donut,” he said. “It’s the tv. I rented the Neil LaBute movie,
Your Friends & Neighbors.”

I stood
up, went into the living room and turned the volume up. Jason Patric was sitting
in a steam room with two other guys telling them the best sex he ever had was
when he was 12 and raped a boy in his class. The camera was dollying in slow
toward his face and he looked jaded and callous and cruel. I shut off the tv,
went into the bedroom and lay down with my back to Paul.

“What
is it, poundcake?” he said.

“That
monologue kind of took me out of the mood.”

“I
can understand that.” We lay there quietly for a long time and then we
both got kind of listless. We were too weirded out for nookie but we didn’t
want to lie still either.

“Maybe
we should do something,” I said.

“What?”

“I
guess we could finish watching the movie.” I knew it was sick but a part
of me was curious about Jason Patric’s loathsome character. I wanted to
see how much more diabolical he could get. So Paul and I put on our clothes,
sat on the couch and watched a lot of uptight white people be mean to each other
and have bad sex. Jason Patric kicked a girl out of his apartment for getting
her period on his high-thread-count sheets, Catherine Keener screamed at Ben
Stiller for talking during the act and Nastassja Kinski was so needy and shrill
I wanted to clock her. By the time the film was over I felt like showering for
a week.

“Why
do people watch that shit?” I said to Paul.

“I
couldn’t tell you,” he said. “That movie missed me by a mile.”

We took
our clothes off and got into bed, but something about the film made us toss
and turn. “Crumbcake?” he whispered.

“Yeah?”
I said, turning to face him.

“What
are you thinking about?”

“How
depressing that movie was.”

“Me
too.”

We blinked
at each other and then he put his hand on my hip and a few minutes later we
were knocking boots. I was quiet the whole time through. Usually I talk a great
deal during sex, every minute practically, but that Keener monologue made me
scared my verbosity was a turnoff. After a while I noticed Paul was being pretty
quiet too. It’s not like he usually talks a lot but this time he seemed
miles away. From a physical perspective, though, we were both doing fine, so
instead of suggesting we stop I stayed mum and a little while later we finished
what we’d started.

“How
was it?” I said, rolling onto my back.

“Weird,”
he said. “I hate that Neil LaBute.”

“I
do too!” I shouted. “He’s ruining sex lives all over the country!
Arthouse hipsters everywhere are paying nine bucks to see his movies, thinking
he’s the future of cinema, then going home and having strange and silent
sex. He should be blacklisted.”

“He
really should.”

Just then
I felt something warm down below. It wasn’t Paul’s hand. I bolted
out of the bed and ran to the bathroom. “What is it?” he called.

“Something
came early and I don’t have any supplies,” I said, cowering. I was
afraid I’d stained the bed and even though Paul’s sheets have very
low thread count I wondered if he might subconsciously turn assholic because
of the film.

“Reach
under the sink!” he said. I leaned over and opened the cabinet and there,
right behind the Ajax, was a small green box of Super Absorbent Tampax Tampons.

“Why
do you have those?” I said.

“Someone
left them here.” I knew they were his most recent ex-girlfriend’s
and at first it upset me to think of her lingering presence but then I decided
to count myself lucky she’d left them behind. I plugged myself up and went
back into the bedroom.

“Aren’t
you glad I had them?” he said.

“So
glad,” I said. “You’re no Jason Patric. You’re my menstrual
hero.”

“Anything
for you, rumball,” he said, nuzzling my nose.

Several
weeks later I decided we should see Eyes Wide Shut. Although Francesca
said it sucked and my brother called it “the worst movie ever made,”
I wanted to go so I could judge for myself which side of the banquet table Tom
sat on.

The tickets
were for the 11 o’clock show on a Saturday night. “I’ll pick
you up at 10,” I told Paul on the phone. “Then we can grab a bite
and get there early. Eyes Wide Shut is a popular flick and we want to
be sure to get seats.”

“Yes,
babydoll,” he said, sighing. He thinks I’m a nerd. When I went out
with Novel Lover he was the nerdy one, but with Paul, I am. He always mocks
me for wanting to get to places early and for reiterating our plans 10 times
over, but it’s important to be thorough and I don’t care what he thinks.

I picked
him up at 10 and we went to the Italian cafe by his apartment. We finished eating
at 10:40 but it took another 10 minutes to get the check, and another five to
figure out how much to tip. By the time we walked into the theater, at 11:01,
the film had begun and almost every goddamn seat was taken. I scanned the room,
spotted two empties way to the left in the third row, grabbed Paul’s arm
and raced him over. The angle was horrible–we had to turn our heads almost
45 degrees just to see the screen. Then I looked behind us and saw two empty
seats. There was just enough room by the wall for us to slither through, but
right as we planted our asses the girl next to us said, “These are saved.”
We grunted and headed back to our originals, but just as we were arriving, two
Bridge and Tunnels snagged them from under our noses. So we slid in next to
them, farther to the left than we were at the beginning, and had to angle our
heads a million times more.

“We
should have stayed where we were,” said Paul. “Qui va a la chasse
perd sa place.” Paul’s parents are French and sometimes he comes
out with these weird quotes.

“What
does that mean?”

“A
bird in the hand is worth two in the bush.”

“Don’t
talk dirty,” I said, looking over toward the screen. Nicole Kidman was
dancing with this cheesy gray-haired guy and the acting was so stiff I couldn’t
focus. Instead I began peering around the room in search of better seats. And
there was so little leg room that my legs kept getting cramped so every 20 seconds
I’d uncross them, then cross them again.

“Are
you happy where we’re sitting?” I finally whispered, hoping he’d
say no so we could leave.

“Yes.”

“You
sure?”

“Yep.”

“Because
I’m not.”

“Muffin,”
he said tightly.

“What?”

“You’re
giving me agita.”

That stung.
I’d never had a guy complain of agita before. It was such a low blow. I
pouted, cracked my neck and watched the film. Overall I thought it was slow,
awkward and scarily puritanical, but I didn’t get really mad till halfway
through. I’d enjoyed seeing Nicole’s taut arched nips, I’d gotten
a kick out of Leelee Sobieski’s pubescent buds and I’d even gotten
some pleasure out of the naked druggie chick. But by the time we got to the
orgy scene I was aching for some dick. This scene had been more hyped than any
other in the film. Surely Stan would show some shaft. I kept squinting during
the pans for a glimpse of some stick but no matter how hard I looked, no heads
were reared. It wasn’t like I expected to see Cruise Cock, but I’d
been hoping at the least some extras would display.

