Before 9/11 I was madly in enamoured with a blonde model from the UK. Judith was smart, funny, and liked her drink. We seemed doomed to be friends, then one wintry evening we drank ourselves past the portals of inhibition. Judith invited me back to her apartment. We made out on her sofa. This wasn’t only about sex. I fantasized more about her as someone to love than a one night stand. After ten minutes of passionate groping she suggested sharing a shower. We stripped naked and stepped under the hot water.

All systems go.

Except for one.

My penis was as flaccid as al dente spaghetti and failed to response to Judith’s attempts to bring it back to hardness.

“Don’t worry, this happens to all men,” Judith told me later in bed.

I never got a second chance.

This was not a one-off occasion either and as someone once wrote, “Fear is the first time you can’t get it up for the second time, but terror is the second time you can’t get it up for the first time.”

I became a eunuch with women.

I confided to a security guard at the diamond exchange about my failing and Big Dave repeated the blonde’s statement. “It happens to everyone.”

The excuse sounded no better coming from his lips, except Big Dave added, “But never with this.”

A blue pill was pinched between his thumb and index finger.

“Viagra.”

“Viagra’s for old men.”

“You’re closer to 70 than twenty. Next time you get the green light for consensual sex, drop it 30 minutes before getting in the taxi. You won’t have softieitis. Trust me.”

I thanked Big Dave and stuck the pill in my wallet. It remained a useless bump for months.

Every woman in New York seemed privy to my mission unaccomplished with Judith. I had no takers, until I read THE HOLE OF HEAVEN at Joe’s Pub. An attractive Korean artist offered to buy me a drink. I thought her gesture was a compliment of my literary prowess, but an hour later we were in a taxi, heading to her Soho loft. Maria from Korea filled my ear with whispered desires. I liked oriental flesh. My libido responded au natural, however the doubt created by previous debacle was spreading southward to my loins.

As the taxi stopped before her loft building, I paid with a $20 and surreptitiously withdrew the linty Viagra pill. I swallowed it, as Maria fumbled with her keys. We had two glasses on wine on her sofa and she said, “I’m going to change into something more comfortable.”

“I can hardly wait.”

Other men had heard the same line. I didn’t care, because the Viagra had flooded my veins with a tsunami of lust.

“It’ll only be a minute.” She changed into a push-up bra, g-string panties, garters, silk stocking, boa feather high heels. Her smile widened lasciviously with a glance at my trousers. “You like what you see?”

“Yes.” I was no lie, except without warning blood pounded through my temples as if I was seconds away from transforming into the Hulk. Closing my eyes barely relieved the pain and this agony was joined by a variety of other unforeseen reactions. My body shivered with a strobe of hot flashes and my heart was bodychecking against my ribs.

“Are you all right?” My hostess was genuinely concerned for I could feel my face burning with blood.

“I don’t feel so good.” More like I was minutes away from a heart attack.

“Did you take a Viagra?” Her voice blew as cold as the first day of winter.

“Yes.” I was in no condition to lie.

“So I don’t turn you on enough?”

“Yes, but____” I never had a chance to explain about my problem with the blonde.

She shoved me out the door five seconds later.

Worst the headache would not go away and neither would the ungodly erection.

“There’s nothing wrong with you.” My friend Jamie Parker shook his head upon hearing my story. “You only need Viagra for women with whom you don’t want to have sex.”

I wasn’t so sure about that, but swore never to take another and have been faithful to that vow.

Strangely the Pentagon experimented with dosing US mountain troops in Afghanistan with Viagra to help them deal with chasing the Taliban around the Afghan peaks. The test was canceled after the Religious Right heard about the oxidation program.

Soldiers with erections is not Christian.

And I agree.

They would have been better off with coca leaves.

Yum Good.