Butterflies in Heat (13 page)

"Where's your friend?" he'd asked, sitting up and rubbing his head.

"At the hospital.
It
was just a scratch, but you should have heard that man carry on. Like a pig with his nuts cut off. You really thought he was hurting me?"

"You were screaming"

"My sweet little baby," she said, gIVIng him another wet kiss. "You'll soon learn when hurt becomes heaven for a woman. I was just starting to enjoy it when you came barging in with my kitchen knife"

Suddenly, he was conscious he was entirely naked. Not a stitch on. He fumbled around, reaching for a faded quilt.

"Don't you go getting modest with me," Louise said. "Always hiding that peter. I ain't never seen it till tonight when I put you to bed."

Embarrassed and ashamed, he muttered to let go and reached for the quilt again.

Her hands snaked down his body, ensnaring the curly hairs of his lower abdomen. "You're becoming a real big boy, real big, and I hadn't even noticed. Imagine that!" She talked to his cock as if it were separate from himself, making cooing sounds. "You like Louise's warm hands on him? Look, he's growing bigger! Now just you lay back and spread your skinny legs"

Numie tried to swallow, but maybe his throat was too dry.
It
sounded more like a gulp.

'Tonight old Louise is gonna teach you the best lesson a gal can teach a boy. Now, just you relax. 'Cause I'm a gal who likes to take her time. Lazy Louise, they call me."

She'd been in total charge that night. He hadn't really enjoyed anything, but had been completely fascinated, completely under her spell.

After they were through, she wobbled across the floor, giggling and half drunk. She reached for one of her Valentine candy boxes and untied its shiny satin ribbon. "You get first prize tonight, you little mother-fucker," she had said, tying the red ribbon around his cock. Later she slipped the ten-dollar bill under his pillow. 'That's the first time Louise has ever paid for it, but you earned it.
It
was good having something fresh for a change."

"Stop thinking about sex," Lola said, emerging from the kitchen with a plate of food. For one brief moment, she thought Numie was thinking of some body other than her own.

Numie gulped down the scrambled eggs, then sliced the bacon and tasted Lola's freshly brewed coffee. At least, she was a better cook than Louise. "You sure make good coffee"

"My daddy taught me," she said. 'Taught me a lot of things." Her voice drifted off.
It
wasn't easy thinking about her old man.

"Where's he now?" Numie asked matter-of-factly, not caring.

"Dead," she said blankly. She barged into the bathroom and stared at her face in the mirror. The results didn't please her at all. Not enough sleep last night.
It
was hard being a sex object.

Back in the living room, she was rubbing her hands over a wooden Cuban cigar box. "Numie," she said impulsively. 'Would you smoke one of these cigars? They're from Havana."

"A Havana cigar," he said, surprised.
"Sur~.
I've always heard about them." Taking one from her, he lit it and settled back on the sofa.

She studied him for a long moment. The smell was so familiar.
It
brought back recent memories of the Commodore, but in some vague and distant way she conjured up her father sitting there. He sure did smoke different from Numie. "Child," she said, jerking the cigar from him, "you just don't know how to smoke"

"Oh, yeah?" he said, resentful. "What do you know about cigars? I thought only dykes smoked them."

"I resent that. For one thing, I just happen to be the daughter of the most famous cigar roller who ever set foot in Tortuga. We used to make our own on this island, I have you know. My daddy came over from Jamaica to work in a factory here."

"I'm impressed."

"You should be! Cigar rollers in those days used spit. My daddy's mouth was dry all the time."

"Don't make me throw up."

She turned from him, feeling some of the disgust herself. But the disgust was directed at Numie. He'd pay for putting down her daddy. Nobody did that. Not even the Commodore.

Back in the bathroom, she stared at her face in the mirror. Would her daddy, were he alive today, find her attractive? The little girl look was still there.
Wasn't it?

After all, he'd told her she was the exact spittin' image of her mama. Lola had never seen her mama—she'd died giving birth—but she just knew she must have been a handsome woman.

She would have to have been, because her daddy never got over her. Lola was sure of that. "You're all she left me," he used to tell Lola, taking her after supper and placing her on his knee. He'd let her sip some of his rum toddy.
It
was real sweet the way she liked it. To this day, she still didn't drink anything but rum toddies.

"You liked your old man a lot, huh?" Numie called from the living room.

"Liked?" Lola asked, rushing back in, hands on her hips. "I was madly in love with him, child." She plopped down beside Numie on the satin sofa. Placing her feet on the coffee table, she smoothed an imaginary wrinkle out of her white nightgown.

"You mean, like a woman with a man?"

"Of course," Lola answered, getting up impatiently again. She wanted to talk, to tell someone, but she didn't trust Numie with this secret part of her life.

In the bathroom once more, she took off her gown and inspected her red panties. My God, a stain! She'd have to get another pair, a fresh, nice, clean one. She liked to smell fresh and clean at all times, even if it meant changing her panties twenty times a day.

Out of the top drawer, she selected a pair of red ones.

That had been her daddy's favorite color. In fact, he was the one who launched her on a lifetime career of wearing red silk panties.

She still remembered the first night her daddy got her to put on a pair of her mama's panties. He'd brought her things all the way from
Jamaica—ouldn't
bear to part with them. Daddy kept his former wife's clothing locked in the top drawer of a closet so none of his children could get at them. But one night he got a pair of panties, real silky ones, and asked Lola to try them on. They'd both had too many rum toddies that night. But she'd put on the panties, then accepted his invitation to climb up on his knee, like she always did. "You look like your mama,' he had said, "'cept for the color of your skin.'

