Rub Diary
- Thread starter kingotis
- Start date
A Visit From St. Otis
When I wrote this a year ago I thought I was a pretty clever guy. I had been on a run, mongering virtually every day for 3 months...and sometimes more than once a day. Less than a month after I wrote this I was in the hospital having my heart checked. Looking back, it's either a high or a low point in my life. Either way, you pick...
Merry Christmas, Utopia Guide. Merry fucking Christmas.
Twas the week before Christmas, and all through the city
The tourists were bustling for junk that looked pretty
But there on the sidestreets, the neon burned bright
Attracting the mongers with tempting red light
To spots where massage tables double as beds
With visions of Asian girls filling their heads.
And I, in my two tones, my hat and sunglasses,
In my ongoing search for accommodating lasses
On the outskirts of Ktown a rumor was breaking
Of good, cheap blowjobs, just there for the taking.
Crosstown to the spot, I took a quick walk,
For the feel of wet lips around my hard cock.
Down to West Thirty Sixth to a dive called "Relax"
To see if that rumor was based on real facts
I hustled upstairs and I knew I had found it
By the looks in the eyes of the MILFs all around it.
With papasan in glasses there doing the books
Communication reduced to a few knowing looks
I nodded and smiled - nothing had to be said
But I heard my own voice in the back of my head.
"Now Coco! Now, Lili! Now, Bebe and Lisa!
On, Mimi! On, Shi Shi! On Amy and Misa!
From the top of my spine to the tips of my toes
To the time when I flip and my cock grows and grows."
"Please, Linda! Yes, Cici! Oh Sara and Yuyu!
Go Mona! Oh Jenny! And Yoko and Su Su!
Rub every muscle with strong hands and fingers
Then turn down the lights when your touch softly lingers"
To a small curtained stall I was willingly brought
By a fortyish gal whose with the skills that I sought
A half hour massage soon gave way to the good part
When she asked me the question that warmed my cold heart.
As I flipped I could feel that my cock was ascending
She pantomimed options for my happy ending
Number one was a handjob, a forty buck price.
Next was a blowjob, which seemed twice as nice.
I chose option two for an 80 buck donation
And she got right to work without hesitation
What followed, the stuff of which legends are made
A blowjob of the highest professional grade
It took less than ten minutes to unleash my load
I was still in her mouth when I felt it explode.
I filled up her mouth, and she still didn't stop
This professional woman took in every drop.
Five minutes hence I returned to the rat race
With a skip in my step and a big smile on my face
I turned and I waved as I strode down the block
"Merry Christmas, and thank you for sucking my cock."
When I wrote this a year ago I thought I was a pretty clever guy. I had been on a run, mongering virtually every day for 3 months...and sometimes more than once a day. Less than a month after I wrote this I was in the hospital having my heart checked. Looking back, it's either a high or a low point in my life. Either way, you pick...
Merry Christmas, Utopia Guide. Merry fucking Christmas.
Twas the week before Christmas, and all through the city
The tourists were bustling for junk that looked pretty
But there on the sidestreets, the neon burned bright
Attracting the mongers with tempting red light
To spots where massage tables double as beds
With visions of Asian girls filling their heads.
And I, in my two tones, my hat and sunglasses,
In my ongoing search for accommodating lasses
On the outskirts of Ktown a rumor was breaking
Of good, cheap blowjobs, just there for the taking.
Crosstown to the spot, I took a quick walk,
For the feel of wet lips around my hard cock.
Down to West Thirty Sixth to a dive called "Relax"
To see if that rumor was based on real facts
I hustled upstairs and I knew I had found it
By the looks in the eyes of the MILFs all around it.
With papasan in glasses there doing the books
Communication reduced to a few knowing looks
I nodded and smiled - nothing had to be said
But I heard my own voice in the back of my head.
"Now Coco! Now, Lili! Now, Bebe and Lisa!
On, Mimi! On, Shi Shi! On Amy and Misa!
From the top of my spine to the tips of my toes
To the time when I flip and my cock grows and grows."
"Please, Linda! Yes, Cici! Oh Sara and Yuyu!
Go Mona! Oh Jenny! And Yoko and Su Su!
Rub every muscle with strong hands and fingers
Then turn down the lights when your touch softly lingers"
To a small curtained stall I was willingly brought
By a fortyish gal whose with the skills that I sought
A half hour massage soon gave way to the good part
When she asked me the question that warmed my cold heart.
As I flipped I could feel that my cock was ascending
She pantomimed options for my happy ending
Number one was a handjob, a forty buck price.
Next was a blowjob, which seemed twice as nice.
I chose option two for an 80 buck donation
And she got right to work without hesitation
What followed, the stuff of which legends are made
A blowjob of the highest professional grade
It took less than ten minutes to unleash my load
I was still in her mouth when I felt it explode.
I filled up her mouth, and she still didn't stop
This professional woman took in every drop.
Five minutes hence I returned to the rat race
With a skip in my step and a big smile on my face
I turned and I waved as I strode down the block
"Merry Christmas, and thank you for sucking my cock."
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The Good In Goodbye
I am shattered. Just as surely as porcelain dropped to the sidewalk is shattered, I am broken. The pieces of me are everywhere, too many to even begin to consider putting them back the way they were. The only way is to start fresh, strip it all down, go back to the beginning and pretend it never happened.
Always wanting what I can't have, never happy with what I've got. There is no text message from her, no phone call, no sign of life, nothing to remind me. I walk into a place I found months and months ago, when I was the King of New York and I had everything I wanted for a couple weeks. Life was good for a little while, yeah life was good and now it's turned to shit and I can't drag myself out of the ditch into which I have driven because I'm out of gas.
