Tomorrow night, Vash and I are driving (in her car) to Fresno. Wednesday, with any luck, we'll be going to Boyden Cavern. Spelunkadunkdunk!

12:27pm

i want to pretend i am you...extroverted and charming.

sometime after midnight

Drying jorm on the face feels not unlike an alphy hydroxy mask, though whether it's good for the skin is still a matter of debate.

Rhonda and I discussed the ongoing...well, I don't know if I'd call it a rivalry, exactly, but the factioning between the Citadel and the Power Exchange. The latter is regarded as ultrasleazy and unsafe and unhygienic, with stickier floors than a movie theater after an all-syrup showing of Rocky Horror and if you so much as breathe the air you'll catch eighteen different STDs. The former is...different, better, classier, etc. I guess. They can't really be compared given that the Power Exchange is open for its particular kind of business three nights a week, and events at the Citadel are a bit more sporadic, with more time given to classes and such, but compared they are. Were I to compare them, I'd have to say that I always have more fun at the Power Exchange on an average evening than I tend to at the Citadel, though Sister Dora and I did have fun there the previous weekend. But how can you not have a good time with a Carnalite at a play party? You can't. You can't not.

The boy-top did in fact have his violet wand this time, and used it on Vash and I some. Never really turned it up much; I didn't feel much of anything until he used what appeared to be a pom-pom to conduct the electricity. Electric pom-pom! Would have been perfect for Manson's "Fight Song" video. He got bored with us fairly quickly, since we weren't interested in going much farther with him. Showing more of his kind of enthusiasm was a small, vocal tourist from West Virginia. This is relevant because she used it as an excuse for everything, including (gah) referring to me as "he" and "him." She burst in while we were being violet wanded and insisted on getting some too (not the first time she would attempt to bogart someone else's action that night), making the pronoun slip when referring to me. When I told her that I'm a she, her response was rather chilling: then why is your hair like that? Right, then. Split level pigtails and four sea anemone equals drag queen. Now I know. I'd also gotten my hair reblondified that day, so the lack of roots may have added to it as well. I didn't have an answer for the hair question, and instead reiterated that I'm a girl. oh, wow, i'm so sorry. see, i'm from west virginia. i'm different. things are dfferent out there, and i thought you were a boy. I asked what felt like the obvious question: is this how boys look in west virginia? Oh, yeah. Huh. no, i guess they don't, but damn. you are beautiful. At this point she was just staring at me in what seemed like either shock and/or awe, her hands to her mouth, eyes wide. you're baaaaaad. you should model. you have incredible cheekbones. you're just...wow. What kept it from being flattering was the unfortunate fact that she was clearly tripping not on my quote-beauty-unquote, but that a boy could be so quote-beautiful-unquote.

I did the requisite half hour on the cross with Hal fairly early in the evening. Usually we don't get started until later, but we were both in the mood, and it was free. Besides, I figured, I could always go again later if I wanted. I've been growing aware lately that after the first few hits, I tend to feel a pressure behind my eyes. The hint of tears, perhaps. They never do come out—it never hurts that bad, and I can't remember the last time I cried from pain—but it's like they're lurking there, just in case they're ever needed.

Jezebel showed up around one. She was dressed more overtly slutty than when we'd met the week before, less with the shiny black and fishnets, and more with the minimal amount of bright fabric. There'd been some vague discussion during the week about the three of us playing together on Saturday, but nothing had been decided, largely because we were still figuring out how to communicate these things amongst the three of us, who can say what to whom in what format. I made mistakes and started a few fires, but they didn't last long, and I learned from them. I think. We were all here now, anyway, with slightly different ideas of how to proceed.

My concept was for Jezebel and I to have at Vash, since that seemed the best way to help ameliorate Vash's understandable feelings of insecurity regarding Jezebel, to make sure she didn't feel neglected in favor this shiny new object. Vash, on the other hand, was thinking more in terms of her and Jezebel tag-team spanking me. She asked me to sit backwards on the couch, ass out, facing the sling. Jezebel, being a far greater pain slut than myself (and possibly than Vash, though I'm not there when she's with Dietrich, so I can't rightly say), was thinking a bit beyond that. Looking over Hal's array of devicery on the table, she chose a new acquisition, a small plastic backscratcher. Probably got it from Walgreen's, which is where he gets the majority of his toys. The man ought to own stock in HoMedics. From the dollar section of Target, Vash and I once got a flyswatter whose swatting part was inexplicably in the shape of a frog. The swatting part also came right off and the remaining narrow black plastic handle works wonderfully as a caning implement. Dubbed the frogswatter, it's...somewhere in the Black Light District at the moment.

