Eunuchs and Nymphomaniacs

by AnonYMous

  “The more masculine you are, the more feminine she becomes.”

  The premise for Streetmeet was built on surprise.

  The subjects (meaning single females) were accustomed to being approached in clubs and bars. Their defenses were already up. Their skills at rejecting men like you honed through years of practice. Not so in the street. Here they were vulnerable and unprepared. It sounded like we were being trained to hunt deer. To leave a trail of metaphorical crumbs that culminated at your crotch. On Prince Street organized groups of three or four men practiced and recorded their attempts at stopping and chatting up women and posted the results. Weekend workshops cost $1,500. You found your own accommodation and it was hinted that you should try to book somewhere decent because this might well be where you repaired to with your catch after a successful day’s hunting. Streetmeet collaborated with certain high-end hotels in each city so discounts could be arranged by quoting a password.

  In other words, serious money was being made.

  And you didn’t even have to take part in the street sessions to benefit from your membership. The spy-camera content was uploaded and broadcast on a live feed where experienced commentators from all over the world could critique your game in real time. There were freeze-frames and slo-mo replays as strategies were discussed and scenarios reenacted. A panel of ridiculously attractive women analyzed your efforts and invited you to try your luck with them on their social media.

  Grades were given, dates awarded, winners congratulated. It was comforting to believe that mastery of strategy and employment of guile was all that was required to distract and subdue the timeless Might of the Vagina.

  IS YOUR BED HALF-EMPTY OR HALF-FULL?

  #TheOxygenThiefDiaries

  I had come full circle.

  From being sick of the sight of Marian to feeling high at the thought of her.

  But wasn’t this just the recoil of a spent relationship?

  The air displaced by its discharge.

  Absence makes the heart grow fonder but unavailability makes it pound frantically against its rib cage. I emoted freely at her on-screen image but when she was actually present I was not so forthcoming. That was too much responsibility. I didn’t really want her to love me because I knew I couldn’t live up to it. Or return it. It was like being given a million dollars. It might be given freely but the unspoken expectation of repayment hung in the air.

  Meanwhile I monitored and analyzed anyone who friended her on Facebook.

  A bass player.

  Probably nothing to worry about. Musicians, like writers, needed to build an audience.

  But he was sensitive-looking. The type she’d go for. I imagined them making love and shuddered. Next up was a newly approved friend, a mousy looking guy from Montana. Probably nothing to worry about. A wannabe. Willing to play the long game. Just a platonic friend waiting to be promoted to lover. Like me? Neither of them seemed to have girlfriends from what I could see. A short-haired, stylish-looking older woman. A client? A mentor? A dyke? Had Marian retreated into lesbianism? I investigated each newly added friend and scrutinized their profiles for signs of interaction with Marian. This ritual could occupy an entire evening and if nothing else it gave me the illusion of having spent a few hours with her.

  And where did all the tears come from? On more than one occasion the sound of someone crying woke me. It was me. Being out on the street was an effective deterrent but the moment I was alone it was a different matter.

  Was that really love?

  I was reminded of a guy in AA who had obsessed about his ex for years until one day he saw her on a bus and didn’t even recognize her. He wasn’t even remotely attracted to her. But even as he sat there looking at this stranger he yearned for the version of her he had created. He suddenly realized it was the yearning he was addicted to.

  My biggest fear was that I’d have to watch as she sauntered toward me with her new man all happy and cuddling like we used to be and be introduced to him right there in the street as I scavenged for handouts.

  And these days, meeting Marian was like being given a guided tour of a city I’d bombed from ten thousand feet. There was nothing left of a culture that had once been alive and bustling. The tragedy was all the more heartrending because the reason I’d bombed it in the first place was to protect myself from being attacked. But now there was nothing left for anybody. I had exceeded my brief. A weed killer that exterminates the flowers.

  Meanwhile I was haunted by memories of her arriving up the stairs looking so achingly beautiful I almost shut the door to remove the pressure of having to deserve her. Such images and emotions came and went like days and nights inside me. Her emails had become so clinical. If you have any interest in meeting up … There was nothing about missing me or even hating me and then just in case I might glean any satisfaction from rejecting the invitation: If not, that’s okay too.

  The crying had become a regular bodily function. I learned not to resist it. I’d feel it approach. It would begin. I’d let it pass through me. I’d be relieved. Each onslaught was like an enormous sneeze in extreme slow motion. It would have been easier if she had died. At least then I wouldn’t have had to think about her being so … available. I brewed up a new batch of water and salt over the phrase “loss of life,” which for some reason persistently presented itself. The road trips, the breakfasts, the exhibitions, the days spent in bed. How easy it would be to just press call.

  We’d catch up.

  We’d agree that the previous two years had just been something we had to go through to realize how much we needed to be together. We’d put it down to inexperience and panic on my part. We’d plan trips to Ireland. We’d live together. Anywhere. I’d let my place go in the East Village and go to couple’s therapy. (Yes, it was obviously a fantasy.) I’d insist on not using condoms to demonstrate my willingness to have children (definitely fantasy). I’d even pay off her student loan (babble from the sickbed). Why not? Hadn’t she been instrumental in selling hundreds of my books? If not thousands? Daydreams such as these were sandbags against the desolation of never seeing her again. Or going to the other extreme there were more macabre imaginings, where she, unable to bear the idea of living without me, committed suicide. Her note forgiving me for dumping her culminated in a coup de grace in the shape of a postscript.

  ps. feel free to use this note in your next book, it might provide some dramatic irony.

