With or Without You (8 page)

Regardless of how the players came together, they were hypnotic.

I stared, mesmerised, as the two men continued to kiss. They looked so hungry, the way the dark-haired man cradled his blond beau’s face in his hands. The
brunette was the top of the two, I could tell, moving his partner to suit his own satisfaction. I hadn’t known I’d find an image like this so sexy. Sure, I liked
My Beautiful Launderette
,
Another Country
and
My Own Private Idaho
. But what did that say about me? That I enjoyed art-house films?

This was real life, with the men devouring one another, kissing as if they’d never stop. I watched, spell-bound, as they made out. They both had their eyes closed, lost in the total pleasure of the moment, and then the girl joined in, parting them like the sexual choreographer she was, getting in between them. Awestruck, I suddenly realised that I was the only one so intently focused on the room. Yes, the dancers on the floor were watching, but they were also still dancing. I wouldn’t have been able to move from the booth. I was wildly turned on, shifting again in the booth as I sensed how aroused the scenario had made me.

And then things got sexier still.

The door to the Cinéma Vérité room opened and I realised with a sudden shocked intake of breath that Nora had just entered the tiny space. As if needing to verify the vision on the screen, I looked over at the bar, surprised that she’d been able to pass by the booth without my noticing. But I’d been lost in my thoughts, trying to pen them in, make sense of them. Now, I stared as Nora pushed the two men aside and kissed the girl. A raucous wave of approval from the dance floor greeted this new erotic antic. Customers were definitely paying attention now, focused as Nora made her way down the girl’s body, following the zipper on the girl’s vinyl dress with her own berry-glossed lips.

The blonde closed her eyes and leaned back against the mirrored wall as Nora started to kiss her. I wondered how far my best friend would go. I’ve always known that she likes to divide her attention between men and women. And I’ve witnessed scenarios in the past that let me know she’s fine with more than a bit of exhibitionism. But was she actually going to have sex in that room, right now, with the whole club as her witness?

Nora’s universe is so alien from mine. Even after ten years as friends, I am still in awe of her ability to captivate those around her. This skill was what made Waxe Wod so popular back in college. Nora sells a bit of herself with each club that she owns. She doesn’t hide behind the scenes, she steps right up to the front of the stage and MCs them.

I suppose that I shouldn’t have been surprised by her actions. Had I been paying more attention, I would have
realised she was planning on playing in public this evening. Nora had worn her white mink fedora to the club. She has a code – she’s described to me in the past – a hat code the way that some gay men and women have hankie codes: bondage top (grey), wants oral sex (light blue), dildo user (light pink). Of course, Nora explained, it also matters which pocket the hankies were worn in.

‘But what if you didn’t mean it?’ I’d asked her. ‘What if you just had a cold or something and you tucked a hankie into your pocket and someone –’

‘What? Fucked you against the bar? There’s always a discussion first, silly. It’s not like you don’t still have a will of your own. It’s just a way of letting people know what you’re into. It cuts to the chase.’

With a hat, there was only one choice of how to wear it – no right pocket, or left pocket – and very few people know the codes to Nora’s desires. Only me and a few select bed partners. Still, Nora owns a breathtaking assortment of fedoras. Some are rhinestone studded, others made of mohair. Each one signifies a different desire.

What might I have if I were to choose a similar code system? A book – that would do it for me. If I had a black book with me, that would mean I wanted … wanted what? Wanted a fantasy life like Nora’s? Wanted Anthony? I didn’t need a book to know that, and apparently Nora had understood what I’d thought were my hidden longings only too well.

On screen, Nora was now pressed up against the blonde vixen, her hands on the girl’s breasts, her lips still moving over the woman’s slender body. The men stood on either side of the Asian girl, and they were kissing her as well, working their mouths along her neck, down to her breasts, touching and kissing her all over. The girl looked as if she might swoon from the pleasure, as if she would melt away if not for the support of her friends. Nora had her mouth now against the vinyl fabric covering the space between the girl’s thighs. The vinyl looked wet under the bright lights, and I was sure that it was
wet for real under Nora’s ministrations, wet on the inside.

