“Few people realize how much courage it takes for a woman to open a romance novel on an airplane.”—Jayne Ann Krentz

I wish people would write poetry I could understand. Because then maybe I could write poetry to help people understand me. But until then, I’ll make porn.

***
I thought I might commit murder at my 10-Year High School Reunion, so I drove.

I wanted options, none of which would have ever made through LAX: pills, blades, a gun, bleach, a small flamethrower I made from a hairdryer and a can of WD40, a box of giant matches, some lighter fluid and a few logs of bone-dry wood, capable of sparking a bonfire in the bathroom of the Orlando Marriot.

As much as the TSA workers might’ve enjoyed my cavity search and the sniff test on my vibrator, air travel just wasn’t smart. There’s something about a porn star getting on a plane now that immediately makes me feel like a criminal. Like they’re afraid I’ll blow everyone in first class if they don’t meet my demands.

As much as I enjoy that feeling, I’m not about wasting time.

After much consideration, I’ve decided that the worst thing about cries for help (or things that could be interpreted that way) is that they waste so much fucking time. To be clear, my plans weren’t a cry for help, at all. They were an outline for a piece of performance art, which is slightly less embarrassing, I think.

PORN STAR KILLS SELF AND THREE NAMELESS MEMBERS OF EAST ORLANDO HIGH SCHOOL’S CLASS OF 1997.

Paint that headline on a giant canvas, Andy Warhol.

***
If I’d been invited, I would’ve never gone.

High school wasn’t particularly good or bad for me. I had a job at the movie theater and that’s where I spent most of my time. I was fucking a few guys and a few girls but no one who went to my school. And no one at school had any idea or cared since I wasn’t even noticeable enough to be labeled the school slut. (We had two of those, and they were both invited.)

The one thing that was perfectly clear to everyone in my high school was that I wasn’t one of them. As the couples started pairing off during senior year, I just stopped talking to as many people as I could. I couldn’t ignore people, but it’s not hard to go a whole day in high school without saying a word to anyone. Just don’t try to start a conversation. High school is all about trying—tying to find friends, trying to become cool and then trying to seem like an adult. Maybe they all just had good childhoods and nothing to prove or do with their lives except how fucking normal they are. But that’s just not me. Not that my childhood was fucked up beyond belief or anything, nothing a therapist couldn’t fix if I wanted her to.

Deep down they were all completely sadistic and thought they wanted to be Ward and June. I was masochistic and knew I wanted to play with Beaver.

***
The bad thing about things like Myspace, if there is a bad thing, is that people can find you. What’s even worse is that you can find people.

When the little brother of a girl I went to high school with wrote me to ask if I could fit my fist in my pussy, I made the mistake of clicking his profile.

He still lived in Orlando. Still went to Shakers every Friday night to see if there was some new girl he hadn’t already date raped. Probably took a weekend a month to go date rape some girls in one of Florida’s many beautiful beach cities. Deep down he was probably just looking for that special gal who he could settle down with and date rape forever.

His sister was in his Top 8. Kelly Ann. Like the Ann was in any way necessary.

She was a real cunt back in the day. The kind that never missed her chance to roll her eyes. She worked at the theater for a week, but I convinced my manager to fire her for using Windex on the hot dog grill. But she was hot then and dated the cutest guys (who were all thin, methed-out, acne-scarred homophobes in retrospect). She was still hot, I guess, in a MILFy, real estate agent way.

It’s amazing what ten extra pounds and pre-millennium makeup choices could do to a girl.

Her entire page was dedicated to our, or I said say, her high school reunion. There were polls, photo albums and even a link to a little message board she’d set up for the event.

Something in my stars or my hormones made me vulnerable that day, and I decided to write to her to ask about it since I hadn’t gotten an invitation or even an evite.

The bitch never responded. For a whole week I’d check and she had logged in, but she never wrote back.

Finally I had to write to her pervy little brother again. I explained that, of course, I could fit my fist in my pussy in the right situation. I could also, if given the opportunity, turn his asshole into a pussy with a strap-on and then fit my fist inside him.

But what’s up with this reunion? Why won’t your sister write me back?

He responded immediately. It was mostly about the strap-on. At first he was angry and defensive and then, by his third “paragraph,” he basically admitted that he’s always wanted to be “fuckd like dat.>*.” The whole thing was clearly written by a boy who was typing with just one hand.

