India. 1979. I was on the fourth night of a two-day opium and sex orgy with a high-ranking Madagascaran general and a half-dozen east-Asian college co-eds/call girls.
The general and a girl named Nomi went out for cigarettes. I was eating the last of a lemon cake, and trying to make conversation with one of the hookers, but her English was far from understandable in my opium-induced state.
I told her “That’s enough, honey. No more talking.”
She said, “Lendon vake?”
I said, “Honey, let me eat my lemon cake cuz I want to go to bed.”
“Lendon ved?” she said.
But at that point, my last hit off the pipe did something to me, and her words began to echo off the walls.
I was lost in the sound of her voice bouncing around my eardrums, and I hadn’t noticed the general had come back, and was standing over me. He was repeatedly asking me if I was okay. I finally realized he was talking to me, and I said “Yeah…yeah.”
Then he asked, “But are you happy?”
I looked at him, nodded my head slowly, and said, “No.”
I’ve posted this a couple of times before but not, apparently, in this thread.
Google my name and you will see a character from a great archetypal old movie (and a different character in the awful remake) The Old Dark House. My name is taken from the original movie. Sir Roderick Femm is the very very old progenitor of the family Femm that appears in the film.
One reason I liked this particular name/character is the gender ambiguity. Early on, Ernst Thesiger lisps his introduction “Good evening, I am Horathe Femm.” And the actor playing Sir Roderick, although listed as John Dudgeon, was actually a woman, Elspeth Dudgeon. And finally because an effeminate man might sometimes be referred to as a “fem.” I am not especially effeminate myself (at least I don’t think so) but I enjoyed all these deep subtleties derived from one of my favorite movies.