Interlude

I've added Haloscan to the blog (finally!). All the past comments have disappeared. I have no idea if they will return or not. I hope so. We can but wait.

Porn

When you're a teenager you 'experiment', when you're in your early-twenties you fuck, and when you're heading up to the thirty-plus mark, you start... to have sex.

I find the progression slightly depressing.

How enlightening it would be to return to those giddy teenage days of the first blow job (at my age it's become 'fellatio'), to recall the initial gagging disgust at actually putting it in your mouth, finding something kind of horny about it, even as, simultaneously, mild distress sets in.... does it get easier with practise? Less repulsive? Or is this it? Our lot as women is not only to bleed for seven days a month, but to suffer the indignity of sucking cock, pulling pubes out of our throat and acting excited about it?

Thankfully it does get better. Sex when you're a teenager is great because it's indiscriminate, it's clumsy, it feels naughty and it's new. But unless you were born a Belladonna, it's also wraught with embarrassment, confusion and secret mortification. Does everyone have these flappy bits? Is it meant to bend to the side? When does it get good? Surely putting your tongue there is kind of perverted?

It gets good when you're 26, you're living in Manhattan and you feel like a porn star.

I was the weird nerdy kid in school. Kind of cool for smoking behind the bike sheds and driving a mint-green mini, but a little odd for being clever, not having a perm and a gelled-back quiff like the other pikeys, and for having ambitions to leave a place called 'Mold'. I find it hilarious that sun-bleached hair, a tan and an obsession with the gym has turned me into stripper material. Well, that and the heels, make-up, manicure, pedicure, brazilian, no-carb-diet-until-you-hit-a-size-4 and whirling around a pole. But it's also a fulfilment of a secret ambition I never even knew I had, a perverted twist in my nice little North Wales schoolgirl soul. It's all very well to have a degree from Cambridge, but it doesn't make you feel very, well, sexy, whereas the six inch heels and the dollar bills floating around your head... it does something to me. I can watch porn films and no longer feel intimidated by the prowess of big-tittied sluts with their shaven pussies and alarmingly elastic orifices.

And watch porn I do. Whereas before I had been unwillingly privy to my childhood friend's collection of dwarf and animal coupling, now I have discovered the messy, wet, sticky enjoyment of the porno. What better way to spend a burning, sweaty, steaming Manhattan afternoon then lying in the a/c watching a bit of the old in/out with the Fat Bastard, planning an evening of sex and food?

Life is good, oh yes it is. Three weeks left, one letter of employment down, a guarantor secured, money in the bank and just one more letter left to procure. I'm still a little worried, a tad concerned it may not turn out exactly as planned, but when I feel like that, there's nothing left to do but switch on the porn.

After all, I've already finished the new Harry Potter book, and you have to do something with your free time, right?

The Strippers

Cara waddles into Pussies wearing an enormous smock, her hair, wet from the gym, scraped back into a messy clip. Tommy, the bar manager, scratches his belly beneath a stained, holey graying t-shirt, and regards her with disgust.

"Ya look like a fuckin' Grandmaw"

In 30 minutes Cara looks more like a twenties movie star, voluptuous, curvy body flowing out of a thin, polyester number, black hair framing huge blue eyes, a knowing smile curled around a last-minute pre-stage Marlboro. Cara's been at Pussies for years. I don't know what she does in her spare time, aside from date doctors, go to the gym and talk vaguely about a future career she is 'preparing' for, in between screwing her ex-boyfriend. That's the thing about strippers. You never know what they're up to, where they're from, where they're going. "You're not the stripper type," the guys tell me when they get to know me. "You're too cheeky, too bright," but after working in Pussies for two months, I'm forced to conclude that there is no 'type'.

Olga, a striking Russian girl, revealed to me recently that she is taking Hebrew night classes "just for fun". Ali, a pencil thin Slovakian with a perfect body and a face like a pile up on the freeway, lives with her mother and conceals her day time attire-free activities from the maternal bosom. Pia is a Brazilian physiotherapist who is saving to take her exams in the States so she'll be registered to practise here as well as Brazil. India is a big-bosomed (fake, of course) brunette who dances in order to fund her visits to her nine year old daughter in Switzerland, after the father was awarded custody. Penny is a Criminology major at NYU. Delia is a Korean college student, adopted by an American Jewish family when she was a child. Jenny is a tiny blonde former-Aerobics instructor.

