Lady Sativa (13 page)

The city’s nightly display of blinking neon obscured the stars above the Hudson River and dumped garish pigments into the dark water. A chill, constant wind sent the colors shimmering across the river’s surface.

The wind also made it uncomfortably cold, but Orient was unaware of the temperature or the scenery as he wandered through the streets, trying to control his fury.

The vein in his temple pulsed like a broken tooth, shooting spasms of pain through his thoughts. He slowed down and took a deep breath, trying to clear away the confusion. At last he stopped completely and began a formal, meditative breathing pattern, digging deep past the numbing hurt for his concentration. The anger subsided, but the throb in his temple continued to send painful twinges through his brain at regular intervals like the ticking of some torturous clock.

As he began walking again, he continued the breathing pattern, trying to make his reason function despite the discomfort. He shouldn’t have lost his temper like that. He would have to apologize to Sordi. A fresh spasm of pain in his temple mocked his remorse.

He kept walking for a long time, drifting further and further downtown before he stopped to get his bearings. He was near the Port Authority building on the West Side. He could go there and find a cab that would take him back home....

But as he ambled toward the transportation center, he passed a bar decorated with gaudy lights and heard the electronic beat of rock music spilling through the door. He hesitated. A drink might help calm his nerves before he went home. He could use some relaxation. He hadn’t had a night out in weeks. He walked over to the entrance and stepped inside.

The room was narrow and noisy and filled with customers. As Orient entered, he saw that it had been crudely set up to utilize all available space. The chrome bar broke off at right angles in the rear of the room and a four-piece band was perched on a stage above the shelves of bottles. Their amplified sounds pounded monotonously over the garbled static of the crowd The enveloping smoke and rhythmic din seemed to help untangle the conflicting emotions in his thoughts. He found an empty stool in the corner, and signaled for the girl working behind the bar.

As she came near, Orient saw that her thick make-up wasn’t enough to conceal the age lines on her face. She was wearing an abbreviated bikini joined, top and bottom, by a strip of sequins that inadequately covered the swelling folds of her sagging belly. She leaned over the bar and smiled. There was a trace of lipstick on her front tooth and Orient knew that she was the kind of woman who could look messy even completely nude. Her fleshy untidiness excited him.

“If you don’t see what you want, ask for it,” she rasped cheerfully.

Orient grinned, took a folded bill from his pocket, and stuffed it into the top of her bikini. “A double anything. In honor of you and yours.”

She laughed and wiggled away. Orient stared at her rolling thighs and felt a brief itch of desire.

She came back with a double Scotch and he gulped it thirstily, letting the warmth spread through his stomach and ease the tension in his neck and shoulders as he looked around the room. Most of the women looked as if they were waiting to go onstage, with exaggerated make-up and complicated wigs. He glanced along the bar and spotted a tall girl with long brunette hair sitting nearby, talking to a bald man. She was turned away from Orient, but he could feel a familiar sexual vibration, emanating from her slender body, like heavy perfume.

The barmaid came over with another drink. She leaned over so that her powdered breasts hung down to the bar and swayed her shoulders in time to the music, as she set the glass down. “This time they’re both on me,” she leered. “Have a ball.”

Orient picked up the drink and toasted her. “Let’s all three of us have a ball,” he suggested.

“A girl has to make a living, daddy. Maybe in a few hours.” She winked and moved away to serve another customer.

As Orient drank he noticed that most of the people in the bar were sweating—everyone except him. He felt cool and dry in the airless, overheated room. The revelation amused him and he began to laugh softly to himself as the constant throb of electrified sound massaged his brain.

He lifted his head and saw that the brunette down the bar had turned and was looking at him. Her face was narrow and angular with black eyebrows that slanted severely over green-shaded eyes. Her skinny arms were marble-white against the black leather vest laced tightly around her body. He stared back at her through the smoke and waited.

