Pete Hamill - Loving Women

Sure, I said, a little surprised because Eden Santana loved driving that car. I pulled away. I knew she was staring at me but I didn’t want to take my eyes off the road to return the stare.

What do you think of me, child? she said after a while.

I mumbled.

Tell me, she said. Tell me what you really think of me.

I couldn’t find the right words. My head was too full of pieces of songs, scraps of dialogue from old movies. They canceled one another out.

I love you, I said finally. That’s what I think of you.

I was heading west into the open country that stretched away to Mobile Bay. She just gazed into the dusky light of the countryside. There’s something I always wanted to do, she said.

I waited.

She said: But maybe if I do it you won’t love me anymore.

I felt a tremor of fear. Did she want to tell me about some other lover? About Mercado? Some terrible news about her husband?

She said: Follow the railroad tracks.

The road was two lanes wide and moved along the side of the railroad cut. Off in the woods there were small houses, an occasional barn or gas station. The trees were in full leaf and I drove slowly under them. There were no other cars. After a few miles, the road dipped and the world was much darker. She touched my hand.

Slow down, she said.

The dip led to a crossroads. The other road went north under a trestle.

Quick, she said. Pull over and stop.

I did. We sat there for a few minutes in the dark. I didn’t know what she was going to do. She didn’t speak. She didn’t touch me. I pushed my fingers lightly through her hair but she didn’t react. Her body hardened, as if she were gathering herself into one huge muscle of determination. Then she was alert, hearing something that I didn’t.

Watch this, she said. I want you to get out and watch.

She climbed up the embankment, holding her red high heels in her hand, with me after her. When we reached the top, she slipped the shoes back on. She motioned for me to stay low beside the tracks, out of sight. Then I heard what she’d heard: the train whistle, away off, clearing the track, warning cars and children and animals to get out of the way, sounding mournful at first and then arrogant and commanding as it came nearer. I could see the train now. The light on the engine was cutting through the darkness. A half mile away. A quarter. Then a few hundred yards, the wheels clacking on the polished iron tracks, the whistle snarling, urgent.

And then, in the full glare of the light, Eden dropped the trench-coat. She was completely naked, except for the dark stockings and the red shoes. She placed her hands on her hips, her weight on her right leg, the wind lifting her hair, and I could see her nipples sticking out. So could the men in the cabin of the engine. The whistle paused, the train seemed to slow. And then Eden took her breasts in her hands, offering them to the railroad men. Great clouds of steam billowed from the engine, Brakes screeched, iron trying to grab iron. She picked up her coat, turned her back to them and came running to me, laughing and whooping as we slid down the embankment.

Did it, did it, did it, did it, she said, flushed with excitement. I did it!

She slipped on the coat and got into the car beside me, and I raced north under the trestle and then took a right on the first dirt road I saw. She whooped. She laughed. She squealed in a very young voice. And I laughed too. It was as if we’d just robbed the biggest bank in Pensacola.

Ho boy , she said: exultant. And then pointed toward a dark stand of trees in the woods up ahead, empty and unfenced.

In there, she said. I can’t stand it another four seconds.

She dropped the coat again, leaned against the rough bark of a sycamore tree and had me enter her standing up.

Tell me you love me, she said. Tell me. Tell me.

She always took those red high heels along on the days and nights when we played The Games. She never wore them for anything else. If they were on the table, or lying on the front seat of the car, it was a sign that we were going to play. Sometimes she would have me lie facedown, naked in a field, and slowly press a heel into my ass until I made sounds of pain. While she was doing this she would play with herself, and when she was about to come she would turn around, straddling me, rubbing her cunt frantically against the back of my neck while kissing the marks of her heels on my skin until she came. Sometimes, in movie houses, she would slip off the shoe in the dark and use the heel to play with my cock. Or while I was licking her she would flick the heels of the red shoes against her hard dark nipples.

One evening I came to the trailer and she looked at me in that odd drilling way. Neatly laid upon the bed were some women’s clothes. They weren’t hers. Or I had never seen them before. Certainly they were much larger than hers. A long flowered dress. Panties. A garter belt. A bra.

Put them on, she said.

I smiled, but I was very nervous. Miles Rayfield’s face flashed before me.

I’m serious, she whispered.

Then she was undressing me and my cock was getting hard.

Start with the panties, she said. I want to see you put them on.

The panties felt silky and feminine against my skin and my cock protruded against them. The bra fit tightly against my chest, the rayon straps digging into me, and she stuffed it with Kleenex. Then I added the garter belt, and she helped me slip the dress over my head. She told me to sit on the edge of the bed, and then, with her breath quickening, she started painting my face. Cream. Powder. Rouge. Pushing my lips apart with her lipstick. She put kohl around my eyes. Then produced a straw hat and tied it under my chin, her breath coming more quickly now. She pointed at a pair of low-heeled women’s shoes.

I’ll be right back, she said, and slipped into the john. I glanced at a mirror and saw a handsome young woman who happened to be me.

I was thrilled.

Then the door to the john opened and a sailor in dress whites appeared.

Eden.

She was completely without makeup, her hair hidden under a white hat, her breasts somehow flattened under the jumper. The pants were tight against her crotch.

Come on, bitch, she said sharply, and grabbed my hand roughly. She led me to the door. I’m taking you for a fucking ride, you dumb cunt.

I laughed out loud.

Eden didn’t laugh.

She drove very fast to Sham’s, a supermarket on the edge of town. We went inside together with me thinking: If I see Red Cannon now, I’m fucked for life . I was wearing the flat women’s shoes, but it was still hard to walk. Eden made me push the shopping cart down the aisle. She barked orders at me in a deep rough Louis Armstrong voice.

All right, she said, don’t fo’get the damn co’n flakes.

I thought I would laugh again but a heavy woman in jeans and a flowered shirt turned into the aisle. Eden reached past me and squeezed my tit so the woman could see and then I giggled in a girlish way and slapped her on the wrist.

Stop that, Horace, I said.

Eden grabbed my other tit.

Ah’ll do what I want wif you, woman, she said, and then grabbed my ass.

The woman in the flowered shirt looked panicky. She turned around and hurried away. Eden laughed and grabbed my ass again until it hurt.

Out in the parking lot, as I loaded the groceries into the trunk of Eden’s car, she pressed up against me from behind, pawing my tits and my cunt.

I thought: Couldn’t this goddamned sailor keep his hands off me in public? Couldn’t he wait? Couldn’t he behave like a gentleman?

I pulled angrily away from her, saw some startled people watching us from behind parked cars, and told Eden to take me home.