A Toast to New Friends
Given the Chance to Change
By Cute Little Thing and Pirategrrl
(c) 2000, Cute Little Thing and Pirategrrl
1. This is the newest award level for your frequent flyer miles.
I felt like the hollowed out shell of a bug, trapped in a spider web,
all of its bodily juices slurped out in some slow arachnid lunch.
That is a really crappy way to start telling a cool story of how I met
a new friend, but to understand it, you need to put that night into a
little bit of context. See I have a generally interesting sort of job
that calls for me to be in a different time zone with alarming
regularity. I had been in Los Angeles all week, locked in a small
airless room with prospective business partners, who insisted on being
such complete dill weeds about the equity structure for a new joint
venture. Worse yet, there idea of breaking tension was to tell dumbass
Survivor style jokes: ending conversations by saying shit like "the
tribe has spoken," or "there are two kinds of people, snakes and rats."
I had a headache that would not go away; everything with these people
had been a constant source of stress and tension. I felt like I was
doing business with my parents. As the week wore on, we managed to make
some progress, like your mother's grudging acceptance of the fact that
you will never be going to medical school, but we had not done as much
as my boss would have hoped.
Listen I know that it is a total clich? for guys to start talking about
work, as though men are defined by their jobs. I know that there is
more to me than my career in the business development arm of a
multimedia company, but sometimes there just is not a lot of room for
the other parts of me. But stop me if I start making too much self-
aware finance geek talk; it even bores me sometimes, after it starts
sounding like an episode of Dawson's Creek meets Wall Street.
The only lucky thing that happened to me that entire week was that I
got to the airport early, and managed to talk my way on to the 4:30
flight to Newark. Sure Newark was not as convenient to my apartment in
Queens as La Guardia, but it beat the hell out of waiting until 10:30
for the red eye.
Sitting on the flight, it was a marvelous opportunity to catch up on e-
mail, reviewing reports and other sorts of quiet time catch up work.
Oh who the hell do I think that I'm kidding, I never did that crap on a
plane, and I was not about to start after a hard week of having my ass
kicked in that sweaty little conference room. Sure I might spend a few
minutes getting caught up on some office crap, but I loved these long
flights because they gave me a chance to brush up on my reading.
The guy sitting next to me fell asleep soon after the plane took off,
and I took advantage. I opened a few of my favorite T* stories - some
obscure, non-violent stuff by Melissa Virus, the most unfortunately
named stroke fiction talent around. I also had a few early Raven tales,
and some primo Morpheus. But what always did it for me were those cool
Ovid, Oklahoma stories. There was something sweet and endearing about
the way that the author handled the T* and sex stuff, sort of like a
Norman Rockwell portrait of Rupaul. And I was psyched - I had just
downloaded the latest installment in the chronicles of the Judge,
Diana, Officer Mercer and the rest of the Olympus posse: Ovid 43, The
Ballroom Dancer.
"Chanted in an ancient form of Latin?"
Giant hands squeezed the air out of my lungs as I realized that the
passenger in the seat next to me must have been reading my screen.
Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, I thought, this is going to be one
uncomfortable flight if I have to sit next to this guy for the next
five and half hours, with him thinking that I am some weird sort of
transvestite.
But after all, isn't that really what I am? I mean, I am not some sort
of freaky mustachioed guy who wears a tutu and five-inch heels, but
when I close my eyes and my imagination runs free, I am recasting
myself as a woman. Every time I masturbate, I imagine sex with a
beautiful woman, except that I am that beautiful woman. Hell, I even
had a few pair of thigh high stockings lying around my apartment
somewhere.
I turned and looked slowly over at him; he was grinning, snuggled into
a tiny airline blanket.
"I love the Professor," he said, his grin turning to a full- fledged
smile, "but does he have to have to use that same turn of phrase to
describe the court room scene?"
"Excuse me?" was the best I could manage to squeak out.
"Oh relax, I love those stories too. I'm Alex, by the way. Generally I
introduce myself before I scare the holy shit out of strangers, but for
you I made an exception."
"So, you umm, know the Professor?"
"Not personally, but I am a huge fan of the work. My personal favorite
was Ovid 29, the normal white guy who fantasized about being a panty
clad high school chick."
"Yeah that was good," I replied, my breath slowly returning, "but it
was not as good as Ovid 32, the world class athlete who gets turned
into a fat dowdy housewife who reads harlequin romance novels in the
Stop and Shop check out aisle."
We both chuckled, the tension rapidly fading between us.
"I guess that these stories can be sort of goofy sometimes," Alex
offered, "but they are fun to read."
I turned to face him, and closed my laptop. "Did you ever notice that
when a guy gets forcibly changed his wife or dominatrix always 'barks'
at him?"
"Oh yeah, but my favorite story foible is that every time a guy changes
and the author mentions the boobs, they are always enormous; there are
never any normally busted women in these stories," Alex replied.
"Oh I don't know, there have been a few B cups here or there."
"Maybe a few exceptions that prove the rule," he said, "but think about
how many 'JJJ' cupped bimbos are strolling around the stories in
Fictionmania."
"I know, that is pretty foul, isn't it?" I said. "Could you really
imagine having udders like that weighing you down?"
"Oh please spare me," he said. "But the worst weird body thing is that
whenever a guy whips it out, it can never be normally sized. It is
always some 14-inch howitzer, as thick around as a coke can. Hold your
hands fourteen inches apart, and ask yourself if you would want to lose
your virginity to that monster dong."
"Look at us," I said, "this is like the lost Seinfeld episode where
Jerry and George log onto Crystal's story site."
"Don't you hate it when you stop paying attention in the gene splicing
lab," Alex said, with a pronounced New York accent and a rising comedic
tone, "and you accidentally stick yourself with the super secret
feminizing drug that also changes your Driver's License to reflect a
female persona?"
"Not that there is anything wrong with that," I replied.
Time really must have been flying, because as we stopped laughing at
that, we heard the tires touching down in Newark.
"Hey, you have a ride back to the City?" Alex asked me.
Of course I didn't have a ride, I mean, what kind of young kid in their
twenties can afford to have a car in Manhattan - It's bad enough
affording rent. I figured Alex meant for us to split a cab back into
town, and hey I was willing. The only thing, was that now that we were
on the ground, there was a bit of a charge to our friendship. Its one
thing to talk about crossdressing when you're safely within your role
as anonymous airline passenger, but it was something else entirely to
have the same conversation with a person you would call your friend.
Being honest with myself, I had to secretly admit that I had never
really shared this side of me with anyone before, and the fact that I
was becoming 'friends' with someone based on our mutual crossdressing
fantasies made me markedly uncomfortable. Still, I was kind of broke
and didn't want to front the cash, even if I would be reimbursed later,
so splitting a cab sounded good to me. Which was why I was surprised
when Alex walked right by the Taxi stand.
"Where are you going?" I asked, my voice cracking a little
pathetically. Alex turned around and looked at me.
