The Libertine Bubble Pt. 01

"Matter is the byproduct of consciousness."
- Depak Chopra

"Life, we can now say, is getting something to happen against the odds, and remembering how to do it."
- Ursula Goodenough

"Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it."
- Hebrews 13:2

"For small creatures such as we, the vastness is bearable only through love."
- Carl Sagan

Part 1

1

Who am I?

I ought to tell you that I don't know myself well enough to say whether it's a good idea, when drafting my bio for one of those dating web sites, to include the list of my diagnosis's, which are OCD, DID, haphaphobia and EV.

"Really Charlotte? You can be all that and manage to raise a child too?"

"Yes, yes I can."

"Well my my, how do you do it?"

"I don't know, really. I just, do it. Although, I do take my anxiety prescription, most of the time and I guess that helps."

"Wow, that's amazing!"

"No, not really. I just, pop a couple pills now and then and sacrifice my needs, that's all."

"Oh. But, honey, don't you have any time for yourself?"

"Well, there's my lunch hour at work. In fact, that's where I am now, writing this down."

"Oh, well that's nice. How about a baby sitter? That way, you can, I don't know, go to a movie with a friend?"

"I have to find one first."

"A baby sitter, right."

"No, a friend."

"Oh."

"Yeah, anyway, no. Even if I had a friend, God no, I wouldn't trust a baby sitter."

"How about family?"

"Oh no no God no. No family, to speak of. The people I trust the most are Sean's teachers at school."

"Your son's teachers, during the school day?"

"Yes."

"While you're at work?"

"Yes."

"Okay. Well, what kind of me time are you really yearning for exactly, get your nails done, maybe a pedicure, maybe do a spa type thing with a full body massage or just, catch a nice long nap?"

"Well, to be perfectly honest, I'd just like the time and the freedom to build a nice fantasy, luxuriate in it for a while, and then, when the juices are flowing, I would like to lube my ass up, find something safe and substantial to shove in there and hold it in while I rub my way to total ecstasy."

"Oh my. Alright then, so why can't you sneak off into your bedroom after you put Sean to sleep and make all that happen?"

"Because I've been sleeping on the floor next to Sean's bed, so, you know, I can't."

"Really, for how long now have you been, sleeping on the floor next to your son?"

"Oh my God, you know this! For the last five and a half years."

"And how old is Sean now?"

"Six, Sean is six."

"So you haven't done that little autoerotic activity of yours in, five and a half years?"

"Oh I've done it or variations of it maybe, three or four times."

"Okay, that's not a lot, but what's stopping you now from, you know, climbing into your own bed long enough to indulge in a fantasy and some masturbation?"

"Because it's really hard to come up with a really juicy fantasy and I usually have bad luck afterward. Sometimes,something really bad happens after."

"Bad things happen?"

"Yes, I just said that. Bad things happen and I get really super anxious about it, and then I have to help myself recover with a series of chain behaviors, triple checking if the appliances are off, tapping in a rhythmic pattern against the base of my throat or along my knuckles, counting in patterns and reciting poems in a certain cadence. However, if I don't give in to Dirty Little Slut, I can prevent myself from doing all of that, because abstaining from masturbatory indulgence is my way of protecting my little Sean and potentially the entire world from certain doom!"

"Really?"

"Really, yes."

"I see."

"No you don't. You're just patronizing me."

"No I'm not."

"Yes you are. You're my patronizing alter, Missy Poopoo. I know you want to be my doctor, but you suck at it, so go away for now."

2

Where was I?

Thinking up a bio for an Online dating site? No, contemplating the prospect of thinking up a bio for an online dating site. Yeah, that's not gonna happen. My haphaphobia will shut that off as soon as the first person I meet tries to shake my hand. No, nuh uh. Next thought please. Where are you?

Ah, there you are. Do I seem lost? I mean, it's not like I don't know where I am, because I do. I live in a two-bedroom second floor apartment with my little boy Sean. I see him everyday and he sees me, and I can see myself in the mirror of my bureau or in the mirror over the bathroom sink or in the mirror on Sean's door or the two big mirrored closet doors in my bedroom. It is, however, before these mirrors, when I am either undressing, undressed or trying to coax my hair into making me look just a tiny bit prettier, that the perception that I am not present in my life barges right into my usual preoccupations and starts to make me feel like shit.

