“Yeah,” Venus said. “Ya sé, no going back to their places. Pero he was a classy mothafucka. I knew nothing was gonna happen.”
“You always get the classy mothafuckas,” Juanito said.
“I know, right?” Venus said. “He even took me to Bloomies to buy me a new dress. What can I say? He just wants me to look good for him.”
“Shit, girl,” Daniel said. “You working it down there.”
“Maybe he’ll pay for your tits,” Juanito said. “And take care of that other problem you’ve got going on down there.”
“Nena, please,” Venus said. “Don’t be playing with me like that, getting my hopes up and shit.”
Juanito sighed and said, “I’m really happy right now.” Daniel pulled him in closer.
“Ha—I know that just being in my presence has a sunshine effect, now don’t it,” Venus said and laughed. “Even at night, I give off them UV rays.”
Juanito play-slapped her leg. “Don’t be a goofball. I meant that I’m just happy that I didn’t get no anxiety from the weed. You know me, Vee, always unpredictable.”
Venus leaned in and planted a tiny beso on Juanito’s cheek. “Oops,” she said. “I smudged a little pink Revlon on you, nena. Don’t mind me.”
Daniel turned to Juanito and rubbed the lipstick off with his thumb. He leaned in and whispered to Juanito, “You’ve got the prettiest eyelashes, guapo.”
Alert the New York Times—Juanito’s heart thumped twice in a second and then took another second to take a breather before pumping again. He leaned his head back and ate up the purple-blue sky with his eyes. “Look up,” he told the others. “Don’t the sky look like a sprawled-out spool of purple taffeta?”
Venus and Daniel looked up. Juanito glanced over and saw Daniel’s Adam’s apple bulging out of his throat. He wanted to shoot an air-kiss and imagine it landing square on the tip of it.
“Ay, taffeta,” Venus said. “What an unforgiving fabric.”
* * *
While Venus went down to the apartment to see if Angel had got back home, Juanito curled into Daniel’s body. Little spoon, he liked to say. Little enough to pour the sugar in a cup, but big enough to cuddle forever.
The rooftop door opened and the door slammed against the wall. “Ay, sometimes I don’t even know how to measure my own strength,” Venus said. “I’m like the freakin’ Wonder Woman up in here.”
Juanito snuggled his cheek against Daniel’s wool sweater. His ear was against Daniel’s body, and when Daniel said hi to Venus, Juanito could feel, through his ear, the vibrations of Daniel’s voice.
“Ay, look at you two,” Venus said, her tacones clacking against the cement as she shimmied over to them. “Lucky for you that I got a little something-something from downstairs.”
She was carrying the mixed-fabric quilt that Juanito had finished sewing a couple of months earlier. He had hunched over that sewing machine, cada día, connecting the various swatches of leftover fabrics that he had found around the Garment District.
He watched as Venus’s scrawny arms extended out as she threw the blanket on top of them. Juanito couldn’t help but flinch and turn his head back into the side of Daniel’s torso. “There you go, nenas,” Venus said, hurrying away. “I don’t need you two getting a cold, saben?”
Her tacones clacked until the door slammed shut and the gentle tapping of heels against stairs got softer and softer.
Daniel sat up and pulled the quilt over both of their bodies. They sat facing each other, cross-legged, and Juanito imagined that this was what the rich kids used to do at summer camp—stay up all night in tents and under blankets. Daniel put his hand on Juanito’s neck, then down to his chest, torso, hip, thigh. “Is this okay?” he asked Juanito.
Juanito nodded.
“Tell me, yes,” Daniel said. “I want to hear your voice.”
“Yes,” Juanito said, now putting his hand over Daniel’s hand and guiding it over to his lower back. “This is where I’m most sensitive,” he said. “But don’t tickle me. I don’t like to be tickled.”
Daniel smiled and Juanito could feel the goosebumps forming just above the waist band of his sweatpants. When Daniel moved forward to kiss him, Juanito closed his eyes. He was shocked by how soft Daniel’s lips felt against his own. Shocked by how tender Daniel was being.
