Insatiable: Porn — a Love Story (14 page)

“Absolutely I’ll take a photo with you. Funny thing, I’m actually coming from a store signing, and look what I found . . .”

I sat in my window seat on my flight back to L.A., and closing my eyes, I thought about the last time I had felt like this.

It was at my aunt’s house. I was ten years old, playing hide-and-seek with my cousins, and I went into her bedroom, which she shared with my uncle. Snooping around while I hid, I came across the condoms in her dresser. I knew what they were but had no idea how they worked. I took one, put it in my pocket, and brought it to school the next day.

At recess, we blew it up like a balloon. Everyone huddled in a circle on the playground and examined the condom before opening it. We passed it around like a grenade, making sure to handle it with great care, as if dropping it would cause a huge explosion and we’d be left to explain ourselves. When we finally opened it, none of us could be sure if the oiliness left on our hands after touching the condom was supposed to be there or not. We didn’t talk about the details of how it went on, or what exactly it was needed for. Probably none of us knew. All we did know is that it was used for sex, and that made it awesome.

The next time I was at my aunt’s, I took the first chance I got to run up to her bedroom, and stole another one. This one I would keep for myself. When I went home later that day, I put the condom away under my pillow, and waited for nighttime to come. Dinner lasted forever that evening. All I could think about was that condom, waiting for me under my pillow, waiting for me to come masturbate. When my mother asked me if I wanted to watch a movie that night, I lied. “Mou neru wa,” I explained in Japanese. “I’m just going to sleep.”

As soon as I got to my room, I checked to see if the condom was still there. It was. I got under the covers, and while holding on to the condom tightly against my chest, I touched myself. How to use it, what it was for, the technicalities were unknown; but it was the closest I had ever been to sex, and that was enough. I stayed up all night masturbating.

When I landed in L.A., I asked Toni if he had gotten my text.

“Oh, that picture? What was it, for gloryholes?” Like everyone else, he was unenthusiastic.

“Exactly! How did you know?”

His only answer was “’Cause you’re a weirdo.”

When we arrived home, I called Spiegler first thing.

“How was the rest of the trip? You get molested again?” he joked.

“No. But have you ever seen a real-life gloryhole??”

“Actually, no. But why don’t you tell me about it.”

I was grinning ear to ear. “Well, first of all, guess how they make them . . .”

12
Rule of Twos

My life has a habit of things happening in twos. Before the Thanksgiving molestation incident, I had already been through a similar experience. It was on the train in Japan. I was about eleven years old and was riding alone. The train was crowded, and we were literally packed up against each other, which isn’t anything out of the ordinary for rush hour in Tokyo. I stood face-to-face with a man who, at the time, seemed huge, and towered over me. He grabbed my vagina and looked me right in the eyes. I got off at the next stop and waited for the next train to come. It didn’t seem like a big deal.

In Japan, sex offenders on the train are so common, they have their own name. Students learn in school that if they get molested, the proper protocol is to point at the man and call him a
Chikan
to bring awareness to the situation. Signs that translate to “Beware of Chikans!” can be seen all over train stations in Japan, complete with a cartoon image of a girl slapping away a man’s hand. Japan is strange like that. The most common crimes are molesting in the train, panty-snatching (the Japanese line-dry their laundry in their backyards), and taking upskirt shots of unknowing girls on escalators. Yet, on the news, you hardly ever hear of other crimes. A drive-by shooting is a completely foreign concept. It’s considered rude to blow your nose into a tissue in public, but men regularly read pornographic comics on the train.

The first time it occurred to me that things always happen to me twice was during a routine visit with my favorite psychic of the time. Carrie wore all black, including the dye in her long hair. Pale skin, rings on every finger, if you saw her on the street, you’d peg her as a psychic; at the very least, a practicing Wiccan. Initially, this turned me off from her; she seemed too gimmicky, like an actor playing the part of what she actually was. Despite all this, she told me a bunch of things that ended up coming true. So I saw her for a year and change, about once a month. Every time I told her about a new guy I was dating, her first question was “What sign is he?”

Upon telling her, she’d either 1) show approval by smiling and picking up her tarot cards, or 2) roll her eyes and sigh, “Don’t even bother.”

Visiting these fortunetellers was a habit I had started up young. When I was growing up, my mom would often take me to see psychics, mediums, palm readers, reflexologists, Chinese medicine doctors with translators who could tell what was wrong with my body from one long, extensive look at my tongue. Not that we took it so seriously. It was just something we liked to do together, for fun, whenever we were bored. Our favorite was a woman in Queens, who gave readings in the back of an Indian restaurant in Jackson Heights. We’d eat from the all-you-can-eat curry buffet and take turns getting up from the table to get our fortunes read in the dimly lit reserved table in the corner.

Afterward, both of us swearing no more trips up to the buffet, we’d order the little cheeseballs-in-syrup dish as dessert and share what our futures held in store for us.

“She says I’m going to write a book,” I’d excitedly tell her. “I’m going to be hugely successful, and my life is going to be wonderful.”

My mom would tell me about how amazing her life was going to be, and we’d take the subway back home to Brooklyn smiling with full stomachs and bright futures.

Years later, when I did get a book deal, I told my friend Dave that I had been told this would eventually be my destiny.

“No offense, but every single person I know has had a psychic tell them they’d write a book,” he dryly declared.

As much as I wanted to, I couldn’t argue with him.

Upon reading my astrology chart, Carrie informed me the reason the number 2 was so significant in my life was that my Moon is in Gemini—same as Barack Obama, who is biracial, currently serving his second term as president, and had to be inaugurated twice in his first term. I looked back to see things I had done twice. I got chickenpox twice. I’d had two abortions. My first anal scene had to be shot twice, due to camera problems. Even hooking was something I had tried twice. She was right. Many of my major life events had happened in twos.

