“You can search by location of murder, victim’s race, age, sex, date of murder, you name it.” He leaves me.
I’m surprised to discover six women have been murdered in City Park since 1952. The only unsolved was a thirteen-year-old girl murdered not far from Gen. Beauregard’s statue. My ghost isn’t a thirteen-year-old. The only other possible candidate involves a murder-suicide next to Suicide Oak along Marconi. A mother killed her pregnant daughter then herself. I read the descriptions of the woman. Both had dark brown hair and brown eyes. No green-eyed victim.
A half hour later, I’m back in Mason’s doorway to thank him.
“Anything?”
“Nope.”
“Our stuff goes back to the 1950s. Better check the D. A.’s office for anything older.”
I don’t get past the receptionist who directs me to the public library, to the Louisiana section. There I find computerized files of New Orleans murders back to the mid-1800s. Lots of victims, but not many in City Park.
Then it hits me: my ghost could be pre-American, back from the French and Spanish occupations of New Orleans, back when City Park was part of the great Allard Plantation. I check the plantation records, but there’s nothing.
Walking out of the library, into another blazing summer day, it occurs to me that whoever she is, she died without leaving a ripple in the pool of life. Not even a pin drop.
I’m determined not to sulk away from her tonight as I sit here waiting.
She shows up early, just as the rain lets up, a little after four-thirty. She’s just there, standing beneath the oak, water dripping from the branches above falls right through her, bouncing off the leaves at her feet. Her luminous eyes bore into mine and we stare at one another for long minutes.
I force my gaze from her mesmerizing eyes to look at her body through her diaphanous gown. Her breasts swell with her deep breaths, her areolae round and pink through her white gown, her nipples small and pointed. I trace my way down her body, past her small waist to the darkness between her slim legs. She’s barefoot.
She takes a uncertain step my way, but stops as I rise from my seat. I feel her eyes as if they are crawling across my face. Slowly her hands move and she pulls her dress off each shoulder, letting it fall to the ground. She stands naked facing me and my gaze roams from her face down to her round breasts, the pinkish flush to her body now, the light areolae, the pointed nipples. I look down past her belly to her bush, the dark triangle sending waves of passion through me, her legs are long and sleek.
My heart stammers in my ears and my breath comes in long drafts. I blink and she’s right in front of me, that unearthly ozone taste in the air as she raises her arms wide and up above my shoulders. I stare at the face before me, at the smooth lines of her cheeks, the full lips and wide, alluring eyes. She is truly beautiful, almost angelic.
Her arms encircle my neck and I feel her pulling me down as she rises on her toes and tilts her head to the side. I crane my neck forward, toward those inviting lips. Her eyes widen even further and there something else in them, a hint of nervousness, fear maybe.
Her lower lip quivers as I reach down and lightly touch her lips with mine. Her kiss is so sweet. I’m pulled forward, my lips pressing hers hard now and feeling her press back. Her kiss is electric, sending waves of passion through me.
Our lips part and I feel her tongue against mine and the kiss deepens. I feel the length of her body against mine, feel my heart thundering in my ears, feel the blood pulsing through my body. It’s as if every corpuscle is awakened to feel every nerve ending of my body.
She shakes in my arms and holds me even tighter and our kiss continues.
The air is so thick I can barely breathe and our kiss continues.
I feel myself sinking as I stand, leaning backwards as if she’s bending me over with the power of her kiss and our kiss continues.
She’s above me now, our mouth still pressed together in deep pleasure and our kiss continues.
I’m on my back now and she’s above me and still our kiss continues.
And slowly, ever so slowly, she pulls away. I try to keep her kiss but her lips part from mine and her face lingers above me, those gorgeous green eyes seeming to talk to me as she stares into my eyes.
And I remember her. A long time ago. I remember clearly, standing in a movie line as she stood several people in front. Her hair was shorter and she wore a short gray dress as she stood with her date. I saw her face in profile, staring at that perfect beauty and wondering what it would be like to have her hang on my arm as she did with the man she was with. She turned and looked at me just as the theatre started to let us in and we exchanged a long, knowing look. I never saw her again but a month didn’t pass in my life when I haven’t thought of her. For forty years I’ve wondered, never forgetting her. Never wanting to. She’s always been there, just beyond my reach.
