“Bye baby.”

“Bye. Call me if you need me,” he said.

I kissed him goodbye and rang the bell. He wheeled quickly onto Hwy. 17, and I knew right then and there just how much I needed him…and this…

Dorey, the house mom, let me in. She was explosively pregnant. I patted her belly and felt the baby kick as Snoop Dogg blared on stage.

“Upstairs,” she said. “You’re on in ten.”

“I’m not dancing tonight. Charlie said I don’t have to…”

“Well, he ain’t here. Besides, there’s only three other girls here so far. So you’ll dance…or you’ll get the fuck out!”

I wondered what that baby thought. They say kids can hear stuff in the womb.

“Lori here?” I asked.

I saw Lori smiling at the top of the stairs. I was gonna be OK. I swallowed hard enough to almost feel the drip.

“Got any Valium?” I whispered, as she gave me a kiss. She slipped an eight-ball in my pocket and left her hand down there a little too long…but I figured what the fuck, its free…so I grabbed her wrist and jammed her hand deep in my pocket and let her cop a feel while I was still in control of MY fantasy.

“I’m rollin’,” she answered, her breath hot on my cheek. “Want some?”

“Gimme two,” I said, as I kicked off my mules and stripped. I did a monstrous line, swallowed the two pills, and washed them down with a vodka martini. I slipped on my t-back and touched my toes.

“You’re up next, Avery,” someone said.

I paraded down the stairs carefully…just let ‘em see legs first. The stage was bright. They knew I liked it that way, so I didn’t have to look at them. Do they have my music? Who gives a shit? Who listens, anyway? It’s my tits they wanna see. Saggy bags…my ass just kept getting bigger all the time, too. All I had to do was look at a potato chip and it would expand.

I started to feel better. My breasts looked good.

Full. They’re huge, tonight…I wonder if I’m pregnant? I wrapped my leg around the bar and hung upside down as I took off my top. I’m not sliding the t-back over tonight. That’s his…

Somebody threw two dollars on the stage as I finished. I went to hide in the DJ booth until I could find Lori. Eric, the DJ, gave me some Valium.

“You look stressed out, girl,” he said, all white teeth and black skin. “Take four and call me in an hour…”

I sat in the corner and thought about Patsy Cline. I want a Patsy Cline CD. Kroger is open all night, I thought. I wanna go food and CD shopping. I would need money for that. Eight golfers…rich and bloated. I worked them for six hours worth of conversation, lap dances, back rubs, and drinks. Made four hundred. After I tipped out and paid for all my drugs, I had eighty dollars left.

I took a cab to Kroger’s. I bought two CD’s, a coffee mug, some toothpaste, a big bottle of Merlot, two packs of smokes for each of us, and a bottle of Tylenol PM.

When I finally got to his house I realized how much I loved him. This place. I pressed my body against his storm door and kissed the glass. Fine pink lipstick traced the tiniest crevices of my lips as I curled, like a sacrificial lamb, on his doorstep.

It was a good year for the roses.

####

RD Manley writes mostly about his spiritual brethern, the eccentric ne'er do-wells of the final frontier in America...the New South.

His first screenplay, "A Beauty House," is a finalist in the Walt Disney Studio's Screenwriting Fellowship Competition.

He is a resident of Mississippi.

Other works by RD Manley includes three screenplays, and a book,"Bag of Love: Encounters with God, Love, and Quantum Physics in the New South,"and a short film "The Exchange."

He can be reached at: rdmanley@cableone.net