Florida: Valentine's day

Thurday , Feb. 15, 2009-3:54 am

It's Valentine's Day

So I have laid out a little set of rules for "Significant Other ettiquette" applicable for men over the next few days:

~ RULE ONE~

DANGEROUS: What's for dinner Saturday night?

SAFER: Would you like to come over for dinner?

SAFEST: Where would you like to go OUT for dinner on Valentine's day?

~RULE 2~

DANGEROUS: Should you be putting away so much of that? Any idea how many calories in all that wine???

SAFER: You know, there is a lot of San Pellegrino left.

SAFEST: Can I get you another glass of wine with that dessert?

~ RULE 3~ ~

DANGEROUS: You are still wearing that same robe?

SAFER: What did you DO all day?.

SAFEST: I've always loved how a woman looks in a comfy chenille robe.

(...OK guys, You have been warned. You know who you are. Just play along and nobody gets hurt. OK? )

I had a novel Valentine's day. I was in Florida with the family, and I got together with "Mr. Man" , who was staying about a mile away. We had planned to meet whenever we could.

That mroning I took a walk on the beach and then met him for coffee . We planned to go out later that night.

We met at 9 and had a few drinks at an ocean front bar. We sat outside, talked and laughed until it last call.

The sky was clear and the stars were beautiful, the moon was full and a few snow white clouds billowed across the Atlatic. The familiar smell of the ocean in the warm evening air was intoxicating. That smell took a 'backseat'...so to speak... to the unmistakable "new car" smell , when we got back in the rental car. Due to circumstances beyond our control, we didn't have a practicle place to go to be alone. SO we just got into into the car and drove to an 'out of the way' side street, behind the bar.

We sat there and held hands, with nothing between us ,except for the unyeilding stick shift on the console. Music was on the radio. We looked at each other, happy to be together in Florida.

I smiled. He smiled.... I leaned back and watched a thin bright strip of moonlight that was streaming in at a sharp angle ,creating a line up the length of my thigh. It was something soft and something sharp illuminated in the darkness. It was like the line of a very scandelously high-cut swimsuit, high on my hip. His hand touched my knee and traced the outline of the light beam. SLowly, startng at my knee and moving up to my inner thigh, then higher to the crease of my leg . He leaned over and kissed me, and as he did I felt his hand move upwards. The palm of his hand pressed onto my lower abdomen, and then, still kissing me, his fingers traced the waistband of my pants.

Right there. Lust warmed my entire body. His fingers swept beneath the fabric .

My eyes were so glazed over with urgent desire, such that I hardly noticed the guy outside throwing trash bags into the dumpster across the parking lot. To the right, someone's driveway was visible on the other side of the hedges.

It was as wonderful as anything could have been. It mattered not if we had been in an elegant resort in the Riviera, or literally in a Buick Riviera, in a parking lot after last call. It is nice to be at a mature age and still be sufficiently attracted to each other to behave like 2 hormonally ravaged teenagers.

At midnight, we were crossing the line ,right between the end of the Valentine's day and the start of his birthday, on the 15th.

That was not the first line that had ever been crossed by us. I can remember with sharp clarity the moment that we went "too far". Everyone at some time, potentially comes close to a "line" and is pressed up against the edge. "The line" can be filament thin and full of ambivilance. Everyone has the choice to cross over to unknown territory or stay in the safety of the staus quo. Some people do cross it. We certainly did a long time ago, in the summer of 07.

Once having crossed that sexualized line, we were comfortable and open with each other. It was a warm closeness that transcended the obvious physical lust. At the heart of it is a primal form of comfort, a glorious soul- baring erotic passion. I would never want to go back behind 'the line' to the safety of my existence before him.

If anyone knew about this they would say that we were tacky and frivolous to be in a car in a parking lot. Contrary to conventional thinking, the surroundings did not diminish or trivialize the experience.

The very best sexual unions are not about the setting. It is not about performance or blue pills or gadgets or bedroom athletics. It is not even about bedrooms. Wherever we are, the best part of sexuality is about the unmistakable look and scent and feel and appetite of someone who has an apprecition for giving and recieving pleasure. The heart of sexual energy is making someone else feel desired and beauiful in the filtered light of our unembarrassed attention.

Sex in conventional time-worn relationships is not necessarily erotic and beautiful. All too often it is the psuedo intimacy of "relationship hostages". It can be detached , impersonal ritualitic, duty-bound, or full of desperation.

There is all-too-common routine sex that occurs between people who are no longer really lovers and one of them is fantasizing about being with someone else. Or one is secrtely unwillling, but is without a graceful legitimate excuse to avoid it.

It can be an apathetic convienient way to work off tension. Nothing but a few epidermal cells lost, in meaningless friction with another.

I remember the very last time I had sex with my ex husband. I wasn't really in the mood , with all the tension and fighting there had been . He told me to just lay there and get it over with , and act as if I was interested. He said he was about ready to hire a hooker. He said it wouldn't take long if he looked at porn on the computer behind me. After that he said it was the worst sex he had ever had. (That was about the right description for me too.) Now THAT kills the 'spark' !

He said semi-jokingly : "Next time would you wear a blond wig and turn around?". There never was a next time.

Could anything be any less erotic and leave you feeling more disrespected? It was October 1999. The "worst sex" each of us had ever had was to be my last time for a number of years. I didn't know that then.

Compared to the warmth and intense mutual pleasure that was felt in the seat of that car, which encounter was "wrong"?? Which experience had more mutual respect and left both feeling valued and cared-for?

I crawled over the console, feeling "valued and cared for" and eternally grateful for being petite. I sat on his lap and tried to avoid bashing my leg into unyielding auto parts. I pulled my t shirt up ,and I unbuttoned his shirt and felt our skin touching. After a while I slid off his lap, and sat in front of him, on the floor under the steering column. I did not even notice the various car parts digging into my flesh.

I was oblivious to the fact that I was stuffed in a tight space in the floor of a rental car. I looked up at his beautiul body, illuminated by the moonlight, and I was transcened. It was like gazing up at the Pieta from beneath.

Much later I said:" It's after midnight. So I better say "Happy Birthday." I continued; "I couldn't find a good Hallmark card so.....I did THAT". We laughed.

At least with this sort of ,um... unique "intangible" "gift",he would NOT find himself saying to someone at his family birthday party later in the day " Oh thanks , I love THAT, but someone else just gave me one of those earlier today. Two would be excessive"..... ahem...

go to the prior entry * +