More Mouseover Madness, Minor Holiday Edition

Bastille Day is, of course, the most important July holiday for Americans, but that doesn't mean there aren't others. You doubtless already know that July 15th is both Cow Appreciation Day and Gummi Worm Day, but were you aware that it is also the birthday of Willie Ames and Rembrandt? I'm guessing that you didn't, but in large swaths of the American Midwest, it's traditional on the ides of July to hold CAGWAR (Cow Appreciation Gummi Worm Ames Rembrandt) parties, where the main event is the ongoing, and occasionally nasty, argument as to whether Rembrandt or Mr. Ames shines more brightly in the artistic firmament. Most Midwesterners come down firmly on the side of Mr. Ames, but occasionally, in college towns, you'll find a crank who argues in favor of Rembrandt, mostly because he has a toothpaste named after him.

I couldn't interest my friends in a CAGWAR party, so I celebrated the fifteenth in my own way. I'm afraid that many of the details will have to wait for two other posts. Don't blame me: blame my one meatspace friend (without privileges) who reads this blog. He and I are going to a concert on Saturday night, and if I mention here that I did water sports last night, he's likely to tease me about it during the pre-concert dinner hour, and the fear of that teasing would force me to arrive at his place with two hours of prepared conversation about safe topics. Then again, I know that he thinks that rimming is disgusting (unless it's being done to him: the hypocrite), and he's never teased me about that, and it's possible that I might have talked about eating ass once or twice here, so maybe I'm overreacting. Still, better safe than sorry, yes? So let's keep the whole water sports thing entre nous until I can come up with a suitable euphemism for "pissing on a submissive in the shower." ("Posits" perhaps? Nah.)

Anyway, I celebrated by placing a craigslist ad offering free massages. Infuriatingly, CL didn't forward about two-thirds of the responses until about seven hours after I'd posted the ad. Fortunately, the remaining responses were enough to allow me to schedule three massages. They were a lot of fun, and I'll write about them in some detail later. In preparation, I want you all to ponder whether it's possible to call an attractive, full-bodied Latino man "Rubenesque" and not have the term be pejorative. I'll expect 1,000 words (exactly) on the subject from each of you by Thursday, and kindly remember that I'm very strict about matters of language.

Sometime after the third massage was over, and when, in fact, CAGWAR Day had technically been over by a few minutes, I had a very eager, very cute submissive show up for two hours of play. During that time, not only did I engage in the nearly unprecedented (for me) water sports, but I managed to keep my work boots on the whole time. Here again, there will be much additional detail later, mostly because it was an awesome session, and in preparation for that post, I want you to ponder whether the sort of boots typically worn by a construction worker can properly be called "work boots" when they're being worn by a CPA. In this case, I believe you should be able to answer in twenty-five or fewer words.

Biker Butt Bastille Day

It's one of the vexing ambiguities of contemporary English usage that if someone tells you that he's a biker, you don't know whether he's someone who sits on a motorcycle and makes his ass look great by outlining it in leather chaps or someone who pedals a bicycle and makes his ass look great with or without chaps, spandex, or anything else. Fortunately, the guy who came over last night to celebrate French independence¹ belonged to the latter class, and after the usual introductory snog (French kissing!), as I followed him up the stairs, squeezing his cheeks, I couldn't help saying, "Yeah, that cycling thing is really working for you."²


After we were done (or at least after la petite mort; there was still some light play to come in the shower), I asked him some more about the cycling, and it turns out that one of his (many) outdoor activities is mountain bike racing. As we were on the way to the shower, I opined that he must look really great in bike shorts.

And in between, I had to stop what I was doing (eating his ass) to tell him just how pretty it was. I had worked my way down his very tan, very smooth (By which I do mean hairless, but I even more mean soft and pleasant to touch: he clearly takes his moisturizing regimen as seriously as he takes his ample time in the sun. I should learn from him, but I'm sure I won't.) back, and he had such a perfect ass that rather than dive right in, I caressed the opening with my tongue. I figured there would be plenty of time to dive in later, when he was going down on me.


Some guys really can make up for a lack of technique with their looks. This guy had an unremarkable face, but the great tan, the luscious skin, the smooth shaved head, the well-built torso, and -- above all -- the melonish posterior more than made up for the slightly toothish cocksucking, the Psycho-inspired kissing, (Think of the music you hear when Janet Leigh's getting stabbed in the shower; this guy kissed just like that, except maybe even a little faster. I almost said something about it, but I figured that he'd calm down in time, and he did, at least some.) and the nearly unresponsive nipples. On the plus side, all it took to make him whimper with glee was to grab his wrists, hold them down over his head, and lie on top of him.

