Janet wants me to try DMT; she thinks it will help me. She is a true believer in the healing powers of Dimethyltryptamine and wants to share it with the world. This batch is from a 2,000-year-old tree in Hawaii, you can’t buy what she has. She got it from a shaman who lived on the farm where the tree is for two years. And most importantly she loves me and wants me to feel better.  

I have been feeling really down lately with the crashing and burning of all three of my relationships in the span of as many months. I’ve been feeling like I will never be loved again. Also, I am at an impasse with my novel. I have been on a self-imposed hiatus for over a month now, and I am uninspired. If DMT will make me feel differently, and potentially help me finish this book, then damn, it’s worth a try. One Wednesday afternoon when I called in sick to work and can barely get out of bed, I muster some energy and head east to Janet’s house in unincorporated Los Angeles.

We sit on her couch, and she teaches me how to hit the vape pen, and gives me a brief idea of what may happen. She says I may see guides and to accept them and their advice. To not freak out as I travel the universe. One hit will be euphoric, two hits you travel, and three hits you see God.

I do one hit. Janet is talking the whole time, telling me to breathe in slow and steady until the count of four, then hold it in as long as possible. I make it to 19, holding the inhale, then begin to exhale. "No…" Janet says, disappointed I didn’t hold it longer, but I hold up my hand and waive that no off. I have no time for it now, I am beginning to ascend. 

I move through a series of triangles. So much sacred geometry passes by me, that I become a blur of glowing yellow mathematics on a dark blue background.  My mind is connected to the fundamental things that make up this reality. I become aware of every emotion I have ever had. I remember everything that has ever happened to me, but passively without judgment. Then I see my relationships through vivid memories that flash before me. 

I see myself in Bangkok with Nola touring the market, me holding her sun umbrella, and us joking that she is so rich she has a white servant. 

I see me and Janet laughing just before I inhaled the vaporizer. Her preparing me for what is to come. Then knowing that moment was a thousand years ago. 

I see flashes of my family, my nieces and nephews and sisters. 

Then I come to the end of the universe, and I meet The Goddess. She greets me as if we have met 10 thousand times. She is blue and painted with tiny gold designs that keep moving in concentric circles. 

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO SEE? She asks.

Show me my connection to H, I say.

She shows me a white painted wall. 

THERE IS NOTHING THERE, she says.

I take a moment to accept this.

Show me my connection to Jon, I say.

She shows me another white painted wall.

THERE IS NOTHING THERE, she says.

I want to ask about Lawrence, but in this moment I cannot remember his name. 

Show me my connection to my mother, I say.

THERE IS NOTHING THERE, she says. 

This is not lost on me by any means, and it takes me a brief millennia to process. There is nothing there. This is what sticks with me when I arrive back on Janet’s couch. I open my eyes, and I see her. Then I cover them again, because I am not ready to be back here quite yet. 

I do know I am ready to move on past those relationships that have been occupying my reality for the last year or two. To let go of the hurt that has stayed with me these last few months. I am ready to move the fuck on from all of it. 

---

The next night I’m off to D.C. for a family wedding. The Goddess has been vivid in my mind since I met her.  During my overnight flight I am closer to her physically and I can feel it. She comes to me and sits on my shoulder, whispering in my ear, reminding me of the secrets of the universe, pointing out constellations while I sleep.

I am excited to see my family, but I like to have my own space, and need separateness from them when I need it. So when they suggested I share a room with my sister and her kids or with mom at the hotel in Alexandria, I was like, hell no. Besides, I don’t want to be in the same room as my mother, after what The Goddess revealed to me. 

I got an Airbnb on M and 11th in DC proper. It’s Friday night and I’m meeting an old friend I haven’t seen in almost 10 years on 14th and O for dinner. I’m happy to be seeing him and my family tomorrow, especially after the revelations of The Goddess. It feels cathartic somehow. I play tourist before we meet and take a sightseeing map to U St. It’s about 7 and the sun is still out, but U St. is already getting started. Now I think I know how to party. I’ve lived-in New York and LA. I’ve been out on the town in major cities all over the world. I think I’ve seen it all, but hot damn, U St. is keeping it sexy and edgy. The girls here are barely dressed in the full bloom humidity. And who can blame them? It is so hot and sticky any cloth on skin is almost too much to take. I am wearing a backless sundress, and feel like I am the most conservative woman on the street. Everyone is young and hot and dressed to impress and just getting started. I’m picking up the pheromones flowing down the sidewalks. 

On my way back from dinner U St. is full to bursting. Lines for clubs are filled with beautiful young women in nude dresses looking like they aren’t wearing anything at all. Men in tight T-shirts and linen pants, some with fedoras, looking dapper and fine as hell. I had always heard DC was Hollywood for ugly people, but so far as I can see everybody is hot. I drift through it all, feeling happy and a bit drunk. The Goddess is cooing in my ear as I make my way upstream, pointing out attractive options to begin flirting with. 

