Naked Loft Party

L'enfer, c'est les autres

2008-11-25T06:09:06Z

My life is a parade of threesomes and eager sexkittens and orgiastic delights.

Except for when it isn’t.

I never see these moments coming, the moments that leave me battered and bruised, the moments that make me want to find a dark corner and hide.

The lithe young woman rode my leg, reverse cowgirl, mashing her lips against my wife’s, moaning as my fingers slipped into her black panties and up her shorn but not completely shaven cunt. The three of us stood in a bright stairwell. People smiled as they pressed past us. I cupped a heavy breast in my palm and whispered something into the young woman’s ear.

It should have been brilliant. But it wasn’t. An awkward series of maneuvers ended our spell and the three of us shot off in separate directions like expertly struck billiard balls. Leslie and I weren’t communicating well that night and it showed in our play. I tried to find solace in a bottle of gin.

The next afternoon found me utterly, maniacally horny. It is a state I often find myself in when hungover: once the alcohol evaporates there’s nothing left but hormones. I called my mistress. “I’m gonna fold you in half,” I growled.

She was always willing. “You can do anything you want.”

Sometimes, instead of dealing with my problems like a rational being, I double down. I thought this was what I needed, that I had to get out of the house and fuck someone else. In my crazed state I headed down to the spot where my mistress tended bar, taking a seat and thinking about what I was going to do to her when her shift ended.

My reverie was interrupted by a dreadlocked rasta who sidled up to me and tried to get handsy. “Yo,” I said, grasping his shoulder and pushing him back to a safe distance, “even if I was into that you’re doing it all wrong.” He retreated. I no longer felt comfortably anonymous.

A fetching Asian woman bought me a drink — pleasant enough, I thought — but before long she insisted on having my home address so she could come over the next day and show me her erotic novel-in-progress. By the third time she asked (“I’ll give you five hundred dollars!”) it dawned on me, all too late, that she was not well-acquainted with sanity. She was possessed by that subtle kind of crazy that draws you in and makes you feel like a nutter for even having glimpsed it.

I was relieved when last call came and my mistress gave me permission to tell everyone to get the fuck out. My relief yielded to apprehension when I learned the crazy woman had followed us to the after hours place. When the woman started in again I told her I’d had enough, after which she found another guy to torment. (The next day I would learn the woman had professed her love to the poor guy, only to flee the bar in tears when he turned her down, blowing up his phone with messages through the morning.)

That night the city I loved — the city that had always taken care of me — had gone prickly and tense. People surrounded me, salivating, teeth bared and claws out. I wanted to bolt but I felt the outside world would be even worse, that knives were drawn for me, snipers were waiting amid the urban ruins and landmines were set. After another guy made a grab for me I went to find my mistress. “Take me home now,” I insisted, my firm tone at odds with my shaky resolve. “Please.”

“I am so sorry,” she said to me as we clung to each other in the back seat of a yellow cab. She had nothing to do with this madness though. It was my fault for leaving the house without my warrior’s armor, for placing too much trust in my adopted hometown. It was my fault for doubling down. This flaxen-haired southern belle had always been kind to me — her kindness having been what drew me to her. Most women expect me to play the part of the dashing playboy, the rake, the ideal lover: mysterious and cool and collected and eternally throbbing. My mistress, however, didn’t need me to be a towering inferno of manhood. My weaknesses, my humanity, did not lower me in her eyes.

I made good on my promise when we arrived at hers, which is to say I folded her in half, I fucked her like a beast and I let her gag on me, just the way she liked, my creativity owing as much to her compassion as to my sex drive. A breathless wow was all she could muster when we were finished. It should have been brilliant but I still felt tormented. I thought about my wife, who probably lay across the covers now, half-dressed, having forgotten to turn out the light. Leslie and I could have curled up on the couch and talked and healed the rift but instead I’d pulled away. Perhaps this strange, unsettling night had been my punishment.

My mistress fell silent after awhile. She began to snore lightly. I was too tired to leave and too agitated to sleep peacefully. What am I doing here? I thought over and over as I drifted in and out of sleep. It wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t my wife’s fault. The blame was all mine.

