On the (Lack of) Importance of Valentine’s Day

Jack8 Comments
Posted in Uncategorized

Three years ago we published a post wherein we talked about how an unattached female friend of ours threw a Valentine’s Day party for single people, an anti-Valentine’s Day party if you will, designed for single women to network with other single women for the purposes of analyzing their failed relationships, complaining about how they’d been screwed over by men, and presumably organizing some sort of hunting party and killing and dismembering either their unfaithful and/or emotionally distant ex-boyfriends or else successful couples that have the audacity to be happy.

It appears that I may have been hasty in my assessment of the party in question.  First off, it apparently wasn’t a women-only event.  Couples might even have been invited, though at the time it didn’t seem that way, and I know that Jill and I certainly didn’t get an invite.  But whereas I categorized it as a get-together for bitter, lonely individuals who can’t get dates, much less find love, it was likely a low-key gathering of single people held for the purposes of deflecting societal pressure on that most Hallmarky of Hallmark holidays.  I can’t fault any single individual for wanting to be part of something like that.  Hell, I can’t fault the attached for it either.  As someone who has no problem making grand gestures of love on random days throughout the year, I’m all for ignoring Valentine’s Day.

Let me rephrase that:  I would be all for ignoring Valentine’s Day if my wife didn’t have co-workers and friends whose envy motivates me the way revenge motivates the protagonist in a squalid 1970s grindhouse flick.  Essentially, the holiday – sorry, “holiday” – does little for me; while I enjoy hearing Jill gush and brag about the dozen roses I had delivered to her place of work, I know that she doesn’t expect them just because it’s Valentine’s Day.  While I am comfortable being romantic on February 14 each year, I am also pretty romantic on February 13 and February 15, and for that matter August 29.  I love the fact that my wife is aware that Valentine’s Day is a corporate holiday designed to sell greeting cards, chocolate, flowers, and lingerie, and for that matter I love the fact that she refuses to go out on Valentine’s Day as restaurants are overcrowded and often feature a limited and expensive prix fixe menu.

That doesn’t mean that, to some extent, Jill doesn’t want me to pull out all the stops on Valentine’s Day.  We may sidestep the issue of overcrowded and overpriced restaurants by having a nice dinner out several days beforehand – this year we celebrated Valentine’s Day with a four-course dinner out more than a week in advance – but for us Valentine’s Day still tends to include cards with heartfelt messages, gifts including candy, and hot sex that generally incorporates a half-dozen or more positions.  But then all of those things are fair game on any other day.  Jill just doesn’t want to have to forego them on the one day a year that everyone she knows is openly talking about them.  Except for the hot sex.  Most of our friends aren’t the sort to talk about that.

Getting back on topic, the friend who was responsible for that jaded anti-Valentine’s Day party is throwing another one tomorrow night.  We’ve been invited.  Now, knowing the friend as well as we do, we are reasonably certain that we will not be tarred, feathered, and set ablaze.  In fact, we will not be the only couple in attendance.  Upon perusing the guest list, it appears that the couples-to-singles ratio is such that the couples could easily take the singles should they try anything.  And they’d have to be crazy to try anything.  We may be happy, relaxed couples and they may be on-edge, perpetually-pissed-off singles who haven’t gotten laid in months (not saying they are, just that they might be), but the first sign of aggression will be met with swift and decisive action on our part.

Ahem.  I’m not expecting a battle royale tomorrow night.  Just some laughs, some dancing, and probably some magnesium hydroxide slipped into my cocktail by some single guy who wishes he was married to Jill.  We’ll keep you posted.  Until then, however, we just wanted to wish you all a good day, whether you celebrate Valentine’s Day, Singles Awareness Day, or some other fringe holiday or pseudo-holiday.  (Did you know that today is my half-birthday?  It is.)

-Jack

Did You Miss Us?

Jack16 Comments
Posted in Uncategorized

We’ve had a nice month off.  It was definitely a necessary break, as we were aware of feelings of burnout toward the end of our long near-daily blogging run.  We like blogging, and we don’t want to feel burned out by it.  But our determination to publish more blog posts in 2012 than any sane blogger should drove us to extremes.  We thought that having a few weeks off would help refresh us.

