Not a Post for the Faint of Heart

Nor the weak of stomach. You have been warned.

I don't really use snail mail much. People keep sending me stuff that I don't want or need so that my paper shredder won't feel lonely, but I let it back up for a while before I deal with it. So this morning when I needed to clear off the table so that we can have some friends over for brunch tomorrow, I had a whole pile of Bijou DVD sale flyers to go through. They take you right back to the good old days of black & white porn, those flyers do. I was ogling the guys in their 70s haircuts and reading the descriptions when I came across (so not literally) this one:

CLUB MANDOM 1

Glory hole hog Tom Caserta produced, directed, edited, and stars in Club Mandom 1, an intense, anonymous blow job video that focuses on uncut cocks. The film's subtitle is Blue Collar Cheese Factory. Caserta doesn't merely suck dicks with foreskin; he relishes and savors the cheesy schlongs of working men. This ain't no pristine suck flick: everything that comes along with the extra flop of skin that covers a penis head is highlighted here, and the footage is explicit. Each scene features lots and lots of smegma -- gooey, creamy flecks of cock junk that cling to each penis like wet popcorn. Caserta ceremoniously sniffs, licks, and eats the cheese before swallowing bone, which in itself is no mean feat given how large each of these men are. All of the action occurs in a dirty back room, and Caserta's men remain anonymous: we are only shown swatches of dirty denim, a bit of flannel, or a cropped view of leather through the glory hole. The little we see indicates that these are rough, hard-working guys. Some must do heavy physical work because the amount of smegma on their cocks is astounding. (Pre-condom, 1990)

When you're talking about penises (and, really, you're always talking about penises, even when you think you're talking about something else), there are two things that are sure to make my viscera shrivel and send me kermitting from the room: sounds and smegma.

I should probably 'fess up that I've had no direct experience with either s-word. I do think that uncut cocks are god's gift to men, and almost every time I run into a man with a hood, I'm envious that he's perfectly accessorized in a way I never will be, but the uncut men I've met have all been very good about the penile hygiene. But as much as I like cheese and believe that it should be served at room temperature, I have trouble imagining that anything that's been hanging around inside a foreskin for a few days would be very appetizing -- the great and obvious exception being the cockhead -- or have much gustatory resemblance to a nice feta or chèvre.

But really, it's the word that gets me. Smegma. Ssssssmegma. I'm sure there's an actual etymology for the word, but the idea of looking it up makes me a bit nauseous. I prefer to think that it arose from the petulance of the divine, in some sort of conversation among the powers that be:

Power That Was: What do you suppose is the ugliest word in the English language?
Power That Is: "Cheney"?
Power That Will Be: We have a winner!
PTW: Ok, but I was thinking of something less context-sensitive. Something that just sounds ugly even if you don't know what it means.
PTI: "Smarmy"?
PTWB: This would be so much easier in German.
PTW: How about something that isn't a word yet? Maybe the ugliest concatenation of syllables you can imagine.
PTWB: "Concatenation" is quite a nice word, I think.
PTW: Focus, please.
PTI: Well, let's say we come up with this ugliest word. Don't we have to come up with an ugliest meaning?
PTWB: Oh, that's easy. Remember that plumber you did last week?
PTI: Ewww. I'm trying to forget him.
PTW: I see where you're going with this. Remember the surprise you got when you, um, unwrapped him?
PTI: Are you sure you want me to name that?
PTWB: Everything needs a name.
PTW: Yeah, go for it.
PTI: "Smegma."

[Exeunt omnes, arms flailing above heads.]

The first time someone asked me whether I was "into sounds," I said that of course I was. After all, I'm an auditory thinker and a pretty good singer, and I love music and sounds of all sorts.

Um, no. For any of you who may now be as naive as I once was, a sound is more properly a "surgical sound," or a piece of metal that is inserted into the urethra. The medical uses mainly have to do with reaching the bladder. The sexual uses largely escape me, but apparently they have to do with providing your partner sexual pleasure by ramming a piece of metal down his cock. (Not that there's anything wrong with that.) Unsurprisingly, their use is pretty much limited to the S&M crowd.

I've never sounded anyone. I've been asked, but only by guys who quickly lost interest when they learned that I didn't have my own set of sounds. If a submissive with his own set of sounds asked me to push one or more of them into his urethra, I might do it, but probably only after I'd already gotten off since I'm pretty sure that sounding another guy's cock would make my own undetectable.

What I'm about to tell you as a serious incursion into the land of TMI. You have been (doubly) warned. My squeamishness with sounds comes from a somewhat related personal experience from when I was married and had to be tested for an STD that I did not have. Believe me when I tell you that it is best that I spare you further detail.

There is, of course, a third sexual s-word that many people find revolting, but upon long consideration, I have determined that scat is an urban legend. Think about it: everyone knows someone who knows someone who says that he's into scat (or has read the blog of someone who knows someone who says that he's into scat), but no one actually knows someone who's into scat. I'm sure that if you go to the right bar in New York, you can find someone who actually claims to be into scat, but if you go to the right bar in New York, you can also find someone who claims to be Santa Claus and/or the Easter Bunny.

I can't get all that worked up over something that only happens in (low-grade, amateur pornographic) fiction. I do, however, acknowledge that it is unwise and impolite to try to disabuse people of a closely held belief, so the next time one of your friends who still checks under the bed for monsters tells you that shit happens, just smile politely and change the subject.

Out Night

B&c had tickets to see Jenufa at the Washington National Opera last night. [This is not a performing arts blog, but briefly: last night's performance kicked ass. I often dread slightly the prospect of going to the opera, and I was completely new to Janicek's work, but it was riveting. Beautiful music, exceptionally well sung and acted. The two female leads -- Patrica Racette and Catherine Malfitano -- were brilliant. The orchestra sounded terrific.]

Supposedly, it was Out Night, which usually means that someone in the administration has made a special effort to sell tickets to the gays. (We were there last night because we'd had to move our tickets from a night when b&c was out of the country.) Often, there is an additional lecture or tour before or after the performance. B&c eats that sort of thing up, but I find them to be tedious affairs. When we saw The Goat, or, Who Is Sylvia (the performance of which was not, truly, a tedious affair), we went to a discussion with the cast and director afterwards, and I got to see people tripping over themselves in an attempt to impress with their erudition. I was certainly impressed, but not favorably. I refused any attempts to get me to such an activity last night. Usually, I try to be a good sport about it, but not on a weeknight.

I couldn't help wondering why an Out Night is needed at the opera. The opera is really not one of those places where the gays feel unwelcome. And I didn't notice a particular preponderance of queers last night (unless you count the chorus, but that's a given). By the way, if you don't have a functioning gaydar and you're at the opera, just look for any guy under 50. If he's not there with a wife or girlfriend, then he's gay. If he is there with a wife or girlfriend, then flip a coin.

By the way, if you happen to be a costume designer for the WNO, let me just say that I understand that you want the bad boy's costume to say "bad boy," but some tenors really should not be sent out on stage wearing leather pants. Enough said?

Also, if you happen to be that cute Asian man who was on the aisle in the far left section of the second tier (about halfway up), yes, that was my partner I was with last night, but he's really not the possessive type.

Further Enlightenment

Another day, another miracle.

I hear, readers, your (weak and pathetic) hisses of disbelief, and I sympathize. Back in the dark, dark days before Big D and I became BFF, I spent much time wandering in the wilderness, and now that I have reached the Promised Land (which you, most assuredly, have not), I can understand how others might find my exalted position hard to take.

Nonetheless, I continue to be the Chosen One. Unmistakable signs of my close, personal friendship with Big D have begun popping up at regular intervals.

Now, I realize that some folk say that there are signs of God everywhere if you only know where to look. This, of course, is utter nonsense. There are signs of Big D everywhere if I know where to look because I am among the elected. Unless you have also been chosen (and trust me, you haven't), your best bet for experiencing the unknown vast is through the repeated ingestion of hallucinogens.

