On Intimidation

theotheremma

He comes in a suit.

It’s clean. With a matching tie. His beard trimmed.

He tells me,

“If I attacked you, you wouldn’t look me in the eye.”

He and his friend had come into my work the week before. Drank too much. Tipped too little.

His friend said he wanted to hear us fuck.

They try to get me to leave with them. They say we’ll play guitar and sing. Maybe more.

They say I don’t have to fuck either of them. Or I could.

After all, the night is still young.

I get them out the door, and he stops, right in front of me.

Tells me

“But I just wanted a kiss,”

I ask him it back.

“Did you just want a kiss?”

He smells like whisky, with bloodshot eyes. His skin droops and sags.

“Well and then see where it goes, but you won’t fuck me. You won’t ever fuck me.”

Another coworker is waiting at the door, trying to get inside, but he’s on top of me and I’m back against the door unable to run back inside or leave.

So I kiss his cheek and say,

“Get home safe.”

And they finally exit, let my coworker come through. Let me go back inside.

So he comes back in his suit and says

“I don’t remember what happened,”

He explains,

“My friend told me I should come back and ask you out. That you’d say yes.’

He tells me,

“The other guy, the other one that works with you, said I don’t know what you did but I basically raped you.”

He says, many times,

“But I didn’t rape you.”

He sits at the counter, with his smoothed our hair and alcohol on his breath,

“I am sorry,

But it’s all moot isn’t it,

Because you will never fuck me.”

And he doesn’t understand that what happened was intimidating. That his presence makes me nauseous.

He says

“I didn’t assault you”

“I didn’t touch you,”

“I didn’t rape you.”

Because this standard is such that

If you, a well meaning man,

Come into my work

Where I make the money I need to survive

And make me feel threatened,

Trap me with no place to run

Tell me I’m only as important as my legs will spread for you

It’s okay

Because, as you said,

You didn’t fucking rape me.

Because I will still look at you.

Because I will talk to you.

So nothing really happened.

Nothing happened at all.

On A False Goodbye

theotheremma

I am writing this while sitting on your chair,
Praying I have the strength to keep this promise.

I need to walk away from you.
From your eyes that set my body on fire without a single touch. 
From your arms that pin me down, then hold me close to you, protecting me from everything but you.
From your mind that challenges me.
From your body that ignites me, makes me feel alive.

Because we were going somewhere, weren’t we? You acknowledged this before.
You met my friends. My family.
Before you admitted that there was someone else.

And you knew I didn’t care, but she does.
So we went from messages almost every day, talking about more than just my hungry cunt needing your dick to fill it
To you isolating me to booty calls in the dark of night.

You tell me you saw a show that affected you, that made you think
A show you saw with her
You said the illusion of choice, of having too many choices, affected you
I think you were trying to tell me something. but it’s something I already know

You chose.
You chose long ago.
And I thought I could withdraw, be just this with you., and I can’t. I want to hold your hand in daylight.

And now you’re done with your shower
So I’ll pick myself off this chair
Wipe away last night’s makeup from under my eyes
Try to do the things I need to do.

Because you will exist in this limbo for as long as you can, for as long as I allow.

I don’t allow it anymore.

Or so I’ll say as the sun is up, and my willpower is here. Until the next time you message me and make me melt with desire.
Because this is much easier said than done, but I know I will never find what I’m looking for with you.

Give me strength. Give me will. Give me the energy to walk out the door.

And never open it again.

On the Bitterness of Mania

theotheremma


You don’t understand what I mean
When I say you don’t look at me like I am real.

Because you see me, and you see freedom
And excitement
An escape from the morals you both want and don’t want to adhere to.
From the duties you feel you must fulfill.

But in this you miss, if not my expectations, the fact that I need to viewed with substance.
To be more than the manic pixie
That you so desperately want.

Because I will sit here and watch
As you pass me as a stepping stone in your life
And find your wife
Have your kids
And long for something more than what you chose.

And you will love her, and you will care for her
Every feeling true, and intense, and meaningful
While you fuck someone like me
And hold her close
And make her feel like nothing more
Than your most treasured fantasy.

