by Amy Sohn
Will bought For Each Other, the sequel to For Yourself, and we tried lovemaking techniques that were supposed to be conducive to female orgasm. We put a pillow under my butt so my clit would be angled against his pelvic bone, but although it felt good, I couldn’t make the hurdle. I tried riding him and angling forward. We tried doggie so he could stimulate my G-spot. Over the course of the whole relationship, though, it just didn’t happen. And with every guy since then, the only way I’d been able to come during sex was with the help of somebody’s hand.
But I couldn’t say any of that in the column. I wanted my readers to think of me as a nouveau Erica Jong, and Jong came from fucking. Or at least her protagonist did. Even after she stopped loving her husband, Bennett, Isadora Wing still whooped when they shtupped. And she came with her lover Adrian, too—although he couldn’t always get it up. If my readers knew about my orgasm deficiencies, good-bye nouveau Jong. Hello pathetic ho. They’d think I wasn’t just a slut but a frigid slut. They’d pity me. And I didn’t want to be pitied. I wanted to be envied. So I gave my readers what I knew they wanted: lies.
•
When I finished the Evan column, I went to meet Sara at BarF. I told her about my orgasmic distortion and how I couldn’t come from sex alone, and she nodded understandingly.
“You mean, you’re the same way?” I asked.
“No,” she said. “I come from sex every time. I was sympathizing, not empathizing.” Once again I’d been sent to the back of the line.
“So, who’s on top when you come?” I asked.
“Me. I can only come when I’m on top. I ride the guy and I get off, and then he flips me over and he gets off.”
“When did you have your first orgasm?”
“When I was eight.”
“What?”
“My girlfriends and I used to get together for these slumber parties and act out little sex scenarios with our Barbies. Then we’d get in our sleeping bags and hump our stuffed animals until we came.”
“As if.”
“I’m serious. How old were you?”
“Eighteen.”
“Whoa.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“I’m sorry. It’s just, that’s pretty ancient. But don’t be bummed. I’m very easily orgasmic. Most women aren’t. I read somewhere that seven out of ten women need their clits touched in order to come during sex.”
I knew I should have been relieved by that statistic, but I wasn’t. I just wanted to be one of the three.
Suddenly this skinny guy in a kente-cloth hat sidled up next to me. “Ariel?” he asked. It was Dan Trier, my resident counselor during freshman year at Brown. I’d never found him that attractive before, but suddenly he looked like a Jewish Ken doll. We hugged and I introduced him to Sara. He didn’t seem into her, which was a relief. After they shook hands he turned to me and said, “This is so weird. I’ve been reading you, and wondering when I might run into you.”
This dude had been struck by the Steiner Vibe. There was no escaping its wicked hold. I’d found my first victim. My first grist. I couldn’t wait to put him through the mill.
“I have some friends waiting for me in the back,” he said, “but I play violin for this band, Candidiasis, and we have a gig at BarBara Walters on Wednesday if you two want to come.”
“Maybe we will,” I said.
But as soon as he left, Sara said, “I think you should go alone. He obviously wants you.” So I decided I would. I figured I could make it a joint hookup/music review: write about his playing first, and then his play.
•
The next morning at work, the Corposhit had me unpack and assemble a paper shredder. The instructions were pretty easy to follow, so it only took about ten minutes for me to put it together. At the bottom of the instruction sheet, it said, “When assembly is completed, shred this page.” It didn’t sound like the wisest idea but I figured the manufacturers knew what they were doing. I stuck the paper in and watched it fringe up. This was fun. I stuck in a blank sheet of paper and watched it shred too. I stuck in another. It crumpled into a mangled piece, and the message screen flashed, ERROR 49! I lifted the machine off my desk and looked to see if there were emergency instructions taped to the bottom. No dice. I looked in the box, but it was empty.
The Corposhit came out of her office, glanced at the flashing message, and said, “What happened?”
“It jammed.”
“Where are the instructions?”
