“I could lie here and hold you all weekend, listen to you moan over and over, and then just lie here and hold you until they send the dogs in to find us,” Lucas whispered as I nestled my face into his sweaty neck. Both of us inhaling each other and exhaling our history in perfect syncopation.

I clearly have a hard time staying away from this man, but I’m no longer fighting it.  When we merge, we merge.  When we part, we part.  The parting is never for too long.  All our circles and triangles keep us coming back for more.  We’re in an endless game of chess, Lucas and I.  I know when to let him win, and he knows when to let me lose.

“We’re not ever going to have any closure are we?” I asked him.

“Fuck closure,” he said.  ”Why are you always trying to end things before they happen?”

It’s funny he should ask that question because I’ve been wondering the same thing for the last 30 years.  Lucas and I can’t be together.  We tried once.  Well, I tried once while he pretended to try.  And now…now I just enjoy the time we spend together when we’re in the moment.  I used to view this time as a crutch, like it was holding me back from meeting my one true love (whatever the hell that means.) But now I see my time with Lucas as a sweet surrender to the two of us helping each other heal from old war wounds, the secret ones that are revealed when we try to hide them most.

But I do often end things before they happen.  Since the last time I wrote in this diary, I’ve met Randy (the teen flick) and Kelley (Mr. New).  Randy is undeniably beautiful, talented and conflicted.  I suppose most men who are about to have a baby with someone they’re not in love with are.  We’ve gone out twice, and we’ve shared a lot.  I want nothing more than to enjoy his company, as I’m not looking for anything serious.  I should stay away, but something compels me to continue the game.  It’s like I need to help him through his conflict, in order to help myself get over something I’m holding onto (or something.)  We’re like a couple of teenagers when we’re together.  He reminds me that I’m still innocent, even though there’s nothing innocent about our relationship.

I was already feeling brand new the night I met Kelley, Mr. New.  Elegant sparks danced in the fireplace of that dark sexy swanky downtown speakeasy, where we shared our first mojito.  Kelley’s an engineer like my dad and an artist like so many of my loves.  He’s vibrant and high octane like Christian, the Golden Boy. I haven’t found anything wrong with him yet, which always makes me suspicious.  We’re having dinner this week.  I’m going to try to not end something before it happens, which means I need to stop looking for “wrong” things about him.  Wish me luck.

But until then, I’m in Lucas’s arms.  While sitting underneath the stars on the beach last night, he stroked my collar bone and kissed my ear.  Our friends, who don’t approve of us being in such close proximity, were off  in the distance dancing under the moon to the music of an ethereal ghost.

“So what’s next?” he asked as the ghost crooned ‘oh la la.’  Are we gonna close this deal?”

“Nah. Fuck closure.”

He strikes out at me when I am within reach, and then he reaches for me when I draw the line.
– Ani DiFranco “Served Faithfully”

A part of me wanted to knee him in the balls and then have his name blacklisted throughout all of Hollywood for being such an unbelievable bastard. The other part of me wanted to kiss his forehead, wish him well, and say goodbye. But because we were in a controlled environment, because he was my boss, and because I hadn’t had sex in two and a half months, I stayed.

“Give me another chance, Adora?” Lucas pleaded with those weepy puppy dog eyes he pulls out whenever he knows he’s in the doghouse.

“I gave you a chance when we first met. Remember? You shit all over it.”

“Come away with me. We can go anywhere. Spain… Greece… the Cayman Islands…”

Of course, he listed those three destinations. On our first date (before he threw another woman in my face), I told him I desperately wanted to travel to all of those places sometime in the year 2010.

As we stood in the corner of the penthouse suite at The Standard downtown with 50 of our friends and colleagues doing shots and dancing on tables, he pulled me into his lap and started running his fingers through my hair. I’d like to say it was the champagne and wine that compelled me to let him. But the truth is, I stayed in his arms because it felt good.

He’s quite a handful — Lucas. As the head executive at our film studio, he’s more than accustomed to people taking orders from him.

Rising from his lap, I exploded, “I don’t take orders from people, especially you, Lucas.”

His eyes and his voice softened even more. “I’m not giving you orders. I miss you. I never meant to hurt you. I didn’t think you had feelings for me, and I screwed up.”

I had been thinking about him a lot the past month. I’m not sure if it’s because he’s the last person I’d been with, or if it’s because things weren’t really over yet, or if it’s because I’m just that hard up. But he’d been on my mind so much that for a second I thought I’d manifested the entire scenario. I feared that perhaps, I was to blame for him beckoning me back into his life.

