October 2013
I POKED my head out to see how much further I had to go, and looked back to see how far I’d come. One of the camera crews had just done a fly-by, and I was in the middle of the line that snaked around the space. No man’s land, er, no woman’s land: I was too far from where the organizers were at the door—trying to keep order, laughing, joshing around, thanking people for showing up, making us sign consent forms—and I was still way too far from the objective to start to invoke any kind of implementation onto myself. This was technically the quiet contemplative part of the room, not that it was technically quiet; there was music blaring. Rockabilly. Not my favorite, not by a long shot. Although not unexpected. And talking, er, shouting to the guys around me was unheard of, unthinkable; it was a sure sign that I wasn’t here for the objective, that I was here instead trying to get something going on the side. Which wasn’t going to happen. I wasn’t like that. So I waited, biding my time, swaying on my heels, trying to keep the objective in mind and not dwell on anything else that might pop up in my head.
Not that that worked.
I had gotten the day off from my place of employ to be here, and this was not going to be a story I could probably tell back at the office. At least, not out on the floor. There would, though, be some status and mileage to be gained at the bars on boys’ night out when the tales of bravado would come up to determine who had to pay for the next round, and this was sure to be a cinch for coverage of at least one or two night’s servings of fine adult beverages. It had proved sufficient before. I got up, showered, shit, shaved, and then shaved some more, and had treated myself to some breakfast that morning and got to the place at what I thought to be more than early enough to discover that I was not original in my thinking. The line already extended around the block, and it took more than a couple hours to even get inside and it was cold out there.
Once I was finally through the gates and was all signed up and congratulated and thanked and had enough of the chill worn off to take off my coat—which I had to hold—I gandered around the room, and I was, frankly, bedazzled by it all, just like always. It was all very exciting, and I was here, and here, this time, was a gymnasium, of all places; I marveled at how that got wrangled. Didn’t the owner know what was going to happen here today? It made no sense. Or maybe it did: perhaps the weekend events could have some kind of resonance of what happened here on a Tuesday, and who knows, it might drive ticket sales. Or maybe this sort of thing happened here all the time and there was a waiting list, a list as long as the line I was in. A line that was at least moving. Everything was in motion; there was no actual stillness in here.
Somewhere not even before the middle of the court, nearer the freethrow line on the entrance side, the guy in front of me started jostling around a little. I poked my head around him again, being careful as to how and where I rubbernecked—I didn’t want to see something I didn’t want to see—and sure, we’d made progress toward the objective, but I thought it was still a shade or two too early to initiate things. It would be bad to peak too soon. The help was still a long ways away from us, fluttering about near the head of the line. I wondered if maybe he was just new at this sort of thing when the corner of my eye caught some motion behind me, and that guy was starting in, too.
I gave in, and commenced in on myself as well. When in Rome.
I didn’t seem to have very much to operate with and officially, to the nag of my pride, chalked it up to the weather, but the gospel was, I was having the worst time conjuring up any images that would be of any remedy, despite having researched so many so long and so hard at the house this morning before I left. Maybe that’s what was needed here, something like, uh, refreshments. TVs playing the good stuff, if for no other reason than to benefit the old veterans who had drug themselves out into the cold just to be here. Set the mood. Of course, I could understand the objective not wanting that. It raised the question as to just who we were all doing this for, ourselves or what’s on TV because god forbid, it should not be about the objective.
We forged ahead, and I had some small flourishing with myself, and began to run through things in my head, things I could never so much as confess to considering let alone condoning or admitting that I went out of my way to acquire images of and movies of and stories of and descriptions of, things that traditionally that brought about the, uh, required output, but as I dipped into even them as a measure of last resort since nothing else was succeeding, and for reasons I could not begin to fathom, I had trouble committing, even to them, and not very much happened. Something must have been bothering me. Something wasn’t right, and I couldn’t put my hand to what. Maybe it was something about the veritable army of men, here to serve the objective. Maybe it was the smell. Who knows. We trudged forth.
I lost track of a little time—woolgathering—and suddenly the help approached and asked the guy right in front of me how he was doing, casting her gaze down and then she patted him on the side of the cheek, confirming that he was doing just fine, honey, just fine.
Then the moment I had been dreading since I walked in here happened, that I didn’t even know I had so much as considered as being a dilemma, and I was greeted amicably by the help, and asked if I needed any assistance. I shook my head and stared down and to the right as I was required to do by whatever it is that men have been so steeped in that struggles so hard to preserve our honor, but this was a professional I was dealing with, and she inspected my rather foolish attempt to defend my modesty and perhaps my dignity and she rolled her eyes up like she had been waiting for me and she smiled at me and she knelt down anyway and situated herself to where she could do some good and gently nudged my fingers out of her way.
