Finding Happiness in Los Angeles

by Oliver Markus Malloy

  "What are you doing?" she whispered innocently. Like she didn't know.

  "Shhh," I said and went down on her.

  She moaned. I could tell how excited she was and how much she enjoyed it. This was the first time she had sex in years. It was a big moment. She felt good, but she didn't cum. She was even more nervous than I was.

  But at least we got the awkward first time out of the way. We were no longer acting like polite strangers. Now we were finally ourselves again. We were both a lot more relaxed and knew that we were on the same page. Now we both knew that we liked each other. We kissed for a while and touched each other's bodies before we fell asleep.

  LIKE IT'S THE VERY FIRST TIME

  "I made it through the wilderness

  Somehow I made it through

  Didn't know how lost I was until I found you

  I was beat, incomplete, I'd been had

  I was sad and blue, but you made me feel

  Yeah, you made me feel shiny and new

  Like a virgin

  Touched for the very first time"

  Madonna

  The next morning we woke up and kissed and cuddled for a while. Neither one of us was in a rush to get out of bed. We both were eager to have sex.

  This time my little buddy was happy to cooperate. Shelly and I were both a lot more at ease. I was all ready to go, when she said: "No, not without a condom."

  I couldn't blame her. She knew all about my colorful past. I had anticipated it and had myself tested for everything right before she came to Florida. Just to be safe, and to have a paper I could show her. And I bought the largest box of condoms I could find. Hey, you never know. It's better to have too many than not enough.

  I pulled the test results out of my nightstand and showed her that I was clean.

  "Still, we have to use a condom. I'm not on the pill," she insisted.

  "Okayyy fiiine," I sighed. I pulled out a condom.

  She was lying on the bed. I kneeled next to her. My pride and joy pointed at her face. She kept staring at it with fascination in her eyes. Like she had never seen a dick before. I was waiting for her to put the condom on my eager little buddy.

  She looked at me like she didn't know what to do next.

  "Put the condom on!" I said. What the hell was she waiting for? Let's gooo! We're burning daylight! Chop chop!

  "I don't know how," she apologized. "You gotta do it yourself."

  Ugh. Great. I hated fumbling around with a condom. Giant mood killer! And they were too damn tight.

  At least this time I was smart enough to buy the extra large ones. But even they were uncomfortable and a pain in the ass to get on right.

  I finally got it on. I kneeled between her legs. My dick was only inches away from her pussy. She was nervous again, now that things were about to get real. She looked like she couldn't believe it was finally gonna happen.

  "Be gentle," she whispered.

  "Gentle is my middle name," I joked. "Not Gentle Atall."

  She was so tight, I had a hard time getting it in. I could tell she was in pain. I was trying to push it in too hard and too fast. I couldn't help it.

  "Get on top of me. Then you can ease it in at your own pace," I suggested.

  Once she sat on my lap, she carefully slipped it in. Very slowly. Just the tip at first. And the rest a few minutes later. Inch by inch. She had both, pain and pleasure, written all over her face. It took a while until it was finally all the way in.

  She started to ride me. Slowly at first, but then she was grinding faster and faster. Like she couldn't get enough. We were both moaning with pleasure.

  The elegant curves of her body and her supertight pussy turned me on so much, I couldn't remember the last time I was this horny. It didn't take long before I came.

  I felt guilty that I came before her, and went down on her again. I wanted her to finish, too. She moaned loudly. I could tell how eager she was to have an orgasm, but no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't get her there. She was still too anxious.

  "I don't think it's gonna happen," she said. She sounded disappointed.

  "Don't worry. It'll happen sooner or later. Don't anticipate an orgasm when I go down on you. Just relax and enjoy the moment. Clear your mind. Whatever happens, happens. Even if you don't cum, it's still gonna feel good. So just enjoy that feeling and don't think about anything. Don't try to force yourself to cum," I suggested.

  She made a cute frowny face and said "Fiiine. I'll try that next time."

  Over the next few days, I showed her everything Southwest Florida had to offer. We visited the colorful hippie art stores in Matlacha, and collected sea shells on the beaches of Sanibel Island. We visited the giant flea market on MLK Boulevard, and ate real alligator meat. It tasted like fishy chicken nuggets.

  We drove through the Everglades and went on an airboat ride, to see alligators in their natural habitat. We went shopping at the Coconut Point Mall and some of the other ritzy malls in Miromar and Naples. We even visited South Beach in Miami. We had a great time.

  And every night we had sex, and I tried my best to make her cum. But it just wasn't working. I was starting to doubt my superpowers.

  Had I promised her too much?

  She said she didn't mind. It felt amazing with or without an orgasm. She seemed to be telling the truth, because we couldn't make it through a single movie without making out and having sex.

