Craig Davidson - Rust and Bone - Stories

My name is Sam. I’m a sex addict.

Welcome, Sam.

Thanks, all of you. So, when did I first realize I had a problem—that’s the question, is it? Guess it’d be in my teens; fifteen, maybe sixteen. Standing in a bodega in the city where I grew up, only place you could find Black Bart licorice gum— remember that stuff? This woman came in for cigarettes. She wasn’t remarkable in any tangible way. I recall her elbow. The, um, inside of it—crook of her arm, really. When she reached over the counter to pay you saw these downy hairs, a raised blue vein and I wanted to touch that spot, smell and taste it. Crazy, but I wanted to shrink myself, atomize like those scientists in Fantastic Voyage, view things on a cellular level. I wanted to know everything about it—not her, you understand, I didn’t care about her history or goals or fears, any of that. Just be intimate with that unthinking portion of her. That was the first time I felt that way—my whole world collapsing in a single gesture or stimulus. Same way Hank Aaron must’ve felt swinging a bat for the first time, Ray Charles tickling those ivories. So this is it, huh? My life’s purpose. Crush homeruns. Write great music. Obsess about a woman’s elbow. Oh. To some the wheat, others the chaff. But you make do, right?

I’VE GOT THE GIRL bent over a glasstop desk with her ass in the air, my hands on her hips, thrusting diligently. Her name’s Caitlin—no, Kitten. Glass fogged under Kitten’s armpits and her nipple rings produce a glasscutter clink on the tabletop. She’s blowing Wayne and every so often pauses to exhort me to Fuck her, Fuck her hard, Fill her up, Harder, Faster, Make her cum, et cetera. Klieg lights hot on my skin and a cameraman between my spread legs, zoomed in for an insertion shot. Give it a little swizzlestick action and Kitten moans at this pedestrian maneuver. Wayne’s leaning forward, red flushmarks across his thighs caused by pressure from the table. An eagle spread-winged across Kitten’s lower back, red rose clutched in each talon.

“Give it to me,” she says. “Give it to your little whore .”

“Cut!” The director barks. “Take twenty, people.”

Break for a set change. The cameraman slots a fresh tape into his handheld, the sound tech adjusts his levels, a gopher swabs the desktop with Windex. Towel wrapped round my waist, I consult the craft table’s meager offerings—mesh sack of oranges, box of Triscuits, brown-looking bananas—select an orange and sit on the sofa.

I’m peeling the orange and stuffing rinds between the cushions when a girl sits beside me. She approaches from behind, barefooted, easing herself down stealthily as though her intention is to catch me unawares. Moderately tall, maybe five-six, long legs, narrow waist, high breasts. Naked as a jaybird. Untucking the towel, she takes me in her hand.

“Thanks,” I tell her, sectioning the orange.

“Just doing my job. Want some oil or anything?”

“That’s okay. You got a soft touch. Not like the last fluffer—like pulling weeds.”

“There are those who believe I have healing hands.”

The girl’s eyes swim with gold flecks like you’d find floating in a bottle of Goldschlager and she’s looking off across the set, into darkened corners filled with dusty props and costume racks. The boom mike guy sits on an overturned milk crate, watching. She laughs softly, though at what I’m unsure.

The orange is dry and gross, like a pulp-sucking vampire’s been at it. “Want some?”

“Hands are sorta full, here.”

“My name is Samuel. Sam Chancey. And yours is …?”

“Do you really need to know, Samuel Chancey? I mean, would it enhance any of this?”

“No,” I say. “Well, I mean, possibly . Who knows? Just like to know, is all.”

“And I’d like to fuck Douglas Fairbanks. Ain’t gonna happen.”

“Okay, well then, are you new—like, to the city?”

“What’s with the small talk? We’re way past that stage—I’m in your pants already.” She snorts out her nostrils like a pissed-off bull. “What are you, one of those touchy-feely New Age types? Bet you got healing crystals in your nightstand.”

“Don’t even know what’s in there. Toenail clippers and Dristan nasal spray, I think.”

This gets a laugh and I ask her where she’s from. She takes my hand and draws it between her legs. “Make yourself useful.” She’s wet—I mean sopping —and I’m rubbing her pussy gingerly, then faster. Her face pinches up and she makes a noise like she’s stifling a sneeze, orgasming twice in rapid succession. “Okay,” she’s whispering, more to herself than me. “Okay, okay, oooo- kay .” Breathing heavily, splotches of color on her throat, clitoris the size of a pomegranate seed. She butts her chin against my shoulder, opening her mouth to orgasm again; when she pulls away thin crescent-shaped divots, the imprint of her teeth, are visible in my flesh.

“Thanks.” A slight shudder. “That was pretty alright.”

“You’re not that hard to please.”

“I’m hypersensitive. There are drugs, but I don’t take them.”

“Drugs to do what?”

“Y’know, like, dampen the sensation. Anyway, don’t like them. Like my entire body is packed in cotton batten or something.”

“Who wants that?”

“I know, right?” She kicks a thigh over mine, hooks her foot around my calf, draws my legs wider. “Sure, it’d probably make things better in the long run, but we are who we are.”

“You betcha.” My winning smile. “Warts and all.”

Wayne Harvey sits on the sofa. A silverhaired veteran, women love my co-star’s gallant demeanor: he treats starlets as though their maidenhood remains unsullied. Overlooking the bowlegs and turkey wattle, he’s quite dashing: the Jimmy Stewart of hardcore porn. The fluffer takes him in her other hand.

“I thank you for your efforts, milady,” Wayne says. “But I’m afraid your kindly ministrations will have no effect.”

“Why—what’s the matter?”

“Wayne’s penis is broken,” I inform her.

He shoots me a sour look. “True, Samuel—if crudely put.”

It happened a few years back. Wayne was in a solo scene with this acrobatic little blonde: she was jerking and bucking and practically doing the loop-de-loop. Wayne was sweating buckets and holding on for dear life, now she’s riding him, Wayne’s thrusting up to meet her and the gal’s biting her bottom lip begging for more but they come together awkwardly and something just went snap .

Shocking but true: you can break your dick. A fibrous sheath, the tunica albunginea, surrounds the tubes and blood vessels; when erect, the sheath is stretched tight and hard beneath the skin. Severe trauma can rupture the tunica: roughly the same force it would take to, say, bust your nose. The medical term is a penile fracture—though doctors familiar with the injury use the euphemism “bent wick.”

I was standing off set and heard this awful noise: the closest comparison I can manage is the sound of a drumstick torn from a roast turkey. Then the girl’s screaming and Wayne’s hopping around hollering. His cock hung buckled at this hideous jackknifed angle and the taut skin kept it bent, no way to release to the pressure. The tip a dusky eggplant bulb and a fearsome hematoma, this dark grape-sized bubble, swelling along the break. There’s poor Wayne staring down at his mangled unit, black as blood sausage, squeezing it at the root as though that might help. I’m not going to lie: it was pretty fucking revolting.

Thankfully this story has a happy ending. Unable to summon a screenworthy erection, Wayne underwent IPP surgery—Inflatable Penis Prosthetic. The urologist made an incision at the base of Wayne’s penis and threaded an expandable bladder up the shaft, then another incision in the testicular sac to deposit a pump the size and weight of a triple-A battery. A hole drilled into his hipbone anchored the prosthesis; the sundry tubes and wires were tucked behind his abdominal wall. Damn thing works like a charm: Wayne pumps up and wades on in, then deflates and lounges around until it’s time to re-inflate for action. Porno’s Six Million Dollar Man.