I gawked around and saw another man getting some support. And another. And another. I was not alone. There were lots of women playing the part of the help today and I risked a hope that maybe this wasn’t so bad and all was still going to be accomplished. I exhaled and put my wrists on my hips and tipped my head down to watch.
She assisted me.
I had never partaken in the benefits of the help before; I was amazed that it hadn’t occurred to me as being such a good thing, and I felt like a foolish genius who had just been shown the light that was right there right in front of him the whole time. Part of me wanted to point out how stupid everyone else was who didn’t imbibe and part of me wanted to congratulate everyone else on not needing this so I could keep it all to myself and think about baseball and math and mom to extend this operation on indefinitely. I had to pant a little.
Normally, this would be just the sort of thing that would get me into a position to do some good, and I could usually ignore the protestations of the women I asked it of in the past however well-mannered and good-intended and simply lose myself for a little while before they would give up as having done as much as they could stand and that had better be enough and we would move on to something else. But I was apparently not feeling very normal that day, and nothing that was supposed to happen happened and my mouth and my lips went dry and moved into odd formations and did things I did not approve of. The help was, in fact, performing proper due diligence and I was extraordinarily grateful despite the scowls that besieged my countenance—that she didn’t seem to notice—and she even stayed with me as the line advanced. It was so clumsy to try to take a step forward with a woman doing this-this…thing. That should maybe be something that could be endeavored on in gym class in school, to try to develop a more graceful way to walk onward with a woman kneeling or bent over or something before the man as she did what was necessary for him to get him to where he could meet expectations. If an appropriate dance-like move could be developed, this could be maneuvered into parades, with precision marching and turns and twirls while the man and the woman remained in an arrangement of proximity that really had only one interpretation. Someone should get a handle on that. It would be entertaining, to say the least.
We took another unwieldy step, and I gaped around again to see that at this point I was the only one being tended to. It made me fairly self-conscious, and that did nothing for my courage or my self-worth or my confidence that I could even do this and I began to question what I was even doing here. All the other guys I had been standing with were starting to shuffle up and huddle around the objective, and I still was not of any earthly use. The help tipped her beatific face up toward me, and I swear, it appeared that she admired me, and she pulled herself to her feet, running her palms up my sides, reaching up and whispering in my ear that we could go over there and get out of the way until I was ready, and I hung my head and she held my arm, c’mon, it’s okay, as I stepped out of line and let her take me over to lean me up on the sidelines where she would take another swing at me. This was not how I had foretold this day going when I got up this morning, nor when I went to bed last night; neither was it anything like any of the other moments of preparations for glory I had convinced myself were absolutely going to happen here today over the last few weeks of anticipatory trances. It was all supposed to proceed as it had before. This wasn’t my first rodeo. I was dizzy with being simultaneously ashamed and enthralled.
She guided me against a table so I could stabilize myself and the room stopped spinning. She ran her fingernails over my chest and assured me this happened all the time before she descended once again into a stance that conveyed an representation of subservience that was in fact a lie about just who was actually in charge here but reflected the appearances of the pecking order of our society and hinted at consents of things men could expect from women under the right circumstances—and this locale on this day with these people, of all population groups and times and places, was indeed the right circumstance, if ever-oh-ever it existed—and normally I liked seeing that, in pictures and movies and reading about it in stories, and I especially liked it from up here, from where I could convince myself of an elevated socialized location, of some kind of command structure that I was at the pinnacle of, and she prepared to consummate her performance and revealed a fealty and reverence up toward me as she was about to recommence on her operation and asked if there was anything she could do, if I needed something, uh, special, and my lips quivered as I asked, as politely as I knew how, if I could see some more of her, which was only the tip of the iceberg of what I really wanted from a woman and she said but of course and went about doing what I asked until I nodded my head, and she redirected her focus back in on her specialty, her skill, her craft. Her assignment.
She was magnificent. Gorgeous. Ravishing. I closed off my sight to all the hustle and bustle in the room, I shut out all the racket, I put blinders on to everything except the outstanding example of God’s handiwork I had before me and how she exerted herself toward my needs and she set in to earn her designation, her cognomen, her title. I relished her ministrations which continued for naught and my thoughts wandered around as they so often so disobediently do. I had never understood why the help was dressed at these soirées. I supposed it went back to the questions about just who it was we were all here for: ourselves, the help, or the objective.
