Rachel Kramer Bussel's Blog, page 133
December 30, 2011
Yay! My super professional Best Sex Writing 2012 book trailer is here
Please keep your fingers crossed that this
Best Sex Writing 2012
it passes the approval of Amazon; it's been a huge goal of mine to get one of my book trailers embedded there and I'm 99% sure that will help with sales, but time and luck will tell. I'm so grateful for the chance to have had this shot in a professional studio for free. Bigtime grateful. Enjoy!
Order Best Sex Writing 2012:
Amazon
Kindle (out January 10th - pre-order now)
BN.com
Nook (out January 17th - pre-order now)
Powell's
Books-a-Million
IndieBound (find your local independent bookstore
Cleis Press
Order Best Sex Writing 2012:
Amazon
Kindle (out January 10th - pre-order now)
BN.com
Nook (out January 17th - pre-order now)
Powell's
Books-a-Million
IndieBound (find your local independent bookstore
Cleis Press
I'm on Goodreads
fyi, having trouble with their widget but you can add me on Goodreads here.
December 29, 2011
"Is Casual Sex Good for You?"
That's the question I ask and somewhat answer in my latest SexIs Magazine column. And yes, I've gotten lots of feedback on the photo Dave Naz took of me below. I am not that photo's biggest fan, not because of Dave's photography, because of my own self-consciousness. Hoping to take a sexy photo from the front soon so I can switch it out.
Slightly haunted
title inspired by the wonderful Lynn Miles, whose new album Fall for Beauty I highly recommend
I had a dream the other night, and what I can tell you is that the least surreal part of it was that in the dream I was having a conversation with a dead man (he wasn't dead in the dream). When he was alive, I cannot think of any possible scenario where I'd be sitting in with a friend interviewing him in a living room, but that's what happened in the dream. Then I had an ethical dilemma, did the right thing, and faced an even more wrenching emotional dilemma. I held my phone tightly in my hand and was so immersed in that decision that when I woke up because my neighbor was storming into their apartment, for a few seconds, I was still in that foggy dreamlike state. I thought I still had to make that decision: to call or not to call? I know that sounds vague, but that's the best I can do. I can tell you that the dream was a giant reminder of a lot of things that have been haunting me this year, my subconscious' way of saying: Don't let go, don't let go, don't let go. Oh, subconscious, if you only knew how little I've let go, you wouldn't need to send me such an insane, easily decipherable reminder, like a child's jigsaw puzzle of, say, 24 pieces, when I'm more of a 1,000-word piece puzzle type.
This is a weird time for me, both the wrapping up of a year that I'm in some ways very ready to leave behind, but also am clutching to, trying to rectify mistakes, make amends, catch up on work and all the goals I had for this year that I have to admit are not going to be done before January 1st. I'm excited about so many new possibilities next year offers, starting with just the idea of a clean slate. But a clean slate is not the same as a blank slate. I'm entering it with everything I've been and done, but I am trying, by any means necessary, really, to use that history to help me navigate the present and future, rather than keep me stuck in that past.
I don't always want to be the girl who is so immersed in one way of thinking, especially to the point that I can't step back, outside myself, and try to see life from someone else's point of view. That has been a huge challenge this year, but I am working on it. Charlotte Kasl writes in If The Buddha Got Stuck , in a chapter called "Notice the Stories You Tell Yourself:"
You can also notice how your stories can stop you from feeling joy or happiness. Many people get scared at the fullness and expansiveness of joy and try to push it away by jumping out of the experience and into a story. Instead of feeling awe at a glorious sunset, they distance themselves with a torrent of words or, even more removed, they bring up some problem they are having, or suddenly say, "Time to go now." Any form of strong energy, be it joy or sorrow, has the potential to shake loose parts of us that are hiding. It's like a big wind blowing through us. To get unstuck is to invite the wind in.
