Dealing Flesh (26 page)

Ragelina:
Don’t count on it, not after all the shit he’s put you through.

I reach the front door. Nervously, I switch the items that are crowding my left forearm to the opposite side. Ken is leaning against the table to the right of me, several feet away, his arms crossed in front of his chest, his eyes peeled on my every move.

Romy (whining):
It’s the worst pain in the world knowing that he cares so little.

I send a quick huffy “bye” his way and despondently put my hand on the handle.

Romy:
Out of time—damn. You can’t just stand there and let ‘Forever Over’ happen. Do something.

This exact second, Ken leaps toward me and places his marine
-
like body in front of the door, causing my hormones to whirl completely out of control.

“Let me out,” I boldly repeat after Pretender Babe who is getting a kick from keeping the game of pertness alive.

Thankfully, Ken does not honor my request but instead, lifts me off the ground and throws me over his left shoulder.

Lustania:
Ummh-hmm. This is getting good, yeah.

Pretender Babe lightly drums her fists against his back while he marches toward the middle of the room with me.

“Put me down, dammit,” I demand with an almost believable feistiness.

He carefully drops me on top of the futon mattress in the center.

“Sit for a minute,” he says.

Pouty-lipped, smoldering with excitement, and immensely tickled by my strategy of defiance to the inevitable, I stare at the wall in front of me.

“I think you need a massage,” he says, serving me his famous irresistible grin. I slyly smile. I feel his hands run up my thigh, ultimately advancing to kneading it in slow soft motion.

Lustania:
Just what the doctor ordered
.

Romy:
I’m getting my honey back.

Our eyes collide in unbridled desire. Having rested on my elbows up until now, I lay back to fully enjoy his intoxicating touch. Rendered without will, releasing all resistance, I let him fly me to the moon. Returning to earth an hour and a half later, I ask Ken if we are now in a relationship again. He dances around the issue, keeping me more confused than ever with his life-draining vagueness.

