Part I Scissors Beat Paper

Angelique watched him from the corner near the floor length window in his study.  He had been reading for over an hour.  She took the time to practice, in her head, what she might say tonight.  Since last night had gone so horribly, she wanted to try to make amends.  After all, it was she who needed his help.  It was completely against her character to press such an issue.  But time was of the essence and really the favor she needed from Victor was actually a tiny one in the grand scheme of things.

‘Haunting’ she said aloud.  ‘I think that is the best of course of action to take.’

“You have been standing there for over an hour staring at the back of my head and all you were able to come up with was haunting.  Truly you are the most pathetic ghost I have ever seen.”

Angelique moved to the center of the room taking up the space between the fireplace and Victor.  “Cool curtains.  Are they velvet?”

“Yes” Victor answered flatly.

“Kinda cliché for a vampire though don’t you think?  I mean, this is 2010, vampires could have brocade curtains at least.  I mean brocade fabric is still heavy and oh so old fashioned but its chic too. Brocade is even in Pottery Barn nowadays! Add a few tassels and we’ve moved the whole room into the present day.  And since you’re a nice vampire, you could even go with something  macho metro sexual like brushed suede or even a silk as long as it was in an ice blue or mocha color.  Either color would go with the leather couch and the fainting chaise.  Fainting chaise…I mean, really?  Can you actually make a woman swoon and fall under her spell just by looking deeply into her eyes?  Cause if you can, this chair would definitely be defined as not only decorative but functional….”

“How long do you plan on driveling on like this?” asked Victor, his voice straining to sound smooth.

“I’m not sure.  While I have been floating around, I haven’t just been contemplating haunting you.  I’ve been redesigning this whole room.  I mean you must have something like two thousand books in here.  I checked actually, when you tried locking me in here the other night.  By the way…. I can’t believe you thought I was just some creepy girl from eharmony.com.  Now you have to admit, I was pretty clever.  And you know, I had to manifest energy all day just to be that solid for our first meeting.  Pretty convincing, eh?  Well, I mean, you don’t have to answer that, because you already answered that question when you chased me in here and locked the door.”  Angelique laughed nervously.

“Enough! Just leave!” Victor shouted.

“Leave?  I can’t leave.  I’m haunting you.”

“No you are not.”

“Uh, I think I am.  Yes.”  Angelique pulled out something invisible from thin air and waved her hand as if she were turning the pages of some unseen book.  “Ah yes, here are the specific criteria.”  She cleared her throat.  “Do you feel anxious?”

“Yes”

“Do you have a deep desire to run away from your established place of residency?” Angelique peered over the top of her invisible book to look her interviewee in the face. “Answer truthfully now because this is my first haunting and I want to do well.”

“Yes!”

“Do you want to comply with my wishes just to get away from me?”

“That’s not haunting, that’s blackmail.”

“You’re good.  You caught me.  I was just trying to see if you were any closer to accepting my request.”

“Why can’t you haunt my house like a normal ghost?  Rattle some pans, move things around, stare back at me from the reflective side of a mirror.  For once I’d have a reflection!  Oh, oh!  I’ve got it!  Why can’t you make the walls bleed?  I would actually enjoy that!  Work on that why don’t you?!” Victor paced back and forth thinking.  Then he snapped his fingers so loudly he made Angelique jump.  “What about moaning?  I could ignore moaning.”

Angelique smiled innocently and shook her head.  “Sorry.  Even dead, I’m too pretty to moan.  You’re still a full functioning male.  It would turn you on and then you’d want to take me to bed, and then just as you were about to cum, I’d run out of manifested energy and poof, you’d go right through me!  Or worse, I’d sink into the bed and land underneath it leaving you frustrated and irritated. “ Angelique paused.  She placed a thin, smokey finger to her lips.  “Then again, if the goal is to irritate you….. some moaning might be in your future.”

“I’m not helping you.  As a matter of fact, you are leaving right now” said Victor, directly.

“You can’t get rid of me so quickly.  I looked it up on Wikipedia.  There isn’t any defense that a vampire has against a ghost.”

“Try reading a book sometime!”  Victor shouted and from the leather bound pages in his hand, he recited something that to Angelique sounded like Greek or Latin.  Suddenly, she found herself stepping backwards towards the windows against her own will.

“Please” she pleaded.  “I need your help.  Jeff only has a little bit of time left.  You helped all those other women.  Why can’t you help me?”

Victor stopped pushing with his invisible force and look sympathetically at Angelique.  “All those women had been beaten or worse by their lovers.  I have a way of getting the truth out of the women over the course of the evening.  When they tell me their circumstances, I perform the justice that most court rooms cannot deliver.  Do you understand Angelique?  A vampire does one thing and one thing only very, very well.  We drink blood.  And we drink until the body is completely left void of the liquid.  Even if I wanted to help you, I couldn’t.  Once I bit your Jeff, I couldn’t stop.”

“I think you could.  I have faith in you.  It’s worth a try” said Angelique with desperation in her voice.

“No!  Now get out!” Victor chanted the words from his book again and Angelique found herself thrust out of the windows and onto Oblieque street.  She sighed.

“Well there was another night well spent” she said to no one in particular.  She thought of Jeff lying in his hospital bed, but the sound of peeps and hum of monitors was just all the more depressing.  She needed to forget for a little while.  She needed a good possession.

In defeat, she walked a few blocks from the river front down to the Manchester pub.  Drinking wasn’t called “consuming spirits” for nothing.  Once a living person’s mental defenses were down, ghosts often entered their bodies.  Some ghosts enjoyed the simple sensation of warmth.  It reminded them of their days when they were living.  And some did it just to make the living look stupid.  Angelique liked to picked out the most interesting conversation in the pub and possess a host body just to have some meaningful banter with a stranger.  Being dead was lonely, after all.

Angelique swirled and stalked potential victims; poking them in the head to see if they were drunk enough to penetrate.  The sensitive ones among the living donned their coats or sweaters as she passed them by as her cold vapor washed over them.  It was a slow night.  Those who were easy hosts were drunk sports fans with little or nothing to talk about save the “rack on that cheerleader” or the pool they would win in the office the following morning.  Then there were some who were just too boring to bother with like the guy in the corner who was apparently so nervous on his first date with a rather lovely brunette that all he could talk about was his money saving manipulation of the corporate tax code. “ Poor guy”, Angelique thought to herself.  “Buddy, this first date is also your last date….with her anyways.”  For a moment, she considered possessing him and taking over his body, driving his boring personality away and telling the woman across the table all the things she wanted to hear.  What women truly want is universal.  She might at least land him a one night stand providing he didn’t open his mouth once he got her home.  But another conversation distracted Angelique and she left the boring accountant to his own sad and measly devices.

An intense conversation was heating up in the corner booth.  Father  Carolan was apparently visiting his younger brother who had just returned home from a tour of duty in the Middle East.  The existence and vitality of the human soul was the topic of heavy debate and Angelique could not resist the urge to listen in and possibly contribute.    As she listened, she realized that the priest, while boasting the more logical and sensible of opinions, was too kind and soft spoken to possible win the debate against the more aggressive demeanor of his brother.  Jumping into the priest’s pint of IPA, she soon found herself taken in by the priest and easily possessed his alcohol ply brain.

“I disagree” Angelique said in a deep voice.  It made her pause for a moment and then continued before the man across the table could reassert his position.  A soul, no matter what it has done, can be redeemed.  I believe the Divine even gives those souls wanting to correct things a chance to make peace before they are judged.”

“Ok, how long then?”

“Pardon?” asked Angelique and the priest.

“How long is the redemption period?  I mean surely there are souls in hell.  Are you telling me those are only the ones who didn’t care who got sent there?  I don’t think so.  How long does a soul have before its time is up?”

Angelique could feel herself panic.  She hadn’t thought that her redemption period might be limited.  Her mind raced, making the priest confused.  He finished his beer to buy himself time to answer but Angelique couldn’t think of a good defense.  “I don’t know.  I don’t know if anyone knows, really” she said honestly.

Victor, rinsing the shampoo from his shoulder length hair and face, opened his eyes to find himself nose to nose with a pretty blonde of roughly twenty-six. He jumped back in alarm.  Angelique smiled as she started her monologue.  “You know what’s really annoying?  The clothes I die in are the clothes I’m stuck in for eternity!  Luckily, I had my silky nighty on and my good undies but still. This look isn’t going to stay sexy forever!  And I can’t even tempt you with my perfect body!  I wonder if there are any naked ghosts anywhere in the world?!”

Victor turned off the water.  “Try to morgue” he said flatly.

“Yeah, but even those guys had some like hospital gown on or papery thing on them, right?”

“Hmm” consider yourself lucky then.  I don’t imagine that look is ever fashionable.  At least you’ve got style for a little longer” spat Victor, thick with sarcasm.  “And while this conversation is wildly stimulating, I do have some work to get done.  So, if you will excuse me..” Victor left the bathroom wearing a small towel around his head as he continued to dry his hair as he walked down the hallway.

“I get it now” Angelique shouted, following at his heels.  “You’re trying to redeem yourself, save your soul.  That’s why you only hunt wife beaters and abusers.  That’s why you think you shouldn’t help Jeff, but you’ve actually missed a very big point.”

“And what might that be?” Victor replied absent mindedly.

“Saving Jeff would be the hardest redemption attempt you’ve ever made.  If you were successful..”

Victor cut Angelique off.  “What…if I were?  There has never been a single account of a vampire’s soul being redeemed.  Never.  Ever.  I am doomed for eternity and I don’t know nor do I want to know what you did to this poor Jeff.  But whatever your sin you are stuck with it!  Ok?  My soul and yours are just damned to hell with no escape so instead of wasting your time with me, why don’t you say your proper good byes now?”

Angelique opened the front door of Victor’s townhouse, letting the last dregs of the evening sun cross the threshold, working like a safety barrier between priest and vampire.  Victor was suddenly aware that he was completely naked.  Father Carolan looked shocked and immediately looked down at his shoes.  “Here” he placed his hand just within reach so that Victor might safely grab the large envelope from the priest.  Victor didn’t budge; remaining still as stone.  “It’s from the secret files of the local diocese.” Again, Victor said nothing.  But Angelique watched Victor’s eyes move from the priest to the envelope.  “It’s two documented cases of vampires returning to their human forms …redemptive transformation, they called it.”

Victor said nothing but turned to walk the rest of the way to his bedroom.  Stopping just a few feet short he said aloud, “the sunlight can’t protect you for much longer.  Go and leave the envelope at on the floor.  If your so called case studies have any validity, I’ll be in touch.”  Victor turned and vanished into a blur of speed into his room where his door slammed shut.

“Thank you” whispered Angelique from the ether.

“Saving souls is sort of my business and this is far more interesting than baptisms on a Saturday afternoon.  What do we do now?” asked the priest to the thin air around him.

“Go, quickly, like he said.  I’ll keep haunting him and let you know” said Angelique.  She watched over the priest until she was sure that Victor would not follow him back to the church.  When she returned to the town house, she found Victor staring out the window, the envelope torn open and the papers placed methodically on the desk behind him.

“Sit down” Victor ordered.  He didn’t turn but Angelique knew by the graveness in his tone to obey.

“Before I consider this, before I even let one single millimeter of my body hope for what is in those papers, there is something that you need to see.”

“What?  What more is there?” Angelique was still thinking of her limited time.  She was anxious for Victor’s final decision.

“There is a man who lives upstairs in the penthouse.  For the last seven weeks, he comes home each Friday and drinks himself into a stupor with whiskey.  Then, he wakes up his sixteen year old daughter and makes her scrub the house from floor to celing.  Last Friday, she missed a fork in the sink.  In her haste and fatigue, she missed one fork, and so as her punishment, he stabbed each of her palms with it until she bleed.” Victor turned to face Angelique and he was no longer the handsome young man who could have stepped out of any number of GQ magazine covers.  Instead, he looked more like the cross between a leopard baring his fangs and a corpse.  “Before I consider helping your friend, I want you to see what you are sentencing him to.  Tonight, you will watch me kill a man.  A ritual you condemn Jeff to for eternity.”

Part III Paper Beats Rock

Angelique lay on the leather couch in Victor’s library.  To her surprise, he sat next to her and tried to place his arms around her.  She was pulsing with so much energy that she was nearly completely solid.  For a moment, they were like any normal couple, sitting together on any normal Saturday night.  The difference was, both were sans a pulse.  Angelique leaned her head on Victor’s shoulder and stared at the bookcases filled with books.  “When I was  a little girl, my brother Jeff and I would play this game called rock, scissor, paper.”

“It’s timeless” remarked Victor, absentmindedly stroking Angelique’s nearly solid strands of hair.

“Now that we are adults, for a joke, we still play the same game each Friday night before we go out.  The loser has to be the designated driver and the winner is allowed to get hammered.  Only, Jeff wins all the time and I got sick of it three weeks ago.  So, when he was out dancing with some Cougar, I order a few shots when he wasn’t looking.  It wasn’t too much, I thought.  When it came round to closing time, we hopped in the car and headed home, only I was still feeling kind of tipsy and wicked tired.  My judgment was just a few seconds off but I ran a red light and….” Angelique trailed off into fits of sobbing.  Victor patiently waited until she slowed down to ask the obvious question.  “So you died in the car accident but Jeff?”

“Paralyzed from the neck down with a spinal chord injury” Angelique whimpered.  “I read somewhere that becoming a vampire made one immortal and indestructible.  And then, I saw you with that woman in the Manchester Pub and I followed you and discovered what you were and why you chose those men to kill. And I just thought…” she trailed off into another sobbing session.

“You realize, Angelique, that it will cure him physically, yes, but he will have other issues, I dare say, that you have witnessed tonight.  Did you hear that rich man beg me for his life?  He knew I was there to kill him.  He knew a monster when he saw one, Angel.  That is what you are trading, absolute physical cure in exchange for the damning of his soul.”

“What about Father Carolan?  Couldn’t he help Jeff to undo the damnation thing?” Angelique was fading.  She was growing tired from all of the crying.

“There are a few things I need to speak about with him anyways.  Let me talk to him.  Stay here and rest.  You will need to be fully manifested before we can do anything more.  You need to talk to Jeff.  Give him the option and let him make up his own mind.  I won’t do this to him if he is unwilling.  Do you understand Angel?”

“Yes”

“Then you and I truly are saved.  We have offered and worked together.  His decision seals his own fate.”

Part IV Double or Nothing

Father Carolan wheeled Jeff’s hospital bed into the elevator where the two rode up to the top floor.  As the doors began to open, Jeff yelled “Stop!” and Father Carolan pressed the button to keep the doors closed.

“Changed your mind?” asked the priest, with a touch of relief in his voice.

“No, father.  I just want Absolution before we do this.  Just in case what you say about my sister is true.  Just in case the vampire can’t…..stop.  Well, I want absolution for my sins.”

“That’s a very good idea”  came a soft voice through the elevator doors as Angelique walked through the solid metal.  Jeff’s pulse quickened according to the peeps in his monitor.  Wide eyed, he was speechless.  “Don’t worry.  I’m not going to listen in, silly” she said as if her ghostly state were nothing but normal.  “I just wanted you two to know that Victor is ready.”

“What exactly do you mean by ready?” asked Jeff nervously.

A painful expression swept across Angelique’s face.  She stared her brother dead in the eye as her expression hardened.  “He went to the morgue and drank the blood of a fresh corpse.  The dead woman’s blood has weakened him to the point where he is barely able to sit without falling over.”

“Sounds as if time is of the essence” Father Carolan replied anxiously.  He made a large sign of the cross over Jeff’s body.  “For whatever sin is in your heart, you are forgiven.”

“Are you sure Jeff?” asked Angelique.  “It’s now or never but no one will blame you if you want to punk out.”

“Like this?  I’m already dead.  Anything is better than this.  I’m ready.”

“He has brought an extra dose for just after he bites you.  I’ve been manifesting all day, so I should be solid enough to give it to him before he recovers from your living blood.” She sighed.  “In the event that I can’t, for some reason, Father Carolan has two gallons of holy water infused with garlic that will kill Victor should he get out of hand.”

“Let’s proceed” said Father Carolan wheeling Jeff into the small, hospital chapel.

Rock Beats Scissors

Jeff lay helpless, paralyzed from the neck down.  Victor approached slowly, cautiously.  The vampire looked as though he might throw up, or burst into flames.  It was a combination of reluctance and yet it was stalking all the same.  Jeff suddenly wished he had called for some sort of drug to knock him out before leaving the safety of the life saving tubes and machines of his hospital room.  His brain told him to run but his body lay cold and still; unresponsive to any thought of survival.

Angelique hovered in the corner of the room.  She felt herself being pulled apart with emotion.  There was the absolute need to protect her brother from harm as he lie helpless in his hospital bed.  There would be a considerable amount of pain involved according to Father Carolan and his documents.  She wanted to spare Jeff the agony.  She had already put him through so much!  But there was a stronger part of her that knew Victor’s bite was the only thing that might save his life.  She anxiously clung to the ziplock bag of a woman’s dead blood and waited for the supernatural forces to work themselves into the play.

Victor gathered control over himself as the urge to all out feast was overpowering.  His will to survive was propelling him forward and clouding his mind.  By the time he reached Jeff’s body, the ringing in Victor’s ears was deafening.  It took all of his concentration to focus on one bite and one alone.  He reminded himself of the consequences that surrounded him should he fail, although his god-complex, a normal part of vampire ego, just laughed; reassuring him that at top form, the priest nor the ghost would be able to stop him.  He had to fight his inner daemon.

Father Carolan took one uncomfortable step forward as Victor pushed Jeff’s head to one side with a bit more force than he felt was necessary.  The vampire tapped Jeff’s neck, looking for the best place to plunge his teeth; much like a nurse would looking for a vein with her IV in hand.  Jeff whimpered and tried to resist as the pupils in Victor’s eyes went completely black.  His fangs elongated and his lips turned into a snarl.  Victor tipped his own head back as his fingers intertwined with the hair on the top of Jeff’s head.  In a flash, his teeth were deep into Jeff’s main artery and the vampire was drinking deeply.  Jeff bellowed out a blood curdling scream.  Victor was obviously doing more damage than planned.

