Francis Levy - Seven Days in Rio

In fact, it reminded me of being bullied as a kid. I would be playing punch ball in the schoolyard, and when it started to get dark a gang of kids would inevitably show up and start pushing us weaker kids around. Robbery was not the real motive, since most of us had empty pockets. These kids came from the local parochial school, where the nuns hit them regularly. They got their pleasure from domination. The panic I felt was that I was never going to escape. Rationally I knew that everyone had to go home for dinner at some point, but when a kid kept pushing me back into the fence every time I tried to leave, or pushed me to the ground and pinned me down, I was overwhelmed with irrational fears.

Adding to my buffet of sensations and memories was the simple fact that I liked the smell of this Tiffany. But if in the end she was just going to practice her Jiu-Jitsu moves on me and never let me pay for sex, I was wasting my time. The trip had already been a learning experience, but I didn’t want to be one of those perpetual students, constantly auditing courses but never applying my learning to real-life situations. Right now I was majoring in the ins and outs of the Rio sex industry without having enjoyed any actual sex.

Still, I wasn’t about to break out of any of the submissions Tiffany had me in, which she seemed to enjoy alternating every two or three minutes. I figured at least I was doing a good turn by helping her to show off her moves to her friend. Ultimately, I have faith in the goodness of humankind, and I was sure she would let me go when she was through with me.

I must have blacked out in one of her chokeholds. When I came to I found myself lying alone in the middle of the street. I had the feeling I sometimes get when I wake up with a strange dream, still at the edge of consciousness. Luckily, my Susan-Sontag-and-Herbert-Marcuse-reading friend appeared, having seen everything. When I asked her what had happened, she remarked, “They always wrestle johns on the way to practice.” Slowly, the finale of my wrestling bout started to come back to me like a grainy black and white film. Tiffany had maneuvered me into yet another chokehold, and I was really having trouble breathing. At the same time, she had me in such a position that her breasts were right in my face, and I was so turned on that I didn’t care if I lived or died. I noticed that my pants were wet and realized that I’d either peed on myself out of fear or shot my wad, though the burning sensation on my leg made me think it must have been the former. In any case, I had probably passed out from sheer ecstatic relief.

Before I left New York, I’d read a horrible story about a teenager who accidentally hung himself while trying to masturbate in a state of semi-asphyxiation. The thrill of danger and the lack of oxygen were meant to create a superlative, self-induced high. Here I was, inadvertently finding myself in a life-threatening situation brought about by sexual urges I couldn’t control. I didn’t want to die, but the delicious confinement and unimaginably pleasurable pain I had experienced had obviously left an imprint on the neurogenic pathways of my brain. If I started to seek out dangerous situations with other Amazonian Tiffanys, I would have to make an appointment for a consultation with an expert like Herbert Schmucker or, better yet, China Dentata, although I might feel timid telling China about my ecstatic ejaculations.

“I just want to get to The Gringo to have a good time,” I said, wiping the dirt off my seersucker suit. I straightened my bowtie. The problem I had now — the cross I had to bear — was the conspicuous stain in my crotch. Even the most freewheeling Tiffany, as accustomed to touching, smelling, and swallowing semen as the average woman is to bubble baths, would look askance at a john sporting an egregious cum- or urine-stained crotch. The kind of john who is so horny that he has accidents before he even starts to have sex usually turns out to be a compulsive who may be interested in violent sexual practices. I realized that before I set foot in The Gringo I probably would need to change my pants. I had a hunch that The Gringo could turn into a hub for me, the way Newark is for Continental or Minneapolis-St. Paul for Northwest. If I was going to catch my connecting fucks at The Gringo, I had to start out on the right foot. I wanted to walk in strong and self-assured, not apologizing for an unseemly crotch. For johns and Tiffanys alike, appearances are everything. I may know all about Susan Sontag, Gilles Deleuze, and the anti-Oedipus , but the average Tiffany won’t care about my erudition when she spots me standing at the bar sporting a crotch stain. In fact, my education had never really produced results when it came to my relationships with Tiffanys. In all my years frequenting dens of sensuality, I had never found that my intellectual credentials got me better-looking girls or discounted fees.

You never know what is going to come out in conversation. That is one of the basic principles I learned in my years of psychoanalysis. When I first went into treatment, I had no inkling of all the shit that existed inside of me, both literally and metaphysically. One of the first reactions I had to analysis was that I couldn’t stop going to the bathroom. It went on for days. No sooner had my intestines quieted down than all the excreta of my childhood, which had been forgotten in the bowels of my personality, pressed insistently for immediate evacuation.

I noticed the old, used-up literary Tiffany staring at me quizzically. “How are you enjoying the Marcuse?” I blurted out, apropos of nothing.

“I love all these Marxist guys from the Frankfurt school, but I was finding it hard to concentrate with all the hullabaloo,” she shot back, a wry grin curling her lips.

“You don’t happen to know of a decent dry cleaner who does spot work?”

“With your American dollars you’re almost better off buying a new pair of pants.”

It turned out that in addition to her life as a hooker and displaced New York intellectual, Tiffany ran a haberdashery out of her brothel. She had a few samples of her wares right there in her doorway. It turned out she had been married to a garmento named Sammy Cohen, who had manufactured piece goods in a loft on 37th Street and who was, in fact, a major supplier of trouser legs. She knew all about the kind of Brooks Brothers seersucker suit I was wearing.

“I don’t know if I can match them exactly, but I can give you something that will get you through the night, and then I’ll set you up with a real Hong Kong-style tailor tomorrow.”

Tiffany laid aside her book and led me up a rickety flight of stairs. Even though she was an old woman, she was still practiced in having a man follow her into the grimy room she used to turn tricks. She had varicose veins and walked with a slight limp, but still had the air of a lady of the night ready to weave a magic spell over her john. There are certain men who are attracted to older women, and I was sure that Tiffany had her loyal clientele, even if I knew I wasn’t going to be one of them. I was prepared to walk out if she started taking her clothes off. As it happened, I was the one doing the undressing in the stark room, with its single cot and scattered piles of washcloths. The only touch of color was provided by one of those old posters of Che Guevara in his signature beret, making the place look like my Columbia dorm room circa 1967.

Tiffany told me to take my pants off while she dragged a big box of garments out of a closet and started to root through it for slacks. I was afraid she was going to offer to throw in a little favor at no extra charge, maybe a blowjob to go with my new slacks.

I had removed my pants and was standing in my boxers. I still had on my seersucker jacket, my button-down collar shirt, and my bowtie when she instructed me to take everything off.