Never Say Never (Mommy Game Part Two)

Yes, yes I know It is mid-may and I have failed abysmally at the April challenge, but it is safe to say I knew the month was going to to be difficult and failure was always an option. That’s okay,  life goes on beyond the month of April and I will at the every least finish this small tale.

Aiden and Mia were that rare couple that made Molly remember the church she grew up in. Not the parts that were easy to fall back upon, the cynical crutches of the Faithless, the ones that once wanted to believe, did believe, but lost faith due to corruption, greed and the common use of doctrine as a weapon for all tat wasn’t “right”..like her, she was never the right kind of girl. She had been baptized in front of her congregation in a marble pool set int he wall of a church so large it needed microphones and stage lighting. That was exactly what it had felt like, a staged event, not a private moment to recognize the divine in each of us but instead a gawdy show for an ever hungry audience. Yet even while that was all true there had still been those that were true to the heart of their Faith, a community and a culture within th larger performance that cared for what they did in this world. That had been what she craved and had never quite found a place within. She in stead, had been one of those stars on the Christmas tree, that well-off parishioners would claim with self-righteous ownership. The would claim their child and but the presents for those unfortunate souls in b=need of charity. She was their charity, their good deed.  Later she and her siblings would put on a show, both literally and figuratively, of their gratitude and thanks. That was an old wound that still sometimes festered and stirred the chip she still held,to gain in breadth and weight upon her shoulder but not today.

Today she met the other type, the ones that gave in a different and more true manner. They gave of themselves. The took in kids, kids like she once was. They took n children as troubled and broken as she was, as scared and abandoned as her sisters and brothers ahd been as well. More importantly that took the risk of such children into their homes. Yes, she had a sad story and so had her brethren; it easy to hide behind that sorry tale and pretend the facade of innocence and pain was all there was to it, but that wasn’t true. No one comes from the darkness unscathed. She had been a thief, a liar and quck to violence. Her fellows had been as bed or worse, depending on each of their paths. This couple kept taking them in, as if they were safe and worth loving. As if their home and children were not as risk. The cared for them as if they weren’t likely to leave and be put back into the homes that broke them. They fought for them.

Why? These people didn’t have the motivation of their own trauma to make them do this for others, they just did it. She didn’t understand. She had spent a lifetime learning how people worked and how to be a part of the world she saw on the other side of the glass, as a parent and adult. it was still a game sometimes, no matter how well she mimicked the ‘right” way to be.  Molly was fascinated  and awed in the way she had wanted to be, yet was never quite capable of, as she was dunked into blessed waters.

This wasn’t a game anymore. This was water she was willing to wade into, she wanted to understand.

 

 

 

Mommy Game (Part One)

Molly had passed the first hurdle of two dinner dates with the couple. Her boyfriend Bran was beside her, but she was under no illusions about who was being evaluated. These people were his best friends and Molly liked them..cautiously.

She had tried to explain to him that she was a parent and the “other woman”. The way she would be judged was on a very different scale than what he was used to. Single white-collar men without children had very little to do with single moms that dated men that weren’t quite single or known for their smart choices in women. Please see Exhibit A, his current separation and divorce.

Suffice to say, they didn’t expect the best choices from him at this point and here I was, a possibly asinine choice…with a kid. Who knew what kind of crazy he had invited into their home. A general level of caution (at the very least) was just common sense. Additionally Molly was not necessarily likable, she was polarizing at best. People either really liked her or…they really didn’t. Personally, Molly was perfectly at peace with this reality but it was a fact that terrified her for her daughter’s sake.

It wasn’t even his oldest friend Aiden, but his wife Mia that was the real power (and therefore concern) though Bran didn’t seem to recognize how this all worked. The invitation to have Molly’s daughter come with her hadn’t come until Mia had met her and decided Molly wasn’t a total psycho. 

Mia was excellent at playing what Molly termed The Mommy Game and was, if not the center, a key player in her community’s parenting culture. She hosted gatherings, doled out smart advice and participated in all of the school events with a grace Molly found completely baffling and impossible to emulate. To Molly this was like doing magic tricks while performing death-defying feats of skill and bravery.

