Sinners Circle

by Sims, Karina

  VIII

  If we let them use the bathroom, customers would come in the bathroom, no pun intended, and leave the place coated in jizz. Take for instance this guy, he’s been in the store for a solid four hours. A replica Great Dane penis toy the size of a thermos and a pig-tail butt-plug tucked under each arm, he slips his middle finger in and out of the silicone Audrey Hollander ass /pussy on the shelf. Every twenty minutes or so he moves down a model, poking a wiggly finger in and out of the little plastic circle cut out of every box. He’s finger banging Nikki Benz, digging around inside Ginger Lynn’s asshole, tickling Mary Carey’s rubber clit, he skips Jada Fire and moves on to pinch Silvia Saint’s swollen cunt lips, all the while coughing into his fist. I’d ask him to stop or please leave, but he’s bringing items to the till, dropping them on the table and running back to the shelves. This guy comes in every couple weeks, looking like he hasn’t slept, looking like he hasn’t eaten anything except hooker pussy. It’s true, every time he wanders in here, he looks thinner and thinner. I don’t know his name, and I don’t think I want to. All I know is he comes in here, drops a few hundred dollars on porn and takes Lilly back to his motel room when he can afford it. It only sucks because Lilly, one of the many prostitutes that hangs around the side of the store at night, is the only girl I actually sort of like. It’s kind of depressing when I think about it; depressing in the sense that an eighteen year old runaway turned prostitute, who does way too much coke and smokes like a Nazi is the only person I am capable of having partial feelings for. Yeah, it’s sort of depressing when I think about it, so mostly I try not to. I just close my eyes and ride the waves of euphoria whenever she’s down there, kissing and sucking on whatever I’ve got my pants pulled down past.

  “How much for that?” The skinny guy, the silicone finger banger points behind me. I grab a vinyl blindfold off the wall.

  “Sixteen bucks.”

  He nods, gets his wallet out from the back of his sagging jeans. “Kay, I’ll take two of those.”

  I pull another one down, ring in his total.

  He squints, coughs into his fist and puts down his credit card. His eyes are so bloodshot they look like they could pop at any minute.

  When he leaves, Harry comes out of his office, stumbling toward me, eyes on a clipboard he’s got firm in his hands. “Amanda, did we sell out of those gag balls already?” He scratches his head and hands the clipboard to me. “Says we have three in stock still, but...” He turns to where the gags are shelved. “...I can’t find them any place.”

  “Hmm, yeah I remember selling some last week but...” I study the inventory. According to this list we have a serious shortage of blow up dolls and BDSM bed restraints.

  He takes the clipboard back. “Probably stolen. Keep a closer eye out here, I guess.” He scratches his head, rubs a hand down the shirt buttons of his gut and looks at his watch. “Break time, get out of here. See you in twenty.”

  I grab my coat from under the till and feel the pockets for my cigarettes on my way out the back. I light one as I lean against the building, blowing blue smoke out of my lungs as I look up at where the stars are supposed to be. Inner city like this, it’s almost impossible to see anything through the unending luminescence and pollution amassing overhead. Almost impossible to see anything beautiful and glowing above you, burning from millions of miles away. In this city, you look up and see only patrolling helicopters circling with their spotlights switched on, or the wings of airplanes blinking red as they take off, as they come in. It makes me glad to know I live far enough away from the city that I can still gaze up at the night sky and see the beauty of midnight. It makes me glad to know I live far enough way, but close enough to hurt it.

  “Well hello there, stranger!” Lilly appears from the side of the building, the fingertips of an outstretched hand drag lightly along the brick as she walks towards me in red heels.

  “Hiya, Lil.” I get out a cigarette and hand it to her.

  “Why thank you, love. How’s work?” She leans against the building, close enough that our shoulders touch. Her tiny leather jacket presses soundlessly against my cotton zipper sweater.

  “It goes. You?”

  She says “Ha ha ha” pausing between each ‘ha’ for a full second. “Sucks dick.” This time she really does laugh, but only for pretend.

  I hand her my lighter. “Didn’t go home with what’s his nuts?”

