Labels: sex

These are not my underwear.

The first marriage proposal I ever received was from a complete stranger in the tube station in London. His name is Josh. He's American and had the good sense to fall in love with me within five minutes.

It was my last night in London and I was running around trying to get everything done. Stuff like picking up some Wicked merchandise for Musically Speaking's birthday, catching the Dali exhibit at the Tate Modern and buying the ultimate vibrator from the sex exhibit I had been to earlier in the week. I had just gotten off one train and was rushing to catch the next, which, fortunately, hadn't left yet. But when I saw the train I was about to board, I stopped and stood with my mouth open wide enough to catch Manitoba mosquitoes.

To say it was full would be an understatement. Nope, that train was packed. We're talking people's faces pressed up against the windows as though this were a grand-scale initiation of college freshmen who outgrew their phone booths and were upgrading to the London tube. And these weren't just any people crammed into tin cans with their limbs flailing precariously near the automatically closing doors. They were young, obnoxious Americans swinging their beer bottles around wildly and yelling slurred obscenities at one another.

I looked at the train, then at the other bewildered souls beside me on the platform and announced, "Yeah, you couldn't pay me to get on that thing." Nods to the affirmative all around.

As the train somehow managed to close its overstuffed doors and haul its drunken cargo away, I made my way over to the nearest metal bench, resigned to wait for the next tube, and prayed it wouldn't be anywhere near as full, or as obnoxious.

The cute guy sitting on the bench moved his bag so I could sit next to him. We struck up a conversation that came so easily it was as though we had known each other for years. There was a connection there, a chemistry between strangers that doesn't happen everyday.

Savia: (noticing that he's fiddling with a ring in the palm of his hand) What do you have there?
Josh: It's an 18 karat gold wedding ring.
Savia: I can see that. What are you doing with it?
Josh: I found it on the street in Paris. I'm just coming back from there. It's too big, though. I think I'll try to sell it here.

He found a wedding ring in Paris. Seriously.

So, I took it from him and proceeded to try it on all of my fingers as we continued our conversation. It would be so romantic to say that it fit perfectly, but it didn't. It was a man's ring, and even though my hands are hardly petite, it was too big. I think it fit on my index finger. Sort of.

Josh: (pointing to the Wicked bag) Did you go to that tonight?
Savia: No, I went to Wicked two nights ago. Tonight, I went to The Drowsy Chaperone.
Josh: I went to the Phantom of the Opera and Les Miserables while I was here. You have to say that you went to those two, or I'm not talking to you anymore.
Savia: I've already seen those. Phantom was the first musical I ever saw, in Grade 9. I've seen Les Mis twice, and I've also seen Mamma Mia twice, Miss Saigon, Cabaret, and a whole bunch of others...I'm a singer/actor/dancer, so I've performed in a number of musicals, too...
Josh: I love you!
Savia: (laughs)

We kept talking and laughing for the five minutes until the next train came. It seemed like everything I said was what he had been waiting to hear. I got the impression that he had a list of the qualities his dream woman would have, and the things he was learning about me in just a few minutes were checking off all the boxes on that list. Our conversation was punctuated with exclamations of "I love you!" from him, followed by laughter from me.

Josh: I love you!
Savia: It's true, I am the perfect woman.
Josh: (putting his arm around me) So, how is it that someone as amazing as you is single?
Savia: That's the thing. Technically, I'm not.
Josh: (slowly withdrawing his arm, and with much disappointment) Oh...
Savia: Though, I guess we're on a break right now, so, I don't know.
Josh: (arm hovering in the air, unsure whether to go back around my shoulders) Okay, are you messing with me?

So, I explained the situation. A few weeks before I left for London, I had told Superstar that I needed some time to myself, and gave him some things to think about, too. Like whether or not he could move to Cityville. I couldn't move to the West Coast for about two to five years because of work, school, and other obligations, so he would have to move to my city, and if he couldn't do that, there was no point in continuing this long-distance thing and putting our lives on hold for up to five years. It didn't make much sense. So, I gave him an ultimatum - move or that's it. We were supposed to talk again once I got home.

