by Amy Sohn
•
God must have heard my mantra, because when I got home from work that night, I found a letter in my mailbox from Faye. I took it upstairs and ripped it open:
Dear Ariel,
After thirty years in “the biz,” I have decided to retire. It’s been a pleasure working with you. Best wishes for the future.
Fondly,
FAYE GLASS
P.S. You have been released from your contract with the agency and are free to seek other representation.
At first I felt a wave of disappointment, but after a few seconds it was replaced by an odd sense of relief. In five and a half months of auditioning, I had booked one acting job—for a porn show masquerading as a rock musical. Statistically it wasn’t the worst track record, but it sure wasn’t the best. Maybe Faye’s letter was a blessing in disguise. I would never have to go on a cattle call again. I’d never have to memorize lines, cry on cue, or audition for a stuntman. So I’d never be the Queen of All Media either, but maybe being the Queen of One Medium wasn’t the most awful thing in the world. I changed into a short skirt and platform heels, walked to the train, and went to meet Sara at Bar-Nacle.
5
SHE WAS WAITING FOR ME with this new guy she was seeing, Kit. He was the counter boy at her local coffee store, Porto Rico Importing. Every morning on her way to work she would stop in to buy a cup, and then one day he handed her his number with her Ethiopian Blend. I had a good feeling about the two of them. He kept stroking her back while the three of us were talking, and he’d periodically gaze at her with lapdog eyes. He told me he’d gone to graduate school for acting at NYU, and when I said I studied theater at Brown, he said, “I did my MFA with a guy from Brown. Charlton Wakes. Did you know him?”
Did I ever. Charlton and I met working on a black box production of Long Day’s Journey into Night when I was a freshman and he was a senior. He was notorious for two things: his crass sense of humor and extralong dimensions. He was the kind of guy who never censored his pornographic observations and who looked at women—all women—with a freely hanging cock you could swing on like a vine. But he’d had a girlfriend—a beautiful, siliconed daughter of a California venture capitalist—and I’d been going out with Will, so I never made a move.
Maybe I could now, though. This could be my chance to snag a babe and get some good material, both at the same time. “I do know him,” I said. “I used to be really hot for him. What’s he up to?”
“He’s in a show at SoHo Playhouse.”
“Is he still going out with Victoria?”
“No, they broke up after he graduated. He’s a free man. In fact, he’s been complaining about how lonely he is lately. Why don’t you call him?”
When I got home I took out the number. His machine picked up. I breathed in deeply, sat down on the couch, and pushed my voice down into the back of my throat, secretary style. “Hhhhhi, Charlton. It’s such a cold, cold night, but I feel toasty warm. I’m under the covers in my warm house in my warm bed. It gets even warmer down here when I think of you. You’re so sexy, Charlton. The way you strut like a rebel. Oooh, when I start thinking about you I can’t help but stick just one finger up inside me and pretend like it’s yours. I get so sweaty under these covers. It’s so hot down here. I’m so wet, I just—”
The machine cut me off right when I was going to come. Just like a guy. So I called back. “Ahh! Ooh! Oh! I’m coming! You feel so good inside me, Charlton. I want to wrap my soft lips around your pulsing little man Tate, to taste you, to lick y—” I got cut off again.
I hung up the phone and went to bed. Around two in the morning, the phone rang.
“This is Charlton Wakes,” he said. “Did you call me?”
“How did you know?”
“Star 69. Who are you?”
“I was in Long Day’s Journey with you, spring of your senior year. I played the maid.”
“I forgot your name.”
“Ariel,” I sighed.
“Right. Ariel. How’d you get my number?”
“I met your friend Kit at a bar and we found out we both knew you. He said you were on the prowl. Is that true?”
“Yeah.”
“So did you like my message?”
“Yeah.”
“Did you jerk off to it?”
“Yeahhh.”
“Really? Did you come?”
“I almost did, but you didn’t talk long enough.”
