PLEASURE.

ERIC JEROME DICKEY.

for Dominique.

PLEASURE.

Be careful, Anais, abnormal pleasures kill the taste for normal ones.

-Eduardo, Anais Nin's cousin in the movie Henry & June.

ONE.

I touched myself as I sat in my office chair, computer on, its glow illuminating my trembling body, a body dressed in a Radical Designs wife-beater, nothing else. My left arm was behind my head, legs spread apart, feet on my desk, head leaning back on the chair, eyes closed tight, moaning, pulling my hair as my fingers played a brilliant song on my sex. I needed orgasm. I jerked, shifted, kicked pages of erotica to the floor, let my work fall like leaves as I panted. My breathing was so ragged, close to dying a thousand tiny little deaths. A mirror was on my wall and I adjusted so I could witness my self-pleasuring, wanted to see me pleasing me, wanted to become a voyeur, obsessed with my own taste.

The fire grew. The wetness grew. But I could not come.

I shifted and moved like I suffered from severe jactitation, continuously tossing and twitching.

I wanted to come so badly.

I stopped, trying to take control, patting my sex, murmuring incoherently.

I murmured as my sense of sound returned, murmured until I heard their voices.

Above my head, mounted on the wall, the early morning news was coming on the airwaves, already talking about the nonstop crime in the Atlanta area, robbers shooting and injuring three people at Greenbriar Mall. Was hard to come with talk of brazen holdups and double killings as the background noise. Was hard to achieve nirvana when your sense of sound was being flooded with negative images.

My sense of sight returned in degrees, this world gradually becoming clearer.

Outside my window there was the morning's glow, the sun was rising like an impending orgasm.

On the wall facing me was a framed poster of Anais Nin, the writer I adored. Hair black and pulled back. Her dress dark and modest. The phosphorescent hue that defined her complexion, her features the combination of three lineages: Spanish, Cuban, and Danish. Her skin powdered. Lips the color of my heart. It looked as if she was staring at me. It looked like she was watching me.

I closed my eyes, orgasm evaded me as if this were a game of hide-and-seek.

I was wet. I was on fire. I needed to come.

I left my office, tugging my wife-beater over my head, the talk of crimes in Adair Park and Fairburn fading behind me, breathing uneven, dropping my shirt on the floor, legs wobbly and weak.

I was as I was when I was born: naked, vulnerable. Flames rising, I staggered up carpeted stairs, looking up as if I were trying to climb to heaven, taking one stair at a time, moving through the dimness of the main floor of my townhome, neck moist, breathing becoming thicker. I stumbled by pictures. So many images from Carnival decorated my walls, my mother and I wearing dramatic outfits made of feathers and tails, many pictures of us in many outfits over the years, from when I was a child up until last year, some of them when I was posing with a group of Moko Jumbies. There were photographs I'd taken with mud all over my body, as an art form, a teenager with braces looking like Mudder Earth, mud all over my skin just like I was one of the masqueraders from the launch at San Fernando Hill.

The ache was spreading as I went up a second flight of stairs to my master bedroom, body tingling. I stumbled inside my walk-in closet, anxious to get to my black file cabinet, breathing harder as I unlocked my storage unit, pulled out toys, tossing vibrators and Ben Wa balls to the floor until I found the right stimulator, hurried to my bed, knocked books off my bed, sent The Witch of Portobello, The Zahir, and Veronika Decides to Die flying to the carpet, put my literary reading in flight, that desperate act being akin to blasphemy. I spied at my erotic madness, saw myself suffering in the ceiling-to-floor mirror on the right side of the room, watched my pained expression as I rushed to turn on the stimulator, that humming tingling my hand, saying it missed me, its love song telling me it wanted to please me, a song of desire that sent its sweet chorus, its harsh and stimulating vibrations moving up my arm. I moaned. Swallowed as I crawled on top of the bed, not bothering to pull the covers back. My throbbing was intense, my fire rising. I closed my eyes and spread my legs, I took the vibration to my swollen clit.

Electricity coursed through my body, made me tense as I called out to the heavens.

The absence of a lover did not move my hormones into a state of hibernation.

The absence of a lover did not keep this body from needing to experience a sweet release.

