.
                                                  ::

                                            as falls cuyahoga,
                                      so falls cuyahoga falls

                                                  ::

Two figures emerging from tendrils of acerbic stage fog. Faces
obscured by masks, gasmasks, bulbous snouts waggling to either
side as they step mincingly, slow and somehow stately. Big
goggles, white, stretched over white headpieces, rubber shining
under the lights. White rubber dresses secondskinning arms and
tits and bellies, shadows pooled in rubber there stretched
drum-taut over navels, long skirts swooping hobbling-tight brush
ankles encased in totteringly platformed bright white boots. One
sleeve runs seamlessly from shoulder down an arm and over a
bulbous hint of interlocked fingers, palms sweating into palms,
and up another arm to end, seamlessly, at another shoulder.
Rubber crinkles at knees, hips, elbows, flanks, necks, fat white
shifting wrinkles bunching under the lights as they step to the
edge of the stage, as far apart as their common arm will allow.
They bow. Everyone is speaking to someone else about some other
matter over the low hum of an empty sound system until drums
explode, a clattering parade beat, a demented martial carnival.
That common arm bending impossibly, the two twirl together,
sinuous, suddenly swift, free hands gloved in white rubber
stroking, sliding, swaying. The beat is immense. Richie
Meeuwissen leans back and lights another cigarette. He isn't
exactly smiling.

The hands that sneak around his face to cover his eyes have
short, no-nonsense nails, painted a glittering gold. The lips
that smile beside his ears a similar color. The voice is low,
whispering, but pitched to carry itself just above the drums.
Guess.

Sam? No, wait, it's - There are zippers on those rubber dresses.
Zippers crawling up and open from hem to knees, legs bent now,
hips rocking to the beat, the beat, high hard syncopated tocking
skirling and clattering over relentless bassthump beating,
beating, rolling out to arm's length and then back again, heads
tossing. Vanessa. Hello.

Vanessa Cuyahoga, shimmering goldstuff, a little backless dress
that flounces somewhere about the middle of her thighs,
spike-heeled shoes held on by tiny golden straps lost against her
skin in the dim light. She sits across from him. What gave it
away? she says.

I'm working, he says. She's going to show up any minute,
otherwise - I mean, I'd appreciate it - Blinking, his face
changes, subtly. Closes a little. He shuts his mouth.

Yes? says Vanessa. Leaning across the table to be heard over the
drums.

Funny, he says. Not leaning forward.

Thank you, she says. What?

You paid for tonight.

Why, she says, yes. What on earth gave it away?

One of them kneeling, gasmask nuzzling at the other, the dress
unzipped up to the crotch now, high as it will go. White boots
beneath come up to cup the spreading knees, pale thigh flesh bare
and shining. Gasmasked head thrown back, juddering to the beat.
Free hand sliding on a rubbered ass, free hand clenching a
rubbered head. The common arm sinuously weaving impossible arcs
behind them.

The agency told me, Richie starts to say.

I lied to the agency, says Vanessa.

Look, says Richie, I don't need the business, and I don't need
the money -

I'm not doing this to give you money.

Oh.

I gave the agency the money.

I know.

Quite a lot of it. And they'll give you whatever your cut is.

Yes, but -

I'm doing this for a fuck, Richie. I want a fuck. That's why I
paid you. That is how this works, isn't it? Am I unclear on the
concept?

No, he says.

Spooned back to front now, common arm wrapping around them both
one to the other. Humping, head back, head cocked around,
gasmasks nuzzling each other, snouts to snouts. Free hand on a
white rubbered tit, free hand tugging slowly zipper up and up,
along white rubbered knees, along parting thighs obscenely pale
under the lights to the waist where rubber ripples and bunches,
swaying and pumping to the beat, the beat.

It's awkward, he says.

Awkward?

Sam, he says. Your sister.

I know who Sam is, she says. What does that have to do with this?
With our transaction? Did she already pay for tonight?

Don't fuck around with me, Vanessa, he says.

So I am unclear on the concept, she says.

Legs entwined now, groin to groin, bucking and humping leaning
back away from each other, snouts up, tits shining, rubber
stretching white and taut, their common arm arcing up and
straining. And back. Thighs between thighs, sliding, grinding.
Free hands whitely brushing the black stage floor, stirring wispy
pools of heavy leftover fog. Bucking, humping. Pumping. The
common arm stretching and straightening as goggles and gasmasks
toss convulsively on tossing rubbered heads to the beat.

