Posted by Lex Konrad in Relationships | Nov 25, 2008
My life is a parade of threesomes and eager sexkittens and orgiastic delights.
Except for when it isn’t.
I never see these moments coming, the moments that leave me battered and bruised, the moments that make me want to find a dark corner and hide.
The lithe young woman rode my leg, reverse cowgirl, mashing her lips against my wife’s, moaning as my fingers slipped into her black panties and up her shorn but not completely shaven cunt. The three of us stood in a bright stairwell. People smiled as they pressed past us. I cupped a heavy breast in my palm and whispered something into the young woman’s ear.
It should have been brilliant. But it wasn’t. An awkward series of maneuvers ended our spell and the three of us shot off in separate directions like expertly struck billiard balls. Leslie and I weren’t communicating well that night and it showed in our play. I tried to find solace in a bottle of gin.
The next afternoon found me utterly, maniacally horny. It is a state I often find myself in when hungover: once the alcohol evaporates there’s nothing left but hormones. I called my mistress. “I’m gonna fold you in half,” I growled.
She was always willing. “You can do anything you want.”
Sometimes, instead of dealing with my problems like a rational being, I double down. I thought this was what I needed, that I had to get out of the house and fuck someone else. In my crazed state I headed down to the spot where my mistress tended bar, taking a seat and thinking about what I was going to do to her when her shift ended.
My reverie was interrupted by a dreadlocked rasta who sidled up to me and tried to get handsy. “Yo,” I said, grasping his shoulder and pushing him back to a safe distance, “even if I was into that you’re doing it all wrong.” He retreated. I no longer felt comfortably anonymous.
A fetching Asian woman bought me a drink — pleasant enough, I thought — but before long she insisted on having my home address so she could come over the next day and show me her erotic novel-in-progress. By the third time she asked (“I’ll give you five hundred dollars!”) it dawned on me, all too late, that she was not well-acquainted with sanity. She was possessed by that subtle kind of crazy that draws you in and makes you feel like a nutter for even having glimpsed it.
I was relieved when last call came and my mistress gave me permission to tell everyone to get the fuck out. My relief yielded to apprehension when I learned the crazy woman had followed us to the after hours place. When the woman started in again I told her I’d had enough, after which she found another guy to torment. (The next day I would learn the woman had professed her love to the poor guy, only to flee the bar in tears when he turned her down, blowing up his phone with messages through the morning.)
That night the city I loved — the city that had always taken care of me — had gone prickly and tense. People surrounded me, salivating, teeth bared and claws out. I wanted to bolt but I felt the outside world would be even worse, that knives were drawn for me, snipers were waiting amid the urban ruins and landmines were set. After another guy made a grab for me I went to find my mistress. “Take me home now,” I insisted, my firm tone at odds with my shaky resolve. “Please.”
“I am so sorry,” she said to me as we clung to each other in the back seat of a yellow cab. She had nothing to do with this madness though. It was my fault for leaving the house without my warrior’s armor, for placing too much trust in my adopted hometown. It was my fault for doubling down. This flaxen-haired southern belle had always been kind to me — her kindness having been what drew me to her. Most women expect me to play the part of the dashing playboy, the rake, the ideal lover: mysterious and cool and collected and eternally throbbing. My mistress, however, didn’t need me to be a towering inferno of manhood. My weaknesses, my humanity, did not lower me in her eyes.
I made good on my promise when we arrived at hers, which is to say I folded her in half, I fucked her like a beast and I let her gag on me, just the way she liked, my creativity owing as much to her compassion as to my sex drive. A breathless wow was all she could muster when we were finished. It should have been brilliant but I still felt tormented. I thought about my wife, who probably lay across the covers now, half-dressed, having forgotten to turn out the light. Leslie and I could have curled up on the couch and talked and healed the rift but instead I’d pulled away. Perhaps this strange, unsettling night had been my punishment.
My mistress fell silent after awhile. She began to snore lightly. I was too tired to leave and too agitated to sleep peacefully. What am I doing here? I thought over and over as I drifted in and out of sleep. It wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t my wife’s fault. The blame was all mine.
