Tales of Love & Lust
by Alex Exley
Copyright © 2011 Alex Exley and Humburger Publishing, Inc.
Smashwords edition.
This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.
Names, characters, places, and events are the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.
Cover photo by Dave Hare. See the original photo and many more at http://femaleform.moonfruit.com
Feel free to contact the author at thehumburger@yahoo.com with any comments or questions. And ratings and reviews are always appreciated.
Stories
Send in the Clown
What’s Mine Is Yours
Going to California
Anya
Young Love, Young Lust
Send in the Clown
Erin looks at herself in the bathroom mirror, feeling dejected. She hasn’t slept well the past few nights and has bags under her eyes. She rubs on a moisturizing cleanser, then brushes her teeth while the cleanser works its magic. She splashes water on her face and re-examines herself in the mirror—pretty much the same. Though she refuses to believe she’s no longer attractive.
She lifts off her shirt, unclasps her bra. She turns to the side to look at her profile. Her large breasts slope down like miniature ski jumps; the undersides form soft curves. There’s a slight droop, but nothing more than you’d expect from 34Ds. She places her hand palm up against the bottom of her breast. She raises her hand, lifting the supple breast, then quickly releases her hand and watches her breast fall back to its natural, teardrop shape.
She turned thirty-two last week. Sure, she thinks, she could afford to lose three or four pounds, but she’s tall, large-breasted—the few extra pounds are barely noticeable on her frame.
“Erin, are you coming to bed?” her husband Mark says, raising his voice so he’s heard through the closed bathroom door. “I have to get up early for work tomorrow.”
She opens the door and leans her head out. “What the hell? I thought we were going to Newport tomorrow.”
Mark is sitting up in bed, the covers pulled up to his stomach, his reading glasses on. He reads Sun Tzu’s The Art of War for Corporate Managers. “I know, sorry. We’re busy at the office. They need me to come in—what can I say?”
She shuts the door emphatically. Her dejection turns to irritation as she again faces the mirror. She isn’t irritated simply because he’s cancelled their plans for tomorrow. It’s been building for months, perhaps years. She still loves Mark—she wants to love him, more than anything in the world—but things have changed so much. She’s not sure what’s happening to them.
When was the last time they’d even had sex? Almost two weeks ago. And then it was probably because it was her birthday. It took no more than fifteen minutes and was more procedure than passion, which has become the standard.
She raises her arms over her head, her breasts rising in sync. She sways to the left, then the right, trying on a few sultry expressions. She brings her arms down and corrals her breasts between them, squeezing the pliant mounds together. She gives the air a provocative kiss, then laughs at herself, realizing how goofy she must look. You bet I’m still sexy, she thinks, as she clicks off the bathroom light and walks across the room to her side of the bed.
She walks slowly, watching Mark out of the corner of her eye to see if he looks at her. His eyes latch onto his book. She steps out of her jeans, her underwear. She doesn’t usually sleep nude, though she’s begun doing so more often. She gets under the covers and snuggles up to her husband. She runs her hand over his T-shirt, then under his T-shirt and up his stomach, her fingers snaking through his chest hair. He closes his book and puts it on the night table, puts his glasses on the book. He turns to her and kisses her. She kisses him back harder, brings her hand to his face and kisses him harder still. He holds her wrist and brings her arm back to her side.
“Honey, I’d love to, but I’m tired. I really have to get some sleep. I have to get up early tomorrow.”
“I know,” she says.
He leans over and turns off the lamp. She rests her head on his shoulder, tracing patterns with her finger on his chest.
* * *
“I’ll make it up to you tonight,” Mark says, knotting a tie around his collar. “Justin and Colleen are having people over, but we can go out, just the two of us—we’ll do whatever you want—and maybe swing by their place later on.”
Erin hasn’t yet gotten out of bed. “I’m working tonight. At seven.”
A disgusted look flashes across Mark’s face.
“What?” Erin says.
