Electricity

Sometimes I forget about the bone tumors strung throughout my skeleton like a building rigged with explosives. Sometimes they remind me that they’re still there. My favorite one is in the center of my left femur. If I put too much stress on my legs over an extended period of time, I occasionally develop a stress fracture. It’s not immediately apparent, but it eventually makes its presence known. It’s cumulative. Heavy squats, deadlifts, and excessive running do qualify as too much stress, as it turns out, though I often forget about that too. This morning, my favorite bone tumor reminded me that he was still there while I was driving. Suddenly it felt like there was electricity flowing through the bone in the center of my thigh. I nearly drove off the road. Abrupt, blinding pain really makes you feel alive. Strangely, it recedes much more gradually than it arises. The rest of the day it throbbed and smoldered, off and on. What’s strange is that I haven’t worked legs since Thursday and today is Monday. Friday would have been a more appropriate day for the pain to arrive. Regardless, I’m supposed to work legs tomorrow night and I’m hoping that I will be able to. I probably should let it heal, but the feeling of guilt and laziness that will result from the skipped leg workout will hurt worse than the fracture.

Running

I run like shit. It’s one of the many things in life at which I’m not very good. I hate it, but I do it anyway. Even if done badly, running is a beautiful thing, because it’s so absolutely simple and singular. You don’t need any special equipment to run. Appropriate shoes are helpful, but beyond that nothing additional is required. I only run three days a week, and not very far. I just do it to do it because I know it’s good for me. If nothing else, it gets me outside. I definitely prefer the lifting, which I do four days a week. I get a bigger sense of accomplishment from that. Weight feels good. Running makes me feel like my lungs are on fire and my knees are about to come apart.

Bridges and Rivers

The bridge stands above the river like it’s better than the river. The bridge is proud and defiant. It’s an accomplishment. Ugly, old, and crumbling, it still supports its burden, albeit with great, heroic effort. It supports itself with reinforced concrete and spite. The bridge won’t let you forget its strength. Thick, heavy, and dirty, the river flows slowly beneath it. The river doesn’t care. It forgives the bridge for being overbearing. The river doesn’t try. It’s effortless. It doesn’t pretend to be anything more than a river. It’s more magnificent than the bridge, simply by virtue of being what it is, without pretense.

The Chileans

They were a married couple from Chile, attending Pitt as graduate students. We had found them online and the first time we met them in person was at a Starbucks inside a Barnes & Noble. That was the interview meeting. This would be their first time swinging. It wasn’t our first time but we were still very new to it and they would be our first experience with a couple. I don’t recall what their fields of study were but he had read some Nietzsche recently. At that point in time Nietzsche was my favorite writer. I was very well-versed in his work and excited to have an opportunity to show off my knowledge on the subject. So he and I talked about that a bit. The women got to know each other. At the end of the “interview” we all agreed to meet at their place in a week.

We found their apartment with minimal difficulty. It was in the city and very nice. When we arrived, they had music playing. It was some type of very South American-sounding music with lots of auxiliary percussion and horns. I’m ashamed to say that I couldn’t classify it, as I know next to nothing about that genre of music. Unfortunately, we were still clinging to our Straight Edge convictions. They kept offering us different types of alcohol and we kept politely declining. We did try some very interesting little pastries they gave us. They explained that these things were as common as Twinkies in Chile. We all talked more. It was a little clumsy trying to get things moving. They hatched this strange idea that we should all dance, gradually disrobe, and then lapse into all the screwing. I was absolutely terrified at this suggestion - I don’t dance. I am, in fact, the clumsiest man on Earth. However, my fear of looking uncooperative was greater than my fear of dancing. So I danced. We all danced in their living room. It was kind of strange but not ineffective. They both danced much better than either one of us, which helped compensate for our awkwardness. Things got moving pretty smoothly from that point. The women went at it a bit and put on quite a show. We had actually just bought a new toy just for that purpose, a double dong. It was exciting to watch it used for its intended purpose. It was also undeniably humorous to watch these two women struggling with the logistics of using this awkward tool. The most amusing and totally unforeseen hurdle was the fact that the better half of the thing went up inside the woman with the weaker vaginal muscles. That was probably the evening’s high point. There was some light swapping after that and eventually everybody finished with their own mate.

