Women of the Mean Streets Read online

  “Celeste,” I said calmly, “it’s one of those trade-offs we’re going to have to make as social workers. You’re right that there are other food choices that would be more healthy. But they cost more and we’d feed fewer people. Plus, if someone sticks one of these sandwiches in his bag for a day or two, it won’t go bad like meat might.”

  I consider whether to point out to skanky beard that it might be better to educate than look down on and be sarcastic, but I didn’t know him well enough for that, and he was one of Amanda’s friends.

  Once our sandwiches were made, we were assigned to teams to fan out and find the homeless. I was willing to go with Celeste, but the older woman insisted that there could be no all-female teams, so I ended up with one of the skanky beards.

  He seemed nice enough until we were mostly through handing out the food, then as we crossed behind one of the huge concrete pillars, he pushed me against it and said, “Time for some fun, don’t you think?” and tried to kiss me.

  I guess my pink sweatshirt had an effect on someone, just not the right someone.

  “Get your hands off me,” I said forcefully. “I came here to do social work, not this. And you have mustard in your beard and that’s disgusting.”

  He laughed and said, “It’s probably snot.” And tried to kiss me again.

  I jerked my head away, but was starting to get worried. We’d gone quite a way from where the van let us off and I hadn’t seen any of the other teams for at least ten minutes, even though we were supposed to keep in sight of each other. This guy was tall, the tallest of the skanky beards. I keep in shape with water aerobics, but even in a fair fight wasn’t sure I could take him—and in this was a less than fair fight. He had me pinned against the concrete.

  “C’mon, be nice. Just a quick blow job, ’kay?”

  “No! Get your hands off me.”

  He shoved his knee between my legs. “I like girls who pretend they don’t want it.”

  “I’m not pretending!” I tried to duck under his arms and wriggle out, but I didn’t get away and he put his hand on the top of my head and was trying to push me down so that my face was… I didn’t want to think about that. Instead I jerked and twisted any way I could in a desperate attempt to get free.

  “What the hell, are you a dyke?” he taunted me.

  “Yes!” I yelled as I tried to tear myself out of his grasp. But I only managed to turn so that I was facing the concrete barrier and to lose my glasses. I reached out and grasped one of the edges of the pillar and pulled, trying to get away from him.

  “So you like in it the rear, huh?” he muttered evilly.

  “Scott, what the hell is going on here?”

  I was let go so suddenly that, like a rock in a slingshot, I slung into the older woman and ricocheted off her into Amanda. It was the older woman who had asked the question.

  “Nothing, Marion, nothing. Just some horseplay,” he answered.

  “Nothing?” I sputtered. I was so outraged it was hard to speak. “He was just trying…just trying…to make me do something I didn’t want to do.”

  “We were just handing out sandwiches. I thought you wanted to do that,” he said, trying for a bland, innocent expression.

  My outrage was so great that I didn’t even notice at first that Amanda had kept her arm around my shoulder after catching me. That gave me the courage to speak. “We were just handing out sandwiches until you grabbed me without my permission, told me it was time to fool around, and demanded a blow job.”

  “In your dreams, kid. I can do far better than a flat-chested little thing like you. C’mon, Marion, you know me better than that.”

  “I know what I saw, Scott,” she said tersely. “You go with Tom and Hank and finish handing out the sandwiches. I’ll deal with this later.”

  He stalked off.

  Amanda let go of me and retrieved my glasses. “Are you okay?” she asked as she handed them back to me.

  Maybe a few bruises, but that didn’t seem like much and I didn’t want to whine in front of her, so I nodded.

  We headed back to where the van was parked.

  “He’s an asshole,” Amanda said over my head to Marion. “You need to let him go.”

  “You’re probably right,” she said. “I’ll take it up with Joe.”

  I was silent for a moment, then said, “But what he did was wrong. Illegal. Shouldn’t we—”

  Marion cut me off, “Yes, but it’s his word against yours. We saw five seconds of struggle, and a defense lawyer could easily argue that it was playing rough.”

