Men at bars ask if he’s my father. He grabs my ass lasciviously saying, “What? We have a very progressive relationship.”
The stranger that was trying to hit on him up curls his lips in disgust and looks at me with pity. “He’s what we’d call a pig, isn’t he, dear?”
I grin and grab my friend’s ass in return, closing the circle of our bodies so that we’re thigh to thigh. “I usually call him uncle,” I say.
“So he’s your husband?”
We both laugh and turn away from the nosy stranger. We’ve spent years not putting a label on our “relationship” why the hell would we start now?
It started as photos. So many photos. Each shoot darker, edgier, racier. There was no limit to what I’d do for his lens. When he wore a tie and shiny shoes so I could kneel at his feet, I fell deeply in lust. I pretended to play with myself in a mirror while this faceless man watched, my friend playing the man while taking photos with the other hand. Dr Jekyll and Mr Otto. When he grabbed my hair to angle my head for a photo, I wasn’t pretending for the camera anymore. The moment was real. Or was it?
Photographers are complicated. I’ve been a little bit in love with all of the good ones. I kind of have to be in order to give that much of myself to their camera and art. If I faked it, it would show, the photos would look limp and lackluster. But as soon as the lens cap goes on, the lights go off, and we put on street clothes the moment ends, the fantasy is gone.
Except when it lingered. There have been a few men able to hold my heart in their hand long after the job was done. That lust remaining in the air even after we’ve put the fantasy on the shelf. Or were we still holding onto our roles? Confused? Unwilling to let the moment pass, tempted by something that wasn’t there?
Maybe, which is why I don’t make a habit of tussling with photographers. It gets too weird too quick, the line between reality and the art too thin. Besides I’d rather shoot a million times with someone whose images I love than fuck them once and ruin it all. Because that’s how it usually goes. Once we’ve had each other, why bother pretending for the camera. Reality can’t live up to the fantasy.
Until it does. This particular photographer and I danced around each other forever. The yearning was there but neither of us wanted to be the one to break the rules and step over our professional boundaries. It wasn’t until I said, “Touch me.” And took his hand to direct it towards my body that we allowed ourselves to bring a dose of reality to our camera games.
And those years of not touching made the finally touching that much better. There was no question both of us wanted the other. Requited lust had us breathless and giddy by the time we had to call it an evening and part ways. And yet we hadn’t ruined the fantasy. I still wanted more of him and to crawl around in rope and chain and latex for his camera. He was an exception to my very stringent rule. The one man I will touch and pose for as the spark never gets old.
“Father, uncle, hubby, pig. Want to hit me now?” I asked him recently. Biting my lip and giving him a sassy grin, I was ready to move from the socializing to the playing section of the evening. He cocked his eye brow and looked down at me like, of course! His chuckle turns into a breathy “Yeah.”
At the cross he clips me in with carabineers and leather cuffs, stretching my arms wide. The thrill of our play so deep that I don’t mind the lack of rope, he more than makes up for it in other ways. He’s warm and just the right amount of scary standing behind me. I never know what to expect from him, just that he always stays in my boundaries so I don’t have to stay on the alert, I can melt into his cruelty.
He starts with floggers, building the intensity as I dance and moan under his ministrations with leather flails. I know what we look like together, how hot our play is. Its well documented, recorded a million times over in billions of pixels for the whole world to see. So I know what he’s seeing. That my ample ass turns him on. No question about that. No reason for him to shoot it so frequently and thoroughly if it weren’t true. So I can be totally in the moment, enjoy the pain me expertly doles out with no wonder or worry.
He hits me until I literally feel like I’m flying though I’m pinned to a cross. He hits me until I have bruises that last a week. Tiny purple circles like a connect the dots game across my thighs that I smile at in the shower and bathroom. Reminders that pull him to the front of my imagination in the middle of the work day. He hits me until I’m so high I can barely stand or speak. He’s filled my head with happy chemicals and in a brain newly free of pharmaceuticals I am awash only in the dopamine and serotonin that we made together. I’m tripping on our weird connection, the drugs we’ve made with our bodies.
This is real.