Silken and Me

As Silkenvoice, I do not pretend to be the perfect dream woman. Nor do I want to be, either in fantasy or reality. I am asked quite often "what do you look like" and my answer is usually either a variation of "average-looking" or "whatever you want me to look like", depending on how playful I am feeling. I am evasive because it is important to keep some distance between my online Silkenvoice persona and The Real Me(TM).

As Silkenvoice, I try to create a safe space in people's minds, a place for them to go and experience their sexuality positively. I write most of my stories in first-person feminine perspective, and I put a lot of myself into the narrator (narratrix?), so people usually think She is Me. And so I get this feedback on my stories "God you're perfect, I want you, I want to meet you." Now, while I know I am perfect, whole, and complete just as I am, the perfection of which they speak is my uninhibited sexual self-expression. Yes, I will try anything twice. Yes, I love to do all the naughty things I narrate. But the reality is that The Real Me is far more complex than Silkenvoice, and few people can handle the reality of me being perfectly me. Believe me on this.

I try to avoid getting ego-involved with my Silkenvoice persona. I don't want to fall into that trap of thinking that I am really as irresistible as my readers and listeners think. I assure you, I am as flawed a human as you are: I bleed once a month. I can be moody. I have a strong sex drive. I can kiss for hours. My mind is insatiable. I discriminate in favour of intelligence. I sometimes snore. I like being in control. I am a hard-nose about keepng promises. I dislike watching TV. I give procrastinators a hard time. I am incurably optimistic. I can be clumsy. I am touchy-feely. I am unstoppable. I am multi-talented and people find that intimidating. Silken, however, Silken is less complex.

Silken loves sex anywhere anytime. She seduces and is seduced by her lovers. She has inhibitions in all the right places. And because she is fictional, everything goes smoothly for her, and when it doesn't, she takes it in stride. Silken is fictional, a fantasy woman created to show that smart, self-confident, complex women are sexy, too; that a woman can submit sexually and not find it degrading; that a man can submit to a woman and not be less of a man; that sex in all its variety is not only healthy, but a doorway into intimacy and connection. Oh and fun. Yes, loads of fun.

So I draw a line between Silken and Me, and I keep it as best I can, for my protection. To protect me from stalkers, and from myself. It is tempting, all the adulation, but I am determined to keep it from going to my head (and cunt). So thank you for your interest in Silkenvoice, and please, feel free to ask questions. I just ask that you respect my choice not to answer some questions as clearly as you would like.

KR

I choose

The Choice

The intellect of man is forced to choose
perfection of the life, or of the work,
And if it take the second must refuse
A heavenly mansion, raging in the dark.
When all that story’s finished, what’s the news?
In luck or out the toil has left its mark:
That old perplexity an empty purse,
Or the day’s vanity, the night’s remorse.

-- William Butler Yeats

I choose. I chose to return home and go back to work. Gave my doc the "return to work" papers and told her to sign them. I've been home 6 days. Being back at work was good in a lot of ways. People missed me, said they were glad to see me, and gave me time to get back into the groove before they started asking for help again. It is a choice to return here... to the same company and bosses I've worked for going on ten years now. While I was away I received a few job offers off monster.com, one of them was a 50% pay increase and twice as much vacation time as I currently have. I turned it down, which no few of my intimates has told me was insane. But I had good reasons for making the choice to remain, not the least of which is that there has been so much uncertainty, change, and loss in the past few months that I really don't want to put myself through the additional stress of adapting to a new workplace, particularly seeing as my line of work is stressful enough.

