Sleeping Around

Of all the pleasures of my life, sleeping with men is the greatest. That is I love going to bed and just...sleeping with them. We'll get to sex but my thesis point here is that men, all men, straight, gay or ambivalent, miss a great experience when they're not sleeping with other men. (Authors note: Sleeping with males from your own family is not recommended. The reasons should be obvious but if you really want to fuck up a family event, sleep with some male in your family the night before.) I have no standards aside from their being clean-showering together is another pleasure which every guy should try even if it's only in the rain room at the gym. 

Men are at their most vulnerable not when they're naked but when they are involved in an activity that is without further events implied. At least that's how I work it. When you come to spend the night with me it's clearly understood that it's for sleep only and if something else pops up, we'll deal with that at the time. (Being in a shower is the other vulnerable place.)  Usually it's by invitation but occasionally an opportunity in the form of someone who looks sleep worthy presents itself and the offer is extended. I shouldn't need to say this but I will; Use some discretion when doing this particularly if the person is someone you've only known since you sat down at the bar. And, yeah, that includes gay bars; really, that's the last place I look for a bed buddy for that's their point in being there - to get into some guys bed and get fucked or whatever. The idea of just sleeping is, to them.....puzzling.

A few words about me. No one is going to call me ugly but neither is any one is going to nominate me for any sort of best looking man of the day, month or year. I keep myself in adequate shape, mainly by swimming which gives me the isolation I crave to just think without the swarms of sound we don't realize divert us. As I have the time, an hour or two of just doing laps is my personal time. Understand, I'm not in training for anything so doing one lap can take five or six minutes as I use the momentum of forward movement without thrashing about. I'll throw in a stroke and that keeps me going. The back stroke is my favorite as I can be almost comatose, lying in nearly negative buoyancy without the necessity to roll over and breath. This laid out on top of the water has been known to give life guards and others pause and I really do appear almost corpse like. I've slowed my breathing and my arms and legs are dangling. Only my nipples and nose are clearly above the surface looking rather like a dreary landscape painting of Western Nebraska where any sort of blob on the horizon is an event. The down side is that extended periods of being soaked leaves your skin mottled, oddly colored and it can take awhile to regain normalcy. Also, I've never met anyone to come home and sleep with me face up in a pool drifting with an unseen tide. The locker room, the bathroom, the shower are all other matters, just not in the pool. 

I have several regular sleepers, two of whom are married and their wives are more than aware of where they're going and what they'll do once there. Indeed  I've had calls from these same wives asking, pleading really, with me to take their husbands home with me and put them to bed. Some requests are easier than others and this is one of them. 

One of the joys of men is that there is a diversity of....everything. You have a selection of size and color as primary but then there are the subtleties such as side sleepers, cuddlers, jacking off in their sleep, how immediately they fall asleep/wake up. Are they conversational as they drift off or is silence an absolute for them. (This is hard for me as I hate conversational silence the way nature hates a vacuum. ) Some like a bit of touch-nothing arousing, some do not. I'm often surprised at the men who want to be held, at least in the first stages. They are, for the most part, in a strange bed with a man they may or may not know particularly well. Some few of the lightly known do go on to join my list of invitees but not many; It's that conversation thing. 

You may wonder if ever there are more than just me and my bed mate and certainly that has happened. Most uproariously with a set of twins who, in the morning, got into a fist fight as to who would administer first suck. Or get first suck or both. Remember the husbands? There have been quite a few memorable moments when I invited two or three of them-they all knew each other or got acquainted as pillows got passed around. For these times I break a rule and that's no drinking in bed. It was Benjamin Franklin who wrote, "Liquor provoketh desire but diminishes performance".  Nice to know that a man with that sort of perspicacity was one of our founding fathers. 

Only once did a sleepover turn ugly and that was when two of my husband/friends decided to go home with each other and not to their wives; I spent A Lot of time on the phone that day and for several after. I'm not running a dating service so these communal moments are really confined to men I know well or believed I knew well. Some of the things I haven't been able to prevent are regulars who just drop in to find their place is taken. Needless to point out, I don't encourage guys to just show up but we never know how familiar others feel toward us and that's when I'm standing in my foyer, stark naked, explaining to someone I really like that unfortunately.....and then offer them the guest room. (To have this sleeping situation a guest room is a necessity for the reasons just described.) Some regulars are not welcome when they are carrying about a fifth of whatever in them  not including ice cubes. To open your door and have someone fall through immediately says there's a bad moon rising or falling and it's just set over the horizon. That's when I have to recruit my inplace sleeper to help me drag the souse to the bed room where he's left on the floor with a blanket and a pillow. This is also why I have a carpet cleaning service on danger money. All that liquor has to go somewhere and, to avoid stains, for a time I would leave them on the tile floor in the bathroom with the same pillow and blanket. 

