Black Leather

by Elizabeth Engstrom

  If she had to look into that stained toilet one more time or listen to the dripping faucet one more minute, she thought she would lose her mind.

  Irene was out celebrating her victory, and Cynthia wanted to be out, too.

  She wanted to be with Joseph, but he wasn’t answering his phone. She was afraid he was with Irene.

  If Cynthia couldn’t be with Joseph, she didn’t want Irene to be with him, either.

  Irene. Fucking Irene. Everything was always about Irene.

  Before Cynthia even acknowledged to herself what she was doing, she rooted through boxes until she found fresh jeans and a light sweater, threw them on, called a taxi, and went to Irene’s apartment.

  Cynthia didn’t know what she would say if Irene were there, but she wasn’t. Cynthia knew Irene wouldn’t be home; she would be out. Out celebrating. Out flicking her blade at some guy. Some guy out of town. Irene didn’t cut guys in this neighborhood. Irene knew better than to foul her own nest.

  She knocked on the apartment door, but there was no answer, so she used her key and opened the door.

  “Irene?” she called, but the apartment had that empty-house energy. There was nobody home.

  She looked in the little bowl next to the door, and there was a key on a small leather key chain. Cynthia had seen it in the bowl before, but she’d never asked about it.

  Now she knew. She picked it up and left.

  ~~~

  The key fit Myron’s mother’s apartment in the 2020 building.

  Heart pounding with guilt, Cynthia looked furtively both ways up and down the dank hall before going in. She felt like a thief, but she wasn’t breaking and entering, exactly; she had a key.

  The apartment was exactly the same as it had been when Myron’s mother lived there.

  Cynthia breathed in the scent of her and it reminded her of those days long ago, those little girl days when she had a brown grandma who made lemonade with real lemons and poured it out of a pitcher with lemons on it into little jelly glasses, just the right size for little hands.

  She’d forgotten how small the place was. There always seemed to be room for everything, for everybody when her grandma lived here. Now there was barely room for Cynthia to turn around.

  She could live here. She could clean this place out a little bit and move in here. It would be infinitely better than that pit she was living in. She’d talk to Irene about it in the morning.

  Irene.

  Oh yeah, Irene.

  Cynthia went into the bedroom.

  The closet was exactly as she expected. Black leather, and lots of it. Black wigs. Blasphemous, somehow, in this little-old-lady apartment. Irene had turned her grandma’s apartment into a lair for her sick needs.

  Cynthia leaned against the open closet door, looking at all the silver studs and heavy zippers shining in the muted light. She saw the Styrofoam heads, all but one with black wigs, lined up and looking out at her with their blank faces, like a jury of her peers. She breathed deeply of the scent of the leather, and before she could stop herself, she reached in and touched it.

  One touch led to another, and soon she was pulling every hanger out, one by one, and appraising the style of the clothing. Irene’s collection was awesome. It was an expensive, expansive, nicely-made wardrobe.

  Cynthia went into the tiny bathroom and opened the medicine chest.

  It was full of makeup. Not Myron’s mother’s makeup, either. Irene’s expensive brand, in radical, dark colors.

  Cynthia arrayed it all along the sink, closed the medicine cabinet and looked herself in the mirror.

  The bruises were fading, but there was still a little bit of green around her eye and a scab on her forehead.

  She smeared on some liquid foundation. It was way too white for her skin, but it hid the bruise. She looked better. She looked a little bit eerie. The foundation led to thick black eyeliner, which led to the dark purple eye shadow all the way to her eyebrow. Heavy black eyebrow pencil. Completely incongruous with her blonde hair.

  Cynthia was amazed at the transformation. She was becoming somebody else. She was becoming the Los Angeles Irene.

  She kept at it.

  The brown lip liner and the dark maroon lipstick made the final difference.

  Cynthia looked into the mirror in awe, trying to find herself. When she couldn’t, she smiled. Even her smile was different. Her teeth looked different. Cynthia had vanished. Cynthia had been completely erased.

  It was just as well; Cynthia was a loser.

  She went back to the bedroom closet to try on that tiny skirt with the fat zipper that ran up the front. Irene had been wearing that one in LA. And a leather bra, held together in the front with big chrome rings. And knee-high boots.

  Soon she was rummaging in the top drawer, looking for the proper underwear. She found it, too. A little black leather thong, with Velcro snaps at the sides. Tear-away. Perfect.

