GIGGLING INTO THE PILLOW
By Chris Bridges
Much of the contents herein previously appeared, in various forms, on HootIsland.com, CleanSheets.com, and Erotic-Readers.com.
“Chapter and Perverse” previously appeared in “From Porn to Poetry: Clean Sheets Celebrates the Erotic Mind,” Samba Mountain Press, 2001.
“Are You and Your Genitals Sexually Compatible?” originally appeared in the August 2000 issue of Xtreme Magazine.
Survey questions used in “Hey Kids, Sex Survey!” reprinted from The New Good Vibrations Guide to Sex by Anne Semans and Cathy Winks, copyright 2002, with permission of Cleis Press.
Cover illustrations by Chris Bridges
Copyright 1999-2007 Chris Bridges. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs License. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/ or send a letter to Creative Commons, 543 Howard Street, 5th Floor, San Francisco, California, 94105, USA.
PRAISE FOR “GIGGLING INTO THE PILLOW,” ACQUIRED WITH HARDLY ANY BEGGING AT ALL
“Finally--a book about sex that's funny on purpose. Chris Bridges' twisted take on erotica, sex surveys, and sexual self-help is a hoot!”
-- Cathy Winks, co-author of The New Good Vibrations Guide to Sex
“There's just one word for Chris Bridges's work: brilliant … no, 'fantastic' is better… well, not that either, how about 'incredible' … not quite there, how about 'genius' … no, not quite enough … what about 'delicious? ' … nah, too fattening … Wonderful? Great? Elegant? Beautiful? Just read the book and see how erotic writing should be done and pick your own word.”
-- M. Christian, author of Speaking Parts: Provocative Lesbian Erotica
“Giggling Into the Pillow is... not only a particularly funny collection of stories, parodies, and articles about sex but is also the most honest erotica I've read.”
-- Jason Toney, ScarletLetters.com
“An excellent book which will allow you to use the phrase 'Rabelaisian wit' in casual conversation.”
-- Phil Foglio, xXxenophile, Girl Genius
“...Chris Bridges' book, Giggling into the Pillow, isn't a short story collection or a novel. It isn't intelligent discourse via nonfiction. It's more like what you'd get if Mad magazine was published by a nudist colony headed by Mel Brooks.”
-- Debra Hyde, PursedLips.com
“Let him put a smile on your face, and on your lover's too - nothing says, “I love you,” like a giggle.”
-- Erotica Readers and Writers Association
“In Monty-Python-meets-Deep-Throat style, Chris Bridges strings a series of sexual non sequiturs together to create “Giggling into the Pillow.” In it, what ought to make us squirm makes us laugh, and what ought to turn us on, well, makes us laugh. As strange as the tales are, they're closer to reality than standard erotic fare. I'll take Chris's reality any day.”
-- Sage Vivant, customeroticasource.com
“Don't let any of your right-wing acquaintances see this book: they might get the idea that sex is supposed to be fun, and God only knows what would happen then. This book sucks! (And if you think that's an insult, you really need to read the book.)”
--Hanne Blank, author of Shameless: Women's Best Erotica
For Teresa, because everything is for Teresa, just not everybody knows it yet.
My ex-girlfriend was very sexy. She reminded me of the Sphinx because she was very mysterious and eternal and solid and her nose was shot off by French soldiers.
—Emo Philips
Table of Contents
Forward
Introduction: What the fu…
Found: One Dildo
Are You Sexy Enough?
How Was Your Service?
An Unsigned Love Letter Stuffed in a Locker
Make Mine Vanilla
Self-Paced Course
ASK MISS DILDO
Sex in the Suburbs
Valentine’s For One
Sex au Jus
How to Bag a Supermodel
POV
Chapter and Perverse
Jim Jackson, Clitoris Hunter
MOOP BEEP BEEP, My Baby
6 Nights of CRRRRRRAPPY Sex
Do You Want to Play “Questions?”
Happy Fucking Easter
Are You and Your Genitals Sexually Compatible?
Truth in Seduction
Gender Bending
You May Now Kiss the Brides
Motel Fun, or Norman Bates Was Just Getting Started
Take the Bukkake Challenge!
Stop Saying “Sucks”
Boutique Encounter, or Why I Hate Writing in Second Person
The Perils of Being a Sex Writer
A Tall Tail
World’s Greatest Gang Bang IV
MY PENIS IS…
Guess Your Fetish
Porn Drinking Game
All We Want for Christmas Is…
Hey Kids! Sex Survey!
My New Year's Resolutions
What It Was, Was Porno
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About this edition
This e-book is being offered for free, gratis, no-charge, for a couple of reasons. First, because I like free stuff and I’m guessing other people do, too. Second, because I’m hoping that people will read my stories for free and like them enough to pay cash money for print versions for themselves or to inflict upon hapless friends and family. If you’re interested, and you know you are, search for “Giggling Into the Pillow” at amazon.com or barnesandnoble.com and pick up a few copies. Thanks!
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Acknowledgements
No book is written by just one person, no matter how much everyone else involved wants to forget it ever happened. Besides, I need to get my accusations in early in order to establish my future legal position, so I’d like to publicly thank the following people:
The visitors and virtual residents of HootIsland.com, for humoring me by coming back, week after week and year after year, to see just what silly shit I’m up to this time.
Heather Corinna, for friendship, constant encouragement, great websites, and nekkid pictures (which were pretty damn encouraging all by themselves).
Jane and Jim, Todd and Debbie, Anne and Cathy, Jen and Dave, and the incredible Asia Carrera, for helping Hoot Island get on the map way back when, and for being pretty cool URLfriends besides.
The good people of the Erotica-Readers.com listserv for catching many of my bonehead mistakes and literary felonies before they got out and hurt innocent people.
The fun-loving folks at CleanSheets.com, for putting up with my amateur editoring for a year.
