Stripped Down (7 page)

“I can't do this,” I said, crying. “I'm not ready.”

 

Breakups spur change. You know, people do stuff like cut their hair or move across the country. Me? I wanted to change jobs. After three years at university, I'd dropped out and gotten work at an art gallery. Still there seven years later, it was wearing thin for me, dealing with the same shit daily. Yuppies buying Inuit art. Yuppies buying abstract art. Yuppies buying something a little daring.

About a week after Katie's visit, I was once again scanning the classifieds for a new position. As usual there wasn't much unless you aspired to be a babysitter, but finally in the right-hand corner I spotted it—a want ad for an assistant manager at Between the Lines bookstore. The very same shop where Jacqueline worked.

For a moment I just sat there grinning with my coffee growing cold. Then I jumped up to find Katie's number. I had a lot of things to do. I had the perfect revenge to execute.

 

The following evening I showed my hairdresser a picture of a seventeen-year-old skater boy and said I wanted his hair. My hairdresser, who had known me and my femme ways for years, clutched at my long locks—drama queen shock written on his face. “I'm serious,” I said, and I was. I'd spent hours milking Katie for information on Jacqueline's turn-ons, and now I intended to live up to all of them—including the short hair.

Since I hadn't wanted Katie to know what I was up to, it
had been complicated getting information out of her. I'd had to pretend I wanted to know intimate details because I was nursing an obsessive jealousy for Jacqueline and, as a kind of give and take, I'd had to dole out similar information about Tori. Ultimately, the trouble I'd taken had been worth it. I now knew, for example, that Tori was not the ideal lover for Jacqueline, as Jacqueline liked both getting fucked and fucking. I knew there was no way Tori let Jacqueline strap it on or slip a finger in, but
I
was more than ready to play those games. To do anything, really.

Just about finished, the hairdresser's razor hummed against my neck and his scissors snipped at a few rogue strands. I looked at my hair lying in clumps on the tiled floor. Then I looked in the mirror and sucked my teeth. Fuck, I wanted to blow a kiss to that sexy butch looking back at me. This was going to work. All I had to do was get the job and buy the cologne Jacqueline loved—the one Katie couldn't stand and had always refused to wear.

 

Two weeks later it was my first day at Between the Lines and the manager was showing me the ropes—giving me the grand tour, introducing me to the staff. Everything was going well, but I was nervous knowing Jacqueline could be anywhere and that at any moment she could spring out like a pop-up monster in a children's book. As chance would have it, however, I had nothing to worry about—I was the one who popped out at her. The manager and I rounded the magazine rack and there she was, kneeling in front of the philosophy section with her back to us. “Jacqueline,” the manager said, clearing his throat. “I'd like to introduce you to Kelly.”

From her place on the floor, Jacqueline slowly looked up at
me—her easy smile first playing over my boots and then up and up until she met my eyes and the happy curve of her lips was lopped off, sliced up by three huge shocks. One, we were face to face for the first time since she'd stolen my girlfriend. Two, henceforth she'd have to deal with me daily. And three, I didn't look the way she remembered.

Fortunately, by this point so many people had expressed shock over my new look that I'd learned to shrug that off. Tracy, for instance, had told me such quick comfort in a 180-degree turn meant I didn't know my own true identity—a bullshit line, I concluded, meant to conceal her own fear. The very human fear of gray. Of worlds colliding. Of categories blurring. Yes, people want tidy distinctions. Butch or femme. Hot or cold. Love or hate. Villain or victim. And so it was making people very nervous to see me with short hair. To hear me say I'd always had butch and femme sides and that the butch had just been waiting to learn how to swagger.

But Jacqueline's look of bewilderment had various sources, not just the butch thing—and so it was a zillion times harder for her than for others. That's what I was thinking, anyway, when the book she'd been trying to shelve slipped from her fingers and fell to the floor with a thud.

The manager's gaze flicked in a triangle from me to Jacqueline to the book, which lay pages spread. Spine arched. “Have you two met before?” he asked.