Posted by Lex Konrad in Dispatches | Nov 21, 2008
Whiskey river take my mind
Don’t let her memory torture me
Whiskey river don’t run dry
You’re all I’ve got, take care of me
-Willie Nelson, “Whiskey River”
The White Rabbit. Yeah, no. The last time I was here a dude tried to grab my ass and a chick tried to become my stalker. Crazy town, man. Crazy town.
***
The Axe Man tries to talk my wife and me into buying raffle tickets but I’m not yet drunk enough to try my luck at anything.
***
Viviane is all like I haven’t seen you in a while and I’m all like yeah I know I’m an unreliable friend.
***
I cannot think of anything intelligent to say to Tess and Selina because I’m tall and their cups runneth over.
***
The Bad Man shows up and everyone sez “Oh hey!” And then Sinclair shows up and I give her a hug and I’m meaning to ask her for tips on bending hotchix to my will but then someone says something and I forget.
***
Gotta get some air. The Calico Cat is lost so I text her directions. “How do you spell Forsyth?” I ask the Bad Man.
“Does it matter?”
The Calico Cat looks like a pharmaceutical sales rep. “Nice power suit,” I tell her.
***
The Axe Man and I try to convince the Bad Man to give his eager 20-year-old a go. Having been frustrated in the pursuit of an ideal, I’ve learned to err on the side of pleasure.
Ronen snaps some pictures of us while we’re talking. Leslie is confused because he does not give her time to pose. “He’s taking anti-portraits,” I explain.
***
Morpheus tells me I’m the only one who’s made the connection between his name and the name of the bar we’re standing in. I feel special.
***
I admire the Bad Man’s tenacity. When I meet his former paramour I can see why he’s been holding out. “She’s delightful!” I announce. I can’t put my finger on it yet, but she reminds me of someone.
Leslie takes a shine to the Bad Man’s former paramour’s saucy, tattooed friend.
***
I hold in my hand a slip of paper that entitles me to take liberties with Rachel. Do I just come right out and ask?
I come right out and ask.
She removes her glasses and bends over the bar. I am not satisfied with my first attempt, but the second blow lands solidly upon her right buttock.
When Leslie takes her turn a man tries to sidle up to the bar. “Back off!” she cries. “Spanking in progress.”
***
A youngchick is there for her birthday party. She cannot find anyone to sign her calendar so I lead her around the room introducing her to people. “You should come hang out with us,” she sez.
***
On my way past the coat check I spy a tallchick with curly blond locks. Hot and a little funny looking. Just my type. I stop in my tracks and drink her in head to toe. She smiles. I wait a beat and turn around.
***
Bad Man and company are headed elsewhere. “If you pick these girls up you are welcome to bring them out to meet us,” he sez.
“Dunno. I’m getting a straight vibe and I’m trying to avoid straight women right now.”
***
The tallchick stands on the sidewalk looking bored. Les and I strike up a conversation with her. The woman is Puerto Rican and speaks with a lispy accent. We meet her husband, who does not seem the least bit put off that we are chatting up his wife. She invites us back inside, where she buys us a round (and, egads, a couple shots). I speak with a friend of hers while Leslie slyly obtains the tallchick’s number.
***
We leave, fully intending to hop on the train or whatever, but then I see that Katz’s is still open. I order a pastrami on rye. The sandwich guy hands Leslie a bunch of pickles. We walk down the block to Bereket and while Leslie’s in there ordering falafel I tear into my deli sammich, which is so savory I have to steady myself against a wall lest my buckling legs give out.
I had forgotten that it is sometimes possible to feel the presence of God.
***
The Slipper Room, scene of Leslie’s impromptu burlesque many moons ago. The Bad Man is there with his former paramour and his former paramour’s friend. Leslie falls into an intense conversation with the paramour’s friend while the Bad Man stands, rather stoically, against a booth. I inquire as to the origin of his discontent.
Shrugging helplessly, he says, “She’s in love with someone else.”
All night she’s been happily feeding him the hangman’s rope. It’s like watching someone get kicked in the nuts. Repeatedly. You cross your legs in sympathy.
