WHAT’S WITH THESE LITTLE BITE MARKS ON MY NECK, ANYWAY?

  

 “Do you want me to make you anything special for your birthday?” Dave asks.

     “Yes,” I say, “cake.”

    His mouth falls open.

    “With ice cream. And hot fudge.”

    “Are you serious?” he asks. My husband’s expression, his entire body language shouts, I’ve been waiting all year for this!

    We decided to avoid sugar and artificial sweeteners this year as much as possible. The no’s started on New Year’s Day. No cake, no cookies, no candy, no chocolate chips. Worse, no ice cream.

    Amazing the prepared foods laced with sugar: bread, snack crackers, red beans, creamed corn, dried fruit, light mayo, marshmallows. Many others. 

    We’ve changed our eating habits. No coffee creamer. No dry cereal with any taste. We now dress salads with oil and vinegar. For dessert, bananas—or apples, almonds, plain yogurt, muffins made with fruit juice concentrate instead of sugar, and so on.

    I’ve been resolute. (Dave calls it stubborn.) I’m like that. Once my mind clamps down on an idea I’ll face hell and high water before I let go.

    Of late I’ve met Count Chocula’s gaze without flinching. Told the Nestlé bunny to get lost. And shed 30 pounds since January. This strengthens my resolve.

    So my birthday request surprises Dave. “What kind of cake do you want?” he asks.

    “Something light,” I say, grabbing a vintage cookbook. “Here: Dorothy’s Fabulous Oatmeal Cake. But just a half-recipe, please—one layer.”

    A few days later Dave unveils his masterpiece: a nine-inch round cut in half, stacked two layers high, slathered with coconut-pecan penuche. I forget to breathe.

    I want that cake. I WANT it. It surprises and shames me how much I want it. Want all of it. Am prepared to face down anyone who’d dare stop me, even Dave.

    I’ve forgotten sugar has this effect on me.

    My intense craving reminds me of a gruesome passage I read, maybe in one of Anne Rice’s vampire novels.


    Two sexy young men fall for each other. Their love is doomed. Not only does medieval society forbid such relationships, a vampire wants one of them as his new boy toy.

    The vampire stakes his claim during a bloody necking session. The youth resists the older man’s advances, then refuses to embrace his own fateful transformation.

    The young lovers are imprisoned separately in a castle dungeon. Jailers ply the one with food; they starve the other.

    Crazed with hunger and a thirst he’s never known, the boy toy collapses against his cell door. It opens. He wanders a dark corridor, senses a warm-blooded animal presence ahead. His lips pull back from his teeth. He snarls.

    He nearly flies down the hallway, attacks, eats, drinks. Only afterward does he realize he’s killed his lover. No matter. The transformation is complete. He is vampire.




    Eying my birthday cake, I can relate.

    Desire is the thing with teeth. I know this. Although I’m a novice when it comes to erotica, I can devote hours looking at pictures of sexy men. That photos still fascinate me my friend Jim finds quaint. Like most gay men I know, he prefers online videos.

    “A magazine with nude pictures used to excite me,” he says. “Now it’s passé. I’ve been desensitized. It takes more and more extreme images to get me off. Some nights I spend two hours surfing for the one video that will do it.”

    He pauses. “And you know what? It’s dampened my desire for one-on-one human contact. The men I meet in real life never measure up to what I can see online.”

    Another friend tells me he stopped watching internet porn after hearing a TED talk about how pornography zaps the power of the imagination. He abstained for three months.

    I’d probably last three days. My steadfast refusal to get wired is in part, self-preservation. If we had internet access at home I fear I’d turn vampire. I forget that eye candy, like ice cream, is best enjoyed in moderation. Desire bites the hand that feeds it. Sometimes the neck.


Image credit: detail, Temptation of Saint Anthony, by Grünewald

THE NAKED TRUTH IN SOUTHERN BAPTIST SISSIES

MUNCIE, IN—Southern Baptist Sissies, written by Del Shores and directed by Robby Tompkins, continues its run at Muncie Civic Theatre’s studio space through March 2. The show left me winded. I’m trying to understand its impact on me by writing about it. Too, I grasp at some way to say thank you for the ways theater can illuminate, quicken and confound. I mean these words to convey some sense of my gratitude.

SPOILER ALERT: These ruminations assume you’ve seen the show, and make little effort to conceal plot denouement.




The Naked Truth: Nudity in Southern Baptist Sissies

In one of his poems (“To Cavafy,” in Turtle, Swan, Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987), Mark Doty descries five boys on a small raft anchored in a pond. Each maintains a careful distance from the others. They stand looking at the water, the far banks, the setting sun, engaging in laconic conversations. Watching from shore, Doty and his companion fix their attention on one of the taller high-school boys. He stands wet and gleaming, splendid in the slanting light, unaware of his audience. Doty writes,

Of course we wanted him,
but more than that—we have
each other’s bodies, better
because they are familiar.
We wanted to enter the way
he dove unselfconsciously

from the little dock,
certain, the diver
become pure form, the exact shape
for parting water.

