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Christmas Cards
My sister stopped by today, not so much to see how I was doing,
but rather to scope out which Christmas cards I’d gotten so far.
She wanted to make sure that I hadn’t received any more from our
relatives than she did. I had to give her credit though. She waited
an entire half hour before she mentioned my pile of unopened mail
on the counter.
“You’ve got a whole pile of Christmas cards here,” she said. “Why
haven’t you opened them yet?”
I shrugged. I hadn’t had the time.
“May I?” she asked.
“Knock yourself out,” I said.
I turned to pour us another glass of Peroni beer when I suddenly
heard her choking. At first, I thought she was choking on a feta
cheese stuffed olive from Dimitri’s Italian Goods, but I realized
she was horror struck by one of the cards she’d just opened.
Looking over her shoulder, I patted her on the back at the same
time. It was from one of my publishers, featuring a woman’s genitalia
artistically perched on top a Christmas tree like a bizarre pink
angel.
“Cool,” I said. “I bet you didn’t get this one.”
Grabbing her camel hair coat and Coach purse, she stormed out.
Now she was going to be mad for six months. My sister considered
my porn writing to be a short-lived hobby, like when I tried doing
needlework or creating mosaics. She is certain I will get bored
with it eventually. The only thing was that my needlework looked
like a drunken hamster had attempted it, and my mosaics looked
like someone had thrown up grout, broken glass and rocks. Believe
it or not, I’m good with porn. People actually wanted to pay me
money for what I’ve written. What better validation do you need
than that? In addition, I wasn’t going to get bored. I usually
had sex on the brain anyway. Why not put it to good use?
My sister didn’t see it this way. She hated the whole sordidness
of it. To her Showgirls should have been rated XXX, and she never
let her husband watch the Emmy pre-show because of the nipple
factor on the red carpet.
The next time I see her I’m sure she will act as if everything
was fine, but it will be in her eyes, a brittle little crack in
what was left of our sisterhood.
Camel Toes
Today, I learned what a camel toe was. It’s crotch cleavage, the
distinct cleft between the legs when a woman wears her pants too
tight. I had no idea this existed, that it had a name, or there
were even a few Web sites devoted to it. See what you learn on
the Internet by just following a few links?
Now, I find myself staring at women’s crotches, in the drugstore,
in the library and in the hardware store. It’s fascinating. It’s
everywhere. In all shapes and sizes. Then at my favorite corner
grocery store, I saw the mother of all camel toes. I didn’t care
that this blonde girl had mall hair or that she was wearing way
too much makeup for daytime. It was her clothing. She was wearing
a skintight black halter-top and the tightest pair of jeans I’d
ever seen. She must have used pliers to zip them up. Her camel
toe was so tight it looked painful. Just the thought of all that
pressure down there made me want to go pee.
That was what I was thinking about when I was busted. The head
cashier caught me blatantly staring at another woman’s crotch.
How can I go back there now? Of course, it’s the only place that
carries my favorite no name sugar pops. My boyfriend, Michael,
would never go get them for me. He hated the place. Moreover,
the head cashier was always there, wearing her 70s frosted shag
hairdo and dangling earrings like she existed in a time warp.
I swore she never went home.
I can’t believe I lost my no name sugar pops to a camel toe.
Love Notes
Michael thinks I’m cheating on him because he found a note with
my handwriting in the laundry. Normally, this wouldn’t be a big
deal. I write a lot of notes, but this note was about a physical
exam with Dr. Eric. I had written how much Dr. Eric turned me
on with his swarthy dark looks and his warm hands on my legs.
I tried to explain to Michael that it was part of a story I was
working on, but he wasn’t convinced because I had recently gone
to the doctors. Trying to clarify it further, I told him I was
writing it from the point of view of the character, not me! It
was hopeless. He just couldn’t grasp the concept. So I gave up
on the explanation and hoped to get the note back. I had defiantly
written something sexy I needed.
“Where is the note?” I asked.
