“The Fisting Gallery”—a short story

Content warning: This story contains graphic sexual content and descriptions of BDSM dynamics.

I apologized. I begged Rabih to forgive me. I know I screwed up. I’m at fault. I want you to understand this before you hear what I’m about to say next. I don’t want you to think I’m making excuses or I’m blaming him. I’m not. I’m sorry, very sorry. He’s the most important thing in the world to me, and I’m terribly sorry that I’ve hurt him. I love him more than either of you can imagine. Sit with this for a minute before I go on.

I’m sorry, but how the fuck could he not have known? We know he can be naïve, but really. Twenty-five years he watched me live and decided these men were my lovers. My admirers. He must have thought I was a man of eternal Sundays. A kept man, he called me once, and I didn’t correct him because it seemed to make him happy. Kept. Fine. Keep the word. But Max? Max he’s shocked about? He was in the room. His arm was in the man. Both arms.

How could he not have known? What rarified world does our boy live in? He told you about the fisting gallery years ago, in front of me. Laughing, his great adventure. And you asked me, remember? Was that how I made my living? And I told you yes, plainly, because I assumed everybody knew. You knew he didn’t. You never said. So don’t sit there looking innocent.

Did the insurance man call him or you? Did they ask if anything else was taken? See, that’s the part I can’t come to grips with. Somebody left the television. He left the watches. Somebody climbed through a window and took one painting by an unknown. Who does that?

Unless nobody broke in. Don’t look at me like that, you’ve thought it. Insurance pays, Max redecorates. No. Forget I said that. I was there when he begged for it. I was there, you weren’t. And I know begging. Begging was my profession, habibi. I’ve heard every counterfeit version there is, and Max’s was real.

So what happened? Insurance asked about the painting and Rabih did what? How did it come about that you told him I’m a pro-dom? You haven’t told him anything for years and then, oops, by the way, your best friend charges. Did he actually ask? You couldn’t have shrugged? Said ask him yourself? Looked at your phone like a normal husband? No. Of course not. You answer questions. I’m not blaming you, habibi. Lying requires imagination.

I know he’s not angry at my being a sex worker. If he’s able to love me while thinking of me as a kept man, then this is nothing. He’s still the little romantic boy he’s always been. We broke up twenty-eight years ago. We’ve moved on. He’s my best friend. He married you, the most boring man in the universe, but since you make him happy, I bite my tongue and pretend to like you. Just kidding. You love me and don’t you try to tell me otherwise. But he and I will never be together again. I know he knows that, but I don’t think he really knows that, if you know what I mean. I’m not saying he wants to dump you for me. I’m saying that there’s a part of him that wants me to remain the boy I was when we were together.

I swear, for someone who is so smart and wise, he’s such a doofus. I sometimes think that he goes into a trance when he’s working on his books, channels Solomon or Chekhov, and when the writing session ends, he returns to being the lost boy in Neverland. It’s astounding when you think about it. You know that.

He told you why we broke up. His version, anyway. We lasted eight months, which was a miracle. We desperately tried to make it work, but we’re both too obstinate, very Palestinian. He says he’s Lebanese, but believe me, he’s more Palestinian. He swears he’s submissive, and God knows he tries, but that bitch came into this world a rebel. You tell him to do something, and he does the opposite. The first time I tried to tie him up he kept arguing about the type of knots I was using. The worst part was his giggling. Everything was funny to him. I’d be fucking him and he’d burst out laughing because my face might have contorted into an amusing shape. You know, he laid down a law forbidding me to speak our native tongue while I fucked him because he thought it sounded hilarious. I’m serious. It got to the point where I feared saying anything during sex because he found so much of it amusing. And yes, what’s more terrible is I’d start laughing too. I wanted sex to be serious, while he considered it fun.

We couldn’t stay apart when we broke up. He was the best drug, the funniest depressive ever. Why are you smiling? It hurt him for a long time. He kept saying I broke his heart and being around me was painful. We were okay really, but I could see it wounded him a little when I was going with someone. But then he started hooking up, or as our romantic boy would say, dating. He started having sex with this Jewish guy. It wasn’t working, but he needed to figure it out for himself, so I didn’t say anything. It was so obvious that the guy wanted to fuck an Arab so he could prove to himself that he’s open-minded. You know, bring peace to the Middle East by fucking. That lasted one or two dates. But then Rabih answered an ad by a guy who described himself as Mediterranean. Remarkably, the guy was looking for a relationship as well, and our boy got excited. As soon he heard the man’s accent on the phone, your husband recognized it as Israeli. It seems they talked for a while, got along and so on. They went out on a date, and it was when they sat down at the restaurant that our boy informed the Israeli that he was Lebanese. Rabih told me that the Israeli went into a high-C panic. He couldn’t possibly date an Arab. No way, no how. His parents would be devastated, and that was what devastated our boy. It wasn’t so much the rejection. I think he knew even then that he wouldn’t really be able to date an Israeli. He was hurt that this guy’s parents would hate him without knowing him. It shocked him. Again, the most naïve boy in the universe.

