Chapter 7

After dropping Dolores and Moe off at the Des Moines airport, gaining a lingering kiss from both of them, and sighs, he drove east to Chicago. He had tapes to drop off. His to the performance and film curator at the Chicago Art Institute and to a woman who had a space used by itinerant and traveling avant-garde groups. The latter, a very pretty dark haired Jewess probably about the same age as Joanne, and in fact they had met in college at Northwestern, invited him to dinner after he handed her the tape at her space. Maxine. Max for short of course.

When she told him she needed to stop at her place to change clothes, it ended up being in the same building, owned by her family, on old converted warehouse. An impressively large loft, it had just as many avant-garde images on its walls as the lobby downstairs, which also served as a gallery.

Somehow he expected it when he heard his name called from her bathroom. Though she had been all business, her eyes had seemed predatory. Approaching the bathroom, he heard the shower. Entering it, he saw the shadow of her body leaning down to adjust the water temperature, the image distorted by textured glass. He removed his clothes and joined her, his cock hardening with each step.

She had a body somewhere between Moe’s and Dolores’s. Voluptuous, with more curving and leanness between breasts and hips then Delores, but not the smooth litheness of Moe, his usual preference. He had nothing to reject, though. This was a sexy woman, probably nine-tenths of the male population preferring. “Wash my back?” she asked him.

He washed hers. She washed his. Other parts took more time. Her full breasts. His cock. Though her pussy ended up being a forbidden place.

After they dried, she pulled him by his cock to her bedroom. A condom soon wrapped it, and KY covered it. She dipped some into her cunt. Again she kept steering him away from her pussy. When his face aimed there, she pulled him from it and over her. “Just fuck me, Joe,” she insisted. “Go slow. I want you to last.”

She guided him in. She avoided his kiss, so he went after her breasts. Marvelous ones. Full and firmer than expected, though softening with age. They featured wide areolas whcih crinkled when caressed, and nipples which stood out like fingertips. Her quiet moans revealed sensitivity.

He heard noises. “Keep going,” she insisted. He felt a presence, heard steps, but felt the stare somehow. When he tried to turn his head she practically slapped it to keep him from looking. “Just keep doing what you’re doing,” she insisted.

He felt fingers enter his anus. “What the fuck?” he exclaimed.

She held his head and smiled. “Just relax.”

Then he felt the push of something much thicker than fingers. He could tell it wasn’t real, not flesh and blood. When he felt breasts against his back, soft and subtle, and soft lips nip his ear, he felt relief which ended up letting him relax. The fake cock pushed in. It must not have been anywhere as thick as Dolores’s dildo. It felt incredibly weird, but didn’t hurt. In fact, as it got deeper, moving at the slow pace he moved inside Maxine, it kept feeling better. With hands reaching for balls and caressing them carefully, even with his slow pace, he felt the familiar urge that would end things. And he decided not to hold back. Fuck this weird shit.

When he shoved deep and came, Maxine muttered, “Joanne said you would last.”

“Can I have your girlfriend get her cock out of me,” he growled.

The withdrawal had more pain in it than any other moment of the intrusion. He moved off Maxine and saw ... beauty.

Tall and lean. A short blonde bob. Small breasts with a tendency towards sagging had to be her only imperfection. A long waist. A subtly convex tummy that suggested soft femininity rather than fat. An elongated valley where her navel rested. A gentle curve at her hips that led to perfect thighs, strong yet not thick. Her legs seemed endless. And the butt, a magnificent pear shaped thing that shifted entrancingly as she moved away. But before she moved, he gazed at her face. He would meet supermodels later in his life, but she became the first to give him their effect. High cheekbones. Large oval eyes. Greenish gold. A small, perfectly formed nose, straight and too softly rounded to be aquiline, but neither did it have anything like a bob to its end. And lips just thick enough to take lipstick well, though she wore none, or any make-up. A mouth for kissing, neither wide nor bee-stung. Her facial perfection, perfectly symmetrical, absolutely beautiful, struck him to the point she seemed to shimmer. Women of absolute beauty tended to affect him that way.

“Is that how you get away with rape?” he asked her back.

