Tryst

A short story by gmo

 

“I’ll dress slutty. Just for you. You dress like Paul Newman, old Paul Newman. A cardigan and stuff...be baggy.” My ear absorbs her voice like a thirsty diaper. “At three!” she shrieks.

She has beauty, she has flaws, but she is right on time. Watching her approach is watching a trailer for an NC17 flick. My hormones gurgle inside my baggy trousers. Flawly speaking, her facial features favor her father, a wind-burnt rice farmer from Crowley: lean, swarthy, tight skinned, boney-angular with a hawk nose and Dick Tracy slit-lips. That’s her except the lips, her upper one being almost normal while the lower lip is over generous, puffy, plump, bulbous like an oyster on Botox. That lower lip is never closed giving her a gaspy, asthmatic look. MarJean says her mother says her father has never smiled in his entire fifty eight years. With a bubbly personality that raises laughter to saint hood, MarJean is busy making up for her father’s stinginess. She resembles, in fact, St. Anne in Ecstasy, the familiar holy picture of the adolescent Mouseketeer saint : giggley, perpetually pleased, puzzled and sweet, friendly, accepting, un-wary–but with explosively sexy hair. I don’t mind MarJean’s country skin, her swarthiness, crow-footed smile lines. She looks great to me. I even love her hooked nose. It’s her father’s nose.

MarJean’s gait is athletic and muscular and awkward--not un-feminine, not un-girlish, just un-polished, tomboy-ish, like a chicken fat souffle. She has studied ballet and dance since fourteen but with legs a little bowed she never had a chance. So she’s a swimming coach. Perfect, she says, since she’s “built like a fish: tit-less and hip-less.” Tit-less? Almost, but of course she has hips. Sandbag hips, cling-able handles of hips, not curvy like spilled spaghetti hips, but hold-able, grasp-able like a smooth, firm wheel of Gruyere hips.

Tits. Standing, her breasts are tiny offerings for the suckiest hands, lacking even an Inframammary fold. Lying down, they give up and disappear. But two more assertive nipples are hard to imagine. When erect, you could spin plates on them. Paper envelopes, anyhow. She doesn’t need a bra but wears one anyhow to suppress the irrepressible nipples protruding like mushrooms in any air conditioning or touched by the slightest finger caress. Whenever we’re alone, regardless where, I coax her to remove the bra. It’s a game for two. “Take it off, M J, it’s irrelevant.” “Nooo, not here! Anywhere but here.” And so on.

More flaws? Partially hidden by the verge of follicles of her pubic hair is a crescent scar from Thomas’s birth. Thomas is her son who is in the custody of Philip, her ex of two years. The gynecologist, judging MarJean’s birth canal too small, Thomas’s head too large, recommended a Caesarian. It’s a little difficult to make out, the scar, she is particularly bushy down there; I had to know about it and search. Then it is hard to miss, right there in front of my eyes.

She manipulates. (We still on flaws?) Me. Everyone. Thomas if she’d get to see him. Even if I know what she’s doing and expect it, I fall. Unavoidable. Like stepping on a cow pie which suddenly materializes at my feet...or learning a recently deceased enemy has been canonized. Mostly, her efforts are benign. (I won’t speak of the other kind here for lack of space lack of respect lack of interest.) For instance, majorly, she is always fooling with her hair in a way that makes me a servant. Hair–her hair–is an apocalyptic weakness for me. She uses her hair to distract me. To show her power. To punish. To achieve. To establish hierarchy. She will push a plush silky length of fall behind an ear and by some magic make the heavy hair fall across her face at precisely the right moment : just when I’m trying to make a point or fry an egg or read a magazine–or when I need to be firm, unyielding, righteous : I stop because my heart stops. She has my attention, like a slab of bleeding liver dropped into my lap. Folding her fingers like a hitch hiker, she uses her thumb to hook the hair back behind an ear, an automatic motion of girlish coyness she learned who knows where. Natural and un-assuming? I don’t think so. I’m a target, I know it. I don’t mind. It’s what she does. It’s who I am. I’m who she does it to. We need each other. Like a racoon needs a dumpster.

