media blogs
photo blogs
Rose & Olive
Houston neighbors pull back the curtains and expose each other’s lives.
Scanner
Your daily cup of WTF?
The Modern Materialist
Almost everything you want.
Autumn Sonnichsen
A fashionable L.A. photo editor exploring all manner of hyper-sexual
girls down south.
ScreenGrab
The Nerve Film Blog
Chase
The creator of Supercult.com poses his pretty posse.
The Remote Island
Nerve's TV blog.
61 Frames Per Second
Smarter gaming.
ScreenGrab
The Nerve Film Blog
Slice
Each month a new artist; each image a new angle.
Paper Airplane Crush
A San Francisco photographer on the eternal search for the girls of summer.
|
 |
The guide led her group through
room after room, hall after hall, where they admired elaborate exhibits of equipment
and uniforms (the Isaac Mizrahi design worn by Spencer "Toes" Cabot in the 2017
playoffs! The Philippe Starck 2021 commemorative accessory set!); a magnificent
collection of Topps National Swinger League playing cards (including a rare Ruby
Wilson, from her single season in the league, during which she led her team to
victory with the first fully executed Triple Sweet Thing and achieved consistently
perfect scores in the extemporaneous accessory round, before leaving her husband
and teammate Bart for an anti-swinging fundamentalist Sufi); a history of endorsements
("Gatorade, proud sponsor of national champions the Georgia Peaches — is it in
you?" "MVP Kelly 'Mouth from the South' Dunn in Nike SwingerWear . . . Just Do It.");
a chronology of significant moments (the first NSL advisory board approving the
official points-and-penalties guidelines!) and special swinging events (MTV's
internationally televised Celebrity Swing Fundraiser for NYC Tsunami Relief!
The inaugural Triple X Games!).
At last they arrived at the Hall of Fame itself, a cavernous
arcade with floor, curved walls and a vaulted ceiling painted a deep, glimmering
crimson. Here, portraits of inductees hung beside cases containing each immortalized
swinging couple's trophies and memorabilia (Sophie and Dan Bluzt of the Seattle
Amphibians! Peg and Waldo Springer, creators of the infamous Woolly Mammoth Seizure
maneuver! All members of the 2026 Season Detroit Thrusters, the first and only
team to achieve a sixteen-way simultaneous orgasm!).
After winding up her discourse on the techniques and
triumphs of each inductee, the tour guide paused at the far end of the hall,
speaking gently to the twelve-year-old boy who was staring with wide, moist eyes.
"Do you want to be a professional swinger when you grow
up, sweetie?" the tour guide asked. The boy blushed, shoved his
"Do you want to be a professional swinger when you grow up, sweetie?" the tour guide asked. |
hands into
his pockets and nodded without looking up. "Sure you do!" the guide said, showing
pearly teeth. "We all did, at some point, didn't we? I bet you're in Little League,
aren't you?" The boy nodded again. "I thought so," the tour guide said. "I was,
too, when I was your age! I even went to state in high school. Who here was on
their high-school swinging team?" About a third of the group raised
their hands, and the tour guide beamed and clapped. "That's just great! And who's
in a weekend league or on a company team?" Over half the group raised their hands,
including the four retirees. "Well, good for you guys!" the guide beamed. "That's
just super. Yes, was there a question?"
She nodded at a fair-haired young man in his early twenties,
standing near the back of the group and tentatively waving one hand in the air.
Beside him was a pretty, shy-looking girl with dark braids and knee-high silver
boots, carrying a digital translation device and whispering in his ear.
"Yes," the young man said. "Please . . . " He turned to his
girlfriend, clarified a point in their odd, vowel-rich language, and then looked
back to the tour guide. "She please would like to know why your hall has enshrined
no great swinging pairs who are man and man, woman and woman. Yes?" The girl
nodded vigorously at him, and smiled at the tour guide.
A prickly silence descended. A family standing beside the young couple edged
away.
"You must be aware," the tour guide said, her voice suddenly
sharp, "the bylaws of the National Swinging Association state that, for eligibility
in any official league, every pair of a team must be legally married."
The boy translated this for his girlfriend, who nodded
eagerly, bright-eyed, then spoke rapidly in her own language to the tour guide.
"She says to say you," the boy translated haltingly, "that of course yes, marriage
is required for participating in all countries which are being members of the
International Swinger League. How is this point relevant to our question that
we ask you?"
The tour guide's face flushed. "I'm not sure
what country you're from," she told the young couple, her voice tremulous with
emotion. "But as every American citizen knows, the Twenty-Eighth Amendment of the Constitution
of the United States, passed by Congress on the second of December two-thousand-ought-nine
and ratified on the fifteenth of March two-thousand-eleven, defines marriage
as a sacred union between a man and a woman. A man, and a woman."
"Damn right," called out a fat man in a faded T-shirt
emblazoned with the words 13th Annual Semi-Pro Swingers Convention, Salt
Lake City, 2029.
"Perverts," someone hissed. "I bet they're Swedish." |
"Further, American members of the International Swinger
League compete internationally only with countries that recognize marriage as
such," the tour guide continued indignantly. "Iraq. Chile. Vatican City. And
the Sovereign Republic of Wal-Mart. Which is why America doesn't send a team
to the Olympic competitions. I am proud to say that unlike most countries, our
national league is and always has been composed exclusively of opposite-sex couples." The
guide's plump lower lip quivered. She lifted her chin and added, "And, I dare
say, always will be!"
"Hear, hear," a voice murmured into the ensuing silence,
as the boy whispered into his paling girlfriend's ear.
"Perverts," someone else hissed. "I bet they're Swedish."
The crowd rustled ominously and shifted in their direction,
a soft hulking animal. The girl drew closer to her boyfriend, and clutched his
arm.
"Now, folks," the tour guide said, and the mass of bodies
lurched back toward her like a cruise ship changing direction. "We've still got
quite a bit to see," she trilled at them. "You all follow me, and keep up!" She
gave a little wink, then whirled neatly and strode off, her hips twitching from
side to side, calling back over her shoulder. "We're going to have to step quick,
ladies and gents, or you won't make it to the next showing of our new IMAX presentation,
and I bet anything you wouldn't want to miss Two Decades of the National Swinging
League's Greatest Moments, featuring never-before-seen footage of the best swinging
bloopers of all time!"
Surging and shuffling along behind her, the throng departed,
leaving the young foreign couple alone in the half-dark of the hall, the guide's
sweet voice and the footsteps of the visitors echoing thinly off the arcade's
crimson walls.
n°
| ABOUT THE AUTHOR: |
 |
Darcy Cosper is a writer and book reviewer. Her work has appeared in publications including The
New York Times Book Review, Bookforum, Village Voice, Nerve, and GQ, and in the anthologies Full
Frontal Fiction and the forthcoming Sex & Sensibility. Her first novel, Wedding
Season, was published by Crown in March 2004. She lives in Los Angeles and New York. |
| |
Nerve
Features: click
here |
©2006 Darcy Cosper and Nerve.com.
|
|
|
|
