Damn stairs, not only did they not put in an elevator when they built
the place, but they managed to build these stairs so they are hard to
walk on. You'd think they'd put elevators in now that they are going to
renovate the whole complex, but no, not them; the joint is going to be
restored and put back to what it looked like when it was brand new. They
are saying that the place has "Historical value." And when they are
finished with the renovation, they are going to turn the whole damn
complex into one of those co-op's. It would never have happened in Big
Joe Mastrionnes' time. Big Joe Mastrionnes was a gangster and a hustler
if there ever was one. He was large, fat, oily. He had sleek blue jowls
and very thick fingers on which his knuckles were dimples. His brown
hair was combed straight back from his forehead and he always wore a
wine-colored suit with patch pockets, a wine-colored tie, and a tan silk
shirt. There were a lot of red and gold bands around the thick brown
cigars between his lips. He really was great...maybe a shade too smart.
But he ran this place like it was wrapped in oil. He lived up in number
315. He's dead now, most of the old-timers are. Damn Stairs, I've got to
take a break, or I'll never make it to third floor.

Anna Lucciano was about two hundred and forty pounds of middle-aged,
putty-faced woman always in a black tailor-made dress. She lived over
there in 106. Her eyes were shiny shoe buttons, her cheeks were as soft
as suet and about the same color. She was always saying "I need a man."
She was the one that made a man out of me, yes she did. And she sure
knew how to use what she had. And thanks to Anna Lucciano and her red
mouth, I got more female friends and more trouble than I care to think
of now. But in those days I was more than ready to be used by all the
friends I could lay my young hands on. She was married to the Weasel,
Alberto "The Weasel" Lucciano. Most of the time he was doing time, so we
didn't see him around the apartments a lot. One night I believe she
finally got lucky and found what she was saying she always needed, and I
believe Weasel found out about it. Then Weasel and two other fellows
killed her. They threw her out the window naked, but forgot that the
apartment was on the first floor, so they had to shoot her too. Weasel
and the others forgot one other thing. Anna Lucciano was the sister of
Big Joe Mastrionne. We never saw any of them again. Rumors have it that
they got a permanent address at one of the new office buildings
downtown.

I can't figure out what it is these people have against elevators, but
it's sure not them that have to run up and down these stairs every day;
if they had to do that, they would never build a building again without
elevators. Well I better try to climb those stairs again, can't have me
sitting here growing old. Oh I was nearly forgetting Harriet Hawkins in
number 112. That was a nice fine dame, she had class written all over,
nothing was spared. Her Father went broke back in thirty-one and jumped
out of his office window. Her Mother died early. Her Kid sister went to
boarding school in Connecticut. Her eyes were wide-set and there was
thinking room between them. Their color was lapis lazuli blue and the
color of her hair was dusky red, like a fire under control but still
dangerous. She was too tall to be cute, but most of her height was legs
that went on forever. She always wore
plenty of make-up in all the right places. She didn't look hard, but she
looked as if she had heard all the answers and remembered the ones she
thought she might be able to use sometime. She just forced me into a
corner one day and told me she needed someone like me to do a lot of
stuff for her, and that this someone was me. Every time I thought of
that dame I had to go out and walk around the block. She was living
alone, no kids and no husband because she was what the other women
called strange. Soon after the corner affair, she was beating my body to
putty, wanking and whipping my boner. Anna Lucciano and Maria Marcelli
soon stopped that, saying that when she whipped and wanged my boner so
hard she was making all the other "users" suffer, because it took too
long for my equipment to get over such a treatment. She made me lick and
suck her anus, spending timeless hours licking her vagina, spending days
sucking her breasts and weeks combing her hair. She whipped and flogged
every part of my body, from my feet to my hair by every imaginable
instrument within her reach. And still I loved coming back for more.
Soon some of the other woman followed her lead, making me babysit all
night long and thanking me by whipping my genitals while I was gagged
with their used underwear.

Harriet Hawkins' kid sister Alma Hawkins, the one who went to boarding
school in Connecticut came back some years later to live with Harriet in
her apartment, to be company for her older sister. But the truth was
that her husband had divorced her because she was too emancipated to
give birth to his children. She just used to look at me, with her
glittering kohl-rimmed eyes, a long lean, hungry brunette, with rouged
cheekbones, thick black hair parted in the middle, and a mouth made for
three-decker sandwiches. She used to make slow disdainful motions with a
cigarette in a holder as long as a baseball bat. She had plenty of legs.
Her gilded toenails used to wink at me, something her eyes never did,
they where always filled with contempt every time they looked me up and
down. She never did anything to stop Harriet Hawkins' treatment of me;
on the contrary, when Harriet one day went to bed with the flu, it was
Alma Hawkins that took over, not wanting me to be able to skip the joys
of being tortured by one of the Hawkins sisters. The whole experience
had the feeling of a one time only test drive, a complete lack of
feelings for what she was doing, and the experience ended with her
forcing me to drink her warm urine. She never realy touched me. And
after that she never showed me any feelings, she just kept looking at me
like I was some kind of low life creature, and not realy there.