The camera in the room didn’t move. It was set firmly on its pedestal, able to catch only the motions that were within the eye of the viewfinder. So when Nora disappeared out of the screen, the customers on the dance floor had to use their imaginations. Was she moving her way down the pretty blonde’s thighs? And if so, what was she doing down there? We all knew. Of course, we did. But wondering made the concept that much more sexy. I could imagine what Nora was doing. I’d seen her work Dean. I knew that she had well-developed oral skills.

I stared back at the dance floor, pondering this thought, and I would have stared on longer, but Nora suddenly poked me. I started, as shocked to see her in person as I had been to see her up on the screen, still believing that she was up on screen, off in that room.

‘Where were we?’ Nora asked, passing a fresh drink to me.

I couldn’t believe her. She actually wanted me to get back to my story. Apparently, she’d slipped out of the room stealthily, leaving the trio to their own erotic endeavours, satisfied with playing her role as the match that sparked the flame of lust. Not that they’d really needed her assistance, but they’d definitely enjoyed the help.

‘You really want me to keep going?’ I asked her. I saw that her lipstick was slightly smeared, but she still looked plenty put together. The Cinéma Vérité room was still up on the screen, the men now with their shirts off, sandwiching the Asian girl between them.

‘Of course,’ she said. ‘I was only giving the crowd a little thrill.’

‘A
big
thrill.’

‘People expect something special when they come here,’ she said, unconcerned by my shock. I have been at the Pink Fedora often enough to know that she was
telling the truth. She makes the gossip rags on a regular basis. Celebrities feel free to let their wild sides show. Nora has a loyal staff. She hasn’t caught anyone selling stories to the grocery-store magazines. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t spill a few choice secrets herself every once in a while – how else to stay at the top of her game?

‘Go on,’ she said now, pulling a lip gloss out of her purse and retouching her make-up. ‘You were describing how you felt when you found those papers.’

I watched as she redid her lips without the help of a mirror. She was using her favourite brand of gloss other than her own, one called Delux Beauty, which is known for naming their lip glosses after men. One of the reasons Nora has so many cosmetics is that she is the head of her own Pink Fedora make-up line. She considers buying cosmetics part of her job. She keeps an antique goblet filled with the different mini-lip glosses at home, each one featuring a different man’s name. Nora has told me in the past how much she likes the concept of having an assortment of her favourite men in her pocket: Edgar, Rowan, Riley, Melvin, Jasper, Marshall, Gus, Antoine. I suddenly wondered if there was a Byron. If there was, she’d have to throw that gloss out.

‘Eli,’ she said, pulling me back to Earth. ‘Tell me.’

How Nora could stay on track like that was amazing. I suppose this ability is also why she can run three clubs at once. She’s eerie in the way she’s able to compartmentalise her different emotions. I’m organised in my work, but disorganised in my feelings. I hesitated one more moment, doing my best to gather up my thoughts. My cellphone throbbed again, and I took the time to see who it was. Nora grabbed it from me.

‘Byron,’ she said.

‘I know.’

‘Why don’t you go in that room and join the lovers? I’ll take a photo of you and send it to him on the phone, so he can see what you’re up to.’

‘No thanks.’

‘We know you’re not so shy,’ she pressed on.

‘What we did back at your house is different from barging in on a threesome of people I don’t know.’

‘I’ll introduce you,’ Nora teased. ‘The girl is one of my bartenders. This is her night off.’

I shook my head.

‘Then why don’t you go into the ladies’ room and take a shot of your ass? You can send
that
to him. You know, with some text message that says: “Kiss this!” ’

‘And then what? He’ll email it to all his friends?’

She sighed. The things that Nora would do and the things that I am willing to do are often polar opposites. ‘I could send him a picture of
my
ass,’ she suggested.

I started laughing. I couldn’t help myself. She would do it, too. If I asked her. If I handed over my phone and told her to email a picture of her derrière to Byron, she would do it in a heartbeat. ‘That’s what friends are for,’ I told her and, when Nora grinned at me and sipped her drink, I could tell that she was pleased by my response.

‘Go on, Eli,’ she said, ‘tell me the rest. You’ve been dying to. And then I’ll tell you my big news.’

