As I'm writing this, I'm crossing and re-crossing my legs, shifting away from the embarrassing words that I'm about to share.

Oh God. I'll just tell you...

His name was Alex. We worked together when we were in our very early 20's. I was fresh out of a long term relationship; he was one of those spread-the-love types.

On that night, he invited me over. I showed up in a muted pink cotton sundress and nothing underneath, carrying a bottle of wine.

We drank a little, talked a little more, then it escalated; as we both knew it would.

He grabbed the backs of my thighs and pushed them up, exposing me to his mouth. The overly-aggressive technique wasn't pleasurable.

And suddenly.

I winced with a yelp. A sharp pain like a paper cut. Looking down, Alex popped his head up and there he was, with blood -- my blood -- on his mouth.

Horrified, I pushed him off and ran for the bathroom with him yelling about, how could you let me blah blah blah while you have your period.

That's a different kind of blood you child, I screamed from behind the door. Examining my bits, there it was, a raw little gash made from the wrong angle of one of my inexperienced lover's teeth.

I needed a pussy bandaid.

When he finally apologized and asked for a redo a few weeks later, the answer was uncomplicatedly honest: I'm still icing my privates.

I wake up in a bed that’s not my own,

a stranger snoring softly ’neath the sheets;

my memories of last night now have flown,

        I wake up in a bed that’s not my own,

        and slowly stand up, naked and alone;

        exposed upon the bed is naught but feet.

                I wake up in a bed that’s not my own,

                a stranger snoring softly ’neath the sheets.

A stranger snoring softly ’neath the sheets,

mixed clothing wildly strewn about the floor.

The pulse within my brain a thumping beat;

        a stranger snoring softly ’neath the sheets.

        I ask myself “Who is that? Where’d we meet?

        How quiet can I shut the bathroom door?”

                A stranger snoring softly ’neath the sheets,

                mixed clothing wildly strewn about the floor.

Mixed clothing wildly strewn about the floor,

with wrinkles, stains, bad breath and crazy hair;

my abs are tender; hips a little sore.

        Mixed clothing wildly strewn about the floor,

        a quick escape is what I want, no more;

        I found my phone, the lost socks? I don’t care.

                Mixed clothing wildly strewn about the floor,

                with wrinkles, stains, bad breath and crazy hair.

With wrinkles, stains, bad breath and crazy hair

from waking in a bed that’s not my own.

I faintly recall shots and Truth-or-Dare.

        With wrinkles, stains, bad breath and crazy hair,

        in sunlight blinking, breathing morning air.

        The walk of shame no longer is unknown,

                with wrinkles, stains, bad breath and crazy hair

                from waking in a bed that’s not my own.

(c) 2017 - dustygrein

** a triolet in iambic pentameter

I met her while passing through the busy tourist ladened sidewalks of Waikiki. She, with ivory fair skin rubbed with far too much suntan lotion; adorned in a floppy over-sized sunhat and large Breakfast-At-Tiffany's sunglasses that covered her eyes like some sort of rhinestone encrusted insect; strappy stiletto heels; pink and white sundress; shopping bags in one hand-- gelato in the other.

As for me, I'm not much to look at: sun-kissed-punk-rock-warrior-poet, spouting a mangled mix of shaka-pidgin-and-Shakespeare, Tarzan-and-Tennyson, in a mishmash-ed glass menagerie of an English degree doodled on napkins. So when I opened my mouth, an out pouring of my carefully crafted encyclopedic wit and charming disposition culminated with:

"Hi."

And then more words followed, and somehow my stumbling bumbling buffoonery engaged her in conversation. We're standing there in the sun and the heat, talking about shopping and gelato and people are just walking past us, and it isn't until her bags are at her feet' and her dessert is melted to a puddle in her cup that I realize we've been blocking a major thoroughfare without a care for the world around us. She's not making any excuses to walk away, no artificial deadline or destination. No, she's genuinely interested in the words coming out of my mouth for some reason.

"I want to eat that." I point to her empty gelato cup. "Where did you get that?"

