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July 10th, Two Thousand Five: A Choose Your Own (Mis)Adventure Entry
When last we left our sheroine, she was counting the hours until
her lover arrived. Her trusty minion personal assistant arrived in the evening as scheduled, as she
was walking the dog. He drove by sticking his head out of the
window with a strange barbaric yawp, which she at first thought
coquettish and charming -- "Ah, that Brandon," -- until he rounded the block and was not appearing to circle back. For a few fleeting and panicked moments,
she wondered if perhaps the yawp was in anger, and she had done
something to so terribly annoy him that he'd punish her by NOT
stopping to take her to the airport to claim the aforementioned
paramour d'arrivée.
She began to wonder what she could possibly do to exact appropriate
revenge should this be the case, because entertaining revenge
scenarios seemed a more dignified response than dropping to her
knees on the pavement and howling, "WHY God, WHY!?!..."
But alas, he merely had a hard time finding a parking spot. Lucky
for him her.
After a drive which involved many flashbacks to the days Heather
was a driver in Chicago, including wild manual gesticulation,
and more than once incident of yelling in Itanglish out the car
window to drivers doing truly annoying things like, you know,
stopping at red lights, a parking spot was found and Ms. Corinna
and her poor, beleaguered lackey employee raced to the gates.
....to wait. Much, much too long.
Meanwhile, Brandon became quite engrossed in his position as paparazzi
for the evening. Heather would turn from her tired gate-staring
to kvetch at her gaydy-in-waiting personal assistant about, for instance, the unmitigated gall
of other people flying into the airport on the eve of HER sweetie's
arrival, and he would not be where he stood mere moments before,
but instead, fifty feet away, coquettishly poised behind a water
fountain. She would approach him again, bitch accordingly, then
stare at the gate again, only to turn to voice her vexation once
more and find him missing again, this time misplaced on the other
side of the gate behind a rubbish bin. She drew the line when
he hoisted an elderly woman in front of him, moving her around
to attempt to remain hidden. I mean, really.
All of this waiting made our Heather...
| ... a bit downhearted and impatient. But alas! (continue) |
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Suddenly, coming down the escalator was a posture and a shiny
head she recognized! (Who did not see her right away, despite
her bouncing up and down like a hyperactive buoy in waters infected
by eels doing the Electric Slide, but noticing he was having his
picture taken by some strange man, figured she must be nearby.) What happened next, was....
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What you, readers, need to understand is that our lovers BOTH
hate flying. Quite a lot. So, Madame Corinna goes to great lengths
to provide her love with many pursuits and distractions during
his flight, which always arrive in a rather large box, with a
wide array of surprise silliness, the occasional low-flying smut,
and more than a little romance.
The airplane package before last looked like this.
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And the last bit of goodie inside the package for this flight
was this, which when the seal was broken, read:
"I. LOVE. YOU." |
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And so, our devilishly handsome and beamy beau stopped upon seeing
his chickadee, waved the paper, opened it, smiled and walked out,
where she whooshed him majestically out of traffic, saving his
life and he rewarded her with an onslaught of kisses.
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You know what happened next.
But what you do NOT know is...
...that in the middle of all of the kissing and the embracing,
our Mr. Price took Madame Corinna's face in his hands and told
her he loved her right to her face. Then wash, rinse, repeated this outcry about 367 times.
To this, our heroine responded by beaming like a goddamn floodlight
and finding herself unable to breathe. But still able to smooch,
mind you.
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Brandon was incredibly tolerant of the pair on the drive back
to Chez Corinna, even if he did clearly drive a little hastily
to be rid of them and their painfully gooshy behaviour. Brandon
also sighed with Heather and gave a knowing grin as her paramour
stated, before they were about to leave the airport, the words
anyone in a relationship longs to hear: "I have no baggage."
They stayed up fairly late. Heaven knows why (though neighbors
have surmised it was either due to marathon lovemaking, a loud
cat in heat or an attempt to design a combination of Bikram yoga
and primal scream therapy).
* * *
The next morning, after breakfasting on a plethora of orgasms, many smiley claims of affection, a long,
hot bath with snuggles and more orgasms, plenty of rich coffee
and some lovely ripe cherries, Mark and Heather suited up, packed
a bag, grabbed bikes and headed out for a bike tour of the lakes
inside the city. They enjoyed the sunny day, some beach stops,
a break at Sonny's. While driving behind Miz Daisy, her braids
flapping in the breeze like Dumbo's ears, her sexy boy's cargo
shorts over her overlarge calf muscles, Mark thought to himself and later remarked, "My girlfriend is a beautiful badass. Look how she handles those
curves! Observe how she smiles at me! See how much she loves me,
all glittery in the sunshine! Hmm, bikini, pretty. Damn, are my
thighs chafed."
