The night was thick, hot, and humid, the air filled with the menace of an impending thunderstorm as Zanny walked hurriedly down the dark and empty street. She knew she must be crazy to be out in this neighborhood at this time of night, dressed as she was, and yet this was the third night in a row that she’d been compelled by some unknown need to dress in her best clothes, her sexiest underthings, sheer stockings, her black pumps, and take a cab down to the center of this forlorn industrial wasteland where she would walk alone through these dangerous and deserted streets, wandering slowly, the sharp rap of her heels loud in the darkness. Eventually she would reach a boulevard or busy street where she would find another cab that would take her back up north to her flat, taking her safely away from this dismal and forlorn neighborhood as she gazed out the window filled with a strange mixture of relief and gnawing frustration.
She was young, beautiful and desirable. Many people had told her so but she would have known it anyway. It was a fact that she never tired of noticing, and sometimes, walking past an unsuspected mirror, her own image surprised her anew, making her marvel at what a fine and handsome woman she’d become, long legged, full-breasted, with intelligent eyes and a sensual mouth. It was no wonder that men flocked to her and that she could afford to pick and choose. Men had become second nature to her, and while she enjoyed the attention she provoked, she had learned how to play the game long ago, how to use what she had to get what she wanted.
But lately that hadn’t been enough. She’d grown bored with the people she knew, bored with relationships, with sex. It had all become so predictable, so unsatisfying. She did not want the marriage proposals she was offered. She did not want the tedium of romance, the tender, considerate sex, the avowals of love. She did not want the roses; she wanted something more direct, more physical. She wanted the thorns.
She stopped on a street corner illuminated by a dim yellow streetlight that barely penetrated the humid air, leaving dark pools of shadow in the empty doorways and the rubbish in the street. Far away she could hear the hot whine of tires on asphalt, and somewhere far in the distance there was the sound of an ambulance or police car. A forlorn traffic light a block down changed from red to green, the color reflected in the dark windows of the shuttered and abandoned shops, but there were no cars to notice it. Far in the distance, out in the west, she saw a slash of heat lightening. A cat yowled in heat.
Beneath her coat she wore a blue satin blouse, a bit too tight for everyday wear, and beneath that a good skirt. She had on her best underthings, sheer, sexy, and, despite the sticky heat, a garter belt and gray stockings. She stopped now, feeling herself in her clothes, the weight of her own breasts, the thick hunger in her vagina. When she turned her attention to her own body she realized that she felt terribly vulnerable and terribly sexy. It was a scary, edgy feeling she’d learned to savor. It made her feel peculiarly alive.
She had never even bothered to create a conscious rationale for what she was doing. Since she had accidentally gotten off the subway at the wrong stop several weeks ago, she found that something about stalking these streets in the dark, dressed for sex, aroused her in a way that nothing else did these days. She didn’t examine the feelings, didn’t wonder at them. The dim corner of her mind that knew what brought her down here was not consulted; she simply didn’t want to know. She only knew that after her walk she would go home terribly stimulated and masturbate with the most obscene and degrading scenes going through her mind, and that she would have explosive orgasms, almost frightening in their intensity, like none she had ever experienced with a lover, that left her drained and exhausted and able to sleep at last.
But then the hunger would be back again the next day. And she would be drawn back to these same, mean streets with their sense of immanent danger..
She knew that even now her fear had made her moist between her legs. Whenever she passed a particularly dark doorway or an alley, a place almost designed for rape, she would feel a delicious tingle in her stomach as she thought what if…
Suddenly she heard a low laugh from directly ahead of her. A man’s laugh. Another, and she froze. She cast a nervous glance down the side street, but it was too dark to see anything for sure and she was afraid to stare. The shadows cut the street into bands of gray and deep black, and as she turned her head back she distinctly saw the glow of a cigarette in the darkness, only a few doors down and on the same side of the street.
A thrill of real fear suddenly shot through her, knotting her stomach. In all her other walks she had never come across another soul down here, and she was shocked to discover that she was at a total loss now as to what she should do. She couldn’t run; that was out of the question. The thing to do was to look in control, look as if she knew what she was doing, and walk away. But she was paralyzed standing there, standing on the corner waiting for the light to change.
Probably it’s nothing, she thought. It could be anyone out for a stroll. It might even be the police on patrol. She turned and walked away from the men, trying to make as little noise as she could.
The came up behind her quietly. Too quietly to be anything else but trouble. The hairs on the back of her neck began to prickle and she willed herself not to turn around, not to look.
“Hey, baby!” she heard one of them say. There was a surliness, a challenge in the voice and she knew he was speaking to her. Terror surged through her body and made her want to cry out. She dared not turn around. Her adrenaline made the whole scene crystal clear: the shadows, the broken glass in the street, the trash in the gutter. She heard one of them laugh, not ten feet behind her. It wasn’t a pleasant sound.
Suddenly one of them grabbed at her purse and pulled, spinning her around. Oh God, maybe they just want my purse! she thought in the instant before she saw them and a scream froze in her throat. They were two men, tall, lean, and both wearing ski masks. She had the impression of cruelly amused eyes, eyes which quickly swept her up and down. Stupidly, she heard herself say “No!”
The men didn’t run. The one who held her purse looked at her and beneath the mask she could see a slow smile spread on his face. She realized that he was black.
“Hey Doc,” he said, “What do you make of this?”
The other man stepped over. He had been hunched over, ready to run, and now he straightened to his full height and looked down at her. He was bigger than the black guy, and looked extremely powerful.
He snorted in contempt. “You must be lost, Lady.” he said. “You sure ain’t from around here.”
He took the purse from the black man and said, “Now I suggest you get the fuck out of here before you get yourself killed.”
But before she could turn and run, he changed his mind and grabbed her arm.. She could feel his enormous strength.
“Wait a minute, baby.” he said, stepping close.
The black man said to him. “You thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?”
The white guy laughed. “Fuckin’-ay” he said. “Party time, huh Z?”
“Why not, man?”
“Yeah. Why the fuck not?”
Before she could react the black man, with surprising quickness was behind her, and grabbed both her wrists, twisting her arms down behind her back. The white guy stood close to her and looked her up and down.
