The next few weeks were spent in a daze. I still couldn’t sleep and I had no appetite. But I did more than my fair share of drinking. Beer, whiskey, whatever I grabbed at the liquor store. I drank in my room with the door closed and the light off most of the time. Sometimes I parked in our spot, the spot where I’d always taken Tonya, and I did my drinking there, remembering her laugh.
The days all blurred together. I went to work, but my mind wasn’t on my job. My thoughts were on Tonya. The sound of her voice still echoed in my ears. The smell of her cheap perfume still lingered in my nostrils. The feel of her hot, bare skin pressed tightly against mine still etched on my memory.
The memory of how it felt to have a naked woman at my disposal, willing to do anything I wanted brought me out of my depressed state. It happened late one night when I was trying to sleep. The urge became too strong for me to bear. I was horny and the thought of pleasuring myself didn’t thrill me in the slightest. No, I knew that what I really wanted—what I needed—was a woman. A real, live woman to satisfy my craving.
I got out of bed, threw on some clothes, and headed to the seedy side of town where I knew I could find what I was looking for.
Up and down the streets I drove, looking at all my options. I imagined this was very much like hunting, and I must admit that I enjoyed searching for the right woman.
There were so many whores to choose from, deciding which one was the right one was difficult. Did I want a tall one or a short one? Did I want her dressed in leather and stilettos, or did I want her to look more casual, more innocent?
Finally, I settled on a short blond whore who sported a one-piece dress that clung to her body like a second skin. It was cut low on the top, revealing the majority of her breasts, and it rode high on the bottom, giving a revealing look at her ass cheeks when she bent over. She looked relatively healthy, at least for a prostitute. She wasn’t rail thin and her eyes weren’t gaunt. She was ripe for the picking, so I picked her up and drove away.
“You can take a left here,” she said while smacking a piece of bubble gum. “There’s a place I always take my johns.”
There was something about being referred to as a john that I didn’t particularly like, but the truth of the matter was I was a john. This wasn’t a relationship. This was a business transaction. I couldn’t expect to be called anything other than what I was. So I said nothing and drove to where she instructed me to go, which ended up being the parking lot of a warehouse, seemingly not in use. Eager to get started, I didn’t bother to find a dark corner of the parking lot. I just pulled in, turned off the car, and unfastened my jeans. There was enough light from a nearby streetlamp coming into the car to show my exposed erection. Remembering Tonya’s words about how nice my dick was, I looked down at it, admiring the veiny mass of flesh until the prostitute spoke.
“What do you want? You want me to suck you off? That’s five bucks.”
I didn’t want that. What I wanted was sex. Raw and nasty and a little bit rough. I told her as much, though it felt odd to hear the words coming out of my mouth.
She responded with, “That’ll be fifteen.”
Her prices seemed a little odd, but then again I was new to this. What did I know? I’d only ever been with two whores, so without arguing I gave her a five dollar bill. She looked at it strangely and then looked at me, still smacking her gum.
“I said fifteen.”
“I know what you said. You’ll get the other ten when it’s over. I have to make sure you give me my money’s worth.”
She rolled her eyes and shook her head. “Fine.” She slipped the five in her tiny purse. “But you better pay. If you don’t, my boyfriend will kick your ass and take the other ten out of your intestines.”
It was safe to assume that the boyfriend she referred to was actually her pimp, but I didn’t say anything. I just slid my jeans down to my ankles.
“You wanna get in the backseat?” she asked.
“No,” I said quickly. There were too many memories of Tonya back there. Besides, there was plenty of room in the front seat. “Let’s just do it up here.”
She laid down, her head resting on the seat near the passenger door. She put one leg on the dash, the other on the back of the seat.
I hesitated. “You’re not going to take off your dress?”
She smiled. “I don’t have to.” A minor adjustment of the fabric on top of her dress—a move that only took her a second to make—and both of her breasts popped out. And better yet, since they were being held in place by the dress, they stood straight up off her chest. I liked her way much better than mine.
I flashed a quick smile and felt the lust wash over me. I had to have her.
On my knees on the front seat, I threw myself onto her. I’d lied when I told her I wanted it a little rough. I wanted it a lot of rough. I thumped myself against her over and over, panting and grunting like an enraged animal. I wanted to go faster, harder, deeper, but my body was going full force as it was. It was frustrating, but it still felt good.
A couple minutes into it, she began to complain.
“Ow,” she said, softly the first few times. “You’re hurting me. Could you go a little slower?”
Ignoring her, I continued to plunge into her with all the force I could muster.
“Hey, seriously. You’re hurting me.”
I could hear her head banging against the car door with each thrust, but I didn’t care. I was paying for this. She was here to do what I wanted.
“You’re gonna break my fuckin’ neck, asshole!”
I looked down and was disgusted at the sight of her face, twisted in pain. I chose to look instead at her tits, jiggling wildly on her chest. Suddenly, I was struck by the urge to bite them, to just sink my teeth into the soft flesh and bite down hard. And that’s what I did.
She screamed in pain, her shrill voice stabbing at my ears like long, hot needles.