This my husband and me, our shore the second row of seats in Studio Theatre, our focus the four young men who open the play with an enthusiastic rendition of an old gospel hymn. We take in the details. Handsome actors. Thin, fit. Ethan L.’s expressive eyes, hair dark brown and curly. Matthew B., black hair, heavy brows, slight build, erect posture. Chandler C., bright button eyes, pencil waist. Jake R., long in both body and face, the latter a playground of emotions. Each a study in black and white: black trousers, long-sleeved white dress shirt, thin solid-colored tie. Of course we wanted them.

Engaging to see them dive into their roles, later surface in various states of undress in service of their art. Enthralling to be caught up in the characters they portray, witness the marriage of teller and story. Chandler’s T.J. rolls words around in his mouth like a cough drop before spitting them out. He swallows often. Ends sentences with his lips tightly sealed. How much T.J. holds inside, must keep pressed and repressed. We watch as he is baptized along with his friend Mark (Ethan L.). Afterwards, the two boys towel off and change back into their Sunday clothes. T.J. strips naked, bare butt to the audience. Afforded a full-frontal view of his friend, Mark goes tongue-tied; his hormones hit Mach 1. Thus we witness an early link in the chain of events that charts the course of their lives, changes the nature of the two friends’ relationship. Credit the director and actors for giving this scene its due.

And other scenes likewise. A look at two of the boys engaged in celebratory mutual masturbation is juxtaposed with the Preacher’s spouting dire warnings to a third. The clergyman rails on about the dangers of temptation, of riding the devil’s merry-go-round of sin, about what happens when one gets off. Upstage, Mark and T.J. are doing just that. The scene—incorporating nudity—addresses on many levels the native strength of sexual desire and the power of religious and societal forces marshaled to constrain it. The Preacher prays with Andrew, “Please release us….” Indeed.

Not every player is able or willing to meet the playwright’s demands for physical exposure. No judgment from this quarter; we are all human and every actor an amalgam of real-live person and embodied character. As Andrew, Jake R. readily makes himself emotionally vulnerable to his audience. His face becomes a screen; an array of feelings play across it: excitement, joy, naivete, eagerness to please, sincerity of purpose, longing, physical attraction and desire, ache, shame, fear, grief, despair. Yet the actor refuses to follow his character’s lead in a pivotal scene that calls for physical intimacy. Alone in his room, Andrew strips to his boxers and masturbates to images in an issue of Playgirl. Except he doesn’t. Not in this production. This Andrew holds the magazine and touches himself circumspectly above the waist. I am not surprised to later learn he is the youngest member of the cast. Everything in its time. Kudos for venturing as far as he does.

After all, the play calls us to live within our limits. To go home, look into the mirror, and learn to love what we see there. To venture on a quest of self-discovery, to speak truth first to our inmost selves, then to those in power. Are we to speak the naked truth? Yes, insofar as we are able.

AH, MEN! AMEN!

I can live on glimpses. I have to. By choice, my husband Dave and I make our home in a secluded rural area. This offers us much in the way of tranquility, lessons from nature, a quiet retreat from the world. What it doesn't offer is men. Most weeks I can count on my fingers the number of different men I see—Dave and my several male coworkers—and still have my thumbs left over.

There are months when I don't make it into town at all. Used to, Dave was in town every weekday for his job; he could run errands, get the groceries. Now in retirement, he still gets to town more often than I. Those times I do land in civilization I arrive ravenous for the sight, sound and smell of living, breathing male flesh. Hunger is the best sauce, says the proverb. When I'm on full alert, even a walk through the grocery store serves up a saucy feast for the senses. And don't even get me started on Saturday mornings at the lumberyard.

And then there was the other Tuesday. Oh my gosh. I was on my way to work when I saw him. Shirtless, he stood at the end of his parents' driveway, hoisted two empty garbage cans. This threw his shoulders back, thrust his chest forward. His pecs were popping, biceps flexing as he hefted the twin containers. I wanted to slam on the brakes, gawk and gawk some more. I wanted an 8 x 10" glossy. Autographed. With a phone number.

He's the neighbor's boy, college kid home for the summer. I first saw him from a distance about a month ago, out in the field helping his father bale hay. He looked beautiful. Dumb, maybe, for having stripped off his shirt while haying, but mostly beautiful. Thing is, for me nearly every man looks gorgeous from a distance. My imagination fills in details, usually in his favor. And mine.

I had not seen this man face-on, close-up before. Some things are worth the wait. Some moments last forever. As I say, I can live on glimpses.

I can see him even now. Blonde curls wreathe a classic face, rounded full lips, strong chin. Suntanned skin ripples over a shapely body. He might have stepped out of a sacred oak tree or descended a sky bridge from Mount Olympus. Striking, striking man. He is a 3-D iteration—in living color—of the men I pant after in photo books.