Though the experience might have gone even more smoothly with the assistance of some alcohol, it basically went off without a hitch. It was gratifying to have our first experience with another couple. It felt good, and we were anxious for more. In retrospect, I’m not sure why we lost touch with the couple from Chile, but we did. They were excellent.

The Second One

Maybe a month after our first swinging experience, we had our second one. It was mostly born of our sense of balance and fairness. Though I had nearly fumbled it entirely, I had just had my first experience with two women, and my wife was entitled to the inverse indulgence. Moreover, she’d just had her first bisexual experience and it seemed like I should try the same. I’m not sure exactly how interested I was in that as much as I was interested in the idea of it. You don’t know that you don’t like something until you try it and I was harboring the notion that the only truly complete people in this world are bisexual.

So we found a bi-curious male online. He was perhaps a year or two older than we were. We met him at the hotel and spent a substantial portion of the evening just sitting around the hotel room talking. As luck would have it, we learned that he was friends with one of my wife’s cousins. He had also gone to the same college as us, but we had never seen him there. We had a few friends in common. These uncomfortable realizations were made relatively early in the evening. They tripped us up a little, but we decided not to abort. All of the people that we had in common were very liberal and open-minded; we weren’t that scared of any information finding its way back to them.

Just like our first experience, it took quite a while to get anything sexual happening. There was still no alcohol involved. In retrospect, that fact still amuses me. It’s a strange experience the very first time you watch another man fuck your wife or girlfriend (and I would imagine the inverse to be true). It’s kind of exciting and a little distressing all at once. I recommend it for absolutely everybody. It’s one of those intense epiphanies that you can only achieve by direct experience. It’s another facet of your significant other (and yourself) that has to be learned if you’re really going to know them completely and cement your relationship. And, beyond the bizarre cocktail of excitement and violation that you experience, you are also confronted with your own homosexuality. Even if you don’t touch that person at all, you’re still watching them. You’re willfully naked and aroused in the same room.

I actually had an easier time getting into it this time around. I think it may have been easier for me because I felt less pressure. I didn’t have to perform for anybody other than my wife, which I had done countless times in the past. She, of course, took to the whole thing very well. She managed both he and I without difficulty. It’s remarkable how much less fettered by inhibition and corny social posturing women can be. I don’t believe that women are any more intelligent or emotional than men by nature. I think in the process of becoming a man, emotional intelligence is deliberately groomed away, like dogs that get their tails docked. In less civilized times this practice may have been advantageous, but now it seems like an antiquated expression of a prejudicial notion of what a man should be. It’s stupid.

About halfway through the act, the subject of male/male interaction arose. I had almost forgotten about that component of the evening and would have been content to just let it go. Now, confronted with it, I had to give it some immediate consideration. Very quickly I came to the conclusion that I couldn’t just walk away from this opportunity to learn without extracting all the possible knowledge to be gained in it. I can be weirdly mechanical that way. I agreed, though we kept everything oral. I don’t think either one of us could have done anything beyond that. I know I couldn’t have.

Suffice it to say that I gained a great appreciation for the art of fellatio. It’s strange, and fucking difficult. It was also interesting to learn that head is head. It feels no different whether it’s administered by one gender or another. However, once again, my neurotic tendencies prevented me from actually enjoying the experience. The male/male portion of the evening was short-lived and clumsy, though my wife enjoyed watching it. Graciously, she spared us the burden of any further awkward attempts at homosexuality and finished us both off.It wasn’t what I’d call a disastrous experience, but from my perspective it was kind of rough. Everything after this would get progressively easier, though it would be quite a while before I would do anything else with another man.