Flash Fiction Friday: Late-Night Workout

Her hands groped for him on his side of the mattress as her eyes adjusted to darkness.  She squinted at the shadows, wondering if one was him, just coming to bed after a late-night workout.  She even called out, “Craig?”  The shadows didn’t reply.

She donned her bathrobe and went downstairs, moving quietly so as not to disturb their guest.  She assumed he’d fallen asleep in front of the TV as he sometimes did.  But at the bottom of the stairs the sounds of sex filled her ears and she realized exactly where he was.

She stood at the open doorway, watching as her husband fucked her best friend with wild abandon.  She stared at Julie’s legs, splayed wide, as Craig pounded her with what she knew to be eight thick inches of throbbing, steel-hard cock.  Julie’s feet tensed, toes curling as he drove her to orgasm before flipping her onto all fours.

They were going at it like – what was that old song lyric? – like they do on the Discovery Channel.  Her instinctive jealousy gave way to intense arousal, and as she felt the wetness flow, her robe fell to the floor and she dammed the flood with her fingers.

She wanted to walk right in and join them.  But first she would enjoy the show. (218/219)

Behind the Scenes
I found Advizor54‘s second Flash Fiction Friday challenge significantly less difficult than his first.  While there were the usual parameters, including the prompt photo pictured above, a 219-word limit, and a required key word (in this case discovery), participants were again offered extra credit by not in any way referencing the number three.  Extra extra credit could be earned by submitting a future prompt photo, though I skipped that part of the assignment.
While some Flash Fiction Friday prompt photos leave me a bit cold, and force me to work really hard to come up with a story idea, this is not one of them.  The prompt photo this week immediately inspired multiple possible stories; even Jill came up with a great idea that unfortunately wouldn’t have fit within the word limit.  
I had fun with the required key word, discovery.  Obviously the first thing that came to mind was the fact that the woman in the forefront discovers the two individuals having sex, but I was determined to use the word differently.  Incidentally, the song that is referenced is The Bad Touch, by Bloodhound Gang.
Deleted Scenes
There wasn’t much, if anything, this week.  I managed to budget my story carefully, and initially exceeded the limit by at most ten words.  At that point it was simply a matter of trimming judiciously.
Soundtrack
It was difficult to come up with a good song for this week’s story, as I was trying to convey a feeling of quiet, of sneakiness, and most of the sensual music that came to mind as possibilities didn’t fit.  However, two suitable pieces are the opening theme to Stephen J. Cannell’s 1990s series Silk Stalkings, composed by Mike Post; and the title track to Brian De Palma’s 1984 film Body Double.  

The Naughty Hangout: Decorating the Tree

The sole theme at The Naughty Hangout this week is “Xmas Party”.  In keeping with the holiday spirit, Jill’s hanging ornaments on the Christmas tree while decked out in a sexy ensemble that’s sure to warm up Santa himself.  

Wondering whether Jill’s been naughty or nice?  Simply mouse over the image and find out!  We don’t think you’ll be particularly surprised.

See who else is being naughty this week!

