Jane.

by Riya Anne Polcastro

  I try to sound tough. "What the fuck are you doing here?" But my head just falls back to the floor. Sleep and alcohol swirl through my groggy noggin. It is all a blur. I shake my head. Blink my eyes. The more I try to focus, the more it all multiplies. "What do you want from me? You’re kicking me out, OK, I got it. Now leave me the fuck alone until my goddamn thirty days are up!"

  When I wake up again later, my landlord is still standing there, except now he is a For Rent sign. And the people with him are nothing but a garden gnome and a birdhouse.

  Part Three: Generation Lesbian

  1

  When Sami’s birthday rolls around, I am shocked to hear from her. She has not had time for much of anything except fucking her new bitch. And except for work, I have not seen her since she left her wife for that skanky breakfast waitress. It feels strange indeed to pull into their apartment building and park. Sami left a three-bedroom house on a half an acre with a pool, deck, and a pond for a shitty two-bedroom apartment next to the community college. Oh, and did I mention she left an absolute sweetheart for a complete psycho?

  I am parked by the time I realize that bitch is inside too. I did not think this through, did not even stop to think that Veronica would be here. But of course she will be here to celebrate her new girlfriend’s birthday!

  Maybe I will be home early tonight after all.

  The apartment is on the second floor. The stairs are blanketed in worn indoor/outdoor carpet. They smell like smoke and stale beer, the remains of long, boring summer evenings spent on the stoop watching the coeds wiggle by. I knock. Someone approaches and the peep hole grows dark. I close my eyes, tilt my head back, and stick my tongue out of the side of my mouth.

  Veronica answers the door. She does not laugh at my silly face, and she speaks with a fast and choppy accent, like she is in a race to spit her words out. "You gonna come in or what?" She tries to add a little chuckle at the end, I assume to muffle her tone, but it fizzles out flat.

  "Jane!" Sami yells from the dining room kitty-corner to the entrance at the far side of the living room. She raises a bottle of blue tequila in the air as she says my name.

  I brush past Veronica and make a beeline for the tequila. "You haven’t even opened it yet?"

  "What are you talking about?" she says sarcastically, a hint of a slur on her tongue. Just a hint. "This is our second bottle!"

  "Right on. Just the three of you?" I wave at Lilly, Sami’s sister, who is seated at the kitchen table with a glass of water and a huge hunk of bread.

  "Sort of," Sami scoffs. She nods at Lilly. "She only had three shots! She says she’s woozy already."

  "Hey, I haven’t eaten yet today!" Lilly snaps. She is a big girl, in width not height. Much bigger than Sami. Despite their differences in dress size, they are obviously sisters. They both have the same Japanese eyes and Mayan cheekbones. They both whine, regardless of their moods, and when they do not whine, they drawl like the stoners they are.

  "Well, what are you waiting for? We’ve got food!" Veronica always comes across as a bitch, especially when she tries to be funny.

  "I know," Lilly whines, her head hung in shame. "But I think it’s too late."

  "So how many shots have you had?" I ask Sami.

  "Like I’m counting!"

  "Are you going to crack that bottle any time soon?" I ask, eager to join her at that level.

  Sami shakes her head with an impish smile. "Uh-uh-uh, not ‘til Israil and Luz get here."

  "Israil and Luz? THE Israil and Luz?" Israil is the kitchen manager at our job: tall, dark, and handsome, as they say. His girlfriend, Luz, is a dancer at a club up in Portland. She used to work here in Salem, but she was just too good, so they sent her north where there are fewer mullets and rattails and more businessmen.

  "YES!" Sami exclaims.

  Veronica’s voice takes on a nagging, nasally pitch. "Don’t act too excited, baby. What, are you trying to make me jealous?"

  Sami wraps her arms around Veronica and squeezes. "You know you’re the sexiest woman in the world to me, baby!" She tries to play it off, but I already know all about her little crush on Luz. "Why can’t I get a girl like that?" she bemoaned once while she was still with Beth. And then she left her wife for Veronica: brassy hair, blotchy skin, muffin top and all.

