12:41 PM - A little fiction - Age of Consent

Here's an excerpt from the story I wrote the other day - tentatively titled after one of my favorite New Order songs.

***

"You've been a very bad boy, Herr Dorflein."

A fat, naked German crawls, blindfolded and ball-gagged, across the hardwood floor. Welts rise along his back. Drool spills from the corners of his mouth.

You are a dominatrix. You are paid two hundred dollars an hour to squeeze yourself into a vinyl bustier and torture businessmen in the fashion of their choice.

"You deliberately disobeyed me!" You draw your whip back and then snap it forward, making it pop against the German's flabby ass. "I told you the deadline for submissions was March first!" You whip him again. He grunts and shakes his head wildly. "What made you think mailing my story out last week would guarantee it would arrive in time?"

You are also a writer.

When Mistress Devon left for grad school, she bequeathed you Karl Dorflein. He'd been her slave for two years, and Devon had assured you he was an efficient and obedient servant. At first you didn't know what to do with a slave. Bossing men around at work was one thing, forcing one to do your bidding on the outside, in real life, was entirely another. You are a pretty self-sufficient person. You didn't need anyone to clean your apartment or do your laundry. So you decided to think of Herr Dorflein as your assistant. Once every two weeks he would arrive at your tiny East Village apartment, wearing his dog collar and leather Speedo under a scarf and long coat, and help you pack manuscripts into manila envelopes, label them with the addresses of various literary magazines, and send them off.

"If 'Tin House' returns my story unopened, I am going to be very," whip! "very," whip! "mad."

You kick him onto his back and sit on his chest. "You are an awful, disgusting man." You begin smacking him, hard, across the face. He yelps and squeals around the large red ball lodged in his mouth. He's getting quite excited by this, you can tell. "I'm going to put a leash on you and parade you around town. Everyone will see what an incompetent pig you are!"

You wrap a hand around his neck and apply just enough pressure. His legs begin shaking, his arms start flailing, and then, totally by accident, Herr Dorflein punches you in the eye.

"Ouch! Oh!" You roll off of him and hold your face in your hands.

Karl reaches behind his head, undoing the blindfold and unbuckling the gag. He looks at you, his eyes wide with concern. "I have hurt you?!"

"You hit me in the face!"

"Oh no!" He tries to move your hand from your face, to check on you, but you brush him away.

"No. I'm fine. You didn't mean to." The right side of your head is throbbing. Your eye has begun watering like crazy.

Karl sits back on his heels and watches you, helpless.

"I'm okay," you try to smile. "Really. Did you have fun?"

"Ja!" he nods. "You really pushed me to da limit today!"

You end the session fifteen minutes early. He reassembles his suit, continues to apologize profusely, and slips you an extra two hundred.

Viviola's Palace is located on the fourteenth floor of an office building on Vesey street in the Financial District. It used to be in Murray Hill, but after rents in lower Manhattan plummeted in the wake of 9/11, Viviola, your boss, moved the business downtown. You tried not to think about all the carcinogens still lingering in the air. "What I'm saving in rent, I'll spend on chemo once the cancer sets in," Viv once joked.

The "Palace" is actually three white-walled, sparsely decorated rooms: Viola's private office, a kitchen, and the studio space where clients are entertained. The studio features a black sectional couch, an armoire stocked with whips, paddles, and latex gloves, and a single window that looks directly out onto the enormous pile of wreckage that once was the World Trade Center.

Business boomed after the attacks. The regulars increased their visits, and new clients arrived constantly. Before 9/11, you did a lot of light play – slap and tickle, verbal humiliation, the occasional golden shower. After the towers fell, the men began wanting harder stuff: punching, kicking, strangulation. Sometimes they would come and take their beating without a word. Sometimes you'd barely touch them and they'd erupt in tears. More than once you'd spent the entire alloted hour holding a man, rocking him back and forth as he'd sob in your arms.

Things had slowly returned to normal as the months passed. Still, last week you had a Frenchman who, after he jacked himself off, dressed, and didn't tip, looked out the window, at the hole, and said, "I sink you asked for zis."

You walk Karl to the door and assure him you'll be fine. You head to the kitchen, where Viv, Jacquie and Iris are lounging around, laughing loudly. Moronic, electronic 80s pop love songs pour from the stereo.

"Oh, sweetie! What happened to your face?!" Viv says as soon as she sees you. You explain what happened, and she rummages through the fridge for an ice pack or frozen peas. She can't find either, so she hands you a diet soda and you press the cold aluminum can against your eye.

You like your boss. You like Jacquie and Iris, too, even though they're essentially your competition. Iris is originally from Oslo, and danced in the Norwegian National Ballet before moving to New York. She's frighteningly pretty with carrot red hair and a cut-glass accent. Jacquie looks like a Brazilian lingerie model, but she's just a nice Italian girl from Connecticut. Jacquie's sitting topless at the kitchen table, massaging vanilla scented lotion into her arms.

