What about Neva?
Well, I’ve had flirtations with lesbians. I don’t know any lesbian who hasn’t fooled around with a guy once or twice. But I’ve never been in love with a woman, even though Neva’s hella goodlooking. One of my ladies was kind of chunky; she had a nice body, nice big breasts, a big ass, short, bleached blonde hair . . . They each had their own strong personality. This girl, she really annoyed me at first; she had a septum piercing and tattoos and she chewed gum a lot—with her mouth open!—so I thought she was a really trashy person but I ended up having a really big crush on her, and I guess she liked me, because I ended up getting her off. She had a boyfriend. So we weren’t a couple but we were a triple. It only lasted a little while, just a few months. Well, seems like most people are looking to couple up. He was separated from his fiancée but went back to her. She was interested in him but it didn’t happen. I wanted to pair off with her since it didn’t happen. I think what ended it was he was alone with me one day and we tried having sex just the two of us, just for fun, and it wasn’t really fun. There wasn’t a charge. It didn’t feel gross; he was a friend and we knew each other’s bodies, but there was something missing. I think she was missing. I think I only got hot when she was around. I think for her I was just something that happened once or twice. Now she’s married with two kids. And I recently got in touch with him; he’s separated from his wife, and I don’t think he ever brought up what he and I used to do . . .
But then her phone buzzed, so Judy waved and then went browsing at Moosey’s department store. After that she tried to turn a trick, but nobody was renting. Just as Karen Strand’s cat Princess used to hide in the closet for fun (which was why she finally died from thirst), so Judy went home to be alone. She longed for goofballs but proudly told herself: I’ll economize. So she took a nap and then another shower. At eight p.m. she set off for the Hotel Reddy.
Neva, am I beautiful?
Of course, whispered her hostess, and kissed her ear.
And Judy even believed it, although by the time she descended those carpeted stairs to the street, once more she would already be feeling nakedly ugly.
She could not get enough of stroking the lesbian’s upper arm in ever more rapid circles. Then her hand was on the lesbian’s buttock, and her tongue was in the lesbian’s mouth. They twirled tongue-tips for a long time, breathing heavily.
Neva, she said, he hits me.
Don’t you want to value yourself?
But it feels good.
That’s fine then. You enjoy being worthless, don’t you, pretty girl? I can see your nipples getting hard . . . !
Let’s please please please not talk about it.
Okay, honey, said the lesbian, who had been there before.
She stepped into the waistband of her strap-on, pulled it up, cinched it tight, lubricated it and penetrated the transwoman fast, hard and deep the way she liked it, so that she trembled and began groaning in a deep voice, then climaxed, baa-ing like a sheep. The lesbian felt good to have pleased her.
Gently running her hand through the lesbian’s hair, Judy thanked her, then said: Neva, why do you love me?
Smiling and kissing her cheek, the lesbian said: For so many reasons—
But you love everybody! Are we all the same to you?
I swear there’s nobody else like you, Judy. I love you for yourself.
What about everyone else?
It’s just you and me right now.
But in two hours it won’t be.
And then it will be again.
But it won’t be forever!
Nothing is, except for things we don’t understand.
Oh, well. Now will you slap my face?
They played that game for a good long while, until Judy’s time was nearly up. How could she cling to the lesbian for a little longer and then maybe longer? Casting around for topics, she said: You’re in pain, aren’t you?
Oh, Judy, I know you want to help . . . !
Did somebody hurt you?
We all get hurt.
Who are you holding a torch for?
Everyone.
Including Francine?
Judy, those questions are not good for you.
Please, Neva, I want to know.
I see that.
Just tell me this: How often have you lied to me?
Never.
Why are you doing this?
I have to and I want to.
2
The retired policeman, even now not unwilling to grant his approval, opened a can of beer and said: Well, well. Looks like you had fun.
Oh, yes!
What about Erin?
What about her?
I saw you two in the Cinnabar.
No, that was just . . . It’s just—
Just Neva.
Yeah.
Give me a suck.
She did. All the while she remembered how it had been to suck the lesbian’s nipples, which were as tiny and round as the incised dots on a pair of dice.
3
It is true that whenever she had sex with anyone else she now felt sad, but when she had sex with Neva she was ecstatic; and this ecstasy endured, so that when she came back from being with her, she felt happy and ready to make the retired policeman happy, which is why (just like Neva) she fulfilled all her lover’s scenarios and still had energy left over; thus their relationship became a shining machine.
Sometimes she started weeping because, frowning like a pitiless cost-cutter, he declined to commit to her; he might (which seemed unlikely) go back to Melba or his ex-wife or maybe stay single, but just when she had resigned herself to such possibilities, he would bend her over and call her his number one bitch.
What do you most hope for? asked the lesbian.
Can I really tell you? I mean, if I tell you, will you be upset?
Of course you can tell me.
I want to move in with him.
Hasn’t he offered?
But I’m afraid we’ll get into some big fight and then he’ll throw me out—
Then use your female power, Judy! He wants you to. Or at least he’s testing you to see if you will. It’s not unethical to do that; look at the rules he plays by . . . ! Will you consider what I’ve said?