When the
movie was over Paul said, “What did you think?”

“They
didn’t show any dick,” I whined. “Didn’t that bother you?”

“Honestly?
No.”

“But
don’t you think equal-opportunity nudity is important?”

“No.
You like watching dick. I like watching tits.”

I sighed
and we walked out of the theater. As soon as we got to his place we climbed
right into bed. Despite the cock lack, something about the movie had fired me
up. We lunged for each other fast and charged. We were so yuppie kink. So Manhattan
married. We did a bad, bad thing. I knew he was probably thinking about the
ivory-skinned, generic-looking chippies in the orgy scene but that was all right,
because a few minutes in I started thinking about them too. I imagined I was
one. And then Tom became Paul, approaching me in a corner, and finally, finally,
I got some Dick.

“That
was nice,” said Paul, when it was over.

“Yeah,”
I said. “To hell with Neil. Long live Stanley.”

“Long
live Stanley,” said Paul, and then we fell asleep.

As you might
have gleaned, this is my last column for NYPress. I wrote my first story
for the paper in May 1996, when I was 22, and began getting hate mail the following
week. I was a temp then and I’d read “The Mail” each Wednesday
on my lunch break, sob and bite my fist. But then I took a lesson from the hottest
Jewish guy ever, Jesus, and learned to love my attackers. Not that all the mail
was bad. Two Park Slope lesbians wrote me to say they were diehard fans, an
anonymous male said he’d jerked off to a photo of me that ran in The
New York Times and a young actor sent a headshot with all his vital statistics–and
the words “I’m goyim”–printed neatly on the back.

In the end,
though, it’s you putzes I’ll remember the most. The ones who wrote
in week after week to lambaste every conceivable aspect of my person and pussy.
Who rejoiced at each of my downfalls and booed each of my triumphs. Who never
failed to call me skeaze and skag on the one or two occasions my photo appeared
in these pages. I won’t name you here, because it would gratify your spindly
little limp inadequate egos, but you know who you are and I won’t forget
you. Friends come and go, but enemies are forever.

Over the
course of the three-plus years of “Female Trouble,” I’ve profiled
many men (and women) who have brought me shame, heartache, misery and, once
in a long while, love. Here are a few updates on where they are now:

YOUNG DIRECTOR
is proud father to a one-month-old boy, BABY DIRECTOR. He and his fiancee BETH,
Baby’s mom, currently reside in a Tribeca loft and plan to marry in the
fall.

MR. DIRECTOR,
Young’s dad, still lives in Boston, where he watches dirty films, lunches
with New England glitterati and practices tasergun skills on his groundskeeper
Kevin.

SOCIAL SATIRIST
is working on a book, fighting his libidinous urges and mocking hypocrisy in
very clever ways.

CALIFORNIA
COCK moved to Los Angeles to be near his girlfriend and continues to labor in
graphic design. He still doesn’t know what Milton Berle looks like.

AUTEUR JEW
has not read my novel and probably won’t be directing the film version
any time soon.

DEREK from
the pilot recently landed a regular role on the new Barry Levinson cop show
The Beat, and is looking for a one-bedroom apartment downtown.

COMIC CYNIC
and I have not spoken since the Green Mountain Film Festival.

FRANCESCA
is still my best friend, still smokes Camel Filters and is currently dating
a very good egg.

NOVEL LOVER
is enjoying great professional success. Although he recently began seeing someone
new, he readily admits that he still has “some intimacy issues.”

Despite
the fact that PAUL remains my boyfriend, I still have a few intimacy issues
myself. For example, we’ve been together more than five months and I’m
terrified to pop the words for fear he might not say it back. Plus he’s
going out of town for two weeks to do some film work, and on top of that my
therapist’s on vacation till Labor Day so I can’t work any of this
crap out with her and…but enough about me.

“Why do you want to go there all of a sudden, biscuit?”

“Because…because I want to get out of the city before the summer ends.”

“Let’s do it.”

“You mean it?”

“Of course I do, sweetbread.”

Two days later we met at the Avis on 11th St. and sped toward Jersey in a spanking white midsize. The air conditioning was cool and the roads clear and in no time we were on the Garden State Pkwy. But when we got off at the Asbury Park exit we
suddenly found ourselves in the midst of bumper-to-bumper traffic.

“I guess a lot of people are going to the beach today,” I said dubiously, remembering how Francesca had described Asbury Park as a “ghost town.”

I looked at some of the bumper stickers on the cars. They were for radio stations and bands and some said things like “Stoner Chicks Rule.” At first I thought it was a Bruce gig, but then I looked out the window and saw that almost everyone
driving was under 18. This was definitely not a Boss crowd. I had to find out what was up. But I didn’t want to ask a teenager because I find them kind of scary. So when I spotted a middle-aged woman in an SUV to our right, I rolled down my window and said, “Excuse me. Do you know why there’s all this traffic?”

“I have no idea,” she said, shrugging. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

We drove for a few more minutes and finally I decided to bite the bullet and ask a teen. I spotted a car in the next lane with a teenage girl driving alone. She had a sweet, innocent look on her face and there was a stuffed green parrot toy perched on her steering wheel. What a cutie. Surely she’d give me the 411. I pushed my window button down but just as I turned to her I saw her begin talking to her parrot, poking it playfully and making expressive baby faces. I quickly rolled up the window and looked over to Paul.

“Did you–”

“Uh huh,” he said, laughing. “I don’t think she would have been able to help us. I think she has some issues.”

I looked out the window again and this time I spotted a bespectacled, goateed 17-year-old driving a car filled with teenaged girls. “Excuse me,” I said, opening the window. “Do you know why all these people are going to Asbury Park?”

“Warped Tour,” he answered, like I’d asked what decade it was.

“Oh!” I said. “What’s that?”

“A punk and metal festival. Thirty bands.”

I rolled up the window and wailed to Paul, “I can’t believe this! Out of all the days we pick to go to Asbury Park we’d have to pick the day of the Warped Tour! Francesca went here with her boy and they didn’t hit any bumps!”

“Is that why you wanted to come here? Because your friend did?”

“Not at all!” I shouted defensively. “I wanted to glimpse the collapse of quaint Americana!”

He nodded skeptically, and said, “Let’s pull off and decide what to do.” Then he deftly switched lanes and drove us into the parking lot of a ShopRite. When we got out of the car we saw two punk teens leaning on a car drinking beer. Definite Warped Tourers. One was short and scruffy, with dark hair, and the other was tall and bleached-blond.

