A novel excerpt from Mona LaVigne © 2003
Lorna went to work the following evening, and after her first stage routine, two main floor lap dances, and one ten minute back room private dance, she had a back back room adventure with a young guy who wanted to fuck her tits. Lorna was sure that the kid was gay, but he pounded his cock against her chin and kept saying cheesy shit like, “Oh, you got gorgeous boobs!” and “Soft, milky pillows!” It was all Lorna could do to keep from laughing, but she was glad that she hadn’t, because after he came across her neck, he gave her two hundred dollars in twenty dollar bills. She wiped herself off, gave five of the twenties to Chavez, and went to the dressing room to change so she could go home. She saw Missy, alone at a dressing table, finishing off a line of white powder. She looked up at Lorna and wiped her nose with the side of her hand.
“Coooooooocaine! Want some?”
Lorna had grown used to Missy’s drug use in the dressing room at The Satin Strip, and every time she would see her, Missy would offer some of whatever she was taking and every time, Lorna would refuse. She had learned to ignore it.
“Hey, Missy, can I ask you something?”
“Sure.” Her eyes rolled into the back of her head for a second, alarming Lorna, but Missy righted herself almost immediately and smiled.
“I, uh, I met Charlie Knuckles last night.”
“Ooh, he’s great. Did he introduce you to Mary Benjamin, too?”
“Yeah, he did. But, um, he gave me his business card. Daisy told me that he had given it to you once, too. I was curious... did you call?”
“You bet your ass I called! A rich man like Charlie Knuckles wants me to make more cash? I was into it at first. But I don’t deal with third parties.”
“What do you mean?”
“I called him and he gave me some other number. He was like some pre-screening thing or some shit. And I’m not into that. Are you gonna call him?”
Lorna shrugged. “I think I might. I mean, I have nothing to lose, right?”
“True. Look, Lindsey, forgive me for being presumptuous, but how long have you been dancing?”
“As long as I’ve been working here... less than a year, nine months, maybe?”
“It’s funny, but I’m only 22, and I’ve been dancing here nearly three years longer than you have. Can I offer some words of wisdom?”
Lorna thought this was a little bit rude, but she was the one who had made the initial approach, so she nodded. “Of course.”
“I think it’s totally cool if you call Charlie Knuckles. But just... be careful. He wants to know if you want to make some extra cash. What kind of ‘extra cash’ does a stripper make?”
Lorna flinched. Unwritten Rule Number 53 of Exotic Dancing: the girls are called “dancers,” not “strippers.” As long as she had been dancing at The Satin Strip, she had never heard one of her fellow dancers refer to themselves or others of their ilk as “strippers.”
“Lindsey,” Missy continued, “I’ve been in ‘adult entertainment’ or whatever you want to call it, for a long time and believe me, it can be a really ugly business. I know, you’re thinking, no shit. But I’m telling you, out there, in Charlie Knuckles’ ‘extra cash’ business, there are big, angry men with knives and guns. And you don’t have Buck the bouncer on the other side of the curtain, you know what I mean?”
Mona LaVigne is a former call girl from Paris, France.
Showing posts with label Mona LaVigne. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Mona LaVigne. Show all posts
November 20, 2003
February 14, 2003
Ring
By Mona LaVigne © 2003
I had sold the ring. The answers to my prayers was the cash in hand. I had not eaten in three days, and I had finally given in. Bartholomew would have killed me if he’d known that I’d profited from his grandmother’s diamond, but fuck it. I kept telling myself that if he really wanted it, he would have cut off that finger, too.
I sat in the Blue Star Diner, dunking cheese-coated french fries in congealed brown gravy with my left hand. As I sipped the Tab from the glass, I glanced at my right hand. The bandage was crusted with blood, dried, brown, and flaky. Stupid Bart. I’m a lefty, you idiot! Cutting off my right thumb was of little or no consequence. I had tucked my left hand, bearing Bart’s grandmother’s diamond ring, into my pocket as I slept in the Shelter. This left me with strict contemplation of my right hand, thoughtfully recalling the way my husband had methodically cut through skin, muscle, bone, muscle, and skin again to remove my opposable digit. The pain had been unbearable at first, but I soon learned Battered Women’s Shelter Etiquette, which dictates that for cigarettes, one can get just about anything. Pharmies are everywhere, and five cigarettes for three unmarked, unnamed painkillers seemed a fair trade. The first night, I slept like a baby. A baby, that is, with a two-carat diamond on her finger, surrounded by thieves.
The nights at the Women’s Shelter were the easy part. The days were tougher. You can’t trust anyone in these non-profit places, they all want something, even the people who work there. I was one of the only women there without a child. That made sense to me. If you don’t have to worry about potentially losing your baby to the government, why would you leave an abusive husband in an otherwise cushy situation?
During my second day at the Shelter, I met Carlita. She was a young Puerto Rican woman with a three-year old son who never left her side. I was washing my face in the large, impersonal bathroom, when she approached me.
“Where’s your child?” I felt her voice wrap around me in a strange accusation.
“I don’t have one.”
“What the fuck you doin’ here, then?”
I did a half-assed rinsing job of my cheeks and chin, and turned to face her. She was taller than I, her hair twisted back into a loose, black bun. She was at the Shelter when I arrived, and I saw her when I came in, sitting on a bench, carefully applying bright streaks of hot pink blush to her dark, bony cheeks. Her son had been sitting next to her, singing to himself. When I smiled at him, she had noticed, and said something in Spanish. Something not so nice, I imagined.
“My husband cut my thumb off.”
I had watched Carlita giving me dirty looks the day before, as I’d sat in any clean place I could find, smoking.
The next morning, when I told her what Bart had done, she seemed amazed.
“No shit? Can I see?”
Leaning against the sink, I held up my bandaged right hand. She touched my other fingers very gently, and looked at the bandage job as though it were a rare and beautiful Conch shell.
“Damn, mami. That’s fucked up.”
I nodded, but before I could say anything, Carlita’s son came running into the bathroom. Wearing only a shirt, his little boy penis was flailing. He stood between his mother’s legs and stared up at me with a gappy grin. he hid his eyes behind Carlita’s leg and peeked out at me, giggling frantically.
“Danilo don’t like nobody, but it looks like he likes you. I’m Carlita.”
“Amelia,” I replied, extending my left hand to shake hers. Carlita noticed the ring before I could pull away.
“Holy SHIT!” she exclaimed, and a few women in the bathroom turned around. I yanked my hand out of her grip and shoved it in my pocket. It seemed that everyone in the room was watching me, including Carlita. I began to panic. Grabbing some paper towels, I turned from my new friend and quickly walked outside. I was only a block or two away when I heard,
“Amy! Amy! Amy, wait girl!”
I turned around and saw Carlita running towards me, holding her son in one arm, while pulling his little pants up with the other. I was scared, and I sped up my pace. When I got to the corner, the cars were moving, and I hesitated long enough for Carlita to catch up with me.
“Amy,” she said, panting.
“Amelia.”
“Amelia, look, girl, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to freak you out.”