"How old are you Mimi?" she asks me, unsteady after too many Raspberry Stolis, as we sit on the fire escape and smoke cigarettes one Saturday afternoon.

"26"

"Fuck! You look like you're 19! I'm 26 too. Hey baby, do me a favor baby, don't sit on the step, it's dirty out here, you'll get your pussy all infected, the pussy is very precious baby. You gotta look after it. Hey baby, you think I'm a little crazy? My boyfriend does. He says I'm crazy. He's right. But you're crazy too. We're all a little crazy, everyone who does this job.The whole damned lot of us."

Students and Mothers, illegals and legals, women in their forties, girls in their early twenties, big tits, small tits, blondes, brunettes, pretty girls, ugly girls, clever girls, dumb girls. Sometimes I go in and it feels safe, it feels OK. The day is good, the clients generous, the vodka and cash flowing, it's over before I know it. Sometimes it's a chore, fake smile, forced cheer, same lines reeled out, twirl around the pole again, gyrate-step-twirl, same conversation, same people, repetitive tedium, the same beat played over and over. Some of us get on, laugh together, support each other. Others don't. We have one thing in common though, one thing which unites us.

We're all a little crazy. The whole damned lot of us.

The Fuck-You Email

I sent Eton the 'fuck-you' email.

"I sent Eton the 'fuck-you' email," I tell Gay Friend.

"No. NO! Mimi, why'd you do that?"

Well, I guess by this time you've all read it, and if you haven't, let me explain why. I posted Eton's response to my 'fuck-you' email on the blog on Saturday. He, understandably, wasn't impressed. It's hard suddenly finding your actions and remarks logged everyday in an online journal, even if it is anonymous. I try and keep it vague regarding certain people I don't want to offend or upset, but I overstep the mark occasionally. Eton's reply was thoughtful, eloquent, and entirely worthy of the fat bastard. I posted it because it was an extremely nice email, and cheered me up considerably. But it was private, and he asked me to remove it. As I was in Pussies at the time, I sent him my password to edit the blog, and being a devious little cunt, he posted all of our 'fuck-you' correspondence online. We laughed about it, and today, I removed the emails to appease us both.

So if you've just hit the site - you're too late for the drama, it's been lost with the click of the 'delete' button. Suffice to say, if I ever get this book written, maybe it'll make it to there instead.

I'm off to the Bronx Zoo tomorrow.

Pricks I Have Known: No. 11 - The Serial Infideliter

The Serial Infideliter is constantly prowling for fresh pussy. In the supermarket - a vast array of Yummy Mummys, deliciously frustrated and fresh for consumption amidst the packaged Spinach and Mezclun lettuce selection. In the bar - giggling twenty-something sluts eager to practise the new position advocated in Cosmo's Position of the Month. In the restaurant - bored, listless menopausal Prada-hags eye-fucking the Puerto-Rican bus boy whilst their husbands surreptitiously assuage the fears of their intern-lovers via email on the Blackberry ("sorry sweetie, just gotta reply to Hank at the office, problem with the investment again"). The Serial Infideliter loves women of all shapes - big tits, small tits, long legs, short legs, huge abundant asses, taut pre-pubescent bottoms - he is magnanimous in his love and devotion for the female form, particularly when inside it.

The Serial Infideliter is in a loving, trusting, long-term relationship with a beautiful woman whom he wishes to bear his future heirs. It is incomprehensible to him that this could, in any way, impinge upon his joyous indulgence in indiscriminate fucking. That's entirely different, can one not see this? Bemusement spreads across his features at the suggestion that, perhaps, his behavior could be seen in any way as, well, slightly immoral.

After all, you can't blame a dog for acting like a dog.

Purty

"You're purty", says Anthony at Essex and Delancey, while I'm waiting for the J train. I can forgive him. He's 8. I guess you learn young in the Hood. At least he didn't hiss at me. Hell, I got my sights set on that little fucker. Ten years time and you're mine baby. Just practise on your sister first, I don't want no premature ejaculators.

I would apologise, but frankly, I don't give a shit.

Sometimes you feel purty, and sometimes you don't. It's been one hell of a week, culminating in the irony of ironies - I was locked into the apartment of Purgatory, with the three stinking, evil cats and the musicians. But I weathered through. I survived. And I learned something. The abode may reek of piss, kitty-crap and Ivy-league white trash, but it's nothing compared to what lies outside, on the street, in the real world.

