Eunuchs and Nymphomaniacs

by AnonYMous

  Isabel waddled all the way up the hill to ask why I’d moved.

  “I needed a change,” I said.

  She looked at me hard, like there was more to it. She wanted me to elaborate, to complain about the Mongolians. She wanted to start a war. But that was the last thing I wanted. I had to assume she already knew why I had moved up here but I didn’t want her to know I was making more than before because then I’d be a target. The other vendors always knew how well or badly you were doing. I was happy for her to think I was sulking. I certainly didn’t want to appear like I was doing too well or I’d have to deal with all of them migrating up the street and arranging themselves either side of me. Then because she seemed to be talking to herself while she looked at me I began to worry she was putting some Haitian voodoo curse on me. I unleashed some mumbling of my own in the form of the Lord’s Prayer and hoped my lapsed Catholicism was still strong enough to combat her pagan equivalent. It was the nearest I was ever going to get to a street fight.

  TITS SO BIG HER T-SHIRT READS EW YOR

  #TheOxygenThiefDiaries

  Burrrrrrrrr

  “I’ve pissed on guys for money.”

  She was the latest respondent to my Craigslist ad. I had suggested a quick phone chat prior to meeting, but two wide-eyed and ear-cocked hours later I was still listening to a goth girl called Pearl casually confess to all sorts of outrageousness. For instance, Brendan Dooley, the Irish actor who seemed to have a cameo in every film ever made, had once paid her $2,000 to give herself an enema while he watched and masturbated. He was very specific about what she should eat. Indian curry, no rice. In lingerie and heels she teetered on a mirrored table while a transparent tube emptied the contents of her alimentary canal into Tupperware. Reclining in an armchair Dooley watched, wanked, and winked. He winked at everyone. It was his happy-go-lucky Irish affectation. On one occasion he turned up with a red-haired hooker who straddled him as Pearl siphoned herself. He found time to wink at both of them.

  Another client liked to be supervised while eating the contents of a toilet bowl. Demonstrating an impressive talent for administration Pearl scheduled that session directly after Dooley’s so that the contents of his Tupperware could be repurposed.

  Yet another client, a septuagenarian financier, liked to be strapped into a gynecologist’s chair, ankles in stirrups, vibrator in ass, while girls in lingerie pinched his nipples and jerked him off. Pearl was able to make herself sound almost lifeless as she talked about all of this. Or maybe she was experienced enough to know that presenting mind-scorching scenarios in such a matter-of-fact tone prevented the listener from deriving any pleasure he hadn’t paid for. Was she waiting for me to suggest she write a book? Was she hoping I’d write one about her?

  There was more.

  A litigation lawyer from Miami who liked to be cuckolded. He loved to be reminded that he was a piece of shit and that his wife was looking forward to being fucked by his business partner whose cock was so much bigger than his. He longed to hear how they laughed at naked pictures of him while they fucked on his desk.

  A friend introduced Pearl to the scene when she was eighteen. She interviewed at the various “dungeons,” all of which were owned and run by Russians. They actually tried to discourage her at first by asking her to breadboard one of their regulars. Breadboarding, they explained, involved nailing the loose skin of the scrotum to a chopping board, or a floorboard, or a door. If she was in any way squeamish about this she’d refuse and save everyone a lot of time and money. But she delighted the client by turning up in a nun’s habit (lingerie underneath) carrying a scaled-down wooden cross. After she crucified his balls he happily paid extra.

  The dungeon itself was a converted dance studio with the windows painted black and partitioned off so that the moans and groans, shrieks or shouts of your fellow patrons added to or subtracted from your enjoyment depending on your preferences. Shelves groaned too, with a mind-boggling compendium of sexual paraphernalia. Everything from Anal to Ziplocs.

  But I was three years too late.

  When Pearl gave birth to their son her live-in boyfriend told her she’d gotten flabby. Her response was to change the locks to their Tribeca apartment. Mind you it didn’t help that he’d been unfaithful. At the time of our phone chat she was selling the place to buy a bigger apartment in the same building. She’d bought it with money she’d earned working “freelance” as a dominatrix. The dungeon took 80 percent but on her own she made $900 an hour. She paid for the apartment in cash. The seller didn’t ask where the money came from.

