Trick Baby (16 page)

“I almost fainted when he said. ‘What the fuck is that strange stink I smell? Bitch, did you have money to buy perfume while I was rotting in jail?”

“He went back into the bedroom. I heard the tinkle of perfume bottles being knocked about on the dresser. Then I heard him open the closet door. I crawled from beneath the bed. I tried to raise a window. It was stuck.

“I heard him shout. ‘This ain't your coat and dress. Them ain't your underwear in that chair. One of your freak bitches is hiding in my house. I'm gonna cut her pussy out, and your throat, bitch.'”

“Johnny, Blue doesn't believe in God, but I'm like Mama was. I do. God let that window finally slide up. It made a loud noise. I went out the window to a gangway. Lucky for me the apartment was on the ground floor.

“I was so cold I could hardly breathe. I heard him cursing me through the open window. I ran down South Parkway. I looked back. He was running toward me.

“I hailed the jitney cabbie that brought me home. I wonder if that maniac killed Francine? I'll have to stay off Forty-seventh Street. He'll kill me. I know he will. Johnny, please don't tell Blue what happened.”

I said, “Midge, I won't tell him. But everything that happened was your own fault. Why don't you stop that freakish stuff with girls?

“Some guy is going to kill you one of these days. Any normal guy or dame despises lesbians. Straighten up and get yourself a fellow before it's too late.”

She mounted me and lay there on top of me. I put my hands on her back at the waist. I strolled my fingertips over the soft satin.

She combed her fingers through my hair. I felt the prickly knives of her fingernails slashing tenderly across my tingling scalp.

She feathered her tongue tip through my eyebrows and across my eyelashes. I felt an almost unbearably delicious thrill tickle my face nerves and race down the side of my throat.

Our open hot mouths locked together. Our tongues fought a sugary duel. She slid her mouth away and whispered, “I want to tell you a secret. But I want to look into those blue pieces of sky when I do.”

She flicked on the night light. It ignited midnight-blue skyrockets in her jet hair. We gazed into each other eyes for a long moment. I felt myself throbbing and swelling, aching against the rim of her secret core.

She sighed and whispered, “Most girls are afraid of beautiful boys like you. But I'm not. I know you can make me never want another girl to touch me.

“You can make me forget Robert Taylor and Charles Boyer or anybody else. Make love to me, blue eyes. Thrill me out of my senses. Save me. Take me. Hurt me. But make me love you. Make me your slave.”

I kissed her hard. Then I nursed like a starved baby at her heaving breasts. She moved forward on me. I felt her gentle hand tenderly aim me. She sat down and slowly impaled the core.

She cried out. Her face was twisted. I saw her belly muscles jerking. Then she started to dry swallow. Young fool that I was, I thought she was in ecstasy.

She whimpered and moaned, “Oh dear God! Please don't let it happen now.”

I really believed that I was so good to her that she was pleading with God to stall her orgasm. I braced my feet against the footboard of the bed and rammed myself into the very bottom of the hot pulsating core.

She shuddered. I heard the throaty bellow of her retch. The stinking flame of her vomit seared my face. My burning eyes were blinded by the acid slime. I was dead, limp inside the core. I scooted out from beneath her. I groped my way to the bathroom. I cleared my eyes with a washcloth.

I looked into the mirror over the washbowl. My face and hair looked like I had dunked my head into a bucket of green snot.

I puked into the bowl until my aching guts dry locked. I stood there weakly, trembling, fighting for breath. Midge streaked by me weeping in hysterical gasps. She slammed the door to her bedroom. I heard her put a chair under the doorknob on the other side.

I brushed my teeth and gargled. I got into the tub and scrubbed myself from head to toe with my soapy hairbrush until I was red raw.

I put on my pajamas. I snatched the sheets off the bed. I threw the sour pillow to the floor. I lay on the mattress and hoped that Midge's wild sobbing wouldn't awaken Blue. I got up and knocked gently on her door. She wailed, “Please leave me alone. Please, please.” I went back to bed. Finally all was quiet. I lay there thinking about Midge. Now I knew what had happened when Midge tried to have sex with Tommy. No wonder she hadn't wanted to tell me about it. I wondered how she could get kicks with freakish lesbians and get sick with boys.

