PRIME TIME


With blond pigtails and dressed like a teenage fantasy in a short very british lawntennis outfit she greets me and sits next to me. She looks at my sketchbook and watches me work. I buy here a lemonade wine, and order an Old Parr Ice myself. No fucking around tonight. I'm working.
She asks if she can see the book, and browses through the pages.
I buy here another wine and she asks if she can make a drawing too.
I never lent out my 18 karat Sheaffer fountainpen, but who can resist the specific demands of a 22 year old mother, dressed up like a teenrape.com ho who is ready to cash in any of here holes? Seriously: I am moved by the humanity of her question, and the power of pen and ink over the human mind. I gallently hand her the pen which she instantly pushes with terrifying force on the paper. I dare not think and order us another round of drinks.
Her concentration is immense and instantly.
She freezes into a creature from another timezone.
She has an Angela Jolie gap between her front-teeth which does nothing for me, but its okay.
A thirty year older Me sits at the bar and looks at this situation with amazement.
In the middle of this three month hellhole of bad music, fake wine and Polish contractworkers, Martina sits serenely, much younger than the little girl she is dressed as, and draws, very decisively, a punky Mylittlepony. Then she draws a spooky eyeless angel-like creature. The drawing is executed in the bold tradition of Radical Unawareness, which is most common by 7 to 10 year olds.
I walk to the bar. The 30+ Me winks at me and says: "Who could have thought eh? Thirty years ago? Who could have thought that we would end up here?"

I don't like the 'we' in his story.

There's he: the overaged, oversexed, tragically lonely weirdo with a huge grey moustache.
And there is me: the artist. The guy the hookers really like to fuck. With whom they really bond. Emotionally. In very basic spanish I explain to them the traditional relation between artists and hookers. We are all prosti's, right? But my spanish looses its clarity when I try to explain that as Toulouse Lautrec payed with his paitings for the prostitutes services, why could we not do the same thing with one of my drawings? Keep tradition alive etc. But these are Modern Times and Martina and her 1001 collegues have all only got three months to earn the kind of money that somehow makes it worth being a first name only sexual entertainer for three months and fucking 15 guys a day and participating at private orgies at the ministers penthouse after closing time. So no matter how nice you are, there is no way you can not pay her. The positive thing though is that drawing her portait, or even just talking about one day drawing her portrait - although it sure doesn't beat money as such - always turns a woman on. And a hooker may be a hooker, she is still very much a woman.

I feel an impulse to consider my situation and conclude that, all good intentions aside, its very likely I will not leave this place other than drunk and post-orgasmic with just small change left in my pocket: in short, like a looser.
I furthermore conclude that that's a-okay.
I'm fine with that.
The Old Parr, Martina drawing and the almost comical presence of the future Me, suddenly, like a flash insight, makes me aware of where I stand.
In Prime.
And although I'm aware of the inrony of experiencing my sexual and intellectual zenith while spending government money in a very trashy ladiesclub while actually, in reality, just painfully searching for love: I cannot deny the realness of this feeling. I'm in bloom. Here and now. From now on, things will only go downhill. Its never going to get better than this. This is my peak. I've reached my genetic limits. In a way, the way I am now is who I really am. Who I'm meant to be. I'm more Me now than I've ever been, and I will never be more Me than I am now. From now on my hair will grey, and if I'm lucky to get old enough I'll be able to see how I will slowly fade-away with age. I turn to the faded Me and look him straight in his bleaky eyes.

"Sir, as far as I can see, there is no 'we' and furthermore I'm glad to tell you that my life is going exactly as was planned, those 30 years ago."

I know I will hate myself for this in due time, because it will no doubt, in due time, be said to me, but I can't help it. I really hate the pathetic fucker that I'm bound to become. And he knows it. And the good thing is: he understands. So its basically okay. We never really bond, but there's a very strong silent agreement. A very Radical Awareness of the other. Time melts and we are all at once in the same place. The boy, the adult and the old man. And aint it typical where we should team up: the Copacabana bar in San Nicolaas, Aruba: One Crappy Island.

I walk back to Martina and look at her drawing and watch her while she carefully studies her skirt, legs and boots and drawing a most delicate 'selfportait as a hooker'.

The old guy walks away with Lucia, en returns 15 minutes later: sweaty and pale and very close to a heart attack. But he manages to reach the bar and downs a couple of beers while he catches his breath. I notice him looking at Martina and at me one more time with great sadness and then he's suddenly gone, and its just Martina and me. The real me. The artist in bloom and the girl of many wants. She has put her signature and hands me the pen. I marvell at her drawing without faking it, and she likes the way I pay attention to it. (Emphasize on 'pay'. )

Then we went upstairs and I directed her on the bed and told her to open her legs and do a masturbation mime, so I could see and jerk off myself. But she didn't really like it that way and after a few minutes while I was getting very much on the edge - able to hold it another 5 minutes, but able to shoot right here and now also - she quickly dressed me with a condom and said: "Fuck me now."
It was hard to determine if this was a gesture of true feelings, or just the ways of a small town hooker who's not into that kinky shit. It was probably both. Either way it was good. She stuck out her tonge and I sucked it. I gave her a 30 guilder tip, which she accepted without much ado.

I walked home exactly as was channeled to me a couple of hours before. Drunk, with just a few coins in my pocket, tired and wasted. There was just one thing that hadn't been channeled correctly. I felt great.

Back home I looked at Martina's selfportait and remembered how her nipples had tasted heavenly sweet, and when I had expressed my surprise to her she laughed and said: "L_ce. Milk. From baby." And I realized how befitting this all was, on the night of my genetic prime, having sex with a young mother prostitute and drinking the milk that was meant for her baby and having no problems with that whatsoever.
I'm beyond all that you know? This is reality. Fuck it! I am god. I am - exactly - who I was meant to become. I'm way past the you and me thing. There is no you and me. There is just me. If I feel good, you feel good too.
I masturbated and came quickly and noticed it wasn't over yet.

Than I reasoned that, if I would masturbate a third time I would more than double earn that 30 guilder tip back. So partly for reasons of home economics I masturbated once more and it was even better and I couldn't resist smiling while I contemplated what a special day it had been and what lucky guy I actually was. I had had three orgasms for the price of just one (plus a tip).

I thought about writing a poem about all this, but suddenly, with lasersharp vision, deconstructed the complete unneccesity of such an undertaking. It was a hot night and nudity felt natural. Sleep was now what a young god needed. And sleep I did.
Like a young god.
In prime.
A lion resting assured he has his herd under control. In sleep as powerfull as ever.
Before I flew away I thought about all the poems that had not been deemed worthy to be written. Feelings and occasions that were denied the privalige to reincarnate into everlasting rhyme. Which was ironic as those feelings were probably among the best feelings you could have.
Feelings that weren't worth the poem. Feelings you didn't feel.


may 2007