The place is the same as it was when I found it on Thanksgiving, but the lady who greets me is new. She's a Chinese woman with nice tan skin and a strong jaw. Her eyes are impenetrable and she's solidly built and looks good for someone in her late thirties or early forties. I pay for an hour and I get undressed and lay down.
Tina is her name and she's got good strong hands. I begin to relax and my my mind wanders. I see her, I see Lola, draped over that chair, that famous red chair. She laughs at me and beckons to me and I walk to her slowly, slowly, slowly and when I reach her she touches me. The clouds part. I do not smile but I am happy. I'm happy but I don't smile.
In my ear I hear a whisper, a quiet, polite question. Tina asks me if the massage is ok. "Yes" I say. "Too strong?" she asks. Too strong...please hurt me, I think, please reduce me to rubble and walk all over the remains. "No," I say. "It's perfect."
She works me over with professionalism and physical grace and I keep my head down and my eyes open. The past is calling, but I will resist its bedroom eyes and pillow talk. I will be strong and smart.
Hands make me weak, they defeat my resistance and break my resolve and as Tina's hands move over my body I let myself slip and again Lola beckons and again I go forth. She touches me softly and her eyes sing to me. What I feel for her is an illness, an addiction, a need I can't control. In my mind we are there on that couch and she is leaning against me and smoking and talking, her words fill the air and surround me and they are all I want but I hear a little bell ringing and ringing.
My eyes open and there is Tina and the timer is beeping. "Turn over" she says, and I hesitate for less than a second before I do. Tina rubs me lightly on the chest and I look at her face. I can almost see Lola in her, Lola 15 years from now. So many things to let go, so many thoughts to banish, so many habits to break. All the times I would have called her, the moments when I would have stopped and thought of her. I need to learn to live again, need to learn new ways to do all the things I do.
Tina strokes my cock with the blank look of a woman who'd rather be anywhere else. There are no gasps of anticipation or pleasure. Like a mailman sorting mail, she pulls on my cock while I grope her big tits. When did everything stop meaning anything? When did it stop feeling good? When will it be over?
Faster she strokes and now I need it, I need to come, I need to let it go, I need to forget, to cast aside, to just fucking dismiss everything. Hands, hands, hands and there I go. My mind goes blank and my eyes close and for a moment I finally have a blank slate.
I dress quietly, tip politely, and pad down the stairs as silent as a lamb and twice as gentle. I emerge onto the sidewalk and I pull out my phone and I look. No texts. No signs of life. I dial her number and then I stop.
The city's symphony surrounds me. I breathe it in and break it into its pieces. Cars, trucks, voices, sirens...there it is, there is the sound.
I pause and I hear it again. Laughter, high and bright. The laughter of children, clear and crisp in my ears. The tightness in my chest begins to ease. I breathe easily. In that sound there is life, there is promise, there is love.
I have lived and I have lost, and I am living in a world of regret. Life only ends when you stop living, and I am choosing not to live. In that sound I hear the future, and I am reminded of what I have and I can forget what I have not.
I look at my phone and I look at the cars in the street and the windows all around and the people who are everywhere in this city where there is no solitude but you're always alone. No more waiting. It is time to live and that is exactly what I intend to do.
I put that phone in my pocket and I look all around me and I take one step. And another. And another. And before long I will be there.
I am shattered. Just as surely as porcelain dropped to the sidewalk is shattered, I am broken. The pieces of me are everywhere, too many to even begin to consider putting them back the way they were. The only way is to start fresh, strip it all down, go back to the beginning and pretend it never happened.
Always wanting what I can't have, never happy with what I've got. There is no text message from her, no phone call, no sign of life, nothing to remind me. I walk into a place I found months and months ago, when I was the King of New York and I had everything I wanted for a couple weeks. Life was good for a little while, yeah life was good and now it's turned to shit and I can't drag myself out of the ditch into which I have driven because I'm out of gas.
The place is the same as it was when I found it on Thanksgiving, but the lady who greets me is new. She's a Chinese woman with nice tan skin and a strong jaw. Her eyes are impenetrable and she's solidly built and looks good for someone in her late thirties or early forties. I pay for an hour and I get undressed and lay down.
Tina is her name and she's got good strong hands. I begin to relax and my my mind wanders. I see her, I see Lola, draped over that chair, that famous red chair. She laughs at me and beckons to me and I walk to her slowly, slowly, slowly and when I reach her she touches me. The clouds part. I do not smile but I am happy. I'm happy but I don't smile.
In my ear I hear a whisper, a quiet, polite question. Tina asks me if the massage is ok. "Yes" I say. "Too strong?" she asks. Too strong...please hurt me, I think, please reduce me to rubble and walk all over the remains. "No," I say. "It's perfect."
She works me over with professionalism and physical grace and I keep my head down and my eyes open. The past is calling, but I will resist its bedroom eyes and pillow talk. I will be strong and smart.
Hands make me weak, they defeat my resistance and break my resolve and as Tina's hands move over my body I let myself slip and again Lola beckons and again I go forth. She touches me softly and her eyes sing to me. What I feel for her is an illness, an addiction, a need I can't control. In my mind we are there on that couch and she is leaning against me and smoking and talking, her words fill the air and surround me and they are all I want but I hear a little bell ringing and ringing.
My eyes open and there is Tina and the timer is beeping. "Turn over" she says, and I hesitate for less than a second before I do. Tina rubs me lightly on the chest and I look at her face. I can almost see Lola in her, Lola 15 years from now. So many things to let go, so many thoughts to banish, so many habits to break. All the times I would have called her, the moments when I would have stopped and thought of her. I need to learn to live again, need to learn new ways to do all the things I do.
