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  “That’s incredible. Did you say he also sprayed you with one of those goofy rubber daisies? Your mascara’s smudged.”

  “No,” Natasha said. “Michael slept over.”

  “I thought you dumped that sleaze-bag.”

  “I did, but last night he called me up crying that his wife kicked him out,” Natasha said. “And he wanted me to make him a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.”

  A waitress hovered at the table. Natasha ordered coffee with skim milk and a chocolate croissant.

  “Did you make it for him? The sandwich?”

  “Hell, no. You know there’s never any food in my apartment. Only saltines and ginger-ale for when I get an upset stomach.”

  “You’re a slut, Tash.” Pauline crossed her legs and flicked small pieces of lint from her cardigan and watched them float to the floor.

  “Slut? Don’t be such a prude, Paul. Since when have I had a squeaky-clean reputation to uphold, anyway?”

  The waitress delivered the order. Natasha poured two pink packets of artificial sweetener into her coffee, and stirred it with a silver spoon. “What’d you do this weekend?” she asked.

  “You know . . . caught up on some laundry,” Pauline said. “Went grocery shopping and found these greats figs. They’re just wonderful. Then I had a manicure, pedicure, and eyebrow wax, and later I went to lunch with Mom. Chinese. Then Bob came over and—. . . Can I have a bite of your croissant?”

  “Wait a minute. Bob? The dental hygienist? What’d he do, floss your teeth?”

  Pauline sipped her coffee, adjusted her glasses and twirled her hair. “Actually, he was dressed as a clown.” She took a large bite of the croissant.

  “What? Where are all of these goddamn clowns coming from? Are they in the water supply? The clown who saved me was definitely not Bob. He was much, much taller, and not as swarthy.”

  “You sound like a bigot, Tash.”

  “I only speak honestly. That’s why you love me.”

  “Never mind that,” Pauline said. Lowering her voice, she added, “Bob wanted to do it in the clown suit.”

  “What?!” Natasha said.

  “At first I didn’t want to do it. I thought it would be strange—demented even—like those Cindy Sherman photographs.”

  “It is strange,” Natasha said. “So what happened? I want details. Juicy ones. Don’t leave anything out.”

  “We kissed for a while, and I got undressed. We started to fool around; all I remember after that is falling over. I fainted! I was out cold for like five minutes. He had to honk his toy horn in my ear to wake me up.”

  Natasha spat out a mouthful of coffee and howled with laughter. The other people in the cafe stared. She covered her mouth and took a bite of the chocolate croissant, and whispered, “What do you mean you fainted? From shock? Fear? What?”

  “Not exactly . . .”

  “You wild bitch!”

  “Stop making fun! I knew I shouldn’t have told you. You’ll probably tell my mother for Christ’s sake.”

  “It was that good, huh?” Natasha asked. “Lucky girl. It’s about time! So, was Mr. Right wearing those dumbass floppy shoes?”

  “He was wearing orange ones, if you must know. And a polka-dot bowtie. But I think it was the big red nose that did it.”

  “How did you kiss if he had that nose on? Did he wear a wig too?”

  “It was purple and sparkly, and we kissed just fine.” Pauline said. “I had to shower twice with Lava soap to get all his greasepaint makeup off me! There were red lip prints on the bottoms of my feet, and glitter under my toenails! I had to use the rough side of a kitchen sponge, you know, the wiry side, to get clean. My skin is practically raw.”

  “I bet there are some other raw places too,” Natasha said.

  The women doubled over with laughter.

  “Who would’ve guessed?” Natasha asked. “All these years of reading Cosmopolitan and going to all of those horrible body awareness classes and all it takes to make your eyes roll back in your head is a dentist in a clown suit.”

  “He’s actually a very gifted dental hygienist—the best man I know with a tongue scraper. You want his number?”

  “Only if he brings a tank of laughing gas.” Natasha licked her lips. “What did he use the tongue scraper for?”

  “I’ll tell you when you’re thirty-five. And trust me honey; you won’t need any laughing gas. You might need some new soap; I suggest something with pumice.”

  They burst out laughing again.

  After they calmed down, Natasha asked, “What about that vibrating bug I gave you as a birthday present last year? Should I buy one too, or what?”

