. “But cheers. I’ve been there myself.” We drank to love and continued talking until interrupted by Anna’s arrival.

She looked forlorn. “I’m so sorry, baby. I hate that I’m imposing.”

“No, no.” I kissed her forehead. “I’m glad we get more time together. Listen, my friend Lyle is also trapped in town tonight. Come in—let me introduce you and then I’ll set you up with a drink.”

I ushered Anna inside. Lyle stood to shake her hand. Anna was clearly impressed by the gentlemanly butch cowboy in my living room and sat to compare traveler’s tales of woe. I fixed Anna’s drink and refreshed our own. In no time, we were deep in conversation about love, online romance and sex blogs. Anna mentioned in passing that her socks were wet and began to take them off. “My pants are drenched from the knees down,” she added. “Do you guys mind if . . . ?”

“No, not at all,” Lyle grinned.

“No one’s going to stop you from taking off your pants, baby,” I assured her.

As Anna pulled down her jeans, Lyle noticed bruises on her thighs. “Whoa, what happened to you?” he asked.

“Oh, well, Jefferson happened to me,” she laughed. “That would be from the paddle.” Lyle looked at me. I shrugged. “And this,” Anna said, turning. “This would be from the caning.”

Lyle leaned forward to look more closely. He let out a slight whistle. “You’ve got a mean arm, Jefferson,” he said.

“I can’t help it,” I said. “I’ve got a fierce Smash Crush.” I motioned for Anna. “Come here, honey, and sit on my lap.” Anna smiled and sat on my lap. She wrapped an arm around my neck and extended her legs toward Lyle. Soon, Lyle was massaging her feet.

Another round of drinks later and I was searching for my strap-on cock. “I don’t really need this all that often,” I apologized, rooting in a cabinet.

“I didn’t know I’d be needing mine,” Lyle apologized, stepping out of his jeans.

Anna reclined nude on the bed, propped on her elbows. Her eyes moved from Lyle to me and back again. “I think I must be the luckiest girl in the world,” she smiled.

I found the harness and handed it to Lyle. “Okay, I can make this work,” he said, adjusting straps. He raised a leg to step into the rig. “It takes some getting used to . . . I do favor my own equipment . . .”

“I’m sure you’ll do just fine,” I encouraged, putting out lube and condoms. “Here, how about I warm her up while you’re getting ready.” I leaned forward to kiss Anna, unzipping my jeans as our lips met. We had been making love all day, after days of making love. Her trip to the airport was just a blip in our routine.

When Lyle was prepared, I pulled back. “You ready for the next up?” I asked.

Anna nodded. “Oh yeah.”

Lyle gave Anna a light kiss as he entered her.

Lyle and I passed Anna back and forth until I needed a rest. I sat back on a pillow, my eyes closing as Lyle fucked Anna to yet another orgasm.

The next morning, there was a knock on my bedroom door. “Good morning,” Lyle smiled, peeking around the door. His breast revealed he was nude. “Breakfast is almost ready. But where do you keep the coffee?”

I raised my head. “Now, that’s sweet, but you don’t have to . . .”

“Don’t get up,” Lyle said. “I’ve got this taken care of. I just need to know where you keep your coffee.”

I dropped my head. “So sweet. It’s in the freezer . . .” I buried my face in Anna’s hair and returned to sleep. She snuggled back against me. The scent of bacon wafted from the kitchen.

Lyle called when breakfast was ready. Anna and I stumbled out and took our places. We woke slowly, eating breakfast nude as Lyle poured our coffee. In time, we were capable of conversation. We sat talking and drinking coffee until it was time for Lyle to leave. We hugged him goodbye. “Thanks so much for letting me stay over, Jefferson,” he said. “That was pretty memorable.”

“Yeah, what I remember of it,” I yawned, sitting back on my bed.

Anna leaned up to kiss Lyle. “Don’t worry, baby. I remember it all.”

Lyle blushed slightly. I offered to show Lyle to the door, but he said he could take care of it. “Good,” I said, tugging Anna’s arm. “Then I’ll take care of this.” I pulled Anna back into bed with me. We were kissing as the front door closed.

Lyle dropped a line to let me know he was safely arrived in Florida. He thanked me again for the hospitality. I repeated that it was a pleasure to meet him. Susan wrote later to reiterate her thanks. I told her I was glad to oblige.

