There was Holly, wearing jeans and a tee shirt with no bra, her face streaked with tears, her eyes red and swollen, and the awful teeth prominent in her mouth. I didn’t invite her in because I didn’t want to make a scene in front of Lou, who by this time had emerged from the shower in his robe. I took Holly by the arm and walked out in front of the house. She rambled on about how much she loved me and how she couldn’t bear to be without me. What could I do? I pointed out again and again that it was over, that I was sorry she was hurt, but that there was nothing I could do now. Nothing helped. Finally I just had to escape. I walked away, leaving here there in front of Lou’s house and I got into my car and drove off.
It was a relief to be free of her and her cloying emotional needs. As I looked back, just before I turned the corner I saw her there with Lou, he in his robe, with his arm around her, she shaking and sobbing. I slowed down to watch, and eventually they disappeared into the house together. I bet old Lou had her in the sack within ten minutes, and hey I wish him well, even if he doesn’t know what he’s getting into. And I thought about Holly, so crazy about me but obviously willing to tumble into bed with the next guy who comes along. It’s just like I always said—women never have any ethics.
Fauna
Daddy’s Money
Is there anything more wonderful than lying naked in a Jacuzzi while overhead there’s nothing to block your vision but an endless stretch of cloudless blue sky? The way I see it, the change in location is a metaphor for the change in my life. Las Vegas is a desert. Everything is dry and parched and cracked and faded, including the people. That’s why the unnatural glare of the neon at the casinos is overwhelming. Here in Los Angeles, I found my oasis. The sky is blue and clear and the undercurrent of cool ocean breeze always refreshes my spirit.
Today I sit in my Jacuzzi, surrounded by blooming trees and flowers. I look over at the house I own, that cost 2.6 million, and although Bart originally helped me buy it, I make the payments now, and I have enough of a portfolio to manage that on my own. That’s in addition to the apartment buildings I own, the restaurant I have a one-third interest in and the shopping mall I backed with a group of ten investors. If Mother could see me now, she’d be amazed. I’m amazed myself and it’s my life.
Six years ago I arrived in L.A. with a few thousand dollars in savings and the name of a man who would get me work stripping at private parties. Making money in this town is a piece of cake. Everybody in Las Vegas is desperate; they all have a hard edge to their eyes and a nervousness in their glance. Even the winners. Here a girl could have a guy put a thousand dollar bill in her g-string and know for sure that not only can he afford to spend it, that doing so gives him pleasure and no anxiety at all.
It was easy to accumulate some cash. By the end of my first year on the coast I had a safety deposit box with thirty thousand dollars in it. The only problem was that I didn’t know what to do with it or how to make the most of it. What I did know was that money is the key to happiness—well maybe money and sex, and I knew I could always get sex for free, even if I still could find a guy to make me come, so I planned to learn how to make money. I decided to sign up for classes at U.C.L.A. or U.S.C. and to enroll in the business course. I didn’t care about a diploma or a degree, but I did think that I could enjoy learning about the ways of the business world.
At that time I was living in a little apartment I rented north of Sunset. I liked it because I had a dazzling view of the city lights from my living room window and a little terrace where I could sit out and daydream about my future. The Strip was right below me and often in the early evening or afternoon when I knew I wouldn’t be working later, I’d stroll along the Strip, shopping in the boutiques or stopping into Nicky Blair’s or Le Dome for a meal or a drink. People didn’t stare at me as much here as at home, because here practically every girl has platinum hair and large, perfect boobs. Well, they stare a little. I fantasize that they wonder if I’m a starlet or someone whose name they should know.
One day I stopped into a little garden shop and bought a plant for my terrace. It was a bit of Bougainvillea twined around a wooden stake. The vivid fuchsia is so beautiful and each little flower, like an exotic paper lantern, is so fragile and perfect. I never thought about the fact that it might be difficult to carry it home without a car, but it was. After about a two block struggle, and enormous limo pulled up alongside me and the chauffeur removed the plant from my arms and the man of about sixty in the back seat smiled and said, “Get in.” That’s how I met Bart.
It doesn’t matter that a girl’s a stripper or that she has slept with a lot of men. That kind of experience counts for very little in the way of real sophistication. I was as much a rube as the virgin from Kansas in town to become the next motion picture star. I saw Bart in the back seat of his opulent limousine and I couldn’t think of a thing to say but “Wow.”
He gave me a knowing glance, probably because so many girls had already reacted in just that way to similar advances. There is one thing to be said for promiscuity—it makes you immune to any kind of sexual nervousness or fear. It never occurred to me that this rich guy was going to ravage me in the back seat. So what if he did have sex on his mind? Maybe I could come in the back seat of a Rolls limo, who knows? Eventually in some place at some time and with some guy I would come. All I had to do was keep trying.
Bart didn’t try that however. Instead he made an effort to open a friendly and casual conversation. He was kindly and sweet and easy to talk to and I began to feel more at ease than I had ever felt before in my life. We chatted and laughed and shared an unnatural intimacy that felt more familial than the bond I had experienced even with my mother. When he invited me back to his place for a swim, I went with happy anticipation.
