Dominique

Afternoon rush hour, his taxi stuck in traffic. Showing good Manhattan etiquette, people have driven their cars into intersections hoping to sneak past the changing reds, ending up caught in front of approaching uncaring cross-towners, everyone honking their horns at once.

He took out a twenty, gave it to his driver, and got out, nearly getting hit by a bike messenger who flipped him off.

Well, walking to the gym makes more sense, he supposed. If you’re going to work out, might as well walk. But first something to drink.

He ducked into a corner store, nodding to the Korean woman behind the counter. Grabbed a kombucha and got in line, checking out the woman in front of him: Black hair pulled back in a ponytail. Baggy pink sweats with coffee stains. Green Converse High-Tops. Hard to tell if she had a good body or not, though the face…hm, almost looks like….

—Dominique?

The woman almost jumped, nearly dropping her box of Tampax. She turned around, eyes wide.

His eyes perhaps just as wide. —Dominique.

She cleared her throat. —Um, no, you must have me mistaken for someone else. My name is Kristen.

He looked at the Tampax. —Oh….sorry.

She turned around and stepped to the counter and he watched her pay and leave without looking at him.

He paid for his Coke and walked out on the sidewalk, spotting her pink sweats in the crowd. Upper East Side. Same area. But….

He walked to the gym, changed, and got on the treadmill. The gerbil wheel. Thursday night, his night alone. Wife off at her therapist and afterwards tv night with her friends. Daughter at basketball practice and open-mic poetry night. His night to work up a good sweat, sit in the sauna, and a session with…Dominique. It had to be her. It was. He knew her voice, and the face, even without the black eyeliner and blood lipstick. Of course, he knew that wasn’t her real name, though it could have been. And of course he supposes she must have a life outside of the dungeon. But dirty pink sweatpants?

He ran thirty minutes, zoning out from everything. Except Dominique. That’s part of it, the anticipation. Knowing what she’s going to do to him later. But green Converse? No socks?

He took a sauna, showered and went outside. Nighttime, but still too early to go to her place yet. That was part of the game, to be on time. So he took a walk over to the river, watching a tugboat go by in the dark water. A man a little ways upriver caught a fish, laughing, and he wondering if he would actually eat the thing. Then back between the buildings to her apartment.

He rang and she buzzed him up. She opened her front door and frowned, wearing a black latex bodysuit with thigh-high spike leather boots and a studded leather belt. Lips shiny red, black eyeliner, long red fingernails. She said nothing until she closed the door behind him. —Hello Pussy. Ready?

—Um, yes Mistress. 

He handed her the envelope of money and followed her into the dungeon: Walls covered with huge black curtains, candles burning in the corners. On the floor the large square mat with black pillows. She turned around, hands on hips. —Take off your clothes, Pussy.

He did. She watched. When he was naked, she held out a pair of pink panties. —Put these on.

He said the thing he loved to say, over and over: —Please don’t make me wear panties.

And she responded like she always did, like he always wanted her to. —If you were a real man you wouldn’t have to. But you’re a pussy, aren’t you?

Sometimes he shivered at this point, though not that night. —Yes. Yes, I’m a pussy.

He put on the panties and crouched on the mat on all fours, watching her slip on her strap-on, a big thick black thing with realistic veins, and rolled on a condom. He closed his eyes while she pulled his panties down to his knees, lubed him, and made him beg. He tried to relax and forget everything, enjoy being filled up, but as she penetrated him, all he could think was, She’s got a tampon in right now.

She got it all in, cursing him the whole time, and reached around for the usual reach-around. Except his cock wasn’t hard.

She froze. He thought maybe if she would have immediately insulted him for not being able to get it up that they might have been able to keep going, but there was a pause, where he knew that she knew that he was thinking about seeing her in the store, in the real world.

He asked her to stop. She immediately pulled out, staying in the game. —What’s the matter, can’t take a real cock? 

But it was too late somehow. He apologized. —Look, I guess I’m not into this tonight.

She rolled the condom off the dildo and lets it drop on the floor, shrugging. —Next week.

He nodded and stood, the panties still around his knees. He looked at her.

She shrugged. —Keep them.

He dressed and followed her to the door. She opened it. —See you next week?

He tried to smile. —Yes, of course.

After the door closed, he heard her yell, —Shit! 

He almost knocked on the door again, to say something. He didn’t know what. About asking her to go for a coffee. But that felt dumb, he felt dumb, and walked down the stairs.

