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Apricot Nectar

The Shortbreads love their bike more than anything in the world. They love clothes, and the right pair of sunglasses, and fucking and being flash, and Annie in particular loves choosing out mornings from her collection of ear and nose studs. But nothing beats squeezing their bodies up close together, Annie in front, Dawn behind, on the seat of their silver and black enameled beloved. Killer, they call it. Not tremendously original, but then they don't have to be. They steer Killer the long, slow way through the city just so that it will have more time to call attention to itself, and them. Every street corner, guys hollering, hooting, demanding their phone numbers - power. And power, as we all know, is Annie's dearest friend. Dawn, who spends these rides with both hands on her sister's bare belly, says she can feel the thrill in both their skins. It's electric, she says.

That's why they're always fucking late.

"Well. Look what the breeze blew in."

"What's wrong?"

"Wrong is, I pay you girls by the hour."

"Sorry. I left my watch somewhere."

"Incredible. I think we'll have to get one sewn into your navel. What was it today, Dawn?"

"Apricot nectar."

"Huh?"

"Annie was thirsty."

Nobody I mean nobody pulls this on me and gets away with it.

"Fridge full of Evian, Hi-C, and God-knows-what-else not good enough for you, eh?"

"C'mon, Trash. You know you can't stay mad at us. Let's get to work."

What these tiny wind-up butterflies don't know, goddamn them. They're the only ones who can pull this and get away with it. They know for what I ask them to do they've more or less got the right to blow in a half-hour late.

"What are we doing today, Trash?"

They sense, too, Trash can only do good work when she is at least a little bit pissed.

"For starters you can take off that ridiculous thing you're wearing."

"You're just jealous."

"On second thought - stop. Dawn, you take it off her. We'll start with that."

Annie is beautiful.

File under 'obvious'. It's that raven black hair mostly. I'd like to see girlhood pictures of her, find out if it was always so. Weeks of hovering, gliding, peering into cracks, smelling her, brushing and combing, oiling, powdering, developing and enlarging her and still I hyperventilate.

"What did that thing cost you, Annie?"

"Thirty-five - aw, c'mon Trash. I just got it."

"You'll be reimbursed. Dawn?"

The tearing sends me, oh it simply does. Let it go, girl, let it go. Gotta keep the trigger finger moving though. This is where Dawn grins and Annie pouts, where the cautious girl has her way with the naughty, where tearing - hm - becomes a metaphor for something.

"Tell me Dawn. What's in Annie's pretty little head this afternoon?"

"Annie has the hots for a man who sells fruit."

"Does she now?"

"You bitch!"

"Oh, yes. He is big and dark and muscular. A Mexican."

"Really?"

"Or Cuban. He looks like that ballplayer who's always on TV."

Watching Annie's bony chest flush that way - crimson stripe down the middle, blotches like finger marks on her breasts, like a lover's been and gone - it reminds me of a tennis court, and of my little sister. I've no idea why.

"Maybe he is the ballplayer."

"No. He's a fruit-seller. That's why we were late today, actually. Annie was flirting. The panties, too?"

"Yes. She get anywhere?"

"Oh, I think so. But he was shy. A big, hunky shy guy. I don't understand it."

"Men are funny that way."

And sad too, those fellas who can't get the mouth up to speed, mumbly fumbly, you want to say it for them.

"Now you, Dawn."

"Can I -- ?"

"No, Annie. Um ... you get on the floor. On your back. Arms at your sides. Watch Dawn undress. Dawn, you straddle her. Like she's Killer. Good."

Not like her sister, not beautiful maybe, I don't hyperventilate but she's what sells the pictures. Sober lines, straight hair, too-large teeth, a body less doll-like to assure us of the reality of the other. The chance of this happening. I'm not, after all, shooting porn. Two Annies would bore me and bore my audience.

"Annie, throw all that gorgeous hair of yours to one side."

"Like this?"

"That's it, sweetheart. How does your sister look from down there?"

"Tall."

Love these girls. They'll do anything, and everything my American girls refuse to do. Must come from that servile tradition in Asia, the bound feet, the geishas. Nothing like that in the bedroom, I imagine, but they obey me just fine. What are their names again? Phoung Anh, that's Annie's real name. Dawn is Dang something. Funny, I don't know shit about the Orient, except that about half the girls in Thailand and Vietnam and those places gotta sell themselves to get by, or else their parents sell them, somebody sells them. I think east I think mercantile. Maybe that's where it comes from. Anyway, this is America, and this is crazed-out wonderful. This is millennium-era immigration, all of us getting rich. Like B.B. King and Doris Day. Dig it.

