And Tracy laughs and says, “I love it when that happens.”
After that, just normal turbulence bounces her hair in my face, her nipples against my mouth. Bounces the pearls around her neck, and the gold chain around my neck. Juggles my dice in their sack, pulled up tight over the empty bowl.
Here and there, you pick up little tips to improve your performance. Those old French Super Caravelles for example, with their triangular windows and real curtains, they have no first-class toilet, only two in the back of tourist so you’d best not try anything fancy. Your basic Indian tantric position works OK. Both of you standing face-to-face, the woman lifts one leg along the side of your thigh. You go at it the same as in the splitting reed or the classic flanquette. Write your own Kama Sutra. Just make stuff up.
Go ahead. You know you want to.
This is assuming the two of you are anywhere close to the same height. Otherwise, I can’t be blamed for what happens.
And don’t expect to get spoon-fed here. I’m assuming some basic knowledge on your part.
Even if you’re stuck on a Boeing 757-200, even in the tiny forward toilet you can still manage a modified Chinese position where you’re sitting on the toilet and the woman settles onto you facing away.
Somewhere north-northeast above Little Rock, “Pompoir,” Tracy tells me, “would make this a snap. It’s when Albanian women just milk you with their constrictor vaginal muscles.”
They jerk you off with just their insides?
Tracy says, “Yeah.”
Albanian women?
“Yeah.”
I say, “Do they have an airline?”
Something else you learn is when a flight attendant comes knocking, you can wrap things up fast with the Florentine method, where the woman grips the man around the base and pulls his skin back, tight, to make it more sensitive. This speeds up the process considerably.
To slow things down, press hard on the underside at the base of the man. Even if this doesn’t stop the event, the whole mess will back up into his bladder and save you both a lot of cleanup. Experts call this saxonus.
The redhead and me, in the big rear bathroom of a McDonnell Douglas DC-10 Series 30CF, she shows me the negresse position where she gets her knees up on either side of the sink and I press my open hands on the back of her pale shoulders.
Her breath fogging the mirror, her face red from being crouched down, Tracy says, “It’s in the Kama Sutra that if the man massages himself with the juice of a pomegranate, pumpkin and cucumber seeds, he’ll swell up and stay huge for six months.”
This advice has a kind of Cinderella deadline to it.
She sees the look on my face in the mirror and says, “Cripes, don’t take everything so personally.”
Somewhere due north above Dallas, I’m trying to work up more spit while she tells me the way to make a woman never leave you is cover her head with nettle thorns and monkey dung.
And I’m, like, no kidding?
And if you bathe your wife in buffalo milk and cow bile, any man who uses her will become impotent.
I say I wouldn’t be surprised.
If a woman soaks a camel bone in marigold juice and puts the liquid on her eyelashes, any man she looks at will become bewitched. In a pinch, you can use peacock, falcon, or vulture bones.
“Look it up,” she says. “It’s all in the big book.”
Somewhere south-southeast above Albuquerque, my face coated thick as with egg white from licking, my cheeks rug-burned from her hair, Tracy says how rams’ testicles boiled in sugared milk will restore your vitality.
Then she says, “I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”
And I thought I was doing pretty good. Considering two double bourbons, and I’ve been on my feet for three hours at this point.
Somewhere south-southwest of Las Vegas, both of us, our tired legs flu-shaky, she shows me what the Kama Sutra calls browsing. Then, sucking the mango. Then, devouring.
Struggling together in our tight little wipe-clean plastic room, suspended in a time and place where anything goes, this isn’t bondage, but it’s close.
Gone are the golden old Lockheed Super Constellations where each port and starboard bathroom was a two-room suite: a dressing room with a separate toilet room behind a door.
The sweat running down the smooth muscles of her. The two of us bucking together, two perfect machines doing a job we’re designed for. Some minutes, we’re touching with just the sliding part of me and the little edges of her getting raw and pulled out, my shoulders leaning back squared against the plastic wall, the rest of me bucking forward from the waist down. From standing there on the floor, Tracy gets one foot up on the ledge of the sink and leans on her raised knee.