“Yes,” she said, turning to him, showing him her sad eyes and a smile that made her look even more incredible. “I made moussaka. Care to join us?”

He had to think about that. His stomach announced his decision. The ladies laughed. He laughed. Tension ended.

They ate the vegetarian dish, made of eggplant. It was delicious.

“What happened?” he finally asked after silence.

“What do you mean?” Maxine responded.

“What do you think he means?” said Caroline, the devastatingly beautiful blonde.

“Do you want me to tell him?”

Caroline nodded.

“She was raped. As an early teen by a trusted uncle. Her family sent her off to a girls’ school.”

“You met there?”

Both snorted. “I’m ten years older,” Caroline explained.

Early forties he thought. Explains the sag. The only obvious sign.

“I did find some solace,” Caroline continued. “A full on dyke. She ... protected me. And then a teacher seduced me. I decided to let her. I ended up staying with her.”

“That must have been controversial.”

Caroline nodded. “We were careful, but I think my first lover turned her in. Only when I broke up with the dyke at the end of classes. My teacher got fired, but the reason was kept secret so she landed another job, a better one actually, at a school just north of New York City.

“She was an art teacher. Photography her milieu. She ended up mentoring me.”

“I can see why the change in schools was fortuitous,” he said.

“Yes,” she smiled. It dwindled. “I got hired by a top model agency. Did very well.”

“I can imagine.”

She shrugged. “The work took me from her. An international model gets used by her agency as much as possible. I saw her when I could. She kept mentoring me on those brief occasions. Our intimate times happened as often in her darkroom as it did anywhere else. But it wasn’t enough for her. Especially when she got sick and I couldn’t be with her. Breast cancer. It metastasized and ended up killing her despite the removal of her breasts. She thought,” Caroline sniffled, “that I found her ugly. I never did. I ... was just too much a slave. To fashion I guess,” she chuckled heartbreakingly. “The contract really did enslave me, but maybe I was greedy. The money was ridiculous and seductive. I actually enjoyed the work, even more when my fellow models and even the photographers allowed me to take my own photographs.”

“And then it ended,” said Maxine. “Another rape. An obsessed photographer.”

“I think beauty angered him,” Caroline analyzed. “Especially when it turned away from him, preferring women.”

“She needs to objectify it,” Maxine explained. “It’s the only way she can stand it.”

“And to get revenge,” he said.

“Yes,” both women agreed. No apologies.

“And you?” he asked Maxine.

“I have always enjoyed both men and women. Women mostly, especially after we met.” She smiled at her lover.

“I came home after...” Caroline explained. “I grew up in the suburbs west of Chicago. Bought a condo on the Miracle Mile, and just kept to myself. Worked on my art. A friend I knew since we were kids finally convinced me to go out. He and his boyfriend liked wandering around galleries, going to concerts, and convinced me to join them.”

“I saw her studying the art in the lobby before a show,” said Maxine. “So gorgeous and sad. I had to meet her. When she told me she did art, and was putting together a portfolio, I had my lure. I told her to bring it to me the next day, however incomplete it might be. I probably didn’t care about her art as much as I should have. I wanted her.”

“But you did like it, didn’t you?” Caroline asked.

“Why else would I fill this loft with it?” Maxine responded.

“To stroke my ego like you like stroking me?”

He immediately stood and looked at the art. Nudes as landscapes. All women. Breasts became mountains. Pussies became caverns. Beautiful and sensuous. Until he came to a group of photos. Where there would have been breasts, there was devastation in their absence, like strip mining devastating a mountain. And the cavern pussies looked just as destroyed. Misshaped entrances. Dripping. Blood or sperm or tears. The breasts looked like mastectomies. The pussies, he didn’t figure out. Double exposure or manipulations of some kind. It didn’t matter. They were mesmerizing. Powerful. Memorable.

He heard the two argue, and Maxine reassure her lover. “I love all of you, inside and out. Your art made me happy, because I didn’t want to lie to seduce you, and I didn’t have to.”

Silence. Kisses he imagined. Then he felt Caroline behind him.

“You really are brilliant,” he told her.

“Thanks.”

“But rape is rape.”

Silence.

