Describing Mardi Gras in New Orleans only using words is so unfair. How can you even get the colors right? How can you possibly do justice to the elaborate floats, masked riders, baubles and beads and trinkets being tossed and the wild partying? But, then again, everyone's seen the pictures, right? Of the mad horde of humanity pressed into the French Quarter's Bourbon Street, the drinking and the baring of boobs for beads being tossed from the balconies there? Of the costuming, masks and the ritualistic splendor of bal masques?

Ah, but, Diary, it's all those things you've seen in pictures in newspapers and so much more. It's a feeling that invades the very air we breathe. And it's not just a day, not just that one Tuesday before Lent starts. It's a whole Carnival Season, stretching from January 6, Twelfth Night, until midnight of Shrove Tuesday. We rouse ourselves from bed on Ash Wednesday to get our foreheads marked with sooty crosses inside church where we repent for our sins of the season.

For most of the people I know, the real fun of the season is going to the countless parties given in friends' homes before and after parades. More than just an excuse for a party, it's a way to share the experience.

On Twelfth Night, I rarely miss the chance to attend an annual party given by friends who live a block off upper St. Charles Avenue, which is the route of that night's only parade.

This parade does not feature the elaborate floats done with garish colors or ornamented with wild flowers and figurines that most parades do. Instead, the costumed riders on this night come up St. Charles Avenue aboard a group of streetcars festooned for the occasion. The krewe, the organization that puts it on, is known as the Phunny Phorty Phellows and their parade officially heralds the beginning of Carnival Season in New Orleans.

I hadn't ever expected to show Terry the absolute delight I take in Carnival Season. But I'd wanted to - ever since that first night we met, when he toured Bourbon Street with me.

He shouldn't have been here just now, you know, Diary. He wasn't supposed to be here at all. But Uma had sent him to me a few days earlier and, if not for her, we would never have had the chance to resolve the chasm I'd opened between us.

So he was here. Things were going well. In so many ways, better for having gone through the pain to emerge on the other side wiser and liberated. Understanding what we'd be to each other, for each other now. There had been moments since he'd been with me ... ah, but, Diary, that's not fair to him. I do seem to have a knack for torturing myself.  Terry just happens to be someone with whom I don't always feel the need to hide that element of me. It's a mark of how much I've always trusted him.

Nights after he'd been with me, he found me outside on my back deck, so late I felt like I was the only person awake for miles. The dark gray fog was sentient, breathing right along with me. So far inside myself that he told me later he'd thought I was sleep walking when he'd found me there.

"When I remember Mardi Gras as a child, it's always at night," I told him. Shook my head and smiled at him. He didn't understand and why should he? How does another person understand how memories invade at times like this when even you aren't sure what the trigger was? "Night time parades are somehow more magical and yet more real when you're a child in this city. Everything's at once more vivid and yet the blackness has such sharpness and hidden danger."

He didn't touch me, Diary. Just pulled out a chair and sat to listen. 

"See, it can overwhelm you when you're little. And adults forget. Lights and masks and costumes and so many people. It can be too much. It can make you dizzy."

Staring into the living fog and trying to see why I sometimes feared that which captivated me the most.

"I've never quite understood why it's an essential element of this season to be both excited by the spectacle and scared of what waits in the dark beyond," I said and I'm not sure if I was saying that to him or to me.

"Come let me hold you, love," he told me in that solid voice that was so perfect for a night like this.

"I'm cold. Take me to bed. Hold me there."

We made the slowest love that night. For once, he barely spoke. I did the speaking instead. Not at all sure where the images had first come from but they were in me and he liked them. I bent over him and whispered in his ear. He closed his eyes and went with me into my dream as I found the words to make it real to him.

Funniest thing was that the dream hadn't ever been about him. It had been a faceless lover who'd first come to me when I'd needed him most but he had never been able to make me feel what Terry did that night.

He moved to the rhythm I described. His hands did for me what the ghost of a dream lover would have so liked to have had the corporal integrity to accomplish. His soul was a safe blanket around us, a cocoon in which we could explore this dark fantasy of mine.

In the end, kneeling up, feeling the length of him as his hardness slid inside my softness. So slow. So controlled. Talking him through it. Convincing him to convince me. He slid back out. Slower, if that was possible. His silence intensely provocative. Slightly threatening, as if his passion could find no voice and it would all be in his body and in his ability to control me even when he was in the midst of exploring my own wishes.

