Sex Still Spoken Here: An Anthology (28 page)

Holly Zwalf

Bio

Holly Zwalf is from Sydney, Australia, but recently spent eight months living in San Francisco writing a PhD about queer leather Mommies. She sorely misses sunbathing at the gay beach in Dolores Park with a burnt sugar Bi-Rite ice cream melting in her hand.

Mini-Interview

How did you start writing about sex
?
How
does
it
differ
from
non
-
erotic
writing?
I find it impossible to leave sex out of my writing, just like I find it impossible to leave sex out of life. Without either, I would be miserable.

Do
you
write
in
multiple
genres
and
,
if
so
,
why?
I am a smutty spoken word artist, I have a PhD in queer kink, and I have also just written a novel about a maternal masochist who is a nanny by day and a sex worker by night. I figure if you’re going to dedicate your life to something, it may as well be something you love.

How
is
the
Erotic
Reading
Circle
part
of
your
writing
process?
I am from Sydney, Australia, but I attended the Erotic Reading Circle while I was living in San Fran and conducting my “research” on the queer kink community. (In other words while I was gadding about the place going to sex parties and dungeons and having a grand old time, at the University’s expense). The Circle gave me the opportunity to share my writing in a space where it wouldn’t be received as shocking, where my writing would be valued for its quality and craft, not judged for its confronting or outrageous content.

What’s
the
inside
scoop
on
your
story?
That dirty weekend away was an emotional journey that covered great distances, and that also somehow took me closer to home. My journey had begun in the red dirt of the central Australian desert, engulfed in grief and lust, and so it was only fitting that it ended hard up against a rusty redwood (being the perverted tourist that I am).A few hours later we stopped at the giant drive-thru tree, and I went to the toilet and discovered the perfect souvenir—bits of redwood crumbled all through my knickers.

A
Short Story

Holly Zwalf

She tells me that her lovers have always been two-toned. The most recent, the one we both shared for a brief overlap of time, was baby-powder and engine grease. The one before that, vegan cupcakes and leather.
And
me
? I ask. She pauses. She is thoughtful, and I like this because I know that it means I can trust her.
Sea
salt
and
eucalyptus
, she finally says, and then nods as though to settle it—
yes
,
that’s
it
.
That’s
you
.

She takes me away for four days, north to the redwoods. At lunchtime we stop for oysters, two dozen of them safe in their shells that we pry open and suck dry, like thirsty men at the pub after a long Sunday spent in church. I have always maintained that oysters are like orgasms, but these are different. These are like another’s, not your own, a movement in three parts—the sweetness of a beginning, the salty crescendo, and last, the tenderness of a body gone limp in your arms. That is how these treasures taste: fresh, alive, complex.

The first night we camp, drinking red wine in plastic cups and hanging our bums over the flames of the strange eco-friendly faux wood logs to keep warm. Beside us the river is slow and silver under a full moon, and a small black cat from the farm house slinks around chasing shadows. The tent is cold but we are new lovers, and new lovers don’t pay attention to the weather. After we have finished the cat scratches to be let in, so I unzip the fly and she crawls in between us, and it almost feels like home.

It rains in the night and by morning I am getting a cold, so I no longer feel guilty that we have booked a cabin for the next two nights. We spend a lazy day driving through the Californian fog, emerging occasionally beside a rugged cliff or a mock-chateau winery, sniffing the reds as though we can afford more than just the one lower-end bottle. The vineyards and the European-style buildings help me to forget where I am. Some of them are reminiscent of the southern parts of France, some the Swiss Alps, others perfect replicas of quaint English cottages. America has the knack of combining three or four different cultures in the one moment, a nostalgic nod to its European roots, perhaps, or an unashamed attempt to import a sense of timeless history into a young (in white terms) land. I am in search of a nice port. I have aspirations to drink it by the fire in our log cabin in the woods, or in the hot tub that we have been told nestles romantically in the trees, surrounded by fairy lights and tranquillity. However as night falls so does the rain, and when we arrive the fire is a fake gas flame and the hot tub is broken, so we drink the port out of Ikea tumblers in the tiny oval bathtub, our bodies stuck together out of sheer necessity, my back against her stomach, knees and elbows protruding awkwardly. Only our bums and cunts are properly submerged in the warm water.

The next day there is sun, plentiful and strong. We set up our camping stove on the verandah and cook pancakes, flipping them over with a knife, and afterwards we wander across to the beach. At the top of the cliff we stop. The sun is hot on my arms and below us the ocean is thrashing around madly in the wake of last night’s storm, like a three- headed monster with too many elbows and legs. I watch the waves pounding the sand and imagine that force inside me, heaving, thrusting, surging. I am beginning to understand what Annie Sprinkle means by eco-sexuality—today I want the whole world to fuck me. I tell my lover this and she takes the hint, and when we get down onto the sand she takes
me
, swiftly, suavely, my arse resting on a piece of bony driftwood as I face the roiling water, watching it crest over the rocks in a rush as I cum in much the same way. This is the closest I get to religion, sharing my orgasms with the sky.

We save the redwoods for the last day. Mid-morning we stop for an impromptu picnic in between one tourist attraction and the next, and after eating she leads me off into the trees, her hemp rope coiled around one arm. This is why we came here; this is the reason for our trip. We find the perfect spot: a young shaggy trunk, straight and slim, stretching confidently beside a stream. She ties my hands above my head and then slowly coils the rope around both my chest and the tree, looping intricate knots around each breast, the rope binding me firmly against the crumbling bark like a hug. As I am gradually restrained I try to match my breathing to hers as she has taught me, fighting the panic inside. The noise of the road disappears and I disappear along with it. I hand myself over and let go.

