I felt daring and so I dipped my fingers under the edge of the silk and felt the flare of her waist and lateral under my hand. Her thumb ran up and down my jaw.
I took my hand from her hip and raised it to her face, brushed her hair back. I wanted to kiss her.
I wanted to kiss her so badly, I felt my heart start to pound heavily, as if the blood in it was too thick to flow.
I wanted to have have her under me again, and I wanted her to kiss me, put her arms around my neck and kiss me and moan, Anthony.
I heard her breath hitch in her throat and she pushed my hand from her face back to where it had been on her hip. Her eyes were still closed.
Then I felt her hand going lower, pulling the skirt of the dress up and she moved my hand underneath it, to the top of her warm thigh, and she put my fingers against the waistband of her lace underwear.
I saw her swallow, hard, and watched her chest heave. She had tipped her head back, her eyes closed.
“Eat me,” she said. Her voice was husky and strained. “Eat me out.”
I stared at her, barely breathing. I never expected her to ask me to do something like that.
I had never…I had never done that before.
I froze, unable to move or speak.
My hand resting on her crotch started to feel awkward and dead, like it wasn’t my hand at all, just a lump of meat hanging around down there.
After a moment that felt like an eternity she opened her eyes and blinked at me, her eyes asking the question.
“I—I don’t know what to do,” I whispered.
I suddenly felt convinced that I was doing everything wrong. I was messing this up. I was just going to make her feel bad about herself, exactly like Machyl said I would.
She looked at me, and took my hand out from where it was, and gave it back to me.
She curled her legs up and reached down with her hand, holding my eyes while she took her underwear off and tossed it across the room.
“Come here,” she said, and pulled me toward her, and then I felt the sweet relief when she pulled me on top of her and wrapped her legs around me again. Last night it had been a new sensation, but now it felt comforting and arousing at the same time.
When I felt my weight settle on her, I felt my arousal return in full force, and she gasped and I felt her grind against me just as she had last night.
Yes, I thought desperately as my heart picked up a wild pace. Oh, please let this happen. Please.
She turned my face to hers and her lips found mine, and desire rushed up though my throat and made me weak as she kissed me for real for the first time.
Her full lips were as luscious and smooth as the thin plump skin of a fruit and when she parted her lips and I probed my tongue into her mouth, it was as succulent and sweet as the flesh of a ripe plum and it was all I could do not to start thrusting against her, my groin was already hot and moist where she had wrapped her legs around my hips so tight I could hardly breathe, but I didn’t want to breathe anyway, didn’t need to.
Her lips found my ear and she whispered, “It’s just like sucking on a lollipop.”
The flood of desire her words unleashed in me was totally unexpected, blinding, so that I was suddenly moving without conscious thought, driven by nothing but the yawning gap of desire inside me and the fear, or the certainty, and fear of that certainty, that nothing could satisfy this desire for her.
“Damaris,” I moaned, and kissed her again, and she kissed me back. “Oh Damaris,” I gasped, and started kissing her neck, down between her breasts, and she writhed underneath me and when I held her hips between my hands and put my mouth over her breast again, she cried out.
The more I swirled my tongue around the hard, puckered nub of her nipple, the louder she cried out and the harder her hips moved against me.
I moved to the other one and did the same thing until she had reached her arms up to hold on to the edge of the mattress and she sounded like she was sobbing.
I barely registered the creaking of the bedstead, the screeching of the bedsprings and the rocking of the rickety frame as it began to pound against the wooden wall with every buck of Damaris’ hips.
I moved down her body and paused when I got to the level of her knees.
“Hurry up,” she panted, pawing at me, and she hitched her knees up on either side of me.
I felt as if time were slowing down.
“We don’t want to ruin this pretty dress,” I said, biting my lip, and pulling it down from where it was pooled around her waist.
She raised her hips and rearranged her legs so I could slip it down, and I draped it, as neatly as I could, over the end of the bedstead.
