by Al Riske
“Come on, Dee …”
“No, relax. It’s okay. I’m curious is all.”
“She’s really loud,” he says, finally.
Deirdre laughs. Which surprises them both.
“Does it turn you on, her being loud?”
“It’s different.” He finds her eyes and looks into them. “Not better, just …” He shrugs.
It’s almost sweet, the way he says it. She should stop now, but the pain propels her to say something. Anything. The subject at hand is all that comes to mind.
“What does she wear?”
“Nothing.”
“No lingerie?”
“Well, sure. She has … stuff. But it never stays on for long. She prefers to be naked.”
That makes sense. The girl’s skin is flawless. Pale, smooth, creamy. No doubt naked is a good look for her.
Deirdre, now thirty-eight, relies on certain visual and sensual aids. She leaves her nylons on in bed—in fact that’s about the only time she wears them, usually with extremely high spike-heeled shoes that also make it into the bed but not out the door.
She can see Randy and Roxy together in her mind. They look good. Just the right size for each other, the right age. She should let them be. But she can’t. She drops Randy’s jacket on the floor and scoots closer to him.
“Does she do this?”
She grabs his shirt and tears it open, buttons flying everywhere. It doesn’t matter that there’s a scruffy young writer out cold in her bedroom.
Dance Naked
ON A HILL overlooking the bay in Santa Cruz there was a seafood place called Callihan’s with a rock’n’roll bar in the basement. Known as The Well, the bar had a separate entrance because it stayed open long after Callihan’s had closed and the cooks had come downstairs for a free beer. Nothing really bad had ever happened there before.
It was Friday and Donna Kay Murray wanted to make it last. The first thing she did after getting off work was run a hot bath—so hot she couldn’t get in it right away. She took her time getting undressed, and then she just sat there on the edge of the wash basin rubbing her neck and watching the steam fog the mirror.
Like Donna, Stan Wheeler was a regular at The Well, but if he didn’t get his car fixed he was going to have to walk there tonight. The damn thing had a tendency to overheat, and the guy at the Shell station who worked on it said that was typical with cars like his, a 1970 Buick GS, but Stan wasn’t so sure. Maybe the mechanic just said that because he didn’t know how to fix it so it’d stay fixed. Or maybe he knew how and just didn’t do it.
As Donna sank into her tub and Stan looked under the hood of his car, Glenn Lewis was squeezing the trigger of .45-caliber automatic. His target: an empty beer bottle perched atop a boulder in an abandoned rock quarry two miles outside the city limits. The first shot went astray, but the second shattered the stubby brown bottle and sent shards of glass flying in all directions.
The gun, borrowed from a friend, had more kick than Glenn had expected.
OF THE THREE, Stan was the first to arrive at The Well that Friday. He was a tall man with broad shoulders and a Fu Man Chu mustache that gave his almost-handsome face an ominous look. Almost always, he wore Wrangler jeans and cowboy boots, and tonight he had on a silk shirt he had nicked from a tony men’s store in San Francisco awhile back.
He had been able to fix the Buick himself. It was nothing more than a broken hose. The parts store down the street had a match and it only cost a few bucks. Of course he had to replace all the antifreeze that had spilled in his parking space as soon as he’d turned off the engine, but still he felt like he was getting off easy for once.
He sat down at the bar and ordered a Budweiser from Jill. It was seven-thirty and hardly anyone was there yet.
GLENN LEWIS WENT through one case of empties and started in on another. Now that he was used to the gun, its kick, and the sights (which he swore were slightly off), he was able to hit his targets fairly regularly.
He had always loved guns. From the time he was a boy and a friend took him hunting he had wanted one of his own. His parents wouldn’t allow it. Not as long as he lived in their house, which was a year after high school—a year too long as far as he was concerned.
He finally did own a rifle at one point about two years ago, but it belonged to a pawnbroker in Seattle now, or more likely to one of his customers. This was the first time he’d fired a handgun since getting out of the Navy. He had a lot of good stories about the Navy, but it wasn’t that much fun being in.
