Beyond Nostalgia (15 page)

"Come on, Tina." 

"Yaw shot, sweet ding." 

“
What's dis bullshit? C'mon."

"Yesss," she purred to me. "I haf a half hour, I haf all night. But I haf been waiting almost one hour to play," she said, nodding at the felt table. "Geeve me fifteen minutes to feenish dees game." 

Then she leaned to me, touched my chin with two fingers, maybe it was three, and kissed me. Even in the state I was in, I remember her tongue, wriggling frantically inside my mouth. It put me to mind of a deadly serpent's tongue. I should have realized right then that this was all wrong. But I didn't. Her kiss was delicious, inviting, like Adam and Eve's evil apple. I was both unable and unwilling to let this end there.

When our lips separated, I tried to be cool, like double O seven in 'Goldfinger'. I smoothed my tongue across my upper lip one time, slowly, deliberately. Then, jutting my head at the door just a few steps behind this temptress, I said, "I'll be at the bachelor party … in the back room.

"I will come for you." Her lips pulled tight into that snarl-smile and she swerved around and strutted back to her game. Jimmy and I watched as this show-on-heels leaned over to bank one off the rail. When she did, the most perfect heart-shaped ass you've ever seen tilted way up and seemed to be pointing right at us. She took aim, blue-nailed fingers spread on the table before her, easing the cue back and forth seductively through a curled index finger. Her legs spread just right, stretching atop those spiked-heels, those solid silver cheeks looked like they were hoisted on stilts. 

Damn!   

"Shit man, I don't believe you!" Jimmy said, still gawking at that sequined behind. "You are one-lucky-sumbitch!"

After she sunk the three balls, Jimmy and I slipped back into the banquet room. By now a few women from the bar had found their way in and were flirting with some of the guys. In the far corner of the room, little Stevey Waters was puking a stomach full of yellow beer into a glass pitcher. Still shirtless, Donny was trying to put the make on one of the chicks, working on a sympathy lay, telling the homely thirty-something woman that she could be his last memory as a single man. Sunnyside Slim's addicted eyes were intent as he and the dope fiends he'd brought along talked about heading up to Harlem to cop some H. All the other guys were carrying on, their conversations and antics growing bawdier with every drink. As for me, I didn't have a clue where the rest of the night was taking me, nor did I have the slightest inkling of the tragic consequences I would pay for, both that night and the rest of my life, for making that ill-fated hedonistic trip. Needless to say, I know now that I should have left right then, gotten the hell out of that bar, ran all the way to Main Street and jumped the first bus to the Point. To my Theresa. But no! Instead, twenty minutes later, I walked out of Margo's Bar with a strange woman and misguided intentions.

All was wee hour-quiet on Lawrence Street when me and this 'Tina' (or whatever the hell her name was) tramped through the succession of somber-lit showers drifting down from the street lamps. Heading for her apartment, we walked quickly and said little. The only signs of life came from the all-night diner and an occasional passing delivery truck or weaving car. In the silent moments, the quick click of her heels spiking the cement sidewalk amplified as they bounced off dark storefronts. There really wasn't much to be said. Neither of us, for sure, was looking to build any lasting relationships. Our common purpose was solely to satisfy each of our own carnal appetites. But, dysfunctional as my mind was, guilt crept into it. Though I truly didn't realize what exactly I was doing wrong, for a fleeting moment I felt like I was about to commit a crime, a crime I'd be caught for, an underhanded infraction I'd have to pay, and pay big, for. But, unfortunately, this glimmer of foresight was just that, and it passed as quickly as it appeared. 

Ten minutes after we left the bar, we came upon 'the projects'. That's where she lived, the Flushing Projects, a place any white-boy-outsider with even half his marbles (sex at stake or not) would have stayed clear of, particularly at such an hour, especially during the racially-charged sixties. But none of that bothered me because the beer had diluted any fear I should have had, plus, since I played basketball, I knew most of the black kids who lived there. Hell, they'd even given me a nickname, 'Dribbles'. Odds were pretty good that if anyone tried to jump me, I could prevent an ass-kicking simply by dropping a few names.  

