Is it awful or not that a dude who pays me for sex is easier and more enjoyable than any date I’ve been on?
I’m getting sweaty, and I start feeling a little sick. I did two bags in a hurry before I left home, and I can’t tell if it was not enough or too much. Now I’m drinking wine on top of it. Careful, this is how people OD.
I let the conversation lull. I should get the sex over with soon. It feels like that fairy tale where the girl turns into a pumpkin at midnight. I can tell I only have a few hours before I will need more dope or be sick. I put my hand on his leg. He says, “We don’t have to rush it.”
I can tell he is lonely. I never get lonely when I’m using drugs. Obviously he wants someone to talk to, and it makes me feel bad that he is paying me to have a conversation with him. I kind of fall in love with how pathetic and sad and human that is.
I let a few moments pass before I kiss him.
I tell him how nervous I am because I’ve never done this before. How I had been scared of him being a nut. He says, “Well, I still could be.”
Will I be able to tell when a real sicko wanders into my life? Will I end up chained to a pole and raped over and over for, like, ten years? Will I end up on Oprah? Find God? Will I write a book about my experiences? I would definitely write a book if I lived through something like that. I’m actually interesting, and I would have a story people would love to feel sick reading. Most people who are abducted or survive some harrowing, life-threatening experience are pretty boring, but everyone calls them heroes. Would it be heroic to save yourself if it was your own fault for being in that bad situation in the first place? Like, what options do you have, other than to try and not die? And if you do die, does that make you a loser instead of a hero?
For example, Lucy Grealy. Lucy Grealy had a deadly cancer as a kid and had to have her chin removed. After surviving the cancer and numerous painful reconstructive surgeries, she attended the best writing program in the country. Her book got great reviews. She lived in New York City. She was talented, young, and on the brink of mainstream success. Then she overdosed on dope. It was such a waste, I remember thinking as I read the news of her death. It was like she had beaten these extraordinary and unlikely odds, survived disfiguring cancer, and all for what? To throw out a life that had been such an ordeal to live through? How could she take life for granted when she had experienced how much suffering just being alive could entail? She had made it, in my eyes. Why did she have to be vulnerable to the same emotional suffering as everyone else? Was I mad at her for not providing me with a happy ending? Maybe the only thing suffering teaches is that suffering sucks.
My john listens intently. He says he understands what I mean, but who was I to know what her life had been like? Plus, she probably got addicted to dope from the years of being prescribed opiates after all those painful surgeries.
“I don’t know why I’m talking about this. It’s so depressing. I’m sorry.”
He laughs. “No, I like talking to you.”
Maybe this guy could be the love of my life. Maybe we’d end up together.
“I’m just nervous. I’ve never done this before,” I lie.
I can tell he gets off on the idea of me being nervous. He says, “You must be so nervous,” as his hand goes under my skirt. I spread my legs so he can rub my pussy. “It’s okay. It’s all going to be okay, honey.” He tells me I’m a good girl. Then he finger-bangs the shit out of me. And it fucking hurts. He should cut his nails. I moan, wondering how long I have to wait to fake having an orgasm.
He takes me by the hair and stands me in front of a mirrored closet. “I want you to watch yourself.”
There are trends in porn that become trends men want to try, or maybe it works the other way around. Like how every dude wants to come on your face; like, that probably wasn’t something dudes thought to do back in the 1700s. Or maybe it was. Anyway, gagging porn is popular, and now it seems like every guy wants it. He wants to hear me gag. He grabs my hair and holds it while he forcefully fucks my mouth. I gag and gag and then spit all the mucous onto his cock. Then he smacks my ass and says, gently, “Is that okay? Tell me if it’s not and I’ll stop, okay?” I say okay. He needs my permission for a slap on the butt but didn’t have qualms about being rough with my throat?
After making me gag for a while, he moves me to the couch. He goes hands free, letting me find my own rhythm.
As I’m sucking him off, my mind wanders. I think of how awful it was going to be walking by the train station so late. I wonder if he would let me crash there. But I need dope. Once I was high, what would I feel like eating? Nothing would be open. My jaw hurts. The “job” in blow job. I wonder what would happen if I just stopped. What if I bit his cock? Would he hit me? Would he grab his cock and scream, “What did you do?” Would he demand I leave? Would he call me a crazy bitch?
What if I start to cry and tell a story about being molested by my uncle? Keisha’s story was she had been seven when it started. This guy has to pay me if I cry.
Finally, he lets out a sigh. “I’m going to come,” he says. Thank god. I don’t want to swallow it, but once it’s in my mouth, it seems weird to spit it out. So I swallow it. It tastes so gross it makes me instantly gag. When I sit up, he kisses me softly and puts his arm around me. I kind of wish he was my man. Maybe he would be. Maybe this was the way we came into each other’s lives.
I ask him if he’s vegetarian.
“Yes, why?”
“Your come. Vegetarian come is the worst. So bitter.”
“Huh,” he says.
Now he probably thinks I suck cocks all the time if I can so readily link a man’s diet to his come.
He calls me a freak, so I call him a freak and he laughs. He has on boxers and a wifebeater. I’m fully dressed. I don’t feel sick at all. I don’t want to leave. I want him to ask me to stay. I want to cuddle. I want to wake up in his arms. I want him to nurse me off dope and to never have to go home again.
He points at the white envelope on the coffee table, then gets up and hands it to me. “Here you go, hon. Make sure you get home safe. Text me when you get home, okay?” I hope he doesn’t notice how sad I am that he wants me to go. I tell him he can call me again. He nods like he will, but he probably won’t. I am so tired of people, and how they get you to like them and then make it so hard to be close to them. He’s the one who wanted to talk for hours. I was prepared to just get on with it and go, but he needed me to like him. He needed to be close to someone. His sink has one cereal bowl in it. I linger a little too long, but he doesn’t change his mind. We hug and kiss like we care about each other. I know he just kisses me because he doesn’t want to be rude. He throws on a black T-shirt with the logo for some band he’ll never play for me.
On the way home, I think about the moment I had a line of spit drooling from my mouth after gagging on him when he thrust too much and too hard, and he wiped the spit from my lips and said, “Look at what a mess you made.”
I e-mail him when I get to my apartment. If you want to see me again, I’m down for it.
Three quick bags of dope get me so high I’m sick. I nod at the computer. I feel fucking great. Tomorrow or the next day, I am going to get clean. I feel prepared for it, mentally.