So much uncertainty in life. In my life right now. I find myself hesitating to commit myself to doing things. I've no idea when Caro is going to breathe her last, I've no idea how the family will handle her death versus her dying. And I have plans. I really do. Life is uncertain but there are things I have chosen for myself and my life and I'm feeling very powerful in my choosing, in the possibilities that I am creating. In three months I should accomplish a major milestone that I have been working toward for a year now. By then, hopefully there will be closure with Caro and I can go forward with the career map I laid out for myself in September. Then, I expected to be in a very different situation by Spring 2010. We'll see. Sometimes, having too many possibilities or choices is worse than having too few. And me, I'm being encouraged along two different paths in my profession, as well as being encouraged to take other things like my writing and photography more seriously. And my relationships, oh my... the joys of loving and being loved by more than one person can at times be overshadowed by the complications of feeling pulled in multiple directions at once. I want... something in me says. I want... I want... and then, when the time comes, I commit. I choose. I choose.

Home at last!

So far this year I have slept in my own bed perhaps 15 days. And let me tell you, I've missed my bed. In fact, I've missed it so much that I am currently in it. I got home, got naked, and got between those thousand thread count sheets as soon as possible, and now I'm leaning up against the headboard while the tempurpedic mattress cradles my ass. This is a great improvement from the floatation devices that the airlines pass off as cushions that I was sitting on an hour ago.

Anyway, I'm home. Its hard to believe my sister has been gone nearly three months, and that my other sister has been on hospice for over three months. The one who is living is jealous of the one who is dead. Cancer sucks, my friends.

So I'm home, and I've got to pick back up at work, and I've got lots I want to accomplish after being away for so long. But I'm not stuck on getting it all done or having it all go the way I want it to. It continually sinks in that I can try to plan life but Life often does not go according to plan, so I simply have confidence in my ability to thrive whatever the circumstances.

Har den äran

High noon. I roll the car out of the garage. The top is already down. There is a blanket in the passenger seat, a book of Rumi's poetry, a bottle of water, and my camera. The weather is brilliant. I've got two days of sunshine left before I return home to Oregon, where it is raining. Of course. I love Portland for its rain, for its cool misty mornings, for the volcanic skyline and the unpretentious , surprisingly sophisticated people. But I am a California native, a 5th generation California Girl, and this--this land of golden hills and winding roads, of sunlight and fog--this land is in my blood. And in the past few days it has called to me, and I've recalled what I loved about it.

California Highway 1 again, across the Golden Gate Bridge. This time I do not stop in Sausalito, I press on, up to Mt Tamalpais, over and around, winding my way through groves of Eucalyptus and wildflowers that perfume the air with citrus sweetness. The car hugs the curves, growling up from the shaded sylvan corners into the sunny straightaways--the entire drive to Stinson Beach done in 2nd and 3rd gears. A blast of salt-scented air and warmth, and I am on the west side of the mountain, the car in neutral, gliding down the narrow highway toward the Pacific Ocean. A hawk follows my descent, gliding with me. Stinson Beach appears below, and I am awed by the power and beauty of nature. And deeply, deeply grateful that I am here to see, feel, and smell it. I am alive, despite the death and dying around me. And perhaps because of it, I am keenly aware of the joy and beauty to be experienced in my everyday life.
There are few people on the road with me. I thought there would be more, seeing as today is Good Friday, but I share the road with a few other people in convertibles and a lone highway patrolman. Most of the traffic on the road is cyclists, actually, and their stamina and svelte physiques awe me almost as much as the engineering wizardry that went into making this powerful car so very quiet. There is a 10 mile section of Highway 1 between Stinson Beach and the hook-up near Muir Woods where most of the drive is 20 miles per hour. Winding switchbacks that give teasing views of San Francisco to the South, before turning inland again.

The day, the drive, the car, me... it is all poetry. But it gets better!

