Macho sluts, p.8
Macho Sluts, page 8
The nerve of the woman!
A crowd began to spiral around her. She stood at its center, blowing smoke into the faces pushed too close to hers, nodding absently at whatever was said, but drawing so hard on her cigarette that it was obvious she took more pleasure from it than from her present company. All her movements were graceful and confident to the point of arrogance. I find arrogance irresistible.
Perched in my window, I wondered about Jessie. A friend of mine told me that her last lover left her because “she was tired of being pushed around.” Pushed around? How? I asked. My friend smiled mysteriously and began to roll another joint. It was the kind of remark that was calculated to set all my fantasy movie machinery in gear, and it had.
My fantasies have a way of turning into challenges. I started to frighten myself with the idea of going up to her. What the hell—she was a woman, like me. Puts her pants on one leg at a time just like the rest of the Lesbian Nation. Wouldn’t it be enough just to talk to her for five minutes, introduce myself, even if she snubbed me? If I didn’t expect too much, I couldn’t really get my feelings hurt.
But I already expected a lot. Too much. I didn’t want an autograph—I wanted to stroke that soft skin and feel the resilient muscle running underneath it. Light her cigarette? Bring her a beer? Ha! I wanted to have her under me so I could brush the tops of my breasts against her cheek, graze her half-opened lips with my nipples—shit, even a standard one-night stand would be a disappointment. I wanted something a little more exotic, a little more intense—kinky, to be exact. But maybe she wouldn’t care if I was on my feet or on my knees. Maybe she only got off on crowd control. There was a split second when no hand was reaching for her arm; no one was sidling up with a joke to tell. Looking a bit quizzical at being left alone, she took a cigarette and tapped it on one thumbnail.
I found myself transported to her side. She turned her head to stare at me, and all the beer I had drunk ran straight into my bladder. We were too close. If I puffed out my breath, it would disturb the downy hairs along the sides of her neck.
She did not back away, just gave me a cold little once-over. I forced myself to stand my ground, keeping my feet apart and my hands unclenched at my sides, while she took in my tousled gold-brown hair; the tight, black leotard; the studded leather belt; and my faded, button-fly Levis. But I could only bear to look her in the eye for a few seconds before I had to drop my gaze to the toes of her boots. I was in agony. I had no alibi, no catchy opening line, no excuse. I needed a haircut. One of the buttons on my fly had slipped out of the frayed buttonhole. I tried not to pant, knowing that would expand my cleavage, and wound up hyperventilating. When I glanced up, she was, indeed, staring at my breasts … or was she looking at my throat? Then her eyes flicked to my wrists, and back to my neck, and I knew what had caught her attention.
I was wearing, as I always do, two braided black-leather bracelets and a matching collar. It sounds dramatic, but most people don’t notice them unless they know what they mean.
If she read me, it didn’t show on her face. “What’s your name?” she demanded.
“Liz.”
She nodded, and continued to stare at me while she finished her beer. “Dance?” she said finally, and walked toward the music without looking back to see if I would follow.
I was there when she turned around. Her arms accepted me, fit me to her, and we began to duel with one another. I wondered how many women had been settled against her hip. How many eager cunts had pressed just where mine was pressed? More than she could remember, to judge from the practiced, almost automatic rhythm of her dance.
At first, we stared over each other’s shoulders, our faces expressionless. This dance is so intimate that some formality must be maintained, even as one of her breasts fits between yours and you feel your own breasts similarly nestled. You must pretend there is no flame between you, no erotic friction, no liquid silk sliding between your thighs. It wasn’t easy for me to feign nonchalance. She was damnably competent. I finally quit wondering whether I was having hot flashes or cold chills and just let waves of excitement flicker up and down me, praying I wouldn’t shiver in her arms. Her own smell (the salt of perspiration, the secret hollows and folds of her skin, the musk and wild onion of her sex) was mixed with tobacco and booze, and it aroused me so painfully that I wanted to bury my nose in her hair, her armpits, the folds of her labia.
