Working Sex

by Annie Oakley

  a stratification of the sexes

  individual style, radical politics, and anarchic behavior—the very tenets of homosexual radicalism

  politically it was also attempting to rethink how to organize society, to decentralize power and to fight corporatization.

  The early roots of punk were also based on sexual revolution: experimentation with sexual ambivalence, bi- and homosexuality, androgyny, and even gender dysphoria

  disposable or worthy of contempt even while adoring you.

  ABSORBINE GYLLENHAUL LYRICS BY VAGINAL DAVIS

  Chorus

  Jake Gyllenhaul

  I can always tell when he’s near me

  Jake wants it all wants it all wants it all

  Jake Gyllenhaul

  can’t control himself when he’s near me

  Jake, wants it all

  wants it all

  wants it all

  I know I shouldn’t keep him waiting

  With those eyes that kill me

  and are so penetrating

  and his body fills me

  from the ejaculating

  and I give it all

  give all give it all

  give it all

  (repeat chorus)

  I don’t know what he sees in me

  I’m not Scandinavian royalty

  he’s the hot boy of the Hollywood town

  he’s the young one who can carry the crown

  I’ll get up for him and then lie back down

  give it all

  give it all give it all

  give it all

  THE MALADJUSTED RULE LYRICS BY VAGINAL DAVIS

  chavs chavettes

  chavestites (repeat as chant)

  the maladjusted rule (repeat as chant)

  fool

  from that you can construe

  tool

  if you’re mindlessly content

  you are just a slug, inert, a dent

  you do not move the human race forward

  yours is the face you can’t go towards

  I scream to see you take up so much space

  the outsiders should rule the race

  chavs chavettes

  chavestites (repeat as chant)

  the maladjusted rule (repeat as chant)

  fool

  from that you can construe

  tool

  Take the trauma of youth

  use as a creative bridge

  its all about perspective

  the popular they peak too early

  I much prefer the sour and surly

  thank you for the misfit

  thank you sweet misfit

  harassed and tortured

  individualists

  (shouting)

  the city and the pillar

  nobody knows my name

  other voices, other rooms

  play it as it lays

  the history of forgetting

  the poetry of william blake

  michelangelo, dante, keats

  caravaggio

  turning trauma into creativity that’s why the mal-

  adjusted rule!!!

  house call

  Aiden Shaw

  The john invited me in. He fell back against the wall, then collecting himself said, “Follow me.” The stairway led to a living room with red carpet. This room was well lit and made the carpet look very bright, almost throbbing. It seemed to pour over the top step on its way downstairs. I glanced around the room, checking out the place. When entering this kind of situation, I become very wary. Everything becomes a clue as to who it is I’m dealing with. Clear plastic podiums sat spaced at intervals around the edge of the room. On them were gold, black, and white ceramic figures: the front view of a muscular torso, the back view including buttocks, and a pair of women’s hands. There was a single print on each wall, behind glass and framed in bright red plastic. I hadn’t seen prints like these since the early ‘80s. They were all of women, wearing wide-brimmed hats and red lipstick. The first was smoking a cigarette from a long holder; the second was wearing long black gloves and appeared to be straightening her hat; the third was blowing a kiss; and the fourth had long red nails which were laced together, supporting her chin. I was surrounded.

  Proudly, he took me on a tour, tripping, stumbling, and holding himself against walls for support. I was shown his bedroom. The walls and ceiling, although covered with textured wallpaper, were both painted with black gloss. The cupboard doors entirely covering one wall and a shelf running the length of another all got the same treatment. On the shelf I could make out a plastic figure of Jesus beside what looked like a bible. Black carpet started at the doorway and had a chrome strip to cover the join. Several screws were missing and it bulged in the middle. The door was stopped open by a brick. I presumed the whole floor was covered with this black carpet but I could only see it in patches, through the bunches of unwashed smelling clothes.