Tina strokes my cock with the blank look of a woman who'd rather be anywhere else. There are no gasps of anticipation or pleasure. Like a mailman sorting mail, she pulls on my cock while I grope her big tits. When did everything stop meaning anything? When did it stop feeling good? When will it be over?
Faster she strokes and now I need it, I need to come, I need to let it go, I need to forget, to cast aside, to just fucking dismiss everything. Hands, hands, hands and there I go. My mind goes blank and my eyes close and for a moment I finally have a blank slate.
I dress quietly, tip politely, and pad down the stairs as silent as a lamb and twice as gentle. I emerge onto the sidewalk and I pull out my phone and I look. No texts. No signs of life. I dial her number and then I stop.
The city's symphony surrounds me. I breathe it in and break it into its pieces. Cars, trucks, voices, sirens...there it is, there is the sound.
I pause and I hear it again. Laughter, high and bright. The laughter of children, clear and crisp in my ears. The tightness in my chest begins to ease. I breathe easily. In that sound there is life, there is promise, there is love.
I have lived and I have lost, and I am living in a world of regret. Life only ends when you stop living, and I am choosing not to live. In that sound I hear the future, and I am reminded of what I have and I can forget what I have not.
I look at my phone and I look at the cars in the street and the windows all around and the people who are everywhere in this city where there is no solitude but you're always alone. No more waiting. It is time to live and that is exactly what I intend to do.
I put that phone in my pocket and I look all around me and I take one step. And another. And another. And before long I will be there.
If you truly want to get off your gerbil wheel you have been on these last few years, I strongly recommend that you will find it in legit AMPs. Find a woman that when you touch her, she jumps backwards in revulsion. Scan the boards for some place where NO ONE reports any extras and that they are non-existent but give a great massage. Find someone that you have chemistry with, and slowly develop a relationship.
You are not going to get much sex in the beginning, but the end product is more than worth it. When was the last time a low mileage (meaning very partners in her life) offered herself to you and only you (through the duration of the relationship)?
But you are going to lose your source of inspiration for these poems.
This is the short version. But I am having a blast and not sure if I can ever go back to FS AMPs other than an occasional dalliance, that will inevitably lead to buyer's remorse.
You are not going to get much sex in the beginning, but the end product is more than worth it. When was the last time a low mileage (meaning very partners in her life) offered herself to you and only you (through the duration of the relationship)?
But you are going to lose your source of inspiration for these poems.
This is the short version. But I am having a blast and not sure if I can ever go back to FS AMPs other than an occasional dalliance, that will inevitably lead to buyer's remorse.
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Well, I should confess that I wrote that one last April, so it doesn't reflect the current espirit de Otis. Your Comment is noted, however, and really going to FS places was never my core agenda. Like fishing with C4 - you end up with lots of fish and nothing to remember other than the explosion.
My core competency has probably always been working a program for mileage at rub & tugs. The progression from roaming to nudity to oral to banging on the massage table is more than just a passing diversion, but I confess to never having worked at getting anything more than a massage in a legit shop.
Of course, time is the scarcest resource for me...plus, the idea of possibly leaving anywhere without so much as a handjob is a challenge. When I feel hands on my shoulders, a pavlovian response ensues and I need that handjob way more than I really should...
My core competency has probably always been working a program for mileage at rub & tugs. The progression from roaming to nudity to oral to banging on the massage table is more than just a passing diversion, but I confess to never having worked at getting anything more than a massage in a legit shop.
Of course, time is the scarcest resource for me...plus, the idea of possibly leaving anywhere without so much as a handjob is a challenge. When I feel hands on my shoulders, a pavlovian response ensues and I need that handjob way more than I really should...
You do not need to give up "tugs plus a prayer". You just need to add the profound (legit spa) and you will eventual not need to go to Tugs R Us. Do it consecutively in the beginning. and you are covered. Easy to do in Flushing. The legit place sometimes causes a self-imposed blue balls.
In Flushing, the total cost of the experiment for me is $41/hr including tip. The worst that happens is you get a good massage with hot stones for an insanely low price.
In Flushing, the total cost of the experiment for me is $41/hr including tip. The worst that happens is you get a good massage with hot stones for an insanely low price.
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Hands, Hands, Hands
All the phones have stopped their ringing and the side of every building looks like a gap tooth smile with as many dark windows as bright ones. The maids scurry about picking up the empty cups and sheaves of paper left behind by the men and women who make the money come.
The streets are damp and the air is heavy with moisture. The sidewalks are flooded with tourists and with men like me, men who end their day they way they began it: alone. Alone is how I like to be - I am fueled by solitude and isolation and the hours I spend by myself are the ones when inspiration siphons the words from me and puts them on the page.
I am human, I am a man, I have needs and desires and for all the times when too much is just enough there are at least as many when nothing could ever bring fulfillment. This is one of those moments. I spent an hour this morning with my cock inside her, having her every way I wanted, satisfying myself completely. Now, seven hours later, the animal inside me is growling, clawing its way out into the world where it can feed itself with tits and ass, where it can take what it wants and leave nothing behind.
It calls and I obey and I take out my phone and I dial. 20 minutes later I am alone in a room with a woman I've never seen before. In one of life's cruel little jokes, however, I realize immediately that I have been in this very room in the past. A half a year ago I was on that massage table getting jacked off by a middle aged Chinese woman with a nice face who gave a very good massage. And tonight here we are again. Same table, different woman.
Cici, she calls herself. I don't give her my name. She is also middle aged and has a nice face. I smile and I tell her I've been here before. The woman who was here before is gone, she says. "Working here," she says, "you can't make very much money, but it is relaxing." That one makes us both laugh out loud.