So I try to combat this feeling of feeling like shit with a self affirmation or two, normally provided to me by my Roberta alter, who says nice things like: Charlotte honey, you are a great, great mom and Charlotte baby, you still look pretty hot and tempting for a twenty-seven year old. I don't care that there might be greater moms than me or that there are thirty and forty year olds that look hotter than me. I'm the greatest mom Sean could ever have and I'm the only one here to feel me up when I get the urge and my twenty-seven year old body is the body I've got.

That's how my days usually start: me, naked in front of the mirror, not recognizing exactly who I'm looking at and longing to feel her up, but not being able to do anything about either problem because I've run out of time or nerve to do anything about anything, except for doing what needs to get done so that I know it's done and I don't have to worry about it until the next day I need to worry about what I need to worry about in order to take care of all the things I need to take care of because there's only, me. I mean, me and Sean. There's just me and Sean.

I take care of Sean. That's the most important thing I do. I want Sean to be okay. Sean is super super cute, almond shaped eyes with bright blue irides, a handsome little nose, a healthy pink complexion and this very fly little fade buzz cut black hair. Sean is inconvenienced by a few neurological and motor impairments as well as some minor physical deformities, but he is still the cutest little boy on Earth and I love him to pieces. I know he'll never get a hundred percent better, but I want him to live a good long life with me.

Actually, he can't do anything for himself. He can't talk. He can't walk. He can't eat for himself and someone has to change his diapers. But boy, he can smile for Mommy, yes he can and his eyes just light up like two big bright blue stars when we play! So, Sean's needs are met first. Second, comes me, though I seldom, come. Sean needs me all the time while he's at home. So, when Sean doesn't need me, I sleep, next to him when he's sleeping. That's where I sleep, some, a little, on and off, forty winks between ten and half past ten, and then another forty or more after midnight and so on until Sean wakes me up with his beautiful morning coos and gurgles.

Me time is really hard to get when you're a single mom of a child with multiple disabilities. I mean, like Missy Poopoo and I told you, I haven't slept in my own bed for the last five and a half years because I've been sleeping in Sean's room, on the floor next to his formula racer bed, and I still keep the video monitor right there next to me, so if I hear something I can open my eyes right away and he'll be the first thing I see.

It's a little crazy, I kno. But, I worry about him so much. I love him more than anything. He's my Seany Sean. Kids like Sean are very very fragile, and they, well, they die. No matter how advanced medical care has become, they can die, just like that. It makes a mom, afraid. I mean, it happens all the time. It's a very terrible and sad thing. Doctors and medical technology, they do great things to make precious sick little babies survive their first month in the world, but they enter the world still significantly messed up.

So, the babies grow up into little kids with issues like respiratory distress syndrome, bronchopulmonary Dysplasia, breathing apnea, patent ductus arteriosus, hydrocephalus, necrotizing enterocolitis, cerebral palsy, missing fingers and the inability to eat without a tube or change their own diapers, like my Seany Sean. I mean, he can be a buzz kill when I get the pang for, well, just Mommy things, but I don't need anything, really, just a little sleep, that's all. Anyway, it is what it is and like I said, I just love my Sean to pieces. He's my angel, my big boy, my little man.

Molly, my instigating alter, she says I could just, you know, alleviate the pang, in the shower in the morning before I go to work. But, I have to bring Sean into the bathroom while I shower because, like I said, I worry about him because he's so fragile and stuff. So, his presence there on the floor in his poppason chair, where I can peek out behind the shower curtain and see him, kills the urge to pet my petunia.

Of course, even if I had the nerve to actually do it while Sean's on the other side of the curtain, there's my phobia of the potential for putting the bad juju on the rest of my day because God or the universe or whatever will want to punish me for my transgression. Yes, I have issues. But, issues are normal, right? Honestly though, if I actually had my way to having my way with myself, I would lube- Wait, I already told you that. What I didn't tell you yet is that I used to be a real squirter. I used to squirt a lot, I mean, a real lot. In fact, I try to forget exactly how much.

"I don't know Charlotte. Maybe, instead of making your sexuality the enemy, you should think of your autoerotic pursuit more as a method of exorcism, a means of expelling all that demonic bad juju that haunts you."