A comforting thought.

I feel sweaty and pissed off, but I feel purty because of these people:

My sis - Piu Piu
My brother Ron
Amy - Fellow illegal
Jules - Corporate bitch
Beth - Stability whore
Carlos - no reason, you're an asshole, but I'm feeling kind
Clare - Fantastic book
Mike - The lovely man from Troubled Diva
Gay Friend - Honeymoon in Aruba sweetie!
Lucy - Lawyer/stripper, big tittied one
Artegall - Rugby player. Yum.
Paul - Freelancer extraordinaire
Ben R. - um, where are you? Thanks for the help
Nicci T. - Fellow female freelancer.
Jemima - October + bars = drunk. No question.
Dan - always supportive
Guyana Gyal - ditto
Sandy - The only good thing to come out of Oz.
Ed - Even though you're an actor.
Joe - Take the dog asshole.
Patrick - The make up looked good.
Joseph - My stalker hunter
People at Urban Honking
Jonathon - Northern idiot
Mum and Dad - For all the money and support you've given me. Ahem.
The People at Bon Giorno.
The Village Voice - Not really. Go fuck yourselves.
Everyone who's emailed me with help, advice and kind words in the last few months - Croaker, Vivienne, Eddie, Ophelia, The Girl etc.

and finally:

The INS - What would I have written about for 5 months without your inspiration?

Love you all!

Chau -

mimix

Pricks I Have Known: No 10, The Wronged Male

The Wronged Male makes a disturbing reappearance in the frequent event of female hysteria. Adopting a platitudinous air of calm, the Wronged Male is always right, but for the sake of the Hysterical Female, will assume the persona of the guilty party in order to appease said Hysterical Female.

What, you wanted super-plus, not just normal flow? You're right, you did tell me, I stupidly forgot, how ridiculous of me, so sorry honey...

Not realizing that calm and logic are anathema to the Hysterical Female, the Wronged Male, by his very hangdog air, serves only to lure the Hysterical Female into a near frenzy in her thwarted attempts for a screaming argument. The Hysterical Female would like nothing more than the Wronged Male to be discovered mid-coitus with some big-tittied slut in order to feed her irrational and instinctual desire for homicide-via-nagging. To be denied such an opportunity is merely selfish. There can be no excuse for such male behaviour, it is merely... selfish. Men just do not understand. They're just pricks. All of them, without discrimination.

It would make no sense whatsoever for Prick No. 10 to be the Hysterical Female, and if you can't see this... well, you know exactly what I'm going to call you.

Piu Piu

My twin sister, looking how I feel.

Mr Nice

I received an email from a troubled reader a few weeks ago. Husband addicted to strip clubs. Spending all their savings. Stripper incessantly leaving messages on their cellphone. What should she think? What goes on in these places? How should she handle this?

I felt sad. I gave her the blurb, the usual crap, and at the end said, 'Sometimes you just have to walk away'. On reflection, I considered that my usual bluntness may not be the best approach, and softened this with '...but I still believe in love'. Nothing like a few platitudes to ease a troubled soul, I figured. But then Mr Nice comes in the strip club, and I become that other woman, the evil temptress, the destroyer of marriage and stability.

"You still love your wife?" I ask, grind, grind, grind.

"She drives me fucking crazy. I even tell her she drives me crazy. Marriage changes, you know? You marry someone for who they are, and you love them for it. They change and become who you want them to be, a good mother, and you still love them for it. But... there's gotta be something more."

I know what you mean Mr Nice. More than a dark club on a humid Manhattan mid-July afternoon, sipping sugar free Red Bulls with vodka to make the time go quicker, the edges a little less sharp. Maybe it's that desire for more, for something different, which makes us all not-so-nice.

"If we ran away together you reckon we'd last longer than a year?" laughs Mr Nice. I don't think anything would last longer than a year in my life. How could anything grow in a heart over-run with the weeds of nicotine and New York, sourness and pride? Show me how to turn my life into a success story and we'll reconsider that one.

I've been job hunting of late. I don't know why. I did all this before and look where it got me. I spoke to one woman on the phone.

"You see Mimi, if you don't have your visa, there's not a chance in hell someone's going to give you a job, as to give a foreign applicant preference the company has to show they've advertised the position for six months in advance, whilst a Department of Labor employee needs to sit in on all interviews for positions to ensure an American citizen really wasn't suitable for employment over you. No company wants to bother, certainly not for someone at entry level or with a few years experience. My advice to you is to get married."

