When you first see Betty, like Billy did that June evening, all you want is for her to love you back. As Betty knows perfectly well, that’s pretty much all anyone needs, to be loved. When you’re with her, you feel like you don’t want to be anywhere else.
Betty washes her hair and sets it in rollers in the late afternoon when her day is getting started; she lets it dry out on her fire escape while she sips Folgers Instant from a brown mug. Her bedroom faces east, and the fire escape is done with its share of sun by the time Betty comes to stretch out her legs. Her eyes are retro blue, the color of an open ’57 Chevrolet with fins the size of surfboards and a back seat wide enough for six or seven good-looking greasers plus herself. Betty’s eyes are just that blue.
Betty’s hair is her pride and joy. True, you could say she spends a little too much time at the sink with her head under the chugging faucet. The neighbors have been known to complain. It’s a kind of escape when the Texas sun is making the broken glass in the street twinkle like the stars above, and the stars in the night sky are too dim what with the dust on the road. It helps to drown it all out with cool rust and minerals and a deprived sense of hearing. It’s a transition from bed to being. Betty lets it rain down over her head, rinses out her hair real good, rinses all the aftershaves, the colognes, and the other man-smells off herself—and gets ready to start all over again. Watching the water collect where her bottle-blonde curls have stopped up the drain makes her forget who she is, and she’ll stay there longer than you’d think a person should.
Ever done that yourself? Try it sometime. It’s a lot like hanging your head over the side of a dock on a spring afternoon. You lie down on your back, tip your head over the side and let all the blood collect in your brain. It doesn’t take but a minute before the sky becomes the lake, and the lake becomes the impenetrable sky. Turn your head to one side, and the lake becomes a wall right next to you, a churning, hazy, pleasant kind of wall, and you know that when it comes time to meet the Maker, you will have to pass through a wall that looks just like that. You will leave the air and the clouds and the distant shore, and dive on through. And it won’t hurt a bit.
Betty grew up along Highway 183, just north of Mendoza. Her daddy used to tell her she’d better watch herself before her ass grew to be the size of the Texas panhandle. He used to panhandle her some too, until one day she packed a bag and just walked clean away. The cowboy in the first dusty pickup told her she looked just like Betty Grable, hips, hair, eyes, and all—and so the name stuck.
Now Betty looks herself up and down before going out, checks the width of her rear against marks she made on the wall, just to see whether her daddy was right. She plucks the rollers from her hair and teases it out, and sure enough—Betty is right on time.
Betty has never needed any particular man. She does just fine on her own, thank you. Her daddy taught her at least that much. If you asked her what her needs were, she couldn’t tell you. She likes to bring a man to that point when he just gets inside her, like a hound dog that can’t wait to rush to its bowl, and she’s happy to let him have it. That’s when she feels the love wash right out of these men, like someone wringing out a great big mop. All their love washes into her, and she feels she’s done right by herself. She likes to hear them say her name: Oh God, Betty, oh Betty, my God! She likes hearing her name alongside the Creator’s. Then she knows her bed is a sacred place.
But it’s not real, and she knows that too.
Betty’s a good girl, really. And she’s clean, she picks up after herself, takes care of herself. She brushes and flosses her teeth twice a day. While the man gets dressed to leave, she takes the time to wash. For him it’s a little extra show just for free, and sometimes she makes it interesting. She struts herself a little as she’s bending over the sink, lets the water drip a bit down her legs maybe, or, if she knows he’s really watching, she’ll wring the washcloth out at her throat, so that the water runs over her tits just as sweet as you please. Then she’ll turn to him, coquettish, innocent, and ask some simple question like, “So you going straight home from here, honey? You be careful out in this heat, now. Yesterday I seen a tin can melt like a stick of butter.”
Betty wishes she could do something constructive with her life, just a little something, like learning how to sew or crochet, or even taking care of a potted plant. Sometimes she envies the women she sees on the streets in the afternoon, the gals going into banks or the grocer’s in their little white gloves and pressed suits.
