Held, Pushed, and 22918 (3 Complete Novels)

by Kimberly A Bettes

  It seemed she was enjoying this as much as I was. Maybe even a little bit more.

  Just like before, she tensed and threw her head back as she climaxed. I held off as long as I could and somehow managed to wait to finish until shortly after she did.

  Again, when it was over she sat beside me smoking a cigarette and telling me how good I was, something that I still didn’t understand.

  “I was so glad to see you pull up to the corner,” she said as her breathing returned to normal. “I was hoping you’d come back.”

  “Of course I would. I enjoy our time together.”

  “So do I.” She took a few puffs of her cigarette before asking, “What’s your name anyway?”

  “You want to know my name?”

  “Yeah. I need to know what to call out next time.” She smiled.

  “Lester.”

  “Lester. You have a nickname or anything?”

  “Not really.”

  “Not really? Everybody has a nickname.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What’s yours?”

  She smiled. “Jugs.”

  I laughed. “Jugs? They call you jugs?”

  “Yeah. Because of my tits. Now what’s yours?”

  “When I was in the Army, they called me Red Wine.”

  “Oh yeah? Why’s that?”

  “My last name’s Wine. There was another guy with the same last name. Since I have red hair…”

  She nodded. “Gotcha.”

  When she’d finished her cigarette, she flicked the butt out the window and turned to me.

  “Think you can go again?”

  “Go again?”

  “Yeah.” She slid across the seat until her body was pressed against mine. She reached down and wrapped her hand around me, giving a little squeeze. “Since we’re already here, we might as well do it again, right?”

  Then she kissed my cheek, my neck, my chest, making her way down to my crotch, where she took me in her mouth. It didn’t take long for me to be ready to go.

  When I was hard, I expected her climb on me like before, but she didn’t.

  “Why don’t you be on top this time, Red Wine?”

  Butterflies flapped their wings, tickling the walls of my stomach. What if I screwed it up and she laughed at me like the other two women I’d been with had? I couldn’t take it.

  “I don’t know…” I shook my head, hoping she’d just forget about it.

  “Come on. You’ll do great.” She turned around and laid down on the seat, spreading her legs wide before me. She put one foot on the head rest of the driver’s seat and the other foot on the head rest of the back seat. Who could say no to that?

  I got up on my knees and placed myself between her legs. As I lowered myself onto her, into her, I hoped with all my might I didn’t do anything wrong.

  Being on top was different than being on bottom. I was in control. I set the pace. Me. If I wanted hard and fast—which I did—I went hard and fast. If I needed to slow it down, I slowed it down. I quickly learned that I could control my orgasm this way. Not wanting to finish too quickly, I could simply change my pace and keep it from happening, prolong it a bit. Draw out the experience.

  I learned a lot of things in the backseat of that 1965 Ford Galaxie. And I learned it all with Tonya, whom I soon began to think of as my girlfriend. It was never official. I never asked her to be my girlfriend and we never even really talked about it, but I thought of her as my woman and I got the feeling that she thought of me as her man. Her face lit up when she saw me drive up to the corner, and she always stayed with me as long as she could. She never wanted to take any money from me and that soon became a problem.

  “I need to get back to the corner,” she said one night as we lay in the back seat, hot and sweaty and reeking of sex.

  “I don’t want you to go yet.”

  “I know. I don’t wanna go either. But I’m not making any money.”

  I knew then what I had to do. I grabbed my jeans from the floorboard and yanked my wallet out of the back pocket. There was eighty-five dollars in it, and I gave her all but twenty.

  “Lester…” She looked pained, like she was embarrassed and sad and happy all at the same time.

  “Just take it. It’s worth it to me to be able to spend more time with you.”

  She smiled, hugged me tightly, and then screwed my brains out for the second time that night.

  For months, I carried on this relationship with Tonya, the whore who had captured my heart. At first I only visited her on the weekends, but my visits became more and more frequent until eventually I was seeing her almost every night. Most of the time, we only spent a couple hours together, but about once a week, we spent several hours tangled up in the back seat of my car. Those were the best hours of my life.

  I was pretty sure I loved Tonya. She was all I thought about, all I dreamed about, and all I wanted. It wasn’t just the sex, though that’s what it had been in the beginning. It was so much more than that now. It was her. Being with her made me feel good. I was relaxed and comfortable when I was with her, things I could never be anywhere else. I was at ease around her, and I never seemed to be able to get enough of her.

  That’s why it hurt so much when I lost her.

  It was late in the spring of 1969. The days were growing longer, the nights shorter. I was seeing Tonya nearly every night of the week, which to me still wasn’t enough. It was never enough time with her.

  On a Thursday, I pulled up the curb and watched as Tonya—the woman I considered to be my girlfriend—stumbled to my car. She leaned down and looked at me with heavily drooping eyes. When she spoke, her words were slurred.

  “Hey, handsome. I’ve been wondering about you.” She opened the door and got in clumsily, more falling than sitting.

