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o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
o The 'Bookshelf collection' offers a very wide variety of o
o stories. They have been submitted by people from all over the o
o world. Also from alt.sex.stories (Newsgroups). There is no o
o particular order other than offering them to you in alpha- o
o betical directories. o
o I don't believe in categorizing things. "I don't want to o
o be typed therefore I don't type things myself." I think it's o
o a lot more fun to browse around and find 'little' surprises o
o that you might not have even thought of looking for. o
o Lest we forget!!! This story was produced as adult en- o
o tertainment and should not be read by minors. Kristen o
o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o o
Aguished Love (FM caution)
by Angel_wet <sponge_kite@nym.alias.net>
Date: 2/4/99
Whenever Marija and I had sex, she broke down and wept. Her
weeping continued until I managed to cheer her up, but it became
increasingly difficult to do this. Sometimes I could shake up her sorrow
by getting her to laugh, but I'm really not very witty or imaginative, so
I usually failed at this. I'd repeat jokes I'd heard, or mocked myself,
and she'd sit there becoming even more sad at my pitiable attempts at
humor. Food sometimes cheered her up, so every time I went to her
house I'd bring pints of ludicrous ice cream, or I'd bring large candy
bars, tear off the wrapping, toss her a stick of chocolate-coated
peanuts and nougat, and shout, "En garde!" and try to sword fight her
with chocolate. These tricks lost their charm quickly, and her grief
became unconsolable.
Her break-downs usually prevented her from reaching sexual
climax, but one evening she finally came. I thought this would break
the emotional connection she had between sorrow and sexual intimacy, but
instead, her descent into anguish was even more dramatic than usual: she
began sobbing, kicking at the walls, pulling her hair, and growling about
how God was torturing her.
I began to fear sexual contact with her. I even began to
associate pain with my own sexual performance, so that when I looked at
people other than her and found myself aroused, I would recoil inwardly,
jump back from my own erotic response, try to repress my sexual impulses.
I wanted to discover ways of achieving intimacy with
Marija that did not involve sexuality, but ironically, she started
becoming more sexually aggressive. And slowly, the shattering sorrow
that sex seemed to trigger in her changed -- to a sweeping bitterness,
a hostility without a clear target.
"Oh, yes, yes..."
She gasped as I thrust into her.
"Oh, faster, faster...Oh, God..."
She wrapped her arms around my back, pulling me firmly against
her breasts, all of her exhalations forming urgent demands, verbally
spiking the tension.
"Oh, Nicholas, Nicholas..."
She fell completely silent, her body stiffening, then gasped
quickly several times, then fell silent again. I came a moment later, but
I don't think I could have if she hadn't quieted down.
"That was so good." She sounded breathless, and writhed a little
as I pulled out.
"Man, that was hot. I wish my parents had seen that. Fuck,
I wish my junior high guidance counselor had, too. And the miserable
fucking deacon at my church. And Mister Rogers. I wish they were
all lying dead on the floor, annihilated by the echoes of my orgasm.
Man, it felt like I was exploding."
I stared at her. Her eyes were closed, and she was stroking
her breasts, running her palms over sweat I had left on her. Suddenly
she looked up at me.
"You wanna go steal some ice cream?"
"Huh?" I was still breathing heavily.
"You wanna steal some ice cream?"
"I have money."
"I don't wanna pay. That's boring. I wanna steal it."
* * *
"This is the best ice cream on the planet."
Her glassy eyes were set on a tiny carton decorated with cartoon
images of cows sailing around in the sky. The price label read $5.99.
"It has chunks of chocolate, four kinds of nuts, swirls of
caramel and fudge, rainbow jimmies on the top, a layer of cherry jam
at the bottom, wedges of turkish delight, malt balls, cookie dough,
crystalized fruit, gummy lizards, and I bet it'll fit in your coat
pocket."