“You know what I think of that…that job. I can’t even call it a job with a straight face.” Mark shakes his head and looks away from her, finds his watch on the bureau and puts it on. “It’s so…it’s…kind of embarrassing. I mean, people ask me, ‘So, what does Erin do?’ And I have to say, ‘Oh, you know, she’s a clown.’ For God’s sake, we’re not kids anymore.”
Erin had taken a few theater classes in college. They’d stirred her interest, and when she graduated—nine years ago—she decided she hadn’t yet had her fill. She took a few more acting classes and performed in several local theater productions. She’d had to get a job that gave her some flexibility. She was going to waitress until she came across a job performing as a clown at kids’ parties and events. It wasn’t a long-term career move, but it allowed her to pursue activities she considered just as worthwhile, and she enjoyed performing tricks and funny acts for people, making them laugh. She did it for almost two years.
Then Mark asked her to marry him. She’d known him since their freshman year in college, had been dating him since junior year. He was everything she wanted in a man: strong, loyal, responsible, yet with a healthy wild streak in him. She didn’t have to think twice—she said Yes on the spot.
They’d driven cross-country to visit friends in Los Angeles that summer, and had stopped in Las Vegas along the way. They came across a vintage used-clothing store and were browsing the wares when Erin saw a 1920s flapper dress complete with feather boa.
“Oh my God—look at this. I have to try this on,” she said.
She put the dress on and spun around in front of a three-sided mirror, kicking her leg back, her arm extended, her hand flattened and bent back at the wrist.
“How do I look?” she said.
“You look like you need to be kissed. And often. By someone who knows how,” Mark said, mimicking Clark Gable. He tilted her back over his arm and kissed her long and hard.
She found him a gangster-style zoot suit and, the dressing rooms being occupied, he changed right there in the aisle, Erin acting as lookout. They held each other in front of the mirror.
“Let’s get married,” Mark said.
“We are—aren’t we?”
“I mean let’s do it here. Let’s get married here, today.”
She looked at him with surprise then jumped into his arms, nearly knocking him over.
They bought the clothes, wearing them out of the store, and found a small white chapel with a neon sign out front: Weddings, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Witness provided. They were driven in the chapel’s limousine to the marriage license bureau, also open 24 hours, then back to the chapel where a non-denominational pastor with a handle-bar moustache and cowboy boots conducted an impromptu service. They made love all night long and left for Los Angeles late the next morning. Though only a four-hour drive to L.A., they stopped after an hour and a half and got a room in a cheap motel to make love again. After another hour of driving, they pulled over to the side of the dusty, desert highway—instead of spending more money on a motel—and made love in the front seat of the car as traffic whizzed by at eighty miles an hour.
Those days seemed like they would last forever.
“Do you remember when we got married?” Erin says as she sits up on the edge of the bed.
“Of course I remember.”
“I mean the first time…in Las Vegas.”
Their parents had made them have a formal wedding ceremony when they returned from their trip, informing everyone they were now married. But they always celebrate their anniversary on the date they married in Vegas.
“Why would you ask me that? Of course I remember,” he says. Then he adds, “Thank God those days are behind us.”
Erin sounds annoyed. “Why thank God those days are behind us?”
“That’s not what I mean.” Mark sits down beside her, putting one arm around her shoulders and a hand on her thigh. She puts her hand on his and holds it tightly. “I just mean—we’re so much better off now. Thank God we made it. Those were great times, of course they were, but we wouldn’t want to live like that now.”
She looks from his eyes to the floor. “I guess not.”
Erin had decided, around the time they’d married, that she would have to get a higher-paying job if they were going to make a life together. She thought her performance background might lend itself to a job in sales. She got a position as an employment recruiter and did well, though over the years her enthusiasm waned. She found it increasingly difficult to feign excitement about a prospect’s multi-tasking skills to potential employers, about the dream of fulfillment through a job to potential employees.
Unsure of what he wanted to do and finding nothing appealing, Mark had switched jobs several times his first few years after college. Shortly after they’d married, he found an entry-level position in a boutique brokerage firm. He wasn’t sure about it at first, working long days and studying for the series 7 and 63 license exams at night, but Erin gave him much-needed moral support, encouraged him when he considered giving up. He soon passed his exams and moved swiftly up the company’s hierarchy. He assimilated himself to the position more fluently than Erin did to hers. His personality’s rough edges, which Erin had found so charming, became more polished. Material possessions took on a heightened importance. A certain amount of spontaneity was lost.
