Leroy’s fingers, playing my body, had captured my heart. Heat flooded over my body just thinking about them. What had happened to me? Once I had been able to twist him around my little finger with a glance, and I could have had him licking my boots with just a sigh But now J was fixating on every flicker of his thick eyelashes.
If this went on, I would start rotting like a discarded corpse. I had to do something. I looked at D.C. There would be no miracle with him.
Hopelessness washed over me. On the other side of the room, Leroy was drinking from a glass in one hand and was absently stroking the girl’s cheek with the back of the other. She’s not a keyboard. She’s not your keyboard, Leroy!
“Ruiko, are you okay?” asked a friend.
My forehead was covered in sweat.
“I’m fine. Why? Really, I’m fine.”
“She’s much better,” supplied D.C. in a serious tone. “We’re back to making love every day.” Everyone collapsed, laughing.
I was quiet—I didn’t have the energy to get angry with his big mouth. Recently he started crying every time I tried to ignore him. It was such a hassle, I just took him to bed to avoid dealing with it.
“So, call me sometime. I’ll give you my number—it’s…”
I almost leapt out of my seat at Leroy’s voice. My mind instantly became a blank sheet of paper, a pen poised, ready, and I memorized the figures as they tumbled off his lips to some woman, his familiar voice cutting through all the background noise, but far too low for D.C. or any of my friends to hear. At last I had it. Leroy’s number was emblazoned in my mind, fiery, hot, and glowing.
But then I began to wonder what to do with it. Did I want more fucking in the back of his car? Why was I letting myself down like this now? I’d always made a point of upholding my pride in front of men.
I had the feeling something powerful was moving me along. Maybe it was some kind of divine retribution for having recognized Leroy’s talent, something governed solely by emotion and totally beyond control. Why was it to hard, and why couldn’t I break free? I felt trapped, thrashing against the sweet, sticky threads of a spider’s web.
When monkeys want to get honey from an anthill they use a piece of straw. There are lots of holes in the hill where the honey is stored, and the monkey just inserts the straw into one of them, then takes it out again and licks the honey off the end. But the monkey can only get a tiny bit of honey that way, so next he crushes the end of the straw to make it look like a little broomstick and sticks that in the hole instead.
That way, he can get much more honey each time. But once he takes the crushed end of the straw out of the hole, he finds it’s very difficult to get it back inside again, so the clever monkey never pulls it out completely: he puts his mouth down close to the hole and keeps moving the straw up and down, licking the sweet honey from it each time he pulls it up.
How can I make a broomstick like that? I’d have to become a witch. If I had a broom like that I would stick into Leroy and never take it out again.
But I’ll never be a witch. And I don’t know any magic.
Overwhelmed by frustration, I burst into tears.
“Ruiko! What’s wrong?”
My friends were all staring at me in disbelief.
“Lay off, will you? I’m just drunk. I’m feeling sentimental, that’s all.”
They all looked at one another, worried. It was the first time any of them had ever seen me cry, and they were at a loss. D.C. was the only one smiling, the love shining in his eyes as he gently stroked my back to comfort me.
Six crushed, empty beer cans lay under the bed. D.C. was sleeping peacefully, snoring gently to himself—the alcohol was working nicely. I wanted to get him to sleep as quickly as I could that night, so I plied him with beer to get him drunk while he was still hungry, then filled him up with food afterward. Never once suspecting that I might have some ulterior motive, D.C. took my kindness at face value, as I knew he would, and ate and drank till he fell asleep.
I left quietly, and ran to a phone booth near the apartment. I felt as furtive as a spy on some kind of secret mission. It felt strange to be out there, catching my breath next to the phone booth when there was a perfectly good phone in my apartment, but I didn’t want to leave any evidence behind—even if it was only in D.C.’s dreams.
My hand shook as I reached out to put the coins in the slot. Then I silently mouthed the numbers that had been burned into my brain as I punched them into the dial. The phone on the other end of the line, the one in Leroy’s room, began to ring. I was pretty sure he wouldn’t be asleep yet, but I did begin to wonder if he might be sprawled out under tangled sheets with another woman. I was mortified by what 1 was doing. But then he picked up the receiver.
“Leroy?”
He was silent.
“Were you asleep?”
“No, I was working on a composition.”
“Do you have a piano there?”
“Yes, I’m staying at a friend’s place.”
I couldn’t think of anything else to say.
“Ruiko, are you crying?”
“Can you tell it’s me?”
“Sure I can.”
“I want to see you.”
“Why?”
“You know you want to see me, too….”
“Shit!” he muttered, and I heard a low chuckle. “What about that other dude I saw you with?”
“He’s asleep.”
“You treat him like you used to treat me.”
“No, I don’t!”
For a moment Leroy was silent, but then he gave me the name of a hotel and a room number, and told me to meet him there. I waited for him to put the phone down before hanging up myself. Then I closed my eyes and let myself breathe again.
I went back to my apartment. There were some records scattered on the table, so I jotted the hotel room number down on one of the album sleeves. D.C.’s breathing was slow and rhythmic. But something was pulling me, dragging me away.
I had left a record playing on the turntable, and a deep, husky voice was singing the blues. I could hear the needle scratching over the grooves, leaving traces behind as the record went round and round and round.
I knew it wouldn’t be long before I too, had the same sort of scars.
I spent fifteen minutes waiting in the hotel room before Leroy finally showed up. He glanced over at me as he came in, then took his hat off and threw it down on the bed. I’d have expected him to know that leaving a hat on a bed is supposed to be bad luck.
“I’m hungry,” he said. “Let’s eat.”
He called room service and ordered spaghetti and escargots for two, and a bottle of champagne.
“I’m not hungry,” I said.
“Hey, come on, let’s eat. We’ve never had a proper meal together.”
He took off his tie and undid the top button of his shirt.
“I just don’t feel like it.”
“Ahh, I see. Well, maybe you’d prefer some of this instead then?”
He unzipped his trousers and took out his flaccid dick, gripping it tightly in his hand. Disgusted, I scowled up at him, but before I could say anything there was a knock at the door. It was room service. Leroy turned away and told me to let them in. I did as he said. He signed the check and gave the waiter a tip, holding his hat casually over his crotch.
The natural way he pulled it off was really something.
Leroy laid the food out on the table and opened the champagne.
There seemed little point in just standing there, so I sat down, too. First he ate one of the escargot, tipping his head back to slurp the spicy, melted butter from the shell. Then he wound his fork in the spaghetti, picking up a large forkful and sucking it noisily into his mouth. Finally, he wiped the dark, bloodred sauce from his lips, and taking a glass of champagne in his hand, he looked over at me. His zipper was still open and it looked as though his dick, which had been hanging limp till now, was coming to life at last.