Glimpses: The Best Short Stories of Rick Hautala (49 page)

And then, as the music rose to a crescendo that rattled the cheap speakers, it happened.

With a swirling flourish, LaBelle spun around on one foot.

Dennis came close to passing out the instant he saw her face.

Framed in a cascade of frizzy black hair was—not the face of a woman—no, it was the face of a cat. .. or a snake. Her sleek forehead, her high, glossy cheekbones, her delicately pointed chin, and her thin, flaring nose and wide lips were nothing but a frame for her eyes.

Her
eyes!

In the glare of the single spotlight, against the orange backdrop of sunlit canvas, her slitted eyes gleamed with a golden fire as she looked coldly out at her audience.

Dennis couldn't move. He was afraid even the slight friction of his pants, shifting, would bring him to orgasm. He had forgotten how to blink his eyes or take a breath as he gaped in awe at the woman. The noisy audience and the blaring music all vanished in an instant, and LaBelle was staring at him—him alone … dancing … moving for him. She coiled and uncoiled her arms, her long, delicate fingers waving like slim branches in the wind, reaching . . . beckoning—

To him!

She's looking right at me!
Dennis's mind screamed.
She wants me!

He was all but lifted out of his seat as he was drawn deeper into the twin golden pools of her eyes. He barely noticed when LaBelle reached behind her back, unsnapped her costume top, and shrugged it off her shoulders. After swinging it around a few times in the air, she tossed it backstage. Now freed from confinement, her heavy breasts bounced and swayed to the rhythm of the music. When Dennis shifted his gaze downward from her eyes, all he could imagine was his own, trembling hands gently caressing and squeezing and massaging those magnificent globes.

As LaBelle continued to twirl and spin on the narrow stage, Dennis was swept away by her motion. Slowly, she peeled away the rest of her costume, sloughing it off like snake skin, but he barely noticed, so lost was he in the whirlpool of her dance and her flashing, golden eyes.

When—at last—she slinked offstage, stark naked, the crowd exploded with cheers and whistles. Dennis felt himself only partially pulled out of the spinning daze he had fallen into. Another dancer followed, but Dennis, his groin aching as if he hadn't found release in years, got up and stumbled out of the nearest exit.

The sudden burst of sunlight and the blaring sounds from other carnival booths and tents was like a cold, hard punch to the gut. Dennis walked on legs as stiff as broomsticks as he made his way over to the kiddie rides, where he had left Sally and Dennis Jr. When he saw his bloated, pimple-faced wife, the last vestiges of the illusion LaBelle had cast disappeared like smoke. It wasn't until later that afternoon, after he and Sally and Dennis Jr. had left the carnival, that Dennis got an idea of what he could do about it all.

Sunday morning dawned bright and cold as Dennis tiptoed to the back door, clutching a battered suitcase in one hand. Every floorboard creaked as loud as a gunshot with each step he took, but he slowly made his way through the kitchen and out the back door without waking either Sally or Dennis Jr. Closing the door quietly yet firmly behind him, he started down the road without a single backward glance.

What the fuck difference does it make?
he asked himself.

He had a wife he didn't love—maybe had never really loved. He had married Sally right out of high school only because he had gotten her knocked up. He had a two-year-old brat who was driving him crazy as it was, and now another one was on the way because Sally said she "forgot" to take her birth control pills. And now, on top of everything else, he didn't even have his lousy job at the mill.

So there was nothing to keep him here in Hilton.

But none of that mattered. If there was even the slimmest chance that he could—somehow—get to spend a night—just
one
night—with LaBelle, it would all be worth leaving this behind.

The night before, after Dennis Jr. had been tucked into bed and Sally was dozing in front of some lame-brained TV reality show, Dennis had gone down to the river again and watched as the roustabouts dismantled the carnival, packing it up for the trip to the next town. Before Sally had gone upstairs to bed, he had quietly packed a few changes of clothes into his old suitcase and hidden it in the downstairs closet.

