A long, reflective holdiay

cross-posted from my regular journal.


I try not to look at the Martin Luther King Jr. federal holiday as just another day off, but I'm afraid that sometimes I do. Yesterday I wasn't very focused on more than the fact that I could sleep in a bit and I didn't have to work that day. It isn't as if I was unaware of the observation of the day, but rather I war with myself in that I think we should keep the memory of MLK in the forefront of our society always, not just on a designated bank holiday. Memorial observances, as such, have never made much sense to me, really. I understand the original meaning and spirit behind it, but there is a collective slide we do...from veneration and reverence, to respect, to forgetting why we even have the extra day in our delighted rush to leave town, squeeze in that ski trip, go see Aunt Suzie, and what have you.

In April of 2002 I and several friends converged for a mini-reunion of online family in Memphis, TN. One of our members resided there and she was a single mom who also took care of her aging mother, therefore she couldn't travel and she often missed our various meet & greets. We called our trip "The mountain comes to Mohammed" There was perhaps 30 of us and we all had a lovely 4-day weekend.

About 20 of us went to the National Civil Rights Museum. Our ages ranged from 25 to 55 so most of us lived through those turbulent years at various ages. Regardless, we were all awestruck by the complexity and the depth of the exhibits, the history of the struggle for equality that seems all at once unique to the United States and yet is universal in theme.

I was young and did not have an awareness of what was happening in those formative years of 1961-1965. I was out of the country from 1966-1969. I don't remember the horrible summer of 1968, the assassinations of Robert Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr., or even the Democratic Convention that year in Chicago. I was in Japan and seven years of age. My mother was still effective at shielding me from the worst of the news. (That would end quickly, by the summer of 1969 when we moved to Washington DC and I became sharply aware of the large world around us.)

As I moved slowly through the museum I found myself in the company of different friends. We all moved at different paces. I went through the majority of the museum with my friend Greg. He is from Canada, born and raised outside of Vancouver. At 48, he is old enough to remember the events which unfold before our eyes here as historical documentation, newspaper clippings, the actual jail cell where Martin was incarcerated, and lastly...you exit the museum at the Lorraine hotel.

You see the room in which Martin stayed and you realize you are standing on the balcony he stood on. You look down and the cars beneath you are no older than 1966 and you feel rooted to the spot, frozen in time, paralyzed in a way that makes it difficult to breathe. The audio of the newscasters, their frantic voices announcing that Martin has been shot, rings in your ears and fills the very air around you.

I turned to look up and there was Greg, as frozen as I was, tears streaming down his face and I wished at that moment that I could cry too.

Never, on any 2nd Monday in January, have I forgotten that image, that feeling, those surroundings.

I PROMISE

SEX will be on the writer's menu today!

The Plumber Episode II

On a Friday during our Indian Summer, a surprise visit morphed into hours of conversation, laughter, music, and a lot of wine. Why had we not seen the plumber in so long? Well...the tender tushie had taken a hard fall in not so soft water. He had been water skiing on the Delta and had a serious fall. He'd raxed his leg muscles from his thigh on down to his heel. I'd noticed he was limping, but as usual he was looking tan, fit, dressed in shorts and a shirt. The only thing not dark on him was the blonde hair and those mischievous blue eyes.

Conversation turned to the web site we all frequented and comments on a few people, a few gossipy stories, a few admissions of fun not yet had. I was sitting in my chair. He was sitting in Lace's chair. She was sitting on the ottoman. The start was innocent in its transparency. A massage for his very sore leg. I found the massage oil and Lace obliged while he and I carried on a conversation.

"You know, there's two legs here..."

He dropped it in such a casual, almost shy tone. There was nothing shy about the look on his face. It spoke volumes of the humor he found in the whole situation. As Lace moved her hands up above his knees, I pulled off his white athletic socks and began a foot massage and acupressure. His Achilles tendon was definitely bruised and you could still feel the knot in his calf. I worked carefully on those areas, and applied pressure to the reflex points on the soles of his feet. His feet, like the rest of him, are tan, calloused, strong. I snap his toes, flex his instep and in a sudden wicked streak I run my nail against his arch. I'm pleased to watch him twitch violently. I was surprised to hear him groan. I think Lace was too. He picked up her hands and moved them WELL up his legs onto his inner, upper thighs.

