Zen and Sex (13 page)

“I’m so glad I didn’t have to do that oral sex,” says one of the women, with disgust, which scores common agreement among the other women.

“He was lucky to have me lie still while he got on with it,” adds another, the three ladies at this point on a roll and seemingly enjoying outdoing each other with increasing levels of lewdness.

I’m honestly not sure if they are being serious or if they are sharing a secret joke, amusing themselves by trying to embarrass me or more likely, Mr. Darcy who looks like he’d rather be with the guys, if there were a group of old guys to hang with, which sadly, there is not.

“Excuse me, ladies,” I finally say, standing up. “Need to empty the bladder,” which is not a lie. When I climb to the top of the stairs and turn towards the bathroom, I discover that it is a party, after all and that I found the typical party line for the solitary water closet. A shifty-looking guy in his fifties standing in front of me looks out of place and can’t seem to stand still.

“The relationship I’m in, right now?” he says to me as if he knows me from way back and he’s finishing the conversation we never had. “Anything I want, she’ll do. Anything.” I feel like asking him if he’s mistaken me for his best friend from high school or maybe he’s telling a joke and this is his way of mingling with strangers.

“Like what?” I ask, playing the straight guy. “What do you mean by ‘anything?’”

“Anything. Kinky, S & M. role-playing, you name it. She’s wild.”

I’m not getting it and to make matters worse my bladder is about to explode. Is the guy being serious? “Do you find that sex games help to deepen your relationship?” I ask, with an overly serious expression.

“How do you mean?”

“That sexual games help to build up trust?” I say, now not knowing what the hell we were talking about. Who is this guy and what is he doing here?

“You don’t know what I’m talking about, do you?” he asks.

“Sure,” I say, at this point not giving a rat’s ass about anything this freakazoid has to say, “She’ll do anything.” This party sucks rocks.

“Freaking wild. You’ll meet her. Don’t you dare steal her from me!”

What is this insane guy talking about? “I won’t,” I say and turn my head hoping to signal an end to the madness.

“Ever go three way?”

“Only at the track,” I answer, doing my impression of Groucho Marx.

“Is that a joke? Only at the track?” he asks, looking seriously offended. He’s serious about a three-way with his girlfriend? What a douche.

“I’m sorry. Are you suggesting we go..?”

“Heck, no. I wouldn’t share her, are you crazy? Not with someone I just met. What if I did?”

“What?”

“You don’t seem that experienced to me. Not that that’s a problem. Could be to your advantage, haven’t developed any bad habits.”

At this point I decide to turn around to go pee in the bushes outside. A really cute twenty-five year old woman with a big smile to match her perkily erect, enormous breasts walks straight towards me, winks at me, walks right past me and kisses the weird dude on the lips.

This isn’t happening, I say to myself.

“What are you two talking about?” she asks.

“Oh, guy talk,” says the weirdo. “This is Martin, Frances’ boy toy.”

The freak knows who I am?

“Just kidding,” he then adds.

“I’m Stacy,” Stacy says with a flirtatious smile, extending her hand.

“Think he’s cute?” asks the freak.

“Yeah, I guess,” Stacy answers, another wink in my direction.

“Don’t be getting any ideas,” weird dude says, shaking his finger at me.

“Not me,” I say, now so totally in the Twilight Zone, I wonder to myself exactly where was the threshold that I walked through that transported me into this kinky sex netherworld.

“Let’s go get some more booze,” Stacy says and drags the creepy guy away. I thought he wanted to go to the bathroom?

“Having fun, yet?” Frances appears.

“Who are the hep cat swingers?”

“Steve and Stacy.”

“What are they doing here? Recruiting geriatrics for wild and kinky sex?”

“Steve is my ex-husband.”

Wallop. Crash. Bang. You’ve got to be shitting me, I say to myself.

The bathroom door finally opens and it’s my turn. Frances kisses me on the cheek and wisely departs. She must have seen my jaw drop and all the blood drain from my face. She was
married
to that guy? Seriously? Who
is
this woman and what am I doing here?