Angelique sprang into flight with the dead woman’s blood in hand.  She was racing as fast as her energy could vault her forward.  Touching Victor’s shoulder, she was solid and then suddenly, her energy ran out.  The ziplock fell to the floor, and Angelique’s hand vaporized through Victor’s upper torso.  Jeff’s eyes were wide and filled with terror.  The simple touch of the ghost was enough to bring the innately good hearted Victor to his senses.  He instantly pulled his head back.  Blood dripped from his chin.  There was the look of temptation to dive in again, but Victor’s eyes met Jeff’s.  The helpless man seemed to beg for his life and Victor was instantly ashamed.  Dropping to his knees, in an act of penance, Victor plunged his extended fangs through the thick plastic bag and drank slowly from the dead corpse blood.  Within seconds, he crumpled to the floor.

Paper Covers Rock….and Scissors

A Letter from Father Tom Carolan to his Eminence, the Pope

Father,

I have left the full sixty three page report with your clerk for you to study as your time and schedule permit.  I am grateful for the open minded correspondence that it has received.  It was, admittedly an experiment of life or death for all participants and it is gracious of your Holiness to look at this case objectively before removing me from my post.  I will simply say that it is my humble opinion that two possibly three souls have been saved.

The ghostly Angelique was the first to experience the mercy of heaven.  Soon after her disappearance, a gentle light seemed to come from the corner of the room near the stained glass window.  First, I thought it was merely a beam of afternoon sun.  But moments later, with my mind clearer, I looked at my watch and realized it was near two in the morning.

Soon, a papery thin image of a frail woman, sobbing and on her knees appeared.  Angelique seemed unaware at first, but soon, she lifted her chin from her chest and raised her eyes to heaven.  It was much like how I have envisioned Mary Magdeline at Our Lord’s feet as she washed his feet in repentance.  The beam of light grew brighter until a figure neither old not young stepped out into the chapel.  It is unclear whether the entity was male or female but by all definitions, was surely an angel.  The angel reached for her hand and lifted her to her feet.  With the other hand, he or she seemed to call to Victor.  The vampire stirred and then cowered at first.  I gather he felt the moment an impossibility.  Never the less, the angel sent Angelique over and she helped Victor to his feet.  The two were guided into the light with the Angel following behind them.

As for the young man for whom all of this ordeal was planned.  Jeffery continues to reside here with me at the rectory.  His story is perhaps the most miraculous.  While his body healed within hours, there is no sign of blood lust or trace of any vampire tendencies.  I have watched him round the clock.  He goes out into the garden on the brightest days without effect, joins me for vegetarian dinners without complaint and is often found in prayer where he begs for the absolution of his sister’s soul as well as Victor’s.  I have no explanation for it beyond a reaffirmation in miracles.

Your humble servant,

Father Carolan

There is an overwhleming sense that things suck in general but not in particular, like it’s cold out, always, but not cold and rainy, and anyway you have a good jacket.

There are two people who go to bed together at night to enjoy themselves, get some rest, find a small meaning, but mostly because they have work in the morning.

Outside are people in cars and beer is pouring continuously, all over the city, so that there is never a single second in a year were beer is not being poured into a glass somewhere in the city, and not many seconds, comparatively, say maybe 5-10% of the seconds in a year, when no two-or-more people in the city are clinking beer glasses together in a sign of camaraderie.

.Inside there is a frantically grasping confusion of a something that seems to be permanently just waking up.  There are 97 books in 3 boxes under the dining room table, 32 DVD of movies and TV shows in the drawer under the TV, and 642ish different TV shows available at any given time, and 15000 songs on the laptop’s harddrive, including the entire Beatles discography.

There’s this sense that you need something else.

There are 4 eggs left in the carton, 3 slices of bread remaining and $66.32 in your checking account, somehow.  There are a large amount of reports to go out and you have to check facebook.

There is a fuzzy soreness behind your eyes and 68 minutes remaining in the day, and you are writing angsty prose-poetry and wishing you could do something, anything, worth doing.

Photography by Carlos Detres

“It had been a lovely evening up until the main course.  She’d picked a very elegant restaurant, and the food was excellent. We’d each had a shrimp cocktail and two glasses of wine-” 
 “But Ronald, you’re not supposed to be drinking at all with the Valium you’re taking.  Alcohol interacts with it.  You could get very sick; you mustn’t take such chances; it’s very self-destructive,” clinical psychologist, Art Silverman, interrupts his patient.

Ronald waves his hand in dismissal of his therapist’s concern and settles back onto the burgundy leather sofa over which Dr. Silverman’s diplomas are displayed, “Oh it was only wine, and I had had only 30 mg that day instead of my usual 50.  Also, I had skipped my Prozac.  Now can I continue with my story?” he asks, not bothering to hide his annoyance.

Dr. Silverman nods permission.  “So she tells me she met a man the night before.  He’s a psychologist, too, and they’re madly in love so she won’t be seeing me again, ever!  When she says this I begin choking on my pate and I’m choking and coughing and the maitre de is about to perform the Heimlich maneuver when I recover.  And I’m so pissed off I tell her she better split the fucking check.  Just as the words leave my mouth, the waiter brings her two pound lobster, and she screams that I can go fuck myself, picks up her lobster, plate and all and runs out of the restaurant.  I end up being charged for the shrimp cocktails, two lobsters, a bottle of French wine, and her plate.”

“That must have been very difficult for you to deal with,” Dr. Silverman says studying Ronald.  A few nights ago he and his wife had gone to a Woody Allen festival in the city.  It had been a marathon; the movies had played from noon ‘til midnight, but by the time they had seen Stardust Memories, Annie Hall, Manhattan, and The Purple Rose of Cairo, as well as consuming two large tubs of popcorn with butter and diet cokes to make themselves feel better about all the calories and fat in the popcorn, Art and his wife, Jennifer, were ready to leave.  Studying Ronald, Dr. Silverman realizes there is a strong resemblance between Woody Allen and his patient.  Both are stereotypical whiny New York Jews, both have quite the receding hairline, glasses, faces fixed in a perpetual frown, and seem to spend half their lives in therapy.  As well, they both are completely delusional narcissists, seeing themselves as hot young studs resulting in the endless pursuit of younger women.  However, while Woody can afford such a lifestyle, Ronald can’t even pay his therapy bills.

“Difficult?” Ronald says in a mocking tone, “That’s putting it mildly. Yes, it was difficult!  That’s the last time I call the Professional Jewish hotline.  I mean I can’t believe she won’t see me anymore.  I had been hoping if things didn’t work out romantically she could at least be give me discount therapy but now she won’t even take my calls!  But don’t worry I got even with that crazy bitch.”

“Oh?” Dr. Silverman asks, internally cringing.  Please tell me he hasn’t kidnapped this woman and isn’t holding her hostage.  I really don’t want to have to call the police, again, as I had to with Mr. Harrison last week.  Dr. Silverman found the duty to warn law complicated matters of confidentiality but he liked to avoid malpractice suits whenever possible.  While patients were upset about a breach in confidentiality, it was better to do so and prevent a death and lawsuit.  Much more cost effective.

“Oh yeah, I showed her!  I called her house all that night, and the next day, but I kept getting her daughter.  I think the kid’s around Daniel’s age, eleven or so.  Anyway, I told her that her mother’s a dinner whore!”  Ronald sits up in triumph.

“Ronald,” Dr. Silverman chastises, “You’re acting out again. Wasn’t it only last session that we were discussing you calling up your ex-fiancée and telling her you wanted to come over and ‘nail her to the wall’”?

“Well yes but she-”

“And what about the two women you’ve impregnated?  What’s going on with them?”

Ronald clears his throat and fidgets with a pillow.  “Well, the florist has agreed to get an abortion, and I had to lay out $350 bucks for it.  The other one, the stewardess, well she’s Catholic and refusing to get rid of it, but I’m not convinced it’s mine.  I mean, she travels to a different city like every night.  God only knows how many men she’s fucked!  She wants me to pay child support, but I want to see a DNA test before I give her a cent.”

“Will it be difficult to make child support payments to two different women?” Dr. Silverman inquires, “You do have your son, Daniel, to consider.”  And my bill to pay!  How else am I going to put my son through his last year at Cornell?  Damn this patient, if he isn’t blowing all his money on phone hotlines or knocking women up, he’s gambling it away in casinos.  I can’t believe how many years I’ve been putting up with this.

“Daniel will be okay.  I can support everyone through my poker playing.  In fact,  as soon as I’m done here I’m leaving for Atlantic City.  Boy have I pulled one over on my dad; he thinks I’m going to a convention in Pittsburgh.  I’ve invited a young lady whom I met on the Physically Challenged Hotline to meet me down there.  She’s in a wheelchair, but not to fear she’s capable, if you know what I mean.  I sent her money to take an ambulette down there.”

“She’s in a wheelchair?”

“Why should that matter?  The way I see it, one shouldn’t discriminate when choosing partners.  I don’t care about race, religion, physical or mental disabilities, if they’re married, if I’m married.  The way I see it, you should fuck them all!  You know Dr. Silverman, I know you’re married, but I know a nice Jewish lady I can set you up with.  I met her on the Jewish Athlete’s Hotline.  She’s a tennis player!”

“Um no thank you Ronald, that will be quite all right.  I’ll see you next week.  And I’d like to discuss something more productive like your constant sexual fantasies about your mother.”

*     *    *

The following week, when Dr. Silverman opens the door to his office after spending a session trying to help a man mend his marriage, he finds the man’s wife on the waiting room couch in Ronald’s arms.  Her shirt is off and he is frantically groping at her large breasts.  The two are so involved they don’t realize they are being watched until her husband makes his presence known by calling her a whore.

She pulls away from Ronald.  “Herb!  This isn’t what it looks like!”

“Don’t you even start with that line of bullshit, again.  Screw therapy, screw trying to make this work.  You’re nothing but a dirty little slut, and I’m filing for divorce!”

Herb promptly turns and stomps out of the office with his soon to be ex-wife at his heels, simultaneously trying to explain and button up her blouse.

Ronald grins sheepishly.  “Sorry about that.”

“Ronald, I won’t tolerate this kind of behavior in my office.  I never want another incident like this,” Dr. Silverman castigates his disheveled patient.

Ronald rises to his feet and follows Dr. Silverman into the office.  He takes his place on the couch.  “Well shall we begin?”

Begin, Dr. Silverman thinks with disgust.  This schmuck just cost me three sessions, one with the husband, one with the wife, and their joint session.  If it weren’t for

Steve’s college payments, I’d kick him out right now.

Dr. Silverman clears his throat.  “So at the end of last week’s session you mentioned you were off to Atlantic City.  How did that go?”

Ronald groans.  “Not good, Dr. Silverman.”

“Tell me more,” his therapist encourages.

“Well first off the paraplegic never showed up!  She pocketed the money I gave her for the amulette and I haven’t heard from her since.  She won’t return my calls and when I try calling her, I always get her voice mail.”  Ronald lets out a sigh, “But never fear things got worse.  I’m uh I’m going to need a little more time to pay you.  I’ll get the money real soon I promise.” Ronald sounds like a tenant who can’t pay his rent pleading with his landlord not to evict him, Dr. Silverman thinks.  And he used to be such a good tenant, paying every week in cash, the full amount even when his health insurance ran out.  If this pattern kept up, he would have to seriously consider eviction.

“What happened to your money, Ronald?” the doctor asks, closing his eyes and doing his best to remain calm.  Those Cornell payments were due!

“I lost it at the poker tables.  It was so unfair; I had won a bundle; I was doing great.  Then the next thing I knew, it was gone.”  Ronald opens his hands, which are indeed empty.  “The game has to have been rigged.”

“Ronald, I have been concerned about your gambling problem for quite some time.  Gambling occasionally for fun is all well and good, but with you it’s a compulsion.  You can’t control yourself; the same way an alcoholic can’t have just one drink.  An important step for you in getting your life back on track would be to abstain from gambling.”  Dr. Silverman scrawls something on a piece of paper, which he hands to Ronald.  “This is the number for Gamblers’ Anonymous.  They can tell when and where meetings are held.  I’d like you to start going, Ronald.”

“I’ll think about it.  It’s just I don’t think I can give up Atlantic City.  It’s so exciting!” Ronald’s eyes take on a far-off look.  One can practically hear the ringing of the slot machines.

“Come on Ronald, haven’t we had enough of that place?”

“What do you mean?” Ronald asks innocently.

“Well have you forgotten when you cheated on your wife by getting engaged to another woman in Atlantic City?  And have you forgotten the present you got her for her forty-ninth birthday?  That Latino couple you found in the Village Voice and invited from the Bronx for a foursome?”

“Oh that,” Ronald shrugs, “It’s not like anything happened.  I was doing so well at the poker tables I completely forgot about Carlos and Isabella.”

“Do you still about Carolyn and how abruptly the engagement ended?”

“Oh all the time.  I mean I only left her and moved back home because my dad promised me $200,000 if I did but it’s been months now and I haven’t seen a dime!”

Dr. Silverman bites his lip so that a sigh might not escape.  He changes the subject, “So have you had any more of those fantasies involving your mother?”

“Oh sure.  Just this morning at breakfast.  Do you any idea how erotic it can be to watch someone cut a bagel?  I just wanted to reach over and untie her kimono.  I know most people wouldn’t agree but trust me ninety-year-old women can be extremely erotic.  It’s nearly impossible to control myself.  I fantasize about getting her alone.”

“How do you control yourself?”

“My father, sister, and niece always seem to be around.  They just want to stand in the way of my happiness,” Ronald pouts, like a child denied dessert.

“Tell me more,” Dr. Silverman prods.

“Well it’s like I’m cursed.  Nothing ever works out for me.  My wife divorced and bankrupted me.  She took the house, our Yorkshire Terrier, Apricot, and hardly ever lets me see my son.  Then my fiancée left me.  I have all these medical problems.  Did I tell you I’m scheduled for another endoscopy this week?  The doctor insists it isn’t necessary, but what does he know?  Even business isn’t going well.  What the hell did I do to deserve all this?” Ronald’s head slumps forward to rest on his hand, making his bald spot all the more prominent, the shine refracting from the overhead light.

“I think you should be concentrating on business, Ronald and your health.  You should get into a routine and cut down on your compulsive dating and gambling.  You need to take good care of yourself, get exercise and eat properly.” Dr. Silverman feels not unlike a parakeet as he repeats the words of wisdom he has uttered hundreds if not thousands of times before.

Ronald takes his cue.  Looks up with admiration he says, “You’re so right.  What would I do without you, Dr. Silverman?”

*     *      *

“My mother has given me AIDS!”

“Who is this?” Dr. Silverman groggily says into the receiver, having been awakened in the middle of the night by his answering service, which will only put a call through if it’s a life or death situation.  He takes the cordless phone into the other room.

“It’s me, Ronald!”

“Ronald?”

“Dr. Silverman, it’s an emergency!  My mother has given me AIDS!  I don’t know what to do!”

“Where are you?”

“At a payphone on a street corner in Brooklyn,” Ronald gasps.

Dr. Silverman goes scourging for the bottle of Manichewitz left over from Passover.  When he gets the cap off, he downs the remains.  Cherry was always his favorite flavor, but blackberry would have to do.

“Ronald, I just saw you this afternoon, whatever could have happened in the interim?” Dr. Silverman lies down on the sofa and waits for the alcohol to kick in.

“Well I met this woman on a role-playing hotline. She agreed to role-play my mother.  I thought you would approve; I thought it would be therapeutic!” Ronald sounds close to tears.  “Oh God!”

“Ronald, I want you to take some deep breaths.  Come on; you need to calm down.  Now breathe.”

“I don’t need to breathe; I can just take more Valium.”

Dr. Silverman rolls his eyes.  “Why don’t you continue telling me what’s happened.  Why do you think you have AIDS?”

“Well, this woman, she was so convincing.  I got so into it; I guess I lost my head.”  As if you ever had it, Dr. Silverman thinks.  “And as we were about to have sex, I pulled out a condom, but she said, ‘No, condoms are bad.  Trust me on this; Mother knows best.’  I tried to protest, but after all she was my mother, and I had to obey her.  Oh Dr. Silverman, this woman was just my type – blonde, full-figured and busty—and you know how my real mother didn’t breast feed me.  You’re the one who told me I am still searching for what I was deprived of as an infant.”

“Ronald, it is the middle of the night.  I want you to go home to your parents, your real parents, your biological parents.  I can fit you in for an emergency session tomorrow at five.”

Ronald sighs but acquiesces.

After they have said good-bye, Dr. Silverman finds he is unable to fall back asleep.  Back in his bedroom, the ceiling fan whirls above his head, and he watches until he feels dizzy.  Closing his eyes he tries to conjure up a herd of sheep and allows them to fly over fences in his imagination.  Still he isn’t drowsy, and he finds himself wishing for some of Ronald’s Valium.  I should’ve gone to Med. School; then I could just write myself a prescription, he thinks.  Dr. Silverman turns over with a sigh that goes undetected by his slumbering wife.  Ronald.   Ronald, Ronald, Ronald.  He couldn’t believe how many years he had been putting up with this lunatic.  Screw being P.C!  Ronald had to be one of the craziest patients he had ever seen.  Thirteen years this fall, Dr. Silverman lets out a groan.

*     *      *

The next day at five sharp Ronald comes in for his session.  When Dr. Silverman opens the door to the waiting room, he is struck by just how thin his patient is, emaciated really.  His clothes positively hang on his frame, and when he makes facial expressions his skin stretches from the effort, as if any minute his chin will jut straight through and bone will be revealed, like a rabbit in a magic trick.  In fact, Ronald is looking so bad these days, Dr. Silverman wonders how he is even attracting women to get into trouble with.  Maybe he’s paying them instead of me?