- - - - 

She was clever.  Instead of gelato we got beer, and over a pitcher at a tiki-tourist-bar I became all the more enamored. We spoke about politics and art, and hikes and beaches, we talked about eating animals, and the potential flavors endangered species. And the more we spoke the more, I smiled and the more she twirled her hair. One pitcher became two, and onward to a quaint little bistro by the ocean for food. As the sun was setting across the water, and the masts and sails like a thousand little toothpicks sticking out of the glowing sea. With an equal red glow on her cheeks she whispered:

“You might just be the best thing so far about Hawaii.” To which I replied,

“Volcanoes.” 

- - - -

We stumbled into her hotel room, my hands exploring the curves of her body, hot unadulterated passion radiating off our meshing flesh. She peeled my shirt off and flung it into a corner of the room. We tripped out-of shoes and heels; our faces and hands unable to separate or even look down for the briefest of moments. I flung her onto the bed, she fumbled at the skull-and-crossbones of my belt buckle.

My thumb and forefinger found the zipper to the back of her pink and white sundress dress. I gave the zipper a tug; The thin metal toggle sang as it rode down the small of her back, each unfettered tooth widening the maw of fabric, and bringing me one step closer to that beautiful moment where our genitals will high-five. I ran my fingernails playfully over her bare skin from her slender shoulders down to her well toned buttocks. I'm on top of her. Our faces-- inseparable.

"Do you have a girlfriend?" She asked me between hot mouthy kisses.

"Of course not." I replied, gasping for air. My hands working their way up the sides of her ribs, opening up the back of her dress ready to pull it off, her soft flesh dancing under my fingertips.

"Do you have a boyfriend?"

- - - -

Doctors call them "door knob questions". The patient goes in, has a routine checkup and says everything is fine. The moment the doctor is about to leave the examining room, with his hand (or her hand, because women can be doctors too) on the door knob the patient spits it out-- the real reason for their visit.

"I've got this growth on my testicle and I think it might be cancer... and I've been coughing up blood all morning..."

- - - -

She had deftly avoided the question all evening, and now right when we were at the cusp of coitus, standing at the doorstep of my ding-dong's-destiny, with her hands at my waist kissing me like she means it...

There's this awkward.

Halting.

Pause.

"...I have a boyfriend."

I laugh, because I think she's being cute. It sounded so good coming out of her mouth, it took a second to register in my brain.

"Wait, say that again?"

"He's back in New Zealand. We're on a break."

"Does he know that?" She shrugs.  

"I mean, I'm going to break up with him when I get home."

The room gets very cold and quiet. Something in the light changes: I pull my face away from hers, first by inches and then by miles. Something in me shifts. I no longer want to do this. I stand up.

- - - -

I gathered up my clothes. They were flung so casually all over her hotel room in a passionate whirlwind... and now I'm participating in the world's most depressing scavenger hunt, where the prize at the end for collecting it all is a night of self-loathing and solitary contemplation about my life's choices.

Even once I Caught em' All, my clothes instinctively fight me. It's like being a toddler again; all motor-skills flying out the window in my fevered panic to escape. My head wants to go through the arm hole, both feet in one pant leg. I don't even bother to try tying my laces; I just tuck them into the sides of my shoes. She's sitting there, scowling on her hotel room bed, her mouth slightly agape and her eyes narrowed into slits, just watching me stumble into my clothes. The back zipper of her dress is still splayed wide open, the material folded over her shoulders as if she were some life-sized-zip-up-costume just waiting for someone with character to step into her skin.

"Thank you for a wonderful night" I say to her as I exit her hotel room. I wish I had a hat. Like a bowler, fedora, or even a cowboy hat because at that exact moment I would've raised it an inch over my head and tipped it to her. I saunter off, my imaginary spurs jingling with each step.

Out in the long empty corridor, lined with perfectly cloned hotel doors end to end, I paused for a moment uncertain of what to do. "I'm doing the right thing." I said it aloud to myself in the empty hallway. And then again. "I'm doing the right thing." Louder. "I'm doing the right thing."

