My first thought that morning was something in the vein of…Well ain’t that something. Although with my level of exhaustion and general disorientation, the articulation that clawed its way through my jack-hammered brain was almost certainly something much closer to…What in the holy hell is happening here?!!

I could feel a dry, fleshy hand stroking my genitals—proud and erect like a young man in the prime of virility, hungry to take on the world and devour it bite by bite with the invincible jaws and insatiable appetite of youth. That Promethean feeling of expectation and importance, with an enthusiasm and optimism yet to be ground down by the false flags of “maturity,” “security” and “practicality” so often championed by the geriatric generations wasting away before us. I had a goddamn titan between my legs, ready to light the world up with the fire of the gods and then burn it all to the ground.

A titan, though, that was steadily being ground down by the sandpaper palm of a sexual neophyte. Granted, it was more of a 320 grit, 240 at its roughest, able to rub away for some time before any permanent damage was done. But still, there was a determination there, practiced and methodical, almost mechanical even, that made it clear that this death grip wasn’t going to give up—no way in hell!—till the job was done, whatever and however long it might possibly take, the general health and well-being of my genitals be damned!

And with the last remnants of my recent dreams scurrying off into the abyss and the pragmatic reality of a new day dawning on me like a slap to the face—or more appropriately, a repeated jack-hammering to the nuts—I also realized one of my hands was being held between two meaty thighs, wedged right up in there. Humid, sure. But also more of that 240-grit sandpaper. Like the time I found myself at 3 a.m. on a Jacksonville beach in the dank heart of summer trying to plug away at a random co-ed I’d picked up at the bar, both too plastered to care or even remember how to make the damn thing go. Her ID said 26 but the picture looked nothing like her, and so it was almost certainly for the best when I finally just ditched her back in front of the bar, sobbing inexplicably, and left her in the care of her coked-out friend and her friend’s 45-year-old coke dealer “boyfriend.” Sometimes if you can walk away from a bad situation, you might as well run.

Other times, though, things aren’t so easy. And when you find the future President of the United States rubbing you raw down below with knuckle-down determination and military-grade elbow grease, well…the situation calls for a certain measure of finesse. She was doing all the things you’re supposed to do, but something was off. The woman always seemed to have an unsettling quality to her. She was going through the motions like they’d been rehearsed a thousand times, subjected to focus groups and daily briefings from experts and advisors. Jack him off while he fingers you…a surefire recipe for sexual gratification and interpersonal intimacy. Some people are just too far removed from what most of us consider to be the normal characteristics of the human condition, though, and despite their best efforts they still find a way to ruin something as simple as a good old-fashioned hand job.

You had to give it to the ol’ girl, though, she was determined as hell to make it happen. And if I had to condense it down to a single word, that would be it…determined. She had to be the most determined individual I’ve ever met. Once her mind was made up and her sights were set on a thing—whether it be a sexual conquest or the highest office in the whole damn land—there was no stopping her. She was going to get it, and was going to do whatever the hell it took to make it happen.

It was this same determination that had brought us together in the first place. I actually met her husband first, at a breakfast fundraiser for Obama in the Pacific Palisades back in 2012. I was dragged there by an art-dealer friend of mine for god knows what reason. Why anyone would want to wake up early just to drop a thousand bucks on a second-rate breakfast is beyond me. But there I was, surrounded by a whole horde of these lunatics, bright and early, and about as hung over as I’ve ever been. When things are that rough, sometimes your only realistic option is a little hair of the dog. I was three Bloody Marys in when I met the former President. And after three more, it seemed like the most natural thing in the world to accept his offer to join him for another charity event later that evening. The man was a charmer, I’ll give him that. And with that disarming smile of his and his calculated Southern charm, he could make you forget about the hundreds of civilians killed during the two and a half months of US-led bombings in the Balkans during his tenure, or the numerous civilian deaths during the four-day bombing campaign of Operation Desert Fox, or the hundreds of thousands of children who died due to the US-supported UN sanctions imposed on the Iraqi people during his two terms in office.

But hey…when the former leader of the free world wants to get freaky with you, it’s hard to say no. Shit, nine times out of ten you buy that ticket and take that ride just for novelty’s sake. You tell yourself…hey, what modern US president hasn’t committed a slew of atrocities, and you let yourself be sweet-talked by one of the best in the business.

One freaky night led to a few more over the next couple months…before I finally met the wife. She was distant at first. And who could blame her. She was just getting into the thick of it with that whole Benghazi mess, and here her husband was parading around a new “friend.” The whole thing felt weird and kind of sleazy, but never more so than when she eventually started making it very, very clear that she wanted in on that “friendship” too. And like I said before…once she got an idea in her head there was no stopping her. I didn’t stand a chance, and it wasn’t long before I found myself smack dab in the middle of some kinky ass shit.