A few days later, Lyle sent me a link to his blog. There was a hot story of a threesome, “inspired,” he wrote, “by our fun night.” Anna had returned home by then, so I forwarded the link to her. It didn’t mention us by name but it was clearly about us. She replied that it was great and said she really liked Lyle.

When Lyle returned home, we traded a few tweets. We didn’t say anything explicit about our night together, but it was evident that we had met in New York. Anyone reading us on Twitter may have followed our exchange.

A few days later, I checked in on the romance of Susan and Lyle. I realized that I could read Susan’s tweets, but not Lyle’s. Assuming that my Twitter feed was messed up, I tried to sign on to Lyle again. It didn’t work. Lyle had blocked me.

I wondered if something had happened. My blog had been discovered—what if something bad had happened to Lyle as well? I checked his blog. It was still in place, though the references to meeting me and Anna had been expunged. Now I was thoroughly confused. I wrote to ask Lyle if he was all right. I had no response.

A month or so later, I got an email from a mutual friend. “I feel like I’ve heard this story from everyone but you,” she wrote. “What happened with you and Lyle?”

Nothing much, I replied. He was stuck at the airport and he stayed at my place. I liked meeting him.

“Wasn’t there a girl there?”

Yes, Anna Smash was here, I replied. Why?

“I heard that you both had sex with her, and that she was a less than willing participant. Is that what happened?”

Anna Smash? Did Lyle think she was less than willing?

“It’s not Lyle. There’s someone else who is telling this story.”

The friend told me who was behind the story. A former girlfriend of mine, a married woman with whom I had a brief affair, had been spreading malicious gossip about me since the end of our relationship. As she has been married for a very long time, ours was her first break up since the nineteen-seventies. She didn’t have much experience in ending things gracefully, so she reverted to the rules of the playground: if you don’t hate him, you can’t be my friend.

Her playground happened to be the Internet. While I was busy in real life, fighting my custody case, she was busy online, dividing sex bloggers into two camps—hers and mine.

At first, she went after bloggers I had long known as friends. Sex blogs were all new to her, as my blog was the first she had read mere months before and, among sex bloggers, she knew only my friends. A complete stranger complaining about your friends will meet with limited success, she found, so she moved on to bloggers I had not met, focusing on those outside New York. Here, she found eager ears, as everyone loves gossip. Even better, not only were these bloggers less likely to know me personally, no one knew her at all. It was virgin turf. She could attack me with impunity.

Lyle found himself in an awkward position. He didn’t know me well. As my ex girlfriend grilled him for information, she turned Lyle’s experience to new conclusions. The girl was bruised? That’s evidence that she was coerced. She was young? She’s been duped. He was probably paying her. He probably brainwashed her. He uses girls like that, girls with no self-esteem. You have to stay away from Jefferson, Lyle. You don’t know how evil he is. Hearing this, Lyle began to wonder: what if his experience was mistaken and my ex girlfriend's assertions were correct?

I told Anna what I had heard. “If Lyle thought I was coerced,” she asked, “Then why did he keep fucking me after you were asleep?” The whole thing got under her skin. Anna wrote Lyle to make it plain. She and I have been friends and lovers for years. Everything that transpires between us is consensual. She is nobody’s dupe. She is very capable of making decisions and she was entirely comfortable having sex with us that night.

Lyle thanked Anna for her note. It really put his mind at ease, he said. After my ex girlfriend learned of our night together, she had been very upset with him. “I thought you were my friend,” she had messaged Lyle. “You can’t be my friend and be friends with that dickhead.” Ever the gentleman, Lyle acquiesced to keep the peace.

Anna told me what Lyle had said. “You know, that’s pretty fucked up,” she added. “He met us in person and he still bought into that online bullshit.”

“People do odd things online,” I replied. “One day, maybe Lyle can talk this out with my ex girlfriend. You know, assuming they ever meet in person.”

Thursday, June 25, 2009

Her Angel

We were both trying not to stare.

