BEYOND YOU & ME

Read This!

2007-04-18T16:33:00.000-04:00

This is worth reading and reading carefully:

Morris Dickstein on Amercian Literature.

The Struggle Is Not Yet Over

2007-03-09T14:30:00.000-05:00

For those who think we have actually achieved equality, consider these points, courtesy of the National Council for Research on Women, (www.ncrw.org) and also the Girls, Women & Media Project (www.mediaandwomen.org)

Data on women’s/girls struggle for equality has gone missing in the Bush Administration. The current administration continues to engage in a pattern of omission, distortion, and spin when it comes to information about women and girls. Data on the Department of Labor website has gone missing and the FDA continues to block approval of Emergency Contraception despite research findings that support its use.
Women are still underpaid. Women earn only 77 cents to every dollar earned by men. (Former MA democratic Lt. Gov. Evelyn Murphy is doin great things to shake this up…check out www.womenaregettingeven.org) Also, can 1 million women against WalMart be hallucinating? This is serious!
Women are still massively underrepresented in the sciences. Despite substantial gains in the number of women pursuing graduate degrees in the sciences, women currently earn only 20% of all PhDs in computer science, less than 27% in physics, and only 17% in engineering. Studies show that women in science experience discrimination and double standards (sorry Larry Summers, but its really true.)
There are too few female tenured professors. Despite the fact that women have been at least half of all college undergraduates since 1978, women represent only 36% of all tenured faculty nationwide, and only 13% of doctoral granting universities boast women presidents. Many women in academic settings report discrimination.
Women are underrepresented in corporate leadership. Women have made up more than 40% of the workforce since 1977, and are currently almost 50%, yet only 9 women are CEOs of Fortune 500 companies.
Too few women lawyers make partner. Women have been 40% of all law school students since 1995, and over half since 2001, but are only 15% of partners in law firms nationwide. Many female lawyers attest to double standards and discrimination.
Media: Stereotypes Abound!
Men still dominate the airwaves, music industry, film industry, etc, and are most decisionmakers and critics (often with a silent or not so silent male perspective.) Women make up only 11% of the national experts on Sunday morning political talk shows, and only 6% to 7% of the repeat guests. No major record label is headed by a woman. Most major film studios are headed by men, and nine out of ten music videos are produced by men. For the most part, women need to be sex objects and to be young to be successful in music and to some extent, films, TV. (Men, not so much…can you say Sean Connery? Harrison Ford? Woody Allen? David Letterman? Larry King?) Women are chosen/allowed to direct only 5 - 7 % of major Hollywood films, and rarely are nominated for or win major awards for directing (despite \nsome very talented female directors out there.) This is not just Hollywood insanity, it’s workplace discrimination.
Women are poorer. Women constitute about 70% of the world’s absolute poor – those living on less than a dollar a day. In the United States in 2004, there were 20.1 million women living below the poverty level. Worldwide, women’s access to resources and education still lags behind boys/men due to double standards.
Slavery still exists! Women and girls are the majority of the 800,000 to nearly 4 million people trafficked (bought and sold as property) internationally every year.

Half-Nekkid Posterized!

2006-11-06T19:49:00.000-05:00

Here's a blast from the past-- posterization!

Another image of Cassie.

Author! Author!

2006-11-02T09:43:00.000-05:00

One of my stories, "There's No Place Like Home," has been anthologized in Best Lesbian Love Stories: New York City, edited by Simone Thorne. To order, simply click on the cover illustration.

Hey, nice kiss!

HNT III

2006-10-12T20:39:00.000-04:00

Cassie in a "cool" moment.

More Half-Nekkid Thursday

2006-10-05T09:46:00.000-04:00

Another image of Cassie.

HNT: Cassie's Coming Out

2006-09-28T13:38:00.000-04:00

By God, it's time that Cassie joined Half-Nekkid Thursdays!

And Trouble for an Old Fan....

2006-08-31T21:31:00.000-04:00

One of our fans has been Tony Comstock of Comstock Films. His gay male love story film, "Damon and Hunter," has been chosen to be screened at QueerDOC, an important Austrailian gay film festival. But the authorities have demanded cuts. In a common sense move (though I'm sure a painful capitulation), Tony had to make the cuts in the hopes of finding a larger audience for his work. Then the authorities blasted him as "defaming" them for saying in the new print that "cuts ordered by the authorities." Talk about Orwellian....

You can read all about it here.

Here's hoping all the best for this excellent director whose films show sex the way it should be depicted: honest, loving, real.

A new fan

2006-08-28T12:03:00.000-04:00

Another site likes us! Here's the new review of Beyond You & Me over at Porninspector.com. You can also read the regular listing here.

A new Yale novel

2006-08-03T13:28:00.000-04:00

Well, it's about Eli University, and Skull & Bones is now Rose & Grave, but it's some of the same turf I've mined. You can check out the author's blog at Diana Peterfreund

Chapter Five (parts 10 & 11)

2006-07-12T18:13:00.000-04:00

(continuing the "all nighter" conversation between Cassie and her lovers P. and S.)

"Sorry, I didn't mean to be patronizing." His apology brought my mind back to the present. I immediately felt sorry I'd said anything, his eyes looked so wounded I wanted to laugh. He's so thin-skinned, I try all the time to temper the abrasive ways I learned on the streets of South Philly.

"It's all right, poor baby!" I stuck out my tongue.

"What did de Man do during the war?" S. blurted this out of nowhere. He was standing up, pouring a glass of Scotch. "When he was born?"

"I think it was 1919 or 1920, why?" P. looked annoyed at the question or the late/early hour.

"And he's Belgian, cor-rect? That would've made him about 21 when my countrymen took that detour through the Low Countries on their way to Paris."

"I've seen the photo of them goose-stepping along the Champs-Elysées beside the Arc de Triomphe"

"Yes, it was the hot weather and marching that gave them a thirst for some Stella, Belgium's middling rival to good German beer. A reasonable justification for violating the Belgian's neutrality, don't you agree?" His laugh was both mocking and angry in one.

"I've never asked him 'what did you do in the war, daddy,' and he's never offered. I can't imagine him doing anything bad, he's too kind."

"Odd. There's a rumor in Europe he has a past in need of hiding. My father poked around a little when I mentioned I was taking his course. The details are fairly sketchy, something about the Nazis."

"I would imagine dealing with Nazis in occupied Belgium was pretty common. It makes absolutely no difference to me," P. bristled. "De Man's one of the fairest and most-decent men I've met here. Besides, if you want anti-Semitism, my first week in grad school, a Sterling Fucking Professor Emeritus of Romance Languages complained in a class how they were admitting too many 'New York Jews'. No hidden meaning there."

"Hmmm. Interesting. We Germans understand better than most that overt anti-Semitism is the tool of the thug. Subtlety produces more lasting results."

Part 11
It was getting really late now and my mind started wandering uncontrollably. I looked at the two men sparring instead of focusing on what they said. P. long and muscular, S. only a few inches taller than me. My husband's still-powerful legs seemed like they started in the living room and ended out in the kitchen. The two of them have few physical similarities— S. is handsome, not in the rugged, overtly masculine way with P., nor pretty, either, like the fashion magazine models I've read are mostly gay— finely-formed would be a better description, with a dash of the unexpected in his features, as if one of his ancestors dallied with a Gypsy. There's a softness to his looks that's disturbing on a level I still can't pinpoint— he isn't androgynous, isn't effeminate, it's an almost baby-faced sweetness contrasting with that rakish demeanor. I believed it when he told me women want to cuddle or mother him, including his whores. You think of Germans as blue-eyed blond beasts; he's dark, with full, sensuous lips like a woman, lips that always look pursed as if they're ready to kiss or be kissed; above is a crisp, chiseled nose and above it, hooded brown eyes that smolder or glaze over in easy succession, depending on his mood and things around him, all the while hiding behind old-fashioned gold wire-rimmed glasses that make him look serious, smart, and lovably unstylish all at once. What a contrast with the affected casualness of most Yalies. His skin is pale, even translucent ("I hate daylight," he would counter if I praised the sun); I wondered at one point if his organs and beating heart would show beneath his skin.

Actually that was the first time I had ever imagined him without clothes. Really.

There's a photo in a book in P.'s study about a famous German poet from the First World War, and he's dressed up as an Uhlan, one of the elite palace guards. The more I thought about it, the easier I could imagine S. in the plumed helmet and gold-embossed get-up of a Prussian aristocrat clicking his heels "Jawohl, zu Befehl, gnädige Dame." And I did, later on, imagine him— fantasize about him— in that way— and others.

I drifted out of my reverie and noticed my watch read 4:36 in the morning. P. noticed the time, and said, "Ah, fuck it, we're always looking for 'meaning.' It's another shortcoming in our desires. Like believing that possessing the object of our desires— another person— will fill the void in us that's fundamental to our very being."

P. snapped me back to the present with the same discomfort as if he'd popped the elastic strap on my bra! We'd sailed far beyond the relatively tame channels of lit crit, and I felt lonely and lost.

"We are born alone, we will die alone…" S. mouthed the words so quietly I almost couldn't hear them.

"And no one we sleep with in between can fill that emptiness," I added. "And now for a pregnant pause," I laughed.

"Better a pregnant pause than pregnant," S. riposted.

The joking didn't prevent a shudder from running down my back. I cried out and the other two stared at me, S. sitting up and apologizing, thinking he'd hurt my legs or something.

"No, I shivered, that's all. The heat must've been turned down too far." Of course it wasn't the temperature making me tremble. "Anyone ready for some coffee?"

I wouldn't sleep now, I'd go into work feeling like shit and not being sorry one bit. The excitement of the night swirled around me in a mist of images, words, sentences and feelings. S. rambled on a bit longer, then crashed on the living room floor in mid-sentence, telling us how he wanted to adapt Deconstruction to post-World War I diplomacy. It's a good thing he shut up, or I might've fallen asleep on my feet. P. and I laughed at him, then made out on the couch like horny teenagers.

"You like him, don't you?" P. asked me in mid-kiss.

"He's fun," was all I answered, pressing my lips to his and keeping him too busy to ask anything further.

"I love you, Cassie," he mumbled between my hard kisses.

Nothing much happened after that; he was far too exhausted to really make love, and I didn't feel like taking the time for my vibrator. I curled up on his chest and dozed off.

THE END

Chapter Five (part 9)

2006-05-11T19:31:00.000-04:00

(continuing the "all nighter" conversation between Cassie and her lovers P. and S.)

"That's such a depressing resolution." S. tried to kiss up to me in my moment of sadness, though he looked bored. I laughed in spite of myself, since my ass was getting numb from sitting on the cold, hard floor, and we'd both gotten more lit crit than we'd bargained for.

"Cassie, you look all done-in." P. picked up on our ennui, and was trying to be solicitous. It was sweet of him, yet it sent me into an internal fury.

"Don't fucking patronize me!" I hissed. He winced in surprise and hurt, while S. pretended not to notice.

It was like the time he tried to teach me to play tennis and let me win a few volleys. I smacked the expensive racket his step-mother loaned me on ground, shattering its handle, then stormed off the court, tears streaming down my cheeks. I locked myself in a bathroom stall in the women's locker room for two hours until I was sure he'd gone. It was only then I realized I had changed at home and was still wearing the ridiculously-short tennis dress his mom had loaned me. I'd have to ride the Frankford El to City Hall, then change to the Broad Street bus, where the evening shift at the Navy Base would be appraising my ass that began before the dress ended. Generally not a bad ass, I'm glad to say, but it's mine and not one I'd want a group of strange men eyeing.

Thing is, P. hadn't left by the time I came out of the women's locker room. I was thrilled to see him and immediately as angry as before. We quarreled again; he insisted on taking me home, then wouldn't let me get out of the car until I kissed him, holding my wrists so tight he left black and blue marks, pushing me down onto the passenger seat with his whole body until the tears flowed as liberally as they do when I'm beside myself with blind rage.

And yes, he kissed them all away. I told him how much I loved him, that I'd kill him if he ever left me and suddenly that short tennis dress with my ass hanging out turned out to be a good thing after all— he started by fingering my pussy, pushing aside the frilled shorts and pushing two fingers into the wetness. I was coming, squirming, moaning and biting his lips as he kissed me and kissed me. Unzipping his fly, he pulled out his cock, catching its head slightly on the shorts before plunging right in. I wanted to push him off, but he was too strong, so I gave in and let him slide back and forth until he was about to come.

"Pull out, I don't have any protection," and he did just in time to spurt onto my thighs. He stayed on top of me and we kissed some more. And then he did something I can't quite explain: he sat up, pulled my legs across his, and spanked my bottom— hard— several times, with his fingers brushing across my pussy as he raised what I later saw in the mirror were red hand-shaped patches. With each whack of his hand, my cunt spasmed and then spasmed again and I was climaxing as intensely as if his cock or fingers were inside me. He held my wrists with his left hand, and although I fought like a tiger to get away, I kept coming and coming with each spank until I collapsed, breathless and spent.
Fortunately it was getting dark by then, and if any of the neighbors saw our little pornographic show, none of them squealed to my folks.

(to be continued)

Chapter Five (part 8)

2006-04-10T11:42:00.000-04:00

(continuing the "all nighter" conversation between Cassie and her lovers P. and S.)

"Fine, then let's look at Cassie's example." P. couldn't have been more confident— or more fucking magnificently arrogant and condescending, the same self-confidence which made me fall in love with him, the same self-assuredness which makes winning a point with him so damned difficult— and delicious. "What is the 'meaning' of Great Expectations?"

"Money isn't everything?"

"If you're rich, you'll get the girl?"

"Don't live in the past— especially if you have a big wedding cake in your house?"

"Pride cometh before a fall?"

S. and I looked at each other; we were conspirators again, on the defensive, inadequately-armed.

"It's about the failure of time and desire to coincide." P. paused, and I thought about his meaning. "Every character is looking to someone else for their fulfillment: Magwitch wants a proper gentleman for a son-in-law, so he adopts Pip. Pip despises Magwitch because he's common and coarse. He's in love with the beautiful and seemingly aristocratic Estella, who uses him to sharpen her claws. He doesn't know she's Magwitch's daughter, she's like an arrow on a runaway compass, unable to care about anyone, raised to be the perfect instrument for revenge on the male of the human species by Miss Havesham."

"As perfect an emotional assassin as was ever trained to kill without remorse, in this case killing the hearts of all the men who meet her," I finished P.'s thought.

"All of the characters find disappointment at every step along the way. The novel's an even bleaker assessment of human nature than Bleak House." He paused to let his heavy words sink in.

"And the happy ending?" My voice cracked slightly from dryness after so much talking, I sounded as if I was pleading for Estella's redemption through Pip's love for her. "Doesn't love mean something?" A question we'd all like answered.

"You know, Dickens added the so-called happy ending later."

"Did he? He did! Don't tell me that!" I felt manipulated, devastated.

"The novel originally ended with Pip running into a much-changed Estella on the street— not in Miss Havesham's old house as it does now. Dickens recognized his original ending failed— it doesn't tie together the world he created in the novel. So he brings Pip and Estella together in that dream-like final scene. Yet despite his powers as a writer, he can't make things turn out right. The ending leaves uncertainty and loss. When Pip says he could see no parting, he's not telling the reader they will remain together."

"No, don't say that! Don't say that!"

I felt deflated hearing his verdict. Never parting. The concept has such appeal. Never-ending love is so seductive, yet what if love changes? Or if the people who fell in love change? What then? Does a love have to last? And if it's really love, why would it end? How is it we can fall out of love the same as if we'd grown tired of a dress or the same apartment we've lived in for years?

(to be continued)

Chapter Five (part 7)

2006-03-25T18:10:00.000-05:00

(continuing the "all nighter" conversation between Cassie and her lovers P. and S.)

"It all makes me dizzy," I admitted.

"It should. Deconstruction's motto is 'the center cannot hold.'"

"Do they pay Yeats royalties for stealing that line from him?" Leave to S. to be irreverent. P. laughed.

"Deferring," I laughed, too. "I'm deferring my life right now, it's on hold."

"On the whole, you've lost me, Old Man" S. admitted with a yawn. Out of nowhere, I started giggling despite myself— the hour was getting so late, and besides, I can't be serious about heavy subjects too long.

"Hold on," S. objected with real heat this time, "Deconstruction sounds like this year's model, another flashy, trendy tool, nothing more. We've gone through a whole laundry list of 'isms' in class. There's Structuralism, Freudianism, New Criticism, who cares?" I felt pride in S. He wasn't intimidated by our "professor" like I am.

"Right," I chimed in, hoping for strength in numbers, "isn't this another stupid search for another stupid Holy Grail to open up poems and novels to hidden meanings the writer never intended? I may be a naïve reader, but anyone with common sense can see The Picture of Dorian Gray is really about a gay man in the closet and the harm keeping that secret does to him. I want to know the answer to the questions books offer, like whether Pip gets the girl at the end of Great Expectations? That last line— " I grabbed the copy I'd been reading after work and opened it to the last page— "'I saw the shadow of no parting from Estella.' It's so tantalizing, it leaves me with goose bumps each time I read or think about it."

"Ever the Romantic," S. sneered playfully, throwing me off-balance, "wasn't it Ambrose Bierce who said if you scratch a Romantic, you'll find a cynic who hasn't been disappointed yet?"

"OK, I'm a Romantic," I blushed, backpedaling, "but a cynic in many things, too. But what about an author like Colette?"

"What about her?" P. countered with a knowing smile.

"Well, I may be a naïve reader, but I know her writing isn't compelling because it's beautiful, it's compelling because of the insights we gain from reading her."

"Why do you read Colette?" P. asked me with a wink. It's a private joke between us I wasn't ready to share with S. I wanted to throttle "the professor" at that moment.

"I read her because she writes about young women like me— who want to know more about themselves— or life." I sounded pompous and gassy, I could see I was getting in way too deep. "I want insight from her books, not philosophy." S. winked at me when I finished because P. was rubbing his eyes, though he wasn't fast enough and P. saw most of it anyway.

"Then you'll find Deconstruction helpful because it isn't a tool, it's a way of looking at the world. We define ourselves by our texts: the laws, newspapers, books, poems, letters— or in your case, Cassie, by a bisexual exile from the Parisian theater writing books young women identify with. Instead of worrying about who Colette was, or whether her books are autobiographical, Deconstruction cuts out all the intervening bullshit."

"Sounds like a literary seduction," S. snorted, "a sort of intellectual penetration, yes? I've read Foucault, you know, with his bizarre theories about sex and literature!" He was less interested in the ideas than in the intellectual cat-and-mouse game, slyly grinning at his erotic allusion.

(to be continued)

Odd Fans & Non-Fans

2006-03-21T11:43:00.000-05:00

One of the funnier blogs out there has little or nothing to do with sex. It's The Dead Guy: the cartoon. It's a conventional cartoon strip like "Peanuts" or the very marvelous "Jump Start," and worth reading regularly.

I always find it fascinating coming across folks who are living the Beyond You & Me story. One of them is Stiletto Diaries, the story of a 20-something woman in Canada and her two male lovers. There's plenty of drama, and frankly, I'm worried about Stiletto Girl, because she's very young and her husband doesn't appear to be too happy about her love affair with a younger man. But I wish them better luck than Cassie had, since they're both about the same age (23 vs. 24).

In terms of younger lovers, you ladies should check out Mike at I'm Not Touching You (see above photo). Alternately funny, gross, inventive, crass and horny, he's a typical young guy with sex on the brain who also writes well.

And speaking of writing, there's Adrie Santos: the Accidental Sex Writer. She got the name because her smut is selling better than her regular writing (I can relate to that). She posts about a variety of interesting topics, both related to the printed word and to life in general, including her stint as a sex toy reviewer.

Passing the 100,000 visitor milestone...

2006-03-10T17:36:00.000-05:00

I think that sorta says it all (please look to the right and the hit counter that says how many people have stopped in here since March, 2005).

Chapter Five (part 6)

2006-03-01T22:50:00.000-05:00

(continuing the "all nighter" conversation between Cassie and her lovers P. and S.)

"If I tell you it's OK to borrow my vacuum cleaner," P. rambled on, "my words are expressing a gesture of social politeness at odds with the natural, selfish desire to withhold what's mine from another person."

"And if I asked to borrow your wife, old man, it's much plainer why you might say no." S. laughed at his own cleverness.

"You'd be wasting your time loaning him a vacuum cleaner," I quipped, "try hiring a maid." S. made an overly-elaborate wincing motion, then rolled over and buried his face in my lap.

"Loaning me a wife would accomplish two goals at once, including having a cleaner room," he mumbled through the cloth of my skirt. His voice vibrated against my thighs, tickling, distracting me momentarily from "deep thoughts."

"You're a male chauvinist, Retter!" I scolded after bringing my attention back to the conversation. "Besides, the ideal ménage à trois for a woman is one man to do the dishes and another to clean the house."

They both laughed, though I'm sure it was in competition to seem the most solicitous. Ah, testosterone. Still, I relished the competition between them with my attention as the prize.

"We subvert our own selves through these hidden desires or urges," P. went on while shoving S. over onto his back. "It's the same with texts: they have hidden subversions." He put his hands on my shoulders and began rubbing out the deep knots of tension there. S. couldn't compete with him on a physical level.

"Sounds like shrink talk," I blurted out with S. joining me in a conspiratorial laughter.

"There's definitely an element of the psychoanalytical to it all." P. sorta shrugged at our small point. "In French it's called différance."

"Not more jargon!" I protested.

"Ah, vive la difference!" S. leered, first at me, then at P. to show he didn't mean it for anyone in particular.

P. parried by running his foot along my bare legs, nearly lifting the hem of my skirt. His showing off made me blush— I didn't like him letting S. know whose property I am that way, men are so fucking possessive!

"It's not the same word, old man. Différance is a Derrida made-up word combining 'deferring' and 'difference.' The meaning's pretty straightforward: no poem or novel or play, no writing at all can sustain a coherent meaning."

"What? That's absurd! What about political writing, or scientific texts? And what about propaganda? Explain that to those of us like myself who are by-products of the Second World War." S. wasn't grinning now. "When Nazis talked about gassing Jews, where is the incoherence in their meaning?"

"No matter how tight or logical words seem," P. shot back, "all texts have internal contradictions. Those contradictions cut us off from what we call a real meaning."

I thought then how much Deconstruction applied to my life: an outer façade (good girl, good wife) plastered over a maze of impulses and "meanings" at war with one another tight. "A mass of internal contradictions." Perhaps that simply describes human beings in general? I didn't think it applied to P. He's usually so constant— except perhaps for sex. He likes experimenting in the places we make love, the positions, etc. Beyond that limited sphere of his personality, however, he's so grounded. Unlike me, he knows he was born to teach, that he'll someday write important books and think great thoughts, and eventually become Sterling Professor of Comp Lit like de Man."

(to be continued)

We Didn't Win!

2006-02-27T06:15:00.000-05:00

They said it wasn't based on popularity, but they displayed the winning votes at the end. Well, what are you gonna do? At least Beyond You & Me made it to the finalist round! Better to get that far than not at all. And thanks to all our fans for voting, and congratulations to the bewitching Magdalena for winning "Best Sex Blog"! Oh, Darling, you are both beautiful and slutty.

Polyamory

2006-02-21T10:36:00.000-05:00

Although the term "polyamory" wasn't invented until the 1980s, the idea is old: loving more than one person at the same time. While Cassie would never have thought of herself as on the cutting edge of social change, she is actually way ahead of her time. She's an early Feminist, and her sexual adventures are not only more radical than most of the women of the 1970s, but put her squarely in the tradition of ground-breaking trendsetters.

Today men and women have a variety of choices about their love lives and sexual identity. Whereas Cassie was mocked by lesbians at Yale for being a "fence sitter," and "refusing to choose," women today can love whomever they want, and don't even need a label. There is even a cachet now to being bisexual, something that definitely wasn't there when this novel takes place.

Taking a break from Chapter Five, I wanted to provide some links to sites about polyamory, including the beautiful cloisonne pin shown above, which can be purchased from the Poly and Proud website (along with t-shirts that harken back to the 70s with slogans like "question monogamy").

The most prominent poly sites are "Poly Matchmaker," "PolyLiving" and "Polyamory Weekly" (a podcast of polyamory topics and fun stuff). "Poly Matchmaker" has lots of information about "ethical non-monogamy," and is also something of a dating tool for those who want to meet others with the same ideas. From all I could gather, polyamory is not the place to meet casual sex partners: there's a strong disdain for casual sex in some of the things I've read.

Indeed, polyamorists (or "polys" as they prefer to be called) are often confused with swingers, yet their goals are more about relationships than casual sex. So their sites and writings tend to sound like those from the early GLBT movement, including "coming out" to friends and family, and legal protection, including a desire to have group marriages. Cassie would've thought she'd died and gone to heaven if she had been able to have P. and S. under one roof.

Sex Films for the Rest of Us

2006-02-14T10:12:00.000-05:00

I really don't like porn films.

They're boring. I don't care if the people are "objectified," and I think it should be clear by now you won't find any reservations about sex on this site. It's not that adult films are objectionable on theoretical grounds, they're just not interesting. Commercial porn is formulaic: the same set-up, the same obligatory positions, the usual "money shot" to prove the dude actually had an orgasm. Yawn. They never show a man so excited about his lover that he comes right away, it's always "iron man triathlon sex."

That's why, when porn sites write me asking to trade links, I don't even answer their emails. I'm not trying to be rude, but you don't "get" Beyond You & Me if you think it's just about sex.

Comstock Films is making movies about sex that break all the rules of gonzo porn, and I want the fans of Beyond You & Me to know about these exceptional DVDs. "Xana and Dax" (the couple pictured above), along with "Marie and Jack," are films about real people in love/lust. Not only is the sex hot, but the film is edited in a way to show the genuine sparks between the lovers. Director Tony Comstock uses attractive people who aren't models, and who have an emotional connection, not a financial incentive, to have sex on camera.

Director Comstock doesn't mind if his work is considered porn, since the sex is quite explicit, yet he's clearly making movies for a different audience than the Chatsworth, CA adult film industry. For all the "couples" porn being made, it's still mostly from a male POV. Fortunately, you can either purchase the DVDs from the Comstock site, or rent them from X-RENT DVD. Currently there are four titles: two heterosexual, one lesbian and one gay. I watched "Marie & Jack" and "Xana & Dax." The first one was a little talky, as the two people described their careers in adult films and how having sex on camera has changed their private romance ("a little more vanilla"). The sex was a bit too quick to unfold, but Marie and Jack are both very attractive and at ease in front of the camera doing intimate things (Jack looks like a young Michael Keaton).

"Xana & Dax" is about a younger man with a slightly older, more experienced blond (see photo above). Hell, she could be Cassie a few years after Yale, it was quite unnerving watching her. The sex was hot, the couple seemed to enjoy themselves (her eyes rolled back in her head at one point), and I definitely recommend it.

Comstock has one other film in the editing process you can purchase in advance for half price. All in all, these movies are a big improvement over commercial porn.

