A Dissolute Life Means…

I needed that big, hot cock buried full tilt in my ass just like that.  With the world melted away in streaks and the sounds of the city clinging to my skin like sweat, his big hands gripped onto the softness of my hips.  I needed to feel myself from the inside out, to feel a big body slide against mine, a soft mouth on the apex of my legs, to laugh from ear to ear when we realized we were both carrying around LEGO men with us.  I needed this.

I came to London to runaway again, just like the last two times.  To escape the stifling real life of home where Hy exists only beneath the surface and between the sheets and where I struggle to combine the two very complete sides of me into a whole woman.  London is where I ooze and pulse and flow in all my exposed, dirty glory.

I came with him rooted deep inside of me and loosed my joy in rivulets down my thighs.  We collapsed like two dominoes briefly before he went to the shower to clean himself up.

He’d booked me this room in Soho and I’d wandered here aimlessly after my Eroticon goodbyes.  It was a pretty nice room after I’d upgraded it from a tiny hole-in-the-wall.

He had to work late and sent many apologies.  “Shall I meet you in the lobby?”

He was tall, bespectacled, nerdy.  My type.  I had to work to keep up to his long Londoner pace to the restaurant around the corner, a Scottish seafood place.  Over wine we unraveled our stories, our trials.  He met me as me, not Hy, but I immediately outted myself.

“Actually, I’m here for a convention…” and so the story goes.  Secret sex blogger, it’s a big part of my life, Instagram account, been doing it for 7 years, won awards, etcetera, etcetera, blah blah blah.  His eyes lit up.  He seemed to see it as a bonus.

We laughed at the ridiculous way we’d met, but really, he said, “It was just easier.”  He worked 60+ hours a week and every weekend, without fail, he traveled hours back to where his little boy lives with his ex.  “All I can do is this,” he motioned between the two of us.  “And few women understand.  I want intimacy, but I can’t offer more.  It all goes to my son.”

I nodded knowing all too well that drive to connect in any way possible while life swirled around and swept me out to sea far from the shore of another person.  “I get it,” was all I said.  “I really, really get it.”

Sitting there with him at that little marble table something happened to me again, that very thing I seek in the big, dark city of London: I opened up like some great force was attached to a zipper tab pulling down.  All the way, unzippered, exposed, opened up, me flapping in the wind.

The dim candle light which flickered lazily lit my unveiling.  Nothing was off limits for either of us.  Heartbreaks, family, love lost, babies, fears.  And then it was time to go and I had no doubts for our imminent future together.  I wanted to be even closer to this stranger.

Outside he reached for my hand – such a little thing that no one ever does – and I clasped it warmly.  He pulled me into his arms and kissed me softly as we stood on a busy corner like we had done this before.

I nearly skipped back to the room; my heart was open, my hand held, my loins alert.

In the room I grabbed a pad of hotel paper and drew a gallows and ten dashes.  He guessed my BUTT FUCKER and I guessed his PEEPING TOM.  SEND NUDES, BOXERS OR BRIEFS, SQUIRTER, and so on with the giggles and innuendos and references to things we’d talked about over that lazy candle on the marble table.  We couldn’t seem to lose so I upped the ante.  It’d now be strip Hangman.

I lost my tights and he his pants before the final game.  It was my clue.

As the solution dawned on him he threw me a wicked smile and crushed my mouth with his, deeply and passionately.  I clung to him and willed my skin to dissolve to be ever closer.

We fucked until I drenched the bed with uncountable orgasms and screams, until I sparkled pink and the neighbors banged on the wall.  The concierge called twice and, unfettered, I unplugged the phone in a rosy haze while we kept fucking until he emptied his beautiful balls in a dark, tight place semen shouldn’t go.

He left me shortly after – he had a long day of work ahead and he wanted to get some rest for me for the next night we’d be together.

I lay alone in the king sized bed spread eagle, sated, full, not alone.