"Alex K is flying Jacquie to Paris for the weekend!" chirps Viv.

"Two grand plus flight and hotel, just to punch him in the balls," laughs Jacquie.

"God bless America." You lift the can from your eye. You want to go to Paris.

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12:33 PM - Correspondence.

Below is a series of emails between me and AH, a working writer I know and respect.

---

Hello, Mr. H.

Attached are two of my most recent stories, "Little Deaths" and "Grievous Bodily Harm." I'm very interested to hear your response.

Hope they don't completely shatter your idea of me as a writer.

Stay well.

-Leah

---

Ms. Gerchario,

I polished off both of your tales over a bottle of red wine last night. There was a thunderstorm pounding the skylight so it was the perfect reading environment.

My immediate impression is that you have the most important trait any true writer can have: an authentic voice. It doesn't matter how golden the prose if there is no pain and no meat behind it. You can't buy that.

I recall an anecdote about Gore Vidal and Tennessee Williams. Vidal took one of Tenn's stories and edited out everything that he thought detracted from the 'message' of the story. Tenn's response was "That's great but you've taken away the only thing that mattered - my style."

Please don't ever let your writing instructors pound you into something that you're not. I can smell a writer who attended the Iowa Writers' Workshop from 100 miles away. They all sound the same and are pretentious as shit.

I approached your stories from a pure enjoyment level and tried not to psychoanalyze them too much (of course I did that some).

I read "Grievous Bodily Harm" first. I was impressed with the technique you employed switching from Graeme to Jules, etc. You did the same thing in "Little Deaths" and I could see these two stories working together in a collection.

The male "Hogdogs" fighting to the death and then mating with the female was an ingenious way to translate the meaning of the story. Saying that humans are like hogdogs (just below the surface) had me thinking of this bastard who threatened to kick my ass at the bar last weekend. All because I was talking to some girl that he wanted.

"Little Deaths" knocked me over the head emotionally. Ted and Fanny are so damn lonely. Of course after my divorce, my perspective on love has excruciatingly tuned me into people's suffering. Again, I liked the character shift and scientific discussion of Neurodysthemia as a way to propel narrative. I received a strong writerly impression that you were translating something personal.

Both had knockout endings. They brought the stories back around and provided perspective. The "it was biology" line had me thinking about how close to animals we are, and Ted's pontificating about how he finally had something of his own (as pitiful and lonesome as it was) had me thinking of the small victories that we take.

I tried to give you my impressions without cracking a lot of smart ass jokes, which is normally what I do. Leah, you've got bucketloads of talent. I wouldn't say that if it weren't true. You can imagine how much shitty writing I've had to read in my life (waaaaaaaaaay too much). Send more.

Also, I'm going to forward these to my friend who teaches at NYU.

Running out into the rain now.

Take care of yourself.
AH

---

AH,

Thank you so much for your letter. I genuinely respect your opinion, and I'm so happy you enjoyed my stories. It's enormously important for a writer to have one person (and not necessarily her editor) who really understands her work. You could have sent me pages of notes on my trouble with tense change or run-on sentences, but instead you simply told me you liked the stories, and explained why.

In my workshops at school, everyone focuses on what went wrong in a piece. They tear a story apart (it's massively competitive), and often never mention what actually worked. If I don't know what a reader likes in a piece, it makes it so hard for me to fix the other stuff. What do you keep? What do you throw away? Where does the reader really feel the story - that's what I want to know. Also, it's great to hear individual interpretations of character motivations and themes. You responded perfectly.

Attached to this email are two more stories, "Out of Eden" and "Positivity" - the first story I wrote after moving to New York. I think Out of Eden is one of my best, but Positivity needs a shitload of work. Frankly, I cringe when I read it. It would be interesting to hear what you think.

Again, thank you so much. You really have no idea how much I appreciate all this.

Hope you're well.

-L

PS: I'm sure you're smart enough to have realized this, but neither Hilang Pulau and its Hogdogs nor Neurodysthemia actually exist.

---

Leah,

I remember the writing class racket where everyone tears everyone else to shit. Frankly, most of the people in your class are dumbasses. There are a turd's trickle of them that will actually make it.

I think it's productive to hear people's honest criticisms. In fact, I have no problem with that. What I disagree with is when these hacks tear down those who authentically have something to say. There are a lot of good writers that have been killed that way.

So, I could have discussed tenses or grammatical shifts (I actually did start editing one of your stories but then was like, "What the fuck am I doing?" and quit) and the minutiae of how a fart smells. That wouldn't have helped you though.

