So you might have heard about this. An all-nude club in Dallas employed a twelve-year-old runaway as a dancer for about two weeks last November. The story was in the Dallas Morning News, and all over the internet, for those of us who follow adult biz news.

The girl told police she was given shelter by a 27-year-old dancer and her boyfriend. Dancer and boyfriend took the 12-year-old to Diamonds Cabaret, where she told managers she was 19. She got the job despite having no I.D. and despite claiming to have forgotten the year she was born. On her first day she made $100.

That’s not a lot of money for a stripper, but it is a lot for a 12-year-old. Her mother told reporters that the girl had “the body of a 20-year-old.”

I don’t know what was going on at that little girl’s house, or why she ran away. Everything in the world seems wrong with a sixth-grader naked in a Dallas strip club, but I can’t tell you for sure that she was worse off there than at home. I mean, I sure hope so. (more…)

Strangely enough, Daniel’s wedding day didn’t upset me at all. It was his 30th birthday six months later which really got to me, as he stood there with his wife Alison while they greeted the guests. I can honestly say that that was the only time when I felt real envy and wished desperately that it was me standing beside him, arms round each other as we showed the world how much we loved each other.

It’s not as if I’m not allowed to love Daniel, but the way we feel about each other isn’t something that we can share easily with anyone else. Daniel is my brother, but since I was 14 we’ve had a sexual relationship - and that’s not something that many people would feel comfortable with.

I’ve only ever spoken about this once before, and even then it was very much in the abstract. While I was still at university a friend had a major misunderstanding with a relatively new boyfriend when one of his friends had reported back to him that he’d seen her hugging and kissing another man in the union bar. She was firstly annoyed at being questioned and became even more exasperated when she explained that the man in question was her brother, as her boyfriend refused to believe her. Their loud discussion took place in the union with an interested audience, until he finally stamped out in fury, still refusing to believe her. As she flounced back to join us she made a remark about preferring her brother to any other man, whereupon one of the crowd said “Yuck, how pervy!” As she sat down beside me she muttered something like “It’s not that strange,” and three or four drinks later I quietly asked her what she’d meant. (read more @ TimesOnline)

At 9.45am on Saturday, June 23 2007, I killed a man. A perfectly ordinary man, on a perfectly ordinary summer’s day. CCTV pictures show him entering the station, unremarkable among all the passengers going to the West End. He waited at the front of the platform until he could hear my train approaching, then he calmly stepped down on to the tracks and looked directly at me as he waited for the impact.

The impact was only a matter of seconds in coming, but those seconds felt like minutes. This wasn’t how it was meant to be. It wasn’t how I had imagined it during my years as a Central line train driver. We talk of “jumpers”; workmates tell of blurry images flashing in front of them, of the shock of the impact. I wasn’t expecting to see a young man in jeans and a summer shirt waiting for death, looking me in the eye. (read more @ The Guardian)

Although most folks never consider it, we all walk with death. Death is constantly lying dormant within us, waiting for the one misstep, or the one stroke of foul luck so that it can blossom and snatch us irrevokably from this world into the next, or whatever it is that death has in store for us.

All of our stories end the same way. In our death. We are all captives here on earth, and nobody gets out of here alive.

The only thing that is certain, is that, inevitably, we all will die, and the most probable fact surrounding that occurrence is that we do not have any idea how much time left. I can postulate, however that, most likely, we all have a little less time than we would like to think.

I have never seen a dried fish that didn’t have a look of absolute surprise on its dessicated face. Death loves to host surprise parties for each of us. (more…)

Part of him wanted to lay her down on the bed and hold her and make passionate love to her the way they do in romantic movies. Part of him wanted to get his clothes on and get out of there as fast as possible. And never look back. And never discuss this moment. Ever.

They were covered in soapy bubbles, standing close to each other in the shower of her Fort Lauderdale townhouse. Steam crept down the bathroom mirror.

“Does that feel OK?” she asked, running her fingertips through the lather on his shoulder. He was a burly man, a merchant marine in his 40s who’d spent most of his life at sea. The only woman with whom he’d had any relationship was his mother, who was both religious and abusive. She’d often reminded him that sex was a dirty, sinful, unspeakable act.

Catherine, the woman touching him in the shower, was the first woman who’d ever caressed him.

“That feels good,” he said in a shaky voice.

“Now I’m going to rub the other shoulder,” Catherine said. A slim, modest-looking woman with straight, soft hair and a smooth, warm face, she was calm and reassuring. “That isn’t too bad, is it?”

Before they got in the shower, they’d talked a bit, getting to know each other. They started with soft touching on the hands and arms. Eventually, they were standing naked next to each other.

All the while, Catherine encouraged him to talk about how he was feeling.

He said he was frightened, tense. He couldn’t stop thinking about what his mother had told him so many times. He couldn’t help but feel that what he was doing was wrong. But it also felt good to be touched. It felt good to connect with someone, even if it was just temporary.

Catherine continued rubbing him and speaking in a soothing, caring tone.

He extended his hands to her body. First to her hands and arms, then her shoulders and stomach, and soon her breasts. As his hands moved over Catherine’s soapy body, he gulped. His eyes turned glassy. His hands shook. He felt a twisting deep in his chest.

Soon it was too much for him. The merchant marine was overwhelmed by the experience. He began sobbing.

“That’s all right,” she said, still covered in bubbles. Catherine’s voice was like warm syrup on a cold morning. “Stay with your feelings. Talk to me. It’s OK.”  (more @ NewTimes)