Molly liked Mia. She was the kind of mother she greatly admired. Kind and heavily invested in her children, she was still down to earth and intelligent. She seemed to be her own person, which many mothers seemed to lose within the confines of the title “mommy”.

As a rule, she didn’t trust these kind of women (no matter how much she liked them), because she couldn’t tell if they were real friends or not. She couldn’t tell if some small infraction would put her (and more importantly her child) into the “Do Not Touch” category. As a rule she avoided the whole game because nothing good came of it, she had learned this the hard way. In this arena she felt outmatched and defenseless.   Molly just tried to not make waves. Her daughter was the moon and the stars to her and that was enough. She’d rather be standoff-ish than a pariah, which could happen surprisingly quickly in the world of Mommy Land. This way she wouldn’t ruin anything for her daughter.

Rarely was it worth wading into the pool but Molly had found herself trying this time. Yes, these were important people in Bran’s life but there was more to it, which made it even scarier for her.

The couple’s surety and savvy was impressive but it was another aspect of this couple’s life that  floored her in ways that had nothing to do with boyfriends, The Mommy Game, or her general trepidation in such encounters.

TBC

 

Little Late

The escaped through the window, like hey had done so many times before. In the beginning it had been a game of teenage ninja’s, testing the boundaries and pushing for freedom. Now, it was not only habit but an addiction they couldn’t live without.

They bent over and did that funny crouching walking style that allowed forward action while keeping them below the windowsills of the windows that rung the house. At the corner of the building they finally stood up and made a dash for the bike stand, grabbing each of their chosen mounts and setting off, in a practiced series of movement that were now ingrained into their muscle memory. No words were exchanged until they made it past the corner of the property and hit the main road.

Even after they passed the danger zone, where they were most l likely to be caught, on this night they said nothing. They road side by side. She reached out and he met her halfway. They road this way, down empty streets until they let go to make the turn that brought them to the park they liked the most.

She loved that it had the high swings with extra long chains. As she dropped her bike, she headed straight for the seats that allowed her to fly away for a small moment in time. She was already swinging toward greater heights as he made his way over and joined her on the swing beside her own.  His hair was curly, hanging in spirals to his chin. His skin had broken out again with the acne he hated and felt made him ugly, along with the long list of other faults he saw in the mirror every day. She couldn’t count the times she had looked into his beautiful hazel green eyes and told him be was lovely to her.He never heard her. 

She swung so high the chains were almost parallel with their anchors. Leaning back as far as her arms would allow, she dipped her head back. The world tilted and became something else a little less real.  She loved this feeling and could swing like this for hours. She didn’t want to come back to the earth.

He called to her and even without being able to understand the exact words, she knew he wanted her to come back to him. She fought the urge to ignore his voice. Instead at the very height of her ascent, she pointed her body outward and propelled herself into the warm night air. She landed with a solid thump, back on the ground. He had already begun the walk across the playground, knowing she would follow, which she did. He was lying on the merry-go-round.

She put one leg on and began to push with the other as she held onto the bar she was braced against. It was his favorite toy and she knew she would never see one without thinking of him . Once she was satisfied with their velocity, she found her wedge of space with her legs crossed under her, knees braced on two bars and head at the center of the rotating wheel. She put out either hand and found his waiting for her.

They barely spoke that night. He would be leaving the next day, to a  new Home, a new town and a new family. There was nothing left to say, she didn’t know any words to give him. She hated this feeling, the pit in her belly that echoed with the memories of people who weren’t there anymore. All the things people filled these silences up with, always felt like too little too late.

She held his hand until they had to make their way back. She looked at her beloved swings and wished she could stay in the air, upside down where the world wasn’t the place she lived in, where she could fly and never come down.

 

Killing Me Softly

Yes, I am aware that I am very very behind. I have been having some technical difficulties but I’m going to try to catch up by the end of this week. I make no promises, but I will do my best.

