Chances Are Omnibus (Gender Swap Fiction) Read online

  There’s a line in front of the club that backs up almost to the Thai restaurant. I see the two fat girls I helped earlier, along with the one from my first day. They’re pretty hard to miss. I won’t look as bad as them no matter how red my eyes are and how mussed my hair is.

  The obvious problem is that I’m not old enough to be allowed in the club. If the bouncer asks for my ID, I’m screwed. As the line shuffles forward, I press myself close to a group of girls and hope to get let in with them.

  I don’t need to worry, as a much better opportunity presents itself. Ahead of me, one of the fat girls roars, “What are you talking about? We’re not getting out of line!”

  “You’re not on the list,” the bouncer says.

  “Fuck your list! Come on girls,” says the fat girl in the red dress I sold to her. She tries to push her way past the bouncer, but he doesn’t allow that. He snatches her by one doughy arm to yank her back. “Let me go, you perv!”

  The other two fat girls rush to their leader’s aid. They batter at the bouncer with their purses and fists. Reinforcements come from inside the club to wrestle the fat girls away from the front door.

  I take advantage of the commotion to slip past the fat girls and bouncers, into the club. It’s almost as dark as outside, with only some pink neon lights around the ceiling. The techno music is so loud and full of so much bass that my ears ring. How people can stand places like this, I don’t know.

  I stagger through a crowd of mostly women and wonder how I’ll find Blades in a place so dark and crowded. I manage to push my way through to the bar, behind which is a woman who looks like an older version of Maddy before she dyed her hair black. “Get you something, kid?” the bartender shouts over the noise.

  “Just a club soda,” I shout back. Now is not the time for alcohol. I need to be clearheaded to make this work. When the bartender gives me a dirty look, I say, “I’m the designated driver!”

  After the bartender saunters off to get my drink, I turn around to survey the club. Most of the people on the dance floor are women, with just a few men. From what the fat girls said, it is ladies night. I focus my attention on the men and try to see if any of them are Blades. Most of them are too tall or the wrong shade of brown.

  I’m about to give up and slink out of the club when I see him. He’s not on the dance floor. Of course not, he’s too important for that. He’s in the section cordoned off with a velvet rope, probably a VIP section. He’s already got a couple of blond floozies with him, girls a hundred times hotter than me.

  No, I can’t give up now. Not after I came this far. Not after I stole the money out of Grace’s cash register. I won’t let this bastard slip away now. He’ll pay for what he did to me.

  The bartender slams my drink down behind me on the counter. Before she can leave I turn and ask, “Where’s the bathroom?”

  ***

  In one of the photo albums Debbie got in the divorce, there’s a picture of Maddy at eight and Jenny at six, both of them with their faces caked in makeup they’d stolen from Tess. My first attempt to apply makeup goes about as smoothly, with my cheeks bright pink, my eyelids smeared purple, and my teeth stained red with lipstick. It’s certainly not the kind of look that will get me into the VIP section.

  I should have practiced this instead of making out with my daughter’s girlfriend. The girl at the sink next to me snickers and asks, “You learn that from a blind hooker?”

  I bolt into the nearest empty stall. I try not to cry; I don’t want to add runny mascara to the mess on my face. I sit there for a while to take deep breaths and force myself to relax. This is such a stupid idea, I tell myself. Even if I get to Blades, what will I do? I’m just a dumb little girl who can’t do her own makeup, walk in heels, or control her raging hormones. Blades will probably gut me like a fish the second I try anything.

  Then Fate or whatever you believe in lays another opportunity at my feet. The bathroom door bangs open. A moment later, I see a blond woman at the mirror through the crack in the stall door. I can’t be positive, but she looks like one of the floozies with Blades, at least until she takes off the blond wig and sets it on the counter.

  I decide to go in for a closer look. I open the door and then take the sink next to her. She wears a silver dress; it looks like the ones on Bobby Blades’s floozies. I run some water to wash some of the crap off my face while she touches up her makeup, the wig between us.