Slapping his ass did the same thing, though in that case the whimpers were mostly muffled by my cock in his mouth, and, really, when a guy's going down on me, slapping his ass is not nearly as much fun as eating it. But I had to do both. Submissives will tell you that it's all about you, but, really, it's about you wanting to do to them what they want to have done to them. And what this guy most wanted me to do to him was straddle his chest and feed him my cock while I leaned forward and held his wrists down. Not that I'm complaining, mind you, because it was lot of fun to fuck his face and listen as the whimpers escaped it.


And it was fun to roll him over on his stomach (after I'd made him put the condom³ on me) and fuck him. His ass was very tight, and I could never get quite all the way into him, but it felt great, and there was that incredibly soft, smooth back to play with. I didn't fuck him for very long, but we'd already been going at it for an hour when I started, and when I pulled out and turned him back over and held both wrists down with my left hand while my right hand grabbed his cock, his nuts were already pulled up tight to his body.

I offered him a dildo (baguettes make very impractical sex toys, alas), and he eagerly accepted. I pushed it into his ass (which accommodated the dildo a lot more easily than it had my cock), and he moved himself back and forth as I resumed kissing and stroking him. He said he wanted me to cum first, though, so I turned partly on my side, and jerked myself with my right hand while I kissed him. The left hand was still holding his wrists down.


I let them go when I was getting close so that he could sit up. He was still moving his mouth down to my cock when I started to cum, but he managed to catch the first spurts from six inches away. Then he lay back down, and I caught his whimpers in my mouth as he finished himself off. White cum looks really great on a deeply tanned chest. With a long, relaxed "Nom de plume," he pulled the dildo out of his ass and then relaxed into my arms.

Vive la France!



¹The French take their cycling so seriously that there is an annual nude bike riding protest in Paris. The cyclonudistes are apparently more interested in protesting the vulnerability felt by cyclists en face de the Parisian traffic than they are in showing off their glutes, but chacun à son goût, I reckon. There is also apparently something called the Tour de France, but when I googled it, there were no hits, so I don't know for sure.

²You will understand, of course, that all conversations were carried on in French, comme il faut. I have rendered them in English here to make things easier for my non-Francophone readers.

³The French word for condom is préservatif. This fact sometimes makes for amusing misunderstandings when Americans attempt to discuss matters of food safety with the French.

Straight/Slender

All craigslist encounters should be this uncomplicated. I was at my desk late Wednesday afternoon, and since I'd swapped nights with the ex, I was free that evening. I was tired, so I thought about just going home, reading, watching some TV, and hitting the sack, but when I looked at craigslist, I saw this:

anyone into giving massage to a guy with nice body in rockville Will host You bring whats needed for massage
WM 150 5'11"

So I figured I'd at least email the guy. I really wasn't feeling up for all out sex, but I always like having my hands on/in another guy. But this guy almost surely didn't have a table, and unless the bed is very high, massaging a guy on his bed is not as much fun unless it's foreplay. So I sent a message:

Hi. I love to give massage. I'm at work in Bethesda and live in [my exurb], so I can make it to [his town] if you want to host, but I have a table at my place if you can travel there tonight.

And I heard back:

I'm not panning to travel
Can you do massage without a table?
What time?

Well, what the hell. My reply:

I can do it without a table. I can just pick up some baby oil, and you can lie on towels or a blanket on the bed. Probably around 7 would work for me.

And then, from him:

Sounds good 7PM it is
100 [his street] [his town]

What is it about men of few words that's so attractive? Maybe it's that the more a guy says and asks on CL, the less likely he is to follow through. Guys who want to know exactly what you're going to do to them, in great detail, are generally more interested in jerking off to your (many) emails than they are in thrusting their feet heavenwards. On the other hand, a guy who says "c'mon over" too quickly might be having you on, so I googled the address to make sure it was legit, and it was, so when the time came, I left the office, stopped by the drug store for the baby oil, and headed to his place.


There was a work van in his driveway, and when I rang the doorway, I saw him get off the couch, and he definitely looked blue collar. He was wearing sweats and a t-shirt, and he had somewhat weathered skin and a full beard that was neither long nor neat. His hands looked not dirty but stained, and two of the fingers on his right hand were heavily bandaged. There'd been traffic and a driving storm on the way over, so I apologized for being a little (ten minutes) late, but he just said, "No problem," and I followed him up the stairs to the master bedroom. It was clearly a house where children lived, and the room was obviously one he shared with his wife. I asked to use the bathroom, and he pointed. When I came back from taking a piss, he was on the bed, on his stomach, with his eyes closed. And his boxers still on: you gotta love straight men.

