Walk of Shame
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
Zipper Questions
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.
After 5 years
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
Guys just don’t
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.
Limp
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 Swarovski Girl
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.
Three is a Crowd
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!
Passing Gas
The year was around seventy-nine or eighty, I was a naive young thing in the military and had a date with some bad boy I had a crush on. We had been out to dinner and were now back at his place and I was as nervous as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs. We get to necking and fooling around, just kissing and touching mostly, when for no apparent reason, gas came out of the "wrong" place, noisily I'll add, and this poor fellow took it to mean I didn't want to be there. "Are we gonna do this or what?" he said. Well, I was so darn embarrassed and had no idea what or why that just happened, I snatched my clothes up and high-tailed it out of there as fast as my short little legs would carry me. I never saw that young man again, and that was alright with me. Years later someone taught me the meaning of the word queef, and that's when I realized what had happened that awful night. It may have been a natural occurrence, however, it was about the farthest thing from sexy there was and except for one time after with my husband, has never happened again.
First Timer
My Worst One Nighter
Followed me Down the Line of my Life.
When I First Fell Down That Well;
Old Was I Having Spent Most of Life In the Pen.
She Was a Present All Willow & Wine,
Fluid In Motion & What a Slick Grip.
a Real Home Coming In True Gangster Land Style
the Party Lasting Well Into Night.
me & Her Going At It Not Caring the Sight.
Stabbing & Stabbing With my Long Knife.
Dripping & Spent Then Into Her Mouth
a Grin Full of Sin & Back To the Mill.
Tired Was I After We Toweled & Dried.
Getting Into Bed I Thought This the Best It Ever Been.
It Was All So UnTrue As They Crept In my Room.
To Silence the Things Never Mouthed But I Knew.
Shoot Us They Did As I Used Her To Defend,
Bullets Cutting Through Her Turning Living Flesh To Dead.
Her Eyes Wide In Surprise As They Dripped Down my Thigh.
Night After Night That Is What I See
Endlessly Reminding That the Chunks Were a She.
An Ash Tray Was All I Could Find As I Used Her To Hide.
Kill Them I Did Again & Again
But Never Was I In Time.
#B27321
Let Sleeping Ghosts lie.
So here I am, foot loose and fancy free, newly divorced and back in the town of my birth. I'm staying the towns one hotel, its been recently re-modernised, its actually very nice, but I can't remember being allowed in as a youngster.
The rite of passage here used to be a pint of scrumpy in each if the 18 pubs then walk home. I'm afraid I failed, even playing the 'sissys and girls' card of half pints, I only managed 14 pubs before being violently ill, still good days, good memories.
Feeling nostalgic I decide to walk the 'Route', it will be nice to see the old haunts, though I doubt there is anyone left here that I know, this is the kind of town people come from. I start with the hotels bar. Talking to the barman who is about the same age as my son he asked me what I'm doing and I tell him. He looks nonplussed
"not much of a challenge," he says
"just walking round 18 pubs let alone drinking is enough at my age"
"18 ? theres only four, well five if you count this one"
"he's right love, only four left" said an older guy sitting to my left, "you must have been gone, what? 20 years if you can remember all of them, were you been?"
"Oh all round the world and back again" I say lightly
"so? who's left"
"well the Red Dog is now one of them gastro pubs, lousy beer but good pies, what was the Dolphin is now the Admiral Nelson gone all 'quaint' with wonky chairs and hard benches, the Old Oak Tree is part of a chain and devoid of any character. The Queens Arms is pretty good, brought by the singer of one of those bands that used to play there, still do music, think theres someone on tonight, the rest have all gone"
Oh! The Queens Arms music nights! they were famous round here, I had the hots for one of the bands that played there, well, the lead singer, Stevie his name was, not quite a groupie, too shy for that but he did kiss me one Christmas, ahh teenage kicks! The band went on to be semi famous, wonder what happened to them all?
