Steve Katz - Kissssss - A Miscellany

He was happy, and I felt some blithe uneasiness. Then a tap

On my shoulder made me turn to see another wretched soul

Trapped as myself, a young man who tried to take the role

Of adviser. He whispered, “You'd better hide that hat under

Your jacket.” He seemed competent. How bad a blunder

This could be I didn't realize. Anyone outside my meek

Self was welcome to construct my fate. Hide the hat and sneak

Away. This was at least a plan. Inside this club the weather

Warped with anarchy, an oily stink of sweat and leather.

The D.T. Eagles danced together. Helen hidden; myself, alone.

Jack was here, his smile sinister and sweet. He pierced the bone

Of my face with his stare. “Why don't you make me a gift

Of that hat?” He'd seen me. He grabbed my beard to lift

My gaze to his eyes. Nothing I could do then. The hat

Was his. I understood the code I'd broken. That was that.

Hiding would be chickenshit in my own neighborhood.

I opened up my jacket, he took the hat for good.

Was I man enough, I wondered, to get beaten to the bone

For my Borsalino? I could see my obits written in stone,

WRITER DIES PROTECTING CRUSHABLE FEDORA,

ITALIAN HATS BACK IN FASHION! my soul an aurora

Of dread. I could die, risking humiliation and death

Before I finished my second novel. No! Jack's breath

Suddenly engulfed my face again. No! His beard brushed

Through mine, tongue struck into my mouth, lips crushed

My lips, the reek of beer and leather and my own fear

Of this hideous humiliation, at the same time an unclear

Thought that maybe now he'd give me… I'd get my hat

Back, and I could leave, to feed my just invented cat.

So feeble, my only strength was in that miserable kiss,

And then a recognition — this was not bad, not the bliss

I was looking for, but you can't always get what you want.

He put his head on my shoulder, and whispered, “I want

You to ride with me.” The band was quiet. It was late.

Reverberations of his whisper thundered down my fate.

This was an opportunity I could easily resist though not

Easily avoid. Jack left me thinking. I inched off my spot.

Now it seems impossible I got out of there by moving

Slowly to the door; that Jack let me go, never proving

How much he wanted me to ride with him. Perhaps a guy

Without a Borsalino is less conspicuous. Out the door, I fly

To my car, grin once at the guard snoozing by their bikes,

Dive to the seat, key, fire, YES, my car, a Lancia I really like.

The advance from Posh , my Grove Press book of porn,

Bought this sleekness, cherrywood-steering, operatic horn.

What I have told here is the origin of the kiss, on page

Five hundred and thirty-two of Swanny's Ways ,

My novel, winner 1995 America Award in fiction

Which you can check out, if reading is your predilection.

If you're curious did I ever kiss Helen, I can't remember.

I could have once, maybe later, maybe in December.

The practice of date-biting becomes a problem with the new generation of SEDs (Sexual Enhancement Drugs). These advanced versions — Pyogra, Bialis, and Lolitro — affect both male potency and female receptivity. With their advent, the prevalence of date-biting has increased substantially and is expected to spread and grow in intensity as generic equivalents hit the market. The improved stimulators perk up sexual desire, extend the period of lubrication in the female, and allow the male to produce an erection lasting four hours and thirty-four minutes (the present record) without danger of degenerative priapism. An additional benefit of this new generation of SEDs is a marked improvement in passionate vocalizing. A twosome of elderly subjects no longer need sound like two geezers croaking in the desiccated pond scum, but can chime sweetly musical tunes as if they were principals in an operetta by Victor Herbert.

An alarm sounded, however, when doctors from all over the United States, and particularly from both coasts, reported increasing numbers of senior trauma victims with analogous masticatory woundings. We soon began to suspect this was a collateral effect of the new SEDs. Early testers had observed that the gerbils on which the drug was first tested took to gnawing on each other, occasionally snipping a jugular. The testers dismissed this as insignificant, or as a practice peculiar to gerbil culture.

There had been some severe infections in the human population, and a few minor amputations — here a nose, there an ear or a lip, even half a penis in San Francisco, but no more than might be expected from commonplace, if extreme, amatory enthusiasms. No serious deaths were recorded until Mr. Benjamin Hackle found the jugular of his romantic other, the elderly Sylvia Marsh. He claims that it wasn't intentional, and that for her this had been an amative ending to a long, happy life. The question arose then of who was responsible, Hackle or the drug company. Of course the drug company denies any liability, and Hackle claims the song was great, wiping a tear of regret — at the last a flatted fifth, just like in the jazz she loved (he plays baritone).

Youths, both prepubescent and full-blown teenagers, have already taken to the drug, and it is too late to prohibit it because they have learned to fabricate an equivalent out of used phone cards, steamed, dried, and pulverized, combined with wasabi, the juice of fermented seafood, and the hair of the Shih Tzu. In 500mg capsules sold on the street, this works as well for them as the drug company formulate, at least, as far as its effect on the young voice in the throes of passion. For the passion itself they don't need extra stimulation. It is the youth who gave date-biting its name. They appropriated it from a song written for the hip-hop band, Purlee Wightz , by its two lead singers, Y'diz and JnJo, brothers who grew up in the ghetto of Toledo. Their father was the first dentist on Dorr Street. The song topped the hip-hop charts for several weeks. Wounding has hardly been observed in the young because they have been educated to understand the perils of blood and other bodily fluids. The activity manifests as a furiously playful nibbling, light in its effect. Unlike the hickeys of yesteryear, it doesn't leave the shape of the perpetrator's teeth on the neck or wherever, but can create a broad region of bruised skin. Even this is quite beautiful on the young body; in fact, they often display their amorous road maps through holes they cut in their clothes, and they recognize each other as nibblers by the clicking of teeth that punctuates their rhyming bouts as they stimulate each other at their raves. Sometimes thousands of nibblers gather under one roof. So many have taken vows of celibacy ’til marriage that the condoms that responsible sponsors distribute generally go unused. Abstinence has, in fact, become so cool, that even in the affluent white teenybopper population, where kids hardly need to abstain from anything, nothing-doing is the rule. The subtler pleasure of doing nothing, they say, is way more cool. However, many of the kids have started to sharpen their teeth, and we have to watch that phenomenon.

The problems are exacerbated among people in young adulthood or early middle age. Though people at the height of their earning powers and sexual prowess might have immense holdings, their needs are almost always greater. At certain hours of the early morning whole complexes of singles — condos, co-ops, duplexes, studios — seem to lift off their lots in a chorus of top ten favorites, or a mellow treatment in the new torch song, crooner revival, or even something surprisingly operatic like the counter-tenor, mezzo soprano duet from act two of Philip Glass' Akhnaten , or the seduction duet from Mozart's Don Giovanni — La ci darem la mano … vorrei e non vorrei . For me it is an auditory ravishment to stroll among the dwellings of the swinging singles, or the young marrieds, or even the suburban houses of established families renewing their passions. As for myself, I have left sexual activity behind to pursue the contemplative life and to work for the general good. My fillip is to wander through a community of busy lovers. It's the gorgeous part of my life. I stroll as if through a forest of rare songbirds. I pleasure myself at this in the evening. My colleague tells me that certain weekend afternoons are even more delightful.