Batman has one rule. I’m not sure what it is, exactly. He either doesn’t kill people or he doesn’t use firearms—the movies and comic books are all over the place, and he seems to bend or break this rule constantly (I don’t even need to cite Batman Vs. Superman...watch the Caped Crusader burn a fucker alive in Batman Returns or pop a specialized cap in Darkseid’s ass in Final Crisis). At any rate, Batman has one rule...
I, too, have one rule and it also involves a shooting device, capable of firing an anti-life bacterium into one of the New Gods. My one rule is this: I never send a dick pic.
Nestled somewhere between decorum and fear lies the idea that prospective women partners don’t really want to see snapshots of my junk. Women’s minds work differently than men’s. Men are capable of fetishizing a pussy without even knowing who it belongs to— often with disastrous results. A man does not need to know whether a woman prefers Beatles over Stones before he decides to begin composing epistles to her slick box. A woman is exactly the opposite. She wants the answers to Beatles/Stones, Roses/Crue, Dylan/Cohen, Diamond/ Sedaka, etc. Before she chooses to suck on a fellow’s Bat-pole, she wants to know why he owns two copies of Paul McCartney’s Ram, but has no opinion whatsoever on George Harrison’s post- Beatles career.
This is an evolutionary gimmick. The male desires to spread his seed far and wide, indiscriminately, into as many orifices as possible (even the ones that will in no way contribute to evolution’s genetic pool). The female, conversely, wants the best possible partner to dump his seed into her birth canal. She wants the fella who fingers her tenderly to "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," then flips her over and gives her a dose of "Mr. Brownstone." She wants the pure DNA of the tall, dapper Bruce Wayne and not the fetid gunk of the small, whiny Dick Grayson, who may be so sloppy and inexperienced, that he spuzzes on the bedsheets before he even gets his circus tights off. I mean, who hasn’t done that? I mean worn circus tights. It rocks. And, what about Joker? You just know, on some level, that his semen is flecked with gravel and blood clots. No chick wants that, no matter how freaky she claims to be.
Women don’t want to see your junk. They don’t want to see mine—not yet, anyway. They want to judge your genetic compatibility based on the merits of your sturdy, square face. Then, they want your poetry, your flowers, your wishes, your stability and your dirty talk. Instead of seeing your cock, they want to hear about what you’d like to do to them with it.
So, I never send a dick pic.
Let’s have some raw honesty, too. I ask myself, "Does this thing look its best? Can I do a better angle? Do I need different light? How come this thing doesn’t seem as big as the one in that film I recently viewed? That guy went all the way to the lady’s pancreas! She seemed surprised and delighted. Maybe she was crying, a little bit. How do I compete with that? Should I shave my bag? Will that help?"
It’s my one rule.
Life goes sideways, sometimes. Like when Anne Hathaway discovered that Bruce Wayne had machine guns mounted on his Bat-pod. "What a strange contradiction," she gasped, ass arched tastily in the air, before blowing Bane the fuck away. "Why does a man who eschews firearms also happen to own firearms? Are these for deer hunting? On another note, I just saved your hide by killing the guy who was strangling you. And, you seem to be okay with it, despite having a very nebulous rule about killing. You’re wearing a hydraulic knee brace that can kick someone’s skull clean off, for fuck’s sake! For being such a super-conscientious objector, you sure have a weird way of walking the walk."
Recently, I entered into a creative partnership with a gal who lives some miles away...
Allow me to re-phrase that: I am currently in a "long-distance intellectual relationship" (so many semantics at play). We write things together. We make artworks. We have big ideas about becoming wealthy and famous. She has a real knack for concepts, flow, design...it balances my chaotic, messy output. She wants to compose a graphic novel for palliative care patients, to ease them into the beyond. I thought that idea was so Bat-shit nuts, that I had to climb on board. Neither of us had any intention of pursuing anything beyond artistic collaboration.
Do you sense where this is headed?
Things quickly went to hell during a phone call, when we were supposed to be discussing the salient points of our comic book for the dying. I wanted more zombies and innards. She wanted more unicorns and butterflies. Note what I said about "balance," above. And, it hit me, probably when she was describing the aesthetic of the afterlife ("lush, sensual, a tiny electrical vibration in your nerve stem") that I found myself declaring, "Holy shit—your voice is so fucking sexy!" Not one of my better lines, but she must have sensed the earnestness in it all.
"I like your voice, too," she said. "It’s rough and growly. It makes me think of angry forest creatures. It makes me think of Batman." I’m actually more of a Superman guy, but I’ll take what I can get, when I can get it.
There may have been purring on the other end of the phone. It’s all a blur. There was jacking off. I won’t lie about that. Phone sex used to be a foreign concept to me, even when I was married. And, maybe, the lack thereof is why I’m no longer married. Who can say? Chicks are weird. Instead of designing a four-color comic, we both ended up discoloring our sheets.
"I’ve never done that before," I said.
"Masturbation?" she asked.
"No—wanking with a woman on the phone!"
"Oh. Me neither."
Within days, we had graduated to video streaming. Just fill in all the blanks. I’ve only got so many column inches to work with and I’ve already wasted a few. The lady was stunningly pretty and evolution demanded that I deposit my genetic material all over her whatever. She felt more-or-less the same. Once we got beyond my sturdy, square face and my excellent poetry (and moved well into the dirty talk), she whimpered, "I want to see your cock."
This was a full-stop moment. A movie moment. A defining fork in the road of life. Go left and you’re nothing but a Robin, ashamed of his minisculus dingus and spraying his circus tights with shameful fluid. Go right—like when Batman leaped after Rachel Holmes when she was dropped from the penthouse terrace—and you’re suddenly the Dark Knight of Dick.
"You want me to what?"
"I want you to show me your cock. Hurry! I’m almost there!"
"Almost where?"
"Shut up! Show me! I’m so close..."
"I need to clean my bedroom before I turn the camera around. I have a load of laundry that I still haven’t folded. My duvet has no cover on it and there’s dog hair all—"
"Show me your fucking cock!"
In that one film, Joker leaned real close to Batman and said, "Tonight, you’re going to break your one rule..."
I don’t recall how that all played out. I think Rachel exploded. I don’t recall Batman using a gun, nor murdering anyone. Harvey Dent caught on fire, but only on half of his face. And, the Joker got away, just like in the Christmas song. But, Batman stuck by his one rule and kept his dignity intact.
I, on the other hand, did not.
"Shall we discuss the comic project now?" the lady asked, catching her breath.
"Shortly," I said. "After you send the pussy pics..."