He caught a cab on 2nd and, inside, leaned his head against the window, the glass cool on his cheek. Watching the store lights and people.

Back at the apartment he checked his watch. Still a little time. He looked in the back of the Village Voice, turning the pages. Pictures. Phone numbers. Here. This: A woman dressed in black, with long black hair. Smiling and looking at him. Mistress Black. He dialed the number. 

A woman’s voice answered.

Get Forked

“Johnny, wake up man. I think you need to take me to the hospital. Come on, wake up!”

“What? What’s going on Bigotes? You have asthma attack? Where is your bomba?”

He sits up in bed and turns on the lamp on the night stand.

“No Johnny, that crazy bitch stabbed me in the back. I can’t tell how bad I’m bleeding or how deep the knife is in. Whatever you do, don’t pull it out, I’ll bleed to death before we get to the hospital.”

“Okay okay, tranquilo carnal, let me take a look.”

“I’m serious Johnny, don’t fuck around.”

I turn my back to him so he can get a closer look. 

“Santi, I don’t think it is knife in your back. I think maybe it is fork she stab you with. What did you do to make her to stab you with fork?”

“A fork? Are you sure? Take another look. Turn on the ceiling light.”

He flicks the wall switch, shedding more light on the severity of my wound.

“Yes Bigotes, it is fork not knife. You should have me pull it out. I can’t tell how deep it is in.”

“Wait, let me think about it for a minute.”

“Santi, tell me why she stab you?”

“She wanted more cocaine and more cocaine and more cocaine. She was acting all strange and sketchy. I told her there wasn’t anymore, she got pissed off, started screaming at me, calling me a liar. I got up out of the bed, started putting on my clothes to get away from her, then I felt her stab me. She picked up her shit and ran out the door. Where’d you find that psycho bitch, man?”

“She is my cousin from Medellin.”

“What the hell. Of course another crazy person from your family. I should’ve figured as much. Are all your relatives mentally ill? I thought you were calling her prima (cousin) as a nickname. Like how I joke and call prostitutes prima.”

“I know, I am sorry. Everyone in my family is crazy with mental problems. I’m so lucky to have nothing wrong with me.”

“Are you serious? You’ve gotta be joking. You’re the craziest, most psycho Colombiano, mentally unstable individual I have ever been associated with.”

“Bigotes, why you say such mean things to me? I sometimes get crazy in a party way or when I get drunk and stuff but that’s all. Maybe you can get somebody else to take the fork out. You don’t want some crazy person doing it.”

“Sorry Rico, I don’t mean anything by it. You know I love you despite your quirks. Okay, let’s get this fucking fork out of my back and see what kind of damage we’re dealing with here.”

“There is not a lot of blood, Bigotes. But she sure stuck you good. I didn’t know a fork could be a dangerous weapon. Okay, you are ready?”

“No, I’m not ready. But go ahead and do it anyway.” 

“Wait, I think maybe I should have a towel in case maybe you start bleeding a lot. Then we need to have the cut circlesized with alcohol for no infection. Oh no, I hope you will not need switches, the hospital is very far away Bigotes.”

Despite the pain I’m in, I can’t help but laugh at Johnny’s mispronunciations, casting the incident in an entirely different light. He’s acting so dramatically. I don’t remember when I’ve seen him so serious, as though he were a doctor giving me the prognosis. 

“Why you laughing Bigotes? Because you don’t want to cry?”

“No Johnny, I was laughing at the words you used in English. I’m very proud of you J.R. You have come a long way with learning English, but sometimes you use a word incorrectly or mispronounce a word and it ends up being humorous. I’m not making fun of you my friend, it’s just funny is all.”

“So what you think I’m funny? Funny like what like a clown? I what, I make you laugh? How am I funny?”

“Now that’s hilarious, Johnny! You remembered that from Goodfellas. You do it better than Joe Pesci, very good.”

I’m laughing hysterically, applauding his performance until a twinge of pain reminds me of the fork still in my back.

“I’m happy you laugh. I always want to do that. Tell me what words I say wrong when I get back with towel and some alcohol. I think we can use tequila. Is there still some Patron?”

“Yes, it’s in the freezer. Good thinking, Johnny.”

He returns drinking from the bottle.

“Now we are ready you think? Yes?”

“Let’s do it!”

The fork was stuck in my lower left shoulder, just out of my own reach. I still had my shirt on with the fork having been stuck through it. I unbutton to remove the shirt, but as I go to drop it, it just hangs from the fork in my back.