  He didn’t care.

  She spoke without embarrassment or hesitation about how, on her own time, she’d fuck guys with strap-ons and make them suck on her “dick” just like they’d do to her, given the chance.

  “What would you say to them?”

  “I’d say ‘Suck it bitch’ and ‘You’re not doing it right.’ ”

  She actually knew what she was talking about.

  She’d ram the strap-on down their throats just like any self-respecting male would do.

  “And pull them forward by the ears so they gagged on it.”

  Here she laughed wickedly, obviously enjoying the memory and perhaps savoring my discomfort. It was unnerving to hear a girl play the role of a guy who knew that the only reason we wanted to fuck women in the ass and shove cocks down their throats was because it gave us not just a sense of power but of revenge for all the indignities we’d had to suffer just to get them legally naked in the first place. Or was that just me?

  Pearl was past caring.

  She had her twins and her apartment and there was nothing to gain by being coquettish.

  And anyway men paid good money to be humiliated and beaten with their own notions so why should she pretend she didn’t know what to do? She charged $900 an hour for these extracurricular house visits. Plus she was thinking of writing a book and presumably needed to sound as knowledgeable as possible about her chosen subject within earshot of a potential publisher. Which I assumed was how she saw me.

  As long as she didn’t have actual sex with any of them she could advertise herself under the services provided listings. Plumber, Electrician, Dominatrix.

  And because she had her phone on record right up to the moment she swiped their credit cards there could be no question of future misunderstandings—legal or otherwise. I wondered if she was recording our call. I also wondered if force-feeding men with a strap-on came under the heading of “actual sex”?

  Seemingly not.

  One of her more sought-after services involved the insertion of Sounds. These were thin smooth rods not unlike knitting needles that were inserted into the eye of the penis. She inched them down the sperm duct till the tip touched the base of the penis and excited the prostate gland. I’d seen this phenomenon in Japanese porn clips but because there was no English spoken I had no idea what I was looking at.

  I heard myself speak. I sounded like a little boy.

  “Will you do that to me please?”

  “I will if you ask me to.”

  Which was a strange response because that was exactly what I had just done.

  Maybe it was a legal thing.

  Drinnnnggggg

  Her face in real life was much prettier than her photos but her body just took on the shape of the clothing that contained it. At one point as I searched for a breast in her bra it felt like the cups were filled with liquid. She effortlessly summoned the mocking tone of voice and disappointed-in-you demeanor of an arch-bitch dominatrix but I couldn’t help thinking it was merely an affectation left over from a time when she was younger, thinner, and firmer.

  These suspicions were confirmed when my hand ventured into her jeans. I didn’t dare unbutton them for fear that the room would fill with liquid Pearl. It was the first time I hoped I’d have my hand arrested before it reached anything resembling pussy. The lumpen geography leading up to it was uneven and loamy. Everything seemed to be shifting around. It was as if a
bomb had gone off in the vicinity some years previously.

  Meanwhile she stroked my cock through my jeans and I had no problem with this whatsoever. She traced a fingernail carefully over the denim with just enough pressure to ensure that the cock below was teary-eyed and magnificently maddened. But having dispatched my manual scout and finding nothing resembling terra firma there was nowhere to go, nothing to aspire to.

  “What are you thinking?”

  It was becoming an exercise in Olympic politeness. What was I thinking? This was at odds with what I expected a dominatrix should ask or demand. Meanwhile she was still stroking my poor confused cock under my tight bulging jeans. But far from being all dungeonesque and domineering she was coming across as seriously insecure. Should I make her feel more confident about her ability to dominate me?

  “I’m thinking how cool it is that you know exactly what to do,” I lied.

  “And what are you thinking now?” she said, still stroking me.

  “I’m thinking about how experienced you are.”

  “And now?”