The ones with children she tries not to see. But once she helped a woman whose baby had torn away from her and was this close to getting hit by a big old taxicab. Between the mother’s wailing and the tires and the horn and the obscenities hurling all around, Betty managed to grab hold of the little tiger, dressed head to toe in baby blue and looking like a cornflower caught in an auger. The well-heeled little mother was by then squirting out crazy tears and wanting to hand Betty a twenty-dollar bill. Betty didn’t take the lady’s money, but she patted the little one on the head and watched them walk away, a bit closer together than they had been before, and she wondered whether it was really true that she couldn’t have children of her own.
Betty had learned one thing that day, though: her looks could stop traffic.
The men treated her as if they were her neighbors—and often they were. Betty felt comfortable around them. One of them liked to lay out his money on the dresser, patting it out with hands shaped by forty years of working the wells, and say things like, “Bitty grocery money for you there, darlin’,” or “There you go, gal, you go get yourself that pretty blue thing they got in Jacobson’s winder.” Things he should have said to his wife before she went and died and it was all much too late.
Once she had gotten a job in the club next to her building, which was a little bit more steady. Sometimes she served drinks, or danced. The men would sway with her, with their big hands on her ass, and she would wiggle it for them. This is not to say that in public she was anything but a lady. Sometimes, when she saw someone who looked lonely or sad, she would just sit down and start talking to him. She’d say, “Shucks, I been dancing so much I could suck down the Gulf of Mexico if it weren’t for the salt. Say, don’t you look smart in that hat.”
And that’s all it took. He would turn to her gratefully, with a different kind of thirst in his eyes, and begin to drink her in. Well now—he might say, How about could I get you something, Ma’am? And she would reply with ease, and he’d smile and stick up his hand to make his order, and she’d cross her legs in just the right way, and then, before long, she might suggest they head on upstairs together.
It was nothing to her, a good deed of the day, to make a boy smile. Because that’s what they became with her, boys again, once she paid them a little mind. A sixty-year-old widower, with full-grown kids that never called, could become a boy of eighteen, finding joy once more in something fresh, something comforting.
She could always see past their ages, past the physical distortions time had inflicted on them. She could always see who they really were, whether that was the man they used to be, or the man they still hoped to become, or the man they finally acceded to never becoming. These men would sit on the edge of her bed with their white legs and their pot bellies, and she would let them touch her under her satin shimmy, and let them put their fingers between her legs.
Oh, Betty would make you feel ten feet tall—or ten inches long, take your pick. Yeah, that Betty. She’d take you in and then take you in some more. Betty knew her stuff. She’d take you by the hand and set you down on that bed of hers, then she’d set herself on your lap and start opening up the buttons of your shirt real slow. And you’d have to crack some joke so she’d think you were just as comfortable as she was, even though your heart was in your throat and your hound dog prick was in your pants, seconds away from busting its leash.
And then she’d do this little strip, with you all comfortable on the pillow, and she and you would laugh together as she ope
ned up her denim vest with the fringe hanging off it. Her bra would open in the front, and she’d wrestle that deal open in the blink of an eye—and that’s exactly what you wouldn’t want to do, blink. You don’t want to miss a single slice of what she’s serving.
Then you look at her, she’s tickling you and arching her back, squeezing her arms, pushing those titties out where you can see them, and your hound dog is howling at the moon. And by the time she’s got her sweet little pussy open for you—just you—all you want to do is give her every cent you got, and your coat and shoes too. “Oh my goodness!” she cries while she rides you. “Oh my! My, oh my!” Damn, Sam, take a moment and just picture that.
Yeah, who doesn’t love Betty?
