Short Story: Last Tango in Paris, Texas, by M. Christian

Today I have the pleasure to be able to offer you a story from M. Christian’s Coming Together Anthology. This is an amazing example of a good erotica writer’s range: his is incredible.

Last Tango in Paris, Texas

By M. Christian

You know the El Rio? Down on Cortez? Well, I’m not surprised; I’d be surprised if you did. It’s not exactly what you’d call a memorable ‘establishment’. Nothing, really, but a cinder block bunker in the middle of a red-dust parking lot. Hell, you wouldn’t even know it was a bar except for the pieces of neon in the black, narrow strip of window. It didn’t even say ‘El Rio’ anymore — so maybe you know the ‘E___io?’ down on Cortez?

Whatever. It was the dive of dives, the black hole of Paris, Texas; frequented, as far as I know, by alcoholic kangaroo rats and inebriated rattlers, or at least the two-legged equivalents.

I do know that once a year, for two or three days, they hung a very tired rainbow flag in the doorway. I liked that a lot. I mean, as far as I know he wasn’t a fag (and don’t tell me a gal ran the place), but for a couple of days a year he looked up from the red dust, the flickering Budweiser sign, and looked us right in the eyes.

It wasn’t really ‘our’ place. We didn’t have that kind of relationship; we just hadn’t picked up those kinds of things– no song, no holiday, no place. It was just Shelly and I, the thin blond and the big butch. Just in case you haven’t figure it out yet, I’m the butch and she’s the blond. We didn’t have a certain place, but we’d been to the El Rio before, and that little queer oasis just seemed to me to be the right kind of place to end it.

It wasn’t like I didn’t care for her. God knows we’d been up and down the ride enough times together. It was just … well, it was just over. I had this girlfriend back in the ‘70’s who used to get real stoned and then real perceptive. One of my favorites of hers is that dykes just have so much juice in them, like gasoline. They run hot and fast and then, well, there’s just nothing left. We just run out of gas. Rattle, rattle, gasp, sputter — nothin’. Who wants to push a relationship along? Not me, that’s for sure.

I think Shelly knew this was it. I’m not great at hiding my feelings; good enough, though, because that one girl back in the 70’s didn’t see the breakup coming. Not before she looked me straight in the eyes and said: “Ruthy, you always make the wrong decisions.”

Fuck you, bitch. I’ve made my share, but I’ve also scored a few times. My truck started out just a rusty pile of shit, but it became a thing of beauty after I got through with it. I’ve got a pretty good job. Working in a print shop isn’t exactly brain surgery, but I’ve done a lot worse.

With Shelly and I … it was just over. Didn’t need to see a lot more to know it just wasn’t working. It had been fun, but the gauge was tapping E and the engine was seriously sputtering.

That morning we’d rolled out of bed like every other and crawled into our stuff. The usual denim work shirt and jeans for me, with boots of course; pink turtleneck and cotton dress for her. We didn’t say a lot, but that wasn’t anything new. We’d been slipping down that quiet road for months. Still, it wasn’t like we hated each other. Just run out of gas.

I still loved her, but I’d taken the capital letter off that months ago. She still made me laugh, and I still looked at her with that fluttering thing in my stomach, but just not as much. I knew I’d miss seeing her when I came home from work, sitting there at the kitchen table reading Carlos Castaneda, Aleister Crowley, Margot Adler, or some such shit, something classical booming on the stereo (we’d gotten four complaints the first month she’d been living with me). Clove cigarettes. Haunting the flea markets for weird stuff. Little trips across the border. Sudden volleyball games with crunched-up typewriter paper. The poster for The Burning Times that was one of her favorite things. At first we had talked a lot; but then we started being just roommates, and recently, almost strangers.

I’d driven by the El Rio the night before, seen the rainbow flag, and suggested we go out for beers. I had my whole speech prepared, a little combo of what had worked for me before, spiced with a few words I thought she might like: ‘destined’, ‘allowing us to follow our paths’, and so forth.

