December 2015

Drogo: Why are you telling me about your date with someone else?

Me: Give it a minute, it loops back to you, and I didn’t fuck him so hush.

Drogo: Okay

The conversation ended with me saying “do you know how hard it is to storm out of the CN Tower?”

I didn’t but I wanted to.

This was Sunday.

On Saturday I was up in the sky for the second time that day.

I had a forkful of really good salmon 2/3 of the way to my mouth.

He said the thing and time stopped.

The fish hung in limbo.

Time slows down when adrenalin hits. Fight or flight.

I guess it could have been worse, he could have reminded me of his girlfriend while I was flying the plane. I wonder if I could have kept my hand off the door latch. Unlikely. Sometimes my hands fly on their own.

I know I speak in metaphors a lot. But I really did fly a plane and he really does have a girlfriend.

They are in an open relationship. Apparently she ironed his shirt for our date.

I said he reminded me that he had a girlfriend because I knew.
If you call the passage of 100 days and I am supposed to recall something said off the cuff when I was drunk something I should ‘know’.
I forgot, memory just erased it. She does that sometimes, neither here nor there until I am 1,815.4 feet up in the air with a bite of salmon poised to enter my mouth and all of the sudden my memory snaps back so fast I get mental whiplash and my appetite and happiness dissipate at lightning speed. I dropped the fork.

“Remember?” he said, “I told you she was older and you said ‘no wonder my internal cougar alarm is going off’.”

Oh I totally said that. I wonder what other clever shit comes flying out of my mouth when I drink, I could probably write a book.

Fight or flight.

There is always a third option. Remember Colossus from the X-Men? Perceives a threat and this liquid metal covers his body rendering him bulletproof. Ya, I did that.

You see dear reader, this is the dramatic conclusion to about 100 days wherein I thought I wanted a boyfriend.

This guy planned such a spectacular date that I felt like a princess instead of my usual which is stripper/booty call/backup plan. I put on a false front, pretend it doesn’t bother me, but it does.

“Difficult not to feel a little bit disappointed, and passed over” A Perfect Circle.

I mean I make myself disposable, I really do. I date in fits and starts and multiples. I have back up plans/lovers. I am a stripper, hard to take seriously.

Two kinds of men date strippers, pimps and guys that don’t really like you that much. If feelings do arise, then a choice must be made. Mine is self-evident. I strip, period.

I shouldn’t say that. Someday I will be done.

There is another kind of man who dates strippers. Male strippers and porn stars.

The guy that took me up in the sky is those things.

I thought I had a chance. I was wrong.

The next 24 hours were spent a) with Drogo and b) realizing how much I like my life as is.

I needed a little shake up I guess.
I needed to have what I thought I wanted handed to me and snatched away.

I also needed reminding of how I feel about open relationships.

As we sat in the car on the long awkward ride home he kept saying ‘but you have other boys’.

Aye, I do. Less than before but more than zero.

If I did somehow end up in a relationship, I would lose my lost boys. Gently, but they would go. I do not carry old baggage into new relationships. It’s unfair to everyone.

I have also stated that I am by nature a monogamous creature. I am. Sometimes Vagina and Heart just agree, all others cease to exist and I am happy.

I am perfectly capable of and willing to be in an open relationship. I have tried on those pants before and they didn’t fit, but I know why and where they need to be taken in and let out.

I dated a guy who was bi-sexual in my 20’s. I knew when he snuck off to indulge with boys. I just let him. What hurt me is that he felt shame about it instead of telling me. His shame turned to guilt and begat violence. I didn’t dump him for cheating, I dumped him for hitting me.

Once upon a time I invited another woman into my marriage and what killed it was the history that existed between her and my husband. They were cruel. I went swimming in that polyamory pool and it was so caustic I almost melted away. They actually made me lose my physical self. 30 pounds, 30% of my flesh.

After I walked away from my open marriage I almost walked into someone else’s. Cared for a man so deeply that I held his hand walking through the mall with his fiancé grasping the other hand. Watched him beam with joy and was happy for him and vicariously through. But I couldn’t ignore the pain in her face, nor can I stomach being secondary. Lesson learned.

We will speak in detail of the Black Wedding another day, but know that on the day he married her, he called her my name 3 times. I wasn’t secondary at all.

I am no pain dealer*. I walked. Never looked back.

I told the Porn Star I needed a few days to mull things over. He inundated me with journal entries, books, messages, fb likes and had my friends asking about him.

You can’t give me 3 days? What other rules won’t you follow? The answer is all.

And my answer is No.

