King Cotton

"I don't think we should be doing this."

"Hush, c'mon it'll be fine."

"But what if a guard comes? This is stupid."

"It's Halloween; all the drunk craziness is over by the dorms. That's where campus security will be."

"Pam, I don't know - can't we just be ghosts or something?"

"And cut up whose sheets? Yours?" She flashed a smile and curled a braid from her face to behind her ear. The smile was genuine, but the gesture was for effect. She knew Gail found her kinky hair fascinating, "Besides, scaredy cat, it's not like either of us have clean sheets at the moment." Gail blushed, grinning sheepishly. It was true. Halloween night was saturday night. They had spent that day in bed fooling around. First in Pamela's room beneath posters of poets and tendrils of incense until her roommate stumbled in, hungover from some friday bash. After some awkwardness, mostly on Gail's part, they moved location to Gail's room. Gail's roommate lived locally and was going home early for the holiday to hand out candy ("You two want to come?" She was nice enough to invite them. The unintended innuendo made them giggle, "No, we have plans for tonight."), they spent the rest of the afternoon into evening tangled up together.

Pam and Gail were in love, and for both of them it was new unchartered love. Moments together crackled with novelty and lust. Gail's room was different from Pam's earthy space. Pam kept her grandmother's Bible and played quirky dub reggae; Gail surrounded herself with pictures of family, pets, a calendar, a clock. Gail played sports. She was white and her blushes showed first on the cheeks of her face as a ruddy stain spreading to her ears and nose. She blushed in orgasm; her legs were strong and used to running in cleats. Pamela marvelled at the way her skin held the marks of her teeth so easily. In contrast, Pamela was a brown, brown, dusky brown. Both of them glowed in different ways, and each could not get enough of the other.

Pamela was a theater major. Going backstage was her idea. She could get them into the prop room and they would be able to find something cool for the party later that night. The party was with her friends, other "theater people". Gail's friends were her teammates. It was still something unspoken in Gail's life, this new lesbian development and so, as a couple, they spent their time socially in Pamela's circle and in Pamela's world. Much more comfortable. Neither of them made an issue out of it. It was simply easier that way.

Along the way across campus, they passed others in costume, heading up the hill to the student apartments. That was where the greeks houses, and already you could peer up the far slope to see the lights and porch grills burning. Beer.

"Besides, I have keys. It's not like we're breaking in or anything," Pam squeezed her hand and kissed her cheek.

They got in easily. And backstage was a treasure trove of grimy dusty goodness. There was nothing you would want to wear in broad daylight, but for a few night hours it was more than acceptable. The area was cluttered with awfully painted backdrops and scaffolding, clothesracks, rope, sacks, broken down lights. Everything made horrendous noise, that echoed across the scuffed, bare stage. The seats were gloomy and dark. Anybody could've been sitting out there.

Gail walked from X to X marked out in tape on the floor. Pamela dragged out a trunk, sending some mannequins toppling over in a crash.

"What're these?" Scrawled in sharpie were notes like: OTH HERE and IAGO MONO. Pamela worked open the latch and tossed the lid back, revealing boas and odd globs of fabric. She began to sort through them quickly, glancing up at Gail. Gail was carefully following a track of tape, torn into a dotted line, wobbling on it like a tightrope walker.

"Yeah, those are for rehersal. To show what marks to hit during the scene. Where to go and stand." She held up a tiara and a bamboo cane. "So what do you want? Fairy princess or Charlie Chaplin?"

Gail pointed her toe and reared into formal stance before spinning out a graceful pirouette, arms rising. Her sneakers squeaked in complaint and she laughed, losing her poise. "Nice," said Pamela, "I didn't know you could do that."

"For three years. Hated it." She took the plastic tiara and tossed it back into the trunk, "No more tutus for me."

"Ballet is hot. Can you do a split?"

"You think everything is hot."

"Just you, Charlie." She hooked the bamboo cane behind her lover, pulling her close with both hands on it.

Gail licked her nose, "Chuck."

"Yes, sir." They kissed intimately.

There actually was a ridiculously oversized Charlie Brown shirt from the old musical production, but it was oddly stained and neither of them wanted to touch it. Along with the cane however, was a plastic bowler and an ill-fitting jacket with tattered coattails.

"I've got some black sweatpants back in my room, and a white button-up shirt. It could work. What about you?" Pamela had nothing so far. Nothing she liked anyway. She seemed more interested in completing Gail's Charlie Chaplin outfit.

"Here sit at the mirror," further backstage on a stool before the bright lights. Gail looked at her garishly lit reflection. Pamela smiled at her in the glass and tugged at her hair. They kissed again, each peaking to the side see how it looked framed in lights.

The couple in the mirror looked back and grinned. Pamela pulled open a drawer and rustled through. Clattering about inside, she pulled out a jar of greasepaint. It was old, almost empty, forgotten.