She unbuckles my belt and tugs my jeans down around my knees, wriggling her hand under the elastic of my knickers. I am painfully aware that if someone walked by she would not have enough time to untie me. I also do not care. She fucks me, fast and then slow, and unlike on the beach
this
orgasm is gathered up from all around, held tight, and then flung out wide like handfuls of water sparkling in the sun. When I stop shuddering I remember where I am and I am suddenly overcome. I can’t stop laughing, I feel like I am on acid, I feel like I have transcended, I feel like there are wings thrumming the air, just out of sight. I forget about history and futures and sums that don’t add up, and for a moment I believe in something bigger.

When we drive through the grand finale, the Avenue of the Giants where the largest of the redwoods reside, it is late afternoon and the sunlight slats diagonally through the leaves in golden bars. In the deepest part there is a stillness that is overwhelming. The air feels so calm, so solid, so sure. No wars, no famines, no heartbreaks have ever touched this peace. I suppose this is what two thousand years of growing upwards will do to you. Despite the sunshine a chill invades us, and I seek refuge in the heat of her mouth. She draws me in to the shadows of a partially-hollowed trunk and slides her fingers inside me, and instead I find myself shivering on her palm.

We drive home with some of this silence still spun like fairy floss between us. We drive into the night, the dense emptiness parting on either side of our headlights and closing back in around us at the boot. This country thinks it is the centre of the universe, but I have begun to understand. This is a country where the lights are so bright that nighttime is a myth, where the moon is obscured by a neon sign. How can you remember your place in the universe when you’ve drowned out all of the stars? But tonight there are no stars. Instead there is a storm waiting in the wings, clouds obscuring all chance at navigation, no way of telling which is up or down, which is sea or land, which is solid or only a shadow. I am delirious in this newfound anonymity, floating oblivious past the unseen alien landscape, alone at last in this over-populated, over-consuming, over-suspicious country. But she has started to panic—I can tell by the shortness of her breath. She is from a place where the roads are lit by the houses which flank it, where roads don’t connect towns but connect houses to cities, where you cannot drive for longer than a breath without sharing it with a hundred others. And I am from a place where the distance between homes can mean the distance between new lovers at the moment when they realise it won’t last; I am from a country where the distance between us and the rest of the world means that we can forget our humanity and turn away those who seek it. And it’s lonely, but apparently it’s safe.

As we are slowly embraced by the outstretched fingers of a glowing San Francisco I leave my sense of home behind me in the dark. Soon the road is flanked not by trees but by my fellow homeless—the needy and the maimed—lining the streets like an assembly of war memorials come to life, though one would hardly call it living. Theirs is a hopelessness that could rival the homeless orphans of Cambodia, though at least in Cambodia it’s always summer. Apparently the great American dream is only viable if you have somewhere warm to sleep, somewhere safe to dream it. And this is not my dream.

They say that love knows no borders, but mine is eucalyptus and sea salt, and hers? Hers is the metallic tang of the Golden Gate, the rust of an ancient redwood. And I am trying to work out how to tell her when she says,
hey
,
are
we
cool
? and I no longer know how to answer. I like her, this butch with her feminist convictions, her romantic plans and her filthy mind. I like her so much but it makes no difference, not when you’ve closed down the borders of your heart. We sit there together in the dark with the gearstick and my history between us, crawling through the tragic streets. Her thick tough-boy fingers tremble against the steering wheel and I want to open the door and get out, but we are moving too fast. Eventually we pull up at my house. I look into her chameleon eyes as though for an answer, but of course all I find are more questions.
What
are
we
going
to
do
? I ask no one in particular as I get out of the car.
Make
me
into
a
good
short
story
, she says.

[go to top]

Carol Queen

Bio

Carol Queen is a widely-published author of erotica, memoir, essays, and sex information. She is the founding director of the Center for Sex & Culture (
sexandculture.org
) where she co- facilitates the Erotic Reading Circle with Jen Cross; she also facilitated the ERC throughout the 1990s when it was held at Good Vibrations and edited the first anthology of ERC stories,
Sex
Spoken
Here
, with Jack Davis. More about CQ at
www.carolqueen.com
.

Mini-Interview

How
is
the
Erotic
Reading
Circle
part
of
your
writing
process?
I have way too little time to write as much as I’d like, but whenever I work on something new, I immediately take it to the Circle. I receive loving and honest feedback and it is so valuable and inspirational. I’ve not done a “regular” writing group, but I think the Circle is so diverse and interesting; it’s hard to imagine another group that allows its writers to come from so many different places, on so many different things, and most importantly, come from so many varying levels of experience. It’s so amazing to hear a seasoned writer’s new work
and
a brand-new writer’s first-ever story, all in the span of a couple of hours.

Do
you
write
under
your
own
name?
YES. To me, writing is activism, and it takes the point off my spear if I am not willing to stand up and speak for my work and for the change I want it to create in the world. If I were concerned about doing this work, I don’t think I’d be able to do it––on the contrary, it’s an honor to be able to lend my thoughts, my time, and my name to trying to make a more sex-positive world.

What’s
the
inside
scoop
on
your
story?
Sometimes when you have a big crush, you try to turn it into something more; sometimes (like this time), you just let it transmute into the raw material for a story. This piece works out not only my fondness for a certain person, but also some of the many feelings I have about the Interwebs.