An Affronted Adonis

My friends Emily and Elizabeth had VIP tickets to a fashion show last Friday, and invited me to join them. It was in the Regency building on upper Van Ness. In the lobby, tense, beautiful women, rich men in suits, and male models were milling about. The air smelled of custom-made fragrances.

The woman checking names off the guest list wanted to know who I was.
“This is Helena from San Francisco Magazine,” Emily said briskly. Before I could say debate her use of the word “from”, the woman said:
“Well then, you must have front row seats.” Next thing I knew, Emily had swept us away to the front row, where every seat had a bag of presents on it. There was shampoo, moisturizer, a tiny soap tied up in gauze and ribbon, and an enigmatic utensil I decided was a designer bottle opener.

At the after-party, pink drinks flowed freely. The name of the vodka company sponsoring the event was etched into giant bottles carved from ice. Waiters glided through the crowd with trays of brooch-sized hamburgers that nobody ate. The guests were more interested in the cock rings that waitresses clad only in white teddies were offering round on silver platters.

The only place to sit was on white leather ottomans strewn with pink flowers. Technically I think they were for VVIPs, not just VIPs, but after a certain number of pink drinks, I felt myself to be a VVIP. A male model with impossibly long eyelashes recognized Emily and came to join us.
“What did you think of the show?” Emily said.
He pouted a little.
“I think the outfits were too revealing. Having your nipples on view might be appropriate for a sensuality event but not for high fashion,” he sniffed. I stared at him, thinking him a total prude. Then I thought about it. The show had been a little racy towards the end. You could see the models’ nipples through their diaphanous shirts. The last model sported only legwarmers, a turtleneck, and a thong.

I wondered if living in sex-positive San Francisco had made me blasé about this sort of thing. I’ve seen so much bared flesh at Burning Man, the Folsom Street Fair, and other places. I’ve seen people dressed as clowns having group sex and beating each other with a rubber chicken filled with whipped cream (I’ll explain another time). You can understand, then, why at this point I scarcely notice half-bared nipples. And the offer of a cock ring? No more shocking than a cucumber sandwich.