Secondary Education Tyla Flowers TylaFlowers@gmail.com
Chapter 7 The Tipping Point
The rising sun paints the smoggy sky over Los Angeles fuchsia. The air is dense with the smoke of distant wildfires. The breeze is already hot. It stirs the trash from overflowing garbage cans and sends it tumbling down the streets. Greasy food wrappers twirl in trash cyclones: In and Out, Jack in the Box, Weinerschnitzel. The sight makes me nauseous, and I choke back a gag.
My eyes sting with fatigue, the acrid air and the ebbing effects of meth. I slip on my DG shades and avert my eyes from the sun's glint. It's morning, and I am the last whore on the street. I have almost two thousand dollars in my clutch. It's the most money I have ever touched at one time. For the moment, it's mine, although I know the Mara will claim most of it as theirs.
A battered pickup passes me, and the wrinkled, squat Mexican riding in the open backs snarls an incomprehensible taunt and whistles derisively as he side arms a L'Opinion in my direction. It whirls by my head and skitters across the barren front lawn of a battered apartment.
I turn and walk up the cracked steps, for this is my home, a slumlord's investment gone wrong on the bedraggled periphery of LA's bright and shiny downtown. A homeless guy camps out in clump of dusty ivy by the walk, covered in cardboard. Asleep, he looks like a harmless pile of rags, but he reeks of urine and curdled vomit.
I pick my way through the litter and enter. The front door is propped open with a soggy, yellowed phone book that no one bothered to pick up or throw away. The pool is nearly empty and its walls are cracked. The bottom is filling with debris floating on a shallow, scummy puddle.
I squint back into the sunrise, toward downtown. There, the skyscrapers glint in dawn's light like the fairy towers of a far away Nirvana. Will I ever see them, except from afar? I fear that I never will, for I am a creature of the streets, not of the sky.
My calves are sore from a night prowling the streets, on high heals. My head aches from speed's brutal aftermath. After a night of feigned gaiety and passion, I feel empty and alone.
I need to sleep but the dregs of the coke and speed that powered me through the night are still with me. I open the door, cross the tiny living room to the cluttered, dirty kitchen, and look into the fetid, empty refrigerator.
My mom has been home, come and gone. She's left a pile of unread mail on the kitchen counter next to an empty liter bottle of Shasta Orange, a blackened scrap of aluminum foil, and a pile of burnt out matches. I tear open a letter from the Los Angeles Unified School District:
Dear Ms. Flowers
Tyler Flowers has not completed LAUSD's requirements for promotion to 11th Grade. He received an incomplete in Physical Education last term at Fairfax High School. In order to be promoted or to 11th Grade he must complete 10th Grade Physical Education in the Summer Session. In addition, Tyler Flower's request for transfer to Hollywood High is denied pending completion of his 10th Grade Physical Education course at Fairfax High.
Summer session begins on June 19. Tyler Flowers must register on or before June 16 in order to complete this requirement.
Sincerely,
Felix Rojas
Office of the Assistant Principal, Fairfax High.
My mother is such a flake. She can't read English well and she doesn't pay attention to anything except her drug habit and the boyfriends who supply it. If I didn't fuck up my own life so well she'd ruin it for me.
I rummage through the pile of papers and find a calendar. It's July 7. It's too early to call the school, and too probably too late to do anything about the incomplete. I'll just have to drop out. That's what Hector wants anyhow, so I can be a full time whore for him. But I think of Mr. Knudsen, and I don't want to disappoint him by giving up on myself. I stagger to bed and close my eyes.
The room vibrates, my head is buzzing with waves of receding chemicals and fatigue. The speed, which had made me invincible in the night, now leaves me edgy and desolate. I struggle out of my clothes but can't find the strength to fold or hang them. I need to comfort myself against onrushing waves of loneliness and fear. I am half a woman, half a boy. But has my transition ruined my life? Will I be a ghetto bitch forever?
I stroke my hands over my body. My breasts are sore from all of the fondling and sucking, my ass is swollen and battered, my insides feel clogged and achy, but I'm too tired to try to poop. My cock is limp and shrunken and my balls have seemingly disappeared. I tuck my cock between my legs and smooth my hand over the silky flat triangle from my hips to my thighs and imagine, as I have a thousand times before, that I am a girl.