 

Jacqueline avoided me for weeks, but it wasn't wasted time. I was studying her and our game by spending a few minutes of every shift in the hunting and fishing section. I'd open a random book to a random page and I'd read until I found some nugget of advice I needed, and in that way I learned how to
circle in slowly, how to interpret every gesture—the tilt of her head, the flick of her hair. And I learned when to start reeling in.

“Jacqueline,” I said one afternoon when all the signs were right and we were alone in the staff room. “We should talk.” She had a peach in one hand and a book in the other and instead of putting them down she gripped them tighter, apparently not noticing the trail of peach juice that dripped down her fingers and all the way to her wrist. I licked my lips and sat down across from her.

“You obviously aren't comfortable around me,” I began. “But I'm not at all mad at you.”

“No?” she said, her voice lifted in hope.

“No—you did me a favor. Things weren't working between Tori and me. I couldn't be myself with her…. The two of you, on the other hand—you make sense together.”

Afraid of sounding smarmy, I paused then and looked at Jacqueline, trying to read her. The corners of her lips were beginning to curl up into their natural position and her blue eyes were so wide open the fringes of her lashes were forced vertical. She'd put down her book and fruit and she now seemed on the verge of clasping her hands together. Yes, she was buying it. And of course she was, I thought, gaining confidence. She wanted nothing more than to have her guilty conscience soothed.

We talked until the microwave clock said 1:28 and I reminded her that we had better get back to work. “But let's have a hug first,” I said when we were both standing.

Without hesitation Jacqueline threw her arms around my neck, showing me how everything about her was deliciously soft—the crush of her breasts against mine, the tickle of her
angora sweater, even the fuzzy smell of peach on her fingers. I realized I was going to enjoy fucking her for more than just the ironic revenge of it and in the same instant she realized she was attracted to me. I could tell by of the way she instinctively touched the back of my neck, then quickly stiffened.

I don't know what it was Jacqueline liked about me—the hair, the cologne, the lean press of my bones, or something else altogether. Maybe something perverse like curiosity about where her lover had been. All I know is that hug marked the beginning of months of seduction. Months of standing too close, of double entendre, of private jokes. I remember once being inches away from her in the storeroom. Hemmed in by books, yes, but mostly that close just because we wanted to be. Jacqueline had her face turned up to me and her lips parted, ready to be kissed. I leaned in like I was going to oblige her and then I quickly turned away. My mouth was watering for her, too, but I knew it was better this way, better to make her wait until wanting crushed her guilt, made her reckless. And it was another month before she was that hopelessly ensnared and an opportunity arose—dished up in fact by Tori, who forgot to pick her up one night.

“Jacqueline, it's dark and wet out there,” I said. “Let me drive you home.”

 

The streetlight in front of their apartment cast a weird orange glow over everything in the car, while their living room window was a perfect black rectangle with no one home. I locked all the doors with the press of a button, turned off the ignition, and let my thigh brush hers. “You aren't going anywhere,” I said, jingling the keys, flashing my best demonic smile.

She playfully grabbed for the keys but I whisked them
behind my back. Then she flung her arms around my waist, pressing into me, and continued trying to snatch them. Now her face was inches from mine and I couldn't resist. Loving the risk of it, the possibility of Tori showing up at any minute, I leaned in and kissed her—a sweet, soft kiss that left me wanting more bite. I pulled away and handed her the cold metal teeth. “I can't believe you fell for that,” I sneered. “It's the oldest trick in the school yard.”

Jacqueline's face fogged into bewilderment, then darkened into pissed off—just what we needed for something more savage. We kissed again and this time began humping with the urgency of dogs, so hard I thought her slit would strip me of my skin, grind down my bones. I wanted to hurt her, I wanted to make her come and I no longer knew the line between those extremes. I jacked up her skirt and drove my fingers in.

Her cunt was slick, yet it clamped on to my knuckles with the strength of a snake crushing a mouse in its guts. I rammed harder, slithering to my knees between the dashboard and the passenger seat. I flicked my tongue on her clit—once, twice, three times, felt her shudder and pound her fist into my back. Then I pulled away. Looked down at her shaved pussy—a cleft moon in the night.

