The Lovers: A Slut’s Retrospective
by Beverly Fisher, Slut at Large and Woman of Easy Virtue

Like any good slut, I’ve had a slew of lovers in my past. They say we learn from our mistakes... I had to make some of my mistakes a few times before I finally got a clue. You don’t have to hit me over the head with a ball peen hammer more than four or five times, for something to really sink in.

Not that all of my experiences with my lovers were negative. I had some wonderful, positive moments, uplifting joys. These are the people I have loved, both men and women who have influenced my sexual and emotional development. These are the people who have touched me. While they are, by and large, no longer a part of my life, their influence continues to be a part of who I am. And, in some cases, I still bear the marks of the hammer. The hardest part is that often, I am the one who wields it.

Jeff

When I was 16, I fell hard for a 23-year-old musician. Every parent’s worst nightmare. Sometimes I think I’ll be apologizing to my parents for years after they’re already in the grave. I believe I’ll call my mother now, while I’m thinking of it. She’s the Duchess of Guilt anyhow, so she’ll love an apology for something I did 22 years ago. Give her a rush. (For those keeping score, the Queen of Guilt is my grandmother.)

Jeff was my first love. Not real adult love, the deep love that grows over time, but teenage crush love. And I did love him. Jeff played bass guitar in a band. From him, I learned to love musicians. He had long, beautiful bass-playing fingers, graceful and articulate. Watching him play was incredible. He truly enjoyed it, and was good at it too.

Sex with Jeff was fantastic. I’d lost my virginity the year before and had a couple of boyfriends, but no one like Jeff. I had an orgasm for the first time during intercourse with Jeff. Up until then, orgasms were something I did on my own. But with Jeff, he was patient with me, genuinely interested in giving me pleasure. I could only orgasm in the missionary position, with my legs straight up in the air. It took time, and my legs were usually quite sore by the time we were finished. But he patiently kept at it, driving away until I managed to reach that magic moment.

Jeff taught me about the pleasures of giving someone else pleasure, a vital part of my sexual makeup today. And we had fun together. He was a friend, not just a lover. I remember driving all over town with him in his beat-up white Volvo, just listening to music and talking. To spend time with someone you genuinely connect with, to share pleasure with them, those were real gifts.

I moved in with Jeff for a while, and had the experience of sharing a home and a bed with a lover. I learned compromise. I learned how to pinch pennies. I learned how to back off when someone is tired and drained after a long day. I learned how to ignore disgusting sounds coming from the bathroom. I learned how to dig in sofa cushions for spare change to buy cigarettes. I learned about the reality of living with and loving someone, versus the teenage fantasies I’d always harbored. I learned that loving someone means loving a person, faults and all.

But this relationship ended, as many teenage love affairs do, on a rather sour note. To put it mildly. He rejected me when I needed him most, when he should have taken responsibility and helped me, because my plight was in part his fault. He was cruel and callous instead. Twenty-two years later, I still harbor resentment. Intellectually, I know carrying around resentment never does anyone any good, but that’s a lesson I have yet to learn completely. Apparently I haven’t hit myself in the head with that particular hammer hard enough yet.

Brian

I’d had a crush on Brian for years before we finally became lovers, when I was 18. I learned so much from Brian... and still do today. Twenty years later, we are still the best of friends.

But boy, were we lousy lovers. We had some of the most spectacular fights. My personal favorite was the time we were both stark naked, in broad daylight, with the curtains open, and me flailing at Brian and trying to hit him, while he did his best not to hit me (always a gentleman). To this day he knows better than anyone just exactly how to piss me off.

Brian is an artist, a writer, a musician, an actor, a comedian, and God knows what all else. He adores animals, and is always kind to all the little creatures of the world, even spiders. He’s always been tall and skinny, long fingers and long nose (which he’s rather sensitive about). From Brian, I learned how incredibly hot creative people are. And how wonderful it is to be one of them.