Hanne Blank, Spider Robinson, Phil Foglio, Robert B. Parker, Jennifer Crusie, John Varley, Christopher Moore, Brian Michael Bendis, William Goldman, Kevin Smith, Terry Moore, and many other people I’ve never met, for writing things I couldn’t stop reading and thus helping me avoid actually writing anything myself.
Dave, Shasta, Dan, and other unnamed friends, for unconditional support and for selflessly sacrificing their own diets to make sure I didn’t accidentally eat too much Chinese food by myself.
And, always, Teresa, Tony, and Jamie, for being Teresa, Tony, and Jamie.
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Foreword by Heather Corinna
Apparently, there are some folks out there who don’t think sex is very funny.
Some think sex must at all times be serious, treated with the sort of forced silence of Mass on Sunday, or dinner at your grandmother’s house with the relatives. Others feel that laughing during or about sex means something is terribly wrong; that a penis is too small, a bottom too curvaceous. Others still cannot trust even a smile, mistaking it for a mocking grin, an untold secret, or perhaps a case of gas.
Thankfully, for all of us, Chris Bridges isn’t one of those people. Like the Chink in Robbins’ Even Cowgirls Get The Blues, his mantra is simple and to the point: “Ha ha ho ho and hee hee.” It may sound somewhat unfamiliar at first, but we know we’ve heard it somewhere before. And we really need to hear it again. Thankfully, we have people like Chris out there who realize that all of our anatomy—including our funny bones—can be sexual organs; that realize that what happens when we laugh and what happens when we orgasm, are pretty damned similar and when combined can be a fabulous uproar.And if sex isn’t a fabulous uproar,why bother? Our sex lives should be a roll in the park on a sunny day, not an obligational hour spent on a creaky treadmill.
If we are made nervous by a partner laughing or grinning, if we cannot possibly find sex or our sexual selves funny (unless we’re a character in an Anne Rice novel—then we may be excused), if we can’t find the comedy in sex itself, if we don’t recognize that an earnest smile, laugh, giggle or guffaw from a partner is one of the best responses we could hope for, then somewhere along the line, we simply must have forgotten that sex is supposed to be joyful. And if that is the case, as a culture, we are sexually ill.
If there is a doctor suited to help us with this malady, the best one I know of is Chris Bridges. Chris’ humor is accessible—neither highbrow nor lowbrow—it is simply real, sincere and not at all forced. It, in fact, comes as naturally to him as breathing—something the rest of us may have trouble doing while reading his work. It isn’t at anyone’s expense, and is grounded in daily life, in sexual politics, in personal history and in a spirit of elation with a few giddy hits of nitrous oxide tossed in for good measure. You can adjust your dosage accordingly: read a few passages one day, a few more the next, or, for serious emergencies, take it all in at once until your sides hurt and you feel the insistent need to make a Jabba the Hut costume just so you can show your partner what he really would have done to Leia if he had the chance.
Laughter is powerful and essential. Laughter can shake shame senseless, can remind us of our humanity, can force us to be as real as we are, it can refresh intimacy, it can transform our sex lives: hey, this is no laughing matter—the stuff is serious medicine. And there is, in Chris Bridges, a doctor in the house.
At least, that’s why I think he walks around in that white coat.
Heather Corinna is the founder of ScarletLetters.com and Scarleteen.com, and is one of the most foreword people I know.
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2009 Introduction to the Introduction: Where the fu…
Once upon a time, I had an adult website. It was called HootIsland.com, named after an especially odd construct built in the original Commodore 64 version of Sim City.
It was unlike most other adult websites I saw, which is why I did it. Hoot Island was based on the groundbreaking principle that sex was funny and fun, and that women were people. Oddly, even many of the adult websites run by women had problems with this simple attitude.
The motto and mission statement was “Silly sex, for silly people,” and I held tightly to that vision for 10 years. I posted cartoons and reviews and stories and poems and songs and lots and lots of pictures. And those pictures had a single restriction: the people in them, naked though they may be, had to be visibly enjoying themselves. Not the fake, the-photographer-told-them-to-look-sexy-and-now-they-look-like-they-have-sort-some-of-severe-gastrointestinal-disorder kind of enjoyment, but sincerely smiling and laughing and having a good time.
Unsurprisingly (to me, anyway) this caught on. I had a lot of fun with Hoot Island, venting and being silly and getting to look at lots of nekkid pictures as a hobby. A hobby that more or less paid for itself, even. I met lots of wonderful people who also believed sex was fun. I got to interview porn stars, go to awards shows, and review odd little rubber devices I got in the mail. Who says America isn’t the land of opportunity?
But finally I let the site wind down. Life intervened. Different interests bickered for my attention. Searching out more smiling nekkid wimmen was becoming a chore (I know!). And sites like Fleshbot.com were covering the silly sex news much more thoroughly than I was. Also, hosting an adult site is expensive, and with the not-a-recession going on, well… Hoot Island settled down to a simmer, the stories got moved to hootisland.livejournal.com, and I went about my life.
Only…
I like writing silly smut. I miss it. And I’m still not seeing enough of it about. So I’m bringing “Giggling” back out to play, and bringing HootIsland.com back to host more stories, and working on another collection to be published soon called “Yodeling Into the Gulley.” Look for it!
Oh, and here’s what I wrote last time:
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Introduction: What the fu…
If sex isn’t a joke, what is? –Nella Larson
The unrelenting pressure has been building, building, and you feel as if you’ll die if you don’t find release and soon. Your stomach muscles crunch, your thighs lock, your jaw is clenched like a weight lifter with previously-unsuspected dysentery and still you can feel the sensation coming, as uncontrollable and unstoppable as a tidal wave. You suck in air to tighten your control but you might as well use one of those little paper drink umbrellas to hold back the sea, because the release is far beyond any hope of containment and it sucks you over the edge like an electrical rip tide into a gut-wrenching…
Orgasm? Laughing fit? They share a lot in common, these things, and not just because you can receive either one from watching your lover naked. Both laughter and sexual climax release you from tension, often explosively, and anything that can ease your tension and is legal besides is a Good Thing. Both experiences can be achieved alone or in company, both can make you cry out, and both can result in you suddenly needing a dry change of clothes. One of them is slightly less scandalous in public (depending on the situation), the other more polite at orgies (depending on the orgy), but I’d never turn down either one. If you can manage to experience both simultaneously, at least once in your lifetime, you’ll be sure that God likes you best. If you survive.