The lights were too bright, and there was no music, and, worst, the bed was so low that I couldn't massage him standing up, so I had to sit next to him. I figured this was not great news for my back (and, in fact, it was sore a couple of days later), but there was a nice, smooth, lean back on a nice, lean, hairy guy, and I had a bottle of oil, so I started.


Massage is not as effective as sex is for distracting your mind from discomfort. You know how that is: when you're horned up and about to play or when you're actually playing, you can pretty much ignore anything. "Don't worry boy, It's just my left arm, and they can probably reattach it later, and the blood's nice and warm, and besides, who told you you could stop sucking my cock?" Massage isn't that, but it can still be plenty diverting, and after a couple of moments, my body's objections about the discomfort inherent in my position were fading, and when I was working my way down the shoulders and discovered that my client had the most clearly outlined infraspinatus muscles¹ that I'd ever seen, I was entirely captivated. I kept working back and forth across them on both sides for probably longer than was strictly necessary to relax them.

Not that this guy ever seemed at all tense. In fact, he said next to nothing during the massage. Once when I was working on my shoulders, he said, "Sorry, I forgot to offer you something to drink; do you want anything?" And then, much later, when I had his cock in my hand and pulled it back so that it had gone slightly past a ninety -degree angle with his body, he said, "Hurts," but that was it. There was no moaning, no noticeable acceleration of the breath, and hardly any rigidity in his body. It did a lot to enhance the notion that he was a direct and uncomplicated individual.


Uncomplicated men, of course, invite a great deal of speculation about their particulars, but I didn't develop a story for him until later. At the time, I just continued working my way slowly down his body. I had worked the shoulders, upper back, middle back, and posterior pelvis, my fingers occasionally sliding under the waistband of his boxers, and when it was time to go to his ass, I began pulling his boxers down, and he shifted slightly to allow me to get them off him. This gave me the first chance to appreciate a) just how slender his legs really were, and b) what a pretty ass he had. Despite the very smooth back, there was a layer of fur from his waist down. Because it was a very light brown, it was mostly not very noticeable, but when I began massaging his ass with more vigor and his cheeks spread, I saw that the hair grew to a dense thatch around his asshole. The sight of it was somewhat mesmerizing; fortunately, my hands went on autopilot for a bit, and I soon regrouped enough to work my way down his legs.

When you're working with someone who has no audible or muscular reaction when you rub near his asshole, it's hard to determine whether and how much he's into assplay, but there are a couple of guiding principles: 1) if he doesn't object or pull away as you get close, he's probably at least willing, and 2) if he puts an ad for massage in the M4M on craiglist, if he objects, he at least won't object angrily. It almost always make sense to go for it, with the proviso that if you're massaging a married guy who hasn't explicitly asked for some assplay, you should skip the asshole if you're squeamish about the possibility of inadequate anal hygiene. I figure I can always wash my hands if need be, but in this case, the anus, which offered no objections -- either directly or through the voice of its owner -- was very clean. And while the guy was still entirely unresponsive and lay there with his eyes closed and his body relaxed, I could sense a prostate that got happier and happier the more I worked it.


And when I told him to flip over, his long, thin, uncut cock (perfectly in proportion with his long, thin, untrimmed body) was leaking a substantial stream of precum, and his nuts (ample and hairy) were pulled up tight. I, of course, ignored his cock (and balls) at first and, dribbling a pool of baby oil on his sternum and another under his Adam's apple, began working his face, neck, and upper body. When I'd worked the fronts of his shoulders and his arms and moved down to his pecs and anterior pelvis, it was an easy manner for my arm to brush his penis, which went from nearly to fully erect. I worked my way down his legs and then and then returned to his nipples before moving on to his cock. He occasionally opened his eyes and looked at me briefly, but otherwise, he stayed relaxed and silent.

I finally grabbed his cock, skinned back the head, and began stroking the shaft. I expected a fairly quick shot, but after a minute or so, he was still as hard, but I could see that his balls had actually loosened a bit. When a guy isn't making noise or thrashing or otherwise signalling the intensity of the sensation, I'm not as interested in edging or even slightly prolonged stroking, so I slid a finger up his ass and began pressing on his prostate. He still didn't make any noise or breathe any harder or faster, but I could feel him pressing his prostate back against my finger, and after about another minute or so, my hand was suddenly covered in his cum. I stroked him for another fifteen seconds or so, figuring that a sensitive cockhead would get a reaction, but he was relaxed even through that. I have to give him credit.

