The Remote Island by Bryan Christian Michael Phelps indulges Anderson Cooper in some watersports and Dexter makes a 'bitch move.' Plus: the secret of Tina Fey's scar, revealed!
Dating Advice From . . . Engineers by Steph Auteri Q. For optimal functionality, what should go into a first-date emergency kit? A. Fine wine, road flares, a snake-bite kit and Ghirardelli chocolates.
Langston
had worked late again. It was past ten, which meant he'd missed the sitcoms,
would have to settle for a drama. His office was downtown, about a mile
from the causeway. He enjoyed unwinding in the emptiness, drifting from
lane to lane. Sometimes he would smoke a menthol cigarette, fishing one
from the pack stashed under the maps in his glove compartment. Langston
believed smoking was wrong — both personally and in a broader sense — but
he enjoyed pulling smoke into his lungs and watching himself exhale in
the rearview. It made
him feel dangerous and a little removed.
promotion
Construction of a new overhead tram left the on-ramp
backlit by yellow lanterns. Two figures were camped beside the road, fifty yards
from the entrance to the causeway. The first stood with one hip pointed at
the road, a knapsack riding her shoulders. A thicker figure sat on a duffel bag
behind her. He wore what appeared to be a fedora.
Langston was the kind of guy who picked up hitchhikers.
At least he liked to think of himself in this way. The truth was, he stopped
only if they looked relatively benign, clean and so forth, and if he saw them
soon enough. Even if he saw them soon enough, there were times when, pinned within
his own daily concerns, he drifted past, staring straight ahead as if he hadn't
seen them at all.
She wore no bra, that was clear, just a cantaloupe orange tank top that clung to her fallen breasts.
It was hard to tell about these two, but he slowed anyway
and in a few moments heard the soft crunch of gravel and a hand scrabbling for
the passenger door. The girl dropped down into the seat; Langston was immediately
regretful. She was bony and soaked in perfume and too much of her skin showed
and it was not nice skin.
"Where's your friend?" he said.
The girl regarded him blankly.
"Your friend," Langston said. "The guy back there? Your
boyfriend?"
"Just me," said the girl, touching her chest. She wore
no bra, that was clear, just a cantaloupe orange tank top that clung to her fallen
breasts. Her mini-skirt was of the same improbable color, and her thighs were
thin without muscle. She held a can of Diet Coke in one hand. Crumbles of lipstick
stained the straw.
"I'm headed to the Beach. That okay?"
The girl nodded and he threw the car into gear. "You
don't mind putting on your seat belt, do you?"
The girl said nothing. Langston considered repeating
himself but let it ride. The little backpack, held on her lap, was bright pink,
emblazoned with a white kitten in blue overalls. The cat's eyes were diagonal
slits. The caption beneath the cat read: The cool cat rides the city night
on motorscooter. It was the sort of backpack a much younger girl would carry,
someone in grade school.
"Nice backpack," Langston said. "Cute."
The girl said, "I'm Kim."
"Kim," Langston said. "Okay. Sure. Dave. Pleased to
meet you."
The girl dabbed at the straw with her tongue. Her fingernails
were spotted with glitters of polish; the left pinkie nail, left uncut, curled
like a prong. There was something obscene and sinister about its length.
Outside, a homeless encampment slid past the passenger
side, black men squatting around a fire, drinking
quarts. The yacht club was on the other side; boats dipped their prows
against the black water, like thoroughbreds. Beyond the moorings, a condo
tower rose from a dredged island. Light from the terraces shone down on
the bridge, fisherman lined along the bay side.
"Can I smoke?" the girl said. She pulled a gold lamé cigarette
case from her pack.
"Yeah, okay. Actually, I'll join you. But let's open
the windows, okay?"
She cranked her window and the wind threw her hair around
like yarn. Langston lowered his window and the stink of low tide knifed into
the car. "God, that was a mistake." He raised his window. But the girl, Kim,
didn't seem to notice the smell. She shook the lighter from its carriage and
lit up, then took the cigarette from her mouth and offered it to him.
"Oh, actually, no thanks," Langston said. "I don't actually
smoke menthols. What brings you to Miami?" he added quickly. "Or maybe you're
from here?"
She sighed, as if Langston were somehow stalling, and
she were leaking patience. "Baltimore," she said. "I'm from Baltimore."
Wasn't that the city with the new stadium? Or was Baltimore
the one that had eliminated their smog problem? There was something hopeful sounding
about the place, anyway. Langston glanced at the girl. Her face was drawn, the
eyes hooded in makeup. In profile, she could have been nineteen.
"Cold too much for you up north?"
"I had some problems with a judge."
They were on the straightaway now, past the drawbridge.
Langston noted, with some annoyance, the strobe of one of those dinner cruises
that trolled the bay, disco music shoving couples around the deck.
"How do you keep yourself busy?" Langston said.
The girl said: "I give head."
Langston thought to seek a clarification, but realized he would only embarrass
himself.
"Good head," she said. "I suck cock well. If you want,
I'll suck your cock."
Langston tried to laugh, but the sound was more a cough.
"Suck cock," she said, now with what seemed to him a
slow belligerence. "That's my specialty. That's what I am good at." She tapped
her fingertip on his thigh.
Langston came up tailing a Toyota and tapped the brakes.