Then it hit us:  Terminology like “a few weeks off” is a clear indication that we’ve been viewing our blog in the wrong fashion.  It’s not a job.  To be fair, we never really thought of it as a job, exactly; however, the routine into which we fell, complete with deadlines and performance reviews, was very reminiscent of a job.  And while we didn’t get paid for doing said job, the amount of satisfaction we get from knowing that other bloggers, and even non-blogging lurkers, enjoy what we do here is just as appreciated as a salary.*

That’s when it hit us:  Over the past year-plus, we slowly shifted focus from blogging for ourselves to blogging for feedback.  You’re likely aware that we have always been our own biggest motivation for blogging.  We started this blog as a means of vocalizing things, typically sexual in nature, that we often can’t say in mixed company.  We needed an outlet where we could write about our own sexual lives, and to a lesser extent discuss with like-minded individuals the things that turn us on and the experiences we’ve had.  We wanted this blog to exist as a repository of our writings and a record of our relationship years into the future, perhaps even after we’ve stopped contributing to it.

But as our following grew in the months following our return in August 2011, we found ourselves greatly enjoying the feedback we’d get from an astute political post, a sexy HNT picture, or a particularly funny set of TMI Tuesday answers.  While we continued to blog for ourselves and for the most part resisted the temptation to write for our audience, we did feel pressure to continue posting nearly every day, if not to regularly outdo what had been posted the day before.  Granted, virtually all of this pressure was self-imposed.  Well before the end of the year, we had resigned ourselves to continuing on our regular blogging schedule, participating in each meme.

Wait a minute.  Resigned?  People don’t resign themselves to doing the things they love.  They resign themselves to a long wait in line at the DMV.  They resign themselves to paying taxes.  They resign themselves to being lied to by politicians.  We shouldn’t resign ourselves to doing something that we enjoy.  We should do it without reservation, or hesitation, on a schedule that works for us.

We’ve spent a couple weeks focusing on the future of this blog.  We’ve brainstormed ideas for new posts.  We’ve thought about activities in which we could engage that might inspire future posts.  We’ve picked at the threads of potential erotic stories in the hopes of bringing to life something promising.  We considered various means of preventing overwork and the burnout that is likely to accompany it.

So we’re back, more or less.  That doesn’t mean that we’re going to blog as regularly as we did last year.  That was never a pace we were going to be able to sustain for long, and the fact that we did so as long as we did says something about us, I guess.  But don’t expect us to start participating regularly in memes just yet.  No, a gradual return seems the wisest course of action here, and will hopefully enable us to publish the kind of original non-meme content that was our original intention.

Yes, I realize that in doing so our readership may decline.  It’s likely declined significantly in the last month; I’m certain that, in light of four weeks with no posts, many readers are now former readers.  Not participating in TMI Tuesday, Sinful Sunday, Wicked Wednesday and the like every week is unlikely to change that.  On the other hand, we broke 200,000 page views sometime in January, so it stands to reason that people are still checking us out.

If you’ve read this far, thanks.  We appreciate you sticking around!

*Well, almost.

We’re Taking a Break

Jack13 Comments
Posted in Uncategorized

477 posts in a single calendar year seems like a lot to us.  That’s one post per day, plus more than a hundred extras.  That’s almost double the amount of posts we published between 2008 and 2011.  Much like participating in HNT for an entire year – at a time when our blog was dormant, in fact – this is quite an accomplishment, and one we’re proud to have achieved.

