From the age of about eighteen, when it came to women, I began to notice they looked at me in a special way, you know, different from guys. The smile, the corner eye glance, the cocking of the head, and so forth. As I aged, the “look” matured, became more explicit, or perhaps I became more proficient at interpreting the look. Basically, the expression was one of, “I recognize you as a male, an example of masculinity, and I am interested.” Now, I’ve been married since I was twenty, never strayed or sampled the wonder of feminine charm other than my wife, not in our entire forty years together. Yet I still recognized the look, and sometimes the accidental “touch”. You know, the split second bush of fingernails on the arm or a carefully placed palm on you chest for one second. Nothing wrong with it, just a harmless signal.

Here’s the kicker. About the age of fifty, I began to sense a change. The look had morphed, but to what? I tried to make sense of it, but it evaded me. I shook it off, ignored it, thought I was imagining things. Then about two years ago, I had an encounter with a young lady in here thirties in a retail store. She came up and made contact, but it was with the back of my arm and to my side. It was not quick and passing, but direct. They was an expression of endearment, almost…what the hell was it? Then it hit me. She was admiring me as she would her dad or grandpa. I was no longer an icon of vitality, masculinity, I was a remembrance of a fatherly role model. I sighed, cast my eyes to the ground and slowly left the store. Every place I went, encountered a young lady, a cashier, a stocker, any woman my junior, there was that say look. I had experienced the changing of the guard, the old bull let out to pasture.

Well, it was a hell of a ride as a mucho guy while it lasted. Guess I’ll go out, set on the porch, and watch the cars drive by.

I will be out of the loop for the next few months dealing with a medical crisis in my life. At first I figured the big guy would march on and do his normal routine. Now the more doctors I see, the more I realize my world will be anything but routine. I will return in three or four months. Till then, everyone take care.

Michael Davis (Davisstories.com)
Author of the year, 4/09

On the loops and chats where I participate as an author, I notice reference to female erotica. I know what is erotic to a man. Watch a porn flick and you get the idea. But what is erotic to a woman? And is the reading of erotica for the same purpose men watch porn? I’ve often wondered, given I keep hearing women are not visually oriented when it comes to sex, how does female erotica affect them. It’s clear with a man why we watch and how we respond, but what about a woman. Is it to read something she would never attempt but is curious about? Is it for physical stimulus and arousal like porn to a man? Is it just a fantasy thing that fulfills some mental need to fantasize but not to execute; what is the reason? I can’t even fathom a guess on this one so I’ll allow Candace or some other lady to give her take on it.

Big Mike (Davisstories.com)
Author of the year, 4/09

Guys do talk about women, no not just how hot they are, but the good and the not so good. One recurring “drives me crazy” theme is how they sometimes treat their mates like little boys. I’ve watched it, I’ve experienced it. Maybe it’s a hold over from their maternal instincts, but when a small 140 pound female orders a man twice her size to do this, do that, no not that way, you’re doing it all wrong; it drives a man nuts. Two examples will illustrate.

One of my good buds asked me to help him move his boat. When I went done to his house, I watched as his 120 pound wife directed the exact way all his honey do’s were to be conducted. Not in a demeaning tone, but in a determined voice. Latter, at lunch he said, “I’m a grown man, but the woman treats me like a ten year old boy.” I just smiled, because I’d been there myself.

My wife and I were building a brick patio in the hot 93 degree noon sun. Yeah, sweating like a pig. Every other minute she corrected me on ever task I was doing, “No, put the sand bags over here”, “That’s not how the bricks go.” You need more stone over there.” To my credit, I have build patios before so I am qualified to do it, but that little bundle of beauty has to direct my every move. By the end of the day, I had bitten through my lower lip from holding back my frustration all day long.

Just remember ladies, when we’re sick, care for us like a little boy, but when we’re working on your honey do’s take pity and remember we’re grown men.

Till next post.
Michael Davis (Davisstories.com)
Author of the year, 2008

Women are composed of circles and men are composed of squares. A simple concept we can explore a bit further.

A woman’s life is comprised of a myriad of different roles – wife, mother, the maintainer of the household, an employee (or boss), a creative type, and all the other things we women do and are. Some of us enjoy working on crafts; others like to go hunting. Some love cooking; others love yard work. Whatever the woman’s interests and strengths, she is usually expected to be the one in the household who takes care of lots of different things – paying bills, making sure everyone in the family is fed, taking care of kids and pets, etc.