MarJean is wearing a clingy mid-thigh light green skirt with a slit three quarters up. A low waist band prescribing waxing. No panty hose because she knows I love her skin and, besides, her legs are without blemish. The bowing is kind of cute. All those little freckles, like truffles on cream. That lick-able scarred left knee cap. Shin bruises shine like purple Chinese lanterns. Above her skirt, not tucked in, is a short sleeve blouse of brown silk, thin and flowing, top two buttons open to show the Baroque flatness of her brassiere. Red, three inch heels click and scrape when she walks. No purse, but two skirt pockets. I know that one holds a two-key key ring, the other a driver’s license. Rather than walking towards me, she’s aiming at me with mournful, sincere eyes. A favorite ploy. She says nothing. Instead of words I get looks, coughs, a growl. She grabs my hand like it was forbidden fruit.

A series of thunder storms riding out of Texas last night and this morning caused brown outs in parts of the city. A swath of French Quarter skimmed by the river from Canal to Esplanade is without power. It’s early evening, about four, with plenty of light for business and tourists. The electric grid and the weather could change any second. Overhead, splayed dirty-yellow clouds push at each other like playful paraplegic puppies. Narrow streams of brown rain water race down blue muddy gutters past darkened bars like a month’s worth of spilled cocktails. The peculiar half-light, broken and jittery, has locked the Quarter inside a cell of sparkling supernal beauty prepped for lipo-suction. We’ve seen it all before, of course, normal August weather. But never so awarely. Like suddenly realizing the nun sitting next to you possesses a cold, darkly hidden crotch.

The rain, so noisy a little while ago, has stopped. A smothering, heavy air has replaced it, suffocating our energy, causing us to lean like soiled consciences onto each other for support. People here and there look stranded, as we must, laying low. Passing cars shush by quickly like shocked souls sluicing into Purgatory. She is squeezing my hand with both of hers, pulling down, forcing me to turn towards her and confront her self-absorption at eye level. (We are almost the same height; she has half an inch on me.) Now she is looking away. All I see is soft black hair. I clear my throat and she turns back but stays focused inward. With another tug on my hand the 774100n both sides of her face fall forward to form a shadow compelling as week old blood pudding.

So. By now we have approached a corner, all the while clinging to each other like parasitic suction cups. As we turn the corner a particularly violent gust of wind sends a ribbon of heated rain plowing into us, slapping us in the face so violently we stop altogether. MarJean points proudly to her bare arm bursting into goose bumps like a child displaying her first vomit. I brush her arms with my rough open palms. “I’m not cold,” she says contrarily. I brush more vigorously. Inspired, I move to her thighs below the short skirt pretending to give her warmth she says she doesn’t need. She stands perfectly still through this detailing. Everything about her could be hypothetical. Only now she begins to shiver over and over again and I am stumbling to keep upright while I continue to brush her chilled skin. “See! Your skin is freezing.” “That’s not why I’m shivering,” she says. I lead her across the street, over the chlorophyllic green lawn of the Aquarium, then across the train tracks, past the double rails of narrow gauge street car tracks until, finally, we reach the levee and pace the graffitied sidewalk paralleling the livery river falling unsteadily toward the Delta. Once again the rain begins, but very lightly and no one is running for cover. Clouds break apart and the sun bursts out so quickly and bright that everyone–our fringe audience, we imagine--laughs. A few applaud. MarJean shrieks sounding like her father shooting ‘coon from his back porch rocker. The asphalt steams like a fresh disembowelment. MarJean pulls away from me, opens her arms to the foggy warmth in a wide embrace of thanksgiving, high-step dancing for joy like Judas at the Crucifixion. Just as fast the light fades away. Once again the sky is covered with black, grey, light, dark, dirty ochre clouds, speeding, sagging, soaked clouds. This is hilarious to MarJean who doubles over with laughter. Thunder grumbles in the distance like a galaxy of exploding, liberated sperm. Lightening stops our breath. Too close! We’re exposed. We know what is coming. Warning enough. Seagulls fly, shriek and take cover. We stand ready, holding hands, impatient and lustful for what follows. Clouds like bunched socks weakened by preteen spunk crack open above our heads. We’re pelted harder and harder and harder and harder. Our exposed location offers no escape. A vivid slice of lightning drys our lust and we decide we want shelter. We search but none presents itself. So we drop hands and make a half-assed lope along the levee in the direction we came. It is warm now, jungle-ish. We are soaked to skin. The humid air surrounding us is a water fall slowing us down until we are stopped by our unendurance. “Jesus,” she yells above the roar, “this is fucking great!” We are on a sloping wedge of thick grass, all alone, nobody in sight, our eyes unable to focus more than a few yards away. Though they–the Others-- might see us, we do not see them. I’m watching MarJean blink water out of her eyes. What an angel. Her hair plasters her head like a vascular black mop sucking pink rock. She covers her face with both hands then presses them up to her hair, grabbing it, pulling it straight up, eyes closed, mouth wide open and she whoops loud. We are trapped within rain. Now I must also breathe open mouthed. I try to hyperventilate hysterically to illustrate to her I also am ecstatically overwhelmed. “This should never end,” I tell her, “I will remember this forever,” but I’m already beginning to forget it. I don’t remember how long we have been here or when it started to rain or when I was dry last. We hug. Our clothes squish and squirt between our flat chests. I don’t want to release her. I want to look at her. I’ll never see her like this again. Rain bounces off us like shattered teeth. With every lightning bolt we scream laughs like hysterical drowning fetuses. MarJean is so overcome she speaks in tongues. “Bla gor lei mon teg gun sed faia,” she yells at the top of her lungs, but barely audible over the roar of rain, “quin lus doppa tuil [flash] CEMBA!” Close! I beg God Almighty not to strike us dead with lightning, either for foolishness or blasphemy. What I’m saying out loud is, “If you must kill us, Jesus, kill us both. I can not live without MarJean.” MarJean, pushing me away, yells, “No, no, no JC, you old Zombie, let me live, let me live. I want to live! Someone needs to stay behind and mourn him. I can do that mindless!” Shelter appears. Shelter is the long, narrow waiting room of the ferry to Algiers. We accept it, reluctantly.