 

The roads were more graded dirt than real roads. The day’s rain hadn’t come yet, baking the sandy roadways, creating clouds of dust behind them as they drove. Sugar cane rose up on either side of them, giving the illusion that they were alone in this car disappearing into a world of sweetness and endless roads.

The Fugee’s album , The Score was playing and Li was driving. in a haphazard path filled with jerks and starts, but still,she was driving.  The tiny Honda hatchback was well sized to her small frame but seemed comical compared to the other passenger.

Jo was a big guy; dark skinned, weighing in well over 200lbs , he  towered over her. He was pretty much what you might expect from a high school fullback. Li enjoyed his size. Their differences made her smile when people saw them together.

Jo was teaching her how to drive. More accurately, he was riding along after she told him she was going to drive. Despite the physical differences, it was always Li that lead the way. Jo was a gentle giant, with a sweet disposition and Jo adored Li. He followed her around campus and gave her whatever she wanted, whenever she let him.

Right now, she wanted to drive and he gave her his car and company while she figured it out.

Li knew he loved her but she also knew a puppy dog when she saw one. If she was kinder she would send him away, but he wanted to stay and for him, any time was worthwhile time even if he knew she didn’t love him back. He knew, because she had told him. Li’s feelings could be boiled down to, it his right to be where he chose to be. Who was she to say what was best for him? If he wanted to love her, he knew her thoughts on the subject. She liked his patience and love even if she couldn’t return it.

Li finally managed to both keep the car straight and not slam on the brakes every time the car seemed to go faster than her brain could handle. She got all the way up to 45mph on a straight away as the rain began to come down in sheets and Lauryn Hill sang about simple words killing her softly.

 

 

Part Two: Jokes

Jokes..60/40.
Alright, women don’t suck. I like them a lot. So soft…I digress.

Here’s the issue, most bisexual women I’ve met are women that have grown-up firmly ensconced within the hetero-normative culture. I guess that’s normal. I didn’t, so it seems strange to me. I have been on my own and with women since age 15 and much of my prior life was spent in large children’s homes or other atypical situations that didn’t firmly entrench heterosexual expectations into my psyche. I literally grew up within the lesbian community and I feel like that was a lucky thing.

Hetero behaviors  brought to my attention:

wtf??

* First contact and subsequent contact will be initiated by the other person, though “likes” are acceptable.
* The other party will make the first move
* Direct communication of needs, desires and any other type of directness is “aggressive”
* Some weird equation that includes dates + self-worth,  allows sex to happen.
* Attention..omfg, so much attention is required!
* Height requirements. I didn’t believe this one but after looking at a bunch of lady profiles, yes it is true, if you are a man.

 

There is more but let me say, this is mostly long-standing complaints by straight men, but they might be bitter. The odds are not in their favor.  I still don’t understand the behaviors. I know they happen, I’ve experienced some of it and the reactions I get about myself on dates with men is rather persuasive evidence that the above mentioned complaints are common enough to be worth mention.

My personal issue is that male-centric bisexuals have no idea how to date other women. They are used to being dated, and taken out. They are used to playing a game of passivity and expecting a great deal of attention. As often as not, they don’t know how to interact with another women on an intimate level. I don’t mean sex (a little I do) but connecting with another women on an independent and personal level.

My dates have been one sided, conversations that require me to do the heavy lifting, because I am “the aggressive one”. Did we not all read the same articles about asking questions on dates and with new people??

I am really not that special, I just read stuff and have friends and projects and do stuff. These facts are why I am not always available, on my phone or texting you pictures of every damn minute of my day. This should not be special, this should be normal. Please tell me something neat, interesting or weird that you do. PLEASE!

As my final complaint, no I do not want to be your first. God save me from female virgins. I  am so past my “exploration” phase. I don’t feel any need to teach, coach or otherwise instruct women on how to touch, talk and love another woman. The only words of wisdom I can offer are these; give what you want and expect, the Golden Rule applies here as well. 

