It’s a classic cowhide purse for a middle-class lady, brown and un-remarkable, with a simple gold-plated clasp. It took a leather worker’s thick, curved needle and some fishing tackle to sew the razor blades along the inside, like a circle of jagged teeth above the open straight razor at the bottom.

 

Flip the purse open. The upscale odor of sour tanning is all you’ll notice before the icy slice of the razor’s edge makes you howl. You yank out a bloody hand—learn to keep your hands to yourself.

 

Her own dark hand is nimble. Its bones can collapse past the defense zone of razor blade teeth to the big roll of bills perched next to the straight razor. They thread twenties from the purse like magic tricks, smoothing them into a limp curve over the knuckle of a big forefinger, letting them float onto the bar counter to the tinkle of her silver bracelets.

 

In this dim light, she seems to be a big-boned lady over six feet tall, with a provincial hairdo tapering at the earlobes, dressed in a tidy silk shift appropriate for the office, and a single strand of real pearls. It’s only the span of many silver bracelets on the big wrist that seems slightly odd, and the fact that she’s sitting in this dank, dark hole.

 

The hole is of the disappearing center-city sort, where mostly male prostitutes or transgenders sell sex to older men to get the drugs they want. Homosexual behavior pays the bills, even though the atmosphere seems hyper-hetero. Queens snap at sulky homeboys wearing gold jewelry or the bead necklaces of gangs, while lustful, mostly drunken businessmen still carrying attaché cases ogle one or other from the shadows. But she is imperiously beyond the darkness, supposedly immune to all the excitement over strong contrasts of genders, miles above the seedy envy of money, in her very perfect world of idealistic romantic interests.

 

He is slouched by her side in a concave curve, his wiry legs dangling from the bar stool; his full, curvaceous mouth welded to the bone structure of a lean face. Dead almond eyes under gleaming licorice strips of hair yanked back wolfman style. His sixteen-year-old chin sports just enough hair for a scraggly goatee. For those with unarmed purses, this is the archetypal WANTED bulletin. The nerves that control the face muscles are already dead to scrutiny, the eyes apathetic to the camera flash at Central Booking. From the dark drapery of the oversized clothing poke big, adolescent bones. In this dim light, within the black walls, from certain angles, the clothes make the body look puffed for challenge, similar to a threatened cat raising its fur like porcupine quills to look bigger and fiercer. The clothes could also be hiding a weapon, lost to potential friskers in the folds, or a second set of clothes worn underneath by someone with no fixed place to live.

 

The teeth are jagged. The upper row, anyway. They’re rotting, chipped by accidents or brawls. But then the lower row… they’re all gold. Sleeves of gold molded perfectly over the contours of his real teeth. All nine in front. So that his real teeth are probably rotting underneath.

 

The gold teeth flash their predatory grins at the big, pleasant-looking Black lady with the new purse from which money keeps appearing to pay for alcohol. They are drinking Amaretto. There is a feminist bravado in her warm brown eyes under the copper eye shadow. Her voice is sibilant but a little schoolmarmish. With soft, curt remarks and dismissive gestures, she makes known what kind of woman she is. In charge of her own life. Undaunted by the fact that he is half her age and three-quarters her height. Never paying for sex, by the way. But maybe she’ll cook a feast for him later, when they get hungry. He’ll be hungry real soon, he mentions, scanning the bar with blank eyes and poking a thumb into a pocket of his oversized jeans, while the fingers splay impudently across the top of his thigh toward the crotch.

 

Two days ago, she recovered from that fever. A fever she would never mention here. She only comes to this hole to avoid the censure of a world that faults her for being too tall. That’s all there is to it. So why give wind of the elaborate procedures that were carried out two days ago?

