Now you may try to subtract it
But it just won't go away
Three times one?
(What is it?)
(One, two, three!)
And that's a Magic Number

- "The Magic Number," De La Soul (1989)

Rachel

"Are you insane? I'm not going to kiss you." I yanked my arm away from Rachel and bolted for the door.

What had lowered me to this depth? How did I find myself eye to eye with Rachel? She wasn't hot; she wasn't even attractive. Not even a three beer fuck... A six pack at a minimum, with a sidecar of Booker's. Her ass was too big. She needed braces. She had pancake breasts, bloodshot cocaine eyes, sugary wino breath and a page boy haircut that made it appear I was sodomizing a fat young boy when I took her from behind. Worst was her grating cigarette baritone, which she never stopped exercising - Fran Drescher on fistful of uppers, bleating an endless stream of frantic inane commentary, one pointless observation to the next. Rachel spit her gibberish furiously, urgently, as though she were a mortally wounded soldier racing against ebbing breath to cough out a life's worth of confessions to loved ones. Problem was, Rachel had nothing important or interesting to say. She could have been white noise, but white noise eventually fades into the background. You can sleep to white noise. You could never sleep to Rachel. She was the sonic equivalent of Chinese water torture. When she was conscious, she was speaking, and when she was speaking, you were in Hell.

"I fucking hated Puck, didn't you? He was the worst character on The Real World." "My father's been in San Diego for, like, 15 years. Its really nice out there. They let you jog on some of the beaches with dogs." "This couch is comfortable. Its like these seats in my boss's car. They're heated. If you don't realize they're on, suddenly, your ass will start sweating. I have to get a car like his. It's made in those countries above Europe. What do they call them? Scandinavia?"

After listening to Rachel for 30 seconds, the natural inclination is to slap her in the lips. On principle. You want to grab her by the collar and point blank scream "shut the fuck up" in her face. I'd all but said it several times, but always bit my tongue at the last second. I felt guilty about kicking someone whose family life had been such a train wreck. Yet I understood completely why her parents wanted nothing to do with her. She was broken, busted, defective and incurable -a plain and simple mess in every regard. I sympathized with her folks. Nobody wants to be reminded of The Big Mistakes. Like so many people I'd wished to lay into - to ask plainly if they were aware just what jokes, what absolute laughing stocks, they were - and who deserved it so much, Rachel always got a pass. The hard-wired Darwinist tendencies in me were always overruled by a queer pity. I felt sorry for a target already damaged beyond salvage. What would be accomplished by my telling Rachel she was a disaster? If I'd given her a laundry list of every element of her personality that needed repair, she still didn't have the tools to fix any of them. Perhaps my logical side reasoned there was nothing gained by pissing on the hopeless. Or maybe I was a sadomasochist. Maybe I got off on the pain of listening to her. Who knows? The deconstruction's necessary, but it's just prologue...

The really important thing about Rachel is that she liked to lick assholes.

You don't really know uncomfortable until you're on your back, legs in the air, with a woman licking your anus. There's no activity, sexual or otherwise, more awkward for all involved. I guess it's not all that awkward for the person licking the asshole, but then, nothing's awkward to her. For the recipient, the male recipient, it's a total reversal of the sex roles. You're "catching" - exposed, open, invaded, suddenly the woman in the exchange. This isn't God/Grandma/Apple Pie oral sex. Barry White isn't playing in the background. They don't really do this in porn. How does it even end? Are you expected to give some unholy form of a money shot? That's nauseating to ponder... But it could happen. The feeling of a tongue rolling around those parts is unlike any other. You're not Taco-Bell-double-grande-bean-burrito-chased-by-a-Starbucks-20oz.-coffee out of control, but you're not really in control down there either.

