The Sportin' Life Read online

  I sank into despair with the same fervor with which I fell in love. I was paralyzed with pain. If I could have died by pushing a button, I would have done it gladly, the only problem being that there would have been little difference between death and the way I already felt. I had a pulse, maybe, but my heart had surrendered to the anguish of being without Kevin. I couldn’t leave the bed. I couldn’t eat. I tried to sleep as much as possible, for at least asleep I was unaware of the pain that filled my being to my very soul.

  I hated Kevin. If I had a truck and he were standing in front of me in the middle of the road, I could have run over him with no remorse. I wanted to crush his heart the way he had crushed mine. I wanted him to change his mind and call me asking for another chance so that I could reject him callously, uncaringly, completely. I wanted him to die a thousand deaths of all the evil villains in every B movie I could recall. I wanted him to suffer and be destroyed by love. But more than anything else there was one thing I wanted. I wanted him back.

  Lou

  Penis Envy

  What am I gonna have—a foot long cock? Then he would be only four feet shorter than me. Irwin is big enough for me and if a broad can’t deal with him, that’s her problem. Let her go to a stable and find a horse to fuck. What would you rather have in the saddle—a jockey or a fucking palomino? I like to throw a woman off balance as I plug her. I say, “It feels like it’s not all the way in.” That way she thinks there’s something wrong with her snatch and not with Irwin. Works every time.

  If the truth were known, I’d rather look like Kevin, who is a fucking dreamboat. If only he were dumb or broke or something, then I could look down on him, but unfortunately he’s the whole enchilada—handsome, successful, bright, degreed. Of course that doesn’t mean he isn’t a fucking mental case—I have it all over him there. Unfortunately your modern broad isn’t all that interested in mental health, not when it comes to guys six feet tall (with I guess a cock to match) versus guys only five feet tall with proportionate equipment.

  I needed a leading edge and so I went into medicine. I was raised to believe that doctors are the closest earthly equivalent to God and so I decided to reach for the top. I’m lucky at least for the century in which I was born—in olden times, I would have had to become a warrior or something like that which would have required more inches than I have to offer—above or below the belt. No, a doctor was it, and I was right. All I have to do is tell a broad that I’m her friendly local physician and I seem to grow taller in her estimation. The other thing I needed was hot wheels and I even upped the stakes on that one because I didn’t stick to the typical Corvette or even Porsche or Jag, no I went straight to the top and got my first Rolls Royce when I was twenty eight. Been plugging them in the back seat ever since.

  Wait a minute—I didn’t even get to the best part which is that I am a fucking gynecologist—that’s right—I’m up to my armpits in snatch from morning to night, so even if they can’t see I’m as close to God as they’re going to get on earth, they’re still going to climb up on the table and give me a bird’s eye view of heaven. Where else would God dwell? I read in the paper about some foreign asshole OBGYN who was up on charges for raping a woman on the examining table and I say good for him, even if he is a schmuck. No Beverly Hills doc would do that—why bother when they’re lining up to open their snatch for a doctor—privately that is. I wonder how the guy did it. Did he plug them with the speculum in place? Jeez how awful—I bet that would scratch. What was this bozo’s problem anyway—even a three-eyed Martian with antennae could get laid in Los Angeles—all he’d need is to be a doctor or a rich son of a bitch from the Middle East. How anyone that dumb could pass the med boards I can’t imagine.

  Of course now that Kevin’s here in L.A. the rest of us might be in for some competition since he manages to fuck more women than a fucking Casanova, which is exactly what he is. I don’t know why I said he could bunk in with me while he shops for a house—after all I owe him nothing even if my mother was his mother’s cousin and fucking favorite relative. My mother was everybody’s favorite relative and all I can say now that’s she’s gone is that I hope most of them, male and female alike, will be content to stay in Brooklyn where they belong and leave me and this fucking paradise unvisited. Well, it doesn’t hurt to be charitable. Besides—Kevin could pass along some of his choicer rejects to me.

