by Renee James
Before I can answer, he pulls up my dress, fondles me. I want to tell him to stop because I know a real woman wouldn’t allow this, but I like it. And I like the thought that someone is watching.
The elevator doors open and we stumble down a hallway. I notice pictures on the walls, and wainscoting, and fresh paint. Classy place. As Mark unlocks his door, I’m thinking I’ve never been laid by a rich guy before. This is my Cinderella moment. Mark’s as close to a prince as I’ll ever get, not that I exactly fit the description of a Cinderella.
As soon as the door closes, I unfasten his belt and open his pants. He begins pulling my dress down over my shoulders. He finishes ripping off his clothes and I remove my underwear. We embrace and sink to our knees. He lowers me to the floor and mounts me. We are noisy and wild and rough. I can hardly contain myself. I urge him on with language that is lewd, even for me.
Our first shared climax comes in his entry way. I see nothing of his place except the door and the dim light above it. When we’re both spent, he rolls off me and lies beside me. We are both perspiring and limp with exertion.
“I like your place,” I say, breaking the silence.
He laughs lightly. “Wait ’til you see the other room.”
“There’s another room?” I ask, wonder in my voice. “What happens there?”
“Same thing, except you can flush when you’re done.” He stands and helps me up, then appraises me in the dim light. He runs his hands around my erogenous zones.
“You have great tits,” he says.
“I prefer to call them breasts,” I answer.
“Okay,” he says, “but when I think of them as tits I get really turned on.”
I flash a campy smile and arch my back. “Hey, honey, how about these tits.”
He smiles and turns, leading me into the condo. I thought it was a line worthy of a laugh, but at least he got it. The dullards I’ve been seeing recently wouldn’t have.
“This is my castle,” he says, as we pad naked into the living room, then glance into the guest bedroom, the office, the master bedroom, and the guest bath. I thought he might sweep me into the master bedroom for a little conventional sex, with the benefit of a soft bed, but we just keep moving. There are no lights on in the place. I’m seeing everything in a sort of twilight created by luminescence from the moon and stars pouring in through undraped windows. When you live this high in the sky, you don’t have to worry about privacy, I guess.
Even in the half dark, I can see that Mark’s place is opulent. Where there are rugs, they are rich and thick. Where there aren’t rugs, polished hardwood glints in the gloaming. The walls are bedecked with art, each piece hung just so, striking perfect balance on the wall and in the room. He flips on a sound system in the office and melodies fill the air throughout the apartment. The speakers are tiny, hidden from sight in the common rooms, but they pour forth cool jazz as crystal clear as an Alpine stream. Making love here would be delicious, decadent maybe.
He continues the tour, pausing once more in the hallway to point out the guest bathroom. Again, my thoughts go back to his suggestion of bathroom sex.
“Is this our next port of call?” I ask.
His face is blank, like he doesn’t understand.
“You mentioned it before? In the entry?” I say. He obviously doesn’t remember. I feel like an idiot. “Right after—?”
“Oh, yes.” He smiles a humoring smile. “Would you like that?”
“Would you?” I ask.
“Let’s have a snack first,” he says. He leads me to the kitchen without looking back.
The kitchen is huge and equipped with appliances that would make a gourmet chef weak in the knees. An island in the middle of the room has a butcher-block top for meal preparation, and stools on either side for informal meals and snacks. He gestures for me to sit on one of the stools.
“Hungry?” he asks, opening a refrigerator that seems big enough to be a bedroom.
“No, thanks,” I answer. “I have to watch my girlish figure.” As I say it, I lean forward and put my elbows on the counter. My breasts dangle in the air like melons, my mind wills him to grab them in his hands and drag me into the bedroom and have his way with me. But he doesn’t notice me. I sit upright again and take in the room while Mark rummages about. He makes hot chocolate and spikes it with chocolate liqueur. It packs more calories and fat grams than a jumbo pork belly. I sip it to be sociable.