When I was younger, I lusted after brilliant, powerful, tragic men like him. Some women find him repulsive. Others find him irresistible. Underneath it all, he’s just a puppy desperately wanting to let someone love him. But as the old adage goes: we get in our own way.

“I mean it, I miss you,” he repeated. “Stay with me, and then come away with me tomorrow. We can leave in the morning.”

“Trust me. By this time next week, you’ll forget that you miss me, and you’ll start missing someone else.”

And then he pulled me closer and kissed me, at first soft and then long and deep. Lucas and I are nowhere near being in love, yet this keeps happening.

There’s nothing worse than when unavailable men throw themselves at you, except — of course — indulging in the act when it happens. The next morning, I tiptoed out of the hotel room as silently as I could.

“Where are you going?” Lucas asked out of nowhere.

“Oh, I didn’t want to wake you,” I said. “I’m heading to the office. I have to get some work done.”

“It’s Sunday.”

“I have a lot of catching up to do. You should know, you gave me the workload.”

“So are you going to come with me?”

“Let me think about it. I’ll call you later.”

He ended up calling me later instead. I didn’t pick up the phone and I didn’t return his call.

I have to see this man nearly everyday online and in real life. When will we get the time to be just friends? When I quit my job? When one of us gets married? When pigs fly?

I’ll keep you posted.

I’m a risk taker. At times, I have been a daredevil. I’m no angel, and I am definitely a siren. As I get older, I wonder if should start being more cautious about the kinds of shenanigans I get myself into on a bi-weekly basis. Should I not have gotten involved with the most pungent playboy at my film studio? Should I not have moved back to Los Angeles on a whim and a precarious livelihood? Should I look before I leap? 

Well, ever since I was old enough (a toddler) to look people in the eyes, smile at them, and jump into their laps at the doctor’s office, looking before I leap hasn’t deterred me from going for it.

We are all here for a reason, if not many. If one of my purposes in this lifetime is to be a warrior for love and all the wild at heart, then I must. I must keep dating in Los Angeles. I must be open to different kinds of men–even reality TV stars.

As I’ve written in a previous post, I fell in love with a rock star not long ago. The experience was wonderful and horrible, and decadent and deadly, and surreal and like living the truest truth I’ve ever felt. If I could do it all over again I would–minus his public arrest and my weathering integrity.

You’re probably thinking, after such a disruptive dating debacle, why on earth would she ever want to get involved with someone in the entertainment industry again? 

I don’t go seeking out these men, I swear. It. Just. Happens. I’ve known “Reality” for a couple of months now. When we met some definite sparks flew, but I wrote him off as a cheesy talk show host, who was just another notch on Hollywood’s belt of shame. But then I had an actual conversation with him, and my cynical lamp post knees began to bend, at least half-way.

Back when I watched MTV, I used to think Reality was funny, charismatic, light and bright, and in better shape than Michelangelo’s David. After meeting him in person, I can verify he is all of those things.

At a recent holiday party, our eyes locked as soon as I walked in the door, and as the old adage goes, “it was on!” 

So can I remain open, or will I shut down, affronting the face of potential romance and fun? Can I date more than one person for once in my life like all the dating experts out there say single women should? Can I manage to not put Reality in a box and toss it to the sharks? Can I dismiss the fact that girls young enough to be my daughter stop him on the sidewalk to get his autograph?

I’ll let you know in early 2010. 

“Didn’t you just fuck him last week?” asks my friend Tanya, as the two of us watch the last guy I had dinner with walk into a film industry wedding reception with a tall blonde, who was clearly his date. 

“Why yes.  Yes, I did.”

“The two of you have been spending a lot of time together.  Did he tell you he was bringing someone to the reception?”

“No.”

“Have you talked to him since he’s been back in town.”

“Yes.”

“Don’t you think he should have told you?” 

“Yes.”

Suddenly, my friend Kathleen runs up behind me and whispers anxiously in my ear.

“What the hell is Lucas doing?  Did you two have a falling out of some sort?”

“No, not that I’m aware of.  Last time we saw each other, we were having pancake breakfast at my favorite Los Feliz diner.”

“So what’s the deal with the two of you?” asks Tanya.

“The deal is over, apparently.”

“No, I mean did you like him?”

“We were just getting to know each other,” I reply before taking an extended swig of my cocktail.  “I wasn’t planning on anything developing other than friendship at first, but then it did.”

Our male confidante Patrick approaches us.

“Who’s the chic posing with Lucas?” he asks.

(Silence and frozen faces)

“Ah shit, don’t tell me one of you is sleeping with him,” Patrick says disapprovingly.

I look down at the ground.

“Jesus Adora, you know better than that,” he scolds.

