7
At seven-forty-five that morning, when Holly crept wearily off to work, Neva was finally alone between appointments. She who had become the garment around us, the living robe which loved and sorrowed for what she covered, sat staring ahead, counting the various ways in which she had failed us. Instead of lifting us all up according to our deepest desires, she had betrayed and blighted us, evidently because she had not loved us enough. Now I wish I could have led her down Market Street to the curb across from Golden State Mall where in the smell of marijuana emitted by three young men with their glowing cell phones at the ready the amplified prophet announced: If I look at the moral law thou shalt not steal, I’ve stolen; that’s on my record; I’ve looked at my neighbor’s wife with lust, so I’ve committed adultery, so we’ve all failed. But she continued sinking down her checklist: How could she better exert her suffering heart so as to save us? How strange to realize that understanding was not helping! She knew us so well: the way that Al could best relieve his loneliness by praying to her at arm’s length in the darkened room; Xenia’s desperate desire to be considered wise; the concentrated taste of Sandra’s redhaired pussy, which stayed on sheets and fingers, and the strangely milder taste when she was menstruating, and . . . She declined to sing Reba’s song of names, and now someone was ringing the buzzer.
8
In came a long message from Xenia: I really did want to get a few things across to you, Neva. First of all, I was only forty-five minutes late. You had no idea how it impacted me. I sent a message to you and I walked miles and miles to get to you and I was really really upset. I had Energol and Hormonex and all kinds of drugs for you and I . . .
9
When I dropped by the Y Bar that day, Francine was clocking out early—very early.
Are you okay? I asked.
Not well, she grated.
At first I supposed that she was merely coming down from too much crystal. Her sweaty face kept going red and white like an old time neon sign. Then something made me ask: Is it from Neva?
And that hard, wary bitch burst into tears!
I said: Let me walk with you a bit.
She nodded rapidly. I knew that she was ashamed to break down in front of us. Alicia had just clocked in. She stood behind the bar gloating.
Francine lived somewhere on Turk Street. As soon as we had gone around the corner I said: Come home with me.
What the fuck do you mean? said my coy companion.
I love you, I said. And I never realized it until I saw you in pain. You love Neva and Judy, and so do I. Please, Francine, I can’t stand to see you sad.
I’m fine, she said.
Let me hold you and be good to you, I said.
Forget it, she said.
Francine, I whispered, sweet little Francine of mine, I’ve got medicine.
You do? What kind?
The best you’ve ever had.
What color is it?
Brown.
Powder? All right.
So I took her up to my place, bringing her by the more inviting way, past the late night pizza place where they spoke Arabic to each other and police cars sped ruby-like behind the white-graffiti’d window. And I showed her respect by not holding her hand. We passed the new cannabis shop by Penthe’s Bar and the Hotel Garland, where a tall glamorous T-girl came out and gloated: Now I’ve got drugs!, at which Francine and I smiled at each other. When we came up out of the Tenderloin at Geary and Van Ness with the rebar shining at the construction site across the street and the windows of the old auto showroom gleaming, I heard her inhale suddenly as if she were surprised or worse, so I carefully did not look at her. Then we were going upstairs. She suddenly stopped as if she feared me, so I told her: You don’t have to stay. I’ll give you medicine and then if you want to go home I’ll be sad but it’ll be fine.
She smiled.
As it happened, that day I had made my bed and even changed the sheets. She stood by the door, holding her purse. I poured out two glasses of equal portions cherry soda and All-American Rum. Then she came slowly closer, so that I could finally close the door. Handing her a cocktail, I said: Seven dollars! and she giggled. She raised it to her pretty lips and I said: Bottoms up!—We clinked glasses. When that round was gone, she pulled out a pint bottle of Binco Jack. We sat down on the edge of the bed. The afternoon was already looking up.
When’s your turn? I asked her.
Not for two more days. She’s so wonderful but sometimes I can’t stand it.
