Macho Sluts, page 29
“At least I never did it for money,” she said.
Her defiance made my blood run hot. I jerked my gloves out from under my epaulet and smacked her across the face. She didn’t try to put her knees back together. So I loomed up across the table and stuffed the gloves into her mouth. She cried out, so I tamped them in a little further, using four fingers while I held her head.
“I have a problem with the idea that I should spend two years nurturing a snotty-nosed bawling baby until group care will take it away and turn it into a heroine of the future,” I said. “So I can’t be a member in good standing of our beloved republic, Columbia, the Gem of the Ocean. Plus I don’t seem to be able to hide my unconventional sexual proclivities. Like a taste for making twisted cases of arrested development like you toe the line. You like the way those gloves taste? I ought to work you over with my belt, bitch. But if you had to discipline a lost cause like yourself, you’d want to be paid, too.”
Tears were running down her face. She took her hands off the table, made fists inside her jacket pockets, and came back with a ten in each hand. She shoved them at me across the table, little crumpled paper balls, confessions that her need was stronger than shame.
Lefty had disappeared. We don’t like to watch one another do business. I pounced on the money, put it away, and grabbed her by the throat. “You want to walk home with me?” I said. “It’s an hour and a half from here to Europe. No, I didn’t think so.” I dragged her out of the bar. “You can’t wait that long. Here. This will do just fine.” I’d never dropped my pants in that alley before, unless the plumbing in the Labrys was backed up and I needed to piss. But the atmosphere appealed to me that night. There were garbage cans at the entrance that would partially shield us, and the cobblestones were wet but not muddy.
I made her get down on all fours and come after me whining like an animal. Her silly, wrong-looking collar was long enough for me to keep a grip on it, so I backed into the alley, whistling encouragement to her. She was panting, the gloves still wedged in her throat. I got my back up against a damp brick wall and removed them, drew them over my hands, then set her at my crotch. She bit me in her hurry to get the zipper down, and I cuffed her. She came back to my hand and nuzzled against the leather glove and lapped at the sleeve of my jacket.
“Lick it good and I’ll beat you,” I promised, shoving her face down toward my split fur, already wet. She growled, then gave herself up to my service. I got a good hold of her hair so I could modulate the tempo a little, then leaned back and enjoyed myself. When my excitement would hit a plateau, I would think about how my studded belt would sound landing on that broad-beamed ass of hers, and I would run my gloved hands down my hips and feel her wet cheeks alongside my snatch, her tongue alongside my clit, and my pulses would start to pound again. She ate me the way you eat somebody you love. She had not learned yet that when you pay for a scene, you are paying for your own pleasure, and if you are “allowed” to provide body worship, you are expected to do it because it makes you hot, not to make the hustler come.
She made me come nice and hard, stayed on my clit while I jerked around, made it last as long as possible until I pushed her away. Then I pried her mouth open with one finger and fit it to my cunt, so that her open mouth covered the whole thing. I started with a little jet, to see how she would react. It feels almost as good as coming, after you’ve gotten some good head. She drank it without gagging, just leaned back and swallowed, and I pissed as slow as I could.
“You too,” I ordered. I shoved my boot into her crotch to open her legs, and she whimpered and wet herself, both of her hands working under her skirt, trying to make herself come.
I had taken off my belt and hit her ass a dozen times when a bright light hit both of us, and we were hauled out of the alley. It was two cops, a man and a woman. They looked distressed when they realized they had apprehended two women. Now that equal relationships between the sexes are possible, being queer is effete and sort of ungrateful.
One of them had a little machine slung over her shoulder. I didn’t think anything about it until the jane—I still didn’t know her name—started to protest about invasion of privacy and search warrants. The the lady cop said, “This occurred in a public place,” and hit the switch. Out came a stream of profanity I didn’t even remember using. But it was my voice, saying how bad she must want it if she was willing to pay for it, she had to take everything I wanted to give her, and the misogynistic slurs and all. Also her responses. It was flawless evidence. So they wrote her up a ticket and wrote me up a ticket and took us away in separate vans.
