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My first year in college was a total dud, sexually. What was I doing? Nada. Hanging out with a bunch of jerk-offs in Foss Seven. The big event of the week was "someone rented Deep Throat." Friday night and these guys are marching up and down the hall, screaming, "Who wants to watch Deep Throat?" All that bad skin. Those rotten teeth. How did I end up on that hall? I have no idea.
But something miraculous happened my second year: I moved into a house off-campus with a group of beautiful blonds, three of them, seniors. A total fluke. One of them, Dana, had split up with her boyfriend over the summer and he'd withdrawn from the house and the slot had gone to the next loser on the list, which was me. These girls were so far out of my league. I'd catch sight of one of them coming out of the shower, maybe Liza, with the towel tucked tight around her chest and shampoo fumes coming off her, and I'd run the other direction.
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From the bathroom, Liza screamed, "Does that include pussy, Joshie? Is pussy considered dark meat?"
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As it turned out, this was just the right move. Of the 20,000 male undergrads at our school, at least 5,000 of them hit on one of the blonds and that's not counting grad students or professors. So the last thing they wanted at home was some mouth breather like me panting all over them. But, see, what the blonds missed was this more friendly male energy. Before long, they started joking with me, kind of hassling me to get a rise. One Sunday, the three of them went to an afternoon concert, some kind of reggae thing, and they got blitzed. I could hear them downstairs, laughing, yelling. When I came down I found Dana and Julie hunched over a bucket of fried chicken. They had wide bands of grease around their mouths.
"Hey Josh," Julie said. "You hungry? You want a drumstick?"
Dana said, "Come on now, Jules. You know Joshie Boy doesn't eat dark meat."
Then, from the bathroom, Liza screamed, "Does that include pussy, Joshie? Is pussy considered dark meat?"
"Cool it," Julie said. "You're going to scare the poor boy."
"Oh please," Dana said. "Are you kidding me? A little pussy-eating fool like Joshie? He ain't scared. He just acts scared."
She got up from the table and walked over to me and kind of pinned me against the wall with her long body. She put her face in front of mine. I could smell the fried chicken on her breath. "You're not scared of a little pussy," she said. "Are you?"
It was one of those moments, I could tell, where I'd either prove interesting as a plaything or sink into the background.
So I straightened up into this soldier pose, and said, "Not a little one, sergeant!" kind of barked it out, actually.
They liked that.
So after that they called me Sergeant Little Pussy, which was shortened to SLP, then Slip, then Slippery Rock, then just Slippy. That's what they called me, these crazy chicks. Slippy. Where's Slippy? Slippy, did you eat my fucking grapes? They kind of adopted me. Or actually, it was more like I was a cat or something. Because part of what they dug about me was the fact that I didn't suck up to them, sort of kept to myself, went off to my lab classes (I was a bio-chem major) and hung with my lab buddies and did my chores, nothing more. I don't know how I pulled this off. Honestly, it was like God was acting through me.
I came into the kitchen one day to get a Coke. Dana and Liza were in the TV room, with a box of mint chip ice cream on the table between them. It was the strangest thing. These girls ate like horses, but they never gained a pound.
Liza looked up and started laughing. "Ask him, Dana."
"Ask me what?"
"We made a little wager," Dana said.
"What kind of wager?"
"Liza thinks you're a square."
"Shut up!" Liza said. "That's not what I said."
"She thinks you've never gotten high," Dana said.
"That's the bet?"
"I didn't say you were a square, Slippy."
Liza sunk her spoon in the box of ice cream and flung it at Dana. A gob hit her cheek. Dana tilted her head and let the ice cream slide toward her mouth. She stuck out her tongue and licked the ice cream off her cheek. It was clear the two of them were stoned.
"So the question is whether I've gotten high?"
"Right," Liza said. "Smoked pot."
"Marijuana," Dana said. "Cannabis."
"I don't think that's any of your business," I said.
"See," Liza shouted. "I told you."
I went to the fridge and grabbed my coke.
