Posted by Lex Konrad in Sex | Jun 20, 2006
There’s a right way to rock
And a wrong way to roll
You can just listen to your soul
Just remember that life
Is number one
You can be having so much fun
Tim and Eric
High Tea
I’m at Jefferson’s pad, surrounded by perverts, pornographers, prostitutes and philanderers of every persuasion. We are the new dissidents—enemies of a theocratic state, canaries in America’s coal mine—enough secrets among us to set off a firestorm of personal, professional and legal repercussions. There are new faces, fresh additions to an ad-hoc collective that’s starting to feel like home to me.
I sit on the couch, sandwiched between Chelsea Girl and Viviane, leaning forward now and then to make a selection from a coffee table covered end-to-end in dishes piled with tempting finger food. “It’s funny how I wasn’t sure about you at first,” I tell CG.
“But then I grew on you like moss.”
“Yes,” I reply. Like kudzu. Like athlete’s foot. Like red algae. We’ve reached, as they say, a comfort level. She has a certain cynicism or sadness about her—I don’t know which—that appeals to me. She uses big words; I talk about my big penis. If this isn’t a solid foundation for a budding friendship then I don’t know what is.
Leslie and Jefferson are talking about the infamous underwear party of 2003. “I was the art instructor!” he exclaims. Figures. When I first came across his blog I just knew I knew him. And, sure enough, months later Anya mentioned him to me. Now we’ve come full circle. At times New York feels less like a teeming metropolis than a sleepy yet secretly debauched little hamlet—the sort of place one might find in an Updike novel.
Somehow Selina, CG and I get to talking about our toughest times in New York. “Two thousand two was my lost year,” I’m telling them. “I got laid off, went through a traumatic breakup with someone who was ten years younger, and I just sort of fell into a hole.” I don’t know why I tell them this; Les and I rarely talk about it. About the girl. We don’t even invoke her name.
There’s a new girl, Jane, an impossibly slight creature. I catch her eye a couple of times. I’m intrigued and I’m struggling to remember what I’ve read about her.
Viv asks me about Peggy. I never know what to say when people ask about that cool chick we introduced them to however long ago. Our triads are usually good for about three months. Then the girls drift. And we drift. And at some fuzzily-defined point there’s no there there anymore. It used to bother me—lately, not so much. I’m not sure whether this means I’m calloused or just mellow.
People are on their feet now, some of them talking excitedly about their plans for the night. Les and I stand on the balcony trading sex stories with the enigmatic Jamye Waxman. I’m always fascinated to hear about threesomes from the perspective of the proverbial third wheel. People come out to say farewell. I gawk at Selina, who’s now wearing a brand spanking new corset acquired at the Exotic Erotic Expo.
By 6:30 Les and I realize we have to hit the road if we’re to have any chance of meeting our college friends on time, so we make the kissy-kissy rounds. I offer to help Dacia with her porno. “But I’m not gonna fuck on camera,” I add.
“Why doesn’t anyone wanna fuck for me!” she exclaims in what I assume is mock exasperation. Everyone laughs.
Les and I ride the train uptown with Flint. There’s a sparkle in my fiancée’s eyes and I can tell the gears are turning. “The two of you are so tall,” she says, smiling broadly.
Dinner
We have dinner and drinks with college friends. “When you turn your life into a work of art,” Jesus says to me, “you lose your ability to appreciate simply being alive.”
It’s 12:30 in the AM when we leave them. Our night has barely begun.
Rated X
Les and I roll into Luke and Leroy’s shortly before the hot body contest begins. Eighties music blasts over the sound system and from the look of the crowd these old hits might be news to many of them. I’m already disappointed. “Everyone’s wearing way too many clothes,” I say to my babe, frowning. We step outside for a smoke and I talk to some young blonde and she falls into a dream and slides away. The hot body contest is a sausage fest, both on and off the stage. Not that I had high expectations, but my Jedi instincts told me to come here tonight, forgoing the half-dozen other parties we knew about. There must be some method to my madness.