Except for losing my virginity
, I thought. I had done that three times.

The first time was with Jack. He was a year older than me, and went to school with my cousin. We chatted on IM every day after school and had met up a few times. We never went further than third base. (Fingering.)

Are you a virgin? Jack typed one night.

Yah. U?

Oh good, I was scared you weren’t. I am too.

But I want to try . . .

Me too.

It was as simple as that. During the summer vacation between eighth and ninth grade, we met up at Jack’s house on Manhattan’s Upper West Side while his parents were at work. After a long walk in Central Park with a joint he had rolled for the occasion, we went to his bedroom. His brother had gotten us condoms, and after somewhat of a struggle, he put one on. It was impressive for a first time; Jack lasted about ten minutes before he came into the condom. I didn’t bleed, but I was in pain. It was a success.

A month went by with no sex, and Jack and I didn’t speak much after that. I was glad to have gotten rid of my virginity, but at the same time, I didn’t want people to know, either. Already I had people hating on me for giving Dan Siegel a blowjob in eighth grade. Eventually, I would come to embrace my reputation as a slut. This was before I was able to do so.

The first week of highschool rolled around, and Josh Bernstein’s parents were out of town. I had been hooking up on and off with Dan since the seventh grade, and as far as he knew, a blowjob was as far as either of us had ever gone.

“Dan wants to see you in the bathroom,” Greg said. He had been looking all over the party for me. I smiled and followed him to the restroom in the master bedroom.

When I saw Dan, we went straight into kissing. We must have made out for over an hour before anything serious started to happen. Back then, the length of a hookup wasn’t determined by when the orgasm came. We’d dry-hump until our jeans had rubbed us raw, or someone’s parents came home; whichever happened first.

Dan took his dick out and I put it in my mouth. His was the first penis I had ever seen close-up. The first time I saw it, about a year prior, I thought he was playing a prank on me.
That’s what a penis looks like?
Before Internet porn had taken over every computer screen in every country outside Antarctica, health class was the only place a kid could really see a penis. It looked so different in the drawings. It looked fake to me; it seemed too rubbery.

A year later, being more used to having this object in my mouth, it didn’t seem so foreign. After sucking it for a while, we ended up dry-humping again on the floor, only this time neither of us had any pants or underwear on. The floor was cold on my back, but I was too horny to care. Slowly, I felt the head of his penis get closer to my vagina. First it rubbed my clit, then lower, closer to where he could enter. Gradually, more and more of the head was inside me. It was a struggle, and pain-wise, it was no different from the first time. Dan was significantly larger than Jack, and he had to push hard to get even half of it in. It had just started to feel somewhat okay when he pulled it out and looked at me in horror.

“Did we just have sex?” He got pale.

“I think so.” I knew so, but I didn’t want to seem like I was the only one fully aware of what was going on. Dan couldn’t find out how experienced I was.

“This is bad.” Dan’s brain was visibly racing. “What if you get pregnant? We didn’t even use a condom.”

Dan hadn’t cum, but in health class we learned that even precum could get someone pregnant. “What should we do?” I acted concerned. Again, I didn’t want to reveal how insignificant this was for me.

“I’m gonna go get Greg.” Dan dressed and ran out of the bathroom. I was still getting dressed when they opened the door.

“Here’s what we’re gonna do. You’re both coming to sleep over at my house tonight, and my sister is going to buy us a pregnancy test.” Greg was taking charge.

Trying to match Dan’s anxiety, and lacking any other sort of plan for the night anyway, I did as he said, and spent the night at Greg’s house on Roosevelt Island.

“I can’t believe I lost my virginity tonight,” I kept repeating.

The test, to Dan’s relief and my faked surprise, was negative. The next morning I went home feeling proud that I had sex again, and with a hunch that now I could really start
living
. Not only did I have casual sex, but I had slept over at a guy’s house and took an (ultimately unnecessary) pregnancy test. I was becoming a woman.

The third time I had sex was a few months later, that New Year’s Eve. I went to a party at a pool hall in Brooklyn held by a bunch of kids from a prep school. I met a senior named Walt, and at the end of the night we went back to his place.

As we made out in his bed, and he reached for the condoms in the drawer, I whispered, “I’m a virgin.”

This was completely unnecessary. Walt didn’t give a shit if this was my first time, or my hundredth. We didn’t even attend schools in the same borough. This was the only time we would ever see each other, and we both knew it.

Yet somehow, the idea of giving this random, older boy my virginity was something I couldn’t resist faking.

“Are you sure you want to do this?”

I nodded. The fantasy was playing out perfectly.

Walt was gentle and careful not to hurt me. He kept asking, “Are you okay? Does it hurt?”

It turned me on.

We had sex four times that night, and it was the first time I can truly say I
fucked
. We did it in every position, and when he came, he never did it in the condom; rather, he’d take it off and cum somewhere more erotic, like my breasts or face. I didn’t have an orgasm, but it was the first time sex felt
good
, in addition to the pain. That night I vowed never to fuck a virgin again.

A few years ago, I was talking with a girlfriend when we realized we both knew Walt. I told her my story, about how I had told him I was a virgin when I really wasn’t.

“Oh, he knew you weren’t a virgin. He knows Jack. He thought it was really weird you said that.”

So I guess that second time didn’t count. I had only lost my virginity twice. My psychic was right; everything important did happen in twos.

Haiku

Enema shop-ping.

Walk up to the register.