Okay, said the transwoman in a very small voice.
The lesbian, she who spoke to our bodies, was very busy just then; she had to fluff up her hair for the straight man, because he loved to run his hands through it. But the transwoman was saying: And you promise that if I do that you won’t be mad?
I promise.
Can I ask you something else? said the transwoman.
Sure, said the lesbian.
I know this sounds kind of silly or crazy under the circumstances, but, but, am I still your primary relationship?
Of course, said the lesbian.
4
Seeking out the marvelous one, the lesbian, who unlike her sad mother could still climax all the way up to her pulsating cervix; appealing to her, hating our lives, we more often than not found ourselves babbling, even begging, as when Shantelle tearfully demanded: Neva, Neva, can’t you please help me? I wanna be less angry.
How can I do that?
I don’t know. And less proud. I . . . Because everything’s empty, so what’s the use?
Come closer, said the lesbian. Lay down your head, right here by my heart, and close your eyes.
In those days Shantelle considered the lesbian to be the most perfect being ever. She seemed delighted to do anything in bed; moreover, she was so good that Shantelle screamed herself hoarse. In other words, she was experienced, although so was Shantelle herself, who could top any girl, anytime, but there remained something fresh about Neva, who never appeared to be faking anything; although Shantelle, had she been more reflective, mi
ght have wondered why she knew so little about her idol’s life—not that she would ordinarily have felt interested, although in this case, since the lesbian was so lovely and so kind, so unexcelled at giving and receiving satisfaction, Shantelle might not have minded at least learning how often she had tried men and crime; almost certainly she had never made children, her tummy being so smooth and her pussy so very very tight.
Without words the lesbian did something to her, so that I may as well call it magic. Then Shantelle, flickering her tongue between the lesbian’s lips, seized hold of her head with easy triumphant domination.
5
As for Francine, whenever she unhooked her bra and stepped out of her panties in that room of the Reddy Hotel, she not only believed but felt that she and Neva were going to be a couple forever. What did the lesbian’s other alliances, all initiated right across the counter from her even as she poured out the drinks, mean to her? For my part, whenever I sat down on my side of the lesbian’s bed, bent over and began to unlace my shoes, I anticipated, if you like, manna, communion, maybe even some kind of Pentecost, but I never would have called her my girlfriend. She had her way, and very tactfully managed it, as I do declare, of checking the alarm clock, which never went off in my hearing, thank goodness. My well-off friends who can afford to go to therapists (even the transwoman sometimes went to one; I called him the rapist) inform me that in most every session comes the disagreeable moment when, while happily elucidating the most complex, interesting and worthwhile topic on earth, which is to say themselves, they find themselves unaccountably checked, perhaps by a sad smile, or a glance to the side; after which the rapist, who for fifty minutes has listened almost as would a true friend, gently but unashamedly says: We’ll have to stop now—reminding my friends that this was never anything more than paid listening over a pre-fixed block of time. In the case of a prostitute the time may well be less inhumanly measured—by the orgasm, for instance (assuming that the client doesn’t take too long). A wife offers up more fungible moments: the looked for bedtime intimacy, prospective duration undefined, may unexpectedly be converted into a mortgage conference, a live-streamed movie on Mammazoid, or a quarrel. By contrast, a sweet-eyed snuggly girlfriend gives eternity as long as it lasts; in other words, her sessions terminate not because she is rejecting her lover, but only on account of constraints imposed by this unfeeling world. What does it feel like for a Catholic at confession? Does the priest rush her along, or does she get the pleasure of fully disclosing her every sin? This I cannot know. But it does seem that if I went down on my knees, exposing my full vileness to the Goddess, I could go on day and night if that suited me. I have told you that my times with the lesbian felt much longer than they actually were; but even when it seemed that the end lay as impossibly far away as my own death, I never forgot it would come. I would dress and go out; then somebody else would come in. But the way that Francine experienced true love was that even the inevitable end counted for nothing. I knew that the lesbian loved me, but that made our twosome no more exclusive than as if I were a bride of Jesus in a whole convent of equally devout nuns (among whom Shantelle, happily overcome by sweetly desperate desire, now gripped the lesbian by her lovely buttocks, parted them, kneaded them and for the thousandth time began to lick her anus, which tasted like smoked leather, not long after which the lesbian, going down on Judy’s atrophied little penis, took it in her mouth even as her victim spread the wings of Neva’s vulva and licked it round and round until Neva began to sing in orgasm, not quite as E-beth used to do.) For Francine the rest of us were mere visitors; she loved Neva better than anyone, and Neva loved her the most. Well, how can I prove it wasn’t so? Even when they were nailing down the lid of the lesbian’s coffin, Francine was crooning (it gave me the creeps): I promise you, Neva, oh, Neva, baby, I promise you it won’t be long . . .—And she lacked any suicidal ideation! I point this out only because I cannot understand it. How can each of us know and feel how others love? In a field of sunflowers, why doesn’t each plant convert its solar nourishment into identical leaves and petals? And that is all I can tell you about Francine.