“I threw it away,” he said.
“Why would you do that? Aren’t you supposed to confront me with
it?”
He looked as if it had never occurred to him.
“I was pissed so I threw it away,” he said and stormed out of
the room.
Once again, he was proving that some really good-looking guys
aren’t too bright.
When we first met, I thought he was a little too slick and cocky
for me. We went to the same health club. I swam laps. He ran.
We kept bumping into each other in the coed hot tub and steam
room. Since I never considered him an option, I acted like myself
for a change. Also, he had already seen me at my worst in my nasty
old swimsuit. You have no idea how many swimsuits I’ve ruined
because of the chlorine, so now I buy the ugliest, cheapest suit
I can find because it’s only going to last me a few months anyway.
On top of that, he’d seen me with swimming goggles on, and that
was just not a good look.
I figured he had to be talking to me because he was bored. Mostly
to shock him and alleviate my own boredom, I told him about my
part time porn career. He didn’t seem too shocked, thus proving
the boredom factor in his motivation to talk to me.
Imagine my surprise when he kissed me in the parking lot one night.
He was a very good kisser, leaving me breathless. Then he told
me he had been harboring a secret crush on me for months. I didn’t
believe him, but he convinced me with some more kissing. We moved
in together six months later.
Girlfriends
After dealing with Michael, you can imagine my relief going to
lunch with Jen, my one sane friend, although she was a little
wild. She rented a big loft near the Eastern Market, and she goes
to all the clubs on the weekends, where she likes to wear “fuck
me” clothes and then acts surprised when men look at her.
We met at La Shish Kabob. I loved the Arabian Night atmosphere
with the arched windows, brass chandeliers and fabric draped across
the ceiling. The place was empty except for one other table. Of
course we were seated close by them and there were kids, who amazingly
were eating Happy Meals.
Over our freshly made pita bread, spicy salsa and mango smoothies,
Jen started telling me in vivid and lengthy detail about the three
way she had over the weekend. She had done it with two guys she
was currently dating. Casually, she’d mentioned it to them as
a fantasy she wanted to fulfill. To her amazement, they both agreed.
“Did they do each other?” I asked.
“No. Just me.”
“So how did it happen?”
“I went and sat on the bed. Alex went into the bathroom and came
out naked. It really broke the ice.”
“Did it hurt?”
She shook her head.
“One hole or two?” I asked, eagerly.
The manager came over to us.
“I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” he said. “There has been
a complaint. Your topic of conversation is inappropriate for the
restaurant.”
We glanced over our shoulder at the family. The mother was glaring
at us. Those kids were way too little to know what we were talking
about.
“What if we change the topic?” I asked.
He shook his head.
“Can we at least get our food to go?” I asked.
I couldn’t imagine leaving without our vegetarian platters with
hummus, tabbouli, spinach pie and grape leaves.
“The manager says you have to leave. That is his sister.”
“What about an order of the baklava?” I pleaded.
I had promised Michael I would bring him some back. I couldn’t
leave without it. This was the only place I knew that made their
baklava with pistachios instead of walnuts, and they used an orange
syrup instead of the usual lemon. Michael would flip if I didn’t
bring some home.
The waiter shook his head. After taking one more sip of smoothie
each, we left.
Our lunch plans ruined, we stood in the parking lot, staring at
one another. Jen didn’t look happy with me, but it had been her
fault as well. She was the one having the three ways. I promised
to call her soon and we parted. I went home, where I had a peanut
butter and jelly sandwich by myself.
Other Girlfriends
Lately, I’m not having too much luck with my friends. My other
friend, Constance, was acting nuts. She claimed she was into corsets,
but she had never bought one. I caught her complaining the other
day that her bra was too tight. You would have thought she would
have liked that. She worked at an upscale bed linen store with
thousand count sheets and wrought iron beds, and yet she chowed
down on little greasy hamburgers at places truck drivers would
stop.
