clarity

i am often accused of being somewhat overconfident. not surprising; i am an egotistical only child. the world may not revolve around me, but by god, it should. this sense of sureness in the moment can sometimes lead me to make some insane choices. the phrase "it seemed like a good idea at the time" may very well be my epitaph.

there have been times in this slog through emotional purgatory that i've felt that the choice to break free and start anew was one of those good ideas at the time, that i'd eventually come to regret it and want nothing more to be back in that comfortable, sweet place i used to have. it is with great pleasure that i can announce that, for once in my life, i have 100% made the right decision.

i've had a lot of opportunity this week to throw in the towel, open my arms back up and say, let's forget all this and try one more time. that idea has, for lack of a better term, been forced down my throat. it's been all i could do to maintain my composure - and it's been a serious challenge - but there hasn't been a single moment when i've been tempted. in fact, this has been a forge, tempering my resolve into the strongest steel possible. i have never been more correct in my assessment of something than i have with this. i am on the right path. as soon as the mandatory clock runs, i will be a free bitch, baby. and it will be exactly correct. the way forward has never, ever been this clear.

origin myth

he and i are no stranger to scandal. we've carefully constructed this reality between ourselves, cultivating our private indulgences far outside the pale of what our friends would accept. instead of running away, killing ourselves over it, we've adopted it as our new reality. i live a double life, carefully building my realities depending on the audience and hoping like hell that the two halves can stay separated long enough to ride out the required delay. he aids and abets me, willingly, gladly shepherding me down this path and guarding all my secrets.

i lay there with him that first night, listening to him assure me that i wasn't crazy. i felt so much relief after that conversation. he'd really talked me down off the ledge; i was totally okay after that. i drifted off next to him in that big hotel bed. not the first time we'd slept next to each other. but the change came when he crossed that line, when he reached out his hands and touched me, just so, on the back of my neck, running his fingers through my hair. i lay there still, my heart racing, as his hands undid all the calm of his words a few short hours earlier. he made himself a liar then and there. i could ignore this. i could stop him...

...or i could bite into that apple and fall from grace once and for all. i drew in breath. this decision would require courage, more courage than i had to rely on. i whispered, "do you know what you're doing?" it would be the closest i'd come to acknowledging his double-edged intentions. he ran his hand over my shoulders and down my back. i drew in breath again, for other reasons.

"i think so." as our lips touched, we sealed our fate. stripping each other down and drinking deeply from one another, we bonded ourselves together in our secrecy, our treachery against my situation and our conspiracy to ourselves. we could never go back. it was changed forever. the only reality we will ever know again will be twined with the feeling of skin against skin, the illicit thrill of indulgence and the breathless danger of breaking rules.

we have always been intellectual rebels, riding the streets of our sleepy hometown with the knowledge that we were different, better, more than what we saw through the windows of his car. with that kiss, the rebellion crystallized, raised to a whole new level of disregard for convention. teenage angst is trite and overdone. a grown man and a grown woman, looking the rules of society in the face and spurning them in pursuit of pleasure, comfort, happiness, damn all the consequences? now that's a bold statement. we joined hands and jumped. we didn't bother to look down. we just fell together, never wondering or even caring what would happen when the clouds parted.

partner in crime redux

you make me feel like the most desirable woman on the face of the earth. you are insatiable, hungry, and eager, while still nominally in charge of everything that happens. you speak to that insecure teenager inside of me, the girl who still gets surprised that any boy would take the time to talk to her. you make me ravenous, daring, reckless. you're the type of man who inspires late-night trysts in taxicabs and back booths, stolen sensuality ringed in cigarette smoke and tinged in bourbon. you are excitement, danger, foolish abandon. you bring out parts of me i thought were long dead.

i could do this forever. the ego boost alone is worth it. you know just how to get to me, and you do it gladly every time. where shall we go next?

what have i become?