Sex Week at Yale!

2006-02-13T12:41:00.000-05:00

How can I resist flogging "Sex Week at Yale"??

Chapter Five (part 5)

2006-02-10T16:46:00.000-05:00

(continuing the "all nighter" conversation between Cassie and her lovers P. and S.)

"But when I say 'dog,' I mean a real dog," S. interrupted. "And Humpty Dumpty says in a scornful tone in Through the Looking Glass 'When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean.' What of that?" I told you S. and I connected on many levels. Hearing him bring up the same example I'd thought of made me shiver.

"We have a collective understanding of what words mean, but you don't mean any particular dog. We agree on what certain words signify, but then fall down right away with terms like 'make love' that can mean something besides fucking. In the 19th Century, it meant 'court' or 'flirt.' Nietzsche, and after him Heidegger, tried to break the iron chains linking our words to real objects. Heidegger especially wanted to get back to a cleaner, more basic philosophy by going back to the beginning of philosophy with the pre-Socratics and Heraclitus."

"Heraclitus? He's the dude who tells us we can't step twice into the same river, cor-rect?" S. cracked me up using slang like "dude" with his clipped Teutonic accent.

"Cor-rect!" P. smiled. "Heidegger liked Heraclitus precisely because he's obscure. With such dark and suggestive shit to work with, Heidegger can make him say whatever he wants."

"Sounds like ventriloquism for the over-educated," I whispered loud enough for P. to hear.

"You're correct, too, Cassie. Heraclitus has become a sort of ventriloquist's dummy." He nodded at me, and we exchanged a look that can only be shared by people who've shared the most intimate and profound of loves.

"Yes, well Heidegger had a habit of saying things he'd later regret," S. interjected with sudden bitterness in his voice. "How inconvenient letters signed 'Heil Hitler" survived the war. Nazi collaborators are not too popular among my generation."

S. lying in my lap might sound sexy, yet it was really more like putting an arm around a friend. P. puts his head in my lap when we watch TV— that's something altogether different. Besides, the three of us weren't thinking about things sexual then, at least I wasn't, we were lost in the life of the mind where the body falls away and only the intellect remains, at least for a brief time.

"With Deconstruction," P. continued in stride, "we use tools already within a text to subvert its assertions."

"Subvert?" S. parried, "I like subverting things, especially morality."

"Be careful, Stefan, of the contradictions undermining what we say. Insisting you want to subvert morality is more troubling and ambiguous than you might imagine."

"Sounds ominous to me," I almost shuddered. "Yet so many things we'd been warned about by our parents turned out to be less than fatal: marijuana, sex, dirty books. Just what IS bad for us, and how can we know?"

(to be continued)

The Purity Test p. 2

2006-02-06T18:03:00.000-05:00

I took the "Purity Test" with Cassie in mind (remember, the lower the score, the more degenerate your life has been).

http://www.puritytest.net/

Her score was 60.8% What's yours?

The Purity Test

2006-02-01T21:22:00.000-05:00

(photo courtesy of the toilet museum

www.toiletmuseum.com)

Here is the infamous "Purity Test." The lower the score, the more degenerate your life.

It's a gas.

The Purity Test

Who can guess Cassie's score?

(photo courtesy of Magdalena)

More Beyond Beyond You & Me: Clean Sheets

2006-01-19T17:19:00.000-05:00

Another story, "Making Do," is now featured in Clean Sheets, a free on-line magazine. It's considered one of the premier erotica publications on or off the web.

Finalist for "Best of Blogs"!!

2006-01-10T17:35:00.000-05:00

Well, recognition keeps coming--

We're a finalist for "Best of Blogs".

Story in "Tit-Elation" Wins First Prize!

2006-01-09T15:00:00.000-05:00

"The Wager," the story accepted by the on-line publication Tit-Elation, has won first prize in their "My Partner Doesn't Understand Me" contest!

Beyond "Beyond You & Me": Fiction in Other Venues

2006-01-02T18:34:00.000-05:00

While the wheels of the publishing industry slowly grind on, I am writing for a variety of magazines and erotica sites. A story I milled over on the Erotica Readers & Writers Association site has been accepted by the on-line publication Tit-Elation. And another story will soon be appearing in Clean Sheets (details to follow).

More ERWA Fans

2005-12-21T15:38:00.000-05:00

I've said before that I'm glad to be a member of the Erotica Readers & Writers Association. It's a collective of writers and fans of erotica, which this novel has become by default. Again, I've said this before: I never set out to write erotica, I thought Beyond You & Me was literary fiction with good sex scenes. Other ERWA members that weren't mentioned then, or who have become fans since include:

Cyan's Stories. Another erotica writer who is publishing her work on-line, Cyan has both a free section and a paid section where for a very reasonable $10 you can read more of her well-written, intelligent erotica. Not the "cum and thrust" variety with explicit detail, but the deeply arousing suggestive erotica.

An exciting mix of erudition and sex-appeal is Valentine Bonnaire. She has both a blog and a web domaine Velvet Babe. The writing is lush, quirky and I'm reminded of Anais Nin. It's a little like sitting down with a sexy older woman who has allure and experience to reel in those who capture her interest.

Another is Jude Mason. Jude's blog is personal in nature, and is new, but it's another chance to see a writer's mind at work. Keep a watch on this as it grows.

Finally, while not a member of ERWA, I don't want to overlook The Holiday Life. For a novel about a bisexual woman, it's easy to see the "fit" with a site about a bisexual man. There is both intelligent writing and a decidedly fascinating spin on things. For example, his birthday fantasy to watch another man make love to his wife, while conventional, is so well-expressed and singular in point-of-view as to rise above the cliched conceit (probably because it's real and not some "Letters to Penthouse" hack writing. I have used an interview template from Clayton to profile all three main characters of the novel, so for that alone I'd review his very erudite and interesting site.

Chapter Five (part 4)

2005-12-14T21:08:00.000-05:00

Literary theory is pretty ephemeral on the surface, but it's got me thinking about words and how they're used. For example, I'm obsessed with politics, I try to watch the political conventions and I follow the news most nights on TV. Politics is nothing but confusing rhetoric, lies and inflated claims, yet we find ways to sort it all out and make choices, commitments, even fight revolutions. That's all very grand. On a more practical, mundane level, understanding that words don't necessarily mean what they seem to mean cuts down the pompous and arrogant people I have to deal with to a more manageable size.

"Would you like a cup of reality with your puffery?"

As bad as the academics are, it's our future, whether I like it or not, though news from the job market outside Mother Yale is none too encouraging. The need for new doctors of philosophy isn't quite as pressing as new doctors for the projects of the inner cities. I have to keep P.'s spirits up while at the same time juggling my own hopes of resuming life after he's finished. He gets down when the news is bad; it's my job as the faculty-wife-to-be to give him support.

"We gotta stick together, Cassie," he tells me. "I'd be lost without you."

When he's done here, I can go back and finish my own degree and become something besides a secretary.
(later that evening)
I looked back over the last few pages, and they're so fucking dry! I can write down our conversations, but that doesn't mean I've captured the same excitement and energy as when we talked! My God, what a stimulant good conversation can be! It's intellectual heroin mainlined right into the arteries— not to mention occasionally an aphrodisiac. I just don't know how I can record the flash and sparks of our three-way conversations, even if I remember like they happened yesterday.

"A lot of people—me included— think Deconstruction is simply taking something apart." I'd seen P. out of the corner of my eye strolling into the kitchen where S. and I were joking about Ellen, so I quickly shifted to a topic more "dignified." P. leaned against the doorjamb between the kitchen and the living room, and I quietly shut off the Selectric, moving into the living room and lighting a half-dozen candles I'd put there over the past few weeks to make our "homework" sessions less work and more homey. Like the other times, I sat on the carpet leaning against the couch with S. perpendicular to me, again with his head in my lap while P. led the discussion from a chair opposite us like the good professor he'll be someday.

"Deconstruction undercuts our assumption that words are connected to an actual thing in the real world. 'There's nothing outside the text' is Derrida's famous dictum."

"Deconstruction's just one step away from nihilism," S. looked dejected at his own point, "an immoral and dangerous way of looking at the world view."

P. looked annoyed, and brushed this reservation off with a sweep of his big hands.

"Words are the most powerful weapon in the world. Historians like you should be paying more attention. I'm just a literary critic, but I can see that crying about the problem won't make it otherwise."

to be continued

Philly Things

2005-12-07T23:11:00.000-05:00

Long-time fans of Beyond You & Me know that Cassie is from Philadelphia. In fact, she didn't leave it until she married P. and went first to California, and later to Yale. Despite its occasionally provincial character and her own ambivalence about its smother-love, Cassie is at her core a Philly girl. A South Philly girl to be exact. South Philadelphia is a small town within a big city, once mostly settled by Italian and Jewish immigrants, but today a rainbow of colors and cultures. In fact, the famous "Ninth Street Italian Market" sits now in a sea of Chinese and Vietnamese restaurants and groceries, much like New York's Little Italy has been nearly swallowed up by Chinatown. So today's post is about things Philadelphian.

An early fan of Beyond You & Me is Philly Future. The site is about everything Philadelphia, and a good place to get to know this charming city that is too often overshadowed by New York. Philly's museums are more human in size (my favorite is the University of Pennsylvania with its outstanding collection of Babylonian art).

Another old fan (who has been overlooked until now) is Bella Vista Social Club. The denizens of this blog are graduates of St. Maria Goretti High School in Philadelphia; Cassie went to South Philadelphia High School, and occasionally clashed with the "Goretti Gorillas" who would, she told me, hike up their Catholic school uniforms to miniskirt lengths before and after class. I'm stumped at how to characterize this fun, rollicking mix of politics, Philly insider stuff and personal matters. Whatever you call it, have a visit to the club. And for those of us who weren't lucky enough to be born Italian, social clubs are often where the Mafiosi hang out!

Girlfiend is not only from Philly, but stone hilarious, at least if you like your comedy derisive and in-your-face. Not Girl Friend, you read it right the first time: Girl Fiend. As in fiendishly funny and wry. It's a personal bout with the world, and I'm not sure whether the world can take her on. Always biting, never dull, she's unique in her observations about life, people, Boyfiend, pregnancy, and therapy. Look out, here she comes!

A newer fan is Blankbaby. I'm stumped to characterize this strange, touching slice of things Philadelphia and not. Want to know how the author got the confirmation name "Fabian"? Maybe you're not Catholic and wonder what a confirmation name is and why he would have one. Ever speculated about HDTV or cheesy lines of dialog in movies? How about "Doctor, why couldn't you save her?" "Because there are no injections against the Devil"? To find out which movie this execrable line is from, go to Blankbaby.

CHAPTER 5 (part 3)

2005-12-03T21:39:00.000-05:00

One of the few perks working at Yale is auditing classes. I took two years of German when we got here— P.'s major in college, I know that sounds sorta dependent on him, but he's been my teacher and guide, so it seemed "right." I still sometimes think about changing the world with ideas— it's what I always thought my life would be about. I wanted to be a doctor growing up. All THAT changed when I got a C in algebra. I read a lot (still do), including all the Tom Swift books, so I used to think I'd save the planet or discover a cure for cancer, something with real meaning. Whether protesting the war, working in a soup kitchen at my church, even marrying a smart guy like P., I planned on being more than just the smart guy's wife putting him through college.

I talked S. into taking Lit Y with me, and naturally, when he found out P. was in Comp Lit, he started timing his visits to our apartment so as to run into him instead of avoiding him. That sounds kinda conspiratorial, as if we had something to hide, I don't mean it in that way. S. and I didn't do a thing when P. wasn't home I'd have to justify to my mom. S. was intimidated by my husband, as many people are: he's six feet three inches tall, physically imposing, too, not just tall. His hazel eyes have a piercing intensity which still makes me feel when we get into heated discussions like I'm a little girl trying to argue with her father. It's funny, but after five years of our being married, I still want his approval, and cannot abide his disappointment in anything I wear or do. His face is long and angular, with prominent eyebrows that a girlfriend in Philly described to me (with an approving nod) as "cave man" features. She also said his gaze made her uncomfortable, "it's as if he can see right through my clothes." He is sexy in a rough-hewn sort of way, yet very sensitive and caring— reminds me of Laurence Olivier as Heathcliffe in "Wuthering Heights." No wimp in the sack I'm glad to say. And thank God, too, I'm a girl with a lot of sexual energy. Naturally, those are things about him most people don't know— they only see the tall guy with bushy hair and eyebrows who looks like he could hurt them if he wanted to (and probably would, if they did something to bring out his wrath).

Anyway, that's how our three-way friendship began: talking books and literary theory. When I confessed one night both S. and I were floundering in all the lit crit terminology and mumbo-jumbo, P. sat down at the kitchen table with the two of us and started explaining things, professor to students.

"You'll get more out of de Man in small groups or even individually. Make sure you attend his office hours as often as possible. In class he's usually all business, but in small groups or when we talk in private, he's funny and shockingly blunt. Even to the point of putting down other critics and professors here at Yale. But then he understands how most profs are just performance artists with tenure. It's one reason he makes the establishment nervous."

One thing about P. I've always admired is he's unafraid of anyone, and speaks his mind whenever he feels like it, so it looked like a good fit having de Man for his mentor. He'll ask impertinent, probing questions at lectures, or poke holes in the arguments of even top critics. He has a superior air which puts off most of his fellow grad students, but he needs it: arrogance is a necessary armor in the world of lit crit. For one thing, the competition for jobs is ruthless outside the ivory tower of Bingham Hall where the Comp Lit department lives— it's literally in a tower, the top floor of a creaky, spooky old Victorian cupola perched on one of the freshman dorms that surround Old Campus. A really cool place with its own tiny library that smells like ancient leather chairs and musty stored-up energy, it's the place I head to when the weather's too cold to sit outside in my courtyard, reading or looking through the old books, some dating back to the 1800s.

It's the only thing I like about the Comp Lit department. The people are, well, less than nice to me. Almost everyone, student or professor, is a snob or a bore or both. I suppose you can say that about most of the people at Yale. I sorta have this love-hate relationship with the place, wanting to be accepted, yet never fitting in. I remember riding up in the tiny two-person elevator that connects the Comp Lit department to the ground with Professor Hartman. He's another one of the bigwigs. Didn't say a thing for most of the ride— probably figured I was an undergrad living on the lower floors, which are all dorm rooms for freshmen. When I didn't get off at one of those other floors, he realized we were both going to the Ivory Tower. I guess he figured he'd better say something.

"How's life?" What kind of question is that? I wanted to laugh, but I just smiled at him.

"Fine," I lied.

The elevator stopped, he pushed open the door and disappeared into his office like the white rabbit down its hole.

to be continued

And still more non-fans

2005-11-27T20:19:00.000-05:00

I have recently become aware of the term "polyamory," which is a lifestyle that celebrates loving more than one person. The term was coined after Cassie's adventures at Yale, but I can't help thinking that her agony would not have been as great if she'd had access to the relationship tools that polyamory offers. Yet even with those tools, it's not an easy road, as the site Polyamorously Perverse makes plain. A middle-aged man who has always been poly in a monogamous marriage comes out to his wife, with all the attendent anxiety, soul-searching and questions. Not just for the polyamorously inclined, and all in all a very wise and sage baring of another human's soul.

It quite surprises me at times that there is more sexy writing on the Internet than sexy photography. First of all, I agree with Cassie in her meme from Remembrance Girl that sex doesn't photograph very well. Showing a man coming on a woman's face doesn't tell us anything about passion, only that someone had an ejaculation. Written descriptions of sex, though, often capture the heat, the smells, the stains. One of the better sites is Unfettered cravings. Written by Lou, a man, the site is about his sexual adventures, including a series called "The Vixxen Chronicles." Strong, basic writing. Worth a trip.

99 Erotic Notions is another Internet erotica offering like The Rosary that is complete and available right now. The premise is simple enough: a 25 year-old man has a series of erotic reveries.

My Voyage of Sexual Discovery has a good balance of erotica and nasty photos. I don't know how many of these stories are fantasies and how many actually happened, but they're well-written and easy to enjoy. The Brits seem to be a randy bunch, I wonder if it's the rainy weather?

100 Things About Cassie

2005-11-16T23:01:00.000-05:00

Thanks to Ms Krys for "100 Things about Cassie":

1. I am the oldest of four children.

2. I have a sister and two brothers.

3. I don't have any secrets from those I love-- except P. because I don't want to hurt him.

4. I hate my feet because I'm REALLY ticklish (I'd break your arm kicking you if you tried and couldn't help it).

5. I like watching hockey and old movies and "Monty Python."

6. I don't watch network TV, but I loved "The Smothers Brothers."

7. The best part was Pat Paulson.

8. He would've been a better president than Nixon.

8. The music groups were good, too, especially "The Doors" and "The Jefferson Airplane."

9. I am a secretary in Manuscripts & Archives of Yale's Sterling Library.

10. I hate every minute I'm there.

11. My co-workers treat me like shit and won't let me do anything interesting.

12. That's because I don't have a college degree.

13. At Yale, only wives with college degrees get the good jobs.

14. No husbands of students work in the library. No husbands of students work, they're all students themselves.

15. I grew up with both of my parents.

16. I'm bisexual, maybe tending to lesbian. At least P. thinks so. I do like women.

17. But I'm also married and still am attracted to some men.

18. Go figure.

19. I am not homophobic. Duh.

20. I've been married for 5 years.

21. My best friend is my husband.

22. But also S.

23. He's not here any longer, he left to go to grad school at Harvard.

24. I went to public school.

25. I loved school and hated summers because there wasn't a fucking thing to do in South Philly.

26. I am from South Philadelphia, the predominantly Italian-American part of Philadelphia.

27. I am predominantly Italian-American, though my mother is English-Irish.

28. My parents fight constantly because they're so different (so much for body heat).

29. In the last election, I voted for McGovern.

30. Not many people did, which is why we ended up with that criminal, Nixon.

31. I believe welfare recipients should have to work to receive benefits.

32. In South Philly, most people think blacks are lazy and don't want to work.

33. I had black friends in high school, but think some of them should stop trying to get by on welfare.

34. I try to write correctly, but am a terrible speller.

35. If I could choose any career in the world, I would be a doctor.

36. I want to go back to college when P. is finished and become SOMETHING.

37. If offered $500,000,000.00 for eating crap, I would have to think about it.

38. I live on Clark Street in New Haven, CT.

39. I have lived away from home since I was 19, but have never lived alone.

40. We pay too much for rent, but all the Yalies do, because the townies think we're all the sons and duaghters of rich fuckers.

41. I work with 4 men and 12 women and hate all of them except my boss because they look down on secretaries.

42. I audit classes at Yale, one of its few benefits.

43. The first two years, I learned German.

44. One of P.'s areas of concentration is German Romantic literature.

45. It came in handy with S. who is German.

46. No, I don't know what the thing is about German in my life!

47. I flunked out of Temple University after freshman year.

48. I don't belong to any church, and don't think much of organized religion; Billy Graham "saved" me at one of his tent revivals down the lakes in South Philly when I was 12.

49. Nevertheless I believe in God.

50. I haven't been to church since I got married.

51. I don't think most churchgoers would want someone like me coming to their services, especially if I came with P. and another woman.

52. I want to have children but NOT NOW!!

53. When I do have kids, I want both a boy and a girl.

54. I want my son and his sister to learn to skate and play hockey. Girls can do anything boys can, even though my mother wouldn't let me learn to ride a bike until my father bought me one on the sly when I was 15.

55. I broke 1100 on my SAT's.

56. My parents didn't even say anything when I got into Temple.

57. Clothes aren't the most important thing in the world, but I once came home at lunch and changed out of a dress because my co-workers were congratulating me on getting pregnant.

58. I was named after my grandmother and my Aunt Emma.

59. One of my best friends in high school is about to become a plastic surgeon. Another is a lawyer and one of the boys I dated in high school was just sent away from fraud and embezzlement.

60. I struggle with every day, more so since this past Spring and S.

61. I like waffles with boysenberry syrup as a treat for breakfast.

62. Zucchini is my favorite green vegetable.

63. Fried zuchini flowers are my second favorite (dipped in batter and deep-fat-fried).

64. I once prayed I would wake up with an Irish brogue after seeing "Darby O'Gill and the Little People."

65. I am bad with intimate relationships because I can't keep my feelings bottled up.

66. I value my friendships, but don't have many friends here in New Haven.

67. I have known half my friends from high school, the other half from the one year at Temple.

68. My mom doesn't understand why I work outside the home.

69. It means we're not as close as we could be because she calls me up and harrangues me about it.

70. I think love makes people fucking crazy. It did me.

71. I try to be logical, P. says I'm too emotional.

72. I have been writing this journal since May.

73. I hope it will make getting over S. easier.

74. So far, it hasn't.

75. New Year's is my least favorite holiday because you're supposed to feel happy even if you're not.

76. I shop to distract myself from my shitty job.

77. I grocery shop by myself because P. is so picky about what he wants, we'd spend hours doing it together,

78. I have never turned a cartwheel because I don't have much upper body strength (all my strength seems to be lodged in my vaginal muscles).

79. My mother smokes and is getting short of breath. She had rheumatic fever as a child and it left her with a heart murmur.

80. I got sent home from school for wearing a skirt that was too short when I was 17.

81. I do not regret my first boyfriend.

82. We still keep in touch.

83. I have not been to any weddings since I got married.

84. I love cranberry juice, it wards off urinary tract infections, which I get a lot of (using a diaphragm for birth control doesn't help, plus I like to be fingered).

85. I lost several best friends because of boys, especially after I developed.

86. I have no god children.

87. My bed is some crap we picked up at the Salvation Army furniture room.

88. We bought it because it was very inexpensive.

89. I think Alexis Smith is to die for.

90. I have seen "The Godfather" numerous times.

91. I speak pig-Latin fluently.

92. I took four years of Latin in high school, but remember almost nothing of it.

93. Mozarella is my favorite cheese, raw or cooked.

94. My favorite soda is Tab.

95. I love cooking for other people.

96. If I were to die tomorrow, I would have many regrets.

97. I am a big fan of Marlon Brando and Al Pacino.

98. I think Faye Dunaway is super in "Three Days of the Condor." Many people say I look like Goldie Hawn. She's not my type. I wouldn't kick Julie Christie out of bed, though. Not by a long shot.

99. Robert Redford might be able to make me break my marriage vows.

100. I believe that today is yesterday's consequence, and that if I want to change my tomorrow, I have to change my decisions today. But I don't think I can most of the time.

CHAPTER 5 (part 2)

2005-11-09T09:08:00.000-05:00

Last night after I stopped writing and crawled into bed, I lay wide awake— as usual— curled up in the customary fetal position, arms aching, legs heavy and dead. All I could do was wrack my brains hoping to figure out the reasons why this blew up in my face. After all, what's the big fucking deal? Married woman gets involved with a younger man, her fingers get singed, it happens everyday, right? The whole thing sounds so ordinary, so middle-class, so tawdry.

One thing made it different: whatever you want to call it, "dalliance," "liaison," it was no big secret from P. He knew I was spending a lot of time with S., knew he was getting into my head, and it never seemed to bother him. He knew I found S. attractive— I made sure of that, I don't believe in deception. What's more, by the final act of this domestic drama, the three of us were hanging out together almost every day— like the close friends we'd become. That last happy day at Toad's was the rule, not the exception.

As husbands go, he's always been absolutely trusting and unthreatened by my friendships with men here at Yale. I mean, it's natural for me to swim in the sea of undergrads. For one thing, I'm closer in age to them than he is (he's 28). Plus graduate students are in a far different orbit than undergrads. He knows I'm bored and restless, so the amazing amount of cultural activities at Yale filled up my spare time. Sampling all the varied intellectual fruits like the good dilettante I am meant less time to get into mischief. Not to mention that S. was over at our apartment all the time. He became a fixture in our lives throughout Spring semester.

Now? Just when I could use some real distraction, the school year is over and those wonderful cultural offerings— concerts, exhibits, lectures, film series— have shriveled up until Fall. The Summer promises to be dull— and empty. I hope I'm wrong.
S. hung around so much because the two of us were slogging away at his Senior thesis, me typing, him revising the scrawl he called handwriting. At first P. stayed mostly in his study, I'm sure he found the subject (history) and the level (undergraduate) less than scintillating. Plus, he's a bit shy around new people. Whenever we have a party, for example, at some point in the evening he'll slip off to his study and leave the entertaining to me. Yet gradually he became part of the Senior thesis carnival in our kitchen, slipping into the river of banter, distracting us with witty comments or off-hand discussions about a new book he was reading or a joke de Man had told him after class.

Yale Comp Lit is the center of the literary world right now because of this new theory called Deconstruction, and de Man is one of its brightest lights. It's not so important what Deconstruction's about—something along the lines of how language shapes our understanding of the world. What makes this so exciting is that Yale's like one of those 19th Century literary salons I've read about where smart, creative people sit around smoking, drinking absinthe and discussing important topics in the arts and culture.

I don't always "get it," so suffice it to say, it's heady stuff. Sometimes I want to fall back on Humpty Dumpty's line to Alice in Through the Looking Glass, I think it goes "when I use a word, it means exactly what I choose it to mean— neither more nor less." I'm just a naïve reader, what do I know?

to be continued

Tag, You're It

2005-11-04T23:34:00.000-05:00

The fascinating Debra Woehr, who interviewed me for her blog The Writers Buzz, has tagged me with a meme that no former student of Deconstruction could refuse:

1. Delve into your blog archive.
2. Search my archive for the 23rd post.
3. Find the 5th sentence, or closest to.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your blog along with these instructions. Ponder it for meaning, subtext or hidden agendas
5. Tag 5 people to do the same.

Here is the fifth sentence from the 23rd post on June 3, 2005:

Thanks also to the referral sites like "Kristen's Links", "Photography Sites.com" and of course, the ultra-fantastic Jane's Guide. Jane and Vamp have brought over 1/3 of all the visitors!

Meaning? I was happy to have reached 10,000 visitors. Since then, we've added over 55,000 more. Sub-text? I wanted to convince the agents and editors of mainstream publishing to publish Beyond You & Me. Now, my meaning is really "kiss my ass, I've found a public who's interested in the novel, so I don't need you." Hidden agenda? I plan to publish this sucker, one way or another, and don't worry anymore about agents or editors.

Whom will I tag? Demon Queen, Magdalena, O from "Eros/Logos," Clayton Holliday and the fascinating Gabby.

A Sale on Photos From the Novel

2005-10-31T18:18:00.000-05:00

Now that the Beyond You & Me contest is over, you can still purchase the first prize or other photos from the novel. One of the big mysteries that fans are curious about is: who is the model for the pictures? Is it the real Cassie DiMarco? When were the photographs taken? Are they from Yale?

Here's your chance to own one or more of the photographs that illustrate the novel. Printed on an Epson Stylus Photo 2200, each of them is numbered and signed by the author/photographer.

