Benjamin calls to give me the sex party update: the coke was great, everyone wanted John but he only took off his pants, Jeremy’s a great cocksucker and his ass was tasty. Jeremy never gives me the details—Benjamin says that’s so bourgeois; she likes that word. I get a grapefruit seed extract inhaler, haven’t been able to use the neti pot to clean my sinuses since some yogi died of a brain infection. Rue thinks I’m crazy, but there are roaches in my forehead—they climbed through my eyes and settled behind them, nests of fury.
I want to go to the Power Exchange with Jeremy, but he just took a Vicodin—he says: wait for me and we’ll go tomorrow. If I said that to him, he’d run out the door. Did I mention that I fought the cold and won? I decide to stay home and make sure. It’s become clear during the Pope’s busiest week that his mobility is seriously impaired. Jeremy and I drive down the coast to look at the Montara Point Hostel. It’s cute, but they make you leave your room by 10 a.m.—forget that shit. The sand is coarse—Jeremy’s right, it doesn’t get in my clothes. We’re a spectacle for the other tourists. Jeremy says I’ll take you for a ride, and pulls over into a ditch. Santa Cruz is a suburban blight; I can’t believe there isn’t something we’re missing—why would anyone live here? At night, we discover the beach: okay, that’s why.
We walk out to a lighthouse and play our favorite game. Do you like light? Yeah. What color? Green. What about blue? Yeah. Red? No. How come? Too red. And I’m sucking Jeremy’s dick. The sign says DANGER SUDDEN WAVES CAN WASH YOU OUT TO SEA EVEN ON CALM DAYS. But the real danger is my come-shot—two weeks’ worth and Jeremy’s scared, I make him take some of it anyway, but honey don’t spit that out when you can spit it into my mouth. Afterwards I’m so high, I can’t open my eyes.
Do you like houses? There’s one with a staircase down to landscaped gardens—on the fucking beach! It must cost millions for that simple pleasure of sand in your toes every morning. Zan’s mother has a stroke, Zan says now I have to visit my horrible family. The tricks decide I am a whore, after all. Number one asks me if I do this often. Two plays “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?” while rubbing Aveda body polish on my back—it’s supposed to feel like an orgasm but it hurts. Number three says your mouth is eternal. Number four smells like stale sweat, I mean really stale. Number five wants me to dress him up in something sexy—two nights and I’ve made about as much as the rest of March. Jeremy calls from down the street at the Gangway, but I need to go to bed.
Do you like lighthouses? Not when it’s so bright outside, today I feel like either I’m still sleeping or I didn’t sleep at all—what a delightful combination! Andee calls to give me the Berlin update: when Larry King asks Liza how it feels to be back in the spotlight, she says Larry, it’s a long way back from encephalitis of the brain. Elton John on what he wants to get Liza for her wedding: a heterosexual husband. Jeremy goes to the 12:30 a.m. show of Panic Room with Jodie Foster, it’s the worst movie he’s ever seen—he calls to tell me the plot from beginning to end: Evian, booby-traps, and an Upper West Side townstone, or is it a brownhouse?
Do you like brown houses? Three more tricks: first one wants to fuck me, second one has six cats, third one lives in a brown house with Jodie Foster. In between my tricks, Jeremy and I go to Cha-ya and Aquatic Park. There’s no one at the park, guess we have to get it started. With the fog rolling in, it’s a vibrant landscape in some dusty museum, look at the way the colors shine through the canvas—but wait, there’s the highway just across the blue lagoon. I’m sitting on an overturned tree, it’s all about the wind rushing up my legs as I’m sucking Jeremy’s dick, damn it he gets me so excited when he says with so much eloquence and charm: you want my load? Honey I want everything, piling up in my stomach like glue.
I still want to hug Jeremy for ten hours, but we go to a bar and he licks the salt off my neck and pulls a lime out of my mouth with his teeth. The trick with the brown house says I like that you’re not jaded. At Aquatic Park, Jeremy opens his coat over my head while I’m sucking his dick, all that warmth. Back home, I’m calm in my exhaustion, for a change. Chrissie says I called you because you’re not drama—are you ready for drama? The light in the bathroom was off and then it went on, there are three men in the bathroom closet waiting for me, I went to the door to check it and it locked by itself.
