quizzical pussy

Whenever I get even the faintest whiff of myself trying to be sexy I get that feeling you get when you introduce your most embarrassing relative to the coolest people you know. Just. No.

Oh god, no.

This…

…is going to get a whole lot worse before it gets better.

I’m so sorry, guys. I cannot take her anywhere.

This feeling informs very little of my behavior during actual sex (I have convinced myself, and dearly hope is true), but it dramatically influences–nay, dominates–the way I flirt, or even interact with my friends and the people I fuck. A great example of this is the fact that I do not, will not, can not send anyone sexy/risque/flirty/myspace profile/whatever pictures.

No part of me projects these self-judgments onto other people who take, send, and share sexy pics of themselves. Oh, not by any means. Please feel free to test me on this.

Over the weekend I went to a party at the local goth club. Objectively speaking, I can get pretty tarted up as long as I’m convincing myself that this is “just for fun” and not anything remotely close to trying to be sexy. I do tend to give myself the benefit of a doubt when it comes to dressing. It’s similar to my completely sense-making habit of enjoying wearing cute underwear but being terribly embarrassed whenever I’m found out. This particular night I put on a short skirt, high (as I can manage with my walking issues) heels, a t-shirt I assaulted with a pair of scissors, and these adorable striped thigh highs. And a good time was had by all.

Laramy wasn’t able to come out, having had kind of a shitty day. So as I got home and started to strip off my sweaty clothes, he was on my mind and I had a dramatically uncharacteristic thought process:

1. These thigh highs are kind of cute…
2. Laramy’s mentioned a couple times that he likes my legs…
3. He’s had a super bad day…
4. I never send him pics of me…
5. Ergo… maybe it would cheer him up if I emailed him a picture of my legs in aforementioned thigh highs!
6. I’d better hurry up and do it before I think this through any further.

And I wasn’t even drunk or anything! I’m not going to say that what I produced in the following moments using a camera phone, specialty hosiery, and an inexplicable lapse of inhibition was a “sexy pic”. It really wasn’t. The whole thing was supposed to be a silly “thinking of you” gesture, I guess. But after I sent it, I realized that it was hazardously close to a “sexy pic” attempt. The more I thought about it the more I started neurotically wondering if it was going to come across as entirely pathetic or just mostly pathetic, and by the time I got up the next morning I was grimly expecting the worst.

To his great credit as a gentleman, Laramy’s reaction via instant message was a lot more “I like the thigh highs” than “You preposterous creature, what’s with the flailing abortion of a jpg in my inbox?” But it was a bit of a struggle to resist asking, “So like, that picture is pretty much an embarrassment to everyone involved, right?” I felt kind as if I was watching myself in horror as I proudly brought roadkill pie to the cool kids’ sushi and sake party. My stoicism through all this was an inspiration to both of me.

Mere minutes later, I kid you not, a friend sent me a genuinely super-sexy pic of her amazing bare breasts, asking me to forward it on to Laramy. Which I did, gladly, content that I had actually found a way to at least help brighten up his morning in a much more productive way than my previous attempt.