I was once asked if I was seasonal or went through phases during which I wanted a specific type of man and the answer is no. I have a great friend from Hong Kong who sleeps with me when he's in town but this is not indicative of a sudden taste for Chinese take out. The only thing that might be called "seasonal" varies with-what else?-the seasons. I'm a fan of cool rooms and lots of duvets, pillows, quilts, blankets etc. A couple of my buddies share my taste for a really cold room and for them there are Hudson Bay Blankets, bed socks, ear muffs and mittens. With the windows open, 32 and below is easily accomplished. This is also great snuggling weather for, not matter the indoor temperature, everyone sleeps in the nude. Some guys have shown up with pajamas, night shirts, sleeping shorts or a comfortable jock and my question to them is whether they wished to use the laundry. Nude is nude and it's an absolute. Were it not, how could I admire the full spectrum of the body next to me. I've become a true connoisseur of piercings and tattoos. Some of which I would style as "unfortunate" and others that make me think having one or two of what ever would be a good idea.  The largest picture on the wall is of Michelangelo's` David, absolute without clothing. Do I mean it as a subtle hint? No, but if it was good enough for the great Italian artist, it's good enough for me and whomever.

You will imagine-correctly-that my critics-as good as the day I made them-(take that however you may choose) feel that my door should have "SLUT" painted in red on it and I should be castrated to put an end to this "funny business".  That's their opinion and I'm not in business to change their minds. Even some of my closer gay friends are puzzled as their idea of sleeping with someone, your partner or whomever, has a sexual quotient that my casual having bed mates wholly lacks. I know, because its been said to me, that they KNOW, absolutely KNOW that all this is a cover to dupe the world and that sex, pure, refined or otherwise is at the bottom of my motivation. Do I need to add that most of these people do "sleep around" and, yes, sex is their motive. To be fair there are some of these guys with whom I do have sex and we both enjoy it but time sleeping and time playing is segmented and it's clearly understood what's on the menu. 

It stuns people that I have a long time partner who does not live with me but has been my most loved person for several years. And, yes, he's certainly on my "regulars" list but we've found, as many couples do, that time apart makes time together better. He's been part of sleep over nights with several men. Not everyone is aware of our connection and that's fine with us. Getting pegged as a couple who cannot be parted for any reason is a thudding bore. We each do things the other would not enjoy and this separation allows to do what we like with no sense of guilt that we're inflicting ourselves on each other. We like spending weekends together and we like to do that elsewhere. We'll hop in the car and start down a road-God forbid an Interstate-until we find a place that attracts us for whatever reason and that's where we park ourselves for the two days. I had to learn how to camp in the most primitive sense and he had to learn that my refusal to sleep up a tree due the presence of bears was legitimate. He had to learn that my idea of exquisite agony was the All American "Day At the Beach". Once in Honolulu I noted that Waikiki must be the only place that smelled like suntan lotion at midnight: Give me Hilo with no beach or give me any other set of islands. 

The comment that I'm increasingly getting is that now that I'm growing older-at 41? Sheesh-I'll want stability in my life, no revolving door of men in my bed. To that I've said, "I have stability, I created the way I live to have stability in great heaving hunks and with great heaving hunks. My partner and I have laughingly discussed why we'd changed anything and can find no reasons. 

Just now one of my regulars is here. Phil is a great guy, tall, heavily inked and wildly funny, His job as a bartender not only provides him with material to practically do standup but the things he's told are another source of rare amusement. Sometimes I drop by his tavern-one in the old sense with one television, a brass rail and no potted plants-and have a drink. In his starched white shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows and the neck unbuttoned to his clavicle, he's at once a study in black and white and color and with his Irish history, the pug nose, white, white skin and freckles, red hair, cut very short, is what a bartender should look like. Or so I think. Watching him stretch with his clothes off is fascinating as it distorts all his tats making them seem what they're not. 

Maybe some time I'll tell you about some of my other sleepers but just now, the Irish eyes are smiling, though an Irish fog of sleep is in them and it's time to go to be. 

Hope you sleep well. I will