“Will my car be ready today?” Erin asks.
Mark puts the finishing touches on a gelled hairdo. “I’ll call the shop, but I don’t think so. They said Monday or Tuesday, most likely.”
“I’ll need to use yours then.”
Mark doesn’t say anything. His objection to her job hangs silently in the air between them. He finally picks up his briefcase and walks over to her.
“I’ll be home by 6:30.”
He kisses her on the cheek, checks his tie in the mirror, then heads for the door.
“Bye,” he says without looking back.
“Bye.”
When, three months ago, Erin gave her two-week notice at the employment recruitment firm, no one was more surprised than Mark. She had quit abruptly without considering what she would do. After a week of browsing the classifieds and the Internet, of wondering what possibilities appealed to her, of dreaming about others, she dug out pieces of her old clown outfit from a box in the garage. She filled in the rest at a costume store and called the agency that had supplied her with clown gigs seven years earlier.
She explained to Mark that she’ll get something more career-oriented soon, that she wants a break, to maybe take a class or two, to reassess things. She feels like she needs something different, and it’s not like they’re hard up for money. Mark suggested an MBA degree, but she isn’t too sure about that. Though she’ll think about it, she said. After two months of performing as a clown, she still hasn’t made any definite decisions. They’ve had several confrontations about it. He can’t understand what she’s doing, says that she’s wasting time, acting foolish. She feels the Mark she married seven years ago would have understood.
* * *
Several containers of face paint are scattered around the bathroom sink. Erin applies a white base, rosy red cheeks, tall black arches for eyebrows, some blue around the eyes. She feels phony when she paints a beaming red smile over her lips and up past her dimples, but then she remembers what compelled her to perform as a clown again, and the character begins to set in. It gives her an outlet to escape the buttoned-down demeanor that predominates in their working lives, that has gradually and insidiously seeped into their private lives. A genuine smile grows underneath the painted one.
She wears a pair of snug-fitting cotton shorts and a tight T-shirt that exposes plenty of midriff. She becomes aroused just looking at herself—over her breasts, across her exposed stomach, down her long legs. Then she looks in the mirror and sees the clown face attached to her body. The dichotomous being is a strange sight. She imagines it might work as a B-movie: Attack of the Sex-Starved, Man-Eating Clown Women. She tries to sneer like a sex-starved, man-eating clown woman might, but the painted smile hides any expression she makes.
Those aren’t the things to be thinking when going to entertain a bunch of kids, anyway, she thinks, as she slips into her clown costume: a billowy red jumpsuit covered with white polka dots and three yellow cushy balls, like buttons, up the front. She ties up her long brown hair under a curly yellow wig, notices the time—almost 6:30—and throws her bright red nose and oversized yellow, plastic feet into a bag and waits for Mark on the front stoop.
At 6:35 she calls his cell phone.
“Hi, honey,” he says. She hears the noise of a crowd in the background.
“Mark, where are you? I told you I need the car tonight. I’m working at seven.”
“What? Can you speak up? I can’t hear you!”
She says it again, this time almost yelling into the phone.
Mark pulls his silver Audi into their driveway at ten minutes of seven. She jogs down the walkway and, seeing as he isn’t getting out of the car, gets into the passenger’s seat.
“We closed a really big account today,” he explains as they drive, rain drops beginning to dot the front windshield. “A few people went to celebrate at McCormack’s. I guess I lost track of the time.”
She doesn’t want to get into an argument so says it’s no big deal, and though she’s slightly miffed, she tries to sound enthused about his closing the account. She changes from her sneakers to her clown shoes as they drive, not saying much for the remainder of the ride.
“What time do you want to be picked up?” Mark asks as he pulls into the customer’s driveway at five minutes past seven.
“They booked me for an hour and a half, so about 8:30. Are you going back to McCormack’s?”