Our kiss continues and my heart thunders, seems to skip a beat before resuming, pounding in my chest, aching, a deep pain and then the pain fades.
She leans down again, her lips lightly brushing mine as I feel her fingers closing my eyes, drawing me to sleep and I sleep a deep restful sleep. I feel her get up and leave and yet I can’t stop her.
I need to sleep.
They come for my body just before dawn. Cincent is the first, following by the Ketone twins and the EMTees who give my body a cursory exam before moving back to their ambulance to turn off the emergency lights.
I hear them calling for the coroner. I hear the word coronary but they don’t see me sitting here atop the picnic table. They only see the body on the grass. I lay back atop the picnic table and let the sleep return, shutting out the noises and the dawn.
You see, I like the nights best of all, the quiet, the coolness when autumn finally comes, the dark sky above and the stars twinkling. I like the rain as it passes through me.
It is so peaceful.
Being alone isn’t so bad for now, but I know, deep down, that one night a woman will come, someone as lonely as I was.
And we’ll kiss.
Shoes
Shaun Levin
Imagine. Red leather shoes with shining gold threads hugging the tips, stretching along the sides to circle the slim heels. Soft and smooth like the skin of a peach. The touch you can feel without touching. Imagine the leather pressing against your skin, cuddling your toes together, holding onto the sides of your feet. Imagine being lifted. Head high and towering above the rest. I’m here at the window, my nose against the cool glass, watching the shoes beckon me like an open palm, waiting for me to slide my feet in. One at a time. Slowly and lusciously like a knife into summer butter.
My hands are sweating against the glass, a circle of mist has formed around my nostrils, and my feet are so tired. Heavy like lead in these flat heels. The day began months ago, and I need to rest. How I long to walk into the shop and buy those shoes. For a split second I can picture myself. I see myself walking in, parting the glass like saloon doors. I’m here. Serve me. Now.
But I can’t. Not any more. People recognise me in this city.
The last time I bought shoes like this was back in high school, in the days when I could hide from the world behind family. I’d take the bus into Tel Aviv where the buildings and the streets and the hot smells were so beautiful and the people were all strangers to me. It was safe to do that then. I could tell the salesman that they were for my sister, please, or for my mother.
“Should I wrap them, then?” he’d say.
“Oh, yes, please,” I’d say.
And I’d watch him cover the box with wrapping paper and ribbons. I’d watch him slide it into a sturdy shopping bag and I’d take it from him like a gift. On the bus home I’d sit with the box on my lap, rubbing against me to the gentle vibrations, my cock getting harder as it chiselled its way into me. A sixteen-year-old boy’s anticipation of womanhood. These were my antidotes to fear and shame.
Before going inside I’d dump the bag, the box, and the wra
pping paper; hide the shoes in my jacket, under my armpits, and go straight up to my room. Buy anything nice? my mother might call from the kitchen. Just walked around, I’d say, stuffing the shoes into the back of my cupboard, covering them with the spare mohair blanket I kept there. Each night I was surprised to find the treasure beneath the yellow and faded blanket. Each night I’d rediscover the shoes, safely stashed away like stolen goods. Each night was the same journey, each time a little closer. My first pair were. Imagine. Black platforms with golden stars set in thick perspex heels. Always a man of extremes, my mother would say.
I’d sit at my desk, right leg over left, feeling the gentle weight of the shoe as I swayed my foot up and down. Up and down. Impatiently waiting. For something. To happen. I’d file my nails with the emery-boards I kept in my desk drawer, stroke my long straight hair with the ivory brush. Eyeing myself in the mirror, I’d run the tips of my fingers along my legs, down to the shoes, caressing the leather that pressed snugly against my toes. And hugged the sides of my feet. And I’d cup the heel in the palm of my hand. That cool transparent texture. Like glass. Like glass it was.
Then I’d walk slowly across the room, a white sheet draped over my body, keeping to the carpet, careful not to let the loud heels touch the floor. With heels like these you can’t walk too slowly. And if you don’t keep moving, you lose your balance. Stop pacing up and down, my father might shout from downstairs. I’m doing my homework, I’d say.
