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TIT MEN

david mckenna


��I always wanted to be somebody’s bitch.
��Not a high-priced whore in a discreet little suite near an office highrise, or a lizard-tongued tart who snares some rock star who looks like a prehistoric bird. Or a gum-chewing bimbo with brown mascara who hitches her wagon to a would-be Don Corleone.
��Just somebody’s bitch.
��I wanted some big hunk with broad shoulders, steel-tipped workboots and a thick silver chain, one end fastened to a belt loop, the other to a fat wallet in the back pocket of his tight jeans. No low-riding outlaw biker type, but a biker, for sure, on an oversized Harley with twin mirrors, exhaust pipes and stereo speakers, and one of everything else but a roof and toilet.
��So who should come along but a man named Charlie, at the Blue Gondola, right before I bade farewell to Victor Belladonna, the world’s most conceited unknown baritone, and Luigi McMahon, sleazy restaurant owner extraordinaire.
��I was strolling between tables, playing “Strangers in the Night,” my last solo number before Victor came back to sing his medley of Mario Lanza hits, with me as accompanist. As usual Luigi and Victor were eating at the bar, side by side, and talking with a male customer about my breasts, because they’re big and I wear my accordion slung low, over a low-cut sequined dress with a tight bustier. I’m a full-figured gal all ‘round, but men’s eyes usually zoom to my breasts.
��That’s show business, you know? Except that Victor and Luigi, the half-Irish wharf rat, always joked about me out loud, to make sure I heard. Anyway, this particular customer, a tall guy in jeans and a denim shirt with mother-of-pearl studs, nodded toward me and said something to Luigi, who was sitting two stools away from him.
��“Yeah, but at this point I think she has to inflate ‘em every night,” Luigi answered, which started Victor laughing real deep like Don Giovanni, ha-ha, what a rascal I am.
��So I put down my accordion, right there on the bar, without bothering to do a big flourish on the final refrain, and dumped Luigi’s veal parm in his lap, like I was emptying the garbage. Then I reached around him and mashed the same gooey red plate against the starched white shirt Victor was wearing under his jumbo tux with the 12-foot-long cummerbund.
��I was walking out the door with my accordion when the denim man grabbed my arm and said, “I want to shake your hand, ma’am. Those peckerwoods deserved what they got.”
��He took my right hand in his brown, calloused paws and shook it till the accordion strap nearly slipped off my shoulder. I play an old Wurlitzer, by the way, cream-colored with chrome buttons and keys as big as a piano’s. Not as heavy as a piano, but you wouldn’t want to drop it on your foot.
��“Charlie Magenta’s the name,” the denim man said, though I hadn’t asked, as I re-adjusted my instrument. “And I’d like to buy you a drink.”
��I sent him back to fetch my accordion case, which I’d left in the Blue Gondola, on the little stage where Victor sings. I put my instrument in the case and into the trunk of my car, and climbed up behind Charlie, tight dress and all, after he pulled up wearing a silver space helmet over his silver hair, on a motorcycle as big as a houseboat.
��When we got on the highway, it felt like a speedboat. I held tight to Charlie’s slim waist, breathed the cool night air, and listened to the roar of the engine and the country music song on the radio. “I’ve Got Tears In My Ears From Lying on My Back Crying My Eyes Out Over You,” it was called.
��Charlie drove near the river till we got to the Boot Hill Saloon, which looked like an airplane hangar and sounded like a hoedown from hell. We sat at a bar drinking whiskey and soda. He told me he was some big-shot contractor, always traveling, and that I was the finest looking woman east of the Monongahela, whatever that is.
��“Are you a tit man, Charlie?” I said. “Is that why you like me?”
��I usually don’t use such coarse language, but I was miffed that Charlie had talked about me with the likes of Victor and Luigi. That might sound stupid, since he was a complete stranger and I’d already let him shanghai me to some redneck bar, but a girl can have mixed feelings.
��“I asked them who the lady with the beautiful eyes was,” he said. “Your eyes look like they stole all the light from the moon and stars.”
��Charlie has a sweet drawl and a chiselled face that doesn’t move much, but I knew he was lying. For one thing, I’d heard Luigi’s joke. For another, Charlie looked at my breasts when he talked about my eyes.
