Lust

The call of the saxophone pulled me into the room. The notes were brazenly sly, with a vibrating undertone that slid under my midnight-blue halter top with the built-in bra and the clingy sarong skirt that was supposed to make me look like a Wild Woman from the Tropics, even though the outfit matched. I licked my crimson lips and pushed my wavy chestnut hair out of my eyes.

“Hey, girlfriend!” sang Barry in my ear, over the insinuations of the horn, the tinkle of the keyboard, the bump-and-grind of the drums. He pulled me close by sliding a hand around my furthest hip, taking his time. I knew without looking that the warm hand leaving invisible tracks on me was lightly-furred, bold-knuckled and neatly manicured. I shifted my weight, teasing him with my haunches. “Love the color, Lee,” he teased back. “You’re finally learning what goes with your skin.” So bitchy, so Barry.

Spotting one of his favorite young men, he called, “Hey, twink! Who’s your daddy?” As the last note from the saxophone left me hanging, Barry moved away without a backward glance. As he casually showed me his back, I noticed the tight leather that encased his narrow male butt. Did anyone besides bikers wear leather in the 1950s? I made a note to myself to look it up. I touched my metal garters through the shamelessly synthetic fabric of my skirt; they were as authentic as I could find.

The band kicked into a high-energy rock song about a second chance at love. I needed a dance partner, someone to seduce in classic style at Fifties Nite in the queer bar.

Gail, my ex from several years ago, was standing at the bar in a Dick Tracy suit and fedora, her hand on the back of a woman in a full, polka-dot skirt and frizzy blonde hair. “Gail!” I announced, touching her shoulder. She turned, looked and grinned before she spoke; that was a good sign. I smiled at her companion, who looked uneasy.

The lead male singer and horn player was clutching a mike as though he wanted to make out with it. He looked like a Mike himself. “Bay-bees,” he crooned, “all you hepcats and kitties in jiveland, we’re gonna rock you one more time and then take a break and we’ll be right back atcha. I’m your big daddy Eugene, and our lovely lady here is Joo-dy”—she smirked to a drumroll and a chorus of wolf whistles—“and our man on the skins is boppin’ Bob”—ba-dum!—“and here’s Len on geetar”—twangg—“and Reg on the keys.” A pair of hands rolled smoothly over the keyboard from low to high. “We all drink Molson because We Are Canadian.”

He never needed a mike, and I couldn’t lose track of him as long as he was making noise. I knew he liked to sing, and I wondered if I could ever get him to do it just for me.

“Dance with me, Lee, you hussy,” chuckled Gail, reaching for me as she patted her date reassuringly. We moved to the dance floor in synch, like old friends, even as I remembered why I had broken up with her: her double-bind games. She had a way of showing me off, then blaming me for attracting too much attention, especially from the wrong people. I wasn’t planning to stop now.

Gail could jive as though she had lived through be-bop first-hand. She twirled me and swung me, and I welcomed the distraction. I could still keep up with her.

Barry was dancing beside me with his twink of the moment, watching me. He was swiveling his hips and moving his shoulders, showing me his moves as though I cared. The boy followed Barry’s eyes, then gave me the patronizing smile of a senior to a freshman. Obviously he thought I was no threat: only a chick.

I had been good at skipping rope as a child, and I willed myself back into that rhythm and speed. Moving with the beat, I leaned in close to Barry’s face. “Why are you such a slut in public?” I stage-whispered, exaggerating the words so he could sight-read if his hearing had already begun to fail. His eyes and mouth both widened in mock surprise. I turned my attention back to Gail.

The song ended with a thump and whine from the guitar. “Thanks, babe,” she cooed. She rested a hand possessively on my shoulder, under my hair.

“Ooo-ee, hot mamas and daddy-o’s, there’s some fine dancing goin’ on this evening. We’re gonna give you more of what you like and we’re gonna slow it right down before the break, so grab the one you love best and hold on tight. This is a spot dance, so just keep movin’ and wait for the light to shine on you. There’ll be a prize for the best couple.” Colored spotlights played wildly over the dance floor.

Gail’s date was pushing her way through the crowd like a tugboat through a choppy sea. A roving spotlight turned her face bright green, making her look like a sinister clown. She approached Gail with eyes like searchlights. I stepped aside, smiling graciously.