Brian has taught me a million things. I’ve taught him a few too. One night, I got a bright lamp, and insisted he examine my vagina in great detail. I wanted us to learn to appreciate the vagina. The beauty of the thing. They really do look like orchids, fleshy flowers of honey dew and nectar. Gorgeous. And he got down there and examined my pussy with gusto, exploring every flap and fold, nook and cranny.

That’s one of the things I’ve learned from Brian is passion. To attack everything, to open yourself up to every experience, to explore the world with passion. He is a font of useless trivia – useless until you actually need it or want to know something. He taught me a passion for learning, for exploring new things, trying new experiences.

He threw himself into sex the way he threw himself into everything: with utter abandon and delight. He taught me to appreciate cunnilingus. I had never encountered a man who was actually good at licking pussy before, so I’d always hated it. But Brian was a cunning cunnilinguist, with a prehensile tongue and magic fingers.

He taught me about fetishes, weird ones, not so weird ones, BDSM, and other unique sexual experiences. We explored the darker realms of psyche together.

Brian was a slob, a total pig, and I wasn’t much better myself. We were nuts when we lived together, in my first apartment. We ate terrible food and watched movies on television and spent most of our time utterly naked, like children. We fought over stupid things and laughed most of the time.

Our romantic relationship was not meant to be. We were too crazy, too creative, too independent, too demanding, too needy, too everything. We split up after a particularly spectacular fight, and didn’t speak for three months. But after three months, we had to admit that we missed each other terribly. We renewed our friendship. To this day, he is my best friend. I learn more and more from him every day. Brian is one of my few success stories. I am grateful for his passionate friendship. He is still a terrible slob, though.

Mel

Mel was my first real love. I fell for him hard. As usual, he was older than I was, and had a large nose. I like big noses, for some reason. He was handsome and strong, my knight in shining armor. I was a sucker.

Mel was another creative-type, a writer when he wasn’t working a horrible blue-collar job. We were both writing for a local magazine, and we met through one of the editors. I loved his work, and he loved mine. We were a match made in heaven. Or at least, McDonald’s.

But I really did love Mel, with everything I had. He was so important to me. I could talk to him about anything – almost. I just loved being with him, no matter what we did. He was tall and sandy-haired, very smart and very funny. His sense of humor was incredible, he always made me smile. He had a love of learning and trying new things. He rode a motorcycle, and had been a serious biker in his past. I loved riding on the back of his bike, just cruising, feeling the wind in my hair.

And the sex... oh, my, the sex. It was phenomenal. Mel took me to places I never imagined. He was a deeply passionate lover, not really kinky, but intense. Very intense. I hummed and throbbed at his touch. We simply clicked. Just being near him, the feel of him, the smell of him, was enough to make my panties damp. We had chemistry, and lots of it. I had orgasms I didn’t know I could have, in positions I didn’t know existed. He was a very experienced lover, and taught me all sorts of new and stimulating tricks.

Mel knew how to laugh. But he suffered too, a frustrated writer bound by the constrictions of life. His job was miserable, and I urged him to go back to school, which he eventually did. Unfortunately, a degree in writing and a dollar will buy you a coke. So he kept working his lousy job, unhappy eight hours a day, only fulfilled after five and on the weekends. Watching him, I knew I didn’t want to live my life like that. I learned that there is more to life than just making a living.

I moved to California to go to college, leaving Mel behind. I started working as an escort, and kept it a secret from him. I continued to see him whenever I came back to Colorado for visits. I knew he wouldn’t be able to handle the truth, wouldn’t understand that my work was just that, my work – and no reflection on our relationship. But he soon figured it out, and dumped me unceremoniously. He ended the relationship not so much because I was an escort (though surely that was part of it) but because I had lied to him. But then, he didn’t try to understand, didn’t try to help me, didn’t try at all. The situation, and life in general, was all black and white with Mel. He couldn’t see shades of gray, couldn’t see solutions. As with his miserable job – and who holds down a miserable job for eight years? – his attitude was defeatist and final. Positive possibilities in life were mysteries to Mel.