I glanced from Carlita to the streetlight, and as soon as the latter read “Walk,” I started to cross the street. Carlita grabbed my arm and yanked me back to the sidewalk. I could have pulled away and made it across to the other side. But I looked at her, and something about her eyes entreated me to stay.
“Look, I ain’t gonna steal your ring. There are a lot of bitches in that place,” she pointed over her shoulder, “who would. But I ain’t one of ‘em.”
“What happened to you?” I asked, freeing my elbow from her grasp.
She shrugged, shifting Danilo from one arm to the other. “Enrique likes to slap me around. I’ve been in and out of that Shelter for months now, stayin’ there for days at a time, goin’ home, comin’ back, goin’ home again. A couple of days ago, Enrique held a kitchen knife to my throat and called me a ‘stupid whore.’ So, I left again.”
She paused and stared at the city skyline. “Hands and fists are one thing. But when you start pullin’ knives an’ shit, you ain’t gonna see your son no more, you feel me?”
I nodded. Even though Bart and I never had any children in five years of marriage, I could understand what Carlita meant. I, too, had been a victim of slaps and punches. I had even been pregnant once. I had wanted to keep the baby, but Bart wanted me to have an abortion. When I refused, he punched me in the stomach. I miscarried two days later.
“Why your man chop off your finger?”
I looked at my stump. “I didn’t want to give him a handjob, and he got pissed, so…”
This was a lie, but Carlita laughed anyway.
“Come on, girl. Let’s go back to the Shelter. I gotta grab some more free diapers for my little papi.”
I reluctantly followed her back up the street. I had only been gone for five, maybe ten minutes, but there was already a pretty good chance that my small bag of a few clothes and underwear was already gone.
I went to the cot where I’d been sleeping, and sure enough, no bag. I sat on the edge of the thin, frail mattress, and tried not to cry. My efforts were in vain, however, and the tears began to stream down my cheeks in silent sobs.
“Your stuff gone?”
I looked up, and a woman was standing over me, her hands on her hips. I nodded slowly. She shook her head.
“Yep, that’s why they all go back. Stuff gets stolen, gotta go home, man is there, the cycle starts again.”
I ran my hands through my hair and sighed. There was no way I was ever going back to that apartment, to Bartholomew, to his stupid football fanaticism, to his foolish material possessions, all of which he loved better than he loved me.
“Is that your real hair color?” the woman before me asked. She was still standing with her hands on her hips, staring at my blonde hair the same way Carlita had stared at my ring.
“It’s really beautiful,” she said before I could answer her, and sat down next to me on the cot. She placed a cold hand on my leg, and I looked at it. A chill swept through me.
“How long you been here?”
“Two days,” I groaned, not quite believing it. I had been so eager to get out of the apartment, that I had just thrown some shit in a bag (now stolen!) and ran out the door. I had gone to the hospital, had them bandage my hand, and had asked one of the nurses where the nearest Women’s Shelter was. That seemed like weeks ago, but it hadn’t even been 24 hours. The hand of the woman sitting next to me was slowly creeping up my thigh. I looked at her.
“It doesn’t take long to get lonely, you know,” she said, her bloodshot eyes glistening. I snapped into reality.
“What the fuck?” I yelled, and at that moment, Carlita appeared out of nowhere.
“Fay, you get off that girl before I have Danilo shit on your face again.”
“Whore,” Fay whispered, as she stood and walked past Carlita. She glanced back at me. “Now you know my name, if you need me,” and she winked. Carlita sat in the dent on the cot that had been made by Fay’s ass. Her son sat on her lap and pulled at the loose hairs hanging out of his mother’s bun.
“You ever been to jail?” she asked me. I shook my head no. Carlita ran her finger slowly over Danilo’s ear. “Thank Jesus for that, Amelia.” She suddenly became very serious. “Jail is a fuckin’ ugly-ass place. And there are women like that everywhere. ‘Cept in jail, you can’t go no place. You’re fuckin’ stuck."
Danilo began to cry. Carlita pulled up one side of her shirt and held her left breast out to her son. He began to suckle, and Carlita winced.
“You still breast feed him?” I asked, staring shamelessly at her enormous tits. She squeezed her breast and sucked air in through her teeth in pain.
“Well, at home he eats normal. But here, I ain’t gonna give this slop to my little papi. No way, man.”
“Do you even have any milk?”
She looked down at Danilo, who was sucking frantically and staring up at her with tear-filled, pleading eyes. She shook her head. “Not really.”
“Well, that’s no good, Carlita.”
She stared at me and laughed in a shocking burst that made me jump. “You got a better idea, mami?”
I pried Danilo off of his mother’s breast and held him while he wailed. “Come on,” I said.
“Come on where?”
I stood up and started walking to the door. “Grab your shit and let’s go.”
She had to follow me. I had her only prized possession.
Mona LaVigne is a writer from NYC.
I had sold the ring. The answers to my prayers was the cash in hand. I had not eaten in three days, and I had finally given in. Bartholomew would have killed me if he’d known that I’d profited from his grandmother’s diamond, but fuck it. I kept telling myself that if he really wanted it, he would have cut off that finger, too.
I sat in the Blue Star Diner, dunking cheese-coated french fries in congealed brown gravy with my left hand. As I sipped the Tab from the glass, I glanced at my right hand. The bandage was crusted with blood, dried, brown, and flaky. Stupid Bart. I’m a lefty, you idiot! Cutting off my right thumb was of little or no consequence. I had tucked my left hand, bearing Bart’s grandmother’s diamond ring, into my pocket as I slept in the Shelter. This left me with strict contemplation of my right hand, thoughtfully recalling the way my husband had methodically cut through skin, muscle, bone, muscle, and skin again to remove my opposable digit. The pain had been unbearable at first, but I soon learned Battered Women’s Shelter Etiquette, which dictates that for cigarettes, one can get just about anything. Pharmies are everywhere, and five cigarettes for three unmarked, unnamed painkillers seemed a fair trade. The first night, I slept like a baby. A baby, that is, with a two-carat diamond on her finger, surrounded by thieves.
The nights at the Women’s Shelter were the easy part. The days were tougher. You can’t trust anyone in these non-profit places, they all want something, even the people who work there. I was one of the only women there without a child. That made sense to me. If you don’t have to worry about potentially losing your baby to the government, why would you leave an abusive husband in an otherwise cushy situation?
During my second day at the Shelter, I met Carlita. She was a young Puerto Rican woman with a three-year old son who never left her side. I was washing my face in the large, impersonal bathroom, when she approached me.
“Where’s your child?” I felt her voice wrap around me in a strange accusation.
“I don’t have one.”
“What the fuck you doin’ here, then?”
I did a half-assed rinsing job of my cheeks and chin, and turned to face her. She was taller than I, her hair twisted back into a loose, black bun. She was at the Shelter when I arrived, and I saw her when I came in, sitting on a bench, carefully applying bright streaks of hot pink blush to her dark, bony cheeks. Her son had been sitting next to her, singing to himself. When I smiled at him, she had noticed, and said something in Spanish. Something not so nice, I imagined.
“My husband cut my thumb off.”
