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Blue balls and brats: coming back after a week off

Yesterday was my first day on the phone in a week. I didn’t have a private place for phone work while I was in DC, so I just had to take the week off. It’s not the longest I’ve been off the lines—my current record is approximately six weeks, when I was over in the UK this past summer on tour with my show—but to some of my clients, A WEEK IS FOREVER.

It is, right? When you really want something, especially something that for whatever reason seems silly to even complain about not having? When you want the newest iPhone, you don’t NEED it, you just really, really want it, and the stores can’t tell you when it’s going to be in stock again, so just keep calling back? Or how about when a movie you’ve really been looking forward to is coming out in a week, and you can’t really commiserate with your friends because it’s a kids’ movie and you’re all grown-ups and they would laugh and laugh, so you just sit on your excitement and burn up from the inside?

Yeah. it seems silly to want and want these things, and to feel like a week is never going to be over. I mean, some people have been waiting a lot longer than a week to get a roof over their head in storm-tossed countries in Asia. We must acknowledge that our wants, for gadgets and entertainment and a hot dish of a particular kind of mac and cheese… for example. Ahem. These wants are very high up on Maslow’s hierarchy. Pervy phone sex with your favorite operator, the one who knows everything you like, is right up there. Yep. There it is, as undeniable as it is silly.

And when you don’t get that, when you’re all revved up and tenting your pajama pants and you call in and Cameryn is NOT THERE, well, you might get especially cranky, because that’s not just the desire for instant gratification talking, that is blue-ball-related desire for instant gratification.

(Even if you’re one of the tease-and-denial guys, my not being there is not actually erotic. You want someone to KNOW that you’re not going to get any, to have the possibility of release taken away…)

So, yeah. My boss tells me they get a little miffy when they ask and I’m not there. She hates it when I have to go, because she is down one older-woman talent and she has to deal with my regulars. When I come back on after these absences, she acts all nonchalant, but I know she’s glad. My clients, though, they don’t usually act as happy as they should. They usually take out their pissed-off-ness on me, a little bit. Like Bilingual Papi did yesterday. Bilingual Papi is one of my favorites; he seems to be a good and decent man. We had our usual butt-sex smorgasbord; he was so happy to be with me again. But even he lost it a little, during our post-coital cool-down.

“Where were you last week?”

I was traveling.

“Still? God, I hate it when you’re not around.”

I know, it’s hard.

“You damn right, it’s hard! Goddamn, I hate it when you’re not there when I call!”

I know, papi. I’m sorry. (No, I’m not.)

“I want to be able to find you any time I call!”

And at that, I burst out laughing.

“What’s so funny?” he asked.

You want me on retainer? And I kept laughing.

“What? Why are you laughing?”

Just… that would be easily a four-figure discussion. I don’t think you’re ready for that kind of commitment.