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot

2008-11-21T23:44:06Z

Whiskey river take my mind
Don’t let her memory torture me
Whiskey river don’t run dry
You’re all I’ve got, take care of me

-Willie Nelson, “Whiskey River”

The White Rabbit. Yeah, no. The last time I was here a dude tried to grab my ass and a chick tried to become my stalker. Crazy town, man. Crazy town.

***

The Axe Man tries to talk my wife and me into buying raffle tickets but I’m not yet drunk enough to try my luck at anything.

***

Viviane is all like I haven’t seen you in a while and I’m all like yeah I know I’m an unreliable friend.

***

I cannot think of anything intelligent to say to Tess and Selina because I’m tall and their cups runneth over.

***

The Bad Man shows up and everyone sez “Oh hey!” And then Sinclair shows up and I give her a hug and I’m meaning to ask her for tips on bending hotchix to my will but then someone says something and I forget.

***

Gotta get some air. The Calico Cat is lost so I text her directions. “How do you spell Forsyth?” I ask the Bad Man.

“Does it matter?”

The Calico Cat looks like a pharmaceutical sales rep. “Nice power suit,” I tell her.

***

The Axe Man and I try to convince the Bad Man to give his eager 20-year-old a go. Having been frustrated in the pursuit of an ideal, I’ve learned to err on the side of pleasure.

Ronen snaps some pictures of us while we’re talking. Leslie is confused because he does not give her time to pose. “He’s taking anti-portraits,” I explain.

***

Morpheus tells me I’m the only one who’s made the connection between his name and the name of the bar we’re standing in. I feel special.

***

I admire the Bad Man’s tenacity. When I meet his former paramour I can see why he’s been holding out. “She’s delightful!” I announce. I can’t put my finger on it yet, but she reminds me of someone.

Leslie takes a shine to the Bad Man’s former paramour’s saucy, tattooed friend.

***

I hold in my hand a slip of paper that entitles me to take liberties with Rachel. Do I just come right out and ask?

I come right out and ask.

She removes her glasses and bends over the bar. I am not satisfied with my first attempt, but the second blow lands solidly upon her right buttock.

When Leslie takes her turn a man tries to sidle up to the bar. “Back off!” she cries. “Spanking in progress.”

***

A youngchick is there for her birthday party. She cannot find anyone to sign her calendar so I lead her around the room introducing her to people. “You should come hang out with us,” she sez.

***

On my way past the coat check I spy a tallchick with curly blond locks. Hot and a little funny looking. Just my type. I stop in my tracks and drink her in head to toe. She smiles. I wait a beat and turn around.

***

Bad Man and company are headed elsewhere. “If you pick these girls up you are welcome to bring them out to meet us,” he sez.

“Dunno. I’m getting a straight vibe and I’m trying to avoid straight women right now.”

***

The tallchick stands on the sidewalk looking bored. Les and I strike up a conversation with her. The woman is Puerto Rican and speaks with a lispy accent. We meet her husband, who does not seem the least bit put off that we are chatting up his wife. She invites us back inside, where she buys us a round (and, egads, a couple shots). I speak with a friend of hers while Leslie slyly obtains the tallchick’s number.

***

We leave, fully intending to hop on the train or whatever, but then I see that Katz’s is still open. I order a pastrami on rye. The sandwich guy hands Leslie a bunch of pickles. We walk down the block to Bereket and while Leslie’s in there ordering falafel I tear into my deli sammich, which is so savory I have to steady myself against a wall lest my buckling legs give out.

I had forgotten that it is sometimes possible to feel the presence of God.

***

The Slipper Room, scene of Leslie’s impromptu burlesque many moons ago. The Bad Man is there with his former paramour and his former paramour’s friend. Leslie falls into an intense conversation with the paramour’s friend while the Bad Man stands, rather stoically, against a booth. I inquire as to the origin of his discontent.

Shrugging helplessly, he says, “She’s in love with someone else.”

All night she’s been happily feeding him the hangman’s rope. It’s like watching someone get kicked in the nuts. Repeatedly. You cross your legs in sympathy.

