to tell or not to tell

Having had some time to think things through, I realized that I'm at a point in life where I have to make some difficult decisions.  Relationship with D is as bad as ever, even though neither of us is really making it difficult to live with each other.  She's really doing well at work these days, and really on her way to be floating along the partnership track.  Yesterday she asked me where I would like to take a vacation, Aspen or Bora Bora.  Ridiculous question if there is ever one.  Ever since she turned 30 I've been finding her more and more attractive, especially with her erstwhile slightly pudgy cheeks carved sharper by the imperceptible blades of time.  She washes herself more carefully now, and her privates are more invitingly pink and lasciviously delicious between my lips, with only tender sensitivity that burns me with flames of desire every time I put my head between her smooth, sparkling thighs.

"Wherever I can get a good fuck," I blurted out naughtily, with a mischievous grin.  It was a flashback of our earlier years of incessant tickling flirtations.

She rolled her eyes, of course.  She went on to talk about getting the kids to take skiing lessons.  All I could think about was how I need to bring up this conversation because I could not stand it any longer. Yet words invariably escape me.  

The fact of the matter is, my wife and I have problems that run much deeper than our lack of sex, I think.  I think she wants things that I cannot offer her, and she sees the world differently than I do.  As our twenties rolled by, her talent mitigated her insatiable desire to roll over everybody and everything, including my admittedly fragile ego.  We have less and less to talk about, and the meals are full of silences, dark, enigmatic silences.  Five years ago I was make substantially more money than she did, and that streak didn't continue.  I felt the traditional gender roles collapsing onto me, and yet she sneered and stayed utterly oblivious to my constant insecurity and self-scrutiny.  

When I bring up these topics of conversation, she dismisses them.

I am a shell of a human being, stuck in a cliche that is as old as time itself.  Of course, I can try to escape, but since there's nowhere to break out to, there is no where to go.  I'm an ant trapped on a sphere, or a Mobius strip, and the faster I run the more I determined to leave the sooner I return to where I started.  What I do know is that I love my kids and I can't leave.  At least, not now.  If I can't leave then I can't have the heart to put my words into action, and D would be able defeat me so easily.

Last night D fell asleep next to me, and I had a monumental hard-on.  Drops of pre-cum oozed out of the orifice, and I used my thumb and index finger to make circular, tortuous motions, and it erupted embarrassingly and silently into the blanket as I held my breath.  I need to think about this, I think.  

flickering

It's been a while.  Over Christmas, we went back to my parents for a little bit.  I took a couple of weeks off from work, and D decided to join us after a few days.  My parents are old and finicky, constantly harassing my children about trivialities.  My old room was converted into a guest room and my brother's room was cleared out for a little in-home gym that nobody ever used.  My day consisted of waking up at 9:30AM, eating a bowl of cereal, going to the backyard, and sometimes lighting a covert cigarette.  One night I called up a good friend, Tommy, from high school and he offered me a joint.  His house is literally 2 blocks down the street.  Tommy is married too now, though still in his old pudgy self and never had the physical metamorphoses that one would expect given how much money he made right before the housing crash as a contractor.  We sat by his large, pristine, artificial, Japanese inspired heated pool, watching the snow weighing on the bleak pine trees in the back, barely made out, covered in a fine, pink crepuscular haze.  He got married way before I did, and his daughter is now in middle school, doing well.  He relayed to me how little sex he's having too, that poor bastard.  I suppose it's normal.  I deeply inhaled, and felt the little ripples rising from deep within my scrotum up my spine, emitting a sad, sour moan.

In any case, I spent many of my days with parents beating off on an air mattress in the guest room, being stuffed with semi-processed food that they love, jogging in that patch of suburbia, not unlikely my own in the Southwest, but covered with the distinct, airy flora of the Northeast.  I remember one day I had a flashback of Lester from American Beauty saying "This is my life...and in one year I'll be dead," jogging in his little anomic paradise... Am I not a bit young for my mid-life crisis?

