The Legend of Sonny Williams

You’d have to be as old as I am to remember when a very menacing looking boxer named Sonny Liston knocked out Floyd Patterson in the first round to snatch away his heavyweight crown. He followed up with another first-round knockout of Patterson in a rematch.

His next fight was with a young challenger whose ego appeared to tower far above his own formidable boxing skills. Sonny Liston was a heavy favorite not only to beat Cassius Clay, but to completely demolish him as he had done Patterson. 

As you may know, Clay outboxed Liston, knocking him out in the eighth round. He would soon change his name to Mohammed Ali, and to reign as the heavyweight champion for much of his career.

But this isn’t a story about boxing. Sonny Williams was not a boxer: He was a lover. As so many of us back in the sixties and early seventies used to chant, “Make love – not war!”

But before he gained some measure of fame, if you tried to envisage what Sonny Williams looked like, you might have pictured a tall muscular black man. In a way, it was that image that indirectly gave him his start in a long and happy film career. 

Can you remember the1969 movie, Putney Swope? From time to time, Sonny Williams is mentioned, but he doesn’t actually appear in the flesh until the very end of the movie. 

He turned out to be not at all what you might have expected.  A very pale five-foot-four balding white man with a longish beard, thick glasses, and a very shy manner, he appeared completely naked, except for a raincoat. Whatever else you might have said, he was no Sonny Liston.

Without uttering a word, he opened his raincoat, fully exposing himself.  Within weeks, his acting talents would be in great demand.

***

No one could have guessed that this cameo would mark the beginning of a long career in cinema for Sonny Williams. He would become an instant porno star.

Conventional porn movies back in the 1970s were essentially ten- or fifteen-minute sexual encounters, either between a heterosexual couple, or two women. There were, of course, porno movies for gay men, which were shown in different theaters. 

Some porno filmmaker must have seen Sonny in Putney Swope, perhaps glancing at his massive schlong (Yiddish for very large penis). And so, a porn star was born.

Sonny had not recently cultivated the Talmudic scholar look. Brought up in an orthodox family in Brooklyn’s Borough Park, he faithfully attended Yeshiva all the way through high school. His name back then was Perry Gewirtz

But after moving out of his parents’ house and ending up on Manhattan’s Lower Eastside, he quickly drifted away from the faith. He began eating traif (non-kosher food) and was soon dating shiksas (gentile women).

At first, he returned to Borough Park on weekends to spend the sabbath with his family. But since his social life centered on weekends, those visits became less and less frequent. His parents and his brothers and sisters knew better than to try to talk him out of his disappointing lifestyle, hoping that he would soon come to his senses.

***

Immediately after he had been “discovered,” Sonny was put to work. He could not believe that he was actually being paid for doing what he gladly would have done for nothing. But don’t get the wrong idea. You won’t get rich being paid twenty-five dollars for each cum shot. 

Now, some women could have made a small fortune using that pay scale. But for Sonny, who often took home over a hundred dollars for a day’s work, that was a lot of money for a guy living in a seventy-dollar-a-month-apartment in a tenement on East 5th Street off Second Avenue. 

Sonny’s downstairs neighbor and closest friend was a very affable guy named Marshall Anker, who had long been an aspiring actor. Clearly jealous of Sonny’s success, he was always talking about the roles he was “up for.”

For weeks before an audition to play W.C. Fields in some movie that never saw the light of day, Marshall went around imitating Fields. But almost everyone who heard him thought he was just drunk, or perhaps insane.

Then, out of the blue, Marshall was cast as the sheriff in Last House on the Left, an exploitation horror film that was a commercial success. It would be his only movie role. 

Marshall also envied Sonny for all the women he scored with – on the movie set and off. As small as Sonny was, Marshall was large. About six-three, with a big pot belly, he cut quite a figure walking along Second Avenue. 

One night, he did get lucky. He met Marsha Handelsman, the three-hundred-pound poetess. They had both gotten drunk at a party, and as Marshall walked her home, his hopes were high. 

She lived on the top floor of a five-story walk-up. But she was too drunk to climb the stairs. She said, “If you can carry me upstairs, you can fuck me.”

Did he manage to carry her up four flights? Yes! Did he have his way with her? Here, the story gets somewhat muddled. All he could remember was that he had to visit a chiropractor for months until he recovered.

***

Sonny and Marshall, along with another six or eight kindred spirits, would often party together. If you invited one of them to a party you were having, it went without saying that the whole bunch of them would show up.

I lived on Norfolk Street, about ten blocks from Sonny and Marshall. When their entourage arrived, they all started eating and drinking as though there were no tomorrow. Marshall even stuffed potato chips in his pockets, perhaps out of food insecurity. Sonny was too busy eyeing the women, none of whom seemed to know about his exploits on the silver screen. 

Marshall, on the other hand, talked almost nonstop about his career in film, although that didn’t appear to impress the young women he was hitting on. Still, he was happy to be at the party, where at least there was some infinitesimal chance that he might get lucky.

