Chapter 6
I was purposely confusing the issue for her, turning the image of Kent from male into female in conversation as a kind of transition between fact and Kent's desire. If I could get Nebbish to talk about Kent as she, from there, perhaps, we could move on to the next step. I don't know whether Kent understood what I was doing. He sat up, paced the room a couple of times and I watched Nebbish look him over as he walked.
"You're not a bad looking guy," she said.
"Why don't you straighten up and fly right?"
"Your're not a bad looking girl,"he said. "Why don't you do the same?"
"I wouldn't sleep with a man-"
"I wouldn't sleep with a man-"he echoed, grinning.
"I wouldn't sleep with a man," I concluded with an even larger grin. "Nobody in this room is going to sleep with a man. Everybody's women."
"Then you ought to leave," Kent said to me. "I'd be delighted to leave," I said, easily. Nebbish said again, "Oh, no you don't." We playing sexual musical chairs, a game I was accustomed to in certain circumstances. Shy people, hesitant people, confused people. They liked to do a lot of talking. They liked to make a lot of nonsense noise, kind of wallow in the buzz of sound and feel the proximity of others around them, a certain security in the closeness of chaos reflecting their own chaos.
Well, I had plenty of time and I was very good at confusing matters, stirring things around, bringing up dregs and bits. "Nebbish, how about another scotch?" I said.
"Great idea." She went, herself, for the bottle which was standing on the coffee table and poured it into a glass. I guess it must have been Kent's glass, drank the liquid neat, smacked her lips loudly with a certain bravado and poured another.
"She drinks a lot," Kent said.
"I'm a cheap drunk," Nebbish commented.
"Don't worry about it."
It occurred to me at that moment that Nebbish should be apprised of the fact that Kent was no ordinary lesbian but that he had a hell of a lot of cash to back up his image. "He doesn't have to worry about cheap or expensive drunk, Nebbish. He can afford you, dear. Just relax."
"Whose apartment is this, anyway?" it occurred to her to ask. Kent said, "It's his."
"Then what are you doing here?" she said without shyness.
Kent smiled. "Waiting for you."
It was a nice parody, I thought, that Kent was going through. He had picked up my manner and was carrying it along. We were like two foxes surrounding this girl, running circles around her, actually, and it was obvious to both Kent and myself that she was going to capitulate in some fashion at some time before dawn.
Nebbish herself realized it. She sat down on the sofa, poised at the edge of the cushion, legs widespread, arms on her knees and hands dangling between them. She looked down at the space between her shoes, hiccoughed once or twice and said, "What the heck am I doing here, anyway?" to herself. None of us had an answer for that. I didn't know what she was doing there. I didn't know what Kent was doing there. I didn't know what I was doing there, except living my life from day to day and trying to make the best of it, which I consider a good philosophy for anyone at any time. This need for justification for self-importance, for meaning in action, is a snare and a delusion, I believe, and I told all this to Nebbish directly, not concerned with how much she heard, but needing to get it out of me and into the open air so that there would never come a time when someone would confuse me of immoral standards to which I didn't subscribe.
"All you're saying," Nebbish summarized, "is that I ought to fuck this quirk over here." She jerked her thumb in Kent's direction. "And someone's gonna pay me for it." Kent said, "I'm going to pay you for it."
"How much?"
He looked her over, came to an assessment, said, "Enough to make your eyes pop out."
"Nothing could do that anymore," Nebbish said.
"Oh, I know," Kent leaned back against the sofa arm, "you've been disappointed in love and nothing can ever touch you again."
"I didn't say that."
"You did so. You said it."
"When?"
I sat down between them for a second time, warding off an argument by the proximity of my physique. I was getting impatient with all this jabber. And yet these two people needed to talk, needed to bump against each other and see how hard they actually hit. Well, I had time, I had patience. In the long run it wasn't going to affect me one way or the other if Nebbish came around to an agreement with Kent or not. But I was concerned for him. I knew his heart was in his mouth and that his body was hungry to touch a woman, regardless of what his attitude was in the process.
