This is the first time I've ever written anything from a male POV, so apologies in advance for any bum notes. Anyone who's confounded by any Irishisms, please feel free to message me for an explanation.
*****
Who can bring a clean thing out of an unclean? not one.
Job 14:4
1980
Mercedes was 27 when I met her, a teacher at the local CBS. The staff drank in Tanners where I was working at the time. I was on a roll that year. Dolores, a barmaid, Carmel, the owner's wife, Marguerite, a sweet little bitch from the convent...Mercedes used to slag me about my reputation but I could tell that it excited her as well. She liked to flirt. She couldn't help herself.
One night, we got talking in the kitchen at a house-party for the tennis club crowd. I crashed it after the end of my shift. She was wearing tight jeans, a cream blouse, a blue satin scarf knotted at the side of her neck. Red lipstick on her teeth, the same colour as her Dunhills box. The lad she had come with had puked and was passed out in the front room.
We shared her pint bottle of cider. She smelled ripe, perfume and vinegar on top of warm decay, like she was on her period. Not drunk - she could hold her drink - but she'd had a few.
You know by a woman if you're in or not - the way she holds herself, a certain tone of voice. When she wandered off, I knew she wanted me to follow. I stepped past a row on the point of breaking out in the front garden and saw her leaning against the corner of the house. Just a shape and the tip of a cigarette. She pushed off with her shoulder and walked around the side. I followed the smell of her fag into the darkness.
I couldn't see her but I felt her. She came at me like an animal hunting at night. Her mouth was vicious, all teeth and raw, rotten meat. She grunted as her back hit the wall, clawing at my face. A big country woman, all angles. Hard to get a hold of but I knew that it was important that I did so. Even at that stage, I knew she wanted a man who was up to her.
She opened my zip as I felt her cunt through her jeans. She was wearing a pad. She said it didn't matter.
Funkytown
was playing inside the house. It still makes me hard when I hear it...
She jerked me off inside the grinding together of our hips. I could see the brightness of one eye as I hunted down her tongue with mine. Her bush was clotted into knots around her cunt lips but I found a way through. No virgin, but I already knew that. I put two fingers knuckle-deep into her, putting her off her stride for a second. I felt her stretch as she stood on her toes before coming down hard, her crotch working in sync with my fingers.
She knew when I was about to come. She spun me around so my back was to the wall and rolled off to the side without a break in the steady rhythm of her fist. I flattened my palms upon the pebble-dash, her mouth hot against my ear telling me to do it, to shoot my spunk into the dark. I heard shouting around the corner, the crack of a sweetly-delivered slap. My legs dipped and she started to laugh, placing her free hand over my mouth. I bit down hard on her middle finger but she didn't flinch...
You can also tell when a woman has had enough of you. She said we should go back seperately; that she would go back in first. I went to kiss her but she backed away, telling me to zip up my pants. And with that, she was gone.
I licked my fingers, tasting cunt and blood, a trace of piss. The air was cold upon my cock.
*
She freaked out when I rang her the next evening. Wanted to know how I'd got her number. I said it was in the local directory. She said she was going ex and not to phone her again. Then she hung up.
I was in a phone box outside the post office. I waited for my change to drop but nothing happened. Paper up the slot...I found it, pulled it out and hit the jackpot. They deserved to lose out for being greedy.
I took the money to Minogue's and put it towards two Baby Powers and ten fags, then hopped the wall to the Parish Hall field where I climbed into the cockpit of an abandoned JCB.
The first slug of whiskey made me gag. I didn't like games, if that was what she was at. She thought she was smarter than everyone else. I touched myself through my jeans, remembering her teeth on my lips, the tight knot in her scarf. She lived in Balderry, beyond the convent fields. Had her own house, her own car. A red Datsun. I'd seen her park it up in Aughrim Street, black tights coming out of the door. Rolling into the Bank of Ireland like she owned the place...
I finished the first bottle and opened the second. The deeper you get into whiskey, the better it tastes until it's so delicious that it makes you want to cry.
I wouldn't be made a fucking eejit out of. Not by her, not by any woman. She wasn't the only one who could play games.
Once it was dark, I took the fields to the back wall of her estate. There was a light on in the bedroom but the curtains were drawn. I dropped into her back garden and hid behind the shed. Sunday night...she had work in the morning. I pictured her reading in bed, eating Black Magic, fingering the red tassel of the lid. Maybe she wasn't alone.
I thought about her date from the night before, a maths teacher from the Tech, a farmer's kid like she was. Always rounded off the night with Black Russians; always made a fucking big deal out of it. He'd got smart with me one night but he'd backed off when I'd thrown it back at him. No balls and a messy drunk. They hadn't been an item for long. She obviously had her doubts about him.