Romy:
I just can’t take it any more, not knowing if he is for real, lying, or seeing someone else while stringing me along? If he won’t fill in the blanks, I’m gonna have to get to the truth some other kind of way.

~~~

Two weeks have come and gone since I last saw Ken face-to-face or spoke with him on the phone. I resolutely enter the parking lot of the building on Linden Street this sunny weekday afternoon. I glance over to the spot where Ken’s car is generally parked, noticing that the port is unoccupied. I proceed inside the building and sprint up the stairs to his unit. My heart pounds rapidly as I stick the spare key into the door. I open it without making a sound and hurriedly step inside, nearly forgetting to breathe.

Romy:
Geeeooo-lee. What’s happened to my baby? I hope he is okay.

The place looks a chaotic mess, as if a bomb went off inside. One can hardly find a path to walk on. I feel my adrenaline pumping as I hasten from room to room. With sweaty palms, I pick up the receiver of the phone on his desk and press redial. It connects to the answering machine of a mutual friend of ours – Olga.

Enviola:
Thank God, it’s not that chick from Long Beach.

Romy:
I
g
otta find something before I leave here. I need closure, damn. I deserve to know why he won’t commit to me.

Nervous as can be, I poke around in the bathroom trashcan, digging for condoms or other feminine items. Nothing. I search other parts of the flat for lingerie, perfume, love letters, anything that indicates Ken is screwing someone else. Again…nothing turns up. But there, on top of the dining room table is my diary, the one I sent him in the mail a week ago in the hopes that it will prove to him how much I adore him. It is flipped open and turned upside down.

Scaredy Cat:
That’s it. Time to get out
.
He could be here any second.

I leave unseen. Right before I get to my car, I toss the spare key into a large garbage container on the side of the road.

Romy:
There goes my life.

Two weeks go by. Today, my diary arrives in the mail, a week after asking Ken to send it to me. About to make a new entry for the day, I discover that he filled the last four pages with his own words. The abbreviated version sounds something like this…

My sweet, I love you, and I can’t deny that we sure have a whole lot in common. But regardless, this just isn’t a good time for us to be together for reasons I can’t get into right now.

Flooded with tears, I sense an invisible sword jab me each time I read over those lines.

Whip Cracker:
Oh dear. Don’t you know by now that love is a big fat lie, let alone what I’ve already told you on numerous occasions? Ken is too fine to hang around an average woman like you…an average woman like you…an average woman like you…Had you been a super model, actress, or rich chick, he would have quit smoking dope. Like he told you, you are an imbecile, a whore. Imbeciles and whores can never succeed in the real world. Just drop the ‘Miss Goody Two Shoes’ act. You are only good for one thing: getting guys off.
I strongly suggest you go where guys adore you for what you have to offer. It’s always better to die from the ultimate climax than from a broken heart.

Tough Gal (hissing):
Get the hell away from he
r.

Hot Shot:
But he is right. I suck. I’m the wrong kind of woman. Fuck. The wrong kind, for sure.

Romy:
The hopeless variety.

CHAPTER 19

Hell Beast’s Roar

I heedlessly roam the streets of the West Valley. The sun has already set. The words “Best Peep Show in Town” jump out at me from a big, white, illuminated screen on the building to my left.

Hot Shot:
Whoa, check that out. Always wanted to know how the earning potential of those girls compare to stripper incomes.

Romy:
Please, don’t go in there.

Hot Shot:
I don’t think it matters if I dabbled around a bit more on the seedy side of life now that I don’t have either love or money. Come along.

I park the car and head inside. The guy at the check-in desk suggests that I look around as long as I need to to decide if I’d like to come on board. I make my way down a stretch of tiny stalls which, in my head, I call “masturbation row.” They remind me of a ribbon of storefronts; only their main attractions are found on the backside of each tiny establishment. Inside every dark and creepy space is a thin glass divider that separates the customer from the entertainer. Behind it the chosen showgirl presents her goods up-close and personal, and in anyone’s face who has the means to pay for it.

I walk into one of the empty cabins. For a moment, I contemplate about sitting down on the round wooden footstool, but it gags me picturing the gallons of sperm that flowed through here.

Miss Vanity:
I’d freak out if some sticky residue latched onto the bottom of my pants.

Therefore, I remain standing.

For several seconds, my eyes follow the woman’s act adjacent to the booth I’m in. I make out bits and pieces of what goes on. I spot the man who hovers in front of her with his face greedily sticking to the window’s surface while she performs for him up close. When exiting the space, I notice that the curtain to the neighboring booth is badly adjusted and that it provides a tiny opening to peek through. I cannot help but take an inconspicuous glance. I watch how the stripper presses her buttocks against the glass barrier, giving it her best for a dollar a minute.

Hot Shot:
Uhh, I don’t think so. That shit’s beneath me. I think money can be made faster in a real club
.

“I need some time to think about this. Will let you know,” I tell the guy at the front and jam out of there.

Whip Cracker:
Check into webcam modeling
.
I know you’re curious about it because I’ve seen you read those advertisements on plenty of occasions.

I admit, the thought of making money from the safety of my own room, putting on a show or talk dirty to someone I can’t see, interests me.

Hot Shot:
I think it’s a fabulous idea, but on second thought, I’m not sure if I want everyone in the world who’s got access to a computer and a valid credit card see me naked whenever they please.

Whip Cracker:
You can always wear a wig.

Starlight:
Nice try, but I think I’ll pass. It’ll tarnish my chances for a future acting career.

Over the next two weeks, several promising connections with various owners of webcam businesses form. Weighing the pros and cons again, I, at once, withdraw from any outstanding job offers.

Whip Cracker:
With all your selectiveness, looks like your best bet still is finding a nice long-term benefactor who can fix your ongoing financial woes. It should be much easier now that you have sworn off men entirely and know Ken isn’t coming back.

I guess. I skim the paper’s classified section right away.

~~~

A week passes. I set course for Malibu Beach to visit a “well-to-do” surgeon, one of the men who responded to my ad for a “millionaire benefactor.” My clock shows noon when parking my car on a hillside street right by the strand. I take a good whiff of the ocean air as I walk toward the front entrance of his estate.