Wicked Wednesday: I Like Variety

It’s no secret that I find monogamy difficult.  Let me clarify my meaning:  I have no difficulty staying emotionally faithful to my wife.  For that matter, I have no real difficulty staying physically faithful either.  I’ve never been much for cheating; while I can certainly admit that sex can be more exciting when it’s off-limits, or when there is some measure of taboo involved, I’m not the kind of person who gets off on hurting someone he loves.  Violating my wife’s trust kills my boner like few things outside of, say, walking in on my parents having sex.
But I don’t believe humans are intended to be monogamous.  Sure, we’re conditioned more or less from birth to believe that monogamy is the only way to live, and further, the only way to cultivate a close, loving relationship between two individuals.  But that doesn’t change the fact that for most humans, variety is not only desirable, but necessary.  There’s a very good reason why adultery scandals seem to dominate the news:  Lots of people commit adultery.  Politicians, entertainers, pro athletes, and even the director of the Central Intelligence Agency have been publicly vilified for cheating on a partner.  
But it’s not only the rich, famous, and powerful who are compelled to supplement their primary relationship with a little something on the side.  I’d wager that most of us harbor strong physical desire for people other than our partners.  Even if we don’t act on this desire, in most cases it’s still there.  Even if we ignore it, bury it deep, and continue with our lives, most of us continue to want other people.  It doesn’t matter who these other people are.  It may not even matter what they look like; witness any Hollywood actor who’s ever cheated on his A-list actress wife or girlfriend with an average woman of ordinary means, and been criticized for trading down.  All that matters is that the other person is new.
Show me a beautiful woman and I’ll show you a man who’s tired of fucking her.  We’ve all heard this adage.  It may sound heartless, and it may paint men as brutish louts with no appreciation for what they have.  But I’ll wager that for most people, it’s not something that can be helped.  I’m not implying that every single human being in the world wants to have sex with someone other than his or her partner.  Social conditioning is very effective.  I may not necessarily admire anyone who has managed to override his or her psychological nature, but I just might envy them a little.
I’ve been with Jill for almost nine years.  That’s a long time, far longer than any other single relationship I’ve ever been in.  We’ve never been on a “break” or otherwise saw other people since our relationship began.  During those nine years I learned a lot about myself, notably the fact that I can be monogamous if I need to be.  It’s difficult and daunting, coming to terms with the likelihood of only being with one person sexually for the rest of my life.  I couldn’t fathom loving someone so completely, so unconditionally, that permanent monogamy is a possibility.  But I love my wife so completely, so unconditionally, that I’d make the sacrifice for her.
It is a sacrifice, though.  I feel terrible saying that, as though she’s somehow not good enough to be in a monogamous relationship with.  Obviously this isn’t the case.  It simply isn’t my nature to have sex with just one woman forever.  The people I described earlier, so desperately in need of variety?  They are me.  Although I could probably live the rest of my life seeing only one woman naked, and though I might eventually come to terms with this fate, perhaps even be happy with it, I am fortunate to have a wife who wouldn’t ask me to.  While we’ve been mostly monogamous since day one, our willingness to keep our bedroom door open to willing guest stars* is something that has helped me come to terms with relative monogamy.
I hate to seemingly compare myself, and for that matter anyone who prefers non-monogamy over monogamy, to LGBTQ individuals, but I didn’t choose this.  I may joke about being greedy, but the truth is that my desire for multiple partners isn’t something I can simply turn off.  And while I’ve certainly enjoyed Jill’s and my tentative forays into non-monogamy, I imagine things would be so much simpler if I in fact could turn it off.  There would be no risk of jealousy or hurt feelings.  We’d never have to worry about our actions being discovered by relatives, or worse, Jill’s professional colleagues.  Rather than staying up until all hours flirting with sexy women on Twitter who I’d someday like to fuck, I might actually get a decent night’s sleep.
*”Guest stars” is now my preferred terminology when referring to anyone we interact with sexually.