��But you are what you are, and I was flattered despite myself. I could see that Charlie wanted to stroke and bite my breasts, bury his face between them and breathe deep the Poison, scratch my soft flesh with his wire-brush stubble and suck till he sighed and fell asleep with his head on my arm, a single word frozen on his slightly parted lips.
��“You’re a tit man, alright,” I said, shaking my head.
��“I want to take you somewhere and show you how special you are,” he said, draining his glass.
��He did, too, at the Comfort Inn on I-95, where I could see the bridge lights as I pulled off his pointy-toed boots and undid my ponytail, shaking thick black curls onto my wide, milky shoulders.
��“Unzip me, cowboy,” I said, feeling cocky. Fact is, Luigi is a pipsqueak liar. I’m 38, and so is my chest, but my breasts still perk up as proud as when I was 22, with or without the D cups. I guess it’s all that accordion playing, and the hand weights.
��Charlie watched, expressionless, when I was naked, then inched his fingers under both breasts, palming them, as if his hands were made for that purpose alone. He kissed my right nipple, bit at it, then mouthed the whole silver dollar-sized aereola. How I love that word!
��A big, shy guy, gentle as Smokey Bear, and about as available. “I’m married with two kids,” he’d said straight up, before we even left the bar. “Just thought you should know.”
��Fine with me. I wasn’t eager to play house with him, not with my music career holding steady and my two girls grown up and off to college, all expenses paid by their dad, a bum while we were married and a successful bandleader now. So many men turn out to be woman haters or mama’s boys, at least while they’re involved with me.
��Afterwards Charlie rolled off me like a log into a river and lay staring at the ceiling till I thought he’d maybe slipped into a trance.
��“A penny for your thoughts, big man,” I said, almost afraid to ask.
��“Where do you think those puddles come from?” he said after a while. “Up ahead on the highway, when you look through the windshield on a hot, sunny day? You can never catch up with ‘em.”
��“A mirage,” I said, lighting a cigarette, only my third of the day. I’ve been quitting for 15 years now. “The eyes play tricks.”
��“A mirage,” he repeated softly. “Like most things.”
��I’m wise in the ways of love. Right then I knew this bucking bronco was a deep one, and would keep me guessing. Next night we met at the Blue Burrito, where I played Tex-Mex with a quartet of tequila-crazed caballeros from San Antone who look me up when they tour. Charlie asked where I wanted to go, and I said, “Surprise me.”
��He did, too. I hung on by my nails, with legs around Charlie and skirt up around my hips, as he gunned his Harley across the bridge to Jersey and down the pike to the Babette Motel, on the edge of nowhere, where we rented a room with a squeaky bed and towels the size of place mats.
��As if it mattered. I set the tempo, and this time Charlie was more like a grizzly bear than Smokey Bear. The other rooms were empty, so I didn’t worry about waking anyone with my love noises. By the time we were through, I could barely stagger into the rusty shower stall and turn on the water, let alone towel myself off. I fell on the bed, legs aching and breasts red with passion marks, and dozed till I was dry.
��He took me to a half-dozen more places that month, everything from a Day’s Inn to a pay-by-the-hour joint in Jersey where junky whores do their bit. I figured he was testing me, waiting for me to pitch a bitch while we lay in bed in the dollar motel.
��“You tired of fly-by-night love, Connie?” he asked, slow and distant, raising his head from my breast. “Think I want too much, take you for granted?”
��I turned away to blow cigarette smoke, then rolled over and straddled him. “You want me, you got me,” I said. “Just give it to me.”
��Charlie dropped me off at 6 a.m. at my car, as usual. I don’t want him to have me on my home turf. Before I split, he presented me with a gift-wrapped CD by Flaco Jimenez, my favorite accordionist, which he’d tucked away in his saddlebag.
��“You shouldn’t have,” I said.
��Charlie said he’d be away for two weeks at an Arizona construction site. “Should I call when I get back?” he asked straight-faced. First thing he’d said in hours.
��“Just whistle, cowboy,” I said. “I’ll come running.”
