The Royal Family (69 page)

Just remember one thing, the tall man said. Nobody gonna force you.

I know somebody who wants to meet you, said Beatrice in the same breath.

The Queen agreed to meet her. Yellow Bird bowed four times. —All rightie, sighed the Queen. Now I’m going to spit in your mouth. I want you to . . .

But she was noticeably distracted now by her friendship with Tyler. A few of the whores had begun to question her fitness to rule, but then, they always did and always would.

Right now I would say the Queen is my best friend, but they change, Lily explained. Strawberry used to be my best friend but that was before I met the Queen. Domino used to be my best friend. Shit, she started stealing my tricks and then she broke my arm.

And where did you meet
her?
asked the trick. (He was really a vig. Later he’d make a report.)

From this guy in the salmon-packing plant.

But when the vig asked Domino where she’d met Lily, the blonde curtly replied: We met in jail. Some cop caught me kicking a crack pipe in a doorway . . .

Is she your best friend?

Who the
fuck
do you think you’re asking?

Needless to say, Domino was the most outspoken, but even she never said publicly that she had become unfriends with the Queen. Outwardly she and the Queen continued to be on the same loving terms as before. And inwardly, too, perhaps, little had changed.

Dan Smooth, who always heard everything first, said that the city was going to tear down all the crack hotels on Mission Street—surely an exaggeration. Dan Smooth said that vigs would get the Queen someday. Dan Smooth, one of whose eyebrows was higher than the other, sweated gloom and doom like some Mexicali bar from whose dark edges women flowed, the ceiling omniously tinseled like a rattlesnake’s scales. Bad stories flowed now even from the lips of the Wonderbar regulars with their crutches and moustaches and their caps pulled low over their eyes. Surely it couldn’t have been true about the hotels, though; nothing was true that Saturday night on O’Farrell and Jones, that night comprised of black women in translucent pastel skins which were neither bikinis nor raincoats; they shimmered like jellyfish in a dark sea.

Well, so what’s your story? they said. You want some company or not?

Well, you’re just so beautiful, I don’t know which to choose.

Don’t worry, Strawberry said, not seeing the man’s ferocious sarcasm about to un-sheath itself and attack her, it’s our business, her and me. You won’t hurt my feelings if you don’t pick me.

So you’re friends then, the man said.

Yeah, friends, the two women said in agreement.

If you don’t pick me, I’d rather have your money go to her than some stranger, Strawberry explained.

So can you buy me a pack of cigarettes? Domino said.

Sure, sweetheart. Here’s a dollar.

It’s more like three dollars. You’re living in the dark ages.

Grimacing, the man reached into his shirt pocket and withdrew a five. —Can you give me change for that? he said.

You bet, said Domino, who considered herself a class act.

You ever done any time?

What kind of a question is that?

I was just wondering.

Wondering what?

What’s jail like? the trick asked brightly.

I just got out of jail. I don’t want to talk about it.

I only wondered . . .

Look, buster, said Domino. I’m not an animal in a zoo. You want a date or not?

You look expensive.

Well, you just go to your little ATM and take out a hundred dollars, Domino said. Your wife will never miss it.

My wife keeps me on an allowance, he said. He exuded playfully self-satisfied indiscipline, in just the same way as when barrel-shaped Brady went into a restaurant determined to be good and order the salad but when he opened his lips he heard emerge strict orders for pork chops and deep-fried calamari. —Can I get in touch with you again? he asked the two prostitutes.

I’m sorry but you can’t, said Strawberry.

Can I get in touch with the Queen? the trick said.

With who, dear?

With your Queen. You know. That little black lady . . .

No, I don’t know what you’re talking about, Strawberry said. You a cop?

I don’t know what the fuck this cocksucker is up to, said Domino, but he obviously mistakes us for somebody else.

The man said: Hey, if I just give you fifty in hard cash . . .

Honey, said Domino, that just ain’t gonna cut it. Now, either you walk or my homegirl and I are gonna walk. And my feet are tired. So won’t you please, please, please go away?

The man pulled out twenty and said: Then can I just get some head?

Now he’s acting weird, said Strawberry.

Head costs fifty from me, said Domino. I’m a self-respecting girl. I don’t go down on anybody for less than fifty dollars.

I told you I have fifty dollars, the man said happily. Let’s go.

Don’t go, said Strawberry. I got a bad feeling.

Why don’t you keep an eye on us and I’ll share with you later, said Domino.

How much?

I’ll give you a piece.

Oh, all right, sighed Strawberry.

The three of them set out, trisecting the Tenderloin night where everything was yellow against granite, and Strawberry dully realized that there were more and more Vietnamese establishments and more murals on the walls than there used to be. Glowing beads of sensation went round and round inside her skull like fireflies. Passing the 441 Club through whose open door the jukebox sang
My, my, MY Delilah,
Strawberry gazed in, remembering when it had been a black bar; now it was a Korean bar, shiny-surfaced, with red paper lamps which hung down like breasts. These changes vaguely upset Strawberry. She did not know what the world wanted of her. It was so much effort to learn how things were that she preferred no changes. The other girls kept saying that something bad would happen soon, and Strawberry felt anxious, waiting for portents. Down at Turk Street where the double rows of lights faded they went into the alley which the blonde preferred, and Strawberry kept her back turned to the orally copulating pair, trying simultaneously to block them from view. She heard Domino smacking her lips, and then the man grunted, and Domino coughed and spat.

She turned around. The man was zipping up his pants, leaning rapturously on the top of Domino’s head. Domino was retching.

