Erotica Artist Ch. 07: Sex Goddess

I might have written her lines myself. In fact I'd written lines almost identical for many of my female characters over countless pages over the years. Yet she was acting without a dialogue coach, without a director. And she was writing her own lines. Like Nicole she enjoyed dirty talk during sex, and like Nicole she'd been missing this in her most recent boyfriends.

I began to appreciate her curiosity about my erotic writings at times like these, and was tempted once or twice to break down and show something to her. One night after an especially lurid session she caught sight of a sealed cardboard box with my cryptic identification codes inked on the side.

"Are those your dirty books by any chance?" she cooed.

"As a matter of fact they are," I admitted. But I made no move to open up the box.

"So you still don't trust me enough to show them to me?"

"Dana, I don't trust you at all!" I confessed.

At this she only laughed. "Still hung up about your fantasy life, even after what we've just done together?"

"I suppose. Though I haven't written a word, incidentally, since I started seeing you."

"No one should be ashamed of his fantasies. We all have them, if we have any imagination at all."

"And you don't mind revealing yours to other people?"

"Not people I trust. Want to hear one of my dirtiest fantasies?"

"Not really."

"I fantasize about having sex with several men at the same time. Three or four or more. I think that would be incredibly exciting."

"Do you really crave attention that much?"

"What do you mean?"

"Isn't that the main theme of your whole life: craving the attention of as many men, and women, as possible?"

"Not at all. I like variety, and I don't like to limit myself."

"And that means having how many boyfriends going at the same time?" I persisted.

"That's really none of your business, Mason. Look, we both have certain areas of our lives that we keep very private. With you, it's your erotic writing. With me, it's my sex life. You should just appreciate what you've got. It may not be exclusive rights to me, but then nobody ever gets that. And it's still a hundred times better than anything else that might be available."

This I found hard to dispute. With whom else could I experience the most exciting and exhilarating sex and then listen to her discuss Henry James and Proust? The woman definitely had a point. The question was simply how long could I put up with a situation that was making me miserable in spite of the perks.

I hoped to see changes in my favor over time. The gradual dropping off of all the other men in her life, for instance, and an increase in her commitment to me. But was this even a remote possibility?

And why did I even want it? Hadn't I sworn off romance for good? Wasn't no-holes-barred sex enough? Why was I still wanting more?

And there were some changes. She did, for instance, eventually invite me to stay at her place for the night, and for the first time I got to see her books, her photographs, her wardrobe, aspects of her life that deepened my insight into her. These occasions weren't frequent, maybe once every two or three weeks, but I relished them, and in no small part because she was still there in the morning and I could spend at least the first part of the day with her.

She also told me that I was the most considerate sex partner she had ever had.

"I've never known anyone to take such pains that I enjoy sex and get off," she said. "I've never had sex with anyone who cared so much about my feelings."

I was flattered but could not return the compliment. She made sure I had the time of my life during our love making, all right, but as for caring about my oh-so-delicate feelings....

Why, for instance, did she have to leave so abruptly after our trysts? She either went to sleep immediately and was gone the next morning before I woke up, like Dawn all those years back, or she simply left right away, not staying over at all, saying she had too much to do at home.

If we stayed over at her place, she said she had things to do and went right ahead and did them. She was the sexiest, but the least romantic woman I had ever known. And wasn't this what I'd been wanting for so long? No romance, no hurt feelings, just uncommitted sex with someone incredibly attractive and intelligent?

Yet it wasn't quite that simple. Only weeks into this thing, and I was totally hooked. And the irony of our role reversals was not lost on me either. I was the one who wanted to linger and cuddle after sex. I was the one who wanted to spend a lazy, intimate morning-after, with breakfast and sweet talk and the works. Dana was already up and gone. So much for the afterglow.

No, romance was not possible with Dana, and I had to accept it and try to enjoy myself. But it wasn't easy. Out on the street I'd notice both women and men staring at her in what I took to be envy, hunger, disbelief. Even over an intimate restaurant dinner, invariably someone would come by our table to chat, someone she knew well, or vaguely, or had met once at a party. No one seemed to forget Dana once they'd met her.

