David Floot tooka sippa Jimma Beama fromma his hunnert-dollar Baccarat tumbler and went right on reading the story in the thin magazine called Fiction.
“Darlene, darlin’!” he yelled. His shout caromed about the spare apartment.
“What, darlin’?”
Darlene, bless her scantily-clad self, stumbled back from the kitchen into the bedroom. “What, darlin’?”
“Darlene, darlin’,” said David, “these kids! They write in the first person! Jee-Zus Aitch!
“I! I! I! I get so sick of it, ya know?”
Darlene leaned against the doorjamb, drying her hundred-dollar tumbler with a terrycloth bath towel. She held the glass up to the sunlight and the crystal sparkled pink and blue brilliance.
“Don’ fight it, Davey. Don’ get mad at ‘em, baby. At least they’re producin’.” She thtpped a shot of spittle at the rim of the heavy glass and polished it with the towel.
“It may seem shit to you, Davey, but somebody thinks it’s good enough to publish it.”
“Yecch!” David flung the magazine at the floor. “Come ‘ere, babes darlin’.” He sprawled his thickset self down into the black leather chair and spread his legs. He stretched out his arms like Jesus Christ inviting all the children to come unto Him, and smiled at his darlin’ Darlene.
“Come ‘ere, darlin’. Davey wantsa kissersumpin’.”
“Yer drunk, is what I think, Davey.” Darlene set her tumbler on the table beside their bed and slid the smooth sleek stopper off the five-hundred-dollar decanter and poured herself a fresha Jimma Beam. Neat. As she liked it.
She took up the glass and swirled the liquor around and up the sides of the tumbler. To her lips the tobacco-colored spirit streamed. She gargled it, swished it around her mouth, and swallowed it hard and loud.
“Mmm,” she hummed, “hits ‘a spot, ya know?”
“Darlene, darlin’, how kin you make that work?” David beckoned to his luv, pointing a finger in her general direction.
“Make what work, honey?” asked Darlene. She ambled over and dropped her glass on his desk and knelt on the floor between his legs.
“How kin you keep that itsy-bitsy, teeny-weeny swatha bikini set just so upon yer labia majora so I still see mystery insteada pornography?”
“What? This?” said Darlene, leaning back to caress the smooth and nubby flesh where her legs ended and a shiny swatch of cobalt blue rayon hid her sex. “It’sa genius ‘a the fashion-makers, Davey. I dunno. Do you like it?”
“I love it, darlin’. It’sa turn-on ‘a the first water. I love to stare at you and yer body.”
She smiled and ran her hands up the insides of his bare legs, over the rough and tumble of his hairy limbs, and slid her fingers under the hems of his shorts.
She rested her head on his knee and hummed an old love song.
Her melody ascended.
David leaned his head back upon the chair and closed his eyes. He reached into Darlene’s bra and softly stroked her breasts, rubbing her nipples with his thumbs and forefingers. Her nipples stiffened, and he imagined them as old trees lopped off near the ground—rough, stubborn stumps resisting the push and grab of his coarse and callused touch.
David and Darlene, they floated just so—her mind and music in his lap; her mammaries in his clutch. She was kneeling into him, her head drawn nearer to his loins. She was humming an old love song, and her haunches swayed in the breeze of the ceiling fan, keeping time and rhythm with the near silent song falling off her lips.
The thumping fwutta-fwutta-fwutta of the President’s helicopter parade blasted through the open alley window. The rotorblade chop broke their reverie. David splayed his hands and Darlene pulled herself up off the floor in a slow, liquid measure. She yawned.
“Oh, Davey, how ‘bout some fucky-fucky?” She stood above him and flipped her blonde hair back over her shoulders.
David drew his knees together and raised himself from the chair. He pulled Darlene to him, embraced her, and caressed her back with hands spread wide and true.
He planted his right hand upon the base of her spine and they swayed together in a love-dance bodylock, catching the round rhythm of the helicopters’ popping and whipping rotor racket.
David carried Darlene to their bed and laid her on the pale blue summer quilt.
Darlene opened her legs and tugged aside the cobalt cloth. She slid a finger over her glistening lips. She buried the finger in the wet folds and said, “Ferget the youngsters, Davey. Come along with me.”
“Lesh have another drink,” said David. He retrieved his tumbler from the carpet and grabbed his luv’s glass off his desk and sauntered to the night table and filled the pair of shimmering vessels with equal beltsa Jimma Beam.
Darlene lay on the bed, probing and teasing herself and David, undulating her hips, her emerald eyes following him across the room.
“Come along with me, Davey,” she whispered.
He left the drinks on the night table and reverently bowed his head near to her womb and breathed deep her damp, violent perfume.
—30—
