Both Tom and Rita looked at her face, waiting for an answer, and Nancy felt it turn crimson and she hastily drained her glass. Tom snapped his fingers at the waiter for another round.
Changing the subject, he shook his head doubtfully. "I dunno. I'm afraid there's going to be hell to pay if that thing plays in a theater."
"It played in San Francisco," Rita said.
"That's different. I don't know."
The conversation died out as they sat and drank, each with their thoughts. It wasn't lost on either Tom or Rita that Nancy had failed to answer Rita's question.
They drank with Rita being vivacious. "Jesus, I'm too excited to call it a night. Why don't we do something exciting?"
"Like what?" Nancy was grateful for the conversation, hoping it would detract from her silence when Rita asked the question. In fact, she had thought with considerable excitement about what it would be like to be treated so obscenely and roughly. Another involuntary shudder went through her, and she hoped that neither noticed. "I don't feel like calling it a night, either," she said, more to fill the silence than anything.
Rita lightly and playfully punched her husband on the arm. "You're the big P.R. man. Can't you think of something? Pretend we're a couple of high-class clients. Pretend you've got to amuse us. What would you do? Where would you take us?"
Tom smiled and drained his glass, ordering still another round. "Well, last week I took some clients out to Cicero. Sin city. They wanted to go slumming."
"Really?" Rita's face was aglow. She looked at Nancy. "What do you say?"
Nancy was dubious. She had had enough sex for one night. It was getting late and she already had drunk too much and done things she shouldn't have. Already there were things she felt she couldn't tell Allan… secrets it would be difficult to explain.
"Come on," Rita chided, good-naturedly. It was almost as if she were reading her thoughts. "We'll see the seamy side of things."
"I don't think so."
"Listen, you'll be in good hands with us and, what the hell, if you're going to be hung for a horse thief…" Rita shrugged and downed her drink.
Nancy drank along with her, grinning mischievously. She tossed back her beautiful mane of black hair and emptied her glass and put it down. She blinked at the two full drinks that were sitting in front of her. It was an exciting night… a once-in-a-lifetime night for her. She picked up her new drink and toasted Tom and Rita. Hung for a horse thief. Even in college, Rita always knew how to get Nancy going. Why not? It was only one night, and she was perfectly safe, and would never do such things ever again. Certainly not with Allan.
"Okay," she breathed and both girls laughed. "Where are we going?"
Tom was acting just a little drunk now. "Cicero. Lot's of strip joints. Actually, it's pretty tame compared to Scorpio Sex Rites."
Rita rolled her eyes. "You can say that again."
Nancy, beginning to feel the drinks heavily, giggled and agreed. "Wow, that was hot."
"Aha!" Rita pointed an accusing finger. All of them were a little silly and loose now. "See, I knew you were horny!"
"Well, so what if I was?" Nancy surprised even herself with her candor. They all laughed and Nancy shrugged and picked up her drink, spilling a little as she did so. "What the hell, I'm human."
"What did I tell you?" Rita asked her husband triumphantly. "What did I tell you? Didn't I say that my friend was all right?"
The three of them laughed and put their arms around one another and finished their drinks. Tom paid, tipping lavishly and drunkenly and they weaved, giggling and laughing, out of the bar, holding each other up. In the taxi, Nancy held her head and mumbled, "I'm smashed. I'm bombed. I'm going to be sick tomorrow."
Rita put her arm around her friend, squeezing her tightly. "Oh, honey, don't you worry. Listen, take two aspirin before you go to sleep and some vitamin B."
"Sleep? I'm going to pass out."
They all laughed. The long ride to Cicero was one of continual laughing and giggling. Nancy sat crammed between Rita and Tom. Both of them had their arms around her, and Nancy was feeling wonderfully naughty and daring. She felt she was going to remember this night for a long time to come. She didn't, at that drunken happy moment, realize how right she was.
They arrived in Cicero laughing and joking, piling out of the cab and staggering around on the sidewalk. One look told Nancy they were in a sleazy neighborhood. The street was lined with cheap bars with sagging rooming houses above them. Yet there was a carnival kind of atmosphere going on. People strolled the street. Drunks lurched along or else stood spraddled on a corner and delivered long, incoherent speeches. Music and laughter came from the bars. A patrol car silently cruised the block with quiet attentive policeman inside, watching, evaluating.
The bars were poor yet colorful. Dixieland jazz came from one, ragtime from another, as people spilled out onto the sidewalk, laughing and staggering, or couples pushed into bars that were dark… barely lighted… and groped along for a table or stool, watching one end of the bar that wasn't visible from the street. There, it was brightly lighted, and there one could always see a girl in various stages of undress. The block was renowned far and wide for its strippers, and they worked night and day, bumping and grinding it out, shedding their clothes until they stripped naked. Then, pumping their naked loins rhythmically and lewdly, they would dance off the tiny, brightly lighted stages. Into such a bar went Tom and Nancy and Rita.
Nancy let herself be guided in the pitch black. Tom had his hands around her slender, beautifully molded waist while Rita, behind her, placed her cupped hands high on Nancy's fully swaying buttocks. Nancy jumped when she felt the hands… thinking: aren't they kind of low? Rita's hands were virtually cupping the snowy twin cheeks of her sensuously shaped ass. Nancy could feel her warming fingers through the material and her flimsy panties. She reasoned, drunkenly, that it was only Rita, and it was dark and no one could see and… it felt good.
The small, dimly lit bar was crowded and the three of them found they had to stand at the bar. Most of the people in the bar were men and most of them were drinking beer from bottles and watching the stage at one end of the bar. It was a tiny stage, barely big enough for one person to stand and do a little dancing. The juke box was blaring out a rock tune, and a young girl was dancing up on the stage.
In the dark, feeling Rita's hands almost caressing her softly full buttocks, feeling Tom's arm around her waist and feeling his big beefy hand sliding over her stomach, Nancy permitted herself a smutty smile. She felt wicked and was dying to tell someone where they had been and what they had seen. If people only knew, they wouldn't be so interested in the stripper, if people only knew, the stripper would seem mild in comparison. Nancy watched the stripper with a calculating eye.
The girl was down to a spangled brassiere and a sequined G-string. She was very young and had a voluptuously slender body with a slim waist and big breasts that bounced and quivered as she danced. She was wearing high heels that helped exhibit her shapely legs and figure all the more. Her eyes and wet lips making a pouty expression, she lewdly thrust her groin out. Idly, her fingers toyed with the G-string. "Take it off!" a gruff voice came from the dark audience.
Slightly drunk, Nancy cocked an eyebrow. She leaned back and turned her head, whispering into Rita's ear. "Hell, I could do better than she is."
As if to answer, Rita gently kneaded the vibrant flesh of Nancy's hips and let her fingers slip lower to gently feel the voluptuous curves of her ass-cheeks and that velvety tingling place where her cheeks met up between her legs. Nancy felt as if her face was on fire as she slowly and wantonly wiggled her hips and buttocks.
Tom, feeling her lewd motion with his hand and arm, looked down at her luscious torso. Drunkenly, his eyes bloodshot, he asked, "Whatcha say?"