I came down from the sky and went swimming in the pool of Drogo. He is water to me. Cleansing and refreshing. We laughed/scoffed at the idea of a relationship. Neither of us wanting to give up our kingdoms.

Drogo remains my primary. I will cancel anything with anyone if he wants to see me. He is the Peter Pan among my lost boys. He is also my friend, which is paramount.

I am hoping for my own sanity that these bouts of wanting to be in a relationship come few and far between, like Star Wars or the Gunslinger series, years pass with nothing.

The gunslinger walked through the desert…into a galaxy far far away.

(*Alfa)

Um, the Sun and stars died.

George, what did you do?

Oh Drogo.

If he can die, what hope is there?

On Game of Thrones? None, everybody dies.

In real life, my life…I walk into the funeral pyre and emerge the next morning, naked, new, with dragons on my shoulder and Drogo lives.

I had to wait a while to write this one.

If I write when I am hurt the words taste like venom in my mouth. My tongue becomes forked and I don’t like what I see. Kali without her mask on. Hera and her jealousy turning men into monsters.

Of course he is a monster, I wouldn’t like him otherwise.

Only monsters fuck like he does, like they read an instruction manual and learned what I love before I even landed in his bed, the car, the pool, the hammock, his couch, in his shower.

Eulogies are supposed to be a celebration of a light that has gone out, we don’t throw mud at funerals, just polite handfuls of dirt. When the hand opens and the dirt falls, that is the end.

There is no eulogy here. Only epiphanies.

I said before, the words ‘I told you so’ doesn’t put the rubble back to houses after an earthquake. It is impossible to rebuild with what is left after a disaster. New materials are needed. The cracks must be examined to determine where the weaknesses lie.

I built a house from straw and the wind knocked it down. I got the wind knocked out of me too.

Imagine if you will, me, married, mostly.

I explained before that my marriage was like a revolving door. Me inside, then she would push and I would end up outside, I’d push back and so it would go, a very un-merry go round.

I read a thing that stated ‘the indicator of any good relationship is the lack of seeing it on social media’.

Considering what I went through, having to check my Facebook every hour on the hour to see if which one of us was taking her turn as his secret mistress or celebrated wifey. Seeing pics of her and him while he paraded one of us out for the world to see while shunning the other.

Dirty laundry has no place here upon the Facebooks. It looks really gross. Wash your shit then hang it out. My tolerance for drama has dropped to zero. So that I agree with.

I cannot help it but I just suffered the worst of stomach rolling induced by déjà vu.

I saw something, Drogo on a date. My Pavlovian response was not to salivate, I cried. Ugly cry wherein breathing becomes impossible.

When the wind left my lungs it carried a low moan with it, that whale song my heart sometimes makes and it was answered, as it always is. This time by the Hulk.

I haven’t spoken to him since July, but his voice rings clear when I read his words, it is stern and coated in caring “if you talk about your other lovers to his face. That shows a green light for him to search too. When we started you had “Sunday” on the side and therefore I figured we wouldn’t be exclusive and I didn’t focus. Sorry to use this example but it works here.”

It works, perfect fit with a hermetic seal to contain the ashes of my Hulk. I’m the one who should be apologizing. I remembered being drunk with him, sitting in front of a church when we didn’t want a date to end. His eyes used to light up when I spoke. I confessed my sin of Sunday on a bench in front of Christ’s Church Cathedral, I watched the light dim.

Forgive me Father for Ima fucking idiot.

I failed to understand and I did the exact same thing again and then had it done unto me.

In the interest of being honest I didn’t keep anything to myself.
Just like being a mistress is abhorrent to me, so is fucking lying.

I know the other mistake I made. Talked about it at great length already. I made myself a whore and not a housewife.

I am this.

I had no idea I was going to catch feelings. I would have lost a pretty substantial amount of money betting I wouldn’t.

I am tired of being self-fulfilling prophecy girl, able to fuck her own shit up with some well-crafted words.

I talked myself in and out of pursuing a relationship with Drogo until I got dizzy, another un-merry go round. When the spinning stopped I realized, I don’t know how to ‘girlfriend’, what with all the heavily armed lost boys, my pet monsters and dragons on my shoulder.

I was waiting to feel safe enough to talk to him about it and that time never came. It wasn’t necessary. I like things the way they are. I AM safe here, with him.

I learned this during the burning.

We both came out new.

This is how I rebuild.

Something wonderful happened. I waited for the smoldering to subside and went exploring.

I found the cracks and identified the fire hazards.

He is my sanctuary, my safe place and my something to look forward to. A summer home, a spa getaway.

I’ve said before and I will say again, of course you can live at Disneyland, but that would take the magic away, for me at least.