You're going to make this difficult for me.

Difficult?

You're trying to. You're playing a game. You and your sister.

And what, says Vanessa, leaning back now, do you know about me
and my sister?

The arm breaks. The drums crash to a thundering stop and in the
sudden shocking silence the arm breaks. Falling back on
outstretched rubbered hands both figures flail a moment,
separated. Shaking. Dropping to the floor, hands upraised,
fingers bare and grasping. Palms bare. Rubber ripped and drooping
like some broken flower from bare wrists. Falling. Rolling.

Come on, says Vanessa. Let's go.

Crawling upright to the edge of the stage, on knees blindly
groping. Bare hands reaching. Nails shining under the lights,
obscene.

Why? says Richie. I don't -

The drums crash again, a pounding surf of beat, as fingers brush,
skin touches skin, as hands press together desperately and wrap
and pull.

I've seen this show. I'm bored, says Vanessa.

Bare hands suddenly greedy now, needy on rubber, rubbered tits,
rubbered arms, the sides of rubbered heads. Gloved hands,
rubbered hands, hovering, hesitant, useless. Bare hands brushing
gasmasks, goggles. Another crashing surfroll of drums.

Look, says Richie, I'm not, as Vanessa kicks her chair back and
stands up, golden, shimmering.

Drums avalanche again, gongs, metal clashing, drumheads
thrumming, as fingers, bare fingers pry the seals of gasmasks
loose, as gasmasks tumble wobbling from pale cheeks, lips whitely
glowing under the lights.

Vanessa walking around behind him. Lips to Richie's ear. Is this
the sort of treatment your clients come to expect?

Richie grinds his smoking cigarette out in the ashtray. The paper
splits. Unburnt crumbs of tobacco spill.

That first kiss onstage is something hungry and strange,
pale-lipped mouths taking bites from each other as goggles clash
soundlessly in the surmounting din. As bare hands and gloved
hands push those goggles up and off revealing closed unseeing
eyes. As tongues lick eyelids, cheeks and tongues. As zippers
hidden in the hollows of throats are found, white rubber peeling
back from more pale skin. As hoods loosen, shift and flop from
heads of artfully artless tangled hanks of sweat-soaked yellow
hair. As shoulders are bared, one then another, and another
shrugging free as mouths bite throats and chests and the notches
of collarbones and fingers and mouths again. As the music roars
to an unbearable crescendo and the first breast, tipped with a
shocking nipple the deep rich red of blood in all that
light-struck haze and pale damp flesh and clean white rubber, as
a mouth opens to lick it, suck it, take it in, as a head falls
back, the lights go suddenly dark, the music stops, dead, there
is nothing but a keening cry of pain or pleasure cutting through
the dying echo of those awful drums, and stray wisps of fog
drifting from the stage. Someone begins to clap, but Richie and
Vanessa are gone. His cigarette still smolders in the ashtray.

Turn here, says Vanessa in the passenger seat. Turn left. Picking
at loose seam on the headrest.

Old Town, says Richie.

Keep going, says Vanessa.

The Jameson? The Empire?

Slow down. And shut up.

Outside Bertolioni's two women laugh. One wears a black leather
jacket and a plaid microkilt and white thigh-high stockings, and
the other who throws back her head and shows her white teeth
wears a skintight bellyshirt crawling with brightly colored Hindu
gods like mad tattoos and a pair of bright pink hotpants, set off
against her dark, dark skin. Vanessa, staring out at them, hand
raised, hovering, shakes her head. Keep going.

What?

Amateurs.

Amateurs?

Head down to Third.

I could, you know, says Richie, spinning the steering wheel, call
the agency if you liked.

I don't want someone from your agency.

What is this about, Vanessa?

Why do you think this is about anything? I want a fuck. My sister
seems to think highly of you -

I knew it. This is about your sister.

Slow down. Slow the fuck down. Is she here?

What? Who?

Sam? Do you see her here anywhere? So why the fuck do you think
this has anything to do with her? What about that one?

What?

Vanessa's rolling down her window. A black woman all lanky legs
and feet in clogs and tits juddering under a terrycloth haltertop
with every heavy step looks sidelong at the car. Looks back over
her other shoulder. You looking? she says, her steps angling
closer to them as they roll slowly along the curb.

