Chelsea Chelsea Bang Bang Read online

  When my brothers would come home from college, they would always hang out in the second living room, but that didn't stop me. I would sandwich myself in between one end of the sofa and the ottoman, and all they could see was my head pop out so I could check to see if they were watching me and wipe my brow with a beach towel. I sometimes wondered if they had any idea what I was doing, but I had grown so accustomed to sexually assaulting myself whenever necessary that my self-awareness became clouded. It never occurred to me that when I got up from one of these positions, the other people in the room would wonder why I was drenched in sweat with my jeans wedged up to my nipples, my eyes crossed, a severe case of cameltoe, and chapped lips. I didn't care. I had bigger fish to fry.

  School was becoming a nuisance. It was nearly impossible to go eight hours without jerking off. I had two options to get me through the day: I could use a ruler under my desk during spelling, because our teacher was always at the front with the big ruler, or I could wait until recess to use one of the metal poles that kept the swing sets upright. I would ride the pole up and down until my neck started spasming; on multiple occasions I ended up head-butting myself into the pole.

  One by one, my classmates would dismount from the swings as the bell rang, while I would still be writhing on the pole a half hour later. Eventually a hall guard or teacher would come out and yell, "Chelsea, the bell rang thirty minutes ago!"

  "Shut up," I'd moan. "It's coming!"

  I found myself carving out windows of time in the day and after school for me to be alone with myself. My desire to blow off birthday parties happened to correspond with a precipitous drop in invitations. I didn't notice that I had fewer friends, and frankly I didn't care. Like any person in a new relationship, I had eyes for only one person, even though the person I had eyes for only had one eye.

  As soon as spring came along, bike rides took on a new meaning. I would bike for hours on the weekends, rubbing my coslopus on my banana seat. I would ride up and down our block, passing our neighbor's window with my legs extended out to the sides, avoiding any oncoming traffic at the last minute by detouring into a rain gutter. By the end of the school year, I had flipped my bicycle three times and was wearing two silver caps over the teeth I'd lost during orgasms. The vinyl on my seat had started to wear down, so I decided to tape an eraser to the tip of my seat for multiple climactic sensations. I had a basket on my bike and would run out of the house with homework to fool my mother into thinking I was on a deadline.

  "My mind comes alive in the cross breeze," I would tell her.

  "How are you able to do your schoolwork while you're riding a bike?"

  "It is what it is, Mom. You say tomato, I say banana seat."

  I would get so excited on Friday nights, knowing that my peekachu and I would be able to have the whole weekend to ourselves. I always had to watch TV while hooking up with myself, just in case anyone walked into my room, which in hindsight seems a little dissonant. Reruns of Three's Company and Growing Pains weren't exactly titillating, but I had no idea that what I was doing was titillating, since it didn't involve my father's tits. I didn't need imagery to get my party started. I just needed friction.

  I decided to start sampling different clothing options and find out which materials aided what I would later find out were orgasms. One would think that sweats or leggings would be optimal, but one would be mistaken. Too easy. Shorts and skirts were off-limits, as they allowed closer to direct contact, which could result in pole burns or, even worse, me actually touching my own MINI Cooper.

  I had graduated to the bed and would lie on my stomach, put the comforter over me to conceal any wrongdoing, and turn my head to the side on the pillow so I could stare straight at my TV. If my neck grew cramped, I would switch to lying on my back with the covers over me. I liked this position because, besides being much less suspicious, it worked different muscle groups.

  As with any normal relationship in bloom, we experienced the highs and lows that go hand in hand with the decision to share your life with someone. We spent the summer of '83 together, which grew more challenging due to the increase in the temperature. There were many times I was tempted to walk away, but I always came back when the sun went down. In hindsight it was easier to stay in the relationship than to jump back into the dating scene. With my invisible friend, Lucy, acting as officiator, my coslopus and I had a commitment ceremony where we vowed to be faithful, even though cheating on me would have been impossible for her, considering she was attached to my groin.

  It wasn't until Thanksgiving dinner in fourth grade that I was confronted about my romance. My parents had invited some family friends over, along with my five brothers and sisters. I was still in a honeymoon period with myself and didn't take a Thanksgiving dinner seriously enough to not bring my gentleman caller. I had a wooden soup spoon under the table in between my legs, over my corduroys, pursuing my usual enterprise. After several beads of sweat dripped into my pumpkin soup, my father yelled out in front of the whole table, "Chelsea! Stop what you're doing right now!"

  Then my mother chimed in. "Chelsea, that is something you want to do in the privacy of your own room."

  My brother Ray took this as his cue to announce, "She does it all the time!"

  The idea that what I'd been doing to myself for the past year and a half had not been a secret by any stretch of the imagination came as a shock to me. I couldn't believe I'd been outed. I was mortified, sabotaged, and, worst of all, forced to spend the rest of elementary school ignoring my lover and her pitiful attempts to reconcile. Once it was established that it was not acceptable behavior, I had no desire to do it. No remorse. No breakup letter. No counseling. Just cold turkey. "Au 'voir," I told my coslopus that night before reading my newest issue of Highlights magazine, which I had started subscribing to at the age of three.

  I think back with fondness on that year I spent getting to know my hot pocket. While some people and the authorities took issue with it, I considered it reasonable and fair. The way I saw it was, if you looked down and saw a brownie sundae with the works sitting in your lap, day after day after day, eventually you're going to attack it.

  After I was found out, I didn't contact my clitoris for years. I deemed it untrustworthy and bizarre. I felt the same way about penises. That's why I gave my first hand job with a sock.

  Years later when I moved to Los Angeles and walked in on my roommate masturbating in her bedroom the normal way, naked, I almost vomited. "First of all, ya sicko, you need to put some jeans on," I told her. "Then you need to find yourself a playground."

  Chapter Two

  When Life Hands You Lemons, Squeeze Them into Your Vodka

  Whoever the clueless bastard was who thought up the Cabbage Patch Kid better hope I never see him face-to-face. The invention of this bizarrely appealing doll that came with a birth certificate covered in cabbages and whose muscles had completely atrophied pretty much marked the end of me fitting in with anyone but my cleaning lady. The invention of this doll, combined with my early obsession with masturbating and the ridiculous secondhand clothes I was forced to wear, prevented anyone in the third grade from wanting to be alone with me.

  My parents couldn't have been more unreasonable when it came to fads or clothes that weren't purchased at a pharmacy. The first hurdle I can remember having to deal with was Barbie dolls, which were a rite of passage for every kindergartner with a half carafe of dignity. I remember explaining to my mother that I needed a Barbie and I needed one fast. Not a hand-me-down from my sister Sloane, who had given all of her Barbies lesbian haircuts in honor of Jo from The Facts of Life. I told her I needed a brand-new one with a decent outfit, something appropriate for Bora-Bora or the Jersey shore. My mother reassured me she'd head right to the store after she dropped me off at school one morning. Not surprisingly, when I returned home later that day on foot, because once again my parents had forgotten they had a daughter, my mother ran down the stairs to show me my new "Barby" with a y. Unlike Barbie with her