Killing Johnny Fry (27 page)

“Lie down,” Celia commanded, and then she pushed against my chest.

I fell backward into Sisypha‘s embrace. She was seated behind me and put her arm around my head, holding me so that I was looking up into Celia‘s goddesslike face.

The black woman straddled me and leaned close to my ear. Her left breast was still leaking onto me and I wanted sex more than I ever had in my life,,

“Sissy‘s gonna hold you down and I‘ma fuck you,” Celia said. “You hear that?"

I nodded.

“I want you to look up in my face, you hear me?"

I nodded again.

And then she lowered onto my erection. It was as if the notion
of
pure silk entered my mind, and also like a giant cruise ship coming into a port that was way too small. She was going up and down at a leisurely pace without letting me fall out of her perfectly smooth vagina.

“Open your eyes,” she commanded, and then she slapped me.

I felt the thrumming again. This time it felt as if the whole room was on wheels. But Celia was fucking me faster now, and I couldn‘t be concerned with anything else.

When I‘d tried to move my head, I found that Sisypha was holding me so that I could only look into Celia‘s eyes.

“You cain‘t move, baby,” Celia said. “Sissy holdin‘ you down an‘ I‘m fuckin‘ you. You cain‘t get away from it. You cain‘t move."

I started bucking up into her then.

“That‘s right,” she said. “That‘s it. Fuck it hard, Daddy. That‘s the only way you could go."

I lost control then and bucked even though there were pains all through my body from the fight with Maxie.

“Where you wanna come, baby?” Celia asked me. “My ass, my face? You want me to swallow your come like you did my milk?"

She was looking directly into my eyes, her words interrupted now and again by my strokes against her. Her face was tender, caring even.

I wanted to answer her, but there were no words in my head.

Sisypha let my head go then and reached down, tweaking both my nipples very hard.

“Come,” Sisypha said. “Come for her now."

I grabbed on to Celia‘s impossibly small waist and jammed myself as deeply into her as I could.

Through clenched teeth she said, “That‘s right, baby. Gimme it all. All of it. All of it now."

I didn‘t feel the ejaculation, but I know it was hard and a lot.

The applause didn‘t surprise me, really, but I didn‘t know what it was. I looked out into the larger room, realizing that the small red platform had somehow been shifted into one of the sex nooks at the entrance of the club. Ten or twelve people had been watching us. One, toward the back, was the elderly woman from the restaurant. There was a hungry look on her face. Something about her desire sparked even more passion in me.

“Fuck his ass, CC,” Sisypha said. “He can do it again."

Celia got down on her knees at my feet and shouldered my legs apart. When I felt her tongue lance into my rectum, I was hard again immediately.

“Hand me that Vaseline, Sissy,” she said, and a moment later her fingers were up inside me.

I tried to rise up, but Sisypha put me in a headlock. And then Celia was sucking my cock and moving her fingers around.

“Oh, baby,” Celia said. “You right, honey. His come bubble‘s big and hard. Shit, he gonna explode."

And I came again while Sisypha held me down and Celia leaked milk on my balls.

“Yeah. Come on,” Celia said.

The audience was applauding and murmuring.

I felt as if I would go unconscious right then. I was in a daze. The room rumbled again, and we were shifted back into the place we‘d first entered.

Celia leaned down and kissed my lips.

“You are sweet,” she said.

“Your kiss,” I replied.

“What about it?"

“I don‘t know. I don‘t know anything."

“Oh, baby,” she said, and stretched her ninety-pound body over me.

I closed my eyes and sighed.

“Is this your man, Sissy?” she asked my guide.

“I don‘t know yet,” Sisypha replied.

“If he ain‘t, then gimme his numbah. Damn."

I dressed in a fog. Celia kissed me good-bye, leaving Sisypha to help me.

“I feel like my head is packed with cotton,” I said.

“That‘s the beginning of the fourth cycle,” Sisypha told me. “In an hour you‘ll be unconscious."

“Should I apologize?” I asked.

“For what?"

“For the way I lost myself in her love.” I was a bad version of a seventies song.

“Do you want CC?” she asked.

“I drank her milk,” I said.

“How did that feel?"