Or just leave. It's what I do best after all. I'm thinking about it, in between chainsmoking on Bedford Avenue, watching a Bulldog waddle down the road and thread clumsily between wiry youths wearing wife beater shirts and greasy moustaches, hissing 'Eh Mami, hermosa...'.

Dunno where I'd go, but that's not a new one either. Strange how life has a way of repeating itself, over and over in a tightly wound coil which never seems to unfurl.

Salaciousness

"MIMI!" yells Kate across the bar in a tone of warning. I totter over in disintegrating six inch heels and my long stripper gown. Long because in the minds of the management, this raises the tone of the club to the slightly less seedy, as opposed to the out-and-out, dripping-with-the- scent-of-bodily-fluids, short, transparent-dress seedy.

"Sally saw you lettin' some guy suck on your tits yesterday. NO HAY LECHE. We ain't fuckin' lactatin' in this club, so don't let it happen again."

She bounces off to deliver a speech to the other dancers about the evils of combining mammaries with tongue action, and I'm left befuddled and pissed off in the corner. Since working at Pussies I have been informed that I allow guys to stick their fingers up my cunt, suck on my breasts, cum in their pants and that my dancing is excessively salacious. Now 'allow' is a dubious word. Men have attempted all three of the above moves in my presence. Should they try and stick their fingers up me, my usual diversionary tactic is to say "Oh I'm sorry, it's a little messy down there at the moment, yeast infection." This usually predicates a hasty retreat of the hand back to the knee and no more requests for dances. Tongues get a sharp reprimand of "No mouths please". Followed by "No fucking mouths", and ending with "OK, dance over, give me the fucking money and a tip and don't expect me to dance for you again." Cumming in the pants - it just happens. The little bastards are wily enough not to give you warning. It's the 'jerking off with the knee' move which does it. Gets 'em every time.

Now should I be dancing for a hot guy, which occasionally happens, the above three events may occur in the privacy of the Champagne Room, but never on the floor. But perhaps my dancing does verge on the salacious occasionally. Some clients are regulars, they come back again and again. I know their stories. I like them. I pity them for their loneliness, their unhappy marriages, their disillusionment, and my way of empathising is to give them a good dance, slow, close, an artificial intimacy. But allow sucking, licking, sticking-up and cumming? No. Not me. It's all an illusion. Touching without commitment. I give them my sorrow and my body and my wishes for their lives to improve. And the rest of them, 99%, I just tolerate as best I can, and hope that they fall under a yellow cab.

I left Eton today and moved my stuff back to the crumbling loft apartment with no a/c, my few belongings half packed-up, ready to leave at any time. "Don't you want to be friends?" he asked, and I could almost believe there was some pain there. Almost. I cried as I said no, and walked out of the door, back onto the subway with my life in bags, for the hour-long journey back to Brooklyn. I don't think even in my heart I believe I'm ever going to be able to settle anywhere, with anyone. Through experience I've found that if you keep moving, it doesn't hurt quite so much. Like I said before, I'm more efficient alone. I can dance a lot better when there's touching without commitment, when it's all a safe illusion.

I just don't function very well when you can't pretend the intimacy is artificial anymore.

Faux Lesbian

I was 15. It was in my house. I think we were trying to frighten an irritating curly-haired girl with an obesity problem. Kind of dull if the truth be told. Too much red wine. Clashing teeth. The whiff of nicotine. When I kiss I like to lean in for the hard-on, feel it against my knee, against my groin, retreat smiling, knowing you can have more. With women, your knee just hits empty air, the kiss is soft, no stubble, no edge, sexless.

It was then that the stark truth hit me. I was not a lesbian.

Since that time, I have vainly attempted the lesbian move at certain points in my life, to thwart unwanted attention, to generate more interest, because it's the sexual equivalent of owning a Balenciaga bag. Faux lesbian is, after all, just a fake Fendi. But the truth is, women, like vibrators, just don't do it for me. I watch the dancers at work do their little fake-dyke jaunts for the men, squeeze a little boob, suck a little nipple, and can't help thinking, girl, what the fuck would you do if that pussy was on your fucking face.

Since becoming a stripper, I have had to confront that reality several times.