“I’ll probably swing by and have one more beer.”
“Just don’t forget—8:30, okay?”
“I won’t. Bye, honey.”
Erin says bye and runs as fast as her clown feet will carry her to the front door, shielding her painted face from the rain. She hears Mark’s car accelerate up the road as a guy with a shaved head and goatee, no older than his early twenties, opens the door. He gives her a perplexed look and says, “You’re the entertainment?”
“That’s me, Dotty the Clown,” she says in a happy and energetic voice, though she thinks, How often do clowns come to their house?
“Dotty? Huh. Well, I’m Matt. Come on in,” he says, letting her in and leading her down a hallway. As she follows him into the house, a prickling sensation dances underneath her skin, all her troubles washing away, the identity of a joyous and carefree clown taking their place.
She hears deep voices coming from within the house. She follows Matt around a corner and into a large, rectangular-shaped living room. She stands in the opening along one of the long walls. To her left is an empty chair and an entertainment center with a large-screen TV—showing a Red Sox game. Across from her is a long couch with end tables and plants on either side, and a coffee table in front of it. A love seat lies against the short wall to her right, and a red-felt-covered card table sits in the middle of the floor to her immediate right. Two guys sit at the table, playing cards. One more sits on the love seat. Matt joins two others on the couch. They’re all around the same age—early twenties.
As Matt sits down he points his finger like a pistol to a thin guy with dirty-blond hair at the opposite end of the couch. “That’s Brian—the birthday boy.”
She pauses, confused. Someone turns down the volume of the baseball game. There are beer bottles scattered around the coffee table and card table. The voices quiet down as attention focuses on her.
“I thought we asked for the French maid,” someone says.
“A clown? That’s kinda weird.”
“It’s what’s underneath that counts.”
“True, true.”
“You’re the birthday boy?” Erin asks, looking at the dirty blond. “Aren’t you supposed to be like five?”
He looks as confused as she is.
“You are the strip-o-gram, right?” Matt asks.
“The what?” she says, a feeling of lead weight supplanting the carefree attitude she’d felt only moments before.
“The strip-o-gram. Party-Time Entertainment? We ordered a strip-o-gram for a twenty-first birthday. You were supposed to wear a French maid outfit.”
“I’m from Party-Time, yeah, for a kid’s fifth birthday party,” Erin says. “Not a…whatever you said.”
“Oh, man. You gotta be kiddin’ me,” Matt says.
“You guys ordered me a stripper?” asks Brian.
They confirm that, yes, they did order a stripper, but there has apparently been a mix-up with the address. Various groans of disappointment shoot around the room.
“Party-Time does clowns and strippers?” a guy wearing a baseball cap over a shaggy head of hair asks.
“Apparently so,” Erin says.
One of the guys calls Party-Time to tell what’s happened. “It’s an answering machine,” he says. He starts to leave a message explaining the situation when several guys in the background chime in with increasingly louder volume: “Hey, what’s going on? We want a stripper.” “We wanna see a naked girl, not a clown.” “You suck Party-Time!” “We want big tits, not big feet!”
Erin looks down at her large, yellow feet and begins to feel awkward just standing there.
“That went well,” the guy who made the call says, hanging up.
“Umm, sorry about the mix-up, guys,” Erin says. “But I guess I’ll be on my way. Hope you have a happy birthday anyways.” She waves and receives a few waves and Byes in return, and she turns and walks to the front door.
She opens the main door and looks out the screen door at the rain pelting the street, the walkway, tops of cars. She takes off her fake red nose and sticks it in her bag, takes her cell phone out and speed dials Mark’s number. His voicemail answers. She hangs up and immediately tries it again, gets his voicemail again. “Mark, it’s me, I need a ride, like now. There was a mix-up and I’m at the wrong house. Call me as soon as you get this.” She walks outside onto the steps and closes the door behind her. She tries Mark again, gets his voicemail again. She stands as close as she can to the house to try to avoid the rain, but it’s not working. She looks at the rain drops splashing off her yellow, plastic feet. She feels it soaking through parts of her costume. She waits outside for five minutes before deciding this is ridiculous, and steps back inside. She thinks of whom else she can call, then dials her friend Laurie, whom she has forgotten is visiting her parents in New York this weekend. She calls Mark, gets his voicemail. Frustrated, she exhales deeply.