I was in jail for three days, seventy-two hours, before they released me. They held me over, playing games with my court date, because they knew I wouldn’t get any time, and it offends their clear, simple, dead-wrong cop sense of justice. In the meantime I got interrogated about my sex life and chided for my lack of any real visible means of support. They made it real clear that my number had better not appear in any questionable ads, and I better get my libido re-educated as quick as possible. And, oh yes, I could always do my maternity stint if I needed some time to reassess my life. Or did I want to sign an affidavit of unfitness to reproduce, and then get sterilized? I laughed at them. Who knows what else they might do to you once you’re unconscious? Brain surgery? Why not? How would you ever know?
It wasn’t too bad. They didn’t break my thumbs or anything. They just didn’t let me sleep. They sent a trustee with a tin can around to bang on the cell bars every fifteen minutes or so. Three days. Seventy-two hours. On the second day they gave me back my belt and shoelaces. Think they were trying to give me a hint?
Up ahead is a back-to-Africa wagon. A black woman in a white chador is packing it up, getting ready to push it home. They say the Muslim men are raising money to kidnap the women to send them home because they don’t really want to go back to Africa, but I figure it’s okay to buy from a woman’s wagon. Who knows? I’m not sure I would turn down a ticket out of here to any place but the North Pole.
“Hey!” I yell. “You got anything left over? Cheap?” She has cold eggrolls, and I sacrifice the price of my second beer for a little grease and protein. Somebody will be at the Labrys who can front me a drink or two. Lefty, that cheap quick-change artist, he better, the last time I scored I bought him dinner.
The bar is only a block away. I skip and run, stuffing my face, singing some crazy song. The sign is dark, so I figure somebody has broken the neon tube again or maybe they didn’t pay their bill. But when I get to the door, it’s boarded up, and there are all kinds of yellow Health Department notices all over it—quarantine for sexually transmitted diseases, selling alcohol to minors, insufficient insect control, even one for improper drainage. There are also a whole bunch of posters from “a group of residents concerned with the quality of life in this neighborhood” that say they feel this establishment is an eyesore that lowers property values and encourages woman-hating. I’m surprised this rickety, filthy, beloved firetrap manages to stand up under the weight of its own wickedness.
Something rattles down the street. I jump. There she is—my jane, wearing her ridiculous version of perv fashion, kicking a can down the street. She probably got here just a few minutes before me. Her back is to me. I don’t think she’s seen me.
This is goddess-sent. I can’t make it through a night of carhopping in the red-light district tonight. I have no judgment, no snap. I’ll pick up a killer or a cop for sure. I run after her, and she spins around. The puppy has acquired a more defensive attitude. Her black eye makes me wince. It’s puffed-out and raw, and so is part of her lip. Her clothes don’t look new any more. There’s blood and puke on the T-shirt. Her ersatz collar and the plastic jacket are gone. She must have just gotten out of jail.
“I don’t have any money,” she says, as if she has read my mind and knows that I want her to save me, take me in out of the cold that is deepening as it gets darker. “I lost my job. My collective has put all my stuff on the street. I was hoping maybe Lefty would be here. He seemed to be a nice guy. Maybe he would have helped me save some of my belongings. I’m going to have to find a cheap place to stay.”
Well. My name is Noh Mann, but I am a nice guy, too, and her assumption that she won’t get any help from me stings. But nothing will come out of my mouth. I hang on the tips of my toes, breathing like a hummingbird, knowing the next move I make will create a whole new chapter in my life, whether I go back to my cubicle alone or bring her with me. Am I afraid she will refuse me? That is papal bull. She doesn’t have any place else to go, and she knows it. Somebody is going to have to teach this girl-child how to live, or she’s going to jump off a bridge.
Two divergent vistas open up, and all the power I have is in me, the power to make a choice before I know what the consequences will be. I say, “In all of that stuff of yours, do you have a tea kettle?”
“Why, yes,” she says, clearly thinking I have gone andro.