  The bed sheets had probably once been black, but over time had faded to gray. From the ceiling hung the wire frame of a lampshade with a dusty red scarf draped over it. Beside this, directly over the bed, was a sling with chains too thin to really support anybody. From the doorway I could just see under the edge of the bed. There were several pillowcases, the same color as the ones on the bed, apparently stuffed with more clothes. Maybe these were the smelly ones and the scattered ones were clean. I could also see, spilling out from the other end of the bed a few superhero comics, a porn magazine, and a stray cock ring.

  We moved on, back through the living room and into the kitchen. Where the red carpet stopped, cream patterned linoleum took over. This room clearly didn’t have the same aesthetic as the other rooms, and I guessed it hadn’t been decorated since he’d moved in. Maybe he thought it didn’t count. It was like a million kitchens I’d seen worldwide, with the obligatory gray/cream color scheme. I think it wasn’t actually meant to be part of the tour, but was included so he could top up his drink. He got this from a selection of bottles beside a microwave. The fridge had three magnets on it: a Dalmatian, a glitter-covered pair of ruby slippers, and what looked like pink neon swirling handwriting. I think it was the word Fabulous. Tucked under this was a note that read “call mum.”

  There were cupboards but they barely registered as distinct from the wall behind them or anything else in the room. The handles were brass-looking disks, like miniature versions of a door handle you might find in a castle. The nerve center of this room appeared to be a glass fruit bowl area. In it were four brown bananas, small change, a comb, a stick of chewing gum, and a notebook. Behind this, propped on the marbled Formica counter, was a bulletin board covered in pictures of glamorous women, porn stars, and polaroids of men (whom I guessed were previous prostitutes he’d hired), mounted like animal head trophies. The john took my arm and led me back through the living room again and into an adjoining bathroom.

  “This is my favorite,” he said, turning and winking at me. “If you know what I mean.” I didn’t. The wall tiles, carpet, wicker wash basket, and soap were all shades of black. The only things in the room that weren’t black were the red plastic marble-effect bath and some off-white socks and underpants on the floor by the wash basket.

  “Check out the sexy ceiling,” he slurred, trying to gesture but sloshing his drink and falling against the doorframe. I looked up, seeing my reflection and behind me, a hand with a glass in it. I smiled at myself. “We’ll get in there later . . . ″ he said, referring to the bath. I glanced over at it and noticed several brown marks where the plastic had melted. Cigarette burns, I guessed. “I’ll soap you up.”

  “That’ll be great,” I said, my eyes flicking to the soap. It hung from the faucet by a black piece of rope. Again he took my arm, more as support for himself than as a guide for me. He pointed haphazardly to a chrome and glass coffee table.

  “There’s some coke there if you want it.”

  “Thanks.” I knelt down to do some, but was distracted by a bowl of chocolates in co
lorful, shiny wrapping on top of the table, then, through the glass, at things under the table. There was a slipper upside down with a foil milk bottle top stuck to the sole. Also there was some mail that hadn’t been opened. I couldn’t remember the john’s name, but I knew it didn’t correspond to the one on the mail.

  “Don’t worry there’s plenty more,” he said, presumably thinking I was staring at the coke.

  “Right!”

  “Help yourself to chocolate too. Sit down. Let me get you a drink. Whiskey okay?”

  “Great!” He went to the kitchen.

  I couldn’t see a cat, but the couch was covered in hairs. I realized there was an animal smell to the whole place. It was only a minute or two before he returned. The curtains were dark green, made from a synthetic velvety fabric. The TV was probably the biggest you could get, five years ago. It already looked dated. There were birthday cards on top. Most had cartoon characters or beautiful naked men on them. It must be his birthday. I looked around for more evidence of this, but there wasn’t any. The TV might have been the designated area for birthday. Every other surface was covereded with something. A figurine, a photo in Perspex frame, a cuddly toy, or glass something.

  “So what did you have in mind?” I asked, with innuendo in my voice and the best sexy expression I could muster. He must have been anticipating my question because he threw a black Adidas sports bag at my feet. Perhaps he thought things were moving too slowly. I opened it and looked in.