Wait, I’m telling you this so you can tell him that he was the one that pointed me down this road of perdition I’m on.

I too had a hookup with an Israeli, mine being weirder. I show up at this guy’s house. All I wanted was a blowjob, and I decided what the fuck, I’ll allow him to suck my dick even if he was an Israeli. But then he started begging to undress me like I was some prize he needed to unwrap. Fine. I was lying down on the bed, my feet on the floor, and he went to town on my dick. Motherfucker was a good cocksucker, not great but good enough, but just as I start to cum, he lifts his head. Motherfucker wasn’t swallowing, and worse, I was still shooting when he asked if I wanted a shower. No joke. I was still cumming. And on my chest and stomach, not down his throat. It was so fucked up. Of course I didn’t shower. I wiped my cum using the corner of his bedspread, which obviously horrified him. I got dressed and left, thinking I’ll never see the fucker again.

So, our boy and I were in a coffee shop, and he was his usual Hamletist self. Would he ever find a boyfriend? What could he do? Was he going to die alone? That kind of whiny shit. Droning on and on when in walked a lesbian friend of ours with her new girlfriend, Anat, an anti-Zionist Israeli. Yes, of course you know her. You don’t like her. In any case, it only took a few moments before Rabih began to overshare as usual. Oh, this Israeli guy told him he couldn’t date him because the parents wouldn’t approve. That was when Anat said the strangest thing. She didn’t know a single gay Israeli man who didn’t fantasize about being ravished by an Arab. Unfortunately for Rabih, he didn’t much look like one. Whereas if I, the muscular Arab with the color of a summer well spent, walked into a room filled with gay Israeli men, every pair of heels would point toward the ceiling.

That was when Anat said the strangest thing. She didn’t know a single gay Israeli man who didn’t fantasize about being ravished by an Arab.

I didn’t believe her, not at first, but I also never forgot what she said. Sometime later, I was in the same coffee shop when the neat-freak Israeli walked in. I ignored him. He wouldn’t leave even though he’d gotten his latte in a to-go cup, kept hovering and staring, biting his lower lip without realizing he was doing so. Finally, he gathered his courage, asking if he could join me. I told him to fuck off, which seemed to have shaken him. In a contrite voice, he asked if he’d done anything wrong. For whatever reason, I didn’t think of mentioning that I was insulted he wanted me out of his apartment while I was still cumming. I told him I’m not interested in guys who disrespect me by not swallowing. He turned three shades of red—which I must admit, turned me on—and in a whimpering voice, said that that could be corrected. He begged me to go home with him, and the more I refused, the more desperate he became. He’d not only swallow, he’d do anything I wanted, and even though I was way too big, he’d let me fuck him. I certainly enjoyed the begging, and then he said the magic words. He didn’t have much money on him, but we can stop at an ATM, where he can take out the maximum, three hundred dollars. My dick went boing, the hardest I’d been in years. We went to his place. I didn’t undress. I just unzipped and fucked his throat. I slapped him every time he gagged. He went into a delirious, ecstatic stupor. I told him he didn’t deserve to taste my cum so I blasted down his throat. He gagged so much, I thought he was going to throw up. When I was done, I told him to remain on his knees with his mouth agape, that I would beat him senseless if he moved. And I peed on him, and on his fake Bauhaus rug. He was so horrified, but he didn’t move. I was so turned on, it was hard putting my dick back in my pants. I left him there, wet and erect and humiliated and three hundred dollars poorer. He became my first regular, once a week for five years. I only raised his fee when he fell in love with another guy, who moved in with him, and I had to slap him at my place instead of his.

So you see, tell our boy that if it weren’t for him, I would have never started. Anyway, be it luck or skill I became very popular rather quickly. I wasn’t serious in the beginning. I didn’t advertise, never did actually. I got all my clients through referrals. And yes, a lot of my clients were Israeli, maybe thirty percent, more if you count the double citizens. They didn’t all want the same thing, but you can say there was a leitmotif. Could I sit in the fauteuil naked except for a keffiyeh while they licked their way from my feet to my dick? Could they wash my dishes, do my laundry, fold my fitted sheets? Could I fuck them, spank them, and call them names? I used old keffiyehs to tie them up. One settler wanted me to stuff his ass with olives. I kid you not.

I used old keffiyehs to tie them up. One settler wanted me to stuff his ass with olives.