That being said, we knew it wasn’t a pace that we could sustain forever.  Thus, as we first mentioned earlier this month, we are taking a break.  Don’t worry; we don’t expect it to be the sort of hiatus that leads our readers to peruse our blog and wonder whatever happened to us.  It’s likely to be a short break while we adjust to the resumption of normal life post-holidays.  We’ll still be on Twitter during that time, of course.  But we’re unlikely to publish any new posts.
We don’t have any set duration for this break.  As stated previously, it may be a week, or it may be several.  But we will return, and when we do we hope to post much more original content than we did over the last several months.  This may be in the form of written erotica, news stories, photography, product reviews, parenting-related posts, or accounts of our sexual escapades.  And we’ll likely continue to participate in memes, just not as regularly as we did this year.  
When all is said and done, we hope that these changes make this a better blog, and provide you with a better read.  We understand that cutting back on memes may hurt the community aspect of blogging and considerably lessen the interactions that we enjoy with so many of you.  But we hope not.  We hope that you’ll still find our blog enlightening, arousing, amusing, and ultimately worth a visit.
Regarding today’s Monday picture,we knew that we wanted it to in some way reflect our temporary departure.  “Moratorium Monday” seemed a natural fit, though we spent quite a bit of time trying to decide what the corresponding Monday picture would be.  Jill suggested a picture of her ass to represent the end of a very long blogging streak.  But it’s not the end, really.  Besides, we’ve posted plenty of pictures of Jill’s ass.  Some can be seen below.
Posted using Mobypicture.com
Posted using Mobypicture.com
Posted using Mobypicture.com
Posted using Mobypicture.com
Posted using Mobypicture.com
Posted using Mobypicture.com
Posted using Mobypicture.com
Posted using Mobypicture.com
Posted using Mobypicture.com
Posted using Mobypicture.com
Posted using Mobypicture.com
A simple screen shot of our blog, rendered in grayscale, seemed fitting.  We’re going dark, but not permanently.  However, the Monday picture feature is most certainly being retired.  When we launched it in January 2012, we wanted to fill a void left by the recently-defunct HNT meme.  However, between it, The Naughty Hangout, and Sinful Sunday – all of which we began around the same time – there was certainly no shortage of photos on our blog.  Add to that the weekly posting of our 2010 HNT pictures and you’ve got four weekly photo features for the majority of the year.  That’s a hell of a lot of pictures when you consider that prior to 2011 we’d only posted a single photo of us.
Anyway, happy New Year.  Be well.  We will definitely see you in 2013.  And we’ll do our best to get up off our asses and get the 2010 HNT page updated!

Formspring Friday: Teachable Moments

Jack3 Comments
Posted in Uncategorized
Other than your current partner, who have you learned the most from about sex?
(Submitted by Cougar in Training)
Jack’s Answer
This was a difficult question for me to answer.  I’m not trying to boast when I say that in most of my sexual relationships I was, for lack of a better word, the Alpha.  I was older than most of my partners.  I was typically the dominant one.  I was sometimes (though not always or even necessarily most of the time) the more sexually experienced one.  And most importantly, I was much more knowledgeable.  Again, I don’t say this as some sort of badge of honor, some means of building myself up.  It is simply the truth.  During late childhood and early adolescence, I read extensively about human sexuality.  It was something in which I had much interest, and out of a desire to know as much as possible I would often check out books on the subject from our local libraries.
As a result, I was often more knowledgeable than my partners, most of whom were perhaps less-versed in the intricacies of sex than I was.  While I have been with quite a few women who I’d classify as kinky or at least open-minded, I was generally the one who came up with new things to try, suggesting variations beyond what might be considered standard.  This may speak volumes about the pool from which I chose my bedmates; college classrooms, stuffy office jobs, and the like were pretty much all I had to choose from in the 1990s and early 2000s.  Had I been using Twitter at the time – had it even existed – I might have quite a story to tell, possibly involving a forty-something professor of Human Sexuality who during our brief but intense fling introduced me to non-monogamy and let me flog her during a Kinbaku session at a local BDSM club.
On the one hand, I’m inclined to say that I learned most of what I know about sex from the local library, specifically from such personalities as Alex Comfort, David Reuben, and Masters and Johnson.  On the other hand, when it comes to sex, personal experience obviously trumps just about anything found in a book.  If I had to choose a former lover I’d likely go with a friend with benefits from my college days circa the late 1990s.  She was confident and sex-positive, though neither of us thought to use that term back then; and she challenged my notions of what sex was.  She was the first woman I’d ever masturbated in front of, as unlike some of my previous lovers she regarded it as an enticing display of virility.  Additionally, she was one of the first women to express to me an interest in BDSM, the first woman to express an interest in non-monogamy as anything beyond a fantasy, and the first woman I ever fisted to the point of ejaculation.
Admittedly, my sexual experience was limited at this point.  I’d been with less than ten women, and most were rather reserved and/or insecure.  And while the women I’ve been with since have helped me experience the relative boundlessness of human sexual expression in ways that this person did not, I still look back with fondness upon my experiences with her. 

