Copyright (c) 1997

                         CARPE VAGINEM
                        by Arthur Bracco

     On a typical Saturday night, in the darkest hours after one AM,
Buddy and Chuck might be watching TV with a couple of open bottles of
beer.  More chastely, they might share a bottle, with Buddy drinking
from a juice glass and Chuck holding the open bottle between his legs.
Looking at the screen, Chuck might say, "I'd like to suck her jugs",
which might make Buddy giggle or cackle or laugh outright, depending on
ephemera.  Chuck loved it when his outrageous comments made Buddy cough
up beer and stumble around, laughing out of control.  This was the way
they faced the grim specter of failure in life--giving new birth to
each other in precious tangents of hysteria.
     Chuck's college buddy John arrived on the five o'clock train from
Boston with a mostly-full bottle of Tequila in his bag.  He saw himself
as an emissary of good will from the land of drinking and sex, where
he had known many triumphs in the days since his graduation.  Maybe
things were harder in New York, but he didn't see why Chuck was having
such a bad go of it.  John had applied his choirboy good looks and
natural rapacity to a mastery of getting paid, getting laid, and eating
well.  He was making plenty of money and, if nothing else, this
particular Saturday night would be his time to give a little back.
     "Come back to Boston with me," John said, rifling through the
kitchen cabinet in search of shot glasses.
     "No can do," Chuck said, returning from the bathroom with tiny
Dixie cups.  "I like it here."
                              *   *   *

     When the Tequila was mostly gone, and second helpings of Chinese
take-out left only white rice, Buddy, Chuck and John shared a contented
silence, listening to an ambulance heading down Lexington Avenue.
     "I want to get laid so bad..."  It was Buddy speaking.
     The bar was not far from Buddy's and Chuck's place, a
hole-in-the-wall with no name over the door.  John said it was one of
his pet places because the women were hot.
     "I can't believe you guys haven't checked this place out," John
said, buying the first round.  Then he latched onto a woman deep in her
thirties.  Before long he was necking busily outside the door.
     Glassy-eyed, Buddy said, "What does that guy eat for breakfast?"
     "Puss-wah!" said Chuck.
     Buddy laughed until he fell off his barstool.
     "Hey man, you're drunk," said Chuck.
     "A drink for my friend!" shouted Buddy at the bartender.
     Sometime later, John, wearing his alcohol splendidly, said, "I am
at the top of my form!"
     The three of them were hunched over shots of Bourbon at a table in
the darkest part of the bar.  John had been talking women, deeds,
times, and places until Buddy's and Chuck's vaguest notions of getting
laid were dispersed by keen regret.
     "If I only knew now what I know now..." Buddy said, speaking into
a lull.
     The crowd thinned as the evening passed, and the bartender called
the last round.  John said:  "Here's what.  Let's go find a whore."
     After a pause, Chuck said, "Show us how it's done, my man."
     "I'm out," said Buddy.  "No way."
     "Come on man, this could be a new thing," said Chuck.
     Buddy tipped his shot glass empty.
     "Show us how it's done," Buddy said, adding, "they're not far from
here.  Just a couple of blocks."
     The whores were smoking cigarettes and tracking cars with their
hips.  John, now the leader, thumped Chuck's chest lightly with the
back of his palm.  The three of them stopped in a wobbly huddle, John
putting his hand out, palm down.  Chuck flopped his hand on top and
Buddy added his own.  "Carpe vaginem, boys," John said.  "Seize the
pussy!"
     When they were close enough to see faces, Buddy said, "Wow.  That
one's the Daughter of the Regiment."
     "Yeah, I want to fuck her," said Chuck.
     "I want the black one," said John.
     "No way!" Chuck screamed.
     "You're outvoted," said Buddy.
     Then they were very close.  Buddy and Chuck fell silent, lagged
behind even as John sped his last steps to the whores.  His voice was
like a spaniel in the night.
     "Hi, ladies," he said.
     "Hi," he said again, to a fragile little girl, fifteen years old.
"You look like the Daughter of the Regiment.  How much?" he asked.
     She spoke with a voice like spun glass.
     "What do you want?"
