by Lazaro Lima
“One good thing about not being able to wear makeup is that I can cry and not have my mascara run.”
“I get waterproof, girl.”
The pillow that cushioned Puti’s bony elbows as she sat at her window was covered with dust and soot. She looked at it and thought of washing it. She thought of changing out of her housedress. She thought of washing her hair. She looked back out on the street. There were different cars. Different people passed her window. The sun was lower. The fellas were assembled on the corner to sip Hennessey and “philosophize” about life, pussy, pot, and money. The auto glass shops were closing. The ice-cream truck had turned the corner, taking away its tinkling music and memories of a simpler time, and the subway, a block away, had delivered a whole new group of neighbors, strangers, and possibilities.
“Puti, you so ugly. Jail done fucked you up,” a young queen on her way to work the trucks spit out.
“Hola, Mrs. Einstein, you look great, mama. Ten, five, three … ten dollars for the shoes, five for the skirt, and three for the blouse—you look exactly like what you will earn tonight, eighteen dollars.” Puti painstakingly unfurled her long, slim arm and snapped her unmanicured fingers.
“Oh, you can count; that must come with age.”
“Yes, dear, along with wisdom.”
The queen mouthed “fuck you” to Puti and ignored the “dirty faggot puta” remarks from the auto glass guys.
“Hey, nena, don’t let those stupid assholes talk to you like that. They gonna just walk all over you.”
The queen spun around on her heels and gave Puti the finger.
“Do that to them!”
The young queen kept her finger raised to Puti. She reminded her of Betty, whose prison release was finally coming up.
Now thirty-eight years old, Puti pushed herself against the dirty pillow and strained to get up from the window. Her shoulders were cramped and her legs asleep. She limped across her room and realized she didn’t need to pee. Wasn’t hungry. Wasn’t sleepy. She returned to the window.
“¿Qué pasa?” Her mother came into the room and leaned on Puti to look out the window.
“Ay, mami, get off my back.”
“You should clean this room. It smells, and you smell too.”
Puti sniffed her underarms and cringed.
The warm water washed over her. She felt her slim hips and ran her hands over her nipples. The hormones she had taken before prison made them expand and swell, and even though her small breasts deflated when she stopped, the nipples remained large. She felt her slim legs and squeezed her spongy dick. She sat in the tub and cradled her weak arm. She thought about Cuketa and Betty. She wanted to melt into a puddle of tears and disappear down the drain.
But Puti got up, wrapping her hair in a towel and herself in a terry-cloth robe. Betty La China would be expecting her. She walked to her room and was going to apply lipstick for the first time since she was arrested ten years before. She stopped. She put the lipstick back in the drawer and wondered what kind of woman she could be if she was a woman who didn’t wear makeup.
She swept and mopped her room. Threw out garbage. Cleaned the mirrors and changed the bedsheets. Then she put on a blue dress. No low cuts. No splits. Her shoulders were covered and she liked the way she looked. She brushed her hair and tied it back in a ponytail. She thought she looked like a Pentecostal woman so she put on a pair of black patent leather pumps, a black patent leather purse, and a black felt hat that had a net veil she pulled over her face. She smiled at her reflection and took the van to Rikers Island to pick up Betty La China.
Porcupine Love
TATIANA DE LA TIERRA
if they spy on me they will discover that i am loving you.
Iwant to fuck her via e-mail but the spam filters at my job won’t let me. She suggests that I open another e-mail account, but I am a one-email type of girl. She wants us to go to a chat room but I am not so high-tech.
have been thinking/feeling you very close lately. of you and your body and everything about you.
She is in Auckland, New Zealand, and I am in Buffalo, New York. That’s 2 continents, 3 oceans, 8,643 miles, and 31 airplane hours between us. It’s been fourteen years since we were together. Fourteen years since I drove her away, out of the country, all the way to those remote slivers of island, New Zealand.
mmm, and i of you. it’s amazing after all these years not seeing you and all this distance between us, you still have the same effect on me, on my body, as if you were right next to me.
