Message-ID: <26920asstr$971878206@assm.asstr-mirror.org> From: PleaseCain@aol.com X-Original-Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="US-ASCII" Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Subject: {ASSM} Johnny Reye Takes the City (MF and plenty of setup) Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 10:10:06 -0400 Path: assm.asstr-mirror.org!not-for-mail Approved: Newsgroups: alt.sex.stories.moderated,alt.sex.stories Followup-To: alt.sex.stories.d X-Archived-At: X-Moderator-Contact: ASSTR ASSM moderation X-Story-Submission: X-Moderator-ID: IceAltar, RuiJorge SEXUALLY EXPLICIT MATERIAL INTENDED FOR ADULTS ONLY. Copyright 2000 PleaseCain@aol.com -- Commercial use prohibited without author's consent. Removal of this notice in any case is prohibited. Johnny Reye Takes the City by PleaseCain@aol.com Most of Guinealand looks like Princeton Avenue south of where it passes between the colossal concrete columns that hold the Stevenson Expressway roaring high above. Rowhouses line the street, each the slightest bit different in shape and color than its neighbors, most clean and maintained, but on further scrutiny betraying some warp, peel or discoloration, the bruises of time and the sun. They stand tightly packed, shoulder to shoulder, with tiny pens of grass that abut the pavement, so from the sidewalk the street resembles a hallway in disrepair. In the middle of one such block stood a home newer and taller than the rest, of clean white brick glinting like sugar, with crisp black moldings and a black iron fence enclosing a birdbath on one side and on the other a statue of the Virgin a little more welcoming and benevolent than the other Virgins on the block. This was the house of Mr. Donatello Palatzo. It was a peaceful block, and the gate clanged shrilly as I scaled the stairs. I waited a long time after I'd pushed the lighted button, and was going to ring again when a face appeared in the yellow window of the door. I showed my envelope to the gaunt man within, and the steel door wheezed open. Wearing a heavy robe and slippers, with a tube under his nose and skin the color of the yellow glass, he beckoned me with feeble fingers. I stepped inside and eased the door shut as I handed him the envelope. "I'm Jack Reye, I'm in your building on 30th and Canal. Here's two months' rent." His white eyebrows batted as he took the envelope between two languid fingers and waved me in from the foyer, then turned and parsed his way from the room, oxygen cart in tow. My eyes adjusted from the bare brightness of the street to the cool shadows of the front room. The carpeting was white shag, the furniture upholstered in velvet and adorned with embroidered pillows. Leafy vegetation hung along the mirrored wall opposite, framing a nude bronze statuette pouring water from her urn into a hidden pool where it made syrupy trickling sounds. A bowl of fruit topped a cherrywood coffeetable with golden inlays. I stood in place and waited. He returned after a few minutes, eyeing me over the half-frames of reading glasses. "Very good," he said, "Lana says you're a good kid. Intelligenza." He tapped my temple with a long fingernail. "Remember, this is the greatest of gifts." He waved his hands, with their dull fingers, in dismissal. I thanked him and emerged into the morning sun, checking my watch. On my left, in the direction of the gym, Mary stretched her arms in blessing to the neighborhood. To my right below was the birdbath, and further down the street, Lou's. Do I go to heaven, or hell? Heaven? Or hell? My head itched where I felt the old man's touch. I got in my car and did a U-turn toward the tavern. "Well, look what the cat dragged in." Lou was watching Dick the Bruiser versus Bobo Brazil in black-and-white; in the cabinet he kept stacks of old wrestling videos, because the new guys were "prettyboy fake-o's." "Yeah, I've got your envelope," I said. "Why don't you take a dollar out this time and treat yourself to a new tee-shirt?" I nodded to the old-timer at the bar, the only other guy in the place. "Just make my palm heavy enough so I don't kick your ass, college boy." Without turning from the screen he set down a draught and laid his open hand across the top of the beerglass. I placed the package in his palm and he walked to his stool below the television. "Almost noon on a Friday and none of the ugly joes are here. What, are they having an internal audit? One of the news channels eavesdropping on Public Works again?" The old-timer cackled and received one of Lou's glares. "I don't count 300," Lou said. "Two-ninety." "I don't count 300." "Two-ninety. The St. Julie's fund-raiser. I told you that going in." Lou grumbled, "They're not gonna like your little ten-dollar scam when they get here." "Scam? I told everyone I took books from last week. I do every time, don't