My big decision for the night had been to go sans car. I just couldn't figure out a practical way to drive, especially since I had every intention of imbibing at our ultimate destination. I don't drive while drunk or stoned, and especially not with wormwood involved. Jezebel assured me that we were going to be traveling mostly by taxi with other people and would have a floor to crash on east of Twin Peaks, so I went without a net. What the hell. Good for the soul every so often. I'm always glad when I leave the Power Exchange that my crappy blue chariot is waiting for me, but this was going to be an allnighter, and it would be nice not to have to worry about street cleaning and meters and the like.

I met Jezebel at her place, and a friend of our hostess picked us up and took us to the main place. The group we were traveling with was a nice bunch of folks Jezebel had met at the Folsom Street Fair, Burners and MILFs. I laid on the charm, and they seemed to like me well enough. There were enough of us that we had to take two cabs. Jezebel and I were in the second cab, which left about ten minutes after the first. We were nearly at the party—I was discussing with the hostess's boyfriend, with whom I'd already bonded on the subject of Mystery Science Theater 3000, whether or not Bill Hicks' reputation would be what it is today without the retrospective that Comdy Central aired repeatedly during the mid-nineties—when we got a call from our recon party in the first taxi informing us that the party had been shut down. Seems the cops had gotten wind that a certain illegal-on-these-shores beverage was to be sold.

The well-dressed crowd was milling about outside when we arrived, and the organizers were asking people to please please please disperse, lest the law slap a charge of lawful assembly on top of everything else. Our group wandered down the block to Asia SF, stayed there just long enough for Jezebel and I to clutch each other in pain over the hotness of one of the bartenders, and then took another set of cabs to the Castro. We bounced from Harvey's to Harvey's to The Mix until closing time, whereupon we split up into taxis once again and returned to basecamp.

Unfortunately, all the three of us in our cab knew was the address and a vague sense of the cross street of the house, which was not quite enough for the taxi driver. He needed us to give him exact directions to the place, because in this day and age, you can't possibly expect a taxi driver to know his way around the frackin' city. It was particularly difficult because the house was up a hill and around some sharp curves and generally difficult to find unless you know how to get there and/or have a map. He got increasingly agitated with us, especially when I asked if he had a map. i don't need a map! he practically yelled, conveniently ignoring that he was lost without one. Though the house is tricky to find, he'd never even heard of the street. When we expressed incredulity that he was driving a taxi in the Castro but didn't know the streets, he cranked, i don't hang out in this neighborhood! Right. Anyone who knows their way around the Castro must be a faggot who takes it up the ass, and he sure ain't one.

We were up talking until about four in the morning, except for Jezebel, who gracefully fell asleep earlier. The others were still asleep when her and I got up and left the house, primarily because she had to be at work by one. I'd considered staying in my previous evening's clubwear for solidarity's sake and to maintain the "Celebrity Skin" vibe, but I'd also brought along warmer clothes for traveling, and decided to err on the side of comfort. Jezebel and I down the inhospitable (especially to someone in heels like hers) hill in one piece, and a taxi appeared a couple minutes later. Thankfully, this driver knew his way around.

I made it back to the Black Light District around two in the afternoon. My attempts at productivity were unsuccessful, and I wisely gave up altogether when Vash came over. We ate spaghetti and drank, watched Broadway: The American Musical, went shopping, and slept.

New shiny pants were acquired today. They aren't perfect, but perfection is never the point. Tonight, Vash and I going to the Power Exchange's New Year's Eve shindig and the opening of their new nightclub.

At midnight, 2007 begins. I anticipate some moulting before 2008 hits.

sometime after midnight

roll over, zhaira.

arf!

To leaven things a bit, we went around the corner to Divas. There were seven men, and not counting the two of us and the bartender, no girls. That must have felt like a gyp to the men.

9:03am

I think I want to do a shoot with Charles Gatewood.

She's out of her mind
Like the wind in the storm
Like the ocean in the dawn
As it disappears with the riptide

She's out of her mind
She's pulled away by the moon
She's ripped from her sleep
As the cold luna sweep gains control

What you gonna do with your emotions
Ones you barely recognize
In your sleep I heard you screaming
"This is not voluntary! This is not voluntary!
If this is life, I'd rather die!"

