THE HAUNTED Frontman Recalls She-Male Near-Encounter

THE HAUNTED frontman Peter Dolving has posted the following message on his MySpace page:

"The last couple of weeks I was obsessing madly over sex. I get into periods of it. Naturally, being me it's not the 'Gee, that girl has a fine rack' kind of obsessing. It's more, me walking past a utility store, I look through the window at the power tools and kitchen utensils and my brain goes: 'Potential Gear For Sexual Application.' I walk through the grocery store passing the vegetables: 'Hmmm, I could use that, that and that for SEX!' I sit on the bus going downtown looking at the girl a couple of seats over, my brain kinda rumbles: 'fffffuuuuuuuuggghhhh' and like an animal I sit staring at her, drool and foam forming at the corners of my mouth. While the conscious part me of is reeling. 'Whoa boy!' Cracking the whip, and holding the leash in an iron grip. 'Down you devil, down!!'

"Yeah it's taken on that extra dimension.

"It used to be, 'Yeah, I'm young, I got sex on my mind. If you don't, you're the one who's fucked up!' Not anymore. My mind will curl up into a ball of self-containment, shutting off, keeping its focus on dick, pussy, and ass unrelentlessly for days. It's been like this since I was a kid. Analysis, anyone? I get this much — my mind is running away. Sex kickstarts endorphines and other dopamines, so what's the deal? Is my brain protecting me from myself? Am I so full of fear that my mind will implode into a animate black hole of lubed up expanded assholes, pussy and pulsating cocks until infinity to keep me from... from what? Is this something I can get rid of? Do I want to rid myself of it?

"Or is it just like this for everyone? I don't know.

"When I discovered masturbation as a kid I was so happy. I had found something I could just do for hours and hours in my own little private space, wherever the hell that was. I've jacked off in cars, airplane lavatories, trainstations, in the forest, in the ocean, treehouses, roadstop men's rooms, in the trunk of a car, next to sleeping girlfriends. I've masturbated in a dentists office, in a jail cell, in a cupboard filled with porn at a friends parents house, on a boat, in a jacuzzi and under the cross in a church.

"The thing with jacking off is this — though most people do it — it's usually not one of those things we really talk about.

"I mean, we talk about everything else. We're like: 'Yeah I got this great Japanese massage man, yeah the masseus looked like a doctor, White coat and all. She like walked all over me and used her elbows a lot. Afterwards I felt so good.' I mean, we talk about getting laid. We talk about having to run and take a dump because we're about to shit our pants. We talk about our dreams. But spanking the monkey? Nope, it's just not one of those things. Sure we make jokes about it. But you're never over for dinner at your best friend's house to hear him go: 'Um, I think I'm gonna go tug at my cock for a couple of minutes, I'll be back in like 20 minutes or so...' The mother in-law going: 'OK, there's some handcreme by the toothpaste hun, try not cumming all over the kids toothbrushes in there...'

"Wouldn't that be great if we could all just be that relaxed about it?

"Ever go to a porn shack where they have those booths? I have. Horrific places really. These dungeon-like mazes of corridors and toilet doors and the sound of like 40 different porn movies going at the same time. Ah's and Oh's and 'Fuck me harder!' in a mish mash backdrop of bad funk, German jazz and reeaalllllly shitty techno. Quiet men kinda prowl past each other in the dark, like the zombies in 'Resident Evil'. No one wants look each other in the eyes 'cause they're scared of being recognized. In some of the places the booths have holes in the walls between them. They're called gloryholes. Go figure.

"I guess it's a convenience catering to the desperate, the secretly or self-loathing gay clientele, and the 'I-don't-give-a-shit-as-long-as-I-get-to-cum' crowd. The generic construction of typical male thinking: 'If you can't see what's over there, hell it can't be wrong.'

"You know: 'Gee, there´s a hole in the wall! Hmm, I think I'll stick my dick in there!' Hello!? Now I don't know how other people think, but as far as I'm concerned, there could be an alligator on the other side of that wall. I mean what the fuck!?

"So in my twenties I would go to these porn places, and like many other dudes, feeling completely justified in doing so. Mostly I'd be stoned and figured I'd go ahead with private me time. Pathetic? Tell me about it.

"Anyway, here's how the routine went. I'd go into the dark booth area with a pounding heart, a lump of badly repressed shame and a feeling of anticipation for what fucked up shit I'd be watching and hopefully find something that excited me enough to do my thing. I'd step into one of those little booths, pretty much just big enough to fit a stool and a TV mounted in the wall, a papertissue holder and a bucket filled with discarded cum rags. On the wall there would usually be a little box with a channel up and a channel down button and if the place was kinda fancy there'd be a hook to hang your jacket. I'd step in, lock the door and check out what movies were playing. To fully understand what a fucked up situation this is, add the sound of the other 40 or so booths and the rank stench of chlorine, man sweat and cum. Yeah, pretty fucked up.

"Still, a lot of guys go to these places, the dudes and dudettes who own them make moolah big time. And schmucks like me or your brother or your dad have most likely at one time or more put money in their pocket...

