Britney Speared: A Suite Escape

I don’t have a TV, and I rarely listen to radio. So until recently I’d never heard a note of Britney Spears, never seen a moving image, never experienced whatever it is that made “Oops! I Did It Again” sell 8 million records and counting. Britney Spears, to me, was just a prurient print celebrity -- the girl on the subway posters, squeezing a mic shaft like she was squeezing a scoop of ice cream out of its cone; the girl on magazine covers, arms stretched overhead in coitalesque abandon; and when the line at the grocery store was a little long, the girl inside the tabloids, straddling a hay bale like a wanton bronc-buster or nude on the beach save for three bits of thong. Britney Spears was just there, in other words -- something fun to ogle while they’re ringing up your groceries, forgotten by the time you put the orange juice in the fridge.

Then I went to Parsippany, New Jersey. Like so many falls from grace, mine began at the end of a business trip in an all-suites motel by the side of the road. I’d already resisted the urge to watch someone else’s Oral and Anal Adventures on the Big Screen TV in the living room, and retired to the bedroom for some of my own. I was just settling in for a vivid autoerotic encounter on my suite-sized mattress, possibly with the girl at the check-in desk if I could remember what she looked like and muster up some imaginary chemistry, or maybe I’d do it with my wife’s best friend after mentally airbrushing my wife out of the picture. When I noticed, looking at me from the corner of the room, Big Screen II.

You know you want to watch, it seemed to say.

I’m not that kind of guy. I told your friend in the living room: I DON’T WATCH TELEVISION…for the most part…

Soon my hands were all over the remote control, punching through the channels as fast as they would flash.

Until two Girls caught my eye. They were on a blind-date game show, trying to make one Guy choose between them – sticking their tongues down his throat, rubbing their hands over his fly, and whispering that sex for them was like food: something to have three times a day.

I was dazzled, and confused. Why wasn’t I watching this show every night? Where have I been? Where have they been? Why did I ever throw out my TV? The faded memory floated sadly to the surface: because television made my real life seem unbearably monogamous. The world was full of beautiful women with insatiable appetites for casual sex; I just couldn’t face it. To join them I’d have to leave my wife and children sitting alone at the dining room table, and I loved having a family.

I quickly surfed to another channel to try and save my marriage, but temptation was everywhere. A jumble of dancers in black stretch cat suits was spread out on a concert stage. In the middle of it all was the star: blonde tresses undulating over C-cup breasts that were in and out of an A-cup bikini cinched above a perfect midriff that funneled down to a mesmerizing intersection underneath a grass skirt that, like me, was following every move of her hips. I looked back up at her face: Britney Spears.

NO WAY. I CAN’T be into her. She’s HALF my age. A former MOUSEKETEER! She’s BRITNEY SPEARS. Am I that desperate?

She began to sing, looking squarely at the camera and right into my suite:

I’m a slave for you.

I AM that desperate, I decided, waving the white flag of surrender. (My underwear.) I WANT you Britney Spears.

And I was just about to have her.

When a 40-year-old Voice interrupted. STOP! Put your underwear back on! You have a wife. You have a life. GROW UP!

It was the Voice of the Mid-Life Anti-Crisis.

This IS my life, I responded. I LIVE…for that!

A stagehand was draping Britney’s neck with a yellow anaconda. She held the writhing creature at both ends and caressed, which had the visible effect of arousing and soothing at the same time, depending on whether you were me or the snake. Then she sang the words:

Do you want to dance on me?
I really want to dance on you
Tonight I really want to do the things you want me to

Yes, Britney. Yes. Here’s what I want you to do…

STOP! the Voice commanded once again. This is a FANTASY! You will NEVER sleep with Britney Spears. And if you keep making love to yourself, you will NEVER sleep with your wife. You’re a 40-year-old married man! GROW UP!

The Voice, of course, was right. I was lost in a fantasy, and once again he’d found me. So right there on the bed I started gestating – technically speaking, ontogenesis, which is when an embryo turns into a fetus that looks like a tadpole on its way to becoming fully human. Only my ontogenesis progressed on an emotional continuum.

I grew into a twenty-something, and I thought of Britney’s boyfriend: I’m SO much better than Justin Timberlake, Britney. Just give me 15 minutes to prove it, babe…

Grow up! said the Voice of the Mid-Life Anti-Crisis.

I felt like a thirty-something and thought of my marriage: Why on earth should I settle for a WIFE when I could have a SLAVE???

Grow up! said the Voice once again.

I felt forty years old; time to be born. I asked myself The Penetrating Question -- the foolproof soul-searching test I used back home to see through transient lust if there were any deeper feelings of attraction: is this a woman with whom I could co-sign a Joint Tenants with Rights of Receivership mortgage note? Up till now there hadn’t been any women besides my wife who moved me to having financial relations with them. And once again, the answer was no. But not for the obvious reason: that I wouldn’t want to commingle my assets with Britney Spears’s. The reason was, we wouldn’t need a mortgage. Britney could buy the place with cash.

The Penetrating Question was powerless to penetrate. I had no idea if I was deeply attracted to the inner Britney. Or if the outer Britney – the thong-wearing snake-squeezing cream-skinned wanton -- was so absolutely fabulous that she only appeared to be worth chucking everything for and dancing on.

So I asked myself The Emergency Backup Penetrating Question: how would I feel about Britney AFTER we danced on each other? Glad that I left my wife? Or full of shame and regret? The only way to know for sure was to turn off the TV, turn out the lights, tune out the Voice of the Mid-Life Anti-Crisis and go to bed with myself…with Britney on my mind.


The next morning when I woke up and saw the remote control in the sheets and remembered what I’d done, my question had been answered: Britney Spears was a One Night Hand, the kind of girl you have once by yourself in an all-suites motel room; definitely not Joint Tenants with Rights of Receivership material. It was time to head back home.

After a few cinnamon rolls in the Breakfast Court, I plopped into my “Would you like a free upgrade, sir?” rental car and headed for the Lincoln Tunnel.

Then Oops! I did it again. I turned on the radio. Brazen Britney was pleading to be my slave once more. And this time, I could hear things on the quadraphonic speakers that I didn’t hear coming out of Big Screen II: the sounds of lovemaking, Britney’s lovemaking; sounds that were almost embarrassing in their intimacy and verisimilitude. Short sounds like “ooh” and “aah” all around me; and then finally, after an extended moment of particular, “aah”-inspiring pleasure, Britney remarking, rather convincingly, Like That. As though Justin had just hit the G-spot.

I started to look for a roadside comfort station to broaden its generally-held functional definition, when once again the Voice of the Mid-Life Anti-Crisis found me.

KEEP DRIVING! said the Voice.

Grow Up! Keep Driving! Grow Up! Keep Driving! There’s only so grown up that I can get, I told the Voice. And what am I gonna do when I run out of gas?

I’ll get back to you on that, the Voice replied. In the meantime, change the radio station!

I passed through the tollbooth and into the tunnel, searching in the dark for another song. But there was no place to hide, not even under the Hudson River. Maurice Chevalier was crooning, Thank heaven for little girls. Oh really? I thought. I guess, Maurice, you’ve never been married.

Contributor: James Braly