by Jack Ketchum
Outside the Manhattan night was pale brown on the streets and gold in the foggy sky. We took a cab down to 14th Street and I settled Phil into a bar while I went off to meet his wife. The bar had a pool table so he wouldn't get too drunk.
They lived in a basement apartment. I knocked on the door and Cathy opened it.
"Phil's not here," she said.
"I know. I just left him."
"Oh."
"I came to see you."
"Me?"
"Are you going to let me in?"
"Well, yes...sure."
"I hope you're not too busy. Am I interrupting anything?"
"Oh, no. It's just that...well, look Stroup. You've heard about Phil and me, haven't you?"
"Phil told me."
"Of course he did. And you're Phil's friend, you're his best friend and I..."
"Not anymore, goddammit."
"Not anymore what?"
"I'm not his best friend, that's what. Sonovabitch just walked off with the woman I love. I'd never have believed he could do that to me. Finest woman I ever met. Name of Helen. She wears a neck brace sometimes. Bastard just took her right in front of me, right there on the floor of her apartment."
She sighed. "So now you know what I've been dealing with, Stroup."
"I do. I do now. You're a good woman, Cathy. I'm amazed you put up with him so long."
"It wasn't easy."
"Oh hell, I'm sure it wasn't easy."
"I'm sorry, Stroup. I really am."
I had her then. All I had to do was let the tears roll. It was always easy for me to cry. All I had to do was think of that time I destroyed that big old beautiful '56 Buick for the insurance money. So I let them go. She watched me for a moment.
"Can I get you anything, Stroup?" She was very tender. "Is there anything I can do?"
"No, nothing," I said. I waited awhile, let the tears build up real well and then let go again. "Well, yeah, Cathy," I said, "I guess, there's something..."
Which was how I got to fuck Phil's wife.
Not that it helped. Phil still went out to the coast, San Diego actually, that ugly tar pit of highways, sailors and shit chili. Cathy and I got on very well that night and we still do. Every Tuesday. Wednesdays I go to Helen and Tuesdays to Cathy and the rest of the nights of the week I do what I can and who I can in between bouts with the wife. Oh yeah, I'm married, just like Phil. The wife doesn't matter much though in the scheme of things. Except I'm not quite as free as I could be.
You might find it interesting to know about Helen. She called me one day at the office. This was before Phil left, he was still in town. It had been a miserable morning. Everybody wanted his ass kissed and wanted it now. That kind of morning. I plugged away, Cursing, kissing asses. Around two o'clock she called me.
"How the hell'd you get this number?" I said.
"Phil gave it to me."
He'd been pretty pissed about my strategy with Cathy. Wasn't talking to me at all anymore.
I figured he'd put Helen onto me to get even.
"Do you mind?" she said.
"Damned right I do. If you ever call me at work again I'll kick your ass, you hear me?"
"Will you give me your home number?"
''No.''
"You won't?"
"No."
"Don't you want to see me again?"
"No."
"I want to see you."
"Sure you do."
"I mean it."
I gave it some thought.
"All right. Friday night, nine o'clock, your apartment."
"Great."
"And Helen."
"Yes?"
"I'm coming over to fuck you, understand? If I'm not fucking you within half an hour that's it, I'm never going to see you again. I'm not wasting any time on you."
Her voice was very small.
"Okay, Stroup. I understand."
She hung up and that Friday night was one of the best of my life. We fucked from hell to breakfast. In the sink, on the rug again. I had her bending over the fire escape. I came in her ass, in her armpits and in between her toes. I gave her a workout she'd never forget and it was only at the end of the night just as I was going out the door that I gave her or Phil any real thought at all.
"He's gone, you know," she said.
"Who?"
"Phil."
"Phil? He is?"
"Yeah. I saw him night before last. He left yesterday. He left you a note, though."
"He did? What's it say?"
She got the letter. I opened it. It was from Phil all right. Thoughtful, I felt. What a sweet guy, what a sucker. Then I read it.
