The photographer circled me, snapping and yelping like a hyena. “Show me love, ba-by! Come on baby, show me love! Give me love, right now, honey, uh huh!”
That made me stop and think: And what is love anyway? That’s a very big question, with a lot of different opinions. There are also a lot of different types of love. And what was the best way to demonstrate this elusive and confounding emotion to the photographer, whom I liked well enough, I guess, but didn’t really know well enough to love? He sounded so urgent – if I didn’t show him the love, his tone implied, things might not go so well for me. Choosing a concept at random, I put on my most beatific simper and made my peepers sparkle with compassion and understanding, like my therapist does when I confess to yet another degrading fantasy. Then I let the pinkish-gray tip of my tongue peek out the side of my mouth, a pose Dr. Friedman adopts during a particularly ripe scenario with a large and energetic cast of perverts.
The photographer stopped in exasperation, put hands on hips and shouted with unmistakable impatience, “Show … Me … the LOVE!” Sheesh, my agent was going to be very disappointed if I fucked this up. I felt my face grow red and sweaty, a crazed, rigor mortis grin spread across its ravaged moonscape. I stretched my arms forward beseechingly like a refugee child on a UNICEF poster and cried, “Here PeeWee! Here Tweeter! Who wants tuna fish, sweethearts?”
“STOP FUCKING AROUND, HANK!” I really don’t like being called Hank or Hanky, except by my mother and she’s dead, but this didn’t seem like a good time to quibble with the maestro.
To make a long story short, his assistant finally held up a quickly scrawled sign, “Spread Your Legs & Open Your Mouth.” Oh right! Love! And then things took off: “Oh yeah, baby, that’s the love! Now give me more love! Hot, nasty love!” He was shooting as fast as he could click the shutter. I turned around, bent over, grabbed my ankles and looked back at him, head hanging upside down between my knees, tongue drooping earthward like a St. Bernard’s in August. “Yeah mama, more, more, MORE love, right now!” I flopped over on my back, forced my feet behind my neck, then covered my pelvis like a soccer player on a penalty kick. The assistant jabbed at his sign and I quickly let my mouth gape open, tongue lolling moistly within like a courtesan on her velvet chaise. “Love! Love! Love!” I scrambled to all fours, waggled my bottom at the camera, then poked my head over my shoulder to snarl and whimper coquettishly. “Don’t stop! Give it TO me!” he shouted, spittle spraying from his twisted mouth. I scrambled to my feet, cocked my hips grotesquely, tugged my shirt up, unbuttoned my khakis and let my fingers twirl in the caterpillar of dark hair crawling up to my flaccid, goggling navel. My head fell to one shoulder like a broken-necked doll and into my unhinged jaw I stuck two more fingers, Lolita-like. I was on fire!
We finished up with the Demi Moore classic: the nude profile, left arm enveloping the sagging volleyball of my sallow potbelly, right hand flung modestly across the concave and sparsely-haired chest, one white, spindly leg, ravaged by psoriasis, pushed forward coyly to shadow my slack and sulky schwanstücker. I stared straight at the camera with a sullen, kissy-mouth pout of utter imbecility.
We were done. The assistant tossed me a damp, soiled towel and the master strode abruptly from the studio. He had another shoot waiting at the local used car lot – Hawaiian Luau Days at Hooly’s Hyundai: “A-uki-aki-iki! Lowest Prices Ever!” (They were going to roast an entire suckling pig, which I thought Jeannine might enjoy.) I toweled off and stepped shakily back into my underpants, falling heavily and hitting my head hard on the coffee table when my foot missed the leg hole. I decided it was safer to tug them on while lying on the floor, like I did at home.
When I got back, Jeannine was leaning over the kitchen counter, reading Vogue, spooning up chocolate pie and ice cream, and shaking that generous, bighearted rump to Miles Davis.
I threw back my head and howled “Show me the love, baby!”
But when she didn't acknowledge my presence, I assumed she wasn’t in the mood. Frankly, I can't remember the last time she was.
By Henry E. Panky
A Stallion Among Humorists
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