“Then we’ll have an orgy,” he said.
“We would give you a heart attack. Forget it, I’m staying in a hotel. I’ll meet you when the festival is over.”
During our affair, I felt I could trust him. He was fair-minded, sensitive, never tried to get over on me. If I shivered, he would take off his jacket and put it around my shoulders before I could even say a word.
As I walk along, I wonder if he is still friends with Purple Tulip. I wonder if I could find the courtyard of freaks without him.
Deep in my thoughts, I don’t realize that I’m surrounded. Several young punks, not much more than boys, are gathered in a circle around me. Their heads are shaved and they wear wife beater T-shirts. One of them also wears a pair of panty hose looped around his neck like a tie. On his arm he has a tattoo of a pig, with Mama inscribed beneath it.
“Looking for your husband?” he asks me. “Do you think he is shopping here?” His crew starts to laugh. “Come with us,” he continues. “We can help you find him.” He looms over me, smelling of pizza and cigarettes. He reaches towards me. A phalanx of beefy British men in green and white rugby shirts, cut into our little circle. I dart back out into the crowd.
“Good luck,” pig boy calls after me. I hear them cackling but they don’t follow me. I keep going until I find the dark alley that leads to Warmoesstraat.
Back in my hotel room, I get my hash pipe and my stash of Lebanese Red out of the night table drawer. I pull the covers over my head, hoping for sweet dreams.
Jan stands above me, naked. His huge belly hangs in folds like the Buddha’s. His long cock is twice the size I remember, jutting out between his legs like another limb. He spanks me with it, little taps on my belly, my breasts. Each smack sends a current of electricity down into my hole. I want Jan to stop spanking me. I want him to plunge that thing right up into the center of my being, but he doesn’t.
He teases and taps until I am writhing about like the Mad Woman of Chaillot. Then, abruptly, he does stop and steps back as Purple Tulip enters the room. Her face is lovely. All she wears is a garland of purple flowers wound round the stump of her arm. She kneels by the bed, extends her one delicate hand. Her fingers track through the forest of my pubic hair, dip into the syrupy well she finds there. I want to have her fuck me with her delicate fingers. I spread my legs as wide as I can but she draws her hand back. She slides the stump of her other arm up the top of my thigh. I can feel its warm blunt tip inching into my cunt. All of a sudden, the room fills with men, shouting, clapping their hands and stamping their feet. “Good luck, good luck,” they shout; their taunting grows louder and louder into a tumultuous roar. I wake up and reach for the hash pipe I left on the bed table. I smoke until I black out.
The bells at the Alte Kirk down the street are ringing the hour. I jump out of bed. I’m supposed to meet my Jan today at ten. He is probably already waiting. My head feels stuffed with old socks, but I force myself to dress and run outside. I dash two blocks up Warmoesstraat and enter the Dam Square.
Directly in front of me, at least three stories high, stands the white stone obelisk called the Dam. It’s still so early, few tourists are about, but the demonstrators are already there.
A bearded man with a megaphone is leading them as they sing “Give Peace a Chance.” They are holding placards in English, Dutch, French, German. Several of them show that photo of Lynndie England with the poor man on a leash, no caption necessary. I wish I was wearing a T-shirt that said “I am Canadian.” I dart through the demonstrators quickly, my head down. I take the narrow street that cuts into the south end of the square. I pass a shop window filled with pipes, bongs, brass hookahs and hookahs set with shining gems. Next to this store is Jan’s favorite café.
A couple is eating croissants at the first table. Seated behind them at the second table is Jan, but a bigger Jan. He has gained so much weight; his chair is pushed back from the table to accommodate his bulging stomach. He rises, his belly knocking over the glass of water in front of him, but he is impervious. He steps forward, grabs me, kisses me smack on the lips. I feel like there is a giant marshmallow between us, but his mouth is dry and his lips as hot as I remember.
“I’m so happy to see you. You look beautiful, like a movie star, sit down,” he says. I sit and he sits beside me and takes my hand. His palms are moist and there are beads of sweat on his forehead. “There’s more of you,” I say. “What happened, did you buy a candy store or become friends with a South American drug lord?”
