To boot, C&R have sent The Good Doctor 3 awesome pics of R taken right before their trip to the theater on Christmas Eve. Thus, we all received a late Christmas present from them. Thank you C&R!
***
Doc here, a man who some say has read thousands of reports in the 7+ years of The Journal being "a thing". Some reports are entertaining. Some reports are informative. Then there is a report like the following one from senior Journal scribe, Johnny Paradise.
This report is going to stick with me, like a latent image. Speaking for myself, I could not only visualize Johnny's report in my mind's eye, I could also sense it. This has happened maybe 4 or 5 times since I pushed The Journal out on an August afternoon in 2009, and it catches me off-guard each time. The smell. The light. The touch.
This report is sticky, and I hope it sticks with you, the good readers of The Journal. And trust me, it's worth every minute you dedicate to reading it.
Please welcome back, the awesome Johnny Paradise.
***
WHY ARE YOU HERE ON CHRISTMAS EVE...?
Prologue
This is a story about Christmas.
It is written in an ambivalent mood, informed by an ambiguous ethic, set in a somewhat desolate town in a theatre near a church on December 24th, and though the time if not the place would suggest it, this tale will not conclude with a summary pronouncement of the true meaning of the holiday. There are no angels here, and no elves, no sleigh bells and no sacraments, neither miracles nor metamorphoses. It comes, ungarlanded by moral parable or religious theme, unless it is the simple axiomatic parcel of heavenly wisdom which holds that salvation is the business of sinners, and the concomitant revelation that to receive what is sacred you must sometimes stand vigil through a pageant of the profane.
Though it may be a tale that shouts LUST and THRILLS and HUNGER and WANT, essentially it is a story of LONELINESS; it is a story of lonely people in a lonely place, lonely souls adrift, together and alone, in a season of uncertainty. The circumstances may be modern but the story is as old as Adam, Eve, and Apple. Not so far removed are we, in our contemporary culture, from that ancient world we hear described each December in carol and hymn - that WAITING world; and whether it be Bethlehem or Bedford Falls or a Glass City, it is our world - and in it we are wanting, seeking, hoping, reaching - needing (in that sad and proud and lovely human way) a light in the darkness; or maybe a moment of pleasure to answer a lifetime of pain.
This is a story about Christmas, because Christmas is a story about hope, and hope, after all, is wherever you find it.
So, on a quiet night, shepherds, sages, kings and commoners, panderers and prophets, libertines and lovers, viceroys and voyeurs, the meek and the mighty, the merry and magnificent may gather anywhere to seek a salve for the vast loneliness to which the human heart is heir. They may meet under a star, or even in a once-proud theatre...
So…
PART ONE
Why are you HERE on Christmas Eve?
Sometimes the journalist is the story. "Why are you here on Christmas Eve?" Heartbreak. Failed romance. Distant friends. Distant family. Melancholy. A sense of what the Japanese call "mono no aware", the awful realization of the impermanence of things. A sudden deep and abiding doubt about the meaning of this night. Songs that sounded suddenly hollow as I zoomed on snowless streets in the balmy midwest climes of our global warming wonderland, contemplating a year of unmitigated strangeness, posing questions to the ministry of my mind most likely better suited to a church, a mosque, a synagogue. A mission of charity had brought me across the border and now that I had dispatched my duty and found myself with nowhere to go I realized
THAT I had nowhere to go.
I thought about a house with a different form of worship, the cinematheque on the edge of the world, and drove by and wondered what manner of man (and woman) would be here on Christmas Eve. Curiosity compelled me, but the irony was not lost on me that I myself was now here on Christmas Eve. Sometimes the question is the answer.
The parking lot was fairly full but the men, by and large, were sitting in their cars, looking at their phones. which is unfailing evidence that some announcement had been made, somewhere in the ether about the arrival of a person or persons worth the wait. Inside it was quiet. A couple lingered in the lobby and I had the sense that they too were waiting for someone special.
