No. 22 Pleasure City

by Mark Fishman

  NO. 22

  PLEASURE CITY

  Guernica World Editions 3

  NO. 22

  PLEASURE CITY

  Mark Fishman

  TORONTO • BUFFALO • LANCASTER (U.K.)

  2018

  Copyright © 2018, Mark Fishman and Guernica Editions Inc.

  All rights reserved. The use of any part of this publication, reproduced, transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise stored in a retrieval system, without the prior consent of the publisher is an infringement of the copyright law.

  Michael Mirolla, editor

  David Moratto, cover design and interior layout

  Guernica Editions Inc.

  1569 Heritage Way, Oakville, (ON), Canada L6M 2Z7

  2250 Military Road, Tonawanda, N.Y. 14150-6000 U.S.A.

  www.guernicaeditions.com

  Distributors:

  University of Toronto Press Distribution,

  5201 Dufferin Street, Toronto (ON), Canada M3H 5T8

  Gazelle Book Services, White Cross Mills

  High Town, Lancaster LA1 4XS U.K.

  First edition.

  Printed in Canada.

  Legal Deposit—First Quarter

  Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2017960395

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Fishman, Mark, 1954-, author

  No. 22 pleasure city / Mark Fishman. -- First edition.

  (Guernica world editions ; 3)

  Issued in print and electronic formats.

  ISBN 978-1-77183-309-7 (softcover).--ISBN 978-1-77183-310-3 (EPUB).

  --ISBN 978-1-77183-311-0 (Kindle).

  I. Title. II. Title: Number 22 pleasure city. III. Title: Number twenty-two pleasure city.

  PS3606.I835N6 2018813’.6C2017-907298-6C2017-907299-4

  NO. 22

  PLEASURE CITY

  [ 1 ]

  A reliable witness said that he saw her from an upper-story window and described her as a young woman, maybe thirty, wearing a pair of jeans cut low at the hips and a white short-sleeved shirt that showed her muscular upper arms when the billowing, knee-length beige trench coat blew open and off her shoulders because she was walking so fast. Her navel was pierced by something with a diamond in it and the diamond had winked at him with a reflected ray of sunlight.

  She was above-average height and wore low-heeled shoes that clattered as she walked along the sidewalk beneath the overhanging branches of trees, and what had drawn him to the window in the first place was the mouth-watering racket of her footsteps echoing in the street. He went directly to the window whenever he heard a woman’s footsteps because he liked to watch them as they walked. He said that this woman’s walk was something special. She was slender and her hips swayed noticeably but unselfconsciously, with confidence and purpose. In his opinion, she was going somewhere in a hurry.

  [ 2 ]

  Nothing much moved along the streets of the Midwestern city in the region of the Great Lakes early in the morning, and anything that did move, whether human or machine, went about it at a crawl. Everyone and everything but Angela Mason. She walked determinedly along the sidewalk on Prospect Avenue toward the intersection without seeing more than a few passing cars, a couple of city buses and taxis, and one or two bicycles. She waited impatiently at the signal until the small figure changed its position and its color from red to green like someone walking and going nowhere. She smiled, then crossed the intersection, hesitating for a second in the middle to look to the left and right.

  She went on her way with long strides, her shoes clattering on the sidewalk. A gulp came to her throat. She wanted to slip unobtrusively into a crowd but there was no sign of one. A handsome man came toward her, and as he came closer she saw that he was wincing. An unlit cigarette hung down from his lips, and it jerked up with each grimace. He lit it, and the lighted match stayed lit. She sized him up. He tried to smile for her, but only one side of his mouth could manage it. He dropped the match and walked past her.

  There were a few other passersby, but they didn’t look at her for more than the time it took to make sure they didn’t collide with someone else. Angela felt that someone was following her, or that someone coming her way or fading out behind her back was watching her. She looked around several times before arriving at the next intersection. She checked the time on her wristwatch. She turned right at Edgewater, walked a block, turned right on Wilson Drive and nearly ran into a woman riding a bicycle on the sidewalk. The bicycle swerved at the last second and she jumped to the edge of the sidewalk to the grass and came to a halt just in front of a wooden bench painted green.