What I was reading for was A.) Does Leah have anything to say? B.) Does Leah have a voice? C.) Is her tone sincere/authentic? D.) Is there that unexplainable quality that all great writers have? And the answer to all those questions was yes.

Not to say that writing class won't make you better, it will. Just by forcing you to write, putting you in the perimeter of great authors and allowing you to run the gauntlet of the spoiled little rich shits in your class (I'm sure there are some cool students in your class. Somehow though, I always bring everything back around to my hatred of the wealthy.)

Too close, your writing didn't let me down. It was completely reflective of the creative and sensitive yet resilient person that I've met. I'm so glad that I don't have to fake any of this and can tell you my true opinion.

Keep writing Ms. Gerchario. I'm prognosticating a groundbreaking book of short stories, an excellent first novel, and some thought provoking journalism in the better glossy rags like Vanity Fair. Mark my words.

And...of course I knew that the disease and the hogdogs were fake. It would be fucked up if hogdogs were real. They have opposable thumbs!

I'm going on booze patrol tonight. If I don't hear from you, enjoy the long glorious weekend.
A

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10:58 PM - Liftoff

(I'm writing this to divert my attention from the fact that in only a few hours I will be 35,000 feet above the surface of the earth, rocketing toward Texas.)

I am afraid of flying. I don't like putting my life in someone else's hands. I don't like the idea of packing myself into an aluminum tube being shot across space and logic.

It wasn't always like this. I've flown at least twice a year since birth, but my intense aerophobia only came about within the last year or so. Maybe I'm more aware of all it takes to keep a plane aloft - and how little it would take to bring the motherfucker plummeting to the ground. Maybe I'm only just now conscious of all I have to live for: family, career, boys, Manhattan. Maybe it's hormones. Either way, my fear is a new one. In fact, I can remember when I was downright cocky about air travel.

On a trip to Chicago, my mother sat beside me, doing her deep breathing routine and wiping her sweaty palms on her trousers. "Chill the fuck out," I'd scoffed.

Where has that girl gone?

It might have had something to do with the 2006 ban on taking liquids onboard. Prior to the UK terrorist shebang, my mother had always allowed me to bring along a flask of vodka, which we'd nip into as soon as we were in the terminal, and later use as a mixer for our mid-flight beverages. I didn't know what to do with myself the first time I flew sober. Was it an especially turbulent trip or was it just me? I didn't make that mistake more than once, however, and soon learned to swallow two full-strength tablets of Hydrocodone before take-off. I'd be so high I could see my house.

Even airports make me nervous. It's a strange nervousness, though, a mix of nauseating anxiety and a kind of aimless romanticism. When I fly I want to be in love. I want to be flying toward someone. What other good reason is there for risking your life in such a grand fashion? It hasn't happened yet. I've been taken to airports, and picked up from baggage claim, but these instances have never been colored with the emotion I've come to expect. (Have you ever noticed how any contemporary romantic movie worth the price of admission features some sort of airport to-do?)

One of my most oddly erotic encounters occurred on a plane. I was flying out of JFK, seated in economy next to a man and his girlfriend/fiancee/wife. She must have taken something, because she'd passed out before we even rolled away from the jetbridge. Nervous energy prompted me to say hello to the man, and he smiled awkwardly in return. We didn't speak beyond that, but as the plane started to speed down the runway and then rise from the tarmac, my hand clamped down on the armrest – and, as it turned out – directly on top of this man's hand. The plane soared up, up, up, and as the force pressed us back into our seats, his hand kind of turned and opened and my fingers wound their way between his and I found myself squeezing against this stranger while his lady snored beside us.

My grandfather was killed in a plane crash.

When the flight attendants bring around the drink cart I'm fine. If the most pressing matter is whether I'd like sugar or Sweet N' Low in my tea, there's nothing to worry about. Also, there's something to be said for having a young male friend with a father who's a doctor – by the time I'm airborne, I'm going to have 30 milligrams of Valium coursing its way through my system, enough to take the edge off even the most crippling panic.

So I'll sit half-conscious in my window seat, and sip my complementary English Breakfast, and repeat to myself: What are the odds? What are the odds? What are the odds?

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7:49 PM - Family Matters

Mom: I had a dream you ran off with Ryan Adams last night.

Me: That's fantastic.

Mom: Yeah. ...And while we're at it - can you please stop telling people about your sexcapades?

Me: My "sexcapades"? Mom, I don't have "sexcapades."

Mom: Okay. But stop telling people how you date men old enough to be your father. I don't care if you say you're seeing a boy, but just say "boy." Leave some mystery.

Me: You just don't want people to think you're a bad parent.

Mom: Well how do you think it reflects on me when you're out gallivanting with 40 -

Me: 30.

Mom: Whatever-year-old men? How do you think that makes me look?!

Me: Y'know, I really don't think about you at all when I'm with guys. It's a bit too Freudian. I don't think I should have to lie about the fact that I tend to...fraternize with older gentlemen.

