Tats (22 page)

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I say in total innocence. “I also just stole this car and don’t know where we’re going. Any ideas?”

“Miss Jackson’s,” she orders. “I need some new clothes.”

“We were just at WalMart!” I complain.

“Oh, my God!” she gasps, horrified. “You don’t really think I’m going to wear WalMart clothes?!”

The highest priced, fanciest women’s clothing store that Tulsa has to offer is Miss Jackson’s. Or as I prefer to call it: the seventh circle of hell.

Vivian is in her element. She’s like UberWoman with shopping superpowers. Chameleon-like in her appearance, German in her appetite for expensive clothes, dangerous and deadly with her tongue, she’s able to find sales where none existed before.

I stand guard on the sidewalk outside the front doors, smoking, reading some of my
Zen
paperback and hoping the cops don’t find the stolen car before we can get to wherever we’re going next.

“It’s not called cheap, it’s called reasonable,” I argue.

“We have two bags of money. We don’t have to be reasonable. Reasonable is for poor people,” Vivian reasons.

She hands a hundred dollar bill to the bellhop after he drops the umpteen dozen Miss Jackson’s bags inside the front door.

As soon as the bellhop (do they still call them bellhops?) closes the door behind him, Vivian smiles and says, “Money’s no good unless you spend it.”

We’re in a different suite at the Crowne Plaza. The Presidential Suite was taken so Vivian had to settle for another. This one only has one bathroom, which is sandwiched in between two bedrooms. (The two bedrooms thing is rapidly becoming a sore spot with me.)

Vivian throws open the door to the first bedroom and says, “This one’s yours.”

She throws open the door to the second bedroom, the one with the view of the city, and says, “Put my bags in here.”

I dump all the sacks of clothes at the foot of her bed and scooch the money bags under the bed with the toe of my boot.

“I don’t think coming back here is the best idea you’ve ever had,” I complain. “This Prince Charles guy is probably scoping the place out.”

“Wrong,” she counters. “Coming back here would be stupid and he knows I’m not stupid, so he won’t look here.”

“But if he knows you’re not stupid, then he knows that you know he won’t look for you here, so he’s going to look for you here first.”

“What?” she asks.

“I’m just saying that if I were him and I was looking for you, this is the first place I’d look.”

“But he’s too stupid to figure all that out,” she says.

“He can’t be too stupid. He’s found us everywhere we go.”

She doesn’t say anything. I point at the back of her knee. “You missed one.”

She reaches down and pulls the sticker off, wads it into a tiny ball and flicks it at me like a booger.

“So what’re we going to do now?” I ask, plopping down on her bed.

“I’m going to shower and change,” she says.

“You don’t have to change for me. I like you the way you are.”

“Off my bed,” she orders.

“You still mad about the stickers?”

“Would you please remove your ass from my bed?” she asks, ever-so-politely with a light British accent.

I don’t move. “Can I take a shower with you?”

“Nope.”

“Can we just make out some?” I ask.

“I’m straight.”

“So? I’ve made out with lotsa straight women. That didn’t mean they were gay.”

She opens drawers and piles her new clothes in. “No, thank you,” she answers politely.

“You can close your eyes and pretend I’m a man.”

“How very Yentl,” she says.

“I can just watch you masturbate.”

She orders, “Get out of my room.”

“Or you could watch me masturbate.”

Vivian marches to her door and holds it open, gesturing for me to exit.

“Okay,” I say, dragging my feet out the door. “But if you change your mind...”

“...you’ll be the first to know,” she says, shutting the door behind me.

I go into my own room and slam my door. I sit on the bed and bounce. I hear the shower turn on in the bathroom. I lie on the bed with my hands behind my head and stare at the ceiling.

I can’t believe I’m actually thinking that somehow someway someday Vivian is going to let me love her or love me back. I weigh my chances and know the odds aren’t good. So why do I keep on keeping on? I guess I don’t really have anything better to do. It’s not like I left something better behind.

I must’ve fallen asleep because a man’s voice jerks me awake. I sit up and will the grog to leave my brain. Maybe I just heard the TV or something.

I get up and open the door to the bathroom. It’s steamy and there’s two towels lying on the floor next to a pile of clothes that Vivian was wearing. She’s finished with her shower.