  Pauline hugged herself. “What do you mean?”

  “What do you think I mean? Come on. Was it as good as the magic clown?” Natasha licked the chocolate from her fingers and brushed the crumbs to the floor.

  “I have a confession to make, Tash,” Pauline said. “I never used that thing. It gives me the creeps. It’s just too weird.”

  “You’re one to talk about weird sex, Pauline. Don’t think I’ve forgotten the homeless magician or the tattooed guy from Coney Island. And now this clown guy? Besides, that thing cost me nearly a hundred dollars.”

  Pauline looked down and twisted her hair. “I’m afraid of insects,” she said.

  “It wasn’t real!” Natasha laughed. “It was only plastic, Paul. You’re a nut!”

  “I liked the tattooed guy,” Pauline said. She placed a twenty on the table. “Let’s just get out of here. I’ll pay you back for the stupid caterpillar vibrator if that’s what you want.”

  The women drained their coffee, grabbed their purses in hand and stood. Natasha suddenly stared across the room. “Hey, isn’t that an Olsen twin over there? You should give her Bob’s number. She looks pretty tense.”

  “Don’t do that! Someone might see.” Pauline covered her mouth to stifle her laughter.

  Outside, they stared as an attractive young woman dressed in a Diane Von Fürstenberg wrap dress exited a taxi, followed by a man dressed as a clown, complete with a glittery wig, over-sized bowtie and big floppy shoes. Before parting ways, the clown and the woman shared a passionate, open-mouthed kiss.

  “What the hell is going on in this city?” Natasha said. “Where did all of these fucking crazy clowns come from?”

  “Haven’t got a clue,” Pauline said. “But thank God they’re here.”

  They started to giggle and walked down Jane Street, arms entwined.

  THE REAL NORTH EIGHTH STREET ROMANCE

  BY RICHARD VETERE

  He thought his real North Eighth Street romance was with Georgia. That summer he was the only guy who was either brave enough or stupid enough to ask her out. She had just broken her engagement with Gabe in June, and every night that summer when he went to the Miami Bar on North Eighth Street she’d be there hanging out with girlfriends. And like clockwork, early in the night, she’d leave the table and saunter across the room to play “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” on the jukebox.

  Though new to hanging out on North Eighth Street, he knew this much: Gabe managed a well-known rhythm and blues band and his father was a wise-guy, but Georgia was knock-out sexy.

  He asked his cousin Little Guy if he should ask her out since Little Guy knew the world of Williamsburg, Brooklyn and its rules better than he did. “Shit yeah,” Little Guy answered. So he made a plan. He’d walk up to the jukebox where nobody could hear them talk, ask her out and then leave the bar. His friend Frankie would already be in the car and they’d drive away. It was like a hit, but one for romance.

  So, the next night he sat at the bar with one eye on Gabe and the other on Georgia. She was on the other side at the table and just like he expected she walked over to the jukebox and played “Jumpin’ Jack Flash.” He slid up beside her at the jukebox. “Georgia, you want to go out?” was all he said.

  “Alright,” she answered, surprised. She then told him her number and like he planned he left the bar.
r />   He took Georgia to a wine cellar for their first date. “Nobody in the neighborhood had the guts to ask me out but you,” she said. She had soft brown eyes, shoulder length hair, a slender build, a confidence that enticed him and the hottest ass he had ever seen. He asked her more about her relationship with Gabe. “We’ve been engaged twice now. But this time, I realized he wasn’t the right guy for me. So I ended it.”

  He took her back to his parents’ house in Queens where he lived in the finished basement and they had sex for the first time. They continued to have sex for the next two weeks and never did much talking. The sex play came easy to them both. He liked how she taught him new things and he taught her.

  The only thing that concerned him was getting her pregnant. She didn’t like it when he pulled out. He remembered how his Uncle Sal always talked about how his life was changed for the worse when he got his first wife pregnant. So despite being enthralled by Georgia, he was also suspicious.

  One night in the Miami Bar a guy he hardly knew came up to him and told him that Gabe wanted to see him. His cousin Little Guy told him not to go but he went to the Miami Bar alone anyway. Gabe was waiting for him. “You got balls. I like that,” Gabe said then pinched his cheeks.

