Protected: Fiction: Breaking the Rules, con’t

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Fiction: Breaking the Rules

On the surface she led a quiet and conventional life, at least conventional for a woman in the 1980s.  Adding that qualifier meant that her mother disapproved, and that qualifier had been added to more than a few things in her life!

She was divorced, had just turned thirty-six, and shared her suburban townhouse with two cats, Cassidy (frequently called “Mama Cass”) and Jasper, an undemanding, affectionate gray tom.  A sedate dark green Honda Accord sat in the two-stall garage, recently paid off after three years of payments.  Her closet was full of conservative sweaters, blouses, and skirts, emphasizing her role as a serious-minded, gainfully-employed professional.  She was still a practicing Catholic – earning her mother’s approval for at least one thing! – and attended mass on most Sundays.  Her freezer contained a carton of single-serving  cheese pizzas for a quick-to-grab lunch or supper for those remaining Fridays during the current Lenten season.  Until a couple of months ago, she had been a member of a Catholic Singles group which met on Wednesday evenings.  The topic of annulment came up frequently at these functions, the only way a divorced Catholic could marry again and remain in good standing with the Church.  Unless, of course, the ex-spouse had died.  Hers hadn’t, the last she had heard.  But, then again, she hadn’t spoken to the man in better than five years.

Peggy eased herself from underneath the covers and padded softly to the bathroom.  She could sleep in a little this morning since she was not required to be at the clinic until 11:00.  Unfortunately, her bladder didn’t like to sleep in much past 6:00!  Jasper silently jumped off the bed and trotted behind her into the bathroom, knowing that enough weaving between her feet and meowing would probably secure his breakfast before his human companion returned to bed.

This had been part of her unchanging routine for a number of years.  She facilitated a group therapy session every Tuesday evening and had for most of her years as a nurse-psychotherapist at Franklin Behavioral Health Center.  She was almost never home before 10:00 on those evenings, and a later start on Wednesday was compensation for the late night before.

She made a quick trip to the kitchen to pour a cupful of kibble into Jasper’s empty bowl (the one with Psycho Kitty printed on the side, although it had been purchased with “Mama Cass” in mind) and then returned to the bedroom.

 ”‘Morning, love,” Randy murmured, reaching out to her as she slid in beside him.

 It was still dark, wouldn’t be full light outside for almost another two hours, and the house was cool.  The bed was comforting with the warmth of his body next to hers.  She molded herself against him as he drew her close, pressing her buttocks into that perfect “chair” made by his hips and slightly-flexed thighs as they spooned on their sides.  He tightened his embrace as she settled in, and she felt him begin to swell and lengthen, the growing firmness nuzzling her backside.  She knew that this Wednesday morning would begin as so many had in the past: drowsy cuddling and whispers, warm fondling and caresses, his expert knowledge of her body bringing her to several effortless climaxes before he finally allowed his own.

All so conventional.  All so routine.

But just on the surface.

 

 

Her mother didn’t know about Randy in spite of their longstanding relationship, and perhaps never would.  Her pastor had been introduced to him as a “friend” after an Ash Wednesday mass several years earlier, a morning service that they had attended together before departing in separate cars to drive to the same office building to begin their workday.  Randy, in fact, had co-facilitated that Tuesday evening therapy group with her for quite some time, and they functioned well as a team, consulting on cases with each other and acting as co-therapists in family counseling sessions.  Their mutual coworkers realized that they shared a warm friendship, but given the nature of their jobs, that was hardly a surprise.  It was not fodder for clinic gossip, and they were not considered a couple in the personal sense, just a well-tuned and sensitive professional team.

Mainly because Randy was gay.  Openly gay.  Out and proud!  as the saying went.

She had encouraged his honesty when he came to work for the clinic as a young man with the ink still wet on his Master’s thesis.  She respected him for his courage, his intelligence, his insight.  Everyone there had accepted and liked him.

Likewise, he had supported her when she made the decision at about that same time to end her nine-year marriage.  That had been a very tough time, and he had been there for her, with a joke, a funny card tucked in her desk drawer, pieces of her favorite candy planted in her coat pockets.  Sometimes it was just his caring silence and the warmth of his hand in hers that comforted her.  Unlike so many of her friends, he wasn’t afraid to just shut up and be with her!