They biked, they beached, they swam, they snuggled, they enjoyed
hurling various two, three and four word phrases at one another,
as many lovers do: "I love you. I'm done. You're it. You're my one. Stay with me always.
I'm all yours. WOW. Hot damn. This is so weird! How did I find
you? Myhoneysweetiebabydarling. Now, let's go screw."
Once arriving back home and taking a bath -- because of the sand,
you know -- the pair dressed semi-formally for dinner. This resulted
in the staff at Heather's most frequented restaurant, who have
a sort of selective memory about her occasionally donning something
other than a ponytail, a just-washed face and old jeans, spending
most of the evening with their jaws gaping open, going back and
forth between whispering that our narrator looked like an actual
girl AND an actual girl quite bizarrely appearing to be more than
a little enamored of this critter with her with a PENIS.
(To the degree, it should be added, that when attending the restaurant
later in the week after Mr. Price's departure, back to the ratty
jeans, ponytail and lack of eyeliner and in the company of some
of her usual queer commandos, it was remarked that everyone felt
rather relieved. Heterosexual privilege, my Dago ass, I tell you.)
As many do, this evening culminated immediately in bed. Because...
... oops, there goes the fourth wall!
Because, let me tell you, that was a beautiful day. It had ALL
the good stuff. I got to keep moving, show the other half of my
heart what I love about the city here in summer, get wet a lot
of times (ba-dum-dum), including what I have no doubt looked like
really cheesy in-the-lake macking down, but what the hell, this
is MY great romance, thank you very much. I also got to sit out
of doors and sip wine with my sweetie who looks mighty fine all
the damn time, but who, in black shirt dinner-gear, is completely
drool-worthy, whispers some very sweet and salty nothings into
my ear very regularly, and spent all of the day and evening looking
at me as if I were the eighth wonder of the world. AND who I really
fucking missed, to the degree that we were already agreed that
we would NEVER be apart five weeks again. AND who makes something
of a habit out of both allowing me to do naughty things to him
and dedicating himself entirely to my pleasure. AND who I remain
flabbergasted at how completely and naturally I connect with,
even when he says something I find utterly appalling or makes
me snort wine out of my nose. So.
Saturday found the pair starting the day with a boxing class heather
had to substitute teach, but which was also attended by Ms. Elise,
who discovered she had more mobility than she thought. Heather
also got to spot and field punches from her boyfriend, who she
tried VERY hard not to kiss or make eyes at while she was supposed
to be punching and kicking all serious-and-surly-like, especially
since she has been trying to be considerate of her entire city's
gaping jaws at her being with a BOY.
Breakfast at the BLB with Elise and Juan followed, who remarked
more than once that our star-crossed lovers had quite the habit
of smiling like complete dorks rather incessantly (which, as the
cynics know, was surely due to gas, and CERTAINLY not due to having
found true love or anything, for that would be preposterous).
Mark's phone rang, and he spent some time on it talking to his
father.
This third-person stuff is for the cynics: I can talk to YOU mushy
saps freely.
Suffice it to say, I'm not the easiest person to present, even
from a distance, to one's parents. That's not to say I'm not nice
and friendly and have no social skills: actually, most people's
parents tend to like me a lot, be they friends, lovers, students,
what have you. Generally, I do pretty okay with the folks. However,
if one is being forthright about what I do with my life in full,
it can be tricky, and to date, I don't know any partner I've had
where we've gotten to the parental point who HAS been even remotely
honest.
But my guy has. His family are good people who love him a lot,
but they are somewhat more conservative than I, to say the least.
So, while he felt confident -- if for no other reason than that
he had apparently never mushed about anyone to them previous to
me -- there was some nervousness. I was handed the phone at a
certain point, and found myself talking to this dreadfully adorable
man with an Ohio/Kentucky border accent who opened the conversation
by telling me that though he'd not met or seen me, he knew I was
absolutely beautiful.
One gets a glimpse of where the Price Charm comes from.
It was a really lovely conversation, and when the phone was passed
back, and mark said his farewells, he informed me that his father
had told him he'd visited one of my sites, asked if Mark loved
me (to which he replied he did, falala), and stated that, then,
already, they loved me, too.
