Zen and Sex

by Dermot Davis

  “Nothing.”

  “You’re not wearing anything at all?”

  “No.”

  “Okay. Are you lying down?”

  “Do you want me to be lying down?”

  “It’s not a hypothetical question. I’m merely trying to picture where you are in your room, if you even are in your room, are you?”

  “I’m lying down on the bed, wearing nothing. Naked.”

  “Oh. Good. That’s better. That helps.”

  “What would you like to do to me?”

  “You know what I’d like to do to you.”

  “Then say it. You need to tell me. Seduce me.”

  “I’d like to come over and have sex with you.”

  “That’s nice but it’s not very seductive. You need to be more, I don’t know, erotic.”

  “Have you done this many times before? I get the impression that this is not your first time.” There’s no way I could have my first phone sex experience with someone who is so obviously an expert. It would be like playing tennis with someone ten times better than you where you’re running around the court like a madman trying just to get the ball over the net. Meanwhile, they casually stand in place, hitting the ball back with one hand and texting with the other. In one word: demoralizing.

  “Is it your first time?” she asks, casually.

  “Yeah. I pray to god they get my car fixed tomorrow.”

  “So, what would you like to do to me?”

  “I don’t know. What are you in the mood for?”

  “I was in the mood for seduction but now I’m signing in to FaceBook.”

  “Oh, okay. Call you tomorrow, then.”

  That experience made me realize that you have to have a substantial and titillating vocabulary to master the whole phone sex thing or you will never get off the dime, or just get bogged down or worse still, become repetitive.

  So Doris briefly shows Frances and me where to put our things and invites us to a home cooked supper where we all sit around the kitchen table and literally, have a feast.

  “Where did you guys meet?” asks Doris.

  “We met at Café Luna, my local hangout. Martin takes all his first dates there.”

  “That was just…” I don’t get to finish.

  “He struck out so many times I took pity on him.”

  “How did you two meet?” I ask, hoping to deflect attention away from my dating fiascos.

  “We met on an internet dating site,” answers Chuck, who immediately receives daggers eyes from Doris. “I’m not embarrassed,” he tells her.

  “What’s to be embarrassed about?” asks Frances.

  “It just seems so forced or desperate or something: ‘how did you meet your soul mate? On GoGetASoulMateForYourself.com,’ It just sounds lame,” argues Doris.

  “If you didn’t place a listing…we never would have met, sweetheart,” says Chuck.

  “That’s just it. I’m with you because of that listing. But I can’t help thinking that maybe I’ve gone against fate,” says Doris.

  I should add here that, although I haven’t personally witnessed a lot of drinking, it does appear that Doris has been imbibing for quite some time. This, I think, may explain her seemingly combatant mood, although maybe she’s always like this. I don’t know.

  “In what way, gone against fate?” asks Frances.

  “I don’t know, just books I’ve been reading lately suggest that fate will bring you your soul mate and you need to have trust and not force things or try to do it yourself…be open to the universe and somehow, in some unexpected way, perhaps, destiny will arrange for you to bring your soul mate to you.”

  There’s a bit of a lull in the conversation here. I think what some people are thinking, I certainly am, is that what Doris is saying is that Chuck is not her soul mate and that, by co-opting the universe and fate and stuff, she messed up her chance for destiny to bring her true partner in life. I notice that no one is raising their eyes from their food, so as not to embarrass Chuck, any more than he is, I guess.

  “But don’t you think that maybe you were helping destiny by placing that listing?” Frances says with impressive tact, “it’s a bit like the story of the guy that pleads to god to help him win the lottery and after many years of pleading, god finally tells the man that he can’t help him win the lottery if he doesn’t buy himself a lottery ticket.”

  “Yeah, maybe,” says Doris, without any conviction, whatsoever. “I’m going to make some coffee: everyone for coffee?”

  “Let me help,” says Frances and they both get up and leave me with a bereft-looking Chuck.

  “How long have you guys been together?” I ask Chuck, who is now playing with the food on his plate.