This is the part where I’m supposed to tell you all about how important laughter is to a healthy human and a healthy sex life, how it can improve your health and your life and your gas mileage and your relationships with friends and lovers and public health officials, and why it is vitally important to be able to laugh at everything in life. I believe I’m also expected to quote Desmond Morris and Susie Bright and Freud and Masters & Johnson and The Discovery Channel and Animal Planet and whomever the hot evolutionary theorists are these days, but I’d just be cutting and pasting a lot of stuff that you’d just have to skip over so let’s just assume that I’ve said something terribly wise regarding humor and sex that justifies your buying this book (“See? It’s not pornography, it’s social science!”) and we’ll just skip to the smut.
Most of what you’re about to read came from my work on HootIsland.com, a website I began in 1996 as, essentially, a very public filing cabinet (or trash can, depending on your opinion of my work). It hasn’t fundamentally changed since then, although it has gotten a lot bigger. Hoot Island’s motto is “silly sex, for silly people” and I’m proud to say that we’ve never once wavered from that lofty goal. And I’ve met an awful lot of awfully silly people, who do a fair bit of wavering themselves.
These are the sorts of things that they like, the freaks.
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FOUND: One Dildo
There was a dildo in the middle of the road.
I drove over it and about 300 feet past it before it fully registered, and by then I was far enough along that turning around to investigate seemed silly. All I had was a faint mental snapshot of pink skin in a familiar-looking shape. Nahhh, couldn't be.
I pulled into the driveway and hauled the groceries into the house where Teres was waiting, reasonably patiently. “Hey babe,” I said. “There's a penis in the road.”
“I know,” she said, still watching television. “I ran over it an hour ago when I dropped the kids off.”
“Not interested?”
“Nah. There's plenty more around if I need one. You?”
“No, I'm good. Not the sort of thing I'd expect to find around here, though.” I dumped the bags on the kitchen counter and started rooting through them. It was true. We lived at the end of a dirt road in the sticks. Ten minutes drive brought us all the pleasures of the city, mostly in the form of restaurants and bookstores, but as soon as your car turned onto our area you were in deep, deep woods. Upon seeing it, your first impression would be that some drunken partier had somehow gotten hold of a bulldozer and had taken it upon him- or herself to make a neighborhood, stopping every few blocks to shoot up. The few houses along the thin, twisty, muddy roads were huddled together where the builders flang them, like big square mushrooms. Our own house was at the end of a minor cul-de-sac that we were pretty sure was going to cause the county problems if and when they finally got around to paving our roads.
Finding stuff lying around out there wasn't at all unusual. Our roads had only a passing acquaintance with anything horizontal or level, and anyone new or foolish enough to come through at any speed more blinding than 10 mph was just begging to lose his truck's contents, his engine mounts, his back teeth, and his kidneys. Toolboxes, tires, old appliances, car parts, dead animals, nearly dead animals, shoes, bed frames, even the odd novelty, but, to date, none quite as novel as this. I started the water boiling as Teres came in to chop tomatoes. “Nope,” I said. “We've got all the dicks we need.”
“Hello the house!” The front door slammed open and our roommate Dave made his presence known. He strode into the kitchen and tossed the muddy dildo in question onto the counter like an Italian salami. “Found you a replacement,” he said. It looked disturbingly real, apart from the size and the suction cup on the base. It had testicles.
“Thanks, we were just wondering when you were gonna come by and fling a muddy marital aid at us.”
“I know, that's why I hurried. What's for supper?”
“Spaghetti. Why did you bring this here?”
“Ha! Who else's would it be? You didn't lose it?”
“No, I try and keep better care of my genitalia, and I don't think Teres is shopping around.”
Dave turned to face Teresa, who was ignoring both of us and our new unit magnificently. “Really? Not interested in trading up? It's all you could ask for, and it's machine-washable.” He picked it up and began to poke it past her cheek, but she raised her right hand and showed him the kitchen knife she was holding.
“I told you when you moved in: anything you poke at me will get cut off,” she said, and smiled sweetly over her shoulder. “Now go wash your pee-pee and get ready for dinner.”
Kim and Phen, our remaining dinner guests/usual cohorts, showed up together just as the bell for the bread dinged. Kim wasn't currently seeing anybody and had decided that the best place to not see anybody was over at our house where she could complain about whom it was she wasn’t seeing. It also got her away from her perfect, white-bread, ideal relationship parents who continued to assure her that the right man would come along Any Day Now. Phen was one of our occasional friends -- he occasionally stopped by, I don't mean he was only occasionally a friend -- but was always up for free food and movies. We had laid in a supply of testosterone-dripping cinema for us to watch while Teres and Kim harangued the entire male race (I was, fortunately, exempt from that category on an honorary basis; Dave and Phen were on probation) and its constant refusal to recognize true beauty and grace when it saw it, i.e. Kim. I dumped the pasta into the strainer and ran some water over it while Teres took the pot of sauce to the table. “Hey,” she called. “Come on back, we're ready!” A pause, and then, “Ack! Dave!”
I joined her, carrying the pasta and a plate of bread, and saw what stopped her. Dave had set the table with an elegant place setting for each of us and a grouping of flowers shoved together in the center. In the middle of the sad and lopsided floral arrangement was the dildo, pointing straight up and clearing the tops of the flowers by almost seven inches.
At least he'd washed it first.
Kim and Phen walked into the dining room and stopped dead, with puzzled and amused expressions. Phen broke first. “We having cocktails?”