I’ve been there before.

***

The torture continues. I don’t understand why people play these games — games which serve no purpose other than to introduce bitterness into the world.

***

“I finally figured out who you remind me of,” I tell the paramour.

“Who’s that?”

I am grinning now. “The most evil woman I ever dated. I still remember the moment I decided to break up with her: We were lying in bed one morning and she decided to call in ‘sick’, but when her secretary answered she yelled at the poor girl for picking up on the third ring.”

“Hey! I don’t even have a secretary.”

***

A man in a suit offers me a smoke. It’s weird how people latch on to me. “So what do you do?” I ask him.

“I fuck chicks.”

***

Another strange night draws to a close. The Bad Man’s girls leave, and in time so do the rest of us.

“Forget about her,” I call out as he shuffles across the street. “You deserve someone who wants to be with you.”

So do we all. So do we all.

My Weakness

2008-11-19T19:44:02Z

The room is crowded. People are on their third or fourth cocktails. We are talking about weaknesses.

“What’s your weakness, Lex?” someone asks.

I bite my lip, trying to formulate an appropriately clever riposte, when DangerGirl interjects: “Blowjobs!” She lets out a hearty laugh and pinches my midsection. Her dark eyes pierce me.

“What can I say? This woman knows me.” There is much rejoicing.

Later on I’m alone on the patio getting some air. The heavy door opens. DangerGirl leans out to say goodbye. I frown at her. “Get your sexy ass over here and give me a hug.”

We kiss. There is something heavy in my jeans and when I place her hand upon it she smiles. I rush to undo my belt and free my cock, which is by now standing at full attention. She lowers herself, gracefully, to her knees.

DangerGirl’s soft, divine tongue belies her sadistic streak. As she works her mouth around me, her tongue seemingly in motion over the entire surface area of my cock, I am not, I realize, the slightest bit tempted to guide her. Lost in the sensation, I take shallow, shuddering breaths.

She may be on her knees but there’s a fierce intensity in her eyes. She knows she’s got my number.

I hear laughter coming from the other side of the door. We’ll have to stop soon but for now I want to enjoy this. I place my hand over hers and sigh, my gratitude radiating out to the cosmos for bestowing upon me the gift of such understanding friends.

The Third Way

2008-11-19T01:29:24Z

If I am an orgy guy I am ambivalent about it. The sublime is what I am after — the kind of transcendent experiences that stay with you — and if these pleasures are more rewarding than self-gratification, they also require empathy and patience. Fuck and run just doesn’t cut it.

I try to keep my non-monogamous karma in balance by attending a polyamorous event now and then. Really though, when people tell me about their loves and lovers (and I blanch at the thought of all the scheduling involved) I start to feel like polyamory is an in-joke I’ll never get. Maybe I’m a contrarian, but I am always looking for a third way.

I hadn’t given much thought to what to do about the date — it had all been so heady and unexpected — but we did share a philosophical skepticism about things and a common love for my wife’s perfect ass. So when I decided to drop by the poly cocktail hour I invited her along.

“My ex is here,” she told me after Les and I arrived. If I disappear from certain scenes for months at a time, this is why — these little communities are all so incestuous. New York appears to shrink with each passing year (it has limits!). Most of the night I made my rounds, checking in now and then with the date, and most of the night her ex hovered around her, eyeing me like I’d pissed on his hedges. I wanted to pull him aside and let him in on my little secret, that if you learn to let women go you’ll have to beat them off with a stick.

If I was reserved it was because I didn’t want to be one of those people who come to poly parties so they can slobber all over their lovers like status-seeking primates. The sly seductress kept brushing up against me though, and so I pressed her to me as we stood by the bar talking about the sex people think sex-writers have versus the sex they actually have.

“You know, I go to sex parties fully intending to hook up,” she said, “but I’m not often comfortable enough to make it happen.”

“I’ve been going to sex parties off and on for years now… if you’ve seen one big sweaty pile of bodies you’ve seen them all.”

She laughed, and when she did so I tugged at one of her pigtails. “And then there are the creeps, and the people you don’t want to see naked.”