“Are you still here?” Brian walks down the hall toward Erin with two bottles of beer in each hand.
“Yeah—I’m so sorry. My ride isn’t supposed to pick me up till 8:30 and I can’t get a hold of anybody.”
Brian shrugs as if to say no big deal. “You can sit inside if you want.” He walks up to her and looks at the floor. “I think you’re letting in water.”
“Oh, sorry.”
He reaches around her and closes the main door. “We won’t be heading out to the bars till nine or ten, so whatever. Just take off your, ah…feet. They look kinda wet.”
She looks at her big yellow shoes, glistening with rain water. She feels awkward, unsure of what to do. She can’t stand here in the foyer for an hour and fifteen minutes. She can’t wait outside in the rain. Where the hell is Mark? she wonders. Is she really going to sit with a bunch of college-aged kids in her clown costume? Does she have a choice? Brian walks a few steps down the hallway then turns to see if she’s coming. She kicks off her clown feet and follows him in her red-and-white-striped stockings.
“Can I use your bathroom?” she asks as they near the end of the hall.
“Yup—it’s down here.” He leads her in the opposite direction of the living room. “Right in there,” he says, extending an arm toward the open bathroom door.
She steps inside and closes the door. She doesn’t have to use the bathroom, but wants to compose herself, maybe call Mark again. She dials his number. “Mark, where the hell are you? Why aren’t you answering your phone? I need a ride. Call me, okay?”
She hangs up, puts her phone in her bag and takes a deep breath. She doesn’t want to look at herself, but she inadvertently catches a glimpse in the mirror, sees the glowing red smile that now looks utterly preposterous. She remembers when she was a freshman in college and there was a dance in her dorm. It was a week after they’d moved in, a way to get to know other people in the dorm. She was the only one to dress up for it. She wore a fancy black dress while everyone else wore jeans, T-shirts, sneakers, even flip-flops. She felt completely out of place, just like she does now. She’d first met Mark at that dance. She was going to go change, but he and a few of his friends told her not to. Instead, they went and got dressed up themselves, and several others followed suit. Though she wouldn’t officially begin dating him for almost two more years, she’d felt an attraction from that very first night.
But Mark isn’t here and he hasn’t made her feel like that in a long time.
She opens the bathroom door and steps into the hall. She hears someone in the room across from the bathroom. She peeks in and sees Brian going through a desk drawer. She steps in.
“Is this your room?”
“Yeah. Kind of a mess, I know. My folks are away and I don’t clean too much when Mom’s not nagging me to do it.”
Erin looks around—an unmade bed with clothes piled on it, a cluttered desk with CDs strewn across it, Radiohead and Reservoir Dogs posters on the wall. She walks further in and surveys the CDs.
“No way,” she says, picking one up. “You listen to the Pixies? I used to listen to them all the time in college.” She remembers the frenetic rhythms and piercing guitar riffs. When’s the last time she’s even heard a Pixies song, she wonders. Probably not in five or six years.
“Yeah, they’re pretty cool. They just got back together and toured again, or at least played again,” Brian says.
She puts the CD case down and looks at Brian. He’s cute—tall and lanky, narrow face, scruffy billy-goat beard. Definitely cute. He tells her that he and Matt, his older brother, are home from school for summer vacation. Their parents are away and Matt decided to take advantage of it and have a small gathering before heading out to the bars to celebrate Brian’s twenty-first birthday. He wasn’t aware they’d ordered a stripper, and they laugh at the odd situation she’s found herself in.
“Hey,” Brian says, “at least you’re not the stripper that showed up at the kid’s birthday party.”
She begins to feel comfortable talking to him, almost forgetting she’s in a clown costume, but then he says, “I better take these in before they get warm,” and picks up the four beer bottles he’d set on the desk. She follows behind him, bracing for the drunken crowd.
