Beautiful Children

by Charles Bock

  The thought of paying for nookie was truly depressing to Bing Beiderbixxe. It was like admitting you had no chance whatsoever of getting some on your merits. Basically you were saying, Yes, I am retarded but so what because I have my gold medal. Nevertheless, the stories intrigued him. Members of his own kind had successfully broken the wall, dealt with these women in real-life situations, outside their places of employment. Thoughts were zooming without completion, but a few decent connections were being made, and these connections distracted Bing enough that he was unprepared for the presence, now invading his personal space: an overstuffed, electric-white schoolgirl's blouse, mammaries leaping toward him, all but bursting through the fabric.

  Attached to the breasts, a shapely body was stuffed into a Catholic school skirt that was so tiny, its fabric barely qualified as an afterthought. It took Bing a while before he got to her face. She did not appear to mind. Her smile was toothy, beaming in his direction, the black light making her teeth glow oddly.

  Now her lips, luscious and billowy and a gloss of ruby red, formed words that were drowned out by the yelps and whistles of an excruciating pop hit.

  Bing shrugged. She leaned toward him, the naughtiest and most mischievous Catholic girl there ever had been. If it was possible to shout intimately into someone's ear, she did this: Thanks for being such a good sport about my panties.

  “Oh.”

  He looked down, became distracted by her breasts. “My pleasure. Heh. Put your panties on my face anytime.”

  A giggle. “I'm Cheri.”

  “Nice to meet you, Cheri. Bing.”

  “Bling?”

  “No L.”

  Ponytails bounced as she nodded, her smile impossibly larger and more devastating.

  “That was astounding,” he said. “That, the way you . . .” He almost pointed to her chest, but caught himself. “Amazing.”

  “Yeah.” She giggled. “I guess I am.” Her hand pressed onto his shoulder, at once suggestive and soothing. “Are you just here for the weekend?”

  “The night.”

  Between sips of his soda, leaning forward, trying to hear and be heard through the music, Bing followed her lead, answering each question, willingly proceeding into a conversation that was polite, courteous, empty, and an awful lot like talks he'd had while watching television with his housemates’ girlfriends. Only where those conversations usually ended with awkward silence, presently, Bing was more than eager to participate. —Not one of the hotels, he answered. —Actually it's a pretty nice motel. At the bottom of the strip. Toward the airport? —Kinda both, really, business and pleasure. —They had me come in to sign these books I draw. —Yeah, it is pretty cool, I guess . —Tonight? Awm. So far I blew forty bucks to see a pair of fags make a white tiger disappear. . . .

  When she laughed, his heart did a little jig. Emboldened, he kept talking, About four hands of blackjack. They wiped the floor with me, I guess. But it's all good, you know. It's only money, right?

  “Just what I like to hear.” Cheri giggled and leaned in closer, more affectionate now, taking his hand, squeezing with a presumptive knowingness. Did he want a refill on his drink? Did he feel like buying a lady a drink? Was he in the mood for a table dance? How about heading someplace more private?

  Through his blasting goggles Bing stared into her azure eyes—or were they jade?

  “Crap,” she said. “Who knows what color they are tonight. I lose track. Hell, sometimes I mix up my contacts, work all night with one green eye and one blue.”

  “Heh.”

  “I'm an idiot, I know.”

  “Somewhere without so much music sounds nice,” he said. “A room without all this commotion.”

  Her hips swished in a way that was worth any uncertainty Bing felt about how much money was in his wallet, and she led him by the hand across the main floor, the crowd parting for her as if she were royalty, guys gawking and staring from all over. Cheri paid them no mind, but kept her head high, the smile chiseled across her face. A nod to the steroid freak in front of the black curtain. Promptly he pulled the curtain aside.

  Tasteful faux torches supplied what lighting the hallway had. Between the torch lights, curtained cubicles were discreetly hidden. Small red lights flashed above the first few cubicles, and when Cheri found a green light, she opened the corresponding curtain.