Damn stairs, come on old legs, just eight steps more and we are on the
second floor. Why is it that there are so many incompetent imbeciles who
don't know the first thing about building stairs?

Norma Chill was my aunt, and she used to live over there in number 204.
She had brown wavy hair that she used to smooth with that quick gesture,
like a bird preening itself with ten thousand years of practice behind
it. She had wide blue eyes and eyelashes that didn't quite reach her
chin. Her voice had a soft light sound, like spring rain. She was
pretty, but too pale, and her thin, high-arched eyebrows gave her face a
startled look. She was married to Joey Chill a small hard-bitten man,
with a tight worried face, always in need of a shave and a clean shirt.
It was Aunt Norma who finally broke the silence and told my mother about
my ladyfriends, and all hell broke loose. Screaming and yelling about
her lost innocent son, the light of her life, and how was she to keep an
eye on a big boy like me when she worked days and nights to support her
hungry family. Oh she went on for a couple of days but eventually ran
out of wind. And Big Joe Mastrionnes had a "man-to-man talk" with a very
pale me, telling "The Kid" that he knew about the ladies, but out of
love for his late sister, Anna Lucciano, who he knew had loved me dearly
- and only God knew why - he himself did not see much of a man in me.
But because he loved his sister and she loved me, he was not going to
kill me, but I had to keep to myself and not go around fucking married
women. Next time he might have to kill me, and not even his love for his
sister
would save me. Aunt Norma promised my mother to keep an eye on me, and
to try to keep me out of that kind of trouble. She managed to put enough
oil on my Mother's water so that she finally began to go back to work,
and Aunt Norma began to rent me out by the hour to all my former
ladyfriends.

Damn stairs, but this is third floor - at last - oh my legs are killing
me, maybe its time to think of retirement...nah, there are still a
couple of good years in these bones. The third floor looks deserted and
the wallpaper is half off the wall, worn-out, grimmy, grey carpet and
half the floor is missing, better be carful then. Big Joe Mastrionnes
should see what they are doing to his floor now. But he can't. He's been
dead a long time; the FBI finaly machinegunned him back in '61. He was a
fellow that didn't know when to quit. Here is the apartment, number 315,
it sure ain't right to let a place be so deserted like this, there isn't
even wallpaper on the walls any longer, and there is a lot of space
between the yucky dinnertable and the rest of furniture.  Mrs.
Mastrionnes must be crying in her heaven, what the hell have these
people been doing to the appartment?

There she is, tousled black hair over a white face, that is quite some
hog-tie she is bound in this time. She lay limp and groaned, her feet
almost touching her butt and her hands tied to her ankles. There are
whipmarks all over her body, and her nipples are nailed to the table.
Looks like she ain't going nowhere. She looks deserted, too. Some soap
and water wouldn't hurt at all by way she looks and smells. Well at
least I can remove that big red thing stuck in her mouth.

"I heard a phone ring - miss, you know one of those modern things you
hold in your hands and up to your ear - cellphone, that's the name for
it. I heard it ring and then I heard your friend running out of the
building in a hurry, get in his car and take off like he'd seen a demon.
So I called the cops...er, the police, and thought I better be checking
on what's going on up here. You and your friend have been here a couple
of times, but he has never taken off like this before. The police will
be here any moment miss, I don't want to be involved so I'm
just making my way out of here."

"Thank you for helping me, if it wasn't for you, I think it's just a
matter of time, before I would have been dead. A shame though, that you
can't find any tools, so I can get off this table."

"I sorry about the tools, but don't thank me miss, you would have done
the same for me I'm sure."

"Yes, yes I sure would...please tell me your name?

"Oh, I'm John Masters - miss, I'm the caretaker."

"Thank you John Masters, I'll never forget what you did."

Later when the police arrived with flashing lights and a lot of action,
officer Peter Mastrionne began to question her.

"Are you sure his name was John Masters, miss?

"Yes I'm absolutely sure of it. Why?"

"I knew John Masters...he has been dead for the last twenty years. In
fact, he died the same way you almost did."