For some reason, I start running. Running... from a half - naked woman who wants me for purely carnal and superficial reasons, a goal I've spent most of my adult life running towards. Hotel California begins playing in my head as I barrel my way down the empty hallway and through the fire exit and down the stairwell making a mad dash in concentric circles as I descend further and further away from her hotel room to the ground floor. I imagine her giving one final piercing cackle before her room bursts into unholy purple and green flames. Because in Disney Movies, the bad guys always have purple and green flames.

I fling open the doors and spill out onto some discrete side exit flanked by concrete plant potters and shoulder high-hedges. I hear the door lock behind me with a resounding *thud*. It's in that moment I allow myself to slow the perpetual motion of my fleeing body. I turn around and try the handle. Yep, no turning back now. I tie my shoelaces and walk the rest of the way to my car.

I did the right thing.

God damn... I hate the right thing.  

I was nervous. Blushed cheeks, sweaty palms and warm ears, all of them became apparent when I saw him. I have been talking to him on the internet for 5 years now and it was the first time in all those years that we were meeting. After a nice dinner, and not much talking we went to my apartment. I took shower and put on my favourite body mist and was all very excited to feel the touch of the man I have been talking for so long and was almost in love with. I slipped into my shorts and joined him under the blanket in my bed. With laptop on his laps, he asked me that if I would like to listen to romantic slow songs. I said that yes, sure! He dimmed the lights of the room. The vibes and the ambience indicated the love all around. Bodies were warm, breaths were fast, hearts were pounding really hard and the kiss happened. Feeling the soft flesh of his lips and tongue over mine was surreal. He slid his hand down there and I realized that what a pool of juices I had made. The hot love-making followed and continued for the whole night. I expected a proposal to be his girl friend next morning after that perfect night and those personal and detailed chats of our lives for 5 years. Dawn arrived and we were both up but still in the bed and he pulled out his wallet and showed me the photo of his daughter. I was shocked to know that he has a daughter, but it did not lessened my love for him, until he said, "I love my daughter and MY WIFE very much. Would you like to be my sex buddy? I loved making love to you the last night, it was........" I walked away to the washroom before he could say anything more. Why did he never mentioned that he is married and has a family. I took shower washing away my mixed set of emotions.

Fucked up night it was! May be I had expected too much of an internet stranger. Such a naive I was!

Never fall in love over the internet.

I was generous enough to offer him a breakfast though! :p

In the mid to late 90's, before the internet became the thing you can't live without today, you had a land-line phone and an America Online (AOL) account or a Prodigy or a Compuserve account.  But I digress, anyway, on these internet providers that you used to have to dial into with your dial-up modem, you would log into AOL's chat rooms.  I have always been a fan of thick women, plump in the rump, whatever, it's just my taste in women. 

But back then, we didn't have a PAWG chat room or fat bottomed girls chat - you had BBW or SSSBBW.  So in these chat rooms, you'd join in a discussion, pick out someone who you thought you'd like to get to know more and then private message them.  You'd chat for a while, then you would exchange pictures. After that when you get a number, you'd call them and then when your ear hairs would curl, you'd engage in phone sex or what have you.

But on this particular day, I found an older woman to talk with, I wasn't aware of this additional attraction to women but I was.  If I look back on it now, yeah, it was part of my flavor palette.  And there was an incident when I was 21 that I may write about later... But I digress, so I called up this woman, and we agreed to meet the next day.  It was a hike for me, but hey, I was a nerd in my mid twenties, and wasn't experienced - I was going to get laid.

See here is where I wish the idea of cat fishing came up in my day.  Because when I met her, she was much older than she said...MUCH OLDER.  I won't go into details, nor will I go into the blow by blow, but...there was a goal in mind, and a goal was achieved.  

Afterwords, I was asked if I would come back...

"Sure...", I lied through my teeth.

I got into my car, and started my drive home.  I stopped at a McDonald's and grabbed something to eat, and on the ride home, I turned on the radio, and started crying.

