Message-ID: <41656asstr$1049537402@assm.asstr-mirror.org> Return-Path: X-Original-Path: corp.supernews.com!not-for-mail From: Vulgar Argot X-Original-Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-ASSTR-Original-Date: Sat, 05 Apr 2003 00:02:17 -0500 Subject: {ASSM} Untitled Exercise 1 Date: Sat, 5 Apr 2003 05:10:02 -0500 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: dennyw, RuiJorge Untitled Exercise 1 by Vulgar Argot (Ff, FF, nosex) This is an exercise I designed for myself to strengthen an aspect of my writing. I wanted to see how I would do with a lesbian (more or less) character from a first-person perspective. It had taken me months to find the place, but from the first time I walked in, I knew it was what I was looking for--a little bar off the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. My little Audi looked a little out of place in the parking lot among the pick-up trucks, second-hand vans, and mud-spattered SUVs, but not inordinately so. I parked it in one corner of the lot, actually up on grass, where a half-dozen other cars that might qualify as "luxury" clustered together, as if for protection from the bigger, meaner cars. I had come here once before, on a scouting mission. I had to see for myself if such a place existed. There had been a few other women of my type there, sitting at the bar, drinking mixed drinks and wine spritzers, and talking to everyone but each other. It was one of the first spots I'd found in my searching where I was actually comfortable going inside. I'd spent less than ten minutes in the Clit Club before making a run for it. I hadn't even gone inside Meow Mix, surrounded as it was by pretty college girls dressed like they could have been going to any club in Manhattan, travelling in packs, playing at bisexuality for the shock value, always touching each other like someone might mistake them for a closet homophobe if they broke contact for a second. I was a fine one to talk about playing at bisexuality. At home, I had a new husband. Or, at least after two years of marriage, he still felt like a new husband. The house was still impossibly clean, too--the sort of clean that only a new house which has never had a child inside of it can be--clean and white and quiet, our voices disappearing into the high ceilings without an echo. When I am done with what I came here for, I will go home to him, wrap myself around him, make love to him, make the child I told him I wanted two years ago, that I do want, but keep balking out of fear of what I'm leaving behind. I like this place. I don't even know if it has a name beyond BAR, as seen in pink neon block lettes, visible from the highway. It's dark and smoky with the low ebb and flow of conversation and the sharp clack-clack of a game of pool going on in the back. It's just like a thousand thousand bars across the country, only there don't seem to be any men here. Nothing keeps them out. There's no bouncer, no sign saying "Y Chromosomes Stop Here" outside the door. I suspect men do come in from time to time, maybe have a beer, then figure out that they don't belong and leave. But, it's not a lesbian bar. There are no lesbian bars out here. It's just a place that men don't belong. Outside, it's brisk, just cold enough to crinkle my nipples through the thin fabric of my blouse. Inside, it's much warmer, hot even, from the press of bodies. People seem comfortable enough hanging their jackets in the front hall with no coat check, so I do the same. I'm wearing a tan, sensible skirt and cream-colored blouse that would not have looked out of place at work. I debated dressing down a bit, trying to fit in a little better. But, as I said, I am not the only woman of my type here. Some people might not like the idea of being pigeonholed, but I find it ideal. I have a type in within it, I am anonymous. I sidle up to the bar and order a beer. It is the first beer I've drunk in years, but it feels right and tastes so good in the hot, smoky darkness. "You have a very pretty accent," says one of the girls sitting at the bar. Her own English is heavily accented--Jamaican or Bahamian, maybe. The speaker is dark-skinned enough to be from any of those places or Africa for that matter, "Where is it from?" Anticipating my answer to the question brings a little frisson of fear to my spine, of misunderstanding and rejection, "South Africa," I say, wondering if I am not deliberately clipping my tones, "Johannesburg." My questioner's eyes widen a little. Against her black face and the darkness, it's like a cartoon of something sinister peering out of the darkness. I wonder if I am losing her, but I am a deal closer. I press on, "I'm Kerry," I say, extending my hand. With a momentary glance, she takes the hand I've offered her, shaking it. Her palm is dry and faintly callused, her nails trimmed to a functional length, "I'm Mariah," she says, "like the singer, only prettier." I smile appreciatively at the joke. Mariah moves in closer, taking the stool next to me, turning in to face me, rocking back and forth as she talks so that her knees occasionally brush against mine. Her voice is rich and sweet and melodious, her body all curves. I don't know what she would want with a woman like me, but I never understood that with my husband either. Still, he loves me and pays homage to my pale, tiny form as often as he can. The conversation is a series of cues, signals that it is okay to proceed. It doesn't last long. Our worlds are too different. She sells sneakers in Bayside. I have not owned a pair of sneakers since college and when I did, they were