 

Two days ago, she turned her kitchen into a sterile laboratory. With the help of her girlfriends, she rinsed the sink and fixtures with boiling water and scrubbed the countertops with bleach. A friend who works as a plastic surgeon’s assistant was visiting. She and the friend laid out the sterilized instruments, the plastic bladders of silicone, and the syringes of estrogen on gauze-padded sheets, set out alcohol and cotton for prepping. A long line of customers snaked out of her kitchen into the hallway of her building. Some had self-anesthetized with medications ranging from crack to Percodan. The first of many wanted loose silicone added to her breasts, which had already been created two years ago using silicone bags. But this procedure was cheaper. Others wanted prominent cheeks or chin extensions to make the outline of their faces more heart- shaped. Then there were those who wanted enormous buttocks or hips to appear even more curvaceous. She herself only wanted more shapely thighs as her legs tend to look too gangly and male.

 

The injection of the silicone causes enormous bruises. In some places, layers of plasma surface and smart like a bee sting. She had to sleep with a pillow under her knees because even the slightest pressure in the swollen area of the injections was excruciating.

 

But the worst was the fever. It spiked up and down hourly for two whole days. It burned her eyes in their sockets as if they had been replaced by acetylene torches. Her tongue felt heavy and sandy against her dried-up palate. Slowly, the fever melted the fear into a hot trickling. The trickle became a sun-warmed brook. She began to float on this lightly rippling brook. Her body was weightless. The rivulets became cool, flowing through her limbs and swirling around her splayed fingers. The waves were like the satiny skin of an adolescent against which one slides one’s hand. There’d be no harsh sex to contact at the end of the long stretch of rippled skin, only this endless sliding. This was the clean love for which she was in search, and now she had found it, but as she had expected, she could not in the face of it move her body. No one but no one need know about this fever. How could they ever understand?

 

The flat, oval face of the romantic interest is watching the new smelling purse with veiled curiosity. The long, dark hand with tinkling bracelets slides inside the purse again and comes out with another bill earned from the silicone sessions. The boy’s eyes gleam with interest. She asks him to go to the store and get both of them packs of cigarettes and mints. He slides off the bar stool to attention. His hand curves over the fresh bill. Her prideful eyes sparkle with Amaretto as she watches him shuffle toward the door. She loves the stiff, thrusting walk, the ill-intentioned slouch, the pants hanging from his skinny hips. She imagines, mistakenly, that all eyes are fixed on the line of sight linking him to her proprietary gaze.

 

What she doesn’t know is hidden under the drapery, crisscrossing the lean, nearly hairless chest and severing his nipple, fanning out fromhis ribcage almost all the way to his navel: a vast constellation of welted scars, still tender to the touch after almost a year. And inside his brain is the muffled memory of a searing incident: black sky in a dark park. An overheated crack pipe quickly stashed in his pocket, so hot that it burns its way to the flesh of his lean thigh. He’s trying to hide the smoking crack pipe from the olive eves of a rageful dealer to whom he owes money, as a quick, dull stampede of feet approach from behind. In the park with the broken street lamps, he feels the pressure of metal against his muscles as he is backed against a wire fence. It bulges behind him like a hammock while his feet scud uselessly forward.

 

Then there are the endless jabs and slicings—like children poking curiously with sticks at a big dead animal—the points sinking in and popping out, edges of blades making ribbons of the T-shirt and cross-hatching the skin of the chest, and a close-up of crusted knuckles around a knife handle, while another big calloused hand encircles his neck and presses the back of it against the fence.

 

He tries to drop his jaw low enough to bite one of the fingers. But the grip tightens, the slicing keeps happening until he feels himself slump down slow-motion. Liquid is seeping out in a pissing feeling, a warm weakness, like a brook trickling in the sun. His limbs flow deliciously away like a hand sliding down the satiny skin of the most beautiful girl’s body. And there’ll be no recriminations at the end of the long stretch of rippled skin, only this endless slide.

 

He stops at the entrance to the store, feeling the bill against the pads of his palm. A magnetic pull is coming from the corner where little magic vials are sold. But the black bitch’s purse constantly giving birth to those twenties has a stronger shimmer.

 

He pokes the bill through the scratched slot of the plastic anti-theft shield, and two packs of Newport and a roil of mints spill back, followed by clattering coins and some folded, grimy bills.

