Faint Melancholy Exudes

At eleven years old, I knew what I wanted to be when I grew up. I had dabbled with the thought of being a nurse (thanks to my elite care of Cabbage Patch Kids and creating faux-hospital Babyland General), an ice skater (my Dorothy Hamil haircut was sheer perfection), and a newscaster (reporting live from the scene of course). The latter career choice came from my delight that Michelle Marsh shared my first name (not the spelling) and was fantastic reciting the Channel 2 New York City News.
But my number one choice in a profession was to be a hooker thanks to the incredible portrayal of struggle in the film Angel. Dangerous situations always seemed the most glamorous. Plus, I could go to school during the day (preferably a Catholic school, thus incorporating my pleated and plaid mini-skirt into my night job walking the streets). Of course, I never thought about the actual act of sucking d*cks, handjobs, and sex with sweaty old men with huge wallets when I was eleven. I had never even seen a penis yet…at least not one that I recalled. That came when I was thirteen.
The first time I saw a penis when I wasn’t going to have sex with it but had some semblance of sexual thought was when I first moved upstate New York. I have my parents to thank for sheltering me throughout those formative years living in Brooklyn and Queens. I don’t know how they did it, but maybe it was more of a don’t follow by example because they certainly weren’t censoring their activities. But for me, seeing them do things made me not want to do those things. So I managed to never see a penis nor did I have any sexual thoughts about it.
Sure, I’d seen them before like when I was babysitting and changing diapers and the little nub fascinated me. Sorry, Little Richie, it was you.
What’s really frightening is that Little Richie grew up to be quite a handsome man and when I saw him years and years later as an adult, I was mortified to find out that he in fact was older than some of the guys I had dated.
Nonetheless, I was fascinated, but I did not, repeat, did not have penis envy. Why would I want that thing hanging off my body like a wayward thumb? At least that’s what they looked like when you guys are still in diapers.
My first sort of sexual penis sighting was in Playgirl magazine. Hooking like Angel seemed like a day at the County Fair in comparison to the images I saw in that rag. Besides, I think hookers really have something to offer society. We’ve got priests molesting young boys (and sometimes girls), so why don't we get the hookers to dress up in little kiddie outfits and head on over to the rectories so God's chosen ones can get their rocks off and not corrupt the impressionable minds of the youth of today? Father John and his friends surely get enough hand outs during mass from neighborhood citizens, right? Hookers will get paid for doing what they do best and the Holy Fathers will keep their communion giving hands off the pre-pubescent. Just a church box suggestion. Think about it: The movie was called Angel.

I didn’t think much about that at the time, although I did have Father Bob in CCD class who was young and the girls all giggled at. We would line up in front of his confession booth instead of Father Joseph’s. Father Joseph was old and mean and ugly. Father Bob was young and sweet and cute. Kids always gravitate towards things that are cute. That’s why they love puppies and cartoons.

I hate to admit it, but the thought of turning men on in exchange for cash was really exciting to me. In fact, it is one of my top fantasies even today. I mean, there is nothing quite like having a great dinner, some cocktails, having my boyfriend pay for it all, then going home and having sex with him. I’m not saying that’s an exchange just like hooking, but in a way it is.

So penises. I was babysitting (not for Little Richie), but for Joey. But his sister’s were there, which is what I don’t understand really since his oldest sister was just four years younger than me. But I guess a thirteen-year-old needs to baby-sit a nine year old? I don’t know the rules. Maybe she came home early from softball practice or something, but the fact is that me, my ten year old sister, Kim (the nine year old), her younger sister Sarah (seven), and Joey (four) were at Kim’s house without any parental supervision. It needs to be noted that this house not only had the Playgirl magazines, but Playboy as well, possibly Penthouse, and also a hot tub and a master bedroom with lots of mirrors. It was basically a den of sex disguised as a family home. I once even heard a rumor about Kim’s parents that they were swingers. Which totally grosses me out to think of anyone who is friends with my parents as swingers for fear that they once swung with the people who made me. Gross. Almost as gross as thinking about the time I saw my own father’s penis, accidentally of course. I walked in on him while he was peeing and he yelled at me for a good ten minutes afterward. He was, um, pissed that his little girl walked in at the most inopportune moment. I think that was the first time I discovered that there were "growers" versus "show-ers" but I didn’t really know what that meant until much later. I retain a lot of odd memories. Try to get me to recall what I was wearing or what I revealed to you on Friday night and I’ll draw a blank, but the fact that I can remember seeing my dad’s penis twenty years ago, quite vividly I might add, and I can recall details and the color of the towels that were hanging on the towel rack confuses me.
At the house, Kim decides that we are going to play house and that I am the mother, she is the father and our siblings are our kids. We do what I assume is what her parents do every night before they retire to their perversions—put the kids to bed. She leads me to her parents room and slides open the mirrored closet doors and behind the shoes and bottoms of fancy dresses are a stack of porno magazines. She flips open a page of Playboy and there is an image of a woman barely wearing some lingerie. This sparks an idea in her nine-year-old head and she goes over to the bedside dresser and pulls out a frilly nightgown that looked like a hooker’s wedding dress and tells me to put it on. Since I am playing the "mommy" I do as "daddy" says.
We lay in the bed and flip through more pages of the magazines seeing oiled buff bodies with erections and photos of couples having sex.
"This is what my mommy and daddy do," she tells me while pointing at an image of the man going at it doggie style while pulling on the woman’s long blonde hair.
I think I was turned on or nervous or both.
Then she did what I had never done before with anyone, she kissed me.
My first kiss was with a girl, four years younger, lying in her parent’s bed, while I was wearing nothing but her mother’s negligee.
She was on top of me, being forceful sort of, like she probably saw her father do to her mother, on this very bed, wearing this very same nightie. And she humped me. And much like my first real time with a boy, I just laid there.
My sister walked in and she stopped. I don’t remember much after that, but I do believe I received money from her mom in exchange for my babysitting. Sex for money? Perhaps.