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Betty Paige Bangs
By
Lily Amirpour
I
decided it would be a good idea to get crafty. I needed to get good at making some kind of knick knack and try to sell it. I could try and sell it in the Mission, at one of those quirky, retro stores where the girls all have Betty Paige bangs and rare, vintage rock tee shirts. I’d wanted to get Betty Paige bangs for so long and never had the courage.
I have become obsessed with arranging and rearranging the things in the house and it’s getting out of control. I may end up divorced because of it, even though I’m barely married. We met at Burning Man and got married in Tahoe two weeks later. It seems like a flaky thing to do, impetuous and what not. But I wasn’t on drugs when we met, only he was. And since it seems that men become more honest and have more clarity on mushrooms, I justified the hasty decision.
For a while I wanted to be a lesbian. I fought the urge. It was hard living in the Mission, reading
Valencia and feeling overwhelmed by the dykes. The dykes always peruse me. Check me out hard and deliberate. I was jealous of them. I’d just moved here and didn’t have any girl friends to hang out with. And all around me are these dykes everywhere, looking so happy in their little punk rock posses, walking their pit bulls, drinking forties in Dolores Park.
Her name was Cara and she was cute like a teenage boy, skinny, with a real defined jaw, a pointy nose. I wanted to buy a pair of Pumas I saw at that shoe store that has every sneaker you could imagine. I was walking up Valencia Street when she cruised up on her skateboard. Her hair was short, black and spiky, sticking out from the sides of her baseball cap, everything on her looked worn, rockabilly. She had a plaid button-up on top of a white t-shirt with the sleeves rolled together. Her crooked mouth made her seem rascally. She looked me over for a long minute and I felt stupid. The same way I do when guys are looking. I remember thinking,
Holy shit… I’m gay.
Of course I’d have a drink with her. We bought the Pumas and went to the Lexington Club. I couldn’t believe I actually got wet strutting around the shoe store in sneakers, modeling them for her. I was so excited. Her eyes were heavy, intense, bemused. She never spoke to fill time, only to say something.
I’d never been inside the Lexington Club, but had always wanted to go. She knew a lot of the girls in there. They all kept staring at me. I was worried they could smell the dick on me. I felt like the new girl in school. I was acting shy and saying dull, dumb things, but Cara didn’t mind. She liked me.
I had a few drinks and started to relax. Chad had called my cell phone twice already, I didn’t answer.
‘Who’s calling you so much? You married or something?’ She was joking.
I spit beer out of my mouth, choking on the answer, ‘Nah… some guy.’ There: I had lied. I was definitely gay. I briefly envisioned the conversation where I tell Chad I’ve become a lesbian… Besides,
you were on mushrooms when you met me, how could we have based a whole marriage on a
hallucination?
I was starting to get drunk. Cara kept smiling at me in this certain way when I talked, that made me want to talk more. We started taking Tequila shots.
‘I hate my shirt, it’s so lame huh?’ I was teetering on my stool. My tee shirt had that stupid trendy monkey logo made by that artist who puts monkeys on everything and sells them to suckers like me on Haight Street. I had just been in the city a few days when I bought it. I hated it when I bought it, but I bought it anyway, and I hated it now more than ever.
‘What a stupid fucking shirt.’ I was getting loud now. ‘Stupid fucking monkey. Isn’t it so stupid?’ I was getting myself worked up. I knew what I liked and it wasn’t this shirt. I smirked at Cara and she watched me throw back another shot. It was Herradura. I was sucking off the lime when she leaned in close to me. She grabbed around my waist and whispered in my ear,
‘Hate it eh?’ It came off so quick I barley noticed. The shots were kicking in, barreling me over and I vaguely realized with some relief I had worn my favorite bra, it was magenta and lacey in a slutty Fredericks of Hollywood kind of way.
‘Nice…’ She said. And I thought she meant the bra when she turned me around and pointed to my tattoo. A crocodile that winds around my waist. My favorite part is how the tail winds down the small of my back right down into my butt crack. I told Cara I named her Betty, after Betty Paige. I told her how I’d always wanted Betty Paige bangs.