We explained during dinner. I don't know if you've ever noticed this before, but it is very difficult to ignore a 10” penis, especially when you have to look past it to see your dinner companions. This is not a problem I'm accustomed to dealing with, and while Dave was well known to be packing more than his fair share he still seemed nonplussed.
It didn't help matters that it was so very realistic. The penis, not the dinner companions. I couldn't help imagining an extremely pissed off man strapped to the underside of our table, scrabbling desperately at the table leaf clamps.
Teres gestured at it with her fork. “How in the world did it get out there?” I shrugged.
Dave said, “Got me. When I saw it I thought some poor fool had been running around naked and drowned in the mud. Before I picked it up I spent some time poking around trying to find a better handle to pull him out with.”
“Maybe a jealous lover found it and threw it out,” Kim said.
“Maybe a plane carrying badly-needed sex toys to Alabama took a hit and scattered penises all over the South,” said Phen, who was trying to maneuver the last piece of bread to his plate without anyone noticing, which resulted, as it usually did, with all of us watching patiently until he succeeded. “Maybe it grew naturally.”
“They usually do,” I said. “But that doesn't explain this one. I wonder if someone's out there now looking for it.”
“I'd think so,” Kim said. “It's a nice one.” She looked around at us. “As they go, I mean.”
Dave chuckled. “If I lost my 10” dick I know I'd be upset.”
“Yeah, you'd only have four inches left,” Phen said. “Whatcha gonna do with it?”
“Why?”
“Well, it makes a fetching centerpiece, but it doesn't really fit the tone of your dining room.”
“We'll probably toss it,” I said, looking at Teres. She gave me a small but definite nod. I've known Teres' opinions about sex toys for a very long time now, and they are as follows: if she was already in a state of high excitement and I slipped one out from under a pillow, she'd embrace it (and me) wholeheartedly, or whatever. But in the cold light of day they carried the same erotic charge for her as raw liver. Less, possibly, since she was better at seeing culinary potentials than sexual ones.
“You oughta try and find the owner,” Phen said. “I'm sure this costs a few bucks. Kim? Whatcha think?”
She blushed and punched him in the shoulder. “How would I know? Geez, guys, like I've got all this stuff memorized. Just because I'm single you think I'm the local authority on masturbatory devices, people call me up for consultation?”
We waited.
“Fuck all of you. It's a 'Salty Cinnamon' Cyberskin Superstud, 10”, caucasian, $69.95 retail. But I only know it because I saw it in a catalog and I liked the name, all right?”
Teres nudged Kim's shoulder. “Do you want it?”
Kim dropped her fork and put both hands flat on the table. “Hell, no! I've bought pre-owned cars, second-hand clothing, and a used dog, but I wouldn't take a used dildo even if you bleached it first. I mean, ewww. I’m pretty sure I know exactly where it's been, so I know where it ain't going.” She reached out and plucked the penis from its home and peered at it. “But it can't have been out there long,” she said. “Cyberskin feels great, but I don't think it weathers well. This still looks new.”
The sight of Kim holding a massive schlong up to her face was causing some disturbing and surprising effects on my own equipment, so I turned away to look across the table at Phen, who was now fully visible to me for the first time tonight. “So, what? Put up notices? 'Found, one dildo, answers to “Buzz”'?”
He shrugged. “Either that or stake out the road and look for someone driving by very slowly, with a worried look on her face.”
“Or his face.”
“Or his face.”
Kim was still inspecting the wang in question, one hand cupping the balls and one hand firmly grasping the thick shaft. It would have been fiercely erotic had she not been sighting along the length with the screwed-tight expression of someone choosing a pool cue. “I think someone out there is very sad right now.”
We set it aside and went on with our plans of watching the Lord of the Rings DVDs, but disembodied dick jokes became the theme of the evening. We speculated on which one of Gandalf's wands was the more powerful, and whether or not Frodo could have used it as a pike. After the night wound down and we had chanted all the different versions of “one dick shall rule them all, and in the darkness fuck them,” Kim and Phen left and the rest of us collapsed in the living room amidst the Cheeto bags and empty Coke cans.
The dildo was stuck to the television screen by the suction cup on its base and was currently turning David Brinkley into a unicorn.
“So what are we going to do with George, there?” I asked.
“George?”
“I need a name, I can't just deal with a nameless dick.”
Dave started laughing. “Puts you one up on Kim, then,” he said.
Teres glared at him. “That was rude. George it is, then. So what are we going to do with it?”
I couldn't help it. “Let's sleep on it,” I said.
The kids were getting dropped off home the next morning, so we brought George upstairs and laid him, reverently, on a pillow. Well away from the bed.
The next morning I came down to breakfast to find Teresa sitting on the living room floor, making a sign. I leaned over her head enough to read it.
Found: Very PERSONAL Item on B Street. Please call or contact us to identify.
“Very nice,” I said. “Suggestive without being too embarrassing, just like our wedding pictures.”
“I thought so.”
“I think you chickened out by not including an artist's conception.”
We posted the signs, all the while looking about furtively in case the Religious Right was hiding in the bushes, ready to leap out and arrest us for trafficking in penises. It was an odd feeling, skulking about in the daylight like that.
“You know no one's gonna have the nerve to call, don't you?” I said.
Teres asked, “Would you call?”
“Of course.”
“So do you want to pass up the chance to meet someone as twisted as you?”
Our public service done for the week, we headed back to the house, confident we'd be throwing George out within a few days.
By 10:30 that morning we had 32 calls.
We had to resort to scheduling visits throughout the day Sunday and quickly filled the 10 am to 5 pm slots with only a very few gaps. “We can use those for sort of an open viewing,” Teres said. She seemed to be enjoying this, so rather than bitch about our lost Sunday I relaxed to the inevitable and suggested we cater it.
First thing was to arrange for the whereabouts of our boys. They're good lads, and very savvy about the ways of life, but despite our open attitude and sincere appreciation for honesty in parent-child relationships we still didn't feel completely comfortable having them present as we invited a series of forlorn sex maniacs into the house to inspect a massive false penis, if only because rushed explanations would have been unfair to all concerned. Arrangements were made to ship them off to Phen's place to play with his daughter, hopefully in a reasonably sex-toy-free environment.