  “She’s right,” Amanda said. “Consider it lucky that you’re okay and that he’ll lose his job.”

  They were older and wiser, and I had to admit they were probably right.

  Amanda asked Marion for a ride back to the parking lot behind the social work school. She said it was because she didn’t want to be stuck with a bunch of sweaty men, but I like to think it was because she knew I didn’t want to get in the van with any of the skanky beards right now. I sat in the backseat and couldn’t really be part of the conversation because Marion was listening to the radio pretty loud.

  It was starting to get dark by the time we got back.

  Amanda took one look at my bike and said, “Put that in my car. I’m giving you a ride home.”

  She had a nice car, had probably worked a real job before going to social work school. I took off my seat and both tires to fit it in her trunk. I didn’t want to scratch the finish. She took a while to talk to Marion, lucky for me, so she wasn’t waiting for me to pull my bike apart.

  She and Marion had a long hug good-bye and then I was alone with Amanda in her car.

  “Directions?” she asked.

  “Directions where?”

  “Your house?”

  “Oh, right.” I was glad of the dark so she couldn’t see how embarrassed I was.

  I lived fairly close, so didn’t even have time for my blush to go away before we got to my place.

  “You have a roommate?” Amanda asked as she turned off the car.

  “Had. She lasted the first week of classes, then flaked out and went home. Her parents were nice enough to pay her rent for the rest of the semester. Guess they felt bad about her going crazy on me.”

  “Would it be okay if I came up and used your bathroom? It’s been a while since the last pit stop.”

  I had cleaned up this morning, something I do every Saturday morning, a habit I was profoundly grateful for right now.

  “Sure. Got new toilet paper and everything.”

  Amanda helped me get my bike out of her trunk, carrying my seat and front tire up the stairs for me.

  I pointed her to the bathroom as I put my bike back together. I kind of liked that she had touched the seat that had touched my…

  She came out of the bathroom. “Nice place you have here. Can I have some water? Or something to drink? I’ve been thirsty for the last hour but didn’t dare drink anything since I already needed to pee.”

  I liked how direct and unpretentious she was.

  She followed me to the kitchen area and peered over my shoulder as I opened the refrigerator. “You saving that beer for anything?” she asked, seeing a bottle in the door. It had been there for a while; the last girl I had dated had brought them over. Our one and only date. That had been several months ago.

  “Nope, it’s yours,” I said as I handed it to her. Then remembered that I needed to find a bottle opener. “Uh, it might be old, it’s been there for a while,” I admitted while I rummaged in the junk drawer.

  “You more a white wine type?” she asked.

  I finally found the opener. She took it from me and opened her bottle. I hated to admit that I wasn’t much of a drinking type, hadn’t tried enough drinks to even know what I liked to drink. “Um, it depends, it varies with what’s going on. As you can see, I don’t have any white wine.”

  “Just old beer,” she said, a slight smile playing on her lips as if she could see right through
me. “You going to have anything?”

  To prove I wasn’t a total alcohol prude, I took the remaining beer for myself. I managed not to gag as I took my first swallow. It was either old or beer was not my drink.

  Suddenly Amanda had a look of concern on her face. Maybe I wasn’t as good a beer drinker as I thought I was.

  She reached out and touched my cheek with her finger. “That looks like a bruise. I’m so sorry, I got distracted by my thirst and bathroom needs that I forgot you had a pretty rough outing today.” She gently stroked my cheek.

  I felt like I was on fire. “I’m okay,” I managed to get out. I quickly took another swig of beer to hide what I was thinking. Except I wasn’t even thinking, my brain was too much of a jumble to call it thinking, veering from “you have to stop now” to “don’t ever stop.”

  “I know you’re okay,” Amanda said, “but that doesn’t mean you didn’t get a few bruises. Let me take a look. Pull off your shirt.”

  I must have looked like a dyke deer in headlights, because I didn’t do anything for so long that Amanda put down her beer and grasped the hem of my sweatshirt. I only had time to set down my beer before she pulled it up and over my head. She put a hand on my shoulder and gently turned me around to look at my back.

