Macho Sluts (21 page)

Neither of them could think of anything else to say. They just glared.

“I want this gig,” Tyre said finally. “I want to run this trip for you.”

“Okay, fine. But before you change the subject lemme just say that you got rings in your tits, Tyre, and if you really thought you had to apologize for bein' human, maybe you oughta take 'em out.”

“They are
my
rings, and I wear them for my own good reasons. They are not coming out. I have too much scar tissue as it is. And you ought to mind your own damn business.”

“Oh, but I never could mind anybody at all. But I keep looking. That's how I got most of my own scars. How about you?”

“Stop it.”

“Sure. I'll stop. Just remember who cried uncle.”

Then Alex was gone. Tyre's hands were shaking too bad to do anything but break the dishes she tried to stack in the sink, so she broke several on purpose, smashing them against the exposed brick in the kitchen. By the time she had cleaned that mess up, she felt better, but knew the rest of the day was shot to hell. So she used the interoffice phone to buzz Georgia and Simba, and told them to fire the security guard who had not frisked Alex, and got Michael on the car phone to let her know she needed the limo. During the long drive home, she thought about asking Michael to fuck her. Instead, she wound up listening to her driver describe her conquest of Sara. Tyre opened her own door, slammed it, stomped into the house, took off her clothes, laid down on the front hall carpet and masturbated, then went upstairs, changed into her leathers without bothering to take a shower first, and went out to hunt for the wolf-pack of women who would help Alex decide if Roxanne belonged to her or on the streets.

Tyre didn't hear from Alex for three weeks. Out of spite more than anything else, she instituted a once-a-week festival of gay male porn films and was surprised and disappointed when it filled up the house. “No accounting for taste,” she told Georgia, who gave her a strange look and said, “What's good taste got to do with the price of ben-wa balls in Hong Kong, boss? You need a vacation or a new hat or something?”

She thought yeah, I need something, but couldn't quite figure out what it was until one day the phone rang just as she was about to dump out a mug of cold tea and leave the office.

“Tyre? Alex.” Two words, and the edge on that voice ran up and down her spine. Old butterflies came back to life in Tyre's stomach.

“Yes?” The word came out in a whoosh. She was suddenly out of breath.

“Things moved along any since I last saw you?”

“Well, as a matter of fact, yes.” Tyre smiled at her reflection in the mirror on the opposite wall. She had done a good job with this, she had a right to be a little proud. “We can run that trip for you any time you like.”

Alex whistled. “That was fast. Can I get a thumbnail sketch of your crew?”

“I know you said you didn't want anyone there who Roxanne knows. But Anne-Marie has asked for permission to join us. She says she would like to help give Roxanne a going-away party to remember.”

“Mmm. I just thought the presence of strangers would make it much more intense. Isn't Anne-Marie into all that frilly Victorian stuff? The evening I envisioned was more, uh, heavy metal.”

“Anne-Marie's specialty is caning. If anything, Roxanne's prior experience with her will make her more intimidating, not less. She is also a lady, and a real lady is appropriate in any circumstances. I think she will be an asset. And she promised me she would leave her corsets at home.”

“I trust your judgment. You're the madam.”

There was no hint of irony in Alex's voice. Were they both going to pretend they had never lost their tempers with one another? Well, maybe that was the best strategy. Tyre took a deep breath and went on. “Then there's Joyous Day, the photographer. You know her? She had a show at Quotidian Gallery last month.”

“Yeah, we went to see her stuff. So she does more than take pictures of it, huh?”

“Oh, yes.” Tyre rubbed a yellowing bruise high up on her left buttock. “She poses her own models. And there's Kay and EZ, two women who usually hang out at men's bars. Bikers.”

“Are they into women?”

“They're into each other. When they heard about this, they jumped at the chance. They haven't met many women who dig their scene. They usually pick on cute little faggots. They get these boys totally wasted and then drag them home and make them earn their red hankies. Think Roxanne will look good in red?” There was a long silence. “Alex? You there?”

“Yeah, just counting. So that makes five, with me. I really would like to round up a few more. To make it genuinely scary, you know?”

“Oh, I haven't given you the whole list yet. Do you know Chris— um, Chris what-is-it, yeah, McPherson? She plays drums for Mutilation.”

