Turds in the Punch Bowl (A Story of No Ordinary Friendship)

by Jen Ashton

  Suddenly, one of the fatties rose from the caldron and flashed his tiny testicles and miniature Vienna to all of us. I wasn’t sure if they were actually small, or just looked small on his extremely large body. I have never been very good at ratios. Nevertheless, that was the first unsettling image burned into my retina that evening, but it surely wouldn’t be the last. We were off to the couple’s cove next.

  Upon entry, we were told that Michele would have to stay back. Her green bracelet restricted her from the couple’s area. She took it like a trooper and opted to mingle in the main room while we explored the cove. I might have worried about her had she not walked away with a shit-eating grin. It was obvious she was on the prowl. I feared what we might return to if gone too long, so I mentioned to Joe that we should take a peek inside and be quick about it. He agreed, took my hand in his and we disappeared into the dark.

  Aside from a few cubbies with curtains shrouding our view of the deeds going on behind them, we didn’t find much. There were a lot of other couples walking around looking for the same excitement we were. I was at a swinger’s club. I wanted to see people swinging. I wasn’t sure if that meant actual swinging, as in from the rafters, or if I truly wanted to see a couple sharing another human being like two cannibals hovering over a piece of steak, but there was definitely none of either going on. I was just about to say the place was lame when an older man and his hot, young wife passed by us, dragging a super hunk behind them. What was this about?

  The couple was the equivalent of Casey Kasem and Pamela Anderson, only Vegas style. He looked more like a mob boss and she was wearing some plastic/pleather get-up with her tits hoisted up to her chin. The handsome tiger in tow was tall, dark and ripped. They must’ve been in such a hurry to steal him from the male review he danced in, that he forgot his shirt. That or he is required by law to walk around like that. I would support that proposition. He had my vote.

  Joe and I followed quickly. I wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to get a front row seat to this show. They hurried into a two-way mirror room and locked the door. We didn’t get there in time to have our faces pressed up against the window, and instead had to settle for bobbing up and down in the back row, peering over heads and trying to squeeze between people for even a bad view. I was pissed. I wanted to see some action. Turned out the husband only wanted to watch as his wife screwed the hunk. He must have been impotent or something. There was no threesome to be had here. We were moving on.

  We headed back to find Michele. It didn’t take us long. She was on the pole removing her top and taking tips from the other patrons. She was so proud of her boobs. She didn’t come down immediately and Joe and I had to endure at least three dances by her before we could venture upstairs.

  Once upstairs, we took a brief tour. There was a dungeon, but no one was being tortured. There was a room wrapped in plastic. It scared me. There was a golden shower, literally. There was another juice bar, a room with one lone toilet in the center, a stage with gynecological chairs placed under spotlights, a giant bed to sleep twenty and another room lined with more cubicles. We made our rounds and decided to hone in on the gang bang in one of the cubbies. It wasn’t hard to miss. There was a line out the door of eager Mexicans waiting their turn.

  We snuck past the others and made our way to the cubby next door. Joe and I stood on the bench and peered over the top of the cubicle like school children peeking over a privacy fence. It reminded me of when I was a little girl. There was a teenage boy in my neighborhood that was having sex with his girlfriend. Though I was too young to know what that meant, my brother and I would ride our bikes over to his house and lay them down in the grass underneath his bedroom window. We could hear them through the screen. Our little fingers would grip the sill tightly as we lifted our heads to peek in. We never saw anything, but we heard enough to know we were being bad, and this moment at The Green Door was similar enough to make me feel naughty all over again.

  We were giggling to ourselves, but Michele was complaining. She couldn’t see anything. Her disappointment turned into hostility and she was about to boil over. Although Joe and I were just curious voyeurs, she had clearly come to fulfill her fantasies and we were getting in the way. Just as Michele pushed us aside to get a view of her own, a tall black man interrupted our little party.

  “Excuse me,” he mumbled, clearing his throat.