Ronald steps into the office and slumps down on the couch.  He is extremely mellow and Dr. Silverman wonders just how much Valium his patient has taken today.  “Well,” Ronald begins, “I went to a health clinic this morning.  I had to fill out some forms.  One question asked if my sexual preference was male, female, or other, so I checked other and wrote in sheep.”

Dr. Silverman clears his throat.  “Have you had any involvement with barnyard animals, Ronald?”

“It was a joke, Doc, don’t lose your hairpiece.”

Asshole, Dr. Silverman thinks, but says, “Tell me what happened at the health clinic.” Is there any hope they’ll perform a lobotomy?

“Oh they took some blood.  The test results will be back in a week; then I will have to be tested again in three months to find out if the lady who role-played my mother gave me AIDS,” Ronald’s lids are practically closing, and his speech is as languid as a line at the DMV.

“Ronald, you need to make a stronger effort not to engage in such self-destructive behavior in the future.  Your acting out sexually is just another way of not feeling your feelings.  You need to face things and stop running away.”  He goes over to his desk and scribbles something on a piece of paper, which he gives to his patient.  “Now this is the number for SLA.  Sex and love addicts anonymous.  Have you attended a GA meeting, yet?”

“No,” Ronald admits.

“Ronald, you need to give these 12 step programs a try.  They really do work,” Dr. Silverman encourages.

“Well maybe I’ll go to a sex meeting.  Who knows, I could meet a woman there!”

*     *      *

Ronald is ebullient when he comes in for his next and what will be his last session with Dr. Art Silverman.  “Dr. Silverman,” he prattles “I have so much to tell you!  I attended three different meetings this week- GA, SLA, and AA!”

“But Ronald, you’re not an alcoholic,” Dr. Silverman’s forehead furrows in confusion matching the wrinkles of his face, the way a hat might complement a scarf.

“Well I know that!  Don’t worry there’s a method to my madness.  You see, at each of these support groups I get a sponsor, someone I can call at any hour.  So now I don’t have to run up my parents’ phone bill calling 900 numbers to talk to women!” After his great announcement, Ronald sits back awaiting praise, as if he were a fifth grader who has just presented a report card of straight As.  When Dr. Silverman does not say anything, Ronald is confused.  “Well?” he asks.

“That’s uh very nice Ronald.  I’m glad you’re finding healthier outlets for your compulsions.”

“Thank you,” Ronald beams.

“Now Ronald, there’s something we have to discuss.”  Dr. Silverman shifts in his seat, crosses then uncrosses his legs, removes his glasses from his face and wipes the lenses with a handkerchief from his trouser pocket.  His face feels flushed, and he dabs at his forehead with the same handkerchief.  Perhaps he is coming down with something.  “Ronald, you’ve been coming to see me for thirteen years now.  That’s a long time.  I’m not a young man anymore.”  Why is this so difficult? he wonders, it was so easy with my other patients.  “Ronald, I’d like…” No, that didn’t sound right, he wasn’t asking permission for Christ’s sake!  “Ronald, I’m retiring.”  There, he’d said it.  As soon as the words left his lips, he felt lighter and tanner.  The last Cornell payments had been made and he felt free as if he had already been transported from his office to a Ft. Lauderdale golf course.

“Retiring?  No!  You can’t do that!  You can’t just leave me!  Who’s going to take care of me now?”

Dr. Silverman tosses a box of Kleenex to Ronald.  “Ronald, it’s all right.  It’s going to be okay.  I’m not going to leave you hanging.  I have a wonderful referral, in fact, the next best thing to me.  My daughter is going to be taking over my practice.  She’s a wonderful doctor, and I strongly believe you will find her very helpful.”

“Your daughter?”

“That’s right,” Dr. Silverman confirms.  Let Tammy deal with this lunatic!

“Oh God!”

“Ronald, what’s wrong?”

“It’s just, how can I be a hot young stud if your daughter is old enough to be a doctor?”  He points to a framed photo of Tamar at her batmitzvah, flat-chested with braces, and frizzy hair.

“Everyone grows old, Ronald.  It’s natural it’s a part of life, you can’t stop it from happening.  Besides, growing old isn’t the hard part; it’s growing up that’s so difficult.”

“But I don’t want to grow old,” Ronald whimpers.  He plucks a tissue from the box of Kleenex like a flower and begins picking it apart as if it were indeed a plant.  “I’m not ready for this.  It’s too soon.  It can’t be over, not now when everything is so wrong.  Oh God.”

“What are you feeling Ronald?  Don’t think, just say the first thing that comes to mind.”

“Scared,” he says in such a way that Dr. Silverman is reminded of his granddaughter who a few years back wouldn’t go to sleep until the entire room had been inspected for monsters.

“What are you afraid of?” the doctor leans forward and stares so long and hard that Ronald becomes blurry; he has forgotten to blink.

“It’s so embarrassing!  I never thought, never in a million years, I never thought this could happen to me!” Ronald blows his nose loudly into one of the tissues he has not dissected.  He squeezes his eyes together so fiercely Dr. Silverman finds himself wincing.

“What is it?  You can tell me, Ronald; it’s okay, you’re safe here,” Dr. Silverman continues prodding his now sobbing patient.

“Doctor, doctor,” Ronald hiccups, “Dr. Silverman, I’m not a real man anymore!”

Dr. Silverman reaches for his notepad and scribbles Oedipal Complex.

“Tell me more, Ronald.”

“Don’t you get it?” Ronald lets out another hiccup before continuing, “I can’t have sex anymore!  It isn’t working!” Ronald shrieks, “Oh god!  Oh god help me!  I’m impotent!”

“How many times have you been unable to have intercourse?”

“Well it’s happened now and then over the years.  Mr. Happy has never been happy 100% of the time, especially when I take Prozac.  But I haven’t touched the stuff in a month and now seven times in a row I’ve been unable to perform!  How will I ever go on?!”

“Ronald, there have been wonderful advances in medicine for men with this problem.  You can go see a specialist.”

“But real men don’t have problems like this,” Ronald whines.

Dr. Silverman pictures his own medicine cabinet and the bottle of blue Viagra tablets he has just refilled at the pharmacy and he opens up his mouth to speak, to tell Ronald once and for all what he thinks of him.  So what if they took his license away?  He doesn’t need it; he’s retiring!  Psychology wasn’t like the army where your discharge was either honorable or dishonorable.  But before he can begin his tirade, there is a knock on the door.

With jaw clenched tightly, Dr. Silverman says, “That must be my daughter.”

He stands up to let in a petite young woman in her mid 30s wearing black loafers, slacks, a white blouse and a navy blue pinstripe blazer.  “Hi Daddy,” she says, “I’m not interrupting am I?”

“No, we were just wrapping up.  Ronald, I’d like you to meet my daughter-” “The dinner whore!” he exclaims.

“This is Ronald?” her jaw drops open with such exaggeration she looks like a first year drama student.

“Oh my god Tamar,” Dr. Silverman gasps, “You were?  You two?”

“Daddy, I can explain!”

“You were eating lobster and shrimp?  That’s not kosher.  Tamar, how could you?” Dr. Silverman is shocked.

“Oh daddy, I stopped keeping kosher when I went away to Brandeis,” she says with obvious exasperation, her eyes rolling upward.

“But I paid extra just so you’d have a kosher dining room!”

Ronald rises to his feet.  “You two are concerned about eating shellfish?  I never got paid for half that check.  Did you know they even charged me for the plate you ran out of the restaurant with!”  With his red face, clenched fists, and the sweat glistening on his forehead Ronald looks like a more than slightly underweight boxer confronting his opponent.

Tammy turns around to face her nemesis, her eyes narrowed into furious blue slits.  “And rest assured Ronald that you will never see that money.  Not get out of my office!”

“But-” he quivers.

“Out!  You get the hell out and never come back or I’ll call the cops.  You’re lucky I didn’t have you arrested for the way you harassed my daughter.  But rest assured if you ever come near me or my family again I will make you regret the day you were born.”

“Dr. Silverman?” Ronald seeks an ally.

Dr. Silverman shakes his head and averts his eyes, looking at something, anything but Ronald.  He inspects the hardwood floors, the roll top desk over by the window, the books in his shelf.  What would Freud advise?  Would Rogers or Jung have any words of wisdom?

Finally he looks at Ronald, panic-stricken, and then at his daughter whom he hasn’t seen this angry since she found out her husband was cheating on her while she was pregnant.  Ronald has still not moved and Tammy is crossing the room towards the phone.  Dr. Silverman clears his throat then speaks.  “It’s over Ronald.  You better go.”

Ronald shoulders raise.  “Where?” he asks, “Where?”

Men pay me to beat, humiliate, tease, and torture them.  They beg to be kicked in the balls while I wear stilettos or black, pleather fuck me boots.  They want to be whipped with a riding crop or hit with a ruler until their asses turn the shade of a fire engine or a well broiled lobster.   They rarely use “safe” words — VANILLA, RED or the more obvious MERCY and STOP.

Some men want “small penis humiliation” and to hear I have written with implements more impressive than their peckers.  Perhaps they should consider gender re-assignment surgery?  After all it’s easier to, “dig a hole” than, “build a pole.” I ask a fellow member of the tribe whether his, “Moil made a mistake?” and cut off more than his foreskin.  For providing these services, they place lovely crisp bills from the ATM in my all too eager hands.

I had discovered my inner dominatrix while working bachelor parties.  My favorite part of the night had been spanking the bachelor and best man.  I could have whaled on those interchangeable assholes all night.  The pimp who ran the stripping service had christened me Allie but when I was “hired” at the dungeon, which involved no more than showing up so the owner Madame Medusa, a Jamaican immigrant, could see I really looked as good as my pictures, I decided I needed a new name and settled on Summer.  I like the irony of being called a sweet, whimsical name in a dark, smoky place where men pay to be and urinated on and suspended from the ceiling.   I’ve always been drawn to pseudonyms and the magic and mystery of being someone else.  So at Starbucks Alice orders tall skim lattes.  She is tired of tea parties.  Anna loves her Strawberry Surf Riders with immunity boosts at Jamba Juice; her angst about Vronsky isn’t going anywhere.

Geographically, the dungeon is only a couple blocks from the World Trade Center.   I find it impossible not to think about 9/11 when walking the streets of the financial district.  I imagine the pandemonium of that day — people running every which way in a panic as airplanes flew into the buildings trapping employees inside.  Those unable to escape exposed to smoke curling all around them. No exit.  Trapped on the 20th and 30th floors.   Standing on ledges and jumping to their deaths.  The long weary, walks the survivors took uptown and across the Brooklyn bridge, women holding their heels, going barefoot and the way the blue sky went gray with ash that stayed for days and days.  Nearly a decade later the chaotic construction site aftermath, which tourists come to gawk at and photograph.

Floating around in a dissociative state, my body is present, my mind shut off.  The majority of the time I am detached; barely aware of the events unfolding around me.    From time to time, truly shocking moments yank me back.  A filthy man meanders in; wanting his nipples pinched with clothes pins while he wears one of the adult diapers the dungeon stores in a black bin labeled Infantilism.  He rubs himself frantically, his hardness straining the Depends.  Or the one who looks homeless and shows up with a cage full of vermin.  I wonder whether he caught the rats himself (lots lurked around the Liberty stop on the C train) but before I have the opportunity to ask he releases them.  One dashes dangerously close to my red stilettos.  I scream and jump up on the futon.  In moments like these I wonder, What the hell happened to my life?  I am a Jewish girl from Westchester.  I had a Batmitzvah!   I have an Ivy League education.  This is so fucking fucked up!  What the fuck?!

Working in the dungeon is like a meat market crossed with a sorority house.  When not playing dress up, the mistresses sit around, chain smoking cigarettes, eating take-out, e-mailing potential customers, and watching DVDs for 7, 8, 9, even 10 hours. Madame Medusa loosely enforces her no drinking or smoking up during business hours policy being she is the in-house dealer and she has an affinity for her own product.  I have little interest in weed and prefer the seemingly never-ending supply of Adderal Mistress Harmony procures from Slave Scott, a podiatrist with a foot fetish.

You could leave with $600 or with nothing.  All sessions paid the same whether it was foot worship, which is easy and only entails letting some pathetic schmuck rub your feet and maybe kiss them, or whether it involved fantasy wrestling with Octavio who wants his head pressed firmly between your thighs in a “scissor” hold. Since Medusa takes a 60/40 cut of every session, in her favor, I contemplate starting a freelancer’s union for dommes in which we would be entitled to benefits, a 401K, and an hourly wage.  Sometimes I wonder what Medusa does when tax time comes ‘round.  It’s no secret she doesn’t report her income.  None of us do.  I have elaborate daydreams about ratting her out to the Feds and INS and watching as she is lead away in her own handcuffs to a detention center or internment camp.

When I do get money, it doesn’t stay there long what with the need for rent, my cell phone, Fancy Feast and Fresh Step.  Forget the student loans.  They’re on permanent deferral.

In my mind, sex currency is superior to a check earned at a straight job be it Walmart or some truly heinous vocation like a meter maid.  There is more risk involved in sex work, the revealing of oneself, removing clothes, and standing exposed before a stranger.  Setting boundaries without a uniform- an ID badge or green barista’s apron is a unique challenge.   Pretending to like him, playing the seductress who never seduces.  Endeavoring to empty a wallet without penetration.

You tell them, “Show me how you touch yourself.  Show me what feels good.”

You want and wait for one moment to give way to the next, for the hour to fast forward and be done, done, done.  To finger the bills- twenties, fifties, sometimes hundreds.  You tell yourself this money is all that matters and you marvel each time you escape unscathed.

At the dungeon there is often live entertainment as each mistress vies to be the center of attention.  The place is a magnet for bitches with Axis II diagnoses.  Marsha Linehan should come and run DBT groups in between sessions.  9 out of 10 don’t give a any thought to having photos, face shots, no less, on Medusa’s web site.   They lavish in the attention and posing sexily for the camera.  When my turn comes, I cover my face with a heart shaped black paddle, my hair, or have Mistress Harmony zoom in and snap at my legs and ass.

Medusa snarls when she sees the shots and shakes her heads of thick, spirally dreads. In her thick accent she says, “Them guys go on the site to see girls who show their faces.  They gonna think yours is fucked up.  Girl, you won’t make no money.” Meaning she wouldn’t make any money.  It was a risk I was willing to take.

Much like on-line dating, everyone lies on their profile.  Mistress Sophia claims she is a “cute college co-ed studying nursing,” her proof the white nurse’s outfit she scored at a day after Halloween sale.  The dark haired, multi-pierced “student” is functionally illiterate and closer to 30 than 20.  Several times a week, she takes out the collection of dildos and strap-ons from their plastic container beneath the futon and runs around the room wildly waving them in everyone’s face finally pretending to fuck Mistress Ophelia, a sub, with one.

We are technically not allowed to use strap-ons in session.  It is against the law and considered prostitution.  Dungeons have been busted for it.  However we are told to do it for “regulars”  like Cuddly Bear Brian an extremely overweight white guy who stinks and likes to cuddle after taking it in the ass.

The laws are fascinating.  Although it’s legal to participate in and film a pornographic film, it’s illegal to have sex in exchange for money.  Or in this case put a dildo in someone’s ass for money.  But you can do “dildo worship” wherein you wear a strap-on and the man kneels down and appreciates the visual of a chick with a dick.  He is also welcome to insert objects into his own ass.  This is legit.  But where’s the fun in it?

We wait around for a degenerate to arrive and Madame Medusa to settle him in a session room.  We quickly spray on perfume and slip on heels to parade in one at a time for a meet and greet.

Madame Medusa tells us, “Two minutes tops.  You don’t be giving him no freebie.   You be in and out.” The trick is to make him choose you, to stand out, when he is at times meeting as many as 10 other girls.

The pedophiles always go for Katie, a strawberry blond who is only an A cup.  At 21, with no hips or ass, Katie looks closer to 12.  In tight, short black leather dresses and platforms she could be a poster child for efforts to stop child sex trafficking.  She sleeps at the dungeon most nights since her boyfriend held her at gun point.  Several black and Asian girls are usually available and no amount of red lipstick can defeat them if he wants to be beaten by a Nubian or has a Chinese foot binding fantasy.  Also stiff competition is Mistress Scarlet owing to the mammoth breasts she has to tame and squeeze into a corset.  Well versed in contemporary literature, she favors Camus and Nabokov, and also enjoys reading about “children kept in captivity” on Wikipedia, particularly the Elizabeth Fritzl case.  When she masturbates to porn she gets off by fantasizing the actors are related. She says it makes her orgasms much more intense if she envisions a brother and sister doing the deed.

Unlike most of the mistresses I do not sub or switch.  I shudder at the thought of some perv tying me up, having a ½ hour or an hour to put his hands on me, while I wait for salvation in a “5 minute knock.” While I enjoy “tease and denial”– me tying them up and flaunting my body — the pink pussy they will never have, I will not make myself vulnerable.  At one of the monthly fetish parties I had gotten pulled into a “group” session where some guy in his 60s or 70s wanted to play a song called “Funky, funky butt cheeks.” I was happy to dance and pretend to be into his stupid song.  But when I felt his hand smack my ass, my mouth froze, and I wanted to scream.

In order to feed myself and my cat, I post ads about “Jewish girls gone wild — you bring the horseradish and I’ll crack the whip!” and “Confess your secrets to a sexy school girl” on Craig’s List and the Village Voice’s Backpage.com.  When my ads aren’t getting flagged, going through the responses is tedious.  While the XYers are all looking for free sex, to me sex work means no sex and minimal work for an obscenely large sum of money.   I find myself coming up against my and the men’s difference in definitions time and again, a seemingly insurmountable wall.  My comfort with the sex business only goes so far as creating the illusion of sex and yet words do not describe my desire for tax free dollars.  If only I can reconcile the exchange of green for a man’s carnal pleasure.