This week’s prompt

TMI Tuesday: December 11, 2012 – ‘Tis the Season

Jack’s Answers
1. During the December holiday season, Do you
a. Go away to join other family?
b. Have holiday fun with immediate family?
c. Get to be alone with a lover?
d. Enjoy the peace and quiet and down-time of being with yourself?
Though our holiday plans vary from year to year, my answer is typically a.  On alternating years, Jill and I spend Christmas with my parents and some of my extended family, or with Jill’s entire  family.  As my parents are not local, we have to go away to see them.  Jill’s family, however, lives close, and therefore we are not required to “go away” in order to spend the holidays with them.  However, on years when we are scheduled to spend Christmas and New Year with Jill’s family we sometimes enjoy a family vacation in some far-off resort.  Does that answer the question?  Esentially, for us Christmas is rarely if ever about a small, relatively intimate celebration, so answers c. and d. are out.  We do have holiday fun with immediate family, i.e. the two of us and our daughter, but generally speaking there are a lot more people involved.   
2. What is your favorite holiday tradition or thing that you like to do every holiday season?
Throughout the course of my life, there have been many holiday traditions in which I’ve partaken, including admiring the Christmas lights and decorations in our neighborhood, eating delicious food (not that I refrain during the rest of the year), and exchanging gifts with my relatives.  Of late, my favorite tradition is probably drinking Ramos’ fizzes as we open our presents on Christmas morning.  Nothing like a little booze to get you in the holiday spirit.
3. You are walking down the street and a sexy person is standing with a sign that says “Kiss Me” and mistletoe hanging above their head.
1. Would you kiss that person? YES or NO
2. Why or why not?
I probably wouldn’t.  Despite my love of kissing, in particular kissing new people for the first time, I’m not in the habit of kissing strangers who do not want to kiss me specifically.  This is partially due to the fact that they are – that’s right – strangers.  Make no mistake, I’m not the sort who needs an emotional connection in order to kiss someone; far from it.  But I don’t know this person.  I don’t know if they’re carrying a virulent strain of mono, or perhaps acting as a decoy for some clown who’s lurking in the shadows, waiting to bash me in the head with a pipe and steal my Rolex.  Another reason why I’m unlikely to indulge the person is because, frankly, she just wants a kiss.  (I’m using female pronouns because I typically don’t kiss dudes.)  She doesn’t want a kiss from me.  Presumably anyone who reads the sign and feels like indulging her will do so.  If her sign promised a blowjob to any interested parties, I might be more likely to approach.
4. Santa made up his list and he has checked it twice. Turns out you are on the “naughty” list. What is the naughty thing you did that put you on that list?
I’d be very surprised to learn that I was on Santa’s “naughty” list, if only because the naughty things I do are technically rather nice.  They give lots of pleasure, and that can’t be bad, can it?  That said, Jill points out that we ordered a Hitachi Magic Wand as a sort of not-so-secret Christmas gift for each other; it arrived today and rather than immediately wrapping it and putting it under the tree, I instead elected to test it out while she and our daughter were out this evening.  She says that’s naughty; I say she’s jealous.
5. For being naughty you have been locked in a room where you will be forced to learn about holiday cheer. You will have to watch 24 hours of a holiday movie, which movie would you choose to watch? (pick just one)
a. A Christmas Story
b. It’s a Wonderful Life
c. White Christmas
d. A Christmas Carol (original 1938 version or the 1992 Muppet version)
Don’t be too surprised to learn that I am familiar with and actually enjoy each of these films, with the possible exception of the 1992 Muppet version of A Christmas Carol, which I don’t know if I’ve ever watched.  That said, I imagine that the quickest way to make me not enjoy them is to force me to watch any single movie for twenty-four hours straight.  It’s a difficult choice, for sure, but in the end I think I might go with a., A Christmas Story, if only because for the last fifteen years cable networks TNT and TBS have aired it for twenty-four straight hours, and I’ve never bothered to watch it more than once or twice during any one marathon.  So I’d go for a full day of Ralphie and his Red Ryder carbine-action, two hundred shot Range Model air rifle, with a compass in the stock and this thing which tells time. 
Bonus: The holidays can be a hectic time of year, so much so that romance might take a back seat to festivities and such. Give us YOUR sexy tip for keeping away the “chill” and “heating up” the holiday season.
It might seem counterintuitive, but when I’m feeling chilly, getting naked with my sexy wife warms me up nicely.
Jill’s Answers
1. During the December holiday season, Do you
a. Go away to join other family?
b. Have holiday fun with immediate family?
c. Get to be alone with a lover?
d. Enjoy the peace and quiet and down-time of being with yourself?
Coming from a very large family, d. has never been an option for the holidays, and for that matter it’s not my preference.  The holidays have always been about sharing happy times with my loved ones.  To me, that is the best part of Christmas.  The majority of my Christmases have been observed as either a. or b.  I have always lived close to my parents and siblings, and on Christmas there is always a huge crowd at my parents’ house.  Occasionally we will travel as a group to some destination where we’ll spend the holidays, but we are pretty much always together.  Jack and I have always spent every other year with his family on Christmas.  This allows us some alone time, because we tend to take a lot of “naps” when my in-laws are watching our daughter.  
2. What is your favorite holiday tradition or thing that you like to do every holiday season?
Even after I moved out of my parents’ house, I would always spend the night there on Christmas Eve.  That way I could wake up with my siblings who lived there, and come right downstairs to exchange gifts right in front of the tree.  We’d drink eggnog or Ramos’ fizzes and just be together as a family.  After Jack and I got married we moved out of the area, and if we happened to be spending Christmas with my parents as opposed to Jack’s, we would spend the night at their house.  My nieces and nephews all had to wait at the top of the stairs until my Dad checked to see if Santa had come, just like he did when my siblings and I were kids.  Another tradition is tamale day.  Every December we go to my best friend’s house to make tamales with her and her family.  It’s a busy day of eating and drinking, music, and of course hard work making hundreds of tamales.  At the end of the day we get to take a couple bags home with us.  Also, Jack and I have always had an Advent-type calendar that we use to count down to Christmas.  We have continued this tradition with our daughter.
3. You are walking down the street and a sexy person is standing with a sign that says “Kiss Me” and mistletoe hanging above their head.
1. Would you kiss that person? YES or NO
2. Why or why not?
If he’s hot and doesn’t have any open sores, why not?  I might wait and observe awhile in order to see if he’s a good kisser before I make my decision.
4. Santa made up his list and he has checked it twice. Turns out you are on the “naughty” list. What is the naughty thing you did that put you on that list?
Too many to count!  Off the top of my head I’ll say sharing Jack’s cock with multiple women.  That was so hot!  Still, that’s nothing compared to the naughty things we have planned for 2013!
5. For being naughty you have been locked in a room where you will be forced to learn about holiday cheer. You will have to watch 24 hours of a holiday movie, which movie would you choose to watch? (pick just one)
a. A Christmas Story
b. It’s a Wonderful Life
c. White Christmas
d. A Christmas Carol (original 1938 version or the 1992 Muppet version)
Definitely It’s a Wonderful Life.  I love a great feel-good movie, although I would probably need a whole box of tissues.  I get popcorn right?  I love popcorn!  I could watch just about anything for twenty-four hours straight if I get popcorn.
Bonus: The holidays can be a hectic time of year, so much so that romance might take a back seat to festivities and such. Give us YOUR sexy tip for keeping away the “chill” and “heating up” the holiday season.
Naked time in front of the fireplace after the baby goes to sleep.  
How to play TMI Tuesday: Copy the above TMI Tuesday questions to your webspace (i.e., a blog). Answer the questions there, then leave a comment below, on this blog post, so we’ll all know where to read your responses. Please don’t forget to link to tmituesdayblog from your website!