I felt as if my heart were slowing to a glacial pace, each moment stretching to infinity, as I guided her legs back around me.
I looked down at her. The full length of her, nude underneath me. She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.
She looked up at me for a moment, a moment of fragility in her look that might break my heart. I kneeled over her as if I was praying and kissed her navel. Kissed the taught skin of her abdomen.
She sighed and then moaned, and then I sat back and kissed the inside of her knee. The inside of her thigh.
And all the way down, until she felt my mouth on her, right where it would give her the most pleasure, and she gasped and moaned, and I got caught up in her rhythm, carried away with it, and the sighing of the bedsprings and the thump of the bedstead against the wall and her calls, louder and longer with each passing minute, blended into the feeling of her, impossibly hot and soft and fragrant and so good, oh, so good, better than anything I’d felt before, better than anything I’d dreamed, until I wanted to cry with her perfection, and I came like that, from that, from her, one with her.
She came finally, with a long, wordless cry, and then her limbs and lungs froze, locked and went rigid, and she shook and jerked and she finally went still.
I sat up and blinked, dazed, as if I’d stumbled out of a dream.
“Jesus,” she murmured, from where she lay, and then she sat up and started looking for the clothes she had shed.
When she was back to her bra and underwear, she surveyed the bed, where all the clothes she had laid out neatly were now crumpled and spread around. “The leggings?” She asked, picking them up.
“Um, they would look good,” I said. “I’m going to the bathroom,” I muttered, as I hauled myself off the bed. I didn’t want to admit to her that I had come in my pants.
I went into the bathroom, shut the door, undid my pants and tried to clean myself up with a wet facecloth. Of course most of it had already soaked into my briefs, so I started and ended with a damp crotch. I dumped the facecloth in the laundry basket and washed my hands.
The glass of water where I had put my contact lenses was still sitting on the ledge above the sink, and I looked inside to see how the contact lenses were doing.
I frowned.
The glass was empty.
Dry, in fact.
Just a few small beads of water were left pooling in the bottom of the glass.
My contact lenses were clinging to the side of the glass, stuck together overlapping. I could tell by the quavery ridges which had formed around the edges that they were too dried out to ever be worn again.
I stared at them, blinking in confusion.
Someone poured the water out and left them like that…
I dried my hands and walked out of the bathroom. A feeling of unease had taken residence behind my ribcage and I wanted to get back to Damaris, to her reassuring presence.
I went back into the bedroom. It was empty. “Damaris?” I whispered. She wasn’t there. There were clothes strewn all over the crumpled bedsheets, but no Damaris.
Confused, I turned around and surveyed the apartment. My gaze travelled across from the living room to the tiny kitchen.
The narrow counter and small table were empty, and I didn’t realize why this struck me as strange until I remembered
Duane Tyrone’s words.
You can start bringing the food down and lay the table.
I felt a stab of alarm.
Where had it all gone?
And where was Damaris? If she wasn’t here, she must be downstairs.
I went across the room, opened the front door of the apartment, closed it behind me and started walking down the stairs.
I heard a sound. And as I came down the stairs and into the hall, it grew louder and was joined by the sound of silverware clinking. Chairs scraping.
Oh St Sebastian.
My heart started to pound and everything felt surreal, as if I was just realizing I was in a dream. I walked to the door at the end, which led to the dressing room.
Sunday dinners were held in the dressing room. The apartment upstairs was too small to hold all of us, as was the green room.
The front of house would have been big enough, but during the day, whenever it was off duty, the club held a lingering murky stench of beer and alcohol that never seemed to go away, no matter how much the black-painted walls and floors had been wiped and mopped.
So Sunday dinner was held in the dressing room, on a couple of pushed-together deal tables in the open space between the rows of mirrors.
And that was what I walked in on now.
The white tablecloth, groaning with dishes of food finally uncovered from their foil wrapping, the table laid for six. Duane Tyrone, Brooklyn, Machyl and Consuela looked up as one as I entered.