I hear his voice again.

I press my ear against the door leading to Vivian’s bedroom. I can’t hear anything. I’m thinking about using one of those wrapped glasses by the sink—like how they do in movies—press it up against the door and stick your ear over it—then I hear the voice again and recognize a definite British accent.

Shit. I look around the bathroom for a weapon. My choice is wet towels or a drinking glass. Shit. I ease the door open and put one eye up to the crack.

I can’t believe what I’m seeing. Vivian is full monty-showing naked. She’s one of those women who look even better out of her clothes than in them. (Well, according to me, that’s true for all women.) But then that thought disappears as soon as I see Prince Charles. He’s wearing slacks, shirt and a tie. Vivian slithers up to him and rubs herself against him. She kisses his neck and works his belt at the same time.

He downs the glass of champagne he’s holding.

Vivian growls, “Baby, you don’t know how much I missed this.”

His pants drop around his ankles. Tidy whities. He tosses the empty champagne glass to the floor. Vivian sits on the edge of the bed, wraps her legs around his and pulls him down on top of her.

The bedroom door opens and one of the goons pokes his head in. As soon as he sees P.C. laying on top of Vivian, he says, “Beg your pardon.”

P.C. looks over his shoulder and commands, “Wait in the car.”

The goon shuts the door. I hear him out in the living room talking to somebody, probably his twin goon. The front door opens and closes.

P.C. goes back to Vivian and smothers his face between her tits. And the part that hurts the worst is that she looks like she’s enjoying it.

I can’t bear to see anymore.

I shut the door.

I numbly walk into my bedroom. I turn in a couple of slow circles before I grab hold of the first emotion that runs by and I jump on its back and ride it hard.

I hate her. I hate every fucking thing about her. I hate her red hair. I hate her perfect tits. I hate her laugh. I hate how she makes me feel. Most of all, I hate her for making me fall in love with her. I even hate her for making me hate her.

I go back to the bathroom and quietly undress and put on every stitch of Vivian’s discarded animal-themed clothes.

Two can play this game.

Fifteen minutes later I’m in the hotel bar. I wound my dreads on top of my head trying for the octopus thing again, but ended up looking like Medusa. I’ve got on Viv’s panties, her short skirt, her matching shirt and those damn shoes she loves so much. I don’t know where to scratch first. And I’m quickly developing a newfound respect for women who can actually walk in high heels. I hope I don’t have to get anywhere quickly.

I try to look nonchalant and sexy at the same time as I plant my ass onto the first barstool I see. I peer through the ambiance and scout out a target. I get one in my sights and pull the trigger.

“Buy me a drink?” I coo to the man next to me.

He looks me up and down, takes a big gulp of his drink and scoots down three places.

This isn’t as easy as it looks.

I’m well into my third (or fourth, who the hell’s counting) drink and looking desperate when I hear a lip-smacking voice near my ear say, “Can I buy you drink, pretty lady?”

I almost look around for the pretty lady before I realize he’s talking to me. “Sure, baby,” I answer, “I could do with another.”

He sits next to me and I see exactly what I expected to see: a middle-aged man with too much hair on his chest and not enough on his head. He’s a little soft in the middle but not too bad for a man who sits at a desk all day every day. His eyes are a little unfocused which explains why he chose me. He’s wearing his uniform of suit and tie with snakeskin boots and ten-gallon hat, and I’m guessing he wants to take a story back to his office in whatever town he’s from. I glance down at his wedding ring and have a pang of remorse.

I gulp down the drink and dive straight in before I can change my mind. “What’re you doing tonight?” I ask.

“Nothin’, sugar,” he says.

“You are now. You’re doing me,” I slur. (It worked on Joey Hanes in high school, I just hope it works now.)

“Sure, sure...okay,” he stumbles.

Once we’re both standing, I realize I’m a good head taller than him.

“You’re a tall drink of water,” he drawls.

That’s when the panic sets in. I swallow hard and squeak a question to myself, “You doin’ this or not?”

“Lead the way, little lady,” he says.

He small talks all the way up in the elevator, but the only voice I can hear is that little Jiminy Cricket in my head that keeps telling me this is a really bad idea.

I ignore all the voices coming at me and put my card key into the slot.