One hand gripped the wheel. With the other, he took hold of the girl's wrist. "I'm
afraid I'm engaged."
With a deft motion, she twisted her wrist out of his. "I'm
not the jealous type."
"She is," Langston said. "Nothing personal."
"All I want is to make both of us feel good. You like
to feel good, Dan?"
"Just so you know," Kim said, leaning close enough to nose his palm. "This is how I do it."
"Dave," Langston
said. He knew she was teasing him, but felt helpless to defend himself, suspended
between fear and some twisted notion of chivalry.
"You do have a cock, right?" Her hand moved quickly,
grabbing for his crotch. Langston was so shocked that he lost hold of the steering
wheel for a moment. The car swerved. "Damn!" he said.
Kim laughed softly. "Relax. You're fine." Her hand clung
to the inside of his thigh. He could feel the jab of her prong.
Langston had imagined scenes of this sort; more so when
he was younger, but even in the past few years. In college, a friend of his,
Mike Tunney, had taken him to an oriental massage parlor. The story was that
the masseuse would jack you off if you paid extra. All you had to do was say, "Front
too," and slip her twenty bucks. But Langston had chickened out in the end and
snuck out the back.
And then a couple of years ago, after an office party,
a guy from the office named Simpkins, a real joker, had roped him into cruising
Biscayne Boulevard. They pulled over and Simpkins spoke to a tall, black woman
whose lipstick was woefully smeared.
"What'll twenty bucks get me?" Simpkins said.
"A bus ticket to Tampa," the whore said. Langston felt
a secret relief.
He enjoyed pornography, the video parlors especially,
with their latched booths and TVs that ate quarters and moaned, and the dark
close air that hung around him like a salted veil. He enjoyed the knowledge that
a world of epic sexual achievement and ease existed, where trained men and women
did these things, and that they could be visited, if one dared, then retreated
from, demurely.
But this was a different matter, an assumption that
he was a part of this world, that he cruised the lavish width of night with just
such encounters in mind. The idea — and the actions performed in the service
of this idea — struck him now as a grotesque intrusion. An attempt to make
him something he wasn't. "Get your hands off me!" he cried. He grabbed the girl's
hand and held it firmly, then squeezed until he could feel the bones of their
fingers slide against one another.
"Okay," Kim said. "Okay." She tried to play it cool,
but her pale hands were trembling. Langston found his eye drawn, again, to the
backpack on her lap. There was the bright kitten, the cool cat, its slitted eyes
and strange mantra. Her possession of this backpack struck him as more perverse
than anything else about her — more than her brazen offers and mottled skin.
The girl snuffed out her cigarette and her head fell
against the window, where her breath clung. They were gliding past Star Island
now, pillared homes where celebrities nibbled at each other in the cleanliness
of marble foyers.
"Look," Langston said. "I'm sure you're very good at
what you do. I'm just not in the market."
"I been tested, you know. I got a report." Kim made
a show of rummaging through the knapsack. "Fuck."
"Why don't you take a few bucks anyway." Langston reached
into his pocket and drew out a five and laid it on her knee. "Just for the principle
of the thing." He had no idea what he meant by this.
She slipped the bill into her top.
Langston clenched his jaw and gazed at the lane dividers
between his knuckles. The tires roared dully on the pavement. They reached the
red light at the base of the final bridge, and Langston eased the car into neutral,
his hand resting on the stick shift. He felt a yank. She held his hand now with
an unexpected power.
"Just so you know," Kim said, leaning close enough to
nose his palm. "This is how I do it." She lowered her mouth onto his index finger.
Langston felt the warm-wet pull of suction, her tongue widening, his middle joint
thocking against the grooved roof of her mouth. He thought of an expression he
had overheard his father use, at a cocktail party long ago. "That girl," he told
a grinning associate, "could suck the rust off a drainpipe."
That seemed the right spirit, the one that should apply
to his current circumstance, but her suckling sounded foolish and he couldn't
help thinking of her mouth as a trap; moist bacteria, germs. He tried to withdraw
his finger, but met the sharp rake of her teeth. A brief and comic struggle ensued,
Langston's finger seesawing until, with one devious jab, he slid his finger against
her uvula. Kim gagged and coughed and coke spilled on her lap. Langston began
at once to apologize, feeling put upon and foolish.
"I should kick your sorry ass," Kim said. A brown stain
was spreading on her skirt. "You motherfucking dickless asshole."
"I wanted my finger back."
"My boyfriend is going to kick your ass." The girl began
to weep, then abruptly stopped and assumed a stony silence. She looked out the
window. They were on the Beach now, gliding down Fifth. Shops glowed on either
side.
"Where do I stop?"
"Here," the girl said. "Anywhere."
Langston pulled over and the girl, Kim, opened her door.
But she didn't get out. Instead, she leaned toward Langston and he could smell
menthol on her breath and something darker, more rotten. She spit in his face. "Okay," she
said. "Okay?" Only then did she remove herself from the car, swinging her knapsack,
the small white kitten in blue overalls twirling wildly while Langston kept his
face still, very still, trying to avoid any movement which would make her any
more a part of him.n°
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Steve Almond's new essay collection is (Not that You Asked). It is, like much of his work, filthy.
, featuring curious yet marvelous infusions of cucumber and rose petal.