At the same time I realized that Nebbish, too, was suffering her own brand of starvation and I wished, really wished, that she might be able to get something out of Kent's attention to her. But it didn't seem likely at all. All those defenses that she had grown throughout the years of her young life seemed rigid, like little sticks of steel in front of her to which she clung.
Rigidity is another quality of the young. Nebbish, with her need to be a strong-armed lesbian, was never going to bend and admit that anybody but a sweet, fragile girl could attract her or touch her heart. I knew then that I had made a mistake. I had been overly optimistic about what this girl would be capable of doing when given an opportunity.
But Kent was not in despair, I saw. He leaned around me and looked up into the girl's face.
He said, "Look, if it's a choice between going to bed with this guy or me, don't you think you ought to choose a lesbian?"
She smiled. "Mister, you never give up."
"Stop calling me Mister."
"Well, whoever you are, you never give up.
That's a laugh."
"I'll give up. You want me to give up?"
"I don't care what you do."
"But you're not going to go to bed with him instead of me, are you?"
The situation was prolonging itself too long for my comfort. I said, "Why don't we all go to bed together and get it over with?"
"What?" Her voice shrieked in horror. "Me with two men? One is bad enough. What am I gonna do with two?"
"Earn a living," I said quietly.
Her body went stiff. "I'd rather give you back your twenty bucks."
I heard the challenge in her voice and the rebellion, and it didn't phase me. "Okay, so do it," I said, knowing she didn't have the money to return.
Obviously she was trapped. She didn't have the money and really didn't know how to bluff herself out of the situation.
Kent said, "Don't force her, Joe. That's no fun."
I ignored him, knowing that there was certain times when a little forceful direction could ' break down phony barriers. It may seem far-fetched that I believed that Nebbish could enjoy herself with a man, even a special man such as Kent. But I knew that Nebbish didn't really know whether she was coming or going, wasn't certain of her own mind in many respects. I had seen girls, particularly young ones, transfer their energies from homosexual to heterosexual and even the reverse. In Nebbish I felt a vacillation underneath her adamant exterior. She wasn't having a good time with women, anyway. What she needed was someone to love her. To my mind it didn't really matter which sex she chose.
She stared at me with a combination of hate and helplessness. Then, in her rebellious way, slowly began to undress. What she intended to do was to give of her body without yielding one iota of emotion. She would show me, she thought.
I had seen rebellion before. I was no stranger to its variety of forms. The whore, by her very nature and sense of worthlessness, incorporates rebellion into her psychology. But she is not rebelling against the world around her, rather against herself. It is not so subtle a form of self-rejection and the pimp who hopes to direct her must understand this deep-rooted denial of being that so often motivates the whore to sell her body. In Nebbish's case I saw the prototype not only of self denial but of fear that she would get lost in the shuffle. Also, she suffered quite blatantly from a sense of being boxed in, of having no alternative. She felt trapped, not by her own nature which was, in fact, the case, but by those around her. To Nebbish the world was a place of vultures out to pick her bones clean of flesh. I knew at that moment she hated me more than any other person alive.
It would seem, therefore, on the surface of things that she would be the most unlikely prospect as a lover for Kent, but I knew differently. I knew that in bed Kent would act as a counterfoil to me. He would show her affection, consideration. He would be the refuge to which she ran because she had to run someplace. Had she been the kind of person who knew how to withdraw completely, I would not have selected her for Kent. What I counted on was that she was still young enough to seek help and protection and Kent, here, was the only other person from whom he could get it.
Neither Kent nor myself made a move while Nebbish took off her clothing. She had been dressed in conventional butch garb,, shirt and slacks that fit her neatly. In her dress she tried to imitate an urbane masculine look. Yet one could sense beneath this the softness, the woman.
She undid her blouse rapidly and pulled it off her shoulders, revealing graceful curves. With defiance she unhooked her simple cotton bra and let it fall away. The young, beautiful tits stood up, twin banners of assertion, their pink nipples already hardened at her emotions of anger and spite. The creamy, conical flesh appealed even to me and I felt sorry to see the rapid rise and fall of her rib cage in response to her angry, fearful breathing. I decided not to touch her but to let Kent do it all instead. Nebbish continued unzipping the fly of her slacks, pulling them down over her hips to reveal white nylon panties. Through them one could see the outline of her pussy, the pubic hair some shades darker blonde than her butch haircut. She stood on widespread legs, somehow unable to make the last step and remove her panties. To encourage her, I moved back a few paces and sat down, letting her know by my action that I had no intention of grabbing her or reaching for her in any way. I crossed my legs, leaned back and watched, even though my cock was roaring hard with excitement.
