“Yes.”
“All you have to do is take that much one more time. Then the ring fits on the end of the needle, just like when Tyre did your ears, and we draw it right through. Now?”
Roxanne shook her head. “No, please, not yet. I'm not ready. I'm too scared.”
Tyre snapped her fingers. “Medic! Who has the poppers?”
The amyl appeared under Roxanne's nose, and she took the biggest hit she had ever taken in her life. It exploded before she finished inhaling, and Alex shoved the needle all the way through her tit. The grating, tearing noise was louder, and the ring seemed to be much bigger than the needle. Tiny bolts of pain followed its progress through her nipple. Then Alex took a pair of needle-nosed pliers, and squeezed the jewelry shut. It was almost done.
Alex massaged her breast, milking blood out of the piercing, exclaiming as it ran down Roxanne's chest. Roxanne shivered and cried out, fearfully aroused. For a few crazy seconds, she wished Alex were going to put a hundred rings in her body, then her owner began to tweak the second nipple, and that wish vanished in a riptide of panic.
“No-no-no-no,” she moaned.
“Idiot, you'll hyperventilate,” Tyre told her, and shoved more poppers under her nose. “Hold still, or she'll take this one out and all you'll have is a pair of kinky earrings.”
Alex went to the other side of the table and repeated the process of marking the piercing, positioning the forceps, and forcing the needle through the tough nipple tissue. Roxanne could feel blood cooling on her other breast. The gold felt hot, as if it had gone straight from the forge into her body. The ring was not quite in. “Daddy, hold still, I have to scream,” she said. Alex froze. Roxanne screamed, and all the fear left her with it. “Please put it in,” she begged, and Alex pushed the ring through to the other side and set its end in the bead.
She was bleeding from both breasts now, and her nipples were swelling. They were the size of walnuts, and felt like they were on fire. Tyre was giving instructions about turning and cleansing the rings, and Roxanne hoped Alex was listening, because she could not. She was wearing Alex's rings now. Permanently. Forever.
“Done,” Alex said. She poured antiseptic onto her breasts, and Roxanne yipped when it hit the piercings. “Just a few more,” Alex said.
“Do it now,” Roxanne told her. “If I come down, I'll freak out. Do it now, please hurry.”
“Relax, you impatient little bitch. I'm not going to rush myself. You think you want to look at a bad piece of work? You'll get it soon enough. Put your foot back up in those stirrups. Anne-Marie, can you lower the table? Slide your ass down. That's right. Dr Feelgood is in town.”
The antiseptic splashed her labia. Alex spread the delicate lips, and wet them thoroughly. Tyre bent over Roxanne's face. “The rings for your cunt are smaller than the tit rings or the earrings,” she explained. “You probably don't believe me, but this isn't going to hurt as much as either of the piercings you just had. The labia are so thin that it takes very little effort to put these in.”
Tyre was right. Roxanne did not believe her. These piercings had to be the worst. Her labia were so sensitive, she knew she was going to die. She simply could not endure this, she told herself, and they were just telling her it wouldn't be bad so she wouldn't tense up and make it worse. If only Alex would quit pinching her down there. She didn't see how that was going to help.
“All done,” Alex said, and handed her a mirror.
Two tiny rings glittered in the inner lips, right below her clitoral glans. “I can lock them together,” Alex explained, “and run a leash through them. Lay back, we're going to put three of them on either side of your outer lips. I want to be able to lace your cunt up, and once these have healed, I'll be able to do it. How do you think that will feel? It'll make it real hard for you to get fucked.”
“I won't tell you these aren't going to hurt,” Tyre said sympathetically. “Why don't you hold my hand? Squeeze me hard, it'll make it easier.”
Roxanne moaned. There was blood on her thighs, and the antiseptic prevented the blood from clotting, so thin trickles of red ran across her thighs. These piercings hurt more than her ears had, but it was still not as bad as having the rings put in her nipples. The thought of Alex locking up her cunt was so exciting that she only crushed Tyre's hand a time or two, when rings actually popped through and were closed. “What have you done to me?” she asked when Alex gave her the mirror and had her sit up again.