  “Well …” I’m thinking … is this part of her domination thing? Ask him what he’s thinking from moment to moment …

  Once the blood required to irrigate a man’s mental acuity has raced south to inflate an erection, his ability to lie is considerably reduced. He might feel like he’s brandishing a Claymore but to a woman it’s a flesh-covered lie-detector. Trying to hide what I was really thinking under a believable lie, while yearning for the cock-stroking to continue, was beginning to feel like I was back in a relationship.

  Torture indeed.

  THREESOME? I CAN BARELY HANDLE A ONESOME

  “Hey, boss, you mind if I sit down here? I’m pretty quiet really. I won’t hurt your business.”

  “Sure,” I said only because I had no idea what he meant.

  He wanted to sit down? Who was I to deny him that? He looked like he might be homeless but not disgustingly so. New York’s street people seemed to have a better sense of fashion than other cities I’d lived in. It was probably because the clothing donated here was of far higher quality. Comfortably attired in a black hoodie, sweat pants, and what appeared be a new pair of Nikes, he made straight for the trash can on the corner and began to rummage in it. I watched him rip the edges of a pizza box until he was left with a large white square. When I looked again he had transformed into a panhandler. Hunkered down on the corner he had settled in for what looked like a long haul. His technique was devastatingly simple.

  Crouch behind a cardboard sign and cry.

  He raised his wet face intermittently so that the full effect of his abject misery could be better appreciated. A girl swathed in black limped past in a complicated leg brace and crutches.

  “Help meeeeeee,” he wailed after her.

  She stopped and read his sign:

  HOMELESS, PLEASE HELP, VERY LONELY, MISS MY MOM, NO FAMILY.

  She immediately began to rummage in her expensive purse. I couldn’t see the numerical value of the note she inserted in his transparent plastic cup but from his reaction it had to be more than a dollar.

  ‘Thankgewww,” he wailed as she limped away.

  There’s a story they love to tell in copywriting courses where a bum, not unlike my new neighbor, sits on a street corner with a sign that reads, I’M BLIND. He may or may not be blind, we’re not going to get into that. The integrity of the client is none of our business. We are merely charged with improving his communications. The point of the story is to demonstrate that emotion has a huge part to play in a purchasing decision. The bum does not receive any money, although being blind, you might wonder how he knows this for sure. He might be getting hundreds of dollar bills silently shoved into his cup before being stolen by clever thieves but again, let’s not exceed our brief by delving into the client’s security arrangements or corporate culture. A passing copywriter identifies the problem, whips out his pen, and adds three words to the blind man’s sign.

  It now reads: I’M BLIND AND IT’S SPRING.

  This guy knew to raise his head at just the right moment so that the passersby received the full brunt of his emotion. There wasn’t a great deal of difference between the two of us really.

  I taxidermied my angst while he trawled similar depths. But that day, Nolita’s well-to-do chose his brand over mine. Here was a real-life homeless person on the streets of New York. Someone from whom they could purchase freshly secreted, debatably organic, artisanal servings of self-esteem. While-u-wait. Many had already walked past before their haughty self-assured expressions fell away. Stricken with guilt, they were already searching for wallets or unshouldering bags before turning to kneel before his majesty, his humanity. As cash was presented his anguished face contorted anew, this time in gratitude. Could it be that some barely hoped-for light had breached the impregnable vault of despair in which he found himself?

  “Thanggggewwwwww.”

  Having bestowed blessings on the faithful, the transaction was complete. The honorarium was removed as soon as benefactors left so that prospective donors need not be burdened with unnecessary details. A modest dollar or two was visible in the cup. No doubt this was the reason it was transparent. I saw him energetically throw change at the backs of those who dared put coins in there.

  “You’re kidding, right?” he shouted after them and they were too ashamed to respond.

  I watched him, transfixed.