Maybe, says Vanessa.

Jesus, says Richie.

Backstage, one of them in her high heels is otherwise naked,
standing before the big pocked mirror splotchy with old grease.
She daubs at the red makeup creamed along one nipple. The other
sits on the old green couch wearing a pair of men's black boxer
briefs, her knees drawn up to her chest. She rubs one bare foot,
running a finger between grubby toes. Her toenails are painted
white.

Someone knocks at the door. Royal's coming.

The one at the mirror looks at the one on the couch, who's
slipping her feet into stiletto heels and standing. Thumbs in the
waistband, she pushes the briefs over her hips and lets them fall
down her legs, stepping out of them. She smiles.

Good show tonight, says the big man with the big smile and the
big head of hair. I'm not interrupting, am I? He wears a beige
suit with a black shirt and he opens his arms generously as they
come to him, one to either side, kissing his cheeks. Thanks. You
think so? It was nothing. His hands on the hip of one, the ass of
the other. They both have curling on the left cheeks of their
buttocks single roses tattooed in thick black lines and delicate
colors drawn as if they were growing from the clefts of their
asses.

Twenty, says the man behind the inch-thick glass.

Twenty? says Richie. The sign says it's ten bucks a room.

Plus five per guest. I count two guests. Am I wrong? Twenty.

Pay the man, says Vanessa.

What you got to understand, says the lanky-legged woman, is you
can't say that shit on the payphones.

You're the one who's dating, says Richie.

Where would I carry the money in this outfit? says Vanessa.

You say that shit on the payphones, you say anything about the
paperwork, you talk about the terms at all, and there they be, a
minute later, a cop car, cruising. Less.

Just pay the man, says Vanessa, putting her arm around the
lanky-legged woman's shoulders. You can fill out an expense
report for the agency, right? The paperwork.

Don't joke about that shit. They got bugs in all the phones and
the cops listen and listen. I told you it was extra for you and
him right? It's extra. My name's Sugar.

You said, says Richie, as the man behind the inch-thick glass
drops a key on a bright orange plastic numeral seven into the
stainless steel bowl that's set in the counter below the glass,
open on either side of it. Richie reaches in and scoops out the
key. You said it was Tamine.

It's Sugar. Because I'm so sweet. It's extra, for the both of
you.

No tricks, says the man behind the inch-thick glass. His voice is
muffled by it. His mustache has been badly trimmed. I won't have
any tricks in this hotel.

I am not turning tricks! says the lanky-legged woman, Sugar or
Tamine, planting the heels of her hands on the Formica counter to
either side of that stainless steel bowl. I am not some fucking
whore!

Come on, says Richie, pushing open the dented steel door with a
glass window tiny and set up high but smeared nonetheless with
old handprints and inlaid with chickenwire.

It's extra, says Sugar, pushing off from the counter, for the
both of you. Single-room occupancy! She starts to giggle. Guests
pay extra!

This, says Vanessa, following, is even funnier than I imagined.

The room is tiny and lit by a single moth-speckled forty-watt
bulb dangling from a chain over the pressboard desk, plastic
veneer peeling up from the edges. A red Gideon lies in the middle
of the desk. The bed is maybe a twin and has an alarming list to
the lower right corner. The blanket is thin and orange and rucks
up as Sugar climbs up on it, wobbling on her knees, one hand
reaching back to pluck at her underwear under her skirt.

Be a gentleman, Richie, says Vanessa. Help the woman. Sugar falls
over on her side, laughing, as Richie approaches. I need, she
says, a bump. You got any? She's fumbled something out of her
little black handbag, a makeshift pipe of some sort, what looks
like a film canister on the end of a pen stem. Her underwear is
down around her knees the color of dark and blood-soaked liver.
I'm following my circumspection, but it's that time of the night,
you know what I'm saying? One knee is ugly with a scar that knits
and bunches the flesh in thick snarled ripples. One clog falls
off a foot and thumps to the floor. She scratches between her
tits, under the haltertop. I, um, says Richie.

Oh, for fuck's sake, says Vanessa, pushing past him, kneeling
there on the floor in her shimmering gold, running her
gold-tipped hands flat along Sugar's thighs. Sugar giggles and
sucks at the pipe and then frowns at it, poking it with a finger.
I need a bump, she says. Vanessa is pulling her underwear, simple
cotton bikini panties that had once perhaps been white, down
along her calves and off one bare foot, one clogged foot. Sugar
rolls over onto her back. Vanessa lifts the underwear in both
hands to her face, holding the front panel to her nose. She
sniffs, deeply. Smiles.