She started playing with the braided leather band around my throat. “You have interesting taste in jewelry,” she said casually. “What is this, a choker or something?”
“It’s a collar,” I said.
She was looking for a snap or a knot, but all she could find was the silver ring woven into the design. “Doesn’t it come off?” she asked, turning it. I smiled. “Well,” she shrugged, “I’m impressed.”
She let me snuggle up to her, and rested her chin on the top of my head. “You’re very sensitive,” she drawled, stroking my neck. Goosebumps covered me in a flash. “Just the lightest touch … and your skin is so pale.” She pretended to take a professional interest in my health—“I hope you’re not anemic?”
“No, but I bruise easily.”
“Ahh.” Her nostrils quivered.
My inner lips had continued to swell, unfurling themselves until they were in full bloom. I was slippery with hot vaginal oils. She continued to tease me, shifting suddenly to apply pressure when I least expected it, clinging and grinding against me when I tried to move away. I threw back my head and looked at her, letting her see the flush on my cheeks. Her eyes narrowed, and she began to coax more sensation from me, trying to see how high I could get without breaking away. My breath was coming in fits and starts. But it was she who suddenly uttered a short cry of surprise and ecstasy. I was startled— flattered. She took my chin in her cupped hand and brought me to her mouth. Teeth, clean and sharp, cut my lips. Her tongue rippled against my inner cheeks and palate. I moaned inside her mouth, safe, where no one could hear me. My vagina was a fountain, little spurts of lubrication welling up out of me.
“I’m kissing you too hard,” she whispered, and released me.
“I can take rougher treatment than that,” I murmured in reply, and laid my cheek on her shoulder.
She twisted her hand in my hair and forced me to look at her. There was something like pity in her eyes, then that was replaced by a predatory joy. “Can you really?” she threatened.
“I can play any game you can come up with.”
“But I’m not playing.”
I considered carefully. “If anyone changes their mind, it will be you,” I promised quietly.
She squeezed my ass. Hard. “Do you know, I have never let a dare go by. Not once in my whole little life.” She danced me into a dark corner, kissing me up and down between my ear lobe and shoulder. Her lips were soft. She took little nibbles of me, like a doe working on a sapling. Now she pressed me against the wall, standing between me and the crowd. We kissed, and she slipped her hand into the spandex bodice of my leotard to fondle my breasts. My nipples responded instantly to her touch, pointed and hard as little pine cones. She used her tongue in my mouth, and I couldn’t stop my hips from responding. She stroked my back, belly, kissed me again and again, pinching my nipples and squeezing my breasts.
“How does that feel?” she whispered in my ear. “Did you know you’re dancing all over the place? Ooh, let me do that again. No— take your hand away—I want to. You want me to. I can tell you like it. You’re so turned on, I think I could make you come right now, in front of everybody.” She began to call me names—slut, bitch, whore, cunt—and they were rich and resonant in my ear, like an incantation. “You’re a very bad girl,” she said. “I think I should take you home with me and teach you a lesson. Only I don’t know if I can wait until I get you home.”
It seemed to me that everyone in the room must be staring. I tried to protest without drawing attention to us, but when Jessie started working on the buttons of my Levis, I shrieked.
She stopped what she was doing, her hand resting on my hip. “Apparently, I’m not the one who’s going to change her mind,” she drawled.
I winced. “Touché. I concede the point.”
“Mmm.” She wound her fingers in my hair. “What else are you willing to concede?”
“Whatever you can make me concede.”
“You won’t go along peacefully, huh? I have to use force?”
“Don’t you want to use force?”
Jessie laughed. “Point for you.” She put her hands up to her throat and untied her scarf. I stood perfectly still while she threaded one end through the ring on my collar. “This should insure your compliance,” she said, trying the knot with loving care.
The stairs were only a few steps away. She led me out, holding onto the other end of the scarf. I may have imagined it, but I thought I heard someone say, “Did you see that?” and someone else say, “Oh, my God!” behind us. It seemed to me that Jessie walked a little more briskly.
I concentrated on the high heels of her boots as she led me out of the building to her sports car. “They know about you,” I said jealously as she unlocked the door.