Time passes and I eye the clock on my phone, trying to figure out how we’re going to occupy ourselves until GBH’s doors open at 4AM. We step outside again and before long Les and I are conversing with a petite, busty, curly-haired Latin girl. I’ll call her Serena. “What do you think of Rated X?” Serena asks me.
“It’s more like Rated PG-13,” I quip. “You shoulda been in that contest.”
“Definitely,” sez my fiancée. “You’re beautiful.”
Les and Serena both flash their breasts and fondle each other right there on the fucking sidewalk. The bouncer’s eyes are as wide as saucers. Since Les appears to be, um, handling the situation I turn my attention to Serena’s friend Evie, who’s cute but a tad Rubenesque for my taste. This is, I believe, the first time in my life I’ve ever played the wingman. We return indoors and sit at the bar, where I learn Evie’s visiting from Texas. She doesn’t appear shocked to see Serena lock lips with my girl, but she does smile and raise an eyebrow. I shrug. “That happens sometimes.”
“They really seem to like each other,” she sez.
“Yes they do. So tell me about Houston, Evie. I’ve never been.”
The bar soon empties out and we’re all on the sidewalk. “Where are you going now?” asks Serena.
“GBH,” I respond.
“What’s that?”
“Great British House. You two are coming with us.” I hail a cab, open the door and make a grand sweeping gesture with my arm.
“I’d follow you anywhere,” Serena says to Leslie. The girls pile into the cab and we’re off.
GBH
At the door they let the girls in free but charge me ten bucks. I’m inclined to let it go, seeing as I have more important items on my agenda, but the girls come to my aid, Leslie forming the thin end of the wedge. I cannot help but laugh when the bitch at the door hands me back my cash.
“Can I buy some cocaine from you?” inquires the bartender. “My regular guy isn’t here yet.”
I’d nearly forgotten that I have my shades on. Apparently I’ve missed my calling as a dealer—or else, y’know, as an undercover narcotics officer. “Sorry man. Looks like you’re assed out.”
The place fills with languid dopers. The girls dance. Leslie tugs at my shirt and the buttons all pop open. Serena spins around, places her hands on my bare chest and falls upon me, her body gyrating against mine. I grab a handful of her firm rump and pull her to me.
When Serena and Leslie disappear into the bathroom Evie and I find a place to sit. “So how old are you?” she asks.
“Thirty-two.”
Her eyes widen. “What? And your friend?”
“The same.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“Just good genes I guess. What about you and Serena?”
“I’m twenty-two and she’s twenty-one.”
I stifle a coughing fit. “Damn, I’m old enough to be your—older brother.” I grin. Evie laughs.
No matter how many times I swear off younger women I keep on meeting ‘em. Serena’s a year younger than the girl-who-shall-not-be-named; maybe that girl is the reason I discriminate against the young chicks. Maybe this is wrong. Why should I hold all young chicks responsible for one person’s sins? I’ve found no evidence that women my age are any better.
When Leslie and Serena return we dance again. Serena grinds her ass against me and soon I’m sporting a piece of pipe and I know she knows, because the harder I get the harder she rubs against me. When Serena and I uncouple Les notices my trouser snake. She rubs at it and giggles. Serena squats before me and places her pretty mouth over the bulge, sorta biting it. Is this really happening?
Our young companions prepare to leave—Evie has a flight to catch—and so I kiss Serena on the nape of her neck and say goodbye. After watching Serena’s gorgeous posterior recede into the distance I turn to Les. “You got her number, I trust.”
She rolls her eyes as if she’s talking to an idiot. “I told her everything about us and she’s cool with it.”
“Evidently. Did you know she’s only twenty-one?”
“Yes.”
“That’s what I like about these New York girls, man. I get older and they stay the same age.”
We both laugh and then head over to the bar to settle our tab. On the way out we run into Ruben Rubin, long-haired party promoter extraordinaire. “I don’t know how he still does it after all these years,” I tell Les.