  Who can tell what’s going on with this guy, what with the constant stream of women passing through his bed. You listen to him talk and you’d think he was more their fan than fucking Helen Gurley Brown or whoever is the gals’ messiah now, but I don’t know, I think that something’s amiss, and I think it has to do with his mother, who was a regular ball buster by any standards. Whoever said that only the good die young was as deluded as the schmuck currently in jail for patient rape. Kevin’s mother never had a kind word for anybody—except other women of course, and I bet she was some sort of closet dyke, if they had those things in her generation.

  One thing you can say for her is that she taught him superlative manners, and the women he slimes with that impeccable social grace never fail to notice or appreciate his way with doors, cigarette lighter, fur wraps, and soft, intimate chatter, the kind no real guy gives a fuck about except as a means of getting a fuck. To watch him, you’d think that he lives to pull a broad’s chair out, to lean toward her in that lugubrious way and ooze charm all over her like it was a natural part of him, some sort of glandular secretion that is released from his pores instead of sweat.

  Lately all he talks about is Liana, some broad he screwed (both physically and emotionally if you get my drift) but who managed to retain a hold on his psyche after a bunch or years and no doubt a bunch of other women. It would be funny if she were the same Liana I dated and screwed, but I doubt it because his Liana is first of all in New York and second hot stuff according to him, while the Liana I fucked was some sort of cool, aloof bitch who had the balls to ask me to stop right in the middle of the session with a vague comment like, “I think this isn’t going to work, Lou. I’m awfully sorry.” This one was icy and unavailable for any kind of real excitement and hardly the type who could—get this—give a guy a hard-on over the phone just at the sound of her voice—if you can believe that I’ve got some real estate in Florida you might want to option.

  A guy like me has to be real careful with the babes. They see my size and can automatically think that they’re doing me a favor by letting me plug them. I’m nobody’s wimp and I hate those soft emotional guys like Kevin who can get away with all that sensitivity because they have the macho looks to pull it off. I may look like a wimp but under it all I’m a macho stud and maybe I act even a little more macho than I really feel just to reassure the broads that I’m a real man. Fuck ‘em, because no matter what, some of’em will beef about one thing or another. Which of course they would probably never do with Kevin. He says fuck a dog or a dandelion, they say sure. He says suck him and they open wide. Of course I’ve never actually seen ol’ Kevin in the sack, but I’ve seen him in every other situation and it isn’t hard to figure how they melt in bed when they practically slobber all over him in other areas of life. Imagine if he were a fucking doctor the response he’d get—actually he’d probably knock them so far off their feet that he’d have to fuck his women while they were comatose from an overdose of excess pizzazz. Knowing Kevin, he’d probably be a psychiatrist if he were a doctor—never knew one of them who had his hair screwed on straight or who performed any function at all, but at least that way Kevin’d have the couch available at all times.

  So here we are in Beverly Hills and we walk along inside the Rodeo collection which absolutely floored me when I first got to town. Imagine all that luxury, all that luscious pink marble, just the color of some broad’s twat, and escalators—fucking escalators—outside in the open air. Kevin was as impressed as I had been, not that he noticed the scenery at all except for the women, the armies of gorgeous, long limbed California women who look like
they stepped right out of some magazine. Women so healthy that everything is as firm as on a guy, but not quite, and so shapely you want to fall to your knees and thank God for making this the true Garden of Eden.

  We wander into this little shop called the Heart in Hand Gallery and it is devoted to rocks, as they call they nowadays crystals, and other handmade jewelry that is supposed to bring you luck or love or spiritual growth or whatever else you figure you lack. I didn’t hear the salesgirl mention that any of them could bring you brains, but that is not a commodity particularly valued in this locale. Naturally Kevin is interested—I guess he figures he can use crystals as a homing device to add even more women to his harem. He even mentions to the sales girl that he once owned a crystal which he was so sad to lose. Privately he tells me that no, this is not just a come-on, that he did have a crystal that Liana, naturally, had given him, and now it must be some kind of mysterious destiny that he should discover this place. That’s what I mean about macho. A guy who looks like me says something like mysterious destiny and right away you figure wimpette but Kevin super stud says it and they all sigh, aah…so cute…so sensitive.” It could replace syrup of ipecac in the medicine chest.