“Do you think I am stupid?” he asks, “If you mean cocaine, that’s a bad drug. I always avoid it. I developed a thyroid problem. It runs in my family. Now there is more of me to love. You want a hot chocolate?” he asks. “All right,” I say.
“How was the festival? Did you get a big audience for your reading?” he wants to know. He listens as I talk. His hands are clean and he even had a manicure. He wears a fine gray silk shirt and, despite his bulk, looks quite distinguished, like a young Orson Welles. Our hot chocolates arrive piled with thick whipped cream. Mine tastes so sweet. I think of Jan shooting his rich come all over my breasts. He moves his leg against mine under the table. “I hope you still find me attractive. I hope this,” he says, patting his stomach, “doesn’t discourage you.”
“No,” I say, “I’ll still think you’re cute even if you get big as an elephant.”
“Good,” he says, grinning. “Maybe later I will let you rub my trunk.”
“Do you still see Purple Tulip? Are you still friends?” I ask. “Does she still do the same job?”
“Yes to all three,” Jan answers. “You see, our mothers know each other since high school. Maybe you are ready to visit her?”
“Maybe,” I say in a whisper. Suddenly I feel embarrassed. I change the subject, mention the demonstrators in Dam Square.
Jan’s expression darkens. “What do you expect when you go to war for oil, when you elect a liar for a President?” His voice rises. “Now he is a murderer, a war criminal. He should be assassinated.”
“Whoa, whoa,” I reply. “We didn’t elect him.The Supreme Court gave him the election.”
“Exactly,” he cries, almost yelling now, “and you Americans sat around watching football. Why not rise up, demonstrate, stop paying taxes?”
I knew how right he was but I didn’t want to get into a fight with him. “I agree,” I said, “but who could have anticipated what was happening? We were in shock.”
“Fools,” he says. He grabs the cup in front of him and drinks his chocolate down in one gulp, leaving specks of whipped cream around his mouth.
“I feel worse than you do, believe me,” I say. “Let’s try to keep our spirits up. Shall we smoke?” He doesn’t answer, just sits there, fuming.
Finally, he looks up, gives me half a smile. “Okay,” he says, “we will change perspective.” He calls the waiter to bring over the menu. “Will it be hashish or marijuana?” he asks. We decide on Blue Mountain Thai Stick. I roll a perfect oval joint.
Jan moves his chair closer to mine, lights the joint with the match from the pack on the table. He holds the spliff first to my lips then to his. He puts one heavy hand on my knee. Blue smoke envelops us and then we are walking on a blue beach beside a blue ocean. Jan kneels in front of me, pulls my skirt up and my panties down. He cups my ass in his hands, and pulls me closer. He parts my cunt hair with his blue tongue, traces a path to the top of my slit, finds my clit, which is already hard as a pearl. He sucks and sucks it; his hands cradle my ass as gentle blue waves wash about us.When I come, I cry blue tears.
I wipe the salty brine from my eyes and then I am back with Jan at our table. My hand is inside Jan’s trousers, while his hand has found its way beneath my skirt. The waiter and the man who tends the counter in the back are chatting quietly. A few tables away two priests share a hash pipe. Jan leans over, kisses me on the forehead.
“You want to come to my place tonight?” he asks.
“Oh, yes,” I say.
Later, back in my room, I put on a short skirt so Jan can admire my legs and a scoop neck blouse so he can see the tops of my breasts. I hear a slurred male voice right outside my door say, “She told me I was the best fuck she ever had, the best fuck in her whole life. She asked me, please, please, come back again tonight.”
I walk up to Central Station and take the number eleven bus to Jan’s flat in Java Plein. I knock on Jan’s door.
He opens it after a few minutes, naked except for a big white towel knotted around his waist. He is so heavy he looks ready to tip over and roll around the floor like a top. I tell myself to think positive. He is a nice man. I can trust him.
“Come in, come in,” he says. “I got back from my office late. I was in the shower. Pardon my formal attire.” I follow him into his living room, a pleasant oasis filled with plants and antiques.
“Sit down,” he says. “I will bring drinks.” Then he goes into the kitchen.