The center circle is the woman herself. Around her, and overlapping that central circle, are additional circles where she places each of her responsibilities. One circle represents employment, one is children, one is personal time, one is for relationships with friends, one is the family mediator, etc. All of them overlap. So, when a woman comes home at the end of a long, hard day at work, this circle of work is still influencing the other areas, such as family and children. She can’t push one circle outside the arrangement; instead it influences everything else.

Men, on the other hand, are represented by a square. Their additional squares of SEX, employment, hobbies, family, kids, whatever, are all lined up outside that center square. When the man comes home after a hard day at work, he can jump from that square and into the square that represents his family life or sitting comfortably on the couch to TV. Gone are thoughts of the job square, or anything else that doesn’t have immediate significance.

That is why men and women think differently. It’s why women have been so often attributed the old line about, “not tonight, dear, I have a headache”. It’s because we can’t keep those other circles from affecting our mood. Have you ever broken up with a man only to have him ask you for sex one last time? That’s his square personality at work. The sex square is the largest and most powerful and the one he jumps into most often, regardless of what other emotions he just experienced!

So thanks, Sheryl, for explaining it in a way that makes sense.

I had never voiced that trait of the female mind that way, but I had to agree with his observation. I’ve talked to other men who have come to the same conclusion: women have self imposed demons that tug at their spirit, chastise them, make them belittle the wonderful creatures they are. “I’m too fat”, “My fingernails are ugly”, “Was I to slutty last night”, “Was I too reserved”, “Am I a good wife”, “Am I a good mother”, and the list goes on and on. The only voice we guys have is “Is my little buddy sufficient to please her”, and “Did I last long enough”, (you’ll notice they’re both sexual demons, but what would you expect from rutting animals). Everything else, we give ourselves the benefit of the doubt, except if we lose our job or the woman we love, then we beat ourselves up like crazy.

I’m not sure why the difference exists, but it does. Read the magazines tuned to the ladies, or watch the shows like Oprah, Dr. Phil, etc. Many of the topics they discuss deal with the voices that haunt women. In our novel Veil of Deception, I actually had the hero struggling to understand this pain women endure and try to help the heroine stop whacking herself. This is not in anyway a dig on women, just the contrary. I came to the recognition of this reality late in my marriage (about ten years ago) and decided to do everything I could to help the woman I love vanquish her hovering demons. Several times a day, I tell my mate how much I love her, how damn good she looks, how her butt turns me on, what a great job she did or whatever, and the truth is, all those statements are true, but women need to hear them. Now, I don’t do this in the hopes of getting a little more lovin’ (wouldn’t work anyway). I do it, and have mentored my son’s to follow suit, in order to help my wife, my grand daughter, my sister, all the terrific ladies I care about to understand what a gift they are too us men.

I’m not sure why all those voices exist; maybe its upbringing, perhaps hormones, perhaps because of past years of struggling for equality. What ever the cause, I believe as men we have to recognize its not an attempt on our ladies part to confuse us or drive us nuts. It’s just another reason we have to love them all the more and help swat away those demons when ever we can.

See ya soon

Michael Davis (Davisstories.com)

Author of the year, 2008

He made me realize just how different our minds think, and the difference in our writing styles.

I sent out a blanket email asking for help with a tag line for my next Champagne Books release in October, FULL THROTTLE. I included a blurb about the book to give everyone an idea of what it is about:

Samantha Roberts partners with her cousin to run Dr. Doug’s Mobile Dyno, a motorcycle testing and performance tuning business. Spurned by an ex-fiancée and resolved to taking care of her aging father and his medical problems, romance is the last thing she’s looking for while expanding her business is at the top of her priorities list.

Along comes opportunity in the form of Linc Montgomery, a tough, business-savvy, ex-Harley racer and new owner of Full Throttle Custom Cycles in Phoenix. Linc is used to having gorgeous women fall at his feet. When he meets Samantha and agrees to contract her dyno services, he quickly realizes she isn’t one of those brainless bimbos he normally dates before carelessly tossing aside.

The challenge is on for Linc as he sets out to seduce Samantha just to prove he can. However, he doesn’t plan on the interference of his ex-wife and her ex-fiancée – both of whom serve to make him realize that along the way, his ‘love her and leave her’ seduction scheme causes him to fall head over heels in love. But it isn’t so easy to convince Samantha she belongs to him.