“Okay. Let’s start walking. Now, listen to me, I’m going to tell you how it is and how it’s going to be.
“I don’t love you. But somebody is going to have to take care of you and teach you what’s what. If I slap you around a little, it’s to make sure you listen.”
I talk, she nods, we walk fast. It’s cold. I take off my leather jacket and make her put it on.
The Surprise Party
She had short hair and never wore anything but Levis, boots, a black or white T-shirt, and a leather jacket. Every time she went out the door, she squared her shoulders, straightened her spine, and put purpose in her walk. When the way you look makes it clear that you are a queer sort of queer, each unmolested step down the street is a victory. Live defensively, she told herself as she strained to extend her peripheral vision to shield her sides and back. Sometimes she concentrated so hard on not smiling, not moving her ass from side to side, not giving any sign of vulnerability, that she stopped thinking for several minutes about nights when cars had screamed to a stop, disgorging gangs that chanted insults as they ran, and stopped scanning litter baskets for bottles she could break, just in case.
It was twilight. She was trying to keep her footing, going down a very steep hill. A cop car purred up the street. Everybody who sees a black-and-white feels a tiny spurt of adrenaline hit their system. The anxiety and extra energy don’t go away until you know for sure they aren’t looking for you. Relax, she admonished herself. They’re just on patrol. No sirens, no flashing lights, relax, relax.
Brakes screeched. Doors flew open. Feet hit the pavement. And hands reached out of the dark, took her from behind by both elbows, and propelled her through the soft night air to the cold metal side of the car. Their grip on her was professional—tight enough to express their muscle, but not hard enough to bruise. She caught glimpses of uniforms, truncheons, pistol hilts, shiny visors, hand-cuffs, badges, hairy wrists wearing heavy silver watches.
There were three of them, two city cops and one in a highway patrol uniform. ‘What is he doing here with them?’ she thought, and then the rage came up and made her skin white-hot and her stomach cold and sick. The pig who was holding her felt the rising threat build in her frame, and he used her arm to twist her up onto her toes, then slapped cuffs on her wrists.
“Go ahead,” he said softly in a good-ole-boy drawl, “resist arrest. I’d love it.” He had blond hair and a slightly red, mean cracker face. His navy blue, wool-covered groin brushed briefly against her hip, then he withdrew, kicked her feet wide apart, and held her against the car with his truncheon pointed into the small of her back.
The whole thing had taken no time at all, and she was helpless and hating them and afraid. Why was this happening? Oh God, God, God, I have the right to remain silent, who will I call, oh, God, this can’t be happening.
“What do we have here?” asked the highway patrolman. He seemed to be in charge of the trio. “You got any identification, sister?” It was a familiar voice, the voice of male authority, a man who would brook no interference.
Her tongue was thick, but she managed to say, “In my back pocket.”
He made a warning noise. “Keep your hands away from there.” Did he think she could reach her wallet with her hands cuffed behind her back? “Officer Mike here will be good enough to remove your identification for me.”
A large hand slid into her tight pocket, felt around just a shade too long, then emerged with her thin leather billfold. “Here you go, Don—sir,” he said.
She heard the highway patrolman flip it open and rifle through the plastic windows that held her driver’s license, social-security card, credit cards, and snapshots of her lover Fran and Fran’s children. He cleared his throat, then said (pronouncing each word carefully, to make sure she understood), “I don’t believe ladies – usually carry one of these things around.”
It actually took her a few minutes to puzzle out his meaning. He meant that women don’t carry wallets! Oh, he was good, he was very good. No screaming “Bulldyke!” or “Queer!” He was subtle, this one. He wanted to make her pay.
“I’m talking to you!” he snapped, and she was lifted and thrown into the side of the car. The breath was knocked out of her, and she said confusedly, “What? What do you want?”
“Pay attention to me when I ask you a question, girl. Answer me. Now!”
“What’s the question?” She could not control her voice. It shook.
He advanced on her, the heels of his boots clicking on the asphalt. When he was close enough for her to smell his jacket, he clamped his leather-gloved hand around her skull and pulled her head back, then waved the wallet under her nose. “Is this what ladies customarily keep their driver’s licenses in, bitch?” he spat.
