Topless

by D Keith Mano

  know that jagged, unexpected movements can destroy the confidence and rhythm of those around them.

  We had drinks. And I understood why Tanya—earning maybe

  the equivalent of $200,000 a year—was, nonetheless, poor.

  Constanza sat beside Tanya. I was placed in an isolated chair.

  Costanza, who accepted my significance—the employer of her

  employee—made her power known.

  “ She have a good night?”

  “ She always does.”

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  “ Men go crazy for her, don’t they?”

  “ Well. They’re respectful. Tanya commands respect.”

  “ I taught her that.”

  “ O h,” I said.

  “ But she’s lazy. You can’t believe how lazy she is.”

  “ She works very hard at The C ar.”

  “ She better. We had a little argument about that this afternoon. ’ ’

  “ I ’m tired,” Tanya said. And she nestled against Costanza’s

  arm.

  “ Her stepfather beat her. The prick useta beat her with an old

  fan belt. She hates men. ’ ’

  “ I do n o t,” said Tanya, but lightly—not with much conviction.

  “ But she likes you,” said Costanza. And this sucking up was

  more distasteful than the aggression. She drank from a beer

  neck. “ She says you’re a gentlem an.”

  “ And what d ’you do for a living?” I asked.

  “ I do Tanya. I ’m Tanya’s agent.”

  “ She’s a remarkable dancer.”

  “ But she’s lazy. She wouldn’t even get t’her gigs, if I didn’t

  keep on her ass.”

  “ I sleep a lo t,” Tanya said. And I thought: so would I.

  “ She could go far—she has star quality.”

  “ No. We could go far. W e.”

  ‘ ‘Whatever. Pleased to meet you. It’s late—I better be moving

  9 9

  on.

  “ Thank you, M ike,” Tanya said.

  And I thought as I left—remembering what Joe had said—

  that beauty had driven Tanya to the grotesque. After all, how

  boring we men must be to a Tanya: servile, lustful, so easily

  manipulated. So insecure before beauty that we force dreadful

  power on the Tanyas of the world. Power they have no interest

  in exercising. Decisions they’re too tired to make. Because, underneath, they’re just children locked in a golden monstrance and on display.

  I ’ll never be in awe of Tanya again. I feel like I ’ve lost a part

  of my innocence.

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  125

  SATURDAY, JULY 9

  8 a.m.

  Berry danced for me tonight, amidst one hundred men. It was

  her mating display. She got me so aroused that, well, my ears

  clicked, as if I had risen above a certain critical altitude. Everyone could feel it—even those who had no idea where all those sexual ions in the air were coming from.

  She was, you understand, super-nude to me.

  Not only bare breasted: breasts shiny as wet seals. Not only

  bare buttocked: buttocks long, part of the yet longer leg, so that

  her muscular thigh reaches to her coccyx. And all brown, between medium and well-done. But wigless for once, dark glasses-less. Out of disguise. Not TUlip. Someone I had known,

  naked. So that—to my normal male randiness—there was added

  a titillating curiosity. This, once, was a childhood playmate of

  mine. Remembering that, I remembered St. Matthias again—

  and my own W ill-this-girl-let-me-kiss-her? juvenile sexual

  hopes. It was all, in a very special way, improper. Underaged.

  We got young together: we shared a past, secrets, and the peculiar raunchy innocence of adolescent love again. It was—I say this in extenuation—irresistible. And I had no intention of resisting anyway.

  I have a hard-on now, just writing about it.

  Most of all, I knew that somehow—despite guilt, preoccupation, insecurity—I would be potent with her. Berry knew my history, she had me at her mercy. And I, her. We could be

  ourselves. It was an enormous relief, after so many days of

  pretense. Berry wanted me-the-priest. I wanted her-my-

  childhood. And I sensed, younger though she might be, that

  Berry was a craftsman of sexuality. She wanted to prove herself

  to me (I am better than Amanda). And—if it pleased me—I had

  only to lie back and receive.

  The lust jumping from anode to cathode in my body could’ve

  made iron filings sit up. Everyone felt it: we created a barometric high in the room. People groused. The music sounded atonal. Leonard almost killed a construction worker who

  climbed up on stage. I had to pull him off—no simple matter.

  Leonard is irritable: Colavecchia and Daniels have questioned

  him three times.

  * * *

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  Berry lies asleep and naked on my bed as I write this now. I

  will lean forward and draw my hand down/along the inside of

  her thigh. I can do that. It is permitted. I haven’t gotten over the

  novelty of it yet. This body I am allowed to touch.

  Let me do it again.

  We came together so violently in my apartment hallway that

  our mouths hurt with the impact. Berry was stripping before I

  had gotten the door open. And I prematurely shucked myself

  nude, too. We fell on the mattress, side against side, kicking

  the spread angrily down with our feet. Her breasts, flat, roll with

  a lolling motion. Her pubic hair has been shaved—making her,

  even now, little jailbait Berry. I wanted to please her. She wanted

  to please me. We got in each other’s way. There was so much,

  you know, to do.

  But, of course, I couldn’t manage an erection. I pulled at

  myself when Berry wasn’t looking. I brought up rich fantasies.