"I have a car of course," said Alex, disappearing into extraordinarily
expensive confines of the hourly parking deck.
"This guy parks in hourly for a trip to LA?" I thought to myself.
And what a car it was! A classic Black Mercedes Sedan from the mid
1960's. Alex stepped into the car without looking at me. I sort of just
stood there for a moment, feeling a little hesitant - and I admit, a
little self-conscious. I mean, Alex wasn't THAT much older than me -
two, maybe three years at the most. How could he afford a classic
Mercedes that he parks in hourly parking for weeklong trips to Los
Angeles?
"Wow" I said, easing myself into the hand tooled leather interior.
"Just kind of work are you involved with anyway, Alex?"
Alex chuckled. "Are you familiar with rites of passage Jeremy?"
Alex asked me as we pulled out of the parking lot and eased onto
highway 95. I was a little taken aback, not only by the bizarre nature
of the question, but also by the fact that I had been addressed by
name. I had never told Alex my name during the flight.
"Did... I... tell you my name." I hesitantly offered as a response.
"Oh, maybe not, maybe not. I must have gotten it from your computer
screen." I instantly relaxed a bit and was about to comment on the
magnificent Skyline, and its contrast with the industrial wasteland of
Northern New Jersey, when Alex said.
"Rites of passage are a pet interest of mine I suppose. A kind of
habit. They are somewhat lost in our complex, modern society if you ask
me, but they are ever so vitally important to the life of a vibrant
culture."
I made a note of the hint of contempt in Alex's voice when mentioning
the words "Modern Society." I have to say; I found his line of
discussion a little off. I mean, it's not the type of thing we
generally knock around the office down in marketing.
"Rites of passage were essential in the ancient world however. A tribe
wouldn't dream of sending their sons out on the hunt without them
passing through the ritual. A Sovereign wouldn't dream of anointing a
Prince without a form of ritualized passage. Sure, from the perspective
of our modern eyes some of these rituals appear fairly brutal -
tattooing, piercing - goodness even variations on crucifixion and,
don't mean to creep you out or anything - - Genital mutilation. Sure,
some boys died, or failed to make the passage, as they say, but for the
rest, they experienced a transformation, and that transformation guided
their understanding of the world from that point. That's really the
whole point of a rite of passage, now isn't it Jeremy?"
Alex pulled a silver cigarette case from the pocket of his Gucci
Blazer, extracted a thick filterless cigarette. From the smell I would
have to say it was French. With a truly impressive dexterity, he fished
a lighter from his pocket and proceeded to smoke. I sat a bit
mesmerized. I hated smokers. I find smoking disgusting, but I was
amazed at the nearly magical way the thick lines of smoke danced about
Alex's face. Thinking about it, I was a little curious at how Alex and
the Car had lacked that tell tale musty cigarette odor, and how Alex's
skin maintained its youthful elasticity despite the fact he was a
smoker.
"The transformation!" Alex said, startling me back to the present.
"Uh... Oh, yes, uh, excuse me; I wandered off for a minute. Yes, yes,
the transformation, that's right, um, Alex, what line of work did you
say you were in again?" I offered.
At this point we were pulling out of the Holland tunnel and onto Hudson
Street in Manhattan's West Village. As we drove up Hudson we passed
multi-million dollar brownstones inhabited by the super wealthy -
Financial barons, and rock stars, people whose money came from the
Mayflower, and original investors with Warren Buffet.
"You live in Manhattan Jeremy?" Alex said, turning suddenly west
towards the River.
"Queens." I replied, a little embarrassed "You know, I prefer the space
out there to the little rabbit holes here in the..."
"You'll have to take the Subway then. I'm not driving all the way out
to Queens." Alex said.
He pulled the car up in front of industrial warehouse type building
overlooking the river. These types of buildings once housed meat
packing plants and longshoreman, but had been refurbished over the past
15 years into some of the most exclusive and most spacious property in
Manhattan. A large, African American doorman, hurried to the car, and
opened Alex's door.
"Mr. Anderson, so nice to see you home safely." The doorman said as
Alex stepped out of the car. Alex smiled but otherwise barely
acknowledged the man.
"Unless you'd like to stay here for the night." He said to me.
"Um, excuse me?" I said, scarcely believing his words and a bit
terrified on top of it.
"Oh, I know I'm an odd bird, but I won't hurt you, besides Sue saw you
come in with me. I couldn't possibly do anything without Sue getting
suspicious. He knows every one who comes and goes in this building."
"Sue? He?" This was getting stranger by the minute.
"Yes, of course. Sue, the doorman - you know, like a boy named Sue. You
do like Johnny Cash, don't you? Anyway, I have plenty of room right
now, too much for little old me. Of course if you'd prefer, the subway
is four blocks that way. If you go all the way out to Sixth Avenue, you
can catch the... "
"Okay, I'll stay." I said, catching myself by surprise.
I immediately regretted it. After all there was a serial killer who had
been picking up gay men, and surgically removing their body parts,
leaving them in Hefty bags all along the waterfront. What on earth did
I think I was doing - and with the ritual, rites of whatever, on top of
it! Brother. Then again, life as junior financial analyst gets pretty
dull, and who wants to be an Ikea Boy all their life. Worse yet - why
did I stumble over the Johnny Cash reference, after all, it had been in
that movie, Swingers, and it was really funny. But here was adventure
looking me in the face. I took the bait.
"Excellent, excellent." Alex replied. "Cigarette?" he offered. I
hesitated.
"Oh what the hell," I said, and put the unfiltered but tightly rolled
cigarette to my lips.
2. Pain is just the exit wound of fear leaving your body.
This is one of those New York paradoxes that people in the South never
understand - for years no one in Manhattan wanted to be anywhere close
to any river. In modern boomtowns - Charlotte, Atlanta, Houston -
people pay thousands extra for the privilege of looking out on any body
of water - a man-made lake, a drainage ditch, a mosquito pond,
anything. But Manhattan, an island lying between the Hudson and the
East Rivers, was different.
When Manhattan came into its own as a modern city late in the
nineteenth century, the thought of being close to a river was as
appetizing as bacon at a Bar Mitzvah. All the garbage and sewage from
the tenements of Brooklyn, South Queens and Manhattan sluiced into the
East River, the first stop on its fetid trip to the ocean. As more and
more immigrants streamed into the City, the truly dirty work - the
slaughterhouses, the rendering plants, the sausage factories and horse
stables - was all along the East River and its stench.
As time went on, and property values went up, the blood and waste
industries moved out of the City. The slaughterhouses became warehouses
- perfect for close storage of documents that the moneychangers of
midtown and Wall Street generated. Then, the United Nations built its
headquarters in the Fifties, near midtown with a spectacular view of a
rapidly improving river. Into the Eighties, the opulence and wealth
generated by the legions of analysts, associates and brokers began to
grow. More and more people with more and more money began cramming into
the already established residential areas of the Upper East and West
sides. Then the pasty-faced shock troops of the Reagan Revolution began
pushing their gentrifying wealth further south, into Chelsea, Murray
Hill, the Village, and even the East Village.