  “Help yourself,” he said nonchalantly. “It might be easier if you empty it.”

  “Where?”

  “On the floor.”

  I tipped the gear out onto the carpet and started sifting through it. It was mostly leather, rubber, and metal, with an occasional dick pump or handkerchief. There was nothing surprising in the whole mess, but it looked dramatic against the red carpet, like props for a horror film. “Put that cock ring on,” he said, “and leave your boots on.” He asked me to walk around the room and lean against walls. I kept checking out the room. The curtains were hemmed in a mismatched thread and held together with a pin where they met.

  “I like that,” he said, referring to my facial expression. I must have been frowning.

  I had the idea of getting us into the bedroom to make him cum. I headed toward it and said, “Come in here.”

  “I like that,” he said again. “Tell me what to do.” He collected his cigarettes, whiskey, and poppers, squinted his eyes, and said once more, “I like that.” He scurried into the bedroom and onto the bed. Ash dropped onto the sheet from the cigarette in his hand. I lay on top of him, focusing on the sheet. Like the couch it was coated with cat hair. I turned my head to the side, facing an ashtray full of cigarette butts. I turned the other way. Now I faced a red plastic foldout chair with a cup of cold tea or coffee on it. Mold floated on top. I closed my eyes and pretended I was somewhere else, in my lovely home, with my lovely baby. This worked long enough to get the job done. He came. I left.

  my pride and broken buzzers

  Anna Joy Springer

  I lost a lot of my old buttery popcorn in my mid-twenties and my buzzers got pretty death defying. My fun house had always been filled with mounds and mounds of buttery popcorn, so now there was all this empty space where the popcorn had been. Everything sagged and swayed. My buzzers looked like used condoms tied off and thrown in the street. Ugly stripey-stripes cut big gashes all over them. They looked like they’d been in an accident with a badly trained tiger. Who’d want to slam their hands down on my deflated buzzers now?

  Pushed up in their forced fanfare, they looked fine. I’d roll them up like a hot sticky bun and push them into promotional soda cups. It was when they unfurled that I had problems.

  But they weren’t as death defying when I was twenty years old and my fun house was full of buttery popcorn. Back then I was shakin’ my clam at the amusement park for wall-eyed pickpockets, reading their palms. Everyone always told me that no paying customer likes to enter a fun house stuffed with buttery popcorn, but they were wrong. With my loud, flashy, puffed-up buzzers, I lured all kinds of returning champs into my palm-reading booth at the amusement park for wall-eyed pickpockets. But even stuffed full of buttery popcorn, my buzzers weren’t very loud or flashy after I let them loose. Once I got one inside my booth and showed him how to drop his coins into the money catcher, I’d lift one buzzer out and prop it up on the padded forced fanfare. I’d squeeze the “sold” button and pet my pantaloons with one finger, then sneak the buzzer back into its forced fanfare while I distracted the champ by making risk-it-all moves with my tongue near a fake rubber nose on my window. Then, slowly, mesmerized, the champ would offer his sweaty palm, and I’d read it for him. I wouldn’t touch the hand; I’d read his fake fortune through bulletproof glass. I’d read it so slowly and so meaningfully, he’d forget all about my hidden buzzers, and drop more coins into the money catcher. We both knew I was lying about his promising future, but that was the scam. I was the unrivalled palm-reading queen of the amusement park for wall-eyed pickpockets, but after two years of conjuring fabulous stories about the lackluster champs’ future love, success, and money, I lost my competitive edge. I had no desire to wow. My emu feathers sagged. I poked at myself in the mirror, threw back toxic shots, and grimaced instead of smiling, like there was chicken blood on my teeth. I stood in front of the wavy mirror and could only see the lumpy buttery popcorn filling my fun house. I hated the champs for returning. I hated the whole damn park.

