“It’s like this,” Tori continued. “You can trust me with your wallet, but not with your girlfriend.”
Katie visibly bristled and Tori laughed, punching her arm. “Jesus, man, just kidding.” But Katie didn’t look comforted and I definitely wasn’t. The thing is, I know about jokes. I know that what makes them funny is that on some level at least, there’s truth in them.
Tori’s laughter slowly faded to a giggle—a little butch giggle she probably would’ve called a cackle—and everyone else just sat there, looking at the TV or Tori’s boots or some other random point. But I don’t think any of us really saw anything except a picture of Jacqueline in our minds’ eyes. Jacqueline, Katie’s girlfriend, with her perfect curves and long dark hair. Jacqueline with her easy smile.
Jacqueline wasn’t like the others; Tori didn’t just fuck her behind my back. Instead, two months after the hockey game, she left me for her. I knew things hadn’t been working out, but finding Tori’s note on the coffee table just about killed me. There was my pride thinking, Damn why didn’t I leave her first? There was the eternal pisser that everything always worked out for her, and then there was the fact that made me really raw—that she’d never again bury her fingers in me and then let me suck them off. The force of my reaction, however, went beyond the pain of those three points and crossed into out of control. Sobbing and slamming my fists into the walls, I hurtled back to being four years old—to when my father left. I remembered my mother and me coming home to find both his note and the plate he’d used for lunch on the kitchen table. And now, twenty-four years later, that plate seemed a terrible kick in the teeth. After years of marriage, my father couldn’t even throw away the crust from his own sandwich.
In a similar way, Tori (in her PS) left me with shit to clean up, too. “I’ll be by soon to get my stuff,” she wrote. “Maybe you can pack it for me.” And sure enough almost everything Tori owned was still strewn about the apartment. On the closet floor I found one of her T-shirts that still smelled like her—like men’s deodorant and cigarette smoke. I put it on and crawled into bed, looking for comfort in the cotton. But the clock ticked on without comfort or sleep. Forgetting I hated Tori, I’d lodge a pillow next to my belly and remember her sexy crooked smile and the deep indent her calve muscles created in her shins. Then I’d kick off the blankets and plot fantastical schemes for revenge.
Three days later I called my friend Tracy. “Tori still hasn’t come to get her stuff and I doubt she ever will,” I said, the telephone cord drooping.
“I could see her doing that,” Tracy answered. “She’d think that by not coming, she could avoid conflict.”
“But I need her to come, Tracy. I need resolution. I keep thinking I see Tori and Jacqueline everywhere—on the bus or at the grocery store. I’ll never be able to go to Sister’s again; that is actually somewhere they might be.”
“You know what?” Tracy said and it sounded like she was tapping her nails on a table. “We need to go to Sister’s right now because you need to face this. I’ll be by your place in an hour.”
Later, I wondered what had possessed me to phone Tracy looking for a shoulder to cry on. She was my best friend but she didn’t know how to be a shoulder. Tracy wanted to fix problems—to take action—and once she had a plan, she was an unstoppable force. “It’s Tuesday,” she’d assured me, “they won’t be there.” But Tracy hadn’t remembered there was a drag king show on and that ninety percent of the city’s lesbians had bought tickets in advance. So Tori and Jacqueline were there—Jacqueline with her hand in Tori’s back pocket, her head on Tori’s shoulder. Humiliated, I went home before they saw me.
After Tracy left I wriggled out of my dress and unhooked my bra. Then, lifting up my pillow, I found Tori’s T-shirt where I’d left it that morning, folded into a neat rectangle. I pulled it over my head as I had every night since finding the note but this time I couldn’t catch her scent—just a whiff of my own perfume, which struck me suddenly as smelling sickly sweet. I decided that in order to sleep I’d need something more of Tori, so I opened the closet. My half was lined with dresses on hangers trimmed with lace, while in Tori’s half, the few hangers she had were mostly dangling empty and the bulk of her wardrobe was on the floor with the shoes. I rummaged in her heap until I found her khaki cargo pants. Then, putting them on, I checked myself out in the mirror.
