Missed Opportunity
Photos by Neal
Near midnight, deep dark of winter, a little island along the Saddle River, Nowhere Zen New Jersey.
Late 1998, these are from the first of the Luscious Photo series. They were taken in my room, a kind of enclosed brick porch in Neal’s house. I had just returned from living in Germany and was about to publish the first version of Planet Waves. Meanwhile, Neal was excellent with medium format photography, and we decided to take pictures — first, of me, by him.
My idea was to have photos of me getting my semen into my mouth.
Somehow — I do not know how — I was able to relate this to him. Just saying that and agreeing to that had me spinning. This is territory so intimate and sensitive it’s rarely ever spoken of openly, but I did. So knew what we were going for. The evening came. The sense of isolation in the solid brick house was inviting and encouraging. I was hesitating a little and he said let’s get going. I took a couple of bong hits and…entered the dream time. It was really strong weed. My ego turned to mush.
And there I was, masturbating myself, with the flash going off, Neal in jeans and bare chested, handling the camera in his strong hands. This is the moment to go for it. You know right in that spot that there’s no point going halfway. Yet I’m feeling slightly timid. This is my first time having any overt sexual experience with Neal.
I connect with the desire to feel, and feel openly. I roll over and fuck my ass with a clear plastic dildo that Betty Dodson gave me in exchange for an astrology reading. And my feeling is, wow, I’m really doing this. So I probe and play and penetrate. I sit up on the thing, leaning into it gently. I want to fuck myself rhythmically and grunt in time with the penetration. But that’s further than I can go.
Instaed, I probe softly and moan quietly as I seduce myself from inside. Moaning and being heard…mingled with the desperation not to be heard and needing to be. What’s the difference what he hears if I’m eventually going to orgasm and eat myself. In the frame on the top right, though you can’t really see it, my mouth is leaning toward the tip of my very erect penis.
From this place, I’m going to tease myself until I fill up. I’m easing out feeling out my desire to drink myself, draped over a deep need to do so. This is all exposatory. I am being witnessed and recorded in 12 or 16 shot rolls of very big film…and I want to show not just how but why.
Time is moving so slowly, it’s thick and at times I am chilled by an embarrassing self-awareness, and know to masturbate deeper into that feeling, stretch my pleasure into feeling ashamed. Melt right through layer upon layer. Masturbate into the shame.
Melt toward the inevitable, a surge of rich pleasure bubbles up urging me to release. But I cling. I want to make love into my feeling of…to transcend embarrassment is love.
At one point Neal puts down the camera and picks up a mirror, to show me what he’s seeing. He holds it steady to my face for a moment, and I can barely look but I do, I glance at my own eyes, wanting to avoid myself, and I let out a little moan, amazed that this could be happening.
Now I’m openly remembering my purpose, which is to get my yayas out and cry out and get a palm full of cum onto my tongue and…let that be shown. I’m envisioning an open mouth photo, and that implies I will be showing Neal this whole action.
One way I know I’m ready to orgasm is that I get into what I call my climax position: kneeling up high, knees spread wide. I love the full-on in the open feeling and I love orgasming with my core dependably penetrated. I’m leaning gently on the very hard, clear, sleek dildo.
At one point I’m squatting on the thing and then in another, I’m crying out. I can’t control myself any more and so I give in. I’m throbbing around my self penetration. Balanced on the perch of existence.
The center shot is my voice releasing at full phase gazing through heavy eyelids into the camera. The expression is that of my face being known. As my orgasm rises and crests, the flash goes off in hot bursts. Pushes me into deeper submission and I’m calling out the dark delight of my self thirst. Now I am throbbing warm jets into my hand, my face seen by a man doing so, loving this.
Then I can’t remember. It’s happened again. I’m a little disgusted. I can’t believe I’ve created this elaborate ritual for something so weird that I really don’t want known about me. The notion of drinking myself right now or ever is unimaginable. Under this, I know know I’m desperate. To get beyond this…to finally fulfill…
The flash bursts and I am caught right there, naked in my self-repulsion.
Neal knows what’s happened. He’s calm and reassuring, helping me hold steady. I’ve got a palm full of my semen that I don’t want. Neal photographs this and my face right then. I don’t know what to feel but I am gratified in that he’s seen what usually happens to me when I’m not with a woman.
I’m hiding ‘look at me’ behind the inevitability of being seen right then
I need this emotion, my sense of being held open with no choice. Now Neal is watching me as I kneel up with a palm full of my semen, paralyized to do anything with it, not even smell myself.
I have no idea what became of that release of my liquid life, what I did with it, and when I ask Neal, he won’t tell me.
Years later he used the term missed opportunity.
