Messalina: Devourer of Men

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Here’s where I say a big THANK YOU to those people who put up with me during the process of writing this book:

Anne Drake (aka “The Goddess of All Things Computer”), Laura Parker Castoro for her mentoring and friendship; Melanie Eversley, Judi McCoy and Leslie Brown for their suggestions early on in the process; Cindy Passmore Malone, Krissy Guajardo, Suzy Koehler McMillan, J.C., and Ben Eden for reading the first
complete
draft, and finally, Rachel McIntyre for her editing and putting it all together.

Thanks to y’all—it’s finally finished!

To Jim

“Yum”

Chapter One

“DARK PLACES”

            My name is Evadne Cavell and I am a sex goddess.

At least that’s what I keep telling myself.

For me, sex is a compulsion. Some want chocolate, I want sex, preferably anonymous sex, and I attempt to control myself by having rules. I can look and I can touch, but no names, no body fluids and no penetration. As a result, it’s been over three years since I’ve had proper, hard-banging, toe-curling sex. That’s when my fever comes because my sexual frustration is at a point where anything I see gets me aroused, but I act as if the word FRIGID is wrapped around my waist like a chastity belt.

As if I need one. I’ve been on enough blind dates, and placed and answered enough personal ads to realize when I’m being used as practice until something better comes along.

But let me say something else: There is a direct link between Denver’s historic movie palaces and my sex life. For example, at the age of seventeen I saw
The Rocky Horror Picture Show
at The Ogden Theater as a “virgin” and was sacrificed on the altar of the Sweet Transvestite.

This led to my first act of defiance against my parents when I dyed my hair red, got tattooed, and every Friday for a year, I played the role of Columbia for the movie audience. I acted shamelessly with those people and lost a few friends when I began dating some of the white boys. Not only was I playing against type, I got a reputation as a black girl “playing in the snow.”

I saw it as expanding my tastes.

Now, I’m thirty-five. The Ogden no longer shows movies, but my love for films still provides crucial access to my sexual nature.

Today, on this summer afternoon in early June, I sit in the second-floor lobby of The DeLuxe Theater waiting for the next showing of an animation festival. As usual, part of me is nervous at the thought of getting caught but this just makes another part of me wet with anticipation. I drum my fingers on the tabletop and look at my watch.

Twenty minutes to go.

I’m dressed in an outfit as liberating as it is confining that would scandalize anyone who knew me. Wearing a white linen shell with a red cashmere sweater and black ankle-strap shoes, I resemble one of those Parisian Apache dancers. My black cotton pencil-skirt is so tight and thin I suspect that I’ll be leaving a damp spot on the red vinyl seat.

Thanks to my African heritage, I have no need for spray-painted tans or silicon implants. And although I give off signals as eye candy saying
Eat me
, I’m a size 20 in a size zero world with my full, rounded hips, the sharp dips at my waist and the paunch of my belly.

My size isn’t the only reason why it’s been three years since my last fuck. Family and work have made things difficult too. If I could live away from them both, I would be a poor, but happy, slut having sex whenever and with whomever I liked. But I can’t turn my back on my responsibilities just to get laid. That’s not how my parents raised me.

I’m the youngest child of the Cavell family, with its close ties in artistic and civic circles. I’m also an assistant professor at Bellingham College and one of the few African-American instructors there hoping for tenure. My behavior doesn’t mesh with the College’s increasingly conservative image. Any hint of “impropriety,” to quote my boss, would not be welcomed.

It’s nobody’s business anyway. I’m just trying to get by living the life of a shy exhibitionist. I may dress plainly for the sake of my job and to cover my biker-babe-Betty Boop tattoo, but that’s during the week.

I can look at anybody and see them naked—see them having sex, writhing and grunting and coming. Most of the time, the person I’m watching is the last person I’d want to see naked, but sometimes, I’ll be spying on some man so intently that I get moist between my legs or cramp like I’ve come really hard. It’s gotten to the point where I have to wear sunglasses so people can’t see me observing them. I keep my expression bland and neutral. I am passion under ice. Except, once a week, on my day off, when I allow myself to thaw out.