Anyway, yesterday morning, I reached for my coffee mug to take it to the kitchen to clean it and then refill it with coffee. I've been using the same mug for the past 2.5 years, and I never remember to clean it until the next morning. This means that my mug almost always looks disgusting because I always take my one cup of coffee with two Splendas and a heaping teaspoon of my coffee mix (roughly equal parts unsweetened cocoa powder and nonfat dry milk, plus a healthy dose of cinnamon), which makes the coffee taste good but doesn't really dissolve. I drink the coffee in about ninety seconds, then I set the mug aside, and it looks something like this picture until the next day.

That is, until yesterday morning, when I picked up mug and saw this:

If anything confused me about my initial experience with Big D, it was his/her/its choice of symbols. The outstretched hands of blessing are universally recognizable, yes, but they are not so much in keeping with my particular religious views. I believe in a much more diffuse divinity, some sort of blend of animism and pantheism which says that god is everywhere and everything. At the same time, I only believe in god in a metaphorical sense, so I'm really more of a panatheist than a pantheist. In fact, when Big D tries to tease me about something, I sometimes resort to the retort: "Maybe, bitch, but at least I exist." He loves that.

The nearly perfect yin-yang sign that I found in my coffee mug yesterday is a symbol often associated with taoism, which is a both a diffuse faith and a faith in diffusion. Much more appropriate and comforting than the outstretched (some might go so far as to say grasping) hands of (y)our Lord.

That one example notwithstanding, Big D is not so much a hands-on divinity. Feeding the multitudes, parting the Red Sea, writing his name in the topography of Africa: all not his style. (If you catch him in an unguarded moment, he'll cop to turning water into wine, but he says that it was very much vin ordinaire. Perhaps he's just being modest, though. It's hard to tell.) He's not one to hit you (well, me, really) over the head with obvious messages; he leaves the interpretation up to the chosen.

But in this case, the interpretation is fairly obvious. The yin-yang symbol represents balance, and the slight muddiness in the symbol in the cup is a reminder that I need to restore balance, a clear reference to the fact that b&c has been getting a lot more than I have this week. In fact, on Wednesday evening, when I got home with the kids, he bragged that he hadn't negotiated the contract for his upcoming trip to Jordan because "opportunity knocked twice."

When people tell you that open relationships thrive on honesty, they're right, but only up to a point. The partners have to honestly negotiate the rules of the relationship, and if they do more than nudge the outlines of the rules, then they have to come clean about it. Much more than that can pretty quickly become TMI, unless, of course, you're a particularly gifted story teller and your partner gets excited by the details. B&c is not a gifted story teller, and his details are always much tamer than mine.

This, truly, is not about jealousy. I was above jealousy even in my pre-enlightenment days. I do not, on the other hand, ever expect to be above envy, and if I've just spent a full day at work and then spent ninety minutes negotiating traffic and the multiple pick-up points of the kids, I don't really want to hear about how you spent the whole day on your back. (Especially when you've made meatloaf for dinner.) This is almost sure to lead to (momentary) petulance of the he-got-his-candy-I-want-my-candy-too-it-isn't-faaaaaair nature.

Fortunately, we're about to enter a long weekend, and I hope to have at least some opportunity to settle the score. In reality, envy is a very short-term emotion. I was over it almost immediately, and in my more rational moments, I don't care much about the body count, but I have to pay attention to the messages the universe is sending me, don't I?

Besides, I'm kind of curious about trying out my new line: "God told me to fuck you."

But If Baby You're the Bottom

Those of you who might worry that my recent road-to-Damascus moment might result in a change in my sexual behavior or my willingness to write about it can rest easy. The divine and I had a long chat (I call him Big D: he thinks that's amusing; he's not really a he, of course, but it's just easier to refer to the divine if I personify it), and Big D said that I should have as much sex with as many different guys as I want, and that if anything, I should want more. Then he said that if I was looking to make some changes, I should consider versatility, and when I started to sputter something about how I didn't think that would work for me, he said, "Psych!" Who knew that Big D had such a playful (if predictable) sense of humor?

Anyway. I'm moving on to a completely different topic now. But I am going to talk about a terrific session I had, if you're patient.

Not long after I first told my parents that I was gay, I was over at their house, and my mother asked me, "so are you the man or the woman in your relationships?" It will probably not surprise you to learn that I found this question somewhat inappropriate. And disturbing, for a number of reasons. Primarily, it indicated that my mother was actually thinking about my sex life in some sort of specific way. I had just assumed that for her to think about her son having gay sex would be as distasteful as it is for me to think about my parents having breeder sex. (I have had breeder sex. In fact, in my misspent youth, I was married for over ten years, and during that time, I only had breeder sex. [And only with my wife.] Nowadays, though, the thought leaves me a bit queasy.)

The fear of femininity that a lot of hetero and homosexuals have is something that I don't get. On some level, I don't even know how to approach the terms to have this discussion. I mean, I know what sort of men are referred to as feminine or fem, but the terms are not clearly apposite. Maybe they're the best we have, though. B&c is decidedly masculine (by which I mean both that he has a penis and that his manner is what's traditionally seen as masculine), but I have certainly dated men who were fem (though they all had penises). I have generally found that feminine guys break down into two subtypes: sweet and bitchy. I would date a sweet fem guy any time. Bitchy men have as little interest in me as I have in them, so it's not an issue.

I'm not sure to what I attribute the visceral reaction that a lot of men (straight or gay) have to feminine men. Perhaps it's a fear of growing old and not having anyone to watch football with. Perhaps it's a fear that they'll always be the less fabulous one in the relationship. Perhaps it's some sort of insecurity in their own masculinity. It likely varies from man to man, and maybe it doesn't matter. I've often said that you can't really help wanting what you want, sexually, and if you want to ignore all the sweet feminine men so that you can hang out with smelly guys who belch, then go right ahead. More for me.

My mother's question, though, reveals more than a general distaste for muddying the traditional bright line that separates masculine and feminine. What she was really asking was "Do you fuck them or do they fuck you?" Leaving aside for the moment the question of the precise use of "fuck" and whether it's linguistically appropriate to say that you fucked someone even if you were the one being penetrated, my mother was falling back on the idea that bottoms are feminine and tops are masculine.

At this point in the discussion, there is obviously only one way to go: Ovid.

The Transformation of Tiresias

'Twas now, while these transactions past on Earth,
And Bacchus thus procur'd a second birth,
When Jove, dispos'd to lay aside the weight
Of publick empire and the cares of state,
As to his queen in nectar bowls he quaff'd,
"In troth," says he, and as he spoke he laugh'd,
"The sense of pleasure in the male is far
More dull and dead, than what you females share."
Juno the truth of what was said deny'd;
Tiresias therefore must the cause decide,
For he the pleasure of each sex had try'd.

It happen'd once, within a shady wood,
Two twisted snakes he in conjunction view'd,
When with his staff their slimy folds he broke,
And lost his manhood at the fatal stroke.
But, after seven revolving years, he view'd
The self-same serpents in the self-same wood:
"And if," says he, "such virtue in you lye,
That he who dares your slimy folds untie
Must change his kind, a second stroke I'll try."
Again he struck the snakes, and stood again
New-sex'd, and strait recover'd into man.
Him therefore both the deities create
The sov'raign umpire, in their grand debate;
And he declar'd for Jove: when Juno fir'd,
More than so trivial an affair requir'd,
Depriv'd him, in her fury, of his sight,
And left him groping round in sudden night.
But Jove (for so it is in Heav'n decreed,
That no one God repeal another's deed)
Irradiates all his soul with inward light,
And with the prophet's art relieves the want of sight.

If, as Ovid clearly means us to do, we momentarily accept the notion that bottoming is associated with the feminine and topping is associated with the masculine, we can see that this passage from Metamorphoses has a clear message: try to be versatile, and you'll end up blind.

Yes, I will have my little joke.