He was different from the other guys she knew.  He was different from the other friends she had.  A part of her had attributed this difference, this breath of fresh air, to his gayness.  She had never felt so open, so honest, so completely herself as she did when they were debating an issue,  winding down after a late Tuesday night group over a chili-burger and a beer at Hinkel’s Grill, or improvising an upbeat piano duet at a coworker’s holiday party.

A gay man had become her closest friend.  It was as simple as that.

Or was it?

(Continued here but password-protected to prevent sensitive individuals from unwanted exposure to adult situations, nudity, and frank descriptions of sexuality.)

Tucson on My Mind

Tucson Sunset 2-11-09

Skyhigh Saguaro

Created by Disney?

Unique Saguaro

On May 9, 2008, a reader of this blog introduced herself.  I began to read her blog and she remained a consistent reader of mine.  We became friends since miles do not matter when one is using the internet to communicate.  She asked if I’d want to consider getting away from a cold, Minnesota winter and come to visit her in Tucson sometime.  Well, I decided that sooner was better than later and took her up on her offer this winter.  I flew out to Tucson on the morning of February 11 and returned on Monday of this week.  (A day later… but that’s another story!)

The Tucson Symphony Friday evening was delightful.  Watching the sunset from “A Mountain” overlooking Tucson was inspiring.  Magpie’s Gourmet Pizza was just about the best pizza I’ve ever had and deserves “The Best Pizza in Tucson” award it has gotten for 19 years in a row.  I enjoyed authentic Mexican food, my friend’s cats, and eating chocolate cake while watching riftgirl videos on YouTube.    I met new friends, gazed at a starlit Sonoran sky, and received a personal guided tour of both the Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum and the Amity Circle Tree Ranch by friends employed by each of these organizations.

But what I enjoyed most was the uninhibited joy of being accepted and loved for the unconventional, liberal woman I am.  Those four days were the boost my soul needed. 

In my day to day life here in the BiCities, I’m… well, my real name isn’t Kinsey.  I’m in my early 50s, married for 35 years and happily so, and am professionally employed in a scientific, intellectually challenging field.  I work with a bunch of other married ladies in a field comprised of at least 75% women, and they all know me as that coworker who has been married since forever, and they don’t know anything else about my personal life.

I leave it at that because bisexuality and polyfidelity are too complicated for most people to understand.  In day to day interaction with people I work with, I don’t say, “Yes, I’m married, but I’ve also had female lovers throughout the years of my marriage, and I’d really, really like to have a long-term, intimate relationship with a woman.”   No, no, I don’t go there, understandably!  I’m out to two gay coworkers who know I’m far from straight and narrow, and that’s as far as that sharing of my personal life goes.

Other than those two gay coworkers, though, I’m just a conventional married woman to everyone else.

That IS part of me.   The married part, the part that finds men attractive (well, okay, an occasional one now and then!),  the part of me who has been in a long-term heterosexual relationship for most of my life now is a valid and recognized component of who I am.  I’m not playing a role.  I’m not cleverly disguised as someone I’m not.   I’ve found fulfillment and pleasure in my marriage and I will continue to do so.

However, I am so very attracted to women as well.  I love my friendships with them.  I derive energy and emotional fulfillment from their laughter, their beauty, their gentleness and wise insights into the world, their valuing of relationships.  I take strength from their resiliency.    Physical intimacy with a woman takes me to places of exquisite joy.  All of this is an important and vital part of me, intricately linked within the tapestry of who I am.

Can I bring this out for the world to see in the course of my daily life?  Not too often!  Perhaps if I’m out for an evening on the town with a LGBT friend.  Then, certainly.  If I’m at a meeting or a conference pertaining to a GLBT topic, then of course.  If I’m at our Pride event in June, I’m OUT.    Day to day, though, with people I work with, with straight friends who know only what I’ve told them, with family… no, not OUT so much.    I’m that married woman, presumably straight.

But then there are these interludes: Pride, the BECAUSE Conference, a vacation away with GLBT friends and their allies; hell, a trip away to stay  with my lesbian cousin in Pennsylvania!  All these things bring out a sense of well-being, if not downright euphoria, because it’s acknowledging and embracing the part of me that doesn’t get much recognition and acceptance.  It’s a bringing together of the pieces, a unifying of the whole.  Exilarating?

