An eerie silence settles over the pharmacy as I sidle up to the poor woman stocking the skin care aisle. With fire in my eyes and drink on my breath, I make a vow not to tiptoe around the matter. Such is my fervor. Such is my madness.

"Excuse me. Do you sell anal bleach?"

The wheels in her head are instantly set in motion. Nine times out of ten, when a ragged, unshaven man dressed as if he were within the blast radius of a thrift shop explosion asks for anal bleach, something sinister is afoot. She affixes upon me a gaze struggling to express curiosity, pity, fear, and revulsion all at once. It is her last attempt at eye contact.

"Uhhh... we have skin lighteners, if that's what you mean", she says, directing my gaze to the bottom shelf.

I pick up a box of Esoterica Fade Cream. It lists "full face, neck, chest, arms, hands, shoulders, legs, body, and feet" as areas of use, but not the anus. This will not do. Or will it? A bulb clicks on in the part of my brain responsible for "same meat/different gravy" ass experiments. "Would this work down there?" I ask.

"I wouldn't know," she mutters with the dismissive contempt this question admittedly deserves. Sensing impending litigation, I buy the stuff and scurry home. There is work to be done.

While some "artists" waste time dabbling in oil, stone, and clay, biochemical artisans in the real world have found a truly useful medium in anal bleach. With hyperpigmented asshole epidermis as their canvas, Glycyrrhiza glabra root extract and Peg 100 Stearate SE on their palettes, and their fingers as their brushes, these cornhole cosmeticians have unlocked the mysteries of anus enhancement -- and triggered the most exciting craze in the skin care industry today!

Because, let's face it: there's no shortage of reasons to lighten and rejuvenate your anus. Maybe you're tired of porn directors typecasting you as Cum Guzzler with Leathery, Cadaverous Asshole; perhaps a snickering doctor compared your desiccated deuce cannon to the surface of one of Jupiter's volcanic moons; maybe the passage of time, three kids, and umpteen chili dogs has made the ol' o-ring's odometer roll over; possibly your shitbelcher has fallen prey to the indelible stains of Brown Syndrome after years of shoddy hygiene and/or repeat occurrences of splatulence; or maybe you're just like me and find the idea of experimenting with backdoor bunguents to be right up your proverbial alley.

But as Americans find their anal enhancement budgets stretched ever-tighter in these troubling economic times, a question arises: must we shell out $30-50 for a tube of anal bleach in our quest for the Anus de Milo? Or can a cheap jar of drugstore fade cream do the trick just as well?

To find out, I decided to apply two brands of greased lightening to my fundament freckle. The left anal hemisphere was treated with a $9, 2.5 ounce jar of Esoterica, a fade cream commonly used to reduce age spots, freckles, and so on. The right, meanwhile, was infused with a $30, two-ounce tube of Vigala, an anal bleach I ordered on the Internet.

A few notes: I have no affiliation with either product. I chose Esoterica because it was there, and Vigala because it was the first kiester Clorox I found under $45.

My attempts to include a female guinea pig in this experiment met with no success, which was hardly a surprise since tact has never been my strongpoint. "Hi, Pam? It's me, Gasputin. Listen, you've always struck me as someone who might suffer from unsightly anal discoloration, and I was wondering if --"

CLICK.

Finally, anal bleaching is not without risks. The skin around the shit chute is extremely sensitive and more likely to become irritated by chemical intrusion. Most creams use hydroquinone, a cosmetic ingredient banned in some countries (high-dosage studies in rats suggest there may be a cancer risk) as their lightening agent. In rare human cases, hydroquinone has been linked to ochronosis, a skin-thickening condition characterized by blue-black discoloration. (Cue Don't It Make My Brown Eye Blue.) Side effects may also include severe burning, itching, swelling, stinging, and/or crusting. Both Esoterica and Vigala have a 2% hydroquinone concentration, the highest allowable by law without a prescription.

Another common bleaching ingredient is kojic acid. As if conjuring images of spreading Telly Savalas' reflux around your anus isn't unsettling enough, kojic acid is used commercially to inhibit "enzymatic browning in crustaceans". In other words, it keeps lobster and crab shells red and fresh-looking. It too has been banned as a cosmetic ingredient in some countries. Vigala uses kojic acid dipalmitate, a kojic acid derivative. Esoterica uses neither.

In short, you may want to do some research before you apply these substances to your body.

That said, let's bleach some bung, shall we?

---

Day One. I retreat to my subterranean laboratory/basement the minute the anal bleach arrives in the mail. But before I can begin my fecelift, there are matters of deforestation that need to be "rectified" if I am to get an unobstructed view of my target. Grabbing the electric razor, I assume an advanced yoga position interchangeably known as The Shearing of the Unseeing Eye or The Corruption of Innocence to clear-cut the Circle of Loaf of its untamed vegetation and the plump dinglefruit nesting therein. I choke back tears as this once-thriving feekosystem drifts softly to the floor: a sacrifice to the pursuit of knowledge.

