Peter filled me in after Avery left to wait on a pair of wobbly townies a few seats down. “Mandatory minimum even though there was a lack of corroborating evidence. I had Joyce look it up.” Joyce was Peter’s daughter from his first marriage, and she worked as a criminal defense lawyer up in Jacksonville. “He did his time, but maintained his innocence. Like they all do.”
Whatever. As long as he didn’t prefer little kids, I’d surely take him on. At least for a night or two or three. I liked my men desperate and backed-up horny. I wasn’t a mercy fucker exactly, but I’d been known to take on some pretty hard cases. My after-hours caseload didn’t exclude ex-cons or the so-so labeled. I had needs and so did the men I was fated to attract. I wasn’t proud of that, still aren’t.
In a few minutes he came back with a second pitcher for us and another glass of juice for himself. “I know why Chet hired me all right.” Peter poured us both a frothy beer and we settled back to listen. Boy, that man could talk.
He got the job, Avery told us, because he’s big, has bulky jailhouse muscles, looks tough, and he isn’t afraid of drunks and no-goods. He’d sure seen worse where he’d been. He told us a few long-winded tales, complete with sharpened toothbrushes and rough-house soap-bar sex. Then he said, “I wasn’t harmed myself, but I saw too much of that kind of sickness. This place is paradise compared to where I was only a week past. The end of the Gulf Stream is less scary to me than the things I witnessed in the pen.”
“The Kettle’s a good bar,” Peter slurred. “You’ll make some good money and meet some fine folks.”
“Right. And this place is no loser, either. Chet does all right,” Cat Avery informed us. “I’ve been on for a few days now and I can see how the money piles up. The Kettle turns a good business, with the Center down the way open twenty-four seven and all the drunks over there falling off their wagons almost every day. Plus, there’s always the east Duskies looking to grab a dollar beer, college kids and office workers from Jax who decide to slum it. The Kettle isn’t exactly a hot spot, but they do okay here. They make the rent all right.”
We nodded. Peter and I spent considerable time and money at the Kettle. And there were plenty of people like us around.
Overhead, a toothy, too-slick weatherman spoke entirely too fast about the trifecta of greenhouse gasses, melting polar ice, and the missing Gulf Stream. He predicted a dire outlook for summer vacationers heading to the now cooling Mediterranean.
“Sing us something,” Peter said suddenly. Turning to me with a rosy snort, he said, “Cat Avery here’s a singer-songwriter. Along the lines of a Dylan or a Nora Jones.”
Avery and I laughed. Peter was funny when he had more than twelve drinks. Less and he was a depressive, a moody weeper, sorry for all his past sins.
For a while, Avery entertained us with stories about his attempts at song writing. He even sang us a few bars of some lyrical little piece he was working on. Something about rocking hard-times women, looking deep in their tired eyes. No kiddie lyrics or bubble gum rhymes. He liked a mature love, if his song was any measure. He kind of sang into my own tired eyes. After, my wrists felt too weak to pick up my beer mug.
His voice wasn’t good, but it sure wasn’t bad. Good enough to get a certain kind of chick hot. He could work up a low-life girl nice and easy, I was sure of it. Especially with that rangy down-at-the-heels look the young actors try to achieve by not shaving much and tatting up their inner arms. His soulful eyes, sappy love songs, and the obvious way he went for women and got off on them, all that was in Avery’s favor. Despite the bad times, he was keeping it real, and that would make a lot of girls want him enough to overlook his sordid past.
I realized that first day how Avery was going to be catting around something fierce. If I wanted my turn, I had to step in front of the line formation. He said he chose Cat to honor Cat Stevens, an inspiration and someone who wasn’t using the name anymore. But I think his choice of nickname, stage name, whatever, might have been a subconscious one. Only Dog would have been a better fit. In my mind, Cat Avery was going to sleep with every appropriately aged pussycat in west Dusky Beach. And make them love it. Him. I knew the sex offender label wouldn’t hold him back on that score.
Besides, in this part of town, we all knew a few too many guys who got tagged S.O. for nothing. In the midst of a bad divorce with a scheming wife with control issues regarding custody rights, caught red-handed soliciting gay sex from undercovers. Or lured in by the wrong chick, one who looks ten years older than she turns out to be. It’s a dangerous world out there, boys, so be careful who you stick it to.