Mom: President Bush has done a lot of awful things, but when he gives his State of the Union address, everything comes out nice and clean.

Me: Did you just compare me to Bush?

Mom: I'm just saying, Leah.

Me: If I'm Bush, you're Rove.

Mom: I'm your mother.

Me: Yes you fucking are...

Mom: Watch your fucking language.

Me: Ryan Adams is 33.

Mom: He's an exception.

Me: He's really hot.

Mom: I know.

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8:38 PM - How to be a Writer

It's 2.45 on a Tuesday afternoon and I'm sitting at the bar, sucking down my second vodka-soda. I had just come back from a meeting concerning my manuscript with an editor at Patriarch Press. Things had not gone well.

"I'm not saying it's bad," sighed the editor, Dick Johnson. "You're technically a very good writer. You know story structure. The characters are rich and well-defined. It's just that...we've read this all before." He pushed my manuscript, 'Little Atlas,' away from him, letting it slide off the edge of his mahogany desk and into my lap.

I'd wasted the last three years of my life working on 'Atlas,' a novel centering around Frances, a cystic-fibrosis-stricken teenage girl from Utah who becomes involved in international black market weapons trade and finds herself, literally and figuratively, in eastern Europe at the start of the second Gulf War. A timeless story.

"Maybe if you could write something original, something edgy and new..." Dick said. "Maybe then we'd be in business."

----

A roar of laughter erupts from a group of people seated behind me. I turn around. Chuck Palahniuk, Bret Easton Ellis, Irvine Welsh and David Foster Wallace are sitting in a circle, a mess of empty glasses, cigarette butts and chicken bones strewn about the table between them. They raise their beers and salute one another, still laughing heartily.

Propelled by liquid courage, I dismount from my bar stool and approach the men.

"What do ye call a pretty burd in Glasgow?" Welsh asks. "A fuckin toorist!"

Another peal of hysterical laughter. They bang their fists on the table and knock glasses onto the floor.

"Pardon me," I say, but they continue to volley jokes among themselves. "Hi there," I try again. No response.

"I've got one!" Says Ellis. "I've got one, I've got one. Okay: so. What do you tell a woman with two black eyes?" He pauses. His friends look at him expectantly.

"Nothing you've already told her twice," I answer.

Their smiles drop and the men clock me. I wave nervously.

"Can we have more Buffalo wings?" David Foster Wallace ventures.

"I'm not the waitress," I say. "Actually, I'm a writer. Sort of. I'd like to be. Successfully. You four are obviously very respected, so I was wondering - "

"I'm doing a reading at Barnes and Noble on the 4th; you can get your copy signed then," Palahniuk interrupts.

I continue. "I was wondering if you had any tips."

"Tits?" Ellis raises his eyebrows.

"Advice," I say. "I recently finished my first novel, but no one is interested in it. I was hoping you could give me some ideas about how to penetrate the industry."

"But you're just some middle-class white chick. We don't write for middle-class white chicks. We write for real people."

"Exactly! I want to be more than a women's writer. I want to be a real writer, like you! Please help me?"

They look at me. Then each other. Then back at me.

"I'll give you all handjobs." I acquiesce.

--Day 1--

Bret Easton Ellis takes me to a loft party in Tribeca, where we do fat rails of cocaine with two underage model-types. After casually insulting the girls for a few minutes, they follow us into a bedroom. We push the girls' heads into the mattress and fuck them.

"Do you have any idea who these people are?" I ask Ellis.

"No idea," he pants, still bucking in and out of Nina or Gina or Whateverhernameis.

I glance down and notice blood on my girl's thighs. "Whoa!" I shout. "We got ourselves a virgin!"

"Fantastic!" Ellis smiles, and we high-five over the bodies beneath us.

"Do you think we're gonna get STDs?"

"No way," he says above the girls' passionless grunts. "Maybe. Probably."

Later, after we'd zipped up our pants and reminded the ladies we wouldn't be calling, Ellis asked me if I was remembering this for later.

"Absolutely!" I smiled.

--Day 2--

I meet Irvine Welsh in a run-down housing project. He wraps a belt around my arm, taps a vein, and shoots heroin into my system.

"Boy howdy, this is rather good!" I say after the initial vomiting passed and I began to nod off.

"Prime fuckin gear," agrees Welsh, he too starting to fade.

I don't know how long we were out.

I awake some time later to find the large Scottish hands of Irvine Welsh wrapped around my throat. "Ah'm gonnae kill ye!" he shouts. "Ye stole it! Ye stole my precious smack!"

"I did not!" I protest. "I'm not quite an addict yet!"