I had watched Carlita giving me dirty looks the day before, as I’d sat in any clean place I could find, smoking.
The next morning, when I told her what Bart had done, she seemed amazed.
“No shit? Can I see?”
Leaning against the sink, I held up my bandaged right hand. She touched my other fingers very gently, and looked at the bandage job as though it were a rare and beautiful Conch shell.
“Damn, mami. That’s fucked up.”
I nodded, but before I could say anything, Carlita’s son came running into the bathroom. Wearing only a shirt, his little boy penis was flailing. He stood between his mother’s legs and stared up at me with a gappy grin. he hid his eyes behind Carlita’s leg and peeked out at me, giggling frantically.
“Danilo don’t like nobody, but it looks like he likes you. I’m Carlita.”
“Amelia,” I replied, extending my left hand to shake hers. Carlita noticed the ring before I could pull away.
“Holy SHIT!” she exclaimed, and a few women in the bathroom turned around. I yanked my hand out of her grip and shoved it in my pocket. It seemed that everyone in the room was watching me, including Carlita. I began to panic. Grabbing some paper towels, I turned from my new friend and quickly walked outside. I was only a block or two away when I heard,
“Amy! Amy! Amy, wait girl!”
I turned around and saw Carlita running towards me, holding her son in one arm, while pulling his little pants up with the other. I was scared, and I sped up my pace. When I got to the corner, the cars were moving, and I hesitated long enough for Carlita to catch up with me.
“Amy,” she said, panting.
“Amelia.”
“Amelia, look, girl, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to freak you out.”
I glanced from Carlita to the streetlight, and as soon as the latter read “Walk,” I started to cross the street. Carlita grabbed my arm and yanked me back to the sidewalk. I could have pulled away and made it across to the other side. But I looked at her, and something about her eyes entreated me to stay.
“Look, I ain’t gonna steal your ring. There are a lot of bitches in that place,” she pointed over her shoulder, “who would. But I ain’t one of ‘em.”
“What happened to you?” I asked, freeing my elbow from her grasp.
She shrugged, shifting Danilo from one arm to the other. “Enrique likes to slap me around. I’ve been in and out of that Shelter for months now, stayin’ there for days at a time, goin’ home, comin’ back, goin’ home again. A couple of days ago, Enrique held a kitchen knife to my throat and called me a ‘stupid whore.’ So, I left again.”
She paused and stared at the city skyline. “Hands and fists are one thing. But when you start pullin’ knives an’ shit, you ain’t gonna see your son no more, you feel me?”
I nodded. Even though Bart and I never had any children in five years of marriage, I could understand what Carlita meant. I, too, had been a victim of slaps and punches. I had even been pregnant once. I had wanted to keep the baby, but Bart wanted me to have an abortion. When I refused, he punched me in the stomach. I miscarried two days later.
“Why your man chop off your finger?”
I looked at my stump. “I didn’t want to give him a handjob, and he got pissed, so…”
This was a lie, but Carlita laughed anyway.
“Come on, girl. Let’s go back to the Shelter. I gotta grab some more free diapers for my little papi.”
I reluctantly followed her back up the street. I had only been gone for five, maybe ten minutes, but there was already a pretty good chance that my small bag of a few clothes and underwear was already gone.
I went to the cot where I’d been sleeping, and sure enough, no bag. I sat on the edge of the thin, frail mattress, and tried not to cry. My efforts were in vain, however, and the tears began to stream down my cheeks in silent sobs.
“Your stuff gone?”
I looked up, and a woman was standing over me, her hands on her hips. I nodded slowly. She shook her head.
“Yep, that’s why they all go back. Stuff gets stolen, gotta go home, man is there, the cycle starts again.”
I ran my hands through my hair and sighed. There was no way I was ever going back to that apartment, to Bartholomew, to his stupid football fanaticism, to his foolish material possessions, all of which he loved better than he loved me.
“Is that your real hair color?” the woman before me asked. She was still standing with her hands on her hips, staring at my blonde hair the same way Carlita had stared at my ring.
“It’s really beautiful,” she said before I could answer her, and sat down next to me on the cot. She placed a cold hand on my leg, and I looked at it. A chill swept through me.
“How long you been here?”
“Two days,” I groaned, not quite believing it. I had been so eager to get out of the apartment, that I had just thrown some shit in a bag (now stolen!) and ran out the door. I had gone to the hospital, had them bandage my hand, and had asked one of the nurses where the nearest Women’s Shelter was. That seemed like weeks ago, but it hadn’t even been 24 hours. The hand of the woman sitting next to me was slowly creeping up my thigh. I looked at her.
“It doesn’t take long to get lonely, you know,” she said, her bloodshot eyes glistening. I snapped into reality.
“What the fuck?” I yelled, and at that moment, Carlita appeared out of nowhere.
“Fay, you get off that girl before I have Danilo shit on your face again.”
“Whore,” Fay whispered, as she stood and walked past Carlita. She glanced back at me. “Now you know my name, if you need me,” and she winked. Carlita sat in the dent on the cot that had been made by Fay’s ass. Her son sat on her lap and pulled at the loose hairs hanging out of his mother’s bun.
“You ever been to jail?” she asked me. I shook my head no. Carlita ran her finger slowly over Danilo’s ear. “Thank Jesus for that, Amelia.” She suddenly became very serious. “Jail is a fuckin’ ugly-ass place. And there are women like that everywhere. ‘Cept in jail, you can’t go no place. You’re fuckin’ stuck."
Danilo began to cry. Carlita pulled up one side of her shirt and held her left breast out to her son. He began to suckle, and Carlita winced.
“You still breast feed him?” I asked, staring shamelessly at her enormous tits. She squeezed her breast and sucked air in through her teeth in pain.
“Well, at home he eats normal. But here, I ain’t gonna give this slop to my little papi. No way, man.”
“Do you even have any milk?”
She looked down at Danilo, who was sucking frantically and staring up at her with tear-filled, pleading eyes. She shook her head. “Not really.”
“Well, that’s no good, Carlita.”
She stared at me and laughed in a shocking burst that made me jump. “You got a better idea, mami?”
I pried Danilo off of his mother’s breast and held him while he wailed. “Come on,” I said.
“Come on where?”
I stood up and started walking to the door. “Grab your shit and let’s go.”
She had to follow me. I had her only prized possession.
Mona LaVigne is a writer from NYC.
November 26, 2002
Gysana: The Novel
A Novel by Mona LaVigne
This is an excerpt from the NaNoWriMo novel:
...Angelica lit a cigarette. "I, uh, I know you and I have not gotten along all that well over the last year or so. I mean, we have our good moments, for sure, but you know what I mean. We have not had exactly the most friendly relationship. But, I, um, I just want to tell you that I am really grateful to have you around. Gysana…" her voice trailed off again and she covered her mouth with her hand to stifle her sobs. "Mitchell Reinhardt, I am just glad you are here to help raise this child. And no matter what happens, I wanted to say, you know, thanks."