When I met her she had a shaven head and wore a cunt bead around her neck. I was at a lesbian event at Our Place, a vegetarian restaurant in Miami Beach, where she was the head chef. She worked as a waitress on Wednesday nights, which were reserved for lesbians.
“Wow, a cunt bead!” I said. I had seen them for sale at a womyn’s music festival. They were ceramic thumb-sized cunts that looped onto a leather cord.
I was hungry, but she had turned away without asking me what I wanted. She reappeared with a warm plate of food—crunchy brown rice with miso tofu and vegetables, and a potato puff. “This is on me,” she said. “No one’s ever acknowledged my cunt bead before.” Then she winked and went off to do her job.
I kept my eye on her the whole time. Watched her glide from table to table. Noted the feather tattooed on her breastbone, the firm muscles and hairy armpits, the nipples that stretched into the fabric of her tank top, the long legs and the ease with which she moved about. Her quick laughter. How she was all there, in the moment.
I took her home that same day, to my apartment on the beach. We sat on the balcony, overlooking the water, and told each other our life stories. She was from Portland, Oregon, and she had been traveling around the world for years. She would stay and work in a city in the U.S. long enough to save a few thousand dollars. She had lived in Provincetown, Seattle, San Francisco, New Orleans. She spun pizzas, invented soups, framed artwork, brewed coffee, did odd jobs. Then she would travel overseas, to Nepal, Machu Picchu, the Swiss Alps, and walk in the cities and swim in the rivers and hike in the mountains. She was unattached and had few possessions, save for her mountain bike. She lived in an art deco apartment in Miami Beach, where she slept in an old enamel bathtub on top of a wad of wool blankets.
Our throats ached at the end of the night from talking so much.
I served us some Colombian coffee liqueur and pulled her onto my futon bed. We both relaxed in the darkness. She took off her glasses and I began to stroke her whole body, starting with her shaven head, which was rough with invisible stubble. That’s when I decided that, tall and lean with a knobby head, she looked like an antenna, and I told her so.
“Antenna, you have to stop traveling now.” I said this after I’d taken off all her clothes and while I tugged at her pubic hair. “Because all those trips were just detours. I am your final destination.” Her pussy was wet and wanting, and she was weak, I guess, since she agreed on the spot to be mine, my fingers already fucking her, her sex song cooing into my mouth. I explained that if she wanted a Latina lover, she had to do what I said. She giggled. She was so sweet, I remember, so lovable. She was like water in bed, going with the flow, coming like a small and steady current.
I liked her.
She moved in with me the very next day, and was at my side for nearly two years. But it wasn’t much fun, not in the long run. We loved each other, but I would suddenly turn cold on her, not quite understanding why. Once, we went to Key West and I barely spoke to her during the whole trip. We went snorkeling together and hovered over coral reefs as schools of tiny fish darted between us. I clenched the snorkel with my teeth and listened to my breath, which was magnified underwater. Antenna, who was just an arm’s length away, pointed at a huge golden brown starfish moving at the bottom of the ocean. But I turned my back and kept a distance while I gaped at the sea grasses, mollusks, and sponges nestled in the pink corral reefs. Meanwhile, the sun warmed our backs and the ocean water held us in a salty embrace
. A few days later, when we got back to Miami, I had a postcard from her waiting for me in our mailbox. There was a photograph of red coral reefs on the front, and “Wish you were here. Love, your Antenna” on the back.
i’m sorry i was such a bitch to you.
Porcupine love, as my therapist called it, is a symptom of my emotionally fucked-up self. By the time I met Antenita I had a well-established pattern of loving and fucking and then turning cold and mean to my unsuspecting and in-love victims.
