When Suzi left Denver International Airport the next day for her San Francisco
home I realized that in a little more than 24 hours she'd morphed for me from
fantasy fuel to someone I'd enjoy staying in touch with and knowing a little
bit better, and not just necessarily in the Biblical sense -- though that, of
course, had even more appeal now that I'd actually done the deed with the real
deal and not solo via Internet or VCR.
This is the rest of the story or Part II; In Which Our Hero Takes a Porn star
to the Rolling Stones and Learns He Has Made Her Shortlist for Surrogate
Fatherhood.
Suzi kept in touch, especially after the Salon story hit the Internet two
months after our date. She told me her website's traffic, which had not been
overwhelming, realized a gratifying spike. Business for her photos, memberships
(a modest $10/month), videos and even her personalized underwear -- men's and
women's -- blipped and briefly boomed. It also eventually landed her a spot on
an upscale New York panel discussing sex and the Internet, part of which was
featured on National Public Radio.
As chance had it, I was driving when I heard the report on NPR nearly a year
after our assignation. There it was, Suzi's familiar singsong voice, albeit
more of a sing-song-sound byte.
I pulled my aging slagheap of a piece of shit excuse for transportation over to
the roadside and listened. Damn, I thought, the woman who made "Suzi
Bungholeeo" and "Bangkok Boobarello" is sharing rarified air space with the
likes of upscale NPR icons such as The Car Guys, Terri Gross and Scott Simon.
Yes, Suzi had arrived, albeit briefly.
We exchanged e-mails she'd sent me hand drawn Asian New Year cards and birthday
greetings. She even waived my Suzi Suzuki membership fee and at one point
honored my photo request for her to pose provocatively with a Navajo rug
purchased on our date. I was thrilled to see it on her weekly picture updates,
which following her brief Salon-driven business boom were slowly becoming
increasingly less weekly and more monthly.
The pictures were also (I had to face it) beginning to look a little shop worn.
It was clear Suzi's porn career was on the wane so I asked her if she'd
considered writing an autobiography. I offered to edit and/or ghostwrite it.
The response was a polite "maybe."
And it came to pass that the Rolling Stones were scheduled in Denver on
February 1, 2003. More than a Suzi fan, I am a chronic Stones fan, having seen
them nine times since June 16, 1972 when I watched stoned and slack-jawed as
Mick whipped the stage with a silver studded belt under a blood red spotlight
for "Midnight Rambler" in Denver Coliseum, a venue normally used for livestock
exhibitions. It was an unlikely combination: Their Satanic Majesties reigning
amidst the commingled odors of dope smoke and dried cow shit.
Times have changed, of course. What cost me about $12.75 in 1972 after standing
in line for 9 hours sustained on Bugles and Boone's Farm apple wine could be
mine again for ... oh, a couple hundred bucks via credit card on the Internet
from the comfort of home. And I had an idea. Why not.take a porn star to a
Stones concert. How perfectly appropriate. So I shot an e-mail to Suzi and held
my breath. The reply was sweet and prompt.
Dear Peter,
Thank you for the wonderful offer. I have several ideas about trying to do the
concert for the Rolling Stones.
On the 3rd of February I am going to Tucson for a bead and gem show so I have
one idea to drive to Denver and then to drive to Tucson. I am worried about the
weather because it may snow. The other way is to fly to Denver and then fly to
Tucson and my friend is driving me back from there to San Francisco.
Thank you very much for asking me to the Rolling Stones. It is such a wonderful
and nice opportunity and it will be nice to see you again.
Love,
Suzi
It was a lock. But, like my previous assignation with Suzi I still had to worry
about transportation. You might call it performance anxiety, as in four-wheel
performance. So as before, I rented a vehicle that didn't look and perform as
if it had served as the 18-year rumpus room for a blood orgy of Visigoths and
benzene snorting badgers.
February 1 debuted under gray clouds, snow flurries, cold winds and the grim
news that the space shuttle Columbia had disintegrated on reentry, killing all
seven astronauts. Not exactly an auspicious day. But my reservations for one
night for two at Denver's venerable Oxford Hotel were in order and despite the
weather, Suzi's flight was on time.
The last time I'd seen her she'd been dressed in sort of casual porn star
attire, braless under beige loose weave cotton sweater, a long wrap skirt that
parted for saucy flashes o' thigh and red lips that looked as if she could suck
a banana out of its peel without splitting the skin. This time I did the
proverbial double take when we met at the United luggage carousel. Sans makeup
and in a stylish down parka she looked like a Japanese college student on
winter break.
Hauling her two bags -- she'd packed for winter in Colorado and Arizona, two
different beasts -- I found "my" car.
"It is different than before?" she asked. "Uh, yeah," I replied. "Oh," she
laughed. "I remember in your story. Your real car is not so good and you wanted
to impress me."
"Yeah, my normal one is not exactly first class date bait. Which might explain
why you're my virtually my first since our date."
We checked into the Oxford, had an early dinner and repaired back to our room
to dress for Keef and Mick. I threw on a vintage looking shirt festooned with
oversized photos of the Brian Jones-era Stones and some other largely dead
luminaries such as Jimi Hendrix, John Lennon and Jim Morrison.
Suzi emerged from the bathroom, not as a fresh scrubbed college student but a
tastefully slutty Stones fan -- white blouse tied at the midriff with generous
cleavage, sprayed-on low rise blue jeans and spiked heel boots.
"Perfect," I said. "Promise that if Keith invites you backstage I can come,
too?"
"I like Charlie better," she said. "He's the quiet one. And I like his big
band." I was impressed. Only die-hard Stones fans knew of drummer Charlie
Watts' "other" band, a classic 40s-era big band. Suzi also knew that original
bassist Bill Wyman exited the band in 1993 and -- damn it -- I wasn't her
virginal Stones experience. She'd seen them in Tokyo in 1990 on the Steel
Wheels tour.