Very few biological phenomena are black and white, and gender certainly isn't one of them. There are, clearly, people who fall somewhere in the middle of the male-female continuum, just as there are Kinsey 3s and 4s as well as 1s and 6s. But I would posit that many more people self-identify as gay than do as bi, at least if you wait long enough. At any given moment, there are approximately four million American men who are telling themselves that they're not gay as long as they don't kiss the man whose cock they're sucking, and approximately 3.9 million of them will eventually acknowledge that they're gay. (Of that 3.9 million, only about eight will ever become good kissers, alas, but it has often been noted that we live in a highly imperfect world, and here is but another example.) So if you graph population along the sexual continuum, you see, to the left, the Himalayan peak representing the vast heterosexual hordes, then a precipitous tumble down to the valley of the shadow of bisexuality, and, finally, a steep (but graceful, naturally) climb to the promised land of queerdom.

The distribution along the bottom-to-top continuum is likely neither as skewed nor as bipolar as the distribution along the Kinsey scale, but I observe that most (clearly not all) people who identify as versatile express a clear preference. In other words, they'll top if they have to, but what they really want is to be on their backs with their ankles tucked behind their ears screaming "harder! deeper!"

I can't pretend to know all of the factors that make men gravitate towards one of the role poles, but I know some, and I can speculate about others. For bottoms, the reasons are primarily physical. For tops, the reasons are primarily macroeconomic.

As Tiresias explained to us before Juno went all drama goddess on him, bottoming is more intensely pleasurable than topping. I'm sorry if you don't like that conclusion, but don't blame me. You could blame Tiresias, but don't you think he's suffered enough? Don't get me wrong: I love topping, and it feels great, but it kind of builds and then it's over with (and maybe it builds for a long time and maybe you get the whole cycle several times), and you're left with a great feeling of satisfaction and, briefly, invincibility, sort of "my loins are now empty and all is right with the world." Contrast that reaction with the reaction of a bottom who, having gotten used to the initial penetration, almost immediately cozies up to the edge of nirvana, where he stays for as long as there is penis present. It's more "I have seen the face of God! And yet I live!"

Some men are undoubtedly tops for physical reasons: i.e., they tried bottoming, and it was too painful and/or it just never got them off. (I'm raising my hand here.) But I think that the existence of a substantial number of tops has a lot more to do with supply and demand. If you really can choose to assume either position, then you're going to have a lot more success as a top than you'd have as a bottom because there are a lot fewer tops. (And, let me just say right now, that if there is some poll somewhere in the Advocate or Ladies' Home Sexuality that shows that the statistical assumptions underlying my entire argument are crap, I don't really want to know about it.) If you combine the economic incentives with the fact that men are largely creatures of habit who don't want to be redefining their roles every fifteen minutes, you'll see why a guy who's gotten plenty of sex as a top might not have much interest in moving to a new hunting ground where the game is much more scarce just because he might have a better view of the face of God.

And there are, of course, the masculinity and control issues. Many tops (including some of my top friends, but not me) feel that they would give up a significant portion of their masculinity if they were to bottom, i.e., assume the feminine role. Others fear that bottoming would remove from them control over their own sexual experience (or perhaps control over their partners). These two issues might seem to be the same issue, but they are, in fact, very different. My Neanderthal (i.e., Republican) top friends have a certain amount of (mostly concealed, except in the company of other tops) contempt for bottoms because of their perceived femininity. And even b&c will occasionally tell me that if he doesn't top someone about once every six months, he feels like less of a man. Of course, every time he tells me that, I get a headache because my eyes are rolling so hard. When a bottom offers up his ass to me, I'm usually thinking, "Damn, that takes balls."

When a bottom is screaming uncontrollably from intense pleasure, I might be thinking, "Oooh, did I do that? Awesome!" but I'm also aware that he's reached a place that I fear to approach. I like roller coasters, but you always know that the track brings you back to where you started; if you let go sexually, who knows where you might end up? So much of life is already beyond my control that I'd like to at least pretend to direct what I can.

Sexuality is rarely simple, though, and it would be wrong to say that there's a single reason why someone becomes a top or a bottom. Sure, I don't want to give up control, but there's also the fact that years ago, when I was first out, I tried a few times, and bottoming didn't do much for me. Perhaps it if had seemed like the best thing ever, I'd have gone in that direction.

I suppose that the only people who never have to think about this sort of thing (aside from the people who just never think about anything, the lucky souls who just fuck without ever analyzing, even after the fact) are the true versatiles, the omnivores of the sexual kingdom, the exceedingly lucky people who can say "it's all good" and mean it.

Anyway, I mused most of this post over two months ago, and it just sat here because it seemed to lack immediacy and relevance. After all, it had been more than five years since I bottomed, and in that time, I hadn't even tried to take anything up my ass.

Until the weekend before last, that is.

I had scheduled a full day of giving massages, and I had the last guy on the table. He'd been supposed to arrive at 5, but he'd gotten stuck doing something for his mother (it was the day before Mother's Day) and then in traffic, and he'd called twice to see whether I could still put him on the table. I'd said yes, in part because the e-mails I'd exchanged with this guy made me think a) that he'd be a lot of fun to massage and b) that he probably wanted more. This notion was reinforced by the fact that for much of the time I was massaging him, he had his hand up the leg of my shorts.

I generally try to separate massage and hooking up (except when I don't), but when a sweet and handsome African American man who's 6'1 and built like a brick shithouse wants to play, I am neither willing nor able to say no. Especially when his hair and his beard are both clipped to the exact same level. Very, very hot.

Anyway, I had C. on the table for about an hour when I asked him whether he'd like to go upstairs. At this point, he was on his back, and we'd been kissing some, and his truly impressive cock was at attention. He said something like "I don't mind," which I thought was somewhat ambiguous, but when I asked for clarification "Huh?" it turned out that he meant "Yes! Please!"

Did I mention in the earlier post that he arrived at 6:30 and left at midnight? Even with an hour on the table and almost half an hour in the shower and getting dressed and saying goodbye, that left a good four hours in bed. God only knows where that time went, but we both loved every minute of it. I know that he was a terrific kisser and that we spent a lot of time making out. And I know that at some point he grabbed the bottle of baby oil from my bedside table and gave me a massage (much of that involved me lying on my stomach and him lying on top of me and sliding back and forth over me), and I know that he did a good job going down on me and that I made a valiant effort and was uncharacteristically skilled at going down on him, but most of the first 2.5 or so hours fade into a haze of joy. What brought things into sharper focus was his tongue on my ass.

I am unaccustomed to, and perhaps not entirely comfortable with, men appreciating my ass. I don't think there's anything wrong with my ass: it just seems kind of nondescript to me. It's more that guys are interested in what I'm doing to them, and/or they're interested in my cock. It was really surprising to hear someone telling me that I have a great ass (chacun à son goût, I reckon). And I think it was the first time that I'd been rimmed since, well, the first time I've been rimmed in the twenty-first century.

I generally don't like guys playing with my ass at all, but C. was so nice and so hot and so into me that I went with it. And it was okay, really, but it was only okay. Typically, when I start to rim a guy, he goes a little bit out of his head. I don't know how much of that is simply the nerve endings and how much is the fact that it's the start of something more. Maybe it's like you've opened a door and he's caught a glimpse of the promised land, or maybe it just feels really good. I wasn't getting either of those things, so after a while of him doing that to me, I did that to him, and then we made out some more.

But he kept wanting more of my ass, and this was not the kind of guy I could say no to. I really wanted to give him what he wanted. He was pushing all the right buttons, and when he started to slide a finger up my ass, I was thinking, "Well, maybe it's time I learned to be 3% versatile. I don't have to tell b&c or anyone else about it. I can just bottom for guys who are this hot and this willing to invest several hours. That can't be more than, oh, one guy."

My body, however, had ideas of its own. I am sure that in the long ago, I have enjoyed having a finger up my ass. And I even have a very, very thin dildo that I am sure I enjoyed having up my ass. And, yes, it might have been five years ago, but surely it's like riding a bicycle, right?

Not so much. The finger wasn't doing anything for me except making me feel tight, and not in a good way (yes, he was using plenty of lube). And I knew that if I couldn't take one of his fingers (which were not all that huge), then I certainly couldn't take his cock (which really was all that huge).