Once the butch redhead I'd seen her talking with at the concert and at her party stopped by our table. The interchange was brief. Dana made the introductions and the woman glared at me as if she'd like to spit in my eye. And later, as I stood by the door waiting for Dana to emerge from the washroom, the redhead brushed past me on her way out.

"She's really more interested in women than men, you know," she hissed. "You're wasting your time. You're all wasting your time."

"I could say the same for you, sister," was all I could reply before she was gone.

Occasionally Dana would notice somebody and go over to their table to chat. Once we found ourselves in the same restaurant with Philip and someone we both presumed to be his wife.

"I'll just go over and say hello," Dana said.

"Is that such a good idea?" I cautioned, wondering for whom I was most concerned. "He's having dinner with his wife."

"I guess that is his wife all right. Why else would he be with her: she certainly isn't very attractive, is she?"

She was around forty five and quite plain, with glasses and graying hair. But she seemed to have a trim and slender figure.

"She's really quite drab, and so much older looking than Philip, don't you think?" she went on. "I wonder what he sees in her?"

"She's his wife. I'm sure he appreciates her for reasons that aren't necessarily obvious to you and me."

She made no move to go over to their table and for this I was grateful. Yet she cast frequent glances in their direction for the next twenty minutes, at which point Philip and his wife rose to leave. Philip came over to say hello while his wife was in the ladies' room.

"So how have you been?" he asked Dana, after shaking hands with me.

There was that current running between them again, in those innocuous words. I could feel it. And somehow I was sure that if they weren't currently lovers, they had been in the not too distant past, or maybe they would be soon.

"Was that your wife?" Dana asked, after the initial pleasantries were over."

"Yes. She still is, as a matter of fact," he said, smiling slightly. And for a moment or two he and Dana just stared at each other without saying another word.

I wanted to get up and join Philip's wife in the washroom, but suddenly she reappeared and Philip excused himself.

"What a strange couple they are," was Dana's comment.

"How so?"

"Well she just seems so much older than him, really. Not at all what I imagined."

"Given it a lot of thought, have you, Philip's marital status?"

"Not really. You can't help but wonder, though."

"Dana, is something going on with you and Philip?"

"Mason, what a question! I'll pretend I didn't hear that."

"You can tell me the truth, Dana. I'd much rather you did. I know you like to see a lot of people. I just want to know if you're sleeping with someone else. I have a right to know that, don't I, in this day and age?"

"And if I admitted to sleeping with someone else, you wouldn't want to see me again, is that right?"

"I don't know. I'm just overly sensitive to these kinds of things."

"Look, Mason, I enjoy your company greatly. I enjoy our sex together. Why would I do anything to put an end to that?"

"You tell me."

"Let's not talk about this anymore. It only upsets both of us."

This last was only half true, I thought. I sure was upset by talks like these, but I doubted Dana was moved much at all. Within minutes she was talking merrily of Ionesco and Pirandello, simultaneously hinting at the joys to come later in bed.

For whenever we had these verbal scuffles, and especially when I tried to pin her down on her emotional commitments, we always enjoyed torrid sex together afterwards. I thought it was Dana's way of distracting me, and it did work well in this way.

But for me the sex took on a desperate tone. It was one session closer to the end of the affair. For it would end sometime, I had no doubt. I couldn't go on living with the uncertainty, and she sure wasn't going to set my mind at ease.

I often wondered why I couldn't just accept things the way they were, live with the uncertainty, accept the fact that she was doubtless seeing other men and forget the rest, simply enjoy what we had. I'd done this with Nicole, why couldn't I with Dana? Because she read Dr. Edel on James? The questions never left me. I could never really relax.

Downtown one afternoon I ran into Vince, who insisted on buying me a drink. Before I knew what I was doing, I found myself asking directly about Dana.

"Let's see, what can I tell you about Dana that you don't already know?"

"For starters, you could tell me whether or not you're sleeping with her."

"She hasn't told you much about the other men in her life, I take it?"

"She's told me what she thinks I need to know, which is next to nothing."

"Well we both know how private she can be. It's one of many things you have to respect her for. She doesn't talk much about her personal life, and she expects her close friends not to discuss her either. You should know that by now."