  Oh how the briny tide would rise within me.

  SPOONING IS GOOD, WOODEN SPOONING IS BETTER

  #TheOxygenThiefDiaries

  Isabel was incensed when a huge black woman threw one of Yoko Ono’s onesies back in her face.

  “Trash,” the woman declared.

  An exchange followed where Isabel invited the unfeasibly large woman to apologize.

  “Why? Whatchew gonna do?”

  The expectant gaze of abruptly stopped pedestrians fueled the tension.

  “She’s my friend,” said Isabel.

  “Okay then, why don’ you do somethin’. Whatchoo gonna do? Fat ass!”

  An onlooker groaned. Another tittered.

  Isabel, looking overly pleasant in the way people often do before the fighting begins, casually reached under her display to retrieve a daggerlike pair of scissors that she now held low by her leg as she strode casually toward the bigger woman.

  “I will cut you a new cunt.”

  She didn’t sound angry so much as informative. Helpful even. And though the big black woman responded with a warning that she was a member of a gang, her body language was that of a very frightened member of a gang. A well-dressed girl browsing at my table had at first shrugged off the altercation as mere bravado. Her eye-roll inferred it was the kind of thing she had already seen so much of in her event-laden life. But now she began to slide imperceptibly sideways as if the sidewalk had lurched into life conveying her away. I increased the volume of my pitch as she diminished into perspective.

  My phone writhed on the ta
ble.

  FELLATIONSHIP

  It was my screen name for Courtney. It had been at least a month since I’d heard from her. As the alleged gang member raised a one-finger salute and the small crowd dissolved in disappointment, I was to learn of an altercation a different kind.

  A third date with Courtney’s Wall Street guy had gone terribly wrong when he mentioned that a French girl on datemedotcom had recommended my book to him. Courtney felt duty-bound to explain that someone she knew had created a fake profile of a sexy French girl in order to sell his book. The impression she hoped to impart was that she had been aware of the creation of this marketing idea and had been so uncomfortable with it she’d cut off all ties with its creator. On the one hand she’d associate herself with a notorious writer and on the other she’d distance herself by rejecting him.

  But as soon as the Wall Street guy grasped the implications of what she was saying he simply got up from the table and walked out. She didn’t need to tell me he’d bought the book because I remembered his messages very clearly. He was very much looking forward to meeting Françoise. He had invited me/us/her to dinner at Soho House. Courtney’s intention had been to inoculate him against my disease but he saw her involvement as duplicitous. She began to cry as she related the story and I somehow understood that her fortieth birthday had come and gone. She went on to say that a week before this she’d met a journalist who had bought the book in the same way. I beamed with pride. I remembered him too. So keen was he to get into Françoise’s pants he not only bought the book, he wrote a review of it.

  A good one.

  But presumably he wasn’t worth exposing her involvement with me. Anyway, the reason she was confiding in me now was because she hoped the Wall Street guy had contacted me through Françoise’s profile to vent or verify.

  When I reminded her the profile had been shut down she begged me to reactivate it so that she could dictate a message to him. I usually stopped all communications the moment a book was bought because well, what else was there to say? She must have had high hopes for this guy because she wasn’t thinking clearly. Realizing I wasn’t going to be of any use to her she changed her tone.

  “You need help, you know that right?”

  She said it as if she suddenly remembered her responsibilities as a therapist. I was beginning to think she might have a point until she mentioned that she met the guy in the Cat and Mouse bar on Bleecker Street. This meant that when she let him know she was an acquaintance of mine and that I was the one who’d been fucking with his head by posing as Beautifullylit, she did so in the same bar featured at the end of the book.

  His hopes of a tryst with an apple-assed French girl were dismantled in the most psychologically devastating manner possible. And by a trainee-therapist no less. He would be forgiven for thinking he was the subject of an underground experiment. Surely he was being secretly filmed. In fact the scenario was not unlike the last scene in the book. Was he in fact providing the raw material for a sequel, where he’d be humiliated in a similar way in the same bar? If he didn’t end up shouting at traffic I wanted to read his memoir.

  I might even publish it.

  Of course I mentioned none of this to Marian when we met for dinner that night. She looked great in the way that girls do when you can’t have them.

  Fish and chips and black currant crumble pie in a London style café in Brooklyn. I’d brought along a Barry’s tea bag because I preferred it to the British equivalent but when the well-intentioned waitress came back with two mugs of hot water instead of one, Marian waved hers away.

  “Oh sorry,” said the waitress, “I wasn’t sure if you’d reached the tea-bag-sharing stage yet.”

  Marian looked at me pleadingly as if to say please don’t say anything embarrassing. It was an unexpectedly heartbreaking comment. It suggested we looked like a couple on the brink of a romance as opposed to two exhausted participants at the negotiating table.

