I do remember the way her jaw hung open. Expectant, before the piss came in. She was down there, waiting for it, and there was nothing in her eyes that was really readable. She had a pretty good mask on. Ashley used happiness well, knew how to hide behind it. She was a heck of a cute girl, who still had acne, though it looked all right on her. Then I was pissing on her face and her hair. Piss was on her hair and drops were in her eyes and dripping into the toilet. I remember this really welclass="underline" it felt like nothing. Like less than nothing. When I finished, she lay her head down on the toilet lid, letting it rest there. Like, relieved. And I don’t remember her leaving. But she did.
On my way over to Liz’s that night I picked up a bottle of bourbon. The guy behind the counter in the liquor store passed it over to me in one defeated motion. There were flecks of dried saliva at the corners of his lips. It was nearing dinnertime. Maybe he’d get a burger. Then he’d work for six more hours.
Liz buzzed me up to her place. She was happy' going on about Deep and her new office, and what it was like over there. “Bradley isn’t such a bad guy, once you get used to him. He’s much less sleazy than DK—he’s like, almost a real businessman. He’s filthy rich, drives a different Mercedes every day.”
I poured myself a drink and gulped it down like a truth serum. But nothing was coming out of my mouth, so I made another one.
We moved to the couch, watched a sitcom. I can’t remember what. I stared straight ahead of me. There was this feeling of ice and fear in my stomach. Liz watched the whole thing happily. During the commercial breaks, she talked about the new movies that were coming out.
When the show ended, I forced myself to speak.
“Liz ... I... I have to tell you something.”
That is never a good thing to hear. She looked at me fearfully.
“Someone . . . someone gave me a blowjob today.”
“What?” Liz said, flinching. “Who?”
“It doesn’t matter.” I shook my head. “I’m sorry, seriously.”
‘Are you fucking kidding me?” Liz said evenly. “Sam, are you kidding around?”
“No,” I said, ashamed. “I wish that I were.”
Liz shook her head. Her mouth was open, and it almost looked like she was going to laugh. “Well,” she said. There was a long silence, and scared, I waited for her to start to cry. If tears came, though, they didn’t last for long.
“What are you thinking?” I said.
' I’m thinking, I guess we’re breaking up after all,” Liz said. She sounded furious. “Sweet. I’m going to be alone again. Wow, thanks, Sam. That’ll be fun!”
I said nothing.
“You know, Jesus Christ,” Liz snapped. “What the hell is the matter with you?”
“I... don’t know.”
“I trusted you, Sam,” she said, her voice rising. “What could I have done for you that I didn’t do?”
“Nothing,” I said miserably. “Seriously, you did everything right.”
“I’m sorry that I don’t like mouthfucking,” Liz said, angrily.
“No,” I said quietly. “That wasn’t it.”
“Then what was it?” Liz said. She nudged her chin forward at me. Her eyes narrowed. I had never seen her look madder, or wiser, or more removed. “I’m listening. Tell me why you don’t give a shit about me. Why you think it’s cool to totally disregard my feelings. I think you owe me that much.”
I racked my mind for something right to say. But I had been through this before. What in hell could I tell her? That my heart felt dead? That on Wednesday morning, I’d seen four huge black penises looming over a pale tiny woman named Bisexual Britni, who laid back on a weight bench in our home gym, waiting to be filled by them, and it had filled me with loneliness and terrible dread?
“My role models are bad?”
Liz snorted. “That is fucking weak. God, that is so fucking weak.” “Mental illness is contagious?” I tried.
“Yeah, well, I must have been crazy to spend this much time with you,” Liz said. She pushed back against the couch in frustration, hitting a pillow with her little fist. “Ugh! Porn people are sleazy! I knew it in my heart! Why did I do this?”
I tried to think of a way to explain myself. But nothing that could be articulated in words or my dumb voice was coming to me. What, what could I say? That hitting bottom felt kinda good, now that you mention it? That after being around all these phone-sex addicts and misogynistic losers and cheap third-rate crooks for so long, I had begun to enjoy swimming among the diseased stream of their collective unconscious?
“I’m leaving town,” I told Liz.
“Go!” she said. “I-don’t-care.”
“No, I mean . . . I’m quitting porn,” I said bravely.
“Why would I give a shit?” she said.
“Oh,” I said, stung. “No, I just thought, well, you’d be happy. You know, if you ... cared about me.”
Liz laughed. 'You are out of control! Fuck! I love this! God, guys are always like this! You totally do whatever you want, fuck whoever you want, and then you want to ‘be friends’ afterwards! You are insane! Get out of here! Leave me alone! Stop fucking with my head!”
“I pissed in her mouth,” I said quickly. “This afternoon.”
“Sam!” Liz laughed. “I don’t know how to tell you this: I think I’m over you already!”
“I wanted to see how it would feel.”
“Sam?” Liz said. ‘You are, uh, not welcome in my house right now?”
“It was nothing special,” I continued, a bit dazed, staring straight ahead of me as Liz firmly took hold of my elbow and began to guide me to the front door. “I didn’t feel enlightened by it or anything.”
“Sambo,” Liz said, “the truly crazy thing is that I might actually like you again, someday. There’s an honesty factor to you that almost outshines how completely selfish you are. But now we need to not talk to each other for like, a year or so.”
“See ya, Liz,” I said, waving at her. “I’m sorry. Thank you for understanding.”
“Bye, Sam,” Liz said, pushing me out her door. “Take care, now.” And she slammed the door, refreshingly hard, in my face.
TWENTY-THREE
It was time for me to go. I had done enough. Finally, I had reached the end of my rope.
“I’m gone, I’m gone, I’m gone,” I said to Pitts. “Mental health clause in my contract. Situation calls for immediate evacuation. Details to follow; and you’ve been great.”
The Liz thing just finished me. It made me see myself in a light I couldn’t ignore. More, it made me see that there actually was a connection between my inability to connect with her, or any of the other girlfriends I’d had, and the sex work that I’d been doing.
“I’ve got the house booked until the end of the year” Pitts protested. “I’m paying ten grand a month!”
“My karma’s going black, dude,” I said. ‘ Ravens are swarming around my heart.”
“You promised,” Pitts said.
“I promised you nothing,” I explained.
The team could survive without me. Nervously, I holed up in Echo Park for a couple of days, to get away from the scene of the crime. A clueless Tenzeno filled me in on the neighborhood gossip. “The lady upstairs got visited by the police ... I think she’s fencing stolen jewelry . . . her husband fought with the pet store lady, says the smell is intolerable ... I saw him dump a bottle of Clorox bleach on their doorstep last Friday morning . . . The tamales on Sunday mornings are still happening . . . you can get them plain, or with chicken ...” I nodded, dumbly. Keep talking. It was music to my ears.
Three days later, I tiptoed up to Malibu, began to pack my bags. Pitts crept up behind me and frightened the living shit out of me. “Sam?” he said with a grimace. “If you’re not too busy, I’d like for you to meet Billy Watson.”
“Yo,” said the thick, blocky man in front of me. He was about forty years old, an immense hunk of beef. He wore a reddened, exultant face and dimpled chin. He extended a giant hand for me to shake. “Pleasure.”