It does not take a teleprompter to see where they're headed. No one is talking right now. I move to work on his other foot now, and I take my time. I'm a tactile person and I like the feel of my hands on someone's skin. The texture, the tensile strength of him was interesting, almost fascinating. I'm lost in the creases and the lines of his foot, the bend of his arch, the ridges and indentations of his ankles. He has pretty feet for a man. I don't say that lightly. Feet are not my favorite part of the body (especially on me). I glance up to see Lace is sitting bent over. Massage doesn't require that her head be in his lap.

The Plumber is grasping the arms of the chair. His eyes are closed and his head slightly turned to the side. I have a few different choices at this point. I can give his feet a pat and wander upstairs to leave them with some privacy, or I can tease him a little more--make Lace's job a little easier, and maybe give the Plumber a surprise or two. After all, no one has told me to get lost. So I commenced with a little toe sucking. His feet tasted strongly of the lavender massage oil I'd been rubbing into his lower legs and feet for a good half hour now. The texture of his skin upon my tongue was interesting, and except for the massage oil, he was clean and surprisingly tasty. What was really tasty were the moans and wiggles. He'd never experienced anything like this and I chuckled as I darted my tongue into that tender spot between the toes, or sucked two at a time into my mouth, applying my tongue to the underside of his feet as I might to the underside of a cock. All the while I continued to massage his heel and instep with my fingers.

I did most of this with his foot propped up on the arm of my chair. I moved down to kneel behind the foot stool and attend to his other foot, since it was on the other side of Lace and he couldn't really move it over to me without impairing her ability to blow him (no man I know is going to do that anyway). At one point, I felt him flex his knees out, his heels in and pull me closer. I took that to mean that he was ready for me stop with his feet. Lace was still quite busy so I began to massage his calves and shins some more. I noticed also that Lace's halter top was un-haltered and her back was bare. Before I'm quite aware what is happening, I feel my shirt being pushed up my back and pulled over my head. The Plumber is still sitting back against the chair, his hands on the arms, or on Lace's head. So how is my shirt being pulled off? The same way my bra is being unhooked...with his TOES. And then in a leg lock that would make a wrestler envious he pulls me forward firmly until I am on my knees behind Lace and leaning over her back while he pulls my bra off me.

"Hi," I say quietly to Lace. She raises her head to look back at me, only to find her head is now resting between my breasts. She assumed I was still dressed only to find she is suddenly wearing my breasts for ear muffs. The Plumber is giggling with glee now. He's got two half-dressed nymphos focused on HIM.

And so all three of us sprawl on the bed and play, hands, feet, breasts, cock, pussies, we keep changing round to this or that. I take over Lace's previous position and continue the blow job while he works his fingers in and out of her. I can hear her delight and I can feel his. I'm more than mildly amused by this impromptu threesome. It's not something that Lace and I have ever discussed ahead of time and yet, for whatever reason it is largely stress free. We've never played together, it just has not been part of our friendship. It isn't out of bounds, or in bounds, it has just never come up. Mostly, I think, because our taste in men differs quite a bit.

I find myself maneuvered to my back across the bed as he kneels to lavish attention to us both, a hand working in and out of us both in rhythm. I turn my head left, as Lace turns her's right and there is a slight 'bonk' as our skulls touch. "Hello Siamese Twin!" Lace giggles. I giggle, he giggles, we all giggled. For what seemed a languid few hours, we played, and stroked, and sucked, and fucked, curled around one another in turns like a nest of otters.

At one point, Lace broke away to go up stairs a moment. At that moment the Plumber announce "I'm going to fuck Red" and he did. Very nicely I might add. After a time I looked over to see Lace sitting on the ottoman watching with a smile on her face, while I had my ankles around my ears. We traded turns like a WWF tag team, and it was my turn to sit back and take a deep breath. I realized it was nearly midnight, we'd been at this a good three or four hours. I was due online to visit with the Primary. I cracked open the laptop and found him on IM>

Me: "Sorry I'm late," I write. "The Plumber showed up."

He: "Oh really! Are you upstairs?"

Me: "Well...no, even tho K isn't home."

He: "..."

Me: "Congratulations are you are now the virtual forth!"

He: "LOL! Always the bridesmaid..."

And he had me tell him the whole tale, while The Plumber and my roommate enjoyed some one on one exercise, a shower, a lingering good bye kiss, and a farewell.

She came back in, as I was straightening my bed, finding the pillows and now feeling rather tired. We looked at one another and in unison said.

"What in the hell was that?!" And burst into laughter.