I'm the One That I Want (10 page)

I just hung around the closed door, not part of the audience, not one of the performers. No one took me under their wing, no one knew I existed. My invisibility wasn’t particularly painful, because it was just like everywhere else in my life, but I was determined here to change all that. If I didn’t enter the greenroom, I didn’t act as if I was scared to, I just pretended to myself that I didn’t want to, and that standing by the door was where it was at.

Eventually, I met other people who thought standing by the door was better, too. Before we knew it, we just fell into the greenroom when no one else was there, and suddenly that room was ours, and there were new, younger, scared people standing by the door, where we once were. I invited them in.

Stand-up comedy was so scary back then. It was okay once I actually got onstage, but the entire day before was nightmarish. I worried constantly about what I would say. I wondered what the crowd would be like or if there even would be a crowd. I was worried about the comics before me and if I could follow them. I thought about what I would say, and then got scared that I wasn’t funny enough. The fear brought on a panic of whether I was kidding myself or not. I asked myself why I was doing this in the first place, putting myself through all this. What would happen if I forgot all my material? What would happen if I accidentally stole material from somebody else without even knowing it and got a reputation as a thief? What would happen if for some reason I was unable to get to the club? Would I be able to call them and tell them I wasn’t coming? What if I just called and said I couldn’t do it? What if I just told them that I was sick and woke up not funny and my dog ate my jokes, and what would happen what would happen what would happen. . . . It would reach a boiling point when I got to the club, then it simmered throughout the night until finally my name was called and I would walk onto the stage. I’d stand by the bar or by the stage entrance and my back would get all cold and my spine would tingle, my hands would shake and I wouldn’t be able to concentrate on anything or who was performing at the moment. I just wanted to run away, and then suddenly, the emcee would say my name and I would miraculously walk out on my own two feet and get the first joke out.

Most of the time, it would go fine, and people would laugh and I’d stand a little taller and feel a little more confident. Sometimes, I wasn’t very good. Time would drag and I’d leave the stage defeated, but it never felt as bad as I thought it would. Afterward, I would try to get back on stage as soon as possible, to erase what I had done, to get some kind of performance retribution.

I did comedy for many years in San Francisco, living out the rest of my teens in the clubs and one-nighters all around the Bay Area. In addition to that, I worked at FAO Schwarz, did phone sex, and worked at my parents’ bookstore all at the same time to support my comedy habit. FAO Schwarz was the most corporate job I’d ever had, and every day I would dress up in a red yarn wig and bloomers and pass myself off to the bratty kids as Raggedy Ann. One kid kicked me and said emphatically, “Raggedy Ann is not Chinese!” I spent my breaks with the Toy Soldier getting high on the top floor of the parking garage across the street.

I would get off work at FAO Schwarz and rush over to the phone sex job. Usually, I didn’t have time to change in between, so I would be doing phone sex still dressed as Raggedy Ann.

I got the phone sex job from a dumpy, aspiring actress named Kiley, who helped other dumpy, aspiring actresses get entry-level positions in the sex industry (no pun intended). This was in the halcyon days of phone sex recorded messages, before the advent of
Girl 6
and the Internet. We would get paid about $10 per message, and each was only about a minute long, so it was a good job. You got even more money if you were willing to write your own scripts. I felt like Anaïs Nin, writing erotica for my supper.

The downside was you had to be in the glass recording booth with the creepy technician, Maslowe, a smallish man with red curly hair all over his chest, spilling out in tufts from his open pirate shirt. He wore knee-high boots with khaki riding jodhpurs tucked into them, so he looked even shorter than he was, and somehow, I picture him carrying a machete, although I don’t believe that it was ever part of his ensemble. Since he dressed so outlandishly, he never commented on my Raggedy Ann outfit. I probably looked normal to him.

In the cramped and close quarters of the sound booth, Maslowe would sit with his boots propped up on the desk, stinking of Brut. “C’mon, make it real for me. Breathe harder, get me off. Act like you like it. You can touch yourself if you want. I don’t mind.”