Ya, you betcha.

Much love to my Tucson friends.  Don’t forget about me now, you hear?

Cherry Hill Park

I had my first sexual relationship with a girl who was my high school best friend. We were best friends during 9th grade and until the very end of 10th grade. In May at the end of that sophomore year in high school, we made love for the first time, nervous about what it potentially labeled us but reveling in the pleasure nonetheless.

Early in our senior year of high school, after I had been engaged for several months, she wrote me a letter, written on stationery that I had given her as a gift. (Yes, it was somewhat of a gag gift. She had constipation problems, and I found this stationery at Spencer Gifts with a box of Ex-Lax printed on the header.) I remember that it began, “I love you. It is as simple and as complicated as that.” It went on to say, “I know that my life is meant to be with you, but if I can’t be with you, then I will marry Steve…”

The truth? Steve aside and Dave aside, we could not have made it together as a couple. We were both from heavily dysfunctional families. I was trying to keep my head above water and later earned myself the title “survivor.” She was going under for the third time, very depressed, periodically suicidal, turning to marijuana, alcohol and street drugs as self-medication, and refusing any encouragement to seek professional counseling. I would not have lasted long in such an intimate relationship. That’s the bottom line and the truth when people ask, “What happened to that high school girlfriend you speak of?”

I still do think of her from time to time, even though 35 years has passed since the last I saw her. Every now and then, something will trigger a memory. For me, it often is music. I was playing some CDs this evening after Dave went to bed, the headphones clamped on and the volume up. I selected some compilations that had hits from the 60s and 70s on them. One of Jayne’s favorite songs was “Cherry Hill Park” by Billy Joe Royal, and I remember being up in her bedroom one evening, pleasuring each other, while the phonograph played this 45 over and over again.

“Oh, Mary Hill sure was fun down in Cherry Hill Park.
Playing games with everyone ’til way after dark…”

I hope you’re okay, babe, and I really do wish that things could have been different.

Queer Friendly Spaces

In May, I wrote the post Dildo Bingo following my very positive experience with this event at the Twin Cities’ most popular lesbian bar, Pi.   The truth is that Pi is much more than a “lesbian bar.”  I’d like to quote Joni Thome, a good friend of Pi Bar’s owner and definitely Pi family. She’s a mom, a lawyer, and a long time activist. This letter was recently published online in the Yahoo Group “Bisexual Organizing Project,” the Twin Cities most prominent social and support network for bisexual folks:

This is the only place I have ever been where the sign “everyone welcome” speaks the truth about the establishment. Many in our communities have worked long and hard to bring different communities of color, culture, age, class, sexual orientation and gender identity together in one place.  In 30 years in this community I have only witnessed two venues achieve that goal, Twin Cities Pride and Pi. And, Pi has done it in under two years!

 This is more than a bar, it’s a place that is rich in potential and one that is destined to become a community landmark. Last night I watched and celebrated the election results with my Seward and Longfellow neighbors, several punks, a group of children, postal workers, teachers, stay at home parents, students, lawyers, bankers, city and county workers, people who just lost their jobs and houses and so on.  I was at Pi and the true community spirit could not have been more intense. Then again, this night was not all that different from other evenings at Pi – whether for Dildo Dingo, a Kid Dance Party, a neighborhood wine tasting or for a fundraiser, the community spirit is present at this place. We cannot let this unique and necessary space get away.

You see, Pi may close its doors this weekend after less than two years in business.  Tara Yule, the owner of Pi, took some chances with “creative financing” when she negotiated to buy the concrete, single story building that Pi is in (a former VFW post in an inner city industrial area of South Minneapolis.)  The balloon payment has come due, and she can’t afford to meet the terms of what she now owes to fulfill the contract for deed.   She gambled that she would come up with enough money after over a year-and-a-half in business, but as we all know, the economy has been bad.