  “Three years,” answers Chuck, “but with Doris being away most of the time, it’s probably reduced to a few months.”

  “Long distance relationships are tough. You two have stuck with it, though. That’s great,” I say, waffling.

  “You’ve been in some long term relationships?”

  “No. But everyone knows that they’re tough. They must be tough, not being together, in the same place, being apart…”

  The dinner conversation never fully recovers, even after Doris breaks out some twelve-year-old Scotch to spice up the coffee. Chuck and Doris never say much for the rest of the evening but I can see that Frances is wired from the coffee and Scotch. Then she bores the pants off the married couple with her talk of Zen and the importance of honest communication.

  To be fair to her it is a really tough crowd. They both look massively depressed and I don’t even think that an impromptu visit from The Blue Man group, or something equally hilarious, would manage to cheer them up. Now, that is a couple in a funk.

  Doris shows us to a guest bedroom which is not the one we initially put our overnight stuff in. “Tomorrow, when mum stays over, I’m going to shift you guys downstairs to the office, okay?”

  When Doris leaves and closes the door, a cold chill goes up my back: Frances and I are going to sleep together. Hardly an unexpected turn of events, I did agree to come away with her for the weekend, after all. Yet strangely, now that we’re finally alone, I realize that, after our previous sexual encounter, I’m actually very scared to do anything at all sexual with her.

  “Take off your clothes,” says Frances in a very sultry tone. I break out in a sweat and I think I might be shaking a little.

  “Are you nervous?” Frances asks.

  “Nervous about what?”

  “I thought we were going to try honest communication?”

  “I’m a little bit nervous, sure. The last time wasn’t great.”

  “Would it help if I took off my clothes first?” Without waiting for an answer, Frances very slowly and very sexily undresses before me. Slowly unbuttoning her top, she looks at me the whole time: her breasts are full, surprisingly pert and overall, just amazing.

  When she slowly and deliberately loosens her jeans belt, I feel like reaching out and stroking her boobs but I get the impression that she wants this to be a show. I don’t know if it’s intended but when she bends down to undo her shoes, she still doesn’t break her gaze staring at me and her head is now on the same level as my crotch, which is tease personified.

  Off come her jeans and, “Hello,” she totally shops at Victoria’s Secret. Her pink undies with frills and bows that scream, ‘take me, I’m all yours!’ When she masterfully undoes her bra and smoothly drops it to the floor, I’m so relaxed and excited at the same time that now I can’t wait to join her nakedness and totally jump her bones.

  I contemplate a slow, seductive striptease but I’ve tried it before and too many girls giggled for no apparent reason to make their reaction a one-off freak incident. I don’t want to rush it with Frances, though, so undressing, I split the difference between slow and manic.

  We now stand facing each other, naked and ready to go but still I display remarkable restraint and hold back. Just like Humphrey Bogart in The Petrified Forest
, I was going to underplay the whole scene, no grandstanding performance tonight, thank you very much.

  “Now you can’t lie,” Frances says. “A naked person can’t tell lies.”

  “When was the last time you had sex?” I ask, coyly taking advantage of the naked-no-lying strategy. Frances simply smiles and walks closer until she is inches away. I take this as my cue to kiss her but she stops my lips with her finger.

  “What do you say we let our bodies get to know each other first?”

  Very gently she takes my right hand and strokes it so softly that the hairs stand erect on every other part of my body. As her fingertips slowly moves up my arms, I feel like I’m just about to burst: this woman is a total turn-on machine.

  “Put your mind into the tips of your fingers and touch everything, except the obvious,” Frances says with a breathy sexiness, even though I don’t think she was trying to be sexy.

  So, like her, I start with her hands and stroke her arms and shoulders. Her skin is so soft and silky, she feels like a porcelain doll. I’ve no idea why all of this is so gorgeously erotic but it is: I haven’t even started on her breasts yet. As she strokes my bare chest with her delicate fingers, I’m almost shaking with desire.

  “Frances?”

  “Yes, Martin?”