It didn't stop him from trying, though. He got himself gloved and lubed up and lay on top of me and very, very slowly tried to push in. And he did get the head in. (Does that mean I'm versatile now?) And I kept telling myself to relax. I kept trying to remember how I'd successfully bottomed in the distant past. I kept telling myself that I wanted it.

My body didn't want it, though. There was simply nothing pleasurable about the experience, and whenever he tried to push in more than the head, my ass would push back and push him all the way out. I finally had to tell him that I didn't think it would work. I asked him how long it had been since he'd bottomed, and he said three years. "Well," I said, "five years for me, so I guess I win."

And to give credit where it's due, he wasn't trying to do anything to me that he wasn't willing to have done to him. He'd mentioned early on how he shared my views that bottoms really seemed to enjoy sex more than tops, and he said that he'd never cum while being fucked and that he wanted to try.

I did open him up with my fingers, and I did fuck him a little. Once he'd decided that he was going to go for it, he seemed really hungry for it. But, here again, my body wasn't cooperating. My ass was still feeling sore and a bit resentful, and it seemed to keep me from getting more than about 80% hard. He sat on my cock, and I did get in him some, and I played with his nips and cock while he bounced up and down on me. Then he got on his back and wanted me to fuck him that way, but, again, I could only get about an inch inside him. He seemed to like that just fine, especially when I jerked his cock, but I couldn't keep it going. I'm not sure how much of that had to do with just having had something huge slightly up my ass and how much was due to having been up early and having had a session of highly athletic sex in the morning followed by a long day of massage, but it doesn't really matter. At that point we were more than three hours in, and that's about as much as I can reasonably expect out of my cock. C., on the other hand, was like a rock the whole time.

Eventually, I put my middle finger inside him and pressed it against his prostate. He said it was intense and started to jerk himself off. I nibbled on his thighs and played with his nipples, and after a few minutes, he started to make a lot of noise, and pretty soon he shot and shot hard. Then he grabbed me and kissed me while I finished myself off.

After a couple of minutes of lying there, holding each other, he went to the bathroom and I lay there, enjoying the afterglow. After a minute, he yelled through the bathroom door, "Hey, Ted, I remember!" "Remember what?" "I remember why I'm not a bottom! It feels like I've got a corncob stuck up my ass." "That can be arranged." "No, thanks!"

After a few minutes more, I joined him in the shower. I usually find showering with another guy awkward, but given that I'd tried bottoming for this guy, I certainly wasn't going to balk at showering with him, and it was a lot of fun. I can't remember when making out in the shower has been more fun. We kept at it until the hot water started to run out.

We got dressed and we chatted and kissed some more, and he left almost exactly at midnight. If you're aware of my rating system, you'll be interested to know that I got in the car and went looking for a cheeseburger (two stars) and then came home and emailed some friends to brag (three stars). I think that in this special case, I'm going to add them to give C. an unprecedented five stars.

C. wants to get together again, and I want to see him again, but I think that we're both going to have to accept the fact that if there was ever a window of opportunity for me to become versatile, it closed some time ago. This is not something that I'm especially happy about. I continue to think of total tops as boring guys with control issues, but I'm somewhat comforted by the fact that I was willing to try. Still, it seems pointless to try to force something that isn't there. We all get different things out of sex, and one of the things that I don't get out of it is the joy of bottoming. There's plenty of other joys left for me, and I'm sure that the fact that I can be the instrument that brings that particular joy to other guys is something that makes Big D happy.

The Enlightened Dude

Peace be unto you, pilgrims. Join me in celebrating this wondrous day.

No, no: you have not stumbled upon the wrong blog, though you might certainly be forgiven for thinking so. Indeed, from the lofty heights that I have very recently attained, I am prepared to forgive you for that and much, much more.

You must be wondering of what I speak. (Note how easily I now see into the innermost workings of your, alas, still-limited minds.) I will tell you.

This very day: the twenty-first of May, 2007, at 3:24 pm, I have received a visitation from the divine. At the time, I was in the kitchen at my place of employment, that location in which I, like so many others who choose to journey temporarily among the once-born, sojourn as a way to meet the exigencies of the material world and gain a greater understanding of the common folk. And I am not ashamed to admit, brothers and, well, brothers (can I get an amen?), that I was feeling the load of this mortal coil. I was meandering through the very Slough of Despond. I had assumed that I could trace this difficulty to the fact that I had not yet eaten my lunch, but I now see the error of my ways. For there I was, standing next to the microwave, waiting for my soup to defrost when I answered the Call. There was no Earthly reason, friends, for me to do what I did. I had never done it before, no not even once! But I felt the need to take from my pocket, the small LED flashlight that I keep attached to my key chain, that light that guides my path through the darkness of my bedroom when b&c goes to bed before me, that beacon that keeps me from stumbling over my own shoes. I held that small ray of hope in my hands, and I depressed the button, and what did I see?



There in front of me, on the very wall behind the microwave, I saw the shadow of the hands of the divine, outstretched in blessing. I was so moved that I immediately reached for my cell phone and took the picture that you see above, the irrefutable, visual evidence that the divine lives among us and has elected me as its messenger.

It goes without saying that I understand the ways of men. And my intimate knowledge of that subject lets me understand how difficult it is to maintain faith while living in the modern world. I realize that there will be those who cry "coincidence!" or who claim not to see the clear writing on the wall. And I pity these people, but I will not, nay cannot, allow myself to be held down by their unbelief. For I have additional proof, friends.

No sooner had I stored the visual record of this epiphany in my cell phone than I took my lunch back to my desk and began to eat while simultaneously working on an estate return that I felt was sure to be my undoing. I had thought that I had made a grave error, one that would cost our biggest client a substantial amount of interest and penalties and that would leave my bosses awash in an awful wrath. As I began to put together my workpapers and to work my way down the fiduciary tax return checklist, my error lay heavily upon my heart. But then (lo!) I reached the final item of the checklist and that last question asked me whether I had made a certain election. An election that I had not hitherto been aware of. An election, friends, that would erase my error and completely avoid the awful wrath that I had been fearing for days.

And the doubters among you (whom, again, I freely forgive) may say that this was yet another coincidence, but I beg you to consider that I should not have even been doing this return. Once I had met with the client, I should have turned the file over to a subordinate. Clearly, it was the hands of the divine that led me to prepare the return myself and who delivered me from the shadow of reprimand.

But I am, of course, a humble man. And I am, after all, the messenger and instrument of the divine. I am, in short, just like you (only better). Though most would say that I deserve your adoration and adulation, I do not wish to set myself apart from the masses. Therefore, you may continue to address me as TED, and if you are aware that it now stands for "The Enlightened Dude," you will also understand that it retains the sound of my former name and allows me to act as if I don't realize that I'm a level or six above you.

Some of you, of course, will want more. You will want to know how you can support me in the important work of the divine. And since you insist, I must inform you that you may email me, and I will work out a way for your (large) packets of small, unmarked bills to reach me and assist me in my important ministry.

IRS guidelines require that I inform you that since I am not (yet) a recognized religion or other 501(c)(3) organization, your contributions are not tax deductible, but I take that as a ridiculous formality. I'm sure that if you deduct your contributions in the name of the divine, the servants of Caesar will not be able to bring you to account. After all, if the divine has demonstrated anything, it's that it has a way with resolving tax problems.

What a Difference a Vowel Makes

We live, readers, in a universe held together by unpredictable coincidences. You may be happily hurtling sideways through life and come in contact with something new and then -- the very next day -- come in contact with the same thing in an entirely different context. Ten, twenty, thirty or more years of semi-blissful ignorance of anything interrupted by two occurrences so close together that you begin to doubt the existence of chance.

Nonetheless, Lang Lang is not a panda.