I grabbed a towel and wiped him off, then had him flip back on his stomach, and I gave him another couple of minutes of shoulder and upper back massage to relieve the tension, but it didn't seem that any had been created. He was a truly remarkable specimen. When I told him he seemed very relaxed, he said, "I'm relieved, that's for sure," and then he closed his eyes again. After a few seconds more rubbing, I stopped, and when I stood up, he stood up, and we both got dressed. He walked me downstairs and said that he would shake my hand, but his hand was injured, so I offered him my left hand, and we shook, and I said goodbye. I told him that he was right about having a nice body. And he was: it was a very unusual massage, but he liked it, and I liked it, and I guess that meant that no further discussion was necessary.




¹I didn't know it was the infraspinatus muscle at the time, of course. I just knew that it was a very well outlined (though not especially big) muscle. I had to do some research, during the course of which I found the picture at the bottom and, later, the chart below. The infraspinatuses on the picture are kind of hulking, and this guy's weren't at all. They were just unusually easy to make out and play with.

2·52·7

Will left a comment on my last post, and it included the following sentence:

What I most appreciate about how you write of the sex you have is how often you capture the joyousness of great sex. VERY life-affirming.

My first thought, naturally, was, "Dude, what's with the hyphen?" But I got quickly over that and instead recognized that he had captured in a very few words exactly what The Neighbors Will Hear is all about.

[In case you couldn't tell from the title, this is going to be a highly self-indulgent post -- but at least there are nice pictures. I was going to say that I didn't do something similar for my 100th or 200th or 300th post because I'm philosophically opposed to the celebration of arbitrary milestones and because I didn't want to experience the fingernails-on-blackboard horror that necessarily accompanies any usage of a term like "blogiversary" or "blogcentennial," but the truth is that I simply didn't notice when any of those posts were occurring.]

The idea that life, or any aspect of it, is simple and can be reduced to a few words is both horribly misguided and tremendously useful. You will understand that if you adopt a two-word motto for what you want out of life, there are two million more words needed to work out the details and the exceptions and the restrictions and how you're going to get around the restrictions. Still, a journey of a thousand miles begins not only with a single step: there must also be a destination in mind. To that end, I propose my two-word goal: no more motherfucking greengrocer's plurals more joy.

I know you thought I was going to say "great sex," but as much as I love great sex (and I do: I really, really do), it is a means to an end. That end can be variously described as ecstasy, nirvana, rapture, paradise, or joy.

Security, contentment, and happiness are all wonderful things, and those of us who have them should do our part to help those who don't have them get them. But I submit that we can and should do better. And I further submit that if you're leading your life by any set of guiding principles that doesn't both incorporate and lead to joy, you are in error. There may certainly be events beyond your control that can keep you from joy, but to follow a path that is not designed to help you get it is foolish.

Great sex is certainly not the only way to find joy, but it's among the easiest and most reliable. If you're a skilled masturbator, then you can find joy via your own hand (and if your masturbation is not joyful, you're not a skilled masturbator, and you really should improve yourself). But joy is increased when it's shared, so you're better off with an accomplice. Not only will your own pleasure be greater, you'll have pleasured your fellow man, which is sure to earn you points in heaven.

I know that there are people who think of recreational sex as a bad thing, and, truly, I just don't get it. Some objections are religious, but if your religion proscribes the pursuit of joy when it doesn't involve harming anyone else, then I just don't get your religion.

Others say that recreational sex leaves them feeling empty and worse than they'd felt before the sex. Just a couple of days ago, I was feeling down and worse than I'd felt before the sex, and I had a brief moment where I wondered whether it was true that casual sex was harmful to the soul. But then I realized that I hadn't felt that way in a long time and that I was feeling that way because I'd just had bad sex and that I hadn't felt that way in a long time because I hadn't had bad sex in a long time. If you have great sex and you feel worse afterwards than either a) it wasn't great sex, or b) you really need to examine your outlook.

I understand that some people have concerns about safety, but the answer to these concerns is to play safe. Some people will tell you that only abstinence is entirely safe. I will tell you that the unorgasmed life is not worth living. Sex can be very unsafe, but it can be as safe as crossing the street. There's always a chance that you'll get killed crossing the street, but it makes more sense to look both ways and cross carefully than to stay holed up in your apartment 24/7.

