Taking A Break

 

I'm taking a break from blogging for a while to devote time to other writing projects. This blog has been fun and therapeutic for me, but the readership is dismally low. That's on me, no one else, but it is discouraging.

Friends have inspired me to write longer-form narratives so I'll be devoting time to that once the election is done and Biden is on his way to White House (#VoteBlue).

Of course, I'll still post snippets on Facebook, despite my disdain for that platform. I don't dare do Instagram or TikTok as I would undoubtedly end up posting inappropriate pictures of myself. That would sink any hope I have of a career.

Thanks to those dear friends who have been encouraging. It was fun while it lasted.

As long as Zuckerberg doesn't ban me or Ellen or Star, I'll see you over on FaceFuck, uh ... er, Facebook.

Be safe, be well.

Love, 

Sparks

Kona Days

 

April and I zoomed away from the Sheraton Kona Resort in a Jeep she had rented, top-down, with a rack of two colorful sit-on-top kayaks for our adventure in Kealakekua Bay. Stopping only for bowls of acai berries, yogurt, and granola at a food truck for our breakfast, we were at the bay less than an hour after sunrise. The air was warm and wonderfully humid, fresh, as only the sea seasoned air of Hawaii can be. We unloaded the kayaks near Napo'o'opo Park and were on the water well ahead of the hoard of people who would be launching later in the morning.

Our lunches, bottles of water and juice, towels, and sunscreen were stashed in waterproof sacks the kayak rental shop had loaned to us. Hoping to impress April, I wore the most revealing bikini I owned. As skinny and flat-chested as I was at 15, I got a thrill out of showing off, wearing as little as I could at the beach. April wore a high cut one piece that emphasized the muscles in her thighs, exposed her sculpted pelvis, and displayed a little of her abdomen. She said she was 40, but her body wasn't a day over 30. I was envious. Someday I thought, I want to look like April. But for that exciting morning, I was happy with my Kate Hudson boobs and no hips to speak of.

Crossing the bay, paddling side by side, we talked as if we had been besties for years. April had the knack of speaking my language, that of a Hollywood teen brat, without seeming condescending or phony. I think I tried to behave older than I was at times, but April would spot that instantly and say something that brought me back, kept me honest. What did we talk about? Hawaii, spa products, clothes, my school, cars, music, boys, the conversation flowed easily like water around rocks, naturally, running a course that needed no specific destination.

Before we knew it, we had arrived at the Captain Cook Monument. A few snorkelers who had arrived by motorboat tours were already exploring the water near it. We stopped briefly to see the monument, hopped back in our kayaks, then April led us towards the north to Cook Point where she had discovered days before a sheltered patch of sand among the lava that afforded a shady picnic spot. It was a perfect, private, and personal place where I would come to know April. And she would know me.

It seemed a natural progression of events. The privacy of our little piece of sand allowed us to sunbathe nude, something I did in California with girlfriends, so it wasn't new except for the fact I was doing so now with a beautiful goddess with a perfect tan on a perfect body. It's a clichè, but applying sunscreen was inevitable. I tentatively applied some lotion to her back before laying on my tummy for her to return the favor. She leaned over me, adding the warm lotion to my shoulders, and whispered, "You need to tell me if this in any way makes you uncomfortable." With that, she began massaging the sunscreen into my skin. When I think of that moment, I think of The Beatles song, "Here, There and Everywhere."

As she touched me, and I tentatively began touching her, we talked about our age difference, how what we were beginning might be considered perverse, would be unlawful. I told April I had been with girls at school, that I had, deliberately, given up my virginity three years before, that I felt like I was far ahead of my girlfriends at school.

She looked wistful and a little sad as she said, "No one can ever know."

To say April opened my mind and body to a vast and verdant universe of physical love would be a hopeless understatement. That day, and the two that followed, were, like another Beatles tune, "Magical Mystery Tour." I have never felt guilty about nor regretted the forbidden tryst we shared. I hope she doesn't.

I never saw nor heard from April again. We agreed that the perfection of our Kona days should stand alone, apart from our days, nights, and years ahead.

And if anyone ever seriously asked me about this? It never happened.

Kona Night

 

I had just finished the last of my three songs I sang with my father's jazz quartet at the Sheraton Kona Resort on the big island of Hawaii when I saw her. I was aware of a woman at a table not far from the bandstand but didn't really see her completely until my spotlight dissolved to the general club lighting. She was applauding and wearing the big smile that adults usually gave me after my set that said, "Aw, isn't she just adorable?" It was difficult to tell how old the woman was but she oozed elegance, had perfect hair, and the slit in her skit, that went all the way to "there," revealed muscled tan legs.

