A Short Story for a post today.
Double
Entendre
By
Kent
L Johnson
Her eyes are what
attracted me to her in the beginning. A hazel iris, surrounded by
shiny gold pigmentation. How alluring and inviting those eyes are, as
they scan manuscript pages late at night in a twenty-four hour coffee
shop. Well, that and her pale white skin, so easy to see in the
dark. But what I find most to love is her mind; sharp, witty and how
they say, 'outside the box.' That's hard to find in most people I
meet, nocturnal like me.
I can't remember
the last time I actually saw the light of day. I work the night
trading stocks in Tokyo, Hong Kong or Australia, while US stock
traders sleep. Before I call it a day, I place my buy, sell or short
orders for the US market based on what happens a half world away. I
usually make my best money while I'm asleep.
Clair prefers the
night too. She works for a publishing house. She reads submissions
from unknown writers. She throws most away, but sometimes a jewel
gets put into her pile and she submits it to people higher up the
food chain. Clair doesn't like to work at the office because she
doesn't like the people there: people who gossip, the people who
play petty games for the attention of some executive or another, the
people striving for more money, or more power. Clair doesn't play
those games.
She picks up new
manuscripts weekdays at four PM, then reads most of the night. She
reads at home or she reads at a twenty-four hour restaurant like
tonight. I punch keys on a computer at home or from some Wi-Fi hot
spot like this place.
Clair and I met
over six months ago. Hard not to notice each other. We are the only
two people in the city that seem to show up at all hours of the night
at one place or another, alone, punching keys or turning pages. We
get to know each other, we begin to date. We date late night, because
that's how we live. My day ends at about six in the morning; hers,
around seven. We eat meals together at our favorite spots, sometimes
get an after work drink at an all night private club.
Some Asian holiday
tonight. I don't need to work and the weekend is here. Clair places a
paper clip on a few pages of someones hard work and writes,
'Declined,' in large red letters across the title page. She places it
in her carry bag and pushes the bag to the inside of the booth, near
the wall.
“Another one
bites the dust,” she says. She lifts a coffee cup to her lips and I
watch as the soft tissue gently touches the cup and she takes a sip.
“Whatever happened to literature?”
“Literature?”
“Yes. I remember
reading literature in high school, in college. We discussed it. It
had...” She pauses, then wraps her hand completely around the
coffee cup, like she's trying to get warm. “Double Entendre.”
“Double what?”
“Double
Entendre. I always liked that word. Words.”
I sit silently,
watching her. It's only a matter of time before she coughs up the
definition. She stares back at me, a smile on her face. She takes
another sip of coffee. I lose sight of her little pale nose as the
cup tilts, then it reappears. She licks her lips, then smiles again,
watching me.
I can't take it. I
break the silence. “You mean like Double Entree?” I know this
isn't what she means. “Steak and Shrimp?”
“No, and I know,
you know, better than that.” The smile still on her face. “Remember
when we read the classics in school? Those great novels that are a
story but tell another story. Double Entendre: two meanings. You
would have a story about leaving the homestead, facing impossible
obstacles, then finally finding a new spot, a better spot for you and
your children. The great whale and the intolerable rage that made a
man so insane he risks not only his own life, but the lives of many
others to extract revenge.”
“Uh-huh.”
“But the second
meaning is perhaps about the state of the human condition, or maybe
an historical circumstance that needs to be reiterated. Jealousy,
irony, rage and deception. Steinbeck, Cervantes, Voltaire, oh so many
great writers who wrote great prose that had a bigger meaning than
just the story.”
I love the way she
looks when she gets excited about a subject. She gets a flush across
her normally pale skin, and for a moment, for just a tiny moment, I
think that perhaps, a drop of sweat might appear. It never does, but
I always think it might.
“Was the last
story you read, that bad?”
“More of the
same, I guess.” Clair throws her head back, the small strands of
long blond hair that are not already tied back, fall limply behind
her head.
“I know we both
spend most of our time out at night while people are asleep, but I'm
thinking about becoming a Peeping Tom around nine-thirty or ten.”
She pauses. “Just to see if it's true.”
“What's true?”
“Are there
really that many women having sex with their dogs?”
My head tilts to
the side before I even realize. “What are you talking about?”
“It's still
taboo to talk about sex between humans and animals. At least in the
mainstream world of commercial fiction it should be.”
“Right.”
“All these
stories that are being submitted recently. Girls having sex with
werewolves. Come on now. It seems like every girl, woman or housewife
that thinks about a story to make into a book, involves a woman
having sex with a werewolf.”
“Every girl,
woman, housewife?”
“No, not every
one. Just the ones submitting stories to our publishing house. Have
you ever seen a werewolf?”
“No.”
“Have you ever
met anyone that's seen a werewolf?”
“No.”
“Let's make the
logical connection. No werewolves. So that must mean that
subconsciously, we're talking about having sex with a dog.”
“I see the
connection.”
“And it's only
women having sex with dogs. In the past, people made fun of farm boys
coming of age and screwing barnyard animals, of which I'm sure there
is some truth, otherwise the stories wouldn't exist. Follow that
logic: women with dogs. There are female werewolves, but I guess
human men don't interest them because they never seem to be going out
with one.”
I sit silent and
look at her. Her face is flush, and the underlying veins run a darker
blue. I feel her foot touch mine under the table.
“And you know
what else gets me? All the women are the same. They are all described
like anime girls. Tiny girls with small hips but super soft and
supple, BIG tits. Mounds of pudding wrapped in satin with a nipple on
top.”
I smile at her
description. She's witty.
“But the tits
are strong and forthcoming for being such soft gelatin. Perky. Held
right out there without a sag, like the way strong Douglas firs
sprout from the mountains of coastal British Columbia. Ever reaching.
God, I have to read this crap day in and day out.”
I place my hands
over hers and gently touch her leg with my leg under the table. Her
hands are soft and smooth. I lean across the table and look her in
the eye. “I think you need a break. Let's go to the club and get a
drink.”
“Sounds like
fun.”
I give the waiter
a large bill and tell him to keep the change. We walk outside into
the dark, down the street and towards my car. My arm is around her
shoulders and I pull her towards me as we walk. The streets are
deserted at this hour, only a cat or two making sounds in the
alleyways.
We reach the car
and I spin Claire around and gently push her against it. I lean
toward her, feeling her breath on my face. Our noses touch. I move my
head to the right, forward next to her and gently lick her earlobe.
My hands are on her shoulders and I feel her shudder.
I can smell her
then, and my mind begins to think those thoughts, thoughts of
ecstasy, of uncontrollable need. I hear the beat of my heart in
combination with the beat of hers. Blood coursing through our veins.
I lower my head down and gently push her head to the side, then I
bite. Blood flows into my mouth from her neck and I hear her moan, I
continue to suck on her neck, tasting the coppery liquid until I gain
control once again.
I pull a
handkerchief from my pocket and hold it on her wound. I stare in her
eyes.
“Werewolves are
bullshit. But I love a good Vampire,” she says.
End
