Posted by Lex Konrad in Dispatches | Dec 01, 2005
The other night Les and I lay curled up on the couch watching a network drama. About halfway through the episode I spotted a familiar face but thought nothing of it because, well, I often see people who remind me of other people. The network flipped to commercials and my brain shut down again.
The show continued. When the camera cut back to that same face, this time a close-up, my tongue went dry and a surge of adrenaline shot through me. Waitaminute, I thought. I know her. I was certain, absolutely certain, the face I just saw belonged to Bianca, the delightful and lovely aspiring actress we had a fling with this time last year, the one who moved to LA to further her career.
It was yet another surreal moment in my increasingly surreal life. And it was a bloggy moment, one of those times when you say, “Holy crap! I gotta blog this.” At this point I was freaking out a little but I said nothing to Les on the chance that perhaps I was hallucinating and needed to up my meds.
Her face popped up on the screen again and I was doubly certain. I squeezed my girlfriend’s arm. “That’s fucking Bianca!”
“Huh? Really?”
“Yeah, I’m positive. I’d recognize that face anywhere—not to mention those sweater puppies.”
“Sweater puppies? Anyway, I wasn’t paying attention. What are you, in love with her now?”
“No, ass. But it totally was—”
“Shhh… I wanna hear how it ends.”
But for me the rest of the episode was a blur. I was kicking myself for not having fired up the recorder after the first sighting. Then I remembered we live in the 21st century and we’ve got the Internet now. After some finagling with bittorrent I had Bianca’s image freeze-framed on screen. “See?” I said to Les.
“Yeah. That’s definitely her.”
I’m not certain why Bianca’s appearance was oddly disturbing to me. Perhaps it’s just strange to play the peeping tom, to have a surreptitious look into the life of an ex-lover after she’s long gone. Perhaps it’s because there’s a certain poignancy to the memories of something that was cut short—I cannot help but feel I’m connected to everyone I’ve ever had an orgasm with, no matter how long it’s been and no matter what the circumstances were.
Or maybe it’s just that my surreal life, so long walled off from what I thought of as my real life, has overtaken me, and I barely remember who I was before I was Lex Konrad.
Posted by Lex Konrad in Relationships | Nov 16, 2005
I’m on the phone with Natalia. “I’m sorry I missed the party and I’m sorry I disappeared for so long,” she says.
“That’s okay. Really.”
It is okay, I realize. Everything comes full circle. People disappear, for years sometimes, only to reappear. Even Leslie and I, the inseparable duo, have walked our solitary paths.
“I finally broke up with the man so I’ve been dealing with that. He kept pushing the marriage idea and I didn’t want to go there with him and, well, you know…”
And he was twenty years your senior, dear, and wrong for you in a million other ways. But who am I to argue against the comforts of passing the time with someone? Of filling what might otherwise be lonely nights in front of the teevee with a warm and somewhat agreeable human form? No, as much as I’ve dabbled in the dating world it’s still an alien landscape to me. Hopelessly blinded as I am by the love of a good woman, I’m in no place to pass judgement.
So I utter the incantations that are expected of me. “I’m sure you’ll be fine,” I say. “You’re young, after all.”
“I’ll miss the little things he did for me, but I know it’s better this way.”
Dating is eternal return—you place your hope in another but really you’re staring into a funhouse mirror, seeing yourself over and over again, straining to discern truth in illusion. Am I really the creature staring back at me? Maybe the mirror always tells the truth and you have to learn to live with yourself. Maybe it lies until you find someone who puts your faults into perspective. What do I know?
Chris, formerly of the infamous Chelsea Grill, wasn’t so much born as poured from a tap. That is to say he’s one of those rare individuals who’s found his calling, being damned quick with the drinks and damned good with the customers—so good, in fact, that his loyal fans sometimes buy him expensive gifts. Les and I hadn’t seen him for over two years but he stayed in touch and let us know when he landed at a new watering hole on the Upper East Side.
“Still with the same woman?” I ask. His wife is an accomplished novelist. I’ve only met her once or twice.
“Oh yes.” His Irish accent is mild—a slight variation, here and there, on the vowels. “And what about you, Lex? Still with the same garls?” He winks and flashes a devilish grin. Har har har.