I only stop now at windows with shoes for men and for women. With my face gazing at the rough boots and indelicate Italian shoes, I let my eyes feast on the long shining black boots and the thin heels on the slim blue or white or orange shoes. Not shoes. There should be another name for them. They have these tiny silver studs or. Imagine. They have gold-tipped points. I’ve got used to doing this. Facing one way, and looking the other. If the winds change I’ll probably remain this way, squinting to the side, my face to the front, for the rest of my life. Never make faces, my mother would say. The clocks strike, the winds change. You can never know.
I can’t just walk into a store, buy the shoes, and take the nice and easy breezy route home. The route that’s green and tree-lined and no one sits on park benches and calls out to you. Hey! those beautiful high-school boys you want to look like, but cannot, will shout. They point and jeer. The sound of their beer bottles ringing as they bring them together, cheering: Le’chaim, motek. Sweetie-pie. Throwing their heads back to laugh and gobble down warm beer. Their hair shining in the sunlight and the tight skin, unblemished, clinging to bodies like lovers. Skin you cannot touch. You see nothing. You hold your hands tightly at your sides. Your insides tightly in your hands. Just walk. Just keep walking.
It’s a sunny day. Imagine. The sky is blue and the sidewalks are clean. I walk into the store and the salesman, nice jacket, open-necked shirt, light wool trousers and, ooh, bulge, approaches me, respectfully.
“Sir,” he’d say. “May I help you.”
“Those there,” I’d say. “The red ones in the window.”
“They’re you,” he’d say, and smile. “Would you like to try them on?”
“Ooh, yes,” I’d say. “Thank you.”
That’s how it would happen. Nice and easy. Just like I said. Sometimes it’s not enough to do what you want in the safety of your own home. You want to take it with you out onto the street. Sometimes you become so afraid of an open door you stop the thoughts from venturing out. You chase away the voices begging to be let in. Sometimes I think pacing up and down in my green knee-high boots and threadbare denim shorts is not real if no one can see me. I can stroke myself in front of the mirror. I can knead my chest, push on the muscles, press against my nipples. I can pull my stomach in. I can hold my head back and feel my hair brushing against my spine. And it’s just me looking at me.
I want those shoes. I want them like a man who wants a man cannot live without a deep voice so close to him he can breathe its soothing sound. I want them like a cynic longs for beauty and a joker longs for candor. Ah. Standing on the tip of a mountain singing out to the world. High-heeled shoes carry you to such warm, strong places you cannot help but want to go back. I reach inside and touch those places. Stroke them, lean on them. I pull up my black tights and put on my silk blouse. A blouse so thin only skin can see it. The blouse that tickles the callused tips of my nipples and rustles against the stubble on my chest. I swing my hands and move my hips to a rhythm only high heels and silk garments can dictate. Then I am happy.
She’s standing next to me now. Looking at the same shoes perhaps.
“Aren’t they gorgeous?” she says.
“The red ones?” I say.
“Gorgeous,” she says.
I have memories. Nice childhood memories from a childhood I prefer to forget. My mother’s dressing room with tall oak cupboards and a thick cream carpet. And the vanity table with the square leather-framed mirror and perfumes and light pink powder with soft brushes. And the wine-red Lancôme case with rectangles of blue, green and brown eye-shadow. When she was out, the room was mine. I could try on anything I liked. The tennis skirt with the pastel sunflowers and the skin-colored stockings that stroked my little pee-pee. I was in a void of evening gowns and soft shoes that were too big. And just right. For me. I would step out of the dressing room into the bedroom, throwing the skirt to the sides and spinning around to make it whirl around me. And the mink stole that even in summer was so cool I wanted to keep my cheek in it forever. I would wrap it around my shoulders and stand before the mirror. All dressed up.
At the vanity table I’d brush my cheeks gently with rouge and paint my eyes with blue shadow. I would screw the tip of lipstick out of its tube, make an O-shape with my lips, painting first the bottom then the top lip. Then I’d rub them together, back and forth, to spread the color evenly. Like my mother did before she and my father went out dancing at The Room at the Top. I’d hold a tissue between my lips and press down and check what my kiss looked like. And the taste. The flavor that can’t be compared to anything in the world. A taste that is nothing but itself.