It’s easier to see ourselves in the mirror, flat and behind glass, a movie, a download, a magazine picture, somebody else, not us, somebody beautiful without a life or a future outside this moment.
Your best bet on a Boeing 767 is the large center toilet in the rear of the tourist-class cabin. You’re just plumb out of luck on the Concorde, where the toilet compartments are miniscule, but that’s just my opinion. If all’s you’re doing is peeing or doing your contact lenses or toothbrushing, I’m sure they’re roomy enough.
But if you don’t have any ambition to manage what the Kama Sutra calls the crow or cuissade or anything where you’ll need more than two inches of back-and-forth motion, you’d better hope you get a European Airbus 300/310 with its party-size rear tourist-class toilets. For the same kind of countertop space and legroom, you can’t do better than the two rear toilets in a British Aerospace 111 for plush.
Somewhere north-northeast above Los Angeles, I’m getting sore so I ask Tracy to let up.
With a big hank of white spit looped between my knob and her lower lip, her whole face hot and flushed from the choking, Tracy settles back on her heels and says how in the Kama Sutra, it tells you to make your lips really red by wiping them with sweat from the testicles of a white stallion.
And I say, “Why do you do this?”
And she says, “What?”
This.
And Tracy smiles.
The people you meet behind unlocked doors are tired of talking about the weather. These are people tired of safety. These people have remodeled too many houses. These are tanned people who’ve given up smoking and white sugar and salt, fat and beer. They’re people who’ve watched their parents and grandparents study and work for a lifetime only to end up losing it all. Spending everything just to stay alive on a feeding tube. Forgetting even how to chew and swallow.
“My father was a doctor,” Tracy says. “The place where he’s at now, he can’t even remember his own name.”
These men and women sitting behind unlocked doors know a bigger house is not the answer. Neither is a better spouse, more money, tighter skin.
“Anything you can acquire,” she says, “is only another thing you’ll lose.”
The answer is there is no answer.
For real, this is a way heavy moment.
“No,” I say and run a finger between her thighs. “I meant this. Why do you shave your bush?”
“Oh, that,” she says and rolls her eyes, smiling. “It’s so I can wear my G-string panties.”
While I settle on the toilet, Tracy’s examining the mirror, not seeing herself as much as checking what’s left of her makeup, and with one wet finger wipes away the smudged edge of her lipstick. With her fingers, she rubs away the little bite mark around her nipples. What the Kama Sutra would call scattered clouds.
Talking to the mirror, she says, “The reason I do the circuit is because, when you think about it, there’s no good reason to do anything.”
There is no point.
These are people who don’t want an orgasm as much as they want to forget. Everything. For just two minutes, 10 minutes, 20, a half hour.
Or maybe when people are treated like cattle, that’s how they act. Or maybe that’s just an excuse. Maybe they’r
e just bored. It could be that nobody’s made to sit all day in a cramped packing crate full of other people without moving a muscle.
“We’re healthy, young, awake and alive people,” Tracy says. “When you look at it, which act is more unnatural?”
She’s putting back on her blouse, rolling her pantyhose back up.
“Why do I do anything?” she says. “I’m educated enough to talk myself out of any plan. To deconstruct any fantasy. Explain away any goal. I’m so smart I can negate any dream.”
Me still sitting here naked and tired, the flight crew announces our descent, our approach into the greater Los Angeles area, then the current time and temperature, then information about connecting flights.
And for a moment, this woman and I just stand and listen, looking up at nothing.
“I do this, this because it feels good,” she says and buttons her blouse. “Maybe I don’t really know why I do it. In a way, this is why they execute killers. Because once you’ve crossed some lines, you just keep crossing them.”
Both hands behind her back, zipping up her skirt, she says, “The truth is, I don’t want to know why I do the circuit. I just keep doing it,” she says, “because the minute you give yourself a good reason, you’ll start chipping away at it.”