sometimes i take a look at my life and think, holy hell. how in the name of god did all of this happen? often, this is because of good things. i had one of those thoughts right before the vice chancellor read my name and i walked across the stage at my law-school commencement. rarely, this is because of bad things. but most often, it's a cocktail of amazing and heartbreaking that brings me to this state of mind. that's where i sit today.

there are so many fun, exciting and interesting parts of my life these days. i'm coming into my own as a professional, as a city dweller, and as a person in general. there are flirtations new and ongoing, twists and turns that surprise me as much as they take my breath away. the future holds nothing but new possibilities. and yet, there are portions of this existence that just break me into pieces. my heart just bleeds when i think about the final shattering of my old life. there is still so much hurt, so much disappointment there. being confronted with this and unable to do anything about it... it hurts me more than i can bear.

i'm starting to wonder, really wonder, what it is that i'm made of. i'm starting to think it may not be as good as i originally thought. maybe the carefully constructed layers of maturity, reason, kindness are nowhere near as deep as i intend them to be. it's possible that i am really just as bankrupt as every other sociopath out there. that this whole self-determination kick is a hollow charade designed to give myself psychological permission to just behave in a thoroughly ruthless manner without having to feel the repercussions of that ruthlessness. the deftness with which i spin this image scares me.

maybe this happens because i lack something other people have. and if that's the case, what becomes of me? who wins, the better angels or the lesser demons? and if the demons win sometimes, does it even matter if the angels ever win?

does the darkness in my dreams control me?

back and forth

i woke up this afternoon sore on my entire right side. muscle aches, bruises, a couple of strains, and one really sharp pain in my hip. one good back rub later, i was actually able to get out of bed, but let's just say that last night/this morning's activities really took it out of me.

it's fun beyond description to get totally drenched in your lover's sweat as he battles you for supremacy. i play with submission a lot these days, but every once in awhile i get a wild hair to turn the tables. i mean, a girl can't be pliant and subservient all the time. what fun is that? thankfully, my favorite playmate is just as flexible as i am. he's more than willing to let me work it out on him as easily as he works it out on me. or is he?

sometime shortly before sunup, out of breath and tousled of hair, holding his wrists and enforcing my will, i got the distinct feeling that my efforts weren't so much subsuming him as they were amusing him. and that's when it hit me. he and i are best not when one or the other of us is in charge, but when we take each other on face to face. so as he baited me, i challenged him. our words got more daring, the adrenaline flowed. we locked hands, wrestling each other figuratively and literally. he snarled at me; i laughed at him. the taunts, throwing each other around the bed, the oh-so-sweet challenge of love not given lightly. we pushed each other to the brink physically and emotionally, and even beyond the brink.

oh, and were we ever rewarded. the sun rose over us entwined, his lips against my neck, my head resting in the crook of his arms, completely exhausted and thoroughly sated in each other's pleasure. power games are fine. egalitarianism, though? even sweeter.

reckless indifference

i spend a lot of time talking about maturity, responsibility and adulthood. a lot of this comes with the territory of being at the end of my twenties, i think. but really, in my heart of hearts, i am still the snotty little punk teenager i was back in the mid-90s. there's an element of arrested development at work here, for sure. i mean, the decisions i made at the end of my teen years locked me into a pattern that i've only just recently been able to break. there's some explanation for the just-don't-give-a-damn i feel sometimes.

but there's more to it than that. i still have a large streak of wild impulsiveness alive and well in me. i've noticed that in the last two years, i have been given to making decisions that rational adults would call foolish at best and dangerous at worst. many of these decisions have been shared with y'all here. but the closer i get to total freedom, the stronger these impulses get. for example, driving back from the bar exam, i was randomly seized with the urge to just... drive somewhere. not back home, but somewhere else in particular. just take off, no announcement, no plans. i didn't, largely because by the time i reached the junction between home and somewhere else, exhaustion had set in and i just wanted my bed. but had i been slightly less exhausted, who knows what might've happened?