I sit on the big maroon sofa and put my bag on the coffee table in front of me.
Jan returns, carrying a tray holding a bottle of wine, two glasses, a dish piled with black olives. He puts the tray on the coffee table.
“I remember you like a Riesling,” he says as he pours me a glass.
“Now for music, some Brubeck?” he asks, but doesn’t give me a chance to answer, just slips the disk into the CD player and goes back down the hall to his bedroom.
He returns wearing a pair of beige trousers and a white shirt big as a tent. He is holding a small foil wrapped package in his hand.
“You look so lovely sitting there,” he says, “like a little flower, a daisy.” I didn’t like being compared to a daisy, such a placid Pollyanna flower.
He sinks down beside me and puts the foil packet on the coffee table.
“Now,” he says, “since we haven’t seen each other in so long, a special celebration is in order. I got for us some of our famous Amsterdam Space cake.”
Jan unwraps the cake from the foil. “Here,” he says, breaking off a piece and holding it to my lips. “Have a taste.”
It tastes like the honey cake my grandmother used to bake on Rosh Hashanah, sweet and mealy. We feed the cake to each other bit-by-bit, washing it down with wine. Jan puts his roly-poly arm along the back of the couch. I nest into his body, unbutton his shirt. A great, big cloud, all white and puffy falls out. It grows, surrounding my face, my whole body like a soft cushion. I float within this billowing white; Jan is there too, his clothes gone. We are suspended in the cloud, floating together. Jan drifts below me. I reach out to him and my fingers fall on his swollen club. It grows larger and larger until it just pops out of my hand. I can feel the heat of it moving across my ass as it grows even hotter, like a desert wind, a sirocco. The pointy tip jabs into my crack. I pull away, my butt hole contracting, closing.The last time we tried this, Jan lubed me up with half a stick of margarine, and even though I was no stranger to back-door sex, I started to bleed.We had to stop.
Now, Jan reaches up to my face, he has a capsule in his hand and he breaks it right under my nose.
“Breathe in, breathe deep,” he says and then his huge joint slides into me. I hear a tearing sound, and feel a tingling sensation but no pain. As he moves deeper into my belly, Jan keeps murmuring something in my ear. I strain to hear him. “I fuck you in the ass, America,” he whispers.
Even in my spacey state, I can’t believe what he is saying. “What was that? What did you say?” I ask him.
“Fuck you, America, fuck you America,” he hisses, pumping harder and harder. Now, I can feel him hurting me. I smell blood. I try to pull my body away but cannot move. I am skewered on a burning spit. His teeth are sharp on my neck and then he bites down, piercing my skin. I scream as he shoots bolts of fire into me. There are searing flames everywhere; every cell in my body is consumed and then it is dark.
When I open my eyes, my head is on Jan’s leg. He is sleeping, snoring through his nose. It sounds like he is playing the kazoo. My neck aches from where he bit me and my butt hole burns. I look down and see blood all over my thighs. I put my hand in my ass and bring it out covered with blood.
Carefully, I peel myself off him. I remember what Jan said and, briefly, wonder if I could have imagined it, but I know I did not. I’m so woozy I can barely stand but I manage to totter to the bathroom. I shut the door and sit down on the toilet.
The cool wood of the seat feels comforting against my burning flesh. I want to find a washcloth, hold it against the bleeding to make it stop. I open a drawer in the cabinet beneath the sink and see a box of talcum powder and a bottle of mouthwash. I pull out the drawer next to it and find a sandwich bag filled with little chunks of what looks like rock candy. I have seen this “candy” before; it is crack cocaine. Beside it are some plastic bags of white powder. The drawer also holds a glass pipe, a rectangular mirror, a mat knife – all you need to enter a fool’s paradise.
I slam the drawer shut, so much for trust. I open the drawer below and find the cloths I am looking for. I pick one up, hoping I can grab my clothes and get out while he is still sleeping. It is already too late. Jan steps into the bathroom, grinning like a Cheshire cat.
“So,” he asks, “do you like our Dutch space cake? But, my little darling, what are you doing sitting on the toilet? Meditating?”
