I came home yesterday after almost a week away. Within ten minutes of walking through the door I was masturbating. It was quick and perfunctory, but when my come spurted out over my shoulder and fell inconveniently onto the floor behind me I realized it had been too long. For months I've meant to put myself on a daily masturbation regimen. I exercise every morning, I eat three times a day, I spend most of my waking hours hurling my brain at work projects, so it seems like short shrift to not give my sexual side a trot in the park more than once or twice a week.
I used to masturbate everywhere I could. In high school I would get a bathroom pass in the middle of a class to sneak down the hall and pleasure myself. I've done it on more flights than I can remember. When I lived in Madagascar, I went for a walk out into the countryside surrounding the village I lived in. I trudged through the sand and loping shapes of cactus for a few miles. The sun was starting to go down and I stopped for a moment in total silence. The only thing I could hear was the dim reverberation of the air in my ears and the occasional brush of wind.
There was empty wilderness in every direction, dry and gnarled. The village looked like a small collection of toys clumped together, an isolated refuge against the harsh lunar landscape. In the same way I could hear the air in my ears, I felt it against my skin. The sun was falling and the air was returning to a neutral chill that the mid-afternoon heat had covered up. I felt it all over, like water ebbing upwards in a high tide. I felt gravity pulling against my penis.
Every breath I took broke the silence, every step I took sounded amplified, like I was listening to it through headphones. I felt a strong impulse to strip and feel the air against my body. I took a few steps off the footpath I had been following and stepped behind a dried bramble of dusty thorns. I dropped my shorts to my ankles and started to masturbate.
My head was a total blank and there was nothing remotely arousing to see. It felt clinical; the cold in the air was the impersonal metal of some doctor's instrument. The closer I got to coming the more bizarre things felt. It was like trying to stay in a dream with a bright flashlight shining in my eyes.
Then I heard a cow low. The sound of sand crunching came from somewhere nearby just as I finished. I pulled my shorts up in a chill of adrenaline, kicking sand over the pile of come at my feet.
Less than a minute later, a lanky farmer came strolling down the footpath with a few cows out to graze on the sparse clumps of weeds that sprouted underneath the cactus. He seemed surprised to see me come out of the brush. I greeted him and made it back home by dark.
Masturbating is like trying to reconcile two realities; one is always retreating. I didn't have time to masturbate tonight. My hope for some kind of daily sexual endeavor seems farther away now. Tomorrow morning, I'll sit on the BART, listening to my headphones, doing kegels, staring at all the other people reflected in the glass, with the darkness speeding by underneath. Tomorrow.
And then tomorrow again.
Previous Posts:
Love Machine: My Mother
Love Machine: Thanks But I'll Pass, or Handling Rejection
Naked Machine: Buying New Underwear, or Sex in a Dressing Room
Date Machine: Look Ugly in a Photograph
Love Machine: On Your Own, or Moving On
Love Machine: Going to Bed Angry
Love Machine: The Hooker on the Corner
Sex Machine: Having Sex on Inauguration Night
Sex Machine: If You Can Get Me Hard I'll Show You A Good Time
Date Machine: Tool Academy, or Watching TV with Your Girlfriend
Sex Machine: Getting Laid
Love Machine: I Was a Six Year-Old Virgin, or Is There A Happy Ending?
Date Machine: Getting Pierced on a Date
Love Machine: Hitting Snooze on the Morning After
Date Machine: Let Me Seduce You With The Cardigans
Date Machine: I'm Too Sexy For Your Blog