I learned about honesty. It’s a complex thing, honesty. It seems simple and straightforward enough – tell the truth, or don’t – but the repercussions of the truth, versus a lie, can be just as painful. There are some things that it’s just plain hard to tell the truth about. Being an escort is one of those things. How do you tell someone, in a way they can understand? But if you keep it a secret, you live a lie, hiding a huge part of your existence from someone you care about. Further, is it possible to care about someone and then lie to them? Can love forgive anything? I learned, the hard way, that it can’t. So much for the knight in shining armor. And the ending of the movie Pretty Woman just pisses me off.

Lee

I married this one. I married Lee for all of the wrong reasons: because I was pregnant, and because he asked me. My self-esteem was low enough that I believed no one would ever want me, especially after Mel’s resounding rejection. So when Lee asked me to marry him, I said yes. I was 23 years old.

Lee was tall, balding, and 20 years my senior. He was also crazy. Nice enough guy, but nuts. He lived with his mother and was working as a “scientist,” studying human performance. He was convinced that human (and animal) performance levels vary depending on the position of the moon. Honest. And, at 23, I believed him. I believed him when he tested those theories using horses as subjects. At the racetrack. He was convinced he could predict which horses would win based on their behavior at various times compared with what the moon was doing.

Okay, I was crazy too. But truly, he talked a great talk. He had reams of data to back up his assertions. He had a way of explaining it – at great tedious length – that made it all sound totally plausible. Really. No, really. What can I say.

Lee was a mediocre lover, but being the terribly sexual creature that I am, I was all over him anyhow. Sex with Lee was not particularly memorable, but he was a good cuddler afterward. Lee was really nice to snuggle with. And he did love me, in his way. He really did. I loved him too, but I wasn’t “in love” with him. But I did care about Lee very much.

He gave me everything I thought I wanted: a home, a child, a husband to care for and take care of. I loved being pregnant, and felt like I had finally ended my wild ways and settled down for good. Lee took jobs here and there that lasted for a while, until he started to become ill from the stress. Then he’d quit, and the job search would begin again.

After I had the baby, everything changed. Lee was no longer interested in sex with me. I learned about the whore and the Madonna complex. Some men, once their wives have children, become disinterested in sex, because their wives are now in a maternal role. The wife becomes a mother-figure, which is a huge turn-off. I learned later that his father did the same thing to his mother, just cut her off entirely from sex.

I went without sex for eight months, and then I cheated on Lee. I had a one-night stand with a young stallion I met while on a visit home to Colorado. The sex was incredible, stupendous. But I was left feeling unfulfilled. I learned that what I was missing wasn’t so much the sex, as it was the intimacy. I was craving physical closeness with someone who loved me, for me... not some random guy who was hot for my body. I didn’t cheat on Lee again.

In the end, the relationship ended when Lee received a huge inheritance from his mother’s death, and quit his job so that he could go to the racetrack full time, pursuing his “scientific” studies. Living with a two-year-old child, I was obviously not happy with his career move. I wanted security, safety. I wasn’t getting that from Lee. The relationship fell apart. I learned that security is not something easily found, or easily kept. I also learned that, when it comes to penises and the men attached to them, I am a fool. This is one of those lessons that I’m still learning. I do seem to attract and keep company with some real winners. And I don’t mean at the racetrack.

The biggest gift Lee gave me is my daughter. And that’s an incredible gift. No matter what else happened between us, I will always be grateful for that one, ultimate gift.

Ruth

I’ve never loved anyone the way I loved Ruth. I still love her today, all these years later. I fell in love with my best friend. I had never loved a woman before, and it was a bit of a shock. I’d been with women before sexually, but never had a romantic relationship with one. But Ruth was irresistible. She was funny and smart and beautiful.... and another writer besides. I do have a thing for the creative souls.