On another trip, Antenna and I journeyed to Colombia. At first we stayed with my aunts, where we had to be covert about our relationship. Then we went traveling through the countryside and rented a hotel room. Finally, we would be able to be together any way we wanted. We went horseback riding up a mountain road in the morning and found a spring along the way. There, we took off our clothes and climbed into the warm mineral waters. We talked and held hands for hours, breathing in the pure Andean air and the pungent smell of sulfur, and marveling at the verdant landscape. Then we got back on the horses and found a waterfall, where we dismounted and disrobed again. The cold mountain waters rushed down, pelting our heads and invigorating our bodies. The waters had purified us and jolted us into our senses. Our nerve endings were pulsing. We kissed before getting back on the horses, our tongues thrusting into each other’s mouths. I grabbed her crotch—I could hardly control myself—unzipped her jeans, and rammed my fingers into her. She was wet and desperate for my love. “I’m going to fuck you all night,” I told her, yelling over the loud, gushing waterfall. She bit my neck and protested when I pulled my hand out. But by evening, I had shifted to my icy self, ruining the warm connection we’d had throughout the day.
Our hotel room had two beds. I took the big bed for myself and made her sleep on the small lumpy mattress on the floor.
i don’t remember you as a bitch. what i remember about you are the sweet things. your laugh, the way you made me laugh. the way you loved me, the way you touched me. the delicious food you cooked, how you made me family.
Antenna offered me her love. She held it out to me in her hands and she wanted me to kiss her fingertips and become intoxicated with it. I wanted it at first but then I would feel repulsed. It was nauseating. It was thick and sticky and cloying. A turnoff.
“The coldness is a protection from your feelings,” explained my therapist. I had to have her spell it out for me because it was too important an issue and I wasn’t able to verbalize it on my own. “You avoid being vulnerable because it scares you.” Anger was my mode for masking fear. And porcupine intimacy was the result of my attempts to love and to be loved. I could only get close for so long before the quills were activated. The harder anyone tried to love me, the deeper the quills penetrated, the greater their barbs expanded. The quills weren’t deadly to their victims but they were painful and impossible to remove.
I couldn’t accept Antenita’s love and I wanted it to go away.
Finally, it did. She left me and, after visiting Australia, she ended up in Auckland, for good.
And now, fourteen years later, she is back, electronically at least, wanting me, courting me. I found her on the Internet while looking for European adventure tours. She is the webmaster for a New Zealand site. The photo gallery grabbed my attention—it’s full of stunning images: emerald lakes, wide-angle scenic mountains, vibrant forests. I found her as I clicked on the pictures. She was underwater, scuba diving, posing next to a seven-foot snapper and a cluster of prickly sea urchins wedged in the rocks. Smiling. Is that you? I sent her an e-mail; we hadn’t been in touch for a while.
i still love you. i’ve never stopped loving you.
How many times can love happen? I’ve had a lot of love in my life, but I’ve repelled every bit of it. All my girlfriends, including all the ones who loved me most, eventually stepped off my path and found someone else to love. Meanwhile, I continued with fuck after fuck, love after love, enjoying each one for just so long.
I am not sure that I really want love, even now. Or that I can handle it. Or that I can get it. But I’ve had years of therapy and I understand why my love life has been dysfunctional. And I have set up an altar for Ochún, the spirit of pleasure. I offer her flowers, oranges, and honey and light yellow candles for her. I wasn’t looking for love when I found Antenita on the Internet. I was looking for a vacation spot, a getaway plan, a back-to-nature place for a few weeks.
But I found her. And the memory of her love found me.
Of all the love I repelled, Antenna is possibly my biggest regret. And now my biggest hope. It is foolish, a near impossibility, a sign of insanity— or maybe proof of some sort of faith in the goddesses and the spirits— in Venus, in Aphrodite, in Tlazoltéotl, in Ochún, in Changó.
We are calling to each other across continents, scheming a reunion.
crazy fantasy: what if there was another chance?
New Zealand, 2 continents, 3 oceans, 8,643 miles, and 31 airplane hours away. New Zealand, those two idyllic islands with volcanic craters and rainforests, with dramatic coastlines and cliffs and glaciers, with opalescent pools of water and mountainsides covered with sheep. New Zealand, with an underwater fantasy world, with triplefin and flounder and orange golfball sponges, with crayfish and blue cod and jellyfish, with anemones scattered like daisies in the bottom of the sea. The place where my Antenna found a home. The place that is far away, like love. New Zealand, with black butterflies and water birds and orchids and buttercups. New Zealand, where I will go and eat my own flesh if I have to. New Zealand, where she is wet and writing me, where she is wet and calling me, where she is wet and whistling for me.
i can feel the heat in my ears as it travels from my c u n t all the way up. i feel it strongly when it’s going through my abdomen and my chest. then my ears get really warm and my head kind of spins a little.