"I'm asking about her behind her back because she won't tell me anything to my face. I can't get a straight answer out of her."

"And what you want to know is if she's sleeping with anyone else. But is that really any of your business?"

"I think it is. I need to know this. I'm desperate to know this."

"Why don't you just assume the worst and forget it? Forget her."

"It's too late for that. I've just spent the better part of two months trying to avoid her, because I knew I'd end up asking these kinds of questions and making a total ass of myself. I knew I'd be miserable. But you know you can't resist that woman. All you can do is hold on tight and try to come out in one piece."

"Mason, if you can't forget her, just enjoy it while it lasts. There aren't many guys can say they've slept with Dana Tessera, you know. Not half as many as you might think. You're one of a very privileged group."

"And are you one of that group, Vince? Are you one of the privileged few?"

"What's the difference? Dana and I were very close for a while and I won't deny we slept together. It got to a certain point and I hoped it would go further, but it kind of stalled. I still haven't given up completely. I'm a very patient and easy-going guy. But for now I know I'm not in the running."

"Then who is, Vince? Who the fuck is? Does she even have a number one man? Or is she just leading us all on?"

"She likes attention. She needs attention. I'm not real interested in trying to analyze her beyond that. It's pointless and it's not healthy. She's strong. She's invulnerable. I don't think she's ever been hurt deeply by a man. And it's not that she's insensitive. It's just that no one ever leaves her. She's too interesting, she's too gorgeous, and she's too damned good in bed. Who would a guy leave her for? She spoils you for other women. Just do what I do, Mason: take whatever she offers you and enjoy yourself. Don't ask so many questions. Don't analyze everything. Doesn't matter how much it hurts, it'll be the experience of a lifetime."

Easy enough for Vince to say, I suppose. He expected much less of Dana and was content with what he could scavenge. The man wasn't insensitive, clearly. In many ways he and Dana were well suited. Neither one of them spent much time in painful analysis. They just got on with things.

I, on the other hand, was in more of an emotional mess with each successive week. I suffered agonies over not being able to get her on the phone for days at a time. I underwent tortures over her not returning calls. If a week went by without seeing her, I was frantic with worry over whom she was seeing. I spent hours working out my fears and speculations in my notebooks. This was pretty much the only writing I was currently capable of.

That perhaps she wasn't seeing Vince, at least not for sex, wasn't much comfort. For one thing I wasn't sure I could believe all Vince told me, and for another there seemed to be lots of other men waiting in the wings. I was unhappy but couldn't bring myself to quit seeing her. I was having difficulty concentrating on anything but my intense feelings. A record review that should have taken fifteen minutes bogged me down for hours. Several times a day I caught myself gazing off into space as I sat at my desk, a sentence half finished on the near-blank page in front of me.

The only real peace I got was in my dreamless sleeps. These, I thanked my lucky genes, continued unabated. But immediately on waking I felt the sadness again. The only other balms were my physical, often heavy and exhausting work at the warehouse and my running and swimming routine out at the university. This I kept up religiously, even when my heart was heavy as stone. I might start a run leaden and depressed, but half an hour later, as I headed into the steam-room at the pool, my blood was pumping. I still was not happy, but I was physically alive. My body tingled with health.

And of course when I was at my lowest, after perhaps a week of not having my calls returned, of not seeing her at all, she would show up at my basement suite uninvited, completely confident that I wasn't entertaining anyone else, smiling and vibrant and exciting, willing to jump right into bed and perform acts of ultimate debauchery.

One night after I'd brought her off orally she knelt on the bed with her lovely naked ass in the air and her head in my pillow. From between her legs her hand thrust at me a vial of lubricant.

"Do it to me Mason," she murmured, her voice barely audible. "Do the dirtiest deed of them all."

With pumping heart and throbbing cock I poured the warm liquid where she wanted. Then with sheathed penis I entered her ever so gently, while she moaned at me an incessant litany.

"Yes, Mason, yes, do it to me! I want it, keep going! The dirtiest deed of them all!"

