Sapphic Voices General Fiction

Damned Woman

Part Two

This Story is rated 'Adults Only' for its graphic sexual situations, language, and violence.

Jo pulled down the gates to the butcher shop as Johnnie and Marlena loaded the truck. It was thirty five past ten, and the night was chilly, consistent with the previous ones. She unlocked the vehicle and the kids climbed in, as she walked around to the driver’s seat. As she drove, the teens joked around noisily. Johnnie sang along to Shania Twain whose voice sprang from the radio station, and needless to say, Marlena wasn’t at all pleased with his rendition of You’re Still the One. The woman smiled to herself. It seemed as though through all the hardship they had faced alongside their mother, they still held on to spirits characteristic of children.

Johnnie and Marlena were son and daughter of Mariah, a young widow and Saint Mary’s local seamstress. Her husband had been killed in an accident eight months prior, and Mariah, barely 27, suddenly found herself bearing the weight of living expenses and food for herself and two growing kids on very meager wages. The distraught woman had approached Jo personally, shortly after she had opened the butcher shop, asking if perhaps she could take in John and Marlena in, even if it was only to have them run minor errands. Jo still remembered the despair in the young woman’s face, and the willingness in that of her two children, which somehow shone through their eyes and through the chafing long hours of patting tears dry had caused. They both seemed ready to help their mother and eke out a living even for pennies on the dollar. It seemed reality left them nary a moment to grieve for a father who everyone in the town branded as loving, hardworking, and a man of his family. Jo had accepted both children to have them work under her. At the time, she couldn’t quite place it, but something about their mother struck her. She was perhaps a blatant reminder to Jo of the mother she might have liked to have; a woman who radiated love by the mere sight of her loosely tied bun, or her gently billowing skirt, or her bright eyes, marred by grief as they were. A part of her didn’t want these children to cause so great a strain on their caregiver that she would eventually snap under the pressure. She didn’t want to picture that scenario, not even if these were somebody else’s problems.

They arrived at Mariah’s home, and both teens charged out of the car in a noisy race to see which one reached the door bell first. Jo chuckled to herself, put on a pair of gloves and reached into the back of the pickup for the hefty turkey she had prepared as a gift for the family. Both children worked hard, and were extremely helpful. As such she had decided to give them the bird, in hopes that they could at least have a decent Thanksgiving dinner. That aside, the week’s stock had left behind a few extras, but Jo neither had guests nor a fondness for meat of the sort. It would have been an awful waste to get rid of it.

She picked up the tray where the turkey lied, careful not to undo the wrapping. By the time she was carrying it to the premises, Mariah was already outside, half smiling half scolding her children’s antics. When she noticed Jo walking up to her porch, she was surprised. Her face was slightly aglow with a thin coat of perspiration, and her slim hands were dressed in various shades and a gold thimble in her thumb. Jo smiled warmly as she neared. There was something extremely maternal and Cinderella-esque about the woman.

“Miss Jo! What’sat you’ve got there?”

“Hello there Mariah. I just came to drop off the kids, and hand this to you.”

“Oh my! But Miss Jo, ah can’t in my right mind accept this…”

“Please do. It’s just a little token of good faith. These two have been working pretty hard over at the shop.”

The blonde turned to her children. She was about to scold them, but there was a certain happiness outlining in her face.

“Did you childr’n have anything to do with this? Don’t let Miss Jo here tell me you both started drooling over this and asked her to give it to you!”

“No, mama!”

“Ha ha ha. I can assure you ma’am, this has nothing to do with them. Simply take this as my way of thanks. They work hard and they work well. I damn well couldn’t run that place without ‘em.”

Mariah turned back to Jo, pleased. She stretched out her hands carefully and grabbed the heavy tray off Jo’s hands. She was stronger than she seemed for so slim a woman.

“Thank you so much... Ah hope the good lord repays you for your kindness.”

“Here’s their pay for the week. You all have a happy Thanksgiving.”

She turned around to walk back to her truck when Marlena ran into the house, then rushed back out with a basket in her hands.

“Miss Jo, hold on!”

“Marlena?”

“Hold on, hold on! We got a little gift for you too. “

“What have you got there?”