I have been in many places where lots of money was clearly evident. This was the first time I’d seen a home where there was a sense both of money and of class. I felt like I had been invited to some kind of private museum, except that Bart and his staff treated me with such kindness and courtesy that it was hard not to feel welcome and at home. So instead of U.C.L.A. or U.S.C., I signed up at the University of Bart at Los Angeles.
I would sit beside him and listen to him explain how to know a good deal from a bad deal, how to get the most return from the least capital outlay, how to know when to go in deeper and when to back out, how to cut your losses if it came to that. And I remembered everything he said because somehow it was fascinating. More important than the tips I got from Bart, was the act of being taught by him.
I could snuggle up in his lap and listen to him talk or just have him hold and comfort me. He became like a solid rock in my life, for the first time in my life. I knew I could count on him for anything I needed, not just money, but time and personal consideration, and it was a wonderful feeling. He was my lover, my father, my savior.
I told him everything about my past. He listened to the tale of my childhood in Vegas and my mother’s neurotic ways. He thought nothing of my work as a stripper, or at least if he disapproved he said nothing, except he did offer to support me and to buy me a little condo somewhere nice on the Westside of town. And I took him up on his offer. Having Bart changed my life. He gave me so much care and attention that I found I didn’t really need the adulation as a female goddess that stripping provided. I needed the orgasms, but I decided to forego those cheap thrills, exciting as they were, in favor of the closeness I shared with Bart. I hoped that some day I would be able to come with him, but it never happened.
Because I wasn’t working and because Bart couldn’t be with me every minute of every day or night, I had to fill in my time. It seemed like the perfect solution to find a therapist to help me with my sexual problems. I wanted to have an orgasm and I wanted to have it during sex with a man. It didn’t matter how many books I read that said that many women can never achieve that goal, that manual or other stimulation is required and with a loving partner everything can work out happily for both parties. Forget it. I wanted it
from thrust and parry, and I was sure that I could do it if only I could unlock some block in the dark recesses of my psyche.
I saw my therapist daily. He helped me to see that I had a problem with self-esteem. I didn’t feel I deserved complete happiness and fulfillment, probably stemming from my feelings of abandonment because of my father. It made sense, but what good did it do to know all this when I couldn’t seem to reverse the problem? I tried a hypnotist then. The idea was for him to replace my negative expectations with positive feelings and thoughts. That seemed to help a lot but it didn’t make me come.
During the rest of the day I spent time testing Bart’s teachings and investing money in successively larger projects. From that I got more of a rush than from anything the therapy process could offer. It’s more exciting to see your money grow than to watch seeds sprout in a garden. I was able to buy my first apartment building that way, completely with Bart’s approval, and mostly on my own.
The only thing wrong with the process was the I.R.S.. I seemed to pay larger and larger amounts of taxes and I never felt I was getting my money’s worth. Then an audit notice arrived, scaring me out of my mind, because I had never declared the initial thirty thousand as income. I had a vision of myself as an inmate in some awful tax prison. But I did have one asset and that was my body and the tricks of the trade Tony Greaves taught me so long ago. All I did was pray the auditor was a man.
Was he ever. It was easy to be friendly—I just pretended that he was one of the men in my audience. And each time I bent over in my sheer blouse unbuttoned to the waist and let my leather mini skirt rise higher on my thigh, the tax man became friendlier. The good part was that he wasn’t the only one getting turned on, so not only did I get a small fine, but I felt that flush and that rush of feeling that had eluded me so long. And when he reached out to touch the goods that I had offered so willingly, it was mutual. Except that I didn’t come. I never come.
After he was gone, I was scared out of my mind. What if Bart found out? He would think I was little better than a whore, because surely I could have found the money to pay any fine or Bart would have paid it for me. It was just a kick to be back in the saddle and I felt as cheap as I had behaved. My therapist said I was just acting out my deep need for love and attention and that I had to prove and reprove to myself that I was lovable and attractive, not the plain Jane I always was at school.
What could I do to change things? Sometimes awareness is a curse because not only do you have the problem, but you have this awful awareness of how screwed up you really are and how gloomy and twisted is your inner landscape. I needed to make more changes and I didn’t have a clue. The only one who could help me was Bart, the only one who had ever helped me, but how could I confide to him that I had slept with that I.R.S. guy just to avoid a fine of a few grand?
I agonized for weeks before telling him and finally I did it. He didn’t even seem to care. He just laughed and said it was about time that somebody fucked the I.R.S. instead of the other way around. And then he pushed my head down into his lap where at least I could engage in sexual activity without worrying about coming because the only one who was supposed to come from that did—without a problem.
That was a small act of absolution but it didn’t really ease my mind about my own mental health. At first all I wanted to do was come. Then I discovered that I couldn’t come because my mother had made me as neurotic as she had been. So then I had to commit to uncovering my neuroses so that I could get rid of them. Except they never disappeared; I was just more aware. And I still couldn’t come. Maybe it would be better to go back to stripping because at least then I could come, granted not while having sex, but stripping and coming was better than having sex and not coming.
