• • •
I told Gloria about a girl I picked up on the street once. Gloria is a blond with two rooms in the East Fifties. The East Fifties overflow with blonds in two-room apartments. Twenty dollars, fifty dollars, fuck them and forget them. Gloria reads paperback gothic novels. In her kitchen, one large shelf overflows with natural vitamins from her health-food store. Gloria makes you believe she enjoys it, gives a good imitation of coming. Likes to talk about it afterward and tell you how good it was. Didn’t know better, you’d swear she’s feeling guilty taking money for it.
Told her some story about this girl, and she wants to know how men can possibly pick up streetwalkers. Mentions all the reasons not to—disease, danger, squalor and filth of the whole thing.
“I would never do it if I were a man.”
I ask her what she would do if she were a man. What kind of whore would you pick, Gloria?
“Jesus, what a question.” A slight slipping of the mask. “I guess you got me, I guess I can’t imagine being a man.”
What she almost says is she can’t imagine being a john. Paying for it. It keeps her alive, it keeps her in the East Fifties. She’s grateful for it, but she can’t imagine it.
Who can?
• • •
My first lay was a whore in Chicago. I went to the U. of C. after two years of high school. Special brilliant program making sure geniuses didn’t waste their time maturing. Fifteen years old and away at college. Four years later and you’ve got a nineteen-year-old college senior who’s never been laid.
Dating and making out with girls and not quite getting laid. A too-weak putt on the golf course, never up means never in. When they were ready I respected them too much to fuck them. Said so. Some of them stupid enough to love me for it. Believed it myself. Scared to fuck them, scared to do a bad job of it, scared to strike out in the clutch. Not supposed to be scared, so make up a story and believe it yourself. What use a story if you can’t sell it to yourself? First you sell the salesman, then the salesman sells the product.
Putting it off and putting it off and letting it build in my mind. Running around Chicago looking for a whore. A cabbie found her for me. Went up a flight of stairs knowing there’s nobody there, no whore, the cabbie has done a Murphy with my five-buck pimp’s fee in his wallet. Five for him, fifteen for her. He took his, and he’s gone.
Expected it not because I’m sharp but because it happened before that way. Cheap hotel, near North Side. Hustler takes the money and goes up the stairs to set the deal up. Doesn’t come down. Find out later he went up a flight and down the back stairs and out.
She was there. Big coffee-colored woman rubbing sleep out of her eyes. Apartment’s shabby but neat. Picture on the dresser, smiling black man in a soldier’s uniform, big glossy photo in a dime store frame.
Bed sags in the middle. She still seems half-asleep. I give her the money, she tries to get an extra five out of me, I say the cabbie set the price. She says all right but it’s usually five more. She’s given up on that extra five, but I give it to her anyway so she’ll like me more and make the sex better. She takes it, surprised.
In bed I didn’t know what to do with her. Grab her tits, play with her cunt, what? Whatever you want—that’s what you paid for. What did I want?
I lie next to her, and her hand reaches for me. I smell her, warm and sleepy, and get a hard-on immediately. Lose it the minute I get into her. She’s suspicious—I must have come. Insist I didn’t. Long conversation—did I or didn’t I? I show her there’s no come to be seen. Asks have I been drinking. Just a dozen cups of coffee as I prowl Chicago looking for her.
No come, so I win the argument, or she got tired of it. Plays with me again, but nothing. Sighs wearily and begins to go down on me. I feel her teeth, and this keeps turning me off, and then I harden. She doesn’t want to stop, afraid I’ll lose it. But I have to get into her or it doesn’t count. I’m dying to come in her mouth and promise myself next time I’ll come in her mouth, but not the first time. She gives in, and I get on top of her and inside.
Try to concentrate on how it feels. Want to just lie there sensing cuntness of her, but she’s grinding and I’m right on the edge. Throw her two, three strokes and it’s over.
Back at the dormitory I rub my skin raw in the shower. Wonder why I forgot to use the rubber. Can’t make myself take VD seriously, though. Just want to wash the woman off my flesh.
Two nights later I can’t sleep. Decide to remember what happened in perfect detail. Running it through my mind, it gets edited. Improved. In the new version she’s warmer, likes me, enjoys what she’s doing. Gets very passionate. Reason she won’t stop going down on me is she likes having it in her mouth. Fucking her, I have perfect control. She fights it at first, but I make her passionate in spite of herself. I hold on and make her come a couple of times, then finish strong.
Thinking this, living it through, I jerk off. Easily, in gentle accompaniment to the mixture of fact and fantasy. When the story’s finally over, still haven’t come. I jerk off more deliberately now, thinking of nothing. As I come I concentrate completely on my orgasm, comparing it with her.
Exactly the same. Maybe stronger, maybe not, but the feeling is identical. Her cunt felt better than my hand, and her presence excited me, made me come quick, but the coming is the same. Always.
How would we all of us act if we ever completely admitted as much to ourselves? Completely?
• • •
I was twenty-seven when I got married. By that time I had been sufficiently laid to have lost count. Got laid more frequently with each passing year. Learned where to look for it, how to go about it, Got cheated a dozen different ways. A sucker stays a sucker, but at least they have to use new ways on you.