I grabbed a pair of knickers and a pair of tights from the washing line and went back behind the shed where I took out my cock. The knickers were damp with dew, as cold against my knob as her voice had been on the phone. I remembered her mouth against my ear, the dirty words she liked to use. She called it a prick.
Mm, shoot your fucking prick, shoot your spunk...
Her fanny slimy with blood...
Hot wetness filling up cotton...Afterwards I hung the knickers back where I had found them. The load was so big that it would excite as much as disgust her when she found it. I knew what she was like. She might have had them all fooled with her Mary Tyler Moore act but she didn't fool me. It took a dog to sniff one out.
*
She came in on Thursday evening with a gang of teachers after a union meeting. I was on my own behind the bar. All of them piled forward at once, shouting and clicking their fingers at me. I took my time on purpose. The only crowd more obnoxious than teachers are guards. They're well suited.
Mercedes didn't come to the bar until later. She ordered two glasses of Harp and lime, paid in loose change. Not a flicker. She said I'd left her fivepence short. I said I didn't made mistakes. She wanted to see the owner. I told her he was off, that I was head barman and if she had a problem, she'd need to take it up with me. She wasn't used to backchat. Her cheeks were pale, sucked in. I took tenpence from my pocket and slid it to her beneath my palm.
Keep the change...
She was one of four left at closing. Herself, two alcos and Connie, a French teacher with a great arse but a face like a rear-ended bumper. I wanted them gone but they ignored my barking.
Are you right there ladies and gentlemen, please?
Mercedes was nursing a drip left in the bottom of her half-pint glass. When I tried to take it, she grabbed it protectively.
I'm not finished...
She didn't even look up when she said it.
Then it was just her and Connie. They sat close together, whispering, both of them looking serious. I imagined fucking the two of them at once, on the bar, like that barman and the two sluts in
Playbirds
. Why not? The doors were locked, the till was done...
But they were getting ready to leave. Connie went to the jacks. Mercedes put on her denim jacket as I cleared their table. She made a crack about first in, last out. Her blouse was pink, the button at her tits not sitting right. The clasp shutting on her handbag was like a gunshot in the silence. I stood my ground. She raised her eyes, as if to say,
What?
Her smile was a long time in coming...
It was after one when I got out. The town was dead. Aughrim Street, the Cross, Charles Street...Not a car on the road, not a sinner on the move. As I walked past the auctioneers on Stonepark Street, I saw the headlights approaching. The car pulled up opposite Hugh Conor's, its engine idling. I slowed down as I got closer. She was just an outline in the driver's seat, a black mass. The passenger side window was down. She told me to get in...
Back up Aggie's Place, right on to Garryard Street then left on to Tisdall Street. Neither of us spoke. The car smelled of Doublemint and deodorant. Skynyrd on the stereo, turned down low. We drove out Croseery and parked next to the hospital, outside the church. She threw her fag butt out the window and said that the hospital used to be a poor-house; the church its fever hospital.
Is that right?
I popped the button that had annoyed me earlier. She didn't move.
She was wearing two gold chains, a thin choker and a longer, heavier one that formed a U upon her chest. I picked up the second with my teeth and brought it up with me to her lips. Our tongues couldn't hold it. Our mouths were all spit. I had watched her eat at a function one night, her lips and fingers greasy with fried chicken. You could tell she liked her food. I put two fingers in her mouth, trying and failing to grab her tongue. Pure black eyes. Her spit ran down my wrist.
I saw you looking...
I opened her bra one-handed, buzzing off the give.
I know it was you...
She had a fucking body on her and she knew it. Her skin was like the cream of good porter. Not an ounce of shame, either. I breathed on her nipples, her tits all gooseflesh in spite of the heat inside the car. The windows were already fogged up.
Her throat was a perfect fit to my hand. I said she knew nothing.
Nothing...
Her eyes closed as she said it...
She felt my cock through my slacks, excited at finding me commando. She knew what she was doing. I'd been with older birds than her who still fucked like virgins. You could feel the lash of the nuns, from way back, in their uptightness. Mercedes wanted to fuck. She wasn't into rebellion. She wanted to fuck like I did, because it felt good. Because there was so much power in letting go.
Puzzle, scorn, joy...I watched one after the other in her face after she unzipped me.
Oh Jesus, you're wearing them...
She tore through the nylon of her tights with her nails.
You fucking dirty bastard...
I wormed into the back seat and helped her over, on to my lap. Her bones were sharp. She'd do some damage...I pushed her skirt up to her waist and reefed off her knickers. Her period was finished. I knew she'd be tender so I took it slow. She ripped the crotch of the tights till it gaped then grasped the stump of my prick, working along with me, riding her cunt lips up and down against the tip.
