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F4: Life in Suspension

By: MSTarot



(Author's note: This story is an entry into FAWC (Friendly Anonymous Writing Challenge), a collaborative competition among Lit authors. FAWC is not an official contest sponsored by Literotica, and there are no prizes given to the winner. This FAWC was based around the theme of music, with four songs given to choose from. The song that inspired this story was mostly "Tomorrow We'll See" by Sting but to challenge myself, I added bits of all the others.) 

* * * *

Hello. My name is Alexus Mano Leia, and this is about me, but at the same time not about me.

It can be said that in this world, you owe your existence to many external factors. Every decision made, not just by you, but by all those you come into contact with plays a part in your life.

In my case? I own my life to the drink the Mai Tai. 

Well, to be exact, about eight of them. That was how many it took to make my mom lose all her inhibitions and decide that my dad was not only handsome, but so fuckable she couldn't live without him between her legs.

Mom's a boofer. At least that is what dad probably called her behind her back. A young black woman in Hawaii had to attract some attention. I've seen pictures of her back then. Mom was hot in an eighties, princess of the ghetto, kind of way.

She was on vacation from college, with some richer-than-sin friends she had met at Georgia State and who were paying her way, when in the dregs of one evening she met my dad. He was tending bar/busing tables at Germaine's LuAu. Probably just trying to make a buck from what I know of him.

Anyway, the rum did flow and she sat there talking with him while chomping on Curacao-soaked pineapple wedges. Till, as she tells it, "The best hung man in the world found his way into Heaven."

The less I can go into that, the better, I think. Anyway, Mom, drunk off her ass, had her wild night in some bed somewhere she can't recall, with a guy she hardly knew, and then went home. Probably walking bow legged, but with a big grin.

I imagine that smile faded when she found out that the nausea she had started to feel in the mornings, was going to have to be named.

I was born in Macon, Georgia in my grandmother's kitchen, of all places. My butt slid out and hit green, marble-patterned, linoleum. Granna cleaned me up in the sink with dish soap. Then they drove my Momma to the local hospital. I was left nursing on my Aunt Dorenda's boobies. Aunty D's, as I would come to call her, had just had a girl about a month earlier.

My second cousin, BethAnn. 

I guess you could say that I was a normal child. Given the time and place where I was raised. Normal as any half-Hawaiian in South Georgia could be anyway. That I was teased through-out school is a given. I didn't much look black, but I surely didn't look white. It was just before the Mexican invasion of the south, so I wasn't mistaken for a "Mexi-Can't" as the local rednecks called them.

Didn't really matter. I still got beat up on a regular basis.

I was, unfortunately, not built like my dad. I had taken after mom in the size department. I never got to the six foot mark everyone else seemed to reach so easily. Hell, BethAnn was five ten, by the time we left high school.

Me? A scrawny five-seven. I... I was also pretty. A boy shouldn't be called pretty. Handsome, rugged, masculine those are the names he seeks.

Pretty Boy, was about the nicest of the names those "looks" got me.

"Just ignore it," I was told. "They're just stupid," I was told.

I suppose, that given the way I looked, that the idea I should have been born a woman would get into my head at some point. I would look at my second cousin BethAnn, my other cousins, hell, even my mom and see such beautiful women. With features that I could find in any mirror I wanted to look into.

I don't know how old I was the first time I got it in my head to try on make up. I know the house was empty. Everyone else was gone for a fish fry. I can't eat fish, it tastes too... fishy. Anyway, I had just finished taking a piss, when I stopped to wash my hands and I saw my face in the medicine-cabinet mirror.

The sink, like any house with that many women living in it, had a thousand kinds of makeup surrounding it. I picked up a bright, gold lipstick. One of Aunty D's. For some reason, I just decided to try putting it on. Oh, I'm sure, looking back on it, I made a mess of my mouth with it, but that brassy shade of gold against my dark mahogany skin looked incredible.

So did the matching eyeshadow. 

I never got caught, but playing with their make up became my secret hobby. Obsession. Then their clothes. I looked not scrawny, weak, or sissified, but beautiful in those clothes. I began to wish. To pray even that I would go to a doctor, and they would tell me that a mistake had been made. That I was really a girl.

There was of course no money for college, so when I left high school, it was to work in a nearby plant. A ladies' clothing plant. I was too small to haul the big bundles of fabric. Or push the wheeled carts with two hundred shirts per side. So I cleaned. I was a broom pusher.

It was, at that time, that I found an old magazine in a back storeroom. The pages where bent from too much handling. It was the images that caught my eye, not the mangled cover. 

There were guys dressed as girls being fucked by other guys! My jaw hit the floor. These guys had tits! My broom resting idle, I turned page after page with a innocence of the contents that was unmatched. I had heard of such things but only in whispers.

Laughing whispers, mostly about me.

When my shift ended, I had that magazine with me as I clocked out. I read it, looking at every page like it was a bible. Pouring over the silly advertisements even. Night after night I looked through that ragged thing, devouring every angle, every curve, every breast, with those not-quite-right nipples. My eyes would wander from body to body as my hand instinctively sought to end the ache I felt. My cock hurt... from looking at theirs.

Often at the moment I would cum, I would want to throw the magazine from me. To be rid of the filthy thing. What was wrong with me that I wanted to look at other men?

I felt so alone...

But I wasn't. I wasn't alone. It took me going to Atlanta one weekend to find that out. 

"The streets of that big city are filled with people lost to dark-and-dismal Fate's cruel hand," my Granna had told me. "A place of sinners and the few saints trying to save them."

That was what I had thought to find there when I went. A modern day purgatory filled with the lost. But... no... oh, no that is not what I found.

Atlanta was alive! 

It was a living, breathing thing filled with images and wonders that a simple country boy like me had never thought to see. Buildings that touched the clouds, full of lights that made the stars dim in wonder at their power. Music filled the night, spilling out the doors of hundreds of nightclubs. Most filled beyond capacity with people celebrating. I asked one of them what the party was for. He said life. Just life. Then he handed me a drink I wasn't legal to have, and ushered me in past the doorman.

