How to do the wrong think right
Green — March equals green. Any shrink holding aloft a flashcard with the word “MARCH” emblazoned on it will invariably hear an association-free reply of some variant involving only this color: St. Patrick’s Day, leprechauns, envy of thy neighbor’s new lushly sodded lawn, the first day of Spring, four-leaf clovers, etc. Yet for most of the country, March is anything but verdant. Winter still hasn’t withered; Spring still hasn’t sprung. March flaunts all of February’s frostbitten tedium against none of April’s budding aromatics. As calendrical months go, this personal nemesis of Julius Caesar is but a winking cockteaser, just some blustery enigma we’re frustratedly stuck with throughout its duration—that flirtatiously off-limits heterosexual who accidentally booked the gay cruise. Therefore, say I, what better time than now for us to pay homage to some of our gayborhood’s honorably hardcore, accidental hetero residents?
Almost exclusively, Howard’s received questions are either from college-age Millennials or retirement-age “daddies;” apparently, that entire swath of prime, sexaholic 25-to-40-year-olds is not in need of my answering their inquiries on how to best properly commit infidelity (they manage to cheat quite smoothly well, thank you, minus any advice sought from me). Of course they’re still in that giddy, glory stage — shoehorned in between the euphoric, every-day-is-a-Grindr-holiday of cocky youth, versus the “swipe left” fossil-frightmare of ever-diminishing returns on one’s gym membership (where every five years one works twice as hard to achieve half the results).
Frustrated disillusionment hasn’t happened yet to my 25-to-40-year-old gay readers, but it’s a different story in that same age range on the flip side: Universally, every single one of my straight male readers (yes, I have a few) expresses shock to me at how soullessly hard it’s become just to get laid by a rented vajay-jay for an hour while the wife’s pleasantly away. So, studs, strip down to your Hanes’ tighty-whities (the ones creepy Uncle Stuttgart gave you five Chanukahs ago, just before he emigrated permanently to Indochina) and let’s get all Napalm Joe, wearin’-o’-the-green right to it.
Dear Howard: Why is it so damn impossible just to hire a hooker, anymore? I had a rare afternoon completely to myself last weekend — no wife, no kids — and all I wanted, was to just phone up a pretty female escort, enjoy her services for an hour, pay her, wave goodbye, then settle in with my contented dick and some hot wings to watch the game. Like, WTF ever happened to just simple-and-easy: See an ad, call the girl, she comes over, bang-bang, pay the girl, she leaves and everybody’s happy? Sweet baby Jesus, I don’t want to schedule an appointment — I don’t want a personal webcam show, I don’t want to exchange pix, or texts, or Snapchat, or forward a private email address. All I was asking for was a simple afternoon rent-a-fuck; instead, after finally consenting to a little back-and-forth email exchange first, here’s what I eventually got. Oh, it’s rich, too, Howard. You’ll get a kick out of this half-baked, noxious shit:
“Hey! This is Amber. Thanks again for reaching out. I maintain a higher end body, skin and brain with daily effort. As such, I developed the rate scale of 100 to 500. Based on my research after our conversation, 75 percent off the usual hourly rate for anything over a couple hours. That doesn’t count for the hours I’m alone in the hotel. It only refers to the hours we are physically together. However it is expected that we are together a considerable amount. So for instance. If we went to a 2-hour dinner that’d be (100×2) x .75 which comes out to 150 dollars. Hotel, food and drink, is generally included and also flights if needed. There are no partial hours. Another example is if we are having naked fun for a couple hours then we cuddle til morning, it goes back down to 100 during the cuddling time. So the formula I developed for an extended visit is (Rate x Hours) x .75. Cash upfront is needed for the expected number of hours. Guaranteed happy ending at all levels. Kink demands a premium. Girlfriend experience is included with all rate levels, meaning when we’re together you have all my attention and I’ll be as affectionate as you’re comfortable with. I hope I covered everything. I really put a lot of thought into it. I’m also very naturally well endowed upstairs. Hope to hear from you soon.”
