A Sexy Journey Read online

  Now, I slipped my hands down my sides and to my waist, running them down my full hips, and around to my thighs.

  Should I? The idea of touching myself to feel sexual pleasure still made something deep in my psyche twitch with disapproval. Reason enough to try it. I was on a mission, I realized; I had to leave behind everything I used to be.

  What better place to start than this?

  I touched my breasts again, lifted them, then let them down and took a nipple between the thumb and forefinger of each hand, and squeezed, gently at first. Oh my...the electric current shot through me as I pinched myself, rippling down through my belly and into my knees, to my thighs and to my...

  What should I call it?

  I couldn't think of a word I liked. Vagina? No. I dismissed that one as too clinical. I thought of all the words I'd heard in movies, from the lips of the vulgar, read in my secret erotica novels--my one dirty little secret. Twat? Too foreign-sounding, too insulting. Cunt? Hell no; too filthy. Pussy? That was the word used in the erotica books the most.

  I ran my hands down my belly and pushed my fingers into the triangular thicket of curly hairs. I liked that word.

  "Pussy," I said the word out loud. It echoed in the small bathroom, an accusing sound. I said it again, pushing past the feelings of guilt and stigma.

  "Pussy. I'm going to touch my pussy." I giggled. "Pussy, pussy, pussy."

  I giggled again. Saying it so many times in a row made it sound like I was calling a cat.

  I tried a sentence I'd read in my latest book: "I'm going to finger my pussy."

  That sounded better.

  I was blushing, though.

  I put one hand on my breast...I adjusted my thought: my tit--and rolled the nipple between my fingers again, and then, just for variety, flicked it, quite hard. I gasped, and felt something dampen between my legs. It felt good. Very good.

  I traced a finger along the crease of my pussy, still feeling a twinge of guilt at the nasty word. I wondered what it would feel like to put my finger inside. Would it feel like when Harry put his penis in it?

  I felt nauseous thinking of Harry, so I pushed his name from my mind, resolving to never think about him again, unless I had no other choice.

  Watching myself in the mirror, I put my hand over my pussy and dipped my middle finger into my entrance, a slow, hesitating, exploratory swipe. I felt wet, very wet, and warm, and--even to my small finger--tight. An unwilling image of Harry's penis flashed into my head, and I marveled that he'd fit in there at all, without it hurting. I remembered Marge's statement that Harry was small. What on earth would a bigger man feel like? Would it hurt? The times with Harry that I felt any pleasure at all was when he took his time, went slow, rather than just hump, grunt, and pass out. He would move inside me, and the slippery sliding, the feeling of being full...it was delightful, but it was always over too soon, just as I began to feel something building up inside my belly.

  That pressure built now, way down deep, as I toyed with my nipple. I slipped my middle finger in again, as far as I could go, up to the knuckle. Oh, that was nice. Very nice. It wasn't enough though. Summoning my courage, I slipped my index finger in with the middle one. Even better. Both fingers dipped in, stroked the entrance and feathered around the boundaries, touched the walls, and then out and up to the keyhole-like area near the very top. I found a little nub, a button. It was stiff, almost like...like a penis in miniature. I touched it with a tentative finger, and immediately my knees buckled with a rush of intense sensation the likes of which I'd never felt before, mind-blowing pleasure that had me reeling. With my knees trembling, I gripped the edge of the sink, slipping in the water puddled beneath my feet and nearly fell.

  Regaining my balance, I glanced over my shoulder at the bed, still made. I would be so much more comfortable doing this on by back, in bed. I laid down on the bed, still naked, and spread my knees apart, feeling wanton and sinful.

  One touch to the little button had made me dizzy...what would it feel like to touch it until I simply couldn't bear it any longer? Time to find out. I knew what the fold of skin was, incidentally: my clitoris. I knew my anatomy, after all. I was hopelessly sheltered, not a complete moron. But knowing anatomy, or reading about the hero of an erotica novel "laving her aching clit with his tireless tongue" was a whole different story than masturbating for the first time at the age of twenty-nine.

