Full Frontal Fiction

by Jack Murnighan

  While some perverts prefer other people’s fantasies, an alternative group (among whom I number myself ) enjoys inventing their own. For us, there are such sites as newbiepornsters.com, for beginners, mentalspycams.com, for erotica themed around surveillance and paranoia, and poetsandfilth.com, about which I can speak from personal experience. We assemble in chat rooms and arouse each other either during real-time conversations, on which others may eavesdrop, or in emails sent to individuals or posted to the group. The rooms tend to be genre specific. The members of “Futuristic Switch Hitters” write about people who have multiple sets of genitalia and are therefore not, strictly speaking, either male or female, though butch and femme role-playing is still big in this world. “Fabio’s Secret” hosts bodice-ripping pornographers. “Prufrock Sent Me” attracts mongers of sleaze with a bent toward pantoons and villanelles. I gravitate toward “Fetishes R Us.”

  In general, we are a permissive community, and my chat room of choice is open to fetishists of all stripes. Recently, two newcomers entered with the screen names: scratchandsniff and everydayfiend. They arrived at nearly the same time, though I don’t know if they had prior knowledge of each other, and I don’t know either’s sex. People can declare whatever they like, or refrain from declarations, without fear of detection. Sometimes, members of our group collaborate on a chain story, leaving off at a cliffhanger and passing it to the next writer. Some of the tales are more comical than lubricious, though they can be both. A chubby chaser might begin about removing the underpants of a 400-pound virgin—“They flapped like the sail of my childhood Sunfish.” A voyeur might shift the point of view to a neighbor with a peephole. And next might come an installment about wet suits, or one about toe sucking.

  Scratchandsniff and everydayfiend didn’t collaborate. Rather, each presented installments of two separate erotic diaries. Scratchandsniff wrote as Peg, everydayfiend as Alex. Peg was a nineteen-year-old ex– street punk, who was bartending at a club on Avenue B and writing poetry and music reviews for the online zine Bristle. Alex, a former heroin addict in his mid-thirties, lived in Tribeca and composed electronic music. I became captivated by these characters and felt irritable if, for some reason, their authors failed to post an update.

  In her first entry, Peg wrote:

  Dear Cyberpals,

  Rolled out of bed around eleven. The sun was like a disgusting eyeball. Everything hurt. I stumbled into the bathroom and checked myself for damage. Face okay. There was a man-in-the-moon-shaped bruise on the top of my left thigh. Have no idea how it got there. I didn’t do any shit last night, though one of the regulars was handing out Ecstasy as if he’d sold all his shares of AOL. I wasn’t going to go home with anyone, because I wanted to kick living like a vampire, but around three, Goldie comes in looking hot. She’s got this blond pageboy wig on. She looks fucking like she could eat the world and suck on the pit. She knows I like a little pain but not in public. I really want to go home so I can write the next day. That review of the Pu f Adder concert is due. But she says, “Come in the bathroom. I wanna show you something.” I wipe my hands on a towel and follow her like a dog. Tra fic at the bar is thinning. It’s almost time to close. We’re in the dark hallway near the phone. It stinks from cigarettes and spilled beer, and I get a whi f of piss that’s overshot the toilet. What she has to show me is a pair of lace undies she is going to give me after she takes her knife and slices off the ones I’m wearing.

  She pushes open the bathroom door. She tells me to bend over, with my hands on the sink, and put my ass in the air. Real romantic. I hear her flip open her switchblade, and now I wish we weren’t in a toilet and having to be quick but were back at my place, sipping beer and talking about what we were gonna do before we did it.

  Gotta split.

  Love,

  Peg

  Alex wrote,

  Dear Friends,

  Lila and I are in the kitchen when I ask what I could do that would scare her. There is no irony in my voice. I can’t maintain a sense of the absurd and an erection at the same time. She’s leaning against the fridge. There’s a shopping list attached to it with a magnet. “Semolina bread with raisins and fennel.” Lila likes it. I forgot to shop. She doesn’t laugh, doesn’t even crack a smile. She’s wearing the bustier with the laces in the back, the nice fetishy thing she bought for two hundred and fifty dollars earned by proofreading legal briefs, so I would get a woody when I saw her.

