Take Me There

by Tristan Taormino

The night of the revue brings high winds that rock the Chinese lanterns strung outside. The lagoon is full of ships riding the high tide. Somewhere out there, the admiral and his captains are eating dinner in a wardroom full of brandy and cigars. In the auditorium, rowdy sailors drink beer and hooch, cheering for each act. The “Andrews Sisters” are three Seabees with pretty good voices. “Marlene Dietrich” has to retreat from an ardent fan who storms the stage. You’re in the chorus for “Carmen Miranda” but she’s late for her entrance. You and the others swing your four-foot-long wooden bananas and do the best you can, given that you’re a little drunk and a lot worried that Williams will see you from the audience and walk away in disgust.

  Robbie would have walked away. You know that.

  But for these few glorious minutes you can forget Robbie. You can pretend you are the woman denied to you by biology. You are radiant and alluring and the men are cheering. They shine desire on you, they lust after your lithe legs and firm breasts, they are on their feet clapping—

  Then you realize they’re clapping for Carmen, who arrives like a Hollywood movie star. She’s glorious. Six feet tall, black skirt, black top, bare midriff, bananas and oranges on her head, singing about how happy and gay she feels. She hasn’t been to rehearsal all week long so you don’t know who she really is. All you know is that you feel inadequate and small. Reduced to a sham, a weak imitation, while she struts and sings, and what kind of imposter are you?

  Then she turns, and you see the anchor tattoos on her forearms.

  The roar of the crowd becomes a sea of blood draining out of your head. Your vision dims to shadows. You make the fastest exit in the history of South Pacific musical theatre and a stagehand puts you on a chair before you faint entirely.

  Ten minutes later, Williams exits to thunderous applause. He kicks off his shoes and tutti-frutti hat and stands before you as if waiting for you to strike him. You pull him outside, down a path, away from every prying eye. The full moon slips out from behind cloud and bathes you both in white light.

  “You’re insane,” you tell him.

  “I’m crazy,” he agrees.

  This time you’re the one who drives him backward, you’re the one who pins him against a tree trunk. He wriggles against you gladly. You suck on his lips and neck and leave your lipstick on his bare skin.

  “Carmen got appendicitis,” he mutters. “I owed Lee a favor.”

  Which is a good story if you believe it. In the moonlight of a tropical island, you’re not too worried about the details. You’re kissing him and he’s pushing you to the ground and your costumes are coming off, your grass skirt a bed to lie down on.

  This is wartime, this is the best and worst thing that has ever happened to you, these are his hands on your hips, this is the body you must live in, and in the morning you realize you can’t see the future anymore. Your gift is gone, if it ever was a gift at all.

  All you see before you is shimmering blue, the unexplored Sea of Cortez.

  THE PERFECT GENTLEMAN

  Andrea Zanin

  She probably wouldn’t ever have fucked me if anybody else had been available. But y’know, sometimes, “available” is hard to come by, and it was awfully cold out, and we were both more than a bit out of place in a small town in Northern Ontario. In any case, I sure wasn’t about to complain.

  My Nonna had just passed away—old age; she had a long life. Her parents had come across from Italy decades ago, found their place amongst the other Italian immigrants and French Canadians who populated the tiny silver mining town of Cobalt. And populate they did; most families had ten, twelve kids at least. She gave birth to three babies—my dad Leo, my uncle Giovanni and my aunt Rosa—and decided that was plenty. When the village priest came by, leaned over the garden fence and told her it was about time she had another baby, she told him exactly where to stuff it, and he never tried that again. That was the kind of lady my Nonna was.

  She had been a hairdresser for most of her life, used to cut our hair when we spent a couple of weeks in the summer there. Every year my hair got shorter, until there wasn’t much for her to cut when I visited, but she never made a fuss about it, just winked at me and said, “It’s all those brothers you’ve got. Such a tomboy you are.” And then she’d slip me a five dollar bill and pat me on the hand and say, “You go buy yourself some candy.” So even though my dad just frowned and went silent, and my blue-blooded mom nearly had a conniption fit, I knew Nonna wouldn’t mind when I showed up for her funeral in a dark suit instead of a dress. I felt like I could see her winking at me in the sunbeam that streamed through the church windows during the ceremony. I could almost hear her saying, “What’s all the fuss about?” Besides, I did look awfully dashing, if I do say so myself.