I pinch my eyes closed, and try to banish the dirty street, the filthy apartment, the terrifying night, Hector, Antoine, and the Mara, and concentrate on my vision. In my mind, my fingers are tracing the contours of the body of a beautiful girl.
All that I need are big boobs, not as big as Cherry's but big enough for a man to cup in his hand, or to press into a tunnel around his cock. I want to be castrated, to get rid of my balls forever, to reshape my cock into a pussy, tight like my ass, but pure and clean. Then, I am sure every boy will want me. But I will reserve myself for the strongest and most handsome, like Matt, or the richest, and most generous, like Eric.
I will live in a home with a marble shower and sink, and a soft, clean bed like the one in the hotel. I will receive them in a real pussy, and in the mouth, and the ass, and all three at the same time, and they will worship me as a goddess, and I will worship them as gods.
I will find a way. I will never go back to being a boy. If for a time I have to live the Life, I will do it in style, with a smile and perky enthusiasm. But is my walk on the stroll my path to my dreams or to my death?
A street whore lives on the edge between life and death every night. True, it is better to be a whore for the Mara than to toil through life as a hairy, ugly man. I decide that I will not live the life and not die the death of a street whore. I must escape from the Mara.
I am torn by conflict. The Mara made my transition possible. They accepted me as a girl, and gave me hormones, clothes, and protection. But to them a trannie is a maricone, to be used and discarded. My role in the Mara is to be their sex slave, and when they tire of me, they will kill me or sell me off like a bag of crack or a truckload of stolen property.
It's different when you pick your own tricks. True, Eric used me and kicked me out on the street when he was done. But I have tasted what my new sexual freedom can bring me. As a cute young Asian trannie, I can have rich older guys like Eric pay me for an hour of sex what the Mexican street traffic pays for a long, dangerous, and cold night of back seat blowjobs. I am going to find, and get fucked by every one of those rich older guys that I can.
I dry mouth a Diane and a couple of Tylenol PM and close my eyes. As I wait for sleep, I imagine myself at work in one of those glimmering towers I spied in the dawn, the object of desire of a hundred Eric's and Hal's. I can be that girl, if I can make myself free of the Mara. As I drift into a dream, my fantasy of freedom becomes plan of escape.
I awake with a blinding ray of sun in my eyes. It's late afternoon. I have become nocturnal like a feline. My phone shows five missed calls, all from the same 323 number. I push redial.
"Hola, TChica, where have you been?"
"Getting my beauty sleep after long night. Did you find the black guy who killed Jose?"
"No, but we found another black ho who's never doing nothing again." Hector cackles laughter.
"I'm sorry I missed the show. But I was putting on a show of my own."
"I want to hear all about it. I'll send Cesar over to pick you up."
I pop another Diane, and quickly shower and dress, skimpy Lucky cutoffs, lavender glitter tube top, bare at the belly, platform shoes, my little silver jacket. I am still putting on my eyeliner when Cesar calls.
"I'm not quite done. Do you want to come up?"
"No, there's no place to park."
"Don't you want me any more?"
"Of course I do, baby, but so does Hector. He told me to hurry."
I hear a lie in his voice, and decide that I don't care about him, or any of the rest of them. I finish my eyeliner in a rush. Then I hide half of my earnings from last night in hole in my mattress, and run down to meet Cesar.
He still has bruises around his eyes from the beating in. I get in and stroke his face, "Poor baby," but he barely looks at me.
"What's the matter? Don't you like the way I look?"
"You look hot. You're too hot for me."
"You don't want me because I'm a ho? That's what you made me, when you gave me to the Mara."
"We're both just soldiers now. I have to be elevated before I get privileges."
"I'm a privilege?"
"Hector doesn't want us together, says it will interfere with his plans, and my progress."
"What's his plan?"
"To sell your ass to some pimp in Rosarito."
"I won't go."
"You won't have a choice."
"Take me away."
"Then we're both dead. Just do what he says. He's crazy now that Jose's gone. Mara's at war with the Crips now."
