The bubble rolled a little more. Thisbe was now face-down, her buttocks visible, the two bare, divided hemispheres. A distortion of the plastic made them seem to spread out against the bubble surface. Again the audible gasp went up. One of the optometrists pushed the bubble with his shoe; it rolled and the forward side of Thisbe returned. Her nipples, enlarged by the transparent surface, were bloodred splotches, smeared and caught.
She was smiling.
Oh god in Heaven, Hugh Collins thought, and his avidity made him shiver. All of them, all in the circle, were twitching and grimacing; a St. Vitus dance moved through the room.
“Look at those tits,” an optometrist said.
“Wow.”
“Get the size of them.”
“Turn her,” an optometrist said, “so her ass is up.”
The bubble was shoved. It revolved, and again the underside of Thisbe was visible. “Look at that flesh,” a voice said.
“Can you get the bottom up?” one of the optometrists said. “You know, from down under. So we can look up.”
Several of them delicately tapped the bubble. It rolled too far and again they were staring at Thisbe’s knees and breasts.
“Try again,” Guffy said, down on his hands and knees.
They tried again. This time they were able to get the bubble just right.
“Wowie,” an optometrist breathed.
“Look at that.”
It was unbelievable. They nudged the bubble from one side of the ring to the other. Thisbe, magnified and distorted, rolled toward them and away from them; as the bubble turned, her leering face, breasts, knees, feet, buttocks came and went, a procession of steaming pale yellow flesh. The waxy surface rotated, and the inside of the bubble became translucent with her perspiration. Now her mouth was pressed to the breathing holes of the bubble’s surface; she was taking in deep gasps of air.
“Say,” an optometrist said, “can we get her around in that different, so the hole is—you know, at a different place.”
But when they tried to turn the bubble, Thisbe turned with it.
Hugh Collins, sitting on the floor, stuck out his foot as the bubble rolled toward him. He had taken off his shoes—most of the optometrists had—and now he booted the bubble with his bare foot. The bubble was warm, heated up by the woman inside. It was like kicking her bare flesh. He giggled.
On the far side Ed Guffy kicked the bubble back.
“Over, here!” an optometrist yelled, his feet up and ready. The bubble started in his direction.
“Mine,” another yelled, sticking his hand in the path; the bubble rolled over it, and he squawked wheezed and struggled for air. The mists, rising from her flesh, rose up and obscured her. A glimpse now and then: they saw the bloodred nipples, the spheres of her behind, the soles of her feet pressed to the inner surface.
“Oh boy!” an optometrist shouted, lying full-length on the floor. “Roll it over me! Go ahead!”
The orgy mounted. It came to an end abruptly when one of the optometrists conceived the idea of pouring a Dixie cup of water through Thisbe’s breathing holes.
“Okay,” Tony Vacuhhi said, stepping forward to take charge. “That’s enough. It’s over.”
Spluttering, flushed, Thisbe climbed from the bubble. “Goddamn beasts,” she said, standing up and flexing her legs. Tony threw her a robe, which she buttoned around her.
“Is that all?” Guffy demanded, chewing angrily on his cigar.
“For two hundred bucks,” another optometrist said, “we ought to at least get to goose her.”
Tony herded the girl out of the room, keeping the optometrists off with his shoulders. The door to the hall slammed, he and Thisbe were gone.
“What a robbery,” Guffy said.
In the center of the room the empty bubble remained.
Hugh Collins scrambled out into the hall and after Thisbe and Vacuhhi.
“Wait a minute,” he panted, catching up with them.
“What is it?” Tony said unsympathetically. Thisbe, beside him, was muttering an uninterrupted flow of abuse. “You had your fun; you got what you paid for.”
“Wait,” Collins said. “I mean—let me talk to her alone for a second.”
“What do you want to say?” Vacuhhi said. “You can say it in front of me; come on, we don’t have all night. I gotta rub her down.”
“I had the impression,” Collins said, glancing at her prayerfully. “You know, the motel room. This is the last night.”
“Get him,” Thisbe grated, and she and Vacuhhi disappeared out onto the street.
Collins, humiliated, slunk back to Guffy’s room.
When he entered, the optometrists were in an uproar. Some wanted to go out on the streets looking for fun; others wanted to give up and go home. One was on the phone calling for a cab. He had a cab company which he claimed would transport them en masse to a halfway decent house of prostitution.
Guffy was examining the empty bubble.
“Look at the size of this thing,” he said to Collins. “You could get a couple hundred pounds of stuff into this.”
“Like what?” Collins said, uninterested.
“Anything. Say, I think I’ve got an idea for some fun—” He drew Collins over to the bubble. “Look, you can seal it up; maybe it’ll leak a little, but not much.” He fitted the section back into place, closing the slot through which Thisbe had entered and left.
The optometrists gathered to see what was up.
“Like the old water bomb,” Guffy said, making a pow motion with his fist in his palm. “Smack, right off the roof, and then we get the hell out of there.”
“By god,” Collins said, struggling to salvage something from the collapse of his schemes.
“Right—one big grand slam. Something they’ll all sit up and notice. Hell, we’ll be out of here in a couple of hours or tomorrow at the latest. What do you say, for old times’ sake!”
They experienced the sentimental tug; they were bound together in this parting hour of their comradely union. Not for another year, not until 1957. Who knew the changes in a year? Ah, the bonds of the old—
“Go out with a bang,” Guffy said. “Right? So they’ll know us. ‘That was back in ‘56 when the boys dropped the bubble from the roof—remember that night in 1956?’ That’s tonight, boys; we’re having that great old night right now.”
This was optometrist history. This was a milestone in convention roguery.
“How are you going to fill it?” Collins demanded. “Where’re we going to get two hundred pounds of crap this time of night?”
Guffy laughed. “Let’s get started; It’s a cinch. That’s the trouble with you guys, no imagination.”
They collected ashtrays, a couple of small table lamps, toilet paper from the bathroom, a pair of old shoes, beer cans, and bottles, and dropped them into the bubble. It was only a beginning.
“Here’s what we do,” Guffy said. “You fellows get outside and pick up stuff, whatever’ll fit in. Tin cans, anything you see. Get back here in twenty minutes.” He set his watch. “Right?”
In twenty minutes the optometrists straggled in, some with nothing, some more soused than when they had left, a few with arm-loads.
At a supermarket, still open, they had bought dozens of eggs, aging vegetables, quarts of milk. At a drugstore they had picked up tin wastebaskets, a set of cheap dishes, some empty cardboard cartons. One optometrist had picked up a trash dispenser from a street corner. Another had lugged back in his car a garbage pail from the doorway of a locked-up restaurant.