I glanced up toward the objective, and heard the roar of the guys I had been standing in line with as they achieved their roles—somebody over there was worth some kind of attention, and the camera crew seemed very excited—and honestly, I found all that to be of no use whatsoever toward my goals, but the objective made some sounds, the right harmonious noises, and that did. Perhaps it was another kind of enthusiasm that had earned the camera crew’s focus. It got mine. The help seemed to be more aware of what was going on around us than I did and she picked up on what had caused the reaction in me and re-attacked her task with renewed vigor, initializing her own relevant modulations in tone and pitch, recapturing my attention, and maybe that was what had been missing. The exhibitions and cacophonies of men going through the motions never seemed to do the right things for me; I always had more vested interests and responses to the pageants and musics of women in the process.
And as my thought streams began to curtail their meanderings, it occurred to me that maybe that’s what was really needed here. If the objective is, in fact, the objective, then that’s what they could put on the TVs here: the objective engaged in and discharging the act and enjoying it. That would keep the rallying all going in the right directions, and perhaps realize a smidgen of lift to those of us old-timers who might need such a thing and serve as a reminder as to what it is we are all here for.
I had a purpose here, and it called to me.
I rejoiced at what could only be termed an opportune response in myself at the help’s efforts and praised whatever it was I could thank for this turnabout of the undertaking at hand, that the help was getting something to happen, that I was making progress, and she continued with the glorious intonations and the precious cast on her angelic features that conveyed how much she adored her practice, and the continued favorable treatments she lavished onto me, which comforted me even more. Even if it was an illusion, even if she didn’t know me from Adam and she had no authentic care or consideration for me as a man or a lover or a human being, it wasn’t a concern. What mattered here was her calling to the objective, and she was going to get things to happen toward that, regardless of what it took—I was in awe of her dedication—and if it meant expressing a personalized depiction of acceptance toward one of the poor slobs in the line, then, by god, that was what she was going to do, and for a moment, despite all the most obvious of evidences happening all around me about how insignificant I was to the whole course of action here and how I myself was of no real consequence and maybe I shouldn’t even be here, I could disavow all that and maybe begin to make the connection that perhaps in some small way I had magnitude here, that maybe it really was somehow about me, and I fell into my dreams and my fantasies and I could envision the help repeating this again for me later, when it could be just her and I and not all these other people, and maybe, just maybe, she could be the objective and I could imagine that she liked that, that she maybe liked me, and I let myself go right ahead and believe that she wanted me, me, over everyone that was in here, and my mind drifted off with a ridiculous optimism as it so often does toward inappropriate ideas about what one can and cannot do with a woman and the faith that there were in fact and truth and reality some women out there that wanted those sorts of things to happen to them, and how long and so very hard I had been looking for such a woman and maybe she was one, could it be, and my strength returned and she continued her service towards me, towards my needs on beyond obligation, on beyond reason into the irrational areas where I was the objective, and it was me that the throng was here for, except I would not have men here, I would have women, lots of women, and they would all be functioning for me, enacting reveries and fancies and atrocities and the heinous things that are forbidden to do to a woman that lead inevitably to them voicing their reactions and opinions about the sheer evils of that sort of thing, not with words or pleasant rational polite conversations that would be laced with negativity and accusations and insistences for condemnations for such abominations but with voicings that one can only make under certain circumstances, rather extreme insane conditions when language itself fails and the woman’s very neurology forces something out that normally expresses ache and affliction and perhaps even so far as an agony that mimics hate, but among a rare few is at the same time interwoven with a compulsion and affection and with lust and with urges for deference and capitulation and assent to the will of a man who would inflict such horrors on a woman for his own hideous uses towards the vibrations he could induce into her that she would reflect back to him in a feedback loop of urgency and passion and allegiance that swore from their onset to devour them both in longing and ecstasy and loyalty which we all must disavow during the day in front of others, and it was my absorption with that kind of devotion to such terrifying satisfactions that are prohibited in public that persist in coming to me at night all night every night unbidden when I am alone and the abyss howls, and its song wakes me from my sleep to make me have to do something about it all to myself, god damn it all, exactly who is in charge here, and the crisis began to rear its ugly little head on me and I could see it from here like I do in my bed at home and I loved it and I hated it at the same time, and I was reminded that there were times I cannot stand this about myself and the women I know cannot bear it either, and she, the woman, the one who was here in this room with just me, persevering with me through my little problems and perversities and obscenities started to make the resonances that normally express distress and discomfort that come about when a man has encroached his way too far with a woman, and she demonstrated her strength and resolve and she endured and she held herself there and she did it for me and I didn’t care if she had ever done this before, she had to have done this before to have this kind of control, that was fine with me, it was outstanding, I was astonished, and she let her own reactions that she couldn’t keep from happening happen to her and she did it for me and she did not use that as an excuse to stop, no, she carried it on out further, for me, she demonstrated her willingness to let me feel what happened to her when what happened to her happened when a man went too far with her where she breathed and what happened when she couldn’t and I felt it and it was magic and I was filled with wonder and you just stay right there, honey, I cannot tell you how amazing that feels, the power, the sensation, my god, the power, and I didn’t care who saw, I didn’t care about anything else in the whole wide world, and no one had ever done that for me before and she submitted to my unholy desires and it was beautiful and it was acceptable and it was what she was there for and it was alright, you just go right ahead, sir, you’re almost there, you’re almost there, and I nearly failed the objective, I almost went too far with the help and I gasped for my own breath.
