"Say What?" by Ray Gregory

www.RayGregory.com

Say What?

by Ray Gregory

Every couple of days Heather would walk into my office carrying long, cardboard tubes stuffed with rolled-up plans. She was a courier for this construction company that did business with the engineering firm I worked for. I was the guy who signed for them.

Now Heather was so spacey and awkward, those long tubes seemed to fly every which way with every step she took. Whenever she hauled some in — with me always scrambling to help her with the ones she dropped — we’d chat, friendly but minimally, with me doing most of the talking. Heather carrying the tubes, me carrying the conversation, since she never had much to say.

I figured she probably thought I was an up-and-coming young executive type because I wore a tie and had my own little windowless office. I mean, she seemed so young and clueless, why wouldn’t she be flattered that a thirty-two year old guy who wore a tie, who’d already been married and divorced, talked to her? — she was only about twenty. But who knew for sure what Heather thought? — she wasn’t letting on, not with what little she had to say about anything.

Truth was, I was near the bottom of the company pecking order, socially lower than even the homeliest secretaries. I was new to the company, and as things would turn out, wouldn’t be there much longer — not much longer at all. But it was a go-nowhere job anyway. The economy was tanking and that company would be belly up in a year. Hearing about its demise later would be my fondest memory of the place.

Despite her general dullness — or maybe because of it? — Heather seemed to think shocking people was the only way to get attention. The desperate ploys included clipped, purple hair, eye makeup that made it look like she had two black eyes, black nail polish, a tongue stud, lip ring, nose ring, multiple earrings, and an unknown tattoo count: a bird wing peeked out from the neck of her T-shirt, flower petals from under a sleeve, a little fairy or pixie or something flitted behind one ear.

But all that aside, Heather seemed to have a pretty good figure. She wasn’t fat, and she seemed to have some boobs, though just what size was anybody’s guess, what with the bib overalls she always wore. She even had nice, delicate features. She’d pass for cute if you could bring yourself to overlook all the hardware and holes and such — which I guess I must have done, because the more we talked — well, the more I talked and Heather just stared and maybe listened — the better she looked.

And as for her blandness? It even seemed like a welcome contrast after my ex-wife. It wasn't like I needed another emotional, manipulative drama queen in my life. Why else would I have quit my last job and moved all the way to this place anyway?

What the hell? I was lonely. It’d been almost a year since my divorce. And it wasn’t like my job description had anything to do with meeting new and interesting people.

“So, wanna maybe do dinner sometime?” I asked Heather one day.

She fidgeted. “Oh, uh, well, I, uh, we’ll uh, well I, uh, well, uh — I dunno.” Then she made a speedy getaway. What, was she shy now? Was it me? Was I too normal for her tastes? I wondered if she’d quit her nothing of a delivery job now just to avoid ever having to see me again.

Was it the old-fashioned idea of an actual “date” that freaked her out. And dinner? Maybe I should have just asked her if she wanted to hook up. That sensitive, nice-guy stuff was so yesterday, right? Did I really want to be seen hanging out with a chick with purple-hair and black fingernails and all the hardware and tats anyway? And watching her eat? How would she even do that with that ring in her lip? And a tongue stud?! What was all that about anyway? What kinda statement? But you know what I thought got to Heather? Like most chicks these days, I figured she was so muddled trying to play tough that she just couldn’t figure out a guy just trying to be nice.

But lo and behold, the next day Heather actually showed up again, hauling in more of those cardboard tubes. And by then she’d apparently got used to the idea of going out with me, because she even brought it up herself. Heck, she even seemed ecstatic about it — for Heather. “We can do that dinner thing,” she said, “if you really wanna.”

So a couple of nights later she met me at this little Italian place. I’d offered to pick her up at her place, but she’d said she’d meet me there. I figured she probably wanted to hide the fact that she lived in some shabby little dump, or maybe still lived with her parents. So when I got to the restaurant, there she was waiting for me in her delivery van. I was kinda surprised they let her use it after work.

That little Italian place was nothing special, but it was presentable, and most important, dark and out of the way. But wouldn’t you know it? As soon as we sat down at the table, this guy from work walked by, one of the water cooler jocks. “Hey!” he said, slowing down for an eyeful. The jackass even waved big, right in my face — like he even knew my name!

