“Brilliant idea,” Bruno sang. “Eureka after eureka. Svetlana, you’re on fire tonight, babe. Run the details past me during the week, ‘cos I’m getting some ideas of my own now.” He pulled a cigarette from his pocket and lit up as he hurried off past me. “Oh, this is gonna be good. You ladies have given this place a new lease of life. Yes indeed...”
The dressing room descended into an awkward, silent stand-off as he left. I pulled out a stool and sat down next to Svetlana. Peeling off my false eyelashes, I said; “You had me going out there for a minute, you know. I really thought you’d lost the plot.”
Svetlana still refused to reply. Her profile was still doing a damn fine impersonation of a granite cliff.
Bruno re-appeared with a tray and two bottles of champagne, crystal flutes, and the now-traditional bowl of chocolates. He set the tray down in front of us. It had been worth the pain and discomfort to see Bruno so excited and energized about the Klub again.
“Tuck in, ladies. You’ve earned it. The bonus will be waiting for you tonight, Svetlana.”
He vanished again and we all poured ourselves our own helpings of Möet.
“Here’s to Svetlana,” Petra laughed. “For the best idea anyone’s had in ages.”
Svetlana swirled her drink around, still refusing to look at any of us, her sneer fixed to the mirror. Finally she stood up.
“Here’s to the rematch,” she said, downed her drink in one gulp, and strode out towards the toilets, where I got the feeling she was preparing to kick the cubicle doors off their hinges.
Bruno was totally taken with the evening’s Cold War theme and decided that Svetlana and I would be a double act in future, renaming us the Merciless Sisters – some kind of loose joke on the Sisters of Mercy, I guess.
And then he came out with the most outlandish concept I’d ever seen at the Kitty Klub since the afternoon he offered a contract to an exhibitionist hermaphrodite pervert...and expected her to behave.
“Mud wrestling!” he cried, his big hands spread wide as we all sat backstage the following weekend. “Wrestling is the new big thing from the US. It’s all over the TV these days. But who wants to see a couple of steroid monsters slap each other when we can offer gorgeous women – in mud, yet? It’s just perfect. Isn’t it?”
“Perfect?” Svetlana repeated, rolling her tongue around the word as though it were a hard-boiled sweet. I could see she was just as skeptical as me, but ritualized violence seemed to have its place in modern society. Especially with a little sexiness thrown in. And if nothing else, it helped those of us who didn’t get along so well to resolve our issues safely, in public, and get paid for it.
“How messy do you want this to get?” I asked.
Bruno sniggered. “As messy as you possibly can. The flyers that I’ve printed are warning to ‘bring a change of clothes’.”
His bright idea for our next outing arranged for a paddling pool – filled with real mud from the gardens at the back of the venue – to be manhandled onto the stage for us to splash around in.
“I suppose, at least it’s not a pool of cow shit,” Svetlana sighed. “Had that done to me when I was growing up on my uncle’s farm. My brothers thought it was funny. Then they threw me in the river to clean me off. Now you know why I devoted my life to getting tough.”
“Another farm girl?” I asked, surprised. And then I realized that this was the first detail she had ever dropped about her personal past. Could the Cold Warrior-maiden finally be thawing out at last?
“Hm,” Bruno pondered. “Can we make this a theme? With appropriate national dress, perhaps. Phoenyx the Bavarian barmaid versus the Russian peasant.”
I was mildly surprised that Svetlana took no offence at being cast as a peasant, until I realized that the term probably carried more pride and honor in the East than it did elsewhere.
“Why not,” Svetlana said. “Perhaps we can add beer to the mix as well.”
“This’ll put the cleaning bill through the roof,” Bruno said, “but I think the takings will more than make up for it all.”
I looked at Svetlana, and she looked at me.
