Living shamelessly: The year in review.

It's been an interesting year. I would have posted this for the fourth anniversary of the blog back in October, updating you on what's been happening with some of the glorious women that you've been reading about, but still being largely puterless, finding time to do some decent writing has been a challenge. But, determined as I am, I'll be in this Toronto internet cafe, surrounded by kids killing one another on World of Warcraft, until I finally put this post to bed. So to speak.

I never really intended to see this blog continue for as long as it has, but it pleases me that since the days when it first appeared on LiveJournal, many of you have become regular readers. Some online friendships with some of you have developed too, and I think that's very cool. I also value your comments, emailed questions, and the assorted hotnesses that some of you share back with me. Most excellent.

I was single again at the outset of the year, although (because of someone's consistent inconsistency) an ambiguity surrounding that kept both my head and spirit in a centrifuge. It was very annoying, but of course the solution was to take a breath and go forward.

Hannah, the control-freak clown, and me didn't really plan to stay in touch after our last date. There wasn't much of a spark then, although I enjoyed her anecdotes about threesomes with other guys, her thigh-harness dildo, and her "roadside assistance skills." We parted on friendly terms after a casual date or two, saw one another on the street on occasion, and then she dropped off the map. Months later, and very recently, Kara and me ran into her during a local cabaret night popular with the clowning, grassroots theatre, and burlesque communities here. It was surreal, but kinda pleasant; I sensed a lot of "date comparison" going on as I shook her (geeky, uncomfortable) date's hand and as she met (radiant, playful) Kara and gave (amused, slightly tipsy) me twinklyeyes. Both ladies having a clowning background, which gave them territory to share stories over. We made kiss-kisses with those vague kind of foo-foo promises to 'meet up together again sometime maybe yeah.' Hannah squirmed as she smiled, and I enjoyed it. Still, I like her, and I could see us being friends, or double-date cabaret buddies. I still smirk when I remember how she kept glancing at my crotch when she was in my car.

I ran into Redhead Carla in a coffee shop recently. We spoke cordially, warmly, but she was utterly stressed out about something at the time and didn't stay very long. She volunteers at a local community shelter and is in a relationship now. I hope it's healthy for her, because she needs the healthy.

Biting Tina pursued me relentlessly through Facebook for a long while after our last date, but her refusal to follow basic boundaries ruined any chances that might have existed. She's still single and spends a lot of time playing FarmVille. Kill me now.

Sexy, articulate Morgan and me remain friends, although we're still not in touch nearly as much as I'd like (though that's probably more because of my damned schedule than hers). She eventually left the man she was unhappy with, the husband who never satisfied her craving for a solid, oldfashioned, over-the-knee spanking, and I understand that she recently began a blog of her own. I would love to have her over my knee again, and if I ever found myself hosting spanking parties with Kara, would definitely put her on a guest list. Meow.

We talked about it once or twice, where she shared that she was happily surprised to have heard from me, but I never managed to reconnect with Stacy. I understand that she dropped out of, or at least took a break from, graduate school for family reasons. I have excellent, hot memories of her exquisite, round ass and how readily she enjoyed being fucked hard and deep there.

Little has changed for the Tomboy. She's still with the unemployed yoga instructor, and we're still friends who see one another every rare once in a while. We've talked about getting together more often, as friends, and last summer I helped her out with a landscaping project. Between shovel-loads of soil as we sweated under a hot sun, she shared with me that I had been a staple in her fantasy life for a very long time after our relationship ended.

How can you not smile when a ex-girlfriend tells you, to your face, that she jills off to memories of you?

Delightfully geeky, always lighthearted, cock-loving Molly has been in a long-term, poly, lesbian relationship with a brunette BBW partner while also dating (read: fucking) at least one dude. We haven't seen each other in forever, but I know she's happily active with the local polyamory clique. Her life seems to be going just the way she wants it, which is terrific.

Bubbly Lee and me remain friends, although we've never talked about the one little suck 'n fuck we shared as I was driving her home one night. Perhaps she got what she came for. Perhaps she didn't. It hasn't become a topic, and I'm at peace with this. The same might be said for statuesque Lauren after our tender kiss, but we were always part of slightly different social circles anyway.

"Check out my new piercing" Tari became a flight attendant. We continue to flirt casually over Facebook, and I definitely regard her as Good People. Years ago though it was, I have fond memories of her pert, small ass (deliciously similar to Kara's) from summer skinnydipping in New England and spanking parties in Maryland. Yum.

Dean is enjoying a new relationship, and apparently has been exploring more of the regional BDSM scene, making new friends, and having a grand time. This is excellent, and I'm so pleased that she's doing well.

Jez expressed interest, over textmessage, in getting together again, had invited me to Top her, and even suggested a threesome between us and her girlfriend. A dream cum true, right? You may wince in pain now when I tell you that I didn't go... and the reason was because I couldn't afford to. Not that I'm completely sure I might have. Jez, you see, had turned pro.

Despite trying and trying again, Diva simply cannot find the kind of guy she's looking for. Her landscaping business tanked because of the recession, and she's about to embark on a new career as a corrections officer.