"What did you just do???" I was thinking to myself.  Asking myself the same thing over and over later as I drove on.

Then I was mad at myself for crying, hey, its just the era I was raised in.  Guys just don't cry in bathrooms after sex.  Nor did this guy, I did it on the ride home.  My own "walk of shame" if you will.  But it was after that encounter, that I never told a woman something that wasn't true in the bedroom, ever again.  I don't know what it was, to me it was just something not right in lying to someone you are about to be intimate with.  It was also after this encounter that I never judged people on who they chose to sleep with because every now and then, we all need a little closeness.

Anonymity prohibits

His identity exhibits

Suffice it to say, booze played a part

In this affair, no end, all start

Whiskey dick, unfortunate name

As beer, in excess, does the same

Long hair, molten eyes, ignited fire

His hips thrust toward mine, desire

His large tool, an active member

Bent to the nail, flimsy hammer

So, it now seems his workshop closed

No sawdust would fly, he just dozed

Taking matters into own hands

Solitary construction plans

Once foundation solidly lay

Fingers erected each brick play 

Exhaling deep, joy, gratitude

I look to my Romeo dude

His hairy ass, his beer breath snore

Pick up my clothes, run to the door

One night stands- till next time- no more!!

The only hints at foreplay

Were strangely licky kisses

And a few sweaty palmed breast squeezes.

 He was handsome,

Young, and a little bit weird.

I expected it to be over quickly;

The customary short hard jizz

Of teenage man in heat; 

Instead, I got over an hour...

Not of teenage lust,

But the dry limp thrusting 

Of a semi in the dark.

I tried to get myself wet

With thoughts of other men

But the flimsy prods 

Kept bringing me back.

On and on 

He squeezed in flaccidly,

Thumb and forefinger holding

The base of his shaft,

To ensure enough pressure 

For entry.

In desperation for enjoyment

I attempted lubrication 

With saliva on fingers

But it didn't help.

I was being rubbed raw.

Finally

He groaned, as if about to cum...

But peed instead.

I met Janine (not her real name) during the winter of 2010, before meeting my wife. She was my eighth, sixteenth, or hundredth online date. I wasn't keeping score. I told myself it wasn't desperation, but I hadn't been intimate with another woman for over two years.

We had drinks after work. She was a casual at Swarovski in the city, and I wasn't far up the terrace. Prior to our meet up, I had only been offered glimpses of Janine's hot, girl-next-door face. So, you could imagine my face when I discovered the rest of her. I'm not a model gentleman, not even when channeling James T. Kirk with a scantily-clad Orion girl. But, there was a lot to love! I said hello, at which point, my greatest ever challenge was realized—being put on trial as a human being.

We talked. I had no problem engaging in conversation or reciprocating flirts. I could tell she was enthralled because she touched my forearm.

What transpired next was plain wrong, and I knew right away. But, I was parched like a teetotaler at a pub during Oktoberfest. I rested my palm on her hand. My brain didn't care that Janine was not my type. I wasn't even aware that the dormant neurons in both hemispheres of my skull were buzzing. It felt good. Like a two-year itch on your lower back, that one annoying spot where neither arm could reach. Ever.

Damn. Her hands were so Goddamned soft!

There was a good chance my eyes were complicit in perpetrating the next shameful crime—no doubt taking direct orders from my other brain—but Janine was ravishing and delicious. I shifted to face her, eliminating any hints of disinterest. I scanned every inch of her ample body, and you know what? She ain't half bad on the eyes. Sure, the woman had curves, but I decided that curvy was better than being a sticky (I know you know what I mean).

So, what was impossible before was now possible, one of my brains was telling me that, I'm not sure which one. It wouldn't be the best sex, or it could be the worst, but I had no fucks left to give.

We had a few more drinks. By we, I meant me, and by a few, I meant half a dozen. I finally understood the reference "beer goggles".

I couldn't resolve the tightness in my pants any longer after that. We took the train home because neither of us had a car (another thing we had in common). We were in bed undressing each other an hour later.