She steps back into her shoes and pats her hair on the sides and says, “Please don’t think this was anything special.”
Unlocking the door, she says, “Relax.” She says, “Some day, everything we just did will look like small potatoes to you.”
Edging out into the passenger cabin, she says, “Today is just the first time you’ve crossed this particular line.” Leaving me naked and alone, she says, “Don’t forget to lock the door behind me.” Then she laughs and says, “That’s if you want it locked, anymore.”
E-mail to the Official Site, September 1999
Good Morning Dennis and Amy,
This is just a quick note to tell you I am no longer a writer. These days, I’m just a small toy that publicists push around all day. With luck, I can ditch my toy status and go back to work soon.
This morning, we’re all waiting for the last weekend’s ‘numbers’ on the Fight Club movie. Rumored fight clubs seem to be starting around the country. Susan Faludi (author of Backlash and Stiffed) is a fan, telling her audiences, “It was like reading my own book [Stiffed] on speed.” Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails) is a fan, no surprise since I wrote most of it with The Downward Spiral blaring in my Walkman.
All this is happening, and now here’s your amazing site. Thank you. Swamped as I am, this is a much-appreciated personal connection with someone real—the opposite of those bah-zillion flip-glib 3-minute radio ‘interviews’ or the 20-second sound-bites on CNN. Even if we’re just keyboarding back and forth, this lets me feel like a person dealing with a person. I appreciate that more than I can describe.
The night the movie opened here in Portland, I took 50 friends and they sat, keeping track of all the lines in the movie that each of them had said themselves in real life. Almost all of the book was collected from my peers, and the day I get stuck on a pedestal, disconnected from my friends, is the day I run out of ideas.
So, blah, blah, blah, send your questions. If you need proof that I’m the real Chuck Palahniuk, I can explain the ending to Survivor (how he does not die).
All My Best,
Chuck
E-mail to the Official Site, March 2000
Here’s just a quick letter back to explain why I’m so slow.
First, I’m stoopid. Second, I’m finishing the first draft of Choke. It goes to New York, today.
I can’t say too much about the people involved in Survivor. It seems like I’ve said too much as it is, and I don’t want to jinx things. Probably not Boyle or Mendes. About David’s next project, I don’t know... He’s talked about doing a black-and-white period movie about the man who co-wrote Citizen Kane, but I guess it’s harder to get funding for a black-and-white movie. I’ve heard a lot about The Sky is Falling, also.
More stuff I wrote: there was a back page piece in Bikini Review last summer. And a chapter of Choke comes out in the June Playboy. Also, I’ve had several stories in the now-defunct Story magazine. I will miss that magazine. Oh, and there was a puffy piece I did for US magazine last August.
One very sad piece of news, I got called by somebody representing Trent Reznor and asking if I’d help do the program for the upcoming Nine Inch Nails tour. What’s miserable is I had to say no. Too busy and too close to done. It would be like trying to stop pissing/pooping/cumming mid-process. Not that Choke is excrement... See what I mean about saying too much.
Actually, Choke’s the best frigging thing I’ve ever done. Gotta go.
Chuck
E-mail to the Official Site, July 2000
Damn.
Dennis and Amy, I am such a totally stupid fuck. The dot-net thing is typical of my life right now. Another typical thing is letting my emails pile up for six weeks while I re-write Choke and do a bunch of magazine articles.
This is the down-side to doing a new book. You lose all your friends because you don’t have time for them. I’m out of touch with the people at Fox. I have no clean underwear. Still, Choke’s off in New York, and if my editor okays it, then I’ll be very happy.
Other stuff is, I did a couple articles for Gear magazine (Olympic wrestling/steroids) and an article on living aboard a nuclear sub for Nest. Black Book magazine says they’ll ship me to LA this week to interview Juliette Lewis. The rest of the summer, I plan to travel and write for other magazines.