The morning air was crisp, with just a hint of actual springtime warmth. The woods were damp with dew and filled with bird song as Dennis made his way quickly down Marsh Street to the bridge that would bring him by the most direct route to Moulton's Field. As beautiful as the morning was, though, it all paled beside the burning memory Dennis had of seeing LaBelle, the Voodoo Queen, dance ... dance naked just for him!

He hoped, he
prayed
that no one from town would see him. It wouldn't take a powder-keg mind to figure out what he was doing, walking down the road with a suitcase in hand. In some ways, he felt the same stirrings of freedom and joy he had felt when, as a boy, he had run away from home because of the whopping his father had given him for some long-forgotten offense. But the image that drew him onward now—the sensuous beauty of LaBelle the Voodoo Queen—was something no ten-year-old could ever have imagined. He no longer wanted just to watch. No, he wanted to touch … He had to
feel
LaBelle do her dance all around him!

He made it to Moulton's Field, and it didn't take him long to find the trailer belonging to the carnival boss—a man named Josh Hannigan. After telling Hannigan how he had lost his job at the mill—and conveniently forgetting to mention the fact that he was leaving a family behind—he had himself a job as a roustabout. The pay was minimum wage, as he had expected, but he would share a trailer with several other men and be provided with a bed and three squares a day. All in all, Dennis thought his prospects were looking damned good. He’d be able to keep body and soul together ... hopefully at least until he could see LaBelle again and maybe meet her. After that, he might think about going back home to Sally and his snot-nosed little brat.

Maybe ...

By nightfall, the carnival crossed the state line into
New Hampshire. Dennis spent most of the night with his new workmates, setting up the carnival in an open field just outside of Franconia. The work was much harder than anything he'd ever done at the paper mill. Even though the regulars treated him a bit standoffishly, he began to sense a spirit of camaraderie among them, like a secret brotherhood, and he felt that—given time—he’d be able to share it.

But none of that mattered because what he had come for, what filled his mind all night as he worked, was a vision of LaBelle with her long, sleek, black arms wrapped around him, pulling him close . . . her legs locked around his back, squeezing in a wild tempo as he drove deeper and deeper into her.

The only disappointment Dennis experienced that first night on the job was that he never caught a glimpse of LaBelle. Apparently she kept to her trailer when she wasn't performing, and she never came out, even during setup or for the late evening meal. Whenever Dennis got close to her trailer, a queasy discomfort would fill his gut as he stared at her closed door, fully expecting to see some man—maybe Josh Hannigan—step out of her trailer with a satisfied grin on his face. What were the chances that a woman like her didn't already have a man—or dozens of men—in her life?

The few times Dennis even mentioned LaBelle to his co-workers, everyone either looked away as if they hadn't heard him or else cast their eyes to the ground and shook their heads, muttering something under their breaths that Dennis never quite caught.

It was well past midnight when the carnival was finally set up and ready for the crowds the next day. Bone-tired, Dennis was making his way back to his trailer for some much needed rest. Out of a habit he knew he would follow until he at least caught another glimpse of LaBelle, he wandered past her trailer first.

As he looked up at the full-length sign depicting her dance, his head felt bubbly and light, but the darkened windows stared back at him like cold, uncaring eyes. He knew he would have to seek out his cot before he collapsed right there on the ground, but he lingered, staring at the closed trailer door and letting his fantasies run amok. He was turning to leave when a faint
click
sounded in the night … then the high-pitched
squeak
of a door hinge, opening.

His heart was throbbing heavily in his chest as he looked up at LaBelle's trailer. He almost convinced himself he was hallucinating when the door slowly swung outward and then stopped, less than halfway open. From the darkness within, Dennis saw a soft flutter of motion, black shifting against the darker black of the doorway.

"It's very late," a woman's voice said.