He removes one hand from my neck, balls it into a fist and punches me square in the face. The impact sends me reeling, but I manage to regain my strength, fight my way out from beneath Welsh, and punch him in return. We knock each other back and forth, until our faces are broken and bloodied. I knee Welsh in the genitals, sending him onto the floor.

"Aye, yer a radge little shiteheid!" he yelps as I boot him over and over in the back and chest. His ribs crack beneath my blows. "Ye'd better be takin notes, lassie!" he cries.

"I've got my notebook right here!" I giggle.

--Day 3--

Chuck Palaniuk and I found a homeless man sleeping in an alleyway. As it turned out, he was a thirty-three-year-old former oncologist whose family and professional connections had rejected him after his secret crack addiction had been exposed. Things were changing for him, though. He had been going to church, attending NA meetings, and doing the best to get his life back together, one step at a time. He had only been on the streets a few nights, and was saving the money he earned from panhandling to get back on his feet – and into a warm bed. His story touched and inspired us.

We bludgeoned him to death, chopped his body into three hundred pieces, devoured his flesh, and then mailed a note to his ex-wife and children explaining his fate.

"I've got an even better idea!" I exclaimed.

Palaniuk held my purse as I dug a hole in the ground, I pulled up my skirt, and shat the homeless guy's digested remains into the earth. "Yea!" I cheered.

"You really are getting good at this," grinned Chuck, patting me on the back.

"Thanks, Pal."

--Day 4--

After I'd worked all the previous days' notes into 'Little Atlas,' David Foster Wallace came over and helped me edit. He advised me to change Frances' name to "Crabclaw," insert all sorts of meaningless footnotes, and interrupt the narrative every few paragraphs with giant, generally unintelligible graphs. Later we ran the manuscript through a shredder, mixed up the strips in a hat, and then glued them back together on top of an old Waffle House menu.

"It's looking good, Leah Gerchario," he winked at me.

"Thanks a million, David Foster Wallace," I said.

We were sitting on a park bench, waiting for pigeons to shit on the dictionary pages we'd laid out on the ground. Wherever the poop fell, that would be our new title.

----

Dick Johnson's eyes scan across the last page of 'Jolly Zeitgeist Embryo.' He closes the manuscript, takes off his glasses, and looks at me. "It makes no fucking sense," he says. "There's no linear plot, you've used at least sixteen different fonts, on one page I think you abandoned vowels all together, and the last three chapters are spent describing a sexual tryst with Elmer Fudd. IT'S BRILLIANT."

"Thanks, Dick." I beam.

"This is a daring and remarkable work. It's so...edgy and new!"

"I did my best," I say. "When can we publish this puppy?"

Dick Johnson rubs the bridge of his nose. "Yeah. See – that's the thing."

"Pardon?"

"When you first came in here, you were... Well. Now, I mean – look at yourself, Leah!"

There was no mirror.

"You've got two black eyes, half your teeth are knocked out, you've got track marks all over, your clothes are splattered with blood, vomit and various fecal matters, and you reek of gonorrhea."

I run my fingers through my hair. The homeless oncologist's kidney falls out. "...You said you wanted 'edgy'."

Dick Johnson tries to be discreet as he slides my manuscript under his desk and files it away. "You're just not marketable," he says. "Come back when you're pretty."

----

Six months later, and I'm working as a receptionist at a law firm. I answer phones, set up coffee service in the conference rooms, and make lots of Xeroxes. I wear pantyhose and sensible shoes. About once a day one of the senior attorneys will grab my ass.

But hey – dental insurance!

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8:08 PM - Sex, Money, and American Law: my friend Kraig on cash for ass.

Hello, everybody.

Below is a brilliant essay written by my friend Kraig. Yes, normally I would re-post his writing on my blog just to get his panties in a twist, but this time I genuinely admire and vehemently agree with what he's written here.

The case for legalizing and regulating sex work has become quite a hot-button issue in New York as of...well, this week. While I'd be the first to point and laugh at our Governor Spitzer for being such an unlucky shmuck to get caught (a pro will get arrested about once every 450 tricks; johns get cuffed even less often), I think NYC's recent string of busts on high-end escort agencies and call girls is totally misguided.

I could elaborate - and as soon as you invite me out for martinis, believe me, I will - but Kraig has already spilled the whole pot of water. Please read his piece below and give his thoughts some consideration. We'd both love to hear what you think.

Thanks,
-L

*** Dirty, kinky, nasty sex...or, why prostitution should be legalized.***

By the time I finish writing this, there's a decent chance that New York will have itself a brand new Governor (a blind, black Governor from Harlem, no less!--love this country). Eliot Spitzer, the tough-as-nails crime-fighting Governor, has fallen victim to a money-for-sex scandal that appears ready to permanently derail his once promising political career. And people say prostitution is a victimless crime. Hmmph! Now, I'm not here to defend Spitzer. If you make your name as "Mr. Clean" then you have to live and die by the choices that potentially muddy your hands. He made one that did, and now he's as good as done. The troubling issue for me is a larger one. Why in the world is the federal government involving itself in upscale prostitution rings? With wiretapping no less?

