In Baby Doll, Mykola Dementiuk has again brought us an unusual story of a youth growing up in
Baby Doll gives us a literary look at the complicated psychodynamics of love and sex between a boy and a man in
Baby Doll (by Mykola Dementiuk; edited by Sally Miller)
Synergy Press (2011)
ISBN: 0-9758581-2-2
Excerpt:
The rain kept him out of the park the next day – which it had never done before – and the following day as well, though it didn’t keep him from wearing his panties and bra and trying to imagine what else could have happened had he remained with the man and not fled like the coward he now felt himself to be.
Of course he had seen the man before – another solitary constant in the constantly solitary park – and had paid him no mind as the man circled after him down the park lanes, smiling, gesturing toward the restrooms. He had even once unexpectedly turned and asked for a cigarette, which the man eagerly offered and told him to keep the almost-full pack.
Because it was pleasant to be pursued like that, followed like a girl, having someone trying to pick you up, it was even more pleasant to tease the pursuer, to bend over and tie a shoelace as he hovered behind you, to lean and stretch against the river railing as he gaped before you, to flit away if he got too close.
He often fantasized what it would be like to be touched as a girl by a man – to be groped, kissed, felt, sucked . . . fucked. Because it had to be a girl/guy type of thing: one fem, the other butch; one top, one bottom; one dressed as a girl, one dressed (or undressed) as a guy. His fantasies were very specific as to the role-playing that would go on: it would be a strictly a heterosexual lovemaking, and what difference did it make if the two partners were of the same gender?
He had never had sex with a girl, and he could only imagine how it could happen with a man. And what could have happened and how were exactly the fantasies he now masturbated to: the man atop him, behind him, inside him. Suddenly he began to realize that the longing and craving for female clothing was more then just a fetish or a substitute for a lost or unattainable female, but a desire to be that female and have someone admire him, desire him, love him, as he appeared in that clothing. Even if he had a closetful of female attire it wouldn’t be enough to simply wear the clothes if there were no one to dress up and undress for. Masturbation was futile and meaningless if it was solitary and not mutual with another’s.
But why the eternally-maligned complexity of transvestitism and not the accepted ease of homosexuality? There were openly gay boys in his freshman class who would have befriended him, who would have supported and accepted him in his difference and coming out, but he was repelled by their open sameness, their clique-like conformity, by their flaunting of their difference as if gay were better. It wasn’t that their brashness and openness was as boring and obnoxious as the gang-cliques of thieves and muggers who infested the school corridors and stairs and who bullied, beat, and robbed students going to and from class. He wouldn’t have joined either.
Transvestism is not endemic of gayness, wherein the ideal is male, oneself or another, but more of a female phenomenon intrinsic to the culture’s glorification of the feminine. Or at least how a culture views and creates feminine stereotypes which most females can’t even aspire to.
The transvestite doesn’t want to be a housewife. She doesn’t want to look like Alice Kramden or Edith Bunker waiting for Ralph or Archie to get home. She wants to be Christie Brinkley and Claudia Schieffer plastered on magazine covers with Billy Joel singing of love for his Uptown Girl and David Copperfield never even once thinking of pulling a disappearing act.
Reality is never a problem for the transvestite: she wants it both ways, and gets it. Reality is transcended by the denial that reality has meaning, that creation cannot be played with, manipulated, altered, rejected, and a new reality created. This new reality is a woman unique and unlike any other, capable of softness and hardness . . . evolution reaching its apex in the form of a woman with a penis. . . .
*
Can penile ejaculation be called that when the penis is clasped and clutched and curled against itself in a pair of panties, when the ejaculation is restricted and contained in an seeping of trapped liquid that is not shot or spurted but eased out in a flurry of shudders and shivers that almost destroys one’s conscious awareness? If the myth of female orgasms being entire-bodied and long-lasting were true, and orgasm not merely confined to a single organ expending itself in an instant, then what male would not choose to be female and shut up his dick in himself to experience that?
The boy fell onto the stranger’s raised thigh, their arms around each other, blocking even further the release of his already entrapped and bubbled semen. Being held by another only heightened the pleasure and peace that swept over him. Melting in a torrent of release, he was comforted by another’s presence and assistance in his freedom, the man’s arms around him like a safety belt, a life buoy. He swooned deeper, thoughtless, swaying aimlessly into the unknown experience of life and sex and love.
He felt a tongue in his ear and opened his eyes to the man’s stubbled neck, the man’s mouth dipping to lick and kiss and suck. The stubble tore into the corners of his lips but he sucked greedily, his tongue flitting, his teeth biting, gnawing. His legs once more girded and encircled the man’s as he clutched his shoulders, felt himself lifted off the ground, and was dry-humped against the tree by the buckling, shuddering, groaning man.