  But I was happy we at least looked like a couple.

  She was still a little bit marshy-looking around the eyes. From crying? It was so good to see her. And more importantly it was so good to see that she was happy to see me. Her behavior when she was with me was of a girl in love. Blushing needlessly, holding eye contact, giggling. I was very careful to keep my hands to myself and if she touched me even accidentally I made sure I didn’t respond. After all, we were just friends now, weren’t we? And yet there was a torrent of emotion built up just off-screen waiting to be unleashed. Or at least there was for me. The relationship we’d had before no longer existed but we still shared a basic history.

  There was something correct about being with her. It wasn’t even sexual, it was, dare I say it, better than that. We’d been fused together. It was comforting and terrifying at the same time. And yet her body contradicted the notion of two friends just hanging out. Having a guy around who wants to fuck you had to be the best kind of friend a girl could have. He’d never argue, he’d never disagree. He’d always be subservient and pleasant. He’d listen to your every utterance hoping for clues to how to get in your pants. You’d never need to worry about him being unfaithful because all he thought about was fucking you.

  Like having a man-sized pet.

  She suggested we take bicycle repair lessons. This was something I’d benefit from too because I spent a fortune on repairs but it would have to be in her neighborhood. Of course it would. Everything would have to go her way. Her topic of conversation. Her every word intensely listened to. She got pissed when I couldn’t understand what she’d said. Like there was something bigger at stake. As if her reputation as a great communicator had been slighted.

  There were times when I couldn’t help thinking that she just didn’t want to be happy. But there was a sound she made when she was being unselfconsciously loving. It was like something I remembered her doing with her cat when she didn’t think I was watching. It was a kind of baby language mush-mush sound that required the pursing up of her lips in mock kisses.

  “Modge-modge-modge.”

  It was my reward for not talking.

  * * *

  “Nah. That’s okay … here you go.”

  A stressed-looking tourist tried to hand back the “free” CD he’d just been given by one, then two, then three, ultracool black guys who suddenly seemed to surround him. The CD was presented as a handout but as soon as it changed hands the recipient was encouraged to make a donation.

  “Show me some love, bro.”

  It was at this point that futile attempts were made to hand it back. All three wore urban uniforms of backward baseball hats and skinny jeans worn ridiculously low across their buttocks, revealing brightly patterned boxer shorts. If the victims were a father and son the CD was handed to the son so that Dad had to pay for it. If there was a wife she was assured it was true what they said about black men.

  The intention was to unnerve.

  “Dude that’s my shit right there, I put a lot of love into that.”

  The tourist smiled weakly.

  “I’ve only got a twenty-dollar bill.”

  “Oh you need change? I gotchoo, bro.”

  Now it was just a question of how much you got back, if anything. I was watching an auto-mugging, self-robbery.

  “Oh that’s okay, just keep it.”

  “Aww thank you, bro … yo dad’s gangsta.”

  And if he objected?

  “Oh it’s because I’m black? … Das okay, I get it.”

  Did the tourist really want to get into an altercation with a group of black males on a New York street? One of them noticed me watching him and waddled over.

  “See how it’s done, bro.”

  I was reminded of the manifesto of a famous ad agency in London.

  WE DON’T SELL. WE MAKE PEOPLE WANT TO BUY

  —Shearling, Woolcott & Simon

  Hi Mr. Anonymous

  My name is Lucretia and I wanted to say your book touched my deepest emotions. I read it in one sitting. I identified with the
events in it and I saw myself in the main character’s actions. Have you ever considered adapting your story for interpretive dance? If so, I’d love to show you some ideas … by the way did Aisling ever bring out her book? ps I attached a photo so you’ll recognize me if we ever meet

  Laughable of course but the perfect little ass suspended in midleap forgave the notion of a dance troupe from Nebraska attempting to communicate pub-brawls and self-loathing in South London. One phrase in particular jumped out of her bio: I’m serious about Christianity. This required urgent clarification since it could seriously affect my chances of getting into her leotard.

  I responded that I’d be interested to hear what she had in mind but I was far from devout and that she should know this before we went any further. Almost immediately she responded saying Midwestern theaters were often dependent on deeply conservative patrons and that her reference to religion was merely her way of ingratiating herself with them. I need not concern myself, she’d spent time with my books and had thoroughly enjoyed herself and she would very much like to meet me if that was at all possible. She would of course respect my anonymity.

  She’d be in my neighborhood rehearsing the following week if that was convenient.

  An ass like that on a body so flexible?

  Drinnnnnng

  There had been plenty of time to get ready but I intentionally cultivated a sort of feral nonchalance since opening the door shaved and showered would infer I gave a shit. But I immediately regretted my decision because standing there waiting to be asked inside was a very young girl with luminous white skin and a magnificently taut little body. There was something well-bred about her. Had we been in London I would have said she was of aristocratic stock. It seemed suddenly clear to me that this beautifully poised dancer was on a mission to mock me. In some corner of her hugely successful future I’d be relegated to an amusing misstep in an otherwise perfectly choreographed career.