by Mark Henry
“Going or coming?” Quince shouted again. “Have you been screwing that cute little girl? I mean, you should, there’s no doubt that’s something you should be doing. A lot of it. But man, don’t let anyone else know that, especially the penguin. She will have your hide, tan it in zebra stripes and upholster a footstool!”
“Jesus, I didn’t plan on it. But there’s just…”
“Just what? Oh my God. You fell for her!”
“No. Maybe. I don’t know. It’s too soon for that kind of talk. There’s something about her, though. Something I can’t quite put my finger on.”
“But other body parts, you just poke away.” Quince burst into laughter.
Rather than continue letting her rib him, Wade merely asked that she text him when the hotel and money came through and got off the phone.
When he opened up the door, Luce was sitting on the bed, her smooth back arched midyawn, her arms stretching for the ceiling. He couldn’t resist. He crawled across the bed and kissed the cleft of her ass, wrapped his hands around her belly and planted a trail of kisses up her spine before nestling in behind her, trapping her arms and breasts in a tight hug.
“Good morning,” he whispered, nuzzling her ear with the tip of his nose. “Did you sleep well?”
“Um, were we sleeping?”
“I meant…after.”
Luce laughed. “I think I’m a little sore. We put muscles to use I haven’t worked out in years…or ever.”
“You asked for my monkey dance.”
“Oh crap! It’s my fault then!”
“Yep. I just do what I’m told.”
“Well then, speaking of dancing, you better work on your moves before the audition today.”
Wade loosened his grip. “I didn’t think that was seriously on the table.”
“It’s as good a way as any to get us in there and asking some questions from the inside, don’t you think?”
Wade couldn’t deny it. It was indeed a plan. Whether it was a good one remained to be seen. What he knew for sure was it would be embarrassing as hell.
“So.” Luce straightened, wriggling from his grip. “You show me some of your moves.”
“Already have,” Wade said, yawning.
“Nope, you’re not getting out of this one. Get up.” She reached for his hand and pulled him off the bed and into the center of the room, where she left him to stand near the wall and begin making noises with her mouth.
“What are you doing?” he asked.
“Beat boxing,” she said, cupping her palms around the sides of her mouth to muffle her skills.
“Is that what you’re calling it?”
“Dance!” Luce shook her finger in his direction a couple of times and then pointed…hard, like he’d been cued on a film set.
Wade swallowed his pride and began shifting back and forth, bobbing his head a bit.
“That’s it,” Luce said. “Put some swivel on those hips! You have to shake your moneymaker!”
He did as she asked, crouching a bit and popping his butt like he’d seen on some rapper’s music video.
“No.” Luce said, suddenly deadpan. “That looks like a crackhead trying to earn seventy-five cents. You’ve got to be classier. These women are newly free of adolescent angst and they want to cut loose.”
Dancing as best he could to a variety of instructions, including (but not limited to), “Don’t do that, you’ll bruise it” and “Side to side. Side to side.”
In the end, Luce’s expression wasn’t completely disgusted so he felt like he’d achieved at bare minimum, if not sexiness, then at least mildly palatable. Which is pretty good for a first timer.
“If you didn’t have that to shake at them,” Luce said, pointing between his legs, “we’d be in trouble.”
Wade wasn’t certain if he should blush or bolster, in the end, he opted for a heroic hands-on-his-hips stance.
“Nice,” Luce said. “Now you’re getting the hang of it.”
…
Luce, never one to eavesdrop—except for All. The. Time—didn’t bring up the fact that she’d heard Wade on the phone that morning talking about her, about them. She did envy him the confidant as she hadn’t had a chance to debrief adequately with Hitch since his surprise reappearance on the freeway, flirtation with fire and coffee-shop periphery notwithstanding.
Her evening with Wade was exactly the kind of thing that needed long-winded dissection. If she thought about it too much on her own, she’d inevitably fall down the rabbit hole of overactive imagination, assigning meaning on a grand scale, planning out their pretend nuptials, and decorating their quaint two-bedroom island cottage with English country garden and bidet in the bathroom, because the Europeans are onto something when it comes to butt cleanliness—think about it.