The world outside is hot and bright. Squinting against the light, I flip my shades over my eyes in one fluid motion, then take Leslie’s hand. An old tune runs through my head:
I love New York in June
How about you?
Posted by Lex Konrad in Sex | Apr 25, 2006
It was the first purely social gathering of the NYC Perverts’ Saloon since that seminal affair in February, and though we were missing a few esteemed colleagues, several of us braved the rain to converge upon a little Japanese restaurant in Midtown. Our merry band of revelers included Selina Fire, Viviane, Chelsea Girl (who brought her Pretty Dumb Things and her boyfriend Donny), myself, Leslie and Peggy. Donny, who looked younger than I’d imagined, seemed amiable enough, even if he was perhaps a little wigged out by we perverts and our constant talk of sex and politics.
Viviane and Chelsea Girl insisted I sit between them. This was a mistake: throughout dinner I found myself distracted by the heaving bosoms to my left and right. It certainly didn’t help when Chelsea Girl proudly proclaimed her bralessness, nor when Viviane hovered over my lap trying to get a snapshot of my LED belt buckle (set to advertise NLP, natch).
You know you’ve been in New York a long time when every goddamned place conjures a memory. After dinner we walked to our destination and when the doorman ushered us inside it hit me that we were standing in what used to be Float. It was the place where I’d first been offered cocaine, a key loaded with white powder shoved under my nose before I could wave it off; the place where I, penniless and drunk, somehow finagled my way into the double VIP room; the place where, in that same room, I’d seen a patron relieving himself upon the upholstery. The decor of what had once been a Mecca of after-hours nightlife hadn’t been touched since the last millennium. It was like running into a pretty girl you used to shag and discovering she’s turned into a haggard crack whore.
This was, in other words, the perfect venue for a porno party.
Wherever Ron Jeremy went a mob followed, and though you’ll find few women who profess an attraction to him, he was confoundingly popular with the ladies. I suppose one can chalk this up to his place in America’s celebrity firmament, yet he does appear to have a gracious and disarming manner with women. Leslie jumped into the fray, returning moments later with a big grin on her face and sharpie scribblings on her left breast, which she was only too happy to show off.
“He sucked my nipple!†she exclaimed, evidently quite proud of herself.
“I hope you’re going to wash it off before I put my mouth on it,†said Peggy.
“Of course. Do you think I’m crazy?â€
I introduced myself to Ron shortly thereafter, but when I turned around to thrust Chelsea Girl in front of him (“Oh he’ll love you,†I assured her) he’d already wandered off somewhere. Perhaps the excitement of almost meeting Ron Jeremy had been too much for Chelsea Girl, because she decided to take her Donny and her Pretty Dumb Things home.
I was more excited to meet Joe Gallant, he of the now-infamous lesbian paint enema videos. With his leather jacket and his long graying hair he gave off just the sort of aging rocker vibe I’d expected. “I’m shooting a film called Avenue X,†he told me, then nodded toward his entourage of young women. “All these people are in it. Perhaps you could do a cameo.â€
Viv wanted to have a look at the main floor so we gathered the perverts together and marched downstairs. I switched the message on my LED buckle. “Fellate me!†it now read. “It’s both a sleazy come-on and a literacy test,†I explained to Viviane. And, sure enough, people either laughed or stared at the message in utter confusion (“Fel-hat me? What does that mean?†asked some girl).
Much dancing ensued, after which we went outside for a breather. Two of New York’s finest sat in a police cruiser near the club’s entrance. Les strutted up to the car, lifting her top. “This is legal right?†she asked as she bounced up and down on the pavement, her breasts jiggling. The rest of us stared on in amazement. The cop on the passenger side jumped out of the vehicle and struck up a conversation with my fiancée. Selina was kind enough to hand him a pen.