He fired another shot, shattered another bottle, and felt bored—tired, thirsty, and bored.
DONNA FELT BETTER. The tension in her neck was gone. Most of it anyway. You couldn’t get rid of a full day’s worth of telephone neck with just one hot bath, even if you did stay in until the skin on your fingertips shriveled.
She didn’t care much for her job as a receptionist, but her boss was cute and she liked to flirt with him. If he ever wanted to jump in the sack she would definitely go for it, but she knew that wasn’t going to happen.
Donna was an attractive young woman—well, not so young anymore, thirty-two—but not the kind of beauty a man would leave his wife for. She was thin, blond (by birth), and made the most of her figure with tight pants and high-heeled pumps, but her younger sister was the one with the boobs. Donna didn’t have much to show besides a tiny strawberry tattoo peeking out of her scoop-necked T-shirt.
Still, she looked and felt good tonight. The whole weekend lay ahead and anything could happen.
GLENN GOT A drink at a place called the Kicking Mule, two blocks from the beach boardwalk. Downing half of it in one gulp, he looked around for familiar faces. There were none. He had only been in town a few weeks and except for the guy he was staying with—the guy who loaned him the handgun—he didn’t really know anyone. He’d shot some pool here with a couple of guys whose names he couldn’t remember right now, but they weren’t here tonight. No matter. What he really wanted was to meet a girl. He hadn’t gotten laid in God knows how long. But, more than that, he wanted someone to be with—a permanent thing.
She would be short, like him, and blond. He had a thing about blondes. God knows why. The ones he’d known were mostly cold and had spurned him. One in particular. He was not the world’s most handsome man, he had to admit. His chin was too weak, his nose too big, his brown hair too ratty. But, hell, he wasn’t that bad. He took care of himself and was actually quite proud of his body and how it had developed with all the pushups and sit-ups and all… Why did she have to say, “Get away from me, you little weasel”? There was no need to be rude. He could take a hint.
JILL TORRENCE, A young barmaid with large green eyes and an ample bosom, poured Stan’s Budweiser and asked him how things were going.
“Could be better,” he said.
“What would make it better?” Jill wanted to know.
Stan’s lips stretched into a slow smile that stayed on his face for some time. “A new car, for one thing,” he said. But Jill knew that wasn’t the first thing on his mind.
They had gone out a few times, and Jill was about to suggest they do it again but something made her stop. Instead, she said, “Did it break down again?”
IT WAS AFTER eight when Donna descended the stairway into The Well. Her stomach was growling and the first thing she did was call the waitress over to her table and order a basket of deep-fried clam strips with extra tartar sauce. She really wanted to go upstairs and have a real dinner, but she didn’t have a lot of money.
Anyway, she was supposed to meet Therese here. It looked like Therese was going to be even later than usual. While waiting, Donna had her first cigarette of the night. She smoked only occasionally now and got little pleasure from it.
Therese came in just after the clam strips arrived from upstairs. She was a redhead with wide hips and legs that reminded Donna of railroad spikes. And she could really put away the groceries.
“Oh, just in time,” she said and help
ed herself to the clams.
That irritated Donna a bit, especially in her present state, but she liked Therese. She was a friend, and you couldn’t say that about too many people.
“Looks like Stan and Jill are getting cozy again,” Therese observed.
Donna had already noticed them over at the bar, talking away, but she looked over now as if it were news to her. Jill was wearing a peasant blouse that bared her shoulders, and the way she was leaning on the bar, well, Donna was pretty sure Stan was getting an eyeful.
“The woman has no shame,” Therese said, as if she wouldn’t do the same thing if Stan came over to their table. They both knew she would, though, and they laughed about it.
And he did come over, eventually.
ON THE STREET out in front of the restaurant a car pulled out of its parking place, and a gray Camaro took its place. The driver of the Ca-maro, Glenn Lewis, figured this must be his lucky day. There wasn’t another parking place in sight. Not that you could see very far with the fog rolling in off the ocean.