I haven't been the best about recognizing that a lot of the things I told myself this year, last year, maybe my whole life, were not necessarily true. They felt true, so I thought they were. Sometimes I wanted them to be true, wanted them so badly I was willing to ignore any evidence to the contrary. I catastrophize and I also do the opposite (is there a word for way too positive thinking?) and have trouble recognizing reality. When I do, especially the last week or two, I've been shocked at how when someone asks me how I'm doing I can actually say, "Good." And it has nothing to do with things or money or, for the most part, other people. Sometimes it's literally just the sun making its way through my mostly bare windows, or splashing down the street as I walk from my deli to my coffeeshop (I'm pretty sure that since I go to each almost every day and almost all the staff know me by sight, I can claim possession of them). Sometimes it's geeking out when I get to meet a little kid who melts my heart in approximately .01 seconds. Sometimes it's just sheer fucking gratitude, for not having to haul myself through the MTA every day. I always thought I was so grateful to live in New York for its public transportation, and while I am, this is the first time in ages that I haven't been utterly dependent on the subway, haven't had to race the clock, have been able to find my own rhythms, which sometimes means making awesome discoveries late at night.
Last week I got this Modern Love rejection and my first thought was not "That sucks" but "Ooooh, I am really proud of that essay, let me send it out to another editor." I was almost excited. It was surprising and awesome. Am I still impatient? Of course. I want to know right this second whether that editor likes it, or if I should send it elsewhere. I'm rarely that into something I write; usually I'm mentally on to the next thing, even while in the middle of one thing. It's part of what I'm trying to work through; if you can afford it, I recommend Vyvanse for cutting through that overthinking, but I don't have that luxury right now. My point was, though, that that rejection didn't send me into the "you suck" mindset it normally would.
Life is up and down; I'm up and down. I can't get too complacent, because the moment I do, I'm in trouble. So, yes, I may find myself when, reading Holly Cupala's excellent YA novel Don't Breathe a Word , immersed in the story, and then not. I see "Capitol Hill" and I'm in Capitol Hill, on my last trip there, so fully that I have to stop reading for a moment to process that. I don't know even what to wish for: to be someone who keeps reading? Who doesn't remember? Who smiles and nods, or medicates herself into a state of complete equilibrium so nothing can get past it?
I'm not gonna lie: I'm getting out of town for a little while next month partly because winter is not my ideal time of year. I'm already cold, and yes, I am going to Milwaukee in February (9th-12th, more on that soon), but it's a strategically planned trip to the beach, a little escape that I have high hopes for (but not opposite-of-catastrophizing-my-life-will-change-completely hopes). I got this vision in my head of me on a beach in my purple bathing suit, no phone, no distractions, just time and warmth. It sounded flighty and fantastical and then I realized I could make it happen and no matter how much transforming I do or don't do, I'm proud that I was able to make it happen. It's both an escape and an escapade. But you can't live your life in search of permanent escape. Okay, you totally can, and plenty of people do, but I don't want to be one of them. Instead of fixating on the transformation of escapism, I'm trying to be as present as I can possibly be, in the haunting moments, the mundane ones, and the blissful ones.
December 26, 2011
Food, wine, haiku and single ladies on January 5th!
Join me, along with Falling for Me author Anna David and Haiku for the Single Girl author Beth Griffenhagen next Thursday, January 5th at WORD, 126 Franklin Street, Greenpoint, Brooklyn (one of my favorite bookstores!).
My review of Unwasted: My Lush Sobriety by Sacha Z. Scoblic
One of my favorite books I read in 2011 was
Unwasted: My Lush Sobriety
! Also one of the first I purchased for my Nook. I read it in pieces, and finally finished it last night. I cried. In a good/moving way.
My review:
It would be almost impossible to tell her story of the first year without alcohol without sharing what alcohol meant in her life, and Scoblic manages to weave the two together beautifully in this moving, sometimes funny, sometimes sobering (pun intended) memoir. She writes about how she relied on alcohol in multiple ways, and that when she took that crutch away, she was left with a lot of assumptions, about 12-step programs, about faith, about relapsing, that she had to reexamine. One of the most crucial parts, one that I related to, was the idea that faith and prayer are not just for believers. She writes about praying even though she doesn't actual believe, or isn't sure that she does, and that is a concept that was utterly new for me. From Unwasted: "I have found moments of prayer, as I snuggle into my white bed in my deep blue bedroom—like a woman floating on her own moon—when I get grateful about the man next to me, my little pooch, my groovy neighborhood, and our good health and lives, in which I can rediscover a sense of adventure about life and I can touch a small and wonder-filled current inside of me." This concept permeates the book.