At first I looked out of the corner of my eye, imagining it was Tori I was seeing. But finally I looked head-on and what I saw took me by surprise; I actually didn’t look bad out of a dress. As my build was smaller than Tori’s, her clothes hung differently on me, giving me a wiry look that was wolfishly sexy and compelled me to complete the outfit.
I found one of Tori’s ball caps—a black one—and tucked my blond hair underneath it. I fished her thumb ring out of a bowl of pennies and slipped it on. Then I opened up the bottom drawer where she kept her sex toys and dug through the harnesses and dildos. She’d taken the best of them with her, yet I managed to find a nice thick black cock and a passable harness. I took off the cargo pants and got the goodies strapped on.
Tori and most of the other women I’d ever dated were stone proud, so it had been a while since I’d worn a cock. But I’d always liked the feel of it and even now, when I had no one to thrust it in, I was getting juicy. I pulled the pants over the silicone and admired the bulge between my legs. Then I lightly ran my fingers over that bulge—my gaze fixed on my reflection in the mirror.
Grinding into my hand, I imagined that the cup of my fingers was Tori’s cunt, that I was fucking her and that she was loving it—moaning and squirming like a silly bitch. I undid the zipper, let the dick spring free, and then dipped a finger into my pussy to slick the head with my own wetness. Choking the rod, as if doing it hard enough would really make it shoot a load, I felt the rub of the harness working my clit and I cocked my legs wide open. In the mirror I watched my nipples poke hard against Tori’s T-shirt and my hips thrust up and up. I let out one deep moan and came simultaneously with my reflection.
Two nights later I was decked out in more of Tori’s clothes when the doorbell rang. Shit, I thought, I can’t answer like this. How could I explain my queer cross-dressing to any of my friends, to my mother, or—on the off chance that it was her—to Tori? I stumbled out of the jeans, wallet chain clinking to the ground, and threw on a floral bathrobe. “Hello,” I said, opening the door, a little breathless.
Outside was Katie, running her fingers through her short, sandy hair. “I’ve been wanting to talk to you,” she said. “But I wasn’t sure you’d want to….”
I was surprised Katie’d come because she’d always been more Tori’s friend than mine—she and Jacqueline had just been people I’d see at parties or events. But Katie had nothing to worry about. I was very glad to see her; finally I’d have someone to talk to about the breakup, someone who wouldn’t get sick of hearing about it. I invited her in and we settled into the living room, her on the sofa and me in the armchair. “I don’t get it,” she began. “Things were fine between Jacqueline and me, but it’s like women can’t resist Tori.”
“Tell me about it,” I said. “It doesn’t matter what a woman thinks her type is; she’ll fall for Tori anyway.”
“Yeah, Jacqueline likes butch blonds like her, but she usually goes for someone not built quite so much like a brick shit house. You know, someone kind of wiry like me.”
The two of us went quiet for a minute—a real “tear in the beer” bout of silence. “Katie,” I finally said, “I’m being a crap hostess. Do you want a drink?”
“What’ve you got?” she answered, following me to the kitchen.
I looked in the fridge. Tori’s pop had all gone flat, but two of her beers were left. Cracking them both open, I handed one to Katie and noticed she was looking down. Following her gaze, I realized my robe was sliding open, revealing the curve of my breast. I quickly adjusted it and Katie laughed. Then still smiling she pulled me to her, kissing me. Her lips and tongue
were hesitant but precise, and I had felt so lonely with Tori gone that now for a moment I melted into Katie. It didn’t feel right, though. I knew I was being pathetic—making out with Tori’s leftovers.
“I can’t do this,” I said, crying. “I’m not ready.”
Breakups spur change. You know, people do stuff like cut their hair or move across the country. Me? I wanted to change jobs. After three years at university, I’d dropped out and gotten work at an art gallery. Still there seven years later, it was wearing thin for me, dealing with the same shit daily. Yuppies buying Inuit art. Yuppies buying abstract art. Yuppies buying something a little daring.