It was futile, but she tried to push me off her. She placed her hands on my chest and tried to move me, but I was much stronger than she was. Plus, between the two of us, I was the more determined one.
When she realized she couldn’t push me, she pulled my hair. Unfortunately for her I liked it. It drove me harder, causing me to bite down more forcefully on her tit.
It was at that moment, the moment I bit down harder, that I felt my teeth break through the skin. For a second, I considered stopping. At least with the biting. But then another thought popped into my head and I went with it.
Snapping my teeth together, I tore off a chunk of her flesh. She screamed louder and began to thrash around beneath me, but I laid on her, collapsing as nothing more than dead weight.
Looking at her face, I watched as she wailed and writhed, trying to get free. When she realized that I was no longer moving, she looked at me. I pushed the chunk of her flesh between my teeth with my tongue, letting half of it stick out of my mouth for her to see.
I watched as a drop of blood fell from the piece of meat and plopped onto her forehead. I kept watching as the horror of it all struck her and the panic set in. She screamed louder and did her best to thrash around beneath me, but she was held in place, pinned to the seat by my throbbing pelvis and sweaty torso.
There was a time when the thought of human flesh in my mouth would’ve made my stomach turn. But not now. Maybe it was the heat of the moment, the excitement of it all. Maybe it was that I was just so damned horny, I couldn’t think straight. Whatever it was, the piece of meat in my mouth didn’t disgust me. In fact I rather enjoyed the texture of it, the feel of it on my tongue. Knowing that it was a part of her breast only made it taste better.
It wasn’t long until I felt the heat rising within me, felt the joyous tingle that told me I was about to explode.
As the whore beneath me yelled about how her boyfriend was going to kill me, I began to thrust again. Her screams and threats were throwing off my concentration, so I wrapped my hands around her throat and squeezed while I pumped myself into her.
I just wanted her to be quiet, to stop the screaming and the yelling and let me enjoy my orgasm.
As I thrust, I squeezed. And as I squeezed, I chewed.
Finally, in one glorious moment, my body seized and I came, spilling myself into her in one forceful gush, and swallowing the piece of her that I’d been chewing.
With my eyes closed in order to savor the feeling of being spent, my breathing began to slow. When it had nearly returned to normal and the euphoria began to wear off, I opened my eyes and found the hooker staring up at me with a dead, glassy look on her face and my hands still wrapped around her neck.
Two things were obviously true.
One, she was dead.
And two, I’d killed her.
On the bright side, the screaming had stopped and the car was now quiet.
The dark side was that I now had to dispose of her body. It wouldn’t be too hard. She was already in the car, so there was pretty much no lifting required. And it would probably be a while before anyone noticed her missing. No one paid much attention when a whore disappeared. I learned that when Tonya vanished.
Pushing myself off her, I pulled up my pants and wondered where I was going to dump her body. I decided to simply drag her out of the car where we were and leave her there. She said she used this place all the time, so it wouldn’t be a surprise when she was found here.
After pulling her body out of the car, I took my five dollars back out of her purse, along with another thirty she had folded up inside. I also took her driver’s license as something to remember her by. Then I drove away, leaving the whole incident behind me.
The only other time I ever thought of her was when I got home and stared at the photo on her license before putting it in my top dresser drawer. When it was tucked away, I flossed to get a few pesky pieces of breast meat from between my teeth. And then that was it. She was no more than a memory.
Even as the blond hooker helped pull me out of my funk, my mother slipped further into hers. I could tell she did things during the day, like dishes and vacuuming and sweeping and mopping, but when I was home she stayed in her bedroom. She continued to do puzzles, and she had a basket at the end of the couch that contained a knitting project she was working on, plus she ran errands while I was at work. It was only when I was home that she became a recluse. It was more than obvious that I was the cause of her isolation. She wanted nothing to do with me.
That was fine with me because I wanted nothing to do with her either. But still, I wasn’t about to move out and give her the satisfaction of living alone. No. She had burdened me with that bothersome little girl when I was a child, even though I didn’t want her, and now I was going to burden her with my presence. So out of spite, I continued living at home.
The arrangement worked fine for me. It was my mother who had the problem with it. Though she never said anything, I could tell by her actions. For example, I had the weekends off from work, which apparently was a problem for her. At first, she hid in her room on my days off. It must’ve been too hard for her to stay holed up in her room for that long because after a few weeks of that she started spending the weekends with her friends, leaving before I got home from work on Friday and not returning until after I’d left for work on Monday. I didn’t mind a bit. It gave me more time to do my own thing, and that thing was hookers. Lots and lots of hookers.
8
It was August of 1969. I was twenty-four years old and in the prime of my life, which meant my sex drive was in high gear. No matter how much sex I had, it was never enough. I wanted more. Always more.
There was a girl I worked with named April who was into peace and love and all that jazz. I was pretty sure she liked me. She wore bell bottoms that rode low on her hips, tie-dyed t-shirts, sandals, and a peace sign medallion that rested comfortably between her breasts. Her hair was long and straight, the golden color of a warm sunset. She was easy to talk to, and unlike the hookers I spent so much time with, she actually had things to say. Her opinions of Vietnam were strong, as were the rest of her political beliefs. Personally, I didn’t give much of a shit about politics, but I loved to hear her talk about it, to hear the passion in her voice when she spoke.
