insistent in his wheedling way, but Flame takes pity on your cold wet naked condition (Joe the bartender clucks disparagingly at the sight, pours you a brandy) and offers you her changing room for the night, provided you stay hidden in the wardrobe cupboard if she has any company. I can take care of the captain in ways Loui can’t, she says. Loui, scowling, disappears into his office with a bottle. Just have to hope he doesn’t turn stoolie and call Blue in. Flame and Joe read your toe tag and agree that it’s good advice but know you’ll never follow it, stubborn dickhead that you are.
In the changing room, Flame applies a soothing ointment to the festering tattoo (it has been itching and you’ve been scratching at it with dirty fingernails), works Blanche’s lotion into your chafed hide, and warms other parts with her tongue, bemusedly combing your bleached hair with her long red nails. Your other hair is still wrapped in bandages. She wants to know who it is that’s following you. You don’t know. Haven’t even noticed. She offers you a frilly bathrobe and a pair of Victorian bloomers from her days as a stag-film actress. They are more comfortable than Blanche’s, but open in the crotch so they don’t hold anything. She says she’ll get word to Blanche that you’re here so she can drop your clothes by before you head off tomorrow and tells you to lie down on the chaise lounge and she’ll tell you a story.
WHEN I WAS JUST A KID, PHIL, THIS GUY TOOK ME under his wing. I knew he was trouble, he had badboy written all over him—literally, around each nipple and his navel like eye sockets and down the length of his dick, though when it was hard, it said: BEARDED BALONEY—but I was young and madly in love, and brutal as he was to others, he treated me like a princess. Of course, he was insanely jealous. I didn’t dare look at another man—it was like a death sentence. Any guy who looked my way and grinned or winked or called out something simply disappeared. Sometimes I thought I could use this as a kind of magic power to erase people I had a grudge against, like the guy who first raped me, for example. But I don’t hold grudges long and in truth, after the rough stuff was over, that guy and I became friends and sometime lovers and I wished him no harm. Just the same, he made an attempt to get hold of me, thinking I might be in trouble, and that was the end of him. Badboy had a little gun that went “spat!” when you fired it. That’s all, just “spat!” and some guy’s motor didn’t work any more. He had a twin brother who was a cop and they loved and hated each other the way brothers do, and several times had tried to kill each other, but maybe without enough conviction. Badboy ran a bigtime protection and extortion racket, and the crooked chief of police was one of many under his thumb. The chief wanted him dead and out of his life, and assigned Badboy’s cop brother to nailing him for his crimes, telling him to bring him in dead or alive, knowing which way it would have to be. My lover knew all this from friends on the force. He also heard that his brother had his eye on me or wanted him to think he did. One of the two—I’m not sure which, their voices were just alike, but probably the cop brother—called me and told me what your tattoo is telling you. Well, this was scary. I realized I was being used, without being able to do anything about it, to set a trap. And if it was my lover who had called me, it was even worse, especially when I discovered his little spat-gun in my purse. Or one just like it. Was I supposed to kill the guy following me? The cop, one would think, but my lover often followed me out of jealousy. I felt like a character in two different stories at the same time, as if the twin brothers had doubled me, too. I was setting the trap in one life, springing it in the other, and helpless in both. I didn’t know what to do, but then . . .
IT’S A GOOD STORY AND YOU WANT TO
In the changing room, Flame applies a soothing ointment to the festering tattoo (it has been itching and you’ve been scratching at it with dirty fingernails), works Blanche’s lotion into your chafed hide, and warms other parts with her tongue, bemusedly combing your bleached hair with her long red nails. Your other hair is still wrapped in bandages. She wants to know who it is that’s following you. You don’t know. Haven’t even noticed. She offers you a frilly bathrobe and a pair of Victorian bloomers from her days as a stag-film actress. They are more comfortable than Blanche’s, but open in the crotch so they don’t hold anything. She says she’ll get word to Blanche that you’re here so she can drop your clothes by before you head off tomorrow and tells you to lie down on the chaise lounge and she’ll tell you a story.
WHEN I WAS JUST A KID, PHIL, THIS GUY TOOK ME under his wing. I knew he was trouble, he had badboy written all over him—literally, around each nipple and his navel like eye sockets and down the length of his dick, though when it was hard, it said: BEARDED BALONEY—but I was young and madly in love, and brutal as he was to others, he treated me like a princess. Of course, he was insanely jealous. I didn’t dare look at another man—it was like a death sentence. Any guy who looked my way and grinned or winked or called out something simply disappeared. Sometimes I thought I could use this as a kind of magic power to erase people I had a grudge against, like the guy who first raped me, for example. But I don’t hold grudges long and in truth, after the rough stuff was over, that guy and I became friends and sometime lovers and I wished him no harm. Just the same, he made an attempt to get hold of me, thinking I might be in trouble, and that was the end of him. Badboy had a little gun that went “spat!” when you fired it. That’s all, just “spat!” and some guy’s motor didn’t work any more. He had a twin brother who was a cop and they loved and hated each other the way brothers do, and several times had tried to kill each other, but maybe without enough conviction. Badboy ran a bigtime protection and extortion racket, and the crooked chief of police was one of many under his thumb. The chief wanted him dead and out of his life, and assigned Badboy’s cop brother to nailing him for his crimes, telling him to bring him in dead or alive, knowing which way it would have to be. My lover knew all this from friends on the force. He also heard that his brother had his eye on me or wanted him to think he did. One of the two—I’m not sure which, their voices were just alike, but probably the cop brother—called me and told me what your tattoo is telling you. Well, this was scary. I realized I was being used, without being able to do anything about it, to set a trap. And if it was my lover who had called me, it was even worse, especially when I discovered his little spat-gun in my purse. Or one just like it. Was I supposed to kill the guy following me? The cop, one would think, but my lover often followed me out of jealousy. I felt like a character in two different stories at the same time, as if the twin brothers had doubled me, too. I was setting the trap in one life, springing it in the other, and helpless in both. I didn’t know what to do, but then . . .
IT’S A GOOD STORY AND YOU WANT TO
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