I love women, I always will. They are beautiful in way, I don’t know I will ever feel about a man. I also miss boobs..a lot.

That being said, I think I am incapable of dating them at the moment. That can always change, I am marking no lines in the sand but after 20 years of being with women, I’m okay with a break. On a personal note, I tend to choose crazy women who don’t like me, so it might be for the best. My judgement can’t be trusted and I think a board of approval might be necessary for me to resume dating women.

 

 

 

 

Part One: Issues OR 99 problems.

Dating was not what I expected. I’m not sure what I thought it might be, but it wasn’t this.

After years in a marriage with another woman, I started dating men and bisexual women. I have always been bisexual but just the opposite of what most people were familiar with. Instead of messing around with women and dating men, I messed around with men and dated/married women.While my serious relationship were always with women, the fact of my sexuality didn’t change, it just wasn’t in attendance most of the time.

Now, a year and a half into dating, I had come to some conclusions, none of which were particularly helpful.

First, there was a very big difference between female-centric bisexuals and masculine-centric bisexuality. I had decided to only date women that were truly okay with my bisexuality, which basically meant other bisexuals. Yeah, not the most well thought out idea I’d ever had. The pool seemed to be shallow if I wanted anything of value.

There were lots of couples wanting to spice up their marriages,on the hunt for a fabled Unicorn . Not me. I don’t need a lot of attention but I was past the point of no connection and just being someone else’s sexual plaything. I could find sex easily, connection was harder to come by (I wasn’t the only one that felt this way but I’ll get to that later). Which lead to the larger issue with the women I had come across so far.

 

 

The real issue I was running into regarding women, was that for the most part, they sucked. Not well either…

I can hear you now saying how very unfair this blanket statement is. How incredibly anti-feminist! Perhaps I am both unfair and anti-feminist, but I am also right.

First, a question; was heterosexual dating truly the combative, yet passive aggressive shit-show I was gleaning from my dips into the tepid pool? I really hope I’m wrong.

“There is not such thing as fair. It’s a concept people made up to feel better about their lives and their inability to live them”
~ John Parker III (My childhood therapist. It’s all starting t make sense isn’t it?)

Give In (Sappy Love Warning; you have been warned)

I walked down the path with his hand in mine. We were laughing, harassing one another int he way we had become comfortable with. We had fallen in love so hard and we had made the conscious decision to let that be okay. We would not edit or stop ourselves or try to be anything but what we were, pathetically enraptured with one another. We just gave in and there is something wonderfully freeing in that. I was routinely thankful that my messages to him and his to me were not public knowledge, we were sickening in that John Hughes, 16 Candles type of romantic comedy ending way. This kind of stuff didn’t even make it to trashy romances.

 

I could just hear the editor saying “This just isn’t believable, no one talks like this, This isn’t Middle School. Don’t waste my time with this drivel.” For some reason the editor in my head is suspiciously similar to Old Man Jameson at the Daily Bugle , who would have been a terrible Romance book editor.

We just got lost in each other, in a way that hadn’t happened to me since I was young, maybe even first love kind of lost. It helped that the sex was Uh-MAZING, which totally could make it into some steamy romance scenes, but I digress.So great sexy time and he brought me steak and cooked for me. That’s a good man right there. He brought me presents which wasn’t my thing. I’ve never been comfortable with gifts. I will help build your house, hold you while you fall to pieces, show up with dinner or take your dogs or children as needed, but I never put much truck in gifts. He did, He loved to bring small things, a favorite tea he saw me order or a chocolate that I didn’t get because it was too expensive, berries out of season that I loved, small thoughtful things. The nature of the gifts was why I had gradually grown to accept and appreciate the “why” behind it. It was the same reason I showed up like super girl to help and fix, it was just his way of saying “I think of you. Your smile makes me happy, I love you. This made me think of you and I want you to know you are loved. I hear you. I want you to know I am here, I am present for you”

I needed to turn this over in my head and examine it from many sides before I got the right angle. We were saying the same things with different languages. This understanding allowed our communication to go from parallel to integrated.