  After Kevin has acquired several crystals, some rocks—tumbled stones—for his bedside and has made a date with the blond salesgirl who if not jail bait has just graduated from that category yesterday, we head out for a drink. We sit talking and sipping our beers and what do you know but Kevin hands me a box and inside is a crystal he decided I would like. It’s a bird and Kevin says it reminds him of the bird in the little medical symbol, well the bird is silver like the chain, but in its claws is a clear rock, like a raw stone, and I guess it is pretty interesting, and I am impressed because I never suspected that Kevin had any real affection for anyone at all, least of all me. It almost makes me feel guilty for the way I detest the guy, but luckily I learned to deal with guilt long enough ago that now I can take it or leave it alone.

  Next stop is the athletic store where Kevin buys new running shoes. I suppose he plans to keep running around the block here in Beverly Hills, just the way he did in Brooklyn. Let me try that and you have to come bail me out of jail for vagrancy and suspicious conduct. When he does it, he’ll probably round the corner with a bunch of women in Nikes nipping at his heels like dogs after a kid on a bike. The salespeople in this particular shop are all male, so Kevin has no chance to enhance his social life in this scene. I didn’t know he was still running. He assures me that it is the absolutely best way of releasing all emotions and various form of tension that are extremely unhealthy, particularly in today’s tense society. I wonder if it wouldn’t be just as effective to deal with emotions by actually letting yourself feel them and then they’d pass the fuck away like a load of crap down the toilet, but I figure that someone who practically causes broken hearts for a living doesn’t want to hear about my feel ‘em and flush ‘em philosophy.

  Kevin loves my car. If he were a broad, he’d be creaming so much that I’d have to pull off the road to oil his joints, but as it were, I enjoy being on the receiving end of his envy, what with it being such a rare form of turnabout. He asks me to tell him about it and about the reactions I get because of it, which I happily oblige, even going so far as to embellish the truth a bit. I figure a guy like this with a great story for just about every night doesn’t impress all that easy, and I don’t ever find out if I am right or not because Kevin is just so affable with me that it’s almost easy to fall under his spell. He asks me for advice about the car he ought to get and what I really think is that he’d do OK with a skateboard but instead I nod in agreement when he mentions Jaguar. A guy as smooth as that is just about right in a Jag. He doesn’t have the kind of flash for a Ferrari and probably wants to specialize in the type of women more attracted by a Jag.

  As Kevin rambles on about settling down, my dislike for him resumes. At least I had the balls to make a commitment once, and that’s more than Kevin can say, no matter how much romantic talk about finding his prefect woman he spits out. At least I did get married once, and if it didn’t work out forever, it wasn’t the worst thing in the world for a little while. I was in med school then and I was so glad to find a woman who’d agree to fuck me on a regular basis that I was happy to marry her. She was just a secretary and delighted to be getting a future doctor, even if she was half a foot taller than me. In the sack, everybody’s the same size, except John Holmes, I guess. Which is what I think made her take off—some brain-dead guy with his wits between his legs, and if I was sad at first to lose her, I realized that it was at the best possible time—before I had real fucking assets to divide. Now, you can be sure that I will really know what I’m doing before I marry another woman because now I have something to risk. It’s a fairly typical story, I guess. In fact, I can safely say that my ex is probably the one woman on the East Coast that Kevin never fucked. I figure he ran out of babes there and that’s why he had to come here—to look for fresh blood, like a thirsty vampire growing desperate in a convention of anemics.

