May 13, 1998

Just as T.R. made that turn on the highway lining the river where you suddenly see Manhattan, the sun went down so the light got sucked out of the sky and was concentrated in a glow that seemed to rise up from the buildings. And at that very moment, Billy Idol (who had been singing "Hot in the City" on the radio) cried out: "New York!"

Then we got lost, then we figured out where we were, then we got lost again, then we gave up and parked in a six-dollar-an-hour lot and took a cab to Squeezebox. There, everyone looked like Billy Idol except they had black hair and some of them were women. Girls were dancing on the bar in bras and black leather panties, there was a drag queen in a hoop skirt and a powdered wig . . . Then I saw Kate! She was moving through the crowd carrying on conversations and holding her drink above her head. I heard her barking laugh above all the other noise and it felt like getting into a warm bath. I sidled up to her all proud. "Kate," I murmured. "Baber!" she yelled and put her arms around me. She gave me her drink (which I finished off in one swig) and led me to our table. Mistress Dakota was there. I'd met her while visiting Kate in the dungeon she works at. Dakota looks like Cindy Crawford except she's prettier than Cindy Crawford. "Dakota never comes out," Kate said.

"I came tonight because I heard you'd be here," Dakota said, looking at me, and everyone else said stuff but I couldn't hear anything — it felt like insects inside my skull and this feeling definitely wasn't happiness, but it was a lot better than happiness, I thought. Then I realized people were talking about oral sex. "I never do a thing for men," Dakota was saying. "They satisfy me and then I do nothing back. I tell them I don't have to — I'm too beautiful." If someone thought that, I'd find it despicable. But to say it, proclaim it . . . that made it ballsy and funny. Her arrogance made her even more glamorous. "After I'm satisfied, I tell them: 'Clean the apartment. And then pay the rent.' I don't lift a finger." I vowed then that Dakota was going to lift a finger tonight. On me! And then when it was her turn for my finger, I'd leave. Just because no one ever does that to her. "Can I buy you a drink?" I said.

"I don't drink," she said.

So I got her a Coca Cola, and a Jack and Coke for myself. Then I got another, because I was scared.

"No woman has ever made me come," I told her, hoping she'd take it as a challenge. T.R. made a strange noise and sunk down in his seat. "Maybe once one did — I wasn't sure. No woman has ever made me come where I was sure she made me come."

"Well let's go," Dakota said, and we went to the bathroom. I closed the door behind us and leaned on it, but still I was half-a-foot taller than her. I took off my heels. "You don't want to be in stocking feet on this floor," she warned. "I don't care about that," I said, and put my hand on top of her head and pushed her down. Her breasts are fake — double D's — and I felt them up as she rolled down my skirt and stockings and underwear. They were very firm and big.

Then she was on her knees and her face was between my legs and she was licking and fingering me at the same time. She fingered with one hand and with the other hand she squeezed my ass, pulling my hips into her face. I had one hand tight on the doorknob and the other on her head. She came up for air and looked up at me with her chin all wet and I said, "You are so beautiful." I bet people don't tell her that much, because she is so beautiful they must figure she hears that all the time and they want to show they're different by not telling her. Anyway, she was beautiful. Especially with her face wet and at thigh-level, tilted up. She went back to it, but I was so drunk it was hard to feel anything. "Harder," I kept saying, and she'd do it harder and then I'd tell her to do it even harder, until she was practically beating me with her fingers and her mouth and her palm. And then I came. I was sure I came this time. When it was over, I realized people were pounding on the bathroom door, yelling about pee. Dakota was looking like a pet waiting to be petted. I remembered my diabolical plan, but in my plan I hadn't counted on how benevolent I feel post-orgasm. "C'mere," I said, placing her in my spot against the door. I tugged her pants down to her knees. She didn't have any underwear on, and was waxed completely bald! Oh, it was too fine! I felt ashamed that I'd only trimmed and Baby-Powdered. I licked up the whole surface of it and couldn't feel even the idea of stubble. I stuck my tongue in and it tasted like it looked. No wonder the men were happy just to go down on her.



May 14, 1998

Later that night, Jerry's van pulled up in front of the club. His band played, and then he and I went to a hotel room paid for by a Swedish magazine (I'm due to interview Jon Spencer later today). Jerry was reluctant as usual to have sex with me. "I fooled around with two women a few hours ago," I confessed. (The second time this South American lady literally flew across the table at me after Dakota and I finally emerged from the bathroom. She was swearing and wrestling me, forcing her tongue into my mouth and squeezing my boobs. I think maybe she had a crush on Dakota and knew that was impossible, so my body was a sort of Dakota-conduit.)

"I wait for you all the time," I told him, "and then you don't even want me. I got tired of waiting."

"You knew I'd be here in an hour, but you went to the bathroom with her?" he said.

"The last hour is especially painful," I explained.

"Are you going to let yourself be controlled by beauty?" said Jerry, and he put his cigarette out on the hotel wall and then he did it to me in every position all across the single bed and the ripped-rug floor and after that he broke up with me. That's the normal state of our going-out-ness, though — to be broken up.

2001 postscript: Shortly after that experience, I found a black-and-white phone sex ad with a photo of Dakota. I ripped out the ad and put it in a leaping goats picture frame and hung it over my desk for inspiration. This year, Kate told me, Dakota and Dick Rocket got married. Kate said they try to be swingers, but end up staying home instead. If I were them, I'd stay home too — together they possess the most beautiful set of genitals in the state of New York.