I realise the guy is waiting for an answer, but I hadn't heard the question too busy day-dreaming
"I said, I'll walk you up there if you like"
"sorry, sorry I know my way, but I wouldn't mind the company "
We walked through the quiet streets of this sleepy English market town, and in through the front door of the Queens Arms, It hadn't changed, yet it had, a fire still burned in the hearth, the bar was where it always had been, but the sticky carpet had gone, replaced by polished floorboards, much to the delight of the cleaner no doubt.The young barmaid looked vaguely familiar, daughter of a past barmaid perhaps?
"what can I get you love" she asked
"half a Lilies please"
I could see the back of a man stacking coke bottles in the fridge
"bloody hell" he exclaimed "I'd know that voice anywhere, where you been Kid-o?"
I felt like I'd been slapped round the face with a wet kipper, I opened and closed my mouth but nothing came out.
"Meet my daughter, Lavender" Stevie said giving me a look that said 'don't say it, please'
"Pleased to meet you" I said and shook her hand "I'm Ann" using the shortened form of my name, one I'd adopted many years ago.
"Hay this is great! Declan's coming down too, were playing later, oh its more blues type stuff now, but we might play some old songs, say you'll stay"
Then to his daughter "thats on the house"
I peruse the bar menu, order a pie and retreat to the corner to watch, I can see them setting up in the back bar, he's kept himself trim, still moves well, not like an old man, his hair is ridiculously long with a eighties flick, more salt in it now but it suits him. He still looks bloody good.
The band starts playing and I move into the back bar to listen, it's a good set, they are polished and professional, the audience is singing and dancing, soon I'm lost in a mix of memories, nostalgia and the present. Too quickly its all over, Last Orders is being called. I skull the last of my cider and pick my coat up.
Don't go" suddenly Stevie is by my side "I'll buy you another"
"Thanks, but I've enough to drink"
"A coffee then, coffee, let me get coffees"
He reappears with two coffees, and we start talking, Old friends, those still here, those gone, gigs, places, whats happened to us and to the town.The bustle of the bar fades into the background, Lavender appears by our sides
"I'm locking up dad, goodnight"
she turns to me and says," doors on a keypad, its his birthday"
I look round, the place is deserted, the door clicks shut.
Stevie put some music on the bar speakers, pulls me off the stool and says" lets dance"
Suddenly I'm were I've often fantasised being. And it feels as good as imagined. And he does still smell faintly of Old Spice aftershave ( I didn't know you could still get it !)
The track changes, he bends forward and kisses me,
"Thanks" he says, "for not dropping me in it"
"I take it you named her after this track, not a random groupie from your past"
"yes, but she's been a bit touchy about things since her mum died"
"I'm sorry"
"why'd you change your name"
"I didn't, I just shortened it, 'lavie' is awful, 'der' is just as bad but 'ann' I can live with"
"come to bed" he said and took my hand
We left Gordon Lightfoot singing 'Approaching Lavender' to an empty barroom
We're not kids, kisses linger and become deeper, hands caress and explore, we know how this game is played, he pulls off my top. I push Stevie back onto the bed kneeling over and straddling him as I unbutton his shirt. pushing into him and feeling his desire.
Suddenly, un-beckoned I feel the bile rise in my gullet, shit
"Bathroom" I gulp
"second door on your right"
I rush down the corridor and make it just in time, the Guinness and beef pot pie obviously had not agreed with me. It takes a few minuets to clean clean myself up, I wash my face and steal a little toothpaste to rub over my teeth, feeling a little deflated I walk back to his bedroom. He's fast asleep, snoring like a pig in a mud puddle on a hot July day I give him a prod, he doesn't wake, I poke him a little harder, he make a mumff mumff noise and rolls over into foetal position, dead to the world, well I'm out of luck then. Perplexed I stand there for a moment, then tuck the blanket over him, put my clothes back on, turn the light out and leave, Grabbing my coat from the bar I'm stymied for a few moments by the keypad on the back door, but what self respecting groupie doesn't know the birthdate of her passion?
Its a cold November night, the kind where the stars sparkle like diamonds and there isn't a soul around, It was a night like this twenty five years ago I hitched out of town.
Think I'll leave at daybreak, best to leave old ghosts undisturbed.