Dog Day Afternoon by Patrick Mann Read Free Book Online Page B

way you are.”
    “Uh-uh. No way. Like this it’s unreal, love.”
    “Not to me,” Littlejoe insisted doggedly. “I like you this way. I don’t like you with parts missing.”
    “But a new part put in.”
    “That’s bullshit,” Joe corrected her. “I talked to guys who know. They say it’s a lousy substitute. I know what the real thing is, remember. Even on Tina. What they’ll cut for you is no way like the real thing, no muscles, no juices to make it nice and slick, no nerve endings. You won’t feel. It’ll be like I’m fucking somebody else.”
    “And you,” she snapped waspishly, “won’t have this all-day sucker, will you?” She sneered at him, her nostrils widening fearsomely. “It’s everything for you, isn’t it, bitch? You want that fat slut out in Queens at your beck and call. Roll over, have kids, drop dead, on command like an insane doggie. And you want me to take any way it strikes you, upside down, up the rear, in the mouth. It’s, like, unreal, a circus act. They warned me about you,” she added darkly.
    Neither of them spoke for a long moment. “What’s that?”
    “You heard me,” Lana retorted. “They warned me you were no good. A real waster. They warned me you’d fuck anything that’d stand still for it. Oh, baby, were they right or were they right.”
    “Who warned you?”
    “Ev-ry-body,” Lana drawled scornfully. “Ab-so-lutely every mother on the street told me what an insane cunt you were, not even a proper gay, AC-DC, swings any way he can get it with anything that he can tie down and ram it into. What you are, you’re a nymphomaniac.”
    Joe laughed softly. “Is that what I am, huh?”
    “You got, like, an unreal itch,” Lana told him. “Sometimes I can’t believe what you do. Other times, of course, it’s so easy to figure.”
    “No kidding.”
    “So easy,” she taunted him. “You’re an open book with that baby tool of yours. Talk about Tiny Alice. I had a thirteen-year-old once that had three times as much as you, and he didn’t stop growing for another five years.”
    “Cradle-snatching, huh?”
    “People say to me, ‘Lana,’ they say, ‘it’s, like, unreal how that Littlejoe carries on,’ they say, and I say, ‘You wouldn’t believe what I know about him,’ and they say, ‘Like what?’ and I say nothing. I protect your insane reputation. Don’t ask me why.”
    “Because you love me, that’s why.”
    “Love? With that kind of love, who needs suicide? You’ll murder me with love.” She had started to cry again. “You won’t even pay for the one thing I need to become a real person.”
    “Maybe I will.”
    The tears stopped. “Yes? When?”
    “One of these days.”
    “The same promises.” Lana shook her head, and the long flaxen wig slid uneasily over one eyebrow. “I don’t know why I believe them, why I keep sticking with you, why I protect your good name, even now. Let the whole world know what kind of unreal creep you are, why should I care? I got everything about you figured out, and there isn’t even one good reason to keep it to myself.”
    “What’s my secret?”
    “Never mind. We both know what it is.”
    “No, tell me,” he coaxed.
    “I’ve said it before. It’s not exactly the hottest news in town.” She rolled on her back and stared at the ceiling. Passing cars in the street below set up strange shiftings of light and shadow with their moving headlamps. “It’s that insane minicock of yours. Anybody who calls you Littlejoe has probably heard how small it is. He’s probably even seen it, the way you flaunt that tiny thing.”
    “I never heard anybody complain about it,” Joe said.
    “It’s because you’re so touchy. Nobody wants to run afoul of you. You’re small, but everybody knows you’re, like, insane strong.”
    “You better believe it.”
    “Then if you’re really strong,” she said, “be a man. Get me what I need. Don’t think of it as a favor to me. Think of it as an investment.