“John Boy and ah picked ‘em up last week, when we stopped by grandma’s range. She makes the best jams, well, the best darn everything. We re’lly hope you enjoy them. We told her all about you, and she made them with lots of gratitude. There are even some homemade graham crackers you can try ‘em with too.”

Jo looked at the young girl with a smile, then at her mother who nodded warmly, tray still in hand. She took the small basket from the girl, patted her on the shoulder and bid them good bye.

“Thank ya’ll. All the best.”

“See you next week, Miss Jo!”

……

The metal door slammed noisily, securely locked. Jo put in the combination and opened it again. Inside, stacks of bills lay neatly side by side, tied together by thick rubber bands. The money would certainly be secure from that point forward.

It had been two weeks since the incident with the intruder. She had set up a couple of locks to her back door in the interim, and had made it a new habit to ensure that all were secured before retiring to her quarters each night. It was a necessary chore, she thought. Jo’s home was rather sizable considering she was the only one living there. A two family home, whose roofing stood out prominently along Saint Mary’s skyline, it had been inhabited by generations of a single family going back to the days of the American colonies, or so the realtor had said. When purchasing the space, she hadn’t really cared about its history however. All she wanted was width and openness; a place contrary to prison. That desire had translated to 3 or 4 unused rooms within the manor-like domicile.

She relished the peace that always reigned. There was little sound besides that of her television set as she closed the safe door and placed it deep within the cabinets. It was Thanksgiving. Some drumsticks simmered in the stove, and the onions and peppers were chopped neatly on the wood board. She wasn’t yet sure whether to stir fry everything together or what else. Lowering the flame, she grabbed a beer from the freezer and her cigarettes. Charlize Theron was on the screen, prancing around in some strange distant future. Jo lit her cigarette and drank the beer, unable to help thinking over how beautiful the woman in the television was. And to think the slender Amazon wasn’t even her type.

“You really are pathetic Jo… Lusting after lil’ dots of light.”

Janet came to mind just then. She was probably at home, getting drunk with her noisy girlfriends from the bar, or fucking one of her customers even. That wasn’t above Janet. Jo knew, nymphomaniac that she was aside, the woman was lonely. She fully understood her. No degree of power can sustain sentiments on dreams and hopes alone. She almost considered inviting the woman over as she finished her beer, but she scoffed away the thought. All of a sudden, her ample living room seemed dark and cramped just like the prison cell she’d spent 10 years of her life in. She didn’t even want to imagine it. She’d just have to find someone else to ravage at leisure, or keep on daydreaming about those pretty little dots of light.

The cigarette went out, and now Charlize was prancing around in a tight suit alongside some rubbery woman with hands for feet. Jo sighed, bored, not quite hungry, and admittedly alone, though it was the first time she herself acknowledged the feeling. Her guitar lied still on the love seat; the lamp’s light gleaming off its vinyl coat. She had bought the instrument a year or two ago. After her release from prison, the only thing she had come to miss were the vibrating strings on her fingers. When she wasn’t in the middle of psychological evaluations, solitary confinement or the endless sea of legal procedures, she’d sit in her cell and play a moody, grayish tune. She remembered as if it were yesterday, those sleepless nights, the echoing footsteps of the guards after hours, or the quiet snores of a cell mate nearby. Back then, the soft sounds of the curvy instrument would pepper the prison. In time, inmates would occasionally yell over the vexed guards to the “Midnight Guitarist.” “Play me Lady in Red!” “More than a Feeling! Play More than a Feeling!” She slowly became a deliverer of lullabies to them all; the one that played away their demons if only for a little while. Somewhere on that list there was a song hers alone, one that would momentarily make her nightmares dissipate. She stood and grabbed the instrument, carrying herself to the front porch. With the door wide open she wouldn’t completely forget about those drumsticks. She sat on a tilted old chair and threw her feet up on the wooden railing. The sun was setting down the dusty road. Its sickly red stained everything far as the eye could see. Her mind eked out the notes to Gasoline Alley, a decrepit melody that matched the breathing ghost town surrounding her.

The memory of what was once home stirred; an oddly structured farm streamlined by flickering street lights, the emptiness of the country side, and the sounds of vagrant creatures roaming the field late at night. Jo remembered well what a shit hole ‘home’ was. Company was a sickly mutt, the television, and scattered, half empty bottles of alcohol. There was also a woman, seething with her own demons. Jo would never forget. Twenty years of hell, you can’t forget.