The thing about Heather was she wasn’t really that bad looking. As I said, her face was even cute. Sitting there in the candlelight, glancing around that little Italian restaurant like it was all exotic and special, she looked even cuter. Maybe she did have a bit of an overbite and her lips were a tad too fleshy and too lazy to ever come completely together. But some guys would find that sexy as hell. To me though the effect was more vacuous than anything else. But I had seen her giggle before — once or twice, I’m pretty sure. There must have been something going on up there, some actual humor registering now and then.

A little proper makeup might have helped — Heather seemed to wear none except for that dark purple stuff around her eyes that gave her the black-eye look. Better still, she could have used one of those total makeovers like on TV. But I got the impression she had no idea makeup was supposed to make you look good. An older sister, if she had one, must have given up on her before puberty. And did I mention Heather wore overalls, baggy bib overalls, and apparently all the time? I’d figured they were just what she wore to work, but she even wore them to our dinner thing, and it was seven now, so she’d had plenty of time to change.

So I guess you’re wondering by now what all this said about me. What was I doing with Heather anyway? Like I said, I was new in town, divorced, lonely. I’d convinced myself Heather might be fun, maybe even interesting once I got to know her. I think on some level I even wanted to believe that. But who was I kidding? Did I really think Heather would be anything more than a warm body? — not that a warm body was anything to sniff at.

The dinner conversation alone was enough to scuttle any kind of real date. It wasn’t even enough to float a casual hook-up. Naturally, we exchanged the biographical basics, not that Heather had much to offer other than that she’d just graduated from high school. She was still eighteen, she admitted reluctantly. Eighteen! Of course, I was surprised — and, I admit myself, a little titillated too. Heather still a teenager, barely legal? It’d never have crossed my mind to card her. I felt like Hugh Hefner now with his twenty-something girlfriends, or maybe how the old lecher should have felt. I tried not to think about the talk there’d be around the water cooler, about me, a thirty-two year old, drooling all over a clueless teenager.

Heather said too the delivery gig was her first real job. She had no interest in college — or much else that I could ascertain. She just liked hanging out with her friends, her “girl gang,” she called them. Wait, I thought, Heather had friends? Girlfriends?! A whole gang of them? I imagined her introducing me to them all! I was even feeling picky now.

When it was my turn and I recounted my college years, the four or five go-nowhere jobs I’d had, my marriage and divorce — I spent about five seconds on those subjects — Heather couldn’t even fake polite attentiveness. But it wasn’t just the lame particulars of my life that she found boring. It turned out she knew nothing about what was happening in the news, nothing about politics — it was even a presidential election year! — nothing, it seemed, about anything outside her own little personal bubble. The only subjects that got her going were her friends and the alternative music she liked. I soon got the impression “friends” might be an exaggeration too. How could a cypher like Heather be anything more than a barely noticed hanger-on in any group? Even the music she mentioned only seemed important to her because it meant something to her friends.

To tell the truth, the only excitement I got from that dinner was fantasizing about Heather’s tattoos. I don’t know if it was just curiosity or what, but I couldn’t stop thinking about what it would be like to see them all. Who knew what surprises her T-shirt and overalls might be hiding? Not only had I been divorced a year, I hadn’t had sex for even longer.

So after dinner I threw out, “Wanna see my place?”

“Sure,” Heather said matter-of-flatly.

So she followed me in her delivery van to my apartment building.

“Hope you like it,” I said at the door after we’d climbed the stairs to my third-floor walk-up.

“Rad,” she said, without really looking.

Inside, I turned on the radio and found an FM station I figured might play her kind of music. She instantly recognized the electric/metallic clamor. “Hot Piss! They rule!” It was the most excited I’d seen her yet — ever. With equal enthusiasm she told me about her friend who’d traveled to a Hot Piss concert last month. Obviously, I’d discovered Heather’s turn-on: music, or whatever you’d call that racket Hot Piss was making. I asked Heather if she wanted a beer — she did! — so I opened a couple in the kitchen.

Then I listened to more about her friends and their music tastes now, more than could possibly interest anyone but Heather herself. It was like our disaster of a dinner conversation all over again. But I did manage to get that beer down her in the process.

We were on my small sofa, facing each other, our backs against the armrests. Heather had one leg drawn up between us on the cushion, maybe as a barrier, maybe just for comfort. By the time she started on her second beer — I was on my fourth — she’d ditched her bulky sneakers. A sliver of pale skin glowed between the cuff of her overalls and her red lumberjack socks. Part of a tattoo in green and blue, some leaves or feathers, peeked out, and the dark ink against her white skin strangely excited me. Her calf was inches from my fingertips.

