You're Gonna Keep My Soul

She pulls me into her arms, my skin to hers, and I bury my head deep into her neck. I can't describe how much I want to be held, need to be held. She brushes my hair back and kisses my neck so tenderly, from my earlobe down to my clavicle. I find my breath and suck the air in deeply. It feels heavy in my lungs, a stark contrast to the softness of her lips. I realize with a jolt that this moment is the first in nearly nineteen hours that my whole body hasn't been tense, clenched. Her fingertips run the length of my back, and I melt into her, unable and unwilling to hold myself up.

"I don't want or expect anything from you," she whispers sweetly in my ear. "I'm just kissing on you."

I purr deep, gutteral. "I know." I reach up and pull her head down to me, her lips into mine, and I kiss her deeply. I run my hand down her side, across her ass, down her thigh, back up to her hipbone. I wrap my leg around her hers and pull her down into me.

"It's kind of nice to do something life affirming." I whisper in her ear. I roll onto my back, find her hand in mine, and guide her fingers to my clit. "Oh, God," she moans, and I silence her with a kiss.

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Nineteen hours ago we had been in this same bed, dead asleep, when I awoke to the sound of her phone. At first, I though her alarm was ringing, hours too early. But I shook off the heavy film of exhaustion to realize it was a phone call. She half-rose, pulling the screen to her face.

"Who is it?"

When she answered, my heart filled with dread.

She got off the phone and fell back, hard, into the pillow. I slid over to her side of the bed, wrapped my arm around her waist, and spooned her body. She entangled her fingers into mine, and we lay there, the gravity of the situation sinking in. All I could feel was raw shock. Pain. Fear. Dulled by a sense of exhaustion, a sense of expectation. Everything was about to change.

I kissed the tattoo at the base of her neck and closed my eyes for just a moment. Please, please, please, let this all be a nightmare. Let us wake up, I pleaded.

I cleared every thought from my head, pulled her tighter, and took a breath. The warmth of her body. The softness of her skin. The curls in her hair. I wanted one moment to absorb her, one moment before I hauled myself out of bed, pulled together a day's worth of work and clothes and other necessities, and raced toward the emergency room.

"This is going to be a long week." The words fell out of my mouth. "I can feel it now."

---------------

She twirls circles around my clit, and I bury my face into her neck to muffle my moans. I can feel my body warming up under her touch, my clit soaking wet, but I still feel disconnected, my head floating in and out of the moment. I try to focus, try to quiet my mind and let myself disappear into her touch.

"Fuck me. Please." She kisses me again, slides two fingers into my cunt, and almost immediately I realize there is little she can do for me right now. I crave the kind of soul-splitting orgasm that would suck the strength out of every muscle in my body. I crave power, almost to the point of pain. She pounds her palm against me now, but I am more disconnected than ever.

"Would you..." I struggle to pull the words together, to ask for what I want. It's always takes work, pushing through the anxiety and the walls to really say what I mean. I feel too emotionally weak to fight it, but I know her answer would be affirming.

"Would you... let me sit in your lap and get off on the vibrator?" My voice came out so softly, I wasn't sure it was my own.

"Of course."

She sits up, propping her legs, and I sit between her thighs, my back against her chest, and open my own thighs into hers. I feel small against her, cradled within her. I pull the Hitachi into my clit and immediately my nerves begin to twitch and fire. I rock against her, and she pulls my head to the side, roughly, and bites right into the muscular side of my neck. A moan leaps from deep inside me. She runs her fingernails across my skin, up my sides, down the inside of my thighs, and I'm almost crawling out of my skin, the sensations are so vivid and strong across my body. The Hitachi is too strong for me, but I push it into my labia, against my clit, absorbing the powerful vibrations and letting myself ride the nervous pounding. She is clawing me almost, biting and pulling at my neck, my shoulders, my arms. The nerves are shooting off all over my body, distracting me from how strong the vibrator is, the thin line of pain and pleasure in my cunt. I can't keep a rhythm. It feels like miniature fireworks are shooting across my body, a hundred origins, a thousand sparks.