This caused both of us to mist up (and my boy is NOT a sniffler
or a crier, mind you) in a somewhat embarrassing fashion, but...
JAYSIS. I mean, seriously, how sodding cool is that? And how happy
Mark looked about this would have been gross if it wasn't so goddamn
cute and so fucking touching.
Wowsers.
So, after breakfast they headed down the street to Dreamhaven
where Mark geeked happily and kept apologizing for some strange
reason. Heather had a fine time geeking herself, followed by discussing
the coming apocalypse in the U.S. with an old tenant who was also
in the shop that day. After being dropped off by Elise and Juan,
the two rode off to nab some hooch and fetch items for dinner
the next couple nights, poured the booze, took another bath (after
engaging in an endeavor previous which shall never be named here,
no not for all the rubies in Burma) and then raced to get dressed
for yet another evening out.
(And how much do we love Beqi, for everytime I wear my silly,
skintight cotton cocktail gown with all the kids and baby animals
in the spaceships on it, it both beguiles and amuses, which is
precisely what a cocktail gown on a ghettobootied feminist pugilist
dyke-in-love-with-a-boy should do, IMO.)
On the agenda? Dinner at the Soul Food restaurant which has vegan
exceptions with Becca and her husband and Brandon and his boyfriend
(where the food was amazing, Mark could not stop compulsively
saying JAM-BA-LAY-YA with every vowel stretched to capacity, the
service was atrocious, and the dinner guests seemed to keep forgetting
that you maybe don't ask a couple who haven't seen each other
in weeks what exactly they've been doing over the visit). Then
to a three-man interactive show my friend Brian was in (sort of
a Blue Man Group cum Garrison Keillor-drunk-on-ludefisk sort of
thing, I'm sure you can imagine). Then to the chichi bar where
the other Heather works for what turned into a rather impromptu
party where everyone and their uncle showed up and either:
a) Gladly accepted and chowed down on the infectious goosh, lust,
excited hyberbabble and revelry of our leading man and leading
lady (and perhaps even muscled their way in a little bit to get
RIGHT in the goosh, but hey, who's complaining?),
b) Looked at the two of them as if they had just been released from
the asylum, or were perhaps catching a drink en route, or
c) Ordered a piss and vinegar cocktail with a side of bitters.
Everyone and their uncle also were apparently a little unclear,
when the Corinna Contingency said they were calling a cab to go
home, that no, that was not because they were TIRED, and no, because
they were NOT TIRED did not mean they wanted to NOT GO HOME and
do OTHER THINGS (which are currently illegal to do on the bar
patio, plus: concrete, awfully hard on the knees).
They stayed up late and had sex.
Then they woke up early and had some more.
There was another bath somewhere in there. Come to think of it,
there was more rather mind-blowing sex in the bath.
I really, truly cannot express to you, without sounding like a
flatterer or a teenage girl, how brilliant this boy is with his
hands. I do, however, feel the need to remind you that this sort
of assessment does NOT come lightly from a woman for whom nearly
all of the sex she has been having in the past couple of years
has been with women who have made a lifetime pursuit out of their
manual artistry. Plus, hot water. Shiny freckly skin, times two.
Fucking yum.
There was a spontaneous guacamole-off, after which it was initially
agreed that each of our offerings were SO radically different
that comparing them would be impossible, and both were tasty.
However, Mr. Price seemed hell-bent on some sort of victory, so
insisted that The Lady Sofia taste-test each and make the final
vote.
She only touched Mark's guac. Which endeared her to him perhaps
even more greatly than before.
It has not yet been mentioned that until he had met Sofia the
visit before last, my beloved had never liked a single dog in
his life. Mind you, a rabid dog-hater he was not: by virtue of
growing up with a family allergic to the entire world and everything
in it, he simply had no report with our canine friends, and had never met the dog with whom he might develop such a thing.
I thought *I* was going to be inconsolable when it so happened
that Sofia passed on in the future. Can you imagine how a man
who loved a dog for the first time at 33 is going to be? Merde.
(But, look, look, lookie! The two loves of my life also love EACH
OTHER. How cool is that?)
The plan Sunday evening, after engaging in a highly delightful
and tasty meal and watching Heather's favorite movie (which, thank
goodness, Mark enjoyed, otherwise she may have had to reconsider
this who schpeal, no matter how utterly amazing it is otherwise),
was to go to bed early so that a sunrise awakening could occur
without too much agony for either party.
That was the plan. Really.
Three hours after passing out in a sweaty, monosyllabic pile,
the alarm went off, Ms. Corinna made the coffee, and then she
got to experience her boyfriend being annoyed with her for the
very first time.
