Rules of the Game

by Neil Strauss

  RULE 5

  WHAT YOU PERCEIVE IS WHO YOU ARE

  She said she would pick me up in an old car.

  “You’ll hear it before you see it.” Apologetically.

  It was the first time I’d fallen in love with a car.

  It was from 1972 and looked worse for the wear. The surface was pocked with small dents, dings, and patches of primer; the bumpers were rusty and looked like they’d seen a lot of action in their day; and the leather interior was torn up from years of constant use and neglect.

  But its body was beautiful. It was sinuous and curvy, without a single flat edge; its front tire wells arched smoothly above the surface on either side, sloping into a hood so long you couldn’t see the end of it from the passenger seat. When it glided out of the Phoenix airport, people turned their heads. It stood out from the other cars. It was magnificent, proud, unafraid of its defects because it knew its body shape compensated.

  “This was the last year they made Corvettes like this,” she said. “After 1972, they switched to plastic bumpers.”

  Her name was Leslie. And, though I’d never met her before, I was going to sleep with her. It was prearranged. Justin, one of my students, had offered me his cousin as a birthday present. It was above and beyond the call of duty. Normally I wouldn’t have taken him up on such a creepy proposal, but he promised me that she wasn’t just a lay. She was an education.

  “She’s been studying Tantric sexuality half her life,” he said. “And she’s discovered a G-spot in the back of her throat.”

  “That’s kind of interesting,” I replied, meaning weird. “How does that work exactly? Am I supposed to stick my finger down her throat and massage it?”

  “No, something else.” He smiled. “She’s like a deep throat expert. She can take it all the way in, and work her throat muscles to make you experience something you’ve never felt before. This is next-level shit.”

  I was interested, in the classic sense of the word.

  A newspaper columnist named Fanny Fern coined the expression that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach, proving to the world just how little women know about men. We can always go out to eat. But if a woman wants to make an impression that we’ll never forget, even when we’re eighty and on our deathbed and thinking about the two moments that made life worth living, all she has to do is give us the most masterful blow job of our lives. If she even hints that she’s great at it, we’ll chase her all night. Then, if she actually delivers, she’ll never have to worry about a phone call the next day.

  It’s funny how much time women spend trying to figure us out when we’re so simple. I think what’s complicated is accepting how simple we actually are.

  As Justin pitched me on his cousin, I thought about all the people in my lifetime who had promised to get me laid and never delivered. I remembered Marilyn Manson’s bodyguard telling me he had two girls in his hotel room giving a sex show, but because he was married and couldn’t sleep with them, he’d send them to me. I lay expectant in my hotel bed for hours, fresh from the shower, trying to stay awake in case sleep turned my breath bad, waiting for the knock. But the knock never came.

  Only I came. Alone. Again.

  So before my next trip to Phoenix, just to be safe, I called a thin, buxom Iranian girl named Farah, with heavy-lidded, glittering brown eyes. I’d met her last time I was in Phoenix and she mentioned buying a book on Tantric sex. This way, I figured, the Tantra thing would happen one way or the other.

  “Yeah, I’m living with my father for now in Sedona,” Leslie gabbed as we drove to the James Hotel. “I stay with my sponsor sometimes in Scottsdale, but he’s been an asshole lately.”

  I wanted to ask her what she meant by sponsor. Was he her mentor in a drug rehabilitation program? Her sugar daddy? A client of some sort?

  But the question seemed inappropriate, as did all the others I wanted to ask. I wasn’t sure yet if the sex thing was really on—if she had also been informed that she was going to deep throat me tonight—and didn’t quite know how to confirm the appointment.

  Leslie wasn’t the type of girl I normally slept with, or even talked to. Experienced would be a polite way to describe her face, which was a weird shade of red—not from the sun, but from some style of makeup application I’d only seen used by bag ladies on public buses. She had teeny teeth pressed close together, which would have been cute if they weren’t out of proportion to her broad face, sabotaging every smile.