I get the chills afterward.
Well, I get hot flashes, as you can see. But don’t tell anyone.
I promise.
Each time it gets worse and worse—
Come on, baby, I said. What part of life doesn’t?
She laughed a little. Then she said: Richard, I’ve got to go.
Listen, I told her. I’ve got two doses of pure brown molly, and Shantelle does not know. We can’t have Neva all the time, so we’ve got to figure out how to get by. Francine, I do love you. And what I want to do with you right now is take ecstasy and lie down with you and hold you and stroke your hair and make you feel cherished.
Oh, stop it, she said. But she was already untying her shoes.
I went into the bathroom and closed the door, because it wasn’t her business how much molly I actually had, nor where I kept it. I poured out all my Fat Save brand headache pills, and then from the bottom of the bottle my hooked forefinger extracted that wrinkled baggie of crumbly, bitter brown rocks. Breaking off two doses (cheapskates got by with point one five grams but for this romantic date I eyeballed point three grams each), I packed away the evidence, and then, just in case Francine might be a thief, dropped the pill bottle into my pants pocket. Then I flushed the toilet for verisimilitude. When I came out, she was staring at the wall.
Ready to take your medicine? I asked.
All right, she said in a trembling voice.
With the aid of her Binco Jack we gagged down that foul-tasting stuff.
You wanna lie down with me?
Sure.
I had already stripped to my underwear while she was still wearily unhooking her bra. I didn’t even know whether she had a cock or a slit. Jonesing for sugar, I drank another slug of cherry soda, which by the way tasted just like cough drops. Francine didn’t want any more. I got under the blanket and closed my eyes. After awhile she crawled in next to me. Her hands and feet felt very cold.
Honey, I said, do you want to come lie in my arms?
Not yet. I . . . I might have made a mistake, coming here.
Just stay a few minutes, until the molly kicks in. Then decide. And right now we can talk about Neva—
No. Please don’t.
You want to talk about anything?
No. All right, just hold me.
She rolled into my arms, and I clasped her as gently as I could, so that she would not feel trapped.
I was already starting to get that hot rising dizzy nauseous feeling. I closed my eyes, waiting for the good part.
I’m feeling it, said Francine.
How does it feel?
Wonderful.
I began caressing her sweaty grey hair, and it felt almost as good as touching Neva. She started getting giggly and chatty. I began rubbing her back. Her skin felt impossibly delightfully smooth. Touching her buttock for the very first time, I could hardly believe how perfectly exactly right it was. She upturned her face, and we began kissing, licking each other’s tongues. She was moaning and I was breathing hard, and Francine was saying: Oh, Richard, I love you so much.
Thank you for loving me, because I’m so happy with you, so happy with my sweet, adorable Francine . . .
I caressed her all over, faster and faster. The more I touched her, the more infinite her skin and flesh became, until she was an entire universe and more, far
more than I could ever adore, so that I went crazy with gratitude for her. She was babbling thanks and love and sweet silly things which she sometimes forgot before she had finished saying them. All I wanted to do just then was to kiss her—kiss her and kiss her! I needed her lovely face close to mine forever. We kissed and licked each other’s mouths until our tongues were raw, thereby surpassing that famous time when Judy Garland first collapsed on the set and the MGM doctor gave her some pills to make her feel on top of the world in ten minutes. I got up to bring us some water and swayed, wondering if I would vomit. Then slowly, very very carefully, I filled two glasses and brought them back to bed. Wise Francine drank all hers down. Although my mouth felt very dry, it was all I could do to get down two swallows. Then I crashed back down on my back, and Francine began playing sweetly with my limp penis. It felt so good I could hardly move. Then I took her breasts in my hands and started kneading them. They were so ethereally and mysteriously hot and semiliquid that I couldn’t get enough of them. Forgetting to play with me, Francine lay there moaning her sweetest little oh-oh-ohs. When she stroked her hair down and widened her eyes at me I realized that she was even more beautiful than the lovely dead actress Natalie Wood. After seven hours we started coming down, so I broke off for each of us another half dose, and we reentered our happy eternity. At two in the morning we descended again. I got my customary chills, and Francine got her hot flashes. My stomach cramped, and a headache was coming on. Francine said she was hungry, so I made her a peanut butter sandwich. After two bites she couldn’t eat any more. I put the plate in the fridge to keep the cockroaches away. She had some medical marijuana that was calibrated for pain, and I had sleeping pills. We swallowed some of each before the withdrawal got worse.