"Chapter 1"
This is the photograph that opens the novel: Cassie distraut and naked on the cold stone outside Yale's Sterling Library. Color giclee print approx. 8" x 10" printed on 11" x 14" glossy photo-quality paper. Part of a limited edition of 100 signed and numbered by the author/photographer.
usually $100; now $75

"Yale 4 Glow"
This photo is from Cassie posing later in the novel (you can't keep a bad girl down). In the background is the facade of her hated place of employment, Sterling Library. Black & white giclee print approx. 4 1/4" x 6 3/4" printed on 8 1/2" x 11" glossy photo-quality paper. Part of a limited edition of 100 signed and numbered by the author/photographer.
usually $50; now $40

"Cleavage 2"
A different look at Cassie, one no less erotic and sensuous. Black & White giclee print approx. 4 1/4" x 6 3/4" printed on 8 1/2" x 11" glossy photo-quality paper. Part of a limited edition of 100 signed and numbered by the author/photographer.
usually $50; now $40

"Cassie at Yale"
This photo that sets the mood for the entire novel: a Mona Lisa smile, a youthful if imperfect body, moxie and sensuality contrasting with the cold, iron statue on the grounds of Yale's Old Campus. Color giclee print approx. 4 1/4" x 6 3/4" printed on 8 1/2" x 11" glossy photo-quality paper. Part of a limited edition of 100 signed and numbered by the author/photographer.
usually $150; now $100

"Veranda 5 Glow"
Cassie in a pose that captures her life: naked to the world, balanced precariously, equally in danger of falling or of flying away. Black & White giclee print approx. 4 1/4" x 6 3/4" printed on 8 1/2" x 11" glossy photo-quality paper. Part of a limited edition of 100 signed and numbered by the author/photographer.
usually $50; now $35

To purchase prints, email me at: wscross-at-gmail-dot-com (replace the dashes, "at" and "dot" with the appropriate symbols). Please indicate the name of the photo(s) you wish to purchase, your address, etc. Methods of payment include check or PayPal.

CHAPTER 5 (Part 1)

2005-10-24T11:27:00.000-04:00

PART 1

Paul de Man is P.'s mentor and one of the leading figures of the literary movement known as Deconstruction (you can read some easy background notes on de Man and Deconstruction in the "world of the novel" links on the right of this blog). This chapter will be a test of loyalty to you fans, so we'll find out if this book can keep your interest even without the naughty bits.

On thinking more about this "writing down the past" process, I've decided, if it's going to be a real journal, it should have real dates. So I'll begin with today— that is tonight. It's Wednesday. In the past, Wednesday nights were hopeful, if not yet happy— mid-week, only two more days until the working week is over and I'm free from the chains of M & A for two whole days. Now I'm shackled with different chains, ones that know no hours (the pay's lousy, too). I used to live for weekends. In good weather, P. and I would drive out into the Connecticut countryside, maybe hike one of the many forest trails, all quite a lesson for a city girl whose only exposure to the wild outdoors was walking through the broken bottles and dog shit in Marconi Plaza along Broad Street. We'd browse for antiques or nifty luncheonettes with local flavors in the small towns like Branford, Guilford, Sachem and yes, Podunk. In crummy weather, we'd browse the thousands of remainders, used pulp fiction and overlooked classics at the Whitlock Book Barn. In good weather, drive along the Sound's coastline, satisfied simply being soul mates. That sounds corny, yet it's so right! With him, I feel I've found a man who really understands me, who cares deeply and totally about me. Sigh.

Now weekends are just more time I have to fill up. Neither of us seems inclined to be together in the car. I feel like I'm on a mental island with my own thoughts, P. and I don't seem to spend much time together since the Spring. He's more buried in his studies than ever. Before, graduate school energized him; now he's hiding from me. Maybe hiding from himself.

Making this real, yes, that's the goal. Maybe then I can understand— and survive— this, this— this what? "Affair"? OK, I finally wrote down the evil word, and for the very first time! I've never used it before, even in thinking about this past Spring. Certainly I never spoke it— it's so sordid, so ugly, it doesn't fit with how I see myself. Lying naked on the page, it's at least a little less intimidating than I thought it would be working up the nerve to write it in the first place! Sigh. After all, it's just another word, right? A "sign" as Professor de Man would call it. Paul de Man is P.'s graduate advisor and mentor, one of the "great men" who make Yale all it is. I spent the Spring auditing his undergraduate class in literary theory hoping to understand something of what P.'s studying. He told me we'd be closer if I did.

I guess I liked it. De Man is such a funny-looking older guy, he walks with a shuffle and holds his head forward in a strange way when he talks, almost like his backbone was slightly out-of-kilter. He smiles a lot, though, and makes tons of self-deprecating jokes about himself and everyone else, which keeps us all pretty loose, despite his fame. The first class, he looks around the auditorium, then tells us—

"This is Literature Y— or as some of you have asked me, and I might ask myself as well, why literature?"

At the start of a class on irony, he told us one philosopher believed we could never really understand the concept, so de Man offered to cancel the lecture and send us all home. I appreciate his sense of humor, that's actually pretty rare among the professors and teaching assistants I've known, they see themselves as way too important to laugh. We needed some humor, the course stretched my thinking a lot, taught me words are just vessels carrying meanings we attach to them, meanings that have no real connection to anything other than other words. So a nasty word like— "affair"— has a different meaning depending on the context, right? We can't know its significance other than by the way it's used. A "catered affair" is quite different, after all, from an "adulterous affair." Since I haven't figured out what this whole thing in the Spring was about, a word like "affair" is no more important or weighted— for good or bad— than "bicycle" or "rocket ship" or "chocolate."

That's not cor-rect (couldn't resist that): given my metabolism, "chocolate" is far more likely to be weighted— on my thighs! Chocolate's like happiness: too much of it has consequences.

(to be continued)

Beyond You & Me excerpted in Mannequin Envy

2005-10-20T10:49:00.000-04:00

The agents perhaps don't get it, but others apparently do. For the second time this month, part of Beyond You & Me has been excerpted, this time in the gorgeous on-line magazine Mannequin Envy. It's a part of the novel that hasn't been featured here, and the photographs are presented in more of a glossy, arty surrounding.

And The Winner Is....

2005-10-17T22:15:00.000-04:00

OK, I sent the entries to the Beyond You & Me Contest to the real Cassie, and she was impressed. In fact, it was difficult for her to pick a winner, so she picked two: one for "best entry" and another for "closest to reality." The winners are:

First Prize Winner (B&W signed photo): Best overall-- Demon Queen
First Prize Winner (B&W signed photo): Closest to the real Cassie-- Freya
Second Prize Winner (signed Beyond You & Me t-shirt): John Martin
Third Prize Winner (no prize, just glory): Alice

Here are the winning answers. Feel free to judge for yourself.

First Prize (best overall)

1. Still living?

No. I have her body in my trunk as we speak.

2. Married, divorced, single?
Yes, she is now a Mormon. She has also been widowed several times... apparently men spontaneously combust in her presence.

3. What kind of work is she doing?

She wrestles gators in an Old West show. No wait... she mud wrestles in a gator skin outfit. I don't know but she is always covered in mud.

4. Is she a Republican, Democrat or Independent?

She started a movement called Daughters of the American Revolution. I told her that name is taken. She won't listen to me! She bought a high powered rifle and now lives in a cabin in the Ozarks.

5. Gay, bisexual or straight?

Well she was gay, but I told her that she just hadn't had the 'right' woman. I had sex with her. She is now straight. Scared straight heheh

6. Childless or has kids?

Has a daughter who alternately calls her the coolest mom in the world and then begs her NOT to tell anymore of her college stories in front of her friends.
I think they ALL do that.

7. What kinds of music does she listen to?

Jug bands... Ozarks remember?

8. Where does she live now?

Are you deaf? Errrrrrr blind? I already answered that.

9. Did she ever attend college? Was it Yale?

Yes she went. No not Yale. I believe she attended the Patty Hearst College of Fine Arts and Munitions.

10. Still keeps a journal? Writes a blog? Is too busy for either?

She has both but wrotes them both in code. She can't remember the code herself for security reasons. She is paranoid because the FBI planted microchips in her fillings. You do realize how angry she will be when she finds that I have divulged all of her secrets?

She will think I am one of THEM!

First Prize (most true-to-life)

1. Still living? Not everyone made it out of the Sexual Revolution alive - Yes, she's still alive.

2. Married, divorced, single? Married now but divorced once. He's 15 years her junior and doesn't care that she has a girlfriend.

3. What kind of work is she doing? She owns a bookstore/coffeeshop that has edgy readings monthly.

4. Is she a Republican, Democrat or Independent? She's still a democrat but they piss her off, and she wants them to toughen up and stand for something again.

5. Gay, bisexual or straight? Bisexual.

6. Childless or has kids? Childfree by choice.

7. What kinds of music does she listen to? Jazz.

8. Where does she live now? Connecticut, within easy distance to NYC, but still far enough away to have the peace.

9. Did she ever attend college? Was it Yale? Yes, no, NYU.

10. Still keeps a journal? Writes a blog? Is too busy for either? She'll always keep a journal. She keeps a small blog and does not share her true identity.

Second Prize

1: It is strange, being a very new member, and the first Name that pops up in the blog is CC. I knew her when I was living in the North Shore community of Roslyn Harbor on Long Island. She was a friend who commuted to Manhattan and worked in a Jewelry place up on the 20 something floor of the Empire State Building. It isn't polite to ask a young lady her age but I guess she was about 36 years old.

2. If she was married she didn't let on to me, and I never asked. One day when I was waiting at Jamaica to switch trains she was there and as the other train went by she told me that it made her a little chilled under her skirt, and it took me about a month to discover why.

3. Her job was like taking candy from a baby. She bought the gold by the ounce and didn't give a dime for style, stone, or cut. I was in the wrong business.

4. Like a whole lot more of us she was still a Democrat, but we were a little off on all the stuff of that era.

5. Again I didn't ask. She was really friendly with a few of the local ladies but when it came to finding the empty carriage at the rear of the 10.30 a.m. train before going into the tunnel she wasn't backward. She would sit a little sideways on my lap to get her morning joy ride while the lights were dim. It was a little something we tried now and again on a dull morning. It sure beat coffee.

6. She didn't seem be too different from all of our crowd. She never mentioned kids. What we couldn't afford sometimes happened and a few of us has one or two children.

7. This is a hard one. She never carried one of those walkman things so I haven't a clue. Blues? I don't think so. More like red hot jazz.

8. She never talked of New Haven, if she had ever lived there. As far as I knew she had a place with all that gingerbread and lived with the old hippy crowd somewhere in Sea Cliff.

9. What the hell would a smart blond like her do with a scrap of paper from Yale. In her job she had it in spades.

10. Oh yeah. That damn journal. I wonder if she ever wrote in that about some of the times we crawled home smelling of sex and half blasted. She was just one of the best. When I think about it this may not be the same young lady that some of you seemed to know.

Third Prize

1. She is alive and well and made it through the times, of course I'm not going to let her be dead.

2. Widowed

3. She is writing novels mostly political in nature but a rare erotic novel partially biographical but mostly fiction under a name de plume has surfaced over the last twenty years or so.

4. Flaming liberal she is.

5. She is celibate and still pondering.

6. One child, a girl.

7. Still listens to the Blues the love of it never fades.

8. She lives overlooking the Hudson River.

9. She did indeed attend Yale but it was much later as she has been out a mere ten years.

10. She writes a blog but it is private, it will of course be published after her death and her daughter will reap the rewards of her lifetime.

Prize winners please contact me at wscross@gmail.com with your mailing address and I'll send out the prizes.

Judy Miller Is Free (update)

2005-10-16T21:11:00.000-04:00

Update 10/16/2005: For those of you who have been following the Judith Miller saga, the NY Times published a long and in-depth article about the story, Ms. Miller and the legal wrangling behind it. The article is not always complimentary to her, nor are the issues in the case clear and decisive, though nothing I have read changes my belief that Ms. Miller should never have been sent to jail, and that the Congress should pass a shield law to protect journalists. To read the entire article, go to:

New York Times.com

Original Post (9/30/05):

New York Times reporter Judith Miller is getting out of jail through a deal between her original source and the overzealous prosecutor who had her sent to the cooler because she refused to reveal that source. For those of you who are joining this late, we already mentioned this travesty of justice in a previous post. You can also find out more information here.

Ms. Miller will go free because her source has agreed to let her testify before the Grand Jury looking into who in Washington outed CIA agent Valerie Plame. That's a good thing for her, though it does not change the fact that she should never have been incarcerated in the first place. It was always punitive, even if she now can save face and get out a month early. She will also be able to avoid an implied threat she would have been prosecuted for withholding evidence once the Grand Jury term ran out.

Thank you to all who sent letters of support to this brave, smart woman who understands better than our government that secret sources are absolutely necessary to having a free and effective press. Thanks, too, to those who wrote their representatives in Congress supporting a shield law protecting journalists from this kind of witch hunt.

Whatever your political persuasion, you are better off in a society where journalists can seek out the facts and report things that their sources could not reveal without anonymity. While less than perfect, this system is still superior by far to one where the newspapers are in thrall to the powers-that-be.

A Lovely Meme from Remittance Girl

2005-10-11T16:00:00.000-04:00

From Remittance Girl, who not only is a fascinating writer, but she gives it away for free, because she's more interested in the creation than the commerce. This is a meme she apparently originated, and which Cassie would respond to this way:

1. Things that make me want to masturbate

The sound of fucking
Looking through a window at two people making love
Going too long without sex
Naked shoulders of any gender
Stress at the office
Too much time on my hands
Salacious books
Being alone in the house at night or during a rainy afternoon
A hot bath

2. Times when I will do reckless things

When I'm horny
When I think someone I care about is watching
When someone I care about dares me not to
When someone I care about dares me to
When I flirt and the person flirts back
When I forget there are effects for causes
When I forget there are consequences to my actions

3.a Things I like about women's bodies

Their breasts-- small breasts with erect nipples
The smell of their hair
Tight wool pants on a good, boyish ass
The feel of their lips on mine
Pussy lips swollen with desire
Dark eyes unlike my own bright blue ones
The taste of sex, especially when it's smeared around my lips after fucking
The sudden shortening of their breath when they're about to come
The sound of an unexpected orgasm that surprises both of us

3.b Things I like about men's bodies

Strong hands
A hairy chest
The smoothness of a circumcised cock in my mouth
The anticipation of pulling back the foreskin on an uncircumcised one
Hard nipples, but not large pecs
Cocks with funny bends
Short hair I can grab at and not fully grasp
Sensitive eyes
A good mouth on someone who knows how to kiss

4. Things that make me unaccountably angry

Lies
Injustice
Any kind of prejudice
Seeing a child who can't behave
Being humiliated by a superior at work
Bullshit excuses: I'm a big girl, tell it to me straight
Bullshit rules
Did I say lies?

5. Things that lose by being photographed

Interesting people
Sports, especially hockey
Sex: it's interesting to watch people fuck, but it's not sex
New Haven-- but I guess it can't get any worse than it is in reality
Yale
People I love, though it's better than not having anything to look at

6. Things that gain by being photographed

Beautiful women
Beautiful men
Children at play
Old people, though that's such a cliche
Vaginas
Dancers
A woman in stockings (they certainly don't feel good on)
The sky at sunset
The moon anytime

7. Things that are more beautiful in motion

A woman walking
A woman fucking
Fast cars
Men running or ice skating
Wild animals
The ocean

8. Things that are more beautiful in repose

Breasts
Lovers sleeping
Snow
Cats
A man's cock after sex

9. Things that make me wet

Dirty talk from someone I care about
Taking off my clothes outdoors, especially to be photographed
Watching a women comb her hair
Watching a man masturbate
Having my shoulders rubbed-- hard
The sound of someone fucking me
A woman who takes control in bed and out
Being "forced" to do what I really want
Being taken by a lover in spite of my protests
Exposing my breasts to the air

10. Things that make me happiest

Sex
Sleep
Reading alone or with my husband
Talking with S.
Flirting
Thinking about a happier future than the present
The thought of perfection
The myth of happiness

Author's Note: I added the 10th item. I won't tag anyone with this on-line, but if we're talking off-line, consider yourself tagged.

Beyond You & Me Excerpted

2005-10-03T12:57:00.000-04:00

Well, the publishing industry may not think there's a market for Beyond You & Me, but I'm happy to report that the pay-site Tit-Elation has accepted "A Erotic Out-Take" for its October spread. It's a pay site that you have to join to read, so I encourage everyone to click on the logo above and sign up. In fairness to Tit-Elation, I have taken down that section, which used to be among previously excerpted chapters here in the section entitled "if you're new, start here."

English Fans

2005-09-25T18:55:00.000-04:00

I don't know why it is that the United Kingdom produces so many interesting bloggers; I've already profiled a number of them, including A Perfect Marriage and the sublime, divine O at Eros/Logos. It seems this post is British in emphasis, but then, isn't caning referred to as "the English vice"? The Hot Wife and The Rosary are both products of the English hot blood Mick refers to in "Brown Sugar."

One of the rising stars surely must be the gorgeous Magdalena of Myths & Metawhores. Part lusty vixen, part regretful soiled dove, Magdalena is always fascinating, inquisitive, elusive and unpossessible. She's literate and provocative in the same erudite, playful, bawdy tradition of O at Eros/Logos (a longtime fan and now, friend). Like O, Magdalena tongues the world, swishes the taste of liquids around in her mouth both for show and to savor each drop. Her musings about a growing curiosity to explore her Sapphic impulses left me enthralled, and her peek-a-boo self-portraits are winning her a following like O. With two women possessing so much sexuality and energy, how is it the British ever lost their empire? Certainly if they ever decide to conquer the world of the bedroom, Magdalena and O will be formidable generals in the armies of the night.

The other blog I want to highlight provokes the question: what is it about the blogosphere that brings out the bitch in woman? I don't mean the nasty, obnoxious kind, but the full-throated, defiant, magnificent female of the species. Well, I'm glad it did in the case of Salacity. She's an earth goddess who's not afraid to tell you to fuck off, or tell you about her wild sex life. It's a rich mix of erotic images, bawdy times and frank talk. Read her post "leggy" about wearing a short skirt all day and getting the male of the species to treat her as though she had a free pass to life. She has an edge, but it's bracing and sexy, so don't miss it.

Chapter 1 (for those who are new)

2005-09-21T14:34:00.000-04:00

To help out the victims of Katrina, click one or both of the links below:

Red Cross Hurricane Disaster Relief
-- or --
Salvation Army Disaster Assistance

Only 3 days left! Click Here To Enter the Beyond You & Me Contest

(Some of you are new to this site. Here's part of the opening chapter of Beyond You & Me so you can understand what all the fuss is about)

Day 1: A Spring day, any day, 1975

Temptation has been my undoing. Its fulfillment has been my downfall. And so I am left in its aftermath, too conscious of time’s passage. Painfully, so very excruciatingly aware of each day, each moment, I wish they would all pass more quickly and with them the pain. Time ticks away within my body like a pounding clock, I feel each second racing down the nerves of my legs, knotting my stomach, piercing my head which reverberates in stereo from lack of sleep. Who can remember the last time I slept through the night? Ah, Child, you feel compelled to run somewhere, but you don't know where, to do something, but you don’t know what to do. Or rather, you know where to go, but do not know how. It’s true, I want to run— fast and far— to scream and shout, loudly and unrestrained— to cry with violent shrieks and sobbings until my body is totally shaken into weakness, in a state where it can no longer want anything! To lie in quiet and peace, feeling no urgency, only stillness and weariness falling over me!

And where was it that I did go? Why to Graduation. Drab, soul-less Yale, the scene of my crime burst into activity today as he and the rest of the senior class desert the smother-love of Mother Yale for their new lives outside those clichéd ivy-covered walls. I couldn’t stay away, instead of riding out the storm from the safety of my desk at work, I called in sick— since sick is how I feel— then lost the will to stay home where I’m writing from tonight. The “bright college years” are ending for him, while I stay behind, a Cinderella with no glass slipper in sight, time stretching out before me like a wide lake, the memories of what came before hanging around my neck like a stone.

The crowd I’m sure measured 15,000, the yard of Old Campus swapping its Frisbees and sunbathers for a sea of folding chairs as Yale President Kingman Brewster and the other grandees pranced about in their ridiculous robes and funny caps, each residential college marching in while parents cheered. The bells of Harkness Tower pealed constantly, while silver flasks and joints in a profusion were passed around. One woman in the Saybrook contingent hiked up the hem of her graduation gown to flash a glimpse of stockings, garter belt and no panties. I’ll have to remember that when it’s my turn up there.

What possibly could have brought me there? Did I really think I’d see him? And then suddenly there he was, marching in with the rest of his classmates. Would it look especially tacky if I sat on his lap? Do I care? What about a good-bye kiss? This is, after all, probably the last time we’ll ever see one another. I could lift up my dress and make love to him right here on what’s left of the grass, I’m not wearing panties. That would be a Yale graduation they’d talk about for years.

“Cassie!” he waves with a smile. It looks a bit forced to me, tight around the mouth, as though he’s seen someone he’d rather avoid. Ah, Child, who would not be gracious today? He steps out of the group, motioning me toward a German-looking couple on the edge of the spectators. His parents, of course, the mother dressed in a sober, eminently sensible two-piece suit made of green wool, expensive and well-tailored, yet hopelessly old-fashioned. She’s handsome, I can see where he gets his good looks, she’s commanding the way she carries herself, she’ll be a formidable mother-in-law (not mine, thank God). The father’s nationality isn’t as obvious, he’s dressed in a snappy blazer and slacks, an outfit that doesn’t scream out “Deutschland über alles” like the wife’s.

“Cassie, I’d like you to meet my parents.” He says something in German to them I don’t quite catch in all the noise and tumult.

To keep reading, click on one of these:

Chapter 1
Chapter 4
Chapter 12
Chapter 16
Erotic Out-Take
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

Does a Writer's Gender Matter?

2005-09-16T20:59:00.000-04:00

Please help out the victims of Katrina by clicking one or both of the links below and giving even a small donation:

Red Cross Hurricane Disaster Relief
-- or --
Salvation Army Disaster Assistance

ONLY ONE WEEK LEFT! Click Here To Enter the Beyond You & Me Contest

Does a writer's gender make a difference to you?

Boys
T. S. Eliot
H. P. Lovecraft
D. H. Lawrence
C. S. Lewis
F. X. Tool (wrote the stories "Million Dollar Baby" was made from)
O. Henry
Jane Anger (no one knows for sure)
Carolyn Keene

Girls
O.
George Sand
Isak Dinesen
Currer Bell (Charlotte Bronte)
V. Sackville-West
Radcliffe Hall
H. D.
Carson McCullers
J. K. Rowling
George Eliot
T. J. Baker
K. K. Beck
R. L. Bell
B. M. Bower
L. B. Cobb
T. M. Gray
H. M. Hoover
J. V. Jones
P. F. Kosak
C. M. Mayo
D. H. Melhem
M. J. Rose
C. B. Scott (a writing team)
L. V. Sims
E. D. E. N. Southworth
L. L. Thrasher

Betwixt & Between
Jan Morris

Just wondering.

Another Look at Cassie Through a Meme

2005-09-12T10:25:00.000-04:00

Please help out the victims of Katrina by clicking one or both of the links below and giving even a small donation:

Red Cross Hurricane Disaster Relief
-- or --
Salvation Army Disaster Assistance

Click Here To Enter the Beyond You & Me Contest

I borrowed this list/meme from Lilith at Spinster War Diaries. She has a very enjoyable blog, so go visit her site soon. As always, I'll answer these as Cassie would at 24.

7 things to do before I die:
1. Go to college
2. Visit Europe
3. Go to college
4. Get a better job than a secretary in the Yale library
5. Go to college
6. Move to New York
7. Have kids (but NOT NOW!)

7 things I can do:
1. Get a job at a strip club (but P. would never let me)
2. Make men and women want to sleep with me
3. Pick up hot things and not get burned
4. Sew. I make my own clothes (when I can sit still long enough)
5. Make strangers want to talk to me, especially old people
6. Function on a few hours of sleep a night
7. Dance

7 things I can't do:
1. Write. When I have to. When I write in my journal, it pours out
2. A chin-up. No upper body strength. Couldn't climb the rope in gym class, either
3. Bake cakes: mine all come out flat
4. Sit still (and wouldn't you know, I'm a secretary). I should be a carpenter or something
5. Reduce the size of my stomach. It's not fat, it just sticks out
6. Not come if I have sex; my pussy has betrayed me, too
7. Play sports

7 things that attract me to a man:
1. Good eyes
2. Tenderness
3. Broad shoulders
4. Teasing. P. is so serious, while S. is all fun
5. Politness. Why do guys think a girl will want them if they have the manners of a gavone?
6. Being a good listener
7. Strong hands

7 things I say most often:
1. Who'd a thunk it?
2. F'nable (literally "go to Naples" in Italian)
3. Ah-ite (means "all right" in South Philly-speak)
4. Do I hafta?
5. Oh, God, Yesssssssssssssssssssssssssss!
6. Fuck (said as a response to something unpleasant)
7. Does this make me look fat?

7 celebrity crushes:
1. Bobby Clarke of the Flyers
2. Alexis Smith
3. Grace Slick
4. Prince Charles (please don't laugh)
5. Johnny Callison of the Phillies
6. Marilyn Chambers
7. Jack Nicholson

7 people I'd like to do this list:
1. Demon Queen
2. Freya
3. Odd Wife
4. Alice
5. O
6. Wilma
7. Magdalena

September's Fans

2005-09-09T10:45:00.000-04:00

To help out the victims of Katrina, click one or both of the links below:

Red Cross Hurricane Disaster Relief
-- or --
Salvation Army Disaster Assistance

Only two weeks left! Click Here To Enter the Beyond You & Me Contest

Pin-up photo courtesy Gil Elvgren Gallery

I can't believe I haven't highlighted Fred & Wilma's Fun before! Wilma is now like an old friend, and we've talked across our sites for ages. Simply put, you'll be hard pressed to find two people who find more fun in sex. Like the cartoon characters from the 60s TV Show, Fred and Wilma Flintstone aren't deep, don't have any hidden agendas and are as happily simple as they seem. That doesn't mean they're not smart people, just that their Internet personas are all about fucking, in whatever form pleases them at the moment. In this they remind me of one of my longest-running fans, The Hot Wife. Neither site is for the prudish, and both remind me of the 70s classic The Joy of Sex. In today's world, we need more unabashed joy.

A good site to check out is A Perfect Marriage. Their brand of married passion is touching and so rare in the blogosphere, where most folks who feel the need to take virtual pen to virtual paper are exorcizing demons (e.g., The Solitary Wife), or holding a wake for a failed relationship (e.g., the very sad "Jay Loves Kitty"). So Sue and Ed's paean to domestic sex and love is both refreshing and heartening. Cassie loves P. and would have been heartened by those who can keep it going. Bravo, you two!