Jezebel started caning me lightly on my left thigh just below my asscheek, using the handle end, not the backscratchy end. Lightly...steadily...then a litle more rapidly, but never too much, because it didn't require a lot of energy, as she was doing what she would later call SDS, or same damn spot. Doesn't require much strength, even someone as self-conscioulsy scrawny as Jezebel can make it work, just requires persistence and a certain sense of aim, both of which she had in spades, especially as I started to react and squirm and buck and cry out more and more, she just kept on going, tap tap tap tap ow ow ow ow. The endorphins start to kick in after a while, and I knew my body was producing them but I couldn't really enjoy them because she just kept hitting and hitting, tapping and tapping, really, not that much force, but again not much was needed because with every strike my skin was getting more sensitive, not geometrically but exponentially, the nerves screaming louder and louder and louder with me following suit.

She didn't say much to me except sit still, and there was nothing necessarily there requiring me to keep still, even in this state it was unlikely that the aggressively lithe Jezebel or the considerably more muscular Vash could keep me from moving, but I tried to remain still all the same in spite of the fact that she just kept hitting and hitting and hitting, and was it on fire now? Was she using an electrical backscratcher with faulty wiring that had begun to overheat and smoke? My mind kept going back to the night we met eight days before (and precisely six months to the day after I met Ryder, a meaningless yet irrelevant coincidence), one of the first things out of her mouth after we'd introduced ourselves: i want to inflict extreme pain on you, to torture you. your eye makeup would look exquisite with tears running through it.

She was getting her wish in spades, this was as close to torture as I'd ever felt, and I was crying from pain for the first time in years—ever since my brother stopped beating the shit out of me, perhaps? Though Jezebel was manically giggling it was purely consensual and I could call red at any time, one of the things that kept me going, a sense that this had to happen, a wish to be granted by a service-oriented femme such as myself, just like the first thing that Vash told me she wanted physically from me was granted later that same evening, and in both cases it was something new for both of them, Vash had never had someone really scratch her up and Jezebel (though a well-travelled bottom, the ghost of MeAT visible on her chest if you know to look) had never really wanted to top anyone until she met me. And if that's what she wanted from me, that's what I wanted to give her, because if you give people what they want then they'll like you, right?

Which is among the reasons why it was such a good thing to have Vash there, to provide a reality check that I might not have been able to myself, to halt the proceedings when I was unable to do so. At the same time, her presence kept me going; if it had just been Jezebel and I (even within the public space of the Power Exchange), I might not have held on so long, but with her there I felt safe, since even though I'd been getting to know Jezebel over the last week I didn't really know her, not as much as I do Vash, and I trust Vash as much as if not more than anybody else.

And have Jezebel stop she did. Alarmed by the tears, Vash leaned close to where my head was hanging over the back of the couch, and asked: how are you, pitubaby? It took me about a minute and a half to formulate an answer (stubborn), by which point she'd asked me another question, thus derailing my answer to the first. An eventual question was whether I wanted to continue, to which my eventual answer was yes. Jezebel started on to the other thigh, and after the frist tap, before it could have begun to hurt, I started to cry again.

The flinch reflex is so very, very difficult to disengage. The aforementioned physical abuse as a kid (more casually referred to as "him beating me up" at the time) left me with a tendency to flinch and shield myself if anything came towards me too quickly. That I've loosened up as a person overall since transitioning has helped me get past that to an extent, but it was still a very strong instinct in the early days of my relationship with Maddy. The Ex didn't have any strong feelings about it beyond basic sympathy for the cause. Maddy got angry and took it personally, not understanding why I couldn't just get over it. That she would occasionally hit me (something The Ex never did) was an irony which, like so many others in those days, went unspoken.

I have no idea how long Jezebel went at the other thigh, nor how long she went at the top of my thigh after I turned around, except that the latter was only for a few minutes before it was decided I'd had enough. Nobody was keeping track, but the best guess has it all having lasted twenty minutes. Not very long, and a fucking eternity. I sat on the couch with Vash, rushing and floating. Jezebel disappeared for a few minutes and returned with a bottle of a sugary red beverage, telling me to drink it if I wanted to come down. But I didn't want to come down. Where I was now had been the whole point, for my state to be altered, and I was going to ride it for as long as I could.