Francine was getting sleepy—lucky girl! Stroking my arm, she yawned: Oh, baby, I love you so much . . .
I plunged my happy hand into the deep tight valley between her sweaty breasts, after which she fell asleep. I lay beside her for a long time, in awe of how precious she was.
In the morning we both felt tired and jangled, but she kissed me goodbye quite sweetly. Later that day I remembered how delicious it had been when she was sucking one of my nipples and I was rubbing the other one. So I lay down and began fondling myself. Although the drug had left me, my body had learned something, or possibly relearned the almost undifferentiated pleasure of which an infant must be capable. I tried to feel what Francine might have felt had I been touching her there. And after a few seconds, not nearly as swiftly as the lesbian could sometimes appear within my heart, some of our bliss returned to me. Lacking urgency or direction, it was nothing like the rising, need-laced pleasure on the road to orgasm. When I took a walk to buy toilet paper and sodapop, the euphoria almost seemed to be growing back, like the miracle of a second erection, but in this section of my life, with the skyscrapers of the Financial District blocky grey against the gunmetal blue of the sky, I was shivering and my head was hurting. So I went home and lay down. It occurred to me that if I took molly often enough, I might acquire a readier habit of self-fulfillment, which, like the possession of arithmetic, could serve me whenever I pleased. Arithmetic, of course, had long since taught me that there is no something for nothing, so I wondered what the price would be. But if I could somehow feel this pleasure by and for myself, then I could get out of craving Neva all the time. Just then, how I hated her for my loneliness! I tried to call her, but she did not answer and her voicemail was full.
10
That afternoon I made a point of going down to the Y Bar right at four-thirty when Francine’s shift began and the place was peaceful. She poured me a rum and sodapop on the house. When I drank it, my teeth ached.
Leaning forward so that Xenia could not hear, I murmured that I remembered exactly what she did to me, how I penetrated her with two fingers and what her sweat smelled like just before she climaxed, at which she shyly yet trustingly smiled.—What about you? I asked, and she said: I remember lying in your arms and feeling so safe and so loved and . . . No, Victoria, hold your horses; Richard and I have some personal business.—And I also remember . . . All right, Xenia, I’m coming.
But just then Shantelle swished in, along with Neva and Judy and everyone; we all stared up at the television, which had been self-importantly glowing the turquoise hue of Egyptian faience, and saw the outcome of the Supreme Court decision on Friday, June 26, 2015 (the vote went 5 to 4): a whitehaired woman who looked like a man sticking her tongue in a plump middle-aged woman’s mouth, a young black woman gently holding a bespectacled blonde white woman’s face as she began to kiss her, a black woman with reddish-blonde braids kissing a black man in a baseball cap (he turned out to be a black woman), two bespectacled butches in army outfits kissing each other hard, two plump, stubbly young men in baseball caps deeply kissing each other: Traci Bliss Panzner and Julie Ann Lake, Marge Eide and Ann Sorrell, Lena Williams and Crystal Zimmer, Stephanie Ward and Lori Hazelton, Thomas Kirdahy and Terence McNally, Tom Fennell and Christopher Brown.
Well, I said, at least they stand for something.
While you fall for everything! cried Shantelle, running up and kissing my ear.