“Right. It’s so much more… fulfilling with people you trust. I guess that’s why I prefer the kind of parties that happen in my living room.”

Later on, over dinner, Les and I conducted our customary debriefing — well, we gossiped like schoolgirls — while our date listened, very much amused at our take on things. Something set me off and I went on a far-ranging rant about how so-called sex-positive communities are still not safe spaces for women, after which I felt slightly self-conscious. Then it struck me that it is probably okay to relax around a woman whose ass I’ve fucked.

Leslie disappeared for a while. We would find out later on that she had been pulled into a comedian’s routine and had, of course, held her own against him. That’s just how my wife rolls. “Theoretically I’m poly,” I told our date. “I also adore my wife. Maybe I’m overly picky, but it’s hard for me to justify taking time away from her to be with other women just because I can.”

There was a time when I was after the perfect fuck, or else the perfect love. These are illusions. I am more confident now that as long as I approach life with a spirit of openness and adventure good things will come my way. Because I’ll never really be the orgy guy, with his eternal hardon and his unending parade of partners, and I’ll never really be the poly guy, with his new-agey philosophy and his five totally serious girlfriends.

There may not be a name for what I do, there may not be an off-the-shelf identity that fits, or a community that reflects my particular viewpoint, but I am content, for the most part, with the path I have chosen.

True Anal Story

2008-11-14T19:50:30Z

It started with a tentative slap across her backside as she leaned over the counter. Encouraged by her little yelp of delight, I cupped my palm and delivered another blow, and then another, each strike more furious than the last. Leslie joined me, each of us working a side. Our date’s cheeks turned crimson; my hand felt like it had fallen asleep. She gasped when I bit down on the pale, lovely flesh above the crease between buttock and thigh. She purred when I clamped my teeth around her nipple.

I am not certain what prompted the spanking but this pretty newcomer had coaxed something out of hiding. Like Leslie, she was agreeable and giving and just shy enough that her depravity was a delightful shock to me.

Men in relationships often outsource their perversions, or so I have read. This is not for me. My wife has always been my favorite whore. Over the years Leslie and I have done unspeakable things to one another. If I am not as open with our naked guests, it is less a matter of hard limits than of trust.

She is a rather perverted bitch, my wife. She thinks it’s funny, for example, when I try to make her gag while fucking her face. “Gok, gok, gok,” is all I have to say when I want to get a laugh out of her. As our guest looked on I pummeled the back of Leslie’s throat and waited for those lovely sounds: gok gok gok. She furrowed her brow when she disengaged. “Lex!” she protested in her sing-song voice. To our guest, she said, “That gives me the sniffles sometimes.”

The new girl nodded. “It makes my eyes tear up.” Her hair was not quite red and not quite blond. I grabbed what little of it wasn’t already gathered into a tie and pulled her to me, watching as her lips parted and slid down the length of me. Leslie slipped a finger up my ass. Tensing for a moment, I cradled our date’s head in both hands and flattened the tip of her nose against my abdomen. I held her like this, marveling at her ability to open her throat, and thought about what this might look like in x-ray vision. Her eyes were watery by the time she uncoupled from me. “See what I mean?” she said, blinking rapidly.

Leaning over her, I kissed away her tears, certain now that I had to do the thing that had been on my mind all day.

“I don’t know,” she demurred when, eventually, I made my intentions known. “You might be too big for me.” I smiled because I knew this game. It is the game Leslie plays with me: my wife, Our Lady of Perpetual Anal Virginity until I’m deep inside her and she’s begging me to pound her into oblivion.

Our guest uttered a breathy moan when her asshole gave way to the probing of my index finger. Rising from the couch, I let her gobble me up so that she was now impaled at either end. Not satisfied that our date was receiving enough attention, Leslie crouched behind her and lapped at her cunt beneath my pumping digits.

Such exquisite torture. I almost took pity on our new friend.

