This is a short story I wrote last summer after I'd finished Last Exit to Brooklyn. It's not very good because I have no idea what it's like to be a prostitute nor a transsexual. But it's an attempt, anyway.
DARLING GIRL
Darling Girl’s legs are sprawled apart on the muddy tar of Towle Street, the alley in between one of the closed-down thrift stores and the black men’s barbershop where their girls sit outside under their afros and tangled weaves, smoking spliffs and admiring each other’s fingernails. They don’t notice Darling Girl’s legs or the dried puddle painted beneath her pretty neck like a red halo smeared from one outstretched arm to the other. Her mouth’s open and crusted with old saliva and her eyes brown and dull, rolled almost up into her blue eyelids. Darling Girl is dead in a way she never would have wanted to die: legs spread, exposing the little bulge in the white panties she saved for down days to the unforgiving black part of the city, her mascara smudged far into her dirty blonde curls. If she were alive, she would undoubtedly pray for death at the sight of her now. A cockroach emerges out of a curl and she does not scream. Darling is quiet now.
On the nightstand next to Darling Girl’s bed there is a pink fuzzy alarm clock and a long, silver fingernail pressed upon its “off” button. The man who had too much coffee had said that it was going to be a beautiful day over an excited little jazz diddy, and as Darling lifts her head from the pillow she leaves behind a mosaic of black, pink, and blue smudges that look like a sort of happy face. Yes, she smiles; it’s going to be a good day. When she turns her head there’s a greasy mess of grey curls belonging to an unknown man lying next to her. She’s startled for a moment, backs away, and pokes his fleshy back with one of those silver, cig-stained fingers. He makes no movement.
He looks dead, but she doesn’t jump to conclusions. Last night was a blur. Most nights were a blur since she moved down here. She met a man, she is sure. But was it this man? He doesn’t look familiar. She clears her throat and tries to decide which accent she should use.
Um, excuse me?
She chooses her dainty Southern and bats her eyes, even though he can’t see her.
He rolls over now and smiles with some brown gangly stumps in his mouth.
Oh God, he better’ve paid.
Hi there, sugar, she says, moving the blanket off him a little. It’s time to get up now, I gotta get dressed, and you gotta get on outta here.
She smiles sweetly like Georgia.
He nods and coughs up some gunk into his mouth, then swallows it back down. Darling hates that. Her father used to do it in the mornings when he brushed the alcohol off his teeth. The man scratches his belly, which is coated with sporadic forests of hair and drooping far too low for Darling’s empty stomach to tolerate.
Ayup, thanks for the good time, there Darlin’, he says and finds his skid-marked underwear on the hardwood floor next to the bed and tucks his fat little saggy penis inside of them.
Darling doesn’t want to imagine last night’s romp with this bulbous fleshy man, so she retreats to the bathroom to make her face for the day. She’s wrinkled around the eyes and her teeth are more yellow than she’d like, but she has a softer neck than her friends, so she likes wearing necklaces to attract the black-lined eyes of the ladies who pass on the strip. She runs her tongue over her dull yellowing teeth and hears the hairy man grunting as he puts on his boots.
She peeks her head out to make sure that he leaves, and when he gives her a little wink as he shuts the front door of her apartment, she smiles tightly in return and quickly locks the door behind him.
Jesus Christ, what was I thinking?
The window’s open and the morning air feels good on Darling’s pretty neck. She whips her hair back and sighs and imagines she’s in a sixties romantic comedy, like Breakfast at Tiffany’s, and she’s Audrey Hepburn but blonde, and she’s just woken up from a twelve hour beauty sleep, ready to seize the day because, even though she’s beyond beauty, she’s a working girl, you know. She walks back the bathroom tiptoeing in elegance, swaying her hips in a subtle sexy swagger and flirting with the door frame before brushing her teeth. She hacks up some gunk like the hairy man did and panics when she realizes she didn’t check to see if the fag left already.
The fag’s bedroom is a mess of tacky fishnet shirts and dirty jeans strewn across the floor, the bed, amidst an array of saggy condoms with crusted jizz spilling out the sides. Darling wishes he was more domestic, like most fags. She didn’t sign up for a tornado. Her hair whirls around as she turns for the bathroom again.