  The flame lighting up her face, she’s stunning. Gorgeous in that wasted junkie way most nihilistic German artists or depressed euro trash models look. Only she’s got blonde hair instead of black and skin so flawless you have to stare hard to see that the dark under her eyes isn’t from smudged makeup, but from lack of sleep. She shakes her head, “No, he tried taking me back. But I told him I’m not going there for any less than sixty-five.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah, so instead he gave me thirty.”

  “For what?”

  She shrugs, taps the ash off her smoke. “Quick hand and a blow.”

  “Cool.”

  “Not really. That fucker’s into some weird shit. I don’t know if I would go back with him even if he did have the cash.” She takes a drag. “Well, for eighty maybe, hundred for sure.”

  “Yeah, guy seems a little weird.”

  “Why? He ever try picking you up?” I can feel her tense up beside me, but she relaxes when I tell her no. He’s never tried paying me for sex.

  “Good.” She taps the ash off again. “Weird shit I tell you. That fucker’s into some weird shit.”

  “Like how?”

  “Well, I don’t know. In my line of work you see it all the time. These guys are so addicted to sucking and fucking, it’s like each time you see them it gets worse and worse. Six months into one regular and he’ll be parked in an alley while you blow guys. Just parked there watching you, waiting for you to finish sucking strangers dicks so you can go over to him and squeeze the cum out of the rubbers you used all over his face. And he’ll just sit there for like two hours, sitting in his car and not wiping the cum off his face. So every time you empty a rubber on his face it just gets messier and messier, all that goop dripping in his eyes, pooling in the corners of his mouth. He’s inhaling semen up his goddamn nostrils.”

  “Who? This guy?” I hike a thumb over my shoulder at the store. “The guy who was just in here does that?”

  “No, no. Not him. Another guy.”

  “Oh, OK.”

  “No, what that guy who was just in there is into is worse. Well, not really worse worse, but definitely weirder.”

  “How do you figure?”

  She laughs, taps the ash and takes a drag. “Well, like I said, I definitely wouldn’t go back to his place for anything less than a hundred now. Not after last time.”

  I laugh. “Lil, are you gonna tell me or what?”

  “Yeah, yeah.” She waves some smoke away from her face. “Shit, that just got in my eye.”

  “Yeah, I hate when that happens.”

  “It hurts, goddamn!” She bends over for a second, her hand to her face, then leans back against the wall, her leather jacket reflecting dull shades from the building’s security lights.

  “What’s his name?”

  She rubs her eye with the knuckle of her finger. “Rick.”

  “Oh. Gross.”

  She laughs, slaps my arm. “I know, right?”

  “Anyways, this guy Rick, last time he picks me up, yeah? And he takes me back to this real seedy motel. Like roaches in the tub sort of seedy, ya know?”

  “Uh huh.”

  “Well, we’re in the room and he’s like ‘One sec.’ So I sit on the bed and wait for him to come back and when he does, he’s carrying this birdcage, with a towel over it. He puts it down, right, he takes the towel off and the second he does this damn bird starts tweeting like a crazy thing. So I’m sitting there wondering what the hell he wants me to do with this damn bird. I’m thinking, there’s no way I’m putting that fucking bird in my pus
sy or some shit. He’s just standing there, right, not doing anything, and I start to get scared that like maybe he’s going to bite the fuckin’ things head off, Ozzy Osborne style, ya know? I start to get scared maybe he’s some sort of animal torturing Satanist motherfucker and he’s going to sacrifice me right there on that ugly fuckin’ bed in that dirty fuckin’ room.” She takes a drag of her cigarette, butts it out and flicks it out into the alley. “Anyway, after a couple real slow minutes he opens the cage, and I’m ready to bolt at this point because I’m so freaked out at what he might do.”

  “Yeah, I can imagine.”

  “I know, right? So, he opens the cage and grabs the bird...”

  “What kind of bird?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. No wait, yeah, it was a pigeon.”

  “A pigeon?”

  “Yeah, a goddamn pigeon? What you don’t believe me?”

  “No, it’s not that. It’s just like... pigeons are dirty, ya know?”