there are so many things i've done this summer that defy logic and really serve to disprove everything i've ever said about maturity. but the best is yet to come. i made a decision last night that will either stay harmless fun or open up a pandora's box of bad consequences. and there's just no way to tell which one it is until it happens. you'd think that would make me nervous, scare me, or drive me to try to fix the problem. nope. my give-a-damn's busted. not only am i not afraid, but i welcome the consequences. let whatever's going to happen come on. i'm ready for some excitement. let's shake it up even worse than i have in the past.

life is meant to be lived. i'm going to live it. damn the torpedoes. full speed ahead.

death of a thousand cuts

the summer is slowly winding down. i'm finishing my time in the sublet, making plans for the next year of my life, getting ready to start the final year of my formal education and the first chapter of my new story as a woman on her own. this time has flown by so quickly that it's really hard to internalize. my new life and my old life are about to run smack into each other. the time is short; a matter of days until the balancing act that fall 2010 will become begins in earnest. the illusions i've built, the freedom i've grown into so well: these things will have to be tempered by the fact that, well, he'll be back here. the convenient excuse of a thousand miles is as gone as yesterday come this weekend.

we've started the process of working these issues out. i'm not sure reality has set in on his side. i don't really have the heart to be that blunt over the phone. these things are best suited face-to-face. it's been over two months since i last saw him. there will be a whole lot of forced cheer in the beginning, as we have fun with his friends, put on the happy face and pretend like there's nothing wrong. 'course, i didn't count on him being so terrible at compartmentalizing his feelings; our deep, dark secrets have been paraded around his circle of loved ones like painted-up tarts at times. i don't know how i feel about this, just that i'm not happy about it.

words have been exchanged, hurts have been confessed. the bloom has fallen off the rose. my anger, his anger, my disappointment, his bewilderment are now the currency of our communications. when we're not forced to get into these issues, i can discuss things with him like we're old friends. but as soon as he persists in delving into our problems, the ice block in my heart swallows up my emotions and turns me into a shadow of myself. i just don't want to deal with this anymore. i want to slash this gordian knot in half, unraveling all of this once and for all.

but we're not that lucky. he doesn't know that he'd be luckier if i could make that happen, if i could just slice through all of this, sever it all and leave the ends raw and bleeding onto the floor. but i do. i know what i've done. i know what i'm capable of doing. i know how badly i can wound. i don't like it, but it's true. if there was any way at all to just make this all go away, it would save him from a fate worse than the languishing death of a thousand tiny cuts. this is our reality, and this is our future. it's going to hurt far worse than anything you could ever imagine.

it's the right way to do it, to be smart, gradual, logical. but it'll be the death of me.

what a good boy

what a good boy, what a smart boy, what a strong boy. traditional impulses all; this is what your "traditional man" should be, i suppose. i'm a feminist; i'm not supposed to care about how tough, strong, etc. a man is. and yet, that's the one thing i seem to want above all else when i look for a man: alpha-male bona fides.

he's got them in spades. he's so cocksure. he knows he's the smartest guy in the room, no question. (he's not wrong, either.) it's nowhere near the traditional definition of BIG STRONG MAN, though. he's not a fighter. he's no one's concept of a tough guy; he's not in "shape," not at all a physical specimen. and yet, i simply cannot get enough of him. he's got a way about him that just oozes sex appeal. he's snarky, he's confident.

but it's more than that. he twins this cockiness with an equal measure of devotion. i know full good and well that he dominates me in part to show his power, but in part because he knows it serves my wishes. that's the bargain we've struck with each other, there in the dark. he gets to be the boss, the master... but we both know that we act in service of one goal only, and that's my pleasure. he says it low and slow in my ear: "i love to see you come for me." he claims that this is all about him, what he can do, and how addicted i am to him. he's part right; i am completely at his sexual mercy and he knows it. but that's not the whole story. as much power as he has over me, i have that much more over him. i hold him in my hands, literally and figuratively, when we're together.