“..When the weather’s better and the rails unfreeze, and the wind don’t whistle round my knees… I’ll put on m’ wedding suit an’ catch the evening train. I’ll be home before the milk’s upon the door… And if I’m called away, and is my turn to go; should the blood run cold in my vein… Just one favor I’ll be askin’ you, don’t bury me ‘ere, it’s too cold.. Going home, runnin’ home down to gasoline alley where I started from… Going home an’ I’m running home, down to gasoline alley where I was born…”

She played the song halfway to a fade out. The inviting smell of the stewing meat lingered. Tan eyes looked ahead to see the sun’s dying glow. A figure was rising up the road. Passing minutes drew the figure—a woman—closer as Jo looked on. Whoever it was, hers was an erratic, uneven sway. Only her silhouette was discernible as she walked ahead of the vanishing sun. She wandered barefoot, shoes dangling off her hand. A prostitute, Jo thought. The sight wasn’t alien in the shambled little town, whose makeshift whore house was especially squalid. Indifferent, Jo stood up, instrument in hand, but no sooner had she crossed her doorstep did the woman yell out.

“Heeey! Can ya spare a ho a cigarette?!”

“What?”

Jo turned to face the woman who was much closer by now. The prostitute turned out to be the same woman who had been stealing two weeks prior. She recognized that face even in twilight.

“A cigarette! Can ya spare a cigarette!”

“You again. You got some balls on you bringing your ass back here…”

“Balls? What fuckin’ balls? You think a ho with balls is gonna make a livin’ in this town?”

She eyed the other woman curiously. Something seemed different about her tone, now far removed from its previous apologetic semblance. She didn't look much different otherwise with a silvery old purse and rather unkempt hair. Jo saw her flash a false smile. Her voice teetered, rushing through words.

“What do you want?”

“A fucking cigarette! Didn’cha fucking hear me??”

“…Can’t say I’m in the mood for your bullshit. You here to steal, know that I’ll shoot your bony ass this time ‘round.”

The blonde stared back, seeming perplexed. After a long silence, she suddenly burst out in laughter. Jo’s eyes remained fixed on the character who now stood mere inches from her porch. The woman’s humorless, echoing laughter made Jo suspect that she was hooked on something. She ignored the vapid joy and took a step inside but a quiet thud drew her attention again. The vagrant was now sitting on the steps with the rest of her sprawled out on the wooden board walk at Jo’s feet.

“Missy…. Just what in the fuck are you doin’?”

“Please give me a cigarette…”

“Do I look like one of your patrons?

“I’m beggin’ you lady… I’m outta money, and out of powder… I need something. Anything…”

“It’s late to start asking for handouts don’t you think? You make turnin’ tricks your only talent then you can’t even a make living at it?”

Some of the woman’s hair was strewn about her face as she lay limply on the floor. There were a few blacks and blues on her arms, perhaps another on her chest. For a moment, Jo thought the faster she granted the poor bastard her wish, the sooner she’d pick herself up and leave. It was already apparent that whatever had happened earlier that day had taken its toll on her. The settling darkness couldn’t mask her dilated pupils, her accelerated breathing, or the torn straps of her dress.

“Just give me a cigarette, I’m begging you…”

“Woman, stand up. Don’t think you’re goin’ to lie on my fuckin’ porch and die.”

“I promise you, I leave soon as I can stand… Sell it to me, I have two dollars in my… In my purse…”

Joe continued eyeing the woman, who eyed her back pitifully, her eyes struggling to focus. She walked in the house and set down the guitar by the sofa, watchful of her from where she was. She turned off the stove, and picked up her cigarettes before walking back out. A part of her thought that leaving her alone wasn’t a good idea, but the remainder of her had no interest in providing shelter for a thief. Outside, she noticed that the blonde had not moved from where she lay. Jo sat down on her chair, noticing her closed eyes.

“You better wake the hell up.”

“I’m wide awake….”

“I got a few smokes. Take them and get your ass somewhere else. You keep wandering these roads at night, you gonna get yourself killed.”

“Danger’s no stranger… I know this shit hole well. The day ah die, it’ll be powder behind my death, not a man.”