“I shredded them.”
“You shredded the instructions?”
“That was the last instruction.”
“No it wasn’t.”
“Yes it was!”
“I don’t believe this. Get on the phone and call the manufacturer, and find out what to do when it jams. You’re supposed to solve problems here, not create them.” She went back into her office and slammed her door.
“Do you know who I am?” I wanted to shout. “Do you know who it is you’re patronizing? The hottest sex columnist in the city! There are guys out there who would pay to spend as much time with me as you get to! The least you could do is treat me with a modicum of respect!” But I knew if I said that, she’d can me—and I couldn’t risk it. I might have been the hottest columnist in the city, but it would be a while before I was the most highly remunerated.
I called the company and ordered a new set of instructions, and then I hung up and checked my machine. There was only one message, and it was rather strange: “My name’s Dana Spack. I’m a fact checker at the Week and I want to ask you a question about ‘Rockman.’ Please call me at the office.” I freaked. Had she somehow found out about my distortions? Had some City Week spy overheard my conversation with Sara at BarF, figured out who I was, and ratted?
I called Dana back right away. “It’s Ariel Steiner?” I up-talked, in spite of myself. “I got your message?”
“Thanks for returning my call,” she said. “I was just going through ‘Rockman’ and I came across something that concerned me.
Oh God. Now I’d have to tell her the sad ballad of my hand dependency. She wouldn’t understand. This chick was named Dana. Danas were all easy comers. She’d laugh at me for my deficiency, completely unable to relate, as I wept into the phone and begged her to let my lie run.
“What exactly was it that concerned you?” I asked.
“You mention that the bar where Kevin played was BarBie, and then later you say, ‘As we headed up the street to BarNey Rubble.’ BarBie is on Eleventh and B, and BarNey Rubble is on Ninth and B. Shouldn’t it be, ‘As we headed down the street to BarNey Rubble’?”
“Why, yes it should!” I shouted. “That’s exactly what it should be! I’m terribly sorry! I don’t know why I made that mistake! I guess I don’t have the keenest sense of geographic accuracy! Ha ha ha ha ha!”
“Thanks,” she said curtly. “That was all I needed to know.”
•
At noon on Wednesday Sara and I went to the distribution box on the corner, took out two copies of the paper, and walked to the Met Life building. That week’s illo was me getting fucked from behind by another sideburned guy, with a bubble above my head that said, “What a hunky junkie!”
“I wonder what Evan’s going to say at my lesson tonight,” said Sara when she finished the column. “I hope he won’t want to stop teaching me.”
“Why?”
“He’s not going to want to associate with anyone associated with you.”
“It wasn’t that mean.”
“You call him a junkie and a limp dick and you change only two letters of his name.”
“So?”
“How would you feel if someone wrote that stuff about you for the whole city to read?”
“I don’t have a dick.”
“You know what I mean.”
“You think he’s gonna be pissed?”
“If he doesn’t go ballistic at the junkie and limp-dick stuff, he’s definitely going to when he gets to the part where you spit on
his feet after dumping him.”
“You think it was over the top?”
She held up her thumb and index fingers like she was pinching something very small. I wondered if she was right. What if Evan did do something rash? Would he write in to the paper to call me a lousy lay? Would he out me for my coming lie? I hoped she’d be able to calm him down at her lesson.
We flipped backward from my column to “The Mail.” I was hoping to be cheered by some positive response, but I wasn’t so lucky.
What’s Ariel Steiner’s favorite beverage? A cock-tail.
What’s Ariel Steiner’s favorite animal? Pussy-cat.
Why did Ariel Steiner cross the road? To get laid.
PETE TERELL, Bronx
Ariel Steiner’s vagina must smell like the Fresh Kills Landfill. Maybe she could learn a thing or two from those girls in Africa and consider the option of having her vulva sealed for good.
ANDY ZANE, Park Slope
“Jesus!” I shouted.
“What?” said Sara.