“Your machine cut me off! What was I supposed to do?”
“You could do it live the next time.” That gave me pause. “So what’ve you been up to since you graduated?”
He didn’t know about the column. I could hold back and not tell him, but then it struck me that with a guy like Charlton there might actually be an advantage to telling. “I moved here to be an actress,” I said. “But then I got this weird job—a sex column in the City Week. They hired me to go out with different guys and write about them.”
“You’re shitting me.”
“I’m not, Charlton. I’m totally serious. They’re paying me to go out and sleep with handsome eligible bachelors.”
“You know, the cast party for our show is this Friday night. Do you want to come? I could get you a comp to the play and then you could come to the party with me afterward.”
“OK.”
He gave me the address of the theater and we hung up. A few minutes later, the phone rang again.
“Why don’t you talk to me now?” he whispered.
“Really?”
“Yeah. It won’t take long, I promise.”
I considered my options. It was one thing to give a guy phone sex just because he asked for it, but it was another thing entirely to do it as research. Whoring myself for the sake of a good character study wasn’t nearly as depraved as whoring myself for its own sake.
“What do you want me to talk about?” I said. “I mean, where should I start?”
“Soon.”
“All right. I’ll tell you about this . . . this guy I’m seeing. His name’s . . . Royalton. And he looks a little like you, Charlton. But he’s not you. He’s Royalton. The other night he invited me over for dinner at his house, and he fixed me this huge meal, with oysters and pasta and wine and cigarettes. Eating those oysters and drinking that red wine made me . . . kind of hot for him.”
“Uh huh.”
“After we finished eating, we were sitting at the table sighing and loosening our belts, and he stood up and reached over me to get this napkin, which was sitting on a shelf behind me. As he was reaching, his arm kind of brushed against my breast, you know, by accident, swiped my nipple the tiniest bit . . .”
“Mmm hmmm.”
“And it just made me crazy, I mean it really made me hot, because my ex-boyfriend used to play with my tits for hours on end and he made them really sensitive. Now, even if somebody just brushes against one of them by accident, it makes me insane!”
“Talk about fucking him.”
Damn, I thought. I always get carried away at the tit part.
“So I went over to the bed and lay down to rest my head, and Royalton lay down next to me and started playing with my tits. No, that’s not what happened at all! I mean, I started playing with his big, hard cock—”
“Yeahhhhhh.”
“You wouldn’t believe how big his cock was, Charlton. It was really big.”
“I know.”
“I mean, it was just bulging against his pants. His pants were getting so tight on him that I wanted to free it. To let it loose. I started stroking it and it got so hard in my hands that suddenly, I couldn’t take it anymore! I just pulled up my skirt—I wasn’t wearing any underwear, by the way—and plopped smack down on that glorious cock! I began to bounce up and down, like a little girl romping with her dad, and pretty soon I could feel him get ready to pummel me—”
“Make it that he came from you blowing him.”
“Um, but I was tired of sex. What I really wanted to do was take him in my
mouth. I got off him and took it in both of my hands, then leaned down, opened up, and pressed my lips real tight around the tip. I used my lips to cover my teeth ‘cause I didn’t want to bite him, no, ‘cause that would hurt! I took him in my mouth so very, very deep and played with the little spot at the base of it, right above the balls, pressed that spot with my tongue—”
“Mmmmm.”
“I had a feeling he was gonna come soon. Was he?”
“I think so.”
“So I worked it good, licking it and kissing it and tickling his balls the whole time! I could feel him start to tremble and shake. His cock was stiff as my back, and suddenly, he started to shoot the warmest come—”
“Uhh!”
“Come as warm as soup—”
“Uhhhh!”
“All the way down into my throat, and it tasted so sweet and good.”
“Unnnnnnhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.”
He was quiet.
“How was it?” I asked.
“You should charge.”
“You think so?”
“Definitely. Were you playing with yourself too?”