Masturbation is Fun!

It’s Christmastime!  For many years Jill and I have bought each other naughty Christmas gifts:  A vibrator here, an erotic fiction anthology there.  On one very memorable Christmas morning some years back I gave Jill her beloved Eroscillator, as well as a bright red Liberator Throe.  It was a miracle that we made it to her parents’ house in time for Christmas dinner.  

Naturally, we don’t exchange these gifts in mixed company, but rather in private on Christmas morning.  We’re pretty sure that the relatives with whom we spend Christmas Day probably wouldn’t know how to react if they saw me unwrapping a Duet vibrating cock ring, though I’d like to think that her sisters would respond with great interest.

“Why would it be embarrassing to unwrap a sex toy in front of the family?” asks Beck in an recent article for SexIs Social, the online magazine of EdenFantasys.  “After all [a gift] should be something that is useful.”  She goes on to analyze the numerous benefits of masturbation, including lower risk of prostate cancer in men, prevention of cervical infections in women, prevention of premature ejaculation, ease of sexual arousal and orgasm, and self-reliance.

Masturbation is something that virtually every single human being on the planet has done at some point in his or her lives, and more than likely does regularly.  It is a natural part of human sexual development, and not only is it not harmful in and of itself, regular masturbation seems to actually promote good health.  Why, then, is it viewed in such a negative fashion by the general public?

I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that the stigma surrounding masturbation is tied directly into the stigma surrounding sex in general.  While partnered sex is something to which most would admit, for many people masturbation carries a large degree of shame and guilt.  This is due in part to claims by the religious establishment that the Bible specifically forbids masturbation, as well as the misguided notion that masturbation is only for those who are incapable of sex with a partner.

Society in general must bear the blame for furthering such misinformation, or for allowing the furtherance thereof through its own inaction.  Masturbation has never been taught in American schools, to the best of my knowledge.  Even if it were, I imagine that it would be “taught” from the false perspective of “masturbation is morally wrong.”  If we were capable of engaging in a serious discussion on a topic as needlessly controversial as this, we might be able to deflate the myths and shine some light on an unfortunately-maligned practice that hurts no one.

So why aren’t we?  Why is discussion of masturbation more off-limits than politics and religion these days?  It’s pretty clear that it has a lot to do with the false but still pervasive notion that the primary function, if not the only function, of human sexuality is procreation.  Obviously countless people regularly have sex for pleasure.  But sometimes it seems as though no one is willing to admit it.

I’ve long wished for a society that was more relaxed with regard to sex.  I daydream about a world that isn’t so uptight, that doesn’t necessarily laud depictions of violence while criminalizing depictions of consensual sexuality.  A world wherein we could openly discuss things like masturbation, sex toys, and partnered sexual activity in so-called polite company without receiving dirty looks, being cut from everyone’s Christmas card list, or even being giggled at.

Were society to adopt a healthy attitude about sex, many of its dysfunctions would likely cease to exist.  There would be fewer hang-ups.  There would be far less pressure to conform to what the general public believes a relationship should be, and as a result, less tension between the sexes.  There would be more open communication.  Once people stopped feeling the need to stifle their sexual urges there would conceivably be less aggression.  War, and even road rage, might be a thing of the past.

The downside, of course, is that if I am able to openly discuss sexual matters in mixed company, then my parents might feel free to do the same, and that would totally squick me.  Hell, just the thought of it is squicking me right now.  But why should it be distasteful?  Presumably if we lacked our puritanical upbringing and the sexual hang-ups that accompany it, talking to my parents about sex, or even overhearing them talk about sex, would be no different than overhearing them talk about, say, their taxes.

Beck closes her article by asking her readers if they dare gift a sex toy this Christmas.  To reiterate my earlier point, we aren’t going to be exchanging naughty gifts in front of my in-laws this year.  But we did place an order for an nJoy Pure Plug, and – drumroll, please – the fabled Hitachi Magic Wand.  Though we ordered them together, they will likely be wrapped and placed under the tree, then unwrapped on Christmas morning, or more likely Christmas Eve after our daughter has gone to bed.  Reviews will follow.

