ButchyBabbles's Open Salon Blog

Explorations in Fiction: Jacques-ing Off

Tue, 14 Jul 2009 18:07:15 -0400

Jacques was more of a Foucault guy than a Derrida type, but Foucault’s first/given name was often pronounced like Michelle by Americans, and that was way too nelly. Jacques wanted to be perceived as sensitive yet strong, seductive yet gallant, protective of both a lover’s vulnerabilities and eccentric idiosyncrasies. Besides, Jacques loved all the puns, having been a jock who loved to jack up the action, not to mention jack off, which he rather enjoyed as Jacques Off, until he realized people might hear it as Yakov and think he was named Jacob. Very confusing.

“You’re never going to get off if you don’t change the channel, dude,” it was as if his hand suddenly spoke.

Jacques liked Jacques precisely for its Frenchy, debonair, double-breasted suit allure, the freedom of kissing lovers in a park, surrounded by rigidly trimmed into geometrical-shaped bushes. It had taken him years to finally get that English gardens are the wilder and French the more precise. He’d obviously elevated the public spectacle of French kissing to wild abandon and linked all those stuffy symmetrical shapes to the Victorians.

“Helloooo? Should I slow down here for a School Zone or what?”

Jacques sighed. Sometimes it felt like his body bullied his mind, and only occasionally did his mind hang in there long enough to say, “Fine, but can’t we think of something else? Must it always be the same scenario?”

“Now you know,” his hand paused, slowly circling in teasing strokes, “what the therapist said. ‘Globally generalizing terms like always are a no-no!”

“Pick up the pace, dude.”

“See? Double Standard Alert! Complain the body bullies only to turn around and inflict your mental bullwhip on us!”

“Oh, come on. You like to bottom sometimes. It’s not like it makes you all butch in the streets, femme in the sheets or—”

“Yes, but it is more a foreplay--I’ll take it for you like a gladiator, baby--thing than a physical turn on.”

“Meaning, you don’t mind if she beats the shit out of the driver as long as you get to fuck her like a racing chariot horse as your reward?”

“Ooo, that’s hot, Let’s run with that thought.”

“My point, precisely! Always bang, bang, boom, boom! Don’t you have any other rhythms?”

“Bend over, and I’ll slap ‘em on your ass!”

“’Violence, I hate your violence,’ as June says to Henry.”

“Yes, and note it’s Anais Nin’s version of those events that makes one think of June in that scene as, That manipulative little cunt!”

“Always the body’s favorite excuse: I was manipulated!”

“Feeling a bit testy today, are we?”

“Just tell me I’m not going to end up blowing some guy while you fuck me like you always do.”

“No, you’re both blowing me and some other guy/sometimes gal/sometimes semi-circle jerk around you, and I’m fucking you with some other guy while I go back and forth between the blowing. It’s much more a parallel universe, matrixy kind of thing.”

“So why aren’t there any parallel universes that include something besides my blowing and get fucked at the same time?”

“Don’t forget you’re getting sucked by the babe from underneath. I do try to think purely of your pleasure sometimes. Ooo, that’s hot,” the hand strums more rhythmically now.

“You know what I mean. I want you to fuck me slowly and look into my eyes.”

“As long as the soundtrack to that scene is not ‘You Light Up My Life’ or ‘I’ve Never Been To Me.’ Way too gay boy chick flick. First that Aussie ‘Priscilla’ dude and then ‘Hedwig’? This is why more men don’t get in touch with their inner femme. The music goes all sappy!”

“OK, Big Daddy—“

“Ooo, that’s right, talk to the hand, baby!”

“What music would you accompany your fucking me nice and slow while looking soulfully into my eyes—“

“Well, if soul is the optimal term, there’s only my main man, Barry: ‘I’m Gonna Love You (love you, love you), Just A Little More, Baby.’”

“OK, just for a moment, let’s pretend you didn’t grow up in the 70s.”

“I could go with ‘The Way We Were.’ I think Hubble is a wistful character and Babs’ stock has sure gone up with the straight boys since she married James Brolin.”

“So you can only look into my eyes vulnerably when I’m not a screaming meemie in your life anymore, is that it?”

“Is that a trick question? Can we just get back to the task at hand?”

“Sure, as soon as you set the mood music scene, Romeo.”

“’We will fly, way up high, where the cold wind blows.’”

“You really shouldn’t try to sing Rickie Lee Jones, darling.”