On Hesitancy

theotheremma

In the middle of the night, I hear your voice.
And I’m not sure if these words are in my head, or a dream.
But after an age I roll over, press my lips to yours, and say it back to you.

And these words shouldn’t be too big of a deal, but it takes us another month to acknowledge it again, aloud.

Maybe we didn’t have to.
Maybe it’s the way your arm falls around my waist in the morning when you don’t want to wake up.
Maybe it’s in the way you pull me to you before we drift off to sleep.

It’s not love. Not yet, quite possibly not ever.

But there is something in the way you smile at me
That makes me smile back.

And I’m trying not to hope, to give a mile when you give an inch.
I’m being careful, and I think you are too.
But we can try these new things together.

With your lips at my ear I feel beautiful, strong, and brave.

And I want to keep feeling that way.

On a Drunk Text

theotheremma

I don’t want to drunk message you.

So I’m writing this instead

Because I’m sick of using inebriation to tell you what’s on my mind.

I want you to fuck me so hard I see stars.

I want you here, in my arms.

I want you to sneak me away and fuck me against the bathroom stall – with girls coming in seeing my fingers curled around the metal frame, hearing moans and grunts and sighs.

I want you to pin me down, twist my hair in your hand, and tell me I’m not going anywhere.

And then I want you to hold me close- like in that moment I’m the only person that matters.

Because goddammit, I miss you.

I miss you so much it hurts.

And I know full well you don’t feel the same.

You don’t say hi anymore. You don’t call, or message, unless I cave and make the first communication. And it sucks. So fucking much.

But, I also get it. You’re hung up on your ex. You are very, very far away. So, I won’t tell you any of these things that occupy my mind.

But I miss your arms around me. I miss the way you look at me and the way you say my name. I miss the way you smile at me when you haven’t seen me in a while, kiss me and say, “Well, I feel better.”

And I can only say these things when there are stars in the sky, when my breath smells like whisky and life is blurred around the edges.

I hate that you make me feel these things, and that you don’t feel them back.

So that’s why I’ll write them here. I won’t burden you with a message you feel like you have to respond to, and probably won’t know how to, when you’re thousands of miles away.

But,

This is my safe place. To openly feel whatever it is I’m feeling.

So.

I guess.

I miss you. And I really wish I didn’t.

On Changes and Things

theotheremma

He tells me he wants to take me to dinner.

And he knows I’ll say no. Knows I’ll say he doesn’t have to.

But he tells me he wants to take me to dinner, because I deserve it.

We met the day before New Years. I don’t know why, but I instantly felt comfortable with him.

He was artistic, smart, creative. He wanted more from life than what he had at that moment and would work for it. Had worked for it. He was interesting, conversation flowed easily, and, well, his cheekbones were unreal.

So we went back to mine and in the morning, I didn’t feel the need to kick him out.

I couldn’t say why, even to this day, but, instead of making him leave so I could go get ready, take a shower, put on makeup, I let him stay, face buried in my pillow, sunlight on his face.

And when I woke him up, and he looked at me all bleary-eyed, and said, “Oh, you look beautiful,” I knew something was different this time.

It wasn’t anything that lasted long. It wasn’t a relationship, and we didn’t talk too much when we weren’t together. But, he was someone I liked cuddling me as I fell asleep. I liked waking up beside him.

My friend nicknamed him ‘butt-scratcher’ when I referred to him as someone who scratched a much-needed itch.

I don’t know if the itch was semi-regular sex, companionship, or a mixture of the two. But I think it was more the latter than the former.

It didn’t end well. It ended with me waiting for him to show up, and he never did. And I never really heard from him again.

I’m not bitter, not upset anymore. I don’t resent him for it.

He knew about my blog, and he said he wanted to be ‘more than one story,’ and for a while, I thought he didn’t deserve to be anything afterward. Didn’t get to be a story, a part of the narrative. 

Because Butt-scratcher showed me something I hadn’t realized. And so he gets this. One post. This one part of my story.

I was ready for something I had previously run full force away from.

I was ready for that person to wake up beside me. I was ready to share my space with someone. Keep a toothbrush in my cabinet for when they spent the night.

So, if nothing else. I owe him thanks.

A thank you for letting me dip my toes in the water.
A thank you for kisses on my forehead and fingers entwined in mine.
A thank you for being a push in a different direction.