"I'm not putting that on my face."

"You need the mustache to complete the look. You're just a girl in a hat otherwise."

Gail flashed her eyelashes, "Then I'll be that one from Chicago."

"You don't know what you're talking about; that's Cabaret. Hold still."

She straddled her lap and looked at her face intently, movng her jaw this way and that as she dabbed on the mark, trying to make sure it was centered and balanced. Gail squirmed, wiggling her nose. She kept trying to see over Pam's shoulder to catch her reflection.

"This comes off, right?"

"No. Never. Now please stop moving, you're making me mess up."

"We still need to go back to the dorm, let's just do this there, it's cold here."

"I can see that much from the way your nipples are standing out. And I'll suck on them later... now stop moving." She furrowed her brow and frowned. It wasn't easy, actually. Just a little Hitler swash of a mustache, something simple. But it was angled wrong, too much here, then too much there. She couldn't capture it, and of course the more she tried to correct it, the more ungainly it became.

"What are you doing? That's too big. It's not supposed to be that big right?"

"Just close your eyes. Relax, I'm fixing it." Gail sulked, shutting her eyes. She looped her arms around Pamela's waist and rubbed her thumbs up and down the small of her back idly. The fingers probed about her mouth delicately. Gail could smell the greasepaint, felt it smudging on her skin. She could tell it wasn't going to look right. This was stupid. She was about to complain again when Pamela leaned in to kiss her. Her thick lips soft and famliar. But it was different. Gail kept her eyes closed and returned it, seeking her tongue. Pam resisted making it deeper. Gail felt the hat easing onto her head and still she kissed her. She felt the fingers prodding at her lip begin to move outwards, losing the focus from before and starting to stroke around her mouth. The waxy mark was cool on her skin and she kept her eyes closed. Those fingers rubbed over her cheeks, covering up the blush, the pale open pores clogging with greasepaint. They kissed and she held her eyes shut and it spread from her mouth around her face like a stain, coaxed and guided by her lover's fingers.

Pamela smoothed away the troubled, furrowed brow, dabbing her fingers occasionally back into the little pot for more. She covered Gail's face entirely, except for around the eyes and a wavering thin line about her mouth. It was pitch perfect.

"Don't move." She whispered into her ear, brushing her cheek. Gail felt her raise from her lap and heard her scuffling about, searching for something. Through her closed eyelids the lights from the bare bulbs around the mirror appeared as a surrounding dark dim red glow. It would only taking opening her eyes to see what she looked like. But she didn't. She felt the fingers working on her skin and she knew the paths they took. The urge to see herself in blackface was almost overwhelming, but she could not will her eyes to open. Her mouth was dry.

Pamela returned with a wad of something soft and downy. She placed it into Gail's lap. It was like fluff, like unravelled cotton balls, pulled apart and mashed back together. Where did she get this from? More junk from the backstage make-up cache? She toyed her fingers into it and smiled, feeling herself getting turned on, this game something unexpected. The mass in her lap tangled about her fingers, catching here and there on bits of dried twigs, brittle husks. It seemed to grow, sprawling over her thighs in matted clumps. Fingers touched her mouth, opening her lips and pushing her teeth apart. The cotton was pushed in, crowding her tongue. It tasted bitter, and she turned away at first, but then hands wound into her hair and held her still, more fingers in her mouth, packing in more cotton, crowding her tongue. She couldn't swallow. Other hands took her wrists, cold metal closed around them. Another ring around her neck. Her arms were pulled forward and her shirt cut down the spine, baring her back. She tried to spit out the cotton. More hands on her ankles, opening her legs. A hand in her pants, stuffing the cotton into her crotch, into her ass, rough fingers prodding and pushing more of it everywhere, rubbing into her raw. She felt the cool smear of greasepaint on her back. Goosebumps rippled up in a wave only to be covered over, palms spreading the mark onto her. Her shirt was torn off to her shoulders, her arms held apart like some cruel tug-of-war. She strained, moaning into the cotton, even as it began to work itself down her throat, back up into her sinuses, breathing it in and drowing, feeling it tamping down into her belly. She gags as though to vomit and only more is forced in, her jaws aching now. She is pulled to her feet, hands everywhere, the bright lights around the mirror flickering beyond her sealed eyelids. Hands pulling at her clothes, fondling her endlessly, the smell of greasepaint and sweat, Pamela's sex. There is a sharp whistle of motion through the air and she feels the whip before she hears it. Pain blooms across her shoulders, she cries out and twists with it, held tightly before the lash. Another crack and another streak along her side. Then others, flaying her through. Warmth running down, stinging, acrid and smelling like blood. She is brutally whipped. She sobs through it. Her tears and sweat and snot soak the wad in her mouth. Her saliva slings off her jaw. She is flayed red and laid bare unto the bone of her spine.