How about a tip for me, mister? said Strawberry. I kept you from bein’ hassled . . .

I didn’t ask you to guard me, the man said. I bet you get off on listening. I know how you whores are.

Oh, really? said Domino brightly, rising to her feet. How do you know that?

The man sniggered and started to walk away.

I’m looking for your Queen, he said. And when I find her, I’m going to beat her ass.

Think he’s a vig? said Strawberry when he was out of sight.

I dunno, said Domino. Probably just an idiot.

Well, I think we should tell Maj.

Go ahead. See what I care, the blonde said wearily.

And you said you was gonna cut me in . . .

I’ll save you some rock, okay?

Please, Domino, I need to get well.

Oh, all right. Here’s ten dollars. But you have to pay the Queen’s cut out of that.

But Queen’s cut is ten dollars!

Oh, get lost, said Domino. Can’t you see I’m feeling blue? I’m so tired.

Are you ready, honey? the Queen whispered. Is it okay if I make you a little uncomfortable for a while?

Yes, said Tyler, swallowing.

Sitting astride him, she eyed him glowingly, a tender smile on her lips. His penis leaped up.

She bent and kissed his cheek. Then she straightened, wiggled smilingly on top of him like a little girl settling herself bareback on a trusted and docile family horse, and after that the smile slowly cooled upon her mouth until she was gazing at him in an appraisal which objectified and instrumentalized him for her purposes.

She slapped his cheek.

He blinked.

She slapped his face hard enough to make both his ears ring.

He swallowed.

Don’t resist me, she said in a hard voice, striking him across the face again and again.

His heart thrilled.

Turn over, she said.

He turned over, and she touched his buttock with something cool and thin and gentle, and then the cool thin gentle thing whizzed across the backs of his naked thighs, causing him instantaneous pain which then increased for almost five seconds before it began to fade.

The cane came down again and again. She was careful; she never gave him a stroke before the previous stroke ceased to hurt. She was making it easy on him this time.

She welted his thighs, buttocks and shoulders, then turned him over again and whipped him on the front sides of his thighs. He could see the long, straight, red and white welts rise up where she touched him.

She took his nipple between her teeth and slowly bit until the hot, cold, steely pain made him cry out for the first time.

Ahh, said the Queen, smiling.

Put your hands behind your head, she said. Don’t move. You’re not allowed to move at all.

She seated herself on his penis and took him, grunting, her face hardening and straining like a man’s. As commanded, he didn’t move a muscle. No one had ever possessed him like that before. Sweet sweat exploded from her and fell upon his chest. His wrists ached behind his head. He longed to begin thrusting inside her. He longed to crown her with something. He longed to place flowers in her hands, to give her pennies, dollars, diamonds, boulders of pure crack cocaine. Her mouth was wide open now and she was throttling him and spitting in his face. —Fuck me now, she growled thickly. That’s a good boy. Now you can come. Come for Mama. Oh. Oh. You’re Mama’s
good
little boy.

After he came, shouting and groaning while she pressed down on him with all her strength, she kissed him deeply and they lay together, glued by sweat, panting. She took his face in her hands and whispered: Are you okay?

He said: I want you to give me anguish.

Ohh, she said happily, embracing him. Oh, you’re the one.

You know I love you or you don’t know?

I know, he whispered.

He fell asleep in her arms and woke ashamed. Actually his dream had been this: Irene had sat on his face, grinding her pelvic bones hurtfully against his skull, then pissed long and loud into his opened mouth; he was suffocating; he swallowed her reeking, foaming stream; she shifted and squirmed and mashed herself down over his nose—he couldn’t
breathe! He was dying! He struggled but she bore down harder; he had a tremendous erection; everything was going red.

Don’t feel down, baby, said the Queen. I know everything. Lot of men like that. And you never got a taste from her?

Once, he blurted out, but she didn’t know. I was . . . —and he remembered Irene and John’s laundry basket, and what in his desperation he had found there: the sour smell of life, the sour smell of death.

He’d dreamed the very same dream before, when Irene was alive, and he’d said to her only: I dreamed about you. That’s what I wanted to tell you.

Irene said nothing.

I know you don’t love me the way I love you . . . he muttered.

His face flushed. He didn’t remember the rest. But the Queen knew it all.

Lie still now, she said, clambering onto his face. He opened his mouth obediently. She gripped his head firmly between her thighs and began to make water in his mouth, more and more and more until he couldn’t swallow anymore; he was retching, and her urine was coming out his nostrils. It felt as though her piss had become his tears. Desperate and confused to the very bottom of his soul, he struggled among square tomblike openings far-spaced in the yellow walls of death, wanting to escape back into pure numb death but the Queen would not let him. It hurt so much! Tear-streams gushed like pale urine from his eyes. He was weeping for Irene and gagging on his own grief; grief was trickling out of his nose; but the grief was really the Queen’s painful water which she was giving him so that he wouldn’t feel so all alone. Her piss was in his lungs now and he was coughing and vomiting but she wouldn’t let go until her bladder had given its last drop. Then she lifted herself off him and sat on the soaking sheet, laying his head on her lap. His chest ached. She stroked his hair while he vomited. —That’s a good boy, she whispered. Queen’s good little boy. Never be ashamed, Henry. Irene’s crying for you, too. Never mind. Never mind. Now you’ve cried my tears, and it hurt you. Never mind, baby. Henry, you’re my baby. Can you breathe now? Try to breathe. You’re gonna feel better now, ’cause you cried so hard and it hurt you. You got punished, and now it’s all right, so never mind. Queen knows everything about you, Queen adores you, Queen’s good little boy . . .