  Instantly, I was angry with her. I wasn’t quite sure why, but I was. Maybe it was because I expected her to take our relationship and our time together as seriously as I did, and she didn’t seem to be doing that. I never drank before I visited her because I didn’t want a foggy mind. I wanted to be able to think clearly and remember every second of our time together. Whatever she was on, booze or pot or whatever, she was inebriated. I had no doubt that she’d forget the details of our night together before it was even over.

  With a clenched jaw, I drove to our spot. Our sex was rougher than usual. I pounded against her forcefully, determined to make her remember our night together. Not surprisingly, she didn’t seem to enjoy the sex like she usually did. There was no moaning, no gasping, and no orgasms on her part. The only time she moved her pelvis was to try to pull away from me. I put my hand on her hip to keep her pinned in place. I didn’t care if it hurt her, which she said it did. It was her fault it had to be this way. If she had remained sober, things would’ve been like they always were. But no. She had to go and screw it all up.

  We had always before spent our post-coital moments sprawled out in the back seat, limbs entangled, talking and relaxing, just enjoying the feeling and the company. Not this time. She spewed out some nearly indiscernible words while I stared out the window, seething. A few minutes later, she fell asleep. Or passed out, which was the more likely scenario.

  I was beyond pissed now. If she had been anyone else, I would’ve yanked her out of the car by the hair of her head and left her lying on the cracked concrete, naked and vulnerable. But she wasn’t just any old whore. She was Tonya. She was my whore.

  For a while I stared at her while she slept. I remembered our times together, the things we’d done and all that we’d talked about. Then, though I didn’t want to, I imagined her doing the same thing with other guys in the back seats of their cars. Lying twisted and naked with them, making small talk and laughing.

  When the thought of other men having sex with her became unbearable and the urge to scream pushed its way up my throat, I got dressed, put her clothes on her, climbed into the front seat, and drove her back to the corner where the other two gi
rls helped me drag her out of the car. She didn’t wake up during the jostling and the moving, which confirmed my suspicions that she wasn’t just asleep but rather passed out from whatever drug she had taken.

  This wasn’t a surprise to the other hookers. They didn’t even ask about her, just carried her across the sidewalk and propped her up against the cold brick building, where she’d sit until she either woke up or until someone took her somewhere else.

  At that moment, I didn’t care what happened to her.

  I got in my car and drove away, feeling nothing but anger toward the woman I’d grown to think of as my girlfriend, the woman I’d developed strong feelings for, the woman I wanted to spend all my time with. The same woman who I now knew didn’t care about me.

  The tears fell freely as I drove home.

  It went the same way over the course of the next few weeks. Every time I visited Tonya, I left feeling angry and hateful, swearing to myself that the next time I saw her I’d tell her she had to stop whatever it was she was doing. But the next time I saw her, I got mad and clenched my jaw shut, screwing her and leaving without saying a word about it. I drove home pissed off at her for doing it and at myself for allowing it to continue.

  Finally, I decided to put my foot down. I had no intentions of having sex with her that night. I planned to pick her up, take her to our spot, and then have a talk with her, an intervention of sorts. It was time for her to choose either the drugs or me. She couldn’t have both.

  7

  It was nearly nine o’clock when I pulled up to the curb on Tonya’s corner. There was only one woman standing there, a black woman wearing a red dress that should’ve been at least three sizes bigger to fit her voluptuous physique. She didn’t hesitate to come over to the car. She leaned down, resting her forearm in the open window.

  “Whatchu need?”

  “Where’s Tonya?”

  “She ain’t here.”

  “No shit. I can see that. Where is she?” My stomach rolled at the thought of her with another man, even though I’d known all along that was her job.

  The prostitute shrugged. “I dunno. I ain’t seen her since yesterday. I figured she was witchu.”

  “No. She hasn’t been with me for a few days now.” It was true. Though I missed her terribly—not her now, but her the way she used to be—I hadn’t been to see her in four days. Twice I had gotten in my car, intending to come see her, but I hadn’t made it out of the driveway either time. I was just too angry with her.

  The stench of stale sweat wafted across the car and hit me in the face. The longer the whore remained at my window, the stronger the smell became.

  Breathing through my mouth only, I asked, “Do you have any idea where she might be now that you know she isn’t with me?”

  She shook her head. “I sure don’t.”

  “Well, tell me about yesterday, about the last time you saw her.”

  “Ain’t nothin’ to tell. We were all standin’ here, and then I left with a guy. When I got back, she was gone. Last night was a busy one, so I was out with a lot of guys. I didn’t think nothin’ of it. Figured we were just crossin’ paths, ya know. When I got here earlier tonight and she still wasn’t here, well I just assumed she as witchu.”

  A knot formed in the pit of my stomach. I could feel that something was wrong.

  I opened my mouth, prepared to ask her if I could leave my phone number with her to pass along to Tonya. I wanted her to call me the second she showed up. But I decided not to say anything. This whore wasn’t dependable enough to count on. There was no way I was going to leave my number with her.

  “If she shows up, will you tell her I was here looking for her?”

  “Will do.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Hey, you holdin’?”

  “Holding what?”

  “Anything? Pot? Coke? I don’t care. I’ll take anything.”

  “No.”