��Six days later I played the Blue Pierogi, a Polish-American beer hall. I had some major cleavage going on, thanks to this silk vermilion number that barely climbed past my nipples. I’d plucked my brows till they pointed like daggers away from my Liz Taylor-perfect eyes.
��Some fat drunk was hollering “One more time!” This after about 500 choruses of “In Heaven There Is No Beer.” Then he yelled “Flex those tittie muscles, babe” to coax a laugh from his piggy friends.
��Charlie — I didn’t even know he was there — grabbed the drunk by his shirt and scrunched it up, lifting him off his feet. When he let go, the drunk landed on his ass on the dance floor. No muss, no fuss, and no reason to stop playing. Being in the business a long time, I knew better.
��After my last set, Charlie drove us to a suite at the Inn of the Flamingo. Red walls, king-size bed, heart-shaped tub, Jacuzzi. One of those dives that tries to be opulent but just gives you a headache. Not at all like our usual spots. Charlie hadn’t even told me what he was doing back from Arizona so soon.
��“So I could put this on your finger,” he said, holding out a silver ring with turquoises and a star sapphire as big as a kernel of corn.
��“The only thing I could find that matches the light in your eyes,” he explained, eyeing my breasts.
��I sat on the bed and he knelt next to me, looking like the sheriff of Tombstone.
��“That drunk in the polka club cinched it for me,” he continued. “I knew I was doing the right thing.”
��“I don’t know what to say,” I said.
��“First let me tell you what happened.”
��He did, too. The day before, he left the job site, flew 2,000 miles to his home in the Philly suburbs, and told his wife of 18 years they were through, he’d fallen in love and wanted a divorce:
��“I said, ‘Lulu, I’ll give you as much money as you want. You can have the ranch and the kids, and you can even keep the horses. But I’ve got to have my freedom. We loved each other, but what’s past is past. Our future is just a mirage. My future is with Connie; I’m gonna marry that woman.’ “
��It was the longest speech I ever heard him make. I sighed, plucked the ring from his hand, watched it glitter, handed it to him.
��“Sorry, Charlie,” I said. “I can’t do it.”
��“Well, goddamn,” he said quietly, twiddling the ring.
��“It’s just not what I want,” I said, not realizing how upset he was.
��“What exactly is it you want, Connie?” he said, leaning forward till his face pushed between my breasts.
��“I’ve got my own life to live,” I said, running a hand through his shiny silver hair. “I just wanted to be ... your bitch.”
��“I guess there’s no fool like an old fool,” he said, pressing his face against me so that I could hardly hear him.
��“You’re not so old, Charlie,” I said, patting his head.
��Then I felt the wetness between my breasts and heard him yelp once, like a baby coyote at feeding time.
��What is it about cleavage, about big breasts? I might as well ask what is it about warm milk at bedtime, or a crib full of down pillows.
��Charlie let go slowly. He lay on his back, reached for his helmet and covered his face with it so I wouldn’t see his silent tears. Then he stood up and walked out the door. I was too numb to move till I heard him kick-start the Harley and roar through the parking lot. From the window I saw him scoot up the embankment to a little ledge, dismount, and jump over the guardrail to the highway.
��In a panic I looked for my high heels, then realized they’d be useless. I’ve got sturdy legs, but the rocks on the hill hurt my bare feet.
�� “I said I’d be your bitch,” I screamed. “Isn’t that enough?”
��Before I got half-way up, there was a screech of tires and a tremendous scraping noise as a red van smashed into the guardrail directly above me, turned around once and came to a halt about 30 yards farther down the road.
��When the cops pulled up five minutes later, Charlie was still sitting on the highway with his legs folded under him. I was waving cars around him into the other lane. Good thing for Charlie no one was hurt. He wound up with a fine and some car insurance problems.
��He’s still on the prowl, as far as I know. He didn’t go back to his wife and kids, and he didn’t contact me again, except to thank me for sending back his ring.
��Tit men. They hate you or they love you, and I don’t know what’s worse. The more they love you, the less they want to know you. You become the Universal Tit, pardon my coarseness.
��My next guy will be an ass man, somebody who buys drinks for the house, pinches me in public, and flirts with every floozy in sight. The kind of guy who likes to watch a girl walk away.




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