“And now they know about you, too,” she said harshly. “Get in. I didn’t ask you to worry about my maiden reputation.”
Her car was so little and low, I had to hunch myself and duck, then almost fall into the bucket seat. Jessie was already seated, whistling through her teeth and drumming her fingers on the steering wheel. She leaned across me to lock my door, then retrieved the end of the scarf and tied it around her wrist. “Can’t forget your safety belt, now can we?” We gave each other big smiles that were only twenty percent phony.
“What about your reputation?” she asked me, looking over her shoulder as she backed into the street.
“Shit, I’m no superstar. I don’t give a damn what they think.”
“Yeah, it hurts my feelings, too.”
I laughed ruefully. She drove very fast, hands at home on the steering wheel. My seat was comfortable and deep, tilted back so I could see half the night sky in the windshield’s crystal curve. The stars blazed too bright for their pinpoint size, and the moon was a crispy, golden cookie, still waiting for the North Wind to take her first bite. I relaxed into the sensation of being taken somewhere, gliding smoothly through the night to an unknown destination. It was mysterious and soothing at the same time. Whenever she took a turn, there would be a slight tug at my neck, reminding me that she had chosen me and taken steps to “insure my compliance.”
“Listen,” she confided, “I have to confess, this has never happened to me before.” She took a pack of cigarettes out of her jacket pocket and tossed them into my lap. I lit her a cigarette, passed it over, found the ashtray, and pulled it out. “Faggots do this all the time, right? They stick the right color bandana in their back pocket and stroll down the street and take their pick. But dykes … I’m surprised we ever make it with each other.”
“Really,” I agreed. “I resent that romantic thing so much. I just can’t take it seriously, having someone fall madly in love with you after their forth beer, and changing their mind over breakfast.”
“Uh-huh,” she nodded. She tapped ashes off her cigarette, then rolled her window down a little to carry out the smoke. “If the only information I had about lesbians was what I got out of women’s newspapers, I would never tumble to the fact that we are female queers who actually go to bed with each other. I’d think lesbianism was a political party, like the Republicans and the Democrats, and all these women only got together because of our joint oppression. I mean, I know we all have a common political cause. Nobody knows it better than me, because our group is fucking good, we work so hard, and we can’t get a recording contract with a straight company because we’re all dykes. But no feminist record company is going to sign us up either, because they think hard-core rock ’n’ roll is apolitical, and I have the reputation of a rapist. So we keep on playing for dances and parties and benefits and bars, and we always have a roomful of women dancing their asses off. But I don’t even let anybody record our act any more. I’m tired of hearing myself on a scratchy little tape cassette.”
I didn’t know what to say. If I’d had a million dollars, I would have written her a check on the spot. “Bringing rock ’n’ roll to the matriarchy is a thankless task,” I finally ventured.
She thought that was funny. “I dig what I do,” she said. “I’d play for myself if nobody else would listen. I’d just like to see a little more honesty, that’s all. I’d like to hear somebody admit they come out and dance to us because we turn them on, not to further the feminist revolution.”
“That’ll happen the same day somebody walks up to me in a bar and says, ‘I want to fuck your brains out,’ instead of, ‘I think I’m falling in love with you.’”
She smoked the rest of her cigarette. When she turned to me, she had a crazy little smile on her face. “I want to fuck your brains out,” she told me, and watched me shiver from head to toe. Then she laughed and went back to driving.
There was a hiatus in our conversation, during which I sat peacefully, pretending the ride would never end. It was Jessie who broke the silence. “You know, you almost scared me off back there with your fancy jewelry. I wondered if we were in the same league. I mean, I don’t wear my handcuffs on my belt.”
So I wasn’t the only one who was afraid of being outclassed. That was reassuring. I smiled with satisfaction, and didn’t say anything.
“So where did you get them?” she demanded, a little impatiently.
“It’s a long story.”
“This is a long ride. Tell me.”
I shook my head. “You won’t believe it.”
“I won’t, huh? Come on, quit being coy.”