Like a protective, yet indifferent, mother she took my hand and guided me through the cluster of towering buildings. They were identical to those in every other city housing project, in every borough - cold, characterless piles of brick with cement promenades winding through them, potential danger at every curve, a veritable criminal breeding ground for disadvantaged human beings.

Inside her lobby, we didn't have to wait for an elevator - one was waiting for us - but the ride up seemed interminable. Instead of Muzak, this steel cubical was filled with the acrid stench of old piss. My temples throbbing, teetering on uncertain legs, the stink permeated my nostrils and I grimaced the whole way up. Rocking and swaying, I fought off the urge to vomit as the elevator ascended its shaft to God knows what floor. The shit backed up to my throat. I wondered what kind of animal could find peeing in an elevator to be a fascinating experience.      

When finally the doors opened and my accomplice led me down the dusky hallway, she suddenly seemed even more alien, being in her own environment and all. As we padded along, I noticed that all the steel-caged overhead light bulbs were broken, except for the one nearest her door. When we entered its pitifully dim glow, she attacked me, spun to me, grabbed me, started kissing me, almost what I'd call violently! Then she tongued my ear with a fervor and went to work on my neck for awhile, before leaning away, looking into my eyes and muttering something, something in a rat-a-tat-tat, staccato Spanglish that I didn't quite pick up on. But, though I may not have deciphered the words, the universal overtones of passion in them were unmistakable. Next, she slipped her serpents tongue back inside my mouth and drew my tongue into hers. Once she captured it, she held it in her teeth for a hot moment, then started sucking on it and slipped her hand down the front of my jeans. She knew her shit alright. She'd gotten me ready, real quick, despite my first-degree drunkenness. 

Still holding me firmly in her palm, she hastily unlocked the door with her free hand and led me inside like that. 

It was dark in there. There were no lights on. But with the murky remnants of light that penetrated an old sheet, I could, albeit barely, discern shades and shapes. Dark as it was, I could see that it was just a one-room apartment--a living room, bedroom and kitchen all mashed into one. Still tethered to this woman, I shuffled my feet like a blind pervert as she guided me across the cramped room. After considerable bumping and stubbing on my part, we reached a bed. She bent over and switched on a night-light that had been jammed into a socket just off the bare floor, and straightened up. I could see her face once again. Only inches from mine, shaded like a cheap, grainy black and white, its hard features appeared even harder. "Juss relax now, honey," she whispered, squeezing my thing one last time before removing her hand from inside my pants. "Watch me … and enjoy." Then, with her eyes still trained on mine, she took a slow half-step back, kicked off her heels and started squirming, teasingly, out of her brushed-on jumpsuit. Watching her shimmying, struggling to get it down past her half-bare hips, I knew she was enjoying this far more than I was. Once again, deep inside, I knew something was very wrong with this but still couldn't quite put my finger on it. But I couldn't back out now.  What kind of man would I be? Her blouse came off next and then, lastly, her green bra. Somehow the loud color of it didn't shock me nearly as much as the fact that she bothered to wear one at all.   

Face to face now, her totally nude, she took my hand and put it right there, straight to her most erogenous zone. Square on the triangle! I did what came natural as she stripped off my clothes, first my varsity jacket, then my shirt. After that, my Levis and Fruit of the Looms came down together. She slipped away from my right hand when she squatted down to work my pants legs over my ankles. Looking down at her now, her naked body folded up like a pocketknife, down on her haunches like a catcher giving his signals, her ass pointed down like she was taking a dump, she no longer looked anything close to sexy. Even with all that long-flowing platinum hair, she only looked dirty.  It was at that precise moment, looking down at this nude whore at my feet that, out of the black, a beautiful vision strobed inside my head. It was my Theresa, so innocent, so pure, so good. Somehow she'd risen in all her splendor to the surface of my inebriated mind, but she didn't stay there. Like a split-second vision of a most lovely portrait, Theresa was gone again, disappearing when this other women, this meaningless stranger, got on her knees and took me. 