Josh: I'll move for you.
Savia: (laughs) Well, it's a pretty great place. Not like London. I could never live here. Too many people. Too much pollution. Seriously, your snot should never be black. That's just wrong!

Josh: (laughs)

Savia: Where I live, you can buy a house for less than $100,000. And there are lots of good jobs. And people are nice. The pace of life is slower and you aren't smooshed up against people wherever you go. The air is clean, and it's so wide open and flat that you can see your dog run away from home for seven days.
Josh: It sounds great.
Savia: Yeah...I like my life.

Josh: (as the train pulls up) Marry me!
Savia: (laughs) You just want to marry me for my Canadian health care!
Josh: No, I have health insurance with my job.
Savia: (getting on the train) Yeah, you think you have health insurance, but have you seen the new Michael Moore film, Sicko?
Josh: No, I haven't heard of that.
Savia: It's all about Americans who think they're insured but when it comes down to it, they really aren't because the insurance companies are out to make a profit and they deny their claims for ridiculous reasons so they can save money. So, if you're smart, you should marry me for my health care, because you probably don't have insurance after all. Seriously, you have to go see that film.

Josh: Oh my God, I love you!

We discover that I'm only on the train for one stop, and he's continuing on. I don't tell him I'm getting off at Piccadilly Circus to literally get off (i.e. buy my ultimate vibrator at the sex exhibit) because I figure that if musical theatre and health care rants can make him fall head over heels and propose, chances are that my vibrator talk will make his head explode.

Josh: Give me your phone number - I have to call you!
Savia: (thinking that would be kind of weird, but not wanting to be rude, and the train is about to stop and she has to think quick) Here...I'll give you my email address.

I scribble it down on his tube pass with a purple pen I had thrown into my purse, for no apparent reason, earlier that day.

Josh: I'll write you for sure. If you don't hear from me, it's because I got hit by a train or something.
Savia: (stepping off the train) Don't do that - you don't have any health insurance!

to be continued...

Labels: London, superstar

Labels: art

Labels: poetry, sex

It wasn't very fair of me to drop those hints in my last post and then fuck off for more than a week, was it? A million apologies. You know what it's like when you've been away for a month - there's shit to do, like answer your 752 emails, load your 300 photos onto flickr and bottle the moonshine wine you've been aging in your basement for the past three months.

But you don't care about that. You want me to get to the porn. Fine, fine. (And I've got this lovely glass of Barolo in my hand as I type, so this could get even more interesting.)

In the months before I left for London, it seemed as though everyone I knew was coming back from there. And they all had advice on what to see:

Go to the British Museum and see the Egyptian mummies.

You have to see the National Gallery.

The Tower of London will give you the best view of the city.

Go shopping at H&M.

The Drowsy Chaperone is a must-see.

Etc. Etc. Etc.

I only had six days, though, so I had to be strategic. What was my London? How did I want to experience this colossal city? What stories did I want to tell when I got home? So, I did a little of my own research, and when I got to the UK, the very first thing I did was go to a sex exhibit.

Screw Big Ben and his gigantic clock - I was going straight for the real goods.

All I had to go on was how the tourism website described it: "The world’s first visitor experience dedicated to love, sex and relationships." I wasn't entirely sure of what to expect, but I didn't really care - I just knew I had to go, and I had to go right away.

I made a beeline for Amora (love that name - check out that website for an interactive map of the place), pausing only briefly to grab one of my classmates (nowhere naughty, though I had considered it) to join me. I had been planning to go alone, but then I ran into her on the street, and considering the odds of running into another person from Saskatchewan in London, and also considering that when I told her where I was going, she exclaimed, "You're so fucking cool!", how was I to say no? Plus, these things are much more fun when you have someone else to whom you can make editorial comments, such as:

There sure are a lot of different kinds of vaginas, aren't there?

My boyfriend has a huge cock - that took some getting used to. It's all good now.

So, that's where the A-spot is.