I loved the discovery of new things through the eyes of someone who was passionate. I loved learning from someone that loved what they did. He loved me and I was learning to see me, through him. We were both damaged. Who wasn’t by their mid-thirties? We had baggage, divorces and issues aplenty. Yet we were finding out how to love again, more specifically, learning to love differently through each other and that is still rather sickening but I don’t want to stop learning…or holding his hand.

“Love is like a virus. It can happen to anybody at any time.”

Maya Angelou

F is for Flagging, Fatigued and Finished

F is for Flagging, Fatigued and Finished.

Today is day 6 of the AtoZ blogging challenge and it is a day that has kicked my butt. I am exhausted, so for today please accept my apologies for no new story. I can’t believe I’m missing the opportunity to use “fetish”..I really am done.

As a thought let me put this forth, F is also for Family and Friend, but what if they are one in the same? I have frequently lamented the lack of language to denote the importance of found family. Many people I know have people they consider family that share no blood, but there are no words that I know of to get that across. Friendship is often dismissed when confronted with the idea of “family”, they are not on par with one another when it comes to triageing time spent and obligations . I have run into this issue, because my partners have had family that always took precedence, and I have had friendships questioned over bad over because somehow that was allowable. I would never question someones loyalty to a loved one, and I have never understood this idea.

How do you define the indefinable? What do you call the Aunts and Uncles to your children,  that are your sisters and brothers by heart, if not blood? I bet there is a German word for this, there is always a German word…

Just a thought. I hope all of ya’ll are having a great time with this challenge. When I can keep my eyes ope, I love doing it. Have any of you made friends and connections from it?

PS Recently I have been able to refer clients to one of my oldest friend’s law practice and she has done right by each one. That’s all great and stuff, but the point is we are grown-ups and have been friends since age 10 and every time we do some grown-ass shit, I feel like we’re gonna get caught out and someone will call us out for playing at this whole grown-up thing. When I have to send her official legal documents, I try to put Winnie the Poo stickers on the envelopes because i know it will make her smile. Most days I am still surprised I’m an adult.

 

 

 

 

 

Eli

 

Eli surreptitiously checked himself out, in the reflection of the glass before he went into the restaurant. Nothing seemed glaringly out-of-place but the surface was not a perfect mirror, so how could he really be sure. He couldn’t of course. He had done all the usual things, a mint for his breath, no spinach or other foods that might lead to teeth snafus and gone over the dating sites Top Ten First Date Mistakes. He had at least 10 conversation starters if there was a lull, plus questions he prepared if he got nervous and couldn’t think of anything off the cuff.  Was that normal? Did he remember antiperspirant?

He followed the large woman with the proportionately large gold bag into the restaurant, remembering to shift his shoulders back to give an impression of confidence and self-esteem.  He was early of course, he was always early. He had to create diversions at home so he wouldn’t be too early, but he was still there 15 minutes before the meet-up time of 7pm. He waited behind the large gold bag lady as she spoke to the hostess and was then lead to her party’s table int he back left corner. He watched as she was greeted by a tall thin man who stood up as she arrived. He kissed her on the cheek and gave her a hug. Both fo them were beaming. Eli saw the woman’s face for the first time and noticed that she was attractive int he way some women of a certain weight can be, they could carry it well, or maybe they were just comfortable in their flesh, he never knew. She had round cheeks that were blushing at the words the tall man was saying, a smile stretched across her face, suddenly making her pretty. They laughed and sat down across from one another

“Sir?”

” I’m sorry” Eli started and came back to himself, realizing that it was probably not the first time the young hostess had tried to get his attention while he stared at strangers. Pretty, too much eye make-up, too young, his brain quickly categorized the girl and then followed her. Nice to look upon, but probably barely out of her diapers.

