“Oh,” he laughed when I asked him. “Angel, there is no simple answer to that.”
“Okay then, don’t make it simple.”
“There is not even a single discipline within whose purview the answer lies.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, anthropologists would fight among one another for the answer . . . biologists, psychologists and psychiatrists, neuropsychiatrists . . .”
“Shall I tell you what I think?”
“Yes, why don’t you tell me what you think.”
“I mean, I’ve seen enough men, right?”
“I would imagine you have.”
“You said before about man’s need to . . . What did you say?”
“To propagate himself, to continue the species.”
“Right. I understand that, but I see them hour after hour, right?”
“Yes.”
“Let me tell you, the ones I see are not thinking about continuing the species.”
“Well, I wasn’t talking about individual men.”
“But that’s what I’m looking for, the reason why individual men go looking for it and will pay for it, why they sometimes do the most extraordinary things for it. Why are they coming in the door one after another, not just to us but all over the city, in fact probably all over the world?”
“Certainly,” Alex agreed.
“And they have been since . . . I don’t know when. The dawn of time, right?”
“I have no doubt.”
“I mean, they break up marriages for it. They do it even when they actually still love their wives. I see men who I believe genuinely love their wives yet they’ll risk their marriages for it, their children. They’ll risk humiliation for it. Some men don’t want it without humiliation. So it can’t be to make them feel good about themselves, not for those guys anyway.”
“So, what do you think?”
“I think it’s like a drug with them.”
“In what way?”
“Alex, you talk like you’re not one of them.”
“Hey, Angelique, leave me out of this. In what way do you say sex is like a drug to men?”
“It enables them to escape from everything.”
“Okay, I can accept that.”
“It’s not just the orgasm that does it, though; it’s the whole thing. The before, the during, the after. But the actual drug is the orgasm. They’re using the orgasm to escape.”
“The orgasm is the medication?”
“Exactly, it masks their pain. It’s like a natural painkiller or even a tranquilizer. The reason they want it so badly is that it’s a kind of natural tranquilizer. You can see all their anxiety just lift when they come. I see it all the time. I try to watch them when they’re coming, without them noticing. I don’t want to make them self-conscious.
“It’s really quite an amazing thing, and it happens every time. I think it does. Sometimes I forget to pay attention. Other times I can’t see their faces without making it obvious, so I miss it. But I would say pretty much every time. No matter what has happened before, either in their day or in the room, there’s this complete lifting of anxiety when they finish. I’ve even been in frightening situations where some huge mountain of a man, all very polite at the introduction and early in the session, starts to get a crazed irrational look in his eyes as he surges closer and closer to finishing. He’ll be sweating and groaning. You can’t stop him. You can’t even communicate with him. It’s just before orgasm and he’s almost animalistic, grunting and shaking. He could snap me in two. Crush my windpipe, and there wouldn’t be a lot I could do about it. He’s in some kind of fearsome trance. And then he comes and all the tension is gone instantly. He might want to bury his face in my neck and sleep, or just do nothing but lie there and breathe. At that moment, it’s like he’s helpless. Suddenly I could do anything to him.
“They all get that way when they come; they’re all so vulnerable at that moment, all of them, old or young, black, white, or Asian. Sometimes I feel quite tender toward them then. It’s like, at that time, you see each one of them as a sleepy little boy. That’s what they want, whatever it is that gives them that sleep or the need to sleep. It’s not always sleep, but it is always a release from stress.
“That’s what I think it is, anyway. I know it works in other ways too. It’s good for their egos to be treated as though they are attractive and good lovers, and by good-looking women. But there’s more to it than that. Why will they pay to do it even with older, unattractive women? Because, as long as no one sees them, it doesn’t matter who it is that’s bringing them to the boil. What they are all always begging for, though like rats they don’t even know it, is the promise of an instant, even if only fleeting, total release from anxiety. What do you think, Alex?”
“Like rats?”
“Sure, why not?”
“Interesting.”
“But what do you think? Do you think there could be something in this? What’s the scientific explanation, the biological explanation?”
Alex thought for a moment. “Orgasms, their physiology, let’s see. They’re not something I’ve given a great deal of thought to recently.”
“Alex, I thought you didn’t want to get personal.”
“Angel, do you want the benefit of my training or my experience? And before you answer that, take my advice and choose the training, on this matter anyway.”
“Okay, let’s play doctor.”
“The arousal in a man—we’re talking about men here, aren’t we? Okay, the arousal, the erection, is governed by what is called the parasympathetic nervous system. The heart rate is slowed and the contractility of the myocardium is stifled.”
“Alex, English, please.”
“Sorry. The heart muscle contracts, squeezes, less forcefully. It’s not working as hard as it did before arousal. Now the bronchioles, the extensive air passages in the lungs, constrict. As a result the concentration of oxygen in the blood is diminished.”
“Is this for or against my theory so far?”
