Rasputin

So, we have met retrocrush, who is proving to have more staying power than I suspected. He has the body of eighteen year old and does nothing to maintain it, so when he says "I think of myself as still a boy, like a 21 year old" apparently his biological functions are fairly convinced as well.

Which is fine with me.

So let's meet contestant number 2, shall we?

Before I went on break, I saw a guy at my usual coffee hang out. He was playing my friend, Bland Lawyer, at chess.

When I saw him, there was just something about him. He has brown eyes, brown hair ( not my usual MO), and lightly tanned skin. He shows his age, 37, with wrinkles around his eyes and mouth. It wasn't that he was that good looking, but there was something. Maybe his intensity, his focus.

And his hands. When I was younger, hands were very sexy to me, particularly an artist's hands. They are clean, well formed, soft, sensitive. There was an attention to them, to how they moved, that attracted me. And this guy had artist hands.

So the next time I saw Bland Lawyer, I casually asked who his chess partner had been. He offered an overwhelming Russian name.

Now when I started ballroom dancing, I really fell in love with Russian men. The accent, the language, the EDUCATION, I mean these people get a quality education. Their understanding of literature and art, even those not trained in those disciplines, is amazing.

So he has artist hands, AND he is Russian.

But I never expected to see him again. After all I had never seen him before and had no expectation of seeing him again.

But then I did. I don't remember how we started talking, but I know he asked me how to get his son to read. ( I will be posting on this topic next week.) We chatted for a while, and he asked if I came around often. I told him I did, and he said he would see me around.

Now he's odd, don't me wrong. He is definitely a little bit more than eccentric. He considers himself to be a novelist, but really he makes his living selling paintings. He has these beliefs about G-d and history that are, well, a little bit out there. OK they are REALLY out there. So I am going to dub him Rasputin, the mad monk.

Which fits him because he is both passionate and clearly big into the womanizing. I knew that even before I knew he had been married three times.

So he and I chanced into each other and few times. And we talked. And I could never tell if he wanted me or not.

So finally we traded email addresses, and last Friday night when I came back from a depressing evening I immed him. We met for coffee the next day, and he got me all liquored up on cognac before I went to dinner with the Beast. ( I never had cognac before, but now it seems I am acquiring a taste for it.) I saw him again Monday, after my meeting, as I was particularly depressed. He took me for a drink and then for food. He kept me up until 1 in the morning talking. "Well," he said, "you aren't going to sleep anyway."

We agreed to meet the next day. We talked, and he offered to put in a light bulb that I couldn't change, that I hadn't been able to change in two months. Afterwards we sat on the couch talking.

And I thought, this is it. He's going to make his big move.

And then he talked to me about the final novel of the Three Musketeers series for an hour.

It wasn't exactly what I was expecting. Then he asked me if my temples were sensitive, that maybe he could help me relax so I could sleep.

Here we go, I thought.

Rasputin always wears his sweaters so that his forearms are exposed. Almost taunting me with those hands. Every time I saw him, I just wanted to feel those hands on me. Now as a former actor, I am a touchy feely girl to begin with, so I had restrain myself. Besides every time I touched him, he pulled back. Even if it was simply, touching his hand with my own.

But now I got to feel those hands on me, and they were every bit as good as I imagined. Sensitive, yet with strength behind them. He put one hand on the back of my head, and with the other he stroked my hair and my face.

It was the most relaxing and yet strangely sensual experience.

I lay back on the couch, and let him stroke my temples. His finger tips were cool, but his forearms were warm, creating a delicious sensation. Now, I thought to myself, he is going to kiss me now. And he did get awful close. I could feel his breathe on my cheek, on my shoulder. I totally relaxed my body into his hands. But no kiss.

He got on his knees next to the couch and kissed my hand. He turned over my hand, opened the palm and pressed his lips there. He kissed both hands and forearms slowly.

It made me understand how intimate the kissing of a hand can be. Those courtly manners can be quite arousing.

Still I waited for a kiss, still no kiss.

He went back to stroking my temples, looking at me and smiling. He asked me what I was thinking as I opened my eyes. "I am wondering what you want from me." He kept stroking, "I don't know" he replied.

Oh is the man a professional or what?

"I really like you. And given your psychological make up I don't want to hurt you."

Now if he really knew my psychological make up he would know it is impossible not to hurt me. My students hurt me, the idiots I encounter on the street hurt me, the guys who call me shorty hurt me. I've almost turned being hurt by men into an art form.

He continues, "You know, I'm a ladies man." Yes, I do know that. And I know he's dangerous, and wrong, and bad news all the way. And I know this will not end well for me at all.

And still, I want him.

"How man lovers do you take at one time?" I asked him.

"Usually two." I laughed. "Why is that funny?"

"Because, baby, at given time, there are usually 3-5 men in my harem."

It is true that currently I am at 3. I am only sleeping with one, but still, a harem is a harem.

To some degree, what I think I feel towards Rasputin, and he would agree with this, is recognition. I have come to accept that currently the attentions of one man can not be enough for me. (And I do mean attention, and not necessarily sex.) He feels the same about women.

So be it.

So I asked him why he hadn't kissed me yet. And of course, it was because he didn't want to hurt me. And being me, my re action was "Now see that's just cruel. To stroke me and kiss my hand and tempt me with something and then not only say 'No. No, you can't have that' but 'You can't have that for your own good.'"

He laughed. And then he said what every man has said to me at one point in our relationship. "You're really funny."

Actually, no YOU'RE really funny. I'm just pointing it out.

Finally, he kissed me.

I was not disappointed. Apparently, neither was he as we kissed for a good long time. ( Later he would say, "You are a good kisser. Soft, downy, sensitive, sensual." Now that's a well thought out review.)

He told me once that he velvety skin, a family trait, and being me I was skeptical. A straight man with velvety skin? I mean, what are the odds?

He took his sweater off, underneath he wore a kind of peasant looking blouse. ( He always dresses like Rudolpho from my father's favorite opera La Boheme.) And he does indeed have velvety skin.

He picked me up and carried me to bed. It was like high school, how far can you go and not really do anything? The fingers trailing just below the breasts, a blouse pulled the aside to reveal a shoulder, hands and lips stopping just short of touching tender areas.

And then he went home. No clothes removed, no satisfaction garanteed. He went home.

Because he really is a professional. He understands that to me there is nothing sexier than a man who can resist me. There have been very few men who have been able to get up out of that bed leaving me fully dressed. And he is one of the chosen few.

Either that or he operates on the old theater premise, "Always leave them wanting more."