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Thursday, Jun 22, 2000 7:30 PM UTC

31 Ejaculations: No. 16

I knew she was wearing a thong. And she knew I knew it.

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Topics: Sex, Love and Sex,

I don’t really care if I’m in Vegas or not. It’s OK. It’s warm. It’s charming in a garish way, like a Christmas tree is. I’m here with my buddies, who are here, like me, because Tony’s getting married. But I’m not a gambler. I don’t “identify.” Not with the small-timers, who look so pathetic with their buckets of quarters, nor with the big-timers and their rectangular $1,000 chips, money that could be sent to some worthy cause. But, hey, it’s their money, their karma, right?

Around 4 in the morning, my buddies are getting into it. They’ve discovered craps and they’re all geniuses. So I’m off to one side, drinking a Virgin Mary, feeling like an idiot, chewing on the celery, wondering if it’s too early to call my wife in Toms River, N.J. And this girl sidles up to me. I have to admit, it took me a second to figure it out. I mean, I’m not ignorant, I know there are hookers in Vegas. But she looked so, I don’t know, collegiate. Young.

She had no mascara on, no sequins, no feather boa. I guess I thought that’s what hookers looked like in Vegas, you know, showgirls. But this girl was simply beautiful in a Victoria’s Secret kind of way. I could hardly look her in the eyes. I don’t know how else to explain it — she was like someone I could fall for.

I’m no prize. I’m OK. And I’ve scoped girls like this my whole life, but I’m 50 and my generation just wasn’t into that girlie thing. You wouldn’t guess it by looking at me now, but I was sort of a hippie. When I met my wife she had her hair parted down the middle, didn’t wear any makeup at all and wore peasant blouses. Beautiful, to be sure, but this young woman was something else. She was like something in a magazine. Like I knew she was wearing a thong. And she knew I knew it.

Once everything came back into focus, I realized she was asking me if I wanted to go upstairs with her. She said she had something to “show” me. I managed to stammer something like “How much?” She smiled a Mona Lisa smile, took me by the arm and steered me toward the elevators. A fuddy-duddy couple was standing there and for a few moments I was self-conscious, and then I got another feeling, the feeling of “I’m the man, I’m with the babe.” Dumb, I know, but I felt it.

So we end up in this room with gold and red flocked wallpaper. I think she had some candles lit. And everything slips along like a dream. She’s even more beautiful with her clothes off. And once we get everything moving, I’m so totally functional I can’t believe it. Like, I had been considering Viagra, but there were no problems with the plumbing that night. Uh-uh.

So I kiss her tits and all that. Big round ones — perfect, of course. Kiss her all over. I’m kind of trembling, like a schoolboy. But she has everything under control and before I know it, foreplay time is over and she has slipped me inside of her. She’s a pro after all.

So we’re screwing. And she’s so incredibly beautiful. But she’s not really there, you know? Kind of distant. It isn’t like she loves me or anything. Come on, it’s her job, what do I expect? And it occurs to me that this is going to cost maybe 500 bucks, so I should make it last. So I try to hang in there, control it, stave off coming, because at my age, one is all you get. And I manage to do that, hold it in, because it’s late and I’m tired and she’s kind of cool to me and I get into this rhythm. Just kind of stroking along, having a pretty good time with this incredibly beautiful dream of a girl who doesn’t really give a shit about me, but who cares?

And that’s when it happened — like getting stabbed in the lungs with a chopstick. And then an invisible hand starts yanking that chopstick around. I was in so much pain, at first I couldn’t even get off her, and then she must have thrown me off. Maybe they teach girls about this in hookers school, I don’t know. But wham, I’m on the bed, on my back, in agony, my heart muscles just ripping themselves to pieces. And she’s on the phone, like instantly — calling security and pulling her clothes on at the same time.

Hey, at least she didn’t leave me. She made sure I got in the ambulance OK. When my wife showed up at the ICU 12 hours later, I just said, “I hit the jackpot and it was too much for my heart.”

Read No. 17

Eric Bogosian is an actor and writer. His solo shows include "Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll" and "Wake Up and Smell the Coffee." His novel "Mall" will be published by Simon & Schuster in November. More Eric Bogosian.

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