I? Just think, some kid will get a new wheelchair next week, and you'll be walking around in the same old tee-shirt griping about the same old teams with the same old bad breath." "They're not gonna like it one bit," he muttered to the screen. "So who do you like Iowa-Michigan?" "You're not going to win any money there, too much defense, the book's got it covered. Look at the West Coast, there's some big spreads that aren't going to be covered." "I don't watch that shit. I'm talking Big Ten and Big Eight." "I'm not following any of those games, maybe Oklahoma. But suit yourself, if you want to be dumb and throw your money away, be my guest." "Hey, I'll tell you about dumb. About a college boy and a certain big Dago's wife, now that's dumb. And the whole time he walks around like he's so damned smart." "I won't even ask who came up with that shit because I know you guys don't have anything better to do all day but flap your gums like old ladies. Why don't you open some windows in here, huh? And get me another beer." As Lou sauntered back to fill my glass, I checked my watch against the Budweiser Clydesdale clock above the tap. "And a shot of J.D. here and another one down at that end," and I thumbed toward the old-timer. Lou poured me a shotglass, and when he reached for my stack of singles I laid a card atop the pile. As he took the bills to the cash register he read the card and looked at me quizzically. "See? Philanthropic assistant," I said, "that's my line." He shrugged and let the card slide into the garbage can before he deposited the money. I slugged down my drinks and left a few dollars on the bar. "When is everyone getting here?" I said. Lou didn't answer. The Bruiser bodyslammed Brazil in the solar plexus, popping Bobo's gangly black arms and legs into the air like a squeezedoll's, while Lou thrashed his fist into an invisible opponent down somewhere on the rubber honeycomb mat behind the bar. The old-timer tipped his shotglass to me, and I opened the door to the white daylight. Wong Lee's looked empty before the lunch rush. I peered through the tinted window of the pale yellow Cadillac parked in the back and saw the crowned red snaggletooth hanging from the mirror, so I went in and paid for a vegetable fried rice. It would be a few minutes, so I went down the hall to the bathroom. The door to the guys john was locked so I stepped into the ladies room. I pushed the lock and Lana was already kissing my neck, her hands inside my shirt. I enveloped her in my arms as we locked in those overwhelming kisses of hers, the kind that required all my attentions to reciprocate. She kneaded me through my trousers, unzipped me and dropped to her knees, bringing my erection to the light. Perhaps she had been without a lover for too long, but like her kisses, when she sucked me it was with a devotion magnificent to behold. She applied her love in broad, unhurried swirls of her tongue and loose-lipped kisses that alternated with lingering sucks on my cap and quick dips in the warm well of her mouth. Her frosty blue eyes twinkled. She enjoyed her power, she enjoyed my pleasure, she enjoyed my cock swollen to its full girth in her mouth. Since our first time she had my number. She stroked and kissed it like her pet, then began to suck me in earnest, hard sucking with plenty of tonguework on the underside. In just a couple minutes I felt the familiar stirring at the base of my cock; she was summoning not a firecracker squirt but long gushes of my juice down her talented throat. With every effort I refrained from kicking the door, until she finally released me. I steadied myself on the sink before she slapped my rear and nudged me aside to use the mirror. "What are you up to this afternoon?" she said, patting her face and hair. "See some people, same old." "See some people where?" "Biggy's, Lou's, the ballpark, a couple others." "That's what I thought. Don't you tie one on already this afternoon. You already smell like a brewery. Why don't you do something with yourself? You always talk about translating or the State Department." "Yeah, yeah." "Yeah, yeah, so why don't you get on with it?" She clicked the compact shut, dropped it in her purse and pulled out a travel bottle of mouthwash, unscrewing the top. "When is that test?" "Ah, they postponed it a couple more months." She rolled her eyes while swishing. "Probably in March." Lana dried her mouth, then opened her lipstick. "And you're taking it, right?" she said, and added, "Kiss" and I obliged before she resumed with her lips. "I guess. I haven't decided. I just saw the Don. How long has he been on the oxygen?" "It's been a month now. What, were you dropping off a check?" "Yeah." She stepped back and with a final look in the mirror tugged the lapels of her blazer, set her head and shoulders, and looked at her wristwatch. "Let's