Some time ago, I read a blog entry by a guy who recounted a story about how he'd had red hot sex with another guy but had gotten swept away in the moment and so hadn't used a condom. Because of this, he ended up with a treatable STD and a lingering fear that he might have contracted HIV. He didn't, in fact, contract HIV, but the so-called lesson that he learned from this encounter was that he could never have casual sex again because he just couldn't trust himself not to forget to use a condom in the heat of passion.

You can't control what you've done in the past, but you can choose your lessons wisely. Having unsafe sex and getting the clap (or whatever) shouldn't teach you not to have sex: it should teach you to have safe sex. If you're so traumatized by having to take some antibiotics and the (completely rational) fear of HIV, then surely the next time you're in a similar situation, you're much less likely to be swept away, knowing that it might mean a trip to the clinic and six more months of anxiety. I suppose that the guy in question might have other sources than sex for finding joy, but joy isn't the kind of thing that you have to ration or that you should only have one source for. More is better.

If you're living a life that's otherwise unsatisfied, then great sex, or any other form of joy, won't make up for that, but it'll still be fun. I think that a lot of men who eschew recreational sex do so because they're missing something else, most frequently love or affection. And I don't underestimate how terrific it can be to get your affection and your great sex from the same source, but isn't something better than nothing?

I've had this discussion with a number of my single friends who have mostly given up dating or hooking up. They'll say that the last guy they met was great in the sack, but they had to stop seeing him because the relationship "wasn't going anywhere." This usually leads to a discussion that goes something like this:

TED: So you were having great sex, but you stopped seeing him because he didn't want a relationship?

Friend of TED: Yeah. It wasn't going anywhere.

TED: Yes, I believe we established that before. So now you still have no relationship, but you also have no great sex. And you're not seeing anyone.

FoTED: Right.

And then I just stare at them because, really, what do you say to a guy who is so upset about wondering whether the glass is half empty or half full that he resolves the dilemma by throwing the glass away?

I realize that some people believe they have no control over their feelings and that they must accept that they're the sort of people who can only have sex when they're emotionally attached. But when I was a newly minted gay, I felt that way, too, and it was very hurtful to me. Sometimes the guy you have the best sex with just isn't emotionally compatible. But if you have great sex with him, he's still offering you something, and you're still offering something to him. I learned that lesson, and I think anyone else can, too.

I suspect (and hope) that I'm preaching to the choir here. But it seemed like a good idea to restate basic principles, and, hell, it's my blog, right? I thought that I might eventually tire of my central topic, but I haven't, any more than I've tired of great sex. With any luck, I'll continue having great sex and rambling on about it for the near future. And so will my readers. Not so much the rambling on about it, perhaps, but I do wish you all great sex. And more joy.

Housewarming

[Note: after the recent fracas between the pro-ass and pro-cock contingents among my readers (many of whom are, ahem, firmly in both camps), I've decided to give both groups what they wanted. You can thank Yarraville Paul, whose technique I have shamelessly stolen chosen to highlight, for the mouseover madness. He does a much better job with it than I do, but it was so difficult for me to get right (because it is difficult to debug html code when you don't know html) that getting the few specimens I got was almost too much for me.]

I was sitting at my desk this afternoon, intermittently reviewing a tax return and trying to select from a number of less-than-ideal responses to a craigslist ad when I got an im from Torless. When I asked him how he was, he replied, "[H]ot and horny," so I told him that I'd be home after seven if he wanted to stop by. He told me that he might do that because he was taking a load of stuff to his new place, in Gaithersburg. I inquired further, and he said that he was moving far out of DC but that he would now have his own apartment. Hmmmmm. I asked whether he had a bed, and he said that he didn't, but that he'd be happy to have me come over and break in the carpet.

I am an occasional watcher of Bravo's Flipping Out where the (gay, Californian) real estate business partners frequently bless their abodes with burning sage. Clearly, it is better to bless one's new residence with really good sex, so here was my chance to rectify error. How could I say no? (And why on Earth would I want to?)

Torless gave me his new address, and I told him I'd be there not too long after 7. I got there at about quarter after, and he was naked when he answered the door, so I grabbed him and started kissing him and pulling on his nipples. He kvelled, and we kept playing with lips and tongues and nips for a couple of minutes, then I looked around and followed him into the bedroom. I could tell that it was the bedroom because it was smaller than the living room, but the two rooms were identically unfurnished, except that Torless had spread a sheet and dropped a couple of pillows on the bedroom floor. So I pushed him down, set my glasses on the bedside towel, and dove in.

