REGULARS

  

    

Scaredy Puss

May 11, 2000

"I'm tired of our sex life being so cock-o-centric," I said, standing naked with my hands on my hips, elbows out. Dave was naked, too, stretched out on the bed with his forearm covering his eyes and a boner sticking straight up. "Look anywhere," I continued, "and what do you see? Penises. All

these buildings that look like penises, penis-like noses, songs about penises . . . 'Every inch of my love' . . . 'A lion in my pocket and baby he's ready to roar.' Where's the vulva song, where's the ode to ovaries?" Dave made a gesture to show that he did not know where the ode to ovaries might be. "It's not that I'm tired of cock. It's been fun! But I want something different in bed, and I want you to think it up."

    

"I'm just trying to clear up my sinuses," Dave moaned.

    

Dave tried his best at non-cockful sex, which meant he fingered me an extra ten minutes before doing the regular penis thing. It looked like I was going to have to do this on my own. I sent Dave away for the weekend (to parties in Boston) so I could be alone with my Puss.

    

"So, Puss," I said as his car pulled out of sight. "What do you want to do?" I laughed nervously. Though we live in the same body, Puss and I don't really know each other. I spread my legs and looked in my blush mirror. Hmm. Puss needed a trim. So Puss got a haircut, and I looked again. Where

was she, exactly? Everyone knows the cock. Even an eight-year-old can draw one. But

could you draw a vagina? I would just make a tall, squiggly oval with a couple of parenthetical lines around it. That would be my beaver shot. Or there's the simple V, with two legs coming out and a belly button above it — frontal view. I don't think either one is anything close to what a real vagina looks like. I can't even recall a photograph of one. It's one of those things that slips the mind the instant it's not right in front of you, like dreams do, or certain passionate declarations. Now I was staring straight at one, and still I couldn't tell which part or parts were Puss. It looked like a secret entrance way. And the stuff inside — waving fallopian tubes and such — that's not Puss, either. Puss is more an idea than a real thing — the idea of getting filled up inside when having sex. Puss is a sparkly power rising up from between lady-legs that seduces people in smoky places.

    

As a preteen, I masturbated all over the house (one of the perks of being a latchkey kid). Puss and I did it on pillows, on the carpet, on those big huge pens that came out in 1982, on appliances. We did it in the homes of people I babysat for. We did it at Dunkin Donuts. We even did it against a tree during a family outing. But then once I started having sex with humans, a chasm formed between me and Puss. I didn't mind diving into someone else's Puss, but my own became less real, and less important to me. I didn't even much care for people going down on me. I cared only about fantasies and other people's bodies. On the rare occasions when circumstances forced me into masturbation again, I'd have the most violent fantasies. Puss fed me images of myself getting gunned down or put in a bag and hung by the ankles and bitten by minions. I'd find these visions terribly exciting till I came — excruciating, confusing, enthralling — but then I'd be alarmed when it was over. It got easier to just stop altogether.

    

I betrayed Puss. I realized that now. I threw her aside. How to repair fifteen years of damage? It was not something I was looking forward to. I'd just as soon be spending the weekend alone with brand-new in-laws who didn't approve of me. At least then there would be the possibility of divorce. But how to run away from a thing with my own genetic code, attached to the rest of me by ligaments and bone? I had no choice. It was time to masturbate.

    

I lay on my back in the tub, hose in hand. I stared at the ceiling and let Puss speak through me the way dolphins and aliens use psychics from time to time. Puss said: "I don't care about logical, knowledgeable Lisa. This moment is beyond cognition. Ancient. Animal. Cortex." Puss speaks in short, clippy sentences. She continued: "This is pleasure! I'm alive! Take me. Eat me up! My soul . . . " Puss blew up like a hot air balloon and then she became arrows shooting through my limbs and backbone. Finally she wilted and was silent. I pulled myself into a sitting position and stared down at her. Puss is not what she appears. Frankly, Puss is scary.

    

I lay back down for a few minutes with the water running, recuperating, then I did it again. This time, I imagined that the flesh all around my pelvis became liquid, and everything but the bones dripped down and away. I was in a sort of backbend, supporting myself on one arm while the other

arm aimed the hose at the fleshless pelvic area. "Chemical deterioration is a good thing!" Puss yelped, and then it was over and she went to sleep.

    

I didn't want to be alone with Puss anymore. I pulled a sundress over my head and went out. I didn't wear underwear. A woman my age was giving directions to an old lady. Intergenerational Puss, I thought. I pictured the droopy, baby-powdery puss communicating in image-waves with the plump firm tight puss. Two loved and appreciated pusses, talking. I've retarded mine! It's like what happens when a baby gets no stimulation. I walked Puss over to a lilac bush and hovered there. Maybe I should dip her in water at different temperatures and rub her with sandpaper and then angora. "Well, Puss," I said. "What do you think?" Puss thought nothing, apparently. At a junk shop, I found a dirty magazine for a dollar: Mandate.

    

Dave had been gone for three hours, and I missed him. I went home and called the party he was at. I was avoiding my responsibilities, but good things can come from distraction. Some people become doctors or philanthropists or moms in order to be busy and never alone with one part of themselves. Me, I became a cock-o-centric pervert to avoid being alone with Puss. Maybe that's not so noble, but it's better than murdering people.

    

"I knew this was going to happen!" Dave shouted above the roar of Boston drunkards. "You want me to come home, don't you?" I admitted it was the truth. It had taken him an hour and a half to get there, and it would be another hour and a half back. It was dark when he arrived. I showed him Mandate. There was a photo spread of two phone repairmen in utility belts and nothing else. One of them was on a cell phone. Was he calling a third naked phone repairman? Gay porn always involves occupations. There's not enough of that in hetero porn. It really contextualizes things, gives a hierarchy. Of course, when you're both phone repairmen, I guess you're equals. But there, you're united, two men in the same high-risk field (electrocution is a major on-the-job hazard!), flinging jism in the face of death. It's beautiful. When I got to the page where a drop of thick pre-cum glistened on one repairman's penis (blown up to fill the entire page), well I threw that magazine down and put my mouth on the real life penis I'd called home to protect me from a vengeful Puss. Dave said, "Hey!" I thought he was about to give me some lecture about all my existential problem-making of late, so I put one hand over his mouth and the other hand somewhere else. Then I put something in Puss's mouth, too. It was like throwing a log into a fire. That's what Puss is like — a fire or water or some other constantly mutating, ungrabbable, undrawable, unmeasurable, inexact un-thing, and she drives me crazy, because how can you have what you can't put away, what you can't describe or measure?

©2000

Lisa Carver and Nerve.com, Inc.