No one said that prostituting oneself would be an everlasting joyride; in fact, it tends to be the antithesis: a series of inverted pleasures, insincere invocations to the gods of love, and acts of forced labor in the bower at Smoochers’ Grove.
I am thirty-three as I write this, an age when most men start to brown around the edges. My equipment still functions admirably—I can arouse my reproductive apparatus without resorting to popular pharmaceuticals. Repeated fire drills on demand have—from my point of view—drained all excitement from the four-alarm deed. Instead, the touch of my gratuity, in cash, is my chief stimulant and source of satisfaction, more potent than any tease and its attendant orgasm. While a sexual discharge may result in a momentary thrill, the ability to extend the lease on the swank automobile of my current dreams dramatically prolongs the rosy afterglow.
There’s a lot of sexual frustration out there. Everyone walks around in a daze, each in his own hermetic, conceited world, with earbuds inserted and attention locked on some palm-sized triviality. Actual human interactions are limited to hastily arranged and easily dismissed meet-ups. There is more to civilized engagement than swiping photos and typing terse messages, but this is the new normality. For some guys, the rush never transcends their initial queries: “Hi! When are you available? What do you do?” My responses, if I deign to send them, combined with my head shot in an attachment are often enough to transport them over the precipice while they remain in the safety of their solitude. Sad, stunted things! They will never know real happiness.
My most recent client was a real doozy of a dope. He canceled twice before promising me (sure, bud!) that he was ready to commit. I arrived at his address and rang the bell. He opened the door to his cheery, too-white-and-bright interior. He turned out to be a bird of the snowy egret breed; you know: tuft of hoary feathers sur la tête. He had soaked up too much sun during his youth in the bayou. But whatever. He offered me a drink. We engaged in small talk, and he mentioned his partner of many years who once shared his house had died from cancer. Nice attempt to strum on my heart strings, but I’ve heard all sorts of woeful tales. At last he indicated he was ready for my ministrations, and I got right down to it.
Everything from first caress to final rumpus was pretty vanilla and by the book. He coyly placed my remuneration on the bureau and asked if I’d like to take a shower. Fine, I said, and repaired (still naked) to the stall. He joined me a moment later. I did not find his continued intimacy unusual, as many assignations end in just this sort of vertical soak. He offered to soap my back. I turned around and faced the tiles. I assumed he was fumbling with the Ivory, but in fact he was reaching for a set of metal handcuffs he had brought into the bathroom and had deposited on the toilet seat. He adroitly snapped one ring around my left wrist and secured the other to a faucet handle. I complained loudly. “Now don’t panic,” he said. “I only want you to be my guest at dinner, and then we’ll have a good night’s rest, side by side.” What the hell, I snarled, you could have asked. Oh, but then he’d have to pay the going rate for an overnighter, and he was a cheapskate. What alternative did I have? Would I run to the police? Ha! No. He shut off the water and stepped out. “I’ll come back for you in a minute,” he said. “Must start the steaks and season the beans.”
I was livid, but I did not lose my head. I examined the handcuffs. He had ratcheted one end so that it had fully closed around the ****-stem (funny terminology, that!) and the handle was one of those old-fashioned quatrefoil types with thick metallic vanes . . . I could not work the shackle off it. But in his hurry to bind my wrist, he neglected to cinch that part of the mechanism tightly. With some pain and effort I was able to Houdini myself out of it. (My hands are daintier than they appear.)
I crept back into the bedroom and dressed. I counted the money—just the flat fee and not a dollar more. What a miser! The birdbrain was busy hooting and whistling in the kitchen, and so I was able to make my escape without incurring another scene.
He tried to reach me again in the next few days, but I blocked his calls. I don’t need his brand of patronage.
But allow me to back up a second. As I walked to my car from the misfit avian’s place—I had parked down the block for discretion’s sake—I was reminded of a dream (verging on a nightmare, really) that I had had recently. It was set in a future where I was a snowy egret long past my prime, and I wandered along midnight roads alone. As I progressed, the blank spaces between the streetlamps grew wider and wider until I was immersed in impenetrable squid’s ink. A storm brewed in the distance. At last I came within sight of a house with an illuminated beacon that outlined its stoop. I ran to the front door and ducked in right as the rain began to fall. The interior of the house was dark, and I didn’t recognize a thing, but I sensed I knew the owner—a onetime friend of mine whose connection to me I had let lapse and had never renewed. Instinctively I moved to the rear, where the bedroom was; I shed my clothes and climbed into his bed. A moment later, he returned from some unspecified errand. I heard him gasp and felt a hesitation; but then he, too, disrobed and slid in behind me. He wrapped his lanky arms and legs around my body and shared his warmth. After that, I was at peace, and I resumed a blissful sleep.
The Ordeal
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