  I felt her finger on my shoulder blade. “One bruise here,” she murmured. The finger trailed down to my bra strap. “One here.” Then down my back to just at the waistband of my jeans. “Might be one here. It’s”—the finger hooked in my belt and tugged the jeans down—“hard to see for sure unless you take your pants off.”

  I hesitated. Goddess of all creatures great and small, did I want to take my pants off for her! Except that I was terrified to get any more naked than I already was. She was just being a good social worker and making sure I was okay, and I was wearing white panties and her finger at my waist was making it likely that the crotch area wasn’t quite as white.

  “Don’t worry, I don’t bite,” she said. Then added close to my ear, “Unless I’m asked nicely.”

  She was standing very near me. I could feel her breath on my neck. I reminded myself not to read anything into it, remembering from class how different cultures viewed personal space differently.

  “Are you cold?” she suddenly asked.

  “Uh…no.” I had no idea if I was hot or cold. Or both.

  “Your nipples are very erect and huge. That’s usually a sign of being cold. Or being…” She trailed off.

  “I must be cold,” I muttered. I had no clue if she was a lesbian or not, and I didn’t want to be so gauche as to have erect nipples for a straight woman.

  “It’s my fault,” she whispered in my ear.

  I could smell her perfume overlaid with whiffs of peanut butter and grape jelly.

  “I pulled your shirt off without ever considering how chilly it is,” she continued.

  “It’s okay, I’m not really that cold,” I stammered out.

  “So why are your breasts so stiff?”

  “I’m not really cold, but a little cold, between cold and chilly, more on the slightly chilly side than really cold. I’m sensitive to cold, well, a little chilly. At least certain parts of me, that is, I mean…” I ran out of things to say.

  “So, I should pay no attention to your nipples?” She waited a moment for an answer, but I could come up with nothing. “And you’re warm enough for me to go ahead and take your pants off, so we can check the rest of you for bruises?”

  It didn’t seem to really be a question as she didn’t wait for an answer. Instead she reached around, undid my jeans, and started to pull them down. That galvanized me into action. I stumbled backward, my jeans around my knees tripping me up. Amanda grabbed me to keep me from falling.

  “You must be a light drinker if two swigs of beers gets you this tipsy,” she murmured to me.

  “I’m not…I’m just not used to…I mean, two sips of beer…”

  “Ah, I see, not used to getting naked this quickly.” She laughed, then added in a more serious tone, “You have a girlfriend?”

  “Girlfriend?”

  “Someone you date on a regular basis?”

  “Uh…no.”

  Amanda still had her arms around me. “You the kind who needs white wine and flowers?” Her hand moved down from my waist to the top of my underwear. “Tell me what you want,” she whispered as she softly kissed my neck.

  “For this not to be a dream,” I blurted.

  “Not a dream at all.” She removed my glasses, then kissed me like I’d never been kissed before.

  I know I like women, but more in spirit than in the flesh. I’ve slept with exactly two. Jessica was my first; we were Girl Scouts together and met up again one summer during college. First is stretching it because we never got much beyond a few shy kisses and a finger inside the panty boundaries. I couldn’t even claim an orgasm from her. My second was Reba, in college, and she had an unfortunate overbite that made kissing her more like rock climbing. We got past just fingers, but that overbite made some things more risky than the benefit I was getting from the activity. My brain had been energetic, but my body, save for self-loving, not so much.

  And now Amada was kissing me. She knew how to kiss, so much so that I worried if I was good enough for her. But she kept kissing me, her hands sliding up my back to unhook my bra. She didn’t stop kissing me as she slid it off. Didn’t stop kissing me as her hands covered my breasts, her fingers kneading my nipples.

  Just as I was about to asphyxiate, she came up for air. “How about a shower? We both smell like peanut butter and homeless people.”