Heidi developed breast cancer. I suspect that this severely curtailed her new career as a boxer (which, frankly, I always thought was incredibly sexy for her to be doing), but I really don't know. Now, Heidi previously had thyroid cancer, which she always surmised had to do with her retaining "a lot of unspoken anger." At the risk of sounding smarmy, and given her sexual predilection for knowingly betraying the trust of her lovers, I have to ask myself how she metaphysically rationalizes this terrible ailment for having emerged in her tits.

Yes, yes, I know: it's a reprehensible thing to even think about. But, you know, if you knew Heidi... just sayin.

Almost two years after we stopped being fuckbuddies, I ran into the Panther recently outside a market. She had completely dropped off the face of the earth, but thanks to Facebook, I knew she was engaged to a young mutual friend, the cradle-robbing MILF that she is. smirk Her boytoy is a longhaired, low-key Johnny Depp type who once amazed me with his skill at producing hashish resin with coffee grinders, and he's a fine, fun guy.

She explained that her dropping-off-the-face-of-the-earth wasn't personal, and was part of a Bigger Picture she was taking to make changes in her life. I wasn't offended, but appreciated the explanation; she looked happy, which is really everything one can hope for for a friend, no?

I haven't the faintest idea of what's happening with the Grrl, and neither do most of my friends. She's been living in a magnificent house in Pennsylvania with mutual friends, but that family is selling the place, and I don't know what her plans are. She has never written or called me to ask about her cats. Recently, I thought I saw her in Toronto, and it shocked me at how strongly I emotionally, inwardly responded when I thought I had. I suspect she's continuing to do what she does best: be artistic with what elements are around her, do Reiki, be on the road, chastise herself, suffer her fybromyalgia, and continually seek out peacefulness where and how she can. I miss her.

Bootblack Boi and me have yet to reconnect, and the momentum may sadly need to be restarted if we ever would. It's always possible that we'd run into each other during a fetnight.

Chantel got fired.

Stefany and me phoned one another casually for a short while. Once, she asked me for money. Once, I asked her if she'd be interested in a friendly fuck. Neither of us hooked up with the other for either reason. I think about her on occasion, hope she's improved her world, and sometimes enjoy the memory of her excellent blowjob skills.

Since recently moving to a new pad, the Women Upstairs are history now. During a patio barbecue last summer, the straighter of the two women was lamenting the loss of her boytoy, the very one I would enjoy listening to pounding the daylights out of her. Seems Boytoy simply couldn't handle how sexually interested Straight Woman Upstairs was for him, so he called her a "slut" and left her. Yeah, I know. Go figure. So as I flipped bison burgers over the flame, it took Lesbian Woman Upstairs, Lesbian Woman Upstairs' Partner, Kara, and me to offer condolences and assure her that having a hot sense of sexuality wasn't a bad thing. And Lesbian Woman Upstairs apparently became an aunt recently.

Not long before Kara and me connected, there was the Schoolteacher. We've not kept in touch, but that's just our lives being in different circles.



In the end, Shayne got exactly what she wanted: to be rescued.

"Thank you. Thank you for finding me. Thank you for helping me. Thank you for being patient with all of my faults," she wrote to me last holiday season. "Thank you for showing me what romantic love can be and helping me to open up to more of the gifts this world offers. Thank you for supporting me so thoroughly... for your generosity which moves me to depths I didn't know I had. You fill me up in ways I never expected. You are the most amazing gift I have been given in a long, long time. From you I learn about how to keep gentle and open in the face of trials. You amaze me, even from afar."

By the summer, she had completely (and inexplicably) cut herself away from me. There was no discussion. There was no preamble. There was no closure.

There is a lot that I could write concerning Shayne, and no matter how much meditation I put into it, I'm never completely satisfied. And why be ungenerous?

I want to be able to write that we remain close friends, that she occasionally still calls me for counsel or for the phonesex that she would boast to her friends about getting from me. I want to be able to say that while we're with new partners, we still share a resonant bond. I was supposed to be able to say this.

I know that she loves me, that she worries about what I'm going to think about her, because she's told me so. But she's moved on to another man, an ex-sailor with a Neanderthal sense of gender politics and a penchant for frequenting sex workers, and seems deeply happy to be with him. She's uprooted herself from Chicago to start a new life with him in Seattle.

Now, this is fine. Really. I genuinely, honestly want her to be happy.

Shayne believes that I'm not at peace with the ending of our affair. She's mistaken. (God knows I had enough practice.) What I haven't been at peace with is the loss of our bond, our friendship. But then, Shayne has always been a little selfish, self-admittedly fickle, and quick to run away from any real observation of consequence.

Don't get me wrong: I love her. But, for her sake, I do hope she learns, grows, becomes wiser. When she's not running, she has a lot of potential.

I miss you, you fucking pain in the ass, though probably not for the reasons that you likely imagine.



And I am with Kara, and things between us are superbly good. As I finally close this post, head to the market, and make a family traditional cake for yet another holiday celebration, I breathe deeply with a heart full of memory and pleasure. It's been a challenging, surreal year, but also a year full of newness, passion, play, and laughing until the tears streak the cheeks.

I adore each and every one of these women, though in varying ways, and remain ever grateful for Aphrodite's gifts.