I grinned at Viviane. “Welcome to my world.â€
My world indeed. Upon our return to vips Leslie straddled Peggy and the two of them mashed their pretty faces together. I stood watching my lovely playmates and thinking about how nice it was that Les and I had met someone with such a sweet disposition—someone who radiates such warmth and passion. I’d been denying it for fear of jinxing myself. Things were good. Things were more than good. I turned to Selina, “Aren’t they beautiful together?â€
“Yes. But I wonder how much of this is for the sake of the male gaze.â€
“I honestly don’t think they care right now. Besides, didn’t you just flash your tits for that guy over there?â€
She laughed. “Touché.â€
I’d forgotten all about Ron Jeremy. He sat in the corner now getting a blowjob from one of his young groupies. I decided I didn’t need an eyeful of Ron Jeremy’s penis so I let Leslie and Peggy investigate. The two of them debriefed me upon their return. “His dick doesn’t look as big as I thought it would,†said my fiancée.
“The camera adds ten inches,†I quipped.
The party soon wound down. Selina and Viv left us. Les found out we won the raffled they’d held earlier (the prize was a trip either to Vegas or Cancun—we opted for Cancun). Peggy took the dirty message scrolling across my belt buckle to heart and wrapped her lips around my cock as I stood over her in the second floor hallway. And then, finally, the three of us went home, where I set up the tripod Les had gotten me as an anniversary gift and snapped pictures of the girls before joining them on the couch.
We fucked like lovers, not porn stars. And then, as morning birds happily chirped away in the park, as pale light began to stream in through the windows, we fell asleep.
Posted by Lex Konrad in Sex | Feb 24, 2006
Sugar daddy… set me free
Sugar daddy… come for me
C.J. Bolland, “Sugar is Sweeter”
Peggy-with-the-pigtails, sans pigtails, sat at the end of the bar sipping an apple martini, her slender nose buried in a book about meat and sex and feminism. She greeted us with a smile, both innocent and youthful, and the three of us fell into easy conversation. I was in high spirits: there was none of the pressure, no matter how slight, of a date; none of the obligatory kung-fu of seduction. We were simply enjoying each other’s company, trading stories about family and travel and so on.
And then the women kissed. If the two of them were lovely as individuals they were even lovelier as a single writhing mass, a tangle of limbs and parted lips and flowing hair and heaving breasts. Before I could clear my throat or fiddle with my hands or shift uncomfortably in my seat, Leslie broke the tension: “Now I wanna see you guys kiss.”
Peggy and I grinned at each other, brought our lips together in what I assumed would be a tenuous and polite tap-dance of tongues. Yet she didn’t so much kiss me as consume me, grabbing my head and mashing her fresh face into mine. Pleasantly surprised, I pressed my body against her, pushed deeper, harder. As the girl’s silky tongue slid over mine all I could think about was how that tiny metal stud might feel against the head of my cock.
Jen was in town so we headed over to Madame X where the party was already in progress. She was there with 120, a mustachioed gentleman and a few other friends of hers. When we all went out to the patio for a smoke I struck up a conversation with the mustachioed guy and complimented him on his bold taste in facial hair. “Oh this?” he responded. “I’ve had this for thirty-five years.” At the time his response didn’t really register with me—he didn’t appear to be all that old.
Before long everyone in Jen’s group left aside from the older gentleman, who seemed fascinated (naturally) by what was going on between Les and Peggy. We had an amiable discussion that somehow brought us to the topic of drugs, continuing further to the topic of what we would say to our theoretical children about drugs. “Actually, I have a daughter,” the gentleman said.
“How old is she?” Les asked.
“She’s twenty-six,” he responded.
Peggy laughed. “That’s a year older than I am. So, um, how old are—”
“I’m fifty-six.”
I just sat there rubbing my temple in shock. “Give me a minute dude—you just blew my mind. I mean, most of the women I date are around your daughter’s age.”
Soon the two vixens abandoned all pretense of making conversation; they sat on padded stools, facing each other, Peggy’s legs spread wide, her black panties just barely, temptingly visible under her skirt from my vantage point. They kissed and their hands roamed. The older gentleman looked at me and smiled: “You should jump in.”