Kent said to her, "I'll take off my clothes, too, if you don't mind," in the gentlest of voices. Nebbish was startled by his statement and looked at him for a moment as though he were nuts asking her permission. Her gaze rested upon his face and took in minutely the details of his make-up.
"God, you do look like a woman, somehow," she murmured. "Do I? Thank you."
"And not a bad looking one, either." Her voice had lost its edge of strain. "You know, I used to go with a girl who looked something like you. Maybe she was a little shorter, though."
"I hope so."
They both laughed, for Kent was quite tall. Then Nebbish said, "On second thought, maybe you better leave your clothes on. I don't want to see too much right away." What she meant, of course, was that she didn't want to be confronted with the cock before she was ready for it, which Kent seemed to understand.
"I'll do whatever you say." His voice was still gentle and willing.
Nebbish flung an uncertain glance at me but I returned no expression whatsoever, giving her what I could of utmost freedom in feeling. I somehow always preferred the position of pimp to participator. It gave me a better point of vantage from which I could learn and control.
Neither of them seemed interested in proceeding to the bedroom. They had the sofa and the carpeted floor, soft cushions everywhere, and all the booze they could drink. The only thing that remained to be done was to turn down the lights, which I, myself, did. I plunged the room into total darkness so that Nebbish would have the aid and benefit of her imagination rather than the stark reality of her sight. Yet it was not so dark that I could not see at all. A pale cast came in from the kitchen and I could watch the silhouettes come together and embrace.
Kent sat down on the couch. Nebbish stood before him, leaning over in an aggressive stance. Each of them was taking the attitude most natural and it was Kent who reached up, putting his arms around her neck while she drew him close to her tits.
A sigh came from him, a woman sound.
I heard Nebbish's voice say to him assuringly, "I won't hurt you." Her tone had picked up a faint note of confidence.
Their faces came together, open mouths touched. I heard the sucking sound of tongues making contact for a while and I sat there with my eyes closed and listened to the heavy breathing and the grunts of sexual foreplay. I could not tell whether Nebbish was play-acting or really giving herself up to the moment, and
I didn't much care. It was Kent who concerned me, for he was the more difficult of the two to satisfy.
When I opened my eyes, I saw Nebbish pushing him down upon the couch lengthwise. Then she threw herself down, lying on top of him. Her head made short, erratic gestures as she nipped at his mouth and ears, then ducked her face down to his neck. Her hands moved over his chest, searching for the breasts which were not there, finding the masculine flatness and accommodating herself to it somehow, I suppose, because his hands were moving all over her, too. I knew that Nebbish was responding with some sensation and that her sexual needs would help distort Kent's body into a more satisfactory form for her purpose.
Apparently he knew what to do with a woman better than most men. He could imagine more clearly, more closely, what a woman needed. He was willing and eager to give it, too. Kent wanted to be the perfect lover to make up for his deficiency in physiological structure. I admired his agreeable nature at that point and felt that he would eventually be amazingly successful in finding exactly the kind of woman he needed in life.
His hands grasped her ass and pulled her tightly to him. I could almost see her body submitting to the caress, submitting with need, out of hunger too long unfulfilled. She began to move her hips in circles, that familiar action which told me she was rubbing herself against his erected penis. Her movements became larger, more forceful. She arched and hunched herself to get the greatest friction against her between her legs.
"Oh, God, I want to suck you" she cried and then, "I can't! I can't!" in a crying, pleading voice.
Something snapped. I knew it was the end of the line but still waited, hoping that she could break through her inhibitions. "No. Please don't."
Kent, in a hoarse voice said, "Don't be afraid, you mustn't be afraid."
"But what am I going to do with this cock?
You're so large."
"Forget it. Don't touch it," he pleaded in return.