B&c returned home from his sojourn in Ethiopia yesterday. Naturally, this meant that we had tickets to see something last night. B&c is all about the work by dead white guys culture, and we have a number of subscriptions. He generally purchases the tickets during the late spring and summer for a season that runs through the following spring. He usually doesn't learn about his consulting trips, however, until a couple of months before. Thus, he often has to reschedule his tickets. So when he has three weeks in Ethiopia and four or five weeks in Jordan separated by two weeks at home, much gets compressed into those two weeks. In addition to last night's symphony tickets, I will be subjected to get to see two operas in the next two weeks. I think there may be another event or two as well, but I can only contemplate so much time in a theater seat before I get overwhelmed and have to go to my safe place (this involves me curling up in the fetal position on the bed and singing Janis Joplin's "Mercedes Benz").

Anyway, I was in Costco last weekend. I had hoped to pick up the DVD of Pan's Labyrinth," but I couldn't find it, so I got The Painted Veil instead. I started watching it late Thursday night, and during the credits I saw "Piano Solo by Lang Lang," and I thought, "Wait a minute, isn't 'Lang-Lang' hyphenated? And isn't she dead? And how would you teach a panda to play the piano anyway?" But then the movie started, and I stopped worrying about it. After all, the piano playing was pretty good, and, given some of the movie's themes, resurrecting a Nixon-in-China era panda and teaching her to play the piano seemed somehow appropriate.

So fast forward to last night when we're taking our seats at the Kennedy Center. I hadn't bothered to ask what we were going to hear, so I was surprised to see that after the intermission, Lang Lang herself (still not hyphenated) would be the soloist for Tchaikovsky's Piano Concerto No. 1. I was curious as to what else Lang-Lang had been doing since the people at the National Zoo stopped spending three-quarters of their annual budget trying (and failing) to make her produce viable offspring, so I turned to the "Meet the Artists" section and looked at the bios and said to b&c, "Huh. Lang Lang is a man."

B&c knows better than to ask, so he just rolled his eyes. The concert was starting anyway. It was a very nice performance of the Enescu Romanian Rhapsody No. 2 followed by Jennifer Higdon's City Scape. B&c almost fell asleep during the Higdon. He says it was because of the jet lag, but I'm pretty sure it had more to do with the fact that Jennifer Higdon is neither dead nor (unlike Lang Lang) a man. She is, as it happens, so alive that she took a bow after the performance.

After yet another whirlwind intermission (B&c contributes some small amount of money to the Kennedy Center, and this entitles him to a very small cup of coffee and a cookie or two during the intermission of every event we see there. As a rule, we have time to walk from our seats to the members' lounge, grab a [very small] cup of coffee, and head toward the cookie table before they start ringing the chimes and dimming the lights to herd people back towards their seats. This contrasts rather starkly with, say, the Metropolitan Opera, where after the first act of Turandot, you have time to walk upstairs, venture out on the balcony, thoroughly analyze both of the Chagall murals, come back inside, and have several drinks before even thinking about heading back to your seat. Really, every time I'm there, I feel like the director has decided that he doesn't like the ending and is having it rewritten during the intermissions. Someday I'm going to be there watching La Boheme, which will end with Mimi's miraculous recovery. After which, she will dump Rodolfo to concentrate on her real estate career.), we returned to our seats, and, soon enough, Lang Lang (who is not a panda) appeared. It is not unreasonable to expect a concert pianist to at least be dressed like a panda, but Lang Lang (who is not a bear of any sort) had eschewed the usual white tie and white shirt for a collarless silk shirt in one of those colors (taupe? bone? ivory? ecru?) that I can't keep straight and that mean not quite white.

In general, I am all about the Asian guys. After all, I thought that Edward Norton was moderately sexy in The Painted Veil, but I reserved my real lust for Anthony Wong Chau-Sang and whoever was playing the Chinese doctor (imdb is not being very helpful here). But Lang Lang (yes, I am aware, that a panda is not really a bear, but neither is Lang Lang) was really not all that hot. It might have been his youth (he's twenty-four), but while I do have a general preference for men who are somewhat more mature, I'm usually perfectly happy to lust over men in their twenties.

Lang Lang obviously sensed my lack of attraction: during one of the stretches where he wasn't playing, he reached up and unfastened his top button in an obvious attempt to show a little skin (Does he really think I'm that easy? Oh shut up.), and then when he resumed playing, his visage and gestures were positively coquettish. I thought that not making eye contact with me was a nice touch, but it wasn't enough. Next time, he should try wearing some pants that do something with his ass. I suppose he could try not wearing pants altogether, but, well, he's Asian, and, well, you know.

On the other hand, at the beginning of the second movement of the concerto, there was some interplay where the principal flute*, cello, and oboe players each had brief solos, and those guys were all looking pretty hot, so if Lang Lang wants to bring them along, I'll let him join the party. Alternately, he could bring the bass section, though I suspect that after the nine of us got finished with him Lang Lang (who is so not a bear) might have to cancel a few concert dates to recuperate.

(*Just in case anyone who knows the NSO is reading this, it's really the assistant principal flutist that I lust after. The principal flutist is an older Japanese woman and she's very cute but really not my type.)

One of the things I like about going to see the NSO is that we have tickets in the first row of the first tier. That's relatively high up, but I can still see the expressions on the players' faces, and, most importantly, I always have a good view of the bass section. When I really appreciate being in the front row, though, is when the concert ends and I can applaud and see the musicians without standing up. I can't remember the last time when I went to see the NSO and there wasn't a standing ovation. I'll give Lang Lang full credit for doing a terrific job on the concerto, and it is certainly pleasant to watch a musician who so thoroughly loves playing his instrument. But, really, much of the credit has to go to Tchaikovsky. In any case, what's the deal with the routine handing out of the standing O? In my book, you rise to your feet when you are so moved by the performance that you have no other choice. The standing O is more valuable if it happens only rarely.

It is certainly possible of course, that the typical Kennedy Center patron who, after all, has probably not had sex since the Eisenhower administration is swept away on a tied of emotion after every performance, but I have my doubts. Especially given that a goodly number of those people who stand to applaud are headed for the exits after the soloist takes his second set of bows. Of course, last night, those suckers missed the encore, which I have to say was pretty kick ass.

All of That Time in Hell To Spend

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Euthanizing the Barbarian

Hi, kids!

Here's a fun game to try on your next long-distance car trip. Crank up the TNWH masturbation euphemism generator!

Here's how it works. You'll need three words:

1. A present participle. ANY present participle.
2. "the"
3. A noun. Preferably a concrete noun, but an abstract noun will do in a pinch, and sometimes gives amusing results.

Put 'em all together and whadaya got? Yes: a serviceable euphemism for masturbation.

Let's try it out a few times:

Winding the salamander
Tugging the lunchbox
Cranking the trolley
Polishing the silverware
Being the Buddha
Parboiling the fettuccine
Feathering the diaspora
Articulating the stapler
Reinforcing the wristwatch
Enabling the anaconda

See how easy it is? Sure, some are better than others and some are slightly gender specific, but they all work on some level, and it's fun to compete to see who can come up with the best ones.

Not only is the TNWH masturbation euphemism generator a fun, fun, fun tool for passing some time, it gives you a great code to share with your closer friends. If your SO calls you at the office when he's out of town on business and there are perky ears in the area, you can say, "Yeah, I'm just staying in tonight. I think I'll be trimming the wildebeest before I go to bed." Your co-workers might well be confused, but they won't have any idea what you're talking about. If one of them says, "Did you say 'trimming the wildebeest'?" you can just give him a dismissive look and a condescending laugh.

Just try not to dissolve hopelessly into laughter when he tells you that he's going to be spending the evening practicing the viola.

The Opposite of Sex

I heard on NPR this morning that ABC is giving the GEICO cavemen their own series.

Meltdown over here in 5...4...3...2...

I reckon the over/under on the series is three episodes.

Look Ma, No Tongue!

My buddy B. came by for a massage last night. For the record, "buddy" only means "friend," nothing else is implied by the term. A buddy could be a FWP or a FWOP, but it is not another way of saying FB. An FB, by my definition anyway, is not really a friend; he's more someone whom you wouldn't recognize if you ran into on the street because he has his clothes on.