“I just starting working at the studio a month ago, Patrick,” I say, starting to get annoyed.  “I didn’t know anything about him other than that I was starting to enjoy his company.”

Patrick shakes his head in disappointment.

“What is it with you women getting your hopes and expectations up over guys like Lucas?  Women are totally disposable to him.  That’s just how the dude functions. You should’ve known he just wanted a taste of the new girl on campus.”

Aggravation begins to flood through my veins.

“My hopes and expectations?!  My hopes were not to get seriously involved with a guy I just met a month ago, and my expectations were not to be exclusive after only a few weeks.  My expectations are to always be treated with respect, and he just slapped me in the face with the fact that he has none for me.”

I storm away from the group and head in Lucas’ direction.”

Tanya and Kathleen run after me.

“Adora, don’t do be upset,” Kathleen pleads.  “It’s not you.  This is just how Lucas is.”  

                                                                                                  ***

You’re probably all wondering what happened next.  Well, I asked Lucas why he didn’t let me know he was bringing a date to the reception.  He stared at me blankly, said he didn’t know why it even mattered, and that there was no reason for me to feel awkward because there was nothing between us.

                                                                                                   ***

We’re adults living in Los Angeles.  Casually dating more than one person at a time is completely socially acceptable behavior.  Losing interest in someone you’re seeing and letting that person know, so as to not lead him/her on is socially responsible behavior.  Showing someone that you’re no longer interested in him/her a week after you fuck him/her by bringing another man/woman to a social function is just plain mean.

There may be a number of sophisticated psychological reasons behind why people behave the way they do when it comes to dating and relationships.  Maybe they’re tortured individuals.  Maybe they fear rejection.  Maybe they’d rather go through men/women like tissues than ever risk breaking open because they can’t stand the thought of being happy.  Maybe they’re just unable to be sexually satiated by one person at a time.  However, giving someone a free pass to perpetuate his/her bad habits because that’s just the way he/she is isn’t something I can do. That’s just the way I am.

Lucas left me a voice message two days after the wedding.  I guess he grew a conscious over night.

“I hope I didn’t hurt your feelings or insult you in any way,” he said.

Dear Lucas,

Of course, you hurt my feelings, and of course, you insulted me.  I’m so happy I helped you get a taste of the new girl on campus.

-Adora

“You only fuck celebrities,” said an ex-lover of mine, who was trying to get me to sleep with him again one lonely night last winter on the Santa Monica Pier.

“That’s not true,” I replied. “I have only been with two or three men who happen to have notoriety in some worlds, and one of them was really just a friend who wanted me to join in on a threesome.”

The truth is, prior to that night my romantic history of the last two years could have been chronicled on imdb.com. However, this was not something that I was consciously aware of, nor did I want to make it a habit. I lived for passion and excitement, and the men I was spending time with provided that.

I’ve never cared about money. I’ve been with the most starving of artists to the highest paid actor in television. At the end of the day, the bottom line is always the same. When it comes to matters of the heart, the heart is all that matters.

A man’s fortune won’t stomp through the city with me hand-in-hand, exploring endless possibilities for love and adventure into the night. And a man’s fame won’t brush my hair out of my face, look deeply into my eyes, and take me in his arms like I am quite possibly the most precious and desirable thing he has ever touched.

So where and when did my taste for loving so hard and long in Los Angeles arise? I suppose it started with my affinity for cowboys and the Wild West.

I have always believed that whatever we fall in love with as children, we continue to love as adults. We may forget what these things are, but when faced with reminders, the love rushes back with a vengeance.

I was obsessed with horses when I was a little girl. In addition to dancing until a pool of sweat surrounded my shoes on the dance floor, and skating until my quads turned to jello, horseback riding made me feel free.

Who better to ride with than a cowboy with grit and sensitivity, someone to kiss the fire and salt off my lips, caress my spirit and shoot straight from the hips? I thought I found my cowboy not too long ago when I dated a man who played such a character in an early ‘90s flick. But it was just a movie. It was just a fairy tale. Mr. sensitive cowboy was not a real person, and my Golden Globe boyfriend was simply playing a part.

It’s quite possible that I’ve spent my entire life looking for someone to take his place, the cowboy character not the actor. The thing with cowboys is they are often trouble, something not unfamiliar to me.

I was somewhat of a wild child during adolescence. I used to roam the streets in the bad parts of my hometown until 4:00 a.m., carrying a pint of Jack Daniels, a can of Mountain Dew, a pack of Marlboro Reds, and a jack knife. I hitchhiked and I stole things. I spray painted Pink Floyd lyrics on the wall of my high school gym. I lost my virginity at far too young of an age in a cornfield across the street from the engineering plant where my Dad worked.

