The Dominant Hand

by Charles Martin

  “Lion? Why?”

  “He’s in charge of shit, I guess. There’s a couple other Lions around, too.”

  The road gave way to grass, so Charles parked the car. She hopped out of the car and ran to Herb Hefner. She took his arm and kissed him on the cheek.

  “Weren’t you afraid that the people who tried to take the prostitute’s hand might try to take yours, Mr. Martin?” Charles mumbled.

  “Of course I was a little scared, Charles, but who wouldn’t be? I felt that something was happening that the world needed to know about, and if it wasn’t me, then who?”

  Ash

  The bathroom lights were unforgiving, making her skin look ashy, like chocolate left out so long that powder formed on it. She flicked off the harsh, overhead florescent light so that she could only see her dim reflection provided from the glow seeping in from the bedroom.

  “That’s better,” she purred. She primped her long, black hair with cherry-red streaks. Her matching nails were still chip-free, and when she puffed out her thick red lips, she looked like a pinup, just a poorly lit pinup.

  She’d spent the better part of the day getting her hair straightened and touched up for a rare night of freedom. She’d planned on taking out her new outfit to the clubs, but instead it hung on the shower rod next to Tad’s stupid goldfish shower curtain.

  Tad was a pretty, little nineteen-year-old white boy who worked as a bartender at a club in Bricktown and was an exceptional lay. She loved his spiky, bleached-out hair, the way he kept his soul patch trimmed neatly, and the way he looked on her arm when she showed him off to her white friends. She knew it annoyed them, just as white girlfriends annoyed black women. That didn’t bother Ashley—she didn’t really like most of those bitches anyway.

  She pulled on the clubbing outfit she’d packed. It was a short, red leather minidress that she had picked up at Priscilla’s. When she put it on, she looked like a girl in a rap video, or a soft-core cable porn movie, but not quite so tacky. Well, it was a little tacky, but then so was Tad.

  She pulled up the skirt slightly, to make sure the faint stretch marks on her stomach didn’t show, and turned while looking in the mirror to make sure that there were no panty lines. She shivered slightly and goose bumps rose on her skin.

  “You’re a little slut, aren’t you?” Ashley purred to herself. Her voice was low with a subtle rasp, like a soul singer from the fifties. Her eyes were a brilliant shade of green (when she had her contacts in), her face was thin and feminine, her breasts and hips were perfectly proportioned, partially due to the miracles of modern science.

  In Ashley’s more self-aware times, she knew her voice would go from hot to pathetic if she kept smoking and she’d instead sound like an old bag lady. There was only so long she could hold back the fissures and wrinkles, the years of acting young and dumb were ticking away. She also couldn’t count on royalty checks forever.

  “Stop it, Ashley,” she snapped, then did one last check of her hair.

  She slid out of the bathroom, hugging the doorframe on the way out, and looked out into the bedroom with a coy, come-hither grin. She expected him to be waiting in silent, but attentive infatuation. Instead, the man/boy was playing video games naked.

  “Are you fucking kidding me?” Ashley gasped, stomping her spike heel down on the linoleum in the bathroom.

  “Sorry, sorry,” he spurted, tossing the controller down and turning off the TV.

  To his credit, he still had an erection.

  “I’m sorry, are you bored?” Ashley asked, shaving the edges off the consonants so she sounded like a vixen, instead of a shrew. “Should we just leave now, ’cause I’d hate to think I was holding you here against your will.”

  “Come on, Ash,” Tad smiled while standing and moving toward her.

  She pushed him back on the bed, bit her lip and began to slither like a stripper. She turned her back to him as she continued to dance and watched herself move in a mirror on his closet door.

  “You look great, Ash,” he murmured. “You know what?”

  “What’s that?” she purred, turning back to him and crawling onto the bed.

  “I think I love you.”

  Ash stopped, sat up on the bed and stared at him.

  “What?” Tad asked with a stupid, childish grin.

  “You love me?” she snapped. “You’re kidding, right?”

  Tad chuckled and moved toward her and slid his hand up her thigh.