And then I flashed on past him, cursing under my breath the oncoming truck that made me wrench my eyes back to the road. I silenced the radio so I could savor the moment, savor him, fix him in mind's eye, exult over such perfectly sculpted pecs occupying space within three-quarters mile of our house. Ah, me. Ah, men. Amen.

Surely such beauty doesn't inhabit every oak tree between home and work. Or maybe it does. Maybe the whole world is sacred, reveals itself as such to anyone who is looking.

His looks have stayed with me. I've watched for him ever since. Begun to think I made him up, or if not, saw more than there was to see. Maybe he's not that good looking after all. Maybe I have an overactive imagination.

And then I think, well, so what? If the rapturous vision doesn't always hold up under close scrutiny, so what? There's plenty of ugliness run amok in the world; I know this. I don't think it would be such a bad thing if we all saw Greek gods in oak trees . . . if we all saw the sacred in the everyday, the divine in the ordinary . . . if we started treating each other as if we were all made of stardust, as if we were all somehow celestial beings.

I caught a glimpse of the ineffable in the college-age son of a neighbor standing cheek-to-jowl with trash cans. And you can bet I keep my eyes peeled every time I pass those oak trees at the end of his drive. If I watch closely, maybe I will see him again.

Or maybe, if I'm attentive and willing to slow down, maybe I'll look within and catch a glimpse of god as close to me as my own heartbeat. The mystics tell us the divine dwells within—within me, within you, within all life, all beings. In all that is, there gleams some spark of the creative energy that animates the world. Not in every instance so visually arresting—alas!—but still, when carefully considered and understood, every bit as beautiful.

This article appeared in the September issue of The Community Letter.

WHAT MAKES THE HUMP IN MY TENT

Recently, I woke up to the long hours I was spending online gazing at one beautiful male body after another. Gorgeous frames, faces, pecs, penises. Each man different, each man the same. Each one leaving me wanting more. 

That’s the nature of desire. It is never satisfied, always goes to bed hungry. Repeats itself ad infinitum, ad nauseam. 

Poet Mark Doty jolted me awake to this fact with three words—longing’s repetitive texts—from his poem, “Homo Shall Not Inherit.” For two weeks I repeated this newfound mantra, then unplugged myself from the sources that (at my request) had been sending me daily doses of erotica. 

“Enough is enough,” I said. I meant it.

“Enough is never enough,” Desire whispered. 

But I was firm. I’ve heard it takes six weeks to change a behavior. In the following six weeks I was back online searching for erotica only twice. Had I changed?

Not a chance. I was waylaid at the local community theatre presentation by one of the actors. Tall trim body, chiseled features, large dark eyes, long brown hair that makes my heart ache. His character appeared on stage bound and bleeding. His expression mingled vulnerability and defiance. Long after the performance I replayed images of him, mental theatrics that featured his front and center. 

Desire licked his lips and they were mine. Of course. Who am I trying to fool—escape Desire? This will happen only when I quit breathing, if then. So long as I am alive, Desire is joint tenant in my experience of life. 

I want it to work like this: I give Desire room and board; he stays out of the control room. But he is part camel. Given an inch, he takes a mile. And I easily go unaware of my actions. Somehow Doty’s phrase woke me up to the camel in my tent.       

I asked for a one-on-one with Desire. He sauntered into my dining room, pulled up a chair. I thanked him for his role in my life, for enlivening my days. I asked him what he wants and needs from me. I listened to his reply. 

He wants sex, power, excitement and more of it. I pressed him about his underlying needs. He looked into middle distance, spoke slowly. Said he needs to feel loved, acceptable. We surprised ourselves, got teary. I asked to hold him. I assured him he is loved.

We compromised, agreed to a limited amount of visual stimulation. I reminded him that there is a place for him in my life, but it is not the driver’s seat. He nodded. We were back on track--for the moment. 

Mindful of his camel nature and my own easy forgetfulness, I wanted to mark the moment, erect an ebenezer to remind me into awareness. But what, how? I turned again to Mark Doty’s poem:

      

      in each body, however obscured or recast,

      

      is the divine body--common, habitable—

      the way in a field of sunflowers

      you can see every bloom’s

      

      the multiple expression

      of a single shining idea,

      which is the face hammered into joy.

      

Sunflowers, sexy men--all different, all the same--me, my husband, the actor, the men who posed for the photographs I ogled--we are all repetitive texts, a single shining idea writ many times over in muscle and manhood, flesh and bone. Sunflowers can serve as an apt reminder.

Hmm. Several sunflowers had sprouted beneath our bird feeder. I asked Desire to accompany me. Picturing the actor, we transplanted these fledglings to a small patch of earth along the garden path. There takes root my lust and longing for the sexy thespian. There grows a green and gold reminder to stay awake to the nature of longing, to see past it to my true heart’s desire, to give thanks even as my face, my life, all I love, is hammered into joy.

This essay appeared in The Letter, July 2008