In a few minutes, the bald man left and the space beside her was empty. Orient got up, eased through the crowd, and elbowed past a bearded man who was about - to occupy the empty stool

“Hey, man, what are you doing?” the man protested.

As Orient turned, he felt the stabbing throbs of anger slash across his temples. “I’m sitting down,” he muttered. “What about it?”

The man looked at Orient’s clenched jaw and vacant green eyes and moved away to another part of the bar.

Orient took a deep breath and tried to recapture his calm. He crooked his finger at the barmaid.

She hurried over. “Double Scotch, right?”

“And whatever my friend here is drinking.” He pointed his thumb at the brunette on his left.

The brunette turned to study him with glazed blue eyes. “You can make it a gin,” she told him in a high nasal voice.

She continued to stare at him. “I saw you looking at me,” she said finally.

“That’s right.” As he spoke, her musky scent clung to his nostrils. “Do you mind?”

She shrugged. “At least you’re not bad-looking. That’s more than I can say for the other creeps in this joint.”

“Here you go lover-boy,” the barmaid grunted. “Double Scotch and gin. And you pay for these.” She wasn’t smiling any more.

Orient pulled a ten from his pocket and inserted it between her breasts. “Next time I’ll try to be more patient.”

“Happy Halloween,” the brunette offered, lifting her glass.

He took a long swallow of his drink. The whisky seemed to burn away the cobwebs of anger sticking to his thoughts. A rush of exhilaration overcame the lingering dregs of his headache and he began to stroke the girl’s arm. The smell of her perfume filled his awareness. “You smell good enough to eat,” he said, his voice slightly slurred and hoarse. “You feel nice, too.”

The brunette’s face remained an impassive, painted mask, but her eyes glittered with blue sparks of excitement.

“You’ve got to slow down, baby,” her nasal whisper rasped against his ear. She took his hand from her arm and turned it over. “Let’s see if I can read your future,” she purred running a teasing green fingernail across his palm.

He looked down at his hand, Ever since childhood his palm had been wrinkled like that of a very old man. But tonight the network of lines seemed as pronounced as the chasms on the dead surface of the moon.

The brunette whistled softly. “You’ve got some future baby or some real weird past.”

“What does it say for the two of us?” he asked as the music rose louder in his brain.

Her smile barely broke the green-tinted line of her mouth. “It says fun and games galore.” She released his hand. “I have to split and meet a friend of mine. Do you want to come along?”

When she stood up, he saw that she was very thin. Her trousers were stretched tight over her narrow hips and long thighs and the cuffs were tucked into high, suede boots. She looked like an artificial night flower fashioned out of black leather, white plastic, and green paint. A surge of sexual power rolled over his senses as he contemplated the erotic excesses of her fantasy search for pleasure.

He finished his drink and followed her through the swirl of people and noise to the coatroom. He helped her put on a fur-lined, snakeskin cape, then tipped the bikini-clad attendant.

“Don’t you have a coat?” the brunette asked when they reached the street.

It was then that he noticed that he was wearing only a V-neck cashmere sweater, suede trousers, and loafers without socks.

“Aren’t you cold?”

Her nasal whine made him laugh. “I’m not cold,” he said. “Feel.” He put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her close to his body.

“Hey, yeah, you are warm,” she whispered. “Like a dog I used to have. Groovy.”

He laughed again and looked for a taxi.

She took him to a bar that was smaller and more subdued than the midtown lounge. There was space at the bar and the blare of the jukebox made normal conversation possible. Orient gave his order to a wide-shouldered, barrel-bodied bartender who looked like an ex-wrestler.

The brunette offered him a cigarette. “What’s your name?” she murmured.

Orient took the cigarette. “Scott. Mike Scott. With two t’s.”

“I’m Dominique.” She lowered her voice. “Do you like to make scenes? You know, swing.”

He held a match for her. “Are you sending an invitation?”

She blinked her double set of false eyelashes. “Yeah. You’re really sexy in a weird way. Did you ever think about working as a model? I’ve got lots of connections in that business.”