I was still trying to solve the riddle when dawn's bleak blade slit
night's miserable throat. I heard Blue moving around in his room down the hall. I got up and put fresh linen on my bed.

I guessed he was getting ready for the trip with Memphis Kid. Then I heard Midge drawing water into the bathtub.

She shouted above the roar, “Yes, Blue, I'm home. I'll pay the gas bill today. Just put the bill and the money on my dresser.”

I heard Blue's footsteps coming toward my room. He knocked.

I said, “Come in.”

He opened the door and stepped in. He was wearing a camelhair overcoat and a beige hat. He looked like a rich sportsman on his way to a football game.

He smiled and said, “Good morning. How long has Midge been in?”

I said, “Hi, Blue. She came in shortly after you went to bed. You're sure leaving early.”

He said, “It's a long way to Decatur, Illinois. Say listen, remind Midge to pay the gas bill. I don't lag my bills like a sucker.

“All right, Folks. I'll see you in a couple of days. Keep those lessons working in your head.”

I said, “Goodbye, Blue, and good luck. Don't worry, I'm going to be a crackerjack at the con next spring.”

He grinned and walked away. I dressed and knocked on Midge's door.

She said, “Come in.”

I stuck my head in and asked her if she wanted breakfast.

She kept her eyes down and said, “No thanks, I'm not hungry. Will you pay the gas bill for me? I'm not going out.”

I said, “Sure, darling.”

She went to the dresser and gave me the bill and money. She said, “Forget that darling jive, huh? We both know it can't be like that. I'm sorry for what I put you through last night. I was a square to even try it. I knew what would happen. I'm nothing, Johnny. I'm just a nasty, lowlife freak.”

I said, “Midge, we can't give up. I'm game to try it again sometime. Honest, honey, before you got sick, it was the best pussy I ever had. You just couldn't help it. That's all. Next time, it will be so good to us, we'll blow our tops.”

She smiled sadly and gently pushed the door shut in my face.

I went to the kitchen and fried an egg. I couldn't get it down. I stared out the kitchen window and thought about Phala, Dirty Red and Midge.

Snowflakes floated from the sleazy sky like frozen confetti. A sudden gust of angry wind twisted the dots into a funnel of frothy madness.

“Yes,” I thought, “Life and people are like that wind and the snowflakes.”

Midge didn't leave the house for almost a month. Blue was happy as hell. He didn't know that she was afraid to go out. He probably thought she'd reformed.

Midge and I still talked to each other and we were friendly. But it was somehow different than it was before that night in my bed. She told me to answer the phone and tell all callers for her that she was out of town. There were a lot of callers. All broads.

On the afternoon of Saint Valentine's Day, a dozen orchids came for Midge. Lucky thing for the orchids that I accepted them from the messenger at the door. Blue and Memphis were hunting deer in Wisconsin.

The card read, “From your love mate, Celeste.” Blue would have dumped the bouquet in the garbage can. Midge was excited. Midge called her. I listened to Midge's chatter on the phone. Celeste had been one of her most ardent admirers and now she was back in town.

I heard her make a date for that night at the Royal Box Bar on Fifty-first Street. Gee, she was pretty when she left that night. I told her I'd stay at home so if she got into a jam she could call me.

I got the works of Voltaire from Blue's bookcase. I read the heavy
stuff until midnight. I figured I'd better get well read. I might run into some educated marks in the spring.

I ate a cheese sandwich and drank a glass of milk. I took a bath and went to bed. I was reading an adventure story in Liberty magazine when I fell asleep.

I woke up and looked at the Bulova. It was three
A.M
. I heard the toilet flush. I finished my adventure story and went to the bathroom to take a leak.

I heard a hissing sound in Midge's room. I wondered if she was letting a snake take a turn. I flushed the toilet, turned out the light and walked over and banged the door shut on my side of the bathroom.

I kneeled down at Midge's keyhole and peeped inside. Her night light was on. She was lying flat on her back, wide-legged. She had her eyes closed and she was flopping her head from side to side on the pillow. She was sucking air through her teeth making the snake noises.

Midge's hands were plastered to the top of a vague bulk wedged between her legs, making grunting, suckling pig noises. In the dimness I couldn't tell whether it was a man or a woman, or even a large real pig.

