Owning Regina: Diary of my unxpected passion for another woman (2 page)

Anyway, Jenna’s “happily” married and has two kids.  Truth is, she and her family are perfect. Nothing's ever wrong. Everything is fine. Her job's fine. His job's fine. The kids are fine. Even when we go to the movies, I say "how'd you like the movie?" and she always responds, "It was pretty good."  Really? Even when it's a piece-of-junk annoying movie? It's always "pretty good".  Me, on the other hand… I'm the first one to say it was terrible. I never hold back on having an opinion. I feel like I'm more real than my sister. I'm not afraid to be vocal.  I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop with Jenna.  All that "pretty good" has got to be a cover for something.

In fact, I know one thing that is not "pretty good" with them. She and Mark probably never have sex. They never touch each other. They are so pleasant and happy, but there is never raw passion. Doesn't Jenna ever just want to get fucked in a gutter somewhere? Doesn't she ever fantasize about being chained to a floor and having some guy ram her until she can't take it any more? No. Jenna would freak at that kind of a thought.

I'm telling you, we are all complex people and have complex personalities and sexual needs. I love a good back rub or cuddling as much as the next girl. I can be silly and playful. I can have fun just kissing. But I need the full range of expression and feelings. Some times I need to fuck and sometimes I need to cuddle. Sometimes I need to have road rage and some times I need to be a good Samaritan. How could anyone mask her emotional diversity like Jenna does?

And then there is the judgment. I always feel like she judges me for being so colorful and unabashed, no matter what my mood. I can be pissy or sweet. I can be a raving bitch or an adorable angel that everyone loves. I love contrast. Contrast is what makes us whole.

Jenna and Mark could live in San Francisco where they both work. It’s a city with culture and wealth and poverty and lots of contrast. The ocean meets the skyscrapers.  But instead, Jenna and Mark live in Burlingame, a boring suburb where nothing happens. There is no contrast there of any kind. “Pretty good” I guess.

Come to think of it, that's what was going on with Boyfriend X. For a year and a half I couldn't figure him out. Why was he so attracted to me, yet so distant at the same time? But I think he's like Jenna. He is afraid to let it rip. He's afraid to show more colors than tepid grey.  I think he was super attracted to my sweet and pleasant aspects. That's what he wanted me to be all the time. But then, when my burning passion for something would show up, he would withdraw. I could never really be myself. I sensed it. And, trying to make it work, I would curb my wild self. But after about a year, it was getting to me. I felt like I wasn't living a truthful life. I was a closeted mood swinger and thinker. I was always tempered and contained.

Finally, after many vocalized observations from Victoria over cocktails, I discovered that I was, in fact, not living my true personality. So I started to be more of myself. And the more I stepped out, the more BX couldn't roll with it. He started pulling away.  Sex was ridiculous. There was no passion at all. The more I pushed, the more reserved his sex was.

But the thing is, my natural sexual orientation is kinky.  People are born gay, straight, or… kinky. I've always craved wild and dangerous sex. It sounds like a fake cliché, but it's real. I literally can't get turned on without thinking of being tied up or doing it in some shady back alley. The missionary position does nothing for me. When I was a little girl, I remember playing cowboys and indians with the neighbor kid. I always tied him up and would think of ways to torture him. One time, I humiliated him by bringing my littler girlfriend over to see him tied up.  But I think he was kinky too because he kept coming over to play the game. More than a few times, I saw that he had a "stiffy". Ha. That's what we called it.

After having been to a lot of therapy on my own accord as a grown-up to try to figure out this dark side, my awesome therapist, Melissa, helped me see that it really doesn’t matter how I got here. It’s me now. I’m this person. So it can only bring shame and aggravation to try to un-kink myself or to judge my sexuality. In therapy it became crystal clear that I have no inklings of any type of abuse in my past. I was just a regular little girl.

In the “nature versus nurture argument” about what could have contributed to my desire for dark sex, I will tell you this:  In my household, it was like
Leave it To Beaver
. There was never any room for any emotions other than bright and cheery smiles. There were never fights of any kind.