In the riptide

She's out of her mind, riptide
Like a muscle that swells
You know when you trip
Whether you're well or sick
Your body aches

She's out with the tide
Gone to a prisoner's dance
Where a monkey's her date
Eating limbs off a plate with a spoon

What you gonna do with your emotions
Said the seagull to the loon
What you gonna do with your emotions

She said, "Please wake me up"
She said, "Don't touch me now"
She said, "I wish I was dead"

In the riptide

She's out of her mind
Riptide, you always win
It happens over and over again
Riptide

She's out of her mind
Like a hurricane's rain
She does not stand a chance
At this luna dance
Riptide

I was thinking of Van Gogh's last painting
The wheatfields and the crows
Is that perhaps what you've been feeling
When you see the ground
As you fall from the sky
As the floor disappears
From beneath your feet
Riptide

She's going out of her mind
Out with the tide
Out of her mind
Riptide

Lou Reed,
"Riptide"

Before the show we ate tortas on the sidewalk outside the ATA , always an interesting perspective on the world. After, we walked to Jezebel's apartment so she could get into club mode. She went with a shiny black one-piece PVC dress, different from the two-piece shiny black outfit she'd been wearing when we met. The choosing of the hair clip is an important part of her ritual, and she decided on a clip of five white stars.

I'd parked at the Power Exchange earlier in the evening before going to the ATA, so we caught a cab. The driver was a flamebot with either a deathwish or an immortality complex, but it made for an interesting trip, especially since we (somehow) arrived in one piece.

As usual, we hung out on the main floor for a while with Aaron (i'm an asshole, but i like you two), then headed downstairs. It was already looking like the typical Saturday night menagerie. Once we got our stuff stowed away, Jezebel and I tore into each other, snogging and breathplaying against the pillar behind the table in the middle of the dungeon. She went limp a couple times, and I caught her before she collapsed, though I suspected she wouldn't have minded if I'd let her hit the ground.

Cur dervished over and asked me: is she your girlfriend? Her eyebrow was raised in tone, if not in physicality. I replied: no. vash is my girlfriend, and she isn't here tonight. oh, Cur said, sounding unconvinced. She asked to suck Jezebel's breasts. When Jezebel said no, and Cur got indignant: but you let me last time! Jezebel replied: that was a mistake. i don't like you, and i don't want you touching me now. Cur looked several shades of offended, perhaps not just because of what was said, but because it was said by a boy in a dress, damnit! They aren't allowed to talk to her like that! She sulked off to the couch, where she k'vetched at Hal (who is not a fan of hers), casting baleful glances in our direction. I was reminded of when I'd asked her to please stop referring to me by the male pronoun. That level of insolence had been bad enough, though she was considerably more agitated now.

We observed two goth trannies getting it on in the Red Room. One was the girl whom I'd seen getting pawed by the glad-handing dandy the week before, and the other was how I pictued Clint Catalyst's taller, skinnier sister if she went though a similar goth period.

Jezebel and I moved to the stools just outside the fence and started making out. It took approximately no time whatsoever for a crowd of men to form at close range. Their collective third eyes is prepared for this sort of thing, following all girls (or anyone in women's clothing) in case one of us should do anything remotely interesting, and when we do, by god, they're there. Leaning in from my left (I was pointing towards the stairs) was a large guy with a Gabby Hayes beard in a towel and cowboy hat. Immediately behind me was another fellow giving a running account of his arousal: oh, yeah. oh, yeah. you're making me so hard, i'm going to come. I don't know if he ever did or not. I'd like to think so. Might as well.

Requiring oxygen, we went back inside the fence. The couch was occupied by Hal and three hoodrats he'd brought along, so Jezebel took up residence on one of the spanking horse thingies. I was glad to see Hal's compatriots, as I hadn't played with him since I'd met Jezebel, and I was worried that he felt abandoned. Which was silly, I owed him nothing, but we did havea regular thing going which kinda stopped all of a sudden, and I was glad to see him playing. It wasn't that I wasn't ever going to play with him again; I still wanted to and certainly Jezebel didn't mind, not that it would have mattered if she did. I just hadn't for a while.

Sister Catalyst entered the fence and correctly identified my boots as Fluevogs. She couldn't have been more delighted. Vogs! she exclaimed. VOGS! Vogs, indeed. She got on the ground and writhed around my boots, rubbing and worshiping them, continuing the Vogs! chant. Hrm. Okay. Boot fetishist, that's all fine and good, but she's also slightly insane on top of that. Good to know. (The two can be mutually exclusive.) I held Jezebel a little tighter, as she did me, and I realized how comfortable I was with her, that ice had broken. In spite of our collective pile of quirks and idiosyncrasies, we were both relatively sane by tranny standards. The evidence was below us, writhing and repeating her mantra.

Violet did not return, nor was the CD with my music played, though the Used Car Salesman made an appearance. Jezebel described him as a slimy magician, which is equally apt.