  “I know, that`s why I was so goddamn freaked out by it... So he takes out the pigeon and hands it to me. I’m like ‘what the fuck?’ but I don’t say anything because this guy pays good money and I’ve got this fucking diseased animal in my hands and I have no idea what’s going on or how the fuck I’m gonna get him off with this ugly thing...”

  “Rats of the sky.”

  “Huh?”

  “Pigeons. They’re the rats of the sky.”

  She laughs, smiling so big I can see all her teeth. “I know, I know!”

  “So what? Did he make you eat it? Hold it while he fucked you?”

  She waves her hand, tosses back some hair and gestures to me for another cigarette. I light it in my mouth and pass it to her.

  “No, nothing like that. Worse. He got down on his knees, put his hands behind his back and said ‘I want you to swing it in circles. Just swing it in circles by the feet so the wings can touch my cock, but only at the end, before I come. I don’t want to feel the feathers on my cock until I’m about to come. I just want to feel the wind first.’ So I hold its feet and start swinging the thing around and around in circles. The whole time he’s got his eyes shut, just moaning and moaning. I go faster and faster, the bird flapping its wings, not making a fuckin’ sound. I felt kinda bad, but I just wanted to get it over with, so I kept doing it.”

  She takes a deep drag off the cigarette and pulls a strand of blonde hair out of the corner of her mouth. “Finally he shouts ‘I’m coming! I’m coming!’ The wings barely graze his dick and he shoots all over the rug, I’m talking projectile orgasm release. This weird fucker, he blows on the rug and even gets a little on my boots, which I didn’t really care about because I don’t really like those boots anyway. But he gets it on them just the same. After that...” She takes an anxious drag, the orange cherry on the end of her smoke glowing bright before ash covers it. “Well, after that he just pulls up his pants, tosses some twenties on the bed and leaves. He leaves me in his own goddamn room still holding this dizzy fuckin’ bird. So that’s why I don’t think I’ll go back with him anymore. Not for less than a hundred anyway.”

  I light a smoke, roll a pebble under my sneaker. “So, what happened to the bird?”

  “Oh. I just put him out on the deck as I was leaving. I watched him trip around for a couple seconds. Then he flew off.”

  I laugh. She pinches my arm. “Ow! Lil!”

  “Poor thing. I wonder what was going through its mind as it flew around the city. I mean, if pigeons can talk to each other like we do, I wonder what that one would say, and how the hell the other ones peeking around in the park for bread crumbs and French fries, how they would interpret the story.”

  I pinch her arm back. “No idea.”

  She’s quiet for a minute. I check my watch; my shift starts again in five minutes. “Well, I gotta go back in. Pay the bills. You know.”

  She smiles, leans in and kisses me. “And what about my bills, Amanda?”

  I feel her waist, her tight stomach. I think of her pussy when I kiss her and I think of the dead girl still in my basement and why I can’t bring Lilly back home with me tonight. “You’re richer than I am.” I pinch her nose. “Quit blowing it all up here.”

  She laughs, “You wanna line? A line before you head back to work?”

  “Naw, I’m good. Thanks.”

  “Oh, come on!”

  She pounds her little fist against my heart. “One!”

  “Yeah, OK fine.” I take her to my car, snort a line and eat her out. Her pussy tastes like condoms but I don’t care. Before I go back in the store I try and give her thirty bucks but she won’t take it. “Save it. Buy some groceries and make me dinner sometime.”

  I pinch her ass and walk back in fifteen minutes late. Harry is in his office and there’s no one in the store. I sit there at the till watching cars go by, looking for any that turn in to the side to pick Lilly up. I think about spaghetti, big fat meatballs; I wonder if Marcy has a recipe book for Italian food upstairs. I think about that red dress I bought last autumn and my cute black Mary Jane flats; I think about wearing them for Lilly. I think of all these things until I see a car turn into the alley beside the store. A minute later I see the car pulling out onto the highway in front, I see Lilly looking in her purse and the person behind the wheel is just a figure, blanketed by shadow.