“Bigotes, I don’t know if I can do it…” 

“For Christ’s sake J.R. just pull the goddamn fork out already. Do it! It won’t hurt. In fact, give me the tequila. I need a drink.”

“Maybe you should drink more to not feel pain.”

“Another good idea, buddy. You’re really showing your smarts! Ooh, you know what, I have some Vicodin in my jacket. Can you grab it for me please?”

Johnny returns with my jacket in hand, sporting a huge grin. 

“Look what you have in pocket. Here are the pills, look what else you’re hiding, a vial of cocaine and two puros that we forget to smoke at the beach. Now take your medicine and when you feel no pain, we will take the fork out, okay?” 

It was 3:45am by this point, but it wasn’t like I had to go to work in the morning. Plus, I’d been wounded in action, so I could just lounge around all day if I felt like it. I think it was Saturday anyway, I didn’t have any appointments on my calendar, so fuck it I thought.

Here we go.

I swallowed a couple of Vicodin, snorted a cap full of cocaine. Johnny passed me the bottle of tequila and I took a nice long swig.

“Now, let me explain why I was laughing earlier. I think you meant to say ‘sterilize’ but you said ‘circlesize’, which sounds like ‘circumcise’, which has a totally different meaning. ‘Circumcise’ is when a doctor cuts the extra skin off the penis of a baby boy.”

“Why they do such a thing?”

“It was started by the ancient Egyptians then practiced by the Jewish people and on and on. I’m not going to get into the reasons why.”

“So you have circhimsize? I see your pene is different than mine. I am no circhimsize, I still have the skin.”

“Ya I know Rico, I don’t want to be talking about our dicks, okay?” I quickly change the subject. “Now, ‘stitches’ are what the doctor sews you up with, but ‘switches’ was the word you used. Understand now?”

Johnny lights a joint and passes it over to me.

“I have a question,” he says. “Why you always call marijuana ‘trisumman’? Why does it have that name?”

Immediately I start laughing once again.

“Hey, now I am going to get very angry, you laugh at me more.”

“Sorry, Rico. I’m saying, ‘try some man’, but you put all three words together. Maybe I say it too fast, so it sounds like one word.”

Johnny finally finds the humor in what I’ve been saying, laughing right along with me this time.

We sat there talking and joking around, with Johnny doing all sorts of impressions now that I had been amused by his Joe Pesci. They weren’t very funny but I laughed anyway, probably because I was a little drunk, high on Vicodin, coked up and stoned.

Suddenly we’re startled by a loud banging on the front door. I looked at the clock and it was 5:20. I still had the fork in my back, but I was no longer feeling any pain.

“Who the hell do you think that could be?” I whisper. “You think that bitch called the police?”

“I don’t know but I will go to the door and see. Okay? Just relax, I will take care of it.”

“Thanks Johnny.”

He staggers to the front door and I take cover down the hall within hearing distance.

“Quien es acá?” (Who’s here?) Johnny asks.

I don’t understand why he doesn’t just look out the window to see who’s there. I hear a woman’s voice but not well enough to know what she’s saying.

“Espereme uno segundo,” (Wait a second) I hear him answer.

He walks back over to where I’m hiding, shaking his head and chuckling.

“Bigotes, it is my cousin again. She has no money for taxi or bus and wants to say she is sorry to you.”

“What do you think? Does she seem normal to you, not all weird?”

“I’m not sure. You make the call.”

“Okay, let her in, but don’t let her come near me.”

He goes to the door, swinging it open to let her back inside. She struts into the room and heads straight in my direction, prompting me take a few steps back.

“Hey Rico, you better get over here…”

“Don’t worry Santi,” she says, “I’m not going to do anything to you. I want to say I’m sorry and to make it up to you. I didn’t hurt you real bad, did I?” 

“You stabbed me in the back with a fucking fork! Here, take a look.”

I turn my back so she can see her own handiwork for herself.

I barely feel a thing as she grabs and yanks the fork out.

“I’m so sorry baby, let me make it up to you.”

She drops her dress on the floor, grabs my hand and starts leading me off into the bedroom.

“Make sure she has no scissors in her purse,” Johnny yells after me. “She might try to circhimsize you!”

“Thanks for watching out for me, Johnny.”

She closes the door behind us and looks me in the eye.

“So, you have some more cocaine?”

Number One Fan

Simon leaned over to me, his hair falling across his eyes as he stroked my thigh and asked me if he could suck my dick. It was the first time a guy had ever asked me that and the first time I called someone a fag to their face.

