No Place Like Home

by April Hill

  "Maybe a little," he said, without so much as a moment's polite hesitation. "Where do you want to eat, tonight?"

  Oh, well. Not every girl can be Sandra Dee. (Another Oldie but Goodie. Go look it up, kids.)

  We ate Japanese in Hollywood, then drove up through Laurel Canyon and stopped long enough to look at the city lights and neck like overwrought teenagers. When we got back to my house, he kissed me goodbye and started to leave. (After checking the doors and windows, again. The man was obviously obsessed!)

  "Better," he said grudgingly. "Only the kitchen window was unlocked. I guess that’s an improvement."

  "Don’t look at me," I grumbled. "I haven’t touched any of the fucking windows since last night."

  "You don’t have to lie about it, or swear about it, just be careful the next time," he said.

  "I’m not lying!" I protested, very vociferously, now. "Could you stop getting so damned obsessive about every single little thing?" (Dumb, huh?)

  "Are you trying to get walloped again?" he asked.

  "Why don’t you just fuck off," I responded, in my very most mature manner. "You're getting to be a pain in the ass, even when you’re not smacking me."

  Hank turned on his heel and walked out, slamming the door behind him, demonstrating once again what a fabulous way I have with men. It wasn't quite nine o’clock.

  After he left, I sat on the couch for a while, thinking about what had happened, and getting more and more indignant. I’d known this man for less than a week, and he was giving me orders, spanking me, for God’s sake, and worse yet, showing no inclination whatever to ravish me as I was so obviously panting to be ravished. There was either something seriously wrong with Detective Everett, or with me, and I was really hoping it was me. That I could live with. I was used to it.

  For reasons I’ve never really understood, my mind tends to get more muddled the longer I use it, so instead of sitting quietly and pursuing this possibly useful train of thought, I decided on direct action, instead. Since it was clear to me that drastic measures were called for, what else could I do but go out to a singles bar and meet another man? To make Hank jealous. Don’t laugh. They do it on TV all the time.

  When I was a part of the "dating game," all those many moons ago, I never once set foot in a singles bar. Whenever I went out with anyone, it was someone I’d met in school, or at work. But, thanks to "Sex and the City," I’m not completely out of touch with the modern dating scene. Not too far from here, in an area of Hollywood I generally tried to avoid, I’d noticed a seedy but popular night spot, called— rather inauspiciously— "Fat Joey’s." I phoned Mona to bum a ride, and after only twenty minutes of bitching, she agreed to come over and drop me off there. Just like in Cinderella, she even agreed to lend me some of her best purple eye-shadow, with glitter, and a dress—which I politely declined. Mona's evening-wear tends to glow in the dark.

  * * *

  “Cinderella Goes to the Ball"

  A Fairy Tale For Our Time, by Karen Thatcher

  "Cinderella’s pumpkin coach had already been summoned when it suddenly occurred to poor Cindy that she had nothing to actually wear to the ball, since her fairy godmother’s taste ran to Frederick’s of Hollywood and not frilly prom dresses with falsies in the bra. Desperately, Cindy rummaged through her disordered closet and found her very old, very dear little "basic black dress," which, though seeming just a tad snugger and a teensy bit shabbier than it had been in her youth, would surely be seen as understated and timelessly fashionable in the elegant surroundings and dimly lit ambiance of ‘Fat Joey’s’."

  Footwear, however, presented a greater problem, since Cindy had long since abandoned the wearing of either glass slippers or stiletto heels, in deference to the new movement for women’s equality, and could not find, or even remember when she had last owned, a pair of panty hose. Cinderella knew, of course, that the ladies of "Sex and the City" often went scandalously bare-legged at balls, but her guess was that these lovely ladies shaved their legs on a more reliable basis than she did. Still, when Cindy regarded herself in the mirror, she looked reasonably female and adorably petite in her flat, sensible shoes. Maybe even cute. (On second thought, cute would be a stretch. Let’s just leave it at female.) Outside her adorable white cottage, her coachperson’s impatient honk seemed to foretell a glittering evening of romance and excitement."

