A few notes about this story. A lot of the things Mary says to Patsy in this story are things Mary actually said to me the next morning, such as the "some people are hot and some people are not" so if this offends anyone, this gorgeous and vaguely sociopathic redhead actually said this to me. I made up the complaints about bad sex, I never overheard that but I DID overhear her scream "I JUST WANT TO GET LAID RIGHT!!" To my friend Andi (Patsy in the story.) The conversation in the Dungeon between myself and Mary actually took place. And the part about me being frustrated with having to explain that my real last name actually IS 'Desire' is because I have always been frustrated with having to explain that my real last name, my family name, is 'Dethrow.' And yes, it is pronounced like you think it is. My real first name isn't far from 'Andrew' either.
MARY MAGDALINE
That old saying, "Sex is like pizza, even when it's bad it's still pretty good." is a lie. Ask any woman. Ask me.
I'm out at the Dungeon at three AM having a drink in the upstairs bar, which has a dance floor the size of a coffee table and spilling my woes onto Patsy, who also works at the Hideout during the day. Usually the music in there is so fucking loud it's almost impossible to hear, and because of the size of the floor, impossible to dance properly as well. But it’s summer and it's dead at the bar so she's got the music down. They have sheets showing a playlist of CD's they have, mostly industrial and rock and metal, placed variously on the bar for music requests, as the bartender upstairs acts as DJ as well.
And I'm saying to Patsy:
"The last three times I had sex were such a letdown."
"Bad sex sucks." Patsy agrees.
"There was this one guy, the first guy I did, he was hung like a horse and I got really excited. I was like, 'FINALLY!' and the motherfucker lasts like three minutes and gave head like he was licking an ice cream cone. I'm thinking, 'GET IN THERE AND GRIND YOUR FACE IN IT, YOU SAP!!' And it just sucked all that much the worse cos' he had a beautiful dick. It was so frustrating. The only good thing he did was go to sleep right after he came so I could just leave. But still, what a fucking cliché."
"That's terrible. I'd be so pissed."
"I was livid."
"Jesus Christ, girl. That really sucks. I had something like that happen to me up in Philly. There's this guy I'd known for about a year and we were friends. Well one time I decided to pay for a hotel room and fuck the guy. So we're kissing and shit, and I get him out of his clothes and he's rubbing up against me and just comes on my stomach and goes limp - just like that. So I figure well maybe the second round will be better so I start to give him head to get him hard again and with no warning this guy just comes in my mouth. Rule of thumb here is don't ever pay for a hotel room if you don't know what you're getting into. It was awful."
"Tell me about it. So then the guy after that, really nice guy and I think he's the sweetest, but he's just not equipped with what I'm looking for. I'm not necessarily a size queen, but it was so small. He wasn't bad at anything else and in fact, he got me off, but not the way I was looking to get off, you know what I mean?"
"I know exactly what you mean, Mary. You still doing the internet-porn thing?"
"Yeah, but only girl-on-girl or solo stuff."
"No more hooking?" She asks, eyebrows raised.
"No. Gave that up." I answer casually, because being a whore once was still really no big deal to me. Just a way to pay my way through school. I set my own hours. It gave me plenty more time to study than those fools who work shitty jobs with long hours. I was a law student at Tulane and on the surface, a respectable girl. I didn't drink. I didn't smoke. I didn't do drugs. I wasn't prone to using lots of profanity. I wore the perfect mask: I was a serious student who rarely had time for associations. My best friend by way of being placed into the same dorm room with me had no clue, and I was lucky to be shacked up with her - she drank. She smoked. She cursed. She smoked pot, (but we both did that) and she fucked. She just didn't do it for money. She was always telling me I needed to get out and get laid. If she only knew. The only reason Patsy knew is that I actually do get drunk occasionally and Patsy just seemed like the kind of person you could spill your guts to, and so I did.
I had a serious agenda in school, though. I was there to become a lawyer. A fucking rich one. I didn't really care about ethics or morals. I just wanted to make a shitload of money. And the only way I was going to do that is if I could set my own schedule for work, and put my nose to the grindstone in between.
Now I don't want to brag, but I'm a beautiful girl. I'm 5'5" with shoulder-length auburn hair and blue eyes. I'm in good shape, with perfect champagne-glass boobs and a nice wide-but-not-too-wide ass. I look in the mirror and I like what I see. Now I've taken some courses in women's studies and I consider myself a feminist, but I don't go for that Naomi Wolfe "Beauty Myth" shit. Some people are hot, and some people are not - and that's either the luck of the draw or your own damn fault for not staying in shape. To me it's a hard fact of life: when it comes to looks, there is no such thing as equality. An ugly person just isn't equal to a beautiful one. And I'm beautiful, I know it, and decided to cash in on it, at least to pay for those extras while I was in School.
