Desire

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  What will it take to get a breathtaking 30-something man who sits on a beach and witnesses beautiful bodies all day long to notice a petite Jewish woman with a pancake ass who is nearing fifty? I have convinced myself that the secret lies in the suit I pick and attack it as such, finally landing on one bikini I think is adequate. The next week, I fixate on needing another bikini. It’s as if the slate of the past year is going to be washed clean if I can find the perfect bikini. Lauren and I head to Bloomingdale’s, where I try on a string bikini with a tropical floral print. She walks into my fitting room as I am snapping a picture of myself to send to #6 to see if he thinks this will do the trick. My phone rings and I assume it’s #6 weighing in with an opinion, but it’s Michael calling from a bag store I love in Soho to tell me they have a new line of backpacks that would be ideal for the new laptop he got for me and he wants to get me one as a gift. Meanwhile, #6 texts to say the bikini is a winner. Lauren looks at me agape, shaking her head and laughing. “Girl,” she says, “I never want to hear you complain again. Your ex-husband is sending over a fancy new bag for you, you’re going on an all-expenses-paid trip to the Caribbean, you’re sending photos to your boyfriend to advise if you can get a new lover with these bikinis. Talk about being handed lemons and making lemonade! If you ever complain to me about anything again, I will remind you of this moment.” “But—” I start. “No, stop right there. I’ve lived through the past year with you. I’ve seen you at your lowest moments and I’m telling you, what you’ve pulled off is magic. Just take it in. You got yourself here, you crazy girl. Own it,” she says, serious now and wrapping me in a hug that for once hasn’t been prefaced by my weeping. CHAPTER 43PassionfruitIn the months since Lanie suggested that I write about my recent experiences with dating and sex, I have committed myself to shaping my random musings into something deeper and more structured. My pledge to write five minutes a day has evolved into longer sessions, hours at a time, which have become like therapy sessions for me. I ponder the images and words from my past that come back to me in vivid detail, firmly embedded in my memory, and those that seem fixedly out of grasp, no matter how I try to recall them. It fascinates me to bring back to life the conversations and situations that have been so critical to my growth, as of course in the moments when events are happening we rarely understand the lasting impact they may have on us.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  And again: Ok I’ll leave you alone now I went outside to the beach. I saw a girl bike by on the boardwalk. She had long hair to her ass and was wearing a tiny black skirt and a hot-pink crop top with her stomach showing. I thought to myself, You little slut . I didn’t think it in a mean way but as a celebratory thing. I wanted to be her in that moment. She seemed like such an independent slut. I bet she never waited for texts, just fucked guys like Garrett all the time, casually. Surfer boys who looked like Theo the swimmer too, probably. I bet she never got attached. I wanted to be like this girl, not dependent on anyone else to be okay. Slutty, but an island. She wasn’t pretending to be content without anyone while secretly wallowing in misery. She genuinely didn’t give a fuck. I walked over to the rocks to see if Theo was there, but he wasn’t: only the waves. It was still probably too early. I waited a few minutes and wondered if he was mad at me for talking about my dating life. Was he jealous? That couldn’t be possible. I wasn’t even sure if he liked me. Still, now I was being ignored by two men. This felt worse than only being ignored by one, like the hole in me had gotten bigger. Maybe the more men you put in it the more stretched it became. Maybe Claire had been wrong. But suddenly a text came through. It was Garrett. fuck you this Sunday? My heart jumped. It was brazen, not exactly romantic, but it was clear that he wanted me. I felt as though someone had suddenly injected me with good drugs. In an instant the world had gone from black and white to Technicolor again. I began walking back to the house, smiling. ok yeah good he wrote. have you heard of the Shalimar? YES, I wrote back. I had no idea what it was. Good. i’ve always wanted to fuck there. wear lingerie and I’ll fuck you in your sweet little pussy and asshole I’d never thought of my pussy as little. Maybe it was big. What if I had a huge pussy? Also, my asshole? I had never had anal and it seemed terrifying to me. I knew, through all of the butt songs the kids listened to on campus, that the ass was a big thing now. Apparently everyone was eating each other’s assholes and putting things in them. But then why did he want me to wear lingerie? It seemed kind of retro, not contemporary at all like anal. Now that I thought of it, though, anal sex was a timeless act. The Romans all fucked each other in the ass. I felt like I didn’t know anything. But also I was excited. what color I asked. It was like I had become a puppet. I just wanted to please him.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  * A few hours later, we are spread on chaise longues by the shimmering blue pool. I want to lie still for a few minutes, soaking in the smoldering heat of the midday sun, but the kids are antsy. Hudson wanders off to get the first frozen mocktail of probably ten that he will drink today, and Georgia begs Michael to walk her down the beach to find Blaze to get a coconut and if she’s lucky, some passionfruit and soursop. Ten minutes later, Georgia comes bounding over, her hands sticky with juice and the skin around her mouth already orange from the mango she’s been eating. “Mommy, Blaze is here! He gave me extra soursop for you! He wants you to come say hi, can we go now?” I pat the spot next to me and promise we will go as soon as she’s done eating. I accept the wedge of dripping fruit she hands me and watch her tear into the array in front of her. Georgia has a voracious appetite and eats with such gusto that I watch with bemusement. She lacks self-consciousness, allowing juice to drip down her face and bits of fruit to stick to her cheeks, even her hair. When she is done, she smears the pulp from her hands