Relationship terms, of course, are of vital importance in the gay community. If we presume some ideal future where gay marriage is universally available (for those who want it, that is, not for me), and we further presume a gay married couple, Steven and Bryan, then at various points in Steven's and Bryan's interaction/relationship, they'd call each other most if not all of the following:

Some guy I met
Some guy I hooked up with
Some guy I have a date with
Some guy I had a date with
A guy I've gone out with a few times
A guy I might be dating
A guy I'm dating
The guy I'm dating
My boyfriend*
My live-in boyfriend
My significant other
My partner
My domestic partner
My husband

The asterisk indicates the point at which it is safe to speak of "a relationship" between two people. Woe betide any gay man who prematurely uses the R-word or who expresses his belief that he's further down the list than the guy whose ass he regularly uses. There are very strict rules here. You can recover -- with difficulty -- from a one-level difference. If, for example, you refer to the guy who regularly uses your ass as "the guy I'm dating," when he's thinking of you as "a guy I'm dating," and you correct yourself soon after you see his raised eyebrow and look of abject panic mild discomfort, then there's (some) hope. But if you and the guy who has made you his ass monkey are two or more levels apart, the split is immediate and irrevocable. The same is true if one of you uses the R-word before the other is ready, even if you're only one level apart.

Protestations about the dictionary meaning of "relationship" are of no avail here, so just don't risk it. These days, most prudent gays who are interested in (eventually) getting into a relationship use a Qualified Relationship Intermediary. The QRI is someone who regularly polls both parties as to where on the list they think they are. Then, when a suitable amount of time has elapsed so that each party can pretend that he wasn't the first one to reach that level, the QRI announces to both gentlemen: "Congratulations. You both have reached the 'a guy I might be dating' level, and I must say that I have rarely seen such unanimity between two men as to exactly where the are in their interaction." The QRI will, of course, say this even if there is a broad disparity. For example, Steven may have said, "I would die for Bryan. In childbirth." Bryan, on the other hand, may have said, "Yeah, I'll probably keep seeing him. He's got a nice ass."

You can see why having a good QRI is very important. In urban areas with large gay populations, QRIs are typically civil servants, and this can lead to some problems. Some men feel that the QRI to whom they've been assigned pesters them needlessly during periods when they're irredeemably single. Others feel that when they're seeing one or more men, the QRIs don't keep up. The situation is exacerbated by the fact that in most cases the two dating/possibly dating/whatever parties are represented by two different QRIs who may have trouble sharing information in a timely manner. In one particularly notorious case, two DC QRIs still had two men listed as "possibly dating" the day after they'd run off to Montreal to get married. This prompted a blistering editorial in the Washington Post. The Post suggested that the QRI function would be better served if it were privatized. A later study funded by HRC, however, compared areas where QRIs are civil servants with areas with private QRIs and found no significant difference in terms of accuracy or client satisfaction. The finding was dutifully reported in the Post, but the editorial board apparently took no notice. Some have posited that this is but one of many issues where the Post's editorial board has its head up its ass. I don't judge here, people, I only report.

I haven't included on the list all of the terms that get used in the, um, rockier relationships. Some relationships have their ups and downs on the way to the altar; fortunately, in these cases, disparity is not really the central issue. So if Steven is referring to Bryan as "the guy who makes me die a little each time I see him at the gym" while Bryan thinks of Steven as "that slut who wouldn't even pay for the Rid when he gave me crabs," they probably have bigger problems to deal with than terminology. All in all, though, premature use of the R-word is more likely to be fatal to a relationship than are crabs. I don't judge here, people, I only report.

Anyway, none of this has anything to do with my buddy B., who is, in fact, a FWOP, aka someone who wants to have sex with me as little as I want to have sex with him (but who is otherwise a thoroughly charming individual). Until last night, I'd never massaged a FWOP. I'd massaged people I hadn't previously met, and I'd massaged guys I'd hooked up with (or was in the process of hooking up with), but none of my friends without privileges really knew that I liked giving massages. B., as it happens, is on the same e-mail list that I'm on, and when he saw one of my postings, he e-mailed me to say that it was he (it's not his primary e-mail, which I normally contact him via) and asked me how the weekend was going. I gave him some details, and we exchanged a few messages, and then he asked me whether I ever gave massages to friends or would that make me uncomfortable.

It is to laugh.

I explained that I was pretty much comfortable with anything, and that if he wanted a massage, I'd be happy to give him one, and he should just let me know if either prostate massage or release would make him uncomfortable. He replied that neither would bother him, and we arranged a time.

B. was a bit late. In addition to his day job, he does some consulting in the evening, and he got caught up in a task and called me at 9 to say he'd be about 9:30. I hadn't planned anything else for the evening (except laundry and reading), so I told him no problem. When he arrived, I showed him to the table, and he stripped down (B.'s quite the nudist, so he has no problem at all being naked in front of friends) and hopped on the table.

I started the music and began rubbing him down. He said that he probably wouldn't talk much, and that was fine with me. The massage was pretty much routine. He had a lot of problems in his shoulders, but so do most guys, and it's not unusual for me to spend most of the first Bach unaccompanied cello suite on the shoulders, as I did last night. After working his shoulders, upper back, lower back, butt, thighs, calves, and feet, I hadn't heard anything from him except for sighs of utter contentment, but when I came back to his ass and started to dribble more oil down the crack, he said that he didn't mind my proceeding, but he wasn't sure how clean he was. I told him that I could always wash my hands, but as it happened, he was very clean indeed. High fiber diet, I reckon. Anyway, I gave him a very gentle prostate massage, and he seemed to like that a lot. Not in the getting-excited-and-dripping-precum** way that some men do, but just quiet enjoyment. I worked some more on his shoulders, and I told him to flip over while I went to reheat the oil. He told me that I was doing a first-rate job.

B. is extremely tall, and I was a bit worried that when he was on his back, he wouldn't fit easily on the table, but he just bent his knees a bit, and he was fine. Perhaps because of his height and his shaved head, I'd always figured that he was a bit skinny and probably smooth, but he actually has a nicely filled out and fit body that's fairly hairy. Not that it matters, really. I wasn't even remotely turned on. Nor was he. He remained steadfastly soft up until the point where I actually grabbed his cock. But I think I've heard him talk about body issues in the past, and seeing him naked, it was hard to see why he'd have any. Not that having a good body stops any gay man from thinking his body has big problems, of course.

Anyway, I started on the front side with a fairly extended face and scalp massage. It's really cool to work on a guy with a shaved head because you don't have to worry about getting oil in his hair. The head massage made him very happy, and his smile only got wider when I worked on his shoulders, arms, and hands. I did his pecs and abs and the fronts of his legs, and then I went to work on his nipples. His smile got even bigger, and his sighs got a little louder, but his cock didn't get any harder. I considered ignoring his cock altogether, but he'd said that he was happy to get release, and I generally figure that when there's a choice between cumming and not cumming, cumming usually comes out on top.

I took his cock in my right hand and poured some warm oil on it with my left, and he made happy noises. I switched hands and stroked with my left while my right worked his shoulders, pecs, and nipples, and he got harder.

It was about here that I figured out why sometimes massage is a quasi-sexual activity and other times it isn't. I'm a very oral guy, and I don't really feel like I'm having sex unless my mouth is somewhere on the other guy. Often this involves extended rimming sessions or gentle or rough nipple play, but it almost always involves kissing. And often, shortly before I go for release, I'll make out briefly with the guy on the table, and that's usually enough to get me somewhat aroused. Not fully aroused because I'm still concentrated on the massage, but there's no doubt that there's a strong connection between my lips and tongue and my cock.

Anyway, I wasn't using my mouth at all on B., so while it was undeniably fun, it really wasn't sexual at all. For either of us, apparently. B. later told me that despite the very nice orgasm (he was especially complimentary, and he has a great body to work on, so hopefully he'll be on the table again), it just felt like a great massage to him.

Still, it was a pretty cool orgasm. I worked on his cock a lot more slowly and methodically than I usually do. He certainly was in no hurry to cum, but his excitement, though it built slowly, built steadily. Eventually, I took his cock in my left hand, added more oil, and continued to stroke slowly while my right index finger engaged with his ass. That made him more excited still, and after a couple of minutes of that, his writhing got less and less understated, his voice got louder and louder, and he pumped out a nice hot load. As I wiped him up, he told me what a great feeling that had been.