Jill’s Answer

Although all of my partners have contributed to my sexual knowledge and experience in some way, I would have to say that I learned the most from a fuck buddy I slept with for two years.  I’ve written about this guy before, but if you don’t know who I’m talking about, he was a friend of my boyfriend.  In fact, he treated me way better than my boyfriend did, so I eventually jumped ship.

Simply put, this fuck buddy was unlike any guy I’d ever had sex with.  He made me feel sexy and sensual.  He adored my body and couldn’t keep his hands off of me when we were together.  He was the first person I ever masturbated in front of in person (as opposed to on a webcam).  He got so much pleasure out of watching me pleasure myself, and because of this I became much more aware of my body.  It made me happy to know that I was putting on a good show for him, and in the process I learned what kinds of sensations I liked.  He was also the first guy that licked my pussy to orgasm.  No one up to that point cared enough, I guess, to spend the necessary time getting me off.  Usually they would go down on me just enough to get me excited, then stop and fuck me.  But this guy ate my pussy like it was the only sustenance he needed.  He was so amazing with his mouth, and loved to make me cum.  I would regularly have multiple orgasms with him (not just orally), and when I thought I couldn’t take anymore, that’s when he would give me just enough to push me over the edge.
He was also the first person I had sex with in public.  That’s when I first realized that I was turned on by exhibitionism, and the possibility of being watched, or even caught in the act.  While the sex was great, the hint of danger made it better than it had ever been.  To this day, I am really turned on by showing off.  I’ve performed for friends in person, but I usually do it on Skype.  Whether I am getting fucked by Jack, or just masturbating, I love having an audience, and I owe this guy many thanks for helping me figure that out.  In fact, I fondly recall the time I was having sex with him in his bedroom and his roommate came in and masturbated right next to me.  This was my first experience with a live audience, and it was fucking hot.
While I’ve definitely learned more about sex and about myself from Jack than I have from anybody else, had I not had a two-year relationship with this fuck buddy, I don’t know that I would have been the same person I was when I met Jack, and I question whether he and I would be together today.
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: Resolve

Jack4 Comments
Posted in Uncategorized
Picture courtesy of Knotty Monkey/More Bad Advice
Riker dashed through the ballroom, earning incredulous stares from the revelers.  A mustachioed waiter teetered on his feet and nearly dropped a tray of champagne flutes as he passed.  
He ran through the kitchen, pushing his way past an enormous bouncer and an angry chef until he reached the staircase.  He descended twelve steps in two enormous strides, aware that the bouncer was close behind.  He had no time to explain himself.
At the bottom he came to a wine cellar, slamming the door behind him to slow his pursuer.  For good measure, he pulled down a heavy oak hutch, sending bottles and stemware to the floor.  Glass shattered and wood splintered, but Riker didn’t pause further before leaping over the mess and racing out the door.
He found himself in a courtyard, running past drunken party-goers waiting to toast to the new year.  Had to be less than five minutes left.  Ahead stood a small bandstand surrounded by stone bench seating.  Several people sat there, conversing or mingling.  To the left and right were narrow corridors leading to outbuildings.
Midway down one corridor stood a woman in a torn flamenco dress.  Though she was standing upright, she seemed to be struggling with something close to the ground, perhaps trying to pull a heavy rope.  And that’s when he realized that he’d found it.  
As he ran down the corridor the bouncer finally extricated himself from the mess in the wine cellar and led a small security entourage into the courtyard.  Riker saw that the woman was chained by her ankle to a metal drainage grating.  She pulled furiously on her bonds.  Through the grating he could see the blinking red light.  He had less than two minutes.
In her native tongue, he told her to relax, that he would take care of everything.  He could see vivid impressions of the links on her hands once she let go of the chain.  Riker crouched close to the floor and activated the cuff link on his right arm.  The red beam burned through the grating, liquefying the metal in seconds.  
She stared, eyes agape, as he reached through the metal and withdrew a small metal device.  The red light blinked insistently.
Security came charging down the corridor.  He took her by the hand.  “Ven conmigo si quieres vivir.”
Nearby, the revelers chanted a countdown.  As Riker activated the cuff link on his left arm a cable flew from his arm, a tiny hook embedding itself near the top of the stone wall.  Without so much as a pithy comeback in the direction of the security guards, he retracted the cable and he and his attractive companion rose.  When they reached the top of the wall the countdown reached zero, and he hurled the device as hard as he could.  The explosion was all but camouflaged by the fireworks.
They raced along the precipice to the pier, where his boat waited.  “Feliz ano nuevo”, he said as they made their escape.  (499/500)