 

Back where the purse is, the hole has swollen full of people. Boisterous and impatient. They push by him without so much as a “sorry.” They really should watch themselves as somebody could end up in the toilets with a skull split open. The tall black bitch who claims to be a real woman doesn’t bother telling him to keep the change when he holds out the coins and crumpled bills with the mints and Newports. And she seems to want to sit here all night. If she is a woman, there’ll be a slippery pussy into which to plunge, but at the very least, tits to suck and the padding of an ass against his thighs. There’ll be an apartment somewhere, a bed and a shower, and maybe a full refrigerator.

 

Then there’s that purse.

 

Much later, it is nestled between their hips on the back seat of a taxi, upon which her long-boned body is folded into thirds, her pressed together knees improbably high. The not very serious fantasy of reaching across her lap to open the door and shoving her out of the taxi as the light changes flashes through his mind. Then all of it is erased by the murky row after row of faceless buildings, his body moving through night…

 

Entering her apartment like they now are, you might remark that her sober middle-class image was being compromised. It’s not just the many feminine icons replacing genuine accoutrements of a woman’s life, as in the bathroom. It’s the shabby compromises of the city outskirts poking through the brave attempts at upper-class ascendancy: that laminated breakfront imitating a European antique or the knock-off country flower print on cheap curtains and couch covers; the sound system with its many luminous readouts showing itself off in a corner.

 

He is wild about that sound system. There are CDs piled everywhere. The latest ones. He rifles through them, letting out gasps when he discovers some of his favorites of the moment. Her mascaraed eyes glue themselves with sullen suspicion to his hand movements. He feels the look but pretends not to, rakishly poking the first CD into the system and then striding toward her. As he grinds against her to the music, her eyes peer vigilantly from above, on the lookout for the hand that might reach for a weapon. She is caressing him through the baggy clothes with the covert agenda of frisking. But the hard curves of his body and the flat stomach remind her of those delicious, dizzy slidings. His calloused hands clasp her flesh, and the lush padding of his lips suffocates her. Her tongue begins to swirl against the gold teeth, and the musty smell of his body makes her feel weak with intimacy.

 

He, for his part, is quickly surveying her body, spanning different parts of the skeleton with his caresses to make a diagnosis. Is it a real woman? The buttocks feel too sculpted, but the arms snaking over his back have the creamy, yielding texture of femininity. The tops of the thighs feel pliant and meaty.

 

He decides not to worry about it. When he pushes her backward, she obeys, collapsing onto the big matching-print bedspread. Looking down, you’d see her long, twisting figure cradling his smaller clenched body, which is lunging. Then her pantyhosed legs rise, opening along either side of his narrow hips, as the skirt hem inches up her thighs. The legs hover in the air, then snake around the narrow waist, expertly edging the pants and undershorts down to reveal smooth, hard buttocks dim- pled at the teardrop tops.

 

What a fool she is. Not to have had him remove all his clothes before her body got trapped underneath his. Not to have had him put the clothes away from the bed. Out of the pants he still wears, the weapon will pop. Or from his socks. He’ll hold the point of the blade to her neck while she is pinned beneath him and leave her bleeding like a pig.

 

Just let him try it. At the least sign, she’ll lunge upward with superhuman strength. He’ll go flying off her and hit the wall. She’ll pounce on him and hold him by the hair while her fist smashes cartilage and gold-sleeved teeth pop from the blood-gushing mouth. And what will she do with all that gold? Should she have it melted down? Make that plain heart-shaped locket she’d been thinking of getting?

 

The pants are already off and kicked to the foot of the bed. The room is a cavern of thickened breath. Hands are reaching behind her to unzip her dress.

 

He won’t find out. Ever.

 

Her passion will overrule all his explorings. As he lies naked on his back, his body will be claimed by her hungry mouth. She’s already flipped him. He’s stretched his arms over his head. His legs dangle submissively from the edge of the bed. It’s safer this way, she tells him. You won’t get the rest of me until I know you better. The teasing tongue and slippery mouth glide in cool pleasure over his thighs and crotch, tracing their way through the thicket of his groin to—

 

No! He grasps both of her ears to keep her head from moving.