Mark’s cell phone chimes just as he sits down. He studies the screen, frowns, and pokes out a short text message. Moments later, the phone chimes again, he frowns again, and mumbles a pro forma apology. “Sorry, I have to tend to this. Make yourself at home.” He moves quickly to his office, leaving me to wonder what kind of woman sits in an empty kitchen, stark naked, while her paramour communicates with someone else from another room.
I get up and retrieve my clothes. I can hear Mark talking on the phone, his voice muffled behind the closed door. I flip on the lights in the living room to give myself a full tour of the place. It’s even more sumptuous in full light than it was before. The place has been professionally decorated. The furniture is so elegant that sitting on it naked would be like mooning a Picasso. The colors are bright and modern. The area rug is as soft as a cloud and as white as new fallen snow. The pictures on the walls are modern art. The first three have no familiar form that I can see, just swipes and splotches and sweeps of color. I turn to the three smaller frames on the other wall and my pulse quickens.
The first one is an impressionistic interpretation of a woman, her face clouded by shadows. It’s a composite of tiny triangles, rectangles, squares, and circles. They are shaded in black and white and gray. The woman’s face isn’t a face you can recognize, but you can feel her. She has pride, mystique, and sensuality. It’s breathtaking. It’s also exactly the same style as the obscene card I found on my table at the deli last week. I stand closer to examine the signature of the artist. M. Mendelson. It’s etched in white on a black strip at the bottom of the canvas.
Could it be? Surely no one else could have drawn the card that was dumped on my table, the very graphic fuck you. My skin prickles with fear. I whirl around, expecting to see Mark leaping at me with a knife in hand. Nothing. I tiptoe to the door to Mark’s office. He’s still in there, still talking. I try to convince myself that I’m being paranoid, but I’m too paranoid to believe it.
I go back to the paintings. They are arranged vertically. The bust is the top one. The middle one is done in the same style, molecules of geometric shapes in black, white, and gray, forming a larger organism. This time, the subject is a woman’s bosom. The artist would call it a study of tits and it’s a lot less poetic than the portrait. The breasts are Playboy perfect and too big for the chest they adorn. The nipples are black triangles, much too big and too obvious to blend with the rest of the artist’s work. I hope I’m looking at a juvenile lapse and not the work of a psychotic monster.
The third painting is so low on the wall I have to get on my knees to study it. It’s more subtle than the other two, but it’s a clitoris and vagina surrounded by a bubbling mass of circles that function as pubic hairs. As juvenile as the subject is, the art is poetic. There is an earthy honesty to it, and feminine pride, like the fertility totem of a primitive people.
I’m just checking the signature when I hear Mark behind me. I turn. He smiles at me and peels off his undershorts, revealing an erect penis.
“Suck me, Bobbi,” he says, fondling himself.
I stare at his manhood, a torrent of conflicting thoughts flooding my mind. It’s a nice-looking erection, about average in length and girth. It arches a little, which probably helped set my body on fire back in the hallway. But I’m also seeing the card left on my table at the deli, and the sentiment it expressed. You are a thing to be fucked. I’m seeing Mark’s disinterest in me after we climaxed, the way he talked as though to himself, and the way he never looked at me. I’m feeling how hard he squeezed my nipples. I thought he j
ust knew the pain would turn me on, but now I think maybe he didn’t give a damn how I responded, it was something he felt like doing.
“We need to talk.” My voice is barely a whisper. It’s not that I’m afraid, it’s that I’m afraid I’m right.
“Suck me first,” he says. He has that grin guys get when they think they own you. “You know you want to.”
I stand. He keeps the stupid grin. He thinks I’m going to perform some other sex act.
“You have a very distinct style,” I say, gesturing to the three paintings.
“You like?” he asks. He doesn’t wait for the answer. “I fucked the model who posed for those paintings, and she sucked me off afterward. Just like you want to.”
“Someone posed for those?” I can’t see why he’d need a model.
“I like to be inspired,” he says.
He’s still grinning expectantly, like I’m going to blow him and thank him for the chance.
“Did you put a pencil sketch on my table at lunch last week?” My tone is businesslike; my voice is stronger. It doesn’t daunt his expectations in the least.