She’s touching me all around my waist. Her hands feel strong and sure. I’m turned on but nervous and so drunk. I twist away from her and excuse myself to the bathroom. I saw the look in her eye. She looked like she wanted to fuck me. I stumble through the crowd and chicks are giving me the what’s up nod and smiling. It feels nice. Like I’m part of the crew. In the bathroom two girls are making out.
I started looking in the mirror and the bathroom doors opened and it’s Cara, standing there looking right at me.
‘Hey,’ I say, smiling. The couple stopped making out and was watching us.
‘What’s up Cara?’ One girl says. The other one is looking at me now, with new interest.
‘You guys mind…’ She says this without looking away from me. The girls leave.
I was starting to panic but I barely had time. She pushed me up against the wall and took off my pants. I thought about stopping her, but I really felt like I couldn’t. Like I’d asked for it, getting drunk in my bra and acting like a slut. I deserved this. I thought vaguely that it would be interesting to get raped by a girl. And then she took off my underwear.
I was looking down at the top of her head. She never looked up at me and I liked that. I always hate it when guys look up at me when they’re giving me head, they look so stupid and it irritates me. I watched the top of her head move back and forth for a while before I realized what it felt like. I lean my head back. My muscles slacken and I fall further onto her face. Her hand reaches up for my tits then back down to my ass. Squeezing them both. I start loosing it. I’m twisting and gyrating hard on her face. This was about when a big dick would be perfect. Instead she threw a finger in, two, then three and sucked my clit and fucked me with her fingers until I exploded on her face. My pussy was huge, swollen and wet.
I’m gay.
She had my pussy juice all over her face. I felt suddenly obligated. I should give her something in return. I reached down between her legs and felt a bulge.
Holy shit. A dick?
‘Is that?’
‘Nah…’ She pulled a rubber dick out of her tidy whities. Funny, I hadn’t noticed the bulge before. It was a big fake dick. I started rubbing her pussy. She was moaning and rubbing up against my hand all animated. I watched her face, her eye’s closed, she still looked like a boy. I kept thinking about that fake dick.
Cara had opened her eyes now. Her pussy felt hot and wet and I knew she wanted me to eat it. And so I ate pussy. I closed my eyes and let my nose bury deep into her unshaven, untrimmed bush. I thought of all the times I’d hated sucking dick and wished now was one of those times. I did a good job though. Even though I was suffocating, and when she came I gagged. It stank and I felt sick.
‘You want a drink?’ Cara was already buttoning up her jeans.
‘Sure…’ She really was like a guy in almost every way. She didn’t even want to hug, or kiss me. She didn’t say anything sweet or meaningful. She even seemed a little distant. I figured she must have realized I hated eating her pussy. She must have realized I hated that she had one.
I don’t know how many more shots I drank. Shortly after, I blacked out into oblivion.
I woke up in bed. Chad was screaming at me.
‘Jesus Christ! What the fuck is wrong with you!! Go to the bathroom Godammit! What’d you drink huh?? Jesus…’
I look and realize there’s puke all over me. And him. And the bed.
‘Goddammit! You’re so fucking irresponsible. You Could Die From Choking On Your Puke, Goddammit! Fuck…’
He goes on cursing at me.
I get up and puke falls in chunks off my chin. It’s in my hair. The clock says 4:24 am.
I get up and walk towards the bathroom. Puke it still dropping from my hair and neck making a trail all the way to the bathroom. I walked into the shower with my clothes on. Minutes later Chad is in the bathroom.
‘Take your clothes off at least, Jesus, what the fuck did you do last night? Where were you?’
‘The Lexington Club, I met these girls…’
‘Oh yeah… did they do that to your hair?’
I turned off the water and peeled the wet clothes off me. I still smelt the puke. I pictured her pussy and almost puked again.
‘If you have to puke again, do it in the bathroom, all right? Jesus!’
Why did he keep saying Jesus? I looked at him.
Chad.... I divorced you last night. I thought silently. I’m not gay, I’m a
cheater.
I walked over to the medicine cabinet and brushed my teeth. It bothered me that I couldn’t remember how I got home. I wondered if my shirt had been on or off.
I was brushing my teeth when I looked at the mirror and saw myself. There they were… Betty Paige bangs.
Copyright ©
2003 Lily Amirpour
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