"31 Ejaculations": Introduction

A series of stories about sex.

Published June 5, 2000 7:30PM (EDT)

First of all, if you are a kid or you're offended by graphic descriptions of sex, please don't read these pieces.

I'm not going to try to explain what I'm getting at here, because if you don't get it, there's no point. But I'm not trying to shock or disgust anybody and if it isn't your cup of tea, just stop reading.

I believe that God made sex as a kind of unsolvable Rubik's cube so that we could have something to do while we're killing time here on Earth. So on these pages I present you with a few twists of the cube from my perspective.

I put the first version of these together for a performance at Saint Mark's Poetry Project about four years ago. They are fiction. I have substantially revised them for this Salon project.

The dictionary defines an ejaculation as: "e-jac-u-la-tion n. 1.an abrupt, exclamatory utterance. 2. the act or process of ejaculating, esp. the discharge of semen." (from the Random House Dictionary of the English Language). In case you wanted to know.

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Complete list

Nos. 1-3: Three snapshots of sexual encounters.

No. 4: Her skin and her hair were like something you could eat.

No. 5: I don't know what you call what I am.

No. 6: Coming is dying. Dogs come. Flies come. It is an end. Instead, let's stay here awhile.

No. 7: All of a sudden this guy with long hair, long as a girl's, is walking toward me, and I knew what was going to happen.

No. 8: If kissing was like sailing on a silken sea, this was like burning rubber in the Indy 500.

No. 9: I felt like my body was filled with neon and she was lighting me up.

No. 10: A part of my body is inside her body.

No. 11: Just the two of you wandering in your own secret garden where no one else is allowed in.

No. 12: Red lipstick, olive skin, smoking a Parliament.

No. 13: I get up in the morning and my balls are so blue I almost can't walk.

No. 14: Me and Betty and Veronica from the Archie Comics were hanging out.

No. 15: I came and she went.

No. 16: I knew she was wearing a thong. And she knew I knew it.

No. 17: Of course my stoned little dirty mind is fibrillating with the naughtiness of the whole thing.

No. 18: I just get hard the minute they screw the metal clamps around my penis.

No. 19: I know the woman across the way sits in the darkness of her place and watches me.

No. 20: It's not that long, only about 6 or so inches, but it's got the dimensions of a Pepsi can.

No. 21: The film of sweat makes the electricity between us tingle.

No. 22: It's so much like coming, you don't have to come anymore.

No. 23: It's just because my cool is beyond sex.

No. 24: In the big world I'm small, but here I'm big.

No. 25: I walk in. Everybody's naked. I can do this.

No. 26: If I take my eyes off the TV, I might die.

No. 27: The first thing I did was lick her.

No. 28: Redheads are always a little crazy.

No. 29: She was the ur-woman in my life, and when she came to me now, I would finally be happy.

No. 30: It's like Paul Newman said ...

No. 31: This is good -- let's pause for a while.


By Eric Bogosian

Eric Bogosian's new book is "Operation Nemesis: The Assassination Plot that Avenged the Armenian Genocide" (Little Brown). He is best known as a playwright, novelist and actor. He wrote and starred in the play, "Talk Radio" (NYSF - 1987; on Broadway starring Liev Schreiber- 2007), for which he was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize and the Tony award. For his film adaptation of the play, Bogosian received the Berlin Film Festival "Silver Bear." His six solo performances Off-Broadway between 1980 and 2000, (including "Drinking in America", "Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll" and "Wake Up and Smell the Coffee") received three Obie awards. In addition to "Talk Radio", Bogosian has written a number of full-length plays including "subUrbia" (LCT, Second Stage, also adapted to film), "Griller" (Goodman), "Red Angel" (Williamstown Theater Festival), "Humpty Dumpty" (The McCarter), 1+1 (New York Stage and Film). He is also the author of three novels, "Mall", "Wasted Beauty" and "Perforated Heart" and a novella, "Notes from Underground." He is a Guggenheim fellow.

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Love And Sex Sex Theater