"What's the matter with my skin?" Lola had asked.

"Nothing,' he told her. "'Cept your mama's skin was nearly white. All her life I never knew her to go out in the sun.'

Lola resented that. She wanted to be white, too. Another dirty trick from Mother Nature, the old bitch.

Astride his lap, Lola let her daddy take her for a ride. That time, though, his hands were different from before. "You're becoming quite a little woman,' he said. He'd started to tickle her thighs, even pinching her little bottom. "It's the cutest in the world,' he'd said.

She'd wanted to ask him if it were cuter than her mama's, but hadn't dared.

Then he'd turned her around, with her back rubbing up against him. She could feel the warmth of his breath on her. It had been
very
exciting. She'd thought he was just playing a game. Then with his finger he'd started poking through the silk panties at her rosebud. She'd felt him grow hard. He'd rubbed up against her, but didn't try to enter. He'd kissed her right after—right on the mouth, real hard. "Yes indeedy, you're getting more like your mama every day." With that, she knew she'd pleased him.
It
was the happiest moment of her life.

After that night, she didn't need any more encouragement to wear silk panties.
It
was the most natural thing she'd ever done. Approving of herself finally in the mirror, she paraded into the living room.

"You should have been a girl," Numie said.

"I
am
a girl," she protested. "Want me to prove it?"

"No, no," he said, fearing another sexual encounter with her. "Guess you are a girl after all"

She reached over, took a piece of his bacon, held it up in the air for inspection, then devoured it.

"I want to ask you something," he said. "When did you start dressing up in drag?"

"I don't dress in drag," she said adamantly. That awful word, would it haunt her forever?

"Sorry, I didn't mean to make you pissed," he said.

"My daddy used to let me wear my mama's clothes," she said.

"That's surprising."

"No, it wasn't surprising at all. He knew I was really intended as a girl."

"You told me last night you had brothers. Didn't they think it strange to see their little brother going around dressed up like a lady."

"Not at all," she said. "I think they rather liked it."

"You mean, they
used
you?"

"Darling, used isn't the word. They gang-banged me every night."

"They probably did if you went around dressed the part."

"Daddy was working late one night at the factory, and all three of my brothers came home. They'd been drinking. I pretended to be asleep, but it was no use. I knew what they were going to do. Bill, he was the oldest, hopped on first—right in front of the other two. He was brutal.
It
took him a long time to get off 'cause of the booze"

"Did the other two get
it
on with you, too?"

"They sure did. Charley was next. I didn't like him at all. He was kinda crude like, worse than Bill. When it was over, Charley thanked Bill. Thanked him, mind you, for the privilege of socking it to me."

"It
was probably Bill's idea"

"I'm sure. Henry, he's the youngest, asked, 'Bill, can I get in her ass, too'? Henry was just two years younger than me, and wasn't developed at all. But Bill let him. 'Last ... and least', he said, after looking Henry up and down. He couldn't manage, and my brothers laughed at him. By then, Henry was crying."

"Did the others keep socking it to you?" In a way, he felt sorry for Lola.

"Until I left home," she said, swallowing bitterly. "I hated them, but what could I do? I was a weak kid. After daddy died, there was no one to protect me. All my brothers used me, my brothers' friends, the guys at school. My voice was too high pitched to be a real boy. Even the girls made fun of me. Her fists closed in determination. "But I swore I'd make this town eat shit one day. Now I'm the Commodore's mistress. I've shown them all!"

"You can't get even with the past. No one can."

"All I know is I can go any place in this town—right in the sheriffs
office—and
nobody makes fun of me no more."

"How'd you meet up with the Commodore?"

"In this very bar. He used to have amateur entertainment on Saturday night. I appeared in full regalia one night, a beautiful red silk dress with a white boa. I was stunning, even without the blonde wig. I wore a red one in those days."

"Like Tangerine?"

"No," she said, indignant. "I could never be like Tangerine if I tried. She's nothing but a cheap whore."

"So you put on a show?"

"I did the bit, 'whatever Lola wants' ... and the crowd went wild. Ever since that night, I've been known as Lola. I added the
La
Mour, of course. Up to then everybody in my family used old English names."

"You still didn't tell me how you met the Commodore."

"He asked if I'd come back and perform the following Saturday night. I did and, of course, I was a sensation. That very night the Commodore asked me up to his place on the keys. He had a beautiful ranch-styled house then.
It
was later destroyed by a hurricane, and
we
never bothered to rebuild it."

"You were his houseboy?"

"Maid! I've never been nobody's boy,
ever.
A very, high-
class maid
at that. He let me dress up in any uniform I wanted. Sometimes I wore nothing around the house but a bra and panties. He always liked that very much. Still does. Before I'd been there a month, I was hiring a maid myself. My brother Bill's mama-in-Iaw." Lola's eyes glistened with revenge. "Bill got hired as a gardener and general handyman." She smiled. "Still works for my Commodore and me. Carries out my garbage, child. He's always threatening to quit, but he's got no place to go. My Commodore sees to it that no one else in town will hire him."

"Lola, my coffee's cold," he said.

"Men," she sighed, pretending to loathe the word, but betraying her love of the sound.

Four cups of coffee later, nausea swept over Numie. What was he going to do today? Always he'd had something to do.

Hustle an early morning john in the latrine, make it to the next town before dark—or just make it.

Today, nothing, not one damn thing. Lola had seen to everything, even the groceries for the weekend. She'd need all morning to get ready before going down to that bar.