  And in the same drawer was a cardboard coaster from a bar called The Serpent’s Tooth in Oakland.

  Sounded good. Oakland wasn’t exactly out of town, but it was good enough. Cynthia settled down to getting herself ready for a night out. She needed to celebrate that she was out of jail and off the hook. This would be a night to remember.

  When she seated the wig on her head and looked in the full length mirror on the back of the bathroom door, she was stupefied.

  She had no idea who that was in the mirror.

  She leaned against the wall for a moment, and the black-leather beauty in the mirror did the same.

  She was transformed, not only in appearance, but also in attitude. She was beautiful.

  She sneered at the mirror, and the thick, dark lips against the white skin looked good in a sneer. Her teeth looked whiter. The black outlines around her eyes matched the color of the shoulder-length blue-black wig.

  She was stunning, and the little skirt, unzipped halfway to her crotch, made it all the more radical.

  She took the black eyebrow pencil and put a mole on her cheek, and another on her shoulder.

  When she stepped out of that apartment, she was Miss Lillian.

  Miss Lillian didn’t walk in a rolling slouch like Cynthia did.

  Miss Lillian strutted.

  She walked down the stairs, trying out the heels, feeling the breeze under that tiny skirt. She liked it. She liked it all. She had been reborn.

  Invincible. Competitive. Bitchy. Absolutely fearless.

  Capable of anything.

  Chapter 36

  The crowd ceased to exist once Irene was on stage. There was her body, and there was the music. Nothing else.

  The saxophone wailed and a shiver went up her thigh, soft and gentle, like Joseph’s soft palm. She closed her eyes and felt his loving hand cup her breast.

  She twisted, and heard the squeak of leather. It tightened around her the same way the music did, the same way Joseph’s hands did. She smelled it, smelled him, smelled his touch on her skin, and danced to the sad, mourning blues music as if it were reading the impossibility of Joseph on her soul.

  That saxophone told the story of their lust, from the first time they met in the college academic advising office, through the sweet pain of his dating Cynthia, through their bittersweet wedding and the denial of Irene’s heartache. Irene let the truth be told, let the story sway her, and the music got louder as Cynthia became neurotic, dependent, was finally jailed.

  And then: Joseph came over to Irene’s apartment.

  The truth was there, the truth needed to be told. All of it. Joseph needed to know, the world needed to know, but first Irene needed to know. To admit it. She’d admit it now, here, in this bar, to those smart enough to read it in her dance.

  It was such a sad thing, to be in love with your sister’s husband.

  The saxophone found it unbearably sad.

  The muscles in Irene’s thighs twitched as she crouched, swaying. The fake black hair brushed her shoulder, then fell down across her eyes.

  First touch.r />
  Her hand on Joseph’s arm.

  Electric.

  Dimly, she heard the crowd shriek as her body shuddered with the memory.

  The kitchen stabbing. She’d looked into his soft brown eyes as she licked the blood from his hand.

  Irene’s leather panties squeaked with moisture as she moved to the memory, moved to the emotion of the moment.

  Their lovemaking.

  Soft and tender, then hard and violent—Joseph was many things, could be more things, could possibly even be all things.

  Irene ripped her way through the thrashing of their lovemaking, her vagina throbbing in time with the music, and then the music began its climax, and she stood still, shuddering, her skin so sensitive she could feel the breath of cigarette smoke as it clung.

  The crowd was stunned to silence when the music stopped.

  Then one drunk let out a yell, breaking the spell, and cheering and hollering and screams for more broke out on the dance floor.

  Summoned back to the unwelcoming present by the crowd of smelly, grotesque drunks, Irene opened her eyes and looked around unsteadily.

  She felt fragmented, as if some portion of her had always known the voyeurs were there, and her arousal was fueled by the exhibitionism she had always enjoyed.

  She also felt violated, as if she had spent the last ten minutes clutched in intimate, truthful heat with the man she loved, and these people had seen all the way to their souls.

  She had revealed so much.

  She had revealed too much.

  She didn’t want this crowd to know her that well.

  She looked around in dismay as the cheering continued, the shouting, the yelling for an encore.

  She looked to the bartender in desperation. She was afraid she was going to cry. Sensing her distress, he shouldered through the crowd and held his arms out for her. She jumped down, and he caught her, steadied her, protected her.