Drogo is capitol F fine and mystical as is.

I said to the Hulk near the end of our palaver “I have been over you and I in my mind a thousand times. Not fully grasping what happened until you mentioned giving green lights and feeling disposable. At the time I only wanted you, and I’m sorry I ever made you feel differently.”

I know better now.

It took the sun collapsing on itself for things to illuminate.
I am the girl who studies the ashes and ruins.
Sometimes things have to burn for me to see.

No this can’t fucking be. ~ Lafayette (True Blood)

I had an angel read my palm last night.

It didn’t go well.

I have odd lines across my hands, so does he. We’ve shown each other before and just reveled in the camaraderie of our shared weird, never took it any further.

I don’t know why he decided to grab my hand. I don’t know why angels do what they do.

I don’t know why I do what I do either.

“Stop looking for love, yours is long gone” he said. “I’m sorry”.

He said I had work to do. Showed me photos of the love he lost too. Angel empathy is a powerful thing. Of course I teared up a little.

For someone who knows beyond all doubt that everything is temporary, I fuss about it a lot.

And I lied. I know exactly why he chose that moment to read me. Thoughts were flying around in my head all discombobulated. He heard them and knew I was lost and lying to myself. He took my hand to steady me.

“Well did (s)he make you cry make you break down shatter your illusions of love, well is it over now do you know how to pick up the pieces and go home?” (Fleetwood Mac)

Ya. I cried, I broke down and now I am home.

Reinforced what I already knew in my heart of hearts. But as I have said my heart is a 3 year old with chronic amnesia. I’m sure we will have to sit down and have the talk again when she decides she ‘wants that one’. There is no toothsome fairy baby. I am sorry. She really wants her fairy.

My Field of Dreams voice is speaking up again.

“Her name is Katie and she has cotton candy hair”. It was Kaya, but close enough. I lost Young Un that day. Fought it, hoped the message was for someone else. But it was mine. That all worked out in the end so it’s alright. He remembered me as someone who deals in kindness.

When I dream of Gelfling, I watch his perfect lips move. I reach out, braid my fingers in the silk of his hair, reposition my body to get closer to hear what he is saying but all I can feel is the kiss of his breath on my neck. No words. Not sure if I am deaf or if he is muted, I think both. I already know how that plays out, or when…not how nor where nor why.

And then this.

I’m torn. What else is new?

Dreaming yesterday I watched an interview with a boy I met, on some weird TV screen in my head. I know his future.

But how do you tell someone that?

I already know how, I am pontificating for effect. This is what writers do.

I will ask if he wants to hear it and he will say yes, I already know this too.

I half read his palm after dinner. The usual fortune teller stuff. He lives long and prospers. Not a lot of trauma or deviations. Just a good life for a good man. He is. I saw it.

I watched pain cross the face of that angel when he saw the broken heart lines in my hand, like a doctor delivering a grim prognosis with no cure. I hate having to pass on bad messages too, I know how he felt, but he did the right thing. It is what I needed to hear.

What I saw happening to this boy. He was happy and loved. I come bearing glad tidings of comfort and joy. You are a good man and you get exactly what you want. I know I won’t be there when that happens. I know I am not her.

Took a lot of pressure off actually. Those two things all at once. I saw his future and my absence from it, went for a second opinion and it was so. So be it. The question is how long I get him before he has to go.

The answers are always the same and vague … ‘build it, go the distance and ease his pain’.

What is going to happen in 4 years when he comes realizes I told the truth? Probably just a ‘holy shit’ moment I know won’t be around to witness. A smirk perhaps as he sees himself doing the thing I said he was going to do. I hope that comes with a sidenote of ‘she was really nice to me’ and a smile.

If I cannot be loved, being remembered as magic will have to do.

Hear ye hear ye. A proclamation from the queen that is me.

Gah, I fucking hate that. Women calling themselves queens and goddesses running around belittling men and other women. That is not how this works, that is not how any of this works.

You know what else doesn’t work…

This fucking phenomenon wherein men sit in the front row at strip clubs and think/believe that somehow the stripper on stage can’t hear what you are saying. Seriously who talks like that about a girl you don’t know?

It’s not a zoo. There’s no soundproof glass between us and you. Knock that nasty shit off. You bang on the glass at pet stores to scare the kittens too don’t you? Gross.

However, if you would like to sing karaoke to Marvin Gaye’s Sexual Healing while giving me lusty eyes and smiles, as you were, please do that.
I like that.
I might be prompted to write my name down on a piece of paper and pass it to you like a note in study hall.
But that is a story for another day.

It’s not a zoo, it’s not a pet store or a museum.

