Уолтер Мосли - John Woman

“Of course not,” Senta agreed, shaking the last drops at the commode. “Lou says we have all night. Do you want to be tied down to the bed or the chair?”

When Senta was on top of John she climaxed at unpredictable moments. He wasn’t sure if these were real or feigned orgasms. He’d told her she didn’t have to pretend.

“You don’t believe that a whore can come?” she’d answered. “Don’t you know I really like you, Johnny?”

“You do?”

“I do.”

“Why?”

“Because you talk real nice and you’re always a gentleman. Most guys don’t know it but good manners will make a mature woman come way more than all them gyrations they do in porn.”

There were things they did every time; Senta, for instance, would tie John down with leather restraints. She was inventive and sensually perceptive. That evening she decided to spend a good deal of time kissing her twice-monthly client. Her kisses were soft but definite; up and down his arms, legs and torso...

She kissed him for nearly a quarter hour before mounting his straining erection.

John started bucking under her and when Senta told him, “Calm down, baby. We ain’t goin’ nowhere...” he came so violently that she was thrown from the bed; after that he lost consciousness for a while.

When he came to Senta had loosened the restraints.

“Wow,” she said. “That was wild.”

She lit a cigarette and poured herself a shot of sour mash. There was a fifth of the whiskey sitting on the nightstand next to her side of the bed.

She inhaled some smoke, took a swig of whiskey and exhaled the cool misty breath over his chest.

“I was scared that you had a heart attack for a minute there,” she said.

“Not me,” he assured her.

“You don’t know. Sometimes a young man can have what they call a irregularity in the heart and all of a sudden outta nowhere he falls down dead. I went to high school with a football quarterback who died like that.”

John put a hand behind his head and groaned contentedly.

“You don’t mind if I smoke?” she asked.

“I mind.”

“Then why don’t you ask me to put it out?”

“You need to smoke and I need you.”

“You could ask Lou for a girl who doesn’t smoke.”

“She wouldn’t be you.”

Senta stretched out next to John, laying her fair hand across his brown chest.

“What’s your real name?” she asked.

“John.”

“I mean your last name.”

“I’m John Woman, no middle initial.”

“I never heard of the last name Woman.”

“What’s your last name, Senta?”

She froze and he smiled.

“That’s okay,” he said. “I need you, not your name.”

“You don’t need me.”

“Oh yes I do. If I didn’t know you were out here I’d have gone crazy two years ago. You are the glue that holds me together.”

“I’m just a whore.”

“That word doesn’t mean a thing to me. You are Senta, no last name, and I come here because I need something only you can give.”

“What’s that?”

“Intimacy.”

They didn’t speak again until Senta was finished with her cigarette.

“Why don’t you ever ask me on a date?” she said stubbing out the butt in a pink tin ashtray that she brought to their assignations.

“Isn’t this a date?”

“You know what I mean,” she complained. “A real date with dinner reservations and flowers... and clothes.”

“Could you pour me a drink?” he asked, sitting up. “Do your other clients ask you out?”

“Most of my regulars do at one time or other,” she replied, delivering the whiskey glass into his hand. “They want me to go to the movies or company barbecues. This one guy asked me if I’d go with him on vacation to Hawaii.”

“And what do you say to them?”

“No.”

“So,” John said with a grin, “you want me to ask you but you don’t want to go.”

“Maybe not,” she said. “Maybe I’d say yes.”

John frowned and Senta put a hand on his shoulder.

“Don’t, baby, don’t,” she said.

“What?”

“I’m just tryin’ to let you know that I like you. It’s not marriage or some kinda boyfriend-girlfriend thing.”

“What is it then?”

“Why do you come all the way out here to spend the night with me?”

John almost said something and then didn’t. He took a sip, then another, got up and went to the turquoise-and-white toilet. When he returned she’d refilled his glass.

“For this,” he said.

“What?”

“So we can talk.”

“Yeah,” she said. “That’s why it’s a date... because you want to tell me what you’re thinkin’ and, and you listen to what I got to say too. It’s the listenin’ part that makes it a real date.”

The young professor put his hand on Senta’s thigh and sighed, understanding that what he said was true.

“What do you want to talk about tonight, baby?” Senta asked.

“It’s about my job.”

The conversation took them to the bottom of the whiskey bottle. Sitting cross-legged on opposite sides of the bed they were both tipsy and serious.

“Why can’t you just write that paper?” Senta asked. “I mean all you do is read and write about history, right? You should be able to do somethin’ like that, no problem.”

“I guess.”

“What’s so hard?”

“I, um... it’s like...” he said.

“You don’t know?”

“It’s like a pismire steeped in sap.”

“A what in what?”

“You ever see a piece of amber with bugs in it?”

“Sure.”

“Like that.”

“Oooooh,” Senta said, gazing somewhere past John’s left shoulder. “You’re stuck like when I wanted to go to college but never filled out the application form.”

“What did you want to study?”

“Bookkeeping and literature classes.”

“Did you ever go?”

“Something... something happened and I just couldn’t think about it anymore, like with your paper.”

“It daunts me,” John said.

“Haunts you like a ghost?”

John giggled and said, “I’d kiss you but I’m too drunk to crawl over there.”

“I like being kissed.”

This reminded CC of his mother explaining why the name Napoli was superior to Tartarelli.

At seven minutes past two John got out of bed. He pulled on his soft gray cotton trousers and lurched toward the door, kicking the night table along the way.

“Where you goin’, baby?” Senta said reaching out.

“Out on the walkway.”

A half-moon hovered above the stony landscape. Spark City Bar was closed. John breathed in Senta’s jasmine scent, rising from his skin.

“What’s wrong, John?” she asked from the doorway.

“I had a dream.”

“‘Bout what?” She put her arms around him pressing her nose against his shoulder.

“My father.”

“What’d he say?”

“That...” John saw a falling star, then he became aware of the sky full of stars.

“What?”

“He told me that I wasn’t writing my paper because I resented having to prove myself. He’s always saying things like that.”

“I thought he died.”

“Yeah.”

“Oh... Was he right?”

John turned to kiss her. Gazing into his eyes she returned the kiss.

“Yes,” he said, “dad’s right. He’s always right. I’ve never had one decent thought that didn’t come from him. He created me.”

“So what are you going to do?”

“Write the paper.”

“You can do it now?”

“Because of you,” John said. “You and the goddess of history.”

“Who’s that?”

“The Greeks thought that it was Clio, one of the Muses, but I prefer to call her Posterity.”