Don't Call Me Madame Read online

  Always gorgeously attired. Expensive. She was a struggling young actress: where did the money come from? Chambers? She had said something once about a father who had left a little trust estate for her. Probably a crock of shit. Chambers must be laying the loot on her, even though she played the ingenue so nice and sweet and soft, wouldn’t take a dime from you even though you offered, dough often and plenty. Don’t be jealous, Mark old boy. If you’re sharing her with Chambers, you’re only sharing the best, and with what she’s got, if she extended herself, she could throw you both, you and Chambers, into the throes of a nervous breakdown. In the living room, he poured martinis.

  They drank. He lit a skinny cigarette for her. And one for him.

  “You’ll fly,” he said. “This grass is Acapulco Gold.”

  “Martinis and pot. Honey, I won’t fly. I’ll dissolve.”

  “I want you hot. Me, I’m burning. Baby, I’m going to fuck you like crazy.”

  “Don’t you always?”

  Just like that. Mild and easy. And pulling in grass like her lungs were bellows. And knocking down the martini like it was Pepsi Cola. And all with those big blue eyes so innocent. Innocent eyes, innocent face, all so mild and easy, and this was the wildest hunk of hump in all the land, and I ought to know, Jesus, I have had them all.

  “Martinis and pot,” she said. “There’s a title for your show.”

  “I’ve got a title.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Not now. Not now, baby.”

  And more martinis and more pot, and then they were dancing to the music from the stereo, and he opened his pants, and they danced like that, fully dressed, but his big thick naked cock pressed between her thighs, and she whispered, “Honey, you’ll soil me,” and he whispered, “Not me, I know what I’m doing,” and then he picked her up in his arms and carried her into the bedroom and gently set her down and she began to undress and he said, “No!”

  “Sweetie …?”

  “Let me.”

  He undressed her, and as he removed each item of clothing kissed the exposed parts, kissed her arms and her breasts and the navel of her stomach and on his knees down along her smooth thighs, and then when she was nude, pulled her to him, and had her stand over him as he sat on the edge of the bed, his hands holding her hips and his tongue lightly licking at the slit of her cunt, and she began to tremble and he tossed her on to the bed and started all over again. Licking her ears. And her neck. And down along her breasts. And holding her tits together firmly, his head oscillated as he sucked the nipples of her tits, and then down, down he went, licking her stomach, licking her thighs, licking around the hair of her pubis, and then his head was between her legs and he pulled them up and closed them around his head, and his tongue was in there, his hot tongue licking, and then his teeth gently nibbling at her clitoris, and she looked up at the mirror on the ceiling, and could see him, her headless man, his legs outstretched, the muscles of his buttocks taut, his shoulders quivering, and then she could not see him because her eyes were closed and she was rising to him and screaming, her hands pulling at the hair of his head, and she came — God, how she came! — but he was relentless, his tongue like a whiplash, and she tried to push him from her as she squirmed in the shrill ecstasy of after-climax, but his head remained there like a boulder which she could not dislodge, and then she liked it again, her tense body subsiding, and she writhed slowly to his endless oral expertise, and was able to watch again in the mirror on the ceiling, and thought that a beard and a mustache were excellent adjuncts in the performance of cunnilingus, and then could not think, couldn’t watch, because once again he had her in thrall, and again she was screaming, creaming, and could feel his wet face between her burning thighs, and then she tasted her own cunt, tasted it from his mouth, because he was up on her, his body over hers, his tongue in her mouth kissing her — this bastard was a lover all right, a remarkable lover — and his long big prick was in her, was within the post-orgasmic quiverings of her vagina, and he did it cleverly, slowly, grinding it in without force, gently, moving it in and out, his balls tapping against her as though asking for admittance, slowly in and out, as she watched in the mirrors and thought about Peter Chambers and imagined it was Peter Chambers fucking her now, and it went on and on like that — God, this bastard knew his fucking — God, the bastard was a wonderful lover — and it went on and on and time blacked out — God, how this one knew! — and he opened her, opened her more and more, and then his fingers were down there helping, and he got it all in, everything, his scrotum, his balls, his entire pudendum was in her, and her legs were high and wide up in the air, and she was groaning. moaning, fainting, swooning … and she came! — a shrieking orgasm! — fire along her spine! — her anus burning! — her cunt exploding! — her teeth biting his tongue! — his cock pouring semen into her — hot, burning! — fire to quench fire! — fire fire fire — flames … Jesus Christ!

