Hungry

by Daniel Parme

  And let’s not forget about suddenly needing to fuck. I thought about Virginia. Dirty thoughts. Good thoughts. Well, maybe not so much good as fun.

  It was impossible to pretend I was interested in all this talk about oil prices and the DOW, NASDAQ, whatever. I mean, people are into whatever they’re into, and these people just so happened to be into money and power. Good for them. Whatever gets you off, you know? Those things just aren’t the tickling of my pickle. What can you do?You can slip out while nobody’s paying attention, that’s what you can do. You can mention to the air that you have to use the restroom, and where is the restroom? Then you can start off in that direction, loop around the rest of the crowd, get yourself into that long hallway, and finally out the door.

  But once you get out there, you realize that you have no idea where here is, and that you’ll have to find someone to blindfold you and take you home.

  So I slinked back inside and found Dick. “Dick, can I get a ride?”

  “Sure, kid. You going home or you going out? I’m sure you have all sorts of energy right now.” Dick was full of surprises.

  “I need the bar,” I said.

  “Gonna find a woman there, huh?”

  I just looked at him.

  He smiled. “It used to do that to me at first, too. Hang on a sec. I’ll tell Walter I’m taking you home. I’m about finished with this for the night anyway.”

  Chapter 23

  “You want to fuck, don’t you?”

  “I haven’t even said hello to you yet.”

  “You still want to fuck.”

  “I want to drink.”

  “You want to fuck.”

  “Fine, I’ll fuck. But can I have a drink first?”

  “No.”

  “God. You need it that bad? Ok. I’ll drink afterwards. Let’s go in the back.”

  “Here’s your Woodford Reserve, you fucking snob. I could tell you wanted to fuck as soon as you walked in the door.”

  “How’s that?”

  “I don’t know. I can just feel the vibes. I sound like a goddam hippie or something. Vibes. It’s just a gift I have.”

  “Good gift.”

  “Yeah. You’d be amazed at how horny everyone is, though. All the time.”

  “Everyone?”

  She tongued her lips, but only a little. It was subtle, and I like to think she was trying to hold it back, but I’m sure that’s just my ego talking. “Yeah,” she said. “Everyone.”

  She went off to be a good bartender, flirting with the boys, persuading them to drink whiskey because “no self-respecting woman wants a man who’ll drink a key-lime martini”.

  Virginia and her little bum in those black pants.

  “It’s been a boring night. I’m glad you came in.”

  I adjusted my imaginary tie. I’m a big dork. “Glad to see me, eh?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Don’t flatter yourself. I’d flirt with Hitler if he was here right now. And I’m fucking Jewish.”

  A man in Dockers and a black t-shirt walked in and all the way to the other end of the bar, Virginia’s eyes on him the whole way. She growled as he walked by. “Look at those shoulders. They’re so hot it hurts me.”

  I thought about eating his liver. “Well, go take his money.”

  “Oh, I’ll take more than his money.” She raised her eyebrows, shot me a devilish little smile, and went bouncing down the bar (She’d admitted she knew how to get any guy’s attention. “If they’re too big for me to dance with, I might as well use them for something.”). I watched through stolen glances, a flipbook with pages missing. She was down there long enough for a few more patrons to arrive, although not enough of them to make the place busy.

  I drank and fantasized about cutting the meat from that guy’s shoulders and using the bones as a coat hanger. How dare he waltz in here with his muscles and steal Virginia’s attention from me. Sure, I was only after the sex, but there was a bit of pride in there, too. Not to mention a near-rabid libido running wild in my pants. LT was in no mood for this shit. He’d been lying down for too long, and now, again, he was up and ready for some serious fun.

  His fun, though, was now at the other end of the bar, running her eyes like naughty hands over this asshole’s shoulders, over the ridges of his muscles, and, unknown to him, down the center line of his abs and down his pants.

