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I pick through my handful and give him my blues. Dino gives me his reds. When we kiss, our tongues turn purple.
This is a memory I cherish. I carry it with me like a pocketknife. I carry it with me like a postcard that I need to send but I don’t have any stamps.
That was how I found myself sitting opposite Emeline in a greasy red booth, both of us shivering under the diner’s fluorescent lights. As with most 24/7 establishments, the Silvercrest was home to a rotating cast of chatty winos, junkies in sandals, and insomniacs pondering their fifth cup of joe. A heroic waitress zinged between all of us, her sleepy smile like a lighthouse beam. She didn’t need a notepad, she remembered everything. Her name tag said LORI. She reminded me of Cookie, in that nothing could faze her. When she found someone nodding off in the unisex bathroom, she nudged him awake and said gently, Not here, honey. She escorted the man out the door, then delivered two slices of lemon meringue pie to a juiced-up couple in the corner. I watched them feed each other bites of pie, giggling like chosen fools. They poured mini bottles of whiskey into their coffee mugs, their legs tangled together under the table.
[...]
How different was she, really, from us girls at the club? She was the late-late shepherd of broken hearts, enabler of appetites, a cushy female presence to distract us from decay. If she was good at her job, she remembered her regulars’ names. She didn’t get naked, but we watched her ass just as hungrily, tracking her movement from table to table. Come to me, we thought, increasingly desperate. It’s my turn now. See me. Come back. It was her job to feed us, an angel in stretch pants. The difference was that the strip club was dark and the diner was bright, alarmingly so. At last, she approached me and Emeline.
When we kissed, it was anticlimactic. We had been sharing a bed for almost two weeks; all signs pointed to sex. I let my loneliness propel me. She was feeling deep feelings and I didn’t want to be left out. I wanted her halo to warm me, her belly to bounce off. So I lifted my shirt. Her body was so soft and warm it almost felt like a trap. Was this why men went crazy? For a moment I could understand their lunacy. I too would forget all my manners when confronted with something so inconceivably plush. I had a taste and now I wanted more; a sample would not fill me up. I wanted all of her body, all of her in me, like those collapsible tents that you carry in bags or those specialty dishes of meat filled with meat. I wanted to eat my own tail, form an infinite loop, just so that she could drink from me. She smelled like apricots, a smell I’d forgotten. Apricots, I thought. Apricots! Her dark hair made the pillows look damp. Her mouth was like a Slurpee: endless, red, and wet.
sweet
Later, as she slept, I got out of bed to let the dogs out. I sat on the doorstep and watched them scuttle about, pissing single-file and digging up the flower beds. What a beautiful term, flower beds. I felt peaceful and sore. It seemed to me then, in my floaty postcoital daze, that the number one evil in the world was loneliness. It drove people to do terrible things. It was the reason strip clubs existed, to abate male longing and its grim consequences. How lucky for men! To know that every city in America had a long list of places, some seedy, some luxe, some playing hip-hop and some playing jazz, where any man could go to feel less alone. Yes, he had to pay to enter. But of course—we were feeding him.
In truth, I liked him for using me. I liked him for being a tool. The cashier at his local bodega knew him better than I did. I couldn’t explain why, but his cruelty felt cozy. It felt good in the way of pressing down on a bruise, morbid curiosity meets bored masochism. My friends were operating under the assumption that I deserved better, whereas Jax and I were agreed on the topic of my disgrace. He fucked me when he was lonely or depressed and didn’t try to hide it. We didn’t waste time with movies or sushi. He used me like a rental car. I always knew how the night would end. He would come in squiggles on my chest, then let me shower first—how gallant. It was a strangely peaceful pact and I was determined to keep up my end of the deal by never wanting more.
I took a deep breath; I could see my car at the end of the block. Emeline, I said, but I couldn’t finish the sentence. I studied her face, hunting for clues, but even at this late hour she was bright and blank. She looked worried for me, as if I were the loony one. I didn’t think she could be such a good actress; then again, I barely knew her. Gifting me the wig, stealing my perfume … What did she want from me? I leaned against a parking meter, hugging myself. San Francisco was sinking, I could feel it; it was a city of tricksters and frauds, dead ends and trapdoors, people who weren’t who they said they were. The Victorians built on landfill were sliding into the sea, the buses all read NOT IN SERVICE. Emeline watched me, and I could see, in a small but real way, that she was afraid of me. Not because she thought I’d hurt her, but because she didn’t understand what was happening. She’d never seen somebody snap.
The libidinal underworld to which I belonged was as foreign to Charlie as gay bars or food banks. Still, he was my first foray into what you’d call sex work. He would claim he gave me money as a favor, but at the end of the day, he gave me money for sex. People saw us in restaurants and thought he was my father. We had sex and then he paid me, or sometimes he paid me and then we had sex. It was like waitressing but supercharged. And sometimes it was fun. Sometimes I felt like I was hacking the system, using my just-OK body to plunder the rich and help the meek to inherit. I made the mangy dreams of mild men come true. I wrote off manicures as business expenses, I sometimes grossed more than Charlie’s hourly wage. I got paid to listen, to be told I was pretty, to wear sparkly things and dance to songs that I loved. Sometimes all of this really was true and my life was a bildungsroman.
Ophelia understood what I needed. I hated talking about the bad days, especially with people not in our world. I didn’t want to field their pity, their gentle suggestion that I “phase out of this lifestyle” or however they’d word it. Show me a lifestyle that feels good all the time, I wanted to shout. Prove to me that your lifestyle is insured against longing. Show me a pie chart, a breakdown of breakdowns, the data on anguish. Maybe then I’d consider going back to school. Maybe then I’d throw my Pleasers away (off a bridge, maybe?) and become a nurse or accountant, but only if someone could promise I’d never feel dirty. Until then, I had TV and blankets and rosemary oil to help with the bad days. I had good days when I felt divine and men cried in my arms. I had a duffel bag of singles hidden under the bed, an amount I couldn’t fathom. For however I felt about Charlie and the nature of our relationship, it was too late now. I was in it. Baby was born.
He stuck out his hand to hail a taxi, something no one did anymore. It was moments like these when he revealed his age, his thirty-seven years on earth. I liked dating older men because they were well acquainted with loss. They’d seen the rise and fall of rock and roll, good drugs, cheap rent. Their favorite bars had closed, their friends had died, the city had papered over their youth. Having weathered more shit, they were patient with me. They liked to solve my little dramas because it made them feel powerful. They couldn’t bring their friends back from the dead, but they could fix my radiator, hang my curtains, hold me until I fell asleep. Do you believe in life after love … Sure, they were less ravishing now, their bodies ragged and libidos blunted; their lady-killing ways had paled and now they valued things like Costco cards and narrative tension. I didn’t mind. San Francisco would forget them, but I would remember. Miraculously, a taxi appeared. Dino held the door for me and smiled like a millionaire. I thought you’d never ask.
lol
The words came so easily. I love you too. But I didn’t pull my hand away. It hurt me to see him like this, crinkled and grim. This was not a man who windsurfed at dawn; this was a man who could barely dog-paddle. Had he always been this pathetic? Maybe that was why he chased such young girls—they were easier to fool. He could siphon their optimism, their dopey hope. The name of the website we met on was Seeking.com, and I could still feel him seeking, like a cat in the dark. He wanted it all; he wanted out. He wore his disappointments like a rank corsage. He wanted to be sleek and bright, baptized by his nightly high. I glanced down at the coffee table, feeling my extremities tingle. I knew how to help him, to take the edge off. Did you take your pills, Daddy?