“Well, here’s to the rematch,” I smiled. She grinned back, and for the first time in her company I felt truly at ease. It’s amazing what a public kick in the ass can achieve sometimes, I mused.Chapter Ten
Cold Wargasm
I woke up the next morning with a strange, distant sound in the background of my perception. At first it sounded like a war was going on somewhere, then possibly a football match, but no big games were ever played at that time of day. Confused and just a little afraid as I struggled to awaken, I went to the window and looked out. As far as I could see were crowds of people pouring through the street, and my eyes stared with panic.
“What the hell is going on?” I asked myself, and then as if to answer me, there was a ruffle of knocks at the door.
I rushed to open it, fearing the worst: a war, a revolution, some impending disaster forcing us all to flee at a moment’s notice. The Soviets on the march again – Gorbachev deposed, and Svetlana, the KGB’s sleeper agent, now leading a revolution from the heart of the West to bring back the old hard-line empire. I wrenched the door almost off its hinges with a terrible croak of tortured wood, and found Bruno and Gloria there, eyes wide and bright (far too bright for that time of day, I decided), and grinning madly at me.
“What the hell?” was as far as I got before Gloria shoved a morning newspaper in my face. I didn’t quite get the connection at first.
“The wall’s coming down,” Bruno said, and then the realization began to sink in. I looked again at the front page, and dashed back to the window. The crowds had come closer, and I could see that they were celebrating; not fleeing, fighting or rebelling.
“The wall,” I repeated, and my first thoughts were of my father, who left us all those years ago to be with his family over in the East. The newspaper crashed to the floor at my feet and I just stood there, not quite knowing how I should feel.
“It’s over,” Bruno went on. “They opened the gates at midnight last night. It’s beautiful.”
“Beautiful,” I repeated, and felt my eyes begin to fill up. I suppose it was, in a way, but it was a beauty the city could have done without – the cruelty which led to it should never have occurred in the first place.
I followed them down to the bar to find a couple of the cleaning staff crowded around the television which was showing live news coverage of the exodus. I looked at all the scenes of people coming together again, hugging and kissing and dancing, and I felt a wrench inside me, as if something had been torn away – a wound that had healed but was now open and bleeding again.
I tried to tell myself that I shouldn’t care. I’d never known him, and he never knew me. If he was even still alive, I’d never recognize him, and probably my mother wouldn’t, either. I didn’t even know if she had a photograph of him. If there was even a wedding photo, I’d never seen it. It was one of those things that had just never been discussed.
“This is history, happening right in front of us,” Gloria said. “We should go out there and join in, be a part of it.”
“Give it time,” Bruno said. “Let it sink in first – ‘cos I’ve got an idea. A great idea, in fact. A special Klub Night to celebrate.”
“A party night?” Gloria whooped, “Wow, yeah. Count me in.”
“Sounds great,” I muttered, and went back upstairs to my apartment, where I stayed, alone with my thoughts and rather confused feelings, until the evening.
I spent that night in the middle of the city, wrapped up against the cold November air. I’d never seen so many people in all my life and I doubted I ever would again. It was like being in the middle of a giant street party to which I’d not been invited. I couldn’t imagine what life might have been like for me had that crumbling, spray-painted bastard wall never been erected. I knew that I probably would not have spent ten glorious years at the Kitty Klub, and would probably have been pushed into a
university or something to follow serious pursuits. I’d likely be married now, with kids and a divorce and credit card debts and all that other crap that seems to pass for acceptable behavior out there, the mortgaging of a soul at the expense of freedom and creativity. For sure, I’d had my lonely and miserable patches in the past, but I was following my own path, doing my own thing, my way, as the old song said. And I would never have swapped one minute of all those years for the probable alternative, even if it afforded me more comforts and wealth. Those years seemed to have hardened me, made me more selfish than I had ever realized until that moment, turned me into some kind of hedonistic cartoon character – I didn’t even have a real name any more, did I? The ‘real’ me existed only on government forms, far removed from my public day-to-day persona. In some ways I had lived a perpetual fantasy since I began my first, and only, job.
I had never really grown up, in fact.