She started telling me something about one of her friends who’d won the pick-three, then thrown a killer room-party at a local motel. A minute later she’d finally run out of fascinating-friend stories. About thirty seconds into the awkward silence, I finally thought, What the hell? I slid both hands onto her calf, then started massaging it like a pro. Hell, like a big, burly baker kneading bread. Heather tensed at first, but then she relaxed. When I glanced at her eyes, she seemed transfixed by my hands. It looked like she was watching some juicy indiscretion at a safe distance through binoculars, still as slack lipped as ever.

“That feels good,” she said, then she suddenly added, “I gotta go.”

“Huh? Already?” Damn!

“That’s what happens with me and beer. Where’s your bathroom?”

“Oh, uh, right!” I said, relieved. I pointed her toward the bathroom, which was through my bedroom, and she disappeared. Thankfully the radio was still on, otherwise you could have heard whatever Heather was doing in that bathroom all over my tiny apartment. I wondered if the banging from the radio now was Hot Piss again. The thought of that name, plus Heather tinkling in my toilet, plus the four beers made me giggle like an idiot.

I heard a flush, then the bathroom door creaking open. Then about a minute went by and no Heather. Since it took roughly two-and-a-half seconds to walk across my bedroom, I finally stuck my head through the bedroom door to see what had happened to her. There she was, sitting on my bed. She stared straight at me now, her lower lip even droopier than usual, her head nodding to the clangy stuff on the radio. Her look was kinda eerie too, like a look of knowing confidence — in other words, like nothing I’d seen from Heather before. So I went over and sat down beside her, slipped an arm around her shoulders, leaned in for a kiss. And Heather didn’t resist. She even lay back on the bed!

I took that as a good omen, so I hovered over her, smothering her with kisses now, as they say — and trying not to tangle with that ring in her lower lip. I might have even nibbled on one of her ears if it hadn’t been for the rings all the way around their rims.

After a while I slid a hand under the bib of her overalls, then onto one of her boobs. And she didn’t jump, squirm, anything! Fresh over that awesome hump, I worked her boobs now, squeezing one then the other through her T-shirt and bra like a seasoned — whatever the word is for a guy who gives massages. Heather’s breathing got faster and deeper — another good sign, I figured, but the only sign anything might be happening inside her. It was like her body was revving up without her, like Heather herself was lost somewhere in the music, not even there.

I’d never been intimate with a tattooed body before. Now I wondered — okay, obsessed — if she had tattoos even on her boobs. What kind of abstract erotic art could my squeezing be creating? I could feel through her T-shirt and bra that her nipples were already hard, like little, round pebbles — or did they too have rings or studs?!

I had important questions to answer, all right. It was also obvious I wasn’t going to get anywhere near enlightenment with Heather’s bib still locked in place. So I climbed to my knees and straddled her waist. I labored now at those clasps on her shoulder straps, but they were impossible. I had a degree in mechanical engineering, for Christ’s sake, but I couldn’t figure them out. Of course, it was pretty dark in the bedroom, with just some dim light glowing through the doorway from the living room. What was it with those clasps? Were they some devious, new feminine trick?

I was baffled, wordless, me a thirties-something guy leering down at this barely-out-of-high-school girl with her inscrutable chastity clasps. But even in my thirties, first-time sex with a woman made me nervous as hell. You see, I hadn’t learned the fine art of verbal seduction in my formative high-school years. I hadn’t even lost my virginity till I was a sophomore in college, and my first girlfriend, a fellow engineering student, had been a late starter too. Of course, we’d been so horny by then that we’d both appreciated prompt action — action without words. Plus we’d both been completely soused our first time — our first stride in a frantic, year-long marathon of make-up-for-lost-time sexual exploration.

Even years later the sexual tension of a first-time encounter still made me nervous as hell, especially with things looking likely, but less than certain. I could never come up with anything approaching creative banter in the throes of those jitters. There was no way I could talk a woman into sex. If it wasn’t a mutual, mindless grope, with no verbal lubrication necessary, it just wasn’t gonna happen. I could make the physical moves, all right, no problem there — overlooking my sweaty, shaking hands, of course — but the glib-tongued Casanova thing was way beyond my competence level.