There was a genetic girl I'd never met using the cross, a blonde who reminded me a bit of Jennifer Blowdryer. She same up to Jezebel and I at one point and said you two make a lovely couple. is she your girlfriend? Even people who don't know either of us tend to direct that question towards me, probably because I'm taller, and in spite of the fact that my makeup and hair tends to be a bit more elaborate than Jezebel's, those who need to dichotomize things parse me as the butch. I wasn't thrilled about it, but it was the only theory that fit the facts. In any event, the answer is always the same: no, she isn't. Vash is my girlfriend, and Jezebel understands the need to make that distinction, that Vash is my primary. In some cases, however, the shorthand of the g-word is okay.

There aren't many trannies at the Power Exchange I find attractive, primarily because there aren't many other transsexuals like myself or Jezebel; it tends to be more of a crossdresser slash transvestite crowd. Which is fine, a lot of them are terrific people (like Rhonda), but they just don't do much for me otherwise. The unestrogenated male body and/or a non-female identified brain are turnoffs. The Twins are notable exceptions; Jezebel and I were fairly certain that they were transvestites, no hormones involved and probably only dressed up for going out, but damn, they dress up real nice. They're also as much into cocksucking as Jezebel, but without the concurrent interest in girls as near as I could tell. When in girl mode, they were Blue Team all the way, rah rah sis boom bah. Still, we decided to give them a shot, see what happened. I'd done some preliminary flirting with the one I thought of the Main Twin earlier in the month, the night that Jezebel and I met, but it hadn't gone anywhere. I'd announced my interest and scurried away. I remain fundamentally chickenshit, forever unsure of the line between confidence and pushiness, my self-perception skewed by my accursed size.

Jezebel went off on a recon mission, to give the Twins a shot. After watching yet another new-to-me couple for a while, a fellow who bore a striking resemblance to L.A. Woman-era Jim Morrison flogging a girl with an intricate and psychedelic full-back tattoo, I decided to follow Jezebel. After all, we were in this potential seduction together, right? She shouldn't have to do all the heavy lifting. Besides, perhaps I spent too much time within the relative safety of the dungeon, the comfort provided by the fence.

I walked through the back alley, where the girls often perch in wait despite the skull-splodey loud music, and around into the Barracks. So called for the camouflage pattern and USMC logo on the walls, these design elements are often difficult to see, thanks to the dim light and sheer number of men crowded in at any given time. Pound for pound, it's probably where the most dick gets sucked, a guy's best bet to get off.

And so it was in the Barracks now, a crowd having gathered around a girl on her knees like iron shavings to a magnet, her head bobbing back and forth, back and forth. Was it Jezebel? I couldn't quite tell in the low light, and I'd left my glasses in the dungeon. Focusing on the girl's hair, I looked for a flash of white—yep, there's Jezebel's hair clip. As I'd suspected might happen, she got a bit distracted in pursuit of the Twins. The Main Twin was in the room, but she was watching, not participating.

I'm not in the Barracks much, usually just passing through, but I could tell that the tenor of the room was all wrong. It was more hostile than usual, the men more talkative, more verbal. Not necessarily the guys she was sucking or waiting to be sucked, but the ones along the walls, watching. Among the posted rules of the Power Exchange are rude, obnoxious behavior will not be tolerated and keep loud talking, giggling and laughing, etc. to a minimum. This sort of thing was why those rules existed, especially there was a mob element to it, the way extra bravery men get when they're in packs. There was the usual suck it, bitch! level of discourse, but also things like we paid forty bucks for this! and other entitled complaints about her technique and angle, hoots and hollers. When one fellow left in protest because of something he thought she was doing wrong, Jezebel called after him, if you think I'm doing it so badly, why don't you come over and show me how it's done? Damned brave of her.

Though there was definitely a darker vibe than usual, I didn't feel threatened. If anyone didn't take no for an answer I could defend myself, and if I was overpowered I knew security would be there in a flash. Their heightened bravery only seemed to extend to talking. Oddly, in spite of being one of the only other girls in the room, and a noticeable one at that, I somehow managed to stay off their radar. Even the call of hey, blondie! was obviously directed at the Twin, not me. Just as well, as I preferred that my presence wasn't announced to Jezebel. Like the last time, I didn't want to make her feel self-conscious or anything. She did at one point say: i have to get back to my girlfriend before the dick was shoved back into her mouth. This is why shorthand was sometimes necessary; saying i have to get back to the girl i'm seeing would be a bit of a mouthful when she only had a few moments before getting another mouthful. Consensually, of course; I don't doubt that had she really wanted to get up and leave, she would have.