It’s the same grin (the addition of a few wrinkles notwithstanding) that he flashed me a little over four years ago on the balmy summer evening this all began, when Leea and Leslie made an arch over my lap, their eyes closed and lips locked together. This was long before it would occur to us to date in threes or attend a naked loft party, when our non-monogamous life was like the kiss itself: wet and blissful and improbable.
He smiles now as Les and Emma form a similar arch over my lap. He smiles and I shrug and we’ve come full circle: in spite of my vain attempts to domesticate these moments they remain as wild and puzzling as ever.
My head may explode one day. This may all come to a screeching halt or else quietly fade to black. But I know my thoughts will return again and again to everything that’s happened, and I’m pretty sure I’ll have a good chuckle every time.
Posted by Lex Konrad in Sex | Nov 10, 2005
V.
We’re standing downtown amid a throng of party people. It’s probably in the 40s. I’m dressed in my tunic, with shorts on underneath, and sandals. Over that I’m wearing a light trench coat. Oddly, I’m not as cold as one might think. “Why didn’t you double-check the date?†I ask Les.
“I don’t know; why didn’t you double-check the date?â€
Here we are—right place, wrong time. “We’re such dumbasses. Heh, looks like it’s just the two of us tonight.â€
We walk toward Girl from Ipanema—well, I walk and Leslie shuffles in her mummy wrap. Her costume proves to be every bit as popular as I’d imagined it would be. People call after her: “Cleopatra! Cleopatra!â€
I’m relieved to have another day of rest before the party. The second consecutive night of drunken debauchery sometimes finds me hanging by a very thin thread indeed.
VI.
I see the better and acknowledge it, but I follow the worse.
-Ovid
I call them sex parties but not all of them are actual sex parties. In swinger lingo the type of event we’re attending tonight is known as an off-premises party, which means that people may talk and flirt and dance but they’ll have to go somewhere else to get naked. In theory anyway. In reality—nudge-nudge, wink-wink—things can get a little out of hand. The off-premises party is our preferred venue for just this reason: we can transgress in a way that’s simply not possible when everyone is expected to be transgressive. Or else, if we’re not interested, we can stand around and socialize without feeling out of place.
And so our journey to the underworld begins. The party is our first One Leg Up affair, soirees I’ve avoided in the past because I found Palagia’s shtick to be a little pretentious. But what the hell. Variety is good. A woman on stilts greets us at the door—I think she’s supposed to be a tree but I can’t be sure. We utter the password: “My climax.” As we walk across the Park’s airy, tree-lined foyer Cleopatra grabs my arm, tittering, “She’s still looking at us. Ohmagawd that’s so creepy!” And the woman is, indeed, bending over at the waist (oh but how does she keep her balance?) and peering at us, pantomime-like, through the doorway.
“I’m freakin’ out maaaaan.” All I can think of, though, is how she’d look naked on those stilts, and what kind of view I’d have if she stood next to me.
On my way up the stairs I unsheath my weapon and brandish it menacingly at no one in particular. “Izzat a dagger I see before me?” I pray I’ll be able to unsheath my other, fleshy dagger at the earliest opportunity. We slip on our masks before we reach the upstairs door, mine gold and Leslie’s black, ornate, very cat-like—we’d prefer not to be wearing them but the party is officially a masquerade ball. Jimmy and a few of the others in our group have to buy theirs from the ticket-taker. We’re admonished against removing our masks until the appointed hour of 1 AM. See what I mean by pretentious? “This isn’t fucking Eyes Wide Shut,” I grumble. Oh well. When in Rome…
Generic Slut #69 is still in abundance but at this party she’s undergone a metamorphosis. Her erect nipples, for example, might poke through a sheer mesh top. She might eschew the customary short shorts for lacy panties. Not that I have a problem with these wardrobe tweaks. One such specimen, a pretty girl with loopy eyes, approaches. She has that vacant, coke-whore aura about her, something so prevalent in this city that I’ve nearly begun to find it sexy. “Are you Caesar?” she asks.
I’ve gotten this two nights in a row. I was annoyed but now I’m mildly amused. “Naw. I’m Mark Antony. I came here to bury Caesar’s ass.” The woman runs off in search of another source of amusement—or perhaps another bump.