In other words, I couldn’t just make light of Heather’s locked-up bib. I couldn’t just say I needed a cutting torch or maybe the Jaws of Life — of course, both those stupid lines popped into my head after the fact. I couldn’t even say something practical, like, Hey, Heather, how about sliding out of that thing? Instead, like some ham-handed fool, I pried at those clasps, jerked them every which way. I even tried to yank the straps down over her shoulders, which any moron with or without an engineering degree could plainly see was impossible without first undoing those clasps.

“Say it,” Heather finally said after lying there motionless the whole time watching me make a fool of myself. “You gotta say it.”

My clumsy tugging stopped now. “Wha — whaddaya mean?”

“You know, it. You gotta say it first.” There was actual inflexion in Heather’s voice now, a hint of feeling, interest, desire? In Heather?

“Say it?” I gulped.

“Go on. Just say it. You gotta say it first.” She actually gave me a little smile and a coaxing nod. A smidgeon of encouragement? Enticement? From Heather, it seemed like some grand emotional outpouring, like she’d opened the floodgates of her bib-bound heart.

I wasn’t a complete idiot, and I wasn’t that drunk either. I got it, all right. I knew exactly what she wanted me to say. I was just playing dumb for time to think. It was obvious — if unbelievable — what eighteen-year-old Heather wanted. On our first grope?!

Let’s face it, I was running on hormones, pure and simple, hormones and fantasy. There was the physical excitement, of course. Heather was a warm body — if not much else. Maybe if she’d been hotter, and livelier, and a little interesting, or anything. Maybe if I’d been drunker too. But “say it?” “Say it?” Remember that sexual tension I was just talking about? It was gone now in a flash. There was still the physical frustration, all right, plenty of that, but I wasn’t some mindless beast, some idiot who couldn’t see an inch past the end of his dick — not on only four beers anyway.

If Heather was the kind of woman, the kind of child woman, who expected me to tell her I loved her when I hardly even knew her…. What was I doing with someone so — fill in the blank: immature, naive, pathetic? Even if she just wanted to hear the l-word as foreplay, or some self-esteem building turn-on, or even as an excuse to let herself go through with things, I mean get real! How would that bode? Like I said, I was no smooth-talking Casanova. The idea of saying I love you to someone I hardly even knew was embarrassing. I just wasn’t the kind of guy who’d say that just to get laid. Heather should have been embarrassed to ask for such a thing. And I was thinking she was trying to be emotionally tough?

But then, what was I thinking? She was only eighteen, fresh out of high school. But still, these days you’d think…. Then it smacked me out of nowhere. That was it: Heather was still a virgin! When I thought about it, the emotional stuntedness, the way she just lay motionless the whole time on my bed, it all made sense. It was obvious as hell.

I knew my instincts had been right. Say it? What if I had said it, even done it? I could just hear poor, deflowered little Heather now, or rather during one of her deliveries at work, weeping and screeching, hell bent on holding me to my solemnest of all words, uttered on the solemnest of all occasions, the loss of her virginity — with the hushed water cooler crowd all ears right outside my office. How would that have affected my chances of getting anywhere in that company, socially or professionally?

My hands eased from Heather’s chastity clasps, away from anywhere near her pristine boobs — her once pristine boobs maybe. The urgent bulge in my pants had already shriveled. With sexual tension no longer an irresistible force, my speech came back now in all its eloquence. “Damn, I gotta pee!” I said, acting annoyed at the untimely demands of my bladder. I was off Heather and through the bathroom door in a flash.

When I got out of the bathroom — it was probably the longest pee of my life — Heather was still lying on my bed in the semidarkness. Now I was downright chatty, like nothing weird had happened. I roamed into the living room and yelled back did she want anything else to drink? Coffee maybe? Heather said no in her usual, bland voice.

After I bumped around in the kitchen awhile, Heather finally wandered out of the bedroom and just stood there in the living room, leaning against the wall, almost as if she needed too. She seemed unusually quiet too, even for Heather.

I casually mentioned I had to be at work early the next day, then moaned some about the pressures of my job and how I never got enough sleep. And that was that. Heather yanked her shoes back on, gathered up her coat, and left, staring at the floor the whole time.

As soon as the door closed I headed back to the bathroom to relieve the lingering tension — Heather was the closest I’d come to sex in a long time, I mean sex with another person. Later I thought maybe I should have walked her down the stairs, even kissed her goodbye or something. She looked kinda letdown when she left, maybe even depressed. I have to admit, I felt sorta bad about the whole thing myself. Oh well.

