The Queen of Tears Read Online Free Page A

Mama-san, was an F.O.B., and she should’ve been used to having F.O.B.’s around, but she still felt kind of weird around them. She didn’t know what it was, but male F.O.B.’s made her feel especially uncomfortable. Their politeness seemed sinister to her. “So where do you normally go then?”
    “Korean bars.”
    Go figure, she thought. Most of the bars in the area were Korean-owned, and a few of them catered especially to Korean customers. Young F.O.B. Korean girls worked at these places as hostesses. They spoke the language, rubbed legs, and sometimes rubbed more for the right amount. Crystal was no hostess, and she was definitely no whore. The “new” Crystal, of which there had been several manifestations (the one who fucked for love, the one who fucked rich guys, the one who fucked girls, the one who fucked for free, or for herself, and now, the one who decided not to fuck anymore), would not rub anything but herself from now on. Two months of celibacy would not be wasted.
    Crystal gently took off Donny’s shades, looked into his eyes and smiled. He quickly looked away, and went straight for his cigarettes. She saw enough to know that he was wasted on more than alcohol. Maybe acid, maybe coke. She knew; she was an addict trying to kick the habit. Now she really didn’t want anything to do with this guy. When she’d been into sex, she had been into white guys anyway. Less hangups, bigger dicks. Besides, she remembered when this Japanese guy was bouncing at Mirage a few years back. He went ape-shit one night and held Mama-san and a couple of cops at gunpoint. Asians. Sometimes violently unpredictable. She stood up. He smoked like a fag—another minus. “Well, thanks for the drink, hon. I gotta get back to the dressing room. Maybe some other time?”
    As she stood up, he stood up, too. Like in the movies. She loved movies. What kind of freak was this? Didn’t he know he was at a strip bar? She’d smiled and quickly walked away.
    But he’d persisted and persevered, Crystal remembered, as she applied her metallic-lavender lipstick. He spent hundreds on her. After a while, the weird F.O.B. vibe faded. Now they were engaged and living together. They both quit drugs, and while she still stripped, he was out scheming on how he could open his own Korean restaurant.
    She felt calm for the first time in her life, like her life was going somewhere. After living the lifestyle of a stripper for ten years, she was finally about to escape the Lotus-guys she faintly remembered reading about during one of her many failed attempts to attend a full semester of community college. Since she’d been eighteen, she’d been dancing. But the dance was about to end. Donny assured her that his mother would dig them out of any hole. “The guilt,” he’d told her.
    Crystal heard the apartment door open. She held the mirror up so that she could see Donny walk into the bedroom. He stepped in and sighed. “I can’t believe that lady.”
    Crystal stood up. She smiled. He had that foreign accent well-covered, but there was still a twang. She could tell his tongue desperately wanted to replace his “L’s” with rolling “R’s.” But he was better at covering it up than his sister. Crystal picked up a tiny white slip-on dress from the bed and put in on. The brown of her areolas showed through the thin white material, and her nipples protruded. She ran her long metallic-lavender fingernails through her hair, smiled, and asked Donny, “So what do you think?”
    “I hope you’re not fuckin’ serious. My mother would have a stroke,” he said without looking directly at her.
    Crystal walked up to him and rubbed her breasts against his shoulder. She found his accent kind of cute. To her it revealed a certain vulnerability. “Oh, c’mon honey. She’ll love it.”
    As she nibbled on his ear, then tugged on his gold hoop earring with her teeth, Donny pulled away. “Get serious. Dinner’s in a couple of hours. We gotta get there