Dear John

By Lisabet Sarai

Dear John,

It's a good thing you have such a common name. I could be writing to anyone. You'll never know that your old girlfriend developed into notorious erotica author Lisabet Sarai. These days that might bother you, given your involvement with religion. Even back then, you might have found me a bit of an embarrassment. Maybe you would have been angry. From your perspective, it probably looks like I turned into a terrible slut after we broke up.

I've tried to blame you for the split. If you'd been willing to take the plunge and live with me as a couple instead of in a group house with three other guys, I wouldn't have been tempted to stray. But that's a lie. I chose to show up at our roommate G's bedroom door while you were away at that conference. I told myself I couldn't stand the loneliness of your absence combined with his constant flirtation, but if I'd let my heart guide me instead of my hormones, I would not have betrayed you.

Betrayal. Pretty strong word. We never discussed exclusivity because it didn't seem necessary. For more than two years neither of us wanted anyone else. Although you weren't my first lover, you were my first serious sexual relationship. God, how I loved you! When I reread the many poems I wrote during that period – more than thirty years ago – the old emotions awaken.

In a very true sense, you awakened me. I was crawling out of the numbness of my anorexic years, but still stumbling regularly back into the shadows. You were sunshine and freedom - relaxed, randy, a bit wild but ultimately as wholesome as your Midwestern roots. With your unruly blond frizz, your ruddy cheeks and boyish grin, your playful imagination and your uncomplicated attitude toward pleasure, you were the total opposite of my anguished poet fantasies. In your arms and by your side, I learned to let go, to enjoy my body, to take risks. Being with you opened me to the glorious possibilities of sex. I remember one time, straddling you, wanting to consume you – suddenly understanding the phrase “waves of lust”. I thought I'd drown in the sensations, and was totally willing to do so.

We explored together, both literally and figuratively. I remember our journeys so vividly. There was the cross-country drive to San Francisco, where we stayed in a fleabag Mission district hotel while I presented my dissertation research at that national conference. We walked the hills until my calves screamed, drank Irish coffee, ate at a family-style Basque restaurant where dinner included a bottle of wine for every two people.

I recall the crazy trip to New Orleans for Mardis Gras, packed like sardines into our housemate M's tiny Honda Civic. Surrounded by a hundred sleeping souls, we made love on the floor of a church that had opened its doors to visitors like us and wandered the bustling streets, drunk on hurricanes and desire.

Remember hitch-hiking back to school from Nebraska? Or the week we spent that summer at your parent's lakeside cabin in Minnesota? Because of their scruples, we weren't allowed to share a room – unbearable! The oppressive heat only seemed to heighten our physical need for one another. In the seedy motel in Minneapolis after you picked me up at the airport, in the back seat of your dad's old Buick, in the canoe we left to drift in the cove, we'd come together whenever we could.

Despite your conservative background, you were more than willing to play. Remember the whipped cream? With the stickiness and the smell, not as arousing as we'd expected, but I give us enormous credit for trying. Do you recall Toronto? Twenty five cent beers and the way I sank into role-playing the virgin and you followed? That magic happened more than once. One of us would say something, and all at once, without any discussion, we were other people, acting out stories we both seemed to know, without consultation.

When I slipped and broke my foot at the chess tournament, you carried me around piggy-back for twenty four hours. I'd never felt so loved. Wearing that cast taught me to orgasm even when I wasn't on top. New experiences, new insights. Every day we were together, I became more comfortable and more confident in my sexuality.

Ultimately, that may be what came between us. I don't remember being bored with you, but I became increasingly aware of my attraction to other men as well. Did you know, when we visited your old friend W in Colorado, that I was fantasizing about a threesome? Dear M was our closest mutual friend – the three of us had dozens of adventures together. Hopefully you never realized that I'd imagined him as a lover. Maybe what happened with G was inevitable. Hormones raging, newly conscious of my own sensuality, I wasn't satisfied with monogamy – especially when any notion of commitment sent you running like a scared rabbit.

“We are gods who meet beyond the stars,” you said once. I suppose we still are, though it scarcely feels that way now. We were so young, so alive. Everything was new and astonishing, especially sex.

I miss that intensity – but I'm glad I have it to remember. As you'd remind me now, the Bible says, “To everything there is a season.”

I have never really thanked you properly for the way you loved and nurtured me. Let this letter express my heartfelt gratitude, although you'll never read it. If I'm happy, healthy and successful today, that has a good deal to do with you, John. Thank you from the deepest part of my soul.

The awkwardness was terrible, after we broke up, since we were still studying together in the same department and had the same common friends. I tried to normalize relations, but you told me you couldn't stand to be my friend. I remember getting a testy note from you, after we'd both graduated, asking me to take you off my Christmas card list.