And the men continued their running commentary, and it was just wrong, and at times chilling: check for an adam's apple! make sure it ain't a man! you never can tell at this place! There it was. I'd always wondered how some of the paying customers reconciled their fiercely defended heterosexuality with the polysexuality of the Power Exchange, one of the most trans-friendly joints in town. What did they really think of us? Now I knew. Given the chance to be open, to not have to filter, their true colors bled out. you never can tell at this place indeed, and certainly you should be careful, because if the girl on her knees sucking your dick also had a dick, that made you...something bad, I guess. And yet they kept showing up, paying their money, having it both ways. I wonder how many of them have bragged to their buddies that they've only gotten their dicks sucked by real girls, that they don't let the faggots get near them, yet they've been serviced by Jezebel or the Twins or even Rhonda.

As Jezebel finally stood up, I left the Barracks, still preferring that she wasn't immediately aware of my presence. Turns out she had known I was there—I am, once and always, Hard to Miss, especially when someone knows to look for me. She said that had anyone there said anything untoward to or about me, she was going to respond with: if you say one more bad thing about my girlfriend, I'll rip the skin off your balls and choke you with it. It never came to that, but I have to admit, it would have been pretty hot.

She's usually a tad punch-drunk after a suckfest, so we relaxed for a while, finally leaving around five in the morning. A fellow glommed onto us as we went upstairs, an occurrence which is increasinly likely the later it gets. He finally took the hint and turned left at the King Arthur Room. Almost a shame, since it would have been neat to see Aaron telling him to fuck off and die.

Working the coat check, Aaron told us that there'd been some undesired excitement earlier in the evening. Seems a shitload of unusually rowdy types were let in, loud guys who seemed to think that just because they paid, they deserved some kind of show or action. Of course, it doesn't work that way at all, but it certainly explains the group in the Barracks earlier. Aaron said they'd been kicked out before they made it downstairs, but it sounded like a few slipped through the cracks. They always do.

5:20pm

Tonight, Vash and I are going to an opening reception of an art exhibit at Space Gallery. The exhibit includes a work of Vash's. Neat.

Determined that I'm going to get as much writing done tonight as my body will allow, and acknowledging that it just doesn't happen at home, I'm at the 24-hour Starbucks in Laurel Village. Place is skaaaaaaanky, and the wifi which I rather foolishly paid for keeps crapping out. Maybe it's because of the steamed windows, or the occasional spent bandage on the ground? (I wrote GAIUS BALTAR DID IT in the window moisture.) I'd complain, but there's nobody to complain to. And I'm here to work, to write, right? Otherwise, it's a perfect environment. According to the filmpr0n book I'm currently reading, Stephen King once told M. Night Shyamalan that he should write in his basement so he'll feel uncomfortable and unsettled. That's this place to a T.

Conditions are never optimal, there are no safe spaces, and niceness is illusory. Everyone will hurt you with their humanity eventually.

sometime after midnight

What I keep reminding myself is that it doesn't have to be good, or well-structured, or even particularly competent. It just needs to exist. The rest will come later, or it won't, but at the moment isn't the point. It is not yet art, if it ever will be; it is production.

It's not my home, it's theirs, and I'm welcome no more.

I don't have to go to work today, so I managed to find a place where I could park for free and not have to pay for wifi and plug in my laptop and not have the sun shining on me or the screen. It's quite a victory, I assure you. I'll be here until I can't be here anymore, and then I'll go elsewhere.

12:12pm

November 25, 2006. After the Femina Potens reading, Jezebel and I went on the necessary "energy to stay awake all night" burrito run into the Mission, and then to the Power Exchange. Before going downstairs to the dungeon, we chatted for a while with an employee by the name of Aaron at his usual post outside the doorway to the coat check and boutique. It's a prime vantage point, as everyone entering the club the main floor or dungeon has to pass that way, and he keep an eye out for the particularly sketchy types. Sketchy at the Power Exchange? Yeah, I know, perish the thought. Let's accept it as a given that anyone going there is by definition sketchy, myself included, but there are levels of sketchiness, and he has a good sense for when someone's going to be trouble. Most of them were checking out Jezebel and I as they passed. Which happens wherever either of us are in the club at any given time, it's true.

Aaron told us that the fourth floor is closing, which came as no great shock. It's the all-male club, and while I don't spend much time near the front door watching the people enter, I've never seen any gay couples arriving. The fact that there's no shortage of places for boys to go in this town, it makes a lot of sense.

I'm glad I got to see it during the Swalloween Ball back in October: a large, open room, feeling larger than the rest of the floors because it wasn't divided up into smaller rooms, though there was a labyrinth in the middle which resembled a men's room designed by a cubist. The costume contest was just beginning elsewhere on the floor that night; over a loudspeaker, the owner of the joint was talking about a new quote-reality-unquote series in development about the club. Uh-huh. Sure. No wonder nobody (with the possible exception of Cur) gave two shits about the fact that I was writing about the place. So long as I didn't cut into the big teevee bux, it was all good.