For more of our thoughts on masturbation, see Jill’s Look Back at Masturbation Month.  There’s a video!
This post was sponsored by EdenFantasys.
Sex toys - EdenFantasys adult toys store

The Perils of Parenting: The Babysitter

On Friday evening we planned to hang out with M, our frequent bedroom guest star.  We always try to get together shortly before Christmas to exchange gifts and hang out.  In 2010, after our friendship added a sexual component, we had a fun holiday threesome.  This was unfortunately not repeated in 2011 because she was dating someone.  Since she’s currently single we figured why not?

As we’ve mentioned elsewhere on the blog, there is a dearth of available, reliable babysitters who are able to watch our daughter overnight, or even until late at night.  We’ve got relatives who live locally and who will watch her until, say, midnight, but we can’t count on their availability.  At any rate, midnight is hardly sufficient time to have a threesome, though when we’ve had to wrap it up early, we’ve never complained about the looming deadline.

The only person who was available to watch our daughter on Friday night was Jill’s sister.  As I went through my way-too-short short list of prospective babysitters, getting some variation of “Sorry, I’ve got plans Friday night” from each one, my heart sank because I knew that I would soon reach the bottom of the list and be forced to call quite literally the most unreliable person we know.

Don’t get me wrong, it’s not like Jill’s sister is a bad person, or even a bad babysitter.  On the rare occasion that she’s babysat at our house as opposed to hers, she’s never raided our liquor cabinet, or invited her rowdy friends over.  (Disclaimer:  She has no rowdy friends.)  She doesn’t get high, rarely drinks, doesn’t subject our daughter to R-rated movies, or do anything else that might make parents dread leaving their child in her custody.

She’s not this bad.

No, our frustration stems from the fact that she is completely unwilling to watch our daughter late at night, especially if our daughter doesn’t sleep.  And she rarely does; Jill’s sister can’t or won’t consciously put her to bed, meaning that if our little one is asleep when we arrive to pick her up it’s because she stopped playing and lay down because she was exhausted, not because she was compelled to do so by an adult.

In January, we had plans to meet friends at a local bar.  Jill’s sister agreed to babysit, but only at our house, which meant that we had to clean thoroughly, hide all sex toys, and shut down and password-protect our computers lest she stumble upon this blog, or our Twitter accounts or Moby album.  She arrived at 8:45 and we planned to get to the bar around 9:00.  Our friends would be there between 9:00 and 9:15, and Jill’s sister asked that we come back at midnight.  This was hardly ideal for a Saturday night, but we had three hours, and we were going to make the best of that time.

We made sure the baby didn’t nap all day, and by the time Jill’s sister got to our house she was fast asleep.  We arrived at the bar close to nine and got drinks.  Our friends hadn’t yet arrived when the text messages began coming in asking us if we could come back; apparently our daughter had awakened and the babysitter had no clue what to do.  Note that this was not her first time babysitting, or even her first time babysitting our child.  Most of Jill’s siblings have children, and her sister has had ample experience.  No, we were certain that despite her preference for not babysitting at her own house, she was probably scared to be at our place more or less alone.

As the text messages grew more insistent, we realized we had to leave.  Jill offered to leave me there while she ran home in the hopes of getting the baby back to sleep, but I wasn’t going to let her do that.  We waited until our friends arrived, said a quick hello and good-bye (with an explanation thrown in right between the two) and headed home.  We relieved the help, and Jill got the baby back to sleep in moments.  It occurred to me that had the babysitter gone into her room and made an effort, she would have been able to do the same.  But between the fact that our daughter was expecting to see her Mommy and Daddy and not her aunt, and the fact that her aunt (a) couldn’t be bothered or (b) just wanted to go home at that point, it simply wasn’t meant to be.

This is why I hate using this particular babysitter.  Given her lack of a social life or any real commitments, she is almost always available, even when others are not.  However, she is very much a “bare minimum” sort of caretaker.  Our daughter has never been grievously injured while in her care, knock on wood.  On the other hand, if we don’t prepare dinner for her, she isn’t going to eat while in her care, either.  And as stated earlier, she’s not going to make a conscious effort to put our daughter to bed so that she is asleep when we arrive to pick her up.

This was the case in October, when we had M over for dinner and hopeful hanky-panky afterwards.  The fun had barely gotten started when her sister texted me – a half hour before the scheduled pickup time – saying that she needed us to come get the baby up so she could go to bed.  I left the ladies at home and headed over to pick her up, my fingers crossed the entire way that she was asleep.  Of course, she wasn’t.  I sang lullabies all the way home, but she made it very clear that she was wide awake and ready to party.  We were disappointed by the lack of clothing-optional fun that night, but salvaged the evening as best we could.