“Well, if anything, I suppose it’s for. You see, if the concentration of oxygen in the blood is diminished, it puts a person, a man in this case, into a state of unavoidable relaxation. None of the conventional signs of excitement, apart from erection of course, is possible with a slow heart. You know it could be argued that even new thoughts are perhaps unlikely.”
“What do you mean, ‘perhaps’?”
“Well, I’m thinking that oxygen-poor blood might even prevent a person from entertaining thoughts other than those he finds useful to support the arousal. You see, when the parasympathetic nervous system is dominant, blood is generally shunted toward the viscera to optimize the more peaceful and mindless of bodily functions. I’m thinking of peristalsis, salivation, and the production of urine.”
“What about to the penis?”
“Yes, of course, to the penis as well.”
“So he’s aroused, erect, with a slow heart rate, incapable of new thoughts. What happens when he comes?”
“Well, there is a sudden systemic shift with climax. Ejaculation is a phenomenon governed by the sympathetic nervous system. Cardiac output and the concentration of oxygen in the blood is maximized. Furthermore, if I’m recalling my med-school neurophysiology correctly, peripheral vessels and those in the viscera will contract, causing blood to be shunted instead to the heart and major muscles. Peristalsis and bladder function are at a minimum.”
“So he can’t piss while he comes?”
“Well, no, he can’t. And at the same time, there is an increase in the breakdown and the processing of lipids and glycogen in order to liberate glucose, fuel, into the bloodstream. It’s conceivable, I suppose, that this represents a moment of complete and utter awakening, of crystalline clarity, a lucidity like no other.”
“Hey, wow!”
“You see, the sympathetic nervous system presumably evolved to serve primitive humanity in times of physical threat. You’ve heard of the f
ight-or-flight reflex, right?”
“I think so.”
“Okay,” Alex said, “but what if there is no such threat, no one to fight and no one to flee from? Well, nonetheless, with sexual climax, you get all that energy, all that acuity in one sudden rush. No wonder climax is inevitably followed by the somnolence you described.”
“By the what?”
“The sleepiness, the desire to sleep. It’s an exhaustion that comes as though the man has just escaped or fought a formidable foe.”
“It’s usually a woman,” I said more to myself than to Alex.
“No, actually it’s usually oneself,” Alex said.
“Is that your experience or is it your training talking?” I asked him, and he smiled. I had never really thought much about Alex as a sexual being. It would have been a lot like thinking of my father that way. Well, maybe not quite as sickening as that, but my mind never went there because he was a little like a father figure to me, maybe even to Simon. They certainly went beyond the normal, once-a-week therapist/patient relationship you hear about. At the very least they were good friends. We all were, but we never brought up Alex’s personal life. Now it’s something I do sometimes think about. Funny, everything has changed. Everything has changed, and I feel so afraid. I feel afraid all day, from the moment I wake up to the moment I fall asleep. No one ever told me that deep sadness feels so much like fear.
“But their brain,” I persisted. “What do you think about my theory that
there is something druglike going on at the moment of orgasm that causes that complete release from anxiety?”
“You know you’ve put this to me before.”
“And you still haven’t answered me satisfactorily.”
“Well, since you asked me last time, I’ve looked into it.”
“Alex, thank you. Did you look up stuff just for me?”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“It’s not as conclusive as you would like, but you might be onto something. Neuroendocrine patterns are difficult to gauge experimentally and the studies, at least the ones I’ve been able to find, yield inconsistent results. But there are some studies that suggest, at least indirectly, that endogenous, that is, naturally occurring opiate-like peptides such as endorphins may play a role in providing the subject with a sense of pleasure associated with orgasm.”
“Endorphins, as in the exercise high, right?”
“Right.”
“But what exactly . . . I mean, I sort of know . . . What exactly are opiates? What do they do?”
“Ah, opiates, the mother of them all, really. Opiates are all things derived from opium, including heroin, morphine, you name it.”
“What do they do?”
“Well, on a molecular level they effect reactions leading to sedation, hallucination, and euphoria. Perhaps more important, they’re responsible for the most potent sort of analgesia we know.”
“Analgesia? You mean what you get with analgesics?”
“Yes, the abolition of pain.”
“So when a man comes, he might be releasing opiate-like . . . did you say peptides?”
“Peptides.”
“ . . . which can lead to sedation, euphoria, and even the abolition of pain?”
“Exactly. In fact, I came across one interesting study that showed an elevation in pain threshold in women who were actively masturbating to orgasm.”
“You’re kidding. What a study!”
“Uh-huh. Some people can get funding for anything. It’s a real talent.”
6. Simon. I had not been in Melbourne long when I found him. I had been in the motel in Carlisle Street, St. Kilda, for two days and two nights, afraid both nights of the ghostly teenagers who, hungry for heroin, are hookers the way the public wants its hookers. They are sick, underfed, and desperate enough to suffer the abuse visited upon them by the procession of bored predatory sons out in their mothers’ cars looking for easy prey. I was afraid of the girls because they needed heroin more than they needed food and shelter, and I had not reached that stage yet. I was afraid of the men in the cars, even the ones who were not abusive, even the ones who wanted straight, protected, non-violent sex. I had not reached that stage yet either.