Two days later a new guy made Heather’s next delivery at work. When I asked him where Heather was, he said she’d got canned — for using the company van for personal stuff!

“What? A couple of nights ago?” I blurted.

He looked at me funny, then shrugged. “I never knew that weird chick, man. All I know is they put me on her route yesterday.”

Actually, I felt relieved realizing I wouldn’t have to see Heather again. But I felt kinda bad too. I’d planned to be extra nice to her next time I saw her. She couldn’t help it, I guess, the way she was. I suddenly realized I didn’t even know her last name. It was all kinda sad.

“Goddammit! Mother humpin’ pissant! Fuckin’ whoremonger!” That’s what I heard the instant I left work a couple of days later. The female screamer was kicking this shiny, black and chrome motorcycle — killer looking machine! — parked right in front of the building where I worked downtown. Her voice and language startled passers-by, and embarrassed them even more. Everyone on the sidewalk walked faster, looked away, anywhere but at the rabid young woman. This was despite the fact that she was scorching hot — her temperament for sure, but I’m talking killer sexy now. She was about twenty-five, and Lord have mercy, what a toned bod! She looked like the female version of that high-performance bike she was so pissed at: sleek, fast, high-strung. Her hair was jet black, even her nail polish was gleaming black, and she wore black-leather everything: halter top, low-rise pants, choker, wrist bands, boots, with gleaming chrome trim everywhere: studs, rings, chains, on her as well as the leather.

And if all that black and chrome weren’t enough to set off her creamy, white skin, she had serious ink everywhere too. Tat city! No, make that tattoo paradise! For a guy whose appetite had just been whetted by Heather’s bland little fairies and birds and flowers, this beauty’s collection was a full-blown visual feast, and look out for the breathtaking spices. There was ink on her neck, her shoulders and arms, her back as far as the eye could see, all of it quality work too, drawn to perfection, crisp and bold and intricately shaded and colored. The shapes were all abstract, yet hard and vivid and suggestive, and what they suggested was end-of-the-line forbidden. I don’t know much about art, but it looked like museum quality work to me. Hell, on her glowing, flawless skin, it looked like a national treasure! When she came toward me — and my eyes plunged instantly into her cleavage — I noticed the most startling tattoo of all: an eerie, real-looking eye gazing out from deep between her boobs.

As luck would have it, I was the closest bystander around, and she obviously needed to vent to someone. She said she’d just got her bike worked on yesterday and now the thing — expletives deleted galore here — wouldn’t start again. She’d just called her mechanic, who was on the way with a truck to pick it up. Boy, did he owe her! — “the cock sucking dog-shit eater.”

Then she said her name was Star, and asked if I could give her a ride to a mall a couple of miles away. Give her a ride? Was she kidding? So we beat it to my car, which was just a ways around the corner, and took off toward that mall.

Star was the polar opposite of Heather in every way. Actually it was a sacrilege to even remember Heather with splendid creature named Star before my eyes, but I had little else in recent memory to compare Star with. Everything about her — as well as her tats — was striking and sharp and vivid: eyes that could laser cut titanium to microscopic tolerances; soaring, precision-cut cheek bones; chiseled, blood-red lips. She could easily have been a high-end model. Even with those tats everywhere — they were probably even a big plus for models these days — it was easy to imagine her gracing the cover of some slick fashion magazine lying on a glass-and-chrome coffee table in a swanky, high-rise pad. With Star right next to me in my car now, I couldn’t help but eye her tats every chance I got as I drove. And with her being so talkative — she still had that doomed motorcycle mechanic on her mind — I had plenty of excuses to glance her way like I was hanging on every word.

Then I suddenly realized what it’d been that had turned me on so much about Heather’s tattoos, or more precisely, what had turned me on about tattoos on Heather. It’d been like some cunning body artist — I imagined a sinister, Fu Manchu-looking old ink master — had claimed her by branding her flesh, leaving his cryptic marks in forbidden places, daring me to find and savor them. Yes, I know that sounds torrid, but I was still in the gaga novice stage of tattoo appreciation. Now just the word tattoo itself, just pronouncing it in my mind, excited me.