     John's crazy eyes wheeled up to the fire escapes and around again
to his friends, who stood behind him like ice sculptures.  His
attention returned to her fuzzy gaze.
     "A date," he persisted.  "We want to fuck you."
     "Fifty dollars," she said, "just you."  Then, coyly, "I'll do all
three of you for a hundred and twenty.  I'd like that," she said.  "I'd
like that a lot," she said.  "I'm hot for you."
     "We don't have a hundred and twenty dollars," Buddy said, in a
nowhere voice, saying nothing.
     "We don't have a hundred and twenty dollars," said John, his
bright voice putting every blurry thing into focus, making the world go
faster.  "How about a hundred ten dollars," John said.
     "Blow jobs," Chuck muttered, motionless, his eyes on the back of
John's head.
     "Let me see your money," said the whore.
     "You've got a lot on the ball," said John.  "How old are you?"
     "Nineteen."
     "We're twenty-four," John said.  "I've got sixty bucks.  What can
you do for us?"  His voice was changing, coming from deeper inside of
him, sleepy.
     "I can give you blow jobs," she said.  "Right here."
     Her voice was changing too, getting thick.
     "Come on," John said.  "Come back to our place, it's a couple of
blocks."
     The four of them wobbled towards Chuck and Buddy's place, John in
the lead with his arm around the girl's waist.  His voice sputtered in
and out of its bright sounds like a dying candle.  During his pauses,
the girl would say surreal things in ethereal tones, oddly destructive.
     "We're going to party," the girl said.
     "You're going to come your brains out," she said.
     By the time they arrived at the front steps of the walk-up, she
was supporting most of John's weight.  Helping him up flights of
stairs, she seemed the tallest, strongest, and oldest of the foursome.
     A few steps ahead of the others, Buddy pushed the door of his
apartment open and looked into the darkness, trying to remember what
things had been like before all of this.  The switch on the wall gave
him sharp pain behind his eyes.  A centerfold model leered up at him
through the gloss of a men's magazine spread open on the table.
     "It's too bright!" John roared.  The girl let go of him and he
tumbled forward, crashing into Buddy's backside.  Holding himself up
with a chokehold around Buddy's neck, he killed the light with his free
hand.
     "Ahhhh," said John, dissolving his grip.  He slid down Buddy's
back and lay on the floor.
     "Oh, man," said Chuck, laughing.  The girl laughed too.  Buddy
turned on a dim lamp.  Chuck helped John into a chair, where he began
to hold court.
     "Blow jobs all around!" shouted John.
     Buddy felt the girl's eyes on him and he looked down at John's
overnight bag, from which the Tequila had emerged.  She was standing in
the door of his bedroom.
     "Who's first?" she asked.
     Buddy looked up at Chuck who chirped, "I'll go!" as if caught
dozing.  Chuck did not move.  The girl disappeared into the bedroom.
     Chuck found his way to the door and looked back at Buddy.  He
smiled and said softly, "Carpe vaginem, man."
     Buddy's face changed, completely, to joy.  "Carpe vaginem," he
echoed.  The door made a thump as Chuck disappeared behind it.  John
straightened up and spoke dreamily:  "Hey man, I'm going to blow." 
Buddy did not receive the words as information until John stood and
lurched towards the sink.  He fell flat, worked himself onto his side,
and puked and puked and puked.
     In the bedroom Chuck looked at the girl, not sure what to do.
     "I've never..." he started to speak, but the girl, concentrating,
moved towards him.  She sat him on the edge of the bed and parted his
knees with her hands.  She smelled like cigarettes and there was
another, harsher smell too.  Her eyes weren't tracking right--she was
drugged in a way Chuck didn't know about.  Chuck tried to determine in
his mind if her actions were in any way a reflection of his
individuality as she looked up at him, wriggling the upper half of her
body in a kind of sexy dance.  He helped her with his belt, with his
zipper, with his pants.  Buddy's digital clock, just two feet away but
quite out of reach, showed seconds elapsing in a large red display.
     The girl knew how to wrap him in a condom using solely her tongue
and teeth.  On his backside, her tiny moist hands kept an even
pressure.
     Forty-five seconds.  Boom.
     "Wow," Chuck said brightly.  "Thanks."  She was professional.