  “Thirty bucks a dance,” she said, ushering him inside. “Half an hour for a hundred.” A wink. “Or we can really get wicked and head back into the VIP room.”

  “Why don't we start with one. See where that goes.”

  The closet's walls and floors were covered in a plush black surface similar to carpet. Bing got comfortable on a padded bench against the wall. Cheri took the drink from his hand and set it down on the surface of a round table he hadn't seen.

  She smiled at him and he smiled back. She played with the end of a ponytail and crossed one leg in front of the other, giving what had to be the fourth throaty giggle since she'd introduced herself. Bing gave her the benefit of the doubt. A natural tic, he decided. A means of filling silence.

  When the song ended, Cheri promptly moved toward Bing, placed one hand on each of his knees, and gently eased them apart, widening his legs so they were like the foul lines of a baseball diamond. She then stepped up, between his legs and into his lap. The outside of her knees brushed against the inside of his thighs; her bloused breasts popped into his face. As she lined her pelvis up with the top of his crotch, Bing smelled the jasmine and honey oils on her skin, the sweet apple perfume on her neck. Languid, electronic beats began, filling the room, and Cheri began grinding, leisurely changing pace and direction in time to the beat, her motions fluid, wavelike. She undid the first and second buttons on her blouse, and let the fabric fall open, easily sliding off the garment, teasing him with it. Next she undid her bra, let it fall free, and was on top of Bing, straddling him, sitting on him, pressing down onto his erection, leaning forward, pushing those huge melons into his face, their heft delicious, warm on him, her nipples still smoldering, still redolent of the cinder burn.

  The song hit its chanted reggae-inspired chorus and she put her hands above each side of his head, pressed the wall for leverage, and bounced on him, Bing feeling her pushing weight, her ass muscles flinching and tightening on him. The collagen of her smile betrayed a momentary pain. Just as quickly her face was blank.

  She kept riding, bouncing, bringing soft groans from him. And then she withdrew, taking a step back, into the space of his opened legs. Bing watched, transfixed as she swayed back and forth, slowly wiggling her hips, and drawing out the removal of a thin, spangled string of panty.

  Despite all her moves, Cheri's pubic area remained a fairly sturdy and centered sight. This allowed Bing to focus his attention.

  Still, it took a moment for the sight to register.

  Her mons pubis.

  The damndest thing.

  It wasn't pale, but a white that went beyond the limits of pale, that had nothing to do with staying out of the sun. The entirety of her body was luxurious and bronze, except for this whiteness, and this was a stunning contrast. Against this dark perfect body, the whiteness formed a heart—what looked like a heart—only there was even more to it. Because inside her white heart of skin, the stripper's pubic hair was shaped. Sculpted. Arranged. Littler hearts. A bull's-eye of three brightly colored hearts—green, yellow, and a small red heart at the center—the colors glowing wildly in the black light.

  Whenever the stripper stayed centered long enough for Bing to really lock in, it appeared to him that each layer of hair had been cut to a different level of height. He was able to see the slight, grainy patterns of each level, as well as the thin white base of skin that separated one level of heart bull's-eye from the next. It was stunning. The white ink appeared embedded to him, sunken inside the stripper's well-tanned body. Simultaneously, the different levels of her colored hearts of pubic hair made it look as if the heart bull's-eye was jumping out from her. The harde
r Bing looked the more it seemed the whole design of hearts was both shrinking into and sprouting from her body.

  “Three dimensional,” he said.

  She swayed in place, expressionless.

  “I mean, I thought that's what it was when I saw it onstage, but then with, with the fire . . .”

  She stared blankly.

  “It really looks . . . ,” Bing said. “Just unbelievable.”

  Her hands ran seductively over the skin atop his head, her pelvis rotated in a tight, circular motion.

  “Ink? I can tell it's not a tan.”

  A giggle, a smile, half-amused, but plastic. “Some girls do the suntan trick,” she admitted. “Before they go to the tanning bed, you cut out a pattern on paper, lotion it up, and press it to the area you want to cover.”