  I had never really fit in with my family. We tolerate each other well enough, but I left for university in Toronto four years ago, when I was eighteen, and found my way into the big-city urban dyke community not long after that. That’s where I started listening to the Lesbians on Ecstasy and turned vegetarian and met the women who showed me how to get a suit jacket to fit properly despite my breasts—oh, the irony of perky 38Ds on a baby butch! I always did envy the flat-chested girls. Don’t get me wrong, though, I have a healthy appreciation for the curve of a pair of beautiful big boobs under a tight sweater. I just wanted them on other people, not on me.

  Speaking of big boobs, that’s kinda where this story really begins.

  After Nonna’s funeral and the reception at her place that afternoon—endless gooey homemade brownies and baby carrots, endless relatives asking if I was married yet, endless vaguely disapproving comments about how much I looked like my brothers—I needed to escape from my family for a little while. So I took a walk in the sharply cold evening air of late autumn to what passes for downtown in a place that only has one traffic light. And lo and behold, what did I see but a vegan café.

  A vegan café? In Cobalt? Well, times were a-changing.

  I stepped in and instantly felt the warm air hit my chilled cheeks. My glasses promptly steamed up and my nose started running. Once I’d honked into a tissue from my pocket—still a bit soggy from the afternoon’s emotions—I noticed the smell of homemade lentil soup and baked bread, layered over the scent of herbal tea and a touch of incense. The place had “lesbian” written all over it. I felt right at home.

  I ordered a bowl of soup at the counter and then sat down in a creaky, threadbare velvet chair near a small table. I noticed a rack of magazines for sale on the wall nearby—Adbusters, Bitch, Canadian Living, Macleans. The juxtaposition made me grin.

  “Kinda funny to see those all in the same row, isn’t it?” said a deep, velvety voice near my ear. I jumped so high I knocked my glasses clean off my nose, and instantly the world went fuzzy.

  “Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to startle you!” said the voice. “Let me get those for you.”

  My glasses were promptly handed back to me, and when I put them on, the first thing I saw was cleavage—deep, generous, tawny cleavage, to which a red sweater clung desperately. My eyes would have done the same, but instead I forced myself to meet the gaze of the gal to whom the cleavage was attached. Far be it for me to objectify a woman. I’ve taken my Feminist Theory 101.

  What I saw next surprised me more than a vegan café in Cobalt or Bitch-meets-Macleans. It was no wonder I’d seen the cleavage first; the woman was well over six feet tall. And she was stunning: broad shoulders, narrow hips, legs that went on forever under a pair of slim black pants. Her face was all angles and lines—strong jaw, cheekbones that could cut ice, lips carved out in crimson (which, I noticed, was exactly the same shade as her sweater), a proud nose, all softened by a shoulder-length blonde hairdo with flatteringly placed highlights. I found myself blushing, and it wasn’t from the warmth of the radiator.

  “Mind if I join you?” she said, clearly amused, as she pulled up a chair without waiting for me to answer. “It’s not often you see people like you in these parts. My name is C
rystal. What brings you into town?”

  I did mention that I’d taken Feminist Theory 101, right? Well, I also took a few other classes. And I must say I’m way more into Kate Bornstein than Janice Raymond, if you know what I mean. And I totally get that your gender is about what’s in your head and not what is, or no longer is, in your pants. And I’ve read my Joan Nestle and my Leslie Feinberg too; I may be young, but I can recognize and respect a femme when I see one, regardless of the box that’s checked on her birth certificate. But you know, all the reading in the world doesn’t help when you’re struck with an intense desire to nuzzle your face into the fragrant cavern between someone’s breasts and then, maybe, lick your way south from there and…and, well, when you don’t know how to do all that without saying the wrong thing and messing it all up.

  So I decided it was best to let her do the talking.