Once inside, the sixty-something-year-old, near bald white male invites me into the lavish living room where we have a seat on the pompous yellow-ochre couch. While conversing, my eyes wander to the outside of the wide-open glass portals that lead to the beach. They further brush across the shellacked wood paneled deck, and the endless glistening waves on the water. Seagulls cry while I feel another surge of oceanic mist hit my nostrils. The atmosphere of beauty plays with my senses, nearly making me forget the true purpose of my visit.

The pretty picture fades now that the owner of the house escorts me into his bedroom - a dark, dreary space that is covered with a musty odor. I strip down to a
g-string
and begin to knead his hairy thighs, which is part of my routine for the agreed upon full body rub down. My hand moves up and down his penis in rhythmic motion with only one goal in mind—to get him to ejaculate as quickly as possible.

“Hold on a moment,” he interjects. “I’ll be right back.” He walks over to the dresser, returning with a large wire tooth hairbrush.

“Here. Slap me with that as hard as you can while you stroke my cock, got it?”

I pause.

Pretender Babe:
Damn, I’m so not into violence
.

I fade into the picture on the wall while my fingers timidly tap his ass with a few faint-hearted claps.

“Harder, harder,” he squawks.

Spurred on by having been granted permission, I let my hand rattle down with much greater force.

Ragelina (screaming inside my head):
Die, fucking pervert. Die
.

I keep staring at the clock on the bedside table.

Ragelina (fuming):
I hate that fucker.

A few more minutes go by before he comes all over my hand.

“You make an excellent submissive,” he grins.

Whip Cracker:
There’s my little whore. I knew I’d eventually break you back in
.

I leave. Driving through town, I pull into the gas station at the corner. I grab the paper with the man’s name, number, and address on it, tear it into a gazillion pieces and toss it into the trashcan.

Later this week, I set out to meet with a sixty-year-old millionaire at his Tudor style mansion in Bel Air. The butler escorts me into the wood beam lined living room that is decorated and designed in exquisite European fashion. He asks me to have a seat on the tan, cushioned leather sofa while I wait for the man of the house to arrive. A minute later, a slender, bearded fellow with curly silver-colored shoulder long hair that’s tied into a ponytail walks up and greets me. He speaks with a sophisticated English accent.

Hot Shot:
There’s no way I’ll EVER let that creep penetrate me.

But as the gruesome picture of bills piling up at my house infiltrate my head, I immediately agree to furnish him with a sensual massage. He leads me upstairs into his astronomically sized bedroom that overlooks part of the city, then guides me through the hallway into a separate changing room where I strip down to a piece of floss that, to some people, may be construed as underwear. I slip into the white, although somewhat stained robe which the dude asked me to put on before returning to see him, and make my way over to his room. I drop the mantle, now that I stand in front of him, and join him on top of the capacious state-of-the-art bed that is nearly as wide as my living room.

I rub his chest for about half a minute or more; then move to his legs, eventually commencing to whack his member. Placing my face near his while simultaneously stroking his thing, my lips come dangerously close to his, fooling him into thinking that we are about to kiss. His hellish foul breath makes me ill, especially when he shrewdly tries to pucker up for real. Gallantly, I turn away my cheek each time. I feel his hand fizzle around at the outer seam of my panties. He attempts to touch the
Secret Grotto
underneath, but I remove his limb before he can get there.

Ragelina (snarling):
Grrrrrr. I’m gonna punch him out.

Whip Cracker:
Better behave, if you wanna get paid.

Every time I successfully deter his advances, his hand shoots right back to the same spot.

Romy:
I think, I’ll die, if his finger ends up inside me.

I feel him groping around the covered outside of my private part some more. In a split second, he slips his finger underneath the fabric and jams it in me.

Ragelina (spitting acid mist):
That bastard. I’m gonna kill him.

Romy:
Fuuuuuuuucccccckkkkkk.
How could you do this to Ken?
I haaate you so much.

Running away enters my mind…dashing from the scene without pay.