We’d recently started eating lunch together. Usually I sat at a table by myself on the far side of the break room. I was more than a little surprised the first time she brought her lunch over and sat across from me. She did it as if it was something she’d always done. There was just such an ease about her that I loved and envied.
That’s why I agreed to do something with her after work. It was Friday, and normally I would have been cruising the streets in search of a hooker. However, doing something with April was more appealing to me at the time so I promised to pick her up at seven o’clock.
Following her directions, I made my way to her house, arriving a few minutes early. The house was small, undoubtedly cozy on the inside, but I didn’t get a chance to find out. She met me at the door and we left immediately, heading out to the drive-in to watch The Graduate.
While Dustin Hoffman and Anne Bancroft did their thing on the screen, I stole glances at April, who sat with her legs folded beneath her on the opposite end of the front seat. Her eyes stared at the movie through the windshield, and she slowly nibbled on her popcorn, lost in the on-screen story. I wanted to kiss her but I dared not attempt it. I wasn’t sure how a move like that would be received so early in our relationship. If that’s even what this was.
After the movie, we drove to a burger joint that was mostly frequented by teenagers. It was the kind where you walk up the window and order, then eat your food at a picnic table out front. Most of the patrons had taken their food back to their cars or trucks, where they sat either on the lowered tailgates or the hoods and laughed amongst their friends as they ate.
The place was packed. We ordered our burgers and fries, and then went back to my car, where we sat on the hood and ate just like most of the other customers, making small talk about work in between bites. The conversation was light, the company nice.
With our stomachs full we cruised the streets, listening to music and talking. At the end of the evening I drove her home and walked her to the door. I wasn’t sure why I did it, but it felt like the right thing to do.
Before she put the key in the lock, she turned to me.
“I had a great time tonight, Lester. But I knew I would.”
“You did?”
“Yeah. That’s why I asked you if you wanted to do something tonight. I knew you’d be fun, and I just knew you’d be a perfect gentleman.”
“Well I hope I lived up to your expectations of me.”
She smiled, giving me a glimpse of a side of her I’d never seen before. A flirty but shy side. “You did.”
I wasn’t sure what to do or what to say after that. My mind was muddled trying to read her signals and decide whether or not she wanted me to flirt back. Before I could make any sense of my mangled thoughts and confused feelings, April stood on her tiptoes and kissed me quickly on the cheek. In a flash, she unlocked the door and stepped inside the house.
“See you later,” she said before closing the door behind her.
I walked to my car with a strange tingling sensation in my gut and a smile plastered across my face. On the drive home, I thought about what a great night it had been. There was only one thing that could make it better, and before I knew what I was doing, I made a few turns and found myself cruising the streets of the red light district, searching for a hooker to make my night complete.
She stood in the pale glow of an orange streetlight, leaning against the pole casually. The first thing I noticed was the bikini top she wore, proudly displaying her large breasts which poured out the sides of the tiny triangle of strained cloth. They were obviously her greatest assets and she knew it.
Pulling to the curb, I watched as she walked to the passenger window and leaned down.
“You lookin’ for a good time?”
“I am.”
She opened t
he door and got in, bringing with her the smell of the streets. It was a mixture of body odor, city air, and sex, all mingled together with a hint of cheap perfume, undoubtedly sprayed on hours earlier, before she ever came out for the night. It was nearly worn off by now.
As I pulled away from the sidewalk, I asked, “Do you have a place?”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean do you have a place you normally take guys who are looking for a good time? Like a regular spot?”
“No.”
“Hm.”
“I haven’t been doing this very long. I’m not even very familiar with the area.”
“No? Are you not from here?”
“No. I’m from Farmington. Ever hear of it?”
“No.”
“It’s small. Too small.”
“So you came here looking for a new life,” I guessed.
“Yeah. Something like that. I hitched all the way, hoping that once I got here, I could find a job and a place to live. I want to be a dancer.”
“A dancer, huh? What kind of dancer?”
“I wanna be a ballerina. When I was younger, I used to take ballet classes. But a lot of stuff happened and I had to quit.” Her voice was heavy with sorrow and regret.
I didn’t have the heart to tell her that with those boobs, her dream of being a dancer was probably never going to come true. Not unless that dancing was done on a pole. Ballerinas didn’t have big tits. Strippers did. That was just Dancing 101.
“Well how about this. How about we go back to my place? We can do it in a house, in a real bed instead of in a car like a couple of horny teenagers.”
By the looks of her, I guessed she wasn’t much more than a teenager herself. Maybe nineteen years old. Then again, maybe not. Life on the streets had a way of making people look older than they were. It must’ve been the stress of never knowing where your next meal was coming from coupled with the constant fear of something bad happening to you.
“That sounds good,” she said enthusiastically.
I drove to my house, so excited I could barely stand it. I’d never had sex in my house before. The thought of having privacy and more room to move thrilled me, and knowing I could leave the lights on and see her naked body nearly drove me wild. By the time I pulled into my driveway, I had a throbbing erection.
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