She includes extended fantasies about alternate worlds, from aliens to celebrities, where she might be "required" to drink, and these relapse fantasies, while fantastical, lend an important reality to the book. Scoblic did not simply hop, skip and jump into sobriety. She does not make it sound simple or easy, and doesn't gloss over the challenges of being at a heavy-drinking company retreat or at a party where her old ways can no longer guide her. Toward the end of the book, Scoblic writes, "Until sobriety, the idea that I was someone worthwhile and unique a priori had not occurred to me. And, as I looked toward the blank sober slate before me in the mirror, a thousand discarded personas on the floor, I began to sense that this one last transformation—that is, become myself, which is what everyone tells you to be from the start—was going to be an awful lot of fun. I was going to reinvent myself as me." By the actual end, as she writes about training for a marathon, a lifelong goal, I will admit that I cried. Scoblic does not pretend to have all the answers, but her vision of community, of strength and support, for running and sobriety, is an antidote to the loneliness she explores in the rest of the book, the loneliness and fear that alcohol momentarily removed from her. Her journey in exploring those dark spaces and discovering how to fill the gaps left by alcohol is touching, and should help give insight into alcoholism from a very poignant, personal perspective.
My review:
It would be almost impossible to tell her story of the first year without alcohol without sharing what alcohol meant in her life, and Scoblic manages to weave the two together beautifully in this moving, sometimes funny, sometimes sobering (pun intended) memoir. She writes about how she relied on alcohol in multiple ways, and that when she took that crutch away, she was left with a lot of assumptions, about 12-step programs, about faith, about relapsing, that she had to reexamine. One of the most crucial parts, one that I related to, was the idea that faith and prayer are not just for believers. She writes about praying even though she doesn't actual believe, or isn't sure that she does, and that is a concept that was utterly new for me. From Unwasted: "I have found moments of prayer, as I snuggle into my white bed in my deep blue bedroom—like a woman floating on her own moon—when I get grateful about the man next to me, my little pooch, my groovy neighborhood, and our good health and lives, in which I can rediscover a sense of adventure about life and I can touch a small and wonder-filled current inside of me." This concept permeates the book.
She includes extended fantasies about alternate worlds, from aliens to celebrities, where she might be "required" to drink, and these relapse fantasies, while fantastical, lend an important reality to the book. Scoblic did not simply hop, skip and jump into sobriety. She does not make it sound simple or easy, and doesn't gloss over the challenges of being at a heavy-drinking company retreat or at a party where her old ways can no longer guide her. Toward the end of the book, Scoblic writes, "Until sobriety, the idea that I was someone worthwhile and unique a priori had not occurred to me. And, as I looked toward the blank sober slate before me in the mirror, a thousand discarded personas on the floor, I began to sense that this one last transformation—that is, become myself, which is what everyone tells you to be from the start—was going to be an awful lot of fun. I was going to reinvent myself as me." By the actual end, as she writes about training for a marathon, a lifelong goal, I will admit that I cried. Scoblic does not pretend to have all the answers, but her vision of community, of strength and support, for running and sobriety, is an antidote to the loneliness she explores in the rest of the book, the loneliness and fear that alcohol momentarily removed from her. Her journey in exploring those dark spaces and discovering how to fill the gaps left by alcohol is touching, and should help give insight into alcoholism from a very poignant, personal perspective.
Sexy excerpts from my first 2012 anthology, Irresistible: Erotic Romance for Couples
Irresistible is my first anthology of 2012; isn't the cover HOT? Guess what? The inside is hot too, and if you click here you can read excerpts from all 16 stores.
If you like these free short story excerpts from Irresistible: Erotic Romance for Couples (click on the title to read the full introduction), please click "like" on Amazon and check out the entire book! Thank you.