I would try to read again, now totally self-conscious, even more wooden than before. I tried to ignore what he just said, tried to act cool, like “I’m a grown-up, I don’t mind being talked to like that,” but I couldn’t.

Sometimes, Maslowe would give me a lollipop.

“This’ll make you sound wetter. More open. Suck it.”

All of his notes just made me worse, less sexy, more scared. Sometimes he would get so frustrated with me that he would tear off his headphones and leave the little booth. I’d just sit there and wait for him to come back, which he always did eventually. I think he wanted me to chase after him, so I’d find him outside on the fire escape, looking off into the distance. Then, I’d wrap my arms around him, begging him to come back. He wouldn’t listen, and I’d just carry his little body back to the sound booth, apologizing profusely the entire time, and then cream into the mike like Apollonia or Vanity or some other Prince protégé.

By Jove, I think she’s got it!

I never did. I just sat there. He would come back, carrying a cup of coffee, and finish recording me. Despite his “artistic” ambitions, we still had a job to do. The coffee was Maslowe’s way of covering up for his tantrum under the guise of thirst.

Maslowe got fired, and Kiley took over as sound technician, which made it much easier. We got a contract to do a series of messages, called
Hot Girls USA
. It was part of
Learn English!
, an educational program for the employees of a Japanese company. Japanese men could call in and get extra credit for the language course and supposedly get off at the same time. Talk about killing two birds with one stone.

Since the messages were designed to teach English, the text had to be simple and straightforward.

“Hello. My name is Candi. I have blonde hair. I have large breasts. I
enjoy sex. My favorite activity is sucking cock. This is most enjoyable.
Do you enjoy sex?” (space for response)

“Good. I like to have sex every day.”

I made a lot of money on those sessions, and Maslowe wasn’t there, so I didn’t have to look at his miserable Khaki wearin’ ass, or be grossed out by his controlling, sexually violating direction.

UsUally after I finished at the phone sex studio, I would go to my parents’ bookstore and work until closing, the red circles and brown freckles fading on my tired face. Then I’d go home and change and go to a show. I was exhausted, but so excited by the comics and the great people I was meeting and the fantastic shows I was seeing, that I went to bed every night hotly anticipating what the next day would bring.

When my parents closed the bookstore in 1987, all the employees scattered to find other bookstore jobs. I was looking for something different. I saw an ad in the San Francisco
Bay Guardian
looking for a salesperson at a lesbian SM leather boutique called Stormy Leather. It intrigued me, so I applied. I walked into the little warehouse on Howard Street, in the just-becoming-fashionable South of Market district, and I almost ran smack into a beautiful, tall blonde woman. She had a crew cut and Buddy Holly glasses. She was wearing a black leather harness and jeans. Her breasts were bare under the harness and they looked as perfect as vanilla ice cream. We looked at each other and both turned bright red as she ran back into the dressing room. I felt as if I’d come home.

The retail store was attached to the workshop, which was directly behind a big, leather curtain. Stormy Leather had recently opened the retail store, to supplement its already hugely successful mail-order business. It sold leather lingerie and sex toys to the lesbian-Pat-Califia-leather-babes of San Francisco and the sexually adventurous suburban computer power couples of Silicon Valley. The warehouse smelled pleasantly of hides and rubber dildos, and I sat behind the counter and buzzed customers in.

My sidework included interesting tasks like shining the chrome cock rings until I could see my face, making sure the bamboo canes made an ominous sound as they whipped through the air, dusting latex fetish garments with baby powder, and putting fresh batteries into vibrators. I spent hours creating fabulous displays for butt plugs. I really let the Muse take over.

The Clientele Was very polite, and ever so happy to be spending their money on what they loved to do. SM is a wonderful hobby for many, and those that have the time and the finances to collect the pricey gear are lucky and know it.

Stormy Leather carried an impressive array of leather and fetish equipment, and I learned so much about what people can do in bed. I also got to experience some things firsthand.