“Like it?” The way he asks, it’s obvious that he thinks I did.
“I took it as a message from a rapist or at least a threat from some kind of degenerate misogynist,” I say. Our bodies are just inches apart. He tenses up as I say it. I can hear Cecelia screaming at me to get out of here while I still can, but this asshole has succeeded in making me mad. If he tries to attack me, I’ll inflict pain on him that will last a lifetime.
“Sorry,” he says. He makes it clear he doesn’t mean it.
“Sorry?” I say it louder, as in that’s all you have to say for yourself?
He smiles, trying for a seductive look this time, and tries to put his hands on my breasts. I wipe them away. His face changes. It’s not anger, but it’s not regret, either. More like cockiness.
“I really am sorry,” he says. “I was told you’re a girl who really likes to fuck and I’ve never fucked a tranny before, so I thought we could have a great session.”
Mr. Nice Guy’s image goes up in flames. Calling me a tranny is a vile slur. The only people who do such things are either bigots or too socially insensitive to qualify as bigots. If I had any respect left for him, I would slap him. But I don’t.
“Who told you that?”
“A designer we used to use. He used to tell us about how much you loved sex. How you gave him a discount on his rent if he’d fuck you every now and then, how you asked him to bring a friend or two.”
“Rent?” I murmur the word, trying to figure out who would say such a thing about me. The thoughts clicking through my mind freeze on the tenant I had to evict a few years ago.
“Victor Grassi?” I ask. “Was Victor the one who said that?”
Mark nods his head yes, still smiling. He’s enjoying himself. He’s so dense he thinks it’s all true and I’m going to service him before I leave.
I don’t try to hide my seething anger. “I hate to spoil the fantasy, Mark, but Victor Grassi has never touched me, and if he ever did, I’d rip his penis from his crotch and feed it to the pigs.” I keep my stream of invectives flowing, and I can see Mark’s face and body language change. It’s not fear, but he finally understands the fun and games are over and he’s going to be lucky to escape this night with his body parts intact.
I step closer to him and make him lock eyes with me. “This is important, Mark. Were you following me before the card trick in the deli?”
He nods yes, unsure of himself. “I didn’t mean anything by it. I just wanted to see what you were like.”
“How long were you stalking me?”
“I wasn’t stalking you,” he says. “I was following you. The first time I followed you and your friend and the little girl to McDonald’s.”
I cock my head. “When?”
“Last weekend, when you thought you lost the little girl.”
The scene comes rushing back to me. He was the guy sitting a few tables away. Sweet Jesus!
I push him further away from me, firmly but not in anger. “Why did you vandalize my salon and my home?”
He looks at me with an infuriating mixture of contempt and disbelief, like I’m a stupid woman on an overdose of estrogen. He shakes his head from side to side and says, “That’s not me. I was in it for the sex. Consensual.”
The way he says it is so goddamn patronizing it makes me hate him more. He’s had his tranny fuck, now he wants me gone. I resist the urge to vent the curses pent up inside me.
“I’m going to finish dressing and make sure I have all my things,” I tell him in a low, steady voice, “then I’m going to leave.”
As I talk, I get back in my dress, shrug on my coat, and retrieve my purse. I open the entry door and turn to him one more time. “If you ever follow me again, if you ever show up at any of the places I frequent, I will make it painful for you to breathe and impossible for you to walk under your own power. Do you understand?”
He’s not intimidated. He throws his hands out to the side in a mock gesture of confusion. “No need for threats. I’m a lover not a fighter.”
Then a nasty smile plays at his lips. “Besides,” he says, “I’ve had my tranny fuck. One’s enough.”
Cecelia is right—my judgement of men is as horrid as Mark’s regard for women.
12
MY TEARS BEGIN to flow a soon as I get in the elevator.
By the time the elevator reaches the lobby, my face is streaked with mascara. I’ve been crying, but pity the unfortunate bully who mistakes me for a helpless damsel or a defenseless queer who is heartbroken and vulnerable. These tears are formed by a boiling wrath deep inside me. Pity the unsuspecting bully who gives me a good reason to pour this anger I feel into an act of self-defense. In my current state, I would gladly leave him writhing in pain, or die trying.