Speaking of The Solitary Wife, I'd like to recommend it because of its searingly honest depiction of her troubled marriage. It's the usual: kids, pressures, a husband on the road, but more than that: issues of trust and openness and what love means. Hey, sex is an important component of Cassie's story, but she's also wrestling with many of the issues that women have (and still do) struggle with: love, their role in society, freedom, commitment.

A site many of you probably already visit is Bitchalicious. OK, who doesn't have a friend who's nasty, honest, funny, sincere, caring, and well, occasionally bitchy? You go, Girl! No particular topic, just whatever comes to her wide-ranging mind. Always entertaining, occasionally deep, but worth the trip.

One site you probably DON'T visit is I Was Hitler's Wet Nurse. I admit that most of the time, I have no clue what's going on. But every once in awhile, something so revelatory is posted that it leaves me speechless. The post entitled "The Star of David Ran Amok" reminded me of Kafka on acid. This isn't light reading, and her most-recent posts have concerned incestual blow-jobs, but underneath the crazy typeface, the colored words and the off-putting descriptions of life in an insane asylum, there's something of genius here.

And finally, while Cassie's story of course concerns sex, many of its fans don't write sex blogs. One of the better ones is Girls in the Bag. Five funny, perceptive, humane women writing about modern life. And like modern life, the entries can be rambling, sweet, thought-provoking and serious. Or just fun. Ever think about those "Style Network" makeover shows? Well,the Girls in the Bag have. You never quite know what will strike them as funny, weird, or the way when you wake up in the morning and realize you always put your panties on in a certain order. So it's good to check back regularly.

A Small Thing About S.

2005-09-07T09:07:00.000-04:00

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This is a fragment that fell out of the book and doesn't seem to have a place in its 100,000 words. Please enjoy it as a look into Cassie and S.

Despite his sexual fantasies inspired by the writings of the Marguis de Sade, S. is a child of post-Third Reich Germany. That means he's always profoundly ambiguous about his German-ness around me and others: "I'm not personally responsible for the deaths of 6 million Jews, though it doesn't mean I'm not a bit ill-at-ease dating a Jewish girl," he admitted over coffee when I quizzed him about his New York girlfriend. He was even uncomfortable admitting there IS a Jewish "girl" in his life. Turns out she's a senior in an exclusive Manhattan private school.

I hated her right away.

"She'll do ANYTHING I ask her, she begs me to think up new ways she can please me."

I could never tell if his diffidence in most things is genuine or the expected self-put-down we feel "good Germans" owe us because of their country's past sins. Finally one day I cornered him about it.

"Which would you rather it be?" he responded with a question of his own. "Will you like me better if I'm contrite about the Third Reich, or if I tell you I have no debts to repay? You see, my family was not in the army, we didn't kill any Jews I know of, and I don't think any of my relatives voted for Hitler. But if I say it's past time to move on and let Germany be German again, and not some sanitized French fantasy about Germans, then I risk being called insensitive and recherche. Shit, it's even a French expression we'd use."

I'm a bad one to assess such matters: his German-ness and the uniform thing played right into some of my oldest fantasies. I've always thought guys in uniforms cool and sexy, so cool and sexy I once upon a time imagined joining the Marines like my dad (don't ask, it would take years of therapy to figure THAT one out).

Vintage erotica

2005-09-05T22:13:00.000-04:00

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Thanks to "Dirty Talking Girl" over at Pussy Talk (a fellow ERWA member) for pointing out the pleasures of vintage Victorian pornography, er, I mean erotica. S. is very taken with some of the "classic" stroke books of the era, including The Autobiography of a Flea and A Man With a Maid.

More Non-Fans

2005-09-01T09:37:00.000-04:00

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-- or --
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I have blogged before about Non Fans, sites that I like or admire, but which aren't fans of Beyond You & Me. None of them linked with me, so this new crop of non-fans shouldn't be seen as a pathetic attempt to solicit links (well, it's not, but think what you like).

One of the better sex blogs is Waking Vixen about Audacia Ray, one of the moths circling Jefferson's flame. Tough-minded yet vulnerable, she's every inch the modern liberated woman that Cassie aspired to become in 1975. And while she continues to push a modeling career and a very un-monagamous lifestyle, she is honest about some misgivings that lifestyle engenders in her. Certainly a refreshing change for the tough whores and doms with attitude one finds everywhere. I'm not against BDSM in any way, nor against folks paying for sex, but I think at times the glorification of sex work is a little like the mainstreaming of porn: a bit disengenuous. So maybe I'm just enough of the intellectual to respect someone who has reservations and qualms about a balls-to-the-wall life. Do we as a society have more respect for wafflers than those with no doubts?

How could a novel about a bisexual married woman not find a blog about a bisexual woman about to marry interesting? Heterophobic is the story of Boy and Girl (no real names, please), a Houston-based couple who are navigating the shoals of the modern romance. Both are bisexual, so the permutations are pretty interesting. Funny and witty, not usually very salacious, but insightful and passionate as the young almost always are.

Their bisexuality has clearly been a positive development in their lives. That isn't quite the case with Lost in Tradtion. It's the journal of a married woman who admits her only fulfilling sexual relationship was with another woman, and who has had experiences with both sexes both before and after her marriage. It's a searing read, and not meant to titilate. But for sheer honesty, it's very compelling.

A novel about a three-way love triangle can't remain immune to the charms of Petite Anglaise. The blog of a British 30-something living in Paris, the subject matter is adultery and her struggle to balance her young child, French in-laws and her lover. A sweet mixture of everyday life and touching romance. Not every blogger can capture the emotions of life, but P.A. does very well in this department, striking the right mixture of seriousness without the gooey sweetness of many diarists on the 'Net.

OK, I know I'm going to get hate mail for this, but I find This Fish Needs a Bicycle icky. The premise of this wildly-popular blog is that a nice, slightly ditzy 26 year-old single in New York can give us Carrie Bradshaw and smiles on a semi-daily basis. Hey, Cassie's 24, you'd think there'd be a connection? But after I read Heather Hunter's well-written, often amusing posts, I feel like I need to brush my teeth (no, she's not the porn star with the same name; the teeth brushing in that case might be after an activity other than reading). Absence Makes, a paen to her best friend who's successful, married and has a gorgeous child, elicited scores of adoring comments from her fans, yet it reminded me of a pathetic high school girl with a crush on her prom-queen friend. Her posting about Girl Dating also struck me as missing the point, but then, her fans felt I did when I pointed out the Freudian undertones of grown women going out on "dates" with one another. Sure, all Platonic, sorry, what MUST I have been thinking? Of course, then there's the account of a man trying to get her into a threesome with his girlfriend and her meeting him for drinks and smooches, so you be the judge. The name of the blog, by the way, is a mild rebuke of the Irina Dunn 1970 declaration that "a woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle." Maybe if The Fish gets married and lives her dream it will all work out for her, too? But don't feel too badly for her, she's got her own merchandise you can buy, including t-shirts that urge guys to "Be the bike." Does the word "groveling" have any meaning to 20-something women? Fish fans can call me dense, and I know I'm being silly to dish a blog with seemingly hundreds of links, but....

How can a novel about a bisexual woman who works in Yale's Sterling Library not be interested in a site about a bisexual librarian? Kinky Librarian writes with honesty, clarity and she's funny at times, too. Her post about wishing to have better "Bidar"
("Gaydar" for bisexuals) cracked me up. This isn't salacious details about pussies and cocks, it's more about dealing with the consequences and pleasures of a flexible sexual orientation.

One of the stranger blogs I've read is Layla: Diary of a Life in Progress. This is another no-hold-barred look at the challenges of living. Take the entry that says "I don't feel inspired unless my life is shit. I like the grit. I like the ugly and the dirty. It makes me feel real. Alive. Not false." No sugar-coating like This Fish Needs a Bicycle, but maybe The Fish just hasn't had the grit in her life that Layla has? But don't miss her analysis of her struggles with monogamy. Searing.

Finally, there's much to be said for Miss Snark. She's witty, to-the-point, and no bullshit when it comes to agents and the publishing industry. But it would be better if y'all went over to her site and let her tell you herself. She's not shy, and won't hold anything back.

And to answer your question, I don't know if she's one of the agents approached about Beyond You & Me because I don't know her real name.

More Notice for Beyond You & Me

2005-08-30T11:13:00.000-04:00

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Michael Allen in his blog Grumpy Old Bookman has spilled some virtual ink about Beyond You & Me. He included this site in a list of other Interet efforts to flog books, including the marvelous Gerard Jones, who is providing fans of his novel Ginny Good a chance to hear the free reading of his sweet, tragi-comic story of a doomed young woman during the 1960s (including a myriad of songs from the era).

Allen raises some interesting points about the Internet and its uses for publicizing books, as well as tantalizing questions about the publishing world. For those of you who find these discussions interesting, I refer you to my mirror site, 756 Agents & Counting... about the travails of trying to break in to mainstream publishing.

Judy Miller is Still in Jail

2005-08-28T16:57:00.000-04:00

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I received a printed card from NY Times reporter Judith Miller thanking me for the letter I sent her in jail. As most of you know by now, she was incarcerated for refusing to reveal her sources to a grand jury about an article she didn't write. Here is the full text of the card:

Thank you for your kind words and expressions of support, and for taking the time to write. I would love to answer you personally, but there is no typewriter in jail and my hand is worn out. I have been overwhelmed and humbled by letters like yours.

Jail is certainly not how I imagined the summer, but it was the only course my conscience would allow. If you want to help, please write your Senators or Members of Congress and urge them to support a Federal shield law for reporters. Thank you again for taking the time to boost my spirits.

Judy Miller
Inmate #45570083
Alexandria Detention Center
2001 Mill Road
Alexandria, VA 22314

Thanks to all Beyond You & Me fans and supporters who took the time to write. If you haven't written her yet, please do so. But more importantly, follow her suggestion and write your senators and member of Congress. Ask them to support a "shield law" bill establishing protection for reporters and newspersons so they can't be forced to reveal their sources. That way, if someone gives a reporter senstive information that might get them fired (or worse) if their identity is revealed, the reporter doesn't have to tell anyone.

In an age when it gets harder to find out the truth, and government and big business manage what you learn about, it may be in your best interest.

Wilma's Sex Quiz

2005-08-26T16:05:00.000-04:00

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Borrowed this quiz from the frisky Wilma over at Fred & Wilma's Fun. I have supplied answers based on Cassie as she is in the novel:

1. How old are you? 24.

2. What is your sexual orientation? I guess bisexual. Being married, I'm not sure what that means.

3. Are you attracted to any particular type of women/men? Petite? Trashy? Curvy? Tall? Boyish women, but not masculine. I like good-looking men, but don't have a particular type. Well-groomed and nicely-dressed.

4. Any particular hair/eye color? No.

5. How many virginities have you taken? Gosh, who keeps count? Be sure to put down that I'm batting my eyelashes playfully with THAT answer. I suppose one boyfriend in high school. And then there's Jessica....

6. How often do you masturbate? Daily? Few times a week? Usually a few times a week. My sex life with my husband is good. In fact, I often masturbate while we're making love. It gets things off to a wondeful start.

7. Favorite place to masturbate? In bed. I have tried other places, but it's easier to focus on the task at hand (pardon my pun).

8. Favorite subject to masturbate about? A vibrator makes me come like with another woman, so I usually think of being taken that way.

9. Do you have a fetish? If so, what? Reading.

10. Are you dominant, submissive, or both in the bedroom? I just like to feel good. I "go with the flow." I'm not into whips, handcuffs and the like.

11. Tied up? Blindfolded? Spanks? Wax? P. spanked me once. He blindfolded me another time. But it's not something I find terribly compelling, or anything I want to do on a regular basis. More like eating a rich dessert: don't make a habit of it, or it may lose its specialness. I had my legs waxed once. That was pretty painful.

12. Lingerie? Stockings? That's for guys. I wear them to please men. They're uncomfortable and expensive. Nothing will ruin a sexy evening for me faster than running a pair of $12 stockings the first time I wear them.

13. Foreplay... what is your technique? Lots of kissing, followed by fingers.

14. Do you role play with your significant other? If so, what is your favorite? Hmmm, we pretend different things, usually with me as some kind of slut, or as if we had another woman in bed.

15. Do you frequent a naughty store, catalog order? No!! I'd be too embarrassed.

17. How old were you when you first saw a dirty magazine? Nineteen. It was a Swedish photo mag with a couple doing all the usual things. Another letter carrier in the post office showed it to me. I was never sure about her sexual orientation, so use your own judgment about why she wanted me to look at it. The last page showed the man ejaculating on her face. I remember feeling both grossed out and simultaneously fascinated by it, and that they'd allowed themselves to be photographed in that very intimate way. I realized later they probably weren't a couple, just a couple of models hired for the shoot. I have learned a lot in the past six years.

18. Do you currently have a subscription? If so, which ones? Are you kidding! No!

19. Do have a porn movie collection? [W.S. Cross replies: the VCR had not yet become widespread in 1975]

22. Have you performed or know what a Dirty Sanchez is? Don't know.

23. Boat? Train? Motorcycle? ATV? ????? P. told me "pulling a train" means to have sex with a whole string of people one after the other. He tells me I'm multi-orgasmic enough to do something like that.

24. A member of the Mile-High club? ????

25. Do you have a name for your genital area? If so, who named it? No!

26. Which way does your clitoral clock wind? Clockwise, or counter clockwise? Don't know. Whichever way gets me off.

27. What do you like to best after sex? Cuddle? Fall asleep? Go get something to eat? Cuddle. I want to feel loved.

28. How often is good enough? Dunno, every day? Certainly not every week!

29. Sexual music preferences? Nothing too complicated or distracting. Rock music makes me want to get up and dance, so nothing with a strong beat.

30. If you could pick anyone, who would you do? My husband, P. Then maybe S. Any attractive woman who's not passive and wimpy.

The Same Interview with P.

2005-08-22T09:35:00.000-04:00

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This is the final version of the interview format borrowed from The Holiday Life with his permission and is based on a suggestion by the bewitching Viviane at Viviane's Sex Carnival. I posted it earlier for Cassie at 24 and S. at 21. This will be for P. at 28. Some of you have strong opinions about Cassie's husband, negative and positive. Here's your chance to get to know him a little better.

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
To live without Cassie.

Where would you like to live?
I hate big cities, and prefer universities.

What is your idea of earthly happiness?
To study the great works of literature and perhaps write.

To what faults do you feel most indulgent?
I tend to be intolerant of others' faults.

Who is your favorite hero of contemporary fiction? I haven't read any contemporary fiction since Cassie and I read The Godfather out loud when we were painting our apartment in LA. I must say I admired Michael Corleone for his strength.

Who are your favorite characters in history?
Lincoln, because he saved the Union.

Your favorite painter?
Franz Marc, the German expressionist.

Your favorite composer?
Beethoven, especially his late string quartets.

Your favorite musician?
I once drank Southern Comfort with Janis Joplin. I love the music of "The Summer of Love," including The Jefferson Airplane, The Doors, Moby Grape.

Your favorite film?
"The Conformist" by Bertolucci. The several narrative strands are as good as any novel.

The qualities you most admire in a man?
Honesty and integrity.

The physical qualities you most admire in a man?
I'm not attracted to men.

The qualities you most admire in a woman?
Energy and sweetness. Cassie has both.

Favorite ethnic or racial type?
Italian-American women are lovely, but their passions are sometimes hard for me to deal with. I'm the product of a repressed WASP upbringing.

The physical qualities you most admire in a woman?
I've always been a tit man.

How old where you when you had your first sexual experience with a woman?
I was eighteen, rather late to the party. Too bookish and tight.

What was the age difference?
She was a senior in high school, so perhaps the same age.

Conventional sex?
Yes.

How old where you when you had your first sexual experience with a man?
I have never slept with a man, and have no interest in doing so.

Where is the most outrageous locale you had sex with a woman?
Cassie and I once had sex on the shore of Lake Tahoe.

Where is the most outrageous locale you had sex with both a man and a woman?
I would prefer not to answer that question.

Have you had sexual experiences with the friend of a girlfriend or spouse?
No.

Have you had sexual experiences with a colleague of your girlfriend/spouse?
No.

Have you had sexual experiences with a colleague from the office?
Yes. Cassie and I slept with a woman grad student from the German Department.

Have you ever watched your significant other have sex with another woman?
Yes. Several times.

Is this your most enduring obsession?
I wouldn't call it that. I very much enjoyed it, especially because Cassie did.

What have you watched precisely?
Just about everything.

Are you a voyeur?
I suppose. Aren't all of us potential voyeurs?

Has your wife ever watched you having sex with another woman?
Yes, we've had several trios.

Have you ever paid money for sex?
No.

Have you ever accepted money for sex?
I assume you're joking?

Your favorite virtue?
Honesty.

Your favorite occupation?
I plan on teaching at the university level when I finish my PhD.

Your most marked characteristic?
I don't feel comfortable talking about myself, especially if it sounds like bragging.

What is your principle defect?
Intolerance for the weaknesses of others.

What is your favorite occupation?
College professor.

What is your dream of happiness?
To finish my PhD, find a good teaching job, write the Great American Novel, and make Cassie happy.

What would you like to be?
A good husband and someday a father.

Who are your favorite writers?
Faulkner, Mann, Walther von der Vogelweide, Theodor Fontane.

What are your favorite works of literature?
Bleak House, Great Expectations, Goethe's Elective Affinities. Trakl's poems, Rilke's Sonnets to Orpheus. The list is quite long.

Who is your favorite character of fiction?
Tristan. Although lately I feel more like King Mark in that story.

What works of fiction have influenced your sexual proclivities?
1984.

Who is your hero in real life?
Paul de Man.

What person in popular culture do you admire most?
John Cleese from "Monty Python's Flying Circus."

What is it you most dislike?
Knowing that Cassie is miserable at Yale and not being able to do anything about it.

What event in history do you most admire?
The Civil War.

What natural gift would you most like to possess?
A wicked wrist shot.

How would you like to die?
At peace in my bed.

What is your present state of mind?
I'd rather not say. Things recently have been very tough.

Our First Contest: Cassie in 2005

2005-08-18T09:10:00.000-04:00

Here's your chance to win a free art photograph, signed and numbered, like the one above. Blogger users can enter a comment. If you prefer, email your responses to:

wscross at gmail dot com.

I have not posted enough of the novel for fans of this site to know Cassie completely, but below is a list of characteristics about her circa 1975. Following that list is one containing questions about what Cassie would be like today. There are no “right” answers, so let your intuition and instincts lead you.

First Prize: The entry with the best projection of Cassie’s character 30 years after the novel takes place will win a copy of the photograph (a $50 value).

Second Prize: A Beyond You & Me T-shirt signed by the author.

Third prize: No third prize, just the satisfaction of getting mentioned.

All entries become the property of the author.

In 1975, Cassie was:
1. 24 years old
2. Married
3. Working as a secretary
4. A McGovern Democrat
5. Had erotic relationships with men and women
6. Did not want kids
7. Listened to the Blues
8. Lived in New Haven, CT
9. Wanted to attend Yale
10. Kept a journal

In 2005, Do you think Cassie is
1. Still living? Not everyone made it out of the Sexual Revolution alive
2. Married, divorced, single?
3. What kind of work is she doing?
4. Is she a Republican, Democrat or Independent?
5. Gay, bisexual or straight?
6. Childless or has kids?
7. What kinds of music does she listen to?
8. Where does she live now?
9. Did she ever attend college? Was it Yale?
10. Still keeps a journal? Writes a blog? Is too busy for either?

Now everyone enter! Otherwise Demon Queen will end up with all three prizes.

Fans from the Erotica Readers & Writers Association

2005-08-16T22:26:00.000-04:00

WE JUST WENT PAST THE

40,000 VISITOR MARK!

I'm glad to be a member of the Erotica Readers & Writers Association. It's a collective of writers and fans of erotica, which this novel has become by default. When I wrote it, I thought I was writing literary fiction with good sex scenes. The acceptance by the erotica community has been much more so than by the literary fiction community, whose members usually have their noses so high up, their heads bend around up their asses.

Several members of ERWA have become fans. One is TreSart, whose site combines lovely self-portraits and some smoking short erotica. The photos are sensuous and evocative (see above). The site loads slowly and occasionally hangs, but it's worth the wait.

Another ERWA fan goes by the name of Remittance Girl. A "remittance man" was the black sheep of the family in Victorian England who was sent off to the furthest reaches of the Empire and sent a "remittance," or allowance. It's certainly a distinctive name! She's a Canadian who has lived for the past few years in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam (Saigon for those of you from Cassie's era). She writes a powerful mix of styles and perspectives, all part of a robust collection posted on her site. I suggest you browse through them if you'd like a combination of good prose and arousing subject matter.

An ERWA writer I don't know well, but who has been tireless in promoting cooperation between its members in marketing one another's work has been E. L. Frederick. While Beyond You & Me did not make his list of "Authors of Particular Brilliance" (Remittance Girl did), I certainly appreciate being on his blogroll and promise not to pout.

Regina Stark uses her blog to post fragments and story ideas, so it's an excellent way to see "work-in-progress" and follow the developments of an erotica writer bringing her work to completion.

Jennifer Bianco's blog is more chatty and informational, while her erotica site Sensual Magick is a combination of erotica and witchcraft. Wicca is big these days, and Jennifer is riding a good wave.

Kathleen Bradean is also more informational, devoted to promoting work she enjoys and in general a pleasant read. She has been a good editor of short fiction I have been writing with another author. And her posting on the new astrology signs is, well, yummy.

And while not an ERWA member, Kinkabella's Erotic Fiction & Fantasies is some of the most searing sex writing I've come across (no pun intended, but what the hell?). Heavily into BDSM, the account of her enslavement by "Mike" and the submissive things he leads her into (in the library no less) with her male co-workers will simultaneously arouse and scare the living daylights out of you- not unlike a spine-tingling roller coaster ride!

UPDATE: At my suggestion Kinkabella (pen name for Ingrid Hawthorne) has joined ERWA. Her blog is growing nicely, and is interesting because of her personal revelations and openness. I feel like I have known her forever, and she's totally comfortable in revealing the most intimate details of her life as a "bottom."

Judith Miller is Still in Jail

2005-08-15T11:45:00.000-04:00

The New York Times reminds us in an editorial today that Judith Miller is still in jail for refusing to reveal a journalistic source. For those of you who are joining this late, we already mentioned this travesty of justice in a previous post.

The editorial goes on to say that if Ms. Miller hasn't cracked by now, it's not likely keeping her in jail another six weeks until the Grand Jury's term expires is going to produce any results. At this point, it's punitive, if it wasn't simply that all along.

If you have not already done so, please send a letter of support to this brave, smart woman who understands better than our government that secret sources are absolutely necessary to having a free and effective press.

Whatever your political persuasion, you are better off in a society where journalists can seek out the facts and report things that their sources could not reveal without anonymity. While less than perfect, this system is still superior by far to one where the newspapers are in thrall to the powers-that-be. So if you haven't done so already, write that letter!

Attn: Judith Miller
Inmate Number 45570083
Alexandria Detention Center
2001 Mill Rd
Alexandria, VA 22314-4600

Thanks to Viviane for this suggestion. Who says sex bloggers aren't civic-minded?

Sexy Fans

2005-08-13T13:40:00.000-04:00

Erotica Lee 1 is a flat-out gorgeous site. Lili G. has a bit of CassieÂs background (Italian-Canadian instead of Italian-American). She combines lush writing with PhotoShop-type enhanced erotic photography of herself taken by her husband (actually PS is too generic for her, she uses 4 specialized image-manipulation programs). A long-time supporter and link to Beyond You & Me, her site is one of the really special treats for the eye and the mind. The product of an incredibly rocky childhood (her mother committed suicide when she was 13), she learned about sex on the streets turning tricks. Makes Cassie's struggles seem puny in comparison. She actually has more than one site, with Erotica Lee 2 entirely visual, Morph Naked for heavily-manipulated photography, Erotica Lee 3 for interviews, etc..

One blog that's coming on strong is The Rosary. Unlike with Beyond You & Me where I will only be posting some of the book, the author of The Rosary is putting up a chapter a day. It's the story of a married couple of swingers and their move from fantasy to reality. There are some cool touches, including the fact that it's written by a woman, but in the voice of a man. There's also a German lover involved (Claudia), so naturally I was intrigued. The writing is straightforward and descriptive, without the over-the-top smut superlatives and jargon ("I was cumming and cumming"). The sex isn't described in florid detail, either. When Pete and Pen and their swinging partners Alex and Grace end up in a Paris sex club, the wildest it gets is Grace giving a stranger a blowjob: "From the acceleration in his breathing and his thrusting pelvis, I sensed that Laurent was on the verge of coming. Instinctively, I pulled back as he burst, adorning Grace's pale face and dark hair with his pearly necklace. Like dominoes, the men masturbating behind us followed on with their own noisy ejaculations, going over the edge one by one." This one definitely deserves a wide audience.

Girls, you owe it to yourselves to check out Remmy at Der Versucher ("the tempter," also a nickname for Satan). My father always told me "do one thing and do it well." Remmy's blog is mostly very creative photos of his penis. It sounds, well, odd, but it works. I'm not a connoisseur of male genitalia, but I do admire the moxy and self-confidence. He's trim and youngish, so it works as erotica, though it IS sorta narrow in focus. German boys with sex appeal, Cassie would understand that!

One of the better rundowns of things sexual is Viviane's Sex Carnival. A sort of NY Post "Page Six" for sex, Viviane recounts whatever's hot in the world of carnality. A friend and playmate of Jefferson and Madeline, she's lovely in her Anna May Wong B & W portrait. Where's Dietrich from "Shanghai Express"?

And finally, the newest girl on the block is Dr. Susan Block. Former Yalie (Class of 1977) and contemporary of the real Cassie, a PhD sex therapist, cable TV and radio show hostess, and all-around sexual mischief-maker, Suzy is a combination of insatiable tease, fun-maker and sex cheerleader. Her outrageous site both promotes her shows and books, as well as offering a "members only" portion for behind-the-scenes access to the antics of her libidinous guests: porn stars doing all the imagination can imagine, erotic performance artists, and anyone connected with sex. Yours truly has an open invitation to be a guest on her show when it's time for a book tour to LA. I wonder if I should bother with a new wardrobe or just bring along a thong? Dr. Suzy is more than just another media erotica peddler, and has a serious side to herself and her website, including a foundation for research into pygmy chimpanzees (very horny chimps, her site points out). This site is really a lot of fun and has so many facets to it, I can't begin to describe them all, except to say you'll enjoy yourself at every turn.

An Interview with S.

2005-08-11T14:12:00.000-04:00

This interview format was stolen from The Holiday Life with his permission and is based on a suggestion by the bewitching Viviane at Viviane's Sex Carnival. I posted it earlier for Cassie at 24; this will be S. at 21. For those of you who are new, S. is a German-born undergraduate who Cassie befriends and then agrees to type his Senior thesis. It's a long research paper Yale undergrads have to complete before they get their sheepskin. And since this is 1975, there are no personal computers, so he needs to have a human being type it. The two become friends, and then Cassie begins to become infatuated with him. Most of the first half of the novel is the slippery slope she slides down as the infatuation grows. Although the novel is written in Cassie's voice, I thought readers might enjoy knowing a little more about S. (Cassie only refers to him as "S." and her husband only as "P.").

