Tales of the City 07 - Michael Tolliver Lives

uncle behind a sheet of streaky Plexiglas. She was done up like one of the schoolgirls over at Saints Peter and Paul, in a pleated skirt, knee socks, and pigtails. And neatly arrayed behind her, like treasured dolls awaiting playtime, was an unnerving selection of dildos.
    I tried to mask my discomfort with a joke: “I didn’t know you were Catholic, Mary Margaret.”
    She cocked an eyebrow wickedly. “I’m anything you want, mister.”
    “Okay, don’t do that. You’re creeping me out.”
    She laughed. “Sorry, Mouse.”
    “Can we go out for coffee or something?”
    She shook her head. “This is my shift. I don’t want them to think I’m frivolous.”
    “Oh, right…can’t have that.”
    She smiled indulgently. “It’s cool just to talk here. A lotta customers do, believe it or not.”
    I asked her what the other ones do.
    “Masturbate,” she said brightly, “or watch me play with myself. Or both. It’s not a terrible gig, when you get right down to it.”
    “Right.” This was all I could manage. I had just noticed the handrails flanking the window, apparently enabling the ladies to grind against the Plexiglas. There was also a slot through which cash could be crammed when things really got going.
    “It’s been a revelation, Mouse. You guys are such funny whimpering creatures.”
    “Can we make that straight guys, please?”
    “No, we cannot. You’re all all about visuals. Every single one of you. Give you something juicy to look at, and you’re set for the evening.” The sweet, inquisitive kid I’d taught to roller-skate and taken to nearly every Cirque du Soleil bounced onto a large crushed-velvet cushion and crossed her legs with childish zest, as if I were about to tell her a bedtime story. “It’s not sticky over there, is it?”
    “I don’t wanna look,” I told her.
    I had already entertained a graphic fantasy about attacking that Plexiglas with a family-sized spray bottle of Simple Green.
    “I’ve only got three more days,” Shawna said, trying sweetly to reassure me. “Then I’m moving on to Heirloom Tomatoes.”
    “Thank God,” I said. “Simple wholesome produce.”
    “Actually, it’s a group of old broads in West Marin. They’re into lingerie. Heirloom Tomatoes…get it?”
    I told her that was cute, and meant it, comparatively speaking. It was a whole lot cuter than this unionized mastabatorium, that’s for sure.
    “Once I’m outta here,” Shawna went on, “Pacifica takes over this booth. She’s seven months pregnant, and that’s the bomb with some of the customers. I’m thinking about doing a piece on it.”
    “You’re kidding me?”
    “Well, why not?”
    “You mean she—?”
    “Don’t make that face. Lotsa people find pregnant women hot. Lotsa guys, in fact. That’s good news in any woman’s book.”
    There’s justice, I know, in the fact of an aging gay libertine being made to squirm about sex. Shawna is my karma, I suppose, my just desserts for banking too blindly on the power of my own liberation. There’s plenty I don’t know about, or care to know about, in my comfortable, vagina-free existence, and Pacifica the Pregnant Lady and her devotees are just the tip of the iceberg. I’m not proud of this; it’s just so.
    My friend George felt stifled by his own limitations and made up his mind upon turning forty to eat pussy at the next available opportunity. It was not a success, he said, and the woman who had volunteered for this noble experiment had freshened up with a cinnamon douche, so George was left only with a lasting distaste for breakfast rolls. He worked as a ticket agent for Southwest, so the smell of warm Cinnebons wafting through an airport could undo him completely. Some things are better left alone, he said.

    Shawna, as it turned out, had decided to move to Manhattan when her book was published and wanted my take on how Brian would react to the news. She’s always been this way, anticipating her father’s feelings like a devoted but anxious wife, desperately afraid of hurting him—of betraying him, really, as strong as that word may seem. The considerate children of single parents often seem to carry that additional burden.
    “I think he’s got plans of his own,” I told her.
    “You mean the RV?”
    “Yeah.”
    “He’s not serious about that.”
    “Yeah. You’re probably right.”
    “He’s Mr. Inertia,” she said. “And he’s happy that way as long as nothing else changes.”
    I remembered Shawna’s