  She was probably about ten years older than me, and taking care of her aging uncle for a couple of weeks in New Liskeard, the next town over, as he recovered from gallbladder surgery.

  “He doesn’t really accept me, but I’m between jobs and nobody else in my family could make the trip, so he’s keeping his nasty comments to himself,” she said ruefully.

  It was a test. I’m no expert at this, but at twenty-two I’ve navigated my way into bed with three women so far—well, two and a half, since that straight girl from my cousin’s wedding last year chickened out partway through—and I’ve flirted with plenty more, and I can tell when someone’s trying to gauge whether or not I’m safe.

  “Is he at least getting your name right?” I ventured.

  “Mostly,” she answered with a slow nod, holding my gaze thoughtfully. “I correct him when he slips up. He doesn’t apologize, but he seems to be trying, at least a little bit.”

  She gave me a small smile. I think I passed.

  “Where are you staying while you’re in town?” she asked.

  I rolled my eyes and told her about the air mattress on the living room floor at my Nonna’s tiny house, with my parents snoring through the wall in the master bedroom and my brothers playing video games in the basement until the wee hours. “Not exactly a great place to…uh, to bring someone,” I said, my eyes dropping to the swell of her cleavage again and then darting back up with a pang of guilt. I felt the blush creep up my neck again.

  Her little smile turned into a wide grin, and she laughed out loud, tossing her head back.

  “Well, since we’ve apparently got the same thing in mind, why don’t you come with me for a bit,” she said.

  With my heart beating too fast and my palms sweating, I paid for my soup and her pastry. I held her jacket for her to slip into. I held the door for her as we walked back out into the cold. I was trying my darnedest to be the suavest, sweetest, sexiest butch in town. It wasn’t hard; there weren’t exactly a lot of us to pick from. But listen, I’m not stupid. I know that under normal circumstances, a gorgeous older woman like her wouldn’t look at a kid like me twice on the street, but this wasn’t normal circumstances. We were both out of place, both relieved to not be the only ones, both hankering for a better way to spend the night than avoiding awkward conversations with our families. I was being handed a chance, and all I had to do was not fuck it up.

  She took me to her car and drove us to the Silverland Motel just up the street. The clerk was too sleepy to do much more than grunt and hand her a room key.

  And then we were alone, and I was terrified. What if I did something wrong? What if I touched her in a way that wasn’t cool? Would it be okay to cup those gorgeous breasts in my hands, or would that make her feel like I was some stupid guy with a fetish for implants? I knew how to deal with girls, but she was a woman and not exactly your average woman either. Would she want me to get into her pants? Would she want me to leave her alone down there? Would I know how to make her come? Would I hurt her by accident? Would I need lube? Shit, I didn’t have lube with me—the gloves I normally kept stashed in my coat pocket for just such an occasion were chosen with self-lubricating cunts in mind. Would she…

  She interrupted my panicked inner monologue by tilting my chin up and bringing her mouth down to meet mine. My heart leapt in my chest and I kissed her back. Her lips were soft, aggressive, wet, hungry. I tasted herbal tea and a hint of raspberry pastry filling on her tongue, caught her bottom lip gently between my teeth and let it go, let the scent of her hair climb up my nose and into my brain, and all of a sudden I wasn’t thinking anymore and we were just kissing.

  Eventually we dropped our jackets on the floor and our bodies greeted the complaining old mattress. She pulled me on top of her and my breasts, flattened under a tight sports bra, pressed into hers. I opened my mouth and said, “I’m not sure I know…I mean, I’ve never really been with…well…”

  A frown creased her forehead. I was going in the wrong direction, I could tell. I took a deep breath and let it out.

  “Tell me what you like,” I said simply, letting the end of the sentence trail upward, a soft question. Vulnerable. See me, I was thinking. I so very much want to do this right. I know how women like you have been treated. Just let me be different. I want to be the one-night stand you don’t regret. I want to be the perfect gentleman for you. That’s what you deserve.

