by Andrews
"Sorry, when he makes that sound, it means his collar's too tight," I lied and leaned over to fake-adjust Elmo's collar. When I stood up, she was standing in front of me with her shirt unbuttoned, revealing bare breasts. I had to give her points for speed. She took my hands in hers, yanked them forward, and placed them on her breasts.
"What I'm saying"- she drawled the words-"is that I'd like to see more of you. A lot more of you," and she reached for the zipper on my jeans, deftly unzipping them and sliding her hand inside. I knew if I didn't move quickly I was a dead woman. I could easily do this because it was easy, not because I had any feelings for Mary Beth. It might even have been an exciting diversion because it was unexpected and uncharted, but I was old enough to know that if I took a moment of my life to fuck Mary Beth, Mary Beth would fuck every moment of my life thereafter: calling, visiting, crying, and showing up with Tupper-suppers! I pulled back suddenly, aching a bit from the effort it took, just as the phone rang.
"Sony," I said and grabbed the phone.
"Teague?" It was Callie calling from Tulsa, and she sounded upbeat.
"Hello," I breathed, feeling my heart leap to higher ground somewhere in my upper chest, where the beating just stopped, as if it had been put on pause. While I struggled to breathe, I was aware that love could actually kill me.
"What are you up to, darling?" she asked as I zipped my pants backup.
"I just got back from a network pitch, and if you'll permit me a negative word," I said, mocking Callie's dislike of my swearing, "it was a fucking disaster!"
"Why don't you meet me in Las Vegas and tell me all about it?" Her voice had a silvery ring to it that had an instant sensual effect on me.
"When, two weeks from Thursday?" I asked sarcastically.
"You need a break. My client is one of the original owners of the Desert Star Casino. He's given me a two-week stay, and there's no one I'd rather stay with. How about tonight?"
"Tonight?" I breathed, my whole body coming alive. Mary Beth took this unguarded moment to wrap her arms around me from behind and nibble my ear. I yanked my shoulder up to my neck so quickly I nearly dislocated it, and I groaned in pain.
"Are you with someone?" Callie asked suddenly.
"No! A friend stopped by to have lunch, that's all," I said, and Mary Beth retreated sullenly.
"There's a seven o'clock flight..." Callie's voice trailed off.
It was true that a plane flight would put me in Vegas in about forty-five minutes, but today had been harrowing enough without adding to it an opportunity for high-altitude free fall.
"Okay, so drive," she said, reading my thoughts, "but be very careful. See you in the hotel lounge at nine." She hung up on me in her standard form of goodbye.
I pretended she was still on the line for Mary Beth's sake. "All right then, I'll leave now. No, sure, I can be there." I checked my watch. "No problem." I hung up and shrugged happily at Mary Beth. "Sorry, I've got to leave town suddenly."
"Oh." Mary Beth looked hurt as I put my hand on her shoulder and walked her to the door. "Can I call you when you get back?" she asked.
"Actually," I said, "I'm...getting married." I had no idea where that remark came from, but it just popped out and, having heard it out loud, I figured it was as good as any lie I could have conjured.
"Were you getting married forty-eight hours ago when you and I went out?" Mary Beth asked tersely, exhibiting the first signs of real life I'd seen in her.
"No, I wasn't. It just came up."
Mary Beth paused, tapped her little foot three times on the hardwood floor, huffed loudly, and left. Elmo rose up on his back legs, leaving his front legs plastered to the floor, stretched, and passed gas, blowing Mary Beth down the road.
"You really like Callie, don't you? Me too."
∗ ∗ ∗ ∗
Every nerve ending in my body was tingling with excitement. I would see Callie tonight. "You care if I go to Vegas, Elmo? I'll call Wanda and she'll come and play with you... and give you rice with your dinner... and some chips... and a huge Milk-Bone before bedtime-Elmo's expression never changed as he lifted his muscular behind off the floor and ambled out of the room. He was a Hollywood dog. He knew a snow job when he saw one.
