Hard Rain Falling - Don Carpenter [44]
“That’s why they use those colored lights,” Sue said. She and Denny were arm in arm in arm in front of Jack and Mona. “That way you can’t see the wrinkles.”
“No, that’s not right,” Denny said. “The colored lights are part of the act. They’re sexy, that’s why they use them.”
“I don’t see anything sexy about colored lights. I bet a strip act would be twice as sexy in bright lights.”
“Naw, you just don’t understand,” Denny said. “It’s more mysterious with the colored lights.” He turned and walked backward, and asked Jack, “You been to Mexico; you ever see one of them shows down there?”
“A couple,” Jack said.
“Strip shows?” Mona asked.
Denny and Jack both laughed. “A lot like that,” Jack said. “Only, kind of vulgar.”
“What’s the big mystery?” Sue wanted to know.
“No mystery,” Jack said. “No mystery at all.”
“Stag shows,” Denny explained. “Chicks stickin bottles in themselves and screwin donkeys, and that kind of crap.”
“Good God,” Sue said. “Those Mexicans, they’ll do anything. How filthy!”
“Well, the time I was in Tijuana the chick who took on the donkey was an American. Redhead. About forty. Some guy told me she used to be in the movies.”
“Guess what kind of movies,” Jack said.
“No, really. She was supposed to have been in Hollywood movies. A starlet or something. She was about forty when I saw her. Me and Tommy had a good thing going down there and we was out of our minds all day every day. That’s a funny town. Did you ever see a bullfight?”
Jack said he had not.
“They stink,” Denny said.
They went to Denny’s room. He got out his whiskey bottle and the glasses, and they each had a drink. Sue was already drunk, and she gagged a little on hers, frowned, and then drank some more.
Denny winked at Jack. “This one really puts it away.”
“Lissen,” Sue said. She winced. “I could do a goddam better striptease right here and now than them goddam old bitches any day. You want to see?”
She began wriggling and snapping her fingers.
“Turn on the radio,” Denny said.
“Oh, really, Sue,” Mona sniffed with disgust. She went over and snapped on the radio, and in a few seconds, while everyone stood still and waited, rock and roll music began to play. Sue got into the beat, and jumped up on the bed, her face a counterfeit of abandon, and began rocking back and forth on the springs. Trying to keep the rhythm she reached behind to unsnap her dress.
“Christ,” she said, “I can’t do it.” She sat down, cross-legged. “Goddam it.” A commercial played on the radio, and Jack went over and switched to another station. But Sue did not get up and try again.
“They got trick dresses,” Denny said.
“Do you want to dance?” Mona asked Jack. “It’s dark now, if I turn out the lights.”
As they danced, Jack wondered what twists of personality would make a person ashamed to make love in the light, and yet not mind having another couple in the room, as long as it was dark. It seemed so dishonest. But as they danced he kept drinking from his glass and rubbing against her body, and after a while nothing much mattered; he was blurring into a good peaceful sexual drunk.
The rest of the night got more confusing as he got drunker, and he liked that, he wanted to hold on to it; as the liquor pulled him away from himself Mona’s body touching his pulled him back in, and he was in a state of increasing amniotic suspension. There were vague things that happened; someone predictably threw up in the bathroom; somebody fell over the corner of the bed; later on, one or both of the girls started crying about something, and eventually Jack mumbled that it was time to go back to his room and took the small moist hand in his and muttered good night to the radio and opened the door into the overbright, eerie, empty hallway and staggered down to his room, fumbled for his key, got the door open and the DO NOT DISTURB sign in place on the outside knob, and pulled her into the room without turning on the light and started kissing and pulling her