by Alison Tyler
Entering her gently at first, his teasing strokes caused her to push back against him, her cunt anxious for him. But soon he was pounding harder, deeper. He grabbed both of her hands roughly, and pulled them behind her back. His hips surged her body forward on the balcony rail, and her feet came off the ground, high heels dangling from her toes. Her hands were tense in his hands; she gripped on to him furiously. Her fear started battling her pleasure for her brain’s attention. He pushed into her deeper, her body moving farther over the rail. As he swirled his hips, her pussy swallowed him hungrily. She wanted more of him, but she couldn’t move. He had her suspended. He fucked her slower, slower, easing himself and her forward inch by inch. Her body felt out of control, his cock barely leaving her cunt before plunging back inside.
Slowly, he pulled his cock from inside her pussy and she felt his grip loosen on her hands. She clawed at him, digging her nails into his soft flesh. He seemed to be letting go. Just as the thought crashed through her mind, he pumped his cock inside her again and again, and her hands slipped a little. Her thighs tightened, trying to keep her steady. A scream started to form in her throat. She teetered on the brink, staring down into the darkness below, paralyzed. Seconds passed by slowly, as she felt herself inching toward the ground. Suddenly, he pulled her back hard onto his cock, releasing her hands, and her toes touched cool cement. Pleasure ripped through her, and his hand clamped over her mouth to keep her quiet. She rode back against him, the waves of ecstasy and adrenalin rushing together like a tide. Shuddering, she felt the convulsions deep inside her pussy. Biting into his palm, she shook and rocked as he violently fucked her through her orgasm. He had started her revolution, her liberation. She felt him slow down his pace. His cock tightened, and with one last push, he broke, shooting cum deep inside her. Slowly, she realized she was back on the balcony, her shoes by her feet, her body safely where it belonged.
Straightening up, she felt her heart pound in her chest. She heard his zipper and she turned and saw him walk back into the party. She had not felt this much of anything in so long. Her panties lay next to her feet, and she looked at them for a long minute. Lighting another cigarette, she glanced at them one last time before turning and walking off the balcony.
SOME LIKE IT HOT
Alison Tyler
You get heat in the summertime. You get heat in front of a blazing fire. You get heat when the furnace breaks with the knob stuck in the ON position. And you get heat when the two boys you’re dating show up at the same time, and in the same place.
Although not the type of inferno you might expect.
Because first there was Jarred, with his tousled good looks, and his full-lipped mouth—a Cupid’s mouth, a girl’s mouth. When we met, he gazed at me as if I’d answered every dream, every prayer, every fantasy he’d ever had since the time he was fourteen years old. How could I turn down a look so sweet? How could I deny the request in his gray-blue eyes, the destiny he said that only I could fulfill?
And then there was Marlon, with his dark hair, and his black eyes, and the way he confessed the mind games he played on the girls he dated, making me think that I was different. Making me feel like a partner in crime. Marlon’s specialty was twisting and turning every subtle emotion until he got what he wanted. His looks didn’t hurt, either. Ever embracing the dark, he made a uniform out of black jeans, black jackets, black long-sleeved shirts still hot from the iron.
Some, as they say, like it hot.
I was dating the good boy. The blond boy. The light boy.
But I craved the dark one. The bad boy. The sly fox with the handcuff key on his key ring and the coal in his soul. I knew I oughtn’t. I knew I really shouldn’t. But I did. Simultaneously. One in the daytime and one at night. One on the surface and one under the covers. One in the church pew and one in the back alley.
God help me, I dated them both.
Jarred said he could marry me. He said he could love me. He said we might one day be that handsome old couple you see on Hallmark cards, holding hands at their children’s graduations, engagements, weddings.
Marlon said he could fuck me six times before sunrise.
God help me, I did them both.
But I’m getting ahead of myself.
Siouxsie and the Banshees were popular when I was in college. My roommate knew all of their songs. I knew “Peek-a-Boo.” Rebecca took photos for a living, working endlessly, ravenously, to get her name in print. I was a student, and I would have been a starving student if I hadn’t subsidized my coed lifestyle with two different part-time jobs. Three days a week, I worked at a clothing store in West L.A. Nights, I popped corn at an art house movie theater near La Brea, two blocks from Melrose.