  "Can we at least smoke a bowl while we wait?" I ask. It sucks to be the sober one, especially when the alcohol is within such easy reach.

  "We do not smoke marijuana in this house," Veronica huffs.

  What is this about? Sami looks ashamed with her head hung to the side. "Yeah, I quit. It's been a whole month."

  I look over at Lilly and then back at Sami. Is she serious? She quit? Sami, the girl with the perma-stoner twang, quit smoking pot? Lilly nods, her eyes huge like a bug, but she does not say a thing.

  "You know Jane, you should really think about quitting too. It is really bad for your health. And it's illegal. You could go to jail!" Veronica blows all of this out of her nose in two seconds flat.

  "Oh my god, I am not going to go to jail. This is freaking Oregon. The worst you get is a fine!"

  The next five minutes or so are torture; the wait drags on forever. Veronica’s mouth never shuts. Desperate for alcohol to smother out her annoyingness, I fantasize about prying the bottle from Sami’s hands, ripping it open, and taking one long throat-scorching pull.

  Finally, there is a knock at the door, and everything is right in the world. Luz walks in first. She wears low-rider jeans like few girls can, thanks to her perfectly toned abs and sculpted backside. A bright red halter top accentuates her breasts with a V-cut that leaves little to the imagination. Her boobs are not big, but they are just the right amount more than proportional to the rest of her. Perfect for a threesome, luscious but without being intimidating. She has on a killer pair of red patent leather heels with a clutch to match. Luz greets me with a licentious wink and bounces into the kitchen, a few drinks already under her belt as well.

  Israil, on the other hand, appears to be perfectly sober. He is dressed in the same as always, nothing-special jeans and a button-up. When you pick him apart, there is really no one thing that stands out about him as spectacular. He has your typical side-part haircut and is clean shaven; his blue eyes are not particularly piercing, and they may even be gray anyways. For the most part, plain would be an apt description of most of his attributes. That may sound like an insult, but it is not. He is still pretty fly for a white guy, maybe even because it is a struggle to pinpoint what exactly is so appealing about him. In essence, the whole of his being is more attractive than the sum of his parts.

  He winks on his way in, and I relive the moment earlier this week when he whispered in my ear, "Will you eat my girlfriend’s pussy while I fuck you?"

  I was so surprised—so caught off guard by the question—that he had to ask it twice. As it turns out, Luz is the one who wants to bring another chick into their bedroom. I do not know if Israil propositioned another coworker or if they simply asked her about my sexual interests specifically, either way, it was a one of the girls from Heaven & Hell who spilled the beans on my bi-curious virginity. I thought it was a joke when she admitted to having let the pussy out of the bag. Turns out, she set me up for my first ménage à trois.

  The bottle finally gets cracked, and I do my best to catch up with the girls. Post shots, we head off to the strip club where Luz danced prior to her transfer north. The parking lot is worn and uneven. Its dips and ruts are a bitch to walk in heels. Inside, the floors and walls are covered in the same dark red carpet as the local defunct roller rink that everyone remembers from elementary school. The carpet has absorbed the stains and smoke of many years now, and it is way past time for a remodel. Sadly, it is the classiest cabaret in the city. It puts Lulu’s to shame.

  It is a Sunday night and it shows. The girls are a tad flat and uncoordinated. This, however, is nothing like the place that Julia and Daemon took me to. They may not be top notch, none of them would make it onto th
e Friday-night stage, but at least they are not disturbing. Still, for lack of quality, we stay at our table most of the night to gossip and throw back drinks like it is a race to alcohol poisoning. Luz sits next me and Israil next to her. Sami, Veronica, and Lilly are gathered around a second cocktail table that we have pushed next to ours. It may be Sami’s birthday, but Luz makes it feel like the night is all about me. She buys me drink after drink, and the bartender treats us very well. She gets closer and closer each time she sits back down with another round until finally her left arm is intertwined with my right one and our bodies touch from our shoulders all the way to our feet. In hindsight, it should have been obvious why she aimed to get me drunk. The funny thing is, she could have saved her cash.

  "Did you tell them that it’s your birthday?" I shout to Sami over the Guns N’ Roses blaring from the speakers next to us.