Being the open night of the ball, there were many more hetero men up than there usual (what with it being the gay floor and all), and I quickly developed trails as I walked through the labyrinth, and I occasionally had to double back when I hit a dead end. It didn't help that I wasn't wearing my glasses, so it was a dark blurry labyrinth filled with men who all assumed (or at least hoped) I was there to suck their dicks. Jezebel certainly has fond memories of the labyrinth's glory holes.

Presently (a month later), I made sure Jezebel understood that even though we were there together, she was still free to go off and do her own thing, and that she wasn't obligated to leave with me. If she got a better offer, she was more than welcome to take it. The same held true for me, of course, but seemed considerably less likely. In any event, I didn't want her to not have a good time because of me. She assure me she understood, and that even though she frequently got offers, I was one of the only people she'd ever wanted to leave with.

We spent the first few hours inside the fence, talking some with Hal and Rhonda, but mostly having at each other. The bruise on my left arm from the last time was slowly starting to heal, and as we leaned against the middle table she added another level to it, her fists in circles like with one of those small hanging punching bags. (For some reason, I always think of Father Mulcahy on M*A*S*H.) She then switched over to my other arm, making their nebulae symmetrical, until I asked her to please stop.

She did, of course—consent, friends and neighbors, it's all about consent, demand it by name—but it almost felt like a shame, she got a look in her eyes of such glee, of a child with that new just-so-perfect toy, which is not to say that she was objectifying or dehumanizing me in a bad way, but as though after being such a bottom for so long she was finally getting a sense of what it was like on the other side, exchange of power and so forth. Alas, I have my limits, they are what they are and that's okay. Hal and Rhonda were more than a little aghast by the extent of the evident damage, which is nothing if not irony, to be told by them that we're going too far, and who knows? Maybe they're right.

Exchanging power: Jezebel and I moved to the couch, me over her, my fingers tink-tink-tinking endlessly against her nipple piercings, probably a trancelike hour of just that, first the left then the right, back and forth, then my mouth covering hers, my hand over her nose, pincing it clothed, my inhalations taking literally taking her breath way and replacing it with nothing in particular because nothing else is getting in or out, I can't really breathe either but I at least have a head start, power, looking in but not really seeing her eyes, gauging her body language and increasingly urgent muffled sounds, her body staring to buck, my own vision starting to get a blurry as my brain starts to get unhappy about the lack of oxygen, and—

—Jezebel's gasp for air as I released my mouth and hand probably would have been heard on the fourth floor if there was anyone on the fourth floor to hear it.

One of the new cruisers on the other side of the fence was a tanned fellow in a light business suit, a total glad-handing dandy. He was a great deal of fun to watch, his total self-assuredness, especially as he groped a goth tranny who seemed happy enough, or at least pleasantly tolerant. He also had his hands all over one of the Twins, the blonde-bewigged Hawaiian trannies, at least one of whom has been there every night I've been there over the past few months, and probably the ones I haven't. Gotta give him credit for getting all dressed slick and business-like, exuding Carnegie-esque confidence and swagger, a post-millennial Willie Loman. How to Win Friends and Get Your Dick Sucked by Trannies.

Jezebel was wearing the shiny black bustier-and-skirt number she'd worn the night we met, what contributed to her inadvertantly catching my attention in the first place. She unzipped the top while we were on the couch, and again shortly thereafter when Cur took an interest in her nipples and the 34D breasts. Watching Cur sucking on Jezebel's breasts was probably the most uncomfortable thing I saw that evening, because in her eternal state of Not Getting It, Cur was probably thinking something along the lines of wow, what a great body for a boy!

Like she all but said later in the evening to another tranny. By then, Jezebel had gone off to watch a gangbang in the blue room, a curiously structured affair which Hal tells me happens occasionally. A small, loud Asian gentleman recruited a group of exceedingly willing men and one equally willing woman; the fellow barked orders to the men (you! put more oil on her!) as the woman lay on the circular bed, getting prodded in various ways, the men occasionally being shifted around by the ringleader. A musical gangbang, an orgiastic unbirthday, albeit one with no actual penetration, not so much as a finger. I saw Jezebel from behind, watching in the crowd. I enjoyed her silhouette (I'm a sucker for a good shape) as a man walked up to her and started casually groping and propositioning her, though she didn't seem to take him up on whatever his offer was. Damnit, she was trying to enjoy the show.

In the meantime, a beautiful blonde tranny by the name of Violet had entered the fence. She didn't have any facial work done, but I immediately parsed her as a Motherlode Girl, and my radar is pretty accurate about such things. Rhonda knew Violet and was encouraging her to take a ride on the cross, while Cur was going on and on about how amazing it was that she looked just a like a real girl. Ugh. I wanted to grab her by the scruff of her neck and tell her for the umpteenth time that that is not a compliment. Tell her—tell us we're beautiful and frackin' leave it at that. Don't phrase it in terms of the improbability. We're well aware, and we don't need to deal with your envy.