Constance thought I wanted her, because I took a scrap of our
conversation in a dressing room and inserted it into a story about
two women doing it in a similar dressing room. What happened was
this. We were trying on lingerie in a dressing room together because
the place was so crowded during a sale. Constance mentioned that
she had been checking out girls recently. I didn’t pay her much
attention because she was always saying stuff like that, but nothing
ever came of it.
In my story, I had the two girls in the dressing room hook up
after the confession with admiring glances of long limbs, lots
of lace and garters. In real life, I had been trying on a yellow
rubber duck design nightshirt, and Constance had been trying on
a boring white slip.
I was so excited about seeing the story published on this classy
erotica Web site that I sent her a link to the story online, totally
forgetting where the inspiration for the story came from.
Now she kept leaving me voice mails, asking me to get together
for lunch and lingerie shopping.
Cats Under the Bed
A few days later, I finally finished the Dr. Eric story. It was
truly a masterpiece of sexual degradation, and it made me so horny
I had to masturbate.
Michael’s cat wanted some attention. He’s had this cat ever since
he was a little kid, and now she’s like seventeen years old. I
gave her points for lasting this long, but sometimes she was a
pest. She had the most unimaginative name in the world, “Kitty.”
I’ve thought about upgrading her name, but Michael won’t hear
it, so sometimes I’ve added adjectives like “Pretty Kitty.” Michael
just rolled his eyes. Sometimes, I think it was more important
what his cat thought of me than his parents.
I tried to pacify her with a couple quick pets and hoped she would
go away. I was not going to do it front of her. Rolling over onto
my other side for some privacy, I accidentally knocked her off
the bed. The sensitive little snot head shot under the bed like
I had struck her with a broom.
That was when Michael came home and found me trying to coax her
out.
“Why is Kitty under the bed?” he asked.
I shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe a breeze blew on her and she took
it the wrong way.”
Sizing me up on the bed, he raised and an eyebrow. “You look sexy
lying there,” he said. He took off his shirt, his signal that
he wanted to do it. He’s never been big on foreplay. It’s more
like “let’s kiss” and “let’s do it.” But since I was already sort
of warmed up, I nodded.
I did feel a little guilty about the masturbating thing so to
make up for it I initiated butt play with a dildo. This was something
he wanted to do to me for a long time. Thank goodness, he didn’t
ask me, “why now.” Then I would have to explain I needed the details
for another story.
It was a little uncomfortable at first, but toward the end, I
got into it, good enough to have a mind-blowing orgasm and then
pass out.
When I woke up, I couldn’t find the dildo. The little pink plastic
butt fucker was gone.
Please don’t let Kitty be using it as a cat toy, I thought. Michael
was still sleeping. Quietly, I got out of bed and bent over to
look for it on the floor when suddenly I farted. The dildo shot
out of my ass.
Young Women
After I recovered from the dildo incident, an editor called me.
He couldn’t use the story I had submitted to him, but he liked
my style of writing. He wanted to me to write these 200 word blurbs
for beneath some photos for another one of his magazines. I happily
agreed.
The photos came by overnight mail. I pulled them out their envelope
and raised an eyebrow. These young women looked very young, maybe
a day or two past eighteen at the most. I kept thinking about
myself at that age. Did I want horny men looking at my crotch?
I had the worst time making up the scenarios, but I did the best
I could and sent them off. The editor didn’t like them. He said
I tried to cram too much story into a small space. He wanted a
single scene.
Michael once said he had read a lot of these magazines when he
was younger. Wanting his advise, I visited him in the bathroom
as he was taking a shower. I sat on the toilet seat, explaining
my frustration.
“What’s the deal with these girls?” he asked.
“Well one girl is a babysitter who finds a pair of naughty panties
and whacks off with them. The other girl is trying to seduce older
men at a pool.”
“So say this,” Michael said.
And he launched into the raunchiest word festival I’ve ever heard
come out of his mouth. Maybe the hot water was doing something
to his brain. I hadn’t expected him to come up with something
this quick. I had a pencil tucked behind my ear, but no paper,
so I used the inside of a tampon box.
