Free That Thing You Do With Your Mouth: The Sexual Autobiography of Samantha Matthews as Told to David Shields by David Shields, Samantha Matthews Page A

agreed we’d redact what I went on to say here about Ava—which pains me, as it completes the female family-cycle puzzle. As her mother, though, I have to protect her. It’s not my story to tell; it’s hers.)
    She speaks openly about how the boys at her school like her and want her to be their girlfriend, and is extremely affectionate. Meanwhile, Roc, when there’s a movie on and there’s an embrace, or a loving glance between two people (not even a kiss), he hides under the pillow as if someone were being violently murdered. He doesn’t want to be kissed or kiss anyone.
    It wasn’t until very recently that Ava even wanted to have girlfriends. She wanted to play only with boys, impress them, be one of them. She told me she doesn’t want to grow breasts, doesn’t want her period, and doesn’t want to have a baby, because the idea of giving birth is terrifying. She tended to go for all the rough boys in her class. One second, they were friendly; and the next, saying cruel things to her, hitting her, and daily she’d be in tears. Walking to school one morning when she was seven, she asked me, “Mommy, how do you find the person you are going to marry? What happens if you fall in love with someone and they’re mean to you all the time?” I told her this time was for practicing, to be able to identify those people who treated you that way so you wouldn’t make that mistake when you were older; soon, her radar would be so strong she’d see those hurtful ones immediately and wouldn’t even want to be friends with those types of people. That seems to have worked, as she’s no longer friends with the bullies and has a group of lovely little girls as friends.
    She tells me she wants so badly to be loved by Roc; she loves him so much and he doesn’t love her. She’s constantly waiting for the opportunity to catch him by surprise and give him a cuddle, because he never wants to cuddle her. She’s jealous when he hugs me. This seems to be the pattern she was creating with all the bully boys:trying desperately to get them to love her, even though they rejected her.
    Shrink to a guy I know: “Tell me what images you masturbate to, and I’ll tell you who you are.”
    The look in the eyes when a person comes is that place between life and death. A long, momentary surrender to a soul-trapping ghost—taking the person away, sucking them into a pleasure vacuum, echoing crows cawing. In Spanish they say, Me voy, me voy . “I’m going, I’m going.” Which seems more accurate than “I’m coming, I’m coming.” No you’re not. You’re leaving. Leaving together. Being able to make someone go to that place of surrender feels powerful to me. I feel bad for thinking that.
    With women, I was viewed mainly as a femme. In my one serious lesbian relationship—with Jessica (and I’m going to have to pull a veil over that as well; lo siento …)—there were no roles per se; each of us was equally dominant and submissive. Initially, I’ve been quite aggressive in all of my sexual relationships with men and women. I alwaysstart off dominating, taking control; then, if the relationship continues, that role disappears and I become the submissive. My sense of humor goes, too. I’m unable to be a clown around people I’m in love with—don’t want to turn them off—but a huge part of me is a clown, which I wish I had shown more of to you in our exchanges.
    The creator of the TV-series-in-the-making (for which I did that teaser) is actually meeting with Lionsgate, which means they’ll surely recast it. I’ll send you the link so you can check out how comfortable I was (wasn’t) in the “making of” video about being the sex kitten. The edit is classic. They cut me off just as I clown-face apologize for being cast as what should be sexy.
    Lindsay Lohan’s circular