My mind begins to flash images. I'm in the ER waiting room, again, under those unforgiving florescent lights. I'm walking around the hospital building, and the wind is slamming through three layers of cotton and right into my bones. I'm driving in my car, a block from school, and tears are streaming down my cheeks. I'm hearing his voice, rubbing his back, and I can't believe the words coming out of his mouth.

Her fingernails in my chest distract me again, bring me back down, out of my head. I'm here, and she's moaning in my ear. I'm ejaculating again; the Hitachi almost rubbing my cunt raw. My thighs are twitching out of my control. She's pinching deep into my nipple. I've probably been moaning, though I'm not really sure by this point.

"Stop, just for a moment." I pull her arm around my shoulders. "Just let me focus." She stops biting, clawing, obligingly, and pulls me tight into her.

"Are you going to come for me?" There's a hint of domination in her voice, and I like it.

"Yes. Are you going to let me?" I twitch again, still riding, still rocking, still shaking. I want to be defiant, but I'm too caught up in the physical sensation. My voice comes out compliant, submissive, small.

"I'll tell you when you can." In the dark my muscles tighten.

I shut off everything in my mind. Block out the images of the day. Nothing, nothing, nothing. Just the raw heat of my clit. Each. Nerve. Ending. I zero in, my whole body bound around this nerve bundle. I can feel the heat rising across my hips, up my stomach, seeping into my thighs. Building. Climbing. Ascending. I'm sucking in air, half-moaning, half groaning.

"Are you ready?" I didn't expect this question, but I don't care.

"Almost."

I can feel the heat of her breath on my neck, the sound of the air as she expelled it across my ear lobe. My clit has become so sensitive that every second is bordering on pain. But the intensity drives me. I want it. I crave it.

"Ok..." I let my voice rise, slowly building up to a higher octave with each moan.

"Come for me." She's urging, pushing, whispering right next to my earlobe. "Come for me, baby."

I close my eyes and concentrate in, deeper and deeper. The pain is searing. My moans stop, unprompted, and I find that instead I'm whimpering, pulling internal, connecting in. My body explodes into an orgasm, but instead of passing through, I'm riding on the waves spreading down to my fingertips, contracting every inch of muscle and skin and bone.

My body goes limp, still reverberating and twitching sporadically from the sensitivity of my nerves. I drop the wand. My head falls onto her arm, and she pulls in close around me. I feel like a child, wrapped in the warmth and security of her arms. I feel raw, vulnerable, empty. I almost want to cry. She would get it. No one else would, I doubt, but right now, in this day and this time, she would understand. But the catharsis is so great that I don't have it left in me to cry. The strength of my orgasm, the intensity of her body wrapped around me, her experience wound into mine, has pushed out so much of the pain.

I can feel her heart beating out of her chest, against my back. I can feel my own, pounding. This is life. This is force and beauty and healing. I can't save the world. I can't save him from himself. I can't do it all. But even in crisis, even in fear, there's still hope, there's still healing. There is pain and pleasure and the sunlight glinting through the Oak trees.

For minutes that feel like hours, I lie there, cradled in her body and heart, until I can gather the strength to move again. I pull myself out of her lap and drop the Hitachi on the floor. She lies down next to me, spread across the bed.

"What can I do for you?" She asks.

"Let me hold you."

I push my nose into her neck. I turn toward her, on my side. I pull her toward me, and she slides down the bed, putting her head into my chest, her chest to my stomach. My arms become expansive as I wrap one arm across her shoulders, down her back, and the other arm under her head.  pulling her deep into my arms. I'm shorter, smaller, and yet she fits like a puzzle piece. I kiss her on the forehead, on the nose, on the cheek, on the lips, and twirl her hair through my fingers.

"I wanted to hold you all day today," she whispers into me. "But I didn't realize how much I wanted to be held by you."

I'm grateful for the chance to hold her, to heal her, as she has done for me. She feels so good in my arms.

Sleep to Dream

It's almost bedtime, and my thoughts are running wild and chaotic. What a strange last few days. I have much to say here, but neither the focus or the will to really do it. I'm determined to finish writing Number 9, but after the Saints defeat on Sunday, I simply haven't had the motivation. I tell myself tomorrow, but the truth is tomorrow doesn't seem to ever come.

