by Susannah Indigo
(07/16/08)
"There is no such thing as bad sex," I say to no one in particular.
We're at the big oval table at the Empress Gardens eating dim sum to celebrate the Chinese New Year when it all begins. It's the beginning of The Year of The Ox, a year that is supposed to bring the promise of new discoveries, or maybe fertility, I forget.
"Of course there is, Kenna," my friend Bill replies. "Bad sex: sex so awful, so unexpected, so terrible that just telling someone about it later makes them turn away in laughter, or horror."
"This really exists? Then why hasn't anyone made a whole magazine or something about it ever?" I can picture bad relationships, bad love even, bad breakups, but not plain ol' bad sex, unless you're counting boring sex and then if you do, boring sex rules half the world and is often the norm rather than the exception.
Bill pauses and puts his hand on my knee. "You want me to show you, Kenna?"
I laugh. Bill is my sweet friend, my occasional fuck buddy and about as obsessed by sex as I am. He's a Pig, as in the Year of, defined quite appropriately as a sensual hedonist. I know this fact because I work as a research librarian -- an "information specialist" they call us nowadays -- and I get so many calls this time of year about Chinese astrology that I keep the chart by my desk.
I hike my black leather skirt a little higher as Bill watches, smiling. "Hell, you know what I like, Bill. Most anything that moves." To put it mildly. "What exactly would you do to show me bad sex? Take me home and fuck me for five minutes in the missionary position and then roll over and say goodnight?" I don't talk this way around work, of course, where I wear my wavy red hair up in a bun, skip the leather and leave the contacts home for my everyday glasses.
Bill offers to rape me if I want, which hurts my brain to think about. Everybody knows rape is not about sex. But if I let him rape me, is it still rape? I'm such a pervert I'd probably like it no matter what.
"More stories," says Bryan across the table from me, probably trying to deflect the conversation away from rape, which nobody ever talks about but most everyone fantasizes about.
"Define 'bad,' Mary says. I wave my little librarian hand. At least I can add this. "Did you know that the word bad is thought to originate from two Old English homophobic words from about the 13th century -- baeddel and baedling -- which were derogatory terms for homosexuals, with overtones of sodomy?"
"Really?"
"Yeah." I can't recall why I remember this, but maybe it caught my attention because of those overtones of sodomy.
Everyone around the table goes on to tell their own "bad sex" story. The boys almost always involve not being able to get it up, but that strikes me as "bad imagination" or even "bad ego" rather than bad sex. Let's face it, women know. They make enough cocks down at Good Vibrations to keep us girls happy for the rest of our lives.
I notice a trend. Every bad story seems to supply bare bones details, a gasp, and then trails off into "and it was so awful..."
I'm racking my brain for a story of my own as my turn arrives. I think about the worst situation I can remember -- the guy I married when I was 18, my manic-depressive young husband. I remember getting divorced from him at twenty. I remember the angry words, the suicide threats. I remember the cold metal of the gun on my bare thigh the night before I finally moved out, I remember being terrified, and I also remember being very very wet. No, I imagine that story won't work.
Nobeko starts in on a story about a woman who wanted to tie her up and how shocking this was to her. I can't stand it. The world is desperately in need of more people with enough passion and drive to understand the dynamics revealed in restraints. You wouldn't believe how many people I've actually had to ask to tie me up, pretty please, which tends to limit the high of submissiveness. Believe me, the concept of men and domination is a myth.
I shrug and pass on telling a story when it's my turn, and after a couple more "it was awful's" the conversation turns to great sex. But the bad sex concept holds in my mind and I know there is no way to look this up in my library. Field research is required. I never pass on anything. That's why people like me become researchers, because the urge to know everything and anything about a subject is overwhelming once it slips into that certain mind-curiosity-groove. If there's bad sex out there, I'll find it.
"It's sort of a scavenger hunt for bad sex, Holly," I try to explain to my upstairs neighbor and lover. We're buried deep under her pink comforter eating chocolate chip cookies the next night. Holly is the Martha Stewart of my love life -- candlelight and cookies and flowers all the time. Some nights just walking into her place is better than actual sex. She's a Dragon -- as into mind-touching as body-touching.
"Sometimes I have bad sex with myself," Holly offers. "You know, those nights when even your own fingers bore you to death?"
"Bad sex for one? Sounds like something Stouffers would make."
Monogamy is not a fetish of mine, but still I feel a little guilty even though Holly and I have always been open about any other lovers we might have. I decided a long time ago that two lovers was exactly the right number for me. My other lover is a student named Keith, a Snake like me but from a different generation, twelve years younger. He knows what I need. He likes to use my hair to tie me up in strange places before he fucks me, and I'm immensely fond of that particular knot.