  "What?" Sami scoffs. "Hell no! You know what they will do to me?"

  "Uh, yeah! That’s the fucking point!"

  Luz adds, "What kind of a lesbian are you?"

  "A faithful one," Veronica interjects. "She doesn’t need those chichis in her face when she’s got these right here!" She pulls Sami’s head into her own ample bosom.

  "So what was the point of coming here?" Luz whispers in my ear. Her lip grazes my lobe as she says it, her cool daiquiri-soaked breath delicious and ever so inviting. She stands and pulls up on my hand as she points at the stage. "My friend is up; let’s go watch her." She leads me over to the back corner of the furthest stage and then admits she has never seen this girl before in her life.

  "No?"

  "No," she giggles. She takes out a dollar bill and folds it in half the long way. She slides it across my breasts slow and then tucks it in neatly in my shirt so that it fans out from between my cleavage accordion style. She folds another dollar into quarters and puts it between my lips. Germs schmerms, there is enough vodka in my system to kill just about anything, right? Luz places a third bill on the short bar in front of herself. When she is done, she rests her hand on the inside of my thigh.

  "How are you ladies doing tonight?" The dancer is tall, probably around five nine. Other than her height, she is the archetypal strip-club beauty: long wavy platinum hair, soft features, thin but curvaceous. She lowers herself to her knees and leans down like she is going to give me a kiss. Her blond hair grazes my face as she nips the dollar from my lips. She smells soft and sweet, like a vanilla candle.

  Luz’s hand is on the move, climbing up my inner thigh ever so gently. The dancer grabs my head and presses my face between her breasts at the same time that Luz’s hand creeps up between my legs and under the cotton fabric of my skirt. The vanilla-scented flesh bulges and jiggles against my eyes and nose and lips. I have a terrible urge to nibble and lick the sweetness off of her, but somehow I manage to resist. Luz has groped her way under my skirt now. Her fake nails pull at the lace of my underwear and push it out of their way.

  And that is it, my last complete and conscious memory of the club. It is all a drunken haze of tits and wandering hands after that. And it is not much clearer back at Sami’s, either. Except that I do know my clothes keep disappearing. At some point, a wrestling match ensues—Luz’s excuse to rub her body all over mine. Instead of presents, we give Sami a live skin flick in her very own living room. She is entertained for a while but eventually tells us to get a room. Before I know what is happening, Israil tosses me over his shoulder and bounds down the hall.

  "Straight back," Sami directs.

  "Ai, baby, I don’t want them doing that in my room," Veronica seethes.

  "Oh, you’d rather have them in our bed? Nastying up our sheets?"

  "No," she sulks. "You’re going to wash my bed!"

  The room is a blur of stuffed animals and pink lace. It is too clean yet too dusty, and it is obvious that no one lives here. It exists only to keep Veronica’s lesbian status hidden from her family and friends. Israil throws me down on the plush daybed and then reaches up my skirt to pull my underwear off. He tosses them aside and pushes the black cotton up to my waist. With a hand on each of my butt cheeks, he licks and sucks and slurps with school-boy ambition. He uses his teeth to tug on the jeweled banana ring just above my clit. I am still naked on the top half from one of the wrestling matches with Luz. She bends down to make out with me for just a second before leaving my mouth to lick each of my nipples in turn. She tells me that she loves my piercings, loves how the pink gemstones that dangle from my nipples and navel match the one nestled in my lower lips. Between sucks and licks and kisses, she tells Israil how she wants a set of her own. A sense of time does not exist in such ecstasy. It is impossible to say how long they dedicate themselves to my pleasure, but soon the moans escape without reservation as their teamwork raptures my entire body in orgasm.

  That’s when Veronica kicks us out. She throws open the door. "I’ve had enough of this shit!" she yells in rapid fire, her nasal cavities bulging with exclamation. "Don’t you have any fucking respect? Get the fuck out of our house!"