“How can I go hear Dan’s band tonight? He’ll never want to hook up with me! What guy in his right mind would want to get busy with a girl who’s purported to be a filthy ho?”
“What are you talking about?” said Sara. “Most guys would jump at the chance to get busy with a girl who’s purported to be a filthy ho.” She had a point. So I went.
•
Candidiasis was good, and Dan looked hot playing his violin. I drank three Jamesons over the course of the gig, and by the end I was severely tipsy. When it was over Dan sat next to me at the bar and ordered a beer. I took a handful of peanuts from a bowl on the table, munched them, then leaned in close and said huskily, “Have you ever wondered what honey-roasted peanut tastes like on a woman’s breath?”
He reddened and turned his face away.
“What is it?”
“Are you coming on to me?”
It was a little embarrassing to have to be asked that question so directly, but I wasn’t going to lie. “Um . . . I guess so, yeah.”
“Then I better be honest with you. I’ve always been really attracted to you, and I think you’re sweet, and bright and funny. That’s why I invited you here tonight. But there’s not a chance in hell I would date you.”
“You read ‘The Mail’ today?”
“Yeah. The letters were pretty nasty. But that’s not why I’m afraid to date you.”
“It’s not?”
“No. I don’t care what those people say about you. They’re idiots. I’m afraid because I don’t want to go out with you, then open the paper the next morning and read all about what we did, with me given some really obvious pseudonym and all my defining characteristics left completely intact.”
“How did you know I use really obvious pseudonyms?”
“I didn’t, but I guess I do now. Don’t get me wrong. If you had a different job I’d be highly interested in pursuing some sort of dalliance. But as it stands, for my own protection, I think it’s best that we keep things platonic.”
I couldn’t believe it. My very first victim had dissed me first. That wasn’t the way it was supposed to work. Guys were supposed to be at my beck and call. They weren’t supposed to pick up and go. I felt like Madonna after Dennis Rodman refused to go down on her. It was a sick, sick world. My column had gotten between me and my cock.
When I got home from the bar, I called Sara. “How’d it go?” she said.
“You don’t want to know,” I said. “How was your lesson?”
“Fine.”
“What did Evan say?”
“He said, ‘I knew what I was getting into when I hit on her. If she needs to make it out like she dumped me in order to impress her readers, that’s her prerogative.’ I said, ‘What about her description of your anatomy? Aren’t you worried your friends will read it?’ and he said, ‘My friends don’t really read.’ ”
I breathed a sigh of relief. There was an upside to the low literacy level of my dating pool. I was safe—for now, at least. But I still didn’t have my next column idea—and no new dicks were rearing their heads. I was on the verge of drafting a piece about my first blow job the next morning when I checked my machine and got a message from Faye.
Run Catch Kiss
True Confessions of a Single Girl
ARIEL STEINER
Don’t Call Us
The other day my agent, May, called. She’d gotten me an audition for an independent film about junkie brothers who can’t get out of the cycle of destruction. “It takes place in Estonia.” she said.
That sounded exciting. An Eastern European drug movie. “Are they paying to fly the actors out there?” I asked.
“What do you mean, fly them out there?”
“Didn’t you say it shoots in Estonia?”
“Yeah. Queens.”
“I think you mean Astoria,” I said, my face falling. But I tried not to get discouraged. Location wasn’t that important. It was who you got to work with that mattered.
“Who’s directing?” I asked brightly.
“A guy named Ed Pucci. He’s the guy who parachuted into Shea Stadium during the 1986 World Series.” Any remaining faith I had in the project flew out the window.
My role was Aileen, the widow of one of the brothers, and in the scene I was supposed to mourn to my friend about how awful I feel that I wasn’t able to prevent my husband from ODing. The first few lines weren’t too bad, but when I got to the part where it said. “Aileen breaks down and begins hysterically crying,” I was thrown for one mother of a loop. I’ve always had trouble manufacturing tears. I can do it in life; I just can’t do it on cue.