“Juanito,” Daniel said. “You’ve gotta relax. You’re so tense, you’re wincing. Is everything okay?”
“Yes,” he said, this time leaning in to nibble on Daniel’s lower lip. “I think everything is getting better now.”
VENUS
The first rule, or as she liked to call it, The Golden Rule, that she needed to make sure Daniel understood was that the client had to pay first. “So if they try any porquería bullshit with you and you don’t feel safe,” she told him, “just bite it.”
They were standing in the Meatpacking District near the Hudson, a little farther down than the piers off Christopher Street. If she was going to show him how to work the cars, then they needed to be near where the cars were at.
“Yeah,” Juanito said, fidgeting with the zipper of his coat. He was pulling it up, down. “Blow ’em for ten bucks, fifteen if they’re willing to go that high, but don’t take too long.”
Venus slapped Juanito’s nervous hands away from the zipper. “But if you feel like shit is going down and he’s gonna hurt you,” Venus repeated, “just chomp on it. That’ll buy you time to open the door and get the fuck out.”
“You mean—bite his dick?” Daniel asked.
“Yes,” she said. “Chomp down as hard as fuck.”
“Ave María,” Daniel said.
“God gave you teeth for a reason,” Venus said. “Use them.”
“Yeah, for eating,” Daniel said.
“It’s only,” she said, “if you gotta save yourself from getting hurt.”
Venus saw Daniel look down at the ground and then at Juanito. Something was up with those two! Juanito forced a closed-mouth smile. His hands were back on the zipper, up-down, up-down, up—she slapped his hands again. “You’re gonna break that damn jacket if you keep fussing,” she said.
It only took a few minutes for a car to roll by. Venus ran up to the car window as best she could in her tacones, which were these five-inch ordeals in emerald green that she had picked up in the East Village a month before. They didn’t match anything she owned, but that didn’t stop her from buying them. She would find a way to make them match. Además, she felt like she was living on the edge because she was only one wrong step away from twisting her damn ankle. She always believed the old mantra, which she whispered to herself when she was trying to get her footing right: fashion over pain, fashion over pain, if it don’t hurt, then there ain’t no gain.
She stood at the car door next to Daniel. “You know the drill, verdad?” she said. He nodded back and got in the car. She crossed her arms and sighed a happy sigh. She felt excited when a new child was learning the strings. There was Daniel, their newest house banjee, getting into his first car. It made her heart tingle just to think about it.
When she walked back to the corner to stand with Juanito darling, Venus practiced a slow catwalk to the basura can on the tip of the intersection, then walked back to Juanito with her hands on her hips, posture so stiff like she was balancing a wooden bowl on top of her head.
“These tacones are doing wonders,” she said to Juanito, who was still looking at the car like it was full of kittens and the thing was about to blow up. Venus snapped her fingers in front of Juanito’s line of sight. “I said, these tacones are doing the seven wonders of the world over here on my toes.”
Juanito looked at her shoes, then back up to her eyes. “You’re about to break your neck with one wrong step,” he said. “These cobblestoned streets be like landmines under stiletto heels, nena.”
“Pues, that’s why I’m practicing my catwalking, girl,” she said. “You gotta trust me with these things.”
Juanito sighed. “You think
he’s okay in there?”
Venus turned back to look at the car. They were too far away to see exactly what was going down, but she could see the outlines of their bodies through the dash. “I’m sure he’s fine,” she said. “It’s like riding a bike. Once he got his balance, he’ll get it down pat.”
Juanito didn’t laugh at her little broma.
“¿Qué pasó, Juanito?” she said. “I see you falling hard for him.”
“Por favor, Vee.” Juanito waved a hand at her like she was a pesky tsetse fly about to enter one of his nostrils.
Venus let out a cackle. “You thinking I don’t got eyes in this head, nena.”
“I know you got eyes in the front and the back of that head,” he said. “Nothing gets past you. But what do you know about love?”
