Crrrrrack!

Zora smiled, smoky. Predatory. Her thoughts flowed down familiar paths. I love the sound of a clean break. The way the balls float across the felt. It’s like I just happened to be standin’ around, lookin’ in the right direction when the Big Bang happened.

Tag, Julio, Hunter and Biggo — all the guys from facilities maintenance — were watching from a round table with a ringside view. The first three knew better than to play for money when Zora had a cue stick in her hand, and they’d been kind enough to warn Biggo off before he learned the hard way. Which is to say, the expensive way.

More fun to bet with the guys in the bar – a new place they hadn’t tried before. There were always some hotshots who didn’t think a chick could be a serious threat, and Zora made sure her appearance played to all the stereotypes. Tonight she’d gone for a silky black cami top and thin, electric blue high-rise leggings that showed every delectable curve. She’d even released her long blond mane from its usual thick plait, allowing it to flow down her back like a river of gold.

Julio watched the break with a practiced eye and smiled. “Ooooh, the sweet smell of munnnnay!”

“BFD, she got a lucky break,” sneered the guy at the bar in the wife-beater with the red curly hair and the ‘stache he could have stolen from the Seventies. “You’ll still be buying the drinks when it’s all over.”

“See, that’s what you don’t get, child.” Hunter set down his beer and gave a slow, easy smile. “It’s already over.”

Zora enjoyed all the back-and-forth, and normally she’d talk a little smack, too. Part of the game. But Biggo wasn’t the only new crew; a scrawny Greek kid who was going by “Thea” was her partner for the game. And damn, she took some hand-holding.

Zora pocketed the three and six balls on the break. Eyeing the table, she said, “Four ball, side pocket.” She bent down, purposely giving her opponents an unobstructed view of her booty, knowing that the leggings lifted and separated her cheeks in ways guaranteed to draw the male eye. While they were distracted, she took a shot with the kind of precision a trained sniper might admire.

The poor four ball never had a chance.

Gotta drag it out, now. Give Julio a chance to work the bar. “Two ball, corner.” She sent the cue ball on its way with a bit of backspin. When it connected with the blue ball, the latter spun off toward the side pocket, but kissed the ten just enough to be deflected.

She hid a smile as the loudmouth at the bar taunted her colleagues. “Well sheee-it! — Thought you said she could shoot!”

Her opposite number was a tall, intense-looking guy with gymrat muscles. “Fred,” he’d called himself. He made the two easy shots Zora had left him, and pocketed the twelve with a more impressive shot before missing his attempt to put the fifteen in the far corner.

“So, ahhh . . . .” Thea looked at Zora, radiating nervousness.

The kid’s spooked by her own shadow! But Zora was patient, showing her how to hold the cue stick, how to look for a shot, and then line it up.

Thea bent, mimicking Zora’s earlier motion without the eye-popping display. She was wearing a loose skirt — not the most practical choice — and a blouse that seemed better suited to the office job she’d just been hired for than an evening playing pool in a bar.

“Hon, you gotta call your shot now. Say which ball you're trying to hit, and which pocket you want it to go in.”

“Oh! Uhh, so it’s that yellow one, right?”

“One ball,” Zora corrected.

“And, I’m supposed to get it into that pocket in the corner?”

“Yup.”

“Okay!” Thea’s tentative hit on the cue ball didn’t have quite the force it needed to do the job, though she did manage to hit the one ball and send it part way down the table. Thea gave Zora an apologetic look. “Sorry!”

“No worries, kid, we got this,” Zora said, giving her a wink. Problem is, Thea’s so bad the marks might think she’s trying to hide her real skills!

A stocky guy with a red nose and a trade-mark red hat followed Theo. He put the ten ball down before missing his second shot.

Zora pretended to assess the board. What she was really doing was trying to figure out whether they could afford to drop another round. Several of the guys from the bar, feeling their oats and the shift in the game’s momentum, had come over to give Julio grief and push him to put his money where his mouth was. The action was picking up, and they wouldn’t just be playing for beer money.

“C’mon, sweet cheeks! It ain’t gonna get any better, you starin’ at it all night!” That was the wife beater dude from the bar.

Zora turned slowly and made a point of looking at him from boots to head lice. “Kinda like you, I guess.” She turned back to the game as the bar erupted in cheers and jeers. Fuck it. We can throw another. She took a shot and missed.