YOU COULD DO IT IF YOU WANTED. MEET SOMEONE RIGHT NOW AND TAKE HIM OR HER HOME. A STRANGER IN A STRANGE CITY…

Yes, that could happen, I think, but I am ready to fall asleep by myself right now. Tomorrow is an early and long day. The Goddess agrees. I reach my cozy little studio and pass out.

The next day my whole family is half-crocked and we are partying at the hotel pool. My mother is not there, and I am relieved. Then the rest of us can really have fun. If my mom was there fun would stop at a certain point and the resentments would creep in, a fight would ensue. But now we are free. It was a morning wedding, so we have been drinking since noon. We are having so much fun the day just keeps going on and on with us swimming and eating and making fun of each other and laughing.

Around 7 pm, The Goddess reminds me that I have a perfectly good studio apartment, all to myself, right down the street from all those fine people looking to get laid, and I should probably look to get laid too.  She is, of course, right. U St. is a solid option, but I don’t want to leave it up to chance. What if I go out alone, and don’t meet anyone? She instructs me to download Tinder and create a profile. Now this online dating thing has never been for me, but I’m not looking to date right now. I want a strong possibility of sexual intercourse.

The Goddess writes my profile for me. She says I am in town for a wedding and want to get a drink and see what happens. She puts up lots of bikini shots and at least two full booty shots too. She says I need to be as specific as possible, so I get exactly what I want. 

We sift through a few duds. One guy says he is celibate in his profile. Why the hell are you on Tinder if you are celibate? The Goddess is on my shoulder the whole time agreeing with my multitude of left swipes, and occasional right swipes. She encourages me to be as picky as I want to be. And to opt out at any moment if things don’t feel right.

We start texting with Quentin, then he calls. It feels strange at first, and I do a little nervous laughing. But he seems cool and natural to talk to. We discuss where to meet, since I’m not about inviting someone over before I decide if we have a vibe or not, or if he is a creep or not. His profile says he is a lawyer who went to Howard and a part-time model and music producer. Seems like he is laying it on a little thick, but he has some pics of him doing runway to prove it, and pics in a well fitted royal blue suit that shows his wide shoulders and athletic waist. His body is just my type. I like a man who works out. I do it almost every day. It is an important part of my life. I want my men to have that as a part of their lives too, then I know we will be on the same page on many different issues. If he is as hot as his pictures, and as cool as when we talked on the phone, then it will be on. 

I meet him at a bar in a part of town that feels like Times Square but in the 90s. It’s about a mile from my place in the other direction from U St, where I would have rather met him, but hey, it’s his town, and I don’t know anywhere. It is 12:30 am, and I am wearing a hot little maroon dress that shows my best assets. It feels like people are looking at me wondering what I am doing at a bar by myself this late on a Saturday night. Prostitute? Viper? Desperately lonely? It is down to couples that haven’t decided to go home to fuck yet and me. Each second grinds in my stomach. The Goddess tells me not to worry, this is the right move.

I see him come in. He is as handsome as his picture, for sure. He is stylish, like most everybody in this town, wearing a light peach shirt with little white designs all over. Looking closer I see they are sea turtles. His linen pants end just below the knees as if he just got done kicking around the shore break. We have a great conversation for about a half-hour, and then the bar is closing. He wants to show me around DC and brag on his city a little, give me the after-dark tour. 

OH YES! YES PLEASE! says The Goddess as she jumps around my shoulders with delight.

As we roll through town, the crowds are even thicker and the party is full-on. He shows me pizza joints that are famous, live music spots, falafel places that are jumping, a sex club that, even now, has a line around the bend. I should take in the names of the streets and clubs he is showing me, but I am distracted.

The Goddess is flipping around the inside of the car, excitedly looking out the window at each beautiful person on the street. Then she moves in to inspect Quentin. She looks in his eyes, she smells his neck, she goes up his pant leg and exclaims in surprise. He adjusts himself a little as this happens, and I laugh. He can feel her too. 

LET’S TAKE HIM HOME NOW, she says, IT IS TIME FOR YOU TO REPLACE THOSE LINGERING ENERGIES. 

I am more than ready for this too. I ask if we can stop at a 7-11 because, to be honest, I really need to get more toilet paper if I am going to have a guest. We stock up on beverages and light snacks, post-coitus necessities. He says he will pay for everything.

HOW ROMANTIC, she says, making love to his earlobe. 

When we pull up to my place there is a spot right outside the door. Total kismet. 

LET HIM KNOW YOUR BOUNDARIES BEFORE YOU TAKE HIM UP, she says.