Mitchell Reinhardt did not know what to say to her little speech. His mind was being ripped in a million different directions, the most prominent of which was, of course, guilt. He still could not believe that he had been so sloppy as to let Tamra, that little bitch babysitter, walk off with Gysana. And all because his dick had taken control of his mind. He had to stand there and talk to that woman, Cheryl (even though she WAS pretty hot) and let Tamra take his daughter and go to get ice cream. Had she even gotten ice cream? Or had she just taken Gysana and run? Or had the two of them been kidnapped, maybe? Whatever the case, no matter the circumstance, it had been his fault. It seemed to Mitchell Reinhardt that most of the mistakes and accidents in his life had been the direct result of stupidity in terms of his genitals…
It began at midnight on his thirteenth birthday. His mother, in a heroin-induced stupor, had passed out after the Carvel cake had been served, and his father had decided to take him to a brothel on the seedier side of town.
"Son," he had said when they were standing outside the front door to the unmarked building, "there comes a point in every boy’s life when it is time for him to become a man." Mitchell Reinhardt had looked at his father in that same innocent way that all boys look at their fathers when they are not making any real sense. "This is your time, kiddo."
They had arrived at the whorehouse and Mitchell Reinhardt, trembling with both fear and excitement, had his first sexual encounter with Miranda, a tall, buxom blonde who said she was from Los Angeles. It had been quick and painless. Painless, that is, until about a week later, when Mitchell Reinhardt developed a strange burning sensation whenever he would urinate, which also seemed to be with more frequency than usual. Of course, a quick shot or three of antibiotics took care of that, and once the discomfort passed, he remembered how good it had felt to be inside a woman. For the whole time he was in high school, he had sex with no fewer than fifteen women. A few of them were younger than he was, some of them were his age, but most of them were older. Much older, in fact. There had been Mrs. Hamilton, his biology teacher, who had offered to help him out with some "extra credit" homework. There was Mrs. Larimer, his next door neighbor’s mother. She had been paying him to mow her lawn twice a month in the summer. One day, after seeing him shirtless, sweaty, and dirty, she coyly invited him in for lemonade. Mitchell Reinhardt was not too bright, especially at the age he was then, and fell for her trap like a bee to a sweet, sweet flower. He came into some unfortunate times after having sex with Mrs. Larimer.
About three weeks after their first encounter, and about five hours after their twelfth encounter, Mitchell Reinhardt woke up in the middle of the night, only to find himself face to face with the business end of Mr. Larimer’s 12-gauge shotgun. Terribly afraid of having his brains splattered all over his cowboys and indians bed linens, he pleaded with Mr. Larimer to spare his life. "I’ll do anything you want, sir, please!" he had begged. Not a wise thing to say, he thought to himself five minutes after uttering the words, as he strained his neck with Mr. Larimer’s cock in his mouth and the cool steel of the shotgun leaving a wicked mark on the middle of his forehead. So many years, so much trouble into which he had gotten due to his libido. The worst (and best) of which had been with Mia. No, he did not really care about her, and yes, he had, in fact, murdered her in cold blood in the local state park while she held their baby in her arms (while she was breast feeding, no less). But he felt that for all the errors he had made with his cock, the one good thing, Gysana, his baby girl, made the others seem both incredibly trivial and extremely worthwhile.
Mona LaVigne is a writer from New York City.
This is an excerpt from the NaNoWriMo novel:
...Angelica lit a cigarette. "I, uh, I know you and I have not gotten along all that well over the last year or so. I mean, we have our good moments, for sure, but you know what I mean. We have not had exactly the most friendly relationship. But, I, um, I just want to tell you that I am really grateful to have you around. Gysana…" her voice trailed off again and she covered her mouth with her hand to stifle her sobs. "Mitchell Reinhardt, I am just glad you are here to help raise this child. And no matter what happens, I wanted to say, you know, thanks."
Mitchell Reinhardt did not know what to say to her little speech. His mind was being ripped in a million different directions, the most prominent of which was, of course, guilt. He still could not believe that he had been so sloppy as to let Tamra, that little bitch babysitter, walk off with Gysana. And all because his dick had taken control of his mind. He had to stand there and talk to that woman, Cheryl (even though she WAS pretty hot) and let Tamra take his daughter and go to get ice cream. Had she even gotten ice cream? Or had she just taken Gysana and run? Or had the two of them been kidnapped, maybe? Whatever the case, no matter the circumstance, it had been his fault. It seemed to Mitchell Reinhardt that most of the mistakes and accidents in his life had been the direct result of stupidity in terms of his genitals…
It began at midnight on his thirteenth birthday. His mother, in a heroin-induced stupor, had passed out after the Carvel cake had been served, and his father had decided to take him to a brothel on the seedier side of town.
"Son," he had said when they were standing outside the front door to the unmarked building, "there comes a point in every boy’s life when it is time for him to become a man." Mitchell Reinhardt had looked at his father in that same innocent way that all boys look at their fathers when they are not making any real sense. "This is your time, kiddo."
They had arrived at the whorehouse and Mitchell Reinhardt, trembling with both fear and excitement, had his first sexual encounter with Miranda, a tall, buxom blonde who said she was from Los Angeles. It had been quick and painless. Painless, that is, until about a week later, when Mitchell Reinhardt developed a strange burning sensation whenever he would urinate, which also seemed to be with more frequency than usual. Of course, a quick shot or three of antibiotics took care of that, and once the discomfort passed, he remembered how good it had felt to be inside a woman. For the whole time he was in high school, he had sex with no fewer than fifteen women. A few of them were younger than he was, some of them were his age, but most of them were older. Much older, in fact. There had been Mrs. Hamilton, his biology teacher, who had offered to help him out with some "extra credit" homework. There was Mrs. Larimer, his next door neighbor’s mother. She had been paying him to mow her lawn twice a month in the summer. One day, after seeing him shirtless, sweaty, and dirty, she coyly invited him in for lemonade. Mitchell Reinhardt was not too bright, especially at the age he was then, and fell for her trap like a bee to a sweet, sweet flower. He came into some unfortunate times after having sex with Mrs. Larimer.
About three weeks after their first encounter, and about five hours after their twelfth encounter, Mitchell Reinhardt woke up in the middle of the night, only to find himself face to face with the business end of Mr. Larimer’s 12-gauge shotgun. Terribly afraid of having his brains splattered all over his cowboys and indians bed linens, he pleaded with Mr. Larimer to spare his life. "I’ll do anything you want, sir, please!" he had begged. Not a wise thing to say, he thought to himself five minutes after uttering the words, as he strained his neck with Mr. Larimer’s cock in his mouth and the cool steel of the shotgun leaving a wicked mark on the middle of his forehead. So many years, so much trouble into which he had gotten due to his libido. The worst (and best) of which had been with Mia. No, he did not really care about her, and yes, he had, in fact, murdered her in cold blood in the local state park while she held their baby in her arms (while she was breast feeding, no less). But he felt that for all the errors he had made with his cock, the one good thing, Gysana, his baby girl, made the others seem both incredibly trivial and extremely worthwhile.
Mona LaVigne is a writer from New York City.