Then a dark brown hand and arm bigger than my own reached up and started to stroke across the nipples and yellow belly. It sure turned Midge on. Her hissing sounded like a snake pit. Finally a woman's big head and wide shoulders loomed up from between the pyramid.

Midge opened her eyes. She spoke to the bulk. It was a burly broad. Except for her lighter skin-color and no pecker, she was the burly, big-tit broad in my half-nightmares come to life.

The broad got on top of Midge. She rubbed her crotch across Midge's for awhile. She pressed Midge's breasts together so the nipples touched. She licked and sucked them hard.

Then they took a position I'll never forget. And that's the
guaranteed truth. Midge smiled up at the giant freak. She jackknifed her legs. She held them back with her hands. Her knees and thighs were flat against her chest. Her core was gaped open.

The broad got on her knees facing me. Then she scooted backwards and up. She pressed the bottom of her crotch flush on the top of the core. She leaned forward with her huge hands outstretched on the foot of the bed for support.

She hunched her crotch forward and backward across the core. I couldn't see Midge at all.

She was hissing and shouting, “Oh! Daddy! Daddy, it's good! It's your pussy, sweet Daddy. Please don't ever leave me again. I'll kill myself if you do.”

The jockey's moon-face was shiny with sweat as she rubbed her crotch faster and faster across the core. Finally they stopped and Midge lay in the brawny arms of her lover like a tiny child.

They lay there and chatted like a straight couple would do after making love. Their voices were too low for me to catch much of the chatter. I did hear Midge call the broad Celeste.

I just couldn't take my eyes off them. The sight of two lovers like that hypnotized me.

Finally Celeste started kissing Midge at the crown of her head. Then she did the eyebrow and eyelash bit that Midge had thrilled me with.

The broad kissed Midge all the way to her tiny feet. Celeste's big paw grabbed around Midge's trim ankle. The other paw was busy as hell caressing the belly, the core, the inside of the thighs.

She flicked the tip of her unbelievably long tongue across the tips of Midge's toes. Midge was shuddery and giggly in joy.

I started to get the glimmer of a message. I was absolutely bush-league as a lover. Maybe Midge had vomited on me in pure disgust.

Then the cannibal swallowed the foot up to the instep into her cavernous mouth. She sucked that foot like a little kid sucking a popsicle.

Midge was hissing and grinding her fists into her cheekbones. That busy other paw never stopped stroking across the velvet yellow.

That faint message was crystal clear to me now.

Finally Midge was silent and limp. She lay there in a kind of coma with her eyes closed and breathing through her open mouth.

Celeste got out of bed and stood looking down at Midge. Midge fluttered open her dreamy eyes, and gazed up at her burly lover. She closed them. Celeste turned away and strode toward the keyhole.

I got off my cramped knees and scrambled into my bedroom. I had just eased my door shut when I heard the door on the other side of the bathroom open.

I lay down on the bed. I felt hot and horny. I heard Celeste washing up. I thought, “So that's why lesbians don't really need a jock to run a broad crazy with joy. The freakish bastards use a devilish technique.”

I heard Celeste shut the door on the other side. I got up and went into the bathroom. I sponged off in cold water to bring my fever down. The cold water did nothing for me.

My watch had six
A.M
. I started dressing. I had to go out and find a broad somewhere. Red, black, purple, old, young, ugly or pretty, it didn't matter. I had to have a broad.

I was putting on my overcoat when I heard the front door slam. I wondered if Blue was back from the hunting trip. I raced down the hallway to the front of the house.

All was quiet. I heard a car engine start. I looked out the front window. It was Celeste pulling away from the curb in a new black Cadillac.

I went out into the fresh January chill. I went to the corner of Sixty-third Street and Cottage Grove Ave. It was bare except for the working stiffs waiting for streetcars. There wasn't a whore to be seen. I passed a curvy light brown-skinned girl waiting for a streetcar.

She smiled. I remembered Blue's rundown on the con approach. I went back to her and tested it.

I said, “Good morning. I know it's very impolite to approach a stranger on the street, especially a young lady, without a proper introduction. But I'm seeking information. Will you be kind enough to help me?”