It's 45 bucks for the hour. I lay two twenties and a five on the table and I take my clothes off and wait as she goes off to get me some water. She comes back with the water and towels and I look into her eyes and for a moment she is stunned, I think, by the intensity of my need. Hands, hands, hands, I need hands on me, on my back, on my legs, on my ass, on my cock.
I lay face down and she rubs some lotion on her hands and gets started and in an instant her skill makes itself obvious. Strong, even strokes across all the right places and I feel myself melting a little. I look up at her and she stops as if something is wrong. "No, no. It's really great that's all" I say, and she smiles.
For forty five minutes she works hard and I can see her forehead glisten. The phone rings and I encourage her to answer it. This is her business, after all.
She asks me to turn over and she does some front work before she dims the lights. I am relaxed now. The beast is purring, he sees his dinner before him, and Cici oils up her hand and takes hold of my hard cock. She strokes it and I touch her ass and then I run my hand under her shirt and her nipples are hard as stones.
That should be enough for me, but I came twice this morning so tonight is hard work...but she is just as committed as I am and she jacks me harder and faster and harder and faster until finally I come hard as the timer goes off and I put my hand on hers to stop her.
I lay back and I exhale and I smile. Every muscle is relaxed and the beast is silent. Finally we make some chit chat...about rent controlled apartments, how very New York. I get dressed and she tells me how one day she'd like to have a place with three or four rooms, a couple of young girls to do massages...she came here for opportunity, this is what we've given her in the way of hopes and dreams.
Outside, the night is starless and black and it covers me like a cloak. I am human, I am a man, I have needs and desires and for the moment there is peace, but peaceful I will never be.
All the phones have stopped their ringing and the side of every building looks like a gap tooth smile with as many dark windows as bright ones. The maids scurry about picking up the empty cups and sheaves of paper left behind by the men and women who make the money come.
The streets are damp and the air is heavy with moisture. The sidewalks are flooded with tourists and with men like me, men who end their day they way they began it: alone. Alone is how I like to be - I am fueled by solitude and isolation and the hours I spend by myself are the ones when inspiration siphons the words from me and puts them on the page.
I am human, I am a man, I have needs and desires and for all the times when too much is just enough there are at least as many when nothing could ever bring fulfillment. This is one of those moments. I spent an hour this morning with my cock inside her, having her every way I wanted, satisfying myself completely. Now, seven hours later, the animal inside me is growling, clawing its way out into the world where it can feed itself with tits and ass, where it can take what it wants and leave nothing behind.
It calls and I obey and I take out my phone and I dial. 20 minutes later I am alone in a room with a woman I've never seen before. In one of life's cruel little jokes, however, I realize immediately that I have been in this very room in the past. A half a year ago I was on that massage table getting jacked off by a middle aged Chinese woman with a nice face who gave a very good massage. And tonight here we are again. Same table, different woman.
Cici, she calls herself. I don't give her my name. She is also middle aged and has a nice face. I smile and I tell her I've been here before. The woman who was here before is gone, she says. "Working here," she says, "you can't make very much money, but it is relaxing." That one makes us both laugh out loud.
It's 45 bucks for the hour. I lay two twenties and a five on the table and I take my clothes off and wait as she goes off to get me some water. She comes back with the water and towels and I look into her eyes and for a moment she is stunned, I think, by the intensity of my need. Hands, hands, hands, I need hands on me, on my back, on my legs, on my ass, on my cock.
I lay face down and she rubs some lotion on her hands and gets started and in an instant her skill makes itself obvious. Strong, even strokes across all the right places and I feel myself melting a little. I look up at her and she stops as if something is wrong. "No, no. It's really great that's all" I say, and she smiles.
For forty five minutes she works hard and I can see her forehead glisten. The phone rings and I encourage her to answer it. This is her business, after all.
She asks me to turn over and she does some front work before she dims the lights. I am relaxed now. The beast is purring, he sees his dinner before him, and Cici oils up her hand and takes hold of my hard cock. She strokes it and I touch her ass and then I run my hand under her shirt and her nipples are hard as stones.
That should be enough for me, but I came twice this morning so tonight is hard work...but she is just as committed as I am and she jacks me harder and faster and harder and faster until finally I come hard as the timer goes off and I put my hand on hers to stop her.
I lay back and I exhale and I smile. Every muscle is relaxed and the beast is silent. Finally we make some chit chat...about rent controlled apartments, how very New York. I get dressed and she tells me how one day she'd like to have a place with three or four rooms, a couple of young girls to do massages...she came here for opportunity, this is what we've given her in the way of hopes and dreams.
Outside, the night is starless and black and it covers me like a cloak. I am human, I am a man, I have needs and desires and for the moment there is peace, but peaceful I will never be.
No Regrets / Memorial For A Place And Time
Up Sixth Avenue I walk, past the Gray's Papaya where I can remember eating lunch every day for three months. That was a long time ago, and you could get a papaya juice and two hot dogs for $2.50. Now I see the "Recession Special" as it has always been known - even when there was no recession - goes for $4.75.
I was 21 years old working at a startup magazine and living on pocket change. In the late afternoons I would go to Dean & Deluca and ask to try samples of the meat and cheeses - that would be my dinner - and then I'd flirt with the girl at the coffee counter who sometimes gave me a free coffee.
Before too long the magazine folded and when it did I filed the dream of making a career as a writer alongside the fantasy of being a rock star in the drawer marked "Abandoned" and I went ahead and chose a career where I could earn a living doing something I didn't love but found tolerable enough to generally avoid throwing myself out of a window.