  We tried to watch the Fault In Our Stars four times, but never made it through the whole movie without having sex. Yeah, even a movie about kids with cancer couldn't stop us.

  There was something different about sex with her. It felt different from the other girls. I had gotten used to the way it felt with them, and thought that's just how normal sex feels.

  Heroin is a pain killer. It numbs your nerve endings. So heroin addicted girls don't really feel much down there. Girls like Lucy didn't really enjoy sex. They did it for a living, with a dozen or more guys every day. It was a chore to them. Giving a blowjob was no more arousing to them than folding laundry. It was just another job. To them sex was a tool, to manipulate men and get what they want.

  When I had sex with one of them, they didn't do it because they craved it, but because they wanted something from me in return, whether it was a place to stay or food or a ride or whatever.

  Somehow I had forgotten that it's not supposed to be like that.

  They were never really as into it as Shelly was. She was genuinely enjoying sex. And that in turn made it that much better for me, too. I loved to listen to her moan, and watch her body writhe in pleasure. She wasn't doing it because she was trying to get something out of me. She was just doing it because it felt good.

  We had a great week together, but all good things must come to an end, and it was time for her to leave. It was the last day, and we still had two hours before we had to drive to the airport.

  We cuddled on the bed and kissed and talked.

  "Have you ever had a massage?" I asked.

  "No, not really. I usually don't like when people touch me. It's different with you," she said.

  "What? You've never had a massage? Well, it's about time then! Would you like one?" I asked.

  "Hmm, ok, sure," she said. She didn't sound all that enthusiastic. Like she didn't really think she would enjoy it.

  "Take your clothes off," I said.

  She stripped down to her underwear. I sat up, with my back against the headboard, and told her to lie down between my legs, with her head in my lap. I gently massaged her face, her temples, her forehead and her scalp.

  She was in heaven. She was so relaxed, she almost fell asleep.

  Then I told her to lie face down, so I could massage her back. I sat on her thighs and slowly, tenderly massaged her neck, shoulders, arms, her back and her butt. I had some soothing music playing in the background. She fell asleep.

  After a while I got up and told her to turn around on her back. I massaged her hands.

  "This... feels... sooo... goo
d," she whispered.

  "Good," I smiled. I was happy to be able to make her feel good. One last little parting gift.

  Then I sat on the bench at the foot of the bed and massaged her feet.

  "My feet have never felt this good before," she whispered.

  I kept massaging them, pressing into the arch and rubbing each toe and her heels.

  She looked like she had completely forgotten where she was, or that she wasn't alone in the room. Her mind was blank. Like she was in a trance.

  Then I gently pulled her panties off and went down on her. I gently licked and sucked her pretty little pussy, carefully paying attention to her reactions. When I found something she particularly enjoyed, I kept doing it. She moaned blissfully. She didn't have a care in the world.

  And then it happened. She had an epic, massive, earth-shattering orgasm! Her whole body was convulsing, like she couldn't handle it.

  After a few seconds she finally calmed down. She looked at me with such satisfaction on her face, and laughed: "Oh my God! That was amazing! That was the biggest orgasm I've ever had in my life!"

  We both laughed. I crawled up on the bed and lay next to her. She snuggled into my arms. We kissed.

  "See? I wasn't lying! I told you I could make you cum like that," I smiled.

  She smiled too: "Yeah, you definitely kept your word!"

  I looked at the clock. Oh shit! We should've been on our way to the airport already!

  We quickly got dressed and headed out.

  We said good bye at the airport, hugged, and kissed one last time.

  "Thank you for everything. I had a really good time," she texted me right before she boarded the plane.

  "Me too! Can't wait to see you again!" I texted back.

  After she arrived in Los Angeles, she texted me again: "I just landed. I'm still tingly all over. And I still feel like you're inside of me when I walk."

  I smiled. I was proud of myself. I did a good job. I left quite the impression.

  But she did, too. I couldn't stop thinking about her. This week with her was the happiest I had been in years. A little voice in the back of my head whispered: "You found her! She's The One!"

  The next day she sent me a long email and basically broke up with me. What the FUCK?!?

  She wrote that she had a really good time and I was a special guy and what not, but that she knew things could never work out between us, because, let's face it, we were too different, and lived too far apart. And she wasn't looking for a long distance relationship, and she was sure she wasn't the kind of girl I was looking for either.

  What the fucking FUCK?!?

  Maybe she had abandonment issues. People with abandonment issues are so afraid of rejection, they break up with you first, so you can't break up with them. Because breaking up with someone is a lot less painful than being dumped.

  I spent the next few days trying to convince her to not just throw away what we had. She finally agreed that it couldn't hurt if we kept talking to each other. But she made it a point to say that we were not in a relationship. We were just friends. Friends with benefits.