Chrissie, how long have you been awake? Three or four days, I know that’s what’s wrong with my life but my illness is not turning lights on. I’m standing here with the knife, Mattilda—will you call me tomorrow? Chrissie, maybe you should take a cold shower—remember that time when we were outside the Hole in the Wall and I could feel my head cracking open, slipping into death, and cold water brought me down?
Chrissie says: I’ll try it, but call me tomorrow. I say: I’ll call you tomorrow. My three-hour trick is so nervous—the military in the English countryside, operations on his dick when he was born and he says it looks weird but it works okay. It looks like somebody smashed it with a hammer, over and over again until it gave way. He has two holes in his dick; I wonder what the second one is for. Next trick at my house says interesting view, are there many sirens? How does he know? Fire after fire—is the whole city burning down? Then I realize he means police sirens.
WINGS
Every time I open my eyes, I’m staring at one of my trick’s moles—why are there so many? He wants to know if I’ve eaten caper berries, everybody’s eating caper berries this season. They look like tadpoles. I taste one—it’s crunchy and tart, really tart. This season is gonna be a good one.
Jeremy calls, he says someone asked about Mattilda and I just said everything’s perfect, it’s what I’ve always wanted. It makes me so happy when he says things like that, how can I even worry? I meditate to Mistress Barbara’s pounding non-stop techno assault—when I get up, I’m ready to do cartwheels. Later, I jerk off for the first time in I-don’t-know-how-long, it feels like months. I mean really. It’s much better than trying to hook up on the internet with someone I’m not gonna be attracted to anyway, who says things like: dude sup dig yr profile man wanna hook?
I go out to get groceries at 1 a.m.—everyone’s outside and I’ve got that calm sweetness pouring in through my eyes, yes oh yes I can actually feel joy. Until this one guy swivels around his head to stare at me with such an off-centered confused and dazed, vacant—surprise! No, really—surprise.
Back home, I’m allergic to the Oriental wrap that I bought as a late-night treat. Everything itches. I’m over the fucking electro revival, Miss Kittin can overdose. I have so many books that I’m never going to read, so much awful music. Next morning I wake up to a trick downstairs—shit, I rush to open the door but oh no it’s rejection, first thing in the morning he says I’m sure you’re a nice guy—wrong! Chrissie leaves a message: oh I hate your fucking answering machine, bitch—oh—stop it why are they here? Get away from me! I’ve got a present for you.
A trick comes over to fuck my face and I’m actually loving it, could come any second and oh the beauty of just holding it in and holding down my not-quite-act: desperate for his load! And then he comes, three four five streams all over my face and I’m rushing to the bathroom to snap a picture—my new art project. Then my eye swells up—dammit I can’t be allergic to come! Um, what happened to your eye, buddy? Dude I got punched in the face, it fuckin’ sucks.
Something amazing is happening to me. I walk into the Pilsner to piss and they’re playing Steely Dan, I mean Carly Simon, but it just sounds great, I want to dance around the room with my hair flying around in circles. Wait, it’s Sinéad O’Connor—well, same thing. The point is maybe six years of being macrobiotic and five years on and off of acupuncture, four years more or less of fighting candida and exercising regularly plus a year of physical therapy then seven months of chiropractic, therapy on and off forever, two years of no drinking or drugs, plus all the yoga, meditation, supplements and just plain learning to listen to myself and my body and everyone and the air around me—maybe all that’s finally getting me
somewhere, though my shoulder still hurts.
Are the liver detox pills working? Is it all about Jeremy, nothing compares to you, opening me up like Sweet Valley High in elementary school? It’s all here inside me, hummingbirds waiting inside purple flowers. But where’s Jeremy? It’s his birthday and I’ve prepared the gifts, I’ve made a special dinner. Maybe he decided to stay for his last class, or maybe he got really involved in the bathroom—there he is on my cellphone, sounds so sad oh honey of course I didn’t forget, damn it the phone cord’s unplugged. So glad I gave him my cellphone number, mostly I just use it for work.
Jeremy arrives, I’m hugging him to make him feel better—the flowers, Nina Simone, seaweed soup and rosemary red lentils, and yes the gifts, arranged with shiny silver notes between them. I fucking love having someone to love, can’t you tell? Jeremy’s so happy about everything—the earrings, shower mirror, Anal Pleasure and Health—he loves the food, he loves me, he loves me yes he loves me!