"He didn't say no. He said it was none of our business."
"That means no."
"Why do you assume Slippy is such a wussball? The guy's playing you. Can't you see that, Liza? Slippy's one clever son of a bitch." She looked at me and grinned. The green spot on her cheek was glowing a little. "Answer the question, Slippy. I don't want to have to use my interrogation tactics."
"I've got to hit the books," I said. "Big exam tomorrow."
I hurried out of the room and up the stairs. Down below, I could hear them squealing with indignation.
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Dana reached into the pocket of her pajamas and drew out the Zip-Loc bag. "Slippy," she said. "You've been a naughty, naughty boy."
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The truth was so utterly boring, compared to their fantasies. But here's the thing: I did know something about drugs. I knew about the chemistry of them, how they effected the nervous system and the brain. I'd studied this stuff. Also, as it happened, I was the lab assistant to a grad student named Mike Sherman, whose unofficial specialty was synthetic amphetamines.
Sherman was a first-class head case. There were rumors that he often went several days without sleeping. He tramped around the lab with bloodshot eyes and a wrinkled orange windbreaker, and his body gave off a peculiar, sulfurous odor. At the same time, he could be a very persuasive guy.
One night I was working late at the lab, grinding through a set of spectral refractions, when Sherman came by my cubicle.
"Take five, Igor," he said. (He called me Igor.) "I want to show you something."
He led me back to his office and took a tiny key out of his pocket and reached into his desk drawer and pulled out a small lockbox. He opened the lockbox and took out a bottle of pills and poured a few onto the desk between us. They were about the size of aspirin, bright yellow, with smiley faces on both sides.
"Any idea what these are?" Sherman said.
I shook my head.
He held up a pill up to his mouth and pretended it was speaking. "Hello, Igor! My name is Methylenedioxymethamphetamine, or MDMA. But my friends call me Ecstasy!"
"Okay," I said.
"Don't you want to know about me? Is that a yes? Okay. I'm what's known as an empathogen-entactogen, not to be confused with your standard-issue amphetamine, Igor. No no no. I activate the neurotransmitter serotonin, along with various components of the midbrain dopamine systems. I have the power to make little boys like you very very happy. Would you like to be happy, Igor?"
"I'm pretty happy as it is," I said.
Sherman set the pill down and gazed at me. "No you're not," he said. "You're a pathetic little ball of inhibitions. This is not your fault. It's just the natural human response to stress. You flinch. You put on the body armor. We can put an end to all that, though. Six hours of bliss, yours for the taking."
"No thanks," I said.
"Now now, Igor. I'm really a little disappointed. I'm offering you quite an opportunity here." Sherman reached down and grabbed a bottle of water from the mini-fridge beneath his desk. He picked up a pill and gulped it down. "You shouldn't be afraid of Dr. Sherman, Igor. He wouldn't prescribe anything that might hurt you. You think about this, Igor. Just between us, okay? Think about it."
I should mention that everything I'm telling you about took place in 1981. Ecstasy wasn't even a blip on the radar, yet. It would take another couple of years before the college dealers got a hold of the stuff. The only reason Sherman knew about the drug is because he'd done some lab work at UC Berkeley, where he met a biochemist named Alexander Shulgin, who later became the high priest of the Ecstasy movement.
An hour later, Sherman stopped by my cubicle. He smiled at me. "Listen," he said gently, "I didn't mean to give you the hard sell before, okay? It's just, you know, sometimes I worry about you a little bit. You work hard. I respect that. But you've got to learn to enjoy yourself, too. You deserve that. Seriously. You're an amazing kid, Igor. You should let the rest of the world see that." Sherman set his hand on my shoulder and smiled at me again. It sounds a little creepy as I describe it, but it really was the sweetest moment. Sherman had this expression on his face, like he was a monk floating around in a giant pool of nirvana.
He tossed a tiny Zip-Loc bag onto my desk. "Just in case," he said.