  I give her a minute before I ask as casually as possible, “Hey, weren’t you in the VIP area with some guy?”

  The floozy turns to look at me. Without the wig her hair is as short and dark as Maddy’s. Her lip curls in a sneer. “You get lost from the junior high prom?”

  “This? It’s just a gag. My girlfriends and I are having a bachelorette party. We thought it’d be funny to put on way too much makeup.”

  “Yeah, it’s funny all right,” the floozy says. She turns back to her mirror.

  “Maybe you could help me fix it?” I suggest.

  “Maybe you should go home and ask your mommy,” she says.

  That’s the wrong answer. I reach into my purse and retrieve the Worm’s switchblade. I hold it to her throat. “Here I thought we could be friends. Get in the stall.”

  “What? Are you joking?”

  “Do I look like I’m joking?” My makeup might belie this, so I cut her on the right arm. Not enough to do any serious damage, just enough to draw some blood. Before she can scream for help, I put a hand over her mouth. “Get in the fucking stall.”

  She lets me push her back into the stall. “Strip,” I tell her.

  “What?”

  “Just do it.” There’s nothing but anger inside me as I watch this floozy strip. Not at all like when I kissed Grace. Maybe I don’t love all women, just Grace. I slip out of my dress and toss it to her so she can cover up a little. Her dress is big on me, but not enough to be noticeable.

  I don’t have anything to use to tie her up, but she’s got something even better in her purse: a pair of handcuffs. I force her to put her hands behind her back and then slap the cuffs around her wrists; for the briefest of moments I feel like a cop again. Then I unroll some toilet paper and use a wad of it as a makeshift gag. That should keep her out of my way for a few minutes.

  I leave her locked in the stall and then snatch the blond wig. It takes a couple of minutes to wrestle my hair beneath the thing. Even when I do, I still don’t look much like the floozy in the stall. I’ll just have to hope that the darkness and booze will cloud Blades’s mind enough for me to pass as his girl.

  Now it’s time for some payback.

  Chapter 34

  The floozy had on silver stilettos, which I didn’t bother to take; I know from experience how bad I am with those. Maybe Blades will notice, but he’d be sure to notice me fall on my face. I take a deep breath before I open the bathroom door. Here we go, I tell myself. I can do this.

  I make it as far as the bar before the bartender calls out to me. I freeze and wonder if she recognizes me. She might call for one of the bouncers to throw me out, or call the cops to have me arrested. I’m about to run when she says, “Your drinks.”

  I turn and see a tray with three martini glasses on it. They aren’t traditional martinis; they’re green instead of clear. “Oh, right,” I say. “Silly me.”

  I take the drink from off the bar, careful not to look the bartender in the eye, so she doesn’t recognize my face. The next challenge is to get across the dance floor without someone spilling the drinks. I have to awkwardly sidestep a couple of elbows aimed at my head; the drinks slosh in their glasses, but don’t spill. At one point the people are so tightly packed that I can’t breathe. I dish out a couple of elbows to clear a little space so I can dart through the opening.

  Once on the other side, it’s easy enough to get to the VIP area. There’s a bouncer there, but I must look enough like the floozy that he lifts the rope to let me by. I let out a sigh of relief; I’ve passed the first test.

>   Blades is still at the same table, the other floozy draped over him like a scarf. I have to will myself the last few steps, to sit down beside him. He turns and his eyes narrow at me. I figure the jig is up, but he says, “What took so long?”

  I do my best Valley Girl impression as I squeak, “I was just powdering my nose.”

  “We were going dry here,” he says and then chugs one of the drinks. What he’s not low on at the moment is cocaine. He’s got three fat lines spread out on the table. One for each of us, I suppose. But I’m wrong. All three are for him.

  “Aren’t you ever going to share with us?” the other girl whines.

  “Maybe later. If you’re good,” he says with a leer.

  She pouts for a moment, until Blades grabs her breast. She squeals and then gives him a playful slap. “You’re such a bad boy,” she says.