Things just kept getting weirder and weirder too, turning into some real House of Cards shit. All sorts of head games and manipulation. I didn’t know what the hell to believe, or who to believe. Just so much spin, so much deception, so much bullshit. Just getting more and more fucked up, to the point where I had to finally just put an end to it. I just walked away. I told myself I was never going to put myself in that position again. And this is probably the reason I’ve been having such a hard time writing this piece. Because I clearly did end up putting myself in that position again. And so for the last week or so here I’ve just been putting it off. Sliding that the deadline back, day after day after day. Going for walks instead of sitting down at the computer. Ending up at bars. One bar after another. Telling myself just one more beer, one more whiskey—over and over. Clearly trying to get too fucked up to be able to get any writing done…subconsciously of course. That way I don’t have to think about it, don’t have to acknowledge the shitty position I put myself in.

I just keep thinking about the past, those mythical good ol’ days, back when things were simpler and you could look in the mirror without convulsing with disgust. Ain’t the delusions of nostalgia a damn grand thing! I even went by the old bookstore on Abbot Kinney where I used to work, now just another overpriced clothing store and another artisan coffee shop. Two-hundred-dollar t-shirts, an eight-dollar black coffee—if that’s not a sign of progress in this country I don’t know what is.

I looked in through the window and zeroed in on the spot on the floor where I woke up one morning—what is it…four years ago now—and for probably the first time in my life felt the sickly feeling of true love. That saccharine churning in the pit of my stomach. I stared at the cold hard concrete where that love had detonated the night before in a rage of passion and honesty (There’s actually a fairly accurate description of this in Timothy Synclair’s The Aymbolic). Unfortunately, that was also the day the sale of the bookstore was finalized, back before everything got all fucked up. I even stopped in at the bar down the street, knowing full well that there was no chance of me running into the girl I actually wanted to run into. She lived in New York now. I sat there alone, again just putting away one beer after another. Torturing myself with idealized thoughts of the one who got away, just to keep myself from having to finally sit down and write about the one I couldn’t get away from…a whole other torture in itself.

But as I was lying there in that hotel bed the morning after, my genitals being jack-hammered at with an invincible determination, the only thing on my mind was how to extricate myself from the situation. And how to do it as diplomatically as possible—there are some people you don’t want as enemies. There are also some things no one can really argue with, though.

“I gotta piss real bad.”

Heavy emphasis on the real. And there it was, my easy out. And when I came back out of the bathroom, you bet your ass I made sure to steer clear of the bed. I grabbed my phone from the desk in the corner where it was charging.

“Jesus Christ!” I said as I looked at the screen.

“What is it?”

“That man’s a lunatic.”

“More messages?”

“Like a dozen more.”

I had a slew of texts from a number I couldn’t help but recognize at this point.

“And they’re fucking weird.”

I read off a few of the gems:

“A nasty boy for a nasty woman.”

“You a nasty boy ain’t ya.”

“You can be my nasty boy too.”

“New plank for my platform: You be my nasty white butt boy and I’ll be your fuckman.”

It was funny, sure. But it was also, hands down, fucking frightening. No one with that deranged of a mentality should have their finger anywhere near any button that did more than hold the cuff of a shirt together, let alone one that had the very real potential to send this world spiraling into a nuclear holocaust.

“This guy is crazy. Fucking insane.”

“And you’re just now realizing this?” Hillary said.

A new text came in as I was standing there:

“The adventures of Fuckman and his nasty white butt boy!”

Hillary just shook her head and let out a defeated little laugh, not sure how this was actually the person she was running against—“person” of course being used here very loosely.

“And ‘Fuckman’ is capitalized this time,” I told her, “like that’s his fucking name.”

This bizarre nightmare had started about a week earlier when someone claiming to be a Donald Trump campaign aide contacted me and invited me to attend the third and final debate in Las Vegas as a personal guest of Mr. Trump’s. Whether or not it was a legitimate offer didn’t matter much at all to me—I declined it right then and there. I had no intention of letting my sexual exploits be used to further the political ambitions of a man I wouldn’t trust to sell me a used car, let alone run a whole goddamn country.

By a strange turn of fate, however, I did already have a plane ticket booked for Las Vegas for the day of the debate. There was an adult league ice hockey tournament out there that weekend, and a bunch of my old buddies and I were getting together to go for gold one more time. (We would blow a 3 goal lead in the finals and end up losing in overtime…major fucking bummer.) One of the guys was coming in early, though, trying to squeeze in as much Vegas as he could before heading back home to Houston, to the wife and kids, the two jobs, the mortgage, the car payments, the goddamn American Dream in all its splendor. I hadn’t seen him in years, and so I figured I’d join him.

Now, if I thought the call from the sniveling weasel claiming to be a Trump aide was unexpected, imagine my surprise when Bill Clinton himself calls me the day before my flight. How they found out I was going there…I don’t even want to know. Why they would be tracking that shit…just thinking about it makes my brain hurt. It’s just more of the nonsense I wanted nothing to do with, the shit I had walked away from years ago. Nevertheless, I assured Bill that my trip to Vegas had nothing to do with the debate, although I did learn from him that the fuck-stick who had called before did in fact work for Trump. God, I didn’t miss any of this bullshit, and I couldn’t put it behind me fast enough.