“’Scuse me,” I said, walking over. “But we’re from New York”–Paul winced–”and we wanted to go to Asbury Park for the day, but then we found out about the Warped Tour. Do you know any other good places to go to the beach?”

“Seaside,” said Brown.

“Seaside’s skeezy,” said Blond.

“What do you think Asbury Park is?” asked Brown, like his friend was a dope.

“Skeezy’s just fine with us,” I said eagerly. “We like skeezy.” They told us how to get there and then we got in the car and headed back to the Garden State.

Half an hour later we crossed the bridge to the Jersey Shore and I immediately got this have-to-shit feeling in my ass. My grandparents used to have a place in Harvey Cedars they called “Maven Haven By the Bay” and my parents took me there every summer till I was 12. I always used to get excited when we crossed the bridge because I knew I’d get to see my cousins and play in sand. And even though this was different, to my sphincter it felt exactly the same.

The streets of Seaside Heights were packed with teens and kids and young couples. I could see a Ferris wheel in the distance and a boardwalk and I got so revved up I started bouncing up and down in my seat like an anxious dog. “Brooklyn’s
excited,” said Paul. “Brooklyn’s gonna get to go swimming in the ocean.”

“She is! She is!” I screamed.

We parked the car and walked down the boardwalk into the amusement park. It was packed with kids in bathing suits and melanomic women in bikinis walking arm and arm with huge, muscular men. All the grown-ups seemed to be smoking and all the kids looked unpretentious and tan.

“What should we go on first?” asked Paul.

“How ’bout the Gravitron?” I said. (When I was 14 I went on a Gravitron in Rehoboth Beach, DE, and it gave me a spontaneous o.)

“Okay,” said Paul.

We walked into the saucer, nodded at the DJ in the center and stood in two adjoining spots. No one else was on our ride. “Summer of ’69″ revved up, and as we began to spin and the floor dropped out from beneath us and gravity pinned us to the wall, I waited to jizz. Nothing happened. I looked at Paul for added erotic stimulation but he looked kind of spaced out, so it didn’t really get me going. I started to move my hand toward my crotch but as soon as I lifted it, the machine’s force snapped it down by my side. God was telling me not to mix onanism with amusement, but I didn’t want to listen. I wrenched it up again and this time it landed on my left tit. I did a little nip pinch and started to get warm but then I saw the DJ looking at me funny, so I slid it to my stomach and gave him a weak smile.

When we got off Paul and I went into a photo booth and took two shots of ourselves in a frame that said “Living La Vida Loca” around the edges. As we emerged from the photo booth I noticed a climbing wall right next to it. I had first tried wall-climbing in Stockholm at a street fair and I’d made it to the top three times in a row and ever since then I’d been convinced this was a sport I could master.

There was a sign that said you got your five bucks back if you could press the bell at the top and suddenly I got antsy and eager. “Hold my purse,” I said to Paul. He got that look on his face that all guys get when you ask them to hold your purse, and then he took it and held it away from his body like it was a bag of dogshit.

I took off my sandals, paid my dough and went up to the attendant. I got into the harness and he clamped me to the rope. I chose the shortest of the four walls you could climb, anxiously glancing up at the bell, and then I began my ascent to the sky. I chose each of my footholds carefully, never moving until I was sure I had a good strategy, and within three minutes I’d made it to the bell. I stuck my finger in, feeling like that kid with the dyke, and the bell rang gloriously and loudly so the whole park could hear. “I won! I won!” I shouted to Paul. The attendant lowered me down slowly and as soon as I was on the ground I said, “Give me my five bucks.”

“You don’t get five bucks,” he said. “You climbed the women-and-kids wall. You only get five bucks if you can climb wall 8 or 11. Look at the sign.” I walked toward the sign and read it again. He was right. It said very clearly ”wall 8 or 11″ and I had climbed wall 5. I was furious at the misleading advertising–why did they put a bell on the sissy wall if ringing it didn’t get you anything? I wanted to give it another shot but Paul had an impatient, other-guys-are-thinking-I’m-fageau-with-this-handbag look on his face, so I put my shoes back on and grabbed my bag back. “That sucked,” I said. “They should let you know you’re climbing the sissy wall as soon as you start. And that ‘women-and-kids’ line was so offensive. The highest-ranking wall-climber in the world is a 14-year-old girl.”

“You did a good job,” he said. “I was very impressed. As soon as you started I thought, ‘The muffin’s gonna make it.’” I bit his cheek affectionately and we walked through the game section toward the boardwalk, passing some sort of target shoot where all the prizes were cigarette cartons. That’s so New Jersey, I thought.

When we got to the boardwalk we headed toward the beach and spread our two towels on the sand. As I lay down I spotted a condom right next to the towel, but instead of freaking big-time I just threw sand at it till it was buried, then rolled over to face Paul.

I took off my shirt and shorts and revealed my brown J. Crew-outlet bikini, then ran down to the water and hopped waves for a few minutes. Then I went back to Paul and collapsed next to him. “Why don’t you go in?” I said.

“I’m not much of a swimmer, but I’m thinking about it,” he said. Then he took off his shirt and ran to the water and when it got to his ankles he turned to me and shook his head like I was crazy for having withstood the cold. I waved like a girlfriend on the beach waving to her boyfriend and then he stepped out a little further, picked up a rock, pitched it far out over the surface and watched it land. He seemed pensive. I thought how the ocean does that to people, clears their heads and not just their skin, and I was happy to be watching him, happy to be at the beach, even if it wasn’t Asbury Park, even if it was skeezy. After a few minutes he came back and lay down on his towel and I put my nose next to his and breathed in so I could smell the salt on his face.

When we got hungry so we walked to a restaurant a few blocks from the boardwalk to get some dinner before we headed home. They didn’t serve alcohol, so Paul went to a liquor store down the block and brought back a Bud for himself and a Bass for me. He loves Bud, but I don’t hold it against him.

Our waitress was inept and the food was awful and when the check came I whispered, “Let’s leave her a bad tip so she learns to treat her customers better.”

“We’re never gonna see her again, lug nut,” said Paul. “She’s a teenager and this is her summer job and she’s only doing it so she can have spending money at night, so maybe it’s better if we just be generous.” Paul’s roots are as upper crust as mine, but he’s employed by the service industry and has great sympathy for his workingman cohorts, near and far. He always tips at least 20 and often 25 percent because he knows from experience what it feels like to be stiffed. I still thought it was wrong to tip for mediocre service but the day had been good and I liked the town, so I set down an extra fiver and we walked to the car.