Vash and I were there for a good while longer, engaging in some of our couples games on the couch (one...one...two...one...) as Jezebel exited the fence to resumed her hunt for the not-at-all-elusive cock. Later, Vash ended up in the sling—the naked masturbating guy wasn't around—with Hal rocking her back and forth. They both appeared perfectly content, fully clothed, nothing particularly sexual about it. Really, it was just about the cutest damn thing I've ever seen in my life.

Cur devished over to me and said she heard I was writing a book about the Power Exchange. I glanced over to where Hal was rocking Vash and said word gets around, huh?, then turned back to Cur and was noncommittal on the topic. (Which was me being honest; whether all this will evolve into a book remains to be seen.) She said that while it was okay that I was writing and all, you should keep your personal feelings to yourself. Oh, man. Oh man oh man oh man. It's like...damn. I seriously doubt she was aware of how much trouble my inability to keep my personal feelings to myself has gotten me into over the years, nor how much it's likely to in the years to come, or that I've decided to remain true to my own muse and my own sense of personal expression and my own need to tell my story. Didn't see the point in telling her, either. Smile and nod, smile and nod.

10:17pm

The SDS Nebula.

If I hadn't already gotten off his train by then, that alone would have had me barrel-rolling out the door, the way his eyes lit up when he described his placement technique. Oh, yeah, he was also a theatrical agent of some persuasion, he represented the greatest Elvis impersonator ever, this guy was the real deal, operates out of Phoenix—hey, where else would the greatest Elvis impersonator ever operate out of?—and he spend what was probably a solid three minutes digging around in his wallet for the guy's card. did i just forget it like a jackass? he asked himself aloud in a rhetorical but telling question which I chose not to answer. I was biting my tongue a lot, at least until he was confident he'd gotten the preliminary seduction out of the way and he started getting physical. Crouching in front of us, he reached out to my knee and said: why are you bruised? I deflected his hand and snarled: no! do not touch me. He got the confused, somewhat irked look they all get when I veer from the script like that, and said: don't be afraid. i'm not going to bite. Damn, condescend much? I replied: i'm not afraid. it's a question of consent. i don't like being touched without being asked. Looking increasingly hurt, he said: i just wanted to know why you're bruised. Since I didn't know, I said: i don't know. Oh, my, was I being problematic. you don't know? how can you not know? I never could resist this sort of conversation so: why should i know? you've never found a mark or scratch on your body, a bruise, cut, whatever, and weren't sure how you got it? I gotta hand it to him for finding a way to use the question to bring the discussion back around to his awesomeness: maybe when i was younger and didn't pay as much attention. Thrust, thrust, parry! well, it's good to be focused. I made an aggressive point of ignoring him, and the hint was gotten. As he wandered off, he said he'd be back later with free (free! what a bargain!) massages to anyone who wanted them. Didn't see him again, that night or the next.

sometime after midnight

I had a pretty good streak going, but all things must pass, and as such this is the first weekend in two months that I haven't gone to the Power Exchange. I'd had every intention of beinf there tonight—my shirt should be ready, Vash was going to accompany me, Rhonda tells me that some of the of the songs from my CD have made it into rotation, Jezebel may have been there, and I simply enjoy it—but that's not how things went. Such is life.

We had a pleasant enough time with her sister, but as family encounters will so often be, it was a reminder of just how...different we are. On this earth, the same as everybody else, but not of it.

Happens a lot, of course. Earlier in the day, Jezebel and I went to lunch. As we walked back to my office, hands intertwined (she's a tactile puppy, she is), someone from a passing car yelled...something. I'm not sure what, and if Jezebel noticed, she didn't react. It sounded like it might have been which one of you is the man?, but I'm not sure, and if so, what does that even mean? That they were clocking us both as trannies, or what?

When I told Vash about it later, she theorized that they parsing us as a female couple (so far so good), and their chosen form of harassment was to revive the hoary old chestnut that in the queer couples, someone has to play the male role and someone has to play the female. Makes as much sense as anything else, I suppose, and we'll momentarily ignore the butch/femme dichotomy that's so strong in this town.

