Part 7 (1/2)
I talked to my two best friends for strategy and dressed with care-as hot as I could but with a serious conservative edge befitting an accused-black suede Yves St. Laurent heels, marquisette pin, black jacket, short red dress to show off my legs. Spraying on a discreet amount of ”Paris,” I tried to summon up a smile in the mirror. With long dark hair and green eyes, I still looked too serious and idealistic, for a stripper. Clearly reflected in the gla.s.s was an ex-schoolteacher with an addiction to the outrageous. Unmistakably, I was a woman who was old enough to know she was deeply in love.
I felt a sea of mixed emotions. Being away from the place for awhile had given me a clearer perspective. Now I knew that walking into the O'Farrell was like crossing a border into a princ.i.p.ality as foreign as Shangri- La, with its own unique customs, and a constantly changing party-line point of view that necessitated denial. Jim and Art Mitch.e.l.l were kings there, and games were played for power. Women were encouraged to prove how hot and uninhibited they were, while the men measured their s.e.xuality by their number of conquests. Once I stepped back through those doors, I had to deal with life on their terms, no matt how fanciful, harsh, or strange it might seem. Once I was within Mitch.e.l.l territory, I'd be living on X-rated time.
I was going back. There was no question about it. I drove s.h.i.+vering with fear, keeping a sudden sense of nausea in check. Dealing with a pair of countercultural entrepreneurs bent on a p.o.r.nographic crusade wasn't easy. Would I get to tell my side of what led to the argument? I wondered. What would they do to try to make me crawl? Everyone had to do some penance to come back to the O'Farrell-it's a ritual, and part of the game. Thinking, they're not going to break me, and thinking, what more could happen, what do I have to lose? And thinking, I haven't been this broke in the last five years, I pushed open a mirrored gla.s.s door and felt the slightest chill.
Inside the plush lobby, past the box office and the king-size fish tanks, was the staircase to the executive offices of Mitch.e.l.l Brothers. Moving past the photo of a sleek Marilyn Chambers used to promote Behind the Green Door, I ventured in on the thick green carpet of the inner sanctum. Vince, tall with wavy brown hair, sat behind the roll- top desk from which he cleverly administered the entire operation. He was Machiavellian, yet at times benevolent; feared, yet cultivated by the dancers; implicitly loyal to the brothers and adept at defending them. ”Simone, you came at a good time,” Vince greeted me. ”They're in there.” ”Simone, it's good to see you,” said Dan O'Neill, notorious since the 60s as an underground cartoonist, and longtime O'Farrell groupie. A disreputable hat, irreverent overgrown mustache, and long hair heightened his whimsical expression. Just beyond him was Rocky, Art and Jim's bearded cousin, a tough-looking quiet good old boy, who worked there as a janitor.
Three dancers in lacy lingerie, rhinestones and heels, perched on the edge of the pool table. The pretty California girl-next-door types, whose clean-cut image and s.e.xy magnetism have been so essential to the success of all Mitch.e.l.l Brothers' productions.
Jim Mitch.e.l.l was just inside the door. They were having a drunken spaghetti feed and had already half-eaten a dried-up, out-of-season game bird they shot early that morning, to destroy the evidence. A faint odor of marijuana hung in the air.
”Simone, you're back,” Jim turned toward me, steel-eyed. Ralph Lauren casual, he was bald with a trim mustache, slightly overweight but powerful, a man who clearly savored the accouterments of success, and his position of authority. Half-drunk at the moment, Jim was seductively forceful in his touch. Referring to my argument with Missy, Jim stated, ”In these cat fights the rule of thumb is, both kitties have to go because it disrupts things for the other kitties. It doesn't matt who started it.” Jim sounded typically sarcastic, but was relis.h.i.+ng the King Solomon aspects of his role that day, having been able to banish, being able to pardon, ”But you have friends in high places. And since Christianity, we believe in giving a guy a second chance, so we'd like to have you back. Art, Simone's here.”