  “You tattooed your Venus mound?”

  “Yeah, well, this way I can decorate.”

  “Decorate?”

  “You know, be creative.”

  “So, to be creative, you shaved your pubes in the pattern of a bunch of bull's-eyes?”

  She stepped backward. Her hands mechanically ran over her breasts, down toward her hips.

  “You won't believe this,” Bing said, “but a few hours ago, I got caught up in this conversation, this, I don't know . . .”

  “Mmm?”

  “You know how sometimes you hear an idea and even when you are talking about it, it doesn't seem real. Like it takes on its own life outside the event, you know, a mathematical problem to work through.”

  Cheri cleared her throat, glanced toward the door.

  “But then to see you . . .I mean, to find you and the fire thing and your bull's-eye. Of all nights.”

  She laughed a bit, looked toward the door a second time, longer this time, swaying in place a little, but not really dancing anymore.

  The song was heading into its bridge, which meant he didn't have much time left, he knew. He was so close, ready to ask why she'd done it. Exactly what went into the planning and construction of such an activity? But her unease was obvious.

  In the back of his head, Bing had been thinking that she might agree to blow him, and common sense said an intimidated and scared stripper wasn't blowing squat. Bing had already dropped a hundred and fifty dollars tonight, and to be completely honest, he couldn't afford to pay for a hummer.

  Then again, could he afford not to pay for one? And was he really about to turn his back on a chance to snap the streak, because of some tattoo?

  Even more than a half-assed fifty-dollar blow job, more than the end of his streak of involuntary celibacy, what Bing Beiderbixxe really wanted in this moment were the particulars that went into keeping each bull's-eye ring trimmed at a different length. The hours this stripper devoted to the care and maintenance of her pubic hair. He wanted to hear that this woman habitually perfumed and combed, trimmed and talcumed her pubes. That she got off on decorating her pubic hair, and sometimes purposefully messed up, and started the lacquering process over. Indeed, though its details may have stung and further humbled Bing Beiderbixxe, he would have loved to hear Cheri Blossom tell the story of her boyfriend—Ponyboy was his name—the story of Ponyboy lathering her pubic area for the first time, then trimming it with the straight-edge razor he sometimes kept in his right boot. Bing would have enjoyed hearing how uncertain Cheri had been about that particular endeavor, but that one of the things Ponyboy was really good at was keeping his hand steady while holding that razor. The story of the sex Ponyboy and the stripper had that night undoubtedly would have gnawed at Bing and furthered his sense of personal inadequacy with regards to matters of the flesh, but he would have listened anyway, damn straight he would have. What Bing Beiderbixxe wanted right now was the sound of this stripper's voice, this woman's voice, with her guard lowered. He wanted to hear Cheri confess that she spent long stretches in front of a full-length mirror admiring the results of her and Ponyboy's diligence, and that sensitive nipples would have added greatly to the lacquering process. He wanted her to reveal. To be revealed.

  His dick was a lead pipe.

  He all but demanded: What happened here?