I told him to get back on his stomach, and I spent the last three tracks of the disc working his back and shoulders some more. I finished up on the last note, and he lay there for a bit and then got up and started to get dressed. We chatted for a while about stuff (sex mostly), and then he went home.

While he was getting dressed, he told me that the prostate massage had not been exciting but calming. "It relaxed me from the core out," he said. I had never heard it put that way before. It's certainly a thought that (along with the technique) I will carry to future massages.

**UPDATE: While looking through my (really pathetic) reader statistics (always a dangerous activity) this evening, I was checking referral links and happened to learn that if you google "dripping pre-cum from prostate massage," (I have very mixed feelings about that hyphen, but let's leave that aside for a moment) I'm the eighth most common result. I suppose I could be disappointed not to make the top spot, but, really, it's just such an honor to be nominated. I am the winner if you google "neighbor's perky nipples," which just goes to prove that the Internet is in no way a meritocracy.

Playing the Cello

After the fairly intense sexual experiences of Friday night and Saturday morning, I was ready for something a little more relaxed and methodical. Which was good because I had scheduled an afternoon full of massages. If I weren't having sex on a regular basis, I would probably find doing massage frustrating. But as a successor or antecedent to sex, it can be a good way to extend the afterglow or foreplay, respectively. For me, when massage is a wind down from sex it has a very different energy from when it's an appetizer, but the guys on the table seem to enjoy it pretty well either way.

I was motoring homeward Saturday morning when my noon appointment called to say that he was having some trouble with his car. That may have been an I-have-to-pick-my-friend-up-at-the-airport excuse, but probably not, since he expressed a willingness to have me pick him up at the Metro station on my way home. But I had another guy coming at 1:30, and I knew that I wouldn't be able to get this guy back to the Metro and still make it home on time. Ninety minutes is about the minimum amount of time you need between the start of one massage and the next: some massages can be comfortably completed in an hour, but others can't, and in any case, you need to change the sheets and take care of other minutiae.

Anyway, I took advantage of the cancellation to get home at a more leisurely rate and to cut the grass in the front yard. Then I showered and was more than ready when my 1:30 showed up at 1:15.

[Let me just stop here to give you an overview of the rest of the weekend:

The first massage went from 1:15 to 2:30. Then I changed the sheets, started a load of laundry, looked all over the place for my car keys, found my car keys, and got in the car to drive to the Metro to pick up my 3:00. We went back to the house and did the massage, then I drove him back to the Metro and hauled ass to make it back to the house before my 5:00.

At 5:05, my 5:00 called to say he had been delayed but hoped I could still do a massage. I had purposefully left the evening free to loaf and take care of a few chores, and he was my last guy, so I told him to come on. At 6:00, he called to say that he was still stuck in traffic, but that he was going to take an alternate route if I could still do the massage. I was just puttering at that point, so I told him to come on. At 6:30, he arrived, and we started the massage, and then he left at midnight. He was on the table for an hour of that, and we spent some time chatting, but mostly we had about four hours of epic sex. (I was going to say "marathon sex," but top marathoners only have to go for a little over two hours.) I'm going to have to put that story in its own post, however: it was wild and not a little mind bending, and I'm still processing.

Sunday morning, I was up at 8 to be at church at 9:15 to sing with the choir. It was the annual bridging service, where we celebrate the graduating seniors and their march towards adulthood. Since EFU is a senior, she had to give a two-minute homily, and she totally rocked. I was simultaneously immensely proud and a blubbering mess, but I hear that kids will do that to you. I came home and called my Mom and got her machine. I had called her on Friday, though, because on Thursday, I'd gone online to send her some flowers for Mother's Day, and only after I finished the transaction did I realize that I'd asked for delivery on Friday, May 18, instead of Friday, May 11, so I had to call her to make sure she and my Dad were still going to be in Florida on the eighteenth. They usually come north to their summer place sometime just before Memorial Day. Anyway, we talked for a while, and then we talked briefly on Sunday late afternoon when she called back when YFU and I were at Costco, but I meant to call her back again later, and I didn't. So: insufficient phoneage, and the flowers will be a week late; I am officially the Worst Son Ever.

Sunday afternoon, I was supposed to give a massage to another guy that I've been emailing back and forth for a while. I figured he'd bail at the last minute, and he did, so I cut the rest of the grass and worked in the garden. Another buddy of mine who'd said he might want a massage did want a massage, but his email came too late. I was supposed to pick up YFU at 4, but she called and asked whether I could pick her up at 3 instead, so I did. We hung out and watched some TV, and I finished up the yard work. Then I made her her first fried bologna sandwich. Another milestone.]

I always have some music playing when I'm giving a massage. Occasionally, it'll be some light pop (the Mamas and Papas are a good choice), but given the approach I take to massage and what I intend to get out of a massage, the much more common choice is classical music. Specifically, baroque music. Specifically, Bach. Specifically, the unaccompanied cello suites. Specifically, the Yo-Yo Ma recording of the unaccompanied cello suites. Specifically, disc one, though I'm willing to entertain the possibility that after another dozen or so massages, I might give disc two a test drive.

I'm not up to the task of explaining to you why the Bach unaccompanied cello suites are great music in a general sense. You can listen to it yourself, and if you don't like them, well, I'm afraid there isn't much hope for you, though I'm sure that aside from that whole thing where you have no soul, you're probably a wonderful human being, and you likely have a bright future ahead of you in marketing or politics.

Part of why it's such great massage music is that it's great music generally. But more than that, the music is simultaneously simple and deep. It's a single instrument whose frequencies resonate well with the male body. Additionally, there are a variety of tempi, and that's good for accompanying a variety of massage techniques. Plus, it's just over an hour long, so it's about the length of a single massage, and there are eighteen tracks, so it's easy to be sure that you're not getting too far ahead or behind by watching the track numbers. And each track has a satisfying ending note, so you can finish up after track 13 or 16 as well as after track 18.

Mostly, though, it's the energy thing. It promotes calmness and allows you to feel like you're channeling energy directly from the music into the body of the guy on the table. Or channeling energy directly from the body of the guy on the table into the music: giving a massage is a lot like playing an instrument.

The first two guys I had on the table on Saturday had little in common, except that they were both about 5'8. The first was gay and single; the second was bi (I'm guessing) and married. The first was slender and smooth; the second was compact, muscular, and hairy (he was, in fact, built a lot like a cello). The first was talkative; the second was nearly silent. The first was generally loose with tough knots in his shoulders; the second was generally tight with few knots anywhere. The first had thin lips and was nervous about using them; the second had full lips and was a pretty decent kisser. The first had extremely sensitive nipples and an average, straight cock; the second had moderately sensitive nipples, and a short, bent cock.

There is, nonetheless, a universality about the massage experience. Both arrived with a lot of stress, and both left minus some tension and a load. Both responded well to Bach and to my hands. Both say that they want to come again.

I'm not sure where the massage thing goes from here. I did drop about $200 on the table and another c-note on supplies, so I reckon that I should give at least a hundred massages so that the per-use cost is less than a trip to Starbucks. And God knows I love doing it. I suspect that it will become a steady hobby, and I hope that I get a regular group of people for the table. I'm certainly open to the possibility of it becoming a supplemental source of income, but that would probably happen a while in the future, if ever. I think this weekend showed me that, with some training and practice, I could probably give twenty massages a week and have it be a pleasure rather than a chore.

And, hey, if every once in a while an hour on the table turns into four hours in the sack, it's just one of those avocational hazards that I'll have to deal with.

8 1/2

I know that my (few) regular readers are waiting with 'bated breath to know about my weekend activities, so I'll get right to the point: yes, I did get the grass cut. No, I didn't find a hottie on CL to do it for me. That might be because I didn't post an ad, but I prefer to think that it's a fundamental flaw in the design of Craigslist. After all, what kind of website doesn't anticipate its readers needs? Aside from this one, I mean.