I was 15 years old. My father, who was a fine jazz keyboard man, often took me on his gigs because, I think, he felt guilty about being away from home so much. He always had me sing at least three songs with the quartet so he could deduct my plane tickets and hotel rooms from his taxes. Daddy was smart that way. I didn't mind. I got to see a lot of the world as a teen and I enjoyed performing. I liked the spotlight and the costumes.

Judy Garland's "Get Happy" was my third song that night. The setup was I'd sing two songs, then come back for an "encore" of the Garland tuner. It was up, flashy and it gave me an opportunity to dance happily off of the bandstand at the end. So, I did, making my exit through the club to the huge open patio of the Sheraton Resort.

It was about 10:00 pm as my bit was near the end of the quartet's first set. Daddy would be playing for another 2-3 hours depending on the crowd so I was on my own for the rest of the evening. I was walking back to my room to change out of the little sequined party dress that was my costume when I heard a silky, smokey voice behind me say, "I enjoyed your singing tonight." Without turning, somehow, I knew it was the woman with the slit skirt and perfect hair.

And so it began. I didn't get back to the room until just before I knew my daddy would be there. The woman talked to me, not like how adults, as a rule, talk to 15-year-olds, but she engaged me, drew me out, listened to me, and showed interest in everything about me. We walked and walked around the resort. There is no beach at the resort, but there are patios and walkways across the lava to the golf course. We took our shoes off and bare-footed a couple of fairways ending up on a green that overlooked the ocean.

Her name was April. She was single (just divorced) and a representative for a company that provided the specialty spa products that were sold under the Sheraton Spa label. She had just completed landing a new contract and was taking a brief holiday. She was 40, but like Demi Moore or Elizabeth Banks, she was timeless. With her beauty and fitness, I could easily have mistaken her for a model.

I was a bit in awe of her and confused and flattered that she would take an interest in me. I was kind of cute in my party dress, true, but was still mostly flat-chested, my curves were non-existent and I had unruly curly red hair. We talked and listened to the sea, gazed at the stars until I told her I had to get back to the room.

As she walked me back to the main patio area, she took my hand in hers. I remember looking at our hands, fingers entwined, and wondering what that meant. We stopped at the main patio, as our rooms were in opposite directions. Still holding my hand, she asked, "Would you like to go kayaking tomorrow?"

Daddy had to go to the Hilton Waikoloa for a lunch thing the next day, so I knew I had the day off to play. "Sure," I blurted! We agreed to meet early and find breakfast at food trucks along the way to Kealakekua Bay to kayak to the Captain Cook Monument there. I asked how we would get there and she smiled mischievously, saying only it would be a surprise. As she let go of my hand she leaned in close to me and kissed me on the cheek, a soft but lingering peck. Then she whispered, "sleep tight" and glided away.

A few long seconds later I remembered to breathe.

I Miss Kissing

A Simple Favor / Kiss Scene (Blake Lively and Anna Kendrick)

I miss kissing. Spontaneous kissing. Polite kissing. Tentative kissing. Hand kissing. Passionate kissing. Kissing both women and men, all over, tasting and teasing them. Lips to lips or lips to wherever. Soft, wet, warm, gentle, hard, and with generous tongues. 

Of all the things I miss during this pandemic, I miss the joy of kissing.

The days go on. I walk in the early morning or ride my bike. I teach my classes. I tutor my teen girls. I go to the market. I cook meals. I watch the news (ugh) and, thankfully, some fairly decent films on my streaming services. I sleep. I pad around my casita mostly naked or play dress up in clothes I haven't worn in what seems like years. Throughout the day, before, during, and after all these activities, I miss kissing.

Don't get me wrong, I do kiss still, occasionally. Jeep Girl, sometimes. My friends with benefits, sometimes, but that was last month and, before that, July.

Here is what gets me. I used to kiss a whole lot more. I needed very little reason to kiss, often and unpredictably. I got a kick out of giving unexpected lip to lip kisses -- the looks on people's faces! I think of the times when, for whatever reason, just making out for an evening could be just as much fun as "going all the way."

No more. I'm careful. Respectful. Socially distanced.

This fall I need to figure out how to spend more time with friends, with or without benefits, and lovers who are in my extended shelter-at-home bubble and kiss them often, repeatedly, lovingly.

Young Adult Literature 101

 

Tutoring Tuesday went analog today. Because one of my "tutorettes" is grounded from her phone or any social media use until this weekend, we did not use computers, pads, or phones in the session today. Instead, I pulled a few real bound books from my remaining analog library. Today's lesson: young adult (YA) books and their adaptations to film.