“Peek-a-Boo” played at both locations, in the hip clothing store and in the velvety scarlet lobby of the movie theater. “Peeka-Boo” was my mantra. I played peek-a-boo with my bangs, looking out at people from under my glossy midnight fringe. I played peek-a-boo with my boyfriend, Jarred, seeing him every weekend while sleeping with the projectionist, Marlon, during the nights.
Rebecca didn’t approve. She liked Jarred and thought that if I wasn’t going to be faithful to him, at least I should be honest. I was twenty-one, and to me, honesty was honestly overrated.
“Just tell him,” she insisted. “Tell him that you want to see other people.”
“I’m not seeing other people,” I corrected her.
“That’s right. You’re just fucking them.” She gave a grim smile as she inserted a fresh roll of film into her Nikon. “You know, you’re playing with fire.”
“Some like it hot,” I’d respond, as flippantly as I could.
After each one of these fights, I’d leave the apartment, heading to work, trying to figure out why she cared. She wasn’t my mother, for god’s sake. She was my roommate. At the time, I felt as if I were playing a game: balancing both men, expecting nothing but pleasure, dark pleasure at the sensation of fucking Marlon one night, then sliding into Jarred’s bed the next morning, playing peek-a-boo with my emotions. I knew plenty of men who behaved like this.
Why shouldn’t I?
“Because it’s dishonest,” Rebecca said one evening, stopping by the theater to get a free box of popcorn. “Jarred thinks you’re his steady. Don’t you see that you’re going to get burned?”
I shrugged. Rebecca didn’t date. She lived behind her camera lens, taking pictures and making judgments. And if that was enough for her, then I wished her well. But I needed more in my world. I needed Marlon to fuck me while patrons watched Sid and Nancy or Last Tango in Paris, or any one of the many mostly depressing second-run movies we played. Then, I needed Jarred to take me again, in the morning, when we were fresh faced and Ivory scented and ready for Sunday brunch and walks in Griffith Park.
I wanted different things from my different men. Couldn’t Rebecca understand that? Marlon was all rock and roll—in his dyed black jeans and his tight T-shirt, he looked like the celebrity musician he hoped someday to be.
Jarred’s clothes were interchangeable. He had dialed into the khakis and blue work shirt uniform of the serious graduate student. One day, he’d trade up to suits. The differences ran far beyond the way my men dressed to the way my men fucked. Or didn’t fuck. Marlon fucked. He fucked me hard, the film making a whirring sound behind us, sawdust on the floor of the projection room. He’d make me suck his cock—I say “make,” but I would have done so anyway. Yet I liked the way he pushed me to my knees, laddering my hose, slapping my face so that I’d open my mouth wider, wider still.
“Come on, girl. Take it. You can do better than that. Suck it like you’re hungry.”
He’d use his cock to slap my cheeks. He’d face-fuck me, gripping on to my hair and driving his cock home. I’d be breathless, tears in my eyes, when he’d pull me to standing, rip my panties to one side, and fuck me lubed up only with my own spit. But I didn’t need lube. The foreplay—oh, what an innocent word for the degrading preshow he’d unveil—would be enoug
h to get me juicy.
He’d slam into my pussy, talking to me the whole time about how, during the next reel, he was going to take my ass.
Jarred didn’t even say “fuck,” he’d trained himself so well. He might say “damn” when something didn’t go his way. But he had a G-rated vocabulary. You never knew who might be listening. That was his policy.
I should have made that policy my own.
Because someone was listening. And doing more than listening.
Someone was watching.
Jarred and I made love. That was what he called it. “Do you want to make love?” he’d ask, soft and sweet, his mint-fresh breath on my neck.
Marlon didn’t make love. And he didn’t ask. He just took. Pushing me up against the wall, biting my shoulder. Hurting me with the power behind his thrusts. He fucked me all over the theater: In his projection room. In the ladies’ restroom. Behind the popcorn counter. In the alley in back of the theater. He didn’t care. I found his attitude addictive, because all Jarred did was care.