“Naw, gotta let that shit marinate. Guys who think they can just jump in come out red-faced and empty-handed.” The girls chuckled when I said this but continued snogging, and when the gent took leave of us (“Looks like you’re gonna have fun tonight,” he said, grinning ear-to-ear) they still couldn’t tear themselves away from each other. I guess I couldn’t blame them.
The plush, velvet-red back room of Madame X was empty by now; it was our own semi-private bordello. I grasped Peggy’s pale, smooth outer thigh, sliding my hand under her skirt. She pressed her lips to mine, then bit my lower lip hard enough that a day later Leslie would comment on the small bruise. (“Bruises are lipstick kisses that don’t rub off,” Les had said in Seattle.) I ran my other hand up Peggy’s inner thigh and teased her labia over the silk that guarded what little remained of her modesty. Leslie reached for my belt and within seconds her lips were wrapped around me, our playmate watching us and purring. My fingers found their way under Peggy’s panties, then inside her, and as they pistoned in and out the girl rocked in her seat and gasped. When someone walked by I leaned forward in a lame attempt to disguise a situation that was obviously getting out of hand, yet this only made me want to push the limits further. My head fell into Peggy’s lap. And I tasted her…
“I don’t want to go but I have to go,” she was saying.
I protested. “But you’re so wet.”
“I know.”
I stood up to put my cock away but for a moment it hovered there, twitching, inches from Peggy’s face. She licked her lips and took me into her mouth, all wetness and suction and heat. I heaved a shuddering sigh. Her tongue ring had fallen out earlier so I would have to wait to fulfill that particular fantasy of mine.
Les and I walked her to the PATH station. “Now I’m frustrated,” our playmate said.
Les kissed her cheek. “It’ll be that much better the next time.”
“We’ll have to get together on a weekend night.”
“Oh you bet we will.”
Posted by Lex Konrad in Sex | Feb 08, 2006
Pink Party
Though we always seem to worry
life’s becoming such a flurry
Can’t you see that there’s lights in the dark?
Nothing’s quite what it seems in the city of dreams
Wolfmother, “Where Eagles Have Been”
The scar on the young dominatrix’s forehead bisects the gap between her eyebrows at an angle. It’s not ugly, really. It’s just there, a crease in her pale skin, like a permanent frown. “I love the variety,” she says of her chosen profession. “Everyone has a unique kink. A client tickled me for an hour today—he didn’t even jerk off at the end.”
“I suppose that’s the point though; it’s not always about getting off.” This is why I’m here tonight, at the Pink Party. I want to be immersed in sex—I’m just not looking for anything in particular. Before the diminutive dominatrix can respond a friend of hers walks by and lifts the girl’s dress. Turquoise panties under white fishnet stockings. Flat, smooth abdomen.
She laughs. “I’m a switch in real life.”
“Under the right circumstances I’m up for anything.” I relate my wondrous tale of pissing on Nova. “The stream hit her clitoris directly. She said it was much better with a man.”
“Of course. You have a penis. You can aim better.”
I don’t know where Les and Emma are; they were here in the catacombs with me but must have left to rejoin the party. Porno Jim lights his pipe and offers me a pull. He tells me his girlfriend is going on her first solo date tomorrow night. I congratulate him. He asks whether I’m here to play.
“Not really,” I respond. “It’s weird—I only get turned on by public sex when I’m not supposed to be having public sex, if that makes any sense.”
“It does. It does.”
“Plus, y’know, I want to connect somehow. I mean, people come here and fuck and part ways, and I understand that—hell, I’ve done that—but I wanna fall asleep with someone and wake up with that same person the next morning. I guess I’m a slut for emotionally complex situations.”
“Look, you and I are sex professionals; we know what we want already. Most of the people here are still trying to figure it all out.”