     Chuck found Buddy in the kitchen, standing stock still over John,
with a full glass of water in his hands.
     "He's out like a sack of fish," said Buddy, giggling lightly. 
"What happened?  You look like you just stabbed Christ."
     "It was all right," said Chuck.
     "I don't think this is..." Buddy started to say.
     "Don't even think it."
     "I think we should just pay her.  It's wrong, Chuck."
     Chuck seized Buddy by his biceps and pulled him close.
     "As wrong as this is now Buddy, whatever has happened so far, if
you don't go in there, that's going to be tragic.  I'm not going to be
the only one that pops my cork!"
     The whore appeared in the doorway.
     "Buddy?" she said.  "You going to be my Buddy?"
     "Yes indeedy," Buddy said.  "Yes indeedy."
     He pushed the bedroom door shut behind him, thinking fervently of
the moment when he would open it again.  He turned to face the whore.
     "Hi," he said, shyly.
     The girl was a kind of lingual prodigy.  Buddy wondered if all the
women in her trade could demonstrate such dexterity, timing, and
command in situations like this.  Hands-down, it was the best blow-job
he had ever gotten.  As she worked, a mounting sense of dread consumed
him.  She pulled back for a rest.
     "I love your cock," she whispered, the magic words to make him
shrink.  She started to moan theatrically, thought better of it, and
went at him again.  Five minutes had passed on the clock and another
five teased by as the girl brought him again and again to the edge.
     "Please God, please," Buddy thought to himself.  "Let me come. 
Let me come in her mouth.  I want this to be over."  He counted
backwards from fifty, skipping some of the numbers.
     "It's okay," Buddy said.  "Let's stop."
     The girl seemed startled by Buddy's voice, by his presence in the
room, as if she had been interrupted in some private task, a
shoe-shine.
     "Okay," she said.
     "I'm sorry," said Buddy.  "I'm sorry."
     "It's all the same to me," said the girl, not understanding.  It
was twenty bucks a pop.  There were two down and one to go.
     Pants on, Buddy opened the bedroom door.
     "What happened?" asked Chuck.
     Buddy made a squeaking sound and paused to clear his throat.  "It
was all right," he said.  "Fine, fine.  Now it's time to say thank you
and good night to our special guest."
     Chuck had counted out all the cash in the house--seventy-three
dollars.
     "Here," he said.
     "You know where we live," said Buddy to the whore.  "If you ever
need anything, if you're ever in trouble, you come and find us.  We're
your family."
     "Whatever," said the girl.  "Thanks.  Bye."
     She looked up and smiled, without any comprehension of what was
happening.
     "There she goes," said Buddy, watching the street below.  Chuck
joined him at the window.
     The girl walked out onto the pavement and into the bright circle
under the streetlight.  She stopped and put her foot up on a car
bumper, to tuck their money into her shoe.  She coughed gently.  Then
she coughed again, repeatedly, like a plowhorse, bringing a gooey
substance up from deep in her body.  She hawked a solid gob of sputum
onto the lampbase.  Upstairs, Chuck and Buddy heard it hit.
     Buddy helped himself to the water he had poured for John, who was
flying with the angels.
     "Chuck," he called out.
     Chuck came into the kitchen, stepping over John's body.
     "I couldn't come, man.  I couldn't do it.  I tried.  I...there
must be something wrong with me."
     "Hey man, it doesn't matter."
     They looked at each other.
     "You're all right," said Chuck.
     "Yeah," said Buddy.  "Yeah.  What do you want to tell our man
here?"
     "Who the hell cares.  I'm going to hit the sack.  Man.  She was
high on crack or some nasty shit.  She was sixteen years old or some
nasty shit."
     "I feel like I'm not a man," said Buddy.
     Chuck heard him.
     "I feel like I'm not a human being," Chuck said.
     Their griefs were separate.
     "Son of a bitch," Chuck said.
     Buddy flipped morosely through John's adult magazine.
     "Buddy, you and me can talk about this any damn time we please. 
But as far as the rest of the world is concerned, and that includes
John here, it never happened."
     Buddy agreed.  "That's the long and the short of it," he said.
     
                              END