  Sami mouths the word sorry as we leave in search of a more hospitable place to enjoy each other’s company. My place is closest, but it is out of the question. I tell them that there is no room, and they assure me it does not matter. I tell them that I just moved and there are boxes everywhere and my bed is nothing but a sleeping bag on the ground, that I have a creepy roommate who is always carrying around a video camera―anything except the truth about my aunt who cuts art into her skin and will only use green soap.

  It takes some serious convincing, but they eventually agree to go to their place in Portland. None of us are in the condition to drive, so of course we take both cars; better two drunk drivers on the road now than an awkward ride home later. Israil leads the way in his Supra. It is an automatic cop magnet. Luckily for him, he is not too drunk. Luz rides with me. She is remarkably well behaved for the ride, which is good since it is taking all of my concentration to stay in the lane. To force one’s self sober is a very exhausting thing to do. Should she put so much as a fingernail on me, we would probably crash into the median. Luz rambles on and on about how much she loves her life: her car, her job, and her boyfriend. The obvious question remains unspoken: how much could she possibly love her life when she does not bother to wear her seat belt?

  First thing’s first, and Luz offers me another drink as soon as we walk in the door. I sure as hell do not need any more alcohol, but who says no to a girl as hot as her? She picks an easy enough drink to make. An appletini is nothing more than vodka, green-apple liqueur, and some optional sweet and sour shaken on ice and strained into a martini glass. But Luz makes an even simpler version of it. She skips the shaker. She skips the ice. She pours the vodka and a green flavoring from the supermarket directly into a high-stemmed martini glass.

  "Thanks . . ." I think. But it is awful. Terrible. Thick and warm. The cheap vodka burns my throat. The apple-flavored syrup coats my tongue.

  "We got some really good weed from a guy here. Do you want to smoke?" She touches the small of my back, and I feel a little tingle.

  I shouldn’t. I really, really should not. I have no business smoking! So of course I do it anyways, and it kicks my ass. All of a sudden, not only am I high, but every drink from the entire course of the night hits me all at once like a brick wall. Whereas I had been able to walk fairly straight before, now I can barely stay upright long enough to make it to the bedroom. But I am lucky. The room should be spinning right now; vomit should be pushing its way up my esophagus. Never smoke after you drink. Never. Now it is as though I have gotten one over on the universe, broke a cardinal rule and somehow got away with it.

  This is both my first girl-on-girl romp and my first threesome. My heart races with excitement, and my body pulses with the anticipation of even more pleasure. What happened earlier, that was just an appetizer—a mere morsel—compared to what happens now. Everything about Luz screams passion. She is a very enthusiastic lover. A little too much so with her acrylic na
ils, but I will not feel that until the next day. Israil is just the right size and knows how to listen to a woman’s body. It all comes together perfectly, like an orchestra in genuine harmony. We share well and move together, so there are no moments of gaucheness and no one is ever the third wheel. By the time it is over, the sun has come up on the best night of sex I have ever had.

  2

  The women of my generation are slowly but surely coming to terms with the fact that the men our age, our prospective partners, are still boys. One by one, we seek alternatives; more and more, we jump ship and switch teams. According to some study somewhere, thirty percent of men ages eighteen to thirty-four still live at home with family. Now, of course my inability to cite the source undermines my credibility to quote such a statistic, but I do remember that it was one of those fashion magazines; you know, one of the ones where every other page is an advertisement for some brand-new lip gloss that is just like your old lip gloss or some glorious overpriced perfume that boasts passionate love with the hottest guy you have ever seen in your life. Now, normally there is nothing of any worth among such pages. There is no point in even reading them except that there is nothing else to do in the health department’s lobby while I wait for Aunt Rose. This particular factoid, however, resonates with the world I know. The uncomfortable truth of the matter is that, save a few fleeting and taken prizes, most of these men are generally unmotivated at work, home, and in their personal relationships: a generation of gender-specific slackers. They are content to work for a few pennies more than minimum wage. Full time is not a requirement. They are proud to live at home with Mommy and save on the cost of rent in order to maintain a heavy cushion for emergencies such as beer and video games. They are more than happy to have girlfriends who outearn them and who will foolishly spend a good portion of income on their broke-loser asses, even if those ladies have children who are more deserving of these funds.