maybe that's how these things square up, how two liberal feminists can have such a viciously retrograde sex life. it's a game; it's all a game with us. we play at these things. he holds me down and keeps me pinned under him, knowing full well that my struggles are nothing more than a charade. when he growls in my ear, ferocious and triumphant, "you can't get away from me; i can do whatever i want and you're totally fucking powerless," he knows that there's a limit to how true that actually is. he uses the language of the subduer, the attacker, but it's enclosed in this context between us. he forces, he strikes, he imposes his will. but all of this power only comes to him through my grant to him. without my suggestion, none of this happens.

so who's the strong one, the tough one? it's not so clear, is it? i've heard it said that the woman in every relationship holds the reins. i'm not sure that you can reduce this to such a strictly definable gender construct. what i do know is this: the structure between us exists at my insistence. it's based on years of carefully-earned trust, on both sides. it's interesting that the only way such a starkly violent, hyper-patriarchal sexual existence could possibly exist is because the relationship that undergirds the bruises, the scratches and the vicious words is so grounded in, for lack of a better description, love and respect. he honors me in ways i can't even articulate. it's because of that honor that he can debase me, objectify me, rule me. it's exactly what i want from him.

what a good boy, indeed.

more than this

you and i meet this way time and time again. usually it's my idea, but i finally got tired of being the needy one, so i tried to give you the weekend off.

but you had other plans, didn't you? i went and made it challenging. well, as challenging as i can. i made you ask me for once. and we both get exactly what we want. you get to take your liberties; i get to surrender myself completely to your savage mercy. we drink from each other over and over again, committing ourselves not to each other, but to our own pursuits of pleasure.

maybe i'm learning. i woke this morning with no care in the world, just the feeling of your arm across my hips. no pressure. no expectations. just you, and me, and the satisfaction of a job well done.

you know there's nothing more than this.

always be my baby

"you'll always be a part of me, i'm part of you indefinitely..."

pop music and i are not on the best terms in my adult life. i find most of it, well, juvenile and ridiculous. but last night/this morning, i sat on a bar stool belting out the lyrics to mariah carey songs like it was my job. a large part of it was the wine i drank (oh, and we drank a LOT of wine, don't get it twisted), but it was also the security of being with someone who cares for me through and through, only judges me in jest and indulges my ridiculous side. hell, who participates willingly in my craziness.

so i sang my heart out, and in that moment, it was 1994 all over again. it's funny that the songs we used to dance to in eighth grade have a weird resonance in our thirty-year-old lives.

"and we'll linger on, time can't erase a feeling this strong." 


we didn't realize we were prophets. people who i couldn't live without as, like, total BFFs in middle school still form the fabric of my life today. and thank the gods for them. as i remember what it's like to be me, they're part of the answer to the question. these people will shepherd me through my renewal, as i awaken the old memories and slip back into the skin i wore so well back then. i treasure you more than i can ever say.

"ooh, don't you know you can't escape me; yeah, darlin', 'cause you'll always be my baby..."

cool blue reason

there's a time in the middle of every big life decision when the fog of fear, pain, confusion, etc. parts, and for one brief second, the cold light of rationality shines on you. the road becomes clear. consensus may even be reached in a bitter fight.

i woke up this morning in a very bad head state. things had escalated way out of control, and every answer i thought i'd reached had been replaced by a hundred questions. but for once, my instinct to overthink, overanalyze and generally obsess myself into a serious problem held itself in abeyance. i sat down on the couch, picked up a leisure book, and simply... started... thinking. it almost felt like my process during the bar exam, weirdly: i felt myself looking at the fact pattern of my life, issue-spotting, and applying the law to the facts. well, not the law, but more like the truth of my emotional life.