That left the old warehouses further to the east and south, with their
high ceilings and huge footprints squarely in the path of development.
Given that they were former warehouses and factories, they had
virtually no internal walls, and therefore they were blank slates on
which residential dreams of lofts, apartments and huge living spaces
could be written. Because they were new, and came onto the market
during times of silly opulence, anyone who lived there was money.
Granted it was new money, but the residences of these former sausage
factories had lots of it.
Alex was no exception. The neighborhood itself was impressive, and the
apartment's interior did not disappoint. Everything in it screamed
rich, without being coated in solid gold the way some dumbass first
generation wealthy were wont to do. The Maurice Villency furniture, the
authentic Julian Schnabel artwork, the rugs woven by the tiny, laboring
hands of far Asian children all added to some serious totals. It
certainly kicked ass on the hand-me-down couches, coated in plastic,
which I took from my Grandmother as she moved to Florida.
I rolled my still unlit cigarette around my mouth, wanting to show my
appreciation for his gift, but not wanting to ask for a light inside
the museum quality bachelor pad. It seemed a little strange that he did
not take one himself, but I gave that no real thought. I could smell
the perfumed tobacco, exotic, but not trite in the way that those
Indonesian clove cigarettes were. I wondered what it would taste like.
"You know," Alex said, "I am not really as tired as I thought. In fact,
I am feeling better by the minute. Want to step out for a quick drink?"
"Sure," I said, feeling strangely compliant with this very wealthy new
friend. "Did you have some place in mind?"
So after a grand total of fifteen seconds in the luxurious former
abattoir, we headed back downstairs. I guess that Sue did not have time
to park the Mercedes, which was still in front of the building. We
climbed in.
"So where did you have in mind?" I asked.
"Oh, I thought that we might try Tangue," he said.
"Sounds familiar. But if I know about it, the line of people from
Jersey trying to get in will be like all the way to the Garden State
Mall."
Alex just smiled as we turned onto Houston Street.
It was vaguely familiar, in the way that clubs in the city often were.
The name: Tangue - was obscure enough that it sounded exotic. And
everyone had their own idiosyncratic pronunciation -- tang-ee, tahn-
gay, tawn-gway, tan-gee - that everyone felt both put off, as though
there were some secret that they weren't in on. The fact that it
sounded like a combination of "Tanqueray" and "Tongue" made it sound
even more lascivious.
It was stupid popular, and drew plenty of the famous and the wannabees.
Crowds lined up around the block, as fresh-faced twenty something's
freed from their veal fattening pen sized cubes in midtown sought a
brush with fame.
The famous could have their assistants call, hoping to warn the
bouncers of the imminent arrival of some B minus level star - the actor
who played that buddy from the recent Freddie Prinze Jr. high school
romance film, a minor character from the fourth season of Melrose
Place, the singer from that band that opened for the Cure on their last
tour. If they were lucky, the bouncers might grunt, and pull aside the
velvet rope, allowing them access.
The bouncers at Tangue, like every club du jour, were mountains of
tattooed muscle meat, wrapped Christo-like in several acres of Armani
designed fabric.
The camaraderie of those in line led the telling and retelling of what
surely had to be urban myths. The most popular was the story of the 27
year old compliance officer from Chase Manhattan Bank who called
Tangue, and said that he was the personal assistant for Mr. Spielberg.
Of course, the Tangue people said, we would love to have Mr. Spielberg
come to Tangue. When the appointed hour came, a rented limo pulled up,
and the young compliance officer and his date hustled out, and said
that: "Mr. Spielberg will be along shortly."
The bouncers took the daring guy back into an alley and, as the story
goes, "Louima-ed" him, plunger and all.
Truth be told, that urban myth of brutality missed much of the subtlety
in the life of a bouncer at a hot club. These were full time jobs for
very serious people. After all, the bouncers were as far as most people
got at these sorts of places, and they needed to convey the proper
amount of seriousness and exclusivity to continue the brand name of
places like Tangue. But they also needed the social sense to know just
which rising young stars to let in, and which fading, Fantasy Island
retreads to shun. It was almost as though these media savvy mesomorphs
spent their days pumping iron and reading Variety.
Alex circled the block several times, and then pulled in front. Alex
put the passenger side window down, and leaned across me toward the
bouncers. He snapped his fingers in the general direction of the
bouncers.
For the jaded New Yorkers in line, this was exceptional - Tangue was
not some restaurant in Passaic in tune with customer service - this
place became famous by being rude to its patrons. There was no valet
parking. All along the line, people had an expression of shock, as if
the Queen of England hopped out of an alley and did a strip tease while
"Rock Me Amadeus" played on a nearby boom box.
My adrenal glands pumped enough of their terror juice that my body was
chemically convinced that it was going to die - soon. The bouncers
stepped towards the car, with a look on their faces that indicated that
my body was correct.
Then they recognized Alex, and the largest of the bouncers stepped
around the car, and opened Alex's door.
The walk from the car to the club's door was the greatest five seconds
of my life. Everyone in line looked at me as though I were the most
important person on Earth; the expressions of hatred and jealousy
fueled the zenith of my ego. The fire of the bouncer's lighter as he
lit my cigarette was reflected in the thousands of eyes that stood
staring in contempt and disbelief at our most grand of entrances.
Inside, the music blared, not deafeningly loud, but enough to let you
know where you were. It was fast, it was modern and it was industrial.
Not as intense as that house party in Darien a few years ago, but it
was more than just your average trip hop.
"Wanna dance?" I screamed into Alex's ear.
You would have thought I had suggested public defecation judging by the
look on his face. His furrowed brows shook softly from side to side as
we walked towards the back, into a table that the staff cleared for us.
Alex had this like sly, knowing power the whole time. It was difficult
to describe, but it was almost the same as the mental image that you
have when a girlfriend tells you that she finds self-confidence
bordering on arrogance to be attractive. He was generous as the club
owners fawned over him, thanking them for this, expressing appreciation
for that. But the whole time he acted as though he expected this to be
done for him.
Everyone in the room saw that, and although they would never change
their New York game face of aggressive indifference, each one knew that
this guy was different, that this guy was power.
Alex was also a paradox. I mean think about it; there were all these
famous people in there - the guy who had impregnated Madonna, the male
lead from the Broadway adaptation of Gogol's Dead Souls, the former
porn star who married the 72 year old publishing billionaire. None of
them got even a whisper of the attention that Alex got.
A virtual conga line of people started walking by our table, trying to
figure out who Alex was. I loved every minute; sure everyone looked at
me like I was the bully's annoying little friend, but mine was the
toughest bully in school. Kind of like Billy Jack and Jackie Chan, all
rolled into one, I thought as I finished my cigarette. I was drunk with
the power of being the object of their envy.