and face all over the bright white, plush towel she is sitting on. I look askance at her but she shrugs her shoulders. “Now can we go?” she says. “Blaze asked about you. He said ‘where’s the boss?’” I stretch lazily and reach out my hand for her. We scurry through the hot sand until we reach the water and then follow the path, slowly and casually, to the end of the beach where a canopy of trees shade Blaze’s spot. I see him turn his head to watch us as we approach, but I don’t look at him, intently talking to Georgia and pointing out shells and crabs scuttling across the sand. He walks down to the water to greet us. “You brought the boss lady,” he says to Georgia, who giggles. I smile broadly and his gaze at me lingers long enough to make me wonder if I could actually make my fantasy a reality. My heart is pounding as I watch him, his ropy muscles undulating with his every move. We make small talk in intimate, soft voices. His eyes flicker over to Georgia, who is standing nearby, looking into the clear water to find fish and shells. “Come back alone so we can talk,” he says, his eyes boring into me. I nod, feeling his eyes on me as Georgia and I turn around and walk back toward the pool. I make my getaway a couple of hours later, asking Michael to keep an eye on Georgia in the pool so I can take a walk on the beach alone. I head back in Blaze’s direction, and when I get in his sightline, he stands and watches me approach.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  When he continues to putter around the small room, I pat the space on the bed next to me and beckon him to sit. It is amusing and surprising to me that I seem to have moved from being the downtrodden to the aggressor but I feel compelled to coax this tryst along as best I can. I am so nervous that I can’t believe I have the power to make someone else nervous, but in spite of my anxiety, I am determined. I don’t quite understand why I feel like I absolutely must have sex and with no particular concern for who it is that joins me in this pursuit, I just know that ever since my night with #1, I feel like I’m blindly stumbling into the sunlight after a long period of hibernation. I want to feel wanted and I need to prove to myself that my first try was not just a one-time windfall. That I’m here with someone who is at least ten years older than me, who has just had half a lung removed, who has worked for me in my home, who wears a cross and talks a lot about his passion for his church and has an inexplicable constellation of bath mats on his kitchen floor – none of that matters to me as much as the fact that he’s a muscular, fit man who is not repelled by me and there are no children on my radar at the moment. I almost whisper “hallelujah” when he finally leans toward me to kiss me. I pull my tank top off and help him with that damn strapless bra that I was worried would stymie #1 the last time (a note about the bra: when you have substantial boobs and you’ve nursed three children and you find a strapless bra that holds your boobs in place and miraculously makes them look firm and buoyant, not just like one solid row of breasts, you continue to wear that strapless bra no matter how hard it is to unhook). His shirt is off too and I see tattoos sprinkled across his chest, contributing to my excitement over doing slightly illicit, dangerous things – which is silly as Johnny could not be less threatening, but I try to go with the vibe I’ve conjured up. We are lying down now and the only noise in the room is the incredibly loud panting of the dog standing guard. I eye Floyd furtively and I swear the dog is shooting me looks of pure loathing – it’s more than a little distracting. “Johnny,” I pull back and whisper, “is there any chance you can put Floyd out of the room for a little while?” “No, I can’t, I’m sorry. He’s used to being here alone with me and he’ll get upset if I put him out.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  Perhaps it just slowly dissolves, or maybe it stays up in the uterus. Maybe it trickles out so faintly that time slows down and that’s why you never see any trail of pink in the bathwater. Did mermaids menstruate? Perhaps this was part of Theo’s attraction to me, my feet in the dirt and the blood in my pussy. My feet on the desert sand, dirty feet, dirty legs, bloody legs, blood dripping down my legs and onto all the earth. Both of us dry on our chests, but me wet in the pussy like a red hearth: the only wetness for days, no other water. Did mermaids even get wet in their cunts? Was it hard fucking them in the water, as beautiful as they were? I remembered trying to fuck in a pool years ago at a motel in Phoenix. It wasn’t easy. You got dried up from the water and couldn’t slide around right. So what would happen in the ocean? What did they use for lubrication? I gasped when I saw his cock. It was harder than I’d ever seen it, thick and pink, aiming straight at me like a meaty arrow. I gasped again when I saw the pool of blood on my sister’s white sofa. I was not so blinded by passion that I didn’t care if I had ruined it. I couldn’t destroy Annika’s house just because my new boyfriend was a merman with a penchant for period sex. But Theo saw the stain as a memento and looked proud: as though we should both autograph it. Saltwater stained boats, but in a beautiful way—weathering them, rendering the wood a soft, gray color. So too was our stain to him an act of nature. Perhaps he saw it as a triumph, even, a miracle marking our existence together on land, rather than any cause for alarm. And so I pretended to own my bodily secretions, as though I was proud of what we had made, instead of feeling inwardly ashamed. I pretended to celebrate by kissing him. With his tongue in my mouth and little bits of dried blood flaking off of his cheek, he put his dick in me. I couldn’t believe how strong it was. “Fuck me,” I said. “Fuck me with your Triton spear.” We both laughed. We were looking in each other’s eyes and he was rubbing my organs from the inside. My flow was very heavy and he was sliding in and out, pumping inside me. I had never come from sex before, but maybe I would this time. Maybe I would. “Oh my God, I’m either going to come or piss,” I laughed. “I’m either going to come or piss, I don’t know which one.” “So come and piss,” he said. “Come and piss!” But I couldn’t.