I do think today calls for a splash of blue! Wouldn’t you agree? Darling winks at her reflection as she smears blue metallic on her lids. When Darling’s face is painted, she feels done, and she picks a pretty pink dress from her closet and for a moment is disappointed by the emptiness of her panty drawer. It’s laundry day, but she can’t be bothered when the wind smells so sweet, so she chooses what is left, which is a pair of white cotton panties that she doesn’t really remember ever buying, but she chuckles anyway, because she knows that every girl’s got a pair of these in the bowels of their dressers.
The door in the living room slams shut and Darling hears the fag and maybe his lispy boyfriend, the jew with the curls and the thin legs. She peeks her head out and she’s right, it’s the fag and his boy, and they see her and say, hello Darling Girl, in unison, and Darling just nods back. They’re taking off their shoes and flirting and poking and tickling each other, and for some reason it kinda stings Darling, so she puts her head back inside the bedroom and decides that she feels like seeing the girls.
It’s past noon and Darling’s having lunch with the girls in the back corner booth of Moe’s Diner. They’re giggling and talking about their Johns and looking at each other’s fingernails and saying things like, it’s to die for!, and oh please, and things like that. Moe himself works at the diner because he doesn’t want to pay anybody anything for what he can do himself and he’s sick of the girls always laughing. One time it seemed like they were sitting there all fucked up, maybe on the white stuff or something like that, because there they were at two in the morning chirpin’ like the fuckin’ morning birds and they wouldn’t stop for anything. He said to them, hey broads, c’mon, can you stop chirpin’ like a bunch of fuckin’ birds? And they giggled and chirped more and drank their coffees and he wondered when these broads went to sleep and who slept with them. That night Darling Girl had gone up to Moe at the counter, his eyes all sunken in from being so bitter, and said to him, I’ll show you a bird, honey, you wanna sleep in my nest tonight? And Moe laughed and said, Darlin’, you could be the prettiest little birdy out of all you all chirpers but you’ve got a little somethin’ extra that ain’t my business. Suit yourself, she had said, wiggling her cute little ass back to the booth and Moe tried not to look at it ‘cause he knew it
wasn’t a real broad’s ass and Moe would tell the other man, I’ll be around with ‘em, but they better not touch me, I ain’t no faggot or nothin’.
When the girls are done, they say, seeya Moe, all flirty and pretty, blowing him kisses and all that, and Moe sighs when they leave. The sun feels good on their painted faces and Darling especially loves today. She whips her hair in a theatrical wind and suggests to the girls just hangin’ out and maybe indulging in a little pick-me-up. To this the girls nod excitedly in agreement, and Brandy offers up her place.
When they get there, the girls are all tired from walking and the couch feels nice under them. They’re all excited and fiddle through their purses for their little bottles. A capsule out of each bottle, and they all put them on the table for Brandy to open and make even. Brandy’s got a crusher and she opens them all and takes all the little beads and squishes them into a powder like the kind they all wear on their faces. She likes looking at it all crushed up in there like that. She’s always the one that gets to do it and she always imagines it’s all for herself, a bowl of stuff just for her and she thinks about dumping it all on the glass coffee table and pushing it all with her movie rental card with her name on it and making one big line from one end of the table to the other and it’s all for her. Her eyes get so wide when she crushes it all for her and her friends.
A pile of powder in the middle of the table gets divided up into little piles with long pink and blue and red and sparkling fingernails all holding cards with what Brandy calls their slave names on them, scraping lines for their pretty noses. Brandy’s the first one to dip in and then she’s just a bunch of brown curls before her eyes feel bigger as she snorts again and lifts her head up. The other girls, they sniff theirs, and then they’re just making small talk and waiting for the candy drip at the back of their throats, and when they feel it, that’s when they get real excited
and start talking about all the big men and how some of ‘em are really nice and some of them are just brutes.