I came out of the closet to myself, and to everyone else, as the bisexual woman that I am. I adored Ruth. I couldn’t get enough of her. We did everything together, went everywhere together. She helped me raise my daughter. I was just goofy about this woman. Ruth was a riot, a goth girl in boys’ pants, with a dark and morbid sense of humor that matched my own. We often picnicked in graveyards, as I had when I was a kid. She loved toys of all sorts, stickers, books, and clay. We were like big kids together.

Sexually, Ruth was pretty inexperienced, and my experience with women was very limited. So we learned together how to pleasure one another. I can still smell her hair, her skin, the tangy taste of her, the feel of her full, firm breasts. Lying in bed, we’d just hold one another, her head pillowed on my breast, and it felt perfect. Like nothing could ever go wrong.

But, as I’ve said before, I’m a fool. And in this relationship, I’m the one who fucked it up. I can’t blame Ruth at all. We would get into terrible fights, and hurt each other. Sex became a distant memory. I was crazy, and that’s all there is to it. I hurt the person I cared about more than anything in the world. I was selfish and insane. And when she finally left, I could only be amazed that she’d put up with my lunacy as long as she did. When she moved out, I was left with a gaping hole in my gut where she belonged. I have never cried so hard, never felt so lost, so empty. I was utterly devastated. And I had to live with the knowledge that it was my fault. I still have to live with it.

Ruth is happily married now to a wonderful woman, and they have a son. I wish her all the best. While I still mourn the loss, I know that she’s happy now. I’ve learned that when you really love someone, you want them to be happy above all else. Even if that means they’re not with you.

She came out to Colorado and visited me not too long ago, with her wife and son. We had a wonderful time, it was so good to see her. But there was one point where she met my eyes, and I could see the sorrow there, see the love there. It broke my heart all over again.

Matt

Think about the stupidest thing you’ve ever done in your life. Now multiply times ten, and you’ve got my relationship with Matt. I’ve done some stupid things, dated some real losers, but this was far and away the worst. What can I say? I get a taste of a penis and I’ll willingly follow it’s owner over the edge of a cliff.

After graduating from college, I was unable to find work in my field. I owed the landlord thousands, they were about to shut off the electricity, and I was desperate. I decided to start back to work as an escort.

Matt was a client. He was also a sex addict, but I didn’t know that at the time. Some men might think that sounds like fun, being a sex addict. I’m talking about real addiction here, something sick and unhealthy. He was also a recovering alcoholic and drug addict, and was going to several 12-step groups. He seemed like a normal kind of guy, someone just recovering from a rough part of their lives, someone who needed caring and attention. I needed my head examined.

I enjoyed his company very much. He called me his princess and treated me like one. He was not as bright as some of the men and women I’ve dated, but he was funny and charming. He loved my daughter and was always helping out with her, teaching her to ride a bike, helping with homework, etc.

Doesn’t sound so bad, does it? Then one day I got my phone bill. A $2000 phone bill. That’s two thousand, just to spell it out. Matt was, as I’ve mentioned, a sex addict. While I was off at work, he was calling phone sex lines, masturbating ten times a day and more. I split up with him. Then the real nightmare started.

He relapsed and starting drinking and doing drugs again. He began stalking me. He called me hundreds of times a day, on my home phone, my cel phone, my pager. He broke into my house and destroyed all of the presents he’d ever given me. He called from various hotels threatening suicide, ending up in the hospital. He stalked me from the hospital, calling me from their phone. I was escorting out of hotels at the time. He called the hotels I liked to frequent and told them my real name and what I was doing. His messages were alternately pleading and threatening. He threatened to call Child Protective Services on me and have my daughter taken away. He threatened to call my landlord and tell them I was a whore. He begged and pleaded and called me “princess” one minute, and “stupid whore” the next. It was unbelievably bad.