We were all happy; just then I felt as fresh as rainy nights in wet blank glowing alleys, with cable cars humming around the corner—and the transwoman likewise wanted to celebrate. High on Francine’s discounted goofballs, she cried out: Hey, all of you! Let’s . . . let’s play a kissing game with Neva! We’ll each get one kiss out of her, and then we kiss each other, and then she has to kiss us again, and she will, because . . .
Sandra, said Francine, take her home. Do you mind?
As soon as Sandra helped her up, the transwoman fell up against her. Moaning with desire, she began kissing Sandra’s face.—Oh, oh, oh, she muttered; you’re my sweet little mermaid! Let’s play the kissing game . . . !
Sandra laughed, kissed her back three times and said: Okay, honey, let’s get you home—. . . at which Judy crashed down to the floor and started snoring.
Francine, Sandra and I took her by the arms and legs. She weighed less than I expected. We tucked her behind the bar, on the shelf where boxes of sodapop were stored. Then we kept right on playing the kissing game. Neva was up for it; she was laughing and we were screaming!
When Judy woke up, we stretched her out on the naugahyde sofa below the mirror, with her head in the lap of Holly, whom she barely knew.
Holly said: Do you want me to teach you?
Teach me what? Oh, tell me a story.
You don’t need that. Neva said you—
You mean Neva’s making you do this?
No, she asked me and I said I would. She said you’re trying to figure out who you are—
Well, I’m a woman. I may not look like it, but I don’t care; I accept the fact that I’m disgusting. I’m a woman who loves women, and I wanna be around women all the time.
But that fat cop you hang around with—
Takes care of me, and I love him.
I give up, said Holly.
Wait! You mean you’d really answer questions?
Do I have to? said Holly, sick and tired of Judy.
I mean, you’re a full on lesbian, right?
Why on earth would straight relationships exist except to make babies?
So you’ve never had sex with a man?
I’ve had experiences with men but not with any men I like. I have never dated men. I have hooked up with men for a funny time and for sex work. It’s not interesting except that I can sort of feel my own effect on someone from my own sex worker standpoint. I’ve seen how men have affected women that I’m attracted to, and that’s exciting for me. If the woman is interested in the man, just because of that I might be interested in fucking him.
If you had sex with me would you feel you were with a man?
It doesn’t have to do with genitals. I’ve had sex with transwomen but I don’t consider
them as different from any other lesbian. Don’t you know that a lot of femmes-for-femmes are transwomen?
Well, said Judy excitedly, does that mean you wanna fuck me?
I’m not interested.
Oh.
Look, Judy. There are some people that are more okay with bodies and vaginas and whatever. Mostly, penises are kind of weird but if I like the person I like everything about them. If I like the person I like everything about you. It’s just that I don’t know you.
Well, do you wanna get to know me?
Judy, I’m trying to be your friend, not your lover. I already love someone else.
Who?
None of your business.
Please, please, pretty please?
Fine. I’m in love with Neva, and that’s enough for me.
The transwoman sat up. She said: Thanks for trying to help me. What you said is interesting, and maybe when I think it over I’ll . . . I don’t know, but the last thing you said made me really really sad. Although I knew it all along—
That’s because you love being sad. Judy, I don’t have the right to say what anyone else’s experience is. I have felt feminine, and felt feminine things all my life. I have never been attracted to masculine things. I know there are people who are genuinely attracted to one type of person for awhile and then another type for awhile. I think you are attracted to females that have more masculine traits, that are in control. But you don’t have to stay the same. Maybe if you stopped trying to define yourself you’d feel better. Anyway . . .
Kiss me, said Judy.
See you later, said Holly.
11
At the Y Bar we gloated over a new blonde with a fair slim hand, her legs shining like fruit, but compared to our idol she didn’t even achieve a zero; then the retired policeman came in.
He took Neva to the back of the Cinnabar. She stood looking at him. On the arm of the booth he laid down a photograph of her mother.
Slowly the lesbian sat down. She said: Why are you showing me this?
The Lucky Star Page 57