  I try and think about what drink would go good with pasta. I think about wine selections—but the wine turns to blood. The spaghetti morphs into intestines, and the meat balls—just wads of rolled human muscle tooth-picked together and burnt to a crisp. I’m not wearing my red dress anymore, just the dark rush of approximately 5.6 litres no longer pumping through his or her or my body. Whoever’s blood it is, I don’t care, it doesn’t matter. Because we’re all so goddamn evil, none of us deserve to live.

  IX

  “Attention customers, this week’s discount is on all product price tags marked red. Do you have a special someone in your life you would like to show a little extra love to? Browse the wide selection of discount items in the women’s section of the store. This includes beauty, apparel...” The buzzing voice of the female announcer coughs loud into the microphone. “...makeup...no wait. All these wonderful products marked down to affordable price...marked as affordable and made even more afford...cheaper than before. Prices going way down as much as ninety percent on some brand name...”

  I pick up a bag of chips, stare at the cheetah standing on its hind legs, wearing sun shades and grinning a mouth full of perfect teeth. I heard on TV once that lions hunting gazelle will always go for the sickly one. The lionesses will run down the slowest weakest gazelle and then chew its back until it drops. Even before its dead, the sick gazelle is devoured by a group of giant starving kitty cats.

  The announcer coughs loud into the microphone, feeding distortion through the speakers, popping our eardrums, making us grind our teeth with the buzz shock scrambling through our ear canals. “Mothers will be glad to hear that children’s grape flavored liquid Tylenol is now thirty percent off as well as no name chewable vitamins D, C and...” Another loud cough, I almost bite my tongue.

  The bag of chips crunches in my hand, I try and puff it back up to look normal but I’m stuck looking at the grinning cheetah with its black glasses and shiny set of perfect choppers again. All the bright orange food sealed inside a plastic bag. Between another loud cough over the PA and my left ear popping, the thought hits me that maybe this is how they get us—the lions I mean. They feed us this orange shit so we can’t move fast enough to get away, or we consume so much that this crap actually starts gnawing away at our brains, children with developing cognitive skills are slowed down by the high doses of preservatives and cheese coloring until they are too stupid to realize that the very real danger of death is upon them. I look down the aisle at a woman with an ass so big she could be smuggling a locker room’s worth of basketballs in her shorts. I put the bag back and wipe my hand on my shirt. Call me crazy, but I’d rather be a cannibal than a walking s
ack of human fat.

  I don’t grab much. Just some ready-made blueberry pies, some oranges, a loaf of bread. Even though I know where they put it, I ask a cute girl with a price gun where the hair dye is. I drop a box of black into my shopping basket and wait in line. Whether you choose to or not, in America you have to follow the lives of celebrities. Whether it interests you or not, you still know the basics of who’s who, who’s marrying so and so, and when what’s-her-face is apologizing for getting caught drinking and driving again. You know this because you buy bread. Or you buy dish soap or discounted jeans and you pay for them at the till and at the till is a long rack of celebrity magazines with carefully placed much needed items you may or may not have forgotten to buy while browsing. Items like shaving razors, double A batteries, tooth brushes and breath mints. These items are of course the most expensive brand names on the market, this is why they put them here. Impulse spending is the staple of our economy; when you buy an eight dollar triple blade razor because you don’t have the time to run back to the aisle where they sell them in bulk for half the price, because you didn’t remember, because you’ve been stuffing your brains full of that orange food so the lions can get you, you’re not just adding an extra line of black ink to your receipt, you’re applying the glue that keeps the economy together. Besides, who’d want to run back and grab a shaving razor when you just find out what’s-his-nuts parading on the cover of People magazine is the World’s Sexiest Man Alive. But it’s not enough to know who won, but who could have one, so you buy it so you can argue with your friends about it on your cell phone on the drive home.

  As much as you may like it, or dislike it, it’s a fact. Your involvement with the rich and famous is no longer a choice, even if you hide in your house all day reading the Bible and loading your guns, sooner or later you are going to have to buy toilet paper when the phone book runs out of pages. So you will have to come here, and you will have to look at everyone of these magazines with yellow letters that burn into your brain before you can stop yourself from reading “DIVORCED” or “BACK TO REHAB.”