She grabbed two cartons from the shelf, stuffed one in each of
my pockets, then nudged me down the isle toward the entrance. A security
guard was standing at the sliding exit doors, and I looked rigidly
forward as we approached him, laying my arms straight down at my sides
to cover my pockets. The bulges felt huge, like I had stuffed frozen
turkeys into my pockets. She's insane, I thought; why the hell
am I doing this?
"Hey!" Marija called out to the guard and stepped up to him
quickly. "Could you tell me where there's another supermarket? You
didn't have what we were looking for."
As she pressed the guard for directions, I strode past them to
the parking lot. While I drove home, Marija opened one of the cartons and
began tearing dark shapes out of the ice cream with her fingernails.
Things that crunched and snapped in her teeth, forced her to make
sucking noises, hum with delight.
Then she began crying again.
I stared at the road, wondering what to say.
"Hey, Marija...there's nothing wrong here, okay?"
She rolled down the window and hurled the ice cream at a bus
bench where three dark figures were gathered.
* * *
I've never been good at comforting people in distress. I never
know what to say, what sort of touch will sooth them. So I offer them
whiskey, or marijuana. Sometimes I try to make myself as sad as they
are; that way, if they're sensitive, they might try to console me, and
their act of comforting me might relieve their own sorrow. I cast off
my feigned despair and they feel good about themselves for
having helped me.
I began to wonder whether Marija's post-sex tears weren't also
some sort of act, perhaps with a completely different aim. I told
my friend Eric about Marija and our problems. He smoked a cigarette
silently, staring at his hands, then began clipping his nails as he
spoke.
"Sex brings out all kinds of primitive shit in people. I don't
know what goes through your mind when you're screwing, but with me, man,
nothing at all goes through my mind. I'm just doing it. Pleasure.
Fierce, animalistic pleasure. Oh, sure, sometimes I get weird images
and shit, but it's sort of like dreaming: my regular mind is zapped.
And when I get really intense, it's like the other person doesn't exist
at all. I might as well be a woodland recluse screwing a sheep."
"But why do you think she cries? And why'd she get so
strangely angry last time, throwing the ice cream at those strangers?"
"Why shouldn't she? For some people sex is the only time they
can get really emotionally intense. Was she hard to get into the sack?
Because if she had to tear down some inhibition against sexuality,
maybe a few other inhibitions accidentally went down with it. Did
I ever tell you about the girl who had to change personalities before
she could let herself have sex?"
"Nah, I would've remembered."
"She took on the personality of a fox terrier whenever she
wanted to get turned on. Woofed, sniffed at things, walked around on
her hands and knees. Then she got pregnant, and didn't want to get
an abortion. I had to convince her that the baby would have fur and
a muzzle before she agreed to terminate the pregnancy."
* * *
"When I come, it's like a jumbo jet landing on the rim of a
champagne glass. For a few moments, there is no such thing as `real'
anymore; anything could happen in those few moments. The world
could sink into oblivion, and I would somehow escape unscathed, my
soul still soaring somewhere, bouncing between stars, shooting
out toward unknown galaxies. There are no limits to imagination
during sexual climax. No wonder some cultures see sex as sinister."
I lay on my stomach, my shoulders at the foot of the bed,
arms dangling, fingers touching the carpet. Blood rushing. I heard
rustling behind me; she was ripping open the bag of chocolate
turtles I had brought her. She spoke, chomping.
"It's during sex that you really realize the physical body
is just a vehicle. A package for something far more amazing than a
bunch of wonderful cells. A kind of bomb, you know, that usually
detonates inward. Sex is like a demand that we can't ignore but which
we always manage to disobey. Who made the demand, though, and what
exactly is it? To be happy? That can't be, because sex leads so often
to pain. To multiply? No, because sex so often does not lead to
reproduction, and it often in fact leads to death or illness. Sex
is a demand that just does not make sense given the sort of world people
have managed to create for themselves so far. The demand of sex will
become intelligible once we're a more advanced race. When, though? In
the year three thousand? The year five million? Until then we just have
to keep using sex for reproduction, like using a sword to open a can of
soup. But you know that the sword was meant for something more than
that."