“No, Charlton. It was more of an . . . artistic orgasm for me. I’ll see you Friday.”
•
The next morning at work I wrote a transcript of the phone sex, as best I could remember it, on a notepad on my lap. I knew not to type it on the computer because with automatic saving, you never know what could wind up on the company hard drive. Right as I was in the midst of the “little girl romping with her dad” part, the Corposhit came out of her office without any warning and I had to jerk my swivel chair forward under the desk so she couldn’t see what I was doing.
Since I’d started the column, I’d been a little nervous about the possibility of her finding out and firing me. But the great thing about New York City is that it’s really a thousand separate cities. People live in their own individualized universes, and the different universes almost never intersect. Midtown middle-rung corporate administrators don’t read downtown weeklies unless they’re highly atypical, and I could always count on the Corposhit for being one hundred percent typical.
Friday night after work, I changed into a white sparkly crop top from the French Connection and slim red cigarette pants. I had to admit I was pleased with how I looked. Because the shirt was cropped it made me look skinnier than I was, and the pants hugged my ass 1950s-bad-girl style.
Charlton’s show was about a trailer park family that worships Elvis. Charlton played the dad. As soon as he came onstage in his white-trash strut, with his overgrown facial hair, blackened teeth, and wad of chewing tobacco in his mouth, I juiced up like never before. When a guy’s a matinee idol to you, he stays one.
After the play I went to the dressing room. Charlton was standing in front of a mirror without a shirt, wiping his fake stubble off his face with a Kleenex. His pecs were toned and he didn’t have any chest hair.
“Hi, Royalton,” I said.
He turned and appraised me, top to bottom. “You look good,” he said. The outfit had worked. My matinee idol was about to become my boy toy.
We took a cab together to the West Village, where the party was, grabbed two beers, made our way through the crowd, and sat down on the couch side by side.
“It’s really good to see you again, Charlton,” I said. “I’ve thought about you many times over the years.”
“Yeah?” His eyes narrowed and he leaned in close.
“Yeah. I had a huge crush on you when we were doing Long Day’s Journey. But I was afraid to even flirt with you because I’d heard Victoria was incredibly jealous.”
“She was. It’s one of the reasons we broke up.”
“When did that happen?”
“A few months after I graduated.”
“Have you seen anyone seriously since then?”
“A couple girls, but nothing long-lasting. How about you? You seeing anyone?”
“Of course not. I’m a sex columnist, remember?”
He leaned back on the couch, cocked his head to the side, and said, “I’m not surprised that’s your job. There’s something about you that really makes men want to jerk off when they’re around you.”
“What?”
“There’s something about you that makes men want to jerk off.”
He was right—I mean, my experiences had proven him true—but no guy had ever spelled it out like that before so boldly and brashly. “Jesus Christ!” I shouted.
“What?”
“You’re not supposed to say that—even if it’s what you really think! You’re supposed to tell me, ‘There’s something about you that really makes men fall in love with you.’”
“I’m not in love with you,” he said. “But I really wanna jerk off. I have such a boner right now. There’s a yard out back. Do you want to come down with me?”
He was crude, lewd, and socially unacceptable—lousy boyfriend material but ideal column material. What was that Voltaire quote—“Once a philosopher, twice a pervert”? What was wrong with a little good-natured romping, as long as I understood my own motives? Besides, I wanted him. It wasn’t like I wouldn’t get anything out of this deal.
I followed him down the steps and around to the back of the house. We sat on a wooden picnic bench, straddled it, and faced each other. He took my neck between his hands and leaned toward me with his mouth open. I expected him to be a messy kisser, but he wasn’t. He was warm and sleek and not too wet. I wrapped my arms around his back and felt his muscles. He reached behind me and unhooked my bra in about one second. I felt like Susan Sarandon with Kevin Costner. It was very impressive. It’s such an erotic downer when you’re going at it and the guy can’t unhook your bra. He lifted the bra up, massaged my breasts, and sighed.
