by Holly Lorka
The next time I went shopping for a penis replacement, I spared no expense. I had learned some lessons and was tired of being disappointed. This was my dick, after all. I was finally going to have exactly what I wanted. What I bought was called “The Jaguar,” and that made me quite happy. It was an expensive, shiny black penis housed in a high-end leather harness with chrome buckles.
The leather smelled amazing coming out of the package. The first time I put it on, it felt like I was putting on a really great motorcycle jacket and I was going to go for a great ride. This setup was an unstoppable pair. When I wore it I didn’t think about my vagina at all. And when I kicked it into four-wheel drive, the leather kept up and made that great creaking sound and nothing broke. My dick was sleek and sturdy and classic, perhaps like me, if I was also black and didn’t still listen to Hall & Oates.
I’ve had this harness ever since. It’s been many years and I’ve stopped throwing away my dick after failed love affairs, because it’s mine. And it’s awesome. It will never break, and I know it so well that all the usual fumbling and buckling of getting a boner isn’t an issue. Because it’s The Jaguar!
Here’s where I need to talk to men about how nice and easy they have it. Guys, you get excited, you get a boner, you’re not in fifth-grade math class anymore and you’re ready to go. You don’t have to put anything on except maybe a condom. When I want to be inside of a girl with my dick, I have to plan and be well coordinated. I need to make sure she’s okay with using a strap-on. It’s usually implied that a guy will have a boner during sex, but I have to ask. Also, I have to make sure I’ve run the dishwasher recently, because no one ever got laid by saying, “Here, let me wash this first.”
And while it’s a complete turn-on to fuck with my strap-on, let’s be honest: it’s not the same as if it were an actual dick. While I can make a woman come with it, I can’t really feel it, except in my brain, which lucky for me does a great job of translating it to the rest of my body. With the right amount of concentration and pressure in the right places, I can totally get off. But I can’t tell if it slips out. I’m sure dicks slip out all the time, right? Shit gets all crazy down there, but I have to be told that I need to stick it back in. Awesome.
And even though I’m pretty good at putting on The Jaguar by now, things will have to stop while I do. FYI, once it’s on I may have to get up and walk around for a minute, maybe go get a beer from the refrigerator, because I just like the way that looks and feels, okay? I’m about to run through your wheat field. Give me a minute to get used to my legs.
Then, everything is awesome. My imagined penis magically gets to exist in the world, it magically works the way I want it to, and I’m not even dreaming. Sometimes, it’s even as good as my dreams are. Like the time I had sex with a girl when she was covered in gold glitter, because I am very, very lucky. When we were done I looked down at The Jaguar and it too was covered in glitter. I stared at it shimmering in the near-darkness and thought, I AM A UNICORN! When I picked it up off the floor and put it in the dishwasher the next day, I was sad. Though I needn’t have been sad, because the universal truth about glitter is correct. It never really goes away.
Then, there was the time I was driving back from a date I’d had in the country. I’d spent the afternoon with a beautiful woman in the middle of nowhere, getting incredibly sweaty while scorpions skittered across the floor and cows watched me through the windows. It was a day like John Wayne might’ve had. Giddy-up, Pilgrim. It only got better when, on the way home, I realized that I had both my black strap-on and a black gun in my black car with me. What I thought, besides how cool my life is, was what if I went to Red’s Indoor Gun Range on the way home? What if instead of the gun, I took my strap-on in, slapped it on the counter, and said, “I’d like to buy some live rounds for this thing, because this fucker’s been shooting blanks for years.”
Don’t worry. I just drove home and loaded the dishwasher.
the wonder of migration
I moved to Texas in 2006. It was February, and I was surprised at how cold it could be in Austin. The first night in my rental house was spent on the floor, as my furniture hadn’t yet arrived. The dog and the cat were suddenly affectionate that night, curling up on top of me and even into each other to stay warm.
If you’d asked me at any time in my life where I wanted to live, I never once would have said Texas. To me, Texas was just a place that made bad presidents, big hair, and highways that didn’t end. But then I had a special dream.
One night, probably in 2001 or 2002, I had a dream about a giant white billboard on top of a building. In big red letters on that billboard was the word “Austin.” I woke up in my bed in Phoenix and knew it meant something. I told my girlfriend about it and that it was important. Her reply to me was, “I’m never setting foot in Texas. There’s nothing good there.” Case closed. But the truth was, I never forgot that dream and that important dream hangover-y feeling.
Fast-forward a few years to when Stacey and I broke up. We had spent most of our relationship together in Phoenix where we both grew up, but we’d recently moved to Oregon for her new job. After the breakup I moved back to Phoenix but quickly realized that I hated it there. Or I guess I was tired of who I was there. We had been together for ten years, and we’d spent that time buying, living in, fixing up, and then selling houses in just about every part of that city. We had worked together in just about every hospital. There was nowhere I could go in that town to get away from the last ten years and the ghost of her. I needed to leave.
To get out of there as soon as possible, I took a travel nurse assignment in San Francisco. I didn’t decide to go there because I was a newly single lesbian/transy dude and that’s exactly where you should go if you find yourself in a similar situation, though it did work out nicely. It was just the first thing available. Being a nurse is a great career if you want to get the fuck out of somewhere, STAT.