  We were in the bathroom. She was undressing. She was the most gorgeous woman I’d ever seen. No, I’d only seen two women; she was the most stunning woman I’d ever imagined. But I had to be honest, she’d find out soon enough. “Look, Amanda, I’m…well, I’m not…I haven’t been with many…”

  “It’s okay. I like shy girls, girls who haven’t done everything and are jaded and cynical.” She softly kissed me. “Shush, don’t worry. I’ll guide you. As long as you want to be with me, it’ll be okay.”

  “Be with you? There’s nothing I want more.”

  We got in the shower and she kissed me under the streaming water, her hands roaming over my body, tweaking my nipples until I couldn’t tell if it was pain or pleasure. But I didn’t want her to stop.

  “You’ve gone down on a woman, right?” she breathed into my ear.

  “Yes,” I breathed in return. Twice with Reba before I realized how dangerous her overbite was, so I couldn’t risk that she would reciprocate.

  Amanda’s hands were on my shoulders, leading me down to my knees, and I willingly went. As promised, she guided me, telling me what she wanted, her hands keeping my head firmly in place. It was so wonderful, her breathing getting faster, her hips jerking, her wanting me to do this. She came so hard she knocked my head against the shower tile, but I didn’t mind.

  We ran out of hot water, so hastily toweled and went to my bedroom. She wasted no time; we were on my bed, she was on top of me and her hand was between my legs. Suddenly, her fingers were someplace fingers had never been before. I’d had fingers on my clit, but not this. It felt weird and it felt good. I must have grunted because she slowed down.

  “Relax and spread your legs,” she told me. “Anyone been inside you before?”

  I hated to be so naïve and inexperienced. “It’s, uh, been a while.”

  “A while?” A smile played on her face. She slowly pushed her fingers in, then did something inside me that sent shivers through me. “I’m not your first?”

  “You are,” I admitted. “Didn’t want to seem…” She moved her fingers again, out and back into me, and part of me felt like I’d died and part of me felt like I’d gone to heaven.

  “Good, I’ve always wanted to fuck a virgin.” And then her thumb found my clit and I exploded. “And I’m going to fuck you like you’ve never been fucked before,” she murmured as I thrashed under her.

 
; When I finally stopped, I thought, now I’m a woman, now I know what sex is really about, it was about having Amanda’s fingers in me, and using words like fuck, and her telling me how she was going to fuck me.

  She had to leave, couldn’t stay the night as she had somewhere she needed to be in the morning.

  “We’ll do this again, soon,” she said as she kissed me good-bye.

  But first we met again with her friends for coffee and she whispered “soon,” in my ear as we hugged good-bye. I again helped hand out food to the homeless, and this time all teams that had women on them had three people.

  I would do anything to be near Amanda. Even if we never had sex again, it would be enough just to see her and hear her.

  Just when I was beginning to think that soon might turn into never, she caught me after class.

  “You doing anything this evening?”

  I had been planning to catch a water aerobics class, but quickly dismissed that and told her I had no plans.

  “Want to come to my place?”

  I wanted nothing more.

  We barely got in her door when she kissed me hard, her tongue in my mouth. I just had time to get my glasses off. When she finally broke it off she said, “I’ve been thinking about this all day.” She unzipped her pants and pushed down on my shoulder until I was kneeling in front of her. She shoved her jeans off, then cupped my head with her hands and pulled me into her. I licked and I sucked, trying to do everything and anything to please her.

  Suddenly she said, “Get on the floor.” She pushed me down on my back. “Ever done this before?” she asked as she lowered herself onto me. “It’s called face sitting.” She positioned my arms, then said, “Now, suck me right on my clit, not too hard.”

  It was tricky to breathe, but I so wanted to please her and did what she asked.

  “Don’t stop, baby, don’t stop,” she said as if she knew I was about to come up for air.

  Then she came, gushing juices down my cheeks and onto my neck. My clothes are going to smell like her, I thought, and that made me happy. Amanda has soaked me good.

  She finally rolled off me and looked at me with her lazy half smile.