It was difficult, but I gathered my thoughts, and then I explained the sensation in the very best way I could. ‘It’s like when you go outside, out in the desert or up in the hills. You can see all the sky, and you think that people have looked up at those stars for thousands of years. It makes you feel tiny, totally insignificant.’

‘You speak well after a few drinks, don’t you? You’re positively poetic.’ She wasn’t buying any of this.

‘No, it’s not that.’ I flushed. ‘Well, yes, it’s probably that, but also it’s why I work in a museum. You always tease me about becoming as obsolete and unused as the ancient objects I categorise and write about. But I love it. All day long, I’m surrounded by terribly old pieces of art, and I can daydream and think about how long they’ve survived. The fact that they were here thousands of years before us and that they’ll be here, barring other human
errors like my fight with Byron, thousands of years from now. After we’ve been reduced to dust.’

‘Lovely,’ Nora said sarcastically. ‘
Every
day you think that? No wonder you’re always wearing those stiff black suits and mundane dresses. You’re fashioning yourself after a mortician. What a morbid way to spend your time.’ She sniffed, disgusted.

‘Not morbid,’ I corrected her. ‘It’s not. It’s peaceful.’

‘How many papers are there?’ Nora asked, dismissing what I’d just said with an impatient shrug. ‘There must be only a couple to be able to fit into the case with your computer.’

‘I left the computer there. I put it on the table and put the papers into the case.’

‘You
what
?’ She looked at me with narrowed eyes, and I could tell that she was trying to guess whether or not I was kidding.

‘The computer was totally thrashed. I hit the urn hard enough with the computer bag to shatter the top of the PowerBook.’ I stared at her. ‘Fuck the computer, the papers were more important.’

‘Your book,’ Nora said, then caught herself, obviously realising that maybe this wasn’t the most tactful concept to bring up. For the past four years I’ve been writing a book about art versus artefact. I’m not sure if my studies will interest anyone else, but the work lets me think in English instead of Latin, and that has to be good for my psyche.

‘On CD, of course,’ I told her. ‘I was out of my head, but not insane. I have the CD in the case,’ I explained. ‘But that doesn’t matter either.
This
matters. Finding out what’s in them. I don’t know why, but it does.’ I put my hand protectively on the computer bag, then looked at my friend. I can trust Nora with every feeling I have. She’ll never let me down. Now I said, ‘I know you’re thinking that I’m simply transferring my anger into something else, right? But that’s not it. I can’t explain it any better.’

I looked at Nora and my eyes must have pleaded. And Nora, who has been my best friend for a decade, who knows me better than anyone in the world, was kind enough to say, ‘All right. I understand.’ Seeing those imminent tears in my eyes, she added, ‘It’s OK, Eli –’ using that pet name once more, a nickname that only she can get away with ‘– Don’t worry. It’s OK.’

The Pink Fedora closes at two. Officially, anyway. Best friends can stay on longer. Besides, where else would I go? Not to Nora’s without her. Not home, because the beachfront apartment wasn’t my home any more. Had it ever been my home? Byron had decorated it to look like the living space of a TV lawyer. I’d never liked anything in it other than the prints on the walls, and I’d never had the guts to voice my opinion.

I hung around while Nora did all the little after-hours housekeeping she likes to engage in. Just because the club is shut for the night, doesn’t mean it’s time for her to rest. She tends to be wired for hours after closing, and I know that she gets a thrill in being in this space that she’s created herself.

Nora has confessed to me that she doesn’t have to put nearly as much effort into the club now as she did when she first started. But that doesn’t mean she’s slacked off. She likes control. More than that – she revels in it.

While I watched, Nora flicked on the overhead lights from a hidden panel by the rear door, instantly bathing the room in a glow that felt far too bright. This was a place both destined and designed for the dark. Seeing the tables so well lit was disconcerting, like learning the trick behind the magic show. Who really wants to know that the magician’s hat has a faux bottom? Doesn’t everyone, down deep inside, hope that the glossy white rabbit appeared there by magic?

Travis helped her put things back in order. They didn’t bother with the glasses or the litter on the tables. Those would be picked up later by the cleaning crew. Instead,
the two worked to blow out the candles. To snag any left-behind jackets, scarves and cellphones and bring these to their Lucite lost-and-found box behind the bar.