As you can read, it's got everything from outdoor sex to BDSM to strip clubs to the military and more. If you'd like to review it on Amazon by February 28th (books go out mid-January), email irresistibleantho at gmail.com with "Amazon" in the subject line and your name, US mailing address and "Amazon" in the subject line. Fans of meatier stories will especially appreciate this book (I will not be reaching out to Mr. "there's no married couple erotica" cause I don't deal with haters, but he should totally read this book for lots and lots of married couples fucking). I usually opt for more stories at fewer pages but with this book I have 16 longer-than-usual stories, so for those who prefer more depth to their short stories, this book offers that, along with more depth to the emotional relationships. All the stories, as befitting the title, involve couples.
If you like these free short story excerpts from Irresistible: Erotic Romance for Couples (click on the title to read the full introduction), please click "like" on Amazon and check out the entire book! Thank you.
As you can read, it's got everything from outdoor sex to BDSM to strip clubs to the military and more. If you'd like to review it on Amazon by February 28th (books go out mid-January), email irresistibleantho at gmail.com with "Amazon" in the subject line and your name, US mailing address and "Amazon" in the subject line. Fans of meatier stories will especially appreciate this book (I will not be reaching out to Mr. "there's no married couple erotica" cause I don't deal with haters, but he should totally read this book for lots and lots of married couples fucking). I usually opt for more stories at fewer pages but with this book I have 16 longer-than-usual stories, so for those who prefer more depth to their short stories, this book offers that, along with more depth to the emotional relationships. All the stories, as befitting the title, involve couples.
Words to (try to) live by
People have asked me a lot since getting laid off, "What do you want to do?" The truth is, I love all the varied parts of my work, the fun and community of cupcake blogging, the learning from interviews, the enforced deadline and honor of getting to write a sex column, the introspection and politics from personal essays, the creativity of writing short stories and, back to community, the thrill of getting to publish and pay other people and put together books that are greater than the sum of their parts. I do enjoy the mania of book promotion, the having someone design postcards and mailing giant packages of them, the posting excerpts, the making videos, though plenty of times that feels like useless awful busywork, fake work, even, like something that "real" writers don't do, but I'm trying to train myself out of that way of thinking. I'm also learning that when you hate it is the time to quit, and the best thing I did last year was end In The Flesh when it became clear that I was in way over my head. I know that's an option if things reach that point with anything else I do, but I feel that my job now is to find the time, creativity and energy to make sure I meet my goals and commitments, and keep pushing myself to actually take the next step, as petrifying as that may be.
I love getting to edit sex diaries every week and all the worlds that have opened to me since I shucked the poor fit of law school and stepped into a career, or rather, leapt without knowing a damn thing, that fits much better. At the same time, I don't romanticize brokeness. I have major debt I'm trying to dig my way out of. I want to move past the status quo and reach higher. I'm most proud of pitching and striving to break into new venues this year. I love traveling and won't always have frequent flyer miles. I said last year I wouldn't do any more readings and because I'm desperate for all the hard work that went into Best Sex Writing 2012 to pay off, literally and figuratively, I'm trying to swing as many readings in as many stores as I'm blessed enough to host me.
So...who knows where 2012 will lead? Certainly not me. But I want to approach it with a healthier attitude, not one of lamenting all I haven't done or feeling utterly overwhelmed, but welcoming each day's blank slate and blank pages, ready to be filled. I know I'm extremely lucky, and I cannot afford to waste my time here on earth, however long I'm lucky to get. So this is, as always, a very selfish post to remind me to keep on keeping on, and to love my days at Gimme Coffee as much as my days in far-away places.
I love getting to edit sex diaries every week and all the worlds that have opened to me since I shucked the poor fit of law school and stepped into a career, or rather, leapt without knowing a damn thing, that fits much better. At the same time, I don't romanticize brokeness. I have major debt I'm trying to dig my way out of. I want to move past the status quo and reach higher. I'm most proud of pitching and striving to break into new venues this year. I love traveling and won't always have frequent flyer miles. I said last year I wouldn't do any more readings and because I'm desperate for all the hard work that went into Best Sex Writing 2012 to pay off, literally and figuratively, I'm trying to swing as many readings in as many stores as I'm blessed enough to host me.