The show itself passed nearly in a blur. Aside from seeing them up close on the
"B-stage" walkway for stripped down versions of "Mannish Boy," "It's Only Rock
'n' Roll" and "Brown Sugar," and guest act Jonny Lange's guitar sound going
dead as he stepped forward to solo with Keef on "Rock Me Baby," I recalled only
an admiring male sitting next to Suzi on my right who nudged me when she took a
quick restroom break before the show began.
"Nice," he said in one of those confidential guys-only tones. "Your wife?
Girlfriend?"
"Yeah, well, my date," I said. "Good friends. We're staying at The Oxford
tonight."
"She looks kinda familiar..." he mused.
I thought quickly. "Yeah, she's done a little, uh, acting, commercial work.
Some small film, video stuff. Playing Asian hookers and geishas, mostly. But
she's more into jazz singing. That and weaving rugs and beads."
"Weaving?" He looked a little startled. Just then Suzi returned, flashed him a
smile and settled in comfortably with me as the house lights dimmed, the
welcoming din began and the Stones kicked into "Street Fighting Man."
Back at the hotel we flopped on the bed and rehashed the show. She admired
Mick's physique at nearly 60. Looking at my developing paunch approaching 50, I
quickly changed the subject to her musical aspirations. Suzi had brought a
small desktop CD player and she put in a demo disc she'd been working on with
an eye towards an eventual musical she said she was writing.
Her future seemed a bit vague and after we'd gotten down to carnal knowledge -
a satisfying albeit tame performance compared to our last encounter that
involved a sex toy and her inserting a Latex-gloved finger up my ass as I came
- we cuddled afterward and I pushed her a little bit for her future plans.
"I'm thinking of getting out of the business soon," she said. "And I want to
have a child." Then she turned and looked at me directly. "You're not the kind
of guy who only likes Asian women, are you? Not one of those guys?" The fact
that she made a living based largely on "those guys" was an irony I politely
ignored.
Well, I hedged some, maybe I just prefer Asian women. I'd confessed as much in
the Salon story. I did some quick calculating. Two ex-wives, one Asian, one
Jewish. A total of four serious ex-girlfriends: two Asian, two white. "Uh, my
track record is strictly 50/50 at this point," I said reciting the stats. "I
could go either direction. Versatile. You'd tip the scale, though. But, no,
it's not like I'm clinically stuck on Asians."
"I'm thinking of having a child," she said again, looking even more serious.
"Would you think of being the donor? Do you have any strange, bad medical
history?"
I thought of my own Amerasian son. He turned out fine. A bright, funny guy --
worldly, even then at age 17, but also someone who'd be a just a bit shaken by
news that he suddenly had a half-sibling by his dad and a porn star.
Still I was floored. And, yeah, somewhat flattered. "No. No weird medical
stuff. But uh...how did you plan to do this? Like have me jack-off in a cup or
on a slide and donate it to you? Have you asked any other guys?"
She had. Suzi was sounding out potential donors after evaluating their
qualifications. It wasn't clear how many or what the qualifications were, other
than to perhaps be Yellow Fever-free.
I was almost afraid to ask more, fearing I'd jeopardize my chances with an
admission that I had been a chronic bed wetter as a child. Her plan was to
raise the child herself with no strings attached, no financial or emotional
involvement required by the lucky X-Y donor.
"Um, well, okay. I'll think about it, too. Let me know, you know, if ... " I
trailed off.
Suzi laughed and said she would, though it was the last I heard from her on the
subject.
I took her to the airport again the next morning so she could rent a car and go
skiing before driving to Arizona. I had a job interview in the late afternoon
and, even with a porn star thrown in, would no more go skiing than I would let
a chimpanzee perform dental surgery on me with a rusty spoon.
We kissed good-bye and, except for a slightly panicked call I got from her
about three hours later asking for directions to the ski area, it was the last
time I heard her voice.
At year later Suzi made it official, quit porn and closed her website. I'd
gotten wind of it early in an e-mail from her, but for fans taken by surprise
she left a parting message on her website:
"After a lot of thinking about it I have decided that I want to close my web
site for the time being. There are a lot of reasons but the one that is most
important is that I made a promise to myself about seven years ago that I would
only do the adult business, the video and the pictures, for five years and at
the end of the five years I would stop. Well it is now about seven years and I
think it is a good time to stop."
No mention of any children, though. In 2005 I shot an e-mail off to her from my
new location, Hong Kong where I'd found new employment and more Asian women in
one subway ride to work than I'd seen in my previous 50 years. I asked her if
she was still thinking about writing a book and asked about her musical. Her
reply came quickly, from another city and with another identity -- her real
name.
Dear Peter,
Congratulations on your job! You must be so excited to be in Hong Kong. Do not
worry about the autobiography. As matter of fact, I was thinking that I'd
better write it by myself and hire an editor later. But now believe it or not,
I am a real estate agent in (a major western US city). It's my 6th month here
and my 7th deal has just gone into escrow.
See ya!
K---- "Suzi" P-------
I sat back and sank briefly into a reverie, a porn cliché about a nymphomaniac
real estate agent seducing the unwitting client. Or vice versa. I wondered how
many of her customers knew that the diminutive Asian woman talking excitedly
about kitchen and closet space and quality neighborhood schools had also made a
movie called "Butthole Whores." I mused briefly about moving from Hong Kong
back to the USA to house hunt Suzi's new city. But, nah, I thought, never
happen.
I'm happy for you Suzi, I thought. But, damn. We could've made a good baby
together. I swear.