Plus I was starting to get dizzy. Not just ’cause of tension on the set but because of the green screen. We were shooting in front of a huge green screen because this would be a high-tech show and the computer graphics people were going to put in special backgrounds in postproduction. Derek and I were sitting at a green table on green boxes, and I could feel my brain beginning to go soft.

“What doesn’t sound natural about my read?” I said.

“You’re speaking in a babyish voice. Not your own. Try it the way you’re talking to me right now. Try it like yourself.”

“It’s body-conscious,” I squeaked. “It makes me feel hot but not too slutty.” It was so bizarre. Carol Kane had taken over my body.

“That was like yourself?” said Joan.

“No! I know it wasn’t! But it’s the best I can do with such a lousy—” I started to say “script” but then I remembered I wrote the script. I couldn’t criticize my own text. I had to find someone else to blame.

“You’re really not communicating very well,” I told Joan. “I mean, what exactly is it that you want?”

“Maybe you could play it more flirtatiously.” The DP rolled the camera and we did it again and this time it did sound better, but not completely.

“Okay,” said Joan. “Let’s move on.”

I could tell she wasn’t satisfied. We took a five-minute break and I scurried into the holding area to put my head in my hands. When I’d convinced this production company I should play myself it wasn’t out of hubris. Okay, maybe it was a little bit out of hubris. But I really believed I could do it. Now my delusions of grandeur were getting the better of me. Why was I so relaxed in life, but so stiff and stagy in front of a camera?

Derek came in the room and reached for his Winstons.

“Do you think I’m a bad actor?” I asked.

“You told me this morning you were a failed actor.”

“That doesn’t necessarily mean I’m bad, though. Do you think I suck?” 

“I don’t think we should have this conversation,” he said, took his pack and went out to the stairwell to smoke. I followed him and sat next to him on the bottom step.

“What were you trying to tell me?” I asked.

“I just don’t want you to be afraid to play with me.”

“Are you coming on to me?” I asked excitedly.

“No. I mean, this morning when we were doing that improv, and I was giving you stuff to work with, you weren’t really listening to me. That’s the only thing that makes me mad, when you don’t allow me to help you.”

“I promise I’ll let you help me!” I shouted. “What scene do we have next?”

“The one where we make out on my bed.”

Suddenly all my fears flitted away. I’d never done a full-out, partially clothed, on-camera makeout scene before. I couldn’t wait to expand my horizons. We went into the costume area and I changed into the Victoria’s Secret Miracle Bra the costume girl had bought for me, and then I slithered into a tight, slinky dress. Barry, the makeup guy, primped my hair and I went to the set ready to bare. When I saw the bed, though, I got a little nervous. Not only was it neon green, but behind it was a green cube with red dots on each of the corners. “What’s that for?” I asked Joan.

“The graphics. It lets them build a 3-D environment behind you.” 

Derek came in and we lay down on the bed facing each other. “I guess this is what cybersex is like,” he said. Joan talked us through our motions, then called action and for the next 10 minutes, four takes in a row, we rolled around on the bed. It wasn’t very hot. I wanted it to be but it’s just hard to get it up when someone’s yelling, “Roll left! Now roll right! Sit up! Lie down!” the whole time through. I love being dominated—but by my dude, not my director.

We finished the scene and Joan seemed happy, but when we wrapped for the day I saw this tightness around her eyes that made me wonder if she’d had doubts about my performance in the rest of the scenes. Maybe the only good acting I could do was porno.

I changed out of my costume and called Paul. “I want to do something relaxing tonight,” I said. “Let’s go see Arlington Road. I heard it’s really good.”

Unfortunately that wasn’t the wisest choice. While the movie jolted me out of my performance paranoia, it jolted me into a far deeper paranoia about terrorist militias. ”God, I’m depressed,” I said to Paul as we walked out. “What should we do now?”

“Let’s get some sushi,” he said.

So we went to a restaurant on 9th St. and sat at a window table and while Paul ate his spicy tuna I bitched about the day. “Maybe it’s okay that I’m a bad actor,” I said. “Jerry Seinfeld’s a bad actor. He says his lines in a false and singsongy voice, but people love him anyway. Maybe people will watch me, knowing I’m bad, but like the character and the writing enough not to care.”

“I’m sure you’re not that talentless, pumpkin,” he said.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I really think I’ve lost my knack. What if the network likes everything about the show except my performance? Then they’ll hold onto me as a writer but replace me as an actor—with Parker Posey or something. I’ll never be able to live it down.”

“Why don’t you wait till you see the footage?” he said. “Sometimes it comes out better than you think.”

That night I slept over his place and in the morning I went back for the second and final day of shooting. My first scene was with a guy named Mark who was playing my best friend Sam. I was supposed to tell him about my plan to paste Indie’s photo
to my breasts on our next date and Sam was supposed to mock me in a dry and Jewish way. We did a few takes of the scene and then Joan pulled me aside and whispered, “You’re doing that thing with your voice again.”

“What thing?” I whined.

“Let’s go out into the hallway.”

We sat down on two chairs and as she started to explain what she didn’t like I started to bawl. I rubbed my head mournfully and my wig got crooked. I was wearing a wig since my real hair is frizzy and wild and that looks bad against a green screen. ”I don’t know what you want,” I wailed, straightening the wig.

I was embarrassed to be crying but I was glad I was dealing with a female director. If she had been a male, then it would have been like that scene in A League of Their Own, where Tom Hanks coaches one of the girls on the team and she begins to cry and he looks at her incredulously and says, “There’s no crying in baseball.”

“Let’s do the scene together,” said Joan, “just you and me. Talk to me the way you were talking to your friend when this happened and you were telling him your plan.” And so I did the line, but improvised, pretending I was talking to my real friend Sherm, and changing some of the words so they felt more natural.

“That was a thousand percent better,” said Joan. “That’s how I want you to do it. If you need to change the words a little then you should.”

“But Lisa Kudrow on Friends always adds these little ‘y’know’s to her lines and it annoys the fuck out of me.”

“It annoys me sometimes too,” said Joan, “but she’s funny.”

We went back into the soundstage and after Barry blotted away my tear stains, we taped the scene again. When I finished Joan was smiling. She liked me, she really liked me.

The rest of the day was a breeze—all the scenes went a million times easier than the day before because I paraphrased all my lines. I’d been trained for years not to mess with the writer’s work, but now that I was the writer I could do whatever I wanted.

When we finally wrapped, at 10:30 at night, I changed into my regular clothes and set the wig down on its dummy head in the holding area. I went back in the studio and saw a cooler of beers on the food table, plus a delivery of chicken, ribs and fries. I loaded a plate and Joan beckoned me into one of the offices. “Today went so much better than yesterday,” she said, inhaling on a smoke. “To tell you the truth, I was kind of freaked out when I left last night.”