I’m talking to Lisa, the badass sheriff in her busty, badass leather outfit. “You look like a black, female Will Smith,” I’d told her earlier when we were having drinks at Jimmy’s apartment. A newbie couple latches on to us and we talk about the wonderful world of sex parties. Inevitably, wherever I go, people see me as some sort of urban sherpa. On the street they’ll single me out for directions. At a club they’ll ask me where the drugs are. At a sex party they’ll grill me on etiquette. I think my perceived authority derives from primal instinct: only the tall ape-men could peer over the brush and spot them sabertooths coming.
The girl on stilts is upstairs with us now, dancing. She’s still doing that creepy mime thing but snaps out of it when I ask her whether her stilts feel as natural as her own legs. She assures me they do.
Les and I wander over by the hot tub, a swinger fixture we’ve missed out on all these years. Juanita, our Barrio neighbor, is in there with Jimmy and a couple other guys. She beckons us to join them. Les pinches my thigh. “Are you kidding me?” I protest. “The girl-guy ratio is all fucked up.” The girl laughs as I eye her neat strip of pubic hair. It’s not that Juanita is unsexy, but she’s painfully heterosexual and most definitely on the hunt for a borefriend—I’d just as well not get all worked up over nothing. I’m talking to Les now but out of the corner of my eye I can see that one of the men in the hot tub is standing up and the other guy is blowing him. I nudge Les and then smirk over my shoulder at Jimmy. Cause I just know he’s a little freaked out.
I cannot recall whether he was the giver or receiver, the guy who’s standing in front of me now in his underwear, still dripping wet from the tub. He has a bit of a Marilyn Manson look. And he wants to see my cock. “You should get into the tub with me. I’ll take care of you.”
Smiling, I say, “No thanks, man. I’m only into ladies and trannies.” This isn’t entirely untrue. I had, after all, kissed Ophelia just a couple nights earlier but s/he is so pretty it almost doesn’t count.
“I’m bored,” I’m telling Les later on. “Other than that guy getting a foot job over there and the gay sex, this party is remarkably tame.”
“Yeah, what gives? I thought these parties had a reputation.”
I shuffle over to the bar and order more drinks. I return to find Les in an animated conversation with a couple—he a friendly-looking fellow in semi-formal attire and she a very pretty, very petite brunette in a bottomless ensemble that reveals her lacy red boy shorts. I soon learn he’s Swedish and she’s German and they’re married and new to this. I tell the husband I spent a week in Göteborg without ever seeing the sun. I speak to the wife in her native tongue. Leslie, always more direct with women than I, employs her tongue in a more obvious fashion, and before I can process what’s going on here the German girl’s lovely tits are out in the open. The guy grins broadly and grasps my shoulder, “Don’t be shy. Touch my wife. Please.” Even after all the time we’ve spent touring swingerland this still sounds weird to me.
“If you insist.” I take a swig of gin and stash the glass somewhere. The girl smiles up at me and places her hand on my waist. I place my palms over her breasts. She’s still smiling. I bow before her and let my mouth explore, sucking and teasing, my lips pursed and pulling at her pink eraser tips. She moans. I kiss the nape of her neck and breathe deeply; the smell hits high and sweet like roses and I’m not certain whether it’s her hair or some perfume she’s wearing. I’m touching the girl from behind, obscenely, my middle finger tracing a path from her clitoris to her tail bone as she locks lips with Les. The husband watches, still grinning and egging me on. The girl shifts her weight against me now, pressing her thigh into my erection, so I lift my tunic and press her hand to me, my eyes fixated upon the small patch of red fabric between her legs. I watch as my hand slips under it, into something soft and warm and wet. My hand is a practiced hand, a relationship hand: after a thousand and one nights of bringing Leslie off as she lies next to me in the dark, it just knows what to do. Deft fingers find the girl’s clitoris, begin to dance over it, subtly varying pressure and speed, perfectly attuned to her movements. Sex is language. Her pivoting hips tell me she wants my fingers inside. Going slowly, careful not to poke or prod, I oblige. When my fingers emerge I offer them to Les, who, closing her eyes, takes them into her mouth and suckles them clean. I kiss my girlfriend, tasting the German girl’s nectar on her lips. Les reaches under my costume to paw at my shorts and I pull them down to relieve the awful swelling between my legs. She squats and wraps her mouth around me, the golden beads in her hair tickling my bare balls a little. I place one hand on Leslie’s crown, the other on the German girl’s breast. I remember we’re standing in a high traffic area. I realize we’re being watched and I don’t care. People mill around us, gathering speed, coupling and uncoupling at a breakneck pace, seeking but not finding, spinning until their colors all run together…
VII.