  She was trembling. She clenched her fists so tightly that her knuckles were pale. She licked her lips, telling herself her tongue felt like a dried-out sponge. She swallowed, then rubbed the salivary glands under her chin to make them work. Now she moistened her lips with her tongue. She sat down on the bench, facing the flow of traffic and the lake.

  She raised her hand and mechanically began to stroke her hair. She gave the street a steady look. A car pulled off Wilson Drive halfway onto the curb. Her eyes opened wide. Then she felt a hand press firmly down on her shoulder. She didn’t jump. She turned her head slowly, craning her neck. A face she didn’t know looked mildly down at her. The eyes in it shone with a peculiar light that didn’t come from sunlight. A hand squeezed her upper arm. She felt something like a pinprick at the base of her neck. She looked straight ahead and smiled sweetly, her eyelashes fluttered, and she got up from the bench. She didn’t need any help, but she let herself be guided toward a waiting car. The rear door opened. A hand gave her a gentle push from behind, she ducked her head, and another hand came to rest on top of her head to protect it from striking the roof. She slid across the seat. The man got in beside her and shut the door. The car pulled leisurely away from the curb.

  At first her face was stiff like a mask. Then she felt a warm, enveloping glow that spread from her neck downward and played between her legs. The tension in her body was completely gone. She relaxed, letting her mind become pleasantly blank. She turned her head, following traffic that seemed to move in slow motion past the window, each car, bus and taxi making its way in the steady flow on the street.

  The landscape changed slowly in front of her bleary eyes. Thinking was difficult, her ability to concentrate was so light, and it didn’t matter that she could not get her floating thoughts down properly. They were up there somewhere like helium balloons. She tugged gently on the strings to bring them down. They didn’t respond. Only the slight quivering of her fingers revealed that there was still some energy left in her.

  [ 3 ]

  Burt Pohl didn’t wait for the elevator. He climbed the stairs in a rush, two at a time, without losing his balance, until he got to the fifth floor. He fumbled with the statue in the niche, found the latchkey she kept under it. His fingers held the key nervously. He stood in front of Angela’s door knowing what he was doing there and knowing that he shouldn’t be doing what he was going to do because it wasn’t like him to barge in on her except that now he had no choice and was compelled by an urgency set in motion by fear. But what that fear was all about he didn’t know. Bad luck stood right next to him.

  The key fit the lock and he turned the doorknob and eased the door open. He smelled something sickly sweet and thick in the air the minute he let himself in and shut the door behind him.

  He flattened himself against the wall, the key held loosely in his hand. It was dark where he stood, listening. At first the silence was so deep that it hummed in his ears. A light shone from the adjacent room. He took a long breath and stepped away from the wall. He crouched tensely, alert for the slightest
sound. Then a low voice in the next room rasped out what sounded like an order. He stood up and groped along the wall for a light switch. A fan of deep-blue rays of light streamed out of the next room. He didn’t find a light switch.

  Pohl took a step forward. The deep-blue light changed to a warm, yellow light. He heard heavy breathing. A man’s low voice went on giving orders that sounded more like instructions, not an aggressive voice, but authoritative. Pohl went dead-slow to the half-open door of the adjacent room, pushed it noiselessly aside, and peered in. It was Angela’s living room, he’d been here a dozen times, but it didn’t look at all like the same room.

  Angela crouched in a corner with her back against the wall. She wore a black sleeveless T-shirt and panties. Her skin glistened with sweat in the buff light. Pohl had never seen her like this. Her mouth was forced open and her lips drawn back by a medium-sized ball held in place by a strap that went around her head, pinning her hair against her ears. Her arms were bent awkwardly behind her. He couldn’t see if they were tied up.

