Wildcards

1976

New York Daily News, July 15, 1976

The high-pressure cell had squatted over New York for the past two days like an enormous tired beast, turning the city unseasonably hot and muggy. The heat was thick and foul with fumes; it moved in the lungs like the Jack Daniels Sondra poured down her throat-a burning, sour glow. She stood in front of a small electric fan perched on her dresser, staring into the mirror. Her face sagged in a cross-hatching of wrinkles; dry, gray hair was matted with sweat against a brown-spotted scalp; the breasts were empty sacks hanging flat against the bony rib cage. Her frayed housecoat gaped open, and perspiration trickled down the slopes of her ribs. She hated the sight. Despairing, she turned back into the room.

Outside, on Pitt Street, Jokertown was coming fully awake in the darkness. From her window, Sondra could see them, the ones that Gimli always ranted about. There was Lambent, far too visible with the eternal glow of his skin; Marigold, a cluster of bright pustules bursting on her skin like slow blossoms; Flicker, sliding from sight in the darkness as if illuminated by a slow strobe light. All of them seeking their small comforts. The sight made Sondra melancholy. As she leaned against the wall, her shoulder bumped a photograph in a cheap frame. The picture was that of a young girl perhaps twelve years old, dressed only in a lacy camisole that slipped over one shoulder to reveal the upper swell of pubescent breasts. The shot was overtly sexual-there was a haunting wistfulness in the child's expression and a certain affinity to the eroded features of the old woman. Sondra reached over to straighten the frame, sighing. The paint covered by the photograph was darker than that on the walls, testifying to how long it had been in place.

Sondra took another pull on the Jack Daniels.

Twenty years. In that time, Sonya's body had aged twoand-a-half times as much. The child in the photo was Sondra, the picture taken by her father in 1956. He'd raped her a year before, her body already showing the signs of puberty though she'd been born five years earlier in '51.

Careful footsteps sounded on the stairway outside her apartment and halted. Sondra frowned. Time to whore again. Damn you, Sondra, for ever letting Miller talk you into this.

Damn you for ever coming to care for the man you're supposed to be using. Even through the door she could feel the faint prickling of the man's pheromonal anticipation, amplified by her own feelings for him. She felt her body yearning to respond sympathetically and she relaxed her control. She closed her eyes.

At least enjoy the feel of it. At least be glad that for a little while you'll be young again. She could feel the quick changes moving in her body, straining at the muscles and tendons, pulling her into a new shape. The spine straightened, oils lathed the skin so that it lost its dry brittleness. Her breasts rose as a sexual heat began to throb in her loins. She stroked her neck and found the sagging folds gone. Sondra let the housecoat fall from her shoulders.

Already. So fast tonight. They'd been lovers for six months now; she knew what she'd find when she opened her eyes. Yes-her body was sleek and young with a fleecing of blond hair at the joining of her legs, her breasts small as they had been in her photo. This apparition, this mind-image of her lover: it was childlike, but not i

He knocked. She could hear his breath, a little too fast after the climb up the three flights, and found that his rhythm matched her own. Already she was lost in him. She unlocked the door, slid the deadbolt over. When she saw that there was no one in the hallway with him, she opened the door fully and let him stare at her nakedness. He wore a mask-blue satin over the eyes and nose, the thin mouth below it lifted in a smile. She knew him-she needed only the response of her body. "Gregg," she said, and the voice was that of the child she had become. "… as afraid that you weren't going to be able to be here tonight."

He slid into the room, shutting the door behind him. Without saying anything, he kissed her long and deep, his tongue finding hers, his hands stroking the flank of her body.

When he finally sighed and pulled away, she laid her head against his chest.

"I had a difficult time getting away," Gregg whispered. "Sneaking down the back stairs of my hotel like some thief… wearing this mask…" He laughed, a sad sound.

"The voting took forever. God, woman, did you think I'd desert you?"

She smiled at that and took a mincing step away from him. Taking his hand in her own, she guided him between her legs, sighing as his finger entered her warmth. "I've been waiting for you, love."

"Succubus," he breathed. She chuckled softly, a child's giggle.

"Come to bed," she whispered.

Standing beside the rumpled mattress, she loosened his tie and unbuttoned his shirt, biting gently at his nipples. Then she knelt before him, unlacing his shoes, taking off his socks before unfastening his belt and slipping his pants down. She smiled up at him as she stroked the rising curve of his penis. Gregg's eyes were closed. She licked him once, and he groaned. He started to remove the mask and she stopped him. "No, leave it on," she told him, knowing that it was what he wanted her to say. "Be mysterious." Her tongue ran along his length again and she took him in her mouth until he gasped. Pushing him back on the mattress and cupping him gently, she teased him into heat, following the path of his needs, his lust amplifying her own until she was lost in the spiraling, bright feedback. He growled deep in his throat and pulled her away, rolling her over and spreading her legs roughly. He thrust into her; pounding, moving, his eyes bright behind the mask; his fingers digging into her buttocks until she cried out. He was not gentle; his excitement was a maelstrom in her mind, a swirling storm of color, a gasping heat that flailed both of them. She could feel his climax building; instinctively, she went with that welling of scarlet, her teeth clenched as his nails cratered her flesh and he slammed himself into her again and again and again…

He groaned.

She could feel him voiding inside her, and she continued to move under him, finding her own climax a moment later. The whirling began to subside, the colors faded. Sondra clung to the memory of it, hoarding the energy so that she could keep this shape for a time.

He was staring down at her behind the mask. His gaze traveled her body-the marks on her breasts, the red, inflamed gouges of his nails. "I'm sorry," he said. "Succubus, I'm very sorry."

She pulled him down beside her on the bed, smiling as she knew he wanted her to smile, forgiving him as she knew he needed to be forgiven. She kept the thread of arousal in him so that she could remain Succubus. "It's all right," she soothed him. She bent to kiss his shoulder, his neck, his ear. "You didn't mean to hurt me."

She glanced at his face, reached behind his head, and loosed the strings of his mask. His mouth sagged in a frown, his eyes were bright with his apology. Touch him, feel the fire in him. Comfort him.

Whore.

This was the part of it that Sondra despised, the part that reminded her of the years when her parents had sold her body to the rich of New York. She'd been Succubus, the best-known and most expensive prostitute in the city from '56 to '64. Nobody had known that she was only five when it started, that a joker had been attached to the ace she'd drawn from the wild card deck. No, they'd only cared that as Succubus she would become the object of their fantasies-male or female, young or old, submissive or dominant. Any body or any shape: a Pygmalion of masturbatory dreams. A vessel. No one knew or cared that Succubus would inevitably collapse into Sondra, that her body aged far too rapidly, that Sondra hated Succubus.