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  I rubbed my hands in a circular motion over the front of the sash and felt his penis under there, strong, semi-hard, like a thick trunk. His balls felt weighty like peaches. “Oh,” I said. “I wondered what you had.” “Yes,” he said. “And an ass too. The tail starts below all that, not like human myths where the tail starts at the stomach.” “Where did you get the sash? Do all of you wear sashes?” “Shipwreck, obviously,” he said. “Oh, yes, obviously.” I laughed. “And a loincloth does make it easier. Sand, jellyfish, it can all be very abrasive.” “Do you know a lot about Greek myths?” I asked. “Some,” he said. “Is that how you know about Sappho? Did you, like, date her or something?” “I’m not that old.” He laughed. What did dating even mean for a merman? Tinder under the fucking sea? Swiping right on a starfish? “Have you…been with any other women who live on land?” I asked. “Some,” he said. “Recently?” I asked. “Not in a while. I’m trying to change that,” he said, and touched my arm. I liked that it had been some time, because I wanted to be the only one. I didn’t care what the reason was, even if he simply hadn’t been near land. Of course, the inability to be with someone else on land did not mean he loved me in a special way. And his having been with other women who had feet did not necessarily equal lack of love. But it still made me feel safe to be the only one in a long time. These thoughts, themselves, were madness. He lived in the ocean and I lived in the desert. This wasn’t going to last. Maybe there could be some magic bend in our time together, the way I felt when he was going down on me. That had felt so eternal—as though if it were happening in one moment it was happening forever. But no one could live inside a moment. It was already over. And yet, here he was, still with me. We were sitting beside each other and he had his hand on my thigh, my hand tracing his knuckles. He is still here, I kept repeating to myself. “I have to go,” he said, as if he could read my mind. “It’s not a great idea for me to be out of the water like this with the light coming up.” I hadn’t realized that it was dawn. The sun was rising over the Santa Monica Mountains, turning the water silver. I could see that a few surfers had made their way to the Venice pier, laughing with one another. “Are you like a vampire?” I asked. “Are we in one of those teen vampire movies, only you’re a mermaid?” “Ha, no, nothing like that,” he said. “It’s just not a great idea for anyone to see me out here. I’ve gotten harassed before. I’ve gotten hurt.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  I forgot to take Dominic out and it had been eight hours. I rubbed his belly and apologized, then walked him all the way to the Venice canals. Adam, Adam, I thought, and imagined wanting him. More so, I imagined him wanting me. Him lusting for me. I fell asleep masturbating to the thought of this person, as of yet still basically imaginary. I woke up with my hand inside my underwear. My pubic hair felt bristly and bushy, like a steel-wool sponge. Sometimes I used to put conditioner on it but I hadn’t in a while. I wondered what Adam was used to, if any of the girls his age had pubic hair at all. Then I felt my real hair on my head. It was like a bad cloud. I could feel all the gray seeping out, making me nauseated, probably Adam too. I wanted to be perfect for Adam. I walked Dominic and gave him his breakfast, then went over to Abbot Kinney. There was a salon there called Trim and it looked pretty empty. I spoke with a cute brunette woman with caramel highlights named Allison. “I have a date,” I blurted. “Nice,” she said. “So what are you looking to do?” “I need to color it. Nothing too crazy. Like an auburn is what I usually do.” I showed her some pictures of myself on my phone, what I looked like prior to falling apart. “So where are you going on this date?” she said. “Anywhere cool?” I didn’t want to say I would be slobbering on someone like dogs in the street. Or that it was with someone I had never met and that he was over ten years younger than me. I mean, the age difference in itself was kind of cool, but I still felt weird. So I lied and said that it was an older tech executive who I had been seeing. I said we were going away for a few days to a bed-and-breakfast in Santa Barbara. “Oh, that should be great,” said Allison enthusiastically. It felt fun to be having girl talk like this. I never had girl talk—not since Rochelle turned from ally to rat. This felt hopeful, like there was something to be excited about—both for Allison and me. She was probably just pretending to care. But even if it was all a lie, I preferred the lie to real life. After getting my color I went into some clothing stores, all of them insanely expensive. It was rich hippie shit: silk kimonos for $700, cuff bracelets and bib necklaces that looked like they came from a tent at Woodstock but were upwards of $3,000, fringe vests for $1,900.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  Inside, he shows me his fire jacket hanging on a hook, his name in bold yellow letters on the back. “Now that is sexy,” I say. “Are there cameras in here?” This would be a real adventure, having sex in one of the gleaming red fire trucks parked in the huge garage. “What do you have in mind?” he asks with a chuckle. I raise my eyebrows at him and smile but then change my mind, imagining the scandalous fire-house sex tape that they’ll be all too happy to show on the local news. He takes me upstairs where there is a bar and a few grizzled, pot-bellied older men nursing bottles of beer, watching a basketball game. They don’t so much as glance at me when #5 shouts out a general hello, as if this is a secret boys’ clubhouse where girls are not allowed. He walks around the bar to grab a beer but then sees the refrigerator is locked, so mutters something to himself and says we can go. This whole scene is jarring and deflating to me – is this the crew that would come for me right now if there was a fire in my home? Where are the red-blooded, muscular firefighters? And why exactly are we here, to get free beer and refill the plastic cup with peanuts? Our next stop is a bar in town that is having an Oktoberfest celebration. It’s impossible to talk over the band and the large groups of friends that pile in, but there’s fun people-watching, and the band is playing music we know from the ’80s, so we sway to the