Around 4pm I cross the Golden Gate bridge again, going south. I prop my camera on the steering wheel and got this shot, even:

Over the bridge, through the crossover to Presidio Park, make a right at Geary, two more rights to get onto Clement (it takes three rights to make a left in SF), and I am headed the right direction to pick up a very special cake for MR's birthday. My friend Janne is always talking about his swedish princess cakes and how much he loves them, and I'd despaired of getting one here in the States, but I found a German bakery in San Francisco called Schubert's that makes princess cakes. I know MR likes raspberry, and almond/marzipan, and I figured he would enjoy the kirsch custard and whipped cream and moist white cake. I mean, what's not to like? So I have my usual excellent parking luck in SF and got a spot a half block away from the bakery. I walk in and pick this up:
A swedish princess cake with a pale yellow-green marzipan icing, and the words "Har den äran Älskling!" which is the Swedish equivalent of "Happy birthday, my love" but literally says "In your honour, lover." It is a very light cake, airy. Even the custard is light. The raspberry layer is fresh raspberry, hardly sweetened at all -- it tastes vividly of sunlight and whole raspberries. MR approves. Yum and Yay.

First Day of Spring

I have a confession to make. I've never had a thing for cars. I've never cared much about what I drove or what others drove, so long as it got me where I needed to go with minimum muss or fuss. This, despite the fact that I grew up with a father who loved to restore old cars. When I was in high school he had a 46 Ford that he restored, painted cherry red, and drove around town with a huge grin on his face, and I never really understood the feeling he had driving that car, until today.

Today I hopped into a black BMW Z3, dropped the top in under 30 seconds, and drove the Pacific Coast Highway 1 to the Golden Gate Bridge, and then back, to Golden Gate Park. It was glorious. It felt like the first day of Spring. I could feel the heat and light from the sun soaking into me, and I smiled, really smiled, with all of me. For the first time in a long while I felt like I radiated joy. Part of it was the beautiful weather, I know, but part of it was the car. It was a joy to handle such a smooth manual transmission. The engine is so responsive. The suspension is amazing. Cruising the patched, bumpy streets of San Francisco just inches from the asphalt was surprisingly smooth. With the top down, the sun poured down on me, and the wind blew my hair into fly-away ringlets. I eventually put it in a ponytail, but soon took it out. Restraining my hair restrained my joy.

Just as I was passing the Conservatory of Flowers I saw an open spot, so I whipped the car in, raised the top, and in three minutes was paying my $5 to get in. It was worth it. I particularly liked the right wing, where the pools are. There was lots of penjing and orchids, and they misted the room regularly, which gave things a dreamy quality. I got some interesting photos, some of which I'll probably post eventually.

I left the conservatory at 4:30, and when I realized the time, my gut knotted up a little. Getting from Golden Gate Park to I-280 during rush-hour is supposed to be a nightmare. I rushed to the car, put the top down again, and pulled out onto JFK. It was cooler, so I zipped up my black jacket, turned up my hot-pink collar, and switched on the seat-heater. And then I turned on the stereo, and as soon as I did, I relaxed. I could hear the music perfectly, despite the traffic. And I reminded myself that I wasn't in a hurry. I turned onto Fulton with a completely different attitude, and had a great drive, smiling all the way. I was in such a good mood I even stopped at Trader Joe's to get the ingredients for one of MR's favorite meals--croque monsieur.

All in all a great day, for a change.

Freeing Persephone

Persphone and Pomegranate by Rossetti

This whole sad hiatus has been somewhat productive, creatively. Yes, I've been doing some rather dark poetry, but I've gotten some lovely photographs here and there, and I even managed to finish an erotic story and get it submitted to the Sex & Spirituality anthology that Samba Mountain Press is publishing this summer. Hopefully it will be accepted. I called it Freeing Persephone. Here is an excerpt:

"What do you want?" His voice was careful-sounding, almost neutral.

In that moment I understood with perfect clarity that the antithesis of death is sex. That the act of procreation, of self-perpetuation, was the only consolation my body and spirit could accept. The previous evening, in an unsuccessful attempt to cope with my grief, I'd tried meditating on the Buddhist thought-problem: If the only certainty in Life is Death, and the time of death is uncertain, what am I supposed to do? The answer, apparently, was Fuck.

"Make love to me," I asked of him.

And he did.