Orient shrugged and picked up his drink. “I’m doing all right.” He leaned closer to her. “But I can tell you’d be a very talented fashion model.”

She blinked again, this time with pleasure. “Wait till my friend gets here,” she whispered, digging her green nails into his knee. “We’ll have a party and you’ll see.”

Orient became impatient as they waited for her friend to show up. He ordered another round and checked the door again.

Dominique leaned closer to him. “Don’t fret, Mike. Robin will be here soon.” She had loosened some of the thongs of her vest and he could see her hard, pointed nipples pushing out against the thin leather. His groin tingled as he anticipated ripping the vest away from her slender chest. “Let’s go,” he said, his mouth dry. “I’ll show you how to have a party by ourselves.”

“Wait a second. Here he is.” Her voice rose to an unpleasant wail. “Over here, Robin.”

She was waving at a slender young man dressed in an outfit almost identical to her own. His laced vest had long sleeves and was pale blue to match the streak of shadow over his eyes. His long brown hair was bleached to a frosted blond at the tips and was combed into bangs. He moved quickly and gracefully to where they were sitting and gave Dominique a flamboyant hug. When he saw Orient, he lifted one penciled eyebrow. “New faces,” he observed in a high, mocking voice.

“This is my friend, Mike,” Dominique giggled. “With two t’s. He wants to play with us.”

Robin smiled and held out a slim hand. “Hello, Mike,” he purred insinuatingly. “Very nice to meet you.”

Orient stared unmoving at Robin’s hand. A pang of annoyance flickered across his temple and he set his jaw in a tight frown.

“Friendly,
isn’t he?” Robin said, delighted with Orient’s discomfort. “But he is cute.”

“He’s tough,” Dominique teased. “You need that.”

“Of course.” The boy clapped his hand on Orient’s shoulder. “I’m sure Mike knows how to handle us.”

When Robin’s fingers touched him, the compressed anger in his nerves ignited, searing his brain with intense implosions of agony. Fury flared through his muscles and he lashed his clenched fist against the boy’s mouth.

As Robin fell stunned to the floor, the other customers around the bar jumped back from the scuffle. Orient smiled as he glimpsed the blank fear on their faces. The violence had released some of the pain and his body pulsed with power. All time and movement floated on the surge of energy pouring through his consciousness.

“What are you, freaked out or something?” Dominique was yelling. “Not here you fool. You’ve hurt Robin.”

“Keep your hands off me, gay lord,” Orient warned as he stood up. “I don’t like you.” He grabbed Dominique’s thin wrist. “You’re coming with me.”

She pulled back. “Let go. You hurt him.” The pain nudged his temple as he yanked her off the stool.

“Wait,” she pleaded. “I want to see if Robin’s all right.”

Orient saw the bartender coming around the bar with a piece of pipe in his hand and let go of her wrist. The bartender came slowly. He crouched down and cut him off from the door with a few professional moves of his burly body.

Blinding pain stabbed through Orient’s temple, but a deeper, stronger instinct for violence riveted his attention on the hunched, flat-footed figure approaching him.

“All right, buddy,” the bartender growled. “Outside. 1 don’t want trouble with you freaks.”

All the rage and pain in Orient’s senses compressed into a soundless, floating calm. “Take it easy,” he said softly. “I just don’t like those guys touching me.”

“Then go somewhere else.” The bartender straightened his body slightly and the arm holding the pipe relaxed.

Orient took a step toward the door. As he passed the bartender, the tension in his body suddenly burst. His knee came up and his foot snapped out against the bartender’s groin. The man howled and went down, clutching his testicles with both hands.

Another flash of energy tingled across the base of Orient’s brain and his muscles trembled with a hunger for complete release. He took a short step and deliberately kicked the kneeling bartender in the face. Something crunched under his foot and when the man rolled over Orient saw the blood gushing out of his smashed nose. The energy swelled through his chest and rumbled through his throat, becoming a primitive growl of triumph.