So...who knows where 2012 will lead? Certainly not me. But I want to approach it with a healthier attitude, not one of lamenting all I haven't done or feeling utterly overwhelmed, but welcoming each day's blank slate and blank pages, ready to be filled. I know I'm extremely lucky, and I cannot afford to waste my time here on earth, however long I'm lucky to get. So this is, as always, a very selfish post to remind me to keep on keeping on, and to love my days at Gimme Coffee as much as my days in far-away places.
December 25, 2011
Cupcakes cupcakes cupcakes!
Head over to Cupcakes Take the Cake for lots and lots of holiday cupcakes! I'm so excited that 2012 will be the year of our amazing Cupcake Cruise (tickets are on sale now, and we'll have more details soon) and hopefully lots of amazing cupcakes.
Lesbian French fry flirting and rock star female dominance in my two new stories
I've got stories in two hot off the press Cleis Press anthologies: "French Fried," my Parisian lesbian French fry flirtation story (Fuck Yeah French Fries indeed!!!) in
Best Lesbian Romance 2012
, edited by Radclyffe, and "Rock Star Rewards," about a rockstar and her groupie plaything in
One Night Only: Erotic Encounters
, edited by Violet Blue. Check them out!
A big excerpt (also at PGW, woo-hoo!):Rock Star Rewards
by Rachel Kramer Bussel
Anyone who tells you that fame is the biggest perk of being a rock star is lying; sure, the high of being onstage, the rush of hearing your song on the radio, the fact that I never have to commute on a subway train at eight in the morning again. There's the fact that I can dye my naturally red hair an even more fiery shade of red/orange/badass and get applauded, not sent to HR. There's meeting celebrities, even going to the White House once, and travel galore, and knowing that every day I get to see my art not boxed up or hanging on a wall, but alive, being hummed or sung or danced to. I love entertaining people, love being able to take my thoughts and feelings and turn them into a rock song that goes beyond words. But best of all, I love the boys who love me back.
Okay, "love" is overstating the case. I hunger for the boys who lust after me; they're men, really, but I like to call them boys, even to their faces, and they like it too. They, my groupies, are the biggest perks of the job, by far. The kind of fan a six-foot-one Amazonian tattooed screaming redhead lead singer (of my band Fiery) gets aren't exactly the type who'll object to anything. I once had a boy come backstage and told him I wanted my own personal tattooer to put my name on his ass. No sooner had I said it than this sweet young thing dropped his pants! Even I don't have an on-call tattooer, and I wouldn't have gone through with it anyway; I just wanted to see what he would do.
We tour about ten months of the year; I've chosen bandmates who like the itinerant lifestyle as much as I do. Two of them, Steffy and Craig, are actually in committed relationships, while Benny is like me, the kind of guy who just goes with the flow. We're in a city one night, maybe two, and we don't form attachments, except to each other. We're not lovers, though we have been known to take a tumble on the rare night when there just aren't any groupies to our liking or we want a warm body to curl up next to far from home.Usually, though, what happens is something like what happened tonight. Our gigs usually end around midnight, and then the real show starts. Sometimes while I'm onstage, I'll roam my eyes over the audience, try to pick out a boy who just looks like he'd be the perfect fuck. You might think that I'm not discriminating, but that's far from true. I have standards, especially because this guy's only gonna get one shot to perform. You don't want someone so insecure or uncertain that he shoots too soon or can't get it up. I want a guy who's turned on by my power, but not so turned on that he can't access his own, if fucking is on my agenda.
If I do spot a candidate, I'll have our roadie, Genius (his nickname for himself, but one that, with his voluminous store of random knowledge, we've had to concede is pretty accurate), go pull the guy aside, give him a backstage pass. Does that sound sleazy? Well, so be it. Nobody's complaining. I look for boys who I can toss around my hotel room, who I can pick up, throw across the bed, maybe take over my lap and spank. You work up a lot of adrenaline, not to mention aggression, when you're onstage, and even playing the shit out of my beloved electric guitar isn't always enough to get it all out of me. Besides, the guitar won't fuck me back. These boys will.