  Lila has on a trancy look. Her eyes are at half-mast, and she licks her bottom lip. A part of me wishes that, in bed, she would reach underneath it and retrieve not the riding crop I keep there but a seltzer bottle. If she did, I would probably look for another girlfriend. She says, “Tying me up and leaving the apartment.” It sounds like she’s saying, “Sweetie, I made that chocolate mousse you like,” or “You’ll win a Guggenheim with that piece you just finished.” She asks what would scare me to do, and I think: Nothing. Do I have limits? Well, yes, eating dead people. Not that I wouldn’t if I were in the Andes and my plane crashed...

  I make up something I would actually do, so we can look forward to someday doing it. “Piercing your navel.” I don’t want to do this now, even though I still have a sweet spot in my heart for needles. I want to spank her a little and watch her squirm. I want to put my hand inside her while I give her whacks, spacing them out, making her wait for me to give her more. Tonight, we don’t do anything for a while, except kiss. Lila knows how to swirl her tongue. She’s taking acting classes. When you role-play with an actress, it makes you wonder whether she’s acting the role-playing or really into it. If I think about this too much, I can get that “do not resuscitate” look on my face, but Lila knows how to lure me back. She doesn’t attract me apart from sex, which is a relief, because that way I’m not liable to fall in love and make the usual mess of things that causes women to hate me.

  Over and out,

  Alex

  These letters were different from the postings I was used to finding in my mailbox. In the mornings, after preparing a double espresso and playing with my cat, I check my email. Typically the porn goes like this: “Late last night, thinking of you, I made myself come. I came hard. Hit my face. I imagined you tied, very tightly, so you could scarcely move. My come was on your nipples. You looked up at me as I rubbed and pinched my come into your nipples until it was gone. I studied your eyes, your sounds, your odors, and your wetness. I used my fingers, hands, teeth, lips, tongue, nipples, hair, cock, and toys on you. I played with your anticipation. After prolonged teasing, my fingers pushed deeply into you, and my tongue made you come—long and hard. I like to orchestrate and control my lover’s arousal. I’d like to fuck and dom you. What are your thoughts on this? I think of you as attractive. You need to know my looks, and perhaps you will. You will be pleased.”

  Variant letters propose that I do the “orchestrating” and use my body and toys for stimulation. Given my screen handle, “privateparts,” my correspondents can’t be sure of my sex or erotic preferences, though most assume they are writing to someone who has them. One writer addressed me as “mischiefdujour.” Sometimes the scenarios I receive are long and detailed, with several sessions of sex, the inclusion of voyeurs, and the possibility of being discovered. Women write, men write—at least people identifying themselves as men and women. I hear from tops, bottoms, leather freaks, rubber devotees, whip masters, etc. The letters are intended as lines to inhale or substances to roll up and smoke. Throwaway intoxicants. Something to make me come or to make the writer come. New ones arrive as regularly as pigeons on the sill and The New York Times at the door.

  The letters from Peg and Alex hardly ever culminated in coming, didn’t even get that far into sex.

  “Dear Cyberfreaks,” Peg signed on again,

  I was nursing a bagel at Limbo and feeling majorly pleased with myself for not being hungover. Like my mind could see all the way across the Hudson to New Jersey, to the fucking Palisades Parkway, where I think there are picnic tables my
dad once pulled over to. I picked up a copy of NY Press and saw an ad for a writer’s workshop. I don’t have the bucks, but it got me thinking I should try and save. I’ve never been able to do that without tricking, and I can’t look at another dick and pretend to be happy to see it. Then I think: Why the hell not? A lot of stu f people have to do is gross. Like cleaning bedpans.

  I’m wondering why I am making a case for myself as a hooker or as someone who cleans up other people’s shit, when Goldie comes in. She seems surprised to see me and goes to the bar to get a co fee, giving me a little wave. She takes forever adding milk and sugar, then decides she wants a scone and waits at the bar again. I’m thinking of leaving, so I don’t have to see her deciding whether or not to sit with me, but I don’t want to go. I want to think about the rest of my life. Goldie places a packet of jam next to the scone. Her co fee is in an aquamarine cup. The saucer is salmon, and the plate with the scone is lilac. Festive. She turns and walks in my direction, still not making eye contact. I look at my bagel. It’s cold and hard. After what seems forever, Goldie stands in front of me, places her co fee on the Formica table, and pulls out a chair with her free hand.