So I finally spent some of my free time learning about the wonders of internet porn. After about a month I realized that this was a goldmine. The dough was rolling in and I didn't have to fuck anybody I didn't want to. I mean, I never had a problem with hooking because I'm high-class stuff and I got paid well for it. The agency was making a killing off me. No twenty dollar blowjobs in the back rooms of a strip club on Iberville Street in the seedy section of the French Quarter for me. No blue-collar construction workers. I fucked rich men. Powerful men. If my mouth touched your dick, I was going home with five hundred dollars. You got lucky enough to fuck me, which I only did if the guy was at least handsome or charming, I was also fucking a grand out of your pocket. And none of it fazed me. What fazed me is that I've always loved sex: It's my biggest vice, and I simply wasn't getting any real enjoyment out of it. I didn't want to get jaded, so I stopped. Now I stick sex toys into myself (the Jackrabbit is my favorite) in front of a webcam and get paid AND get off as a bonus.
My roommate, Diane, knows about the internet thing because it was impossible to hide it from her: I worked from my dorm room. She had no problem with it at all. Or the girl-on-girl action. Almost all women are bisexual anyway. I don't think she'd be shocked I worked as a call girl, either, but I'm keeping that to myself just in case. Maybe I'll open up to her someday, but not now. We had a system. My video sessions were rarely longer than 20-30 minutes and I did them only once or twice a week and I preset the dates for the nights she intended to go out. The girls I hired for the girl-on-girl action I hired right out of the strip clubs. A girl who wouldn't normally hook will still do the internet porn thing with a beautiful woman who pays them enough, and I did. I was making more money than I was hooking working even less.
When semester ended I decided to stay in New Orleans and spend the summer having fun. I could go home to the folks, and I do every other weekend, but it's just so damn boring there. I love my mom and dad but they're just not interesting. I like the amorality of New Orleans. Not necessarily it's debauchery, but the very real sense that most of the people here SIMPLY DO NOT GIVE A FUCK. They just want to get their freak on. And I was determined to do that. I had no time at school to do anything I wanted to do, and what I pretty much wanted to do now was fuck a bunch of pretty boys, all the time, day and night. I was dying for a big, hard dick inside me. And so now that I was getting even more sexually frustrated because my first three encounters were absolutely miserable, I was getting drunk and laying it on Patsy.
"So this other guy . . . he's really nice. But when I get him home, I realize he's TOO nice. He's all methodical and slow when we do it, like he has some kind of routine. He basically wants to make love to me, not fuck me. And when we do it, it's OK and all. It's not the best but not the worst sex I've ever had, but he gets all sappy afterwards. Saying shit like 'I think I'm in love with you, Mary' and stuff like that. Immediately asking if I'd like to go to a movie tomorrow or have dinner or something. This shit really turns me off. I basically tell him I have plans and that I actually can't spend the night anyway and leave. I don't need some co-dependent fool obsessing over me."
I pause and then scream, at the top of my lungs:
"I JUST WANT TO GET LAID RIGHT!!"
"You're certainly pretty enough, what's your problem?"
It's a voice to my right and I realize I was so wrapped up in my rant I didn't even see the guy walk up. He's some kind of goth kid with green eyes and hair dangling in his face to his chin.
"Andrew Desire! Where you been? I've missed you!" Patsy says in an excited tone of voice, so she obviously knows him.
"Around. Up to no good. As usual. Can I have a beer?" The goth kid asks.
"What kind?"
"Cheapest you got."
"PBR?" She asks as she holds one up.
"Perfect, darling." He says, turning the charm on. One look at him and it's obvious he is enamored with Patsy. But then again, who wouldn't be? Her body was simply MADE for sex, like some girl out of a Russ Meyer movie.
"So," he asks her. "Are you still married?"
"Yes, Andrew."
"There is no God."
She giggles at this. And then a thought crosses her mind - you can tell from the look on her face. She kind of gets my attention, winks her eye, and nods her head toward her friend.
"Mary, this is my friend, Andrew."
Next thing I know I'm being forced to introduce myself to this goth kid in black eyeliner and thinking about how lame goth kids are and why the hell did Patsy get me into this? Even I like bands like the Cure and even some Nine Inch Nails but I think goths are all fucking wimps. The girls are phony and the men are DEmasculated. Patsy's kind of goth, but she's an exception to the rule. This guy is probably going to try to impress me with how deep and sensitive he is. And I'm going to have to take it because he's Patsy's friend and the whole time I'm going to be thinking, ‘take a cue from your patron saint Ian Curtis from Joy Division and go hang yourself you dickless freak.’
And then the image is shattered when Patsy asks him:
"What are you up to tonight?"