“Always and shouldn’t. Please remind me, Magical Voice Recorder & Kinky Porno Camera Watch to bring these terms up next couple’s counseling session. ‘Or in the sun, laughing having fun, with all the people that she knows.’ Think of it more as Joe Cocker singing Rickie Lee, only raspier and slower.”

“OK, Big Boy, I’m sliding it in just to see where this goes.”

“’And if the situation, should keep us separated, you know the world won’t fall apart.’”

“Note that little back door clause while you’re at it, Magic Watch.”

“’And you will free the beautiful bird, that’s caught inside your heart.’”

“That’s right, Daddy, giddy-up, but don’t free that bird too quickly now.”

“’Can’t you hear her? Oh, she cries so loud. Casts her wild over water and cloud.’”

“Oh, yes, yeS,YES, Daddy! Meg Ryan coming sounds here!”

“’That’s the way it’s gonna be, little darlin’.’”

“You tell me, Daddy!”

“’We’ll go riding on the horses, yeah.’”

“That’s right, take me for a ride, Daddy! Faster, ride me, take me home!”

“’Way up in the sky, little darlin’. And if you fall I’ll pick you up, pick you up.’”

“I thought you said the last time you rode a horse, your saddle loosened, and you fell off.”

“Is your saddle shakin’ loose, hon?”

“Oh, no, I’m enjoying the steady gallop. Can you maintain? I don’t want to touch myself yet.”

“As long as we’re not chasing unicorns.”

“Now, while you’re inside me, feeling me from the inside out, feeling me squeeze you, my cunt reaching to your rhythm, bumping, you, sucking you, fucking your cock; now while you fill me, thrill me, keeping the pace, waiting for me to come; now tell me why it couldn’t just as easily be, ‘And if I fall, I know you’ll pick me up, pick me up,’ hmm?”

“Fine, baby, however you want to play it. You can be Shrek and Fiona, and I’ll just be the donkey, your faithful steed no matter what.”

“Really? Ooo, that just makes me want to touch myself. Really? No matter what?”

“Always.”

“Oh, yeah, Daddy! Take me home, take me home now, you Big Stud!”

Later, when Jacques’ hand and mind lay catching their breath, feeling his aura go all blue-ish orange, smoldering in sweet, sensual sensation, he would wonder at the horse-riding fantasies of many young girls and how women going from riding one to fucking one has got to be a far weirder turn than a man going from fucking a Madonna to a whore.

He turned, his elbow on the pillow, reflexively stroking his hand through the air as if her long red hair were still there, spread out like a mermaid's, as if she were still beside him, eyes closed like she sometimes kept them for a while, enjoying her private bliss before opening them to him tenderly, her eyes deep alpine lakes of pale blue sky that often grew watery when she came.

He would pull her head to his chest and feel his head on her breasts at the same time, feeling comforted in comforting her, in feeling her tears, if only in his throat. He would know then why she needed this, wanted this, why she needed to make sure even as she fucked and sucked him, he was with her and not just a bent over blow up, bobbing head doll.

Of course, he would kiss her forehead, brushing the tears from her cheeks with his lips. Of course, “I worship you,” he’d whisper.

Then he’d look down and see once again the empty pillow, the tears finally coursing from his throat to his eyes, darkening small dots of pillowcase like raindrops on pavement. Of course, I still miss you, but how long shall I mourn? How long shall I sing to you in the night and feel the sweet seduction of your hands, your lips, your words? How long until every woman I meet is no longer compared to the memory of you?

On Dykely Dykes, Manly Men, & Butchy Butches

Wed, 8 Jul 2009 09:07:35 -0400

(Images in a series were supposed to be side by side, but my tables-o-images in Word won't paste here, so please be patient while I learn. The images were added after the fact and do not necessarily illustrate the text as much as further play with gender roles, so feel free to skip them and continue the reading flow.)

A Butchy Is Born. Can't you tell? Look closer!

I avoided identifying as "butch" for many years, mostly because I didn't like the word. Butch, to me, sounds like a Labrador's name: "Here, Butch! Fetch, Butch! Good, Butch!" Of course, once I engaged in my first so-called butch-femme relationship, I realized that was the point. Butches live for honey-dos precisely to get that "you've been so good, I'm going to let you hump my leg" reward.