Because who knows what our future might have held, but, now I can envision futures.

And that is exciting, terrifying, and new.

On A Shameless Self Promotion

theotheremma

Hello!

So a while back (On Writing a Sex Scene) I wrote about a book I was writing/working through and how weird both receiving and using feedback can be.

That specific project is still ongoing, however, I have managed to complete a different book. This book is now up on Amazon, and is free always if you have Amazon Prime, and for the next two days if you don’t.

If any of you fantastic lovely people wanted to download the book, hell, maybe even leave a review?? I would love you ’til the ends of the earth.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07HLH58PH 

Way Down We Go
Because a girl needs a lot of pen names

Two versions of the summary – the one that’s on Amazon

Rory tells herself it’s a trick of the light. That she can’t actually see the spirits of living beings as they die. Until one night, when a starving demon comes across her path, and the mysterious blue and yellow lights are suddenly given a name. Asa can’t understand how a human can see mana, let alone possess it and use it, but wants to help Rory find a way to control her abilities and find out more about her. But he’s not the only one who’s intrigued by the mystery. Others begin to take an interest in Rory’s growing powers, and her potential as a shield, or a weapon, for forces in the demon realm.

 

and the one I use to describe it in all of my self-deprecating glory.

So, it’s basically a plot-driven romance with demons and sorcerers, with a potential uprising/war and all sorts of lovely darkness. But also humor and sexy times. Also, my editor described it as “this isn’t horrible to go through!” which is the highest praise I feel you can get.

Hopefully one of those convinced you to give it a go. I’m also happy to do the same thing in return if anyone needs.

^_^

On A Dance

theotheremma

I have a performance coming up, and it has been highly recommended (see: do this or you’re dumb) that I journal or otherwise map out what the piece means, what each motion signifies, where it’s going. Who is the audience? What are they to you? What should they get out of it?

So I thought about it. A lot.
And the only way that the piece makes sense to me, that allows me to get to the emotional level I need, the vulnerability involved, is to think of it like I’m writing out a blog post and the audience is you, the lovely readers. It’s a place and a persona that I feel safe leaving bloody and ruined and exposed. To be completely honest about what I feel, and what I want.

So, that’s what this is. The blog post that the piece would be. I apologize if this seems entirely nonsensical. If it’s confusing. Movement sometimes is. I like to think of it the completion of a sentence when you no longer have words. Movement is truth – harsh, brutal truth. And converting that back into words is difficult.

But here goes anyway.

_____________

I’m looking for something.
I don’t know what, until I see you.

You…you’re beautiful.

But what are you? You are grace and effortless movement and flow and…so many things. So many things I want to be and am not. Yet.

But maybe I could be – will it be that difficult?

Yes. Yes, it is. You are confusion and a mess of patterns and shapes and nonsense. And my body doesn’t understand how to react to you. How to handle what I am pushing it to do because of you.

I’m trying not to falter. I’m trying to be beautiful. I’m trying to be all the things you need me to be.

And I’m breaking, and trying not to show it. But I’m falling apart, and you know this. Know it far better than I do.

Everything hurts and I’m a tangle of broken pieces, searching for something that doesn’t exist.


And I can’t walk away from you, but I don’t belong with you. I don’t deserve what you could make me, I can’t handle what you will ask of me. But goddammit, I want to. I want this. I want this more than anything in the world. I will give up everything for you. For this feeling. To fly with you.

I need you like a drug, I am desperate for your validation, for this feeling of undeserving to finally end. To be satisfied, just for a moment, that it was enough.

You call me back to you when I am weak and unworthy. You are waiting for me to pick up where we left off.

So, we’ll try again. I am trying to be all these things that I am not, and you’re trying to help in the only ways you know how. Because I have to work with you, not against you. I have to embrace you and love you for what you allow me to do at any given moment.

You are what I long for, and can’t reach quite yet. But that won’t stop me.

And when you break me for that final time, because we both know you will, when you do cast me aside, I will be grateful for the journey.

But for now, you and I, we can fly together. You will hold me, and I will cry into your shoulder. You will tell me I’m not enough, not yet, and I will try harder. And we will create something together, that might not be beautiful, but it will be ours.