It was night by the time we showered and shaved (or at least she shaved), the bright sodium lights making the city look like one of those weird pieces of jewelry she picked up. I smiled at that as I drove the truck down Cortez.

The place was deserted. Dirty linoleum floor, red plastic stools, a bar that was almost black, the usual crazy glassware behind, BUD in buzzing neon, an ancient jukebox, a handful of tiny tables. Just us and the bartender. “Anything for ya?” he said as he walked in from the harsh, yellow night, blinking at the darkness of the place.

He didn’t look like a fag, but I usually can’t spot the boys. He was young, which surprised me, with bright red hair, like rust or something. I asked for my usual Bud and Shelly chipped in for a Daniel’s on ice. We didn’t make a lot of bucks, me working for the print shop and Shelly down in the courthouse, and we couldn’t afford much. I remember I got this little stab of pissed-offness — like she either didn’t care we were almost broke or was determined to have me pick up the tab for her parting shot.

We sat at one of the little tables for a few minutes and talked the usual bullshit: me about lithography and Quark like they were God’s gift to mankind, and she bitching about the drones in the courthouse.

Like I said, I’m not the best kind of person to pick up on stuff, so I didn’t know what to say when she said, “I’m going to the can — come with?” I probably just sat there like an idiot as she smiled at me, then turned and walked towards an ugly door marked CAN.

It wasn’t really about the sex. I mean, if there was one thing I’d bitch about it was how she really didn’t give a flip about money, always buying things when we didn’t have a dime. I’d have to pay the rent and find out we had jack in the account because she’d gone off and bought some CD’s or something.

Sex was not the problem, at least not until recently when it all started to slide. But that look she flashed at me, that brought me way back; back to when she first moved in, back when we never seemed to have our clothes on.

But, thickheaded me, it took a couple of seconds for me to remember that look, and hear exactly what she’d said. After it finally sunk in, I got up, almost knocking my chair over onto the floor and with that red-haired kid watching followed Shelly into CAN.

#

For a sec I thought she was attacking me or something. I had one foot in the door and wham! she’s right there, arms wrapped around me, kissing me like mad. I freaked a little, trying to push back against the door, but she kept right on at me, pushing her little self against me, squishing her little tits against mine. Her tongue pushed past my teeth, pushing against my own. Like I said, at I didn’t get it at first, but when her hot breath filled my mouth and her tongue really started to work I figured it out.

So there we were, a couple of dykes tongue dancing in the bar of the El Rio. It was hot. Did I just say hot? I was fucking melting, man. Shelly had always been a damned good kisser. For a little slip of a thing, with those sly little lips, she knew how to do it right: tongue — oh, yeah — but also with these little playful ‘bites’; and she’d rub her tiny nose on my big honker, which always made me giggle like a damned little girl. Good? She was the best.

Then she was at my tits. You could park a bus on my ass but I really liked my tits. What was great is that Shelly liked them too. Kinda bothered me sometimes, when she’d just sit down in front of me and touch them and touch them and touch them, then lick, then kiss my nipples — like the world had shrunk down to just this little girl and my big boobs. But sometimes, like that time in the CAN of the El Rio, God was in her Heaven, because Shelly’s hands went to my shirt, frantically unbuttoned it and pushed it aside like a curtain to a damned hot show.

I like sports bras, and so does Shelly. She smiled wickedly up at me, eyes shining like polished dimes, as she stroked me through the stretchy stuff. Damned right my nipples were hard, and my cunt was getting wet. No duh. I remember I learned forward, like I was begging for another of those kisses — which I was — but she just kept up that cat and cream smile and flipped up my bra, flopping out my tits.

Right then I realized that I was in the CAN of the El Rio. I mean, I knew that, but with Shelly’s tongue down my throat I was lucky I could remember my last name, let alone where the fuck I was. It wasn’t like we were just necking in my truck or sneaking in a wild quickie on a hillside. This was a sleazy dive that once a year just happened to hang up a queer flag, and we were necking like horny teenagers in the fucking bathroom.