music, singing along. I feel him press against me from behind, his hand sweeping my hair to the side, his breath hot on my neck as he whispers to me, “I like you, Laura.” This one small sentence feels like a victory, as I find it difficult to figure out what he’s thinking. I smile but don’t say anything back and he whispers, again, this time more urgently, “I really like you.” And then that’s it, he releases my hair and steps back from me and the moment passes. The next morning, I text him to thank him for taking me out and add that I’ve noticed he doesn’t touch me unless we’re having sex. I am not saying what I really want to say, which is that it bothers me. I want the intimacy that comes with holding hands or a quick midday kiss, not just when we are having sex – anything to make tangible the physical connection between us. A moment later, he texts me back and I can feel the anger in his words, “If you have a problem, pick up the phone and call me, don’t text me.” “It’s not a problem,” I explain, “simply an observation.” “Sounds a lot like criticism,” he writes. I don’t like how defensive he is, but he’s right.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  “You really are so beautiful,” he says. “I’m so happy Jill gave me your number. She said you were dying to meet me, but I feel now like it should’ve been the reverse.” I can’t help but laugh to myself, remembering how Dr. B had been so persistent, telling me he was so excited to meet me and could I please allow the precious passing along of my phone number? She diligently worked both ends to make this set-up happen. Within minutes, the platter still largely untouched, he leans toward me and kisses me, continuing to murmur about how beautiful I am and how happy he is to be with me. A noise at the door startles us and we pull away from each other. A moment later, his daughter is tiptoeing through the room apologetically, saying she forgot something, and then she is back out the door again and he returns to his spot next to me. I pull back, expressing concern that she will come in again, so he takes me to his bedroom and closes the door behind us. His bed is king-size on a large mahogany frame, covered in a worn patchwork quilt. Framed photos of his kids line the dresser, along with a few candles that he lights, saying, “This is the best thing about living right next to a Dollar Store, they have absolutely everything.” I think longingly of #6 with his fastidiously chosen bedding and expensive, delicately scented candles culled from artisanal markets. We undress, facing each other, and he lays me back against the bed and asks if I am OK with his going down on me. I nod my assent and after a few minutes he grabs a condom from his nightstand and we both quickly come. When we are still and lying next to each other, I say, “I want to ask you a question, something I’ve been pondering lately.” “Sure,” he says, “go ahead.” “Why do men love oral sex so much? I don’t mean receiving it, I mean giving it. Every man I’ve been with finds it a huge turn-on, and many love it or seem to need it more than intercourse. Why is that? What is it about it that you find so alluring?” I ask. “Isn’t it obvious?” he says. “No. Don’t get me wrong, I really love having sex. I like being the recipient of oral sex and like giving it, but it’s not the main attraction for me. I always wonder why men love to be that up close and personal with a woman’s pussy,” I say. “Well, first of all, it’s not every pussy. They’re not all the same. Some aren’t appealing at all. You just happen to have a really nice one,” he says and a short, loud laugh escapes my lips. “Why? What about it?” I ask. “The way it smells. The smell is very important. The way it feels. Yours is wet and soft and inviting.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  I just couldn’t let go, or maybe I wasn’t about to come—only piss. Whatever it was, I couldn’t reach it. But it felt so good to fuck him and I felt so connected to him and to all of the lovers throughout time. Missionary was so classical: simple, romantic, and ancient. I can’t believe his dick is inside me, I kept thinking, that it is his dick inside me, that it’s your dick inside me. A beautiful look came across his face: flushed cheeks, glazed eyes, lips wet and full. He looked intoxicated, and I felt so proud to be the one intoxicating him. Or was it simply being in a pussy, a wet pussy—not dry-wet from seawater, but wet with secretions—that made him look so drunk? Could it be anyone’s pussy? I wanted to believe it was me and that he felt about my pussy like I felt about his cock: amazed, because of who it belonged to. It was me alone: my body and my spirit that made this beautiful creature look so high. In that way I felt that I was beautiful now too. And then his expression changed again. Now he looked more pained, or perhaps engulfed in a pleasure that overwhelmed him. He was moaning “ungh, ungh” into my mouth, but not like the guys in porn saying stupid, phony lines like “Fuck me, bitch.” This was pure sound. It was as though his mouth emitted pure nature. His mouth was like a shell that you could put to your ear. Or maybe we were nature together? Were we shells or were we animals? Or one shell and one animal? No, we were two fish swimming in circles around each other, playful and spared of memory, unaware that we had ever been born and that we would ever die. We were connected now not only with all of human history—all the human lovers of the past—but with animal history as well. I’d been having sex for years. I’d had it hundreds, maybe even thousands of times, but now it was like I finally understood what sex was. There were only so many things in our lives that connected us to all of our ancestors, to all of humanity and to the animals. Poetry was one thing that bridged generations. But this was the big thing. This encompassed every species. Otherwise what was there? There was birth and death. There was eating food, drinking fluid, pissing and taking shits. There was this. And what of love? I felt certain that this could be nothing but love, and if this was only lust or infatuation or a simulation of love—well, then give me lust or infatuation. This was how I wanted love to feel. This was the love I wanted. I didn’t want the other kind of love, whatever that love was. I didn’t want the “conscious” kind. Had anyone ever tried to strip Cupid of his quiver?