6
At each interval between loving us, the lesbian, checking her image in the mirror, felt at the sight of that reflected excellence the remotely pounding heart-rush of a methamphetamine addict who gets meaninglessly high, without any joy; for she took neither pride nor pleasure in herself; because her allure was impersonally objective: even she, its ostensible subject, could not avoid feeling it, as indeed she was called upon to do by expertise’s practicalities; it would have been slovenly not to verify and reverify her power, for exactly the same reason that a wise butcher tests the edge of his knife before advancing on the pig. It was in this spirit that Judy Garland reminded us: In the movies, your face is magnified, every little defect shows up multiplied a thousand times. What was a girl to do, but police her defects?
But in action she couldn’t be excellent—at least not to herself. To the rest of us she remained perfect; she killed us just right even without seeing the knife that trembled in her hands.
She lay in her rumpled bed, sweating and feverish, with infected tonsils that made her breath stink, and the transwoman was happier than she had ever been in her life, because she got to take care of her whom she loved.
Baby? Neva, baby, oh, God, what should I do?
Can you . . . hot water? Or tea?
In the cupboard, the transwoman found a box of chamomile tea. She considered that incredibly classy; she decided to start drinking it at home even if she didn’t like it. She filled the electric kettle and plugged it in. Oh, how she wanted to be good to Neva! Taking out two mugs, she placed a teabag in each. Then she took a fifth of bourbon out of her handbag, because whiskey was so helpful for a sore throat! She filled Neva’s mug a quarter of the way up with that amber-colored affection. Just to be social, she filled her own mug up halfway. Now what else could she do for her adorable lover? Remembering the bottle of codeines she had stolen from Erin weeks ago, more because she could than because she had desired them, she crushed six between two spoons, and divided the powder quite fairly between the mugs: two for Neva, who might not be used to them, and four for her. Now the kettle was shrilling, in that unearthly rising note that ever since she had overheard it from this very room reminded her of Sandra climaxing.
Drink your tea, honey. Oh, you poor, poor thing . . . Neva, you’re the most wonderful person in the whole world! Let me help you sit up. Careful; it’s really really hot . . . I added just a touch of booze to yours, to . . . Nothing else. Oh, Neva . . . !
Now they had finished their tea. The lesbian was already getting drowsy. Time to make sure the door was locked, and turn off the lesbian’s cell phone! It would have been informative to scroll through the numbers of whoever had most recently called her, but the lesbian was staring at her vaguely through half-closed eyes.
Neva, Neva, girlfriend, girlfriend! Judy sang so happily—because Neva was all hers!
Sliding her big male hand into the lesbian’s underpants, she parted the labia with forefinger and ring finger, then with the middle one began massaging the wet and silken clit while the lesbian moaned, half out of her mind with fever.
Neva? Neva, do you really love me?
Caressing the lesbian’s sweaty hair, she lay beside her until nightfall, whispering to her, rocking her as if she were a doll.
7
What I’ve been hearing about you, said Francine, well, I’m telling you, this bunch would do anything for you.
That’s so sweet, said the lesbian.
If they were smarter they’d be licking your shoes. They’d be saying: Neva, whatever the hell you want . . . !
But I don’t want anything.
Then why are you here? Why not get out of here, or get a steady lover or slit your fuckin’ throat? Come on, girl. Everybody wants something.
What do you want?
Why make i
t about me? I’m trying to help you, because I love you.
And I love you.
Then you wanna marry me?
I can’t marry everybody.
Neva, you’re the one for me.
I love you.
So you don’t love me the way I love you.
Francine, you are special to me. I don’t love anybody else the way I love you. But I have to love everyone an equal amount.
Why?
Because that’s who I am. I can’t disappoint them.
Then you’ll disappoint all of us, sooner or later. Be careful.
I know how it has to end.
Yeah. Who doesn’t? Now listen, baby. I don’t just love you; I’m also your friend.
Thank you.
And I’m telling you: The others love you, but they’re not your friends. They need you, so they’ll turn against you.
I don’t think so, said the lesbian.
And watch out for Shantelle.
It won’t be the way you think. Could I have another?
Eight dollars, said Francine.
8
That was when Francine began to confide in me. She joined the retired policeman’s camp, whose motto was: Neva doesn’t add up.
I asked her: Do you think somebody can love more than one person at a time?
Sure.
Can you?
Never. Can you?
I don’t know.
We were drinking happy hour tonics at the Cinnabar so that none of our friends could listen in. I was paying. She swirled her ice around and said: She pretends and even maybe tries to convince herself that we’re all the same to her, but that can’t be true unless we’re all nothing to her.
I said: She loves me.
Well, she loves me, too, said Francine. She loves us both, all right, and she loves Judy, I know; I love Judy—but then what? That beats me. Sandra, sure; Xenia and Hunter, they’re only semi-toxic; Al’s harmless; Victoria’s a maybe, but no goddamn way Shantelle . . .
Well, I said, what if she doesn’t love anyone? Isn’t that the same as loving everyone? I mean, that’s what you said—
The Lucky Star Page 23