Or maybe they were saying some derivation of you're both men, in a display of that unfortunate chemical reaction wherein two trannies who would otherwise pass become blindingly obvious when they're seen together—when one seems the fact that one seems slightly off, it increases the scrutiny on both. In our case, I would wager it's my size that (so to speak) queers the deal, since Jezebel is small and waifish, and I'm...well...not.

It did bring into focus something that flitted through my consciousness when Jezebel and I first touched. Though I nominally identify as lesbian because I consider myself to be a girl who's attracted to girls, it's always been how I've swung. I was into girls when I was a boy, and now that I'm not a boy (i'm not i'm not i'm NOT, why can't you people get it through your heads?), I'm still into girls. It's been the main constant in my wiring over the years, the speed of my light.

And it hasn't changed. But while I'm not a boy (cf. the italicized tantrum above), I'm not a girl, strictly speaking. As a girl is how I feel and how I identify and nothing would make me happier than to never be referred to as "he" or "him" for the rest of my life, but the fact of the matter is, I'm a third thing, not simply a girl but a tranny girl, a more rarefied breed, albeit one whom I believe deserves all the same rights and respect as genetic girls. Just because I acknowledge my difference doesn't mean I accept that I/we should be looked on as inferior or lower—which we are, in a big way.

The point is this: Jezebel is the only other tranny girl I've been intimate with (The Other doesn't count for a myriad of reasons), and as such, this is the first time I've ever felt truly gay and homersexual, if those things are defined as "desiring to pork your own kind." She is my own kind. Her body is like mine, her bewbjawb and lipo notwithstanding, and her soul and life experiences are similar to mine, discounting the ten-year age difference and the fact that she easily achieves a level of sluttiness to which I can only aspire, even if I could get past the fact that most penii are attached to icky boys. Little Jezebel is by definition attached to a beautiful tranny girl, and that makes all the difference in the world. It reminds me of what Vash said about when we first hooked up—she wasn't sure what she wasn't going to find in my panties, and didn't really care, because it was all about the person she was with.

I don't see myself frequently developing attractions to other trannies, to fag out (tm Lynnee) on a regular basis. I'm waaaaay too picky. Jezebel is one of the only trannies to turn my head, just like Vash was one of the relatively few genetic girls to get my attention, admittedly out of a much larger field. It's just like...now I know. Maybe when out with Jezebel, I'm free of the vestigial heterosexual privilege I may have with genetic girls. There's a bit more risk, perhaps, should either/both of us get clocked. (Which I don't mean to imply to be a given, because when we're both making the effort, we look like the serious hotties we are.) And, let's face it, risk is what makes life interesting.

Vash and I were at the Power Exchange on Friday after the Queer Open Mic. It was early, with no sign or Hal or Rhonda. Indeed, there was nobody which I recognized, which even for early in the evening was unusual and a tad creepy. Then again, that's part of what keeps it interesting, isn't it? A Michael Lucas-looking Eurotrash guy had wandered inside the fence, watching a couple engage in a bondage scene near the wall. As a spectator wearing a towel, he was supposed to stay outside the fence, but I couldn't work up the courage to kick him out. He wasn't hurting anyone (if you'll pardon the expression), and eventually he wandered back out.

In the Impulse Boutique, I asked the girl behind the counter if they were still selling the "Sexy Squad" baby tees. They're the girl equivalent of the "Sex Squad" shirts worn by most of the male employees, and the phrase is also adorned to the cop-looking cars which are usually parked out front. She said that they were only made sporadically, but that if I talked to a certain fellow I could probably get one through him. I tracked him down, and he said he could get me one, no problem. Of course, I'm super-picky about sizes, so I gave him the shirt I'd worn there. (I had already changed into a slip.) I should be getting it back next week, free of charge, cuz I'm a regular and all.

Jezebel and I had dinner in the Mission, then returned to the Black Light District for the ritual viewing of Videodrome. Helps digestion, you understand. At a quarter to one, after I'd given her a galactic cluster in exchange for the nebulae she gave me on Saturday night, Jezebel got the urge to bake me cookies and donuts. I'm firm believer in extending every hospitality to my guests, so we got dressed and drove to Safeway (the Noriega location is miraculously open until two) to acquire the appropriate accoutrement. It was all quite delicious.

We finally went to sleep around three, and Perdita was kind enough to wake us up at half past six. She's helpful like that. The morning-after fried-toast-and-egg concoction Jezebel made for breakfast was also quite yummy. It's almost a pity we didn't have hangovers.