  What the residents of Nolita knew about hopelessness they’d gleaned from HBO. The real-life equivalent was more than likely too medicated to be able to come up with this sort of marketing strategy. After all, if someone had it together enough to select a corner located among the demographic most likely to sympathize with his cause and having arranged himself there, could cry on cue, he deserved more than a few dollars in a plastic cup—he was an entrepreneur. As one woman shoved what looked like a sizable denomination into his receptor, the Lamenteer shot me a quick look that seemed to say, This is how it’s done, asshole, before reverting back to hopelessness and despair.

  I blinked.

  Had I really seen that?

  Had he really stepped out of character for a second to gloat? His sign changed slightly from day to day but the basics were always present:

  MY FAMILY WERE REMOVED BY HURRICANE SANDY, MISS MY MOM.

  Efficiency itself.

  In a headline every word needed to earn its place. You only had seconds to get your point across. It shouldn’t take more than four seconds to read. Make your point and if possible back it up with a strong visual. In this case the image of a grown man deep in the throes of despair. He wielded the same emotional stopping-power as a pet shop window … on fire. And if that wasn’t enough, he was white. This guy could be your cousin, your brother, your dad. The vain wannabe-hipster selling his self-published, self-involved, self-serving memoir was invisible beside such a confession of humanity.

  Stony-faced bitches who moments earlier looked ready to physically fight anyone impeding their progress went limp. In fact I was often the unintended recipient of the softened look that actually belonged to him. Their eyes would rest on me as the decision took hold in them to stop. They would then retrace their steps, summoned by the tug of his vulnerability, often dropping unironically to one knee in front of him. And having been wrung dry of their daily emotional allowance there was no fucking way they were stopping at my table. The sentiment on my sign seemed so self-satisfied and cynical in comparison.

  THIS WOBBLY WHEELED–TROLLEY DASH THROUGH THE COSMIC SUPERMARKET

  #TheOxygenThiefDiaries

  I was secretly thrilled when a tough-looking, heavily tattooed out-of-towner noticed him sitting there in the street crying. As he approached he began to shake his head in disbelief. Having spent the day in SoHo he had been big enough to forgive the indignities visited on him by fashionistas, photographers, and faggots, but here was something he could not let slide.

  “You fucking pussy. Be a man … Jesus … embarrassing.”<
br />
  He had barely walked past when change and cardboard exploded from the pavement and the Lamenteer rose to his own defense.

  “Fuck you, you fucking fat asshole in your fucking cowboy boots and bullshit tattoos, you think I’m afraid of you? Is that what you think? An asshole like you? Look at you. You think you’re a big man, come back here and I’ll kick your fat fucking ass, bitch, yeah you, you little bitch, look at you, come on, I’m waiting here for you, no? That’s right, walk away you little bitch, you fucking better …”

  The guy looked like he was about to shout something back but just then quarters, dimes, and pennies rained on him, and his shocked reaction unmanned him. It was already over. The Lamenteer beckoned to him in a seemingly friendly manner as if he was more than happy to continue their chat. The pleasantness advertised his willingness to fight and fight dirty. The tattooed guy harrumphed and mumbled.

  It was over.

  But crouching back into his spot the Lamenteer now seemed like just an ordinary beggar. Where were the tears? Could it be he was unable to get back into character? He stood up again. And this time he just walked away, leaving the cardboard sign and transparent cup there. It was his equivalent of storming off the set. Maybe now I’d sell some books.

  It was still early and I might benefit from the rush-hour foot traffic at the Prince Street subway as Nolita’s retail and corporate staff completed their daily commute to Brooklyn. A well-preserved older woman shoved her worried face into mine.

  “Where’s that man? I bought food for him.”

  The concern on the woman’s face was laughable. I’d seen her pass earlier and she had obviously decided it was worth waiting in line in a high-end sandwicherie to buy this poor man some food. The crisp brown recycled paper bag confirmed that even the most basic sandwich would cost $20. There would have to be some french fries in there too because homeless people love french fries and a ridiculously priced bottle of water to wash it all down with. How did I know this? Well, because it was I who ended up devouring its contents. I had done my best to look as if I hated to be the one to set her straight but we members of the middle class had to look out for each other.