"Isn't he the guy who runs Tristar?" One guy said, screaming to his
companion to be heard.
"No way, that's the new Sony music dude."
"No-no-no," said a third guy. "He directed a few Marrzz Barrzz videos."
"He directed candy commercials?"
"No dumbass - Marrzz Barrzz, the dyed blonde rap star. You know, he had
that one song - 'that Bitch Paula'"
"Not ringing any bells, dude," his friend said. "Sing some of it for
me." So then his buddy started dancing around like a rap star, shouting
like he had just fed a rhyming dictionary and hive of Africanized
killer bees into a popcorn popper.
She's a ho but not for sale
The bitch is a rental
And when she opens her mouth
You know the bitch is mental
If she gets on my nerves,
then Rat-a-tat-tat goes my gat at her temple
And so I say to you Paula
You're so dumb I wanna fuckin maul ya
Cuz everybody hates that Bitch Paula
3. "So I just have to know..."
She said, asking Alex with an inquisitive smirk, elbows on our table
leaning forward in a way that made her cleavage hang, leaving the
enormous round globes of her breasts to be suspended by her lacy bra
top.
"You're the new silent partner in the Yankees aren't you? You're the
guy who's funneling Steinbrenner all that cash. You're the guy whose
going to build the West Side stadium out of your spare cash - - -Am I
right?" She leaned back and placed her hands on the hips of her highly
fashionable Versace Snake Skin pants, giving a self satisfied and
flirtatious grin.
It wasn't that she really thought Alex was some silent partner on the
Yankees; it was that in her mind she had pulled off the trick of the
first line. She silently congratulated herself on the way she had
combined the male fantasies of absurd wealth and power, with their
obsession with professional sports into one single and clean line of
entry.
I looked at the woman, scarcely containing my disbelief. She was
perfect. At least to my recollection, I had never been this near to a
woman of this caliber. Every ounce of her body screamed sex, but in a
peculiarly expensive way. She was like the perfect whore. An incredible
figure, thin, muscular and toned, young but with an air of
sophistication, breast that were large and full, but not absurdly
enormous. You could tell from her devilish smirk that she enjoyed sex,
and was entirely open about it, but at the same time her diction and
posture indicated good breeding and class. Of course she scarcely
noticed me, except perhaps to mentally calculate how long it would take
to get rid of me. Her pearly blue eyes were fixed on Alex's face. She
threw back a lock of her silvery blond hair and giggled, causing her
perfect little midriff to wiggle just a bit. I swore she looked like
Jamie Pressley with bigger breasts.
Alex squinted his eyes and crinkled up his nose, looking the girl up
and down as though he were inspecting her like an investor would a
prized thoroughbred.
"I'm sorry." He said "But who are the Yankees?"
She joined us of course, but more out of her own volition, than by any
invitation from Alex. I watched her and had to give her credit. She was
expert in the way she played the flirtation game, capturing space
between her and her prey with an easy manner, moving in shrewdly for
the kill with soft touches on Alex's arm, placing her manicured fingers
on his knees, leaning over to mischievously whisper a naughty word or
two into his ear. As I watched her I had the strange and unpleasant
feeling of jealousy. Jealousy of Alex, that he wielded such power and
wealth so effortlessly and deeply envious of his control over the
incredible female specimen who was now practically in his lap. At the
same time, I was strangely jealous of the girl. I was Alex's new
friend. He had found me on the airplane, and had invited me to sleep
over at his place. Who was this woman to suddenly intervene? At the
same time I realized I was jealous of her in a more complicated way as
well.
I had never been so close to such an attractive woman. A normal male
would feel raw animal desire. A wish to strip her of her clothing and
fuck her until she screamed for mercy - - or more for that matter. I
realized, in an inwardly humiliating way, that this was not at all what
I was feeling. I didn't want to fuck her. I wanted get fucked like her.
I wanted to be her. To own those incredible breasts, to laugh an easy
laugh and have every man in the bar look at me. To giggle girlishly,
exposing my flat belly for the world to see and desire, while I wore
snakeskin Versace pants, and pretty lacy thong underwear beneath it.
What was the matter with me? I thought to myself alarmed. Have I become
that much of a fairy that when placed in a room swarming with
incredible women my only reaction is too long to be one. I was even
jealous that she was stealing my man. I looked down in my drink
ashamed.
"Jeremy, it was a long flight, huh... Are you ready to go yet?" Alex's
voice startled me from my self-loathing.
"Huh..." I said.
"I'm sorry... ahhh..." Alex hesitated.
"Estelle" The woman quickly filled in, her face looked as though she
had been slapped.
"Yes, Estelle, well it was lovely to meet you, you really are a very
charming young woman, but I will need to be going right now." Alex
rose, and Estelle sort of half rose out of her seat. She was shocked.
It must not be often that men willingly walk away from her. I inwardly
celebrated.
"Unless..." Alex mentioned. Estelle leaned forward waiting anxiously
for his next word. "Oh, I'm sure a nice girl like you wouldn't want
to..." You could see Alex inwardly calculating, thinking of something.
"Want to what?" Estelle nearly screamed.
"Well you know, Jeremy and I were just going to go back to my place,
maybe open up a bottle of something nice, put on some music... I dunno,
it could be fun."
***
I could scarcely believe what was happening. Here I was, Jeremy from
Queens, naked in a marble and tile Jacuzzi smoking cigarettes and
drinking champagne with Alex and Estelle. Even though I had seen her in
all stages of dress and undress, I was still having difficulty
fathoming the perfection of her body. Was it legal to have belly that
flat, and breasts that perfectly large. Not that she was shy about
showing them. Estelle exhibited no squeamishness at all when Alex
suggested we all go skinny dipping in the tub. She practically squealed
as she dropped her clothes.
But as incredible as she was, I couldn't help but admit that I felt
like the third wheel. Alex was sitting with his back against the tub,
Estelle straddling his lap grinding her freshly waxed vagina against
his dick under the water, while he squeezed the perfect orbs of her
breasts, pinching her elongated pink nipple.
"Oh my god baby, I'm gonna cum just from rubbing against you. I just
can't fucking wait to get that big dick inside me." She cooed, lest
what they were doing be less than obvious to me.
His dick was big too. I had seen it before we got in the tub. I mean
flaccid this thing hung down like a horse, full and meaty and swinging
back and forth. I tried to hide mine as I jumped into the tub, but I
could swear that Estelle stifled a laugh. I know for a fact she was
taunting me when she was riding Alex. She looked over his shoulder as
she cooed into his eye and looked me right in the fact.
"Fuck you are such a man. Look at you - - all this money, a perfect
body and big huge fucking dick to boot." Making sure she didn't lose
that connection you get when you really stare someone down, Estelle
leered at me and said to Alex: "Nah, you're not a little fairy faggot
are you. Not some pathetic little weakling of a man that works for
other men. You'd never just sit and watch your friend feed his huge,
massive cock into the hot pussy of some bitch, while you sat their and
jacked off, what kind of a little sissy fag would do that."
