craving isn't quite the word, but I don't know a better one

So I had this dream about tree-squid.

Wait. It's not that kind of dream. But I think it mostly is; I had a dream where there were tree-squid and scaly cats and I have no idea why this makes me giggle, but it does. Why I remember is because it was a nightmare, the way that a nightmare is when nothing terrifying happens, but you know that everything's wrong and you're not sure why. Well, that and having tree-squid thrown at me. I woke up utterly freaked out and blinking suspiciously at every tree I passed.

It still makes me giggle. They were squid the size of small dogs, like something out of Super Mario.

No, I'm not high. I'm just awake. And actually, I woke up an hour or so ago after a dream that lasted years. I was dancing because when I fell asleep, I was remembering a post by hetrez from a week or so ago.

Put Me in a Package and Send Me There:

I've been thinking about this lately, and talking about it a lot, because I am struggling with sexuality, with the question of whether or not I have one, and I feel strange desiring touch when I don't have a corresponding desire -- the words "touch" and "body" seem hypersexualized to me sometimes, they seem loaded with a meaning that I don't want. If I am friends with someone, I want to put my hands on their face -- my fingers twitch, I have to rub my palms against my jeans, because it's weird, you know? Touching someone softly on the neck, at the corner of their jaw, behind their ears, and hoping that it will be anything else to that person besides a signal that I want to kiss them.

Heh. I don't know. Come over here, let me play with your hair. I promise I won't try anything funny.

It's been simmering for a while, I think, but so much moreso tonight, and I'm not sure why. The elegance of expression is part of it; I love the fit of words that flow together like the textual manifestation of touch.

I thought of this tonight, feeling fingers in my hair and on the back of my neck, and wonder.



It's harder with men, that's what I want to say, but the truth is, it's hard for me with anyone. I like it and hope for it and have a child and a niece who give it freely, that crawl into my lap so I can play with their hair and cuddle them whenever I like. Nick still wants good-night kisses and goodbye hugs and everything in between while he talks about robots that will rule the world and pirates on the seas. It's a craving I notice in the lack, when I just want any contact I can get.

I dated to get it, once upon a time; attraction is nice, sex is good, but touch is better. Someone who lent me their body without reservation; I'd learn them with my fingertips and the heels of my hands, draw my fingernails lightly over their skin, shiver a little when I could feel the change between muscle and knobs of bone. I never knew how to ask; how do you ask for that? I bought dinner and let them drive me home, suggested home movies so I could curl up on the couch with a head in my lap and a body spread out for me to explore. I held hands because I needed the contact, twining fingers, feeling until I was sated.

I miss it. Not dating, though sometimes I miss that, too.

It's confusing, because it's hotwired, however it happens, for sex; the taboo of not touching where you aren't fucking is so ingrained outside of family that I'm always startled by my body's reaction. My closest friends are also my family because I need the shortcut, people I can hug when I say hello and when I go, touch their hair and curl up with my head on their shoulders while we talk. In between, I'd go to clubs, make out with boys in dark corners and in the middle of dance floors, get drunk from getting what I wanted in the only way I felt I could.

It feels selfish, to make an offer I don't mean to keep. I doubt that they remember or care that there was once a girl in a club who let them push her against a wall and touch wherever they liked, as long as she could do the same, and wandered out when she was sated. I showed them how I wanted it, with fingers in my hair to tilt my head just so, slow strokes against my collar, fingernails through my shirt down my back. I'm not sure any of it was arousal at all; I just remember the relief of finally. Finally. And I'd walk away before they could ask for more.

Hmm. I could warn for TMI, but I don't think I've even moved past petting.

My first kiss was like that; I was seventeen and we watched a movie, and for three long hours we gravitated from brushed fingers to a hand on my shoulder while I shivered, feeling euphoric and impatient and never wanting it to stop. Three movies went by and I remember it like I remember how to breathe.

It happened like this:

He sat in his chair and I was on the couch. I laughed at a naked girl and reached over the arm to cover his eyes. He pulled my hand away and then he didn't let go.

Three hours, moving closer in inches that felt like years; I don't know why we were so afraid, shifting from chair to couch so abruptly we scared ourselves into another hour of careful movement, trying to read each other with our bodies because we were terrified to look each other in the eye. He kissed me finally, and it was so terrible and like a revelation all at once; I woke up. Oh, I remember thinking, trying to work out the geometry of tongues and teeth and lips, this is how two people fit, like a jigsaw puzzle with unexpected angles and odd corners and strange shapes; I never opened my eyes to see. I lived in my head so much, so often; I wanted to learn this with my body.

It was drugging, addicting; I could touch him, get skin under my hands, shape my hands to another body. He played with my hair, dragged his fingers down my back, rested a hand on my hip or laced his fingers through mine. I'd follow him anywhere with a pull, because withdrawal was so much worse.

It was rare then and it's even rarer now; I wonder if that's what adulthood is supposed to be like, and I can't say I'm fond of it.

I went to a con--two really, the same one twice. I sat down on a bench or on the ground and I'd find people next to me. A hand on my knee to get my attention, on my arm to ask a question, fingers playing with my hair or arms draped across my shoulders, bodies leaning back against my legs, grabbing my hand to lead me wherever they wanted me to go. I didn't care where we went; I'd follow them anywhere with a pull.

Withdrawal was so much worse.

It was new and so startlingly familiar; I must have forgotten more than I'd thought. I don't know what that means; I don't know if it's supposed to mean anything at all. And I don't even think I care.

Comments

[cold-poet.livejournal.com]

I used to be very very tactile, and I was surrounded by others who also were, so it was great, lots of affection, lots of comfort.

Now, I can't stand being touched by people who aren't my husband. It makes me feel icky, because it is *too* familiar, too intimate. Roger isn't a very touchy person, so over the years I found that every time he reached out to touch me, my hair, my hand, whatever, it was a very blatant gesture of loving me, of *needing* to touch me, and so even casual touches became intimate.

I still hug my friends hello and goodbye, hugs are vital to existing, I think, and with my family I'm fine, but even some of my closest friends can't touch me in certain ways without me needing to find a way to distance myself.

And in some ways I like that, I like that the people I love most in the world, the people I share a genetic connection with are the people I am most comfortable with, that there's an easy intimacy there that excludes the world at large, at least in my own mind.

[seperis.livejournal.com]

*grins* I like that. It's lovely.