“You really expect me t’ believe that shit? In case you haven’t noticed, you’re covered in bruises and lying on a stranger’s porch like a dead fish.”

The blonde rolled a little to her side. She could now properly look Jo in the face from where she was. Another false smile crossed her face.

“Oh that… See, the shit is, this guy wanted to fuck, but these days…. These days ah don’t fuck unless you got something reasonable to give me in exchange. I was just gonna rob the bastard, but I ran out of bullets an’ things got physical…”

“No fucking surprise now is it? There is no law in this town missy. What makes you think these guys will think twice to put a fist to your face, fuck you then leave you for dead?”

The woman laughed again, loudly and humorless just as before. She now sat up as Jo watched intently the chipped polish on her nails and the rip at the hem of her dress. The skimpy attire barely clung to her body, revealing bruises on her back as well. She pulled out a gun from her old purse and set it down on the floor as Jo watched on, alert.

“You think I’m some kinda fool… I make my own laws. Tonight, I just slipped up. Can’t threaten nobody outta their cash with no bullets…”

“Yeah? Where was your little toy when you came stealin’ shit the other night?”

Silence. The blonde’s breathing had yet to pace, but there was no response to the question. She glanced at the cigarettes and a second later Jo threw them her way, along with a red lighter.

“….These are expensive these days, I know, but please don’t charge me two dollars for this… I don’t have nothing---“

“Never said shit ‘bout charging you.”

She looked at Jo, suddenly silent, then lit a cigarette, exhaling the vice with a sigh. Her other hand pulled at her torn strap.

“I--I’m sorry… About stealing that night.”

“Late for apologies now.”

“No! I have debts an’ I was desperate… I steal from the fuckers I do business with, not random people. I ain’t completely heartless.”

“The hell do I care if you are or you’re not? I’m not your judge or your god.”

The blonde’s gaze fell and she turned ahead to where the sun once was. In the darkness, Jo could still make out her delicate profile, the haste with which her chest rose and fell. The cigarette glowed, red in her hands.

“I’m sorry…”

Jo sighed and stood up. Suddenly she was feeling sorry for and annoyed at the woman, even if in truth, she had probably brought her misfortune upon herself.

“I mean it! Why won’t you believe me lad—“

“The name is Jo, missy. Jo. Put away your guilt. Just get yourself somewhere safe. You may think you’re tough because you’re walking around with a gun, but even if you had a thousand bullets, no one’s ever said it can’t be turned on you.”

Walking to her front door, Jo switched on the light to the porch. She wanted to get inside, and the woman to walk herself away. Under the light, the blonde’s injuries were more evident. Lighter bruises peppered down to her thighs, and the red-violet of her tattered dress and purse shimmered softly. The cigarette in her hand was almost halfway done.

“ I don’t—I don’t got nowhere to go.”

“Don’t even think it.”

The ensuing silence was strange, but it didn’t last long for then the blonde stood up. She was tall, even barefoot, standing at eye level with Jo herself. Placing her palm at her hip, she learned forward, looking squarely and steadily at Jo. It seemed impossible for her prior to that moment.

“I really got no place.”

“Damn right you don’t. You’re not staying here.”

“Um… What if I make ya a deal?”

“Get--”

“Let’s fuck.”

“….”

“I--.. I don’t wanna be out there. Pimps chasin’ me, I’m outta guns. I’ll trade you. One fuck for one night here. I’ll leave tomorrow. Ah promise.”

“Oh yeah? And what makes you think I want to fuck a thievin’ whore?”

The blonde took a step closer, this time reluctant. She closed in, draping her arms around Jo, who felt her stomach muscles suddenly tense. The silence reigned save for the blonde’s breathing, and the jut of her ribs daggered at Jo’s flank with each rise. Jo could suddenly sense the other woman’s scent, a blend of inviting and chemical that was as strange as it was intoxicating. Seeing no resistance, the blonde settled into Jo’s frame, leaving her to wrestle with the feel of her slender body, so near. The dark haired woman barely noticed the prostitute’s whispering as she acknowledged a long standing problem.

“Y--You don’t swing that way, lady? … Help me out will ya? I promise you won’t regret it…”

……………….

“Why’re you all the way over there? You nervous?”

“No. Bringin’ prostitutes in to my quarters to fuck ain’t my usual habit.”

“There’s a first time for everything.”

