I didn’t respond.

She called later and said she would buy the tickets tonight; I said hold off, let’s talk tomorrow, then she asked why, I said I don’t know. We went back and forth on this; I also said why don’t you and your friend July go together, or better, July’s friend, the stalker guy. Deane went on about me not wanting to go. Part of that is true, but also part of me wants to check the convention out. I finally said please let me work out and relieve the accumulated stress, good bye.

Then after working out, text messages went back and forth, snippy and also apologetic comments on my part. She said please don’t hurt me and here is where I began to think about myself. Do I have a sickness or mental disposition to always perceive my actions in a way that make me the victimizer and never the victim? When I look back in my adult life, I have always been the bad guy, the one that does bad to others, the selfish and spoiled.

I wonder how this could be true. If I allow for randomness in this victimizer-victim game, then I should expect to have been the victim at least once, however, I don’t recall being anything but the victimizer. It follows then that I have a problem of perception. Of course randomness could be argued away and it can be postulated that victimizers tend to surround themselves with victim-prone types, thus perpetuating the grief and torture.

Today is the first Friday since the beginning of our journey that we are not together. The week was not easy but was tolerable because I sought shelter at work; however, a silent driver of weekdays is the promise of weekends, of relaxation, of love making, of company; and when that promise vanishes and one has been fooled by the weekday routine, Friday evening finds us lost and abandoned. One stares at the clock on the wall at 5pm and sighs with relief “finally, I’m going… but where?”, and an evasive and tiny despair is felt somewhere inside one’s body, but I cannot put my finger on it.

I didn’t realize, but she is right. That’s why I didn’t bring anything to my family in my last visit to Lima, after two years of not seeing them, I only brought a bottle of advil for my mother. Your presence per se is not a treat, Lucas.

… I didn’t buy flowers, didn’t write a card, even though I thought many times about stopping by the store to get Deane some flowers… I also forgot to say happy valentine’s day, good night.

Deane has made us an agenda for this coming Saturday. February 7, 2009; remember the date. We’ll go to a spa somewhere in Westlake Village for a couples massage, then a romantic dinner I don’t know where in the valley, after dinner, we’ll visit a strip club and have a couple of lap dances (I love seeing her get excited touching and being touched by those girls), and finally back to her place for a good two or three hours of love making. She is not the typical girlfriend, I may say, and I love her for it.

This morning, I was picturing the sequence of events and I was stuck in the couples massage matter. I understood that this is a refined spa and nothing sexual is involved, however, it could be sensual, couldn’t it? I asked Deane if the masseuses would be wearing bikinis or underwear, and she said of course not, are you nuts? Then I asked how long would the session last. Fifty minutes. So, Deane will be lying next to me, she and I naked, and then the two masseuses (both female) wearing masseuse clothes, not lingerie nor bikinis. For some reason I feel pressured to talk and entertain them for the full fifty minutes.

She had just taken a bubble bath, her skin so fragrant, wearing nothing but dark boy shorts. Metallic red lips. Black eyelining the blue irises.

“You’ve been a bad boy and now I get to beat you”, she said.

I saw the riding crops hanging on the door knob. The handcuffs. The memories of past weekends stung.

“No, please, not again, kitty”, I pled.
“But you deserve it, my boy”, her childish tone.
“Why?”

She finished doing her hair and stared at me in the mirror.

“Ok, no beating tonight, my boy”, she indulged.
“Ok, just a little… please?”, it was a reflex.

I joined a novel writing class this January. I just wanted to write about my life; the stuff that happens that I cannot tell to people without sounding odd. I didn’t want to write a dystopian post apocalyptic novel as my classmates did. No, just humble reality.

The class is still going, we meet once a week, the instructor gives us homework. The assignment last week was to turn in the first page of our story, double spaced. I was happy because I had only written the first page; scribbling is arduous for me.

The instructor read my first page to the class, it felt awkward to hear my words spoken by someone else, but I liked it. Yes I did. She asked the class what the name of the main character was.

“Asshole?”, someone muttered from the end of the table.
“Jerk?”, another girl grunted.

I had to say something.

“Hey, this character is a person, is a man who has feelings; indeed more sensitive than any of you”, I defended.

“Sure”, the girl said.

I looked at them all.

“It’s just fiction!”, I sniveled.

After an already grueling day of back-to-back-to-back errands, she finally came home where her boy awaited. “The only thing I am looking forward to today is making love to my boy” she had said. She turned the faucet on, poured wine in a glass, undressed, and submerged in the hot, redemptive bubble bath.