  Later that night Georgia told him “You shouldn’t have given him the respect.” She then invited him to a close friend’s wedding the following weekend.

  That night when they had sex she took off her panties and said, “These are my girlfriend Mary Jane’s.” They were red and see-through. “You’ll meet her at the wedding. You’re going to fall in love with her. Every man who meets her does.”

  He and Georgia arrived at the wedding late and when they walked in he saw a woman wearing a black dress dancing slowly with a man in a suit in the middle of the dance floor. The woman was crying. He was mesmerized by the sight of this beautiful dark-haired woman with tears rolling down her face dancing as she did. “That’s Mary Jane,” Georgia told him.

  Minutes later Mary Jane was sitting next to him. The guy went off to another table. He handed Mary Jane a handkerchief. “Thank you,” she said. Up close she was even more than beautiful. She was a light skinned Sicilian-American with lush brunette hair and deep green eyes. They made small talk but she eventually told him that she was crying because she broke up with the man she was dancing with. “He wouldn’t leave his wife for me,” she said.

  When the wedding was over he got her jacket. “You keep doing nice things for me, “she said. “Georgia said you’re a good guy.”

  “Georgia said I’d fall in love with you,” he told her.

  Two weeks later he ran into her and asked her out under the false pretense that Georgia left him and he needed to talk about it. A week later he was in bed with her in her apartment on Manhattan Avenue. He recognized her red see-through panties.

  Mary Jane saw that he did. “I gave them to Georgia to wear one night,” she demurred. “She told me she wore them with you.”

  He told his cousin Little Guy he was seeing Mary Jane. “You’re crazy. You were better dating a mob guy’s ex than that broad. Grown men go nuts over her. I knew this made-guy that when she broke up with him last year he shot up a bar on Knickerbocker Avenue he was so distraught. Watch yourself.”

  He should have listened to his cousin but he had no control because like other men before him he was beguiled by her perfect breasts, her perfect ass, the perfect face and how uninhibited she was in bed. Mary Jane was also the most sensitive woman he had ever met. She cried often and without reason. Both her parents were beautiful and born deaf. Her father was a national weight lifting champion. When she was only nineteen, she married a big deal mob guy’s son who three months into their marriage walked out to buy a pack a cigarettes and never came back. He died less than a year later in a head-on car crash with a drunk driver on the LIE. His father made the other driver, a junkie, ‘disappear’ the day of his son’s funeral. Mary Jane never divorced him and the father took care of her for a few years by sending her cash.

  He took Mary Jane everywhere including his college graduation dance. She made the college girls look like high school kids and his friends were enthralled by the fact that she was a gorgeous widow. But his mother never liked her and Mary Jane knew it. Mary Jane demanded attention and when she didn’t get it, she made the world suffer. One day it was his turn. She moved to Queens and he helped her get settled in. She had a small hole in door where her old lock was so he promised he’d fill it.

  Not long after, the day he found out that he was accepted into an Ivy League graduate school and they went out to celebrate, when they got back to her place, she broke up with him. “You’re too immature for me,” she said. It broke his heart.

  For several months he defied common sense and begged her to take him back. He called all his friends day and night talking about nothing else.

  One night, after calling her number all day, he went to her new apartment uninvited. She didn’t answer his knocks on the door so he leaned down and peeked in through the hole where the old lock was that he never got the chance to fix.

  He saw her sitting nude in a chair on the other side of the room facing the door in the dim light of a lit candle. He could see her green eyes gleaming and her full, dark hair cascading down over her shoulders. She was staring at the peep hole. Her flesh was more tempting than the promise of a long healthy life is to the dying. She was everything mysterious, alluring, sexual and dangerous.

  He turned away and never went back.

  DANGEROUS GIRL

  BY LIZ AXELROD

  I met Cosmo and Dante at the Aztec Lounge on the last Friday of 1986. Cosmo was a spoken-word artist with an album on the college charts. Dante was a dealer posing as a record label exec. They flattered me with poetry and followed me around the bar all evening—ready with a drink, a line, or a joint at every turn. I knew they wanted to get into my miniskirt but I kept them at bay, relishing the ego boost.