The e-mail responses are endless and arrive at all hours.  I learn the BDSM community is an international one with members as close as ten blocks away and as far as Kolkata, India where Rajiv, who is dying to be my “toilet slave,” resides.  If only I would accept him he could move in with me in only “3 moths.”   Another cyber stranger wants to be objectified and treated like, “complete property, transformed into a sissy maid, a rubber doll, a piece of furniture, a pony or a dog.” A man in Staten Island asks for “financial domination” and wants a woman to add to the deed to his house then threaten to take it away.  He balks when I say I need to consult my attorney first.  Ted from Wisconsin sends his travel itinerary, along with dates, hotels where he will be staying, and references, names and phone numbers of previous women he has been with who will most likely remember him for his, “oral and salsa dancing skills.”  Despite the statistic that 85% of people have HPV, everyone claims to be “D&D free.” All the men are “in great shape” and “very stable and normal outside the bedroom.”

At some point I develop an unhealthy obsession with Christian Loubotins and finding a man with a foot fetish to buy the $900 shoes for me.  I wonder if prior to the recession this might have been easier.  I learn Collarme.com is not a place to earn revenue but reserved for Lifestyle BSDMers.  I am told of a club called Paddles where Lifestylers often go to get naked and spank one another.  In a way I am like a drug dealer who doesn’t use her own product.  And yet there is certainly sadism in me.  I am prone to fantasies about maiming and torturing ex-boyfriends, setting them on fire.  I envision acid burning the face of the ex-fiancé.  Since I am not intent on bringing my ideation to fruition I seek male substitutes to punish and take me on endless shopping sprees- handing me credit cards with no limits.  I am limitless inside and cannot actually be fulfilled.   No amount of shoes are likely to do it, no Louis Vuiton bag.  It’s doubtful I could ever feel satisfied but I’d sure like to try.

Medusa bursts into our little area barking, “There be a guy in 10 minutes.” She looks at us, lying around; listless, lazy girls and shakes her head.  She needs us to be mean, money making machines.  “Get up.  It be The Tooth.”

Mistress Sophia groans, “Not that fucker, again.”

“He comes here, too?” Mistress Oksana asks her blue eyes widening with what looks like concern… and is that fear?  It’s her first day at Medusa’s but she says she’s been in the scene for awhile and worked at The Underground Playground and Salome’s Salon before it got busted for using strap-ons.

“Relax, he likes to session with newbies,” Mistress Scarlett says knowingly.  “I’m not even getting dressed.  Tell me, Medusa, did he not ask who’s new here?”

Medusa lights up a Newport.  The air is already so thick with smoke my eyes are tearing. “He wanna meet Summer.”

Suddenly all eyes are on me.  You’d think I had been bestowed some honor like captain of the cheerleading squad or nominated for Prom Queen.  Katie, who’s been quite vocal she is saving up for her own place, looks particularly annoyed and I know they will be talking about me as soon as I leave the room.  Mistress Mona Lisa, who hails from South Africa, had tipped me off, earlier in the week.  “Summer,” she’d said, “If I were you I would watch my back.”  While I appreciate her looking out for me, I’m not intimidated by Katie who’s lost countless phones in the time I’ve known her and will go out for cigarettes and not return for days.  She is the type of girl who would be late to her own cat fight or forget about it altogether.  The others aren’t any better.

Ignoring Katie and her comrades’ glares, I head to the bathroom where I re-apply my signature red lipstick and extenuate my eyes with black liner and mascara.  I manipulate a black push-up bra and silky red corset to give the appearance I have way more cleavage than I actually do, re-fasten my black garter belt to the fishnet thigh-highs I’m already wearing and step into and zip up my boots.  I look in the mirror and am pleased with my appearance.  I look hot!  I’d want to session with me!  I consider for a second why they call him The Tooth and hope he isn’t into some crazy vampire fetish; I’m well aware HIV can be transmitted through biting and neither want to bite or be bitten by one of these disgusting creeps.

I follow Medusa to the session room where he is waiting.  “You know the drill, go in, meet him, and come back out.”

I nod obediently and knock on the door.  I tell myself he can’t be as bad as that cop who asked to have his own taser used on him.

“Come in,” a voice says and I step inside.  She has put him in the largest of the session rooms.  The velvet curtains are drawn and a single candle has been lit.

“Hi,” I say, “I’m Mistress Summer.”

He is younger and slimmer than most of the men who come in.  If he had the right haircut and wore a Brooks Brothers button-down he could pass himself off as one of the finance clones who roam Wall St. in packs, clutching fresh copies of The Economist, sucking on cigarettes and boasting loudly about their bonuses.  However he lacks their bravado.  I notice he is trembling.

He takes me in.  “You are very beautiful Mistress.”

“Thank you,” I respond.

“How long have you been working here?” he asks.

“About a month,” I say.

“Are you a student?”

“Yes,” I say.  It’s obviously what he wants to hear.

“What are you studying?” he asks and I become nervous, painfully aware of the time, wanting to sneak a peek at my wristwatch and wondering if I can do so without him noticing.

Medusa knocks on the door and opens it simultaneously.  “You want her?” she asks.  “Mistress Summer make you real happy. She meet your needs.”

Usually she seals the deal without us in the room but she’s particularly aggressive around the first of the month when rent is due.

“Summer,” she barks, “Go on and get a pair of them rubber gloves. And a bucket.”

A bucket?  I groan inwardly and pray Tooth isn’t an anal guy or looking for an enema.  Unfortunately the dungeon offers “medical play.”  My first session had been with Oliver, a tall, aging Asian. A chance encounter in the school nurse’s office thirty-something years earlier with high school cheerleaders Blair and Clair had changed his life forever.  Oliver had asked that I examine his “boy parts” much like the girls had done, all the while, giggling, and ridiculing him.  His finale had been inserting a thermometer into the shaft of his penis.

I retrieve a pair of yellow surgical gloves from the supply closet and a bucket from under the sink and tell myself The Tooth can’t be as bad as Oliver.

When I return Tooth is naked, his clothes neatly hanging in the closet.  I must look surprised because he says, “I don’t want to get blood on them.”

Blood?!  He unzips a red and black New York Sports Club gym bag and begins withdrawing all the dental tools of my nightmares- silver instruments with pointy ends, one with a small, shiny mirror attached to it, and several that look like pliers a plumber might use to repair a leaky faucet.

I am six years old, again, and awaking from general anesthesia in the pediatric dentist’s chair.  There is a green mask covering my nose and mouth.  I am all alone and I begin to cry.  My mother appears and I hear muffled words being exchanged.

The dentist in his sterile scrubs saying, “She’s too young.  I can’t give her anymore.”  He needs to finish the procedure with me wide awake.  An hour had lapsed owing to a patient in the waiting room having a heart attack and the dentist tending to him.  I’d slept through the cardiac arrest, the attempts to resuscitate him, and the ambulance which had arrived to whisk him off.

The drill began whirling loudly.  It smelled like burning metal and I screamed.  I heard my mother lie and make pleading promises, “I’ll let you get your ears pierced if you just stop crying!”  I wouldn’t have to wait to the previously agreed upon age of 13 when I would be batmitzvahed.

I reach up, now, to touch the diamond studs in my ears.  Re-assured, they are still there; I ask The Tooth, “What do you want?”

He opens his mouth, using his fingers to stretch the sides as wide as they will go.  Like a jack lantern, he is missing numerous teeth on the top and bottom.  He uses his right index finger to point out what I believe is called a canine tooth.  “You’re going to extract this one.”

“Like hell I am!”

He walks over to the closet, reaches into the pocket of his blue jeans and pulls out a few fifties.  He turns and tries to hand them to me but I am not expecting it and simply watch as the bills flutter to the floor.  My gaze goes back and forth between the money and the tools, unsure what to do.  I remember retrieving dollar bills from under my pillow and how the accompanying notes from the Tooth Fairy congratulating me on my lost baby teeth were scripted in handwriting suspiciously similar to the Hanukah Fairy.

“You’re not the Tooth Fairy,” I point out.  I realize I sound like a little kid telling the Santa Claus at the mall he’s not the real Santa Claus.  I clarify, “I mean you can’t just go around paying people to pull your teeth out.  I mean you pay dentists for that and it gets billed to insurance if you have it but like the whole reason you go to a dentist is because you actually need to have a tooth pulled cause it’s infected or whatever but usually they do a root canal first, right?  Have you been to a dentist?”

He looks annoyed.  “I don’t need a dentist.”

“Maybe you do,” I say.  “They have that number on t.v.  1-800-Dentist.  I’ve never called it but you could try.  And if you have insurance you could ask them for a list of providers.  I just can’t imagine you wouldn’t need antibiotics if you have a tooth pulled without anesthesia.  Didn’t you get an infection last time?”

He smiles and I feel slightly ill when I see the missing teeth.  “Today you are my dentist, Mistress Summer.”

“I don’t think so,” I mutter under my breath.  I wonder why he can’t have a “normal” fetish and want a spanking or ball busting like our other clientele.   I mean who the hell does this guy think he is coming in here with these dental tools expecting me to pull his teeth out?

I’ve learned a lot of the guys were abused as children by family members or religious figures- priests or rabbis.  Perhaps he was molested by the family dentist?  I wonder where he got the dental tools and if they are available for purchase on-line or if he broke into a dentist’s office to steal them?  I wonder whether he will want a release after the tooth is pulled.  Is this going to excite and turn him on him?

He picks the fifties up off the floor and adds an additional hundred dollar bill.  He holds the money out to me.  I sigh and I take it.  I guess everyone has their price and at the moment mine is $300.

He retrieves a thin plastic tube and a bottle of mouthwash from the gym bag. It’s the whitening kind and the bottle brags its contents “prevent tooth decay” along with, “strengthening and restoring enamel.”  I cannot fathom what difference it makes if his are yellowing and stained or the picture perfect, porcelain variety you’d find in an advertisement for veneers.  My mother saved all my baby teeth. I wonder what he does with his.

The Tooth expertly puts one end of the tube in his mouth and lets the other end hang into the bucket.  He lies down on the couch, like a therapy patient, and hands me a pair of pliers.  He tilts his head back and opens his mouth widely, gesturing to the one he wants taken out.  I can feel my heart racing as I pull on the rubber gloves.

I grip the tooth with the pliers.  I have little upper arm strength to begin with and my destitution has made a gym membership and the prospect of lifting weights rather unrealistic.

I try to wiggle the tooth but it is firmly implanted in his mouth.  How the hell am I supposed to get this sucker out?  I haven’t had any proper training.  I didn’t go to dental school.  I try pretending he is an ex.  This usually works when I am paddling a guy’s behind but it is harder now with his face so close, his eyes anxiously searching mine.  I’m beginning to get a headache.  A couple Excedrin and a tumbler of scotch on the rocks would do the trick.  Some Valium would also be nice and I make a mental note to ask Harmony if she can convince Slave Scott to write a script.

“Do it harder!” he attempts to yell but his words slur; it sounds like he has a speech impediment.

He gestures with his fist a pulling action reminiscent of my fourth grade class putting on “Excalibur.” I remember the terrible acting of my peers grunting and straining as they attempted to cajole an aluminum foil sword from a paper mache stone until finally Ross Rosenblatt, who had been cast as Young Arthur, effortlessly withdrew it and our parents and teachers cheered.  Somehow I doubted a secret  
lineage would be revealed to me should I succeed in pulling out this fool’s tooth.  It was highly unlikely I would take my rightful place in the monarchy and marry Prince William or at least his renegade red headed younger brother.

“Why do you want this?” I ask in a voice so soft I am unsure if I’ve spoken aloud until I realize I’ve upset him.

“Don’t ask me that!  You’re not a therapist!” The Tooth roars sitting up.

The door swings open and Madame Medusa enters.  Her eyes are bloodshot, her movements languid.  I’m fairly certain she’s been into her Ganga supply, again.  “What be the problem, here?”

“She!” The Tooth points at me, “Is NOT meeting my needs!”

“So sorry Mister!  Summer, she be one the newest girls and I don’t think she be working out so good.  Me so real sorry.  Me know you like them new girls but last time you was here you had your session with Mistress Scarlett and you was real happy with her.  The one with the big titties!”  She holds out her hands to her bosom and squeezes, motioning and gesturing wildly. “Me send her in.  She make you real happy!”

The Tooth pretends to think it over a moment before finally nodding.  “I suppose that would be all right.”

I follow Medusa out of the room.  “I’m going to get Scarlett.  Get your things, you leave, and don’t you never come back here.”

“Are you paying me for the session?” I ask.

“Hell no I ain’t!  You don’t do your job, you don’t get paid.  That’s the way it works in America.  Now get out of here.  Me done looking at you.”  The way she pronounces the you sounds like an “oo” as if she is actually in pain from the mere sight of me.

I am being fired by an illegal immigrant from a job at a dungeon where I am seldom paid.  There will be no severance wages, no exit interview, and no COBRA.  I finger the $300 and am annoyed about the session money Medusa will now be giving to Scarlett who will saunter in to take my place.  I imagine her cooing and exclaiming how good it is to see The Tooth, again.  She will meet his needs.

“It’s too cold in Russia to masturbate,” said Alex.  He was trying to comfort me.

Tolstoy in his deathbed.

See, I got drunk at this LA actor networking party, and out came a Russian and a camera.  He told me he was interviewing people on their reactions to the Lost season premiere.  I got real excited.  I love Lost (time travel is a particular interest of mine thanks to a childhood of Marty McFly), and am always eager to discuss it.  I asked him what the interview was for, and he said a Russian TV show.  The guy had on a tight T-Shirt and was working a big nose so I totally believed him.  Immediately pumped up at the idea of Russian TV stardom, I was like “Can I reveal spoilers?” and he was like “Go ahead.”  I launched into my feelings about Kate and the Smoke Monster and my theory that Sayid is really Jesus.  I enjoyed the attention from the camera.  I smiled a lot, I flipped my hair.  At one point, the Russian asked me which guy I liked better, Sawyer or Jack.  He gave me a dirty smile, as if to say “Go ahead, tell me how you really feel”.  I took a swig from my rum and coke, giggled, and said, “Well I wouldn’t kick Sawyer out of bed for eating crackers, as we Dharma folk like to say!”  At which point I flashed the camera my titties.  I hoped that a casting director somewhere near by had seen something he liked.  Hopefully JJ Abrams saw it too.

The next morning, looking back on the night’s events, wiping a drop of dried snot-like vomit out of my hair, I was worried.  In my sober post-party state, I was concerned the Russian would sell my interview to online pervs, and my nerdy blonde American charm would be whacked off to by Moscowites.  Alex assured me that this was not possible.

“Seriously, Brigit, the lube would freeze on their balls.”

“That must be why they kidnap the girls from their country and sell them elsewhere, in warm places,” said I.

“Yes.  What sexual frustration will do to an entire culture…  It’s a real shame.”

The thought of being put on a Russian sex website filled me with thoughts of evil men becoming obsessed with my beautiful breasts and kidnapping me, selling me to brothels in Calcutta and Tehran.  I pictured Gorbachev’s daughter with a head wrap dancing in front of a sheik in a gold bikini.  I shivered.  To be sold on the sex slave trade was one of my darkest fears.  I was frightened that footage of my drunken breast-baring exuberance toward Lost, if discovered, would enhance my candidacy as a kidnap victim.  Alex assured me, though, that Russians not only cannot masturbate, they do not like Lost.  “Why would they?”  He said.  “It’s tropical, and it doesn’t have any peasants.”

Now, Alex may have gotten into every law school in the land, but he didn’t know a thing about Russians.  The old Ruskies were more my area of expertise.  I had studied Chekhov in acting school and knew The Seagull like nobody’s business.  I mean, I knew Nina’s last name, and the sensory details of a 19th century train ride to Yeletz.  When I cried, “Kostya, I know what my vocation is, and now I am not afraid of life!” the other acting students were in tears.  My acting teacher practically had an orgasm.  Their claps filled the studio room, echoing off the chipping walls and fold-out metal chairs.  I had connected deeply and emotionally to the characters, and began to understand the Russian soul.  I knew that Russians fed off drama, human longing, questions of destiny/freewill, and large casts of characters.  Lost, therefore, was the perfect Russian cocktail.  To Alex, a Barack Obama type that I met in freshman year Spanish class, Russia was just the place you shouldn’t invade in winter.  How little he knew of its dangers…

The camera-wielding networking Russians kidnapped me.  While perusing Facebook, I heard a pick at my lock.

Looking around for the nearest weapon, I grabbed a nail file.  I shook in terror.  My cell phone was in my purse by the door, vibrating with the unanswered texts of several losers.  If only I had been responding to them like a lady, I thought, the phone would have been in my reach to call el policio.  I made a mental note to stop ignoring the good-looking but Republican guy I met at a friend’s wedding.  Maybe if I’d picked up his first call and gone on a date with him, he would have been in my apartment at that very moment, massaging my feet and waxing philosophical to me about how the poor should be gassed, and he’d protect me from intruders.  Mistakes, mistakes.  Sometimes I forget how much I depend upon men for their physical strength.

The turn of the lock made me shiver.  I prayed feverishly that Harrison Ford or Liam Neesen was nearby and would save me.  But before either of them had a chance, my door creaked open, and in slid a man, shutting the door behind him.  He looked just like Barack Obama.  Though still afraid, I softened, defenses down.  The man reminded me of both Obama, and my best pal Alex, who like I said was very similar to him (biracial, charming, middle-class background).  The intruder was wearing all brown, which made him even more convincing.  At first I felt hope at the sight of his face, but then it began to change.  The president was breaking into my house?  I couldn’t figure it out.  Had things really gotten that bad?  Did Alex or Obama need some money?  I’ll admit, I had smoked a bit of weed earlier in the evening.  Slowly, and somewhat seductively, the Obama imposter approached me.  He took the nail file out of my hand and said “sssh, little babushka.”  I smelled alcohol, and then all was darkness.

I awoke in the type of van all girls have nightmares about.  The sex-trafficking type.  Drunk eyes aflutter, I heard funny European voices and felt the déjà vu of “Lebowski!  We need the money!” But instead of two guys peeing on my carpet, I saw an orange-lit van surrounded by men in tight brown leggings, and I saw the big-nosed Russian, whose nose was much bigger without the fuzzy flattering night-vision of a drunk.  My worst fears were confirmed.