Star’s tats were a whole different dynamic, a whole new tattoo dimension. In barely an instant — a “Star”-struck instant — my tattoo appreciation matured. Seeing Star’s tats, knowing them, realizing they were all part and parcel of her living flesh, was the proof of it. They were Star. Unlike Heather’s kitschy little drawings in comparison, Star’s tats were a proud, bold statement — Star’s statement. The dare was still there, but I could plainly see it was Star’s dare now, not some wily tattoo artist’s. The guy would have been lucky just to have got that close to Star, to have actually touched her sizzling skin. She would have been in complete control during the inking session, whip in hand, stiletto heels at the ready. Her tats were all hers — they were her. And what they screamed, what they roared, loud and clear, was come and get it — if you dare.

“So you like my tats,” she suddenly said. It wasn’t even a question. I guess she’d noticed me glancing at them like an addict. “I see you have an eye,” she added with a knowing grin. “Wanna see ‘em all?”

It must have been my jaw dropping, or maybe the way I almost ran off the road, because Star let out a roar and slapped my knee. Then she apologized. I was “a nice guy, a real friend,” she said to go out of my way like that to drive her to the mall — like a guy going out of his way to help out a hot chick was ever an example of lofty character, right? But her voice seemed deadly earnest. She claimed she owed me “big time,” and she always took care of her friends.

She’d be “showing” tomorrow night, she said, if I wanted to check it out. We could have some fun afterward. She explained that people liked to take pictures of her and her tats, artists and photographer types — nothing kinky, no pervs, she said firmly. They paid good money too — that’s how she bought her bike — but her disdain for her generous patrons was obvious the way she’d bit out the words arteestsand photogs. It was her art, she said. She did living installations. She’d get a place and dress it up, give it a theme, usually some admirer’s pad or a hotel or motel room, ritzy or cheap depending on the theme. And, of course, she’d be the main attraction. She’d pose on the bed, in the shower, or wherever else the paying voyeurs liked.

Just before she got out at the mall, she wrote down the name and address, along with a room number, for the motel she’d be using tomorrow night. I’d seen the place from the highway: The Excalibur. What a dive! “Theme’s gritty this time,” she added with a shrug. She told me to come by at ten p.m., “on time too, not late, not early.” Dominatrix vibes?! She’d be finished with the customers, then I’d get a “private showing, a freebee” — she winked — then we’d go out clubbing or something. All right! Just being seen with Star would turn the heads my way. Now I even hoped I would run into someone from work.

“Okay, I’ll be looking forya, tomorrow night,” she said in the parking lot. But before closing the car door, she leaned back in and added, “With my third eye too.” Then she scrunched, and when she rose back up, her halter top was snatched up over her tits. Her third eye blazed now in all its glory, right between her eye-popping boobs. It was then too that I noticed her gleaming nipple rings with the chrome chain dangling between them.

Yip, I’d be at The Excalibur, all right. And on time too!

Close up The Excalibur looked even seedier than from the highway: everything was chipped, stained, rusted, worn. Room 114 was around the back of the long, two-story building. When I drove into the parking lot I was surprised to see no one standing around, not one satisfied photographer. I’d expected to find a slew of them still loading their gear into their trunks as they joked and compared notes. I checked my watch again. I’d synched it to my computer clock before leaving my apartment, and I was right on time, with one minute to spare: 9:59 p.m. I suddenly had a twinge of the “oh shits!” Had Star played me? She was way too hot to be true, right? Was I just another leering idiot, ripe for a senseless jerking? Was getting me to drive out to this lonely dump her twisted idea of a joke?

There were a few cars spread around the parking lot. They looked as dead as the motel itself. At a dump like this, they probably all belonged to headboard bangers, fat-ass businessmen “working late” — either on their secretaries or hard-up waitresses looking to supplement their tip incomes. I noticed light glowing between the curtains of a few rooms. As I pulled up in front of room 114, I saw it was one of them. Hope again?

I looked down the row of doors on either side. Everything was quiet, just the drone from the highway coming from the other side of the building. Then I knocked and waited. I felt like a fool. But then the door swung open and there she was, Star, in black leather just like when we met: halter top, tight pants, boots. I’d expected to find her still in her living-installation get-up, maybe some gauzy negligee to make her tats shimmer in the photographers’ strobes — maybe even less. But hey, I was happy just to see she was there.

“Get in here,” she demanded playfully. She grabbed my collar and yanked me through the door. Before I knew it, she’d slid a hand into my pants. I got hard immediately. “Just wanna make sure you brought everything,” she said and laughed. I started to kiss her. “Save it for my nips,” she said, pulling away. Then she told me to strip and get on the bed — “on” it, not in it. How exciting was that?! But I hesitated. I was uncomfortable about undressing alone. Star must have noticed. “Hey, I like to look too. Don’t worry, I’ll strip for you proper — but I need some motivation,” and she winked. Then she headed for the bathroom, “to get comfortable,” and I’d better be ready when she got out, she added with a mock scowl.