About two am, a contingent of us headed down to Chinatown. Obviously, the pretzels, potato chips, cheese, salami, and onion soup dip I had put out were just the appetizers. 

Down the block from me, Sonny and Marshall found an abandoned baby stroller. Sonny hopped in and Marshall pushed him all the way to Canal and Mott Streets. 

They were quite a sight, and passersby often stopped to stare at the two of them. Both bearded and disreputable looking, they must have been taken for a demented father and his severely retarded bearded son. 

***

Sonny loved his work so much that many times, he and his partner would keep going at it even after the allotted filming time had passed. The director, who had been about to yell “Cut!” just signaled the cameraman to keep shooting. 

At first, the director thought Sonny was just trying to make more money, but he soon realized this was truly a labor of love. Look at it from Sonny’s perspective: Going to work was like going out on a great date. And not only did it cost him absolutely nothing, but they even paid him.

Soon he was truly a porn star. But he never let it go to his head. He knew, of course, that all good things must come to an end, so why not make hay while the sun was still shining?

People would approach him on the street and ask for his autograph, or to be in a photo with them. Once, a very attractive woman came up to him and asked him exactly how big it was.

He lived just around the corner, so he took her up to his apartment. They spent the rest of the day in bed. Then, she apologized and starting dressed. She needed to get home to make dinner for her husband and children. 

***

By the time he was in his late forties, Sonny’s career as a porn star was clearly coming to and end. He decided that maybe a change of scenery would be nice, so he moved into a larger living space. He found a very reasonably priced storefront on East 9th Street just off Second Avenue. 

It was long and narrow, with a big glass window at the front. People could see in, but he hung curtains a few feet from the window. When his friends visited for the first time, they often thought it was a used bookstore. Except that less than half the books were on bookshelves. The rest were in piles on the floor.

Once, I asked him why he needed so many books. “You realize that you could not read all these books in ten lifetimes.”

He smiled.

“So why do you need so many?” I persisted.

“For reference.”

I just looked at him. Nearly all of the books were fiction. 

When I thought about that exchange years later, I realized that maybe he was beginning to lose it.

One evening, when my girlfriend and I came by to take Sonny to dinner, we saw a woman in the store. She didn’t say anything, and Sonny didn’t bother to introduce her. 

Who knows? Maybe she was a rare book buyer.

At dinner, Sonny didn’t mention her. But he must have trusted her, because he left her alone in his apartment.

***

Sonny had two tabby cats who enjoyed sunning themselves in the store window especially during the winter months. But this created problems with some of the passersby who knocked on the door, demanding to know if the cats were trapped in the small space they occupied.

Sonny grew tired of explaining that the cats were fine, so he taped a huge sign in his window that read: The cats love the warming rays of the sun. They are where they are entirely voluntarily.”

Not only did the sign actually work, but people came by just to look at it. The East Village Other even ran a series of photographs of the cats sunning themselves just below Sonny’s sign.

Although most of the people who viewed porno movies were reticent about ever mentioning this to even their closest friends, occasionally people would stop Sonny on the street to ask for his autograph. Marshall suggested that he sell his signed photos for ten or fifteen dollars apiece, but Sonny absolutely refused to do so. 

“It would be as if I were prostituting myself!” he declared.

“Excuse me!” replied Marshall. “But isn’t that what you were doing in all those pornographic flicks you made?”

“Not at all! What I did, I did for my own pleasure… And of course for my partners’ pleasure as well.”

“Yeah, well I wouldn’t have minded pleasuring a few of those women myself!”

***

The last time I would see Sonny alive was when I took him to dinner on his fifty-first birthday. He told me that he was vey worried about Marshall’s health, and that he had been urging him to see a doctor. 

“He can barely make it up the stairs to his apartment, and he is constantly wheezing.”

When my girlfriend and I went back to Sonny’s storefront, the same woman was there. This time she was much more friendly, although in a very negative sort of way. 

“Can you believe the way he lives like this? Books all over the place. I told him a million times to just throw the whole lot of them in the garbage.”

She went on like this for at least ten minutes. Sonny had disappeared to a small cleared area in the back of the apartment, and as soon as we could disengage ourselves, we followed him to the back of the apartment.

Sonny put a finger to his lips, signaling us to whisper. He confessed that the woman just turned up on his doorstep one afternoon and never left.

“You mean she’s a squatter in your apartment?” I asked.

“I guess so.”

“Why don’t you throw her out?”

“I don’t know where she would go.”

“Sonny, that’s her problem,” said my girlfriend.

“Maybe, but it would be on my conscience.”

***

Just a month later, Sonny died suddenly from a severe stroke. I later learned that he had had a series of mini strokes months before that, but like Marshall, he never went to a doctor. 

There were over a hundred mourners at his funeral. Conspicuously absent was Marshall, who had just gone into a nursing home. Most of us were aging hippies, neighbors, a whole contingent of current and former porno actors and actresses, and a few of his relatives.

