Laura Meets Jeffrey (31 page)

“George was dead. He was sitting back on a chair and threw up and suffocated on his own vomit. I took that personally, because I was the one who took him from the detox—that he had escaped from—and I took him to get cocaine in the city, which totally hooked him in again.

“It was horrible—it is one of the worst memories of my life.

“I'm such an idiot that I went to his funeral high on cocaine. I weighed ninety-nine pounds. There I was at my friend's funeral who died from doing cocaine, and this guy standing next to me, said, ‘You know, you're next, you're going to die next.'

“I was like, ‘Fuck no, man, I'm not going to die, I'm not going to die.'

“The guy standing next to me was part of George's film crew, and he said it again, ‘You know it, you're next....'

“The second time that guy said to me that I was the next to die, it hit me. He was right. I could feel it. George was dead and I was next. I went back and told my therapist, ‘I have to stop doing cocaine.'

“I finally could see that cocaine was fucking up my life. That was the main thing. I was fucking up my life and I was making choices to be with people who also did cocaine. I was choosing my friends for their drugs. I was not into getting off coke when I went into therapy; I just was going because of my bad relationships with men, and to figure out why I wanted to get hurt all the time.

“My therapist had me look deep into myself, because I was the one hurting myself and the answer would be inside me. And if I didn't want to be hurt anymore, then I had to start with myself. You see, I discovered during therapy, with my mother
'
s help, that when I was about one year old and my sister was five years old, this two-year-old boy came to live with us. And my parents said that I was in love with him. I followed him around and he ignored me completely. He was only into my older sister.

“Anyway, this boy lived with us for two years, so by the time he left I was almost three years old. For the two years that he lived there, I was in love with him—and he always loved somebody else. It was constant rejection and I guess I became hooked on rejection.

“Every man I ever lived with wanted to have sex with other women. My first husband always wanted to have sex with other women. He went to a whorehouse regularly in Manhattan. Jeffrey was always having sex with other women. He loved me but he ended up hurting me. Well, Jeffrey didn't reject me sexually, but he hurt me even if he only left over my doing cocaine. I think that kind of, well, it made up for my need to satisfy rejection, but I didn't recognize it until I went into therapy.

“So I established a pattern for my whole life of being attracted to people who rejected me. Or giving them a reason to reject me. It was ridiculous but I was stuck in it. And then I went from Jeffrey to another guy who wanted me and also other women. He wanted to be with whores, and me and whores, and whatever—and I finally realized that I had to break the pattern.

“So I went into therapy not meaning to get off cocaine,” Laura laughs again, “and immediately I got off cocaine. Therapy was all about me getting healthy. And I was absolutely determined to get healthy. So I worked on it. It was hard to stop doing cocaine, but not all that hard. Not really. I've always given up things like that. When I gave up smoking, I gave it up fast. First I was smoking and then I wasn't smoking. So I gave up cocaine fast. I never got whipped by anybody after Jeffrey. It was just something I did because of what we were together. I still wanted real men, strong men, who were dominant. But I didn't need to get rid of any more pain. I got rid of enough.

“I remember that I just said to myself, ‘I'm not going to do these things anymore. Never again.'

“And I was off cocaine. And I was done with being whipped. That was it. No more. Except in my mind when I masturbate.”

Epilogue:
Only the dead know Brooklyn

Early autumn 1983

A few months after Laura, I got inspired to change my life and find a nice girl, preferably Jewish, and maybe get married or at least achieve some kind of Certified Normality. I needed the absolution that only I could give myself by leading a less perverted life.

I wouldn't find a nice Jewish girl in Goyimville where I lived way out in the country so I had to figure out another way. I'd heard that the Village Voice personals were a great place to find romance. I even knew a couple that met that way. It seemed pretty easy. I wrote ads for a living. I'd take myself on as the client. I was determined to meet some regular women. Not crazies. Not hookers. Not cokeheads. I wanted to prove to myself I could enjoy healthy sex again. Well, at least moderately healthy sex. Maybe not vanilla but cherry vanilla.

And where was the line? Having a whip in my hand was across the line. Was a playful spank over the edge? Too many women liked to be spanked for me to go on the spanking wagon. I was a sinner looking for redemption faced with the common question every addict faces: How do I make a new life? How do I make a life without drugs? How do I make a life without gambling? How do I live without alcohol? And for me, how do I live without the adrenaline rush of S&M?

Would I need to be the alcoholic who has to completely give up alcohol? The heroin junkie who can't even smoke a joint once a year? Gambling, alcohol, and heroin are best left completely alone. I was more like the obese person who still needs to eat, just not to excess. I don't want to give up sex; I just want to take the violence out of it.

My parents raised me to marry a nice Jewish girl and deep inside me I had that notion, too. But this always worked better as a concept than a reality. Not many Jewish women were tall, thin and cheekboned unless their fathers had already married and converted a gentile with dominant genes or their great-great-grandmother had been raped by a Cossack.