I danced, if you can call what I was doing dancing, for hours. Hardly able to breathe the press of people was so tight, we moved against one another in predatory groups that surged with the time of the music. The thunder beat that made my ribs hurt. The smell of perfumes giving way to the musky scent of human sweat.

And the hands. They were every where. They touched, caressed, pinched, grabbed, and mine were not idle that night either. My drunken friend vanished, but was replaced with a half dozen more, just as drunk, before the night was over. I had men, women, and, more often than not, both pressed hard up against my chest. In my arms. Feminine, masculine. Perfume, cologne. Hard bodies, soft. As the hours passed, it no longer mattered to me the gender of the person I was dancing with. I was not me. I was simply a part of this living, breathing city.

And then the doors closed for the night.

The streets were cold and a little damp with a early morning mist, as if the very buildings were crying that the music had stopped. Atlanta silently mourned for her now quiet heart.

That was when I met Gabriel. 

She was standing on the corner, down from the club, a vision of lace, and sateen. Long, straight hair, as black as the cold night sky, that danced across the cheeks of her ass when she moved. And oh, how she could move. I found myself just standing there, looking at her, the way a tourist in a museum would look at the art of the great masters. I could see the hand of a great sculptor had been at work to make a body that incredible.

When I found my courage to go talk to her she told me the name of that sculptor. A Dr. Jason Pullman, MD, plastic surgeon, specialist. He had remade Gabriel. Remade her, from the man she had been born, into the woman she had always known she was meant to be.

I loved Gabriel.

I was in love with her within very seconds of meeting her that night. But to love Gabriel was to rent her. She was not for permanent sale, as she jokingly told me. But I loved her none-the-less, even if I could not afford to have her.

So that forbidden-by-cost love made me do what nothing else could have. It made me become the one I loved... or more like her to some extent. It started that very night.

It began with a car so expensive God could have only afforded two. It pulled up next to us, and Gabriel smiled. She leaned into the window when it opened.

"Hello, Mitchel. Looking for the normal weekend of fun?" she asked, with a sassy twitch of her hips. 

"Yes, but who is your friend?" he asked looking me over.

Gabriel looked back at me and grinned.

"This is Alexus. Want him to come along? I know how much you like to drive a Lexus." She smiled at him while she ran her hand over the side of the car. "Susan will love him as well."

That must have sold it to him.

"Alright, an extra two grand. Hop in." He touched a button, and the doors popped open on our side.

Why did I get in? I can't say looking back on that just what was going through my head. I was excited, scared, panting, but so hard it hurt to move in my tight pants. Would I do that? Sell myself to a stranger for money? 

By that time in my life I had sampled sex just once. It hadn't been to my taste, but then the silly girl that took my cherry had been more concerned with me not cumming inside her than with me enjoying it.

I hadn't yet tried it with a boy... a man. The thought to give that a try had been building in me all night as I had danced. Any one of the men who had rubbed their hot bodies against me could have simply asked, and I would have done whatever they wanted. But this? To be paid to have sex with a man? And with a woman too, if I heard Gabriel right.

The man in the car saw my hesitation and grinned.

"Come on. It'll be fun. I promise." From the inside of his pocket he pulled out a money clip that was as thick as a paperback book. He ran his thumb across the bills. "I'll more than make it worth your while."

Gabriel grabbed my arm and dragged me into the car. She was stronger than I by far. I sat nervous the whole way to the monstrosity of marble and glass that was this man's home. My head was filled with thoughts of what was going to happen. What I was going to be asked to do. Could I do it?

Would I enjoy it?

I did. I enjoyed that night more in fact than any night that I can think of before and many since. I learned things. Pleasure. Lack of guilt at tasting that pleasure. I learned that even pain can feel good when you have been brought to a certain point. 

Oh, I felt pain. I was taken by him, more than once. Then his wife had me as well, with a piece of hard plastic that was shaped like a man but had none of the nerves that make a man be careful. It hurt. I screamed in pain, cried in agony from it. Begged them to stop...

Then begged for them to never stop when they did.

I learned the taste of a woman, of a man, of myself and of passion-given seed. I was caressed, spanked, whipped and even beaten, by the descriptions some would give of my bruises the next day.

And I loved it. I loved them. But by far I loved Gabriel.

I got to have her that night, for the first time. I was paid to have sex with the woman I was in love with. For me the money was not even a factor. I was simply there to enjoy what I was doing, and what was being done to me.

For Gabriel it was the money. Well mostly for it. She told me later, when we were at her place sitting on cushions eating breakfast, that sex was her drug of choice. Why would any addict pay for their fix when someone was offering to buy it for them?

I moved in with Gabriel by the end of that week. She took me shopping for clothes in the most expensive stores in Atlanta. I could afford it after all. I had a job.

* * * *

Standing in the normal evening drizzle on the side of Kalakaua Avenue. with my feet killing me in these red, five-inch heels, and my lacy, white thong trying to crawl past my gaff, around my cock and up my ass, I'm thinking about Gabriel. She and I spent years together, living in her little apartment there in the suburbs of Atlanta. Then I had followed her to L.A. to a much bigger place, more sex, more parties, more glam. By far more money. 

That was my bad time. The surgical scars healing, the delight of having breasts coupled with the pain and discomfort of getting used to them. Those were the early hormone years as well, when my body began to readjust. I hurt in places that I didn't want to have.

It was also the times when I had to come to decisions about me. Who I was, what I was, where I was going? 

Gabriel was there for me through all of those times. I loved her still, but like always, to love her was to pay her. She would walk into the bedroom, smile, take a c-bill out my purse, then fuck me like a prom queen virgin.

I learned more about being a woman from someone that hadn't been born one, than I did from those gifted with the standard equipment. She cared for me. That's what she would tell me in the wee hours of the morning as we laid cuddled together, bodies spent, emotional highs spiking from the hormone injections we both took.

She cared... just cared. Not loved, not cherished, just cared.

It was that fact that drove me from her side when the offer came. That and a desire to maybe meet my father. 

The offer was simple. The escort agency would fly us out to Hawaii for two months, during the busiest time for tourists. We would share a big house while we lived and worked there. The agency would get their travel money back, plus twenty percent for lodgings and commission. I laughed when I heard it called that way.