  Nothing. I felt male performance fear—and most of all, I didn’t

  want to insult Berry. My flaccid member was being, as it were,

  discourteous. I had been invited to a feast, but I wasn’t eating.

  I loathe bad manners.

  Yet, as expected, I was in the hands of a master. She touched

  me there. Then—it was quite a surprise—she said:

  “ Go put some pants on, Father. Those cotton jogging shorts.

  You got undressed too quickly. You can’t feel yourself. Let’s

  bundle, you need some friction. You need t’know where you

  are.

  How simple, how brilliant. It worked almost at once. I did

  wonder, for an unchivalrous moment, just how many men in

  jogging shorts had lain between her legs. And again, later, when

  she applied the condom with her mouth in one easy unfurling

  swoop. But I knew Berry was—is this blasphemy to say?—

  God-given. She threw herself backward: her hands, on the edge

  of the mattress, seemed in spread-eagle binding. She made herself helpless and unthreatening—she groaned for mercy. She was in bondage to me. The rhythms of our love, I knew, were

  mine to control.

  And I came on her, as once I saw the side of a rotted brick

  building collapse. I was a landslide. I was as inexorable as gravity. It was the best orgasm of my life. Such pleasure scares me.

  “ Thank you,” she said. “ You’re wide and long. I ’ve fanta­

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  sized that orgasm for almost ten years. It knocks the breath out

  of me to think that he—you —he
is really in m e.”

  “ I ’m homy as a lifer.”

  “ I love you,” she said.

  “ I ’m—crazy about you, too.” There was a distinction being

  made. We both ignored it. I don’t love Berry (I don’t know her),

  but such passion strips my male reserve away. Would you believe, getting up to bring a post-coital Coke, would you believe I danced fo r her. I put her G-string on and did parodies of women

  at The Car: Glenda and Aleesha, and Tanya refusing a dollar

  bill because it was crumpled, and Connie swinging her legs

  around. I was immensely foolish. In the presence of those who

  love us, we are released from shyness and propriety.

  And, just before we made it a second time, Berry said,

  “ Leonard hasta go.”

  “ Why?”

  “ He’s dealing and he’s getting greedy. He’ll take the whole

  place down with him. I love dancing at The Car—but I don’t

  want t’go outa there some night with my hands cuffed behind

  my back. We’ll all be under suspicion. And Rita’s death makes

  it worse. Leonard’s stupid. Anyone else would lay low for a

  while.”

  “ What should I do? Wait until the Gaucho goes back

  there—”

  “ Oh, no,” she said. “ Never surprise the Gaucho. If I ’m

  around, I ’ll signal when it’s safe.”

  “ Okay,” I said. “ But now I wanna fuck you again.”

  I have a way with words.

  And so I ’ve been unfaithful to Kay. Unfaithful to my vows. I

  played the two-backed beast with Berry so fiercely that I brought

  her period down. I dug within her and I roared. Spit came out

  of my mouth. Orgasm is the devil’s dance: and I partnered it.

  And, in a few minutes, I ’m leaving for an eight o’clock mass.

  Satan won’t have an easy time with me. One thing I ’ve learned

  is stubbornness—I won’t despair of God’s ability to save me.

  I ’m a Philadelphia lawyer of the spirit.

  Just looked in Berry’s duffle for a pad of matches. I found a

  G-string that says BOSS LADY on it.

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  D. Keith Mano

  SUNDAY, JULY 10

  3 a.m.

  Slow Sunday night: terrible rain since church. Girls danced with

  hard nipples. No one could seem to get drunk. Lalique hung

  down from the trapeze like a three-toed sloth and refused to

  dance. There’s a roof leak just beside the lunch table—we had

  a pail under it all evening. Connie said, “ Feels like a trapper’s

  cabin in here. ’ ’

  She and I, Freddy and Jako spent the night putting up decorations for Pearl’s party. I ’d already made one tactical error—I asked Pearl’s mother to cater for us. Which made her happy.

  Which made Pearl furious. “ We’re not having that ass-wipe

  ravioli at my party, ’ ’ she said. So I had to hire the Greek to cater

  hors d ’oeuvres, and pay old Mrs. M. something extra for her

  services, anyhow. Leonard will prepare three turkeys. And

  matzo ball soup. I ’m assured he’s a cordon bleu chef. Tony, why

  did you leave me with all these people—these unraveled strings

  of relationships? This entire sordid world.

  Connie and I have made up. Pearl caught Friend stealing—

  so I gave Connie two bar nights a week. (A bartender makes

  about one fifth what a dancer makes.) This pissed Leonard off.

  Leonard senses that Connie is really just passing through. Connie doesn’t need The Car: therefore, she may be less obedient.

  Also, her allegiance is to me, not Leonard. I ’m just afraid we’ll

  find out that Connie’s been cheating, too.

  She said, “ Have you looked at yourself in the mirror?”

  “ N o,” I said, handing her a string of colored lights. “ I ’m

  surrounded with mirrors. O f course I look at myself.”

  “ You haven’t really. You did, you’d see you’ve lost at least

  ten pounds since I first met you. Gaunter and handsomer.”