"Uh, no. But, thanks Molly."

"Seriously! I mean, doesn't all rationalization spring from a root perception?"

"What the heck does that mean, Molly?"

"It means that if you just change the way you think about the act of masturbation, you will ultimately change the way you think about masturbations effect on your life, so you start to think positively about it rather than negatively, and so playing with yourself will cease to be the portal through which bad juju finds you!"

"Uh, no, Molly. I'm good. You can go back to doing your nails now, Ms. Know It All."

3

Where was I?

These are the things on my mind. These are the things the therapist I used to see wanted me to talk about, until I had to stop seeing her. The appointments were taking too much time away from work and, well, she pissed me off. That's all. Anyway, I'm writing this all down for you, whoever you are, whoever I am, so that we're like, you know, talking. So there's Sean, there's my alters, there's the me without my me, and then there's my pent up sexual frustration. See? Who needs a therapist?

Meanwhile, there's this mystery guitar player that's been living in the apartment across the hall for the last month now. It was weird. The place was empty for like six weeks, and then someone just started playing electric guitar. I never saw anyone move in. He's the third thing on my mind because I always hear him playing his electric guitar all the time while he's home. Not to say that he's bad, because he's good, he's very, very good. I mean, what Guitar Guy plays is all original, yet very evocative of 1990s alternative progressive atherial heavy metal relaxation type stuff I really like when I'm not trying to sleep while I'm not worrying so much about Sean or worrying about doing what needs doing.

Which, speaking of doing, and like I mentioned earlier, I'm writing this while on my lunch at work. I work in a pet food tasting lab. I get a half hour lunch break and two fifteen minute breaks, which I've started taking all together so that I can do something other than eating lunch. Yes, I did say I work at a pet food tasting lab. No, I'm not the woman who mops the floors or washes the dirty plates and no, I am not one of the over paid scientists or chefs who concoct the stuff.

I am the taste tester. I am actually one of three taste testers. I don't know why they picked the two guys that sit across from me. They don't seem to like the food at all, ever. As for me, I don't think they picked me because they could tell I'd be really good at tasting pet food. I have no idea why they picked me. I'm just glad they did. A single mom has to bring in the bacon, after all.

I taste the food for cats and the food for dogs, including the dry stuff I add water to to make a gravy, and on rare occasions, I even taste some fish food. You'd think the fish food was my least favorite, but it's the cat food, the wet stuff, made with the creamy white or beige sauces, that come closest to making me gag. The dog food, on the other hand, not so bad, actually. Oh, but the gourmet dog delights aren't the best part of the job. It's the forty thousand a year with really great benefits. My co-pay is like five bucks and the insurance covers anything and everything Sean and I have ever been prescribed. And yes, my hair is very shiney. The cleaning lady and some of the scientists here always comment on it.

I like my job, honestly. You can't beat it! Well, maybe you can. But, I can't. I just can't. I mean, it's not cleaning toilets or manually injecting pig semen into a lady pig's suzy or being one of those people that have to scrub the beans off the tip of a stallion's shlong, right? Plus, it's like I'm being paid to eat food all day, pet food, all day. Seriously, I did mention that the benefits are really good, right?

"Oh my god, it just occurred to me! Maybe you can try to get a good jill on in the ladies room here!"

"You, Molly, are out of your cotton picking mind. No offense Roberta."

"None taken sweety."

"No, listen, seriously! Think about it. People you trust are watching Sean. The bathroom here is, like you like to say, up to your standard of clean. You're already in the place where the bad thing might happen, so you'll be ready if it does and the day is already like half over! Come on Charlotte, even just a quick little one!"

"Molly! Really?"

"Molly's right Char. Seize the day my love. We know all you've been thinking about is getting our little eight inch purple silicone friend into your ass."

"Yeah, but Charlotte didn't bring it to work. Did she, Dirty Little Slut? Back off. I've got this. Come on Char! You know you want it! I don't need the slut to tell me your pearl is buzzing with excitement as we speak! Check the time."

"It's 12:23."

"Go woman! Grab your journal and your pen. Leave the diet cherry Coke here. It's fine. You haven't opened it yet. Okay then! Charlotte will be back in ten."