His older brother, Ben, who remained an orthodox Jew, gave a wonderful eulogy. I sill remember his line, “Sonny wanted to make it small in the movies.”

That really summed him up. Unlike so many aspiring actors, Sonny never wanted to be a great movie star. He just wanted to have a really good time. Very few people truly love their work. Whatever else might be said about Sonny Williams, no one could deny that he was happy in his work. And yes, he did indeed make it small in the movies. 

Bedtime Story

After I adjust the pillows on the sofa to make room, I tell the kids to turn their games off and come cuddle up next to me and leave a space for Mom. 

I’m gonna read you a story.

Awwww, Da-ad!

You’ll love it. It’s about the first time your Mom fucked me with her ass.

The kids rush right over. It’s a good story, Dad, but don’t you know any others? Ben says. We’ve heard it like nine times.

I ignore him. Bets? You gonna join us?

She comes in, wiping her hands on a tea towel, and settles in next to Lacey. 

OK, here goes. Your Mom and I had been talking about it. We had agreed we had waited long enough. Are you sure? I asked, and she said, I want to give you what you want.

It was like standing outside St. Peter’s, after the flight, the train from the airport, after dragging my backpack up four flights to the marble room, after the slow, touchy fucking to the sound of bells beyond the window, barking dogs, kids squealing, all of it a weirdly celebratory chorus to our manic pursuit of union, all of it prelude to the grand finale, holy grail, visit to the greatest apse in the world. 

We were going to do it. Or, rather, she had invited me to fuck her ass. 

YOLO, right? she said, us so tangled in Roman sheets we might never escape. 

We were like athletes, nightly practice at the other thing, pretty relaxed now, pretty sure of the playing field, what was off limits, what wasn’t. I was always very oral, and turns out, she was waiting to be extremely grateful. I hear there are guys who can’t imagine eating a woman, their woman, and it leaves me slack-jawed. 

Dumb-ass, get down! You do not know what you are missing, motherfucker.

I never expressed any overriding desire to take my poker down that last mile, but my index digit made passing reference to her rosebud. Maybe last mile isn’t the best way to think of it. Isn’t that the execution walk? Stick with that metaphor, and I will be thinking, Who’s gonna die tonight, and I sure hope it ain’t either one of us, or all this anticipated bliss will be for …. Well, the word that came to mind there was way too close to the subject at hand.

I guess she sensed a curiosity about that port of entry on my part. So she offered. I sure wasn’t going to say, Nah, I don’t think you really want to so let’s pass on that, some things are best left unexplored, what if it turns out you really love it, what if you realized you’ve lived to the age of 47 and could have been stuffing your butt all these years for levels of ecstasy few humans ever achieve? And now we finally get there, and you tip off the deep end into profound despair and regret about opportunities lost? What if? 

Me thinking, Lost with whom?

Talk about a mixed message.

So, now we were stepping it up. I didn’t want her to know, but I was terrified. After all this anticipation, what if I biffed it? I didn’t want her to think I didn’t care, that it didn’t turn me on, that it maybe even grossed me out. I wanted her to enjoy it, too, and if she didn’t, I wanted her to lie to me that she did, because if she cried out in pain, that would shut down my boner faster than a goathead in a road bike tire.

I would be lying if I said the thought had never crossed my mind. It was one of a couple of possibilities, although we spent most of our time on the one, and not the other, which is how we got kids. Duh. 

Make no mistakes, she liked pussy sex and I did, too, but in the back of our minds, always lurking there beneath a streetlight with a fedora slung low over its eyes, her ass curled a finger my way.

Psst, hey, buddy, wanna try something … different?

It was all so mysterious, right? Like a roadside -OTEL, with a locked room at the end of the walkway. You could book a new, clean Holiday Inn Express, but no. You had to stop and visit Mr. Bates. 

Cobwebs between the windows and the drapes, but you want it. You want past the door, to the musty, dusty inside. Ask the manager. 

Nope, we don’t rent that room.

Not because it’s reserved, or booked to someone else. Just that it’s permanently off limits. Which makes it all the more a curiosity, all the more alluring. Sin is about denial. If somebody named Pope doesn’t want you going there, you can quickly slip into obsession about how you need to book passage. 

Now, on my knees, her on hers, I was in it. She had me in it. I expected to see gift wrap and ribbon by the wayside.

Wow, this is cool, I thought, even as I also thought, but … maybe not as good as the other place, the neighbor, the girl next door.

Went there. Did that. Not sure what all the fuss is about, but for my money, I’ll stick with the way god intended for us to get it on. As if I’ll ever know what she actually intended. Just making this shit up as I go along. Just glad your Mom is the sharing type.

I let the last line hang in the air, maybe room for questions. Nothing. Then I look around. Everybody has collapsed into me, sound asleep. One by one, I carry them to bed. Even Bets. After lights out, I lie in the dark, bummed. Either I need a new story. Or a new audience.  