Did I mention the earrings? Sparkly geometries, thick hoops like your mother wore in the eighties but they’re not really hoops because they don’t go all the way around, blue shiny grapes, dangly pink hearts, and porcelain roses. Jeremy said he wanted tacky earrings—these are the best tacky has to offer and he’s smiling and laughing, oh I want to look at them again!
Jeremy’s red lips that get more and more chapped, why do I worry so much about getting hard? Nina Hagen really shakes it out in “Spirit in the Sky”—who doesn’t have a friend in Jesus? But “Universal Radio” is a dance floor danger zone, those beats are unavoidable—I’m standing barefoot on top of Jeremy’s shoes as we glide across the floor, my come down his throat in three gulps but wait there’s more. He says I can’t come, I’ve jerked off six times in the last two days. On the roof, it’s warm, we can watch everyone in the ugly apartments next door that look like ’80s condos—oh there’s Bree on her laptop!
Rue makes me a mix CD that’s almost all country, old country I guess but whatever it’s still country. My cellphone’s vibrating in my pocket, but wait I’m not carrying it—hooker! My trick wants to know where my boyfriend is—he’s at home. The trick looks both ways—here? No, silly—at his house. The trick’s more relaxed but confused, dense as a fence—no, that’s a brick wall, honey. Rhania calls, oh did you say hello? I only slept three hours last night; I was having a Mattilda moment. I’m at work, I just put the baby to sleep but now it’s awake again, okay bye.
Jeremy has crabs and I call craigslist for come on my face, anything else and I’m not really attracted to them, but I’m always ready for that subtle stickiness, that glimmer and shimmer, that gooey authenticity. Then the photo op—see, I do have a sense of history! Later, Jeremy helps me clean up the box of papers that’s been decomposing on my floor ever since I moved in—his suggestion—that’s love!
Domestication.com—where is it? There’s a sign for a permit hearing posted on the demolished building next door, am I going to have to move out? I call Zan: it’s a good thing I have this boyfriend ’cause no one else calls me back. Zan calls back: you never come to anything in the East Bay. I call her: I know you expect me to feel the vibe, but someone’s gotta call and tell me if something’s going on. Zan calls back: I’m quitting school, so you’ll see me more often.
I’ve heard that one before. Before bed, I drink the water that the flowers were in, with the mysterious white powder mixed in to preserve them. It doesn’t taste weird, but both of my ears close up—something’s bubbling over! In the morning, I piss in a glass, it feels kind of safe. It’s a beautiful day out, but my sinuses are sending out Morse code. Botox. Rufies. Hummer. Saturday night rocks. Jeremy gets so drunk at his birthday party that’s he’s falling up the stairs, grabbing his crotch and yelling at everyone: take it all. He keeps saying he needs to stop drinking, then grabs the nearest beer. Everyone’s doing coke in the bathroom, Jeremy says what are they doing? Coke—he’s rushing to the door like a little kid. Jeremy, you said you didn’t want any coke. I kiss him to distract, and also because I want to kiss him. It works for a few minutes, but then he’s back at the door, I turn him around and he heads down the hallway.
By 3 a.m., I’m way too tired to continue pretending I’m having fun. Jeremy says I’m sober now—see, I don’t need coke—and then he’s drinking another beer. I kiss him goodbye—love you—I’m disobeying my own rules by trying to keep him from the drugs, I always say that never works. In the cab, I’m sketchy, eyes rolling back and I’m craving coke for the first time in a while—the rush—it’s okay to let it roll just as long as I’m not actually rolling.
The next day, Jeremy calls to say thank you for taking care of me and keeping me from the coke—well, at least I was successful. We go to the Powerhouse and some guy squeezes his come into my mouth—damn that’s hot, though Jeremy misses it and immediately I worry about STDs. Jeremy says I love watching you suck cock. Jeremy’s already jerked off twice today and I don’t understand my libido, for a minute I was rock hard and then I drifted away, there’s some fear there. And performance anxiety, or is it just exhaustion?
I try to get Jeremy to go to the Power Exchange, but he’s ready for bed. He drops me off there because I want to be horny. It doesn’t work. Cab driver says eye candy or eyesores? At home, I just want to get in bed, but my sheets are in the washer, have to wait until they dry. I call Jeremy, but is he on the internet? I keep hitting redial, but it goes right to voicemail. Why am I obsessing?