  Her body, however, was glorious. She was a big girl. Not fat, but solid. Mighty would be a better word. Her pink-powdered breasts heaved out of her dress, daring you not to look at them. Her thighs were thick and muscular, and looked like they could perform all sorts of functions on construction sites. And her posture screamed sexuality and multiple orgasms. You could tell by the way her back arched away from the seat and thrust the full force of her tremendous chest into the steering wheel.

  This was all so exotic to me. Though I tell girls I weigh 140 pounds, I’ve actually never been able to get above 126, no matter how much I eat or work out. Until recently, I had only dated really small women with low self-esteem, because that was all I could handle. This girl was an Amazon, a really trashy one, possibly even a real-life whore. It doesn’t get any worse than that. And worse is what I’m all about.

  When we arrived at the hotel, she reached behind her seat, grabbed a small overnight bag, and brought it with her into the hotel. As soon as I saw this, I knew Justin had made good on his promise.

  I just had one major concern left.

  “So, what are you doing for work these days?” I casually asked during dinner.

  “I used to be a dancer,” she said, “but now I’m between jobs.”

  As we talked further, I tried to pull more details from her. The best I could gather was that she’d been a stripper for six years, made a few adult films, and now used certain former clients for shelter, gifts, and travel. I suppose that makes her a prostitute, just as much as it makes any woman who dates or marries for money one.

  After dinner, we took the elevator to my room. There still hadn’t been a word or gesture of intimacy between us. Even though she was doing this for blood and not for money, there was something unsettling about the whole arrangement. Some guys enjoy having sex as a transaction, rather than an act of passion. But I get my rocks off as much through connection and, on a shallower level, validation as through the friction of flesh. I need to know that the woman I’m with wants to be with me because she genuinely likes me as a person—whether it takes three minutes or three years for her to come to that decision—or else the mutual surrender so key to the transgressive pleasure of sex never happens.

  I decided to take some time to connect with her before the deep throating commenced.

  “If you had to choose one thing in the world that makes life worth living, what would it be?” I asked as we walked in the room.

  “Hmm,” she said, nodding her head and pulling off her dress. Still thinking, she unhooked her bra. Her breasts were gargantuan. I could have placed a dictionary between them and they’d hold it like bookends.

  She knelt in front of me and began unbuckling my belt.

  We can always connect afterward, I decided.

  “Why don’t you stand in front of the bed?” she suggested as I stepped out of my pants.

  I complied, as if following a nurse’s instructions for a physical. She climbed onto the bed, rolled over, and dropped her head backward over the edge of the bed. I realized that this must be her special trick.

  I stood in front of her and approached her open mouth with my dick in the air. It felt like some sort of carnival game.

  She brought her hands up, wrapped them around me, and nudged me into her. Then she began adjusting her head in small movements, guiding me into her throat like a maze, until her mouth was at my base.

  Euphoria swept through my body. In that moment, I knew my answer to the question I’d asked when we walked in the room.
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br />   She began sliding me back and forth inside her, slowly at first, clamping her throat and lips around me every time she hit bottom. Glancing down, all I could see were her outstretched neck and chin and, for some reason, they reminded me of the belly of a penguin. It was solely due to this image that I was able to refrain from orgasm and proceed to intercourse.

  “I want to bring a girl out with us tomorrow,” Leslie said, greedily puffing on a cigarette afterward. “She’s got a gorgeous body. I’ve been trying to get with her for years. Maybe you can help me out.”

  My uncle used to warn me, “When pigs become hogs, they get slaughtered.” I was about to ignore his advice and try to arrange a foursome.

  “That would be cool,” I told Leslie. “I was actually thinking about bringing along this Iranian girl I know who wants to learn Tantric sex. I told her you were a guru, so maybe you can show her a few things after dinner.”

  “Or during dinner.” She smiled, exposing her teeny teeth. I couldn’t imagine a weirder partner in crime. I was actually starting to like her, which was a good thing, considering that I’d just slept with her.