  The returning champs watched me get drunker and puffier and meaner at the amusement park for wall-eyed pickpockets, and they stopped coming to get their palms read. Nobody but the foulest suggested an after-hours puppy washing. They couldn’t even look at me, let alone beg to slam their hands down on my buzzers for a chance to win it all. I had to leave the razzle-dazzle show. Once I cleared out some of the buttery popcorn from my fun house, I’d go back into business. Maybe I’d start my own puppy-washing gig. I’d be grand. But the truth was I’d always hated crowds and forced cheer. The wall-eyed pickpockets in their embarrassing clown shoes. I’d always hated a parade.

  I entered the temporary protection field because I could type. I became an arranger of important white rectangles. I started using an adding machine and a professional tone. I ran in place for half an hour at lunchtime. I covered my fun house with unfreaky costumes from mannequin stores, and I unratted my hair until it looked beaten. I told my buzzers to fuck off between nine and five; they could take a nap or whatever they wanted, but they couldn’t flash or make noise.

  Once a year, because I became middle class in the temporary protection field, I took my mandatory vacation at a Museum of Survivor Specimens. I became one of those nouveaux, credit-card lesbians who experiments with foreign diversions in survivor museums, because museums turn lesbians into paying spectators, which is highly uncomfortable. We find ourselves craving familiar awe-inspiring tricks. If only those little plastic deer eyes had cameras behind them.

  I ended up in the back of a diorama with one of the museum’s persistent but creepy diversions. He was a catchy jingle-writer for rip-off tourist attractions. He took me to the hidden part of the dancing bear exhibit, and I hissed but watched myself follow. He kept talking about “the beauty”—the beauty of a dancing bear in a tutu with sleek ankles, the beauty of a good jingle; they were the same thing, he said. I hated the jingle-writer, but there I was behind the taxidermic bear in her dusty crinolines, stuffing his dumb little rubber nose down my throat, gagging, trying to have a cultural experience. Trying to have a familiar awe-inspiring trick. When I took off my forced fanfare, he gasped.

  “What happened to you?” He said, pointing at my heart.

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  I knew what he meant, but I’d had the same lovely assistant for years and had almost forgotten my buzzers looked broken.

  “All those lines, those stripey-stripes?”

  “I got attacked by tigers,” I said. “At work.�
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  He left in his teeny-tiny car while I was sleeping against a paw-shaped ballet slipper. I had to find my own way out of the carefully organized Museum of Survivor Specimens, without getting caught there and put on display.

  When I got back home, I knew it was time to get my buzzers fixed—maybe I could win a brand new washer and dryer set. Then I could start a new puppy-washing business and leave the temporary protection field. A hands-on puppy wash and palm-reading session. I’d encourage my paying spectator to slam his hands down on my buzzers, and we’d stick our fingers in the mouth of the lion. We could risk it all, do everything. No more amusement parks with their safe little bulletproof booths. But first I needed to win the appliances on a game show for the dispossessed, where they’d give me a public repair job.

  At the game show for the dispossessed, I met a buzzer repair specialist who was a blood-and-grease wrestler. She gave me a cotton candy blob and made me watch a dynamic training video about the repair job. Full financing was available at 9.8 percent.

  I was making $12 an hour in the temporary protection field, but if I could win my brand new washer and dryer set, I’d make some real money, I told her, not just the chump change I got reading palms at the amusement park for wall-eyed pickpockets. I’d pay the loan back presto. I wanted my buzzers sliced, diced, and shiny, ready to work. I wanted to fling off my forced fanfare, to run my fingers over my emu feathers and feel my booby prizes tighten up and shiver like little ballerinas. I’d make the returning champions pay $200 an hour to slam their hands down on my new puffy, fastsinging red alarms and get their puppies washed superclean. The blood-and-grease wrestler said, “That’s awe-inspiring.”

  The video taught me that the blood-and-grease wrestler would carefully cut all the way around my “sold” button and lift it off with special tongs. Then she would stretch the extra stripey tent material out into the air, cut off the extra tent, and sew the “sold” button back on to the newly fitted stripey tent. Presto! Loud flashy buzzers galore! I liked the idea of my “sold” button sitting on a pile of ice in a promotional soda cup, like a fresh pink clam.