The bottom dropped out of my stomach. A flash of silver, like light glinting off metal, seared across my retina before disappearing without a trace.
Damaris was standing there between the door and the table, arms crossed, looking back at them all.
I froze as if a bucket of ice had just been tipped over my head.
Damaris’ bedroom is directly above this room.
Last night, the constant noise of the club, the incessant pounding bass, it had been so loud, no-one could have possibly heard Damaris.
No-one could possibly have heard the whining, creaking, pounding bedstead.
Not last night, with all that music playing.
Oh, my…god.
The entire time… they had been here the entire time…
You can start bringing the food down and lay the table.
Someone had been going in and out of the thin-walled apartment, carrying the food downstairs.
Someone had laid all the places at the table. And then all the guests had arrived and sat down, waiting for us to arrive so they could say grace before starting to eat.
Oh. My. God. St Sebastian, bless me and save me.
And that the entire time, that bed had been banging against the wall and Damaris had been calling out, Oh god, oh god, yes, don’t stop, oh my god, aahhh—ahhh—ahhhhh, oh, God, that’s so good, oh, my god, I’m going to come—I’m going to come, god, oh—ohh—ahh—I’m coming—I’m coming—oh, god I’m coming—ahh—ohh—unghh—unngghh—
Damaris tossed her hair over her shoulder. I saw her returning Duane Tyrone’s big-eyed stare.
I saw her gaze move to Machyl, who had been sitting there as still as a statue.
When she looked at him, Machyl stood up with a fluid gesture, looking back at her stonily. Then he cast a glance at me, a look of pure hatred, and he turned and walked out of the room. He went through the door, slammed it and we heard him go out through the door which led into the alley, and slam that, too.
Brooklyn wasn’t looking at Damaris, or anyone. He was looking down at his plate, hands folded in his lap.
Consuela, who was sitting at the end of the table opposite DT, caught my eye and gave me a tiny, wicked grin.
I looked away, alarmed.
Consuela was a small Guatemalan lady who came three times a week to mop down the floors and clean the front of house bathrooms.
Her hair was dyed a color somewhere between black and deep red, with a couple of inches of gray-shot black hair at the crown of her head and her temples which hadn't yet been dyed down.
I glanced at Duane Tyrone. He was sitting there a supremely serene look on his face, fingertips resting on the edge of the table like Jesus in The Last Supper.
“Well,” Duane Tyrone growled at Damaris. “You going to just stand there for all eternity? Didn’t your mother never teach you no manners?”
“My mother?” Damaris crooked one eyebrow at him. “That’s you, isn’t it? My drag mother.”
I could feel the fear coming off Brooklyn and even Consuela looked uncomfortable. I could feel the fear coming off myself, and I hated it.
“This is my house,” Duane Tyrone breathed in a heavy breath through his nostrils. “And I make the rules. You’re in the House of Ellegrandé, girl. Make no mistake.”
“I am not a girl,” Damaris breathed. “I’m a woman. And I have needs.”
In any other situation, I would probably have burst out laughing when she said this line. But I wasn’t laughing. I was terrified.
I glanced across the table and saw Brooklyn’s face. It was distorted in a terrifying grimace, his mouth in a rictus grin, as if he was trying to hold in gales of hysterical laughter.
“We all done heard,” Duane Tyrone said, and his voice had gone back into serenity land, as if he was floating with the angels as he said it, “about your needs. And I don’t want you to be thinking that there’s a place under my roof,” he paused to wipe his upper lip with the outstretched ring finger of his right hand, looked at it for a second, and then continued, “for no two-dollar whore.”
I heard Consuela gasp. She didn’t speak a lot of English, but I presumed from her reaction that she knew what whore meant.
