Free Sex Still Spoken Here: An Anthology by Carol Queen

supposed to do in private?
    But I don’t stop kissing him and I can tell that something is about to happen because he starts making this whining sound out his nose, like a cross between a snotty little kid and a puppy, and then he pulls his head back hard.
    Right at that moment I happen to be biting his lower lip, so that when his head jerks I taste his blood in my mouth, like sucking on a copper penny, and I feel something warm and wet squirt on my stomach. I watch the brown in his eyes disappear, leaving only the whites behind.
    Now we are lying on my bed. Ricky is trying to catch his breath while I just breathe through my mouth. I look down and see a drop of sperm, about the size of a dime, sitting on one of the packages of socks I’m supposed to take camping with me.
    I get up off the bed and throw the socks into a duffel bag, not really caring anymore what I bring or don’t bring on the stupid camping trip.
    But I swear to God that if my ex-best friend calls me a cum-eating faggot I’ll kick him hard in the balls.
     
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Marlene Hoeber

    Bio
    Marlene Hoeber is a long time queer, kink, trans, sex- positive, feminist, social justice activist and a devout pervert. She is currently Director of Collections at the archive of the Center for Sex & Culture. Marlene was a founding member of the world’s first college campus based BDSM organization in 1991. She is also president of the Northern California chapter of the Liberal Gun Club, a member of the board of directors of the Center for Sex & Culture, and also a member of the board of directors of the IMsL Foundation. She also has a day job.
    Mini-Interview
    Do you write under your own name? I do write under my own name. I have been doing sex-related activism of one sort or another for 25 years. I made my first decisions about using my own name in that context both when I was young and fearless, but also when we were all dying and fearlessness was how we did everything. I have decided in the interim that I can stick with those early decisions. I think that they have been good for me. Like everyone, I have done things that I am less proud of than other things, but if I am living (a small) part of my life in public, it is very important to me that I be honest.
    What’s the inside scoop on your story? This story started as a series of emails between my partner, Dorian Katz, and I. She is an artist (see cover illustration drawing) and I am very supportive of her career. I began at one point joking about being the “artwife.” There was, for much of the second half of the 20th century, a myth that the real Lee Krasner scuttled her own career as an artist in deference to the career of her partner, Jackson Pollock. This is not true. Sexism in the art world is what diminished her career. I began writing to Dorian as Lee writing to Jackson, snarkily complaining about that public perception, simultaneously taking about actual things Dorian and I were doing regarding her art career, and also we were writing each other love letters and talking dirty to each other in character. The notion of Lee as the aggressive top when away from the public eye seemed to perfectly skewer the old sexist myth.

Letter to My Girlfriend
    Marlene Hoeber
    Lee Krasner c/o Guggenheim
    30 W. 57th St.
    New York, New York
    April 4, 1947
     
    Jackson Pollock
    The Springs, New York
     
    Dearest Jacks,
    It’s almost as cold today as you can be. It’s almost as wet today as you can get me.
    I know days like this can be hard on your old bones, my darling Jack. Come back into the house to warm up, if your hands get too cold in the studio. I wish I was there to warm them up for you. Put some sugar and hot water in your gin, that’s good for you when it rains.
    I know you hate working when it’s cold. I know the paint drops differently, but you are so much happier when you just keep going. Maybe you’ll find new things with the paint working differently, thicker, slower.
    Oh, it was so horrible