In. Tingles of frustrated longing for release. Out. Longing to have him back. In. Redemption in the stroke. Out. Sacrifice of my reason. In. No more inhibitions in the night. Out. Abject desire. In. Loss of self in the unity between us.

Coming in a way that shook my sense of self, I cried into my arms and he gathered me to him to cry upon his chest instead. Finding his voice at last to comfort me. To say the words I needed. You know what I mean, Diary. How much you need the right words in that moment when you realize just what's happened between you and you need to know you didn't do it without a cost to you both.

As always, our time together those days was too brief and I didn't want to squander one second. So I had considered not participating in this annual Twelfth Night celebration, something I cherished with just such enthusiasm that he couldn't resist being a smart-ass about it all. He'd been acting more and more reluctant as the day wound to night.

"You have to mask," I had told him. "You cannot come with me if you won't."

"Fine. I won't go." Tossing the mask I'd given him aside and looking at me. Waiting to see if I'd beg him.

"Great. I'll be back in a few hours. Well, probably more like about six hours, I would guess."

"By yourself? You're going out, like that, by yourself? At night? In this city? Are you fucking mad?"

Smiling at him. He looked so sexy like this. Trying to not be hurt that I didn't need his protection to function. "I'll be fine. The taxi will take me within a block or two of the parade route and it's a short walk from there. I'll be at a friend's house before and after the parade. Don't worry. Beer's in the fridge, watch some sports on TV. When I get home, I'll be a bit drunk so I'll probably jump your bones as soon as I stumble in. I'll try not to wake you."

Laughing with me. The very idea, he scoffed. As if he could sleep through me having my way with him.

"Ah, Terry, you say the sweetest things." Looking at him, taking him in, wishing he was coming with me, wishing he wanted to come with me. But I never brought anyone to a Mardi Gras celebration who wasn't in the spirit because I refused to be dragged down.  "You really would have fun tonight. And you look so sexy."

Rolling his eyes and slumping down onto my couch. Tugging on my hand and I knelt before him. In the dress I was in, I wasn't about to crawl on top of him. It was a bit too fragile to be grinding against him like I never seemed to be able to resist doing. The dress had a smattering of bugle beads and fake pearls sewn atop emerald green silk faille. Hem falling to tea length and the back neckline dropped so low you could almost see my crack.

Terry? Sweet Lord. The man made even a rental tux look like this side of heaven.

"So what do I get if I go?" he asked me and I realized he had been wanting to come all along but that he now wanted me to entice him. How could I have ever thought Terry's bad boy would have passed up the opportunity for a great party?

I bit my lip and then gave him my most winning smile. "Beads. Pretty strands of shiny plastic beads. And as good as you look, baby, you'll probably get lots and lots of beads. And you'll get the good ones, too, not those cheap ones."

"Do I really have to flash my dick to get 'em?" Giving me that sexy little growl of his.

"God, no! Although ..." Looking at his crotch and thinking about how he'd clean up in the Quarter if he tugged that monster out. "No. Absolutely not. Only the tourists flash skin to get beads. And it's certainly not something you'll see a lot of in this stretch of the parade route because it'll be mostly locals out tonight. I personally find it rather vulgar. The idea of having to show your tits to get beads! Really. If that's all you can do, then you have no skills at all."

"So you don't show your breasts?"

"No way. I have other charms at my disposal."

"Such as?"

"You have to ask?" I winked at him and he chuckled. "Seriously. It's my sweet smile. And the way I put my request. And then, like tonight, if you're willing to either dress up nice at something like this or wear a costume at other parades, the riders will love you."

"And just how do you put your requests?"

"Well, if it's a rider I'm asking, it's so noisy they can't really hear you. So you have to catch their eyes. Give them the right look and an enticing smile. Plus, you shake it just right as you reach up to beg. Gets 'em every time. Most of the riders are male, you know. But tonight there are men and women riding. Honey, you'll clean up from the women. Lord, you'll be covered in big beads and all you'll have to do is stand there."

"But I'll be in this bloody mask. They won't even be able to see me."

"They'll see your eyes." Big exaggerated sigh. "But most of all, they'll see your body. In that tux? God. You'll be the top bead slut tonight."