”Party Artie,” devastating, bearded and slender, walked over with the a.s.sured style of an outlaw, and gave me a kiss. It's polite. I didn't want it polite-I wanted it pa.s.sionate. Art kept love intense and compelling, he was a flawless player in control of an ever-changing, unfolding game. A game I had to win. I followed him longingly with my eyes down to the other end of the pool table. Art stretched out on the floor like an animal, on top of one of those padded cloths used to cover packing crates.
”Help yourself ...” Jim suggested. ”Have some spaghetti.”
Vince came in. ”Yeah, you can have some of that,” he snickered, pointing to a paper plate of parsley.
O'Neill helped me to a serving of this horrible white spaghetti, red sauce with bird gizzard cooked into it, which I felt I had to taste as some kind of sacramental gesture. The girls were looking through the new Playboy and pointed out a small photo. ”Oh, there's Missy. Miss Congeniality.” Missy-the kitty who had me fired.
The office looked the same-it was dominated by the pool table, fis.h.i.+ng relics, mementos, and a poker table reminiscent of Art and Jim's Depression-era, Okie gambler father, J.R. Mitch.e.l.l, who schooled them well in living outside the law.
Art got up off the floor, came over to me, and said, ”I want some of that p.u.s.s.y,” in his rich Oklahoma drawl, lawless, always melted me completely. I put my plate down and followed him down the hall, into a scene from one of his movies.
He closed the door softly, then pulled me onto his lap, and I told him, ”I really missed you.”
”No,” Art said, as I looked into his sultry indecent brown eyes, ”you mean you love me.”
He pulled my red dress up and slipped into me, while pressing his head to my breast, ”Keep your mouth shut and I'll f.u.c.k you in secret,” he said. Fat chance. ”Be the slave to love that you are, Simone,” he said, stealing a line from the dreamlike Bryan Ferry hit song.
”I still love you, Art,” I said as he was coming. ”I'll always love you.” ”Is whoever's f.u.c.king you f.u.c.king you right?” he asked.
”I'm not seeing anybody,” I hugged him. Art said, ”Enjoy your spaghetti.”
I went right out to the manager, Vince, who asked, ”What happened?”
”I think I can come back,” I replied.
Vince told me to call Monday and O'Neill kept offering me his chair. But I didn't want to sit down, I wanted to leave. Vince said, ”By the way, did you ever see Hunter's note?” Hanging down over the window were six sheets of yellow lined paper all taped together, penned in a large defiant scrawl by Hunter Thompson. I tried to lean over Vince to read it.
The first part deplored the evils of the business and then over and over he was asking whatever happened to his friend Simone, the spirit of the O'Farrell, the most creative girl act, what evil b.a.s.t.a.r.d was responsible for this hatchet job on his good friend Simone. All this really heartwarming stuff.
Vince said, ”You know, there're probably five or six versions of that story, one of them's over there, I'm saving that for the archives.”
”I never told anyone my story,” I said. ”But I don't care, if I can come back.”
And as I turned and walked away I heard O'Neill say softly, ”And now we have a gorilla.”
”If I hadn't learned to write about s.e.x, and particularly to write about my own s.e.xual desires, I don't think I would have survived. I think the guilt, the terror I grew up with was so extraordinarily powerful that if I had not written my way out of it, I'd be dead ... And I think it's vital [to write about], aside from whether it ever becomes good fiction, particularly for women with transgressive s.e.xuality ... [or] people who in any way feel their s.e.xuality cannot be expressed. Writing can be a way to find a way to be real and sane in the world, even if it feels a little crazy while you're doing it. If we are to answer that call, we have to be able to feel every part of our lives.”
- Dorothy Allison seeley quest Bio seeley quest was born in 1976, won a first poetry award in 1989, has lived in California and the East Bay since 1998, and performed around the Bay Area since 2001. Sie has featured at the International Queerness and Disability Conference, National Queer Arts Festival, SF Anarchist Cafe, SF s.e.x Worker Film and Arts Festival, and more, as well as on tour to Vancouver, Toronto, and numerous other US cities and colleges. More of hir work's at sinsinvalid.org.