If I hadn’t been so star-struck on that first afternoon with Cat Avery, I might have told him about Doreen. My friend from high school, Doreen fell into a mess when she was sixteen by sleeping with her boyfriend after he turned eighteen. They’d already been together three years, but all along her parents didn’t like it. They were against normal sex because they were big on church and all that. So they hauled in Johnny Law. No court case, but that was it for those two lovers. Doreen was going to marry that guy, too. Now she works on Market Street in a cruddy convenience store and does every single drug you can name. Bath salts are on her short list, I’m pretty sure of it. I can’t hang with her anymore because she’s a negative influence and I have problems enough keeping myself out of trouble.
At one point, when Avery had finished singing and looked kind of embarrassed, he took a moment to ask me where I worked. When I said the DIC, he seemed surprised. “I’m a counselor there,” I explained, and he got a look. Like the cat that sees the birdseed pile has suddenly turned into a real-life canary.
I have a degree in criminal justice. Go figure, I had an interest. I got my job at the DIC after doing an internship my last semester at Beachside Community College. For like three months, I handed out clean but used clothes to people who needed them, freshly washed and wrongly sized, pre-owned stuff donated by do-gooders. I thought I’d embarrass folks, outfitting them in a skirt from the 1980s or a pair of beat shoes that needed to be stuffed with newspaper to stay on a pair of yellowed feet, but people were grateful. I pretended they were shopping and I was the helpful store clerk. “That looks good on you,” I’d say later on, in group or in a session or whatever. When you’re down, a kind word helps. I know this, so it comes natural. When Lulu offered me the full-time counseling position soon as I graduated, I snapped it up. Been at the DIC ever since.
In this economy, with a lot of kids hanging around after college, worrying about their killer student loans, I was one who got lucky. Plus, I liked it at the DIC. My life was maybe one step up from my clients, and that made me the grateful one.
But this story isn’t about me and my crapcake life. It’s about Cat Avery. He’s the one you want to hear about, believe me. That man is a gold medal example of what’s wrong with a lot of shit that goes down in our society today. I studied the law a little on my way to an associate’s degree, so I know. There’s things that are downside up with how we treat people accused of wrong-doing. Bad treatment can lead to bad results. But not always. Cat Avery illustrates the boomerang in this throwaway culture of ours almost perfectly.
Of course, that wasn’t what I was thinking the day I met him. What I was thinking then was how much I’d like his calloused hands all over my damp, naked skin.
Chapter Two
I didn’t sleep with Cat Avery that first time we met. Although I would have, given half a chance. Instead, I left the Kettle of Fish part way through the second pitcher. I don’t like to drink too much. It makes me maudlin. And I don’t suffer hangovers when I can avoid them. I had to be to work early the next day, my shift being six to three. I go to the Kettle after my shift for one drink, maybe it gets stretched as far as three. But that’s my personal limit.
Avery was still behind the bar when I left. I waved and he waved back. I figured if he wanted me, he’d eventually have me. Maybe he figured the same.
Next time I saw him was Wednesday afternoon on my
way home from work. Another bitched out day at the DIC. My girl Fannie had bounced back after just one week on the outside. She’d been to see her ex and he’d knocked her hard for seeking treatment. Now she had one less front tooth than she’d had the previous week. A dentisty smile can be hard to find in west Dusky Beach.
The televisions were off for a change and that cheered me. Peter wasn’t in his usual seat and I wasn’t in the mood for shots and beers. I plopped onto a bar stool and Avery hustled over with a friendly grin.
“Hey, Tami Lee. What’s your intoxicant of choice today?”
That made me laugh, which eased my nervous stomach a little. On Tuesday, I’d gone down the block for my after-work beer, hanging out at the Bent Elbow with the off-duty cops. I’d had a good ten percent of them already and wasn’t in the line for more. Too much testosterone, not enough romance. But I had myself a cold brew and a few laughs with Dusky Beach’s finest then went back to Love House. Alone. Avoiding the Kettle entirely. I even walked on the far side of the street. All because of my growing fear of facing what I really wanted on the other side of the bar.