Professionals. I think about the shit I used to do—board rooms and bottom lines. Optimization. Saving money or making it. And now, ever the entrepreneur, I’m falling back on my old habits. When you’re surrounded by money all you can think of is pussy. When you’re surrounded by pussy all you can think of is money. It’s a game. I’ve been turning it over in my head for days—do I need more of either?
I catch up with Les and Emma later on. We talk about the dissolute, transient nature of relationships in New York. “You guys put so much effort into meeting people,” Emma’s saying. “I don’t feel like I can trust anyone. My ex doesn’t even talk to me anymore—it really hurts me. I guess I’m just a cynic.”
“But if you never open up you’ll never have something worthwhile with anyone,” Les sez.
I shuffle my foot, grinding a cigarette butt into the concrete floor. “Sure, people aren’t always who they seem to be but I have to think the ones I can trust make the effort worthwhile. What would your life be without them? The old folks always tell me if over a lifetime you meet a handful of people like that then you’ve done well.”
I excuse myself to take a wiz and return to see Les locked in the arms of a girl in a black dress, the two of them kissing violently. The girl looks a little like Roberta and I wonder whether she’s also Italian. A short guy next to me, evidently a friend of the girl in the black dress, stands there at rapt attention. I try to imagine what this must be like for him.
The play room is busy but there’s little actual play going on, just a whole lotta people running around in varying states of undress, wearing varying shades of pink. Flat screens mounted on the walls flicker with entirely forgettable glamour porn. The women at this party are surprisingly hot, as are the men dressed as women. I run into a few people I haven’t seen in ages and spend a while exchanging pleasantries. “I wanna see some action,” Emma complains to me.
“Turn around, then.” Some leather-clad dude has pulled my girlfriend’s pink dress up around her waist. He’s whacking her juicy brown rump with a smallish crop.
“Oh, that’s impressive.”
A tall, skinny little white girl takes the guy’s place. She uses her hands. Leslie’s ass jiggles. “Harder, damn it!” my girlfriend cries.
“That’s a dude,” Emma sez, laughing.
I frown. “No fucking way. That’s a chick, and a hot one at that.”
“Uh uh.”
“Fuck you. I can see her delicate little pussy lips through her underwear. You’re talking to a dude who like studies female anatomy every day. You’re talking to a guy who got hit on by trannies in Chelsea for like five years. I know trannies—she ain’t no tranny.”
The sexy bitch, meanwhile, leads my girlfriend to a couch and has her lie on it, face down, ass in the air. She spanks with abandon, pausing now and then to play with my girlfriend’s thong. From halfway across the room I can see that Leslie’s asscheeks are turning a rosy shade of red. I walk over to the couch, bending over the white girl, and grab two handfuls of brown ass.
“Hay!” the white girl says, looking up at me. Upside down face. The black lights color her teeth and eyes a funny, grainy shade of blue-white.
“That’s my ass, babe,” I tell her. “You’re just renting it from me.”
Editrix Abby hands me a flyer for the apres-party, telling me we gotta vacate soon. Emma talks to her for a while and then we all grab our shit and go outside to hail a cab. We end up at a speakeasy on 14th street, many flights up from the ground floor. It’s well after 4AM and they’re still serving. “How the fuck do they get away with this?” I muse out loud.
I’m at the bar procuring a beer and this guy sidles up to me and says hello. I’m thinking this is a Brokeback scenario, but then he says, “Remember me? We met at the underwear party a few years ago.”
I shake his hand. “Oh yeah. We took that limo back to our place and had a sex party.”
“Anya’s here.”
“I know. I spoke with her briefly.”
His girlfriend comes over and she’s hot and I wonder why I wasn’t hitting on her that night. Then I remember: I was too busy putting the screws to another girl. I tell him about NLP. “We should hang out some time,” he sez.
Emma’s sitting in this wicker cocoon suspended from the ceiling. I have no idea where Les is. “How come you’re making Les hit on all the girls?” Emma asks.
“You know I can’t make her do anything. I just haven’t met anyone who floats my boat. Sometimes I meet a woman and we hit it off. Why should I settle for anything less than that?”