The blood rushed through me. In my mind’s eye, I saw Marcus’ face and heard him saying, See why I want to go to Duane Tyrone? We’re not going to be able to keep this a secret. My heart was pounding. I stood up before I knew what I was doing.
Damaris doesn’t want to keep it a secret. She wanted everyone to know. She had done it on purpose. She knew Duane Tyrone would hear. She knew everyone else, arriving for Sunday dinner, would hear. If Marcus hadn’t had to go to Boston today, he would have been here, too.
Did she think Marcus would be here?
She was planning to seduce me, to claim me, to make me hers, and put Marcus out of the picture. That was what last night had been all about.
Today I had been afraid that she didn’t really want me after all. I had been afraid that she regretted everything and wanted to forget about it.
But now I knew that wasn’t true. She wanted me, and she wanted everyone to know. She had just advertised it from the rooftops.
Maybe she didn’t want to act too straight in front of the lesbians today.
Or maybe she was just a bit embarrassed to be seen with me in public. I wasn’t like that big alpha male she had been making eyes at on Coney Island. By all that was holy, I found him sexy, too. So I understood her point of view.
I was just lucky that she would look at me at all. I just had to be grateful for what she would give me, for what she had given me in the bedroom just now, which was so much. So, so much.
I was standing there, trembling, while these thoughts flashed through my mind like a lightning bolt of revelation. And I knew what I had to say.
“Take that back,” I growled at Duane Tyrone.
He looked back at me mildly, as if nothing could touch him. Like an army firing a hail of bullets at a giant hippo so old, with skin so thick, they bounced off like the soldiers were firing pea shooters.
“What?” He said.
I felt the anger pumping through me, swelling my chest and arms, pressurizing my legs like two pistons. “Don’t you dare,” I hissed, “speak to my girlfriend that way.”
This time I heard Brooklyn gasp, and then silence rushed in to fill the space after it.
Why shouldn’t I say it?
Duane Tyrone doted on Machyl’s boyfriend, Angel, and Brooklyn’s boyfriend, Ravind. They got so much praise for having
boyfriends. Why was it any different for Damaris?
It’s not. DT is just jealous, a voice whispered in my head. You did the right thing. Damaris will be grateful.
I tried not to smile in satisfaction as I pictured Damaris’ reaction. I would feel her hand joining with mine, and when I looked down, she would be smiling sweetly at me.
The next time we were alone, she would put her arms around my neck and whisper into my ear, Thank you for defending me. And she would kiss all the way down my jaw, and onto my mouth.
A strange wheezing sound made me look across the table at Brooklyn. He was bent double, shaking in silent laughter. He reared up, his chest spasming, laughing so hysterically he couldn’t seem to breathe, tears streaming down his face.
Consuela stood up, pushing back her chair with a scraping sound, and went over and started pounding him on the back with her balled-up fists.
Duane Tyrone looked from this sight to me, and back to Brooklyn, and then burst into laughter himself, a big belly laugh that shook him from head to toe, every one of his rolls of fat trembling like a jello in a mold. His eyes sealed themselves shut as he hooted and gasped, and slapped his thigh.
Finally Consuela joined in too, with one hand on Brooklyn’s shoulder, laughing until her eyes were streaming.
Damaris’ hair flipped through the hair as she strode out of the dressing room without a backward glance.
I followed her without a second thought. I didn’t look back as I opened the door and went through it. I didn’t look back at the diners, the laughers, to see their reaction.
There was a door closer installed on this door, as on all doors in the back of house, and it swung shut behind me.
“Damaris,” I said, following her with my arms outstretched, ready to hold her, ready to comfort her.
“Don’t follow me,” she snapped.
I frowned, assuming she thought I was someone else. “It’s me,” I said.
She had reached the street door. She stopped, half turned around, looked at me, and said, “I mean you. Don’t follow me.” Then she went through the door and disappeared outside.
I stood there for a second, blinking in confusion. What?
Sue Ellen had once told me to practice on different kinds of fruits and vegetables.
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