I squeezed my breasts with my free hand, pinched my nipples, tried to suck my nipple, but the sensations were too strong. Surges attacked me. But tragedy happened. When I was close to orgasm, the vibrations decreased. The vibrations stuttered. The song stopped. I took the stimulator and slapped it in my hand, beat it against my palm, trying to revive my over-the-counter lover. It whined. The batteries were old, and as if it had a bad heart, my lover was dying. I wanted to scream. I dropped the stimulator, heard it humming a farewell hum as it fell on the bed. This was frustrating. This was so damn frustrating.

I took my tingles to the bathtub, sat on the edge as I filled it with water, added jasmine scents, turned the jets on, eased inside the water and let the eight jets send intense streams of water against my body, each stream a liquid phallus, put my feet on both sides of the tub, allowed those bursts to flow across my clitoris, eased closer, adjusting until I found the right spot, my spot.

Something behind me rattled. I jumped, opened my eyes in terror, ready to scream.

Someone was here with me. Someone was inside my home.

The abrupt sound had come from my bedroom. No more than five feet away from my bathtub. It had been a clatter. A brief jangle. I sat frozen where I was, covered in water, this bathtub the womb, and I was as helpless as a child in embryonic state. Waiting. Listening.

Home invasions. Burglaries. The news of all the crimes in the Atlanta area rushed into my mind. Murder. Rape. My breathing ceased. Steamed-over mirrors surrounded me. The shutters in my bedroom were closed, that part of my home filled with shadows my eyes couldn't penetrate.

My cellular hummed. I jerked again, still startled but relieved.

That was the clatter. That was the noise that had delivered me into the mouth of terror.

Nervous laughter escaped me as I shook my head, as I felt my heart beating in my throat.

The terrifying rattle had been the hum of my cellular against my mahogany nightstand.

My fingers eased across my navel, breathing thickening as I squeezed my stomach, as I began massaging my inner thighs, again sliding my fingers between my legs, spreading apart my yoni lips. I was floating, disconnected from my corporeal self. And inside that altered state of consciousness I wasn't traveling alone. Her spirit was with me.

I heard her whispering, her voice serious, her tone warm, "There were always in me, two women at least, one woman desperate and bewildered, who felt she was drowning..."

She was here. Her Spanish, Cuban, and Danish features so clear, clearer than they were on the image I had of her in my office. Anais Nin smiled at me. Her teeth even and beautiful, that evenness so appealing, gave her perfection and beauty, any imperfections she owned were irrelevant, overshadowed by her petite stature and humanness, a humanness that made her glow as if she were my beacon.

I reached for her, my eyes telling her that I desperately desired a conversation with her, my pleading face encased in rapture, telling her that I needed to ask her things I knew she'd understand.

Anais's specter faded like a fata morgana, her soft words remaining, resonating, bringing tears to my eyes as I came, as water splashed, as I writhed, as I experienced an amazing rush of sensations.

Breathing labored, I remained where I was, suffering, unable to mollify this desire.

Tears trickled down my face because this body would not yield to satisfaction.

My home phone began ringing.

My sex throbbed, again calling out to my hand, demanding the comfort of my fingers.

As the telephone announced that the call was from New York, my fingers took me toward another orgasm. It came so damn fast. My orgasm arrived like a determined storm. I held on, afraid it might sweep me out to sea. As soon as that one finished, another voluptuous orgasm covered me, consumed me, devastated me; back-to-back orgasms had left me tingling from my forehead to my toes.

My cellular hummed again.

Again, without warning, a thousand little deaths approached me. Orgasm overwhelmed me, maddened me as I came, came hard, came praying for this to end. Phone ringing. Cellular humming. My moans loud enough to drown all sounds.

I came praying I was done, not knowing this was only the beginning.

TWO.

Self-pleasuring was popcorn.

My body was telling me it needed steak.

Maybe it wasn't normal to need orgasm, to seek orgasm several times a day. Maybe I needed to talk to a professional. Maybe I needed to find a new lover. I didn't have sex a lot but I had a respectable sex drive. The need to be touched, the need to feel stimulation, the need to exist in a state of arousal, the need to have all desires quenched, allow the tension to build up and start all over again, all of that lived in me.

I cleansed my clit stimulator, took it back inside my closet, picked up vibrators and Ben Wa balls, returned all the toys to their hiding place-the file cabinet drawer at the back of the walk-in closet.

I needed to find an unselfish lover whose strength and desire matched my own.

