Sex for America: Politically Inspired Erotica (20 page)

“I’m so happy to see you. You look beautiful, like movie star. Sit down,” he says. I sit, and he sits beside me and takes my hand. His palms are moist and there are beads of sweat on his fore- head.

“There’s more of you,” I say. “What happened, did you buy a candy store or become friends with a South American drug lord?”

“Do you think I am stupid?” he asks. “If you mean cocaine, that’s a bad drug. I always avoid it. I developed a thyroid problem. It runs in my family. Now there is more of me to love. You want a chocolate, with whipped cream?” he asks.

“All right,” I say.

“How was the festival? Did you get a big audience for your reading?” he wants to know. He listens as I talk. His hands are clean and he even had a manicure. He wears a fine gray silk shirt and, despite his bulk, looks quite distinguished, like a young Orson Wells. Our hot chocolates arrive piled with

thick whipped cream. It tastes so sweet. I think of Jan shoot- ing his rich come all over my breasts. He moves his leg against mine under the table, “I hope you still find me attractive. I hope this,” he says, patting his stomach, “doesn’t discourage you.”

“No,” I say, “I’ll still think you’re cute even if you get as big as an elephant.”

“Good,” he says, grinning. “Maybe later I will let you rub my trunk.”

“Do you still see Purple Tulip? Are you still friends,” I ask. “Does she still do the same job?”

“Yes to all three,” Jan answers. “You see, our mothers know each other since high school. Maybe you are ready to visit her?”

“Maybe,” I say in a whisper. Suddenly I feel embarrassed. I change the subject, mention the demonstrators in Dam Square. Jan’s expression darkens.

“What do you expect when you go to war for oil, when you elect a liar for a president?” His voice rises. “Now he is a mur- derer, a war criminal. He should be assassinated.”

“Whoa, whoa,” I reply, “We didn’t elect him. The Supreme Court gave him the election.”

“Exactly,” he cries, almost yelling now, “and you Americans sat around watching football. Why not rise up, demonstrate, stop paying taxes?” I knew how right he was but I didn’t want to get into a fight with him. “I agree,” I said, “but who could have antici- pated what was happening? We were in shock.”

“Fools,” he says. He grabs the cup in front of him and drinks his chocolate down in one gulp, leaving specks of whipped cream around his mouth.

“I feel worse than you do, believe me,” I say. “Let’s try to keep our spirits up. Shall we smoke?” He doesn’t answer, just sits there fuming.

Finally, he looks up, gives me half a smile. “Okay,” he says, “we will change perspective.” He calls the waiter to bring over the menu. “Will it be hashish or marijuana?” he asks. We decide on Blue Mountain Thai Stick. I roll a perfect oval joint.

Jan moves his chair closer to mine, lights the joint with the match from the pack on the table. He holds it first to my lips then to his. He puts one heavy hand on my knee. Blue smoke envelops us and then we are walking on a blue beach beside a blue ocean. Jan kneels in front of me, pulls my skirt up and my panties down. He cups my ass in his hands and pulls me closer. He parts my cunt hair with his blue tongue, traces a path to the top of my slit, finds my clit, which is al- ready hard as a pearl. He sucks and sucks it; his hands cradle my ass as gentle blue waves wash about us. When I come, I cry blue tears.

I wipe the salty brine from my eyes and then I am back with Jan at our table. My hand is inside Jan’s trousers, while his hand has found it’s way beneath my skirt. The waiter and the man who tends the counter in the back are chatting quietly. A few tables away two priests share a hash pipe. Jan leans over, kisses me on the forehead.

“You want to come to my place tonight?” he asks. “Oh, yes,” I say.

I put on a short skirt so Jan can admire my legs and a scoop- neck blouse so he can see the tops of my breasts. I hear a slurred male voice right outside my door say, “She told me I was the best

fuck she ever had, the best fuck in her whole life. She asked me, please, please, come back again tonight.”

I walk up to Central Station and take the number eleven bus to Jan’s flat in Java Plein.

I knock on Jan’s door.

He opens it after a few minutes, naked except for a big white towel knotted around his waist. He is so heavy he looks ready to tip over. I tell myself to think positive. He is a nice man. I can trust him.

“Come in, come in,” he says. “I just got back from my of- fice late. I was in the shower. Pardon my formal attire.” I follow him into his living room, a pleasant oasis filled with plants and antiques. “Sit down,” he says. “I will bring drinks,” then he goes into the kitchen.

I sit on the big maroon sofa and put my bag on the coffee table in front of me.

Jan returns, carrying a tray holding a bottle of wine, two glasses, a dish piled with black olives. He puts the tray on the cof- fee table.

“I remember you like Reisling,” he says as he pours me a glass. “Now for music, some Brubeck?” he asks, but doesn’t give me a chance to answer, just slips the disk into the CD player and goes back down the hall to his bedroom.

He returns wearing a pair of beige trousers and a white shirt big as a tent. He is holding a small foil-wrapped package in his hand.

“You look so lovely sitting there,” he says, “like a little flower, a daisy.” I didn’t like being compared to a daisy, such a placid Pol- lyanna flower.

He sinks down beside me and puts the foil packet on the cof- fee table.

“Now,” he says, “since we haven’t seen each other in so long, a special celebration is in order. I got for us some of our famous Amsterdam space cake.”

Jan unwraps the cake from the foil. “Here,” he says, breaking off a piece and holding it to my lips, “have a taste.”

