Posted by Lex Konrad in Snaps | Oct 19, 2007
Safer sex
What is the difference between art and porn? Is it money? Is it lighting? Is it intent? Is it the presence (or absence) of an erection, or semen? Is it a government grant?
In matters of human sexuality I think we’re asking all the wrong questions.
What do you think?
Posted by Lex Konrad in Sex | Oct 18, 2007
LIEUTENANT: I think we can handle one little girl.
LIEUTENANT: I sent two units. They’re bringing her down now.
AGENT SMITH: No, Lieutenant, your men are already dead.
There are really only two kinds of people in the world: those who believe drag is inherently funny, and those who believe drag is funny if and only if the person wearing drag is funny. As someone who’s donned an elegant cocktail dress on more than one occasion, I count myself among the latter. This is perhaps why I so despise Lucky Cheng’s, that queer-lite circus show for sheltered suburbanites. It is the Will & Grace of New York nightlife.
I know, I know. Tell us how you really feel, Lex.
Les and I met DangerGirl in the basement of Cheng’s for a comedy show, which was very funny in spite of my reservations about the venue. But after we went upstairs for a post-show cocktail we found ourselves surrounded by tipsy bachelorettes in penis hats. I stepped out for a smoke to calm my nerves, leaping over a puddle of vomit some bride-to-be had thoughtfully deposited at the top of the stairs, and on the sidewalk I witnessed one of those moments of unintentional comedy that makes New York living seem almost worthwhile.
The recipe was explosive: take a 6’1” drag queen in stiletto heels, a gaggle of diminutive trollops from Jersey (one of them presumably the girl who’d forgotten the contents of her stomach at the top of the stairs), and stir in liberal amounts of alcohol. Top it all off with an unpaid tip. I dropped my ciggy and ran indoors when the scuffle broke out.
Les, DangerGirl and I had dinner at an empty sushi restaurant on 1st Avenue. The plan was to finish eating and then retire to ours for a night cap and the usual three-way play: a little girl-on-girl, then maybe a double blowjob, followed by the good old in-out, in-out in a variety of exciting positions. DangerGirl wore a black fedora with a feather in the band — I looked forward to seeing her in nothing but that cap.
DangerGirl wanted to meet another couple she knew who happened to be at a bar nearby. I should have said no; I could have said no. I couldn’t shake the feeling that there was something evil in the air, that the city was on the verge of exploding into madness and chaos at any moment. But I said nothing.
To be fair, the wife was tall and slender and fetching — a group scenario involving her might have been interesting. We ordered a round, and then another, and before long the six of us had changed venues yet again. I found myself on the street taking pictures of a guy beating the crap out of his friend with an orange traffic barrel. It was only after the kid was left curled up on the sidewalk in a fetal position that I put away the camera and extended my hand.
“I’m okay,” he said, stumbling to his feet with a smile. “I am so gonna kick his ass later on.”
Madness and chaos indeed.
We were in some forgettable pub. In my drunken haze I hoisted DangerGirl upon the pool table and thrust my tongue into her mouth while squeezing her breasts. Someone threw ice at us; it may have been the bartender. I didn’t give a damn. “Fuck you all very much,” I said on the way out.
DangerGirl’s friends lived in one of those recently-constructed, parquet-floored apartments in Battery Park City, the kind of generic abode you swear you’ve seen a million times before if you’ve lived in Manhattan long enough. What the fuck am I doing here? After a minute or so the fetching wife announced, rather abruptly, that she was going to turn in for the night. Hubby was unfazed, as if this sort of thing were to be expected. (Sometimes people think Les and I have the strangest relationship — I submit these two as evidence to the contrary.) Soon a bottomless DangerGirl lay sprawled across the rug in the living room, rising to her knees as I approached her with my cock hanging out.
The girl was talented. Of the women who have sucked my dick, she is among the select few who took to the task as if her life depended on it. I had every intention of returning the favor, that is until she pinned me beneath her and it dawned on me that I was on the wrong end of some sort of wrestling maneuver.
There is something you don’t yet know about DangerGirl. You see, she truly is dangerous, and not just in some vague femme fatale sense. She wrestles men as a hobby. For money. I’m not opposed to rough play but springing this on someone unannounced is as douchey as “accidentally” slipping your penis in your girlfriend’s ass. We rolled around, pushing the couch about and knocking stuff off the shelves. “Tap out bitch!” yelled DangerGirl.