Kiss
By Mona LaVigne
6*25*02
I watched the neon light flashing, methodical in strict illumination. People walking by, going home to their swank Union Square walk-ups, passing under the brilliant sign, not noticing. How could they miss it? How could they take such a nifty little “one-two-three-four-blinkblinkblink” thing for granted? I certainly couldn’t. Sitting on the cool park bench, Jonah’s hand on my knee, all I could see was that blinking neon light.
“Didja mean what you said?” Jonah whispered, his lips grazing my ear.
(three-four-blinkblinkblink)
I turned to face him.
Jonah, Jonah. Six-years Jonah. Musician Jonah. Smoking Weed In The Park On A Sunday Afternoon Jonah. Over the last four years I had been wondering “Where? What? How?” about him and now we were reunited, sitting on a bench under a rain-filled tree.
I stared at his lips, the same lips at which I had stared for the last time nearly five years ago, wondering the same thing as I was now. Will he? Does he sense that I don’t have the balls to do it? Now that I’ve told him what I had be too scared to tell him for the last six years (over dinner, no less, in a restaurant safe haven), now that it was out in the open, would he finally do it? “I’m totally in love with you and I want to fuck the shit out of you.” What did it mean to him, my confession? I had expended my guts for the evening, and now maybe it was his turn to take a risk. The blinking neon light twitched in my peripheral vision (one-two-three) and Jonah’s question hung thick in the air. Nose to nose, his hot breath on my chin, his moist lips glistening the faint orange-yellow-blue reflection of the flashing neon, I lifted my eyes to his.
“Yes. I meant every word.”
And like every perfect mid-afternoon masturbation fantasy I’d ever had, Jonah’s fingertips slid over my jaw, his thumbs grazing past my eyes, his hands curling behind my ears, and brought his mouth to mine.
When the first kiss is second nature, you know you’re in trouble.
When you’ve been dreaming and writing a kiss forever, there’s always a pretty good chance that it’s not going to live up to your expectations. In fact, you might almost surmise that it won’t so you won’t be let down. Well, how the fuck do you deal when it goes so much better than you had ever imagined? Then it’s all blown! When Jonah kissed me, I could feel my insides dissolving -- a smallpox-ian smooch.
Jonah’s best feature is his laugh. I ended the kiss almost reluctantly, just so he would smile and laugh, which he did, and my head started to spin. He rested his forehead against mine, and in typical female fashion, I said,
“You kiss really well.”
“Really?” he replied, “I always thought I was a bad kisser.”
I shook my head. “Nope. You kiss like me.”
As if to test the theory, he tipped his chin toward me and slipped his tongue into my mouth. Silenced, I could not say what I really wanted to say, and instead the words trickled out from the corner of my mouth in a vibration. The tree above us shook and the wet came down like a new storm.
Mona LaVigne is a former adult film star from Montreal, Canada.
6*25*02
I watched the neon light flashing, methodical in strict illumination. People walking by, going home to their swank Union Square walk-ups, passing under the brilliant sign, not noticing. How could they miss it? How could they take such a nifty little “one-two-three-four-blinkblinkblink” thing for granted? I certainly couldn’t. Sitting on the cool park bench, Jonah’s hand on my knee, all I could see was that blinking neon light.
“Didja mean what you said?” Jonah whispered, his lips grazing my ear.
I turned to face him.
Jonah, Jonah. Six-years Jonah. Musician Jonah. Smoking Weed In The Park On A Sunday Afternoon Jonah. Over the last four years I had been wondering “Where? What? How?” about him and now we were reunited, sitting on a bench under a rain-filled tree.
I stared at his lips, the same lips at which I had stared for the last time nearly five years ago, wondering the same thing as I was now. Will he? Does he sense that I don’t have the balls to do it? Now that I’ve told him what I had be too scared to tell him for the last six years (over dinner, no less, in a restaurant safe haven), now that it was out in the open, would he finally do it? “I’m totally in love with you and I want to fuck the shit out of you.” What did it mean to him, my confession? I had expended my guts for the evening, and now maybe it was his turn to take a risk. The blinking neon light twitched in my peripheral vision (one-two-three) and Jonah’s question hung thick in the air. Nose to nose, his hot breath on my chin, his moist lips glistening the faint orange-yellow-blue reflection of the flashing neon, I lifted my eyes to his.
“Yes. I meant every word.”
And like every perfect mid-afternoon masturbation fantasy I’d ever had, Jonah’s fingertips slid over my jaw, his thumbs grazing past my eyes, his hands curling behind my ears, and brought his mouth to mine.
When the first kiss is second nature, you know you’re in trouble.
When you’ve been dreaming and writing a kiss forever, there’s always a pretty good chance that it’s not going to live up to your expectations. In fact, you might almost surmise that it won’t so you won’t be let down. Well, how the fuck do you deal when it goes so much better than you had ever imagined? Then it’s all blown! When Jonah kissed me, I could feel my insides dissolving -- a smallpox-ian smooch.
Jonah’s best feature is his laugh. I ended the kiss almost reluctantly, just so he would smile and laugh, which he did, and my head started to spin. He rested his forehead against mine, and in typical female fashion, I said,
“You kiss really well.”
“Really?” he replied, “I always thought I was a bad kisser.”
I shook my head. “Nope. You kiss like me.”
As if to test the theory, he tipped his chin toward me and slipped his tongue into my mouth. Silenced, I could not say what I really wanted to say, and instead the words trickled out from the corner of my mouth in a vibration. The tree above us shook and the wet came down like a new storm.
Mona LaVigne is a former adult film star from Montreal, Canada.
October 24, 2002
Gysana
By Mona LaVigne © 2002
Gysana, that impossibly delicious little whore, she thought she was so smart.
I’d sit on the Great Dead Stump by the duck pond and chain smoke as she’d cross the Green towards me. When she’d walk, her ass would twitch and twitter and her hair would bounce as her breasts, and the boys, they’d watch her, slack-jawed. I hated Gysana with an almost immoral passion, and yet vainly attempted to call her my friend. She was oblivious to all around her as she walked, save for the sound of polyester, denim, and cotton rising from erections all around her. And her innocence, her playful grin, the toss of her firestarter hair: it was all bullshit. Every bit of it.
She’d saunter across the Green and stand before me, her skirt so short, I could usually see her pussy, shaven and glistening. The boys would see her talking to me, and I could feel their green eyes searing into us, demonic and cruel. She’d sit next to me on the Great Dead Stump, and gently press her lips into my neck, and then tip my chin to her face. Eye to eye, tooth to tooth, this woman, her squeeze-monkey mouth wet and waiting, kiss me, they’d plead…
I’d look away from her and stare at the starers, those envious little pricks. Gysana’s legs would be spread as though she were wearing pants (which she rarely did) and her fingers would trace the insides of her thighs, her bare, liquid thighs and if she moved even the slightest bit, I could smell her, sweet and sweat. Her breath cool on my face, and without me asking she would kiss, her tongue peeking out against the shell of my ear, my fists and toes curling in resistance.
Or sometimes she would appear in jeans so tight you could tell what she had had for breakfast. She would pad coolly across the grass, the strings of her thong peeking out over her pointed hips, her hair flitting across the pale slip of flesh between the top of her jeans and the bottom of her shirt.