“I've made something visible that is supposed to be hidden, something that's been driven underground and persecuted and rendered invisible. I've made you my witness and my accomplice and my thing. You can be chained now using your own genitals as the foundation. You are always in bondage, to me. Look at them.” Roxanne saw the faces of Tyre, Joyous Day, and Chris. Their eyes were cruel, hungry, envious. “How do you feel?” Alex asked her.
“I don't think I want to walk home.”
Alex laughed. “I'm not going to take the mirror away any time soon. Are you proud of them?”
Roxanne was crying. “Yes, yes, everythingâI will do everythingâbe worthyâdon't deserve, love you.” It was difficult for her to go to her knees, wounded as her cunt was, but she managed, and knelt with her legs wide apart. “I need you more now than ever.”
“Well, my expectations have been raised. I intend to be even harder on you. More greedy, more severe, more demanding, less forgiving.” Roxanne sighed. As she leaned forward, Alex put a hand to the back of her neck and rubbed her face over her studded leather crotch-piece. “I want your mouth on me,” she said, unfastening it. “Put your tongue on my clit and describe how your new jewelry makes you feel.”
Tyre, Chris, and Joy quietly cleaned up the operating table while Alex received her first service from the newly pierced slave. It was apparently a most exquisite, patient, and gratifying service. Alex took pleasure form her for a long, long time.
They made their way back to the bar for a final drink and debriefing. Alex finally joined them, followed by Roxanne, who walked bowlegged. They all laughed at her awkward gait, but kindly. “They'll heal before you know it,” Joyous Day said. “You gonna go a lotta strange places, dancin' girl, it's good you always got your vex money with you now.”
Roxanne smiled, leaning against Alex's shoulder. For the first time, they all noticed how bruised she was. There were dark circles of fatigue under her eyes. “Call us a cab,” Alex told Tyre.
“I'm not calling anybody anything but late for breakfast. What's the point in having a limousine if you can't take your orgy home with you? That is, if my driver hasn't jerked off so much she's gone blind.”
Michael put both of her hands out if front of her, and felt around until she found Anne-Marie's latex-encased bosom. Anne-Marie tittered and goosed her. Michael's eyes popped open. “Thank you, sister,” she gasped, “another miraculous cure performed by this holy sign.”
“Okay. What a nice invitation. Thank you, Tyre. Think you can stay on your feet long enough to let me finish this cigarette?” Alex asked Roxanne.
“What? Oh, sure. Whatever you want. Alex, I feel so good, but I feel really funny.”
They all laughed. “Funny how?” Joyous Day asked her. “Aside from getting a high colonic, being fisted, pissed on, tied hand and foot, turned into a pin cushion, whipped ragged, fucked some more, called a whole lot of bad names, and pierced repeatedly, nothing much has happened to you. What's the matter with you? Gotta exaggerate every little thing t'make yourself feel important?”
“Fuck all of you,” Roxanne smiled. “I think I'm going to pass out.”
Only Tyre took this seriously. She made Roxanne squat, then sit on the floor, and put her head down.
“God, I hate for it to be over,” Chris said. “I've never been part of anything like this. I don't think it can be repeated, but it will certainly inspire, my, uh, future exploits.”
“Really,” Joy said reverently. “Tyre, I hope you'll keep me on tap for any carnivals you want to throw in the future.”
“Of course. All of you are on the A-list. No question.”
Alex slowly ground out her cigarette. “Is everybody coming to your place with us?”
There was a chorus of “I am.” Kay and EZ looked at each other. “I don't know about you,” Alex said, “but I'm in no shape to drive the bike home. I got mine locked up good, and security will keep an eye on it for me. Think that'll be okay, Tyre?”
“Sure, there's a night watch. If it's chained it'll be fine.” She was relieved at Alex's tact. She didn't want Kay and EZ to pull away. Things were going to be weird enough for the two of them without a self-imposed exile back to the boys'-club world of Folsom Street.
“Okay,” said Michael, “I'm parked right outside. Only one conditionâRoxanne has to go out the same way she came in.”
“In the mummy bag?” Roxanne said.
“No, on our shoulders.”
Tyre and Alex put their arms around each other and watched
everyone else get a handful of Roxanne and hoist her off the floor. “Good thing she's just a little girl,” Tyre said. Alex snorted. The rest of the crew was singing, “She's Got a Jolly Good Asshole” to the tune of “For She's a Jolly Good Fellow.”