(Really, someday I am going to post that ad, just to see whether anyone replies. You know that somewhere out there is a guy who pines to play the teenager in the teenage-neighbor-cutting-grass roleplay, even if he's a forty-five year old orthodontist. And, hey, I'm perfectly willing to leave my glasses off and see the forty-five year old orthodontist as a hunky teenager if it means my grass gets cut. I worry, though, that I'll get some sub who'll purposefully cut the grass wrong so that I'll have a reason to punish him. Men.)

Anyway, I didn't cut the grass until Sunday afternoon. Friday night has already been covered. Saturday morning, I got up fairly early, checked my email to make sure my afternoon massages were all set, grabbed a breakfast of champions (an Egg McMuffin and a large Diet Coke) from the McDonald's drive-through window, and headed off into The Land That Time Forgot (Northern Virginia) to visit my once and future fuckbuddy R.

R. said that it had been two years since we've played. I'm not sure that it's been that long, but it's certainly been at least a year, and that was a sobering thought because it meant that I'd gone more than a year without visiting the most agreeable pair of nipples I know. It also just made me think about that whole tempus fugit thing, but y'all know how I feel about introspection, so I concentrated on the nips.

I was a little bit early for our rendez-vous, and I was surprised to find R.'s door locked. In the past, he's always left the door to his condo open, and I've walked in, locked it, and gone to his bedroom where he'd been waiting for me, naked. It was weird having to knock, but I knocked, and he came to the door in his clothes. I seemed taken aback by this, which made him laugh. Anyway, since he was standing there, I grabbed him and started to kiss him and held him tightly against me, and he made appreciative noises (He's a very appreciative guy: it's one of his best qualities. Well, that and the nipples that never say die and an ass that's so clean that you wonder whether he ever eats.), and I pushed him toward the bedroom.

While we were getting undressed, he mentioned that a chat buddy of his wanted to watch us on his cam and asked whether I minded. I was a bit nonplussed, and I had a brief image of myself showing up on YouTube. I don't generally think of myself as an exhibitionist, but I could see where the cam was pointed, and it looked like it was going to be easy for me to keep my face out of the frame, so I decided just to go for it. It didn't really turn me on to have an audience, but it wasn't inhibiting, either, though I checked the cam feed fairly frequently throughout the session to make sure my face wasn't showing up.

Sex with R. is always somewhat (or more) athletic, because I get carried away with his nipples and he gets carried away with my cock, and each of our enthusiasm further fuels the other's. I knew that before long, the hard fucking would start, and we only had a limited time (I'd arrived at 9:30, and I had to be back out the door at 11), but I was determined to sample all of him, so I pinned him down and started kissing him. R.'s a great kisser. I think he's probably the first man who ever sucked and tugged on my lower lip in a way that was all wow and no ugh. But his body is an embarrassment of riches, and the pull of the nips was too strong to resist for long, so after an intense but perhaps neither thorough nor long enough round of kissing, I went for the nips. Intensely and thoroughly.

I could probably have done that for the whole ninety minutes we had, but R. had other ideas, and he pushed me over on my back and dove (not so much a figure of speech where R. is involved) for my cock. He is a truly talented cocksucker, and on another occasion, it might have been nice simply to lie back and enjoy that for a half hour or so, but I was pretty worked up, so I pulled his body around, put his knees on either side of my head, spread his cheeks, and shoved my tongue in.

God only knows how any man can have such a clean ass. I half suspect that he autoclaves it, but I can see how there would be logistical problems. In any case, it's as sensitive as it is clean, and my tongue in his ass always makes him pull off my cock, gasp, and dive back down on my cock, taking it deeper.

I'm not sure how long that went on. There's a sort of time dilation effect when I have sex with R. I do remember looking up at one point later in the session to make sure that my face wasn't in the screen and seeing that it was almost 10:30 and that we'd been having sex for an hour and feeling like we'd only just gotten started. Of course, at that point we were actively fucking, so it should have been obvious that we'd been at it for a while, but it seemed like no time at all.

Anyway, what R. always really wants is my cock up his ass, and he likes to ride me. That works for me because I can pull hard on his nips or sit up and bite them while he's bouncing up and down on my rod. Also, he's doing most of the work that way, and while I am really not a lazy fuck, I'm a lazy fuck. R. had been actively and with audible and frequent appreciation riding me for fifteen minutes or so when I decided to change the pace up and go for the X position.

I reckon that everyone already knows the X position, so telling you about it is something like saying, "and if you really want to make a guy feel good, put his cock in your mouth," but on the off chance that somebody doesn't know (and because I enjoy writing about it): to get to the X position, you start out in the riding position, where the bottom is astride the top, with the top's penis (since we're being semi-clinical, but if you don't like semi-clinical, ignore "penis" and substitute "hot throbbing manmeat") firmly inside the bottom's bottom. Then the top (after grabbing the bottom's hips and stopping him from moving, if necessary, and it's always necessary) takes the bottoms hands in his own and slowly lowers the bottom backwards until the bottom is lying on his back. At this point both the bottom and the top are on their backs with their heads pointing in opposite directions. (Really, it looks more like an asterisk than an X, I suppose, but whatever. Mostly it just looks like a couple of happy guys.) The top maintains his grip on the bottom's hands. The bottom's position forces the top's hot throbbing manmeat to exert a pleasurable pressure against the bottom's prostate. The pleasure can be maintained and intensified by some understated writhing on the part of either or both partners. The hand grip makes the motion easier and keeps the penis deeper inside and the two bodies firmly engaged.

R. acted like this was something new (and wonderful) to him, even though I'm sure that I've done this move with him on multiple occasions in the past. Still, I'm not one to question appreciation or enthusiasm, so I just lay there, understatedly writhing, for a while.

Then I pulled him up, pushed him down on his stomach, and entered him from behind. Then I flipped him over on his back and pushed his legs up towards his chest. And so on and so forth: the point is, protracted pounding in multiple positions. At some point we were interrupted by an urgent call from R.'s office, but it was probably good for me to get a two-minute breather. You couldn't call R. high maintenance, but he's certainly high effort.

As much fun as all that fucking was (And it was great fun, believe me; the intense pounding was hot, but so were the times when he was riding me and he slowed down and we talked about whatever; at one point he jumped off me and started to suck me again and he said that the first time we'd fucked, he'd done that and I'd said "ew." It's hard for me to imagine that I'd done that, even though sucking on a condom never strikes me as very appetizing. But he's probably right. The first time we got together might have been as long as seven or eight years ago (right after I got separated, whenever that was), and fin de siècle Teddy was quite the naif.), I was feeling pretty soon into it that I probably wasn't going to shoot while fucking him. To do that, I usually have to have the guy flat on his stomach, and for some reason that position wasn't working as well for us as the him-riding-me, X, missionary, doggie, or spooning positions were working. No matter, really. When I saw that I was really pushing hard up against our deadline, I took matters into my own hand, and he watched closely. When I was right at the tipping point, I grabbed his hand and put it on my cock, and he pumped and swallowed the head and, shortly thereafter, my load. I had told R. about the previous evening's threeway, and he was impressed that I had pumped out such a voluminous load twelve hours later. I'll take his word for it. It was certainly an intense orgasm, but I didn't actually see what my volume was.

R. never ejaculates unless I specifically ask him to, and since he seems equally ecstatic whether or not he cums, I didn't ask. It was almost eleven, and he had a lunch date with his mother at noon. I had a massage coming at noon, and I knew that I'd need a shower when I got home. Even on a Saturday morning, it's more than a half-hour drive home around the beltway from TLTTF, and I needed to stop on the way for some supplies.

Anyway, I've officially upgraded R.'s nipple tolerance from an 8 to an 8.5. I don't generally approve of half-point ratings, but I reckon he's earned it, and we can always pass it off as an homage to Fellini.

I need to ensure that he and I don't wait another year to play again. I'm sure he's game for another go or fifty. He said that for the next few days, every time he sits down or his shirt touches his nipples, he'll remember me and smile. I think he gives me a lot more credit than I deserve, but it would be foolish of me not to at least attempt to earn it.