Kim was contacted to stand by as a consultant, in case she was required as an expert witness. She came over Saturday night and the three of us spent an enjoyable evening trying to decide on appropriate food to serve. Hot dogs or bratwurst seemed gauche, but barbecue was too messy. Teresa suggested tacos, as sort of a counterpoint, while I leaned towards cheese logs combined with cheese balls for an overall effect. We finally settled on fried chicken and chips to be the most neutral food and the most likely to stay edible all day.
The rest of the night was used to set the stage.
The Sunday sun rose proud and true, flinging its rays through our windows to see what it could see, which was a heavy-duty construction-size doohickey of the male persuasion lying in state on its velvet pillow and surrounded by flowers and ribbons. No word on how the sun felt about that. The rest of the table had been cleared and polished and provided an elegant setting for viewing.
“Shouldn't we have velvet ropes set up,” Teres asked. “in case there's a line?”
“No need,” I said. “I think you could see George from space.”
About five minutes before ten the first appointment showed up. We were nervous; it was one thing to laugh about this, but what kind of people were we inviting into our home? Not that owning a sex toy equated to perversity (or, more to the point, not that perversity was a problem in our household), but we weren't sure what sort of person would face the embarrassment rather than just buy a new one. Either these would be people amazing in their mental stability and remarkably comfortable in themselves, or…
Or, like our first supplicants, they were too whacked out to care.
James and Martha (no last name offered) weren't quite dead ringers for the people in the American Gothic painting, but only because they weren't dressed as well. They were so nervous it put us at ease, if that makes sense, and they seemed relieved that we weren't out to blackmail them or take pictures. According to James, their missing device was something they had bought through a catalog after 46 years of increasingly boring sex. Turned out that battery-operated vibration was just what both of them needed and now not only were they at it night and day, they had developed a seething rivalry (and a serious dildo jones).
“James here needed it for his prostate, you know,” Martha confided in us, lowering her eyes. “And since I insisted on boiling it after he did that, you know, before I'd touch it, it got so we'd both try to make sure we were the first one to get to it in the morning. In just a few weeks we were fighting over it night and day, hiding it on each other and calling each other the most dreadful names.”
James hung his head as well. “I'm ashamed to admit it, but I once left it in me for three days so she couldn't get it. Wasn't easy driving the truck like that, let me tell you.”
Teres glanced back towards the table, then at James. Her eyes got very wide.
I stood up and, with some trepidation, offered my hands to both of them. “Would you like to see if this is yours?”
Martha sat, clutching her handbag. “I, I don't know.” She looked up at her husband. “We were getting to hate one another. I don't know that we should have it anymore. I remember locking myself in the bathroom for a whole week last Christmas and I just can’t stand it.”
“She's right,” James said, and touched her hair affectionately. “We've lost something in our marriage, and I think we need to work on getting it back. The sex was great, though.” He kneeled before her and took her hands. “C'mon, Martha. Let's go get it and leave these good people alone. We can deal with this ourselves.”
She nodded once, bravely, and then they walked over to look at George. There was a long pause. Martha crossed herself.
Finally James said, “Nope, that ain't ours. We lost ours while we were fighting in the truck during our weekly battery run. Looked for it for hours with no luck, but that one I think we woulda seen, easy.”
“Does that one vibrate?” Martha asked, a bit fearfully.
10:30 brought us Gail, a 19-year-old girl who entered our house, nodded at us, looked at it, shook her head, and left without saying a single word. She was blushing bright enough to set off smoke alarms.
Our 11:00 was a timid little man in a cheap suit who introduced himself as “John.” “I like to look like I'm, you know, packing, when I go out,” he said. “I slip a little extra something in my pants leg and hit the town.”
He admitted that George did not belong to him. I could tell; if he wore George he'd have no room for his leg.
Kim stayed quiet until he started to leave, and then her curiosity kicked her sense in the head and spoke up. “Excuse me,” she said, “I don't want to pry, but why do you do that? I mean, what good does it do to pick someone up on the basis of something that's gonna drop off as soon as you drop your pants? Doesn't that kind of break the mood?”
“John” smiled nervously. “I don't really know,” he said. “It hasn't worked yet.”
Before he left he insisted we put him on a list to claim it if nobody else did.
11:30 brought a good-looking gay couple, both named Steve. “It's pretty handy, actually,” the blond Steve said, laughing. “I can yell my own name out without sounding narcissistic.”
One of them (I forget which) had been bringing a new present home for the other and lost it somewhere along the way.
“You know how you see something in the store and you just have to see it in your lover?” We agreed that we did. “Well, this was just perfect. Perfect shape, perfect size, perfect.”
The one we had, however, was not.
“Nope,” said Steve. “It was much bigger than that.” The other Steve smiled sadly, and they finished their drinks and left.
We left noon open to have lunch, but some unannounced hopefuls showed up anyway and kept us busy. One 9-year-old boy who had stolen his mom's “massager” had lost it while showing his friends (apparently, in a perfectly sensible move, they had decided to see if they could get it stuck in a tree) and now had to find it fast, was particularly devastated that this wasn't it. He tried to talk us into giving it to him anyway, in the hopes that she'd like it better and not kill him, but we told him we needed parental permission before we handed a 10” lifelike dildo to a minor. We’re just the old-fashioned type, we are.
A 6'2” man in full leather and chain biker regalia hefted it experimentally but finally pronounced it wrong. A lady Teres recognized as one of our younger son's grade school teachers crept quietly in, shook hands with everybody, and then burst into tears when she saw it. A gentleman arrived and announced several times that it wasn't his; he was there on behalf of his client who had described it to him perfectly. One woman that would best be described as “trailer-trash” stormed in with a big book under her arm, looked at the thing, opened her book, and compared the dildo to the hundreds of pictures she had carefully arranged in order of size and function. It wasn't hers, but I couldn't imagine why not. A small group of elderly ladies, still in their church clothes, milled nervously around the front door until one of them was shoved by the rest into coming in to look.