Sometimes I think I should've been born a guy; I'm told I talk like one, cuss like one, and even fuck like one, but I don't wish I were a guy. I like being a loudmouthed, smartass wild girl. I like being unpredictable, and I love having a new specimen of manhood to play with every night.
There is a magic to getting to start over, to have a human body at your fingertips, waiting to be explored. Tonight, it was Jacob. He was twenty-five, but looked a few years younger. He had black stubble set against his pale skin, and was wearing a slightly worse for wear t-shirt of ours from five years go, along with black jeans that had seen better days, and black and silver sneakers. I cared more about the look on his face than the look of his clothes, and what I saw when Jacob stood before me was pure adoration, like he was ready to worship me in every way. He already was, in a sense, as I flung myself all over the stage, flitting my eyes back to him on occasion. He clearly hadn't brought a girl to the show, and his eyes seemed to bore into me.
If I were looking for a soul mate, I, like other women, might have a whole checklist of things I wanted to know: job, pedigree, hobbies. But since all I wanted was some fun for the one night I was in town, a way to let off steam, to keep on seeing that worshipful face after I'd gotten off the stage, I didn't care about all that. What I cared about was how looking at Jacob made me feel: sexy, hot, invincible. During sex, I like to feel the way I do onstage, like the ruler of my own mini-universe. When I winked at Jacob, I saw the small gesture make its way through him; he knew what it meant, he knew what I wanted. After so long in this business, I can spot my special submissives easily.
There was no band t-shirt that said, "I want to be ordered around and made to lick a powerful woman's pussy." There was no hairstyle that could convey, "My dick gets hard when a hot woman growls at me." It wasn't a fashion statement, for me or for them, but somehow, we found each other. Powered by the adrenaline rush of knowing I'd have a boy to test out the new red suede flogger I'd picked up at a sex shop that afternoon, I blazed my way through the set list and even added two songs to the encore.
"Hot damn!" Genius greeted us as we left the stage. "Someone's got a fan." He was onto me; he was always onto me, and not just because I'd pointed out Jacob earlier. Genius could spot these guys a mile away, too, and sometimes I was kind enough to let him play with the ones I didn't want, if they swung that way. He knew, though, that my music was powered by sexual desire, and that I was hungry to continue that flow of energy.
"Should I go get him for you?" The others just looked at us and rolled their eyes. They didn't quite share our groupie-spotting vision.
"Nah, make him wait a little while. Give him these to play with," I said, reaching under my short skirt to take off my sweaty
A big excerpt (also at PGW, woo-hoo!):Rock Star Rewards
by Rachel Kramer Bussel
Anyone who tells you that fame is the biggest perk of being a rock star is lying; sure, the high of being onstage, the rush of hearing your song on the radio, the fact that I never have to commute on a subway train at eight in the morning again. There's the fact that I can dye my naturally red hair an even more fiery shade of red/orange/badass and get applauded, not sent to HR. There's meeting celebrities, even going to the White House once, and travel galore, and knowing that every day I get to see my art not boxed up or hanging on a wall, but alive, being hummed or sung or danced to. I love entertaining people, love being able to take my thoughts and feelings and turn them into a rock song that goes beyond words. But best of all, I love the boys who love me back.
Okay, "love" is overstating the case. I hunger for the boys who lust after me; they're men, really, but I like to call them boys, even to their faces, and they like it too. They, my groupies, are the biggest perks of the job, by far. The kind of fan a six-foot-one Amazonian tattooed screaming redhead lead singer (of my band Fiery) gets aren't exactly the type who'll object to anything. I once had a boy come backstage and told him I wanted my own personal tattooer to put my name on his ass. No sooner had I said it than this sweet young thing dropped his pants! Even I don't have an on-call tattooer, and I wouldn't have gone through with it anyway; I just wanted to see what he would do.