I should stop in the lobby and ask the doorman where I am, but I don’t want him to stare at my tears, or my streaks of mascara, or my bulbous “tits,” as Mark would say. Shallow, disgusting Mark. I walk directly to the exit and out to the street. I stop and look around, trying to get my bearings. I can see the Hancock building to the south and what looks like Lake Shore Drive traffic a few blocks east. I begin walking east, then turn north on State Parkway. There will be hotels on this extension of State Street where I can catch a cab home.
As I walk, my tears subside. I wipe away the moisture and the mascara with a tissue, take a deep breath to clear my mind, and make myself focus on what’s important.
Mark is not important. That’s the first order of business. Mark is a disappointment. He definitely isn’t Mr. Wonderful. He wasn’t even a good one-night stand. If that’s all you’re going to get—a one-night stand—you should at least get a kiss good-bye, if not a second orgasm. He failed me there.
I switch from my pathetic sex life to my stalker. Was Mark lying when he denied vandalizing my salon and apartment? I can’t put any stock in what he says. He lacks any sense of honor. He would lie to me as easily as a dog pees on a fireplug. On the other hand, he might not have a reason to lie. Rationally, he’s not physically abusive, my sore nipples notwithstanding. He’s hedonistic and inconsiderate, but he didn’t try to hit me or overpower me or dominate me in any way other than taking the top berth in the missionary position.
The other thing is his artwork. The subject matter is kind of juvenile, and some of it is insulting to women, but aesthetically, it’s light-years beyond the inept scrawling at the salon and my apartment. It’s unimaginable that Mark would author such incompetent art.
I start to cross him off my suspects list, but the memory of him calling me a tranny to my face comes into view. He knew it was a degrading, hostile term, but he used it anyway. He didn’t care. Same thing when he said he’d had his tranny fuck and was done with it. Anyone that lacking in conscience could be terrorizing me just for the hell of it.
The first hotel I come to is a small, swanky place favored by the rich
and famous. The cab queue is empty—this is a limo place. I wait at the cab sign, hoping the doorman will mistake me for a patron and call for a cab to come by. After a few minutes, the doorman confronts me in a conspiratorial way. He’s a handsome, cheerful African American man in his forties, clad in a regal red uniform with gold stripes. He looks both magnificent and friendly. He gestures to a gray-haired man in an expensive suit standing near the door, watching us.
“Are you working tonight?” he asks.
It takes me a moment to understand what he means. The nice man by the door would like me to come upstairs and satisfy his urges. I’m flattered, as I always am when someone sees me as a woman, even a woman of the night. But I’m dismayed, too, that I’m perceived as a hooker, especially after Mr. Wonderful showered me in spite.
I decline, politely, and take stock of myself. My hair is long and red and curly, and between the sex and the autumn breezes, it’s probably wild-looking right now. My tiny dress is right on the border between sexy chic and working girl. My low heels fall short of streetwalker status, but one of my clients is a call girl and she wears shoes like this so she can make it past hotel security, and she still has enough sex appeal to give a middle-aged businessman a woodie when he opens the door.
Maybe Cecelia is right, maybe I’m out of control. But as soon as I think it, I think this other thought—it’s nice to be propositioned. I’m in my midforties, I’m transsexual, I’ve thrashed through oceans of abuse to get here. I love dressing like this. It’s nice that somebody thinks I’m sexy.
Officer Phil wasn’t happy to hear from me on Sunday morning, even though I waited until nine to call. I didn’t think I’d be waking him up or interrupting his sex life—he was always an early riser and an evening lover with me.
After his grumpy greeting, I got right to the point—I wanted Victor Grassi’s current address. He gave me the usual grief about how he’d go to jail if I used the information to kill or maim Victor. I told him I don’t do that anymore. It was a joke, but he didn’t laugh. He called back ten minutes later with an address and another admonition to obey the laws of the land.