I danced for a Princeton banker today. He was hungry. Maybe you know the type. I certainly do by now. Not bad looking. He took me in the Champagne Room with the lovely Bea. Rather awkward, if the truth be told. Too many tits, too many rules. Dancing is hard because of the limits sometimes. It would be so much easier if you could just sit there and masturbate for an hour, and to be quite honest, it would probably please the men more than all the fruitless grinding. However, I persevered with lesbianity, took a few restroom breaks, made the obligatory gasps and contorted myself into positions suitable for Guiliani's strict criteria ruling non-sexual turn-ons, and then went for a drink with the guy afterwards. Don't ask me why. It was curiosity I think. I never meet them after work, but the more time I spend at Pussies, the more I realize that sex and love is totally differentiated in the minds of many men. But I still don't get it. So I ask questions. But you love your girlfriend? You would tell her you did this? Why not get an escort? Why go home unsatisfied?

The answers are always as unsatisfactory as the grind. I kissed him goodbye, and it was a faux-lesbian kiss, sexless, with tongues, for show, like porn. I felt weird, wrong, and tried to call Eton. He didn't reply and I stood on 7th Avenue in the humid darkness of early evening, cabs whooshing past, lights blurred, Manhattan moving on relentless, but me postponed, hovering, uncertain and alone, feeling confused, a little empty.

I wish someone would answer the phone. I wish I was a lesbian sometimes.

Pricks I Have Known: No. 9, The Commitment Phobe

It's all going so well. You've established which side of the bed is yours, your toothbrush, underwear and several essential items of clothing have sneaked furtively into his closet. It is tacitly established that you can hold hands in public, just not for extended periods of time and never when his friends are around. You've peed in front of each other, stopped diligently waking up five minutes before he does in order to reach for the mouthwash, under eye concealer and mascara, and sex has not yet reached the point of mundanity and/or anal obsession.

It is the intangible yet unmistakable point at which dating transforms into relationship, the precise moment at which the Commitment Phobe is aware that enjoyment in a new shag has irrevocably led to him being indecently seduced into some form of couple-like arrangement, that uncontrollable yet silent hysteria breaks loose.

A slightly sullen expression, moist brow and over-analysis characterises the Commitment Phobe, although his physical shape can take many - oh, let's not be exclusive here - all male forms. It is preposterous that some woman can enter the happy bachelor's life and wisk away his enjoyment in other females. It is with sheer indignation that the Commitment Phobe realizes that the last few times he has masturbated (and there are pitifully few of these times, since regular sex has now corrupted that once infallible bond between man and cock) he has not once thought of Jenna Jameson, the cute girl in Starbucks or that chick from Oral Investigations who lets the guy with the seventies hair cum all over her face. The Commitment Phobe hovers on the verge of tearful shock at contemplating his single life of take-out food, excessive beer drinking and fruitless nights sharking for sex in bars from drunken, giggling sluts, simply disappear, to be replaced by monogamy, babies, marriage, obligatory sex once a week in the missionary position, middle-aged spread, mortgages, unmitigated misery... could there be a fate worse, aside from castration and being anally raped by a large, smelly gay man?

It must end. The Commitment Phobe is resolute. He will be firm. He cannot allow his powers to be sucked away by womanly wiles. He refuses to find pleasure in nearly-girlfriend's female company again. Commitment must be nipped neatly in the bud.

But maybe he'll just have one last blow job before he makes it official.

Another 9/11?

I wrote this for a newspaper but they didn't need it in the end. So here it is on the blog.

-----------------------

Ah, sweet tragedy. Nothing rallies a New Yorker more than the cries of the fallen and the sense that they have been right all along. It was those damned Muslims, it must have been. Whenever opinion starts to waiver over Iraq and the War on Terror, a fresh wave of fear envelops New York reminding us all again and again of 9/11. The bombings in London are England’s 9/11, we are told gravely by the New York tabloids. Yet England will remain unbroken, staunch old bird that she is, accustomed to the IRA and the blitz of the Second World War. Now our 9/11, that was a different story. It didn’t break us, but we are not London, and whereas Ken Livingstone, England's answer to Bloomberg, can see fit to warn the terrorists that despite their efforts “people from around the world will arrive in London to become Londoners, to fulfill their dreams and achieve their potential”, our response this side of the Atlantic since 9/11 has been to make that fabled myth of The American Dream a more exclusive one – one certainly not for the likes of those potential terrorists, Muslims.