Now, Big Mike thought this was just a terrible blurb. However, he writes suspense novels, not light romances like this is supposed to be. He wanted to hear something about the heroine’s inner demons and how the hero would slay her dragons. Yes, Samantha’s got some inner demons, but that’s not the focus of this book other than how it relates to her sex and love life!

His suggestions were very apropos for his books, but not for this one. And it also made me realize that since I am targeting purely female readers, they are looking for something in a contemporary romance that is far different from what a male reader would look for to pick out a suspense novel. My women beta testers loved the blurb and the whole idea of the book; men not so much.

Anyway, I’ve added one more sentence to the top of the blurb: “Phoenix is hot, but the bikers are even hotter”. And so far it looks like the tag line is going to be something along the lines of “A sexy romp of full throttle seduction leading to slow burning love” or “When Linc embarks on a full throttle seduction of Samantha, the last thing he expects is love to throw a wrench in the works “. I’m still working on it, though. Any suggestions are greatly appreciated!

After three decades of marriage, I’ve concluded that men suffer from what I call “Moth to the flame” syndrome. Even though we’ve been burned by the fire, we always come back again What do I mean? I have been sent out on a hundred assignments by my boss, and every single time I screw up, but instead of just saying, “Oh, no, there’s no way you’re going to get me this time”, I do it over and over again. And it’s not only me. All my buds suffer from the same sad condition.

Case in point. My wife wanted a new floor mat for the front door and assigned me the job of running down to the store and getting it (the old one was too ugly and we had company coming in from out of town). Now, in my defense, I did ask, “What color?”, “Doesn’t matter,” What shape?”, “doesn’t matter”, “What size?” “Doesn’t matter.” Well you get the idea. The kicker is that I ran through the same series of probing questions every time before, but I still always got the wrong thing, and like a moth to the flame, I always raced back into the fire again and again.

As I pondered carefully at the store over a four-dollar purchase, a young man saw me struggling and came over to help the old man examining every single floor mat in the display over and over.

“Can I help you, Sir?”

“Afraid not, Son.”

“Well, I’d like to try.”

“All right. My wife sent me to the store to find…” I didn’t have to finish my thought. With a sad expression and an understanding tone, he slowly shook his head. “I hear you brother.”

“Then you know…”

“Yes, I know. No matter what you do, it will be wrong.”

We both synchronized with lamenting head nods while the young man shared his own experience.

“Two weeks ago, I asked my newlywed wife, ‘Babe, what’d say we drive up the Blue Ridge and afterward stop for lunch. This will be your day, what ever you want.’ You see, I thought I was doing a good thing. I even asked, ‘What time do you want to stop for lunch’ and she said, ‘Oh, I don’t care you decide’ So around 1100 we were passing peaks of otter (a local restaurant) and she mentioned, ‘Isn’t that a cute little place over there?’ I nodded in agreement and kept driving. After another fifteen minutes I noticed the car had become strangely quiet. She was no longer humming or chatting about this and that. All the morning cheer had been replaced by a frown. ‘What’s the matter, Babe?’ I asked. She looked out the window and announced, ‘You don’t really love me anymore, do you?’ Man, I swear, I almost ran off the road. ‘What? Well of course I love you. You mean everything to me.’ ,‘Then why didn’t you stop when I asked you to? I thought you said this trip was about me?’”

I could see moisture forming in the poor boy’s eyes. “I swear man. I never knew when she said that ‘cute little place’ she meant…”

I firmly patted his shoulder and suggested, “I know son. Don’t try to figure it out. Just accept the inevitable. You will always be wrong. As the years go by, you’ll grow to accept your destiny, grasshopper.”

We both shook hands and departed with a profound appreciation for a man’s suffering and willingness to continually return to the flame. Oh, and I did get the wrong floor mat, but you knew that was coming didn’t you?

Michael Davis (Davisstories.com)
Author of the year, 2008

His question was, “Why do you like having a man in your life? What does a man provide for you, outside of physical and sexual needs, that a woman can’t?”

Well, I thought I had it all figured out. But as I tried to explain, I soon realized that nothing I was saying really made sense. “You men are different than us women. You’re physically stronger. You’re built differently. If we were all alike, then we’d all be gay.”