She paused, munching, and I got up and went to the bathroom.
When I returned Marija had arranged the remaining chocolate turtles in a
straight row where I had been lying. They stared up at me, a unified
force, guarding her bed. She lay next the pillows, her back against
the wall.
"Are we going to have sex?"
* * *
"Oh, God, Jesus, fuck, fuck...Nick, yes, yes, oh...God, oh,
oh, mm...yes, yes, God, ah..."
Marija rolled off the bed, barely gaining balance as her feet
hit the floor, and went in the kitchen. She dug through the trash
for the cigarettes she had thrown out earlier in the day, then lay back
down beside me. I felt something hard under my back, slid my hand under
me, and held the chocolate turtle up in the dim light. Marija snatched
it from my hand and began eating it while she smoked.
"I wish these were real turtles," she muttered.
"Next time I'll go to a pet store."
A few moments of dreadful waiting ensued. I closed my eyes,
listened for the sniffling, whimpering, wailing, gasping cries
of despair. But Marija jumped to her feet again, grabbed a magazine
with a glossy cover from her bedside table, and dove under the bed.
"What the hell are you doing, Marija?"
"I saw a spider this afternoon." Her muffled voice came from
directly underneath me. "It raced under the bed, but I was too afraid
to follow it."
"You think it'll still be there?"
"Where else would it go? They like dark places. Spiders
breed in the dark. Well, everything does, I guess."
I could feel her movement beneath me, and found it vaguely
distressing.
"Not tortoises. Or rhinos. They do it in broad daylight all
the time."
I heard her the magazine slap against the floor.
"Dammit! I can't see anything down here." She whacked the
magazine several more times. "If I just wap the entire floor down here,
what do you think my chances are of hitting it?"
"Zero. Spiders move. And I don't think it'd be just sitting
on the floor anyway. Do you have a flashlight?"
"No."
There was an urgent scuffling, the blankets hanging over the
edge of the bed flapped, and Marija reappeared.
"I'll get it some day. That little fucker will burn."
* * *
Marija's pattern of post-sex rage continued. One evening,
while I was still panting, she sat up on the edge of the bed, grabbed
the phone, and telephoned her step-father at his office.
"I know why you and Mom always discouraged my sexuality," she
said without any greeting. "You were trying to deprive me of the
sheer pleasure of it, that's one thing. You knew that I'd start
respecting myself if I could experience the pleasure of sex without
guilt, 'cause anyone who can feel so good just from their own bodies
is a fine person. Yes. Shut up! Will you listen to me, for once?
Okay. You also wanted to prevent me from knowing how powerful and
strong I was as a person. Sex is an incredible experience of personal
power. We get limitless personal strength just from being sexual, and
you never wanted me to be strong because if I was strong I'd learn to
question you and Mom. Well, let me tell you now, asshole: I am strong.
I know I'm strong. And I respect myself, because I experience fabulous
pleasure, and the greatness of it is me. I am the sublime pleasure of
sex. And if my pussy were a creature, it would fly over to you and
squash you. It would strangle you with tentacles of fire. It would piss
acid all over your skull and you'd walk around for the rest of your life
with no head and no one would notice because you've never had a
worthwhile thing to say in your life anyway."
She hung up, then turned to me.
"Was I shouting?"
I nodded.
"What did you think of what I said?"
"Uh, right on." I felt like I was shrinking; withdrawing
inwardly to get away from her volatility. "Some good...good ideas
there, Marija."
* * *
Marija became preoccupied with the idea that her vagina was
a dangerous natural force, sort of like a miniature hurricane which
she could unleash on any man.
"Well, no, not really, because not any man would be attracted
to you," I countered.
"Oh, they would if they'd gone long enough without sex."
"He could just masturbate," I said.
"Oh, is masturbation the same? Does it fill the same bodily
needs?"
