Objects Of Lust

Lust is a funny emotion. It is different to love. Love implies constancy over the passing of time. Lust doesn’t give a damn about time… lust wants pleasure and gratification and it wants it NOW! Love sees the flaws in the beloved… and loves them too. Lust doesn’t want to know about imperfections, lust is only interested in the good bits… the more superficial the better. With lust, what you see is what you want.

Lust can lead you down some funny pathways. The gorgeous hunk from the night before, all rolling six-pack and blond spiky hair, in the harsh light of morning suddenly looks a bit been there, done that. When he gets up to go to the bathroom and looks down fondly at his willy and says proudly to it, “You da MAN.” you know the haze of lust induced blindness has gone. The only thing you can do is hope he takes da man and gets to hell out of your apartment.

Fortunately not all objects of lust turn out to be such a disappointment. There are shoes. I had thought that this was an exclusively female lust, but my good friend J Morgan assures me some men also share this craving. For a brief time in his life Jmo pretended to be a woman, so I’m not sure how much this influenced his perceptions, People confide in him so I’m going to take his word for it, even though he fails at best friendom because he NEVER shares other people’s secrets with me.

I lust after boots. The ones at the top of the page are calling out to me. I want them, I need them, oh baby, oh baby. And I want them now. Do I care that in Australia we are heading into summer and the temperature will hover around the 95 degree mark for six months? No. I want those boots right now.

Have you ever watched little kids in a playground? No? I don’t blame you. A totally boring waste of time. There is however one thing to learn from them. They see something they want, they take it. No thought for public expectations or future consequences. That’s lust. The thing is kids grow out of it. I don’t think we ever grow out of wanting – we just learn, some of us slower than others, that there is always a morning after.

It is with great regret that I have to announce I think I am growing up. Those boots cost $1,800. I have to leave them where they are. It is summer and the lazy, strappy sandalled days will give me plenty of time to work those boots out of my system.

Yes, I have six months. If my desire for those warrior woman boots stands the test of time I’ll know it’s true love. We were meant to be together. I’m a romantic. I’m willing to sacrifice anything for love.

Surviving the man in your life.

You want sex. You want pleasure. You want to come screaming your brains out. When you come (if you’ll pardon the pun) to examine it, your options are fairly limited.

You could use a vibrator - most of us do at one time or another.

This isn’t a bad option. A jackrabbit is always erect, needs no special treatment, will never ask for a blow job and doesn’t give a damn how much your love of chocolate is making your backside spread. It stores neatly away when you don’t want to be bothered with it, doesn’t expect you to feed it or do its laundry. It never hogs the bedcovers. It never sticks its head in the fridge and yells out “Honey! Do I have any beer left?”

You could decide to pursue the idea of another woman. There are lots of advantages to this one. A woman understands why you need five pairs of black shoes, knows what a clitoris is and where to find it, doesn’t lift the seat on the toilet and never leaves wet towels on the floor. Given that another woman in your life means the chores actually would be divided fifty/fifty it is surprising this option isn’t taken up more frequently.

Unfortunately, for some of us, only a man will do. This is not as strange as you may think...look at the increasing popularity of BDSM. Having a man about the house is pretty much the same thing. The pain is there but we keep going hoping to get to the reward.

You can opt for the casual approach, working your way through a variety of men who are never allowed to stick around for more than a week or two. This certainly means you won’t have to move your clothes, crushing them into one side of the closet so he can have space to hang his clothes if he ever decides to pick them up off the floor. However you have to be prepared to have your razor borrowed on Monday mornings, and it has to be admitted in the throes of passion it can be damn hard to keep track of the name you should be screaming this week.

There is the problem of availability. A good lover is in demand. If you are going to go this way, beware the man who is ready, willing and eager to come on over any time day or night. Chances are you’re looking at someone who has been rejected by many other women, probably because he thinks being a World of Warcraft level seventy Nightelf Druid makes him irresistible. If you are in fact a virtual person this isn’t bad; not so good if you are a flesh and blood woman who wants foreplay that is not on line.

So, this leaves us with the live-in man. The partner. The love of your life. If you have decided, for reasons that continue to defy the rational, to let a man move into your life, you are going to need a detailed survival guide. A list of instructions and tips to allow you to rise above the temptation to scream every time he picks up the remote and just flick, flick, flicks from channel to channel; to wait patiently for the game to end so he remembers you exist; to explain why he cannot go more than ten minutes without checking that his equipment is all there and in working order; to tell you why he thinks farting under the sheets is hilarious.

I have really bad news. There are no instructions. There is no list. Nothing I can say or do will get you any closer to understanding the alien you have invited into your life. The only consolation is this. God made women incredibly strong ...Because we need to be.

Life's Sugarfree Instructions

I got an email this week. The heading was Life’s Little Instructions. You know the kind. Pictures of nauseatingly cute puppies and kittens with sickening captions like, Be Kind. Take time to wonder at the beauty of the sky. Yeah right. If I’m looking at the sky, I’m on my back, and the closest I’m going to get to appreciating the heavens in that position is to scream out oh god.

So I decided to make my own set of Life’s Little Instructions, complete with the kind of picture I prefer (I stole it from the cover of one of my books). I am not emailing it to anybody. You won’t get 20 years bad luck if you don’t pass it on. No-one is going to send you a million dollars if you send it to 200 other victims, no kid in Lithuania is going to get a wheelchair if you click on it 1000 times. I don’t actually care if no one reads it. This is me. You make your own.

Life’s Real Instructions.

1. In a crisis - Eat chocolate. There is no problem that cannot be eased by eating chocolate.

2. When things are going fine – Eat chocolate

3. In moments of passion – Lick chocolate from the skin of the one who pleasures you (Note: In spite of what your mother said, it is okay to lick your fingers)

4. Never learn to program or adjust televisions, remotes, DVD players, or cable.

5. Make sure the cable guy is hot. Don’t be afraid to ring around until you find the right one.

6. Don’t sweat the small stuff. If the tax man wants to know what you’ve earned…let him come to you and ask. The cute nerd thing works with accountants too.

7. God made Adam first - so a man would be there ready to do the stuff women don’t want to do... and the things we do want to do.

8. Money spent on shoes is an investment. Money spent on boots is a necessary cost of living.

9. Too many and shoes do not belong in the same sentence.

10. Grab all the pleasure you can whenever you can.

11. Ignore the bad stuff. It will probably go away. If it doesn’t - keep ignoring it.

12. Never do anything because someone says it is good for you. This usually means you will hate it.

13. Try being bad. It won’t be good for you – just good.

14. Do not be nice to children and small animals. Why bother? They won’t care.

15. The exception to this is if the leash of either of the former is held by a hot guy.

16. Drink champagne only on special occasions.

17. Every breath you take is a special occasion.

18. Do not undertake self improvement courses. Every day, in every way, you are perfectly fine as you are.

19. Love yourself. (But be careful of the chocolate stains - see point 3)

20. Never read any stupid instruction lists - including this one.