What followed next was the first, and the only, sexual experience I've ever had where I felt like I was being used. This woman, this Tina, whoever, totally dominated the entire dark liaison. She got off her knees, rose to her full height, tilted me onto the rumpled bed, and proceeded to search every inch and orifice of my body. I felt like a sacrificial virgin forced into some sixth-rate porno movie as she methodically felt with her hands and tongue, from one place to the next, all the while moaning Spanish words of passion to herself. She devoured me like a half-starved predator tearing at its prey. And, I just laid there. I thought about how perverse this seemed. I thought about how grimy the sheets felt beneath my naked body, how they smelled of worse things than just old, cheap perfume  

Finally, she stopped. I didn't know how much time had passed but knew it had been quite awhile because I'd heard several buses pass by down on the avenue and they didn't run all that frequent this late. She rolled onto her back and I mounted her like a roughrider. I rode her vengefully, working hard as I could to get even. I'd show her who the dominant one was. But the harder I tried, the more she liked it. And it went on and on, all the alcohol slushing inside my system prolonging the trauma. She was moaning and cursing beneath me, wiggling, rocking her hips, scratching my back violently, hurting me the whole time. She was so wild, so beastly that it scared me. But I had to be a man. Near the end of this bizarre tumultuous ride, I started having weird thoughts, scary thoughts. Who knows how someone like this gets her kicks. Maybe to her this bestial sex is just the beginning. Maybe she'll produce a razor and slit my throat. Maybe someone was behind or under the bed with a knife or a gun or something. Suddenly, I had a profound spooky feeling that we were not alone in this squalid room. Still bouncing on top of her, my wild eyes having adjusted to the semi-darkness by now, I scanned the room suspiciously for any movement.               

And then I saw one! 

Across the room, maybe ten feet away on the sofa, something or someone moved ever so slowly, ever so slightly, beneath a sheet. I thought, Jesus Christ, what the hell is that, a dog, a cat, nooo … it's too big. 

Then I heard my voice. It was dripping with doom. It said, "What's that ... moving on the couch?" 

Not stopping, still pumping away, she buried all her fingernails deep inside my behind, snuggling me yet tighter against her burning Latin flesh. 

"What the hell is that?" I asked again, still going through the motions.

"It eez only my grandmother … Do not worry … " She was murmuring the words, urgently, expelling a few with every frenetic breath she released, “ ... she ees blind … and deaf … come on now… " she demanded, "do not stop … harder, harder … yesss … I am almost there!"

I couldn't believe my ears. Here we are, humping away like two mongrels, and her grandmother is right there on the sofa.

Then the whole room tilted. It wasn't spinning yet, but it was maybe ten, twenty degrees out of plumb. The bed started moving too, rolling, surging up and down as if it were afloat on old waves. But to my relief, my titanic relief, there was another surge building too. It was within my loins. The end was now in sight. I wanted to finish this thing and get the hell out of there before I got sick. I buried my face next to hers in that filthy pillow and clamped my eyes shut. I gritted and ground my teeth. Tightening my grip on this crazed woman, I concentrated the best I could as we bucked on. Just for a couple of moments more, for then my body began to tremor and twitch spasmatically, my eyes rolled frantically beneath their hoods, and I moaned with the sensation. 

In just seven seconds it was over, seven misspent seconds that prevented me from ever again looking at Theresa Wayman the same way, seven seconds that would, for the next thirty years of my life, taint every waking hour and so many of my dreams. Don't believe for a moment that time heals all wounds. Time may dull the pain but the deepest wounds never heal.