Holly agrees it might be a good project as long as I promise only to attempt bad sex. She's an academic, so she decides to chart this all out for me. We decide that random bad sex would probably have to involve a stranger. We decide I need to keep a log of it all, and that there has to be a way to sort it out. She remembers the old Sears catalog ratings of "good/better/best" when buying products and decides that will do. Our final scale runs: Worst | Worse | Bad | Boring | Good | Better | Best -- and that's it, I'm off for the hunt.
Driving down Broadway the first night I sense one problem. I'm already wet at the promise of getting laid by someone new. I try to control myself by reciting the Dewey Decimal system out loud.
The lounge at the Holiday Inn on Colfax is the first stop. I'm wearing fishnet stockings and leather but my hair is pulled back in a ponytail and my turtleneck rides high, a sort of combo slut/cheerleader look. It doesn't take me long to pick out a paunchy looking, balding guy at a table by himself and start the flirtation.
He tells me his traveling salesman story, the exquisite details of selling hospital equipment, while I brush his leg with my boot and watch the surprise in his eyes at his luck. He's a Rat, I find out -- outwardly cool, self-controlled, but passionate.
"Push the button on my watch," he says, holding his wrist out for me to see.
I push the button.
"Tell me what it says, Kenna."
I'm stifling a laugh. Can I pick them or what? "It says, 'WANNA FUCK?'" And in large letters no less. "Pretty damn clever." I don't remember any mention of Rats having crass taste in jewelry.
"I had it made special in Taiwan."
Maybe, just maybe I've found what I'm looking for, and on my first try. I don't want to sleep with him. So I will.
"Wow," I say, flipping my ponytail. "And, yes. But, do you know where the word 'fuck' comes from?" Now why on earth would I share this with him? But I do. "It's actually a mystery, but they think it might originally be from the Scandinavian "fokka." There's one written record of the word in 1278, and then nothing, nothing at all until three hundred years later, maybe because it was such a taboo to say it." They probably didn't even make these watches back then.
He reaches over and twists my hair in his meaty hand and whispers, "I'll show you where fucking really comes from, sweetheart."
A kiss, the check, and he's guiding me to his room.
"Take off all of your clothes, lie down on your belly and close your eyes," the Rat orders after we enter the tackiness that is room 413 at the Holiday Inn. "I want to show you something."
Another watch? His cock? Some strange hospital equipment? But this is my game, and I'm stripping down and stretched out.
He's searching in his bag and I'm peeking out of one eye and he's bringing out what looks like a bottle of oil.
"I used to work as a masseuse," he says as he climbs up on top of me and begins with my back. "Let me massage this fine body, sweetheart." When his hands start in on me I see this boy starting to slide way up my sexual-rating chart. By the time he's worked me over with his oil front and back I'm completely limp in his hands and ready for anything and he's entering me from behind and riding me hard and holding my hair tight with one hand and slapping my ass with the other. He's got me hollering 'fuck me,' 'fuck me,' 'fuck me,' and I know that if this Rat was around in the fourteenth century they would have definitely written the word down.
"OK, so looks aren't a good indicator of bad sex, Holly," I admit, safely back in her pink bed. "But what can I do -- interview people and ask them if they're a lousy lay
Holly's reviewing my log. "All it says here is 'his hands, his hands,' Kenna."
"Shit, that's all I can remember. It was great."
She sighs, but we begin to plan the ex-lover possibility next. Julia was the love of my life ten years ago, until she decided she was too good for me and dumped me coldly. She's a Monkey -- clever, witty, manipulative, pretentious. The Chinese chart doesn't really say all that, I'm just projecting. I do distinctly recall her saying she was only going to sleep with PhD's in the future after our breakup. And that she was only with me because she was crazy about my breasts. This has to be bad.
I find her at her modern dance class, where I show up in a low cut black leotard to get her attention. I lie to her over lunch, tell her about my newly-minted PhD in the thirteen century dialect of Baedel Fokka, and get invited back to her place. I make up other stories for her about the places I've been and who I've met. When I create an imaginary friendship with Camille Paglia, who I know she idolizes, I'm in. She spreads her legs for me and I'm devouring her and I suddenly can't remember why I found her so attractive in the first place, but I go for the sex just to show her how hot I am, and it works. When I leave and turn at the door to tell her, "I'm sorry, I won't be back, because I just realized that I should really only sleep with tenured professors," I realize that this is the most fun I've had in weeks.
I try to dive back into work and forget this whole idea, but every research question I'm asked sounds like sex. I've started watching everybody I see and thinking all the time about how they fuck, why they fuck, where they fuck, is it good, what do they do badly. When I'm not answering the phone I can be found doing some heavy breathing back in section 306.7, reading every sex book I can get my hands on. Hell, I'm so immersed in it I could practically write a thesis -- maybe you can get a PhD in Bad Sex.
