#TUMBLR PENTHOUSE MAGAZINE CODE#

вЂњLook how thick it is,вЂќ my father piped in, adding, вЂњA lot of advertising this month.вЂќ I chuckled at my fatherвЂ™s slip of the tongue, which my mother seemed not to have noticed.ДЄfter dinner, I stashed the magazine under my bed. Flipping to the back, she settled on a sobering article of some sort. Skimming the pages, she described what she saw there as вЂњnaughty,вЂќ as if Penthouse were a disobedient child that needed her punishing.

Clearly, until now, sheвЂ™d been unaware of the magazineвЂ™s actual content. My mother passed over the centerfold with a nod, though her face revealed an expression of pure disgust. I brought the July issue home to show my parents. My crush was inevitably short-lived: I turned the page on Bob, as I had the numerous steamy scenarios in the magazine. Bob checked each photo for splotches and inconsistencies, but when our eyes would meet, his face reddened with shame. When I would knock on his door to tell him that his mother or fiancГ©e was on the phone, a centerfold inevitably lay splayed across his desk. Bob had worked at Penthouse for years, though he was still clearly uneasy with the magazineвЂ™s content. I dreamed about him incessantly, imagining us in a variety of uncomfortable poses, usually involving his desk, the sharp edges of which poked with painful pleasure into my hips. He was the mildest, most befuddled man in the office: Bob, the managing editor. Naturally, in this heightened atmosphere, I developed a crush on a co-worker. Holding Lust to my chest, I told Peter that I would read it. My virginity was palpable it was as strange and rare as a near-extinct animal and seemed to leave everyone wracked with ambivalence on whether to preserve it or kill it. I smiled sweetly-this innocence of mine, I noted almost immediately, had a certain cachet around the Penthouse offices. After one of his martini lunches, the editor in chief stumbled over to my cubicle and slurred, вЂњCan I come into your box?вЂќ вЂњSure,вЂќ I breathed, testing my burgeoning sexuality, вЂњcome.вЂќ Later in the week, he gave me Susan MinotвЂ™s story collection, Lust and Other Stories, as a gift. Sexual slurs, I soon discovered, occurred offhandedly between coworkers no one seemed to realize how deeply the magazineвЂ™s content had invaded our psyches. At the other end of the spectrum was the prudish, tight-lipped copy editor who let me proofread every article except the Forum, as if this would preserve my fast-fleeting purity.

She crossed out sentences with red pencil between chortles and burst Bubblicious bubbles. The Forum editor was a smart-talking, gum-chewing, big-haired gal who wore spandex pants nearly every day. I also liked the mailman and the lusty ladies on his route who licked his postage stamps (and more).

My favorite was the well-endowed lawn boy who, with a few deep thrusts, defrosted the haughty housewife. Hunched over my desk, I found myself more than slightly aroused by my first-time foray into libidinous wordplay. Then there were the infamous Penthouse Forum letters-the sexual escapades, real or imagined, of вЂњordinaryвЂќ men. Much of my time was spent reading the slush pile, which was composed of bizarre, poorly written short stories, usually sci-fi, where womenвЂ™s measurements were more amply described than character or plot line. (To rationalize their work, they quoted the First Amendment constantly, with the righteous flourish of Bible-thumpers.) Some appeared indifferent to my presence, while others looked me over with concern, as if they were witnessing the conclusion of my wholesome girlhood. He led me around the narrow banks of cubicles and introduced me to everyone on staff, most of whom were women. Peter was middle-aged, with dark, thinning hair, though his strongest feature was his teeth, which were incredibly crooked, giving him a kinky menace when he smiled at me. I was certain he could discern, with his pornographerвЂ™s X-ray vision, that I was still a virgin. The editor in chief looked me over as if I were Snow White fluttering into his den of perversity.

#TUMBLR PENTHOUSE MAGAZINE CODE#

My first day, I wore a pressed skirt and blouse, though when I emerged from the elevator into a corridor hung with framed posters of naked Pets on Bob GuccioneвЂ™s knee, I wondered whether the dress code was nothing at all. HeвЂ™d drop me off at the Penthouse offices on Broadway and then head crosstown to his upstanding job at the United Nations. Every morning, my father and I would commute together from suburban Long Island.

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