• From The Pisces (2018)

  No, he probably really felt that way. And anyway, I wasn’t going to beg. “Whatever you want,” I said. Theo closed his eyes. Under the blanket he looked like a child. I stood in the sand, tracing half-moon shapes with my toe. My life now came down to whatever he decided. But I didn’t convey any desperation. Just being with him relaxed me. When he was right near me I could feel strangely casual, as though he could disappear and I would be okay. I could just be there, languidly drawing my little sand prints. It was only when he wasn’t with me, when I was away from the ocean, that I felt like I was disintegrating. “Come here,” he said. “Come under the blanket with me.” I got in and pulled up the blanket as though we were going to bed. We hugged for a long time. Then we started kissing and I felt his cock get hard against me. “I want you so much,” he whispered in my ear. “You are my earth girl.” “I want you too,” I said. “We shouldn’t do it here,” he said. “Not on the beach at daylight.” “What do you want to do?” “Okay,” he said. “Let’s go.” But he began to finger me, first tickling my clit just a little, then teasing my hole. I was already soaking wet. “Come on,” I said into his mouth. “Okay,” he said, fingering me harder. “You’re finger fucking me on the beach and you’re a very young man. This is your first time fingering a girl. What do you have to say about that?” Of course it was not his first time. But I wanted it to be. “I’m finger fucking your beautiful vagina and it’s my first time. You’re the most beautiful girl I’ve ever seen. I can’t believe it. I can’t believe I get to finger you.” He intuitively knew exactly what to say to have me writhing. Or perhaps I planted the words in him, as so much of what our lovers do and say is imagined. We turn them into who we want them to be. We fill in their bodies and words for them. He pulled out his finger and sucked it, then put it in my mouth. “Taste yourself,” he said. “You are delicious.” “I am?” I asked. I nibbled his finger a little. “You are,” he said. “But it’s not safe here like this.” “What should we do? Do you want to go back in the ocean?” “Not particularly.” “So then let’s try again.” I rolled over, out from under the blanket, and stood up. Then I brought the wagon over to him. “Okay, hold it very still,” he said, and hoisted himself on backward. I covered him up in the blanket. This time he stayed on. As I pulled him across the beach, there were just a few stray joggers and assorted weirdos nearby.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  I didn’t tell him that I was already well acquainted with the bathrooms, that I had already hidden out in one doing a photo shoot. “I can’t wait to make that ass go up and down,” he said, kissing me on the cheek. I ordered another vodka and pineapple juice. Was this weird or was it okay? I didn’t even remember what day it was, and I wondered what most people my age were doing right now. Probably something boring involving children and applesauce. I should consider myself blessed. They would probably kill to be fucking in a bathroom at the Shalimar. I wondered what Jamie would think if he knew. Would he see me as hot and exciting? Would he be jealous? Or would I just seem desperate and pathetic? I drank and tried to blot those words from my mind. There were men and women at the bar engaged in conversations. I didn’t know how people could stand it, the regular interactions, conscious dating, trying to pass as normal or interesting. Nobody was that interesting and certainly no one was normal. So why was everyone wearing a mask? Why wasn’t everyone fucking in a bathroom? It turned out that there were three bathroom doors, not four. Now that I was paying attention to them as the place of our fucking, I saw that they were big, varnished oak doors with knockers on them, as though you were entering someone’s house. I knocked on the first one. “Can I help you?” came a man’s voice. “Sorry!” I said. I knocked on the next door. Garrett opened it and pulled me in. He had me by the hips and kissed me hard, his tongue in my mouth. It made me feel good, like he wanted me. “Look me in the eyes,” I said. He looked into my eyes and unbuttoned Steve’s coat, lifting it off my shoulders and dropping it on the ground. Still looking me in the eyes, he hoisted me up by the waist and sat me on the big black marble sink. I was turned on by the action of what he was doing, but not turned on in my vagina yet. Or maybe my vagina was turned on, but I wasn’t there yet. Like, I was and I wasn’t. Part of me was acting and part of me was enjoying it. “Slower,” I said, to give myself time to get into it. He teased me over my underpants for a second. Then he put his fingers inside and started fingering me. My lips kept getting caught and rubbing against his fingers in an irritated way. I felt like they were puffing up like balloons. I kept trying to ask him questions.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  I kissed him on the lips. His breath tasted less fresh than usual, a bit like wet leather. “I like how you taste,” I said. “I like tasting you in this state, no saltwater to cleanse your mouth. It’s so primal. I feel like I’m getting another part of you.” “You really do?” he asked. We kissed deeper, our tongues in each other’s mouths. I could feel his cock hard now against me. I pressed my body against his with pure want. I felt that I had a hole, not just my pussy itself but an existential hole, and that for the first time it was on the verge of being filled: the inertia of our mingled desire caulked it up. It was stuffed with anticipation. My anticipation of his cock was solid, its own entity, as though my desire were a second cock. He too seemed to exude complete want and devotion, which made me feel confident in my own wanting—as though, in his mirror, my lust was good and pure. He made me feel innocent and part of something bigger, like nothing had ever been my fault. I did not say “I love you,” or even whisper it, but somehow I felt that I was praying it into his mouth without speaking. I was saying it with my breath, my chest, the magnetism between our pelvises. It was a swimming into each other. I also felt that he had a hole, or holes, and in some strange way my cock—an existential one, really—was filling him. I felt that we were moving in and out of one another’s holes, nursing each other, symbiotic and magnetic. I felt the Earth rotating around us, or that we were the planet—spinning on its axis. In my head came a deep buzz of the Earth again and I didn’t know if I was actually humming out loud or if it was all inside me. This is how you exist in the world, I thought. This is how you are alive. “I want you so much,” he said. Under the blanket, so we would stay warm, he lifted my dress up over my head. I was naked except for my undies. He put his face between my small breasts, cradling and then sucking on them. He kissed and licked my stomach, then down the front of my underwear over my clit. He teased around my underwear, the crevices of my thighs, the crease where my lips met. Then, caressing my ass, he slid my underwear down and put his face between my thighs. He inhaled deeply like there was oxygen in there. “God, you smell so good,” he said.