For a long time, I have dreamed about being in New Orleans on my birthday.
Even before I had ever been, it was one of my favorite cities. I love the music, culture, mysticism, history and the way they all blend together. Most people here would make a gumbo reference. I don't now only so that I could draw attention to the fact that I am not.
But let me be an honest real American boy here, none of that is why I had fantasies of being in New Orleans.
Indeed, ever since those late night infomercials for Girls Gone Wild, I have often wondered what it would be like to be there. At first, just the idea of seeing boobs in real life was enough to elicit some forbidden pleasure. But even as I got older, the fantasy evolved with my aging sexuality. Even after I started seeing the beads and drunk frat boys as gross, I still liked the thought of meeting and seducing a stranger with the loud noise of reverie in an ancient holy city as backdrop.
My first experience with city nightlife came through my role as a street preacher and inner-city missionary. As I stood outside bars and nightclubs every weekend night, passing out tracts and warning of Hell fire, I confess I was curious. I wanted a taste of that forbidden world. I did sneak in a time or two and was overwhelmed seeing for the first time in person, sweating, gyrating, exposed flesh. The dancing, the lights, the music, it was all more than I had ever experienced before.
I didn't participate though. I didn't really even know how to.
I left the church at 23 and by then the friends I had were very over the club scene. I went a time or two by myself, but felt awkward and shy and out of place.
But I wanted to go wild though. I wanted to explore casual sex. I wanted to sweat, to gyrate, to touch exposed flesh.
But I still didn't really know how.
Not to say I didn't have some wild times. But my wild times have always been quiet and kind of intellectual. My times at parties usually hampered by my desire to watch and observe and analyze as well as my shy, stuttering awkwardness; the fact that I still picture myself as the too skinny kid with a bad haircut and no style. The kid that the popular girls would pretend to like so that the popular boys could have a good laugh.
But I dreamed of New Orleans.
I dreamed the magic and atmosphere and general vibe of the Big Easy would make easy what has as always been a struggle.
That somehow I wouldn't be myself there.
I spent a night in the city, a hot September one, while on tour with some writers in 2018. I did not get much chance to explore, but felt it. Felt the energy of the place. Could not wait to come back by myself.
And I liked the idea of going on my birthday because Mardi Gras seems like too much. Too many people triggers my agoraphobia. But I was born just a week or two before Fat Tuesday, and I know that the party and energy ramps up for weeks before the parades start. It always seemed like the perfect time to go.
What luck that my first chance for a birthday trip there was during a pandemic.
I walked through the French Quarter the first night I was there and was both relieved and sad to see hardly anyone there.
Bourbon street had bars open and a few street musicians, but the rest of the Quarter was dark.
I don't know what I expected. What I allowed myself to expect. I couldn't help but feel a little let down.
And not just because of sex. Though (and I am sure you are all tired of me reiterating this all the time) it's been since the autumn of 2019 since I have even been touched in an affectionate way. And that does take a toll on a body. And on the ego. And the soul.
But I wanted to feel sexy.
I am one of those half-lucky dudes that looks better as he ages. I am now at my handsomest, I think. And here I was traveling the country by myself, funded by artwork I made and sold.
I don't know, man. That's hot, right?
Definitely better than what I usually think of myself.
But God, to actually have that validated. Holy shit.
I talk myself up, or have been lately, to try to improve my confidence and decrease my anxiety enough that I am again able to enter the world and again have friendships and lovers and conversations.
But that's it. It's mostly just me saying it. It would be nice to hear it from someone else.
But alas.
I got myself some food from a street vendor and ate it at the river before walking back to my hotel alone.
By the next morning, I had forgotten that brief pain and loneliness and soon lost myself driving through swamps and bayous and walking through cemeteries and parks and universities.
I spent the whole day just walking alone and taking pictures. And I felt good and relaxed. There is nothing like being alone in a strange city. It is the most intoxicating thing I have ever experienced.
