Guest Shot

On the May-December romance...
The Abacus of Limited Desire

Humor by Richard Pacheco

Young Blood.
Young Blood.
Young Blood,
I can’t get you out of my mind.

Was it the Stones who once sang that? If so, how perfect! They’re the bad boy grandfathers who still go out there selling "sex, drugs, and rock ‘n roll" like it’s a lifestyle and not merely a passage that one moves through en route to the rest of life. They’re still playing the big houses, charging the big bucks and we’re still applauding them! I wonder if it’s the music we’re really interested in now as much as what appears to be their bizarre "success" in holding back the hands of time?

And was "Blood" the word they sang or am I confusing that with a scene out of an
Anne Rice novel? I can’t remember, but that’s appropriate, too, because the memory certainly does gets funky this far down the yellow brick road. Then again, there’s so much more to remember!

When I was a younger man working as an actor in the X-Rated world, there always seemed to be a gathering of "older males" hanging around on the movie sets. They were usually friends of the producer, the owners of the location, or just some guys who were apparently sent from Central Casting on High as a necessary part of the X-Rated business.

In the style of the times, they wore open shirts with gold chains about their necks. Many had toupees, from the good, to the bad, to the astonishingly ridiculous. These older guys would suck in their stomachs when the starlets showed up and then they’d give ‘em the leering eye. If you were lucky, they didn’t get in the way of the production, but they’d sure grab every opportunity to cozy up to the actresses and strut their desperate plumage.

I gave these guys a lot of room, especially if their names were Rocco or Vinnie. It was never really a competition. I knew I was gonna get the girl. I mean, I was getting’ paid to get the girl. At some point, the director would shoo all those guys away and the girl would be delivered back to my arms.

Men never seem to realize that hitting on female porn stars is generally a huge waste
of time. These women spend all day getting repeatedly stuffed and plugged in every hole they have. When quitting time rolls around, the last thing they’re generally interested in is yet another hard cock. If the hard cock comes wrapped in hundred dollar bills, that could be an entirely different story, but usually, after work, both the actors AND THE ACTRESSES go out looking for women.

In any case, I can remember looking at those older guys hanging around the sets in those days and thinking, "Dear God, please don’t let that be me when I grow up."

Well, that was a long time ago. Can’t exactly say that I’ve "grown up" in all the intervening years, but I am giving it my best shot. Fate has been kind. I have managed the transition from a "fuck ‘em all" kind of a guy to a pretty conventional kind of a husband with a minimal amount of clinical depression.

To do so, I’ve had the benefit of an extraordinary woman for a wife and the three children we’ve brought into this world to help keep me home at nights. And, of course, the plague of AIDS, now in its second decade, has rendered most of my "love-the-one-you’re-with" generation into a much more sedate group anyway.

"Free love" has taken its place in the history books next to "twenty-three skidoo." For people cursed with common sense, the sexual revolution has long been dead and buried. It’s a condom world out there now, to be navigated with a relatively sober caution.

Still, despite all of that, there are some powerful forces in our looniverse that will not be denied. One of them that afflicts middle-aged men, is "The Lolita Syndrome." Sooner or later, for any number of reasons that may be ascribed to the phenomenon, the older man will awaken one day to discover his cock hard and directly aimed at the "orifi" of some younger woman.

In this matter, I was not immune. It struck sometime around my 50th birthday. My wife had occasion to journey to another continent without me and as far as I was concerned, monogamy lacked the power to cross an ocean. Beyond my children’s awareness, I got to generally yearning for that younger woman, a much younger woman, one who still had all those youthful female curves that had not yet been ravaged by the bulgings, saggings, and droopings of both time and repeated childbirths.

I was clear, however, that I didn&Mac226;t want to trade in my wife for a younger model. I didn’t want a love affair. And I didn’t even want an ongoing relationship. All I wanted was a one-shot deal where I could be unhurriedly intimate with that young female form again.

She was 22. During the brief negotiation, we discovered that she met my needs and I met hers. What her name was and how we found each other are not overwhelmingly significant to this tale. Had I the money and the courage, I probably would have engaged a professional for this event, but Fate spared me that indignity, as well as me not having had to don the gold chains and toupee and hang around an X-Rated movie set in order to find her.

At the specified place of rendezvous, we quickly undressed. This task completed, I stared at the long sought-after object of my desire. Great poetry and whole novels had been written in anticipation of just such an event. The awareness of the moment was not lost on me as I moved in closer to her. We breathed each other.

My hands then raised to satisfy what had become this burning curiosity. I fondled her breasts, gently inciting her to giggles. My hands then went to the sides of her torso and lingered there in the delicious curves of hips to waist to bosom, savoring the classic hourglass form.


And then it was over. It had taken all of about twenty seconds and it was completely over!


You heard what I said. It was over. It was like a big, sweeping, strike-three curveball from God. I was out! The inning was over. The other team was coming in off the field.

You’re kidding!

No, I’m not! The moment had passed. My interest was gone. The fire had consumed the entire log of my desire. The bat had turned to ashes in my hands and I was still stuck standing there dumbfounded in the batters box. The umpire was just looking at me and smiling. I should have woken up at that point and found myself alone in my own bed. I should have had a premature ejaculation and been able to point to the liquid proof that my desire had been sated...

As it was, I stood there naked with this naked, young (thirty years my junior) woman in my arms wondering to myself, "So, what the hell am I supposed to do now?"


"Oi" is right! I completely chickened-out on myself at that point. I was flustered. How was I possibly going to explain myself to this young woman? I could barely comprehend it myself. I was stunned by my sudden lack of interest.

What did you do?

You mean after hemming and hawing for awhile?


The only thing that seemed right to do at the time. I did another sex scene.


I unretired. It was just like in the old days. I had a woman in front of me and they were waiting for a come shot. Only this time there were no cameras and no paycheck -- just me saving face for having created this awkward situation and not really knowing any other way to get out of it gracefully.

So, you fucked her?

Sort of.

What d’you mean, "sort of?"

Well, there was some sucking and fucking. I got her off. It seemed the least I could do for bringing her into this mess. But I had trouble staying hard in the rubber and there was a lot of starting and stopping along the way.

Just like in the movies...

Yeah, just like in the movies. And eventually, I wanted to come, too. It became like a point of masculine pride somehow. It had little to do with desire or pleasure...more like Mick Jagger singing "Satisfaction" one more time just to show himself that he still could.

Doesn’t exactly sound like a lot of fun.

It wasn’t.

And what have you learned from all this?

I’m not exactly sure. Obviously, I’m still talking to myself about it. I don’t know the history, but I don’t think Vladimir Nobakov ever fucked his Lolita in real life. If he had, there most likely wouldn’t have been any great novel, just an article like this one in his local, underground ‘zine. In it, he might have reported that fucking Lolita was a lot like watching Daffy Duck cartoons.

The dog barks, but the caravan moves on.
-- old Sufi saying