Mini-Interview How did you start writing about s.e.x? i had written a few shorter love poems in the late '90's which had hints of suggestive phrases, as i became interested in playing a bit with readers around what i was evoking. An affair in '98 with my second lover helped increase comfort with my s.e.xuality at that time, which had been quite repressed while growing up, and pretty unsatisfied until my 20's. In '99 i also began reading the East Bay Express, where Carol Queen then published a s.e.x advice column weekly (far better than Dan Savage's or anyone else's i've seen), and in '00 i met her going to an educational workshop at Good Vibrations she was teaching ... ... this was part of my first exposure to actually s.e.x-positive public communication, and a local culture of discourse valuing directly engaging with s.e.xuality. i went back to school in 2000 to finish a BA in Performance Studies and Gender Studies, and wrote my first erotically- invested vignette in late 2000,which was about power play, shaving someone's face. That fall i was in a cla.s.s for Gender Studies at New College of California taught by Judy Grahn called ”Literature of the s.e.xual Underground,” and texts i recall included some of her writing, and also Robert Gluck's. His book Margery Kempe narrated merging his experience with a female saint's, and he and Judy explicitly describe and reflect on their s.e.xualities. The opportunity to talk with both of them about their writing approaches-as well as see performance art then such as at 848 Divisadero, Keith Hennessy improvising p.i.s.sing while dancing-influenced my own experimenting and interest to write material specifically invoking erotic energy.
he has short arms seeley quest you know, the kind you get if your parent was exposed to certain drugs or other factors that mutate development.
He has short arms, but regularly wields his razor to keep a close shave, because it seems easier to introduce himself with a European kiss on the cheek than handshake.
I can tell he likes his jawline to stay as kempt and smooth as possible, 'cause he's got a lot of people to meet and kiss and charm.
He's also game to charm by feeding people chocolate, being fed chocolate, and by licking chocolate off of others, too.
He shares this after a girl says I just fed her from my piece of chocolate torte.
He adds yes, he wants some also, and then I get his mouth deliberately closed around my two fingers to caress the bite from them with his tongue, an approach I hardly get every day.
He thanks me and moves off in the crowd, while I marvel at how supple his lips feel.
He has short arms, and perhaps his legs wouldn't seem so long otherwise, but with his height and peculiar grace there's a beautiful long movement as he suddenly steps down next to me upon returning and saying yes, he'd like more but thinks he needs to be kneeling for it.
I can tell he's not all about chiseled bravado when this time he lets me play with him at my pace, lets me fingers brush against the surprising softness of the skin around the lower edges of his face, asking, ”how badly do you want it?”
before fingers pus.h.i.+ng the smear past his teeth.
He wors.h.i.+ps the texture of my fingertips as much as the torte, savors sucking them even more thoroughly now, and after he rises and disappears again, I wonder if he likes his fingers licked as much as I do; are his upper appendages sensitive different from his lower ones?
They are placed perfectly to stroke his own chest or another's; he barely has to stretch one arm to mouth his fingertip wet and then circle that pleasure upon his nipple.
Economy of size yields economy of movementI like the languidness of his hands reaching above his shoulders, and returning to tickle at rib level, where they belong.
He has short arms, which fingers just right, when I imagine him folding at the waist and knees to place his head at my legs' juncture.
I can tell how sweetly his hands frame his face, how suited they are to press apart thighs, how neither of us would be distracted by an excess of gangly limbs from the focus of his elbows angled precisely in to pull hidden skin taut for discovery.
He has short arms, so he's trained his full lips to do some things in their stead, like grasp the cap of a thing that needs a s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g motion to open it up; he need apply no wrist when he can just circle it with his mouth's hold until it comes completely undone.
He is also accomplished with his feet; he uses one to wash his a.s.s.
Upon learning this, first I think, ”What else can he do with his feet??”
Next I think, ”What else does he do with his a.s.s??”
I think of when he fingers knelt to me, how I said, ”You know I'm also a pro-dom,”
and how instead of, ”Why am I not surprised,” what if he said, ”You think I'm surprised?” And then I could've shown restraint by simply saying, ”Cheeky,”