I nod my head, unable to speak. I spread my legs and lift my body so he can see the blood coming from my ass. He is instantly solicitous; he takes the cloth from my hand, opens another drawer, gets out Mercurochrome, Band-aids.
“There,” he says, after staunching the bleeding and cleaning and dressing the cut, “now you are fine.” He pulls me to my feet. “I have something else for you, a surprise I know you will like.” He starts pulling me down the hall towards his bedroom.
“Wait,” I say, “I just remembered, I have to go back to my hotel. I have to call my father in Maryland. He’s expecting my call, he’s—”
Jan tightens his grip on my wrists. “You can call him from here,” he says. He is stronger than I am, an iron force, and he pulls me into the bedroom.
“You will like this, trust me, it will be fun,” he says.
Purple Tulip is lying on the paisley quilt that covers Jan’s bed. She is naked except for the garland of purple flowers around the stump of her arm. She is reading a Seventeen magazine, which she puts down as we enter the room. “Hello,” she says and smiles. Close up she does not look beautiful. Her skin is pocked; her eyes are blank and yellow. She is missing a front tooth and her smile is rigid as if stitched on to her face.
Jan pushes me forward from the back. “What are you afraid of?” he says. “Go to her, go say hello.” I feel like I’m moving quicker than the speed of light as I whirl, duck under his arm, and rush back down the hall. He is startled, hesitates a second before he turns and starts to lumber after me. He catches his foot on the edge of the rug, trips and falls to the floor, crashing in a big puddle of flesh. I grab up my things as Jan calls out, “American cow! Coward!” But nothing he can say has the power to hurt me now. I fly out the door and down the stairs. I pause in the vestibule, pull on my clothes and shoes.
The night is clear and warm. At least, I managed to escape with only a cut-up ass. It could have been much worse. Not another soul is about, but the smell of ganja hangs in the air, mixed with something else: the scent of an exotic spice, cardamom or coriander. The strains of Klezmer music drift out of an open window.There are no stars in the sky but there is plenty of light as I walk towards the bus stop under an Amsterdam full moon.
To Dance at the Fair
Donna George Storey
Naked
Whenever I stand up to speak before an audience – be it a ballroom full of steely-eyed colleagues or the semester’s first class of yawning kids – I think of Sally, and I feel strong.
Because, of course, Sally Rand – the sensation of Chicago’s Century of Progress Exposition during the dark Depression years of 1933 and 1934 – stepped onto the stage wearin
g nothing but two ostrich feather fans and a dusting of pure white powder. As the dance progressed, she would swirl her fans, teasing the audience with a flash of nipple or a glimpse of buttock, until, at long last, she would spread her wings to reveal everything. And then, in a flash of light, she was gone, before anyone could really know – had they really seen Sally nude, or was it all an illusion?
This afternoon it was especially fitting to conjure Sally’s ghost as I took the podium. I was giving a paper on her and her sister performers, entitled, “ ‘Enough Nudity for Anyone’s Fifteen Cents’: Sally Rand, the Crystal Lassies, and the Roots of Internet Porn at the Century of Progress Exposition.” I brought plenty of slides, and the ballroom was packed. Sally has been dead for more than twenty years, but she still knows how to pull them in.
Novice that I was to burlesque, I was lucky not to be facing my audience alone. On my left was a dark and very handsome man named Mario Carbone. He had written a paper on “primitive cultures” exhibits and fantasies of empire specifically to join me on this panel. The lean, fair-haired man to my right with the intriguing air of melancholy was Christopher Hansen. For my benefit, he had tweaked his customary focus on FDR into a discussion of the perfect marriage of corporate capitalism and the New Deal at the interwar world fairs.
Although we now teach in different parts of the country, the three of us have been best friends since the first week of grad school. Our professors dubbed us “the inseparable threesome,” and the other students openly laid bets on who got to be in the middle during our all-night fuckfests.
Mario, Chris, and I laughed it off, because we were sure our bond was purely platonic, founded on mutual intellectual admiration. We wouldn’t be honest enough with ourselves to go to bed together for another fifteen years.
City Fathers
The stripper and the schoolmarm. On the surface, it would be hard to find two women more different than Sally and I.
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