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
To live without love.

Where would you like to live?
New York or Paris.

What is your idea of earthly happiness?
Mmmm, lots of beautiful women.

To what faults do you feel most indulgent?
Sloth and lust.

Who is your favorite hero of contemporary fiction?
I am very fond of Hesse's Demian. Peter Handke's poor goalie in The Goalie's Anxiety Before the Penalty Kick.

Who are your favorite characters in history?
Frederick the Great, because he was German but spoke fluent French instead. Seems like a good model for ex-patriot Krauts like myself.

Your favorite painter?
I'm especially drawn to Dürer and his vainglorious "Self Portrait" in the pose of the Christ.

Your favorite composer?
Brahms, Bach, it's hard to say.

Your favorite musician?
Do you mean American pop stars? I don't follow them. I like American jazz, especially the music of Coltrane.

Your favorite film?
"The Conformist" by Bertolucci. The lesbian tango sequence would make it worth the price of admission, but the way that it captures the bombastic qualities of fascism is just brilliant.

The qualities you most admire in a man?
A firm handshake and a tolerant attitude if I seduce his wife.

The physical qualities you most admire in a man?
A good jaw line makes me respectful, though I'm not really sexually aroused by men.

The qualities you most admire in a woman?
Great legs and a good ass. The shoulders are the most sensuous part of a woman, however. Oh, you're talking about moral qualities? A good sense of humor and honesty.

Favorite ethnic or racial type?
Italian-Americans at present.

The physical qualities you most admire in a woman?
Great legs. I said that, didn't I? American men are consumed with breasts, and I must confess that I've become more interested in them since meeting a particular American woman.

How old where you when you had your first sexual experience with a woman?
I was thirteen.

What was the age difference?
She was in her 20s I would suspect. A Parisian prostitute.

Conventional sex?
My performance was, shall I say, abbreviated. But the goal was what you Americans call "missionary sex."

How old where you when you had your first sexual experience with a man?
I was 16.

What was the age difference?
No difference. He was a friend.

Conventional sex?
That's a funny question. Actually, I hardly remember anything. I was so totally in awe of him, I would have done anything he asked.

Where is the most outrageous locale you had sex with a woman?
In a taxi going down Fifth Avenue in Manhattan with my Jewish dumpling. She was late for a ballet recital and was changing in the back seat. Being a gentleman, I offered to help.

Where is the most outrageous locale you had sex with a man?
Well, since I am not a flaming queen, I can't claim any outrageous locales. My experience was, how shall I put it? Discrete and mercifully brief.

Where is the most outrageous locale you had sex with both a man and a woman?
My only experience with a man and a woman together is something recent, something I would rather say as little as possible about.

Have you had sexual experiences with the friend of a girlfriend or spouse?
No.

Have you had sexual experiences with a colleague of your girlfriend/spouse?
No.

Have you had sexual experiences with a colleague from the office?
Well, I am a university student, and I thankfully am unemployed!

Have you ever watched your significant other have sex with another woman?
I'm sorry to say no. I have suggested it to Cassie, but I don't know whether it's something she would consider.

Is this your most enduring obsession?
Mmmmmm, I can't say it is not.

What have you watched precisely?
Only pornographic films for the most part. Very interesting, but ultimately frustrating.

Are you a voyeur?
Hmmmm, I haven't had enough experience to know for sure.

Has your girlfriend ever watched you having sex with another woman?
Sadly, no.

Have you ever paid money for sex?
Yes, many times.

Have you ever accepted money for sex?
No.

Your favorite virtue?
Piety, of which I have little.

Your favorite occupation?
Writing. I hope to become a famous college professor someday.

Your most marked characteristic?
The ability to squander an almost limitless amount of time.

What is your principle defect?
A capacity for self-doubt that defies all successes.

What is your favorite occupation?
College professor, followed by lion tamer.

What is your dream of happiness?
To sail down the Nile on a barge covered with rose petals. Failing that, to be comfortable enough to travel, beloved enough never to be lonely, intelligent enough to know how to do them both.

What would you like to be?
Finished with my Senior Thesis.

Who are your favorite writers?
Handke, Thomas Mann, Hesse.

What are your favorite works of literature?
Great Expectations quite recently. Goethe still has resonance for Germans.

Who is your favorite character of fiction?
Demian. I wish I were more like him.

What works of fiction have influenced your sexual proclivities?
Against the Grain, Philosophy in the Bedroom, The Man with a Maid, The Autobiography of a Flea.

Who is your hero in real life?
After Hitler, Germans are notoriously gun-shy of heroes.

What person in popular culture do you admire most?
Jesus, that's very difficult. I don't even follow the Bundesliga players-- that's what you Americans call soccer. I'm particularly fond of movies, so Raquel Welch?

What is it you most dislike?
Feeling as though other people can see inside me.

What event in history do you most admire?
The French Revolution, minus the beheadings.

What natural gift would you most like to possess?
Other than a greater masculine endowment? Hmmm, I suppose patience.

How would you like to die?
With a woman's lips wrapped around.... No, seriously, I would hope I would be struck down by a car walking home from confession. I'm afraid I'm terribly Catholic in that regard. Whatever sins I commit, I want to be absolved of them and be welcomed into Heaven like the prodigal son.

What is your present state of mind?
Totally infatuated with Cassie.

Chapter 12 (June 11th) complete

2005-08-07T18:17:00.000-04:00

“Have you ever wanted to sleep with another woman?”

Like I said before, S. relished catching me off-guard with provocative, impertinent questions. In that way, he reminded me of Inspector Clouseau in the “Pink Panther” movies and his man servant, Cato, who's always setting elaborate traps in those movies to test his boss’s skill at avoiding danger (he fails to great comic effect). We were sitting at the kitchen table when he asked me as I slogged away at the Selectric. My head was turning to a bad grade of mush after typing, compounded by round after round of joking back-and-forth, both exhilarating and exhausting my feeble brain:

— Let me ask you this: if you could only love one person in your life, only find True Love in one instance, and the moment for choosing that person lasted no more than a single day—or even less— do you think you could recognize that moment as your one opportunity for happiness? Would you realize “this is the one”?

— I’ll do you one better: suppose that One True Love was impeded in some major fashion, what then?

— Meaning?

— Why is it we assume love will come to us all neatly-wrapped up like a present? What if our Great Love, la grande passion as our Frog friends would say, was tied up in some manner?

— Tied up S&M-style tied up? Oooh, tell me more.

— No, tied up in a prior relationship: engaged— or even married.

— Likely only a loser would be totally free. Anyone worth having is already involved with another.

— Exactly, we have to compete for the object of our affections.

— What do you think romance is, a form of sexual Olympics?

— Why not? Simone de Beauvoir has turned sex into politics. Men and women are now fighting for power in the bedroom.

— They always were. It’s just that she identified the game. Beauvoir sketched out the parameters women have always felt and intuited, clarifying what once was only implied.

— Yes, and the superpowers have made the Olympics political, look at the East Germans.

— We have our Germans and the Soviets have their Germans.

— The Soviet Union is a fiction. They’re Russians, the same as East Germans and West Germans are still, underneath it all, Germans.

— Stop changing the subject!

— If you have any doubts, ask yourself why is it the East German Army still goose-steps?
I stopped typing so we could walk to the Orange Market to get some decaf coffee (real coffee and the usual amount of flirtatious banter would keep me up all night, there are limits). He’d probably been waiting for the right time to spring the question on me.

It unleashed a memory I hadn’t disturbed in almost eight years, and I didn’t answer just then. We were walking along Clark Street when he asked again (as I knew he would, S. never lets a provocative question go unanswered).

“Have you ever wanted to sleep with another woman?”

“Does having erotic dreams about Toni Tennille count?”

He tried cupping his hand to his mouth, but it was no use: most of the Scotch he’d sipped from the paper cupful he’d brought along came out in a geyser, spraying both of us with its bitter, acrid, aromatic cloud. We were laughing too much to care. “Dare I admit I get wet every time I hear ‘Love Will Keep Us Together’? You won’t reveal my secret, will you?”

“And ‘Captain’ Daryl Dragon is her husband? And just what army or navy would have him for a captain?”

“The same one that would have her luscious ass in that tight-fitting sailor’s uniform she wears on stage.” S. blinked hard, his mind hadn’t expected that kind of comeback or it revealing as much about my “uniform thing.” My short skirts and stockings had given him a completely different idea, and I thought it fun confounding his expectations of me. “Actually, though—“

It was the very last Saturday night of Summer vacation the year I graduated high school. I was starting at Temple the following Monday, and several girlfriends who were hanging out together called me to suggest we go out to a movie, a last “girls night out” before we went mostly separate ways. I started looking through the paper to see what was playing downtown, and my gaze fell on one in particular. In a brave voice, I blurted out “Therese and Isabelle. Let’s go see an X-rated film.” I knew nothing about it other than that it was X-rated, I’m not sure I even knew why it was rated X or even what an X-rating meant, other than that it was naughty in some mysterious way. I wanted to be bold and provocative; going to an X-rated film seemed brash and reckless (the ad warned “no one under 18 admitted, identities will be checked at the door,” insuring every teenager alive would try and sneak in).

“Why that particular X-rated film and not one of the usual stag films?”

“Simple— I didn’t want to go to a sleazy porn house full of degenerate men ready to jump on one or all of us and spray us with— uh, cum.”

S. burst out laughing so loud it echoed off the façade of the Belnord, this huge apartment building we had to pass each way. I was glad it was dark out, I was blushing from using that word for the first time in my life (except with P.). Because it was a first, I enjoyed my naughtiness, it made me feel brash and modern and audacious the same as that night we went to see “Therese and Isabelle.”

“I probably rationalized things by thinking or saying it would help me learn French.”

“Ah, what kind of French?”

“The ads didn’t make it seem sleazy, and all my friends knew I was signed up to take Basic French.”

“But the movie was in English. I saw it with German subtitles.”

“I didn’t know that then.”

Four of us were planning on going: me, Stephanie, Gina and Rochelle, and it seemed as brazen and daring a thing as I’d ever done. I didn’t tell my boyfriend at the time, nor any of my other friends, and I’ve never told Patrick. I caught the uptown bus with Stephanie and Gina, and the three of us joked about whether we might run into someone we knew. When we got to the theater, Rochelle was waiting with her friend, Judy, in tow, and I remember being pissed about it. I didn’t want our going to this film to get around my old high school— I don’t know why, we were all going our separate ways, yet that night we were still five high school girls from South Philly. Plus I was worried they might not let us in. I was only ready to go so far in being bold, and this was about the limit of it.

My jitters passed quickly enough, we were soon preoccupied with buying the tickets. Rochelle was petrified we’d need ID, she was only 17 like me, but looked 12. It would’ve been really humiliating if they’d turned us away at the door.

“’Don’t worry,’ I boasted, ‘I’ve got fake ID if they ask.’ I don’t have to tell you the old man in the ticket booth couldn’t have cared less if we’d been school girls in stockings and uniforms.”

“Stockings AND uniforms? Ahh, what an absolutely lovely thought,” S. nearly licked his lips. I slapped him playfully on the wrist; it kept me from staring at those same lips— or slapping his face on general principle, both impulses came over me simultaneously. In the interim, we got our coffee and headed back to Clark Street, with S. pouring the remaining Scotch into his.

I think part of the reason I was mad at Rochelle was jealousy. She was my best friend at the time, and Stephanie and Gina were inseparable, so I felt a mild sense of betrayal Rochelle had brought Judy along, especially since she was in 11th grade and might’ve screwed up our getting in. Gina said we should all go in as a group, even though the movie was about two women, no one seeing us would think anything peculiar, right? Just girl’s night out, right? We all laughed a little too loud, all except Stephanie, who looked pained and seemed like she’d bolt if we hadn’t all locked arms and headed for the door.

We sailed in without a hitch, then found a section with only a few single guys and plopped ourselves down.

I don’t remember most of the movie, though some parts are quite vivid because I was concentrating REALLY HARD on them. Some of that was not wanting to look around, the I-don’t-want-to-be-recognized-in-a-porn-palace paranoia. I certainly didn’t want to look at the others, not Rochelle and Judy who giggled at all the sex parts, and not at Stephanie and Gina, who seemed serious and even sad watching. Mostly I studied every scene because I’d never seen anything quite like it. It was pretty tame by what you can see now, even at Yale: bare bodies, mostly bare breasts, and no shots of actual sex, though a lot was cleverly suggested.

Despite its limitations, somehow the story and the girl-girl sex fascinated me, especially the voiceover with all these literary allusions to her clitoris as a pearl or the artful way the act of Sapphic love was described. It was so gentle, two women loving one another slowly and softly. The film’s goal was to be arousing and titillating, not overt and aggressive. I felt cheated and let down that it took the two women so long to get together for the "main event," with so much of the plot about the boarding school they attended. And once they got around to having sex, the plot lost all its tension, sorta like a sagging rubber band. The ending was even worse: the movie just seemed to run out of gas. I especially disliked having one of the lovers recall the whole thing years later during a return visit to the boarding school where all the action took place. The film ended, and the five of us headed straight for the exits without saying a word.

"I guess that was my first initiation, both into X-rated films and the vagueness of French movies."

S. laughed out loud again, so loud a neighbor walking into his house looked up and scowled at us. I stuck out my tongue. I felt sagacious and witty, and as we were almost at the apartment, I didn’t feel ready to go in just yet. Besides, this discussion needed to remain outside.

"All in all, an X-rated movie made a good beginning to our 'bright college years.' [the Yale anthem] I don’t recall any of us mentioning a thing about it on the bus home; stranger still, I never discussed it with any of them afterwards. There’s also a really funny ending to the story—not funny ha-ha, but weird. Only a year or so ago I found out why Stephanie and Gina were so serious and sad: they were having this passionate schoolgirl Therese and Isabelle affair no one knew anything about at the time. Then one day freshman year of college Stephanie broke it off, and got engaged to a guy at almost the same time. Gina nearly had a nervous breakdown. She’s still carrying a huge torch for Stephanie, who’s cut off all communication with her. Won’t even speak with her on the phone. After she got married, Stephanie and her husband moved to some hick town in western Maryland. He teaches at this tiny college, and they almost never go back to Philadelphia." S. simply went "Hmm" or some other sound indicating thought and pondering, then looked at me with his most piercing smile.

"A MOST interesting story, Mis-sus Campbell. You have, however," and here he adopted a perfect imitation of the Hollywood Gestapo interrogator, "avoided answering zee qwestion: have you ever vanted zu zleep mit anodder vooman." He was right. I'd gotten too absorbed in my remembrance of things past, and I didn't even have a Madeleine to show for it like ol' Proust!

"You are cor-rect, Herr Retter," I teased in my best "Hogen's Heroes" accent. "Ever since I found out about those two, I have not-- unlike most of my friends-- spent time looking for clues we failed to pick up on. All they can think about is 'how did we ever miss it?' and 'oh, I knew all along.' Me? I wonder how Stephanie could feel so intensely, then simply slam the door on those feelings." I was shivering from the cold by now; on the other side of the door I could be warm and safe, my home with P. beckoned to me, yet I was more sure than ever I didn't want to go in right then, at least not as long as we were discussing sex.

It sounds weird, but I not only never told P. anything about "Therese and Isabelle," I never mentioned Stephanie and Gina. Let this kind of talk stay outside, especially with P. not home yet. "To answer your question: have I thought about sex with another woman? I would have to answer: yes."

"All right, give, Mis-sus Campbell. You don't think I'm letting you off the hook with a one-word answer do you?"

"No, but I figured I would make you wait for your gratification."

"Gratification postponed is gratification enhanced! And postponed gratification is better than no gratification at all."

"Shut the fuck up, you silly boy. Yes, I've thought about it. More than thought about it."

Last Fall, I tried out for a student production of a play at Jonathan Edwards, one of the residence colleges. See at Yale, they group the dorms into "colleges," walled, gated compounds turning their backs to the outside world, perfect wombs for growing loyal alumni who'll fork over big bucks later hoping to get their own spawn admitted. Morse-Stiles where S. lived is the one modern dorm complex on campus-- modern and UGLY. I've seen better-looking Holiday Inns. Anyway, I'd never been in a play before. My chorus teacher senior year suggested I try out for a part in "The Bells Are Ringing," but my father was in a bad mood that night at dinner when I told my parents about it, and he made fun of the idea. That was the end of "The Bells Are Ringing."

I picked a goofy choice for a first-time play, too: Pirandello's Right You Are If You Think You Are, a weird modern play with all kinds of weirder associations. I didn't care. I'd read about the auditions in the Yale Daily News, and tried out and got a part! I was excited and nervous and thoroughly entranced. At least it would take my mind off Manuscripts. I enjoyed the whole experience on many levels besides; for one thing, it meant no time to fix dinners and my evenings were taken up with rehearsals (no time to be bored and restless).

One of the other women in the cast was so pretty and glamorous-- of course she knew it and flaunted her looks all over the place-- so much so, the rest of the cast and crew called her "The Mirror," because she was always combing her hair or checking out her make-up. At one rehearsal, she and I were sitting off by ourselves waiting for our scene. I was on the edge of a prop crate, she was above me perched on a step ladder, combing her long hair with her hands, dangling it against my cheek.

"I felt a shiver go right down into my, well, crotch." I felt bold saying that word in front of him, too. Sigh, I guess I am provocative.

"Hmmm, I'd like to have seen THAT."

"My crotch, or her and me?" I shot back.

"Well, it would be ungentlemanly of me to say anything more than 'the two of you together,' though that's a fairly roguish idea in its own right, if I may say so."
I'm sure Carol (that was the woman's name) knew her hair was brushing against my face, and it infuriated me her playing the tease that way. I kept wishing I had the guts to stand up and kiss her right on the mouth. I kept daring myself every time the hair brushed along my face, and Carol kept letting it brush against me until finally, I don't know if it was my dare to myself, being pissed off at her goading me that way, or what, but I really did stand up, kissed her hard on the mouth.

"She jumped like I'd shoved an electric cord up her ass, fell right off the ladder and burst into tears. I turned around and walked away."

I was getting so cold I was shivering, my teeth chattered enough to make me mangle my words, so we went inside and slogged away some more on the typing. Afterward, if S. ever wanted to tease or tweak me, he'd pretend to brush long hair or make a kissing gesture with his hand. I'd simply smile.

I didn't tell him just then about Alex.

Fans August 2005 (sorry, almost no sex)

2005-08-03T11:58:00.000-04:00

While a lot of Cassie's fans are sex bloggers, there are numerous ones who just like what they read here. A True Jersey Girl is pretty much representative of the modern woman today: opinionated, generous, funny, talkative, down-to-earth, a lady who speaks her mind and has lots of friends leaving funny comments on her site. Sub-titled "Big Hair, Bon Jovi and Bruce," she's just as likely to show you her family photos as tell you why the governor pissed her off recently. Ever wonder how Jersey girls think? Here's your chance to find out.

An early fan was Grad Student Madness. Like S. he's a student of European history. Cassie is typing S.'s Senior thesis (on the Versailles Convention) after she meets him in Yale Library's "Manuscripts & Archives" division. He's researching the Edward House papers on the Versailles negotiations (a big-wig in Woodrow Wilson's administration and a past president of Yale). How can a novel that has Paul de Man and Deconstruction not like a blog that talks about Derrida, the inventor of the movement? Sorry, no sex, just ideas!

Another blog from academe is The Invisible Adjunct. Adjuncts are instructors hired by colleges and universities to teach individual courses. They are poorly-paid, get no benefits, and usually are not eligible for tenure, the system that allows professors to gain lifetime employment. The site is now dormant because its author reluctantly gave up her quest to join the world of full-time tenured professorship, but it's a wealth of information and links to other things in the world of academe.

Now Pussy Ranch sounds pretty salacious and more like many of our regular fans, especially if you consider it's written by an ex-stripper who will show photos of herself dressed in nothing but a whipped cream bra. But there's actually very little sex here, just funny observations on life and no comments allowed by the peanut gallery. Diablo Cody is too busy sorting out things for herself to bother with any interference. Witty, funny at times, always off-beat.

More up the alley of its name is Pussy Talk by DTG (Dirty Talking Girl). One of the better sex blogs out there, the writing is snappy, the themes are racy and salacious, and there's almost no bullshit factor (ads, photos, distracting stuff). If you like your sex writing cool and unemotional (the polar opposite of the searing, passionate Demon Queen, Freya, or O), then be sure to blogroll DTG's Pussy Talk.

An Interview with Cassie

2005-08-01T14:09:00.000-04:00

This interview format was stolen from The Holiday Life with his permission and is based on a suggestion by the bewitching Viviane at Vivian's Sex Carnival. His responses were so much more interesting than mine would be, so I'll have Cassie answer them as she would have at 24.

What do you regard as the lowest depth of misery?
To work at Yale another minute.

Where would you like to live?
New York. Failing that, Philadelphia.

What is your idea of earthly happiness?
To have a ménage a trois with P. and S.

To what faults do you feel most indulgent?
Temptation.

Who is your favorite hero of contemporary fiction?
I don't read much contemporary fiction. I suppose Miss Marple because she doesn't give a damn about her looks and can solve any murder case you throw at her.

Who are your favorite characters in history?
Clara Barton, Elizabeth Blackwell (the first woman doctor) and Florence Nightingale (who liked to sleep with women).

Your favorite painter?
Van Gogh, especially his "Sunflowers."

Your favorite composer?
Brahms, especially his Fourth Symphony and Second Piano Concerto.

Your favorite musician?
Janis Joplin and anybody from Motown, most particularly The Temptations. No double-entendre intended.

Your favorite film?
"The Godfather," of course. The wedding scene is just like my wedding, only grander.

The qualities you most admire in a man?
A strong character and smarts.

The physical qualities you most admire in a man?
Well, P. is tall, I like that. And strong arms to hold me.

Favorite ethnic or racial type?
Anyone but Italians. Not attracted to black guys, at least not that way.

The qualities you most admire in a woman?
Honesty and no game-playing.

Favorite ethnic or racial type?
No preferences.

The physical qualities you most admire in a woman?
I'm drawn to boyish, androgynous women with smallish breasts and short hair, but not butch or masculine.

How old where you when you had your first sexual experience with a woman?
Last year, I was 23.

What was the age difference?
Didn't ask her age, but nothing special.

Conventional sex?
Well, if you can call 69ing each other conventional....

How old where you when you had your first sexual experience with a man?
I was 17.

What was the age difference?
A year, it was my boyfriend senior year of high school.

Conventional sex?
We started with me giving him a hand-job. In fact, he preferred that over sex, which was OK, since I never climaxed with him. P. was the first man I ever came with.

Where is the most outrageous locale you had sex with a woman?
Well, Jessica and I got started in the front seat of my car....

Where is the most outrageous locale you had sex with a man?
Now that I think about it, P. and I had sex in the back seat of the same car up the street from my parents' house when it was still light enough for the neighbors to see what we were doing.

Where is the most outrageous locale you had sex with both a man and a woman?
All my threesomes have been in our apartment on Clark Street.

Have you had sexual experiences with the friend of a boyfriend or spouse?
No.

Have you had sexual experiences with a colleague of your spouse?
Not unless you consider an undergraduate in history a colleague of a grad student in comparative literature. P. brought home a woman grad student from the German Department when he was student teaching last Winter.

Have you had sexual experiences with a male colleague from the office?
Eeeeeuuuww! Are you kidding? With someone from the Yale library? Never!

Have you ever watched your husband have sex with another woman?
Yes.

Is this your most enduring obsession?
Not particularly. P. likes to watch, but I don't care for it.

What have you watched precisely?
Missionary sex, blow-jobs and from behind (hate that term "doggie-style").

Are you a voyeur?
Not much of one. P. is much more into watching.

Has your husband ever watched you having sex with another male?
Yes.

What has she watched precisely?
Fellatio and missionary sex.

What is his biggest turn-on for this scene?
I'm not sure it quite worked out that way. It's too complicated for me to answer here.

Have you ever paid money for sex?
No, but S. did.

Have you ever accepted money for sex?
No!!

Your favorite virtue?
Tolerance.

Your favorite occupation?
Reading.

Your most marked characteristic?
The inability to sit still and concentrate.

What is your principle defect?
The inability to sit still and concentrate.

What is your favorite occupation?
I'd like to be something useful to the world, and not just take up space. Definitely NOT a secretary.

What is your dream of happiness?
A ménage trios involving P. and S.

What would you like to be?
Educated and accepted and no longer bored.

Who are your favorite writers?
Colette, Vita Sackville-West, Dickens.

What are your favorite works of literature?
Great Expectations, the poems of Emily Dickinson, Wuthering Heights.

Who is your favorite character of fiction?
Nancy Drew.

What works of fiction have influenced your sexual proclivities?
The Pure and the Impure.

Who is your hero in real life?
My husband, P. That sounds corny, but it's true.

What person in popular culture do you admire most?
Bobby Clarke of the Philadelphia Flyers followed by George McGovern

What is it you most dislike?
Being treated like a second-class person.

What event in history do you most admire?
The American Revolution

What natural gift would you most like to possess?
Willpower. P. has it in spades, while I just drift through my days.

How would you like to die?
In my bed, rich with many grandchildren (but no kids just yet!)

What is your present state of mind?
Bored with life at Yale, impatient to get started living.

Chapter 12 (June 11th) final installment

2005-07-29T22:12:00.000-04:00

Last Fall, I tried out for a student production of a play at Jonathan Edwards, one of the residence colleges. See at Yale, they group the dorms into "colleges," walled, gated compounds turning their backs to the outside world, perfect wombs for growing loyal alumni who'll fork over big bucks later hoping to get their own spawn admitted. Morse-Stiles where S. lived is the one modern dorm complex on campus-- modern and UGLY. I've seen better-looking Holiday Inns. Anyway, I'd never been in a play before. My chorus teacher senior year suggested I try out for a part in "The Bells Are Ringing," but my father was in a bad mood that night at dinner when I told my parents about it, and he made fun of the idea. That was the end of "The Bells Are Ringing."

I picked a goofy choice for a first-time play, too: Pirandello's Right You Are If You Think You Are, a weird modern play with all kinds of weirder associations. I didn't care. I'd read about the auditions in the Yale Daily News, and tried out and got a part! I was excited and nervous and thoroughly entranced. At least it would take my mind off Manuscripts. I enjoyed the whole experience on many levels besides; for one thing, it meant no time to fix dinners and my evenings were taken up with rehearsals (no time to be bored and restless).

One of the other women in the cast was so pretty and glamorous-- of course she knew it and flaunted her looks all over the place-- so much so, the rest of the cast and crew called her "The Mirror," because she was always combing her hair or checking out her make-up. At one rehearsal, she and I were sitting off by ourselves waiting for our scene. I was on the edge of a prop crate, she was above me perched on a step ladder, combing her long hair with her hands, dangling it against my cheek.

