I met Shirley through an ad in the newspaper that read something like, “Attractive blonde seeks female playmate, boyfriend to watch.” Hey! My boyfriend wanted to watch, too.
I remember the first time I answered an ad for a female playmate, I was single and had no luck. I wrote a short letter with my name and phone number and a photo. The photo was one of those black-and-white snapshots of me in black with a smile on my face, and I colored it to make it look like an art photo. It didn’t go anywhere, so maybe she backed off, or maybe she thought I was boring and uninteresting.
I tried another ad and ended up meeting the softball player at a sports bar. I knew it wouldn’t work out, I hate sports, and besides, her skin was awful.
After dating Gray, I decided to give it another try. Gray was the first guy I ever watched a porno movie with, and the videos we rented were all “lesbian”. He was a connoisseur of all-female pornography and never picked out the videos with men in them, which I didn’t mind. Women make me horny, and besides, who likes to watch a bunch of guys with nothing else to look at but their big birds?
One night, after watching a sweaty videotape, he said, “I’d like to see you do that with another woman.”
Some women might interpret this eroticism as a product of male selfishness and arrogance, the result of men watching too much lesbian porn. But I’d like to think it’s classic, absolute eroticism. I know that watching two women screwing around is, ironically, the number one male fantasy, but I love it too.
Before Gray came up with this brilliant idea, I had slept with a woman who was not nearly as laborious as the pornographic videos made her out to be. I was amazed at how soft her skin was, like silk.
While we were doing that, I thought to myself, “Women are so soft. Does she think I’m so soft too?” I drowned in the waves of her softness, I loved the taste of her nipples in my mouth, the smell of her private parts, her body was strange yet familiar. And I loved spending my brain pondering how to master her body, how to make it aroused, how to bring her to orgasm, even if it took hours to make myself contentedly indifferent.
Gray’s interest was a green light for me to let go and he encouraged my vision, so instead of accusing my boyfriend of having a sick idea, I decided to go ahead with it.
It’s not easy to find a woman who’ll go home with you and your boyfriend, who sometimes looks like Jeff Bigbrun and sometimes looks like a deranged rabbit, depending on the perspective. Sometimes he looks like Jeff Big Brun and sometimes he looks like a deranged rabbit, depending on what angle you look at him from. It’s not like the movies where everyone just wants to get laid at the slightest sign. Gray and I used to talk about it at the bar. “She’s cute.” “What’s she like?” But that’s it. It doesn’t go any further.
I waited distractedly, expecting the other woman to grind against my thighs as I let her kiss my lipstick badly. And the moment Gray paid the fare to lead us into his apartment without a word, Gray and I were actually so nervous that neither of us had the courage to make a move.
So I wrote a letter, and I picked out an advertisement in an advertisement board that was clearly aimed at sex.
This time I included a thorough profile but didn’t send a photo, I hate sending out and not receiving back good photos of myself.
After a couple days, Shirley called. She had the voice of one of those tough women who smoked, but was very sexy, and she talked about things. She was young, in her early twenties, like me, and she went into detail about her own body type, height, weight, bra size, and emphatically very attractive, and made me realize that screwing “her old man” was out of the question, and that she wouldn’t take my man.
We made a date to towel meet at the artsy bar I’m partial to, The New French Cafe, “You’ll recognize me because I’ll be wearing a black jumpsuit.” She said.
Pantsuits? My heart sank a little; the only place to get a black jumpsuit was at Army surplus or Hollywood’s Frederick. I guessed it looked like the dancers in Snicker magazine: big wavy hair sprayed with hairspray, deep cleavage tucked into a low-cut, elasticized jumpsuit.
I also wore all black – black leather jacket, dark sweater, jeans. At the time, my hair seemed to be drained to black as well, fashionably uncombed and stained with drops of hair sculpture. Gray was still wearing his usual facecloth plaid shirt with a funky T-shirt that said something like, “Can your binky only play with dogs?”
His long dark hair was sprayed with hair sculpture and he had an “I can’t believe you did that” look on his face.
I ordered a Rhone-Mexico, and he had a whiskey.
It was winter, and in the evening, when it was still light, I usually tried to get up before the big sun went down.
As soon as Shirley walked into the cafe, I recognized her immediately, deep cleavage and all, just as I had imagined her to look. And, she had a charming working class charm. Her sexy outfit was as expected, but with great care. She wore dark eye shadow and bright pink lipstick. I saw the customers in the store turn their heads, not because she was so beautiful, but because no one would walk into the “New French Café” dressed like that.
When she sat down, I wanted to reach out and touch her soft, powdered skin. Her man, however, was a nasty piece of work, with a nasty haircut, a barrel belly, and a short moustache. Let’s call him John, and I was glad to be against the exchange of male companions.