  She moves her lips just centimeters from my lips and strokes her nose softly against mine. Is that what they call an Eskimo kiss? I can feel my lower lip quivering.

  “Are we going to have sex soon?”

  “What do you think this is?”

  “I don’t know. Eskimo sex?”

  “You want to fuck, is that it?”

  I know she didn’t intend the word ‘fuck’ to be exponentially, mind-blowing erotic but I’m hanging by a thread here.

  “It would be good to know if that’s where you intend this to end up, that’s all.”

  “In Zen archery, the archer doesn’t concern himself solely with the target. If he merges his mind with the bow, the arrow and the target, then it becomes one movement. The archer doesn’t fire the arrow; the arrow shoots itself.”

  “That really clears things up, thank you.”

  “It means not to be so goal oriented.” Frances is now lightly kissing my shoulders and neck. If we don’t get horizontal soon, premature ejaculation is definitely in my future.

  “It’s the journey and not the destination.”

  “You do know Zen.”

  “I watch PBS when the porno channel gets blocked,” I say, trying not to think of any porno whatsoever.

  “Does this excite you?”

  “The finger teasing or the running commentary?”

  “Did you know that words turn women on?”

  “Which is ironic: words put men to sleep.”

  “Then why do you have an erection?”

  “The arrow has been ready to release since your bra came off.”

  Frances’ fingers finally get introduced to my obvious parts and we finally do get horizontal and the arrow does get to fire, twice.

  It was so unbelievably am-az-ing that I don’t think I’ll ever recover. Just as baby ducklings become imprinted by the first thing they see moving before them, I believe that sexually, I have just imprinted upon Frances. I will never make love to another woman ever again. I could but my psyche just might not be able to handle the subsequent disappointment and regret. I think I love this Zen thing. For my future survival and as a matter of maintaining my sanity, I must keep Frances…at all costs.

  9. Do I Look Old And Haggard In The Morning, Sweetheart?

  I wake early. Actually I have no idea if it’s early or not, Frances is asleep beside me and it just feels early. Even if I didn’t get a full eight hours sleep, I feel alive, awake and enthusiastic. Normally when I wake up before the woman I’ve just slept with, I’ll accidently on purpose wake her up so that we can have coffee and breakfast. Or if I want to be alone, I’ll sneak out of bed, get dressed, make breakfast for two and hope that after she eats, she’ll toddle off home. But not this time.

  Never, ever, have I woken up and felt the urge to stare at my sleeping partner. I’ve never had another guy admit to me that he’s ever done it, either, so I just assumed that it was only something that was confined to the make-believe lovers in soppy romantic comedies.

  Frances looks adorable as she sleeps, in fact, she looks like maybe what a baby looks like as it sleeps, so innocent and sweet you just feel like sighing deeply and saying, ahhhh, how cute. I’d pinch her cheeks but that might wake her.

  Her eyes flutter, which I know is a sign of REM sleep and I wonder what she might be dreaming. She looks happy, so, whatever kind of dream it is, I’m sure it can’t be bad. Maybe she’s dreaming of me and our future together? Does she even think that way about me? That we may have a future together? Wow, I have to check myself… I’m beginning to think like a girl.

  If we do have a future together, how would that work with the age difference and everything? When I’m forty, she’ll be fifty-four and when she’s sixty, I’ll be still in my forties. What’s she going to look like in ten years, when I’ll be still in my prime and, like George Clooney, probably even more handsome than I am now, because fair or not, that’s how it seems to work out for guys.

  Maybe she’ll want to get some work done on her face to make her look younger? Maybe she has had work done already; she does look very young for her age. How can you tell if someone has had work done? She does have some wrinkles, not huge, but there are some definite crow’s feet around her eyes…

  “Morning,” says Frances, before even opening her eyes, which catches me by surprise. “You were watching me sleep?” she asks, eyes now open wide and I’m wondering how long she has been awake.

  “I was waiting for you to wake up naturally, didn’t want to wake you.”

  “I appreciate that. What were you thinking…while you were waiting?”