I shouldn’t have been surprised when he punched me hard for what I said.

He was a couple years older than me, and way smarter, a local guy I’d met randomly at the skatepark downtown and we’d become friendly once we both noticed each other’s moves on our boards. We skated the small park smashed into an old supermarket in a shitty part of town where they’d jobbed-up hardwood half pipes and skateruns inside the old Loblaws supermarket at Lansdowne and Bloor as kids from the burbs (me) and from the inner city (him) all flocked there to thrash. It was a dump of a place but it was our home for one whole Summer and a Winter before it got shut down for not paying the heating bill or something.

Of course, this is where I heard the Ramones for the first time. They’d slap Rocket to Russia on the shitty house PA that used to play canned shopping muzak and the boys from NYC kicked out the jams. We’d rip and thrash in the open freestyle area and smoke Export A’s headbanging all night and day. I’d even score angel dust, which was a thing back then, from the scary black kids that hung around the makeshift snack bar but never skated. They’d just watch the stupid white kids try to kill themselves all fucked up on dust and laugh when we fell.

One time, I got too high on something Simon and I had split spending all the money we had, and I ended up out of my cheese-eating head in the grey winter snow, not wearing my jacket, my board forgotten, my brain fried. Simon bundled me up and took me back to the place he shared with his mom down on Dufferin about a block away. She worked nights then and by the time we got to his place, I was hopelessly lost and shivering badly. He’d slipped me into his own single bed after giving me a double dose of codeine cough medicine while my teeth grated back and forth until I passed out.

I know I slept because the next thing, he was in next bed next to me, pushed up tight, spooning me from behind. But I was warm and safe as I smelled the fresh mouth he would offer me once he knew I was awake. I could feel his wintergreen breath of my cheek, his arms around my waist warming me as his thick cock stiffened against my ass.

I think it was his evident chubby that finally brought me back.

We fought, he kicked me once I called him a fag and his bright tighty-whities shrunk in anger as he told me to get out of his place and never come back. I said crueler things to him, got dressed in a rush and stomped out of his place, no idea where I was, in the middle of the night. I’d lost my skateboard, my mind and my only downtown friend all because I got scared that he was queer for me. See, I’d had zero experience with guys back then — I was from Etobicoke. There was this one guy, Steven Tiesdale everyone tormented at school, a totally out kid long before being gay was fashionable or even safe, but apart from that, I was clueless. I just knew about fairies and fags from TV and the movies and thought they were the enemy or wrong — fucked in the head. They liked cocks and just wanted it up the ass or in each other’s mouths and that was sick and stupid and not for me.

So, I bought a new skateboard and kept chewing out a rhythm in my safe little ‘hood not ever going back to Lansdowne because I might see Simon and I was too embarrassed by how everything went down. He’d been nothing but kind to me and I introduced me to Joey and Johnny and Tommy (Forever) and Dee Dee and I’d had my little hissy meltdown and then totally fucked up our friendship. He’d given me the gift of the world’s greatest band and I’d been unforgivably cruel and naive. I just tried to push him out of my mind, conveniently forgetting about the musical education he’d given me and our past friendship and even our skate park before long. So, I dropped him but kept the Ramones and moved on as best I could. I’d cut out the pictures of them I’d get occasionally from Creem magazine if they even covered the band, hating the grainy black and white newsprint pics but cherishing the fact that I knew about them and nobody else did where I lived. Guys at my school were still into Triumph and Rush or Genesis and all the old bullshit dinosaur rock gods and whenever I dragged out Rocket or Road to Ruin and tried to put it on at the parties we’d have, I’d get shouted down by drunk gals and guys telling me to turn that punk shit off.

But I never did. Not until they made me.

I bought more than a few LP’s of the same albums that got trashed by the assholes I called my friends. These were the fuckers that would throw beer on the band on the stupid Monsters of Rock tour they ended up being mistakenly booked on years later. I heard that Johnny flipped the audience off and the band raced to safety after just three songs. It was a mutual fuck you. You either got ’em or you didn’t. Gabba, Gabba Hey, One of Us. One of Us. Or a Pinhead forever.

I carried the torch for the Ramones out there in suburban Etobicoke all through high school by myself, at least until “that” movie came out. That changed everything. We’d always used to get fucked up at the Kingsway Theater, a local movie house where they didn’t care if you smoked pot or drank and when Rock n’ Roll High School played, now all of a sudden it was okay to love the band if you wanted to be with it. That 15-minute mini-concert in the middle of the movie became the new sweet anthem at school and I’d jumped to the top of the cool kids list because I was there first and everyone knew it. Even Julie something or other, this smoking gal in Biology back then was into them now and she asked me to maybe recommend some of their albums for her to pick up at Sam the Record Man down on Yonge Street when she went downtown with her girlfriends. I lent her mine for a couple weeks to copy on cassette and we got friendly, I thought.

