Macho Sluts (20 page)

“I own the Ronin dealership on Van Ness Avenue. That's a new brand of Japanese motorcycle, y'know. Very chill.”

“Oh, yes. I know all about Japanese bikes.” Tyre was a Harley-Davidson loyalist and kept her own hog (“Actually I prefer to call it a sow”) in perfect running order, but she thought it was not exactly politic to mention that right now. If money was not an issue, perhaps they could proceed to the heart of the matter.

Alex was examining he chandelier, the carpet, the cut-glass salt and pepper shakers, the pattern on the china. Was she a little bit flushed? “Well,” she finally said, “I guess I can tell you anything. I mean, nothing should shock you, right?”

Tyre refused to help her out. She busied herself with the last of her flan.

“Before I tell you the details of my fantasy, I have to explain the nature of my sexuality. I don't find vanilla sex particularly effective. I have nothing against it any more than I have anything against chicken farmers or Halley's comet, but they don't get me off, either. There are a lot of rumors about you, and who knows if any of them are true, but I do know you have a reputation for being fair to the leatherwomen who come here. This is just about the only public space where we are welcome. A few of the flakier badgirls don't like Simba because she's barred them from the dungeon for being too stoned to hit what they aim at, and if you ask me it's because they don't like bein' bossed around by a black woman, but the other thing she does is keep tourists and bluenoses out of the dungeons, and as long as she does that I don't care about your rule that no rough stuff goes on any place else in the Calyx of Isis. It can't be news to you that that isn't a very popular rule with some of us.

“But I figure your job is getting women laid, so even if you don't particularly care for S/M you understand that it isn't easy to find somebody compatible. Just cause your black hanky is on the left and hers is on the right don't mean you are going to live happily ever after. I've had a lot of fun and a very hot relationship or two but none that lasted, and I'm kinda sick of that. Maybe romance and S/M don't mix, but I want a woman of my own who will stick by my side, somebody who really needs and likes what I do.

“Well, I met a lady who has potential, that's Roxanne. She works at the Mitchell Brothers theater, dancing. And she is pretty special, I think. But it's real hard for me to let myself go unless I know that the other person belongs to me. And that she will go the distance with me, she won't whip-tease me and then chicken out. I know when most people say they want somebody to belong to them they mean they want to keep them all to themselves, but for me the real test of property is, can you give it away? And if you loan it out, can you get it back? So I guess I need to test her, but I also want to surprise her and give her something that is a fantasy for a lot of bottoms.

“I want a gang, a pack, a bunch of tough and experienced top women. I'll leave the exact number up to you, but I don't want just a threesome in warm leatherette. I would rather it not be women Roxanne already knows. And no novices, they would just get in the way. Once you get that group together I want to give them Roxanne, and if she makes me proud I want her to belong to me, wear my rings. If she still wants me. She might decide it's too much, or maybe she'll tumble for one of the other tops. I have to know where she's at before I fall any more in love with her. I want somebody I can perfect with hard, constant training. A living work of art I can take out and show off on Folsom Street as my counterpart. So pretty and so alive and responsive to me it will make all the other tops, boys and girls, gnaw on their arms. It's makin' me crazy, what I want. What do you think?”

Tyre thoughtfully chewed her lower lip. “Well, the only problem is the classic one of determining consent. Since my negotiations are with you and not with Roxanne, I have no way to determine if this really is one of her fantasies.”

“Well, what do you want me to do? Give her a safe word?”

“Since the whole thing is being set up as a test, I don't think that would ruin the ambiance. And I also need to check your credentials, and her background. You understand. If I'm going to find tops she doesn't know, I'd have to do that anyway.”

“I think my reputation will bear up under scrutiny. You plan to be equally careful when you select the other members of the party?”

Tyre nodded. But she seemed distracted.

“What else is bothering you?” Alex asked.

“I was just wondering if that's what they say about me—that I have no interest in dominance and submission.”

Alex shook her head. “You wanna know everything they say about you, we can sit here all day and I still won't be done.” Her eyes had gone cold, calculating. “What the fuck does it matter to you? You're not exactly working for commission.”

