Coach House Books, Toronto
copyright © Tamara Faith Berger, 2013
Lie With Me was originally published in 2001 by Gutter Press
The Way of the Whore was originally published in Canada in 2004 by Gutter Press and in the U.S. as A Woman Alone at Night in 2007 by Soft Skull Press
Published with the generous assistance of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council. Coach House Books also acknowledges the support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit.
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
LIBRARY AND ARCHIVES CANADA CATALOGUING IN PUBLICATION
Berger, Tamara Faith
Little Cat [electronic resource] / Tamara Faith Berger. -- Rev. 2nd ed.
Reissue of revised novels, Lie with me and The way of the whore, in one book.
Electronic monograph in EPUB format.
Issued also in print format.
ISBN 978-1-77056-339-1
I. Berger, Tamara Faith Lie with me. II. Berger, Tamara Faith The way of the whore. III. Title.
PS8553.E6743L58 2013——C813’6——C2013-900221-9
Little Cat is available as an print book: ISBN 978-1-55245-271-4.
LIE WITH ME
ONE
One time, Jupiter, happy to be idle,
Swept the cosmic mystery aside
And draining another goblet of ambrosia
Teased Juno, who drowsed in bliss beside him:
‘This love of male and female’s a strange business.
Fifty-fifty investment in the madness,
Yet she ends up with nine-tenths of the pleasure.’
Juno’s answer was: ‘A man might think so.
It needs more than a mushroom in your cup
To wake a wisdom that can fathom which
Enjoys the deeper pleasure, man or woman.
It needs the solid knowledge of a soul
Who having lived and loved in woman’s body
Has also lived and loved in the body of man.’
– Ovid, The Metamorphoses
But if I told you everything you’d probably think I was a slut and I can’t deal with that so I’m not going to tell you absolutely everything. I mean, I can’t fully deal with myself if I call myself a slut. It’s just that I know there’s all these problems with a girl like me having sex so much. I think if a guy loves sex it comes from the pleasure he feels in his cock – which is why he’s never called a slut. But because it’s easier for a girl to get disconnected from all the feelings she has down there, she can get lost trying to know herself. Do you see what I’m saying? Being a slut kind of implies getting lost, going astray.
I think the trouble, too, is that a slut understands that there is not as much pleasure having sex as she wants there to be. Pleasure roams around her body like a runaway. I am speaking from experience on this. I used to hop from guy to guy, always looking to feel more down there, and I got so disappointed. I felt like I was missing something, as if my body were lacking the basest enjoyment that was supposed to be there. I’d seen how pleasure touched a cock and made a guy look like he was never coming back. Pleasure hurled right through him! But my pleasure never felt done – even when I came, there were parts stuck inside. Pleasure clung to my stomach, it swelled up my throat.
See, I used to be the kind of girl who’d walk down the street and practically call out fuck me fuck me fuck me to strangers. I’d get dressed really sexy and go out to clubs to pick up. In the secret pit of myself, I felt like a lunatic loose on the street, legs in the air, eyes popping wide. I wanted men to grab me and fuck me right there.
There was this time when I went out by myself and I wasn’t wearing any underwear. I straddled the bar stool, toes swinging over the ground. My pussy lips were pressing on the leather. My whole body was balanced like this, legs wide, back arched, clit stampeding like a bull. Then this man got near to me and started checking me out sideways. I saw his hands grip the bar. I knew right away that this was the person who was going to fuck me.
‘Can I buy you a drink?’ the guy asked.
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Anything.’
A grin started widening all over my face. It was like it was mocking my part down below. I thought I was going to start laughing out loud. I couldn’t put words to what was going on, but my stomach felt like it was going to erupt under my skirt, my body kept getting these warm continuous blows. I thought every person in that bar could see that coming off me. I mean, how much I wanted. How I could’ve fucked all of them from the way I felt. It’s always the same, I thought, getting sex like this is always the same. It starts from this feeling of flagrancy, which expands until it flattens, until I forget where I live and I forget what I like, until I don’t even recognize my face in the morning.
The man at the bar started laughing with me, as if he knew that I was holding myself back. Then he stole my hand and pressed it on his dick. We both straightened our backs, like we were bracing ourselves. All my flesh pulled toward his flesh. I gulped my drink and banged for more.
‘More!’ I shouted. More! More! More!
I started rubbing that guy with my fist up and down under the bar. His cock was a hose, all coiled up and bulging. I wanted to hold it forever. But my cunt was breathing like a small animal, begging me to do something.
‘Let’s go!’ I pleaded.
The man looked at my eyes, as if he were confused by my need, then he opened his mouth to say something. I looked above his head. I didn’t want to see how he was going to say yes. I didn’t want to see if his mouth was trembling. The guy took my hand from his dick and held it tight. I slid off the bar stool. My cunt was so wet. Both my shoes hit the ground.
I followed him out the back door of the club to the parking lot. I felt air rising under my skirt. The darkness was drying all the stuff on my thighs. The man led me to the end of the lot by a fence. He leaned up against it and pulled down his zipper. I wanted to cling to his body like wind. But when I saw the