That phase of my life lasted for only a brief period of time, but the urban angst and appeal to chaos stayed with me for many years. My friends in college used to say my attraction to rebels and misfits sprung from my desire to “nurture and save all the lost cowboys.” These are the same confidantes who nicknamed me “Vixen,” and said I was a femme fatale – so smooth and in control of every guy who dared pursue me. Looking back, I suppose I did come across that way. Like that Flaming Lips song, “I thought there was a virtue in always being cool.”159627088_a05470f092

However, I was really just one giant walking contradiction, as so many individuals with such brazen bravado are. I have never been smooth or in control. And I wasn’t always a wild child. There was a time when even I was a rainbow-unicorn-pink-muffin girl. Underneath the Hollywood battle scars, she is still in there, and she’s looking for someone daring enough to understand her wild child, her Vixen, and her pink muffin girl.

I don’t want to “save all the lost cowboys,” but I love the idea of riding alongside and lying in the arms of just one.

Here’s the catch. I am horrible at relationships. I either give too much or not nearly enough. I either dive in head first, or I walk along the edge of the water, while my reflection and my lover both stick their tongues out at me. I am not the slightest bit domestic. I don’t cook. I don’t clean. And you can forget about asking me to fix anything around the house. An ex-boyfriend of mine once called me the “consummate bachelor.”

“You’re practically a guy,” he said one night as I opened my pathetic excuse for a refrigerator, which occupied one item – a bottle of vodka.

I lack staying power. I’m a workaholic. I make mistakes – a lot.

But I have loved deeper than my depth, and I don’t think there’s anything I wouldn’t do for the chance to love and run free with Adventure’s Son.

So what’s a girl who is so clearly a tragic yet hopeful walking contradiction to do?

The only answer I can surmise is, keep her eyes opened and her heart aware of someone who could possibly be a walking contradiction as tragic and hopeful as her.

No actors or rock stars, please.

Image by Kevin Zollman.

Hello my delicious interwebs.

I hope you’re thoroughly enjoying sexandthe405.com. I’m sure you are. How can anyone not just love sinking their teeth into one of AV Flox’s salacious creations?

In my last diary entry, I mentioned that I’ve recently been reacquainted with the possibility of “falling in ridiculous mountain-moving spellbinding love, and not with danger, but with innocence.” I haven’t been able to expound too greatly on the subject with words, but I feel I’m at a point where I’d like to dissect and share how my rebirth came to pass. It happened during my recent leave of absence from Los Angeles, which was both heartbreaking and groundbreaking.

It all began when I met Christian. He possessed the first new set of hungry, eager, and irresistible eyes to enter my realm fresh off the heels of the Post-Chance Era. 

We met on a rainy night in May. The streets were so wet that all their colors slipped into the sky, along with my relentless shades of purple. When Christian opened the door everything changed. The shape of my heart finally made sense again, and even the darkest parts of the city looked yellow. 

It was a simple scenario of boy meets girl. Christian was younger than me, not by enough years for either one of us to feel strangely about our courtship, but just enough that he was not the slightest bit romantically jaded–such a refreshing treat. (My darling AV Flox would refer to him as “a fetus.”)

The carnal attraction between us was palpable. Never in my life have I been as aroused mentally and physically by a man, while fully clothed and rolling under the covers like a little kid. He was so present–more present that I have ever been. And he made me moan louder than any Chance encounter or jilted ex-lovers ever had.

Christian and I were very different people, but at some point in time we were of the same place, a safe harbor of calm blue waters, where in an instant a tidal wave of heated passion would pulverize all social graces. I used to think he saw me as some dark eccentric Hollywood heroine. To me, he was a golden boy sent from my guardian angel to save me from my old ways. Christian helped me remember a part of myself that had been lost for many years. He opened a gateway that exposed a soft vulnerable side I no longer thought I had. It was terrifying and exhilarating. It made complete sense, and it was absurd.  For lack of a better phrase, it was sweet surrender.

The stories I shared with him about my time in different cities, especially Los Angeles always sent his head spinning. He would say things like:

“What do you mean there were multiple orgies going on in the next room, while you were signing contracts?!” 

And…

“So after you said that you wouldn’t have a threesome with the guy, he refused to finance the project?  That’s ridiculous!”

One night while we were driving along the coast after an ideal day of music, food, and dancing, he grabbed my hand and looked at me with the purest, simplest, most gorgeous expression. I pulled over to the side of the road, and we started undressing each other, as the stars gleamed above us and the waves crashed next to us.