TO HELL WITH YOU, it said. I USED TO THINK YOU WERE A BOSOM BUDDY. NOW YOU'RE JUST ANOTHER BURN ARTIST.
Who isn't?
The late lamented Belles of Hell was a wonderful old writer's and working-man's bar down in the West Village where drinks were cheap and there was live entertainment whenever somebody got it together. I remember seeing the legendary rock 'n roll writer Lester Bangs do some sets there, his teeshirt looking like he'd shoved his dinner up through it and his pack of Luckies regular sticking out through a hole in the back pocket of his jeans while he roared into the mike. To writers from Penthouse, the Daily News and a bunch of young-turk freelancers it was home-away-from-home once the workday was over.
The bar's long gone now and so is my buddy Lester and I miss them both. So this one's for you, Lester.
I think you'd have laughed a time or two.
The incident at the Plaza is substantially true. So is the woman with the neck brace. The rest is Stroup and bullshit.
THE RUBDOWN
San Diego wasn't just another boring town, it was the cold-cock deadass end of the fucking world. It was limbo north of absolutely nothing. It was a stretcher in a hospital waiting room and you knew you'd never get out of there alive. I had a job so the days were tolerable. But nights, hell, you were lucky to find a bar with a pool table and a piece of ass under fifty-five who looked better than a housefly. That was San Diego. A tired smug suntanned old juicer drowning in bad whiskey.
I wondered, where the hell did everybody go at night? Nights only the automobiles were out. I swear there was nobody in them. You could see them moving along, hissing along the concrete, nobody parked and nobody walking. Just headlights and noise along the dead wide highway.
T.J. and I went to buy some dope one night at a friend's place. The friend wasn't home. But the door was open so we walked in. We took some smoke from his stash and left our money on the table. He had a big black gopher snake so we smoked some weed and let the snake out of his cage and watched him slide along the doorjambs. We smoked some more and finally the snake made an exit through the front door. I watched him.
"That snake's getting away, T.J.," I said.
"Jesus sonovabitch!"
"We'd better catch him."
"I'm not going after some snake in the dark. Fuck it."
So we took our grass and got out of there. The snake went free.
And that was the best and most eventful night I had in San Diego. Until I found the whore that is.
I'd never been to a whore and there were two reasons for that. One reason was that I never had the money. That was the good reason. The other was that I didn't like the idea of paying for it. I was too stupid to realize that as the prophet says, you always pay for it in one way or another. But I was learning.
T.J. and I worked together. We worked ourselves dumb and exhausted every day. To us, at the end of the day, the office seemed to stink like a slaughterhouse and we were U.S. Grade A Prime. So we'd skip dinner and get right down to some serious drinking. Maybe dinner would come later. Sometime around the fourth or fifth round. But this night after only two T.J. started rubbing his neck and complaining that what he needed was a real good massage.
"You mean you want to get laid," I said.
"No. Seriously. I could really use a massage."
"T.J., I wouldn't take you seriously with a razor in one han
d and a pistol in the other. You want to go to a whore then go to a whore. But don't bullshit me. You're a goddamn fraud and a drunk to boot and I don't believe you for a minute."
T.J. was a liar and a cheat and you had to let him know you were on to him. Once he knew that you could be friends. But he needed reminding once in awhile. His line was that he'd been a Marine working recon in Vietnam and that he'd killed over thirty men in hand-to-hand combat. Had no choice, he said. He was building a legend. But he probably was as dangerous as a porkpie hat. You could beat the hell out of him with a ten-letter word.
"Jesus, Stroup," he said. "I just want a massage, that's all."
"Okay. Me too. It's a wonderful idea. Only you pick up the tab."
"Why should I pick up the tab?"
"You want company?"
"Yeah."
"I have just enough money for this drink and one more." I ordered another scotch. "That's why."
"You can owe me for the massage, then."
"You want to put me in debt for a fucking massage? You must be out of your mind."
"Okay, Stroup. Okay."