By now The Well was filling up. The reason: a five-piece rock band called Dog Bite was crowding onto the stage. The musicians, mostly from San Jose or thereabouts, were tuning their guitars, and already a few of the patrons were calling out requests, most for old Credence Clearwater Revival songs the band would be doing anyway. The lead singer, McKinley Greene, did a pretty fair imitation of John Fogerty at a time when Fogerty hadn’t been heard from in years.
Donna wanted to hear “Who’ll Stop the Rain,” but she knew the band liked to save that one till later because it was such a great song. Anyway, she liked everything they did: early Van Morrison, Mitch Rider, Gary U.S. Bonds, The Doors. The band did some originals, too, and Donna liked a couple of those as well.
“Therese, what’s the name of that song?”
“What song?”
“The one I like so well.”
“‘Desperate Lies’?”
“No, the other one.”
“I don’t know.”
“‘Like Hell!’” It came to her.
“Really, Donna, I’d tell you if I knew.”
“No, that’s it. It’s called ‘Like Hell!’”
Therese just smiled.
Donna shouted, “Play ‘Like Hell!’”
As McKinley looked up from tuning his Stratocaster, Therese anticipated his response, waited for it, and mouthed the words along with him: “We always do.”
THAT’S WHEN STAN came over and asked if he could join them. As he spoke, his hand was already reaching for the chair he would need from a nearby table. There was no objection, of course. He had seen Donna and Therese here several times in the few months he’d been in town. They had been regulars at The Well long before he had, and both of them liked to dance. Stan wasn’t much of a dancer himself—too stiff and self-conscious—but he liked to watch the ladies strut their stuff.
The band opened with “Sweet Hitchhiker,” and immediately several couples converged on the little hardwood dance floor next to the stage. Both Donna and Therese looked eager to dance, their heads bobbing, feet tapping. The only thing that made Stan hesitate was trying to decide which one to ask first. And how to do it without offending the other one.
Therese stood up.
“Come on, Stan, before there’s no more room out there.”
DONNA TOOK A long pull on her beer, finished the clam strips, and watched the dancers. For some reason she began to think about her parents and their divorce. Her father, a dentist named Jim, had run off with another woman—older than Donna’s mother, actually, and no more attractive, just different. They now lived in Utah, of all places, and Donna never saw them. She didn’t think her dad was happy, but he wasn’t the type to admit when he’d made a mistake.
That was six years ago and she couldn’t figure out what had made her think about it now. Unless it was Therese pulling Stan out on the dance floor. But that was ridiculous. Donna had no reason to feel possessive of Stan and she knew it.
Donna glanced up and noticed someone standing at the bottom of the stairs. A short guy in a down jacket, khaki pants, and hiking boots. He was looking right at her.
SHE LOOKED AWAY as soon as their eyes met, but Glenn took that as a sign that she was shy. She had definitely noticed him. That much he was sure of. And she was alone.
First, though, he needed a tall cold one, and that wouldn’t be easy to get from the looks of things. He elbowed his way through the crowd and hollered at the bartender, who didn’t hear. Glenn hollered again and the guy said, “Hold your horses” and waited on someone else.
Someone on Glenn’s right gave him a pretty vicious shot in the ribs, but Glenn was too intent on placing his order to notice who. Finally he slapped a five on the counter and shouted, “I’m dying of thirst here!”
He didn’t want anyone to get to the blonde before he did.
There were three chairs at her table, and one of them had a black leather purse slung over the backrest, so she wasn’t alone after all. But that didn’t matter to Glenn. In fact, it barely registered. He was still trying to decide what to say.
He took the empty chair beside her, spun it around, and straddled it. “I don’t know no good come-ons,” he said, “but I sure would like to get to know you.” Turning, she smiled—you couldn’t say warmly, but it was better than a kick in the pants. “My name is Glenn,” he continued, extending his hand. “Glenn Lewis.”