When that assignment ended, I was ready for something new and more permanent. I was ready to go toward something instead of running away from something. That’s when I thought of the dream I’d had years ago, and I just knew I had to go. In one of those beautiful fuck-it moments, I packed my shit and moved to Austin. The minute I pulled in to this town, I knew I was home. My ex was so wrong about Texas.
There are weird things about living here, like the language. “Y’all” is a thing here. So is “all y’all,” which is the plural of “y’all.” It seems Texans don’t consider the multitude that “all” can indicate. Whatever.
Then there’s the Texas pride thing. Everything in Texas seems to be an advertisement for the state of Texas. Texas T-shirts, hats, bumper stickers, tattoos, beer koozies, yard signs, jewelry, corn chips, etc., are everywhere. A large number of folks here have the word “Texas” tattooed on themselves. Sometimes I want to scream, “But all y’all are already in Texas!”
In the break room at my job in Texas someone had left a cheese plate, which is the most unusual thing I’d ever seen in a hospital break room. The thing about this cheese plate, however, was there was a giant block of cheddar in the middle of it and it was carved in the shape of Texas. I’m pretty sure I’ll never go to New Hampshire and find cheese carved in the shape of New Hampshire. I wouldn’t even know what the shape of New Hampshire is.
Another weird thing about Texas is the political atmosphere surrounding sex. Not too long ago dildos were illegal here. As I couldn’t buy one at any stores, I had to get on the Internet to find them, where, ironically, they were all named after Texas culture. There was the Lonestar, the Outlaw, the Bandit, the Spur, and my favorite, the Rodeo Rick (see: Rick Perry, once governor of Texas).
So you could have a machine gun here, no problem. But if you walked into a convenience store with Rodeo Rick strapped to your belt, you’re going to jail. I reckon they’re afraid you’d stroll into the 7-Eleven armed as such and say, “Give me all the cash you’ve got in the register or you’re going eight seconds with the Governor.”
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They’ve since changed this law and it’s now legal to buy a dildo here, but for a while they needed to be referred to as “educational models” (insert all the jokes here). The only stipulation was that you couldn’t own more than six “educational models.” Maybe because they didn’t want anyone to open up a school. I don’t know.
Now, though, no one cares about the dildos, perhaps because one or more of our state politicians may or may not have been caught with one up their ass. So, good news: if dildos are your thing, you can now come to Texas and pick up one (or six).
Ladybugs are migratory. They go places on their tiny little wings, traveling and arriving and unpacking and staying for brief periods, then traveling off again in time to keep their schedules of departures and reservations.
I found this out the hard way. Not that anything about ladybugs could really ever be hard. A number of springs ago, I planted a wall of sunflowers in one of my yards in Phoenix that managed to attract a herd of insects that wanted to eat them. Not cool, herd. I went to the nursery for help, and they sold me a cup of ladybugs that I was to spread on my flowers. Ladybugs are not only migratory but also carnivorous, and they like to eat the bad guys.
The sticker on the cup said it contained three hundred ladybugs. I peered in at them crawling around on what looked to be an old paper towel and could barely fathom that there were three hundred in there. I had a small ladybug village in a paper cup. Were they related? Did they all hatch from the same parents? Did they like each other? I drove them home carefully lodged in the cup holder and released them over my fledgling sunflowers. They all flew away. Gone. Immediately. Not one stopped to roost on my flowers, not one hesitated to eat a bug for the road. They all just flew away in a cloud of orange as I stood in my yard and yelled at them to come back.
Shortly after I arrived in Austin, as the cold of February gave way to the pleasantness that is March here, those damned ladybugs showed up again. That’s right: Austin, Texas, is apparently on their migratory path. It may even be a major hub for them, who knows? But I can tell you that all three hundred that I had let go in Phoenix moved into the guest room of my rental house in Austin.
I obviously couldn’t confirm that they were all the same ones. They moved too quickly to get a good look at all of them. But with some there was a definite familiarity, a knowing that passed between us when we looked at each other. I could tell they were ashamed. I had purchased them, brought them home and set them free, and they left me standing there in my yard with my hands in my pockets. I bet they thought they’d never see me again. Now that I was here I bet they wished they’d treated me with a bit of respect, maybe eaten a bug or two before leaving just so they didn’t seem rude.
They only came out during the day and would cover the same sunny corner every time, a mass of moving little orange speckled things. I had no idea where they went at night, but when it got dark, they would disappear. Maybe they went over to a neighbor’s house where they had little bunkbeds or sleeping bags.
This lasted for about a month, and then, just as quickly as they appeared, they were gone. Off to some other hub on their migratory path.
I told my dad about them. His response was, “You need to call an exterminator. It’s just like any other infestation.”
No, it’s not, Dad. It’s magical. Plus, what kind of dick kills a ladybug on purpose?
