Excerpt From Motels of Burning Madness

From page 17-20:

"Zanzibar was good for me," said Deborah as she drove me to court, leaning into the steering wheel of the speeding Olds, urging it to move even faster. The wind blew her black hair flecked with grey all over to one side. We flew through Burbank on the Golden State Freeway at 90 miles an hour and her mouth was working just as fast. I held on tight to the hand grip above the window. "He satisfied my curiosity about black men without getting emotionally involved. But he’s way too wild for me."

After years of suppression, Deborah Flare literally exploded out of her cocoon. When I first met her, she was a 43 year old San Fernando Valley Formica mom with a fist-happy husband and an ego as flat as a cat on the Ventura Freeway. If she wasn’t at the stove she was at the wash machine. Then one day she opened a package of deli wieners and found, wrapped around one of them, a love note addressed to Ken from another woman.
He was obviously having an affair with the night cashier at the Kwik Grab. Deborah didn’t say anything, she just scorched the wiener, note and all, and served it to him in a bun drenched with ketchup.

When Ken went away for a few days on an undercover case in Bernardino County, she considered getting even in some horribly cruel way. So she did. She went out of the house without his knowledge or permission.

It was a bridal party given by one of her friends from a coupon club. Because he wouldn’t let her have a driver’s license, someone had to give her a ride.  At the party she drank some wine, but felt so guilty about it she hardly said a word all night. That is, not until she found out there would be a couple of male strippers—Milo and myself—coming by around midnight.

She was so petrified at what was going to happen that she drank more wine than usual. Her friends encouraged her. They knew about Ken, and if they couldn’t help her get away from him, at least they could help her get even. But once we put a tape in the boom box and started dancing, instead of clapping her hands and hooting along with the others, she babbled on and on about how Ken would kill her if he ever found out. When we stripped to the waist she wanted to leave, but no one would give her a ride. When it got to the point where we were crawling like snakes over arm chairs and couches in our g-strings, she thrashed and protested like a coward at a hanging. But she had no choice but to sit it out with her arms crossed, her legs crossed, her eyes closed, refusing, refusing, refusing to look.

But it wasn’t long before all that changed. In a few days there was a break in the divine order when she put Ken’s washed socks in his drawer, but didn’t pair them and roll them up like he wanted. When he opened the drawer and saw what she had done, the socks flew, the furniture flew, Deborah herself flew—straight into the wall.

For revenge she lost five pounds. Ken didn’t notice. So she lost another five. He still didn’t notice. She secretly altered all her clothes while he was away. She lost five more and we met again at another party. After that her friends called me to say she liked me (big lie) and could I escort her to a disco. They would pay. Somehow it happened. So I behaved as a gentleman and let her guide the tone of the evening. Through an intermediary she asked me to call her for a nooner while the kids were at school. She would pay. In more ways than one. Her husband must have sensed something was wrong because one night he held her down and tried to shave her head so she couldn’t go out, but she yelled, "What about Winnie! What about Winnie!" That was his Kwik Grab girl.
It also drove Deborah deeper into my camp. As time went on she used me ever more selfishly, not just in terms of sex (cheap and eventually free), but in the sense of wanting more and more, as if I was replacing her husband. It was always "just one more night" of make-believe until—to her—the make-believe became real.

She drove like her newly-awakened sex drive. Accelerating too fast, not paying attention, hoping the other guy would see and yield. Today we were on a friendly date, if you can call going to court for indecent exposure a date.

"All my life I’ve done everything with someone else’s permission. You know what I’m going to give myself permission to say? I’m going to give myself permission to say that fun and games aren’t enough, Huey. I need a road that leads me to something deeper." She turned to look at me and the car veered slowly to the shoulder. "I feel myself wanting...wanting something more with you."

I held the dashboard with one hand and the armrest with the other. Words flew out of her like jet smoke. I didn’t have time to answer. She blasted out the words of her sheltered life story in bursts of urgency. I was tied into it of course because of that fateful party, and now I was hearing about all the side issues and unrelated matters and nights of crying and flying furniture and fights with a husband she was afraid to leave. And that was the big decision she had to make. Leave him and forget me. But she was doing the opposite. What would happen to the kids, where would she live, where could she find another man like me, etc.

With one hand I massaged her neck and then, knowing what she loved best, slid my fingers up into her hair and scratched. She arched her head back like a dog, pushing up into my hand. I was trying to be honest, but not too honest. After all, she was my only witness. "Haven’t you ever heard the expression, ‘Don’t get serious about anyone with more problems than you’?"

"I won’t have problems forever."

"I’m not talking about you. I’m talking about me. This is my second offense in the Tack Room within a month. I just hope I don’t get Judge Noogles. If I do, it may be the last you’ll see of me. Remember I told you about Slim Simmons getting busted for lewd in Glendale? The manager of the club told him to take it all off. Said if he didn’t take it all off he was fired. So he took it all off and got busted. Then the manager fired him and wouldn’t help with the legal fees. He got Noogles. Guess how much the fine was? Go ahead, guess. It was seven hundred and fifty bucks! He had to work a month in gay bars just to break even."

"I’ll be your witness if you be my lover." She had to say it playfully because it was painfully true.

"You’re too young." I was equally playful.

"I’m too young? I’m old enough to be your mother!"

"Just barely."

"How old is old enough?"

"Fifties, at least."

"You better be nice to me." The playfulness was wearing off fast. "Remember, I’m your witness."

© 2010 John-Ivan Palmer