But back in the realm of reality, Wade stowed away their luggage in the second room they’d be sharing on this trip—this one, she was sure, promised to be much nicer—and before you say anything, in his defense, Wade did ask if Luce would like her own room. She merely shook her head with the kind of blunt obviousness only a night of hot sex could create.
She hoped he felt the same—and cursed herself for not asking—but their lovemaking had been just this shy of earth-shattering, the sky may have exploded and Luce was pretty sure there hadn’t been a thunderstorm. Although, the curtains were drawn. Come to think of it, she thought. The holes in the curtain might have been what she was seeing. Passing police, lights blazing.
No.
Not a chance.
Their sex was a master class and she’d challenge anyone to a duel who denied it. In fact, as she sat in the little lobby coffee shop, she’d begun to kick herself for not catching his hint about accompanying him upstairs.
“Do you want to help me with this load?” Wade had asked, hefting the two small bags, which seemed even tinier hanging from his thickly muscled arms like Christmas-tree ornaments.
Jesus, she thought, I can’t take a hint for shit.
But when she stood up to race to the elevator, Wade was already stepping off, as were Polly Petruschka and Aaron Statlender. The duo chatted quietly as they exited and passed through the lobby and out the door without noticing Luce’s curled up nose.
“Did you see them?” she asked, tugging at Wade’s sleeve aggressively.
“You mean Polly Prentiss and her camera guy?”
Luce nodded, though she really didn’t appreciate the hints of stars in Wade’s eyes. “Polly Petruschka and her lackey is how I’d like you to phrase it from now on.”
Wade shook off her anxiety, rolled his eyes even.
“What were they saying?”
“Oddly enough, they were talking about strip clubs.”
Luce scoffed. “That does not surprise me. Aaron looks like the type to blow his paycheck on lap dances and Polly is just the type to blow off steam on a pole or poles, plural,” Luce wrapped air quotes around that last word like a blanket of perversion.
“Are you speaking in metaphor, again?”
“Yeah,” Luce barked. “The poles are penises. That woman is capital F foul.”
Wade rubbed his temple. “So no history between you two then.”
Luce lied, “None at all. It’s just, I don’t trust her and no American viewer should either. To Catch a Perv? Already been caught, every week, it’s the host!”
Wade put his arm on her shoulder and started to shepherd her to the door. “Maybe we should just go.”
“So what were they saying about strip clubs?” Luce asked, ignoring him.
“They believe they’re going to catch Bishop Bugenhagen at one, but they didn’t mention which.”
“That’d be a coup, for sure. Alert Sister Mary-Agnes, she’d pay double for box seats!”
“Speaking of strip clubs.” Wade pulled the diaper brief from his coat pocket.
…
The parking lot of the Tiger Lounge only filled up on Thursdays and Saturdays and the transient criminal element seemed to be just
that…transient, as none of them were on display to scare away the crop of forty and fifty-year old women giggling and goggling their way to the front door.
“What are they doing here?” Wade asked, clearly confused.
Luce retrieved the audition flyer and shoved it into his hand. “You must’ve missed the small print.”
Wade read over the words and found the line Luce was referencing: Come prepared to dance for the intended audience judging will be held on performance night.
“Oh man,” he said. “I’m going to need a drink.”
Dark and dank, with an underlying cloud of funk not often smelled outside of high school boys’ locker rooms, the Tiger Lounge, nonetheless, knew its audience. The drink menu was sugar-shocked with dildo names. Mama’s Little Helper and Pinga-Colada, a cornucopia of syrupy elixirs that if you didn’t know better might have been available at your local blacked-out window sex shop. Luce watched as Wade was led into the back room carrying his number like an amateur talent night contestant.
Despite his lack of fluidity, Luce knew Wade had this particular job in the bag. Once these women got a load of his body there’d be a riot in the club, assuming the cocktails didn’t create instant hangovers. Wade split off from her and disappeared into a sea of sweater sets and pearls.
