Man is the hunter; woman is his game. The sleek and shining creatures of the chase, we hunt them for the beauty of their skins; they love us for it, and we ride them down
Tennyson, The Princess
I would be married, but I’d have no wife, I would be married to a single life.
Buckowski
I began to receive mail from a girl in Memphis, Tennessee. In each letter she included a quote from the king, and a line from the Lord’s prayer. Lonnye was one pious lady.
She met me off the aeroplane in a headscarf like Jacky Kennedy. At first I thought it was for period detail, but when she took it off at her apartment, I could see a large animal, possibly a Moose, had taken a chunk out of her.
‘Mr Coakes,’ Lonnye told me, in the sweetest Southern Bell tone - she was a big girl, not fat but comfortable, and had trained as an opera singer,
‘Your reviews are so raw, so masculine and vigorous, but artistic too, and sensitive to the human condition.’
There was something deeply sexy about hearing myself complimented like this. I grabbed her and kissed her deeply. Her breath smelt of Del Monte juices. She pulled away and moved to the bar. She began pouring us both a bourbon. I took mine and knocked it back. She poured me another.
Lonnye had a big television - not as big as mine, but adequate. I turned it on and began channel surfing. She sat on the edge of the couch, her breasts flashing at me.
I reached over without looking and cupped one in my hand. She gasped and stood up suddenly, walked over to the bar and began fooling around with the drinks cabinet. I never knew how to act around women.
‘Come sit by me,’ I told her, patting her furred settee. Lonnye sat, supping her Bourbon nervously. I pulled out my Moleskine and began writing. I could tell I wouldn’t be getting anything, Lonnye could tell too.
You could write to exercise or exorcize, I wrote
‘Kotters existential dilemma is the manifestation of his vivid internal dialectic in the frame of extant reality. Ironically he is aware of the metanarrative of parodic simulcra - in a sense Kotter is Bradbury’s family, giggling into a darkened parlour, a simulation of a simulation, and hence real.’ Baudrillard wept. On the screen Epstein held out another fake note.
Lonnye took her top off and climbed on top of me. I shifted her panties aside and flapped my cock out. I put it inside her and gave her a few strokes. It was difficult, she was a heavy girl and didn’t move much. I had to hoist her up on each stroke. At last I gave up and lit a camel. Lonnye climbed off me, rearranged her dress and went in the bedroom. I drank more Bourbon, finishing the bottle, and used Lonnye’s phone to call my ex wife long distance. I meant to leave the line connected as I loudly fucked her in the next room. Melody answered. I thought about it for a minute, then hung up.
I moved into the bedroom, and stripped off everything but my socks and shoes. I like to keep these on at all times. You never knew when you might have to run naked into the street, either from or after a woman.
Lonnye called out to me, her back turned, as I closed the door.
‘Iago, is that you?’
Who else would it be, I thought. Anyone I supposed. I really knew nothing about this girl. I let out a loud fart and sensed her relax. Already she knew my ways. My backside was a little sticky, but I figured I’d let the sheets suffer, and climbed in alongside her. She rolled onto her side, facing away from me, and I came up behind her. We were both naked. I used her back to lift my belly clear of my crotch, and started poking for her arse. I drew my face through her soft curled hair. It smelt good. I found her hole. She was dry and reasonably tight. Lonnye squeaked like a field mouse caught under a chair. Outside it was raining. It felt strange, fucking in the bright afternoon, watching a smoke of sheet rain haze the Memphis farmland through the window. I rolled Lonnye over on her belly, and gave her a few good strokes from behind. The phone began to ring.
‘Iago,’ she said, and started to move out from under me.
‘Like fuck,’ I told her, and plowed deeper. It was tough going. I couldn’t find a good angle, with my belly in front and two great soft buttocks behind. I worked a few fingers into her mouth and thought of the sweaty crop-topped teens at Melody’s sports day, little bumps sweating in the fronts of their lycra shorts. I exploded deep inside her, finishing with a few spasmodic thrusts, like a machine winding down. I let Lonnye drop and rolled off, wiping my cock clean on her cotton sheets. She hopped up and raced for the phone. I admired the bob of her firm tits as she ran. After a minute she called me. I answered the phone buck naked. It was Melody.
