Most of the time this is the way Kim prefers it, as far as that goes. While she intimates that she enjoys getting to know celebrities, it is fairly obvious that they terrify her on every level but the sexual plane. In her private world, still divided into somebodies and nobodies, Kim is manifestly a nobody with no special qualities to render her important. She becomes someone only by having sexual relations with a somebody—and sex is thus at once a means of elevating her own self while bringing the celebrity down to her own level
Once sex is over and done with, she is at a loss for something to do, for a way to justify her existence in the presence of these exalted celebrities. And so hit-and-run sex is ideal for her.
Almost in spite of this attitude, she has begun to develop a certain collection of quasi-celebrities who actually seek her out for additional sexual satisfaction instead of contenting themselves with a single bout. These men are in the lower echelons of the Hollywood-New York entertainment world, minor actors and directors and writers and such. It is interesting to note that Kim’s popularity in these circles derives not only from her sexual availability and physical attributes but also, paradoxically, from her prowess as a Celebrity Fucker. The practice of hero worship in varying forms manifests itself among show business people as well as stewardesses, and many of these men get a special thrill out of having sexual relations with a girl who has herself had relations with various important stars.
“I’ve been getting asked to a lot of parties lately,” Kim told me proudly. “Some of these are, you know, sex parties, actually. Where there will be a bunch of prominent men and the girls are all girls like me, not hookers but girls who like to go with celebrities, and things get pretty wild. You could call them regular orgies, I suppose, with swapping back and forth all night long, and threesomes and foursomes, and some girls will put on shows, like one of them has a dog that will eat her and things like that. I don’t mean that kind of party, which I frankly don’t care for unless it means a chance to meet a very big star that I might not get to see otherwise. For example, ——— throws parties like that when he’s in town, and when I get invited I go, even if I have to screw a zebra in the front window . . .
“But also there are parties, you know, where I’ll just go as someone’s date, no sex at all, a regular party, and I’ll get to meet guys and maybe set something up for later on or maybe not, but actually to mingle with those people. So I don’t know what might happen next month or next year. I mean, who knows, I could find myself a celebrity in my own right, you never know.”
The End
About the Authors
Lawrence Block has been writing best-selling mystery and suspense fiction for half a century. A multiple recipient of the Edgar and Shamus awards, he has been designated a Grand Master by the Mystery Writers of America, and received the Diamond Dagger for Life Achievement from the UK’s Crime Writers Association. His most recent novels are A Drop Of The Hard Stuff, featuring Matthew Scudder, and Getting Off, starring a very naughty young woman. Several of his books have been filmed, although not terribly well. He's well known for his books for writers, including the classic Telling Lies For Fun & Profit, and The Liar's Bible. In addition to prose works, he has written episodic television: Tilt! and the Wong Kar-wai film, My Blueberry Nights. He is a modest and humble fellow, although you would never guess as much from this biographical note.
John Warren Wells emerged in the mid-1960s as a writer of sexological nonfiction, and produced twenty books in the ensuing decade. His works, in the main, consist of compilations of case histories selected to illuminate a particular theme, and topics range from female bisexuality (Women Who Swing Both Ways) and troilism (Three is Not a Crowd) to the evolving lifestyles of a decade of sexual liberation (The New Sexual Underground and Wide Open: The New Marriage). His groundbreaking work, Tricks of the Trade: A Hooker’s Handbook of Sexual Technique, was especially successful, and may have inspired Xaviera Hollander to write The Happy Hooker.
One particularly noteworthy book, Different Strokes, consists of his screenplay and production diary for the pornographic feature film of that name, which he seems to have written and directed, in addition to playing a key role. His column, “Letters to John Warren Wells,” was a popular feature in Swank Magazine. The dedications of several books would seem to indicate that Wells carried on an extensive on-again, off-again relationship with Jill Emerson, herself the author of Threesome, A Week as Andrea Benstock, and, more recently, Getting Off. All of JWW’s books have been out of print for thirty-five years; that they are now available to a new generation of readers may be attributed to the technological miracle of eBooks and the apparently limitless ego and avarice of their author.
Contact Lawrence Block:
Email: [email protected]
Blog: LB’s Blog
Facebook: LB's Facebook Fan Page
Website: www.lawrenceblock.com
Twitter: @LawrenceBlock
* * *
John Warren Wells on Sexual Behavior Ebooks
3 Is Not A Crowd
Beyond Group Sex: The New Sexual Life Styles
Come Fly With Us
Different Strokes: Or, How I (Gulp) Wrote, Directed & Starred in an X-Rated Movie
Doing It!