I'm back. That sucked. Someone else was in there and she was apparrantly in for the long hall. I didn't recognize her shoes, but whoever she was, she was reading the news paper and she stunk really bad. Dried me right the heck up. Anyway, back to guitar guy.

What Guitar Guy plays has become a running sound track for the time I spend at home with Sean. It's really cool, inspiring. I mean, I feel like I can write lyrics to some of it or write whole screenplays or scripts for the longer, atherial, stuff he plays. Sean really likes it too. I can tell he's listening. He gets this very serious look on his face. Not the I feel a poop coming on face, but a this guy's really got some talent Mommy face.

I want to tell Guitar Guy how good we think he is, as long as he's not already an arrogant shit, which would really suck. But, we haven't had the opportunity.

"But, Charlotte, you know you could just knock on his door?"

"Yes, Missy Poopoo, I do know that and I have, I have knocked on his door, to introduce Sean and myself, but he's not home or doesn't answer the door when I knock."

"Okay, but Charlotte, what about popping over when you can hear him playing?"

"Well, I didn't want to disturb him or anything. No, that's not true. I'm just, afraid, another new person, and all. You know what? If I hear him tonight, I'll go right over."

4

Knock, knock knockin on Heaven's door...

Hi. Dirty Little Slut here. I'm doing the driving for now because Char is, well, a little wrapped up and I have assigned myself the pleasure, because that's the most important thing I do, of relating all the essentials to my, well, continuing this record. So, relax, feel free to take your clothes off if you'd like and read on.

First thing's first. Did Char tell you what she looks like? No. Well, her face, is attractive in its totality, if you ask me. It is almond in shape. Draped along either side are long wavy tresses of thick dark brown hair. Charlotte's eyes, dark, round and alert, betray the little girl she left behind, although she does appear now and again in one or another mirror. As for Char's physique, she looks pretty hot for a woman who eats pet food and various other strange things that don't offend her nose or palette. She is thin, the shallows beneath her sternum and hips are a little deep, but some fat still is accumulated in the places a woman with good sense wants it to stay. Now, did she tell you how she dresses? I think she looks dumb in everything she picks: slacks, flats, blouses and big sweaters. Me? I'd dress her up in skimpy, sexy stuff and with lots of oranges, reds and that salmon pink. But, if I really had my way, I'd

prefer her to just be naked, all the time.

Now, moving on. After another day taste testing pet food, Charlotte made it safely back home in time, as usual, to meet Sean's little white buss that arrives anywhere from 4:10 to 4:20 every weekday afternoon. After carrying her boy and his Transformers backpack up the stairs, Charlotte paused and glanced at Guitar Guy's door as she unlocked hers. Hearing nothing, she decided not to knock just then, but we all knew she'd try later.

Eventually, after Charlotte gave Sean his early evening bath, set up blocks for him to knock down, helped him play a few rounds on his Bop It, and then, after she fed him some Ensure through his G tube, while she had a meal of half the contents of one thirteen ounce can of chick peas mixed with about one tablespoon of Ranch dressing, Charlotte heard someone in flip flops hike up the stairs, unlock the door across the hall, and then just about slam it closed.

She looked at Sean. Sean looked at her, and then toward their front door. Charlotte didn't much like the slamming the door part and she thought Sean didn't either. Then it occurred to Charlotte that Guitar Guy was the kind of guy that wears flip flops and she wasn't exactly sure how to feel about a guy who has the confidence or temerity to wear flip flops in public.

Of course she knew being a man and wearing flip flops in public didn't make a guy any less a man and didn't have any effect on her appreciation for his work on the guitar. But, the idea of a man walking around the inside of his apartment with all of that outside all over his bare feet was a little distressing. So, Charlotte hoped he also happened to be the kind of flip flop waring guy who, like all self respecting flip flop waring women, washed his feet, and then washed his hands before he touched anything else in his apartment.

Had Charlott mentioned how she felt about encountering new people? I think she did. But, I don't think she went into any detail about exactly why new people presented a problem for her. Well, let me break it down for you.

It is common knowledge that people, generally speaking, you know, do people things like animals do animal things: touch all sorts of things out there in the world, touch themselves, urinate, void, pick their noses without tissues, you know what I mean. Now, I don't actually know what animals other than higher primates or ourselves pick our noses without tissues, but those of us with the largest frontal cortex know we should wash our hands multiple times a day.