I learned there are tons of YA books published every year and frankly I had not heard of many of the current titles. Neither had my girls. But they did know the Twilight series, Harry Potter, and The Hunger Games. We talked all morning about these books, the stories, and what they had learned from them. Then we talked about what they thought of the movie adaptations. It was a lively morning.

After lunch, I brought my laptop out to the patio. We jointly did a search for YA books that are considered "must-reads" for high school students. Google that, the variety of choices and opinions about what teens should read is considerable and contentious. From these lists, we selected three YA "classics" they would read this month, one per week, until Halloween. I know, that is a lot of reading for 15-year-olds, but with the pandemic, what else to they have to do?

I'll post this on Facebook and see what friends think I should have assigned. Feel free to guess in the comments here.

After the girls left to go home, I started thinking about my junior high years as well as my introduction to literature and film adaptations. Yes, I read the Harper Lee classic, but I also read a book from my dad's bookshelf by Vladimir Nabokov. As luck would have it, the remaining video store in our neighborhood had DVD copies of both film adaptations. I read the book and viewed the films even though I had just turned 14 years old, two years older than the girl in the book. I can't say I understood it all. But the prurience of the story stuck with me.

Shortly after my foray into the novel and the films, it happened that my art teacher at school became ill. For two weeks we had a substitute teacher, a handsome young graduate of UCLA who had just graduated but had not landed a full-time job yet. He was a "long term sub." He was cute, painfully cute, 23, so my teen hormones, inflamed by my recent reading/viewing, went completely off the rails.

The poor guy, for those two weeks he couldn't get rid of me. I was already more promiscuous than most girls five years older, so I threw myself at him unabashedly. I turned my sexual advances on him up to an 11 dressing the naughty schoolgirl, teen slut, and Britney Spears or Paris Hilton wannabe. I spent all the school time I had in the "art room." I went there before and after school too.

I flirted, teased, flashed, and even tried talking dirty, ardently trying to seduce him. Over the days, I could tell there were times when he was tempted. He would glance at my body, peek up my skirt, or his breathing would quicken and break a bit of a sweat. Once or twice, he bulged under his Dockers.

But he was Gibraltar. He tolerated it with patience I have yet to see matched in my lifetime. Toward the end of the second week, I came to the art room after school wearing a pair of ultra low-rise jeans I had modified by cutting the waistline down, below the belt loops, to make them even lower.  I hadn't started going "Hollywood" down there yet, so a bit red fur peeked out and my midriff was bare below a tiny cropped top.

He stared at me and said, "Miss Bravin, why are you playing the slut with me?"

I blurted, "I want to be your Lolita!"

He thought about that for a while, then, said, in a matter of fact tone, "You do realize the Humbert Humbert was a very sick man, an abuser, and that Lolita was his victim?"

Gulp. Nope. I had missed that. I totally misunderstood the book. I suddenly felt utterly stupid and ridiculous. I don't think I said anything, but ran home and had a good cry. I did re-read Lolita (confession: and The Cliff Notes). In time, I came to understand.

I never saw the "long term sub" again. In one minute though, he turned my bad behavior into a lesson about reading. And fortunately, in my sophomore year, I qualified for advanced English classes with the best teachers at Hollywood High.

My Dinner with Jeep Girl

 

Since I am once again in Facebook jail, I didn't get to post there about my Friday night dinner with Sally the Jeep Girl.

Sally and I flirted and teased quite a bit before I left on my two week trip at the end of September. We agreed that despite her attraction to women sometimes -- as in her current "girl crush" on me -- that our going beyond yearning or fantasizing about a sexual play date was not a good idea.

Besides, did I mention she is married? I don't normally, as a rule, play with married people. Well, usually.

Sally's husband went on a hunting trip this weekend, so I invited her over dinner and a streaming movie, The Glorias on Amazon Prime, which is excellent!

I heard her Jeep in my driveway, so I went to the front door and opened it to greet her. She stayed in the Jeep a moment, tussling her hair and adding lip gloss. I laughed, happy she cared enough to primp. But my jaw dropped and I think I gasped audibly when she stepped out of the 4x4 and walked to the door. She was wearing a denim mini skirt with a vest, open, that matched. What took my breath away was the full, black fishnet bodystocking she wore underneath.

At that moment, I wasn't sure what she was up to. "My God," was all I could say, "you look amazing!" She twirled for me, which caused the vest to reveal her bare breasts through the fishnet, and quipped with a devious look, "You did say come casual, right?"

All of a sudden I felt frumpy in cutoff shorts and a t-shirt. "Come in," I said ushering her into my kitchen and pouring her a glass of wine, "I was just about to change" and dashed into the bedroom. I slipped on my favorite little shirt dress, a Ralph Lauren number I paid way too much for because it is wonderfully sheer, hiding next to nothing.