The worst part of this story, the part that still kills me today, is that Matt was far and away the best lover, sexually, I have ever had. He was wild and kinky and fun... dirty and sweet and romantic all at once. His technique was flawless. He still holds the record for the most orgasms I’ve ever had in one session – 12. His tongue was as talented as Brian’s, his penis was a marvel. He had boundless energy and could go forever... and then, after finishing, pop back up again minutes later. He was voracious. I could barely keep up with him, and I’m a bit voracious myself.

Here’s the really stupid part: I didn’t learn a thing. Matt sobered up again, turned into a nice person again, and I took him back. After all that he did to me. I really did love him when he was a nice guy... but that nice guy relapsed again, ran up my phone bill again ($4,000, this time), and went crazy again.

This is one of those cases where I had to hit myself in the head with the ball peen hammer several times, before I finally wised up. What did you learn, Dorothy? That just because I am capable of changing and turning my life around, doesn’t mean that everyone is. That some people just are incapable of change. No matter how many opportunities for improvement appear, some people just can’t – or won’t – make a change in their lives. Damned shame, but that’s how it is. The trick, I’m trying to learn, is how to spot those people. And avoid them, like the human plagues that they are. I fervently hope I figure it out soon. This hammer is starting to really hurt.

Gary

I found Gary at a 12-step meeting. He was actually a year or two younger than me, which was a tectonic plate shift from my usual pattern with men. He had blazing red hair, a big nose (again with the big noses!) and magic fingers. He was a musician, a keyboard player. Oh, how I love musicians.

Gary was not your average musician, either. He genuinely had talent, loads of it. He was almost completely wasting it, too. Seriously, though, to watch him play was something amazing. He poured himself into the music. The keyboard was like an extension of his fingers. It was as though he was channeling the music, it just seemed to flow through him and into his hands, his body. He rocked, he flailed, he pounded, he danced. He was a true artist.

But when opportunities appeared, he failed to take them. He seemed content to work with sleazy bar bands that never went anywhere, never did anything but play on Saturday nights to a crowd of disinterested drunks.

We did have some wonderful fun times though. I went with him on most of his gigs, and his band at the time did a show in a small town in California, at this wonderful old bar. The band and their entourage (me) would stay in the rooms above the bar, which used to be a brothel at the turn of the century. I loved it.

But Gary had health problems, and he didn’t take care of himself. He had colitis, which became Crohn’s disease, and still he didn’t eat right or take care of himself. He didn’t take care of himself to the point that he ended up with a colostomy bag.

Gary just sort of drifted through life, not paying attention to anything really except his music, and failing himself there as well. When he wasn’t playing music, he was sitting on my couch, watching the SciFi Channel. He wore a groove in my couch in the shape of his ass. Seriously. He really did.

He was, and remains to this day, the worst lover I’ve ever had. Sexually speaking, he was practically dead. His idea of foreplay was to rub his erection against my butt, indicating he was ready for intercourse. The one time I made him try foreplay, he nearly killed me with his fingers. He would rather masturbate than have sex. And I don’t think he even did that all that often. Like most men who really have no sex life, he talked about sex and women all the time. I even tried fulfilling one of his fantasies once (I rented a policewoman’s uniform) but that didn’t work out either. There was just no igniting this man’s sex drive. I don’t think he had one to ignite.

He was fun and funny when he wasn’t watching television, but he had no real interest in my daughter or in really becoming a family. And I wanted that elusive security. I wanted a husband. Gary just wasn’t capable of delivering that. So in the end, I’m the one who closed the door on this particular relationship. I learned how to end a relationship gracefully, for the first time in my life. I wanted something more substantial, and Gary was the most insubstantial guy on earth.

Last I knew, Gary was playing in a local bar band and running marijuana over the border for the Mexican mafia. Can I pick ‘em, or what?