I felt like saying "Uh hello, are you for real?" but of course she was
for real, and she was right, I was watching, and I was getting turned
on, and I couldn't help but touching myself, and as I did I couldn't
help but think how much smaller I was than my new friend Alex, and as I
thought about that, I thought about how turned on I was getting, and I
realized I was turned on because I was imagining myself as Estelle, and
imagining that that big fat Dick of Alex's was shoved up MY pussy
instead. Of course I was always conscious of the fact that of course I
didn't have a pussy, but that I sure felt like one wishing the things I
was wishing for.
I watched transfixed as Alex backed up and out of the tile Jacuzzi, the
water foaming around his calves, as he sat on the ledge. Estelle
kneeled on the step of the hot tub an arm on each of Alex's thighs
easing her perfectly pout lips over his thick shaft. Alex pulled her up
and out of the tub until she straddled his dick. I was the spectator of
course, but rock hard at the site, as Estelle reached behind her
perfect ass cheeks and fitted Alex's big dick into her tight pussy.
"Oh, FUCK YES!" She yelled as she rocked her hips back and forth on
Alex's lap. "You are such a fucking MAN." She shrieked.
I watched feeling more and more pathetic all the time. I watched as my
new friend Alex fucked the most incredible woman I had ever seen, let
alone seen naked. Estelle was one of those perfect creatures separated
from the world of mortals. To this day, women like her had only existed
for me in the pages of 'W' and on advertisements pinned to the sides of
newspaper kiosks. They didn't exist in reality to be unclothed and
ravished for the fun of it. And yet, I could tell that Estelle was
getting ready to cum by her short breaths and her plaintive whinings. I
held my breath waiting for the moment. Then Alex held her tight,
pinning her down on his dick, keeping her from moving.
"Oh baby, come on baby, I want to cum baby. Keeeeeeep goooooooo-
iiiiiinnnnng." Estelle cried.
"I got something even hotter, baby, just trust me."
Alex fumbled with the pile of his clothes behind him with one hand
while he steadied Estelle by grasping the perfect globes of her ass
with the other. He lit one of his thick smoked French Cigarettes, the
smoke curling, purplish, in waving rings up through the air.
"Baby, this is REALLY fucking hot, you got to trust me on this, you'll
never feel ANYthing like it, I promise." Alex said.
Estelle nodded and bit her lower lip, still yearning and eager to get
off.
"I'm going to take a deep, deep hit off this special cigarette, and
then I'm going to kiss you. When I kiss you, you inhale all of the
smoke down deep into your lungs and hold it there. I'll be fucking you
good the whole time. This is the important part, DON'T EXHALE, until
you cum, and when you cum. I want you to kiss me back and exhale all
the smoke into my mouth. Do you understand?"
Estelle nodded, nearly in a trance with lust. Alex began to slowly rock
her back and forth on his dick, his shaft rubbing back and forth
against her pink little button of a clit as it stretched open her girly
hole, and filled her like a slut.
"Oh Baby, It's getting close... " Estelle yelled.
Alex grabbed the cigarette and sucked on it hard. Almost incredibly, he
drew down the length of the tobacco with one giant toke, and flung the
butt away across the tile floor of the poolroom. Grasping Estelle on
the ass with one hand and behind her head with the other, he pulled her
mouth toward him.
Connecting lips, Alex exhaled deeply. Crawly out of the hot tub on my
hands and knees I saw Estelle's eyes go wide open like a deer in the
headlights as Alex continued to rocket his hips up and down into her
tight little snatch. Never did he let go of her head, and eyes still
wide, I saw her body convulse, and her try to pull her head away.
Within an instant, her expression went from ecstasy to terror. I grew
uneasy fearing Alex was suffocating her, but finally, Estelle threw her
shoulders back. Her arms shot strait out into the air for a moment
before falling limp onto Alex's back as her chest contracted, and she
exhaled into her mouth.
4. "Is she dead?" I asked.
Crying, in shock from the experience. By now, Alex had dragged
Estelle's naked body into his sitting room. There she lay on in front
of me on the couch.
"Don't be ridiculous." Alex said, buttoning his loose Prada pull- on
cargo pants. "She's got goosebumps, can't you see. Dead people don't
have goose bumps. Hup, she there - she just breathed."
I ran over and threw a thick woolen blanket over Estelle feeling
embarrassed and ashamed at the same time.
"What is this, one of those roofie things? One of those date rape
drugs? Why, why would you want to knock her out like that, I mean you
already had her willingly? I don't want anything to do with this." I
said starting to cry, feeling guilty though of course I had nothing to
do with it.
"What are you talking about?" Said Alex. "What the devil is a roofie
thing?" I heard the distinctive tone of a cellular phone. Alex pulled
out a chrome Nokia from his pocket.
"Go." He said. I heard animated talking on the other side, as I tried
to creep for the door.
"No, I never said such a thing." Alex explained to the caller
patiently. "I never told you I had that kind of power... Listen, you
had a nice little run there, what was it thirteen, fourteen years?
Okay, only thirteen years, I understand. Well look, you called me, and
I told you not to hold elections. That you were leaving too much to the
other guys to determine... Of course I couldn't influence the
elections, of course I didn't abandon you, you did this to yourself...
Listen do you honestly think I am the only power in the universe? What
do you take me for, omnipotent? In life there are winners and there are
losers. You've had a nice run, but you didn't listen to me and now it's
over... How do you suppose you would pay for something like that now?
No... no... listen. My involvement in this situation is over. The
situation is no longer palatable to me... I'm afraid you are on your
own on this one. What should you do? Well I suggest you run, there's
got to be some place you can... Wait, hang on Milo... No... I said hang
on."
Alex put the phone on the shoulder and looked across the room at me
struggling with the doorknob.
"It's locked." He said to me with a simple and casual certainty. "I
forgot to tell you, you can't get out. Give me one more second, I have
this little thing with this client." He returned to his phone call.
"Milo, you should have left last week when you had a chance. Look if
you don't have a rainy day plan, is that my fault? C'mon Milo, don't
tell me there isn't a single Balkan country you can hide out in... well
you know there's always Paraguay. Listen, LISTEN Milo, I'm a little
busy right now. I suggest that you leave the country immediately,
that's the same that I suggested last week... oh please! Strung up by
your ankles, don't you think that is a little extreme. Okay, Milo - got
to go." Alex put the phone in his pocket and said exasperated.
"Clients, Jeez! I have GOT to get that cell phone number changed!" I
stared; my emotion wasn't exasperation, as much as it was terror.
"Oh yeah, what were we talking about..." he placed his hand on his chin
and tapped his foot; glancing around the room he spotted Estelle.