With her partner pursuing his role, it was time for Luce to get to work. She set herself up at the bar and cocktail in hand played the part of the aging barfly—the makeup she’d applied wouldn’t fool anyone in the daylight, but in the shadows, it was just what the doctor ordered. If your doctor writes prescriptions for bedraggled, tired, and tipsy.
She pulled two photos from her purse, one, of Carlito Gonzales, the recipient of Grant DeFevre’s eyes and the other of DeFevre himself. While it didn’t happen all the time, Wade had said, occasionally the newly infected could take on certain facial characteristics of the body the demon had previously inhabited.
The logic seemed a little shaky to Luce, but who was she to question? This would be only her second repo and just because the first transplant recipient didn’t look a thing like the stripper, didn’t mean that it couldn’t happen.
The other possibility was that the Tiger Lounge was some sort of clubhouse for demons. If that were the case, anyone of those gathered could be infected. Some portal or weak spot that allowed for them to infiltrate. But after her second rum and Coke, Luce was full of doubts, also her ability to ignore the infrequent hallucinations was compromised, unless the hummingbirds dancing around the man’s head next to her were real. Doubtful.
The first stripper took to the floor. Thin and greasy, he pouted for the ladies in the front—or the closest to that look he could manage with paper-thin lips. He grumbled and tantrumed, falling to the floor pounding his fists against it before inching out of his tan corduroys like a caterpillar.
His dancing was terrible and though the women screamed, they didn’t look or sound as enthusiastic as they would certainly be when Wade knocked their socks off, or his own for that matter.
The guy was even paler beneath his clothes with a bit of a sunken chest, but he somehow managed to get the women going, swooning, what have you. It took a little while to realize the appeal. The stripper was in need of mothering. He needed fattening up. He was pasty, possibly feverish. Chicken soup might be called for.
Luce felt the immediate onslaught of nausea as the purpose of the Mommy Party came rushing back. And with it, a sad conclusion that Wade might not fare well.
Because if anyone didn’t appear to need parental guidance, it was Wade.
Sure enough, when he took the stage, gyrating as Luce had instructed and tearing off his shirt seductively to reveal his stellar chest and rippling stomach, masculine, tan, and a little too hairy to be considered childish, which is to say…any. The women seemed to turn their heads in unison.
Luce ran to the back of the crowd and began to wave her hands to get Wade’s attention, jumping up and down and drawing her finger across her throat.
It’s not working! she mouthed.
And then an idea occurred to her. She started rubbing her eyes like she was crying and then pointed for Wade to do the same thing. He crouched into a squat and ground his fists into his eyes.
The mommies swooned.
“Yeah!” Luce cried, both elated and disgusted.
She looked around and noticed another contestant sitting at the edge of the room, his number having been exed in red marker, clearly disqualified, but he did have a large prop baby bottle.
“Mind if I borrow this?” she asked and snatched it, going long and tossing it across the audience’s heads into Wade’s big hands.
He suckled it, the apples of his cheeks working the women in a way that Luce found both distasteful and oddly satisfying—they were, after all, getting their way, having a need fulfilled, no matter how disturbing. Luce laughed and glanced back at the man whose bottle had saved them. She’d meant to say thanks but stopped dead when she saw him being escorted from the bar by Carlito Gonzales, she was certain of it. The dark glasses weren’t hiding a thing.
She felt in her pocket for the little vial of Rohypnol Wade had supplied her with and wandered over to him. “Can I buy you a drink?” she asked.
The man’s head lilted in her direction, her face reflected back at her in duplicate. “Something sugary?”
“That goes without saying. Also sex-toy themed,” she said, clipping his hip with hers as she sashayed to the bar.
At least she hoped it was a sashay.
Luce’s ability to use her wiles were contingent on actually having wiles. She wasn’t even certain she knew what they were and had never picked up a man in a bar—unless Wade counted, but she was pretty sure that exchange had been the other way around—let alone one catering to empty-nesting mommy pervs.