‘I star sixty nined.’
I snorted.
‘Daaad! Why were you calling, you haven’t called this number in almost eight years.’
‘Just wanted to check you were doing ok. I got cut off earlier.’
‘Uh huh.’
‘Well, it’s been great talking to you honey, but daddy’s got to go.’
I hung up on the little princess, and walked back in the bedroom. Lonnye was weeping softly. I climbed in beside her and moved close. I started playing with her sticky cunt. She rose and went into the bathroom. I heard a tap run. I started to drift off. Lonnye streaked out of the bathroom in a nightgown. I wondered if she’d scalded herself. She returned carrying a Luger. It didn’t look loaded, but you could never tell.
‘Get the hell out of here Coakes,’ she told me in that sexy Souther voice.
I farted.
‘I’m leaving, I’m leaving.’
I dressed and left. After she slammed the door behind me I crouched down, pulled my pants aside, and took a great steaming Bourbon shit on her doorstep. It felt good to let loose after a fuck. I wiped my ass on Lonnye’s daffodils.
I didn’t know anyone in Memphis, so I walked down the street till I found a bar. Lonnye lived in kind of a run down neighbourhood, on the edge of the city, but it seemed a soft place overall. I found a bar and ordered a Vodka 7. A young guy appeared with a blonde on his arm. He looked like a pimp, or maybe a musician. She was a real hard-body, tall, with great legs under a sunflower yellow summer dress.
‘Hey, you’re Coakes, the critic right? I read your stuff in The Commercial Appeal.’
‘The Commercial Appeal?’ I said.
It sounded like a trade paper for advertising executives.
‘That sounds like a trade paper for advertising executives,’ I said.
‘Yeah, well, you’re syndicated.’
We shot the bull for a while, then the couple headed off. After a couple of minutes sunflower blonde reappeared.
‘Hi,’ she said.
‘Hi,’ I said.
‘My names Barbara.’
‘Iago.’
Horace was wondering if he could have your autograph? He’s too shy to ask himself.
‘Sure,’ I told her, and patted her on the ass. She had a great ass. I took a beer mat and tore it in two. I signed one half, and wrote my cell number on the other.
‘What’s this?’ Barbara said, twirling the numbered half in her fingers.
‘That’s just for you.’
She packed her piece away and kissed me on the cheek. I watched her calves as she moved off. She was lithe, like a hunted animal.
The bars TV was decent hi-def stuff. I’d begun a campaign to make high definition television compulsory in bars, it pleased me. The barman was a good old boy, he told me racist jokes and we watched the Wonder Years. Business was slow.
4am arrived. I was drunk and wandering Memphis. It was a strange city. Parts of the centre were green and gentrified, like Boston. A great slow river ran past white colonials. Good expensive neighbourhoods. Parts were steel and glass and empty, like Phoenix. There were some good clubs too, rowdy and violent, pumping Jazz up from the basements like N’Orleans. I sat on a bench outside a park and started to write about the city. Suddenly I realised it wasn’t a TV show, and tore the page out of my notebook. I was drunk. I wondered how the neurotic could tell, with any certainty, whether it was his lock on reality that shifted and vibrated, or he himself slip sliding through interconnected parallels, worlds in which his scope and weight waxed and waned. My cellphone rang, it was Barbara.
‘I’ve shaken the hubby,’ she said.
‘Great,’ I told her, ‘pick me up.’
Barbara pulled up in a Subaru SUV.
‘What happened to Horace,’ I asked.
‘Horace couldn’t make it.’
Her perfume was sweet and heady, some kind of Coco Channel witches brew. I put my hand on her thigh, reached up under her skirt to the top of her stockings. She wasn’t wearing any panties. I fingered her cunt as she steered the car through the light early morning traffic.
‘Where are we going,’ she asked, ignoring the three fingers stirring her gunge.
I leaned out the open passenger passenger side window and spit. In the rear view mirror a postman began chasing the car on foot. His dance reminded me of a Thunderbirds puppet.
‘I feel like gambling, wake me when we get to Atlantic city.’
One handed I slipped on a pair of D&G man shades and fell asleep with my hand in her pussy.