I’ve been there before.
***
The torture continues. I don’t understand why people play these games — games which serve no purpose other than to introduce bitterness into the world.
***
“I finally figured out who you remind me of,” I tell the paramour.
“Who’s that?”
I am grinning now. “The most evil woman I ever dated. I still remember the moment I decided to break up with her: We were lying in bed one morning and she decided to call in ‘sick’, but when her secretary answered she yelled at the poor girl for picking up on the third ring.”
“Hey! I don’t even have a secretary.”
***
A man in a suit offers me a smoke. It’s weird how people latch on to me. “So what do you do?” I ask him.
“I fuck chicks.”
***
Another strange night draws to a close. The Bad Man’s girls leave, and in time so do the rest of us.
“Forget about her,” I call out as he shuffles across the street. “You deserve someone who wants to be with you.”
So do we all. So do we all.
Posted by Lex Konrad in Relationships | Nov 18, 2008
If I am an orgy guy I am ambivalent about it. The sublime is what I am after — the kind of transcendent experiences that stay with you — and if these pleasures are more rewarding than self-gratification, they also require empathy and patience. Fuck and run just doesn’t cut it.
I try to keep my non-monogamous karma in balance by attending a polyamorous event now and then. Really though, when people tell me about their loves and lovers (and I blanch at the thought of all the scheduling involved) I start to feel like polyamory is an in-joke I’ll never get. Maybe I’m a contrarian, but I am always looking for a third way.
I hadn’t given much thought to what to do about the date — it had all been so heady and unexpected — but we did share a philosophical skepticism about things and a common love for my wife’s perfect ass. So when I decided to drop by the poly cocktail hour I invited her along.
“My ex is here,” she told me after Les and I arrived. If I disappear from certain scenes for months at a time, this is why — these little communities are all so incestuous. New York appears to shrink with each passing year (it has limits!). Most of the night I made my rounds, checking in now and then with the date, and most of the night her ex hovered around her, eyeing me like I’d pissed on his hedges. I wanted to pull him aside and let him in on my little secret, that if you learn to let women go you’ll have to beat them off with a stick.
If I was reserved it was because I didn’t want to be one of those people who come to poly parties so they can slobber all over their lovers like status-seeking primates. The sly seductress kept brushing up against me though, and so I pressed her to me as we stood by the bar talking about the sex people think sex-writers have versus the sex they actually have.
“You know, I go to sex parties fully intending to hook up,” she said, “but I’m not often comfortable enough to make it happen.”
“I’ve been going to sex parties off and on for years now… if you’ve seen one big sweaty pile of bodies you’ve seen them all.”
She laughed, and when she did so I tugged at one of her pigtails. “And then there are the creeps, and the people you don’t want to see naked.”
“Right. It’s so much more… fulfilling with people you trust. I guess that’s why I prefer the kind of parties that happen in my living room.”
Later on, over dinner, Les and I conducted our customary debriefing — well, we gossiped like schoolgirls — while our date listened, very much amused at our take on things. Something set me off and I went on a far-ranging rant about how so-called sex-positive communities are still not safe spaces for women, after which I felt slightly self-conscious. Then it struck me that it is probably okay to relax around a woman whose ass I’ve fucked.
Leslie disappeared for a while. We would find out later on that she had been pulled into a comedian’s routine and had, of course, held her own against him. That’s just how my wife rolls. “Theoretically I’m poly,” I told our date. “I also adore my wife. Maybe I’m overly picky, but it’s hard for me to justify taking time away from her to be with other women just because I can.”
There was a time when I was after the perfect fuck, or else the perfect love. These are illusions. I am more confident now that as long as I approach life with a spirit of openness and adventure good things will come my way. Because I’ll never really be the orgy guy, with his eternal hardon and his unending parade of partners, and I’ll never really be the poly guy, with his new-agey philosophy and his five totally serious girlfriends.
There may not be a name for what I do, there may not be an off-the-shelf identity that fits, or a community that reflects my particular viewpoint, but I am content, for the most part, with the path I have chosen.