Lately it's been difficult for me sustain an erection with D.  We had sex perhaps once in January and once in February.  She likes to get it over with quickly, and when I went down on her I felt the dread, the heart pounding, the thought of the imminent collapse of our marriage, and our children being abandoned and kicked around like dreary urchins in a Dickens novel.  I don't have the heart to say anything to anyone.  I tried to create an artificial hard-on, but when I was inside of her I couldn't feel anything, which made me even more distressed.  Perhaps the final verdict is in.  Perhaps I am no longer attracted to my wife.  The lack of feeling only sparked another round of fanatic self-stimulation for penetration, only to be met by a quick, unsatisfying orgasm.  I offered to give her an orgasm by oral, but she said she just wanted to go to bed.  The end.  I lied alone next to her, and I cried.  I actually cried.  Of course she wouldn't know or care.  This is me, 6 foot 1, muscular, in shape, working in the financial services, perfect American life.  This little tableau for some reason brought back memories of Greek life in college, all the clueless meatheads, and my pretension of my disinterest in arts and letters, and my phony jocular mien.  Nothing ever happens in three months, right?

Last night I saw Maya

Maya was my third girlfriend, right after I met D.  This new development happened rather unexpectedly earlier this week, when I was "bored" and started googling random people I used to know, especially since I thought she moved to Hong Kong after we both left Chicago.  It turned out that she started working at A Corp., a large, multinational conglomerate based in that little city of ours, and appeared to be quite high up.  Her photo was so brightly adorned with all her shiny resume items collated in the "biographical" paragraph on their website, under "leadership and management", that my eyes didn't hesitate to moisten when I saw it.

I wrote her an E-mail immediately.  I used her company E-mail, and said stoically, Dear Ms. Maya, This is so-and-so from this and that company.  Please give me a call at such-and-such number.

She called that afternoon, on my cell phone.  I saw her name flashing, and realized that her contact must have been carried over when I purged my old flip phone directory to the online synchronization repository.  My heart tightened.

"Hey you."  Her voice was deeply familiar.

"Hey.  How have you been?"

The conversation was easy, like riding a bicycle.  She's moved here not long ago.  She had to run and asked if I would be interested in having dinner on Friday with her.

I said, "sure."

I told D I needed to stay late for a client dinner.  We went to an artisanal pizza place.  I had a pizza with artichoke heart and prawns.  She had a pizza with lobster, lyme and Gouda.  We bought a bottle of wine, though I only had half a glass.  She seemed a bit reckless after downing at least 3 full glasses.

She definitely noticed my ring.  I definitely noticed how she didn't have one.

She's still single, though I suppose in our age bracket these days it's not so rare anymore.  She told me about her "disaster" romances after me, "one guy had a the world's tiniest penis."  I feigned shock, but I knew she was flirting with me.

"So where is your wife?"

I knew it would come up, and I gravitated toward pretending to be a mature, comfortable, content, responsible yet deeply reserved adult--the image of Gregory Peck in "to Kill a Mocking Bird."  I felt slightly wrong, slightly guilty, slightly devious, looking directly at her face while fantasizing about her round, perfectly dimpled breasts underneath her brightly red velvet dress.  Was it velvet or silk, I couldn't tell.  A simple, comfortable dinner dress so hopelessly inviting to my large, fleshy fingers with their brutally unkempt hairy knuckles.  Does Atticus Finch have the same thoughts?  Does he masturbate?  He has no wife.  I can feel my member slowly, campily engorging in my wool trousers, and sweat slowly oozing out of my forehead follicles.  I nervously wiped my face with the napkin.

I drove home rather blankly.  D was in bed, and I wanted to rape her.  Suddenly I felt fat and unattractive, and a thought occurred to me that perhaps this was what half of the world felt like constantly.  That night D obliged to fuck me, and in the instant of my ecstasy, Maya's pink, round, soft nipples flashed in front of my eyes as I sighed, emitting my desperation deeply into someone else.  I stared emptily into the mirror in front of the foamy mattress that bore witness to my hundreds of pathetic orgasms, and D was sleeping next to me, purring quietly like a kitten.

