The Lucky Star

by William T. Vollmann

  10

  Neva, not herself, which is to say mildly affected by marijuana, looked over the muted glitterings of the bottles behind the bar, as if she might be counting them, and then, as if the transwoman had just now asserted this particular issue, told her almost coldly: To say that I’m a lesbian is true, but how much is it really true? I love Richard and Al and J. D. and—

  Are you okay? asked Francine.

  And it makes me feel as if I’m nobody . . .

  These words reminded Judy of the black girl Letitia for whom she used to be so crazy, the one with the sleek voice and shining black hair and, oh, that stunning white smile . . . !

  I don’t know that it’s a lesbian attribute, the lesbian continued bitterly, but I guess if it were it would help people like you to simplify me.

  And Judy woke up shocked; she’d been dreaming of Letitia all along! Our collective sweetheart would never say anything so unpleasant!

  Dreaming again, she woke up in the lesbian’s arms, with a thrilling tingly feeling unlike her craving to be held and praised by the retired policeman immediately after he had beaten her.

  Coming Down

  The point is that it is impossible to retain equanimity in the midst of pleasures which are not only intense, but also abnormal and harmful, unless one has often disdained permissible pleasure . . .

  PLUTARCH, bef. ca. 120 A.D.

  United soules are not satisfied with embraces, but desire each to be truely the other, which being impossible, their desires are infinite, and must proceed without a possibility of satisfaction.

  SIR THOMAS BROWNE, ca. 1643

  1

  Xenia took another turn with the lesbian. Soon she was in heaven—and not alone, Neva being both companion and cause . . . !—They climaxed. They kissed. They rested. And slowly, like an almost buoyant object descending into the ocean, that peaceful post-amorous fulfillment began to withdraw, leaving Xenia suddenly chilly.

  Again her turn was over. She went home, trudging through the clammy darkness. Lying down in her unmade bed and playing with herself in order to milk out just a trifle more pleasure from that fulfillingness which still inhabited her (come to me now; come to me now), she began to feel cold. Rolling herself up in her blanket, she lay on her back, warm again, happy just to be, which was one lesson that loving the lesbian had taught her. For nearly an hour that feeling nourished her, although the air in the room kept getting chillier. She wrapped the blanket around her head, and that helped, but whenever she inhaled, the chill came inside her. Then her forehead began to ache. How lonely she was! Should she make up with Hunter? She was shivering; her teeth were chattering; was she coming down with the flu? The wise thing would be, as always, self-medication—for instance, two of those analgesic tablets which were marketed in a little pink bottle as Happy Mense—for today’s working women who won’t let any time of the month get them down! But they were in the bathroom, a good thirty steps away. So she put off going, just as she sometimes did when her bladder woke her up in the middle of the night and she told herself: Just another half-hour, since I’m so sleepy . . . And the same denouement announced itself; she couldn’t delay any longer. This headache was a nasty one; she never got migraines, but maybe they felt like this. Unwinding the covers and sitting up, she trembled in the dire cold. She placed the soles of her bare feet on the ice-cold floor. Her toes went numb. As soon as she stood up she felt nauseous, but she hardly suspected that she was going to throw up; without any warning contraction of her stomach, the vomit rose up effortlessly into her mouth, thick and coarse; at first she tried to swallow it back down but then she choked on it, so it spewed down her nightgown and onto the carpet. Lifting up the hem to retain as much of it as she could, she waddled to the bathroom, and just before she reached the toilet a much stronger spasm overtook her, spraying vomit onto the mirror. She took off her nightgown and dropped it into the laundry basket. Then she scrubbed up what she could with both towels. Tomorrow, when she felt better, she would do it right. The chattering of her teeth hurt her ears. Maybe a hot shower would help her; she needed to wash herself anyhow. Stepping into the comforting warm stream, she gained an instant of ease before she began exploding with diarrhea.

  2

  Right away came Hunter, complaining to her heart’s content about Xenia, then getting raptured in the lesbian’s arms, as if this long high climax comprised, if this will not sound too strange, her best chance of freedom.—Lacing up her black shitkicker boots, she said: Neva, I feel so good and tough right now, I wish I could grow a moustache! I want hair on my arms! I want to fuck you with a six-foot cock! Oh, Neva, you’re the friggin’ best.

  I love you, too, said Neva.

