Sexkitten

I receive an email from a young woman who reads my blog. “How do you move on when a relationship ends if you still love that person?” she asked.

If that isn’t one of the hardest things to do, I don’t know what is. The end can bring us to our knees.

I remember sitting in bed after Nick and I broke up waiting for him to call even though I told him not to call me. And wanting desperately to call him even though I know I shouldn’t. And when the phone did ring, I felt the gentle wings of butterflies take flight in my stomach. I didn’t answer. But the fact that he called comforted me in ways that I don't quite understand and can't explain.

I’ve been in enough failed relationships to know that I would mourn him. I mourned men that I loved and men I didn't love. A breakup can hit as hard as if it were the death of a loved one. It's only the end of a chapter, but we experience it as the end of a story, our dreams and tomorrows.

Leaving Nick did not mean I didn’t love him. It did not mean that I was no longer attracted to him. The intimacy between us was as real as our issues. Sex did not and could not override our issues, and neither could our issues override our desire.

How do you move on?

I can only speak for what has worked for me.

The first thing I do is make a clean break and distance myself. I don’t try to be friends. Humans have a natural inclination to resist change. There's comfort in the familiar even if that familiar is unhealthy.

Nick called me every night when he was away. He continued even after we ended. I stopped taking his calls.

I take extra care of myself. I may run an extra mile. I shop. I hit the spa. I use my time productively. It's important to feel good about myself.

I didn’t dare allow myself alone in a room with him for fear that the mere sight of him would make me throb and shiver and ache with longing. Sex is powerful. It’s the key that will open Pandora’s box.

My failed relationships have taught me that a broken heart will grab hold of anything to escape the pain. And the mind will start to doubt. It’s hard to think clearly when you’re hurting. That’s why the butterflies soared in my stomach when nick called. It was familiar and my unstable emotions found comfort in it. That’s also why the first break seldom last, and the second, and the third….

I know that my mind will deceive me. And I cannot trust myself. The reasons for leaving will ebb and flow like changing tide. And if I allow it, I will forget, until the next time.

But time does heal.

I remind myself of that when I'm nursing a heartbreak. I think back to all the men I thought I would love forever....
I'm still thinking. It's hard to remember them. And the love I thought would never die is long dead.

I know that what I’m thinking and feeling is temporary.

Time heals.

Imagine that you’re invisible only to find someone looking at you?
Just imagine...

He looks at me like no other man ever has. He touches me as if my skin is made of the finest silk.

When he smiles at me his eyes are like diamonds.

I caught him watching me today from across the room. I was standing by the window covered in sunlight. He was across the room with a workman.

I turn around and found him watching me not the way a man watches a woman he sees all the time, and not like a man watches a woman who belongs to him.

No. Kenny looks at me as if he’s branding me upon his heart, as if Cupid’s bow had struck, saying “there she is”. There was so much love and desire in the way he looked at me. And amidst which I sensed a touch of sorrow.

But sorrow? For the briefest moment, my heart stopped.

I held his gaze. And he smiled at me.

Imagine that you’re invisible only to find someone looking at you?

All that I am is exposed for him to touch and explore and there’s nothing that I want to hide.

That is part of his magic.

I’ve been loved by a lot of men. But not like this.I’ve been looked at but not seen. I’ve been touched but not felt… Not like this.

I thought about Nick then. I seldom do, but every now again I find myself making note of the differences between the two men. Nick loved my body. But he didn’t venture beyond the physical. He didn’t explore my mind. He did not follow me into my dreams. If I showed him myself from the inside, he would not recognized me.

I never made sense to him.

But to Kenny…I make perfect sense.

And when he looks at me…
When he touches me…
When he speaks to me…
When he calls my name…

Imagine that you’re invisible only to find someone looking at you...

Most of us struggle with loving and accepting ourselves the way we are. Imagine finding someone who does without condition.

I’m not surprised or shocked, nor do I think that I’m lucky to have found this kind of love.

I expected it.

Dede’s big tits were jiggling inches above my face as she skillfully massaged my scalp. I close my eyes. The woman can work magic with her fingers.

I’ve known her for a few years now. I like her. She’s always broke but she talks a lot about a better life for her and her two kids. She was fired from the salon in which she worked for years and works from her home. Her phone is always disconnected so I have to drop by to get my hair done. She’s always home. She doesn’t have a car.

I deal with the inconvenience because she’s good. She needs the money. And I see greatness in Dede that she doesn’t see in herself.

Today I stopped by to get my hair washed.

“I’m getting married,” she said smiling at me.

“You are?" I asked, shocked. The last time I saw her a mere month ago, she was giving online dating a try. "Who is the lucky guy?”

“Dante,” she said.

Dante is her high school boyfriend and the father of her two children. He's been cheating on her for sixteen years.

“I thought you broke up with him,” I said.

“I did,” but he wants another chance and we have the kids and I was talking to some of the girls at the shop and they say that once we’re married he’ll stop cheating on me,”

“What?" I scoured her face for a sign that she was joking. She was not. "Do you believe that?” I asked.

“I don’t know what to believe,” she said.

“You want to marry a man who is cheating on you because you think that marrying him will stop him from cheating on you?” I asked.

For a moment the question just hung in the air like bad karma no one wanted to touch.

“Marriage is a commitment,” she said.

“Isn’t being in a relationship with you and raising your children a commitment?”

“Yes. But, if we get married, he’ll be making vows to god. I think that it will be different,”

“Is he religious?” I asked.

“No. Not really,” she said.

“Ok,” I said closing my eyes as she massaged my scalp. I wondered how long it had taken her to convince herself of that nonsense.

I have caught me, lying to myself more times than I can count. No one can spin me more than I spin myself. I am my greatest deceiver. I have failed myself in ways that no one esle can. I have in my life look away from the way things are and create a web of lies to make them what I want them to be.

