The Solo Act.

Our Bareback Cowgirl describes her steamy life behind the barn.

Courtesy of iHeartit

Mr. Carlton’s odd behavior after their playground date was finalized with a “Sorry, I just don’t think it’s going to work out between us”. The way she sees it is that if anyone is going to get rejected, it may as well be her since her self-esteem is curiously as stable and sturdy as the ever-standing Pantheon. Those little prattling thoughts of self-hatred that usually float around the outskirts of her consciousness get ignored as her ego takes the blow in stride.

And she can understand why Mr. Carlton doesn’t want to date her. Really, she never wanted to ‘date’ him either, but if she were to attempt to have an intrinsic emotional connection with anyone, he would’ve been a fantastic option. The boggling part however, is that he’s now taken up talking to her as casually as if he hadn’t just rejected her – and it wouldn’t be a stretch to say he’s rather transparently flirting with her.

She calls him on this and tells him how confused he must be if he considers this flirting to be a friendship. He responds to her simply with ‘you love it’.

“I’m more puzzled than loving it” she tells him, but she plays along, curious as to where the hell this side of him was during their PG-rated dates. In a conversation swimming in sexual innuendos and foreplay, she takes a dive and suggests that despite their agreement on ceasing to date, that they should still go for a romp in the hay, because, heck, they may as well get something out of nothing.

Next she knows, she’s stumbling into his apartment late one Friday night and her clothes are on his floor before she has a chance to say hello.

This time she was greeted by a form of intimacy she was not familiar with: one person acting in a play meant for two. “Perhaps you should show me what you did to yourself in the bathroom at work today,” he suggests. She reaches for him instead and his hands immediately pin hers down. She has a small anxiety attack when she realizes that he wants her to feel completely helpless. She takes a deep breath, and holds back her reservations laying completely naked, spread-eagle on his bed.

The fluorescent lights in his bedroom don’t let her get away with any bodily secrets. She supposes it just adds to his control of the situation; refusing her any privacy. She’s lost the privilege of darkness, the privilege of a choice to show him what she wants to show him and when. Not being deemed worthy of a more private setting, with dimmed lights and soft music. Just him, at the end of his bed, watching her go absolutely man-hungry as she touches herself.

At least she can appreciate the intensity of the power roles now, as she looks back on that night. But at the time she couldn’t understand it; all she did afterward was try to touch him, her hands all over his chest as he sat awkwardly on the edge of the bed, with her crossing all of his personal boundaries.

When she left his apartment at 3:30 AM, she felt strangely disconnected from the whole experience. Like instead of a partnered canoe trip, Mr. Carlton had been paddling solo in a kayak. She felt as if she had been left behind to watch from the sidelines, instead of falling into a continuous, rhythmic flow in sync with the paddler in front of her. Isolated sex. Satisfying, no doubt – but lonely. A deep loneliness she realized beyond a doubt she would never fully be able to feel the same way he felt about it.

– Bareback Cowgirl.