It's been a while

Life has gotten in the way for updates.  For one reason or another, D has been around me constantly lately, and I didn't want her to see this blog.  I couldn't do it at work either, as not that long ago someone from work got hired for browsing some adult site or other.  Suffice it is to say, my only alone time is Friday afternoons when I get off work early and get a nice cup of coffee at the Starbucks at the strip mall.

D and I have some infrequent sex.  Sometimes she asks for it, sometimes I ask for it.  It doesn't matter.  It's always boorish and sometimes a bit lonely.  I even asked her about going to see a couples therapist together, as rare and uncouth as it is in this conservative, irksome city of ours.  The kids are alright, not too demanding, and well taken care of by their elderly nanny.  I find myself often having wandering thoughts, and often getting a massage down the block, at some Asian parlor, and paying for total indulgence, as her finger runs through my body, the warmth of the massage oil and the parlor music envelopes me as the flame in my loin burns a little stronger.  I did that two weeks ago again.  She was a good masseuse, and did her best to take out the knots in my shoulders.  I turned around and like my usual, she offered "the full service".  As she removed my towel I was almost in tears.  Her slender fingers gently grazed the back end of the tip of my erection, yielding a remarkable, electrifying sensation.  It didn't take very long before I felt the full, involuntary flickering inside my pelvis, fluid filled, ready for discharge, and I moaned.  As one of her hand slickly stroked, her other hand cupping my scrotum, I violently ejaculated.  The ruthless jets landed squarely on my heart, uncompromisingly dithering in my poorly groomed chest hair.  The waves of pleasure subsided and I started feeling the pangs of pain in my pelvis--this occasionally happens to me either after I urinate or before, when after orgasm I feel the pain in my prostate, almost as if I was kicked in the nuts, for a few minutes.  I swallowed some air to recover and climbed haltingly off the massage table and put on my shirt and pants, looking respectable again.

Sometimes I think about having an affair, maybe get on a website and looking for a lady in the same disposition as me, and yearn for that violence, that total oblivious, effervescent feeling.  I want someone to tie me up and torture me until I cannot go on and emit the last dying cry of an animal in heat.  

Divorce is not an answer

Some of you may wonder why I am not divorcing my wife.  We have sex at most once or twice a month.  I would like to have sex at least a few times a week.  We have tried a number of things to make this work for us, but I think the essence of it is not going to change.  I would like to divorce her, but it's not as easy as you think it is.  It's not that I can just go to a lawyer, call her up and serve her the papers. Do I really want to live a pathetic, divorcee's life with two young children requiring years of child support?  Do I really want my children to not have a father in their lives?  Do I really want to wade through some custody battle?  The answer is no.  The lack of (enough) sex is not a sufficient reason to let things collapse completely.

Am I happy?  I don't think I am.  But there are many of you out there who are just as unhappy as I am, and you figured out your various ways of coping.  I don't see how getting a handjob is hurting anybody.  Unless you make an argument that there is such a thing as a victimless crime.  That's my way.  You can judge all you want and call it whatever you wish, but while I do feel guilty about it sometimes I despise you and your moral high ground.  You don't know what you are talking about and you are just going to the same hell as I am.

(Acu)pressure

I do apologize as I have not updated my blog as frequently. Situation between me and D are hanging out exactly where it was, with the requisite once a month or so intercourse and pretty much not a lot of anything else.  She doesn't act as if she cares.  I certainly have given up hope, even though I tried numerous times to communicate with her.  I can't divorce her.  I can't get away.  I am stuck.

On Saturday I went to one of those local Asian spas that seemed to have sprouted out a lot lately.  A work colleague recommended it.  It was a small, sort of dampy place, ran by a couple of older Asian women who barely spoke any English.  Each of the massage beds were separated by a thin screen, and you most certainly can hear your neighbors.  One of the ladies pointed to an open bed and said, "take off", and I took off everything except my boxer briefs.

I lied on my stomach, my head in a hole facing the floor, and the masseuse began her work.  As she used her elbows, I started to relax.  The smooth, artificially warm touch created by the sandalwood massage oil, mixed with a faint smell of incense and that barely audible "Eastern" music was dizzying.  Moments later, she pulled off my underwear to my buttocks, and I was startled, but she was only going to massage my back.