A lover with an open mind. A lover who understood me and allowed me to be me.

I was erotic. I was beautiful. I was powerful.

I deserved to find plea sure that surpassed my imagination, better than any I had experienced.

I needed a lover who could enhance and embolden my sexual cravings.

I didn't want to be with anyone right now, but at the same time I didn't want to be without passion. I needed to be touched by a man's hands, feel his weight on me, feel him sinking inside me.

Tingles remained, disturbing me. My vagina was swollen. It seemed as if I was always wet.

If I was a man, I would exist in a constant state of erection.

Water dripping from my flesh, a fluffy towel wrapped around my breasts, I crossed into my bedroom, damp feet on soft carpet, and went toward the nightstand, the morning air now cool on my breasts and thighs as I picked up my cellular. I expected to see an early morning text message from my mother, her being up and in the gym at this hour-even with the three-hour time difference-wouldn't surprise me. But it wasn't my mother who had disturbed my personal moment.

What did I do wrong? Irregardless of what you think, I'm worried about you. Irregardless of what you think, your the only woman I love. Your the only one. Please call me back. FROM: Logan.

The interruption of orgasm had been caused by the man I was trying to forget, the man I wanted to forget about me. Part of my brain began firing like crazy, my frontopolar gyrus, the part of my mind that dealt with irritation. I cursed Logan. Months had gone by and Logan still rankled me. He continued to pursue me. Seeing his name always gave me instant regret and overwhelming pain.

I went to my home phone, a private number that had been given to only a handful of people, checked my caller ID, saw my Overworked and Underpaid New York Editor had called. He was in his office early this morning. He was a workaholic, like me.

I sat down on the carpet, the ends of my hair wet, moved the towel from my waist and put it under my butt. I put in *82, the code to unblock my number, followed by his office number, knowing he wanted to talk about the issues with the novel I was rewriting. I shifted gears, closed my eyes on my tingles. On my aching. Thought about work. Tried to shift to that frame of mind. Focused on rewriting. With the amount of work I was doing it was closer to ghostwriting. Notes from Mr. Overworked and Underpaid New York Editor said to keep the language from being too deep, keep my vocabulary unchallenging, and do what ever I could to replace sensuality with vulgarity and crassness. I had issues with dumbing down work, for it was through the dumbing down that the writer disrespected herself, disrespected the craft.

I did not want to cater to those who were afraid of words, those who embraced ignorance as if it was their favorite religion, as if they had forgotten about those who marched for their physical and intellectual freedoms. All of that was on my mind, but not voiced, in the name of professionalism.

In his wonderful British accent he said, "It's not supposed to be Dostoevsky."

"Dostoevsky? This is below Beetle Bailey."

"You're brilliant. Work your magic."

"I should bowdlerize this mess."

"Let the vulgarities stand, lest the book be reduced to the size of a pamphlet."

"This prose is handicapped. Painful to read these crippled metaphors without cringing."

"I told him to strengthen his bloody metaphors."

"And he said?"

"He asked me what a metaphor was."

We laughed.

I said, "And the way he shifts tense. Damn. Has he heard of Elements of Style?"

"He probably thinks Elements of Style is a bloody rap group."

We laughed harder.

We agreed that true erotica, at its best, was more than sex. It was a study in human behavior. In the complications of existing. It focused on human desire. Desires that were being acted upon.

He said, "Miss Bijou, you are far from being simple, but keep the changes simple."

"I know, I know. Leave out the depth. Get to the sex, skip the philosophizing, and get it over."

"And it needs a better ending. See what you can suggest."

"Would be great if he could come up with a sudden or unexpected reversal of circumstances."

"He's not capable of manufacturing a moving peripeteia."

"If all else fails, for this audience, just have the characters miraculously end up in the same church at the same time singing a negro spiritual, then call it a wrap. The end. Amen."

"I don't need to read another horrible deus ex machina ending. Anything but deus ex machina. I'd rather all the characters died in a plane crash before I read another one of those bloody endings."

We laughed.

On a serious note, my tone now somber, I said, "You ever notice that all the books with women seeking plea sure end in tragedy? Same for the movies. As if it were punishment."

He said, simply, "I noticed. And you're right, it is punishment for a woman to obtain plea sure."

"Why?"

He answered my complicated question by saying one word, "Control."