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Subject: {ASSM} Johnny Reye Takes the City (MF and plenty of setup)
Date: Wed, 18 Oct 2000 10:10:06 -0400
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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.
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