I take a moment to say you must wear a condom, and no anal. He says yes of course to the condom, and he’s not into anal. I love when a man says that. 'Cause the ones that are into it, no matter how tight you keep it, no matter the thrills you give them, they are still secretly plotting to get you to let them stick their dicks up your ass when you least expect it. 

In the elevator, we stand very close. It is about three by three anyway so the proximity is relative to the space, but I can feel him pulsing next to me and he smells good. The Goddess is curled up at the base of his throat and purring like a sleeping cat.  When we get there, I sit down on the bed and he sits down next to me. I put my head on his chest and he wraps his arms around me, then he puts his head on my chest and I hold him. We are getting to feel each other’s vibe in fast motion. We don’t have the luxury of a long courtship. We need to figure out our chemistry right now. When we kiss it opens up like a song, going verse to chorus to verse to bridge and never seeming to end. He is one of those kissers that prioritizes it over all other acts. Every new discovery can lead back to a prolonged lip and tongue session. 

We start to grind and I feel that familiar sensation between my legs. The whole thing begins to become more primal. Without that pull in the pelvis, that tingling in the clitoris, what have you got really? You’d just be making yourself fuck someone you don’t really want that much, which I still would have done, but I am glad to discover that I do want to fuck him.

He takes off his shirt to reveal his multitude of tattoos all in black ink on his dark skin. Each a testimony of his life story. And of course, his Adonis-like body. He stands by the bed expecting to be adored, as he should, and I am happy to do so. I run my hands over his muscles saying how beautiful he is, and we begin to endlessly kiss again. Then he takes my dress off in one move. He stands me on the bed and turns me around so he can see. His hands creep up my legs to feel the fullness of my thighs, and his mouth reaches for my breast. 

“Oh, that is a nice nipple,” he says before he clamps down on it. He takes my left breast in its entirety in his mouth and sucks it all the way in. After a minute of this, he switches to the right. He forms such a vacuum, I am sure my breasts are growing a half cup size. Then he kisses them like he kissed my mouth, for an eternity. 

By the time his pants come off, his hard-on is stretching the cotton of his boxer briefs to beyond the scope of the thread count. He takes them off to reveal his solid 7 inch hard-on. I am more than happy with this. If we were closer, I would get down on my knees and get to know his member, but alas, this is but a brief affair, and I haven’t the time to become so familiar. 

Instead, I lick my hand and massage the head of his dick in a circle. I keep the spit right in the center of my palm and it is closed around the head so it feels all warm and tight. He groans, and I feel a little wetness come from his opening. I know I am on the right track. I guide one of his hands to my clitoris and he instantly begins to rub it in rhythm. I feel myself getting wet, and I re-lick the hand I am jacking him off with so his dick will mirror the wetness. Then we get in a rhythm that cannot be denied. I become slick like melting coconut oil. There is only one move to make after this. He gets a Magnum out of his pants pocket and I help him roll it down, all the while saying how nice his cock is, how handsome. How lovely and large. He is whining already, and as I lay down for him to enter me, he begins to talk up a storm. 

“You’ll be coming back for this dick. Oh, you’re gonna come back for Daddy. You’re going to be craving this dick.” He goes on and on.

I love dirty talk. It can really bring all that subconscious sex shit to the surface and teach you not only to come, but to communicate. I like to hear the unexpected whispered at me in the moment, but after he calls himself Daddy the 6th time, I’m beginning to get a little over it. I’m still enjoying it, though and let him continue just to see what he will say next. 

“Oh, you’re gonna make me want to put a ring on that,” he says as he is pounding away. I was starting to come before he said it, but now I laugh out loud. 

“Oh my god,” I say, “please don’t say that. I really don’t want to hear it.” 

“Oh, ok,” he says perplexed. 

We continue back on the journey to orgasm. I turn around for him, and we fuck like animals, my back deeply arched, as he grabs the sides of my ass. Then I move down on my belly and he is laying right on top of me, feeling my ass vibrate with each thrust, kissing my neck like it is my mouth, and my walls begin to tighten and release. He feels it too, because his pace is matching my orgasm without me having to guide him in anyway. Our excitement crescendos and we both come at the same time. We lay entwined, sweating on each other, happy. 

He stays for another half hour and we kiss more and snuggle and talk about life. He wants to take me to Jamaica or maybe he can come visit me in LA. I would like that. It is almost 4 but he is picking up his son in the morning, so he should go home to Maryland. This sounds crazy to me, but he assures me it is 20 minutes from here and not to worry. I ask for a text when he is safe at home, and we kiss for another infinity. 

After he leaves The Goddess is all affection with me. She saw all, and she is proud of me. She lays in the nook of my stomach as I am curled up on my side. We both relive the memory of the tryst, even though it only just past. As I drift off, I get the text that Quentin is home safe. I eventually fall into a dreamless sleep, and when I wake up in the morning, The Goddess is gone.