She waved at the mural. “You think what you’re painting is a lie. Don’t deny it. You think it’s a con you’re running on us. But when I leave it’ll be the only thing in the room that’s still alive.” She stepped halfway through the door, hesitated, and, in a voice that was barely audible, said, “Goodbye, Tommy.”
I experienced a certain relief after Bianca’s visit, an emotion bred by my feeling that now the relationship was irretrievably broken, and I could refocus my attention on escape; but my relief was shortlived. It was not simply that I was unable to get Bianca out of my thoughts, or even that I continued to condemn myself both for abandoning her and for having involved myself with her in the first place—it was as if I were engaged in a deeper struggle, one whose nature was beyond my power to discern, though I assumed my attitudes toward Bianca contributed to its force. Because I was unable, or perhaps unwilling, to face it, this irresolvable conflict began to take a toll. I slept poorly and turned to drink as a remedy. Many days I painted drunk, but drunkenness had no deleterious effect on the mural—if anything, it sharpened my comprehension of what I was about. I redid the faces on the lower portions of the walls, accentuating their beastliness, contrasting them with more human faces above, and I had several small technical breakthroughs that helped me create the luminous intensity I wanted for the upper walls. The nights, however, were not so good. I went to wandering again, armed against self-recrimination and the intermittent appearances of Harry Colangelo with a bottle of something, usually home brew of recent vintage. Frequently I became lost in the sub-basements and wound up passed out on the floor. During one of these wanders, I noticed I was a single corridor removed from the habitat of the plumes, and this time, not deceiving myself as to motive, I headed for the white door. I had no wish to find Bianca. I was so debased in spirit, the idea of staining my flesh to match enticed me, and when I pushed into the entryway and heard loud rock and roll and saw that the halation surrounding the light fixtures had thickened into an actual mist that caused men and plumes to look like fantastical creatures, gray demons and their gaudy, grotesque mistresses, I plunged happily into the life of the place, searching for the most degrading encounter available.
Her name was Joy, a Los Angeleno by birth, and when I saw her dancing in the club with several men under a spotlight that shined alternately purple and rose, she seemed the parody of a woman. Not that she was unfeminine, not in the least. She was Raphaelesque, like an old-fashioned Hollywood blond teetering on the cusp between beauty and slovenly middle-age, glossy curls falling past her shoulders, the milky loaves of her breasts swaying ponderously in gray silk, her motherly buttocks dimpling beneath a tight skirt, her scarlet lips reminding of those gelatin lips full of cherry syrup you buy at Halloween, her eyes tunnels of mascara pricked by glitters. Drunk, I saw her change as the light changed. Under the purple she whitened, grew soft as ice cream, ultimately malleable; she would melt around you. Under the rose, a she-devilish shape emerged; her touch would make you feverish, infect you with a genital heat. I moved in on her, and because I had achieved an elevated status due to my connection with the board, the men dancing with her moved aside. Her fingers locked in my hair, her swollen belly rolled against me with the sodden insistence of a sea thing pushed by a tide. Her mouth tasted of liqueur and I gagged on her perfume, a scent of candied flowers. She was in every regard overpowering, like a blond rhinoceros. “What’s the party for?” I shouted above the music. She laughed and cupped both hands beneath her breasts, offering them to me, and as I squeezed, manipulating their shapes, her eyelids drooped and her hips undulated. She pulled my head close and told me what she wanted me to do, what she would do.
Whereas sex with Bianca had been nuanced, passion cored with sensitivity, with Joy it was rutting, tumultuous, a jungle act, all sweat and insanity, pounding and meaty, and when I came I felt I was deflating, every pure thing spurting out of me, leaving a sack of bones and organic stink lying between her Amazon thighs. We fucked a second time with her on top. I twisted her nipples hard, like someone spinning radio dials, and throwing back her head she spat up great yells, then braced both hands on the pillow beside my head and hammered down onto me, her mouth slack, lips glistening with saliva poised an inch above mine, grunting and gasping. Then she straightened, arched her back, her entire body quaking, and let out a hideous groan followed by a string of profane syllables. Afterward she sat in a chair at her dressing table wearing a black bra and panties, legs crossed, attaching a stocking to her garter belt, posing an image that was to my eyes grossly sexual, repellently voluptuous, obscenely desirable. As she stretched out her leg, smoothing ripples in the silk, she said. “You used to be Bianca’s friend.”
I did not deny it.
“She’s crazy about you, y’know.”
“Is she here? At the party?”
“You don’t need her tonight,” Joy said. “You already got everything you needed.”
“Is she here?”
She shook her head. “You won’t be seeing her around for a while.”
I mulled over this inadequate answer and decided not to pursue it.
Joy put on her other stocking. “You’re still crazy about her. I’m a magnet for guys in love with other women.” She admired the look of her newly stockinged leg. “It’s not so bad. Sad guys fuck like they have something to prove.”
“Is that right?”
“You were trying to prove something, weren’t you?”
“Probably not what you think.”
She adjusted her breasts, settling them more cozily in the brassiere. “Oh, I know exactly what you were trying to prove.” She turned to the mirror, went to touching up her lipstick, her speech becoming halting as she wielded the applicator. “I am… expert in these matters… like all… ladies of the evening.”
“Is that how you see yourself?”
She made a kissy mouth at her reflection. “There’s something else in me, I think, but I haven’t found the man who can bring it out.” She adopted a thoughtful expression. “I could be very domestic with the right person. Very nurturing. Once the new wing’s finished… I’m sure I’ll find him then.”
“There’ll be real women living in the new wing. Lots of competition.”
“We’re the real women,” she said with more than a hint of irritation. “We’re not there yet, but we’re getting there. Some of us are there already. You should know. Bianca’s living proof.”
Unwilling to explore this or any facet of this consensus fantasy, I changed the subject. “So, what’s your story?” I asked.
“You mean my life story? Do you care?”
“I’m just making conversation.”
“We had our conversation, sweetie. We just didn’t talk all that much.”
“I wasn’t finished.”
She looked at me over her shoulder, arching an eyebrow. “My, my. You must really have something to prove.” She rested an elbow on the back of the chair. “Maybe you should go hunt up Bianca.”
It was a thought, but one I had grown accustomed to rejecting. I reached down beside the bed, groping for my bottle. The liquor seemed to have an immediate effect, increasing my level of drunkenness, and with it my capacity for rejection. The colors of the room were smeary, as if made from different shades of lipstick. Joy looked slug-white and bloated, a sickly exuberance of flesh strangled by black lace, the monstrous ikon of a German Expressionist wet dream.
She gave what I took for a deprecating laugh. “Sure, we can converse some more if you want.” She started to unhook her brassiere.
“Leave that shit on,” I said. “I’ll work around it.”