Fred missed his shot, too. Zora counted that as unfortunate, since it deflated the optimism of the bar crowd. A couple of them started talking about politics rather than pool. Well, damn. I was hoping we could soak ‘em a bit more. But you take what you can get.

She coached her partner through her next shot, but the girl was distracted by the bar discussion. “Gotta focus now, Thea,” she soothed. “Look at the table, and imagine lines running from the cue ball through each of the remaining solids, and ending in a pocket. Straight line, more’r less easy shot.”

Thea looked her way, then glanced nervously at the bar before swallowing and focusing on the table. “Red ball, and the pocket in the middle over there?”

“Seven ball, side pocket,” Zora said encouragingly. “Looks good, Hon. Go for it.”

Thea’s shot sent the cue ball spinning into the side pocket instead. “Oh . . . damn! I’m sorry, Zora, I’m just–”

“New at it.” Zora cut her off before she got wound up. “Everybody starts that way.”

Travis – the guy who followed Thea – missed his shot, too. That got even more of the clowns at the bar talking politics.

Zora saw the fear in Thea’s eyes as some of that talk turned to trans-baiting. Ah, shit. Don’t it just figure. She looked over at Julio, who gave her a shrug, as if to say, “it is what it is.”

Time to wrap it up, she decided. “Two ball, side.” Crack! That one was a layup. “Five ball, corner.” Zora banked the shot off the opposite long rail, seeing the obtuse angle like it was lit up for her. Sucked at algebra, but damn do I love me some geometry!

The political conversation, mercifully, had been cut short. Made you look, ya weenies! “One ball, side.” Crack. Plop. “Ol’ Lazarus, there” – she gave a nod at the four ball that came back into play on Thea’s scratch – “Corner.” Plop.

Fred muttered, “Fuck me!”

Zora didn’t bother to look. “Hard pass. Seven ball, corner.”

“Yeah, right,” jeered Travis.

“Hold my beer.” She took another bank shot, this time off the short rail, which sent the cue ball karooming over to nick the nine ball in just the right place. Once in motion, the nine moved forward and dropped the seven right where it was supposed to be.

“Jesus!”

Ol’ muscle-man-in-a-tank top sounds upset, Zora thought with a mental jeer. “Eight ball, side pocket.” Bing, bang, boom. “All done. Thanks, boys!”

Fred and Travis looked grumpy as geezers at the Muppet Show, and the boys at the bar didn’t sound happy either. Zora wasn’t going to lose sleep over any of that.

With the game coming to an abrupt end, there was a general move from consumption of beer to dealing with its excess. As the crowd at the bar thinned from guys making the trek to the restroom, Thea gave Zora a worried look. “Can we go now? This place –”

“Nope. Not just yet.” She sauntered over to their colleagues at the round table. “How’d we do, Julio?”

“We’ve had better nights, but . . . okay.”

“Jackpot next time,” she replied philosophically. “Gotta find a better place, though. Hang out for a minute now; Thea and I need to powder our noses.” She took Thea’s elbow in a firm grip and followed the crowd headed to the back.

Biggo started to get up, too, but Tag bumped him. “Plant it.”

“But –”

“Not now.”

When they were far enough away from the round table, Thea squeaked, “Zora, I can’t.”

“Stick with me, girl. You’ll be fine.”

“You don’t understand, though!” The level of panic in Thea’s voice hit peak as they reached the restrooms.

Zora planted a ballet flat in the middle of the door to the men’s room and kicked it wide. “Sure I do.” Adopting an exaggerated, sultry walk, she sashayed across the grimy tile floor. “Fuckers oughta spring for individual urinals. That trough’s just gross.”

“Hey! What’r you–”

She ignored the sputtering guy’s protest and continued her promenade. “Hmmm. Impressive,” she said, giving the first guy at the trough an approving look. The next guy – Travis, as it turned out – fared less well. “How do you even get that to work?”

“Shut up, bitch! What’r you doing here?” Travis’ face was almost as red as his baseball cap.

“Truth hurts, huh? Well, it’s like your T-Shirt says. ‘Fuck your feelings.’”

Fred, third from the door, shouted, “Get out! We got laws –”

Zora cut him off. “Which I am obeyin’, being a good girl an’ all. New law says I gotta use this bathroom on account of the equipment I was born with, even though it was never any bigger’n Travis’ little thing.”