  “ Could use t’lose weight.” Connie came down the ladder

  and embraced me.

  “ Get out of here, M ike,” she said. “ Run. Ethel can take care

  of herself. Run. You won’t survive this if you stay.”

  “ And you?”

  “ I ’m tougher than you are,” Connie said. “ And even I ’m in

  trouble.”

  Great.

  * * *

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  Everything’s ready for the party. I ’ve got a dozen girls lined

  up after 7 p.m. And a $150 opal brooch for Pearl. Ethel will be

  there to imbue me with her authority. I ’m The King of The Car,

  watch out.

  Let’s see what happens to screw things up.

  MONDAY, JULY 11

  7 a.m.

  I ’m crying here, alone. This has been a dreadful night. I can

  still feel her soft, slack lips on mine.

  And Leonard will pay for it. I ’ll take my guilt—I swear,

  Lord—I ’ll take my guilt and my sadness and I ’ll forge them into

  the tools of my revenge. Don’t mess with me, Leonard—you fat

  motherfucker. I ’m not scared any more. I ’m gonna put a match

  to you, the way they bum leeches off. I ’ll make you squirm.

  I ’M GOING NUTS.

  Let me

  carefully,

  chronologically,

  write things

  down.

  As I remember

  them.

  Pearl’s party.

  It was a bacchanalia. From eight o ’clock onward, Pearl sat

  enthroned—in a chair on the bar. And there received homage.

  Like a Fury surrounded by naked maidens—all twelve of whom

  gave her presents. (No girl would’ve dared not to.) And, to me,

  it was like Goya or Hogarth. Beauty in its sexual prime paying

  court to shrunken death. Every girl there must’ve seen her destiny in Pearl’s bony decolletage. In that besotted (Pearl drank tonight), narcissistic, blind—yes, lustful—mummification of

  womanhood.

  And the men came: gentleman callers in straw boater and

  white vest. With arthritis and liver spots and dentures and wistful impotence. Once good-looking men of substance. (The rumor was going around that Pearl had been a noted Park Avenue

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  madam once.) They gave her jewelry and perfume and the benefit of their nostalgia. At one time three limos waited outside.

  My little gift was put in the discard pile. The place got crazed—

  for hours we were way over our fire-law limit. And Pearl made

  a point of introducing me to Morty Stem, big stockbroker, to

  Walden Mintz, big real estate man, to Nubar Katchenian, just

  big. Big-big, old-old men. Who were joined like wires to the

  hundred-way plug that has been Pearl’s life.

  And the Gaucho handed her a thick envelope.

  The girls danced—three at a time, twelve an hour, in special

  fifteen-minute sets. Our stage is small—they elbowed each other

  and fought to make eye contact with the antiquated rich. Bubbles, I remember now, simply gave up after a while. She leaned against the mirror—and her wet body left a steamed outline there

  when she shoved it up to dance again.

  Then Ethel came. I hadn’t seen her wearing heels until last

  night: with heels on she must be almost six foot tall. And im-.

  mediately Ethel became the enabling s
pirit, the mother goddess.

  Leonard, Christ, kissed her hand. Jako swept his broom in front

  of her feet. Ethel is quite a striking female. And all the girls,

  those who knew her and those who just knew of her, began to

  strut. They ignored me: and, yes, I felt left out. These people,

  they know where the power resides.

  Ethel, like Queen Elizabeth at an orphans’ hospital, made a

  grand tour of inspection. She knows The Car inside out. Behind

  the bar (Ethel told me the hot, soapy water wasn’t hot enough—

  and, yes, we had run out of sanitizing tablets). Into the kitchen,

  into the locker room, even into the M EN’S head. (One guy was

  taking a leak and pissed down his pants when Ethel came in.)

  On to the basement, where her eyes looked like mini-calculators,

  doing inventory. I ’m NEVER to pile cases up against the beer

  cooler. Then, to the tables we had set aside for staff and family,

  where Ethel ate a trencherwoman’s helping of matzo ball and

  turkey.

  Inevitably, I guess, the conversation turned toward Tony. Men

  and women came to Ethel, the presumed widow, and—to flash

  their credentials as friend-of-the-family—they told how Tony

  had said this and done that. For the first time, if occasionally,

  the verb “ to be’’ and Tony were used in the past tense: Tony

  was, Tony has been. The name Rita was never spoken. I became

  immensely distressed. (Especially when Berry arrived: I waved

  her away, I didn’t want Ethel to suspect anything. Berry, to her

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  131

  credit, understood and left.) I was distressed and yet, let me be

  honest, angry with my brother. Ethel, seeing me withdraw into

  myself, tousled my hair. Women do that to me. And some girl

  laughed—to see the bossman made a child.

  Norm and Lars-Erik told an adventure story: both of them

  and Tony, the three Musketeers. Tony betting $50 that he could

  drive from here to Norm’s house in twelve minutes—some enormous distance. Norm lives near Douglaston. (And I, of course, remembered my wild drive with him.) How a cop sat on their

  tail for the length of the Van Wyck Expressway and how Tony

  had jumped the divider, made a U and ¿ten re-U-ed back across

  the divider while the cop was trying to hump over the first U.