I tried to start the “dykely dyke” movement, but it never caught on. I can’t say I gave the term much thought. I was merely following my mother’s example of calling my father a “manly man,” and since I’m tall, broad-shouldered, and golden blonde like my father, dykely dyke seemed butch enough.

Now can you tell? Praise be for my parents' pathological love of matching! (It didn't occur to me to insist they put my brother in a dress instead. Slow from an early age. Be kind.)

It occurred to my parents, however, occasionally I could be matched with Mom. Oh, the horror! So not fair they didn't give my brother a mother-son dress instead/too!

Perhaps I should pause and “unpack” (a pun I’ll explain later) what I thought my mother meant by “manly man.” She did not mean someone who checked the oil in the car. She taught me to do that. Nor did she mean someone who did much in the way of mechanical repairs or home improvements at all. A manly man may occasionally paint, but mostly he’s obsessed with his lawn.

My baby brother and I learned at an early age never to ask our father for help putting our Christmas presents together lest we start a scene out of “A Christmas Story,” only instead of the father yelling at the furnace in the basement, there was our father next to the Christmas tree, screaming at our Hotwheels track parts. Reading instructions was entirely the domain of our mother.

A manly man doesn’t hunt or fish, but, boy, does he like to go camping, though we didn’t go often because my mother prefers to read in air-conditioning. When we did, however, it was glorious, foremost because we’d escape the Texas heat to Colorado or New Mexico, and it was the most magical thing ever to wake up in the morning and be cold. “Look, Mom, I can see my breath! In summer!”

What was even more amazing was to see my father suddenly able to do everything because that’s what you have to be able to do to be an Eagle Scout. He put the tent up, he chopped the wood, he washed the dishes, he even—OMG!—cooked! I had no idea they had a merit badge devoted to Spam For Every Meal.

Ironically, as a child I thought my father was a manly man for the very thing my mother had not known he would become when she married him: a hard-assed (and successful) football, basketball, and track coach, whose heroes were Vince Lombardi, George Patton, and John Wayne. “He was only supposed to be a math and science teacher,” my mother would lament as she put his plate in the oven again, another dinner missed. Later, when he became as crazed as the “Great Santini” about my and my brother’s athletics, I would pray he’d miss dinner more often. But when I was young, a manly man was quite wonderful.

Band Weenie Butchy. (I didn't choose the school mascot, but I can play "Dixie" on the trombone. Hey, I just grew up in Texas; I didn't create the place. Though it's amazing how many women find Native Texan Butchies exotic.)

Jock Butchy. (Very scary to mothers, but their daughters didn't mind at all!)

A manly man can jump a six-foot high chain link fence in a single bound, scoop up his daughter when she’s injured, and run with her to the house. He can change a tire in a torrential downpour with lightning flashing all around. He makes you feel safe and protected and proud. He plays with his kids on Saturday afternoons after the chores are done, honors his mother by visiting often, and helps his father with his acre-sized garden. He’s playful, but strict enough that all your mother has to do is issue the classic “You’d better stop, or I’m going to tell your father” warning.

Most of all, though, a manly man knows how to treat a woman. He opens doors and always compliments her appearance. He takes her out at least once a week and takes the kids to his parents. He writes her poems for Valentine’s Day and strokes her thigh while he sings “Only You” to her in the car. He dances with her in the kitchen and holds her in his lap in his recliner. He slaps your knee when Paul Harvey announces the national sex average per week and exclaims, “Your mom and I blow that to hell!”

He makes her laugh with silly puns and charming malapropisms and soothes her when she cries. He's not afraid to admit she's the brains, and he's the brawn, that it took him longer to grow up, that the best thing that can happen to a manly man is to find a good woman.

A manly man shaves his wife's head for her when she has breast cancer.

Imagine my surprise, then, when it finally occurred to me what my mother meant by manly man was that my father had been a handsome hunk!

She had spied a big strapping farm boy across a history class in college and had to approach him twice for him to get she was flirting by asking, “So what did you think of today’s lecture?” “I didn’t know what to say the first time,” my father laughs at himself, “but the second time I’d paid attention to the lesson, so I was ready!”

I was disappointed with my mother when I discovered her secret. Here I thought she’d married him for all these other reasons, and it turns out he just turned her on! But mostly I suddenly felt betrayed by my culture because I could be all those manly man things and more. I could mow the lawn and fix the toilet. I could read directions and change the oil. I was smart and physically strong, and not just at basketball or shot-putting. But I couldn’t be a handsome hunk.