Now, you probably think I hatched some clever plan. But it didn't even occur to me to tell the blonds about Sherman's gift. I stuffed the Zip-Loc in my pocket and brought it home and forgot all about it.
A couple of weeks later, I came home from a late night at the lab. It was a Friday, so I expected the blonds to be out at one of their A-list parties, breaking hearts in unison. But all three of them were in the kitchen. They were dressed for bed, ratty pajamas, T-shirts and sweats, clothing that should have made them look frumpy but that somehow made them look even hotter. I was too tired to look at all that hotness. I just wanted to go to my room and whack off and go to sleep. I waved to Liza. "Night," I said.
Halfway up the stairs, Dana called out: "Oh Slippy!"
"Yeah?"
"Could you come here for a second?"
I came back down. "What's up?"
All three of them were looking at me.
"You remember when Jules and me were arguing about your drug use?"
"Not really."
"And you wouldn't answer us?"
I shrugged.
Dana reached into the pocket of her pajamas and drew out the Zip-Loc bag. "Slippy," she said. "You've been a naughty, naughty boy."
"Where'd you get "
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Dana looked at Julie and Liza. Then she put the pill on her tongue and took a swig of Diet Sprite.
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"Now now, Slippy. Don't get upset. Nobody's been snooping. You gave Liza your pants for the wash. She just checked the pockets."
"Family habit," Liza said. "My brothers were always leaving interesting things in their pockets."
"Interesting," Julie said. She took the Zip-Loc from Dana and removed one of the pills. "What are these?"
"Sugar pills," I said.
"Sugar pills?" Dana said. She took one and handed one to Liza. "So we could just take these and they wouldn't have any effect, right?" Dana put the pill between her front teeth and held it there.
"Listen," I said. "Okay, listen. Those are something I've been working on, a thing for the lab. They're not sugar pills. Please don't take that, Dana. That's medicine, a blood pressure medicine. It's very strong stuff and it has serious side effects."
"That must be why they put a smiley face on them," Julie said. "Because of all the serious side effects."
Dana removed the pill. "Are you going to tell us the truth, Slippy?"
The blonds were sitting there in all their unattainable beauty and I was suddenly very tired. I thought about Sherman. I'd seen him take a pill and he'd been just fine. Better than fine, actually. The blonds were each holding a tiny pill in their palms, waiting for me to say something. So I told them everything Sherman had told me.
Dana looked at Julie and Liza. Then she put the pill on her tongue and took a swig of Diet Sprite and the other two, after a second, followed suit. Down the hatch.
"You shouldn't have done that," I said. "This isn't a joke."
"You told us your friend was fine," Dana said.
"Yeah, but he's sort of like a professional drug taker."
She smiled. "Slippy, you need to lighten up."
"Seriously," Liza said. "Take a chill pill."
She got up. They all got up, all three of them. Liza handed me a pill and a Julie got me a glass of water and Dana leaned in close to whisper in my ear. I could feel one of her boobs brush my arm. "Take that pill, Slippy. Or bad things will happen to your soul."
I took the pill.
"Now what?" Julie said.
"We wait," I said.
That's what we did. We went into the TV room and turned on the set and waited. After a few minutes Julie said, "I feel funny."
"What kind of funny?" I said.
"Like, queasy."
"Me too," Liza said.
I felt the same thing, something like motion sickness. And I was sweating. For a moment, it occurred to me that I was in big, big trouble. I'd just ingested a pill of unknown origin, given to me by a guy who considered Hunter S. Thompson his spiritual mentor. I had supplied the same pill to my gorgeous housemates, one of whom (Julie) was walking unsteadily toward the bathroom. What was that? Accidental manslaughter? Dana followed her. Liza glanced at me. "This friend of yours," she said. "He's a doctor, right?"
"Not really," I said.
"Shit," she said.
We both sat there, not saying anything. Then Liza got up and went to the bathroom. I sat and tried to focus on the TV. It was a talk show of some kind. The guest was an actress I didn't quite recognize. Her laugh sounded like a broken squeezebox. After a while, the actress left and man in khaki shorts brought out a monkey.