“It's not ours, girls!” she called out the door as she left. “This one's white!”
By three o'clock we had been visited by four more women, three men, two couples, a youth group, and a city council member who asked to remain anonymous. We were getting discouraged.
“I don't believe this many people lost a sex toy,” Kim said. “Suddenly I don't feel so perverted anymore.”
I sat down next to her. “Will you be all right?” I asked.
She hove a deep sigh. “I suppose. A few days and I'll start feeling dirty again, I'm sure. Do you believe these people?”
“I know,” Teres said. “My favorite so far is the lady that tried to shoplift it.”
I chuckled. “Or the guy who said he couldn't recognize it unless he tried it.”
“What are we going to do if the real owner never shows up?” Teres asked.
“If no one claims it within 30 days, it's yours, hon,” I said. She snorted. “We could always take it to the next PTA meeting and ask if anyone’s missing a dick.”
Kim suggested we auction it off. “We could give the money to charity, like unwed mothers or something.”
Our 5:00 appointment was running late, so we started packing up. “We can leave the sign up and people can call,” I said.
Teres looked up, horrified. “Oh, no, I'm not taking calls for this thing if you're not here. What if I get attacked?”
“Hit 'em with George.”
Kim left to hit the bathroom, just as a car pulled up in the driveway. “Whoops,” I said. “Your table might be dickless tonight after all.”
The woman waiting outside our front door was trim and elegant, well dressed and beautiful. She was in her late 40's, had auburn hair that looked natural, and was clearly fit. Her eyes were hazel, her suit was Donna Karan, and she voted Republican.
No, I couldn't tell that from looking. Kim had told us once that her mom voted for Bush.
To her credit, she didn't seem as flustered as I would have expected, not that I would have expected Kim's mom to show up at our house at all, much less in search of cock. “Oh,” she said. “Oh. My, I didn't expect this.”
Teres recovered before I did. “Won't you come in, Mrs. Sullivan,” she said. “We were just cleaning up.”
Mrs. Sullivan entered the room with such poise and grace that I momentarily forgot she was here to lay claim to a rubber dick. “You've got such a beautiful home,” she said.
We stood there uncomfortably for a moment, and then she saw the table. “Oh my God, there it is.” She walked briskly over and snatched the penis off the pillow, cradling it in both hands and looking it over for marks, for all the world like a she was judging a prize-winning zucchini. Maybe she was. “Not a scratch on him,” she said, amazed. Next to me Teres was fighting desperately to keep from giggling. I was simply in shock.
Not as much as Kim was, though, when she walked back in to see her mother kissing the head of nearly a foot of cock. “MOM! What the hell are you doing?” I assumed it was a trick question.
Mrs. Sullivan stood up straight and lowered her penis. “This is mine, dear,” she said. Kim stood there, open-mouthed and breathing like a distance jogger.
“But… you… Daddy? Does Daddy know you have… one of those?” she asked, pointing.
“I'm afraid he does now. He found it in my makeup case Friday night and went ballistic. Yelled something about him not being good enough for me and then he drove off with it. He was right, of course, but that’s no excuse to steal my property. I suppose he thought this was remote enough where no one would find it, or have the brains to do anything if they did. No offense,” she said.
“None taken,” I said.
“I was driving around yesterday looking for it and I saw the ad. It never occurred to me it would be you kids.”
Teres smiled. “We pick up the darndest things.”
Mrs. Sullivan tucked George, with difficulty, into her purse. It bulged. A lot. “Well,” she said with a bright smile. “I suppose I'd better find a better place to hide him, eh?”
Before I could stop myself, I spoke up. “You should ask Kim, Mrs. Sullivan. You two have a lot in common.” Kim stopped staring at her mother just long enough to fix a malevolent glare on me, silently assuring me of unbelievable amounts of pain in my immediate and unavoidable future.
Her mom grinned and pulled Kim into a hug. “Yeah, I know. We both have lousy taste in men.”
Kim's voice came out muffled and timid. “But great shopping skills,” she said. Mrs. Sullivan just laughed and took her by the arm as they both walked out the door.
“So what kind do you like?” we heard her mom asking.
Teres and I sank onto the couch and looked at each other, lips and jaws struggling, until the car sounds faded, and then we let ourselves laugh it out. It took a while. The hilarity of the situation, plus the underlying dread of certain Kim-based retribution, took our breath away and we just howled.
Finally I calmed down enough to say, “That was way more about her family than I ever wanted to know.” Teres just kept giggling that great laugh of hers. When the knock on the door came she was still curled up, shaking, so I got up to get it.
The two men standing there wore identical white short sleeve shirts, black pants and ties, and they both held familiar-looking pamphlets and bibles. What the heck, I figured. After spending the day discovering the kinky inclinations of our immediate neighbors, a little harmless religious proselytizing might be refreshing, and it'd do us good to talk about something that doesn't involve lubrication in any obvious manner. Besides, we still had some chicken left. “Come on in, fellas. What can I do for you?”
They looked at each other nervously, and shuffled their feet. Finally one of them spoke up.
“We heard you found something…?”
-------------------------
Are You Sexy Enough?
“How to Give Her 15 Screaming Orgasms Before She Gets Both Her Shoes Off”
“We Review the 100 Best All-Natural, Water-Based Non-Carcinogenic Lubes”“
“Can You Last An Hour, Or Are You a Failure?”
“How Can I Tell If My Lover’s Prostate Tastes Right?”
Lifestyle magazines are full of handy sexual tips these days. Due to various social and economic rules that are closely tied to mankind’s baser instincts, it is exceedingly rare indeed to find anything on the newsstands that doesn’t have the word “orgasm” somewhere on the cover, up to and including The Christian Science Monitor and Highlights. And it can be difficult to wade through this heaving onslaught of material without getting the feeling that you might be somehow… lacking? Not as well versed in the tantric Vedas as you should be? Do you find yourself unable to quickly analyze your partner’s state of arousal by pheromone level alone? Have you screwed enough people to constitute a sufficient statistical universe? Is your score in the Purity Test distressingly pure?