I still laugh when I think of what Leslie said years ago after I’d convinced her to give assfucking a try. That’s not bad at all! It’s like taking a shit over and over again. She knows how to relax for me now; she knows how to angle herself. I bent her over the easy chair, easing into her, and as I penetrated her ass I watched her round buttocks jiggle. There is something subtle, I think, in the way her smooth muscle wraps around the glans that makes our assfucking feel like love.

An ardent voyeur, our date sat some distance away and studied us as if she expected a quiz on our technique. When her turn came she made me wait, kneeling over her overnight bag and fiddling around with something in there. As she stood, stretching out her taut frame, I saw that she now wore eyeglasses.

I reached out to wrap my arms around her waist. “Oh my god.”

She smiled. “What?”

“How did you know I have a thing for hot lasses wearing glasses?”

She straddled me. My wife grasped my cock and slowly, delicately pushed me into our date’s lubed asshole. The girl closed her eyes and bit her lower lip. “Mmm.” I shuddered when I felt her capitulate and then tense around me. She lowered herself onto my lap, hesitatingly, the way one might step into a very hot bath. I rose inside her.

I had her lie on her back and our negotiations began anew. I ventured a little too far at first, causing her to wince, but soon she drew heavy breaths, her slender body melting into mine as I began to fuck her ass in earnest. I pushed my thumb to her lips and she opened her mouth, biting down on the nail. Leslie crept behind me and again stuck a finger in me, saying, “How do you like that?” The sensation was not unpleasant. I pressed our guest’s legs against her chest so as to get a better view of the in-and-out. “Careful,” she cautioned. “I am not as flexible as your wife.”

I am sure Leslie felt satisfied to hear this.

“Oooh, her toes are curling!” came the cry from my wife. Our date was on all fours now, wrapped tight around me and receiving deep strokes, her head bobbing, her eyes closed. I studied the arc of her spine and the tempting mounds that cushioned my thrusts. Her puppy-like mewling only spurred me on. I felt my wife’s hands on me. When everything went out of focus I told the lovely creature pinned beneath me that her ass was surely about to make me come…

“It always hurts at first,” she was saying as the three of us lay entwined on the couch, “but then it feels great.” I knew what she meant, having been on the receiving end of Leslie’s toys. Pleasure has its price. My dick, for instance, was sore, and yet this did not stop me from having my wife again. In an effort to be a gracious host, I first handed our playmate a vibrator. As she pressed the buzzing chrome bulb between her legs and my wife wrapped her lips around me, I was struck by the decadent absurdity of this scenario.

Our calico kitten has a stripper name. When it was time for good girls to say night night, my anal princess held our kitten to her porcelain bosom. The two of them looked adorable together — innocent even, although neither of them really is innocent.

The contradiction gets me off.

With great pleasure comes great responsibility

2008-11-08T18:10:34Z

I am drawn to the troubled ones. They are my lost little angels. I don’t go looking for them. They find me. They find Leslie. They find us for the same reasons perfect strangers confess their sins to us — for the same reasons people just seem to know they can trust us.

Why us? I always ask the women we’re with some variation upon this question. The answer is always the same: Because I felt so comfortable around you.

Joy’s troubles were overwhelming. She needed sanity, not adventure. She needed therapy, not us. And so we let her go. She began the hard work of fixing herself. It isn’t fair that you have to fix yourself when someone else breaks you but this is how it goes.

This thing we do is light and fun and oh-so-hot but it also requires maturity. And though no one who knows me would ever accuse me of having lofty intentions when it comes to women, I cannot allow my pleasure to come at someone else’s expense.

This Thing We Do

2008-11-06T23:49:41Z

She started this.

She started this but she is yours now.

Take her on a tour of the apartment. When you reach the walk-in closet, grab her by the loops on the waist of her jeans and press her ass against the aching monstrosity in your pants. Her voice is high and sweet: Oh! This is what you wanted to hear.

Lead her to the front door and prepare her for your wife’s return. Remove her top. Admire the ski slope curves of her breasts. Take one large nipple and then another into your mouth. When your wife opens the door she sees the two of you and she purrs.

Remind yourself that most wives, upon witnessing this scene, would file for divorce.