Now here I sat, both brave and scared to death. Because of some man. Which was silly. When nobody was looking, the Gulf Stream had up and died. Now the fancy people in Paris were wearing fur overcoats in August and Dublin was iced like a vanilla cupcake. Things were bad all over. Hey, I told myself, if the Florida peninsula’s about ready to sink into a cold mean sea, why not take a run at Cat Avery while you still can, girl?
I bucked up, put on a brave grin, and eased myself across the bar toward Avery, who was polishing a beer mug with that grimy towel of his. “Make me something different today. A fancy umbrella kind of cocktail.”
I didn’t know cake from cornbread for any of the standard menu mixed drinks. Like I told you, I’m a simple girl with simple trash tastes. Don’t know why I asked him for such that. But it worked out just as well, at least for the time being.
“How about something straight out of the New York School of Bartending, circa 1969?” he asked. When I smiled and shrugged, he said, “Rum punch? Sloe gin fizz? Harvey wallbanger? Whiskey sour?” I must have perked up at the mention of whiskey because he nodded and said, “Whiskey sour, coming up.”
He sauntered down the bar with me watching the twitch of his buns, the way they filled out a tight pair of worn jeans with only the teeniest sag. I stared openly at his long arms with footballer muscles that bunched up when he used the silver shaker to mix my drink. Um-hmm. Cat Avery could take my mind off everything. I forgot about the mean sons-of-bitches who broke their own kids’ ribs for no reason, the rapist dads with their lying faces and heavy paws, the men who thought nothing of boarding up a trembling wife, hammering her inside a tumble-down house, just so they could go to the track with their low-IQ buddies.
Not to mention the upcoming end of the world as we know it. The lack of precipitation along the Atlantic coasts, the ensuing drought and famine, the freezing temperatures in normally mild areas. The resulting stock market crash, the housing crash, the everything crash. Hell in a fast-track hand basket. But all that tuned out as I watched Cat Avery strut back down the bar with a pretty little drink in his hand. And that’s what seemed, at the time, more relevant to my happiness than the rapidly dropping temperature of the Atlantic Ocean. He made me forget who I was and where we were at, allowing me to focus in on what I wanted to be.
Naked. With Cat Avery. In his bed. Or, preferably, mine.
He set the fuzzy drink in front of me with a jack flourish and, I have to say, I liked the color of that beverage. Reminded me of sunset on the bay. Of mango soup. Of the leaves up north in late October.
“What’s in this?” I asked him while I lit into it with a sniff and a swaller. Yum. Smelled like it tasted, went down smooth and cool. Autumn like.
“Three parts bourbon, two parts lemon juice, jigger of syrup. Shaken, and served on the rocks in an old fashioned glass.”
He leaned across the bar between us, watching me with those tidal eyes of his. I tried to think about my drink, sipping intently, but it was no real use. He smelled like vacation, like limes and pineapples and sunbaked flesh.
“You know your whiskey history, Tami Lee?” he asked.
I said no and licked the sugar from my lips. Slow enough that I caught him watching my tongue. I have a nice sharp tongue. I was pretty sure he wanted it in his ear, navel, and elsewhere, so I stuck it out a little bit and smiled around it.
“I’m serious,” he added. “Whiskey was around before Jesus was, and in my opinion has saved more men from despair.”
Down the end of the bar by the rest rooms, a couple of young drinkers with their caps on backward stood up to fiddle with the TV. “I’ll get that for you, guys,” Avery called to them. He turned back to me and said, “I think we need time alone. To talk about the creation of the whiskey sour.”
It was all I could do to not grab him in a headlock and drag him back to Love House, cavegirl style. Something about his victimhood brought out the primitive in me. I’m attracted to vulnerable losers. This is typical of women lacking confidence. But I just sat there, sipping at my sweet and sour, gave him a tiny nod. Like I was hesitant, rather than foaming at the bit. “What time you get off work?” was what I managed to say.
“Five, or as soon as Chaz and Chet come in. Chet has his kid cleaning the johns, says it’ll man him up. Ever see the inside of the men’s room in this place? Not for the weak of gut.”