"Meow, miaou, miaow. Prrrrrrrrrr..."

Felix, my wonnerful, wonnerful cat!

"Trash, your kitty is in the shot."

"Leave him."

He's going to be right up on Annie doing push-ups on her tits, I know my dear little white-gloved pussy. It's like cats simply don't care what's going on in the human world, we exist to feed them and to be rubbed up against.

"Oh, man. Get this animal some Scope!"

"Leave him, Annie."

"He smells like he just threw up Charlie Tuna."

"It's liver and cheese and I want him in the shot, thank you. You girls are not concentrating."

Silence. Slow it down. Felix, my darling - paw on quietly, please.

"What do you want, Trash?"

I want what we had before. That stuff about the Mexican. The claws out, the hissing. I want my pictures to hiss like cats in rain. Steel, ice, fur, and a nice bulge somewhere. I want sex (smart sex!) which knows enough to acknowledge violence and I want you, sisters, to hate. Show me how two sisters can hate.

"It's your turn, Annie. Tell me what's going through Dawnie's mind right now."

"Nothing."

"Nothing whatsoever. C'mon. Look at her. What's she thinking?"

"I think she thinks it's good to be standing over me."

"Show me that face, Dawn! Why does she think it's good, Annie?"

"Prrrrrrrr."

"I don't know."

"Because..."

"She's jealous."

"Of you?"

I would be too but far less tolerant: in no condition to sit on the back of Killer without sinking my claws into your soft belly ripping out your insides or perhaps inducing some head-on collision fatal to you and not me.

"Yes."

"Because you're Annie."

"Because I'm Annie."

"And what is this thing called Annie?"

"Annie Shortbread is the sexiest, sweetest, hottest, wildest, most expensive young thang on the face of the earth."

"Is she now?"

"Yeah."

Certainly the most expensive.

"Dawn. Is Annie the sexiest, sweetest, hottest, wildest, most expensive young thang on earth?

"Of course she is."

"You wet between the legs, Annie?"

"A little."

"Are you as wet as Trash is right now?"

"I don't know, Trash."

"We need music!"

"Prrrrr."

Tom Jones, Fame, Iggy, Gipsy Kings (Gipsy Kings?), Joan, Ethel, Barbra, Liza, Abba, My Beloved Jimmy. The THREE TENORS!!! Yessirree and loud.

"Okay Dawn. It's evening. Fifty thousand insane perverted opera buffs have filled Chavez Ravine. There's an expectant buzz, like a billion bees, instruments tuning, doin' those runs, lights, cameras, kazillions of dollars in one place. Below you, ass right on top of second base, lies the sexiest, sweetest, hottest et cetera young thang on earth. What are you gonna do?"

"I'm gonna go down on her. Like I always do."

Like you always do, Dawnie, exactly so. That serious tongue of yours getting all red and erect and downright bold -- show me -- moving anything but mechanically into Annie, taking its time, working out the cute knots in Annie's pubes, coating and flattening them with saliva, a bit like Felix does. Am I sorry for the soul in the child? Dawn and Annie. Dawn on Annie. Dawn in Annie...

And now, Felix decides (though it cannot be out of any real need to compete with Dawn because cats simply don't give a shit) the moment is ripe to restation himself on our girl model, to stop pawing and go to work with his sandpaper tongue at Annie's majestic chin. You, kitty, are going to be responsible for some wonnerful, wonnerful shots today, a hit with next month's gallery hunters: the cat, the licking, the squirming and violent. It'll all make sense.

My work makes sense.

"Break."


Where did that line about the soul in the child come from? It cannot be an originally-thought thought. Distinctly un-Trash-esque. More Dylan-esque. Dylan Thomas-esque. Anyway it can't be mine so what's it doing springing up at inopportune moments like that? Mesdames et messieurs, this is troubling.

"Like some apricot nectar, Trash?"

"No thanks."

"Got something else lined up?"

"Hmm?"

"Should we get dressed or what?"

"Absolutely not. Stay as you are."

Today is the day. I can see the pictures. All done, matted, framed and hanging somewhere south of Houston. Annie's ass from a hundred different perspectives, wide-angled, macroed, a sharp and blurry gift to humankind. It's worth the small fortune I pay these girls for this to happen, it's gotta be happening somewhere on the planet.

"These are your instructions. Hey listen!"

"Sorry."