The next day, completely homeless between beds, I strolled through Covent Gardens’ cobblestone paths and listened to violinists play in the atrium.  I bought a double-decker bus key chain and a London Tube tea towel.  I crossed the Thames and sat on benches and quietly watched the skyline as barges scuttled by.  I had a drink at the top of the OXO building and Facetimed my baby who was in New York City with my ex and then strolled through the Tate flitting from art to art like a fat little bumble bee going from flower to flower.

I took pictures of the Millennium Bridge to send to Peyton (“Its the bridge Volemort’s followers destroy!”) and walked across briskly, like I knew where I was going.  I ended up back at Trafalgar Square and sat on the lip of a fountain and watched scores of tourists take pictures.  A Russian family next to me were particularly enamored with the lone duck paddling behind me.  Are there not ducks in Russia??

It was no where near time to meet Dave, my Legoman.  My legs ached from criss-crossing the city and I was sad.  The potion we created from the night before had long since worn off and the drop from the highs of the convention seemed to have replaced my heart beat.  I was so, so alone.

I tried to imagine the day with someone and wondered why that appealed to me.  This day was completely mine to do with as I wished.  The year before Jean Claude had dragged me all over the city and the south of England and while I’d enjoyed it immensely I had still felt disconnected, disjointed somehow.

I meandered back to Soho and was turned away from four restaurants in an attempt to find somewhere to rest and have a glass of wine.  Fucking London and their tiny restaurants.  Finally I found a place to land out of the cold night air and waited for directions to Dave’s near Greenwich.

It was the only Uber I took the entire week.  I couldn’t muster the emotional energy to drag my suitcase through the tunnels of the Tube and navigate another part of the system.  My Romanian driver was nervous about dropping me off in the dark side street his GPS took us.  “It’s fine.”  Dave was right around the corner, his overcoat billowed open behind him, his arms opened wide for a hug.

I nestled closer and said I needed to rinse the city off of me before we headed to dinner.  I dressed quickly and powered my nose while he watched me and we talked about our days. The Italian restaurant around the corner was cozy and I ate almost my entire bowl of carbonara like a hungry street urchin.

Back on his couch he told me how special I was, how beautiful and sensitive and intelligent and open and so many things my brain vibrated with the praise and I faltered with words.  “You’re pretty great, too,” I said.

Our coupling that night was less urgent and more searching.  This would be the last time, possibly ever, we would touch one another.  His mouth was softer, more delicate, his thrusts more thoughtful.  I came more quietly, but no less robustly.  We fell asleep curled around one another.

When morning dawned I watched him from beneath my lids doing the mundane things men do every day of their lives that I never get to see.  He stretched, he staggered to the toilet, he peed and showered and put on deodorant, brushed his teeth and combed his hair.  He put his pants on one leg at a time and fiddled with his cuff links.

His cologne smelled grassy and masculine.

He kissed me goodbye with instructions for his keys.  I could stay as long as I liked.  He wouldn’t be home until after 7, but I was off to my next destination in Pimlico.  Jean Claude was flying down the next night.  I cried.

I cried at my loneliness, the empty bed, the quiet.  This time the potion wore off much faster.

Deep beneath the city of London I sat between many strangers and watched tiles and things whiz by.  My belongings wedged between my knees, my heart feeling like a crumpled piece of paper.  Everyone avoided looking at each other until an American family from Florida boarded.

The mother sniped at her young daughter’s gum chewing and some nice Englishman engaged them almost as if to save the rest of us from their obnoxiousness.  I wished I was home with my dog.

In Pimlico, at the swankiest place yet, I could barely form sentences to staff to get to my room.  I cried in the restaurant and dragged myself back to my room and wept into a scalding shower, the water not nearly hot enough to scorch the loneliness from my being.

I wept for everything I do to connect, everything I lose by doing so, and everything I wish for, but fail to obtain.  I wept for the little me who somewhere along the line was so hurt she cannot trust anyone but strangers and for the grown woman who knows the difference.