And for now, I suppose, that has to be enough.

On Those **** Eyebrows

theotheremma

You make me want to scratch my face off.

It’s not out of anger – it’s that every second you’ve been in my life has been a combination of fluttery highs that have made me happier than I can describe, and anxiety of when are you going to fuck this up because you know you will.

And it’s not that you have not told me how you feel, if your own special and lovely way. It’s in the way you touch my skin, in your words in my ear, in the way you raise your eyebrow that tells me you’re thinking of all sorts of terrible things you want to do to me. In the way you say you miss me. In the way you call just to say hi.

It’s because I never thought I’d feel this way at all, let alone with someone who could, maybe, possibly, like me back just as much.

And having never done the adult actual bona fide relationship thing, I’ve never had any desire to have the conversation of;

“So, what are we?”

Because any time this might have potentially come out I would retreat into emotionless pit of darkness with a supply of vitamin D supplements because no one has time for that shit.

But you make me want to venture out of my little fox hole and sniff at the sun.

And you terrify me, but in a way that makes me want to jump off the high dive, that pushes me further, that makes me want to try.

So, the other day when we had a conversation about our future goals, our plans, our dreams – I had a moment of;
Is this enough for you?

I am not ashamed of my job, of what I’m working for, of what I’m doing. But the nomadic, artistic life is definitely one of those concepts that will make a person say
“Go do it, go follow your dreams and passions and conquer the world,”
Or
“Sure, that’s fine, but what are your real goals?”

And I’ve been thinking about this, because again, that nagging horrible voice in the back of my head is saying,

You’re not enough. What you want is not enough. They’ll want more.

And a realization came from a most unlikely of sources.

You don’t have to be enough.

After all, isn’t that why you’re poly?

Because, you and I, and I know I’m getting so far ahead of myself, but, we can have our own little bit of happiness, create something together, and it can be ours and beautiful.

But you can also go do that with someone else, and that’s okay.

I’ve always thought about the concept of ‘other halves,’ solely in how it relates to me. In that, I firmly believe that one person will not fulfill all my emotional and physical needs. That one person, or no one, might be all I can handle at any given moment, or all I want at that specific moment, but in time, I may find that x and y is missing from my life. It might be that a and b needs aren’t being fulfilled. That I want to explore m and n. Whatever the case may be, it is not fair, or, indeed, accurate, for me to identify as monogamous when I am aware of these aspects of myself.

However, I haven’t spent too much time thinking about this from the opposite perspective. What it would mean if I was not enough for someone.

And again, I don’t know what we are right now.
But I know that I love the feel of your hands around my waist as my legs wrap around you.
I love the feel of your teeth against my shoulder.
I love sitting on your couch with a beer watching something stupid on TV.

My friend told me that my eyes go soft when I talk about you. Because you are a lot of firsts for me.

You are the first guy, as an adult, I have missed when they’re not around.
You are the first guy I would be willing, even want, to stick some sort of label on, whatever that may be. Something that gives it the impression of stability.
You are the first guy who’s friends I have met. Hell, met more than once.
You are the first guy who I want to come to, versus having them come to me.
You are the best sex I’ve ever had.
You are the first guy who makes me want for something more.

That being said,

You will not be my other half.
You will not be my soulmate.
You will not be the center of my universe.

But, you could be my love.

And I want to believe that we’ll figure it out as we go. Because if you are not enough for me, and I am not enough for you, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you don’t still want me, or that I don’t still want you.

And maybe that’s why I like you so goddamn much.

On No. 4

theotheremma

She told me you were safe. That she wouldn’t leave me alone with you unless you were.
We were hanging out on your boat. It was a fun night; hanging with friends, old and new.
We watched the fireworks on the dock, watching the reflection of the sparks and lights in the water.
And we drank, because of course we did. We were adults on a national holiday.
And the other two left for home, and I was alone with you. The last train home had left, and I said I’d just sleep on the boat. I wanted to feel the waves rocking me to sleep, feel the peace and quiet that being on the water brings me.

 

And we had beers, we smoked, and you told me about your girlfriend. Told me the distance is good for you. Told me she doesn’t want to share you. Told me you were physically – platonically – affectionate, and that people didn’t understand.