“I love real hard, Juanito, and you know that. So don’t get sassafrassy on me right now,” she said. “I think he’s got the hots for you too, so don’t you worry. He’ll be just fine in that car. We all gotta pull some weight in this house, legal or otherwise. You know that.”
Venus watched Juanito stare at the car door, and then she looked over también. “That’s a shiny thing, that car over there,” was all she could think to say. She put her arm around Juanito.
“I’m gonna apply to clean apartments tomorrow,” Juanito said.
“Where at?”
“No sé, but I know I got to.”
Venus stood there feeling taller than Wonder Woman in those heels, arm wrapped around Juanito like they were posing for some badass album cover. Her hair was extra high that night, thanks to a fresh perm and a shit ton of aerosol.
“Mira,” Juanito gasped. “The door. Something’s up.”
Venus watched. The door opened un poco, then slammed shut again. Then it opened again, but shut real quick right after.
“Ay, fuck,” Venus said. “Alright. I got this.”
She took off her tacones so that she could run faster. She carried the things with her right pinky, by the straps, hand up in the air like she was waving for a taxi. When she got to the car, she opened the door from the outside and Daniel nearly fell on her ankles as he spilled out of the passenger seat.
“Give me my fuckin’ money back,” the man screamed.
“I’ll get you napkins,” Daniel said as he pushed himself up off the street.
Venus looked inside at the john. “Wooooof,” Venus said. Homeboy’s crotch was covered in a little bit of vomit. Oh, Daniel baby. Who knew he had such a gag reflex?
“Your boy fuckin’ upchucked all on me,” the man screamed at Venus.
“I said I was sorry,” Daniel said, but Venus held her hand up high in a shush motion.
“Look, honey,” Venus said, leaning over with her hand on the door, ready to shut it closed. “Back the fuck off and stop messing with my friend.”
“Give me my fuckin’ money back,” he screamed.
“Yeah, I heard you the first time,” Venus said. “But you’re just gonna have to deal with it ’cause do I look like some kind of customer service representative?” She slammed the door and screamed, more at the window than at the dude himself, “Fuck you and the horse you rode in on.”
* * *
She never had a temper when she was around her newest man, Charles. Even the mention of his name made Venus want to slow down gravity like a Michael Jackson video. On the surface, Charles was nothing to write home about. He was in his forties, white, a little bit stocky, but that didn’t bother her. She always thought, Hey, a little more to hold on to when I need to do some holding on to.
Venus had met him a couple of blocks away from where Daniel had gotten into his first car. She met him a month ago, give or take a week. On their first night together, once Venus was done doing what Charles had paid her to do—she didn’t believe in spelling out particulars because that was déclassé—Venus sat in the passenger seat of the BMW and pushed her dress back down so that it wasn’t inching up on her privates no more. Charles told her to buckle up as he pressed on the radio.
“You like jazz?” he asked.
“I’m not sure,” she said. “Don’t think I ever heard any before?”
He told her that the tape he was playing was a woman named Ella Fitzgerald. He said that she used to live up in Harlem back in the day. Venus watched as Charles leaned his head back against the leather headrest as the car idled. He closed his eyes like he had only a few minutes earlier, when her lips were wrapped around him and he told her to glide her tongue around back and forth. When she was down there, she had looked up to watch his face—a face she could fall for, she knew. All she could see from down there was the tip of his chin inching toward the roof of the car.
“That voice,” he said, “is like a cold glass of water on a summer afternoon.”
Venus didn’t want to think of this woman’s voice like a glass of water. Water had no taste—okay, yes. Water was necessary and sometimes refreshing and fresca, but nothing could be more boring than a glass of damn water.
Pero as she listened, the woman’s voice broke Venus’s heart. It was beautiful, crisp like fresh linen, but there was also something painful in it too. She wanted to know who this woman was, where she could go to find her.
“Who is she?” she asked.
“Buckle up,” he told her.
“I can’t,” she said. She leaned forward and put her hand on the door clasp. “Where’re we going?”
“Come back to my house,” he said. She watched as his eyes scanned her: her eyes to her chin to her chest to her hand on that door clasp.