Now laughing full out at me. Seeing the light in my eyes and knowing I lived for this. "So that's how you do it with the riders?"

"Yeah. The people on the floats. But you also can beg beads from other people watching the parade with you. That's actually more fun in a lot of ways. It can get very ... personal."

He leaned in toward me, fingers light and warm on my bare back. Sending shivers sliding up my spine. "Personal?"

"Um. Sure. It becomes a negotiation." Mouth glancing along his clean-shaven cheek while my nose absorbed his aftershave's heady scent. God damn. Does anything beat a good-looking man in a tux, Diary? "You're the master negotiator, baby. But I might be able to teach you a few tricks for tonight."

"Right. That's likely." Sassing me as he sniffed my perfume and his hands were pressing into my skin a little more demandingly. 

"Here. I'll give you a lesson." Crook of my eyebrows as I caught his eye. "Hey, good looking. I really like these fancy beads you're wearing."

Fingering the nicest set I'd given him that evening. You have to start every parade wearing a few strands of really nice beads so you'd look right, I had told him as I had first hung them around his neck and he groused about wearing necklaces.

I leaned back and smiled that bead smile I'd possessed since I was a child.

"Yeah? You like these, do you, baby? What will you give me for them then?" Terry asked, husky voiced. Giving me a bead smile he was probably born with and why is that? "Think you might have something I'd trade for these?"

Mouth at his ear. Boobs leaning into his chest. Hands resting on his tush. Little squeeze. "I'll give you a nice kiss in exchange for those pretty beads."

"Tongue or no tongue?"

Giggling against him. "Tongue."

"Bloody Christ, woman. You're a slut. You tongue a bloke to get a strand of cheap plastic beads?"

"Sure. It's the best part of Mardi Gras. The beads are the trophy." Winking at him, revving him up and loving it. "I only slip my tongue into the good-looking men. The not-so-good-looking ones only get a little smooch on the cheek."

He rolled his eyes at me.

"So? Is that a 'yes' or a 'no' on these beads? Cause if it's a 'no,' then I gotta go find another guy to negotiate with."

"Okay, it's a deal. But I expect enough tongue action to make it worth my while because some slutty woman I half-way like gave 'em to me and I'm not giving them away for free."

And this was how Terry got his first lesson in negotiating for beads. He learned very well, as I'm sure you'd expect, Diary. After he gave me those beads, he negotiated himself a set from around my neck. We would have negotiated back and forth between ourselves all night, but after about three exchanges, I decided he had it down pretty well. Well enough to take him out on the streets for the relatively sedate mayhem of the Twelfth Night's only parade.

My friends' party was crowded, it was noisy, there was plenty to drink and it was a requirement that you dressed up nice. And you had to mask or you didn't get in the door.

Masking's something of an important part of the culture in New Orleans. Most people who have lived here for any length of time have masks galore. Masks here come in many different styles. The most popular seem to be the ones made of various types of feathers, usually mounted on a plastic support with an elastic band to hold it on your head, and they only cover the top half of your face. Others are fabric or plastic ones that cover the entire face. And then there are the more elaborate, hand-made masks, often of stiff leather and done in intricate, colorful designs that can be perfect to wear, whether you're dressed as a court jester or queen or devil or bird or Roman god or whatever. These also usually only cover the face from about the cheeks to the forehead. And there are, of course, various combinations of these. But the important thing, to me anyway, is what a mask says about you. I choose my masks very carefully to go with whatever outfit I'm wearing and whatever mood I'm in. Slip into one that's perfect and you slip into a different persona.

I'd gotten Terry a nice masculine mask of felt and dark feathers layered over plastic underpinnings. When he put it on that night, it was about all I could do to keep my hands from simply stripping him bare and having at him. There was something about the way it set off his eyes and mouth and chin. Lordie. But I persevered and within a half hour we were walking hand in hand into my friend's home.

He tried to stick close to me but somehow we got separated in the crowd and noise. I finally found him about an hour later, out back with the cigarette smokers. Three women were deep into negotiations with him. Or perhaps it was the other way round. You never could tell with Terry. For sure he didn't seem to mind. And he already had a lot more beads that he'd left home with.