When the Two Gary’s, the local Ramones ticket promoters announced an all ages general admission show at the Danforth, I was the first one on the phone calling in and scored five tickets using my mom’s credit card. I ended up asking Biology Julie to go with me and sold the other tickets to Triko, Blyth and McConie at double the face value because I’m not stupid. On the day of the show, I arranged to meet Julie out front of the venue as she had to lie to her mom about where she was actually going and had to pack her “costume” in a bag. I remember that distinctly, her costume. But I wanted to fuck her so I let it slide.

I took the Bloor West bus with the guys into the city and we swung by the LCBO on the way and picked up a big 40 oz bottle of Gordon’s Gin to share as we waited in line all day because it was general admission and we wanted seats up front just before the pit. It was fucking freezing out and we didn’t want to get cold waiting so we got hard liquor to keep warm because getting fucked up fast was a big part of being young. So, we drank the 40 oz quick as fuck, swearing at each other, the cold and pissing off pretty much everyone else in the line.

When Julie finally showed up, she changed at Tim Horton’s into her secret sexy leopard skin leggings and shorty leather jacket and then shivered in line with the rest of the drunk and restless crowd. By the time they let us all in, we were all cold as fuck, I was shitfaced and I had lost all chance of scoring with my kinda-date Julie. Being handsy and drunk and clueless is not a good look.

Then it all gets fuzzy.

I do remember throwing up on her leather boots, Julie screaming at me and calling me names, me passing out in the front seats we had bum-rushed and then sleeping through the opening band. I was pretty sure it was Shrapnel, Joey’s brother’s band.

The rest of the night was flashes only after.

The sour smell of gin all over me, Triko, his nose bloody and busted from moshing in the pit, McConie’s broken glasses and Billy Blyth laughing at me as I tried to stand up on my seat when I heard Dee Dee count it out for another two-minute salvo.

“1-2-3-4,” Dee Dee howled as Johnny power chorded and I Lazurus-ed up and away, wobbling into the air, vomit caking my shirt as I screamed in drunken approval, cartwheeling on my wobbly seat.

That’s when he saw me.

Joey Ramone, salamander cool, his long body twisted at the microphone, pointed a finger straight at me. The spotlight hit and I fell backwards into the poor fuckers behind me, still screaming in ecstasy at having been seen by my idol.

I went down under their sharp heels and heavy boots, empty bottles rolling on the ground all around me as I tried to get away from the angry mob pissed that a stupid drunk high school kid had decided to crash their good time. Fists and feet and spit rained down upon me, and I think I remember kinda covering my head as I clawed my back up into the seats.

I vaulted off the back of the now-trashed chair, holding for one perfect still frame moment in the air, alive.

It ended badly.

I was close enough to bounce onto the stage, landing face first and leaving a streak of blood. There’s a photo of me in mid-flight, a damaged black raven, broken winged and blackout bad that I have somewhere, I think. I know they published it.

The onstage bouncer grabbed me by my belt loop and heaved me off into the risers. I bounced off another surface and went down into a heap.

The band never missed a beat.

***

I staggered up off the floor, my face streaked with blood and tears as the concert thundered on without me. I dragged myself out into the freezing night. The guys at the door all looked shit-scared for my safety. I know I heard someone call me back, maybe something about an ambulance.

My buddies and Julie all stayed inside without me.

I staggered off but it wasn’t long before I collapsed into the gutter, radiating sick and shame. I wasn’t sure I was gonna make it to wherever it was I thought I was going, and honestly I didn’t care by that point.

That’s when I felt a hand fall upon my shoulder.

I cringed, expecting a boot from a fellow concert-goer. That or the hard-knuckled fist of a cop sent to set me straight and drag my ass back home. I glanced up over my shoulder, prepared for yet another blow.

And there stood Simon, just smiling and shaking his head. He was still the same guy and I started to sob when I recognized him. He sat down next to me and took me in his arms. His breath still smelled of wintergreen.

He took me back to his mom’s place and cleaned me up. I sucked his cock and he sucked mine.

It was the best night of my life. Thank you, Ramones.

Sincerely,

Your Number One Fan