Somehow I felt that I would be revealing something filthy
and anti-social about my sex if I said that masturbation did in fact
fulfill the same physical need that intercourse did.
"Well..." I stalled.
"Well, there you go."
"Okay, but you seem to think that your pussy is some sort of
omnipotent deadly thing that you can just whip out and attack people
with."
"Excuse me, little love-bite, but every time I make you
come, you are out for the count. You are Mister Refractory,
lying there in a daze, whipped, spent, drained and thrashed. If
approached you with violent intentions in that state, you'd
be defenseless."
"Okay, but it's not your pussy! It's my orgasm that renders
me defenseless. And being defenseless does not mean being sexual
rubble."
"Oh, yes it does. Because only sexual rubble is truly
defenseless."
Thus our conversations tended to wind and twist laboriously
through sematic knots then finally stall in abject triviality. But
what seemed clear to me was that Marija wanted to be able to inflict
upon other people something akin to the pain that she used to
experience in sexual intimacy -- and which I guessed she still
experienced, only now concealed with vitriol and fury. This made me
think of child-abusers, an enormous percentage of whom apparently
were beaten as children. Cycles of pain. Agony relieved only by
sharing it.
* * *
Marija began to think that religions discouraged sexuality
because religion was controlled by powerful political elites, and
sex threatened the elites' grip on society.
"Sex is a leveller. I mean, we can be sexually attracted
to any race, any class. This is bad for political elites: sex unifies
people, and political elites thrive on dividing people against
each other with prejudice, all sorts of class conflict, shit like
that. The government doesn't want us to be sexually free. Did you
know that there used to be anti-miscegenation laws in this society?"
"What laws?"
"Anti-miscegenation. Laws against racial mixing. I think
if you want to change the power structure of society, one of the best
ways is to fuck the very people we're not supposed to like in our
society. Can you imagine if Lady Di had screwed insane drug-addicted
homeless men? How that might change people's view of homeless people?
We would've thought: If they're good enough for her, they must be
worthwhile people. It would've increased our sensitivity immensely."
"Huh."
"Or can you imagine if Di had screwed Muslim terrorists? Or
transvestites? That would've been absolutely amazing. I really
would've liked her then."
* * *
One evening immediately after we made love I had a coughing
fit from which I almost could not break free. It was like having a
python coiled up in my body -- each cough disgorged another inch
of it, but the thing was fifteen feet long -- and finally
discovering that the python had fused with my large intestine. I
began to taste blood in my mouth. I became dizzy. I felt tears.
Finally my coughing subsided. I lay crumpled on the bed,
holding the point where my throat merged with me chest, expecting
to feel it gouged out, shredded and wet.
"You shouldn't've dissed my pussy earlier," Marija said,
chidingly.
"What?" My voice sounded like a sheet of paper being
ripped.
"When we were talking yesterday you discounted the power of my
pussy. Remember? Maybe your coughing has something to do with
that, hm?"
My voice was too weak for me to laugh at her ridiculous
notion.
* * *
"Sure," my friend Eric said comfortingly, "I've heard of
women personifying their pussies as exotic supernatural forces
before. They're not always allied with them, either; sometimes
their pussies have agenda that are totally contrary to their own.
I once knew a woman who said that her pussy drove her to
pull out her hair."
"Why?"
"Well, her pussy was jealous of her head having so much
long, flowing, wispy hair, while it only had thick, curly, short
hair, you know? So the pussy was furious. And the girl really
wrecked her appearance. Then her pussy got jealous of her aquarium -- or
maybe of the fish in it, I'm not sure -- for having so much liquid, so
she obediently drained the tank. The fish croaked, obviously. Then the
pussy got jealous of her car's engine for being so warm, so she wrecked
her own engine. It just went on and on, until finally her pussy got
jealous of her for having the ability to talk to guys, so she began
trying to cut out her tongue. It got really ugly and her roommates
finally called a psych hospital."