  The band started with an old rock and roll tune, and a feminine little queen wearing short, tight cutoffs and construction boots jumped on stage and began to prance. The crowd booed and quickly lost interest.

  Joseph, Irene thought.

  Irene let the bartender/bouncer guide her through the crowd. All Irene saw were red lips, white skin, green hair, silver chains, tattoos, ugly little boys and their drugged out dates. She stopped at the bar, grabbed her blazer and pushed her way through the moist press of flesh to the door.

  She had to get out of there. She had to think.

  Funny, how when she tried to shun commitment, it was all over her, whereas Cynthia, who craved commitment, could never find any.

  She had to get alone. She had to think. She had to think about Joseph.

  Joseph.

  Goddamn him. He was ruining her.

  Chapter 37

  When Cynthia stepped into The Serpent’s Tooth, her confidence faltered.

  The place stunk of cigarettes and puke and unwashed man. She hugged the wall and tried to get her bearings. The music was just starting up, some kind of an oldies number, and some skinny little boy was up on stage prancing around.

  Then she saw Irene.

  Cynthia must have been insane to think she looked like Irene in these clothes. Irene was Miss Lillian. She wore the clothes, the wig, the makeup as naturally as if she’d been born to it.

  Cynthia was just playing dress up.

  Irene breezed through the crowd and out the door. Cynthia was about to follow her, when she saw who else was hot on Irene’s tail.

  Joseph. Joseph, shrugging into his shirt, chasing after Irene like a hound sniffing estrus.

  Cynthia’s first impulse was to go after Joseph, and she took two steps from the wall, when she felt a hand firmly grab her wrist.

  “Miss Lillian!” he said, and it was a tall, lanky, sandy haired guy with big baby-blues and a clean, white-toothed look. He had a leash in his hand, and the other end was attached to a dog collar around the neck of an old fat guy.

  Cynthia looked wistfully after Joseph. Joseph was chasing Irene. If Cynthia followed, she’d just find heartache. Whereas this... She looked back at Mr. Squeaky Clean and his toy. This looked like it might be fun.

  “Hey, babe,” she said to the cute guy.

  She grabbed the submissive’s leash and gave it a tug. “Down,” she commanded, and he hit the ground on all fours, pale flesh around his midsection quivering.

  With her spike heels, and with the cute guy watching, she stepped up on the submissive’s naked back and put her arms around the blonde guy’s neck. He smelled like an overdose of cologne. A welcome scent in this place.

  He grabbed her around the waist and picked her right up and held her to him.

  She wrapped her legs around his waist and let him twirl her through the throng and onto the dance floor.

  Chapter 38

  Joseph fairly flew across the Bay Bridge, dodging in and out of traffic, trying to beat Irene’s taxi back to the city. He turned right and barely slowed at the stop signs. She had to drive through town and then up the hill; he had to get through the residentials. He lived a half a dozen blocks closer than she did, perhaps his only edge, since she had got a head start.

  He zoomed down the quiet streets of his neighborhood, hoping the cops weren’t lurking, hoping his neighbors weren’t watching. He pulled into the drive too fast and the tires chirped as he set the brake. He jumped out and ran for the front door. If his instincts were right—and he knew they were, he knew they were—he wouldn’t be there for long.

  He threw open the front door and looked immediately at the red light on the answering machine. Steady; no messages. He stood quietly, waiting, waiting, his breath ragged in his chest, perspiration seeping down the side of his face, his heart pounding.

  He was afraid he’d been too late, that he’d missed her call and... and that she’d call someone else.

  Or that she’d not call at all.

  She would. He knew she would. There wasn’t anybody in that sleazoid joint that was up to her potential. Nobody but him. He knew it and she knew it.

  The phone rang.

  The sound, though expected, surprised him and he jumped at the harshness of it. He gently picked up the receiver.

  He just held it to his ear, rotating the mouthpiece so she couldn’t hear that he was out of breath.

  There was female breathing on the other end. Almost as heavy as his.

  “Hello?” he said softly.

  Just the breathing. He could see her standing in her living room, damp with perspiration from that heady dance and her dash home. He knew she had nothing to say to him. She wouldn’t ask. She wouldn’t beg. But she wanted to. Her aching came right through the wires. He heard it all in her breathing. Hesitant. Vulnerable.

  “Wait,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Wait for me.” He hung up the phone, dashed back out the door, jumped into the car and prayed once again that the Neighborhood Watch people had all gone to bed.