Well, Hoot Island does have its standards, and we expect our readers to make the grade. Just take this handy quiz to see if you have what it takes in today’s hip, savvy boudoir:
To me, Sex is…
a. something to be shared between two people in a loving, committed relationship
b. something to be shared with that redhead over there
c. something to be shared between seven people in a loving, committed relationship
d. a supremely athletic event that’s getting ruined by amateurs and corporate sponsors, like surfing
e. more necessary than air
My favorite sex toy is powered by:
a. “C” batteries
b. a car battery
c. a turbine engine
d. an intricate network of gears, pulleys, waterworks and pack animals
e. a small, self-contained nuclear power plant
The last place I had sex was:
a. in bed, with the lights off
b. on the dining room table, with the lights on
c. on the dining room table at the Embassy Hilton, with the lights on
d. in an Esprit V8 going 160 mph through a mountain pass at midnight, with the lights off
e. inside a coffin, during a cremation
I judge a man's sexuality by his:
a. length
b. length and width
c. imagination
d. length, width, and imagination, and credit rating, and golf handicap
e. network of scar patterns
What are the only utterly necessary steps of any sexual encounter?
a. male orgasm
b. intercourse, male orgasm
c. foreplay, intercourse, male and female orgasm
d. foreplay, multiple mutual orgasms, intercourse, multiple mutual orgasms, intercourse, multiple mutual orgasms (repeat)
e. Stamping ground, flapping arms while displaying cheek pads in aggressive display, hooting loudly, flinging dung at rivals, building a nest to attract the female butcherbird, orgasm, consuming mate and depositing eggs in still-warm corpse
I judge a woman’s sexuality solely by her:
a. hooters
b. sensual, confident attitude
c. willingness to have sex with me
d. hooters and willingness to have sex with me
e. willingness to have sex with me and any three of my buds
How many of your lover’s erogenous zones have you successfully located?
a. 12
b. 35
c. all of them
d. only the ones on my lover’s actual body
e. all of them, and I created three more
Judging from your own experience, what is the average length of a man’s penis?
a. 9”
b. 10”
c. 11”
d. a and c
e. I add the sum of all the lengths and divide by the number of man currently in bed
How do you keep track of your lovers afterwards?
a. my diary
b. reading The National Enquirer
c. collecting CDs of every band I’ve had
d. a dedicated computer database, online so it can be updated from anywhere, instantly
e. my staff handles that sort of thing
I learned about sex from:
a. my parents/uncle/aunt/teacher/coach/parole officer
b. my schoolmates
c. porn videos
d. porn videos starring my parents
e. directing porn videos starring my parents and my schoolmates
My first time was:
a. gentle and loving, with someone I cared about
b. wild and animalistic, with someone handy
c. a carefully crafted media event to help debut my new perfume
d. as number #257 and #263 in the “World’s Largest Gang-Bang 2”
e. recorded by three separate amateur astronomers on two different continents as a new sighting
Safe sex means:
a. condoms, foam, those little rubber things the girl sticks in
b. getting a complete blood test and medical history back to the crib
c. wearing your seatbelt during
d. making sure the knots are within reach
e. knee pads, support cables, two burly spotters, and making sure the safety is on
What’s the longest sex act you’ve ever experienced?
a. an honest 3 minutes, by God!
b. halftime
c. the duration of the cab drive from Camden to Parliament, not counting the stop for drinks and preventatives
d. the duration of the plane trip from New York to Zurich, not counting the break for dinner but including the movie
e. it began on Bastille Day, 1991, and has been peaking steadily since
You discover that your new lover is married. What do you do?
a. end it immediately, it’s not worth the heartache
b. continue until discovery is imminent, then get the hell out
c. stay in the relationship until you have drained it of every drop of potential pleasure, then bring the whole marriage down in flames
d. leave immediately, preventing closure, then make a point of re-entering your lover’s life in a dramatic fashion every few years to keep things interesting
e. immediately seduce your lover’s spouse as well, either simultaneously or in sequence, to keep things fair
Oral sex is:
a. okay, I guess
b. better than anything on this earth, except for the World Cup
c. the best way to shut someone up, ever
d. the very best way to say “good morning!”
e. the only proper study of a lifetime
How far will you go on a first date?
a. a chaste kiss, if the rest of the date has been agreeable
b. a passionate kiss, if we really hit it off
c. oral sex, either as a promise or as the best way to get them to leave
d. an all-nighter, but only if it’s understood that I never do that sort of thing, that’s what I always say
e. I might be willing to conceive a child, but the medical fees have to be Dutch treat
Anal sex is:
a. dirty and nasty and specifically prohibited by God
b. okay, if you must insist, but only for a special occasion such as an anniversary or perfect bowling game, but get it over with and don’t ever tell anybody or I’ll poison your coffee
c. something to be approached with care, with someone you love and trust implicitly
d. something to be approached with bear grease
e. what you do after everything else on your body is used up
I think the first time you make love to a new person, you should:
a. be very certain that this is what both of you want, and then go slowly and gently
b. get good and drunk and go at it like crazed ferrets
c. be respectful and get her aroused gradually, using just the one fist
d. probably get their name, at some point
e. probably discover their gender, at some point
If someone ever took nude pictures of you, how would you respond?
a. with affronted dignity and the barest suggestion of a possible lawsuit
b. with flattered “thank you”s
c. with wild sex and some photography of my own
d. with tips on lighting and composition
e. with legal injunctions against sale or distribution until contracts can be signed that grant me all rights regarding reproduction in any and all forms of media, especially cinematic productions or webcasts
After sex, how long do you wait until you tell your best friend?
a. until after the relationship is over
b. until the next day, at lunch
c. until I can reach the phone without offending
d. until I can figure out which of the tangle of bodies in the bed is my best friend
e. I never tell, they can damn well buy the book like everybody else
Scoring
Give yourself 1 point for every “a” answer, 2 points for every “b”, 3 points for every “c”, 4 points for every “d”, and 5 points for every “e”. Add ‘em up and find yourself below.