  * * *

  "All right, fool," Mona grumbled as we pulled up in front of the dented, reeking garbage cans that seemed to be permanently affixed to the exterior of Fat Joey’s. "I drove your dumb ass over here, but I ain’t stickin' around, and I sure as hell ain't comin' back here tonight. I'm pickier than some about who I hang with. The last bus already passed, so, if you get lucky, jus' get yourself a ride home with the kinda’ motherfuckin’ slob you likely to find in this shithole!" Mona’s such a romantic soul! What more could a girl ask for in a fairy godmother?

  Inside, the lights weren’t quite dim enough to permit me the illusion that Fat Joey’s was my preferred kind of watering spot, but Mona had already burnt rubber out of there, and I had adventure on my mind, so Fat Joey’s would simply have to do. I strolled up to the bar and sat down—or in my case, climbed up. No one seemed to take note of my arrival, but I could see that the dress code at Joey's was something well short of casual, and that panty hose were not required— maybe not even panties. Nor, evidently, was deodorant. “Fat Joey’s”— not to put too fine a point on it— smelled like it looked.

  I sat at the bar and ordered the only mixed drink I can ever remember the name of—a Margarita, then sat there and smiled at everybody and at nobody in particular. The place was packed, and though whatever was playing was not music in any recognizable human sense, it throbbed inside my head and made my eyeballs distend rhythmically. Several ropes of tangled Christmas lights blinked relentlessly above the bar, lending a certain insouciant quality to the atmosphere. The lights also made it a little easier to see whomever was seated next to you, and revealed that whoever had washed Joey’s glassware was being vastly overpaid. None of the numerous elderly lipstick smudges on the rim of my Margarita glass was my shade.

  For longer than I am pleased to admit, no one spoke to me, but I continued to smile idiotically, tapping on the bar in time with the discordant racket to show Joey’s sophisticated clientele just what a cool, hip fox I could be, when you got to know me. While I tapped, I read and committed to memory every last one of Joey’s matchbook covers and his soiled cocktail napkins, all of which featured cartoons on the subject of either oral sex or bowel movements. Eventually, several of Joey’s male patrons (and two females) hit on me, which lifted my spirits somewhat, despite their shared lack of visual or olfactory appeal.

  As the evening wore on, I began to debate the wisdom of calling Mona and begging her to launch a rescue mission on my behalf. No attractive candidate for my planned dalliance had appeared on the horizon, and I was developing a lung impairment from the hovering pall of cigarette and cigar smoke, and the smell of pot. Besides, I needed desperately to go to the bathroom, and Fat Joey’s bathroom facilities, in addition to being aggressively co-ed, appeared to be doing a thriving crack business in every booth. The fact was, I simply couldn’t face the implied dishonor of having failed to attract a man even in a sewer called Fat Joey’s. Instead, disheartened and depressed, I gave up and made my way to the door. I had noticed a pay phone outside. If I was lucky, the phone’s guts hadn’t been ripped out by gangs of vandals. And if I was super lucky, I could find a cab driver somewhere in Los Angeles with enough of a death wish to come here and pick me up. Then, at the height of my hopelessness, I felt a tap on my shoulder, and over the din, someone screamed, "How's it goin' there, sweetheart," in my ear. Prince Charming had finally entered the building.

  "Larry" was a shortish, pleasant-enough looking fellow, with a brush of reddish-brownish hair and a small, neat mustache. Larry had memorized all of the familiar first lines, like "Do you come here a lot," and "That’s a great-looking dr
ess." After a few minutes of chit-chat, which we shrieked at one another over the noise, we found an empty booth and began the age-old courtship ritual.