About a week after Katie’s visit, I was once again scanning the classifieds for a new position. As usual there wasn’t much unless you aspired to be a babysitter, but finally in the right-hand corner I spotted it—a want ad for an assistant manager at Between the Lines bookstore. The very same shop where Jacqueline worked.
For a moment I just sat there grinning with my coffee growing cold. Then I jumped up to find Katie’s number. I had a lot of things to do. I had the perfect revenge to execute.
The following evening I showed my hairdresser a picture of a seventeen-year-old skater boy and said I wanted his hair. My hairdresser, who had known me and my femme ways for years, clutched at my long locks—drama queen shock written on his face. “I’m serious,” I said, and I was. I’d spent hours milking Katie for information on Jacqueline’s turn-ons, and now I intended to live up to all of them—including the short hair.
Since I hadn’t wanted Katie to know what I was up to, it had been complicated getting information out of her. I’d had to pretend I wanted to know intimate details because I was nursing an obsessive jealousy for Jacqueline and, as a kind of give and take, I’d had to dole out similar information about Tori. Ultimately, the trouble I’d taken had been worth it. I now knew, for example, that Tori was not the ideal lover for Jacqueline, as Jacqueline liked both getting fucked and fucking. I knew there was no way Tori let Jacqueline strap it on or slip a finger in, but I was more than ready to play those games. To do anything, really.
Just about finished, the hairdresser’s razor hummed against my neck and his scissors snipped at a few rogue strands. I looked at my hair lying in clumps on the tiled floor. Then I looked in the mirror and sucked my teeth. Fuck, I wanted to blow a kiss to that sexy butch looking back at me. This was going to work. All I had to do was get the job and buy the cologne Jacqueline loved—the one Katie couldn’t stand and had always refused to wear.
Two weeks later it was my first day at Between the Lines and the manager was showing me the ropes—giving me the grand tour, introducing me to the staff. Everything was going well, but I was nervous knowing Jacqueline could be anywhere and that at any moment she could spring out like a pop-up monster in a children’s book. As chance would have it, however, I had nothing to worry about—I was the one who popped out at her. The manager and I rounded the magazine rack and there she was, kneeling in front of the philosophy section with her back to us. “Jacqueline,” the manager said, clearing his throat. “I’d like to introduce you to Kelly.”
From her place on the floor, Jacqueline slowly looked up at me—her easy smile first playing over my boots and then up and up until she met my eyes and the happy curve of her lips was lopped off, sliced up by three huge shocks. One, we were face to face for the first time since she’d stolen my girlfriend. Two, henceforth she’d have to deal with me daily. And three, I didn’t look the way she remembered.
Fortunately, by this point so many people had expressed shock over my new look that I’d learned to shrug that off. Tracy, for instance, had told me such quick comfort in a 180-degree turn meant I didn’t know my own true identity—a bullshit line, I concluded, meant to conceal her own fear. The very human fear of gray. Of worlds colliding. Of categories blurring. Yes, people want tidy distinctions. Butch or femme. Hot or cold. Love or hate. Villain or victim. And so it was making people very nervous to see me with short hair. To hear me say I’d always had butch and femme sides and that the butch had just been waiting to learn how to swagger.
But Jacqueline’s look of bewilderment had various sources, not just the butch thing—and so it was a zillion times harder for her than for others. That’s what I was thinking, anyway, when the book she’d been trying to shelve slipped from her fingers and fell to the floor with a thud.
The manager’s gaze flicked in a triangle from me to Jacqueline to the book, which lay pages spread. Spine arched. “Have you two met before?” he asked.
Jacqueline avoided me for weeks, but it wasn’t wasted time. I was studying her and our game by spending a few minutes of every shift in the hunting and fishing section. I’d open a random book to a random page and I’d read until I found some nugget of advice I needed, and in that way I learned how to circle in slowly, how to interpret every gesture—the tilt of her head, the flick of her hair. And I learned when to start reeling in.