Suddenly, I hate Cesar for his cowardice and weakness, Hector for his duplicity and viciousness, and all of the Mara for their macho posing and brutality. I am just a couple of holes for them to fuck and sell. They have as little regard for me as for a half-used vial of Ice. I am just something to use up or sell. I am glad of my plan to get free of them.
We pulled up in front of Bella Casa and Cesar lets me out. Pineapple nods silently as I flounce by, and I flash a sexy smile and wag my butt. I need to feign complete loyalty and enthusiasm.
Hector's tawdry courtiers are gathered around him at the rickety linoleum table.
I approach and put my clutch on the table before him. He opens it, grabs the money, and counts it, muttering out loud."
He looks up and gives me a golden smile.
"Excellent, T Chica. You were my top performer last night."
"Rookie's luck, boss. I found the right groove."
"And the Mara took part of your competition off of the streets." He whips out his cell phone and flicks it open. It displays a picture of a dead black girl, her face obliterated, lying in a pool of blood, legs akimbo, on the sidewalk. She's so mutilated that she's unrecognizable, but her blood spattered clothes look familiar. I wonder whether my so called comrades have just killed my new friend.
"Why did you kill her?"
"That's our new rule. To get made a jefe in the Mara, everyone kills a mayate."
I am disgusted by this macho hubris, but hide my revulsion behind a smile.
"Kill a few more ho's, maybe I can raise my rates."
Hector laughs and slaps my ass. "I like your attitude. I'm going to change my plan for you. I'm going to keep you on the home team instead of trading you down to the Mexican League."
I feel a rush of relief. But I keep up my act. "Oh, too bad, I love Mexican food. Especially the burritos."
"We got plenty of pupusas for you here, don't we?" He slaps my butt.
"Aren't burritos bigger?"
"Ha-ha. You're funny, TChica. But burritos are soft and soggy, like an old Mexican."
"Pupusa means `for pussy,' right?"
"Ha-ha, I like you T Chica, even if you did get my ayudante Jose killed. You can stay here for now, as long as you keep bringing me a thousand buck in the morning." Hector brandishes the stack of bills and grins.
"And if I'm in Mexico I can't help you find the black who shot Jose."
"You didn't help us much last night. I don't think you want to find the mayate fucker, the fucking dung beetle."
"No, I thought about it, and I have a plan. I have a way of getting back into Fairfax High. I'll look around for him. I know I'll recognize the black bastard when I see him."
"I thought you dropped out of Fairfax."
"They want me back."
"What for, you gonna blow the whole football team?"
He grabs me and forces my head down toward his crotch. I don't resist, but look up and smile.
"That could be part of my plan."
"OK, tell me the rest."
"It's easy. I have to make up a class there. So I go to school, figure who he is, where he hangs out, and how he gets around, lead you to him, and you whack him."
"If he sees you, he'll whack you first."
"He won't even recognize me. I'm going back to school as a boy."
"That reminds me. Does anyone want to fuck the maricone before she goes back on the stroll?"
"I'll fuck anything with a hole in it." I turn to see Pineapple. He must have followed me in from his post outside. I cringe, but keep it inside and affect cheer.
"OK, anyone else? I'm in the mood for a threesome, OK?" I am afraid of Pineapple and think a third player might make the game more predictable. But he grunts "Everybody else waits."
He grabs my arm and pulls me toward the bedroom and throws me on the bed.
"You don't have to be so rough. I want to get fucked, Pineapple. I like it." It's a white lie, of course. No sane person would want to be fucked by this greasy pig, who smells of bad food and a week of dirty underwear and sweat. But I am in a role, playing the loyal Marita.
"You are my first of the day, so be gentle. Enter me slowly, and then fuck me hard."
"OK, but I'm on guard duty, and I'm in a hurry."
"So am I." I sit on the bed and pull his pants to his knees. He is already hard.
"Mm, that's a big cock." He's uncut, and the glans bulges beneath the sheen of his moist foreskin.
"Do you want me to just blow you? S'ok if you cum in my mouth."
"No, I want to cum in your ass."