Let's get straight on some things here. This is not street prostitution. This is not a pimp beating up on his ho and taking 80% of what she makes while the other 20% goes into her arm. These aren't sex slaves who were imported in cargo containers from across the Pacific. These aren't Johns who assault, rape or murder simply because the women they are with have no power. Clients are carefully screened, and the mutual need for discretion makes the act all the safer. This isn't a dangerous transaction involving high-risk sex, and it isn't a transaction that impacts on the community in which it takes place. This is an out-of-sight financial interaction between two consenting adults. The women at the particular agency which Gov. Spitzer employed earn up to $5,000 an hour. Why is this a bad thing? And for whom? Someone remind me. Please.

I'll be the first to admit that prostitution isn't the best career choice---but it still should be a choice. Many of the problems associated with prostitution abate with legalization. Mandatory testing for STDs makes the "job" safer for both the seller and the buyer. Government regulation as to the "when and where" would be effective in moving street prostitution inside---and under supervision. Prostitution can be taxed, like any other commodity, with the revenue being earmarked to help those who wish to leave the industry---or used to help fund the initiatives that would make it a safer, saner, more responsible "choice" for those wishing to be on either side of such a transaction. Prostitutes can begin to get health care benefits and Social Security. Again...why not?

The most salient argument against the legalization of prostitution is that it sanctions the degradation of women to second-class status. This is a horrible argument. They don't call prostitution "the oldest profession in the world" without reason. It has always been with us, and it always will. Prosecution has been largely ineffective in America---at best pushing it to areas where nobody has enough political influence to complain, and at worst turning a blind eye to the truly awful things that can happen when a huge industry is unregulated and minimally policed. It's not going away. Choosing to ignore this obvious fact is what's truly criminal, and also what truly demonstrates our lack of respect for women.

If we as a society have a chance to make things SAFER for over 1,000,000 women (yes, that's the estimated number of female prostitutes working in this country)...and yet we choose NOT to on the basis of a lofty ideal which is knowingly flawed, then who are the real criminals? There is nothing degrading in giving women the power of choice---even if the choice is to turn their bodies into commodities. Pornography is legal. Strip clubs are legal. Selling sex through clothing, music, and cars is legal. Selling one's eggs for profit is legal. Allowing someone else's baby to grow inside their womb for profit is legal. Does this degrade women? Probably...in some cases, yes...but all of these actions are legal. To draw the rather arbitrary line at "sex for money" seems a little ludicrous. Women's bodies are obviously a commodity. And it's their commodity to do with as they see fit. We allow people the right do all kinds of crazy things with their bodies. We allow them to eat the fattiest foods they want---effectively taking years and years off their lives. We allow them to drink themselves into oblivion. We allow them to smoke until they die of cancer. We allow people to have unprotected sex with strangers as often as two adults can consent to. But no, no, you may not be paid $5,000 to have sex with the Governor of New York in a 5-star Washington DC hotel because that would permanently render all women as second-class citizens.

No greater respect can be shown for women than to legalize prostitution. Women aren't second-class citizens because of what they do, they're second-class citizens because of what we routinely do to them. I'm soooooo glad the federal government decided to help women out by focusing their efforts on probably the safest, most victimless form of prostitution known to man---the upscale escort agency. (shakes head) I'm curious...my Republican friends...all two of you...does it not bother you that this is how our federal government chooses to utilize its resources? Surely you can agree that manpower would be better spent pursuing terrorists, or corporate fraud, or the illegal gun trade, or actual sex slaves...anything! Even if this agency was evading taxes---and no doubt they were---their tax fraud is a drop in the bucket compared to the tax malfeasance that goes on daily in most major corporations.

(sigh)

And now I feel bad for the 250,000 US male prostitutes who feel like they don't matter because it's viewed as a "female" profession.

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2:04 PM - My Mom is only the Treasurer of the Lambchop Fan Club.

My mother told me she never wanted to read anything I'd written for fear of what she'd find "lurking in [my] psyche." After years of putting up with this, I finally asked that she begin reading my stuff - if only to understand what, exactly, she was paying my way through college for. No dice. I even tried to ease her worries by explaining the plots beforehand.

Me: It's about a guy with a sexual disorder. He has epileptic seizures at the point of orgasm. There's nothing in there about me. It's entirely fictional.
Mom: Do you have to write about things like that?
Me: Yes. Because it's funny.
Mom: It's not funny, it's just gross. Why can't you tell a story about a girl who makes good grades and is very pretty and has a mother that loves her very much?

I relayed this conversation to my best friend Brian.