I’m in a cab. Juanita is seated next to me, I know, even though I cannot lift my head. Leslie is on the other side of her. May as well be a million miles away. I am drunk drunk drunk. Dunno how I got this way. Every bump sends my head bobbing, amplifies my discomfort. Just wanna stop moving. By Jove I swear I’ll never drink again. Never. Again. Just get me home.
VIII
Who keeps company with wolves, will learn to howl.
-Latin proverb
We’re out with Sara at a pub across the street from our old place in Chelsea, having decided to make a stop here after seeing a lackluster horror flick. Sara’s dressed as the tooth fairy, wearing a little pink wig and carrying a jewel-encrusted wand. Les and I decided to forgo our costumes tonight. Movie and a drink. Then sleep. I’m perfectly happy to have a conventional night out for a change.
“Just one beer to bite the dog back,” I tell Les. “I promise. Woof.” She rolls her eyes. I get no sympathy for my overindulgence.
“So what was the party lake?” Sara asks.
“It started off a little slow, but it ended up being fun, even though I wanted to leave before Lex and he was being an ass about it.”
I throw my hands up in mock surrender. “Hay, I was tarbly dronk at the tame.” Sara laughs at my ridiculous attempt to simulate her accent. Clearing my throat, I continue, “It’s about what you’d expect—you flirt a little, dance a little, maybe get a little naked and fool around. Come to think of it, that’s an average night out for us, innit?”
“If one includes the part about you being an ass, then yes.”
“Ouch. So anyway, it was kinda like Friday night, except way more expensive.” I scratch my head and turn to Les. “Wait, why do we go to those parties again?”
“Well, we did have nice costumes.”
“Right? And then there’s the sex addiction. Care to analyze that, doctor?”
Sara smiles. “I’m the last person you should be talking to about seggs addiction. I masturbate three times a day.” Les raises an eyebrow and touches Sara’s leg.
“You know, I tried to jerk off today. Thought it might ease my hangover. Can you believe I nearly bored myself to death? I have access to all this free porn and absolutely nothing did it for me. Hell, even my fond memories of that sexy bitch from last night didn’t do it for me. It was like that Twilight Zone episode where the guy’s all alone in the library, surrounded by books, and he drops his glasses.”
“Do tell about the sexy bitch,” Sara insists. Les relates the whole sordid tale but I’m fuzzy on some of the details.
“Did you—did you blow me last night in front of everyone, or was I just imagining that?”
“No, that happened.”
“Okay, and what was this about them getting mad and storming off? Because I seem to recall—”
“The Clockwork Orange guy—”
“Little Alex!”
“Yeah, little Alex. Anyway, he was eating her out in the hot tub and her husband got angry about it.”
“Oh, well I was sitting next to her, fondling her or something like that, and little Alex came by and stole her from me. Next thing I knew, she and the Swede were gone.”
“No no, that was later.”
“Then where the hell was I when all this was going down?”
“That’s when we were arguing over leaving. I went to get their number, remember?”
“Ach. Scheisse. I can’t believe I missed out on all the sexual intrigue. There’s one thing I still don’t understand, though. I was doing all kinds of stuff to her. Why was that okay?”
“He told me they liked the two of us. Basically we had his blessing.”
“Who was that little Alex guy anyway? Such a fucking vulture. He didn’t even seem to be there with anyone.”
“There were a few creepy guys there, like the one who tried to touch me while you were talking to your boyfriend.”
“Ha. I was busy deflecting his advances. Sorry I didn’t lay the smackdown dear.”
A quiet night out with a nice girl. Thank the gods. I tell Sara she need feel no pressure to attend such debaucherous soirees with us, that we actually prefer nice girls who know something about intimacy. “That’s the reason we stopped going to the on-premises events,” I tell her. “Too many creeps. Everyone had something to prove and there were so many dysfunctional pseudo-couples. It was like high school all over again.”
“So what about the off-premises parties, then? Aren’t they similar?” Sara asks.
I take the last sip of my beer and sigh. “There’s less danger of forgetting your shoes at the end of the night.”