We were finally meeting, our neglected breakfasts between us as we talked. She had been reading my blog for a couple of years; we had been corresponding for nearly that long. Now that we were finally meeting in person, we had an opportunity to match words to voices, nuances to faces. I didn’t want to make too big a deal about her beauty—I’d already been a bit effusive about the photos she had long ago sent to me—and I understood that she was understandably curious about matching me to “Jefferson.” Now and then, our eyes met and our easy conversation would still for a moment. Her expression seemed to ask, is that really you? I was sure mine replied, yours for the asking.

She had apologized for dressing like such a slob, in paint-splattered jeans and an oversized Ivy-league sweatshirt, but the cold snap had taken her by surprise. She had only packed summer clothes. I chided her for not having her hair done, at the very least, wondering if I had ever blogged about the effect that tomboys have forever had on my queer equilibrium.

Her eyes were a blue so clear that my own were like dull silver in bad need of burnishing. She is not peering into my bare soul, I reminded myself. That’s just what people think about eyes like those.

We fell to talking about conceptual art. Sex leaked into our discussion of identity without leading us to become too personal too soon. She asked how I first became interested in art. “As a kid,” I replied, dragging a fork through egg yolk. “I’m afraid I’ve fallen far from my true calling. I was destined to be a comic book artist for Marvel.”

“I don’t know much about superhero comics,” she averred. “Just the old stuff I read in my dad’s library, Marvel from the sixties and seventies.”

I looked up, wondering if my soul was buttoned a little too revealingly. “Like what?”

“Oh, the usual stuff. Fantastic Four, Spiderman, Avengers . . . I sort of lose track after a certain point. Like, I never read the new X-Men or anything.”

I put down my fork. “By ‘new X-Men,’ are you referring to the Chris Claremont days, like the early eighties?”

She nodded. “Totally lose track by then.”

“Yeah, me too. By then I was busier with life than with comics.” I was mindful that she would not yet have begun life when I put aside comic books. “I gather that most of the original characters have since had their powers so revamped that we’d hardly recognize them.” I sipped my coffee. “I guess that was necessary since, let’s face it, some of the original powers were kind of limited.”

“Like Warren Worthington III,” she agreed.

I risked her eyes. “You recall the name of the Angel, just like that?”

“Well, I had a bit of crush on the Angel. The blonde hair, the blue eyes, the naked chest and of course, the wings . . .” She gazed at me again, as if casting me in a new role. “He was so mixed up, though he always had girls chasing him and drove around in roadsters. A poor little rich boy.”

“Wasn’t it true that his role in the team was largely supportive? I seem to remember he generally just lifted the more powerful X-Men into the air so they could attack from above.”

“Well, there’s that, but he also had to hide his power,” she noted. “He always had to wear a harness over his wings and hide them under a suit. It seemed to me that must’ve hurt.”

I raised my coffee cup. “Sensitive reader.”

She grinned. “Yeah, but only to a point. He was also always getting captured and tied up. I really liked that.”

“Ha! That’s right. He had that whole ‘damsel in distress’ thing. He would get captured and the others would have to rescue him.”



“That’s right,” she nodded. She sat forward. “I used to imagine capturing Warren Worthington III and making him my bitch.”

I laughed. “So the truth comes out.”

“Warren Worthington III was my kinky fantasy,” she confessed. She put her hand across the table. I took it. She looked down at our hands and then back to my eyes. “I wanted that blonde angel.”

I held her gaze, gulping slowly. “I see,” I eventually managed.

The waitress interrupted us, offering more coffee. She released my hand and I placed it in my lap. We returned to talking about art and came back to sex, only this time, her Angel was unhindered.

She had an appointment to keep. We paid the bill and retrieved our umbrellas. I offered to walk her to the subway. We talked casually as we walked.

Our first goodbye was also our first kiss. She nibbled on my lower lip. We pushed back our umbrellas, feeling rain drizzle on our faces. I surrendered my mouth to her. “I’m getting wet,” she said, looking up. “In more ways than one.”

“You’ll send me away, walking crooked,” I smiled.

I emailed her later. “Wow.”

“Likewise,” she replied.

She left New York. A few days later, she sent me a cartoon. In place of the breakfast table between us, she now shared her Angel with me.

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Everything Butt



Flower Tucci


Bend over and spread the news: Everything Butt is now live. Enjoy; tell 'em Jefferson sent you.

Laughing With



Regina Spektor


Bring back God if you wish, Regina Spektor, but please, let Magritte rest in peace.

Tuesday, June 16, 2009