“I just get sick of being the object of so much gossip. It's ostensibly a form of attention, but it actually makes me feel slighted and ignored. Because what people are really paying attention to are their own fantasies, their own needs, their own ideas about who or what I should be in relation to them. They have no idea what the Calyx means to me, why I do this, what keeps me going. And they don't care.”

“How could they ever get to know you? You're a very private lady. You have a huge fan club of adoring little baby dykes, but you keep 'em away with the color of your money and your Snow Queen attitude. The ninjas and cat-ladies you got workin' for you are a buncha hard-core bodyguards.”

“I have to be very careful to protect my privacy. Because you know what happens when women find out something about me that doesn't agree with their fantasies, their projections? They get angry. And there's nothing more dangerous than a disappointed fan. If you have enough of them you'll never be safe.”

“You're soundin' kind of paranoid. Makes me wonder how come you invited me up to lunch like we were just small-town neighbors.”

“I do get lonely. And once you've seen a whole warehouse full of women fucking and sucking every night for a year of two, it gets old. The individual acquires a new kind of satisfaction. But you're right, trust is an issue. That's why we're talking about whether or not the Calyx of Isis is going to provide a venue for your fantasy. Because I'm not sure I trust you.”

“Well, I'll just have to teach you to trust me.”

“How do you plan to do that ?”

Tyre stood as Alex came around the table toward her. She was used to butch women assuming she was their natural prey. And equally used to fending off their moves, even while a part of her admired their self-assurance, their deviant and defiant beauty. But Alex wanted something else. Just as she wanted to test Roxanne's mettle before giving her rings, she was testing Tyre before giving her the task of setting up this gang-bang. She would stop dead in her tracks if Tyre told her to, but she would also take her fantasy out the door. If it ever happened, Tyre wouldn't be invited.

They circled the table, Alex stalking her, until Tyre suddenly reversed direction and speeded up. Alex jumped away from her and the table, and Tyre backed slowly into the kitchenette.

“Those boots have steel toes?” she asked Alex.

“Sure.”

“So do my high heels,” Tyre said. “Damascus steel. So decorative.” Alex spared a quick look at her feet. It was true. Then Tyre threw a side-kick at her, and she saw that the spike heels were also made out of steel. The skin-tight, hot-pink jumpsuit did not hamper her opponent at all. Alex parried the kick and punched. Her fist was blocked by a hard forearm. They sparred enough to make each other breathe hard, get a sweat to pop up. Somehow they wound up with their hands on each other's hips, pressed together from the waist down, staring at each other's mouths and eyes. When Tyre's hand went for the zipper on her jacket, Alex reached for the neck of her jumpsuit and there were two simultaneous ripping noises as they each exposed the other's torso.

Alex did not wear anything under the jacket, and Tyre was bare beneath the spandex. Their breasts were nearly the same size. If anything, Alex's were bigger, and the feel of her hard nipple between Tyre's slim fingers made her grab for a similar target. She came up with metal as well as flesh. There were small silver rings in Tyre's nipples.

“You're sweating,” Tyre grinned. “Brings out the smell of the leather. Or is that cunt? Shall I bring it out a little more? So we can tell?”

She twisted the nipple a quarter-turn, crushed it. Alex grinned at her and judiciously applied exactly the same amount of pressure to the teat she held, then twisted it past that point. “Gonna tell me you don't sweat, you glow?” she asked Tyre. “Looks like sweat to me. Looks good on you, like maybe you're working hard for a change.”

“I don't mind working hard, and I don't think you mind my being hard on you. You like this,” Tyre accused her, getting a grip on the other nipple and stretching them both out, until Alex saw tiny white stars.

“I like
this
,” Alex affirmed, and returned the hurt worse, until their hips slid past each other and their thighs interlocked, the long bone of the leg and the muscle over it pressed into the other woman's mound, pushing the sensitive, swollen tissue back down until it flattened against the pubic bone. Hard and soft, hard and soft, their hands played on each other's bodies, and they rocked in each other's arms, seeking advantage, grappling. It was a kind of wrestling with no attempt to throw, but a quest for domination nonetheless. They both yelped at the same moment, but not from the pain of well-manipulated nipples. Their thighs separated momentarily, startled by the intensity of this pleasure, and its brevity.