Caught his eye as soon as I walked out. Bad boy grin and an impish light in those eyes. I shook my head at him in amusement and went back inside. I'd been standing at the bar to get another drink all of about two minutes when I felt hands on my bare back, edging under the fabric at my waist.

"I absolutely do not want to know what you had to do to get those beads, baby," I told him, glancing back at him over my shoulder, happy at how pleased he looked with himself.

His teeth caught my ear lobe and then his mouth suckled me there. I nearly dropped the wine the bartender was handing me. Terry whispered, "But think how much fun we'll have as you convince me to give each of these to you. One strand at a time."

Turning in his arms and seeing the unmistakable glaze in his eyes that was a combination of drink and too many women flirting with him. "Handsome, I think I might just prefer negotiating a way for me to get all those beads in one fell swoop."

A cheer went up as our hosts announced it was time to head to the parade route on St. Charles. A small brass band had been engaged to march us down there and most of us fell in behind them in the traditional second line. Don't know what that is, Diary? A second line is the people who follow the brass band and dance along to the beat you can feel in your chest. In that way, the second line becomes part of the entertainment.

Took his hand and led him outside. Tried to get him to second line with me but he said he'd rather watch. Enough booze in me to not give a shit at that point because I was second lining, with or without him. But as we made our slow way down the block to St. Charles, every time I looked for him, he was slowly strolling along on the sidewalk. He was trying to act casual but I knew he was keeping watch over me.

We stood on the green grass of the neutral ground, the broad strip in the middle of the avenue upon which the streetcar rails run. Waiting for the parade. Listening to the band rumble and tease. Sipping alcohol and reveling in that tipped haze. Terry finally dancing with me; making me a memory I'd wrap up tenderly to take back out on nights when I needed to feel special.

"How much longer?" he breathed into my ear, standing behind me, one big hand wrapped around my waist as he swayed with me to the beat. "I want to take you home and see about that negotiating you were promising."

Leaning back against him and looking up through the overspreading limbs of sheltering oaks at the wisp of a moon winking at me from the cloud cover. A memory of pain that made me shudder.

"Remember the last time you were here?" I asked him, so softly in hopes he wouldn't hear as I looked down the street in the direction of where we'd stood when I'd made a mistake. My eyes caught the sight of the approach of a parade. The way the crowd of people waiting would press in toward the riders and you could catch the twinkle of plastic beads being tossed, this time from the open windows of several streetcars moving in concert toward us.

Perfect antidote to the way I would have, given half a chance, let myself rehash a bad time in my life; like the gods of Mardi Gras brought this season to me once a year to help me remember how important it was to have fun in life.

"Here it comes. Here comes the parade." Up and down the knots of people near us, kids were yelling and jumping in anticipation.

Taking his hand, I edged us forward, toward the front of the sparse crowd. Stopped to lean into his ear to be heard in the rushing noise around us. "You'll have to develop your own style for begging beads from the riders."

"Maybe I'll just watch how you do it the first time," he said, giggling at me, thinking it was oh-so-cute that I actually had a strategy for this.

First streetcar-turned-float neared us and I left him to go beg beads. I cheated; I had a few friends riding on this one and I was able to get their attention so I cleaned up. Strolled away with my head held high and showed him the seven long strands of fancy, shiny beads I'd collected.

Next streetcar came and I pushed Terry to the front, ordering him to try his luck. I watched, laughing at him as he decided to give it his best. Diary, his best was damned good. He walked along, peering intently into the windows with female riders, giving them a look that must have melted them because he came sauntering back with at least a dozen long, quite beautiful beads.

"Wow, Terry! That's fantastic. They gave you only their best stuff." Hugging on him as he slowly placed them around his neck. Trophies. He liked this game. And I could see it in his partially-tipsy eyes - he was already contemplating getting more trophies from the next float.

He was a charmer, all right, and he got lots of attention and beads that night. Man, let me tell you, Diary, I've ridden for years on a float in a major Mardi Gras super-parade that draws ten times the crowd of this night's parade. And even in the midst of that sea of humanity, I would have picked out a man who looked like him and showered him with the good beads. It was more than the body or the face; it was the smile and the way you could tell he was having a blast.

Three streetcars later and the parade was over. We strolled back to my friend's house together, hand in hand and I listened to his voice, knowing he was loose and now fully into the mood of Carnival.