I'd have to guess that Torless hadn't had any for a while because he was ravenous for everything I was throwing at him. He kissed back with fervor, and when I went after his nipples harder, he just kept saying "Yes," and I just kept working them harder still. I would take breaks to kiss him some more, and when I was biting hard on the nipples and their environs, I'd occasionally slap his ass or squeeze it hard, and he ate it all up.

Typically, Torless is in a hurry, but we'd been playing for nearly half an hour before he started to undo my pants. I figured it'd be easier if I just took everything off, so I did, but even then he didn't go right for my cock. Instead, he got on top of me and fed me his nipples. I took that as an invitation to gnaw, so I did. (He's almost certainly bruised now, and he'll be sore for days, but I don't reckon that'll bother him much.) I was working his nipples as hard as I've ever worked anyone's: if I'd gotten any rougher, I'd have broken the skin.

After a while longer, he decided it was time to go down on me, and I decided it was time to lie back and enjoy. Torless is a hungry and talented cocksucker, and I let the sensation wash over me. Fortunately, I've learned to be a lot more vocal when I'm getting a first rate blowjob, so it was no effort to let Torless know that I was loving what his mouth and hands were doing to me. After ten minutes or so of that, though, I was really ready to eat his ass. But I was also really ready to kiss him some more, so I compromised. I pulled him up to me, and we made out for a while, then I pushed him back down to my cock and pulled his body around so that I could dive into his ass.

And it's a great, remarkably clean ass, so I worked my tongue in as far as it would go, occasionally pulling out to bite his ass. He took a hit off his poppers, and I was able to push in even farther. I was in far enough that I didn't need to push his ass cheeks apart anymore, so my hands worked their way up to his nipples, and as I snaked my tongue into his hole, I pinched his nips hard. I also hooked a leg around his head so that when he pulled his head up to gasp, as he inevitably did, I could pull him back onto my cock.



I had stopped rimming him and was sucking on his nuts while I worked a couple of fingers into his ass. I pushed hard on his prostate, and it was too much for him. He reached back to pull my fingers out of my ass, so I told him to sit on my cock. After he put a condom on me, he first tried to take me without lube, and he managed to get me in. He was pretty slick from all the rimming. But that was too much for him too, so he pulled off, lubed both of us up, and sat back down.

I reached up and began to pull and twist his nipples, and he started to bounce up and down on me. It was nice, even though it wasn't the position I wanted to end up in. Unfortunately, after five or six minutes of bouncing, he began to play with his cock, and it was only a couple of minutes later when, just as I was warning him not to, he started to cum.

I'll give Torless credit. Once he came, he pulled the rubber off me and started to down on me and stroke me again, and he did that for a long time. It was amazing, and I lay there and enjoyed it for maybe ten minutes, even though I was pretty sure I wouldn't cum that way. If it had been anyone else, I'd have pulled him off my cock after two or three minutes, but the way Torless was handling me felt so great that I put off taking matters into my own hands as long as possible. Finally, I sensed that he was tiring, so I pulled him down next to me and began to jerk myself off. It took a surprising amount of effort, but it felt great the whole time, and when I was right at the edge, I put his hand back around my cock and let him stroke a truly volcanic load out of me. He was so pleased that he just lay there in my arms for a full three minutes before rolling over to grab the towel.

I suspect that sessions with Torless will become more common now that he has his own place. But I've been wrong about that sort of thing before, and there's always the possibility that having his own place will make it easier for him to start dating someone. Still, he doesn't seem like the sort to be in a hurry to settle down, so the odds are good that having broken in the floor, I'll get a chance to help break in the furniture.

Monday Miscellany: Long Weekend Edition

After Friday's excursion into DC to see the fireworks, I did very little for the rest of the weekend. B&c spent most of Saturday packing and running errands, and then he left at 8:30 Sunday morning for the airport. He's off to Bogota for a couple of weeks, followed by an additional two weeks in Managua. He's upset that he's losing a day of paid travel time by going directly from Bogota to Managua, but he didn't find my suggestion that he fly home from Bogota one day then down to Managua the next particularly helpful.


Also, I think that he resented a bit that he had to spend Saturday packing while I sat in a comfy chair, reading my daughter's copy of A Series of Unfortunate Events and watching uninspired television. At one point, I mentioned that I was tired, and he said, "How could you possibly be tired?" but as it happens, one of the many things that I didn't do much of this weekend was sleep.