  “Hi,” she says, with a lopsided grin that works on me like a hot knife in butter. She’s not even pretty when you look closely. There are little lines around her eyes that are way premature. Maybe from the sawdust she kicks up building people’s lofts. She asks what I’ve been up to. I want to tell her about my writing, but when I do she looks like she’d rather be waiting at the dentist’s. She likes to hear about my turning tricks. She likes to imagine me working over guys, having the upper hand, which I never have.

  She tells me she is building a set at a theater on Franklin Street. It’s a challenge, because the stage slopes down toward the audience and, because the play is about a dream, the walls have weird angles, too. I ask if she’s read it. She says no, then breaks off apiece of her scone, puts jam on it, and o fers it to me without saying anything, expecting me to tilt back my chin and open my mouth. I do. She places the morsel on my tongue like a communion wafer. I lick the tips of her fingers, which taste salty and sweet, and now I don’t care about saving money or the writing workshop. I can’t see to New Jersey, can’t see to the next block. I want Goldie to invite me back to her place. If she does, I will go knowing that, when I leave, she won’t say when we will meet again. I will tell myself it doesn’t matter, even though it does.

  Later,

  Peg

  The same day Alex wrote:

  Dear Fellow Pervs,

  It warms me knowing you are out there. Otherwise, my heart is cold, and this sometimes worries me, but not today. Today I feel hopeful, though everything that sucked yesterday is the same today. The leaves of the maple tree outside my window are glossy and rustling in a whipping breeze. I haven’t seen Lila in a few days, and maybe this explains my optimism. It has become di ficult even fucking her. I never thought I would say this, but I’m bored with sex. No matter what we do. No matter that these things if I just fantasized them with an unknown partner I would come in two minutes. She is rehearsing a play. I feel guilty not calling. I repainted my bathroom, which had been looking like a bog since the pipe busted. Every time I feel like jacking o f, I sit down at my keyboard.

  Fancy that,

  Alex

  Some members grumbled about Alex’s defection from our focus. If anything could be said to be taboo, it was admitting you were bored with sex. I was not among the naysayers. I liked Peg and Alex, not merely as sources for titillation. I still read the other letters, feeling a jump in my groin or a flutter in my chest if an image or fantasy hit the right receptor button, but I did not look forward to these postings as much as to those of Peg and Alex. I felt a bit off my feed about the chat room, too, in the same way that Alex had gone off Lila.

  In his next posting, Alex wrote:

  Dear Pervs,

  I was pacing the streets last night. The air caressed my skin, and I started imagining a woman on her stomach, stretched out on a beach towel, her muscled legs extending from a well-toned butt. I begin to rub lotion on those legs, very slowly, inching toward her thighs, as if a massage was what she needed and had been waiting for, though she didn’t know me before I touched her. She feels the pressure of my hands, the warmth and firmness of my palms. I smell coconut oil, and it reminds me of summers as a kid, when my mother would rub suntan lotion on my freckled shoulders.

  I cannot see the woman’s face, but I can tell from her skin that she’s young, barely past girlhood, though there is something knowing in her flesh, the way it receives my pressure. I see the back of her neck, exposed under her short, boyish bob. Little ridges stick out in her backbone. She is naked, and there is no one else around. The sun is going down, and the sky is ribboned with orange and peach. Gulls circle and swoop. I hear the waves breaking, but the sea, for the moment, is glassy. Still, she doesn’t turn to see who I am. I begin to tease her, allowing my hands to slip between her thighs and lightly flicker over her silky hairs. My hands take possession of her ass, massaging the cheeks, giving her more pressure, which she takes. Little moans escape her. Her skin is reddish brown. She could be Middle Eastern or from North Africa.

