I drag myself back to the hotel. My rooms are insanely hot, with the faintest taint of a gas leak. The wind rattles a loose windowpane; the sink faucet’s drip greets me from the kitchenette. Footsore, I enthrone myself in the wingback chair. I remove the sacramental cummerbund and place it in my lap. The pistol and tambourine are positioned on the coffee table, the querulous donations bucket is at my feet. It’s a bad night.
□ □ □
I’ve been out of prison two weeks. One afternoon—after Rhonda returns from visiting her parents in Barstow—I take a shower with her. The hot-water tap isn’t working too good, but the temperature in the bathroom is steamy. And her body heat can set fire to a house.
She recently chopped off her hair, which disappoints me. I like it long. But it’s a good cut, done at a ritzy North End salon. Nicely slicked back from her white palisade forehead.
Water streams down her lightly muscled neck to her delicate shoulder blades. Rivulets drain into her cleavage, her breasts perky, the nipples pointed at me, a bar of Dr. Bronner’s lavender soap in her right hand. I hope the water gets hotter because we pay the bill.
“Did you miss me?” she asks.
“Of course I missed you, baby. Did you miss me?”
“Yeah. A whole lot.”
“How much?”
“Let me show you how much.”
She falls to her knees without using her hands. It’s an acrobatic feat—the shower stall’s porcelain floor is harder than a rock. She bends forward, neck arched, a blue vein pulsing below her jawline. Nostrils flaring, she sniffs me. In one fell swoop, she inserts me in her mouth, taking me to the bristle.
I slump against the stall’s back wall, lukewarm nozzle water pounding my skull. I’m not the most well-hung man in the world. Thankfully, she won’t gag on me.
But I want to watch myself. I need to see what she’s doing. The sight will increase my pleasure—the beauty of her mouth, her eyes tight with beatific resolve. I look for a split second. I gurgle: “Babykins, what’s wrong with your back?”
She disgorges me. “What do you mean?”
Her normally smooth back is a field of irritated red bumps. I reach out and touch one. It feels hot and pebbly. “This.”
“Oh, that? It’s a flea bite.”
I repeat after her: “A flea bite? All over your back?”
“Yeah, whatever. My parents have a new cat. When I was there, I slept with it one night. And I got flea bites, a billion of them. They itch like shit. It’s fucked up, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, it is. Girl?”
“What?”
“I can’t do this now.”
“Why not? I’m doing all the work here. Just relax. You’re always so fucking uptight.”
“I know, I know. I’m going crazy. I can’t help it.”
The moment has gotten too complicated. The parts that made it whole are coming apart. Like an airplane losing a wing in mid-flight.
I shut the water off and weep.
□ □ □
Rhonda is gone. Weeks gone. Long gone. And yet my thoughts stray to Sugar Child. They regularly do when I’m alone and swimming in self-pity. I can still taste her kiss, the piquant tang and texture of her chapped lips. The cough-syrup flavor of her tongue. But now I must sleep; I really must. It’s been so long since I slept.