By the time I was married I had laid more than a hundred women. No way to know how many more. Once a month? Twice a month? Who knows.
Only three of them in that time that I didn’t pay for.
I tended to fall in love with girls who were sure to reject me. And to fall out of love with them if they didn’t. And to be poor at casual sex. Noncommercial casual sex. I was not good at going through the motions.
I was in love with a girl, and she was in love with me, and I laid her about a dozen times. By then we were bored with each other and broke up.
I laid a girl who was in love with me and whom I did not care for. Good sex but felt bad afterward. That I was taking advantage of her. Stupid. All she really wanted was some steady fucking. Didn’t call her for two weeks, then called her and told her to come over, took her to bed, and fucked her. Regular pattern like this. She never complained. Always good in bed, always felt bad afterward. Laid her five, six, seven times. She would do anything I asked her to do. Blow me, anything. Then send her home and not call her. Called her one day, and she started crying over the phone. Couldn’t see me anymore, she said. Hung up and went out and found a whore, never called her again. Year later heard she’d gotten married. Felt big sense of loss, but couldn’t make any sense out of it. Sometimes would get drunk every once in a while, call her old number. Changed, of course. Never did see her or talk to her after that, don’t know where she is now. What a bastard I was.
Am.
Had an affair with a girl for three months. Affair? Couldn’t fuck her. Wanted to. Did everything to seduce her. Hard nut to crack. Not a virgin, either. But no sex since unhappy love affair that she ended two years before. Spent a month on her and got to her and couldn’t perform. Could not perform. No hard-on.
Went on like that for three months. Would spend the whole night in bed with her, Finger her, eat her, make her come a dozen times. No hyperbole. I could send her into fantastic serial orgasms. Said no other man ever did this for her, and I think she meant it. Loved how I made her feel, but cried because she couldn’t turn me on. Turned me on, all right, crazy about her, but no hard-on.
During this time went to whores, no trouble. Lying there fucking a whore, throwing it to her, cock rock-hard
and ready to last for hours, wondering what was wrong with me. This beautiful girl waiting for me and loving me, and nothing, nothing for her, and all of this for some pig off the streets, and why?
Three months, and neither of us could stand it, and that’s the end of that.
Met her in front of Brooks Brothers just after my marriage fell in. Just ran into her on the street, first time in all those years. Bought her a drink. She was married, had a couple kids. Happy marriage, and she didn’t play around. Talked to her for twenty minutes and took her to my apartment in the middle of the afternoon. Took her to bed. Made her come same as ever. Said her husband never got to her like that, nobody but me ever did. Still couldn’t get it up for her, though. Still most exciting woman I ever met, most beautiful, still she was the woman who responded to me like nobody ever, and still nothing.
You figure it out.
Met my wife, dated her awhile, laid her. Don’t know if either of us ever loved the other. Or thought we did. Ready to get married, that’s what ninety percent of it was. Just ready to get married, and no reason not to marry her. Good in bed, and I was good enough with her. Nothing spectacular. Nice to be with, attractive appearance, knew she’d keep a good home and all. Sick of whoring around, sick of waking up alone, sick of all that, and she had things she was sick of, living at home, working, getting old, worrying when she was going to meet somebody. Sounds shitty until you think how most marriages are that way. Or if they do start with heavy love, after a few years they all add up to the same thing. Kids and a mortgage keep it together.
Never made any difference. Still wanted the whores. Never stopped wanting the whores. Got married and stopped seeing them. Two years and started seeing them again. Exactly the same except felt worse afterward.
• • •
Fucked a couple hundred women before I got married. Must have been that many. My wife was the first one I ever laid more than a dozen times.
• • •
Sometimes I think it’s a matter of looking for something that isn’t there. That magic orgasm that will be the best ever.
Funny what you wish when you’re with a hooker. You want to be desperately passionate. You want to get really keen pleasure. Also you want to make it last as long as you can.
Why?
Getting your money’s worth. You pay your money, and you don’t want to be done in thirty seconds. But on those times when you last and last, then you get so you wish you could come and get it over with. And when you do, you wish it went on longer.
Not that it isn’t satisfying. Not all masochistic. Really not. The good times are good. The good times it feels good and you feel good and you come good, and you look down at a pretty girl and feel proud of having fucked her. And get dressed and walk out whistling. A voice says “All you did was fuck a whore” but you don’t always have to hear it. Sometimes it is good.
The thing is, the orgasm doesn’t last. It’s a temporal constant. That’s the frustration.
• • •
A couple of lines from the Rubáiyát.
I often wonder what the vintners buy
One half so precious as the stuff they sell.
Try it again with “hookers” in place of “vintners.” I often wonder what the hookers buy one half so precious as the stuff they sell.
Carve it on my fucking tombstone.
There are johns who never see the same girl twice. Never go back to her again, whether they had a good time with her or not. It’s got to be someone new or it doesn’t count for them on their mental score sheet.
Other guys have one whore that they see, her and nobody else. I know a guy like that. She’s not a mistress, not someone he’s keeping. She’s a call girl who fucks anybody with her phone number and twenty-five bucks. And he knows that, and he doesn’t give a shit.