It tastes like the honey cake my grandmother used to bake on Rosh Hashanah, sweet and mealy. We feed the cake to each other bit by bit, washing it down with wine. Jan puts his roly- poly arm along the back of the couch. I nest into his body, un- button his shirt. A great, big cloud, all white and puffy, falls out. It grows, surrounding my face, my whole body, like a soft cushion. I float within this billowing white; Jan is there, too, his clothes gone. We are suspended in the cloud, floating together. Jan drifts below me. I reach out to him and my fingers fall on his swollen club. It grows larger and larger until it just pops out of my hand. I can feel the heat of it moving across my ass as it grows even hotter, like a desert wind, a sirocco. The pointy tip jabs into my crack. I pull away, my butt hole contracting, closing. The last time we tried this, Jan lubed me up with half a stick of margarine, and even though I was no stranger to back-door sex, I started to bleed. We had to stop.

Now Jan reaches up to my face. He has a capsule in his hand and he breaks it right under my nose.

“Breathe in, breathe deep,” he says, and then his huge joint slides into me. I hear a tearing sound and feel a tingling sensation but no pain. As he moves deeper into my belly, Jan keeps murmur-

ing something in my ear. I strain to hear him. “I fuck you in the ass, America,” he whispers. Even in my spacey state, I can’t believe what he is saying.

“What was that? What did you say?” I ask him. “Fuck you, America, fuck you America,” he hisses, pumping harder and harder. Now I can feel him hurting me. I smell blood. I try to pull my body away but cannot move. I am skewered on a burning spit. His teeth are sharp on my neck and then he bites down, piercing my skin. I scream as he shoots bolts of fire into me. There are searing flames everywhere; every cell in my body is consumed and then it is dark.

When I open my eyes, my head is on Jan’s leg. He is sleeping, snoring through his nose. My neck aches from where he bit me and my butt hole burns. I look down and see blood all over my thighs. I put my hand in my ass and bring it out covered with blood.

Carefully, I peel myself off him. I remember what Jan said and, briefly, wonder if I could have imagined it, but I know I did not. I’m so woozy I can barely stand, but I manage to totter to the bathroom. I shut the door and sit down on the toilet.

The seat feels comforting against my burning flesh. I want to find a washcloth, hold it against the bleeding to make it stop. I open a drawer in the cabinet beneath the sink and see a box of tal- cum powder and a bottle of mouthwash. I pull out the drawer next to it and find a sandwich bag filled with little chunks of what looks like rock candy. I have seen this “candy” before; it is crack cocaine. Beside it are some plastic bags of white powder. The drawer also holds a glass pipe, a rectangular mirror, a mat knife—all you need to enter a fool’s paradise.

I slam the drawer shut. So much for trust. I open the drawer below and find the cloths I am looking for. I pick one up, hop- ing I can grab my clothes and get out while Jan is still sleeping. It is already too late. He steps into the bathroom, grinning like a Cheshire cat.

“So,” he asks, “do you like our Dutch space cake—but, my lit- tle darling, what are you doing sitting on the toilet? Meditating?” I nod my head, unable to speak. I spread my legs and lift my body so he can see the blood coming from my ass. He is instantly solicitous; he takes the cloth from my hand, opens another drawer,

gets out Mercurochrome, Band-Aids.

“There,” he says, after staunching the bleeding and cleaning and dressing the cut, “now you are fine.” He pulls me to my feet. “I have something else for you, a surprise I know you will like.” He starts pulling me down the hall toward his bedroom.

“Wait,” I say, “I just remembered, I have to go back to my hotel. I have to call my father in Maryland. He’s expecting my call, he’s—”

Jan tightens his grip on my wrists. “You can call him from here,” he says. He is stronger than and I am, an iron force, and he pulls me into the bedroom.

“You will like this, trust me, it will be fun,” he says.

Purple Tulip is lying on the paisley quilt that covers Jan’s bed. She is naked except for the garland of purple flowers around the stump of her arm. She is reading a
Seventeen
magazine, which she puts down as we enter the room.

“Hello,” she says and smiles. Close up she does not look beau- tiful. Her skin is pocked; her eyes are blank and yellow. She is miss- ing a front tooth, and her smile is rigid, as if stitched on to her face.

Jan pushes me forward from the back, “What are you afraid of?” he says. “Go to her, go say hello.”

I feel like I’m moving quicker than the speed of light as I whirl, duck under his arm, and rush back down the hall. He is startled, hesitates a second before he turns and starts to lumber after me. He catches his foot on the edge of the rug, trips, and falls to the floor, crashing in a big puddle of flesh.

I grab up my things as Jan calls out, “American cow! Cow- ard!” but nothing he can say has the power to hurt me now. I fly out the door and down the stairs. I pause in the vestibule, pull on my clothes and shoes.

The night is clear and warm. At least I managed to escape with only a cut-up ass. Not another soul is about, but the smell of ganja hangs in the air, mixed with something else: the scent of an exotic spice, cardamom or coriander. The strains of klezmer music drift out an open window. There are no stars in the sky but there is plenty of light as I walk toward the bus stop under an Amsterdam full moon.

MILK
‌

MICHELLE RICHMOND

How they come to her, one by one, in the forest of their cho
- sen exile. It is a time of drought of both the physical and spiritual varieties—a lack of water and maternal love. She is a modern day Rose-of-Sharon, proffering her swollen breasts to grown men in need. Their tribe believes that soldiers who have drunk from the breast of a white woman are invincible in battle. Their tribe op- poses the encroachment of a foreign government on sacred land, the destruction of trees, the plundering of rivers.

She can almost see their point—almost. But there are, she be- lieves, greater things at stake: democracy, progress, the very rush of modernity.

She is not of their tribe, but they have invited her in. They

have a name for her that cannot be translated into English. There are twenty-eight fighters in this encampment. Often, soldiers visit from other camps. At night, in pairs, they come to her, naked ex- cept for an amulet they wear around their necks. They shave their heads before nursing, so that each man is bald as a babe.