I have slept with too many women to count. It is my greatest shame, and the one I share most often at parties. If you forced me to put a number on the times I donated my man-root to feminine ecstasy, I would ballpark it somewhere around 90, and certainly no less than 12 (13 if you count that time Tracy Fisher and I got stuck in a meat locker at summer camp). Naturally, I maintain an intricate familiarity with the female body and my reputation reaches moderately far and abnormally wide. Some women will even insist that we make love in complete darkness, presumably to test me. I always pass, and with plenty of time to spare. But all the experience I have gained, all the experience in the world, could not have prepared me for the hot mess of glitter and bruises and wet hay I shared with Ke$ha one blistering night in a Nashville barn.
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I met her while we were both on tour, her promoting her new album and me championing the written word with my collection of essays, Soren Bowie, Championing the Written Word: A Collection of Essays. We ended up together at an after party thrown by Kenny Chesney while his parents were out of town. All of the Southern natives of renown were in attendance. Ke$ha and I locked eyes almost immediately. She was not the most attractive person at the party. Neither was I. It seemed perfect.
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Like, brother and sister perfect.
I had only heard of her, I had never listened to any of her music but I was impressed by the way she effortlessly lowered the bar of masturbation fodder for teenage boys. She wore cowboy boots, an American flag fashioned into a skirt and the shredded remnants of dirty tights. One half of her face was covered in glitter, the other half in smeared mascara and matted hair. She looked as though she had just barely survived six flues in a row. Still, I am human and a slave to sexual opportunity.
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Curse you, biological imperative.
She writhed around Kenny’s living room to southern rock, the tender buds beneath her shirt pointed in my direction as if to say, “We should get on top of each other.”
“OK,” I said.
“OK what?” she stopped dancing.
“Sorry, I thought your breasts were asking me something.”
Ke$ha reeled back and hit me across the face. I moved to protect myself but she slapped my hand away and grabbed me by the hair, forcing my forehead against hers. “You wanna kiss me?” she asked. No one else at the party seemed alarmed.
“Maybe we should slow down.”
“Blah blah blah,” she said in the voice of a child. Then she unhinged her jaw and tried to fit my face in her mouth.
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Gahhh!
It was an upsetting kiss and one that would be hard to classify as sexual. I pushed her back and her teeth pulled my lip with them, sinking in until I bled.
Instantly I was drunk.
“Hold on, just hold the hell on,” I said. “Did… have you dipped your teeth in-”
“Whiskey, yeah” she breathed. “I brush with it.”
Like the attack of the komodo dragon, the ancient and thriving bacteria in Ke$ha’s mouth had paralyzed me. I was at her mercy. I tried to signal to Billy Ray Cyrus but he was engaged in a story about on-set shenanigans while shooting Mulholland Drive.
“Ke$ha, I don’t want to ruin this moment,” I slurred, “but I think we may be moving too fast. I don’t even know your middle name.”
She straddled me on the couch while pushing the nest of hair out of her face. An owl freed itself from the mess, flapping wildly around the living room. “Don't be a little bitch with your chit chat,” she told me then grabbed my jaw and forced it open while peering down my throat. “Just show me where your dick’s at.”
“Wait!” I demanded. “This is getting confusing.”
“Touch my junk, junk!” Ke$ha screamed.
“Who,” said the owl.
“Then me and David Lynch spent the whole night in that tree fort,” said Billy Ray Cyrus.
I blacked out.
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Sleeep.
I startled awake in bed, the sheets kicked to the floor. I took stock of everything around me: the hot tub, the mirrors, the cultural treasures. I was home, I was safe. It had all been a terrible nightmare.
Thank god.
I startled awake in Kenny Chesney’s living room with Ke$ha straddling me and looking concerned. “Whoa, you passed out for a minute there,” she grinned.
Dammit.
She pulled me onto my feet and together we stumbled toward the door, “Let’s get you some air,” she said. On the way out I overheard her ask Kenny if there was a place we could be alone. Kenny sighed and suggested his parents' barn.
“Kenny,” I whispered. “I need help.”
“You have no idea,” he said to the floor, a tear falling down his cheek. All the conversations stopped and everyone watched with sorry eyes as Ke$ha dragged me away, but no one made any move to help. It was clearly not the first time this had happened.
The barn was hot but the fresh air cleared my head. She pulled the door shut and turned to me. I looked for something to throw but I was only surrounded by bales of hay which I am not strong enough to lift and will also trigger my allergies. In her baby voice she chanted, “The animal inside, let it live and die.”
“Please, Ke$ha. I’m begging you," I pleaded. "I don’t want animals dying inside me.”
She didn't care, instead she called me “boy” and told me to turn around so she could “hit that.” I did not. Still, with the only exit behind her and nowhere to run, I calmed myself, breathed deeply and accepted the only option I had left: I was going to have to sex my way out. I dove at her.
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It was a vicious battle. We fought our fornication war for three hours, launching assaults across open expanses of flesh, flanking with counter attacks in the low shrubbery and matching one another blow for blow. Eyes closed and teeth bared, we kicked up hay and dust. We were no longer human; we were two angry, sick animals embroiled in consensual rape. I tried to smash her and she tried to devour me. I ran my hand through her hair and it came out covered in shards of glass. There were no rules of engagement, it was only about survival.
When the dust finally settled, Ke$ha lay still at the bottom of a four-foot hole in the ground and I had lost a great deal of blood. As I buttoned my shirt, the last of the barn walls collapsed, revealing morning light on the horizon. I had won.
“What… what was that?” Ke$ha asked the sky.
“That was 14,” I said. “Number 14.” I tipped a dangling clump of hair to her before turning to steal the nearest horse and ride off into the sunrise.
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Dear Kenny, I have your horse. Love, Soren.
Like, brother and sister perfect.
Curse you, biological imperative.
Gahhh!
Sleeep.
Dear Kenny, I have your horse. Love, Soren.