  Maybe she was afraid that if we were in a long distance relationship, I would be tempted to continue sleeping with some of the local girls in Florida. And she didn't want to get her heart broken, so she felt it was better to keep an emotional distance.

  I told her how much she meant to me. But she kept her distance. We kept talking and writing every day, and I told her I loved her. But she wouldn't say it back. She just said she liked me a lot. Then she said she lived me.

  "You live me? What does that mean?" I asked.

  "It's a combination of like and love. It's in the middle. It's more than like but less than love," she explained.

  "Alrighty then. Well, I guess that'll have to do for now," I said.

  After that I told her I loved her at the end of every phone call, and she replied with "I live you" each time.

  I teased her about it, but she kept using that word.

  One day I asked her: "What did you tell your friend Susan in Hawaii about us?"

  "That we're close friends and I like you," she replied.

  "Did you tell her we had sex?" I asked.

  "Of course!" she giggled.

  "And? What did Susan say?"

  "That she's happy for me," Shelly giggled.

  "That's it?"

  "Susan asked if it was good."

  "And? What did you say?" I asked. Jesus. This was like pulling teeth. Couldn't she just tell me the whole damn conversation they had?

  "I told her it was the best sex I've ever had in my life," Shelly giggled.

  "Yeah, that's rrright!" I laughed. "I gave you the biggest orgasm of your life! Huahhh!"

  I didn't tell her that it was the best sex I had, too. She probably wouldn't have believed me anyway, even though it was true. She would have thought I was just saying it back to her, because I felt obligated.

  After a few more weeks of emailing and talking on the phone, Shelly invited me to visit her in Los Angeles.

  I booked a flight to LA for October 2014.

  LOS ANGELES

  "The world is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page."

  Saint Augustine

  "The most dangerous worldview is the worldview of those who have never really seen the world."

  Alexander von Humboldt

  "Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime."

  Mark Twain

  "Every man takes the limits of his own field of vision for the limits of the world."

  Arthur Schopenhauer

  "The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking new landscapes, but in having new eyes."

  Marcel Proust

  "You don't have to cling to your point of view. Nobody can stop you from becoming smarter."

  Konrad Adenauer

  "The best education I have ever received was through travel."

  Lisa Ling

  "Travel early and travel often. Live abroad, if you can. Understand cultures other than your own. As your understanding of other cultures increases, your understanding of yourself and your own culture will increase exponentially."

  Tom Freston

  Shelly picked me up from LAX. We hugged and kissed and rushed home. We couldn't wait to get home and have sex again.

  Over the next few days she showed me LA. The last time I was here was in 2002. On a road trip from New York to Los Angeles. I wrote a little book about it. Check it out, if you'd like a glimpse of what crazy Oliver was like when he was still innocent and well-behaved. Before all the crazy stuff happened.

  A lot had changed since the last time I was here. Shelly showed me the Santa Monica Pier and Third Street Promenade. Sunset Boulevard, the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and we admired the views from Mulholland Drive. We took romantic pictures at the Urban Lights in front of the LACMA. We visited the La Brea Tar Pits and checked out The Grove and The Americana malls. Of course we also went to The Getty and the Griffith Observatory.

  But my two favorite places were Venice Beach and Melrose Avenue, for their creative, colorful, counter culture vibes. I've always felt most at home among freethinkers, artists and outsiders.

  Many years ago, in the early 90s, not long after I had moved to New York, I saw Rent. I fell in love with their Bohemian lifestyle so much, I wished I could move in with them. My favorite neighborhoods in New York were Greenwich Village, Alphabet City, and St. Mark's Place.

  Then Shelly showed me her world. The Asian neighborhoods, like Korea Town and Arcadia. I had no idea there were this many Asians in Los Angeles! I always knew there were lots of Mexicans, but all this Asian stuff was a surprise to me.

  She liked to go grocery shopping at Korean, Chinese and Japanese stores, because they had exotic food items that mainstream American gr
ocery stores didn't carry.

  If you have never been to a grocery store in Europe or Asia, you have no idea what you're missing. There is so much stuff Americans don't even know exists. A supermarket in Germany has so much more variety than American grocery stores. In America shelves are stocked with lots of the same product. In Germany shelves are stocked with fewer duplicates, which gives them more room for greater variety for products from all over the world.

  In American supermarkets you get to choose between chocolate milk, strawberry milk and vanilla. That's it. In Germany you get to pick between thirty different flavors. And that's just one example. Everything is like that. They also have hundreds of different types of cheeses. They even have coffee-flavored black cheese! And their meat counters have dozens of different sausages and cold cuts. They even have chocolate-banana-flavored Nutella!