"I mean, if you wanted to get laid, then that might be another thing altogether."
"Yeah, I see."
He didn't see shit. I had another thirty wadded up in my pocket. If I could find a woman as good at her game as I was at mine it was going to be a beautiful night.
We drove downtown.
The streets were packed with sailors in their cheap civvies. Quite a district. New York had nothing like this. Neither did L.A. or Boston or San Francisco. Girls working the storefronts in see-through lingerie. Whores and pimps and skinshows and rough bars everywhere with maybe six or seven massage parlors to the block. It was ten solid blocks of flesh and fast easy money. Ten blocks of steady hustle mobbed with boys who'd had ready cash in their pockets for months now and nothing but a fist to dip into. These kids were hungry.
If I wanted that terrific blonde over there I had better hurry. "Park it!" I said.
"There isn't any place to park it."
"Park it now!"
We found a place to park.
"You ever been to a whore, T.J.?"
"Naw."
"Not even in the service?"
"Hell, no, didn't need to."
"Well you need to now."
"I told you, Stroup. Just a massage. I got a bad neck."
"Uh-huh."
We crossed the street and the blonde was still there. Up close she was incredible. Slim, young and attractive. I felt like a man who'd found a ruby in the kitchen sink. So this was where everybody went nights.
"You free?" I said.
"Not really."
"Right. Don't go away. I'm begging you. Please."
"Okay."
I marched inside, T.J. at my heels.
"You looking for a massage?"
The girl at the desk wore a wedding ring and was ugly as a hangnail and sounded like bald tires on a bad country road.
"We have a massage for fifteen dollars," she said, "a nude massage for twenty dollars and a nude hour-long massage for thirty-five dollars. Whatever you want, sir."
"I want to get laid," I said.
"Tipping is permitted," she said.
"That lady out front, is she free?"
"Not really."
"Don't fuck with me. Is she available?"
"Yes, sir."
"I'll take the twenty. Same for my friend here. Call the lady, please."
Her name was Sonja. She walked in smiling and looked us over.
"Which one?" she said.
"Me," I said.
"Okay."
She smiled again, took my arm and led me inside. They handed T.J. a little redhead with a big ass. Not nearly in the league with my Sonja. But T.J. looked pleased. I wondered if he was still thinking about that crick in his neck or whatever.
"Just go in there and take off your clothes," she said. She opened the door for me. "I'll be back in a minute."
I did what she said. The room was nothing. Just a long massage table with a mirror at one end of the room and a small washbasin and nightstand on the other. Clean, cold and boring. I stripped down and lit a smoke and had a look at myself in the mirror. Not bad. A little too much belly but she wouldn't hate the sight of me. I lay down on the table and waited.
A couple minutes later she poked her head in. Looked at me.
"Be right with you, okay?"
"Okay."
I heard voices out in the hallway. Hers and the girl at the desk. Then another voice, that one female too. Excited whispering. She poked her pretty head in again. Looked me up and down.
"I'm still naked," I said.
"Just take me a second, okay?"
"Okay."
I stubbed out the cigarette. I heard more voices, then quiet. I waited.
She came back into the room smiling and took off the nightie and the bra and panties and everything was pale and fine. A real blonde. Breasts, belly, thighs and ass firm and strong. I had me a racing model here. The body was creamy white, the nipples a pale smooth pink, the thatch was golden. A goddess in the dull grey back room of the Princess Massage. Impossible.
"You're not a cop, are you?" she said.
"Hell, I'm not even a sailor," I said. "Why do you ask?"
"Oh, we ask everybody. What do you do?"
"I'm a writer."
"You make a living at that?"
"No."
"For eighty dollars I'll blow you and fuck you. Would you like that?"
"Yes I would. Say that again?"
"For eighty dollars I'll blow you and fuck you."
"I haven't got eighty. I told you. I'm a writer."
"How much have you got?"
"Maybe twenty."
"Twenty?"
"Maybe thirty."