Cut to Tuesday night, nearing midnight, my hockey buddy missed his flight, sick daughter, 106 degree fever, doesn’t even know if he’s going to make it to the tournament anymore. I’m about 400 dollars down at the blackjack table, with about three hours of serious drinking behind me, when I get a very unexpected text: For old times sake? I froze. I just sat there at the table staring at my phone. The dealer yelling at me, “Hit or stand? Hit or stand? Hit or stand? Do you want another card, buddy…or not?” When another text came in: It’s Hillary btw.

I tapped the table, and with lifeless eyes watched the dealer drop a 9 down on my jack and 3. He grabbed my chips, then my cards…and with that there went another 20 bucks. I barely registered it, though. I was still frozen by the texts. I knew what the answer was, I knew what I had to do. No. No way! No way in fucking hell!!!

The thing is, I was drunk. I was tired of losing money. I felt defeated. Broken. My mental faculties weren’t quite what they should have been. I remember it feeling like my options were very limited at that point. I had no one to hang out with since no one else from the hockey team was coming till Thursday. I felt abandoned. Lost. Like I’d been put through the ringer. Now, if I had been winning at cards, things would have probably been different. But I was already down about half of what I was willing to lose for the whole trip, and this was just in the first night, by myself, not even trading that money for good times with old friends. Despite the infinite possibilities of life, it seemed like I really only had two choices. But that’s kind of how life works. We throw on our blinders, hedge our bets, and find it perfectly natural to make artificially restricted decisions. We’re fine as long as we get some sort of say in things, as long as we get to make some sort of decision ourselves. Never asking why our options are so restricted, or who the hell is restricting them.

So there I was, ignoring all other choices but two. I could stay in my seat at that table, bombarded by the bright lights and loud noises of the casino. The perfect distraction, fast-paced, no time to think, flashy, tacky, frenetic, as more of my money was slowly siphoned away from me one hand at a time. A grinning shyster promising the potential for great gains with each deal of the cards, despite the fact that I and every other sorry sack of shit in that room knew full well that the odds were stacked against us. In the long run the house always wins. And yet we all still buy into the false hopes and dreams they peddle like snake oil, trying our best to ignore the cognitive dissonance inherent in this fucked system. Whether it’s true or not, just tell me I can win. Just tell me I can win, and I’ll play. I’ll give you everything I have until I have nothing left to give. Fuck history. Fuck common sense. Fuck rational thought. Just tell me there’s a chance I can win, and I’ll let you fuck me for the rest of my life.

It turned out my two options that night weren’t all that different—let the casino fuck me, or let Hillary Clinton. And I think we all know which one I chose. The more familiar one. The more economically responsible one. The lesser of two evils. She might be cold, and mechanical, and calculating, but at least her sole intention wasn’t to rip off down-and-out suckers desperate for a little hope.

The lesser of two evils, though, always implies a measure of evil for both, which is never an enviable position to find yourself in. And as I sat at the desk in the corner of the hotel room that morning, as sobriety crept back in and rationality and sanity regained their footing, it became glaringly obvious to me that I’d made the wrong choice the night before. Not in choosing Hillary over the casino, but in choosing to think those were my only choices. I could have done any one of a thousand other things. I could have gone to a bar, or a strip club, or just gone back to my room. I could have polished off a bottle of whiskey, or a case of beer, or at least given it a hell of a go. I could have flipped through one of the books I had brought with me…Leaves of Grass, or Walden, or The Virtue of Selfishness. I could have watched TV, or dicked around on my phone, or jerked off eight or nine times till I exhausted myself and passed out with my genitals raw but my integrity still intact. The point is, it was ridiculous and irrational for me to think I had only two options and that of necessity I had to decide to do something I really didn’t want to do.

I looked over at Hillary, still in bed. She was staring at me, a determined look in her eye, as she vigorously rubbed away between her legs. Just going to town on herself with a single-minded voracity. It seemed she still had plans for me, she wasn’t done with me yet. Hungry. Thirsty. This bitch was going to eat me alive. I was searching for some form of diplomacy, trying to keep in check the voices screaming through my head. No. No way! No way in fucking hell!!! When the door to the connecting room burst open and Bill Clinton came charging in, butt ass naked, wiggling his dick around, twirling a cigar in each hand. “I have two Cubans,” he said in his best Val Kilmer–Doc Holliday voice, “one for each of you.”

“Goddamn it, Bill!” Hillary yelled.

And with those three simple words she cut him down. His eyes dropped to the floor, as he took a few sheepish steps back.

“One for each of you,” he said again in that same voice, this time much quieter, though, and with an almost pleading tone to it.

But Hillary just scowled at him, shaking her head.

“One for each of us?” Bill sheepishly suggested, pointing one cigar at me and the other at himself.

“That’s more like it, Bill,” Hillary said—strong, proud, presidential. “You’ve had your fun. It’s my fucking turn now.”