"Estelle! Oh yeah, we were talking about Estelle. Oh she's not dead.
She's in here." Alex said, pointing to his chest. "But soon, all things
working out, I'm gonna eat her, and she'll be in here." Pointing to his
stomach now. Spotting my perplexed and horrified face, Alex said,
"Oh stop it. Weren't you the one who's been asking what I do all night.
All curious and wondering." Making a high pitched squeaky and yet
convincing impression of me; Alex said: "What kind of work are you in
Alex? Just exactly what do you do for a living Alex?" My mouth was
agape.
"Well now you know. I'm a witch, a little demon, kind of a vampire.
Don't even ASK how I got into it because it's a long story, and I do
NOT have the patience to go through the whole thing. Lets just say,
I've been doing this kind of stuff for a long, long time, hundreds,
maybe thousands of years at least, and life gets a little boring. Yes,
yes, I know, you're a little scared right now, and that's probably for
the best because, you know, I just inhaled this girl's soul and all,
and I have to eat souls to sustain myself, but I assure you, you Jeremy
have nothing to worry about. In fact your fun is just beginning. You
see, being a demon, a wish fulfiller, having all this power is fun, but
you just live for SO damn LONG. And the days get SO damn BORING! You
can't even imagine. So anyway, I play little games to amuse myself. I
saw you on the plane with your little sissy, want to be a girl stories,
and I figured, hey - here's a GREAT way to kill some time."
"You wanna be a girl Jeremy? Here's your chance. As I said, I sucked
out Estelle's soul. Basically, when she came, she exhaled it into my
lungs - and yeah, I AM that good baby. So anyway, I left her with
enough to breath, and blah, blah, blah, and there she is on the couch.
You can see her right. Seems all right, just asleep. You give me the
word and I'll give gorgeous Estelle a big fat kiss and I'll exhale her
right back the way she started. She'll wake up thinking she just had
the best orgasm of her life, which by the way she did, and I'll have
Sue the guard downstairs see you two to the door. And that will be the
end of that."
"Or..." I said a little afraid to hear the answer, and guilty I was
offering anything other than to immediately save Estelle and getting
the hell out of there.
"I was hoping you would ask that. Now we can have some fun. The or is
you can suck on that same cigarette, give me a big kiss, and when I
exhale, I'll exhale YOU into Estelle - you'll be Estelle..."
"... And then you'll exhale Estelle into me?" I asked hesitantly and
hopefully.
"No." Alex said, looking confused and furrowing his brow. "Why would I
do that." He paused. "I'm gonna eat Estelle. I already told you, I'm
hungry."
"But can't you just exhale me into Estelle, and Estelle into me, and
then we both get to experience what it would be like to be the opposite
sex, and then... no one would get hurt." I offered.
"Sure, I mean, I could do that - - but I'm not gonna. I mean. Listen,
Estelle tastes good, I can kind of taste her right now. All yummy and
young and succulent. The only reason I don't swallow her right off is
because I want to play this little game."
"What Game?"
"Well I've killed tons of people you know. I mean, I kill for a living
basically. And you know, even when I'm not killing myself, I'm always
helping other people do things that will lead to lots of killing
getting done. So you know. Killing no big deal to me. I don't really
even get a thrill out of that part anymore, just that sometimes the
souls taste so delicious, but that's kind of different right? But for
you... I mean look at you; you're SUCH a typical, mid-thirties drone. I
mean, where do you think you're gonna be in five years? I'll tell you,
sitting in your apartment, still in the closet, secretly reading Nancy
Drew novels, and wearing frilly underwear, while you pet your rapidly
aging cat named Potato. Here I am, it's nothing to me, I could eat you
both for all I care, but here I am and for the fun of it I'm gonna give
you the chance to BE someone. And not just any old drone, but you get
to be..."
Alex walked over to the couch and pulled the blanket off Estelle's
perfect, and incredible 19 year old body.
"You get to be Estelle. Do you have any idea what life is like for a
woman like Estelle, Jeremy? Do you have any idea how good it feels to
be Estelle getting fucked? I know you don't have a clue, trapped in
that plain little dumpy thirty year old drab MALE body. But here I am,
I'm gonna let you be Estelle, and all you have to do is make the choice
to kill her." Alex giggled to himself, and lit another one of his
thick, purple smoked cigarettes. "I really am a little devil. This is
almost too fun for words."
He spun around and took a deep, deep, deep inhale on the cigarette,
drawing all the tobacco in so only a long gray ash hung from the
cigarette holder. His body was immaculately sculpted, and without his
shirt on I had to admit, he was one of the more attractive men I had
ever seen. He held his arms out wide, still holding his breath, he
whispered.
"What do you say tiger? Come on over and Kiss me."
I could swear, he had on a wicked, wicked smile.
5. I thought I'd live forever, now I'm not so sure.
As though there were any choice.
It seemed so simple, everything I had ever wanted - ever wanted to make
love to, everything I had ever wanted to be - was lying there, in a
still-warm beautiful body slowly breathing at Alex's feet.
So why was I hesitating to just walk over and kiss Alex?
Was it the kiss? I had never kissed another guy. Sure there was those
two times in college when I messed around with that lacrosse player,
but he was into playing it off like it wasn't a gay thing, just pair of
guys getting each other off, you know. So of all the things that I
could focus on, it seemed sort of strange to be focusing on the fact
that this guy had just asked me to kiss. I mean, I sort of glossed over
the fact that I had apparently watched some soul stealing demon in
action with a budding porn starlet, he had literally fucked the soul
out of her with some demon donkey dong, but all I could focus on was
the kiss. In fact I was not even thinking about the choice; it was so
obvious and so right to be in that body that the choice was so simple
as to not even merit a "duh." But I could not get over the kiss.
Or maybe I couldn't accept was it that this kiss and its abandonment of
my life represented failure? After all, it was my life, and I had
accomplished so much, even though my super-successful uber-father had
never given my PhD any sort of credit, and my mother's only comment was
that I could now wear one of those corduroy jackets with the suede
elbow patches. Even if they thought that grad school just gave away
doctorates, I know how hard I had worked. Becoming a teenaged fuck
muffin would be throwing away all of the effort.
Or maybe it was that the whole situation had just gotten too bizarre; I
was ready to walk away.
"I, I, I just... don't know."
"After all I've done you for you, you will just walk away?" he said. "I
don't think so. Get back here right now."
That Sleater Kinney lyric really did describe me perfectly: "Close my
mouth was I born to accommodate?" Any difficult situation, I would
always give in to avoid conflict.
I took one trembling, naked step forward, and melted into his kiss.
6.Cut my life into pieces, this is my last resort.
I was shocked that he was serious about cutting up the Jeremy body.
The strangest part of it all was how unfamiliar my own former body
looked. I guess it's logical; after all the best that you ever see of
yourself are bits and pieces, or maybe a mirror image. Seeing it from a
new set of eyes, though, was really quite different.