“Jacqueline,” I said one afternoon when all the signs were right and we were alone in the staff room. “We should talk.” She had a peach in one hand and a book in the other and instead of putting them down she gripped them tighter, apparently not noticing the trail of peach juice that dripped down her fingers and all the way to her wrist. I licked my lips and sat down across from her.
“You obviously aren’t comfortable around me,” I began. “But I’m not at all mad at you.”
“No?” she said, her voice lifted in hope.
“No—you did me a favor. Things weren’t working between Tori and me. I couldn’t be myself with her…. The two of you, on the other hand—you make sense together.”
Afraid of sounding smarmy, I paused then and looked at Jacqueline, trying to read her. The corners of her lips were beginning to curl up into their natural position and her blue eyes were so wide open the fringes of her lashes were forced vertical. She’d put down her book and fruit and she now seemed on the verge of clasping her hands together. Yes, she was buying it. And of course she was, I thought, gaining confidence. She wanted nothing more than to have her guilty conscience soothed.
We talked until the microwave clock said 1:28 and I reminded her that we had better get back to work. “But let’s have a hug first,” I said when we were both standing.
Without hesitation Jacqueline threw her arms around my neck, showing me how everything about her was deliciously soft—the crush of her breasts against mine, the tickle of her angora sweater, even the fuzzy smell of peach on her fingers. I realized I was going to enjoy fucking her for more than just the ironic revenge of it and in the same instant she realized she was attracted to me. I could tell by of the way she instinctively touched the back of my neck, then quickly stiffened.
I don’t know what it was Jacqueline liked about me—the hair, the cologne, the lean press of my bones, or something else altogether. Maybe something perverse like curiosity about where her lover had been. All I know is that hug marked the beginning of months of seduction. Months of standing too close, of double entendre, of private jokes. I remember once being inches away from her in the storeroom. Hemmed in by books, yes, but mostly that close just because we wanted to be. Jacqueline had her face turned up to me and her lips parted, ready to be kissed. I leaned in like I was going to oblige her and then I quickly turned away. My mouth was watering for her, too, but I knew it was better this way, better to make her wait until wanting crushed her guilt, made her reckless. And it was another month before she was that hopelessly ensnared and an opportunity arose—dished up in fact by Tori, who forgot to pick her up one night.
“Jacqueline, it’s dark and wet out there,” I said. “Let me drive you home.”
The streetlight in front of their apartment cast a weird orange glow over everything in the car, while their living room window was a perfect black rectangle with no one home. I locked all the doors with the press of a button, turned off the ignition, and let my thigh brush hers. “You aren’t going anywhere,” I said, jingling t
he keys, flashing my best demonic smile.
She playfully grabbed for the keys but I whisked them behind my back. Then she flung her arms around my waist, pressing into me, and continued trying to snatch them. Now her face was inches from mine and I couldn’t resist. Loving the risk of it, the possibility of Tori showing up at any minute, I leaned in and kissed her—a sweet, soft kiss that left me wanting more bite. I pulled away and handed her the cold metal teeth. “I can’t believe you fell for that,” I sneered. “It’s the oldest trick in the school yard.”
Jacqueline’s face fogged into bewilderment, then darkened into pissed off—just what we needed for something more savage. We kissed again and this time began humping with the urgency of dogs, so hard I thought her slit would strip me of my skin, grind down my bones. I wanted to hurt her, I wanted to make her come and I no longer knew the line between those extremes. I jacked up her skirt and drove my fingers in.
Her cunt was slick, yet it clamped on to my knuckles with the strength of a snake crushing a mouse in its guts. I rammed harder, slithering to my knees between the dashboard and the passenger seat. I flicked my tongue on her clit—once, twice, three times, felt her shudder and pound her fist into my back. Then I pulled away. Looked down at her shaved pussy—a cleft moon in the night.
“Let’s go to your place,” she said, her voice throaty like I’d never heard it before.
After that Jacqueline and I fucked everywhere. In my car like the hard line of the seats didn’t exist, like we couldn’t ride too fast. In my bed with all the nasty irony of using Tori’s cocks. And even in the store—in the staff bathroom during breaks and between the shelves after hours.
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