Behind the Scenes

Although this week’s Flash Fiction Friday prompt was posted on Sunday, I didn’t check it until Thursday.  Fortunately, despite a very busy week (and a very busy Thursday in particular) I quickly came up with what I hope is a suitable story for the prompt.

The challenge included not only the prompt photo, but a larger-than-expected 500-word limit, and the key phrase “New Year” or “New Year’s”.  In addition, participants were offered extra credit for including a phrase in a foreign language.  Technically speaking I didn’t include the key phrase; according to Advizor54‘s rules, it was to have been capitalized, i.e. “Happy New Year”.  However, I fudged it a bit by having Riker say it in Spanish at the end of the story.  
My other Spanish-language phrase (“Come with me if you want to live”) was taken from James Cameron’s 1984 and 1991 films The Terminator and Terminator 2: Judgment Day.  The name of the protagonist was not deliberately borrowed from Jonathan Frakes’ character in Star Trek: The Next Generation; I’d initially planned on not revealing the character’s name, but when the ambiguity hindered the story – you can only use pronouns so many times without confusing the reader – I chose the first name that came to mind.
Although 500 words is a lot for a flash fiction story, I find that I tend to reach the limit quickly.  Were I a leaner, more efficient writer, I might have been better able to flesh out such details as who Riker is, the identity and significance of the woman chained to the grating (as well as why she apparently abandons her home country to escape with her savior) and the identity of the villain who placed the bomb.  But as it stands I like the idea that we’ve been given a snapshot into a much larger story.
The title, “Resolve”, refers to Riker’s determination to find the bomb, while simultaneously referring to the practice of making a New Year’s resolution.
Deleted Scenes
The original plan was to have the corridor flood, thus drowning the young woman.  But given that she’s chained to a grating, I assumed that drowning wouldn’t be the most efficient method of disposal.
In looking for a Spanish-language version of “Auld Lang Syne” (see Soundtrack section), I came across a Spanish tradition wherein people eat a dozen grapes at midnight on New Year’s Day in order to ensure a year of good luck.  Given that the story possibly takes place in Spain, as opposed to another Spanish-speaking country, I thought it would be nice to include reference to this tradition.  I simply couldn’t make it fit.
In my rough outline for this story, I noted that there is no sex in this story.  I planned to include an interlude between Riker and the young woman once they’ve escaped.  The final line would have been the young woman screaming, “¡Me viene!” (“I’m cumming!”)
Soundtrack
This one’s a no-brainer:  Johnny Rivers’ “Secret Agent Man”, segueing into Guy Lombardo’s “Auld Lang Syne” as Riker throws the bomb.  (I wanted to include a Spanish-language version of “Auld Lang Syne”, as it would seem more fitting, but it appears that no such thing exists.)  As he and his companion escape in the speedboat, how about Monty Norman’s “James Bond Theme” as heard in Dr. No?
Programming Note

This will likely be our final Flash Fiction Friday post for a few weeks, as we will be taking a blogging hiatus at the end of the year.