I cried until the water began to cool and then wrapped myself in thick terry cloth and spread my tears on the bed.  I dozed and cried for hours until it was time to take another train to meet Girl on the Net for drinks with her friends.  I perked up like a watered plant in her sunshine.  When I left my dirt was once again dry and I drooped sadly as I returned to my room.  Alone again.

The next morning I lay in the cool dawn light, naked, and exposed.  On the agenda was only tea with a shy blogging friend at noon, then many more hours of nothing until Jean Claude arrived.  I decided to allow myself to sink into the solitary layout of my day and slept for several more hours twisted in hotel bedding, took another scorching hot shower, and boarded the Tube north once more.

Tea was lovely and I got to gaze into the most soulful eyes which, to my American eye, resembled exactly a lushly wooded English hillside with their greens and browns.  My friend was sweet and open and funny and flirty and, just like with Girl on the Net, my petals opened to his sunny disposition.  And, just like with GOTN, when I left I drooped again and could only just manage to crawl back in between my sheets until nearly after 10 pm when Jean Claude arrived.

We swept through the neighborhood looking for wine, bought two bottles and laid on my bed.  We talked for hours even though my eyes felt heavy and all I really wanted to do was fuck until I passed out.  But instead of rolling around with our clothes off we talked politics and finances and about family.  He asked about the convention and how I was doing.  He was interested and interesting and wanted to connect.  Finally I begged off, empty as a tin can, disrobed, and fell asleep in his big spoon.

On the second dawn in that room I fumbled for him and found his chubby meat resting in a pile on his thighs.  I stroked and petted and kissed.  I wanted to feel the connection from the night before, but whatever had happened between us was just a spell: his body remained aloof and uncompromising to my touch.

He managed to stuff himself inside of me a time or two and he swelled with concentration.  I  moaned and then he receded to some distant corner of his mind and I was left alone once again with a giant man on top of me who was not thinking of me.

Patiently and entertainingly, I played my fingertips along his skin and ran my body over his, but he couldn’t – or wouldn’t – come back to me.  I grew tired of the attempt to not to be alone and finally gave up, took up my position in his big spoon again and drifted back off to sleep.

We took showers separately and he bought me breakfast in Belgravia then walked me all the way through the Tube turnstile for the last leg of my trip.  He was nothing if not careful in his tender care of me.

We hugged goodbye and I felt a stillness where my heart should be.  I had already said goodbye to him in my own searching way in the dim morning light with him far, far away from me.

On the train north to Michael and Molly’s the urban countryside stopped and started half a dozen times.  I floated gently above my seat and the previous 9 days wove their way around me like silken branches.  I had transcended my earthly American body and inhabited the celestial London Hyacinth with complete abandon and whimsy.  I had never said no, never said too much, never stopped opening myself up.

As the train slowed down to my final stop I took a deep breath; one more day as Hyacinth was all I had left.

I crossed the tracks with my all my Hyacinth things and followed the pathway to an alley where Molly whooshed to a halt in her silver Peugeot.  Sitting on the wrong side of the car never felt so right.

At the house Michael crushed me in a bear hug then stuffed us all with homemade apple pie.  I hugged Cara hello and occupied her over-stuffed chair in the corner while she drank tea at the table.

The four of us, this motley crew of secret sex bloggers and advocates and writers and movers and shakers, perched in our chairs scattered around the kitchen table for hours.  We laughed and drank more tea, the other two women lamented at Michael’s rich foods and their potentially expanding waistlines.  I basked in the intimacy, the beautiful little family unit that I had somehow weaseled my way into yet again.

That’s when I realized: I needed that big, unconditional love and acceptance buried full tilt into my heart… just like that.

And then it was another dawn, another bleary-eyed Molly taking me to the airport, another hug goodbye, another security line to maneuver and another day-long journey home.

Alone.  Not together.