“It’s you!” I yelled, before swooning onto the van’s shaggy carpet floor.

“We knew if we wore the Obama mask you would trust us,” the Russian said as he picked me up by the arm and stared into my tear-streaked face.  “Hahaha,” he laughed evilly.  “Stupid actress.”  He was right.  “Stupid American.  Haha.”

“Damn it!” I yelled, jerking out of his grip and pounding my fists on the floor.  “Always trust your instincts!” I wept, hearing my Mother’s advice reverberate in my ear.  I knew this would happen.  I knew that a real live Russian with a camera at a networking party was bad news.  Never trust foreigners.  Look at Roman Polanski for Gods sakes.  “What do you want with me?” I shrieked, sobbing.  There were three men surrounding me, seated in a circle in what looked like little-kid chairs.  A camera was propped on a tripod behind us, with the Obama mask lying beside it.  I was not tied up or handcuffed, which left me free to roll around on the carpeted floor in despair.  “I’m not supposed to be a whore!” I yelled.  Though if they sold me to someone famous like a governor, I might embrace it.

“You are now ours,” the principal Russian said.  In my head I named him Vladimir.  He was the skinniest.  It was ironic.  Or maybe I don’t get what irony is, but it was funny that I called him that.

“Now.  Tell us about this Lost show, actress.”

“What?” I responded.  He leaned in toward me, threateningly fierce.

“Tell us.  Or the consequence will beyond your imagination be,” he said, like an idiot.

“Okay!” I said, unsure as to what I was agreeing to, but very scared of consequence.

As the shock of the Russian’s request grew inside me, I looked about the van and took in its contents more clearly.  In every corner of the dark van, lit by an orange glow light, were pasted pictures of Lost characters.  There was Kate, looking fly, on the red carpet.  I noted her green dress, very dignified.  A real looker, that one.  Beside her was a photo of Hurley, Sawyer, and Ben at Comic Con.  There was one of Jack on the island, leading a group of castaways into the dark of the jungle.  There was Daniel Faraday, my favorite, in a promotional shot, looking clairvoyant.  A new fear took hold of me.  If they sold me into sexual slavery, how would I ever find out what happens on the island?

The Russians, closing in around me, scooching their chairs to me, red light of the camera blinking, brought me back into a gruesome reality… these horny Russians were crazed Lost fans.  And I was the sexy American who understood their passion for mysterious ABC sagas.  God damn it.

“We love Lost,” said Vladimir.  They all murmured in agreement.  I sensed excited tears in their Russian eyes.

“There are aspects of this Lost that we simply do not understand, you know?  We are mystified.”

The Russians had given me a cup of Arbor Mist to calm me down.  I accepted because I was very thirsty.  They gave me a cigarette, and we all shot the shit for a while.  They explained what the hell I was doing in their creepster van.

“Your English is excellent,” I told him, taking a swig of the sweetness.

“I went to Columbia University, fool!”  Vladimir could be scary.  I mean, he did kidnap me.  And his teeth were sharp.  Exactly how one would think a sex-traffickers teeth were like.  But the others seemed okay.  Vladimir kept talking, “But after…back I go Moscow.  My father, the famous maker of beaver-pictures, Ivan Lagoyavich Trevelog, he was dying.  Of course, also my student Visa had run out.  I live in Moscow once again for many of the years, ordering American TV on the Netflix, missing this place of skin and knowledge.  Dexter.  Deadwood.  Sex and the City.  Phenomenal.  Your people, they know things.  Americans created Lost.  They know it, they feel it.  Just as we intuitively understand the gift Irina receives on her birthday in Three Sisters and the significance of its extravagance, you understand the significance of the eye blush this Richard wears, and the mythology behind a foot on the beach housing a Messiah-like figure.  This I do not understand!  All I can understand is Kate’s cursed beauty!”  Vladimir was animated.  He nearly jumped out of his pre-school sized chair.

His knees were the size of hubcaps and his nose almost hit me in the face.  It probably could have given me a black eye.  He continued, “Is the Man-in-Black evil?  Or is he good?  Does he represent the will of man, and Jacob the planned destiny?  We cannot decide.  And these are important questions!  Truly!”
I nodded.  The other men nodded.  They all stared at me.  What would come next?  I was hoping Vladimir would drink himself into a stupor of no-ability-to-rape-me-ness, and then I could punch the others, put on the Obama mask, and sneak out of the van.  The Obama mask would make me feel powerful.

“One night,” he went on, “after getting Petrov’s American cousin spinning in the head with absinthe,” Petrov nodded at me with a crooked smile.  He had the smile of someone who is a bit slow, “…we asked her to explain this Lost.  Her answers intrigue us.  Additionally, they give us boners.  You know… ‘wood.’  We drink, the camera comes out, we demand – speak for the tape!  Tell us what you feel!  Tell us what will happen on Lost!  We know you know, bitch!  All Americans know someone who knows someone who knows JJ Abrams! Tell us, woman! Yet she refused.  We sold her to Arab king.  A punishment.”

“Yowza,” I said.

“We begin website.  Several Russian Lost fans feel as we do, that Lost is quite sexual and American and an American female Lost fan is priceless.  An American female Lost fan could have made even Tolstoy hard.  This website thrives, and now look at us; rich enough, we travel here, we discover this Los Angeles gold mine of silly women with little to do but watch television and show their bosoms at parties like whores.  So here is ‘the deal’ as they say.  You talk of Lost.  You look pretty.  We tape you.  If you do not participate, to the Arabs you go.”

“No!”

“Yes!”

“You know how bad 9-11 was!  How could you send me to them?”  I went out on a limb.

“You shut up.”

If I was being nonsensical, it’s because I thought perhaps they’d show me some of that world-wide compassion that once existed for the USA, if only for a brief moment.  Alas, the people of New York losing their lives did not bring these Evangeline Lilly fans back to their damn senses.

“The site is called ‘Daddy Sawyer Thinks You Are Pretty. Very Pretty.’  It is for the heterosexual Lost fans of Russia.”

“Catchy.  And I figured.”

“Thank you actress.  Your breasts will look great on tape.  Well, the left one which is not so small.”

“Asshole!” I cursed.

Vladimir went to the camera.  He began directing the men in all directions of the van’s porn set.  I started to cry like a little boy losing a baseball game.

“I hate you guys!” I whined.  They put me in a little chair, and my hands were tied in front of me, my two tiny biceps pushing my breasts together.  Petrov put lipstick on me, preparing me for my close-up.  In the lighting, I couldn’t see what color it was.  I hoped it was a ‘summer’ tone and not ‘winter’ because those look awful on me.  He swiped blush across my cheeks.  I glanced rapidly around the van for a way out.  It’s not as if I wouldn’t do what they asked, because I didn’t want to be sold to an Arab.  What could be worse?  After all, all Muslims are basically fundamentalist even if Fareed Zakaria claims otherwise.  I tried desperately to think of how I felt about Lost, of something unique to say for their camera.  Nothing came to me.  John Locke was…. Really alive!  And he was like… Zeus!  No.  Juliet was a man!  No.  Damn it.  Sawyer saves everybody and dies and Jack and Kate get together again, and Sawyer ends up with Juliet in some other reality, and good wins over evil, but people have to sacrifice in order to make that happen, with many giving up their children and their lives.  No, that was too simple.  It was all about the polar bear!  Yes…I was getting somewhere…

“Chekhov would have loved Lost,” Vladimir said as he stroked an action figure of Claire, sitting in the corner waiting for me to be made up, like a true freak.

“Pssh.  Yeah right,” I said quietly as Petrov stepped back from me, nodding to the camera-Russian that they were ready to begin taping.

“What did you say, little Lost whore?” he shot back at me. I felt brave from the Arbor Mist.  Thanks, Russians.  I wish people in America just drank all day like those crazy Commys.

“I said yeah right!  Chekhov would have hated this shit!” I said.

The camera was ready.  A Russian sex-pirate entrepreneur was behind it, nodding at Vladimir that it was time.  But I had struck a nerve.

“And what do you know of Chekhov, American?”  Big-nose Vladdy looked bemused.

“I know he didn’t infuse his work with mythological reference, or endless saga-like stories of redemption!  He presented his characters with a problem, let them live in it, did not resolve it, and ended the damn thing!  This brought awareness and empathy to people who cannot escape their own pain or change course!  He wrote of the miniscule betrayals of life that like a splinter invade us slightly and leave a great hurt if not taken out!  He would have been annoyed by all the hoo-ha on that show, let me assure you!”  I was pissed now.  Looked like Vladimir was too.  My boobs were crushing together like goo, and I wanted to just get this over with, but that guy shouldn’t have questioned my Conservatory-training.

“Chekhov admired questions of the human spirit!”  Vladimir yelled.  The other Russians tried to shush him.  He got up in my face again, and the stupid Russian criminal’s nose actually did hit me this time.  It felt like a penis in my face.  “You are telling me Sawyer’s newfound emotionality does not demonstrate just that?”

“Chekhov liked the small-scale human drama.  The scope of it was in the internal world of the characters, and their places in society.  Tolstoy would have jumped right into its questions of free will, its fable of redemption through war leading perhaps to peace.  But Chekhov…no.  don’t even go there.  He would’ve been annoyed by the whole thing.  Ya’ know the whole ‘if there’s a gun onstage in the first act it has to go off in the third’ that he said?  Well, they never make the gun go off on Lost.  It would’ve given him an ulcer.”

“AAAAAH!” yelled the Russian.  A ruckus ensued.  Vladimir came toward me to strangle me.

“She shouldn’t have brought up the greatest short story writer of all time,” said one of the Russians behind me who’d been primping my hair.  “Always a mistake.”

“Greatest playwright here in the US, buddy boy,” I shot out at him.

The men pulled Vladimir away from me.  He had veins popping out the sides of his scrawny long Russian neck.

“To the Arab with you,” he said.

I thought of Pakistani food and how much I hate it.  Too much clove-like flavoring, too many peas, at least in that one Pakistani restaurant I ate at once in the East Village in NY.

“Wait!” I shouted.  They all stared at me.  “I will give you some Lost-talk like you’ve never heard before,” I said.

Vladimir lifted a thick Russian brow.  “Go ahead,” he said.  “Roll camera.”  He lay back, watching me.  The van quieted.  “Tell me.  Tell Daddy Sawyer.”

“See, I think it’s a polar bear.  I think that the whole thing is about a polar bear kept captive.  He is having fantasies about his oppressors.  But the polar bear has low self esteem, so he’s only a bit player in the fantasy.  When he comes up in the show, it’s really the polar bear entertaining himself by being like ‘oh my I know what would be fun!  Then a polar bear comes out!’ and he giggles to himself, and then a human whips him through the cage.  In the last episode…it’ll all have been a polar bear’s daydream…”

“Yes yes.  Go on.  Go on.  More.”

“If I had Sawyer alone in a room I’d show him a time-loop in my rear…”

“Yes.  Yes.  More answers, more answers.”

“Truly, I think Kate represents the lost feminity of Eve on the days following creation in the Genesis.”

I heard a quiet wet whacking in the van’s corner.  I dared not look.  The Obama mask stared at me with a look of shame.

When I had finished, I asked for more Arbor Mist and if I could go back home because I had an audition for LA Crime Sex bright and early in the AM.  As I saw how pathetic these men were (men just get more and more pathetic every day, I swear, I mean look at Elliot Spitzer and Jesse James and the nipple pictures on Huffington Post), I lost much of my fear.  I’d handled pathetic sexists before, and I would again.  But the Russians would not let me cease.  I was tired.  I was anxious about my audition.

“But I’m done!  That’s all I got!  How many mysteries are there to solve?”

“So, so many,” they chanted, eyes a-horny.

“I can’t!  I can’t go on!” I yelled, hoping they’d give me a tranquilizer to calm me down, or feel bad for me.

“The girls do not understand us here,” one of them muttered.

“But I have a life!” I yelled, toward Vladimir, hoping he’d pity me.  “I have a manager who is really and truly interested in my work in the Clearasil ad campaigns!”

“No!  YOU HAVE NOT EXPLAINED THIS SMOKE MONSTER!”

“I CAN’T!  I CAN’T!”

“ONLY AMERICANS UNDERSTAND! AND YOU ARE ONE WITH BREASTS!”

“But it’s not me!  I’m not the one to help you!  Let me give you the numbers for other girls who love Lost even more than me!  There are plenty!  They wear glasses and corduroys, but still!”

“Take off your bra and top.  This is level two.  Brothers…. Turn on the green-based overhead lighting.”

I began to cry.  As an actress I was used to taking off my shirt.  I got naked in plays, in a movie that no one will ever see, in my friends’ hot tubs after a couple Pabsts.  Often, I regretted my nudity, particularly in an Off-Off-Off Broadway play directed by a college student where I was forced to sit naked on an old man’s lap and sing “Cabaret.”  But this was different.  No one was paying me a check for $60 a week or hooking up with me no-strings-attached.  I reached behind me.  I unclipped.  Trembling, I reached down to the bottom of my shirt, ready to lift up, revealing the glorious B-C Cup breasts that had gotten me into this trouble in the first place.  Maybe Muslims had the right idea with those burkas.  They’re hard to take off when you’re drunk.  It’s for women’s own protection.   Maybe I would like the life of an Arab’s whore.  Better than that of a nude model on a Russian fetish site.

“Now.  Tell us more theories.  And bounce around.”

I did as I was told.  What other choice does a sex slave have?

This is how Alex found me.

He came in with a team of our friends, mostly actresses, law students, trust-fund intellectuals, plus a painter friend of Alex’s that I slept with once in college (I noticed him immediately, he’d gotten quite overweight) and they took the Russians down with karate.  Kids these days have a lot of extracurricular activities, so our generation of friends was just what I needed to save my ass.

Several in my American brigade pinned down the Russians and forced them to drink vodka, until they were immobile.  “It’s like winning the Cold War twice!” one of the young American men yelled.

“If that’s true, then I’m democracy,” I said to Alex, as he pulled down my shirt and untied me.  He grimaced.

“How’d you find me?” I asked my pal.

“I got into Harvard Law School yesterday.  And when I came to tell you, I saw this van outside your house.  I can’t explain it, it’s just…after receiving that letter of acceptance I just… knew things.  I figured the van outside your house might be some Russians taping you more.”

The Russians were passed out in Vodka stupors around me.  But I knew I wasn’t safe until the Lost season finale, so I hid.  I am in hiding now.  I cannot tell you where I am.  Hopefully they will answer all the mysteries of the show, or I know the Russians will come looking for me.  Luckily, I have the Obama mask.  I put it next to my pillow every night, and I read Lost summaries like it’s my vocation.  Alex says I have Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome.  I think I just need an acting job.

Ah America.  Where breasts are dangerous to have as part of your body, and Lost is crazy, and Russians are menacing, and biracial law students save the world.

Dorothea Tanning

Sweet Mary

James burned.

With curiosity. With God. With the Devil. With blood fever. With Mary.

James burned.

Lately Mary had come to him every night. Bathed in golden light. Sweet Mary, dripping love, dropping down with the wings of an angel as he lay on his small hard bed, Jesus on the cross behind him bleeding, bleeding from his crown of thorns, bleeding for his sins. The sins of James.

And he would pray to God. His God. That she would go away. That she would come and stay. That she would lower herself onto him again. And she always did. Flowing crow black hair. Raving raven eyes. Skin white clouds. Breasts secreting the milky blood of Christ.

And he would be so stiff. A stiff staff greeting her as she floated down, a sister of mercy, sweet Mary, floating all over him. And he would pray to God, his God, to deliver him from evil, to help him resist temptation. But his God would be gone, and he could not resist. Did not want to resist sweet Mary.

And she would whisper, “Forgive me Father, for I have sinned,” as she spread herself open with her fingers and hovered over him, hovered over his rigid rock of ages knob of James at the blossom of Mary so opening and he would want her so much, so bad, so hard, and he would be enveloped by the sheer drunken sin of it all.

And she would put her breast in his mouth, the sweet breast of Mary, and he would drink the milky blood of Christ as she would slide down, down, down the veiny palpitating pounding pumping pillar of his sin, the shaft of his Satan.

And he would whisper, “Forgive me Father, for I have sinned.” And he would think to himself, O Jesus, kill me, O Jesus, save me, O Jesus help me.

And she would sing like a cherub, a holy hellspawn, the music of her virgin voice filling him as he was filling her.

She blanketed him like in holy snow.

And the hot love of God would shoot out of him into her, into the valley of death, the Shadow lurking, smirking in the corner, as he would scream, “O Lord, why have you forsaken me?”

And then James would wake up, bolt soaking from his nightmaredream wet with sweat and sticky salty unholy water boiling on his belly. And he would feel God watching him, and he would feel the shame aimed at his heart, and he would pray to forgiven. By God. His God.

And afterwards, to calm himself, he would say, It’s only a dream.

And now, here she was. Here was Mary. Sweet Mary. In the flech. In his booth. Inches from him. So close James could smell her flower blooming, perfuming through him, pinning him, chokeholding his soul.

And James had to punch himself hard in the thigh to bring himself back. God is laughing at me, James thought. This is his sick joke, and I am the butt. You have a sacred duty, he told himself, you are nothing, you are a servant, you are a vessel of the Lord our God. A vessel of God. You are nothing but your sacred duty, James told himself.

“Forgive me Father, for I have sinned,” came from the darkness like a chariot of light, singing sweet and low, swinging him around her little finger. “What is your sin my child?” James felt strange calling her his child. She was thirty-five, maybe forty, although James was very bad at those things. Judging how old a woman might be. Maybe she was only thirty. That was certainly possible, he thought. She was old enough to be his mother. Mother Mary. Mother of God. Holy Mother of God.