Said none of that, of course. Violet's first words to me after Cur dervished away were you look like courtney love. Now that's a goddamned compliment of the highest order, at least to the likes of me. (I decided that she meant Courtney before the scary plastic surgery.) We talked for a while, me going into what passes as flirt mode. Apropos of nothing, she said, can i draw you a picture? i suddenly want to draw you a picture. As it happens, I had a pen and a notebook handy, and she quickly sketched a damn good likeness of Ursula from The Little Mermaid. She explained that she had a thing for Disney villains, and that her email address (which I'd acquired by that point) stemmed from her first acting gig, in a production of Alice in Wonderland. Yay! Theater geek! I talked about playing Karen Carpenter, and she replied but you aren't skin and bones. I'd like to think the fact that I didn't immediately interpret that as her calling me fat means my overall self-image is improving.

She said she could use a cigarette, and I suggested we go upstairs to the street so she could bum one. Glancing over at the blue room, the herd of spectators had thinned out, and Jezebel was nowhere to be seen. I figured she was probably off somewhere sucking cock. Still, I felt a momentary hesitation—was this, somehow, cheating on her? Or Vash, for that matter? I decided the answer to both was no. Vash was off with Dietrich (though in the same Zip code, unbeknownst to me at the time), and while I was technically there with Jezebel, we were not beholden to each other, me to her no more than I she was to me. All the same, I asked Hal to tell Jezebel if she should reappear that I'd be back soon. how soon? Hal replied, edging ever so slightly into sardonia. three hours? um, no. more like ten, fifteen minutes.

As Violet and I walked upstairs, I made conversation. Doing so, I started to feel uncomfortable; I was reminding myself of any of a number of boys that I've seen glomming onto girls walking upstairs. Happened to me more than once. Ugh. Not so good. The feeling didn't go away as we stood on the sidewalk near the front door, guy after guy hitting on her, her taking it all in stride, one negotiation after enough. A few propositioned me, which I was actually grateful for. Being ignored altogether wouldn't have made the icky feeling of boyishness go away any faster. One thing I did learn, however, was that it's better to smoke speed than to shoot it. Not that I did either or have any plans to, but, you know, it came up in conversation.

It was around three in the morning when I went back downstairs. Still no sign of Jezebel. I considered doing a walkthrough to see if I could track her down, but why? She was doing her own thing, it was cool, and I didn't have to move my car at four, so she could take her time. The Ungangbang was long since over, but standing near the couch and the sling inside the fence I could there was still something happening in the blue room; a blowjob, judging from the way that girl's long hair was waving back and forth as her head jerked back and forth, and it was so fast, it was a wonder her glasses—

Whaddayaknow. There was Jezebel, getting throatfucked.

I kept my distance until she was done, collapsed back on the circular bed, her bustier unzipped. I approached cautiously, not wanting to intrude on her doing her thing. Fish gotta swim, birds gotta fly, Jezebels gotta suck dick, and that's the nature of things. It's what she generally came to the Power Exchange to do, what she'd been doing the night we met. She arrived with me this time, though, and was going to sleep in my bed tonight if she wanted. Besides, we'd only known each other for a few weeks; we were dating, nothing beyond that, so it was all good.

Jezebel saw me and waved me over. I laid down next to her on the bed, a minefield of wet spots from jorm and lube and sweat and any of number of other fluids (Maggie would have been squicked beyond words), and we cuddled. Her glasses were off, and in the blue light I could see that her makeup had smudged and ran, cut by multiple streams of jorm. In that slightly hushed yet conspiratorial tone she does so well, she asked: isn't that hot? I groomed her paws, licking them clean. you're dirty, sherilyn.

We were never alone. At any given time at least two men would be watching over the low wall, and one would be in the room with us, sitting on the chair next to the bed. Jezebel told them that she was spent, really, just couldn't suck any more cocks tonight. I noticed that her estimate kept getting higher— she told the first guy that she'd already done eleven tonight, the next guy that she'd sucked twelve, then thirteen, fourteen, and so on, capping out around eighteen. Sometimes they tried to talk her into it, or both of us, and we deftly deflected them, remarkably in sync, playing off each other like a vaudeville routine. Jezebel had put her glasses back on, and I kept mine on as a show of solidarity. If one or both of us had braces, it would have been perfect.

Occasionally one of them would feel her up rather than talking to her, touching her around her legs and ass. her breasts were largely inaccessible, next to mine on the bed. She doesn't mind getting groped, and as she pointed out with a laugh: that problem solves itself, right about when they discover Little Jezebel.