Commission. Like I was a car salesman. Well, I did have some wonderful lines, a nice set of after factory additions, and I was still, given my age, low mileage.

And there was now nothing I would not do.

After all, what is there new under the lights for someone walking the wet streets of Waikiki? Nothing is perverse to a person that wants to do it. I have been paid to do things I hadn't even heard of before I left Georgia. Some of them I loved and would do again in a moment. Others, I would only do if the money was very good. 

And the money here was always very good.

The island would be thronged with Asian and American tourists that come with more money than they knew how to spend and a lust to experience something new.

Well, Alexus Mano Leia could be new for them. I knew how to be anything they wanted me to be.

The man that walked up to me in the drizzle was probably Japanese. Not that it really mattered where he called home. He was here. His money was here. His new experience was certainly here.

"Hello," he said in very stinted English.

"Konbanwa," I told him with a soft smile. His eyes lit up.

Yes, his place of birth was Japan. He was delighted that I could speak to him, nearly fluently. He loved my hair, my eyes, the color of my skin. From his eyes I could tell he loved my tits, and the curves of my hips.

His name was Yoshi. Yeah right. I've been fucked by more Yoshi's than there are grains of rice in a sushi platter.

I took Mr. Yoshi to a local home where every type of pleasure you could want to buy is for sale, including me of course. The agency rented us space in several places around here like these. Mr. Yoshi wanted to be sucked, what man didn't, so I took him to one of the rooms filled with pillows and cushioned, beanbag-style, chairs.

Kneeling on the cushions I looked up at him and smiled. He was nervous. A lot of the guys I bring here are. Afraid of the law or afraid this is a trick of some kind. That's not a silly fear, there are people here and in may other places that would take a "Johnny Yoshi" like this one and, while I distracted him, put a steel baseball bat to the back of his head.

He would never wake up from that.

To me that's killing the cow that's still giving a lot of milk.

As his cock fell out of his pants, I moved my fingers to around the base, tightening them slightly. A gentle tug and I felt the blood flow increase. So did the panting of his breath. He began to harden in my hand, to thicken. I'm here to tell you from experience that the urban legend of Asian men being small is just that. They are, like most men really, the average size of six to seven inches. 

I'll leave it to the ones that care to measure those half, quarter, eighths and sixteenths of an inch.

To me it's a cock. I'm more concerned that it's clean. Which I'm happy to say a lot of my customers are. Imagine that. They will clean their cocks before going to a hooker. Nice of them.

Not that it would stop this money train from rolling along if he wasn't. I would simply grab a wash cloth and take care of it before I got started.

I placed a kiss on the head, then a second, then lipped the end. I let my tongue lick the little hole only once, just to make him jump. Opening up, I let him slide in. The days of me feeling any kind of guilty emotions after doing this with a man, for money, vanished before I ever left Georgia. Across the tongue, brushing the roof of my mouth right to the top of my throat and he stopped. My lips pressed against his sack, my nose in short black hair. Clutching him, I made him go just a bit deeper by burying my nose into him. He clutched at my head, his hands in my "hair" I let my teeth press into the base and he turned me loose. I scraped them down the length of him till I caught the head between my teeth and applied pressure. I let him pop out of my mouth.

Looking up at him, I smiled.

"You yank my wig off, I'll bite the end off. Understand?"

"Hai," he said nervously.

"Then we are good. Enjoy."

Back into my mouth, back down to the base. I think the threat actually made him harder. I worked at the length of him letting the saliva build so my mouth slid easily. I could tell that the sound of my mouth really had him turned on. To me I sounded like a pig but he seemed to like it.

My mind drifted back to Gabriel then, as it often does when I'm sucking cock, to the many nights when I would do this for him. Then he for me. He taught me to make a man scream with just my mouth. No hands or fingers around the shaft the way some do this. 

"It's a Blow Job for gods sake. It's suppose to be your mouth," she would tell me, as I worked on him. Gabriel had a wonderful method of teaching. A real hands on. He would tell me how to do something, and if I couldn't get it right he would show me what he meant. I'll admit to not learning as quickly as I could on occasion. 

Even as my mind was bringing back memories of a hot night in L.A... when I dropped two grand in his lap and spent the night showing him all that he had taught me, I felt Mr. Yoshi's cock jump and his hands clamped down over my ears. Having an ear-ring get driven into the skin behind my ear wasn't pleasant, so when he began to cum, I just let him rather than sucking to pull more out.


F4: Life in Suspension



Not that he cared. He got what he wanted.

They all do. They all get what they want, and I get what I want. The money, the feeling of being so sexy someone will pay me for it, and the fun of controlling their every pleasure.

My name is Alexus Mano Leia. And I'm a sex addict.

* * * *

"Hello, my sexy little shark," purred a voice in my ear when I answered the phone half-awake, half-asleep. I smiled to hear it.

"Hello, my beautiful angel." I told Gabriel, as I rolled onto my side. "Where are you?"

"L.A.X," she told me,shifting the phone.

I could have guessed, hearing the noise behind her. I could just envision her running in her impossibly high heels, her body encased in sprayed on Lycra, the color of the sky. Every eyeball in the whole place following her ass, while she dragged a piece of luggage the size of a Volkswagen behind her.

"Are you coming here?" I asked, hopefully. She told me that she might think of doing the Hawaii thing, if money got tight enough. We were both pretty flush at the moment so I hadn't expected this. "Are there money issues?"

"No, and no. I'm catching a midnight flight to Houston. Got a call from a client I used to know in Atlanta. You know and love him... and his pretty wife." I heard Gabriel's heels tapping the floor tiles.

"Mitchel and Susan? Oh! My! God! I wish I was there! Tell them I said hello no... tell them I said Aloha." I sat up in the bed and pulled my feet in under me. "It's not fair."

"Oh, don't pout. I'll talk them into having us both back, just as soon as you get home. How is the money flowing?" she asked as naughty as he could say it.

I grabbed one of my pillows and pulled it to my chest. My breasts rested on top of it to help support their weight.

"With a distinctively Asian flavor." I rocked a little and wiped a tear from my eye. Just the sound of her voice. "I wish you were here."

