Bitches Be Crazy

Bitches Be Crazy by Chandra Mayor

“Bitches be crazy,” the butch says, shaking
her head. Her grey tie is tight around her neck
like her own fingers pressing greedily into
the windpipe of the Hot Nurse just before
she comes. This butch is made of Lego,
her shoulders stiff, neatly snapped
into place each morning. She is always
rehearsing for the longed-for camera,
the good dyke porn. She imagines
she is turning her head to attend to the tight
body of the hired redhead, the one who is rumoured
to smell like candy; her whole body will pivot
at the waist. Her nails trimmed, her small
fingers pointed and melded together like GI Joe
in the basement, her arm will piston at the shoulder.
She is a Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robot with a secret
lever in the small of her back. In her head she counts:
1, 2, 3, 4
1, 2, 3, 4
She reminds herself: “I am fucking the shit out
of her,” and the sound of her own voice excites
her, makes her hard.

Now she leans forward on the couch to take
another hit off the bong, slippery smoke and thick
glass hard against her lips. In her mind she is sorting
and stroking her dildos: the dolphin, the rabbit,
the buzzing nest of bullets and batteries. The thick
black cock with corded veins for the Yoga Teacher
when she bends her hard over the ledge of bed.
The world is best when bisected, sorted
into two tidy bins with fitted lids:
The girls who want her cock.
The bros who do not.

There are other creatures who come
to her in nightmares, women who fuck
themselves gorgeously with their own messy
hands. They open their mouths wide and grunt.
There are no pretty, breathy moans.
They are laughing at her. They are slick
and glistening wetly with sweat like enormous
slugs, sucking and smacking, rubbing each
other urgently. In the nightmare, this butch
is a tiny red speck of ant, her tie is a taut leash
and her insect fingers scrabble uselessly at the knot.
All their cunts are cavernous maws, undulating,
inescapable, and slap down onto her face. She can’t
breathe, she panics and she cries. She is drowning
in salt and mucus, the muscles of her sleeping thighs
clamped together until they ache and seize.

Back on the couch in her apartment with her bros,
she knows she is not asleep now. She knows
it is the smoke that has blurred her precise
edges, smudged the clean gaze of the camera,
accelerated her pulse until it races. It sounds
like a hockey card smacking the spinning spokes
of a BMX. She thinks of the girl with long hair and
tattoos, the one who left a red handprint
on the butch’s smooth egg face when she slapped
her at the bar. The butch took a picture of her
red check with her phone, shows it now
to everyone in the room. “I’m taking out
a protective order against that crazy bitch,”
she says. “I don’t know what she’ll do next.
What if she burns down my apartment?
What if she’s waiting for me tonight, outside
my door, with a fucking bat?” The friends
nod; they are stoned and they don’t really care.
The butch feels her cheeks flush, and she is angry.
The sting, the speed, the surety of that flat-handed
slap; the dark room of witnesses, whispering; the girl
laughing. Someone has to teach her a lesson, tie
her burning hands behind her back, seal up all
her duplicitous mouths. The butch smiles, tucks
her shirt a little tighter under her belt.
1, 2, 3, 4
1, 2, 3, 4