  “I’m not kidding,” he said, as she batted his hand away. “I could see this getting serious.”

  Ashley groaned, buried her face in her hands and laughed. She shook her head and stood up.

  “What’s wrong?” Tad asked. “I thought you’d be happy.”

  Ashley turned away from Tad and looked in the mirror. She suddenly felt very exposed. She turned back to him and leaned against his prefabricated chest of drawers, which creaked and leaned with her.

  “You remember that time we picked a girl up in the club and brought her back here?” she asked, her voice still cold and distant.

  “Yeah.”

  “Do you remember the time behind the bar downtown?”

  “Yes I do!” he smirked. He reminded her of a cartoon dog sometimes.

  “You know why we can do those kinds of things?”

  Tad shrugged.

  “Because we aren’t in love,” she answered. “We’re friends who have sex. I don’t care if you bring a stripper home from work; you don’t mind if I dance with every guy in the club. We fall in love, that stops happening. Everything gets emotional, everything gets more complicated.”

  “It doesn’t have to,” Tad said, standing up.

  “No, no,” she groaned, waving him back to the bed. “We need to talk about this.”

  He rolled his eyes and jumped back onto the bed and rested back on the pillows.

  “I have no interest in anything like that,” she continued. “I just want to have fun. You’re nineteen, I’m … We have lots of people to fuck before either of us could think about a relationship.”

  “I could be a good dad,” Tad said. “I like kids.”

  “I’m sure. But, I also bet if I looked under the bed, I’d find at least two plates with food still on them, porn and the number of another woman you’re screwing on the side.”

  Tad’s eyes diverted away from her.

  “When I have a night of freedom, then I want a man to make me feel good, to make me feel pretty and to help me forget about all the headaches in my life,” Ashley said. “I don’t want any more stress, so, are we going to fuck, or are you going to give me stress?”

  “It doesn’t have to be like that,” Tad said, arching his eye and looking down at his dick. That was his way of asking for a blowjob. Ashley sighed and walked to the bathroom.

  “Where are you going?” Tad asked, without moving from the bed.

  “I need some cigarettes,” Ashley called back. She jerked off her outfit and grabbed the clothes she had worn to drop Sean off at the babysitter’s. As she changed back into her “mom” clothes, she took out a cell phone.

  “Ash, come on!” Tad called. Ashley closed the door and slid on her jeans.

  She finally emerged from the bathroom with the bag and stopped to look over Tad. It’s a shame, she thought, that the little brain in that big, beautiful body had started thinking.

  She turned away and left the apartment far behind.

  She flicked open her cell phone and jabbed at the buttons when she reached her car.

  “What!” a female voice answered.

  “Jill, the boy just told me he loves me!” Ashley growled, starting up her car and backing up without looking behind her.

  “Umm … uh, I’m sorry, hon,” Jill said on the other line. “Oh, uh … can you call me back later?”

  “Jill? What are you doing?”

  “That Chippendales dancer’s in town and,” Jill gasped and giggled.

  “Eww, you’re such a slut,” Ashley laughed. “Call
me back when he’s done.”

  ******

  Ashley was annoyed that Jill was bringing her boy toy to Denny’s with her, but Ashley was curious to see what he looked like. She thought it was gross having sex with a male stripper, but there was a bit of nasty fascination. She’d known, not dated, a stripper before and he wasn’t a complete shithead, but she wouldn’t have trusted him alone with her friend, her car or her wallet.

  As annoyed as she was about Tad, Jill or Jill’s stripper, she was really just furious that she had gone shopping today to pick out a hot outfit just to hide it in her bag as Mexican cooks at Denny’s ogled her.

  At least they were attentive.

  The diner was moderately populated; it was only nine o’clock. She’d rather be at a club, but she couldn’t go to a club alone. Before, if she was bored, she’d just go find a concert and walk right in. No one ever charged her, no one carded her, they always treated her like a queen. Her husband was gone now and no one ever looked at her like a real person anymore. That’s why she went to clubs instead, no one knew her there—she was just another piece of ass. It was refreshing.