“You don’t have to rub it in,” I said. “I know I sucked yesterday.”

“I wasn’t freaked about you. I was freaked about me. When I got home I called my brother and three other friends to moan. I was afraid the network would love everything except my directing.”

“That’s exactly how I felt about my acting!”

“I was so distraught,” she said. “It was like that thirty something episode where Elliot directs his first video. It’s a total fiasco and everyone on the set knows he doesn’t know what he’s doing. He goes home that night and gets really drunk and depressed. At the end of the episode he’s in the car with Nancy and as he’s complaining to her, the camera zooms out and reveals Melanie Mayron on a crane directing the actual episode of the show.”

“How totally meta—and gorgeous!” I shouted.

She smiled. Derek came in with some brews. We kvelled over his brilliant performance and he said he loved working on the show. A few more crew members wandered into the office with brews and smokes, and the nicotined air made me high instead of nauseated. Finally it got late and everyone left for home. I went upstairs to the holding area. My wig was still sitting where I’d left it. I knew I should take it with me but I didn’t want to admit that the shoot was over. So I took it into Joan’s office and set it on her desk as a totally meta and gorgeous souvenir.

“An invite to the Summer of Sam premiere.”

“Do you get a plus-one?” I said eagerly.

“Of course.”

“Can I be that one?”

“No,” he said. “I’m telling you about the party because I want to take someone else.”

“Who?” I moaned.

“I’m kidding, muffin. Of course you can come with me.”

“Hooray!” I shouted, pumping the air with my Kahn’s dog. Suddenly the crowd went wild. I thought they were cheering my invite to the party but then I looked at the field and saw that Robin Ventura had just hit a single and Luis Lopez was sliding into home. I always miss the best parts of baseball games because I’m too busy talking. It’s a slow sport but if you look away from the field a moment to schmooze that’s inevitably the moment of the most exciting play.

“So when’s the premiere?” I said.

“Monday,” said Paul. “And the after party’s at Roseland.”

The night of the party I decided to wear a kimono-style wrap dress I got at the Village Scandal. It was thin and tight and it made my boobs look pointy and high. I’d been feeling kind of fat lately but this cut was just right for my bod.

Paul had told me to meet him at the brewery on 42nd between 7th and Broadway, but on my way out of the station I spotted him coming from the R. He was wearing a black silk shirt I love. He wears it unbuttoned down a lot and you can see his chest hairs but I don’t think it looks cheesy. I think it looks good. Sometimes the same style statements that gross you out on random men can be total turn-ons on your current beau. We kissed on the lips and walked out of the turnstile together, and since we were running late we decided not to go to the brewery and instead to grab something quick.

“How ’bout Roy Rogers?” said Paul.

“We’re about to go to a film premiere and you’re gonna take me to Roy Rogers?” I whined.

“We don’t have much time, dollface. And Roy Rogers is good.”

So we went in, wolfed burgers and fries, wiped our mouths and walked to the Loews Astor Plaza. There were photographers everywhere and a real red carpet and a huge line of will-callers waiting to get in. On our way toward the back of the line we saw this guy Paul knew and he let us cut in front of him. A few minutes later the line started to move. We were presented with tickets and ushered through the door and all of a sudden I was inside a movie premiere. I’d only been to one other premiere in my life. It was for Six Ways to Sunday and it was damn lame. Debbie Harry was in it but she didn’t show and the only famous person in the audience was George Wendt.

But this was a premiere with style. The stars were lined up in front of a rope talking to journalists, and flashbulbs were popping like crazy. Jennifer Esposito was wearing a long white gown and I had to admit she looked pretty smoking. Mira Sorvino had this perfect ass and shapely calves and high heels that she didn’t seem to have trouble standing in. I hoped she’d turn around, spot me in my kimono dress and suddenly decide she was bicurious.

Paul pulled me by the hand toward the escalator and I reluctantly followed. When we got inside the theater it was a madhouse. Almost all the seats were taken except for a small roped-off area in the front part of the back section. We wandered and wandered, trying to find two together, but everyone was saving for other people. But just as we were giving up hope, he spotted our friend Enrique in the roped-off area.

“How’d you get a seat here?” Paul asked him.

“I asked the usher if I could sit here and he said okay.”

Paul went over to the usher, they exchanged a few words and then Paul beckoned for me to follow. He was so totally my hero. We took our seats next to Enrique and then Paul nudged my side.

“I’m not good about celebrity-spotting,” he said, “but is that Jennifer Lopez a few seats down?”

I looked to my right and said, “Where? Where?”

“You have to be subtle,” he said. “To my left.”

I slowly rotated my head and did a quick drive-by with my eyes. “That can’t be her,” I said. “She looks like such a shiksa. How could a Puerto Rican have such a pug nose?” But then I answered my own question.

“Who are you talking about?” said Enrique.

“Jennifer Lopez is like three seats down from you, boss,” said Paul.

“Oh my God,” said Enrique, stealing a glance. “I can’t focus on the film now. I’m all fired up. I can’t believe she’s sitting so close. Oh my God.”

I rolled my eyes. Guys can be such pussyhounds sometimes. At least my Mira fixation was justified. Chick won an Oscar. But Jennifer Lopez is a talentless chippie. As far as I’m concerned, the only thing she’s got going is her tuches.

Suddenly a crowd approached our area and I recognized two of the guys as Puffy and Nas. The crowd went over to Lopez and her friends but while everyone else was kissing and hugging hello, she and Puffy just gave each other the evil eye. The lights went down. I loved that I had a seat and Puffy didn’t. Now maybe he’d know how those kids felt at CCNY.

Spike Lee stood up in a spotlight and thanked his wife and the curtains opened and the movie began. Jimmy Breslin was in the intro sequence and he was pretty bad. You could tell he was reading his lines off a cue card. But then John Leguizamo and Mira walked into a disco and did this amazing dance sequence where they literally became the only people in the room and I was totally hooked. I’ll spare you my blow-by-blow review save to say the film was too long but the acting was solid and George Tabb kicked ass in his cameo.

When it was over Paul and I walked to Roseland. As we approached the bar to order drinks, I noticed that all the bartenders were wearing white tanktops—and all the chick bartenders were really fine-looking platinum blondes. I looked over at the food table and noticed all the chick waitstaff were platinum blondes also. Black chicks and white chicks both. Then I realized they were wearing wigs. In keeping with the theme of the movie. Because Son of Sam liked brunettes and in the summer of ’77 lots of brunettes went blonde.