But he was twenty-one, he was sure of that. The Whiz Kid Priest. That’s what all the papers said. And the magazines. Memorized the Bible by the age of ten. Already groomed to be a bishop, a cardinal maybe even. Audience with the Pope on his eighteenth birthday. Quoting verse and scripture, a greatest hits of the Good Book on the radio and the television with the square jawed easy charm of Jack Kennedy back in Camelot, a poster boy for the New Church, a throwback to a happier time when it didn’t matter if you had sex with Marilyn Monroe in the White House, as long as you didn’t do it on the Front Lawn.

And James loved the ritual of it, the pageantry of it, the ceremony, the hidden symbols and the rock hard unthinking certainty, the blind obedience of it all, from before he could even remember, making everyone around him so happy, his father, on his deathbed, pleading with him, James, the only son, the last hope, to be a priest, his mother so proud, beaming, telling everyone about her boy the Whiz Kid Priest. The pride of the neighborhood.

And it had come so easy, all so simple. Until now. Until her. Until Mary. Sweet Mary.

“Father, I have impure thoughts,” confessed Mary with a breathtaking piety. Impure thoughts. Just the words set his mind racing, skin ivory, hair ink black, a black Mass, parting her heart of darkness to let him in.

James punched himself in the thigh hard to bring himself back. And he wanted to run, to hide. And he prayed to God, his God, to give him the strength to resist, to pass this test, this plague of locust, He was inflicting on pious Father James, the Whiz Kid Priest.

“What are your thoughts,” James asked, trying hard to keep the quiver out of his voice, not really wanting to know the answer, desperately wanting to know the answer. “Well, Father… I’m too embarrassed to talk about it…” said Mary. “I’m your priest, Mary, I’m hear to listen and forgive, as a vessel of Christ out Lord and savior. We all have impure thoughts.” James said it, and he believed it.

“Do you have impure thoughts Father?” asked Mary, and just the way she said it shivered him cold and ignited a fire in the furnace of his purgatory, sending a white-hot shot of juice jumping through his balls jumping under the hardening under his robe.

O God please make it stop. Please God, make it all stop now. I have done everything for You, I have given You my

Hans Bellmer

life, please just do this one thing for me. Please, God, make it stop.

“Well, yes I do, of course I do. I’m not just a priest, I’m a…”

But the word “man” stuck hard in his throat like a wafer with no wine chaser.

“…that is to say, I confess my thoughts and sins and I pray to God to forgive me, and He does.” James said in his best Father James voice.

But James had never confessed these thoughts. These sins of Mary. As if by not confessing them they weren’t really real. Didn’t really count. And maybe that’s why God is punishing me, James thought, that’s why God is testing me, for my mendacity, for believing I can hide anything from his omnipotence.
Forgive me Father, for I have sinned.

“Father, I have wicked, sinful thoughts, and… I touch myself Father, I can’t help it… I… give myself pleasure… I can’t stop, Father, and I don’t know what to do…” James was breathing hot and hard now, heavy, trying to control everything, slow it all down, cool it all off. No more visions. No more breasts of Mary. No more bloody milk. No more Cardinal red lips. No more of her Amazing Grace. Save me for I am lost. Find me, miserable wretch that I am. Lord I am blind. Please, let me see. Help me cast out Satan. Make me roar, “Jezebelle, be gone!”

But James could not. James would not.

“What are your thoughts?” he asked, professional and priestly. But he already knew. Knew the thoughts of Mary. The way she looked at him when she passed in line after Sunday service. The way she always managed to corner him somewhere, when she knew no one was around, and stand a little too close, until she was almost brushing up against him, so close that he couldn’t even follow the thread of the meaningless conversation they were having about nothing at all. So close that he had no choice but to breathe in the ripe rubiness of Mary.

“Well… I want to do things, Father. Terrible things. O God, I want to do terrible things…” O God, deliver me from evil. Is this evil? It must be. It is. Sin. The sins of the flesh. Her flesh. The flesh of Mary. “Sometimes I think it will be the death of me. Sometimes I don’t care if I burn in a flame hotter than any human fire for ever and ever.” World without end, Amen, James finished the thought for her.

Maybe I shouldn’t be a priest. Maybe I’m too weak. Maybe I’m just doing it so everyone will like me. So I won’t let my dead father down. So mom will be happy with James, the youngest, the last hope, the Whiz Kid Priest. Maybe I’m just cut from different cloth, James thought.

“Sometime I think God would understand. God understands love, doesn’t he Father?” Does He? Do You? I don’t know, James thought. I thought I knew. God is love. Isn’t He? Aren’t You? I thought I knew. I was so sure I did. Everything seemed so clear and simple. A sin of the flesh is a sin of the flesh is a sin of the flesh. I am not a sinner. Father James is not a sinner. Father James is a vessel of God. Devout. A son of the son of God, pure in His celestial mansion on earth.

I don’t know anything, James thought. Except that I want Mary. James wants Mary. More than he has ever wanted anything. More than he wants God. Is that true? Could that be true? Or is this Lucifer worming his way into James’ Holy Soul? Making him want Mary’s sweetness. To eat of her flesh. To drink of her milky blood. To partake in the communion of Mary. To be inside all of that Mary. Where was God now? His God. Hiding? Waiting? Testing to see if I am pure? Am I pure?

James punched himself hard in the thigh again to bring himself back. But her smell was everywhere and his dream flashed celestial before his eyes, the wings of the wet archangel Mary, the parting of her red sea, sucking the milky blood of Jesus from her breasts, the stiffness so rigid and dizzy under his robe.

“I’m touching myself right now, Father,” confessed Mary, “I’m touching myself between my legs, and I’m very… it feels very… and I don’t know what to do, Father, tell me, what should I do? Am I going to hell? I can’t help myself… help me, please help me Father.”

And God was everywhere. And God was nowhere. And James felt God in his balls, sweaty and jumpy, tight as a rosery bead cockring. It must be Satan, this infernal damp dark underworld where black meets red. And James wanted to die and go to Heaven, never having been tested. Please God, I’m ready. Take me now. Before this Mary takes me.

But God did not take James.

And then suddenly he was aware that she had left her side of the booth, and he could faintly hear her walking around to his side. She was coming. Mary was coming. To him. With all her sweetness. Or was it Mary? No, it was a flesh demon sent to suck out his soul. Run James, run, his brain screamed, that little piece of rational brain that was left. But he couldn’t run. Didn’t want to run. Wouldn’t run.

The door to his booth slowly opened as the worm turned. And then there she was. There was Mary. Floating in on the wings of a prayer.

Please God deliver me now from evil, deliver me through the desert like Moses to the promised land. But where was the promised land? It was here in his confessional booth. It was her, so pure and so sweet and so very Mary. Please, God show me what to do. Tell me, for I am nothing. I am your vessel. Help me now or forever hold your peace.

But God did not come. God did not help. God did not tell James what to do. Betrayed thrice, thought Father James. By the Father, by the Son, and the Holy Ghost.

And James was alone with her. With this confusion of tongues, this massive tower of Babel so huge and confused under the shroud of his black robe. And James was filled with her crimsoning bouquet. Her ivory so flesh, her pitch so thick, the bright burn of the eyes so sweet Mary, the pleading of her thighs, her breasts so full of God’s milk. Take, eat, this is my body and is meant for you.

“If you want me to go, tell me right now, Father. Tell me to go now and I’ll never come back.” Mary blazed into him like God’s klieg light.

Yes, go! Be gone, whore of Babylon, temptress, Circe siren, she-devil, be gone. James heard the words in his head, but they did not come out of his mouth.

 ————————————-

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And Mary did lean down to him, bathed in a golden halo of honeydew perfume. And he heard a heavenly choir soaring and a devil’s organ grinding. And she did lean down to him, her breasts so full of God, closer, her lips florid rouge, touching his lips, the first time a woman’s lips had ever touched his lips.

I’m the Holy Virgin, James thought. And she is Mary. I’m the Unholy Virgin, James thought. And she is Mary. Sweet Mary. And her breath is so deep so red so wet. And her tongue is so full of life and fruit so forbidden touching his lips so light and his Holy Balls jumped under his robe and he was so full and taut and fierce.

O God, I’m burning up. I’m already burning in hell, James thought, and I will burn in a flame hotter than any human fire for all eternity. For ever and ever world without end, Amen.

And I don’t care.

And Mary slipped her tongue, the hot tight serpent tongue of Eve, deeper into him. And a hurricane crucified his brain. And a twister spun through the third eye of the snake in his robe. O God, it’s so hard, James thought. The virgin priest is so hard, James thought.

And Mary took his face in her hands and her tongue slowly slid into his mouth and he moaned from his soul. And his hands reached out as if they weren’t his hands at all and grabbed her hips and she gasped under his grasp, and she sucked on his lips and those hips of Mary were liquid sex in his hands, undulating, swelling, swivelling into him.

And James could smell her sex now. Smell the sex of Mary. So fertile and earthly and heaven sent. And it made him want to give her everything he had. The keys to the kingdom.

And Mary slipped her breasts out of her blouse and she fed them to him and he dove in, burying himself in the milk of the flesh of the breast of Mary. And he sucked on them, the fierce nipples so bursting in his hungry mouth. First one, then the other, the rhythm raw and rocksteady. And there was no God and there was no Devil. There was only Mary.

And Mary threw her head back in ecstatic rapture and her tongue peeked out of her mouth, her eyes half shut in

Man Ray

delight, the delicious quivering in her belly twitching her clit, beating the drums fanning the fire.

“Forgive me Father for I have sinned,” she whispered. And she took him in her hand scalding her flesh so hard and she disappeared into the black cauldron under his robe. And she kissed the tip of his stiffness and he jumped and panted – “O God O God O God” – springing from his lips as she ran her tongue all the way down him and cupped him in her hand and massaged gently on his world and swallowed him whole, slowly inch by inch into her Mary mouth and she moaned soulful and vibrated and he quaked, intoxicated into her Mary mouth, his hands on her hair and he pushed into her and she pulled sucking licking sliding up and down with her mouth organ on his skinflute.

And she came up for air, her lips swollen and turkey cock red, cheeks blazing cherries, eyes black fire, and she moved in and kissed him, let him sip his salty sex on her lips, parted and sticky with the taste of Father James.

And then he was sitting on the floor and she was hovering over him, floating in the confessional like an angel of life, a devil of death. And she spread herself with her fingers. And she grabbed his gaze and would not let go. And James was staring into the face of heaven though the gates of hell.

And James had never wanted anything so much as he wanted to be all the way inside her. Inside Mary. Sweet Mary. And she lowered herself onto the end of the head of James, opening slowly, blooming all over him. And she sucked on the very tip of him with her Mary for the longest time, relishing the anticipation, feeling the feeding frenzy until he could no longer stand it.

And then he thrust uncontrollable and unconscious into this Mary. As if this was his sacred mission in life. As if this was his true calling. To be inside Mary. And she pushed herself down onto him and slid her velvet tremor down Father James, jamming, swallowing him whole, body and soul all the way with everything she had, squeezing him to the root, to the core, to the bone, to the moan, her foundation shaking, rocking his steeple, shattering her madness, rattling his stained glass windows, banging on the pearly gates, knock knock knocking on heaven’s door.

And Mary pulled back up, so tight and swelling and wet and delirious until he was almost out of her. And James found himself going up with her. Levitating, trying to stay inside her. O God, don’t go. Don’t. Where are you going? James thought, feeling the fever feeding the fervor. Lovecrazy, heartcrazy, fuckcrazy. This was bigger than him. More powerful. This wanting of Mary. Stronger than anything. Stronger even than God. His God.

And she pushed him down onto the cold floor of the confessional, his back against the wall, eye to eye, two windows into two souls, and everything stopped. And she panted at him. And he panted at her. And there was a new perfume filling the booth. The sweet scent of the sex of James and Mary.

And she nailed him with the cross of her starry night, took his crown of thorns, and gave him shelter from the storm as she pounded down him, pounding down against the thrust of him into her, beads of sweat pooling into drops and raining down his face and chest and back, soaking his robe.

And she rocked up and she rocked down, rocked out and rocked in, inhuman, insane, out of her mind, into her body, his heart exploding as he climbed into her, as she climbed up him, as they climbed the stairway to heaven.

And the animal in her eyes sprang at him, leapt into him, and he was possessed by the passion of her possession. And James grabbed her hips hard now and pressed up against her hard as she slid deep and fast and hard sliding wet and hard gripping and grabbing and slamming, filling the confessional with their sex fury frenzy fuck yes, “O God!” she cried, and “O sweet Jesus!” he cried, and “O Mary!” he cried, and “O Father!” she cried, and “O Christ” they cried, transported, transcendental, the ethereal house of the Father and the blessed Mary, the white throne of God’s bliss, angels and devils dancing on the head of their sex, on the tip of their sin, skin drenched as Mary soaked him with her wet divinity, the holy of holies, until he could hold back no more, and she sucked it all out of him, the manna shooting from him into her, from the soles of his toes through his balls through his heart and she flowed with him opening with him into the river of light and together they entered each other, entered the tender garden of the kindom of God in the palace of paradise.

And then they collapsed into each other. And then she wept and he wept. Drenching each other in joy and sin. Crying in great gulps of love.

And James held her tight in his arms. And Mary held him tight in her arms. And they held onto each other in that confessional like they were the last people on Earth. The last people in heaven. The last people in hell.

And then James thanked God. His God. For giving the gift of Mary.

 David Henry Sterry is the author of his memoir and New York Times Bestseller, Chicken; co-editor of  Hos, Hookers, Call Girls, and Rent Boys: Professionals Writing on Life, Love, Money, and Sex and co-author of The Glorious World Cup: A Fanatic’s Guide. Chicken is currently being developed into a series on Showtime. Sterry is also the host of his monthly reading series, Sex Literati in New York City.

Kathy’s perfume wafted into his nostrils, drifting up off the peaked collar. Warm stirrings, aroused in his groin, surprised him. Charley needed to flip up, warding off the damp and prowling Autumnal night air eddying about him.

It was a cut-through-your-coat, gusting, swirling, and attacking sort of wind that was visited with a deep, animated cold, almost sentient, and ravenous.

This was a very early, dark morning that he stepped out of the sleeping N train and onto the open and exposed Ditmars Boulevard station platform.

Above him, flew a few of the frozen vanguard at the far end of the platform, high over the exposed incandescent lights. They were a confirmation of the forecasted tempest to come, large, fat feathery flakes.  The undulating platform was a structure of pealing and chipped dark blue painted benches and a black gloss covered wrought iron and steel. It was a fine example of well-used and still operational Early 20th Century civic engineering.  The wind was picking up. It was getting noticeably colder. The platform swayed like a lovesick drunk.

Just forty-five minutes earlier, she had laid her head on his shoulder, there, at the bar. Most of the gang was buying round after round of drinks. The Holidays were now upon them, bonus checks cashed, and everybody having a good time.

The TV on the wall showed football highlights and updates concerning the approaching blizzard. It was to be the season’s first snowstorm, and it looked like it was going to be an honest to goodness Nor’easter.

Under the table, under the coats and under Kathy’s skirt, the fingers were working their magic.

“Stop!” She said huskily.

“Do you really mean that?” Charley whispered in her ear. Tenderly nibbling at her cool bare lobe.

“No.” She giggled.

“Can I come over to your place tonight Kat? We can pick up a movie, a bottle of wine…stop by the CVS annnnnnnnnd get some rubbers…”

“Shhhhhh! someone will hear you!”

She chastised him then clamped her thighs down on Charley’s advancing digits. Twice weekly spin classes had made them a force to be reckoned with.

“My roommate’s family is visiting. They’re everywhere, you can’t, I’m sorry.”

“Okay, come home with me.”

“I’ve got to work tomorrow… early, here in Manhattan. I can’t risk getting stuck out in Astoria after this storm. Charley, please, I need this job. I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, me too.”

Flush-faced … he needed some air. Pulling his hand back, Kathy released her warm fleshy vice grip and placed her hand on his hot cheek.

“They’ll be gone in two days. I’ll buy the…”

She gave a quick look around and in a hushed voice said:

“… Condoms tomorrow, Trojan Magnums right big fella?”

With a twinkle in her eye she quickly added.

“Oh, sorry, was that the other guy?”

“Don’t! Don’t even go there Kat!”

In a sleepy voice she said,

“Go where?”

“I’ve got to go, the trains run like shit at this hour.”

He flashed his Metro Card.

“And you’re too cheap to take a cab!” Kathy scowled.

“Yup, and that’s because engagement rings aren’t cheap either.” Charley grinned back.

“Charley! Don’t go there!”

“Go where?”

He winked at her and she pouted back.

Dragging his coat out from under the pile on the bench seat he leaned over and French kissed Kathy right in front of all their friends. This drew a few cheers and whistles from the appreciative, albeit sodden, peanut gallery surrounding them.

Whipping the coat over his shoulders he bolted out of the door and ran down the street to the IND Subway entrance on 57th Street and Seventh Ave., just West of Carnegie Hall.

Paper notices had been posted on the support columns deep inside the station.

“Due to a scheduled track repair” N, R & W Trains between Manhattan and Queens will be out of service from 12 O’clock Midnight to 6:00 A.M.

It was exactly 11:45 PM according to his watch.

Charley strained his head and neck and peered forward out over the tracks. He employed the classic ‘balanced with one-leg back- arms spread slightly apart’ position that all New Yorkers eventually develop while doing this. It was the ever popular, ‘antelope at the watering hole’ defensive posture.

He made a cursory glance at the downtown end of the uptown track.

No crocodiles, but plenty of rats. Some were a chocolate brown, some black and some were an almost a park squirrel gray.

Not one of them showed an ounce of fear.

At 11:50 PM the rodents began to scurry. They always seemed to know first.

Amber light washed over the curved white tiles at the other end of the station. Getting brighter and whiter as the uptown subway cars drew ever closer. Rounding the turn the boxy train shouldered its way into the station. Wheels squealing a shrill metal on metal scream, steeling and edgy. Bright blue sparks popped as the contact shoe and third rail interfaced. The lead carriage bounced and shuddered.