Immediately following the wake of the 9/11 catastrophe in New York, Special Registration was introduced, the demand that men of predominantly Muslim countries come forward for ‘interview’. Well, our authorities explained, these people must surely know something about Bin Laden and his whereabouts. Brown people, praying to the East – they all like, know each other, right? Surprisingly, none of the 83,000 men who came forward voluntarily to 26 Federal Plaza in Manhattan in 2002 did know in which cave Bin Laden was reclining in dialysis luxury. But oh well, it gave the authorities the bonus opportunity to start deportation proceedings against 13,000 of them, and follow up others with secret military tribunals, indefinite detentions, denial of access to families and attorneys, threats of the death penalty and more. It’s for National Security you see. And if there’s one thing we learned from the Brits all those years ago, it’s to never trust the darkies. Farouk Abdel-Muhti was an outspoken Palestinian residing in the US who was detained by the US government for speaking out against the violations of human rights by such legislation as the Patriot Act in the aftermath of 9/11. Whilst in incarceration, Farouk was denied essential medication for a serious heart condition, which eventually led to his death. Kamal Essaheb, a 23 year old law student, is still awaiting deportation proceedings, despite having lived in the US for over ten years with a model academic and social work record.

The problem with New York is that it’s for everyone, not just those for whom it was originally ‘intended’ – the white, European pilgrims who arrived all those years ago. And whilst New York remains a bastion of liberal thinking amongst a right wing country, the model of the ‘melting pot’ of ethnic diversity the immigrant culture of the States professes to promote, it is in New York where the policies against immigrants, and specifically immigrants of Muslim descent, will hit hardest. The REAL ID act, passed in Congress in May, will prevent many immigrants having access to legal recourse in the event of unfair deportation proceedings, whilst ensuring no illegals can hold driving licences. Who will drive New York’s yellow cabs? One is compelled to ask. Does Bush realize the potential New York City transport crisis waiting to peak when the Act is introduced in February 2006? In New York, the city of immigrants, the fear of immigration is linked to the fear of terrorism. No matter that the 9/11 pilots were all in this country legally, and one was even issued a visa posthumous to his death. Work visas have been ‘capped’ at 65,000 a year. Even an application for a simple student visa has become ridiculously convoluted. And the suggestion that Congress might consider the compassionate DREAM act, which would establish a path for citizenship for the children of illegals brought into this country from an early age, is ridiculous. Compassion for whom? Compassion begins at home! Or is that charity? Whatever, we’ll have it all, on the tiny island of Manhattan, impervious to the world outside, even in our ‘liberal’ haven tetchy and nervous of those potential terrorists invading the city in droves. No one would ever think they came merely to “fulfill their dreams and achieve their potential”. That wouldn’t make such a good story now would it?

back to the future

I had cunnilingus for breakfast this morning. It should have put me in a good mood, but it didn't.

"I hope you're not expecting me to provide you with a dog, a baby and marriage," says Eton, which is, of course, precisely what I do expect. Minus the pre-nup naturally, and upon our divorce it's a given that I get to keep the small mediterranean island. several estates, the sex toys, and sell the pictures to The News of the World, whilst my indiscretions with the Puerto-Rican pool boy and the Gardener will be kept under wraps by all concerned.

It's practically impossible to live in the moment. We all fantasize about the future and rarely appreciate the present. Even enjoying someone's company becomes loaded with expectation and social convention, fears that this will lead to that, and then, bang! honeymoon over, shackled to reality, a ring on the finger, bad/no sex, monogamy and encroaching middle age.

There's another, more pressing reason why I can't simply enjoy the present.

I'm a little paralyzed at the moment. Can't write, can't socialize, can't relax, can't sleep. I'm not the best person to be around. My humor has left me. It's nearly time you see. Five weeks to complete that visa application. What's missing is a letter confirming I freelance for a major UK publication. Two articles I wrote were unceremoniously dumped by both The Guardian and The Times, which put a dampener on my plans, and has made the blog a dry, barren watering hole of absent humor. I'm scared. I'm tired. I can't write anything. And I'm perpetually pissed off.

But on the up side, my deep throating has improved remarkably.