The men all had their stories: the first girl they ever made it with, that one touchdown, that one job offer, the day their first little one was born. They would tell her all their heartaches too, about how life had mistreated them and left them high and dry. She began to amalgamate all the stories and images until finally she saw all men as one. Every man was the same. Same age, same hopes and dreams, same fears. And when they gushed inside her, with that pinched expression that made them seem like they were in harm’s way, they even looked the same, every last one of them.
She had no choice but to fall in love with them all. Every man was her lover, her husband. And she was as faithful as any wife could be, and then some. When that door closed in the wee hours of the night and she listened to some man’s boots going on down the stairs, the footsteps speeding up as they got farther away, she told herself he would be back tomorrow evening. He would always come back to her, and he would call her by her first name, like any husband would. Betty, he would say, how are you, old gal? Been treating yourself right? How I love to see that smile on you, Betty. Betty, you know you’re my girl. The nights were cooler, and after he left, she could finally get her rest.
But then the day would come around, and with the unkind sun, the hard dawning that she was every bit as alone as they were.
Let me tell you, Betty was the finest thing around. But once in a while the heat would get to her, you know? And she would stay home, stay in bed with cucumbers on her eyes and lemons on her elbows. If you walked by her door, you might hear the quiet wail of an old record player:
Fly the ocean in a silver plane.
See the jungle when it’s wet with rain
Just remember, ’til you’re home again, you belong
to me.
And you could imagine Betty in bed smoking maybe, not a thought showing on her face. If there were a tear in her eye, it was probably just from lying on her side too long. Betty never cries. Try knocking, though, and just see if that clunky old tap doesn’t start running. Sorry, didn’t hear you sugar, must have been washing my hair when you stopped by. The sound of water covers up a lot, if you think about it. It shuts out the world and keeps the world from finding out you don’t always have the inclination to smile.
It was the daytime that hurt her the most—the heat, the light. When everybody else seemed to have some place to go. The big-bright-big-bright bouncing in off the street like someone shouting out the hour. Made her thirsty, made her feel dry and used up. Made her feel old.
But on good days the men would say, That’s it, Betty, as she drew her pretty lips over their sturdy pricks. Mmm, as if she hadn’t had a man in years and years. That’s it girl. Good girl. Oh, you come on up here now, come see Daddy, girl. And she would be happy again, and climb on up, and squeeze her nice titties right up against their hairy chests where they liked it, and imagine herself falling in love all over again.
Give it to me, Daddy. Do you love me, Daddy? Do you?
And then came Billy.
He was a sailor, so he was used to salt and swells and sea breezes and stars that twinkled clearly overhead. When he laid eyes on Betty for the first time, he knew right away not to let her out of his sight again, that he and she had something in common.
It was the night of the summer solstice, the longest day of the year. Summer was just getting stoked, and already the grass was burning. Betty was not having the best of days. She was out of cash, hadn’t eaten since the day before, and just managed to hop herself up on a stool and ask for a glass of water.
“Lady needs something a little stronger than that,” came a Gary Cooper voice from a dark corner.
Betty wheeled herself around and crossed her legs just so out of habit, wicked patent leather boots sticking together where they met. But her energy was sapped. “Water’ll keep me fine ’til it rains,” she told the darkness.
“Shot of rye for the lady,” said the voice.
She acquiesced. “Much obliged.” She took her two glasses and set them and herself down at the stranger’s booth. The stranger watched her drink the water first. She guzzled it so fast she didn’t even breathe.
They sat quietly for a few minutes, ignoring each other, gazing out at the empty bar. Betty fingered the little shot she still had before her. Then the stranger threw back his own glass, and so Betty did the same, without so much as a flinch. He seemed to smile at her. Betty seemed to smile back. And with a gentle cock of his head, the two of them were on their way.
He followed her home, yet lingered in her doorway, resting his hands on either side of the frame, letting his own interesting kind of heat seep into her room. Betty figured it was his cologne. She waited just inside the threshold, in front of his big open arms that seemed to bar her exit.
“You holding up the building?” she asked.