go. I've got a two o'clock showing in the South Loop." I stepped into the hall first, then opened the door for her. "Noon tomorrow, right?" I said. "Yes. And we need to have a talk, too." "Fine. Good luck." "Thanks," she called behind her as she exited the back door. "Oh, and tell Lu I didn't have time to talk. I'll stop by tomorrow." I watched her tight butt sway inside her skirt until the steel door clicked shut behind her. She wouldn't tell me her age, didn't believe me that it didn't matter. How little she knew. My carton of fried rice was waiting. I slid a five across the counter, but Lu pushed it back. "Put it on the Bears, Boss," he said. "Better save it for the end of the month, in case your rent goes up again," I said and watched his eyes widen. "Kidding, Lu. Mrs. Palatzo said she'll see you tomorrow. I'll place your wager." I waved with his bill and stuffed it in my pocket. "See you tonight maybe," he called. I made my rounds, and business was brisk. The crew at the ballpark was feeling their luck. It took me two hours to get out of there, so I had to make my other stops in a hurry if I was to make happy hour at Ciro's, where they gave out a few dinners on Fridays if you could answer their trivia questions. I could afford my own food and drinks, but it was more fun to win them, and a good way to earn favors besides. When the old man's wife ran the contest she barred anyone--specifically me--from winning more than twice, but that all went out the window when his kid Leon started running things. It doesn't hurt that the kid makes a habit of lousy bets and carries debts week to week, and not just with me. Anyway, like I said, I was generous with the spoils. "Boy, this is a beauty," said Frank the tuckpointer about the embroidered satin Miller jacket I won, "thanks a lot, kid." "It looks good on you, Frank," I said, wolfing down the second hot dog I won, pointing to the pitcher of beer I won. "Pour yourself a beer." "Thanks! I think I'll pick a few games for this weekend. Do you have any cards still?" I held up a finger while I washed down the food, then fished some slips from my shirt pocket. "Here's extra for your friends, but I'll need the money tonight." "Sure. How long will you be around?" "Frankie, the night is young." I kicked my feet up on the booth bench and rapped the table twice. "In that case, let me buy you a shot, and then I'll go pass these cards out. Hey, we'll talk about next year's softball team." Walking away, he slid his hand over his shiny new black jacket and mouthed to me, "Nice." At 11:30 the next morning, I pulled into the O'Hare Hilton, got a room and a paper, and ordered a tall orange juice in the restaurant. "Thanks, hun," I said to Shirley. "Better bring another one." "Rough night, honey? I'll bring it with the egg." Lana showed up an hour later. She pecked my cheek and sat across the table. "No, I'm not hungry," she said, "we need to talk." "All right, we can talk upstairs." I tossed a ten on the table and we walked to the elevator. By the time we reached the sixth floor she was giggling at my impression of Pork Chop, her manager at the realtors office, just out of school and totally inept at any kind of relationship besides lunch. Lana called him a kid and found his reedy authoritarianism "cute," but never failed to laugh when I imitated him, especially since I realized that the voice coming from that mountainous blob of raisin pudding belonged to Joe Pesci: "Like I was fucking saying, if some of the saleswomen around here would pay attention," I said, stripping off my shirt and jeans while she fumbled with the lock, "I don't know what you people did before I got here, but you won't have me around to babysit anymore after corporate calls me." My hand landed a solid thwack on her bottom as I chased her inside, carrying my clothes in a bundle. She turned and started to talk but I grabbed her waist and covered her lips with mine. In a second she was reciprocating, hooking her fingernails in my waistband and peeling away my underwear. "Hey, I just had my hair done." "Then maybe you ought to see the hairdresser a little less, you're getting one of those antigravity helmets. How can such a sexpot wear her hair up like that?" "Shut up!" she said and shoved me playfully on the bed. "What you want is a little girl." Usually she asked me to play with myself, so I propped myself on an elbow and brushed over my hard-on while she closed the curtains and slid her dress on a hanger. As she stepped out of her panties I rolled on my back and she crawled on me, hunched like a cat, planting warm, sloppy kisses on my face in her hands. My fingers ran the smoothness from her hips to her bra as she raised herself to her knees, hovering a tantalizing moment above my chin, and grinning, lowered her pretty pussy for a kiss. I pointed my tongue