  Humming and singing (she happened to be very very high), Hunter walked all the way down to the bus stop catty-corner from the Diana Market on Folsom, where she’d first met Xenia; she was half-hoping to see her right there—as likely as a sudden rising of the Decker Electric Company’s two articulated security doors. A motorcycle screamed past her ear, then after three breaths came a black car and a white car, and she began to realize that unless she could be in Neva’s arms forever she was lost.

  3

  It’s really too cold . . . , said Sandra.

  Ignoring this, the straight man crawled to the foot of the bed and began to lick her vulva, an act which up until now had infallibly aroused her, but after a good ten minutes she had not responded in any way except to lay her hand on the top of his head, so he stopped, presently returning to her side, after which some moments passed, and then she said: Don’t you like making love with me anymore?

  You weren’t in the mood, he explained.

  You still could have gone inside me.

  When you’re not aroused it’s not arousing for me, either.

  Mmm, she said; then nothing was said until he told her: I had better do some work.—He had given away his white dog and moved back in with Sandra, so he felt unappreciated. In the bathroom he imagined the lesbian squatting over him, slowly impaling herself on his penis, supporting herself one-handed on the headboard so that to him she felt weightless.

  4

  Whenever he called nowadays, Sandra was all business—friendly and intellectual and social and helpful, just not intimate—although she always said I love you.

  He called and Sandra did not call back; she always called back.

  He called and Sandra picked up the phone and said she had only ten minutes; she never said that.

  She talked about politics, not her longing to lose herself in holding him and making love.

  Scratching his baldness, he said: How are you feeling?

  Oh, everything’s fine . . .

  Has your life changed somehow?

  It’s all the same. Well, I’d better go now—

  Could I ask one more question? I won’t take long—

  Of course.

  Are you in another relationship now?

  What do you mean? she said.

  Well, are you having sex with someone else?

  Well, that boy, I’ve seen him again.

  You’ve seen him? You mean you’ve had sex with him?

  Yes.

  He felt a very strange complex emotion, not quite jealousy or masochistic pleasure, but sadness and sickness that he could not help but further stimulate, as if scratching a scab to make it bleed. He felt very very hollow.

  Then Sandra’s phone rang. Her face shone; it was Neva.

  5

  Meanwhile the lesbian’s breasts were inexplicably aching, and she too felt nauseous. Don’t dare claim that she was poisoning us!—It came to be the transwoman’s turn, and the next day both partners felt nauseous. But hadn’t Neva always been queasy, or was the retired policeman lying to me about that part?—With the mother now finally schooled by the daughter’s physical repulsion, it had become the lesbian’s duty to unschool
her, loving her unconditionally. But couldn’t she put it off a tiny bit longer? She could well remember her with her mouth wide open and her eyes screwed shut, her tongue loosely floating and her fingers whirring like a weaver’s, warping and wefting the joy she needed; now Neva knew exactly how to give it to her. Once upon a time her mother had been a darkhaired young woman with a wedding ring on her hand, standing nude, gripping her crotch with both hands, staring down at the place from whence her pleasure came. Now she was yellowish and wrinkled, still putting on lipstick as if that could make her young. Her pitilessness had decayed into mere loneliness. Meanwhile the transwoman was slowly licking round and round the lesbian’s clitoris, then gliding her tongue up and down the vestibule of her slit while her middle finger twirled deep inside and her forefinger went right to the hilt up the lesbian’s anus; while the lesbian, flushed and burning hot, sweating deliciously, rolling and moaning, reached down to stroke Judy’s hand, moaning and coming, but not at the peak yet, climaxing on and on in slow plenitude with no need ever to finish while the transwoman, her heart pounding and her head hammering from love, lost understanding of who she was and what she was doing but continued to be carried along so happily by the incomprehensible doing of it, sinking deeper into the lesbian’s cunt which was now the world to her; the lesbian’s sweaty moans might as well have been her own; and when the lesbian finally shouted in orgasm the transwoman rushed on top of her, entering her with her anachronistically huge penis while she slammed her dripping mouth against the lesbian’s, sucking her tongue and lips, riding her faster and faster until they both screamed. The lesbian was bright red and sweating crazily into the sodden sheets. Giggling, the transwoman approached her ear and whispered: My judgment might be, as they say, drug impaired, but how would you like another pill?—You have more? said the lesbian, thrilled. I think can handle more.—Are you sure? This stuff’s from Selene, so it’s gonna be good . . .—Yes yes yes! cried the lesbian, kissing her with innumerable loud lipsmacks, so the transwoman, thrilled to feel loved, got the other two doses from her purse, and they both laughed over the words NOT FOR HUMAN CONSUMPTION.