The CD containing mine and Rhonda's music came on, at long last. The songs of mine which made the cut were "The Bog" by Bigod 20, "Engel" by Rammstein, "Hung UP (SDP's Extended Dub)" by Madonna, "Soylent Green" by Wumpscut, and "Love's Secret Domain (Demo)" by Coil. It's all about that late-nineties goth club ambience.

I was mostly ignored. They know that Jezebel is the prodigious cocksucker (me having never sucked a cock there at all), and what's more, she was passing and I was not. One fellow asked: do you dress that way all the time? Ah, that old chestnut. well, i don't wear a slip when i go to work, but otherwise, yeah, i dress like a girl all the time, because i am a girl. His jaw practically hit the floor. you ARE? I say forgive them, lord, they know not what they've done.

At least one guy, a rather beautiful piece of dark-skinned Eurotrash, was trying to get us as a package deal, going on about how cute we are. (He did not ask if Jezebel is my girlfriend, making him one of the few.) Jezebel told him that he should have been there a couple hours earlier. just my luck! i always get here too late. I almost felt sorry for him.

We moved from the Blue Room to inside the fence, where the red couch was available for seemingly the first time that evening, and dozed some. It was pushing four in the morning, and it was fairly obvious that we were just marking time, decompressing until the drive back to the Black Light District. Even though patches of my arms were still an angry blue and purple from her earlier consensual abuse—it had caused some concern among the others, and I wasn't sure yet if I liked the hitting—I was glad that I was able to provide her with some warmth and tenderness after the violent dicksucking. I own nobody; I simply offer affection if they want it.

Around half past four, we headed back to my place, and slept for a few hours. Funny how, on a queen-sized bed, I still never have any room. That's Perdita for you.

4:53pm

As retarded YouTube lip-sync videos go, this one of a young gothling doing "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" is pretty great. And hot. And Ringu-level creepy. All those good things.

8:31pm

I appear to have developed a slight case of workaholism, as after seven hours writing at the remarkably inhospitable Trolley Caffe today, I am now at Java Beach. I don't think this is a bad thing. I mean, I could, perhaps even should be at home relaxing, but I don't wanna. I did make and eat a salad and fiddled about with downloads for the length of the original version of Superman II (a refresher for comparison's sake for when I watch the just-released Richard Donner cut), and even met the new people. They knocked on my door, so there wasn't much I could to avoid them. Thankfully, I was back to my xmas trashy glory, so I'd like to think the proper impression was made. That said, they seem like nice enough people, the mother and the two children. You know, as children go. I still hear them upstairs and I still don't like that fact and I stll mourn the passing of my once-peaceful home, but such is the nature of life. That they're of Filipino extraction (I'd daresay the mother is an immigrant and the kids were born in this country) makes the bleeding-heart liberal in my inclined to give them a bit more of a chance. Don't ask me why.

Being able to do this, what I'm doing at this very moment, set my own work schedule, is one of the reasons I broke up with Maddy. One of the catalysts of the breakup that day was the fact that I wanted to write, and she wanted me to spend time with her. It's not a negative reflection on her; it just means that I have no business living with a partner.

Eventually, every story gets told. I tell that ones that are about me.

sometime after midnight

Just washed my hair for the first time in several days. Possibly since last Sunday, but I'm honestly not sure. Definitely not since it got rained upon Thursday night, though I may have showered but kept my hair dry at least once since then. It was almost a shame to take down my pigtails, which had been quite hardy this past week, retaining their shape through nights of restlessness, and always looking more dramatic the next day. It's made me, once again, want platinum dreaded extensions. I think they'd look good on me. Even if they didn't, I would probably still like how they look, which is the important detail. And I am so far past caring about the cultural imperialism charge, I can't even see it from here. The world is not my responsibility to save (I tried to order veal at the Bashful Bull Too this afternoon, but they were out), nor can I possibly damage it, the colorful scar tissue left in the wake of my emotional villainy notwithstanding. As usual, the cost of both the initial work and the frequent maintenance on the hair will keep me from doing it. I did briefly consider letting them develop the natural way, just not washing my hair, but, um, no. I'm a fucking trendy hipster, not a fucking filthy hippie.

Still haven't me the new people. That's one of the reasons until I waited until midnight to do anything with my hair, in case I ran into them. this also accounts for why I've just been reapplying my makeup over yesterday's gunk, though I got some hella cool streaking from a crying jag last night. I used to scoff at the idea, but it's true: mascara runs the best.

Oh, and holiday be damned, I got my new Medialoper column up.