Again it occurred to me that I might have written her lines myself. Without having read a word of my stuff, she was mouthing the crazy self-conscious dialogue of several of my raunchiest heroines. I was sodomizing the living embodiment of one of my own erotic creations.

And yet there was one crucial distinction: within minutes of sinking in exhaustion into the bed, with me drained and quivering on top of her, she was laying beside me with a weighty classic of world literature open between us.

"Listen to this, Mason," she breathed, her eyes alight with enthusiasm, and she proceeded to quote a passage from 'Portrait Of A Lady' wherein Gilbert Osmond is said to have his 'perversities,' which Isabel would discover in 'all the men really worth knowing.'

My erotic heroines of course would never quote world literature after intercourse, not even after anal sex.

Dana Tessera could do it all, there was no denying it. With her I feel whole, complete, fulfilled. I don't analyze my situation when I'm with her. I don't have to. I'm too alive.

Until she excuses herself and disappears from my life again for days and days and I'm back in the half-light once more, mired in my jealous despair, back on my endless roller-coaster ride of ecstasy and desolation, from ball-draining sexual excitement to total isolation and dejection, with doses of intellectual stimulation tossed in for good measure.

Of course by this stage any hope of objectivity is gone. It's all very well to tell myself I have no right to feel possessive toward her. It's fine to attempt to live up to Vince's advice and stay uninvolved: the reality is still sitting alone at my desk looking at the silent phone and wondering how many days until she next shows up on my doorstep and makes my life worth living.

I can no longer deny that I've fallen deeply in love with this wanton outlaw of a woman. The pangs of jealousy and the torture of neglect are such that I can never deny this simple truth: I've fallen in love with the worst possible woman I could have found. And for this I am going to pay - am paying - dearly.

So much for my resolve to avoid romance. How could I avoid it? Deep down I'm the most romantic forty year old on the planet, my career as a porn writer notwithstanding. I'm a man of deep feeling. Separating real-life sex and romance for me is damn near impossible.

As the weeks pass she visits even less frequently. When she does, she's gone after an hour and a half. She promises to come by on a certain day and doesn't show up at all. She doesn't phone with any explanations. Sometimes when we cover the same concert, she spends more time talking with Vince, or Glen, or absolute strangers, than she does with me, and I have the odd hideous flashback to the days and nights with Dawn Webb.

"Who are you off to see all the time?" I ask one day as she rushes to dress and head out the door.

"Different people." she answers, quite calm and utterly beautiful. "Still don't trust me, huh?"

"Not one inch, Dana."

She laughs and is gone. I long to be able to tell her it's over, that I don't want to see her again. But as miserable as I am, the actual thought of not seeing her again is unbearable. I'm hooked on her and I just can't quit. Not yet.

As great as my discomfort is, I don't snap yet. But someone else does. One evening during a concert intermission, while Dana is deep in conversation with some tattooed lout I haven't seen before, Glen starts yelling at her. He's been sitting across the table from her for the better part of an hour. I overhear part of his diatribe as he passes.

"You're such a cold-hearted bitch! You enjoy torturing people. You're an ice-cold, deceiving cunt and I've had enough. Fuck you, cunt! Fuck you!"

He's restrained and quietly led away by Vince, of all people, who has materialized from somewhere. And Dana watches them depart with perfect calm, her lovely face not in the least perturbed. She resumes her conversation with the tattooed lout.

I've felt a thrill of recognition and empathy as Glen raved, and watch her for some small sign of upset, some hint of blush, but there is none. Her indifference does not seem to be an act. She really does seem invulnerable.

She also seems to be getting along famously with her new friend, and yet another searing pang of jealousy shoots through me. It's been almost a week now since I've been alone with her. I wonder if she's already seeing this new guy. Part of me wants to hang around after the concert to see if she leaves with him, and it takes a monumental act of will for me to leave without doing this, without even talking to her.

Next day though I resolve to see her. I drive out to the university at a time I know she has a class. Only two or three people are left in the huge auditorium. I query a pretty brunette sitting by herself making notes in her binder. The class ended early, she tells me, and everyone has left, Dana with Professor Philip. Maybe she's in his office, down the stairs and at the end of the hall, the brunette advises.