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<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\nFor anyone who performs, backstage is your lesson in managing ennui. There are lots of pranks going on before an entrance, generally to goose you up before you go up on the boards. And if the weather is right and you’ve got chemistry, a little backstage quickie is not unheard of, particularly for daring-doers.<\/p>\n
So when we met each other’s glance, I knew we were going to hit it off. I took a piece of him, a small piece of him in my mouth, and let the liquid ooze onto my tongue. I rushed onstage for my entrance, vivified and electric, raring to go.\u0412\u00a0We did it like that for four nights of the run. It was furtive, secret and intoxicating.<\/p>\n
It happened again, a few years later.<\/p>\n
When I saw him again, I grabbed hold of him. Rushing him home from Elephant Pharmacy where we had renewed our acquaintance after a self-imposed absence, I took a bite from him. I remembered his dark bitter sweetness, the crunch of his nibs, the spice of chili in his essence. I was enthralled again. But I stopped. I couldn’t do him the way I would have wanted: It would have been too much, too fast. I had to wait. I had to pace myself.<\/p>\n
I locked him in the pantry where he stayed, in a jar in the dark for weeks.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
When I finally took him out of captivity, I was ready with a perfectly-aged bottle of 2004 Malbec, and the combination was lethal. It was a threesome and my couch could not contain our excitement. It was me, Malbec and Xocolatl in a mad gustatory embrace. At the end, we were released.<\/p>\n
Last week, feeling desolate and alone, I found myself yearning for him on my tongue. That yearning, which I tried to resist all day at work, was growing into a gnaw in my stomach which would not release me until I had him.<\/p>\n
I found him again, this time in the Scarlet Sage herb store by the cashier’s stand. Wrapping him in my coat, I ran to my car and tore off his beautifully printed salmon-colored sleeve, helping myself, piece by piece as I drove. I did not stop until I had secured every last drop of him, driving madly, giggling like a girl. The pain my stomach ceased.<\/p>\n
I crumpled up his used sleeve and threw it into the public waste receptacle a block from the house. No one would know what I’d just done. I felt so dirty, so shameful, so obscene. It was wonderful.<\/p>\n
On Valentine’s Day night, I ritualized the love I share with xocolatl, he, the gift from the gods of delight. Before I began, I prepared my home as my altar to love. I vacuumed every nook and cranny, from bedroom to bathroom, kitchen to living room, tenderly running the crevice tool gently and repeatedly over the moldings, making sure I sucked up the \u0412\u00a0dust bunnies that collected in the corners.<\/p>\n
Then, I softly mopped my kitchen floor, using the finest, hottest hot water from the East Bay Municipal Utilities District, coupled with generous dollops of lemon verbena-scented floor wash purchased especially for this occasion. I used only the finest cotton-nylon short-thread self-wringing mop available from the housewares section at Target. I mopped the floor with small circular strokes, going clockwise, then counter-clockwise, followed by the Greek alphabet. I made a final coup de grace<\/em> with kinematics equations solving initial velocity when acceleration and time are unknown.<\/p>\n I took specially purchased toothbrushes, held just for this occasion, to get on my hands and knees to scrub the bathtub grout to porcelain white perfection. I got to the inches and folds of the bathtub stall and scrubbed and scrubbed until it screamed for me to stop.<\/p>\n And then finally, when the last dishes were washed and dried, when the last few water spots were wiped off my perfectly curved crystal red wine tulip, I poured myself a glass of 2006 Atilio Avena, aged for five months in a French oak barrel and a deal at the grocery for $8.99 a bottle. I looked you deeply in the eye, my obsession, my beautiful dark, naked, husky, spicy Xocolatl, honoring the gods for your existence. As we touched each other and I tasted you again and again and again, I looked up to the stars that brought you to me, and whispered, “thank you, thank you, thank you!!”<\/p>\n Your slave,<\/p>\n Fe Bongolan<\/strong> Dear Friend and Reader: We met backstage at Julia Morgan Theater. I was in an opera in four acts, and would not come on until two-and-a-half hours into the show. For anyone who performs, backstage is your lesson in managing ennui. There are lots of pranks going on before an entrance, generally to goose you … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":9,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[29,1788,1056,52,1055],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11275"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/9"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11275"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11275\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nSan Francisco<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"