  ~~~

  He was sweaty and desperate by the time he got to her apartment door.

  It was unlocked.

  She had showered and changed into a flimsy, peach-colored negligee. She stood in the middle of the living room, looking ethereal in the dark, illuminated from behind by the city lights from her wall of windows. He closed the door softly and savored the vision. She didn’t have a chance to get a word out of her mouth before his lips closed over hers. Two halves, making a whole. He picked her up and carried her to the bedroom.

  He thought he could still smell the leather on her breasts. It reminded him of all those men in that bar that wanted her.

  They all wanted her, but she chose him.

  He wanted to fuck her until she screamed, but instead, he made love to her, slowly, methodically, resisting her urgings. He was beginning to think he could live with Irene for the rest of his life, she was so challenging, so unpredictable.

  She was hot, she was ready, but he made her wait. He took his time.

  And in the end, she screamed an
yway.

  Chapter 39

  Cynthia locked lips with the cute guy as he twirled her around the dance floor.

  Joseph was wonderful, but he lacked this type of spontaneity. He didn’t have this good-times fun inside him, he was too earthy, too serious, too conservative, too professional, too Republican.

  Cynthia was too young, too carefree. She needed to have times like this. Good times. Wild times.

  She felt that sexual energy rise up from her crotch to the back of her head. She knew she was going to screw this cowboy, and she wanted to bad. Right here, right now. She sucked his tongue into her mouth and then let it go. She ran the tip of her tongue around the backs of his upper teeth, tickling the roof of his mouth.

  He pulled back and looked at her, his blue eyes twinkling in the dim light. He looked fresh and clean amidst all this trashed out garbage.

  He howled.

  She howled with him.

  He twirled her around and around, her legs still circling his waist, his hands on her bottom, exploring the boundaries of her leather thong. He broke into a classic two-step and danced her right out the door into the chilled, foggy night. He kept up the two-step across the cold gravel parking lot, twirling her between cars, humming some cowboy song, and the giggles jiggled uncontrollably out of Cynthia.

  She felt happy and attractive and anonymous as Miss Lillian. A thrilling, seductive combination.

  Chapter 40

  Owen opened his eyes just in time to see Miss Lillian, wrapped around some guy, come trotting out of the bar and dance their way through the parking lot.

  He rubbed his eyes and his cheeks, trying to wake up. He hadn’t meant to fall asleep, and it was a miracle that he woke up just at the right time. He’d be mighty pissed if he’d sat there all night and then dozed off just as she appeared.

  He was working too hard. Working too many long, late hours. Ambition was going to land his ass in the hospital instead of the governor’s chair, if he didn’t watch it.