"I felt a shiver go right down into my, well, crotch." I felt bold saying that word in front of him, too. Sigh, I guess I am provocative.

"Hmmm, I'd like to have seen THAT."

"My crotch, or her and me?" I shot back.

"Well, it would be ungentlemanly of me to say anything more than 'the two of you together,' though that's a fairly roguish idea in its own right, if I may say so."
I'm sure Carol (that was the woman's name) knew her hair was brushing against my face, and it infuriated me her playing the tease that way. I kept wishing I had the guts to stand up and kiss her right on the mouth. I kept daring myself every time the hair brushed along my face, and Carol kept letting it brush against me until finally, I don't know if it was my dare to myself, being pissed off at her goading me that way, or what, but I really did stand up, kissed her hard on the mouth.

"She jumped like I'd shoved an electric cord up her ass, fell right off the ladder and burst into tears. I turned around and walked away."

I was getting so cold I was shivering, my teeth chattered enough to make me mangle my words, so we went inside and slogged away some more on the typing. Afterward, if S. ever wanted to tease or tweak me, he'd pretend to brush long hair or make a kissing gesture with his hand. I'd simply smile. I didn't tell him just then about Alex.

(End of Chapter 12)

Beyond You & Me Gets Some Virtual Ink

2005-07-27T09:56:00.000-04:00

The very pretty Jai at The Cusp of Something has noticed Beyond You & Me, as well as its mirror site, 756 Agents & Counting, the all-business side of this novel's journey into print where the behind-the-scenes story of Beyond You & Me is recounted. Editors and agents are talking about the Internet as the place where tomorrow's literary voices can be found today, but it's fascinating how clueless some of them are. I won't bore you with the details, if you're interested in book talk, you can read about it over there.

Suffice it to say that only slightly more than a month after crossing the 10,000 visitor plateau, we're moving beyond 30,000.

CHAPTER 12 (June 11th): Part 5

2005-07-25T18:24:00.000-04:00

(Cassie and S. are walking back from their coffee break at the Orange Market and she has just recounted going to see the lesbian soft-core film "Therese & Isabelle").

"A MOST interesting story, Mis-sus Campbell. You have, however," and here he adopted a perfect imitation of the Hollywood Gestapo interrogator, "avoided answering zee qwestion: have you ever vanted zu zleep mit anodder vooman." He was right. I'd gotten too absorbed in my remembrance of things past, and I didn't even have a Madeleine to show for it like ol' Proust!

"You are cor-rect, Herr Retter," I teased in my best "Hogen's Heroes" accent. "Ever since I found out about those two, I have not-- unlike most of my friends-- spent time looking for clues we failed to pick up on. All they can think about is 'how did we ever miss it?' and 'oh, I knew all along.' Me? I wonder how Stephanie could feel so intensely, then simply slam the door on those feelings." I was shivering from the cold by now; on the other side of the door I could be warm and safe, my home with P. beckoned to me, yet I was more sure than ever I didn't want to go in right then, at least not as long as we were discussing sex.

It sounds weird, but I not only never told P. anything about "Therese and Isabelle," I never mentioned Stephanie and Gina. Let this kind of talk stay outside, especially with P. not home yet. "To answer your question: have I thought about sex with another woman? I would have to answer: yes."

"All right, give, Mis-sus Campbell. You don't think I'm letting you off the hook with a one-word answer do you?"

"No, but I figured I would make you wait for your gratification."

"Gratification postponed is gratification enhanced! And postponed gratification is better than no gratification at all."

"Shut the fuck up, you silly boy. Yes, I've thought about it. More than thought about it."

(to be continued)

Useful Sites

2005-07-23T12:37:00.000-04:00

While the purpose of this blog is to promote the novel Beyond You & Me, that's not limited to excerpts or links to its growing list of fans. I encourage everyone who's following Cassie's adventures (and occasional mis-adventures) to peruse the long list of interesting and arcane things listed on the right. Want to know more about Deconstruction (P.'s obsession)? Or Yale, where the story takes place? Perhaps you'd like to hear the Yale Glee Club sing the school anthem, "Bright College Years"? It's a song Cassie refers to several times in the novel (usually with dripping sarcasm, but not always)? And for those of you keeping score at home, "Bright College Years" is sung to the same anti-French tune that galvanized Germans during three wars: "Die Wacht am Rhein"/Watch on the Rhine." Betcha didn't know that!

It's all here and more, and I'll be highlighting some of these links in future posts (no groaning, please!).

There is also a section called "Useful Sites" (for lack of a better name). These are websites that are interesting, but not necessarily connected to the book or its time period. They are provided as a service to you. Let me point out a few:

MobyLives is a literary web log devoted to books and things about writing and publishing. Consider it guerilla theater from its "world HQ in Hoboken, NJ," across the Hudson River from the behemoth publishing houses that are ruining the world of writing. While much of the book trade seems constipated and elitist to outsiders, this blog is fun enough to read even if you're a "civilian," and a valuable resource to writers and people who like books.

Tiny Nibbles is a melange of interesting, weird and goofy sex stuff. Compiled by sex writer Violet Blue, the site has her favorite porn feeds, information sources and sex toys, as well as some very informative, hands-on talk about fellatio, cunnilingus, rimming, and other activities that get the heart pounding at their very mention.

How can a novel about a casually, accidentally bisexual woman not celebrate Libido Events? Their purpose is to put provide resources to bisexual women, includingconferencess, social events, etc. all (forgive me if I avoid the tacky "bi women" that always smacks of vulgar jargon in favor of one more respectful of this wonderful and empowering notion of flexibility). Now don't get the idea their conferences are dull, dry academic affairs like a Yale Comp. Lit. sherry and cheese party (Cassie went to ONE and ONE ONLY). How about a seminar on "Erotic Wax and Ice-Play: a hands on seminar"? Or "How to Put a Glow On The Cheeks of a Bottom: caning, spanking and more"? Freya could teach THAT one. I'm moist just thinking about it. Their only drawback? They're located in Vancouver, Canada. So unless you're planning on emigrating, or lead Mercurial Girl's jet-set lifestyle, perhaps they can be an inspiration for women in other parts of the world?

Whatever else this site is, it's about writing, and for that reason we celebrate The National Writers Union. Unions have become a favorite whipping boy for politicians of all stripes, but the lot of writers would be materially worse without the NWU. Their most famous triumph was winning a class action lawsuit brought against the NY Times and other publishers who were reprinting on-line articles written before the advent of the Internet. The big-ticket publishers claimed they couldn't pay the writers for the appropriation of their work, all the while paying handsome dividends to stockholders. Ultimately the Supreme Court ruled "no pay, no play." The union continues to look out for freelance writers, providing health insurance, contract dispute resolution, and a host of other valuable services. And, yes, W. S. Cross is proudly listed as a dues-paying member.

And last but most certainly not least, The National Organization for Women (NOW). Young women today sneer at the term feminist, but trust me when I say that girls and women wouldn't have the rights and privileges they do today without the lobbying and information provided by NOW. Women still earn less money than men, and it's still true those who work outside the home are expected to do the cooking and cleaning. While Beyond You & Me is most definitely a fun, sexy read, it's also the story of a woman who discovers empowerment at the dawn of the Women's Movement reading classics like The Feminine Mystique and The Second Sex. Definitely worth a visit, it's not just about strident political issues, but stories of women succeeding!

Sisterhood IS powerful!

Song Tagging: a fun posting

2005-07-20T21:43:00.000-04:00

Demon Queen tagged me for a meme, and this one's kinda cute: songs that characterize a blog. She listed "Fade Into You" by Mazzy Star for Beyond You & Me. Although she only tagged five blogs, I'm going to double her and tag ten, since I doubt Lex from Naked Loft Party hangs out here. I'm tagging some folks I know who do like Avatar, Odd Wife, Anita, and Tara.

Ex-millennial girl: "I'm Not that Innocent," Britney Spears
overworked & underf*cked: "I Will Make You Cry," Nelly Furtado
Fred & Wilma: Theme from "The Flintstones." OK, so it's not very imaginative; how about "Swing, Swing," by The All-American Rejects?

Update July 24th: You MUST go see Wilma's hysterically funny take on "The Flintstones" theme song. XXX-rated, as you'd expect!

Naked Loft Party: "I'm Too Sexy for My Shirt," Right Said Fred

Update July 24th: no word from Lex (did we expect it?), but he did make reference to his "Letters to Penthouse Life"

Freya's House of Dreams: "Addicted to Love," Robert Palmer
The Odd Wife: "You Can Leave Your Hat On," Tom Jones (also by Randy Newman and Joe Cocker)
Wonderland- Or Not: "I Don't Wanna Be Anyone But Me," Gavin DeGraw

Update July 24th: Alice feels she's not sexy enough to inspire a sexy song; honey, you couldn't be further from the truth. How about another Nelly Furtado gem: "I'm Like a Bird" (the amazing accoustic version)?

Eros & Logos: "Heart Still Beating," Ottmar Liebert
Anita's Erotica: "Kiss Me," Sixpence None the Richer
Salacious Desires: "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun," Cindy Lauper
And for good measure, Tara Tainton: "Girl All the Bad Guys Want," Bowling For Soup.

Apologies to fans who weren't tagged, but I'm so tired from this, I'm going to go lie down and think of all the sexy words I've read and photos I've seen on your sites looking for inspiration, even if I didn't choose you.

Free Judith Miller

2005-07-19T10:35:00.000-04:00

Forgive me, readers, while I stand up for a colleague who is wrongfully in jail, charged with no crime, the victim of a misuse of power. Whatever our politics, we all are protected by a free press, something the Founding Fathers worked hard to make happen. As a former newspaper features writer, I can't sit by while Judith Miller spends another night behind bars.

For anyone who is not aware of the situation, Ms. Miller is a reporter for The New York Times. She's in jail because she refused to reveal her sources that told her about a leak of a CIA operative's name (Victoria Plame) to syndicated newspaper columnist Robert Novak. Interestingly, Novak has never been subjected to any pressure to reveal his sources, and is not facing prosecution or a subpoena. More interesting still, Miller never wrote about the matter, but apparently was aware of the behind-the-scenes leaking.

The source of the leak appears to be Karl Rove, the president's advisor; the Washington scuttlebutt is that the president's inner circle was angry about an Op-Ed piece Plame's husband wrote for (ironically) The New York Times criticizing the president and his justifications for the invasion of Iraq. However, the politics of the matter are not material to the issue I bring up. The injustice is jailing a reporter for protecting sources.

Simply put, no government official, no corporate insider, no whistle blower would ever come forward if they thought a reporter would give them up at the first sign of heat. I know about talking to insiders "off the record," it allowed me to do my job. Some of them would have lost theirs if I'd identified them in my story.

One justification for jailing Miller is to show the media they're not above the law. But Miller did not break any law! And most ironic of all, Ms. Miller did not write anything about the Victoria Plame matter. Still, the Federal prosecutor in charge wants her to tell him what she knows. It's what's called "a fishing expedition" to find out if there's anything the prosecutor can learn about this and other seamy matters. She refused, and the judge has tossed her into jail on contempt of court. She'll stay there until the current grand jury's term expires in October. The prosecutor is threatening criminal charges against her if she won't testify then, but I think he's just saber-rattling. And now that another reporter has confirmed Karl Rove as the source of the leak, continuing to jail Miller can only strike reasonable people as the abuse of power it always was.

Conservatives hate The Times; Liberals love anything that annoys Conservatives. But this is not about politics. It's about a reporter who stood up for what's right. Please let your elected representatives know you find this situation a threat to the Constitution. The Founding Fathers wanted a free press because they understood that absolute power corrupts absolutely. They were willing to accept the press making mistakes, knowing those mistakes are better than a cowed press afraid to write honestly, even if incorrectly, about the things the government does and the justifications they use to rule. We all need the checks and balances a free press provides.

The media isn't perfect. But they also try to correct their mistakes (the government usually just marks mistakes "Classified"). Without a free press, what's to prevent our government (Republican or Democrat) from telling us what they want us to believe?

To read more about the situation

Anyone wishing to help Judy Miller can send a letter of support to:

Attn: Judith Miller
Inmate Number 45570083
Alexandria Detention Center
2001 Mill Rd
Alexandria, VA 22314-4600

Thanks to Viviane for this suggestion. Who says sex bloggers aren't civic-minded?

CHAPTER 12 (June 11th): Part 4

2005-07-18T12:37:00.000-04:00

(Cassie and S. are walking back from the Orange Market while she tells him about going to see the soft-core lesbian cult film "Therese & Isabelle" the Summer before starting at Temple University)

I think part of the reason I was mad at Rochelle was jealousy. She was my best friend at the time, and Stephanie and Gina were inseparable, so I felt a mild sense of betrayal Rochelle had brought Judy along, especially since she was in 11th grade and might’ve screwed up our getting in. Gina said we should all go in as a group, even though the movie was about two women, no one seeing us would think anything peculiar, right? Just girl’s night out, right? We all laughed a little too loud, all except Stephanie, who looked pained and seemed like she’d bolt if we hadn’t all locked arms and headed for the door.

We sailed in without a hitch, then found a section with only a few single guys and plopped ourselves down.

I don’t remember most of the movie, though some parts are quite vivid because I was concentrating REALLY HARD on them. Some of that was not wanting to look around, the I-don’t-want-to-be-recognized-in-a-porn-palace paranoia. I certainly didn’t want to look at the others, not Rochelle and Judy who giggled at all the sex parts, and not at Stephanie and Gina, who seemed serious and even sad watching. Mostly I studied every scene because I’d never seen anything quite like it. It was pretty tame by what you can see now, even at Yale: bare bodies, mostly bare breasts, and no shots of actual sex, though a lot was cleverly suggested.

Despite its limitations, somehow the story and the girl-girl sex fascinated me, especially the voiceover with all these literary allusions to her clitoris as a pearl or the artful way the act of Sapphic love was described. It was so gentle, two women loving one another slowly and softly. The film’s goal was to be arousing and titillating, not overt and aggressive. I felt cheated and let down that it took the two women so long to get together for the "main event," with so much of the plot about the boarding school they attended. And once they got around to having sex, the plot lost all its tension, sorta like a sagging rubber band. The ending was even worse: the movie just seemed to run out of gas. I especially disliked having one of the lovers recall the whole thing years later during a return visit to the boarding school where all the action took place. The film ended, and the five of us headed straight for the exits without saying a word.

"I guess that was my first initiation, both into X-rated films and the vagueness of French movies."

S. laughed out loud again, so loud a neighbor walking into his house looked up and scowled at us. I stuck out my tongue. I felt sagacious and witty, and as we were almost at the apartment, I didn’t feel ready to go in just yet. Besides, this discussion needed to remain outside.

"All in all, an X-rated movie made a good beginning to our 'bright college years.' [the Yale anthem] I don’t recall any of us mentioning a thing about it on the bus home; stranger still, I never discussed it with any of them afterwards. There’s also a really funny ending to the story—not funny ha-ha, but weird. Only a year or so ago I found out why Stephanie and Gina were so serious and sad: they were having this passionate schoolgirl Therese and Isabelle affair no one knew anything about at the time. Then one day freshman year of college Stephanie broke it off, and got engaged to a guy at almost the same time. Gina nearly had a nervous breakdown. She’s still carrying a huge torch for Stephanie, who’s cut off all communication with her. Won’t even speak with her on the phone. After she got married, Stephanie and her husband moved to some hick town in western Maryland. He teaches at this tiny college, and they almost never go back to Philadelphia." S. simply went "Hmm" or some other sound indicating thought and pondering, then looked at me with his most piercing smile.

(to be continued)

25,000 visitors and growing!

2005-07-16T11:15:00.000-04:00

(July 16) This website for Beyond You & Me quietly passed the 25,000 visitor mark this morning. Thanks to all those who've helped build traffic here. Please click on the "top referrers" to the right to let them know what a great job they've done. Thanks as well to you loyal readers who keep coming back and bringing your friends and linked readership.

Now, you agents and publishers: when are you going to realize there's an audience for Beyond You & Me and get this project into print?

Chapter 12 (June 11th): Part 3

2005-07-15T08:13:00.000-04:00

(Cassie and S. are walking to the Orange Market to take a break from her typing his Senior thesis. When he asked her if she'd ever wanted to sleep with another woman, it tapped into a memory long forgotten)

It was the very last Saturday night of Summer vacation the year I graduated high school. I was starting at Temple the following Monday, and several girlfriends who were hanging out together called me to suggest we go out to a movie, a last “girls night out” before we went mostly separate ways. I started looking through the paper to see what was playing downtown, and my gaze fell on one in particular. In a brave voice, I blurted out “Therese and Isabelle. Let’s go see an X-rated film.” I knew nothing about it other than that it was X-rated, I’m not sure I even knew why it was rated X or even what an X-rating meant, other than that it was naughty in some mysterious way. I wanted to be bold and provocative; going to an X-rated film seemed brash and reckless (the ad warned “no one under 18 admitted, identities will be checked at the door,” insuring every teenager alive would try and sneak in).

“Why that particular X-rated film and not one of the usual stag films?”

“Simple— I didn’t want to go to a sleazy porn house full of degenerate men ready to jump on one or all of us and spray us with— uh, cum.”

S. burst out laughing so loud it echoed off the façade of the Belnord, this huge apartment building we had to pass each way. I was glad it was dark out, I was blushing from using that word for the first time in my life (except with P.). Because it was a first, I enjoyed my naughtiness, it made me feel brash and modern and audacious the same as that night we went to see “Therese and Isabelle.”

“I probably rationalized things by thinking or saying it would help me learn French.”

“Ah, what kind of French?”

“The ads didn’t make it seem sleazy, and all my friends knew I was signed up to take Basic French.”

“But the movie was in English. I saw it with German subtitles.”

“I didn’t know that then.”

Four of us were planning on going: me, Stephanie, Gina and Rochelle, and it seemed as brazen and daring a thing as I’d ever done. I didn’t tell my boyfriend at the time, nor any of my other friends, and I’ve never told Patrick. I caught the uptown bus with Stephanie and Gina, and the three of us joked about whether we might run into someone we knew. When we got to the theater, Rochelle was waiting with her friend, Judy, in tow, and I remember being pissed about it. I didn’t want our going to this film to get around my old high school— I don’t know why, we were all going our separate ways, yet that night we were still five high school girls from South Philly. Plus I was worried they might not let us in. I was only ready to go so far in being bold, and this was about the limit of it.

My jitters passed quickly enough, we were soon preoccupied with buying the tickets. Rochelle was petrified we’d need ID, she was only 17 like me, but looked 12. It would’ve been really humiliating if they’d turned us away at the door.

“’Don’t worry,’ I boasted, ‘I’ve got fake ID if they ask.’ I don’t have to tell you the old man in the ticket booth couldn’t have cared less if we’d been school girls in stockings and uniforms.”

“Stockings AND uniforms? Ahh, what an absolutely lovely thought,” S. nearly licked his lips. I slapped him playfully on the wrist; it kept me from staring at those same lips— or slapping his face on general principle, both impulses came over me simultaneously. In the interim, we got our coffee and headed back to Clark Street, with S. pouring the remaining Scotch into his.

(to be continued)

Fans of Beyond You & Me Keep Comin'

2005-07-13T23:40:00.000-04:00

She looks like a Swedish porno cliché, but boy, can Patricia "Trixie" Jenkins write funny, witty commentary on her world! Her site is called "The shorter the skirt, the higher the kick", and it’s full of terrifically deadpan observations about life, sex, and life and sex in Sweden. I’m sure she knows how her coquettish looks are leaving men muttering like little boys, and is playing it for all it’s worth. I’m not sure what that is, but whoever she’s playing is probably having a good time.

One of our earliest supporters has been Cyan's Stories. A professional writer who offers some of her stories for free, while charging a modest membership fee to sample all of them, she has a fund of quality writing available for the insatiable erotica lovers out there. And you know who you are.

This site celebrates sexuality in all its many forms, but there are those who struggle to find happiness in relationships with less-than-perfect sex. For every "Naked Loft Party" where things couldn't be better, there are individuals who are dealing with a quiet desperation. I don’t want to be a downer, but sex isn’t always joyous, and one of the most sobering blogs I’ve read is I Am Also a Sexual Being. Written by a passionate soul in a largely passionless relationship, the story is often quite bleak: her husband seems to get off more with the remote control of their TV, yet the posts are gripping and searing at the same time. For pure honesty, there’s little like it out there.

Another early fan has been Mercurial Girl. Also searingly honest, she’s a high-priced call girl living a transatlantic jet-set life that keeps her in diamonds and occasionally just out of danger: a recent post was about showing up in NYC to service a client and finding he’d brought along his best friend. The idea was for her to service them both serially (no touching, please, we’re guys and can’t risk being thought of as queer). Not exactly a Cassie-style threesome, more like a performance, which is part of a courtesan’s job requirements. She’s unsentimental, crisp in her writing, and perhaps a little less detailed than our prurient interests would like, but never dull (OK, I can live without hearing about her pet dogs, but she would tell me the blog isn’t for my entertainment).

And finally, there’s sexty9ways-links. A review of things sexual, as well as more personal postings, it avoids the hard-core, pay-per sites for really, ahem, unique, ahem, sites like Beyond You & Me or Realm of the Demon Queen (both recently reviewed). The background illustration of a "female superior" coupling just prior to penetration has the look and feel of Egon Schiele’s erotic drawings.

Chapter 12 (June 11) continued

2005-07-12T08:29:00.000-04:00

(Cassie and S. are walking to the Orange Market to take a break from her typing his Senior thesis, and he had asked her in the excerpt last time if she'd ever wanted to sleep with another woman)

“Does having erotic dreams about Toni Tennille count?”

He tried cupping his hand to his mouth, but it was no use: most of the Scotch he’d sipped from the paper cupful he’d brought along came out in a geyser, spraying both of us with its bitter, acrid, aromatic cloud. We were laughing too much to care. “Dare I admit I get wet every time I hear ‘Love Will Keep Us Together’? You won’t reveal my secret, will you?”

“And ‘Captain’ Daryl Dragon is her husband? And just what army or navy would have him for a captain?”

“The same one that would have her luscious ass in that tight-fitting sailor’s uniform she wears on stage.” S. blinked hard, his mind hadn’t expected that kind of comeback or it revealing as much about my “uniform thing.” My short skirts and stockings had given him a completely different idea, and I thought it fun confounding his expectations of me. “Actually, though—“

(to be continued)

Not yet fans (but we can hope)

2005-07-10T13:54:00.000-04:00

There are sites I appreciate who don't know about or don't link to me. Here are a few worth mentioning.

Madeline in the Mirror is an original: she takes pictures of herself to illustrate her very sexy postings. Hey, we can dig that combination (this photo of her "stocking" phase is a good example of how lovely she is and how well she conveys it)! She's living the liberated life that Cassie fancies, and it's a pleasure following her sensuous peregrinations. Her on-line personality is a little abrupt and demanding, with the hard edges you might expect of a single mother making her way through a bevy of lovers, all while balancing life's responsabilities. But then, many of the Internet's sex divas tend to be a bit intimidating. I would imagine a kitten with an emotional whip would have the boys lining up for a whack. Meow!

With all the pay sites on the Internet, it's so refreshing to find folks who are so in love they feel compelled to celebrate that love (and plenty of lust) with a photo site of all their exploits. Bisexual.dk is about a Danish couples adventures. The sub-title is "celebrating one year of pure lust," and the photos are very good, including threesomes (mmm, there's a topic that fits in well with Beyond You & Me! Not professional porn, mind you, real people enjoying their sexuality. The faces are blurred to protect their identities, but they're onto something, that's for sure. And for those of you who enjoy M-M bisexuality, there's plenty of it here, as both halves of this raunchy couple are quite affirmatively switch hitters.

One dude that seems to be catnip to the ladies is Jefferson over at One Life, Take Two. His is the story of a bisexual man who is figuring himself out in the swinging world of NY sex clubs and parties. He's also a fine writer: the account of coming in on his girlfriend back in high school doing a male friend was one of the best takes on the careless sexual betrayal of youth that I've read since, well, you'll have to wait for Beyond You & Me to come out in hard copy, because I can't post THAT NIGHT here.

Sorry, some things in life are worth waiting for.

With Naked Loft Party, I'm not sure what to think sometimes. It's a site that I definitely have mixed emotions about. The stories seem too perfect and not that far removed from the classic faux erotica of "Letters to Penthouse". Dude, if you're lurking and I've done you wrong, I apologize, I call 'em as I see 'em. If the stories are true and without embellishment, then everyone reading this should drop whatever they're doing and move to NYC, because AIDS and Herpes and all the other things that scare people about the 70s never seem to have happened in the world of Naked Loft Party. The girls are all slender, beautiful and bi, the men never get shut down or rejected (if anything, our hero, Lex, seems to have that weary put-upon aura of a man in demand in the bedroom). However, in terms of all-out, good-time sex writing, this is a place well worth visiting.

In a perfect world, all the boys and girls are beautiful, we always (and I mean always) come, and no one ever feels rejected.

It's not a blog, but how can a book about a sexy 24 year-old not appreciate the Suicide Girls? Edgy new porn for Generation Whatever, the women are real, not plastic. Like tats and piercings? Then Suicide Girls is for you. Chatsworth, are you listening (Chatsworth is where 90% of the porn is filmed)? It's a pay site, but there are plenty of free offerings that will either lite your burner or give you an idea of where visual erotica is heading. This link to several smoking young women getting dressed in less-than-full-coverage outfits had me moist before it was over.

Regarding my own linking "policy," the requirements are quality at your end and a return link. I don't link with everyone who links to me; it has to be good writing or photos or something. If you like what you see and aren't interested in linking, then by all means feel free to use the Atom, XML or other site feed options to the right, or sign up for Blogrolling software. Please don't ask me how all that works, I do my linking one fan at a time.

Finally, there are still some other fans of Beyond You & Me that I'll highlight later this week. And as new ones come on board, I'm looking forward to telling you about them.

Chapter 12: looking back

2005-07-05T11:10:00.000-04:00

A moment of collective silence for our friends across the pond in London....

June 11

“Have you ever wanted to sleep with another woman?”

Like I said before, S. relished catching me off-guard with provocative, impertinent questions. In that way, he reminded me of Inspector Clouseau in the “Pink Panther” movies and his man servant, Cato, who's always setting elaborate traps in those movies to test his boss’s skill at avoiding danger (he fails to great comic effect). We were sitting at the kitchen table when he asked me as I slogged away at the Selectric. My head was turning to a bad grade of mush after typing, compounded by round after round of joking back-and-forth, both exhilarating and exhausting my feeble brain:

— Let me ask you this: if you could only love one person in your life, only find True Love in one instance, and the moment for choosing that person lasted no more than a single day—or even less— do you think you could recognize that moment as your one opportunity for happiness? Would you realize “this is the one”?

— I’ll do you one better: suppose that One True Love was impeded in some major fashion, what then?