and traced her tender folds like a good boy. She kept herself trimmed short, so her creamy skin showed through her cookie as she undulated her Jezebel dance on the tip of my tongue. When she dipped I took her in my mouth and caressed her with the flat of my tongue, and she quivered a while before rising again, her eyelids heavy, her tummy rippling with sudden breaths, and again brought her clit to my lips. With a sigh she reached behind her back and her bra fell from her arms. Her breasts hung forward, tipped by those long nipples like pink fruits, swaying enticingly as I pressed a fingertip on her center. I dipped my finger in her warmth, her hips urging me deeper; I sunk a second finger and massaged her. When aroused she wore a wounded look, as if a crackling nerve lay exposed and smoldering for me to stumble upon. She covered my lips with her fingers. I gently squeezed her breasts, her nipples beneath my thumbs. Her fingers were wet with my saliva and I guided them to her breasts, where she fondled herself for me. Lana delighted in the spotlight, enough to send her over the edge: her eyes closed and she gripped the headboard with both hands, bucking on my hand and moaning so desperately she sounded like she were weeping while I rubbed her G-spot and her arousal drenched my hand. Exhausted, Lana moved my hand away and collapsed with her head on my chest. Her back palpitated under my arms, her languid fingers rested on my erection. But they weren't still for long, the gentle raking of her fingernails becoming stroking squeezes. When I could take it no longer I rolled atop her, pinning her shoulders as I positioned my cock against her damp slit and slid deliciously inside. We shared lingering kisses between our unmoving bodies, her hands on my ass holding me in place. She laughed. We were kids, ticklish and alone. Then came the knocking. We froze, hissing seconds passed, and it sounded again. "Hey, open up, I hear you in there." It was Donny, Lana's son. Her eyes grew wide as eggs as she wrapped herself in the blanket. I cupped a palm over her open mouth and steadied her with a hand on her shoulder, looking her in the eye: stay calm, stay calm. "I said open up! I know you're in there." She started, her breath moist on the back of my hand. I nodded and gently removed my hands, then crawled past her and picked up the phone. "Listen to me," I rasped into the receiver, "you'd better get security up here fast because there's a guy in the hallway with a gun and he's banging on the door across the way." Lana almost yelped so I gripped her shoulder. "That's an excellent idea, yes, call the police too. God, now he's at our door. Hurry!" and I clicked the call to an abrupt end. Donny pounded the door and couldn't have done a better job helping me sell my pitch to the front desk. "You're going to get him killed," Lana squeaked, but I patted her arm reassuringly and wrested myself away to go to the door. "Ma! Ma-aa, come out," he whined, "Ma, why won't you come out? I know you're in there, I seen his car," bang, bang, bang, "I seen his fuckin' car!" bang! bang! bang! Poor Donny, too stupid and hot-headed to exploit what sympathy he had, too much like his father. I guess when you've seen your mother getting the shit beat out of her enough times, then after a while you feel entitled to get in few whacks yourself. I pointed Lana to the bathroom, and with clothes in hand she snuck past and locked the door behind her. I slipped on my jeans, then leaned from the side of the door to peer through the hole. "I'm going to break down this fuckin' door if you don't come out! Get out here!" I scribbled a note on hotel stationery and slid it under the door. I saw him unfold the paper, and in a flash his face turned from furious to demonic. He crumbled the note and whipped it at the door, then with a roar charged the door. The wall shook while I braced the door. Voices shouted: "Hold right there, you!" "Drop the weapon!" "Drop the gun or we'll shoot!" Shocked that my gun ruse had been ironically accurate, I leapt away behind a wall and remained there throughout the conflagration outside, the banging, wrestling and cursing, through the sirens and blaring walkie-talkies, until the melee dispersed into silence and a tapping at the door. A lumpy middle-aged guard chewed his gum officiously outside. "How are you all doing in there? Just checking." "I'm all alone." "That's not what he said. Big boy. Mean, too." "I appreciate your help. He never got to me." "Good." He leaned back and hiked his trousers. "All alone, you say?" "All alone," I craned my head through the door and looked around furtively, "we used to be lovers, but he's violent. Never could accept that part of himself." The guard's eyebrows danced and he grunted knowingly at each word, his eyes following mine up and down the hall. "Sure, sure." We