 

I understood. I have friends with whom my levels of affection come out in ways people might find weird or inappropriate considering we are not in a relationship. But it’s consented to by us, it’s taken a length of time to get to that level of emotional intimacy.

 

You wanted to cuddle, and I didn’t see a problem with that. We talked for hours, looking at the sky, the way the moon shone off the mirror smooth water.

 

And because you’d said these things, said the limits of your relationship, I didn’t think anything when we continued to cuddle as we moved down into the boat. You thought she might care, and told me if anyone asked, I spent the night in a different room.
I shrugged it off. I was tired. I wanted to sleep. I didn’t care if we kept cuddling or not. You wanted some affection? Fine. Whatever. I told you I was dating someone and didn’t know the parameters of that relationship and didn’t want to fuck it up – nothing was going to happen anyway.

 

But you didn’t just want affection, did you? Because I was half asleep, and your dick was pressed into my ass, and you were grinding against me, seeking something, I don’t know what. And my mind couldn’t process what’s happening. I was still partially asleep in your arms until you tried to touch me, and I said Stop.
You stopped. Half apologized. Said it had been a few months since you’d gotten laid, that you missed having someone to hold. I told you I’d go to the other room, and you said no, and you pulled me to you again. You said the look on my face as I got turned on was enough for you.

Finally, you fell asleep again.

Until an hour and a half later, when again, in a half-conscious state, you were dry humping me again, and I could feel your breath on my neck and your hand pulling my hair and I couldn’t get my mouth to work. I wanted to stay stop before I did. The second I felt you on me. But I was not fully conscious, and whether or not you knew that, I’d told you no.
And I finally managed to get my brain and body to cooperate, to wake up, to say Stop again.

And you did. Immediately.

And I reminded you of your girlfriend, and you said that was why your pants stayed on.

I pulled myself away from you, clinging to a pillow on the other end of the bed, and you pulled me into your side again.

And I was not safe. And I could not leave. Because I was trapped on a boat and you were my only way off.

You said we should watch the sunrise, and I was more than grateful to get your body off me. I felt so violated by everything you’d done, I didn’t care if you saw me change my shirt. I didn’t care what you saw. Because you seeing me was somehow less invasive than your hands on me. Than you caging me in a headlock so I couldn’t move as you felt me up.

And you said you knew I liked the dominant stuff. So that made it okay, right?
If you know I like my hair pulled, its okay that you do it, because you know I like it, even though I’ve said I don’t want anything to happen.
If I say I like x, y, and z, then you know it’ll trigger a biological response, even though I don’t want it to be you doing x, y, and z.

Did you notice I wouldn’t touch you after that? That the night before we were cuddly and friendly and nice, and after I wouldn’t touch you, I would barely look at you, I wanted to be on my phone, and distance myself from you. Because you were my ride home. I was at the mercy of your transport, or the trains that were not running until a certain time, of your will to go where I needed to go.

So you took me out to see the sunrise. You wanted me to catch my first fish. You took me to breakfast and a diner you’d thought I’d like.

And I was amiable enough to you. Because I felt disgusting. I felt like I’d betrayed someone, someone who is your fucking friend. I felt like I’d done everything wrong.

And people will say I did. That I should have gone into the other room anyway, to which I have no idea if he would have let me/if he wouldn’t have followed me. I have no idea.

And people will say it’s not that big of a deal.
Maybe it’s not. My clothes stayed on. Your clothes stayed on. Nothing was inserted anywhere. You can probably justify it to yourself that you didn’t cheat.

But that’s not the point, is it?

I will never feel safe around you.
I was promised you were okay, that I was okay to be alone with you, and that was not true.
I said no 3 times, and you ignored me.

And I can’t get rid of this feeling of self-revulsion. I can’t get rid of this feeling that I’m disgusting. That my boy should leave me because I did something terrible. That I fucked up, and I fucked up so bad. It’s why I’d said what happened in that room needed to stay in that room. Because how could/can I tell him?

After all, you did thank me for being a ‘good sport‘ about it.

But you texted me, asking me if I got back home okay.

Don’t pretend you care about my safety now.

Just go fuck yourself.