Killing Johnny Fry

by Walter Mosley

  “Oh my God,” Mel uttered, going faster himself. “Oh my God."

  “Are you about to come?” Sisypha asked him with great anticipation.

  “Yes, yes, yes,” Mel cried.

  I was panting along with him. My only sorrow was that my swollen hand still couldn‘t wrap around my own erection.

  All of a sudden Sisypha reared back and slapped Mel‘s stubby hard-on. He gasped, and she grinned broadly.

  “I‘m not letting you come yet, baby” she said impishly. “Every time you‘re about to, I‘m gonna thump it good."

  This did not stop Mel from thrusting and pushing with his hips.

  “I don‘t know if that‘s gonna stop it, baby,” he said.

  She thwacked his erection again, and again he gasped in pain. The camera moved in for a close-up, and you could see that one side of his cock was reddened and a little more swollen than the other.

  “I‘m going to sit on it for a second,” she told him. “It might sting at first."

  Then she straddled him and lowered slowly. His face twisted up so that you knew she was right about the stinging.

  She leaned very close to his face and whispered, “Don‘t you dare come."

  “I think I might be having a heart attack,” he said.

  “Could you think of a better way to go?” she asked, grinning and moving up and down.

  This general activity went on for some time. Sometimes she‘d straddle him. At other times she stroked him with her hand and talked to him about all the depraved things she‘d done with the big Greek. Every time he seemed about to have an orgasm, she slapped his hard cock, and he yelped.

  Now and then she‘d sidle up next to him, playing gently with his sex and whispering apologies.

  “I‘m sorry I have to do this, Mel. But I don‘t want to lose you and this is the only way I know to make sure that you‘re mine."

  At one point she stood Up and pulled the frame toward the bottom edge of the bed until Mel‘s butt was almost hanging off the side.

  “I‘ll be right back,” she said before walking out of the room.

  While she was gone, Mel just lay there, teetering at the edge of the bed. He was breathing hard and looking around, a lost soul on a sea of sensuality.

  When Sisypha returned, she was wearing a crystal-clear rubberlike phallus. The straps holding the dildo in place around her hips were also clear, making the sex toy seem almost like a natural appendage.

  It was very long and thick—even more so than the Greek‘s naturally generous endowment.

  “What‘s that?” Mel asked, his eyes once again wide with fear.

  Sisypha stood over him, letting the big thing hang down over his face.

  “It‘s my cock,” she said, stroking the thing sensually. “My big dick."

  “What, what, why do you have it?"

  “I‘m gonna fuck your ass with this thing."

  “No."

  “Yes."

  From her purse she brought Out a small plastic tube and a medicine bottle. She squirted some salve from the tube onto the tip of the clear, flesh-textured phallus. Then she took a capsule from the plastic bottle and held it under Mel‘s nose. There was a small popping sound and Mel‘s head went backward as if he smelled something very pungent.

  “What was that?” he cried, his voice unnaturally high.

  “Amyl nitrite,” Sisypha said.

  She was already walking toward the end of the bed. She got in under the bottom bar and between his legs and with one hand lifted the frame so that his butt was Suspended over the plastic cock. Then, in one deft move, she plunged nearly the whole length of the dildo into her husband.

  “Oh my God!” Mel said, while taking in a great gulp of air. “Oh no. What is that?"

  “The nitrite relaxes the muscles long enough to get it in,” she said. “It‘ll hurt after a few minutes, but by then I‘ll already be there."

  Then Sisypha moved her fake erection in and out, slowly. There was a smile on her lips as she watched it move into him. After a minute or two, Mel began to call out in pain.

  “It hurts,” he cried and Sisypha plunged deeper.

  “Please stop,” he yelled and she swayed her hips from side to side to open him up more.

  She fucked him hard and fast while he strained against the manacles and cried out loud.

  At one point she withdrew completely. This also seemed to cause Mel pain. I thought that it was over and let out a sigh of relief. I had lost my erection, not because I was outraged by the act but because I felt that Mel was no actor and he was really being tortured.