I could hear the water in the bathroom being turned on and off. I went to check on Julie. I pushed the door open, but it took me a second to process what I was seeing. Julie was seated on the edge of the bathtub. She had taken off her sweatpants, so she was just in her panties. She was letting water run down her calves and across her feet. Dana was sitting on the toilet (the lid was down) and running her hands through Liza's hair. Liza was moaning with pleasure.
Dana turned to me. She was smiling and her eyes were closed. "Slippy," she said. "Oh, Slippy. This is very good medicine."
"I wanted to check on Julie," I said.
"Good," Julie said. "The water feels so nice."
I stood in the doorway, looking at the blonds, and suddenly the queasiness faded and everything gathered a bright intensity, the bodies of these girls, the sweet smell of them, the sound of the water and Liza's moaning. It was like my sensory receptors went into overdrive. At the same time, I felt this great weight lifted from my shoulders, which was basically the weight of the doubt I carried around with me all over the place. So I also felt very light, but not light-headed, more just an internal floaty sensation, like a gentle breeze rippling through my body.
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It should have been weird that we were all in the bathroom talking tits. But this was the miracle of Ecstasy.
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"Come here," Julie said. "Feel this."
I went and sat next to her on the rim of the bathtub.
Julie reached down and took off my shoes and socks. She brought my feet under the spigot. "Wow," I said. Warm water washed over the skin of my feet and made them tingle. I stared at the water and at Julie's legs and then I was stroking Julie's legs, her smooth brown calves and the shiny skin behind her knees.
"Mmmmm," she said. "That feels good, Slippy."
"Your legs are so killer," I said. "They're, like, the perfect size."
"You should see her tits," Dana said.
"My tits," Julie said. "Yeah."
"Seriously," Dana said. "Those are some outstanding mammaries."
Julie smiled. She had these square, little teeth. "I like your tits, too."
"Big and bouncy," Dana said.
"I like my tits," Liza said, "even though they're kind of small. What do you think, Slippy?"
"I like breasts," I said. "I haven't felt that many of them, but they've always struck me as very comforting."
"That's so sweet," Dana said. She reached up and stroked my cheek.
"Boys love tits so much," Julie said. "I don't blame them. Breast feeding and all that. But it really doesn't feel that good to have them touched. I mean, it's all right, better than nothing. But it's nothing like good scalp massage."
"The scalp," Liza said. "God, yes."
"Would you like one?" I said to Julie.
She nodded.
I slipped my hands into her hair, which was very fine, and ran my fingertips over her skull. It was so much smaller than I'd thought, and covered with delicate bumps and knobs.
"Pull my hair a little," Julie murmured. "Not too much, just a little."
All this should have been very fucking weird. It should have been weird that we were all in the bathroom talking tits, that Julie was sitting on the rim of the tub in her panties, that I was softly yanking at her hair. But this was the miracle of Ecstasy. It had wiped away all our inhibitions and left us to pursue our natural affections.
"I want to lie down," Liza said. "On, like, a bed."
"Jules' bed," Dana said. "She has the best mattress."
So we tromped to her bedroom. I'd never been inside any of their bedrooms. It smelled so good I wanted to swoon, like some kind of fruity perfume, with maybe a little talc underneath. Julie had a queen-size bed and we all piled on and lay there stroking one another.
"This feels so amazing," Liza said. "Good work, Slippy."
"Slippy rules!" Dana said.
"Slippy for President," Julie said.
"Dana's the one," I said. "I was scared to take them." I flipped over so I could look at Dana. She had these big green eyes, cat's eyes, set kind of far apart, and a plump red mouth. "You're so brave, Dana. How do you do that?"
"Older brothers," she said. "They used to wail on me. But they also looked out for me. So maybe the combination of those two things, like, taking a beating but knowing I was protected, something sick like that. Plus, I was always chasing around after them. It makes you do crazy stuff just for the attention."
"Didn't you jump off your roof?" Julie said.
