George Effinger - When Gravity Fails

We stopped in; she greeted both of us in her usual loud, fast-talking, distracted way. “Marîd! Yasmin!” She said something to us in Greek, forgetting that neither of us understood that language; I can say even less in Greek than I can in English. All that I know I’ve picked up from hanging out in Jo-Mama’s: I can order ouzo and retsina; I can say kalimera (hello); and I can call somebody maláka . which seems to be their favorite insult (as far as I can make out, it means “jerk-off”).

I gave Jo-Mama the best hug I could manage. She’s so plentiful that Yasmin and I together probably couldn’t circumscribe her. She included us in a story she was telling to another customer. “ … so Fuad comes running back to me and says, ‘That black bitch clipped me!’ Now, you and I both know that nothing gives Fuad a thrill like being clipped by some black whore.”

Jo-Mama looked questioningly at me, so I nodded. Fuad was this incredibly skinny guy who had this fascination with black hookers, the sleazier and the more dangerous, the better. Nobody liked Fuad, but they used him to run and fetch; and he was so desperate to be liked that he’d run and fetch all night, unless he ran into the girl he happened to be in love with that week.

“So I asked him how he managed to get clipped this time, because I was figuring he knew all the angles by now, I mean, God, even Fuad isn’t as stupid as Fuad, if you know what I mean. He says, ‘She’s a waitress over by Big Al’s Old Chicago. I bought a drink, and when she brought my change back, she’d wet the tray with a sponge and held the tray up above where I could see it, see? I had to reach up and slide my change off the tray, and the bottom bill stuck on the wet part.’ So I grabbed him by the ears and shook his head back and forth. ‘Fuad, Fuad,’ I said, ‘that’s the oldest scam in the book. You must have seen that one worked a million times. I remember when Zainab pulled that one on you last year.’ And the stupid skeleton nods his head, and his big lump of an Adam’s apple is going up and down and up and down, and he says to me, he says, ‘Yeah, but all those other times they was one-kiam bills. Nobody ever done it with a ten before.’ As if that made it all different!”

Jo-Mama started to laugh, the way a volcano starts to rumble before it goes blam, and when she really got into the laugh, the bar shook, and the glasses and bottles on it rattled, and we could feel the vibrations clear across the bar on our stools. Jo-Mama laughing could cause more damage than a smaller person throwing chairs around. “So what you want, Marîd? Ouzo, and retsina for the young lady? Or just a beer? Make up your mind, I don’t have all night, I got a crowd of Greeks just in from Skorpios, their ship’s carrying boxes full of high explosives for the revolution in Holland and they got a long way to sail with it and they’re all nervous as a goldfish at a cat convention and they’re drinking me dry. What the hell do you want to drink, goddamn it! Getting an answer out of you is like prying a tip out of a Chink.”

She paused just long enough for me to cram a few words in. I got myself my gin and bingara with Rose’s, and Yasmin had a Jack Daniels with a Coke back. Then Jo-Mama started in on another story, and I watched her like a hawk, because sometimes she starts the stories so you’ll get all caught up in them and forget you’ve got change coming. I never forget. “Let me have the change all in singles, Mama,” I said, interrupting her story and reminding her, in case my change had slipped her mind. She gave me an amused look and made the change, and I kicked her a whole kiam for a tip. She stuffed it into her bra. There was plenty of room in there for all the money I’d ever see in my lifetime. We finished our drinks after two or three more stories, kissed her good-bye, and wandered further up the Street. We stopped in Frenchy’s and a few other places, and we were satisfactorily loaded by the time we got home.

We didn’t say a word to each other; we didn’t even pause to turn on a light or go to the bathroom. We had our clothes off and were lying close together on the mattress. I ran my fingernails up the back of Yasmin’s thighs; she loves that. She was scratching my back and chest; that’s what I like. I used the tips of my thumb and fingers to touch her skin very lightly, just barely tickling her, from her armpit up her arm to her hand, and then I tickled her palm and her fingers. I ran my fingertips back down her arm, down her side, and across her sexy little ass. Then I began touching the sensitive creases of her groin the same way. I heard her start to make soft sounds, and she didn’t realize her own hands had fallen beside her; then she began touching her breasts. I reached over and grabbed her wrists, pinning her arms to the bed. She opened her eyes in surprise. I grunted softly and kicked her right leg aside, a little roughly, then I spread her left leg with mine. She gave a little shudder and moan. She tried to reach down to touch me, but I wouldn’t let go of her wrists. I held her immobile, and I felt a strong, almost cruel sense of control, yet it was expressed in the most caring and tender way. It sounds like a contradiction; if you don’t feel the same thing sometimes, I can’t explain it to you. Yasmin was giving herself to me wordlessly, completely; at the same time I was taking her, and she wanted me to take her. She liked me to get a little wild now and then; the moderate force I permitted myself to use only aroused her more. Then I entered her, and we let out our breath together in a sigh of pleasure. We began to move slowly, and her legs lifted; she put her heels on my hips, digging in and holding on, as close to me as she could get, while I was driving into her as close to her as possible. We jammed like that, slowly, drawing out every gentle touch, every surprise shock of roughness, for a long while.

Yasmin and I still clung to each other, our hearts thumping and our breath ragged and quick. We clung until our bodies quieted, and still we held each other, both satisfied, both exhilarated by this restatement of our mutual need and our mutual trust and, above all else, our mutual love. I suppose at some time we separated, and I suppose at some time we fell asleep; but in the late morning when I awoke, our legs were still entwined, and Yasmin’s head was on my shoulder. Everything had been fixed, everything had indeed returned to normal. I had Yasmin to love, I had money in my pocket to last a few months, and whenever I wanted it, there was action. I smiled softly and slowly drifted back into untroubled dreams.

It was one of those rare times of shared happiness, of perfect contentment. We had a feeling of expectation, that what was already wonderful would only get better and better as time went on. These moments are one of the rarest, most fragile things in the world. You have to seize the day; you have to recall all the rotten, dirty things you endured to earn this peace. You have to remember to enjoy each minute, each hour, because although you may feel like it’s going to last forever, the world plans otherwise. You want to be grateful for every precious second, but you simply can’t do it. It’s not in human nature to live life to the fullest. Haven’t you ever noticed that equal amounts of pain and joy are not, in fact, equal in duration? Pain drags on until you wonder if life will ever be bearable again; pleasure, though, once it’s reached its peak, fades faster than a trodden gardenia, and your memory searches in vain for the sweet scent.

Yasmin and I made love again when we woke at last, this time on our sides, with her back to me. We held each other close when we finished, but only for a few moments, because Yasmin wanted to live life to the fullest again. I reminded her that this, too, was just not in human nature — at least as far as I was concerned. I wanted a little longer to savor the gardenia, which was still pretty fresh in my mind. Yasmin really wanted another gardenia. I told her to wait another minute or two.