  After an hour of inane conversation about recent movies and the terrible weather, during which time I consumed what may have been only four Margaritas, my Drunk Self appeared. My Drunk Self is a much cleverer and more interesting person than my Real Self and She told Larry, in no uncertain terms, that She had to leave, so She could be up early to go to her job as a world-renowned thoracic surgeon at Good Samaritan Hospital. Larry asked Her if She needed a ride, and almost immediately, every story I’d ever read about raped, strangled, disemboweled and beheaded women flashed through my tequila-fogged brain. Still, Larry seemed benign, and so far, he'd said and done nothing to cause alarm.

  "Okay," I said, burping in my most attractive manner.

  By the time we got back to my wee rancho, I had begun to sing the score from Annie, Get Your Gun. The night was lovely, the stars partially visible through the smog, and I was in the mood for love. Why not Larry? Indeed, had this Larry person not been unstinting in his generosity, and always the perfect gentleman? Had he not purchased at enormous expense four (?) Margaritas for me, and two additional noxious green beverages with festive little yellow umbrellas in them, (which I was now wearing in my hair) in addition to innumerable pretzels, peanuts, and nacho chips with extra cheese? It had been nearly two years since the smiling, two-faced David, (may he contract terminal periodontal disease) left me for another, and in all that time, my nakedness had not been uncovered by man—any man, (with the possible exception of a seventy-four year old gynecologist who prescribed for me the contraceptive medication I took each morning in the thus far vain hope that my luck could change at any minute.)

  "Would you like to come in for a drink?" I asked, scrupulously avoiding, despite my inebriated condition, the use of the term "nightcap." I didn’t want my new friend Larry to think I was another of those east coast phonies.

  Once in the house, though, Larry appeared to undergo an abrupt personality change, overcome by my voluptuous figure, or perhaps by my sparkling wit and the beguiling hiccups which I had developed on the ride home. Even in the alcoholic cloud under which I was operating, however, I had begun to have a few tiny little reservations about the wisdom of inviting into my home a person who might well be the Johnny Appleseed of sexually transmitted disease. Larry took off his coat and slipped his turtleneck sweater over his head. When he reached simultaneously for his zipper and his belt-buckle, I turned and made for the bedroom.

  "Excuse me, just a teeny-weeny second," I said, stumbling for the door. Before I could reach the relative safety of the bedroom, however, Larry came up behind me, lifted the hem of my little basic black dress, and groped my buttocks firmly with both hands. He proceeded to squeeze them like the experienced shopper he no doubt was, and then slid several callused fingers into my crotch. He paused for a moment, and swore, his ardor at least momentarily deflated by the feel of my cotton knit underwear. The ladies on "Sex and the City"— with who people like Larry normally partied— probably had dresser drawers overflowing with thong panties. I, on the other hand, have owned only one "thong" in my life, which I bought at "Victoria’s Secret" and somehow contrived to put on backwards, resulting in a mild but annoying case of rope-burn. The only erotic or even mature thing that could be said of my own frayed underpants was that they were clean, and not embroidered with the day of the week.

  When I turned around to express my irritation at being so crudely groped, I found my guest grinning broadly, his thick, very hairy legs spread wide. Larry, in fact, was mother-naked, and proudly displaying his erect penis, which he held encircled in one fist, waving it at me like one of those bobble-headed dolls people keep in their cars, or a freshly severed turkey neck.

  "Hi, there!" he crowed in a tiny Elmo-like voice, waving his member invitingly in my direction. "My name is Larry Junior! Can I come in and play?" From the way he was holding it, I was drunk enough to think with some amazement that his male member appeared to be detachable, as though he had simply removed it from his pocket and screwed it on. I was not so drunk, however, that I didn’t notice that Larry was, as the expression goes, "packing big." Larry was, to put it delicately, built like a Belgian draft horse.

  I slid through the door to the bedroom, closed it behind me, and pondered escape routes. If I had had even one friend, (or a phone, for that matter) I could have called my friend and told her to phone me right back, pretending dire emergency, or warning me of the imminent arrival of my insanely jealous husband, the famous six-hundred pound Sumo wrestler, Maximoto, Crusher of Men's Skulls. Mona was my only hope, but even if I could sneak back to the living room, her phone never answers, playing, instead, an endless electronic rendition of Amazing Grace before a mechanical voice asks you to leave a message and get lost. There was no other way out. I would have to go out there and tell Larry the absolute truth—that I suffered from a virulent case of herpes that was no longer in remission.