There are about twenty of us huddled on the ramp sloping up to the dock’s pedestrian entrance. A few people are looking at MarJean and I with faces expressing dullness too profound to contemplate. Me and my Slut. Me and my Fish goddess.

Without the insulating rain around me, I notice a chill. Not bad, though. Titillating. It isn’t possible to be cold outdoors in New Orleans mid-August. Some of our fellow shelterers are warming towards us. When I catch their eyes they smile, before turning away either from embarrassment or envy. A few people are more serious, thoughtful. They watch us furtively, policefully. These we want to fuck with if we can, but we are not good at planning. These are not shelterers; they are the Ferry-waiters heading home to Algiers. They have a right to be here, their stares do not flicker. MarJean is subdued, she has lost the smell of MarJean. She leans into me wordlessly but breathing hard. I embrace her with my arms, linking fingers behind her back. She is so thin, it is impossible for her to put on weight. Her insides consume everything leaving no waste. She is sex. Her scent is of speculative coitus and of future rain. Eros colors her eyes. My shirt is transparent. “I see your nipples,” says MarJean, looking down onto my chest, “they turn me on. You have bigger breasts than I do. I am capable of anything, right now,” she continues. “If I were a man I’d have a hard on.” I laugh and push her away with both hands. “Your nipples are getting hard. They embarrass me,” said MarJean. “Please do something before I ....” So, I kiss her. A light kiss on the lips, while leaning chastely forward as if not wanting our bodies to touch. “Let’s go back in the rain,” she says suddenly alert. The day hurries on. Rain is slightly slacking off, slightly. It comes in waves and then retreats. Low rumbling thunder tumbles distantly giving us a moment of doubt. The lightning, though, has moved on to blast elsewhere.

We casually re-enter the rain, strolling slowly across the street to no traffic, pinkies entwined, bumping shoulders, not bothering to wipe water off our faces, trying not to blink our rain laden eye lashes. Water builds in my shoes which have become pails. Rain forms a cushion around us once again. We are again hidden. The city’s disguise is perfect : maybe the city is there, maybe it isn’t. We are a smallness the city overlooks. On the serge of grass bordering the aquarium I stop us. I try to complete a fantasy: What would happen...? “Remove your bra, MarJean.” She laughs with her entire body. “Ugh! I hate women who go bra-less, you know that. It’s disgusting. It’s cheap. I’m not a slut.” Her eyes lit up. “I’m not a whore. Not your whore, anyway.” “Remove your bra right now, right here,” my voice breaks with erotic desire. Can she hear me above the rain? She laughs. “Well, ok then, if you’re going to use that voice.” She unbuttons her shirt without a glance left or right, hands it to me then removes her brasserie. I accept that also, then bundle it into a pocket. She is topless. “God! That feels good.” Is that as good as “fucking great”? Stepping back slowly, she turns a circle, arms out spread. I hand her back her blouse which she slowly puts on and buttons closed. She is still topless. “Where’s the bra,”she asks. “I threw it away.” That makes her laugh, again. Some laughs sound identical to crying. Her laughs fill her throat like a sinking lifeboat. Barefoot, she has lost her red shoes.