20 — 39 points: I’m sorry, but I’m afraid this book really isn’t for you. Perhaps you might consider reading a nice religious tract, or keeping bees, or whatever it is that boring people do.
40 — 59 points: Not bad, not bad at all. You’re very nearly sexy enough to hang out with us, but you’d be, metaphorically speaking, the guy that always gets sent for beer.
60 — 79 points: Now we’re getting somewhere. Sexy, adventurous, relatively uninhibited, selfish enough to be exciting in bed and insufferable everywhere else. You’d do anything someone asked you to, but you’re not at your best when it comes to inventing your own moves. I’d do you and even admit to it afterwards.
80 — 99 points: Yow! You’re a smoking hottie and you’ve got rock stars hanging around your front doorstep waiting for you to come out. If only they knew your heart belongs to… well, you. You’re impulsive, exciting, and ready to drop everything and go at it wherever you are. You’d bang the priest during your own funeral if you could get the book out of his hands, and we love you for it.
100 points: You are a sex god/dess, and I can only assume that your love slave filled out this questionnaire under your precisely screamed orders. You certainly wouldn’t have had the time. You don’t play at destroying marriages, you bring down governments. You are the destroyer manifested in supple flesh, and we kneel before you. Carefully. Or else you’re just a total slut, but that’s good too.
-------------------------
How Was Your Service?
The following is, as close as I can remember it, a verbatim conversation held in bed one cozy morning:
“That was exceedingly pleasant.”
“Thank you, thank you, all part of the service.”
“Really? Is there a tip jar?”
“No, your gratuity was included in your bill. Skooch over, you're hogging the blankie.”
“I thought that was only when the party was over 7 people?”
“It's a complimentary service I provide for my best customers. Gimme.”
“Then I should fill out the comment card. Here, you can't get more blankie because you're lying on it. Now, comments… I never have a pen when I need one…”
“What does the card say?”
“Hey, don't snoop while I'm writing. Hmmm. 'Quality of Service? ' Excellent.”
“Thank you.”
“'Promptness? ' Well, you were a little slow getting started…”
“That's because you kept dropping those real subtle hints about me needing more protein in my diet, and how you just happened to know where I could get some freshly squeezed, so I pretended to be asleep 'til you got serious.”
“I was very serious, and that'll lose you points. ‘Failure to take the customer's desires under account’. I'll just note that under 'How May We Improve? '“
“Hey, I didn't laugh at your orgasm face, that ought to qualify me for Employee of the Month.”
“Yes, you did!”
“No, I was laughing at the noises you were making, chipmunk boy.”
“Wow, you get surly when you're off duty, don't you?”
“You started it. And don't call me surly.”
“Let's see… 'Quality of food'. Exquisite. I should thank the chef.”
“I don't think my parents are near a phone. You could thank God, I suppose. But call it something else, if I hear you thanking God for my pussy I'll just get embarrassed.”
“I'll put it in French, that's what the best restaurants do anyway. Uh, “chaud humide chat” or something. Nah, if I was going to do that I woulda said grace beforehand. Besides, then I'd feel obligated to do the same whenever I was dissatisfied with the service.”
“Hey! When have you ever been dissatisfied with the service?”
“Just planning for the future, m'luv.”
“More comments like that and there won't be one, you'll be on a diet. Dunno why I bother getting fancy anyway, no matter what I do to prepare you fall on me like a burger and fries anyway.”
“Not always, just when it's been awhile.”
“You mean like more than a day or so.”
“Pretty much, yes. But I don't treat you like fast food.”
“Sure you do. You step up, glance at the menu with your mouth open while I wait for you to decide, then you get the same thing you always do, tear through it like a linebacker, then dump your tray and leave. As it were.”
“But at least I finish eating before I play on the playground.”
“I think our metaphors are getting a bit confused.”
“I certainly am. But hey, if we went the fast-food route we could mount one of those big bells like Long John Silver’s has and I could just ring that whenever it was really good.”
“Oh, God. There's something to look forward to.”
“The happiest of Happy Meals, and that way the neighbors could keep track of your service record. Back to the card.”
“Shouldn't we be getting up or going to sleep or something?”
“Quiet, this is just good manners. How will service ever improve if we don't take the time to comment?”
“You could stop yelling 'wahoo, ride 'em cowboy' during intimate moments, for one thing.”
“Romance is dead. Perhaps you could offer after-sex mints or something.”
“You hate mints.”
“But it would give me something to whip at the light switch. I hate getting up right afterwards.”
“That would explain why you favor t-shirts for cleanup.”
“That's another thing, you should provide linens. Maybe a handiwipe like the barbecue places have.”
“One more word and you'll be stuck with self-serve, you know that, don't you?”
“You're still my favorite night spot, you know.”
“Good night.”
“Good night.”
“Hey?”
“Mmmmphh?”
“Would madam be interested in a midnight snack? Plenty of protein…”
-------------------------
An Unsigned Love Letter Stuffed in a Locker
I find you in an intimate apparel boutique, like Victoria's Secret, or Wal-Mart. You're at the register. There's a long line of customers in front of you, you're hurried and frantic and so you don't see me coming up from behind. I sneak up, quiet as the jungle cat I resemble and smell like, to stand directly behind you, close enough to breathe in the intoxicating combination of silky soft hair and Cheetos.
I nod, smiling, to the customer behind you, inviting him to share in the momentary deception and enjoy your imminent surprise, even to go first if he wants to. He nods back, sending me silent messages in the age-old gentleman's code, for me to take first crack. He follows it up by waving his erect penis at the both of us, signifying his approval of what is surely to come, much like the howler monkey (and his enemy, the hideous shark).
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