The Difference Between Sex and Rough Sex

I once heard a story about a woman named Jodi who worked at a Donut Hole franchise. She'd get to work around five in the morning and stay until noon. The Donut Hole wasn't the kind of place that required a lot of make-up and nice clothes so her husband grew suspicious when she started leaving for work at three or four in the morning, full make-up, hair styled, and dressed in her Sunday best. The husband followed her one day and caught her in his pick-up truck with one of the Donut Hole regulars, an obese man with a propensity for chocolate-iced cruellers. The husband, an attractive man with a steady job, couldn't believe that he'd been cuckolded by someone bearing no resemblance to George Clooney or even one of George's cousins. Jodi ended up marrying Mr. Donut Hole, he died of a heart attack, and she returned to her husband. As St. Ray once observed, "Who knows why we do what we do?"

One of my dearest friends once made the astute observation that having sex by a dumpster (one of the calling cards of any illicit affair -- a dumpster being a good place to park your car and hide from everyone) is God's way of telling you that you are doing something that should end. Once I picked a paint color for a coffee table, Gargoyle's Shadow, for the name of it if not the thing itself. What could be better than something darker than the gargoyle? When I painted the table, I didn't like how it looked. Somehow it had seemed so much better when I bought it. I'd already opened the can, though, and used a lot of it, trying to see if multiple coats would change how I felt. It would be another thing that I couldn't return to the store, a purchase I'd made without thinking about the end result. In other words, sex by a dumpster, complete with the occasional smell of something rotting wafting in and killing whatever mood you'd managed to create in such cramped conditions.


Michelle's Spell of the Day

"Are you a good witch or a bad witch?" Dorothy to Glenda in The Wizard of Oz

My spell for the day is to watch "The Wizard of Oz" with cocktails of your choosing. This brilliant movie is the epitome of everything brilliant -- Judy Garland, Mickey Rooney, a lot of little people, and flying monkeys! And cheers to Robin, my Glenda! And Mr. Anonymous Rants should pay special attention to those scary flying monkeys, the monkeys in their summer suits, all apologies to Irwin Shaw.

Benedictions and Maledictions

First published in Eclipse:

The Difference Between Sex and Rough Sex

Two days before the first, my best friend Andrea wishes
strangers a Happy New Year, toasting every few minutes
to making men miserable while she watches her ex and his new
girlfriend kiss on the other side of the crowded bar. A Texas
swing band plays songs about sin and salvation, about love
and loss, the lead singer adorned with black flames on his jacket,
yelling, love changes every fucking thing. My younger sister
nurses a hot chocolate while Andrea slams shots of vodka laced
with lemon and sugar and complains about her bladder infection.
"I have to go all night," she says. "It's inconvenient."

On the ride home, Andrea sits in the back while my sister drives,
six months with a license and still nervous. Andrea sticks
her head between the seats and says, "I gave that bastard a blow-job
almost every night for four years. That should be worth something."
My sister nods, keeping her eyes on the road. "Every night?" she asks,
her voice filled with disbelief. Andrea nods. "I even had rough
sex with him." My sister wants to know the difference between sex
and rough sex. "Ask your sister," Andrea says. "She knows."

I put my head in my hands, the streetlights becoming a blur. "All
sex,"I say, "is rough." We drive past hotels and restaurants, strip bars
and movie theaters. If you have the time, Frank's Gentlemens Club offers
the place where desire and destiny meet, plus a steak dinner, only $4.99.
It's all for sale, I'm thinking, when Andrea starts to cry. "Rough
sex leaves marks,"she says. Before long, she falls asleep, curled
up in the back with a jacket for a pillow. "Is she all right?" my sister asks.
"For now. She'll feel it in the morning," I say, watching Andrea struggle to get
comfortable, imprints lining her face where she rested on something that didn't give.