I couldn’t even be everyone’s All-American in my letter jacket and jeans. Each time a mother caught on I was giving her daughter orgasms (why do girls keep diaries and expect their mothers not to find them?), I could only be Every Mother’s Nightmare, no matter how early I got her daughter home or “Yes, mam, no, mam” polite. Fortunately, my mother preferred denial. “Was there beer involved?” she’d soothe the hysterical caller. “They were just drunk.” She never stopped me from having “best friends,” but she was adamant I stop drinking.

Sexy Car That Never Ran Butchy. (Obviously why Londoners use that Underground Tube thing.)

Glamor Sport Butchy. (Bring it on, Tonya Harding! Make sure to watch the Women's Shot-Put at 3 a.m. the next Olympics!)

For years I languished in androgyne-dom, not really paying all that much attention to how I looked. If a lover wanted me to grow my hair out, I didn’t mind. If I had to wear a dress for a job interview, I could survive pantyhose for an hour. I never had trouble finding a girlfriend because they found me. I looked like a college basketball coach, all slacks and jackets and Toni Tenille hair without the curling ironed roll. They were always femmier, though they ran the gamut from skirts to jeans. But I didn’t think of myself as either handsome or a hunk.

Then I met a woman who called me a “blonde Adonis.” And just like my father meeting my mother, my mind had to race to recall, He was one of those Greek guys, right? Even though I would end up growing my hair out for her to its worst 80s Big Hair look ever, a coin dropped then. I’ll be damned. I could be a dyke hunk. Who would have thunk it?

Hair Styled By Flaming--"Queer Eye For The Hair-Challenged"--Queen Butchy. (Quick, take a picture!)

Hair Styled By Letting It Dry Au Naturelle While Determining What Outfit Would Best Match The Folks (Heh-Heh) Butchy.

So I set out to become one. And I did. My first year of getting my PhD, all I did was go to class and work out. I cut my hair back to its normally above my ears length. I started shopping exclusively in men’s departments. I began an affair with a woman who liked me in silky shirts and what I called Latin Lover pants, tight in the waist and ankles and slightly more billowing in the thighs. I can’t say I looked any more manly mannish, but I sure felt like I could salsa.

When I went home to see my lover (with whom I was in an open relationship) for the winter holidays and went to a party of my MA grad school friends, suddenly even straight women remarked on my appearance. One woman to this day can be counted on to comment every time I post a pic on FB she thinks is “dapper.”

I was feeling pretty cocky, I must admit. And you know what they say about pride and the fall. The August before my second year of my PhD coursework, I went to Michigan (as in the Womyn’s Music Festival) with my lover, and a woman on the flatbed trailer tram literally gasped as I hopped on. “Oh my goddess,” she effused, more like a gay boy than a lesbian, “you’re simply divine, darling.” A month later, my vanity would meet its demise in a class taught by a famous feminist professor, but that’s another story.

Einstein/Academic Presentations Need More Costumes Butchy.

As Buff As Butchy Gets Butchy. (I put this pic next to the booze, but thus far it hasn't helped me lose weight. Go figure.)

By the time I finished grad school, I’d left my lover, stopped having affairs, and sworn to be monogamous forever with the woman who came with me to Japan. She was the femmiest yet, and I was definitely butchy by then, but since she was from Berkeley, we were more like butch-femme hippies. It wasn’t until we broke up one daughter and ten years later that I met a woman 15 years younger, a cliché I assiduously avoided analyzing, just having turned 40, who first made me realize I could pass as a butchy butch.

She was a femme fatale, a kinky Barnard girl who had been Ivy League by day and a pro dom by night. Damn, did we have fun! She was an emotional mess, but a fierce, sensual, and in many ways fragile lover. It was with her I first embraced my butchiness from the inside out, but not because she called me BigBadButchy. Usually I picked her up from the bullet train in Tokyo and drove her back out to the ‘burbs, but this night she arrived looking so stunning (even dykes have their trophy wife moments; look at Ellen), I had to show her off with drinks atop the Park Hyatt, or the NY Bar and Grill of “Lost in Translation” fame, before the movie, when only the locals knew of its breathtaking 52^nd floor views.

We drank, we kissed, we heavy petted. Then I followed her into the bathroom where she slipped the cock she’d asked me to “pack” (to be wearing) out of my pants and into her on the marble sink in one of the stalls. Somewhere around her third or fourth orgasm, she suddenly screamed, “Butchy is my big daddy!”