I jumped up, pulled a small suitcase and suit bag out of my closet, and began flinging clothes into them without regard for what matched. I was so happily nervous that I couldn't think straight, and I couldn't locate the simplest of items like the number for Wanda, Elmo's dog-sitter. I rummaged through drawers trying desperately to find it. That was one thing I hated about Vegas: there were no dogs allowed in any of the hotels. No one could tell me that a dog would pee on their fancy hotel carpet any more frequently than the drunks who inhabited the rooms.
I looked over at Elmo, his large brown eyes rolled up in his head as if he were preparing to be beamed up by aliens. Dropping to my knees, I lifted his head up and looked into his big, soft face.
"You know what?" I said, "Screw those Vegas hotels. I'm taking you with me." His ears elevated off his head a full inch, and he became alert.
"You'd like to see Callie too, wouldn't you?" He stood up and shook his huge fur suit in that way he had of getting physically ready for something important.
"But here's the deal: we have to smuggle you in, and you have to be quiet in the room, and sometimes, I might have to leave you for a couple of hours in the car with the windows cracked, but it's pretty cool now, so I think you'll be fine. Still want to go?" He wagged his entire body. "Great!" I said. "Let's get you packed. And remember, once we're with Callie, NFL-No Farting or Licking."
Elmo let out a long, loud belch and I laughed. "You always have to have the last word," I said.
Chapter Two
I tossed the suitcases and a thermos of coffee into the Jeep, loaded up Elmo, and we were on our way by four o'clock in the afternoon.
Once through the maze of traffic on I-5, heading east on the 14, I felt the cool, high desert wind wash away the tension in my chest and shoulders and I relaxed enough to suck in a deep breath of fresh air. The drop-down seat in the back allowed Elmo to lie down on his tummy and place his head and shoulders on the console between the front seats so he was hound-happy himself, until I punched the CD button on the dash and the first mournful notes from k.d. lang enveloped us. Elmo whipped his head left and glared at me.
"Relax, I didn't even bring 'Constant Craving,'" I assured him. "How about 'Big Boned Gal'?" I asked the big-boned dog who was always there for me. I cued it up and we bobbed our heads in unison to the bouncy country beat as we drove across the sand.
Slowing down to round the bend toward Barstow, I passed the coveted triangle of sand occupied by itinerant vendors. Today an elderly man had lined the roadside with an overwhelming array of pink plastic flamingos. The sight of the plastic lawn ornaments bobbing in the wind cheered me up. If this guy thought he could sell lawn ornaments in the desert, I should be able to sell a movie to CBS!
I cranked up the radio and stepped on the gas, whipping past scraggly sage and Joshua trees, singing the auction song about falling in love with a lady in the second row. By the time I hit the Nevada line, I was wired on coffee and country music.
Four and a half hours and three hundred and fifty miles later, I rounded the bend on I-15 and exited onto the avenue of strange geometric shapes that made up the Vegas skyline: lions, pyramids, castles, Roman amphitheaters, and lights as far as the eye could see. They flashed and spun and spelled out messages. Giant spotlights that fanned the sky, beckoning us to look where they pointed, lights of every size and color and description, setting the anachronistic landscape of pyramids and palaces aflame in an over-the-top electrical outburst that appeared to have been designed by aliens on acid.
"Okay, Elmo, we're here. Check it out." Elmo stood up and looked left to right through the front windshield at the bright lights on the horizon. "You know how you like to gnaw on a bone or play ball when you're bored? Well, Vegas is what people do when they're bored." El
mo let out a long, low groan and flopped back down on the leather upholstery. "You're right. It wears you out just looking at it."