“Like the mother I never had,” I said without thinking.

Sisypha was dressed in red again. She took my forearms and pulled until we were kneeling before each other on the floor.

“We don‘t have long,” she said. “So listen and tell me if you will."

“Will what?"

“It has to do with your girlfriend."

“What about her?"

“My brother raped me when I was eleven,” she said. “He was supposed to protect me but didn‘t. And then, when you told me about Joelle, I could see that you were protecting her, no matter how much she hurt you."

I was feeling the lethargy of the drug coming on, but her words still touched me.

“I‘m so sorry,” I said. “About your brother, I mean."

“That doesn‘t matter,” she said. “He‘s dead to me. Him and all my family. I don‘t have any relatives as far as I‘m concerned. But when we talked out there on the street, I had the idea that you could do something for me and maybe I could for you too."

“What could I do for someone like you?” I said. “I‘m nothing."

“No,” she said, shaking her head. “When Maxie wanted to take me, you wouldn‘t let him. You stood up to him even though you knew he could kick your ass."

“The drug,” I said.

“That‘s not all of it,” Sisypha said. “What I want to know, Cordell, is if you will be my brother."

She was looking right at me. Nothing that I was could escape that gaze.

“What does that mean?"

“That you will love me and protect me and call me on my birthday. It means that you will pull me out of the gutter if you see me there, and that we will never, never have sex."

“Yes,” I said, giving a brief nod.

“You understand what I‘m saying?"

“Sure thing . . . Sis."

She put her arms around me, and I wondered how any of that could be happening. But at the same time I knew that what she asked me for was another thing I had always wanted. Somehow I had been denied love. I‘d had sex. I‘d had friends and lovers and people who pretended to be those things. But I never had a sister who wanted me to be her brother. I had never had a woman who sought to make me happy.

“Does this mean you love me?” I asked.

“Love doesn‘t mean anything, Cordell. I‘ll be like a tree in your backyard,” she said. “Like that old sweater you wear every fall. I will always be there, and so will you."

Exhaustion was pouring in from all sides. Brenda sat me down in a plush chair that sat alone in an empty room. She told me that she had to find her driver. I didn‘t want her to go, but once seated I couldn‘t even raise my arm. After a very long time she returned accompanied by Wan. Together they pulled me from the chair and led me out of the Wilding Club.

Wan drove me home. When he let me out of the long white limo, he handed me a brown paper bag, saying, “This is yours."

I staggered to my building and also up the stairs. I don‘t remember using the keys, but I must have. I don‘t remember getting into my bed, but I woke up there, still fully dressed.

In my sleep I imagined a loud TV somewhere. People were arguing. Doors were being slammed. The police were having a shoot-out with the bad guys . . . But when I opened my eyes, the only thing on my mind was Sisypha and her declaration of sisterly love.

Did she mean what she said? And if she did, what was the meaning of our new relationship? And why was I awake? It seemed early, and I didn‘t get home till nearly five in the morning.

I felt very relaxed—not hung over at all.

Everything in my life had changed.

I no longer needed to kill Johnny Fry. I wasn‘t mad at Jo for having to turn to him for release. She couldn‘t ask me to do the things he did without being asked. She couldn‘t help herself, despite what Cynthia said.

Anyway, I had been given the love that I needed.

The love I got from Celia was enough to last and sustain me—that‘s what I felt. I didn‘t know if my mother had breast-fed me or not, but I did know my life wasn‘t that of a child who had the benefit of a mother‘s love. Celia had given that to me.

She had asked Sisypha if I was free because she wanted me. Maybe that was all part of the game, but no one had played the game with me before.

There came a knocking at the door.

It seemed to me that this wasn‘t the first knock. Maybe that‘s what had awakened me.

I didn‘t have to dress, so I walked through the rooms to my entrance nook. I noticed the bag that Wan had given me sitting in the corner.

“Who is it?"

“The police."

Could they have heard about the fight with Maxie Allaine? Was that some crime?

I opened the door on five men. Two of them wore suits, and the others were in uniform.

“Cordell Carmel?” a man in a gray suit asked.

“Yes."

He held out a wallet that contained a badge and an identity card.