The Great Turd of Babylon

It fell from the sky and landed in the center of town.

Everyone could tell it was shit. The smell alone made that clear.

It was too big too have fallen from the ass of man or bird or elephant. After investigation of the turd, prodding with sticks and much debate it was agreed it must have come from the gods – all or one of them that had recently eaten a big dinner.

Since the source was divine the turd needed to be protected. A wall was built around it. The wall evolved over years, through add-ons and public works projects, into a temple, the Great Shrine of the Turd. 

This was in the early years of the town, before it became a city.

The temple continued to grow, as did its fame and the number of pilgrims who came to take a whiff of heaven. A second story was added. Then a third. The temple towered above the date trees.

Centuries passed before the odor dissipated. Once the stink was gone, and the turd had broken down into a pile of mud, the population began to forget why the temple had been built and to what purpose. New legends grew and became myths woven into local religion and culture.

Pilgrims still visited out of habit. It was something you did. Mom had done it and grandpa and grandma and generations of sandalled and barefoot ancestors before them. It was tradition after all. 

Besides the garden was nice. It grew at the center of the temple where the ceiling was open to the sky. All kind of flowers and fruit trees blossomed there. The priests had to water the plants every day, it was a hot climate after all, but they never had to add fertilizer. That was the miracle of the thing. The big draw. That undying garden in the desert, inside the ancient temple, hidden away in the old section of town, between the goat market and the used camel lot.

The entry fee was reasonable. Offerings of any size were also welcome, whether feathered or scaled or covered with fur.

For a small piece of copper or a chicken egg local artists will, with charcoal on a piece of broken pottery, draw a picture for a pious visitor. A keep sake. The pilgrim, with a big smile, and the garden behind. Something to put on the mantelpiece when they get back to the village. Something to show the grandkids and great grandkids. 

The temple is a must see when you visit the city. It says so on all the guide stelae. Good for the economy too. Check out the food stalls in the area while you are there. You can taste local delicacies straight off the hoof with lentils on the side for a reasonable price. There are discounts if you get you hand stamped at the temple.

On rare days when a priest or acolyte leave the temple their bodies are covered in sheep skins. When asked why, they can’t give a full answer. The reasons are lost in the past, wrapped up now in the current mysteries, which don’t make a lot of sense when you think about them. The best response you will get from a priest is along the lines of ‘in case something falls from the sky.” Makes sense really if you know the whole story. Who wants to get shit on them? Even if it is holy.

Children of the Porn

The stage behind her was set with fluffy pink bedding, string lighting, and a combination of glass and rubber penises molded from both human and mythological creatures, large (some really large) and small, the small ones not getting much action lately. No one wanted to see realistic, normal-sized cocks anymore. Bigger was better for business. She snorted in the resin-heavy line of coke that some guy had given her the other night—guys were always throwing drugs at her—and then yelled at her roommate Ashley who was as basic and forgettable as they come to turn down that awful country music and proceeded with her Only Fans “teaser” video. Her skills had become almost Spielbergian, always the perfect angle and perfect lighting to accentuate every contour of her youthful and perfect self. 

“I’ll see you—” She puckered up her plump lips, swollen and sore from multiple injections, and blew a kiss to the camera. “—later.”  She stepped back and flipped around, her ass sculpted from a million hip-thrusts bouncing perfectly before hitting End, leaving her thirty-thousand and growing fans wanting more, always more.

Ashlea with an A—not with a Y like her loser roommate—started with the basic posts: tight skirt pics, bikini pics, ass pics from the gym mirror, and then moved onto slightly more provocative pics involving panties or lack thereof, the natural progression for the hot girls of Instagram. She always had an attention-grabbing ass that made men of all ages want her and women hate her, so the @Asslea handle was only fitting. Her Insta-fame grew, and she quickly became an influencer, aka: ass model, for the most popular and hot brands of fitness wear and spandex that leave nothing to the imagination, every crevice, every line, every lasered-smooth underlying surface exposed. You would see her anus through the stretched-thin material, but it was bleached. No one likes a brown asshole. That is so 2020. 

Ninety-nine percent of her followers weren’t exactly the ideal customer base for LUX Leggings or Roar Underwear; they’d only buy the products if she could prove she had worn them evidenced by her sweat, maybe some piss, or vaginal discharge, something they could smell or lick while they jack off. But that didn’t matter. “Likes” and comments were gold—scratch that—platinum, and Ashlea’s sparkle could be seen from outer space. 

Ashlea pulled her heels on, checked for “likes,” took a bump, scrolled through the incoming comments, took another bump and swallowed a couple prescription pills she borrowed from her roommate. She wasn’t sure what they were, but something was better than nothing. She summoned an Uber, and texted Becca back an “On my way bitch” with a crazy-faced emoji that symbolized just how wild and super busy her faux-celebrity life was.

