In the red half-light, her skin glows a deep copper.  A Britain abroad, she pulses and pirouettes to music that you don’t bother hearing.  When it stops, you lay an American dollar on the stage in front of her.  She smiles and accepts.    The local currency isn’t what it used to be.

***

You are part of a procession up carpeted stairs: man, woman, man, woman.  Sliding plastic is a key, and now it’s just the two of you in a perfectly dark corner.  Her leg is on your thigh.  Her hand is on your arm.

“You’re so strong. Such nice muscles.  Most of them that come in here, they’re just little small guys.”  No movie ever gets this part right.

***

Her body is the ocean on a calm day, smoothness leading to great full swells.  A miracle of surgery and modern nutrition.  All that is wrong and right about the West, now removing a last scrap of sheer black.

Now a centimeter away from you.  Now less.  Your face brushes against her soft breasts.  You are Christ.  She is Mary Magdalene.

***

The song changes.  Smiles.  “What do you want to do, now?” she coos.  You believe her.  But you don’t want to, and so you mutter about tomorrow, a goodbye, and then bound down the stairs out into a cold night.

Browse Timeline

• « The Faces
• » A Lesson in Hypocrisy

blog comments powered by Disqus