He began by worshiping my back, the entirety of which is an erogenous zone with a sensitivity level just shy of my clitty. Stoke a cat from head to tail and she will raise her hips, purring and kneading the bed. I became more and more feline with every scrape of his whiskers, every caress of his fingers. The warmth of his mouth and the tickle of his breath were delicious. He soon reduced me to a mindlessly writhing creature whose gasps and moans held an entirely different meaning than the ones just moments previous.

I ground my bottom upwards into him and gasped as I felt his hardness wedge into the cleft between my cheeks. My need escaped me in a low hiss, a sound we both knew well. He pressed my thighs apart and ran a hand along my flesh. My labia opened to his fingers and weeped like the skin of a ripe nectarine splitting under the pressure of its own juices. Deftly, he strummed the folds of my center, delving deeply into my heat, coaxing my clitty out from under its hood.

I ached with both need and despair even as I rode his fingers. I wanted him and I didn't. I wanted the transport, the sweet oblivion, that only he could provide in that moment, and I hated him for it, hated him for making me want him even in the midst of devastating grief. I was born of the fruit of good and evil, but I'd eaten the seeds of the knowledge of life and death and I wanted to know, in every fiber of my being, that I was alive. Alive!

I fought the impending climax even as I craved it. So he wrung it from me. Wrung it from me with the twist of his fingers inside me, with the jolt of his arm rocking me, and finally, finally, with the pop of his thumb through the star of my anus. I cried out as flashes of white lit my retinas and then flung myself against the bed in a paroxysm of pleasure that rocked me for a good minute, probably two.

I surfaced with a gasp, drenched in sweat, my body still trembling. I rolled over onto my back, pushing my hair away from my face, and when I opened my eyes, he was there. His eyes were dark, his face flushed with excitement, and his sex... Oh sweet heavens, it was so full of blood that it bounced with each beat of his heart.

His hand tangled in the hair at the back of my head, pulling me inexorably forward.

"Suck me," he demanded, and I did. He rose over me like the lord of the underworld, Hades himself, and as I wrapped my mouth around the inflamed pomegranate-colored cap, I felt a kinship with Persephone, trapped in the Underworld, pining for the world of the living.

I worked my mouth artfully upon him. I love oral sex. It is its own form of worship, of worshiping the divine spark in my partner. I gave myself up to it, to the sacred joy of it. I was Persephone, and the cock I worshiped with my mouth was a flaming torch, and the thighs before me were sheaves of grain, and the passion-blurred man presiding over me, he was a god, my god. Oh god, please, please, I panted, begging for the fruit of his pleasure. When he came his body arched and shuddered, and his hands forced me to pull back, so that he filled my mouth instead of my throat. He tasted like sea salt and persimmon, and tart, yes, a bit tart like pomegranate, I fancied, as I swallowed his seed.

Life just is

I know you think the world is a warm and gentle place
she breathed into my ear from 3000 miles away
That life is good. But for me its a shithole
she sighed and dragged on her cigarette
I heard the exhale, saw the smoke apparitions
saw grandmother, mother, and sister dying
of tobacco in my mind's eye
rolled the ghosts up and stashed them away
for another conversation another day
Oh baby, life is what it is, neither good nor bad
its attitude that gives it colour. We wear glasses
some rose-coloured, some shit-brown coloured
(she coughed a laugh of recognition)
You've just got to hope one day you can exchange
those glasses, change your attitude.
Life just is what it is, it happens
we get to choose what we make it mean

A child's tears

(For Lisa, someday)

Why are a child's tears so beautiful
seeming to chime with every drip
off cheek and chin
the tinkling of their tremble
gilding spiky lashes
with crystalline rainbows?
Perhaps it is the child's skin
smooth and poreless
the peerless clarity of which
provides the slate
that tears are writ upon,
each drop a note.
I am in awe of this child's tears
I cannot tell her do not cry
do not miss your mother's arms
do not tear me with your music.
And so I watch her weep
gathering up her salty sorrows
committing them to the well,
the deep and beautiful well,
of children's tears.