"OK, then fuck me."
I grab a condom from my clutch and roll it on, and then squeeze some lube into my palm. I stroke his cock, and he grimaces.
"Stop or you'll make me pop."
I wipe the rest on my ass.
"Baby, save it for me." I can tell he is on the verge of coming.
I get on the bed, hoist my ass, rub the lube on my butt, and slip my panties down my thighs. His cock presses against my ass, and he thrusts, but I am too tight. It glances off its target and slides up my crack to the small of my back, smearing me with a slick of lubricant. His balls slap against my buttocks.
I grab some more lubricant, reach back and take hold of his cock.
"Let me help you."
He grunts assent.
"Now, take me slowly. It will be better for both of us." I guide him to the center of my ass and circle the tip of his penis on the taut ring. I press back against and press open my outer sphincter, and twirl his cock around until it hits the second ring. I try to ease him back out, to accustom myself, but he can't control himself and suddenly jerks forward. My fingers slip, and his cock head barges through both rings of my ass and buries itself deep into the loops of my colon.
In a moment, the cascade of pain electrifies me and I collapse to the bed as he rams me with the full length of his cock. He pulls back almost all of the way out, so his bulging glans strains against my outer sphincter, and then smashes deep inside me again. His balls slap my buttocks. He has entered me to the hilt on his second stroke.
I bite the pillow as my eyes water. I try to force a groan of pleasure but pain renders me mute. I bury my face in the pillow and try to breathe, to relax, to endure the agony until it releases me, and transmutes first into calm relief, and then pleasure. But Pineapple is either a selfish or inexperienced lover. He never slows his pace enough for me to synchronize my movement to his, and before I can he is reaches that stuttering chaotic sprint to his finish. I know he is cumming as he buries himself deep, almost straight down, cock to my navel. I feel him release and plunge and release again, crying out like a coyote in a frenzy, before settling in flabby lump on top of me, and heaving his stinking breath into my face. I lie still, and keep my face buried in the pillow. I don't want to look at him, or for him to attempt a kiss. I want this foul creature to leave me.
He gets up. I hear the clank of his belt buckle and the shuffle of his boots on the floor. "That was good. You like my cock in your booty?"
"I love to get fucked all day and all night. You have a big cock."
"You have a tight little ass. I never fucked in there before."
"Have you fucked pussy?"
"Yeah, but I like booty better. It's tight, you sucked my cum out fast."
"You were really fast."
"That's how I like it."
His condom has fallen on the floor. He points to it. "Get rid of that thing for me." Then he leaves. I pick it up with a tissue from my clutch and wipe the smear of lubricant from my ass with another. I open the door. Pineapple is gone, Hector is gone, but a four of the Mara are lounging around the kitchen table. My ass feels empty, and I need something to take away the memory of Pineapple's lousy breath and greedy sex. I approach the rickety table where they are pawing over the fragments of some chips and residue of salsa.
"Does anyone else want some of my booty?"
Crazy 8 slides his chair out and leers at me. "I never thought I sink so low as to take sloppy seconds after Pineapple, but what the hell."
He takes my hand and we walk back toward the bedroom.
"I'm not sloppy. Pineapple comes so fast, he barely warmed me up. I need you to finish me." I wrap my arm around his chest. Young Salvadoran guys have awesome pectorals, knobby and hard. It's strange that as old men they become so flabby.
He hugs me back. "So you're hot for my big dick?"
I am tired. I loathe Crazy 8. His cast eye disgusts me and his mood swings are scary and dangerous. He is a rough and selfish lover, like all of the Mara. I'd rather shower off Pineapple's residue and get fucked by someone new who can pay for my company than spend another minute with these dangerous losers.
But my plan requires that the Mara to have great trust in my loyalty to them. I pause at the threshold of the bedroom, turn and call back the group at the table. "Stick around; I'm hot for all of you." I close the door, kneel on the floor and as I unzip Crazy 8's fly, I silently thank Buddha that that only three of the Mara have stayed behind to hear my offer. I am happy to let all of them fuck me, for when I am finished with them, no one will doubt my loyalty. Then, it will be easy for me to lead them to slaughter.