"I'm serious, the spell requires that you cut up the body," he said,
handing me a knife. "Get to work."
Sue, his manservant, had dragged the body to the oversized Jacuzzi tub
that was now drained of water.
Strangely, the cutting process was simple after the first cut. It was
all mechanical, kind of like making a really weird dinner, like the
first time you cooked Thai, or brisket, because it was easy to focus on
cutting up this inanimate object, and not think of it as a person.
And all of that was sort of funny because I always spent so much time
cleaning. It was the one thing that I was really, really good at. By
the time I had graduated college, I had virtually double majored in
cleaning.
Grass stains, soaked in cold, soapy water, wash clean.
Bleach most clothes that say no bleach. The color won't change much, if
at all, and they are guaranteed to be completely clean.
Pre-soak. Always pre-soak.
"Cut the face off," he said.
His words jolted me back to reality from the mindless. I was in a bit
of a trance, not focusing on the fact of what I was doing. Had I not
been able to turn my consciousness off and go about the grizzly
business of finishing what was required for the spell, I probably would
have gone mad.
"Cut the face off," he said again, more insistently.
"What?"
"Here, take this exacto knife and cut the face off."
"Do I have to?"
"It's part of the spell," he said.
Sue snuffled again in the corner.
7. The only time your dreams come true is when you are asleep.
"So, what do you think?" Alex asked. The carcass was fully, finally
dismembered, and I had just finished washing my new, naked, 18 year-old
gorgeous body.
I had a strange thought: how would famous Fictionmania authors describe
the moment? Would they focus on the changes, on the clothes? What it
was like to have breasts? To be shorter?
Would some wonder whether this was a bimbo body? You know the types,
they develop the sexual proclivities of a character based on how she
looks. Like the more attractive she is, the sluttier she is. As though
women worried about being attractive just to be come receptacles.
I looked into the full-length mirror and thought about the Professor.
How would he describe this? Shit, he'd be useless, because his
transition scenes always focused on the feelings of panty hose and one
inch heels while driving a minivan, as though each of his characters
was turned into a librarian or a soccer mom on her way to the Lutheran
Church social.
Would Melissa Virus be able to describe this scene in a
characteristically brilliant way, with some turn of phrase like "wet
electricity" to describe the feeling of my new sex?
How would Vickie Tern describe it? "Do it - don't stress out about
being a girly little queen - become one!" She was even more worthless
to this; I really was a girl. There was no need for contrived plot
lines to take an otherwise normal, red-blooded heterosexual into a dick
sucking tranny girl in under 100 pages.
I was there, staring back at a gorgeous body in the mirror, rolling my
hips side to side as I struck model pose after model pose.
Alex clearing his throat brought me back to reality.
I looked at him, and the practicalities of my new life struck me. "Wow,
I don't know how I will go back to my old life, I mean after all, I'm a
girl now," I said, cupping my ample Estelle breasts with my slim
fingered hands.
The big guy in the corner snuffled.
"That's cute," he said. "You don't need to worry about your old job,
after all you have a new one."
"A new one?" I said.
"Yes, you have a new job, a new life, a new identity." He paused,
looked at me, then began again. "Look at you, you don't really think
that anyone would take you seriously as a junior project manager at
some dopey middle market company?"
"But it's still me, I still know just as much as ever."
"Which is to say that you know nothing. No one listened to you anyway.
As Jeremy, sometimes you managed to make a point through luck or
persistence, but no one will miss you."
"But, but... what will I do?" I felt emotion welling. Not that it was a
different sort of emotional reaction, but I just felt helpless in the
same ways that I used to feel as Jeremy. "Project management is all I
know; I can't do something else; it's just not right." I was crying.
"Estelle, I am not bargaining with you," Alex said.
"You have to," I said between sobs. "I'll go to the police, they'll be
so excited to capture the person responsible for the lower east side
bodies that have been turning up dismembered."
"And what will you tell them what exactly?" the increasingly evil,
implacable demon said.
"Well, I'll tell them what you did to me," I said.
"Oh really?" he said, amused with his head cocked and his eyebrows
raised. "As I recall, you are the one who did everything to poor
Jeremy." It was strange hearing him talk about me as though I were not
there; I may have become a beautiful girl but this was starting to feel
familiar, just like grammar school all over again. "So I can almost see
the scene now - a beautiful eighteen year old girl named Estelle goes
to the police station, claiming to have the soul of a man whose body
she dismembered as part of some sort of devil spell."
He paused to give me his incredulous look again, then continued.
"Don't forget Estelle, you were seen leaving with poor dead Jeremy last
night. So Sue," he said, looking at the large black man in the corner,
"I have a lot to fear here, don't I? I'm just the guy who brought poor
Jeremy to the bar - nice boy, met him on a plane that night. He and
Estelle - and she seemed like an insane little whore -- obviously hit
it off. Won't the headlines be delicious? Vamp tramp kills lover? But
go ahead Estelle, it would be sort of funny."
There was a big pause as he stared at me, and watched my ego deflate as
my last plan for gaining control of the situation evaporated. I was
sobbing at my fate.
"No Estelle, here is what you'll do. You work in my business now. The
wish fulfillment business. It's time for your first assignment. Sue
here will drive you out to your first date."
He paused again, seeming to enjoy the fact that he now had complete
control of the situation.
"Oh I know, I know," Alex said. "In those stories you love, this is the
part where the helpful male friend, your business partner, your frat
brother, your best buddy, begins to emerge as your love interest. He
counsels you by saying 'everything will be okay, we'll find a way to
manage.' Well, can you tell the readers out there what the problem with
that plot convention is?"
"Um..."
"That's right, you don't have that friend. There are no frat brothers,
and there will be no sweet romance with an old friend. There won't be
any emotional rescue through which you rationalize the fact that you
are prime piece of fuck meat."
The word fuck never sounded so harsh.
"Good, with that out of the way, Sue can help you get ready."
8. SUFFOCATION, NO BREATHING.
It was a large house. The wind was blowing in, a hard November wind,
straight off the ocean. I can never keep my Hamptons straight - whether
it was Bridgehampton, East Hampton. I don't know.
After helping me dress in a thin white, diaphanous dress and small open
toed sandals, Sue drove me out there in the Mercedes, silently
chuckling to himself the whole way, with some tape of what sounded like
reggae, with lyrics in French or a French-sounding language playing. He
bobbed his big, bald head slowly in time with the beat, mumbling to
himself under his breath, occasionally deigning to look over at me,
heavy lidded glances from the corners of his eyes, followed by that
same amused snuffling sound that he made back at the apartment. We went
like that for the ride out of the City.