 

Not up there.

 

A feeling of insult gushes through her. Molten offense. He knows. 

 

Isn’t she good enough? Why’s she got to keep her mouth below the waist?

 

He just… doesn’t want to take his shirt off.

 

Teasingly, she pinches the hem of the T-shirt and begins to lift it. His hand locks over hers. His mouth compresses.

 

She swings her feet to the floor and cups her chin in her hands. The unzipped dress slips from one shoulder.

 

Take your shirt off, she orders sulkily.

 

No!

 

Her hand snakes to his thigh and slides onto his crotch, begins its rhythmic stroking. Harder and harder his penis gets, deeper and more rhythmic his breathing…

 

Take your shirt off. 

 

No. Never.

 

But this time, something tells her not to withdraw. Her hand lingers at his thigh, caressing it reassuringly. The story of the scars unfolds. The scars were an unzipping. His skin shredded like ripped clothes, letting life out through the seams. An enormous loss. And even when the blood had been replaced and the wounds had closed, he never got everything back. All of it went down a size.

 

In fact, he doesn’t take his shirt off. He wears it even when he’s alone, quickly shedding it to wash and then putting one on again. The sight and the memory of vulnerability are too much for him…

 

A barely audible hum deep in her throat. Her warm, brown eyes flooded with a look of compassion. How unconcerned with scars she is, how eager to lightly caress his whole body with her hands and mouth. How she dreams about and prays for that moment of trust. How this chance for him to get used to his new body couldn’t be better. With the help of someone who really likes it…

 

The shirt slowly peeling upward… Past the flat nub of the navel and the bloom of almost invisible hairs leading toward the sculpted chest, under the wide net of crosshatched scars.

 

They hurt a little, he says.

 

Breath held. Her hand barely grazing the skin, contacting the net of welts.

 

Both of them breathing. Stooping, she runs her moist lips over the pattern, stops to tease the intact nipple, the soothing hum still vibrating in her throat. Over and over, she lathes the chest with an adoring tongue, the sides of the rib cage, the burn scar at the hip.

But this time, something tells her not to withdraw. Her hand lingers at his thigh, caressing it reassuringly. The story of the scars unfolds. The scars were an unzipping. His skin shredded like ripped clothes, letting life out through the seams. An enormous loss. And even when the blood had been replaced and the wounds had closed, he never got everything back. All of it went down a size.

 

The moistened chest feels healed, he thinks. She’s reforming it for him with her mouth. Slowly but surely his breath comes easier and the muscles relax. The suction on his body sends waves of soft pleasure coursing; his hands encircle her neck and pull her toward his crotch.

Afterward, her head is cradled on his chest. Their guards drop. She drifts into sleep with the feeling of being in the natural world. A small sigh of ease from his gently parted lips. I bet I’m going to be here for a while, he’s thinking as he loses consciousness, his chest naked for the first time since…

The middle of the night. A scarred angel in her arms. Against her cheek in the darkness, the edges of the welts. Waves of tenderness are enveloping her. She is thinking, tomorrow… after she has cooked break- fast for him… he will discover that she has given him some money. Not for sex. But because she knows he has no cash.

The best idea would be to get a fifty from the roll of bills now and slip it into the pocket of his pants lying at the foot of the bed…

No embarrassment. She can put the purse somewhere safe and not have to think about it.

She slips out of bed and feels her way to the corner of the couch where the purse is lying, pausing a moment to think of what has been lulled into sleep on the bed. Her eyes are full of astonished tears of gratitude, reverence for her rescued child. She feels woozy with tenderness as she sticks her hand into her purse too carelessly.

It nicks her finger.

She puts the purse in the bottom dresser drawer and tiptoes to the bathroom for a bandage. Then she sinks beside the unveiled beloved, who has shifted his back to her so she can’t see his open eyes, which are staring at the bottom dresser drawer.

Until his lids fall closed.

And the orbs begin to twitch.

And he dreams yet again of shrieks slashing the black air.

 

 

From Benderson’s forthcoming book “Urban Gothic,” set to be released by ITNA later this year.