Dildo Bingo this past Thursday evening was a special event, the proceeds going towards Pi instead of to GLBT charities as usual.  The funds were to help Tara pay her staff before Pi closed its doors on Sunday.  However, the energy in Pi Thursday night was high, the joint was packed, and people are guardedly optimistic that Pi may just pull out of this financial plight.  Since it was announced during the last week in October that Pi was going to have to close, the community has come together with donations both large and small.  The last I figure I heard for sure was that $150,000 has been raised.  I know it is more now.  Dildo Bingo raised approximately $3500 Thursday night — a new record for the Dildo Bingo monthly event — and private donations are continuing to come in.  I myself wrote out a check for $100 Thursday evening and gave it to Tara, in addition to staying for all ten rounds of bingo.  (That’s why I planned in advance to take Friday as a vacation day.  I knew I wouldn’t be home before midnight, and I was right!)  It’s not much in the scheme of things, but every little bit helps.

I care about this space remaining available to the LGBT community and their friends and families, too.  This past Thursday evening was only my second time being in Pi, but I’ve enjoyed it very much both times.  I, too, have been around for awhile, my coming out occurring here in the Twin Cities in 1976 at a weekly social event called “A Woman’s Coffeehouse.”  I had gotten information about this gathering from the Lesbian Resource Center, a group I contacted within weeks after moving here.  It was held every Friday and Saturday evenings in the basement of a Minneapolis church not far from downtown.  These were quiet gatherings consisting of tea and cookies and Rice Krispie bars.  Entertainment was a musician or singer from the community.  There may have been some dancing later in the evening to recorded music.  Women would sit around and talk, eye each other up.  It was all very low-key, but this was about all there was for lesbian-oriented social activities.

I’ve seen a number of lesbian bars come and go during my time here, although I never enjoyed the bar atmosphere back when smoking was permitted indoors.  The bar crowd also seemed quite clique-ish, catering to the stereotypical dyke segment of the population.  As a bisexual woman, I didn’t fit in there.

But Pi has been different.  Or maybe the times are different and Pi has captured that.  I have felt very comfortable at Pi with its range of patrons.  I sat at a table with my trans friend, Randi Sue, Thursday evening and two trans men.  The trans community is at Pi in significant numbers.  There are young women there and middle-aged women there.  There are hippies from the 70s and Goth chicks at Pi.  There are college students, college professors, mechanics, artists, sales clerks, and actors at Pi at any given event.  I’m sure that orientation and gender run the spectrum of possibilities, and it’s all okay.  Everyone is having a good time.

Having come out during an era where a queer-friendly place like Pi was not in existence, I understand how important this establishment is.  I understand what it stands for and the values it embraces.  I know how good it feels to be there! 

I want it to stay as part of our community for all those (including myself) who need a comfortable, fun queer-friendly place to be, where everyone is accepted for who they are (valid ID required, of course!) when they walk through the door.

I’m waiting with bated breath to see what comes of the fund-raising efforts.  I hope it’s enough to keep Pi alive.

On The Fence

more animals

Outing Myself

I had some guests in my home for several days last week.  The two nieces that were here are young adults, one just out of high school and the other in her mid-20s.  We got to talking about Facebook.  The younger niece is one of my “friends” on that site.  Her older sister hasn’t been on Facebook and said that her younger sister might need to show her around the site and set her up with an account.  I suspect that this is what they were doing today now that they’re back home 2000 miles away.

I have posted the link to my public blog there on my Facebook profile.  Mostly, that blog is a lot of day to day blathering about this and that.  In other words, nothing terribly personal for the most part.  However, in the days predating this anonymous blog where I use no real names, I posted a couple of entries that would probably be better off here in this blog.  In at least two older posts in that other blog, I mention very frankly that I’m bisexual.  I was never very concerned about those posts being there because they’re followed by 125 or more posts since then, and no one has ever cared to dig that far back in my blog.  No one is that interested in it except my husband! 

This afternoon, I noticed on my Dashboard for that other blog that I had an incoming link from Facebook.  I also had a personal email from my 25-year-old niece about one of my recent blog entries.  My “hit” number suddenly soared to an all-time daily record, and I was able to see what posts were getting a lot of current “action.”  Of course, they were the ones that mentioned sex or sexuality as the category or tag.  I have no doubt that these nieces I haven’t seen for ten years now know far more about their aunt than they ever have before!