Last night, on the other hand, the festivities were already underway when the ten o’clock pickup time rolled around.  All three of us were naked, and I smelled, to put it bluntly, like multiple women.  But Jill and I both noticed that her sister never called, which seemed to imply that our daughter had somehow fallen asleep.  I reluctantly got out of bed, put on some deodorant and Skin Bracer, gargled with mouthwash, and got dressed.  As I drove over to my sister-in-law’s, I imagined myself returning home with a sleeping child, putting her in her bed, and returning to my own where four breasts, two vaginas, and two mouths were waiting for me.

I arrived at the house to find my daughter sleepy-eyed and yawning but awake.  Jill’s sister confirmed that she had in fact fallen asleep at eight o’clock and just woken up.  She’d been napping for two and a half hours.  There was no way she was going to sleep anytime soon.  What’s more, I was told that she barely touched the dinner we brought her, which meant she’d also be hungry.  Right before my eyes, my Christmas threesome flew out the chimney faster than Santa Claus.

I tried not to be upset.  Frustrated with my sister-in-law’s half-assed babysitting, definitely.  But upset?  For all intents and purposes it was in fact a threesome, just not as much of one as I wanted.  As I strapped my daughter into her car seat and mentally prayed that she’d somehow fall unconscious for the rest of the night, I called Jill to tell her that I was more than likely returning home with the same rambunctious child we’d dropped off earlier.  I took a circuitous route home in the hopes of giving the two ladies a few final orgasms, some cuddle time, or whatever they needed.  I ended up taking around half an hour to drive less than three miles, and they used that time to take a shower that I really fucking wish I’d been there for.

As I said, I tried not to be upset.  Jill was pretty pissed off though.  And yet it was no one’s fault, really.  Her sister had done what we’d asked of her, with no further effort put forth than we’ve come to expect.  When we ask her to babysit our child essentially what we can expect is that she will not die or sustain the sort of injuries that will have Child Protective Services investigating us.  That’s it.  She’s not going to put her down for the night.  She’s not going to cook dinner for her.  I presume she’s not even going to change her unless she can tell without looking in her diaper that she needs it.  On Friday night, we needed a babysitter and this is what was available.

This would have been preferable.

We’re not ready to dip into the local talent pool to find a reliable babysitter with whom we’re not personally acquainted.  Yes, we realize that we could find someone who will, for pay, feed our child, tend to her diaper rash, ensure that she’s just fallen asleep when we pick her up, and for that matter maybe even keep her overnight.  We know that.  But we’re not ready.  Bear in mind that we just spent our first night away from her in April.  Baby steps, as they say.

When we arrived home, I can admit to being disappointed to find Jill and M already out of the shower and dressed, but it was inevitable.  Jill had a light snack ready for the baby shortly thereafter, and put her to bed around eleven-thirty.  As expected, she didn’t fall asleep quickly or easily.  M and I drank a bottle of wine on the couch while watching Frosty the Snowman and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, and eventually dozed off.  All things considered, it wasn’t a terrible night.

Formspring Friday: Retrospective

As we approach the one year anniversary of #FormspringFriday, can you reflect back on the year? What has been your favourite question? What was the hardest to answer? What has #FormspringFriday meant to you and your blog?

(Submitted by Cougar in Training)

Great question!  It’s hard to believe that Formspring Friday is almost one year old!  The small-scale, homegrown meme that Cougar in Training and I cooked up while trying to figure out what to do with our Formspring questions is still fairly small-scale, but we have greatly appreciated the opportunity to answer questions posed by our readers, and in doing so bare even more of our souls than we otherwise might.

This is the fifty-fourth edition of Formspring Friday.  Over the course of fifty-four posts and almost as many weeks, we’ve answered questions that ran the spectrum from light-hearted, fun, and fairly shallow all the way to deeply personal.  Some questions have been easy to answer, and others were the sort that we dreaded having to address, usually because of the seriousness of the subject matter and the weight of their answers.

Perhaps that’s an overstatement.  Yes, some questions have been difficult to answer, but we’ve never deliberately avoided such a question, or for that matter any question.  On the contrary, we sometimes found ourselves hurrying to address a question that we knew would conjure up painful or otherwise unpleasant memories from our respective pasts.  For example, The Worst Sex Ever and Sexual Healing both concerned a traumatic incident from Jill’s past.  While she was initially nervous, she found it empowering to get her feelings out.