This is a married guy, loves his wife and kids, gets an urge once or twice a week in the afternoon and gives his whore a call. Asks me to keep him company once. I say find out if she’s got a girlfriend. What’s the matter, don’t I want to fuck Ruth? As a matter of fact, I saw her a few times, never said anything to him because I thought he might not like the idea of his friends being with her. Nothing like that. “They’re all the same, come on, Howie, we’ll take turns and wait for each other in the living room. Why should she give half the money to a girlfriend?”
So if that’s the way he sees it, why see the same girl every time? Because they’re all the same, and he’s used to her, and it’s simpler that way.
On the one hand, you have the ones who have to have a different one every time, and here you have this one with two women in his life, one wife and one whore.
As far as I’m concerned, it’s a toss-up which one is crazier than the other.
• • •
A nymphomaniac is a woman who is never satisfied, and she tries on different men, trying to find one who will get her off. She always enjoys fucking and always comes a little, but never comes all the way, or not the all-the-way she had in mind, and that keeps her looking.
Is it possible for a man to be a nymphomaniac?
• • •
I think I probably know most of the reasons. Virility anxiety. Having to prove myself. Having to follow through with the great adolescent dream of making the whore come in spite of herself.
A lot of the time they do. Not just in spite of themselves, either. Sometimes it’s hard to tell a good fake from a real one, especially wanting to believe it’s a real one, but there are times when it’s no question.
I like to talk to whores. The ones I enjoy. That’s another side to it. There are some girls I see now and then whom I can almost consider friends. I know it’s basically nothing but a mutually exploitative relationship. That’s how the cards are dealt. This doesn’t mean there isn’t sometimes a rapport. It can happen. If I like them at all, I like talking to them. About all sorts of things. About whoring.
I asked one if she ever came once. She hadn’t just finished faking anything, either, because she had just blown me and not pretended anything.
As far as that goes, there are whores who can come from blowing a john. And no other way.
This girl said yes, sometimes. Ever with me? No, she said, never with me. Close once, but never there. But once in a while with other johns. Especially very thin men with no body hair.
Must have been true, or why say it? Hardly a way to build me up a man’s ego, first telling him you never made it with him, then telling him how you make it with other guys.
Figure this. I walked out of there feeling good, pleased she liked me enough to be honest with me.
Schmuck.
• • •
Other reasons.
Feeling sex is dirty, and you can only do it with someone lower than you.
Feeling sex is all for the man, and a woman ought to be paid to go through with it.
Being hung up on money, and figuring it’s only good if it costs, but in dollars it costs more to take a girl out and make a heavy play for her. All right, figuring then that it’s more honest to go with a whore, but what sense does that make really? No sense at all.
Being afraid you’re a faggot.
Thinking that if you go with whores enough you’ll get it out of your system once and for all.
This last is tempting. The reality approach—whatever it’s all about, and having different ideas and insights does not mean the problem goes away, whatever it’s all about, just do it and see what happens, where it goes. Because there is something about buying it that is important to me, and fighting the impulse just seems to fix it that more firmly in mind, so float with the tide and see where it takes you.
Unless it drowns you. Because the reverse of that is that it becomes habit.
• • •
The whore as habit.
Oh, very often, before the divorce, even more obviously since the divorce. Nothing much to do and no place much to go and not wanting to watch television or read a book or go out and see a movie. Or get dr
unk. Or call a friend. Or polish the furniture.
Somewhere within is a yearning.
Maybe it isn’t even sexual. Maybe it has blessed little to do with that. If it did, jerking off ought to cure it. But no desire to jerk off, and an inability to excite oneself, an inability to get off that way.
So you go out and prowl because you’re used to it, you’re in the habit. It’s the particular aspirin that you’ve grown accustomed to taking for this particular headache. Maybe the headache is just nerves this time, but the aspirin works because you expect it to work. Believe in the shuck, and the shuck becomes true.
No way to say for sure if it works or not. You go out and get laid, and it’s better than sometimes and worse than other times, and it may be very good or very bad or somewhere in between.
Maybe you get a little voice asking if that was really what you wanted. If, aside from the mechanism of tension and release, you really got what you came for.
But it doesn’t matter, because you did the thing you do when you feel that way, so now you can go home and go to bed.
In an ad campaign there are times when you just cannot get the handle. One thing to do is sit down and list all the good things about the product on one sheet of paper and all the bad things on another. Then you read both lists over a few times and then you tear them up and you’re right where you started.
When I was a kid it was very important for me to please my parents. I wanted them to be proud of me. I always did what I was told. I behaved superbly.
I was brilliant in school. Top marks in everything. I have one of those IQs that run off the charts. So did other kids who only got average or slightly better-than-average grades. It wasn’t just the IQ, it was the push, the drive, the success wish.
The shrink and I put this together. I already knew how it made me an achiever. In school and afterward. Made me take the trouble to make it in advertising.
No trouble now. No success thing, either. Just coasting, easier to stay in the business than look for something else.
Beyond Group Sex: Doing Their Own Thing (John Warren Wells on Sexual Behavior) Page 15