A friend mentioned Written on the Body by Winterson this weekend, and the book seems to have gotten stuck in my head. It's been years and years since I read it, or really anything by her, though once upon a time she was my favorite author. I credit Written on the Body as a big part of my coming out process. The book is written from a first person perspective, though the protagonist has no defined sex/gender identity. At the time I read it, I wasn't comfortable with the idea of being sexual (or even romantic) with another woman. But reading the book forced me to explore my own feelings and thoughts about gender roles, sexuality, and sex in very mind-blowing ways. Granted, I was fifteen. But it was most definitely what I needed at the time. Ironic that this has all popped up around National Coming Out Day (today).

I cried this morning, when I woke up before my alarm and read the FB and twitter updates of many of my friends. I have some friends on FB I didn't even know where queer -- old camp friends, etc. -- and seeing these people who grew up in small town Mississippi, Texas, Louisiana, proudly proclaim to 300+ people online that they're here and queer still blows my mind. I spoke with two close friends last week about the LGBTQ community in NOLA, in Louisiana, about the struggles we face and the challenges that hold back this community. On a microcosm, many are small and yet so pervasive -- one or two family members who hold someone back from being out, a boss that might or might not be accepting, a fear of the those who lurk in the French Quarter streets at night, etc. But the macrocosm is devastating in a different way -- the pay gap for women (and especially gender non-normative women), the racial and class divides in this town, the lack of a LGBTQ infrastructure through organizations and groups, the lack of venues for queer women, the lack of everything from healthcare to social support for trans people, pervasive (and often school-sanctioned) discrimination and bullying, etc.

I don't know why this year has hit hard -- I always wax poetic on LGBTQ holidays, but I guess the rash of suicides has just hit home. It's 2010, and groups like HRC and (our local) Forum For Equality and Gay, Inc, have put marriage and adoption at the top of the agenda, while teens are blowing their brains out. I get that it's not an either-or thing; nothing is that simple. But money is power, and the issues we choose to support with our time and money are the ones which get the most press and recognition. Thousands of people in California came out against Prop 8. In the last few weeks, five kids (that we know of) have committed suicide and where is outcry? It's coming, but it's not as well funded. This movement doesn't have the PR machine. But I'm grateful to see things like the "It Gets Better" Project. I'm glad people are reading, listening, hearing, and asking questions -- What can we do? What are we doing wrong? How can we give these kids hope?

I don't know. But we've got to start talking and listening. We've got to find a way to hear the stories of these kids, and not the post-mortem version. We've got to build a support system, an infrastructure, and we've got to start yesterday.

The suicides also brought up two of my own friends, both from high school, who've committed suicide. I'm certain neither of their deaths had anything to do with their sexual orientation or gender identity. But to think they both cut their lives off at 19. Argh. I wonder often who they would be if they were still here. If I'd still run into them from time to time. If they would find happiness. Death always leaves a hole, but suicide leaves a different kind of missing. It's been over three years, but damn, I still think about them. 19 is too young.

What are we doing? Not enough. Never enough, if this is still happening. Social change is slow, yes. But just as women found that Edna Pontillier's escape hatch was not the only one -- Nora Helmer was onto something -- LGBTQ teens have to discover the same. Death isn't a solution. There's so much more to find in Door #2.

Come out, come out, where ever you are. I'm grateful today, especially, for my "family." I'm grateful for my ex-boyfriend, Steven, the first person I came out to -- and a friend who gave me the support I really needed. I'm grateful to the psychiatrist who told me, contrary to my mother's wishes, that my being queer was just fine. I'm grateful to the straight allies, to groups like the ACLU and SPLC, to parents and family members of queers, to advocates, to those who love quietly and those who fight out loud. There's so much gold on this end of the rainbow.

It Gets Better

Dan Savage, author of the Savage Love column and a couple books, has started a new project in response to yet another suicide by a gay teen. He created a YouTube channel where LGBT people can post their videos discussing their coming out, their lives, and how, in growing up, it gets better. It’s not always miserable and hopeless to be queer, even though it can really seem that way.

Honestly, I don’t have any experience with video. Arg. And my computer, though it claims I can video using my built-in webcam, doesn’t seem to want to. I suspect I am missing a mic.

Plus, I simply prefer writing.

