100 Whores, Memories of a John, excerpts by Mykola Dementiuk

In 100 Whores, Memories of a John, by 2010 Lambda Award-winning writer Mykola Dementiuk, we are treated to a voice rarely heard, the voice of a sexually confused young man who visits New York City street whores, hooks up with men and boys in Times Square movie theaters, yet all the while attempts to have normal relationships with men and with women.

The first 100 stories are short, just like the experiences that inspired them. Revealing the inside secrets of picking up a street hooker and what happens after you do, Dementiuk is sparse with words but prolific in his sexual contacts. Following “100 Whores” are five short stories, full of unexpected action, humor, and unforgettable characters. The novella “Christmas Whore” concludes this volume of reality-based fiction with a longer treatment of bisexual angst and “queer” behavior.

The unusual story lines provide psychologically intense views of a disturbed young man in a not-so-pretty world of poverty, menial work, and sex pick-ups of a strange nature. All the stories take place in New York settings, including Times Square, Midtown, East River Park, and the Lower East Side.

100 Whores, Memories of a John
Synergy Press (July, 2010)
ISBN: 0-9758581-8-1

Excerpts:

From Variety Photoplays:

Variety Photoplays stood on 3rd Avenue between 13th and 14th Streets as if boasting to all the shoddy and riff-raff abodes down below 6th Street on the Bowery. The old movie house was a denizen of vaudeville and burlesque followed by monster and cornball comedies that weren’t so funny any more, but it was my favorite place to go when I didn’t have much money to spend on girls. You could always see a picture from a few years before keeping you somewhat up to date. It wasn’t that expensive, either.

Up front you would be left alone, except for the guys going in and out of the bathrooms, which were in the front. The prospective urinators disturbed your picture watching, but in the back rows or upstairs your cock stood up at the ready, to be used and lavished by the queer guys hanging about, ready to take you any way you let them.

I had done it a number of times but always as a last horny resort, my longing being for women. But a mouth is a mouth, I figured, as long as it was smooth with fragrant aftershave; you just closed your eyes and let the feeling take over.

One early rainy afternoon, the other kids still in school, I went to the balcony where I saw a blonde hairdo shining from the seats. Instantly my penis was stiff and I was ecstatic. No one sat next to her, but hell, even with a boyfriend (if there was one going off to get her a Coke), the risk would have been worth it.

I nearly took a step back when I entered the seat next to her: an obvious guy made up as a girl, his stubbled face covered by makeup so thin that it seemed to force the shadow of his chin that much clearer and certain. I shrugged and settled in the seat next to her; there was no threat of a boyfriend returning, I was sure of that.

We looked at each other and she had a nice-looking blowjob mouth. My arm went round her shoulder, and somehow her shoulder strap came undone and fell down on my arm. That increased the stimulation I was getting from her and pretending what she was.

Suddenly, I heard loud female heels pounding behind me and a rough female-mimicking voice exclaiming, “Well, Miss Pretty, I was sitting there!”

I looked at what I saw standing there, a caricature of a female but obviously a man made-up, no matter how weakly, to look like a girl. Two girlfriends at a picture show, I thought. Where else but at the Variety?

I smirked and got up.

“Aw, don’t go,” said the queen, who was pushing her way to the seat I was leaving. “This was getting interesting.”

“Please, stay, baby,” gushed the first heavy-voiced mimic, joining her friend.

I blushed and made my way outside. Evening was slowly coming on and the whores were everywhere.


From Delinquent:

Man, she was young! Even younger then I was, and at seventeen I thought I was a full-grown man but she was what? maybe fourteen, fifteen, but certainly not a whoring woman.

Plus there was an aura of play about her, like she was dreaming of lollipops and dolls and little girl’s clothes, which I was sure she wasn’t going to find on 3rd Avenue and 13th Street.

I stood on the corner watching her pace about. Our eyes met a few times but I just stood there, let the whore come to me, I thought. Pretty soon that’s what she did.

She was heavily made up with lipstick and mascara that lined her mouth and eyes like some character from a comic book; she didn’t look real at all.

“You looking for a woman?” she said, not looking at me but at my mouth. I wanted to say, Yeah, you know of one? But I just grinned.

“Twenty dollars, mister.” she said, “Take it or leave it.”

As she talked I noticed her glance down the street several times; a teenage thug stood there, sucking on a cigarette.

Shit! I looked the other way. “Where at?” I asked, “The hotel? . . . ”

“Ah, no,” she hesitated, biting her lower lip. “Let’s go there,” nodding in the direction of her boyfriend thug, I assumed.