I’ve had too many beers but I still feel like drinking more. This whole geriatric party is one of the weirdest places I’ve been to in quite a while and that’s including the all night nudist-only rave that Mike and I ended up at once (totally by accident when we got lost on the way to Joshua Tree, long story) and the all women birthday party where I struck out with every single woman in the place and couldn’t figure out why until I found out it was a gathering of lesbians.

Maybe it’s too soon to be meeting Frances’ depressing friends, including sex-obsessed octogenarians and perverted ex-husbands. We’re probably rushing things a bit. We haven’t been on enough dates yet; just the two of us, where we can discover each other’s dirty little secrets as we playfully laugh and giggle beneath the sheets. Then, after warm and tender Zen sex, when we were both in the place of post-coital acceptance of confessed dirty secrets, she could have told me that she has this whacko ex-husband that spiked her drink on their first date and took her to Vegas where, next thing she knows, she wakes up married.

She would then explain that she stayed married to him for fourteen years because…because he was blackmailing her or worse, he was threatening to kill her parents if she left him. He would spike her orange juice every morning, just so she would aimlessly stumble through her day and not be in any mind to go to the courts to file divorce papers. Many years went by until he met Stacy and she told him that she would do anything he wanted, so he stopped drugging Frances and finally set her free.

When I get back to the safe haven of my armchair, I’m delighted to see that it is still empty so, not knowing of any other safe place in the house to hide out in, I sink down into its nurturing bosom and turn it ever so slightly away from any possible prying eyes. If I have to talk to one more freak tonight, I’m calling a cab and I don’t care if it bankrupts me, I’m heading back to L.A. tonight.

“Need help with that?” a young female voice says and when I look up, I see a totally drop dead gorgeous beauty who looks maybe around twenty years old. Hello, hello, hello, I say to myself, as if I have no internal controls, whatsoever. It isn’t obvious to me that I am just staring without saying a word until she extends her hand, “I’m Janice.”

“Martin,” I say, shaking her soft and tender hand. “Can I get you a drink?” I say, not knowing what to say and suddenly defaulting to bar speak.

Why is it that when a guy meets a beautiful woman, his heartbeat increases, blood rushes to his face, his palms get all sweaty and if he’s standing, he goes weak at the knees? There may be more symptoms, such as stammering, mental lock down, and/or amnesia and just plain old, talking nonsense but seriously, it’s not just me, this happens to most guys I know, so it’s got to be a biological thing, right?

Guys have no control over it, honestly. No matter how we mask it and look cool on the outside, just like a duck looks cool above water but if you look underwater at its feet, they’re flapping like crazy, going like, a hundred miles an hour.

Biologically, guys respond differently to beautiful women than they do to not so beautiful women. It’s a fact of life. It’s nothing to be proud of and most guys hate it and wish it weren’t so. Why? Because that gives a beautiful woman power over the guy. I know some guys who are powerless - literally powerless - to refuse their beautiful girlfriend anything that she wants. It’s pathetic to watch and it makes men look like weak morons who deserve to be called names like pussy-whipped or worse.

I’m sure the not so beautiful women aren’t crazy about it either, which is why beauty products are a multi-billion dollar industry, I guess.

As for the beautiful ones? Well, word of advice would be tread softly and wield your power with fairness and justice for all. I saw a movie trailer once that said ‘Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.’ I think it was about the government and conspiracy theories but the maxim applies to everything relating to power, I think. Just something to bear in mind.

“I don’t drink,” says Janice. “I’m not twenty-one till August.”

“Want me to spike your soda?”

“Okay.”

As we casually stroll to the hard drinks table, I notice that that guy, Reinhold seems to be following Frances around like a lost puppy.

“This party blows,” says Janice. “Apart from white trash Stacy over there, we’re the youngest people here.”

“Only in age,” I say, sagely.

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t know. I’m wasted.”

“Want to see my short?” she asks, as I heavily spike her cola.

“Your what?”

“I’m a filmmaker. I made a short film.”

“Sure. I’d love to.”

Taking my hand in hers, she leads me off. “Come with me,” she says softly. As the guests begin to sing, ‘Happy Birthday,’ Janice and I enter the office off the hall which has a TV and a DVD player. Sitting me down on a sofa, she puts in her DVD and switches off the room light. I’m beginning to feel a little uncomfortable with the intimacy and I’m really not sure if I am doing something wrong, sneaking off from the main party.