“Maxine needs cock occasionally,” she finally spoke. “Her friend recommended you.”

“Her pussy is yours,” he said. “She wouldn’t even let me touch it.”

“You’re right,” Caroline said. “I spoiled her for others.”

“Tasting and touching, making sure they’re ready, is as much about lovemaking as fucking.”

“Lovemaking?” she snorted.

“Yes. Otherwise you already have a dildo, obviously.”

“Several. But that’s not the point.”

“What is the point?”

“She craves the real thing. A masculine body. A warm blooded cock. Alive. Throbbing.”

“If you get her ready.”

“With you watching.”

“Yes.”

“Stroking your cock.”

“Yes. Two beautiful women making love?”

“You’d rape me.”

“Never. Not unless you wanted it.”

She snorted.

He took a step away before turning to her. Saw her anger mar her beauty. Just as well. “I can’t empathize,” he said quietly, meeting only her eyes, “Or maybe I can now, a little. Men become monsters. Balls take over. Or maybe something else. Anger. Resentment. Whatever it is, it obviously can vanquish compassion. Rapists. Murderers. Abuse. Almost always men.”

“It doesn’t sound like you’re convincing me.”

“I’m not. I can say I’m not like that, but I doubt you believe me. I’ll grab my bag and go. Thanks for dinner.”

“Joe. She needs you.”

“She needs a cock. Hire one. You can afford it.”

“Joe. Her friend said she can trust you.”

“But you can’t.”

“You can stay here. I’ll leave.”

“Joanne got me a hotel room in the Miracle Mile.”

“Which?”

He paused. “The Marriott.” After she nodded he added, “I’m not sure when I’ll be there. I have to go visit a couple clubs. Hand off a couple tapes from my old band. Joanne manages them.”

“You’re not old enough to stay.”

“I wanted to wander around,” he shrugged.

“Let’s show him the town,” Maxine suggested, stepping up to them. She’d finished putting away the food and cleaning the dishes.

“We’re both very knowledgeable,” Caroline added.

“Let me think. Being accompanied by two gorgeous women?”

They laughed.

He actually had lots of fun with them. They impressed the two club bookers, especially Caroline. They even recognized her.

Being underage became a problem. No underage clubs that they knew of. He could probably get in, but didn’t bother. They would stand outside a blues club and listen to the radiant, muffled sound and chat. In a way maybe his reluctance to enter these places illicitly had to do with his new companions. Not sharing them with a leering crowd in various states of inebriation. Having them to himself. Having them share their amazing city with him. A voyage of discovery, with all the excitement of the new and intriguing. It became one of his fondest memories.

But they did end up at a place where his youth created no barrier. A mobile party, like older times, where patrons would open their homes to interesting people: artists, writers, actors, musicians, intellectuals. As if their wealth could hire these people just for their entertainment. And with the space money could buy, not to mention food and drink, and maybe even a grand piano, they could. Only the people who merged at these various places could most often afford their own large space and grand piano. Those few who gained success at their various artistic pursuits. Stars.

Towards the end of their meandering, heading back to the Miracle Mile where his bed awaited, and Caroline’s, whose condo ended up being only a couple blocks away from his hotel, they encountered such creatures. A rock band, loping down the wide avenue unsteadily, laughing, obviously stoned. And amongst this band of rockers, with several chart successes, not surprisingly, was a gorgeous, well known model. One whom Caroline knew, who had begun her career at the tail end of Caroline’s, and to whom Caroline had been a heroine and advisor.

Naturally the model invited them to join the group as they headed to that nights movable party. Which ended up being in the penthouse apartment of Caroline’s condo. Mark Knopfler at the grand piano. Mike Bloomfield jamming with him in some sort of blues jazz fusion. The star of the rock band thought that cool and joined them, pulling out a blues harp. John Belushi and Dan Aykroyd surprisingly calm chatting with older people. Gay Talese maybe. And definitely Nora Ephron. Sam Shepard, Gary Sinise and John Malkovich. With a fawning, beautiful Jessica Lange fused to Sam’s side. Saul fucking Bellow. Others. Beautiful, handsome or just damned confident. A few wall-flowers, even famous ones.