by Valeria Lambert
(06/05/02)
My first thought was that someone, some woman, had designed it this way on purpose. But then, how likely is that? There are lots of female programmers now, but for the hard stuff, the really technical geeky stuff -- it's all guy engineers still, isn't it? And not what you'd call seriously sexual guys. Not the kind of guys who might know how a woman holds her own vagina when she's alone. Besides, would a guy even think of it?
So, it's probably just me and this has never occurred to anyone else. The eroticism of it. The mirror sensations tricking me that I'm stroking something else, and with each page of the driest of documents, my body responds.
I brought my new mouse home from work, so I could write about this. Okay, because I wanted to see what would happen if I were free to take it to conclusion. I unplugged the mouse from the CPU and casually piled it atop the books and papers going home for the weekend. But slipping past my boss's office, I angled my things away from him, so he wouldn't see what I had. As if he'd recognize it for a sex toy. And at home, though I'd tossed it on the dresser like the mouse was nothing special, I wondered if Daniel would spot it. If he'd guess. The cord dangled over the edge, catching my fascinated eye. It looked illicit, the way it draped, like a woman's blouse that slips, dips off her shoulder, off the curve of her breast.
He's a Catholic boy at heart, so we don't do toys. We have eleven years together and the sex, though never kinky, is still terrific. Sometimes it's the late-night, falling-into-sleep lovemaking -- like a quick cup of warm milk. But we also have our impromptu strip-me-out-of-my-bikini-in-the-garden moments. His instantaneous response to a black lace thong. Our extended weekend sessions that roll us from one end of the bed to the other. Electricity seems superfluous.
The mouse though, lures me, reminds me of those eggs I've seen, sinuous cords just like this that sweep up to the pocket. A techno version of the weighted balls Anaïs Nin showed rolling in women as they strolled in high heels and big belts. I lay on the bed, watching the dangle, my middle finger tingling. Unaccountably aroused. I had just convinced myself that I should get up, tuck up the cord discreetly, when Daniel strode into the room to change clothes for a 7 o'clock meeting. With one hand, he swept the cord up and opened a drawer with the other. I shuddered in response.
No, this has occurred to no one else.
I don't even really know how other women masturbate. The stories either are general -- "She stroked herself with her finger(s)" -- or are elaborated into something more titillating to the one building the images, with whole hands, fists, or various household and religious objects doing the deed. I know for most women the reality must be as simple as mine: a favorite position, the perfected technique. Like that quick glass of warm milk, I know exactly how to do it and how I like it. My method hasn't varied much from the successful one I hit upon at twelve, when I finally achieved the orgasm I had read about. In the twenty-three years since then, I have probably touched myself this way at least four thousand times. At a conservative estimate of three to four times a week.
No wonder it's grooved into my body. That I have a direct line from my finger to my clitoris. They've transferred sensation back and forth so often that now my fingertip is equally enlivened, similarly susceptible to being stroked. I wonder if someone very savvy could look at me and know why the middle fingernail on my right hand is always shorter. Not that I file it that way -- it seems submersion in my juices makes that nail weaker and it splits more easily. I've never heard tips for countering this problem at the salon.
I sit down to write this while Daniel is at work. For me, masturbation is private. I don't know if he does and I don't think he needs to know that I do.
From that first time, in the dark of my grandparents' guest room, stroking myself to orgasm has been accomplished in quiet retreat. Some things are more sacred for the solitude.
The mouse waits. I've set aside the old one, clunkier with three buttons, the shape all wrong. When I set my hand on the optical mouse, a shiver arrows to my groin. Its curve arches into my palm, echoing the smooth pressure of my mons. I slide my index and ring fingers into the grooves of the left and right mouse buttons, finding the niche made between my labia and the hollow of my thigh. Delicately, my middle finger rests on the scroll wheel. The wheel is rubber, some give to it, with turgid resilience beneath. By bending and flexing my finger, I can dial the wheel forward and back. It flexes slightly, humming as it rolls.
I press my palm more firmly, my outside fingers keeping a tactile purchase on the buttons. I roll the pad of my finger with intent; the arch of the wheel insinuates itself into the valley of softer flesh, just below the rim that rises to my fingernail. My hips flex in time with the rolling. Just as I discovered at work, my finger is tuned. But now I turn myself over to it. My clitoris throbs, being rubbed through the nerves in my finger. The seam of my capris helps, too, but I am impatient to have myself now.
I undo the side button and slip my left hand in -- not my favorite, not as skillful. Or as sensitized. But my right hand must alternate between the keyboard and the mouse. It won't take long. I pause between each typed sentence. I scroll the wheel. Rub me at both ends. Like a candle, burning, the space between the fired ends grows tighter.
And the flames crash together.
My left hand returns to the keyboard, damp, fragrant. The mouse sits pristine, cord gracefully looping down to disappear in the pocket of the desk. I press my thighs together as the heat dissipates, melting through my muscles.
Did a woman engineer design this? I picture her as a woman like myself, a curve on her lips as she checked the fit and size. The middle finger must arch just so, rest exactly here. The wheel's tensile response carefully tested. Perhaps she made it that way for her own pleasure. As a tribute to her own pleasure. Then sent it out into the world to see who else recognized it.
As I do here.
