I WAITED IN the living room while Priscilla got comfortable. She brought out a bottle of good vodka and a 1940s ice bucket with long-stemmed art deco glasses, pink. Everything was something. Nothing was regular. It couldn’t be just a chair. It had to be tacky or exquisite or a great find. There were too many details, like coasters from various world’s fairs and ice tongs from here and there and an overload of truck-stop ashtrays. But, bless her heart, that little dollface stepped out of the bedroom all dressed up for me, in her gown and panty girdle and even that black fall. She put on rhumba records and we danced around laughing and drinking from the bottle in between sloppy, drunken kisses. Then Elvis sang, “Wise men say, even fools fall in love.”
That’s when I murmured, “Don’t be cruel,” and fell on my knees at Priscilla’s feet, burying my face in her polyester. I rubbed my whole body in it. Polyster was my everything. I chewed on her girdle and she tightened the grip of tulle around my neck.
“I’m a terrible lover,” I said, tonguing her thigh. “I’m the worst. You can still get out of it.”
“I know you stink,” she said, scratching eight long nails and two short ones under my shirt and down my back. “As long as I know the truth, let’s just do it.”
She put her hand on my thigh.
“Cool,” she said.
She put her hand on my cunt.
“Feel how hot,” she said. “You’re burning up.”
Pris tore off her Playtex and rocked back and forth over my face. So I ate her the best I could, which was like riding a bucking bronco, because she was not shy when it came to getting what she wanted. And there is little in life that is more terrific than being put in that compromising situation by a woman who outdoes her own fantasy. But then, surprise, surprise, Priscilla got all soft and dewy-eyed. That’s when it hit me.
“Priscilla, you’re the kind to fall in love immediately, aren’t you?”
“It’s true. I’ve never been able to kiss through walls or any kind of protection. That’s why I need to carry a gun.”
We lay back on the floor, quiet and out of breath. She raised herself up on one elbow and brushed my hair off my forehead.
“Honey,” she purred. “What made you know I would let you in like that and give you exactly what you were looking for if you just presented yourself at my front door?”
“Well, Priscilla,” I said, noticing her face under the makeup. “You’re dangerous. You’re dangerous and I’m crazy. We smelled each other in a rathole so I thought it might work. By the way, while we’re on the subject. I’d like to ask you a favor. Take your gun back. I’ve got it right here in my pocket.”
“Why, thank you, honey” she drawled. “But I have plenty. And not one of them is registered. Why don’t you just keep it?” “I don’t know.”
“It comes in handy. And don’t you worry about the address book. All that information is on my personal computer.”
“Tell me, Pris, why did you start collecting firearms?”
She stretched out flat on her back to answer that one. Her breasts stuck up right into the air like the legs of a dead animal in rigor mortis.
“Years ago, when I was very young, I had a girlfriend who worked as a hooker. There were always creepy men coming around demanding things and she was very tough with them but sweet with me, real sweet. One night we were making love at her place. Her mouth was full of my breasts. She had such delicate bones, we were sitting together on a rocking chair. Suddenly, she stopped everything, right in the middle. I mean, both of our faces were flushed red. When you’re that turned on, the air is sparking, everything could burn. So her pause had this magical feeling. I understood perfectly not to say or do anything. She picked up her gun, naked, with those sunshine stretch marks girls get from making babies, those marks were gleaming like gold leaf in an old book. She pulled open the curtain and a man was standing there jerking off. His dick was flopping up and down in his hands, like a sausage. I remember the steel of her gun and the precious metal on her stomach. And I remember his expression, knowing she would blow his balls off. But she didn’t. He was some old boyfriend of hers and she forgave him. He left her alone after that, knowing that the next time she’d kill him for sure.
“‘Get tough, cookie,’ she told me. ‘Get a gun.’”
“That’s a great story, Pris. Do you know Coco Flores?”
“I’ve got more,” Pris said. “If we’re ever in a car for a long drive with no radio, I’ll tell you six or seven.”
“Do you honestly think I need a gun?”
I was moving real slowly, not sure of what I’d be hearing or feeling next.
“Priscilla, what would you do if someone you loved, who had hurt you very badly, killed someone you loved who hadn’t done anything bad to you at all?”
“I’d stay out of it,” she said.
“What would you do if your old girlfriend used you for a place to live and then dumped you for a yuppie in a loft in TriBeCa?”
“Keep the gun,” she said. “You’re gonna need it.”
She dropped the accent and started washing up in the kitchen sink, putting on her plain clothes and looking like a normal girl again.
“I’m gonna give it to you straight. If you’re nice, people think you’re a sap. Give it back! Show how much you hate them. It’s the only thing they’ll understand.”
“Yeah, what you’re saying works theoretically, but in real life, that’s how people get killed.”
“Oh, don’t be such a pansy,” she said, brushing her hair. She said it so carelessly that it tossed off her head with a stroke of the brush. I saw a fire inside her that cleansed her skin. It burned through her makeup.
Then I looked at the clock. The hands were dramatic. It was seven-thirty, almost time for Delores. I watched the second hand race round its face and I didn’t have the stomach for hating her. I wanted, most of all, to believe in peace and love. I wanted to be romantic, read Chinese poems on a snowy day, watching a crow fly across a country sky. I wanted to sit with my lover in a big house in old sweaters, drinking tea and listening to Javanese music. I wanted to ride a horse and when it gallops, I start coming and when it stops, I keep coming. I wanted to be the horse.
“You’re sweet,” she said, kissing me. “And this was fun. Maybe we’ll do it again sometime. But not too soon.”
“Peace and love, Pris,” I said when I walked out the door. “Peace and love.”
And oh God, I really meant it.