Posted by Lex Konrad in Relationships | Nov 08, 2008
I am drawn to the troubled ones. They are my lost little angels. I don’t go looking for them. They find me. They find Leslie. They find us for the same reasons perfect strangers confess their sins to us — for the same reasons people just seem to know they can trust us.
Why us? I always ask the women we’re with some variation upon this question. The answer is always the same: Because I felt so comfortable around you.
Joy’s troubles were overwhelming. She needed sanity, not adventure. She needed therapy, not us. And so we let her go. She began the hard work of fixing herself. It isn’t fair that you have to fix yourself when someone else breaks you but this is how it goes.
This thing we do is light and fun and oh-so-hot but it also requires maturity. And though no one who knows me would ever accuse me of having lofty intentions when it comes to women, I cannot allow my pleasure to come at someone else’s expense.
Posted by Lex Konrad in Sex | Jul 17, 2008
For a moment I thought I couldn’t be seen with this girl, that she provided the definitive proof I was a lech. It didn’t help that the pink tank top she wore made it appear as if her breasts weighed half as much as she did, nor did it help when I took my wife’s hand and Joy said, gleefully, “I’ll take the other one!”
She walked with a slight hunch. This is understandable. I felt bad enough that I offered to walk behind her and bear her heavy burden.
***
I contentedly munched popcorn as we watched the film. Joy’s left hand found my thigh. Her right hand found Leslie’s. This presented me with a dilemma: enjoy my popcorn or respond to her touch? I couldn’t do both at once as I was holding the bag in such a way that I wouldn’t coat my lap in grease.
I set the bag on the floor and then placed my hand over Joy’s. After a minute or so I retrieved the popcorn and went back to stuffing my face. I felt satisfied to have devised such an ingenious plan.
***
When we arrived at the Bad Man’s regular night spot, Leslie and Joy settled into a booth. I remained by the bar chatting with him.
“Lex!” the girls called out in unison. They wanted me to come sit with them.
“Just give me one minute ladies,” I said over my shoulder, before turning back to Bad Man. “I don’t know why I make my life so complicated.”
“You have what I call a high-quality problem.”
***
Joy bounced in my lap. My arms were wrapped around her slender waist. “You’re my little Sexican,” I said.
She giggled. “Sexican!”
***
The girls left in search of a pharmacy, leaving Bad Man and I alone in the booth.
“What’s wrong with Joy?” he asked.
“Um, well, she has a UTI.”
“Oh.”
“I had one of those once. In high school. The pain was… indescribable. Every time I took a wiz I wanted to kill myself.”
***
Whatever Joy had taken had made her feel much better. “Is your pussy open for business again, dear?” I asked her.
Bad Man immediately began shaking his head, “Oh man!”
She grabbed my inner thigh and laughed. “Yeah.”
Recognizing some people he knew, the Bad Man rose from his seat and shuffled to the bar. I joined him a few minutes later. “Everything cool?” I asked.
“Everything’s fine. I’m just trying to stay out of trouble… I’ve already gotten a lecture about our behavior.”
I chuckled, rolling my eyes. “If either of us were in here sucking face with a date they wouldn’t say anything.”
“I don’t want to get in the way either.”
“Don’t worry about it. This was a last-minute thing — I was going to leave them after the movie but I figured you’re the one guy I know who wouldn’t lose his shit. And she thinks you’re great so obviously I wasn’t mistaken.”
***
When I returned to the booth Leslie held her fingers under my nose. I smiled at her, “You didn’t…” But the scent of pussy told me everything I needed to know. “The two of you are getting Bad Man in trouble.”
Joy didn’t appear too concerned. “Where’s your penis?” she cooed, pressing her hand against my fly. “Oh, there’s your penis.”
If we were going to be in trouble anyway, I reasoned, we may as well have fun with it.
***
We stopped in a park on the way to Joy’s and I reached into my jeans to retrieve my cock, whereupon my wife squatted in front of me.
Suddenly shy, Joy protested: “But we’re in public!”
I slipped a hand down the back of her pants and pressed her hand to me. “That’s what makes it interesting.”
***
I suppose I am a lech. It is all I can do to keep up with the girls.