For a moment they stood still, then eased themselves off each other, their breaths gasping; the boy got back on his feet, the man’s hands pushed under the boy’s jacket and shirt, pawing his bra and chest.
I’ve been looking for you, he said, and kissed the boy’s cheek.
The boy shrugged. The rain, he said, as the man pecked quick kisses around his face.
I brought you something, the man said softly, breaking from the boy and retrieving a slim frayed box, its corners crushed, from inside his raincoat.
The boy looked curiously at the white-ribboned pink parcel, his eyes widening at the swirled curlicued logo on the box: Michelle’s - The Finest in Ladies’ Apparel.
A line drawing of a woman’s bowed head was etched in gold under the lettering, her long hair draped down one side of her face, her lips puffed and tinged with a smile, one eye demurely shut as if in shyness and embarrassment. The boy just as shyly lowered his own head and bit his lower lip.
Michelle’s - The Finest in Ladies’ Apparel. The words burned into his eyes and skull because how many times had he passed, and circled around to walk by again, the small Avenue A shop? How many times had he leered at the window mannequins: girdled, bra-ed, nyloned, baby-dolled, crotchless-pantied, nipple-cutout-brassiered? How many times had he dreamed of an approaching Valentine’s Day when the mannequins stood all in red – red negligees, red nighties, red-hearted panties and teddies?
How many times had he jealously watched women entering and leaving the shop, stalked after them and tried to build up the courage to snatch their Michelle’s bags, or prayed they’d at least turn and call, Yoo hoo! Could you please come up and help me with my tight girdle and bra? It’s so difficult getting them over my tush and titties. . . .
He took the small parcel and mumbled thanks.
Go on, said the man, open it. He lifted his umbrella and raised it over their heads. The fine foggy mist hung almost motionless about them.
The boy looked at the man, uncertain, hesitant, then slowly unwound the bowed white streamlet of ribbon. Loose threads dangled from the old-looking ribbon; it seemed as if the parcel had been carried in the man's pocket for days. He pocketed the ribbon, then lifted the top cover of the pink box. A sheaf of frail white tissue paper – sort of brownish – shielded something black and lacy within and the boy was afraid.
The rain kept him out of the park the next day – which it had never done before – and the following day as well, though it didn’t keep him from wearing his panties and bra and trying to imagine what else could have happened had he remained with the man and not fled like the coward he now felt himself to be.
Of course he had seen the man before – another solitary constant in the constantly solitary park – and had paid him no mind as the man circled after him down the park lanes, smiling, gesturing toward the restrooms. He had even once unexpectedly turned and asked for a cigarette, which the man eagerly offered and told him to keep the almost-full pack.
Because it was pleasant to be pursued like that, followed like a girl, having someone trying to pick you up, it was even more pleasant to tease the pursuer, to bend over and tie a shoelace as he hovered behind you, to lean and stretch against the river railing as he gaped before you, to flit away if he got too close.
He often fantasized what it would be like to be touched as a girl by a man – to be groped, kissed, felt, sucked . . . fucked. Because it had to be a girl/guy type of thing: one fem, the other butch; one top, one bottom; one dressed as a girl, one dressed (or undressed) as a guy. His fantasies were very specific as to the role-playing that would go on: it would be a strictly a heterosexual lovemaking, and what difference did it make if the two partners were of the same gender?
He had never had sex with a girl, and he could only imagine how it could happen with a man. And what could have happened and how were exactly the fantasies he now masturbated to: the man atop him, behind him, inside him. Suddenly he began to realize that the longing and craving for female clothing was more then just a fetish or a substitute for a lost or unattainable female, but a desire to be that female and have someone admire him, desire him, love him, as he appeared in that clothing. Even if he had a closetful of female attire it wouldn’t be enough to simply wear the clothes if there were no one to dress up and undress for. Masturbation was futile and meaningless if it was solitary and not mutual with another’s.
But why the eternally-maligned complexity of transvestitism and not the accepted ease of homosexuality? There were openly gay boys in his freshman class who would have befriended him, who would have supported and accepted him in his difference and coming out, but he was repelled by their open sameness, their clique-like conformity, by their flaunting of their difference as if gay were better. It wasn’t that their brashness and openness was as boring and obnoxious as the gang-cliques of thieves and muggers who infested the school corridors and stairs and who bullied, beat, and robbed students going to and from class. He wouldn’t have joined either.
Transvestism is not endemic of gayness, wherein the ideal is male, oneself or another, but more of a female phenomenon intrinsic to the culture’s glorification of the feminine. Or at least how a culture views and creates feminine stereotypes which most females can’t even aspire to.
The transvestite doesn’t want to be a housewife. She doesn’t want to look like Alice Kramden or Edith Bunker waiting for Ralph or Archie to get home. She wants to be Christie Brinkley and Claudia Schieffer plastered on magazine covers with Billy Joel singing of love for his Uptown Girl and David Copperfield never even once thinking of pulling a disappearing act.