As Big Mike pointed out, these are all physical characteristics. So they don’t qualify. He asked me to think about it and get back to him. Here’s what I’ve come up with:

Men think differently. They try to solve problems, rather than just relate. This can be a great way to find a new approach to a problem, or give me an alternate insight.

Men are bigger and stronger (yeah, that’s physical again). *sigh* Just like Big Mike said in an earlier post about women being smaller and more delicate, men are bigger and stronger. There, I said it again. And it still holds true. I don’t need my man to be a dragon slayer, but I like touching the hair on his chest and the muscles in his arms when we lay together at night.

His strengths are different than mine. He is more outgoing and more social-oriented. He can build anything. I don’t NEED him to do these things, but the fact that he can works well with my weaknesses. I do the maintenance on our vehicles, am not bothered by spiders, and can certainly take out the trash. But it’s nice to have someone who can build a chicken coop or fix a leaking roof.

And if it were up to him to feed us, we’d be eating at Jack in the Box every night. I’m better at cooking and cleaning, as stereotypical as that sounds. But someone’s got to do it.

He sees things in black and white. I’m more of a gray area type of person. He’s more tactically oriented while I rely on cerebral insights.

My husband is a conservative Republican. I’ve always been a liberal Democrat. Since marrying him, I’ve come around to his way of thinking, for the most part. It just makes sense. We go to church together, and I’ve found a closer relationship with God. Another good thing.

Could a woman do the same things for me? Most likely, yes. But it’s neat to have my man do it instead. I can feel what I want to say, but for once, I’m having a hard time verbalizing it or even putting it down in words.

What do y’all think? Help a fellow female out here, would ya?

Is there anyone out in web world past the age of 25 that hasn’t recognized men and women communicate differently? In the early days of interactions with my life mate, I actually thought my main squeeze did her confusing way of communication to drive me crazy. After about ten years, it finally hit me. She just communicates in a different language, one I was never indoctrinated to in school. Need an example? Check this one out. When we go to the grocery store, if the boss says, “I’ll only be ten minutes,” I now know via my man-woman translator that she means, “come back in an hour or so.” Well, to help expedite the process, I ask for my own list that I can rush around, pick up, and toss into the basket.

About a month ago, I asked, “are we done yet, are we done yet”, and she handed me the dairy part of the page. The only items there were cream, butter, and OJ. I did as directed, got em, ran back, dumped the items in the cart and looked around but she was gone. I pushed the basket around until I found her and yelled, “meet ya at the check out counter”, and ran off. When we got home, after she unpacked all the groceries, she inquired, “Hey, you forgot the sour cream and cottage cheese? “ Now, I felt secure I was safe because I still had my copy of the diary list she had handed me. I extended the list and smiled, knowing I would be vindicated, “Check the list, woman. There’s no mention of sour cream OR cottage cheese.” She frowned. “I didn’t write them down because I know that every time I get in the dairy department to get cream, I always get cottage cheese and sour cream also. So where is it?” I was dumbfounded. “You mean to tell me that I was supposed to read you mind and …” Now get this, then she had the fortitude to inform me, “If you can’t do the job, then don’t offer to help.” Again, even thought I was technically right, I was gender blind when I read her grocery list and did not enact the gender translator. Oh, well. At least it makes life interesting.

Tell next time

Big Mike (Davisstories.com)
Author of the year, 2008

Big Mike took exception to the guy’s comments because he didn’t think it was realistic. Now maybe it’s because Mike was raised as a Southern gentleman and I was raised around men in an auto parts store, but we had a slight difference of opinion. Big Mike contends that the hero would never have stood by while this dialogue was going on, even if the woman was a complete stranger. Alas, but not all men are as chivalrous.

I can think of several instances where I’ve encountered a real jackass. I’ve had an ex-boyfriend slash my tires and throw a knife into the headlights on my beloved Chevy Camaro Berlinetta while I watched. In a previous post, I related how a manager of mine in the auto parts store pounded his fist on the counter mere inches from my face. I’ve been the target of many a raised fist (that luckily never made contact due to the man’s better judgment kicking in at the last minute). I’ve head crude comments when I was walking down the street, such as “Hey honey! Looking good! Want to come for a ride with me?” I’ve seen rude hand gestures, heard smoochy noises, and been subjected to unwanted touching and groping.

In none of these cases did some knight in shining armor come to my rescue, even when there were other men around. Nope, I was on my own.

I have to think I’m not the only one. Ladies, tell me if you’ve encountered a similar circumstance in your life.