We only stayed at the party another hour and then we were stumbling back up to St. Charles, hailing a taxi for my house. In the back seat, I snuggled up next to him and felt such joy at sharing this experience with him. It rushed back over me how lucky I was that I had a friend like Uma who would have made it possible. I wondered if she'd understand how much I cherished having this opportunity and how I didn't want to waste it?

"You've gone quiet," he said to me. "Post parade crash?"

"Nah. Thinking about which of these pretty beads I'm gonna beg off you."

"Let's negotiate a bit then, love. Learned a few new tricks tonight I'd like to try out on you."

Examined his trophies. Picked out one set, looked in his eyes with my sultriest bead smile and said, "I like these very much. If I give you a nice kiss, would you let me have them?"

His eyes narrowed. He looked from me to the strand I was fingering. Shook his head. "I don't know if a kiss will do it."

"Oh, no? Even with tongue?"

"Even with tongue."

"Hmm. Well, let's see. I wonder if it would make any difference to you at all that I haven't - exactly - specified where I'd be kissing." I pressed into him and let my hand stroke over his crotch. Felt an instant response from him. "Does location make a difference or is that a flat out 'no' to a kiss?"

His eyes lit with mischief and his face split into a grin. "Well, I can see you know how to up the ante in your counter-offer. So hate to just shut down the negotiations and leave such a sweet second bid on the table."

"So are we close? To a deal, I mean."

He yanked my body in tighter to his, smoothing one hand over my bare back before sliding it completely under the fabric. I arched into his hand when it came to rest on my breast. "I'd say we're close."

"Are there other terms we have to ... Damn, baby, if you don't stop that, I'm the one who's gonna start handing over beads." I shut my eyes and swallowed deep. My voice was hoarse when it finally came out. "So ... what other terms ... um ... Terry?"

"Yeah ... other terms ..." He put his mouth at my ear and began whispering to me. I was so wet by the time he stopped. And he only stopped, I believe, because the taxi had arrived at my house.

Inside my home, we shucked off our beads, masks and clothes. I was kissing Terry's neck, wandering already with my hands. Feeling that touch of moisture at his tip that always seemed to have an eroticism that could affect me beyond reason. I paused only long enough to push him gently back onto the couch.

His fingers playing in my hair as if he had not a care in the world and yet his legs and tummy were flexed with tension. Murmuring to him as I licked up his pre-cum and began to give him the kiss I'd promised. He sat up and kneaded my breasts as I took him ... slow, tender, heart-felt, deep.

Groaning low in his throat, begging me to keep going. Knowing how much he turned me on like this. Frustration and want. Satisfaction and release. His hands now holding me in place as he let go for me. He fell back on the cushions with this guttural growl of pleasure and contentment as he came.

From where I was, I watched him settle against the softness of my couch afterwards. He looked so peaceful in this moment; benevolent smile at me. Almost placid. I remembered what he'd told me about what he felt I gave him. Peace. I climbed up on top of him and his arms wrapped around me as he kissed my forehead.

"Annie girl?" he murmured to me a few minutes later and I gave a soft grunt of acknowledgement.  I felt his hands slip down my back and then one of them began to worry around my damp curls below. "You know those big, shiny purple beads you got tonight? What would it take for me to get those from you?"

Huge gasp from me as he let a finger slowly, deliberately begin to circle my clit. I yelped out his name when first one and then a second finger slipped inside me and found that wonder spot; I've accused him before of having some kind of special radar for it.

Swallowing deep and finding a voice: "Not good enough, Terry. Not for those beads."

Hearing a chuckle and then feeling him lift my hips while he slid under my body. When I felt his mouth at my opening and he began this long, deep kiss of the most intimate sensation of caring, I started shaking. Stay with me, he said.

"My second bid's now on the table," he whispered, knowing I could barely talk much less negotiate at that point. "Shall we close the deal?"

"Oh God." Suckling mercilessly on me until I whimpered out that he could have all my beads. Coming deep and thoroughly, yet still he didn't give up. Every last one, I kept saying until he finally relented. He chuckled as he let me crawl back down into his arms.

"You're not a very good negotiator," he told me. "I only wanted the one set of beads."

"Consider the rest a bonus," I muttered.

Ah, but I was always much too easy where Terry was concerned. Yes, Diary, I never could fool you about that, could I?