The Uber arrived, and she climbed in the car that smelled like some weird incense or flavored vape. She watched the “likes” climb and scrolled through the growing comments from her followers complimenting her ass, the words—perfect, snack, delicious—dominating the page. She had once turned the comments off after getting annoyed by “all these men” trying to hit on her which she made very apparent by lashing out on all her social media platforms in a sort of I-hate-being-so-beautiful-and-desired campaign of posts. She followed that up with her I-don’t-spend-hours-a-week-doing-squats-and-hipthrusts-for-you-creeps campaign. After about a week, and a net loss of around a thousand followers and a heaping of self-worth, she turned the comments back on. Then she started an Only Fans page, tips welcomed and encouraged, Cash App preferred.

The Uber stopped. “Um, ma’am,” the driver said, looking back at Ashlea who was buried in her phone. “Ma’am,” he said a second time, more assertively.

Ashlea’s display went dark. 

“We’re here,” he said.

Ashlea swallowed down more resin from that coke she got from that guy, and what was his name, again? John or Jacob, something J? She looked out, seeing that she wasn’t at all where she needed to be. She looked at the driver through the rearview, noticing him for the first time. “Um—” She sucked the back of her teeth. “No . . . We aren’t.”

“They have the road blocked off. This is as far as we can go.”

This Uber guy was annoyingly overweight and breathing heavily. Ashlea sighed loudly, rolled her eyes, and got out of the car, shutting the door, putting a barrier between perfection and the miserable lump of grossness in the driver seat. She headed in the direction of The Strip, the newest and most prestigious club in a city full of new and prestigious clubs, her iPhone display spotlighting her goddess-like facial features and artificially voluptuous lips. Honks and whistles flew at her, but went unnoticed, only irrelevant background noise as she walked and scrolled, walked and scrolled.

In the past hour, she had gained thirty-three more followers and had received more comments than she could keep up with. Nothing could stop her, especially when she bounced her ass in slow-motion. Could you blame them? She thought. I’d fuck me. 

“Excuse me.”

Ashlea looked up to a policeman who was inches from her face. She could smell his after shave. There were several other cops and whoever these other uniformed people running around were, red and blue lights lighting up the sky.

“This is a crime scene,” the officer said.

“Goddamn it,” Ashlea rolled her eyes. “Seriously?”

“Yes, seriously.”

“Look, you don’t understand. I’ve got to get over there,” Ashlea said, pointing through the police and ambulance and yellow tape.

“Sorry. Can’t let you through. There’s been another homicide.”

Ashlea shook her head and looked off, noticing a bloody sheet covering a body on a stretcher. Where the head should’ve been was a lumpy pile of mashed potatoes loaded with shattered skull and pulsated brains and mucous. 

She snorted in frustration. “Look. I don’t care about a fucking homma—whatever you called it. People are expecting me.”

The officer who was in his forties—probably one of her paying fans, Ashlea thought—smiled, obviously about to let the hottest thing on the street go wherever she needed to go. 

“Ma’am,” he said. “You’re going to have to go around.”

She looked back at the cause of this total bullshit and shook her head at the bloody body that lay under the once-white sheet. Selfish fucker.

“Ughh,” she said, giving this officer who could only dream of slipping his middle-aged, sour dick into something as perfect and young as her a look of total death. 

A car full of hot college guys pulled up. “Hey, babe,” the one from the passenger seat with fluffy hair and stunning blue eyes said. “Where you going?”

Ashlea turned back to the officer and smirked before saying, “You had your chance.” She walked toward the car full of strange boys and flexed her ass with each step, giving the officer something to regret the rest of his life.

The officer just shook his head. “Psycho bitch.”

Ashlea climbed into the back of the black BMW, sandwiched between two okay-looking guys. The guy she wanted with the great hair and piercing light blue eyes was in the front. 

The driver looked back through the rearview. “Where we going?”

“Where do you think?” Ashlea said, the only choice for a hot girl like her was obvious. When they didn’t answer, she said, “The Strip . . . obviously. I couldn’t get through because of all that bullshit. I mean . . . who gets murdered on a Saturday night in the middle of downtown?” 

The guys laughed. 

“Yeah,” said the hot guy from the passenger seat. “The nerve. So . . . what’s your story?”

“What’s my story?”

“Yeah,” he said. “What do you do?”

“I’m an influencer.”

He nodded and smirked. “Aren’t we all?”

Ashlea didn’t know how to respond, like the air was just sucked from her lungs. Her cheeks warmed and that damned resin hit her throat again, and what the fuck kind of bunk coke was that? The car seemed to shrink some; all of a sudden there wasn’t enough leg room.“Um, no.” She composed herself. “Not everyone is an influencer,” she said, unconvincingly.

“No, no. It’s cool. Influencing is cool.” He turned back toward her. “If you’ve got an ass . . .” He was about to say something else but shifted gears. “I do a little influencing of my own.”

“Really.” Ashlea wondered what brands he worked with but then felt the urge for another bump, and not of that shit she had on her. “Do y’all have any coke?” She suddenly got upset with herself for getting into their car without this knowledge. Let’s hope to fuck they do.

