This week I've had my head deep in Led Zeppelin and the relaxing, classicly adventurous lyrics... The quiet beat of their work makes me feel like I'm lying in a field of flowers with a lover... But it also transports me back occasionally to my last great love... I was 17 and almost an adult, except for the influence of my tantrum-prone alcoholic father and my depreciating mother whose conservatism is a dis-service to her own deep sexuality, marks of which I see immistakably in my own life...

Most of you know of my last serious boyfriend who still makes his home in Texas, and whose mother I still speak to as if it were my own... But back when we were lovers, things were much different... Many times I would come to his house just before dinner, and we would dine with his parents... Then we would away to his bedroom, and I'd be so desperate to make love, I could've thrown off my clothes and a few well places kisses would be all it would take... But we would turn off the lights and put on some lava lamps and turn on the Zeppelin... Then we would sex surrounded by candles on a blanket thrown on his floor, and make love slowly, wildly, my hands urging him in many directions by fingernails pushed into his back... Small gasps would grow into desperate moans, lips brushing his ear as we held each other closer with each slippery motion... And then I would cum... And again... And again... And somewhere before I'd finished that last orgasm, the music would end, and it wouldn't matter...

Then in the light glow of candles and lava lamps, we would hold each other, and I would feel the warm glow of being hopelessly in love... I was so devoted to that , I would have almost done anything... I thought about having his children maybe, I thought about holding him every night... But I didn't say a word, drifted off to sleep feeling his heart pulsing with life, and I felt safer than I had ever felt, anywhere...

And even when I wasn't with him, I was glowing with love... I walked knowing that I could bring him to his knees or we could settle on the couch and watch a movie with the same energy... I felt so incredibly beautiful, I sensed every little detail, knowing it could be a tool for pleasure...

Just after I turned 18, I felt his distance, and I confronted him about it... I cursed him over the phone and he tearily admitted he had cheated on me... Thus began a period of time whose length I cannot quantify... I stopped eating any portion of food... I could do nothing but cry in the most embarassing of places, and I became so jaded to the ache that preceeded weeping as I drove past the freeway exit to his house and kept on going... I dreaded sleep because I knew I would not have the warmth and soft jostling of his life next to me ever again, I had only a lonely cold bed, and nothing could console me as I sobbed quietly to sleep...

I didn't want to be seen by anyone for a year and a half... But since I hadn't eaten much for at least 3 months, I had lost a good deal of weight... Men couldn't couldn't keep their opinions to themselves, with whistling and honking and comments... I pushed myself deeper into a cave...

It took me until moving to Las Vegas to emerge... I kept myself in a coma, not seeing or believeing the potential of anything with anyone... But since I've done it once before, I'm slowly waking to life, and I'm much more independent... I no longer have to hide myself from anyone who tries to lord my life... I'm much more confident, because I see how tough I have been to get here, and how soft I can still be; forgiving, luciously curvy, and just generally beautiful...

Very soon . . . I shall come into my own... Again...