I walked into the theatre. It was completely empty. I strolled up and down the aisles, a solitary figure in this amazing palace of dreams, thinking about the magnificence of the location, and imagining that decades ago this place was probably packed this night with middle class moviegoers seeking more palatable holiday fare than "Trailer Trash Nurses" of which I was now in this moment the sole spectator. Alone, in my imaginings of a world that no longer exists, for a moment it DID feel like Christmas. But things are impermanent.
Men strolled in. Older men. Silent, looking, eyes darting, waiting, watching, into the theatre, back into the lobby, through the arcade, back into the theatre, back into the lobby, the slow steady promenade of the patient and impatient. One stood out to me, because I felt I had seen him here before, the one I had called "quarterback", the all-American boy. His style of dress made him stand out, button up shirt and red tie, dress shoes which clicked on the hard surface of the lobby floor as he walked, he looked like he was dressed for the midnight mass, and in a quiet way he seemed reverential and confident in this unlikely place, clean and healthy like a missionary, and I wondered for what reason he had come to this place.
PART TWO
WHY are you here on Christmas Eve?
Then they arrived. He was white and tall, Mr. Middle Age/MiddleClass/Middle America, and to me he resembled somewhat Mark McKinney (does anyone remember "The Kids in the Hall") and he carried a large bag. He was accompanied by another man, a younger black man with a round face and a handsome pensive countenance and muscular build. Together they walked with a woman and
SHE
was something else; tall, lean, amazing long legs clad in black stockings and a body of creamy white flesh covered in black straps, a mesh top over beautiful C cups, the Hellenic features of her face made more stark and lovely by the fashion in which her jet black hair was pulled severely back and tied. She was a fantasy, someone's fantasy, some man's vision of sex and sin.
The Lovely "R" |
Had I seen this couple before? They seemed very familiar suddenly, but for the rest of the evening I could not place them. Had they been here before? I was certain of it....but could not recall exactly. Why were they here on Christmas Eve?
Her husband/boyfriend/lover started to finger her. She squirmed in her seat, letting out soft cooing sounds that blossomed into low moans and quiet cries "oh, oh, oh, oh" that shattered the still air and rivaled for intensity and authenticity the similar moans of the actress on the screen. The black man played with her breasts, licking her nipples, kissing her with an admixture of shyness and passion, and the white man more forcefully fingered and spanked her pussy and started working her into a state of ecstasy and he said something along the lines of "that's it baby, squirt" and the men leaned in to see and then she uttered a sound of pleasant exhaustion and he said to her "that was a good one".
She stood up. An old man standing nearby inquired as to the possibility of touching her, the response made it clear that the couple had come here to share, and and he began rubbing her ass and thighs and petting the pretty pussy that had been so thoroughly digited by her mate. Quarterback was standing beside him, and asked "Ma'am, can I touch you also?" to which she responded incredulously "Ma'am…?" and by the tone I couldn't tell if she was surprised at his courteousness or disappointed by the implication of age that separates a "ma'am" from a "miss".
"R" |
The black man unzipped his pants and she leaned down and took his cock into her mouth. The slurping ministrations she visited upon his member were picture perfect, intense and theatrical, and at first he seemed indifferent or bashful, but soon it was too much and he closed his eyes and whispered wordless sounds of pleasure as she went up and down his ebony shaft, licking the side and then enveloping the head again and going down, down. The white man dropped his pants as well and entered her from behind as she sucked and lollipopped the other man's cock and she was a dynamo of slow sustained sexual production as she moved to the rhythm of her man's motion.
They stopped. She sat, and then kneeled, looking for a convenient position, and they stood on either side of her like sentinels and as she worked them over with her hands she gave throat to hushed utterances of pleasure and then said "I want you to cum….I want two cums on my tits" or something to that effect, and she handled them expertly but it seemed for some time that neither was ready (or perhaps, enjoying the pleasure, neither was READY to be ready; there is a distinct difference) and so he went into the large bag he had carried in and took out what seemed to be a lubricant from the way he thumb-and-forefingered it and then applied it to her vagina…or somewhere else….in the darkness it was hard to tell, but then the black man took her from behind and in workmanlike fashion fucked this Greek goddess.