The help understood me better than I understood myself and she stopped what she was doing and finished her chore just in time to spare me yet another embarrassment and stood and put her arms around me to lead me back toward the objective. I was in a daze. As I came down from whatever heaven she had thrust me into, I wanted to tell her not to ever leave me and the building fell back in around me and she let go of my shoulders, she ripped me in two as she did and I experienced loss, true loss, don’t go, don’t abandon me, I have to, and as she was about to relinquish me to the objective, having done what she came here to do with me and having genuinely done it so very, very well, I asked her her name with the lame excuse that I could extend my compliments to the people who care about these things and she tipped her head to the side with an expression that said I just had to be kidding, right, but she patted my stubble and she said I was sweet and to have fun and she let me off at the circle and made her way back up the line, reassembling herself back towards presentable, searching for someone else she could be of aid to. She ducked into the horde and vanished.
I turned my head back, and peered down into the middle of the group of men that surrounded the objective, and I remained to finish what the help had begun, and I executed my commission.
I couldn’t think about the objective at all, or even be bothered to notice it, and I closed my eyes and made up stories and visions and delusions of the help and I instead. My face, I know, was blissful and at peace. I awoke in time to see myself expend myself. The objective never even noticed me and did not even acknowledge I was even there. I did what I came here for, and was immediately pulled away by another someone—I didn’t even see who it was—and I left. I looked back once to try to see the help one last time to no avail.
At the exit, I tried to speak to one of the other people involved with the affair about how good the help was, especially one pretty one in particular, and was assured that everyone said that, and no, you can’t meet her, and no, you can’t wait for her, now go on, get out of here.
One of the fellas at the old watering hole that evening mentioned a rumor about what he had heard happened at the big venue in town that day. After all the wolf whistles and profanity died down, and a few ribald jokes were guffawed at, and the waitress had come back to check on us and got to suffer some more through being leered at for trying to do the only job she could get that didn’t involve her spreading her legs, all eyes fell onto me as I had bragged about having participated in such fêtes in days gone by. I feigned ignorance and bought a round. The waitress surprised me when by saying yes when I asked her out after everyone else had gone home, and I was a gentleman towards her, which was not what she was looking for. I remarked on what a coincidence that was, that that wasn’t exactly what I was interested in, either. It took us a while to find our way through that, and we were really good for each other for a few months. We’ve been on-again off-again ever since. There’s still a lot we’re figuring out about each other, including some things we’re not allowed to bring up among the more civilized decent folk we both end up having to grindstone our days with. We’re still developing, and when we conquer, er, when she is conquered, she is happy to make the most captivating sonorities under the most impermissible of conditions.
When the show came out about what had happened there that day, I, of course, bought it and took it to my once-again-empty home—my girlfriend was mad about me about something or other—and I watched it twice and did not see myself in it. There were a lot of people involved; the mob seemed endless. The objective carried on about how great it was that everyone came out, and expressed gratitude to all who participated and how important this was and how history was being made and frankly, the whole thing was dull and off-putting and I totally didn’t care about the objective, and it was the last such episode I attended in person.
But there were glimpses and shots of the help and even of one pretty one in particular as she warmed up some of the other men there—the footage of what happened between her and I had managed to land on the cutting room floor; those precious unseen moments make this my favorite piece of my collection—and even to this day, when I all-too-often have the place to myself, I continue to observe my duty to her and my memories of her and the fleeting images I have of her regularly. I never saw her again, certainly not in reality, and not in any other recordings, either, and over the years, I quit looking for her. She’s gone. I’m afraid I must concede, though, that I do embellish my recollections of her a little, depending on my mood, not to mention what the night brings when it bothers to wake me with the promises of echoes that I am not allowed to hear during the day, despite my best efforts to be washed over by them regularly at other times, and all the cooperation I am given along those lines, when I once again am plagued with the reactions that I have and take on the burdens that I do that I cannot seem to put an end to at home in bed alone in the dark.
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