Wicked Wednesday: A Christmas Eve Orgy

Jack12 Comments
Posted in Uncategorized

‘Twas the night before Christmas and all through the house

Not a creature was stirring, except for my spouse

The stockings I’d chosen to wear were so hot

I hoped that my husband would like them a lot

The child was nestled all snug in her bed

And all I could think of was giving Jack head

I walked to the couch, and dropped into his lap

He took me to bed, but not for a nap

At the touch of my hand I felt his cock dance

So I unbuckled his belt and tore open his pants

I gave him a lick and Jack said “Oh fuck”

So I opened my mouth and I started to suck

When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter

That I paused in my quest for Jack’s baby batter

I dashed to the window without getting dressed

Not even bothering to cover my breasts

When what to my wondering eyes should appear

But all of our sexy friends gathering near

We opened the door and invited them in

And they promptly joined us for holiday sin

I heard Jack exclaim when at last he did cum

“Merry Christmas to all! Who else wants some?”

This week’s prompt

TMI Tuesday: December 25, 2012 – Merry Christmas and Happy TMI Tuesday!

Jack3 Comments
Posted in Uncategorized
Jack’s Answers
1. What is the best thing you received for Christmas?
As I write this, I’ve yet to open my Christmas presents.  In fact, when it’s posted I will have opened exactly zero Christmas presents.  I might edit this later once the gifts are opened, but chances are I won’t.  It’s difficult for me to rank gifts; I tend to like everything I receive just about equally, whether it’s a high-end DSLR camera or a new sweater.  (Or, at least, I say I do.)
2. What is the best gift you gave for Christmas?
Once again, by the time this is posted Jill will not have opened her gifts so I can’t get too specific.  I think I’ll go with the Hitachi Magic Wand, which we technically ordered together.  If any of the gifts I give Jill this year manages to top the Hitachi for sheer awesomeness, that’ll be quite an accomplishment.
3. What is your Christmas wish?
Continued good health and happiness for my friends and loved ones.
4. What are you plans for New Year’s Eve?
We’ll undoubtedly stay up to watch the ball drop as we do every year, but it’s doubtful that we’ll go anyplace.  I’ll brave the crowds for the sake of Christmas shopping, but not so I can get elbowed by a bunch of amateur drinkers as we fight for space in an overcrowded bar.  So it’s likely that we’ll ring in the New Year, and then have sex.  This is what we do most New Year’s Eves, and it works pretty well for us.
Bonus: The end of the world aka the Mayan apocalypse did not occur on 12/21/2012. Nonetheless people across the world prepared for the doomsday event. How did you prepare for the end of the world?
I didn’t prepare in any way, shape, or form, because as with every other predicted apocalypse I knew it wasn’t going to happen.  If you’d like to know how I spent the days leading up to December 21st, I watched the internet carefully for any sort of ritual suicide, bequeathing of possessions, or other burning of bridges by individuals who were really expecting the world to end.  To my pleasant surprise, I saw relatively few instances of that sort of thing.  Maybe we as a society are growing smarter.  I doubt it, but maybe.
Jill’s Answers
1. What is the best thing you received for Christmas?
The best thing I’ve received this year has been the gift card from my class.  I haven’t opened anything else, but it really is a practical gift and one that Jack will be hard-pressed to top.  I know it’s the thought that counts, but a gift card makes a much better gift for a teacher than a candle, a combination scarf-and-gloves set, or even chocolates.  Just make sure you get a gift card to a store or restaurant your child’s teacher actually likes.  
2. What is the best gift you gave for Christmas?
I just gave Jack some great Christmas Eve head.  He returned the favor by cumming in my mouth.  It’s like we were made for each other!
3. What is your Christmas wish?
I feel like I have everything I want in life, so I guess I will wish for my family and friends to be healthy and happy in 2013 and beyond.  I’d also like to meet and play with some more sexy friends.
4. What are you plans for New Year’s Eve?
It really depends on whether or not we can get a babysitter.  As of now, we have no plans.  Does anyone want to invite us over?
Bonus: The end of the world aka the Mayan apocalypse did not occur on 12/21/2012. Nonetheless people across the world prepared for the doomsday event. How did you prepare for the end of the world?
I didn’t prepare for the end of the world, because I knew the world wasn’t going to end.  So I got up and went to work every day leading up to the supposed apocalypse, right up to December 21st.  When the world didn’t end I was glad I hadn’t wasted any effort preparing for it.
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!