A drag named Camille talks about falling in love, and some of the girls get quietly uneasy, but shrug it off like it’s no big deal. Darling’s never been in love, and she doesn’t like talking about it. One night, though, she did think about it and took a few shots of cheap vodka and thought about it more and cried and cried and cried and called her Mom but hung up because she was afraid and a mess and tired. She wanted to die that night. She doesn’t want to think about love. Darling sits straight up and strums her nails on her knees, I don’t have the time or the energy for love, she says, and besides, who cares. And the girls all laugh softly and nod their heads in agreement even though they care. Darling cares, too, but her words feel more comfortable than the silent acknowledgement of their lovelessness.
The television’s on but no one’s really watching it because they’re all still talking to each other about things that seem important and it feels really good to talk and they just wish they could talk for eternity! These girls, Darling smiles excitedly, these girls are my best friends. She’s telling them about one of her guys, David, whose real fancy and picks her up in a nice car and treats her like a fine lady.
David is balding and wears a wedding ring, but that’s no bother to Darling; she figures she’s just got a little something extra that the wife doesn’t have. About once a month, maybe, she’ll see him driving slowly around her street and the other girls’ll linger around his car, but he’s not looking for them and Darling smugly knows it. She strolls pass the other girls, flips her hair a bit, and gets into his car and always feels a little bit nervous and excited, but she keeps it to herself. In fact, sometimes she tries to dismiss it, given that he’s just a john, but he’s always real nice to her, and she’s not really used to that.
Hello, my Darling, he’ll say, and Darling’ll bat her pretty eyes, and he’ll drive outside the city to the same deserted lot, but while they’re riding he’s always asking her about her life and her friends, and what girls like her do outside making lonely men feel real nice. And she flirts with him, and winks, and says, oh, yanno, stuff.
Well, and he laughs, what kinda stuff? Tell me. And he says this very gently and it makes Darling’s chest feel warm and she can’t help smiling. She talks, then, she tells him everything, even though she tells herself to keep flirting and keep it together. She tells him things even the girls don’t know about her, and Darling ponders this and decides that it’s because they simply don’t ask. David asks, and he always seems genuinely curious and satisfied with her answers, which makes her feel good. She tightens though, when he asks her, have you ever been in love? And she goes, aw, c’mon, we don’t gotta talk about that. David furrows his brows and says softly, why not? Love is something we all need. You can’t really die until you’ve loved someone, he says, and glances at her for a moment before turning to the road. Yeah, well, she says and looks down sadly at his wedding ring, people do die without loving. All the time. No, no, he says, they were never really alive. The warmth in her chest gets replaced with a wrenching sour feeling, and Darling changes the topic and won’t hear anything more about it.
Even though they’re in a lot and there’s no one around, David always requests that they stay in the car, in the back seat. When David fucks her, it’s not like normal fucking, Darling doesn’t really know what to make of it. He’s gentle and strokes her hair and says nice things to her and he always wants to make sure Darling cums, too, and when they’re both done he likes to lay in her lap for awhile and look at her and talk. The warm feeling starts again in her chest but she doesn’t think about things to make it go away, and it consumes Darling and this feels better than a good fucking with a big dick, or going shopping with the girls, or the candy drip and feeling good on the powder, or watching her favorite television show, or anything in the world.
The girls like hearing about David and it feels so good to Darling to talk about him, and she wishes he was here right now, until Camille, that bitch, says casually, it sucks that he’s married, all the good ones are taken. This makes Darling sad for a moment, but she quickly dismisses it and she notices it’s getting kinda late. Geez, they’ve just been talking all day! Darling suggests they head out now, and the girls nod, all wide-eyed.
It’s slow tonight and even the real chicks aren’t getting picked up. Darling and Brandy share a cigarette against the bricks in the 5th street alley when Darling decides she’s ready for a few drinks to get the night going. She asks Brandy, do you wanna come, sugar? Brandy shakes her head no, so Darling clicks her heels up the alley to Henry’s, the door almost off its hinges from too many fights.
A chubby dyke sits on of the bar stools, her ass drooping off the sides a bit, all in a cloud of clove smoke, which Darling thought was just precious. Darling flicks her cigarette and sits next to her and the bartender asks her what she’d like tonight. She says she’d like a man that’s got muscles just as big as he does, and the bartender chuckles and moves her man hands away, but he looks at his guns lovingly as Darling folds her legs and asks for a bitch drink. Sure, darlin’, he says, and the dyke rolls her eyes. Darling loves the dykes—they’re just as rough as the
men and they’re not taking any shit from nobody, not even their bitches. That’s the thing about the tough guys; no matter how tough they are, sometimes they’ll still cry like a baby after they come all over your face.