"It was the low part," Dana said, "over the garage. But it was still pretty fucking stupid. Broke my ankle. I've still got the scar." She pulled up her pajama pant leg and I ran my finger over the scar. Liza gave it a little kiss.
"I wish I was brave," I said.
"What are you afraid of?" Dana said.
"You name it. Loneliness. Failure. Girls."
"Oh Slippy," Julie said, "that's so sad."
And it was sort of sad. But the thing about Ecstasy, it allows you to recognize the sadness of something without that heavy, blue feeling. It's more like a math problem, something you examine, hope to figure out.
"You shouldn't be afraid," Dana said. "I've been watching you, Slip. You've got empathy. It doesn't matter what you look like. That's just the way men think. Girls don't care so much about that crap. And they care less and less the older they get. What they want is a guy who listens, who connects emotionally. Chicks are going to dig your biscuit, Slip. Look at us. You've got three of the most desirable women in America eating out of your palm."
Julie crawled over and started kissing my neck, and Dana ran her hands through my hair. I reached out and felt something round, which was Liza's hip, and ran my hands along the smooth curve. There were all these smells and textures to absorb: perfume, deodorant, sweat, baby oil, silk pajamas, skin, tongues, breath. I wanted to freeze each moment, break it all down, Dana's fingers massaging my scalp, Julie's lips on my Adam's apple, my hands caressing Liza.
I know how all this sounds, like some kind of soft-core porn situation. But I wasn't that sexually excited. I mean, I was a little. But mostly I just wanted the sensual contact, like to communicate how much I liked these girls, how grateful I was for their kind of taking me in and paying attention to me.
"It's so nice to be touched," Liza said. "I swear, I could give up sex altogether if I found a guy who knew how to touch."
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"It's like sucking a giant jewel. It's just, like, this thing that men are so proud of, like their secret treasure."
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"I couldn't," Dana said. "I love it too much, the old in-and-out."
"That's because it's always a bit of fight," Julie said.
"Maybe so. But I also just like how it feels to have a cock inside me."
"How does it feel?" I said.
"There's like this pressure, but a good pressure, against the walls inside, you know, and there are these places, like hot spots, that feel so good when they get rubbed you want to jump out of your skin. And there's the rhythm of the thing, too. It's like you're dancing with someone, figuring out how to move your body with his. And hopefully there are other things going on, too. The guy should be touching you, kissing you, telling you things."
"They never get that," Julie said.
"Some of them do," Liza said. "But not many."
"You have to tell them," Dana said. It sounded as if she'd gone over this before. "You're responsible for your own orgasm, sisters."
"I do tell them," Julie said softly. "They just don't listen."
"It's true," I said. "We're not great at listening."
"You boys," Dana said. "Always in such a hurry." She reached for my crotch and roughed it up a little. "Just be patient. Follow the signs. Really, most girls know what they need."
"What do you mean ‘need,'" I said.
"Need. Need. Like, Liza needs a lot of pressure right on her clit, but only once she's excited enough."
"Correct," Liza said.
"Jules likes it when guys just sort of butterfly around. Full labial coverage. I'm partial to both." She paused. "But what gets me is if a guy touches my ass. I don't think I'd want to have anal sex just yet. But I like a guy who's not afraid to touch me there. And the skin in between, that little patch of skin between. It's so sensitive."
Julie lifted her head from my chest, where she'd laid it. She looked at me tenderly. "Slippy," she said, "you wouldn't tell anybody this stuff, would you? Like guys who might take it the wrong way."
Dana laughed. "Slippy knows, Jules. Come on, he's not some kind of frat pig."
"I would never." I was almost breathless with goodwill. "Really, you guys, you're like my pals. I mean, I know we just live in the same house, but I have so much admiration for all of you. There are some girls, like, really beautiful girls, who would look at a guy like me and just keep walking. But you guys are different. I mean, you've really been kind to me."
Julie was still looking at me. She had tears in her eyes. "You remind me of my little brother," she said.
