The time of the Red Death does give you space and solitude to think about things, to examine (endlessly examine, sometimes) memories from better days.
Last time I wrote here, I recalled something my friend Liberty said about the older men in her life and past:
Liberty told me that what she liked about affairs with Older Men was that they all had kinks and obsessions that they'd rarely (if ever) been able to talk about with anyone. She was always willing to listen and learn...and not mock them.
She told me that when she was talking about the Santa Fe gallery owner who'd revealed his foot fetish to her. She was always quiet and a bit solemn, and always willing to listen. And she was right, mind you. By the time you reach a certain age, you'll have acquired a fetish or two--- or at least some particular obsession. And it'll be hard to talk about. By the time you reach a certain age, you'll know what you like, but somehow you'll feel less and less able to talk about it. You'll be more aware of social rules than you were at twenty, and for some complicated set of reasons far more afraid of being an outsider than you ever were in your days at uni.
I don't share the gallery owner's fetish, but I have a couple of small obsessions of my own, and I've noticed that my level of social unease has been climbing. At twenty or twenty-five I'd have talked about anything with a lover or potential lover, and I'd have been much more courageous about being open with my interests. At twenty-five--- back in another age, another world ---I had my left ear triple-pierced and paid no attention to remarks about that. These days, though, I find it hard to go swimming in the pool downstairs from my flat not because of my looks or age, but rather because I did get a couple of body piercings a few years ago. Nothing, mind you, that the current governor of New York isn't supposed to have, but I'm much more afraid of mockery or even simple questions than I ever was at twenty-five.
There are rank-hierarchies to everything, and I am far more aware of them now. I told a lovely blonde friend in an Upper Midwest city all about Liberty and the older man in Santa Fe, and she laughed and told me that Liberty was right, that older men had so many things to teach her, but that they were all afraid of girls her age mocking them. I'll trust her database on that. She'd been a gallery girl in Brooklyn and London once upon a time, and she'd been an escort and a sugar baby briefly. She and I talked the other evening about hierarchies and fears, and she said that Liberty's partner had a point. A man, especially an older man, being into blindfolds and riding whips with girls like her at least had an air of danger and delicious wickedness about him, but a foot fetish always seemed to be silly and pathetic. She didn't mind doing either thing, she said, and she loved sex while blindfolded. And, yes, she said, she'd had older men cum on her bare feet before--- not her preference, she said, but it wasn't anything that disgusted her. She could, she said, have told her female friends about being with an older patron who was into s/m, but she wouldn't have told anyone about a patron who liked her feet. And she couldn't have explained why.
Liberty was once in my bed with her wrists tied with silk scarves and bits of colored candle wax dripped on her. I knew you'd do this, she laughed. Never doubted it. That was early on in our acquaintance, and I was glad that she thought it was all fun. It's like being in some goth video, she said. I felt...safe that evening. If she felt comfortable with older men because they had stories to tell her and things to teach her, I felt comfortable with her because she was open to adventures, because she saw me as someone who could create new stories with her.
Much later, on another night, after she'd told me about the gallery owner in Santa Fe, she asked if I'd do the things he did to her. I told her that, yes, certainly--- if she asked. We had to talk about that answer. I had no objection to doing those things if she asked. So long as she asked, they'd be games, adventures, things done in play between friends and casual partners. If I asked her, though, they'd be fetish-y. If I asked her, the things would feel shameful. We lay there in a tangle of sheets and tried to decide why I felt like that--- and why she could very clearly see my point.
There's a structure to preferences and obsessions and fetishes. Those things can be very clearly arranged in branches, lines of descent, hierarchies. Liberty was open to men teaching her things, to exploring things, and she always wanted me to feel like I could tell her things. She wanted me to give up body fear and body shame, to regard fetishes as just play, to have no social anxiety over my body piercings. I felt (and still feel) grateful for all the things she tried to teach me, and for all the stories she told me. But as much I was (and am) grateful that she let me be part of her own stories, I still have a deep reservoir of fears about telling young companions about what I like and don't like.
I do find it harder and harder to just accept what I like or don't like, harder and harder to reveal myself to someone with whom I'm trying to build a certain intimacy. My blonde, long-legged friend down in NZ told me once that she couldn't imagine that I'd ever be shy asking a lover for something that gave me pleasure, but that's no longer true. These days, alas, I'm far too anxious about identifying what I like or want or what gives me pleasure. I remain willing to do almost anything a lovely girl asks me to do for her or to her in bed. I'm always willing to try to give pleasure. But it gets harder and harder to ask someone to do anything for me.
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