This is when Darling notices that the dyke is crying under her clove smoke. She turns her body towards her and bats her eyelashes and when the dyke doesn’t notice, she coughs softly. Are you alright? The dyke ignores her and puts her clove out on the table and eyes the bartender, whose back is turned away to a couple of femmes on the other side. Why are you crying, honey? And the dyke gives her a dirty look under her tears. I said, why are you crying?
Listen, Tranny, I’m not in a real talking mood.
Clearly, but you’re crying, I’ve never seen one of you tough girls cry.
Well, see it.
Why don’t you tell Darling Girl what’s troubling you?
The dyke’s pissed now and she whirls around in the bar stool, half smiling an angry smile, you really wanna know, Tranny?
And Darling Girl bats her pretty little eyes, of course I do, sugar.
You see that girl in the far back, by the pool table on the right? The dyke nods her head in the direction she’s talking about, towards a long-legged blond who’s beautiful even though she’s not wearing as much makeup as Darling woulda put on if she were her, but damn, she looks like some kinda model. Yes, I see her.
You see that man she’s got next to her? And there is a man, he’s a gorgeous man, some kinda man that would never pay for a girl like Darling. She immediately imagines kissing him, and she crosses and uncrosses her legs, saying, I see him.
She’s fucking him. After all this, she’s fucking him. She’s got some greasy, fat cock in her mouth after everything I’ve done for her. The fucking nerve. I don’t get it. I really don’t get it. And she starts crying again but the tears come out like bullets. This dyke’s really pissed, and Darling signals for the bartender to get them both a drink. Does she know you’re here? And she nods over to the blonde, who’s now bending over the pool table so Fat Cock can help her shoot.
She knows I’m here. I’ve been following her. I’m pathetic.
Darling raises an eyebrow as she takes a sip of her drink. And the guy, he hasn’t given you a talking?
I don’t think she’s told him I’ve been watching them. She fucking likes it. I know it. She wants me to see it.
That’s some kinda cruel, honey.
Her name’s Chelsea and I got her off crank. I got her a job. I gave her all of me, she says, and she finishes her drink. I gave that bitch everything she needed to leave me. I wasn’t man enough for her.
And Darling slaps her knee; I wish I wasn’t man enough! This makes the dyke stop crying angrily and smile a little.
They order a few more drinks and soon they’re laughing and the dyke forgets about Chelsea for awhile, who’s still in the back playing pool, occasionally eyeing the bar. A few more men, Fat Cock’s buddies, join their pool table and they’re all laughing flirting with the Blonde.
What’s your name? says Darling, and the drinks are hitting her good now, and she’s slurring a little.
My name’s Wen, and yours?
Darling.
Wen laughs, no, what’s your real name?
My real name’s Darling Girl.
And Wen laughs drunkenly, whatever you say, Darling Girl.
They drink more and crack jokes with the bartender and forget about Fat Cock and the cheating blonde, and Darling’s a lot drunker than she wanted to be tonight, in fact, earlier she had told herself she wasn’t gonna drink tonight, but she says that a lot and she always ends up drinking anyway. So Queen’s on the stereo in the bar and this makes Darling giggle and she asks Wen if she’d like to dance, and Wen says, oh, Darling, I’m an awful dancer. Darling says, c’mon, please! I love this song. And Wen says, alright, alright, ‘cause she’s too sauced to argue and they get up and start dancing next to the stereo and they don’t notice that they’re the only ones up and moving, except for the people at the pool tables. Darling notices the blonde looking blatantly now at Wen and raising her eyebrows and looking kinda pissy, or maybe smug? Probably pissy. Darling doesn’t know and she doesn’t really care; she’s having fun and she’s surprised when she feels Wen’s hands move over her body like a man would touch her, but Wen’s one of those tough girls and they don’t like girls like Darling, but she’s just going with it because Wen doesn’t seem too bothered. She looks at the blonde, who’s now looking irritated and signaling Fat Cock to take a look over at them dancing, Darling thinks, undoubtedly, because they’re dancing so nicely, they look so nice dancing there.