(Here’s a hastily written aside: in my article for Nest, the US Navy wanted to ‘fact check’ it for technical details... they ended up removing only two things, the slang terms that sailors use for corned beef and sauerbraten: “baboon ass and donkey dick”... of course, these were the two funniest bits in the article, but we’re talking about national security here... now about the launch codes I found...)
About Trent Reznor, it was a shock. Neither of us walked a step from the spot where we first shook hands. We just talked and talked. My friends were a little shocked by how personal we got about ourselves, but it was like meeting a brother my parents never told me I had. He’s in Europe, touring in the festivals, but we’ve made plans to get together later and talk about some ideas.
My only concern is the news about Bill Mechanic, the head of Fox, resigning. I hope that Fight Club wasn’t a coffin nail. News is Murdoch hated the controversy, but his daughter loved the movie. Bill seems like a cool guy, and his wife Carol had me laughing like a crazy person. Maybe this will put a big development cloud over Survivor, maybe not. They did seem pretty excited about Trent doing the scoring. This week, I should hear more.
The newest news on Survivor is that Jake Paltrow’s pitch was dead-on, and the studio has given him until this fall to write a first draft. As an aside, Rupert Murdoch’s son was overheard at a party recently, telling a Fox executive that he loved Fight Club, within earshot of his father (who reportedly was not thrilled with the movie, although one insider told me that Murdoch screened it, laughed and said, “Make it darker!”).
As for cast and crew, people at Fox say it’s just too early to name names.
Choke is 281 pages in manuscript, and the protagonist’s name is Victor Kleine (angry, failed med student, sex addict full of self-loathing), best friend’s name is Denny (self-defeating, masochistic masturbation addict—the anti-Tyler), love interest is named Paige Marshall (altruistic, idealistic doctor). There are several very inflammatory catch-phrases, but I’ll let you see for yourself.
(Flash: even while I’m writing this my agent just called to say Doubleday’s accepted the re-write, and loved it.)
As an aside, I’m looking at buying a strange isolated castle in a dark canyon, looming over a rushing river. It’s the lifetime project of a Scotsman, built an hour outside Portland, Oregon, and would make a great writer’s colony. Towers. Balconies. Dungeon. It has a lot of erotic art on the w
alls and shag rugs and feels a little like the Playboy Mansion Northwest. Some friends and I saw it this last weekend, and who knows... It also feels like the first third of Shirley Jackson’s The Haunting of Hill House.
How’s your screen work going?? Teach me the secret to writing screenplays!
Again, I’m sorry about the dot-net gaff. I remain, the stupid, stupidest:
Chuck
E-mail to the Official Site, December 2000
Two days before Christmas, the jury in Moscow, Idaho voted the man accused of killing my Dad guilty on all counts. The second defendant has pleaded guilty, and the third will go to trial in Wallace, Idaho. The sentencing will be in May, after I get a chance to talk to the judge. I’ve always been in favor of the death penalty, but now I don’t know. This new book, Lullaby, is me metaphorically hashing through the moral issue of killing anyone. Maybe that’s why it’s so driven.
I’m 1/3 done with the first draft for a horror novel, and I can’t remember to wipe my ass. It’s called Lullaby, and it doesn’t leave me time to eat or sleep.
Plus an outfit called Fire-Proof Films in the UK wants to make Invisible Monsters into a movie. Their demo tape looks great, full of very slick commercials/fashion and surreal high-tech music videos.
Want some good news? I hung out backstage with Marilyn Manson January 5, here in Portland. It was his birthday, and we sat around his dressing room. He travels with a Fight Club poster that he hangs in each town. And he wants to read the audio book for Survivor. With his deep-deep voice, it would be excellent.
Oh, and Santa brought me an 8-week-old Boston terrier that’s eaten all the skin off my hands.
Next week, I’m supposed to be a fake “blind” person during a fake “gallery walking tour for the blind” that’s planned to disrupt the monthly First Thursday gallery party. It’s in such poor taste, how could I say ‘no.’
Essays, Emails ... Page 11
