Fucking Daphne (14 page)

You little bitch,
I thought.
Do you know what I do to little whores like you?

My clit hardened in my panties, jumping like a puppy at the ugly words in my head.

“Do you like dancing for girls?” Daphne asked quietly. I looked back at her over my shoulder. Her eyes were big and solemn, like those of a little kid listening to the scariest part of a Brothers Grimm fairy tale.

“Yeah. It makes my pussy soaking wet,” I said. I pumped my ass up and down perfunctorily, then clenched and relaxed my butt cheeks in a series of rapid releases that felt gross but made my ass and thighs tremble like Jell-O. It was a disgusting move—something women in the adult industry do for men, not for other women. But I was here to crawl, wasn't I? And something in me twisted—a mean little razor blade, carving deep into my pussy the desire to watch Daphne
hurt.

All of a sudden I felt sorry for Daphne Gottlieb. Maybe she hadn't realized how gross the Sugar Shack would be, or maybe she was used to the college-educated, third wave feminist strippers—excuse me, I mean
sex workers
—in San Francisco, who make a big deal about dancing for other women, as if getting objectified by another human being with a pussy is somehow cooler than getting objectified by a series of men. All I know is that the bitches at
the S.F. Lusty Lady traded in their professional autonomy a long time ago in order to make an hourly wage and accrue benefits, and some of them have college degrees, and not a single one of them knows what it's like to roll around on sticky wall-to-wall carpeting, dodging cum and peeling up dollar bills. If they did know, they wouldn't glamorize the shit real strippers have to do to make their rent and feed their kids.

Daphne's moony pinwheel eyes were suddenly liquid. She looked very small, wedged against the back of the filthy couch next to her dumb little lunch box. She looked down into her lap, doing that thing you do when you don't want to cry, which is just staring hard and not blinking, so that the tears will absorb back into your eyeballs and not fall.

“I'm sorry,” she whispered. “I'm sorry.”

I crawled toward her, using my hands to force her knees apart. She resisted for a moment; then, helpless, she allowed me to kneel between her legs. Staring into Daphne's face, I pressed myself against her inner thighs, handling my own tits like bags of meat, shifting their weight back and forth in my palms. After a while I deliberately peered between her knees, noticing the strawberry pattern on the cotton crotch of her panties. Little-girl panties. Had they been bought in a package of six, with different fruit patterns on each pair? Was the day of the week embroidered on one hip in swirly letters?

“Your pussy's wet,” I said. She gasped.

“I can smell you,” I added cruelly. Her face lit with shame and dismay.

“Talk Dirty to Me” ended with a filthy guitar squeal that sounded like pure estrus. Our time was up.

I stood up suddenly, looming over Daphne in my six-inch heels. She shrank back against the gristly, rubbed-off velvet of the couch. I thrust my hand out. After a moment she accepted it, grasping me with a surprisingly large, strong paw.
A writer's hand,
I thought suddenly.

Well, she types all day,
I supposed. I actually wasn't sure
what
Daphne Gottlieb did all day. I was pretty sure it didn't involve buying lap dances from casual acquaintances she knew from her own readings and various queer-girl activity groups up and down the West Coast. This struck me as possibly the first time she'd had any interaction with—well, with
my
kind of adult labor, anyway. It was also undoubtedly the last time.

Daphne fumbled with her lunch box, pushing the plastic clasps back and extracting a pink glittery wallet. She pulled out another bill with two long fingers, and pushed it at me.

“Here,” she said, not looking at me. “Thanks for the dance.”

I took the bill—another twenty—and slid it into my bra. “Thank you, Daphne,” I said. After the fact of what had just happened—or not happened, or
almost
happened—we had become oddly formal with each other, as careful and staid as Victorian lovebirds sending messages with flowers and fans.

I watched Daphne flee the Sugar Shack, her ridiculous boots clomping like hooves. For one moment she was silhouetted against the open door—outlined in the cool fading light of the evening, her bright hair on fire, her hips visible in their strawberry panties as her slip dress turned momentarily transparent—and I was transfixed. Blessed. Then she was gone.

I went to the ladies' room and shut myself in a stall. Then I thought of Daphne holding back tears, suffering in her ill-advised
attempt to participate in something she had no business with. Heard her say, “I'm sorry, I'm sorry,” again. Felt that burning, poisonous slash of cruelty wake every cell in my body. And I exploded into my own hand, slamming my other palm against the fragile stall wall in an attempt to keep my legs from buckling.

Daphne Gottlieb.
DAPH-ne GOTT-lieb,
my daffy darling.

I wiped the cum on my hand onto my dress and went back out onto the floor. I was due onstage in two songs.

The best part of dancing for Daphne was that nobody had really gotten hurt.

 

 

I
ask Daphne.

I ask Daphne to look me in the eyes while she fucks herself.

I ask Daphne to look me in the eyes while she fucks herself—it's all encouragement. That's right, push it in. Easy, easy. Don't look 'round. Look at me. That's it. Good girl. No menace, or even authority.

All encouragement, with a realistic-looking dildo. No menace, or even authority, like a conductor with an orchestra.

All encouragement, with a realistic-looking dildo, except that it is both translucent and electric blue. Like a conductor with an orchestra, not a foreman growling over a brace of workers.

A brace of workers, necks sweaty and eyes on their work. Don't look 'round. Don't look 'round. Don't look at the foreman. No
encouragement. That's right, put it together. Faster, faster. Don't look 'round.