  She tilted her head backward, touching the wall. Her eyes reflected the yellowish light. In this position, her knees pointed straight out in front of her. Pohl’s gaze went from her knees to her inner thighs. Her panties were pulled aside by something sticking out of her pussy. He could hear a low, humming sound that came from the thing inside her. It was kept there by her evenly-distributed weight and the object’s contact with the floor. He squinted. Angela moved mechanically a few inches up and down on it. Her feet were splayed. She rode the vibrator with her eyes partly shut. A moan came from her throat.

  Pohl turned his head away and saw a man standing on the opposite side of the room, watching Angela. He couldn’t see the features of the man’s face, the light was behind him, but it was the silhouette of a man wearing a neat, dark suit. He stood with his legs apart and his feet firmly planted on the floor, his hands lost in the pockets of his trousers. Then his voice came out in a gasp. “That’s enough,” he said. “Now, come here.”

  Angela went willingly. She pushed off the wall with the back of her head, she edged forward on her knees. Her distorted mouth, a wide, perverted grin, pleased the observing man. A squeaking noise came from her bare knees moving across the polished floor. The man stepped out of the light to let the full force of it wash over her. She was more breathtaking now than any other time Pohl had seen her. He quickly forgot about the other man and spent a long time looking at the woman he loved.

  The man in the neat, dark suit sneezed, then wiped his nose with a handkerchief. Pohl’s eyes snapped off Angela and switched to the man. But there was still a humming sound coming from the thing inside her, the muscles held it snugly in place, and he turned his head again to look at her. She strained her neck and her head and body went from side to side as she advanced toward the man. A thread of saliva hung from the corner of her mouth. It swung outward, then attached itself to her chin and hung down from there. Pohl liked the look of it.

  Angela lost her balance. She fell over on her side, her face turned toward Pohl. The strap of the ball-gag came loose and the ball, wet and shiny, popped out of her mouth when she hit the floor. Her hands weren’t tied behind her back, she’d just kept them there obediently. She didn’t see Pohl. She started to laugh, the laughter built into a roar, and the man giggled like a twelve-year-old girl. It was the sort of laugh that made Pohl bite his lower lip. He didn’t like it, and he didn’t like the man who didn’t try to stifle it because it was really painful to see Angela doing what she was doing with a man who laughed like that. He groaned, let the latchkey fall from his hand. It made a light ringing sound on the floor that got Angela’s attention. She raised her head, saw him, and her eyes blinked, startled. Her hands went forward, bracing herself to stand up. The vibrator fell out of her pussy and spun in circles on the floor. Pohl turned, ran out of the apartment. He took the stairs two at a time, going down.

  [ 4 ]

  Lew Burnett pulled on his trousers over a pair of silk socks, tucked in his shirt, fastened his belt, and tied the knot of his tie with an expression on his face that suggested the tie was going to be used to hang him. Angela wanted something from him and he didn’t know what it was going to be. She wouldn’t have said yes to what she’d been saying no to for so long if she didn’t want to get something out of him. He picked out a pair of low, black leather boots. He cleaned them with a soft cloth and a horsehair brush, slipped them on and tied them up. He combed his hair straight back and sprayed himself with an earthy scent. He laughed softly. It was the laugh of a twelve-yearold girl. The face in the mirror laughed with him, gave him a generous look and smiled.

  He switched off the lights in each room as he made his way to the front door, gathered up his keys, a handful of coins from the entrance table. He made a loose fist around the coins, shook them in his hand like dice. Folding the raincoat over his arm, he went out the door and locked it behind him.

  Twenty minutes later he pulled over to the curb on Birch Street and cut the engine. He sat behind the wheel thinking although he knew that thinking wasn’t going to give him any clue what she was up to. But he knew what he was going to do with her. He figured that she didn’t have any experience with what he wanted from her. Doing it with a kind of amateur made it more exciting. He felt the blood pulse in his veins. He stared through the light rain sprinkling the windshield at the entrance to Angela’s building on Lake Street. No matter what she wanted from him it was going to be worth it. The thought of her doing what he told her to do enveloped him like a warm bath, and he lounged back in the leather upholstered seat and allowed the undulating waters to cover him.