"There I'd be, back to the door, I stare at the TV and dead eyed flip through the porn, then I'd remember to check for the gloryhole. If it was dark I'd know someone was in there, and I'd usually just bundle up a fat wad of paper and stuff the hole. Or I'd just flip through channels, figuring I'd take another booth when I knew what was on. Every once in a while there would be the hand... Like a spider's legs, the fingers would feel their way round the holes edges, then would come the little nudge with the index finger. You know, 'C'mere...Yeah you... Come on over, pal... closer...' That always freaked me the fuck out. I'd think of those big-ass fishes you know with a little lure hanging from its head right infront of their mouths. 'Oh come to papa...' Urging little Nemo on and then CHOMP!!! All fangs and white shark jaws, EAAAEEEEEUUURGGHHAAAH! Screaming like a pig, flailing, clasping your groin and the blood-spurting remnants of your severed weener. Running for your life you'd fall into the street outside and people would stare at you as you lay in the gutter outside stretching your bloodied hands out for help in a futile act of terror and disbelief, trying to speak but only whimpering noises coming out. And they'd look at you with that look that says, 'Couldn't keep your dick out of the gloryhole, couldya?!'

"So, that would send me off to another little booth. Pathetically hoping for some kind of privacy and hopefully, the consumption of someone else engaged in having sex whilst being filmed. Now this one time I was extraordinarily stoned and as I sat down I registered there's noone in the other booth. I go about my business. A couple of minutes later I look over and SOMEONE IS WATCHING ME! Oh shit! I fumble and stumble and scramble nearly falling over the stool to get myself back to the neutral zone by the locked door where you can't be seen from the hole in the wall. My pants half hanging around my ankles and a pounding heart, still very stoned. I reassemble what dignity I pretend I still have, pull my pants up and I try to think. 'Oh, no! Who was that? Fuck! Why did I go in here?' As if that's the question to ask yourself in that? 'Hmmm, why did I go into the porn store?' 'Well, honey, I um, I don't um, know... Why I locked myself in a room with a television set and 120 channels of mixed varieties of all man's sexual discretions from man on woman missionary to men shoving rubberdildoes the size of fire post up their own backsides? Looking for macaroni and cheese?'

"Well, for some reason I think to myself, 'Hell no! I am going to check this out OK?!' So I lean over, trying to stay as close to the wall as possible, in order not to be seen. Like whoever is on the other side of the walls doesn't know I'm there... Peeking, little by little to see who the hell is over there. I look to see — a girl! With a black rubber dildo, a fake fur jacket and her ass towards me, with one hand letting the dildo kinda slide over her buttcheeks and black g-string, and the other hand in front of her. Holy shit! I gasp and press myself back to the wall in some kind of awestruck horror-meets-stoned-excitement, heart trying to break though my chestbone going THUMPTHUMPTHUMPTHUMP louder than the ah's and oh's and I'm thinking 'This is not happening. Stuff like this does not happen. I'm stoned. I'm really stoned and I've fallen asleep. I shouldn't have had those last to grams of Ethiopian.' As I manage to compose myself, I lean over again, not quite as careful. She's sitting on her chair faced towards me this time, holding out a condom, nodding to the door for me to come and join her...

"On shaking legs I get out of there like a soap bar on a waterslide. Trying to look really inconspicous for the 2.1 seconds I leave my booth, tapping the door and quickly slide in as she opens the door and locks it behind us. She goes straight for my package with her one hand whispering and asking if I want to fuck. I try acting all cool and worldy, like 'So what's your name.' The thought that she most likely is a prostitute has already passed through my head and I tell her that I don't want to pay for it with that lump of shame and fear growiing in my chest. She has this overwhelming vanilla scented perfume that's making me feel queesy and she says she's from Russia. OK, so here's where I get the chills. My rock-hard package kind of sags up a little getting all reserved about the Russian thing. Then the perfume. It's just too much. She pulls my no longer so stiffy out and rolls a condom on and as she looks up at me with perfect eyelashed flickering. I say, 'You're not a girl are you?' She tilts her head and blinks at me, gets up and tells me that I won't be able to tell the difference. 'Come on, big boy.' She says and turns around grinding her ass on my groin. I figure, 'Well, sometime has to be the first right?' Here's where my dick decides that it's had it. It's all 'No way! Uh-uh, I'm not doing this OK?' and shrivels up, backing away, trying to crawl out of the condom back into my body 'Ahhhhh! Leave me alone dude!' And standing there with my back to the door of a tiny room that smells of this absolutely unbearable vanilla scent for old ladies and my jeans open I come to understand the Russian she-male experience ain't mine to be had. 'I'm soory... I just... um, no it's you know, um... I just can't.' I tell her that she's looks great and all, feeling bad about it. I zip up and tell her to take care and off I go feeling everything like the fucking scumbag I am. That vanilla perfume is so nasty it stays with me for years. Or at least I think it does. At least the shame does.

"Now here's the bonus. A year or so later, when I met my wife we are at a party and I get introduced to her best friend's boyfriend... Guess what! It's our 'Russian' girl... I'm sure you can figure the tense embarassment in the air. Later that night my wife to be asks me what was up, and I tell her the story. She absolutely explodes laughing and tells me I'm a sick bastard but she loves me anyway.

"So what does this tell us, besides that I have a cool wife? Well, how about this — love is hard to find in a cubicle that stinks and everything ain't always what they seem. Sometimes it doesn't matter what your mind thinks, your body still makes the real decisions."