"Christ, that's really awful. But I'm sure if she had been
a guy something like that could've happened with her -- I mean,
his -- penis. It might've gotten jealous because his arms were so
long and muscular, so he might've tried chopping his arms off or
something."
"No, I don't believe that. I think that pussies are
unique among organs. I mean, I think they really do have a
distinctive, powerful voice that other body parts -- even the
penis -- do not have. I think that in many ways they are their own
organisms. They are independent life forms. They have ambitions.
Their own culture."
"So, wait a minute, you're saying that Marija is right to
be personifying her vagina?"
"See, that's your mistake: it's not just a vagina. Not
at all."
* * *
One evening after we made love I began to have groin
convulsions, like my testicles were being sucked rapidly up into
my body then detonating somewhere around my small intestines. I
could hear a distant rumbling, and my hands trembled wildly. I sat
hunched over, as if I could physically clutch at the cause of my
distress.
"Hurts, don't it?"
It sounded like she was taunting me; like she thought she was
responsible, and relished the sense of power. I groaned hatefully.
"What do you think's wrong?"
I heard her light a cigarette and inhale luxuriantly. She
held the nicotine in her lungs for a moment, then exhaled, speaking at
the same time, the smoke adding a fuzzy tone to her voice.
"Maybe your body's trying to carve out a pussy. You know?
Retire the rusty old wand?"
The convulsions hit me again, and I fell to my side, grimacing.
* * *
At home that night, I decided to try to come up with some
sort of ritual to propitiate her pussy. To ward off its evil, to
placate it, to put myself in its good graces. I felt ridiculous
for doing this, but at the same time I was desperate; my body showed
symptoms when we made love that I had never witnessed in it ever
before, as if suddenly, at the age of thirty, my immune system had
collapsed and I was plunged into a state of rapid bodily decay.
What sort of ritual symbolism would I want from a supplicant
if I were a vagina? The question baffled me, for I could not fathom how
a vagina might view reality, what a vagina might value in things.
It bothered me, needless to say, that simply in the act of sex with
Marija I did not please her vagina enough to win its favor. Clearly
the vagina wanted more than pleasure -- or at least, more than the
pleasure I gave Marija through sex. Did the vagina have its own
concept of pleasure which had nothing to do with Marija's? Was I in
fact belittling Marija's vagina by treating it as nothing more than an
instrument for her delectation?
I began to worry about my grasp on reality: I was ennobling
a cluster of reproductive organs, treating them as a superstitious
primitive might treat an altar to a frightfully temperamental nature-god.
And I knew that it was watching me.
I burned incense before a small metal statuette of Kali, the
ferocious, swarthy Hindu goddess depicted with a necklace of skulls.
I drew pictures of vaginal mouths -- with long teeth, emebedded
eyes, hairs like waving tentacles reaching out at kneeling, trembling
crowds. I drew the vaginas as the openings of tunnels leading into
chaotic mysteries, mythological realities, inescapable labyrinths. I
chanted nonsense words as I burned the drawings, laying the ashes before
the statuette of Kali, trying to send up with the smoke the feelings of
awe and fear that shook my heart.
I wandered around in a forest, and buried the statuette deep
in the moist, cold ground, as if returning it to the womb of the earth,
then stuck twigs into the ground encircling the burial spot.
But none of my haphazard, make-shift rituals did a thing to
shelter me from the wrath of Marija's demonic sub-creature. The next
time we made love, I came down with a ravaging flu which kept me
bed-ridden for nearly a week. Parts of my body shivered with astonishing
coldness, while other parts of it seemed to bake with phantom heat.
Copious pearly, dense fluids blasted out when I blew my nose; my head
spun when I closed my eyes and stared at darkness.
* * *
"How can I kill her pussy?"
My friend Eric had visited me, and insisted that I accompany
him on a leisurely stroll through the woods. He assured me that the
fresh air would alleviate my symptoms, but each time I planted my feet
on the moist ground my head throbbed.