I was lucky enough to find a young foreign guy who was so satisfied with the way I masturbated him against a Dumpster in a supermarket parking lot that he tipped me more than the cost of my service and even bought me a hamburger. He felt so ashamed that, in broken English, he tried to fool both of us into thinking it was a date, that he had met his first local girl. But I had to burst the bubble when, in the manner of a frightened teenage boy hoping for a second date, he nervously asked if he could see me again. I drew a rudimentary map of the streets around Barkly and Carlisle Streets on the back of a napkin.
“You can see me again. I’ll be there,” I said, pointing to an intersection on the map. I’m sure I got the map wrong.
It was on my second night and after I had been moved to all sorts of corners by all sorts of people that I first saw Simon. He was alone, drunk, and beautiful. He carried a bag, a little day pack.
“Are you looking for a date?” I asked, doing a B-grade-movie-inspired version of the way street hookers are supposed to talk.
“A date,” he stopped and said to me. “Yes, I am looking for a date, young lady, I’m looking for my birthday, not the anniversary of my birth, mind you, but the original day itself. I’m looking for a lost youth. You might say that this is where all the lost youths come to age, where they all come of age, where they come and where they age, and you’d be right on each score. But I’m not looking for just any lost youth. I’m looking for mine. What about you?” he said softly. “What the hell are you doing?”
He took my hand very gently and examined it carefully. Then he slowly turned my arm over so that the softer side faced upwards and examined that too. I didn’t know what he was doing, and I didn’t know what I was doing either. I was tired, and the only thing I knew was that I didn’t want him to let go of my arm. I stood there with my eyes welling up with tears, and I wondered if he could tell. It will sound ridiculous since I had only just met him, but I didn’t want him to see me that way. I didn’t want him to see me soliciting, and I even thought of apologizing. When he took my hand I felt different, not just from the other girls on the street but different from the way I had ever felt. It might have been the way he spoke to me, playing games with words the way he did, or it might have been the gentleness with which he took my hand and then my arm. It might have been the way he asked me what I was doing. He ran two fingers slowly down the inside of my arm. How can I describe what that did to me? It was gentle and completely non-sexual. He didn’t want anything from me, and as I closed my eyes and crushed the tears out onto my face he continued in that voice of his.
“You’re not an addict, are you?” he asked incredulously, for he already knew the answer.
“No,” I said, embarrassed.
“Oh, please, miss . . . I don’t know you . . . Look, it’s none of my business and I’ve probably had too much to drink, but you shouldn’t be here, you shouldn’t be doing this. They—” he said, pointing around him, “they think they have to. Maybe they do. I don’t know. But you . . . you don’t.”
I just stood there with my upturned arm in his hand, crying.
“Have you eaten, miss?” he asked me.
We walked to Acland Street where I let him buy me a bowl of pasta. He asked me if I preferred white or red wine. I wanted to tell him everything by way of explanation but he didn’t want to know, not at first, anyway. He wanted to know if I read books.
“What . . . what do you read?”
This was surreal. I don’t think anybody had ever asked me what books I read. I had been asked at school by disbelieving teachers if I had read or finished reading an assigned book, but Simon wanted to know whether and what I read for pleasure. When I saw that he was serious about this I started to tell him. I do read for pleasure and I did even befo
re I was with Simon but, still, I had to think about it. As I was speaking I felt as though a heavy weight was being lifted off my chest and I could breathe more easily. It was the way he spoke to me, and the way I responded to how he spoke.
He took me to dinner. We drank wine, perhaps a little too much, and talked books. He paid for everything. We went for a long walk from one end of Acland Street to the other, past the cake shops, the delis, the restaurants and bars, past Luna Park and all the people, down to the Esplanade and along the beach.
“What do I read? Lots of stuff. I like a lot of science fiction because they always deal with, you know, very clever ideas.”
“Who do you like?” he wanted to know.
“Isaac Asimov, of course. He’s great. You’ve heard of him?”
“Actually, yes.”
“Who else do I like in science fiction? Let’s see . . . Have you read Footfall?”
“Footfall?”
“Yeah.”
“No, who’s it by?”
“Oh, it’s great. It’s by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle. They also wrote The Mote in God’s Eye. Have you read that?”
“No. Do they write together?”
“They write together and separately, but they’re much better together.”
“Who else do you like?”
“Who else? Terry Pratchett—”
“Is he science fiction?”
“No, it’s more humor, really black humor, you know?”
“No.”
“No what?”
“No, I don’t know.”
“Are you making fun of me?”
“No, I was about to ask you the same thing.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’ve never heard of any of these people. Terry Pratchett—you’re making that up.”
“I am not. How can you say that?” I said, laughing.
“What have you read of Terry Pratchett’s?”
“Oh, come on! What is this? Some kind of test?” I said, gently pushing into him.
“Well, you can’t call someone one of your favorite authors and then not be able to name one of their books. Makes you sound like an idiot.”