The sights and sounds do take me back, though, as do the throngs of young coeds who fill the sidewalks in this neighborhood. Regret takes root in dissatisfaction - when you're happy, the road not taken holds no appeal. It is only today's unhappiness that sends us in pursuit of yesterday's might have been. Regret solves nothing, regret is life's dead end and yet...somehow regret creeps its way into our open minds and sets up shop.
The past means as much as we let it mean, but as I venture into a doorway and make my way to the second floor it means less and less and less with every step. The space is tiny and is divided into half a dozen little rooms, each barely large enough to hold a massage table with a couple of feet of clearance on each side. I am greeted by a cute young woman with long hair who speaks English I can understand. She brings me to a room, I squeeze in and get undressed. She returns to find me on the table and she gets to work.
I open my mouth to start the chit chat. I always try to make some conversation, to find some touchstone of commonality, to make the connection just a little more than the touch of warm hands on soft flesh. I open my mouth but all that comes out is a wordless noise as I feel her strong hands on my neck and I am surprised by the feeling of relief that melts down into my arms. "Oh," I finally say, "you're very good."
How was she damaged as a girl or as a young woman? What convinced her that she's not good enough, not strong enough, not pretty enough? What made her feel so small? Her reply to me is sheepish and self-effacing. "No," she says, "I am not very good. Other girls here are much better."
"I don't think so," I say. "Maybe you don't know how good you are." So many young women I meet in life are afraid, afraid to know their own skill and strength, afraid to be strong, afraid to live. She isn't damaged at all, she's just afraid, the way we are all afraid.
She says the other girls are stronger. I tell her she has something more important - she knows how to find the places that hurt. She says "I'm just a Chinese girl, I don't know." That makes me lift my head and look her in the eyes. She should be proud of who she is, and I tell her so. "No regrets," I say. "Be who you are."
She finally gives me a little smile and she gets back to work. She walks on my back and it's great. Then she has me turn over and she jacks me off, slowly and sensuously, for a good 15 minutes while I touch her all over and she moves her body to allow it. Finally, she is breathing more heavily than I am as she uses both hands to jack me off until I finally come.
She cleans me up and she laughs out loud at the stupid, satisfied smile on my face. I rise and dress and when I tip her I give a tiny little peck on the cheek, something I don't usually do, but it feels right to me now. "You are good," I tell her, "you deserve good things," she smiles at me and then I am gone.
As I head back down Sixth Avenue I see and I smell those hot dogs again, but I keep walking. There is no room for regret. The past means only what I say it means, and today it means nothing. The Spring air is getting warmer and soon enough Summer will be here. Life offers truth and beauty and sweetness every single day and I will savor the good and forget the bad. No more regrets, no more, I promise myself. No more.
Up Sixth Avenue I walk, past the Gray's Papaya where I can remember eating lunch every day for three months. That was a long time ago, and you could get a papaya juice and two hot dogs for $2.50. Now I see the "Recession Special" as it has always been known - even when there was no recession - goes for $4.75.
I was 21 years old working at a startup magazine and living on pocket change. In the late afternoons I would go to Dean & Deluca and ask to try samples of the meat and cheeses - that would be my dinner - and then I'd flirt with the girl at the coffee counter who sometimes gave me a free coffee.
Before too long the magazine folded and when it did I filed the dream of making a career as a writer alongside the fantasy of being a rock star in the drawer marked "Abandoned" and I went ahead and chose a career where I could earn a living doing something I didn't love but found tolerable enough to generally avoid throwing myself out of a window.
The sights and sounds do take me back, though, as do the throngs of young coeds who fill the sidewalks in this neighborhood. Regret takes root in dissatisfaction - when you're happy, the road not taken holds no appeal. It is only today's unhappiness that sends us in pursuit of yesterday's might have been. Regret solves nothing, regret is life's dead end and yet...somehow regret creeps its way into our open minds and sets up shop.
The past means as much as we let it mean, but as I venture into a doorway and make my way to the second floor it means less and less and less with every step. The space is tiny and is divided into half a dozen little rooms, each barely large enough to hold a massage table with a couple of feet of clearance on each side. I am greeted by a cute young woman with long hair who speaks English I can understand. She brings me to a room, I squeeze in and get undressed. She returns to find me on the table and she gets to work.
I open my mouth to start the chit chat. I always try to make some conversation, to find some touchstone of commonality, to make the connection just a little more than the touch of warm hands on soft flesh. I open my mouth but all that comes out is a wordless noise as I feel her strong hands on my neck and I am surprised by the feeling of relief that melts down into my arms. "Oh," I finally say, "you're very good."
How was she damaged as a girl or as a young woman? What convinced her that she's not good enough, not strong enough, not pretty enough? What made her feel so small? Her reply to me is sheepish and self-effacing. "No," she says, "I am not very good. Other girls here are much better."
"I don't think so," I say. "Maybe you don't know how good you are." So many young women I meet in life are afraid, afraid to know their own skill and strength, afraid to be strong, afraid to live. She isn't damaged at all, she's just afraid, the way we are all afraid.
She says the other girls are stronger. I tell her she has something more important - she knows how to find the places that hurt. She says "I'm just a Chinese girl, I don't know." That makes me lift my head and look her in the eyes. She should be proud of who she is, and I tell her so. "No regrets," I say. "Be who you are."
She finally gives me a little smile and she gets back to work. She walks on my back and it's great. Then she has me turn over and she jacks me off, slowly and sensuously, for a good 15 minutes while I touch her all over and she moves her body to allow it. Finally, she is breathing more heavily than I am as she uses both hands to jack me off until I finally come.
