Friday, November 13, 2009

Don't cry for me Argentina

Pretty low-key lately. Chicago was nice with amazingly warm weather and great family. The drive to Minneapolis was giggles and singing '80s songs loudly with my sister and her fiance (who did not sing but deejayed). Then, it's been a slow easing-into-society process. Job hunting a bit online, driving practice to the car wash, dinner with a girl friend.

Then, last night I went out with a guy who worked with me way back in the day when I was working for a local newspaper. We had drinks at some typical bar with wooden interior, a circular and centered bar, TVs blaring sports, and stools supporting all kinds of overweight, boring-looking people. I brought him a 2Euro coin and he brought me 5 scratch-off games, which I've never played before. We won $2. I had a dirty martini and it didn't taste as I was hoping it would. He had grapefruit juice. We've both cut down on the drinking quite a bit during these precarious days of unemployment, when we could be easily subjected to a bout of depression or anxiety. We went to a pool hall to shoot some and I learned that not all pool halls serve booze, and some can feel downright depressing. I won one, he won one. Then, we rounded off the night at a dive bar called Vegas, where some scowly college kids were drunk and singing karaoke. I had a Maker's Mark on the rocks for old time sake. He had a Sprite. Talking came easy. We had exchanged some emails over the past couple of months since finding ourselves via Facebook, so we knew that we could joke about naughty sex, share openly about our depressions, and dream of our evolution.

When he drove me home, he patted my back and let his hand linger. We wished I was wasn't staying at my sister's and that he wasn't crashing with his parents. Then, we kind of leaned into each other and he started kissing my neck. My heart palpitated and my body sighed. We kissed gently until I tightened my teeth around one of his lips. His right hand grabbed my hair and pulled my neck back. His left hand dove into my jacket. I tried to move it into my skirt, under my tights, but he kept pointing out that we were parked in the middle of the street under a street lamp. I didn't care. Who would care? I didn't live there. No one was awake. No one was looking. I am not fifteen. But I was totally prepared to jump into the back seat to get it on. He said he had no condom. We said we'd hang out Friday night. He waited for me to get inside the house and his SMS was "Nighty nigh cutie pie."

Friday, November 6, 2009

no, no, actually I'm not going out tonight

I have 3 huge suitcases staring at me from the corner of a dark shadow of my apartment. The toilet and shower and closet shelves are clean, although unnecessarily so. I've given more to this apartment than is necessary to clean it, but I'm a bit OCD and a bit fetishy about cleaning, so I take this time to inhale bleach and other toxic chemicals and scrub scrub scrub while think think thinking of what I'm cleaning away.

I am prepping my ipod for the 14-hour flight on Aer Lingus: sexy tunes for when Mr. Flight Attendant asks, in his almost incomprehensible Irish accent, if I'd like "coffee, tea, Michael Collins Single Malt, or Michael Collins cunnilingus?" And then, the tunes for when I pop a sleeping pill and attempt to twist-cramp myself to sleep. (I have lewd fantasies of "accidentally" slipping a hand into my pants to fondle myself while sitting next to a handsome potato-exporter.)

There were fireworks somewhere out in the city, and the Eiffel's light rotates overhead. I know I'm forgetting so many things, just like I knew I was forgetting something when I left Spaniard's apartment this morning. "Thanks for the nice umbrella :-)" he texted. But I know what I'm leaving here, and I know I can't take it, and I know I'll feel short of it for a while.

... Finally.... Finally, the tears are coming. I've been wishing they'd come. A few streams in Spaniard's bed was not enough. A few stiffled droplets during adieus to friends was not enough. Which is why I am not going out tonight. I need to say good-bye - my way, finally. It's been building oh so building. The street line when I turn the corner at my metro, my street line, my chimney stacks to the sky, my grey buildings against hazy, dusky, impressionist skies. The last frustration in BHV, searching for vacuum bags when no one knows where they are and refer you to another floor's department. The fact that my French is good enough for them to understand me, but still not know what I'm talking about. That I'm asked for directions and can turn and point with clarity and sureness. That I know the metro lines and the fastest way to get there. That I can still get lost by a block but then remember what neighborhood, where it leads, what it's next to. This familiarity. The tea had with new friends just yesterday under an awning under the pouring, drenching, loud rain. Our breath seen for flittering seconds beneath the heat stands. The so-not-environmental heat stands.

So, I've said my good-byes to those that need them. And those friends to whom I haven't know who they are and why it might be harder for me to say good-bye to them. For they are the first I knew here. I want to refuse to say good-bye to them. I want to pretend this journey goes on. That my voyage to the US is simply that. A moment of respite from here.

But I know this isn't the case. It never is.

I left Buenos Aires in 1991 after three and a half years of growing up there, and I have yet to return. I rarely return. Even my return trips to the Midwest mean something strange to me.

But Paris is, indeed, a moveable feast. She will be inside me forever and I in her. If just for a small second, a slight dent in time, an imprint in this historic apartment filled with ghosts previous to me and enjoyed by me and better for me.

This is my good-bye party. This is my moment of hugs and tears and so longs and until we meet agains.

so long, Spaniard

I hadn't had a drink in five days. He poured Glenfiddich. We talked for two hours, then we went to his bedroom. I held his hand as we stared up at the ceiling, in the dark, clothed, with The Pixies singing from his living room. Small tears slid down my cheeks. But it wasn't long before I rolled a leg over his hips and unbuckled his belt. And it wasn't long after caressing his cock that I was hungry for it. I pinned his arms and bit his nipples. Between his legs, I tickled my lips with the fuzz of his pubic hair and filled my nostrils with his scent - always so clean but still him. His knees retreated to the sky and I wet a finger at his ass. I imagined I could want a strap-on to fuck him - if we had days and days, but we did not, and his arousal was almost too far gone. I am fair play. I get mine, too. He leans up but I am clasped to his body. He lifts me and guides me to my hands and knees, pulls my jeans down but not off. He is my steady fuck and he is awarded my new virginity. His girth prodding steadily for entry, and when his cock is inside me, he speeds up. I move my hand behind me to his abdomen to push him back. "I want to feel you, all of you." The length, the slow, drawn out length of him filling me. I whimper. I hunger. I want him fast and slow and again and deep and barely the tip of his cock touching me and banging me and then slowly slowly like a whisper of nerves. I love my shudders, my spasms, my involuntarily volunteering. I love the sounds he makes when he comes. He pulls out, inch by inch, as I whine heartbroken at his departure. My face in his bed. Again, tears. Elation, relief, relaxation, sadness, I miss him already.