There was a pause then a sigh so soft I almost didn't catch it.

"Don't get all maudlin my little shark. We'll see each other soon. Give me a second." I just held the phone while she talked to the ticket agent. "You still there?"

"Yeah."

"Look, I'm going to have to let you go, Hun. We're about to board, and they are giving me the evil eye." I felt the tears start to flow then. She must have heard. "Alexus... have you been taking too much of your Spiro? You are all but PMSing."

"No! I'm taking my normal, 'piss-yourself-to-death' dose. I just miss you," I told her softly, hugging the pillow to me.

I heard a soft chuckle then, far more manly than she normally will make, then her more feminine laugh.

"Are you missing me, or is your ass just missing my cock?" she asked, all low and sexy.

"Both."

"Well, good for you. They are both easily taken care of. I'll be seeing you in about two weeks. I'm going to get enough money from Mitchel and Sharon to let me catch up on everything we owe and still have enough to buy me a plane ticket out to there. I'm not going to work though. My tired tits are taking a vacation, girl!"

"Not even with me?" I asked teasingly.

"Oh, shut the fuck up. Look, I got to go. Love you..."

The phone clicked dead before I could reply. I'm not sure I could have spoken anyway. In all our years together she had never said that to me. My heart broke like a dam and the tears that began to gush out my eyes were like the water over the dam breaking. Two other "ladies", Julia and Silvia, that lived here with me came to see what all the crying was about.

I hugged them so hard they protested, then I dragged them into the bed, squealing like a teenager, as I started a tickle war.

* * * *

The bathroom in the terminal at Houston, Texas is like almost every airport ladies room I have been in. It was cold, like the air conditioner was set to run only in this room. It smelled of cleaners, those tended to vary from city to city but here it was stinky pine.

Looking in the mirror, my eyes are like shiny jewels in a sea of black mascara. I'm making myself not think. I must not think. I must not think.

"Are you okay?" I heard behind me.

When I turned around, and she got a better look at me, her expression changed.

"You do know this is a women's restroom?" Her tone was acidic bile being spewed out with every verb, every noun, every god-forsaken syllable. My eyes, within their bird's nest of black, took in the look of disgust on her face as she looked me over. "YOU need to get out of here! Decent 'women' are trying to use this restroom and can't, till a pervert like you leaves."

I needed comfort. I needed a shoulder to cry on. I needed at least a wet napkin so I could fix my face. And what I got was her. This saggy-titty, pouch-bellied, granny-flapped, excuse for a human being.

"Get fucked, you cunt," I told her.

As I walked past her and out the door, I heard her say something to the lady that passed me on her way in.

"All these sick weirdos need to get dragged behind trucks, like that pervert in up in Baytown. Imagine the nerve of him coming in here to pee like he's a real woman!"

I was crying so hard that security came and took me out the concourse. After a lot of questioning, I was placed in a cab by a man that seemed to understand. He told the driver where I needed to go. 

The driver didn't want to take me.

I tossed the guy a hundred dollar bill over the front seat to make him shut up. When he looked back and saw the folded wad I had on me, he became my dearest friend. I finally told him to shut up and just drive after about five miles of him trying to comfort me.

The long cab ride was not what I needed. What I needed was my Gabriel.. My poor... my poor Gabriel. I had seen the news headlines while half awake. Then, when they had fully sunk into my grief besotted brain, I threw the TV out the front door, while screaming his name at the heavens to make them give him back.

I wanted to do that now. To drive to the middle of no where and lift my head to the sky and howl out my pain. It didn't feel human to hurt this bad... but then, given what humans had done to my lover... my love... my beloved Gabriel. I didn't want to be human anymore. 

They were sick, diseased creatures that all needed to die. Those monsters that had chained his lovely ankles together and hooked him... Oh god, Gabriel.

Hugging my self, I dug my fingernails into my arms till I bled, trying to feel, in some small way, the pain he must have endured. I leaned my head against the cold glass window and looked out at the approaching light of the gas refineries that is most of Baytown.

* * * *

The room was cold. It smelled of antiseptic, which I thought was funny. No one that was staying there could catch a cold, and anyone that was coming to visit them was like me. Dead inside already.

The room was cold.

So was he.

They had kept me waiting for four hours before they let me see him, and only then decided to because they wanted someone to identify the body. The had said that because I wasn't immediate family or married to him by California law, I had no legal right to view him. 

At first they hadn't wanted to even let me be into the hospital where his body was being kept.

So I picked up a ballpoint pen from the front desk and stabbed my left hand hard enough to drive the tip out my palm.

That didn't go over well. But it got me in the doors.

Finally, the detective in charge of the case showed up and paved the road to where I was standing now. The morgue. 

Gabriel would have laughed... if he hadn't been dead.

The Human Meat Locker he had always jokingly called the place. The next-to-the-last stop on the dead man train. For a time my lover had gone through a Gothic phase. Morbid had been the normal for him. That he was stretched out on a gurney, a big "Y" cut across that lovely chest, would have been a hysterical joke to his twisted mind.

But he was dead, and I didn't find it funny.

No.

Not funny at all.

As I took in what had been done to him, I dropped to my knees next to the gurney, and tried to scream denial of the destruction of his beauty. But my throat was too raw for sound. My heart too broken to beat, my mind useless for anything but painful memories.

"Mr. Kyle?"

I tried to speak but couldn't.

"Mr...Ky..."

"DO I LOOK LIKE A MR. TO YOU?" I screamed at him, with a throat on fire. "DO I?"

* * * *

I couldn't go back to L.A. The apartment had always been in his name, but there was nothing of me there that I would miss, and what I would miss of him wasn't there either.

The wad of cash in my pocket got me a hotel room, a bottle of gin, and enough packs of over-the-counter sleeping pills to do the job I intended.

Why not?

I mean who would miss me?

My Mom? She had disowned me the moment I came out. 

My Dad? He was an 'Ice' smoking junkie, more drunk than alive, who had spat on me when I introduced myself to him.

My Granna? She was... well, she was with Gabriel. Probably teaching him to make her potato salad. He hated potato salad, but for her he would have made it and even acted like he was enjoying it. She had that way with people.