(Cynics, please do stop clapping now. I'm still talking. It's
rude.)
It went something like so:
Heather (all too awake so early to be in any way lovable): "Hey baby,
it's time to get up."
Mark: "Ten minutes."
Heather: "Yeah, no can do. We're already late, and the sun's got
her own schedule."
Mark (dryly, but with gumption): "TEN MINUTES. DAMMIT."
Heather (trying very hard not to laugh, because it's quite hard not to
laugh at someone who is clearly seriously unhappy, but who looks
so cute and smushy-faced while exhibiting annoyance, is still
100% asleep, and just happens to still be the love of your life,
live and in person in your bed, however cranky): "Five."
Mark: "I'll take five."
Heather (two minutes later, trying to add kisses to her approach): "Time's
up. Here's coffee. Let's move it. I love you!"
Mark (one eye open, trying to grin through a grimace): "Hrrmmphhmmmrgh." |
* * *
Know how they say "and never the twain shall meet?" Well, not
this time. Oh, no no! Cynics and romantics, all together now!
Mr. Price and Ms. Corinna are, in numerous ways, remarkably similar.
To the point that many who know them have taken up jogging. Quickly.
In the other direction. However, in some respects, Mr. Price and
Ms. Corinna are remarkably dissimilar. To the point that many
who know them have gifted Mark with extra padding and Heather
with a Get Out of Jail Free card. Sometimes, the behaviour or
opinions of one is slightly less than endearing to the other.
For instance, when, postcoital, our dashing duo lie naked in bed
gabbing, gooshing and waxing poetic, and our nonsmoking boyfriend
plucks one nipple of his girlfriend, looks down, then looks up
at her to say "Hey, where's my cigarettes?" (A joke likely lost, given, on the younger generation.)
And she sits, jaw agape at the rampant objectification.
And he then decides to MOCK HER FURTHER by, in pseudo-Heather
voice (which is, oddly, an octave higher than actual-Heather voice)
presenting the monologue: "I work night and day to HELP people
with their sexuality! I am a champion of body image! I am a pseudo-feminist
ICON! And what do I get? Huh, huh? I get a BOYfriend who grabs
my tits and is all --"
(insert shiny-headed man with rather large eyes pantomiming panicked
radio-nipple dialing here)
".....Come in, Tokyo!"
See, the twain SHALL meet. It's pulling into the station in Japan,
apparently. Without me on board.
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A visual demonstration of the poky little puppy, once the beach
was gotten to, via bicycle.
"Ah, sunrise. Pret-ty. Shiny."
"So pretty, very.... shiny. Pretty, pret-ty, very shhhii ... chuunnnhhhzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz."
"Wha--hunh-- I'm awake! I was just resting my eyes! Whoohoo, sunrise! Three cheers for
girlfriends who perkily wake me up at 5 in the morning then throw
me on a bike when I've one leg in my pants! Who couldn't love
THAT? (She's so, so lucky I love her, or else I'd.....)"
(In case you needed further evidence as to Mark's zeal for early
mornings.)
* * *
The rest of the day help some napping on the part of the XY in
attendance. More bathing. More sex (and no, I am so NOT informing
anyone about my vocal chords deciding to get creative and coloratura
during that session, thank you very much). Stoop sitting. Photo taking, because we both...
... have somehow managed to make narcissism into a group activity
(which boggles the literal mind), are total hams and overly visual
people who cannot for three minutes in any day stop -- still --
saying, "Look at us! Look how fucking cute we are!" Plus, we always need fodder to sigh at longingly when we're not
together, and both still have plenty of moments where aspects
of this are so unreal that we have to have some sort of tangible
evidence where we can see, clearly, that we're not delusional.
Because we've gotten the hint when we're out and about that everyone
in their right mind can see the mojo we've got going on here,
even when they'd prefer a respite from it. Because we can look
at photos of us together and instantly be provided with a glimpse
of one of the most beautiful and perfect things either of us has
ever seen, even when we have our moments where we just can't fathom
how we got so disgustingly lucky.
There was one more dinner. There was living room pug-waltzing.
There was misting up on both sides more than once (clearly, it
was allergy season). There was an awful lot of embracing and sweet-talk
and a couple secret plans and promises made. There was two people
being pretty darn sad about parting, but who were thankfully insulated
by the fluffy cartoon clouds they were floating upon. There was, as always, lots and lots of (very, very icky) kissing.