It’s odd, isn’t it? Butch sounded like a dog’s name to me, but big daddy felt completely natural. I guess I needed a more cliché term, uniqueness once again elusive.

The Progression Of A Butchy. From "Hey, Laa, Li-La-Li, I'm The Telephone [Dyke]" Butchy

to Parisian Butchy

to "Macho, Macho" PumpkinHead Butchy!

She eventually left, as I encouraged her to do since she’d only come to Japan for an adventure and not a lifetime. That’s when I discovered a butch-femme dating site and a whole new world of women turned on by dykely dyke, manly man, butchy butches. I wasn’t hunky anymore, never having lost the spare tire left from the Winnebago in which my daughter had gestated in style, but I still cleaned up nicely.

What I discovered on a flirt list, though, was that I wasn’t just butch. I was a butch who could express myself. Never in my life had I met a more sub-verbal group of butches/trannies/whatever they wanted to be called. I was amazed, really. I wrote like I do now, endlessly. They wrote one-liners I found annoying to open for such a paltry reward. After a month, half the verbal femmes on the list were writing to me privately, but I obviously needed another lesson about pride since I decided to pursue the feistiest one of them all.

Thus began my first taste that being butch can cause a serious dent in your finances. (Why didn’t I go for house husband instead of the provider mystique?) I moved her to Japan, complete house full of stuff, fat, fuzzy black cat and all. I got her a job. I bought her clothes and electronics and every meal we ate out. I helped plant her garden full of flowers and veggies. I adored her. She’s smart, funny, and very creative.

But she was unprepared for the life of an expat. Yes, Virginia, things are different here than the way you do things back home; that’s kind of the point. After two years of listening to her bitch, only to dump me for an online punk rocker, I paid for her to move home. It was cheaper than the years of therapy I would have needed had she stayed any longer. With an ocean between us, we’re once again good friends.

PapaMama Butchy (as the day care grannies called me. I gave birth naturally [the Japanese Way], hopped off the table, walked to the train station, and brought back burgers. I was starving!)

Cowboys and Indians (My People If Only They'd Have Me) Butchy.

Surfer Dude With "No Thanks, I'll Watch" Surfer NOT Daughter Butchy. (Was Online Dating Site Profile Pic Butchy, but, alas, it's getting old. The kid is as tall as I am now, and I'm wider.)

I’ve had another relationship since, but that, too, is a story in itself. Suffice it to say I’m broke and happily single. No money, no English-speaking long distance lover temptations. It’s true, if one is lousy with boundaries, the universe will indeed provide! So it is I stumble across OS and within a few weeks stumble upon an even more amazing phenomenon: self-identified butches who can express themselves. Oh. My. God/dess.

I confess I’ve never made it through Stone Butch Blues; it’s so full of whining. But these butches are funny! And articulate. And tender. (Yes, I’ve read Butch Is A Noun, but, frankly, I think they’re better.) I’m thrilled to find like-minded souls in such a mainstream forum. But I am a different flavor of butchy. I do not feel like a boy on the inside. I am far from the strong silent type, more strong and babbling. My manly man father may not be able to cry, but his dykely daughter can with abandon.

If anything, the more I embrace being butch, the more I feel sorry for men. There are as many different kinds of men as there are butches, and yet enculturated stereotypes of gender persist. I do not have to be a boy to feel the sweet sensation of a lover taking the head of my cock in her mouth. I do not have to prove I’m strong through emotional remoteness. When a lover’s fist is in my cunt, my lover is doing it for daddy, and that’s enough.

Mostly, I feel frustrated that masculine and feminine remain our only choices. Once you problematize gender, why merely go back and forth? Yes, “third gender” is becoming a more popular term, but it’s still a fringe genre. When people ask me how I identify, I like to answer, “Shirtless.” My favorite part of Michigan, my favorite part of being a kid, before my mom insisted I had to start wearing a shirt because my tits were getting too big.

Samurai Butchy!

Dr. Sensei Butchy!

Future Shirtless Farmer Butchy!

A manly man works outside shirtless, comes in sweaty, and somehow is lucky enough to have found a good woman/lover/partner turned on. So I’m saving to get my tits whacked next spring. When I met the doctor, I kidded him, “I just want to look like Matthew McConaughey. That should be easy, huh? At least after you suck off my gut. Can you do ab implants like pec implants, too?” He smiled his best “I’m a plastic surgeon, not a miracle worker” look.