The list of other people I knew was nothing but a who's who of hookers and johns. But then who was I to be judging anyone? What was I if not a whore living day to day just sucking and fucking? Who was I but another lost soul on Charon's boat?

How I had earned the coins for my trip would stand against me in the next life, no doubt. Not that I cared. Let me be a whore then as well. So long as I had my Gabriel there to show me how to suck cock... How to make a John cum in moments and have him believe it was his fault.

How to put my makeup on, how to dress, how to walk, how to talk, how to do every god damn thing that I should have learned to do from someone who would tell me they loved me more than once in the decade and a half I had known them. Slept with them. 

Loved them.

I was broken. Just finish it already. Be there with him. Granna will fuss, no doubt, but I could always make her smile. That sweet smile, with her front teeth gap and twenty dozen wrinkles. 

BethAnn?

The pills were in my hand. The bottle was at my lips. Why did the thought of my second cousin suddenly give me pause? We hadn't spoken in a few years. Unlike most of my family she hadn't turned away from me but at the same time she was shunned if she talked to me too much.

BethAnn...

I let the pills fall onto the cheep hotel comforter that I had intended to be my death shroud. Picking up the phone I dialed out and got an operator.

"Macon, Georgia please. A Mrs. BethAnn Tomas."

I took a huge drink of gin as I waited. Then another.

* * * *

My head leaned against the glass, I watched the cold lights of New Orleans slide past in the dark. They were soon lost in the distance behind me. Lost in that dark past I was running from. I shifted my vision till I was looking at my reflection in the glass.

I looked like hell, even to my own eyes, but I was at least me again. Alexus. The mental me that I had been since that first night in Atlanta when Gabr... when I had gotten into a car to go perform sex for money.

How many times have I sat in a bar somewhere, so late at night it's tomorrow, listening to my fellow 'sisters of the street' talking about their first trick. How bad it had been, how much that had anguished over it. Then the guilt afterwords. Then how, like the coke addicts most of them were, they had returned to it again. And of course again.

The lure of that easy money is like the lure of the fame that drives a runaway to the lights of L.A. You have needs so simple and basic at the start. Nothing more complicated than maybe enough to eat and a warm bed. The simple human needs of any of us. But then the money comes in, and you find that those are too simple. You want the next thing, and the next. The twenty thousand dollar car seems out of reach, and then you realize you could pay for it in cash, if you worked three weeks doing the shit no one else wants to do.

But, then you have memories that wake you screaming. If you're lucky you have you someone to cling to there in the dark. Someone to wipe away the tears and hold you till the shaking stops. If not?

A warm "John" with a hard cock, a bottle of champagne, enough coke to kill a rockstar, any of those will take the place of a friend in the dark. Not as good as, but then what in this world is.

Family?

For those like us, the streets have to be our homes and the twisted relationships of pimps and whores, our bothers and sisters. Like every family. It's dysfunctional but damn to hell anyone outside that crosses that line. That's what it felt like I had done when I called BethAnn. Crossed the line and reached beyond the accepted bounds of my place in life.

I was Alexus. Streetwalker, escort,TS, goddess... whore.

Who the fuck was I to be calling decent people and asking for something like help?

"Hi there," came a voice into my darkness.

He was clean cut. College-boy looking. Nice clothes, but not too nice. I could tell he had money, but not the type that would have let him fly. 

Or maybe he just liked trains. Or was scared to fly.

"Can I join you?" he asked, with a smile.

Part of me wanted to send him away. He looked too young to be wanting to play the game he had in mind. But then... how old was I when I got into that car that night? Probably younger than he.

"Please, I would like that." I told him softly as I moved my purse. He slid in next to me and met my eyes with a gaze I knew well. Male lust. He was bathed in it, from the top of his dark hair to those nice, shiny shoes. This young man wanted me. He wanted me to take him to places that he would remember for the rest of his life. I might remember him tomorrow.

Just as likely, I might not.

"I'm Albert."

Of course you are.

"Nice to meet you, Albert. I'm Alexus. Enjoying the train ride?" I asked.

"Oh yes. I love trains. Takes me back to when I was a kid, playing with my train set." His smile was all innocence.

Reaching over, I placed my hand on his knee. 

"I had one of those." I lied.

There had never been money for those kinds of toys. Santa would get my letter ever year asking for things like that but he would always forget to pack it on his sleigh. Maybe next year. Maybe next year. Maybe...

Albert, looked at my hand on his leg, and his smile turned into a grin.

How easily played they are. Like any game there are rules, moves within moves. All you have to do is make a move out of the normal play, and the fact that you are eager for sex flashes straight to their brains. Just that simple bit of flirting and he was hooked. Not landed yet, but hooked. Now to set it.

"You know I don't really feel like beating around the bush tonight." I told him running my hand a bit further up his leg. "I'm the type of girl that likes to be the center of attention at the party. Do you like to be that? When you party?" His breathing tightened. Good, he had watched 'Hookers at the Point.' I hate having to explain. "Would you like to maybe go to a party? With me?"

My hand rubbed across a hard bulge. It wasn't the one I cared about of course. He was most likely sitting on that one, but this was was nice enough.

"Yeah." He breathed, nervously. "I would like that a lot."

I looked up.

"I managed to get me one of the sleepers. There is plenty of room up there. Why don't you come... up there with me and we'll talk about it some more?" I let my hand rest on the bulge. I thought he was going to choke to death trying to speak, so I just took his hand and stood up. "Come with me."

I led him though the train and up to the second level to where my sleeping car was. Meant for two people, I had left the top bunk folded up against the ceiling, but I had the bottom one pulled out. The... would you call them stewardesses on a train?... had been in and turned down the sheets. I felt the man behind me wanting to hurry, so I slowed down. I leaned back against his chest as he closed the door behind us.

"You do understand that I'm not free, yes?" I asked softly. "But I am well worth the price."

"Money's not a problem. I have cash on me. You just name a figure." His voice was husky, laced with lust and desire. Desire for me. His hand came around my waist and slid down to cup my mound. He stopped, then his hand moved as if searching.. "I thought.... I mean... you're a guy right? I wasn't wrong about that was I?"