It’s one of those strange nights when everyone looks like someone. Attack of the fucking clones. Les reappears with a tall surfer-girl on her arm who looks a little like Bond Girl. They exchange numbers but her petit chien platonic boyfriend swoops in to perform the traditional cock-blocking ritual. I’m more convinced than ever that hot girls in this town don’t have male friends, only an entourage of sycophants hoping to bag a pity fuck.
Somehow Les, Emma and I wind up fooling around in our little corner. My girlfriend drops to her knees, hiding the sausage in her mouth, and then passes it to Emma, who’s still swinging in the wicker chair. People might be watching—I have no idea because I’m watching the pretty mouths at work.
We cab to our place in the brightening dawn and Emma wants to bail because she has to work at noon. She doesn’t think we’ll get her ass out in time. “Whatever,” I say, taking Leslie’s hand and walking toward our building.
“Oh whatever,” Emma sez, closing the car door.
“Fucking whatever,” I retort. When I get upstairs I realize I’m exhausted anyway and I promptly fall asleep.
Posted by Lex Konrad in Dispatches | Feb 06, 2006
Even in this age of instantaneous feedback, hacking away at a keyboard can be a sad, lonely thing. It’s good to shake someone’s hand, to look a fellow traveler in the eye, to participate in a community—something larger than yourself—and put your creative demons out of their misery, if only for a short while. As Les and I reached Viviane’s door (half an hour late, naturally) I steadied myself with this comforting thought. We all had skin in the game.
Viviane, a charming and affable hostess if ever there was one, greeted us and promptly announced our arrival to the assembled dignitaries. They sat in the living room discussing the ins and outs of sex blogging in a somewhat hushed, conspiratorial tone. I couldn’t help but think that in this gathering there were echoes of the Algonquin Round Table, or of George Plimpton’s parties—it was as if the ghosts of old New York were watching over us.
So it begins, I thought. “I half expected you all to be dancing around naked by now,” I said. People laughed. Seemed like a friendly enough crowd. A quick scan of the room yielded only one familiar face, that of Dacia in those distinctive glasses of hers.
I needed a drink.
After I’d found my bearings (i.e., the booze), Viv beckoned me toward her desk, where she’d set up a webcam for virtual attendees Jefferson and Madeline. My mind reeled at the postmodernity of it all. I squinted at the keyboard and edged closer. “Go ahead and introduce yourself,” said Viviane.
“I shoulda brought my glasses.”
There was something wrong with the video but soon enough I was on the headset with Madeline while IMing with Jefferson. “Well hello Lex,” Madeline said, her voice silky, deep, resonant even over the tinny internet audio.
My jaw dropped. “Goddamn you have a sexy voice.”
She asked me to describe what was going on and I did my best, fighting through frequent technical hiccups. “You know, with this headset on I feel like Tom Cruise in Magnolia. Respect the cock!” I said this loud enough that I got some funny looks. Madeline laughed. Any anxiety I’d felt earlier on melted away—it was just a party, I reasoned, and when it comes to parties Lex Konrad is a consummate professional.
Eventually I joined the fray and found myself standing before the lovely Anakalia and the bodacious, impossibly busty Chelsea Girl. It took me a while to chance a glimpse at the words written on Chelsea Girl’s tee shirt—I didn’t want to appear lecherous—but then I shrugged and made an obvious show of it. “No one cares about your blog,” it read. I couldn’t determine whether the word ‘blog’ had been printed in a larger font or simply stretched wide by the shirt’s heavy payload.
“I feel like people pay more attention to the posts I toss off quickly,” Chelsea Girl was saying.
Everyone within earshot seemed to agree. Already I felt a certain kinship with these pervy bloggers. “Most people don’t like to think too hard about anything,” I added.
“Right. It’s all about the fat part of the bell curve—”
“The stuff I crank out of my ass having the most appeal to the most people.”