I found our inaugural Formspring Friday post, entitled Addressing the Lack of Jack, similarly daunting, as it was the first time I’d ever gotten naked on the blog.  I remember being very relieved upon receiving ten positive comments!  On a deeper level, Lean on Me and Regrettable were a bit more emotionally difficult, as they forced me to revisit my past, and remember some of the unsatisfying relationships I was in before I met Jill.  
Honorable mention for this category goes to Infidelity, a very candid post in which we talk about cheating, in particular incidents from our past in which we were unfaithful to a significant other.  This post was nowhere near as difficult to talk about as the others we mentioned, though it was deeply personal and introspective, and saw us recalling events that had been buried for years.
As for our favorite questions, it would be virtually impossible to whittle our list down to one favorite, or even one favorite each.  At best we might be able to come up with one absolute favorite, and a few runners-up.  My favorite may be Tying the Knot, wherein we recall in glorious detail our wedding night.  This isn’t our most thought-provoking, deeply personal, or sexiest Formspring Friday post.  There are others that trump this one on all levels.  However, if unpleasant memories made some of the aforementioned posts difficult to write, wonderful memories made this one very easy and enjoyable to write.
Jill cites as her favorite Formspring Friday post Unrealized Desires.  In this post we discuss sexual scenarios we have not yet gotten to experience.  I have it on good authority that Jill occasionally masturbates while re-reading this post, in particular the paragraph dealing with her two-men-at-once fantasy.  I quote:

There’s something about the thought of two mouths and four hands traveling over my body that drives me wild, to say nothing of having two hard cocks to play with.  In my fantasy I am usually on my hands and knees, with one guy fucking my pussy while the other one fucks my throat.  However, it is increasingly common for this fantasy to feature double penetration.  I’m not sure that I’d ever actually attempt that, but it’s really hot to imagine both men moving rhythmically inside me, one in my pussy and one in my asshole, driving me to one orgasm after another. 

There are myriad other Formspring Friday posts that stick out in our minds for one reason or another.  A Porn and Masturbation Trifecta, wherein we answer a trio of excellent questions posed by Sexy Savvy Geek, is a candid, funny, and sexy account of our porn-watching and masturbating habits.  Likewise, Asking Ourselves a Question sees us ranting about the state of the commercial porn industry.  (I ask you, what is with all the spitting?)
We had a lot of fun with Personal Relations, which saw us making lists of real-life acquaintances with whom we’d like to have sex.  My list consisted of three women, and Jill’s list consisted of three men and three women.  Most of the individuals are close friends, and while we don’t go into nearly enough detail about what we’d like to do with them, it was somewhat cathartic to put it on paper, so to speak.  Unfortunately, this post got just one comment.  
In light of our continuing ventures into relative non-monogamy, last week’s post, entitled Authorized Personnel Only, details our evolving boundaries.  It’s been exhilarating seeing Jill go from being fairly nervous at the thought of interacting with a woman during our first threesome to being much more proactive and in fact dominant in some ways during our most recent.  Given our ever-widening comfort zone, we are both eager to see what is in store for the future.  
I have to also mention So Seductive, in which we were asked if we had ever teamed up, as husband and wife, to seduce a third.  When we answered this question in July, we had not yet done so, and said that we hoped to rectify the situation before long.  In November we did team up to seduce somebody, and we didn’t wait long at all before editing the post to reflect that fact.
Lastly, one of the coolest things that’s happened to us related to this blog happened because we posted Time For Sex.  Our friend Liza Bennet brought the post to the attention of Dr. Ruth Westheimer via Twitter, and Dr. Ruth not only retweeted Liza’s tweet, but also commented on our post.  That’s right, Dr. Ruth has read our blog.  It was an incredible thrill, a brush with greatness if you will.  It’s one of those things I’d love to be able to brag about to friends and relatives alike, but I can’t.
As for what Formspring Friday has meant to our blog, it is yet another avenue with which we can communicate with our readers and fellow bloggers.  It’s exciting to find a new question in our Formspring inbox, and in doing so, to realize that someone who we perhaps don’t know, and likely will never meet, cares about our opinion, or wants to hear more about some aspect of our sexual identity.  We are flattered by the attention.
We are grateful to everyone who has ever submitted a question for us to answer.  Without all of you, this meme would not exist.  We would have published fifty-four fewer posts, and our blog would lack much of the excitement, fun, and feeling that we presume you all enjoy.  Extra special thanks go out to Cougar in Training for all the support, and for helping to realize Formspring Friday in the first place.  
Formspring Friday may not be the sort of powerhouse that TMI Tuesday is, but I think that’s part of what I enjoy about it.  Our Formspring posts may not get much attention or feedback, certainly not as much as they did when there were as many as four or five blogs participating.  But at the same time, it’s our humble little feature, one that will hopefully continue for a long time to come.
If you’ve asked a question that has yet to be answered, rest assured that it will.  We have a small backlog of questions and we have every intention of answering all of them.  If you want to ask us a sexy question, drop us a line on Formspring, or use the handy Formspring widget on the right-hand side of our blog.  To see who else participated this week, search #FormspringFriday on Twitter!  If you have a Formspring account and you aren’t already participating, feel free to join in the Formspring Friday fun! 