  I quested inward with my two brave fingers, touched my clitoris...my clit...again, and couldn't help gasping a little, just a quick intake of breath at the intensity of the feeling. More movement, then, a slow circle...oh god...why have I never done this before? The circle sped up, and then a wild pressure built up in the pit of my stomach, in the muscles of my legs and the small of my back. My hips began to flutter on their own, writhing me on the bed and lifting my spine clear of the mattress in an arch.

  I heard myself gasping, nearly hysterical little whimpers escaping my lips as I began to move my fingers around my clit in a blur, and now fire was raging through my body and the pressure was expanding in an uncontainable whirlwind and I had to bite my lip to keep from screaming because my body was coming apart at the seams. I was frenzied, thrashing on the bed, hyperventilating, waves of pure intensity bursting through me, centered on the nexus of my pussy.

  The waves became unbearable and my body turned hypersensitive, and I had to let myself go limp on the bed, panting raggedly. "Oh...my god...that was incredible." I was talking to the empty room, but I didn't care. If that was what I could do to myself, without really knowing what to do or how, then what could a man who knew how to give pleasure do to me?

  The thought made me shiver, a shudder of anticipatory excitement, and not a little fear.

  *

  I fell asleep after that, exhausted from the day's events. I woke up in the late evening. I left the hotel, unsure where I was going or what I was going to do, but determined to do something. I wanted to start my life, and myself over. I was on a journey of self-discovery.

  The thought struck me as cliche but true. My first inclination was to record the events as they happened. I'd kept a journal all the way through high school and college, and while I'd abandoned the habit in the wake of marriage and my career as a small-town journalist-turned-editor, I still found myself composing diary entries on my way to work, even though I never wrote them down.

  I was a writer by trade. I'd majored in journalism because it had seemed a more viable way to make a living writing than with some nebulous dream of "being a writer." Now, with everything I knew gone and my future waiting to be written anew, I found myself not just wanting, but needing to start journaling again.

  So I found the nearest place that sold electronics and bought a netbook. It's small, cheap, and portable, underpowered and low on memory but all I need for typing journal entries as I travel.

  At some point between leaving home--or what had been home--and waking up that evening I'd decided I was going to travel, see the world. I had money, essentially stolen from my husband...soon-to-be ex-husband...and I was determined to make use of it.

  I took my new netbook and sat down in a Starbucks to compose the preceding entry, sipping on a venti Chai tea latte. I might have cried as I began the words, just a few angry tears, but by the time I finished up to the asterisks a few paragraphs up, I was calm and ripping through the words at a furious pace.

  I'm sitting there now, on my second Chai latte, not thinking about what's coming out of my fingers. People pass around me, chatter in twos and threes, read books and do homework and stare out the window listening to music. I'm surrounded by people but completely alone.

  I don't mind the solitude. Back home...back there, there is no solitude. I was either at work or at home with Harry, or shopping, or visiting with Leah, or something. I was never alone, never able to sit and think and do whatever I wanted just because.

  What do I want?

  I want to live. I want to experience new things. I want to see Rome, and Athens, and Venice, a
nd Paris, and London, and Tokyo, and Turks and Cacaos. I want to feel a man's kiss, feel his hands doing things to me. I want to feel sex, and love. I want to feel desired. I want to feel alone in a foreign country. I want to feel brave, and yes, even afraid.

  Until I caught Harry cheating on me, everything was the same: peaceful, boring, and predictable. I'd eventually have a kid with Harry, and I'd probably give up my position as an editor and my career in general to raise the child, and Harry and I would have sex on Saturdays and Sundays and I might never have known any different.

  And then I spilled my coffee on myself. My life was thrown out the window, and my entire personality put into question.

  I've never felt so alive before. I can do anything.

  Holy shit, I'm terrified.

  June 8

  I woke up this morning ready for change. I looked up salons in the area and made an appointment for a cut-and-color later in the day. I'd brought all my clothes with me, but going through them, I realized they were all smart, savvy, no-nonsense business outfits, or comfy clothes. Nothing sexy, nothing fun. Nothing edgy.