When I woke we were parked in an underground lot. Barbara’s mouth was on my cock. She wasn’t very creative, the strait suck and blow. You had to pay a girl to get a decent blow job in North America. She had a small mouth. That was ok, I had a small cock. She seemed reluctant to throat me, so I gave her some encouragement.
‘Come on slut, you can do better than that.’
She tried her hardest, but her mouth was really tiny, like a a mouse trap. I lost my hard, pushed her off and zipped up. I was damp. Everywhere was damp. My shirt and suit jacket and hair were sweat damp. My crotch was saliva damp. It was chilly in the concrete car park.
‘Come on,’ I said, opening the door.
‘Lets gamble.’
We were in some sort of enormous casino. I didn’t bother to ask where. Casino’s everywhere were the same. I bought fifty G’s in chips and headed to the jack tables. A casino will almost never lead you straight to the real money. You have to blow some cash in the little leagues first. I blew my fifty grand and motioned over a concierge.
‘Where do I go to lose some real money.’
‘There is a private no-limit Hold Em’ game available, but its an eight figure buy in.’
I looked at Barbara. Her eyes looked like eight balls.
‘No problem.’
I couldn’t afford to lose ten million dollars. Luckily I was a fantastic poker player. The high rollers were the usual bunch, a old bitch with too much face paint, a nerd, a divorcee, a black, and a mafia don with a couple of heavies. The heavies eyed me up as I sat down. Barbara clasped my crotch and whispered.
‘I’m so hot right now.’
I farted loudly. She laughed. One of the techies frowned. I posted on the big blind, drew a pocket pair of kings. The night was looking up.
Midgame I took a potty break. Barbara was at the bar so I nodded to a lizard and she joined me in the john. The lizard was Asian, with an enormous bust. She sucked me while I sat on the pot. She had a real set of lips, and some good technique. She even ate out my rusty asshole. It felt good to have a tongue down there. She was a dirty dame. When I finished I pulled up my pants and tossed a handful of low notes in the shitter. She cursed and bent to retrieve them.
‘Brush your teeth,’ I told her, ‘your breaths terrible.’
Back at the table I faced off against one techy geek. He was fat, not fat like me, but still a hog. He wore an old Netscape t-shirt. The casino had let him take a bulldog to the table. The beast kept sniffing at his crotch.
‘Stop it, goddamn it,’ he said, and slapped the bulldogs mussel. I couldn’t stand men who were cruel to their animals. Animals were loyal, and wouldn’t fight back. I drew the King of Hearts and the Ace of Diamonds, and laid down fifty k.
By the River it was just me and the geek, and fifteen million on the table. On the grass lay the Ace of Spades, King of Diamonds, King of Spades, and the Ten of Diamonds. Like a fucking prince, the dealer laid down the Jack of Hearts. Kings full of aces, I had the nuts, and the geek was drawing dead. I raised five mill. Nerd baby watched me. I took a drink and fingered my chips. He reached into a shirt pocket and dropped a silver ticket face down on the green. He flicked it over to me. The ticket read ‘Space Adventures.’
‘What’s this Willy Wonka shit?’ I asked him.
‘It’s a trip to the international space station, leaving Tuesday.’ Today was Saturday. The geek was sweating heavily. His pupils looked like prunes. I looked at the ticket a while. It looked genuine. There was a hologram and everything. I motioned for a concierge.
‘Get the manager.’
He sprinted off. The manager emerged. He was a ace queen in his forties with a ponytail and a red handkerchief. He had a cleft in his forehead like a pussy.
‘Get this checked out.’
I handed him the ticket.
‘At once sir.’
Barbara whispered in my ear.
‘This is making me so horny.’
I turned away. I was drained. While we waited for the manager to return I needled the geek.
‘How’d you make your money geek?’
‘I’m a web two point oh entrepreneur you fat bastard,’ the geek said in a nasal whistle.
‘Figures,’ I told him.
The manager returned and whispered in my ear. The ticket was genuine. Face value fifteen very big ones. My head fizzed like Pepto-Bismol. Space called out to me. I nodded to the geek, and went all in. We turned over our cards. He flipped the Ace of Clubs and the Queen of Diamonds, my runner-runner house trip’ aces. They had to haul the maniac off on a stretcher.
Powered by FireStats