London Bombs

I'm on the stairmaster at the gym. I'm sweating so much that my hands keep slipping off the grips and I teeter continuously in imminent danger of falling into a pool of my own sweat. Several overweight African-American teenagers hover nearby clutching spray bottles and towels, ready to wipe off the cardio machines and prove their worth and enthusiasm as the chosen few summer interns. They wear lurid green 'youth in the park' t-shirts. I am confused as to why they are all weight challenged, but then figure that this, perhaps, is a criteria for employment by New York City's Parks, Gym and Recreation Centers. It makes the rest of us feel like slender reeds. Z100 pumps out over the stereo.

"...and there's been, like, bombs goin' off in London, and people dyin'"

"That sucks"

"Yeah. Here's what the British Prime Minister says."

"After that play that song I really like."

In Pimping Pussies the girls turn to me with curious eyes.

"Mimi, are you Australian or from London? Are any of your family like, dead?"

Text messages from all my London friends, here and abroad. Are you OK? And your family? And your friends? It's all we talked about in the club with the clients today. It's terrible what happened in London isn't it? Would you like me to grind your cock now?

When you live in the UK it seems like the center of the universe, the most prestigious place to be. Then you travel and you see how small it is, how pumped up of self-importance... and yet strong. The UK is like a Jack Russell terrier, and it continually takes on Rottweillers.

I'm not really into this 'Rule Britannia' patriotism shit, or the vacuous apologies to mourning families I don't know, or the vitriolic outbursts of anger against Al Qaeda. I know what I feel, I'm just unsure how to phrase it.

I do love you England, you just piss me off sometimes.

But no one deserves this.

A Tarco in Frarnce with the Fat Bastard

When I walk into the French Brasserie just off Central Park wearing a tiny white skirt and heels, I feel like a stripper. Eton's cousin, her friend, two students from Oxford and Eton's sibling look up from their Bloody Marys and eye me with interest. I'm unsure how much they know about me, whether he's told them about the blog, or whether, as far as they're aware, I'm just another long legged Sloaney dressed like a slut because that's what they sell in Stella McCartney this season. Air kisses, warm exclamations, sit down, snooty French waiters slither up and provide us with drinks.

"So where did you guys meet?" asks Oxford student number one enthusiastically. He seems an enthusiastic type of guy, as he sits enthusing enthusiastically over the previous night's escapades in Marquee.

"Erm..." I pause for a moment over Steak Frites and eye Eton, before ambiguously replying, "Just in a bar."

My vacuous answers soon wear thin and attention returns to an analysis of the night before.

"What is it with American girls? They're so damned hard to please! I was talking to one for fucking hours last night and still no joy..."

"You should come to my bar. You wouldn't have a problem picking up women there," I murmur, and then stifle a smile as Eton chokes slightly and grins into his Diet Coke.

I was well behaved. I was curse-free and polite. I didn't scream at patronising twenty year old rich female once when she declared that she 'didn't understand why I had so many problems getting a visa, it's not that hard', and followed this up with the astute observation that she 'didn't like New York, New York is for everyone, everyone spends time here, it's just so generic, not like London'. Abso-fucking-lutely. Keep England for the elite. As it jolly well should be. Can't have those coolies running around everywhere goddammit. I avoided references to my employment and genitalia, and steered clear of politics. I smiled and was sweet. I was perfect - ly boring. It sucked.

The bill was expensive. $80 per head. Eton didn't even ask and just paid for me, as he always does. We left and walked arm in arm along a sunny, tree lined avenue peppered with designer stores.

"Why do you pay for me all the time? I don't mind paying for myself you know. I can't pay for you but sometimes I can pay for me."

Eton looked confused.

"You were there because I invited you. And you wouldn't have voluntarily spent $80 on brunch on your own, and I wanted you there. Don't think about it. You're my guest."

We walked past Central Park, happy, shrieking children throwing bread at ducks, ice-cream dribbling down toddler's faces, teenagers sucking each other's faces off, adults relaxing with the Sunday papers.

"I'm sorry for being a cunt by the way," said Eton briskly.

"What do you mean?"

"I told you to behave. And when that guy asked you where you met me, you didn't tell him the truth. You're not ashamed of being a dancer are you? I know that. And you shouldn't be. It's not forever. You're just doing what you have to do. And I realized it would have been a lot more fun if you'd just acted like yourself."

I hugged him, and he smiled.

"Plus I assume that one day you'll be an extremely high profile writer. Then maybe you can take me out for brunch."