and strangely enough, i started to come to some realizations. things became clear again. for the first time in probably two years, i feel like i'm at a place emotionally where i can function normally. there's not this weird, clamped tension in my heart when his name comes up. there's no longer that desperate, pinched neediness to the interaction. instead, i look at him and i see, well, him, sitting across from me. i see a way to a peaceable future. maybe not the one we'd imagined, or even the one i'd imagined, but a good, pleasant co-existence.

there's hope. there's a chance. and by god, that's all i need.

drive

one benefit of this insane week has been that i've had a rental car at my disposal. as much as i love walking, metro trains and the urban lifestyle, there is precious little in my life that i enjoy more than getting behind the wheel of a car. i've had a license for 13 years; this is the second extended stretch of time over that entire period that's found me carless.

the first time, i was a freshman in undergrad, seventeen years old, and living in a teeny little mountain town in virginia. alone for the first time, i thought i had everything well in hand. but then the walls of the teeny little mountain town started to close in on me. my world, which had never really been that big (i mean, there's only so much you can see in small-city alabama in the mid- to late-1990s), suddenly shrank to about three miles square. and there was no. way. out. i was stuck. every little problem became massive, and with my adolescent coping skills being, well, stunted beyond all belief, i reacted about as well as you'd expect: i freaked out.

so here i sit again, on the other side of over a decade of life experience, carless. this time it's different; i'm old enough to attain several means of escape, and i have a tight web of close friends and family to support me should i freak out again. but tonight, i took to the roads of my city, cruising around with no real agenda. i let my mind wander far and wide (the results of this wandering, by the way, will be seen later on this week; i'm brewing up a nice writing project which will debut here in pieces in august), and it was simply heaven. i've always thought so well while driving. it's one of the few places in my life where i know i can think clearly and without interruption. i used to go on long drives with my cell turned off. there was a freedom in being completely unreachable.

behind the wheel, you are 100% free to do whatever you want. i realized driving back last night that, if i so desired, i could have gone anywhere i wanted. there was nothing holding me back. in my new life, i miss that feeling. it's one to be savored.

bonus post: thank you!

still kinda wired, but i am in bed at home now. blog-land friends, y'all have been smashing throughout this torture session known as my bar-exam summer. now that it's over, i want to thank every single one of you for how supportive you've all been. it's been hugely reassuring thinking about my little band of buddies out here in the world rooting for me. (i did, with no exaggeration, think of y'all at one point during today's testing, and it gave me a boost when i was struggling.)

so thanks. it means a lot to me, more than i can express. :)

whew

just a quick check-in from the road. on my way home now. it was a long two days. i feel... well, it's hard to say. not awful. i did what i needed to do. now, we wait. and now, for four glorious weeks, my time is mine.

bring it on. :)

halftime

oh boy. not much to say tonight; my hand hurts from writing. it went OK. i rocked a couple of questions, muddled my way through others. i didn't walk away feeling like i wanted to die, but i didn't feel like a million bucks, either. so tomorrow is the last day. the multistate bar examination. 200 multiple-choice questions. what multiple choice has to do with being a lawyer is beyond me, but whatever. it is what it is. so back to the books for a quick read-through one last time, making sure i can remember the tricks and keep my focus. i can do this. i will do this.
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and now, a little self-congratulation. for those who haven't seen this, i have written my very first guest post as a blogger. i'm kinda proud. check it out for yourself at secret society of list addicts. i'm even capitalized for once. :)

game face

"this is it. don't get scared now." - macaulay culkin as kevin mcallister, home alone

we're now less than 12 hours from the bar exam. one more brief refresher read-through, then it's to bed with this little girl. of course, i had to have chosen the hotel full of not just harley riders, but high-school cheerleaders. it's a touch noisy. but i mean, would i really have slept the sleep of the just in any hotel? this is serious nerves time.