You're spread wide, like a gynecological exam, and somebody's eye to eye with your most private of orifices. You're thinking about perineal hygiene, hearing tampon commercial dialogue in your mind. Are you fresh? You find yourself trying to recall your last constitutional. How many wipes was it? Was it a clean and solid? Did you christen a perfect, near wipe-free Chocolate Submarine? Or was it a loose beer and nacho explosion? The fact is, you can wipe and buff it more than the average shoe shine - it'll never be clean enough. It's exceedingly difficult, even if you're the Earthiest naturist alive, to feel good about the aesthetics of your asshole. It's flat out impossible to feel confident about it when someone's sniffing your "body" the same way Paul Giamatti did glasses of pinot noir in "Sideways."¹ You barely know what it looks like at a distance, let alone up close... And what little you've seen hasn't been good.

I was too drunk to realize what Rachel intended when she pushed me onto my back. I assumed a blow job. But her tongue started inching lower. I thought she was going to lick my testicles, which was relieving, considering the mouthful of raggedly assorted horse teeth she'd otherwise run up and down the length of my penis. But then, suddenly, without warning, she grabbed my legs and thrust them upward, pushing my asshole front and center below her face. I was startled, powerless and confused. She stared up at me for a second, grinned, then plunged her head between my legs, forcing her tongue inside me as you might slurp an oyster.

I'd like to say I enjoyed it, that I handled it like an old pro, or that I discovered some new, intense form of orgasm as a result of the experience. The truth is, nobody handles a woman spit-shining his sphincter with casual aplomb. You can't play James Bond in the situation, not even Timothy Dalton's shitty, flustered Bond. You're a fumbling, self-conscious fool. Receiving a rim job - from a random skank, your wife, or Heidi Klum - is unnerving... disturbing. Every man attempts anal sex on his girlfriend sooner or later, and every woman expects it at some point during the relationship. The anus screams for exploration. It taunts you when you take a woman from behind, a cold mocking eye - sneering, winking with contempt... "You're a big man in the front door. But you haven't brought that game into my house. You're a chickenshit motherfucker is what you are." No self-respecting man takes that kind of shit-talking from an orifice. One way or another, no matter how much of a prude she is, you're going to go in the backdoor. But licking, sucking, tasting the anus? You just don't do that, no matter how hot she is, no matter how drunk you are.²

That said, I'd lick a thousand women's assholes before I'd lick one man's. I've owned a male anus for decades. Without exception, be it maintained by a manicured metrosexual with a waxed taint, or a toothless swamp cretin out of "Deliverance," the male anus is Three Mile Island toxic - a cavern of festering bacteria knotted into dreadlocks of the filthiest hair on planet Earth. It has no competition in the pantheon of grotesque body parts, holding the number one slot on that countdown since man first walked upright. One hundred stinking armpits don't equal one sweaty male asshole. That Rachel had spent several minutes licking mine dropped her from lamentable default fuck to carnival freak in an instant.

As I laid there imagining her straining remnants of fecal matter and shreds of toilet paper residue from anal hair with her teeth, all I could think about was how I'd get her out of the house as soon as she was done. I couldn't allow someone who'd just wiped my ass with her face to smear her lips across my pillows. How could I upset her enough to cause her to leave? Could I pass gas in her face? She might enjoy that. My options were few. I could tell from the skill with which she plied her technique that she'd seen many an anus close up. This was a pro grade ass eater. There's no demeaning a person who treats a cornhole like an ice cream cone. It was futile. I could only retreat and wash the sheets in the morning.

As soon as the sex was over, I bolted for the shower, after which I sunk into the couch with five fingers of Knob Creek. I gulped it furiously, praying I'd pass out on the couch before Rachel awoke and dragged me back into the bedroom. Certainly, she knew better than to ask for "cuddling." She had to realize by the way that I'd pulled out, snapped when she tried to kiss me, chucked the condom in the garbage and ran for the door in one fluid motion that I had no intention of being anywhere near her for another moment. I'd have barely run quicker from a rabid German Shepherd.

I sat on the couch, downing the last of the bourbon, staring into the ice cubes balanced on my nose as though they were an oracle, asking them how I'd found myself fucking Rachel. The answer was simple. She was the first part of a bet. I had bragged to my buddy Alex that, due to lucky timing, I had the ability to have sex with three different women over three days. How the bet came about I don't fully recall. It just seemed natural... the right thing to do. Or maybe I was bored. I probably did it just to see if I could.