  We all turned around with guilty looks on our faces. Though we weren’t doing anything wrong, we all felt like we had been caught with our hands in the cookie jar. I swallowed hard; something you should ever do in a place like that.

  “You guys wanna watch?” the man asked. But before we could answer, “Come with me.”

  He motioned for us to follow him. He led us around the corner and pulled up a chair for us. One chair for the three of us. Joe sat down first. I sat on his lap and Michele sat on mine. We looked weird. Three people stacked up on a chair next to a woman getting reamed by man after man after man while her two pimps cheered her on. I felt indescribably uncomfortable, but what was I supposed to do? Everyone in line was staring at us. Michele was watching the sex up close and personal. Joe kept laughing underneath me while he imitated gurgling noises, and I started praying. The last thing I needed at that moment was Joe getting a hard on. I would’ve puked.

  Michele was loving every moment of it. So much so that she actually made conversation with the pimps and asked me if I had any female condoms. She wanted to have sex with that woman, even after all the men that had just visited her vagina. And she probably would have if it weren’t for what happened next. It was the single most disgusting thing I have ever witnessed in person. Video is different. I would like to put a disclaimer on that. When you watch a porno, it’s not real. It’s real enough to get you off, but not real enough to make you sit and think about what’s really going on. Seeing things first hand, though, bring a whole new element of the senses. You can almost smell the germs. It’s different. Trust me.

  Needless to say, after I watched a man stick his penis in her butt, then her mouth, and then her butt again. I was queasy. But when we watched her kiss her pimp with that mouth moments later, I launched Michele across the room and I was out of there faster than you can say ATM. Ass to mouth, not automated teller machine.

  I wanted to call it a night at that point, but we found an orgy with a midget. I had never seen a midget in action, so it didn’t take much for Joe to convince me to stay. Joe loves midgets. He is borderline obsessed with them. He once dated a girl only because she had a brother who was a midget. Joe did endless research on whether the midget gene might be dormant in her DNA. He was convinced that if he got her pregnant, one day he could have a midget of his very own.

  This midget was a girl. I’m not technically sure she was a certifiable midget, but she was a miniature version of Snookie. She was clearly intoxicated and seemed to have a bottomless vagina. That fascinated me. I agreed it could be a good show and so the three of us crammed into a small, dark viewing room with forty or so other men. Only a screen separated us from the midget show, so we could hear everything. Every moan, every squeal, every gurgle.

  I looked around to notice that every male in the viewing room had his hand in his pants and was playing a quick game of pocket pool. I started to feel gross. Someone tried to touch me in the dark. I grabbed Joe and slid through the crowd toward a sofa. We climbed up on the back of it and sat high above the sea of Yankees. The show didn’t disappoint. The midget and her friend took on several black men with humungous dongs. I was sure she would bottom out at some point, but she was a champ.

  Just when she and her chocolate partner were about to climax, some dick in the crowd got too excited and leaned on the light switch. Suddenly, the dark viewing room full of jacking johns was lit up like high noon. They hurriedly removed their grips on their willies and froze, standing in fear like deer in the headlights. No one made a peep. It was the most uncomfortable silence I have ever heard. No one knew what to do. They were a
ll caught. Even the jerk who turned on the light by accident caught himself off guard and was too stunned to realize he had done so. Awkwardness filled the air.

  Leave it to Joe to break the silence. You can always count on him for a good laugh, even at his own expense. Out of the blue, Joe rose to his feet with the fear of God in his eyes and his mouth dropped wide open. He pointed into the crowd at some random guy in slow motion and yelled, “Dad?!!!”

  Everyone broke into laughter and someone finally found the light switch. Though everyone else opted to resume the show, Joe’s joke was our cue to call it a night.

  JACKASSES IN THE DESERT

  One spring afternoon, Joe and I decided to go hiking. We weren’t avid hikers and definitely didn’t know our way around the terrain. But, we had heard of a waterfall just off the Red Rock Loop that appeared after the rain and before the desert summer arrived. All someone had to say was waterfall and we were sold. Flowing water in the Las Vegas basin is a rare treat and we knew opportunity when it knocked.