“Let's go to your place,” she said, her voice throaty like I'd never heard it before.

 

After that Jacqueline and I fucked everywhere. In my car like the hard line of the seats didn't exist, like we couldn't ride too fast. In my bed with all the nasty irony of using Tori's cocks. And even in the store—in the staff bathroom during breaks and between the shelves after hours.

Jacqueline talked about leaving Tori for me, but wanting more, I put her off. I wanted Tori to catch us, wanted to see for myself the smugness wiped from her face. So I left hints—the whisper of teeth marks on Jacqueline's skin, for example—hoping something would raise her suspicions and make her spy on Jacqueline. Months passed and the lies became more complicated.

“Tori went to her mum's,” Jacqueline said one Friday night in the car. “She asked me to go but I said I couldn't. I said I should visit my folks, too.”

“Are you going to?”

“Of course not. I wouldn't miss the chance to be with you all weekend.”

Excellent,
I thought, taking a sudden turn that veered us away from my apartment, our original destination. At the very least this would be an opportunity to leave more clues—my hair in their bed, my scent on their towels. And at best this would be the climax of it all and we would finally get caught.

“Where are you going?” Jacqueline asked, looking nervous but not saying no.

 

Their apartment was new—the walls brilliantly white, the carpet pink like the inside of a shell. Floral sofa, books lining shelves, soft light. Those were Jacqueline's touches. For signs of Tori I could see gum wrappers on the table, clothes slumped on the floor, dirty dishes in the sink. No, I decided, I didn't miss Tori.

Jacqueline leaned down to undo her sandals and I admired her ass—two firm fine grapefruits I couldn't help but touch. Still bending over, Jacqueline wriggled against my hand, giving
me access to everything. She was wearing red Capri's and through the cloth her pussy felt like a squishy bun fresh from the oven. I undid the button, then the zipper, then pulled the pants down to her ankles. Pulled down her white panties sprinkled with hearts. And all the while I thought about how Jacqueline and Tori surely must have fucked in this same spot.

Jacqueline stood up and pulled off her shirt. “Now you,” she said, undoing all my buttons one by one. Then when we were both naked, her fingers trickled over my skin. My nipples turned into hard pebbles, my cunt into a river. We tumbled to the floor.

Jacqueline swept her hands over my thighs, belly, breasts. Broad strokes that finally condensed into tiny wet circles playing my clit. She slipped a finger inside and, just as Tori had once predicted, I thought of her. But not like she had said I would. No, I was imagining her walking in, watching. Maybe looking crushed or maybe jacking off to the rhythm of Jacqueline sliding in and out—two different, yet delicious images that made my hips rock faster. Yes, my fantasies were so real I could hear Tori's footsteps, the key in the lock, the door swinging open.

Then Jacqueline froze suddenly and I realized fantasy and reality had finally merged. Tori, her hand still on the doorknob, was standing above us with her mouth gaping open. I tried not to grin, yet for those first few seconds victory felt sexier than the orgasm I'd missed out on. Then I noticed something was off—not like I'd imagined it. Tori looked neither turned on nor crushed, rather a mixture of the two and then some. Her face containing traces of things that seemed to have no origin—guilt and amusement even. But of course
there was an origin and she soon bounded in on Tori's heels, not noticing until it was too late that Jacqueline and I were on the floor.

“I love it when you fuck me up the ass,” Katie declared to Tori.

THE BREAK

Cheryl B.

 

 

 

 

My ex-girlfriend Kate invited me over for dinner. The minute she opened the door I was immediately reminded of what attracted me to her from the beginning: the blue eyes, dark spiky hair, small sturdy body, and the perfectly round bottom covered in baggy jeans. I wanted to turn her around and smack her ass, but we hadn't seen each other in over two months and had more pressing things to get over first.

After the awkward “Hello” hug, we sat down at her kitchen table for the lasagna, which she had baked to perfection and served with a crisp salad and warm bread. I'd almost forgotten what a good cook she was. Almost forgotten that on our first date, Kate had described herself as a domestic butch.