  Instead of stopping, Sisypha pushed the frame off the side of the bed and then lowered it so that Mel was lying on his stomach on the carpeted floor.

  “No more,” Mel pleaded. “It hurts too much."

  Sisypha did not seem to hear him. She got another capsule and broke it under her husband‘s nose. Then she plunged into him and fucked him with real abandon. His yells were a bit more pleasurable, and when she finally came, grinding down violently with her hips, Mel seemed to be pushing back, trying to accommodate her thrusts. Sisypha, for her part, grunted loudly. The camera caught her face in a moment of grim and sneering satisfaction.

  She stood up and took a deep breath.

  The dildo was stained with feces and some blood. She took it off and dropped it on the floor. Then she pulled on her white dress and walked out of the house without another word to her husband.

  He lay motionless and silent on the floor, on his belly, next to the sofa bed.

  For over a minute the camera showed Mel lying there bound and spread-eagled. Then the youth came in again. He unhooked the long poles and disassembled them. He freed Mel‘s feet and hands.

  Nude except for his socks and shoes, the brutalized man rolled into a ball while the youth wrapped up his traveling rack and left, again without closing the door.

  I turned off the TV then. For a moment I considered taking out the disc and breaking it. But there was a glass of cognac in front of me and, I thought, I‘d need two hands to break the DVD.

  I went through the bathroom and kitchen to the bedroom, undressed, and then went to the shower. After that, I lay down on my bed with the light still on and fell asleep on my back, something I almost never do.

  Three hours later, I woke up on a wave of nausea. Jumping from the bed, I tried to make it to the toilet, but I fell to my knees, vomiting on the floor at the foot of my bed. I sat there on my hands and knees, waiting for the moment when my strength would return and I could get the mop from the kitchen. But then I threw up again. I hadn‘t eaten very much in the last two days, and so the third bout was just dry heaves, but these seemed to weaken me even more. There was a cold sweat across my face, and I wondered if I really was sick this time.

  I hate throwing up, but the few moments afterward are nearly sublime, when the retching is over and it feels like a reprieve.

  That‘s how I was feeling when the phone began to ring.

  There was no way that I was going to rise. No way. The only reason I didn‘t slump down on the floor was that I‘d have to lie in my own vomit if I did.

  The phone rang eight times and then the answering machine engaged. The speaker was two rooms away, but still I could make out Joelle‘s sweet voice. I sat back on my haunches and thought about standing. Then I raised my elbows onto the mattress behind me and pushed.

  I literally stumbled from the bedroom through the kitchen and into the bathroom. When I fell into the living room, Jo was saying, “. . . okay. Good-bye."

  I dropped down into a half-lotus position next to the phone, picked up the receiver, and punched in her number.

  She answered on the first ring, “Hello?"

  “What time is it?” I groaned.

  “It‘s two fifteen. Where have you been, L?"

  “For the past ten minutes I‘ve been throwing Up,” I said. “Before that, in the daytime, I was in a daze, wandering all over the city."

  “I thought you were goin
g to Philadelphia?"

  “I know. I meant to go, but then I woke up at eleven thirty."

  “What‘s wrong with you, L?” Joelle asked.

  You are, I said in my mind. You fucking fucking Johnny Fry on the floor of your apartment. You looking into his eyes as if he were the first man to ever touch you.

  My thoughts were one thing but my voice said, “I think I‘m missing you."

  “What?"

  “I‘ve had you on my mind for days,” I said with feeling. “All I can think about is you and sex."

  “Sex?"

  “You sound like there‘s something strange about that,” I said.

  “No. It‘s just that you haven‘t talked like that for . . . ever."

  “But that‘s how I feel. I went to see Dr. Tremain, and when he asked me how you are, I got an erection."

  Jo laughed with a little shout of glee.

  “What did he say?” she asked.

  “Was I glad to see him?"

  “Did it go down?"

  “No. It lasted an hour."

  “An hour!"