I take off the heels once I’m inside the door and my toes cry from relief. I put my index finger over my lips in the universal quiet gesture and he does it back to me with a drunken “ssshhhhh.”

We tippy-toe to my room and I turn on the lamp on the nightstand. He shuts the door quietly behind him. I toss my shoes into a corner of the room. Fueled by Jack, I strip down naked in about three seconds. I turn to face him.

He whistles low and between his teeth.

“I have to tell you something,” I say. “I’m a lesbian.”

“I’m from Houston,” he replies.

Buckass naked and all too aware of the jiggle in my boobs, I do my best slither up to him. I imitate what I saw Vivian do and bury my face in the cowboy’s neck while I try to get his belt undone. He has on some powerful cologne and before I can stop myself, I sneeze into his shoulder. I think I must be allergic to men.

“Bless you, sugar,” he says.

He gently pushes me down onto the bed and unfastens his belt all by himself. His drawers drop and fall around his boots. He’s already standing at attention and I give myself a mental pat on the back for at least being able to accomplish that much.

He takes off his shirt and tie, but leaves his hat and boots on. But at least he’s polite about it because he actually tips his hat at me before he crawls between my legs. He squirms around a little bit and I feel as if he’s going to crush my ribcage. When I try to wriggle out from under him, he mistakes this for excitement and shoves it right in without warning. He starts doing his thing and I just lie there allowing it and berating myself for ever thinking this would help with anything.

I punch him a couple of times on the back and he stops.

“You almost done?”

“I could do this all night long,” he says in a slow Texas drawl.

“Oh, fer Chrissakes,” I mumble. I push him off and get on my knees and elbows with my ass in the air. “Do it this way, so I don’t have to look at you,” I offer. “You’ve got five minutes.”

“My wife won’t do that,” he says in true awe.

“I’d like to meet her someday. Four minutes thirty seconds and counting down.”

He climbs on like the cowboy he is and begins again.

That’s when Vivian walks in all dressed in her new Miss Jackson sexy-ass-dress-with-matching-new-heels-ensemble. Her seeing this this doesn’t feel anything like how I planned it. It was supposed to make me feel good and her feel bad, but somehow all I feel is mortified. I bury my face in my hands. Maybe she can’t see me if I can’t see her. I peek between my fingers to see if it’s working.

“Wellwellwell...” she smirks, crossing her arms and thrusting out one hip, “Where’s a camera when you need one?”

Houston tips his hat at her and grunts, “Ma’am.” He goes back to business and after a couple more thrusts, he’s blessedly done.

Nonplussed, Vivian scoops up his clothes from the floor and tosses them at him. “Okay, cowboy, you done broke that wild pony, time to leave.”

I hide under the bed covers while Vivian coaxes him out the door one pantleg at a time. I hear the door in the other room shut and her footsteps coming back toward me. She whips the covers back. “Lee, we gotta get out of here.”

“I saw you fucking Prince Charles,” I say.

“And I saw you fucking a fat cowboy. We got to get outta here before he wakes up.”

“Before who wakes up?”

“Prince fucking Charles, that’s who!” she whisper-shouts and walks into the bathroom, expecting me to follow. I wrap the sheet around me and tag after her. She quietly opens the door to her bedroom and motions for me to look.

I peek around the door.

What the hell?

“What the hell’m I looking for?” I ask.

She throws open the door, revealing what I already saw: Nothing. Nothing but a messed up bed and an empty room.

“Where the fuck did he go?” she shouts, running into the room. I pick up the end of my sheet and follow her in. She points to the empty bed, “He was right here. I popped some pills into his champagne... Boom, he’s out cold...”

“You’re sure?” I ask in a tiny voice.

“Of course, I’m sure!” she screams at me. “He was naked and passed out right here on the bed!”

“Well, you don’t have to yell at me! I didn’t sneak in here and take his damn body!”

“I’m not yelling at you!” she yells at me.

“I’m obviously the only person in here, so if you’re not yelling at me, then who the fuck are you yelling at?”

“You’re the one who’s fucking doing all the yelling!” she yells.

“And you’re the one who’s doing all the fucking!”

“Me?!” she screams. “Then what were you doing in there with the cowboy if you weren’t fucking?!”