She cleans me up and she laughs out loud at the stupid, satisfied smile on my face. I rise and dress and when I tip her I give a tiny little peck on the cheek, something I don't usually do, but it feels right to me now. "You are good," I tell her, "you deserve good things," she smiles at me and then I am gone.
As I head back down Sixth Avenue I see and I smell those hot dogs again, but I keep walking. There is no room for regret. The past means only what I say it means, and today it means nothing. The Spring air is getting warmer and soon enough Summer will be here. Life offers truth and beauty and sweetness every single day and I will savor the good and forget the bad. No more regrets, no more, I promise myself. No more.
Fifth Avenue
The ice in my drink gets smaller with each passing second. The drink gets a little weaker and the taste in my mouth a little more sour as I sit at the quiet end of the bar. It's late, and the wraiths of Midtown are my only friends now. The place bustles when the sun shines but for me it comes to life when the commuters have made their frantic withdrawal.
The color changes as the ice melts and every now and then the ice cubes shift and catch the light and shine like silver bullets, like daggers in the sun. Nowhere to go, nobody who gives a damn if and when I appear. I rise anyway, and I tip my hat to the bartender who gives a loose two finger salute as I hit the door with my right palm.
Koreatown is still lit up and I can see it calling me across Fifth Avenue but I ignore its song and dance and I turn to face downtown and I walk and I haven't gone much more than a block when I see a familiar door and walk right in. There's a doorman and he makes me sign some book with whatever name pops into my head before I can get on the elevator and feel it pull me up, up, up.
I knock lightly, that's my style. I knock twice lightly and after a pause she opens the door a little and sees me and a look of surprise covers her face. She let's me in. It's been a long time. She looks good in a little cocktail dress with a red bra peeking out and I tell her so. She smiles and beckons me into the little room where she works.
I take my hat and jacket off and then suddenly she is upon me. She pushes me right up against the massage table and kisses my lips, my ears, my neck. "Too long you make me wait," she says, "you busy with so many girls."
I smile a toothy little grin and I say yeah, but none of them are like her. She likes that, and it happens to be true. There is simply something about her I like. She's in her 40's somewhere, not a girl, a woman. She has the ass of a girl half her age and she talks dirty in my ear, but she also has the peaceful quality of a woman who sees the humor in life, and looking into her eyes I wonder myself why I waited so long.
She starts pulling my clothes off and gestures to the massage table. "You want face down or face up?" she asks. Face down means a massage. Face up means we cut to the chase. I'm all for efficiency. "Face up" I say. "Who has time for face down?"
She laughs and then we are all over each other again. She pulls my pants off and then my shirt and soon I am naked on the table and she is above me. She breathes heavily and kisses me everywhere and I pull her dress up and run my hands over her ass and into her panties. She is moist and reacts to my touch as if it was electric. I slide her panties down and wordless whispers of pleasure and anticipation issue from her tongue.
I sit up and I gesture to her to lay down. She pulls off her dress and her bra and I stand. The phone rings and I tell her to answer it and she bends over the table and I pull in behind her and grind against her until she can't talk anymore and hangs up. She lays down and I am between her legs and I taste her. She moans and sighs and I tease her, lick her, circling her clit slowly, then faster and faster and then I stop and go slowly again and again and again. She is writhing and raising herself and she says "please, baby." I dive in and start escalating slowly, faster, harder, until finally I feel a muscle contraction and she is spasming and she cries out.
I let it settle into the air and she says "you made me feel so good."
"You make so many men feel good" I tell her. "You deserve to feel good, too. You deserve to feel good."
She smiles and breathes a little sigh and then she sits up and says she wants me to feel good too. I lay down and she is above me, kissing me here and there and stroking my hard cock. She gets a little oil and slowly, slowly rubs it, no rush, all the time in the world. Time has stopped, I think, everything is still except for me and her.
My breath is shallow, my voice is low. She brings me close and eases off. She knows what I want. Slowly again...then faster, faster, faster...then slowly again. I'm writhing on the table now and I need release, relief, rebirth. She speeds up. She is whispering incomprehensible dirty words and I hear a sound like a moan and I realize it's coming from me. From the depths of my chest I feel it coming and coming and coming and then I finally feel myself come and come and come with my left leg shaking and my back arched.
I melt on the table like the ice in my drink and my color is changing. She asks if I am happy.
"I feel good." I say. But she wants to know, really. "Are you happy?" She asks again.
I think for a minute and finally I say, "I'm OK." She looks at me sideways. "Sometimes," I say, "I think too much."
She understands this. "Don't think anymore, just do" she says, and I wonder if she knows how wise that advice really is.
Outside, the lights of Koreatown are sparkling and twinkling and they catch my eye as I make my way back up Fifth Avenue. I will not cross that river, the river of taxis and pavement that divides Manhattan. I will not be tempted to cross that river tonight, I will not think of it at all. Tonight I won't think. Tonight I will just do.
The ice in my drink gets smaller with each passing second. The drink gets a little weaker and the taste in my mouth a little more sour as I sit at the quiet end of the bar. It's late, and the wraiths of Midtown are my only friends now. The place bustles when the sun shines but for me it comes to life when the commuters have made their frantic withdrawal.
The color changes as the ice melts and every now and then the ice cubes shift and catch the light and shine like silver bullets, like daggers in the sun. Nowhere to go, nobody who gives a damn if and when I appear. I rise anyway, and I tip my hat to the bartender who gives a loose two finger salute as I hit the door with my right palm.
Koreatown is still lit up and I can see it calling me across Fifth Avenue but I ignore its song and dance and I turn to face downtown and I walk and I haven't gone much more than a block when I see a familiar door and walk right in. There's a doorman and he makes me sign some book with whatever name pops into my head before I can get on the elevator and feel it pull me up, up, up.