I have mixed emotions about this.  There is a significant part of me that is exclaiming, “Oh shit!”  But there is also that part of me that is saying, “Hey, you’ve conducted your life and your marriage with honesty, integrity, open communication, flexibility, and acceptance.  That’s a whole lot to be proud of. ”

Those posts that they most likely read demonstrate those qualities.  If they know I’m bisexual….well, then they know I’m bisexual.  I don’t mean to flaunt it and make people uncomfortable, but I am who I am, and 18 and 25 years old are grown up enough ages to come to grips with the realities of the world.

(I secretly hope that I don’t incur any major fall-out from anyone over this….)

Sanitizing for Company

Okay, I’m starting to feel ready for my company to arrive tomorrow.  My husband’s sister is flying in from the West Coast tomorrow afternoon, accompanied by her two young adult daughters.  Sis comes most every summer or fall for a few days, but this is the first time in ten years that the two daughters have come along for the trip.  The special occasion this summer is Sis’s milestone birthday.

I will have a houseful.  At least, it will seem like a houseful considering that our normal household consists of my husband and me and two 14-year-old cats — and the husband is gone on business a lot!  We have a large master bedroom.  We have a guest bedroom that has turned into a junk room, and we have an upstairs study which is even too small to be a decent sized bedroom.  It, too, has gotten pretty trashy.  I’ve been cleaning all weekend to carve out suitable places to put these three extra people.

In the guest room, all the bedding was washed this past weekend.  The lingerie and silk scarves laying on the bed from the last time I unpacked from a trip with my husband were put away.  I took the satchel full of sex toys, lubes, and nitrile gloves from the closet and relocated it to the master bedroom closet.  There is a stack of books on the bookshelf that have not been properly put away, and I didn’t bother with finding the right spots for them, but I did make sure that Polyamory: The New Love Without Limits by Dr. Deborah M. Anapol, The Ethical Slut by Dossie Easton and Catherine Liszt, and Married Women Who Love Women by Carren Strock (all three of those volumes unread as of yet, by the way) were buried further down in the pile with the spines of that pile of books turned to the side and up against the stereo speaker.  If my guests were of a mind to dig deeper, they would find all the really good stuff shelved behind the row of Stephen King books.  It is a very deep bookcase in more ways than one!

I found a g-string, my “pack n play” prize that I won during the transgendered round of Dildo Bingo in May, some batteries,  and yet more lube in the nightstand drawer, which I removed and put in my dresser in the master bedroom.  I glanced around, satisfied that the room was sanitized enough for whomever may end up sleeping there.  I left my stained glass rainbow sun-catcher out.

While looking for the air mattress to put in the study, my husband found a stash of books on the floor shoved behind my clothes in the master bedroom closet.  He wanted to know if I knew they were there.  Yeah, yeah, I was vaguely aware that there are stashes of gay male and kinky pornographic collections of short stories hidden around here and there.  When I have a housesitter staying here when we’re gone on vacations, I have hidden the most potentially “offensive” of the pornographic stories.  I leave the milder, run-of-the-mill stuff out in more conspicuous places, like the nightstand drawer, where she’ll think she’s really found something and quit looking!  Likewise, I usually leave my Wahl ”massager” in one nightstand drawer and my Flicker vibe in the other, figuring that these are pretty damn tame sex toys.  Let her find them!  (My Hitachi Magic Wand is the favorite by far, however, and goes where I go!)  Then she’ll think she knows my secrets but won’t have a clue about the dildoes and butt plugs that are locked in the tool chest in the garage while I’m gone!

Okay, I’m ready.  Bring on the company!

Cleaning House

If one were to read the comments following the post, “Speechless,” one would get a feel for my recent experience on the rather popular dating site I frequent.  I frequent this site because it’s free, you can write all the emails you want to any member for free, the quizzes are kind of fun if one is bored, and the blogs can be interesting and entertaining.  And did I mention that there are no membership fees and it’s free?  Of course, there is also the faint hope lurking in the depths of my soul that I might happen to even connect with a woman on a deeper level, either as a good friend, a lover, or VERY ideally speaking, both.  Yes, hope springs eternal.

