Little Cat

The titty bar was down near the water where all the factories were. Me and Adi shared the joint. We didn’t really speak and I didn’t know why. I couldn’t imagine myself with a different name. Adi sounded real to me. I couldn’t believe I was holding her hand. The pot was so strong that my heart started seizing, skipping beats. Cars were double-parked along the sides of the road.

The bar was unmarked – it looked like a factory building. There were silver circled mirrors on the front door.

When Adi pulled me inside, she let go of my hand. What was my name? Mirat? Mirnot? It was a dark flashing room, full of mirrors, high ceilings and painted black walls. Girls writhed upward, humping on poles. Inside their mouths it was shining like sirens. I crushed my face into Adi’s fur coat. She elbowed me off her. I couldn’t breathe. I didn’t know who it was in those mirrors: men squatted in circles with beers in their crotches or girls with their nipples pushing through their bras. Those girls looked like wolves with the hair all shaved off them!

‘Bitches,’ Adi whispered. She took my hand again. Thank god.

I was coughing, but I was with her.

‘Hey, Adi, who you got there? Who’s your little friend?’ I saw this one guy staring at me like a hunter. ‘What’s her name? You bring her for me?’

My name is not Mira. Call me Sexpot.

The man was so weirdly hot. He had thick eyebrows. He held out his hand. It was massive, with veins jutting up above each knuckle. I squeezed Adi’s hand even tighter.

‘Tell me, Adi, where’d you find this little hairy one?’

He thought I was disgusting?

‘Go fuck yourself, Gio.’

The man stood up, smiling. He was probably six foot five. I stepped backward, away. That hairy thing hurt.

Adi was dragging me past him too fast. Wait a second! I wanted to scream. I felt suddenly violent and bold from the pot. I wanted to stay and kick his asshole in. I didn’t brush my hair, that’s true. So fucking what? My legs were unshaved, my armpits too. What did that asshole know about my thighs? My name is Mira, you asshole. I have only one name. I tried not to stare back at the guy as Adi yanked me away from him. Suddenly we stopped – Adi bumped into some girl wearing a muzzle and a thong. The music turned into a woman’s heavy breathing.

I made myself look back at Gio, that guy. He was watching me with this horrible smile. His eyes were wild, too wide, outlined with black. He looked like a man who could slice a goat’s neck and not blink. I really couldn’t take it. I let my eyes drop to his legs. His two huge thighs shifted open a bit.

I thought he was telling me: It’s okay. I’m sorry. Come back.

I hated myself. I was getting wet. I felt tinier and younger than anyone in the room.

Then the man turned both his palms up and showed me the basins of his grip. Come here, he signed. I felt the motions in my pussy. Come over here and sit on my lap.

I heard Adi getting in some kind of fight with the muzzle-thonged girl. Adi started swearing. She was pulling me away. Sticky wet lines smeared between my thighs.

When I finally looked back up at Gio’s face, he had a woman climbing on his lap. He hadn’t been motioning to me. Gio’s thick-knuckled hands were on the girl’s waist and she was writhing around like a puppy in pain.

‘Cocksucker,’ Adi hissed at the sight of Gio and the girl. ‘Fucking bitch, Lani’s got his cock in her mouth like a bone.’

It was about fifteen minutes before we closed the next Saturday when John came back to the café. He was carrying flowers and he’d shaved. It was like he thought I was the love of his life.

I hadn’t given him my number because I didn’t want him to call me at home. I didn’t want my parents to ask who he was. I took his number, though, and said I would call. He made me promise I would call. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. I felt too weird after I left that night. John had called me a cab, he’d even given me money for the ride, and I started hyperventilating the second I got into the car. It was quiet, I mean, the cab driver didn’t know, but I couldn’t stop thinking: What’d I just do? I could still feel John’s tongue pushing into my mouth, his ton

gue making all the noises of sex.

Seeing him standing in front of me, with those flowers, at work, all I could remember was his sandpaper tongue. And his purple hanging cock, how it swung from side to side. I remembered exactly how the whole thing went in me. Over and over, that feeling in my gut, and the second time, too, how I wanted it to happen … But I knew I didn’t want it to happen ever again! I didn’t want him as my boyfriend in that house that stunk of meat.

John kissed my forehead. He seemed sheepish. ‘Hey, Mira. How about the flowers?’

I took them and put my face in them. Ribbon carnations. Their gross perfume made me think of my period. I’d gotten it in the middle of the night a few days after the sex. I bled so much that it went through the mattress. My mother was mad. ‘That was your grandfather’s mattress,’ she said.

‘You’re getting off soon, right? I’ll wait for you here. We’ll go get something to eat.’

John thought I was just going to go with him? That I was his girlfriend or something? He was standing too close to me. I wasn’t even off work yet. I had to sweep the floor, mop it and put away the cash.

‘I’m still busy,’ I said.

My voice sounded mean. I didn’t mean for it to be so mean. I left the flowers on a table and started sweeping. My head was saying to him: Leave, leave, leave.