As I walked away. I walked up the crushed stone path, the gravel
crunching under my sandals. I was about twenty paces from the car. "Hey
little girl," he said, with a thick Franco-phone accent. I was
surprised because I had never listened to him speak before. Sure I had
heard a few words, but not really listened for an accent, but there it
was, quite thick. I admit to an American prejudice - it was weird
hearing a black person speak with a foreign accent. As a white person,
I had sort of two models of the way black people spoke - the "yo yo yo"
ghetto slang thing, and the affect-less neutrality of say a Bill Cosby
accent. A black person sounding French threw me. And yeah, I felt a
moment of white guilt for thinking that.
"Little girl," he said. "Make no mistake - Mr. Alex will let you be
scared, he will let you be hurt, but he will not let you die. Now go
in, it's not locked."
I guess he was trying to comfort me, judging by the earnest glimmer in
his eyes, but standing there alone, with the frigid salt breeze cutting
through me, he freaked the shit out me as said that, nodded, then drove
off. I stood there for a few moments, becoming conscious of the cold
wind blowing off the Atlantic, cutting through the thin white dress as
I watched the black Mercedes roll down the access road, softly
crunching gravel as it turned onto the main road and disappeared into
the fog, Sue's large head bobbing in that same reggae rhythm the whole
time.
I walked into the house, and sure enough, this enormous mansion with a
security system that must rival the Pentagon was unlocked, the security
panel beside the door was covered with lights, buttons and indicators,
all of which were dark.
The door opened into a two story foyer, 400 square feet, with a stair
case to the right. I walked around the first floor, conscious that
every step with the hard-soled sandals echoed for miles off the cold
marble floor. On the side of the house that faced the water, each wall
had huge floor to ceiling windows, all partly opened, with diaphanous
drapes blowing inward with each gust off the Ocean. It smelled fresh
and salty all at the same time, in the way that well maintained beach
houses did. I took another step from the marble on to an inlaid hard
wood floor. I jumped up and let out a yelp when I heard the floor
squeak.
I took another step, and the floor squeaked again, and again I let out
another yelp, this time less loud.
The hair on the back of my neck stood up
I walked into the next room, and sat on the one piece of furniture, a
large chair covered in a white drop cloth. I felt every inch of my body
as I curled up into a tight fetal ball, as though the tighter I wound
myself, the better my fate would be. I concentrated on my breathing.
Each breath long and deep, but inhaled and released as quietly as
possible.
I counted each breath, to keep myself sharp and to keep focused. I
reached a hundred breathes in what felt like fifteen seconds. I kept
counting, breathing in, breathing out. As I reached a thousand I
realized that I had begun to relax. The last memory that I had was when
I reached about twenty five hundred, my comfort growing as the count
went higher and higher, my focus the key to my survival of the
situation, as though my ability to concentrate on this point
I dreamed that I met Estelle, and she was pissed. She met me in that
fog shrouded dream world where you feel that you are in some place
familiar that is wholly without details. She slapped me, and I was
conscious that the slap was loud and painful, but I was removed from
feeling. The strange thing was that I did not really see her - she had
no face, no form, no substance - but I knew that there was a presence
that was Estelle. She shouted, words that flowed like choppy water
washing ashore, as though her words were the wake of a boat, breaking
on the beach some time after the boat went by.
"You are so weak," she said. "You were weak as a man, and now you are
even weaker as me. Sitting here afraid, just waiting for something to
happen to you, you do not deserve my body."
I heard other voices, close, muffled voices, interrupting Estelle.
"I can't change what happened and neither can you. But you damn well
better fucking deserve it," she said.
She faded and was gone
My eyes snapped open, and I was back in the room, in my fetal position.
I saw figures, shadowy, moving in front of the curtains. My head shot
up, and so did my pulse.
"There she is," said a gruff voice.
I was up and moving, the sandals pumping as my feet carried me back
towards the foyer, and away from the figures. I heard them behind me,
their heavy footfalls booming off the floor and echoing through the
house. I turned and ran up the stairs, not conscious of anything,
moving and reacting.
I heard them behind me, my focus not allowing me to turn and look. I
kept moving, and turned right at the top of the stairs
"Get her," one voice hissed.
I sprinted, as fast as I could, heading for a door at the end of the
hall, the handle almost in my hand, when I stopped. Not willingly, but
someone grabbed the dress, and held me. My inertia kept me moving
forward, and my body pushed into the now immobile dress. I lost my
balance, and fell towards the floor, my long athletic legs splayed
under me.
Strong hands pulled me up then turned me around. There were three or
four of them, each was wearing black sweaters, black pants and a ski
mask, like the stereotype of 1970's terrorists off for a skiing
vacation or an Olympic slaying. The one behind me took my hands apart
on either side of my body, behind me. Two others came up and each took
a leg.
"We have her, boss," one of the men said.
From the darkness, a fourth came up, obviously the leader. He moved
more slowly, and stepped up, close enough to be seen and stopped. His
head went up, then down, eyes trailing all down my body. It was then I
became conscious of how hard I was breathing. He moved slowly, walking
around me, slow deliberate steps with heavy footfalls. The sound of his
heels as he walked, with each step in time with three or four of my
ragged gasps for air.
He came around the front, and pulled off his ski mask. He was fair
skinned, with wavy black haircut close to his scalp. His face looked
moist with the effort of chasing me down. He also looked familiar in
the way that powerful people you have never seen before look familiar
because every Senator, every big company CEO and every wealthy investor
comes from essentially the same mold.
He nodded slowly, and undid his belt. My eyes were wide with terror as
he pulled his heavy leather belt off, stopping at loop on his pants
with exaggerated calm, demonstrating his absolute control over the
situation, and his enjoyment of that fact. Even though I knew what it
meant, I was desperate for him to just get his belt off because he was
lingering, reveling in his power over me, over the men holding me, over
the moment. The belt finally off, he smirked, and started swinging it
slowly in front of him - figure eights in the air between us. He was
moving slowly, but I could still feel the breeze as he quickened his
pace. He took a step closer and the tip of the belt started to brush
against my dress, making small slapping noises as it hit. I couldn't
feel it, but the noise let me know that he was close, very close to me
with the belt.
He stopped and put the belt around his neck. "So," he said, with a
vaguely Mediterranean accent "let me see what Mr. Alex has done for me
this time."
He stepped forward, and put one hand on the straps of the dress on each
shoulder. He pulled them forward, until the dress was taunt against my
back, then he pulled his hands apart, tearing the dress several inches
in the center of the front, plunging even further down my cleavage. The
rush of suddenly cold air against my chest, warm from the attempt to
escape, was a shock and I gasped.
"Good," he said. "I like a woman not used to having her dress ripped."
He chuckled, and moved his hands lower, to the point between my breasts
where the rip stopped. Again he pulled the dress towards him, then
pulled his hands apart, splitting the dress even further down. He kept
this process going, tearing down several inches at a time until the
dress was torn in half, hanging open. Then he stepped back, and took
the belt from his neck, again swinging it figure eight style again. He
sped up, moving it faster as he came closer to me. The belt brushed
against me a few times; never hard, but always