Ten years ago you found me on the Internet, and now we exchange chaste but affectionate greetings on birthdays and holidays. I guess you've forgiven me.

With health challenges and career disappointments, it seems that your life has not turned out as well as mine. I worry sometimes that could be partly my fault. Regrets and guilt are useless, though. We make our choices, then we live with the consequences. No matter how bad we feel, we can't change the past.

Occasionally I wonder, though, about what would have happened to us if I'd not given in to my horniness and remained faithful. Would we have stayed together, or outgrown one another? What would our relationship look like today, now that we've matured from our randy twenties to our sixties?

An unanswerable question. However, being an author, I can, if I wish, spin an answer.

Although you might doubt this from my behavior, I will always love you.

Gratefully,

Lisabet 

Three from the Vaults

By Lisabet Sarai

When you've been around as long as I have, you have to work hard not to repeat yourself.

Our topic for the next fortnight is movies - something of a relief from the relatively heavy issues we've been discussing over the past month. I've been blogging here at the Grip since 2009, and I've written a number of posts on this topic:

“Beauty and the Bizarre” (http://ohgetagrip.blogspot.com/2011/08/beauty-and-bizarre.html)

“Just for Fun” (http://ohgetagrip.blogspot.com/2010/12/just-for-fun.html)

“Anatomy of a Blockbuster” (http://ohgetagrip.blogspot.com/2010/04/anatomy-of-blockbuster.html)

Furthermore, I have a list of my favorite movies on my website (http://www.lisabetsarai.com/aboutlisabet.html), though it desperately needs to be updated.

Anyway, I thought that for this post, I'd take a trip back in time and talk about three memorable films that strongly influenced my sexuality.

Cabaret (1972)

I've seen this classic, directed by Bob Fosse and starring Liza Minelli and Michael York, at least three times, but the first was when I was in college. At the time I was painfully shy and socially inept, with little sexual experience. I was fascinated, nevertheless, by anything with an erotic theme.

In case you're not familiar with the story, Cabaret takes place in Weimar-era Berlin, famous for its decadence and hedonistic excess. American wild child Sally Bowles (Minelli) performs risqué song and dance routines in the seedy Kit Kat Club, sometimes accompanied by the disturbingly crude Emcee (Joel Grey). A bookish young Englishman, Brian Roberts (York), moves into Sally's boarding house and eventually the two become lovers. Sally befriends Maximilian, a rich playboy baron who whisks both her and Brian away to his lavish country estate where he showers them with luxury.

Although lively and funny, Cabaret is a serious movie about the ascent of the Nazis. It does not end happily. In later viewings, I tended to be more aware of the ominous backdrop of rising fascism and anti-Semitism. The first time I saw the film, though, I was mesmerized by the hints of Brian's bisexuality and the implication that Sally, Brian and Maximilian were involved in a carnal ménage. The movie is suggestive rather than explicit, which only heightened the emotional impact for me.

I had no knowledge about or experience with homoeroticism at that point. Sally and Brian have a quarrel, after Maximilian has tired of their company and left for Argentina.

Sally harps on Maximilian's generosity, his good looks, his wealth. Brian becomes increasingly impatient with her apparent obsession.

Brian: Oh, fuck Maximilian!

Sally: (after a pause, with a triumphant smile) I do.

Brian: (with quiet intensity) Well, so do I.

It's hard to convey, now, how thrilling I found this interchange. In fact it's a sign that the lovers' connection is unraveling, but that aspect was secondary to me at the time. I was overwhelmed by their bold admission of sexual transgression, especially the notion that Brian could have had both female and male sexual partners.

When I remember that scene now, eons later, I still get goosebumps.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)

I didn't see this rock horror musical - written by Richard O'Brien, directed by Jim Sharman, and starring (among others) Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon and Meatloaf - until 1976, when it achieved almost overnight fame as a midnight cult classic. A lot had changed in my life by then. I was in grad school and my first long term sexual relationship. Under the influence of my boyfriend and his cohorts (and maybe my own inner nature), I'd become less timid and a good deal more adventurous.

Someone in our circle told us about the movie and the outrageous crowd scenes that had come to accompany it. I saw it three nights in a row, as I recall, each time bringing additional friends to the cinematic party. However, the crazy interactions within the audience were not really what drew me to the film. No, once again it was the theme of polymorphously perverse sexuality, on a far grander scale than in Cabaret.