This would happen almost every day. I’d sit on the Great Dead Stump, Gysana would cross the Green, cocks would stand at attention, and she’d pass them all to come to me, waiting, smoking, detesting her very being. And after time spent together, I would go home, slip past my mother watching Cops, and crawl into bed alone, where I would chew Valium and write frantic, manic rantings in a spiral notebook.
One day I sat on the Great Dead Stump and acted my usual "I-don’t-care-if-she-shows- or-not-because-I-hate-her-and- why-do-I-even-bother-sitting-here-every-day- because-I-am-a-creature-of-habit-that’s-why" self, noticing everything, caring about nothing, wishing I were drunk, until the sun set. It barely occurred to me that Gysana had not come that day until there was nothing left to look at. It was dark, the sky’s pale gray glow casting shadows of trucks and monsters against the duck pond. I glanced out at the Green and saw a few stragglers heading back to their homes, some dogs running back to the wood. At my feet, there were worms and beetles crawling out from the Great Dead Stump, coming home into the night.
I stood and walked the perimeter of the Green. No Gysana. I started for home, shooting my eyes down each dark street, not really caring, but just curious. No Gysana.
When you’re looking for someone that you cannot find, everything looks like them. The red cars and brick four-story walkups spoke of her hair, the menacing puddles of anti-freeze were her eyes. I had become quite acquainted with Gysana’s cunt on the day when she arrived at the Green with a small hand mirror, held it between her legs, while grabbing my hand and forcing me to stick my fingers inside her while watching the action in the hand mirror. She came on the Green, my fingers sticky and stank with her juice. Now the dark purple sky, I could have sworn, smelled and looked like Gysana’s innermost regions.
I ran upstairs to my apartment and stood in the door, listening to my mother watching the Atlanta PD attempting to negotiate with a strung-out trailer park woman. My mother didn’t smoke and hated that I did, but I knew that in my absence she would go into my bedroom and take my empty ashtray and hold in under her nose, breathing deeply. She was talking to herself about me, her small voice breaking in and out of the Georgia drawls on then television. I knew they didn’t use words like "stupid, ugly, retarded motherfucker" on Cops. I was able to slip past her when the commercials came on, and scurried into my bedroom. The window was ajar and the blinds were flipping nervously. So as to avoid my mother, I crawled out the window and shut it behind me, turning around the back and running to the Green.
When I arrived there, just as I surmised, Gysana was sitting on the Great Dead Stump, throwing my cigarette butts from earlier in the day into the duck pond. The mallards would swim over and inspect each butt before scornfully looking at Gysana and drifting away. As soon as I set one foot on the Green, she turned around to face me. Approaching her, I noticed that she had a black eye. I kneeled before her, beseeching her face for an explanation. Spreading her legs, I held my lighter under her thighs and saw scores of wretched bruises dotting her legs like continents. She slipped a finger inside herself and held it to my mouth, as the unmistakable taste of semen slid in between my lips.
Gysana thought she was so smart, dressing like that, walking like that, taunting and teasing like that. Everyone hated her... it wasn’t just me.
Mona LaVigne is a writer from NYC.
Gysana, that impossibly delicious little whore, she thought she was so smart.
I’d sit on the Great Dead Stump by the duck pond and chain smoke as she’d cross the Green towards me. When she’d walk, her ass would twitch and twitter and her hair would bounce as her breasts, and the boys, they’d watch her, slack-jawed. I hated Gysana with an almost immoral passion, and yet vainly attempted to call her my friend. She was oblivious to all around her as she walked, save for the sound of polyester, denim, and cotton rising from erections all around her. And her innocence, her playful grin, the toss of her firestarter hair: it was all bullshit. Every bit of it.
She’d saunter across the Green and stand before me, her skirt so short, I could usually see her pussy, shaven and glistening. The boys would see her talking to me, and I could feel their green eyes searing into us, demonic and cruel. She’d sit next to me on the Great Dead Stump, and gently press her lips into my neck, and then tip my chin to her face. Eye to eye, tooth to tooth, this woman, her squeeze-monkey mouth wet and waiting, kiss me, they’d plead…
I’d look away from her and stare at the starers, those envious little pricks. Gysana’s legs would be spread as though she were wearing pants (which she rarely did) and her fingers would trace the insides of her thighs, her bare, liquid thighs and if she moved even the slightest bit, I could smell her, sweet and sweat. Her breath cool on my face, and without me asking she would kiss, her tongue peeking out against the shell of my ear, my fists and toes curling in resistance.
Or sometimes she would appear in jeans so tight you could tell what she had had for breakfast. She would pad coolly across the grass, the strings of her thong peeking out over her pointed hips, her hair flitting across the pale slip of flesh between the top of her jeans and the bottom of her shirt.
This would happen almost every day. I’d sit on the Great Dead Stump, Gysana would cross the Green, cocks would stand at attention, and she’d pass them all to come to me, waiting, smoking, detesting her very being. And after time spent together, I would go home, slip past my mother watching Cops, and crawl into bed alone, where I would chew Valium and write frantic, manic rantings in a spiral notebook.
One day I sat on the Great Dead Stump and acted my usual "I-don’t-care-if-she-shows- or-not-because-I-hate-her-and- why-do-I-even-bother-sitting-here-every-day- because-I-am-a-creature-of-habit-that’s-why" self, noticing everything, caring about nothing, wishing I were drunk, until the sun set. It barely occurred to me that Gysana had not come that day until there was nothing left to look at. It was dark, the sky’s pale gray glow casting shadows of trucks and monsters against the duck pond. I glanced out at the Green and saw a few stragglers heading back to their homes, some dogs running back to the wood. At my feet, there were worms and beetles crawling out from the Great Dead Stump, coming home into the night.
I stood and walked the perimeter of the Green. No Gysana. I started for home, shooting my eyes down each dark street, not really caring, but just curious. No Gysana.
When you’re looking for someone that you cannot find, everything looks like them. The red cars and brick four-story walkups spoke of her hair, the menacing puddles of anti-freeze were her eyes. I had become quite acquainted with Gysana’s cunt on the day when she arrived at the Green with a small hand mirror, held it between her legs, while grabbing my hand and forcing me to stick my fingers inside her while watching the action in the hand mirror. She came on the Green, my fingers sticky and stank with her juice. Now the dark purple sky, I could have sworn, smelled and looked like Gysana’s innermost regions.
I ran upstairs to my apartment and stood in the door, listening to my mother watching the Atlanta PD attempting to negotiate with a strung-out trailer park woman. My mother didn’t smoke and hated that I did, but I knew that in my absence she would go into my bedroom and take my empty ashtray and hold in under her nose, breathing deeply. She was talking to herself about me, her small voice breaking in and out of the Georgia drawls on then television. I knew they didn’t use words like "stupid, ugly, retarded motherfucker" on Cops. I was able to slip past her when the commercials came on, and scurried into my bedroom. The window was ajar and the blinds were flipping nervously. So as to avoid my mother, I crawled out the window and shut it behind me, turning around the back and running to the Green.