I was chatting with Elmo to keep from focusing on my churning stomach, not wanting to admit what a wreck I was over seeing Callie again. It had been so long, I could barely remember the small things about her features. I could picture her ethereal blue eyes, but not her ears, her beautiful big smile, but not her hands, her body nude, but not in specific detail, just in its small, exquisite entirety. When I thought of her, I had feelings rather than visuals, which was odd because she was so smashingly beautiful. I remembered the first night I'd laid eyes on her in Tulsa. She'd kissed me so passionately I'd almost had a physical meltdown. Nonetheless, she insisted at the outset that she wasn't going to sleep with me. It was odd, in one minute, to be kissed with such obvious longing and then to be summarily rejected for any further pleasure the next. Because she was so fabulous looking, I assumed she must have slept with a lot of people and was suffering an elegant ennui, a disinterest in yet another love affair. Persistence being my strong suit, I finally got her into bed with me. We were wild for each other, but at the moment of surrender, Callie pulled away, admitting the reason she didn't want to sleep with me was her fear that she wouldn't be able to give herself to someone after so many years of determining not to. Our romance, which lasted only a few weeks, was erotic but erratic, certainly not the traditional gay relationship to which I was accustomed. This one was different, but then Callie Rivers was completely different from anyone I'd ever known. She had an assuredness about her that emanated from her total belief in spirituality and the cosmos and a vulnerability about her that sprang from a childlike innocence.
I don't want to admit it, but I 'm, well, might be, at least I could see myself—definitely with her, I thought, confusing even myself.
"There's a possibility that we won't even connect like we did in L.A.," I said to Elmo. "That happens, you know. If that's the case, well then, you and I will just go home." Elmo let out a long, loud sob.
"That's right, and cry!" I laughed at his vocalizing. "Don't worry. Deep down, I know that you and I and Callie Rivers belong together," I said to reassure myself.
Winding down the avenue, past the Tropicana and the MGM Grand, alongside the gargantuan statues in front of Caesar's Palace, and beyond the hoopla of Circus Circus, I inched my way through bumper-to-bumper traffic until I eased into the valet parking circle in front of the Desert Star. A valet parker wearing a large purple turban and billowing knee-high pants swept open my car door with a bow and tried to usher me out onto the pavement. I took the parking stub and insisted on parking my own car. I found a parking space in the shade about a hundred feet from the hotel, fluffed up the pillow I'd brought Elmo, gave him a dog bone, and cracked the windows.
"You're safe here. I'm paying the guy in the weird hat to keep an eye on the car, and if anyone does try to open the door, you have my permission to bite him. I'll be back for you in a little while. Wish me luck, buddy." I gave him a kiss on his head. I could feel his soft brown eyes on me as I crossed the parking lot to the hotel entrance, where another turbaned employee ushered me through the large gold and glass hotel doors. A blast of cold air hit me along with the sounds of slot machines and happy revelers creating a comforting background walla that beckoned me to forget my other life.
I scanned the horizon: Million Dollar Slots, Star Roulette, Keno Desert Star Style, Free Buffet, Star Poker, Blackjack, and Craps. I was looking for something a little more mundane, like the ladies' room and a bar girl. I found the former and ducked inside to freshen up, staring at my ashen face in the mirror. I definitely needed a break. Fatigue and no rouge are a bad combination, I thought. I dipped my fingertips under the faucet and flipped the droplets vertically through my punked auburn hair with its newly highlighted blond streaks and commanded the spikes to stand at attention. I washed my hands, took out my sage eyeliner, and gave my green eyes a little color, adding mascara to my already long eyelashes. My eyes were one of my best features. I knew that because people constantly complimented me on them. The glint of gold was back in them now. After all, they were about to see my future. Finally, I put on lip liner, lipstick, and a touch of rouge, noted that my jeans had a chocolate stain on one leg and that my white shirt looked a bit used from lifting Elmo in and out of the car, but after all, I'd been traveling. I flipped the shirt collar up slightly and noted that I was looking taller than my 5'7" only because I'd lost ten pounds, thanks again to Callie Rivers. Here goes, I thought and headed back out into the hubbub in search of the lounge. A friendly change girl pointed the way.
The lounge was nestled back in the far corner of the hotel. I spotted Callie seated across the room on a red velvet-tufted ottoman and wearing what looked like a white Chanel suit. I had to remind myself to breathe. She was literally breathtaking. I was certain it was no accident that she'd picked a location where the overhead lights would bounce off her swept-back, Norwegian-blond hair, making her look like a movie star from some long-forgotten era. My entire body went weak when I saw her. The connection I felt for her was inexplicable. It was as if I'd been hypnotized by her. I moved toward her as if reeled in on a magnetic wire, unaware of people parting to get out of my way. She turned and looked over her shoulder, catching my eye as if she'd sensed my presence. Her smile was electric. I had never felt such heat from so far away, as if a piece of the sun had broken off and landed at my feet: a gift from the gods.