After much studying of the subject I have decided strip clubs are decidedly like high school.

And every night is a Sadie Hawkins dance. Girls asking the boys. Sometimes they say yes.

One of the girls said to me that she read somewhere that men go to strip clubs so they can reject women that are way out of their league. That is one reason I guess. Misguided and sad, but a reason. Maybe we could slip the zoo analogy in their too. The men come to look at exotic things, and sometimes they bang on the glass and throw shit like the caged primates they are. But that makes them the animals, not us. If the dirty shoe fits, a girl might end up throwing it at you.

Back to high school.

I wonder if that is part of the reason I gravitate to work in those places. I ran away from home at 15 subsequently not having a high school experience. Who takes a stripper to the prom?

I wasn’t a stripper then. I just had a regular job, rent and bills to pay. I didn’t finish high school until my son was born keeping with my trend of doing absolutely everything backwards. But I did it and graduated with honors, so there is that then.

Strip clubs are a hierarchy. The bouncers are the jocks, the waitresses are the teaching staff. We have a principal and a vice-principal playing good cop/bad cop nightly, sometimes switching roles to keep us on our toes. There are the popular (and sometimes) mean girls. The foreign exchange students keep to themselves. There are the shop kids, the goth girls, and bullies. Girls from homes in varying stages of broken putting on make up to hide bruises. Teenage pregnancy abounds.

In my limited high school career I floated around between groups, friends with everyone and no one. Except the Plastics, they hated me, made my life hell. Called me every euphemism for slut in the book, surprised they knew how to open books really, might break a nail.

The ‘slut’ moniker comes in handy now. It is my job to appear available even though I most certainly am not.

Locker contents are decidedly different, more sparkles and lucite shoes, less books but I have seen a few. Still hair spray and lip gloss though. And vodka, someone always has vodka in their locker. And the principals do the occasional sweep looking for contraband, wait…that’s jail. Its kinda like jail too.

There is drama and crushes nightly. “Did you hear about so and so?” Gossiping bitches galore. Not always just the girls either, most of us have better things to do. Like homework.

There are the good students who just put their heads down and do the work. Then there are the others, some of them skip constantly begging the question why are you even here? Someone is always getting suspended or kicked out over something. Unlike the jocks at my high school, the bouncers I work with are the good kind of tough guy. They keep us safe, like hall monitors with honorable discharges and security training.

I think every environment filled with random people will always falls into a similar pattern. Maybe jail is like high school as well, just bloodier. I have never been but I can ask around. Every office I ever worked in. Yep, we humans are pretty basic creatures when you stick us in a building and ask us to perform a certain task.

My job?

A lot like getting up in front of the class to do those once dreaded book report presentations aaaaaaaaaaaaaaand the clincher? I’m naked.
It’s not a nightmare anymore. I used to stutter and sputter trying to get the words out, hands cold and clammy with fear.
Stage is my favorite place to be.
I have found my voice speaking in stern clipped teacher tones explaining that “yes, I can fucking hear every word you are saying”.

My life now is much the same as it was in high school.
Except the Mean Girls like me.
I guess we have progressed a little past the playground.

‘I was raped.’ I said, and reached for my whiskey.

He looked up at me, angry.
My first thought was “oh shit…storm comin’.”

I pulled back and my hand shook a little making the ice clink in my glass.

Panic took hold for the slightest sliver of a second. I am hand shy.

I am a weather witch for reals. I can look up at the sky, the clouds, rings around the moon and tell you what the weather will be like.

I studied the patterns of clouds and thunder in his face and saw that he was mirroring my own hurt, pain, anger and angst over what had happened.
I had had 14 years to deal, he was taking it all on all at once.

That was protectiveness, empathy for a girl he just met.

Amazing.

“It’s alright, I’m alright.” I said conjuring my most ‘it’s alright’ tone. Hush baby.

His shoulders dropped slightly, his eyes went back to grey/blue skies instead of the terrifying shade that is tornado warning green and the conversation continued.

I said if we ever end up having sex, I can’t feel confined. I need to know where the door is.
He said that was more than okay and he understood.

We went on to discuss more pleasant things, we had a lot of topics to choose from, pretty much everything ever is better than that one thing. We both wiggled on our barstools when Travelling Wilbury’s and Paul Simon came on.

It was a good date.

When I left Saint Anthony it was messy. Not sure if it is possible to exit a tumultuous on and off 7 year marriage in a clean manner. I have no other precedent other than the end of the 5 year one that came before. That was gross too.

The common thread that binds the ends of those two is I was on my way out the door to another lover.

Queen of the Monkey Bars. I’ve since abdicated my throne, but it is who I was.