“What kind of movies do you make?” I ask, in a neutral tone which I hope suggests that I’m only here because of my interest in student film work and art, in general. But, as the movie starts, she doesn’t answer and sits beside me on the sofa.

I feel like saying that I’m here with Frances to clarify my position, but then she might think that it is presumptuous of me to think that she is interested in me. She’d probably laugh and later ridicule me in front of other guests and, as a consequence, it would embarrass the heck out of Frances. I don’t want to risk that or come off looking like an idiot, so I don’t say anything.

I figure that she’s probably just bored at an old folks’ party and maybe she wants or needs some encouragement of her work, her passion and her art, from an objective observer.

As classical music plays in the background, the camera slowly pans across a four poster bed. In the scene, Janice lies dressed in period attire and looks bored. A moment later, she gets up and looks out the window. She sees a gardener, chopping wood.

Janice beckons to the gardener and he tosses aside his axe, wiping the sweat from his brow, which to some ladies might be perceived as a turn on. The gardener sheepishly enters the room where Janice is and stands like he’s awaiting further instructions. Janice approaches him and takes off his hat: his long flowing hair falls down. The gardener is a woman.

Is this going where I think it’s going? Is this a friggin’ porno film?

I sneak a look at Janice but she seems riveted, as if watching it for the first time. On screen Janice takes the gardener’s hand and places it on one of her heaving, full breasts. Leaving it there, Janice slowly undresses the shy, female gardener.

I have absolutely no idea why guys get turned on watching girl-on-girl action. On so many levels it doesn’t make any sense why guys find it so terribly hot but they do and, guess what? I’m no exception. I’m beginning to panic because I have no friggin’ idea of how to watch this and in the process, prevent myself from getting a boner.

Short of closing my eyes and thinking of something horrible like the holocaust or something, I don’t think it can be done. Okay, if I make some excuse to leave, will that be like saying to a neophyte filmmaker that her work sucks? If I stay and this goes where I think it’s going, am I watching porn with a young woman I’m attracted to at a party my girlfriend brought me to and I can’t stop myself from getting turned on? This is so effed up.

“Are you liking it?” Janice asks, interrupting my thoughts.

“So far,” I say, tactfully. “What would you call this, soft porn?”

“It’s erotica,” Janice says, with a tone in her voice as if she’s insulted.

“What’s the difference?” I ask, because I seriously don’t know.

“Don’t you see the parallels with D. H. Lawrence?”

“I’m not familiar with his work. What kind of films does he make?”

“The author, D. H. Lawrence,” she corrects me, “
Lady Chatterley’s Lover
?”

“I haven’t read it, sorry.”

“It’s like if Mrs. Lawrence was to write the book, instead of her husband, maybe this is what it would look like,” she says earnestly.

I have no idea what point she’s making with this erotica movie, except maybe she’s making some feminist point about how men objectify women. I guess she’s turning the tables…and now, instead of a man, it’s a woman that’s objectifying women? That doesn’t make any sense. I need to get out of here fast and get another drink.

On screen, the door suddenly opens and the women react with panic as, I assume it’s the husband, comes barging in. He checks out the women and after a long cinematic moment that is loaded with all kinds of meaningful looks to each other, presumably denoting some weird shit subtext that I’m not even going to try to decipher, the Janice character extends her hand to the husband and invites him to join them.

He smiles as if he likes the idea and then he starts to undress and, oh, come on, this is porn, I don’t care what bullshit feminist point she claims to be making.

“You hate it,” Janice says, biting her lower lip. Boy, is it hot in here or is it just me?

“No, not at all,” I unabashedly lie. “I think it has a great message.”

The door opens and Frances stands in the doorway.

“There you are,” she says to me. “What are you up to?”

“Nothing,” I automatically say, in exactly the same tone and reactive sense of guilt with which I answered my father, when I was thirteen and he caught me smoking pot round back of the house.

“I’m showing Martin my short,” Janice says with a mix of familiarity and coldness that I can’t quite decipher. She pauses the DVD with the remote. “You don’t have a problem with me entertaining your boyfriend, do you?” Okay, definite coldness there. How come everyone here knows who I am?