  One of Joe’s creative talents lies behind the lens of a camera. He is always looking for something to shoot. Being a former model, I am always looking for someone to shoot me; for fun. I just like the creative process anymore, and this day happened to bring both our minds together.

  “Do you think the waterfall is still there?” Joe inquired.

  “Probably,” I answered. “It just rained yesterday. Why?”

  “I was thinking we could do a bikini shoot today.”

  I was sold. We didn’t have anything else important going on and I was always up for an adventure. We loaded up the car with a few backpacks and some camera gear, and headed out to Red Rock Canyon. We had been told to pass the park entrance and pull along the back road near a gully. The waterfall was just down the path. It seemed simple enough, so it never occurred to us to take a scout or map.

  We followed the verbal directions as best we could remember. After all, it had been two months since we heard about it and neither of us have the best memory; especially since I try my best to erase some of the things engrained in mine. It was mid afternoon and the sun was high when we parked. There was a dry river bed that let out near the road and we assumed it was the path. We strapped on our backpacks, grabbed some bottled waters and trekked toward the mountain. I must also mention that I was wearing nothing but a bikini and tennis shoes. Joe was shirtless, wearing khaki shorts and flip flops. We made for a pretty snazzy hiking duo.

  “Do you think the waterfall is by those trees?” Joe asked, pointing to a green tree line in the distance. “Looks like a river runs through there.”

  I couldn’t argue with his logic. The only greenery in the whole valley surrounding us was where he was pointing. I also knew that meant water, so we veered right and headed straight toward it.

  “Onward!” I shouted, enthusiastically.

  It’s a funny thing about the desert. Everything looks smaller when you’re in your car. It’s not until you actually set out across the landscape that you realize how vast and big it really is. And how small you are. We must’ve hiked for over an hour through dirt, rocks and Joshua trees before we reached the greenbelt. And even as we approached, it seemed the elusive river was still moving further away.

  “Is this it?” I asked, standing over a trickling creek that ran into a two-inch deep pond that had more algae than water.

  “No. It can’t be,” Joe insisted. “I bet if we follow this creek up a little, it will lead us to the waterfall. Come on!”

  I don’t know why I ever trust Joe. All of his great ideas have landed me in hot water or made for more trouble than I ever intended to get in. Like the time he had the brilliant idea to mimic Myspace and create MidgetSpace.com, a big place for little people. It was all fun and games until we received a cease and desist letter in the mail from the Little People of America. Or like the time Joe thought it would be a blast to rent waverunners for a trip to Catalina. The trip there was smooth, but it wasn’t so cool to get rescued by the Coast Guard on our way back. His ideas always sound fun in theory, but in hindsight, it’s clear we never really think the whole thing through. This particular trip up the canyon to follow some trickling water didn’t end up much different.

  We walked along the creek for an hour or so before the terrain got rocky and began a steep ascent. We looked up and found ourselves in the mouth of the canyon. There had to be more water up ahead, so we pressed on. We finally came to opening in the rocks where a pool of water was filling the gap. It was a decent size, but still not big enough for a swim or a shoot, like our friends had mentioned. Though we were hot, parched and exhausted from walking with our gear, we were bound and determined to find that damn waterfall! Looking back, I wish one of us weren’t so hard headed. We would’ve surely turned back long ago if I would’ve been rational about our hike. It was getting late, we were out of drinking water and the tiny stream we had been following disappeared deep into the rocks above us. We had reached the end of this adventure.

  Unfortunately, the end didn’t come soon enough for us. As we made our descent down the rocks, scrambling and climbing carefully, time slipped through the hourglass and we found ourselves nowhere near the base by sunset. We were on the east side of the mountain and once the sun dipped beyond its peaks, the darkness fell over the land and blinded us.

  “Well, that sucks,” Joey mentioned as the last light faded quickly.