Well? says Sugar. Someone gonna fuck me, or what? Lifting her
hips, she's trying to shove her skirt over them and not having
much luck. Vanessa looks up at Richie, who says, I, uh. Take off
your shirt, says Vanessa, climbing to her feet. Dropping the
underwear to the floor. She kneels on the edge of the bed her
shadow looming over bed and wall and Sugar and she puts one hand
on Sugar's hip, below fraying hem of her denim miniskirt. You
gonna kiss me? says Sugar. I don't like kissing, but you can kiss
me. It'll cost you extra, though. The skirt riding up as she
shifts one leg baring her pussy, purple and a washed-out beige
pink. Hedged by nervous scribbles of dark hair. A scum of
something whitish flakes like dead skin from the inside of one
thigh, and Richie closes his eyes. Jesus, the smell -

Her hand sliding down and up again to Sugar's tented knee,
Vanessa straightens, licking her lips. Sugar says I don't know
what it is about moths, you know? Fluttering like that. Come on,
Richie, says Vanessa. Get that shirt off. Bending down to kiss
the scar on Sugar's knee, to run her tongue along the creased
flesh.

What if I, Richie starts to say, and Vanessa looks up. I didn't
make the rules, she says.

But what if I don't, says Richie.

Vanessa puts one foot on the floor and then the other, standing.
Even if you don't do anything, says Sugar, it's still going to
cost you.

What if I don't want to, says Richie.

Then we're playing a different game, says Vanessa. Aren't we? Her
hand on his hip. Her hand on the button of his jeans. Her hand
unzipping his fly.

It's still going to cost extra, says Sugar.

Backstage, one of them says, We're thinking of doing a routine to
one of Glenn Branca's pieces. The First, says the other. With
that endless chord. And the drums, says the other.

The big man sitting at one end of the old green couch says I'm
not going to lie, it's a fabulous show. But I don't think we can
headline you. Not yet. I can swing something maybe in LA, an
opening gig, make a splash. But Vegas is at least six months out.

We're kind of set on Vegas, says the one of them nestled in the
other corner of the old green couch. Holding a glass of something
tawny, cut with half-melted ice. The other, leaning back against
the first, her now-bare foot on the couch by the big man's hip,
her elbow on the couch between the other's thighs, leans back
against the other's chest to whisper something in her ear.

I don't doubt you can do it, says the big man. But we gotta lay
the groundwork. You hear what I'm saying?

You're staring, says the one with the glass.

Sorry, says the big man. Grinning a little. It's just - you swear
you're not sisters? I mean, the resemblance. I can't tell you
apart.

If she were my sister, says the other one, would I do this?

The big man's eyes light up.

Richie hisses as she snugs the condom at the base of his cock. Go
on, says Vanessa, and he takes one step out of his puddled pants,
and another, kicking them free. I am so fucking late, says Sugar,
and Tee One's gonna smack me. Bitch. Rolling up on one elbow, she
grins a crooked grin. Got it up? she says. Needed some help? I
need some help.

Shut up, says Richie, one knee on that thin orange blanket.

That's it, says Vanessa. She's a whore. You paid for her. Fuck
her. You don't have to listen to her.

Shut up, says Richie, again. Sugar grabbing at his shoulder as he
plants his other knee, cock a-bob above her. I could use a bump,
says Sugar, I could really use a bump.

So bump her, Richie, says Vanessa. Fuck the whore. Fuck her
silly. Go on.

Oh, fuck, says Sugar, oh God damn.

Richie's shadow like a stain, something splashed against the
wall. It begins to move. Hitch and jerk, hitch and jerk. Hunh, he
says, at the bottom of each. Hunh. Sugar twisting under him, the
pipe, she says, the pipe, until he plants a hand on her shoulder
and holds her still, grunting. Come on boy, says Sugar. Shut up,
says Richie. She lifts one leg crooked and dark into the air, her
foot twisting at the end of it, toes splayed, bouncing with each
thrust. Vanessa stands arms folded and watches. Fuck her, she
says. She's a whore and you're going to fuck her and forget her
and that's it. That's what whores are for. That's all they're
for.