  She caught a glimpse of Jill skipping through the parking lot toward the front door with the stripper loping along behind her. Jill and Ash had a lot in common; black women who shared a penchant for white meat. Ashley was drawn to them because she was raised by a white father in an all-white neighborhood; Jill liked white men because her last husband was black and a vicious drunk who had cheated on her for years.

  Ash and Jill were also exceedingly catty. It was how they bonded.

  Hanging out with Jill sometimes reminded Ash that she fell into the Oklahoma marriage trap she’d seen so many other women, black and white, fall into. As a teenager, she made fun of their naiveté. You get married too young, you get kids, waste all your good years of freedom and when the marriage crumbles, you’re just another woman in her thirties trying to make up for lost time.

  Sure, Ash was still in her twenties, but she still felt like she was playing catch up after all the time she had wasted.

  “Godamn you, Jim,” Ashley muttered as she watched Jill and the stripper walk through the doors.

  Jill’s boy toy had those doe eyes you see on a cow; you can tell that they see what’s around them, but not much of it is processing.

  He was wearing a fleece and it seemed to be hiding a good body underneath. He probably looked pretty good naked, but he was still a stripper.

  “Whatever, good for Jill,” Ashley mumbled to herself. “God knows she’s not going to do much better until she’s lost some weight.”

  “Hey darling,” Ashley called, changing tones and pulling herself out from behind the booth to hug Jill.

  “I’m sorry about your loss, Ash,” Jill said. “This is Scott.”

  “Hi, Scott,” Ashley purred, then grimaced slightly when his aftershave singed her nostrils.

  “Uh, hi,” he said with a goofy grin.

  The meal was pleasantly disgusting, and Ashley enjoyed every revolting bite of her buttery pancakes, greasy hash browns and overcooked sausage. The stripper ate like a hog, and Jill pretended to be on a diet.

  “So, where are you going tonight?” Jill asked. “Are you going to Bricktown or the gay district?”

  Ashley shook her head as she swallowed a mash of pancake and syrup.

  “I’m just going home to gag the cat,” Ashley sighed. “Why is it so hard to find a guy who just wants to have sex without making such a huge deal out of it?”

  “You’re dating too young,” Jill answered, sipping on her ice water and ignoring her salad. “Young kids are stupid. No offense, Scott.”

  “What?” Scott asked, as if awoken from a dream.

  “Nothin’, baby,” Jill said, patting his hand, then turning back to Ashley. “You need to find an older guy who’s had life kick him in the balls and just doesn’t give a fuck anymore. He’s got a fat wallet, a stash of Viagra and just wants a good lay now and then. You also need to make sure whoever you’re fucking doesn’t find out you’ve got money.”

  “Yeah,” Ashley sighed. “It was just an awful day, though; I really needed to blow off some steam.”

  “What’s up, honey?”

  “Sean got in a fight at school, then I got a call from Billy saying that he thinks he saw Jim yesterday.”

  “Really?” Jill asked, trying to sound sympathetic, but really just as fascinated as if she were looking for bodies at a car wreck.

  Ashley shrugged.

  “It’s not the first time, either; I’ve heard it from other people,” Ashley said. “I didn’t really buy into it, but Billy wouldn’t lie to me.”

  “Wow,” Jill sighed. She smiled knowingly and glanced at Ashley. “Did you and Billy ever hook up?”

  “No!” Ashley snapped. “You can’t sleep with two people in the same band; it’s not kosher.”

  “Well,” Jill smirked. “He was just the bass player.”

  Jill grinned and hiccupped a laugh.

  “So what are you going to do if ... ?”

  “I don’t know,” Ashley replied, looking over at the stripper.

  “Oh, don’t worry about him,” Jill said. “He’s barely even here right now; he has enough trouble remembering his own name.”

  “My kind of guy,” Ashley snickered. She took a deep breath, dabbing a tear out of her eye with a paper napkin.

  “I’m sorry, baby,” Jill said, patting Ashley’s hand. “Do you really think he’s still alive?”

  “I don’t know,” Ashley said. “I don’t know what I’m going to tell Sean if he turns up. I don’t think he’ll come back to us though.”