sneakers, not cross-trainers or running shoes or any of the other phrases she uses while speaking about her work as a pretense to making sure that I am on the level as I do the same. "I came here to dance," said Mariah, "Do you want to dance?" I am on the level. Do I want to dance? I can say no, pay my tab and go home. I haven't drunk too much to drive. But, I did not hunt this place down and drive all of this way to give up and try again, "I would love to dance." It doesn't take long, once on the dance floor, for Mariah to start touching me--not overtly like a man might do, but featherlight fingertips on my belly and tailbone, her arms around me. She seems content to lead, being three inches taller than me. I lean into her, feeling her body pressed against mine. In the heat and the darkness, I remembered. This is what I remembered. I am fourteen years old. It is summer and I have a fever. I lie in my bed, drenched in sweat and writhing in discomfort. Somewhere below, in the streets, there has been rioting and the pall of smoke tinged with the acrid hint of tear gas reaches us even her. I call out in the darkness for water. I am burning up. I hate the feeling of my nightgown, damp and cold against my skin. My father looks in on me wearily, his eyes rimmed with worry and fatigue. He calls to one of the younger maids, a tribal girl who has not much English or Afrikaans with which to communicate. "Watch over her," he says grimly, "Make sure she has whatever she wants." I know he would watch me himself, but his new wife and newer baby have the fever too and all need care. The maid looks in on me, her face querulous. I pantomime drinking water. She gets me a glass. Then, unbidden, she fetches a deep bowl, filled with cool water. In it, she dips a rag which she then wipes across my forehead. The relief is immediate and overwhelming. I give a little sigh of gratitude. She smiles and says something to me in her strange language, obviously meant to calm me. Her voice is so beautiful. Now, she wipes cool water on my cheeks and chin. I lift my head so that she can get my neck. She presses the rag to my flesh again and again, refreshing it with cool water each time. With a second rag, she dries where she presses it. With her free hand, she takes my nightgown, pressing the soaked fabric between two fingers, "Water," she says, pantomiming disgust. I sit up and feel the nightgown peeled off of me, over my head. She works her way down now, cooling my flesh with one rag and drying it with the other. I still burn, but there is a pleasure in this, a cessation of misery. She touches me nearly everywhere with the rags, even the tips of my tiny, newly-formed breasts and the top of my public triangle. Her touch is gentle, but clinical. When she is done with the front, I roll over on my face so that she may do the back. Before she is much below my shoulderblades, I am finally, mercifully asleep. When I feel her weight lift from the edge of the bed, I wake up and cry out. She makes a soothing noise with no words and turns out the light before coming back to lie down beside me, fully dressed in the grey and white uniform of our household. Later in the night, her weight is gone again and again I cry out. She rushes back to my side, shushing me and singing to me a song I do not understand. When I wake a third time, it is preternaturally quiet outside and she is sleeping easily at my side. Her dark skin is silvery in the light of a gibbous moon. She has taken off her uniform to sleep and is as naked as I am. The fever seems to have broken and I am cold. I curl around her, pulling a sheet over us and go back to sleep. My dreams are still fever dreams. But in them, I am kissing her rich, heavy lips. It is not a sex dream. I do not really know what sex is yet. I have not even kissed a boy yet. My school is very proper, a haven for girls from the wealthiest families, akin to a nunnery in many ways. When I wake up, she and the fever are gone. I wash off the last of my sweat myself in a proper tub. I dress and come down for breakfast. My father is there, worry etched deep in his face. He can not hide a tear of relief when I tell him I am feeling much better and perhaps I will go to school tomorrow. By the time I ask him which maid it was that watched over me, he does not remember, if he ever knew. He had other things on his mind and grabbed the first servant he saw. It is some months later by then and she might not even be in our employ. Later, I will enjoy healthy sexual relationships with a few men until find one with whom I can share my life. I will never seek out that sort of intimacy from a woman. But, I will often wonder what it would have been like to kiss and be kissed by those thick, lucious lips to feel those hands touch me in a less clinical way. "Kerry?" Mariah asked. I looked up. At some point, her hands had become bolder, not sexual, not yet anyway. She smiles down at me, her pearly white teeth clearly visible, "You look like you're a million miles away." I smile, "I was just remembering," I say. Before she can ask what I was remembering, I pull her head down to mine, opening my mouth to kiss and be kissed. --Vulgar Argot http://www.asstr-mirror.org/files/Authors/VulgarArgot/index.html -- "I've been accused of vulgarity. I say that's bullshit." --Mel Brooks -- 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: | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Discuss this story and others in alt.sex.stories.d, look for subject {ASSD}| |Archive at Hosted by | +---------------------------------------------------------------------------+