Wallflower at a Sex Party
Chapter 4: Sulking Werewolf
We move gently, softly, slowly. Hands snake around my waist, across my shoulders, down my cheek. I reach in the dark, and bodies press in all around me; every part of me held and touched and stroked. We breathe one another in; earthy, salty, sweet. My brain names points of contact in rapid succession–neck, arms, chest, breasts, ears, hair, legs. This person. That person. Tall person. Short person. Male body. Female body. Soft body. Hard body. Soon, I can no longer bother with the naming of things.
The sensory input overwhelms until I release, as if I am floating. The relief of buoyancy; of their bodies becoming seawater effortlessly holding my full weight. I return again to the safety of surrender. A place I have not known since I was known by him. A place where there is certain death and so there is aliveness. I am alive. Pain tells me I am alive. Pleasure tells me I am alive.
Every person in this room wants to touch me in a way that brings me pleasure. Every person in this room shivers and delights in being touched by me. Every person in this room is my lover. When your lover is my lover and my lover is your lover, something magical happens. When you cannot see who has become the object of your devotion, when you know your own desirability and the desirability of all the people in this room, the idea of finding anyone “unattractive” is rendered utterly meaningless. Ridiculous. This is the buoyancy, this is the relief of it. How we might be if we felt for one another with our eyes closed. If we could see one another with the clarity of being unable to see.
When we begin again we take our clothes off. The sea becomes skin on skin, rolling waves of gooseflesh. I am fascinated by the merging, the distinction. I cannot tell where one person begins and the other ends because we have become something else, we have become parts of a whole. We have transcended the frustration of bilateral dynamics–we are dynamic, we are dynamism itself. We are moving, moving, moving. But we are each unique, distinguishable from the mass. When someone’s hands find me they are in the delight of discovery. Some hands are subtle, some hands are firm. Some hands grip me roughly, some hands caress me adoringly. Each energy leaps apart from the rest with different emphasis; a person who is all skill but no intuition, a person who moves with emergence in perfect harmonious flow, a person who wants to shake and jiggle my ass and a person who wants to kiss me like a Hollywood movie star from a bygone era.
I surrender to them all. My mouth finds a mouth but before we can fall in love I am pulled away into more hunger, more uncharted territory, more insatiability. Creeping towards an edge, yet somehow perfectly contained. We cannot fall. We are holding. Folding.
When the game is over there is a comfortable heaviness in the room, like we have eaten a decadent feast. We are told the temple is open now. Time to play. Remember your yes and your no. Remember to ask permission.
I am disappointed to see that the moment we open our eyes we are sizing each other up again. Back to reality. We are at a sex party. We are not a transcendent state of collective consciousness, after all. We are not an ocean. We are regular. We are uncertain and horny.
Off to the side, I overhear a negotiation for a threesome between the conventionally attractive couple and my friend. They want to have sex with his hot pinup girlfriend, but they do not want to have sex with him. He expresses this feels dicey to him. I am proud of him for saying no. They compromise; the women will enjoy one another and the men will sit this one out. The women disappear into a nook and the men rejoin the party. We have become a high school dance. The music is playing and people are coupling up, except for a few awkward introverts on the margins.
No one notices me. Everyone is occupied, and I am nervous. I scan.
People are half-dressed to the nines but I am wearing waist high cotton granny panties and a long, white, open front cardigan with nothing underneath. I pull it around me to hide my body, wary of comparison, uncomfortable with my own changing shape.
I see a honey blonde beauty in pink and black lingerie lounging on the window seat, half asleep. She looks content, relaxed. I want to sink into the comfort of her softness. I approach her quietly and kneel in front of her. “May I join you?” I ask politely. Her lashes flutter open lazily. “Not right now,” she replies, and falls back into catlike repose.
I am lost. I see two large, handsome men leaning against the wall on the floor. I am slightly disoriented by the honey blonde’s declination and I know men are unlikely to refuse me. I choose the ego boost. I strategically place myself next to them and they immediately ask if I want to be touched. I request a shoulder rub from one, and ask if I can rest my feet in the other’s lap. They oblige.
The man who rubs my shoulders is strikingly beautiful. Over six feet tall with broad shoulders, slender but muscular abs and arms, perfectly symmetrical features. His light brown hair is pulled into a low bun, and his square jawline is concealed beneath a well groomed five o’clock shadow. His eyes sparkle. He feels like a little kid, so I ask him if this is his first time at a sex party? He confirms he’s new to the scene, but that he’s attended before. I tell him I have been to sensual snuggles but never a full blown group sex event, and he is happy to be part of my deflowering. I explain I am an anthropologist, which he finds funny. I do not feel sexual chemistry with him, but he feels nice and conversation flows easily. He confesses he might be bisexual, and the temple gives him a place to explore. We bond over our late blooming queerness.
He wants to play with the sex toys, but I am not in the mood. So I watch as the two handsome men move along to more exciting corners, and indulge in my bad attitude about feeling left out, despite not wanting to participate. Time moves slowly. The sun has set. I want a drink, so I walk downstairs.
In the temple, the lights are dim and yellow. In the kitchen, the lights are bright and white. The contrast assaults me, and I adjust to the “normal party” atmosphere of the ground level. Remnants of our potluck dinner clutter the countertops, and there are sounds of laughter in the hottub on the back deck. Half open beer bottles are abandoned on the table as people pull one another by the hand back upstairs to find a mattress. The home is open concept, with vast tall ceilings and a central stone fireplace nestled by a shag rug and gray velvet sectional. I see the back of his head. The werewolf.
He is staring forlornly into the gaslit flames, looking brooding and out of place. I steal a half-drunk beer and walk over to him, surprising myself when I don’t miss a beat and exude more quick witted charm than I feel.
“Hello,” I say, placing myself next to him on the sofa and pulling my knees up to my chin, “Are you a wallflower at a sex party?”