“Did I leave enough tip?” he’d ask after dinner. “Did you want to go to the beach this weekend?” he’d say, checking in with me. “Did you get enough to eat?”
I don’t think Marlon cared if I put anything in my mouth aside from his dick. He wasn’t about my needs. He was all about his. And his needs were all about his cock.
But, god, what a cock.
He was built slim, streamlined, that rock-and-roll god physique. Nicotine-stained fingers. Well-worn Docs. Ageless and graceful. He had long hair that fell in his eyes. Tattoos that crawled up his skin. A cigarette and Jack Daniels habit that devoured a chunk of his paltry projectionist income. I knew better than Marlon. I mean, I knew better than to want him, knew I was supposed to want Jarred.
And that made me want Marlon even more.
Jarred was the light to Marlon’s inky blackness. When I looked at Jarred, I saw a future…a future something. Something big: Bank president. Mayor. Executive. But I was scared that he was my future, and I didn’t like the thought of it.
Then I looked at Marlon, and I saw no future all, and somehow that was scarier still.
“Jarred called,” Rebecca would say, taunting me some days, hating me for having two men when she had none.
“What’d you tell him?”
“That you were sleeping.”
“Thanks,” I said, grinning at her, surprised that she’d lied for me.
“Sleeping with Marlon,” she added and I turned on my heel, hoping she was kidding.
“Just tell him.” Her huge blue eyes even wider as she imposed not-so-silent judgment.
I didn’t want to. If I didn’t have Jarred, then fucking Marlon wouldn’t seem so…so what? So dangerous? So necessary. It would just be fucking. Any hoodlum in L.A. could have played the same part. It was the difference between the two men that mattered.
To me, anyway.
“You’re playing with fire,” Rebecca snarled at me, but I shut out her voice, ignoring the warning tone. I should have paid more attention. I should have seen the sparks start to flare.
On Valentine’s Day, Jarred wanted to see me.
“I’m working until one A.M.,” I reminded him, thinking of my plan to wear no panties under my dress, to flash Marlon when he came down the stairs. We were playing a romantic double-feature for once: Some Like It Hot and Casablanca. We could listen to the actors on screen, while he fucked me behind the counter.
“I’ve got a surprise for you,” Jarred told me on the phone. He’d called the theater directly. This was pre-cell phone. Pre-Twitter. Pre-Tumblr. It was easier to get away with all the traditional antics of unfaithfulness. But fire is as old as man. I should have counted the matches in my box.
“I’ll stop by after work,” I promised, liking that thought even more, going to the trouble of tucking a fresh pair of knickers into my purse—because Jarred wouldn’t understand the concept of going commando.
Unfortunately, on this day for lovers, Marlon had a plan of his own. And his plan involved the new ticket taker, a buxom redhead named Lynette, who somehow managed to make room for Marlon between her legs in the tiny booth at the front of the theater. She tore tickets for customers, while he ate her out, and I did my best not to burn my hand on the popcorn maker.
I couldn’t believe he’d fuck another girl so close to me that I could almost smell her pussy. I couldn’t believe he’d put that look in another girl’s eyes, knowing that when he was finished, he’d have to walk right by my counter, his mouth wet from her wetness.
My stomach lurched. The scent of popcorn made me nauseous, but I plastered a smile on my face, and served up the clients.
Thank god, for Jarred. I thought. Jarred loves me.
From my spot behind the counter, I could see Lynette squirming, and I realized Marlon’s magic tongue had just made her come. He waited a moment, choosing the perfect time to slip out of the ticket booth, not clocked by anyone but me as he slipped up the stairs to start the movie.
Anger, bitter and hot, bubbled in me like the butter in the popcorn maker. Once the last viewer had walked through the swinging doors, I dug my panties from my bag and put them on behind the counter. My breath was coming faster. Silver dots flashed in my vision. I was surprised when Jarred showed up at the theater. He spoke through the hole in the glass to Lynette, and she waved him through without a ticket. I started to smile for real, feeling suddenly grateful to Jarred. Sweet Jarred, with his neatly pressed khakis and his wallet full of unwrinkled bills.
But then I noticed the look on his face.