You’re pretty, says Wen, and Darling says thank you, but gives her a funny look, and Wen says, you wanna get outta here? Where do you wanna go? Darling asks her, unsure of what Wen’s getting at. She’s too drunk and confused and Wen doesn’t say anything, just leads her to
the Ladies room glaring at the Blonde the whole time. When they’re in the bathroom, Wen kisses Darling hard on the mouth, and Darling doesn’t get it, but Wen’s mouth feels soft and different, and she doesn’t stop her. They’re kissing for a long time and Wen’s hands are all over and Darling is feeling kinda sick now. Oh god, she drank too much, and the world’s on fast forward in all different directions but Wen’s always there, and she says in Darling’s ear, fuck me. Darling says, what? all tipsy-like, and Wen says, I want you to fuck me.
Wen saying that with her voice all low and rough reminds Darling of a man she had awhile ago who wore greased up, oil-stained jeans that were ripped at the knees that Darling had been bent over while he spanked the hell out of her ass. He never told her his name and ended up ripping her off, but that wasn’t what made Darling Girl cry mascara at the end of the night—it was that as he hit her he yelled at her, say you love me, Darling Girl, don’t you love me? And Darling would say, I love you, I really love you, and he’d smack her and shout in her ear, louder! What did you say? Do you love me? I love you! She cried out, even though in that moment she hated him, but he was like most of the others, and he didn’t love Darling.
Darling, lost in this memory, doesn’t feel like fucking anyone, and wants to hide in a stall and cry or burn a cig into her arm or walk out and find a John who’ll make her forget all the other ones, the horrible ones, like the bald man who shoved a bottle in her asshole and made her scream and the college boy who brought her to a party and all those guys who laughed at her and made her dance naked under all those camera flashes and drunken laughter. But this is how it is, she tells herself, this is life and this is how it is and this is all that’s out there for us girls, and we’re strong and we gotta take it, and oh god, make me forget. Please god, make me forget.
Wen’s touching her all over until her hand’s on Darling’s cock, flaccid in sadness. C’mon, Darling, fuck me. And Darling comes back to her face, all dizzy, and says, okay. They kiss hard, even though Darling’s pretending it’s a guy’s mouth all rough like that and she wonders if Wen’s pretending the same thing. They’re pretending together, and Darling stops and tries to keep her eyes straight on Wen. Will you tell me that you love me? You don’t gotta mean it, I just wanna hear it. I’ll fuck you, just tell me you love me, and she starts undressing, and Wen starts undressing, and they’re all making out and Wen says, I love you. Keep saying it, Darling pleads, and Wen says it over and over and Darling loves it more than anything.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
Darling’s fucking Wen and Wen’s just saying over and over, I love you, and Darling’s smiling and begins to say, I love you, back to her, and she’s ready to cum, but the bathroom door opens and it’s the Blonde, who looks at Wen, all bent over and taking a big dick from Darling, saying iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou, and Wen laughs like a maniac and Darling is gonna cum, sighing sweetly, I love you! And she pulls out and cums by accident straight at the Blonde who’s staring in horror at the scene before her. Wen’s smiling all smug and Darling feels embarrassed and covers herself and the Blonde’s eyes are all wide and furious.
Darling’s cum is all drooping on the Blonde’s shoe, and she sees it and gasps, barrells out of the Ladies room and Wen’s pulling her clothes back on still laughing like a maniac and Darling feels like she’s gonna puke, and she leaves the bathroom looking over at the pool tables
while heading quickly to the bar. The Blonde’s talking angrily to Fat Cock and pointing her finger at Darling Girl and he looks at her with his lip curled all pissed off and maybe drunk and maybe ready to fight. Darling’s nervous and she pays the bartender and clicks her heels out of the bar and walks hurriedly to where Brandy and the girls might be.