No way was I going to walk the street toward him! “Sorry, sister,” I said and walked away.

“Motherfucker!” I heard behind me and a torrent of Spanish curses. I did not turn around to see if her boy-friend thug came up the street. I quickly and quietly went home and jerked off.

From Cry, Baby:

She came rushing up the promenade, her red and black pleated mini-skirt flirting with the breeze, her black thigh-highs over her knees an inch or two below the hem. Her white-bloused bosom stuck out before her as if zooming her closer to me. A few times she nervously glanced behind her and stepped up her pace. I don’t think she even saw me until she was a few yards away, when her eyes widened as if in recognition — I had never seen her before — and her lips smiled as she veered toward my bench.

Make believe you’re my boyfriend! she gushed, once more looking down the promenade — from my vantage I saw no one — then dropped to the bench and snuggled beside me. There was no time for surprise or questions. I simply raised my arm around her, pulled her closer to me, and dipped my head to her pretty made-up face, sticking my tongue in her mouth. She didn’t resist, eagerly flicking her own tongue against mine. My hand moved onto her belly, underneath her blouse, and up her chest; a faint melting moan entered my mouth as I squeezed one small tight breast. The lavender coloring I glimpsed made me think of a Wonderbra commercial I’d seen on TV.

Hurried footsteps behind me almost broke me off from her, while she clutched me tighter to her, as if for protection. I stayed on her, my eyes nervously darting to catch a glimpse of whoever had approached.

Then I saw him, walking past by the river railing and glaring at us. Fortunately it was a guy my age, in his thirties, and not a boyfriend of hers in his teens. I don’t know how I’d handle a tough young kid, but I knew I wouldn’t handle it very well.

I glanced at the girl. She, too, was looking after the guy, and I knew there was but one way to show him my complete possession and hold over her: I let go of her breast, lowered my hand to her belly and onto her thigh. As I knew they would, her legs parted slightly. I reached under her short skirt and inched toward her cunt.

We shuddered simultaneously: the girl in my arms, the guy by the railing, and I most of all, ejaculating in my pants from the oddity, the perversity, the unexpected exhibitionism and strangeness of what was going on. It was beautiful!

The guy struck the railing with his fist, his face an ugly grimace of pain and hate, then he turned and stalked up the promenade, continuously striking the air with his open hands as if slapping someone — her, me, the both of us together?

The girl broke her face off me, panting and gasping for air, a dribble of saliva falling down her chin, and flung my hand out of her skirt and crossed her legs. She demurely tugged the too-short skirt under her thighs and looked at me. I squirmed uncomfortably, my crotch wet, but my soul at peace.

Who’s he? I asked nervously, nodding at the guy.
Her lips tightened, but I knew her anger wasn’t at me. She glanced in my direction then snorted as she glared after the guy.

Fucking jerk! she cursed. He keeps following me around, the idiot!

We both looked after the guy. He had continued up the promenade, then turned off onto a path leading to the river. I suspected he was making his way to observe us from across the desolate and dilapidated children’s playground behind us.

I glanced back at the girl: what was she, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen? Who the hell knew or could tell anymore? Still in school, that’s for certain, but even that wasn’t proof of anything, as her schoolgirl look was the fashion craze of the fall season. Even women out of school for generations were dressing up in demure little blouses, plaid minis, and thigh-highs that made them look more like burnt-out hookers than flirtatious fresh little kids at recess and play.

Still, the incredible inch or two of bare flesh below her skirt and above the thigh-highs was like a masturbating dream come true. How many times as a kid did I focus my mind and hands at grasping, kneading, caressing, groping that swatch of flesh as some girlfriend fought off my fingers and prevented them from rising higher and deeper? The memory of a soft warm thigh above a dark nylon-top still drives me into frenzies of arousal, erection, ejaculation, elation.

Though I may have forgotten faces and names, promises of love and passion, and images of be-nyloned and be-stockinged thighs that once smothered me with remembrance and bliss, holding this girl and looking at her skirt above her nylons was like holding and reclaiming all the dreams and longings of my youth. This one, finally, perhaps a generation late and a generation younger, was at last available and willing and unafraid of herself or of me . . . I almost came a second time just looking at her.

Do you know him? I finally asked, turning to the playground behind us. As I suspected, the guy was on the other side, across from us, still glaring but looking very sad — I must have taken something very precious from him. . . .

From The Dildo:

She stood before the porno-shop window display and studied his reflection as he circled behind her. He had been following her down 7th Avenue since 53rd Street, and each time she paused to look at record album covers, dresses and shoes, or radios and trinket jewelry, he would hesitate before a nearby store window and pretend to appraise similar goods while stealthily eyeing her a few yards away.