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  I make a note to myself: we don’t know what people have gone through or are going through or will go through, so always be kind. The next day, Jessica and I are hanging out in the second-floor lounge overlooking the lobby when we notice a large group file in. There are about fifty people and they’re all 20/30something, mostly male and casually but intentionally dressed: narrow jeans rolled up just so, cool retro T-shirts, carefully groomed hipster beards. We assess which men are the cutest and which of those are wearing wedding bands. We lean further and further over the ledge to see more clearly until a couple of them spot us and look up quizzically. In our embarrassment, we quickly duck behind the plants and laugh about how we must appear to them: two middle-aged women in yoga pants ogling the fresh blood. In truth, I would willingly throw myself at any of them, so badly do I want to be wanted. A new and essential understanding of my current status is starting to become clear to me: I’m looking for men all the time now. I want to be noticed, I want to be flirted with and touched, and there’s no limit – aside from when I’m with my kids – as to when or where that can happen. For better or for worse, I am free and very, very available. * On Friday, I say goodbye to Jessica and drive to Upstate New York, where Hudson is performing in a play at a theatre camp. I’m eager to see him and hear about his time at camp, but my heart is heavy: it’s been five months since he has spoken to Michael, with whom he had always been close – in fact, much closer than he had been with me – and there’s no way around the fact that Michael’s absence this weekend is going to be keenly felt. I feel like sloppy seconds, knowing I am not the parent Hudson would have chosen loyalty to if he had had an option. I pull into the motel parking lot, where my mother is sitting on a bench near the entrance waiting for me to arrive, watching Hasidic Jewish families bustle in and out of the kosher grocery store in the adjacent parking lot before Shabbat beckons them home. Alarmed by the squalid state of the motel, she decides she will spend the whole weekend with me as she cannot bear the idea of my spending any time in this decrepit place alone. I insist that I will be fine but she’s stalwart, her eyes fixing leerily on the man who has come to deliver a broken-down cot so that I have a place to sleep now that she will be in the bed. I feel a flutter of anxiety, knowing I will not get so much as five minutes alone this weekend and that she will be watching me like a hawk.

• From History of the Christian Church: The Complete Set of Eight Volumes (1858)

  With the near prospect and the most ardent desire for martyrdom, the author has no more fervent wish than the perfect inward and outward unity of the faithful; and to this the episcopate seems to him indispensable. In his view Christ is the invisible supreme head, the one great universal bishop of all the churches scattered over the earth. The human bishop is the centre of unity for the single congregation, and stands in it as the vicar of Christ and even of God.190 The people, therefore, should unconditionally obey him, and do nothing without his will. Blessed are they who are one with the bishop, as the church is with Christ, and Christ with the Father, so that all harmonizes in unity. Apostasy from the bishop is apostasy from Christ, who acts in and through the bishops as his organs. We shall give passages from the shorter Greek text (as edited by Zahn): If any one is able to continue in purity (ejn aJgneiva/ i.e., in the state of celibacy), to the honor of the flesh of our Lord, let him continue so without boasting; if he boasts, he is lost (ajpwvleto) if he become known more than the bishop,191 he is corrupt (e[fqartai). It is becoming, therefore, to men and women who marry, that they marry by the counsel of the bishop, that the marriage may be in the Lord, and not in lust. Let ever thing be done for the honor of God. Look to the bishop, that God also [may look] upon you. I will be in harmony with those who are subject to the bishop, and the presbyters, and the deacons; with them may I have a portion near God!" This passage is one of the strongest, and occurs in the Syriac Epistle to Polycarp as well as in the shorter Greek recension.192 It characteristically connected episcopacy with celibacy: the ascetic system of Catholicism starts in celibacy, as the hierarchical organization of Catholicism takes its rise in episcopacy. "It becomes you to be in harmony with the mind (or sentence, gnwvmh/) of the bishop, as also ye do.