I've been guilty of hearing what I want to hear and seeing only what I want to see. I have fought and conquered what I know to be true and replace it with lies because the lies made me feel better.

But life has taught me that there is always more than meets the eye. And in most things, especially in matters of the heart, I try to look beyond what I'm seeing. I peel back the curtains and look again. I no longer hear what I want to hear, I listen. And I don't just feel with my heart,I surrender to my gut instinct.

As insane as it sounds, this was a lie she wanted to believe.

Maybe Dante is just a cheat.
Maybe he’s not in love with Dede.
Maybe he just doesn't respect her.
Maybe he’s just not the one for her.
Maybe it's all of the above.

Could it be that simple?

Experience has taught me that most times it is.

I remember his lips leaving my clit, and gasping as he carried the sensation and spread it about my thighs, down to the back of my knees and left it in toes. And afterwards laying in his arms listening to his heartbeat as if the moment would last forever.

I stared at the back of the man in the doorway speaking to a woman. My heart raced. Indeed, it was him.

Every now and again, I am confronted with the woman I used to be. Life does not allow us to forget who we are. We can change skins but we cannot deny ourselves.

Every now and again, the woman I used to be shows up in the men whose heart I collected. I gave myself to him that day like never before. I devoured him like never before, after all, it was going to be our last. Only he didn’t know it.

It was my signature to take men to bed before I leave. They never see it coming.

I left Danny while the taste of me still stained his lips. My touch burns passion into his flesh. The smell of me lingers on, and my laughter echoe like a haunting.

He must have felt me watching him. He turned and for a moment, seemed frozen in recognition. I’m sure he too was confronted with the man he used to be.

I told him not to love me. He loved me anyway.
He wanted to be exclusive. I had no interest in exclusivity and I told him.
He went mad with jealously when I went out with other men. I went out with other men anyway.
He threatened to leave me if I didn’t stop. I didn’t stop. And he didn’t/couldn’t leave me.

He said he loved me too much.

That’s when I knew I had to leave him. I took him to bed and disappeared.

He called. He sent flowers. He wrote poems begging me to come back. I explained that I left him for his own good. I wasn't good for him. I couldn't give him what he wanted.

He didn't care.

And now, years later, here I was smiling shyly at him. A smile that I hope conveyed an apology, one meant to turn back time and take back my last kiss, touch, laugh. To let go with grace and sensitivity. To be careful with his heart.

He walked over to me. Kenny had left to use the restroom, I prayed that he stayed gone long enough.

“Hello, Danny,” I said when he reached me. I couldn’t read him.

He sat down on Kenny’s Chaise lounge and stares at me. I still couldn’t read him.

Then he smiled.
I smiled back.

We talked briefly. He said it took him a long time to understand that leaving was good for him. "I wouldn't have left you even though I should've. Sometimes letting go is the hardest thing to do,"

We came face to face with the people were back then and accepted and made peace with ourselves.

Letting go may be the hardest thing to do, but it had to be done.

I will triumph always, no matter the circumstance. Even if I fail, I will fail triumphantly. I know that to be true about me.
I know that I am overflowing with potential even though I have yet to discover the extent of my capabilities.

I am overflowing…

There are times when I have to cheer myself on even if it seems no one else is cheering.

There are times when I am called upon to be more than I think I can be. But when I push past the fear, doubt, and voices, I find myself in the presence of greatness.

There are times when I have to be the voice of reason in a shattered mind...
Times when I have to be my own knight in shining armor and rescue me from myself. I think that we all have in us a touch of insanity. I am aware and have made peace with mine.

So when the time comes to rescue myself, I can, will, and do. I have also learned to put love in perspective. Sometimes it’s necessary to act against my heart.

I have learned to be resilent in order to flow. Resisting what IS will bring me to my knees.

I have learned to forgive myself...
You cannot use my mistakes against me. I do not live with guilt and or shame.

I have learned to build strength out of weakness.

I realize as I was speaking to HER today that if I wasn't who I am, her words would cut through me like a knife and I would be standing in a puddle of my own blood. Her intention was clear. SHE kept stabbing wanting to see where to draw blood.

But I am ME. And I am amazing, and strong, and powerful even in my weakness and I am not influenced by what you think of me. My life is not about you. My hopes and dreams are not linked to you. You have no power over me.

I am a lover and partner whose touch and taste and smell lingers into eternity.

I am the friend who is loyal to the end.

I am a mother who will slay dragons for my children.

Yes. I have learned to put love in perspective. And I will silent my heart and escape my mind to act despite love, with love, for love, in the name of love.

I don't care what you say or what you think of me. I am an amazing, strong, powerful woman. And despite my flaws and short-comings, I will sleep soundly tonight.

I couldn't wait to get home. I've been having long stressful days. And even longer nights. I felt overwhelmed and frustrated. I come home each day feeling beaten up. Tied up. Emotionally and physically spent. I've been making one tough decision after.

I knew that he was home. If he wasn't, he would've called to let me know.

He was sitting on the couch, reading.

He took one look at me and despite looking as if I'd stepped off the pages of a diva magazine, he knew.

"Come here, baby," he said tapping his lap.

I went to him and he wrapped his arms around me. He didn't say anything. He just held me.

He knew.

To Kenny, I'm transparent. He sees through the makeup, the tight skirts and high heels. He sees through all of it.

He was running his fingers through my hair and smelling it. I love that he sees what I am so good at hiding. I love that he sees what no one else does. He knows all my vulnerable places.

He knows how to reach inside and tough my heart. And it blows my mind.

I think that this is what we're all searching for...

Moments like this...

When you know that you're in the arms of an angel