Flying ice, illicit hotel tryst and a new body paradigm (Palm Beach)

I really hadn’t intended for anything to happen.  In fact, I had totally convinced myself that I was going to say to Ethan, right off the bat, “I just want to make sure our expectations are in line.”  But I never did because Ethan didn’t start making the moves at the beginning.  In fact, from the point at which he picked and through much of dinner, I didn’t think he was interested at all.  But after four glasses of wine and a good meal at Chuck and Herold’s, he was beginning to look mighty appealing. After dinner we hit Club 251, a name precariously close to that of a notorious Montreal male strip club. When “It’s Raining Men” came on I looked around expectantly.

We returned to my hotel balcony and cracked open the warm coronas. Somehow (oh, that tricky alcohol) we ended up on the bed. Ethan grabbed the ice bucket for the beers and I couldn’t resist shoving a piece down his pants. He retrieved it and threw it back. Soon we were giggling, yelping and jumping around as handfuls of ice flew through the elegant accommodations.

Suddenly Ethan grabbed a piece of ice in his mouth and started kissing me with it. Other than the drool, the combination of slippery cold and body heat was pretty erotic.  Thus the challenge of seeing how far he could get was waged.  Our tussling intensified as articles of clothing landed in cool pools of water.

“I want to do it,” he murmured in my ear.

Okay, he was no poet laureate, but his intentions were clear and I appreciate directness. While hands and mouths explored I was quietly weighing up the inappropriateness of my behaviour, the potential consequences of being busted by Sandy the Dragon Lady, and overwhelming lust.

Yeah, right. Like scruples and guilt stood a chance.

Out came the Trojans. It was fun, it felt amazing. Yup, I was definitely on vacation now.

As much as we would have liked to stay together through the night, staying in my room just wasn’t an option. We exchanged email addresses and said good bye.

The truth is, I just can’t get worked up about the big event “sex” is supposed to be anymore.  It still feels great and all, but the added dimension of feeling its illicit pleasure, the heart-skipping realization that someone else is actually inside your body, that you’re “having sex”… it has basically disappeared.

Looking back on my pattern over the last two years, I identified a change just after the trip to California, which came after the kidney disease diagnosis.  Because of that major life change (one fortunately without physical symptoms), I divorced myself from my body. My body, sexual organs and all, was no longer liked in any psychological way to my cerebral/emotional self. It has become a separate vessel, one that serves to contain my essence and has the blessing of being able to give me pleasure.

It’s clearly not a question of self hate. I like to take care of myself, but yet… there’s just this complete emotional detachment. Is the absence of moral compunction regarding sexual experiences a bad thing?  Am I truly liberated or suffering from some sort of self-induced psychological anesthetic?  On the upside, at least I don’t care as much how I look in a bikini.