He was so tall. She caught herself admiring him, such a powerful bastard, aristocratic nose, carefully trimmed auburn mustache, still wearing those mirror shades even though it was almost completely dark by now. The streetlight must be shedding enough illumination for him to see by. She realized her mouth had fallen open and finally thought to say, “No!” They hauled her away from the car and threw her back up against it anyway.
The officer walked away from her. He produced a cigar from the inner pocket of his jacket, lit a match on the sole of his high, black boots, and carefully rolled the tip of the cigar in the blue part of the flame. “We’ve got ourselves an interesting case here, boys,” he said. They laughed appreciatively. Mike, the blond Southern boy who had put the cuffs on her, kept a grip on her upper arms, and he was pressed into her body now, keeping her flat up against the cold metal of the car. She felt his cock leap inside the uniform but did her best not to respond to it, not even by moving to avoid it.
“We’re going to have to take you in,” the patrolman said thoughtfully. The short sentence chilled her blood.
“Why? What have I done?” she asked, knowing the answer but wanting to make him say it.
He snorted. “Oh, we’ll think of something. Loitering, probably. Hey, isn’t there a school somewhere close, Joe?”
“I believe so, sir,” said the third cop. He was dark, hefty, had a beard as well as a mustache, and looked Italian. He had not touched her or said anything until now. He pulled off his hat and scratched his head. “Just a block from here.”
“Then we got it,” the patrolman said cheerfully. “That’s a 537B, loitering for lewd and immoral purposes in the vicinity of a schoolyard. Let’s go.”
“My ID,” she croaked.
He chuckled. “I’ll keep it warm for you, honey,” he said, and put her wallet away next to his cigars.
Mike slid behind the wheel of the car and Joe got in beside him. The highway cop hustled her into the back seat, shut and locked the door, then came around and slid in beside her. He did not put out his cigar. The car’s engine made a low, growling noise, and they began to glide up the hill. “Which precinct?” Mike asked over his shoulder. Joe kept his eyes fixed on the rear-view mirror, which gave him a good view of the back seat.
“Let’s drive around,” the cop next to her suggested from behind a cloud of cigar smoke. “There’s plenty more room back here. We might find some other female pervert that needs to be rounded up. The ladies can sit in each other’s laps, put on a little show for us.”
The two men in front began to talk aimlessly about small things. She tried to sit forward, but every now and then the car would go over a bump, and she would fall back painfully on her manacled hands. Oddly enough, the handcuffs didn’t seem to get any tighter. Had Mike set the stops? That would be out of character for a dyke-hating cop. Her mood swung between panic, anger, frustration, and laughter, and her jeans seemed awfully tight in the crotch. This was a fetishistic nightmare. Could she survive it? How many faggots would give their eye teeth to be where she was right now? As if you’re above all that, she sneered at herself. Admit it, you’ve ogled the cops all your life. The uniforms, the guns, the muscles, the power to force others to obey. Now you’re closer to more cops than you ever thought possible. You’re scared, but you’re also turned on. Or you’d like to be turned on, but you’re sure they won’t let you enjoy this. This isn’t sexy for them.
A plume of pungent smoke interrupted her. She made a face, and he laughed at her. “You don’t like that, do you?” he said lazily.
“No,” she said recklessly, staring into his eyes (or where his eyes should be, behind those huge insect mirrors).
He put his hand on his crotch, fondled it and squeezed it. “You don’t like this, either, do you?”
“No!” Liar, her self-conscience jeered. You love getting fucked. You fantasize about cock and talk dirty about it all the time. But I’m a lesbian, her public persona objected. This doesn’t have anything to do with that, the wiser voice replied. You better listen to me, girl, or you’ll never get out of this alive. Where do you think they’re taking you anyway? Nobody knows where you are. Nobody can help you. They can do anything to you they damned well please. You better consider whether they’d have more fun fucking you or killing you. Because you can be damn sure they’re already wondering.