The guys all smiled, seemingly pleased by her question.

“Well,” the guy next to her said as he fished a baggie of white powder from his pocket and held it up, displaying it to everyone. “Since you asked.”

They parked and took turns snorting the powder that was much, much better than that trash she got from whoever that loser was the other night, before walking up to The Strip where the muscular, bearded door guy quickly waved Ashlea and her new friends in, avoiding the line of about fifteen not-thems. 

Ashlea’s friend Becca came up, tall and lean, long dark hair, jeans practically painted on her fit ass, sexy as fuck. 

“Heyyy,” Becca said.

“Heyyy,” Ashlea said.

Ashlea noticed the boys salivating over her friend, practically fucking her with their eyes, so to steal some of the attention back, she grabbed Becca’s ass, pulled her close, and started dancing to whatever song was playing. Becca didn’t deserve a solo performance. Ashlea wouldn’t allow it.

Becca was also an influencer and had an Only Fans account but not nearly as many subscribers as Ashlea, which she attributed mainly to not caring about it or posting enough to grow her following, and just not feeling the need for all that attention. But Ashlea knew that was total bullshit and that Becca had a great ass but not an ass worthy of stardom like her own. Becca may be able to pull off ten thousand followers, she thought, but not thirty thousand. No way.

The guys, mainly the driver of the BMW who was named Frank, bought several rounds of drinks. They went down and more followed, mixed in with quick bumps of coke. Ashlea was hot but feeling good from the combination of uppers, downers, whatever those prescription pills are her roommate left out. The booming bass from the music sent vibrating pulses of warmth through her body. More drinks came. The guys’ eyes were eager and excited as they watched these two beautiful young women dance, check their phones, type responses, tongue each other, and speak loudly about how sexual they were and how all men wanted to fuck them. Sex is power when you’re young and fucking flawless. The guys did not argue this.

Becca kept forcing herself on the hot guy with the piercing eyes who was called Brandon—hot name for a hot guy—so Ashlea moved in and reclaimed her territory by grabbing his crotch. He’ll do, she thought. She brought his mouth to hers. The tip of her tongue gently danced with his, which felt electric, before she pulled back and said, “Don’t go anywhere.” She smiled her infamous pageant-winning smile and walked toward the restroom, the floor like an ocean, the music pounding deep into her. A guy nudged her shoulder hard.

“Hey, asshole,” she said. “Watch it.” 

He kept walking, obviously too intimidated by her to turn and look or apologize.

She made it into the restroom, and there were about twenty other women crowded in there. Fuck. She pulled out her phone and noticed the “likes” and comments from her teaser post beginning to fade. A stall opened and she rushed in, cutting off the others who had been waiting.

“Hey, bitch. We were waiting.”

“I’ll only be a second. Rude.” Ashlea pulled her panties down below her skirt and sat down letting the stream of warm urine pour from her. She positioned her camera just right, capturing her black Roar panties around her ankles and the awesome heels—Chamandi brand—and her Gucci bag, around two-thousand dollars in all sent to her for free to model. She went through the filters and uploaded the pic with the caption: Don’t my Roar panties and Gucci bag look good with my Chamandi heels? Make sure to tune in tonight if you want to see more. Hashtag. Hashtag. Hashtag.

She came out expecting angry eyes, but no one noticed. As she walked out of the overcrowded restroom full of what she thought of as sixes and sevens, none of them in the same league as her, she felt a dribble of pee between her legs and realized she didn’t wipe. Fuck it. 

The coke had her wired up, her heart racing like the Kentucky Derby, banging against her chest cavity, trying to escape. The too many shots of booze and her lame roommate’s crazy pills had the walls and everyone inside of them swaying back and forth. She focused as best she could through the churning crowd to the bar, looking for Brandon’s piercing eyes looking back at her, but he was nowhere. Neither was Becca, that fucking bitch. She pushed her way back to her spot at the bar where only VIPs are supposed to hang and wondered who the fuck these other losers were crowding her. She flagged down the bartender. Over the music and crowd, she said, “Did my friends leave?”

The bartender looked at her incredulously. “Who?”

“Becca . . . and the guys I was with.”

He shook his head in quick short back-and-forth movements as he toweled a glass clean. “I’m not sure. Sorry.” He walked off.

It was then Ashlea realized she was holding a drink she didn’t remember ordering, the condensation like ice on her hands. 

The floor began moving more beneath her in waves, and this retched song that was so last year drilled into both sides of her temples as everything started closing in around her, constricting. She leaned on the sticky bar and tried flagging down the bartender who saw her and quickly turned away, mouthing something to the manager. They both glanced over and then eyed each other with some weird look, and what the fuck was going on? Struggling to catch her breath—the air thin and depleted—she left her drink and swam through the blurry crowd of people that melded together like dancing water colors, all eyes on her. She walked out, the muggy, warm night air hitting her. She looked around, unable to focus. The towering buildings and continuous stream of people coming and going was overwhelming. Breathe, Ashlea. Breathe. She finally spotted an Uber parked along the curb. She stumbled over on heavy, weak legs and climbed in.