A slightly tipsy fiftyish man who was about my height stood beside her trying to strike up a conversation. She leapt to her feet and said breathlessly, "I'm so glad you're here!" I fell into her arms, swept away in her sheer sensual warmth, like that first blast of heat as one stands in front of a fire on a cold winter's night. I could have stayed there, warming myself in her for hours. When she tried to pull away, I refused to let her go. Gone was any thought of being reserved because of her having put off our reunion.
"Don't you look great," I whispered, as my eyes met hers.
"Do you think you should let go of me?" she asked. "Before you singe my suit?" Her mouth brushed my lips, sending seismic waves of heat rippling through my body.
"Are we checked in? Let's check in," I breathed as the inebriated man wedged himself between us.
"You gonna introduce me to your friend?" the man asked Callie, his stale breath hitting me full in the face.
"Fella, I've had a bad day in L.A., so how about leaving us alone?" I said in my friendliest and most tolerant manner.
"Maybe you meet my friend Paco." He slid his hand into the pocket of his baggy silk pants. His fingers moved up and down inside the loose pocket like a hand puppet straining to escape. "Paco, say hello to the nice lady." The bobbing cloth lunged at my thigh and suddenly pinched me. I took a step backward, shocked at having my skin mashed in a public place by a total stranger pretending to have a friend in his pocket. Callie couldn't suppress a giggle as she told the drunken man he should leave us alone.
"Oh, I get it." He dragged the words out. "You two are dykes."
It was bad timing on his part. As we say in Oklahoma, I'd "had an ass-full" for one day. I spun my body around, keeping my arm bent at waist level, and buried my elbow under his left rib. He doubled over and groaned. Callie grimaced, and I realized once again that knowing how to defend myself had always been a two-edged sword. I signaled for the bartender to come over and give me a hand, explaining that a man had just suffered an accident.
The young bartender bounded around the brass-studded leather bar and got the man by the arm, asking how he'd injured himself.
"With his mouth," I replied.
The bartender grinned at me and said it happened a lot around here. He led the half-drunk man away explaining that he was an old-time club performer, a regular at the hotel, and sometimes he drank a little too much and lost his manners.
Callie studied the pattern on the carpet. "You've got Mars square Mars today. It means you could get into a fight with someone, m
ost likely a man."
"Men only know three labels: bitch, whore, dyke."
"You need to unwind," Callie said. "I ordered you a drink, because our room's not ready. In fact, no rooms are ready." As I began to moan, Callie interrupted, taking my hand. "I've missed you, and I can't wait to get into bed with you. I intend to ravage you," she said, barely moving her lips, her facial expression as serene as Grace Kelly's. I burst out laughing.
"Well, now that I know your intentions, I can relax."
"Tell me about your meeting," she said.
I told her about Granger and Nan trying to rewrite the movie in the CBS lobby five minutes before the pitch and how I'd made the silent decision on the walk to Marshall Tevachney's office to pitch the show as I'd developed and written it.
"So we said our hellos to Marshall and I started the pitch. Bobby Jo was a raw-boned girl from Alabama. The director interrupted and said, 'Who has one leg?' Then I said, Bobby Jo had no idea that the cowboys she'd befriended that night would turn on her. She'd known one of them for years. The director added, 'They knew each other in the veterans' hospital where Bobby Jo was fitted for her prosthesis!'" Callie giggled as my voice rose. "Now she's not only one-legged, but she's in a veterans' hospital, for God's sake! What the hell's she doing in a veterans' hospital! Did she go there for a sex change right after she served as a colonel in the war? Tevachney's head was whipping back and forth between the two of us like he was watching a ping-pong match. At the end of the pitch, he couldn't have repeated the storyline if I'd paid him a million bucks."
Callie insisted that he actually liked it. I protested loudly, saying he didn't even know what the movie was about. She smiled and said it didn't matter because it had excited him, and that seemed to ignite Callie. "Let's go see if we can get into our room." Callie gave me a seductive smile, as if my animated pitch had somehow turned her on.