  I had breakfast and made plans. First step, new clothes. Hip, fun, sexy clothes. Next, find a lawyer and send Harry the divorce papers. I wasn't leaving Chicago until it was done. Then, buy an airplane ticket to somewhere far and exotic. Rome came to mind, once more.

  Shopping for an all-new wardrobe turned out to be a lot more painful and difficult than I'd imagined. Things didn't fit, or didn't look right, or I couldn't figure what to pair it with or I just didn't think I could pull it off.

  I stood in a changing room in a slinky red dress that cupped my curves and pushed up my breasts and showed off my legs...and I couldn't bring myself to leave the changing room with it on.

  I asked myself, in no uncertain terms, what the hell my problem was.

  Self-esteem. Harry had never been the type to compliment me, or tell me I looked beautiful. Sure, if I tried on a dress and asked him what he thought, he'd give me a stock response:

  "Sure baby, looks great," he'd say, barely glancing up from his cell phone. "Makes your ass look nice."

  And that was it. He'd grope me in the dark, before bed, and kiss me, a brief peck, on the way out the door, but nothing else. And he was always on his phone. He'd sleep with it under his pillow, stuff in his pocket when he was done sending a text or email. He would leave the room for sudden phone calls, send text messages surreptitiously. Now I realize how suspicious it all was, how clear. Then, I just shoved the fear away as paranoia.

  But he didn't love me. Didn't want me. Why?

  I wasn't beautiful. Wasn't desirable. He wanted a middle-aged, overweight, veiny, lumpy, floppy pastor's wife more than me. Sure, I was a little on the heavier, curvier side, but I'd thought I was at least better looking than Helen fucking Warner.

  Apparently not.

  I left the second store in a row without buying anything and retreated to my comfort: blueberry muffins and Chai tea. I went back to Starbucks and got a latte and a muffin and had long sorry-fest until my appointment with the stylist, which I no longer felt like going through with. I forced myself to go anyway.

  The stylist was an older woman, maybe fifty, fit and sleek and modern and all things cosmopolitan and lovely.

  "What are we doing today, honey?" She asked me, fluffing her fingers through my long, thick brown locks.

  I shrugged. "I don't know. A change, I guess."

  She caught the depressed wistfulness in my voice. She paused with her fingers in my hair and met my gaze in the mirror. "Honey, I don't know you, but I know depressed when I see it, and can I just say that depressed is the worst time to get a haircut? Especially with hair like yours. You've been growing this your whole life, clearly. One moment of desperation, and it's gone. You can't get it back." She gave me a firm but kind smile. "I'm willing to do what you tell me, but I just don't want you to regret it."

  I shook my head. "It's not that. It's a hell of a lot more than one moment of depression. My entire life is...changing. I'm changing."

  I found myself once again pouring out my sob story to a complete stranger. I told her everything, and the dear woman--whose name turned out to be Julia--just nodded and listened and handed me a box of tissues. When I finished, she patted me on the shoulder.

  "Honey, are you serious about really starting over?" She combed her fingers through my hair, a comforting motion. "No looking back, no changing your mind?"

  I nodded, wiped my eyes and my nose. "I'll never go back there as long as I live. Not for my family, not for anything. I need to start over. I have to."

  She smiled again. "Well then, if you're sure, I can start with your hair. I can think of a dozen things to do with a beautiful head of hair like yours."

  I shrugged. "I don't know what I want. I've never done more than trim it. I've never thought about what I might look like with it cut." I thought back to my bout of self-pity in the dressing room. "I just...I want to feel new, and...beautiful."

  Julia wiped a knuckle across her eye. "Oh, honey. Why do we let men do this to us? You are beautiful. I know it's hard to see it when they pull shit like this, but you can't give that bastard the power over your feelings. You are a strong, lovely woman, and I'll make you into someone new. I promise, you won't recognize yourself when I'm through with you."

  I nodded, and summoned a smile. "Can you help me learn to dress like you, too?" I was joking, but only halfway.