Whip Cracker:
If you leave now, all the hard work was for nothing. Might as well hang in a little longer and finish what you started.

I turn back toward the creep, alerting him assertively not to pull another such stunt on me. He complies. A few more strokes, and the event wraps. I get my money and jimmy jam out his house at once.

Mister Cruel

Driving down the 405 freeway, the buzzing by my hip created by my pager brings an instant smile to my face.

Romy:
It’s Ken. Yeess.

Mountains of sorrow shrink to nothingness. Forgotten are the endless cries over not having him close, the agonies I just lived through minutes ago when jacking off that dirty old man inside his house in Bel Air. His nauseating scent still lingers on me. Grateful that Ken cannot see the mess I am, I pull off to the side of the road and phone him.

“I would love to see you, honey,” he says when he hears my voice. “I am out here in the desert for a gig. Why don’t you fly in? I’ll pay for the ticket? Check around how much airfares are and call me back. Alright?”

“Okay, babe,” I say as detached as possible, working hard at trying to hide the overflowing excitement.

Romy:
He loves me…he loves…he loves me…

Within minutes, I gather the required information and ring Ken back.

“Hey, sweetie. It looks like a roundtrip ticket runs around two hundred forty bucks with American Airlines. I can be there as early as eight o’clock tonight.” There is silence on the other end.

“Do you want me to book it?” I ask.

“Come to think of it, it’s kind of late already. It may not be such a good idea after all because I wouldn’t have much time to hang out with you. Just cancel the thought.”

The conversation ends within seconds, at which time I collapse crying over the steering wheel, staying in that position for roughly fifteen minutes.

Romy:
It’s all your fault he changed his mind. He might have sensed that you just came from somewhere where you shouldn’t have been to begin with.

The sobbing lets up a little. Immediately, I start driving although I feel like someone just whacked me over the head with a baseball bat.

Once I get to my house, I draw a hot bath, get in and out in thirty minutes and spend the rest of the evening eating, purging, masturbating…in that order, several times in a row until I cave onto the sheet and dose off.

~~~

This morning, a few days after Ken played that hurtful game on the phone, he crosses my path at the gym. I give him a look of contempt but he keeps on following me around with repeated attempts of trying to get on my good side.

Romy:
Be nice to him.

I play hard to get for a few minutes, but his cuteness eventually melts me, and I take him up on his invite to be his guest at a wrap party.

At 9:00 p.m., I meet Ken in front of the event building in Culver City.

“Listen. Before we go in, I don’t want you to flip if I smooch with some of the women. You know, it’s all a show, strictly for business, not meaning a thing in this industry, like you probably know?”

Romy:
Whaaat…?

“How are you going to introduce me?” I ask with frustration in my voice.

“I’ll tell ‘em you’re my friend.”

Hot Shot:
How convenient
.

Miss Vanity:
He better not piss me off more.

I follow Ken down the long corridor on our way in. We pass through hordes of dolled up people. I watch as he immediately intrigues with a smorgasbord of preying females who look like they are about to jump his bones at any moment. We sit down at a table. A minute passes.

“I need to say hello to a few people,” he tells me, undeniable restlessness emerging from his every pore. “Let’s meet upstairs near the pool room in ten minutes, okay?”

“Cool,” I say trying hard to keep my uneasiness under wraps. Ten minutes elapse…

Spotting Ken near the pool table I join his side. People are gathered around us, some chatting, others sipping on their cocktails. Roughly four feet away from where we are stands a blonde dressed in a yellow evening gown. Her smile widens as Ken spots her. He walks over to her. I see them talk for a moment, an intensely long moment.

Enviola:
She is all over my man, eating him with her eyes.

Romy:
I know that look
.
That’s how I look at him…with the eyes of a smitten lovesick puppy.

Lustania:
…and twinkling desire.

Enviola:
That slut. She ain’t all that…probably some fucking actress?

Lustania:
She’s definitely lusting him.

A minute goes by…Ken waves me over. When I reach the two
lovebirds
he introduces me as his “friend.”