I knock lightly, that's my style. I knock twice lightly and after a pause she opens the door a little and sees me and a look of surprise covers her face. She let's me in. It's been a long time. She looks good in a little cocktail dress with a red bra peeking out and I tell her so. She smiles and beckons me into the little room where she works.
I take my hat and jacket off and then suddenly she is upon me. She pushes me right up against the massage table and kisses my lips, my ears, my neck. "Too long you make me wait," she says, "you busy with so many girls."
I smile a toothy little grin and I say yeah, but none of them are like her. She likes that, and it happens to be true. There is simply something about her I like. She's in her 40's somewhere, not a girl, a woman. She has the ass of a girl half her age and she talks dirty in my ear, but she also has the peaceful quality of a woman who sees the humor in life, and looking into her eyes I wonder myself why I waited so long.
She starts pulling my clothes off and gestures to the massage table. "You want face down or face up?" she asks. Face down means a massage. Face up means we cut to the chase. I'm all for efficiency. "Face up" I say. "Who has time for face down?"
She laughs and then we are all over each other again. She pulls my pants off and then my shirt and soon I am naked on the table and she is above me. She breathes heavily and kisses me everywhere and I pull her dress up and run my hands over her ass and into her panties. She is moist and reacts to my touch as if it was electric. I slide her panties down and wordless whispers of pleasure and anticipation issue from her tongue.
I sit up and I gesture to her to lay down. She pulls off her dress and her bra and I stand. The phone rings and I tell her to answer it and she bends over the table and I pull in behind her and grind against her until she can't talk anymore and hangs up. She lays down and I am between her legs and I taste her. She moans and sighs and I tease her, lick her, circling her clit slowly, then faster and faster and then I stop and go slowly again and again and again. She is writhing and raising herself and she says "please, baby." I dive in and start escalating slowly, faster, harder, until finally I feel a muscle contraction and she is spasming and she cries out.
I let it settle into the air and she says "you made me feel so good."
"You make so many men feel good" I tell her. "You deserve to feel good, too. You deserve to feel good."
She smiles and breathes a little sigh and then she sits up and says she wants me to feel good too. I lay down and she is above me, kissing me here and there and stroking my hard cock. She gets a little oil and slowly, slowly rubs it, no rush, all the time in the world. Time has stopped, I think, everything is still except for me and her.
My breath is shallow, my voice is low. She brings me close and eases off. She knows what I want. Slowly again...then faster, faster, faster...then slowly again. I'm writhing on the table now and I need release, relief, rebirth. She speeds up. She is whispering incomprehensible dirty words and I hear a sound like a moan and I realize it's coming from me. From the depths of my chest I feel it coming and coming and coming and then I finally feel myself come and come and come with my left leg shaking and my back arched.
I melt on the table like the ice in my drink and my color is changing. She asks if I am happy.
"I feel good." I say. But she wants to know, really. "Are you happy?" She asks again.
I think for a minute and finally I say, "I'm OK." She looks at me sideways. "Sometimes," I say, "I think too much."
She understands this. "Don't think anymore, just do" she says, and I wonder if she knows how wise that advice really is.
Outside, the lights of Koreatown are sparkling and twinkling and they catch my eye as I make my way back up Fifth Avenue. I will not cross that river, the river of taxis and pavement that divides Manhattan. I will not be tempted to cross that river tonight, I will not think of it at all. Tonight I won't think. Tonight I will just do.
A Little Less Every Day
The moon and the stars line up just the way they need to now and then and you have a day that approaches perfection. The sun rises and the black night is whisked away by warm orange and the first rays of the new rising sun poke at the blinds on the east side while the west still slumbers. From the graffiti covered walls to the spit soaked gleaming asphalt the sun gives warmth and my city is perfect in its profound imperfection.
Soon the sky is filled with light and laughter and the day is filled with with all the things you must do...to make way for the things you want. And when that brilliant sun hangs lower than saddest tattered sail on the last ship in the viking fleet, then there is time for desires and wants.
Today was that day. Tonight was that night.
I get off the train in Flushing and she is there. I see her across Main Street, waving carefully. I wave back and I come to her. I go to kiss her and she draws back just a little and I shoot her a confused look before taking her hand and walking. Slowly we walk and I am conscious of being 8 inches taller than everyone around me.
"You come to Flushing before?" she asks. I contemplate lying, giving the answer I think she wants to hear, but I stop myself. How many years did I live in a stupor of unhappiness and a fog of depression, pretending to be someone else? Too many wasted years, too hard to remember who I ever was at all when it was over.
"Only twice" I say. "One time for a massage...one time just to walk..."
She doesn't believe me, of course, and who would? She assumes I've gotten handjobs in every storefront and basement in the five boroughs, and even though the reality is so much simpler, I am stuck with the reputation I built.
We turn down a side street and the crowd thins. As we pass Chinese men and women I can feel her hand slip away from mine, and I realize that where I feel pride and joy and satisfaction walking around with her by my side, she is not as enthusiastic, she is even a bit embarrassed to be seen with a strange white man who looks like he walked out of 1954. I feel it, I do. I say nothing at all but I feel it inside me. I am still that 14 year old loser who couldn't fit in anywhere, who made himself dead inside to keep the pain and anxiety away.
I have no idea where we are going, and maybe we're just walking. Finally we stop in front of a little brick building and she sticks a key in the front door. We go up two flights and into an apartment which is divided into small rooms. She rents one of the rooms. It's not bad, really. We have to be quiet, she says. I'm not really supposed to be there. I look around at the photos on the desk and the bed and I am that 14 year old kid again, only now I'm in a girl's bedroom. Even though we are both too old to worry about or live with our parents, it's as if her parents are away, and we have a little time with each other.