“Where to?”

***

Ashlea woke to the pounding on her door—bang, bang, bang. 

“Ashlea,” her roommate said. “Your mom has been calling non-stop.”

Ashlea rolled over and squinted her eyes, focusing through the blinding sun that must’ve been absorbing the Earth or at least her room, her head throbbing. The pink walls and fluffy blankets looked no sexier than Pepto Bismol in this lighting which made her want to vomit. It took her eyes a moment to focus enough to read the clock. 2:45 p.m.? Holy fuck.

“Ashlea, call your mom.”

“Yes, yes. I hear you.” She reached for her phone, tensing up from the raw, sore feeling coming from her ass. There was a beer bottle sitting on the nightstand she was afraid to touch. She wasn’t sure what her fans asked for last night—she couldn’t remember anything; it was all a blur—but she had her suspicions. You’ve got to stay creative to stay relevant in this world and to give your fans what they want. Requests are welcomed. Pain sells.

On her phone were several missed calls and texts from her mother.

Mom: Are you ok?

Mom: Where are you?

Mom: Text me back! I’m worried about you!

Mom: Ashley, call me

Ashlea snickered a little at the misspelling of her name—even her mom couldn’t spell it right—and really didn’t feel like dealing with her mom trying to be all parental and concerned and stuff. She hated it when she got that way. It was very unbecoming.

Ashlea deleted the texts and went into her Only Fans account, expecting at least one hundred new followers and a blossoming pay day on her Cash App. She looked at the number of followers that . . . had gone down by eight? What the fuck?

She ran through what she could remember of last night, the hot guy Brandon, and got more upset thinking about that bitch Becca kidnapping him. She’s such a slut. But it wasn’t surprising. The Becca’s of the world were like skinny vultures, ready to tear into the scraps left by much hotter women at any chance they got, doing anything to get noticed by men. Pathetic.

Ashlea took a bubble bath and got ready, applying her MAC makeup and concealer, trying to hide the dark circles that were a byproduct of last night and the many nights before. Even not at her best, she was still hotter than ninety-nine percent of the women in this city, still a ten.

She turned on the lighting and equipment and spread her skirt, showing her new pair of Coco thong panties, promising her loyal fans a real treat later. If they wanted more, which they always did, she’d give them more.

“Aren’t these Coco thong—” she said the word “thong” as slowly and sexy as possible. “—panties to die for? Stay tuned, tonight. You won’t want to miss the show.” She blew a kiss through her unnaturally full lips and hit End. She hadn’t put much thought into what she was going to do, never did. Her fans usually led the way with a dangling carrot of potential tips, the largest players having the most influence.

She swallowed down the two pills her roommate must’ve accidentally left out on the counter—thanks, bitch—with a swig of Grey Goose and Ubered to Rock and Roll, the best and most expensive sushi bar in town, snorting the rest of the trash coke she had gotten from whoever that guy was, she couldn’t remember.

She walked in. Everyone turned, their eyes glued to her as she scrolled through the “likes” and comments from her teaser post. 

“Can you fit a one-liter up there?” one of her sicko followers posted. Creep.

She scrolled and stopped.

“I want to see you bleed.”

She shook her head and sighed, turning the display off, and there he was: Brandon. Looking hot as ever, his hair a messy masterpiece, his eyes more crystal than the night before. He pretended to not notice her walk in—the too cool act—which was kind of cute in a boyish way. She walked up next to him and leaned on the bar, her hotness commanding attention. When he didn’t say Hi, Ashlea made the first move.

“Brandon.”

“Uh, yeah.” He turned to her with a confused look on his face. “I’m sorry. Do I know you?”

Ashlea snorted a small laugh. “Um, yeah.” She looked into those fantastic eyes of his, smiled, refreshing his memory, but his face didn’t change. “Ashlea, silly.”

He smacked and twisted his mouth in thought. “I’m sorry. Drawing blanks.”

She hated to do this, like REALLY FUCKING HATED it. “Becca’s friend.”

His confusion turned to a half grin. “Oh . . . Becca’s friend. Sure. Everyone knows Becca.”

Ashlea wasn’t sure what game he was playing, but his cuteness was wearing off. The bartender brought him his tab which he signed to close out. Staring down at his ticket, he said, “Your friend is quite the screamer.” The bartender came back up and he and Brandon laughed about something as they did that cool fist bump thing that guys did. He faced Ashlea, smiled, and walked from the bar. 

Ashlea felt her heart racing, and it got hard to breathe, and what the fuck is going on? She turned on her phone—her crutch—and noticed several outgoing messages to Becca she didn’t remember sending and that Becca hadn’t texted her back. She gasped for air that was thinning by the second and felt dizzy, the restaurant and everyone inside it beginning to spin around her. She raced toward the restroom and splashed cold water on her face. Staring into the mirror and gripping onto either side of the porcelain sink, thinking about Brandon giving her the cold shoulder and Becca not responding and losing eight fucking followers despite shoving a fucking beer bottle up her asshole, her frustration growing and growing until it came out in a screeching, guttural yell that lasted for several seconds. Her phone beeped.