He wasn’t holding flowers, or a Valentine card. He was holding a proof sheet. Rebecca, I thought, as he said the word, as he passed the eight-by-twelve shiny piece of paper over to me, letting me see the individual squares of Marlon fucking me in the alley.
Jarred stared at me, then looked at the photo sheet in his hands. He shook his head in disgust, before turning and walking away, ending the game of peek-a-boo in a heartbeat. I gazed out the window and saw Rebecca waiting for him, camera on a strap around her neck.
Fuck all. She’d told me to tell him. But not because of any moral attitude. She’d wanted him herself.
I glanced back down at the proof sheet. The last shot was different from the rest: Rebecca and Jarred, fucking on my bed. So he did have it in him. She’d been the one to show him how to rub two sticks together.
A rushing sound filled in my head. The sound of Malibu when it burned. I swallowed hard. I blinked to clear my eyes. Above the white noise, I could hear Marlon fucking Lynette on the stairs as Marilyn Monroe cooed for Tony Curtis.
Some like it hot.
I’d always put myself in that group. But now I had no boyfriend. No roommate. I turned off the popcorn maker and walked around the side of the counter. No job.
A man standing near the door reached into his pocket for a pack of cigarettes. “No smoking in the lobby,” I said, pointing to the sign over the door before walking outside and into the ashes of my life.
FIREBOY
Christopher Tolian
Hop hop hop into the fire. Burn baby-o! Burn all gorgeous indigo neon white. Consumed subsumed burned through to ash devoured by eternity spit out those lush luscious lips and born again to fall and fall and fall through everything to lie weeping panting hurt a beautiful pain blazing red brilliance. Glory be to the bebop father who blew his wad of creation between the smooth smooth thighs of the mother of forever. Screaming out the top of my head blinded deaf dumb numb, take it all on faith. I strike the match and smile.
Whiskey chokes. Nicotine smoke burns. Eyes water, mixing with the sweat coating my face. Sirens wail in the distance, barely heard over the industrial music pouring out under harsh bebop trumpet lines. I whirl and collide with a torch. Lunge and grab. Flame licks my face, evaporating the perspiration. I laugh and light another cigarette.
Curtains fly apart, catching me off guard. Deep red frames dark dark blues. Weak spotlight falls on a shadow center stage. S
tatic filtered through to distortion blasts from the speakers. “Fireboy!”
A cheer goes up from near the stage. I’m pushed forward, dragging the torch with me. I focus on the figure. Small, heroin sleek. Shaved head. Eyes closed. Push in closer. Young, looking all jailbait taboo. Muscles sinewy and hard. Baggy pants ride low, barely hiding slowly gyrating hips. Fireboy’s a girl. I laugh. Small breasts pulled tight and flat, pierced nipples straining at the bandage across her chest. Pockmarks, tiny burns cover her cheeks, the rest of her face porcelain perfect. Arched, flagrant painted eyebrows, like miniature tribal work.
Music starts in. Slow, heavy groove pulses under distorted bass. Eyes open and she looks around, catching me with a grin. “Got a light?” Words all soft and muted drawl. A pearl glistens in her tongue. She holds out two torches of her own. I tilt the flame in. Kerosene and clove, heavy smell of potential. Whoosh pop! Fire catches hold and crackles.
Flames jump and she winks through the heat, eyelashes curling back from those flashing deep greens. She is a troubadour of fire. An earth poet leaping and spinning through the conflagration.
A body presses against me, all whiskey and sweat and wild wild eyes. “Watch out, boy! What you got inside all bundled tight, it’ll burn, baby. Just like the whole world’s burnin’ tonight.” Voice drops to a messiah whisper, rushed and harsh, dragging my attention to him. “Gonna catch fire and light up from the inside out. And that fireboy? Well, she got the match now.” He laughs a deep rumble. “How ’bout a little fast-forward? And, baby?” His grin goes mile wide. “Watch the hurricane.”
Jump the jive with a little too much heat. Let go of the torch and stand transfixed. Fireboy flips and spins, fire wrapping her. She breathes it and throws it out over our heads. Arcs convulse around her and she screams a wild scream that’s answered by the crowd. Feel the sound ripped from my throat as she calls the flames to her.