We were both so used to social distancing, that cooking dinner became a sort of dance around the kitchen. We joked about being shy exhibitionists while cutting up vegetables, fruit, and preparing ginger-lime seared salmon filets. I probably should have offered her an apron, and worn one myself, but that would have spoiled the fun.

By the time we made it to the sofa to watch the movie, we had killed a bottle of wine. "Get comfy," I said, walking to my video setup, "for movies, I reset everything so I don't get caching loops." When I finished and turned back to the sofa, Sally had removed her vest and skirt and was curled up on the sofa in just her bodystocking.

"You said get comfy."

We both did. During the movie, my dress came off, but Sally kept the bodystocking on. That was a special kind of fun in so many ways. Thank goodness you can pause Amazon Prime movies.

She didn't stay the night because there was a chance her husband could come home early from his hunting trip (he didn't). Before she jumped back in her Jeep to leave, we agreed and promised with a kiss that we would not let being occasional sex buddies mess up our friendship. That's a promise I will keep.

My Ralph Lauren dress

Handy Work

 

There is so much going on right now my days are whirlwinds of activity, angst, and anger with politics, school work to catch up on, volunteer work for Democrats, tutoring my teen girls, and generally holding my life together doing simple things like laundry. And I still have to wash my car! It looks like an off-road vehicle since my Utah/California trip.

I've decided not to go nuts over Trump's COVID-19. He's ill, and, yeah, that sucks for him, but he's still a pig, and his campaign, along with the other GOP scum campaigns are as nasty and negative as ever. I'm tuning that out for now.

I mentioned on Facebook that I overheard that one of my "tutorettes," three teen girls I tutor two days a week, gave her first hand job to a boy last week. So much for social distancing. I mentioned to Trouble, the tutorette I am closest to, that I heard the comment. The girls, to their credit, decided to confide in the mother of the girl who jerked the boy off. They diplomatically related a "make out" session to her, but not the gooey details. I was relieved that I did not have to become involved and retained the girls' trust.

The result? The girls' mom was remarkably understanding. She contacted the boy's mother to verify that his family was practicing social distancing and did not have any COVID-related contacts or recent travels and such. Satisfied, she simply took her daughter's phone away and grounded her (including social media on her laptop) for a week. That sounds like getting off easily, but can you imagine a teen girl without a phone for a week right now? That's almost a life sentence for a 15-year-old.

It was difficult to keep my thoughts to myself about this. Trouble is a savvy teen and her military mother has been good about providing guidance regarding her sexuality. She doesn't know anything about my promiscuous sex life as a teen. If you read my blog, you know I lost my virginity when I was 12 and developed into a precocious teen slut. I sometimes think that passing on some of the lessons I learned in high school, and since, as a lose, bisexual, somewhat exhibitionist female might be of value to her. And then, I think, not.

I will keep the tutoring sessions limited to art and literature.

Footnote: I do remember, vividly, the first time I jerked a boy off. It was hilarious and a mess! Am not sure why, but somehow,  I didn't connect the jerking with cumming. I couldn't stop laughing when the boy squirted all over himself, me, and our clothes. Before I was accustomed to the term "cumming" I used to say, "I love it when stuff comes out." Still do.

Another Footnote: Facebook rejected the cropped version of the photo above and penalized me with Facebook jail (banned) for 30 days again. Copy of cropped photo below.

On the River Part 4 - End

 

The last day of any river is hectic.

Our group woke early to get on the river and try to be the first at the take-out boat ramp, a patch of sand about 20 feet wide leading up to where river runners leave their vehicles. No luck this morning. A large Utah college group of about 12 canoes was ahead of us, along with two commercial outfitters launching boats for a downriver trip. The air temperature was already in the 90's so men and women alike were down to their swimsuits.

I was, again, curious as to why conservative Mormon girls would wear tiny thong bikinis given the church's rule of modesty. I mentioned this to an outfitter I knew who was there and she quipped, "They're working on their Mrs. degrees."

De-rigging wasn't fun, but it wasn't bad. Everyone on the ramp was polite and tried to help each other. Of course, there was not a mask to found anywhere. We unloaded our gear to our vehicles and lashed the canoes on the roofs.

It was time to say good-byes and drive home or to wherever we were going next. A few of us stopped by a state park where there were hot showers. I had hoped for a frolicking group shower, but the showers were individual little rooms, clean and spacious, and there were enough that each of us could have our own. Darn. But the hot water was heavenly.

I started my drive to California that afternoon. As I drove out across the empty expanses of western Utah, through tiny towns decorated with signs supporting Trump, I cried.