  While the lesbian snored loudly beside her, Judy was slowly, slowly coming down off the drug; she began to prickle with icy chills, so she held the lesbian tight, gripping her by the breasts, and the lesbian snorted in her sleep, stopped breathing for an instant, then began panting slowly. When her eyes finally opened, they were darker and greener than usual.

  Judy had a haunted feeling, as if something were lamenting far away. She crept home to sniff the lesbian’s blouse and masturbate, but once she got into bed all she could do was shiver. The good news was that she’d lost eighteen pounds.

  At two in the afternoon the lesbian dropped in to the Y Bar for a pick-me-up, but after Francine poured out her gin and tonic and she picked up the glass, the first tiny swallow stung her stomach. Well, but isn’t gin supposed to be hard on digestion? The dark and narrow room felt very hot. Lifting the glass to her lips, she swished around no more than a teaspoonful on her tongue, just to distract herself from the stomach ache, but her head began to throb, her saliva thickened; then suddenly she became certain that she would vomit. Rushing to the ladies’ restroom, she bent over the stinking toilet and retched. For a long time the badness refused to come up; finally she tickled her throat and won. Then she returned to us.

  Are you okay, hon? said Francine.

  Then Hunter came in weeping. Wrapping both arms around her, the lesbian took her home, where her guest railed against Xenia, who had introduced her to meth of all kinds, including one very high-class kind which made her very nauseous, so that next day Xenia, whose lovingkindness even I consider limited, dropped her off at a Dayglo Diner to use the ladies’ room to vomit in, after which while she was waiting for Xenia she sat in the grass literally foaming at the mouth. A man asked if she were all right. She said that she was. Then Xenia took her to the hospital and dropped her off. The nurse asked what was wrong. Hunter, naively believing that she had to be honest, confessed to the meth, after which the nurse grew disapproving and even cruel, insisting on catheterizing her for the urine test even though she was perfectly capable of peeing into a cup without any help; fearing this procedure, Hunter argued and eventually wept, after which the nurse rewarded her with a nice tranquilizer before the catheter went in. And now Xenia had friggin’ left her!—C’mere, honey, said the lesbian . . .

  Half an hour later, a suit-and-tie man who sometimes came on show nights was sitting on Hunter’s stool, explaining to his cell phone about business books, strong free cash flow, servicing existing customers and getting the key players to buy in; while the retired policeman was telling the straight man about the last time he requalified, on a recent windy day when rain blew in all the shooters’ faces; he broke leather faster than the best of them, outshooting that stuck-up range officer twat who was just beginning her second clip when he had exhausted his third, so that all the other shooters froze into awe, after which they wanted him to go up against the asshole from Fish and Game, but that dude had a cutaway holster, which wasn’t sporting, so the retired policeman said fuck it.—That’s great, said the straight man, you sure showed them something.—But how was the straight man truly feeling? What did he care about guns? He remembered how his former lover, the one before Sandra, had once after their breakup permitted him to stay in her guest room, but acted very dry and almost grim with him, not asking him about his life or family even though he politely served her such questions, and in the morning through the bedroom door he heard her warmly laughing with her other guest, a young woman whom she barely knew. That was how he felt among all of us at the Y Bar, except sometimes with Sandra and very occasionally with Francine (almost never with the retired policeman, whose scrupulous inflictions of logic wore him out). As for Neva, he believed her to be the one who always went in search of whoever was lost.

  On the brighter side of the bar, Sandra, whose friendship with the straight man both he and she now called amicable, was meanwhile informing all of us special friends: There’s a really beautiful video of The Judy Garland Show when she and Barbra Streisand sing this medley together and it’s so beautiful the way their voices are blending together, but it’s so tragic, because Judy Garland had this great talent and couldn’t keep it together, whereas Barbra Streisand could get it together . . . And, and I can’t keep it together—I can’t! Suddenly I feel so sad . . . !

  Never mind, hon, said Francine. You getting the chills?

  How did you know?