Fuck. Sobriety was rearing its ugly head. I became more conscious of her body. No matter what I did—switching the lights off, closing my eyes, being rough—I couldn't get it up. So, I did the only thing I could: played the stress card.

I knew she knew. But Janine was a champion. If she was upset or embarrassed, it never showed. She didn't even ask to spoon. I slept little that night, and I guessed neither did she.

I called her a taxi the next morning, and we embraced each other before she embarked. That scene which devolved before the world to witness was textbook-classic awkward. Although I can't describe it, I still remember the look on her face as the taxi rolled down the road.

I never saw her again.

She had a tanning bed smile; it was bright white, with leather at the edges.

I expected her to be hard, but she was soft and pliable. I never even had to ask, she just moved like a river to my stone, always flowing and a little too gentle.

I wanted to make more of a splash.

Her brittle-blonde hair looked good in my fist, and her hips moved in time with rapid heartbeats in our shared heat.

"Is this how you fuck your husband?"

Her eyes, heavily lidded, barely looked at me as she nodded.

"No wonder he has a girlfriend."

There it was. The hesitation. The stutter. The rhythm of her gyrations, interrupted by shock.

She tried hard to reach back and cling to 30. The personal trainer, the weekly visits to the nail salon, the too-often-to-be-healthy trips to the tanning bed, they added up to a sum that was always just barely less-than, and never equal to.

"Don't stop on my account," I whispered as I pulled her head down to mine, my fingers wrapped in her curls.

With renewed focus, she resumed her thrusts against me.

I knew she was only trying to get off; this was her revenge for my taunting her, and it was weeks of flirting in the making.

She had no idea that for me it wasn't even about being inside her.

It was about the suffering.

"Oh, there you go. Grind faster. Use me. But I have to ask," my hand tightened, yanking her face back so I could look at her. "Does it ever bother you?"  A pause.  More thrusts.  "You know.  The fact that she'll always be prettier.  Do you hate that she's young enough to be your daughter?"

She didn't say anything, so much as utter a defiant, mournful cry. It was somewhere between a sob and a plea for more-more-deeper. I felt her weight shift; she was trying to dismount.

I released hair and clamped hands around gym-toned waist, pulling her back down and keeping her where she belonged.

Full-voiced and forceful, I gave what I knew she'd understand as a command. "You don't get to decide when to stop. You're mine until I make you leave."

She could've safeworded. We discussed that weeks ago, when she decided to play my games.  Flirty phone calls had given way to discussions of this scene; here we were, finally putting together all the pieces.

The ones that mattered, anyway.  I had my doubts we'd play again.

Instead of calling it off, she shuddered as the first tear streaked down her too-tan face.

I smirked.  "Oh, now, slow down with those.  You don't want me to finish yet, do you?"

I laughed when she resumed grinding away her sorrows.

Shortly after our marriage, my late husband confessed to me about the worst one-night stand he had ever experienced. In his words, it was a complete “cat’s ass trophy!”

Mike had met this lovely girl at a keg party. The party was being held at a clearing in the woods on a balmy summer evening. Sharon was an earthy naturalist, wearing a tie-dyed halter top and sarong. She had brought her faithful companion, “Buster”, to the event. Buster was a large, black and white, Great Dane. Mike and Sharon hit it off, drinking beer and talking for hours around the campfire with Buster at their feet.

The couples’ conversation turned romantic and lead to passionate kissing. Mike took Sharon by the hand, into the woods, to a place covered in soft moss. They fell to the ground in anticipation. He kissed her neck and gently raised Sharon’s cotton skirt up to her ribs, revealing a tiny belly-button charm. Smiling, Mike then managed to kick off his boots, unbuckle his jeans and toss them. He dove in with a heavenly “thrust”.

They were really “going to town” when Mike suddenly felt something wet and warm slide across his butthole and testicles. Turning around, he saw Buster licking him . . . then Buster raised up on his hind legs in an attempt to “join the orgy”.

Mike shrieked and “dismounted” Sharon, immediately. ("This is not going to happen.")  He told me, later, that he had never lost an erection so fast!