He included just one line about his sister: She said everyone decided it was better not to invite you. “Ther jealous,” he wrote.

Fuck that bitch, I decided. I’m going. And I packed my girthiest strap-on, just in case.

***
When you’re driving across this country, you begin to think that people don’t have anything real to do with their time. No one is on any schedule. Guys are staring into every car looking for anything that could distract them from where they need to be.

I’d already used up my cell phone minutes for the next four years trying to convince one of my girlfriends to meet up with me in New Orleans. Every guy would say, “Sure.” But only girls who are in the middle of a ridiculous binge would say yes to that sort of thing.

For most guys, every question has the same subtext: Want to get laid?

And every guy, unless they’ve just cum in the last forty-five seconds, has the same answer: Sure, what time?

***
I like to think about sick things, which is the perfect thing to do when you’re driving. Like which screwdriver will break your skin faster, a flathead or a Philips head? I found a hardware store in Tucson and conducted my experiment. Both are equally effective.

***
If you thought about it, you wouldn’t want to kill anyone, even if you could get away with it. What’s a bigger a punishment for an asshole? Eternal sleep or going on being an asshole. There’s no contest. Sleep is nice.

***
I like to think about all the guys who are jerking off to my site at any given time.

***
As I’m driving through Texas, playing with my pussy, I should’ve been filming myself. Any time I have sex in private, I’m costing myself money. I love how indulgent it feels.

***
Life would be so much better if everything was public. I’d love to see all the sick things that people work way too hard to hide. There’s something insanely beautiful about the sight of a stranger getting an enema, as long as you don’t have to smell anything.

***
Her brother wrote me back five or six times as I made my way across the country, checking my email in Kinkos, libraries, truck stops. I’d told him I was going to the reunion. His sister had invited me.

He said, “No she didn’t.” She was begging him to beg me to reconsider. He did a bit and then asked me what I was doing after. I told him to get a room in the Marriot, just in case.

He asked me if a suite was OK.

“Sure,” I wrote. “Just cover the carpet with some towels.”

***
If she’d just said, “Please come,” if she’d realized it was just another stupid Saturday night, I wouldn’t have thought twice. But everyone loves to imagine that their lives are important because it makes them important. Like fucking weddings. Come celebrate US! It’s amazing what society lets people get away with while oppressing all the things that make life livable. Like pussy, for instance.

***
Orlando is the happiest place on earth, really. I hate happiness. It’s so boring. Where can you go from happy? Sad has so much more potential. Humiliation makes the rest of life seem like a dream.

***
Imagine saving all year to take your little family to Disneyworld and you get put in a room next to a porn star. You should only be that lucky.

***
Never bring your weapons into your room. There’s always time to get them later.

***
“Welcome Class of 97” it said on the shitty digital silent radio right before it scrolled to “Pool Closes at 11.” I didn’t recognize anyone. I was still two hours early, so I went back to my room changed my clothes four times and checked my email. To relieve some stress I jerked myself a couple of times. But that just charges me up, really.

***
I ended up a half hour late. I finished a couple airplane bottles of vodka and started IMing my agent. He wanted to know when I’d be back. He had a girl/girl thing for me that they needed to do quick. I hate missing girl/girl work. It’s turning down money to play.

***
I still didn’t recognize anyone. I didn’t recognize the fat girl handing out name badges. Or the fat guy on stage introducing people as they walked in. Then a group of girls turned and huddled. Giggles barely contained. They whispered and stared, pointed with their elbows. And there was Kelly Ann, right in the middle. Her ass twice as wide as I expected.

In the speckled light of the mirror ball, she looked like the mid ‘90s come to life: too colorful, too made-up and too curled. She didn’t stare. But everyone around her did.

They’d all been to my site. Their husbands were members. That’s what I realized as I walked right back to the elevator, hoping that they’d spend the rest of the night wondering when I’d tap them on the shoulder and ruin everything. That was better than killing them. Murder would just play into the fantasy that any of this mattered.

***
I wasted exactly $1709, including missed work.

I did the math on the little pad of Marriot paper.

***
I emailed Kelly Ann’s brother.

What’s your number? I asked. Just that.

He sent it four minutes later. Just his number and a queer little winky thing.

***
The first thing I said when he picked up the phone was, “If you want me to use Vaseline, you better get some now.”

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