  This last part is merely the speculation of a jealous and sexually frustrated young man at the end of a stressful day. She was probably content with just the shoulders. But she had a dirty mind, that girl, so you never know.

  Right or wrong, I was still pissed off, and I’ve found that when anger is concerned, I’m about as subtle as a Catholic fundamentalist outside an abortion clinic. I might as well carry a placard that says, quite simply and eloquently, “FUCK YOU.” Red letters. Big, red, angry letters.

  “Hey there, cranky.”

  I couldn’t even look at her.

  “Oh, relax. Just because he’s hotter than you doesn’t mean you’re not getting laid tonight.” She laughed, which could have been at me, or herself, or anything, really – I couldn’t tell – and she poured me another drink. “Where’s Adam? Isn’t he supposed to be coming in tonight?”

  “Why? You want to fuck him tonight, too?” I tried to make it sound like a joke, like I wasn’t upset at all.

  Although she had a terrible wink that looked completely foreign on her face, the scowl she gave me was something she’d obviously been born with. “Maybe I do.” She started to walk away.

  “Wait. Don’t go.” Surprisingly, she didn’t. “I’m sorry. I’ve had sort of a rough night so far. That’s all. I don’t mean to be a dick.”

  “And I don’t mean to be such a slut. I guess we are what we are, right?”

  “Ok, ok. You’re right. I had no right to make it sound you were such a slut.”

  “You just don’t want me to stop serving you. I know what you’re up to.” The tone was still there, but at least the scowl had disappeared. And the tone was almost always there, so I was beginning to learn to pay it no mind.

  “Damn right I want you to keep serving me. I’m in the mood to get totally fucked.”

  “See. I knew you wanted to get fucked.” She adjusted her bra, sneaky wench. “So what was so bad about your night?”

  People want to know.

  “I can’t even begin to explain it to you.”

  “You were at that meeting thing, right? Wasn’t that supposed to be tonight?”

  “Yeah, but you weren’t supposed to remember that.”

  “I have my moments.” She made a quick scan of the bar, searching for empty tanks. “Hang on a sec. I have to go fuck Shoulders real quick. We’ll continue once I get my pants back on.” She smiled and took the man another drink.

  He was definitely hotter than I was. You may have even called him “chiseled”. He had that square jaw thing and a few days’ stubble, a solid smile, and, of course, those damned shoulders.

  He was making friendly with Virginia, and she was buying it. Smiling and laughing and flaunting. She was good. But she was quick about it this time.

  “So, how was it?” I asked when she got back to me.

  “Oh, the sex was great. Much better than his looks would lead you to believe.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She went into math tutor mode. “Guys who look that good usually suck in bed. It’s because they never have to work for it. Well, that, and because girls nowadays are just too willing to give blow-jobs. Anyway, guys like you are different. You feel like you have to prove yourselves, which means that, most of the time, you’re way better in bed.”

  “Wow. I assume you’ve done a lot of research about this.”

  “I’ve done enough, yeah. You dick.” She stopped a moment, trying to remember something. And she did. “So. That meeting?”

  Damnit. “Right. The meeting. The meeting was, well, just as weird as the first one.”r />
  “You figure out what they’re about yet?”

  I thought about what I’d look like carved, grilled, and garnished with a sprig of parsley. And then I thought the same about Virginia. And sure, she would have been great eating, but I didn’t want that for her.

  “They’re just a group of people who have been through things sort of like I have.” I lit a cigarette and fooled around with the ash tray, played with the little straw in my drink; anything to avoid eye contact. “Lots of plane wrecks and camping accidents and missing limbs. Lots of interesting stories and tailored suits.”

  “That part doesn’t make sense to me. I mean, do only rich people have these accidents?” She was climbing down the ladder, one rung of logic to the next, like she would have with a proof. “And why are they so interested in you?”

  I suddenly longed for women with makeup, miniskirts, large breasts and small brains. The thing about these smart women, these women like Virginia, who pay attention and rely on their brains rather than their bodies, is that they figure too much out on their own. These women, they’ll tear you to bits.