Let the lovelies frolic. Undress them and watch approvingly as they melt into one another, brown skin pressing against white. When you free yourself your wife latches on and you grab a fistful of her pretty curls and you slip an arm around your guest’s waist. Leslie’s mouth releases you, leaving behind a glistening coat of saliva. Glance downward and then peer into the new girl’s eyes. For emphasis, rest a firm hand upon the back of her neck. She sinks to the floor, easing you into her mouth, and then into her throat, never breaking eye contact. You let out a sigh. Say something romantic now: “You look beautiful with a cock in your mouth.”

She is on all fours, her face nestled between your wife’s thighs. The flash bulb bathes the room in cold light. As you frame the shots you think about how this thing… this thing you do with your wife is an elaborate ritual, one that has, over the years, taken on a kind of spiritual significance. Entire religions, after all, have been founded on the basis of phenomena nearly as improbable as your sex life. It is not that you envy the foot fetishist or the sadist, but life would be easier if your desires involved fewer moving parts.

“I want you to fuck her while she’s eating me,” comes the breathless command from your wife’s lips. Ever the obedient husband, you apply a condom and drop to the floor. The pretty newcomer arches her back for you, and you watch, fascinated, as her plump labia part to make way for your intrusion. The hardwood floor makes hamburger of your volleyball-bruised knees. Oh, does it ever hurt! But you hold on, waiting for your wife to orgasm under your playmate’s tongue and fingers, before leading the women to the couch, where you’ll have each of them properly, one after another. Their cunts make noise, more or less simultaneously, when you change positions. This is what cunts do. Your wife seems embarrassed but your new friend reassures her, saying, adorably, “That just means it’s happy.”

Laughing, you tear into your wife from behind, pinning her midsection beneath your white-knuckled grip. Always attuned to you, she starts to come. Pop the question: Do you want me to come on her tits? The young woman has been on her knees, watching you, and when you spring from the couch she leans back to receive your offering. Relax. Let go. Release. She is a mess and the two of them are kissing and this moment is perfection.

It is 5:30 in the morning. The wife is catching a nap before work. You code better when you’re exhausted and your date’s shift at the strip club doesn’t begin until the evening, so the two of you sit together and talk. “I’m sorry I never responded to your email,” she confesses. It is a probably a blessing that you had not remembered sending a note — you might have held her silence against her. Promise yourself that from now on you will be more like the Buddha.

Don’t be surprised when your cock makes you aware of its presence again. Pull her onto your lap. Let her ride you. You didn’t expect her to be like this, did you? So soft, so slow, whispering into your ear (I’m so wet) while you palm her ass, pressing your middle finger against her anus, your eyes fixed upon the surgical steel between her legs. Pull her closer. Kiss her. Exhaling against her slender frame, you hear yourself saying: “You are delicious.” Lead her to the kitchen and lift her onto the counter, where you will penetrate her under the skylight as dawn breaks, watching that pussy of hers — the one you forced yourself to forget about — surrender to you over and over again. Fuck her harder now, on the leather bench. Her ass is in the air. Her voice goes up an octave.

The two of you rouse your wife by smothering her with kisses. You ought to tell Les to take the day off, but your playmate tells you her pussy is sore anyway, though you are quite sure this would not deter her from another round. Eventually, the two beautiful women will leave you and you will slump in front of your machine, picking up where you left off as if this improbable thing hadn’t ever happened.

Only later on, when you’re cleaning up, do you notice your playmate’s scarf draped over the easy chair. When you fold it you catch a whiff of her perfume. It is cute, actually, when women leave behind little reminders of themselves.

And it is usually a promise of things to come.

Welcome to the 21st century

2008-11-05T23:18:17Z

I awoke with a start, the way I always do after a night of improbable pleasures, and made a mad dash for the living room in an attempt to confirm that the improbable had indeed occurred. Except this time I was not looking for the remnants of a delicious night of hedonism, but for the remote, and when I turned on the teevee I discovered that I hadn’t dreamt it — at precisely 11PM EST the dam had finally burst. The 21st century had at long last begun.

Now if only we can learn to be less concerned about what happens in America’s bedrooms and more concerned about what happens in America’s boardrooms.

