Two lovers and a friendship that can go no further.

I'm sleeping with two women, both Jewish and both smokers (a strange coincidence as I rarely date within either group). As always I'm passionately ambivalent about them both. The sex is wonderful with one. I'm totally physically wrong for the other, but by Jove the woman has an amazing mind. This year I've learned very well the power of being seduced by the mind. There are two women in my life whose capacity for thought, wit and knowledge amaze me beyond any one, male or female, I have encountered before. One is the one I just spoke of, a classroom rival who passion in arguing against my points caused me to suspect she might shortly stab me in the back with a pencil and wonder if I'd once used and jilted her in a drunken haze. l now know she is simply unable to be argue without arguing passionately and personally. Things other people view from a distance, she holds dear to her heart and when I once triggered one of those passions in bed, I had the very first instance of a woman being so furious with something I'd said that she left my embrace and paced the room as she berated and argued with me. In the calm afterwards, she said "fighting turns me on," and I thought of Jane who once said something to the effect of wanting her romances to be positive not adversarial or manipulative. I don't mind arguments, as long as they are about things of substance. Friction over insignificant things irritates me and is occasionally a source of rancor in this relationship yet I find myself mostly admiring of that diatribe in bed the other night. On some things she was right and in others wrong, but it is hard not to be awed by anyone who holds her beliefs both intellectual and moral so strongly and holds forth on them so eloquently. I find that our chemistry in bed is limited by the basic fact that we're like puzzle pieces from different boards. I'm tall and broad and she is small and lithe and despite the fact that I think her hott, there is an almost comical aspect to our mating. I'm far more experienced than her in bed, which she enjoys but I often wonder if this relationship might be better as a friendship. The thing that keeps me in her bed though, aside of her amazing mind is this openness you don't get except with the intimacy of sex. As someone pointed out to me, it's a lot harder to keep your walls up once you've parted your legs and so there is this revelation that I love and am astonished by that I don't know will continue if we go back to being friends.

Speaking of friends though, the other woman who has seduced my mind is one of those and has caused me no end of consternation. It is testament to how busy I've been of late that I never came here to inquire of your opinions about my dilemma. In short, she is everything I have ever written of wanting in a woman in this space (but for one little thing). She lives close to me. We spend incredible amounts of time together. She is as smitten with me as I am with her. She isn't taken. She's actively looking. That little thing that isn't what I want though is no little thing. I'm not attracted to her physically or sexually. I'm shallow in many ways but I like to think I'm able to put that aside for things that matter. Yet in the matter of romance, I would argue that attraction is extremely important. You can't date someone you're not attracted to. Your eyes will never stop wandering. And still... She is everything I want. Intelligent, kind, thoughtful, intense but playful, lover of art, dedicated to things greater than herself. Her interests and mine coincide in many places and she is by far the best conversationalist I know. And like I said, we're both kind of crazy about one another, except I can't get over that little thing. This happened over time. We known each other over a year. It's just taken some time for us to come to realize how much we like one another. And we've actually confronted this. I begged off, giving no real reason, simply letting her know I thought her amazing but thought it better we remain friends. And she's dealt with it and we've stayed friends but it continues to float in the air because these things don't go away so easy. I'm still conflicted but very much aware of the damage it'd do our relationship if I tried this and it failed. So I'm not sleeping with her.

The other woman I am sleeping with has caused me to reexamine my belief in Succubus. Frankly the woman is insatiable, which is incredibly fun but a mite alarming. Were it not for the fact that we are not able to see each other very often, I doubt I'd ever get anything done. Every time she has spent the night, I've found myself scrambling to get to anything on time the next day. And we've as often just fallen into bed together as made it to whatever event or activity we'd planned for a date. The sex is amazing and she is interesting enough in her own right, but I find there isn't much to our relationship, particularly when I compare it to the two others in which I feel like I'm constantly learning to see the world in the new ways and seeing myself in new perspectives. So I wonder all the time if I should end it and spend my time on more productive things, or if I should shut up and enjoy the sex and let the other relationships be what they will be. A permanent state for me, this ambivalence. Nothing is ever cut and dried.