My mother has had breast cancer twice, so I rationalize my seemingly vain desire as that I’m literally cutting out 95% of my chances of getting it. It doesn’t feel like vanity, though, as much as fulfilling a lifelong dream. I don’t think I’ll be any butchier because of it. I don’t identify it as a transsexual act, though I am using a “top surgeon” (har-har). I wouldn’t mind taking T (testosterone) for the added musculature, but I’m not willing to trade my hair for it (since the men in my family go bald).

I want to go jogging in the rain shirtless, go to the beach and feel the waves crash over my titless, lighter and brighter chest. (They’ve got to weigh at least 10 pounds.) And, yes, feel a lover's hand stroke my breastless chest, put her head to it and find the same comfort in it as a bosom.

I’ll probably still wear a jogbra (since Japanese women wear them on top of nothing, too) when I go swimming with the kid just to spare her one more layer of freak show. But when she’s not around, what do I care if people stare, now all the more confused? (Particularly in Japan, where men seldom go shirtless other than while swimming.) I get to spend the rest of my life half naked!

Manly man, butchy, tranny, third gender? I know the dance with a woman who likes my kind of difference. Yes, in my baby book, there’s a cartoon of a girl wishing on her birthday cake and--in a puff of smoke--changing into a boy. But as long as I have to choose, I’m proud of the sex I was born. As I parted with my daughter at the airport recently (flying by herself overseas for the first time at 12), I reminded her to sing “I Have Confidence" to herself, like my mother used to sing to me from "The Sound of Music," and held her tight, whispering as my voice choked, “Remember your Helen Reddy, honey. ‘I am strong—

“I am invincible,” she murmured with me, squeezing me tighter. “I am woman.”

The Old Man Still Has It

34 Years Later,

But I Carried The Kid Up Fuji-San Butchy! (Though I wouldn't suggest going shirtless on the summit; it gets nippy!)

Baba's Birds and Bees

Sun, 28 Jun 2009 19:06:57 -0400

My 12-year-old daughter wrote "conndoms (haha!)" on the fridge grocery list.

So, naturally, I—always the dutiful parent--asked, What kind do you want, dear? I mean, does he have a big schlong? Do you want ribbed, or—I’m not sure I want to know if you want flavors. Maybe you should buy those yourself.

BABA! TMI, TMI! Didn't you see the “haha”?

Of course! That's why I'm not mentioning that condom only has one N in it, so you'll know I'm joking! I’m proud of you for knowing by the time you want to buy condoms, you should already have them. They’re certainly not something you’re going to want run out for in the clutch. Hell, it’s hard enough—har-har!—to get ‘em to put ‘em on in the clutch! That’s how your Baba was born! I do have concerns, though, why you want to be some boy's "American Pie." Haven't you watched enough movies?

MOM!

Maybe I’ll put an ad in the “Metropolis”: Women whose first time with a man was sweet, satisfying, and everything you imagined, please write to my daughter. I just haven’t heard—

I know, I know. Your first time was perfect ‘cause it was with a woman.

Well, actually, that’s the question: Was it—I wouldn’t say perfect but very--tender because we were already best friends, because we were both women, or because we had read all about how to do it in “Penthouse”? Maybe it’s time to drag out my Betty Dodson and Annie Sprinkle videos.

I’m not even going to ask.

I’m just saying, Why not embrace Japanese school girl crush lesbo manga, which could really help you keep up your Nihongo, you know; go to a Seven Sisters' school and have a few “bisexual” flings, like you wild and crazy straight “chicks” like to do; and then find you a sweet guy you can train because--

"I know, I know, ‘cause Ganny had to train Paw-Paw and—

They’ve been boinking like banshees for 50 years! I’m telling you, instructions help! Which isn't to say women don't have to be trained, too, but, OMG, we’ll have to leave that to, like, a 12-part series or something. OFV, OFV!

Oh Fuckin’ Virginity?

Oy Fuckin’ Vey. Fascinatingly Freudian guess, though. I just want it to be a wonderful, pleasurable, beautiful thing for you, and you saw that pie in the movie. So not pretty. “Fugly” is the word I believe you kids use for it.

As Mr. Miyagi says, Baba, “The sun is warm, the grass is green.” Accept, accept! I have straight fingers, remember?