And he says, to my surprise:
"What do you think I'm up to? I'm on the prowl and I intend to drag some hot chick back to my crib and fuck her silly."
I am so wrong about this particular goth kid. He obviously has more balls than most of his kind, but I challenge him anyway, just to see what he says.
"And how many, ahem, "hot chicks" are going to go home with you with an attitude like that?"
"HONEST ones."
I am blown away by this answer.
"At least ones honest with themselves, anyways."
I suddenly have the urge to tell him "anyways" isn't a word, but decide to pursue the matter of honesty and sex.
"So an honest woman is the type more likely to be charmed by your Neanderthal way of thinking?"
"It's not really Neanderthal, it's just that woman want sex just as much as men, but most men are too insecure with themselves to just ask for it or too dumb to ask the right way. And it doesn't really work for ugly men who are trying outside of their league. If you're not especially attractive or smart, you're probably not going to get a pretty girl unless you've got something else going for you, you know, some kind of status symbol like money, fame, etcetera."
I'm actually kind of impressed. And I'm starting to realize that despite myself, I think he's cute. He has amazing eyes.
"And so you consider yourself attractive and smart?"
"I KNOW I'm attractive and smart. I gotta rely on that because I'm not famous and I'm not rich. I'm a blue-collar guy."
"So where did you get that ridiculous nick-name, 'Desire', as your surname?"
"It's my real last name." He says this as if he's explained it a million times and is sick of it. "So what do you do, Mary?"
"Tulane Law Student. On reprieve."
"What kind of law?"
"Defense attorney. There's always some rich asshole out there getting into trouble and I intend to cash in on it."
"That's cool, I guess. Except most of the people who really deserve a good attorney can't afford one."
"Not my problem."
"What about Justice?"
"I just want to make money."
"OK." He says this as if he disapproves, like I give a fuck, but there's something about him I already like. Now the goth-kid image is gone and there's a street-smart, and obviously book-smart rouge image to him. He proves the book-smart image with his next rant:
"One of my heroes is a lawyer. An author named Andrew Vachss. He writes best-selling crime fiction novels and then turns around and uses the money to take child abuse cases pro bono. His life's mission is to save children from child molesters and put as many of those fucking pederasts behind bars as he can."
"That's certainly a noble cause." I admit, getting more and more surprised by the second at how wrong first impressions can be and I'm already thinking that I might just take this boy home and fuck him. The night is getting late as it is.
We talk for about another twenty minutes about the fallacy of the justice system while I defend the "only the strong survive" roots of capitalism. He insists some people aren't given the same chances in life as those born to privilege as I give him examples of the success stories of many born into poverty. Every now and then Patsy slips in a word or two. It's a healthy debate, not an argument. All of a sudden, out of nowhere, he drops a bomb in my lap . . .
"So what are you planning on doing with the rest of the night?"
"Why do you ask?"
"Would you like to go home with me?"
I realize suddenly what he means by honesty and asking the right way, and that he's obviously read my mind.
"Sure. Let's go."
We say our goodbyes to Patsy and walk outside to St. Phillip street and I prepare to hail a cab when he tells me:
"We don't need a cab. I live in the French Quarter."
The night is muggy and cold as we walk down Bourbon street, and I'm shivering. But I'm not shivering from the cold - I'm shivering in anticipation and I'm thinking: DON'T LET THIS BE A LETDOWN DON'T LET THIS BE A LETDOWN DON'T LET THIS BE A LETDOWN. An old drunk black guy across the street at the corner of Bourbon and Saint Ann starts screaming nonsense at us and we just ignore him. At one point as we turn the corner at Dumaine Street I look down and notice two dead rats lying together in an embrace, as if they died together in love and I suddenly have this feeling that God is up there and winking at us. Andrew's apartment is only moment's away, caddy-corner from the Quarter Scene restaurant and I realize that this is ground zero, the moment of truth. I'm either going to get really disappointed or have the best time I've had in a long long time.
His house is an effiency apartment with a loft. He has a futon beneath the loft that is obviously mostly in couch position. He rumbles through a drawer and pulls out a rolling tray and sets it down beside me, asking:
"You smoke pot?"
This is getting better and better. I've been dying for a joint all night. I offer:
"I'll even roll the joint for you. I can do it European-style."
"You mean make a little filter out of a piece of the rolling paper cover that also acts as a roach clip at the end?"
"Exactly." I say, impressed again.
"Where'd you learn how to do that?"
"In Europe." I say with a smile.
"Just don't add any tobacco to it."
"I won't."
He turns to his stereo and asks:
“Anything you'd like to hear?”
"Got any Leonard Cohen or Morphine?"
"I have Cohen's greatest hits and 'Cure for Pain.'"
And I hope to God he's got the cure for my pain in those pants of his.
"Cure for Pain." sounds good, I say.