Charley crossed his fingers. An R train would only get him to Queens Plaza, just over the bridge with an hour’s walk through the scary Queensbridge housing projects section then on to Long Island City, Astoria and finally the Ditmars area around Astoria Park and the Hellgate Bridge, often referred to as ‘Northern Astoria’.

The red LED circle on the brow of the lead car said…  He squinted harder at the onrushing crimson halo.

N!

It’s an N train! Wahoo!

Shuddering to a halt, the doors opened.

Diving into the first seat of the lead carriage he turned and saw that he shared the car with one other person. At least he thought it was a person, far away. A pile of clothing topped with rough gray fibrous mover’s mats. The requisite shopping cart replete with five plastic bags five and six ply thick a piece of every color, tied to the handle.  All filled with what appeared to be cans and bottles. A redeemer. The two legs poking out of the bottom appeared to be covered by newspaper wrapped with packing tape.

A loud snapping snore erupted from deep within the fabrics, the pile jiggled. The legs shifted and a long yawn, soon followed by a rather soft and pleasant hum. The pile was as still and quiet as before, there, at the back of the car.

Charley’s gaze returned to the front window as the train left 59th Street and Lexington Ave.

Another fifteen minutes and he’d be home.

As the train surfaced in Queens he could see that the weather was souring.
People literally leaped onboard as the doors shot open. High above all of that infamously forever cluster-fucked Queensborough Bridge approach traffic, horns of every description were blaring on and on.
Ah Jesus! What the- Mother FFFff…

Ding Dong

The doors closed, ready or not. No announcement. Bye-bye.

Some of the more adroit now on board bent over to warm their hands by the calf-cooking heaters radiating from beneath the seats.

The cars jolted forward as the angry laggards left behind pounded their fists on the shuttered doors, shouting curses in at least three or four languages, give or take a dialect.

Those inside could only looked back with palms held upward, trying very hard not to smile.

At last, Ditmars Blvd.! Sprinting down the length of the platform, Charley had his head deeply buried in his collars.

Half running, half slipping, bolting down the stairs, through the turnstiles, a right turn, another right turn, grabbing a banister post as an anchor for his pivot – hurtling down the street level stairs and straight forward to Ditmars Boulevard. Jogging, feeling exhilarated about the prospects of this big storm. It might be kind of cool. Maybe there would be no work tomorrow, a Snow Day!

Two more blocks.

He turned right onto 27th Street.

Taking two steps forward, he then stuttered to a stop, hands and arms hanging loosely.

Where the hell was his “Go” bag?

WHERE WAS THE BAG!

“Ah Shit! Ah No! No! No!”

“I…….. AM……… AN………ASSHOLE!”

Charley screamed and stamped his feet, pulling his arms and fists inward as if he were just shot.

The bar, he had left it back at the bar.

Everything he had been in that bag. His wallet, cell phone, toothbrush and a condom that he won’t need tonight, anyway, and… THE… KEYS!

The keys?

T h e    h o u s e   k e y s

“Sweet Baby Jesus what am I going to do now?” Charley said aloud to the moaning winds.
Charley hoped that one of his neighbors might buzz him inside. But, as he trotted up to the vestibule… there on his right, where the intercom used to be, was a message – on a piece of cardboard, crudely painted in dripping red, silver duct taped to the brick.

It said:

“Outta Odor”

“You’ve gotta be kidding meeeee!”

Charley started to spin in place in front of the door. Three inches of snow on the ground already, the winds were getting even stronger and blowing in from the Northeast.

The wind had become an emboldened frigid entity trying to spin him out into the street and devour him, there, at its pleasure.  The meager shelter of the vestibule offered little sanctuary.

Think! Charley think! There was something déjà vu about all of this, but, it was warmer then.

Two years ago, in August!

Yes, Charley had come down from upstate New York visiting with friends at the Dutchess County Fair. He had flat out lost the set of house keys that had hung on an alleged tribal Shrunken Head key ring. Factually, it looked more like a monkey’s head.   A starving peasant had probably shot the poor ape out of a tree in a game preserve for maybe a quarter, American. A gift from a forgotten girlfriend purchased on a Costa Rican vacation that he was not a part of.  He’d always believed it to be accursed. This only proved it.  Those keys were lost somewhere between camping out, tubing on the Esopus River and the Fair itself.  Gone and goodbye forever.

Charley’s landlord, Big Louie D., was sorting out the glass; metal and paper for the recycling pick-up the following day. He was ultimately responsible for all of that, thank God he was there.

“Lou! I’m locked out!”

“I can let you in. But, you have to pay to get the replacement keys yourself, and I need them back before I leave.”

“Okay.”

So, at that time…  Charley had two sets made.

Later that night he walked by the south side of Astoria Park with a taped shut  Sucrets Lozenges box containing three new brass keys taped together. He chose black electrical tape because it would blend in well with the black paint on this particular iron lamppost that he had in mind, the last lamppost before the entrance to the Astoria Park Pool, on the right, Just across the street from the old Eagle Electric Factory, (a manufacturer of electrical switches decades before) now converted into Co-ops or Condos. The developers were forced to keep the tall yellow brick “landmark” smoke stack as is. (Thanks to The Historical Landmarks Society). They were not even allowed to burn anything in it, just illuminate the exterior.

Charley smoked a cigarette in the shadows and watched as a jogger ran by and a pair of dog walkers, eyeing him briefly, passed him from the other side. Once these three individuals were away, heading in opposite directions, Charley acted swiftly.

He broke the seals on the twin syringes, mixing the liquids to form the epoxy cement. He then put a generous worm of goo on the back of the taped shut box.

A quick shake gave the reassuring clink.

He had earlier pulled off the cover plate on the base of the lamppost using a screwdriver and a small crowbar. Now, on his hands and knees, he reached up inside and affixed the box into position. This took maybe three minutes, tops. Replacing the base cover, tightened the screws, pocketed the screwdriver and crowbar, he walked back home, whistling a merry tune.

That was pretty damned cool.

But that was also two long years ago and for the most part forgotten.

Running stiffly, Charley stalked to Astoria Park. The snow whipped into his face, tearing up and stinging his eyes. He now inhaled snow with each breath. It felt more like drowning when they melted en mass in his trachea.
A White-Out!
Walking on what he guessed to be the sidewalk along the southern side of Astoria Park he trudged onwards counting the poles on his left. It didn’t matter how many there were, he was only interested in the last one. It distracted him from the numbness in his toes.
There! The last pole!
Charley dropped to his knees and started to dig away at the drifting snow, cleared the electrical junction access panel. His bare hands ached.

Sitting back and staring at that panel, he thought, how neat it would be to have a screwdriver and crowbar right now. He stuffed both of his hands deep inside his pants in a vane attempt for warmth and then raised his face to the storm to keep from crying, neither worked very well. While his hands were inside his pockets he noticed something cold and metallic in his left front pocket. His hands now too numb to identify it, he pulled it out to see.
A nail clipper! On a small beaded chain, an impulse purchase from a drugstore. It folded open to reveal the lever handle and the file. Impromptu screwdrivers!

With shaking hands he found the clipper’s lever fitted the slot of the two large screws that held the plate in place. He threw the screws behind him as they came loose and carefully wedged the lever into a gap between the plate and the lamp. It bent in a 30-degree angle but did lift the plate a bit. Nervously he turned the lever around and actually managed to dislodge the cover.

Clawing on the inside of the base he found the box exactly where he had left it, two years ago. His wrists touched some thick electric cables that just scared the be-Jesus out of him. The lid of the box popped open inside the lamppost and something light and papery dropped into his hands.

It was a note, in an envelope.

The note said:

“Climb higher – Up!”

“WHAT?”

So, after a while, in disbelief, up he went.

His out stretched and graying fingers scrapped the ice forming on the Northeast-windward side of the iron lamppost. He had to turn 90 degrees around to get a better purchase on the pole, this now put his face towards the icy part but the hands grabbed better.
Up he went, the wind now screaming at his back. His fingers getting stiff and the leather soles of his shoes were slick.

That first slip of the shoes almost cost him a tooth. In his mouth, there, some grit and a salty taste that could only be blood. Instead of relying on his pathetic leather soled footwear he used all of his remaining reserves of strength to wrap around the pole and try to shimmy upwards. The inhalation of every breath laced with icy needles. The cold black iron sucked the remaining warmth, the very life, from his bare hands. The serrated edged spine of ice on the windward side of the iron post eating into the flesh of his neck and face. His gloves? Also in the Go Bag, Doh! His groin now appeared to freeze and stick to the pole, Charley had been sweating profusely in his corduroy pants back at the bar, imagine that.

A desperate lunge caught the edge of something, tore it. Tape, it was tape.

Like a madman Charley clawed with the other hand too. The intense cold made the tape crack like cheap plastic, another box. It almost went flying off of the pole and into the drifting snow

“No!”

A piece of tape stuck to his right hand, with the box attached.

Charley just let go of the pole, falling backwards; arms and legs splayed out like a skydiver.

It was, maybe a seven-foot drop…into 13 to 15 inches of snow.

Poof!

If he had not then been suffering from hypothermia it would actually have been comfy.

He lifted his right hand and held it up to the light.

The box dangled there like a small black purse.

Charley started to giggle, but it was not a very sane-sounding giggle.
With his left hand he started to cut the brittle tape with his thumbnail. Running it under the rim, all the way around and then…

Pop

In the lamplight above him, Charley imagined that he saw swarmed masses of angry white hornets with wings of frost and stingers of ice. Charley could swear something white wrapped in a Dark Pink silk ribbon spiraled straight down to his face.

What the hell was that?

Charley lay on his back for a good while, snow starting to cover him, before he had the courage.

The courage to look at it.

Just three-brass house keys wrapped in black electrical tape, that’s all he wanted.

Another note.

Charley laughed until a choking spasm hit him, hard.

Gasping, he reached to his face and picked it up.

Charley sat up, propping his back to the lamppost, holding the note up to the light.

Sleepily he moved his limbs as everything grew steadily number. No more pain.

He stiffly undid what was obviously a gorgeous and expensive Dark Pink silk ribbon.

It was clinging to expensive parchment paper. It appeared to be engraved.

“- If you want your keys –“

“Come to: Park View Towers: PH 5”

“Use the private service entrance on the corner of 21thSt and 24th Ave”

“The Intercom is on the right”

He put this up before his eyes. Read it. Put it down. Pick it up. Read it again.

Always using both hands.

He started to sob.

“Why?”

“Why would somebody do this to me?”

“Park View Towers, where the hell is that? I’m gonna die out here!”

He turned back around the post and faced the street.

There, in front of him.

A big green illuminated sign!

Park View Towers

“How the hell did I ever miss that?”  He wondered aloud.

He staggered to his feet with both hands holding the engraved parchment like it was the winning Willie Wanka Chocolate Bar Golden Ticket.

“Please…..please….please….PLEASE……pl-uh-eeez…..”

Headlong he ran, directly across the snow and wind driven street. Mercifully, there was no traffic, Charley never turned his head.

On the corner – a large black square chute with a door. It ran up the NW corner of the building. The turreted edifice made it look like an arsenal or a fort in this storm.

Charley went straight for the public intercom; not unlike the system on the subway, but with a camera.

Manically he slammed a balled fist repeatedly on ‘PH5’, again and again.

“HELLO!” Charley wailed.

After a while, a cool, low feminine voice spoke through the grill. Two high intensity LED arrays lit up Charley’s face, so much so that it had blinded and stunned him. He staggered backwards.

“What do you want?”

“My keys.”

“Your what, oh wait, yes. Describe them to me.”

“What?”

Charley thought the howling wind and his falling core temperature had him hearing that she wanted a description.

“Ha!”

“How many do you have?” Charley screamed.

“Three keys!” the voice behind the grill cooed.

“I want my fucking keys!”

His spittle froze to the microphone.

“Oh, you are not the nice boy I remember from the sum-mer.”

He couldn’t place the accent. It had vague qualities of British or Australian? Maybe even South African?

“Good night to you rude boy.”

And the lights went out.

That was it.

The sudden end of the conversation and the over whelming quality of the darkness, its heaviness, and the gusts of wind physically moving him about…
…it all caught him in the pit of his stomach, literally brought him down to his knees.

“…..please…..”  He sobbed.

“PLEASE!”

Now caressing and stroking the camera lens.

“I think I’m dying out here”. He croaked.

The lights slowly, steadily grew in intensity.

The soft voice returned.

“Does the rude boy feel sorry for talking to me like that?”

“… yes”

“What?”

“Yes.”

“What?”

“YES! Rude boy sorry!”

“Good.”

The latch hummed and clicked, the door opened and Charley fell face first into the elevator.

He had just lain there for a while when the voice returned above, over the intercom.

“Pull your legs inside!”

Startled Charley pulled his right leg inside.

“Both of them Rude Boy!”

Charley curled up in a fetal position. He had a vague memory of the door shutting and the cab lifting upwards, and sleep.

The door to PH5 opened and a tall woman who at first appeared to be athletically lean and in her mid thirties stepped into the cab. As she got closer he realized that she was actually a very, very well kept early forties.
He felt himself being dragged into the apartment by two small but powerful hands.
Like a leopard dragging a springbok up a tree.

“Got any herb?” She asked lowly.

“Catnip.” Charley slurred. The sudden warmth had made him silly and dizzy.

He felt himself dropped to the floor.

Carpeted, but still the floor. That hurt.

She took a strong grip across his left shoulder that flipped him over onto his back.
Two strong legs quickly straddled him. Both shoulders pinned back and long hair brushing his face.

She sniffed him, drawing in long deep thoughtful inhalations followed by moments of silence and finally a decidedly disgusted exhalation. Up and down, back and forth and upon the rise two stunning angry amber yellow eyes glinted back at him.

“No catnip.” She purred.

She pulled in close to his face. Grasped the hair at nape of the neck and squeezed hard, nose to nose.

“You were teasing me!”

“Hey! Hey kid!”

“Kid?”

Charley was very cool to the touch and unresponsive.

“Oh my God, what have I done?”

She slapped Charley across the face then slid her first two fingers just under his left ear, looking for a pulse.

“Oh no….KID!”

She picked Charley up and flipped him over her shoulder in a fireman’s carry, walking directly to the bathroom.

“Don’t die on me Kid, don’t you dare die on me!”

Carefully stacking up Charley’s fully clothed, cold and still body against the sidewall of the shower, she stood up.

Operating the complicated controls of the shower the distracted woman now turned a lever all the way to the right whilst simultaneously pulling it outwards. This caused hot water to jet out of six different showerheads studding the interior of the large walk-in stall shower. It had two seats; Charley slumped in one and she leaned over from the other.

The steam rose in billows.

All at once Charley started to writhe and scream.

“Too hot! Too hot! Oh I’m sorry kid… wait! Wait!”
She turned her back to Charley and reached up to slide the lever towards the left, cooling the waters.

Her white silk teddy stuck to her back, now almost transparent, a vision.

Charley saw things in a gauzy dream state. The warm steam filled his lungs. His entire body tingled and felt like it was burning.

He looked over at the back of the woman who was now in front of him, wow, very pretty! She continued to manipulate the shower’s controls trying to attain a more tolerable water temperature.

He wasn’t on fire anymore. What was that on her back? Is that Arabic?

Charley reached out to touch the raised inscriptions…

“… A tattoo?” He whispered as his fingertips glided gently over her skin.

In a flash she spun around and grabbed his wrist, twisting it downwards, his face pressed into the drain.

“Gurrrrrggggle.”

“Oh my God. Are you all right kid? Are you all right?”

She helped him back to a seated position but Charley now cowered from her.

The shower sprayed on. It sounded like rain in the jungle.

She covered her face and cried, great wracking sobs escaped from her taught body.

Charley could only look across at her in amazement.

“Who are you?” He asked.

Stifling a few sniffles and wiping her nose with her wrist.

“Charley.”

“Yes?”

She looked puzzled.

“Charley!”

“What? How do you know my name?”

“Your name is Charley?”

“Of course it is, and who the hell are you?”

She stared at him a while and then threw her head back and gave a great peal of laughter.

Holy shit this bitch is crazy… where is the phone. Charlie thought.

“I’m Charlene, you know…”

She shook both hands at him as if to say… “Get it, Kid?”

“Charley!”

They stared at each other. Suddenly, they both laughed, long and hard.

Charlene slowly moved over to Charley, palms up, ‘I mean you no harm.’

She wrapped her surprisingly strong arms around Charley, rocking slowly back and forth.

“I’m so sorry Charley. I never meant for it to happen like this. I saw you from my balcony putting a box inside that lamppost … you were so… intense…so cute.”

Charlene leaned back and looked at him from arms length, then made a little pouting face.

“I just wanted to see you again. I’m soooo sorry, please forgive me.”

Charlene began to cry again. She was stunningly beautiful; Charley marveled what she must have looked like in her prime. She was the kind of a woman that men, upon seeing her, walked into trees or down open manholes, honestly.

“Wow…. “Was all Charley could say. They both laughed.

“What does that tattoo on your back say?”

The laughter stopped. Her gaze iced up. Uh-oh.

She collected herself, still firmly gripping both of Charley’s arms. She spoke slowly and evenly.

“It is not a tattoo. It is a brand. It says:”

“There is no God but Allah and Mohammed”

Charley was confused. “Mohammed was a God too?”

“No, Mohammed is his messenger, that’s the rest of it.”

“Why is that part missing?”

“Because the gentleman with the bayonet and the torch didn’t get a chance to finish it, my team found me.”

She stood up and walked out of the shower.

Charley sat there mouthing over the words he’d just heard.

Shortly she returned and pressed three black taped keys into his hand. She then helped him to his feet.

“I had no right to do that to you. I am so very sorry Charley.”

“You tested these in the locks first, right; they are brand new?”

Charley stared down at the keys in his hand and then slowly looked up at her, ‘NO’ was written all over his face.

“Oh Charley.” Charlene said, “What are you going to do?”