But tell that to Shelly. I don’t know what they barkeep put in that Daniel’s, but I should buy stock in the company; at least, that’s what I thought at the time. I wanted to haul her out of there and off to a quiet, dark street in my truck, but all she did was playfully bat my hands away from where I was trying to pull my bra back down and then she latched her sweet lips onto my right nipple.

Damn, that did it. I knew some girls who look on their tits like they belong to someone else, but not me. I’ve got one of those nipple-to-cunt hook-ups: get someone who really knows how to put lips to tit and I’m all off in a fuzzy place just letting the comes wash over me.

She knew how to kiss, and she sure as hell knew how to suck tit. Lips, tongue, the whole damned thing right there on my nipple. My legs went all limp and my eyes just plain faded out. Back against the door, I felt myself lose motor control. Shelly smiled around my fat nipple, gave me an evil look and kept right on sucking. I’m not what you’d call a fast come, but BAM, right then and there I came the fastest I’d ever. I remember it because this little part of my mind thought for a second that I might be having a stroke or something. Then I realized that it was a damned religious experience, and I found myself saying so without realizing it: “Oh, God!”

She quickly shushed me, putting her little hand over my mouth. “Unless you want to have someone else in here,” she added in a low, husky voice.

I definitely didn’t want that, and shook my head at least once or twice. We kissed, but this time her hands were on my nipple tugging at me and twisting, just enough, back and forth. Her hot breath mixed with mine, bringing me up to a boiling point. In addition to my tit, her other hand was working my crotch, kneading my cunt through the thick denim of my pants. I started to pant down her throat; it was that good. I knew it was that good because I wasn’t doing anything by myself. My body was on its own.

Somehow I realized that her hand had left my nipple. God knows how long it was until I figured that out, but there you go. I opened my eyes, feeling them pop against the sweat that was almost gluing them shut.

What did I see? Oh, man, it was so tasty. I think about it a lot, even today.

The first thing I thought was that the damned CAN in the El Rio was really a pit: piss-yellow sink (I tried really had not to think about that), bizarre Jackson Pollack floor (something else not to think about), stalls covered with billions of years of filthy graffiti.

The second was that Shelly had never looked so pretty. There she was, standing close, eyes half-shut, one hand on my right tit, one hand up between her legs. That wild gypsy skirt was bunched all up around her waist, and her little hand was working at her hot little quim.

For a long time I just stared down at her. Her mouth was also half open, her hot breath warming my face. Distantly, I could hear the little slick, slick, slick sounds of her fingers flickering between her legs, over her clit.

I’ve regretted a lot of crap over the years: all those times when I fucked up, made the bad call. That day I did one that I’ve kicked myself over ever since, but at least I did one thing right: I kissed her.

Shelly and her kisses. They were always good, but that time in the CAN of the El Rio in Paris, Texas they were the best they’d ever been. Her hand on my tit, her hand in her cunt, it was the best it could ever be.

We didn’t really come together, but we were damned close. Her panting breaths in my mouth pushed me right over the edge, and as I shook and felt my legs get all tense — then loose — I could feel her do the same in my arms.

Holding each up, we panted some more until the blood eased a little bit out of cunts and a bit more into our brains. Sniffling and weak as all get-out, we put ourselves together. It felt like hours, but probably had been only a few minutes.

She kissed me then, leaned forward and planted one right on my cheek. I said I wasn’t good at hiding things, and she proved it: “That’s the best good-bye I can give.”

#

Outside the red-haired guy just smiled at us as we limped and stumbled back to our rickety little table. We smiled, for a while, then I had to struggle off to the can (sex always makes me have to piss). Ever try to take a leak in a place you desperately try not to touch? Try it some time if you really want a challenge.

Like I said, that was the end of it. It might not have been the best call– especially not after that time in the bathroom of that pit– but that’s the way it was.

The worst thing, though, is that after we broke up I didn’t have sex for over two years.

And Shelly? Shelly married the bartender.

Please visit M. Christian’s website at Fequently Felt