"Annie. Down on all fours."

"Why not. I love it down here."

"Dawn, I'm going to need you to do the rest. Take these."

"Hey, wait a minute!"

"Cool it, Annie. They're not meant for you."

"Don't even think about cutting my hair, Trash."

"Which hair are you referring to?"

"Ha ha."

"And it's miz Trash to you, foxy." This bitch is cruisin' for a bruisin' and is gonna get it sooner than she knows. "Dawn, take what's left of your sister's dress and cut it into three or four long strips, whatever you can manage. Wait. I wanna get this. Annie you look at the floor. Dawn you just have some fun."

"It's tricky."

"When you've got those ... there ... I want you to bind your sister at the wrists and at the ankles. Lay the scissors down please. Nice and tight, without hurting her. And Annie, let your body do what feels natural. Okay? I'm not going to tell what that is. You should feel it."

"Knowing you I'm sure my ass is involved. You're in love with my ass, aren't you?"

"Me? I've got poets lining up to write odes to that ass, babe."

I'd write one myself if I had a drop of odey blood in me. Something about a pumpkin patch. Cabbages maybe. It's an exceptionally delightful gathering of flesh, any way you slice it -- I really am in love with it.

"How's it feel, Annie?"

"I feel like I'm about to be fucked from behind."

"Hate to disappoint you, but ..."

"Click click click, right?"

"You think you can hold that position for a while?"

"Do I have a choice?"

"No. If it helps you can think of the fruit-seller."

"Hardy - har - har."

"Be right back."

"Hey!"

Now where did I put the riding crop? Think, girl. I know I had it for the weekend at Jilly's. Think. Lee borrowed it once. Months ago. Shit. Dawnie, this is your big day. You and I are going to whack the hell out of Annie. But where the hell is that -

"Trash!"

Hang on a sec.

"Trash! Doorbell."

A fresh delivery from Eighth Avenue perhaps? A gross of riding crops? That interview in Interview will be the death of me yet -- it's like half the city knows where Trash lives, breathes, eats, buys her shoes now.

"Oh. Hello, Mister Le."

"Good afternoon, Missus Trash. I have seen the motorcycle outside. My girls, they here?"

"Yes. Please come in."

"You are working now?"

"Doesn't matter. Come in."

Mister Le is beautiful.

"It is a very hot day."

"Yes it is. May I offer you a drink?"

"Very nice, thank you."

"Is water okay?"

"Cold water, yes, thank you."

"The girls are in the atelier -- through there. We're just in the middle of a shoot."

"Sorry. I come back."

"No, no. It's not a problem. Go ahead, I'll be along in a moment."

If only there'd been a father like Mister Le in my life ... or a grandfather, an uncle, something. Would have been a calming influence, that's for sure. He'll get one of the nice crystal glasses with the flamingo engravings. I'd be Vietnamese, of course, but what the hell. I like rice. The world would be minus Trash and her pictures, but one small, polite dark-haired person richer. Am I sorry for the soul in the child? Dammit, there it is again.

"Here you are."

"Thank you very much. My granddaughter just telling me how much they like work for you."

"They're both very talented. You should be proud."

"They are good models?"

"Very good."

"I understand nothing about photograph. You ... you are professional. You think someone buy these pictures?"

"You'd be surprised, Mister Le. Annie and Dawn are in great demand all over the world."

Hmm. Now that's an idea.

"I don't disturb you longer. I ask my granddaughters one question?"

"Please."

I wonder if he'd go along with it.


I never did manage to find the riding crop this afternoon. It was an awesome shoot though, regardless. The dozen or so with Felix are some of the most charming photos I've taken, and I got three really intense close-ups of Dawnie tying the knots on her sister.

And Mister Le -- I mean what can I say? The man is a natural. When I asked if he'd do it his only concern was if he should put his water glass down or not. Turned out to be a nice prop. He sipped when I asked him to (tink tink tink went the ice's song), looked ever so gentlemanly, later held Dawnie's hand lovingly at his side, had her pussy in the pleats of his billowing Docker pants and did not once bat an eyelid. Incredible warmth happened between those two which I'm certain was not accidental. Annie, on elbows and knees in front of them, was more object than family member, and now that I have seen the proofs I know I got what I was aiming for today. The three of us made Annie small for an afternoon, and together we celebrated the plain and the aged.

"What's that, Felix?"

"Prrrrr."

"Why, thank you kitty. But you know what they say. The essence of genius is to use the simplest ideas."

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