I turned in his arms and looked up in his suddenly wide eyes. 

"Well, if I'm not... you have just insulted me right?" I placed a finger on his lips, silencing him. "I'll be everything you want me to be. A guy, a girl, a woman, a man, a virgin or a slut. You just tell me what you want me to be."

"My first," he said softly.

I stopped cold. Now it was my heart that tripped over a step.

"Tranny that is. I mean I've had girls... and a guy, but never..." He started to stumble over his words. "Well... a... you know."

Laughing at him, I sank down onto the bed pulling him down with me, by his hands. His body, hard with youth and probably sports, came to rest between my open legs. His khaki slacks rubbed against the inside of my thighs then the hard bulge pushed up against me. I slid my hands down his back and under the tan cloth to clutch his tight ass in both palms.

"Albert." I said his name like a lover would, all soft and hot next to his ear. "I'm a woman with needs. Can you see to my needs?"

Sitting up, he looked down at me as I unbuttoned my top and let my bra show. The nearly see-through fabric did nothing to hide the inky darkness of my nipples. Nor did it hide the outline of my barbell piercings.

With a frantic haste he began to shed his shirt, then standing up, his pants. I didn't let the smile show when the designer underwear appeared. It dropped to the floor just as fast as a pair of tighty whites would have. His cock was hard and twitching with the need to cum.

I pulled my breasts free, and taking hold of the metal bar, gave it a twist that made the nipple ache. When I looked down, I could see that he was not wanting to touch himself. He was already close to cumming just from the whole forbidden fruit that I am. I decided to have pity on him. After all I was to be his first... well you know.

Sitting up, I reached over into my purse and pulled out a condom. I could open these blind folded with both hands tied behind me. Don't ask me how I know that, just go with the fact it is so. I popped it into my mouth, enjoying the peppermint taste for a second as I aligned it, then grabbing his hips, pushed it down the length of his cock without touching him.

As I slid my way down the slick length of latex, my mouth went cold from the flavoring. I looked up to see his eyes wide. I smiled in modest pride.

Moving quickly I rolled over to my belly. When I looked back at him, his eyes were on my ass. I peeled the thong down to my knees, taking the gaff with it at the same time. Lifting up a little, I let my cock fall forward, out the way, and then settled back. I gave my ass a wiggle. Nuzzling the pillow, I moaned.

"Don't keep me waiting, Albert. I need it." Looking back at him, I faked innocent. "Please be gentle, though."

I let my teeth take a bit of the pillow case between them, as I looked back at him.

His weight hit me, pushing me into the mattress pad, even as I felt his cock trying to slip between my cheeks. He reached between us and more of his weight came down on me as he fumbled around trying to find the dark rose. Then he was there and with a cry from him, his cock began to enter.

I winced at the slight pain, even as I pushed to open myself, to let him deeper. I knew, as I felt him slide in, that I should have used some lube besides spit, but even as I thought that I was glad I hadn't. I needed this pain. I needed it to make me hurt, to try and find a way to match the hurt I was feeling.




F4: Life in Suspension



His hands caught up both of my breasts, the finger twisting the piercing till I cried out. That seemed to fuel his desire. His thrusts came hard then harder again. I felt myself being forced open around him and loved the agony even while I wanted to cry from it.

Tear were indeed forming in my eyes, but they had nothing to do with the familiar pain of sex. I felt not Albert's hard hands but Others. Long nails should be raking my tits, digging into my shoulders, holding me in place while a far more experienced cock plowed me. The hot breath on my neck should be scented with wine and that ridiculously hot curry chicken Gabriel loved so much.

I felt Albert when he began to cum. It was not the orgasmic cry of my lover, but the harsh sounds of a lustful youth. I pushed back on him even as he was trying to gather breath. I drove myself up, impaling my body on his softening length and then I clamped down on him as hard as I could.

"Just hold it there. Let it last. Don't try and pull out." I whispered to him as I let the wet pillowcase slip from between my teeth. "That felt wonderful, Albert, but there is no need to rush. We have all night to play."

Panting for breath, he did as I said for a long time,and then ever so slowly I felt him slipping out. As I turned, I made sure my thigh covered my cock. He might like the idea of being with a TS, but the reality of it was very different after you have just cum. Certainly for your first time. I cannot count the men that, upon seeing my cock, have suddenly discover they had some place to urgently be.

I feared that Albert might be the same. I didn't want him to leave. I needed... I needed... A warm "John" with a hard cock, a bottle of champagne, enough coke to kill a rockstar...

A friend in the dark.

Albert?

Not as good as, but then what in this world is?

* * * *

With the half grand of his new keeping my older money company, I parted ways with Albert. He was meeting his fiancee at the train station, and they were going to continue on up to New York together. I teased him that she was going to be such a lucky girl to have a big strong man that could show her just how to suck a cock.

He had blushed.

Closets are so... Adorable!

I had no trouble spotting my cousin BethAnn. The big-breasted black woman waiting on the platform for me could have been my Aunty D, not her daughter. She looked around, as the train disembarked its passengers, but never once let her eyes come to rest on me till I was standing almost on her toes. It took her two double takes to accept what she was seeing.

"Oh My Sweet Lord! I am not believing what I my eyes is seeing. Oh, hell no, this ain't right. No man should look that damn sexy in a dress. And what the hell you been living on? Air? Everyone else in this family looks like Granna fucked the Michelin man."

Laughing, I wrapped her chubby body up in a fierce hug. She held me tight, whispering a name to me that I no longer answer to. We were both dripping tears on each other as the minutes passed, and neither would relinquish the hug.

"Your titties are squashing my titties, boy. Now done turn me loose, already." She finally managed to get me to agree to that, but not at the first complaint. Then she was back up against me, but this time it was her arms around me as I totally broke down.

Through the gasping sobs I managed to tell her about Gabriel, what had happened to him. Even how close I had come to following him, although why I told her that, I don't know. It earned me a pop to the side of my head. Then a kiss on the cheek.