When I arrived there, just as I surmised, Gysana was sitting on the Great Dead Stump, throwing my cigarette butts from earlier in the day into the duck pond. The mallards would swim over and inspect each butt before scornfully looking at Gysana and drifting away. As soon as I set one foot on the Green, she turned around to face me. Approaching her, I noticed that she had a black eye. I kneeled before her, beseeching her face for an explanation. Spreading her legs, I held my lighter under her thighs and saw scores of wretched bruises dotting her legs like continents. She slipped a finger inside herself and held it to my mouth, as the unmistakable taste of semen slid in between my lips.
Gysana thought she was so smart, dressing like that, walking like that, taunting and teasing like that. Everyone hated her... it wasn’t just me.
Mona LaVigne is a writer from NYC.
September 18, 2002
Budapest
By Mona LaVigne ©2002
Budapest is divided in half by the Danube River. To the west lies Buda, the lush, green country. It is mostly residential, the rolling hills lined with large, post-WWII homes. My friends, István and Gabi, live in Buda. Their home is almost like a mansion: vast rooms filled with expensive European art, a huge kitchen complete with a live-in cook, three bathrooms, each with a bathtub, shower and toilet, and the master bath with a Jacuzzi. In their backyard there is a cherry tree, and when the wind blows it throws fat, juicy cherries on the ground.
When I went to Budapest to visit István and Gabi a few years ago, I was looking forward to staying in one of their well-decorated bedrooms, reclining in one of their lapis blue bathtubs, and smoking Hungarian hash under the cherry tree at three in the afternoon. As István carried my bags from the airport to the car, Gabi put her arm through mine and said,
"We have the fully-furnished apartment in Pest and we’ve cleaned it up for you. You can stay there and have all the privacy you want. Isn’t that great?"
Pest is on the east side of the Danube. It is a city in every sense of the word. There is a heavy business district, lots of walk-up apartments, department stores, and Vörösmarty Square, an Eastern European version of Times Square, except with less Disney and more outdoor cafés. I had heard about this apartment from Gabi’s letters. I was not looking forward to staying there. I was not renting a car, so I knew I’d have to take public transportation to get around.
When we arrived at the apartment, I saw that the descriptions had hardly done it justice. It was a shithole. A clean shithole. Small and worn, the paint on the walls was flaking off, the mattress in the bedroom was frayed and stained, and the refrigerator was empty, save for some moldy sausage and a half-empty jar of jelly. I was excited to see two bathrooms, but deflated when I realized that one had a toilet and the other a stand-up shower.
"Isn’t it great?" said István, beaming at his wife, who had an equally large smile on her face.
"Yes," I replied, trying to be grateful, "it’s charming."
"There’s a bus across the street that goes straight to Vörösmarty Square," said Gabi. "I have to go to work in the morning, but István can meet you there and show you around the city. How does that sound?"
I looked at the glowing faces of my friends. They were so excited to have me there, how could I show my disappointment? I couldn’t. The crooked clock on the wall read 1:00 AM, and I yawned and said, "Sounds like a plan. It’s late and I want to get some rest so I can really enjoy my first day in Hungary."
They hugged me and István and I agreed to meet in Vörösmarty Square at 9:30 the next morning. They left the keys on the kitchen table and departed, leaving me in solitude, in a foreign country, in a ratty apartment. I was hungry. I opened the refrigerator and took out the bottle of jelly. I found a piece of bread on the bottom shelf, glopped some jelly on it, choked it down, and went to bed.
I dreamed of cherry trees, Chicken Paprikash, Bela Bartók, and Franz Liszt. When I woke in the morning, I ran to the window in the kitchen. No composers and no goulash. Instead, there was an overgrown garden and a trafficless street before me, the only sign of civilization being a weather-beaten bus stop marker. I used the toilet and walked across the apartment to the shower. While getting dressed, I stared at the phone. For the first time in years, I wanted my mommy. I wanted to call her and tell her how I felt betrayed by István and Gabi, how dare they not let me stay with them, and how I didn’t think I could bear staying eight more nights in this little hole of an apartment. I finally decided against it. I had lived in Canada for most of my life, and was not about to call my parents and bitch, just to hear them tell me that didn’t I know that "everyone outside if Canada is inferior? Especially those Eastern Europeans…barbarians…huns."
I left the apartment and headed toward the bus stop. As I was about to cross the street, I saw a dead rabbit in a ditch. A shudder crossed my body. There were no people around, no cars. How did that thing get there?
I stood on the corner and waited for the bus. Every once in a while, a Honda or Toyota would fly by. I saw a few red birds that I did not recognize, and a woman with a stroller ambling down the street. That was it. I could not believe that I was in Pest, the "city side" of Budapest, and there was nothing happening. What if I had told István and Gabi that I would rather have stayed at their house in Buda? Would they have said "no?" Would they have forced me, a guest, to stay in squalor if I were really against the idea?
When the bus finally arrived, I was shocked. It was a model of modern transport: very clean and quiet, no stinky black emissions, soft-looking seats. Of course, I never got a seat, because when the doors swung open, I squeezed my way on. The bus was full. It baffled me: where did all these people come from? While waiting, I had not seen anything in any direction. No other apartment buildings, not many cars, no offices or businesses. Nevertheless, this bus was packed to the hilt. I knew I was going to the last stop, so I shoved my way to the back, hoping to find a strap or poll to hang on to. Once I was stable, I took a deep breath and nearly vomited. Oh, the stench! Were there more dead rabbits on this bus? Were there a hundred babies with shit-filled diapers? Was there a secret burial ground under the seats? Whatever it was, it was all I could do to keep from retching. I began breathing through my mouth but the awful smell seemed to be seeping in through my eyes. I looked around and noticed that nearly everyone else on the bus was a businessman wearing a suit. It was July. There was a woman standing next to me, her hand above mine, clutching the same bar. I turned my head and came face-to-face with her hairy, dripping underarm. I began to cough. On my left was a man in a blue wool suit, his arm extended above his head, the side of his jacket stained with sweat. Every time he would shift his weight, a pungent scent would pound into my face. Everyone on this bus was wearing either wool or gabardine suits. As the bus bounced over the roads, I started to gag. I was tempted to get off and walk, but I had no idea of how to get to Vörösmarty Square by foot. The windows were locked, the fans were off, and no one but me seemed to care. Where was I? It felt like some twisted Twilight Zone, where everyone is doing crazy shit, and I’m the crazy one.
When we pulled into Vörösmarty Square 20 mintues later, everyone got off. I had tried to be the first, but was shoved aside by the sweet-smelling natives. When I finally set foot on the concrete, I almost kissed the ground, so grateful to be outside, not minding that the exhaust from five or six other arriving buses was filling my lungs.
I walked into the main square and saw István in front of a statue, reading the paper.
"Hey," he smiled, when he saw me, "you found it O.K.?"
"Yes," I replied, lighting a cigarette. We started to walk.
"Are you all right, Mona? You look kind of pale."
I stopped in my tracks. "No, István, I am not all right." I told him about the bus ride, sparing no detail of the stink that had plagued me from the moment I got on until I was blessed enough to get back into the fresh air. He was laughing so hard, I wanted to punch him.
