Darcey Steinke - Suicide Blonde

Patterns of barbed-wire light fell over the walls. I lay there listening to clicking high heels and men yelling to each other. I was sleepy and thoughts began to fragment. I remembered my mother in a special pale-green nightgown that she would wear when my father returned from business trips. In my mind's eye that nightgown grew and grew until it filled the corners of the universe and I slept.

When I awoke it was dark. The curtains had fallen and it took me a minute to sense the parameters of the room and remember where I was. Just as I did, the bed shifted, someone was beside me. I stiffened. At first, I thought instinctively that it was Bell, then more logically that it was Madison, but I knew by a certain musky scent that it was a strange man.

My back was to him, but I was close enough to feel his warm breath on my neck. I tried to calm myself, thinking he simply thought I was Madison and once he figured I wasn't, he would apologize and leave. There was an odd familiarity here, because I had used this fantasy a hundred times — being with a stranger in a strange room, never seeing his face as he took me from behind. I had a liquid sensation of ice melting into a shot of whiskey. The man slipped a hand between my legs and before I could think he began to undulate his fingers, sliding his other hand under my shirt. I pulled away a little and made a negative mumble, but he yanked me closer. His fingers were calloused and I could feel them slide under my bra, cradling the curve of my breast. With his forefinger, he rubbed my nipple until it hardened. He unzipped my pants, letting the heat of his fingertips flow over my lower stomach. I was very wet, the moisture running into my ass.

All in a rush, he loosened his pants and his hard cock flapped against my spine. He rubbed it in the crack of my rear. Spreading his fingers over each breast, he pulled back, forcing me to arch, so he could lick my neck and shoulders. He moved his hands down to my hips, pulled my pelvis up and easily slipped inside. For a moment he was still and I listened to the footfalls on the stairs; it was long enough for me to rise to logic, think— what is happening , think, kneel down.

He began moving in spirals. A car alarm whined and another man coughed through the wall. I tried to pull off but he grabbed my hips back hard. I tried again, feeling the tip of his cock just barely leaning on the outer lip of my cunt before he pulled me back, gasped. I could feel his cock stretch and the arch of semen, felt dizzy and frightened, stood, pulled my jeans on and ran to the door. The stranger made soft disoriented sounds. The bed creaked. He leaned up and said, “Stay.” I looked back a second, the light falling on his bare legs made them look scrawny and strange sprawled on the rough blanket.

* * *

THE NARROW GRID OF MY LIFE WAS CHANGING VIOLENTLY LIKE flood waters expanding the banks of a river. I was suspicious that I had let the stranger fuck me because I was intentionally trying to devastate myself, encourage confusion and misery, so that I would have no impulse to pose or lie. I felt I knew what was best for me, but that somehow, because of a certain well-practiced falseness, a sort of stupid conventional programming, I couldn't do it. But was I right to undermine my life in an effort to right it?

It didn't matter, because it hadn't worked. The first thing I decided was to lie to Bell. Not so much because I always thought I would, but because to keep the lie secret would give me strength. I used to lie a lot until I met Bell, who lied better and with more regularity. When you lie you take on the role of either self-promoter or coward. I was the latter, but to have a potentially hurtful secret would give me power. Lying is like violence in its momentary thrill.

Why lie? Wouldn't it be a relief to have him stomp off? But I didn't even know the stranger. He had about as much significance as a rat and it would be a bigger lie than not telling to pretend he had meaning. Also, I remembered Bell's audition, his threat to the couch, that he would torture me with his own infidelities.

The lobby of our building was painfully bright and the stairwell smelled of strange meat. I turned the key silently and immediately heard Bell's even breath. Though I knew he was asleep I still felt awkward stripping, like he was subconsciously checking for hickeys or wet hair between my legs. I got under the covers. No man could save you from yourself. I had a rush of remorse about what I had done. Maybe I had overblown our problems? Bell loved me and it was a wrongheaded sexual retribution that had lured me to the stranger. I let the traffic lull me, watched several planes on their way across the Pacific and thought how much better things would be between us now.

But then he shifted, pulled me closer, reached his hand between my legs and whispered, “You're so wet.” The thought of sex with Bell in such proximity to the stranger was terrifying and I moved his hand and said, “I don't feel like it.” It was so rare I refused that he persisted, moved his hand back over my cunt, worked his hips and cock against my rear, said into my ear, “What I love about us is that we're like gods.” He slipped a finger into my cunt. I was worked up, felt the skin at the base of my neck get numb and pushed into his hand. Bell pulled my pelvis back and slipped inside with a wet sound. He tightened his hands on my hips. His breath quickened, he kissed the nape of my neck, said I had a tight pussy, that he wanted to come all over it, that he was going to come on my face. The dark was mucusy and all I could focus on was the dog skull on the ledge and the red exit lights in the hallway windows of the Hotel Huntington. I thought of the stranger and how he smelled like charcoal, how his cock was thick.

“Do you like it like this?” I whispered, “This is just what I did for the stranger.” I pressed my pelvis back hard, thought of both men taking me at once. As Bell came, he shook me into a liquifying sensation, like honey rising up into combs. We lay there, until his cock softened and slowly slipped out. My ears rang and to keep from getting nauseous I looked for stars in the midnight blue sky above the hotel lights.

Bell was sound asleep. I couldn't get comfortable and I don't know if I had slept or not when I saw a man in our room. I gasped. It was Bell's little friend from the Black Rose. The light from the street illuminated the reds and pinks in his open mouth, he caught my eye like a fish hook, holding his fingers to his mouth. “Sssh,” he said, “you'll wake Bell. Come see me downstairs.” He stood, put his coat over his arm and walked quickly toward the door.

As the door shut behind him, Bell opened one dreamy eye, then rolled to the other side of the futon. I didn't want to wake him, or for him to interfere. I stood, pulled on my jeans, forced my feet into high-tops and buttoned my jacket over my bare chest. I found the little man sitting on the steps of our building. He blew smoke in the direction of the used-book store across the street and looked up at me. “Well.” He stood awkwardly. “You're angry I stayed?”

I had to remember not to displace my anger on the little man: it was Bell who was the fucker. Why had he wanted to have sex with the troll in the room? Did he get off on the fact a stranger was so near? Did the little man masturbate along with us, rubbing his dick, waiting until he heard our breath quicken so we could all come together?

“I feel too stale and stupid to talk right now,” I said. He nodded miserably, knowing something grave had happened. There was that cantaloupe-colored light on the buildings and the digital bank clock across the street beat out the time. I felt like I had dirt in my heart. Irrationally I wanted to confess to the little man. “It doesn't matter you were there while we fucked. An hour ago I fucked someone I don't even know.” Even the idea of telling the truth made my face flush and I pressed my hand over my hair.