You would think this was all about sex, but it wasn’t really. It might have been in the beginning, but that died off for me. I hardly fucked any of them. My whip and shackles were enough. Physically, most of my clients didn’t turn me on. It got to the point that when one of them wanted to get fucked, I’d subcontract. I’d call a friend to come fuck them. I should have started franchising. There were a couple of guys that turned me on. One hypermasculine guy I liked. He told me he worked in security, which meant he was Mossad. He refused to admit it at first, and I desperately wanted him to. Him, I fucked every time, whipped him into a frenzied fugue. It took two or three sessions before he finally blurted it out. My dungeon was a black site. Once he admitted he was Mossad, he never called again. Yet weirdly, he referred another Israeli, and that’s when I involved Rabih.

The referral called himself Max. He hired me a few times before admitting that what turned him on, what he desperately needed, was to get fisted. Unfortunately, he felt my hands and arms were much too big for his butt. Same thing with both my subcontractors. The only man I knew who had small hands was your husband, before he met you, of course. I explained the situation to him. He said he’d never done anything like this before, as if I couldn’t tell, and he wasn’t really into it. But you know, he’s so fucking curious. I knew he’d do it. He liked the photo of Max I showed him. I told him I’d be his fisting sherpa. It might have been years since we’d had sex, but we were intimate enough that he wouldn’t have much of a problem having me there. He asked that we do it at his place. I swear to you, I thought he knew that this was a paying client. In any case, Max and I showed up at his apartment. Our boy had prepared: showered, trimmed his nails, had a bottle of wine open, and jazz on low. He even set up his massage table in the living room. Who knew he had his own massage table? He and Max got along. I don’t think Rabih figured out he was Israeli. Max ended up naked on all fours atop the massage table. He’d smoked so much weed, inhaled so much poppers, I was surprised he didn’t float up to the ceiling. I didn’t touch the drugs or wine because I wanted to make sure everything worked out okay and Rabih didn’t because, you know, he’s fucking neurotic. So, Rabih started fisting Max. It wasn’t long before your husband’s arm was all the way inside Max, all the way to the elbow. Rabih was astounded. He would look at me with his dopey grin, mouthing wow repeatedly. Max was in one of heaven’s circles. He faced the fireplace and the painting above the mantle, one of Rabih’s, his last self-portrait before he began to write. I asked Max if he was okay, and he said more, more. I told Rabih to try a second hand. Lo and behold, that ass swallowed its second arm as if it were famished. Max was wrong. My arm was not too big for that ass, neither was a howitzer. You should have seen Rabih’s face. He looked so cute with his wide eyes and open mouth, so taken by the unexpected absurdity of the situation. He whispered that he could probably shove his dick and jerk off with both hands inside Max’s ass. I told him to do it. He didn’t want to because his dick wasn’t all-the-way hard. He was fascinated but not excited. So, I had an issue. Rabih wasn’t going to cum because he wasn’t turned on, and Max wasn’t going to because he was out-of-his-mind high. How do I end the session? I had to talk Max down, had to tell him he was doing fine, that he had a great time, etcetera. As was his wont, Max followed orders. Rabih was gleeful as if he were Hercules after accomplishing all twelve tasks. Max sat on the massage table, telling us he wanted two things, and he would offer whatever. He couldn’t accept no for an answer. He just couldn’t. He wanted a copy of the music (an older jam session of Oscar Peterson and Stan Getz) and he wanted Rabih’s painting. Obviously, offering copies of the music was not an issue for our boy, but that painting meant a lot to him. It was the last of the series of self-portraits, and the most beautiful. He was probably not going to paint again. No, he couldn’t sell it. Max was not to be denied. He offered five thousand dollars. And Rabih accepted on the spot.

For years, he and I joked about opening a fisting gallery, where he would fist a guy and I’d bring paintings out until one was chosen.

For years, he and I joked about opening a fisting gallery, where he would fist a guy and I’d bring paintings out until one was chosen. He made me laugh so hard. We’d have the most in-depth art around. Then he wanted a fisting reading series. Then a fisting punditry: you couldn’t spout opinions on television without a fist up your butt. Do you want a ceasefire? Yes, yes, a ceasefire; we need a deeper peace.

So, please tell the fucker to answer his phone. I know he will when he calms down, but I don’t want to wait that long. He yelled at me about the fisting gallery, half of it in Arabic, none of it in order. You know how he gets. You’re probably the one person who knows him as well as I do, or maybe even more than I do. Don’t let it go to your head. I finally understood. He’s hurt because he believed Max bought his last self-portrait out of love, which was unequivocally the case. Now he thinks that because Max was paying me, the painting was part of the arrangement. Ridiculous. Our boy is ridiculous. Tell him Max loved the fucking painting. Tell him.

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