  Maybe Larry would like an aperitif, my Drunk Self suggested, with perfect logic. My refrigerator contained a bottle of stale drinking water and a mildewing can of tomato juice. I opened the door a crack. Larry was busy now—masturbating in the hallway and crooning to Larry Junior. I smiled at him (trying to focus somewhere besides his wildly jiggling member) and asked his preference.

  "Can I get you some tomato juice?"

  Larry didn’t want any tomato juice.

  Trying to avert my fascinated gaze from his crotch, I noticed for the first time that Larry’s wavy brown hairline had been purchased somewhere, and sprouted in tidy rows across his forehead like tiny stacks of harvested wheat. He had a gap between his front teeth, and when he opened his mouth to grin once more, a gold tooth flashed. Funny, the things you can miss at the height of the rutting season.

  "Excuse me, again," I tittered, then backed into the bedroom. As I stood in the middle of the room, my mind racing frantically, I knew the sudden sickening truth—that Larry wouldn’t care the teeniest-weeniest little bit about raging herpes or any other scabrous malady I came up with. Larry was probably already a rotting, festering cesspool of disease. Who else would be picking up sluts like me at a slime pit like Fat Joey’s?

  Minutes passed, and in my fevered state, I imagined Larry unpacking handcuffs and surgical instruments in my living room. I was hearing no sound from beyond the door, so if God had not already thrown up his hands in disgust with me, maybe, just maybe good old Larry had quietly passed out from his exertions. God knows, he’d swilled down enough of what passed for bourbon at Fat Joey’s. Quietly, I opened the door a crack, and peeked around the edge. Larry was nowhere in sight. Larry’s clothes, which he had shed in a circle at his own feet, were also gone. I crept down the hall, looking from side to side.

  Larry was gone.

  I hurried to the front door and looked out the lowest of the staggered diamond-shaped window panes. Larry’s car was nowhere in sight,, and the street was deserted. I double-locked the front door, then collapsed in a grateful heap on the couch. This was positively my last blind date! It took a few minutes for the insult to sink in. The son of a bitch had walked out on me! Dumped! By a jerk I’d picked up at a dump! With fake hair!

  Okay, what with one thing and another, I’d had better evenings. Still, I would have the satisfaction tomorrow of telling Hank about the late night date I’d had with a "swell" new guy. I stretched and yawned, then struggled up off the couch to go to bed, trying to keep down the nachos and the last greenish thing with the yellow paper umbrella.

  Yep, another day in Paradise.

  * * *

  CHAPTER THREE

  Hank called early the next morning, way too early for me to put on my Sunny Morning Self for his benefit. (Yeah, I have a lot of selves.) Anyway, I’m afraid my Hungover Self snarled something nasty into the phone, after tripping over the coffee table in an effort to get there in time. I rubbed my shin and vowed to go out that very afternoon and se
ll enough blood to get an extension phone in the bedroom.

  "Good morning to you, too," he said affably. "I see you’re still in a great mood."

  I rubbed my eyes and tried to gather my wits, which is no easy matter when your brain and eyeballs feel like they're about to explode. "Sorry," I managed finally. "I guess I’m a little partied out this morning."

  "Big night?" he asked.

  You could cut the sarcasm with a knife. The man obviously thought I had no life at all. I was going to enjoy every second of this.

  "Well, we…(small, pretended yawn) I was out pretty late last night," I murmured sweetly. "Just lost track of time, I guess. You know how it is with these things. "

  There was just the smallest, pregnant pause. "Sure," he said finally.

  "Was there something you wanted, Detective? I’ve got a lot to do this morning, and…"

  Another pause, longer this time. "No, nothing really. I just wanted to check in to see how you were doing."