  “Everyone’s interested in me,” I said. “It’s like when… I mean, when you’re single, nobody wants anything to do with you, but once you have a girlfriend, they rub up on you like cats in heat.”

  “Cats in heat. Good one.”

  “Thanks.”

  “What’s it got to do with your well-dressed friends?” Like an arrow, this girl.

  “Well, now that I have this great story, and since I’ve told it on television and everything, people are all over me. Nobody gave a shit before.” I sipped and thought for a moment. “Well, some people cared, I guess. But then I had to eat them.”

  “Good thing I don’t care, then. I mean, if that’s what happens to people who really care about you.”

  “Yeah. Good thing.”

  She shook her head at me. “Well, since you obviously aren’t going to tell me anything interesting about your little meeting, I’m going to go do some work.”

  “Thanks for letting me off the hook.”

  “Sure. But, just out of curiosity, what do you do to people who just care about Tiny Travis?”

  “It’s Little Travis, thank you. And I usually eat them, too. They don’t seem to mind much, though.” Nothing like a cunnilingus joke to brighten your spirits.

  “I know it,” she said, and she turned and went back to work.

  She went back to work, and it got busy, and I got bored. I didn’t know anyone who came in, although I did get a couple shots from people who knew me. This pseudo-famous thing is all right sometimes. But, shots or not, I was still bored and in no mood to hang around another three hours for closing time.

  “What do you mean you’re leaving? I thought you were coming back with me.” It was sort of flattering. She seemed genuinely disappointed.

  I told her not to worry, she could stay and fuck Shoulders one more time tonight, and that I’d leave my window open so she could just climb in after work.

  “How dare you tell me how many times I can have sex with a man in one night.”

  I told her how to get onto the fire escape at my place, and I left. I figured I’d spend the rest of my evening with LT. It had been so long since we’d been able to play together.

  Chapter 24

  The thing about opening a window is the window has to be closed when you begin. My window was not closed. Nor was it any longer a window. At some point in the evening, the smooth single pane of glass that separated me from the elements had been shattered. At some point in the evening, the lock had been unlocked, and the wooden frame lifted.

  As I stood in my kitchen, eyeing the jagged edges of what used to be my window, all I could know for sure was that someone had broken in.

  The rest, merely guesses. Someone may have swept the glass from the floor, seeing as it was clean. Someone may have made a pot of coffee, which was still almost full and still steaming. They may have eaten something and washed the dishes, which were now in the drying rack.

  Yes, they were only guesses, but they were educated. Logical.

  I got the feeling that I would find a little girl with golden locks sleeping in my bed. It really wasn’t a bad thought.

  It was, however, inaccurate. There was no girl in my bed. As it turns out, she was in my shower, and she hit me in the head with a shampoo bottle when I threw open the curtain.

  “Ow, dammit! That hurt!”

  “What do you think you’re doing? Opening the curtain while someone’s taking a shower?” Apparently, I’d startled her.

  “You are in my shower, Angela.”

  She didn’t close the curtain, didn’t cover her chest or her crotch with her hands. She just went on with her shower, and with her rationalization for nailing me in the head with my own bottle of some sort of very expensive French shampoo. “It was just self-defense. I didn’t know it was you, or else I wouldn’t have hit you.”

  She lathered her left leg, toes hooked on the edge of the tub. Her inner thigh, fair and delicate and appetizing in an inedible kind of way, dripped with tiny bubbles and shone with its thin coat of water.

  “You could have been anyone,” she said.

  I snapped out of my little trance. “I could have been anyone? It’s my apartment. You’re in my shower. I come home to find a broken window, and I could have been anyone?”

  She shrugged and switched legs. “Well, you never know.”

  I sat on the toilet. “What are you doing here, anyway?”

