Clown Girl - Monica Drake [109]
Rich snagged me by the dress. “Ho-no! The act stays onstage.”
The dress stretched like a bungee cord; sequins sprang like fireworks while I hovered between the fresh breeze and fetid air.
I pointed at the ceiling, a pidgin version of clown sign language: too low to juggle.
“Let’s see,” he said. He pulled me deeper into the dark corner of the van, wrapped his arms around me, and slid up close behind. We were both on our knees, against the matted carpet. Something on the floor cut into my kneecap. “I want to feel your jugs while you juggle,” he said, and his breath was a death wheeze. “Get it? Jugs and juggling? I always think of that. Since I was a boy at the circus.” He ran a hand over the Pendulous Breasts.
He had me in a tight squeeze. I tossed one ball, tried to lunge for it but couldn’t move. The ball hit the side of the van, rolled, then nested in a carpeted corner.
He hiked up my skirts. I tried to wriggle out of his arms.
“Why the resistance? I’ve got money.” With one arm still around me, he pulled a wallet from his pocket. The wallet flipped open. He shook it like a kid pretending the wallet was a seagull, and the gull dropped bills. He laughed as dollars drifted.
He undid his belt and his pants fell all too willingly down around his knees. Rich whispered, “Feel my big balloon dog.” His breath was murky with the smoke of old pot and soured champagne. He rubbed himself against my thighs. I fell forward under the pressure of his weight, onto my hands on the loose bills scattered on the dirty carpet. “Feel it?”
I could feel it. I nodded, and broke a rule as I said out loud, “Is that a big balloon dog, or a whoopee cushion? Maybe someone forgot to inflate—”
He said, “Hey—sh sh sh. Just give it to me, Juicy,” and he rubbed himself against my underwear. He twisted my Pendulous Breast nipple, except it wasn’t a nipple. It was electrical tape that came off in his hand, and the scorched threads gave in. Sand rained down.
He liked it! He said, “The lactating clown act! My lucky day. Lucky, lucky luck.”
Under my breath I said, “More like granulating.”
He grunted and thrust, and said, lucky, lucky, lucky. All that separated us was one thin panty line, my cotton underwear, and I was so glad for that thin line as the final line I wouldn’t cross. Lucky, lucky…He slid his fingers inside my underwear.
He crossed the line.
All I could think of was escape. I didn’t want his little roll of nickels in my pocketbook. He moaned, sweaty, fingers prodding. My skin was up against Rich’s skin, and he felt like a rubber chicken, and made me think of bitter blood and feathers barely plucked. The closer to his skin I got the more I thought of dime-store buffet lines, processed ham and margarine and all the fake food I wished I’d never eaten. Rich was a squealing ham sandwich, a spoiled fake milk trick. And whose fault was this—mine, or society’s? Kafka’s or the cockroach’s, the audience’s or the director’s? I was the only one there; I couldn’t go on with the date. I caught Rich Johnson by surprise and threw him off. Ta da! I scrambled, and fell out the side of the van.
Voilà!
“Juicy,” Rich said. “Don’t go. Not like that.” He lunged. We wrestled on the dusty ground, over broken cement. The sequins in my dress were tiny claws.
I said, “I’m done. I can’t do it.”
He sat up. I rolled away, brushed myself off. We were both breathing hard—maybe for different reasons. He ran a few fingers through his high pompadour. He looked tired, a little puffy-eyed, older than he’d been only minutes before. He said, “Look, you, I’m in this for the fun. Helps cut the tension of a big work-week. Like the ad says, a good time. No joke. But if you’re not with me—at least let me pay up.”
Paying is half the fetish for some of these guys.
He grabbed a handful of bills from the van floor; three spotlights swung over the area. Like the opening to a big top three-ring hoopla, lights circled and danced, made shadows against the fallen walls until they