Instead I found a meditation instructor who specialized in creative visualization. She was going to help me focus on my self image, and each day we met to create an aura of self love. It seemed to be working until the day she made a pass at me. She said that she was certain that I was ready to connect on all levels with her, because her guide Xantha from the seventh dimension told her the time was right. Didn’t I know that women can never come with men? That the penis is greedy and not giving at all and that she had the skills and techniques I really needed? It sounded possible but it didn’t feel right. Before we ever got to the point where we could test her theories, I pushed her away and fled.
I hired a fashion consultant. If I looked better, more tasteful, then perhaps I could love myself more that way. We shopped and shopped. I was fitted and feted. My hair was primped and permed. My best colors were analyzed and acquired. The reflection in my mirror looked like the work of a perfectly orchestrated market research team. And in fact I felt more confident going out into the world in pre-approved get-ups designed by somebody with reliable taste. But I also felt like a sham. I always waited for the knowing glance from those around me, the one that would prove that I had been uncovered as what I was—a cheap little stripper from Vegas. It seemed inevitable and unavoidable. My destiny seemed eternally, unalterably to be a repetition of my past.
Finally I decided to give up on all of it. I hired my last professional, a personal trainer named Steve, except everybody called him Ace. The idea was for Ace to design an exercise routine for me that would keep my body in shape and perk up my spirits and it worked. Each day I would meet Ace at his gym and we would work out together. As we worked out, we became friends, and that was the best thing for me of all.
I had never had a real friend before. Every other man I had met had wanted me sexually, but I guess that Ace had rules about sleeping with his clients because he never made a pass. Maybe it was because we had no chemistry, I don’t know, but we did get along wonderfully and becoming friends made all the difference. I could relax in his company and just be myself and we would laugh and talk through each session and then go out for a drink or a bite afterwards.
Ace is hot and sexy and more than that he’s smart and sweet, and I would think that any girl at all would fall for him with that perfect body and captivating crocodile grin. I thought the long hair and hoop earring were a bit much, but what the heck, this is L. A. and we’re all in show business of one kind or another. Despite all his charms, I felt lucky that we were just friends because then I knew for sure we could maintain a relationship. Besides, I loved Bart, and even if he didn’t want to marry again or have more children, I felt a commitment to him. Having Ace for a friend just rounded out my life.
And the exercise rounded out my body. That hard edge I used to have from stripping faded, and gradually I could see my body blossom. It was a wonderful process. I had boundless energy and some of Ace’s natural cheer and high spirits rubbed off on me. I felt good when I was working out, not just because of the physical exercise, but because of the positive effect of Ace’s company. Even alone I felt better than I had in a long time.
I turned my extra energy back into the work that always gave me a thrill—that of making money. And when there was what seemed like enough, I decided to go house hunting. In a short span of time I found a cute little bungalow in Rancho Park, and I bought it. Within a year I was able to sell it at a good profit and buy something bigger and better. Eventually I found the house I live in now, but that was a bit beyond my means.
Bart went with me to check out the deal as he always had and we both agreed that not only was it a wonderful house but it could be a great investment. I had to have it. But that would mean liquidating just about all my investments, and I would still have a sizable mortgage. Perhaps I was in over my head. We left the property together in his limo, driving around talking and considering the options. Then Bart reached for my hand.
“Honey,” he said quietly, “I thought I would wait to give you this until I’m gone, but now is a better time.” It seemed that he had set up a trust fund for me, exactly the same as he had done for his two grown children back East, and it was going to be a part of his will, but he decided to put it into effect now so there’d be enough to get th
is house that we both agreed I should buy.
I was touched, and more than that I was flooded with feelings of love for this man who had been more to me than I had ever had a right to expect. It was not just the fact that he had provided for me so generously, but the reality that he had done for me no less than he had done for his own children.
At last I felt special. And worthy of some of the good things that life could provide. A man, a good man, loved me enough to do a thing like that. And it wasn’t just because I turned him on or for sex, because he could have those things any time for free. It was because he genuinely cared for me, just as my friend Ace cared for me.
I moved into my new house and was surrounded every day by the proof of Bart’s devotion and thus my own worthiness to experience it. I began to blossom inside and out, like the flowers in my garden. I was happy and sustained emotionally.
Surely I would be able to come at last.
Liana
Gun Shy
In the end it was only poverty that saved me, that resurrected me from the dead. I languished miserably in my bed for most of a year, too numb with pain and heartbreak to face the outside world. It took all I could do each day to get Violet off to school and to make the requisite trip to the market. Then I returned to my island, nourished only by sugary junk food, food that would extend my numbness and send me back into the sleepy stupor that allowed me to experience as little of my own emotion as possible. My only goal was to block out the world completely. I turned on the answering machine and never took a call, letting my friends drift away and my life disappear. That was how I wanted it. Unequipped to deal with life and totally unable to put the memory of Kevin and our romance behind me, I was betrayed and wounded and that was all I could deal with. Over and over I relived the past, trying to discover a clue, something that would help me make sense of it all, something that would explain Kevin’s actions to me and thus would set me free. Nothing helped. I loved Kevin and hated him in equal measure, but more important than that, I was consumed with that relationship even more than when it was an actual part of my life.
The Sportin' Life Page 7