6.3 Miles. 22 Minutes.

2008-11-02T22:59:27Z

“[W]e are not bad at it, not at all. To be sure, alone neither Brigitta nor I is ever quite so cunning or brave, but together it seems that we strongly reenforce one another’s waywardness, and, as the nights go by, become more and more adroit at charming perfect strangers. Yet no matter how skillfully, how professionally, we come to maneuver as a team, I still go a little weak and dizzy when it appears that we have actually succeeded in finding a willing third…

— Philip Roth, The Professor of Desire

You are a fool.

Trapped in your delusions, you never fail to miss the obvious. You set your sights too low. You never take things far enough. It always comes as a revelation that someone, somewhere might take an interest in you.

You want her number. She wants to fuck you.

You didn’t shave your balls, and when you arrive she doesn’t pay you much mind. She spoke of blood and needles when you first met. Never mind that she was sweet and young and beautiful — you assumed she wanted something you could not offer. So you put her out of your mind. You didn’t think about her tits (how pert!), nor, God forbid, did you let yourself believe you might get a look at her cunt (how pliant and wet!).

It is much easier to impress civilians.

Her hair is different now. She is different now. Bite your lip when she glances in your direction. Smile when she approaches, squatting beside you and placing a pale hand upon your thigh. Ever the thoughtless one, it doesn’t occur to you to slide over until your wife insists upon it.

And yet even at this moment, even as she sits a little too close, even as she strokes your chin, you are still thinking about getting her number. Try to socialize with other people. After all, this is why you let yourself out of your cage tonight. Realize this is utterly pointless; you cannot tear yourself away from her.

Seduction is useless. The pupils, for example, dilate involuntarily. And the skin flushes. And the pulse quickens. None of this can be faked, the survival of the species being too essential to entrust to the machinations of the intellect. Words are unimportant. As the two of you draw closer, tell her about the time your college roommate claimed to have broken his penis during a night of rough sex.

People gather their things. Don’t mask your disappointment when she rises from her seat. “Leaving us already?” you ask. The way she looks at you tells you everything you need to know. “No, I’m just getting a beer,” she says. Accompany her to the counter, and when you get there ask the bartender to give you the worst beer he can find.

This is the Bad Man’s bar and it may as well be enemy territory. Your wife lifts her shirt to reveal her red bikini top. The bartender tells her she cannot do this. “This has to be the lamest bar in New York,” you tell the Bad Man. “What’s the attraction for you?” Your wife interrupts: “Why are you all just sitting there?” The apple of your eye shrugs. The Bad Man shrugs. You shrug.

Leslie takes the girl’s hand and leads her to the space in front of the DJ booth. Observe them in the quiet moments between words. You pretend not to notice when the girl’s hands find your wife’s ass. Something in you stirs.

When the three of you are alone the conversation turns seductive. Don’t be afraid to touch. “Do you like my ass?” she asks, rising from her seat. You and your wife squeeze her firm buttocks, pausing only to hide your pleasure from the angry eyes of the sex gestapo. Only now can you be certain of the young lady’s intentions. Wrap your arms around her. “We should go somewhere more comfortable,” she says in easily decipherable code. Everything is automagic now.

6.3 miles. 22 minutes. As the city scrolls by and your hand slides up the girl’s leg you catch yourself wondering how many times the cabbie has seen this. Drop your wife off at the bodega around the corner. Hand your credit card to your new playmate. The two of you laugh as she fumbles around in the dark trying to find the slot.

All you wanted was her number.

People think you are brilliant with women. You are clueless like everyone else.

Deserving It

2008-10-30T17:24:19Z

She didn’t deserve to be harassed for being drunk on her birthday.

Her friends didn’t deserve to be attacked for looking after her.

The cabbie didn’t deserve his broken window.

When we called the cops, I didn’t deserve to be asked: “Then why do you have blood on your knuckles, huh?”

That cowardly little wanna-be rapist, however, thoroughly deserved his twisted arm.

We all deserve to be taken seriously when it comes to consent.

Just needed to get that off my chest already.