Ellen Datlow - Off Limits

Estela pounded against the fragile bones, gasping for breath. Deborah shuddered, then came in a frenzied rush, wrapping her brittle limbs about Estela’s body in a wretched configuration of death.

Afterward, Estela listened to the batucadas that seemed more distant than they had all night, and found herself hoping that Deborah would somehow beat the disease. She imagined herself responding to sex the way Deborah had responded to her: in Berlin, cunt-equipped. Would she have the same strength of will? She wondered if she’d taken too much from the dying woman; maybe it was okay. Despite all the warnings about Berlin, she imagined that Deborah needed to feel that some small part of herself would live on in the Bird.

Griffiths picked the two Birds up from the apartment at eight that evening to take them to the Flamengo club. A thunderstorm had left the city steaming and tense. Estela wore a short, red satin skirt over a black leotard, and Cledilce was squeezed into a blue, Lycra one-piece that stretched from her neck to her ankles.

“How come Deborah ain’t with you?” Estela asked Griffiths.

“She’s fucked up,” he said. “Besides, I got things under control, so don’t worry your ass.”

After what Deborah had told her, Estela’s loathing for Griffiths had intensified. “She was okay last time I seen her.”

“Jeez, Estel,” Cledilce said, annoyed. “Who fucking cares? Let Juan deal with it.”

“Right,” Griffiths said, patting Cledilce on the thigh. “Let’s concentrate on Thessinger, put on a good show for him.”

“Honey,” Cledilce said, “I’ll do whatever I have to.”

The taxi slid through a crowded street where a wizened Babe in a red dress was reeling drunkenly in the road. She was balding and one strap of her dress had slipped from her shoulder, revealing a dry, shriveled breast. She glared at them as the taxi passed by.

Shortly afterward, they pulled up outside the Flamengo club, which was hosting the Vermehlo & Preto Ball. They forced their way through the crush of bodies on the stairwell, up to the second level balcony, where Griffiths had booked a table. On the dance floor below, more than two thousand people heaved and swayed to hectic samba rhythms. Birds and Babes draped themselves from the balconies, posing and taunting the men in the crowd down below.

A dark-haired man in jeans and a black, polo neck shirt sat waiting for them. He was wiping steam from his wire-rim glasses and beads of sweat stood out on his forehead.

“Rudy, my man,” Griffiths called. The dark-haired man looked up and smiled as Griffiths clapped him on the back. “Ladies,” Griffiths said, “say hi to Rudy Thessinger. Rudy, meet Cledilce and Estela.”

Thessinger rose and kissed their hands. “I’m pleased to meet you both. The pictures Juan sent don’t do you justice,” he said.

“He got a habit of selling us short,” Cledilce said, sitting down next to the German. Estela sat opposite him. Griffiths lit one of his awful cigars and pawed at her incessantly while he gave Rudy his Carnaval spiel, promising him a good time. First chance she got, Cledilce hauled Thessinger away to the dance floor.

Estela said, “Keep your fucking hands off me, Juan.”

“Hey, you had a different attitude when I first came down here.”

“Only ’cos you doing this thing for me and Cledilce.”

Griffiths grabbed her arm and pulled her forward. “You were sweet on me then, remember?”

“I sucked your cock a coupla times—that doesn’t mean I was sweet on you. Next time you pay like everyone else.”

“You got a bad attitude. I can blow you right out of this deal.”

“Maybe the deal’s not all down to you.”

“What you talking about?”

“Maybe Deborah’s got something to say about this.”

He released her arm and drained his glass. “What’s that Yanqui bitch been saying? Giving you ideas? Don’t cross me, Estela. I say when the deal goes through, not that cunt.”

When Rudy and Cledilce returned, the German asked Estela to dance. The crush of seminaked bodies on the main dance floor pinned them together. When she saw him staring at her breasts beneath the leotard, she shouted in his ear, “You wanna feel?”

Thessinger laughed. “How real?”

She placed one of his hands across her breasts. “No silicone in there, Sugar,” she said, smiling. “Hormones.”

“You work hard on your bodies, you and your friend.”

“She’s more than a friend,” Estela said.

“Yeah?” said Thessinger. “And Juan is your friend, too?”

Estela wondered what he meant, but for the moment she let it pass. He wasn’t so bad, nice eyes, and he moved well, not slobbish like Griffiths. A drunken Cuban staggered into them and propositioned Estela. She shook her head but he groped clumsily at her crotch. Thessinger caught his arm and did something to it. The Cuban fell to the floor, howling.

“Jeez, Sugar,” Estela said, surprised at what she considered an overreaction. “What you do to him?”

Thessinger smiled and guided her up the stairwell, where sweating couples made frenzied love. “You’re a temptation, Estela, a beautiful one. Too much for a john like that.”

“I thought you were gonna call me an investment.”

Thessinger laughed and said, “Maybe that, too.”

Later on, Griffiths told Thessinger about the parade of samba schools, about how Cledilce and Estela would be dancing at the head of Salgueiro. The German winked at the two Birds, told them he was looking forward to seeing it. Despite giving the appearance of getting into the swing of things, Estela noticed that he drank little. She imagined what it would be like to feel him inside her, and wondered if that would happen in Berlin.

They left the ball after four, a taxi dropping the two birds at their apartment while Griffiths insisted on accompanying Thessinger back to his hotel. Cledilce ran a bath while Estela sat on the toilet bowl, skinning a joint. She remembered what Deborah had said about the Sanctuaries, about being caged, and tried to dismiss it as simply the envy of a dying woman. She said, “What you think of Thessinger?”

“Why, Honey?” Cledilce said. “You wanna fuck him?” She laughed and tested the water with her elbow.

“You know Deborah got the disease?”

“So,” Cledilce said, losing her smile. “That ain’t my problem.”

“You don’t feel sorry for her?”

“Sure, I feel sorry for all them bitches. But I’d feel a lot more sorry if it didn’t give us this chance to do something for ourselves.”

“You ain’t worried ’bout the operation?”

“I explained that a dozen times, Estel, over there they do it right. It ain’t just cutting a gash between your legs.”

Estela’s fears were not placated. She said, “You think we’ll still feel the same way about each other?”

Cledilce smiled and hugged her. “Count on it, Honey.” Then she peeled the Lycra suit from her body, planted a kiss on Estela’s lips, and took the joint from her. She lit it and stepped into the bath.

A sigh escaped Estela. Lately she had been wondering what exactly it was she felt for Cledilce. Was it love? Or had she simply mistaken gratitude and friendship for love? She said, “I fucked Deborah.”

Stretched out in the water with one hand held up to keep the joint dry, Cledilce said, “Why?”

“Curiosity.”

“That all?”

“You jealous?”

Cledilce shook her head. “Soon,” she said, “you won’t be able to do that.”

“You didn’t answer my question.”

Cledilce reached out and squeezed Estela’s cock through the satin skirt. “Remember, Honey, when this is gone, I’ll still be with you.”