— Meaning?

— Why is it we assume love will come to us all neatly-wrapped up like a present? What if our Great Love, la grande passion as our Frog friends would say, was tied up in some manner?

— Tied up S&M-style tied up? Oooh, tell me more.

— No, tied up in a prior relationship: engaged— or even married.

— Likely only a loser would be totally free. Anyone worth having is already involved with another.

— Exactly, we have to compete for the object of our affections.

— What do you think romance is, a form of sexual Olympics?

— Why not? Simone de Beauvoir has turned sex into politics. Men and women are now fighting for power in the bedroom.

— They always were. It’s just that she identified the game. Beauvoir sketched out the parameters women have always felt and intuited, clarifying what once was only implied.

— Yes, and the superpowers have made the Olympics political, look at the East Germans.

— We have our Germans and the Soviets have their Germans.

— The Soviet Union is a fiction. They’re Russians, the same as East Germans and West Germans are still, underneath it all, Germans.

— Stop changing the subject!

— If you have any doubts, ask yourself why is it the East German Army still goose-steps?
I stopped typing so we could walk to the Orange Market to get some decaf coffee (real coffee and the usual amount of flirtatious banter would keep me up all night, there are limits). He’d probably been waiting for the right time to spring the question on me.

It unleashed a memory I hadn’t disturbed in almost eight years, and I didn’t answer just then. We were walking along Clark Street when he asked again (as I knew he would, S. never lets a provocative question go unanswered).

“Have you ever wanted to sleep with another woman?”

(to be continued)

My heartfelt thanks to the Demon Queen for previewing this excerpt. Talk about the embodiment of the earth mother!

And still more fans of Beyond You & Me

2005-07-01T10:34:00.000-04:00

Ferocious in her unsparing honesty is The Odd Wife & the true tales of her odd life. OW was the source of the questionnaire posted here previously. She had a run-in with an Internet stalker and was MIA for awhile, but she’s back and better than ever.

The computer-generated artwork may be a little off-putting to non Science Fiction fans, but Dark Serenity can write! Yikes, her account of 100 secrets about her will leave your eyeballs tingling and naughty bits a-flutter. Cassie would find a lot of sympatico in this woman, whose work will cause your mouth to dry up and words die in your throat.

One of the most interesting avatars belongs to Wonderland—or not. Hard to imagine such crisp writing and story-telling coming from someone only 20, but things sort of rattle about like a car out-of-control rushing along at a furious, delightful pace. Which is pretty much how I remember 20. Ah, to be 20 again!

Finally, another blogger with a gorgeous avatar is salacious desires. Working through a desert in the sex life she shares with A, they have come out on the other side of the dry spell in full flower. Some of the writing is fantasy, some accounts of actual happenings, the resulting blend is sublime, including mention of God-- not a person we find in most writings about sex. Though if you think about it, why would God create something so life-altering and wonderful as sex if She didn't want us to enjoy it?

And right after the July 4th holiday, we start Chapter 12. If you want to get a jump on reading it, point your browser at Realm of the Demon Queen. One of Cassie's biggest fans, she is tempting her readers over there with the first installment of Chapter 12 that opens with the very provocative question to Cassie from S.: "Have you ever wanted to sleep with another woman?" DQ is also a fine lady, so if you're not a regular in her realm, stay awhile. It's never dull.

Technorati Tag: lesbian, sexblogs, sex, erotica, Sexual Revolution, flirting

Sad News

2005-06-30T19:29:00.000-04:00

(photo courtesy Roger Katz)

A bit of Beyond You & Me will soon be lost to history. The York Square Cinema, where Cassie goes to see the classic B&W film, "Design For Living," will be closing soon, a victim of hardball movie business practices. Here's a link to the newspaper story.

York Square reaches final reel; The End is near

Hey, some of you thought I was hyping you when I said this novel is based on a true story that happened in real places. Just click on the links at the right "The World of Beyond You & Me" to learn more. There's hours and hours of information there that is covered in the book.

And isn't it somehow appropriate that the photo above has "Kissing Jessica Stein," the least possibly offensive comedy about lesbianism that could possibly be invented by two non-lesbians?

Technorati Tag: lesbian, sexblogs, sex, erotica, Sexual Revolution, flirting

"The Small Death" Takes Center Stage

2005-06-27T10:16:00.000-04:00

With "Girls Gone Wild" videos, amateur sex tapes being sold all over the 'Net and Paris Hilton becoming a light industry because, well, I'm not sure why, but it should come as no surprise there's a pay site with over 300 videos showing what the French call "le petit mort" ("the small death"), otherwise known as climax, orgasm, coming, getting off, spanking the monkey, etc.

I'm not sure why anyone would pay to see orgasming faces with nothing else in evidence; the camera is stationary and doesn't go below the arm pits (sorry, boys), but there you have it. As a species, we do seem to be fascinated watching others experience sex, and one of the pay-offs of pornography has been the search for realism. Presumably these young folks are not faking it, and I can imagine watching a few of them once or twice (well, maybe more than twice).

I encountered this over at September's Girl, one of my regular stops and a long-time fan of Beyond You & Me.

The offerings look about 4-1 female to male, and the exhibitionistic among you can join the mug shot line-up. They even promise to pay you for this look at your most intimate (and sometimes, most ridiculous) moment, though not everyone looks good coming. The age range is 20s to 30s and there's not much ethnic diversity. In the interest of the majority of Beyond You & Me's fan base, I would've posted a male demo as more appropriate, but the only one they have for sampling is kinda scraggly-looking. Besides, I somehow would be surprised if women are shelling out $15 a month to watch men writhe in pleasure, but what do I know?

play .wmv

play .mpg

visit beautifulagony.com

Technorati Tag: sexblogs, sex, erotica, Sexual Revolution, flirting

An interview by "The Writer's Buzz" (to go with 15,000 visitors)

2005-06-26T14:26:00.000-04:00

This just in--

The Writer's Buzz book review web site has published an interview with me about Beyond You & Me and the process of building an audience for the book through this web site.

And we passed the 15,000th visitor threshold quietly sometime last week.

As they say on the news, "film at 11."

Technorati Tag: sexblogs, sex, Yale, erotica, literary agents, publishers

Sitting on statues, then and now (well, in 1975)

2005-06-23T16:23:00.000-04:00

Sitting on statues, then and now (well, in 1975)

Then…

Somewhat later…

Thanks to Barye for the archived image from the NY Public Library.

Technorati Tag: sexblogs, sex, Yale, erotica, Sexual Revolution, flirting

And still more fans of Beyond You & Me:

2005-06-22T06:32:00.000-04:00

Some of the best sex writing is coming from overworked & underf*cked. If, as the author claims, she really isn't getting enough, then bless me, I'm simply breathless, because she seems to be notching her bedpost with a forthrightness and honesty that's stunning. Women can learn a lot from her about getting what they want in a sexual relationship, and men can learn what NOT to do (if they've got a tough hide and can stand her hilariously acerbic honesty). The site is witty, full of interesting commentary and sexy photos. Cassie would approve of a woman who's this forthright and honest.

An early fan of Beyond You & Me was "the goddess Freya," who can be found at Freya's House of Dreams. It wasn't until I constructed this site and began cruising the Internet to find like-minded readers and writers that I realized how many on-line journals there are by and/or about women who are in submissive/dominant relationships. Gloria Brame was one of the pioneers in this sort of thing (her book Different Loving is something of a classic). When Freya took a brief, mysterious hiatus last month, hinting she might never return to the airwaves, fans left notes of panic and condolences (including yours truly). Thankfully she's back with new vigor. Her paeans to sex will blow you away with their directness. Talk about unmediated (that's a Deconstruction term that Cassie has to wade through; see "Deconstruction" at right for more on it and the "Yale School" of literary theory). Her longings to be bent over and fucked will fry the circuits of conventional sexuality and feminism, but few can convey the complete abandon of unmediated sensual desire in more compelling terms.

For those who like a changing variety in their erotic writing, I refer you to Private Booth. As the rather salacious title suggests, this is where erotic fantasies are played out, but they're not fantasies anymore once they arrive there. Non-fiction mostly (Kim bent the rules slightly for Beyond You & Me, but this book is based on a real journal). The quality of the writing varies naturally, depending on the contributor, but the material is always naughty and fascinating. What IS it about we humans that we so love to peep in on other people having sex? Is it because we?re afraid of missing out on something? Hmmm, now there was that report I heard about the other day concerning peanut butter and blow jobs....

And finally, a book about sexual infidelity at Yale could hardly fail to applaud a blog about sex on campus, even if it takes place in cyberspace across the ocean. O. is in the United Kingdom (those randy Brits!) while her beloved is in the U.S. Eros & Logos is the ultimate in virtual sex: a woman student is having an affair with her professor, but it's all on-line at this point. He's reading what she's writing about him, and the writing is definitely steamy. I only wish O. would bring the story along a little faster! But how can Beyond You & Me, which takes place in the Comp. Lit Dept. at Yale, not get a tickle from a site that mentions Wittgenstein? As in "Wittgenstein says that philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language." Cassie had to put up with that sort of thing from P. and S. all the time.

Technorati Tag: sexblogs, sex, Yale, erotica, Sexual Revolution, flirting

Gender and sex: "bi with boyfriend"

2005-06-16T17:53:00.000-04:00

Wow, this is a first with two new postings in one day!

But things have really cooked since I posted the "Odd Wife" poll below. The outpouring of comments to this poll and the question I asked about why it seems more acceptable for a woman to check "been intimate with a member of the same gender" than for a man by you readers made me ask a question about this over on the Erotica Readers & Writers Association discussion list server about "bi with boyfriend." It's the name lesbians have given to the current fad for women who proclaim their attraction to other women, while pairing up primarily with a husband/male lover/boyfriend (Angelina Jolie is one of the more famous examples mentioned).

This is, in fact, Cassie's situation in the novel prior to her encounter with Sydney, a Yalie "co-ed" (a more precious term I can't think of just now). She's married yet tempted, and its a temptation P. her husband encourages (as you'll see in a posting due out soon).

My question immediately precipitated a lively discussion about sexual orientation, labels and social mores, both personally and in the writing of several writers of erotica who hang out there. The opinions varied enormously, but with several constants when it comes to erotic writing (for example, if you're creating a short story for Lesbian Vampires from Mars magazine, you might not want to submit something that's primarily heterosexual in orientation.

Seems like the question of same gender intimacy is people who don't otherwise identify as gay is a topic that prompts reactions. Again, I've never had so many comments to a posting on this site before. And please continue everyone, I'm so glad for the honest and heartfelt thoughts. The most provocative comment so far was from O. the writer of Eros & Logos (and the possessor of one of the most sensuous avatars I've seen). She wrote:

"Personally, I find the 'bi' label not applicable to most; it sort of implies a true 50/50 division of one's sexual attention, and that is rarely the case in my experience and that of my lovers and friends.

"I prefer the terms 'hetero-flexible' and 'homo-flexible'.

"As in, I'm primarily hetero, but I'm flexible, and so on."

This label "flexible" is very interesting and amusing. Cassie is shunned by some of the lesbians at Yale because she's flexible, and won't commit to "one orientation or the other." It's another rejection from the hidebound world of academe that initially pains her, while ultimately driving her further towards breaking with conformity and finding her own way. Thanks, O., for this nifty term!

The discussion so far also raises a somewhat crude question about mechanics. Cassie at one point quotes Dorothy Thompson (see "the World of Beyond You & Me" on the right side of this site), who compared her Sapphic episodes to "making love with an impotent man." Thompson was an important journalist who's now largely forgotten who had affairs with both men and women.

Does the equipment make a difference in how the "flexible" ones respond to same gender intimacy?

I ask this because many evoke the beauty of female/female erotica, as though one were tasting an exotic flavor of ice cream, not the emotional component. Does that make same gender intimacy just another "fetish" of our porn-drenched world, where we want to experience all the possibilities of sex? Is it all about experiencing something, or is there another component? The "bi with boyfriend" trendiness seems to reinforce the disconnected, purely sensual aspects of same gender intimacy. Or am I missing something?

Your comments are most welcome.

The "Odd Wife" poll

2005-06-13T08:04:00.000-04:00

I saw this over at The Odd Wife, whom I think would probably enjoy BY&M. I emailed her about it, and she said the poll is rattling around the 'Net and doesn't appear to belong to any one particular source.

So with a nod in her direction (and whoever started it), here's the same survey she and some of her fans did as if Cassie DiMarco had taken it. The key to the poll:

X = have done

(Cassie's side remarks are in ordinary parenthesis and red)
[My side remarks are in square brackets and blue, to clarify a few things]

( ) snuck out of the house
( ) gotten lost in your city
(x) seen a shooting star (P. and I slept underneath the stars when we drove across the desert coming East to Yale in 1972)
( ) been to any other countries besides Canada
(x) had a serious surgery (Tonsils out!)
(x) gone out in public naked [starting with the book cover!]
(x) kissed a stranger
(x) hugged a stranger
( ) been in a fist fight (does punching Angie Zambrano when I was 10 count?)
( ) been arrested
(x) laughed and had milk/coke come out of your nose (peed my pants once from laughing, too)
(x) pushed all the buttons on an elevator (aren't buttons made to be pushed?)
( ) swore at your parents (my father would've broken my jaw)
(xx) been in love
(xxx) been close to love
(x) been to a casino (passing through Tahoe with P. on our way back to Yale from California)
( ) been skydiving
(x) skinny dipped (in Lake Tahoe while cars drove by 10 feet above the embankment w/o seeing us!)
(x) skipped school (kicked out of Temple for playing pinochle in the Student Union almost every day)
(x) seen a therapist (in CA because I was unhappy there, too)
( ) done the splits
(x) played spin the bottle
(x) gotten stitches (a dog bit me through the fence in the backyard when I was 10)
( ) drank a whole gallon of milk in one hour
( ) bitten someone (do love bites count?)
(x) been to Niagara Falls (driving back to Yale)
(x) gotten the chicken pox
(x) kissed a member of the opposite sex
( ) crashed into a friend's car
( ) been to Japan (does "The House of Japan" restaurant in Philly count?)
(x) ridden in a taxi (P. drove a taxi the Summer after he graduated Penn, and we made out and more in the back during one of his shifts)
(x) been dumped
( ) shoplifted
(x) been fired (my drawer was missing $20 and it WASN'T my fault)
(x) had a crush on someone of the same sex
(x) had feelings for someone who didn't have them back
(x) gone on a blind date (no worse than some dates where I knew the person in advance)
(x) lied to a friend
( ) had a crush on a teacher (I did think Mr. Yates, my chorus teacher, could walk on water)
( ) celebrated Mardi-Gras in new Orleans
( ) been to Europe
( ) slept with a co-worker (at the Yale library? Surely you jest)
(x) been married
( ) gotten divorced
( ) had children (and don't plan to anytime soon!)
(x) seen someone die (my grandfather)
( ) had a close friend die
( ) been to Africa
( ) driven over 400 miles in one day (that trip back to Yale. Iwored a halter top and shorts with no panties while the hot winds from the Badlands blew through the car's open windows, since we didn't have air conditioning)
( ) been to Mexico
( ) been to India
(x) been on a plane (when we flew to LA after we got married)
( ) seen the Rocky Horror Picture Show [though it was released in 1975]
( ) thrown up in a bar
( ) purposely set a part of myself on fire
( ) eaten sushi (does tempura count?)
( ) been skiing/snowboarding
( ) met someone in person from the internet [no Internet in 1975]
( ) lost a child
(x) gone to college/university
( ) graduated college/university (Are you kidding? Temple expelled me for my grades, and Yale won't let me in)
(x) fired a gun (went hunting with one of my boyfriends before I met P.)
( ) purposely hurt yourself (not physically at any rate; what about falling in love with someone when you're already married?)
(x) taken painkillers
(x) been intimate with someone of the same gender

And for our readers, why is it that we aren't shocked if a woman checks the last box, but would probably be so if a man did? Is same-gender intimacy more acceptablee among women than men? Girl-girl sex and petting seem to be popular in the media right now. Frank answers and comments welcome.

CHAPTER 4 (complete, including the opening paragraphs about the end of the Vietnam War not included in the original posting of Part I)

2005-06-09T09:34:00.000-04:00

Friday, the start of the weekend

What a week— the Flyers won the Stanley Cup Tuesday night, and Saigon fell today. The Vietnam War is over at last. Can’t imagine a greater chasm between two events. I blush to confess I was more passionate about the Cup than the end of the War, although more involved in protesting Vietnam— the Flyers come and go in my life, only on TV— in fact, I’ve never seen a hockey game in person. In college, though, I marched, held a bucket filled with burning lighter fluid on the steps of Temple’s admin building while a crowd of guys tossed in their draft cards, and the weekend of November 15, 1969, I convinced my parents I was staying with a girlfriend to work on a history project. In a manner of speaking we did: both of us took a bus with other college students down to Washington for what turned out to be the biggest peace march of all.

Seeing hundreds of thousands of people directing all of their energy to one, great cause— peace— was such a rush, I felt like I’d found a purpose beyond just getting up every morning and going to class, or working at McDonald’s after school shoving hamburgers and fries into paper sacks and wondering how long until my shift ended. The only other times I’ve felt so energized were during sex. The march was like making love to the whole world and being high all in one, the colors and banners, the crowds singing and chanting “Hell, no, we won’t go!” and “Hey, hey, LBJ, how many kids did you kill today?” The group we traveled to DC with included all kinds of interesting types, rich kids from Center City and Swarthmore, a guy who’d dropped out of college to register unemployed blacks in North Philly, and two nuns in short habits. One of the coordinators tried to get me into his sleeping bag Saturday night, but I was too focused on doing the right thing— even though part of me wanted to.

I heard the news today, oh boy.

I’m sitting outside our apartment on the steps facing the small parking lot where the landlord lets us park the Mustang. P.’s washing it, even though it’s almost dark now. I’d rather not be alone inside; I guess he’d rather be busy than with his thoughts, too. Tuesday night watching the game was great, we whooped and hollered, and for a little while, I didn’t think about the Spring or S. or feel anything but an animal satisfaction being with my husband and enjoying the distraction. After it was over, most of the good feeling began melting away like ice after they’ve pulled the plug at the rink.

How is it things start out one way and end up another? I wonder what LBJ would answer to that question? I’m sure I don’t know. Vietnam was supposed to be about defending freedom; look at the fucked-up mess we ended up in. Talk about the road to Hell and good intentions. Oh, God! This past Spring, things started out equally innocently.

Really!

I met S. at work (can’t get much more ordinary than that, right?). I’m a secretary in Manuscripts & Archives in Yale’s Sterling Library, not because I want to be a secretary, but because that’s all Yale will let me be without a degree. So much for the open mind of the academy. M & A is the place where the Important People deposit their Important Papers so researchers can, well, research the papers for insight— or gossip or whatever researchers want to put in their books and scholarly articles. Most everyone who comes into M & A is writing some kind of book, so usually I take pity on the article writers or students and help them instead. If nothing else, I find it passes my boring days talking to people who don’t normally rate any attention from the rest of the staff. They’re all busy throwing themselves at the book authors, hoping to get a mention in an introduction: “and finally, I want to thank Maureen Busybody at Sterling Memorial Library’s Manuscripts & Archives, without whose magnificent help this exceptionally wonderful tome could not have seen the light of day.” Not that Ms. Busybody had anything really to do with writing the book, it’s just the author knows if he doesn’t kiss up to her, he won’t get her to root through the un-indexed papers and hidden treasures every collection has for the next time he’s got a yen to rummage around in the papers of Important People.

Anyway, S. was researching his Senior thesis— it’s a big paper, really a mini-book Yalies have to write before they graduate— his was about the diplomatic failures leading up to the First World War, so he wanted to work with the papers of Col. Edward House, delegate to the Versailles Peace Conference, and Yale alumnus. The one good thing about Manuscripts is I love history. S. was charming and funny and right off we got talking, chatting on and off for a few days while I made sure he got the papers he needed (sometimes ones he wasn’t supposed to have access to, he was only a student after all).

Hey, it passed the time.

The more we talked, though, the more I could see he wasn’t just funny, he was urbane and sophisticated, and we clicked on a level different from anyone else I’d ever met. His one major defect (and I teased him about it all the time): he was dating Ellen Lefrak, the woman who works at the desk next to mine (and whom I despise). Ellen’s my age, yet she looks ten years older and acts twenty years older still. She’s not bad looking, and he must’ve seen something in her. The hilarious part is he also liked gossiping with me about his misadventures with Ellen— especially plans and schemes as part of his fruitless crusade to bed down “Ellen Iron Panties” (his name for her; mine is much worse). We traded gossipy tidbits about Ellen— and the whole stuffy M & A crew. He even asked my advice on improving his chances with her. What girl could resist such fun?

One day S. invites me for a cup of coffee in the library cafeteria. We talked about the usual things— his latest vision to spirit Ellen away to some remote location in the Black Forest where no one could hear her crying for help as he licked honey off her naked body, gently forcing her to submit to his carnal desires. I know that sounds horrible, only she’s been a total bitch to me since the day I started here. I don’t now and didn’t care then what happened to her virginity, it has never been important to me. See, she has a college degree and so that makes her an “archivist-in-training” (still a secretary, really), while I’m worthless “clerical staff” with no prospects for advancement until I come up with a sheepskin.

And sheep haven’t grazed on the New Haven Green since the Civil War, so there aren’t any around for me to skin.

No chance for advancement, no chance for acknowledgements, tsk, tsk. I thought his scheming was a hoot, I encouraged him in the conviction my enemy’s enemy is my friend (and it wasn’t too bad having a friend, either). Right about the time I stood up to return to work, he grabbed my hand.

“Would you do me a huge favor? Since you’re such a good typist—” it’s true: 100 words per minute! “—would you type my Senior thesis for me?”

I don’t know what I was expecting, but I can tell you it wasn’t that!

On a whim I’ll never be able to explain, I said “sure.” My dad once told me the most important lesson he’d learned during his time in the Marines was “never volunteer.” Guess I should’ve listened to my dad more!

Looking back, I can see all the obvious “reasons why.” The whole thing wasn’t all that different from my four years at South Philadelphia High: if a girl meets a guy in the hallway, or perhaps he stops by your locker “accidentally on purpose” for a reason you don’t really care about anyway, maybe you flirt with him a little, even if you already have a boyfriend. If he’s interested, maybe he’ll get up the nerve to hang around after school and ask you to grab a slice of pizza at the Stadium Diner across Broad Street or a soda and a Tastykake at one of the corner stores, the kind that used to be on almost every block in South Philly before the supermarkets put them out of business. My whole life drifted along that way: allowing things to drag out slowly so I could enjoy the uncertainty, then let events pull me in this direction or that, never thinking “hmmm, should I?” Sort of the way I eat chocolate-covered raisins: one at a time, slowly, making them last. Since my mom didn’t have a lot of money to buy candy, I could never be sure the next time I’d get a treat like that.

Add to that the fact I was plain-looking and unpopular right up until senior year. I liked it when boys started paying me attention. No one asked me out until my breasts started developing the Summer before. And without money— my dad still comes home from the Post Office, then heads off to a second job—I couldn’t dress the way the popular girls did. I didn’t “put out,” either, like the fast ones. Things have changed, of course. One of the undergraduate women was wearing a t-shirt yesterday that read “nice girls go to heaven, bad girls go everywhere.” I was raised differently.

Bottom line: things were hopeless for me until the last year of high school— that meant I was usually pretty lonely, too. I got married young (only 19), and since then, I’ve tried hard to be the good faculty-wife-in-training. Translation: “no flirting.” So a brief few years of attention and then everything seemed like it ended before it had begun. All the short skirts that made my legs look terrific, the tight sweaters emphasizing my breasts, the smiles and whispers and teasing, all left behind.

This wasn’t just an opportunity to relive some of that. S. was catnip on a certain level, 21 years old to my 24, though he didn’t seem younger. Worse, he was sophisticated, with dark, European-rake looks, and a slight German accent that made him seem worldly. Also slightly dangerous. In a word: wicked. Our conversations— banter really— were always peppered with flirting asides and thinly-disguised innuendo, mostly sexual allusions and flat-out tease I never took offense at— or tired of. If I write down a few things I can still remember (God, there’s so much I CAN remember, it’s scary!), I wonder if anyone reading it could tell which of us said what?

— Have you seen the posters around campus that say “Is there life after Yale”?

— Is there life AT Yale?

— Yale is like a mother with too many children who refuses to let any of them grow up so long as they live at home.

— That’s not so bad, personally I think independence is overrated, you have to take care of yourself, cook your own meals, pay the rent, shop, what a bore! A warm, enveloping bed is definitely a preferable choice.

— Yale is like always coming back to your own bed!

— Bed? Why is it the bed is the symbol of sexual submission and gratification when sex occurs in a large variety of locations, some of which I’ve tried and others I’m looking forward to trying in the right circumstances.

— Tell me about your first love?

— When I lost my virginity?

— No, your first love. Love and sex aren’t always the same.
Well, love without sex certainly isn’t as good as love WITH sex.
Is sex without love better than love without sex?

— Tell me about your first love?

— Do I have to tell the truth?

— No, but at least make up an entertaining lie. If it’s one thing I can’t stand it’s boring lies, they should be colorful stories, and most of all, complex.

— You certainly are an opinionated person.

— Yes, well, what point is there to living with blandness? Life is too short to put up with mediocrity. Or worse just going along to get along.

— Ah, but what about society? What about offending others?

— Well, I don’t think you have to hurt other people to be yourself, and that includes lying. I try never to lie in a way that will hurt another person. I don’t always reveal all the details, especially if it will do any real harm.

— To them or to you? Why don’t you give me an example.

— I don’t tell Ellen that I think she’s an obnoxious bitch. I doubt it’s going to change her character if I did. And it won’t do anything to improve my situation at work.

— You don’t believe in redemption?

— The only redemption I can imagine for Ellen is a ball peen hammer to the head!

— Oh, you ARE wicked.

— Am I? Besides, it my turn, tell me about YOUR first love.

— Ah, but you see, I’m still waiting to find her.
OK, maybe it’s NOT so hard to figure out which is me and which is him, but the ideas we kicked around were ones we shared, not necessarily in the conventional boy/girl thing-- we thought along parallel lines, had similar interests, were in the same astral plane at the same exact moment in time. It was all safe, too: both of us knew I was married, my being married was like armor plating keeping any real danger away. I figured I could flirt and play as much as I wanted and nothing bad would ever happen, right? He didn’t seem on the make, we were perfectly attuned in our attitudes and our interests, but most of all, I was in control. I remembered my mother’s warnings:

“Keep your legs closed. Don’t give boys the idea they can get anything for free.”