Her husbands car was not new. It was not even nice to look at, being more rust and faded paint than original pale blue, but it ran. Which was all that BethAnn told me mattered. Either way, it got us where we were going, which was a place I thought that I would never go back too. 

Macon, Georgia had changed in the time since I had been gone, but then so had I. Nothing stays the same forever, least of all small towns. The people get recycled, more like cans than bottles. Crushed first. I could see examples of that in progress as we drove through old neighborhoods. Places that had once been, well, to me at that time, filled with rich homes were now all but slums. Most with a half dozen cars in the front yard. A yard that, in most cases, hadn't seen a mower since I left.

My jaw dropped when we passed the old high school. The windows were boarded up but the signs of a major fire were still everywhere. The trees that had once leaned against it were all dead on one side.

"When did that happen?" I asked.

"Couple years back. They said it was the old wiring. I think it's funny that the new school's construction funds turned up just weeks latter, when they had been telling us there wasn't money for a new school. You know what else..."

The rest of the way to her house was a gossip fest about people I didn't even half remember and a tirade about local politics and who was the most crooked. It passed the time at least.

Her husband, Harles Tomas, well, to say that he hated me on sight was putting it mildly. He, however, voiced only one complaint then got told to shut his fool mouth or she would shut it for him. With a frying pan!

Her children, however, didn't know quite what to make of me. Especially since BethAnn would not call me Alexus.

It was those kids though that made me come to realize that no matter what, no matter how hard this life could get, there was always going to be some small bit of pure innocence. 

"Are you playing dress-up?" asked my little third cousin. 

She asked that question, with her head tilted as if to consider what she saw. When I smiled and nodded she went to her room and came back with two old dolls and a set of plastic tea cups. That was how I, dressed in my glamorous best, found myself having "coffee" with her and her two 'fashion model' friends.

"Why Coffee? Why not tea?" I asked, smiling.

"Only queers like my brother Kyle drink tea," she said just as plain as plain.

When I looked up to find BethAnn standing there with her hand over her mouth, I smiled. 

"Who told you that?" I asked, already knowing the answer.

"Daddy." She lifted the little teapot. "Would you like more coffee?"

I placed my hand over the cup in front of me, like I would have in my favorite coffee house.

"No thank you, hun. I would rather have tea."

* * * *

The night air was filled with the rusty harp sound of cicadas, "katydids" as my Granna called them, but the human noise continued on far past that point. I wanted silence.

Harles, it appeared, was a cop show junky and his favorite was S.V.U. New York. I could take only so much of it when the episode he was watching featured a young girl, raped,by her father, to make her not a lesbian. BethAnn's husband muttered something under his breath about that being the only way to end that kind of perversion.

I had to get out that house.

The night air was the warm sultry blanket that is the south in the spring. It enfolded me, in tight arms of humidity that made me uncomfortable, but then the breeze that blew across my face was so like a hairdryer that I had to just close my eyes and enjoy it.

The slap of the screen door broke my meditation. My cousin looked at me then offered me a cigarette. It had been years since I had smoked something that wasn't illegal, but what the hell. The nicotine rush was a good buzz in itself.

"What did she mean?" I asked when the silence grew. 

BethAnn knew what I was talking about because she took my arm and led me away from the house to a tall tree nearby. There were dozens of old kitchen chairs under it and an old oil drum that showed the signs of hundreds of fires. It stank of old ashes, and the ground around it had a littler of cheap liquor bottles. I looked at her till she gave a mighty sigh.

"My son Kyle is gay. He's not Harles's child. He's from my first marriage. Harles did raise him though for the most part." She hugged herself as if cold despite the heat, the tree's heavy branches blocked the breeze that I had been enjoying. "He told us two weeks ago. That he was gay. He just said it out the blue like. Harles... well, he didn't take it well, not well at all. He and Kyle nearly got into a fight and then, when I stopped it, he told Kyle to leave. To leave and not come back."

"Where did he go?" I asked.

"He has friends in Atlanta. He went to stay with them. Gay friends." Her voice left nothing to the imagination about what she thought her son was doing there. I could see in her eyes the imagined orgies of male flesh, that she envisioned her son was a part of. Given it was Atlanta, she could be right.

But for some reason I... I don't know. I guess I had always thought I had the monopoly of weird in this family. I pictured her son, having never seen him, as some younger version of myself. A version that lacked a Gabriel.

The ache of my loss returned ten fold. How my lost lover would have laughed to hear my thoughts now. Me... wanting to charge to the rescue, to defend this blood of my blood from the pain of the world, to guide him in the ways of the world. Who was I, his father? Looking at the womanly curves of my cousin, I think back to old emotions, lusts, and memories I had once carried. For her. Those were from those strange years when I had not known just what I wanted, but knew that what I had was not it.

It had been a crush. Nothing more than that. But still...

"I'm going to go to Atlanta to see if I can contact some old friends of my own." I told her looking towards her house where I could hear her husband laughing. "Want me to see if I can find him?"

"I know where he is staying. I have the address. If you would check up on him I would love that. I'm worried about him."

"Of course you are. You're his mother. It's what they are supposed to do." I smiled at her as she looked up at me. "I just wish that mine had taken the time to worry about me."

My cousin was in my arms then. She hugged me tight, then led me over to one of the chairs. Over the next hour she told me things I had not known. Things that I had never known. The years that my mother had worried herself nearly into the hospital over what was happening to me. The drunken confessions of shame that she had shared with BethAnn's mom. Aunty Ds had called her a fool and made her promise to track me down and call me, but then as soon as my mom would sober up she would recount it all. I was a pervert. The ultimate shame of her life. The son she did not speak of.

It hurt. Of course it did.

BethAnn made me promise to go talk to her before I left.

Before I left? Was it that clear to my cousin that I could never say here? This was no longer home to me. The streets and the night life I had lived for so long were already calling to me.

Her husband laughed again, then started calling for her to get him a beer.

She left me there under that tree alone with the darkest of thoughts. I listened to the rusty harped bugs and wished. Oh, how I wished. What I wished for I can't recall, but I know it was for more than the life I had.

* * * *

That I found Kyle in club Traxx was no surprise. That he was being the best man at a wedding was.