I had no expectations for that night. I walked through the French Quarter again because my hotel was near there and that's where the food was. It was more quiet than the night before.
I had started the walk back to my hotel,
But then.
But Suddenly.
She was tall. As tall as me with the heels she was wearing. half-black, long hair, tight white bodysuit with exposed midriff and shoulder. Tattoo at the base of the neck that appeared to go down the length of her spine.
We made eye contact. She stopped. She doubled back.
We exchanged names, but I think we both forgot them instantly.
She called me sweetie than baby than daddy.
I didn't say much at all.
In New Orleans you can have open containers of alcohol in public, so bars have windows where you can walk up, grab a drink and keep walking. So we did. We did a lot. I don't drink often. And haven't had a drink in months. We had 3 shots, and two cocktails. Plus tequila at the hotel.
Which is to say what follows next is a blur.
But I remember she was from Sacramento. Was in town on business. It was her first weekend away from her daughter since the pandemic started and she was looking to enjoy herself.
I remember taking her off Bourbon street to the big cathedral in Jackson Square. She had never seen it and it glows at night. She took off her shoes. I massaged her feet. We talked about God and the meaning of life. She talked mostly. I like hearing stories.
I leaned into kiss her and she stopped me.
She said I can't kiss you. We just met.
And instead we just silently looked each other in the eyes for a long time. She caressed my hand.
Back to Bourbon street and the music and small crowd
We watched some street musicians. She pressed herself against me.
We danced in the street outside of a club. I pressed myself against her.
I remembered, as I sometimes do, that I am a writer and so started saying clever things.
Spicy innuendo.
Reasonably decent jokes.
She put my arms around her and put her back to me. I nibbled softly on her ears and neck.
"you won the prize," she said.
What's the prize?
"I'm the prize. Where's your hotel?"
The Uber was an eternity of a wait.
Three minutes or so actually, but I was in a hurry.
I leaned in for a kiss while we waited.
She stopped me.
"Coronavirus is real", she said.
I was confused given how we had been rubbing all over each other for the last two blocks, but complied.
She leaned in though and put her hand on my face.
"You're so handsome. You are such an attractive man."
I was surprised you'd even look at me, I said, taken aback.
I thought then of how people were staring at us as we walked down the street. I noticed women looking at her and then noticing me as if I had never existed before.
Which reminded me of how often I am invisible. Or feel that way at any rate.
She studied my face.
She called me sexy. She said I walked like I was sure of myself and was polite and seemed kind.
"That's why I am so wet right now," she whispered in my ear in the back of the car.
She licked my ear. "I want you, daddy." Said with that whispered moaning ache.
In my hotel she put on great music and began to dance
I was drunk and giddy and just watched in a daze
I can fully understand why King Herod in the Bible would tell Salome that he'd giver her "up to half my kingdom" if she'd keep dancing.
She told me to take off my clothes. That she wanted to give me a massage.
I complied.
At one point during the massage, I thought I heard the clank of my belt buckle against the tile floor. Like my pants were being moved, but thought little of it.
I may have fallen asleep for a second.
No wait, that's not the word.
Blacked out.
That's the word.
"Hey, daddy...if you want this party to continue you are going to have to pay me."
What? Wait...what?
In a slightly more professional voice:
"If you want things to get sexual, you need to pay me."
How much?
"500 dollars."
I don't have 500 dollars.
"We can go to the ATM."
But I don't have 500 dollars in the bank, I said.
Which was true in the sense that I still had four days left of driving and hotels and emergencies. If I paid her, which I very much considered doing, I would have just enough money for gas home.
It was more than half my kingdom. I couldn't do it.
She asked a couple more times.
I assured her that despite the fucking great hotel room (which I got a fucking great deal on) that I was actually a penniless poet pretending to be a person for his birthday.
So the lights and her clothes came back on and she quite abruptly left.