Me: She tells me she's only interested in reading about a girl whose mom loves her.
Brian: But aren't you supposed to 'write what you know'?
Me: You son of a bitch...

(To be fair, Brian and my mother have an interesting relationship. For whatever reason, he's only seen her when she's acting dingoshit insane. This included the one time, Summer '06, when I called her to pick me up from Brian's Dallas apartment and she drove by, unrolled the passenger-side window, and screamed at me: YOU ARE RUINING MY LIFE!!)

This weekend, I sent her a copy of "Grievous Bodily Harm," my latest work and the title piece of my upcoming collection (due to be finished in 2009 - god willing). It was the hardest, most complex, most research intensive work I've ever done, and I'm extremely proud of it. Naturally, I'd like the woman who shat me into the universe to feel the same.

After repeatedly "forgetting to print it out and take it home," she finally sent me this email:

"The story was great! I really really enjoyed it!!
What an ending!!
I'd love to see it on screen….it's easy to picture how it all unfolds.
Good job! A+++ ! Dean's list! Valedictorian!! Super-Star!"

She totally didn't read it.

-L

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3:47 PM - A conversation with my 13-year-old self.

At least once a day I have a kind of weird, third-person experience where I witness my current life through the eyes of 13-year-old Leah. Part of me really wishes I could travel back to 2000 (yes, I really am that fucking young) and have a good ol' heart-to-heart with my angry, awkward, adolescent self. Another part of me realizes that all of life's amazingness comes from figuring things out as they happen, for one's self, without prior information about how best to handle things or which paths to take. And then there's the whole thing about me talking to me being rather impossible, so fuck it.

But if I COULD talk to 13-year-old Leah, here's what I'd tell her before she'd scream at me to get out of her room:

1 - I know it might seem unbelievable right now, but YOU WILL NOT ALWAYS BE UGLY. Go shoplift some medicated face wash and a good pair of tweezers, these will help out until time does its work. Someday all those things you hate about yourself will become objects of pride. Yes, even your nose. YOU DO NOT REALLY WANT TO LOOK LIKE EVERYBODY ELSE. Famous photographers will want to take your picture. (I should tell you not to take your tits out, but I know you'll do it anyway.)

2 - For the love of god, DO WELL IN SCHOOL. I know you'll hate me for saying this, but your high school grades are actually kind of important. Just force your way through it. Don't pay attention to the idiots around you, just buckle down and do the best you can. School won't make you smarter, that's a fucking lie, but the grades you get will dictate what opportunities you have to choose from later on. And it's easy. Really. Even though you've been right this entire time and YOU WILL NEVER NEED TO USE AN ALGEBRAIC EQUATION IN REAL LIFE.

3 - You know that tiny, one-bedroom apartment you live in with Mom? Guess what. IT'S A FUCKING MANSION. You think having no bedroom door is lousy? Just wait until you're eighteen and you live with three other girls (whom you don't particularly like) in a single room. Oh, and you'll share a bathroom with 30 other folks. And for this privilege you'll pay more rent than Mom does for your childhood home. But here's the good thing: IT'S IN NEW YORK. We made it, bitch!

4 - DON'T WORRY TOO MUCH ABOUT NOT BEING POPULAR. Kallie McGregor will get pregnant at 17, never leave Texas, and spend the rest of her miserable life answering phones for her father's construction business. Emma White, the most popular lesbian at your high school A) isn't a lesbian, and B) will one day approach you in a bar and admit she always wanted to be your friend, but thought you hated her. YOU SCARE THE SHIT OUT OF BOYS.

5 - YOU WILL HANG OUT WITH THE GUYS FROM INTERPOL AND IT WILL BE BORING.

6 - STOP LYING, YOU LIAR. You do it because you're bored and desperately want peer approval, I understand, but funnel that energy into your writing. People will always find out and you will never outlive the embarrassment. Believe it or not, there will come a day when you can't tell lie to save your life. BEING HONEST FEELS GOOD.

7 - When your dentist tells you he thinks he should pull out two teeth on either side of your mouth to make room for the "adult teeth swimming below," don't let him. YOUR ADULT TEETH WILL NEVER COME IN. If you let him pull those teeth, you will go through the rest of your life with two gaping holes and a shiny metal retainer cemented to your jaw. YOU ARE A FREAK OF NATURE, AND THAT'S PERFECTLY ALRIGHT. While we're at it: you're not going to get any taller than 5-foot-one. Suck it up.

8 - Want to hear something fucking incredible? You know those two writers you have enormous crushes on? Remember how you had your first erotic dream about the blond one? Remember how you wrote anonymous letters to the Scottish one? YOU WILL DATE BOTH OF THEM. They will have you over to their apartments. You will eat sushi (PS: you will eat sushi. That vegetarian thing won't last long once you're too poor to be picky). You will have sex with them. (PS: you will have sex. It's okay. Penises aren't gross.) Do me a favor, though. When they dump you - and they will - accept it and move on. Don't beat yourself up. The blond one will come back to you in a few years and you will realize he's a douche. (PS: THEY ALWAYS COME BACK.)