The night before the audition I sat on my bed and relived bad breakups, sixth-grade ostracizing, public humiliation, lost opportunities, and family crises. But as I remembered these minitragedies, I began to think that in retrospect, none had really been worth crying about. Instead of getting weepy. I just got pissed at myself for being such a wus.
Then I remembered something I read in an acting book once: Laurence Olivier used to make himself cry by thinking about these small, furry ermines in Alaska. The trappers would catch the ermines by putting salt on the snow, and when the poor babies leaned down to lick the salt, their tongues would stick and the trappers would move in for the kill. I tried to envision those adorable little tongues latched to the cold, harsh snow, and the evil trappers harpooning the ermines dead, but it still didn’t work. The story got me, but not in the gut. I knew I couldn’t rely on that image alone. So I decided to just play it by ear. Feel the feelings and hope the tears came spontaneously.
When I got to the casting office. I sat down in a chair in the waiting room and closed my eyes. Just as I was beginning to relax. I heard quiet sobbing. I opened my eyes. The girl two chairs down from me was mouthing the lines of the scene—and dozens of perfect, glistening tears were rolling down her cheeks. She smiled bashfully at me, as though she was ashamed that her emotions were so easily accessible. I glared back, and then the casting director came out and said, “Ariel? We’re ready for you.”
She led me down a snaking hallway to the audition room. Sitting behind a table was a six-and-a-half-foot-tall giant with a large-boned, menacing face. “I’m Ed Pucci,” he said. We shook hands and he crushed my fingers.
I sat down in the chair across from him. He raised his voice high like a woman’s and started the scene: “It’s all right, Aileen. It’s not your fault.”
“It is my fault!” I shouted. “Gary wouldn’t be dead if it weren’t for me!”
“That’s not true and you know it. There was nothing you could have done.”
I looked down at the script and read the words “Aileen breaks down and begins hysterically crying.” I tried to picture baby ermines getting stuck to an iceberg, but instead I just pictured Ed Pucci’s huge, bearlike frame collapsing onto the field of Shea Stadium. Instead of crying. I cracked a smile. I wiped it away quickly, hoping he’d think it was a wince, lowered my head, and
heaved my shoulders up and down so I’d look like I was weeping.
Evidently my trick didn’t work, because when I finished, he said, “Good. But I really need to see you cry. This is very hard for Aileen. She feels responsible for Gary’s death.”
“OK.”
“It’s all right. Aileen,” he said. “It’s not your fault.” This time when I got to the crying part, I tried to envision my father, my mother, and brother being hacked to death by a psycho killer. But every time I started to get choked up, I would think about how annoying it was that I couldn’t cry on cue, and the choked-up feeling would disappear.
I finished sans tears and Ed thanked me in the way they do when you know there’s not a chance in hell you’ll get it. I walked out through the waiting room past the town crier, and when I got outside I crossed the street and headed toward Port Authority to get on the subway back to work. Two crack-heads were fighting in front of the Burger King on Eighth Avenue, and a guy was yelling loudly at someone over the phone. For one split second I wanted to give it all up. But then the yelling guy got off the phone and I stepped up to check my machine.
The Monday night after I submitted the column, I got this E-mail from Turner: “I liked it, but Steve thinks it’s your worst yet. He says you can poke your head out of the boudoir once in a while, as long as you don’t make a habit of it. Let’s just say you’ve shot your acting wad for the time being. Don’t shoot another for at least a few months.”
As if that wasn’t discouraging enough, the day the column came out my dad left this message on my machine: “I loved it! I mean, really loved it! I called up Mom and read it to her over the phone! Then I made ten copies and sent them to all the relatives. I’m so glad you’ve finally written something we can show them!”
I shuddered, erased the message and hung up the phone. If my dad was happy with what I was writing, it meant I had to find myself some action, soon. My readers were interested in one thing only—and it wasn’t my acting career. It was time to start hunting again. It was time to start humping again.