Howard, if this schoolmarm ditz had squatted directly over my wide-opened mouth, I don’t think she could’ve fed me a worse boner-killing dump. — Grady
Dear Grade-D: To weave successfully those IRS loopholes — forcing the world’s oldest profession to pretend platonic “companionship” is all any man with an erection desires — well, the result is this brilliantly farcical, written-by-committee turd you shared with us, courtesy of “Amber” and her team. (Note: Dear readers, I tried to salvage as many of Amber’s grammatical horrors as possible, short of causing any of my literati readers’ heads go spinning completely off.) If you’re asking me, Grady, whether it’s easier to just go the pay-for-gay route for an hour during some weekend afternoon while the wife and kids are away, I’m disappointed to be the one to inform you that renting a piece of ass these days ain’t worth the price of whomever, if anybody, shows up at all — no matter which gender you’re willing to settle on, just to get some tension-release happiness — via simultaneously keeping an escort’s drug habit solvent. The days of escorts answering their own actual phones and cooing, “Hold tight, stud, just give me a half-hour, I’ll be right over,” are long gone as taxi cabs.
Dear Howard: Brass tacks: I’m heterosexual, 24, broke my leg in a motorcycle accident, lost my bike, lost my construction job, no disability, got two months behind on my rent. My merciful super said, “Two weeks from today don’t let the door hit your hobbly ass tossing me the keys.” Have a heart, I said — as soon as my cast comes off, I’ll find work again. He explained his heart got left behind in the desert sand, along with his left eye, during a third tour of duty in Iraq, or Nam, or somewhere, but happily he managed to at least salvage all his pecker. So I told him no anal, and literally no kissing — nonreciprocal only — then he nodded, you’re to be out in seven days. So, on day 6, I tapped my crutches at the dude’s door ’round midnight, moved my shit over to his place the next morning, and that was three months ago back. What comes next? — Glory Daze
Dear Brassy: Next? Well, matching barcode buttocks’ tats, a yappy pair of SPCA Chihuahuas, and obsessively collecting Fort Troff coupon codes, of course. What else? Clearly, Gloriana, your heterosexuality fluctuates with the daily tides of your personal economics — the lower your wallet, the higher your heels. After all, you’re a big girl now: “Next” can be anything you want it to be, just as long as you milk it to full advantage while there’s still some dewy blush on the rose. Playing an old cripple doesn’t engender quite the psychopathically tender show appeal as the same performance handicaps in one’s springtime.
Dear Howard: I’m straight. I caught your column one Saturday waiting at the car wash. Their reading options were limited. Through the glass-walled lounge area I could see that my own phone was ringing in my car seat where it must have fallen out of my pocket. Exasperated, I couldn’t sit still. The place reeked of “New Car” and “French Vanilla.” I can’t tolerate FoxNews. I hate home-and-garden mags. I’d worn the wrong shoes for needing a shine. I was just one more vending machine visit away from becoming completely undatable, and to top it all off, my shaving nick from an hour earlier had decided to start bleeding again. Your grinning mug was the first thing handy I grabbed to sop my chin’s hemorrhaging, when suddenly a very attractive lady (rotating a squeaky rack of birthday cards around and round) smiled at me — uh-huh, a lovely lady smiled at me! She said, “Are you a fan of Howard’s, or a detractor? From the look of things, it could sway either way.” Long story short, Howard, I’m now married to the most beautiful lady in the whole wide world due to me pasting a gay dude, in blood, to my own face. I love ya, man. Your columns, too… the ones I can understand. — Heston
Dear Charlton: If only I possessed enough of your same open-mindedness, then I might have bothered dabbing that long-ago issue of Sports Illustrated to my half-severed thumb during a similar instance involving a dearth of reading options and, who’s to say, Moses, but it may very well have ended up being me, instead of Gisele, sporting Tom Brady’s wedding ring today! I love ya, straight dude — like a deep, fragrant whiff of Napalm on a spring morning, you saved my March from equaling Soylent Green.
— Howard Lewis Russell
Have a question — about love, sex, etiquette or anything — Howard might answer? Email AskHoward@dallasvoice.com and he may answer you!