or is it? to be honest, i am not that freaked. oh, don't get me wrong; i am nervous. but it's mostly about tactics, gamesmanship, etc. i know i know this stuff. i went through three years of law school. i also went through two months of concentrated preparation. seriously, when i wasn't in someone else's bed, i was at the kitchen table, poring over essays and outlines. it's been a very binary summer in that regard. the knowledge is in my head. it's just a manner of getting it to flow from my brain, through my pen and into those blue books. (no, i'm not typing the exam; though i might look like a prolific typist, i am slow and inaccurate. it's longhand all the way.)

so it's time to get psyched. head down, eyes up. like knights of old, let's fight to hold the glory of the purple and gold. let's carry through. let's die or do. to win the game for dear old... well, for me. for my future. for everything i've always wanted. this is the last test, the final boss. time to slay the dragon...

out to stud

i sat on the edge of his bed and chatted blithely with him until he was awake enough to drive me home. i would've walked, but it's too damn hot, and besides, he offered. usually, these moments are shot through with some form of wanting, hoping, wishing he'd see more to me than he does. not this time. i just took him for what he is for once in my life: the friend who knows my ins and outs, who respects me and cares for me the best way he knows how.

racing animals have short careers. elite racehorses are put out to stud shortly after their fourth birthdays. why? because it's tiring beyond belief chasing a nearly unattainable goal. some of these poor animals run themselves into their graves with exhaustion. others retire peacefully. knowing when to say when is the difference between life and death. so i throw up my hands. i'm no longer willing to exhaust myself this way. i've made this declaration before, and i swore i meant it those times, too.

but i sit here tired, pushed to the brink from stresses internal and external. i am at my weakest right now. these are the times when my resolution fails, when i get sad and lonely, when i seek comfort and start imagining a future that will never be as perfect as my mind can create it. even in this weakened state, i think about him and, finally, don't feel that old pinch around my heart. i just don't want to go there. not now. and hopefully that means not ever.

i care so much about him. but he's not for me. i know it intellectually. i think, at LONG last, that's starting to seep into my emotions. i think i've managed to convince my heart to listen to my head. not a moment too soon. i won't chase him anymore. the race is over.

sickness and health

i am one uncomfortable blog proprietor today. let's just say that between the bar exam drama and the life drama, i ignored a little problem until it became a full-blown disaster, and i spent all. damn. morning. hanging out in the urgent care clinic. nice. so after much antibiotic and painkillers, i am now in bed, about to start the sleep i missed out on last night.

haha. last night. see, here i thought i was going to prove to myself that i could be a big girl and stay in. yeah, that didn't happen. i ended up at a friend's place, watching TV until all hours of the night. i felt a little under the weather, but nothing i couldn't handle. we watched "the hangover" again, just some mindless entertainment, and before you know it, oh-ho, it's 3:00 AM and the trains aren't running anymore. oh, damn; he's been drinking, so he can't drive me home. looks like i'm staying out here tonight.

i don't think i need to tell you what happened next. i mean, nothing earth-shattering; he's not my sexual crack cocaine boy (from whom i am abstaining at the moment - another time), so it's not the kind of experience that needs to be recounted in great detail. but it was a nice diversion from the stress of the exam. i dozed off in his bed around 5:00 AM... only to awaken at 10:45 AM in some of the most intense pain it's ever been my misfortune to experience. so i did what every red-blooded american girl would do in this context: hey, friend i just slept with? lend me your car so i can drive to the doctor. it's best to do this when the boy is sleeping, so his defenses are down.

so that was my day: hours in the doctor's office, cursing my own stupidity and trying not to curl up into a little ball and throw a temper fit out of pain. lovely. but it's funny; when i returned the car, he was still asleep. i walked up to his room and woke him, mostly to tell him about my misadventures, and he said, "you shouldn't take the train home. i'll drive you." now that's what friends are for.