  The following evening, after Leslie and I finished another game of penguin, there was a light, rapid knocking on the door. I opened it to find a woman with long legs encased in tight jeans, a flat, exposed abdomen, and a half-shirt clinging to large natural breasts.

  Her face, however, was etched in permanent frown lines, stamped with dark circles around the eyes, framed in an explosion of frantic black hair, and crowned by a halo of drama. This was Samantha.

  The first words out of her mouth were: “I need to borrow your phone.”

  Leslie’s friend, Leslie’s problem.

  She took Leslie’s phone, shut herself in the bathroom, and yelled at someone’s answering machine as the bellhop arrived with three black bags. Samantha was moving in.

  I left the room for the temporary refuge of the lobby and called Farah to warn her that my friends were going to be a little unusual. When I returned, Leslie was wearing a leopard-print dress with a plunging neckline and Samantha had changed into an imitation fur vest with nothing underneath.

  When we walked through the lobby, a skinny bald guy sandwiched between two curvy giants dressed like eighties streetwalkers, every head turned. For a moment, I thought this was all a practical joke Justin was playing on me, but he’s too broke to hire girls. Just to be safe, on the cab ride to the restaurant, I checked Leslie’s ID to make sure she shared Justin’s last name. Fortunately, her credentials checked out.

  “I lost my credit card,” Samantha prattled. “Do you guys mind if I borrow money just for tonight?”

  “You’re on your own, kid,” I told her. I wasn’t going to let her put me in the daddy role. If she wanted respect, she’d have to earn it.

  Farah was waiting for us at the restaurant in a black strapless evening dress. She far outclassed my company.

  “This is Leslie, the Tantra teacher I told you about,” I said.

  Farah smiled and greeted her. Only a slight, involuntary furrow down the center of her forehead gave away her befuddlement as to how this pink-boobed leopard woman could possibly be a spiritual guru.

  The maître d’ led us to a table in the outdoor garden, where a movie was being projected onto the wall. Conveniently, the film was Last Tango in Paris.

  To break the ice, I ordered a bottle of wine and performed a few illusions I’d recently learned, including one where I cause a ball of paper to rise off the table and float into the air.

  “If he can send his energy to objects, imagine what he can do with parts of your body,” Leslie told Farah. She was a great wingman.

  “That stuff scares me,” Samantha interjected. Every word out of her mouth was a plea for sympathy. “I need more wine. Can someone get the waiter over here? I think I’m getting a migraine.”

  The meal was interminable. No matter what subject we discussed, Samantha managed to bring it back to her neuroses. If we were talking about the movie on the wall, she complained that her cable was out and the repairman wouldn’t come over. If we were discussing sex, she complained that the guy she was dating hadn’t called her all week. If we were exchanging stories about nights out in London, she went on a tirade against her brother because he’s a travel agent and never gets her deals.

  My head ached just listening to her. “Do you see a pattern?” I finally snapped. “Your repairman won’t come over, your boyfriend doesn’t call you, and your brother doesn’t help you out. Maybe the problem isn’t everybody else; maybe it’s you.”

  Her face scrunched, her eyes puffed, and she fell quiet for the remainder of the meal. I could tell that she was adding the comment to her archive of victim stories to tell for sympathy.

  I’d just destroyed the night’s foursome. And I was fine with that. It wasn’t worth the headache. After dinner, I told Leslie and Samantha that I was going to a party with the Iranian princess. They seemed fine with that, and said they were going to a dance club.

  However, between the magic tricks I’d performed, which led Farah to think I had actual shamanistic powers, and the company I kept, which led her to think I had a perverted sex life, she kept her guard up. When she dropped me off at the hotel after the party, we made out tepidly in the car. She seemed to be accepting my kisses, rather than returning them.

  I walked to the elevator, dejected. My foursome had turned into just me, alone, again. My uncle was right. When pigs become hogs, they get slaughtered.