I rubbed my face, feeling a little sleepy. Where to start … “Well, let’s see. My first experience with S/M was with Sue. And she had to hound me for months to tie her up and spank her. I insisted that she do it to me first, so I could be sure it was okay. Surprise, surprise, I found out I really like it, so I reciprocated, and we kept fooling around with it, but not doing anything heavy. I started suggesting we move into it a little further. That made her uneasy. When I bought her a leather paddle, she freaked out. For some reason, that was sick. We eventually broke up, ostensibly over class differences, and there was nobody to talk to. I think I tried once to explain it to this friend of mine, my best friend, in fact. We had known each other since college, when we both came out during the same semester. So I was trying to describe this new component of myself I had begun to unearth, and she freaked out, too. She said something like, ‘After the months I’ve worked at the rape crisis center, I can’t stand to listen to this,’ and ran like a bunny. The next time I called up a few of my other old friends, they treated me with what I thought was distaste. Sue was not telling people about our class differences, it seemed. So I gave up calling anybody I used to know.”
“Sounds familiar,” Jessie said. “Where did you go from there?”
“I spent about a month just going to my shop and coming straight home. Staring at TV. Then I got disgusted with myself and fed myself a couple of drinks and drove myself down to one of the men’s leather bars. I was lucky the first time—it was real crowded, and the bartender didn’t spot me, so I hung out all night, tucked behind the jukebox, taking everything in a mile a minute. The next time I went there, it wasn’t so busy, and they kicked me out. So I went down the block to the next bar. It was real hard. But I kept thinking, there must be other women like me somewhere, I can’t be the only one, and sooner or later they’ll show up here, too. Because there is no place else to go.” I paused to take a deep breath, but Jessie didn’t say a word. She was fascinated. I wondered how much of my story was her story.
“Well, one night I was having a terrible time. I had hit my three favorite places. None of the bartenders I’d managed to make friends with were on duty, and none of the men I had met were there to vouch for me, so I got bounced out. I decided to check out this tiny little place I usually never bothered with. I just wanted to sit down for a few minutes and have a quick drink before I went home. So I walked in, asked for a beer, and the guy behind the bar says, ‘I don’t want to be rude, honey, but this is a men’s bar. I think you’d better leave.’ I didn’t even try to argue. I just slid off the stool and headed for the door.
“‘Can she stay if I buy her a drink?’ somebody asked. I thought I was hearing things. It was a very female voice. I did this slow-motion turn and panned the room. She was standing in the doorway, with the darkness behind her. As she moved toward me, I saw that she was wearing a black satin dress and a diamond choker. Oh, yes, with long, black gloves. And you know those spike-heeled fetish boots that look impossible to walk in? Well, she wasn’t having any trouble walking in hers. There were two men behind her, about six feet tall, in full leather—her honor guard or her bodyguards or something. They never looked at each other, only at her. I don’t think they ever spoke. They just kept their hands behind their backs and stayed right at her heels. When she was about five feet from me, she stopped and threw her long, black hair back over one shoulder. She tilted her head and looked at me. It was obvious that she found me very amusing. While she enjoyed her private joke, I stared back at her. Her face was round, with strong features. She almost looked Chinese. And there was flesh around her chin, not quite a double chin, just enough flesh to make her look voluptuous and a little greedy.”
“I don’t believe this,” Jessie said. “Are you making this up?”
“I warned you about that. You don’t have any right to complain, so shut up.” Jessie continued to grumble, but I ignored her. “She made a little motion with her hand. The two guys froze where they were. I followed her down to the other end of the bar. The dress and her long hair rustled when she walked. Everything became more and more unreal. I felt like I’d walked into a movie. The bartender brought us each a tequila sunrise, without being asked. She took off her gloves—slowly—and tossed them to me. I folded them and laid them in my lap. I couldn’t understand why I had caught her eye. I was wearing all the leather I had—a beat-up pair of cowboy boots and a bomber jacket. I looked like I’d gotten lost on my way to see the Ramones. But I looked like I belonged there more than she did.