in sickness and in health. hmm. maybe that's not just a throwaway line from the marriage vows the churches lay on us. maybe it's more like the governing rule of friendship: stick together, sickness or health, no matter what. that's a nice thought, and he's a nice guy. i'll have to remember that...

one is the loneliest number

i claim to be tough. in a lot of ways, i am. i've been through a lot and i'm still standing. but if you scratch me deeply enough, you'll get to my core, and you don't have to go as deeply as i wish you did to find it. long story short, i am not as strong as i think i am, or even as strong as i purport to be. this is never more obvious than on friday evenings.

as it gets dark out and the weekend begins, i start to get really edgy if i don't have somewhere to be, somewhere to go. i haven't quite let go of that mentality that weekend nights are for youthful socializing, and if you're not out doing something, you're missing out. now that it's just me, and i don't have someone at the house who's always there to talk to or go out with, this feeling's gotten 100 times worse. i know i just need to soldier through it, bite the bullet, snuggle up with some netflix streaming stuff and realize that life doesn't end because you spent a night in. but that doesn't change this feeling of, "oh, my god, i am alone. there's no one here to talk to and i am alone. ALONE." the walls close in.

i have friends. good ones. i know this. but friday night alone makes me feel like the most unloved person on the planet. it's totally irrational, but that's the way it is. maybe that's why i backslide, looking for companionship in all the wrong places. it'll get better soon, i know it will; i'll grow used to my new lifestyle. i haven't spent a weekend alone in a long, long, long, LONG time. time will make this better.

right?

monteleone (a flight of fancy)

oh, you spin me right round, baby, but not like a record. you spin me like the carousel bar, that bastion of pure NOLA weirdness in the "quiet" part of the french quarter. the captain and coke only puts a fine point on the dizzy good vibe of this cool november evening, generated largely from that slow, measured rotation, experienced for hours on end. you almost forget that you're turning, but you are. the kindly old eccentric on your right side insists on giving us his blessing for our evening's activities, another classic NOLA moment. in new orleans, your secrets are never just your own. but we sit and laugh, spinning in more ways than one.

you flatter my ego; i flatter you back. you lose that layer of cool, that polish you always carry, and give in to the absurdity. no one knows us here; we're just two more strangers. it feels like something out of a tom waits song. you expect the bartender to have a tattooed tear for every year he's away, except that this isn't ninth and hennepin. but the patrons do have that sort of weathered patois in their voices, that slightly less than above-board sensibility that every good adventure bar should have. this is the city that care forgot, after all.

maybe that's why you feel so free. well, that and your johnnie walker black. but you wear it so, so well. you get looser and looser with each rotation around the room. you laugh easier, you indulge that battered old codger and his tales of gridiron glory from far longer ago than anyone in the room would have the rudeness to admit. you take to ordering my drinks for me, your repressed southern gentleman instincts flowing forth as easily as the bourbon flows into my glass. and you touch me so openly, in ways you never would if this night weren't so singularly constructed. you lock eyes with me, stroke my cheek with the side of your hand and proclaim, "anything for you." we'll debate the truth of that line later; it's irrelevant right now. this night sparkles with the surreality of the surroundings. when you take me out of this reverie and back into the harsher, less well-crafted narrative of the outside world, you won't wait for the hotel room to show me what you're after. you'll trace the back of my neck with your finger as we wait for the elevator, and as we ride up, up, up, you'll start right there what you intend to finish behind the locked door down the hall. you've been filled with the spirit of the night, that bar, that sepia-toned conception of what every louisiana evening should be: a hazy, liquor-soaked dream, where the lines of the real world curve where they'd ordinarily be straight.

tonight, you surrender to the fantasy. and it's as close as you'll ever come to surrendering to yourself.
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this piece is based on a real bar in the hotel monteleone on royal street in new orleans. i've explained my love for NOLA a few times before. this is my stab at trying to bottle the magic, the je ne sais quoi that resonates in the air down there. ain't no doubt, cher bebe.