He had extended his hand too quickly, too abruptly. He had intended to be slow and smooth. The impression he wanted to convey was one of relaxed confidence, but so far, he was afraid, that wasn’t coming across.
She moved more slowly, looking him over, but she did finally shake his hand. “Louis?” she asked, not sure she had heard right.
The band finished its number, and the blonde turned toward the stage and applauded. Glenn applauded, too, and asked the woman her name.
“Donna,” she said.
Then there was someone behind him, tapping his shoulder. A voice in his ear said, “You’re in my chair, pal.”
GLENN STOOD AND turned and found himself staring into the neck and shoulders of some guy in a silk shirt. They were toe to toe, and all Glenn could see was an Adam’s apple, some chest hair, and the pale pink fabric of that shirt. He had to take a step backward just to keep his balance—the guy seemed to be leaning over him—and he nearly tripped over his chair in the process.
He thought of it as his chair until that moment, and what changed his mind was not the fact that this asshole had some prior claim to it. What changed his mind was stumbling over the damn thing and looking like a klutz in front of the blonde.
Glenn was already picking up his beer and moving away before he got a look at the guy. His face was hard and ugly, Glenn thought, and he took an instant dislike to its owner—natural enough under the circumstances.
With just the right touch of sarcasm, he said, “Well, excuse me,” and walked away without looking back. It was a small victory, getting the sarcasm right. Saved a bad exit. Not looking back was a good touch, too. It showed just how cool he was, how he wasn’t afraid to turn his back on a guy six inches taller and fifty pounds heavier than himself.
“WHO WAS THAT?” Stan wanted to know.
“Some guy,” Donna said. “Louis or something. I don’t know.”
“They all look the same in the dark,” Therese said. She was trying to make a joke, repeating something she’d heard guys say about girls, but it wasn’t funny then and it wasn’t much better now.
“It’s not that dark in here,” Donna said.
“Was he bothering you?” Stan asked.
Donna waved the question away and turned toward the stage, where the band was shifting into one of its own songs, “Don’t Tell Me (Let Me Guess).”
Stan touched her elbow and jerked his head in the direction of the dance floor. So it was her turn now. Okay, what did it matter? He would probably be going home with Jill tonight anyway—not Therese or her. They were just marking
time, right? Why not have some fun?
It was a good song—all about things that go without saying but shouldn’t—and the more Donna danced to it, the more she liked it. The music took hold and she could feel herself slipping away. It was like a drug. She closed her eyes and went with the feeling. It didn’t matter if she bumped into other dancers—that couldn’t be avoided in any case. When she closed her eyes she slipped into a familiar fantasy. She imagined that the crowd had gathered around her. She was the center and everyone was watching her dance, pressing in for a better look at her lithe body and its sensuous movements.
She shook her head and opened her eyes. Stan was watching her but no one else was. Though she could feel herself blush, she was sure that not even Stan would notice. No doubt she was already flushed from dancing, and Stan wasn’t looking at her face anyway. She knew how to move her body, how to subtly imitate the movements and rhythms of sex, and, no, Stan wasn’t the only one watching.
AT THE FAR end of the room, near the pool table, Glenn Lewis sipped his beer and waited his turn to play. All the while he kept one eye on the dance floor. That Donna had the moves to make a guy stand up and take notice. Too bad she was wasting them on that rude son of a bitch.
When he played their brief encounter over again in his mind, the details kept changing. Sometimes it went better, sometimes worse. All in all, though, Glenn decided his short, sarcastic reply had cast the mustached man in a bad light, while setting himself up as an offended gentleman. Women liked the kind of restraint he had shown in not decking the bastard then and there.
STAN AND DONNA stayed on the dance floor for two songs (which Donna considered a triumph of sorts) and then Stan went to get them all a pitcher of beer. Table service was almost nonexistent.
“That Stan, he’s sort of the Fred Astaire of Santa Cruz, isn’t he?” Therese observed.
Donna said, “He’s not too bad.”
Therese rolled her eyes.
“Well, he’s never stepped on my toes.”