I got invited to an SM play party sponsored by a club called Links, which catered to the gay-les-bi-transgender SM community. I’d been working at the store for about a year and had never played myself, outside of beating this guy with a riding crop. The experience for me wasn’t exactly sexual. He got on my nerves, and then he wouldn’t stop calling me! I knew there was enormous power in that kind of sexuality, and I was curious to see what people actually did after they bought all the stuff.

I went with another girl who worked at the store, Jadine, and her boyfriend Ian. It was held at a computer magnate’s house in Bernal Heights, and there was a canned food drive that night, offering money off the price of admission with a donation of canned goods. We saw a mistress walk in with a slave on a leash in one hand, and a can of Dinty Moore Beef Stew in the other.

We paid our admission and walked into the party. The house was
Sunset
-magazine-style-Californian, with lots of redwood decks and Adirondack chairs. Some leather-dykes hovered around a sorry buffet of Granny Goose potato chips and onion dip, laid out on paper plates, with Cragmont soda in two-liter bottles. The smell of hot dogs filled the room, but the mysterious sausages were nowhere in sight. For some reason, the food at the sex parties is always terrible. I suppose this is to encourage the guests to eat each other, rather than the hors d’oeuvres.

Jadine and Ian went off to explore the house. I sat down in the living room and tried to look comfortable in my black vinyl catsuit. A youngish, Filipino woman knelt at my feet. She wore Dickies and a leather cap, which she gallantly pulled off her head while addressing me. She said, “My mistress has given me permission to kiss your hand. May I kiss your hand?”

“Uh. Yeah. Sure. Whatever.”

I was being so uncool.

I excused myself as fast as I could and went downstairs into the dungeon. I ran down and found Jadine and Ian sitting in the corner. Lots of people were milling about, older couples in leather and latex, mean little lesbians in tight, dirty jeans, some drag queens—but nobody was really doing anything. It was just like being at a school dance where nobody wants to dance first, and everybody is acting like they are too bored or too tired, or they don’t have time just yet, but maybe later.

Suddenly, a very fat woman walked out to the center of the party. About five of the mean-looking leather girls tackled her to the floor. Her massive body came crashing down, and they tore off her muumuu and began an intense rape scene, pulling her legs apart and roughly inserting a bright orange dildo that looked like a safety cone into her vagina.

Jadine and Ian ran out of the party. As they went by, I think I heard her mumble a Doppler-effected “Really exhausted, gotta go . . .” but she was moving too fast. I couldn’t move. I immediately thought I should try to help this woman, and I couldn’t understand why nobody was helping her. I thought I should call the police. Then, I remembered where I was.

Almost immediately, everyone around me, all the SM wallflowers, sprung into action. The ice was certainly broken! An older man in a leather codpiece came over and sat by me on the bench. “Don’t you work at Stormy Leather?”

“Yes. I do. Hi. I’m Margaret.”

“Yeah. Do you remember me? You sold me this jockstrap.”

He casually unsnapped the front of his jockstrap to reveal his soft cock and balls, nesting in the fishnet underneath like a bunch of grapes. I tried not to jump up, thinking that the proper etiquette here would be to act calm and interested. “Oh. That’s, uh, that is, just
fine
.”

“I’m here with my wife. Maybe you’d like to play with us? You could whip me if you’d like.”

“Uh. Thanks. But I’m watching my friend’s purse. I can’t right now.”

In the middle of the party there was an old man, around 80 or so, in leather chaps and gray handlebar mustache like an octogenarian Village Person, strapping a young boy to a table. He was applying a sewing implement, that spiked-wheel thing that resembles a pizza cutter, directly onto the boy’s massive erection. The dangerous-looking wheel left behind tiny drops of blood all along the shaft. Ow ow ow ow ow ow.

It was shocking, the rape, the blood, the violence, the SM theme music (“Whip It,” “Master and Servant”), yet I didn’t leave. I couldn’t leave. It was so fascinating. It wasn’t exactly a turn-on for me, but everybody else was having such a good time, and so involved in what they were doing, the feeling was contagious. I saw that there was so much more to sex than just doing it with the lights off and hoping that you didn’t get pregnant.