“You owe me a dance, Lee,” joked Barry, wrapping his arms around me from behind, filling my nose with the manly smell of his cologne. “I need an old lady to keep me on the straight and narrow.”

Barry’s twink was nowhere in sight. I assumed he must be in the john, or servicing a john, or perhaps both. I wondered whether too much contact with queens had coarsened my soul. Yet Barry always seemed like a different person outside the bar, especially on the home turf of his hair salon. I had always gone to him to have my hair cut, before I decided to grow it. I missed feeling his hands on my tingling scalp and hearing his low-keyed, philosophical take on the world’s problems.

The notes of the saxophone cut through the air, wrapping themselves around us. Barry held me with the solemn gentleness of a teenage boy who thinks his date is breakable. We drifted around the floor, steering past other couples. Unbelievably, Barry pulled me closer. He pressed me against the rock-hard evidence of his admiration. I could feel wetness springing out of my temples, my armpits, my crotch. I needed an explanation.

Barry pulled just far enough away to look into my eyes, one eyebrow raised. “Ummm,” he hummed in time to the music. His body was firm, hot, as sheltering as a tree. “Oh, bay-bee, I’ve been waiting so long.” He paused. “Don’t tell me you don’t want me, girlfriend.”

It had never occurred to me that I might have to fight off serious advances from him. I suddenly saw him as Man the Snake, a predator who had burrowed under my womanly defenses by posing as a friend. Odd, though, that I felt myself melting like the Wicked Witch of the West. “You’re drunk,” I pointed out. I wasn’t sure if I was accusing him or convincing myself that none of this would count in the morning.

His hard smooth leather pushed maddeningly into my damp skirt. I could feel the heat of his chest even through the armor over my tits. “Drunk as a skunk, babe,” he confessed sadly. “Fuel for the trip. You are one scary dyke.”

I couldn’t help snickering, especially since eyes were following us all over the dance floor. In this place, the sight of a man and a woman wrapped around each other held a kinkiness all its own. I had to laugh, or die of embarrassment.

“Aww-right! We got us a winning couple here this evening, a pair of smooth dudes with some cool moves. What are your names? Wayne and Kevin! Well, Wayne and Kevin, you’ve won yourselves a bottle of champagne and a romantic brunch for two at Chez Pierre!”

I wondered if Barry envied the winning couple. I was just relieved that the spotlight hadn’t stayed on us for too long; the mere sight of us together could cause a short in the system.

The music was over, but Barry held me with the strength of perversity. How long had he been planning this campaign? Or had he been seduced by the retro spirit of the evening? That might be the same demon that prompted me to speak. “We could go for brunch too, lover,” I purred. “I could wear a hat. You don’t have to be scared, man. I only bite when I’m in heat.”

Barry reached down and pinched my ass, hard. “Come on,” he muttered, pushing me to the edge of the dance floor. I had forgotten how pushy men could be.

While the band was drinking their Molsons, the crowd seemed as confused as a herd of cattle with no leader. Barry steered me single-mindedly through knots of our retro-chic acquaintances, ignoring the glances that followed us like sparks from cigarettes; small but potentially dangerous.

I saw his destination. Shock and disbelief flooded through me. “That’s the women’s can!” I whispered, trying without hope to be discreet. “If you think you’re going in there, man, you don’t know bar dykes.”

I knew I had to prevent Barry from provoking a riot among the women, but I already felt like a traitor to my tribe. I wanted to be alone with him, just once. Friendship seemed like an amazing aphrodisiac.

To my great relief, he stopped and turned me to face him. “I know you’ve got stalls in there, Lee. And I know what else they’re used for besides the usual. Can’t you just think of me as a big bar dyke who wants you so much she can’t wait?”

“Touché, girl,” he laughed softly. “You like breaking the rules. Don’t you want to sneak me in where the ladies powder their noses?”

“You want my car? You wanna give it up on the backseat with songs from the Hit Parade on the radio? Anything you want, honey,” he grinned.