Reality is never a problem for the transvestite: she wants it both ways, and gets it. Reality is transcended by the denial that reality has meaning, that creation cannot be played with, manipulated, altered, rejected, and a new reality created. This new reality is a woman unique and unlike any other, capable of softness and hardness . . . evolution reaching its apex in the form of a woman with a penis. . . .
*
Can penile ejaculation be called that when the penis is clasped and clutched and curled against itself in a pair of panties, when the ejaculation is restricted and contained in an seeping of trapped liquid that is not shot or spurted but eased out in a flurry of shudders and shivers that almost destroys one’s conscious awareness? If the myth of female orgasms being entire-bodied and long-lasting were true, and orgasm not merely confined to a single organ expending itself in an instant, then what male would not choose to be female and shut up his dick in himself to experience that?
The boy fell onto the stranger’s raised thigh, their arms around each other, blocking even further the release of his already entrapped and bubbled semen. Being held by another only heightened the pleasure and peace that swept over him. Melting in a torrent of release, he was comforted by another’s presence and assistance in his freedom, the man’s arms around him like a safety belt, a life buoy. He swooned deeper, thoughtless, swaying aimlessly into the unknown experience of life and sex and love.
He felt a tongue in his ear and opened his eyes to the man’s stubbled neck, the man’s mouth dipping to lick and kiss and suck. The stubble tore into the corners of his lips but he sucked greedily, his tongue flitting, his teeth biting, gnawing. His legs once more girded and encircled the man’s as he clutched his shoulders, felt himself lifted off the ground, and was dry-humped against the tree by the buckling, shuddering, groaning man.
For a moment they stood still, then eased themselves off each other, their breaths gasping; the boy got back on his feet, the man’s hands pushed under the boy’s jacket and shirt, pawing his bra and chest.
I’ve been looking for you, he said, and kissed the boy’s cheek.
The boy shrugged. The rain, he said, as the man pecked quick kisses around his face.
I brought you something, the man said softly, breaking from the boy and retrieving a slim frayed box, its corners crushed, from inside his raincoat.
The boy looked curiously at the white-ribboned pink parcel, his eyes widening at the swirled curlicued logo on the box: Michelle’s - The Finest in Ladies’ Apparel.
A line drawing of a woman’s bowed head was etched in gold under the lettering, her long hair draped down one side of her face, her lips puffed and tinged with a smile, one eye demurely shut as if in shyness and embarrassment. The boy just as shyly lowered his own head and bit his lower lip.
Michelle’s - The Finest in Ladies’ Apparel. The words burned into his eyes and skull because how many times had he passed, and circled around to walk by again, the small Avenue A shop? How many times had he leered at the window mannequins: girdled, bra-ed, nyloned, baby-dolled, crotchless-pantied, nipple-cutout-brassiered? How many times had he dreamed of an approaching Valentine’s Day when the mannequins stood all in red – red negligees, red nighties, red-hearted panties and teddies?
How many times had he jealously watched women entering and leaving the shop, stalked after them and tried to build up the courage to snatch their Michelle’s bags, or prayed they’d at least turn and call, Yoo hoo! Could you please come up and help me with my tight girdle and bra? It’s so difficult getting them over my tush and titties. . . .
He took the small parcel and mumbled thanks.
Go on, said the man, open it. He lifted his umbrella and raised it over their heads. The fine foggy mist hung almost motionless about them.
The boy looked at the man, uncertain, hesitant, then slowly unwound the bowed white streamlet of ribbon. Loose threads dangled from the old-looking ribbon; it seemed as if the parcel had been carried in the man's pocket for days. He pocketed the ribbon, then lifted the top cover of the pink box. A sheaf of frail white tissue paper – sort of brownish – shielded something black and lacy within and the boy was afraid.
He lifted the edge of the paper and saw another slim ribbon, this one red and interlacing the collar of a black negligee and tied in a bow at the neck.
The man flicked over the other edge of tissue paper and said, Take it out. The boy daintily unfolded the black baby-doll nightie and held it out at the shoulders. It was short, probably waist-length, and he shivered at the thought of it pleasantly tickling his back and sides and hovering over his stiff dick. He bit his lower lip again, looking dreamily at the nightie, then held it to his chest as the man reached under it and groped at his crotch. Again his orgasm was sudden and instantaneous.
I can’t take it, he said slowly, regaining his breath. He handed the nightie back. I’ve nowhere to wear it.
The man smiled. You can wear it in my place.
The boy looked at him, and at the nightie. Your place? he asked softly.
I live right across the highway, the man said, pointing at the brown project high-rise. I’ve seen you from my window countless times.