Memories like these become immortal. That’s when dead things stay alive inside. But like the dead, they haunt you. They come back to trouble you with unfinished business. They take you through labyrinths of mysteriously connected threads. Everything is joined to everything: the rouge to the mirror to the white skirt to the shoes in the window. And back to Michal and the ballet classes I wanted to be a part of, and to her brother Ahron I loved so much I wished I was Michal.
So? Buy the shoes, for God’s sake! Easier dreamt than done. Believe me. It’s not a question of money. And it’s not a question of whether Leo would frown on it or not. He encourages me. I know he does. He brought me back a satin night-gown from his last trip to London. That’s proof enough. He’s a nice guy. My boyfriend. Leo. You’d like him. Imagine. Tall and dark with a beautiful chest, and a thick pair of hands with long, slim fingers. From the moment we met. Well, after the first few times. I told him: this is what I like. You like it, stay, you don’t, don’t. He said, you look good in that. Let’s see you walk across the room.
Now I have my shoes made for me. So I try, as I must, standing here, to memorise their shape to tell Olga. Give me specifics, she’ll say, or else you’ll never get what you want. So I must remember the things that count. The size of the heel and the shape of the tip and whether the leather is matte or shiny. I like the heels to be high enough so the ground seems softer, farther away. And the tips must be round. Olga says the rounder the tip the kinder the step. More subtle. It’s her philosophy of footwear.
As for herself. She says if only she looked different she’d make her own shoes. What’s the point, she says. If a person’s fat and ugly, she says, who cares what they wear. Nobody notices. Unless they dress like thin people. Fat people who dress like thin people are different. Come in and sit down. Now imagine this. The Palace of Versailles boiled down to fit into one room. For her guests, a red velvet chaise longue
with a heavy wooden frame and one lace cushion. For herself, a high-backed chair where she strokes her Pekinese with one hand, ready to sketch with the other. Olga pours tea from the samovar she brought with her from Moscow. We suck on sugar crystals, and she says: Tell me everything. Which I do.
I have learnt not to take the small details for granted. In the beginning I would say to Olga, put the glittery stars on this side of the heel, and make a rounded point. And back at the window the glitter would be on that side of the heel, and the point much pointier. I’ve learnt to pay attention to what I must remember. I have no choice. I can’t walk into a shoe store, dressed in a three-piece suit and leather briefcase, and ask the mouth with the wad of bubble gum, do you. Excuse me, do you have those red leather shoes, ahem, the ones in the window with the golden strips. Those ones. Do you have them in a size forty-four? Whoozitfor? Her nose is a raisin, and her eyes – narrow slits of suspicion.
People do that here. They don’t mind asking who it’s for, how much you earn, how much rent you pay, or what is it exactly the two of you do in bed? I just can’t imagine! It’s not that I mind, you see, they smile, it’s just I can’t think how you people can enjoy yourselves. If you want to fuck, the braver ones say, why not fuck the real thing. If they only knew.
Leo and I get our kicks out of imagining how the couple at the next table, the one with the steady jobs and the baby-sitter, how they’ll react when they see us at home. Never mind in bed, just walking around the house. Me in my tight skirt, stockings, and high-heeled shoes. Leo in his Levi’s, white from wear around his beautiful thick cock, and his brown cowboy boots. And that white vest that hugs his wide chest tighter than I can. They’d flip. And if they came on Thursday nights, they wouldn’t know what to do.
I love Thursday nights. Thursday is shaving day. I lie naked on the bathroom mat and Leo lathers me slowly, icing my chest like a birthday cake. His beautiful, caring muscular hands over my body. The he takes the razor and goes gently across my skin, removing the bristles from my chest, circling my nipples, stopping to pinch them with the tips of his fingers. And like a magician, he uncovers me, wipes the foam off with a warm towel. Then he does my arms and my legs, taking care not to touch the sensitive flesh. Thoughts of his hands so close get me hard. Now? Leo says. Now, I say. So Leo sucks my cock until I come and I am drained and limp and ready to be fucked.
The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 6 Page 11