  He lit a cigarette and watched the smoke swirl up and out and break like a wave against the dashboard. When he finished the cigarette he tossed it out the window. Burnett looked at himself in the rearview mirror, put the tip of his finger in his mouth, moistened it, then reached up to smooth his eyebrows. He got out of the car with the raincoat in his hand.

  [ 5 ]

  Aquarter moon rode high over the buildings of the downtown district sliced down the middle by a black river faintly colored by pale moonlight and spanned by bridges lit by sodium-vapor lamps. Rows of streetlights stretched off in all directions, and to the southeast, parts of the surface of the 22,400-square-mile lake shrugged its whitecapped shoulders in gusts of wind.

  Clouds gathered in the sky above the lake and it looked like rain. They moved slowly in from the north, becoming thick and dark, traveling low and grazing the tops of tall buildings, and in a little while a mistlike rain blew between the buildings.

  The streetlights and neon signs on Jackson Street made crazy swirling patterns of color on the sidewalk and the roofs and hoods and windshields of cars parked the length of the street. Then the rain began to fall in sheets, flattening discarded newspapers against the sides of buildings and on the sidewalk. The wind blew plastic cups and empty beer and soda cans in the gutter, making a racket with the sound of bouncing hollow aluminum containers, a racket almost but not quite drowned out by the steady pounding of the downpour.

  The wind died down but the rain fell continuously all over the night city: on the brick façade of the huge brewery where a nightshift was working, a disused appliance manufacturer at the edge of the city limit and a suburb, the expensive apartment buildings overlooking the lake on the Eastside, a tool and die factory, a tractor assembly plant, the taverns and modest dirty, cream-colored brick houses on the Southside, the warehouses along the river where all the windows had been dark for hours, and the wealthy suburban areas to the north and east.

  The rain began to slacken, and a heavy silence filled the vacancy the rain had left in the city.

  [ 6 ]

  Angela pressed the button next to the intercom to let Lew Burnett into the building. She was thirty years old. She wore a short black skirt and an emerald silk blouse. Her pale skin was as smooth as the skin of an eighteen-year-old. Her reddish-brown hair was cut at a slight angle to her shoulders. She swung the door
open with enthusiasm. Burnett walked in wet with a raincoat over his arm. She started to say something, but stopped herself at the moment he turned to look at her. Her hands were a delicate gesture, and her sea-blue eyes were like the sun on a lake.

  He handed her his raincoat, then went straight to the living room, sat down in a chair, threw one leg over the other, dangling a boot that kicked out gently at the air. She went to the bathroom and came back with a towel. She handed it to him. He rubbed his hair with it, then combed his hair back with his hands. Angela slanted her eyes down at him and the smile on her mouth was the way he wanted a woman to smile at him. He giggled. She turned around and went out of the room. He stood up, looking at the furniture, walls and floor. Angela came back an instant later. Burnett looked up, glanced around from wall to wall, then the ceiling again and then the floor.

  Angela had her hands on her hips.

  Burnett sat down again in the chair.

  “Where do we start?” Angela asked, hitching up her skirt as she sat opposite him on the arm of a chair.

  He looked at her, then quickly looked away. Something in her eyes told him she might not be the amateur he thought she was. Or that there was something else going on and that it was so far away from him that he’d never find out what it was. “Don’t we get something to drink?” he asked confidently, looking at her again.

  “Take a good look,” she said, moving her hand between her legs and pushing her skirt up. She wasn’t wearing anything under her skirt. “Enjoying it?”

  Burnett shrugged. He looked away from the sparse red hair between her legs and examined his boots, rubbing his knees vigorously with the palms of his hands, then looked up at her.