As I previously said, I found this young gentleman’s blog post on my homescreen sidebar and read it.  I read all the comments that followed and continued to read them as they accumulated over the course of the next day to a total of 190.  It really got me to thinking about my own history in the realm of polyamory — although I still have trouble even putting that label on my marriage — and how it came to pass that we’ve accepted nonmonogamy as a viable option in our relationship, given that it runs against the grain of what is considered acceptable in our society.  I spent the better part of an evening composing my thoughts and committing them to writing.  I posted that blog both here and on that dating site’s blog.

I got zero responses to that blog on the dating site, and after roughly 24 hours, I posted my reaction to that in “Speechless.”  One gentleman is very popular on the site; in fact, I think he must spend a great deal of time just sitting on the dating site, reading and commenting on everyone’s blogs.  Interestingly enough, he is a bisexual man my age and a Twin Cities resident.  His profile is well-written.  He is obviously intelligent.  For those reasons alone, he made it onto my Favorites list during my first week on the site.

Since that time, he has made some blunt, insensitive remarks on my blog on more than one occasion.  Sometimes he’s been so far off the mark that I can tell that he doesn’t even read carefully enough to catch the details of what I’m talking about before typing a blunt one-liner.  I haven’t really seen any compassion or sensitivity in any other comments he’s made on others’ blogs, either, although generally they’re just one- or two-line superficial comments.

He was the one who said to me in his comment to “Speechless” that the post was too personal and too long, that people respond to “brief and pithy.”    My dear friend, Randi Sue, also said that people respond to short, general posts more than the lengthy, complex ones.  She herself didn’t know what kind of comment to make on some of the things I write.  One commenter to ”Speechless” noted that some of the posts that receive the greatest number of comments are when folks are just having fun, joking around, bantering, and generally partying down on the site.

Well, fine.  My error in judgment for even posting it there.  I promise, ma, it won’t happen again!  Furthermore, I finally did what I’ve felt like doing for awhile and cut Mr. Blunt, the local guy, from my Favorites, along with a mess of other people’s names I’ve collected over my four months there.  Not that this has any bearing on anything.  They can still view my profile, send me email, and read my blog as long as it’s not a restricted-access post.  It just felt good in a useless sort of way to go through and delete the names of people who have contributed nothing to my wellbeing during my sessions on the dating site.

It’s a good thing that it’s free or I wouldn’t be signing up for a continued membership!  Since it’s free, however, I may continue to check in one in a while.  Like I said, hope springs eternal.

Speechless

No, no, I’m not referring to me!  I’m referring to the others on both this website and the dating site I hang out on.  As I mentioned a couple of posts ago, this 22-year-old guy wrote a blog post Tuesday evening on our dating site about what polyamory means to him and his wife.  By this morning, the comment count was up to 190 comments.  Granted, it seemed as most of these people were talking amongst themselves rather than to the blogger, but nonetheless, this fairly simple blog generated a great deal of activity.  It probably took the blogger all of 15 minutes to write.

I decided to sit down last night and write my own post about what polyamory personally means to me and my husband.  I posted it here and then copied it to the dating site on my blog there.  You know what?  I got zero comments.  Not one.  As far as I know, it was completely ignored or never seen.

Why is that?

Yeah, I know.  I’m 52-years-old and certainly not in the prime demographics for dating sites.  Who wants to even look at the profile of a 52-year-old woman?  Who cares what she has to say?  She’s old!

Then again, maybe I truly do leave people speechless.  I’m sharing my experiences rather than asking for their opinions and advice.  Their opinions aren’t going to change the the dynamics of my marriage after 35 years. 

I’m not seeking approval or validation for my lifestyle and choices.  No one else has walked in my shoes.  This journey is mine and my husband’s based on how it all came together for us.

I’m not seeking a feeling of belonging.  You’ll never find me joining a group or club that has Poly-Anything in its title.

I’m not out to promote the polyamorous lifestyle or tout its benefits or try to sell anyone on it.  I  feel that how I conduct my intimate relationship is my own business.  It’s a very personal decision that came from the consideration of many factors and alternatives.  I don’t discuss it with my coworkers, my casual friends or acquaintances.  People know about my nonmonogamous marriage in Real Life on a “need to know” basis.

So, the score?  22-year-old male, married for one month: polyamory post generates 190 comments. 52-year-old female, married for 35 years: polyamory post generates 0 comments.

Go figure!