Just in case there's anyone who does not know the plot of RHPS, I'll summarize it here. Innocent, newly-engaged young couple Brad and Janet (Sarandon) are stranded by a flat tire and forced to seek assistance at the creepy mansion of Dr. Frankenfurter (Curry), a “sweet transvestite from Transsexual, Transylvania”, who parades around in full make-up, corset, garters and high heels. “I'm not much of a man by the light of day,” he sings, “but by night I'm one hell of a lover.” And indeed he is, seducing both Brad and Janet. The latter also finds herself seeking physical solace with the creature the mad doctor has constructed in his lab, a handsome body builder named Rocky who Frankenfurter claims “is good for relieving my tension”. Things begin to fall apart, however, as the cross-dressing evil genius becomes jealous, with Frankenfurter compelling everyone involved to participate in a sexy floor show and then an orgy.

“Give yourself over to absolute pleasure.

Swim the warm waters of sins of the flesh.

Erotic nightmares beyond any measure

And sensual daydreams to treasure forever.

…

Don't dream it, be it...”

Yes, I know it sounds silly now, but these lyrics spoke to me. Over the next few years, one might say that I adopted them as my personal anthem. I followed my fantasies, eager to make my dreams real.

RHPS doesn't end well either. Frankenfurter is overpowered by his servants, who tell him “his mission is a failure” and that he “lost out to extremes”. The creature is executed and the mansion is revealed to be a space ship, which blasts off taking the inhabitants back to the planet Transexual in the galaxy of Transylvania. Frank and Janet escape, but are, one suspects, irrevocably damaged.

Actually, I've been toying with the notion of writing an erotic story featuring Janet as a character, thirty five years later. Brad is terrified by the sensuality of Frankenfurter's world, but Janet embraces it (“It's a gas that Frankie's landed – his lust is so sincere”, she sings.) What would it be like to have one's “mind expanded”, as she puts it, through a night of intense sexual pleasure, and then to lose it all? I picture her as a cougar, seducing young men in an attempt to recapture the thrill of that night, but incapable of satisfaction with a human lover after experiencing the extraterrestrial mojo of both Frank and Rocky.

Unfortunately, I haven't got beyond this initial premise. All the ideas I've had so far have been either ridiculous or utterly depressing. I do identify with Janet, though, especially as I age and look back upon my out-of-this-world experiences as a young woman.

9½Weeks (1986)

I suspect that there's no reader of the Oh Get a Grip blog who has not at least heard of 9 ½ Weeks. This somewhat infamous erotic drama. directed by Adrian Lyne and starring Mickey Rourke and Kim Basinger, was panned by critics and received three Golden Raspberry nominations the year it was released, including Worst Actress and Worst Screenplay. Nevertheless, the film has a place in my personal erotic history, because it was the first time I'd seen a BDSM relationship played out on the screen.

As far as I can recall, I saw the movie not long after it had been released, and I believe I'd already read (with highly mixed feelings) Elizabeth McNeill's memoir of the same title, on which the film is based. I was only a few years married at this point, and my own experiences with D/s prior to my marriage were still fresh and almost painfully arousing. I must have dragged my husband to the movie too – we rarely engaged in separate recreation. I strongly suspect he hated it, but he endured it for my sake.

In a recent post on the ERWA blog (http://erotica-readers.blogspot.com/2013/06/the-inner-eye.html), I suggest that reading allows more room for the play of imagination, and thus provides a deeper and more satisfying experience than watching a film or video. While I believe this is true, actually seeing forbidden acts can be more exciting and disturbing than reading about them, especially before one becomes jaded. I had little patience with Kim Basinger's character, but I found Mickey Rourke compelling and plausible in his role of the dominant John Gray. (What is it about these Doms, that they all have the same surname?) He's not really all that physically attractive, which for me made him more real and more exciting. The fact that some of the trials he set for Elizabeth mirrored challenges from my own lost master only made the effects stronger.

I fantasized for weeks about the film, inserting myself into Basinger's place - and changing the ending. In both the book and the film, the relationship is portrayed as unhealthy and abusive. Eventually the submissive heroine manages to break away from the dominant's influence. The implication is that she has “escaped” back to a normal sexual existence. This interpretation really bothered me, perpetuating as it does the popular myth that people who engage in kinky sex are somehow sick or damaged, or that a vanilla relationship is intrinsically healthier.

Looking at the success of FSOG, it appears that this mistaken notion is still prevalent.

Zalman King co-produced 9 ½ Weeks. Perhaps if he had been more intimately involved, the film would have been a bigger success, both commercially and artistically. He's a master at portraying passion on the screen, as witnessed by such works as Wild Orchid, The Red Shoe Diaries, and Two Moon Junction.

But those titles will have to wait for another post.