  And so she told me what she liked. She peeled off her red sweater, unhooked her black lace bra, pulled my eager face into the delicious space between her breasts. She told me just how hard to suckle on her dark, stiff nipples and, just when I was thinking I could do that forever and die a happy dyke, she told me just how softly to press into her super-sensitive clit with my thigh. She told me how to bite her neck in just that right spot, how to lazily trail my fingertip around the edges of her belly button. Eventually she stopped talking, and she simply took what she wanted from me. She clamped her thighs around me and gripped my wrist and guided my fingers beneath the waistband of her black lace panties—which, I couldn’t help but notice, were a perfect match with her bra—and moved my hand exactly the way she wanted it, and she wrapped her other arm around my back and buried her forehead in my collarbone and then something gave way and she made a sweet sound and her body shook under mine, and I held her, and I kept holding her until she relaxed and curled into me like a kitten, all softness and silky strength.

  We must have stayed that way for an hour or more. She breathed rhythmically, her spectacular breasts rising and falling, but I couldn’t sleep. My arm went numb under her shoulders and I wouldn’t move it for fear of disturbing her rest. Eventually she stirred and opened her eyes.

  She looked at me. “What about you?” she asked quietly. “What do you like?”

  My mouth went suddenly dry, and I had no idea what to say.

  She looked thoughtful for a moment. “Let me find out,” she said, and grinned, just like she had back at the café, and then she deftly flipped me onto my back.

  She kissed me again, only this time she ran her hands over my chest while she did it. My chest, yes. Not my breasts. There was something about the way she touched me that made it clear that she was touching the body I felt I had rather than the one I actually had. There was no cupping, no squeezing together. None of that stuff that always made me feel like I had to tune out and wait for it to be over. Just a pressing and stroking and oh, my god, her hands felt so good. She unbuttoned my shirt and played with my nipples, one after the other, starting gently and pinching each one harder and harder, almost to the point of pain, before moving to the next and then back. My cunt swelled in response, my back arched, and I could feel my boxer briefs slowly soaking through. And then she started to whisper in my ear.

  “Your cock,” she said, “I can feel it getting so hard for me. I can see it through your pants, you’re straining, you want me to take it in my mouth. Is that right? Do you want me to suck your cock for you?”

  Her words were sending electric shocks down my spine. All I could do was moan. How did she know?

  “I’ll take the head in my mouth, I’ll be ca
reful not to use my teeth,” she whispered. “I’ll suck it slow; I’ll let it fill my mouth and press on my tongue; I’ll take it all the way back into my throat. I’ll lick the shaft and I’ll tug on your balls with my fingers and I’ll let you fuck my mouth until you come. Is that what you want?”

  She was unbuttoning my pants, unzipping my fly. And then she shifted down, and her warm, wet mouth was on me, and she was sucking my cock, and yes, it was my cock and not my clit, and as her head moved up and down I felt the tip of my cock press into her palate and rub against her tongue. And she moved faster, and drew me deep into her mouth, and spread her soft blonde hair over my hips and gripped my ass with her hands and I could feel her breasts squeezing into my thighs and my hips bucked as I desperately drove my hard cock into her mouth and as I came, I finally found my voice, and I was roaring like a bear and letting my jizz shoot into her throat and feeling her swallow it down.

  When she felt me relax, she made a satisfied little “hmf” sound and moved back up to kiss me again. Then she rolled over, turned her back to me, and wiggled her little rump into my side. In moments she was softly snoring. And once again, I was wide awake as she rested, trying to process what had just happened. I know, I know, my friends always tell me I think too much.

  I don’t remember when I fell asleep, exactly, but I do remember awaking with a jolt when my cell phone beeped. It was three in the morning and the message was from my brother Dino. Where R U? it read. WTF? I texted back, I’m OK. Hanging out w a friend, see U in the a.m.

  I slept again and had dreams about looking in the mirror and seeing a different face: a new version of me, one that was both frightening and familiar.

  When I woke in the morning, my head was full and my belly was empty, and I could hear the shower going. In a moment it shut off, and Crystal stepped out of the bathroom, a towel wrapped around her like a short strapless dress, and another twisted around her hair. “Morning, sunshine,” she said cheerfully. “Your turn in the bathroom. Then I’ll drop you off at your grandmother’s place.”