I use Lava soap to sandblast the area clean, then squat over a mirror for a look-see. Any doubts I have about this project vanish instantly. This is an orifice in dire need of attention. It isn't simply brown, red, or pink -- it's a turbulent miasma of all three, with a little jaundice thrown in for good measure. It's the Aurora Boreanus. It's a gateway to madness.

Nevertheless: after taking the first in a weekly series of Before and After pictures that will haunt me for the rest of my days, it's time to ride the lightening! Donning latex gloves, I massage first the fade cream and then the anal bleach into their respective gluteal shanks. Shortly thereafter, I realize a patch test may have been in order, as a slight tingling develops on both sides. I spend an anxious few minutes awaiting the five-alarm fire that never materializes.

Day Two. Stripping my stench trench of its plumage has already raised concerns. Without that thin hair buffer, my asscheeks chafe and grind together with every step I take. To paraphrase Cypress Hill, I am in pain in the membrane. I fear this skin-on-skin contact may also increase the production of sweat/sphincter dew, in turn creating a moisture-rich environment for bungi looking for a nice asshole to colonize. Aside from that, all is well.

Day Three. As per the instructions, I've been applying the fade cream twice a DAY, while applying the anal bleach only at night. The fade cream doesn't absorb well, leaving a greasy residue that takes some getting used to; the right cheek's subcutaneous thirst, meanwhile, cannot be quenched. It soaks up the dirtchute dye like a pre-menstrual sponge.

Suffice it to say a brown asshole hasn't gotten this much undeserved attention since Al Sharpton's last press conference.

Day Seven. First week complete. Even though it should take two-to-six weeks before I notice any change (individual results vary depending on the depth of the melanin in the skin), I scrutinize every mortifying megapixel of the first reconnaissance photo for signs of molting. All I discover is a blossoming galaxy of ass acne -- the little red calling cards of shaving against the grain. There's no change around the a-hole itself. Out, damn'd spot!

Day Fourteen. Second week complete. My asshole is a jarring shade of red. This may be an effect of the products, but more likely it's an indictment against the cheap, sandstone-fortified toilet paper I've been using. A gentler brand of shitwipe is added to the grocery list.

Day Nineteen. What started as just another day at the bleach turned ugly this morning. Last night I ate a huge bowl of fruit salad that apparently missed the "All aboard!" cry for the steaming caravan I call The Morning Dump Express. Mere minutes after this raging locomotive left the station (and just before the AM fade cream application), a commotion in my lower tract signaled an impending case of squirtigo. A dizzying deluge of pineapple stilettos, blueberry pellets, husky gourd filaments, and apple shrapnel shattered the calm. I hadn't seen fruits hurtle through the air that violently since the circle pit at The Village People concert. The tangy stench of methane and riboflavin still befouled the air when the onslaught resumed fifteen minutes later. And again a half-hour after that. At this point, the cream became an afterthought. I was more worried someone would find my broken body days later in a pool of splintered bowel and heavy syrup.

It was the only time I missed an application.

Day Twenty-one. Third week complete. That goddamn fruit salad threw my log-a-rhythm all out of whack. Two mornings in a row I was duped into applying the Esoterica after The Morning Dump Express departed, only to find myself wiping it away minutes later after a fractured follow-up dump. Today I actually waited until I got to work before I applied the cream.

Without running the results through a spectrosphincometer, it appears both sides have taken on a light purplish hue. Only time will tell whether this is a sign of vitality... or lividity.

Day Twenty-Eight. Fourth week complete. Things around the old one-ring circus have settled back into a rhythm, but it appears my brown eye has cataracts. Both sides are a somber shade of pinkish-gray that one would be hard-pressed to find on a color palette at Sherwin-Williams. (Out of curiosity, I went to Sherwin-Williams to see if they did in fact have a similarly-hued color chip. To my astonishment, they did. So if you're looking to paint your kitchen in a partially-resuscitated asshole motif, head to this fine retailer and ask for SW 6022 - Breathless).

Day Thirty-Five. The recon photos confirm the impossible: after five weeks and 104 rounds of fingering myself, both rectal walls have been purged of their fecal frescoes! Vibrant pink bungflesh (on the order of SW 6575 - Priscilla, for those scoring at home) has risen from the depths like some kind of anal Lazarus! A jubilant cry rings out from the lab: "This anus... is heinous... NO MORE!!!"

And then, far away in the distance, a faint rustling.

My ancestors thrash in their graves.

The End Results. I recommend Esoterica to all you potential posterior peroxiders. It may not be listed for use on the anus, you have to apply it twice as often, and it leaves an oily residue; but you get more of it for a fraction of the price. Plus, it works just as well as anal bleach, and it's available at any drugstore.

As for me, I have a prostate exam, two cavity searches, and a photo shoot for Whiter Shade of Tail magazine scheduled today. The future's so bright, I gotta wear fade (cream).