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  My chin rested on the place where his tail met his skin. The scales were slimy and hard at the same time. But his balls were delicious, like raw oysters. “Oh my God,” he whispered. He reached down and began to jerk himself as I licked his balls. “Don’t stop licking,” he said. “Don’t stop.” It wasn’t the romantic jerking I would have liked to have seen, his beautiful body in a slow search of pleasure. This was the second time in one summer that a boy jerking off wasn’t what I would have wanted it to be. He was more frantic and urgent, like he was trying to get it done, like he wanted to prove to me that he could get it up and stay up. Maybe he just needed a lot of friction in order to feel pleasure. I wondered if his cock being exposed to saltwater had made it numb. Maybe this was just how men jerked themselves when no one was watching. Maybe he was comfortable around me. “It feels so good,” he said, his voice hoarse. “I feel you so much. I’m going to, oh my God —” My pussy surged. I took my mouth off his balls and put it on the head of his cock, grabbing his balls with my hand and rubbing them in a circle. They were tight. His come in my mouth didn’t taste bitter, like some men, but it wasn’t exactly sweet either. It was a feminine taste. It tasted like the smell of his tail, oceanic, a little fishy. I felt as though I had eaten his pussy, that I was yang or yin, or whichever the male was, and he was female for a moment. I thought of the god of the sea, Poseidon, the father of Triton. Was Aphrodite his lover? No, Demeter was his lover—the earth goddess—they were siblings but also lovers. What did that make Aphrodite on her clamshell, then? To Sappho, Aphrodite was the ultimate sex deity. In Hesiod, Kronos, the king of Titans, castrated Uranus, the sky god, and Aphrodite rose out of the water from his spilled seed—transformed into a woman out of sparkling seafoam. Perhaps they were all one person. The gods were always switching identities, changing genders, inhabiting new bodies as though they were clothes. So Poseidon, with his long beard and muscular chest, was in a way also a woman. A woman, a man, what was the difference between the two anyway? It seemed in that moment very little. I felt that we were twins—two strands of the same DNA or one egg split in two—sibling lovers, like Poseidon and Demeter. At the very least we were two eggs sharing one womb. He was both the womb and not the womb.

• From The Pisces (2018)

  “That sounds interesting, actually. Nothingness is good. Almost as good as filling up every space,” he smiled. “And destruction. Destruction can be sexy.” I shivered a little bit. “I guess the gaps are sort of a reminder that, in love, things get disconnected,” I said. “People just disappear.” “Maybe they leave room for something more infinite,” he said. “Maybe,” I said. “All I know is it’s not going very well. I’m not enjoying it.” “But you’re still doing it?” he said. “Yes,” I said. “I guess I like torturing myself.” “That can also be sexy if done right, I suppose.” Was he fucking with me? I stood up. I didn’t know whether to move closer to him or away from him on the rock, so I looked up at the moon, which was a crescent. I thought about licking it or putting it inside me. “Well, Lucy, I wish you only the best with the self-torture,” he said. “And with your next date.” “Thanks,” I said. “Maybe I’ll see you out here again?” “Maybe,” he said. “Okay.” “Have a good night,” he said. And with that he pushed off the rock and began to breaststroke away. 15.When I got home I was turned on. That little fucker. Who was he, even, lurking around in the ocean? I decided to take immediate action. Brushing past Dominic, who sniffed at me suspiciously and growled a little, I took to my phone. It was time to send Tinder Garrett a message. Hey I changed my mind. Want to meet up after all? I wrote. He wrote back within seconds: guess it didn’t work out with the other dude? haha, I said. want to come to downtown? i work in a loft down here. meet me on the roof of the Ace Hotel tmrw @ 7 sounds good I wrote, so casually. Immediately after that message came a text. It was from Jamie. How are you? I miss you. My stomach dropped. Claire was right! It was like he could smell that I was out with other men. Now it was raining attention. There was Adam, Garrett, Theo, and Jamie. I wanted to wait to text him back but wrote immediately, of course. I’m fine. deep in therapy, as instructed And how is megan? There was a pause. She is good Well, that was that… She’s no you, of course

• From The Pisces (2018)

  The swimmer leaned on the rock with his arms. They were thick and meaty—not cut like a bodybuilder’s, but you could see the muscles underneath what looked like a layer of baby chub. They reminded me of eating a piece of fish with thick skin and a small layer of fat, strong and also soft, very white. I wanted to bite them. His chest was hairless, and I noticed that the color of his nipples matched perfectly his lips, like pencil erasers. He looked like he was twenty-one, at most. If this was death then death was hot. “Doesn’t it scare you to be night-swimming? Isn’t the water freezing?” I asked. “I’ve got a wet suit on my lower half,” he said. “But no, it doesn’t scare me. I like the way the splashes look in the moonlight and I like having the ocean to myself. Well, almost to myself.” “Yeah, it’s nice out here,” I said. The wine was wearing off. I suddenly felt exhausted. His teeth were shiny white, but not like an actor’s. They didn’t look bleached or fake. They were practically iridescent, like the inside of a shell. There was something almost feminine about him, pretty, but his jaw was well defined. These surfer boys. I always forgot that they were real. I mean, I knew that they existed. I knew they were alive. But it really seemed to me that the surfing was a costume, like they were only pretending to be so enamored of it. How could anyone be that devoted to something so lacking a destination? Just wave after wave, over and over. I wished someone were that enamored of me. But their love for surfing was real. It was a fact. They really loved surfing as much as they appeared to love it. This one didn’t have a board, though. This wasn’t a surfer. This was a swimmer. “What’s your name?” he asked. “Lucy.” I felt old. “Nice to meet you, Lucy,” he said. “I’m Theo.” When he said his name, his hotness increased. He was real, there in the water, real in a way that I wasn’t. He was swimming and wet and I was—what was I doing? I thought of all my books, the ones waiting for me in piles back in my parching Phoenix apartment, collecting dust. I thought of the university library. I imagined the library growing and growing, the books piling up on the edge of this ocean. One wave could destroy them all. They were so dry, like they were actually made of dust. My skin, too, felt like an old book: powdery parchment etched with lines that supposedly contained knowledge, but when you looked closer they were only empty scribbles. Not the right kind of knowledge. If you put me in the water, I too would dissolve. I was sure of it. “Do you always swim at night?” “Yes,” he said. “The waves are more intense but it makes you stronger.”