Would you fucking shut up? snarls Richie, jerking upright and
half out. Hey, says Sugar, as he puts a foot on the floor and
pulls away. His condomed cock bouncing as he steps and again.
Vanessa's hand coming up as his hand comes up and he grabs hers
and pushes her back against the wall. She grunts. Her wrist
pinned over her head. His other hand catching her thigh as he
steps between her knees. Jesus, he says.

Don't, she says, don't even take it off, just now, just now, do
it. Now.

That first thrust bangs her back against the wall again and
shakes it. The second jolts her, knocking her jaw open as she
lifts one foot a slender delicate shoe dangling from it and hikes
her knee around his bare hip. The third makes her groan. His
teeth are gritted, his mouth a sneer, fuck, he says, fuck, fuck.
She shudders, the hand above her head hanging limply from his
grasp, but her eyes stay fixed, her mouth remains a grim smile
even as her head quivers on her neck from the next thrust, and
the next. Ranh, he says, and hanh, his other hand catching her
thigh and holding it there. Tilting a little with her as her
weight shifts, sliding along the wall and catching, hanh. Fuck.

Sugar sitting upright on the bed, one hand idly scratching her
belly where the waistband of her skirt has ridden up. Not really
looking at them at all. Her other hand crawling across the
blanket rumpled and coming up with the pipe. She turns it over,
and over again. Frowning. I didn't, she says. I forgot. What.
What is it? What?

Vanessa one hand clenching Richie's buttock, gold nails digging
red lines into the flesh. He hisses, jerks his hips, grabs her
face, his thumb and middle finger wrapping along her jaw as he
shoves her head back against the wall, wrenching it to one side
stop it! And still she smiles, eyes dark. He lets go, reaches
back, grabs her hand and she lets him slam it against the wall.
Hands pinned, feet planted, her upraised foot now falling as he
begins to piston slapping hard against her hips knees bent
thumping the wall, bang, bang, someone on the other side
pounding, thump, a hoarse bellow, cut it the fuck out! Shit, says
Richie, shit oh shit oh shit and Vanessa howls. Jaw open eyes
squeezed shut throat ululating groaning howl as she thumps her
hips against him bouncing between him and the wall hard and
stuttering fast, unh oh! Oh! Oh!

That racket, says Sugar. That goddamn noise.

I'll, um, says the big man, smiling big, his big hair mussed,
wiping two glistening fingers with a handkerchief before he zips
up the fly of his big beige pants, I'll see what I can do.

And the one of them with her head on the other's shoulder smiles.

Vanessa peeling off a twenty off a slim money clip she's fished
from somewhere in that shimmering golden dress. Dropping it
fluttering to the floor by Richie's head.

I, says Sugar, trying and not succeeding to step into her
underpants, I had a baby once.

The fuck? says Richie, rolling over on his side, half-raising
himself from the floor.

A tip, says Vanessa. I can find my way out.

I got the point, says Richie. You don't have to drive it home.
Holding the twenty up to her.

Good, says Vanessa, turning away. Not deigning to look at the
twenty at all.

I had two of them, says Sugar. I forgot that I had two of them.

Sam's told me stuff, you know, says Richie.

Has she, says Vanessa, her hand on the doorknob. Like how we've
been fucking since we were kids?

Like about, says Richie, John.

Vanessa takes her hand off the doorknob but stops its arc there
by her hip before it does whatever it was going to do. No, says
Vanessa.

Oh? says Richie.

Vanessa puts her hand back on the doorknob and twists it, deftly.
Pulls the door open. Shakes her head. No, she says.

Jesus, says Richie. Jesus fuck. He looks down, rolls the condom
up along his cock until he can safely pluck its greasy tip
bulging with come.

The funny thing is, says Sugar.

Shut up, says Richie.

The funny thing is, says Sugar, John. They're all named John.
Ever notice how funny that is?

                                                  ::
                                                  
                                            as falls cuyahoga,
                                      so falls cuyahoga falls
                                             an object lesson.008
                                                 
                                                          --n.
                                                  ::
                                                  
http://www.asstr.org/~nickurfe/
http://www.ruthiesclub.com/
nickurfe@yahoo.com

This story may be freely circulated by anyone, anytime, anywhere.
Performance extrapolated from a routine by the Porcelain Twinz.

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