There isn't much I have to say to all of you about this that isn't
patently obvious. The cynical bastards are currently being scolded
on the other page, though, so if you want to stick out your tongues
at them, knock yourselves out.
Long and the short of it is: I have found the great love of my
life here. This has been a lot unexpected and has seriously rattled
my cage. And made me awfully silly. A lot.
And vice-versa. We are both stupefied by knowing this so firmly
in our guts, and by the fact that we had a pretty good idea that's
what the what was within just a week or two of meeting, and some
pretty potent hints right UPON meeting. And we both somehow managed
to do this -- to find each other the months back when we did --
at pretty much the exact same time -- down to the week -- in our
lives we were both saying, "To hell with this shit."
Amidst all of the people in the world, and despite having to meet
half a country away, quite spontaneously, despite gawd knows what
goes on with time and space, WE DID THIS.
And that, my friends, is a motherfucking miracle. Especially considering
my life. And Mark's love of bourbon. It's also but the tip of
the iceberg, because we're two people who not only already have
some decent accomplishments under our belts in the other areas
of our lives, we are such a stellar team that we've both no doubt
that as time goes on, not only will what we've got in our romantic
life together just keep getting better and better like it has
already, but that what we give each other will massively boost
up and energize all the stuff we do independently.
I have spent more than half my life, and all of my adult life,
very convinced that the closest I had to "The One" was when I
was WAY too young to appreciate it, was insanely brief time I
got it for, and ended in blood and trauma and hell, and that that's
just how it goes. And not only do I know quite sincerely I was
wrong -- and wrong in thinking the whole idea that there was this
one amazing person out there for me was bullshit -- without disrespecting
or dishonoring that in any way...THIS IS SO MUCH BETTER THAN THAT.
It's better than anything I bloody imagined, in the escalated
bits and in the mundane bits. And while I do wish Mr. Price had
hurried it up a little and found me before now, this is still
good enough to make all the previous relationship crap -- all
the people who tried to fix me, who wanted only the parts of me
that interested them, all those looking to me as a human liferaft
or as a shiny accessory, all the really ungodly betrayals, and
the heartbreaking disappointments -- I waded through 100% worth
it. It's even well worth a lot of the conflict and static I've
fielded over the last handful of months with friends, community,
the general public and even myself about gender and orientation
issues; about how it's oddly more socially acceptable to wax poetic
about what a great lay someone is than what a great love they
are (and whooo, doggy: gawd forbid you should have both going on).
Mostly, I'm totally elated. To the point that every day, I continue
to have moments where I think about all this, or we've just talked,
and I have to do a crazy happydance or literally scream out loud
for fear of imploding if I don't. Now and then, I'm completely
freaked out. So many of the rules and patterns I have always had
suddenly don't apply. For instance, I am in no way claustrophobic
with Mark in my personal space, with his belongings getting mixed
up in piles with mine, with him standing in a space where I'm
going to walk, all things that have always, always driven me APESHIT
with anyone else, even people I really cared for and was with
for a long time. In fact, I ENJOY these things. This, my dears,
is freakish. Our politics are sometimes not only not on the same
page, but in conflict. This, too, bizarrely seems utterly and
way-too-easily manageable, and in some ways, even ideal. And again,
I really, truly did NOT expect anything like this to come my way
at this point.
It's also very, very strange to earnestly feel that someone likes,
cherishes, adores and loves you for every single part of who you
are. And to find it so easy to feel the same way myself. This
hasn't exactly happened to me a lot: in friendships it has, but
not in romantic relationships. Ridiculous as it sounds, it does
often leave me breathless. I'm quite certain I have never literally
gasped when someone told me they loved me for the first time,
but then I never felt the sort of vibes I did/do here when it's
been said. I'm not sure I've ever felt such perfectly mutual love
and affection. It's bloody surreal. It changes everything. It
really freaks me out.
I'm not going to prattle on much more about this here, because
I fully intend to keep doing so in the future, and I know that
you all don't need for me to explain why, even if now and then you
may wish -- and I can see why, really -- that I'd put a sock in
it every now and then just so we can all have a wee bit of a break
from the gushing. (I'm also tired and dizzy from doing such a
complicated entry, and I have about 24 hours to finish the book
revisions in.)
But, patronizing as it may sound, just as I said to the naysayers,
for those of you who don't have something like this? I send every
wish I've got in the world that you find it and it finds you.
Because this stuff IS THE BOMB. Even for recovering cynics --
who, as we all know, are generally just road-weary romantics -- like the two of us.
So there.
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