Temperature was raising fast, I crushed some pills to jolt us up, lit candles, put a porno movie in the DVD player, replaced the batteries of the toys, laid them on the bed, I was sitting on the floor, my back on the bed. Deane rolling up black lace stockings, long shiny hair, vampish lips coming closer and closer…

“Sushi is spelled s-u-s-h-i, you usually write su-i-shi”, I said.

The glossy lips paused.

“Whatever, my boy”, she said. I felt her warm breath, her desire. The lips resumed their approach.

“You bashed Steph for her spelling when I showed you her email”, funny how these things come out of my mouth.

I was in a pissy mood, weary from a marathon sex night, hungry, irritated at Deane and her spending habits (we had just been talking about saving, she had just bought a house), indifferent I strolled in the store; Deane would try to lighten me up showing outfits and the like, and I would do my best to turn her off. Then she decided to ignore me. That’s when she saw them inside the glass display: tiny bottles wrapped in yellow labels. Rush Poppers.

We asked the fat black attendant what they were and how they had to be used. She said she couldn’t tell us, the bitch. But Deane was smiley and said “ok, we’ll take two, and also that vibrator.” I did a number at the counter, requesting new batteries to test the toy and saying that it wasn’t potent enough and blah blah. No one listened.Back at home, after eating I began feeling excited again, and went online to find out what these little bottles were. Liquid incense, the label said. I found out the original formulation is banned in the US and these Rush Poppers are specially designed for this country. Deane didn’t care what the Internet had to show, “we would use a piece of cloth full of it and cover our nose, it would send us high pretty fast”, she recalled. “This site says it is very popular among gay men, it relaxes their asses and makes orgasms unbelievable”, I said.

We had another marathon event that night and we tried the poppers. What someone had said was true: when sniffed at the right moment, one does not enjoy sex; one becomes sex itself.

I began meekly, just one intake and didn’t feel much but a slight burning in the back of my head. Deane, of course, snuffled three or four times and exclaimed “oh my, I can feel it!”, and had to sit on the bed. Its effect is ephemeral, and she kept sniffing.

This is what it does: after you take a good deep breath of it, a flaring rush travels from the core of the body to the legs, arms, head and sets you on a fleeting state of absolute relaxation, your hard-on threatens to falter so you use all your remaining energy to come at that very flickering moment. If you succeed, you will know what one of the forms of extreme pleasure is about. Then you cannot move nor articulate any thoughts.

I wonder if it massacres brain cells.

1 - Friday
As every weekend for the last seven months, we had another of our marathon sex events, but this time instead of lasting the usual three to four hours, it lasted FIVE. I am the one who takes the beating during the first hour and do the moves for the remaining three or four while she lays having multiple orgasms. Granted, her butt has to endure a lot of pleasure too, but I can barely move when we finish, and the poppers make it worse. Let me be clear: this is not a complaint.

But this time, after the fifth hour of surreal lust, I exclaimed with my last drop of life: “this is killing me!”

As I was passing out, I heard her say “maybe you don’t want me anymore.”

I think that’s what I heard last.

2 - Saturday
Saturday morning the sun woke us up earlier than we would have wanted. The drapes weren’t closed. Physical exhaustion pulls us down, brings gloomy visions. So Deane was saying these things that made me blue.

She began by saying my last words Friday before succumbing were grumbles about the upcoming move. This may be true -I was under the disconnecting spell of Ambien- as I dread moving boxes from one place to another. But then she went on and claimed that my grievance uncovered a troubling lack of commitment to our relationship.

Maybe pizza would change our spirits. I was beginning to feel optimistic at the Promenade parlor when she placed the baboon on the table. “I feel used”, she sputtered; I stared at the baboon’s eyes, blank-minded. “Yes, after some months I always reach a point where my distaste for men clashes with my desire”, she said. “I’m beginning to feel used”, she said.

Three hours later four toys of different colors lay next to me, one in my hand, crop marks on my body, felt like pitiless sunburn. We were already two hours into it. “Here, use this vibrator, it’s stronger”, she dictated.

“I’m beginning to feel used”, she had said.

He has a PS2 at Deane’s and a PS3 at his dad’s. When he isn’t around, I play this car racing game, Need for Speed. I want to be a great mad driver, so I don’t lose my coolness. Plus, my VW GTI is in the game, it’s awesome!

Last Saturday I wanted to show off my skills, we turned on the PS2 and started browsing through the Lamborghinis and Porsches and then I stopped at my Volkswagen, pressed “select” .

“What are you doing!”, he yelled.
“What?”, I asked, but I knew.
“That car sucks!”, he declared maniacally. Then he looked at me and saw something.
“That’s the car you drive, right?”, he said, his tone had turned meek.