I shudder despite myself. Enticing men in a theater for a bit of slap and tickle is not the way to conduct a happy, healthy sex life. But there’s something thrilling about sitting in a dark room with other people all facing the same direction with our eyes, supposedly, focused on the screen. The darkness allows fingers to fumble with buttons, zippers, and other obstacles that prevent flesh-on-flesh contact. Darkness allows nimble digits to circle around a man’s swollen pride or spread apart the vertical lips of a woman’s secret. Suddenly, the room brightens because of a scene change and, depending on level of nerve, fingers recoil to their proper, prayer-clasped position on your lap or they probe deeper, squeeze harder . . . get wetter. I never wear panties to the theater. A quick rub adds more spice to an Italian film, or makes a French movie saucier.

I’ve been coming to the matinee at The DeLuxe for just over three years, and ever since I’ve started these anonymous encounters, there has been an increase in the number of single men coming to the same showing. Don’t they have jobs? Where do they come from? Is it the warm weather, because in the winter, I can never get a hook up. It’s a bit disconcerting because there’s hardly a place less exotic to release my pent up sexual pressure, but at least it’s an escape from mainstream movie dreck.

The DeLuxe is the sole, surviving business in a failed strip mall. Converted from a warehouse supermarket, it houses three screens, a split-level coffee shop, and a café. The décor is faux movie palace but
true
movie palaces, like The Mayan in Denver, have nothing to worry about. For a suburban theater, it’s survived. But for how long? I’m too chicken to go to the porno arcade across town and terrified about running into someone I know here. What would I do if it happened at the porno theater? But I need some sense of closeness to let me know I’m still alive, if only from deep inside, and The DeLuxe makes me feel a little less cheap.

The following scenario happens almost every week with little variation—like clockwork.

Some man reads my signals in the lobby and suspects I’m looking for action, which is true, but on my terms. He follows me inside the theater and sits beside me despite the vast number of empty seats.

Mr. X will then put his arm around the back of my seat. I ignore him. His hand will rest on my knee. I keep my eyes looking forward. His fingers will push aside the material of my skirt and start exploring. Within twenty minutes of the movie starting, he knows I’m not going to resist. He tries to kiss me but I don’t let him. Sometimes he’ll whisper, asking if he can take me to a motel—or worse—he tries to mount me in my seat. I’ll shake my head and push him away. So he ends up finger-fucking me. I’ll feel an orgasm on the rise but it’s over before it starts because that’s when I realize how pathetic I am for doing this. I’ve become skilled at faking orgasms just to get things over with. But I’ll give the guy a hand job, just to be polite, and he always comes.

When the film ends, I exit as quickly as possible. I have no idea what the man looks like, whether he’s young or old, married or single and I don’t care. I never look him in the face.

This is my problem and I need to stop before I find myself raped or my disguise as an upstanding citizen is blown.

The latter nearly happened a few weeks ago just before the movie started. My “partner” for the day had just sat down beside me when someone called my name.

“Dr. Cavell?”

Ice water filled my veins and I looked up to see the smiling face of a young woman with red hair, wire-rimmed glasses, and wearing a patchwork halter top that matched her patchwork jeans.

“I thought that was you! It’s me, Meghan Cross. I was in your freshman seminar last semester.”

“Ah, yes, Meghan. How are you?”

“I’m fine. I didn’t know you came to the matinees here.” She looked around the theater. “Great, isn’t it?”
            “Yes it is.” I glanced at the man beside me and for the first time, I got a real look of my companion with his three-hair comb over, short-sleeved shirt and polyester, never-crease pants. He looked at us with wide, scared eyes. Considering I was dressed in a lightweight summer dress and a bra that boosted my assets, I’m surprised people didn’t mistake us for a hooker with her john. Meghan caught my glance and laughed.

“Oh! I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to disturb you. I’d better go anyway,” she indicated over her shoulder, “my friends are waiting for me down front.”

“Well, it was nice seeing you again, Meghan.”

“You, too, Dr. Cavell. See you on campus.”

I cringed when she said my name again and watched her trot down the aisle; the patches on the back pockets of her threadbare jeans emphasized her youthful, firm bottom.

The whole incident rattled me so much that, instead of it taking twenty minutes for the man to get his hands on me, it took thirty. It was also the day I started to think more seriously about the effects of my little compulsions. I resolved to stop. Who needs a man when you have hands and batteries? When I get the urge, I could satisfy myself.

And it worked. For two weeks, it worked.