Just like on the phone, Shirley got down to business. Basically, she said that she and John had placed many ads, but were always looking for new excitement. She wanted the four of us to go out to dinner one night, “get to know each other,” and then go back to their place to do some errands, and Gray offered to bring one of his “women’s” tapes.
“But he can’t towel me, and you can’t towel him.” She reiterated the agreement. Thank goodness!
She detailed a very specific dress code: “I want you to wear a tight, low-cut blouse, a mini-skirt with a high split, and spindly-heeled boots. And, of course, stockings and garters.” Uh, okay. I didn’t have any of those accessories, only the mini-skirt, but I didn’t want to tell her. While Shirley was asking me to dress up like a bitch, two men were chatting and farting around as if they were talking about beer.
We made arrangements to towel face the following Sunday.
The next night I got a call from Shirley asking if I would like to come sit at their place and get to know each other, or so she said. I said yes, but Gray had gone to work, so if she wanted me to do anything, I wasn’t going to do it. They drove up to pick me up and together we went to their place on the outskirts of Minneapolis.
In the car, I noticed that Shirley was wearing pantyhose: not cotton leggings or colored stockings, but dark brown, old-fashioned pantyhose. I felt bad for picking on her pantyhose, but they were so outdated that I began to wonder if I could really “know” someone who wore dark brown pantyhose.
Their house was small, with a parqueted living room and a lemon-green shag carpet. I sat at the kitchen table in chairs with cast-iron backs and printed, soft-lined plastic leather seat cushions. John handed me a Schlitz and asked me what I did for a living. “I’m in film school,” I said. I said. He looks like he works in a factory.
Afterward Shirley wanted to show me the other ads she’d received in return, and she took me into the bedroom and threw a large cardboard box on the bed as she showed me one by one the pictures of the women who’d sent the letters and the letters. I had never thought of sending a nude picture of myself, let alone with my legs spread and a toy stuffed in my baby. I was shocked, really shocked, to think that someone would actually send something so deadly through the mail to a stranger with only a mailbox number, no wonder I had no luck the first time around. The letter was just as detailed, emphasizing how much they liked to eat babies, how much they didn’t want to play with their posteriors, and, of course, that they were completely disease-free and very attractive. Well, who’s going to admit their ugly side, right?
As we perused the call letters one by one, Shirley began to grind against my calf. Her skirt lifted up to her thighs, and I realized she wasn’t wearing pantyhose, but flesh-colored nylon stockings with a reinforced garter belt, which I couldn’t tell if they were better or worse than pants.
She saw me looking at her legs and came over to kiss me. Her mouth was soft and I liked the way she kissed me. Then, out of the blue, fat John appeared in the doorway of the room with his hand on his lower back, and I said, “I have to go.”
She reminded me of the agreed attire for our next meeting, and when I confessed that I didn’t have thigh-high boots, she made me try on several pairs of her boots. I wished they were black, but the only ones that fit were an ugly taupe color with a cracked heel. It’s hard to feel sexy in boots of this color, but I remind myself to be open-minded about new experiences.
A few days later, I received another call from Shirley, who wanted to take me lingerie shopping. Immediately, my mind flashed back to the kind of communication that had appeared in Penthouse magazine about two innocent girls being seduced by a salesgirl in heat in the fitting room of a bra counter. But I did need stockings and garters as accessories, so I agreed to go shopping with her.
We both ended up in a suburban shopping center, but neither Shirley nor the salesperson seemed to have any intention of violating me.
In fact, Shelly seemed rather unconcerned about the whole thing. She didn’t even open her eyes when my naked breasts slipped out of my bra.
She sat on a small stool outside the fitting room and indifferently pointed out her favorite styles as I picked out a set of lingerie in a white lace material.
“Remember,” she said, “always put on your socks and garters first, then your chaps. That way you can just take off your chaps without having to take off all your clothes.” On the way home, she told me that she occasionally acts as a stripper at strip clubs or bachelor parties, and she talked about her experience with personal ads. “But, you know,” she said, “I’m really just looking for a friend, a friend I can hang out with and go bowling and stuff.”
The Sunday of our Chihuahua appointment finally arrived. I spent the afternoon getting ready for my new outfit. I put on eyeliner, sprayed my hair with lots of hairspray, and combed it like a lion’s head. I remembered to wear my chaps over my garters and to show as much cleavage as possible. Ah, and the boots. All dressed up, I felt like an actor in a ridiculous and erotic stage play. The few previous meetings with Shirley had been mere rehearsals for opening night, and this meticulously conceived sex scene both anticipated what was about to happen and cut out some of the improvisation at the same time. I wonder if I would have felt this same sense of preparedness and endeavor if I had hooked up with a woman in a bar?