Sherry

Sherry was a sweet girl, big, busty, and beautiful. She was smart and funny, creative and loving. She was also a pathological liar, but I didn’t know that in the beginning. All I knew was that I had found a lovely, fun girl, a fellow escort like myself, and that seemed wonderful. It’s difficult having relationships when you’re an escort. There are so many complications, jealousies that must be overcome, realities that must be dealt with. With Sherry, I didn’t have to worry about any of that, and it was very nice indeed.

My sex drive took a vacation while I was with Sherry. I’ve noticed that, at various times in my life, my sex drive waxes and wanes. Mostly it waxes, but there have been periods where my interest level is low. With Sherry, I was more interested in cuddling and kissing than actual sex. I felt bad about this, because she wanted more, but I just wasn’t capable of doing much more at that time. I think part of my problem, too, was that Sherry was so feminine. Her perfume was strong, her nails long and lovely, her makeup perfect. I guess I like my girls a little butch. So that didn’t help with my vacationing sex drive, either.

Sex with Sherry was consuming, like being possessed by an enormous cyclone. She was frantic, delighted, delicious, giggling, stroking, fondling, devouring. It was exciting and overwhelming all at once.

She was clingy, emotionally and physically, and after a while I felt like I was suffocating. She was so needy, a black hole of need, and I could give and give and give and still never give enough.

Sherry was forever telling me of various health problems and other issues. In the end, as we were drifting apart, these stories became more serious, more intense. She had been diagnosed with stomach cancer, diabetes, and other ailments. Later I came to understand that these things were her way of trying to keep me in her life – who could abandon someone with stomach cancer? But then she told me she had a brain tumor. I have another friend in my life who is an expert on cancer. I had been telling her about Sherry’s various ailments. My friend explained to me that, based on Sherry’s stories of how her treatment was progressing, and how the doctors were responding to her cancer, there was no way any of these stories were true. They were all lies, designed to make me feel sorry for her, I suppose.

I do feel sorry for her, and still care about her. I hope she’s getting help, and finding people in her life that can give her what she needs. I haven’t heard from her in a long, long time now... but I do hope she’s okay, wherever she is.

Sherry is a sad story in my life, someone who needed love so desperately she was willing to say anything, do anything, to have it. Perhaps I saw a little of myself in her, thinking back on past relationships and my desperate desire for a husband, for security. Sometimes, you just want things so badly, and it turns out that maybe you don’t need them at all.

And now?

Today I am single for the first time in years, and I like it very much. I no longer want a husband or a wife, and the illusory, elusive security I thought I needed. I am content to be my own woman. My self-esteem is higher than it has ever been. If my ego were stock, now would be a good time to invest.

I live with Brian, still my best friend after all of these years. I have the perfect relationship. We both love each other like siblings, we enjoy one another’s company, we laugh and have fun, we raise my daughter together – in short, I have everything that one would want in a marriage, with none of the grief.

Sexually, my needs are met through my work. I have a semi-strange-indefinable relationship with a gentleman who was a client. He lives in another state, and we see each other every few months. We love one another, but without strings or expectations. He cares for me, and I care for him. It’s simple, elegant, and defies explanation. I don’t know how it works, I only know that it does.

I am a whole person now. My lovers have given me wonderful gifts, taught me amazing and often painful lessons. Their influence has become a permanent part of the fabric that makes up my life. Despite whatever negatives may have occurred, I love them all. They have touched me deeply. As I have looked back at my relationships with these people, my most intimate moments, I have laughed, felt joy, and cried until I couldn’t cry anymore.

I find I am drawn to the special, the unusual, the creative. This means that I am drawn to people who are as screwed up as I am. But I’m working on myself, and that’s where change has to start.

I don’t know if I’ll ever live with someone again, or marry someone. At this time, looking at my life right now, I seriously doubt it. I am so content with my life as it is now, I can’t imagine ever deciding to change that. But if I do, I’ll get out my trusty hammer, and knock myself in the head a few times – just to remind myself what it feels like.

 

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