Despite all the cheering, dancing masses, I felt detached, colder than a Moscow winter, empty and abandoned like the day I found Honey had gone for good. I didn’t like how I felt, and all that self-analysis was showing me up as a person that I hoped none of my friends and colleagues ever saw. I pulled my scarf up over my mouth in the hope that nobody would ask me why I looked so miserable.
I wanted to feel happy, to share the relief and emotion of all those around me, to accept the truth that relief for millions was infinitely more important than my sad little thoughts, and to rejoice in the greater victory for my adopted city, and my own beliefs of personal freedom.
But still I felt like a spectator to someone else’s celebration, feeling that schism inside me which would never be unified, the broken circle that could never be completed. And as I walked through the heaving tides that gathered on our side of the wall, I looked up at every face that I passed in the futile expectation that I might instinctively be drawn to a certain stranger, and ask him a question to which I’d already know the answer.
I knew it was pointless. My own mother wouldn’t have much chance of identifying him after thirty years, if he even was there to be seen, yet it felt like I had to make the symbolic effort and attempt to bring some kind of reconciliation to that part of my life. But the more I wandered, and was jostled and grabbed, invited to sing, drink beer and join in dances, the lighter my mind began to feel.
I’d made the gesture, as futile as it was. None of it was my fault. I’d always hated politics and the nasty rules that were imposed on people for no good reason. And the idea that some of those rules had now been broken appealed to the free bird spirit within me, and the blazing firebird across my shoulders. My eyes burned as warm tears merged with cold air and I felt a strange kind of alchemy form within me, transforming me into something else.
I pulled my hat off and stuffed it in my coat pocket. Unwound my scarf, and opened the buttons on my coat. I felt as if I could breathe again, released from the restrictions of convention and order, and then I found myself paying attention to the things in front of me, not inside my head.
A bunch of young people were pulling apart the packaging of a crate of beer outside a store.
“Who wants some West Berlin Beer?” one of them yelled, and feeling suddenly overcome by the moment, I raced over to them and answered,
“Me!”
The guys stepped back, perhaps surprised at such a rapid and overwhelming response.
“Okay, hi there,” one of them said. “Here.” He pushed a little bottle into my hand. “What’s your name?”
“Phoenyx,” I said, and fumbled with the screw top. “You’re from the East?”
“Yes. It’s unbelievable. I never thought I’d see this day.” Seeing my difficulty, he took the bottle from me and twisted it, hard. “There, it’s easier without gloves on.”
“You must be cold,” I said, noting that he was only wearing a thin sweatshirt and jeans.
“Not really. The heat of freedom warms me,” he said, passing out bottles to the others who flocked around him. He brushed a long string of light brown hair away from his eye, revealing cheeks reddened with excitement and exhilaration. “I’m Jacob, by the way. Are you from the West?”
I nodded, though I felt confused by that for a moment. And then I realized. I wasn’t a child of East or West, or trapped between two opposing halves. I was a child of the world, of freedom, citizen of a place where all people were equal and happy. I was probably also a hopeless dreamy romantic, as my history teacher had once told me, but moments like this helped me to feel justified in my views, and to remain hopeful for the future. People cared, and even total strangers all around me were caring for each other, and suddenly I felt not so selfish after all. The ghost of my unknown father had flown, and he had my blessings. He did what he believed was the right thing, I was sure; the less horrible of two unwanted options, a choice which no human being should ever be forced to make.
The other youths were dancing with each other, arm in arm, spilling frothy beer all over the place while Jacob and I stood aside, grinning and laughing at them.
“Are you waiting for someone?” he asked me.
I shook my head. “No. No, I’m not. I just came out to join the party.”
“Well, party on then, Phoenyx.” He clinked his bottle against mine. And then, just because I felt like it, I leaned in and kissed him.
“Wow,” he said, shocked. He stared at the beer bottle in his hand. “This stuff sure has a kick.”
“Were you born in the East?” I asked, figuring that he couldn’t have been more than about twenty-five.