In the evening, Shirley and John picked us both up at my place. It had been arranged beforehand that Shirley would pick a place for dinner. I thought it would be a nice place, and most importantly, dimly lit, with a nice atmosphere. Instead, we ended up at a family-style restaurant. Danny’s Cuisine, right off the freeway, was brightly lit, had bright orange booths, some yelling kids, and didn’t even have a license to sell alcohol.
I staggered into the store in my high-heeled boots, looking like a Hollywood whore, and felt the burning gaze of thousands of eyeballs. I tried to explain to every customer: “Hey, I don’t usually look like this; but it’s not pragmatic to do so. The waitress looked at us with disdain, and I knew she was thinking, “You’re a whore. The dinner was extremely difficult.
Back at their house, after a couple of Schlitzes, I finally started to relax a bit. John rolled a couple of joints, and Gray turned on the VCR to find out what kind of excitement he favored. Then the doorbell rang, and Shirley peered through the peephole and immediately screamed, “Oh, shit, it’s my dad!” She waved desperately at John and lip-synched to Gray, “Turn that thing off.” She opened the door and I heard her say, “Hi, Dad!” Her voice was as sweet as a good pie.
Her dad, tools in hand, had come to fix something in the house. Shirley gave him a quick kiss on the cheek while making some flustered introductions.
“Oh, how do you know Sherry?” He asked me. I left my mouth open for about ten years before Shirley finally made up a lie, met him bowling or maybe at some party.
“Oh, well, since you have a friend at home, I guess I’ll just come back tomorrow and fix it.” He said.
“Oh no, stay.” I thought to myself. Stay and watch a porn movie and watch your little girl play porn games! I banished my breath until he left.
I don’t remember how long it took for everyone’s tension to ease, but anyway, later Sherry and I were lying on a blanket in the center of the living room floor, covered only in our underwear, with Gray and John sitting quietly at opposite ends of the couch watching. We fumbled around for a while, slowly peeling off each other’s bras. The stockings and garters remained on as I had learned the new trick of wearing my chaps outside, but at one point in the process I did want to take off my socks as they were crumpled up in a ball at the knees and I thought it was really unattractive. “Don’t take them off.” Shirley whispered in my ear.
I can’t remember exactly how I licked and sucked her, or what she did to me, it’s as if I had a hazy dream, except for this part: she took out a sling toy and asked me to use it on her. The toy was a pink rubber dildo, long and thin, with two loops of white elastic attached. The toy itself was hollow and looked strange, like a medical device.
I later realized that it was actually a phallic enlarger, designed to allow a man to put his dick in it to “enlarge” himself, and wondered if John had ever used it. Not wanting to reveal my ignorance, I slipped my legs into the elastic band, and with Shirley prostrate on the floor, I began to get the hang of it. I mean, it’s not easy to maneuver a plastic toy tied to your groin with two rubber bands.
One of the elastic bands broke, “Oh, it happens all the time.” John said, and reached out to offer to fix it.
My orgasm didn’t come all that blacked out, and I think Shirley’s did too. I remember as if Shirley heard John let out a small moan when we stopped. Oddly enough, neither man pulled out his thing and masturbated himself while watching the show, perhaps out of concern for propriety. John didn’t masturbate, so Gray decided not to do that either. By the end of the show, though, John did have a big wet spot on the front crotch of his jeans, and had obviously been secretly grinding on it.
Our goodbyes were very polite, and I thought I would have a hard time breaking up with this epochal moment, but in my heart of hearts I really just wanted to be alone with Gray, and we hailed a cab and hit the road.
I didn’t hear from Shelly again for a couple months, and the erotic realities of that night were left in the dust, a strange and not-so-sexy memory. Occasionally, bits and pieces of it would come back to me, and I’d say to Gray, “Remember when her dad came over?” or “I can’t believe that toy broke.” Or “I can’t believe that toy broke!”
Nine months later, I interviewed the first porn star, Bonnie Brewer, for my copy-and-paste sex magazine, Magnetic Academy. I walked into the adult bookstore on Hannibal Avenue. I walked into the adult bookstore on Hannibal Avenue, and across the crowd, I saw Bonnie taking pictures with a fan.
She and the other woman had their backs to the camera, arms over each other’s shoulders. “Okay, on the count of three, you two turn around and smile.” The photographer with the Polaroid camera said. The flash went off and Bonnie smiled back, Shirley smiled back, and then Shirley’s whole body turned around and she had a big belly.
She hobbled over and put her arm around me, “I was taking a picture for John, he’s at home.” She said, “Driving without a license. He crashed the car, but he’s fine. The baby’s due in a couple weeks. You’re doing a sex magazine? Send me a copy.”
Her world was so different from mine. The pantyhose we wore, the kitchen chairs we sat on, the wine we drank, the places we had fun, and the way she said “old man” and I said “boyfriend” were all so different. We had nothing in common but the desire for sexual encounters. But sometimes that alone is enough.
-End-