"He doesn't want to hear that," Dana said. "He wants to hear us talk about sex."
"That's not true," I said.
"Cock sucking," Dana said. "Pro or con."
"Pro," Liza said. "Pro pro pro."
"It depends," Dana said. "Some of these guys, they've got no idea how to behave. They're pushing your head down, feeding you these lines."
"Then they don't tell you when they're going to come," Julie said.
"Just total scumbags," Dana said. She had wicked grin on her face.
"How should men behave?" I said.
"Grateful," Liza said. "Extremely grateful. And here's a hint, Slippy: make sure you go down on a girl. Act like you can't get enough of her stuff."
"And let the girl make the move," Dana said. "The whole turn-on for us is the chance to have a little control."
"How does it feel for the girl?" I said. "I've always wondered that."
"Go suck on a banana," Dana said. "And then imagine the banana can move on its own and that you can't let your teeth touch the banana and that you have some paw on your neck, forcing you to take bigger and bigger bites."
"For me," Julie said. "It's like sucking a giant jewel. It's just, like, this thing that men are so proud of, like their secret treasure."
"And you get to see it up close, all shiny and eager. The veins all defined. That part is a turn-on," Liza said.
She swung around and my hand slipped around to her belly. I could feel her ribs, too, beneath the soft flesh. "I love sucking on balls, too. I know it's a little kooky. But they're so vulnerable in that little sack. And they never get much attention. It's like you're doing charity work down there."
All this talk should have made me absolutely out-of-my-mind horny. It was the kind of thing I'd fantasized about constantly. But now that I was actually here, in the midst of the blonds, I found myself snagged on the emotions of the thing.
Finally, Liza said she was hungry and Dana decided we should walk down to Chickee's, which was this all-night place where they served broasted chicken. Broasting was a special process where they breaded the pieces and steamed them at, like, a million degrees, the result being that the chicken was crispy on the outside and so totally moist on the inside that the juice ran down your arms when you took a bite. Holy God! That chicken! We ate it like we'd been starving, stuffed into a booth and gasping.
And then we walked home through wisps of early-morning fog. It was one of those March days when the first warm rains wake up the tar and the flowers go crazy. We couldn't get over how sweet the air smelled, how beautiful the sun looked rising over Hope Hill, how supremely cool it was just to be alive to appreciate these things.
When we got home, I remember that we listened to some music, Dead Can Dance, OMD, all that trippy ambient stuff. At one point, Dana whispered something to Liza and they grabbed Julie and pulled off her sweatshirt. It almost made me cry to see those breasts.
Then Dana unbuttoned her shirt and Liza took off her shirt, too, and Dana screamed, "Tit smother!" and all three of the blonds descended on me and slithered their boobs all over my face and chest. I didn't know what to do. There was simply too much boob to deal with. It's not a problem I ever thought I'd face. I had a nipple in my mouth and one in my eye and a third grazing the soft hairs of my armpit.
Later on, we'd make a big breakfast and sleep for the rest of the day. The blonds would eventually graduate and head off to conquer the world. I'd return to the grim precincts of my lab work. Mike Sherman would eventually get himself kicked out of school, allegedly for producing synthetic heroin. And Ecstasy itself, just a few years later, would become the scourge of the anti-drug zealots. At their behest, the dopes in the media would portray Ecstasy as some kind of zombie pill designed to anesthetize ravers. The beauty of the drug, the ways in which it connected people, would be lost.
But all that was still to come. The moment I'm talking about, the greatest single moment of my life, was still happening. The blonds were rubbing themselves on me, all that round warm flesh, and giggling and running their hands across my body. It was like having all the mothers in the world embracing me at once and loving me just for being me and there was no awkwardness afterwards, no shameful looking away, because, after all, we'd only been telling each other the truth. n°
©2003 Steve Almond and hooksexup.com
| ABOUT THE AUTHOR: |
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Steve Almond's new essay collection is (Not that You Asked). It is, like much of his work, filthy. |
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