Monday, 13 September 2010

List of Power Stations

I wake up at 5.30 in Watt, California and take a 20 minute shower immediately: twelve minutes for the shower, eight minutes for ‘other activity’. Staying in bed with my wife once I’m awake is no longer an option, it’s just not fair on her. I have breakfast and focus on every slow chew, no rushing. The radio and the television have to stay off. Sounds and fast moving images encroach on my movements. Fingers start tapping, knee starts bouncing. Deciding to stay collected keeps me my job. There are bad days, and bad days make me late. Dressing can, understandably, get me excited. If I don’t dress quickly enough the material makes my skin sensitive. The moment I feel I’m losing control I try to quickly undress again. I don’t wish to sweat in my fresh shirt before I’ve left home, and the sooner I preempt that I’m starting to slip, the sooner I can finish, redress and leave. A few times in the past I’ve lied to myself that I can hold on until I can get into work, complete dressing, wet and comb my hair, lean over to tie my shoes by the front door with extreme difficulty. Straightening up creates a pull, my eyes close, my forehead moistens. Blankly, sternly, I stroll along the corridor, lay out my jacket, shirt and trousers on the sofa and go to the bathroom. I sit on the toilet seat, tap on my thigh with my right hand, and jack off with the left. Just before I cum, I stand and turn to do it in the sink. Wash self, wash hands, re-comb hair, redress, rush from the house. I hate rushing, but denial spoils your plans. That first poor decision to not accept an unstoppable event sets off a car crash. Running to the bus causes a new friction to start and the ride will be excruciating. I’ll want to touch. Once I even placed my briefcase on my lap and ran a fingertip up and down my zipper. I could barely stand up for my stop. After that I’ll have to storm up the drive to the building, avoid goodmorningprofessor at every turn, go to my office, lean against the unlockable door and throb into a handkerchief. Could be twice more before I’ve even had a coffee. If I don’t rush I can normally focus my mind away from the tingling in my crotch for the journey and enjoy the walk into the university, pick up a newspaper in the shop, pick up my mail, brew a pot and learn the news while I gently begin to allow my arousal.


For years the arrangement has been that I don’t give or supervise a lecture until past ten o’clock. It’s a measure that I greatly appreciate. Most of my colleagues understand my build-up routine. Rumination, notation, ejaculation, meditation. After greetings, I begin speaking at the lectern clearly, full of hope. ‘Government deregulation and failed regulation of the commercial and investment banking industries were important contributors to the subprime mortgage crisis,’ I’ll say, followed by ‘these included allowing the self-regulation of Wall Street's investment banks and the failed regulation of Wall Street rating agencies, which were responsible for incorrectly rating some $3.2 trillion dollars of subprime mortgage-backed securities’. A few years ago I’d be able to go on for at least half an hour, but these days I have to sit down after a few sentences. They provided me with a chair, I cross my legs and stare ahead. After a time the students barely registered the transition. At the end of lectures no one asks questions, they know to email them. I remain seated as students come up, nod and smile, pass me their papers and leave quietly. They probably guess that I head to the store cupboard to crouch and get off just to be able to walk out the hall straight. I stopped eating lunches in the cafeteria and now keep to my office. It’s not an oral fixation thing, it’s so I can phone my wife at the Devina Opera House where she is a Composer in Residence while I eat the salad or sandwich or cold lasagna that she’s prepared for me. Eating and calling is like taking a tranquilizer, it means there’s no thought process space left for my dick. After lunch I usually take one-on-ones with the student body. These are done in fifteen minute spurts, and we leave the door open to reassure them, as well as myself, that I will not be doing anything rhythmic save for sharpening my pencil. Of course I have jacked off under the desk during meetings, but never with students, only longer occasions with other members of faculty. My oldest colleagues, my friends, know that long periods of time without release can create a tension that is almost an agony. As the conversation progresses I start to mumble, my chin dips, and my eyelids loll, inexplicably, kindly, they direct their words and looks away from me without a pause, and silently allow me to tick-tock in my underwear.


By the time I’m home I am exhausted, sticky all over. I wash while my wife plays me new recordings. They soothe me. We sit and eat dinner, side by side, to warm her up to my presence. The moment we finish eating we have sex; I love spending time with her in the evenings, and feel immeasurably guilty if I have to leave her to masturbate. She knows this, understands I love her, dinner is foreplay, shoulders and knees softly rubbing is foreplay. We lay on the floor and I try to hold back that yelp of urgency while she undresses. I cup her face in my hands, look only at her eyes, nod and smile while I try and fuck her in a consistent way at least. The evening is spent relaxing or working together in the lounge. She sits on the floor effortlessly curling note tails, while I sit apart from her on the sofa reading journals, covering my heat with my laptop. In those hours I want to cry, I want to scream. I want to tie a dog leash around my wife’s throat and drag her upstairs. I want more than one bathroom break. I want to sit naked, stare at the television, dribble down my chin, dribble into my hand. At bedtime we brush our teeth while she touches me, this is the time she likes to enjoy me, and then we make love and laugh, work out the weekend, and I quietly pray that I’ll fall straight to sleep around her so she knows how I feel when I’m only warm and not hot.
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By Jen Calleja

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