Reading tonight from "Whore Complex" at NYC Talent Show

I'm still under the weather, but am armed with four prescriptions (higher dose of Advair, Singulair, Proventil and an antibiotic) from my allergist, I'm reading tonight at NYC Talent Show at 10:30 at Bowery Poetry Club! 308 Bowery. And look, there's also bingo at 7. Gearing up for some R&R in Austin this weekend too.

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And for those outside of NYC or who can't make it, you can watch me online:

NYC TALENT SHOW is a weekly variety/open mic night highlighting the best of downtown NYC comedians, musicians, and variety acts. The show is produced and co-hosted by comedians Victor Varnado and Diane Langan O’Debra. The open mic participants are randomly chosen at the beginning of the show and interspersed throughout the evening amongst booked feature performers. The show will feature performers from Comedy Central, The Onion, Late night with Jimmy Fallon, The Bonnaroo music festival and more! Sign up is at 10pm and the show starts at 10:30pm.

NYC Talent Show is an interesting and unique new approach to the downtown NYC open mic scene. The show is featured live via web feed on the internet by logging on to www.nyctalentshow.com. We will also be live twittering throughout the show and communicating with our internet audience as well as our live audience creating a fun interactive way to participate in a renowned open mic night known for it’s diversity and raw talent.

I'll be reading from "Whore Complex," which I read a little bit from at GLBT Night at In The Flesh. You can read the whole thing in my brand-new anthology Fast Girls: Erotica for Women. The story is fictional, but I really did buy a "I am your whore" card, which I still have, somewhere, at a Renegade Craft Fair.



Whore Complex
Rachel Kramer Bussel

Adrian tossed the cash on the hotel room dresser, fanning the fourteen twenties out; we both watched the crisp, green currency land against the sleek glass. My pussy gave an involuntary spasm as I saw the bills. I left them there, liking the way they decorated the room, what they symbolized, as I got down on my knees. He moved to stroke my long, just-blown-out, deep brown hair before thinking better of it and grabbing a handful, pulling me tight against his crotch.

When I moved to kiss his hardness through his jeans, he said, “I’m not paying you to kiss me.” Fuck, but that made me gasp. I looked up at him through the layers of my false eyelashes, at the Hawaiian-print red and orange shirt stretched across his bulky body and his pale brown eyes staring back at me, before I unzipped him and took his half-hard cock into my mouth. The truth is, I’d pay him for this opportunity, especially to feel him getting even harder as I went about my business.

I shut my eyes to better focus on the exquisite sensation of having him in my mouth, of being full of him, smelling him, tasting him, reveling in him, until he made me open my eyes to watch his cock as it slid in and out of my lips. That went on until he needed to come, and almost as if he were angry at me for making the blow job end, he pulled out and lashed his cock across my face. “Take it,” he said, shoving himself back inside me, his voice going hoarse, his body starting to shake as I did what he told me to, my own body coming alive as I curved my mouth around him. When he came inside me, there was so much of it I had trouble swallowing, but I did, somehow, then stayed there, wrapped around him, his hand on my head, our bodies entwined.

I’m not really a whore, though I am his whore; I even bought him a card that proclaimed as much, though I keep it tucked away in my desk drawer, only to be spied when I go to get a paper clip or envelope, a reminder I in no way need because I live and breathe my whoredom every second of the day. While some men pay real whores for “the girlfriend experience,” I gave up my girlfriend life for this one long ago. The first time Adrian said it to me I was pinned underneath him, his hefty arms locking mine in place. “Don’t ever forget that you’re my whore,” he said, before leaning down to bite my cheek, clamping down at the fleshy rounded-apple pouf of my face, the part magazines tell you to sweep the blush brush over. I liked it at first, the bite, liked that he was literally sinking his teeth into me, indulging in me like he would a fine steak.

Then he bit me again in the same place before coming up so his lips were just above mine. His hand closed around my neck, forcing my eyes up and into his. “That means I can do anything I want to you, any time.”

He wasn’t asking me a question but I could sense he needed me to respond, to confirm the truth of his statement. “Yes,” I said, simple and direct, even though the single syllable still managed to get caught in my throat. What was I really agreeing to? I wouldn’t know until later, but from the first time he’d beckoned me to sit on his lap and whispered that he’d thought about me stripping for him before he bent me over and held me down, I knew I’d agree to anything. His voice ricocheted against my skin, vibrating against my ear, echoing in my memory. We were just verbally agreeing to what I’d consented to that day months ago.

Since then I’ve learned that being a private whore requires a lot of upkeep. It’s not just the visits to the gym, hairdresser, waxer, dermatologist and other maintenance. It’s dressing the part; I can’t exactly wear micro-miniskirts and dresses slit up to just below my ass to my editorial job at a top magazine, even if our beat is fashion. I have a section of my closet that I think of as Adrian’s, since I only wear these outfits for him. Some of them are ones he’s given me, the most obscene, short and slutty, of course. Once, when I balked at a see-through pale pink dress I was sure had been marketed as a nightie, he told me he wouldn’t see me if I refused to wear it. Thinking I was clever, I wore two lacy white slips beneath it. He’d made me wait at the hotel bar, nursing my margarita until I was forced to order another, enduring the stares, leers and come-ons of countless horny businessmen, until he finally strode in. Upon seeing that I had layered myself up, that my nipples were not actually visible through the garment--though I figured they were close enough since they were hard and jutting forward--he promptly walked up to me, whispered in my ear, “You are obviously terrible at listening to orders. Maybe I picked the wrong girl, after all,” then reached up and pinched my inner thigh hard enough to make me wince, before walking out. I had to pay for my drinks and leave casually enough that it didn’t look like I was following him, while absorbing the last few, “I’d pay for a piece of that,” comments as I hobbled along in my five-inch heels. By the time I emerged from the bar he was long gone and if I knew him, he was already moving in on that evening’s piece of ass, one who wouldn’t hesitate to submit to any of his demands. He didn’t answer my calls or emails, and I wound up checking into a room, too upset to even masturbate.

When he finally got back to me the next day, it was to berate me. “If you are truly serious about being my whore, you have to forget about what you want, and focus on what I tell you. If you’re not interested, you can go off and find someone who’ll put up with your bullshit, but I won’t.” He didn’t need to tell me that he already had a wife, that I was merely his plaything, albeit one who was very good at sucking his cock. I knew that was my ace in the hole but he sounded convincing enough that I wasn’t sure if the line I’d crossed was truly irreversible. I vowed to myself to rededicate myself to him, writing WHORE over and over in my journal, scrawling it across my inner arm, staring at the word on my skin long enough to let it seep into my mind before I washed it off.