Watching him in the shower, I thought he looked sexy right now.
I should hop inside the shower with him, but I wanted to get these
words down. I ran to my desk, but I felt like I was leaving something
important behind.
Deadlines
My computer locked up this morning. Michael had already left for
work. I told the editor I would have the scenarios to him by
this morning. Since I can’t email them to him, I decided to fax
them from work.
At work though, under the fluorescent lights, I was concerned
my copy wasn’t dark enough for our crappy fax machine, so I made
a darker copy first. Thank god, it went through the fax the first
time, but as I got back to my desk, I realized the last page of
my original draft was missing. Of course, it was the page with
the big orgasm scene with the babysitter.
Panicking, I ran back to the copy machine to find it gone. I glanced
down. It was in the trashcan, ripped neatly in half. Oh no. Someone
found it. Looking around the room for the culprit, I realized
my boss was staring at me by the postage machine, an eyebrow raised.
I swallowed.
“Oh my Lord,” I said. “Who would write such filthy disgusting
stuff? I’m so glad someone ripped it up.”
With that said, I headed back to my desk, feeling like I had betrayed
myself.
Constance Again
After work, I came home to find Constance’s car in the driveway.
What was she doing here? I went inside and heard voices coming
from the kitchen. At first, it looked like a normal scene. One
of my girlfriends had stopped by for a visit and my boyfriend
was sitting at the kitchen counter talking to her, but then I
saw Michael’s face. It was drained of color. What on earth could
make him look like this? Had something happened to Kitty?
“Your girlfriend wants to do a three way,” he announced.
“What?” I asked, stunned.
“Your girlfriend came over here, and she said she wants to have
sex with me and you, because she has a crush on you, and it might
be easier if I was there. Apparently in some story you posted
online you communicated to her that you felt that way too.”
“I didn’t post it. It was published,” I said.
Michael rolled his eyes.
“What the hell is going on?” he demanded.
“Are you crazy?” I asked her.
Acting embarrassed, Constance crossed her arms over her chest
and looked at the floor.
“So Penny what happened in a lingerie dressing room?” Michael
asked.
“That was a couple months ago. Remember when I brought home the
rubber ducky nightshirt.”
“You went to a lingerie store and came home with that?”
A color was coming back to his face. It was red.
“Constance,” I said to her, like a parent might to a naughty child.
“I told you that was a story. It’s not real life. I just put a
lost dildo up the ass in a gay story, and I’m not a gay man.”
“You put the dildo up the butt thing into a story?” Michael asked.
“That was personal.”
“But Jen said you were really into three ways,” she said.
Oh god.
“When did she say this?” I asked.
“We’ve been seeing each other. Meeting for shopping and lunch.”
“You guys hate each other.”
Constance shrugged. I tried to compose myself, but I couldn’t
believe they were seeing each other behind my back.
“Why does Jen think you’re into three ways?” Michael asked me.
“She did one the other weekend and she was telling me the details
at La Shish Kabob. We were kicked out for inappropriate conversation.”
“That’s why no baklava,” he announced, like a private detective
figuring out a twist in the crime.
I looked at Constance.
“Look Constance,” I said as gently as possible. “I like you as
one of my friends, but I do not want to have a three way with
you or any other way as a matter of fact.”
“Nor do I,” Michael said.
“I never want to see either of you again, as long as I live,”
she shouted.
In a torrent of tears, she ran from the kitchen. A moment later,
we heard the front door slam.
Michael leveled his gaze on me. It was so cold it gave me a chill.
“I got an invitation to go out tonight with the guys, and I wasn’t
going to go because I wanted to spend time with you,” he said.
“But I think I’m going now.”
Once he was gone, I sat there fuming, desperately needing a bowl
of my no name sugar pops to calm myself down, but since I didn’t
have them, I ate two Snickers Bars and drank two cans of Coke.
