I’ve been sitting at the Little Cave Near Home (typo retained), and people have been coming and going. I’m not going to explain all the interconnections (I couldn’t even if I wanted to), but there was a dude, and there was a chick. She was very pretty, blonde, here to support her girlfriend who was pissed off at her boyfriend. (By the way, if that were in czech, the pronoun ambiguity would have been automatically resolved. And I would not have been able to say ‘would have been’.)
Dude paused behind the girl’s chair. He played with her hair briefly, she didn’t complain. He made vague scratching motions at the tops of her biceps, and she didn’t respond, so he moved on. The message he gave: I want to touch you, but I haven’t the slightest clue how to give pleasure. They did not leave together.
Now me writing about the Art of Love is somewhat like George Bush on the Art of Diplomacy (and I wish we were both better at each, but let’s face it, neither of us is getting much practice), but from where I was I could tell he wanted to send her one message but instead sent the opposite. Or perhaps sent an extra message he didn’t intend.
It got me to thinking about hands. Not just the deaf and hula dancers speak with them, we all do, and, with varying degrees of skill, we give pleasure with our hands as well. Sure, you’ve got some other tools in your belt that can give great pleasure but most of those parts are greedy, more eager to be stimulated. If you want to get all analytical about it, your hands are for giving (although I once had a hand massage that was mind-expanding).
There’s a misunderstanding about hands that goes back to junior high. Did you touch it? It being the next mysterious organ on the list. Neither toucher nor touchee benefitted much except on the scorecard.
Ask Jesus. Hands are for giving, and when you touch someone you’re interested in, no matter how casually, that person should subtly know, “those hands know how to give”.
I mentioned above that he played with her hair. Perhaps better to say he kind of flapped it around, never thinking about how the nerve endings are in her scalp. Lots of nerve endings there. One of life’s simple pleasures is having someone else wash your hair. Nonetheless, and all the more frustrating, she was appreciative of the attention. Then came the vague and ineffective scratching attempts. That moment defined any relationship they hight have, and it made him the simpering bitch.
Certainly she was open to his advances, but he blew it, and he blew it in a classically czech way. I actually had my ass out of my chair to correct him before I stopped myself. He was past the part that I do so horribly – first contact – and on to my strongest suit. The fingers that type this are able to please. The best part about hands as a sexual organ is that they are the givers, and they can give pure physical pleasure that is not at all sexual. So I watched a guy tonight overcome that first threshold, stumbling into my wheelhouse and collapsing.
Alternatives off the top of my head:
anatomically knowledgeable upper back rub. Message: Ain’t no if’s and why’s or buts, I can make you feel good.
moving from the vague hair mainpulation to a fleeting scalp scratch. Message: I, also, am sensual.
a very light sweeping motion that starts high on the neck and drifts across the shoulder, lingers, and departs. Maybe.
There must be a thousand other messages to give that are less lame than the one he pulled off. I’m not trying to give anyone a formula for love. Those who know me will vouch that I am the last guy for that. I’ve been married and all, but the fact I’m not married anymore is all you need to know. There is no formula. If there was, I would have derived it by now, ’cause I think way too much already.
Wait, I lied, there is a formula for love, but I can’t write it here because you have to discover you own formula for yourself. Then you have to teach your partner, because they won’t know if you don’t guide them to the promised land. The most horrible thing you can do to your partner is expect them to understand.
Up there somewhere I was talking about hands. I’m looking at my hands now. I’m pretty happy with ’em. These fingers, once my brain overcomes the almost impossibly steep first-contact threshold, they do all right. I am perhaps unjustifiably proud of my ability to rub backs, scalps, and especially feet. Oh, yeah, I do feet. Back I do well, except, oddly, with Amz. Hers is the only back I’ve ever met where my fingers cannot automatically discover the secrets that lie there in tension. Perhaps, in that case, I am the timid one. Or maybe she’s even more messed up than I am.
Nothin’ says it can’t be both.
