SouthFlorida.com | City Link Magazine

One hot minute
And I'm in it, come and get it
If I chase it, I might waste it
Come and get it.
-- Red Hot Chili Peppers

12:51 p.m.: On I-95, I see a giant billboard advertising the event I'm driving to: "EXXXOTICA -- Miami Beach." Beneath the X's, it reads, "Open to the public!"

12:52 p.m.: I wonder if that includes me.

12:53 p.m.: I've seen press releases for the event in which Exxxotica is also spelled with four, five and six X's.

12:55 p.m.: Not sure if my sex life has included any X's -- well, maybe one because, you know, sometimes you just do things. Animal instinct kicks in or something.

12:56 p.m.: And I might have had a double-X experience with this freckly girl named Carli who sold me an armoire at City Furniture and then told me to come back after the store had closed. She wanted to have sex on the children's furniture for some reason, but I think it was more her XX experience than mine. I just kind of went along for the ride because I'd always wanted one of those racecar beds when I was a kid.

1:11 p.m.: Outside the Miami Beach Convention Center, Ron Jeremy is staring into the rain with a wheeled suitcase. I don't know much about porn but is there not another, newer male star with a big penis in the business they could cart out to these things? It's like a sci-fi-movie convention where the only person signing autographs is Charlton Heston.

1:12 p.m.: I ask a few women standing a safe distance away under the awning if there is, like, a Brad Pitt of porn. "A Brad Pitt of porn?" one asks. "There's not even a Vince Vaughn of porn."

1:15 p.m.: Inside, a large banner is advertising 2 Live Crew rapper Luther Campbell's new venture, Gettinlaed.com. I guarantee the site is not functioning. Luke always likes to put the word out about his projects a couple of years before something actually exists.

1:21 p.m.: See lots of "I Ş Vagina" T-shirts.

1:23 p.m.: Rows and rows of booths selling sex toys line the convention floor, yet it all seems so sedate. Only the guy from Miami Playground is working the crowd as if he's selling beer in section 309 at Dolphin Stadium. "Get your butt plugs! Butt plugs here!"

1:23:13 p.m.: "Jenna Jameson's pussy in a box! Get 'em while they're hot!"

1:27 p.m.: A streaky-haired woman is talking up the Bungee Sexperience while a long-legged customer gets tangled up in the bouncing rubber swing. The contraption is supposed to simulate weightless sex, but the poor girl looks as though she's wrestling Gumby.

1:28 p.m.: "Sometimes, there's not enough lard in your ass to really stretch the cord," the saleswoman says. That's why it comes in two sizes. "All you need is an eye hook in the ceiling," she explains. "When Grandma comes [over], you take it down and put a hanging plant there."

1:30 p.m.: The Bungee Sexperience is supposed to be great for oral sex and create such a sense of euphoria that its user can't stop smiling. They call this condition "perma grin."

1:47 p.m.: A delicate girl with light-brown hair, who looks just like the girl who sells me champagne-blue snow cones in my Sunday-morning dreams, is sitting alone at a small table. I study the Brianna Beach poster behind her and the stacks of DVDs by her elbows. Is that you? I ask her. "That's me!" she exclaims, pointing to the White Wife, Black Cock 6 DVD.

1:50 p.m.: I plan to stop at every booth at the convention, from the one testing testosterone (I failed) to the one demonstrating the toy crab that succeeds at clitoral stimulation like no real crustacean ever could. But then, I spot a banner hanging above one booth that causes my animal instinct to kick in again, this time telling me to run from "ASSTROKNOTS w/Boronex."

2:10 p.m.: The real porn stars have arrived at an elaborate staging area draped in white. The big draw is a woman named Tera Patrick. Apparently she has the uncanny ability to appear on the cover of FHM one week and star in Teradise Island: Anal Fever the next. People adore her, and she sits on the podium like a three-input princess.

2:15 p.m.: A huge line is forming for autographs and photos with Patrick, and her fans are an extremely well-behaved group. Since it's a rainy Sunday afternoon, many of the conventiongoers probably stopped by after church or after their family picnic was canceled because of the weather. There are single men and women of all ages, attractive couples and beaming middle-schoolers.

2:17 p.m.: It dawns on me that these porn fans are quite similar to the NASCAR crowd, only instead of big-block engines, smoking tires, checkered flags and Jeff Gordon, they have cock rings, bungee sex swings, pussy replicas and Tera Patrick.

2:23 p.m.: A large, black-tented area has been set up for the O'Face Amateur Film Festival. A few hundred seats are available, but only three are taken, giving the tent the air of a sleazy porn theater. On the screen, people are having sex on a Navajo Indian blanket.

2:24 p.m.: I'm immediately turned off. Not so much by the sex but by the blanket, which reminds me of those ones they sell outside abandoned gas stations. You know, the ones that are decorated with wild horses, leopards or mountain-range sunsets and draped haphazardly over a fence. God, I hate those blankets and how they make me feel.

2:28 p.m.: Back on the sales floor, I notice some real connoisseurs and serious shoppers. One guy wearing an "Enter Sandman" T-shirt is sampling lubricants. After the salesman lays a drop on him, he gently rubs it between his thumb and index finger as if he's testing the fabric of an Armani suit. "I'll take five ounces of this one," he says.

2:31 p.m.: The lube salesman has set up a game called Spin the Chick, in which patrons can try to win some free lube. One woman declines. "I don't need that stuff," she says. "I'm always moist." A blond woman dressed in black jumps into the metal saucer on the floor and lets the salesman spin her around until the photo of a tongue beneath her stops and points at "2 ounces."