nodded as if sealing the investigation. "I'd better tell those uniforms downstairs. They'll be up here to take your statement, but they'll want to know all this before they bring the guy to the station. Just checking how you're doing." He tugged his hat down tight and patted his holster. "Thanks for the good work." "Glad to help." He marched away. I picked the wadded paper from the floor and went inside. When I closed the door Lana scurried to the window, peeking around the curtains to the parking lot below. Leaning against the coffee bar, I tossed the paper ball lightly in my palm. "What's going on?" "They left." She fixed her hair and makeup in the mirror and snapped her purse shut. "I'm going down to post bail." I stood, expecting a kiss, but she snatched the paper from my hand and unraveled it, and after she read it, stuffed it in my shirt pocket and left without a word. "You're welcome," I said to the empty room. I scratched my temple and took out the paper, with its message, "ASSHOLE," and dropped it in the garbage. The cops never came. Around my car, the asphalt glittered in the sunlight. He had broken the windows, but in true Donny-fashion failed to smash the one required to operate the vehicle, the windshield. I stayed with a friend, and the next morning walked the alleys to my apartment. From the gangway I spied a fat goomdah reading the paper in a black Lincoln parked out front. I snuck upstairs through the side entry, threw some clothes and a carton of cigarettes into a paper bag and bolted out of there. I needed to get out of town for a few weeks. I stopped at the bank, Lou's, the Four Aces and Biggy's Chateau, then I gunned it to the Dan Ryan. That night I carried my worldly belongings into a Decatur motel room, and hanging up my suit discovered a tab of red cloth in the inside jacket pocket. A pair of panties wrapped around a roll of $260, the amount of my security deposit. Her playfulness soothed my ego, but the message was unmistakable. I stayed the weekend, and a few weeks stretched into months. I had a hard time accepting that I had seen the last of her. It gnawed at me on restless nights, drinking and replaying conversations, projecting pointed nipples and triumphal returns on the ceiling above my bed. I worked a few crappy jobs around town, hard enough to find because of the Caterpillar strike, the town filled with exasperated unionists, desperate parents and resentful townies ragged from years of squeezing until it dropped blue-faced to its knees. I moved out further, to Litchfield, and knew when I was booted from a job siphoning underground cesspool basins that my penance in the wilderness had ended. For lack of a plan, I drove into the city the day before the State Department foreign service exam. Driving around Armour Square reminds me of Lana's message. Everything is smaller and dirtier. Punchinello's is a sports bar, and Gennero's, that served manicotti to make you cry, a tanning spa. The Four Aces doesn't even exist: gang graffiti covers the boarded windows. Palatzo is gone, and Lou even longer so, a heart attack. Many of the guys still kick around, most to the same barstool as eleven years ago, their faces etched by booze and smoke, their guts and fingers bloated. Even Daley left the bungalow where he had lived for twenty years for a yuppie neighborhood up north, although Sis, his mother, hangs on in that same house where she lived with the Old Man, hangs on like all the rest. As I inch past the stale white house on Princeton where Mary has collected soot in the folds of her robe, I'm tempted to bound up the stairs and drop a letter in the mailslot or ring that lighted doorbell, to whisk her away for coffee or an entirely new life, but I don't. I want to convey a tiny bit of my gratitude for pushing me past the petty hustle and the quick pickup, to tell her about my appointments in Quito and Mexico City and Madrid, or even to say I love her and nothing else, but I don't. Because that was her message. So I don't. At the light is 31st Street and you hang a left, and in four blocks, you can't miss it, is the expressway. Just take a right and you'll be merging south, and in ten minutes get off on 57, take you all the way to New Orleans. Cain's stories may be found at http://members.aol.com/pleasecain deirdre's stories are archived at Transom: http://members.aol.com/deirarchiv -- Pursuant to the Berne Convention, this work is copyright with all rights reserved by its author unless explicitly indicated. +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ | alt.sex.stories.moderated ----- send stories to: | | FAQ: Moderator: | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Archive: Hosted by Alt.Sex.Stories Text Repository | |, an entity supported entirely by donations. | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+