She had easily spotted him trailing behind her, and though his shy and wary approach was taking longer than usual — by now they should have agreed on the act, the price, the place — she was beginning to enjoy the ritual of chase and pursuit, the tease and lead-on, the tingle of being hunted and stalked.

Once she darted across a busy street and stopped before a lingerie store with mannequins clad in frilly baby-dolls — a few looking embarrassed in crotch-less panties and nipple-less bras — but when she abruptly turned, smiling and hoping to catch him gaping at her, she frowned and cursed. He was standing across the street, restlessly shifting and craning his head, trapped by the dense traffic moving before him.

He was old, but that didn’t matter. She never went out with the young guys anymore — the older they were, she reasoned, the less they got laid, and the more willing and ready to dish out the cash. The young guys in school thought she owed it to them after a treat of soda and fries, as if scum in the mouth was just recompense for the few dollars spent; like hell it was!

So she started coming to Times Square on weekends and walking around and getting picked up, or cutting school and finding a movie house where the fat ticket-seller didn’t care how old she was and let her in. There she could stroke or eat some cock and always get money so she could come back the next day or the day after that.

They drew closer to Times Square and the crowds and traffic thickened. It would be easy to lose him — since she was now being eyed by others — but she had baited him this far and was curious as to how and when their window-shopping dance would be consummated, as he was now pausing nearer and nearer with each window she stopped at; a few more store windows and he should be standing beside her.

She looked down at the dildos and vibrators, furry plastic strap-on pussies and blow-up dolls, pulling back her shoulders and puffing out her breasts. She saw his reflection in the window moving closer to her. She gasped at a large bloated rubber dildo, the crown-head massive and thick, the tight veins pulsing and eager. Suddenly his image was beside her.

I think I’d die if someone tried to shove that in me, she mumbled as if to herself, but loud enough for him to hear, and quickly turned to face him.

He started and blinked his eyes, then meekly smiled and glanced at her breasts. Women are made for that, he said, his nostrils quivering from her sweet perfume scent.

Oh, yeah? she snorted, and looked him up and down.

She turned back to the dildo and said softly, It’s like having a baby.

She was certain that she saw his image jolt in the window and quickly turned to him. I wonder what it feels like going in? She smiled to herself.

His eyes widened and he did indeed jolt. She grinned, darted her tongue on her lips, and glanced at his crotch. Turning back to the window and moving down the display, she paused to glance at the magazine covers pasted up on the finger-and-nose-smudged glass.

On each magazine cover a woman lay fucked in every imaginable position: in the mouth, in the cunt, up the ass, between the tits, sometimes with two or three cocks and one in each hand, sometimes by another woman with a dildo strapped on or one in her fist, sometimes on a bed or a grassy lawn, or on a thick shag rug or an alley sidewalk, but always in the throes of willing abandon and passion, or brutal resistance and rape. Hundreds of photos of fucked women, yet on each magazine photo the vital point of penetration — a cock in the mouth or cunt or ass proving the sex was real and not simulated — was covered by a strip of dull black tape.

Why do they do that? she turned and asked the man, pointing her finger to a taped-over dick up an ass.

He cleared his throat, looked away from her breasts, and glanced at the photos. Censorship, he mumbled, awkwardly scratching the back of his head, and looked down on her breasts again.

She smiled and pulled back her shoulders even more. Then how do you know she’s really getting fucked? She ran her finger along the taped-over dick and looked at him. You take the tape off at home?

He blushed, shook his head, and nervously looked around him. A few steps away he saw a man studying an open-mouthed blow-up doll’s head while glancing sideways at the girl and her finger on the glass.

That’s only for the window, he quickly explained, and moved to block the other man’s view of the girl. You can see the whole thing inside, he added.

Without the tape? she giggled, and glanced at the shut shop door. I’ve never been in one of these stores, she said, moving around him and pausing once more before the huge dildo and dolls, the other man just inches away and now boldly staring at her face, her breasts, her thighs and ass.

Want to go in? He rushed after her, his face grimaced, his eyes worried and nervous, and again he stepped in between the girl and other man.

The girl looked down at the dildo, up at the other man, then shrugged and puffed out her breasts. Okay, she said, and put her arm in his elbow and pulled him toward the porno-shop door. . . .


From Christmas Whore:

ON CHRISTMAS MORNING I walked out on Judy, instantly remembering I didn’t buy her anything but saying the hell with her! I thought she would come running after me, but I glimpsed her just looking sadly at me as I turned the stairway corner and heard her door close.