"What is so funny?" I demanded.
"I… I’m sorry, Mona…" he said, gasping.
"István, please tell me something. All these people, fuck, they smell so bad. But you…you and I have been in close quarters together. Why don’t you smell like that?"
"Oh my dear," he said, finally catching his breath, "that’s because I was born in America!"
Mona LaVigne is a writer from New York City.
Budapest is divided in half by the Danube River. To the west lies Buda, the lush, green country. It is mostly residential, the rolling hills lined with large, post-WWII homes. My friends, István and Gabi, live in Buda. Their home is almost like a mansion: vast rooms filled with expensive European art, a huge kitchen complete with a live-in cook, three bathrooms, each with a bathtub, shower and toilet, and the master bath with a Jacuzzi. In their backyard there is a cherry tree, and when the wind blows it throws fat, juicy cherries on the ground.
When I went to Budapest to visit István and Gabi a few years ago, I was looking forward to staying in one of their well-decorated bedrooms, reclining in one of their lapis blue bathtubs, and smoking Hungarian hash under the cherry tree at three in the afternoon. As István carried my bags from the airport to the car, Gabi put her arm through mine and said,
"We have the fully-furnished apartment in Pest and we’ve cleaned it up for you. You can stay there and have all the privacy you want. Isn’t that great?"
Pest is on the east side of the Danube. It is a city in every sense of the word. There is a heavy business district, lots of walk-up apartments, department stores, and Vörösmarty Square, an Eastern European version of Times Square, except with less Disney and more outdoor cafés. I had heard about this apartment from Gabi’s letters. I was not looking forward to staying there. I was not renting a car, so I knew I’d have to take public transportation to get around.
When we arrived at the apartment, I saw that the descriptions had hardly done it justice. It was a shithole. A clean shithole. Small and worn, the paint on the walls was flaking off, the mattress in the bedroom was frayed and stained, and the refrigerator was empty, save for some moldy sausage and a half-empty jar of jelly. I was excited to see two bathrooms, but deflated when I realized that one had a toilet and the other a stand-up shower.
"Isn’t it great?" said István, beaming at his wife, who had an equally large smile on her face.
"Yes," I replied, trying to be grateful, "it’s charming."
"There’s a bus across the street that goes straight to Vörösmarty Square," said Gabi. "I have to go to work in the morning, but István can meet you there and show you around the city. How does that sound?"
I looked at the glowing faces of my friends. They were so excited to have me there, how could I show my disappointment? I couldn’t. The crooked clock on the wall read 1:00 AM, and I yawned and said, "Sounds like a plan. It’s late and I want to get some rest so I can really enjoy my first day in Hungary."
They hugged me and István and I agreed to meet in Vörösmarty Square at 9:30 the next morning. They left the keys on the kitchen table and departed, leaving me in solitude, in a foreign country, in a ratty apartment. I was hungry. I opened the refrigerator and took out the bottle of jelly. I found a piece of bread on the bottom shelf, glopped some jelly on it, choked it down, and went to bed.
I dreamed of cherry trees, Chicken Paprikash, Bela Bartók, and Franz Liszt. When I woke in the morning, I ran to the window in the kitchen. No composers and no goulash. Instead, there was an overgrown garden and a trafficless street before me, the only sign of civilization being a weather-beaten bus stop marker. I used the toilet and walked across the apartment to the shower. While getting dressed, I stared at the phone. For the first time in years, I wanted my mommy. I wanted to call her and tell her how I felt betrayed by István and Gabi, how dare they not let me stay with them, and how I didn’t think I could bear staying eight more nights in this little hole of an apartment. I finally decided against it. I had lived in Canada for most of my life, and was not about to call my parents and bitch, just to hear them tell me that didn’t I know that "everyone outside if Canada is inferior? Especially those Eastern Europeans…barbarians…huns."
I left the apartment and headed toward the bus stop. As I was about to cross the street, I saw a dead rabbit in a ditch. A shudder crossed my body. There were no people around, no cars. How did that thing get there?
I stood on the corner and waited for the bus. Every once in a while, a Honda or Toyota would fly by. I saw a few red birds that I did not recognize, and a woman with a stroller ambling down the street. That was it. I could not believe that I was in Pest, the "city side" of Budapest, and there was nothing happening. What if I had told István and Gabi that I would rather have stayed at their house in Buda? Would they have said "no?" Would they have forced me, a guest, to stay in squalor if I were really against the idea?
When the bus finally arrived, I was shocked. It was a model of modern transport: very clean and quiet, no stinky black emissions, soft-looking seats. Of course, I never got a seat, because when the doors swung open, I squeezed my way on. The bus was full. It baffled me: where did all these people come from? While waiting, I had not seen anything in any direction. No other apartment buildings, not many cars, no offices or businesses. Nevertheless, this bus was packed to the hilt. I knew I was going to the last stop, so I shoved my way to the back, hoping to find a strap or poll to hang on to. Once I was stable, I took a deep breath and nearly vomited. Oh, the stench! Were there more dead rabbits on this bus? Were there a hundred babies with shit-filled diapers? Was there a secret burial ground under the seats? Whatever it was, it was all I could do to keep from retching. I began breathing through my mouth but the awful smell seemed to be seeping in through my eyes. I looked around and noticed that nearly everyone else on the bus was a businessman wearing a suit. It was July. There was a woman standing next to me, her hand above mine, clutching the same bar. I turned my head and came face-to-face with her hairy, dripping underarm. I began to cough. On my left was a man in a blue wool suit, his arm extended above his head, the side of his jacket stained with sweat. Every time he would shift his weight, a pungent scent would pound into my face. Everyone on this bus was wearing either wool or gabardine suits. As the bus bounced over the roads, I started to gag. I was tempted to get off and walk, but I had no idea of how to get to Vörösmarty Square by foot. The windows were locked, the fans were off, and no one but me seemed to care. Where was I? It felt like some twisted Twilight Zone, where everyone is doing crazy shit, and I’m the crazy one.
When we pulled into Vörösmarty Square 20 mintues later, everyone got off. I had tried to be the first, but was shoved aside by the sweet-smelling natives. When I finally set foot on the concrete, I almost kissed the ground, so grateful to be outside, not minding that the exhaust from five or six other arriving buses was filling my lungs.
I walked into the main square and saw István in front of a statue, reading the paper.
"Hey," he smiled, when he saw me, "you found it O.K.?"
"Yes," I replied, lighting a cigarette. We started to walk.
"Are you all right, Mona? You look kind of pale."
I stopped in my tracks. "No, István, I am not all right." I told him about the bus ride, sparing no detail of the stink that had plagued me from the moment I got on until I was blessed enough to get back into the fresh air. He was laughing so hard, I wanted to punch him.
"What is so funny?" I demanded.
"I… I’m sorry, Mona…" he said, gasping.
"István, please tell me something. All these people, fuck, they smell so bad. But you…you and I have been in close quarters together. Why don’t you smell like that?"
"Oh my dear," he said, finally catching his breath, "that’s because I was born in America!"
Mona LaVigne is a writer from New York City.
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