They groped for each other's crotches. The sound of Tyre's zipper was a long, continuous wail punctuated with a few sharp snaps as Alex's studded crotch-piece was pulled off and dropped on the floor.

“You're wet,” Alex said.

“Thirsty?” Tyre spit.

“Empty, too,” Alex said, and fixed that. But Tyre had already thrust home between her legs, and they were both wet to the wrist.

“You can't keep that up,” Tyre said, fucking her, “you can't keep it up while you—”

“While I make you come? Is that what you were gonna say? Because it's not gonna take me that long to—”

“Lose it, give it up, you can't help it—”

“But I can help you, help you over the edge. Tell me you don't want it.”

Tyre's entire free hand fell onto Alex's breast and squeezed it, hard. “Show me how tough you are,” she hissed, “big leather stud, such a goddamn big girl, can you take it, can you?”

They could not get away from each other, could barely keep on their feet. As Alex retaliated by flicking Tyre's nipples, their mouths met and they swallowed the noise of a mutual surrender, predatory but also protective.

Then they were on the floor. Tyre climbed on top of Alex, split her legs, and ate her with fast hard strokes, trying to get to her before Alex could thrust her own head between Tyre's legs and bully her into coming again. Her head start only lasted a few seconds. She slapped Alex's thighs, dug her nails in to try and make her stop, and got her own ass smacked in retaliation, her pussy lips pulled so far apart that they ached, which made her actually bite Alex, or did she bite Alex because she was coming or because Alex was coming and had abruptly shoved her hips into Tyre's face?

They rolled apart laughing, embarrassed but also proud of themselves. “Is
that
supposed to make me trust you?” Tyre wondered.

“Might make me follow you home, but
trust
you? Shit.”

Alex sat up, rubbed her head. “Aren't you going to ask me if I came?”

“Uh, no, I never ask them that. Beneath my dignity, don'tcha know.”

“Ah, yes, that's very top of you. But I'm so top that I don't even try to make them come.”

“Bull—”

“—shit, yeah, it is. It sure is.”

“But this isn't,” Tyre said, and had Alex back down on the floor, with the heel of her shoe in the hollow of her throat. Alex's head was turned to one side, and the sole of the shoe rested on her cheek. “Why do you think I walk around on a pair of knives? This is no fashion statement, darling. Do you know how much it cost me to get my sensei to let me do my katas in these? I had to put a new floor in the dojo. You ever try that shit with me again, and we'll fight for real.”

Alex's face was suffused with purple. She was taking a lot of Tyre's weight directly on her throat, and Tyre was not a small woman. As soon as the foot came off her face, before she even sat up, her hand darted inside her jacket.

“This what you're looking for?” Tyre said, and threw the knife point-down into the floor by her right hand. “Pretty fancy toy, that CIA plastic that won't set off a metal detector. Security and I are going to have a little chat. If the guard on duty is somebody you ever fucked, she is about to get royally screwed by me.”

Alex had plucked the knife from the linoleum and slid it home in the sheath under her armpit, without looking, of course. Tyre smiled at that. Weapons are so beautiful in competent women's hands.

“I don't go anywhere unarmed,” Alex said bluntly. “And if I had pulled that blade, you wouldn't have anybody to blame but yourself. You threw the first kick, remember?”

“And what would you have done if I let you pounce on me as soon as you were done with dessert, huh? Have me over the table and next thing I know my stuff is all over town, that you had a piece of my ass, might come back for more if you get in the mood? I don't think so.”

“Pity,” Alex said softly. “It was only a little tussle, good clean fun between a couple of serious players. Next thing I know it's time to hand down indictments and interview a jury. Lighten up, for Chrissake. Who had who? Who won? Do you know? I sure the fuck don't. And I don't care. Life is too short.”