Saint Anthony has a rather unflattering nickname for the one I ran to, I won’t repeat it but I don’t have one of my own. Initials will have to do JC.

I half joked with Drogo once that I had had more sex and orgasms with him than I did in my entire 7 year marriage. There is truth in that statement, horrible, long wandering through the driest of deserts truth. My husband didn’t fuck me enough, barely at all.

He didn’t know me either. I didn’t so how could he have. That’s impossible.

So I left Saint Ant for JC. Spent the next month in bed making up for lost sex.

One fine morning, we had had the morning sex. I was sated and ready for coffee and a cigarette. JC wasn’t. He proceeded to padlock the room we were in so I couldn’t get out.

I had not mentioned to JC that I wasn’t just raped. I was held hostage in my apartment. Beaten, terrorized and raped repeatedly by an ex for 7 hours. He said he was going to kill me and I believe he would have if I hadn’t gotten out. I zigged when he zagged and ran to the neighbors. Barefoot, without pants on New Year’s Day. An ex I had bailed out of jail for beating me 5 months prior so badly I looked like I had been in a car wreck. An ex who had a restraining order stating he could not be near my house much less in it waiting for me inside when I got home from work. Restraining orders are just pieces of useless paper. Locks mean almost as little when it comes to keeping someone out. They mean a little more when you are trapped inside.

Trigger with a capitol T.

I wonder what I look like to others when I get that angry. I scared a 7’2” bar manager badly one night when I got that mad. He admitted he was scared of me and the firing of me I had forced him to do. So I am guessing it’s pretty terrifying. Like Medusa, but I am the one that turns to stone. Unyielding, hard and cold.

JC unlocked the door and apologized. I had my coffee, several cigarettes and immediately began looking for another place to stay.

Years later…

I decided to tell the truth. All of it.

That boy on the bar stool with the hurricane eyes was my real first date. Not something I tripped and fell into, not something I landed in running from somewhere else. He was my choice.

I had somewhat figured out who I am as a person and wanted to try being my self. My messy, dorky, healed-up, witchy self.

The category 5 that I summoned with those 3 words was him seeing me, as I am, as something much too precious to be ripped apart that way.

We are still friends and he still looks at me that way. We protect each other.

I write this blog about my life.

I have touched on the subject of being raped and never really gotten into it.

I had a crazy troll experience via my Facebook page wherein a man from Kentucky was being rude towards women. I asked him to stop, said sorry he had been hurt but it was a toxic idea to blame all women. I told him I had been raped and did in no way believe all men were rapists. His reaction?

He got rapey.

He sent gory photos of women being beheaded. Implied I was so uppity that mayhap Ted Bundy would have been a better choice for my rapist because then I would be dead and unable to open my whore mouth.

See the juxtaposition here? I do.

The only reason I told the first date boy what had happened was to not have a repeat of JC and the padlock.

There are good men and bad men.

My friends rallied around me to keep me safe from the bad man.

There really are not words to describe how that felt. I was technically alone in my apartment, shaking and scared. I opened my mouth and asked for help and it arrived at lightning speed. The ghosts in my machine had him pinpointed at a safe distance, blocked reported and harassed back in mere minutes. Polar opposite to my prior experiences.

I feel safe now.

My girl messaged me saying

I want to say that you are wonderful. That it takes courage to survive and to say in an open forum that someone hurt you and you couldn’t stop it. I want you to know that you are loved and that I am sorry for the wrong done for you. There are so many who never find the voice or the strength to fight back and overcome. People who seek to degrade and dominate others are weak and can never fill the void in themselves so they do something evil to spread the pain that they have. Trying to turn the light out in others. The sweetest and most important things cannot be destroyed by others. They live deep inside your secret heart. Where the soul lives. Your words reach a lot of people. And you speaking of that which is stigmatized and unspeakable may give another courage to not be a victim but a survivor. I love you.

I love you Liza, bravest woman I know.

Here is the thing. I do not feel like a victim. I do not feel like I survivor. I just feel like me.

I am not what happened to me. I make mistakes and learn.

I am still here. There is not one cell of my body left that my rapist ever touched. I have regenerated over and over and will continue to do so. I shed my skin often. It’s part of growth and forward momentum, and science really.

It is my fervent hope that this reaches anyone else who has had this happen. I want you to know that there a people out there, myself included who will make you feel loved and protected like I do. You are worthy of love and protection.

I am not made out of some unattainable magic.
Well, sometimes I am but in this instance I am just a girl who found my worth reflected in a boy’s eyes over a whiskey and some nachos when I decided to tell the truth.