“I hope you like them,” I said. “They’re real.”
“I can tell,” he said.
I fumbled with his fly and slid it out. It was solid and smooth, just like his chest. He unzipped my pants and slid his hand down my underwear. It felt OK, but it was hard to get the angle right when my pants were on and I was sitting on a bench.
“What are you thinking about me doing to you?” I whispered, placing his other hand on his dick.
“You’re blowing me.” That was a shocker.
“What else?”
“You’re taking me between your tits.” He tried to stick it there but then some drunk guy from the party stumbled over to us and I had to push it away. The guy wandered off, I leaned toward Charlton, and whispered, “My tiny little open kisser could suck you so right. I bet girls want to blow you all the time. I bet they beg you to let them. Don’t they, Charlton? Don’t they?”
“Uhh! Uhhhh! Unnnnnnhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!” he cried, and shot it out onto the bench. Three piddling puddles of pud juice. “Jesus Christ,” he said. “I can’t believe you got me that horny.”
“Me neither,” I said.
He buttoned his fly and we went back up to the party. When we got to the living room I sat down on the couch and he started dancing with one of the girls in the cast. Suddenly she pulled away from him and yelled, “Charlton! Charlton! You have some bubble gum on your pants!”
“Oh my God. I do?” he said, looking down. “I’m so embarrassed!”
I blushed and hung my head, sure it was a come stain. The girl would ask Charlton what he’d been up to, he’d point to me, everyone would turn and stare, and then I’d have to tell them all about our secret bench jerk.
He futzed with his fly, and for a moment it looked like a huge stretchy film of bubble gum was coming out of his pants. But then I looked closer and I could see it was his ball skin. He was pulling his ball skin out of his fly to make it look like bubble gum. And he had this glint in his eye that made it clear this was a stunt he had pulled before, a stunt he was known for.
“Do it again, Charlton!” his friends chanted. “Do it again!”
As I watched him pull it out a second time, a sick smile spread across my face. With this coup de grâ
ce, Charlton had revealed himself to be not just foul-minded but severely demented. The more perverse the fodder, the better the story. After “Don’t Call Us,” this ditty would be a hell of a comeback. As the crowd roared again at Charlton’s testicular exhibition, I slipped out the door and went home to write.
•
I finished the column quickly, but after I sent it to Turner I got a heavy feeling in my stomach. In the heat of the moment, when I’d been whispering and Charlton had been stroking, I had felt excited, high, revved. But now I just felt weary. It had been a long time since I’d jerked a dick that belonged to someone I loved. A long time since I’d held someone, been held. I was a hopeless romantic trapped in the body of a seething hussy. I missed intimacy. I wanted passion and companionship and deep discussion and lots of compliments delivered to me regularly without any misgivings or posturing. I wanted sidewalk embraces and hand holding and hair caressing and eight-hour lovemaking and dozens of phone calls and every cheesy line uttered in a John Hughes or Cameron Crowe movie. But I didn’t know how I was supposed to get it. If I couldn’t beat the boys, wasn’t it wisest to join them? And get paid for it in the process? I turned off the computer and looked out the window at the lights on the expressway.
•
The Wednesday “The Bubble Gum Ball” came out was the day before Thanksgiving. Every year my parents, Zach, and I go to my grandparents’ house in Philadelphia, and this year wasn’t any different. The Corposhit had given me a half day and I was supposed to go straight to my parents’ to drive to Philly.
On my way out of work to the subway I stopped at the Week box and took out the paper. First I flipped to the column. The cartoon was me sitting on a bench grabbing Charlton’s dick, with three droplets of come landing right on my face. I flipped back a few pages to “The Mail” and scanned the columns for my name, but there wasn’t a single letter about “Don’t Call Us.” I wasn’t surprised. I shut the paper and started to read the cover article—an interview with a Republican party bigwig—when something caught my eye. Across the bottom of the front page, in huge white letters, against a bright red banner, was