I could take a hint. I pulled everything off, even my socks, and got on the bed. I felt awkward, all right, naked, with a hard-on already. That hard-on wasn’t about to wither either, not with Star’s promise fresh in my mind, and the realization she was right there in the bathroom fixing to make things happen. I thought of pulling some cover over me or plopping a pillow on my lap, but how manly would that look? Act casual, I told myself. Be proud of your equipment. All three lamps in the room were lit, and bright too. I glanced around nervously. It looked like any other cheap motel room, nothing that said “living installation.”

But before I could assess things further, the bathroom door parted and Star peeked out. When she saw I was naked, she flung the door open wide. And there she was, completely leathered up now, neck to toe, not one tat visible. She’d added a black leather jacket zipped to the brim, the collar up. Just part of her strip act, I figured. She stood at the foot of the bed next and stared down at me. “Hmm,” she pursed her lips, “you’ll do,” and she slowly slid her jacket zipper down, then up again, back and forth. The whole time she teased me with that zipper, she taunted me with her knowing smile. I got even harder. Forget the striptease. I was just about to jump up and unzip her myself, when she said she’d better put the do-not-disturb sign on the door. “You never know what could happen in a shithole like this,” she said and winked. So she walked to the door, then opened it and backed away.

A mob of women rushed in now, all in black leather, all full of tats and rings and studs. They were all young, roughly Star’s age, but all sizes and shapes: some real lookers like Star, others big and bull-dykey, and every one of them pissed. And they all had knives and chains! I bolted up, but Star charged toward me. She held me back with the knife she yanked from her jacket, a huge, thick blade like chefs use to slice and dice. She flailed it back and forth inches from my face as the rest of the women surrounded me.

“Back, muthafucka, back,” she screamed, in full crazed-bitch mode. The rest of them joined in, howling like banshees as they jabbed their knives and shook their chains. They were like a mob of savages taunting a cornered animal. I snatched up two pillows that I bunched and waved as shields, then scrambled to my feet, my back against the wall.

“All right, all right,” Star yelled. She was obviously their leader. They quieted down, but kept their knives and chains at the ready, with every squinty eye locked on me, their prey. They were a raging sea of pierced eyebrows and flared, pieced nostrils and snarling, pierced lips.

Then Star approached me, her huge blade taut before her. She jabbed high a couple of times at my face to make me raise the pillows, then she snickered. “See what you did, ladies? I swear to God that little thing was as big as my thumb just a minute ago.” They laughed like imbeciles.

“What the hell do you want?” I growled, clenching my jaw. When I raised a fist at Star — well, a fist full of pillow — her vicious sisters all lurched forward at once, sending me back against the wall again. The fiends were of one mind.

“Mighty feisty for a nekked little prick!” Star said. She grinned over her shoulder at her chuckling buddies, then she glanced around the room. “Heather. Where’s Heather?”

Then I saw her — Heather?! — over by the door. She was one of them. Heather, in black leather! She stepped forward.

“Okay, babes, we’re here foray,” Star said. “He’s all your’s now — if that’s what turns you on,” and Star huffed and turned up her nose. “Whachya wanna do with him?”

“He’s gotta say it. Make him say it,” Heather said. Her weak chin was jutting now, her jaw set, her eyes just as squinty as everyone else’s.

“You heard her,” Star growled, leveling her big knife at me. “Say it.”

“What? What are you talking about, you crazy bitches?” I tried to cram as much incredulousness as I could muster into my voice. Maybe I could ignite a spark of sanity in the room.

“Say it now, or I swear to God I’ll cut your goddamned nuts off,” Star screamed. She hissed and jerked a nod like her threat was the kind of gospel truth any moron could appreciate.

Say it? Say it? What the fuck? Screw hiding behind these pillows. A bunch of girls — girls playing tough —weren’t gonna shame me any longer. I dropped my hands with the pillows to my sides and stood my ground, faced them full frontal, proud and pissed. I expanded my chest, flexed my pecs and biceps. But just as I was about to give them an earful, several of them whipped out digital cameras. They snapped away, flash after flash after flash, blinding me. I yanked one pillow over my eyes, the other over my crotch. I scrunched back against the wall. Jeers and laughter erupted.