I'd met a few full-blooded both-sides-for-generations tall slinky Jewish brunettes and even one blonde—a gorgeous, natural blue-eyed blonde Jewess who could have passed in Germany during World War II—but they were hardly ever demure and I like demure. The dictionary says demure means “disinclined to obtrude oneself.” And obtrude means “to take usually unwarranted advantage.” That says it for me. I always thought Jewish girls would make better business partners than wives. But throughout my life I intermittently kept up the search, and I was about to make another attempt.

The Village Voice
might introduce me to more bohemian, less materialistic Jewish girls. It was worth the try. I wrote:

“Healthy fit brave & witty single Jewish male with riverbank cabin. 36, 6,
'
175 lbs. In NYC weekly. Seeks tall trim Jewish female for passion, laughter & lasting relationship. Must send photo.”

I filled out the form, sent in the ad, and waited anxiously till the issue came out. Then I bought a copy and read my ad maybe 240 times over the next three days. I liked it. It was tight and spoke of someone of serious intent with enough means for a country abode without mentioning money. The six feet, 175 pounds was a lie by half an inch and four pounds but I was close. The brave and witty part came from Norman Mailer, who wrote: “A hero exhibits a consecutive set of brave and witty self-creations.” If I have a credo, that's it. Not that I always live up to it.

A surprising total of forty-seven responses came the first week. I opened them up as they came in but made no judgments until my mailbox had its first empty day and I had a total of seventy-eight replies.

Triage. Two piles. Potential and Fireplace.

All the letters, twenty-two of them, without photos went first. I might have missed the Jewish Wife of the Millennium but I had asked for a photo so I mistrusted or deemed too timid, aesthetically challenged, or a Luddite those who didn't have a photo or wouldn't send one. All the replies with pictures that made me squirm or wince, seventeen of them, went into the fireplace pile. Then all that were more than two pages, both sides, went into the fireplace unless the photo was simply outstanding—and there was only one of these.

One of the fireplace letters was only one page but I couldn't make out a single word including her name or phone number. Another one with a decent-looking photo of a very thin girl had ketchup stains on it and I figured she might be bulimic.

Then I threw out any (thirteen more) that were not Jewish unless the photo especially caught my eye and none did. Any that telegraphed psychosis, or mentioned their shrink or their mother or Thorazine or Stellazine went next.

I got down to about a dozen potentials. Three of them, who sent only head shots and said they were 5
'
3
"
or under and 140 pounds or over went next. Any woman who sends just a headshot and says she is 5
'
3
"
and 140 is at the most 5
'
2
"
and at least 150.

Three more were burned just on strange vibes. One that went into the fireplace was an outstanding photo of a Jane Fonda look-a-like in a bikini that to my dismay was accompanied by a letter that sounded like it had been written by a man. Another went on way too long about guys who hurt her and used her and I thought she might be hungry for revenge. The third letter just smelled weird.

I finished with five possibles. Two I spoke with briefly but we had nothing to say to each other. Fireplace.

One who sent half a torn photograph looked both pretty and hot on her Bahamas vacation wearing a sexy one-piece bathing suit. Great tits, a real waist, longish legs, good muscle tone, warm smile. She wrote flirty elegant prose. I called and she was fun, and overtly sexual. But she had a high-pitched voice, not whiny, just torturous to listen to. Automatic disqualifier.

With the last two I had decent flowing conversations punctuated with laughter. Beth claimed to be not only Jewish but bat mitzvahed. She sent two photos of herself, which I thought was quite thorough. Tall with a large Aryan forehead and what appeared to be natural blonde hair, she was all dressed up in one photo, I think for a summer wedding, in a flashy strapless with lots of healthy tanned flesh and lovely boobs. The other photo was one of her skiing which spoke of athletic prowess and muscle tone. In both photographs she looked terrific.

I could tell from Beth's photos that either her father was one of those men who had married and converted a gentile with dominant genes or her Jewish mother had married a concentration camp guard and converted him, or there was a Cossack somewhere up her family tree.

We talked. Beth was an only child, had grown up in Manhattan, gone to college in London, and was an investment banker. We discovered that we were the same age and had lived in London during the same period, 1966/67. I'd gone to The Polytechnic on Regent Street; she'd gone to the London School of Economics. My favorite places were rock clubs like the Marquee Club and The Underground on Tottenham Court Road—where I used to see Pink Floyd play every Tuesday night for half a crown—and nasty dance clubs in Soho. Her favorites were shopping at Harrod's, tea at Simpson's, and posh dance clubs like Annabelle's, Pescadora, Sue's Soul, and Barbarella's, none of which I had ever been to.

She admitted to being a “Sloane Ranger,” one of the trendy upper class birds who hung out or lived near Sloane Square; Diana Spencer before she married Chuck was the classic “Sloanie.” Beth was probably too sophisticated—and too bossy for me but she was so good looking and her voice was so mezzo-soprano delicious that I wanted to meet her.

I gave her an honest description of myself, and she said it was to her liking. I asked her why she was available. She said she'd just broken up with a short, rich, Jewish investment banker-wimp and wanted to meet a taller, less conventional Jew. The conversation stayed buoyant, and there was obviously some sort of mutual interest.