  “I was thinking how beautiful you look.”

  “That’s very sweet. What were you really thinking?”

  “It’s true. I was thinking how beautiful you look and…”

  “And what?”

  “You’re looking for honest communication, right?”

  “Yes, please.”

  “Well, suppose I say something very honest and it hurts your feelings?”

  “If something you say hurts me, as long as you’re not trying to hurt me, then it means that I have some unresolved issues that need healing. You’d actually be doing me a favor by pointing those areas out for me. That’s how a conscious relationship is supposed to work.”

  “Cool. It’s nothing really… I was just wondering about the future and checking out the wrinkles around your eyes and stuff.”

  Frances smiles, which totally relaxes me. “Do I look old and haggard in the morning, sweetheart?”

  “No, not at all. Maybe down the road you will, I guess, I don’t know.”

  “Everybody ages, Martin.”

  “Of course. I’m just surprised that it’s not a touchy subject for you, being a woman and all.”

  “I didn’t say it wasn’t a touchy subject, sweetie, and I’d be lying to you if I said that I was okay with aging and losing my looks, it sucks rocks, are you kidding? What’s the worst thing that can happen as a guy ages? He gets salt and pepper hair? Which for most guys is an improvement to their looks or big deal, you go bald, which thanks to Bruce Willis and Vin Diesel, something that used to be considered geeky is now considered sexy. So yeah, I’m majorly pissed off about the whole aging thing and the unfairness of it…how men can get away with aging and women get royally screwed.”

  By her tone and noticeable increase in heartbeat, I can see that Frances does indeed have a few unresolved issues around the aging thing. I have a feeling that if I ask any more questions, she will most likely go off into another tirade but I really don’t want this good warm and fuzzy feeling inside to get a cold shower. Plus, I’m hungry. Maybe if we have a sexy shower together, Frances will get back in the mood. />
  “What are our plans for breakfast?” I ask cheerfully.

  “Breakfast?” Frances says, still lost in her thoughts. “I don’t know.”

  “I’m really liking this honest communication thing,” I say, trying to pull her back.

  “Yeah,” she says finally, her mood shifting upwards. “Yeah, it’s really important to do this. Thank you for being honest with me.” She kisses me and inwardly I rejoice that she has come back. “Let’s get breakfast.”

  Frances cooks breakfast for the four of us. Doris and Chuck are still in a depressing mood and they both look like they slept miserably, if at all. Call me a philistine but this is the first time I have had eggs Benedict. I’ve seen it on menus but I just never ordered it. I seemed to think that only New Yorkers or people over a certain age ordered it but I’m going to add it to my shortlist of breakfast favorites from now on, although, again, I may be disappointed with restaurant food after now being imprinted with Frances’ fabulous cooking.

  It is really weird sitting with Chuck and Doris. Nobody is saying anything beyond small talk and it is obvious that they really don’t want to socialize, anyway. At the other end of the mood scale, Frances and I are like giddy kids that have a secret that we aren’t telling anyone else. We keep catching each other’s eye and smiling. It is exhilarating.

  Besides Mike, it’s very rare for me to communicate non-verbally with someone, especially someone of the opposite sex. Women’s brains work in such fundamentally different ways, that even verbal communication with them is a challenge.

  But with Frances, it’s like we’ve been communicating non-verbally since the first time I saw her eating alone in the restaurant. I seem to know what she’s thinking and she always knows what I’m thinking. It’s uncanny.

  After breakfast, Frances tells me that she needs to help her sister, setting everything up for her mother’s birthday party. She declines my offer of help, and tells me to go out and explore the little town of Fairfax. So, camera in tow, I do.

  As I walk the narrow country road to the town, I can’t help but notice how absolutely beautiful everything is. The sun is radiant. It’s warm but not so hot that it’s uncomfortable. With my delicate skin, I don’t take the sun very well. If I have to be in it, I’ll usually wear a baseball cap. Here I find myself holding my face up to the sun, like it is the source of all goodness.