  And they slept.

  For a time they slept, dozing, sleeping.

  And then she heard him from somewhere far away.

  “You hungry, baby? Something to eat?”

  And heard herself from somewhere far away.

  “I’m starving.”

  “That’s pot. Makes you hungry.”

  “You going to cook?”

  “No. We’ll go out. We’ll go over to the Chansonette.”

  He took her from the bed. And she stumbled with him into the shower. And the water started warm and then he made it colder and she was refreshed holding him, clinging to him, the one man in the world whom she fucked for free.

  “Well eat in the Chansonette,” he said. “Well drink up a little, listen to the music. Then we’ll come home and sleep over.”

  “Tell me the title for the play.”

  “Black Mass at High Noon.”

  “Oh great! I love it!”

  “Thank you.”

  “And me?” she said in cold water streaming down.

  “You’re in. You’re the second female lead.”

  “What about Bernstein?”

  “What about Bernstein?”

  “Suppose when I audition he doesn’t like me?”

  “When it’s a play, the author has the final say. The hell with Bernstein or anyone else. You fit. And you’re a damn good actress — just remember that. Baby, I’m not looking to knock myself up. I wouldn’t frig with my career — even for you.”

  That’s why I’m fucking the guy for free.

  And kissed him and clung to him under the streaming shower.

  She was no charity bum. A whore does not fuck for free — ethics is ethics. As Peter Chambers always said — a whore is a whore is a whore — and she was a whore. But for Mark Montague it was not for free. It was for the second lead in a Broadway show titled Black Mass at High Noon which would be a MacDonald Bernstein production and which would, once and for all, give her the kind of credit that would establish her.

  Is that fucking for free, dear Peter?

  It is not fucking for free, dear Peter.

  “Come on,” Mark said. “Let’s get out from under. Let’s get dressed and go eat.”

  “Yes,” she said. “Out from under and eat.”

  ELEVEN

  HE had not touched the white stuff for three days, not Wednesday, not Thursday, not Friday. He longed for it, subtly tempting himself, but resisted. He had been taught well. Don’t use it every day, day after day, because then the kick gets blunted, and you yourself become nothing more than a cringing slave to the habit. Space it. Use it like the real aficionado uses marijuana — occasionally for a high moment. Not like the creepy kids who keep banging the pot like a gong, but the bells stop ringing. As his mother used to say, “When the high is low, the kick is shitty.”

  Space it. Give your body a chance to recover. Resist. Tempt yourself, tease yourself, look forward but hold back, space it, long for it, and then give in and you will have yourself a celebration. Cocaine is not heroin, it does not create an imperative physical nee
d. Unlike heroin, morphine, or any of the opiates, cocaine can be laid away, spaced, saved for another day, and you do not get the sweats, the shakes, the pains, the hellish bellybending tortures of withdrawal: cocaine is not physiologically addictive. She had taught him well. God, how he missed her!

  Wednesday, Thursday, Friday — a quiet three days, restful and pleasant. But lonely. God, so lonely! All his adult life he had never been alone: she was always with him, close by, a watchman, a sentinel, but he did not resent it — and he knew why. On the rare occasions when he gave her the slip, he was so damn sorry afterward, contritely confessing, and she held him and whispered to him, talked to him, lectured him, and it helped, it did help. “It’s passing,” she said. “It’s getting less and less, and you’re getting better and better, and one day soon, soon, you’ll be whole and strong …”

  Wednesday evening he went to a movie, Thursday evening to a concert, Friday evening to a movie. He ate in off-hours in quiet out-of-the-way restaurants. He read his books and his newspapers, religiously scanned the personals column of the Times (nothing for him). Friday afternoon, from a phone booth in a restaurant, he had called the lawyer. The lawyer, an uninquisitive, kindly little man, had said, “Nothing yet, my lad. As I told you, these matters take a heck of a long time.”