"Kill it?" He sounded aghast.
"How? You gotta tell me. I can't go on like this."
"You assume that pussies are mortal?"
"Well, are they? You seem to be the pussy research guy."
"No, as far as human science and occult research have revealed,
they're not mortal at all. Even when a woman dies, her pussy--"
"Then what the hell can I do?" I interupted him, "I tried all
sorts of appeasing rituals; I've tried being extra attentive to her
in bed..."
Eric shook his head sadly.
"If it's determined that you're an enemy, I mean...I'm not sure
there is much you can do."
I stopped walking.
"Goddamit, Eric! I refuse to believe that I'm cursed for
life. There must be something that I can do."
Eric stood a few paces in front of me, his eyes wandering
over the scenery -- the leafless skeletons of maple trees, the dense
heights of pines.
"The only thing that I know of..."
"What? I'll try anything."
"The only thing that you can try to do is capture her pussy.
Make it your prisoner."
"How the hell can I do that?"
He turned to me as a forboding shadow fell over his
features.
* * *
Eric's instructions were simple enough, but he warned me
extensively of the dangers of failure. If the pussy had an animosity
toward me now, it would become downright homicidal if it learned
I was trying to imprison it. I would have to succeed on the first
attempt.
On the way to Marija's the first night after I recovered from
my flu, I bought a pack of non-stick mint-flavored bubble gum. I would
have to chew a piece right before going down on Marija, and then,
with my lips touching her pubic hair, I would have to blow a bubble
against her clitoris. If the bubble enlarged smoothly against her, it
would capture the soul of her pussy. I would then have to remove the gum
from my mouth without breaking the bubble, then flush it down the toilet.
"It won't die, understand, but the malevolent soul of her
pussy will be travelling around in the sewer system for eternity. The
only way it'll be able to reach you is if it manages to rise up, clog
a toilet, and then you happen to try crapping in that same toilet.
If you can get the bubble part right and flush it, you should be
pretty safe."
I wondered if Marija would notice when I took her vagina's soul
from her. Would it sooth her stormy spirit? Quell her wild emotions?
We went to a movie -- a science-fiction picture about a small but
heroic space colony that launched brutal lightning attacks against
a formidable intergalactic empire in the name of democracy. In the final
scene, the last remaining member of the democratic guerilla army --
a hirsute female cross between a human and a french poodle -- charged
through a sluggish wall of robot slave-warriors, slashing off their heads,
tossing around laser grenades, and shouting deliriously about freedom and
the simple joys of agrarian life.
"This is so fucking macho," Marija said, tossing chocolate-
coated almonds at the screen. "A real female would never be so
blood-thirsty."
"She's killing robots," I protested, "There's no blood involved."
"That's not the fucking point," she said, throwing a fist-full
of almonds at the screen. Most of the almonds fell on the audience
in the first few rows.
"Marija, jesus! Why are you throwing stuff?"
"Shut up," she hissed.
"Why? Why are you doing that?"
"It's a girl thing, okay? Now shut up."
At the Peruvian restaurant after the movie, Marija returned three
dishes before conceding that one was palatable. Each time she changed
her mind, the waiter grew more impatient with her criticisms -- that the
rice was so undercooked it almost cracked her teeth, that the guacamole
was mayonaise dyed green, that the steak tasted like rancid cat meat --
and as the waiter began to argue, she became more vocally bitter. Finally,
Marija threatened to have the waiter deported to Mars, which, she said,
was probably where he hatched.
By the time we returned to her place I was exhausted. I was
still not entirely over my flu, and I felt the familiar ache constricting
my body, fever-heat radiating from my forehead. I undressed us slowly
while we kissed, Marija groping me and biting my lips. As she lay back
on her colorful mound of pillows with her eyes closed, I fumbled with my
pants for the pack of gum. It took a few seconds to retrieve it from
my pocket, and the delay caught her attention. By the time I ripped the
top of the wrapper off the gum she was staring at me in the darkness.
