The Artist
Book one of the Dream series
By Julia Barrett
My husband called this morning to tell me he’d changed his flight and we had a huge argument. It was about his family and how they suck. He didn’t try to defend them, but neither did he stand up to them and I thought… Jeez, you fucker, you just cut off your own balls to spite your face. How am I supposed to have sex with you ever again when you’ve just emasculated yourself in my eyes?! You stupid fuck.
I drove to the damn Oakland Airport later that same day, navigating on freeways I’m not familiar with through heavy traffic, holding my MapQuest directions in one hand, trying to steer with the other hand, watching the road with one eye and reading with the other… fuming.
Of course, we made up on the ride home. After I calmed down and put on my listening ears, I found out that he’d tried to defend me but his jerk of a brother had drawn a line in the sand and wouldn’t relent, so my husband decided retreat was the better part of valor. He realized he was fighting a battle he couldn’t win and he walked away. He’s not like me. He’s conciliatory. I’d just as soon beat his brother about the head with a rolling pin, and that’s me being nice. I have a bit of a red-head temper. Just a bit…
* * * *
Last night, my husband came to bed after I’d already fallen asleep and I woke with his teeth biting down on my nipple and his cock pressed against my thigh. Oh. My. God. Was he hard. Like… explosively hard. He’s always big—I’m a very lucky woman—but holy shit! He was a bloody rock. Maybe it was the argument about his family, or maybe it was the fact that he’d been out of town for ten days, could have been either, but I was slippery wet in seconds. He tossed me onto my back and rolled on top of me, spreading my legs with his knees and ooh that first thrust… he was so hard, so big, he couldn’t get in right away—that’s my favorite part of sex, feeling him press against me, intruding into my space inch by glorious inch, while I open for him, you know, give it up.
Once he was in me, once he was buried to the hilt, as they say in romance novels, he began to move, not like a jackhammer, but with slow, sensuous thrusts, pulling nearly all the way out and then rubbing against me as he plunged in over and over and over again, his lips on mine, his hand on my breast, his thumb rubbing my nipple until I found myself breathless and whimpering and crying Yes, Yes, Yes, Oh God, Yes. Oh Yes. And we both managed to come simultaneously. We seem to do that a lot. I’m not sure why, but I think it has something to do with the fact that we are each very attuned to the state of arousal in the other. His thrusts grow harder, deeper and he feels as if he’s expanding inside me and I guess my noises, as he calls them, which he says excite him, give me away. Oh yes, they do indeed. When it comes to sex, I am an open book. Make up sex, mad sex, get even sex, love you sex—it’s all there, plain as the nose on my face.
And the dream sex. I have to count the dream sex, like last night’s episode.
I did fall asleep quickly, sated, and I do mean sated. Toward morning, I dreamed a dream. It was less like a dream and more like a visitation. Something happens every so often… men come in the night, in my dreams. No two are alike, they do different things, say different things, they don’t look alike. One… and he’s come a number of times… is a vampire. I don’t know them, but I want them and in my dreams, I always fuck them… well, one time the vampire bit me but it was as good as fucking. My orgasm on that occasion was out of this world.
In this particular dream, the guy came to me as a blond. In real life, I’m not attracted to blonds, other than Brad Pitt, especially the Brad Pitt of A River Runs Through It. In the dream I found myself at an art exhibit. I didn’t know the artist and I didn’t know why I was there, but some organization was apparently honoring the man. He stood on a stage in front of a large crowd, and accepted some award. I watched from the very back, knowing this was a dream and wondering why it was necessary for me to be present.
Chairs had been set up in rows and someone had arranged for a media presentation. A screen dropped down from the ceiling and everyone took a seat to watch… what? The story of the artist’s life and work? A photo essay of his paintings? I wasn’t quite sure. I remained in the back by myself, and found a seat on a couch that had been pushed against the far wall. I guess the organizers wanted to get it out of the way.
The lights went down and everyone’s attention focused on the screen. I wore a short jean skirt and a tight black sweater. My skirt hitched up when I sat, so for the sake of discretion, I covered my thighs with my leather jacket. From out of nowhere, the artist stood in front of me and he asked if he could sit beside me.
“Of course,” I murmured, scooting over to make room for him. The man was good looking in an older, distinguished, masculine kind of way, not my usual type, but… who cares… it was a dream, right?
Before I had time to protest, he’d reached down and grabbed my legs and pulled them across his lap, forcing me to recline sideways on the couch. I must admit I felt some surprise, but I decided to go with it, curious to learn what he had in mind. He kept my jacket over my thighs, but I felt his hands move beneath the leather and he shoved my skirt up to my waist. Should I protest, I wondered, already wet with anticipation. No. This is a dream, I reminded myself. I can do whatever I want in dreams.
Training Randi
U2 360 Tour at the Rose Bowl October 25, 2009!It was my great privilege to attend U2’s 360-tour show at the Rose Bowl on October 25th. I’ve loved U2 since I was a girl and I knew it was going to be a good experience but I was completely unprepared for the magnitude of this spectacle.
The first thing I noticed was that the crowd of nearly a 100,000 people was very polite and well behaved. It was a pleasure to be in their company. The group was wildly diverse I saw a sampling of everybody and a surprisingly high number of elderly people and children. I’m a people watcher so I was in heaven looking at the human buffet walking by and reminding myself everyone in this massive crowd had their own story, their own hardships and their own reasons for being here. Even though it was only a rock concert, just seeing that many souls together in one place with a common purpose was almost overwhelming.
The next special thing I realized was this concert was being filmed for DVD and streamed live to the world on Youtube. It was very sobering to receive emails that morning from friends all over the world saying they were setting their alarm clocks or switching schedules at work so they could watch the show in real time with us. Our friends from all over the country, South Africa and Ireland emailed to tell us they were with us in spirit and sharing the experience. The planet seemed to shrink a bit.
One of the show highlights was the fact that they projected a live feed from the international space station and astronauts on the space station spoke with earth during the show. Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon was in the audience, so U2 projected a beautiful picture of the moon onto the stage's curved screens so he would feel at home.
The Black Eyed Peas opened the show along with a guest appearance by Gun’s and Roses guitar-hero Slash. They were great! The dancing started and never stopped. My husband and I paid for seats we never used. We were on our feet the entire night dancing and shaking our glow sticks. I went absolutely berserk when U2 took the stage. For the next two hours I was nineteen again. My husband just kept looking at me, smiling.
There was a moment in the show that felt like a prayer. The energy of the crowd rose and when it reached it’s zenith and I couldn’t take the tension a moment longer, a tall spire on the top of the stage lit up, pulsed and shot intense beams of light into space. It truly was an ascended moment and a bit like sending out the “Bat Signal” to God. We all knew we were a small part of a very special moment.
I bless U2 for staying loyal to each other, relevant, creative, aging gracefully and most of all showing us middle-agers we can still rock! Needless to say we will be attending the next U2 concert.
XXOO Katalina Leon
What's a broken bone or two?
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