“You know,” Tyre said slowly, as she and Alex followed everybody else out, “we put your lady through some very heavy shit.” She turned out the lights and closed the door.
“You could say that, all right.”
“Where can you go from here? Even this has got to run out of steam eventually.”
Alex thought about it for a long time. “Sell her?” she said.
It was only half a joke. Tyre nodded, absorbed it. Would it be a permanent transfer of rights, or would there be a time limit? Would all privileges be sold, or simply a portion of them? Who would be able to afford such an exotic delight? It was a bewildering and exhilarating notion. “The Calyx of Isis wants the movie rights,” she said, and slid her tired, rich, albino ass through the limousine's back door. All the way home, she stared at Roxanne, sleeping on Alex's shoulder, and tried to calculate the fair-market value of that much love.
I've been more comfortable in a public toilet. This room is a crucifying closet, stifling hot, and lit with ghoulish, humming fluorescent lights. There are no windowsânothing to look at but this big mahogany box of a desk and the Big Box herselfâexcuse me, I mean the Big Bossâbehind it. Normally, I find women of her size attractive. There's a larger canvas to work on, and more padding. But this woman's bulk is menacing, and the lack of distance between us isn't decent. I can see the wax in her ears. I'm confused, crowded, put off my game. I don't get this close to anybody who isn't manacled to a wall. I can't sit down because the chairs are piled with file folders and fat reports that threaten to escape their staples. The knocked-together bookshelves and battered gray file cabinets look too shaky to lean on. I don't dare lean on anything anyway. The pose might call up sordid reverberations from my checkered past, and we're going to hear enough about that any second now.
The placement of the shrine contributes to my disorientation. The mirror (bigger than usual) is behind and to one side of her desk, right across from me. Above, it says, “Behold the heroine of today!” These damn things are everywhere, so I don't even have to look below it to know that it says, “In her, the revolution lives on!”
I see a woman who has square, but not broad, shoulders, and a body that looks wiry and muscular (I hope). Actually, she is thin and worn out because she's been living on fifteen hundred calories a day and can't sleep at night. She is wearing faded khaki pants (army surplus), a leather jacket, laced-up combat boots, a studded belt, and a crewcut. That's me. The heroine of today, ha-ha.
The heat presses in on me. I can feel it beating against my eardrums, but I refuse to take off my jacket. Its fragile, blood-stained lining is ripping out, but if I replace it, I will lose another piece of Jackie. I can still hear the crazy conviction in the voice of our trick-turned-killer, replying to her cool suggestion that we talk about where we were going and what we were going to do when we got there. “You're going to be whatever I want you to be,” she said, putting a gun to Jackie's head. Well, people had been telling Jackie that her whole life. Why should she believe it now? She curled her lip in disdain and grabbed for the wheel.
These are terrible memories, but if I don't work hard to keep them fresh, that andro will have won and Jackie will not-be, never will have been her vital, crazed, strung-out self. I am the only one who can keep her alive because I am the only one who knew her and the only one who cared, who cares.
I should have left the jacket on her body, left it to burn up when the gas tank exploded and turned the psychotic jane's car into shrapnel. I could have remembered her without the jacket, without wearing her blood around my ribs, but I needed it. I knew that now I would be working the streets alone, had to toughen up, get a meaner act. I knew how much some women would pay to watch me stand over them, as long as I was wearing the jacket. Was I staving off grief, keeping myself from mourning her, or was I just being opportunistic, hustling my own poor girl's dead body for the tools of my trade? Funny how just as soon as you realize someone you love is dead, you can think about everything except the simple, inescapable fact of your loss.
Something trickles down the back of my neck. Does this clinic have an unusually zealous energy conservation plan? Most likely, the air conditioning broke down. Well, that's what happens when you shoot your technocrats. They can't seem to get a broken window fixed in my building, let alone the furnace when it blew up last winter. I treasure no hopes for resumption of the space race, eitherâor genetic engineering. Men everywhere may heave a sigh of relief. The spectacle of a thawing sperm bank leading to the extinction of our species has stayed the just retribution of women.