“They’re all wearing wigs,” I said to Paul. “That’s so sick and unfunny.”

“I know,” he said. “But the tanktops are even worse. See that guy over there?” He pointed to a white-haired bartender. “I came here six years ago and bought a beer from him. He’s one of the regular Roseland bartenders. He’s like 60 and they’re making him wear a goddamn undershirt.”

I went up to the bartender. “How do you feel about your undershirt?” I said.

“I hate it!” he shouted. “I can’t believe they’re making us wear them! I hate this fucking thing!” He pulled it angrily from his skin.

“It’s so wrong they’re making you do that,” I said. Then I waited for what I felt was an appropriately long beat and said, “Can I have a vodka tonic?”

He poured one for me and a beer for Paul and as we sat to drink I spotted Auteur Jew across the room. Auteur Jew was a Hollywood director and he’d made two films I’d heartily enjoyed. He had a keen visual style and a rocking sense of humor and I had a suspicion he’d be the perfect director for the film version of my novel.

“I have to do some business,” I said to Paul. “I’ll be back in a few.” I sidled up to Auteur Jew and introduced myself to him. “I hate to talk business at a party,” I said. “But I wrote this book I think you should direct and I’d like to send it to you. I really liked your last film. Particularly the vomit scene.”

“Which vomit scene? There were two.”

I was thrown for a loop de loop. For the life of me I could only remember one. But I couldn’t admit that. I had to show him I’d been watching his work closely. I had to prove myself attentive to his art.

“The one where he’s, where he’s about to?” I said hesitantly.

“Oh, that one,” said Auteur, nodding.

“Anyway,” I said brightly, “let me tell you about my book. It’s subtitled ‘a gratifying novel’ and my editor says you can read it with one hand. But really it’s about a nice Jewish girl who just wants to meet a Jewish guy.”

“Did you ever meet one?”

“No. My boyfriend now isn’t.”

“That’s good,” he said. “Jewish girl-WASP guy relationships always work out. But Jewish guy-WASP girl relationships never do.”

“Why not?”

“Because in Jewish families the boys are spoiled and in WASP families the girls are. Two spoiled people together don’t work. I know. My last girlfriend was a WASP.”

“Are you dating a WASP now?” I said.

He nodded sadly and said, “You’d think I’d learn.”

He was so right up my alley. I knew our artistic collaboration would be a shiddach for the ages. “So where should I send the book?” I said. He wrote down his address and I took it, fighting the instinct to kiss the paper. Then I scurried back over to Paul and said, “Let’s dance.”

I took his hand and led him to the floor. The DJ was standing up on a stage and behind him were these huge blow-up posters of Daily News front pages from during the Son of Sam killings. One had a police sketch and it was really scary. I turned my back to the posters and began to disco with Paul. My heels were uncomfortable but I ignored the pain. I tried to move just like Mira in that opening scene. I was feeling pretty good, but then I spotted her dancing a few feet away and she definitely had the better moves.

Suddenly a new song came on and I realized it was Chaka Khan’s “Ain’t Nobody.” I am a humongous Chaka fan so I instantly grew tremulous and eager. “It’s my girl! It’s my girl!” I said to Paul excitedly. For the first two verses I twirled around and shook my shoulders real slow, as Chaka began to build to the first chorus, and when she finally sang that rising, “Oh, oh, oh, oh-oh” I totally rocked out, swinging my hips and waving my arms in the air. Paul took my hand and spun me around a few times and then he pulled me in and we slow-danced even though it’s not a slow-dance song. I closed my eyes so I didn’t have to see the huge police sketch over Paul’s shoulder and for a second we were the only people in the room.

We’d both been invited to a party at a fancy restaurant in honor of Bruce Vilanch, the guy who writes the Oscars and the star of a documentary in the festival, Get Bruce. I arrived at the party with Jamie, my director, but as soon as Paul came in I plopped my ass next to his. As glamorous pseudo-celebrities, all Friends of Bruce, swirled around us, I gazed at Paul and prayed we were alone. But each time I started to sweet-talk, someone would come along to congratulate Paul on his film, which had screened earlier that day. “You’re the next Truffaut,” said a German scout. “It was the best movie in the festival,” said an L.A. director. “I can’t stop thinking about it,” said a San Francisco writer.

“I can’t stop thinking about you,” I wanted to add, but Paul blushes easily and I knew the only way to get him was to get him in private.

Finally the party thinned out, and Paul and I went to the bar to order our last beers. The only people left besides us were Keith, a festival-hopper, and a local couple I’d met earlier that nighta bespectacled journalist with long brown hair and his girlfriend, who was Barbie-licious. They were like Howard Stern and Kim Gordon, except unpretentious and granola.

“I have a secret,” I whispered to Kim, while Paul was chatting with Howard and Keith. “I have a crush on Paul but I’m scared to make a move.”

“Don’t be scared,” she said. “Go for it. I’m mildly psychic and I have a good feeling about this.”

“You do?”

“Oh, yeah.”

She was airy and West Coastian but I wanted to believe her. I glanced toward Paul. “He’s talking to your boyfriend,” I said.

“Can you get me an inroad here?”

She whipped her head around and said, “Howard and Keith, can I buy you two some drinks?” As they turned toward the bartender to place their orders, I tapped Paul on the shoulder.

“Do you want to come outside with me for a second?” I said. “Sure,” he said.

I led him to an outdoor patio in the back and we sat down next to each other at a round table. I turned my chair to face his and said, “I’ve been wanting to kiss you since the beginning of the party.”

“I’ve been wanting to kiss you for the last three days,” he said.

“Why didn’t you?”

“I wasn’t sure how you felt,” he said.

I didn’t know if he knew about my night with the swarthy local but I didn’t think it was the time to bring it up. There was a long silent beat. We stared. We blinked. I gulped. And then I took Paul’s face in both my hands, pressed my mouth up against his, and slipped in some tongue. He pulled me close and my chair slid forward a few inches. It made a scraping noise on the patio floor. It was weird to be kissing him seated, at a table. It felt businesslike, as though I’d made a formal proposition and been accepted, but instead of signing the papers we’d decided to smooch.

I stroked his neck. He bit my tongue a little and I bit back. Which made me a backbiter. We pulled away and stared at each other. His cheeks were redtwo perfect, circular patches like the blushes painted on dolls. I’d never seen such red cheeks. I’m Semitic and dark and even after an orgasm I look olive and monochrome as ever.