Jo stood near the door with her hands in her pockets. The prostitute set her shoes and purse aside on a chair, then removed her torn, fitted dress without the slightest hesitation. The bedside lamp glowed meekly as Jo looked on; the other woman looked rather angelic bathed in the golden haze, even despite the bruises on her body. Her ribs jutted against her slender frame, up to the rosy, swelling breasts, and hips rather large on a woman of her build.

“Well?... What are you still standing there for?”

“I’m just makin’ sure the engine’s running.”

“What? “

“This is the third time I run into you. You always comin’ around my shop to give me headaches. Next, I find you in my house stealing. Now, you’re trading fucks for shelter. How do I know you’re not planning some kind of shit?”

“What do you reckon I could be plannin’?”

“You tell me. You obviously robbed at gun point enough.”

“Ah also taken enough beatings to be outraght desperate.”

“It’s a lotta fuckin’ coincidence is all I’m saying.”

“In a place like this? Here, where you see the same faces each and ev’r day? There ain’t even 100 people here. Everything could be a coincidence.”

Jo stared back at the woman, her solemn face the only response to her statement. She then stepped forward. The prostitute was now sitting on her bed. The sight was far more inviting that Jo was letting on as she removed her shirt and sat beside her.

“I’m not gonna warn you again though. I don’t keep my rifle unloaded.”

“Ah dare say, you just warned me right there...”

She eyed the blonde intently. The woman was unfortunate a whore, Jo thought, but she didn’t care. Her bruised body was somehow more acceptable than rotting in her wanton or eventually rage-fucking Janet after another of her damn come hither games. With one rapid movement, Jo seized the blonde’s wrist while still eyeing her, silent.

“What—“

There was no response to the blonde’s surprise. Dragging her closer, Jo positioned her on her back, her grip still on the other’s wrist, forceful, but steady. The blonde’s breasts jiggled sweetly as she acquiesced while Jo perused the scene, salivating.

“You got a name?”

“Lefaye…”

“Pretty… For a hooker…”

“Save me the sermons. I don’t care ‘bout your holy opinion.”

Jo switched off the lamp, shrouding them in darkness. She descended upon the blonde’s breast, her nose and lips tracing the supple flesh and tinges of that strange perfume.

“Who said ‘nything about faith now…”

“You look about as god fearin’ as everyone in this fuckin’ town.”

The woman’s voice echoed softly within the room. The dying glow of dusk filtered at the far corner nearest the window. Jo felt the blonde struggle to accommodate herself under her grip, but she wouldn't relent.

“I got other shit to fear.”

“Like what?”

“My instincts, for starters…”

Jo’s next statement was pinning the woman’s other wrist down, then tracking her tongue down her neck as she took her position above her. Lefaye, Jo thought, was a beautiful name for a prostitute, but then, maybe that was the point. When all was said and done, her beauty was perfectly fitting.

The blonde’s moans gained ground, piercing the darkness as Jo explored, touched, and kneaded with one free hand; a slow start to caresses that would soon turn violent. The licks and suckles became hard bites, and the moans morphed into winces, grunts; sounds of a struggle. The blonde’s bruises radiated at Jo’s lips, and her violence ebbed as she abruptly turned to lining the pale body with slow kisses and licks. She reached her nipples and lapped them to a turgid, throbbing longing, while the prostitute reveled in pleasure that just moments ago was shelled by pain.

Every second unleashed a new release; Jo hastened her pace to then restrain it, tantric, until the blonde arched up her hips, urging Jo’s tongue to nurse an organ rock solid and slick with wanton. She pinned her head to the pillow, muffling her sounds, slipped her hand past her crotch, pushing forward save for her thumb; that one was busy with that delicious button just above. How vehemently that button was caressed, nursed and rough handled, until the blonde’s voice, scratching at Jo’s wrist for freedom, arose from the cotton prison.

It was not long before she succumbed into delirium, trembling. Jo released her hold on the woman’s neck and hips then, positioning herself behind her. She now seemed to hold a resting doll within her frame. The blonde slipped from consciousness as Jo toyed with her heaving breasts. She licked her neck and into her ears, with a predation that might have surprised her, were it not for the complete darkness surrounding them. Perhaps her problems, the physical ones, had simpler solutions than she gave them credit for.

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