Ah, Child, the whole mess seems so fucking middle class and pathetic now! Maybe I even knew it was at the time, I just can’t separate the threads of the yarn any longer. I mean, why do these things happen? Couldn’t he have gone to some other college? Did it have to be Manuscripts he walked in to? Couldn’t his Senior thesis have been on something besides history, my passion? It doesn’t make sense my looking for some deep-seated dissatisfaction with P. Yes, we had been married for nearly five years, yes, I’ve heard about the “seven year itch,” the difference is, we were happily-married, we were! Our sex life was fantastic! I don’t want to leave the wrong impression for posterity— if there is such a thing. Or that anyone but me will ever care about this story. He’s the kind of man a girl wants to be married to— loving, considerate, gentle— we’re good together, he’s always telling me we’re “two halves of the same whole.” He’s smart— even if his favorite songs are The Beach Boys’ “Fun, Fun, Fun” (everyone in Philly knows the Four Seasons are TWICE as good as the Beach Boys, and can dance, too), and the Byrds’ “Chestnut Mare.”

“Cassie, that song reminds me of you.”

“And how you’ve struggled to tame me?”

We’ve got plenty in common— old movies or driving in our 1965 Mustang, reading at night, listening to music, cuddling for hours in bed (even after making love) and talking. Talking with P. is almost like opening my heart to a best girlfriend. Plus I just plain feel at peace when he’s with me. He’s older, and I confess I sometimes feel intimidated by his brains, yet we’re kinda like Professor Henry Higgins and Eliza Doolittle in “My Fair Lady.” He’s a wonderful teacher and mentor, as well as a good husband. He wrote a cycle of love sonnets for me after we got married, and had them printed up and bound in book form! All in all, I’m lucky to be married to him— and he tells me the same thing.

With S., I just enjoyed hanging around him. I could never imagine the two of us having anything serious— much less leaving P. for him, running off and eloping, God, no! For one thing, he’s terrifically unreliable— also messy, he smokes, he’s selfish in countless small ways and, worst of all, afraid of offending anyone he perceives as “above” him. He’s always deferring to the three scions of industry who share his dorm suite at Stiles because they come from money and he doesn’t have a cent. It made me furious sometimes the way they intimidated him. One afternoon, we’d stopped by Durfee Sweet Shop, it’s a grungy basement space in Durfee Hall where they sell candy and ice cream and there’s a big juke box with great tunes. As we sat shooting the shit, two of the suite mates walked in and began eyeing me.

“Who’s the skirt?” Asshole One asked S.

“She’s typing my thesis.”

You’d think he’d been caught naked with a minor. What was it he was worried about? I’m just a typist in that world? I wanted to scratch all three of them bloody, but especially the two moneyed jerks who think the world fucking revolves around them. Sigh! As much as I love Yale, sometimes the gap between where I come from and what most of the Yalies have as a birthright leaves me with mixed feelings at best. Still, my dad always taught me you can’t let other people determine who you are or limit what you do.

The next day I called S. to see when those two would be around Stiles. 2 PM? Great. At 1:30, I told Ellen I had to go out for awhile, then slipped into the library bathroom to change, heading for Stiles all bundled up in my coat. When I got there, S. was working in his room with the door open, while the Deux Jerques were drinking beers on a sofa one of them had bought for the common area. Walking in the front door, I took off my coat— underneath was a micro-mini I haven’t worn since high school. It ended just south of my ass, and I tugged at the edges “absent-mindedly” a little bit to make sure they didn’t miss my blunt humor, while pulling back my shoulders and swishing my silk blouse with no bra from side to side in a textbook demonstration of the word “jiggle.”

“And that, boys, is why they call them knockers! See ya!”

I slammed the door to S.’s room behind me and left them to their low-grade imaginations. I didn’t stay long— just enough to let them sweat about what they thought they were missing.

Incidents like that taught me that so much of what I thought was a suave bon vivant in S. was really a put-on. He’s Catholic in the worst sense, occasionally going on and on about “redemption” and “suffering,” and most of all, the forgiveness of sin. Of course, the more he worries about sin, the more irresistible it is to him. My father’s Catholic, but my mom and her relatives snuck me out to be baptized Protestant while he was at work (and before her in-laws could bring the priest by the house). There’s no redemption in the DiMarco house: you bring your suffering on yourself through the choices you make and it’s your responsibility to clean up any mess.

So he had shortcomings, don’t we all? I enjoyed the verbal sparring— so much that I would fidget in the morning waiting for S. to walk in the door of M & A. Keeping things lively and risky, without actually crossing any real line, was a delightful challenge to my bored brain; my terribly unchallenged life found an outlet for my pent-up dreams and ambitions to be more than a mental door stop.

“What do you think the nature of attraction between men and women is?”
I had to stay on my toes with him, his questions were thought-provoking and he acted like my answers mattered.

“Sex, of course! No seriously, it has to be a meeting of souls.”

“Souls and a good figure,” he looked me up and down with the same comic broadness I’d always laughed at with Art Carney and Jackie Gleason in The Honeymooners.”

“You’ve never been attracted to someone that wasn’t good-looking?”

“Well, the French do have an expression: laide mais merveilleuse, it means “ugly but marvelous.” It’s meant for women who aren’t good-looking, yet have style and sexual animal magnetism.”

“Ah, yes, S.A.M. That should be your name.”

“Ah, flattery will get you many places, Mis-sus Campbell.” He always divided the “Mrs.” that way for emphasis, it was one of the little German things I found adorable about him.

“But let me ask you this? Would you choose to be alone on a deserted island, or with someone you actually disliked?”

“I don’t know, would you prefer to be on that island with somebody who was good looking and obnoxious, or unattractive yet pleasant and compatible?”

“I would have to be with someone who turned me on physically. There is, after all, a mechanical difference between men and women: my equipment has a mind of its own when it comes to performance.”

“Is that why it leads you around by your nose? I’ve always suspected a man’s mind dangles between his legs.”

“Hmm, I don’t recall a woman ever giving me mind! Come on, women are different from men, they look at the face first and through the eyes, into the soul.”

“That’s bullshit! A woman will just as likely respond to a hunk in tight jeans as an intellectual with a bouquet of flowers.”

“A hunk in tight jeans with a copy of Elizabeth Barrett Browning in one hand and a bouquet of flowers in the other should have offspring wherever he goes. You’re a sage, Mis-sus Campbell!” and he winked with the a leer and a knowing nod, then we both laughed to the point of tears.

The flirting didn’t seem anything serious for him, it wasn’t like he was trying hard to get me into bed— just hard enough to make me push back and put him in his place, sorta like verbal arm-wrestling. It was exciting and maybe a little dangerous only because mom always taught me men are men, and can’t really control their urges. As long as I was on guard, it was dangerous without being too dangerous. Plus I was convinced (or convinced myself?) I didn’t have any worry, I could handle it all. S. and I didn’t spend a lot of time talking about our friendship: we were creatures of the moment, making the whole thing up as we caromed along down a road neither of us had ever traveled.

It’s easy to see why I found him attractive, too. On the simplest, most basic level, I’d never met anyone like him before. Not a lot of European men hang out in South Philly. There were a few real Italian— Italian-Italian, as in from the old country. Most of them were greasy hicks dressed in clothes that looked like they came from the closet in the basement where my father still kept the suits he bought after World War II. I never met anyone with “Old World charm,” he was Maximilian in “Cabaret,” right down to the moustache and sleek black hair.

Ironic— and I never thought about it until now— but “Cabaret” was the first film P. and I saw after we moved to New Haven.

No one with any sophistication besides P. had ever made a play for me, even a playful play. Nobody flirts with graduate student wives, and nobody at all had ever flirted in the same self-mocking way he did. It reminded me of the bobbing and weaving Muhammad Ali used to lull his opponents before delivering the knockout punch. S. would complement my looks or intimate he’d like us to be more than “just friends,” never really putting the make on me in a direct, unambiguous way, then back away and tell me how Ellen distracted him from his studies because she wouldn’t give in and so he was always thinking about sex. If I scolded him— or worse, if I played along and stared intently into his eyes, putting my hand on his knee and moving it slowly up his thigh an inch or two— he would always, I mean always retreat, as if it shocked him my being so forward.

— It was nothing more than friendly teasing.

— Nothing serious, I mean, who’s kidding whom?

— You’re married, there’s no pos-sibility!

If I flirted with him, he would dissolve in a puddle, his façade of jokes, put-downs and flippant denials transformed into a hollow, empty laugh.

“Ah, but you’re married, Mis-sus Campbell,” he would purr in that throaty accent and oily grin, implying it was I who had a dirty mind for even thinking our conversation had an erotic component. Flirting, after all, is what Europeans excel at, right? I’ve read all the magazine articles, seen all the movies with dashing Frenchmen armed with charm and the attentive ways women can’t resist. No, things with S. just stumbled ahead the same way my relations with boys had when I was growing up: I let them lead, all the time keeping my foot on the brake. What I never counted on was there were two other human beings in this besides me. And my own emotions.

Funny, I always thought of myself as the girl who could be in command of any situation. When I was dating, I never drank alcohol, never smoked a joint until I after I was married, all because I didn’t want anyone “taking advantage of me.” Sure some of that was my mother’s preaching, but I’m no prude when it comes to sex. I didn’t “lose” my virginity in 12th grade, I chose the time and place. Calculating? Maybe. I wasn’t about to be “swept away” like other girls I knew, there was no way I’d let any man get me pregnant and wreck all the plans I had to be a doctor or save the world. Unlike most of the other women I know, I didn’t even mind oral sex with whatever guy I was seeing at the time. Sex in any form is natural if I’m in love. I can let down my guard when I’m comfortable; I can’t give up control of a situation, can’t bear the thought of a guy getting me to do anything unless it’s what I want.

What I didn’t realize is that this time, I couldn’t dictate the course of events the way I’m writing them down now— they were writing me— still are. My dad taught me to play cards when I was only nine; my favorite game is still blackjack. He says I’m pretty good, though way too aggressive. He’s right, I take chances. He always cautions me not to overplay my hand. Well, I thought I was in control of the game S. and I had dreamed up—I didn’t know there were wild cards in the deck.

Part of the excitement was this unpredictability. I could never be sure if he’d show up outside M & A after work wanting to walk me home, or ring my doorbell at any hour with a sheaf of papers for me to type. He’d tell me he was coming over early to avoid finding P. at home, then spend the evening bullshitting with him over Scotch. There was a good deal of uncertainty about his life story, too, the hookers he’d slept with living in New York before starting at Yale, or the Arab girls in Beirut before that. His emotions were mercurial, one day he’d insist he was mad for Ellen and was devastated because she’d stood him up, then say the next he was dating her only as an excuse to be near me. Was it all teasing, or was there a shred of fact to it? All lies about his past, or a kernel of reality? Of course I was flattered by the idea he might really be interested in me, what woman feels nothing having a man smitten with her like a little puppy dog, even if she is married? It pumped helium into my ego when he confessed he’d been scouting me before he asked me to type his paper.

“You realize that I had my eye on you even before I started doing research here?”

“You’re not going to start with that bullshit about ‘kindred souls’ again, are you?”

“No, really, I’m utter-ly serious. I picked you out as a fellow seeker of pleasure weeks before I knew it was you in that photo.”

I already had a reputation around the department as a flirt after posing for a photo of me in the Yale Daily News sitting on the lap of the statue of Theodore Dwight Woolsey, Yale’s 11th president, over on Old Campus. All I was wearing in the picture were large gold hoop earrings and a healthy dose of attitude. Fortunately for me, the editor picked a shot that didn’t show my face. Why’d I take such a chance of losing my job by posing nude for the Yale paper, on campus no less? I don’t know, I didn’t go looking for trouble, it sorta found me— see what I mean about just letting things happen? I fell into it answering an ad for a photographer’s model on a card posted down in Cross Campus Library’s snack bar offering $50. I almost missed the card, too, it was nearly covered over by a flurry of notices selling stereos or used bikes, in search of roommates for apartments off campus, or offers to type papers, tutor math or earn money in your spare time as a subject for an experiment over in the Pysch Lab (no violence or pain, promise).
Of course, P. was angry with me for taking the risk and (worse) letting other guys ogle my flabby ass. The $50 got spent on some outrageous flats I saw at Macy’s, but the money didn’t mean a thing to me in comparison to the gas I got from tweaking the campus scolds— or seeing my photo tacked up in the dorms next to the usual Playboy pin-ups. I don’t have a body like those women, so, sure, I was flattered, yeah. I don’t know why I told S. it was me kissing Woolsey’s iron face, but he immediately started pressuring me to autograph the copy he had tacked up on a cork bulletin board over his desk.

“No chance, Stefan Retter, not even in your dreams!”

“Why not?” He looked sincerely hurt by my refusal.

“Because Robert will immediately tell Ellen.” The third of his suite mates at Ezra Stiles College hung out in M & A even more than he did— to the point we called him “Miss Robert” because he seemed so comfortable around that pack of female jackals. Good thing for me he wasn’t around that time I went over in my micro-mini! “Besides, you don’t need to look at naked pictures of me, it will only fuel your already overheated imagination.”

“Im-possible,” he grinned, splitting the word for that extra ounce of precision that only made sense because I knew he was thinking in German— or thinking like a German. “I assure you, Mis-sus Campbell, my imagination could not be more overheated when I’m around you. It is like a car laboring up an impossibly steep hill with a monstrously heavy load on a scorching Summer afternoon! Which by the way, you look positively scorching in the photo, it is just one more nail in the coffin of my undoing. No, our paths had already crossed on a Winter’s day, as that lovely Simon & Garfunkel song goes—

“Ah, yes, ‘If I never loved I never would have cried.’ You ARE a serious young man!”
“Hmm, yes, ‘I have my books/And my poetry to protect me’—“

“—’I touch no one and no one touches me’—”

”—‘And a rock feels no pain’—”

”—‘And an island never cries’.”

“Now if only I could carry a tune in the proverbial wooden bucket, we could tell the world Simon & Garfunkel is back together again, only one of them is now a girl.”

“Art was always a bit on the prissy side anyway,” I was laughing so hard now I wanted to pee, “if he isn’t gay, he should be.”

“In any case, I was checking you out before I started researching my bloody thesis. It was, as I have already indicated, a Winter’s day, and I was on my way to Sterling. I was walking along the sidewalk above that underground monstrosity known as Cross Campus Library, wondering if I could eventually tease Ellen’s panties off before I reach middle age. Given the weather and the position of Yale men in the sexual pecking order on campus— professors first, followed by graduate students and only then, if nothing else remains, Yale undergrads— I was paying no particular attention at that moment to the female fauna scampering by. However, I should have picked up on the fact that you were older and more experienced than even the sexually-promiscuous women I meet nowadays.”

“Stefan Retter, should I take that as flattery or a put-down?” We were having coffee in the library cafeteria every day by then, and it annoyed me and pleased me when he said those kinds of things. “Besides, I find it hard to believe you’ve been celibate during your four years here.”

“Hmmm, well, I never kiss and tell, at least not usually. Not unless I think it will unlock other chastities.”

“Don’t get any ideas. I’ve been keeping professors and instructors at bay since I started at Temple. You academics are as amoral as cats in heat.”

“Well, you can’t impute my character, my dear Cassie, since you’re hardly the younger woman, you’re 24 and married since five years. Though I do find at times you seem so much more youthful and vivacious than any 18 year-old.”

“I’m just immature, for God’s sake. Don’t make me out to be anything extraordinary. It’s more pressure than I can handle!”

“Ah, you never let me compliment you. No, I’m quite serious. You are both experienced and yet still fresh and innocent. It is one of the conundrums that make you utter-ly fascinating. However, at the instant I first saw you, you did not precisely stand out, and I would never have noticed you in that stodgy old pea coat covering everything but your legs— and I will tell you your legs are quite wonderful.” I’m sure he punctuated that thought with a leering smile and probably a sly peek under the table at the body parts in discussion. My father had always frowned on flattery, and only once before the day I got married had he ever told me I looked “pretty.”

“I’m positive it was your walk that made me look more carefully.”

“My what?”

“There’s a certain je ne sais quoi about it, something between a bounce and a skipping sensation. Most of the time, you seem to be almost running on the balls of your feet. On that particular Winter’s day, you were careening toward the main entrance of Sterling as if you were either going to take wing and fly— or fall ingloriously on your face. It so happened my own path was taking me inside; naturally I followed. Cherchez la femme.”

“You’re such a liar, Retter!”

“Not at all! Your figure was nothing special under that God-awful coat, though body types, large or small, never deter me. I wanted to see what your ass looked like with such a walk—

“Stefan!”

“—bouncing up the stone steps of this ridiculous American Gothic portal. No, I’m sure it was your breasts I wanted to see as well. They bounce so saucily when you walk that way.”

“You stare at my breasts?” I asked with mock shock and displeasure.

“All the time. There’s no harm in observing the beauty of the world.” He paused for a split-second to wait for my “Harrumph!”, then continued as if he hadn’t said anything lewd or suggestive. “I was hanging back enough so that you wouldn’t hold the door— or notice me lurking behind you. Once in the building your shoes, low and sensible of course, probably penny loafers or something equally dull and school-girlish, yet charming in their innocence, clicked along the tiles in a stammering rhythm that I found brave or a perhaps even a little forward. In any case my interest level increased a notch, then several notches as you disrobed out of the coat. Don’t roll your eyes! I’m being serious! I couldn’t be sure, I asked myself, what was it about you that pricked my curiosity so?”

“That I wore a skirt?”

“Ha-ha, you’re always so penetrating with your insights. In any case, I didn’t have to think about it very long. My heart beat a little faster as I saw you turning down the corridor to the right towards M & A and then into its doors. You turned around when I called out “hello!”, though only briefly I’m glad to say, tossing your hair, unconsciously I suspect, you never, ever are outwardly the coquette.”

“Well, I’m glad I meet up to your standards, then….”

“Ah, but tossing of the hair is one of the ways women signal a man they’re interested, you do realize that? Another is pulling on their hair, or arranging it as they talk to someone else, it’s a sort of deferring of their interest to some object. Odd that a sex object would rely on another object.” I reached over and smacked his arm elaborately. “And as I have gotten to know you bet-ter, I have come to realize you are not without a certain charming vanity. Who is it lists her hair color as ‘dark ash blond’ on her driver’s license?”

“How do you know that? Have you been in my purse?”

“Alas, it’s the only private part of you I have been in.” He patted his own hair with an elaborately feminine gesture. “But I also know you enhance those lovely tresses— that is the term, isn’t it? Tresses?— with a bottle of chemicals you keep in your bathroom cabinet labeled so fetchingly with the brand name of ‘Summer Blond.’ In Germany, our blonds are blond more than just in Summer.”

“That’s the absolute last time you’re taking a leak at my apartment! From now on you have to pee outside in the street.”

“Ah, Beirut! I pissed in the streets so many times there. Getting back to that first time— we met, that is— I only caught a brief glance at your face before you turned away— your gaze was more guileless than the incoming freshmen women. Have I told you all of the ones I meet at mixers or in classes are either pre-med or pre-law and definitely post-coital? Of course, I couldn’t study you then in any detail, these were all first impressions. It was only later that I came to know that face better. I learned it’s no school girl’s face, no innocent at heart.”

“You’re such a hopeless flirt, Retter.”

“Cor-rect, yes, I’m afraid you’re right. I shall rush to confession tonight to regale the Monsignor with my misdeeds. You see, I had to be careful, lest Ellen saw me looking at anyone except her. We had only been going out for a few weeks, and strange to say, she’d never alluded to you as her M & A roommate. I understood immediately why not.”

“We’re hardly roommates.”

“And she’s hardly in the same league as you are. But that’s the mark of Cain on my head, Mis-sus Campbell. In any case, I smiled my crispest German smile for you both, though I positioned myself in front of Ellen’s desk in such a manner that she would think I was smiling solely at her. What was I thinking taking such a chance for someone I hadn’t met? I hoped you might see my smile, but alas, you did not look back again, instead disappearing behind the doors to the research room. Freed from that stodgy pea coat, which you flung into your chair in one motion, the bounce in your step carried all the way up your body. How I wished at that very moment I could see you shed more than the coat!”

“Always the Lothario,” and I playfully slapped his face, though not hard at all, more the palm of my hand glancing across his cheek. His skin felt cool and rough even though he’d shaved, then he grabbed for my hand, which I pulled away with a laugh.

“Ah, but what else would account for my sudden craving to see what you looked like underneath the knit dress which clung to your figure in both the right and some of the wrong places?”

“You cad! Are you alluding to my fat?”

“I told you body types are an American obsession. I like a woman with some substance. Besides, you’re hardly fat my dear.”

“Well, tell that to Patrick, he’s always hinting how I’d look so much better if I could just lose 5 or 10 pounds.”

“It is not for me to comment on your husband’s perception— or lack of same.” He was serious for a moment, and it made me extremely uncomfortable I’d revealed that about P. Or worse, that he’d commented on it. “But I digress. You were the ‘older woman,’ and Laclos had whetted my appetite for that. I remember telling myself how very interesting things in M & A were likely to become over the next few months.”

If only we’d both known how right he was.

Would it have changed anything if I’d known?

Probably not.

Technorati Tag: sexblogs, sex, Yale, erotica, Sexual Revolution, flirting

Beyond You & Me site tops 10,000 visitors!

2005-06-08T14:22:00.000-04:00

Wow, in less than 3 months, this site has topped 10,000 visitors (with a very respectable 20% re-load rate)! Thanks to everyone, whether first-timers, regulars or even the trolls. Literary agents are waaaay behind the curve on this book, and we're all going to have the last laugh on them.

Thank you to all the many fans who've linked and referred traffic here, you're all great. Thanks also to the referral sites like "Kristen's Links", "Photography Sites.com" and of course, the ultra-fantastic Jane's Guide. Jane and Vamp have brought over 1/3 of all the visitors!

It's humbling to know that so many of you have enjoyed coming here. Cassie would be very proud and pleased to know her story has found an audience. I'll make sure the real Cassie hears about it!

Chapter 4 (final installment)

2005-06-05T14:45:00.000-04:00

Finally S. got around to what caused him to notice me the first time:

“I’m positive it was your walk that made me look more carefully.”

“My what?”

“There’s a certain je ne sais quoi about it, something between a bounce and a skipping sensation, you seem most of the time to be almost running on the balls of your feet. On that particular Winter’s day, you were careening toward the main entrance of Sterling as if you were either going to take wing and fly— or fall ingloriously on your face. It so happened my own path was taking me inside; naturally I followed. Cherchez la femme.”

“You’re such a liar, Retter!”

“Not at all! Under that God-awful peacoat, your figure was nothing special, though body types, large or small, never deter me. I wanted to see what your ass looked like with such a walk—

“Stefan!”

“—bouncing up the stone steps of this ridiculous American Gothic portal. No, I’m sure it was your breasts I wanted to see as well. They bounce so saucily when you walk that way.”

“You stare at my breasts?” I asked with mock shock and displeasure.

“All the time, there’s no harm in observing the beauty of the world.” He paused for a split-second to wait for my “Harrumph!”, then continued as if he hadn’t said anything, “I was hanging back enough so that you wouldn’t hold the door— or notice me lurking behind you. Once in the building your shoes, low and sensible of course, probably loafers or something equally dull and school-girlish, yet charming in their innocence, clicked along the tiles in a stammering rhythm that I found brave or a perhaps even a little forward, in any case my interest level increased a notch, then several notches as you disrobed out of the coat. Don’t roll your eyes! I’m being serious! I couldn’t be sure, I asked myself, what was it about you that pricked my curiosity so?”

“That I wore a skirt?”

“Ha-ha, you’re always so penetrating with your insights, Mis-us Campbell. In any case, I didn’t have to think about it very long, my heart beat a little faster as I saw you turning down the corridor to the right towards M & A and then into its doors. You turned around when I called out “hello!”, though only briefly I’m glad to say, tossing your hair, unconsciously I suspect, you never, ever are outwardly the coquette.”

“Well, I’m glad I meet up to your standards, then….”

“Ah, but tossing of the hair is one of the ways women signal a man they’re interested, you do realize that? Another is pulling on their hair, or arranging it as they talk to someone else, it’s a sort of deferring of their interest to something else. And as I have gotten to know you bet-ter, I have come to realize you are not without a certain charming vanity. Who is it lists her hair color as ‘dark ash blond’ on her driver’s license?”

“How do you know that? Have you been in my purse?”

“Alas, it’s the only private part of you I have been in.” He patted his own hair with an elaborately feminine gesture. “But I also know you enhance those lovely tresses— that is the term, isn’t it? Tresses?— with a bottle of chemicals you keep in your bathroom cabinet labeled so fetchingly with the brand name of ‘Summer Blond.’ In Germany, our blonds are blond more than just in Summer.”

“That’s the absolute last time you’re taking a leak at my apartment! From now on you have to pee outside in the street.”

“Ah, Beirut! I pissed in the streets so many times there. Getting back to that first time— we met, that is— I only caught a brief glance of your face before you turned away— your gaze was more innocent than most of the incoming freshmen, all of the ones I meet at mixers or after classes are either pre-med or pre-law and definitely post-coital. Of course, I couldn’t study you then in any detail, these were all first impressions, it was only later that I came to know that face better. I learned it’s no school girl’s face, no innocent at heart.”

“You’re such a hopeless flirt, Retter.”

“Yes, I’m afraid that’s true. I shall rush to confession tonight and regale the Monsignor with my misdeeds. You see, I had to be careful, lest Ellen sees I was looking at anyone except her. We had only been going out for a few weeks, and strange to say, she’d never alluded to you as her M & A roommate. I understood immediately why not.”

“We’re hardly roommates.”

“And she’s hardly in the same league as you are. But that’s the mark of Cain on my head, Mis-sus Campbell. In any case, I smiled my crispest German smile for you both, though I positioned myself in front of Ellen’s desk in such a manner that she would think I was smiling just at her. What was I thinking taking such a chance for someone I hadn’t met? I hoped you might see my smile, but alas, you did not look back again, instead disappearing behind the doors to the research room. Freed from that stodgy pea coat, which you flung into your chair in one motion, the bounce in your step carried all the way up your body. How I wished at that very moment I could see you shed more than the coat!”

“Always the Lothario,” and I playfully slapped his face, though not hard at all, more the palm of my hand glancing across his cheek, his skin felt cool and rough even though he’d shaved. He grabbed for my hand, which I pulled away with a laugh.

“Ah, but what else would account for my sudden craving to see what you looked like underneath the knit dress which clung to your figure in both the right and some of the wrong places?”

“You cad! How dare you allude to my fat?”

“I told you body types are an American obsession. I like a woman with some substance. Besides, you’re hardly fat, my dear.”

“Well, tell that to Patrick, he’s always hinting how I’d look so much better if I could just lose 5 or 10 pounds.”

“It is not for me to comment on your husband’s perception or lack of same.” He was serious for a moment, and it made me extremely uncomfortable I’d revealed that detail about P. or that he’d commented on it. “But I digress. You were the ‘older woman,’ and Laclos had whetted my appetite for that. I remember telling myself how very interesting things in M & A were likely to become over the next few months.”

If only we’d both known how right he was— though looking back, I’m not sure it would have changed a thing.

I’ve introduced two of the three persons in this psychodrama. What about P.?

BEYOND YOU & ME

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