"But how can I? It's you."
"Put your hands elsewhere. In back," he said desperately.
"I don't want your ass-hole."
"What difference does it make? It's a place."
"No."
Apparently Nebbish decided that she would suck Kent's cock. I knew she really didn't want to, but I figured she decided that since she was here she might as well go ahead with it.
She suddenly became very forceful, and demanded that Kent stand up at the head of the couch. His cock was huge, and jutting out in front of his slender body, actually looking quite menacing.
I was surprised at the gusto with which she tore into his prick. She pulled both of his huge sagging balls into her mouth and sucked away on them fiercely.
Kent almost fell over from pleasure as her hot saliva-coated tongue swirled about the base of his cock. His balls were gigantic, but she didn't seem to mind. I think she was getting lost in the act of cock-sucking, forgetting if even for a moment, that she was a dyke, and basically hated all men.
She began to let the saliva flow freely from her mouth, spewing out over the base of Kent's cock, getting it wetter and wetter. I watched the expression on Kent's face. At first he was a little embarrassed at what was happening, perhaps because I was watching on so close at hand, but after a short time he gave into the girls frantic ways completely, enjoying every suck she gave him thoroughly.
Inch by inch she worked her sucking mouth up along the base of his cock, getting closer and closer to his huge plumb-shaped cock head. It was a bright red, and I could see a tiny pool or pre-orgasmic cum dripping out of the tip of it. Kent was ready to shoot his load all right, and I was sure that it wouldn't take much effort on Nebbish's part, once she closed her mouth over the top of his prick, to get him to shoot gallons of hot gooey cum into her mouth.
Finally, after several long minutes of passionate foreplay Nebbish moved her mouth to the top of his prick. With one sweeping movement she flew herself down over Kent's huge cock, engulfing the entire length of his love pole.
Kent screamed out as her passion seared his flesh. Her face began to blur she was moving so fucking fast up and down on his cock. 'Kent's body began to quiver, and I knew that the inevitable was not far away.
All of a sudden I saw tears begin to stream to Nebbish's face. It was very strange, She began to sob uncontrollably, even though she didn't let up on her sucking of Kent's massive mauler for a second.
I realized that she was going through a lot of changes. Something had possessed her to suck away on the man's cock, but there was also a battle going on in her mind about her sexuality, and the result was this horrendous stream of tears.
All of a sudden Kent began to come. I saw his body trembling as he began to grab Nebbish's hair and shove her face on and off his cock. He had become somewhat of a savage in the throes of his sexual bliss.
The come poured into her mouth, so much in fact I saw it dripping out the corners of her mouth, mixing with the flow of tears streaming down her cheeks. It was a strange scene, one which I will never forget as long as I live.
Kent panted as his orgasm completed, pulled his cock out of her mouth, and fell over on the couch.
With a tearing sound in her throat, Nebbish wrenched herself free, sat up and leaped backward away from him. She put her face in her hands and began to sob without control.
Kent began to creep toward her, then stopped himself. I saw his face turning in my direction.
"Joe, you made a mistake," he said.
I reached across and pulled on a lamp light. There was no point in forcing something that could not come to pass with pleasure.
I sat there, confronted by two frustrated souls and wondered what I was going to do.
They both stayed over the rest of the night, Kent maintaining his lair in my apartment and Nebbish, completely drained of energy, tottered off to the bedroom, shut the door and withdrew into sleep. I crossed my hands on my stomach and thought and thought, feeling the increase of challenge, aware that I had to rectify my error in some way.
Dawn did not bring deeper understanding or any solution at all and my mind, tiring of the problem, wandered away from it temporarily.
I was still sitting in the chair, half dozing, when the aroma of scrambled eggs and coffee reached my nostrils. I came to, listening to the sounds of Kentputtering around the kitchen. He came in after a while with a pot of coffee and set it down on a protective trivet and poured three cups in a good-natured way. I almost expected him to burst out humming.
At that moment I realized how accustomed Kent was to meeting with frustration and failure. Even though he had come, he was mentaly dissatisfied.
"Poor kid," he said, more to himself than to me. "We really gave her a hard time last night. I don't want to do anything like that again, Joe. It doesn't help anybody."
