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My Sweet Ann

from PIECES OF STRANGE by Stephen Spotswood

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I used to feel awful about it. So guilty. I knew it wasn't my fault. You can't control how you react physically. It's an autonomic nervous system thing or something.. And I totally donate to the HRC and Greenpeace and I'm not a bad person. I just...
I should start at the beginning.
I didn't orgasm until I was thirty-two. I thought I had. That's so embarrassing to say out loud. I thought I had. I'd felt things. I felt good during sex. I thought...I don't know what I thought. I guess I thought that was it. At least for me. Maybe I thought everyone else was just...exaggerating.
I had boyfriends who were very attentive and sweet. And they tried. They really, really, really tried. It was...exhausting. Eventually I started exaggerating, too.
In college, I bought a vibrator. But all it made me feel was numb.
Then a few years ago, I was with...Oh, I shouldn't use his real name. He doesn't...He doesn't want to be associated with me anymore. Um...Peter. I'm going to call him Peter. We'd been dating for a year. Eleven months? We'd had the marriage conversation. We thought we'd probably get engaged soon. I was going to move in with him. I spent every other night at his place. Anyway, Peter had this habit. Okay, not even a habit, just a...
We'd be on the couch watching a movie or something. And we'd start...fooling around. And he'd leave the television on. Even if the remote was right there, he'd leave it on. And we'd be...Well, like...in the middle of things. And Law and Order: SVU would come on or something. Suddenly they'd be talking about pedophiles and semen samples. It was not the most romantic thing. Anyway, one night we were watching something. Some movie. And we start making out. Things progress. Television stays on. Peter is...um...inside me. I'm feeling good. Not...you know...great. Just good. A new show comes on. Some kind of political thing. I'm not paying attention. But then there's this voice. This woman's voice.
As soon as she started talking--the first full sentence out of her mouth--I came so hard. So hard. I think I actually blacked out for half a second. When I regained conciousness, Peter's looking down at me and he's all like, "Are you okay? What's wrong?"
I thought I was having a seizure. I couldn't stop shaking. I looked at the T.V., looked for the face that went with that voice. And that's when I saw her. Ann Coulter. I remember thinking, "No, no. That can't be right."
Then she said something else. And I came again. This time it was long, rolling. Like an avalanche. It started with this little rumble and ended with...
When the tremors subsided, I was like --Ohhh. That's what it's supposed to feel like. Peter had no idea what was going on. When I could talk again, I was like, "It must have been the way I had my legs. Or the angle. And you were just really good. It was all you."
But I knew. I knew it wasn't him. It was her. Ann Fucking Coulter.
I tried to forget about it. I tried to convince myself it was a fluke. The next few weeks, I had sex with Peter every chance I could. I wanted to recreate what had happened. But it wasn't the same. Eventually, I had to give in.
It was an evening when Peter and I weren't together. Me in bed with my laptop and my vibrator. I went online and clicked on the first video of her I found. It was a debate about who should be able to say...to use the N word. The things coming out of her mouth. They were awful. I mean really, incredibly offensive. I was offended. I swear to God. But it didn't matter. Just her voice mattered. It was like every word she said was plucking a string inside me--this silver cord that led from the back of my head all the way down. Eventually I just tossed the vibrator away. She was all I needed. I didn't understand it. I'm not gay. Women do nothing for me. It's just her. And just her voice. I've tried masturbating to pictures. Or video clips on mute. So I didn't have to listen the words she was saying. No good. I couldn't tell Peter. I also couldn't go back to feeling just...good.
I'd arrange it so Ann Coulter was on TV when we were having sex on the couch.
Which is really hard.
There's only so many times I can "accidently" hit the remote and turn on a DVRed episode of Meet The Press.
He wanted me to enjoy myself, too. Peter knew I'd had one really incredible orgasm and now I was back to just feeling "good" and he didn't understand why. He was all, why don't you put your legs here; why don't we try yoga; why don't we put on this porn while we fuck. And I'm, like, I don't need a porn. I need Ann Coulter. I need her voice. I need her talking about welfare mothers crippling our economy; I need her saying that climate change is a sham; I need her saying that there's no such thing as rape culture.
Of course I didn't say that. What I did say is that I was having problems concentrating. That traffic noise from outside was distracting me. He was, like, we can turn on music. I told him I didn't want to bother the neighbors. So I bought one of those little tiny mp3 players. Whenever we started to get physical, I clipped it to my hair like a little beret and I put in headphones and listened to music. Or that's what I told Peter. There was only one mp3. The audiobook of Demonic: How The Liberal Mob Is Endangering America. Thirteen hours of Ann Coulter whispering in my ear. It was...ecstasy. Over time, I learned control. How to slow things down, let her voice wash over like hot, frothy water. How to speed things up. Come so hard and so fast it hurt. I'd try to make Peter feel...involved in the experience. I'd whisper "Yes, yes. Slower, Slower." Because I did want it to last forever. But it really didn't matter what Peter did. Eventually I started closing my eyes. I imagined his touch was hers.
When I do that, when I picture her, she doesn't look like herself. She's not a man or a woman, but something that transcends both. Like an angel. Sometimes she has massive wings the color of blood. Her skin is dark and luminous. Like there's a fire burning inside her chest, lighting up everything around me. I know it's not real. I know it's just...I know it's Peter I'm with. But during those moments right before the climax. When I can't think, can't breathe, when I can only feel. It's not him. It's her. It's Ann Coulter, my dark angel, thrusting into me, fucking me with her voice until I come, screaming, over and over again.