“‘Fraid so. Feel like I’ve got an awful lot of catching up to do, y’know?”
“I bet you do.” I glanced around and, seeing that his friends were still distracted with West German beer, grabbed him by the hand and ran him up the nearest side street. He didn’t yelp or cry out, almost as if he had tuned in to my exact wavelength, and at the back door of a shop we held each other in the dim light of the alleyway.
“Wow,” he gasped, not quite sure what to do or say, or where to touch me first. “Is this what it’s like in the West all of the time?”
“Not all the time,” I smiled. “Well, not unless I’m around.”
“D’you do this a lot then?”
“Not really. I’m not what you’re thinking. I’m just in need of a bit of relief.”
“Well...let me be honest. That makes two of us. But, really – you’re gorgeous. I wouldn’t have thought—”
I pressed a finger to his lips. “Sshh. Don’t think. Just go with the flow.”
“The flow,” he agreed, nodding eagerly. “Yeah, yeah. Sure.”
The front of his jeans was thick and bulging, proving that he was keen to go with anything I suggested. He probably wasn’t going to believe it, and even I had begun to think twice about my next move, but it just felt right. The words of Mrs. Groenenberg and Honey screamed through my brain and I lashed my hair back, smiling, and looked him in the eye.
“Let’s go.”
I pulled my skirt up to my waist to show him the pale naked flesh and the fuzzy strip of red hair above my black woolen stockings. He just stared, open mouthed, not knowing where to look.
He stared wildly around himself, as if searching for a hidden camera, or a gang of muggers, convinced this couldn’t be happening.
“Oh my fucking god,” he groaned. “Is that – are you…?”
Then he shut up and finally got with the program, as they say. He grabbed me around the back of the head and drew my face deep into his. His actions were nervous and hasty, as well they might be – anyone could have walked around that corner at any second, but we both knew it felt right. And we both wanted it, right there, right then.
“Yes,” I whispered into his mouth, “I am serious. Are you?”
“Hmmm mhh,” he replied enthusiastically, and our tongues met. I slid my burning crotch up his thigh and pressed against his twitching jeans, pushing him hard against the wall. He arched his back and ripped open his fly zip and, looking dow
n, I was thrilled to see that like me, he hadn’t bothered to wear any underwear. I reached inside and helped him pull the whole lot out into the air.
“That pretty thing’s gonna get cold if you leave it outside for too long.” I smiled. “Best put it somewhere warm.”
He was still staring at me, not quite believing this was really happening. I glanced back down the alley, saw the coast was clear, and guided the head of his cock in between my swollen labia. I took him in little stages, an inch at a time, savoring his entry into me. Sex outside in a public place was something I’d never tried but always fancied.
“C’mon, baby. Fuck me,” I whispered, and he did without hesitation. His organ was slim but long and it felt like it was sliding all the way up to my belly. He seemed pretty practiced in the vertical position and I wrapped my legs tight around him, sitting on him as he thrust hard up inside me.
“Oh yes,” he wheezed, shaking streaks of sweat-dampened hair across his face, “God, yes.”
I felt his muscles contracting and stretching with effort as he pumped into me, squeezing me tight in his arms. I really wanted to feel his teeth around my nipples at the same time as I felt them rub roughly against the lining of my sweater, but that wasn’t too feasible at that moment. I tightened up my vaginal muscles, grabbing his shaft in mid-thrust. He gasped, looking at me in alarm as though he might have done something untoward.
I smiled in reply, licking my lips as I released him, and then caught him again.
“How do you do that?” he cried.
“With a hell of a lot of practice, darling. You like it?”
“You’re a goddess,” he squeaked, and I flicked my tongue out at him.
“I’m not,” I smiled, “just a fiery free bird who knows what she likes, and likes to get it when she can.”
“I’m so close,” he wheezed as I relaxed my grip and let him push his full length back into my oozing passage. “D’you want me to pull out?”
“No, honey. Let’s cum together.”
Phoenyx: Flesh & Fire Page 25