The best part was the head and face massage after I flipped over, and after that was done she whispered into my ear, "do you want a special massage?"  "Ok."  I said, and immediately regretted it because I forgot to ask her how much.  She pulled off my underwear and skillfully started massaging my penis, which was already slightly engorged.  A few stray thoughts came into my head: "Is this cheating?  Is someone going to find out?  My wallet is in my bag, what if someone I know comes in and picks me up?  Would I lose my job?  What if I can't get hard?  That's gotta be embarrassing.  I hope they don't try to blackmail me."  But as her smooth fingers started tugging on my tumescent cock, the tide of pleasure started to turn, rising stubbornly from my pelvis up and down, above my belly into my chest and down my feet.  And I realized that nothing mattered.  Pleasure was the end in itself.  Her other hand cupped my scrotum as I started squeezing my own nipples with my free hands and my mind went blank, with all the annoyance and troubles temporally escaping my cranium as the waves upon waves of pleasure tightened my rectum.  I let out a slight moan but was reminded of the indecent and less than private environs.  As the tension in my prostate built up, I relaxed every part of my body and focused my mind deep in my pelvis, and that tingling sensation went into the heels of my feet.  I tightened my PC muscles a few more times as she slowly went up and down my shaft, and finally let that uncontrollable release envelope me.  I watched the jets going straight up my belly, up my chest and shoulders.

She wiped me down with a warm towel.  It was $150.  I am definitely going back.

Long hiatus

Rest assured, I am not gone and my sex life continues to be nonexistent, as my children grow before my very eyes and my loins fill to the brim every day, with the ineluctable, cataclysmic releases at the end of a long, mesmerizing fog that's our reality.  D continues to be noncooperative.  Her latest excuse is "I need to work out."  Don't get me wrong, I like to have a fit and attractive woman.  But what I would like more is a fit and attractive wife who would put out.  As I jelqed myself to oblivion last night I cried a little.  Seriously.  Me, a full grown man.  You would never think it would be possible.  I look just like the next guy you know in the streets.  Regular joe.  Something is wrong with me and something is wrong with the way my life is going.

I saw my therapist again yesterday.  He told me that the decision would be mine to make, to take up that dreary, figurative ax and chop down the rambling thicket that has been my marriage.  Is the sexlessness a symptom or is a curse of a disease that is much greater.  As he elaborated and listened in silence, I started to imagine what his life was like, if his sex life was something that he wanted, if he had masturbated on that very day--perhaps he masturbated to me?  To the thought of me, and my wife, and perhaps his thoughts were even more unspeakable, untenable thoughts that could be littered even on an Internet anonymous blog.

I think I want to move to New York.  Or Portland, Oregon.  Or Houston.  Somewhere where I can be rid of this life, and start anew.  But sex is not the reason to divorce, especially as I pontificated the consequences of my abandon.  When I was "free" to do whatever I pleased, I certainly did not get as frequent as that twice monthly allowance that I am bestowed upon these days, and that loneliness, suffocating loneliness that I could not stand when I was young, and single, and pathetically afraid of being effeminate.  So I hid it.  I lied and torn myself apart in it, and compensated my unfortunate romantic life with tedious, torturous "work", as we call it, that I could only describe it as an addiction.  The paradoxical pleasure of the self-flagellating catholic was the model of my early 20s.  I was ugly, irrational, damaged by rejection after rejection.  Nobody knew about it.  Who would I tell?  My golf buddies or people I went out and drank with every once a while?

This is how orgasm works.  As it comes out a taste of that dreariness leaves you in a few seconds of contractions, as your spirit leaves you, your body becomes a shell of an existence and transparent in time like an empty glass.

My doctor suggested an antidepressant.  I eerily fancied that bubbling dull numbness setting in and stuffing my seminal vesicles like cotton balls in a pill bottle, and I would triumphantly wave that magical wand of Prozac at my wife, yelling, "look! I don't need you."  But my desire is the only part of me that is still alive, and I need to feel that something of life is still being produced inside of me, as it comes out, evoking yet another episode of uncontrollable spasm, temporarily whitening out my ego and superego.