Peter found out. I left the mp3 player on the bed and he lisened to it. I think..I think I wanted him to find out. I thought he'd...I don't know what I thought. That he'd understand? Or at least accept it. He was all, "How can you listen to this? She's a monster. She's the worst person ever. What's wrong with you?" I tried to explain it's not her, it's not even her words, it's her voice. It's just her voice. It does something. He asked me to stop. I was like, this is what works for me. If you want me to enjoy myself, this is what I need. He said that was sick. He said he couldn't even get hard if he knew I was listening to Ann Coulter.
So I left him.
I wasn't going to stop. I'm sorry. I really am sorry. But I spent the first two decades of my sexual life feeling "good." I wasn't giving up the one thing that makes me feel...bliss. My friends found out.
There were a few weeks when everyone kept coming up to me and being like, "Did you know Ann Coulter said liberals should be round up into pens so they'll be easier to execute when they turn traitor?" "Did you know she said ethnic profiling is the only way we can be safe?" I tried to explain, but...
My friends don't talk to me anymore.
I went to a therapist. She kept asking if I'd been abused as a child. I said, no. I hadn't. Ann Coulter just turns me on.

I've stopped caring what people think. Really. It's weird. I used to be so uptight about sex. I think it was because I was ashamed I'd never enjoyed it. But here I am telling you all of this. In a way, Ann Coulter has sexually liberated me. She's cracked open something inside me and let everything spill out.
I have all of her audiobooks now. Every hateful one.
When I get on the train after work, I'll put in my headphones. Her voice will slip into my ear.

Liberal ideas are less scientifically provable than the Bible.

Christianity will soon be prohibited by law in America.

Colleges are teaching the homosexual lifestyle instead of mathematics.

Sometimes I take it too far and I'll come silent and shivering in the middle of a crowded F Train. The first time it happened, I was so embarassed. I was like, did anyone see?
But nobody noticed. Everyone else had earphones in, too. Listening to....music? Podcasts? Books?
Probably.
But I started thinking...It can't just be me.
How many others are out there quietly, secretly listening to voices that reach inside them and touch them so deep? Caress and pluck and penetrate them in ways they never imagined possible.
Maybe you don't have it for Ann Coulter, but...come on.
Who is it? Bill Bryson? Ira Glass? Maybe it's Thomas Edison, and you only have a handful of century-old wax records to get off to.
I guess I'm lucky that way. Ann will be around for a long time. I'll have years and years--hundreds of hours of her words. Her bigoted, racist, hateful words. I will cherish every one of them. I will shudder as each sentence slips inside me, penetrates me, leaves me a wet, shuddering, boneless heap.
I will refuse--as best I can--to feel guilty. Because in my head, in my bed, she is not a monster. She's a luminous, dark angel whose words send me into blissful oblivion. And she's all mine.

credits

from PIECES OF STRANGE, released June 9, 2015

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Stephen Spotswood Washington, D.C.

an award-winning playwright, journalist, and theatre artist. Previous works include Walking The City of Silence and Stone, In The Forest She Grew Fangs, The Sisters of Ellery Hollow, We Tiresias, and A Creation Story for Naomi. You can find him roaming Twitter and Instagram at @playwrightsteve. ... more

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