A long line of realistic-looking dildos. Fat cocks, rumbling down a conveyor belt. Women on either side, handling them with gloves, spraying them down with puffs of blue or pink glitter.

Blue or pink glitter. There's a theory. Blue cocks are for boys; pink are for girls.

Blue cocks are for boys; pink are for girls. Blue cocks are for boys, and they are produced Monday through Wednesday. Pink are for girls, and they are produced Thursday through Sunday. Both are carted out by the hundred.

Both are carted out by the hundred, every day, held tightly in packaging that keeps them from rumbling as they do when they go down the conveyor belt. Held tightly in packaging that keeps them from rumbling as they do when they go down the conveyor belt, plastic glans coming around by wiggles and jerks to point at the workers.

The plastic glans, wiggling and jerking along the border of Daphne's pussy lips. Because I ask for it to happen. Part your thighs, a little wider, yes Daphne, yes good girl, thank you. Thank you thank you I say, as I am all encouragement. Part your legs, that's kind and poetic, not like spread your legs (whorish, dirty) or open your legs (clinical, bureaucratic, like 9:00 AM).

Fuck yourself. Look at me and fuck yourself. I just stand there, not even offering a stroke or a caress or a finger to slide over the forehead. If there's a hand guiding Daphne's splayed display, it's an unseen hand.

The unseen hand. The unseen hand that traces the cock and strikes the mold. The unseen hands that capitalize the factories, and
bring in the contracts, and drive the women from the countryside into the crowded cities, where they sleep five to a room and are thankful for it. The unseen hand that pushes up the sign and sounds the factory whistle, the same hand that silenced those whistles and stilled so many women in another countryside.

The seen hand. The seen hand with long fingers, half-sweaty, wrapped around the base of the dildo, pushing it in deeper. Deeper deeper. Spectacle, not tactile, push it all in. I bite my lip. I bite my lip from the spectacle. Daphne smiles.

The seen hand doesn't package the dildos. The seen hand doesn't load them into trucks that drive down pitted dirt roads and over slabs of concrete. The seen hand doesn't fill the shipping containers. The seen hand doesn't build the containers. The seen hand doesn't sail the ships. The seen hand doesn't drill the oil. The seen hand holds the gun.

A woman holds a dildo in her hand. A woman is seen holding a dildo in her hand. A woman is seen putting a dildo into her pants. Into her pants, not like a man. Into her pants, like a thief. The seen hand grabs her by the collar of her work togs. The seen hand slaps her across the face. The seen hand produces a gun from a pair of pants. The seen hand puts the barrel of the gun in the woman's mouth. The gun is a Glock. The Glock has no external safeties. The Glock has a “safe action” system. The seen hand reaches into the woman's pants and retrieves the dildo.

Somewhere, someone remembers a clause in a contract about contamination and handling of product. Throwing the dildo away is required. Throwing the dildo away would be a safe action. The seen hand puts the dildo back on the assembly line.

The woman with the Glock in her mouth. The woman with the Glock in her mouth starts to cry. The seen hand. The seen hand makes a demand. The woman purses her lips. The woman purses her lips around the barrel of the gun. The woman purses her lips around the barrel of the gun and starts to suck. A whistle sounds like a scream.

A scream sounds like a whistle. A quick clambering from the chaise longue, a wet hug, and a long, half-droop exhausted smile. Then the hands. Hands unseen. On my back. On my ass. My back. Sweat. Sweat smells like ink. Ink tastes like salt. Salt tastes like heart.

Air. Air tastes like cool. Air tastes like cool on my ass as my pants come down. The snap. The snap of gloves. The unseen hands. The unseen hands, powdery gloves. Safe action. Daphne smiles. The seen hand. The seen hand is all force. The seen hand is no encouragement. I don't part. I don't open. I spread. I spread my lips. I spread my lips over my teeth. I do open. But I don't part. The dildo. The plastic glans. Unsafe action. The taste: buttered noodles. The seen hand, right on my throat. The unseen hand, wrapped around the base of the dildo. Deeper deeper. Push it all in. I can't bite my lip. Daphne smiles.

The seen hand. The seen hand slaps me across the face. The product falls to the floor. Throwing away the dildo would be a safe action. Daphne kicks it under the bed. The seen hand grabs me by the collar. The seen hand bends me over. Now all hands are unseen. The seen hand is the selfish hand. The unseen hand is every hand. Working toward its own ends. The unseen hand works toward the greatest end for all. My end. My end is parted. My end is open. My end is spread. There is no safety. There is no safety, no warning click.
No warning click, like the first moment of a clock radio. There is the Glock. There is the Glock in the seen hand. There is the Glock in the unseen hand.

There is the Glock, being pushed. There is the Glock, being pushed into my ass.

 

 

I
t started innocently enough, as all terrorist acts do.

Daphne was commenting in a friend's online journal about the Love Parade. I had no idea that the Love Parade, the actual fucking
Love Parade,
was coming.

For those of you unfamiliar with it, picture a bunch of neo-hippie, dance-crazed, Euro-poseur club kids. Got it? Okay, now picture these kids with a burning desire to recreate the atmosphere at Woodstock, except with a techno beat
(boom-chik, boom-chik, BOOM-CHIK, BOOM-CHIK).
Now combine it with the Macy's Thanksgiving Day parade, minus the capitalism but triple the Broadway-show flair. Add drugs and voilà! Kinda like “Don't Worry, Be Happy” with parade floats.