I felt the eyes on me as I walked in. Some of them were nice, some where not so nice. I was a TS in a gay club, to more than a few here I was a traitor to both sides of the fence.

But I looked hot.

Alexus Mano Leia could look nothing but hot as I descended upon the city of my second birth. If you know they are going to look, then look like a goddess walking among them. My silky black hair, the only thing my father ever gave me, was out from under my normal wig. Styled till I gleamed with glitter and promises, I moved into the crowd looking for my intended prey. 

More than a few hands took a free feel that earned them a flirty look and a blown kiss, no matter the gender.

A young man, who wanted the world to think he was a gangster, decided that I had the body he was looking for. His friends gave him hell when I shut him down. He was a child of another generation, not that I don't like young as the delighted Albert found out, but I didn't feel like teaching tonight. From what I could see just by the way he moved, he had a lot to learn.

A far-more-refined man I allowed to buy me a drink. He was the type of gentleman panther I would normally love to feel against my back, but not tonight. Tonight I was here for Kyle.

He was younger than I had thought he would be, or maybe that was just me feeling my own years. He didn't look like his mother, and given that I had never seen his father I had nothing to judge him by but himself. He was... a child of the hip hop generation. Dressed to impress a much younger piece of hotness. He stood so very tall up there as he helped a friend seal the holy bonds of matrimony. 

I watched, enjoying the scene. Then I began to wish that it wasn't two strangers up there but that it was me and Gabr... It hit me hard then. Turning away from the happy scene, I went to the bar and ordered enough gin and juice to bathe in. I was sipping my way through my second big glass when I heard the I do's and the crowd cheered the kiss. A slow tear ran down my cheek.

Why was I here? To help a third cousin I didn't even know? What was I doing? What was I going to say? And from the looks of things he was doing alright. Why should I interfere? 

Looking over the top of my glass I watched the happy couple and the wedding party being toasted. Kyle had a rather handsome young man under his arm. A little twinky for my taste, but then who am I to talk.

Suddenly, I had to get out of there. The feel of the place wasn't mine. It was as strange to me as being in a white country and western bar would have been. I headed out the door and into the light drizzle, wishing I hadn't come here. There was nothing for me here. Nothing left in this city that had once been my home.

I opened my umbrella, to protect my hair, by habit.

The bottle of pills in an anonymous hotel room... why didn't I take them? I could be happy now, by his side getting ready to go live another life or to just dwell there together in whatever version of heaven that would let us in.

Why my feet took me there I don't know. When I stood before the darkened windows and the chain locked rosewood doors I just stared, numbly. Club 708... my god the memories that began in this place. Now it was cold, the music dead. The inside probably smelled of old makeup, sweat, and latex still, but I could feel that its heart had stopped. The dancers and players drifted off to some other dance... some other place to play. Did I want to go find those?

Why bother? Gabriel was dead. My love was dead. My heart was as dead as the music in the old club. It was dead and cold, and just like the club all I had left was blackened windows, chained shut doors and a fading smell of old makeup... sweat... and latex. 

Turning away from that one more lost piece of my happy past, to go and maybe find a dry place to let it all fall away, I stopped.

He was young. Young and getting his dress soaked with rain. His wig was something bought in a second hand store. Something your mother might wear when it took to long to fix her hair. His dress was nice enough, but worn too many times. The new was long gone from it.

I could tell he didn't know how to walk in those heels he was wearing. He could hardly stand in them.

As I watched a white van pulled up next to him and he leaned into the window. I didn't need to hear what he was telling the driver I could imagine it far better. I saw that the back windows of the van were covered. So were the side.

Stepping quickly on those wet sidewalks, I was by his side when his hand went for the door handle. Mine got there first, and I blocked him even as my umbrella covered him, taking him out of the rain.

I looked in the van at the driver. I smiled at him.

"Drive off real nice and slow like, and I'll not fill the back of this heap with nine millimeter. You understand me? Sugar pie?"

The driver got the hint and eased away. When I looked to the young man, I saw that he was mad at me. I smiled at this. So innocent.

"What the hell did you do that...?" he began.

"Never! Get. Into. A. Van!" I stressed each word with a poke to his chest. "If you don't know the driver, hell even if you do know the driver. If you can't see who is in the back of that thing, you never do it!"

He was mad at me still. I could see that maybe I had gotten him to thinking, but he was still angry.

"How much? For your time there, sweety? How much you asking?" I let my eyes play across that tender face. With the right hand at work he could be... "And what is your name?"

"You a cop?" he asked, suddenly suspicious.

"Finally he thinks." Reaching to my blouse I pulled it to the side and showed him my pierced nipple. The heavy breast falling free of the deep cut cleavage easily. "Want to search me for a wire?"

His eyes were drawn to my chest like he had glued them there.

"I'm... I'm... Candy Luscious. I'm fifty dollars an hour?" 

Oh, my god.

I had to hide my smile, but even as I tried to do that, I saw him get madder.

"You just cost me fifty bucks!"

Tucking my boob back in I pull my money clip from the other side. I pulled a fifty from it, but held it away from him.

"How about if you give this to me, Candy and I show you how to earn two thousand a night? How about two thousand an hour? Would that be worth fifty bucks to you, Candy?"

"What are you talking about?" he asked.

"Let's get out the rain, and I'll tell you. There is a place down the street here. Come on, I'll buy you a cup of coffee." I told him putting the fifty back for now.

"I prefer tea," he said after a half sneeze.

Smiling, I handed him a bit of perfumed silk.

"Of course you do." I said.

We talked long into the night, then I made a call and we got a limo ride to a place I know. The man that lives there loves to be generous. He didn't even mind that I woke him up when I called but... But together, with me showing Candy how to do everything, we made up for his lack of sleep.

His generosity gave us the security deposit. We moved into the apartment the next day, then went furniture shopping. Then, when everything was perfect there, we went clothes shopping for Candy. By the time I was done, she was fierce.

And in love with me. I saw it in her eyes.

As I watched her trying on a dress I imagined I felt a hand on my shoulder. I laid my fingers atop it and wished I could feel those gentle hands once more.

Goodbye, Gabriel. I'll teach him well.

Like you did me.