"What's that?"
"Hm?"
"What are you holding?"
"Nothing. What?"
Just as I pulled a piece of gum from the pack, she snatched it
away from me, then turned on the bedside light.
"Minty bang-o bubble gum?" She asked incredulously, rising
to her feet. She glared down at me, trembling.
"You were going to try to capture the soul of my pussy!"
"No!" I protested, frantically waving my hands. "I wasn't.
It's just that sometimes my mouth gets dry, and--"
"Liar! You fucking liar! You were going to try to rob my of
the one thing that gives me strength! You lousy, villainous scum!"
Marija threw my clothes at me while driving me out the door.
As I scrambled to dress myself in the hall, she shouted that she knew
I was working for her step-father.
* * *
"You're in deep shit now," Eric told me, shaking his sadly,
his eyes almost closed. "God, I'm glad I'm not in your position."
"Oh, Christ, it's not that big a deal. I'll just stop seeing
Marija. I'll find someone else. She's not the only mermaid in the
sea."
He stared at me for a moment, critically, quietly.
"Look, here's how it works: all members of various classes of
things have a sort of subtle energy that they share with each other. For
example, all tires, all yo-yos, all banks. They communicate with each
other at a super-human level, beyond our ability to grasp what they're
saying. And if you offend one member of a class of things, all the
other members know about it. It's like women: after being persecuted and
mistreated for so long, they have a certain consciousness that they
share with each other -- the consciousness of a suffering group.
It holds them together at a certain level, it gives them identity.
It's a girl thing. So you can't have a relationship with another
pussy without it knowing at some level how you tried to capture
Marija's."
"Fine," I said, "Then I renounce pussy. I don't need it
in my life. If I want sex, I'll get it from another guy."
"I know. You're going gay. Lots of guys get to homosexuality
this way; they're overwhelmed by the challenge forming a truly harmonious
relationship with the tempestuous spirit that lurks behind every vagina.
Well, I wish you luck."
* * *
For more than half a year I did not date. Why risk it? But
I could not simply expunge my need for intimacy, and I realized that
if I had become gay, I should get on with it. One evening I went to
The Hunt, a nightclub that catered to our city's gay population.
To my surprise and delight, the place was packed with vividly
dressed, energetic men. Immediately I began to feel fashion-impaired,
deplorably tasteless in my jeans and corduroy jacket. There was one
open seat at the bar, so I squeezed in and ordered a long island ice
tea. I drank nervously, keeping my face down, averted from the
curious -- amused? -- looks the handsome men were giving me. My mind
raced: Can I enjoy this? Can I be attracted to other men?
After a couple of drinks I noticed one of the guys sitting
next to me. He was tall, very lean and muscular, and had extremely
short hair which looked like gleaming dust sprinkled over a bald
head. His face was full of shapes, very defined, and his lips were
pierced with gleaming rows of silver rings. I was intrigued, but tried
to avoid making eye-contact with him.
After I took a sip of my third drink, he began giggling
obscenely. I hadn't overheard his conversation up to then, but now I
turned. His voice was melodious, and as he talked his tongue
swatted at the rings piercing his lower lip.
"I think there is a comparison," he said, his voice rising
and falling in odd places. I wondered if English was his second
language.
"A butthole is a lot like a pussy," he said, "just tighter and
meaner. You know what I mean? Whatever you do with your life,
you definitely do not want to enrage an anus. They can get you. They
can get you good."
As if expecting confirmation, he glanced over at me with a
curious, jagged smile. I stared at his darkly mirthful, morbidly amused
eyes, then staggered back from the bar. He continued watching me, and
began laughing as I struggled through the dense crowd toward the exit.
As I hurried home, his bizarre statement about anuses, his
hostile, taunting laugh echoed in my mind. I passed a convenience
store, and bought several packs of Minty bang-o bubble gum.
I'll keep it with me always, I promised myself. Protection.
I have to protect myself from sex.