  It goes against everything I believe in to do what I do next. I stick my hand down his shirt and rub his chest. “What about me?” I say. I use the same whine as the other girl.

  “I ain’t gonna forget about you, baby,” he says. It takes every ounce of my being not to punch him when he squeezes my left breast. He squeezes it a second time and then frowns. “Damn, girl, you get a breast reduction in the can?”

  “No, don’t be silly,” I say. I give him a playful slap. To distract him, I give him a sloppy kiss on the mouth. It’s a lot different than the kiss Grace and I shared. My stomach threatens to come up through my throat as I stick my tongue into Blades’s mouth. The only thing that keeps me going is the thought I’ll soon make this son of a bitch pay for what he did to me.

  I’d like to get out of here right away, but of course I can’t. For an hour Blades gropes the two of us between lines of coke. When he gets bored of that, he has us grope each other while he watches. The other girl is drunk enough that she feels me up without hesitation. Since I haven’t touched a drop of alcohol all night, it’s a lot more of a challenge for me. I close my eyes and imagine Grace instead. That only makes me feel worse.

  Just about when I’m ready to go crazy from the mixture of rage, embarrassment, and guilt, Blades puts an arm around both of us. “Come on, let’s get out of here!” he says.

  A bouncer clears a path through the dance floor for us. As we leave, I look back to the bathroom and wonder what happened to the floozy I left in there. She’s probably still locked up in the stall. Someone will find her eventually. I hope nothing too bad happens to her, at least nothing worse than what’s going to happen to Bobby Blades.

  ***

  A limo waits outside for us, a white stretch one with a fully-stocked bar. The other girl makes full use of that while I pretend to drink a couple of shots. I toss the booze out the window when no one can see.

  While Blades knocks back a few as well, he instructs us to fondle each other. Now that we’re in the relative privacy of the limo, he tells us to take off our clothes too. I try to remind myself as I take off the stolen silver dress that whatever he makes us do can’t be more invasive than what Dr. Palmer’s already done.

  Before long I’m naked and I rub up against another naked, sweaty girl, all to please someone I despise. There’s no excitement or pleasure in it, only revulsion. I would give anything for Jake to show up and put a couple of bullets in Blades. Then we could go home and Tess could tuck me into bed and I could forget this entire nightmare.

  But since I didn’t tell anyone what I’m doing, no one will save me except myself. I see another lucky break for myself in that my partner’s eyes have started to get heavy. After all that booze—and who knows what before I showed up—she’s about to pass out. I give her a little help with that as I force a couple more drinks down her throat.

  She finally collapses with a sigh and curls up on the floor like a dog. I giggle stupidly and then turn to Blades. “Guess she couldn’t handle her liquor, huh?”

  “Looks like we have a winner,” Blades says. He reaches out to pinch my bare ass. “Come on over here, baby.”

  “Sure thing. What do you want to play now?”

  He has me sit on his lap. While he strokes the blond wig, he says, “You know what I want now, don’t you?” If I’m still unclear about this, I see his eyes look down. He wants me to suck his dick. The son of a bitch.

  He gives me a little push so I fall off his lap, between his legs. “Well, go on. Ain’t going to wait all night.”

  There’s not enough room in the car to kick him like I did with the Worm. I don’t think my teeth are strong enough to bite through his member either, though that would serve the bastard right. So while I lean my head in towards his crotch, I grope around for my purse and the knife I took off the Worm.

  My hope is Blades will be too distracted to notice me as I reach for the purse. He isn’t. Before I can pull the bag over to me, he grabs at my head and yanks the wig off. “What the fuck?” he says. Then he grabs my real hair and wrenches my head back. “You want this bag, huh? Let’s see what you got in there.”

  I flail at him, but for a short guy he’s got a lot of muscle, enough to keep me at bay while he empties out the purse. The makeup, compact, and tampons all fall out, along with my identification. Followed by the knife with a thump.