She hesitated and looked out the window. There was no one on the street. The car clock’s green light said 3:00 A.M., but she wasn’t sure if it was accurate. Maybe he hadn’t fallen back for daylight savings.
She knew that he hadn’t locked the door—she hadn’t heard any click. And she knew she couldn’t go back to his place. It was one of Angel’s rules, and for good reason. A street girl never knew what could happen back in the confines of a client’s house. Not to say that she hadn’t done it before, but still. At least the streets were out in the open and safe in their own way. Our house, Angel used to say, is the only safe house.
“You know I want to, baby,” Venus said. “But I just can’t. I only do cars.”
“Then at least stay and listen to one more song with me.” He glided his hand to her earlobe. “You have such beautiful hair,” he said. “You should grow it out for me.”
She sighed. She felt that he had seen her and her needs—her desire to be beautiful in someone else’s eyes. She could maybe count on her fingers and toes the number of johns who had ever complimented her after they had already cum. And that wasn’t saying much.
She knew she was going to fall for him, and in the mean beating depths of her corazón, she wanted to. But her head was saying no. Her head was being practical. Or trying to, por lo menos.
She opened the door. “I can’t go back tonight,” she said as her heels touched the cement. “But I’ll be here tomorrow night, same time, and we can go from there.”
* * *
The next night, she was there in a silver lamé jumpsuit looking like a disco ball with legs. And the night after, she was decked out in a leopard-print wrap dress. It was a fake Diane von Furstenberg that she had picked up in the back room of a Chinatown dig that sold fake Gucci bags behind a trapdoor. And the night after, she went all out in a white dress à la Marilyn Monroe, with a rabbit-fur jacket because the wind was a little nippy. It was just like her, too, to associate memories with the outfits that she paired them with, as if she could check back into her mind like it was a library card-catalog, and she could say, Oh yes, Thursday the 24th, I was wearing this and that, and he was being such a doll.
Charles always wore the same thing, which wasn’t to say that he was schlepping it up. He always wore tailored suits and a white button-down shirt. The only thing that changed were the patterns of his silk ties, and whether his blazers were navy or black. Pero in the dark streets wher
e they parked the car, it was hard for Venus to tell the difference between navy and black. After a couple of weeks, it didn’t matter what he was wearing neither.
On their third week, her hair had grown out long enough that she didn’t have to wear wigs. He played with her hair, twirled it in his fingers while they listened to an entire Ella album. She was discovering something new about herself: she loved when people played with her hair. No one had done it before. Sure, men had grabbed, yanked, pulled her hair like it was a rope signal for her to go down further, to deep throat, or whatever. But Charles was being gentle with her.
When Ella was done and the tape went mute, Charles popped in a new cassette. This man, he said, was named Something Armstrong. She hadn’t heard the first name and she didn’t feel like asking again.
“Are his arms as strong as yours?” she said while pinching at his biceps muscles, which weren’t even that strong. She knew it was a corny thing to say, pero she wanted to make him feel manly and guapo. She always told him how much she loved his body, which wasn’t a lie.
“I love the way the trumpet sounds,” he said.
“Sounds like a mighty strong trumpet,” she said.
They moved to the back seat where they could at least cuddle a little. He took off his blazer and unbuttoned his shirt so that she could see the squiggly chest hairs that popped out of his white undershirt. She played with those pelitos with the tips of her fingers, then she scratched him lightly around his chest and neck area and he sighed.
“I got you something,” he said. He leaned over to the front of the car so that he could open the glove compartment.
“Don’t tell me you’re trying to butter me up so that you can get me to your house.”
When she saw the bag, she already had some kind of idea of what it was. She had been expecting it to be a kind of gag gift, like all the times when machos would say that they had a gift for her, then whipped out their dick for her to suck on, like that was supposed to be the special regalo of the season that they got at the Sucia section of Macy’s. That had happened to her at least four times before, and each time, she had to pretend a surprised face to keep her eyes from rolling around their sockets.
The House of Impossible Beauties Page 18