By contrast, whenever I would visit the home of my little friend Gianna Mastrogiavani (coolest name ever!), her family would have rip-roaring fights at the dinner table.  Someone would end up crying. It scared me at first. But eventually I figured out that by the end of dinner, everyone had made up and they were laughing and hugging and having boisterous conversation together. Then, they may fight again, then back to the laughter. Even as a little girl, I found that to be more realistic. They were letting the emotions flow. They were having a range of feelings. I always wanted to be a Mastrogiavanni. I wanted to express the wild range of emotions that were never allowed in my Clever home.

Then there was “sex” in the Clever home. Well, actually not. The very idea of sex was verboten. It wasn’t that sex was bad; it’s just that it was non-existent, never spoken about.  It was like sex was not real. My mom and dad would only peck kiss. They would give a formal hug upon greeting after work. That was the extent of human contact, just like with Jenna and Mark. But my parents sure had smiles all the time. So I guess if I was abused, it was abuse by happy facades. 

When I was ten years old, I persuaded Jenna to pool her allowance with mine to buy my mom a 1 hour massage for Mother’s day. When she opened the card and saw the gift certificate, she seemed so happy. She served up several comments about how great that would be and how nice we were to think of her.

But with each passing weekend, I would say “Mom, maybe you could get your massage this Saturday?”  But invariably, she was always “too busy” and would have to try another time. It wasn’t until I was about 16 that I overheard her boasting to a friend: “I would never have a massage. The idea of a stranger touching me is really creepy. Besides, I would worry about which gender was touching me. If it were a man, it would feel completely inappropriate because that kind of touching is reserved for marriage. If it were a woman touching me, that would present its own problems.”  The Mother’s day massage coupon expired forever with her.

Here’s one for you, my entire childhood, I was never allowed in my parents’ bedroom. Never!  It wasn’t until I grew up and found out that other kids would jump on their parents’ beds, open the Easter basket in there, get sick and go to the parents’ bed for love and comfort, sleep or watch TV in the parent’s bed when the other spouse was away on a trip. I know people now who tell me they would sit on their parents’ beds for any old reason, just like it was a sofa. But for me, it was this sterile place that was off limits. We could play hide and seek in the house, but the bedroom was way out of bounds. 

It’s easy to see my parents’ bedroom as a perfect metaphor for the idea of sex. It doesn’t exist. Out of sight, out of mind.  I had no role model for sex.  At the Mastrogiavanni’s, I saw people hugging and kissing all the time. Sometimes a young couple would be there kissing and playing at the table and everyone would riff on it with jokes or push them to snuggle closer. Teenagers would smooch on the couch or “disappear” for a while and return later with that telltale satisfied look and a smirk to boot. The dad would playfully spank the mom on the butt with a wooden spoon while everyone laughed. I wanted to be a Mastrogiavanni.

But unlike my family, I have always found big pleasure in physical contact and my sexuality. I’ve always liked extreme sex. The funny thing is, most of it has always been in my own mind… with myself. For as kinky as I am, I need a solid relationship in order to share that side of me.  So without any one-night-stands or quickie relationships, I’ve always had the most pleasure with myself.

Even my boot fetish is big part of my sexuality. They are always there for me like a teddy bear. Maybe they are my security blanket. It may sound crazy, but ever since I was little, I was drawn to boots.  I always had boots. Every kind. To me, boots, especially high ones, are as sexy as lingerie. To feel super sexy and sexual, I would rather go boot shopping than lingerie shopping.  I love the contrast of soft skin against coarse leather. Light skin against dark leather.

But BX didn’t get it, far from it.  He always made me feel shame about wanting to wear boots: “A woman’s leg’s are her best feature and it makes no sense to cover them up”. What the hell? That’s like saying a French, lacey bra isn’t sexy because it covers up part of the boobs. And trust me, self, you will not find a single pair of boots in Jenna’s closet. I don’t even need to check.  She would never own a pair because they can carry such a sexual charge. Why do you think hookers always wear boots?  But saying tall boots are only for hookers is like saying guys on Wall Street should never wear suits because pimps wear them; the difference is huge, quality of fabric, accessories, attitude, and colors.