  “I’m showering. Those people always make me feel so dirty.” She rinsed, the water splashing off her clean skin and onto the dirty bathroom floor. She arched her back, her round, small-girl breasts now into the streaming water. It was a gratuitous shower scene from some bad ‘80’s flick. (Ok, maybe not that bad...)

  “You just gonna sit there and stare at me, or do you want to hand me the shampoo?”

  “You mean the shampoo you threw at my head?”

  “Yes I do.”

  I picked the bottle up from the floor and handed to her. “So, why are you here again?”“Well,” she said, spitting water from her lips, “you left before I could get you my number, and I needed to talk to you as soon as I could, and it was a piece of cake finding your address, so there you have it.”

  “What? That whole celebrity thing?”

  “You’re in the book, actually. If you’re in the phone book, you’re not really a celebrity.”

  “Right.” Sometimes, I’m a bit of an ass.

  “Are you drunk?”

  “No. Just a little dazed. Something’s not right in my head.”

  “Great. Well, we have to talk about my sociopathic uncle. A shower should straighten you out. Get in.”

  “In the shower?”

  “No. In the toilet. Of course in the shower. It’ll help.”

  “I… uh…”

  “What?”

  “I don’t want to make you uncomfortable is all.”

  She laughed. “Why would I be uncomfortable? Because you’re excited? You’ve been watching me wash myself for like five minutes. And I know what you had for dinner. Of course you’re excited. Now come on. We don’t have all night.”

  It was rough, but you know that whole a man’s got to do thing. And apparently I had to get into the shower with a beautiful and mysterious girl who had broken into my apartment. It was about time for a surprise to turn out to be a good thing.

  I took off my shoes and socks, my cargo pants hit the floor, spilling some change onto the black and white tiled floor, a nickel rolling behind the toilet. I pulled my button-down over my head, along with the t-shirt beneath it. I pulled the elastic band of my CK boxers (say what you will – the man makes comfortable underwear) away from my body and let the shorts drop to my feet.

  And there was LT, bobbing up and down like a springboard whose diver has just left to find the water.

  “Come on,” she said. “I’ll
wash you.” She stepped to the end of the tub, the water now only hitting her feet.

  I stepped into the shower, facing her, and the slightly hot water fell onto my back, trying to push while LT tried to pull me into her.

  I wasn’t budging, though.

  Angela worked up a lather and told me to turn around, she would start with my back. “Wow. Your butt is so small.”

  “I haven’t showered with anyone else in a long, long time,” I told her.

  “It’s good to get clean when someone can see,” she said, slowly going over my back, half washing, half massaging. “It’s almost like confession. It’s best when someone else washes you.”

  I remembered the feeling of being washed very well; someone’s clean hands covered with soap, washing off what I couldn’t get to. The last few times this happened, I felt like a shoe being polished, a car being waxed. The nurses could very well have been old black men in the subways or teenagers at their first jobs.

  This was different. This was not her duty. She was cleaning me because she knew I needed to be cleaned. It was her own personal baptism. She was making me a part of her church.

  She finished the back of me and told me to turn around. I did, and she was smiling. “Feels good, doesn’t it?” She looked down. “I guess that was a stupid question, huh?”

  “They say there’s no such thing as a stupid question.” I raised my right arm to allow her access to my armpit. “Of course, They fuck things up a lot of the time.”

  Without another word from either of us, she finished the front of me. She was… thorough… and even when she was washing LT, she was completely non-sexual about it. It’s a great feeling to be both excited and soothed.

  With the steam of reheated Mac-n-cheese rising to my face (reheated because these were the leftovers of a B &E) and that wonderful post-shower lightness to my skin and head, I waited for Angela to come out of the bathroom. She’d said I should eat something while she stayed in the shower. “I like to meditate once I’ve finished all the work of getting clean,” she said. “I like the steam and the way it sounds when you cover your ears and listen to the water hitting you, like it’s actually inside your head.”