In fall 2004, I was a senior in high school. I’d been dating my first girlfriend for over six months, and my best friend had just passed away in a house fire. It was a very emotionally tumultuous time in my life. Looking back, I remember only bits and pieces, like driving to school on crisp fall mornings with the windows down and having hot sex in the back seat of my Camry, parked in a dark alley. I remember my girlfriend’s parents threatening that if she came out, her mother would lose her job, and the time when her younger sister outed us to all of her friends in an attempt to fit in. We didn’t really know anyone else who was gay, and I felt very alienated – I had no idea there were ways to connect to other LGBT people. The highs were incredible, and the lows were very, very dark. I was coming off a semester of drinking and popping pills every morning before class, but my girlfriend was one of the reasons I stopped playing with drugs. I was head-over-heels in love.

I had a hare-brained notion that I should come out to my mother, in hopes that my honesty would bring us closer. God knows I was so fucking wrong. Instead, our already miserable relationship worsened. She dragged me to a psychiatrist, insisted that I was in a phase triggered by the sudden death of my best friend, and used her shame and yelling to drive me deeper into the closet. My close friends, the few who knew about us and were supportive, were a solace. But losing the last few family members I had left, after my family had already been split by divorce and rivalries, was overwhelming and terrifying. My friends who were Christian took off pretty quick, and those that stayed faced disapproval from their parents for hanging out with “gay kids.”

I remember thinking my cousins would never speak to me again. I just wanted to move out, run away, but I had nowhere to go. I counted down the days to college, when I could get away from my mother. I was so overwhelmed some days, and I really couldn’t imagine how things could get better.

And then I went to moved out, went to college, and got a job.

Practically overnight, I had a bed I could fuck in any time I wanted. I had the money to support myself – to some degree – and I could go see my girlfriend for a whole weekend without asking permission and facing judgment, shame, and anger from my mother. I could call her anytime I wanted, and not fear that if her number showed up on my caller ID that I would face another two days of fighting. I felt liberated. I could come out on my own terms, and define my life in a new place. And I did all of those things.

It definitely gets better.

I don’t have all my shit together, and I never will. I don’t want to pretend to be a role model for anyone. I still struggle with coming out, at new jobs, in unfamiliar or scary situations, in dealing with family. But not for a second would I take back being queer.

I’m so blessed. I have so many queer friends and straight allies in my life. I have stopped putting stock in my biological family, which has never been supportive for really any reason, and learned to build a chosen family of friends who I actually enjoy spending time with. I get to play any role in the queer community that I wish, and I have taken on many – as a political and social advocate, as a member of LGBT organizations, as a researcher, as a geek who loves queer history, as an employee of an LGBT org, as a protester, as a supporter of queer arts and culture, as a volunteer, and now, I suppose, as a writer. I love that everyone in this community can choose their level of involvement – but at the end of the day, being queer – from who you fuck to how you speak out and everything in between – is subversive and beautiful.

I wake up every day, grateful to have not chosen suicide when I was 15, 16, 17. I can’t tell you the number of times I faced death as a viable option.

I can tell you there is so much to come, so much that you just haven’t experienced yet. Amazing, mind-blowing sex. Visiting cities like New York and San Francisco, where the gay flags on balconies signal “home.” Pride parades. Laughing about with queer friends over a bottle of wine or a few beers. The thumpa-thumpa of the club. Drag. Watching someone open their eyes and ears as they learn about what it’s like to be queer. Movies like Imagine Me & You. Seeing a gay kiss on-stage. Falling in love. Tiny, hidden gay bars where everyone is like family. Queer theory and queer history.

And there are all the not-so-gay things. Like the chance to go to school. The jobs you could have, the people you could meet. The friends you’ll make. The chance to reconcile with family members, who often do come around after a few months or years. The places you’ll go.

There are so many possibilities, so many opportunities. There’s so much worth living for. You only get once chance, so enjoy it while you’re young. Enjoy it when you’re old. Tomorrow does get better.

Someday, it’ll be you writing to the next generation, telling them the same. 

If you're struggling with being LGBT/queer and need someone to talk to, please call 866-4-U-TREVOR. The hotline is operated 24/7 by the Trevor Project, a non-profit dedicated to crisis and suicide prevention among LGBT youth. You can find out more or donate to the Trevor Project on their website, thetreavorproject.org.