Francis Levy - Seven Days in Rio

Despite being an urban dweller, and more particularly a denizen of Manhattan’s Upper West Side, I have become totally dependent on Global Positioning Systems. All the car and cab services use them, and my car is equipped with one. As a result I have lost the ability to follow directions. One of the harbingers of modern life is an attrition of abilities in areas that have been taken over by technology. For instance, even though I’m an accountant by profession, I can barely add or subtract, and have totally lost the ability to multiply and divide. So, as I negotiated the warrens of Tiffany-filled streets that led to The Gringo, I was in a continual state of confusion, not knowing which way I was going. My body was trapped in the contemporary version of a medieval suit of armor, but I was driven on by images of a magnificent world filled with impossibly beautiful prostitutes, like a palace in one of those Disney animations I loved as a kid.

At the very least I can usually rely on my dick as the equivalent of an electronic device leading me toward a scent — specifically the pheromones given off by women whose bodies are for hire — but now I was in a state of total confusion, frequently finding myself turning in circles, growing dizzy and light-headed in the process.

I was actually reminded of the scenes in Vertigo when Jimmy Stewart’s character experiences the sensations of falling as he relives his traumatic memories. But what was the trauma I was responding to? Was I suffering from a totally experiential problem having to do with the loss of circulation to my genitalia, which could be addressed by an analyst of the so-called existential school, or was my vertigo the result of factors pertaining to depth psychology and the instinctual drives that it addresses? In addition to the constriction of my blood vessels, I was also sweating profusely, and I wanted to find a Tiffany as quickly as possible, if for no other reason than the fact that I needed to get my pants off. It might have been a superficial solution, but I was convinced that as soon as my dick was free to get as hard as it needed to, I would at least be able to retrieve some sense of direction. This is what is known by those seeking spiritual enlightenment as a “limited objective,” but I needed to do something before I fainted right in the middle of one of the many boulevards scattered around Rio.

I decided that I would find a fresh Tiffany even before I got to The Gringo and I promised myself to practice some form of coitus interruptus , which would whet my appetite for the pleasures that awaited me later in the night.

Memories flashed through my mind as I staved off another fainting spell. There had been an episode in high school, soon after the Beatles became famous, when I’d wanted to be like the other kids and had secretly gone out to buy a pair of tight white Levi’s, which fit much like the pants I was wearing now. My penis hadn’t grown to its full adult size, so the pants were not nearly as constrictive, and I was easily able to walk around with or without an erection. I was totally embarrassed when my mother discovered them hidden behind a pair of slacks in my closet, but when I asked her if she was mad, she just shrugged and said that she was disappointed in me. I would actually have preferred it if she had gotten angry, because the disconsolate look on her face made it seem as if I had inflicted a mortal wound in my attempt to look sexy and hip.

One of the things that can happen in an intense analysis like the one I was undertaking is that the patient introjects the analyst’s persona into his consciousness. So even though there was no China at the present moment, I felt her questioning presence in my mind. Consequently, I began to realize that the trouble I was having with my new pants was partially psychosomatic. The feelings of constriction, I began to understand, were largely in my head. And the faintness came from reliving the trauma of my mother’s discovery of my adolescent fashion transgression. It wasn’t the pants that were making me feel lightheaded; it was the guilt I felt toward my mother!

Whenever a therapist interviews me for the first time, I make a point of the fact that I’ve never had any transcendent experiences. I’ve never seen a great white light. Instead, I endorse a pragmatic spiritualism that is simply a reiteration of the Golden Rule. But now, for the first time, a genuine lightness came over me and I almost felt as if I was levitating. The tightness of the pants no longer seemed to matter. My crotch was no longer locked within the denim that encased it, and I knew I could have as many erections as I wanted regardless of the restricted circumstances in which my penis was operating. I realized at that moment that there are many people who have to make do with extremely meager resources. If whole families with eight or nine children lived in one solitary room, then my cock and balls could certainly survive a cramped walk to The Gringo.

I didn’t know if I was hallucinating, but every street sign seemed to be Revolução this or Revolução that, differentiated only by an appended date. I figured Brazil must have had many revolutions, not the least of which had to do with sex. How did Brazilian society ever get to be such an idyll, a place where women who would have been considered unattainable in other countries freely sold their bodies to a marketplace of men who qualified for their affections only in their willingness to pay? It was truly a wonderful form of commerce, and an example of how free market capitalism can spur the growth of individual initiative.

Suddenly I stopped dead in my tracks, having spotted one of the most beautiful Tiffanys I had ever seen. She was tall and muscular, almost a parody of feminine beauty in the perfection of her features. Her lips were painted bright red and her cleavage was almost bucolic, soothing the eyes with a vision of rolling splendor. I was about to call out to her when I noticed a protruding Adam’s apple and realized that the “she” I was about to proposition was really a “he.” Besides my earlier encounter with a girl who turned out to be a man, I’d never actually been with a transvestite — though I had heard they could be rather exquisite when you accepted the notion that a vagina wasn’t the be-all and end-all.

“Tiffany.” I heard the words come out of my mouth breathlessly and involuntarily, as if someone else were actually saying them. She was tall with kinky hair and she seemed to get the idea that I was a foreigner, despite my newly Latinized appearance. “Going out?” she said, in a basso profundo that mocked her otherwise feminine features. I knew the lingo, the shorthand by which hookers communicated their availability to strangers. It was like the universal grammar that Noam Chomsky talks about; it was something that belied the actual words. “Looking for a date?” “Going out?” How many times had I heard the magic words?

Tiffany was light-skinned, a male Naomi Campbell. If there were fashion magazines that used transsexuals as models, I would have recommended that she apply, but I could see how such a career would have been severely compromised by the male genitalia, which would have been difficult to hide in a tight-fitting skirt.

“My name is Ken and I’m an accountant from the Upper West Side of Manhattan. I have a peculiar request and maybe you can help me. You are very beautiful and I would very much like to sleep with you, but I have other plans this evening. However, I would be very happy if you would let me see your breasts so I could take off my pants and liberate my erection. It’s a long story, too boring to go into. Just tell me yes with your eyes and I will come forth with the necessary reality .”

She actually looked like one of the Tahitian women in a Gauguin painting, strong and impassive with a stony expression. She beckoned me to follow her, and as I walked behind her on yet another street named after an uprising, I noticed that she had long, sinewy legs like Kobe Bryant. Still, she walked with a distinctly feminine carriage, moving her hips provocatively, and I had to keep reminding myself that she was a he, and that in all likelihood more surprises lay in store. While I never would have solicited such a creature if I weren’t looking to discharge sexual tensions in extraordinary circumstances, I have to confess to a certain curiosity about the strange buffet of organs I was about to see. Trannies are a little like centaurs — some of them have great tits while still being hung like horses.