He shook his handsome head and went down the bar to fix the TV the way the boys wanted it. More negativity from the talking heads, more dire warnings, more reason to drink too much and have wild sex with ex-cons. I didn’t care much for the whiskey sour. Not my kind of drink, too nice, too civilized. But it sure went down easy and it softened up the edges, giving my chicken ass a little kick in the direction intended.
“You coming to my place after work or are you inviting me to yours?” I asked when Cat Avery returned to my end of the bar. When he looked startled, I turned it into a joke. “If the whiskey history lesson is long, we’ll have to finish it up somewhere.”
I almost swallowed my tongue when he leaned right into me and kissed me on the mouth. His lips were cold, but wide and soft. He pushed his fat tongue into my mouth and ran it around my sticky teeth. He tasted as tropical as he smelled.
When I reached up to touch his face, he pulled away, looked around like he was guilty of something. I didn’t think Chet would care if his bartender hustled a customer or two. Wasn’t like it hadn’t happened before. To me. In this very bar. In fact, I’d gone a few rounds with Chet himself when I first moved to Pearl Street.
“You want another one of these before you go home and get your bedroom all ready?” Cat Avery asked me in a low, sexy voice. He used his shoulder rag to blot the sweat that had suddenly appeared on his forehead. God, I hoped he washed that nasty thing once in a while.
I slid off the stool and adjusted my wifebeater so that my lower back tats were covered. “Love House, room sixty-one,” I said quietly. “Now don’t keep Tami Lee waiting.”
“This is most convenient. I can do the long jump and I’ll be in your lobby.” He swung his arms like he was readying to hop hard and far. “I’ll be over less than a minute after I punch out,” he said through a stifled laugh that sounded more excitement than mirth.
In this regard, he was good to his word. By five-fifteen we were in my bed, clothes tossed around the small hot room, our naked parts mashed up against each other’s.
He took care of my needs first. His long, rough fingers delved and traced and prodded me into some state of grace I thought only the Tibetan monks were capable of reaching. Eyes closed, I saw a cemetery full of white lights, candle-lit arbors, a fiery suttee. His tongue knew its way to the center of the edge, where I hung by a thread, limbs shaking like fall leaves, until, with one final lick, he pushed me over. I let out a bellow that made us both laugh.
He climbed on top of me and I eased him inside. His
dick was good and long and slick, and he knew how to slide it around until I was back on the edge again. Just as I let go, he covered my mouth with his hand. I groaned and latched onto his fingers, suckling them, and he began to thrust hard, then harder. We rocked the hard times as he gave me a pounding that made my ears ring. The bed left the floor over and over, his thrusting lifting us onto some other plane. Both of us drooled and moaned, and at one point I swear I heard a train coming right for us.
When he finally let go, it was with the fire-hose gusto of a man who has spent years alone in a bunk bed looking at photos of airbrushed starlets. Not tater tots.
Still, I listened close when he talked about his case. Which he began to do right after he came, and continued to do quite a lot in the days and weeks that followed. Unfortunately for me, he wasn’t in love with me. No, instead we’d eased into a comfortably familiar fuck-buddy routine.
After work and a whiskey sour at the Kettle, I’d give him the okay sign and come on home. Pretty soon he’d knock on my motel door and we’d go at it like couple of thirsty camels. Then I’d get us each a post-coital beer and we’d lie around my tousled bed, sipping and talking. Mostly it was him talking, me listening, um-hmming, listening some more. Especially when he went on about the whole child porn thing.
I wasn’t interested in having a fling with a pervert. I sleep down, but not that far down. From the first time, I was pretty damn sure I wasn’t doing the bump with a creep. From what I know after working at the DIC, your typical pederast likes his girls younger, flatter, much more compliant than me. I’m an aggressive sexpot if I do say so myself. Once I’m set on a man, I aim myself at him like a heat-seeking Parabellum and I go right for the tender center.
Cat Avery liked that about me. He knew how to please me, and he knew how to please himself too. The man loved his sexing. A lot. I know gay and I think I know perv, and he was neither of those. So Avery’s bad luck story seemed to back up my feeling he was one of the unknown number of not-guilty who’d been tagged unjustly.
Whiskey Sour Noir (The Hard Stuff) Page 2