“Great. Then all we need is one more top, and we're set.”

Tyre's throat was very dry. She took a big swallow of cold tea, gagged, and blurted, “No, we don't. There's me.”

The laughter she dreaded did not materialize. “No shit?” Alex finally said. “Does that mean you're not pissed off at my any more?”

“There's no reason to be pissed at you, and I think maybe I owe you an apology.”

“Naw. If I let you apologize you'll be pissed for sure. I'm real glad to hear you're going to be there. I was planning to keep on saying ‘We need one more top' until you included yourself in.”

“You cocksucker,” Tyre sputtered, laughing.

“You should be so lucky. So is this why this whole thing pulled itself together so quickly, 'cause the madam wants to see my girlfriend get thrown to the lions?”

“Well, to be truthful, yes. The idea of it excites me tremendously.” And it means I get to see you again, she told herself silently.

“Great, great, fabulous. God, I don't know how I would have come up with another excuse to see you again.”

Damn the woman and her ingenuous honesty. But Alex was still talking.

“I am so jazzed, I can barely stand still. Best news I've had all year. Well, okay, let's schedule this deal. What about next Saturday? That give you enough time to round everybody up, hey?”

“Well, it would be, but Mama Kali, the Denver bike club, has scheduled a run for that weekend. I don't think you want to string Roxanne up in the middle of that crew.”

“Maybe for our first anniversary. If we ever have one. So when is the space available?”

Tyre checked her desk calendar. “The first weekend of next month. And after that it isn't free again until June.”

“Okay. That's it, then. What time should I bring her by?”

“Why don't I send my driver, Michael, around for you at nine o'clock? Put Roxanne in a hood and manacles. If you like, I've got a mummy bag you can zip her into. Or you can just throw a cloak around her and stuff her into the back seat of the limo. Michael will give you enough lead time to get here on your bike. That way, Roxanne won't know where she's going or whether or not you are going with her. When Michael arrives, she can call me on the car phone. There's a back entrance to the basement so we won't have to carry her in through the main floor. The disco bunnies would pass out en masse.”

“Aw, c'mon. It would be so good for them.”

“Look, they have a right to their own version of a good time. Leather and vanilla don't mix real well. I'm not very fond of 69 myself—“

“Yeah?” Alex said dryly.

“Except in the context of dominance and submission, you bitch, and if I was about to come in my girlfriend's sweet little mouth, I wouldn't want to be interrupted by a series of harrowing screams or the sound of a belt hitting a bare butt. Look, don't worry, this is going to be notorious, all right? The rumors are already circulating. We're going to have to post Simba at the head of the stairs with a cattle prod to keep the voyeurs from using a battering ram on the dungeon door.”

“The first weekend of next month, huh? How am I going to keep myself busy in between now and then?”

“Well, I know what I'm going to be doing. I'm going to be taking each of the dominatrices on a tour of the dungeon we'll be using, showing them how all the bondage equipment works. It wouldn't hurt for you to get more familiar with the premises, either.”

Alex's voice went shy. “Oh. Yeah. Well, I been already. Last weekend. You, uh, you weren't there I don't think. So you wouldn't know. That I was there. You know?”

“Oh, ah, no, I didn't, shit, um, know you were here. Well, god-dammit, why didn't you tell me? I would have brought you down some champagne.”

“For some reason the security guards didn't seem to be too fond of me, and I didn't think any of them would do me the favor of taking you a personal message.”

“Oh. Of course not. Damn. Well, I guess I'll see you for sure anyway the first weekend of—”

“Next month. Yeah. Story of my life. But be still my heart, it should be a good one. Get lotsa beauty sleep.”

“I promise.”

Perhaps it was the guided tours of the dungeons, which kept turning into auditions or dress rehearsals for Alex's scene, which made it easy for Tyre to keep her promise. She slept very well during the interregnum. In fact, she got so used to standing around in the dungeon, wearing full leather, waiting for someone to show up, that she barely registered the fact that this was it, the big night, the main event, until Alex strode in—an immaculate black knight in her racing jacket, codpiece pants, and engineer boots—counted heads, and said, “Who the fuck is missing? What did they do, call in sick?”