  When I stepped off the elevator, I saw Leslie, Samantha, and a third girl I didn’t recognize smoking in the hallway and waiting to get in the room. I’d assumed they’d be out partying all night.

  Their friend introduced herself as Dee. She was petite, with a quiet confidence and braided hair extensions that ran halfway down her body. Her skin seemed Latin American, her facial features Native American, her backside African American.

  Inside the room, Dee pulled a water bottle out of her purse, took a sip, and handed it to Leslie. Leslie took a small swig, then handed it to me.

  “GHB,” Samantha warned.

  I passed it back to Leslie unsipped. I officially owed Samantha one.

  Leslie fished into her overnight bag and produced a metallic green dress with an oval cutout running from just below the neck to the navel. “Hey, you have to try this on,” she said to Samantha. I admired Leslie’s talents as an instigator.

  Samantha emerged from the bathroom moments later, looking like a Christmas tree with a misshapen star. “This one’s perfect for you, Dee,” Leslie said, pulling a white mesh minidress out of her bag.

  Dee did not use the bathroom. She pulled off her jeans and tank top, revealing a body designed for the covers of muscle car magazines, and put on the dress.

  “Mmm, you look good,” Leslie purred. She walked up to Dee, laid a hand on the center of her chest, and began making out with her.

  I was in the presence of a professional.

  Within minutes, Dee was spread-eagled on the bed with her dress hiked up and Leslie’s face between her legs. I sat next to them in my dinner clothes, not on GHB, thinking, This is cool.

  When I joined them, via the nearest available breast, Leslie looked up at me, chin wet, and grinned from ear to ear. She reminded me of a coyote eating carrion.

  “It’s too hot in here,” Samantha said suddenly. “I need some air.”

  By air, she meant attention. “Come join us,” Leslie trilled, rising from the bed to bring Samantha into the mix.

  “I want to clean the room a little first. You guys go on ahead. Don’t mind me.” The room wasn’t even messy.

  “Maybe I’ll join you guys later,” she added awkwardly, unconvincingly. “Looks like fun.”

  Leslie returned to the bed and pulled my clothes off. She and Dee both went down on me.

  “Do you think there’s an ironing board anywhere?” Samantha asked.

  This was becoming even stranger than a foursome.

  “You know what yo
u can do?” I suggested, once again ignoring my uncle’s advice. “Grab my camera off the table and take some photos.”

  Leslie and Dee didn’t object; there probably wasn’t much they’d object to. As the flashes went off, and the two of them earned their way into my shortlist of deathbed memories, I tried not to orgasm. A woman’s sexual appetite, once unleashed, is much more voracious than a man’s, and if I blew it now, I’d be stuck on the sidelines for the rest of the game.

  “What button do you press to see the photos?”

  I ignored her. This was my moment to shine.

  “I’m bored,” Samantha moaned. “I’m going to take a bath.”

  Leslie jumped up. “I’ll help you.”

  Samantha was doing this on purpose.

  Ten minutes later, Leslie returned from the bathroom, rebuked, and asked me to take a shot.

  I grabbed a towel, wrapped it around myself, and sat on the edge of the bath.

  Samantha was sitting naked in shallow water, her legs bowed out like a bratty child’s.

  “Everything okay?” I asked.

  “Yeah, I’m okay. I like it here.”

  I decided to push my luck. It is my nature to push my luck. I am a hog.

  I slipped off the towel and joined her in the bath. As we talked, I massaged her arms and legs. She didn’t stop me.

  I circled my fingers around her nipples until they hardened, then ran my tongue across them. She didn’t stop me.

  I moved my hand up her leg, until it reached the apex, and traced my finger slowly down her opening. She stopped me.

  “No,” she said, pushing my hand away. “Too much.”

  I’d been so worked up from the activity in the bedroom that I’d neglected to turn her on enough. And that was fine. Two birds in the bed, I decided, are better than one in the bathtub. I’d have to share that aphorism with my uncle next time I saw him.