I did some research into the symbolism surrounding ladybugs. The only thing I could find was that they are associated with good luck. I moved my writing desk into that sunny corner of the guest room and thought about those ladybugs every time I turned on my computer while I lived in that house. Sure, they were rude to me once, but maybe they’d be good to me from now on.
when alligators attack
The human body opens to the outside world in nine or ten places. It’s overwhelming to consider how vulnerable this makes us to the sheer number of things that are wafting into and out of us daily. I used to work in an emergency room, and I can report that the number of things that waft into people accidentally while they are in the shower alone is staggering. Apparently, people slip and fall upon random things like shampoo bottles or pepper mills frequently while bathing. My favorite, though, was the Ken doll that accidentally slipped into someone’s rectum and had to be removed by a doctor wielding forceps. It was a breach delivery, but I digress. What I mean to tell you about is something completely different.
Many Saturdays ago, after a decent night of drinking and watching the musical Xanadu, I was startled awake at 1 a.m. by the feeling of something crawling into my right ear. That’s not a pleasant sensation, waking up from a beer-induced slumber to the sound and feeling of tiny, crunchy leglets navigating your interior. Whatever it was crawled and crawled and crawled. Bad enough, I thought. But then, when it got in good and deep, it began biting my eardrum, which hurt worse than the Xanadu roller-skate disco music I’d subjected myself to earlier in the evening.
I’ve told you I’m a nurse, and over the years I’ve learned to remain calm in intense or even scary situations. Well, I didn’t really pull that off here. I shot out of bed naked, screaming, “GET OUT, GET OUT, GET OUT!” while jumping up and down on one leg and crying. This was obviously one of the finer moments of my life. Too bad no one was there to witness it.
You know what’s worse than the searing pain of being bitten repeatedly on the eardrum? Hearing it. Way the fuck up close: chewchewchewchew. It would stop for a second, then I’d feel it slither or stroll or line dance around in there, then it would start the chewing on me business again, and I’d start jumping around and crying and trying to scream it out of my ear. Is there a hidden camera in my house?
In my rational state, I decided the only thing I could do was to drive to my hospital for help. In between the crawling/chewing/ screaming/jumping, I pulled some clothes on and got into the car and tore off and blew through every goddamned red light while still screaming and crying from the pain and the terror of it all, daring any cop to pull me over and try to figure out how much K2 I’d ingested. There was a moment on Loop 360 when I thought, Well, at least I’ll get a good story out of this, and it could only be better if I also had diarrhea. Right after that thought, before I made the final turn onto the road that led to the hospital where I would certainly humiliate myself with my psychotic behavior in front of my coworkers, I had diarrhea I felt that fucker crawl out of my ear.
Have you ever seen anyone try to get away from themselves while attempting to stay in the driver’s seat and still actually operate a car? I knew it was out, but I didn’t know where it went; it was dark and I was looking mostly at the road. All I knew to do was to perpetrate the most violent assault on myself—my shoulder, my arm, my head and hair—to make sure that thing was either dead or scared enough of me to stay the fuck away.
I turned around and drove home, steering with my knee so I could keep my hands over my ears. When I got home I tore all the sheets and pillows off the bed and took off my clothes. Then I drank a large glass of wine, stuffed earplugs into both sides, and went back to sleep like it was just another Saturday night, because that’s how it was around my house for a while. It was all just bizarre enough that the next morning I wondered if perhaps I’d imagined it or dreamed it. But my eardrum throbbed like someone had raped the side of my head with an alligator.
I called a friend and told her about it, and she said, “Why didn’t you just pour rubbing alcohol into your ear? It would have crawled right out.” She said it like everyone knows this. Like everyone in a state of complete panic and terror would walk into the bathroom, open the cabinet, and handle the situation. Thanks a lot, friend, but I wasn’t really scraping great thoughts together at 1 a.m. on a drunken Saturday night with an alligator in my ear.
And as I haven’t owned rubbing alcohol since I got my ears pierced in the sixth grade, I went the next day to buy the biggest bottle of rubbing alcohol available. I got a ride to Walgreens from my friend, though, because there’s only so much driving you ca
n do with your knee.
the simple comfort of rocks and underpants
(just one more horrifying event)
My dog and I were once attacked by a pit bull. I’d say that my dog and I were attacked by another dog, but nothing about this pit bull reminded me of any other dog I’d seen.
I’d just finished a day of hot and sweaty yard work. I wasn’t wearing underpants because I had on loose jeans and saw it as an opportunity to let everything breathe, even the parts of me that don’t have lungs. Commando in the yard is my choice every time.
My friend Robin was coming over for a steak dinner, so my plan was to walk to the Texaco at the end of the street and buy some beer to go with dinner. And probably a few to have before the dinner on my porch before I put on underwear. More of the breathing process.
I walked with my dog (a severely loyal rat terrier) down the street, but we never made it to the Texaco. A hundred feet from the store, a pit bull punched his square head through the wooden fence that was supposed to keep him enclosed. He grabbed my dog by the face and began pulling him into his yard, presumably to eat him.
I was as loyal to this dog as he was to me. He accompanied me everywhere. He didn’t need a leash; he just hung out alongside me being a cool-as-shit dog. Now here he was, my loyal companion, being dragged into the lair of a pit bull.