The wind is a little cold now and she’s got goosebumps on her legs and it’s loud outside, even when she gets a bit away from the bar. It’s dark, too, and the streets look slicked in oil they’re so shiny; Darling looks at the ground at she walks, a shadow in the gloss of the pavement that looks like a ghost following close behind her. She’s still drunk and she’s closing her eyes tight and trying not to think about it, but everything’s still all loud in her head. Cars and people yelling and phones and Darling’s heels clicking clicking clicking, making her nauseous and she can’t believe this just happened, oh god, she can’t believe this just happened. And she hears footsteps and she doesn’t even need to turn around to know that someone’s following her. She’s scared, oh god, she’s scared, she doesn’t wanna turn around, but she needs to know if she should run.
FAGGOT!
It’s more than one man. It’s a bunch of men. She can hear them laughing. Oh god, she doesn’t wanna turn around. Please make them go away.
Hey! Faggot!
She turns around, and there they are. Big, filthy, drunken men and they look pissed as all hell and they’re walking towards her and Darling’s scared, her little heart’s beating so fast, oh god, please don’t let them fuck with me, she says, please please please. But they’re still walking and Darling is frozen, her heels nailed to the silver ghost that’s shivering below, and she’s
spinning spinning spinning and whispering to herself and she’s frightened and she wants to go home.
I gotta question for you, Faggot.
It’s Fat Cock and his voice is gruff and Darling’s afraid of him and she’s breathing so hard. She turns around and starts clicking away as fast as she can, whimpering to herself and her eyes are moist and messy black, and the guys are following her still when she breaks into a run.
Why you runnin’, Fag? We just wanna ask you a question!
Darling’s running and they’re running and some black girls pass and Darling screams to them, Help! But they just look at her like she’s pathetic and she keeps running and now she doesn’t care, she’s just croaking, Help! Help! Help! Into the black oily streets and there are the dope fiends and bag brides with their highbeam eyes on the stoops who won’t move for nothing and the guys get up real close and then there’s a hand around Darling’s mouth and she’s swept away, like flying, and she’s in an alley and the guys are calling her a Faggot and she can’t see, oh god, she can’t see!
Her stomach’s kicked in real hard and then she’s feeling kicks from all directions and she still can’t see. There’s someone holding her, and she’s crying out, please help, oh god please help, but no one will help her, and they keep kicking her until her legs give out and she’s on the ground and her ghost is gone, it’s just her on the ground and all these angry legs and they’re all kicking her and they’re spitting on her and screaming, Faggot! Did you think that was funny, faggot? And Darling’s screaming so loud, No! No! Please! Stop! And the men shout at her to be quiet! Shut up! Shut up, Queer! There’s a heavy and loud crack on her head and she’s not screaming anymore, she’s spinning spinning spinning the sky’s all black and shiny and oily and
for a moment she thinks it’s the ground and tries to move her feet up on the stars but she can’t move anything. Everything hurts. She can’t move anything and there are still hard boots crushing her little pretty bones and her eyes roll around their angry faces before a big boot stomps on her pretty little face and then everything’s black.
Nothing hurts anymore.
They must’ve gone away.
It’s quiet now, except for a man’s voice, and she feels nothing, except for hands lifting her body gently, and when she opens her eyes, it’s David, and he looks so nice and Darling’s so glad to see him and she wants to speak, but blood bubbles out of her mouth and her teeth are all shiny and red and her eyes all swollen and black but he looks so lovely. He looks so nice and gentle and kind and the blood leaks out of her mouth, but she whispers, how are you here?
And he doesn’t say anything, he just smiles and kisses her bleeding lips softly like he does when he’s inside of her and he’s touching her mangled hair and Darling tries to smile.
David, she whispers, I’m afraid.
Tell me you love me.
His eyes are small and brown and soft and he says it.
I love you, Darling Girl.
And the stars spiral behind him like the world’s spinning and she feels that warmth in her chest but this time it’s everywhere. She’s warm all over and it’s better than anything. Oh god, it’s better than everything. Her legs are open, her heels off, her skirt all knotted up, her hair dirtied and muddied, her lips smudged in brown and pink, her eyes swollen and blue-lidded and dull, and her mouth is open, gasping once and twice, and then no more.
It’s all black now and there’s an echo:
I love you.
I love you.
I love you.
Copyright Carrie-Lynne Davis 2010
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