Don’t call me an internet sex addict, but I’ve been off and on craigslist for the last three hours—gotta get some more photos for the comeshot archive. First guy is so damn hot, beefy muscular guy with shaved blond hair—I can tell he’s sweet by how softly he touches my head. He starts pumping and just lets it all loose in my throat. So much for the photo. Next guy is prepped-out to the Abercrombie nines, but cute and skinny and nervous. I take it all over my face, he snaps the photo—send me one, okay? I can still smell his awful cologne, funny how my face feels stretched where the come landed—forget green clay! Now I’m waiting for a third guy to call. I guess I should get off sometime too, but really I just want more photos.
A vice cop comes over for an appointment. The funny thing is that it doesn’t make me nervous, but let me just look outside my door. Wait a second. A vice cop just came into my apartment—well, at least we didn’t have sex. He was shaking, I asked him if he wanted some water, the ice was shaking—but why do I feel sad for a cop who can’t express his gay desires? Maybe my brain synapses are wired wrong.
Chrissie calls, she can’t stop shitting ’cause of the jail food. Honey, when were you in jail? She says I took a sleeping pill and woke up in a hospital bed, fell on a cop and got arrested for assault. What? She says Luke and I got in a fight and he called the cops, I took a sleeping pill and went to bed. I say: now you’re back in his house again? She says it’s either here or the street.
When I wake up, never mind: I’m not awake. Chrissie calls, she says I’m painting the walls. What color? Oh just white, I’m covering up the graffiti. Did I tell you about that? It’s what happened after I talked to you last night—this whole house is falling down I need some glue. Don’t worry about me, Mattilda, I’m going to a clinic—I’m getting a job in a clinic, it pays $22,000 an hour.
Horny, tired. Horny. Tired. But wait here’s the horny part—at least, for a few minutes. I’m trying a new yoga studio—they keep the heat at 95 instead of 120. On the phone, they say they keep the windows open, so you can breathe, because that’s what it’s all about, right? After yoga, my asshole is pulsing with the rest of my body and I want Jeremy to fuck me. But yoga’s too hot; I wake up in the morning with holes in every single sinus. Help, date rape! Today’s the anti-war demo, a social event if there ever was one. Too bad it’s aimless choreography through the abandoned streets. Thousands of people marching with a permit on a Saturday instead of getting on a bridge and refusing to leave. Or doing anything more confrontational than holding signs and babies.
Jeremy’s rubbing my calf muscle during the movie! It’s these little things that drive me wild, leaning into him, hum. The next day it’s beautiful, basking in the alley cat sun, then to Jeremy’s bed for a nap—no, sex—which is all about grabbing his head and gazing into his eyes. Going wild when I come ’cause that’s the only way, a sunny day, his come all over me but no camera, a nap and a sinus headache.
Wow, it’s already dark. Jeremy and I are holding each other in so many different ways, days and days and days and days. Someone drops a tea ball in one apartment, a zipper goes down, piss, up. Outside, it’s still almost warm, but wait: this is the East Bay, I love Jeremy, this is the East Bay, I love Jeremy. Then I’m in my father’s office for the first time since I left, everything looks taller, and can he really be that well-preserved, thirty and tanned and muscular? He’s enraged then curious, he says what do you think? I say stop by my bedroom after you’re done with your patient. This strange game that I’ve been playing in my dreams: I’m taking control back from my father by sexualizing him. Instead of the same old split-me-in-half and check to see how I can possibly be alive.
Tweaked-out trick says I can’t come down to let you in, I’m getting a blow job. I get another cab. The next day is a day of car alarms, trick says are you open-minded or do you play safe? It must be flake season, because the next guy wants me to go across the street and get him two six-packs of Bud. At therapy, I’m crying about two kitty cats, they killed them and made me eat them? Or ee—for Easter, bunnies? But no it’s cats, dropped live into a fire pit, do cats have souls? I keep saying Allison’s so scared, she’s just a baby—holding my hands eight inches apart and cry cry crying for the kitty cats so sad. I’m trying to feel all of it and not worry about what actually happened versus what is also real, but maybe didn’t happen.
So Many Ways to Sleep Badly Page 6