  I supplied Goth themed mix-tapes to the manager of Aztec and occasionally slept with Michael, the bartender. Aztec was my usual starting and ending point, though most nights I went home alone. I sported East Village DJ couture. My nightly ensemble: ripped black fishnets, black leather jacket, black miniskirt, tons of silver bangles, and black cowboy boots from Tucson, AZ. Cosmo resembled a young deranged Einstein in his white poet shirt and tight black jeans, Dante wore a black Lurex disco shirt and Jordache jeans. I loved the contrast between us, and Dante’s never-ending supply of white powder made it all the more interesting.

  We enjoyed our playtime at Aztec and then grabbed a cab to the Voodoo Lounge where I worked as a DJ from 10 to 1, warming up the too-early-for-after-hours crowd. Cosmo carried my crate of records. I got him in the club for free (saving him 15 bucks) and headed to the DJ booth.

  My music that night was red-hot. I segued Siouxsie and the Banshees with NWA, mixed Madonna and The Belle Stars with Beastie Boys, and looped The Cure’s “Let’s Go to Bed” with Michael Jackson’s “Beat It.” Guys crowded my booth, asking me to play their songs, and used rolled-up twenty-dollar bills to snort lines off my album covers. I was in my zone that evening at Voodoo. With New Year’s Eve just around the corner, holiday spirits and tips were plentiful.

  I partied with the rainbow. Nothing was ever black and white, the whole Pantone Process ran through my blood. I flirted and danced with boys and girls, all walks and tracks allowed. I spoke conversational Spanish and French, mixed Hip-Hop and Soul with Alternative Dance, and hung out with homeboys, mohawk men, goth girls, and Euro trash—sometimes all in the same evening. The club scene was hot downtown and I’d cultivated relationships with the doormen at the Milk Bar, Mudd Club, Danceteria, Mars, and Area. When I went out, I never waited in line. I was whisked right past the velvet rope and led to the VIP room.

  Maybe I was naïve, maybe lucky, maybe just more tuned into my surroundings. I looked into the eyes of my playmates and knew who was safe and who to walk away from; skin tone optional. I prided myself on my powers o
f persuasion and rarely encountered problems. Potential conflict was usually diffused with a line of coke, a joint, or a slow dance.

  II

  Cosmo came back to the DJ booth a few minutes after midnight flirting and teasing me with his words.

  “Hey Tina Turntable, I wrote you a poem. When you’re finished spinning come find us. We wanna take you uptown to a great new club.”

  “Hmmm, uptown? Well, maybe, we’ll see . . . You know, I’m not much of an Uptown Girl.

  “You’ll love it, don’t worry. Let’s meet up when you’re done spinning. Damn, I just love your DJ name . . . Tina Turntable is so much fun to roll around your tongue.” He winked and patted my ass.

  “Roll this.” I flipped him off—somewhat friendly like. “I gotta go play “Pretty in Pink” for some prep dude’s Barbie doll blondie, he gave me a twenty.”

  He smiled and walked away, whispering something to Dante. They both looked my way and laughed.

  I got paid for my shift and bought some more party goods. I found Cosmo sitting in the back of the VIP room with Dante, Steve—the Voodoo door-man—and Tommy from the Milk Bar. I was psyched to see Tommy in their company. I knew him casually from the Milk Bar. He had a quiet-tough vibe and I found his rough blond biker groove extremely compelling.

  I sat down next to him and ignored Cosmo and Dante. Tommy smelled like earth and sex. His moves were catlike and sinewy. His stare conveyed tangible heat. When he flashed a smile my way and focused his deep blue eyes on mine, I was ready to burn.

  Tommy was the main reason I threw caution to the wind when Cosmo and Dante said we should all go up to the new club in Harlem. I didn’t think anything of heading uptown in Steve’s boat-sized Marquis. I was just pleased to sit next to Tommy in the back seat. I shared my coke with them and we passed around a couple of joints. I made Steve play one of my mix-tapes. I could tell my Gothic dance mix really wasn’t his style, but I downplayed the groans of displeasure.

  “Get over it guys, it’s good shit, plus there’s Hip Hop coming up soon, I put some Beastie Boys and Prince on this tape.”