  “How about we go around the corner? I’ll do anything you want. I’m cheap.”

  I glared at her worn and weathered face, staring into her dead eyes and wondering what kind of person she’d been before this life consumed her. In her current state, it was difficult to imagine her being any other way.

  “I bet you are. Just tell Tonya I was here.”

  Before she could say anything else, I drove away. I didn’t go far though. I slowly circled the block, came back around, and parked where I could watch the corner. I had no faith in the whore. I was certain she’d forget to deliver my message, so I wanted to be there when Tonya came back. That was if she ever came back. I had a sinking feeling that I’d never see her again.

  For several hours, I watched as the whore I’d spoken to and the other one that worked the corner came and went, in one car and then another. In the few short moments that both women were on the corner, they talked and laughed and smoked and carried on as if nothing was wrong. But something was wrong. Very wrong. Something had happened to Tonya.

  It was well after midnight when I gave up and went home, discouraged. Unable to sleep, I tossed and turned until the sun came up.

  My appetite was lost, so I skipped breakfast and headed out of the house, determined to find Tonya. I wasn’t quite sure what whores did during the day. Some of them worked the streets, but where did those who worked at night go during the day?

  Up and down the streets I went, looking at every whore I saw, hoping to find her. For hours I drove, block after block and back again, but I never found her.

  That night, I went back to her corner. Both women approached my car.

  “Have either of you seen Tonya?”

  “Nope,” said the taller and older of the two.

  “Sure ain’t,” said the black woman I talked to the previous night.

  Directing my question to the older whore, I asked, “When did you last see her?”

  “I saw her leave with this other guy and I never saw after that.”

  “Do you know the guy? Did she know him?”

  “Oh yeah. He’s a regular. Comes by almost as often as you do. Always gets Tonya, never us.”

  My heart sank. I thought what we had was special, but now I learned that she was doing this with other guys too. I was nothing more than a good time for her.

  “How long has she been seeing him?”

  The black whore shrugged and inspected her fingernails, clearly not even trying to remember.

  “About a month or so,” said the older woman.

  “Have either of you ever been with him?”

  “Yeah,” said the older of the two. “I was once. The first time he came around, Tonya wasn’t here. She was with you so I went with him.”

  “What was he like?”

  “He liked it rough and he liked it in the ass.”

  I cringed at her words, growing furious as the thought of some guy ramming himself into Tonya.

  “Is that all?”

  “I remember he got high on acid before we started. He offered me some, but I said no. I don’t like to take drugs from people I don’t know. But when he started screwing me like an animal, I changed my mind. I needed something to kill the pain.”

  I remembered Tonya’s drug-induced stupors, which began around the same time this guy started seeing her. It was him. He’d got her hooked on acid and no telling what else. He was the reason our relationship had turned to shit. And he was probably the reason none of us had seen her in days.

  “You don’t know the guy’s name?”

  Both women shook their head no.

  Feeling I’d learned all I could from them, I left the hookers on the corner and continued my search for Tonya, who I now knew had been taking acid and seeing another guy just as regularly as she’d been seeing me. I had no experience with women to speak of. I’d only had one girlfriend and two botched attempts at sex with other women. But it certainly felt like I’d been cheated on, like I’d been betrayed. I tried to tell myself that technically we weren’t in a relationship, and she was a whore afte
r all, but it still felt like a donkey kick to the heart to think of her spending so much time with another guy.

  For the next two days, I looked for Tonya. During the day and at night, every spare minute I had was spent searching for her. I drove up and down streets, parked and watched her corner, did everything I knew to do and still had no luck.

  It was on the fifth day of searching—nine days after I’d last been with her—that the whores on the corner had any news for me.

  The older hooker, whose name I’d learned was Rose, approached my car as I pulled to the curb. As soon as I stopped, she was leaning in the window.

  “I’m so glad you’re here,” she gushed.

  “Yeah?” There was hope in my voice, as there was in my heart. During my search for Tonya, I’d made a decision concerning us and our future. As soon as I found her, I was taking her off the streets. I was going to move out of my mother’s house and into a place we’d share as a couple. No more whoring for her. If she wanted to work, she could get a real job. Otherwise, she could sit at home and be a kept woman. I cared too much about her to let her put herself out there every night for strange men to do anything they wanted to her.

  My hopes were quickly dashed when Rose said, “They found her over on Sycamore, in an abandoned building.”

  Speechless, I could only stare at her as she continued.

  “One of the girls over there was working the area. She took a guy into the building and found her.”

  “Is she okay?” I knew she wasn’t, but I needed to hear it.

  “She’s dead. She’s been dead for a while from the looks and the smell of her. That’s what they’re saying anyway. My guess is she died the night we last saw her.”

  With a dry mouth, I managed to ask, “How’d she die?”

  Rose shook her head. “I don’t know. I heard it was a drug overdose, and then I heard she was strangled. I’m not sure. It’s a shame though. I really liked that girl.”

  Fighting the urge to punch the dashboard, I said, “Me too.”

  I drove around aimlessly after that, not really seeing the road ahead of me. I was lost in my memories of Tonya, of the times we had together. I was going to miss her.