  3.7

  Every day assholes came in and leered at her body, that's what mother-fucking happened. Every day these would-be hotshots and millionaires-in-waiting and bald fat fucks in their cheap-ass disco shirts came in. They asked their little questions, tried to break the ice, make conversation, get her to open up. They tried to take her away from all this, to get her into a back alley, to bend her over. Twenty-dollar bills or not, this dork had followed her clam around the room the way a trained show dog follows a treat. It was one fucked proposition. She shakes her ass and makes eye contact and giggles and these mooks decide she secretly likes them, thinks they are cool, maybe she'd fall in love with them, let them rescue her from all this, if she only got to know them. These mooks literally throw money at her for table dances and lap dances and champagne dances and when it's over she puts a hand on their thighs and gives a thank-you squeeze and moves on to the next one. And like so many before and so many that would come after, this loser was trying to be nice. He was trying to be decent. Yet his question was not phrased as a question, but as if she owed him something, as if she were his property. And Cheri Blossom burned to answer with the truth: I can buy and sell your family, she wished she could say. Fuck you. Fuck your pity. Do not kid yourself about who is using whom. I was molested as an infant. I was born into poverty and know nothing better. I am a rebellious socialite sewing my wild oats. A bored middle-class girl looking for kicks. I am that misunderstood whore looking for love that you are always hearing about. All my feelings of personal worth have been sublimated into my sexual identity. All my creative instincts have been channeled into onstage performances. I am putting myself through school. I am a baaaaad puddycat. A craven abuser of pharmaceutical substances. A habitual consumer of conspicuous products. I have been betrayed by everything I have ever placed trust in. Have betrayed everyone who ever cared. I am destined for greatness. Fated to self-destruct. I do this for kicks. For money. To meet sensitive hunks like you. Why do you ask? What's it to you? You cannot have me. You cannot learn my secrets. THERE IS NO MYSTERY. THERE ARE NO SECRETS. Life throws a curveball and you swing. Sometimes you get a hit and then sometimes you miss. I swing for the fences. You take hellacious cuts, you miss sometimes. You end up with collagen injected in your lips and a bull's-eye over your privates. You end up with silicon implanted in your breasts and fake nipples that have been purposefully hollowed out, and during the third dance of each set, you set candle nubs in the hollow points so alone and horny and generally unappealing winners such as Guess Who can pay a few bucks and blow out your tits. I ended up here like you did. EXACTLY THE SAME WAY YOU DID, BUDDY.

  Her giggle must not have done the trick this time. The balding man's face remained blank. He waited, and waited. Closing his eyes for a moment, he seemed upset with himself, and his head dropped a bit, as if in defeat. But then he opened his eyes. He looked up, back at Cheri. Mumbling to himself, he began digging through his pockets, and pulled out crumpled bills, discovering a twenty, a ten, another twenty, a five, and now a few singles, which he started counting.

  INT. CLASSROOM—DAY

  Dusty light pours from windows onto rows of desks, which are filled with gloomy Catholic SCHOOLGIRLS. A wimpled NUN is at the front of the room. Chalk squeaking, she writes:

  “The Lord gave his only son that”

  CHERI (V.O.)

  (from back of room)

  I don't get it.

  Giggles. Gasps. SCHOOLGIRLS look at one another knowingly.

  NUN

  Daughter Blossom?

  Cheri, a teenager, arm raised, is in the back row. One hot little schoolgirl.

  CHERI

  (naughty)

  It doesn't make sense.

  The other schoolgirls titter. The nun cracks her pointer on the chalkboard, doing everything she can to remain calm.

  NUN

 
Christ died, my child, so that we might have cause to reflect upon that which we caused.

  CHERI

  Right. I got that part.

  NUN

  Then what, child, is confusing you?

  CHERI

  Okay, if he died because we have desires, if he died for our wants and actions, isn't it kind of our duty to make sure his death is, you know, worth it?

  Other schoolgirls gasp and ooh. The nun cracks her pointer on the chalkboard.

  CHERI (CONT'D)

  I mean, the way I see it, if Christ died for our sins, doesn't that make sin our duty? Don't we have an obligation to sin?

  3.8

  Automatic doors opened with a swoosh, and Kenny was outside, stepping into a dense warmth, with sugary yellow electricity radiating down on him from the underside of the huge cement canopy. Kenny slowed out of his sprint, checked in both directions. To be safe, he moved in the opposite direction of the large and muscular greeter—it wasn't hard, the guy was occupied with keeping foot traffic moving while simultaneously issuing salutations.

  Attempting to blend in with the rest of the crowd, Kenny hugged the curb, beneath a cove of palm trees, blending in with the men in pricey outfits and women in sheer evening gowns. Slender hoses had been discreetly wrapped around the trees, their nozzles producing cascading mists, and Kenny momentarily noticed how the mists acted upon the crowd, in the manner of a soft eraser on a series of hard lines, softening their smallest defined motions (a hand to the small of a lover's back turning erotic; a playbill fanning an overheated face becoming mysterious).