(A couple is watching from the plexiglassed balcony, a man who looks like George Romney crossed with Chuck Yeager is nearby, standing next to Quarterback, two other old men are semi-interestedly watching from the seats across the aisle, alternately taking their cocks out and stroking and then zipping back up and watching, watching... and I am here, too, and I am wondering who are the friends and the family of everyone here, and how lonely or bored or depressed or horny or agnostic or indifferent or lost or desperate or starving for thrills do you have to be to be at an adult theatre on Christmas Eve?
"R" |
When her (husband, by now I feel certain of it) is nearly ready to ejaculate he takes things into his own hands and works his member mightily and the utterly calm demeanor he has exhibited all night is temporarily upset by the flustery breathing heavily wracking his chest and upper body as he finally is relieved and several streams of pearlescent fluid jet from the tip of his well-stroked rod and SHE makes this move, this quick shoulder motion, to capture it on her breast, and when she stands up her entire left breast seems coated and the tip of her nipple is glowing in the movie light with suspended fluid, thick and clinging in defiance of gravity. and her eyes -
EYES. Eyes of uncertainty. Shy eyes, despite everything I have just seen. Darting. Jumping, thinking, taking it in. The couple…they are pleasant and polite and this was quite a show… but there is something unusual about it. They seem like they should be drinking egg nog in a decorated living room by a well-decorated tree. I glance into her eyes to try and find the secret.
They are done. They move to the arcade and she disappears with the black man into one of the booths, and the rest of the crowd follows, circulating, circulating….
I see Quarterback in the lobby, talking with the (husband). I am struck by the fact that, on an unslanted surface, Quarterback is quite a bit shorter than the other man. I think about Doug Flutie. They talk quietly and later he talks with all of them and I get the sense that he either knows them or is making an introduction. The black man seems anxious to go. The white man is pleasant and seems in no rush. Her affect is flat, she seems almost a little dazed, and very quiet - is she shy? And they walk off into the night.
In the arcade a beautiful blonde and an older man sit in the booth with the gloryhole and men disappear into the adjoining booth and the door closes and they receive, I imagine, the gift for which they came. This is fascinating in its own right, but it is late. I leave.
EPILOGUE
What are YOU here on Christmas Eve?
In the parking lot I see two Michigan plates, my own and another, and, leaving at the same time, I am roughly aware of his proximity and we are clearly headed towards the same freeway and in a coincidence that could only happen in a story about Christmas, we pull into the same gas station.
It is the all-American boy. He walks with a kind of confidence that isn't swaggering but is definitely entitled. Maybe he really IS the son of a preacher man. He pumps his gas, then walks back to hand a bill to a homeless man crouched by the entrance of the station with a sign that says "Family in need of help". His bearing now is aristocratic. He is a mystery. He leans in and says something and the man responds with "Merry Christmas". Walking back to his car, he sees me, recognizes me instantly from this evening, and nods, not quite smiling, but with a smirk in his eye.
I break my journalistic silence. I have to. I ask him the question. In my mind I have been asking it all night.
Some stories don't have answers. Some stories just ask questions.
And sometimes the gospel truth is that it is hard to find the Gospel Truth. So you think and wonder and ask and wait.
He pauses. His eyes narrow in thought and he smiles. Then he winks.
He just says "Merry Christmas", and gets into his car.
I drive home. I type.
This is a story about Christmas.
~JP~
2016
***
Doc here again... Wow.
The Good Doctor is lucky to have some terrific reporters and writers that contribute to The Journal. Some reporters have been in this thing of ours for decades (like your old friend in the white suit and aviators). For others, it's familiar footing for the last several years. And the rest, it may be that shiny new penny. Different approaches, different POVs. That's what makes The Journal as unpredictable as walking into an adult theater. You never know who is in there, or who may be arriving there. And who does arrive could be awesome.
With Johnny Paradise, I do know a thing or two: His words will be quality, and they will resonate. And this one knocked me on my ass. Thank you, sir.
Thanks,
Doc