Charley squinted through the glass of the sliding door to the patio. Dressed in nothing but a big soft white terrycloth robe and holding a cup of hot coffee.
The sky above, a piercing electric blue, the snow below, a dazzling bright white, it hurt the eyes. The aftermath of the snowy Nor’easter was dramatic. There could well be two feet of snow down there, Charley thought. He saw kids and dogs frolicking in the pure white drifts.

Dogs love this shit. So did he.

“I think your clothes are dry now.” Charlene came over to Charley with a fresh pot of coffee, placing his neatly folded clothes on the table.

“Oh, they’re having fun!” She piped up, putting her chin on his shoulder.

“More Joe?”

“Sure, thanks Charlene.”

She topped off his cup and breezed back into the kitchen.

“I have a travel mug that I can fill with more coffee for you.” She called out.

She poked her head out from the archway.

“In case you have to go back into Manhattan.”

She gave him a comical look of shock before ducking back inside.

Charley almost choked on a swig he already had in his mouth, careful not to spit it out on the white carpet.  Smiling, he then cracked the door open. Super cold air flowed in over his coffee cup causing mini cumulus clouds of steam to rise up. He could now hear the children yelling and the dogs barking.

“I’m adding two keys to your set.” Charlene came back inside and slipped the now five keys on a new ring with a tiger skin fob into the pocket of his robe.

“Elevator and door.”

Charlene pointed to the door he came in last night. She smiled and winked.

Sideling up from the side, she ran her fingers between the robe’s layers.

He took another sip.

“Tired?”

Through the crack, outside, a young girl squealed and a dog howled. Frigid air squeezed inside.

Charley never felt more alive.

This is a sample chapter from a book about ghosts leftover after a tsunami and consequent flood. The main character, Nico, is still alive in this segment.

Some of our experiments were accidental but she would disagree with me by countering that no accidents were truly coincidental. Everything had a purpose and was pushed and pulled by only two forces, which she called emptiness and fulfillment. Light and dark. Life and death. To accept both is to accept a basic lesson but in time this would complicate our relationship. It wasn’t that I couldn’t buy into it. It was because she was more extreme than I as all teachers and philosophers are.

Admittedly, Gretchen’s violent and aggressive qualities made her alluring — the equivalent of a cookie laced with strychnine and baked with dog shit instead of love but topped with swiss chocolate chips produced by a world master choclatier.

She had a vast collection of syringes in a box that she stored in her closet and a faded-yellow grocery bag of flexible plastic tubes to fashion a tourniquet from. One evening, after we had consumed two bottles of red Chilean wine, she tied a long tube around her arm, flexing her forearm until a thick green line formed in the cusp of her elbow. The vein grew like an erect penis hidden beneath her thin, pockmarked skin. When it reached an ideal size, she grabbed a medium sized syringe and eased the needle in.

She held the loose end of the tube between her teeth and grunted, “Cah ooo pease liff uh punger?”

I slowly pulled it back. Blood began to fill the plastic chamber, climbing up the measurement notches until there was only a short breath between the end and the plunger.

“Dohn ‘et oh.”

“What?” I said. Her face had blurred into an image of a three-dimension object in a three-dimensional world from the alcohol’s effects to make me nine dimensions away from her. My hands shook due to the advanced nature of this intimacy and so, by accident, I let go of the plunger as it snapped back against the chamber.

She screamed, her mouth letting loose the tube as it dropped into her lap. “You asshole!” Gretchen grabbed her elbow, holding it tightly as blood dripped between her fingers, staining the white rug with the red raindrops. “I said ‘don’t let go’!”

I was embarassed to foil her blueprint for this romantic moment. I fetched a brown bath towel from the closet and handed it to her. Gretchen pressed it against the hole in her arm. She writhed in pain, her mouth grimaced and her eyebrows furrowed like a betrayed child. I was thankful that the air bubble that had shot into her vein hadn’t killed her.

“You’re a jerk. This was supposed to be a gift for you.” She took the syringe in one hand and cocked her injured arm into a plastic shopping bag that rattled with glass objects. She produced a vile, slipped the needle into its black rubber top, gently pressing on the plunger until the vile had filled. With the remaining blood left in the syringe, she squirted its contents all over my shirt into a little circular design. “There,” she said. “Now we’re even.”

The moment had become tense. I tried as hard as I could to keep a guffaw from escaping my tightly pressed lips but then I lost it, bellowing raw laughter. Gretchen pursed her lips to conceal a giggle.

“It’s not funny.”

“Oh yes it is, you freak.” I rubbed my hands on my shirt and jumped on top of her, wiping my palms on her face. “Is this what you want? Is this what you wanted?”

“I was trying to do something nice and you ruined it.”

“I don’t know what the fuck you were doing but here…” I pressed my tongue into her mouth, releasing saliva onto her tongue. She pressed the tip of her tongue against the flat surface of mine as I tilted my head sideways so that the left side of my face would be doused in her blood. “There’s no such things as accidents or coincidence, right?”

She reached backward into her drawer of specialized hand weapons and pulled out a knife with a black handle. I mouthed something like, “What are you doing?” but the razor had cut through a flap of skin on my back. The sting had a cool, glassy feel to it; clean and indiscriminate. I used the adrenalin rush to clamp my teeth onto her tongue, making a small cut on the tip. She bit back tenderly but not hard. The endorphins rushed to the place of my injury, siphoning the pain out from the nerves while Gretchen rubbed me through my pants and then unzipped them. Her cold fingers clung onto me, which only made me want to stab her more.

After we finished making love, we rushed to the bathroom mirror. There before us, was the reflection of two lovers drenched in each other’s blood, gashes scarred in sporadic places on our bodies. A slice to the thigh. A slice to the arm, breast, stomach. We were painted like the undead, smiling with red stained teeth and dark oval patterns around our eyes due to a range of sleepless nights. My blood was inseparable from her blood. A thick pale gelatinous liquid secreted down her leg, collecting with the red crude and becoming pink. Life and death commingled in a collective lump of DNA. We looked like lovely lepers embracing each other’s deformities.

A couple of  mornings later, she awoke, ran to the bathroom and vomited all over the floor and toilet. I went to her and held her naked shoulder that had been covered in scabs. She wretched again into the toilet bowl, breathing shortly as a long string of drool dripped like a spider dipping from its web. She wiped her mouth and said, “Jesus, Nico, I think I’m pregnant.”

The old portable X-ray unit was balking and whining it’s way to the service elevator.

It stopped dead two feet in front of the sliding cage door. Its huge lead cell battery was spasmodically powering the large electric motor that drove the two-foot diameter hard rubber rear wheels.

“ahh…sonnafabitch!”

That really hurt. Red had just slammed his right ankle into the immobile portable. It was like kicking a parked car.

“Fucker… you are going down to the sub-basement whether you like it or not!”

It was like the old unit knew she was going to the Elephant Burial Ground of decrepit medical equipment deep in the bowels of Bellevue Hospital. This was one of the three elevators that actually went all of the way down to B7… the seventh sub-basement.

“I’ll bring you down in pieces if I have to!” The X-ray tech cursed as he jiggled the key. It leaped to life and surged ahead four feet… and died again… but just far enough inside to be able to close the gate and push the ‘B7′ button. All of the buttons on the elevator were gleaming shiny metal from many years of jabbing fingers wearing away the Bakelite caps… all except B7, that button looked complete and brand new, in a grimy sort of way.

All of the way down, down, down… the cage slowly quivered and shuddered. The rays of light that slipped through the grating got dimmer, dimmer and dimmer.

“Why me?” The tech kept saying out loud. “Why me?”

“Why did Doctor Gray single me out to bring this piece of shit to the lower basement? I thought he liked me!”

He had told him to wheel or drag this beast all of the way to the back area where the old iron lungs were lined up like a small armada of lonely one-manned submarines. They’d been there since the early 50′s. Some people, it was said, spent most of their adult lives inside those things after contracting Polio.

Thank you Dr. Jonas Salk, thank you.

Hmmmmmm.

Doc Gray had been getting pretty big these days too. Like, scary big. The techs in Main Radiology were all talking about how much muscle he’d been putting on. It was like he must be living under barbells now. A homeless drunk with TB had given him some lip when asked to put his mask back on in the chest x-ray area.

“Fuck you! When’s lunccccckkkk…”

Doc Gray grabbed him by the throat and lifted him clean off of the floor like a bag of garbage.

“Pleeeeeeease!”

The drunk gurgled and weakly nodded okay.

“Ah shit!”

The old portable would go no further. It had traveled a mere ten feet from the elevator’s entrance upon arrival at B7. Luckily the coiled on board three pronged grounded cable that recharged the tired old thing was just within the reach of and an old three post outlet that looked as if it were installed by Thomas Edison himself.

“Okaaaaaay…. this will take a while, might as well look around.”

“Boy, the Ghost Hunters would have a ball down here!”

“Give us a sign of your presence.” Red uttered earnestly, in his most Ghost Hunter Investigator like manner.

The unexpected disembodied echo hit his nerve endings like a dentist’s pick inside a cavity.

He shivered involuntarily.

Red was actually glad that the spirits were not cooperating. He may have had to change his underwear.

Sniff.

There was a faint musty-organic smell that hung in the still dank air. It didn’t seem right down here with all of this ancient apparatus.

Dead mice and rats… they had laid out strychnine a few months ago, that’s gotta be it.

What was this stuff worth anyway? Why didn’t they just sell it for scrap? How long has it been here?

Can you Ebay an old iron lung?

……. and what else did Doctor Gray say? How did he get so big?

“Dry aged meat! There’s nothing like it. Melts in your mouth. Pure protein, can’t build muscle without protein!”

He must be eating whole cows by now, horns and all.

The tech ambled gingerly over to the first iron lung. That musty odor was particularly strong over here.

To Red, it looked like the H. L. Hunley, the confederate submarine that drowned her crew, three separate times.

Rivets were plainly seen on its sides. Like the tin man from Oz, not ground aerodynamically flush to the skin like the fuselage of some kind of World War II airplane. It was a mish-mash of several things.

A lifetime spent inside one of these monsters. How horrible was that!

Phew! It stunk over here!

He realized that these were probably the first generation of iron lungs. Prototypes. Perhaps dating from the mid to late 40’s. The occupants were entirely inside. No large side view windows. No exposed heads poking out of the front end. There were rungs on the side to allow access to the top where the sole window and latches were located. Hermetically sealed to maintain negative air pressure.

A people-pressure cooker.

Red tried very hard to shake that imagery from his mind.

The inverted, angled mirrors were still in place and the porthole window directly below it had a thin film of dust.

Wiping the grime with the sleeve of his lab coat… issued clothing, it wasn’t his, so who cared…he shined the ARC AAA Flashlight that was on his key ring inside the tempered window glass…

A sepia colored face stared back, mouth agape!

Startled, he tumbled backwards and almost landed on the concrete floor… he was caught like a football by two large beefy arms.

“Doctor Gray!”

“Hey Red, are you okay? You look upset.”

“I…. I thought I saw somebody inside that thing!”

“Awwww… hey, it’s dark and spooky down here, let’s have a look.”

The two of them climbed back up the iron lung and Dr. Gray borrowed the key chain light.

Twisting the head on the small LED he shone its blue-white beam through the window, quickly drew back, and gave a soft low whistle.

“Holy shit man, I think you’re right!”

“See! See! I told you!”

“Go take a look at that other one over there will ya … here, catch”

He flipped the key chain over to the tech.

Red scrambled up over the other iron lung… feeling more confident that big Ol’ Doctor Gray was right there with him.

“I don’t see nothin’!”

“Open the latches… there on the side. Don’t worry, I’m here with you. I’ve got your back.”

He shot Red a wink.

Red formed a tremulous grin and turned back to the machine.

He flipped the two latches up and lifted the top hatch open.

He furtively reached his left hand inside desperately hoping not to find anything… bony. Precariously perched on one knee with the right arm extended holding up the lid. It smelled like an old suit that a very old man had lived in for a long time… but worse.

“Nope, nobody in here.”

A voice very close to his left ear hissed.

“This one is yours.”

And so… with that… Doctor Gray shoved a bewildered Red inside and slammed the lid shut, securing both latches.

The muffled yells, shrieks, wails and thumping emanating from the cylindrical- metallic coffin had echoed off the grim gray walls for a good forty minutes.

After a while, they softened and eventually stopped all together.

Doctor Gray stuck around for an extra fifteen minutes. He cleaned his fingernails with a tongue depressor and glanced at his watch, just to be sure.

He indifferently stopped and walked over to the now silent iron lung. First, putting his hand on the cold gray metal to get a sense of any possible vibrations, then his ear.

He remained so for two minutes. He looked like his right ear was frozen to the device.

“Good… very good.”

Wiping his hands and smiling he headed back to the elevator. Repeating over and over very quietly. Almost a fevered chanting.

“Protein, can’t build good muscle without protein.”

As he pulled the gate closed he flexed his biceps and gave it a loving squeeze with his free hand.

“Very good.”

He pressed the “G” button, stood back and looked upwards towards the lights and sounds that were oh so faintly filtering downward from the surface above.

The counter weight, strobing through the lights above was now hurtling along its black greased track towards him. The cables tightened. His weight seemed to increase at the soles of his feet, the knees buckled slightly but the strong thick lower limbs recovered swiftly.

It was like he was ascending from Hell.

He smiled.

Yes, it was all good, it was all good indeed.

, then it may be of benefit to know whether they share the same sentiment. Brotherhood implies devotion and devotion is quite often tested. If one of the two friends happens to share a different sentiment, a proper testing will surely prove the matter. Sometimes this proof will prove painful, and sometimes blood will indeed be a matter of the bond, or lack thereof.

After inducing general anesthesia with endotracheal tube intubation, you will be prepped and draped in the usual sterile manner, most likely with the placement of sclera shells.

If you and the assumed brothers happen upon a group of men vastly outnumbering your trio, and these men pass regrettable remarks upon you, a proper test of brotherhood and devotion may have arrived. If one of your brothers chooses to respond with words equally regrettable, it is your duty as family to appropriately deal with any resulting circumstances regardless of how dire they may be. If dire circumstances do not immediately result, you may find that you have misidentified the situation as a proper test of brotherhood and devotion.

Your left lateral canthus and lower eye lid will be infiltrated with local anesthetic. This is to ensure that the lateral canthotomy and inferior cantholysis do not rouse you from the aforementioned general anesthesia. A transconjunctival incision will be made below the inferior tarsal border with cutting cautery. Dissection will be carried down to the infraorbital rim, where traction sutures will eventually be placed. Then, with that same cutting cautery, the periorbita and periosteum will be incised at the level of the rim. This may expose multiple floating fragments that are characteristic of a comminuted fracture, likely the result of a fracture involving the orbital rim.

If one of the two assumed brothers happens to expediently disappear shortly after you part ways with the discourteous men, you may think nothing of it. They, however, may think differently and choose to launch what many call a “surprise attack.”

The periobita will be meticulously elevated off the orbital floor using orbital retractors and Freer elevators. Cottonoids may also be used to support the elevation. There may be a large fracture involving the orbital floor. If this is the case, the orbital contents will be elevated out of this orbital fracture, and care will be taken to ensure that no additional injury to the infraorbital neurovascular bundle is made during such a dissection.

As a result of such an unanticipated assault, you and your remaining brother will be forced to prove unequivocal devotion to one another. In hindsight, you’ll likely find it unfortunate that your third assumed brother had unceremoniously departed and was unable to stand with you in such an unquestionably uncivilized but unavoidable state of affairs. You may think of many unpleasant words beginning with “un” that you may choose to apply to your absentee acquaintance and the way you choose to interact with him henceforth.

Attention will be directed to the superior lateral orbital rim, the skin infiltrated with local anesthetic. A 15 blade will be used to incise the skin with a sub-brow incision. Dissection will be carried down to the periosteum. The periostium will be incised with cutting cautery. If a frontozygomatic fracture exists, it will be isolated with the placement of traction sutures.

With the number of assailants being more than you and your remaining brother, you may find it difficult to maintain a proper defense. At some point, you may find yourself pinned against a parked automobile by two of these men: one holding you firm against the automobile, while the other ensures your arms are restrained behind your back. A third may then choose to deliver several powerful blows to your face with his fist. You may assume that your best defense is a strong offense by means of those limbs that remain unrestrained. Nevertheless, you will find this to be a futile plan regardless of how many times your foot strikes your assailant in the face as he advances repeatedly with said fist. The analgesic effects of phenylcyclohexylpiperidine will prevent any physical pain from registering within your assailant, while its hallucinatory effects will cause him to interpret your blows in such a manner that only further stimulates the rage psychosis typically accompanying phenylcyclohexylpiperidine absorption.

Kocher clamps will be used to elevate any zygomatic and maxillary fractures into appropriate alignment. A Synthes plate, most likely titanium and of very precise dimensions, will be used to bridge the fronotzygomatic fracture. Several screws, again most likely titanium, will be used to anchor the Synthes plate in place.

Your assailants, being fond of surprises, will indeed be very surprised if your proven brother had a “secret weapon” in his possession for such unexpected, yet entirely possible, situations. If your brother were to use his secret weapon against your assailants to properly defend both of you from their assault, you will find that you must thereafter keep the use of the secret weapon a secret indeed. For a proper test of brotherhood and devotion may come not only in the form of uncivilized circumstances, but also in the form of maintaining confidentiality.

Attention will then be directed to the infraorbital rim where a fracture is also likely to exist. Again, a titanium Synthes plate will be placed to bridge the fracture of the inferior orbital rim, though it will be necessary to form it in an appropriate contour after being cut to precise dimensions. As before, a hand-held manual drill will be used to place several titanium screws in order to anchor the Synthes plate. If any free-floating bone fragments remain, they will be anchored to either of the Synthes plates using stainless steel wire with knots buried in the surrounding tissue.

If you walk down a street with a person you choose to consider to be a friend, and you consider that friend to be a brother, it would be very wise to know whether they share such sentiment. Brotherhood implies a blood relationship, and though no blood relationship may exist, blood may indeed be a matter of the bond…or lack thereof.