“Let’s go,” I urged him. “I don’t think we’re welcome. Can’t you hear the talk? ‘Damn hets, why can’t they stay in their own bars?’ ”

Bubbling with laughter to protect each other from the chill in the ambience, we went out the back door. The chill of the evening air was much more refreshing. Barry’s familiar hand on my butt caused shivers of pleasure to run continuously up my spine as we crunched over the gravel of the parking lot to his venerable Oldsmobile. “Madame,” he addressed me, holding the door open. “Let me take you for a drive.”

The old boat of a car could skim over the mean streets of our town like a flying carpet. The actual streets were rough with cracks and potholes, caused by the harsh climate of the Canadian prairies and the limited repair budget of the local government.

As far as I knew, serious crime mostly existed in other places. I could pretend, though, that Barry was a bad boy of teenage fantasy, the one from the wrong side of the tracks who was taking me away from the well-paved, suburban expectations of my parents. As though reading my mind, he asked, “Mind if I smoke?”

He rolled his window down all the way before lighting a cigarette and resting his left elbow dangerously on the sill, leaving a shower of sparks behind us as he drove with one hand. The rebel-with-a-cause effect was convincing, and morally satisfying. It seemed only fair to me that Barry should be able to impersonate the hoods who used to beat him up in high school. Just as I, the nerd with the perpetual pile of books, had a right to play Prom Queen for a night.

We reached and passed the edge of town, where the prairie stretched on and on, apparently to infinity. The chirp of crickets, and the almost inaudible buzz of other living things, sounded like the breathing of Mother Earth. Barry pulled us off the road, and brought the car smoothly to a stop.

“Come here, girl,” he ordered, and I nestled in his arms. As his hot lips pressed against mine, I could feel the roughness of a face that needed to be shaved every morning. His tongue coaxed my teeth to spread apart, mimicking another organ in another opening. I sighed as I tasted tobacco and the rye-and-coke he had been drinking. His tongue flirted with mine as one of his hands held my chin immobile and the other searched my back. He was looking for a way to get me out of my clothes.

“Umph,” I told him. He chivalrously withdrew his tongue. “You’ll never find it, man. You can put on some music and I’ll do a striptease for you.” I slid away from him, reaching around myself to find the zipper that could free my nipples to drink in the fresh air and the gaze of a suitor.

“Slut,” he grinned, rolling the word around on his tongue. He fiddled with the dial on the radio until he found a station that played rock classics. “Meanwhile,” he promised, “I’ll just do this.” And before I could guess his next move, one of his hands had deftly pulled up the hem of my skirt and unhooked my garters while he lifted me with the other hand. He found the elastic of my panties and pulled them down, exposing my damp and startled cunt. I hadn’t expected him to be so eager.

The nasal voice of a teen idol of yesteryear filled the car with the drama of frustrated love as Barry tickled my clit for an instant, then plunged two fingers as deeply into me as they would go. “Oh!” I gasped, feeling like a teenage girl who is finally experiencing It, the long-awaited rite of passage. His fingers felt large and male inside me, intrusive but friendly. In the dim light from the moon and stars, Barry’s grin looked toothy and feral.

“Spread,” he ordered, and I spread my legs apart, leaning back on the seat. His fingers wiggled obscenely inside me, checking out every fold and crevice they could find. My clit was in full salute. “You like that, don’t you, bad girl?” he prompted.

This was not what I expected. I was about to come, partly from sheer surprise. “Oh, Barry,” I gasped, realizing that resistance was probably futile, even if I could summon up the will for it.

He fucked me to a driving beat, stroking my pussy and my mind at once, making me realize that yes, this was what I really wanted. Part of me rejoiced that he was not in salon mode, not schmoozing a customer nor patronizing a lady-friend. Strangely enough, my very wet pussy recognized something man-to-man in his very direct style. I moaned.

“You can come, Lee,” he urged. His use of my name made me feel even more exposed, if that was possible. “I want you to. Come hard, make noise. You can hold on to me if you need to.”

Like I was going over the rapids, my cunt spasmed over and over. I clutched his shoulder as I held his fingers inside me and wailed along with the radio. Barry chuckled, and this set off another wave of explosions inside me. For a moment of suspended time, I felt as if I could never stop coming. The winding down had a seductive charm of its own, like a buildup in reverse.

Barry’s fingers lingered inside me as if they had found a new home, a place where they would never again be strangers. With the pleasurable shiver of a girl watching a monster looming over her on the big screen of the drive-in, I realized the truth of that word, never. In a small queer community, carnal knowledge lasts a lifetime. What lust has brought together, let no gossiping mouth sunder.

