Feb
24
improbable dream squence
We are on a plush train, cruising through the night. Pitch black nothing flows by. The train is so dimly light even our reflections are barely ghosts in the windows. The seats are plush and wide. We have plenty of leg room. This no commuter train.
The conductor comes by and punches our tickets, which say our destination is “Nowhere” and puts them under the tab at the back of our seats and leaves us alone. There is no one else in the train car with us. I am reading and you are watching the night go by.
After a time, you reach across and knock the book out of my hands to grasp my breast. Time seems to speed up. Almost suddenly, we are both naked, our clothes seemed to have just disappeared. You pull me on top of you and we are making love. It is exquisite. As we embrace, our skin begins to stick together.
You whisper in my ears, “Relax and let me in.”
I do. Your hands reach into to my skin, disappearing into my back.
We become frantic. Reaching climax, we begin to pull apart. The pain is as intense as the pleasure. Our eyes are locked and, I wake up in a sweat, feeling the same as in the dream.
Feb
14
kissing in the dark
This isn’t a story of romance or even of joy. It’s practical tale. Told in the most matter of fact way. That’s how it was, matter of fact. It’s fitting to revisit it on a day where we are told to glorify romance, but superficially. Real connections aren’t about a red card or a pink rose.
I was 16. It was Valentine’s Day, apparently the worst day to break up with someone. You live, well, you know. I had been dating this Chinese boy, Teddy, who showered me with attention, annoyingly adorable stuffed animals, giant cards that professed ridiculous sentiments, and had his friend drive us around like a chauffeur, us in the back. I knew it was going to be short lived. He was way too affectionate, kind of corny and consequently, possessive. But that’s what you do when you are so young, you get to act like a fool and date secret jerks. He was one of them.
On this Valentine’s Day, I was dreading having to go out with Teddy. The anxiety was building in me. I knew I was in for an evening of awkward silence and cultural misunderstanding at his friend, the chauffeur’s, house, with some karaoke peppered in.
When he called, I just blurted it out, “Teddy, I can’t see you any more!”
“What about tonight?”
“Not tonight. Not any other night. I am sorry to do it like this.”
“It’s Valentine’s Day!”
“I know”
“You are a real bitch.”
“Fine. I deserve that.”
“Fuck you…” He descending into a string of profanities that I hung up on. He called back, but I wouldn’t answer.
Later that week, I cam home a little late from school. I opened the door to, what should have been my locked room, and in the dusky light, screamed out.
“There is some one fucking in here!”
But there wasn’t. I flipped the lights on, as my mom ran up behind me. My room was filled with flowers. Roses and lilies and baby’s breath. Filled. Every surface.
It turned out that my brother had been bribed to let Teddy and his chauffeur in. They had filled my room. I didn’t have the time or the energy that night to clean them all out. Besides, my mother said that they were lovely, and why waste them.
Why? Because they gave me nightmares. Because Teddy continued to leave bizarre tokens of his ever increasing obsession at my house. They’d appear almost daily. Big cards, stuffed teddy bears, more flowers. At least this time, the gifts were left in the yard. So much easier to put them in the trash.
Teddy is actually tangential, but sets the stage.
As February passed into March, we had a few good days. I had started “hanging out” with a new boy. An extremely charming and charismatic boy, but who had a host of problems. But some how, I let him charm the pants off of me, literally.
This is how I lost my virginity, coming off a mild case of stalking, in a dank basement room. Lying on the bed, I turned my head to see there was a bear bottle, with cigarette buts in it. Piles of dirty clothes and the room smelled of stale cigarettes and dirty linen. He was on top of me. I didn’t really know what to do or what to expect. He had all the experience. I expected pain, but there was none. I expected pleasure, but there was none of that either. I felt serviceable. He plunged away and I made noise, but I wasn’t there. I was above, looking at the surroundings. Seeing myself and him, awkwardly intertwined.
As I walked my bike the short distance home, I thought about it. I was both relieved and disgusted with myself. I didn’t love this boy. I had just decided that it was maybe time to get it over with, like a chore. The breezes cooled the sweat that had beaded on my face despite the spring air. I lifted my face to it, changed and not changed at all.
Feb
11
Vices are Not Crimes: A Vindication of Moral Liberty
Vices are those acts by which a man harms himself or his property.
Crimes are those acts by which one man harms the person or property of another.
Vices are simply the errors which a man makes in his search after his own happiness. Unlike crimes, they imply no malice toward others, and no interference with their persons.
In vices, the very essence of crime – that is, the design to injure the person or property of another – is wanting.
It is a maxim of the law that there can be no crime without a criminal intent; that is, without the intent to invade the person or property of another. But no one ever practises a vice with any such criminal intent. He practices his vice for his own happiness solely, and not from any malice toward others.
Unless this clear distinction between vices and crimes be made and recognized by the laws, there can be on earth no such thing as individual right, liberty, or property, and the corresponding and coequal rights of another man to the control of his own person and property.
For a government to declare a vice to be a crime, and to punish it as such, is an attempt to falsify the very nature of things. It is as absurd as it would be to declare truth to be falsehood, or falsehood truth.
