Read Online Some Girls: My Life in a Harem by Jillian Lauren - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Jillian Lauren
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noted that she reeked of Aqua Net and Amarige. I was traveling with a superstripper. So much for anonymity, for mystery and the fluid identity that travel allows.
The plan was for Destiny and me to fly to L.A., where we would spend the night and then hook up the next day with Ari and a girl we hadn’t met yet, named Serena. We’d travel on to Singapore, where we’d stay another night before a short flight the next day to Bandar Seri Begawan, the capital of Brunei. I dreaded the many hours that stretched out in front of me with Destiny as my traveling companion. What would we talk about? The surprising practicality of Lucite platforms?
As we walked to our gate, every eye looked up from its newspaper and stared at Destiny. The corridor became a catwalk. That quickly, my attitude toward Destiny shifted from repulsion to loyalty. I trained my eyes straight ahead. I was used to being stared at: I had been a teenager with fuchsia hair at a preppy private school, a club-goer dressed as Marie Antoinette on a Tuesday night in July, a drinking companion to drag queens on the stoops of the Lower East Side. Stares made me feel defiant, made me affect a greater degree of self-confidence than I truthfully possessed.
What would Patti Smith do when facing three days of international travel with a walking porno movie? She would straighten her spine and stare right back at the gawkers with a look that said, I see you. I see you, too, motherfucker.
While we taxied down the runway, I learned that Destiny made all her own clothes, did her own acrylics, enjoyed power-lifting, had posed for Hustler , loved Jesus, and was a collage artist. I relaxed some about the next few days. They might prove more interesting than I had anticipated. I also learned that Destiny had left her five-year-old daughter at home with her mother. I didn’t think less of her for leaving her kid. You do what you have to do, right? Sometimes you have a daughter who gets left behind.
She put a little blue pill on her tongue and got teary as she flipped through wallet picture after wallet picture of her little girl while the jet engines revved beneath us. I couldn’t summon a tear for anyone I was leaving behind, not even Sean. That, I imagined, was freedom.
Destiny and I awoke the next morning and ate breakfast on the balcony of our airport hotel. With only a couple of hours to spare before heading back to LAX, we decided to go to Venice Beach. Seduced by images from Baywatch , we wanted to dip our toes in the Pacific, wanted to see bikini-clad beach bunnies diving for volleyballs, wanted to be Surfin’ USA for the day. We weren’t disappointed. The wind kicked off the water and blew the sky clean, turning it the kind of blue that painters use to represent heaven. On a good day, the light in L.A. can make your heart hopeful; it can make even the grungy boardwalk look like a perfectly lit movie set. We squinted and shopped for sunglasses that shone on their racks like hard candy.
In my memories of my first time in Venice, there are cameos by characters I see today when I stroll the boardwalk. I’m almost positive that the tall man with the electric-guitar-and-amp rig whizzed by us on his roller skates playing “Purple Haze.” But I can’t be sure. I do know that the woman with the faux Gypsy getup and the cardboard sign offering psychic readings was there, because I remember she called out to me, “You’re pregnant. It’s a girl. You’ll want to hear the rest.”
I ignored her. I’m not above card readings from waterfront charlatans, but I thought it was a mean trick to try to lure women with what was often either their dearest wish or their greatest fear. I wasn’t interested in a phantom pregnancy. Now, if she had said, “You’re going to travel to exotic lands,” or, “You’re going to meet a handsome prince and fall madly in love,” I’d have hit Destiny up for five dollars to hear more.
I helped Destiny pick out postcards and T-shirts
The plan was for Destiny and me to fly to L.A., where we would spend the night and then hook up the next day with Ari and a girl we hadn’t met yet, named Serena. We’d travel on to Singapore, where we’d stay another night before a short flight the next day to Bandar Seri Begawan, the capital of Brunei. I dreaded the many hours that stretched out in front of me with Destiny as my traveling companion. What would we talk about? The surprising practicality of Lucite platforms?
As we walked to our gate, every eye looked up from its newspaper and stared at Destiny. The corridor became a catwalk. That quickly, my attitude toward Destiny shifted from repulsion to loyalty. I trained my eyes straight ahead. I was used to being stared at: I had been a teenager with fuchsia hair at a preppy private school, a club-goer dressed as Marie Antoinette on a Tuesday night in July, a drinking companion to drag queens on the stoops of the Lower East Side. Stares made me feel defiant, made me affect a greater degree of self-confidence than I truthfully possessed.
What would Patti Smith do when facing three days of international travel with a walking porno movie? She would straighten her spine and stare right back at the gawkers with a look that said, I see you. I see you, too, motherfucker.
While we taxied down the runway, I learned that Destiny made all her own clothes, did her own acrylics, enjoyed power-lifting, had posed for Hustler , loved Jesus, and was a collage artist. I relaxed some about the next few days. They might prove more interesting than I had anticipated. I also learned that Destiny had left her five-year-old daughter at home with her mother. I didn’t think less of her for leaving her kid. You do what you have to do, right? Sometimes you have a daughter who gets left behind.
She put a little blue pill on her tongue and got teary as she flipped through wallet picture after wallet picture of her little girl while the jet engines revved beneath us. I couldn’t summon a tear for anyone I was leaving behind, not even Sean. That, I imagined, was freedom.
Destiny and I awoke the next morning and ate breakfast on the balcony of our airport hotel. With only a couple of hours to spare before heading back to LAX, we decided to go to Venice Beach. Seduced by images from Baywatch , we wanted to dip our toes in the Pacific, wanted to see bikini-clad beach bunnies diving for volleyballs, wanted to be Surfin’ USA for the day. We weren’t disappointed. The wind kicked off the water and blew the sky clean, turning it the kind of blue that painters use to represent heaven. On a good day, the light in L.A. can make your heart hopeful; it can make even the grungy boardwalk look like a perfectly lit movie set. We squinted and shopped for sunglasses that shone on their racks like hard candy.
In my memories of my first time in Venice, there are cameos by characters I see today when I stroll the boardwalk. I’m almost positive that the tall man with the electric-guitar-and-amp rig whizzed by us on his roller skates playing “Purple Haze.” But I can’t be sure. I do know that the woman with the faux Gypsy getup and the cardboard sign offering psychic readings was there, because I remember she called out to me, “You’re pregnant. It’s a girl. You’ll want to hear the rest.”
I ignored her. I’m not above card readings from waterfront charlatans, but I thought it was a mean trick to try to lure women with what was often either their dearest wish or their greatest fear. I wasn’t interested in a phantom pregnancy. Now, if she had said, “You’re going to travel to exotic lands,” or, “You’re going to meet a handsome prince and fall madly in love,” I’d have hit Destiny up for five dollars to hear more.
I helped Destiny pick out postcards and T-shirts
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