I'm at a cafe again, not especially wanting to go back home, and using productivity as an excuse. I do get more done elsewhere, and I don't think I'm going to be able to concentrate at the Black Light District for the next few days at all. Vash and I had originally planned on hiding out and doing acid, but between the overhead incursion and her own stress levels from external forces, we've decided to hold off until a more mentally amicable time. We'll be together, and that's the important thing.

12:15pm

It was a difficult decision to choose the new tenants, but circumstances turned out that they were the best qualilfied. We mentioned to them that there is a tenant downstairs and to keep the noise down, so they will do their best to keep noise down after hours.

I have a T-Mobile day pass thingy, which means I can plop myself down in just about any (open) Starbucks and get online. I called around town, and the closer they are to my place, the later they're open—the one at 9th and Judah is open until seven. That works out nicely.

3:27pm

But never let it be said that I'm not goddamned masochist. I went in search of new shiny pants. First to Leather, Etc, then Daljeet's on Haight, and finally across the street to New York Apparel. Daljeet's was the worst, since I came closest to finding a pair which I liked in terms of the cut and the material. If they'd had them just a couple sizes larger (I seem to be at least a 36" waist now, which is pretty good considering how sedentary I've become), I so would have gotten them. When I didn't get anything after trying three pairs on, I got major frackin' attitude from the queeny clerk. Bitch wouldn't even look at me anymore, and got all snarky when I asked: do you ever get larger sizes of these? He snapped: what we have right now is on the shelf . Ugh. Very close to the top of my peeve list is I've asked being misinterpreted and/or answered incorrectly, and to be made to look like an idiot in the process. I don't need anybody else's help for that thank you very much. yes, i know, but do larger sizes exist at all, and if so, do you ever get them? Rolling his eyes, but still not looking at me, he said yes, sometimes. So, naturally, I had to press my luck: any idea when you'll be getting a new shipment? It's amazing the daggers shooting from his eyes didn't rip to shreds the shirts he was working with as he replied: i don't know! we get them all the time! I left after that. Never to return? Oh, please. Of course I'll be back. My options are severely limited; there are very few places I can go and come to close to finding what I want, and I have to try.

4:50pm

Surreality check.

I'm six feet tall.

I have a somewhat feminine face, but, again, I'm six feet tall, and there's something about my wingspan that isn't quite right. Same for my voice.

I'm wearing tall boots, the soles of which, while not heels, bring me an extra inch or so closer to stratosphere. The boots themselves, Fluevog Luckys Studs, have gotten an usual number of comments today.

Speaking of getting closer to g_d, my hair is in split-level pigtails which survived four or five hours on Jezebel's tempurpedic pillow quite well. Of course, the single anemone helps to distract from the bedheaded assymetricality of the pigtails. I hope. Probably not.

I'm wearing the remnants of last night's makeup, which I never properly took off, and I seem to have left my makeup at home so I haven't been able to fix it. (have you ever felt so used up as this?)

I'm wearing my Chloe coat, which is somewhat flashy in its own right, and also peeling in several dozen places, resembling nothing so much as Garak torturing Odo. The "changeling unable to shapeshift" theory explains a lot, now that I think about it.

I'm wearing shiny black pants, the pair I foolishly hoped to replace today. Though they're more of a matte shine they're still flashy by local standards, and like the coat they're clearly disintegrating, being held together by copious amounts of electrical tape.

So, yeah. Kinda makes sense in that context, doesn't it?

Alien is as alien does.

She left around noon this morning, and the...noise began at one. thumpthumpthumpTHUMPTHUMPTHUMPthumpthumpthump Some of it was your basic moving-in sound, but mostly, it was of children running around. Gah. Hate. They have the whole goddamned world. All I ask is the...what? Thirty square feet of my apartment? Forty? It's small, however much it is, and they can be everywhere else, why do they have to be above me? Maybe after moving and xmas is over, they'll chill out and I won't notice them at all and my nerves won't be rattled. I don't like most children, they make me uncomfortable, and I sure as hell don't like having to hear them around me. Admittedly, I got on well with Maddy's nephew, and I'd probably like Dana's kid, but they're extremely marginal exceptions. Other than that, I'm a fucking bigot. I don't deny it. I don't want them living above me. And what can I do? Not a goddamned thing except move, and that's not going to happen. So, as I say, I deal.

Thursday night at the Power Exchange, I played with a girl named Zuki who was there for the first time. We exchanged contact info, and will probably see each other again. I told her that I write about my experiences there and my life in general—as Hal helpfully put it, you know you're going into sherilyn's book, right?—and she said she's cool with it.

This is not going to ruin my mood, which is remarkably positive considering xmas is in a few days. (All three points of the triangle were off pursuing their own debaucherous vectors last night, and it was good.) I'll deal. It's what I do.

i can always tell which hands are yours.