  I tried not to seem panicked, but I knew we didn’t bring flashlights. We opted to walk outside the greenbelt where the trees were sparse and we could hear the dirt and gravel crunch under our feet. At least that way we knew there were no surprises. That was until I ran face first into my first Joshua tree. We were going to need a better plan. We weren’t going to be able to rely on our eyesight alone. The desert is a dark, dark place at night and we happened to go for a hike on a moonless night.

  Joe had his cell phone, so we tried using it to light our way. It worked for a while, until the battery ran out. We were still at least a mile from the road. We could see headlights of passing cars in the distance and hoped we were pointed in the right direction as we guessed the approximate place that we parked. We kept our eyes glued on that highway as we trekked on. Then, we saw flashing red and blues coming down the road. It never donned on us that it could mean trouble, we were just hoping for a glimpse of our car in its aura as it passed by. To our dismay, the patrol car stopped short of where we thought we parked and remained there for some time.

  Just then, as I narrowly dodged another tree in the face, I heard something echo through the canyon. I wasn’t familiar with the sound, but I knew that it came from an animal. I stopped dead in my tracks.

  “Joe, did you hear that?”

  “What?”

  “Shhh,” I shushed him. “Stop. Listen.”

  We waited a few seconds.

  “I don’t hear anything,” he started to say.

  “Shhh!” I scolded him. “Just wait.”

  All we could hear was the dirt shifting under our shoes. The canyon was silent. Even the lights flashing in the distance were not accompanied by sound. No sirens, no birds, no bats, no frogs from the creek. The night was still.

  “HEEHAW!”

  I screamed! It was right behind me. I have no idea how big or small that burro was, where he came from or what he wanted, but I wasn’t sticking around to find out. I bolted.

  “Wait for me!” Joe called out, but I was long gone.

  “Omigod, omigod, omigod,” I kept repeating as I held my hands up in front of my face feeling for branches as I ran. I was laughing, but I was scared. So scared I didn’t even realize I was headed in the wrong direction. Suddenly, I was surrounded by heehawing donkeys! They were everywhere, but I couldn’t see them. I couldn’t tell how close or far they were because their voices were echoing all around.

  “Joe!” I screamed. “Joe!”

  I was starting to panic. I was alone in the dark with a herd of wild burros, who did or did not eat meat. I wasn’t
sure. All I knew was that I was a small human wearing a small bikini in a big desert. I didn’t have much meat on my bones, but if those beasts were as hungry and parched as I was from being in the dry heat all day, it was mere moments before they surrounded me like a pack of rabid wolves.

  “Joe!” My voice was getting higher in octave as I reverted back to being a scared little girl. I was paralyzed with fear. “Joe!”

  I heard the donkeys moving in to get me. Their footsteps were getting closer. I covered my head with my arms and squatted down into the fetal position. I was done for.

  “Monkey?” I heard Joe say as he put his hand on my shoulder and pulled me up. “What the hell are you doing? You went the wrong way.”

  “We have to get out of here!” I told him.

  “Calm down. Most of the burros are up further. They’re not as close as they sound. You’re fine. They don’t eat people anyway. You’re so dramatic.”

  He was right. Donkeys don’t eat people, especially women, and I can be pretty dramatic when I want to be. I have never been afraid of donkeys or horses, cows or even tigers. I volunteer at exotic animal rescues and even donate regularly to a wolf sanctuary. I have been around animals my whole life and have never met one I didn’t like. I pet them, feed them and play with them, even the big cats. So why was I so scared? The truth is you just never know how you’re going to react when frightened. Had the sun been out when the donkey yelled at me the way he did, I probably would have pet him and given him a name. I would’ve even considered riding him back to the car and taking him home. But that’s not the way it happened. The pitch black night played tricks on my common sense and the fear of the unknown had me certain I was being attacked by flesh-eating jackasses. In hindsight, I was the only jackass in the desert that evening, and I’m not proud to say it.

  “Come on, Monkey. The highway is this way,” Joe said as he led me away from the beasts of the night.