Flash Fiction Friday: He Said/She Said

Image courtesy of David Sharp, A View from the Top
He said:
After his fourth knock, Eileen opened the door.  She spoke through a two-inch gap.  “Chase isn’t here.”
“Actually I want to talk to you.”  He pushed open the door and stepped into his son’s bedroom.  Eileen was wearing Chase’s bathrobe.  The room was disheveled, and smelled of sleep and sex.  
He’d rehearsed his speech all day.  He was going to tell her that she was destroying the high hopes he had for Chase.  He would tell her what a bad decision it was to drop out, confront her about her drug use.  
Then she dropped the robe, revealing a slight, undernourished body.  He retreated into the hallway.  
“I want you.  I want you to…”
“Don’t even say it,” he warned as she backed him up to the wall.  He tried to push her away.  She opened his slacks, dropped to her knees and devoured him.
“Dad?”  It was Chase. (149/150)
She said:
Loud, insistent knocks interrupted her sleep.  She put on Chase’s bathrobe and opened the door slightly.  It was Mike.  
“Chase isn’t here,” she said through the gap.
“I know,” he said warmly.  “I need talk to you.  Can I come in?”  
Eileen opened the door but blocked his entry.  Before she could ask what he wanted, Mike began to pour out his heart.  
“I can’t stop thinking about you.”  She blushed in spite of herself.  “I know you feel it too.”
“You’re Chase’s father,” she protested.  “It’s a bad decision.”  Without warning, Mike took her in his arms and kissed her passionately.  He peeled the robe from her body and led her out into the hallway.  He unbuckled his belt and lowered his pants, then pushed her to her knees.  As she swallowed him, she heard footsteps on the hardwood floor.
“Dad?”  It was Chase. (145/150)
(294/300)

Behind the Scenes

This week’s Flash Fiction Friday challenge was created by regular Flash Fiction Friday participant Advizor54.  Along with the prompt photo came the challenge phrase decision.  For extra credit, participants were to write the story from the perspective of both individuals depicted in the photo.  For extra extra credit, participants were to refrain from using the word fuck.  If writing from both perspectives, I was unsure as to whether participants were supposed to include the challenge phrase in both segments, so to play it safe I did.  As is typical, in both segments I forgot to include it initially, and had to go back and shoehorn it in.

Overall, I found this week’s challenge more difficult than most.  This is due in part to the lower-than-ideal word limit, but also to the fact that I felt compelled to pull out all the stops in completing the extra credit portions of the challenge.  It was at times frustrating to write each perspective in 150 words or less.  While Advizor54 didn’t say that the two stories had to be 150 words each – just that the total of both perspectives had to be 300 words or less – I felt that it would be conspicuously uneven to give one perspective 75% of the word count and the other a mere 25%.  
Eileen’s truncated dialogue near the end of the first segment of the story is supposed to be her telling Mike to fuck her.  Mike’s rebuke (“Don’t even say it”) is an acknowledgement of the word’s prohibition within the parameters of the challenge.  Regarding Chase’s absence and sudden disappearance, while it’s never mentioned in the story he is out buying heroin.  Speaking of which, I hereby confirm that the first perspective, that of Chase’s father, is portrayed accurately, while the second, that of Eileen, is idealized or otherwise influenced by her substance abuse and otherwise deluded mental state.
Admittedly, I took some liberties with the prompt.  At no point in either segment of the story do the participants stand in the hallway regarding each other as they do in the photo.  Additionally the stance adopted by the man in the photograph is way too relaxed for that of a man who is either being seduced by or planning to seduce his son’s girlfriend.  Ultimately I felt justified in ignoring this aspect of the photograph.  Call it artistic license.
Deleted Scenes
There were no deleted scenes or omitted details this week, though due to the particularly frustrating word limit I found myself trimming unnecessary (or necessary) words to make my work fit the count.  My first pair of perspectives involved a man coming to the rescue of a woman who is being kept more or less as a willing concubine by her pimp/drug dealer.  Throughout the first story it is implied that the woman is the wife of her rescuer, though it is made clear in the second that she is his daughter.  This idea was ultimately nixed because there was virtually no sex of any kind, and because it simply wouldn’t have fit within the word limit.
Soundtrack

For the first segment, I like I’m Waiting for the Man by Velvet Underground and Nico.  The song is about a heroin purchase, and the energetic tempo parallels the chaos that surrounds Eileen and which has infected Chase and his family.  
For the second segment, how about Devil Woman, by Cliff Richard?  While it wouldn’t necessarily fit Eileen’s deluded view of events, I could certainly see her listening to this song.  For something that fits a bit better, consider Young Girl, by Gary Puckett and the Union Gap.