My boss rejects my request for a three-week vacation over the Christmas holidays. I want to go to New Zealand to be with Antenna. I want to quit my job, even though it’s a good job by most standards—a secure full-time position with health benefits and a retirement package. But I want out. I want freedom. I want love—the possibility of it, anyway.
I want to let go of everything and fly to New Zealand but I’m scared that I’ll fuck everything up for a fantasy. I think I can hop on a plane and see where it takes me. I am checking fares every day. She is calling me every day. We are e-mailing every other moment. The only thing I know for sure is that traveling will deplete my savings.
i’m getting excited now, travel excited, that is :) been the other excited for a while :)
I am the fool ready to plunge off the cliff and see where I land, the soul who will journey with migrating birds across continents and seasons, the traveler who pines to be buried in hot, black volcanic sand, the seeker who will walk barefoot on hot embers and thorns. I am the one who will lie down in the nude and let the acupuncture needles into the center of my heart. I am the wino who will cackle and dance until I drop, the musician who will play for pennies for the joy of it.
I am unhappy at work and I call in sick, pretending that I have a sinus infection. I spend my days masturbating and walking in circles. I imagine all the ways that life can be different. I imagine quitting my job, getting evicted. I imagine a new life. I imagine love. I imagine hiking through the woods with her, finding a lake and swimming in the nude like we used to, and hanging a hammock from the branches of an ancient tree. We will swing in the hammock and she will wrap her limbs around my body, hugging me like a vine. I will fuck her like she hasn’t been fucked in fourteen years. I will let her love me, I swear it; I will let her.
There is a little voice that wants to tell me how stupid I am even to consider any of this. I tell the voice that I believe in Antenna, that she is a magical being who stirs up the stars when she walks. That she planted an herb and vegetable garden with me in the mountains of Colombia years ago and the garden is still producing. That she is a lizard, fast and intuitive and transformative. That sh
e is a vegetarian, a computer programmer, an artist, a deep sea diver. That she promised that one day she would make me a water fountain carved with goddesses. That she promised me that if I go to New Zealand she will take me swimming with the dolphins. And I want her stars and artistry and I want the gardens and the goddesses and I want to swim in her waters.
i have a picture of you—of us—up on my wall. i am kissing your neck and you are receiving my kiss. i think we took it in a bathroom stall in bogotá, do you remember? i held my arm out and pointed the camera at us.
The little voice persists. I call my therapist—whom I haven’t seen in forever—to set up an emergency session. The recording informs me that she is out of town, on vacation.
I panic. What was I thinking? I am drowning in fantasies. I need help. I need wisdom.
I need to stop masturbating. My clit is becoming a snooze button, going off and waking me up for barely a moment before it makes me sink back into the bed, back into the dreams, back into the wanting. My clit has sedated me and has made me think all these crazy things. My clit has made me a cookie monster, and my cunt is the cookie jar. My clit is always to blame. Once again, as I have been throughout my life, I am a victim of my clit.
I keep my hands off my pussy just long enough to put on some clothes and stumble out of the house. The drunks sitting out on the front porch next door give me mischievous smiles and I realize that they have been the unintended audience for my screaming orgasms.
“Fuckers!” I curse as I stomp off toward Elmwood Avenue.
I lunge into Spot Coffee, order a cappuccino, and pore over the notices on the bulletin boards: “Loving Couple in Search of a Child to Adopt.” “Celebrate World Literacy Day.” “Democracy is Free Speech: Use it or Lose it.” “1-888-MEDITATE.” “Don Juan del Corazón de Jesús Seeks Spanish-English Translator for Private Mystic Sessions.”