Mom: Ashley, call me. I’m worried about you.

Another beep.

Mom: Do I need to come up there?

Another beep.

Mom: Please tell me you’re taking your medication!

Medication? Um, yeah mom. If coke was prescribed, sure. Has everyone gone fucking crazy?

The door swung open.

“Is everything alright?” some guy asked.

Ashlea caught her breath and tried to compose herself as the guy said something to her.

“What?” Ashlea said.

“You need to leave,” he said.

Ashlea gave this loser server guy the stare of death and walked briskly past him. Her legs felt heavy on the ocean floor as she walked toward the exit. She felt everyone’s stares. She tried her hardest not to look, but the smiles on these people were wider than their faces, everyone of them like demonic clowns at a circus. A laughter grew around her, amplified and more hollow than anything human. She couldn’t breathe and . . . everything went white, all sounds muffled into one static hum.

***

Ashlea woke up in the back seat of some car, the driver pushing on her.

“Lady, we’re here.”

She looked out at the night surrounding her apartment building and wondered how she got there. Her head was throbbing.

“Twelve dollars,” the driver said.

“Oh,” she said, a déjà vu suddenly washing over her. This driver—this car—she’s seen both before. She pulled out her wallet from her Gucci bag and her Amex from her wallet, handed it to the driver.

“Ashley,” he said, reading from the card.

“With an A at the end,” Ashlea said.

“What?” the driver asked. “Looks like a Y to me.” He handed the card back to her.

Ashlea looked the card over and of course, they misspelled her name. Is Ashlea with an A really that fucking hard to spell?

“Thank you,” the all-too familiar driver said.

Ashlea pulled on the handle, but the door was locked.

“Um, the door’s locked?”

The driver just stared at her flatly for a moment, before unlocking the door and saying, “Sorry.”

Ashlea opened the door and got out, her mind already moved on from the déjà vu and eyes already deep in her phone. The driver rolled down the passenger side window, leaned over, and said, “Don’t forget to lock your door. There’s some sicko around, butchering people. They found two more bodies tonight.”

Ashlea’s eyes didn’t move from her phone, like she didn’t hear him at all.

“He likes to see young women bleed,” he said. 

Still no response.

“I want to see you bleed.”

“I’m sorry,” Ashlea said, totally uninterested. “Two more what?” Her eyes didn’t leave the bright phone display.

The driver just shook his head and rolled up the window, pulling the black BMW from the curb and driving away.

Ashlea suddenly realized who the driver was. It was Frank, Brandon’s friend, from the other night. Did he not recognize me? she wondered. Surely he had to have, right? I’m not one to go unnoticed, especially in this skirt. There’s no way. What the fuck is happening, right now? She felt her chest and face warming and her heart beating faster. Looking up at the stairs that led to her apartment, it seemed like they went on forever. She trudged her way up, one heavy step at a time, and tried steadying her shaky hand enough to insert the key and unlock her front door. After several missed attempts, the key finally found its target, and the knob turned. The door opened and a foul odor punched her in the face.

“Ew . . . what the fuck?” She walked in, fanning her nose, and turned on the lights seeing her apartment that looked like one of those fucking homeless encampments, with bottles, garbage, and clothes strewn about. “Ashley!” 

There was no answer as it appeared her boring and apparently gross roommate was out. Yuck. She walked into her room and closed the door on that awful smell, lighting up her phone and reading through the comments, stopping at one.

“I want to see you bleed.” 

She took in a deep breath, slid her skirt down to her ankles and stepped out, cranked the lighting and equipment, positioned her fluffy pink blanket just right, and got ready to entertain. She started with standard dildo penetration, but the tips weren’t coming in.

She typed: Well, what do y’all want to see? Biggest bidder wins.

The responses began rolling in. I want to see you bleed. I want to see you bleed. I want to see you bleed. I want to see you bleed.

They kept coming, a relentless assault.

You’ve got to stay creative to stay relevant in this world and to give your fans what they wanted. Pain sells.

She typed: Hold tight. I’ll be right back. 

She walked from her room and returned a few moments later, sitting back in the golden position for her fans where every pore of her flawless self was illuminated perfectly by the lighting. She looked into the camera and held up the large knife for her fans to see, turning it this way and that way. The tips started coming in. She placed the knife at her throat and smiled that mischievous, cute, sexy smile that only she could pull off. More tips poured in. She winked and slid the sharp edge across her throat, a clean slice that stung like fire and then ice, before a flood of warmth poured over her chest. As her throat filled with venomous cotton, she saw her dull, basic roommate through the reflection on the screen as she watched the relentless tips and comments rolling in. She smiled until her eyes went hazy and everything went dark.