September 28, 2002:
Tall boy, sleepless, walks at dawn into a donut store on Haight Street.
Thin blond woman behind the counter. Early 30s. Hollow cheekbones. Super tight t-shirt. "What can I do ya for?"
He thinks about it. She watches, thin smile playing.
"I gotta watch my mouth," she says. Raspy voice: cigarettes? "I always get myself into trouble." Thin smile broadens.
He looks at her.
She and her super tight t-shirt both lean forward. "Guy was in here yesterday. Orders cake donuts and coffee. I say, 'What could be more satisfying than coffee and donuts in the morning?' He says, 'How about a nice blow job?'" She smiles and looks into his eyes.
He frowns. "What did you answer? 'Wrong part of town. Try Polk Street. Or under the freeway somewhere?'"
She laughs. Maybe a little nervously. But her brow furrows, like she's not totally sure what he means. He buys something and leaves. She looks disappointed.
About ten years later he realizes she'd made a bigtime pass at him, and he'd called her a whore.
All that year women seemed to want me.
Waitress rolls her hips, bends over slowly, ass high in the air, elbows on the table, looks me in the eye, smiles, and I'm thinking, "Why's she striking that awkward pose? That's gotta be uncomfortable."
Stunning blond in a law firm where I work for a while, plants herself in an empty chair while my new colleague is showing me the ropes. It's my first day there. She interrupts to tell me about her new boyfriend. "He's got a 56 inch chest. He's the only man I've ever known with a bigger chest than mine." Shoulders back, breasts out, beaming. Stunning. I think, wow, those are nice. What do they have to do with me? A couple of weeks later she follows me into a storeroom to tell me she needs a new boyfriend. "Trouble in paradise?," I say, and duck under her arm to get out.
Temp in the bank where I have my first job pins me against a cubicle and says, "I'm ready to rape somebody tonight, I think it could be you." I stare at her and blink.
What was it they felt from me? The pain I was in? Or the anger with which I responded to it?