Beth was going away for a “fortnight's holiday,” so I took her address and sent my photos, two of them, one dressed in a tux for a wedding and one boxing. How many Jewish men have boxing pictures to send? My boxing photo was me at my thinnest, looking great, and landing a punch on a black boxer who later beat the shit out of me and bloodied my nose.

I phoned the other finalist, who was equally attractive, but in a slinky, bohemian, darker way. Her name was Helene and she was a social worker. She was twenty-nine and came from a middle-class Jewish family that sounded vaguely like mine except with two daughters instead of two sons. Her photo showed her in jeans and a cut-off New York Jets T-shirt revealing a flat tummy. She was luscious unless she'd gained fifty pounds since the photo was taken.

She said she was 5
'
7
"
and 125 pounds, which looked right. She had longish brown hair, a winning smile, no cheekbones, but a pleasing oval face. She said her hair was even longer now. I was looking at her picture, talking to her politely and wondering what her ass felt like.

I liked her voice. It evinced education with a hint of Long Island. It was cigarette deep and made me think she gave great head. She said she smoked pot; cigarettes only occasionally, drank wine, and didn't like coke. She'd done some speed and acid but that was history. She never mentioned any of the opiates, which I took as a good sign.

During the next day's conversation she said she loved sex, but never did it on the first date, so please don't even try. I didn't probe her on her sex likes/dislikes because I couldn't find a spot where it fit in. She did say she was “uninhibited.” That's usually code for “likes anal.”

She'd never been married and had been dating a gentile stockbroker for six years and just broke up three months ago. She ended it because she didn't love him anymore. She thought her love died mostly because they had almost no cultural intersections and in the long run that's what keeps couples together. It was her second long-term relationship with a shagats (a gentile man) that had ended thus. Like me, she wanted to try to find a Jew and settle down. We decided to meet for one drink with dinner optional. I suggested the Village and she suggested a bar on Seventh Avenue called Montana Eve named after a famous douche from the 1930s.

The first moment our eyes meet there is a little spark. Not a huge tractor beam but meaningful magnetism. I'd been working out everyday for months and felt confident. I wore my best chambray shirt that made me feel sexy. I had on my zip-up collarless, black leather jacket that was slimming. I wore my jeans on the smaller of the two belt holes I frequented, which gave me a mental edge.

She speaks first. “You didn't lie too much when you described yourself,” she giggles. “You're actually better looking than you said.” I'm stuck for something to say.

“You're just as lovely as I expected,” I lie politely. She's actually not as pretty as her picture, but close. She's “photogenic,” an odd compliment meaning one looks better in photographs than in person. Helene does have terrific skin, nice hair and sweet large brown eyes with a hint of hazel. And she's demure with a soft pleasing voice that's even throatier than on the phone. I bet she gives great head.

I hug her firmly and she responds in kind. I slide my hand down her lower back and just below—not so rude as to put her off—but enough to feel that her bum is firm. She's wearing a not-too-short tight black skirt, clingy black silk top, a lightweight very expensive-looking British racing green leather jacket and a yellow-accented Hermes scarf. She has two earrings in each ear, one a small ring plus a long, dangly thingy. Though she dresses well, she doesn't seem acquisitive and materialistic. She doesn't wear too much makeup or jewelry. Besides the earrings, she's got a single gold bangle bracelet and one simple semiprecious ring, probably her birthstone. When I compliment her clothes she just says, “Thank you,” and doesn't go on about the shopping or bargains the way only Americans and arriviste Europeans do. Instead, she tells me she likes to paint and write poetry. Another good sign.

We easily slide past the drinks-only marker and decide to order dinner. We order medium-rare hamburgers, also a good sign. I've noticed that women who order their meat either very well done or bloody rare come with too many unresolved men issues. I don't know why. She eats politely but with gusto, with two hands. She smiles a lot and has a little laugh that is a fraction nervous. It's something that might become unendurable and drive me to murder her in twenty years but it's half-charming at this early stage.

Nothing automatically disqualifies her and usually ninety-eight times out of a hundred there is something that shouts “NO!” about a date that comes up and bites you within six minutes. It could be their looks, breath, hair, laugh, breathing, skin, voice, attitude or aroma.

Some women go to great lengths to smell good but to me their effort achieves the opposite. They use differently scented bath oil, soap, shampoo, conditioner, hair spray, powder, makeup and deodorant, and then add a splash of perfume plus a spritz of vaginal spray to create a well-meaning but horrible olfactory cacophony. It's an unpleasant barrage committed by women who are otherwise sensible enough not to wear stripes with plaids.

Helene smells only of Ivory soap and Chanel No. 5, one of my favorite man-made combos.

We spend a long time talking about the movie, “Tootsie.” We both loved it and agree it's one of the few flawless A+ comedies we've ever seen. We talk about actors: Hoffman, Brando, Pacino, De Niro. I say that after seeing De Niro in “Raging Bull,” a benchmark hundred-percent effort, I probably hadn't ever put more than seventy-five percent into anything in my life. Even my best fuck. I blurt out the “fuck” remark without thinking—but she smiles invitingly.