The man having emptied only half a Vibrator down his throat—the drink, not the device, you people are sick—began to wobble and before she could even scan the room for Wade, Luce knew she had to get him to the car or he’d be flat on his back on the dingy linoleum.
“Lean on me, baby,” she cooed and as though he’d heard something completely different, something like say, “Let me carry your full weight for I am strong like ox,” Carlito fell onto her and nearly knocked her to the ground. Luce struggled for a foothold gripping the guy’s belt to get some leverage and heaved. The man yelped, his eyes gone momentarily wide before sagging back into the weight of the roofies in his system. It took Luce a second to realize that in addition to his belt, she’d grabbed the elastic of his boxers and given him one hell of a wedgie from the amount of underwear hanging out of the back of the guy’s pants.
As good a means as any to keep him alert, Luce tugged at the boxers until Carlito was nearly on his tiptoes, whimpering and gesturing for her to stop, but he was moving. And toward the car, too—sometimes she surprised herself with her ingenuity.
The trunk would be much more comfortable for Carlito, who was so soft and squishy he could have come from the Haribo factory. By the time they’d made it across the parking lot, the drugs had flooded through him and his eyes were glazed and so blown out, he couldn’t feel a thing.
She did hear him say, “A Dios Mio” ss she released his underwear, but figured even demons enjoyed the relief of a dislodged wedgie. Luce pushed him over into the trunk and shut it, glancing quickly around her to see if her rather conspicuous activity had been spotted.
Chapter Thirteen
Wade hurriedly pulled on his clothes, his hands shaking and desperately needing a drink. He hoped Luce had made some progress tracking down Carlito because he was certain that he hadn’t been hired until:
“Wade, my boy!” A man materialized from the shadows, gaunt with the crinkled crepe-paper cheeks of a geriatric. “We’re very happy with your work out there and the women loved it.”
“You are?” Wade cringed, sickened, but forced a smile. “They were?”
“Absolutely. I’m Gimble and I’d like to offer you a job. It’s no
t frequent and there’s no salary but the tips are a shit ton better than you’ll get waiting tables.”
“Ah, so pretty good then.”
“I’m confident a guy with your assets.” Wade could feel the man’s beetle-black eyes creep down his body and come to rest on the front of his pants. And understood the whole objectification argument instantly. He’d stopped being a person in this man’s eyes. Wade felt reduced to a T-Bone in a Styrofoam tray under the man’s scrutiny. “Sizeable assets, that you could headline our show. Have you heard of the Peepee Teepee?”
Wade grimaced. “I won’t do anything racist.”
“No, no. Absolutely not. This is in reference to the tent that covers your privates during diapering so that you don’t accidentally spray your attendant.”
Wade was stunned and sickened. Luce had been right. It hadn’t occurred to him the level of depravity possible in this scenario and he couldn’t help but inch away slowly.
“Have you seen the film Flashdance?” Gimble continued.
Wade shrugged, though the title sounded familiar.
“There’s a scene in which the lovely and lithe Jennifer Beals leans back in a chair, naked and sleek, and pulls a handle, which showers her with water. It’s very erotic.”
“You want me to do that?”
“With some additions and tweaks, yes.” His eyes twinkled with a vicious perversity. “You’ll have an assistant from the audience help you cover your…manhood…with a Peepee Teepee, a small tent, or cozy, if you’d prefer, as you extract yourself from your G-string and then, when you’re fully extended, a bucket of—”
“Don’t say it,” Wade thought, bile rising in his throat.
“—urine will fall from the ceiling.”
“No.” The word came out flat and final. Wade stuffed his feet into his socks and started scanning the room for Luce.
He. Was. Done.
“Oh!” Mr. Gimble held up his hands. “I didn’t mean to. No. It’s not real urine, just cider. Plain old wholesome apple cider. It’s for effect, you see. An illusion. The magic of showmanship!”