  Julia tilted her head. "You really are starting over, aren't you?"

  "I stuffed everything I own into a suitcase. But then I realized those clothes are all the old me. Career and wife me. I wanted to buy some sexy new clothes, but..." I shrugged, going for nonchalant and failing, tearing up again. "I just don't know how. I've never been that girl."

  "You don't just need a haircut, honey, you need a makeover. A total redo."

  I nodded. "That's the plan, but I don't know where to start, except for this haircut."

  Julia gave me an odd look. "Are you willing to trust me?"

  I shrugged again--I seemed to be doing that a lot, suddenly. "Sure. I mean, I was willing to let you cut my hair off, so why not?"

  She didn't answer, but pulled a cell phone from a drawer of her station and typed furiously on it.

  "What are you doing," I asked.

  "Calling in the cavalry," was Julia's cryptic response.

  "That big of a job, huh?"

  Julia rolled her eyes at me. "Honey, makeovers are always big jobs, and a true makeover requires a team. I'm just assembling mine. Still trust me?"

  I nodded, my heart in my throat. I wasn't ready, but I never really would be.

  The "cavalry" turned out to be two gay men, a couple, I assumed but wasn't positive. Their names were Jose and George, and they were both ridiculously handsome, in a polished, sophisticated, slightly effeminate way. Jose was Hispanic, maybe thirty, with sleek black hair, diamond earrings and a gold necklace showing between an unbuttoned silk shirt, wearing tight leather pants and custom leather shoes, rings on every finger, and piercing gray eyes. George was older, closer to forty or fifty, his head carefully shaved, a neatly-trimmed goatee framing a soft mouth, wearing a trim gray pinstripe suit with a faded designer T-shirt, pale blue eyes and long, slender fingers.

  Julia gave them a Cliff's Notes version of what I'd told her, sparing me from having to repeat it, thankfully. Jose and George clucked their tongues and shook their heads.

  George said, "Oh, sweetie. Men are such dicks, sometimes."

  I agreed, and tried not to laugh at their sweet, genuine, affectedness. It was a contradiction in terms, it seemed to me, but true. They were at once completely genuine, but their mannerisms seemed almost put on, as if they wanted everyone to know they were gay, and how proud of it they were. I'd never felt my sheltered, small-town upbringing so poignantly until that moment. I felt judgmental and petty, trying to understand them, and failing. I couldn't figure out how to handle them, if I should treat them like men, or women, or
both, or neither...they seemed to be a complex amalgam of both genders, somehow, and it made my head spin.

  I stopped trying to figure them out when they started discussing tactics, as they called it. I couldn't keep pace. They were speaking their own language, talking about layering and matching the angles of my face and skin tone and eye color and...I just gave up and closed my eyes and enjoyed the sensation of hands in my hair.

  I let them take me to a sink and wash my hair, the hot water relaxing my scalp and my frayed nerves. They toweled me as dry as my three foot-long hair would go, and sat me down back in front of Julia's station.

  "Are you ready, sweetie?" Jose asked.

  I shrugged and nodded, a confused motion. Jose just laughed. He handed a pair of scissors to Julia and stepped aside with a flourish. Julia put the scissors to my hair, then stopped.

  "Have you considered donating your hair?" She asked.

  "I don't know. I didn't even know you could do that."

  "Locks of Love would be able to make a great wig out of long, gorgeous hair like yours."

  I shrugged yet again. "Sure, why not? If it's coming off anyway."

  A few quick snips, and suddenly my entire upper body felt ten pounds lighter. I sobbed like a baby. Jose and George dabbed my face with Kleenex and told me how brave I was and how much I would love myself when they were done, and to just trust them.

  "Sweetie, you are simply loveliness incarnate," George said. "And you deserve to see yourself that way."

  I melted, and wished he was straight so I could kiss him.

  I sat facing away from the mirror, with Julia's sure hands snipping and fluffing and snipping, until I was sure I would be bald when she was done, and then she did something with a foul-smelling concoction all over my hair and left me to sit and chat with Jose while she and George stepped outside for a smoke.