The voice came to him, sultry and soft, from out of the darkness. Like the sound of the opening door, this voice seemed more imagined than real. It floated on the gentle night breeze like a moth, fluttering close to his ear—a light, powdery sound.

"I—umm, yeah ... yeah, it’s late," Dennis stammered.

He felt a momentary rush of fear that someone would pass by and see him standing here, talking to an empty trailer doorway.

"You must be very tired," the voice said.

Dennis took two or three halting steps forward, his hands flopping uselessly at his sides.

"Yeah, I am." He paused, his breath feeling like fire in his lungs. "My—umm, my name's Den—"

"I know who you are, Dennis," the voice said, light and lilting … and teasing, now.

But there was no mistake. The trailer door swung open a bit more, and Dennis could see a long, sinuous arm reaching out into the night. The arm was dark—darker than the night as the forefinger curled up in a subtle “come-hither” gesture.

"Uhh—Miss LaBelle—my name's Dennis Levesque. I'm a—"

"And I know
what
you are, Dennis."

"Well—uhh ... I was ... umm." Dennis shifted nervously from one foot to the other and then took a single, halting step closer to the trailer. "I mean—well, you see … I don't want to intrude or anything, but I was—"

"Why don't you come inside my trailer and rest?" the voice whispered softly. “Would you like that?”

“You see, ma’am, I don’t like to—”

"I know how tired you are. But I can make you feel so much better."

Dennis's heart was pounding so hard in his chest every pulse squeezed his throat like strong, cold fingers. He grew dizzy. The pressure in his groin was starting to tingle as he took a few tentative steps closer to the trailer. Finally he was close enough to reach up and actually touch that dark, beckoning hand.

"Please," the wispy voice said, caressing his ears like the delicate hiss of skin against silk. "Come inside. You
know
you want to."

Morning sunlight cut through the bedroom curtains and drilled a hole through Dennis's closed eyelids. For an instant, he was confused, wondering where he was. But then, as he rolled his head to one side and glanced around the tiny bedroom, it came back to him in a rush so intense it made an audible
whoosh
in his ears. His heart constricted when he looked to his left and saw the dark mass of curly hair on the pillow beside him.

LaBelle was sleeping peacefully. A faint smile touched the corners of her full lips.

The thin sheet covering her did little to hide the rounded contours of her body. He stared at the large mounds of her breasts, unable to convince himself that last night he had actually touched them, caressed them, kissed them. Looking at her now, so silent and still, all Dennis could imagine—all he could remember—was how her body had pulsated and throbbed beneath him in the pre-dawn darkness. He smiled with dazed satisfaction as he rolled over and reached for the cigarette pack on the bed stand. Shirting forward, he picked his pants up off the floor and fumbled in the pocket for his lighter. On the small table was the empty bottle of wine they had shared last night after—no,
between
bouts of lovemaking. He remembered, now, that he had drunk most if not all of it.

"No, no, no," LaBelle said, the suddenness of her voice startling Dennis. Her golden eyes snapped open as she rolled onto her side and, propping herself up on one elbow, waved a long, delicate finger under his nose. The motion made the silky sheet fall away, revealing some of the charms he had enjoyed just a short while ago.

"Don't smoke in here," she whispered huskily.

"Oh, yeah. Sure," Dennis stammered. “Sorry.”

For the longest moment, he was unable to stop staring at her exposed breasts. Then, shrugging like a simpleton, he put the cigarette pack and lighter onto the bed stand and lay back down on top of the sheets. He let his hand linger for a moment in the air and then, as if still unable to believe his incredible good fortune, dropped it down to caress the curve of her sleek, black breast. His mind was filled with images of what they had done to and with each other during the night, and he felt another erection growing strong as he considered that they might start going at it again.

"What's-s-s the—" he started to say, but then he abruptly cut himself off and bolted upright in bed. His body was tingling with tension as his hand drifted up to his mouth. For a panicked instant, he completely forgot what he had been about to say as he flicked his tongue around inside his mouth.