In some other little ditty, we were Jack and Diane. We were Benny and Joon. We were Harry and Sally. But in this world, we were two people on different journeys.

He is off sailing the seven seas becoming a man. And I am back in Los Angeles, finishing the business I started when all my dreams were still in front of me. I don’t know if I’d have the gusto to do so had I not met Christian, the one who made everything shiny and new again with his gentle hands, boyish enthusiasm, and strong Midwestern arms and shoulders. Thanks to him, I reached down into my bag of tricks and found some forgotten dreams, which I’m now determined more than ever to turn into gold.

My name is Adora Flame.  I am here to share with you my dear Internets, my mischievous little voyeurs of all that burns deep within the hearts of feline spirits and between my divinely mouthwatering thighs, the sins, wins, losses, and lessons learned from loving long and hard in Los Angeles.

My first LA love, the angry yet lonely young man that he was, married someone else three months after we parted ways for the umpteenth time.  After a love triangle with his roommate, five years of stormy break-ups and earth-shattering make-ups, three cities and a trillion frequent flier miles, oceans of passion, rivers of ecstasy, 365 favorite positions of the day, and multiple underground sex clubs, my ex (the ex of all exes) ran into the arms of another woman, who had just broken up with her long-term partner two months prior to our split.

I was too shocked to feel resentment when I heard the news.  I was too certain we had always been doomed from the start to feel anything at all when he and his wife divorced a year later.  In the interim, I went through men like tissues.  If there was an inexplicably endearing and flagrantly dangerous man in sight, odds are he was glued to my side for three months, the general duration of the courting period, which is fun and light before someone gets frightened and runs for the hills.

Then one night I met Chance.  He was a rock star – a beacon of hope to any romantic young woman in search of a soldier with grace and heart, a cowboy with poetry, and a majesty to all lost boys.  I had been collecting his albums since I was in high school.

Arpeggios punched and vibrated the walls inside my favorite Sunday night venue, as the man in question lit my cigarette, and told me we’d change the world together.

“You’re one smart motherfucker, aren’t you,” he said as more of a declaration than a question.

“Yes, yes I am.”

It was at that one moment, and not one second sooner that Chance had me. He knew I intellectualized every encounter and exchange with relentless skepticism. He knew glitter and gold failed to stimulate my senses and only sharpened my defenses.  He was attractive, but not gorgeous.  He was charming, yet sincere.  He was powerful, and he was insane.  He ruled the world, but he was alone. He was a tragic king, and he had the passion and balls of an amphetamine-induced Shakespearean superhero on Cialis. He had me at “smart motherfucker.”

By our third 48-hour long date, we were already talking about what we’d name our first child.

“Jack,” he said. “I like the name Jack.”

Then came the three B’s – the booze, the babes, and the bourgeoisie.  I thought I could handle it, and perhaps I could have.  However, I convinced myself I was incapable of being the iron-willed matriarch my girlfriends in college said I was.  Because behind all my blazing bravado, I am not made of iron. I talk hard and I play strong, but everything on the inside is soft.

I didn’t think I could ever live in his world without feeling like I was sacrificing who I really was.  I couldn’t be a rock star’s lover because I couldn’t play second fiddle – not to his fame, not to his fortune, and not to the countless groupies who wanted a piece of him.  He knew all of this, but then one night, as we lied down wrapped in each other’s arms on the floor of his recording studio, he asked me to try.  And so I did.

A few weeks later, after having a colossal argument over a horrible misunderstanding, we made plans to go to his ranch in Montana the next day.  That evening, he was arrested.  He was arrested and his handlers wouldn’t let anyone, even me, near him for weeks.  He went to jail for  three months, and then moved to New York to be closer to the east coast fashion mogul he had been seeing before he went to the big house.  (Yes, he was seeing her the same time he was seeing me.  No, I didn’t know about her.  Yes, I should have seen it coming. No…I didn’t.)

I had a fulfilling and free-loving life in Los Angeles before I encountered Chance, because I didn’t know what it was to be in love and feel that in spite of all the chaos, maybe just maybe love could conquer all.  All my time in LA after that experience was the “Post Chance Era.”  I didn’t date anyone for a year.  Eventually, I left LA for outside reasons, only to be beckoned back six months later.

While I was gone, I became reacquainted with the possibility of falling in ridiculous mountain-moving spellbinding love, and not with danger, but with innocence.  It’s a beautiful dream that I don’t want to lose.

Now that I’m back in the City of Angeles, I have decided that I’m not leaving without soaking up this newfound lease on passion and romance with each and every pore and loin I possess.

Please join me on this journey. It’s going to be the joy ride of my life.