Zodiac Girls, Libra: Stephanie
I learned about Libra women from a girl named Stephanie Bendennick. She'd tell me all about astrology while we lay in bed beneath her open window during the cool October nights, the window cracked so we could hear the rustle of the dead leaves in the trees outside. Stephanie was a Libra so I suppose she knew. Most people refer to Libra as the Balances, but Stephanie also called it the Great Pivot of the year: the time when summer yielded to autumn and we said goodbye to the sunlight and prepared for the darkness of winter.
Stephanie would wear a very glossy lipstick at night, because she knew I liked to see her lips glisten in the candlelight as she opened her mouth to go down on me, and often she would pose like that for my benefit, her lips trembling slightly as they approached the drop of clear fluid crowning the head of my prick. She would press her lips against the dome of my cock in a soft, lingering kiss and just leave them there, letting me feel the warmth of her mouth and the slick greasiness of her lipstick, and letting me feel her eager impatience. She would wait until I moaned or swore out of impatience of my own, and then she would slowly lift her head, expertly stringing out the drop of my lubricant into a shining strand, seeing how far she could go before the web of fluid broke. Then it would be her turn to groan herself at her own whorish behavior. She'd toss her hair back and look at me, her lips glistening even brighter now that my own sexual juices adorned her mouth, but not as bright as her eyes, which positively glowed with a lewd satisfaction.
This was when we'd first started sleeping together, and it was a constant wonder to me how she could be so composed and businesslike when she went off to work, and yet be so sensual at night, even wanton. She laughed when I mentioned it to her and told me that Libras were reconcilers and balancers, that they could incorporate the most outlandish opposites in their natures, but I just took it as the usual bar-level astrology talk. People are always reading wonderful things about themselves into astrology. I see now that she was trying to tell me something, but I didn't appreciate it at the time. As I said, we'd just started sleeping together. The sex was great, but there was a lot about her that I didn't know.
Stephanie worked in a gallery on the near north side in a very chic neighborhood that had originally been industrial but was now being gentrified, a lot of lofts and smart, refurbished store fronts. A lot of nice cars and a lot of new money. On those mornings when I'd spent the night I was always amazed at the way she looked when she left for work. Her clothes were impeccable, her make-up perfect, her jewelry just right. She looked, in fact, just like these women I saw from my cab as I cruised Michigan Avenue looking for fares, the ones who wouldn't look twice at me, wouldn't look twice at anyone because they instinctively knew that they wouldn't see anything worth their attention. Not so much perfect in beauty as they were perfect in their attitude and demeanor: icy bitches, self-possessed, confidant, and remote. That's the kind of client base Stephanie worked with, and she'd learned to blend in with them, to mirror their own perfection.
She was very good at what she did, and it was always a thrill to see her emerge from the bedroom in the morning in her crisp, sharp clothes, her hair arranged just so, or have her look at me with eyes that were so perfectly lined and made up that they could hang on a gallery wall themselves, eyes that just last night I had seen closed in pleasure as she arched up at me during sex. She looked so good that it always made me feel especially shabby and brutish. It turned me on.
It turned me on so much that we began to make a game of it. She loved for me to be rough with her, to almost rip those perfect clothes from her body, throw her up against the wall when she got in from work and devour her. We talked about doing the same thing in the gallery where she worked, about me coming in off the street pretending to be a client, then pouncing on her right there, amidst all the potted plants and expensive art work. She liked the idea. The night I first mentioned it she got very excited; so excited that she actually pushed me down on the bed, pulled me pants down and rode me like a wild woman. It was the hottest I'd ever seen her.
But it wasn't for a week or two that I actually decided to do it, and then it was more on impulse than anything else. It had been a shitty Friday. I was rejected for yet another job and spent all Friday night and Saturday behind the wheel of the damned cab. I took it out again on Sunday too, but I was just fed up. I couldn't handle it anymore. I turned the cab over to Artie, the owner, paid my nut, and drove over to Stephanie's gallery.
She smiled when she saw me come in, but it took just the slightest effort on my part to cue her that the game was on. I was already in a rotten mood, so it wasn't hard to brush off her greeting and slip into the role of some rich asshole who was interested in buying some art. This was Sunday afternoon near closing time and Stephanie was alone in the gallery. She tumbled to the game immediately and effortlessly put on her professional face. She didn't even crack a smile, or not much of one.
I was wearing my cab clothes: jeans, a turtleneck and a leather jacket. Stephanie had on a bunch of designer stuff. I couldn't tell you who made what, but she wore a charcoal gray skirt, a blue blouse and a kind of velvet jacket over it. She wore a bunch of African beads as a choker around her neck. They were small, black, and shiny, and strung on thin silver chain. Has she known I was coming she couldn't have dressed better. Gallery Bitch in all her chic, drop-dead glory.
"These are by Milos Januszak," she told me, leading me into the rear of the big room. "He's very hot right now, especially in Germany. We were lucky to get these ahead of his New York show, which won't open for another three months. After that, you won't be able to touch anything of his for under several thousand dollars."
The paintings she was showing me were intentionally schizophrenic. On the surface they showed the kind of flat, postcard realism of David Hockney, but wherever there was a doorway or window in the paintings, weird, surrealistic images intruded. The impression was one of a drugged stillness inside, a world gone mad outside, as if the artist had taken thorazine or some other intense, anti-psychotic medication in the middle of a bad episode. I liked them a lot, and so apparently did Stephanie. There was an actual glow beneath her make-up as she showed them to me.
Or maybe it was the excitement of the game. There was a definite feeling of sexual menace in the air, and I didn't mind it in the least. I was frustrated and angry about things in my life, and Gallery Bitch seemed to be the perfect target to let it out on.
"This one is nice," I said. It showed a picture of a woman at a table peeling potatoes, looking like a madonna of the kitchen. Everything was done in flat and tranquil pastels, until you looked out through her window. Outside was a childish representation of a devil painted in a livid red, making a threatening gesture with his pitchfork. It was kind of comical, in a disturbing sort of way.
"That's 'Potatoes Again'," Stephanie said. She strolled over and turned on her heel to face the painting. It was almost a runway model's turn, only not as affected. She did it very well. She held a pencil in one hand and her glasses on her nose, and she looked over them at me as she said, "Milos usually doesn't work in that size, portrait size. That makes this one especially valuable. And it's quite affordable, ideal for the entry-level collector."
She was into her role now, and she was very good at it. Her tone was cold, just slightly superior, and I didn't miss that condescending little dig at the end. I could see how she was so successful at this: wonderfully feminine yet knowledgeable and intimidating at the same time.
"But what does it mean?" I asked. "Ms... " I looked at her name tag, which identified her as Stephanie Bent. Her real name was Bendennick. I imagine this little ploy allowed some awkward jokes at her expense, a way to make the customers feel more at ease. "Ms. Bent."
She allowed herself the slightest hint of a smile. "In works like this, we don't really ask what the artist intended to convey. Very often the artists doesn't even know himself. What's important is whether it speaks to you, Mr...."
"Dick," I said. "Seth Dick." It was the best I could come up with. "The third," I added.
"Mr. Dick." She didn't even crack a smile. She was good. "Tell me, what does this painting mean to you?"
She turned her back to me and faced the painting, standing so close I could smell her perfume and see the wispy hairs at the back of her neck where they'd escaped her French twist. It had been a full day for her, but she still looked fresh. The sight of the clasp on her choker inexplicably excited me. I wondered what underwear she had on. It occurred to me that I rarely saw her in her underwear when she dressed. Only when I undressed her. She hadn't known I was coming today. What sort of underwear did she choose for herself?