9 - THINGS WILL GET BETTER WITH DAD. You're going to go see "Gladiator" together and he'll discover how smart you are when you point out all the historical inaccuracies. It'll take awhile, but soon he'll make an effort to see you. You'll stop being jealous of his girlfriend's kid. When you move away, HE'LL CALL YOU DAILY.

10 - And if I could impress just one thing upon you, it'd be this: SOAK IT IN. You'll be published at 15. On TV at 17. You will graduate high school. You will move to New York. You will meet amazing people. You will have an incredible apartment. You will make straight-A's in college. You will earn obscene amounts of money doing ridiculous things. You will do drugs. You'll fall in love. You'll be popular. You'll have clear skin. Everything is waiting for you. IT'S GOING TO BE FANTASTIC.

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10:02 AM - "I’m not polyamorous, I’m just a whore."

I didn't write today's blog, my friend Kraig did. But I'm going to post his story on my blog so that I get all the views and comments, thereby totally pissing him off - which is my most favorite activity.

Enjoy.

-L

"Last night, being the night before Abraham Lincoln's birthday, a holiday the Museum sees fit to celebrate by giving us the day off, I hit the town with my comely companion Leah--aka Lambchop--aka the girl on the cover of a book titled "Smut: Volume 1." I mention this for no other reason than because I have a good friend on the cover of a book titled "Smut: Volume 1."

After ducking in from the cold to devour some fajitas at a place where we were the only customers, we went to a bar on Houston called Madame X. I'd been there once before for a birthday party with some friends some time ago. It was horribly crowded that evening, but it struck me as a nice place to revisit on a weeknight, what with all the red bulbs and velvety couches. We made our way to the back room (with our leftovers in tow) and plopped ourselves down on a cozy couch. Surprisingly, there was a fair number of people milling about for a Monday night.

I left Leah alone on the couch to fetch some martinis from the bar---only to return a few minutes later to a middle-aged balding man chatting her up. (Note to self: stop leaving girls unattended at bars.) Leah was laughing hysterically. Apparently we'd stumbled into a cocktail party for a polyamorous society. It didn't take long before they were eyeing Leah as a potential addition to their poly-ness. This guy's pickup line to Leah was something like, "I see you're here with someone. Is there room for me in your dialogue." After deceiving him about our ages (she went from 20 to 24, me from 34 to 28), we started to get that creepy vibe that can only come from middle-aged balding men named Ed. He wanted to assure us that he was very open-minded and non-judgmental. He'd done it all, he said---including extreme Russian S&M. I have no idea how Russian S&M differs from good old American S&M, but something tells me I don't want to know.

As unattractive people made out before our very eyes, we sat---drinking---hoping nobody else would approach. The crowd was about 1/4 Goth-reject, 1/4 hipster-wannabe, 1/4 World of Warcraft, and 1/4 Creepy Middle-Aged Men Named Ed. This latter group included one guy who looked a lot like Mr. Peanut---sans the monocle. He chatted us up on his way out, encouraging us to "get our feet wet," and to "go wading in the shallow end," or some other nautical analogy nonsense. We told him we can't swim---that we'd just drown. He left.

Later, after the "polys" left to touch each other in the comfort of their own homes, I went to the bar to get another drink. Sure enough, even though I was only gone for a few minutes, some new guy had descended upon Leah. We're not entirely certain, but this Vassar-educated 24-year-old douche bag may very well have been functionally retarded. When asked what he did for a living, he answered "Registered Associate." Sexy. "And I'm a writer." Oh really? Do tell. What do you write? "Short stories." No way! Are you published? "No. But Bukowski wasn't published until he was 40." Evidently anyone who's a drunk asshole is allowed to invoke Bukowski's name. Also, much to his own surprise, he "has a really hot girlfriend---attractive, pretty, and beautiful," all three! "I don't know why she dates me." After that Leah and I became "mean" to him and hurt his feelings."

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1:56 PM - Like ComiCon, but for people who’ve managed to lose their virginity.

After mercilessly defeating everyone that stood in my way, I've managed to score myself a highly-coveted pass to the now completely sold-out 2008 Association of Writers & Writing Programs conference.

Oh yeah, four days of nothing but getting ridiculously drunk and listening to Booker Prize-winning authors babble endlessly about their work.

Hopefully, by the end of the week I'll have landed either a book deal or a rich husband. And if that doesn't happen, I'll still be content just slinging Chablis and staring at Martin Amis's enormous head.

I'm so excited I could vomit.

-L

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