2:32 p.m.: "That's it. You win two ounces," the salesman says, helping her up off the floor. "Thank you," she says. Later, she will get her photo taken with Ron Jeremy.

2:38 p.m.: Two porn stars are now flanking Tera Patrick in less-prestigious booths that are much closer to the ground. I glance up and stop in my tracks. One of the women looks exactly like …

2:39 p.m.: I'm not one to fantasize about women, because it usually makes me break out in a rash, but a few weeks ago, I came across this photo in the Costco newsletter featuring flight attendants for Air Tahiti Nui. Apparently, they always stock up at the Costco in Hawthorne, Calif., when they're in town. The five of them were dressed in aqua with flowers in their hair. Their shopping carts were full of Pringles and Lucky Charms.

2:40 p.m.: I'm a rational person, but I would seriously consider becoming a suicide bomber if it meant that when I got to heaven, the Air Tahiti flight attendants would be waiting for me. I wouldn't blow up anything of real consequence, maybe just an empty Checkers or the O'Face tent. Anyway, the porn star at this booth is a dead ringer for the third-from-the-left flight attendant in the Costco photo -- the one closest to the Pringles.

2:43 p.m.: She's signing pictures and the line is short, so I decide to wait.

2:45 p.m.: Could I get one written, "To Terry"? I ask. "Oh, Terry, I'm sorry," she says. "I'm all out of photos." OK, I say. Thanks for at least saying my name out loud.

2:48 p.m.: "We have pussies, guys! Put your finger in it," a salesman is shouting as he shakes something that looks like a half-devoured Jell-O mold left over from Family Day at the county jail. I haven't been down to Pussytown in a while, but I have absolutely no recollection of any of them looking like tangerine jellyfish. "Come on, stick your finger in it," the salesman demands. I decline but the guy behind me steps up. "Nice," he says, leaving his finger in there for what seems like forever.

2:50 p.m.: Next to the finger guy, three women are trying to hold on to a spinning dildo. They can't get a good grip, and it makes them giggle. It's set on "high rotisserie," but I can't imagine what that simulates. I do know some hyper people who can never sit still and always appear as if they're going to jump out of their skin. Perhaps their penises do this. Maybe the dildo simulates sex with Tom Arnold.

2:52 p.m.: I've been wearing my sunglasses indoors because no matter how attractive a person is, I don't think it's fair to see them half-naked under convention-center lighting. Few people can survive that. One woman in particular makes me wish my glasses had darker tinting. She is curled up behind a handwritten sign that reads, "Lap dances: $10. Pictures of me: $5. My underwear: $2."

2:55 p.m.: A nice woman named Marcia is sitting in a booth for BABE (Breast Awareness Benefits Everyone). Sensitive about her name, she says The Brady Bunch character Marcia changed her life. "You know," she says, "I was lucky she was one of the good-looking ones."

2:57 p.m.: I'm hungry, but the food options are limited. A sign advertising cinnamon nuts makes me ill, and I couldn't imagine eating a hot dog here.

2:58 p.m.: Air Tahiti has photos! Her 8-by-10 glossies are stacked up neater than a tower of Pringles, and her line is back in business. She isn't wearing a flower in her hair like in the photograph, but I can always color in a hyacinth.

2:58:17 p.m.: For a moment, I'm mad at her for not telling me all she had to do was go out to the SUV to get more photos. But I forgive her.

3:01 p.m.: She seems to understand me. I noticed on another guy's photo she wrote, "Cum and play with me." But it's not like that with us. On my photo she writes, "Terry: Much love and aloha, Nautica Thorn."

3:02 p.m.: The moment feels special, as if I'm flying 37,000 feet above the clouds in first class and Nautica has just brought me a blanket and a bowl of Lucky Charms. Then, I start thinking that maybe she just rotates what she writes. You know, one guy gets "Cum and play with me," the next person in line gets "Aloha." Maybe if I were third in line, I'd get "Do me from behind."

3:03 p.m.: Don't have the nerve to ask for another photo but do have a Chick-fil-A coupon, so I test my theory. I ask her to autograph it but it's too small, so she just scribbles her name on the chicken between the buns.

3:10 p.m.: To recover, I walk over to this vacant area where there's nothing but one long table loaded with all sorts of promotional stuff. I'm fumbling along when I put my hands on a stack of Luther Campbell's "Do Not Disturb" signs. They're awesome -- the kind that are custom cut to hang on hotel doors. The signs depict Campbell, arms outstretched and grinning, with a trio of ladies surrounding him. Suddenly, I'm inspired. I feel sexual in ways that pussy Jell-O molds, people screwing on horse blankets and six hands on a rotating penis couldn't seem to awaken.

3:11 p.m.: I am excited for the first time in four years. I am fully lubed. I want to get behind closed doors all over this town just so I can hang up these signs. I want to do things so disturbing that no one would dare disturb me -- not even the star of Anal Fever. I want to hang one of these signs outside the stairwell at work. I want to hang one outside City Furniture and go 100 laps on the kiddie car bed. I want to …

3:13 p.m.: Well, you get the idea. I take a quick look around and then swipe the entire stack of Uncle Luke's "Do Not Disturb" signs (call me if you want one) and head for the exits, tossing out "alohas" to everyone one in my path, except the creepy, Crispin Glover-looking motherfucker I see on my way out.

3:15 p.m.: The rain has stopped, and as I'm high-stepping across the parking lot, you'd think I owned this town, that I was the Brad Pitt of porn. And I have an expression on my face that can only be described with two words.

3:15:21 p.m.: Perma grin.