  And now the beast was moving in him. Today he yielded, sniffing the white powder, feeling the rise, the high, the happiness … and the need. In the old days he had her, and she could talk him out of it. Except for the crazy times when he slipped away — and she was so right, she was helping, those times were growing fewer and fewer — he would tell her what was happening inside him, and she would work on him, laugh, joke, plead, cry, anything, even sex right then — but she would talk him out of it and it would pass.

  Dead! Dead now! She was gone! Dead!

  It was beginning to be dark in the apartment, and he put on the lights. He was feeling good. Good! He went to a drawer, took out his little address book, looked at the names and addresses of the hooker bars John Edison had recommended, and at the names and phone numbers of the high-class madames. Not yet with the madames, he thought. There’s time for that. He selected a bar far away from Tom’s Pub on 80th Street: he selected The Lamplighter on Bleecker Street in Greenwich Village. John had said, “If you want them young, that’s where you’ll find them. A kind of cheapie pub. A lot of kids, youngsters from out of town trying to hustle a quick buck, sort of for eating money. Be careful in The Lamplighter.”

  Careful!

  Christ, the ambivalence!

  One side of him knew exactly the risks he was taking, and another side negated them. Stirred by an ineluctable need, a drive of implosion, an insane thrust, he was nonetheless meticulously sane in his thinking. Eight million people in a vertical city: if you are careful, you will be unrecognized; if you are not, by some far-out chance, actually caught in the act, who can point an accusing finger at you? The victim? She can no longer point fingers. For all else, if you are careful, there is no one to point a finger. You do not stand out, you are one of many, you do not draw attention to yourself, you do not make a spectacle of yourself, you merge with the many.

  He shuddered.

  He hated himself.

  But careful. If you are careful, you can protect yourself. Careful crimes are not easily solved. Years ago in England there was a Jack the Ripper who committed a long list of crimes and was never caught. The poor bastard, he thought. He too must have hated himself. Like water, he thought, like goddamned water, and you are shuffling on a desert, and you are parched of thirst, and the oasis may be polluted, it may be poisonous, but you drink because you must drink. He sniffed white powder, admired his metaphor, thought it absolutely brilliant, grinned, and got dressed. He took what he needed, went out to a cab, and told the man, “Tenth Avenue and Fifteenth Street.” He glanced at his watch. Nine-thirty. It was half past nine, it was Saturday night.

  During his daytime strolls around the city he had noticed The Tenth Avenue Motor Inn, a sprawling many-pathed complex, a rather new edifice, but strictly, he had judged, a screwing joint. You did not have to have a motor, he had judged, in order to be a guest at The Tenth Avenue Motor Inn, and it turned out he was right. The man behind the desk was skinny, sleepy, pale, baggy-eyed, and uninterested.

  “For how long you want the room?” he said.

  “All night.”

  “Thirty bucks.”

  Thirty bucks, the robber bastards!

  He paid the money, signed the card Ross Mason The baggy-eyed man threw him a key and jerked his thumb. “You go out, turn to the right, it’s the second entrance. All the keys open the downstairs door, but it’s individual keys for the rooms, and every room has an inside twist-lock. You’re two-oh-two. It’s a nice room, the best in the house.”

  He went out, turned to the right, found the second entrance, unlocked the door, trotted up a flight of stairs, opened 202, and it was a nice room. Air-conditioning, wall-to-wall carpeting, a radio, a television, a big double bed, and a tile-floored bathroom with a big tub and a stall shower. He finished his inspection, turned down the slats of the Venetian blinds, went out and locked the door and pocketed the key, and outside in the night waved to a cab and rode to The Lamplighter on Bleecker Street, a loud, raucous, juke-box joint, long and narrow, with no tables and a six-deep, noisy, crowded, Saturday-night bar.

  He saw her immediately he came in.

  She was going out.