Kay and EZ came swaggering in right behind her. They were dressed the same way they had been when Tyre tracked them down on Folsom Street. EZ wore black-leather chaps over 501s that had faded and faded until they were nearly white. Her motorcycle jacket was off the rack, no customization, and she wore a plain white T-shirt underneath it. Her black hair was very short, spiked out, and had platinum stripes bleached into it above and just behind her ears. She was thin and butch enough to look like a young, very cute, boy-punk. This made her a perfect piece of bait for Kay to throw into the shark-bars South of Market.

Kay was a little older and more feminine. The blue jeans under her chaps were a bit newer than EZ's, a pale blue instead of white. She had put a navy-blue rinse over her long, dark hair, and it showed in certain angles of the light. She wore a lot of tooled silver rings, hippie-looking things, which she loved to take off one at a time while a prospective victim stared at her hands in dread and fascination. Her jacket was virtually identical to EZ's, but she had tied a red bandana around her left upper arm, whereas EZ wore a chain dog collar threaded under her left epaulet. Her T-shirt was made out of black ciré, and her boots had high heels instead of a plain cowboy walking heel. She made up for that by wearing Mexican spurs with long rowels.

“Sorry we're late,” EZ snickered. “We hadda see a man about a horse.”

Alex kicked the door closed behind them. Her countenance was stormy. Of course, the telephone picked that moment to ring. Tyre intercepted Alex, who was headed for Kay and EZ with her hand upraised, and dragged her over to the phone. She kept an arm around her while she talked.

Alex rubbed her face and velvety scalp all over the front of Tyre's jacket, trying to calm down. Finally she pulled away enough to get a good look at her. Tyre was wearing a red-leather leotard with her trademark long crotch zipper under black chaps made of glove leather. Over that she wore a black-leather jacket with long, red fringes that swirled around her whenever she moved. Her high-heeled boots came up to her knees, and the tops turned down to reveal scarlet cuffs.

Tyre moved one of her long, rhinestone earrings out of the way and put the receiver up to her ear. “Drive around for a while,” she told Michael. If she remembered correctly, today the chauffeur was wearing Marine Corps dress blues. Too bad Roxanne couldn't get a gander at that. “We need some time to get acquainted. I'll call you when you should deliver the goods.” Then she told Alex, “It won't hurt to let Roxanne stew for a little while. Give her a chance to get into the spirit of the thing. Now come and meet your partners in sex crime.”

But EZ didn't wait to be introduced. “So you need a little help with an uppity slave?” she yelled at Alex.

Alex frowned. “I wouldn't put it that way,” she said carefully.

“How would you put it?”

“Up your ass!” Alex snarled.

“Whoa—now, wait a minute! Where's all this hostility at? Didn't mean to, uh, demean your competence—you know? Really, man, let's change the subject. How's the weather up there where you hang out? Got a wild hair up your ass or maybe just up your nose?”

“Shit, EZ,” Kay grumbled, “you got a big smart fuckin' mouth, you know that, girl?”

“Aw, Kay—“

“Just shut up, now, or I swear I'll handcuff you to this bar and you'll spend all night gettin' other people's beers and lightin' their Virginia Slims. Alex don't need any help from us, schmuck. She's givin' us a crack at something good, that's all. Chance to fraternize with the competition. Keep your edge on. Thought we might learn a few new tricks, ain't that right?”

Alex was relaxing visibly under Kay's carnival con-artist patter. “Something like that,” she admitted. “Tyre, would you like a drink?”

“Yes,” she said. Alex picked up a shot-glass. “Sherry,” she specified. Alex put the glass down.

“Yo, bro, lemme behind the board. Next round is on me. I need a brewski anyways,” said EZ, and scooted around to play bartender. Kay co-opted the stool at the far end of the bar, pulled a Whitman Sampler box full of sinsemilla buds out of her bag, and began rolling one-handed joints out of the shake.

Tyre tapped her long red fingernails against the bar. Would the group gel the way she had envisioned it? Since Kay and EZ were question marks right now, she decided to focus attention on the other dominatrices. “Ladies and Others,” she said, “I would like to thank all of you for joining us tonight. And I would like to introduce you to Alex, who initiated this delightful evening. The Founder of the Feast, as it were. Why don't I introduce you to each of them, Alex, and then possibly you'd like to tell us what we can expect from Roxanne and what you expect from us.”