She led him to a table that was at an angle from the older couple he had been so intent upon. He thanked the girl, sat down and pulled out his tablet to check work emails, but couldn’t resist checking the couple out again. He could tell they were on a date. They were flirting, laughing and arguing over menu choices in the way people did just for the joy of trading soft barbs. Eli wondered if he would still be dating when he was their age, which looked to be at least a decade beyond his mid-thirty vantage point. Neither of them seemed awkward, their conversation seemed to flow like water and each of them had some part of them touch the other; a finger, hand or knee constantly found its way to brush or bump into the other. Eli recognized the dance, he could sing the lyrics, but somehow the two never got together and made the perfect kind of moment he was witnessing, where everything was as it should be and neither party was conscious of every syllable and body language cue. He often felt as if he was following all the directions to the letter yet was always a few steps behind, stepping on toes and confused about what just happened.

“..and never the twain shall meet..” he heard the words come out of his mouth just was the noticed the hostess heading his way, another guest trailing behind her.

From behind the young hostess emerged a woman he recognized from her pictures online. In the pictures she looked different, but he supposed he did too.  She was curvy in the way that men loved but women often doubted on themselves. She had dark hair that  hung straight and shining to just below her shoulders, which she was nervously pushing behind her ears.  She wore what he had identified as “date” clothes, a skirt and blouse with a cardigan and paired with a nice looking medium height heel, that wasn’t too dressy or too revealing or too conservative. He recognized it because he wore the male version of the same uniform as advised  by various dating articles. What was good research without reading the corresponding data from the other side?

 

At first he couldn’t see her face, until she seemed to remember the same rules he had read and lifted her face as she too, straightened her shoulders and raised her head to greet him with an almost certain smile.

Her round eyes were that nebulous shade of hazel that never seemed to make a decision between green and brown.  He noticed a small collection of freckles dusted the bridge of her nose as a mouth that was just slightly too wide and full to fall within he median, smiled and turned her plain yet pretty enough face into a thing of beauty.

Eli reached out and grasped her outstretched hand in a not to firm grip to find the same barely there clamminess that is own nervousness often produced.

“Hi, Eli? I’m Olive, it’s nice to meet you”

The sat down, perused menus, chatted and her hand brushed his. He looked over and saw the older couple leaning in to one another, oblivious to the rest of the world and smiled.

Dance

Lucy liked to sing in the store while she shopped, and enjoyed the odd looks when she broke into a little booty shaking in the aisles.  With Pandora on shuffle, a list in hand and a plan of attack, this had become a weekly ritual right along with laundry and picking her daughter up and getting ice cream on Fridays after school.

She liked the smiles she got and outright laughter when she was a little too loud and slightly off-key or doing a little dance to music only she could hear, though this wasn’t always the case. She had been taught to be quieter, because she was always too loud, to laugh softly when she brayed like a donkey and to just tone all of “this” down. She was too abrasive, too passionate, too everything. From her childhood to her marriage, she had been told to be a little less than herself, or a lot less really.

It took Lucy much too long to realize she had let people tell her these things and it had been her choice to change for them. That look in the mirror had been rough, but she had decided changes must be made, quickly. She started small, and this act of song and dance, this small act of inappropriate behavior was one of her first acts of bravery. What did people think of her? What would they say about her? She didn’t want people o look at her and think she was strange, that she wasn’t normal.  Why couldn’t she just be normal??

Yet Lucy hated stores and shopping but she loved music and dancing, so she decided to try the latter to negate the former as an experiment and tiny act of rebellion.

At first it was hard and she stopped moving if someone joined her in the  aisle and  started whispering under her breath if they were within earshot. Sometimes she completely failed and became silent and still like everyone else around her, like a normal girl, but she kept at it. Soon, she realized she was making more people smile than frown and she caught them singing along, winking or trying to catch her when she passed them. She realized that they were laughing with her and not at her and the perception she had of herself and the the world she lived in, shifted on its axis just enough to let more light through.

As she sang and helped an older man get a collection of bottled water into his cart, he thanked her and smiled with her.

Much larger changes came after, many were still in process now, but this small thing that most wouldn’t consider an act of the utmost bravery, made her heart sing along with her voice every time she did it.