Then I left Jen a message, thanking her for destroying my relationship
with Constance and maybe my relationship with Michael as well.
I finished with “Don’t bother calling me again.”
House Parties
Michael had never been this mad at me before. There had been no
cuddles, kisses, or jokes all week. That weekend, we were invited
to a barbecue at Josh’s house. He was Michael’s best friend. I
wasn’t sure if I should go or not.
“Do you still want me to go?” I asked, the day of the party.
“Why wouldn’t I?” he asked.
I was a little worried about how he would act, but as soon as
we got there, he started acting like himself again. I started
to relax for the first time in days.
All the other girls went into the kitchen to check on the food,
but I stayed by Michael. He was in such a good mood I didn’t want
to leave him. Besides, I didn’t click with these girls. All they
talked about what was an acceptable carat size for an engagement
ring. After listening to them for the past half hour, I actually
missed Jen and Constance.
We were in Josh’s sports room, or what I liked to call the Male
Bonding Room. There were a lot of sports memorabilia, an actual
bar and a huge sectional sofa. Plus, Josh collected celebrity
autographs.
The guys started talking about all the stupid stunts they’ve pulled
over the years. Then the conversation led to the times when they
used to visit strip clubs. I didn’t mind. They’ve talked about
stuff like this before in front of me because they know I write
porn.
Suddenly, I realized they weren’t talking about the far away past.
They were talking about the other night, and how this stripper
sucked this gum out of one their mouths, chewed it and spit it
back in. Michael was cracking up and blushing, saying how after
it happened he’d accidentally swallowed the gum.
I got a chill. That’s where he went the other night when he was
mad at me. My boyfriend was sharing gum with a half-naked girl.
I felt nauseous.
“Why didn’t you tell me about this?” I asked.
I tried to control the tone of voice, but it came out like cold
water on barking dogs. Everyone froze. His smile faded.
“I told you I went out,” he said.
“You didn’t tell me this,” I shrieked.
Immediately, everyone filed out of the room but us.
“I would never cheat on you,” I said. “How would you like it if
I got it on with Josh?”
He looked pale.
“Well, you stop writing porn, and I’ll stop the strippers,” he
said.
“Michael, you knew I wrote porn when you met me. You’re like a
girl who hooks up with a guy who races bikes and yet the moment
they are together, she wants him to get rid of the bikes.”
“But I’m so sick of your exploiting our personal business,” he
said. “Sometimes you just don’t think.”
I hesitated.
“Think about it Penny,” he said. “A lot of this shit happens because
you don’t use your head.”
I opened my mouth to say something more, but he interrupted me.
“Think,” he said.
So, I thought about it. Could I avoid some of these perils of
writing porn if I used my head? My sister probably wouldn’t be
mad at me if she hadn’t opened my Christmas cards. Michael would
have gotten his baklava if I had monitored my conversation with
Jen in front of those kids at La Shish Kabob. Constance wouldn’t
have wanted to do a three way if I hadn’t sent her the link to
that story.
“I think you might be right,” I said. “I do need to start using
my head when I write porn.”
As soon as I said it, all this fog in my brain started to clear.
It was like all the porn neurons were confusing my common sense
neurons.
Michael looked relieved.
“I’m sorry, too, for everything,” he said.
To show me he meant it, he gave me a sweet, tender, probing kiss
like he had the first time he kissed me, the kind that took my
breath away and made me fall in love with him, but immediately
I started categorizing the details. This kiss would be perfect
for this new story idea. The way his mouth was pressed against
mine, the way his tongue traced my teeth.
Stop it, Penny, I told myself. If Michael didn’t want me to use
our personal details in stories than I wouldn’t.
Breaking the kiss, I let him lift me up in his arms to give me
a big squeeze. That’s when I saw it. Over his shoulder. A newly
framed autographed photo on the wall. The picture was from a strip
club with all the guys, including Michael, and sitting on his
lap was the headliner. And guess who she was? Camel Toe Girl.
I was definitely putting this kiss in a story. |