Yeah, I've done that position. And that one. And that one, too. That one, you definitely need to take a few yoga classes before you can do it, but totally worth it.

The first exhibit we saw was the wall of breasts, penises and vulvas cast in plaster, the picture that you may or may not have noticed at the top of this post. It was fascinating - you don't often get to see that kind of a spectrum of different parts, and you certainly don't get to see them all together (unless you're into going to those kinds of parties. And if you are, just one question: what do you bring as a hostess gift?) If you look closely at the picture, you'll see that one of the models is a breast cancer survivor and another is a post-operative transsexual.

The entire exhibit was like being inside an episode of A Girl's Guide to 21st Century Sex - informative, thorough, and unabashedly graphic. It just let it allllllll hang out, accompanied by moaning sounds pretty much everywhere you went. And, if you wanted a little more information, you could listen to your audio guide, just like at the natural history museum. Only this guide didn't talk about the mating habits of the water buffalo. Except it kind of did.

On top of all that, the exhibits were interactive. You were encouraged to get in there with your hands and participate at every station. At the display outlining the erogenous zones, there were male and female plastic models that you could feel up, and when you hit one of the zones, it would light up in red.

Is it just me, or does it look like that dude is touching plastic breasts for the first time? Not so rough, buddy. You're never going to get laid at this rate!

So, that's where I put my keys!

She took a licking but couldn't keep on ticking.

But for me, the absolute highlight was the sex toy table. Sure, there were silicone vaginas to finger (ooh, stretchy) and vibrators attached to power drills (uh...not going there), but my eyes lit up when I saw it: the ultimate vibrator. The Rock Chick.

My new best friend. I have named him Hawksley. Superstar is a bit jealous.

(Side Note: I emailed That Girl from London with a note that said, "Google Rock Chick Vibrator." Her response: "The shape is mind blowing. The first thing I thought when I saw it was 'My gawd. . . how do you fuck that thing?' It took a hard look before I figured it out.")

I had read about the Rock Chick on Girl with a One-Track Mind, who is, by far, the horniest person I have ever "met", male or female. She had to test a variety of vibrators and write reviews on them, and she just raved about this one: "It really does hit the parts other toys fail to reach; it's leagues above anything else - and for me, it's a guaranteed good time, every time."

Okay, if she was raving about it, I knew it had to be good. And not only good, but really, really, really good. Mind blowingly good. Multiple orgasmically good. Give up chocolate for a year good. I wanted it. Nay, I needed it. And I wasn't willing to leave the UK without it. Fortunately, as with every good sex exhibit, there was a gift shop. I went in, looked around at the oils, and other tame things, and wondered where my best friend I had never met was hiding. There was the male version, the Rude Boy, but the chick was nowhere to be found.

I asked. They were sold out. Fuck me. Except I can't fuck me because they don't have my vibrator! Fortunately, the clerk said that they were getting 12 more in at the end of the week, and I should check back before I left the country. Then, she proceeded to go on a tangent about how the Rock Chick was the best thing that ever happened to her, and unlike anything she had ever experienced before.

Nothing like rubbing it in. So, I made a note to come back at the end of the week.

Later, I was walking through Piccadilly Circus and saw the yellow awning of a sex shop. Figuring it was something like the stores we have around here that are women-friendly, I thought, "Hey, maybe they have the Rock Chick." I turned down the narrow street, went through a yellow curtain and walked into what is likely the seediest store I've ever been in. There were aisles and aisles of porn with smarmy men comparing titles to see which were the nastiest. The conversation probably went something along the lines of,

Smarmy Dude #1: Which did you prefer, Backdoor Slutz 12 or Teen Cum Bucketz 17? Smarmy Dude #2: Well, I did enjoy the cinematography of the Slutz series, but nothing beats a Teen Cum Bucket!

I got the hell out of there and figured that I could wait until the end of the week for Hawksley. Good things (oh dear god so very good) are worth waiting for, after all.

Labels: London, sex, travel

Labels: Italy, travel