“You fixing to invite me in?” he asked.
For the first time, Betty was self-conscious. She smiled then, her pretty smile, the one that made most men melt into their boots, and gave him a little wink.
Billy was in her place, in her apartment. After all the others that had followed her inside, he was the first that made the place seem small. He’s a big man, if you ever met him. But it’s not like he takes up room, he just seems to fill a place. His steps were careful, but strong. Each move suited his purpose. When at last he had followed her around enough that she finally just quit moving away, they were standing beside her bed. Billy put his hands on her waist, and her stomach growled.
“Should I go get us something?” he asked, but she shook her head. “You got good hips on you, woman,” he told her.
“Betty,” she replied.
He bent his head down to her, so that his cheek touched hers. Betty felt overcome with him just being there, so close but not kissing her or anything. He just was. And bit by bit, she was too. They just were.
“Betty’s not my real name,” she said, for the first time ever.
He moved his head so that his scratchy cheek grazed down around her chin and then came to rest upon her other cheek. His breath reached her ear, and Betty realized that he wore no cologne, but he still smelled good. “Hm,” he murmured. “So what is?”
“I can’t recall.” And then she laughed, despite herself. Billy smiled.
“Well Betty, ain’t you a tall drink of water on a hot day.” And that was the moment he chose to kiss her.
The kiss frightened her. It made her think of scenes in movies, where even though you know it’s coming, it still knocks the wind out of you and your eyes go soft and your body goes limp. It looks just great on a big screen, but when it’s happening to you, in your own room, and you feel like all your bones have turned to syrup, and you still feel the imprints of leather-fine lips and the scrub of stubble against your cheeks and chin long after the kiss has reached its graceful conclusion—you have every reason to fear for your life. Because movies are just movies. This was real.
The only thing she had ever wanted was something real.
“You know this is going to cost you,” she tried reminding him.
“Damn right, sugar.”
He looked like he wanted to kiss her again, but instead he just kept his eyes on her while he put his two heavy fingers in the center of her chest. He opened up her little denim vest, then her b
ra, and let her stand like that in front of him. Billy sat down on her bed then, and just gazed up at her. Something about the light in that room—it was the lamp behind his head—it gave him a funny glow, like he was blessed or something. He just looked at her, and she wondered how she could be warm and cool at the same time.
He took hold of her hips again, and kissed her belly, a gentle, humble kind of kiss. Betty heard the patent leather of her boots crinkle. His hands went under her skirt, seeking her out. He asked her, “What’s this right here, you got a soft spot for me, Betty? This a secret you’re keeping? Lord, you are something, ain’t you.”
His two fingers were deep inside her, deep inside her barren womb, making it feel very much alive. “How’s that? You like that, Betty?” he asked.
And she did.
They stayed like that for quite a while, making what might have sounded like polite conversation were it not for the occasional syllable that didn’t quite fit in a dictionary. Billy’s thumb also knew what to do.
But soon he lay back across her bed, dragging her with him, tugging at her clothes. Her feet got tangled up in her panties, and Billy kicked them away. He pulled her up and she thought he wanted her to wrestle open the big silver buckle on his belt, but he kept pulling on her and said, “Come on way up here, Betty, put your knees right here, lemme get a good look at you.”
This was unusual; this was uncharted territory. He was teasing her, taking his own sweet time, taking control yet letting her know this was still her place, that she could kick him out any time she chose. Betty wasn’t sure what to make of it, but then she was thinking about windmills and sawmills and oil wells and other things that are relentless and hypnotic and make you dizzy and make you want to lie down and weep. Billy’s mouth could make a person melt dead away.
Those patent leather boots were making quite a scene on their own. Billy was holding on to them, passing his hands along them, keeping her where she needed to be. Finally, Betty felt like she was ready to drop right through that wall of water that led to the Other Side. But she fought it back and rolled off him, found a pillow and her breath.
Best of Best Women's Erotica Page 14