It is early–about 5PM--but eerily dark, like the inside of a psychotic spleen. Hours more daylight left. MarJean is standing stark still, arms partially pulled away from her body, head back, eyes closed, mouth drinking rain, hair separated into strands, shiny rivulets outlining her head, forehead, cheeks, neck. She looks casually nude and I am charmed by her deviance. I am so happy I could kill. MarJean touches herself with long sliding motions down her arms, across her stomach, behind her neck, along her hips. She folds her arms behind her head in a sleepy glamor pose. Her knees are locked together like she’s trying not to piss. Usually a calm person only when among her students. When agitated like now she speaks with her whole body, with expansive arm gestures, head movements, intense ridiculous stares. She takes my head in both hands and wants to say something but cannot get the words out. She finally says something but the rain carries her voice away. “What, what?” “I’m starving!” she yells. When she lowers her arms, my face feels smeared in yellow blood.

She’s always hungry. For pleasure. Her two major pleasures are sex and food. Everything comes from desire. Basic Marjean hasn’t read a book in years; has no opinions; never votes. When she remembers, she visits Tom as allowed, once a month. Now MarJean is hungry. I yell back with a lunging arm gesture : “To the Napoleon House!”--a tourist hovel three or four blocks away. I think we are on Decatur, halfway there, when I decide to pull her into a partially sheltering doorway where another couple is hugging one corner. They don’t look up. They are mostly dry. MarJean’s response is to curl her arms between us in a fold of acceptance, leaning her body forcefully against mine, straddling one of my legs, looking into my eyes with open passion. I feel an erection growing. “I feel it, too,” she says. “My back’s getting cold,” she says squirming out of my arms. So, we switch places and now I’m facing the slowly flooding street, my erection to the river, and MarJean is behind me, her back to the door, her soaking hair lies partly on the back of my neck like a mop of guts. My hands reach back to find her hips. She caresses my breasts as I usually caress what she has, pinching my nipples between scissored fingers, rubbing them with the palms of her hands. I imagine I feel her breasts pressing against my back, but realize that is wild delusion. She whispers in my ear, “I know we’ve known each other more than a month because I have my period.” Can she know this? Her period? Without checking? The first time we had sex she had her period. Only a month ago? I push again against her; my hands rubbing her thighs over her soaked skirt through which I can feel the edge of her underwear. Why didn’t I ask her to remove that as well? Is it too late? My right shoulder which sticks past the doorway a little bit is getting direct rain. Suddenly, the air explodes making us jump: hail! Every surface is a drum. The air is furry. Disintegrating clouds pound the Earth with something that looks like vicious white rabbit shit. We hold each other tighter as the storm transforms itself from a familiar phenomenon to a breath taking terrorist tactic. As fast as we watch the hail stones bounce, they dissolve. The evening is beautiful: the lights, the noise, the sudden cold, the neglected erection, street reflections, traffic, the couple sharing our doorway, our lust, the reek of oysters frying. We’re cold; we aren’t cold. MarJean holds onto me and I shove back against her, no longer watchful. The light is sinking into evening. Street lights, too weak to make much difference, flicker on but it remains twilight. Hidden by my body and the uneven light, I slip two fingers beneath her skirt, pry past her panty’s edge and rub her clit. I hear her gasp and feel a hot sigh on my neck. I do it again. She sags, held upright by the door and me. She’s grrrrrring! Her only objection comes when I push further, getting her slipperiness and blood on a finger tip. The diminishing rain returns to a drizzle. A car races by with brights showing like a cue. It’s over. We relax, un-hook.

“I’m cold,” I say. “Not me.”

“I’m hungry,” she says. “Not me.”

Before I let her out, I close my eyes trying to memorize the moment. I suck my fingers.