As I was walking her out, I noticed a lot of the business cards from my wallet had fallen out.
When did my wallet get opened? I asked myself out loud. Drunk and confused.
"Are you accusing me of something, baby?"
What, no. I just...the cards are on the floor.
She turned to walk out and I quickly checked my wallet.
My cash and credit cards were still there.
I walked her to the lobby and she gave me a big hug and kissed my cheek.
I was reeling from the booze and still unsure of what was even happening.
I went back to my room and threw up a lot, letting the room spin while I slept on the cold bathroom tile.
Awake and sober enough a few hours later, the second gray and rainy day in a row, I checked my wallet again. Cash there. Credit cards there. ID not there. Also missing: two prepaid Visa gift cards totaling $300 (which I received for changing my internet provider and for doing a survey) that I was using to pay for my gas.
Did she steal those things? Why My ID? Why not the cash?
I had fuzzy recollections of me keeping my ID in my front pocket though because we were walking from bar to bar. And I recall also using my gift cards to pay for the drinks (because I paid for all the drinks). And I can testify that the pants I was wearing had shallow pockets and I had already noticed my ID creeping up in danger of falling out at least once the night before.
So very much could have left one or all of those things at a bar. No way of remembering which one. Could have all just fallen out of my pocket.
But even if she did take those things (which seems less likely now that I am sober but made me really sad when drunk), I'm not mad about it.
In fact, if she didn't, I feel bad for wasting her working time.
I had no idea she was a sex worker.
Though I suppose there were some red flags.
She told me she owned her own business as a masseuse and that she used to be a dancer.
And she never did let me kiss her.
But both of those careers have sexual and non-sexual avenues.
And she told me she was Baptist and went to church every Sunday.
And Coronavirus IS real.
And is the no-kissing thing even a real sex work thing or is that just from Pretty Woman? I am not the one to know.
And then,
But wait
Was it all a lie then? The flirting, the laughing, her calling me handsome and sexy and attractive? Was I being charming?
Or am I just a goddamned idiot?
What's the word they use these days? A simp?
I tossed and turned with it that day as I traced the coast from New Orleans to Biloxi to Mobile to Pensacola.
I loved the experience. I loved the feeling of everything from that night up until she asked for the money and I passed out under the sink.
I felt so attractive. So wanted. So smooth.
I liked when she told me that I was handsome. When she touched my face. I liked the feeling of her body against mine.
I am so close to believing it was all real and authentic.
Which I suppose does make me a simp.
It makes me a 40 year old who hasn't had a relationship in 7 years. Who has never had one last for more than a year.
Someone who had his first kiss when he was 23.
Who is usually drowning under so much shame and social anxiety that he rarely leaves his room, let alone his house.
Who pretty girls would pretend to flirt with so the popular kids could laugh.
Who maybe is a lot lonelier than he allows himself to think.
Someone who has learned to be alone because he is too sensitive to handle the world and is too trusting and desperate and far too easily used and manipulated.
Who wants love and intimacy and vulnerability but can't trust that he is worthy or that the intentions of others are sincere.
Unlucky in love, unlucky in life
But maybe
But also
Perhaps I am handsome and talented and kind and curious. Perhaps I am an attentive lover. Perhaps I have a touch of charm.
Perhaps it is not so outlandish to consider being grabbed by the hand by an attractive someone.
To catch and hold their eye.
To watch them scoot closer.
I don't know.
The rest of my trip I talked to no one. And was happy for it.
Alone on beaches, in forests, walking through different city streets.
I downloaded Tinder at the beginning of the trip. Deleted it after New Orleans.
I don't think I wanted external validation anymore. Or maybe I didn't want to risk further rejection.
Either way, I pretended I was fine. And so I was. And then I actually was.
The road cures all wounds as long as you keep moving. As long as the past doesn't catch up.
And mostly I am still fine. Here now alone. Back in my darkened room.
10:52 a.m. - 2021-02-17
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