I put my hand on his red cheek and pulled him in for another round. Just as it was getting frisky, Keith came out the door and walked over to our table. We pulled away quickly and looked up at him. Keith has wide, sad eyes, bushy hair and glasses. He wrote a book about film festivals and spends the entire year going from one festival to another. He’s a sweet and innocent guy but he’s like the Linda Tripp of the festival world: He takes far too much interest in other people’s business.

“What’s up, Keith?” said Paul.

“I just wanted to know where you two were.”

“We’re right here,” I said, glaring.

“That’s what I wanted to know,” he said, then walked back through the door.

I rolled my eyes at Paul. “I don’t know about Keith,” I said. “He means well, but he really gets on my nerves sometimes. He’s always hovering around, eavesdropping and butting into conversations he’s not a part of. He’s such a…such a…”

“Noodge?”

“Exactly!” I said. “But you’re no Yid. How’d you know that word?”

“I’ve always known it. I like it because it sounds like what it means.”

“It sure does,” I said. I smiled at him and he smiled back. “I want to see you in the city,” I said.

“I want to see you too.”

“I don’t think we should rush things tonight. We’ll have lots of time when we get back.”

“All right.”

“Here’s my phone number,” I said, writing it down on a napkin. “I won’t call you. You call me.”

He touched my face and we leaned in for round three. I opened my eyes for a second a few minutes later and out of the corner of my eye I spotted Keith standing in the doorway, staring at us. I had no idea how long he’d been there.

“Jesus, Keith,” I said, jerking away. “What is it this time?”

“I just wanted you two to know we’re leaving,” he said.

“We’ll be out in a minute,” said Paul.

After a little more foreplay, we followed Keith back into the restaurant. I sidled up next to Kim with a shit-eating grin and she raised her glass and clinked it with mine. A few minutes later we all headed out. I kissed Paul on the cheek goodbye, and went back to my hotel. As I closed my eyes I thought of his pink shaygets lips forming the word noodge and I fell asleep smiling.

As soon as we got back to the city we started going out a lot. One night we saw Pushing Tin which sucked my left tit and afterward we went to the Cedar Tavern to talk. We were sitting at the bar and he had his hand on my back so I was feeling confident. I put my face next to his and said, “I like you so much, Paul.”

“I like you too, baby doll.” (I loved when he called me that. Something about the retro nature of the expression always sent a zing from my heart to my hole.)

“The reason I like you so much,” I said, “is because you’re really solid. You have both feet planted on the ground and also, you’re good people. What I’m trying to say is, you’re a mensch.”

“What’s a mensch?”

“A just and noble person. But it sounds better in Yiddish.”

“I like that,” he said, nodding. “Mensch. You’re a mensch too.”

“I don’t know about that,” I said. “I have trouble listening, I’m very self-centered and I like to talk about people behind their backs, which is against Jewish law.”

“Don’t deny it,” he said. “You’re very menschy.” I squealed with glee and bit his lower lip affectionately. I never knew going out with a goy could be so much fun.

A few nights later, he came over to my apartment for the first time. We were going to hang out for a while and then meet our friend Dutch Mike at a bar in my neighborhood. It was a humid night and Paul was sweating a little when he came in, so immediately I wanted to pounce on him. I get very turned on by male perspiration. I love sniffing men’s armpits and I love it when they drip on me while we’re going at it. I used to smell Novel Lover’s armpits all the time and ask if he wanted to smell mine, but for some reason he always declined.

So I pulled Paul to the bed and we began rolling around on top of the covers, and before we knew it two things had happened. We lay there sighing, side by side, and then he went to the bathroom and threw some water on his face. I stood up and as I was dressing I noticed that my covers had gotten a little marred by our activity.

“Uh-oh!” I shouted into the bathroom. “My bed is Monica!”

“What?” he said, over the water.

“My bed is Monica!”

He shut off the water and came out of the bathroom. “What does ‘Monica’ mean?” he said. “Is that Yiddish?”

I pointed to the bed and said, “No. Monica.” He looked down at it and started laughing. So did I. I laughed so hard my eyes started tearing and then I said, “I think I’m gonna plotz.”

“Who?” he said.

“It means ‘to faint from excitement or exhaustion.’ To shit your pants. But ‘I’m plotzed’ means ‘I’m drunk.’”

“So ’plotzed’ is ‘boxed.’”

“What’s ’boxed’?”

“‘Boxed’ is ‘lit.’”

“What’s ’lit’?”

“‘Lit’ is ‘drunk.’ But it can also mean tired.”

I looked at him and grinned lasciviously. He spoke a language all his own. Thuggish.
“You know what?” I said. “All this slang is making me horny.”

He looked at me and I looked back and then we got on the bed and romped enthusiastically.
“You get me so excited,” I said.

“You get me excited too. You’re such a good shtup.”

“Shtup?” I screamed. “Where’d you learn that one?”

“I was in a play about World War II soldiers, and there was a Jewish character in it and a line about shtupping.”

“Who knew?” I said incredulously. “Who knew you could Yid so well?”

He shrugged and blushed. I turned to face him, rested my head on his shoulder, and said, ”You’re my Yiddishe papa.”

“Thanks, baby,” he said. And then we stood up, went to meet Dutch Mike and all got totally shikker.

“I had to work at the last minute,” said Paul. “Would you meet Bobby on your own?”

“I don’t know. Isn’t he like…in his 60s?”

“Yeah, but you’ll like him. He has a very interesting sexual past.” My curiosity overcame my trepidation so I slipped on a tight tank top and got on the train.

We were supposed to meet at Mi Nidito restaurant on 8th Ave. and 51st. I knew right away who Bobby was. He was sitting at the end of the bar, by the service area, drinking a Heineken. He had blond eyebrows, a brown mustache and a bald head with a fringe of brown hair that ran around the nape of his neck. He was short and slightly hunched and he wore a cotton plaid shirt buttoned almost all the way to the top.

Bobby?” I said, tapping him on the shoulder.

“Who are you?”

“Amy. Paul’s girlfriend.” I wasn’t actually sure if I was his girlfriend but I liked saying it when he wasn’t around. Something about the word always made my clit do a little dance of joy.

“Where’s Paul?” said Bobby.

“He had to work,” I said, taking a seat. “It’ll just be the two of us. I hope you don’t mind.”

“No,” he said slowly. “You’re a very pretty girl. You have classic features.”

“I know,” I said. “Two of them.”

“I have three,” he said, raising a brow. “What would you like to drink?”

“A frozen margarita.” He beckoned the bartender and ordered the drink. “Paul tells me you know him from _____” I said, naming the Hell’s Kitchen bar.