I nodded, pretending it meant something to me.

“What‘s the problem, Officer?"

“Did you hear a disturbance last night?” he asked. He was tall and broad of shoulder but his gut stuck out too.

“No, sir. But I didn‘t get in until about four-thirty or so."

“And you didn‘t hear anything?"

“No."

There was silence there for a moment. I knew that the cops wanted something from me, that their silence was meant to rattle me. But I didn‘t know what I had to worry about.

“Your upstairs neighbor was killed this morning somewhere between five and six."

“Martine‘s dead?"

“Sasha Bennett,” the officer said. I noticed that he had nicked himself shaving and that he had the sweet smell of cologne about him.

“Sasha? What happened to Sasha?"

“Did you speak to her last night?"

“No."

“When was the last time you spoke to her?"

“Two, three nights ago,” I said.

“And what did you talk about?"

“It was late. I went up to her apartment and spent the night."

“She was your girlfriend?"

“No. No. That was our only time together. I was thinking of breaking up with my girlfriend, and Sasha said I could come up whenever I wanted."

“Did you go up there last night?"

“No."

“Did you talk to her last night?"

I remembered then that I was a black man in America. All of the policemen were white. Sasha Bennett was white. I had been upstairs fucking a white woman a couple of days before, and now she was dead, and the police were investigating me.

“No,” I said. “I haven‘t talked to her since the night I spent at her place."

“Can we come in?"

“For what?"

“To look around.” The cop—he had salt-and-pepper hair and was at least ten years older than I—was trying to sound nonchalant.

“Tell me what you‘re looking for, and I‘ll think about it."

“We can get a warrant easy enough,” he told me.

“Okay,” I said, and I moved to close the door.

“We just want to see the window to your fire escape,” he said hastily.

“Two of you,” I said.

He put his hands up in a gesture of supplication. “Come on,” he said. “You don‘t want these guys to have to stand out here."

“Two of you,” I said. “That‘s all I want in my house."

Finally the man in the suit and a young uniform came in. They went to the window that led to my fire escape. I could have told them myself that the window was painted shut.

He checked it out closely and looked out on the fire escape for something, I‘m not sure what.

“Sasha is dead, and there‘s a young white man dead too,” he said.

“White guy?” I asked. “Big lips, though?"

“Yeah. You know him?"

“Sounds like her brother. He came to visit last week, but she told me that he‘d gone back to California."

“Can you think of any reason that he‘d kill her?"

“Not offhand,” I said.

Suddenly the reality of Sasha‘s death hit me. I ran into the toilet and vomited up what was left of the bread and pork chops from the night before.

While I was washing my face, the policemen stood behind me.

“When‘s the last time you saw her?” the suit asked.

“Two days, maybe three. I don‘t know."

“Did you talk to her last night?"

I turned to look at him. My stomach clenched and I went through a dry heave. Both of the cops backed away from me.

They left soon after that.

It wasn‘t until the next day that I knew exactly what happened.

The night before, Martine had heard loud arguing and then a noise that might have been gunfire. For a long time she worried, and then she called upstairs. When there was no answer, she called the police. They broke the door down and found Sasha shot point-blank in the chest with a .22 caliber gun. The assailant, Enoch Bennett, was her brother. The police postulated that he had shot himself in the head after killing Sasha. The police were sure of the murder-suicide theory because Sasha‘s door was chained from the inside.

After the police had gone, I picked up the phone with no idea about what I was going to do. I entered Jo‘s number, and she answered on the first ring.

“I knew you‘d call right back,” she said playfully.

“It‘s been ten hours at least,” I said. “That‘s hardly right back. I‘m sorry I didn‘t drop by. The night got kinda long."

“Oh hi, L,” Jo said. “I was talking to, to August. She was telling me about something and then said she had to get off and I—"

“You remember that woman I told you about upstairs?” I asked.

“The one that slept with her brother?"

“Uh-huh. He came back and killed her last; night. At least, that‘s

what I think happened."

“Oh nay God,” she said, reminding me of the woman in the exhibitionist room of the Wilding Club, which then reminded me again of Sasha‘s mother. Poor Sasha.