It's strange navigating between these two worlds. The dark, dirty, seedy New York I've inhabited for months, and the bright, clean, aesthetically pleasing filet mignon existence of Eton. I don't say 'barth' or 'Frarnce', but in many ways I belong to the high-flying, clean living, successful types jetting between New York and London, mainly because of my privileged education than through being brought up in Wales and attending comprehensive school. And in another way, I feel completely comfortable with the Homeboys and the Harlem girls and the strippers. Having access to Eton's world is comforting, and yet it makes my days harder. In some ways life is much easier alone. I am more efficient alone. Four years of solo travelling is testimony to this. You don't allow yourself to feel weakness or fear or sorrow. You weep in private if you must. You cope. You use the kindness of strangers and move on without being touched.

I met a friend from Cambridge for drinks yesterday, fresh from running errands around town, dressed in crappy, torn, tatty clothes.

"Let's get cocktails in the Hudson!" she cried, and off we went, me looking like a refugee from hipster hell, her in swish, tailored, office gear. The Hudson Terrace Bar is chic, expensive, and popular with corporate types. I sat and chatted to my friend, sipping Mojitos and swapping stories of undergraduate years gone by. Despite my clothes and my job, I felt at home. I felt right. And when I looked up from my cocktail, I caught a glimpse of a Pussies regular. Then another floated past and nodded to me guiltily. And another. The place where worlds collide is The Hudson Bar.

And on another level it's New York. Maybe that rich kid had a point. It is for everyone. I never felt like London would have me, but I feel like New York will.

I don't say Barth or Frarnce certainly. But when you need Nachos or a Burrito, if you're in the States and ask directions for Tarco Bell, no one is going to know what the fuck you're talking about.

I kind of like that.

Deep Throat 101

"I think you're highly skilled," says Eton kindly, "and really, I can only see mastering the art of Deep Throat as complimenting your already existing talents".

In order to add to my sexual resume, I took Deep Throat 101 this week. The art of Deep Throating has managed to evade me throughout my libidinous career. I've never even been aware of DT as something real people could aspire to, as opposed to porn stars, who we all know are blessed with elastic orifices at birth. That there should exist a sexual practice which I haven't at least attempted piqued my curiosity. I carried out an adhoc survey amongst my colleagues in order to gather a host of information prior to knuckling down to the practical aspects of the course.

Bambi gazed at me briefly before offering her advice. "Practice baby. It takes a lot of practice. Make sure you master it on a white guy before you go for the big boys." With that she swans off, ass swaying cheekily in hotpants, to demand some scared corporate figure buy her a drink. Pedro the doorman is thrilled that I have introduced the subject. "Is nice when girl gag on your cock. Very sexy. Who you practise on? He is lucky man. Lucky, lucky man." The past few days, every time I've entered Pimping Pussies the doormen snigger and make gulping sounds, and enquire kindly after my progress. I feel heartened by such genuine concern and interest in my DT initiation. Everyone has a DT experience to share. I reflected on the fact, with some amazement, that no previous boyfriend had thought it prudent to introduce the subject earlier. All those wasted years of moderate tongue action when I could have been working on more advanced techniques. The time had come to master what would allow me to achieve my true calling - as one who is sexually superlative.

Eton proved to be a devoted, kind yet exacting teacher. The first four steps are to reacquaint one's throat with the foreign object of a hardened penis.

1) The trick is in the angle of approach. Lying on the bed, head dangling off the side, flattens out the gullet and opens up the throat. A 40 degree angle allows the cock to slip down relatively comfortably until it rests on the back of the throat.

2) One's tongue should protrude slightly over the bottom teeth in order to widen the entrance to the throat and assist ease of entry.

3) At this point the gag reflex kicks in. Stop. Allow aforementioned cock to rest on the back of the throat, let the reflex subside, and try again.

4) Repeat until you can take said penis from shaft to hilt.

Now after several hours, both yesterday and today, of dutifully following the above steps, I was rewarded with the satisfaction of being merely a half-inch away from my goal - that point when mouth and hilt are one. This had the added bonus of also eliminating Eton's previous disapproval of my drunken escapades on Monday, sufficiently that he felt emboldened enough to introduce me to friends and family members for a Sunday brunch, although not without a gentle warning to "behave and stop cussing woman".

The fat bastard has a real way with women.

The second installment of Deep Throat 101 will follow once I have fully mastered the 'off-the-bed baby-steps' acquaintance stage, and moved on to incorporating this with the 'kneeling down in front of the male with cock in mouth' stage. I look forward to embracing this further challenge. With my mouth, naturally.