“Yes,” he said. “I go to so many bars I don’t know where I am. Sometimes I get under the alfluence of incohol.” He paused for a beat, then let out a high-pitched chuckle, and leaned his torso forward. I got the feeling this was what he always did after a punchline.

“That’s a good one,” I said.

“The drunker I sit, the longer I get,” he said. “Seriously, though. You know what turns my stomach?”

“What?”

“A pair of tits against my back.”

Suddenly I was kind of glad Paul couldn’t join us after all.

“You’re such a wicked man,” I said, taking a sip of the margarita. “Paul told me you’ve had some interesting sexual adventures.”

“I did,” he said. “I used to have sex with girls in the hotel where I worked.”

“When was this?”

“In the late 50s. I worked in a hotel bar on E. 40th St. and sometimes I’d take them up to the rooms. This was a noninflationary time, and the hotels were not doing good. The desk clerk would give me the key. I’d go out, pick up a girl and say, ‘I’m staying in town tonight. You want to go to the hotel?’ And they would. There was no business of, ‘Who’d you have last night?’ You understand what I’m saying?”

I nodded, glad I wasn’t single in those days.

“But this’ll flip your wig,” he said. “I used to have sex in telephone booths. You want to hear about my first telephone venture?”

“Oh, yes.”

“On the nights I wasn’t working, I’d go around the corner to Stouffer’s Restaurant at Grand Central Station. They used to serve 2500 lunches and 2500 dinners and there were 60 waitresses. I’d stand by the service area of the bar and flirt
heavily. I’d threaten the girls with my eyes.”

“What does that mean?”

He gave me a Dracula look and, in a deep, gruff voice said, “You know what I’m gonna do to you?”

“Oh,” I said.

“Staring at all those 18-, 19-, 20-year-old girls, I had a permanent erection. Once I went into the pharmacy to get help. There was a lady behind the counter. I asked for the male pharmacist and she said, ‘I’m a registered pharmacist. My sister and I work here. What can I do for you?’ So I said, not knowing how to say it, ’I have a permanent erection and it just won’t go down. What could you give me for it?’ She went to the back and told her sister and then she came out and said, ‘My sister and I have decided to give you $5000 in cash and a half-interest in the store.’” He doubled over. “You like that one? I told it to Paul the other day.”

“I do,” I said. “But what about the telephone venture?”

“One night in Stouffer’s, this girl came up to me, Eileen, let’s say her name was. She’s been working there a year or more, she’s attractive in a very young way. She says, ‘How come you never talk to me?’ I said, ‘I never got around to it.
You’re very nice. After work why don’t you come around the corner to the bar to get a drink?’ At 9 o’clock I got to the bar. I’d told some of the other bartendersfrom the neighborhood to come. So I’m sitting there with the guys, and Eileen
shows up. Next thing you know I’m holding her hand. A little while later, I had to make a phone call. As I go, I say, ‘Come with me.’

“So we get into this phone booth and just out of nowhere I start kissing her. She kisses back. I say, ‘I’m sorry I didn’t meet you sooner.’ Now I’m developing a quite sizable erection. But I make my phone call and go back to the table
with her. Half an hour later I say, ‘I have to make another phone call.’ So we went back and this time we went through all sorts of gyrations.”

“Did you do it?”

“No. I started lifting her dress—women didn’t wear pants in those days. I just couldn’t help it. I was overwhelmed. Next thing I know I whip it out. I get her hand, I put it on it, I say, ‘Oh, Eileen, this is terrific.’ I lift her dress and I get it into her panties. But the booth is very narrow. So I said, ‘You better get down. Someone might see us.’ She gets down and I say, ‘Eileen, kiss it.’ That’s a good thing to say. It sounds innocent. Now I’m losing my color. But I don’t drop a load. We go back to the table and start making out at the bar.”

“Did the guys know something was strange?”

“Oh yeah. They said, ‘I hear they’re getting rid of the telephone booths, Bobby. What are you going to do?’ Later on I take Eileen over to the hotel and we go up to a room. There was a lot of kissing and then I went in there and I was too excited. I came immediately. It was the same with the others. I slept with probably 40 or 50 Stouffer’s girls over two years. When a girl didn’t show up for work, it scared the shit out of me.”

A busboy came over to us, pointed at me and said something in Spanish to Bobby. Bobby responded in Spanish and the busboy busted up laughing.

“What’d he say?” I asked.

“He said, ‘How many times last night?’ and I said, ‘Eight. I put it in, I fell out, I put it in, I fell out…’” The busboy grinned, gave me a once-over, then walked away.

“How many other telephone ventures did you have?” I asked.

“Probably 20. And 99 percent of these women had no idea what a woman’s orgasm was. They thought it was their duty to satisfy the man. They didn’t go, ‘Oh! Oh! Oh!’ Nothing like that. I was making a deposit. I thought quantity was the important thing. I was a hedonist. Not a hedonist. What do you call it?”

“Misogynist?”

“No. What do you call it when a man, you say he’s a male…”

“Chauvinist?”

“Yeah. There was never any relationship. Just one night or one half-hour. And the guys I went out with were the same. We engaged in the most awful sexual things. No modesty. We did everything you could think of in every possible position. Except #43, which was dangling off the chandelier.”

“Did you ever make a woman come?”

“Just once. No, twice. I once met a beautiful girl from France at the hotel. She taught me control. Didn’t speak a lot of English. She’d say, ‘You come, I keel you.’ She’d make me stop and start again. I came four or five times with her over two hours.”

“Have you been married?”

“Once. I got married once, without being in love. I was in the Army, the Korean War. You’re afraid the world’s gonna come to an end and you’re gonna die. You never know when you’re gonna get it so sex is the only pacifier there is.”

“Did you have kids with her?”

“She sent me a letter saying she had children. I don’t know what happened to them.”

“Do you wonder?”

“No. I don’t even know if they’re mine.”

“Have you ever felt lonely?”

“No. It’s funny. I used to go to so many bars and make so many acquaintances, male and female. I’ve never gotten a depressed feeling where I hope I’ll be with someone.”

He took a pull on his Heineken. I’d almost finished my margarita and it had gone straight to my head.

“I’m drunk,” I said. “I should probably go home.”

“Will you be all right?”

“Yeah.” I stood up, put my arm around him and then kissed him on the cheek. It was smooth and taut and I kept my lips against it for a second. Bobby was the dirty older uncle I never had. I couldn’t wait to see him again.

“It was good to meet you,” I said. “Where you going after this?”

“You got any ideas?” he said lasciviously. Then we laughed loud together. I downed the rest of my drink and headed home.