Eros and Capricorn
The Male Hustler
Older Women and Younger Men: The Mrs. Robinson Syndrome
Sex and the Stewardess
The Sex Therapists
Sex Without Strings
The New Sexual Underground
The Taboo Breakers
Tricks of the Trade: A Hooker’s Handbook of Sexual Technique
Versatile Ladies: Women Who Swing Both Ways
Wide Open: The New Marriage
The Wife-Swap Report
Come Fly With Us
John Warren Wells, Lawrence Block
* * *
Excerpt, copyright © 2012, Lawrence Block
All Rights Reserved
Introduction
A while ago I wrote a book called Sex and the Stewardess, a collection of case histories of airline stewardesses whom I had interviewed in depth over the preceding several months. That book derived from my realization that the stewardess in mid-century America has essentially replaced the farmer’s daughter in contemporary American sexual mythology. She stars in off-color jokes and risqué cartoons, and the mere mention of her occupation will occasion a raised eyebrow or a low chuckle.
Further, I felt that the stewardess constitutes a good image of contemporary sexuality in microcosm. A survey of her attitudes and behavior seemed to me likely to reveal a good deal not only about stewardesses in particular but about more comprehensive aspects of sexual behavior and attitudes.
In due course the book appeared and the reading public confirmed my own opinion. Sex and the Stewardess sold rather well and has now gone through three printings. The book’s reception has been doubly gratifying to me, with the satisfaction of reaching an audience reinforced by the twin satisfaction of being able to keep up, or almost up, with rent bills, telephone bills, liquor bills, and alimony payments.
In light of the above, it would be absurd to deny that Come Fly With Us owes its existence in part to the success of Sex and the Stewardess. If the one had turned out to be the Edsel of the publishing industry, this present volume would obviously never have been written. But there is a little more to it than that, as it happens.
Books of this sort are inevitably an inefficient proposition. Unlike the meat-packing industry, where they pride themselves in making use of all of the pig but the squeal, I invariably find myself doing a great deal of research in proportion to those relatively few squeals which find their way into print. For Sex and the Stewardess, I interviewed approximately three dozen present and former airline hostesses and had briefer conversational interviews with a great many more. Many of these interviews, while providing me with worthwhile background material, led to nothing usable in terms of the book I was writing. Finally, space limi
tations necessitated restricting the book itself to eight or nine case histories, and left me with several other case histories almost as good which I could not make any use of. This always happens, and of course it is always frustrating to a greater or lesser degree.
Then, when Sex and the Stewardess was published, I received quite a bit of mail in response to it, a substantial proportion of it from young women who were or had been employed as stewardesses. In several instances this led to extended correspondence, occasionally supplemented by personal interviews. Other interviews resulted from stews recognizing my name on airplane passenger lists and striking up conversations concerning the book. I was surprised how many of them had read the volume.
“I’ve been wondering what you were like,” I would hear. “I must have seen your book a dozen times before I actually read it. You wouldn’t believe the number of guys who buy it in airport terminals and bring it on the plane. They always display it very prominently so the stews can get a good look at the title. Or they’ll point it out to you and ask you if you’re like the girls in the book. I guess it’s as good a conversational opener as any.”
Before long, then, I had material for a second book. I did some further interviewing with this end in mind and discussed the possibilities of a second book with my publisher. On the basis of the first books sales figures and the new material I was able to show him, he was quite enthusiastic.
There has been a slight change in narrative method in this book. In Sex and the Stewardess, the material was presented in interview form simply by editing question-and-answer sessions to preserve important data and eliminate repetition and irrelevancies. Subsequently I found that a more effective presentation could be achieved by keeping my own remarks to a minimum and letting the interview subjects speak directly to the reader. I have since determined that the personality of the subject is more clearly revealed in this fashion, and that data is more accessible without being filtered through the artificial and superfluous persona of the author.
• • •
A discussion of method may be useful in this context. Material is presented in each subject’s own words, but it is by no means a verbatim transcript, except in such instances where letters are directly quoted. Over the years I have quite grown out of the habit of using a tape recorder. I have found not only that it puts some subjects off—although most people do seem to get used to it after awhile—but that it gets in the way of conversation because one has to stop periodically and change reels. Furthermore, the process of having a tape recorded interview typed is both difficult and expensive, and leaves one with a massive sheaf of typescript, much given over to trivia and very hard to put into meaningful order.
I have thus found it more useful to remember what is said to me, and then to recreate the conversation at the typewriter with the assistance of notes jotted down immediately after the termination of the interview. This seems to bring about a more accurate reproduction of factual matter and tone and style of a subject’s speech than can be achieved through verbatim transcribing, strange as it may seem.
With that reservation, and with the presumably obvious assurance that I have carefully and deliberately changed the names of all people and places and any data which might render any individual identifiable, all of what follows is precisely what was said to me.
Come Fly With Us Available on Amazon
Sex and the Stewardess (John Warren Wells on Sexual Behavior) Page 16