I agreed and leaned forward to take the cup of black coffee that he handed me. I sat back, sipping it as he set the table. He put out the eggs, orange juice and strips of crisp bacon that he knew how to make so well. I thought with a small laugh that Kent would actually make someone a delightful wife, that ther must be a woman on earth who would not only appreciate but would prize these qualities in him. It was just a question of more searching and more trying.
Both of us hesitated to wake the girl, agreeing that she required all the sleep she could get after the night's upset. So Kent and I ate our breakfast in peace and talked about what we would do next as though Nebbish had become invisible.
Nebbish was just coming out of the bedroom, her face puffy and worn, when the doorbell rang and in came Dorris and Joan in high spirits, filling the room with smiles and good cheer that lapped over everything and everyone.
The gaze of both women caught Nebbish in transit.
The girl was, of course, far from looking her best. Yet, because she was naked and her body smooth and slender, they stared at her, each in deep and private appreciation.
I saw Dorris's gaze linger upon the girl's body while Joan's left it and flitted over to Kents.
I looked at him and realized that he still had on remnants of make-up and must look very weird to Joan. She didn't seem repelled by his appearance and instead she looked at him with curiosity at first and then with a more lingering, detailed gaze of an artist's assessing eye.
Kent stood up under the scrutiny without flinching. I wondered if he knew how he looked. I supposed he did, but felt he had nothing to hide, particularly in my place, in front of anyone who might come to visit me. Of course he was right.
Nebbish proceeded to the bathroom. Kent offered Dorris and Joan coffee, which both women accepted.
Doris took off her jacket and settled herself on the sofa, facing the corridor through which Nebbish would have to pass again when she returned from her shower. Joan stood with her coffee, smoothed back her short cropped hair and began to talk to Kent as though they had known each other forever.
Although I had seen Joan only once before, I knew that she was not so often at ease with people as she was with Kent. Soon they were talking about painting, in which Kent had a deep and educated interest. She moved toward him and together they went to the window, looked out upon the skyline and became engrossed in the subjects of color, form and, apparently, each other.
I looked at Dorris to see how she was taking it but she hardly seemed to have noticed the loss of her friend to Kent's company.
"Well, how'd you spend the night?" I said to Dorris in a casual way.
She answered me off-handedly, her gaze still attentive to that place where Nebbish would appear in time. When the girl finally did arrive, her body wrapped in a large turkish towel, Dorris's smile took on an unmistakable glow.
Nebbish, unaware of the happenings, wandered into the living room, picked up her clothing and went off again to the bedroom without saying a word to anybody.
From my glance in her direction, I saw that Dorris found this utterly charming.
"Would you like to go in and help her dress?" I said to Dorris, jokingly.
Dorris looked up at me with a wink. "Don't read my mind," she said in a half-laugh.
"The girl's not for you," I said. "She's too young and confused."
"Let me worry about that." She fumbled in her bag, took out a lipstick and fixed her own make-up.
I nodded, perfectly willing to allow Dorris to worry about it.
The two at the window remained there, seeking and finding each other. It was incredible, even to me, that Joan and Kent should make a couple, yet there it was, without explanation or logic. I had no way of knowing, of course, if it would come to pass or how long it might last even if the essential connection were made. I had a sudden desire to know Joan better, just to settle my own curiosity, but I left well enough alone.
Nebbish finally came into the living room, all dressed and looking like the little boy she preferred to masquerade as being. She couldn't help but look at Dorris who was staring at her intently. I saw Nebbish's face fluster under the flattery of Dorris's approval.
So this was how it was going to work out, I told myself. A simple case of swapping which I might never have thought of.
There is no happy ending to this episode. I write it as a simple description of a chapter in time. Kent and Joan did go off together, back to her apartment, I suppose, and then to his, until they tired of each other.
Dorris easily captured Nebbish's heart. The young girl was so eager to be had by some woman that any woman would have done and I doubt that she appreciated Dorris's qualities. Probably she fed from the older woman and finally left her when she felt full.
Yet for that week four people were satisfied, I know. I also know that there are many people on earth who cannot be satisfied, even for a day.