  I press my hand into the small of her back, where, just below, two dimples etch the cheeks of her ass. I work my way up her back to her shoulders, making her wait for me to return to her ass, which she lifts slightly in anticipation. When she is relaxed and soft to my touch, I open her legs wider, so I can explore her with my eyes and fingers. She lets out a little gasp and closes her legs. I push them apart a little roughly, and she doesn’t resist, rather waits for what I will do next.

  By this time, I had arrived at Avenue B and 6th Street. I noticed a club where people were crushed against the bar and hanging around outside. It was late, but the energy was up. The jukebox was blasting “Start Me Up,” and it seemed that Mick was telling me I needed a new train. I was thirsty and lonely. Not for anyone in particular. I worked my way to the bar, and the girl serving drinks looked exactly like the one on the beach. Her small face was oval, with wisps of short dark hair feathering her forehead and cheeks. Her nose was narrow but long and swerved slightly to the left, giving her a peculiar authority. Pure symmetry would have made her just another pretty chick. Her dark eyes met mine when I ordered a Coke. “Designated driver?” she asked, dryly. I said, “Yeah, but no passengers.”

  Later,

  Alex

  The letter drew me further into Alex’s life. I didn’t know what he looked like, but I imagined him rangy, about six feet tall and slim, with a shag of light-brown hair over a wide brow. I saw him with long fingers that could play the scales of a keyboard and the corridors of a body with equal dexterity. I could imagine him floating through the city, at once guide and ghost. His beach was real, and I could see from his perspective as well as the girl’s. When I went out for walks, I found myself looking for him, as well as for Peg.

  Somehow, I was sure it was Peg he had met at the bar, sure he would have more to say about her and that she would comment on him, and I speculated now that the creators of Peg and Alex had meant to bring them together all along. Or maybe not. Perhaps the game was unspooling as they read each other online, unfolding in cyberspace the way romance does in life—a gradual peeling back of layers.

  The next day, Peg reported in.

  Dear Readers,

  What attracts me to Goldie is that she doesn’t care if she never sees me again. There is freedom in this for me. I just can’t enjoy it. I’m not sure if I should work on appreciating it or get rid of Goldie. The next time she shows up, I will leave the room. She has nothing to talk about except sex. She’s leather. She doesn’t whisper, “baby,” or “honey” when we fuck. I’m supposed to ease into the absence. I’m supposed to hold my breath the longest.

  This guy came into the bar last night. He had a sad look on his face, even when he smiled. Made me wonder whether I look that way when I’m not falling on the floor laughing. Maybe
I’m a gloom magnet. Turned out he was feeling good, just has a kisser that doesn’t show it. He smelled like a bakery. It’s weird me liking a guy’s smell. Most of them remind me of rusting iron or balloons. Turns out he was carrying bread. He’s got these deep-set eyes that look like they’re strip-searching you—something between a narc and a pimp. He orders a Coke. I think, good, he’s not going to get weird on me.

  The whole time he’s there I don’t think about Goldie, except to realize she’s not in my head for five minutes. The guy asks what I do. He doesn’t mean will I blow him. I lean over so my nose is five inches from his and then straighten up, because I don’t want to come on to him. My body just does that automatically. The bar is zinc, and I can see my reflection, wavy, like in water. My eyes have dark circles under them, and I look like roadkill. I say I write for Bristle, as if anyone’s heard of it. I don’t know why, but I say, “I scare myself.” He laughs. “Yeah, well, it’s either that or heroin.”

  Gotta sleep,

  Peg

  Our bulletin board jumped with the kind of debate you see on subway walls and public toilets.

  Chickenfingers: “Alex, fuck someone, anyone, just do it. Then you can write about it.”

  Headgirl: “The guy can have something on his mind besides sex.”

  Sizematters: “Hey, this here’s a porno site. Haven’t you noticed?”

  Holehearted: “Don’t define sex so narrowly.”

  Ninewide: “Are you getting hot from this stuff?”

  Holehearted: “I can’t say I get off, no.”

  Chickenfingers: “I wanna see him spread-eagle her, backside up, and drill her in every hole till everyone’s happy.”

  Holehearted: “I didn’t know happiness was our goal.”

  Headgirl: “I think they’re sexy.”

  Chickenfingers: “Maybe she won’t do it with him.”