There’s this thing like a rabbit hole but fleshy and it goes forever. I’ve jumped down inside it. Willingly, for you dear reader, I’m falling into the sweaty blackness head first. But don’t worry. A woman is with me here to make sure I don’t miss anything interesting.
“A lot of men are basically blankoids now,” this woman says, a 25-year-old cam girl from the Bronx named Lucia.
I shift my weight and pull a lump out from under my ass. It’s one of those plush flowers Murakami sells where the face in the middle is locked in a sort of terrifying optimism. For about an hour now, we’ve been sitting amongst these stuffed animals and bubble wrap and posters of pop groups where all the girls are dressed in white leather bondage gear. These are the things that make up Lucia’s “room,” a set in a grid of sets. I turn the smiling plush flower over so it can’t look at me anymore. Where am I exactly? What is this zone containing all sort of highly specific fetishi? I can only tell you these sets that house Brooklyn’s leading cam girls are located underneath a large brick warehouse somewhere in Bensonhurst. This particular set is made to look like a high school student’s bedroom. This one is all-pink and puffy.
“Like they’re dumb?” I ask Lucia to clarify just what she means by blankoid.
She blows a goodbye kiss to the computer sitting on a furry white desk. She turns off the camera’s feed and her smile relaxes and she says, “More like there’s nothing’s inside them. Like this guy here, SchrodingersPenis77—the name says it all.” She taps her finger on the screen as the chat begins to cannibalize itself trying to figure out who to blame for her leaving. Whose head they should cut off. “I think he both has mojo and doesn’t simultaneously. Like the Schrodinger thing. A lot of men now only feel truly seen when they can disappear behind a screen. They’re blankoids that only exist in the blank.”
“Awful,” I say taking a sip from my Richard Petty flask. I imagine poor brides unzipping their husband’s flies on the wedding night, finding nothing but smooth oblivion.
Flipping the video feed back on, Lucia’s smile gets perky again. She unbuttons her shirt slowly and the chimes that let her know someone in the chat sent money come in like everyone in America is getting married all at once and they’re all Catholic and the church bells are all being rung by deranged Quasimodos. These blankoids on the other side sure have money to spend. In the real world, they must be damn productive.
And then it hits me. As Lucia presses various parts against the camera, it all starts to come together.
The blankoid is not a new model, just something The Man finally found use for.
These men on the other side of the screen used to be thrown into nut houses. But they had nothing to do there besides rot. Now they have something to work towards. Every fetish on the planet has a set you can plug into and watch—if you have the cash.
Lucia here is causing once-defunct men all across the country strap on suits and ties to go work themselves raw. Her and her sisters have given them direction. A moment when they can sit a dissolve into their secret fetshi. In the blank, they can come alive.
I look around at the bubble wrap and the ham sandwiches with extra mayo and the stag beetle Lucia is letting crawl over her stomach and truly see. These men are more than enamored by force feeding and ASMR and whatever else, they worship it. But just what agency of the U.S. government requires worship? I need to see more.
After her shift is over, Lucia agrees to give me a tour of the rest of the warehouse. We walk slowly and she points things out. Eyes all over the country look through tubes that end here. Or here. Or here. This grid of sets is massive. There are pink sets. All-black and studded ones. There is one where an amputee is tickling herself. A grandma taking a bath in milk. Podophilia. Coprophilia. Xylophilia. Eyes watch the sets here until they melt into a jammy yolk. They watch deer bodies and triangles of hair and tiger stripes over thighs.
What a gizmo they’ve cooked up here!
I know deeper down the altar can be seen more clearly, more fully. The Altar of Cam Girls. But I don’t dare sink further. I don’t have the right supplies, for one. From here I can say it’s clearly made of many things. Press on nails from Duane Reade. Polyps. Hair extensions and silicone. Veneers so blinding they singe hair. This place somewhere in Bensonhurst is the head of the altar. It has a million heads and they are smiling.