  She was very tall, blonde, with white skin, and a long neck. She wore a green off-one-shoulder dress, which was at least seven inches above her knees. Her legs were straight and sturdy, her bosom was small, her hips were high, wide, round, and handsome. She was long-striding and was striding with purpose. He intercepted her, took her hand.

  “Where we going?”

  “Me?” she said. “Out of this creep-joint.”

  “I only just came in.”

  “Sugar, if you’re smart, you’ll only just go out. But a creep-joint!”

  “Never been here before.”

  “Me either. My first trip, and my last.” She was very young. She had a soft Southern voice. “Jeeps, at least you’re tall. New York. Like they’re all squat and fat and slightly Jewish. You a Jew-boy, cutie? Look, I got nothing against Jews, I mean not even niggers. You look like a doctor or something. No, an intern.”

  “I’m a Hindu. A medicine-man from Java.”

  “Fun-nee! Very funny.”

  But she laughed. She was very pretty. She had buck teeth.

  “Honey, okay if I go out with you?”

  “Sugar, it’s a free country.”

  And outside on the street in the warm night air she said, “Jeeps, what a creep-joint. How come a nice guy like you in a creep-joint like that? You’re cute. Wanna know something? You are cute.”

  “I wasn’t in the creep-joint. You were.”

  “Yeah. Wanna walk a little? Let’s walk. I know a nice little place, a Spanish place, not a creep-joint. Walking distance. Okay?”

  “Sure.”

  She took his arm. They walked.

  “I’m Peggy Flanagan.”

  “Ross Mason.”

  “Hi, Ross.”

  “Hi, Peggy.”

  “My girlfriend took me. Said this Lamplighter, we could meet some guys willing to spend a little, you know? Shoot, man. Nothing. A lot of little Jew-boys buying you a fast beer and rubbing up against you to knock off a dry one, you know? Look, sugar, I don’t mean nothing with this Jew-boy stuff. I mean if it happens you’re a Jew-boy, think nothing of it. It’s just my way of talking.”

  “I’m a Taoist. An intern from Peking.”

  “You’re cute.”

  “Thanks.”

  “No, I mean it.”

  “Well, thank you.”

  “So I stick around that creep-joint, because my girlfriend she’s like making out a little with some elderly guy, squat and fat. Jeeps, New York, it’s like all dwarfs. So my girlfriend she asks me if it’s all right with me if she
blows out with the dwarf, and sure it’s all right with me. They blow, and I fix up in the little girls’ room, and I’m on my way out when there you are. I mean a guy like you. I mean what’s a guy like you doing in a creep-joint like that.”

  “I told you. My first time.”

  “Even a first time.”

  “I was, well, like stumbling around.”

  “A pretty guy like you? Alone? Stumbling around on a Saturday night? I don’t get it.”

  “I … I’ve been having a bit of trouble.”

  “What kind of trouble, sugar?”

  “Tell you later. In your little Spanish place.”

  She squeezed his arm. “You’re okay. You are okay, sugar. Like me girl friend says, and she’s right. New York. The Big Apple. Don’t never put it down. You jes’ never know when you can run up against a real nice person. Even in a creep-joint — a real nice person.”

  The little Spanish place had a low ceiling, low lights, many round-topped little tables, and a small dance-floor. Two guitars and a piano played Spanish music.

  A man in a torero’s uniform took them to a corner table, and a waitress in black tights and a skirt that ended at the top of her thighs took their order.

  “A Miller’s,” Peggy said.

  “Two,” said Ross Mason.

  The waitress went away. The blonde looked serious.

  Her corn-silk hair was parted in the middle and fell to her shoulders.

  She had lovely white skin. She had a lovely long neck.

  “Listen,” she said. “I mean like I don’t wanna rope you in. The beer, she brings it in bottles and all. On a Saturday night they charge a buck and a half a bottle. I mean if you can’t afford, we’ll stall along with the one bottle apiece.”

  “I can afford all you can drink.”

  “I can drink a lot, sugar.”

  “I can afford a lot.”

  The buck teeth gleamed. “Shoot! I got a feeling my luck is changing.”

  “Troubles, honey?”

  “You ain’t kiddin’.”