  He grabs the knife before I can try to reach it. “That what you want, little bitch?” He pushes the button and the blade springs out of it. He clucks his tongue. “You want to see a real knife, I can show you a real knife.”

  I hope this isn’t an analogy for his dick. Turns out he means it literally. He reaches into a jacket pocket to pull out a twelve-inch knife, one I saw before at Lennox Pharmaceuticals. He holds it close to my face to give me a good look at it. “You like to play with knives, little bitch? Then let’s play.”

  I do the only thing a woman in my position can do: I scream. One of my hands manages to slap the intercom button as I do. The driver slams on the brakes. Before Blades can slice my throat open, the knife slips from his hands.

  He slams my head into the door and then lets me drop to the floor. My head spins. While he lunges for his knife, I see the Worm’s knife on the seat, against the door, just inches from my hand. I snatch the knife, the blade already out thanks to Blades. I don’t aim for any specific part of him, just whatever happens to be closest.

  The knife digs into his right thigh. I drag it along while he screams. He writhes in pain, for the moment any thoughts of his knife forgotten. I yank the knife free and then find his.

  The screen between the halves of the limo comes down. The driver finally works up the courage to ask, “What’s going on back there?”

  “Just a little foreplay,” I say. “Drop us somewhere private and then take the girl home.”

  Blades’s screams are enough motivation for the driver to do as I order. He stops the limo in the parking lot of an Italian restaurant closed for the night. To make sure Blades can’t escape, I slash his left calf with the knife, which prompts him to scream again. Then I kick him out of the limo. While he tries to crawl away, I grab my clothes from the car and gather up the contents of my purse.

  Then I jump out and the moment the door is shut, the limo speeds away. Now we’re alone.

  ***

  I let him crawl while I slip back into the dress. He can’t get too far with a sliced calf and thigh. For a moment I almost feel bad to watch him struggle. Then I remind myself what he took from me and the kind of things he had me doing all night and I run over to kick him in the face.

  He spits up some blood and then rolls onto his back to stare up at me. “What the fuck are you? A cop?”

  “Do I look like a cop?” I bend down to look him in the eye. “Just think of me as your conscience.”

  “What do you want?”

  “We’ll get to that. First I want you to tell me something: how many girls have you done that to? How many have you dragged into your limo and forced to give you a blow job?”

  “I don’t know!”

  “Too many to count? That’s what I figured.” I stab him in the right s
ide, just above his pelvis. He screams again. Though I’d like to, I don’t feel any pleasure about his screams.

  “Whatever you want, I’ll get it for you: money, drugs, you name it.”

  I look him in the eye again. “I want Artie Luther dead. That’s what I want. You’re going to give him to me or you’re going to end up in little pieces scattered all over this parking lot for the rats to snack on.”

  Half-naked, cut, and bleeding, he starts to cry like a woman. “I don’t want to die!” he shrieks. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! Don’t kill me!”

  “I don’t give a shit if you’re sorry. All I care about is Artie Luther. Where can I find him?”

  “I don’t know!”

  I stab him in the other side. He’s dying the proverbial death of a thousand cuts here in the Italian restaurant parking lot. I wait for his screams to subside and then ask again. “You have to know where he is. You’re one of his top dogs. I know it. You were there at Lennox Pharmaceuticals when he knocked over the place. You and his other little buddies, the ones he trusts the most.”

  “Lennox? What’s that got to do with anything?”

  “You remember a woman named Gita Nath? Dr. Gita Nath? She had her wrists slit. I bet you helped her with that, didn’t you?”

  “So what? She a friend of yours or something?”

  Tired of games, I stab him in the gut. It’ll take him a long time to die from a wound like that. “Now that we’ve got that settled, tell me where Lex is and maybe I’ll go call an ambulance for you.”

  “I don’t know where he is now!” Blades says and braces for another stab.

  “But you know where he’s going to be?” I ask.

  “There’s a big deal going down in two days. On the waterfront.”

  “Where?”

  “An old warehouse on Pier 35.”