One thing I did do this weekend was stake my tomatoes. Of course, my tomatoes should have been staked weeks ago, but better late than never, particularly if late is before there are any fruit resting on the ground. Back in the day, my father made tomato stakes (when he didn't use cages) by taking 2x2s and carving the ends to a point. I made tomato stakes by going to the dollar store, buying fourteen mops, unscrewing the mop heads, and pushing the rubber-tipped, thin-but-strong-and-painted poles into the soil. They worked surprisingly well, and they should last for years, but now I have fourteen string mop heads and no use for them. I suppose I could learn to juggle.


The tomatoes and the peppers have both begun to set fruit. I found two itty bitty green plum tomatoes as I was tying up the plants. We planted six each of two varieties of tomatoes. The garden always seems like a lot of work when I'm preparing the soil, but it's really a very small garden, and when I get to this point in the season, I always wish I'd planted more, like maybe some small cucumbers so that I could make some cornichons, but my history with cucumbers has not been an unmitigated success, and the cornichons at Trader Joe's are both delicious and inexpensive.


Speaking of cucumbers, I am trying to perfect my recipe for Sichuan Pickled Cucumbers, and I made a pretty good batch on Sunday. I think that next time I will use less sugar and/or more rice vinegar, but the batch I made was very good. The flavors are very intense, and the ratio of sugar and sesame oil to cucumber is so low that the pickles can be eaten without guilt, but whenever I make them, I can't help wondering why "Sichuan" seems so ascendant these days while "Szechuan" seems to have fallen out of favor. But I haven't collected any hard data, so I may be guilty of misperception.


Speaking of hard data, around 2 pm Sunday I was packing my cucumbers into a plastic container to let them ripen in the refrigerator when I got a text from Kip saying that he was horny. I figured what the hell and texted him that I could play but that I needed to be done by 3:30. He said that he'd be over around 2:45, but then he kept pushing the time back (apparently, shopping was involved: I showered when he called and then sat around reading, so it was no big deal), and by the time he showed up at the door, it was 3:15. So, one minute to get him up the stairs and naked, two minute of kissing, two minutes of working his nipples, five minutes of eating his ass, one minute of sucking his cock while pressing a finger against his prostate, leaving four minutes for cleanup and chit chat. I will probably insist on fucking him again sometime soon, but I mostly do that as a matter of principle. It's become clear that I enjoy rimming him enough to make the encounters worthwhile.


Kip said that he hadn't cum in three days, but his load wasn't any bigger than the load I shot at 11 pm, the third time I jerked off Sunday. A while back, it seemed to me that my loads were less copious than they used to be. This can hardly be considered a tragedy, but I am happy that they have rebounded at least somewhat. They can be messy to clean up when I'm finessing the trombone, but the cocksuckers do seem to appreciate volume. Chacun a son gout, I reckon.


I think it is probably a mistake to read five volumes of A Series of Unfortunate Events in a single weekend. I think that if I'd read one a week for a quarter, they'd seem clever and charming, but five at once make them seem horribly redundant. Fortunately, YFU decided to reread volumes 7 and 8 during this week and took them with her when I dropped her off at the bus for her day camp this morning, so I won't see those until Thursday evening, at the earliest.


I was surprised at all the glowing comments about the long schlongs in my last post. Who knew my readers were such size queens? For the record, I don't know for sure, but I don't think most of those guys were Americans: I chose them because American are (rhetorically, at least) known for carrying big sticks. I find cocks of that size to be mildly interesting but borderline grotesque. It seems very odd to me that anyone would rather look at those cocks than at the asses in this post, but our diversity makes us strong, I suppose.

Independence Day

B&c wanted to go down to the mall to see the fireworks this year because he hadn't been in a long time. I called a few friends, and we arranged to meet for dinner in Bethesda (at Mon Ami Gabi, which calls itself a bistro, because, after all, Independence Day is a mere ten days before Bastille Day) and then take the Metro into DC for the fireworks.


While I am, as a matter of principle, in favor of anything that gives me a day off work, I have mixed feelings about Independence Day. Not about the fact of independence itself, mind you: I wouldn't want you to think that I was some Stilton-eating, crumpet-toasting Tory sitting in an overstuffed chair with my foot elevated to ease the pain from the gout while I harrumph about how we ought never to have been allowed to break away from Mother England. My mixed feelings have to do with patriotism.