The boy blushed and looked up at the brown building. He recalled the woman and dog he had followed. Was he peering up at the man’s windows, seeking a sex object, as the man was peering down, seeking one, too?
They left the park together, the boy clutching his nightie present and walking at the man’s side under his umbrella. They walked without touching, the boy saddened by not being held and caressed, desperate for the man’s arm on his shoulder as he thought lovers should be, and his own arm around the man’s waist or the crook of his elbow as if showing the world the two belonged together, were a part of each other, were inseparable from the other. They walked very quickly.
*
Then he saw it, out of the corner of his eye, a little silver-blue packet sticking out of the top of a garbage sack, shining obscenely between a crushed milk carton,
a greasy sandwich-meat package, and a crumbled empty pack of cigarettes.
TROJ
COND
the packet read, torn in an even sharp line at the letters
J
and D.
TROJAN CONDOMS. The boy knew instantly and grimaced. The other kid had probably demanded they be worn, concerned for his safety, his health, his life, whereas the boy had never given a thought to the man’s hacking cough and visible weight loss in the weeks since he first met him. He hadn’t worried about the numerous medicine bottles and syringes in the bathroom medicine chest, on the kitchen table and the bedroom dresser-top.
Nor had he considered the possibility that the threat of contagion and disease might be real and not something the government made up to keep you from enjoying sex.
The man grabbed the boy’s head and rammed himself even deeper, grunting and buckling and ejaculating down the boy’s throat. The man clutched him for a moment, shuddered a final time, then slowly eased himself out as the boy’s lips clamped shut behind him. The boy darted to the bathroom – he had been warned about dripping scummy saliva onto the kitchen floor or sink – and fell to the toilet bowl.
As usual it was unflushed, the acrid stench of fresh urine biting into his nostrils and eyes as he gagged and spat out the scum and spit. Another dry heave tore up from the pit of his stomach, but his eyes widened and focused into the bowl: at the bottom of the urine, almost like
a squiggly limpid tadpole, a used condom stirred in the disturbance of his spitting and rose to the top of the bowl, showing off its filmy contents, then sank back down again.
The boy stood up and wiped his face. He wanted to leave, he wanted to walk the streets, he wanted to go sit in the park. Alone.
But the man came into the bathroom, naked, his limp penis glistening in slow-drying saliva and scum. He looked at the boy, glanced into the bowl, took a puff of his cigarette, then reached over and flushed. You can get dressed now, he said firmly, clutching the boy’s shoulder and leading him out of the bathroom.
In the living room the man sat at his desk and papers – medical insurance forms, the boy understood – while the boy went to the bedroom where he kept his clothes and makeup in a closet. Why did the man have so many small-sized girl-fitting clothes? He had never asked but now wondered whether it was to entice boys like him. Had the baby-doll nightie the man presented him with the first time been used to entice others? . . . The closet door was open, and his short blonde wig lay on a nightstand by the unmade bed, his black baby doll nightie at the foot of the bed.
The man came in and stood in the doorway, watching.
I was thinking about you last night, he smirked, and bobbed his slightly stiffening penis.
The boy blushed, glancing at the crisp dry semen stains on the baby-doll.
C’mon, get dressed, the man said, and turned away, leaving him alone.
The boy sighed and took off his clothes, but without the enthusiasm or anticipation of arousal he usually felt while undressing to put on his female clothes. It was as if the girl’s clothes were a real person, lovingly caressing and soothing him and wanting to be as close to him as he wanted to be in them. But the clothes felt tainted now, mussed and pawed in the closet, some off their hangers and strewn carelessly about as if someone were searching for something, unlike the patient and careful way he always folded and hung them up.
He did find his pink panties and put them on – tucking his penis into and between his legs whether the man liked it or not – found his bra and donned that, too, inserting two water-filled party balloons into the bra cups as a mimic of realistic pliant breasts, the tied knot-ends resembling stiffened nipples.
Only once had the balloons burst open and that was when he first got the idea of water balloons as breasts. The man had put him into the shower and viciously bit into one, breaking it all over the boy’s blouse and skirt and laughing hysterically as he gurgled, Baby hungwy! Baby want mommie tittie! then bit into the other balloon which also burst open into his laughing face. Getting soaked didn’t matter as the man turned on the shower, spun the boy around, and fucked him fully clothed under the steaming water jets. . . .
****
For an additional excerpt from Baby Doll, see November 16, 2009Synergy Book Service
POB 8
Flemington , NJ 08822
(908) 782-7101
Synergy@SynergyBookService.com)
http://www.MykolaDementiuk.com
Lambda Literary Awards Winner 2013/Gay Erotica, 2009/Bisexual Fiction
Lambda Literary Awards Winner 2013/Gay Erotica, 2009/Bisexual Fiction