Whatever the reason, when you have access to three willing women, you make the most of it. The opportunity's fleeting by design. Sex comes in waves - massive tidal force monsters, leaving barren shore in their wake. Women sense which men are having sex and which aren't, and they only fuck those who are already getting fucked. I don't know if this is instinctual, or if it derives from the fact that men who are already having regular sex are calmer and therefore more attractive to women.³ Whatever the reason, when you're in the midst of a hot streak, you're at the peak of your attractiveness to women. You take advantage of the situation, no questions asked. The wave will peak and crash. You'll inevitably find yourself in a trough again, fucking your hand and cursing your luck. When nature offers you the wave, you grab it and ride the fucker into the rocks.

The cruel thing about the wave, though, is that you're getting lots of sex, but a percentage of it is with people you can't stand. Maintaining the wave overcomes everything else. Quality's out the window. You fuck the first willing fuckee because, though you'd rather try for something else - though you'd rather try to fuck someone you actually liked or wanted - the fear of striking out taking a stab at a high quality woman, potentially creating a cycle of defeat ending the wave, drives all decisions. You take what you get and hope you run into someone you like, maybe even fall in love with. That can happen. You can also win a Powerball drawing.

Yes, the wave was part of the reason Rachel was snoring in my bed. But hardly the main one. "Just to see if I can" has been the basis for so many decisions in my life. I stayed in law school after my first year just to see if I could do it. I've endured annoying legal jobs for a decade not solely for the money, but also because I wanted to outlast my tormentors, to succeed at a game I hated. I wasn't going to let disgust with the dregs who overpopulated my classes, the squads of drunks who taught them or the useless theoretical nature of the information offered knuckle me under. Once I started working, I lived Nixon's observation that life was "defined by the struggle," committing myself to making it without changing into the machine they told me I had to become. I'd "win" on my own terms.

The problem is, that kind of "winning" turns you into a consumption machine. I'd been a consumption machine most of my life, but I didn't realize it until I got into the law game. Most lawyers, and litigators in particular, are deeply unsatisfied, and often selfish and spoiled people. We do something no rational human would tolerate 10 hours a day and offset the psychic damage of the senseless toil with money and material. People call this trap "Golden Handcuffs," but it's really more a golden syringe. We're cosmically fucked junkies, shooting up cash to escape our daily work lives. Cletus the janitor will purchase a 52 inch television for his double wide mobile home in the futile hope those bright plasma pixels will somehow crowd out the reality that he makes his living with a bucket and mop. Charles in the Securities Litigation Department sees a BMW dealer every two years to get the same fix. The only difference between them is the price of their junk.

Being a consumption machine is the worst Catch 22 imaginable. Consumption's the drunken, coke addled cousin of ambition. You'll never be sated, no matter how much you eat. While the ambitious perpetually strive for a new accolades - success, achievement, reinforcement of their worth - the consumption machine beats on, borne against the current, ceaselessly grasping at filthy lucre and quick gratification in the flawed hope some magical number in his bank account will set him free... Another Benz, another drink, another blow job from a clueless fawning legal assistant that'll make a life of boredom and annoyance Worth It. In the end, the hyper-ambitious and the consumption machine wind up at the bottom of the same hole, realizing in the face of the unwinnable end game that success in the cosmic sense flows from engaging, rather than using people.

But then, some people are only worth using... As I sat looking at the ice cubes in my glass, I pondered how I'd avoid having to talk to Rachel in the morning. Sober she'd be unbearable. The thought of her speaking made my heart race and my palms sweat. The only way to handle that mess was to put it out of the mind, and the best way to put it out of the mind was to consume something else. I picked up the cordless phone and walked into the kitchen at the back of the house, where I knew I couldn't be heard.

"Hello, Melissa?"

To Be Continued...

----------

¹ I'm not commenting on "finish" or "texture."

² When this was originally published, many wrote to complain that my anti-ass eating stance was prudish and parochial. Your points are noted. We'll agree to disagree on this. If you dig it, good for you.

³ A shitty deal for women; the more you fuck him, the more someone else is likely to.

Posted by PhilaLawyer at 9:49 PM

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