We smoke a joint and he seems to get a little goofy and talkative but after about ten or fifteen minutes of this I lay it on the line. "To be honest, Andrew, I didn't come here for your witty conversation."
"A woman with her priorities straight, huh?"
"DAMN straight."
` And he kisses me. He's soft at first, sensual, like a girl would kiss, so I grab him a little tighter and a little closer and suddenly he's kissing me harder. I feel his hands exploring my body and they're good, strong hands. He starts chewing on the side of my neck where it meets my shoulder and I shudder a little and then stand right up and take off my dress to reveal the black lace panties and bra underneath. I always wear sexy underwear. You never know what might happen. He jumps off the futon to his knees and digs his mouth into my belly button and starts licking and biting it and then moves down to my inner thigh. While he's doing this, he's groping and clawing like some kind of feral beast at the backs of my legs and most importantly, because they're a kick-ass erogenous zone, the backs of my knees. If he winds up sucking my toes tonight, I might just have to have to find a way to present him with some kind of award. He's not going for the pussy yet, he's teasing me. After a minute or so of this he stands up, literally turns me around on my feet and unhooks my bra, which falls to the floor after he slips it down my arms, slowly, stopping at my breasts for a moment and gently brushing a butterfly's kiss of his fingers down both of my nipples giving me goosebumps the way he does it. He reaches around and slowly rolls my nipples in his fingers as he chews on the very back of my neck and grinds his pelvis into my ass and I think (I HOPE I PRAY PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE) I can feel through his pants that he's got a pretty big dick, and I'm feeling my knees go weak.
Next thing I know I'm turning around and pulling his shirt off. He has a concave chest and that's not really my thing but at this point I'm not going to sweat the little details. I drop to my knees and unzip his pants - no tighty-whiteys thank God- and pull them down and I'm face to face with a thing of wonder. I look up and tell him:
"You are truly blessed."
I start to go down on him and he stops me:
"Let's save the foreplay for later." He says, and he pretty much throws me up the stairs to his loft and pushes me onto the mattress. He plops down beside me and starts kissing me. He reaches down and gently rubs along the inside of my thigh, occasionally actually touching my pussy. Then he begins massaging my clit and brings his lips down to a nipple and gently nibbles on it. I'm so ready for this. He slowly moves to where he's on top of me and starts kissing me with a passion that I hadn't felt in a kiss in so long I'd forgotten what it was like to be kissed like that - like he was going to just suck my whole face off and swallow it whole. I know why he's holding out - engaging in foreplay, ironically: he obviously wants to hear me beg for it, and at this point I'm not too proud to do it. I'm so wet I'm literally dripping and I can feel his dick pressing into my stomach. And it's all I can take.
In a voice that sounds like a cross between a whisper and an emergency I say:
"Fuck me. Fuck me now."
And he literally tears into me like a shark attack. Next thing I know I can feel every inch of him pushing into my guts, threatening to break me in half. I feel as if this love monster is sucking my soul in through the hole in his cock, pulling ME INTO HIM as we rock and roll together in grinding perfection. This union, this act of being brought together on this night feels like the universe is flowing throughout the whole room and into our bodies. I can feel the energy between us, something like both violence and electricity. He rolls me on my side, lifts one of my legs and holds it in the air vertically, and starts fucking me from the side while on his knees above me, rubbing my clit the whole time, and I just can't think straight at all. I feel lost in space (Danger, Will Robinson!) and can't tell how long he's been going because time has no meaning at this moment and I know the most fabulous release I've had in many months is coming and I'm about to have the orgasm I've been craving, deserving, PRAYING FOR.
And when it comes (no pun intended) it's a doosie alright. My entire nervous system explodes in ecstasy and all the tension, all the frustration, all the disappointment I've been feeling floods away on tidal wave after tidal wave of pure pleasure. And I start screaming, I mean actually screaming, and I wonder for a fleeting moment what the neighbors must be thinking. My body and my vaginal walls spasm in unison with his cock and I realize from the hissing noises he's making that he's getting off as well, and I feel the hot, sticky feeling of come splashing inside of me. For a split second I think "I should have used a condom" but then realize that I'm not going to ruin this moment with thoughts like that and just ride the ride through to the final moments, when we finally collapse together all tingly and sweaty and gasping.
And when it's all over and I'm feeling all dreamy and satisfied beyond anything I could have hoped for, I look over at Andrew happily and I think to myself, "If you had been a john, I’d have given you your money back."
I usually never spend the night with people I fuck to avoid attachments, but after some very unbecoming-of-me eye-gazing and cuddling I feel myself falling asleep anyway knowing I'm going to want to do this again first thing in the morning.
I think about the difference between good pizza and bad pizza.
This wasn't frozen pizza. This was delivery.