Star was back in my face, screaming like a deranged-dyke drill sergeant. “Say it. Say it. Say it.” When I lowered the pillow a bit, the glint of her huge blade slashed back and forth right before my eyes, ripped through the afterimages from the flashes, shredding the pulsing, green and purple grape clusters. It seared my retina with every blood-curdling pass.

“All right, all right,” I whined. “Jesus! Get away from me. Please.” I dropped to my knees, scrunching, covering my head, my body, everything I could with the pillows. Nervous exhaustion, blindness, my legs gave out? — take your pick, all the above. But then came the real humiliation: My eyes teared up. I cried. I bawled like a baby. “I was just trying to be nice to her,” I whimpered.

Star huffed. “Well, that’s one way to rationalize your weakness — Pussy Boy. Now say it. Say it. Say it,” she screamed even louder, an inch from my ear, the blast of her hot breath withering the last remnants of my will.

I raised my head like a howling dog. “I love you, Heather, I love you, I love you.”

There was stone silence now. Not a word, not a breath. I finally squinted, then opened my eyes. I could see them, all of them, through the trembling, fading vestiges of the afterimages. Star backed away, repulsed, disgusted. Heather’s mouth hung open. Her pained face blushed crimson. Like a chain reaction, nervous giggles broke out around the room, one by one, louder and louder, till the walls rattled with laughter. Then when it subsided — finally — the disdainful mutters began: “Say what? — Can you believe that? — God, what a simp!”

“Let’s go,” Star said, shaking her head. She frowned like she smelled a bad fart. They stuffed their knives and chains back into their jackets now, then turned their backs on me, all of them, unconcerned. They filed out the door. As they walked across the parking lot I heard one of them squeal, “Heather, you have a lover.”

Their laughter gradually receded into the distance. A few minutes later, as I sat on the edge of the bed trying to recover enough dignity to get dressed and walk out of the place, I heard multiple motorcycles start up, then roar off.

The thought of calling the police even crossed my mind — for a microsecond. What would I say? A bunch of chicks depantsed me, then forced me to say, “I love you”? And they never even touched me? I was embarrassed enough already. What the hell did those maniacal bitches want? What was I supposed to say?

As soon as I got back to my apartment, I grabbed a beer and crawled into bed. I’d be all right after a good night’s sleep, I told myself. I always felt better in the morning after sleep, whatever the problem. It wouldn’t be nearly so bad then. But how to get to sleep? I couldn’t get that crazy, blood-sucking Star out of my head, her swinging that big knife inches from my nose. Jesus, what if she’d slipped? Thinking about it drained me all over again. But after awhile, sheer emotional exhaustion, and a few more beers, prevailed. I passed out and slept straight through the night, no dreams even — thank God! — nothing.

Sure enough, when I woke up the next morning, I didn’t feel so bad. Sleep always helps. Forget last night, I told myself. Besides, who cared? Those bitches had got the drop on me, that was all. So what? I’d been naked, suckered by that she-devil, Star. It could have happen to anyone — any guy with eyes and a dick. For Christ’s sake, they’d had knives and chains, every friggin’ one of them! But so what? What’d they got out of it anyway? What had it prove? Sick, senseless bitches! Pretty dirt cheap thrills, if you ask me. The losers!

When I got out to my car on the way to work, I ripped a flyer from under the wiper blade, another ad for a discount pizza place or some guy running for city council, I figured. But then — oh, shit! — I saw what it was:

Had my dick just flopped that way or wait, had somebody photoshop it? Jesus, it looked like a real hard-on — only it was tiny. And the rest of me? I was rearing on that motel bed like a wild-eyed sex maniac at a pajama party — a gay pajama party! There were three hairy male rumps in the foreground — presenting themselves to me like dogs in heat. The photoshopping was perfect too, seamless, professional. The average guy on the street would never question it. It even looked real to me, and I’d been there. I knew better. It had to be the work of one of Star’s artist friends, if that whole living-installations story of hers was even true — if Star was even her real name. When I flipped the photo over, scrawled across the back in red lipstick — Star’s lipstick, of course — was HEATHER IS FUCKING HOT!

I leaned against the car as my gut drained. The humiliation washed over me all over again. That was it? That’s what Heather wanted to hear? That she was — hot?

Just then, my cell phone rang. A guy from work, the only one I considered any kind of friend there, said, “Dude, wassup?” He stifled a chuckle. “There’s these pictures. They’re all over the street….”