Prissy clothes are fine too. I wear prissy sometimes. The right shoe for the right mood. Jenna can never switch it up. She’s all about the safety robot voice: “Must – protect – emotions - at - all - times. Passion – does – not - compute.” Every woman, every person has to reconcile their childhood issues with their sexuality somehow. Some women do this by extremely punishing workouts, running marathons, etc. Other people over eat. Some take to substance. We all have to cope. The thing about me is that I feel super content with my sexuality. It feels healthy. Maybe it’s dark. Maybe it’s compartmentalized and a little different. But I own it.

Jenna wasn’t so lucky. As the big sister, she somehow was too overcome with the smiley environment to ever see another perspective.  It’s living in a fishbowl, all your life and not knowing there is anything beyond the glass. But my own fish bowl was placed on the windowsill looking over the San Francisco Bay. There was an exciting world out there… and it wasn’t all smiles. Like my emotions, some days were cloudy. Some were bright. I learned to embrace each one for its best qualities.  I love rain and fog and nasty thunderstorms. I love summer heat.
 

My sister only likes cheery days. I feel like repressing expression and appreciation of life’s peaks and valleys will take its toll later in life in some form or another. It’s the Dutch boy and the dyke. You can hold back some water with your finger plugging a hole, but that only creates more pressure to do damage elsewhere. My family, and especially Jenna, has repressed their sexuality forever. It’s going to
either blow or rot in them some how.

Jenna would be mortified if she heard any of this! Doesn't she ever get horny? Geez.  I have to masturbate at least once each day!! I bet Jenna doesn't even own a vibrator. It would scare the crap out of her. In the old movies, I used to hear the word "frigid.” I never really knew what it meant.  But seeing Jenna and Mark, it's pretty frigid all right.

Wow, after just re-reading this entry, it seems like I’m way more judgmental then her. I don’t mean to be that way. I guess it’s just a reaction to always feeling shut down whenever I let my real self shine, good, bad, or crazy. Sorry, Jen. I don’t mean to judge you.

--- MONDAY MARCH 12 --- Star power

My boss let me drive Nicole Kidman to the commercial shoot today. She was really nice. Everybody thought we were best buds or something because, even after arriving, she kind of leaned on me for stuff and felt comfortable hanging out with me during the shoot.  We get celebs from time to time, but this was the best. Gotta love her!

I’m starting to like writing this diary. I guess I’m secretly writing it for eventual release into the public. Maybe when I die, someone will find it in my nightstand and publish it. It will be like Franz Kafka who wasn’t famous until he died when they found his writings. Only when they find mine, they’ll be like… “Breaking news: Nicole Kidman once had a secret lesbian affair with production coordinator from a shoot she was on.”

--- TUESDAY MARCH 13 --- Prospect number one

There was a cute guy eyeing me at the farmers’ market this morning. He had this amazing swimmer’s body and could pass for a model. We had immediate chemistry. After he bumped into me and knocked my smoothie over, I flirted with him. Joking around, I told him that I would have to punish him for that. And he flirted back with “Or I’ll have to punish you for being so adorable.”  He gave me his email address.  Who knows, this entry could be the first of many in a bright future with him. We’ll see. I’ll wait a couple days before emailing.

--- WEDNESDAY MARCH 14 --- Yoga class

I love yoga! It always makes me feel so connected. Even today when I’m starting my period, it helps ease my cramps. When my body feels yoga, I get really optimistic about life and start eating healthily. Then when I get away from it for too long, I start eating worse and getting blue. Oh, and when I go to yoga for a long stretch in a row, I seem to get a bigger libido, which for me, is like saying I go from a high level to a stratospheric level. I’ve been going there regularly for about 6 weeks now and I love it.