We sit down on her bed and I kiss her and it is like magic again. Our lips touch and then our tongues and before long we are making out like pubescent teenagers and I am running my hands all over her body. Her clothes don't come off. We have to be careful and quiet. "Shh" she says when I speak. She reaches into my pants and grabs my hard cock. Just like I am back in high school, she gives me a hand job on her bed. It is exquisitely perfect for one short moment - for one small breath everything lines up just right and I can breathe and all I want to do is drink her in forever.
I pull my pants back up and we walk outside. I notice the looks from the Chinese ladies this time and I look at my feet while we walk. Neither of us has anything to say and my mind wanders. It is inevitable that I will fuck this up. I will do something dumb and she will know and it will end with unanswered calls the way it always does. I will fuck it up because that's who I am. I will fuck it up but until I do I'm going to savor this perfect little moment.
She brings me to a restaurant where I am the only white man in the whole place. The waiters talk to her and I don't exist, but I'm used to that feeling. It happens to me every day. She orders more food than we could possibly eat. I ask for Peking Duck and then I show her a Daffy Duck cartoon on my phone. There might never be a better moment than this one. I am alone, always, and yet somehow here I am with her. It will never last. I will fuck it up. And there will always be Daffy Duck.
We walk to the subway and before I turn to enter I pull her to me and I kiss her hard. It is the last time our lips will touch. The moment is perfect. The moment will pass. Like clouds overhead, like the strangers packed in next to me as I ride that train home, we are mere objects in space - we collided for a moment and then we kept moving and now the moment is gone.
I will miss her a little less every day until I no longer miss her at all.
The moon and the stars line up just the way they need to now and then and you have a day that approaches perfection. The sun rises and the black night is whisked away by warm orange and the first rays of the new rising sun poke at the blinds on the east side while the west still slumbers. From the graffiti covered walls to the spit soaked gleaming asphalt the sun gives warmth and my city is perfect in its profound imperfection.
Soon the sky is filled with light and laughter and the day is filled with with all the things you must do...to make way for the things you want. And when that brilliant sun hangs lower than saddest tattered sail on the last ship in the viking fleet, then there is time for desires and wants.
Today was that day. Tonight was that night.
I get off the train in Flushing and she is there. I see her across Main Street, waving carefully. I wave back and I come to her. I go to kiss her and she draws back just a little and I shoot her a confused look before taking her hand and walking. Slowly we walk and I am conscious of being 8 inches taller than everyone around me.
"You come to Flushing before?" she asks. I contemplate lying, giving the answer I think she wants to hear, but I stop myself. How many years did I live in a stupor of unhappiness and a fog of depression, pretending to be someone else? Too many wasted years, too hard to remember who I ever was at all when it was over.
"Only twice" I say. "One time for a massage...one time just to walk..."
She doesn't believe me, of course, and who would? She assumes I've gotten handjobs in every storefront and basement in the five boroughs, and even though the reality is so much simpler, I am stuck with the reputation I built.
We turn down a side street and the crowd thins. As we pass Chinese men and women I can feel her hand slip away from mine, and I realize that where I feel pride and joy and satisfaction walking around with her by my side, she is not as enthusiastic, she is even a bit embarrassed to be seen with a strange white man who looks like he walked out of 1954. I feel it, I do. I say nothing at all but I feel it inside me. I am still that 14 year old loser who couldn't fit in anywhere, who made himself dead inside to keep the pain and anxiety away.
I have no idea where we are going, and maybe we're just walking. Finally we stop in front of a little brick building and she sticks a key in the front door. We go up two flights and into an apartment which is divided into small rooms. She rents one of the rooms. It's not bad, really. We have to be quiet, she says. I'm not really supposed to be there. I look around at the photos on the desk and the bed and I am that 14 year old kid again, only now I'm in a girl's bedroom. Even though we are both too old to worry about or live with our parents, it's as if her parents are away, and we have a little time with each other.
We sit down on her bed and I kiss her and it is like magic again. Our lips touch and then our tongues and before long we are making out like pubescent teenagers and I am running my hands all over her body. Her clothes don't come off. We have to be careful and quiet. "Shh" she says when I speak. She reaches into my pants and grabs my hard cock. Just like I am back in high school, she gives me a hand job on her bed. It is exquisitely perfect for one short moment - for one small breath everything lines up just right and I can breathe and all I want to do is drink her in forever.
I pull my pants back up and we walk outside. I notice the looks from the Chinese ladies this time and I look at my feet while we walk. Neither of us has anything to say and my mind wanders. It is inevitable that I will fuck this up. I will do something dumb and she will know and it will end with unanswered calls the way it always does. I will fuck it up because that's who I am. I will fuck it up but until I do I'm going to savor this perfect little moment.
She brings me to a restaurant where I am the only white man in the whole place. The waiters talk to her and I don't exist, but I'm used to that feeling. It happens to me every day. She orders more food than we could possibly eat. I ask for Peking Duck and then I show her a Daffy Duck cartoon on my phone. There might never be a better moment than this one. I am alone, always, and yet somehow here I am with her. It will never last. I will fuck it up. And there will always be Daffy Duck.
We walk to the subway and before I turn to enter I pull her to me and I kiss her hard. It is the last time our lips will touch. The moment is perfect. The moment will pass. Like clouds overhead, like the strangers packed in next to me as I ride that train home, we are mere objects in space - we collided for a moment and then we kept moving and now the moment is gone.
I will miss her a little less every day until I no longer miss her at all.