  He ought to face facts—which is that he is a bachelor, stud, Don Juan son of a bitch who has about as much chance of making a commitment to one woman as a pigeon does to a fairy named Tinkerbelle. Where would he get his constant reinforcements if he had to go off babes? He’d cheat, that’s where and then some broad would have a full time broken heart instead of the temporary, recoverable ones he usually dishes out like bon bons at a party. I figure that ol’ Kevin and I are due for a parting of the ways soon, because I’m pushing fifty and I just don’t have the same satisfaction from rotating women that he gets. Fuck no. If I could find a decent girl who’d see me as God, just kidding, but as someone who’s what she really wants—emotionally and physically—then I know I’d settle down. Well, I think I would. As long as she’d sign a fucking prenup and as long as she took my mind completely off the fact that everyone else is a foot closer to heaven just by standing up in their stocking feet, while I have to keep reaching for it all the time.

  Kevin

  Team Spirit

  When I told Lou I was moving to L.A., he laughed and said, “What’samatter, Kevin, run out of women on the East Coast?” I don’t know why he sees me as such a womanizer because the truth is that all I’m looking for is the one perfect woman for me and then I want to settle down and spend the rest of my life with her. Right now I’m just interviewing, so to speak.

  I love women. I love the feel of them in my arms, the softness of their flesh, the curves of their bodies, the time they take fussing to be beautiful, the makeup that they paint their faces with, the silky things they wear to please me, the light in their eyes when I enter the room. I love holding them and undressing them, making love to them. And, yes, I’ve had a lot of women. I’ve had many more women than the number of a whole football team, more even than a league, probably more than all the leagues currently out here. Maybe more than that.

  Liana once asked me if I had any fantasies and I had to say that no, not really, and that was because I had lived most of my fantasies out. I told her about the time I was in Vegas for a business meeting and my boss and I were out on the town drinking. He was this older, married guy, poor slob, and this was his once chance for some glory. We were hitting all the bars and strip joints, and really I was acting as his guide, his mentor, someone who knew the ropes in the singles’ scene, although in actual fact I would never frequent places like that looking for women because there are so many available in all normal walks of life.

  Anyway, I guess he kind of envied me because I was footloose and fancy free and everything that he was not. We went into this one strip joint and sat down at a table to watch the dancers. We ordered drinks and I could see that this was his fantasy, although I was really a little bored. It’s a bit tawdry, that scene.

  The girls were doing their thing and he was watching them with an appreciation that I usually reserve for a fine brandy. We laughed and talked and had a little non-threatening, non-professional male
bonding. The one girl in the center was rather spectacular. She was tiny and lithe, with long, curly platinum hair and the most amazing set of fake breasts I had ever seen, if you like that sort of thing. She seemed to be dancing straight at us, and that turned my boss on even more.

  After she finished her set, she disappeared backstage for a moment and then reappeared in a flimsy dress or robe or cover-up of some kind and slithered over to our table and sat down. She wanted me, it was clear, and I knew how impressed my boss was by this fact. I was flattered too. Later we went back to the hotel and she spent the night with me in my room. The sex was in no way astonishing but the whole logistics of the scene were a major turn on.

  The next day we were due to fly home, and I packed to go, ordering her steak and eggs from room service. I grabbed my bag and met my boss so we could head for the parking lot together. There we saw the girl coming in our direction. What was her name—something woodsy like Fauna or exotic like Sirena—and my boss tensed. I know he thought I had gotten smitten and was bringing her back with me. Actually, she had just wanted to catch up and say good-bye and to thank me for the night.

  I love one night stands in faraway places. You can develop just the right degree of intimacy and feel relaxed and secure because you know you’ll never see the girl again. That was one of my favorites, because of the cachet of the situation and because it impressed my boss so much it resulted in a promotion. Somebody has to do the living for these poor slobs who are so tied up in domesticity that they don’t have an inch in which to breathe.