“Pussy. Cunt. Snatch. Honeypot,” mused Barry, trying out the words. “Fascinating, honey. I could get hooked on it. It gets hungry, doesn’t it?”

I laughed in answer. “Yeah, it does,” he asserted fondly. “I wanted to get you off first, hard, so we could take our time. Not too much, though. You wanna play with my lollipop?”

I could hardly refuse at that point without being too rude, even for a totally out dyke. And I still felt like a dyke, I realized. This whole scene felt too confusing to analyze.

His cock—or meat, as I thought all the queens liked to call it—seemed to be an average length, but thicker than most, though I wasn’t sure my memories of other specimens were reliable. I was afraid to take it in my mouth without a covering, not because the texture or the expected taste might put me off, but because I was terrified of the kind of operatic death that in the 1950s was only associated with car crashes.

With a kind of elegant reluctance, Barry showed me a small packet which had apparently materialized out of thin air, opened it with his teeth, and smoothed latex over his hardness. It’s for me, I thought, like a girl who finally gets the phone call she has waited for all weekend.

I stroked it, trying to imitate his boldness and confidence. “Aww,” he grunted. “Girlfriend, I want to put it in you. Let’s go in the back.”

My vague memories of scrambling over the front seat of a family sedan didn’t seem to apply to the current setting. I opened the front door on my side, stepped onto welcoming prairie sod, opened the back door, and slid in to find Barry there before me. In a flurry of moving arms and legs, our clothes came off and landed on the floor and the front seat.

In silvery moonlight, I finally saw the alien hairy chest of my friend Barry, who was really a guy from head to foot. He stared with honest amusement at my small, firm breasts with their hard red nipples. He couldn’t resist holding them, bouncing them gently, tickling and then rolling my nipples between his fingers and then his teeth. My reactions seemed to amuse him as much as the feel of my flesh. “You wanta ride my stallion, baby?” he suggested.

“Sure,” I consented, wondering whether “safe” and “sane” ever really applied to this activity, even in its most traditional forms.

Barry lay on the seat, gazing up at me like Romeo watching Juliet on her balcony. I spread my obliging pussy lips apart, and settled carefully down on his love-engine. Even though I had just come, his solid warmth inside me was so electrifying that I felt as if my skin must have a neon glow. I moved slowly at first, then eased into a trot and then a gallop, matching his groans with my own. When he came, I squeezed him as hard as I could. Before long, I was doing that uncontrollably as I erupted like a volcano.

He held me against his chest as our breathing returned to normal. “Uh, Barry,” I asked, wanting to know how the mood of the evening would translate into a new relationship—or not. “Are we still queer? Like, gay and lesbian?”

His guffaws bounced me so hard that I sat up to look at him. “The word is bi, baby.” He sang, “Bi-bi, baby, bi-bi.” I was afraid of that conclusion.

I sighed. “I don’t like it, but I don’t want to say no. You’re killing yourself, I hope you know, but if you crave it, go ahead.” He kissed me with a flourish before reaching into the front seat for his cigarettes.

With all the windows rolled down, the Oldsmobile felt like a very open space or a nondiscriminating orifice. Like the pussy of a slut. I wondered if I would feel so overwhelmed by shame at some future moment that I would swear aloud in the privacy of my apartment.

The healthy smell of green things, the smell of a prairie summer, was all around us like a blessing. “Lee,” he began. I could see that Barry was in an intellectual space I could recognize. “You don’t want to get married and have babies, do you?”

“Then do you think we’ve both turned straight? Us? And now we’ll be turned off by all the luscious booty at the club because we’re not queer anymore?”

In spite of myself, I remembered Gail in bed, as distinct from Gail in other places. Some of the memories had not lost their charm. “It doesn’t seem likely,” I said hopefully.

“There you go, dear,” he said quaintly, a prairie farm boy who had come to the city to discover a life of sin. He held me comfortably, letting me visualize him with the next twink in his life—dancing, flirting, even fucking vulgarly in the men’s john. Was I jealous? Not a bit. As the old saying goes, enough is as good as a feast. I knew I could be satisfied as long as I had mine.