“You’re shittin’ me!” Fred said. “You’ve got a dick?”

“Nah – I had it cut off years ago. The governor – fine, God-fearin’ man that he is – says that don’t matter none.”

No one was doing their business any more; all eyes were on Zora, and most looked horrified. The guy in the wife beater stalked toward her. “Fucking faggot!”

She pulled a heavy pistol from her purse and pretended to examine it.

Muscle man stopped moving. “You threatenin’ me, bitch?”

Travis, who seemed to be his friend, had enough sense to worry. “Gary!”

Zora looked bored. “Threatening? Me? I’m just doin’ a weapons check. I don’t like livin’ in an open carry state, but, when in Rome an' all, you know?” She shrugged.

“You’re gonna put that down an’ walk outta here, or I’m gonna make you deep throat it, you fairy freak!” Gary stepped forward, eyes full of menace.

Then stopped, as the barrel of the gun came down in a rock-solid grip. “Want to talk about how our super strong ‘stand your ground’ law gives me cover if I feel ‘threatened?’ ‘Cuz I do get a touch nervous with you yippin’ like a love-sick coyote.”

Gary was so angry, he couldn’t bring himself to back down. “I said drop it!”

“Like I care. How good’s your insurance? I hear y’all don’t think much of ‘socialized medicine’ ‘round here.”

“Fucking bitch!”

“I’m a ‘bitch,’ sure enough. Just like life, sugar. But your ‘fucking’ days’ll be over if you don’t get outta my grill.” Making a minute adjustment to her aim, she added, “One ball, side pocket.”

“Gary, stop!” Travis grabbed an arm. “It’s not worth it!”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Zora opined. “His girlfriend might thank me.”

From behind them, Fred shook his head in disgust. “God damned freaks!”

Zora gave them all a cold, hard look. “Five minutes ago, y’all were singin’ the governor’s praises for keepin’ ‘trannies’ outta women’s restrooms. So fine, I’ll use this one, since you make me, but there’s nothin’ says you’ll enjoy the experience. I got a first amendment right to make rude comments about your junk – such as it is – and some second amendment rights that oughta keep you from doing fuck all about it when I do. You don’t want to share a bathroom with me? Go use the ladies’. In this shithole, I guarantee it’s unoccupied.”

“You use it,” Fred snapped. “We don’t care.”

“Why, thank you very much! But I’d have to trust you not to call the police, and my momma didn’t raise me that kinda stupid. The DA and the judge would have my ass. Y’all go ahead — you won’t even get a warning.”

“This is fucked up,” Travis said.

Zora nodded. “Ain’t that the truth. Take it up with those clowns you keep sending to the legislature. Meantime . . . leave me the fuck alone.”

The men trooped out, chagrined. Some of them, sure enough, used the women’s room, knowing that Zora was entirely right about whether and how the bathroom law would be enforced.

As the last of them left, Zora looked at the wallflower cowering by the door. “You can come in now, Hon. It’s safe.”

“For how long?” Thea shook her head. “My people say, ‘how you make your bed is how you’re going to sleep.’ You stir up trouble, it will come to find you.”

“I hear ya. But I can’t live, if I spend all my life bein’ afraid.”

“You must sleep some time.”

“I know.” Zora’s harsh look softened. “Girl, you got more sense than me. Don’t take the job. Get outta here. Go north. Find some place that’s safe.”

“There’s no place safe for our kind. You know that.”

“Crapload of places safer’n this, though.”

“But you will stay?” Thea’s dark brown eyes were sad.

“More pride than sense, me. Ain’t nobody gonna tell me how to live, or where.”

“If we keep our heads down, the storm may pass.”

“Maybe, maybe no.” She returned the gun to her purse. “The asswipes want to make us disappear. Drive everyone back in the closet. If we all just play nice, they’ll win.”

Thea thought about that, but remained unconvinced. “I will pray for you.”

“Ah, screw that! Have a drink with me. Be time for your ‘thoughts and prayers’ soon enough.”

“I will raise a glass and say ‘yia mas.’” Thea’s voice was heavy with tears that were just biding their time. “But it’s more hope than prophecy.”

Zora’s smile could melt a glacier. “I’ll drink to hope.”

– The end.

Author’s note: I would like to thank two wonderful authors, Sara Keltaine and Iolanthe Portmanteau, for giving this story a beta-read.

For information about my other stories, please check out my author's page.