• From The Well of Loneliness (1928)

  That evening she showed her smart neckties to Puddle, whose manner was most unsatisfactory—she grunted. And now some one seemed to be always near Stephen, some one for whom these things were accomplished—the purchase of the three new suits, the brown shoes, the six carefully chosen, expensive neckties. Her long walks on the hills were a part of this person, as were also the hearts of the wild dog-roses, the delicate network of veins on the leaves and the queer June break in the cuckoo’s rhythm. The night with its large summer stars and its silence, was pregnant with a new and mysterious purpose, so that lying at the mercy of that age-old purpose, Stephen would feel little shivers of pleasure creeping out of the night and into her body. She would get up and stand by the open window, thinking always of Angela Crossby. 2 Sunday came and with it church in the morning; then two interminable hours after lunch, during which Stephen changed her necktie three times, and brushed back her thick chestnut hair with water, and examined her shoes for imaginary dust, and finally gave a hard rub to her nails with a nail pad snatched brusquely away from Puddle. When the moment for departure arrived at last, she said rather tentatively to Anna: ‘Aren’t you going to call on the Crossbys, Mother?’ Anna shook her head: ‘No, I can’t do that, Stephen—I go nowhere these days; you know that, my dear.’ But her voice was quite gentle, so Stephen said quickly: ‘Well then, may I invite Mrs. Crossby to Morton?’ Anna hesitated a moment, then she nodded: ‘I suppose so—that is if you really wish to.’ The drive only took about twenty minutes, for now Stephen was so nervous that she positively flew. She who had been puffed up with elation and self-satisfaction was crumbling completely—in spite of her careful new necktie she was crumbling at the mere thought of Angela Crossby. Arrived at The Grange she felt over life-size; her hands seemed enormous, all out of proportion, and she thought that the butler stared at her hands. ‘Miss Gordon?’ he inquired. ‘Yes,’ she mumbled, ‘Miss Gordon.’ Then he coughed as he did on the telephone, and quite suddenly Stephen felt foolish. She was shown into a small oak-panelled parlour whose long, open casements looked on to the herb-garden. A fire of apple wood burnt on the hearth, in spite of the fact that the weather was warm, for Angela was always inclined to feel chilly—the result, so she said, of the English climate. The fire gave off rather a sweet, pungent odour—the odour of slightly damp logs and dry ashes. By way of a really propitious beginning, Tony barked until he nearly burst his stitches, so that Angela, who was lying on the lounge, had perforce to get up in order to soothe him. An extremely round bullfinch in an ornate, brass cage, was piping a tune with his wings half extended.

• From Available: The unfiltered and empowering new memoir for women about sex, dating and divorce after 40 (2021)

  There is something that makes a man look so vulnerable when he is handling himself and I think I should stay out of it altogether but maybe that’s considered rude or unfriendly? Our bodies glisten with sweat – even though the rain has cooled the air outside, it’s stuffy and close in here without air conditioning – and we slide against each other, which one could interpret as hot and sexy or just unseemly. I’m choosing to go with hot and sexy, that this is what lust looks like. He is inside me for only a few moments when we both come, but without skipping a beat, he peels off the condom, tosses it on the floor and we keep going, new condoms appearing every so often, seemingly out of thin air. He is at once aggressively manly and appealingly tender, touching me gently but insistently. There seems to be no beginning or ending to this sex, just a middle chapter that stretches on. He is six years younger than me and his virility is matched by my insatiable curiosity and thrill at being desired. Of the four men I’ve slept with since I’ve started this journey, this is the most physically satisfying sex I’ve had. He laughs with enthusiasm when I sigh deeply and tell him in a grave voice that I really love sex. He seems to know exactly how and where to touch me, and I can’t get enough of his hard, sleek body. It’s as if I’m being cracked open again and again; it’s not explosive so much as a feeling of being totally present in my body and with his. It feels good to be wanted, to want, to be appreciated, to know that I am quenching someone’s thirst, to know my body is capable of both giving and receiving, to match his vigor with my own. When we have finally expended our sexual energy, we lie wrapped around each other. As much as I am shocked to discover how much I love touching and being touched, I am surprised by how nourishing I find this part, this calm after the storm. I feel completely enveloped as our hearts return to their regular rhythms and we lie, exhausted but sated, in the aftermath of the intimacy we have shared. Why , I wonder, do I feel I could stay in this spot for hours but when I was married, instead of reveling in the physical connection, I ran from it? Within seconds of having sex, I was already rolling back to curl in a ball on my side of the bed, so relieved that this obligation could be checked off my list and I could go back in my corner to be left alone. I usually orgasmed and I enjoyed sex once I mustered up the energy, but I could take it or leave it – and the affection that came with it I recoiled from, believing myself to be a physically unaffectionate person.