"Okay, I'll fuck you for thirty. You want to pay me now?"
"Sure."
I handed her the thirty.
"Lie down," she said.
She picked up a bottle of baby oil and squirted some into her hand. Then she took hold of my dick and started to work it. It didn't take long. Meantime I had her ass in one hand and a tit in the other. I wanted that pink nipple in my mouth. I leaned over and put it there. She tightened her fist around my cock. If I wasn't careful this was going to be a thirty-dollar handjob. But she was ahead of me.
"You're ready," she said. "Let's fuck. Remember. No kissing."
"No kissing?"
"Unh-unh."
"Okay."
She turned around and I don't know where it came from but when she turned back to me again she had a rubber in her hand. She peeled it and snapped it and smiled at me and slipped it over my cock. She was more efficient than I'd ever been with the goddamn things. Then she poured some more oil into her hands and ran them over the rubber.
"Get up a second, will you?"
I moved off the table and she lay down on her back. She spread her legs wide for me. I stood there awhile looking dazed and foolish. I looked at her cunt. I looked at her lips. The ones I couldn't kiss. I still couldn't believe this woman was going to fuck me. Not me. It was too damned good, it was a mirage, my joint was in a dream.
"Something wrong?" she said.
"Are you kidding?"
"Well fuck me, then."
This incredible woman! I'd met her what? maybe ten minutes ago, she was one of the most beautiful women I'd ever seen in my life and now I was fucking her. Just like that. No courting, no game plan, no buying of drinks or dinners, no preliminaries. Just a fee, and the rest was spunk and ecstasy.
Now I knew why you went to whores. The lady was efficient, experienced, under control, warm, friendly and beautiful. If she was impersonal, if I had no idea who she was or where she came from, she was also perfection in a way, she was a dream of fretless fuck. If there was calculation there wasn't much bullshit either.
She started to moan. It was fake and unnecessary.
"Cut that out," I said.
She laughed. "Okay,
" she said.
She slid her hand down between us and used her fingers on my cock while I worked away at that glorious cunt and it was too much for me, I'd be going off in a second.
"Don't do that, either." I said. "I'd rather not come yet, all right?"
"Come whenever you want to," she said.
"Thanks," I said. "I will."
I buried my face between her breasts. I kissed the soft flesh of her neck. She kissed mine. We fucked and fucked. I finally came.
I was exhausted but she had paced herself, she had plenty of energy. She got dressed while I just lay there on my back staring up at the spackled ceiling.
"Do I get that massage now?" I said.
"No, you don't get that and a massage. One or the other."
"Too bad."
I sat up and stared at myself in the mirror. Everything about the same. Except I was wearing this wacky grin on my face. And my head was still buzzing. Culture-shock. She opened the door and stopped there.
"How do you feel?" she said.
"Like I've lost my virginity all over again."
"You have." She laughed.
"Mind if I take one of your smokes?" She had a pack of Marlboros next to the towels on the side-table.
"No, go ahead. Take your time."
I smoked a cigarette and got myself dressed. It took awhile for everything to sink in. It still felt strange, this intimacy without knowledge or closeness, this goofy conscienceless immersion.
She poked her head through the door once to see how I was doing. It was not exactly the bum's rush but close. I got the picture. It was a busy night. The fleet was in. I stubbed out the cigarette and buttoned my shirt and made it to the door unassisted.
The door opened from the other side and there was Sonja standing with a sailor on her arm, a kid all of eighteen maybe, crewcutted and bull-necked and smiling a kid's half-assed embarrassed smile. Sonja kissed me on the cheek as I passed.
"Come back soon," she said.
I walked out of there. I looked for T.J. in the lobby and on the street but he was still inside. If he could fuck this long then maybe in fact he could kill. Meantime I watched the whores. The shore patrol went by. There were the girls and the sailors making their deals right out there on the street and the shore patrol just cruised on by.
I was ready to head for a bar when there he was, beaming at me. "Hey, Stroup, how'd it go?"