What follows is another installment of the "Dear Henry" letters published in reFRESH Magazine. Once again, I'm struggling to break away from Henry.

SPANX FOR THE MEMORY

Dear Henry,

Once again, I’m stymied.

I was shocked but happy to hear that you were released from prison early, due to good behavior and for having found religion. Scientology? They practice that in jail? I know you have to be gay to join but I thought the invitation into the cult was exclusively by knowing a certain A-list closeted Hollywood actor.

When I told my best friend of your release he encouraged me to forgive and forget and get back together with you. He said, “Yes Arthur, you are a homofessional gaylebrity but no one else is scratching at your door. All the guy did was get caught in the park naked and hog tied from his genitals to his neck and was under the influence of illegal drugs. Lighten up.”

Oh hell, I forgive you and I’m proud that you’ve kicked your crystal meth habit. The least I could do was meet you at the outside gate as you left that nightmarish hellhole. But upon your exit, we turned around and saw hundreds of white handkerchiefs waving to you from cellblocks. And you shouted back, “I’ll miss you Golof, I love you Jail Pussy and think of me One Eye!” I guess you made some new friends.

I had to ask you if Jail Pussy was what I thought it was but you charmingly informed me that in the big house that’s what you call men who have goatees. When I assumed that One Eye was another euphemism you corrected me and said that One Eye was Luther, your first cellmate.

“Arthur, one night while he was sleeping I gave him a prison eye patch.”

“A what?” I asked cautiously.

“I teabagged his left eye. All the guys do it and unfortunately he got an infection and they had to remove it. His eye that is. Feeling terribly guilty, the only thing I could offer him was my mind, body and soul for the rest of my stay.”

That’s awfully generous of you but Henry you’ve gained an enormous amount of weight. Standing 5’ 8” tall you now weigh a whopping 15 stone! You gained 3 in jail? I mean everyone comes out leaner. Robert Downey, Jr. is so hot at his prison weight and look how great Martha Stewart appeared after doing time. She was prison buff. What happened to you? I admit I’m a size queen, but this is ridiculous.

Henry, I thought I hit a nerve with the weight issue because you kept putting off us making love but when you confessed that you needed a little more time for an STD to clear up I thought that was very considerate. A little going away present from the inmates?

I was also surprised to see you wearing make-up. That was never your scene before being incarcerated. Nor is it mine. But I’m pushing myself to be more open-minded so if you want to paint the town and your face like Eddie Izzard, I support you 100 percent.

And to celebrate your newfound freedom I accepted your invitation to meet you and a few of your friends at what you described as one of London’s hottest clubs. Trannyshack? There were posters plastered all over the place that screamed Hot New Tranny Revue but you were nowhere to be found. So, I took a deep breath, entered Trannyshack and I don’t think I exhaled until the show was over. I thought you were going to be with me watching the show, not starring in it.

Actually, you were quite entertaining as Chick Pee. You lost an amazing amount of weight in a very short period of time. And I had no idea you could lip synch. And to Azad’s hip-hop theme song for the American television show Prison Break. You did it in German no less. Maybe you learned that in the slammer? Either way, I was impressed. And I liked your sidekicks, too. Hedda Romaine the tranny from Transylvania and the Japanese menopausal drag queen Rose Asia. Are they ex-convicts too?

So after your sold out and rocking opening show I was excited but nervous when you suggested we head back to my place to finally have sex. Nervous because I had now seen you as a woman. In truth, you looked just like my Aunt Loretta and I was desperately trying to erase that image from my mind. I watched you remove your humongous red wig, tear off your false eyelashes and then scrub your face clean.

Lying in my bed, I felt beads of sweat forming on my upper lip as you came to me still wearing your red sequined fishtail dress. Unfortunately, I was feeling more anxiety than lust. You turned your back, unzipped the gown and let it drop to the floor and that’s when I gasped.

“What the hell is that?” I asked as I pointed to something you were wearing that made you look like a giant bratwurst.

You proudly shouted, “Spanx.”

I shook my head. “You know I’m not into spanking.”

“No Arthur, this is a Spanx. A body girdle. This style is called the Power Panty.”

You had not lost a single dram! That human condom was so tight it was making your excess body fat roll up and over the top of the…Power Panty…making you look like you were wearing a huge muffin top just underneath your breasts.

Dear Henry, I patiently waiting for you to get out of jail, bided my time as you got rid of your VD, had my corneas irreparably scorched witnessing you as a drag queen and now I’ve seen your body revoltingly held together with the help of a woman’s flesh squishing undergarment. I know prison is designed to change people but this is too much for me.

It’s over. We’re finished. Done. Finito. Auf Wiedersehen. I do forgive you but I can’t forget. Goodbye, good luck and Spanx for the memory.

All the best,
Arthur