Picking up on the ass metaphor, Chelsea Girl steered the conversation to lesbian paint enemas and the nature of postmodern art. As the conversation continued I beamed inwardly, pleased at having played a bit part in creating a space where such a discussion was even possible.
Les and I had been speaking with J for all of five minutes when he offered us some weed. The three of us indulged in Viviane’s spacious bedroom; I went easy, though, on account of a slight cough and my desire to keep my wits about me. On the way out of the bedroom I ran into Porno Jim, a man I was pretty sure I’d met years ago at a drunken orgy.
“I remember you,” he said.
“Last time we met was at a sex party in Chelsea; a big loft or something?”
“Couples Events.”
“Yeah, right. We were standing around drinking and there was some skeevy couple screwing like crazy at our feet.” By now Jim’s pretty blonde girlfriend had joined us and we reminisced about swinger parties past. “People are always telling me to get into the sex party racket,” I said. “I have the mailing list for it but it just seems like a gigantic pain in the ass.”
“Plus, you don’t get to have sex when you’re running the party,” Porno Jim’s girlfriend added with a wry smile.
Perhaps it was just the marijuana fucking with my senses but everyone around me seemed to visibly relax. People rose to their feet and mingled. The gathering took on a decidedly festive air. One by one, Emma, the Bad Man and Natalia arrived. Les, Cherry Bomb and Anakalia were busy comparing tattoos. I cornered Viv in the kitchen and put my arm around her. “I’m glad we did this,” I said. “It worked out brilliantly.”
I found Bad Man sitting quietly in the living room. “You okay?” I asked.
“I had a long day at work. And I just smoked a lot of weed.”
I laughed. “I’m still trying to figure you out; you have this whole zen-like thing going on.”
Dacia was seated on the couch across from me talking about her many clueless internet suitors. I couldn’t resist joining the conversation. “I get ‘em too,” I said, “but probably not nearly the amount that female bloggers do.”
“I get asked out regularly,” Dacia remarked, “but I haven’t taken anyone up on it.”
“Oh, you absolutely should sometime.”
“It just seems so creepy.”
“But we’re here, right? I’ve met some wonderful people through Naked Loft Party—and not even just for sex.” People burst out laughing. “How absurd is it that I have to attach that disclaimer?”
Later on I joined Natalia in front of the webcam. She’d been chatting for quite a while with Jefferson and Madeline, who both sat topless in front of their respective cameras. Madeline appeared preternaturally calm, like the relaxed subject of a fine art portrait—sadly, her tits were tucked away below the video’s frame. I turned to Natalia: “Isn’t Madeline smokin’?”
“Yeah.”
I grinned broadly. “When’s she gonna show us her tits?” What is it about the virtual world that brings out our most adolescent impulses?
“She already has,” Natalia informed me matter-of-factly.
“And I missed it?”
“Maybe if you ask nicely she’ll show them again,” offered Viviane, who had crept up behind us.
And so I asked nicely, or rather typed a friendly query into the chat window. Much to my surprise it was Jefferson who began grabbing his nipples and mugging for the camera. I laughed. “That wasn’t exactly the show I had in mind.” I studied Madeline’s cam, biting my lower lip. C’mon baby, c’mon. She sat up in her chair and brought her hands to her chest. “Ohhh I see nipples!” Her sweater puppies looked gorgeous, even in jerky low res video. Les, Natalia and I repaid Madeline (and Jefferson) in kind, putting on a show involving breasts and tongues.
My night was complete.
Well, really, the party ran out of steam after the mirror on Viviane’s bathroom door came crashing down in an interminable cacophony of shattering glass. At first I was worried that our hostess might be upset but the unflappable Viviane just laughed it off. “It’s not a party unless something breaks.”
Soon Bad Man, the girls and I were on our way out, clutching erotic DVDs left for us by the gentlemanly Tony Comstock. The night had been a whirlwind clusterfuck—there just hadn’t been enough time to connect with everyone—but I was happy to have met such an agreeable group of people.
And I’m already looking forward to the next whirlwind clusterfuck.