  We all go through whatever once she sends us home. Here, baby. Chew this up quick so nobody sees; it’s five hundred milligrams . . .

  The straight man watched Sandra palm something into her mouth, and instinctively the retired policeman watched the straight man, who was remembering Neva’s hair still swirling across his shoulder when she began to turn away, at which he, hunching down his head, unable to get enough of her, realized that her fragrance was light; it was the light itself. But he could often smell Sandra on her, and sometimes he could taste her on Sandra; how could he take to himself, to himself only, our lesbian, the lovely one, straining her against him, sucking her lips into his mouth, pulling her ever more tightly into his soul, until Sandra and the rest of us could no longer bar him from his peace? He loved Sandra, but she had sawn into his heart, which is why the enthusiastic, almost mirthful hatred in his smiling gaze reminded the retired policeman of the time he had arrested a wife-beater in the act, and presently appeared to testify against him, at which the monster, who had been foolish enough to submit to cross-examination, stood at the witness stand stuttering and giggling, then blurted out: If she had fallen downstairs and died you’d still convict me with some other circumstantial evidence! . . .—and in due time pled insanity.

  Meanwhile the transwoman sat home with diarrhea. When she saw the mirror image of her collapsing face, she told it: Bad news, Judy. Not even your old fans will tune in.—And that night we all w
aited for the golden-crowned lesbian, she whom we all believed to know the truth and now lay in bed, feeling hot and tired, with chilly prickles in her scalp.

  But what about her emotions? Well, she had a sense of ready calm as she never used to when she had been a little girl named Karen, knowing that her mother would presently arrive in her bed. At least she no longer had to anticipate the touch of that hand; and at the Y Bar she never needed to believe the promises of her own lovers (this was one reason why we loved her).—Aside from an embrace and a cheek-kiss apiece, the mother now never tried . . . well, it is true that often when they promenaded down the block, she would clutch Neva’s arm for support; the poor lady was getting very old.—When she first received her power on the island, the lesbian had worried about practicing love without feeling it, but of course with her antennae perceiving the vibrations of Xenia’s faraway silent anguish and of Sandra’s longing probing thoughts, that apprehension most certainly solved itself. Had I been Catholic I would have called her Our Lady of Sorrows. But how could she truly be sorry for anything? Shouldn’t the Goddess be sufficient unto herself? Besides, what was she supposed to look for but troubles and crosses?

  Again she let herself imagine returning to the island, not so much to be mended by the love of those other women as to converse with them about the old lesbian who had completed her mother’s achievement of making her who she was, although one of them (Reba, evidently) must now have become the old woman, who would necessarily love her differently and therefore make her sad. In short, she knew enough not to go back there. As for E-beth, she might have gained weight, and wrinkles, and unless she dyed it, her hair would be white or grey. Would the retired policeman have a current picture? E-beth, formerly her favorite stranger, was travelling toward death without her!—The lesbian sat up and combed her hair, because right then Sandra was waking up joyful and getting happier and happier: Tonight she would be eating the lesbian’s pussy and not simply pleasing her but pleasing her greatly. And she was going to whisper: I want to be in a sea-green bed in a crumbling underwater castle with fish swimming in and out the windows as I kiss you and use my hand to make you climax, Neva, and we lock our fish-tails together . . .—And she would confess: Louis is hurt, and I do feel bad that a lot of our conversation concerning you and me was about, you know, other things, but when I ask the other girls, Neva, they just tell me to do what I would want to do, which is to say, lie. So I lie. Darling, do you ever lie?—Oh, but the lesbian felt tired! Fortunately, Francine, whose hands were utterly satisfied but never satiated with Neva’s body, allowed me to run the Y Bar for half an hour so that she could bring her darling a gift: eight doses of yellow serum! because of all of us (aside from me) it was only she, who had seen angels come and go, who wondered how long the lesbian could possibly stay at altitude, and when she would stop being what she was; she knew that Neva needed help! And the lesbian, leaning back and bracing her elbow on the arm of the sofa, raised one slender leg as high as her heart and held it, gripping it fast and gazing far away while Francine squatted greedily to worship her. Then came intermission.—Knowing that the yellow serum was available made Neva’s time with Sandra glide easily by; and the very next morning Francine came rushing over so that she and Neva could sample the first two doses. Neva of course was up for anything—because as her mother had so often told her, to be a woman is to care for others.