Andrew Vachss - Choice of Evil

I cranked up the Plymouth and motored over to Michelle’s. She was standing on the sidewalk in a burnt-orange parachute-silk coat, tapping the toe of one black spike heel impatiently.

“It’s hot out here,” she bitched as she climbed into the front seat.

“You keep me waiting forty-five minutes; I’m ten seconds late and you’re already running your—”

“As much as you know about women, I’m surprised you’re not still a virgin,” she snapped, cutting me off.

I surrendered without firing another useless shot, heading uptown toward the only place I could ever be sure Michelle would always want to go.

But I was thinking about what she said, even as we crossed the bridge.

“Michelle, could I ask you a question?”

“Who better?” she wanted to know, still not mollified over the enormous wait I’d put her through.

“About what you said. About women?” I stalled, thinking Michelle was the only person on the planet I ever asked about women. As if the vicious trick nature had played on her—she’d been born a transsexual, into a nest of maggots—had made her an authority. And how I’d never say that.

“I am waiting,” she said, tapping her long, burnt-orange-tipped nails on the dashboard to show me how patient she wasn’t going to be with me for a while.

“What is it with bisexuals?”

“That means. . . what?”

“I met this girl. . . .”

“Go figure,” she sneered.

“Michelle, come on. You’re this mad at me for being a few seconds late?”

“How do I look?” she asked, opening her coat to display an ivory blouse over black pencil pants.

“Fabulous,” I assured her. “But you always do, for chrissakes.”

“And you don’t think it might be nice to. . . reassure a girl once in a while?”

“I never thought—”

“Because you are, in your heart, a pig,” she reassured me.

“All right, already. I’m a pig. A late pig too, okay? I was going up to see the Mole, figured you’d like to ride along, and now I get all this?”

“Sweetie,” she said softly, one hand on my right forearm, “I am trying to teach you something, all right? Little Sister’s not mad at you. But ever since that. . . ever since Crystal Beth died, you haven’t really been yourself. A new woman is exactly what you need. And, knowing you, what it’s going to bring you is more pain. Maybe if you knew how to act around a normal girl, you wouldn’t always be—”

“How do you know I’m—?”

“Baby, how long have I known you? A million years? This bisexual you asked me about, that wouldn’t be Crystal Beth, now would it?”

“No.”

“Huh!” she half-grunted in surprise. “Really?”

“Yeah. Really.”

“All right, Burke. What do you want to know?”

“I guess. . . what I asked you.”

“This is a bisexual woman, then? The one you met?”

“Yeah. At least I think so.”

“And Crystal Beth was—?”

“You know what, Michelle? I never knew what she was. I mean, she said she was. And I knew she had. . . I knew her and Vyra—”

“Vyra!” Michelle spat the name out. “The one with the shoes, right?”

“Yes. But she’s gone now. Remember?”

“No, I do not remember. I had no dealings with that one. Don’t you remember?”

I didn’t know how to reel her in. Michelle was all tangents when she wasn’t working. But I tried another route anyway.

“Forget Vyra, okay? And Crystal Beth, all I know is that she said she was bi, okay? That’s why she went to that rally, even though she said the others didn’t really want her there.”

“The others?”

“Gay people. She said bisexuals were, like, caught between the two worlds.”

“I don’t think so,” Michelle said. “It’s not that. They’re caught between stereotypes, that’s all.”

“What?”

“Look, if a woman, a straight woman, if she has lots of lovers, she’s a slut, right?”

“I didn’t—”

“Oh, never mind what you think,” she dismissed me. “I’m talking about. . . them,” she said, indicating the rest of the world with a sweep of her hand. “But straights, they think all gays are promiscuous, right? All they know about are the glory holes and the quick meets in the park—the anonymous stuff. You tell them a couple of gay men are together, really with each other, and they, like, can’t quite get it, see? Now, a bisexual man, what everyone assumes is he’s really gay, all right? Maybe he can close his eyes and make it with a woman, but how many times you ever hear of a gay male telling his lover it’s all over, he’s found out he’s straight and he wants to be with a woman?”

“I never—”

“Me either. But the reverse, that’s all the time, yes? Man’s been married twenty years, getting some on the side in the gay bars, but profiling straight. He tells his wife the truth, she’s busted up, sure. But the rest of the world, it just nods its head and says, ‘Sure,’ like it was going to happen sooner or later.”

“Yeah, but. . .”

“Bisexual women, it’s like there’s no such thing. Not to. . . them . So when a woman says she’s bi, the only thing they figure is she’s fucking everyone on the planet, right?”

“I don’t—”

“Oh, who cares ? That’s what they think. Any married couple wants to jazz up their sex life, first thing they do is advertise for a bi girl, am I right? But what’s this got to do with anything, anyway?”

“This girl? The one I met?”

“Yessss. . .?”

“Well, she’s bi. Or she was once. I don’t know. She says she’s a lesbian now. Heavy-duty top too, the way she fronts it.”

“But she’s coming on to you?”

“Yeah. At least. . . I think so.”

“Because you’re dense? Or because. . .?”

“Because she’s. . . ambiguous. She doesn’t say anything about herself. Just about me. How I supposedly want her so bad, and I’m not admitting it.”

“Roles are. . . weird. Like it’s. . . I don’t know. . . safer, maybe, if you have a role. If you know what you’re supposed to do, you can’t make a mistake. But if she’s a top, maybe she’s just plugged into your testosterone, honey.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means every man wants to spank a dom. The ones who don’t want to take it themselves, that is. That’s what the scene-players believe—that everybody would be doing what they do if they had the guts. And if you play that way, sometimes you stay that way. You can get. . . stuck. And you never think there’s a middle. So if she does men too. . .”

“I don’t know. She only said—”

“Doesn’t matter. If she’s a top, she knows other tops. And some of them do men. Big money in it. Even over the phone. Little Sister knows that part by heart, honey.”

“So I—?”

“So you. . . what? You like her?”

“No. She’s not real. . . likable, I don’t think. But. . .”

“You want to fuck her?”

“Not even that. Michelle, look, she wants to work with me. On this. . . thing I’m doing. What I’m going to see the Mole about. Says she’s in love with this ‘Homo Erectus’ guy.”

“The one who’s killing all those—”

“Yeah.”

“In love with. . . what he’s doing, maybe. Or the. . . power thing. But she’s pushing you too?”

“It. . . feels like all she wants me to do is bite, so she can pull the apple away and laugh.”

“There’s those,” Michelle conceded. “But it wouldn’t have anything to do with her being bi.”