  “Do you want him to?” Jill asked.

  Ashley didn’t answer, instead glancing over at Scott. He was gazing out the window at the passing headlights.

  “How’s the stripper working out for you?” Ashley asked. Scott didn’t respond.

  Jill smiled and shivered.

  “That good, huh?”

  Jill arched her eyebrow and nodded.

  “Hey, Scott,” Ashley called.

  He didn’t respond at first, so she snapped her fingers in front of him. He startled slightly and looked over, still dazed.

  “Are any of your friends around?” Ashley asked.

  “Huh?”

  “Your stripper friends, baby,” Jill said, like a mother explaining a math problem to a child.

  “No,” he said. “I’m on vacation.”

  “Great,” Ashley mumbled.

  “Why?” Scott asked.

  “No reason.”

  Scott shrugged. He continued looking at Ashley until she began to feel uncomfortable.

  “What?” she finally asked.

  “You’re famous, aren’t you?”

  “She was married to someone famous, honey,” Jill answered. “She used to be married to the lead singer of Shropshire Plaid until he died.”

  “Oh yeah!” he smirked. “I thought I knew you. Aren’t they coming out with an album or something?”

  “Well,” Ashley said, “the lead singer died, so probably not.”

  “Oh, that’s too bad.”

  Ashley smiled and nodded, though her mood soured even more. Jill was chuckling and Ashley flipped her off. Scott dazed again and returned to the flashing lights.

  “He’s a pretty good lay, huh?”

  Jill nodded.

  “Maybe you’re on to something.”

  ******

  Ashley eyes slowly peeled open. She was clinging to her pillow like it was a man’s chest. She pulled up the scallop lace sheets with obscene thread counts to partially hide her face. She’d been crying in her sleep again, which she only knew because the pillow was still damp.

  No one had ever replaced Jim. She’s given up trying to fall in love again. When she was with Jim, she felt like any moment he would say or do something spectacular. No matter how low she felt, how angry she’d become, just a few words from him would make her feel like a princess, like the most beautiful
woman in the world.

  His timing was impeccable; he could sense the moment when she thought she was ready to leave him and his lifestyle behind. She’d be preparing herself to move out and then he would say something so beautiful, it would reduce her to a spineless mess. He would be good for a while, a good husband and later a good dad. Then, he would become Jim again. It was an erratic circle that ran faster and faster, moods shifting like waves until, finally, he disappeared.

  At nights, when she was lonely, she’d often have that same nagging anticipation. Any moment, Jim would come in and say something spectacular. She called herself a widow, but knew he was out there somewhere because she still felt him. She still believed it was only a matter of time before he burst through that door again and said something, the one thing that would make her forgive him for everything.

  Her four-poster bed creaked slightly as she shifted over to her back, careful not to crumple her hair inside the hairnet. Just like an old woman, Ashley fell asleep as soon as she got home and relieved the babysitter. She woke up annoyed and slightly horny. She’d rather have a hangover.

  She heard the television downstairs—her boy must already be up. She lifted her eyes above the sheets and the down comforter to the grandfather clock that she always stubbed her toe on.

  “10:15.”

  She sighed, laid back down and watched the ceiling fan.

  “Okay,” she muttered, lifted up into a sitting position and then rolled across the bed to stand up. She slipped her feet into her feathered slippers and shuffled to the door. It creaked loudly as it opened.

  “How are you doing, honey?” she called.

  “Good morning, Mom,” Sean replied.

  “Morning, have you eaten?”

  “No.”

  “Okay,” she said. “I’ll be down in a little bit.”

  A headache began to emerge, so she picked up the pace in hopes of getting caffeine into her system before the pain really set in. She threw on a T-shirt and shorts, took off the hairnet and went down to make breakfast.

  Sean lounged backwards on the cranberry sofa with his head hanging off the end so he could watch cartoons upside down. A Superman cartoon from the forties was playing. It came from an old compilation of cartoons that Jim had watched with Sean when he was a baby. It had this scene in it with African tribesmen that got under Ashley’s skin, but Sean loved it so she never threw it out.