The Poisoned Ink Well

Tuesday, January 14, 2003


Getting Screwed

“I was warned about you.” He said as I walked into the overly plush, mortuary/museum type office and sat in the large overstuffed chair, my ankles barely crossed, my purse hadn’t even hit the ground beside me. “I was warned about you,” he said again, as I leaned back in the chair and adjusted my chin so that I could see him more clearly. He had that, "Now I’m dealing with a stupid woman." glaze on his face, as he adjusted his tie and I knew he wanted to straighten out the folds in his crotch and didn’t dare do it in front of me, but the intent was still there. I gave him my best “Ok, asshole so I’m a dumb bitch am I?” look and then I grimaced visibly at the games; old, old games that some men will play with women when they’re involved in a business deal with one that they consider to be a vapid airhead, which is 99.9 percent of all women with those guys with the exception of their daughters and that’s only if they’re not banging them or thinking about it.

I looked at him and said, “ So what?” I wanted to say, “Fuck you asshole.”
“It’s OK,” he said, “We’re friends” and he leaned over and pretended to look earnest. I couldn’t ever remember being real friends with him or even fuck-buddies in all the years that I‘d not known him. Trying to get a straight answer, a good deal, an honest estimation, anything that bordered on logic, or dealt in truth would have been impossible to achieve from him. This was still the old south, the good old boys with their young sons all grown up.

I hoped that the meeting would be over early, as I tuned out the standard "I'm your best friend I've known you for years spiel" that sounded more wooden and preconceived as he droned on and I wondered why he didn't give his secretary a form letter, sign it and mail out the rest of the speech in duplicate, since I could tell that he had used it many times in the past.

First you put them off guard, and then before they recover from the unexpected slight, you put them at ease, and then you deliver the TKO, which reminded me of my favorite daiquiri at the club down the street and I wondered how soon I could get in there and order one and get away from this jerk.

It's all about role playing and them owning the venue and setting the rules and placing you in what they consider your proper place which for me was, dumb witted and pregnant, or barring that, dim and effectively medicated, so that you won't be any trouble to their way of doing business and suddenly in a moment of insight; I understood how it was easily possible for Uncle Earl to rule that state from the loony bin and I thought about getting committed and running for office on 'real issues' (housing, healthcare, workplace environment, ethics, etc) which would certainly seem delusional to that piece of work in front of me, no I thought, better to not sign off on anything, beg off and go for that daquari.

I managed to extricate myself from the meeting intact and make it to the club down the street and I plopped down in a bar stool, ordered my own TKO and began talking to the guy in the seat next to me, a forty something business type, very similar in class and comportment to the one I‘d just left. I thought about a wild night of strange, but was weary from the screwing, that I’d already gotten that day, and anyway I wasn’t in there to do anything expect get a drink, and unwind. Then I noticed the grungy little, twenty something, bartender who was playing hacky sack in the kitchen behind the bar. I liked his long brown dread locked hair and his air of ease, recently smoked marijuana breath, and the way his low slung pants fit neatly around his hips and he had no qualms about adjusting himself in front of me as he caught me staring and gave me that, "knowing you want to do me," kind of coy smile.

He and I began talking, and we played a rousing game of trivial pursuit, choosing politics, as the subject matter on the bar machine; laughing as we picked the most absurd answers from the multiple choice list, knowing they were wrong, and secretly wishing that they were true. When the bar closed, he followed me out into the evening, and we agreed to meet at his apartment on Perkins road.

Later, I lay on my back on a mattress on the floor without my shirt as he leaned over and began suckling on my nipples in between pulls on a roach with a beaded feathered clip. I concentrated on the flatness of his brown belly and the subtle grind of hips and the way every muscle in his calf tensed as he grabbed my hair and rode me to the polished wood floors and we knocked over ashtrays and drinks on a night stand, laughing the whole time.




(More on Getting Screwed;

OR JUST BIDNESS AS USUAL IN LOOZIANA YA'LL



It occurs to me that perhaps I wasn’t wise in my choice of friends and choosing an attorney who built an office that looks like a reproduction of an antebellum home and dedicating it ostensibly to the working people of his state on a brass plaque in front of the entry is a little like a 19th century slave owner dedicating his plantation to the slaves that worked the land and built it, but you know that is business as usual if you’re from the deep south, and you still secretly believe that states rights is going to help your true native country to rise again.

And if you hire the football players and their families from the local university and treat them like illiterate lackeys and make them mix your cocktails in the board room and call them law clerks while trying to explain to the local media why they still sign their exam papers with an X, then who the hell was I, to expect them to conduct their business in an ethical manner.


Note: any resemblance to anyone or any firm in the city of Baton Rouge however intentional is purely fictional supposition.)










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