  “You know how it is,” I said. “When I put my pants on, the dick was still hard and it rubbed against the material. Every time it did that, I thought about you, and every time I did that, it got harder."

  “Is that what happens?” she asked.

  “Yeah. Haven‘t you ever heard a guy talking about it before?”

  “No,” she said. “You know I haven‘t known but three men, sexually."

  Four, I wanted to say.

  “I have an erection right now,” I said, and it was true. Her lies and mine blended together to make me very excited. My breath was coming fast.

  “You have to wait Until tomorrow night,” she said with a sly smile in her tone. “We‘ll stay in just in case you get too excited and have to do something."

  I got dizzy. Here Jo was lying through her teeth, and all I wanted was to get in her bed and rut. My breathing got all crazy. One moment I couldn‘t take a deep inhalation, and the next, I was panting.

  “Are you okay, L?” Jo asked.

  “I need you so bad, I‘m aching."

  “Really?"

  I nodded and sighed, but the word yes got swallowed.

  “Promise me you won‘t masturbate until we see each other tomorrow,” she said.

  I think it was the first time she ever used the word “masturbate” talking to me.

  “Okay,” I said in a voice half an octave higher than usual. “But why?"

  “I want all of it,” she said, and I nearly passed out. “Every drop.”

  “I have to go, Jo,” I said. “If I talk to you any more about sex, I won‘t even have to jack off."

  It was like two completely different people talking to each other. We might have been Mel and Sisypha, Dick and Jane.

  “Okay,” she said. “You go to bed and rest."

  The moment she hung Up, the spell was broken. My erection eased, and I got the mop from the kitchen. After cleaning up the bedroom floor, I returned to the living room.

  I went back over the previous scene in The Myth of Sisypha, concentrating on Sisypha while she worked her clear phallus on Mel. Her face was strained like a true lover‘s while she gripped his thighs tightly to get the best leverage on her thrust. His cries only served to make her more passionate. And there was something toward the end that I had missed: when Sisypha had Mel on his belly on the floor, just before she achieved her orgasm, she pulled his hair back so that their faces were touching.

  “Kiss me,” she said in a sexually hoarse voice.

  He did.

  In that moment I could see that he had given in completely to her.

  He didn‘t want to be tied down there being battered by her giant dildo, but he gave in to her desire. Her need had become his will.

  After that I went off to bed.

  Lying there on my back, I could hear my heart rumbling like far-off thunder. I remembered Sisypha telling Mel that if he had a heart attack, it would be a good way to die. That made me laugh, and in the middle of my chortling, I fell off into sleep.

  I didn‘t wake up until two in the afternoon.

  I climbed Out of bed more certain and sure of myself than I had ever been, ever. I opened all the windows of my house, inviting the breeze off the Hudson to blow through my catacomb-like rooms. I made coffee and checked my answering machine. Twenty-one messages. Sixteen were from Jerry Singleton. He cursed me and told me that he was no longer my agent. He promised to destroy my career. I erased his threats and they were gone from my life.

  There were four entries made by Joelle, calls she had made before she finally got me. She was worried—more so in each successive recording. She really sounded like I was her one and only love. I tried to recapture the sexual intensity I had about her in the night, but it was gone.

  There was one message from Sasha Bennett.

  “It was great to have lunch with you,” she said. “And I‘m really looking forward to getting together for dinner next week. I‘m sorry if I hurt your hand. It was just a feeling I got, you know? But I‘m not really like that. Well . . . bye."

  I erased everything. It felt good to have a clean slate.

  I logged on to AOL and went into my banking account.

  I had saved $58,000 in the past two decades, $2,500 a year plus interest. There were also two $10,000 T-bills and $8,600 in my checking account.

  My rent was $1,350 and my expenses were no more than $1,000 a month, probably less. I didn‘t buy clothes often, nor did I take many vacations or own a car. I could live for at least two years without making a dime. That felt very good.

  I picked up the phone and punched in a number.