Hubby was apparently too mesmerized for words. Les, however, was apoplectic: “Guys! What the fuck?”
I had by now gotten to my feet, having figured out that the secret to winning against DangerGirl is to not let her get you down in the first place. Still, she clung to my leg and tried to pull me down again. Is this bitch trying to fuck me or kill me? I looked at the leering husband, then at my distressed fiancée, and finally reached for my underwear, borrowing a line I’d heard from some chick years ago: “Sorry, this isn’t erotic for me.”
It had been a long time since I’d said no. It felt liberating.
I ran into DangerGirl at a party a few days later. “Are we okay?” she asked, slipping an arm around my waist.
“Yeah,” I responded, “we’re okay. If we do that again though, I’d like to know what I’m getting myself into.”
Posted by Lex Konrad in Snaps | Oct 05, 2007
The ass
The kiss
Just to let you know, that sort of behavior is actually the norm. It’s standard practice. You’ll be offered drugs, y’know? You’ll have threesomes, dinners, y’know? You’ll end up going into town in a taxi, have a couple of drugs, have dinner, have a threesome, go home again, have a shower, go out again… more drugs, more threesomes. Happens all the time.
-Murray Hewitt (from Flight of the Conchords)
Posted by Lex Konrad in Dispatches | Oct 04, 2007
I couldn’t tell the difference between laughing and throwing up but I wasn’t throwing up so I must have been laughing.
***
“You really should have some,” Leslie said to me hours earlier, quaffing the last of her mushroom tea from a cheap plastic cup.
“I don’t know… shouldn’t I be the responsible one tonight?”
Les took in our surroundings. The guests at this sparsely attended affair danced, or sat talking with friends, or else laid about in what must have been a shroom-induced state of torpor. “What’s the worst that could happen?”
***
I was disappointed thus far. Not only was the chunky, bitter brew disgusting, but I wasn’t feeling anything. “You feelin’ it?” I asked Les, “Cause I’m not.”
“Me neither.”
A papier mache head of a troll, as tall as a man, stood in a nook by the chill-out room. It began to sort of, well, rock back and forth and for a moment I let myself believe my moment of revelation had arrived. That is, until the people around me confirmed that the head was indeed rocking rhythmically to and fro. A friend of ours crept up to the troll head, bending down and opening the fully articulated jaw. She spun around and giggled. “Oh my gawd… two people are fucking in there!”
Word of the mystery couple’s doings spread around our little encampment and soon everyone erupted into fits of laughter. Occasionally a random party-goer would wander through our area, do a double take, and approach the head to investigate. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” someone would say, or else, “If the head is a rockin’ don’t come a knockin’!”
What a mind-fuck it all was.
The rhythmic motion ceased abruptly. “We just witnessed a pivotal event in the history of the West,” I told someone. “I am certain that hundreds of years from now scholars will look back upon whatever just happened here and say this was the moment everything came to a head.”
When the man laughed I noticed dazzling seventies-style floral prints creeping in at the periphery of my vision. The patterns soon overtook every object in the room, making it seem as if everything in my field of view was crawling with life. And yet faced with this undeniable proof of the fallibility of my senses, all I could think was: This is such a cliché. I closed my eyes, and upon opening them again the scene was recast in glowing pixels, as if I were standing with my nose pressed up against a plasma monitor.
Post-millennial visuals for a post-millennial trip… I was satisfied.
***
Oh, I get it.
The music, the decorations, the tents, the floor-to-ceiling columns of light — they all finally made sense to me. I stepped out onto the roof to take a leak. My piss ran in rainbow colors, as did the chain link fence, as did the brightening sky.
Oh, I get it.
Wandering around, I found Leslie and took her hand. “This is much more agreeable than acid,” I said to her. “I still know where I am, I still know who I am, but I’ll be damned if I’m not tripping my ass off. For example, I know that’s just my friend Jim standing over there but right now the simple fact that he exists blows my mind.”
***
A wave of euphoria washed over me as the black car ferried us back into Manhattan. I thought about the odd series of events that conspired to make the weekend what it was, how I couldn’t have made it up if I tried and certainly never could have engineered it. And I’m pretty sure I laughed, even if it felt a little bit like throwing up.