Joe's Bait Shop, the local dive bar. Holly scoped the place for me over the weekend and thinks it's a guaranteed bad time. Every possible sport on a dozen big-screen TVs, pool tables in the back. The bartender's a babe. It's amazing how fuckable everyone looks when you're looking for people who aren't.
I'm wearing black tights, a long baby blue sweater, black suede boots and nothing underneath. I'm getting a few looks but no bites because of the damn football game. I forgot it was Monday night. Maybe this is bad sex, when you can't even draw a man away from the television.
I get myself a drink and wander toward the back room. There's some kind of a meeting in progress and no TV's, so I slip in and sit down in an empty card chair in the back to check out the crowd.
"My goal," the handsome man speaking says, "is to help others achieve sexual sobriety."
Wait, wait. Sexual sobriety?? Is this where you only fuck before you get drunk?
"The twelve steps were my saving grace," he continues. "I turned my lust over to God."
Holy shit, I think I've wandered into a meeting of OverFuckers Anonymous.
I laugh. Heads turn in my direction, followed by frowns at my laughter. I can't help it. I know they're deadly serious. But maybe God knows what bad sex is. I wonder, does God like having all this lust turned over to him? Didn't God turn it over to us in the first place?
The speaker's looking right at me and smiling. "Who would like to share their story with us today?" He's got piercing green eyes and big shoulders and a fuzzy beard that I can already feel rubbing between my legs, and I'm considering making up a quick sad story to tell him and I know I should consider getting the hell out of here instead.
I do not volunteer. They'd never believe me if I told the truth about why I'm here. But, wait, bad sex, bad sex. These folks have potential. Oversexed people trying not to have sex could be real bad. Or would they be real good, heading toward better/best, like reformed Catholic girls let loose?
At the break, the speaker comes directly to me and introduces himself. "My name is Tony," he says with a gorgeous grin. Oh my. I don't even have to ask, I know he's a Tiger, as in the Year of, the Hour of, the Moment of, the Bed of, the Cock of, and I'm heading for trouble.
"I just stopped in here accidentally," I say. "Giving up lust? This is like a bad dream."
"I know," the Tiger says. He pauses, and then takes my arm firmly and guides me out toward the dark back corner of the bar. He smiles. "But I bet your dreams are spectacular, darling. You look like a girl who knows how to dream." Fresh drinks in hand, strong arms wrapped around me. "Do you dream in color, Kenna?"
That's the best pickup line I've heard in ages. "Everyone does, Tony, or can. Did you know that nobody ever questioned this fact before the advent of black and white television in the fifties? Not Freud, not Jung..." I hear my little librarian voice being smart and at the same time I feel my knees shaking like a little girl and I just want to climb up on his lap and let him turn his lust over to me instead of God.
He listens to me as though every word I utter is gold. He knows the secrets. Words and hands and eyes and laughter. Attention paid; intensity gained. But it keeps sneaking through the haze of my desire that this man is one of them.
"Tony, didn't I just hear you discussing 'sexual sobriety' as a way of life?" I ask as he pulls me onto his lap and his hand is higher and higher on my thigh, so high and so right that I think I imagined it all and that this is my punishment or maybe my reward for thinking and dreaming about sex day and night and for ever, ever, pretending I know a single thing about what it all means.
"For you, darling, I'm willing to fall off the chastity wagon." His mouth is on mine and he's biting my lip with the force that I need and I am going going gone. I don't believe a word he says and I don't care. The cock of the Tiger is hard beneath my ass and all the lines are slipping away and good is blending into better and heading off the chart and he's whispering in my ear and I want it all and we're out the door.
Before he starts the car he says, "Pull your tights down and spread your legs and let me see," and I do, and he just watches me. When he stops the car at Sunset Park a short drive away and leans over, his beard is rough against my thighs exactly as I imagined it and he's biting and sucking and I'm in heaven and then he's suddenly slowing way down.
"I shouldn't do this," he mumbles, with his mouth still buried in my pussy. Oh god, maybe this is the bad sex I deserve, when it begins to orbit off the chart and you know that somehow when it's over it's going to wrap right back around and come up on the awful horrifying side as chastity reclaimed.
"I shouldn't do this," he repeats, and I think maybe he's waiting for me to save him. This is one of those damned defining moments in life. Define the moment or it defines you. Screw him, or screw him? Fuck it. Or fuck me. I reach down and stroke his hard cock through his jeans.
"I'll be good for you, Tiger. Don't stop, don't stop." He lifts my sweater and we're tumbling toward the back seat like teenagers in lust and I'm not sure I'll be able to excuse this behavior later as research but maybe I don't even care. My tights are off and my legs are wrapped high around his big shoulders and his cock presses into me and he leans down and begins to bite my nipple and send me over the edge. He pauses, and I think I will die if he stops one more time. "You're right, darling," he whispers, driving into me hard. "For tonight, there's just no such thing as bad sex."