If you take the simple definition of patriotism as "love for or devotion to one's country," then patriotism seems like a good, or at least benign, thing. I'd say I'm devoted to the U.S., at least insofar as I feel both indignant and protective when, say, people fly planes into our tall buildings or massive geometric military complexes. I think that it's difficult to say that one loves one's country simply because when you live somewhere, you really can't think of a place as a unitary entity. I mean, it's easy to say that I love Paris because I've only been there twice and both times I was on vacation and the last time was a few years ago, so it's relatively easy, from a distance, to think of it as a single place. If I lived there, though, I'd begin to think of it as bunches of little things, and there'd probably be this boulangerie that I loved and that charcuterie that I didn't much care for because the rillettes were a little bit dicey and that part of Bois de Vincennes where I love to take a picnic and that district right next to l'Ile de la Cite that I couldn't stand because of all the tourists. My relationship to the United States is similarly complex because I am immersed in it. There are certainly many places, people, and ideas here that I love, and there are others that I wish we could export to some foreign country that I'm never likely to visit. Maybe Zimbabwe.


When I stop to think about what it means to live in America and be an American, my main response is one of gratitude. Assume for the moment that reincarnation happens and that when you're done with this iteration of life, you're going to come back as a sentient being of some sort. Given those parameters, you'd be immensely fortunate to be a human being. And if you're coming back as a person, you really don't get much luckier than to come back as an American. I suspect that some, or perhaps many, of you might not agree with that assertion, but if you consider all the factors, especially freedom and opportunity, this is really the place to be born.


But it pays to keep in mind that being an American is, in fact, an accident of birth. And my problems with patriotism begin with the fact that most Americans consider the fact of their Americanness as both a significant accomplishment and an immense entitlement. And not so much as a gift that engenders any significant responsibility. If you talk with many Americans about immigration, for example, they will say (when you get through all the verbiage) that the people who want to immigrate to America want to take away what's rightfully ours. But what have they done to be entitled to the bounty of America? They were born here. And while being born here does require a significant amount of good fortune, it doesn't require any particular skill or merit.


I don't know whether patriotism is, indeed, the last refuge of a scoundrel. That may have been true at one time, but there are currently a lot of options, and nowadays, the last refuge of a scoundrel may very well be a reality TV show. I do know, however, that a strong sense of entitlement is a very dangerous thing.


When you feel entitled to something, it follows that you don't feel that you have to work for it and that you don't feel as much of a sense of responsibility for it as you would if you had had to work for it. Such was not always the case, and American history is replete with examples of the American populace sacrificing for common national goals. Now, though, the American way seems to be for those in power to delegate the suffering to those without power. Many of our politicians, especially the Republicans, do not appear to be overly concerned about asking other people to fight and die on their behalf. It has, of course, been at least a few centuries since the political leaders of a country could be expected to appear on the battlefield, but we might at least expect our politicians to sacrifice in some other meaningful way. But if you ask a Republican to, say, pay for the war that he's so eager to get into by enacting a tax increase, or even by repealing an immense and irresponsible tax cut, he will not even understand that he has any responsibility to the people he's asked to die in his place, let alone to the greater notion of America.


"Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country" seems almost a quaint notion here in 2008. If I were more of a psychologist, I might say that our current lack of responsibility comes from seeing America as our collective parent rather than as our collective child. But I don't know that why many Americans behave as entitled spoiled brats matters as much as the fact that many of us do. In any case, when someone is telling you as his rights as an American, you might want to ask him what he's done lately to earn those rights, and if he tells you that he has them because he was born here, you might want to ask him a) how hard he had to work to be born here, and b) why he thinks that someone who was born somewhere else doesn't have the same inalienable rights. You might also want to remind that person that if how he shows his patriotism is by eating hot dogs, watching fireworks, and waving a flag, then he isn't quite on a level with, say, Nathan Hale. He may very well want to take a swing at you, but the chances are good that he's drunk, so you should be able to dodge his fists, if not his wrath.


Anyway, it's fortunate that one can go down to the Mall and watch the fireworks without being overwhelmed by excessive displays of patriotism, and we all had a good time last night. At dinner, I had some very nice seared sea scallops (and, by the way, I can order "seared sea scallops" without lisping) that were accompanied by spinach and whipped cauliflower. Yum. There were showers before, during, and after the fireworks, but I had brought a plastic drop cloth to go under the blanket, and we all had umbrellas, so we only had to get slightly wet during the actual fireworks show. Which was impressive without being overly long. And when it was over, not wanting to brave the largest crowds on the Metro, we walked until we found a bar. We got a table in an Asian restaurant bar and lounge. At some point, I saw three generations of an extended family walk by, each of them wearing an American flag t-shirt and/or ball cap (a desecration of the flag if ever there was one: someone should tell them about lapel pins), but I was in too good of a mood to do anything but sigh and take another sip from my South Korean beer.