the size of an eggplant: a love story

I think he's in the mob. Raised in Long Island? Lives in Boca Raton? Travels through Texas occasionally on unspecified family business? C'mon. He's in the mob. Or just wants me to think he is. Fuck, I'll bite. Fantasies are fun for me, too.

If he is in the mafia, he's a little guy, a cousin's cousin, a brother-in-law's nephew,. He's got a nice watch, but his shirts are over-starched and his shoes are cheap. Fucked-up hair, too: long and gelled crisp in a style one step up from a Puerto Rican cafeteria worker. He's got a pretty face, though -- all big,dark eyes and curly lashes, ripe mouth and tight-lipped, East-Coast, Robert De Niro smirk. Also. Either he's got the most disconcertingly over-sized phallus yours truly has ever encountered or there's some kind of tragic elphantiasis in his pants region. Seriously. The first time I danced for him, I tripped over it. Literally. And then I got wet.

I've never been much of a size queen. Pretty indifferent on the whole question, actually. It what you do with it, etc. This is different. It's not just the pants-monster that does it for me. It's the whole thing.

We don't talk much. Everything I know about him I told you in the first paragraph. If we must talk -- if the bartender is closing out his tab, or the lapdance area is currently occupied -- we make cocktail-party chat: the weather, Florida, the weather in Florida. He doesn't ask me any questions. I'm not sure he even knows my name. I don't remember his. Tommy? Jimmy? Who cares?

He stands and waits for me with his elbow on the bar, the way they only do up north. All men should wear black wool top coats. His posture is excellent. I go over and ask if he wants to dance. He says yes, always faintly surprised, as if the answer's obvious. And then we go in the back to the darkest couch we can find and dance.

Dance?

Hardly. I straddle his leg and press my thigh against that baby python and grind down hard until I feel it twitch.

I've never been much of a grinder, really, but this I can't resist. His heart beats so fast and hard I can hear it, and if I put my ear against his mouth I hear him groaning softly under his breath. I can smell his sweat, and it smells clean. He barely touches me, only now and then his hands, lightly, fleetingly, on my waist, on the backs of my calves. He doesn't ask for anything. He doesn't even look at me. His eyes are closed, or trained over my shoulder, watching for interruptions. If there's a manager nearby he lets me know with a soft tap.

"How can I turn you on?" they all want to know, hands straying crotchward, fingers paddling at my breasts. Honestly? You can sit down, shut up, and keep your hands to yourself. I'm not just being a wise-ass when I say that. I love a good frottage. But I can't indulge my tendencies when I've got to constantly karate-block your wandering hands away from my intimate regions for fear of (a)personal violation (b) betrayal of my nuptial commitments (c) losing my job. Groping makes me anxious, and anxious isn't sexy.

With Pretty Boy I can lose myself. I can fantasize. I can wish he would touch me, stroke me, kiss me. (God, how I wish he would kiss me.) There's a place in life for longing, for denial, for the eternal tease.

We always dance for a long time. If he comes in some silent, teeth-clenching burst of ecstacy, I don't know it. I hope so. Afterwards, he pays me, tips me well, and we exchange and handshake and a dry, formal kiss on the cheek. After all the rescue fantasies and ego-transference and complicated head-fucks of recent months, I swoon for a guy who just wants to dry-hump for an hour, pay me, and go home.

"You're not just a stripper," says this guy or that one, says Joe, says the Satanist, says Mr. B. "You're more to me." By which they mean, I want more from you -- a hand-job or a phone number or a lunch-date or a weekend fling or a thirty-year marriage.

The Godson doesn't give me any grief like this. His Catholic mama's boy up-bringing probably doesn't even let him think along these lines. I can't tell really what he's thinking. Like I said, he doesn't say much. But I like to think that in his mind a whore's a whore, and that's pretty much that. Things are simple that way and I, for one, like it.

"I'll come back," he always says as he's leaving. I look forward to it.