  “Hello?” the inappropriate new receptionist said into the receiver.

  “Brad there?"

  “One moment,” she said, putting me on hold. Almost immediately she got back on and asked, “Who may I say is calling?”

  “L,” I said.

  “Mr. L?"

  “Just tell him L."

  On hold again I succumbed to a giddy bout of laughing. I hadn‘t laughed like that since I was a teenager. I was still chuckling when Brad got on the line.

  “Cordell?” he asked. “That you?"

  “How you do in‘, Brad?"

  “I‘m fine, but you got my secretary all pissed off."

  “Why?"

  “Because you were rude, she said."

  “What‘s her name."

  “Linda Chou."

  “J-O-E?"

  “C-H-O-U."

  While jotting down the name, I said, “Listen, Brad, you know Lucy Carmichael?"

  “No."

  “She was a student at NYU when you lectured there once. She‘s a photographer."

  “Yeah? What she look like?"

  “I quit my job as a translator,” I said. “I think I want to start repping artists."

  “Quit? I thought you were freelance?” Brad asked.

  “I am. I, I was. But I just don‘t wanna do it anymore. So I thought I‘d try my hand at being an art agent."

  “And this Lucy Carmichael‘s going to be your first client?"

  “Yes sir. She‘s got these photographs of children in the Sudan that are excruciating. I‘m sure one of your Midtown galleries will jump at them. Will you help me out?"

  “I don‘t know what to say, L. You sound crazy."

  “No,” I said. “Not at all. I‘m just tired of these fuckin‘ small businesses and my agent and arguing over my fee."

  “You don‘t think I have to fight about money?"

  “Are you gonna help me, Brad?” I asked my oldest New York acquaintance.

  “So you‘re giving up translating just like that?” he asked.

  “I‘ve been thinking about it a long time,” I said. “It‘s just that I realized that I have to do it. I saw these pictures and I said to myself, it‘s time to get motivated."

  I was sitting on the sofa in my living room. The Sun was streaming in and the wind was blow
ing over me. The DVD was on again, but the volume was set to mute. Sisypha was meeting with Mel at a cafe in the daytime. While they talked, a tall, very beautiful black woman walked up to the table.

  “I‘ll tell you what,” Brad was saying. “If you promise to keep translating for me, I‘ll see what I can do."

  “Sure,” I said. “No problem."

  “Okay,” Brad said. “I‘ll get Linda to fax over the information on a few galleries that might be interested in that kind of work."

  Sisypha knew the black woman. She stood up to kiss her on the lips. The woman shook hands with Mel and sat down.

  “Thanks a lot, Brad,” I said as I turned off the DVD player. “I really need this."

  “What you need is a headshrinker,” he said.

  “Talk to you later,” I said.

  Sitting there at the threshold of a new life, I inhaled deeply and felt a pain down the core of my chest; a pain that was physical but also in my heart.

  “May I speak to Lucy Carmichael, please?” I asked a woman who‘d answered the phone at Teletronics, one of the dozens of new cell phone providers.

  “Whom may I say is calling?"

  “Cordell Carmel."

  “Hold on."

  While waiting, I practiced flexing my right hand. The anti-inflammatory was doing a good j o b on the swelling. I could get my fingers down far enough to make my hand seem somewhat like a bear‘s paw. There was still some pain, but it only served to make me feel hopeful, somehow.

  “Hello?"

  “Lucy?"

  “Mr. Carmel."

  “L. Everybody calls me L."

  “I didn‘t expect to hear from you for a while,” she said.

  I explained that I had spoken to Brad and that he said he was too busy to take on anyone for at least a year. Lucy thanked me in a downcast tone. Then I told her that he suggested I try to represent her work.

  “I told him that your work was too important to ignore. He said if I felt that strongly, he‘d introduce me to the right gallery owners, which would give me an edge."

  “Really?” she asked.

  “Yes. He‘s faxing me today about the gallery owners. Maybe you could come over tomorrow evening and we could go over the approach we‘ll take."