I was walking home from Trader Joe's on Saturday night when I ran into Carla, a thirty-something woman who lives down the hall from me. Carla is nice but sheltered, never breaking far from her religious family. She's the type of high-maintenance woman who makes everybody follow her rules, fighting dissension with the word "disrespect." She actually closes her eyes and moves her fingers near her ears when she thinks somebody's going to swear.

The guy she was with was straggly and scruffy, though if he'd had a motorcycle I'd have hung out with him. "Roman," she said, "I'd like you to meet my friend Ben Wa. Ben, this is RomanHans."

Now, if I'd been eating dinner, I'd have choked on my chorizo. I decided to circle back to confirm what I'd heard. "Ben?" I repeated. "Ben Wa?"

In case you were born in a barn, ben wa balls are a sex toy, allegedly a source of sexual pleasure. Basically, it's a bunch of balls on a string: you stick them, uh, inside you and then pull them out one at a time. I don't want to be a hater, but if that was erotic, I'd get a hard-on twelve hours after I ate cheese.

"Yes," he said. "Good to meet you."

Carla chatted at me for a few minutes but it all went over my head. I was too busy wondering about Ben. Could he actually have gotten that name at birth? If "Wa" was really his last name, would his parents have saddled him with "Ben"? It seemed too much of a coincidence, like Mr. and Mrs. Plug just happening to name their kid Butt.

Still, maybe they didn't know. I only learned about ben wa balls when a neighbor's Frederick's of Hollywood catalog got misdelivered to my mailbox. I nearly tossed it, but that was back when mesh underwear for men was hip, so I may have spent a year or two casually perusing it. In fact, I've still got a fetish for netting, which explains why I've been thrown out of fourteen Red Lobsters. But not everybody lived in Hollywood.

Maybe it's a nickname, I thought, like you get when you're in college. You do anything even remotely out of the ordinary, and from then on, any time you walk into a room, somebody yells, "Hey, look: it's Mr. Anal Bleaching!"

I couldn't exactly explain all this to Carla. I'm a gentleman, and I try not to use the word "anus" around people who have special hats they wear just for church. Was he some pervert trying to carve another notch in his bedpost, or was he was an innocent victim of a tawdry name? If he caught on to some innuendo, I thought, I'd find out the truth once and for all.

"Ben Wa," I said. "That's an interesting name. Whose idea was it? Did your dad squeeze it out of your mom?"

His face betrayed nothing but patience. "I think it was mutual," he said. "It's part French and part Lebanese."

"Oh," I said, feigning nonchalance. "You know, you look familiar. Did you catch a train at Grand Central Station the other day? I'm sure I saw a guy like you trying to push his way into the caboose."

He shot Carla a confused glance before turning back. "No, that wasn't me."

"Well," I said, "did you ever visit my friend Fanny? You'd remember her house: you go in through the back door and it leads right to this really long passage."

"Roman," Carla said, "you're talking weird. Is there something you're trying to say?"

"No," I insisted. "I just think we have friends in common. Do you know Nipsy Clamps? Or how about Ann L. Beads?"

That was it. "Roman," Carla spat, "you don't know Ben. You've never seen him before. He's visiting from France."

I looked at him but I couldn't tell: was he laughing with me or at me? I'd give it one last try. "Oh," I said. "Sorry. Sometimes I get an idea lodged deep inside me, and when I finally yank it out it's all -- "

Honestly, I thought as they stomped off. Some people. It was just curiosity, you know? It's weird how you try to hold a simple conversation, and all you get is disrespect.