Technically, you have one straight hand and one bisexual hand, plus you have both my nature and my nurture, so I’m thinking you still have solid 50-50 chances here. Though, it’s true, your Mama’s influence-- I believe the politically correct term would be “differently pleasured” rather than “frigid ice queen”—might skew those numbers a bit. [FYI: We're referring to the theory that third/ring fingers being longer than index first fingers indicates gayness, which, I must say, I have in abundance, and I haven't heard any lovers complain yet.] You know I don't care who you boink, honey, I just want--

I know, I know.

And you know I know you know. I'm sorry, but the fact remains penises have more diseases, and, yes, I feel sorry for you for having to think about that. I feel sorry for you that just because one finger on one of your hands is a teeny tiny bit longer than another, you are doomed to having to think about birth control for the rest of your life. Unless all those dykes out there raising a disproportionate amount of male children are actually teaching their boys to keep a glove on it, and since dykes so rarely think of sex to begin with, what are the chances of that happening?

She rolls her eyes, but can’t help but grin.

And then there’s even Garrison Keillor singing the other night on “Prairie Home Companion” about his racing sperm, trying to slip in, around, over, under, any way possible as long as IN because somewhere in the male reptilian brain they still desperately need to prove they’ve been in you, possessed you, had their way with you by planting their flag and leaving a screaming meemie in your belly, and I’m thinking, Can’t we just give ‘em stickers for their football helmets or something? Gold stars? Tell you what, “I’m DaDaddy” stickers for everybody! Great “Mamma Mia” Mystery solved! (But I’m still DaDaddyWhoGaveBirth, and you just got a sticker, dude, na-naa!)

Baba, I've got to go to school.

This is school, and if they taught this in school, I wouldn't have to be wasting my breath. If they merely taught kindergarten kids the “Mickey Mouse” song with different words/letters like, "V-A-S, E-C-T, Oooo-Mmmmm-Yyyyyy! Vasectomy! Vasectomy! That's what it's going to take to get in me, yeah, yeah, yeah!" we wouldn't be having this conversation, would we? I mean, think of all the energy that--if birth control were a non-issue—could go into teaching people how to be better lovers and have more fun, and why, why, why don’t they teach that in school? What the world needs now is embracing that love goes better with endorphins! And there is nothing wrong with wanting both and don’t you ever be ashamed of it! But then you still have the diseases problem, so I suggest you know your apple pie lover well since even lezzies trade yeast infections regularly, though at least that indicates they're still having sex, and isn’t it a pisser the people who can have the safest sex, statistically have it the least, so I'm not advocating you remain a bisexual and run the risk of years and years and years and--

Baba--

Years of lesbian bed death. I just want--

It to be fun and tender and completely consensual--

Unless you consensually agree to a kinkier scene--

BABA!

I'm just saying, by “tender,” I mean mutually sharing and unafraid to laugh and talk in bed and try out fantasies and not feel ashamed of them, even if you find they're hotter happening to other people than to your own flesh. The important thing is--

I just said it!

Touche’. Well, except to remember that sex is only one part of—

The affection continuum. I know, Baba! Gotta go!

OK, then. Do you have your phone? Your wallet? Do you need money?

I'm good.

Yes, you are, my sweet child. Hey, I have to go into town tomorrow. I could go by CondomMania and pick out an assortment, and then we could drag out all my dildos and try 'em on--

Going, going, TMI gone!

Have a good day, dear! And remember, Shirley MacLaine says you chose me to be your mother for a reason!

A hug and a kiss, and she’s out the door, her khaki uniform skirt still brushing her knees, not yet raised to halfway up her thighs; her white shirt tails hanging out from her burgundy vest and black tie loosened (like a reporter on a deadline) still the only outward markers (besides her noticeably growing breasts) her adolescence has started. I watch her walk toward the train station where she’ll go into the belly of the Tokyo beast, and something in my heart simultaneously sings and breaks all over again. Like when she went from crawling to walking (I did not mind her going from crying to talking at all), and toddling to running, and now from goofy slapstick to sarcastic deadpan.

Remember sex is only part of it! I want to shout out after her, but she has managed to train me not to make a public spectacle. Best friends is best, I want to say, unless you’re just going for the endorphin rush. OK, that’s a parental lie—there are all kinds of ways to enjoy it. But the problem remains, dear daughter, they don’t make a condom that can protect your heart.