We tour about ten months of the year; I've chosen bandmates who like the itinerant lifestyle as much as I do. Two of them, Steffy and Craig, are actually in committed relationships, while Benny is like me, the kind of guy who just goes with the flow. We're in a city one night, maybe two, and we don't form attachments, except to each other. We're not lovers, though we have been known to take a tumble on the rare night when there just aren't any groupies to our liking or we want a warm body to curl up next to far from home.Usually, though, what happens is something like what happened tonight. Our gigs usually end around midnight, and then the real show starts. Sometimes while I'm onstage, I'll roam my eyes over the audience, try to pick out a boy who just looks like he'd be the perfect fuck. You might think that I'm not discriminating, but that's far from true. I have standards, especially because this guy's only gonna get one shot to perform. You don't want someone so insecure or uncertain that he shoots too soon or can't get it up. I want a guy who's turned on by my power, but not so turned on that he can't access his own, if fucking is on my agenda.
If I do spot a candidate, I'll have our roadie, Genius (his nickname for himself, but one that, with his voluminous store of random knowledge, we've had to concede is pretty accurate), go pull the guy aside, give him a backstage pass. Does that sound sleazy? Well, so be it. Nobody's complaining. I look for boys who I can toss around my hotel room, who I can pick up, throw across the bed, maybe take over my lap and spank. You work up a lot of adrenaline, not to mention aggression, when you're onstage, and even playing the shit out of my beloved electric guitar isn't always enough to get it all out of me. Besides, the guitar won't fuck me back. These boys will.
Sometimes I think I should've been born a guy; I'm told I talk like one, cuss like one, and even fuck like one, but I don't wish I were a guy. I like being a loudmouthed, smartass wild girl. I like being unpredictable, and I love having a new specimen of manhood to play with every night.
There is a magic to getting to start over, to have a human body at your fingertips, waiting to be explored. Tonight, it was Jacob. He was twenty-five, but looked a few years younger. He had black stubble set against his pale skin, and was wearing a slightly worse for wear t-shirt of ours from five years go, along with black jeans that had seen better days, and black and silver sneakers. I cared more about the look on his face than the look of his clothes, and what I saw when Jacob stood before me was pure adoration, like he was ready to worship me in every way. He already was, in a sense, as I flung myself all over the stage, flitting my eyes back to him on occasion. He clearly hadn't brought a girl to the show, and his eyes seemed to bore into me.
If I were looking for a soul mate, I, like other women, might have a whole checklist of things I wanted to know: job, pedigree, hobbies. But since all I wanted was some fun for the one night I was in town, a way to let off steam, to keep on seeing that worshipful face after I'd gotten off the stage, I didn't care about all that. What I cared about was how looking at Jacob made me feel: sexy, hot, invincible. During sex, I like to feel the way I do onstage, like the ruler of my own mini-universe. When I winked at Jacob, I saw the small gesture make its way through him; he knew what it meant, he knew what I wanted. After so long in this business, I can spot my special submissives easily.
There was no band t-shirt that said, "I want to be ordered around and made to lick a powerful woman's pussy." There was no hairstyle that could convey, "My dick gets hard when a hot woman growls at me." It wasn't a fashion statement, for me or for them, but somehow, we found each other. Powered by the adrenaline rush of knowing I'd have a boy to test out the new red suede flogger I'd picked up at a sex shop that afternoon, I blazed my way through the set list and even added two songs to the encore.
"Hot damn!" Genius greeted us as we left the stage. "Someone's got a fan." He was onto me; he was always onto me, and not just because I'd pointed out Jacob earlier. Genius could spot these guys a mile away, too, and sometimes I was kind enough to let him play with the ones I didn't want, if they swung that way. He knew, though, that my music was powered by sexual desire, and that I was hungry to continue that flow of energy.
"Should I go get him for you?" The others just looked at us and rolled their eyes. They didn't quite share our groupie-spotting vision.
"Nah, make him wait a little while. Give him these to play with," I said, reaching under my short skirt to take off my sweaty