“Screw the bitch!”

I really didn’t want to go: I needed the sleep, and her apartment was big and roomy for that. Hell, it was big and roomy enough for a museum exhibit meant for displaying paintings and sculptures by Van Gogh and Michelangelo and not me sleeping there.

“Fucking bitch!” I cursed again.

Out on the street an early light snow had fallen and traffic was very sparse. A delivery truck and a cab passed by, but I ignored them and walked on in the windy, chilly morning.

I knew it was stupid to get into an argument with Judy, especially over what we were arguing about. I thought nothing of the fact I was disappearing into the streets again; how I had lived on the streets was my business. But she wanted to change that and have me live in what she thought was the proper role for me: she wanted to bring the 42nd Street world to a close and have me coming up in a prim and decent way.

Well, no thanks!

When Judy started hinting to me about changing, at first I thought she was kidding and paid her no mind, laughing and shrugging it off. It was clear from the start that I was a bit flaky and uncaring, but when I confessed to Judy that my excursions to 42nd Street were more than just movie viewing and involved actual stroking and bed-hopping with various men, whom I called my clients, she resolved to bring it to an end.

“Do it for me,” she’d say. “I’m important to you, aren’t I?”

I’d nod, knowing we’d go to bed and she’d forget for a while.

It was the late sixties, when gay rights were still a dormant dream. I never considered myself as gay or dreamed that one day I would be carrying a flag or banner in some parade or demonstration somewhere, it was just my quest for something different, just to meet someone, pull my dick out, and let him get to work stroking or sucking, until I came, or he came, or we’d both come and go our separate ways. No love, little connection, and Adios! Mañana! What did she expect from me? Marriage vows of eternal love? Screw that shit!

I fumed up cold windy 4th Avenue until I came to the Belmore Cafeteria on 28th Street, a 24- hour place, where I could get out of the chilly morning. A hot cup of coffee would certainly help.

I peered through the windows and saw the customers scattered at tables, sitting there like old forgotten Christmas decorations slowly going to waste. I took a deep breath and walked in. The place was warm, like a gentle caress holding you in and not letting you go. Strangely, I always felt right at home in the fake welcoming atmosphere.

I pulled a ticket stub at the entrance turnstile and took a tray to hold my morning meal, coffee and donuts. I wasn’t much of an eater and one donut would satisfy me for hours.

“That’s all you want?” the attendant asked, as if on Christmas morning I was supposed to get some more.

“Yeah, that’s all.”

He shrugged and rang up the meal on the ticket and I went to a table. I noticed a few old people sitting and eyeing me with half-awake eyes, as if I had disturbed them from their morning sleep; I even saw a few stretch out and settle back to their dreams. Pleasant dreams, I thought, but the Belmore was like that, they never closed and people ran up their tabs for days on end.

I took a seat at an empty table and got to chewing my whole wheat donut when I caught the eye of a woman at a table close by. Like the other denizens of the place she looked a mess, her hair and make-up undone — that is, if she wore any — and it didn’t take much imagination to envision what her panties and bra looked like, probably falling apart in human dirt and sweat. I smirked and took a slurp of coffee.

She got up from her table and came to mine. “Is this seat taken?”

I looked at her — probably late twenties, early thirties — compared to my age of nineteen. Judy was twenty-eight, a world of difference. I shrugged my head, intending to ignore her.

“Thank you, you’re a gentleman.”

I frowned; I wasn’t used to being called a gentleman. She put her jacket and purse on the seat next to her and sat there just looking at me slowly eating my donut.

In a way I was feeling a little bit pissed, as if she were interrupting me — which she was. I wanted to stew over Judy and how that fell apart. Self-pity is a good time killer, and I had plenty of that.

“It looks good,” she said softly. Her wet drooling mouth just stared at the donut I was nibbling on.

I shrugged and popped the last morsel in my mouth. “Sorry, there ain’t no more,” I said, taking a sip of my coffee. Will she comment on that, too? But she just looked down and scratched the top of her head. In the early morning light I could see flecks of dandruff weaving and falling to her white blouse. I snorted. Good thing she’s wearing white or there’d be definite marks of the dandruff she’s leaving behind.

I smiled; she looked at me and blushed but also smiled. I suddenly looked away. Her teeth were filthy! A creamy brown that looked like they hadn’t been brushed or even rinsed in days. I could just imagine how many days she had spent in the Belmore . . . probably all week.

“What are you doing up so early?” she asked curiously. Again I smiled, hoping she kept her mouth closed, but she smiled back at me, once again showing her filthy mouth. . . .

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