“Hey, it’s the French M— Nope, it’s just the clown again,” one of the young revelers says.
“It’s the clown!”
“And the beer. Plant one of those over here.”
“Hey, fellas,” Erin says tentatively, and takes a seat in the unoccupied chair on the left.
Matt has joined two others at the card table. Brian distributes the beers and sits on the couch next to the shaggy-haired kid wearing a hat, whom Erin learns is named Jesse.
“You couldn’t stay away, huh? I sometimes have that effect on women,” Jesse says, and then promptly receives several jeers and put-downs.
“That and the fact that I can’t get hold of my ride,” Erin explains.
“Do you want a drink?” Matt asks Erin. “Brian, did you even ask if she wants a drink?”
“Oh, shit. Sorry,” Brian says. “Do you want a drink?”
“No thanks. I’m good.”
The three guys at the card table concentrate on their card game. Brian, Jesse and the guy on the love seat watch the baseball game and talk, occasionally tossing a question at Erin, though mostly she just sits quietly, unobtrusively.
The Red Sox have started a rally, and, with the bases loaded, the card players pause from their game and turn up the volume on the TV.
“Come on, Varitek, you bum—earn your ten million.”
“One time. Come on, one time.”
Erin isn’t a big baseball fan, but their enthusiasm is infectious, and she finds herself hoping the hometown team will get a hit and score some runs. After fouling off several pitches, the Sox batter hits into an inning-ending double play. The guys hurl boos and curses at the screen as the volume is turned down and the card game resumed.
“So if you don’t take your clothes off, what do you do?” Jesse asks Erin.
She isn’t quite sure how to answer that one. Her intonation reflects her puzzlement at the question. “I, ah, act as a clown.”
“I mean, you don’t just stand there. Do you do tricks or something?”
“Oh, well yeah.” She laughs, reflecting back to his original question, as if taking off your clothes was the foremost entertainment option. “I have an act, ya know. I do jokes and things, some physical comedy.”
“Let’s see it,” Jesse says.
“Yeah, let’s see it.”
“Let’s see your act.”
She considers it and then shakes her head reluctantly. “I…don’t think so.”
“Boooo!”
“Ripoff!”
She senses a good-natured kidding in their heckling, so laughs and says, “Really, it’s geared towards kids like five years old. I don’t think you’d be too interested. I have balloons though—that you make into shapes and things?” She says it like a question, not sure how interested they could possibly be in that either.
“Oh, yeah? Can you make a dog?”
“How ’bout a duck?”
“A French maid. Can you make a blow-up French maid?”
“I can start with the dog,” she says. “The French maid might be a little too advanced for me.”
Matt stands up and walks towards the kitchen. “Are you sure you don’t want a drink?” he asks her. “It’s Brian’s twenty-first birthday. How can you not celebrate that?”
They seem nice enough, she thinks—a harmless and friendly group of guys. And, between this and everything else, she really could use one. “Since you put it like that,” she says. “What do you have?”
“Beer, rum. I could make a rum and Coke. Vodka. We have orange and cranberry juice, some 7-UP.”
“All right, how ’bout a vodka-Seven?” she says.
“Comin’ up.” Matt disappears into the kitchen.
She blows up a few balloons and quickly twists them into a reasonable semblance of a dog. She stands up and hands it to Brian.
“For the birthday boy,” she says.
He passes it to the guy sitting on the love seat. “Caleb, you can have the dog, since you’re in the doghouse.”
“Oh, yeah?” Erin says. “Whatcha do?”
As she sits back down Matt walks in and hands her an icy drink in a tall, clear glass.
“I don’t even wanna think about it,” Caleb says.
“And you were gonna watch a stripper tonight?” Erin says to Caleb, shaking her head in mock condemnation.
“I wasn’t, I swear. I was gonna leave the room.”
Erin sips her drink and contorts her face so much that it’s even visible through the painted smile.
“Too much vodka?” Matt asks.
“Just a bit,” Erin says.
Matt goes into the kitchen, returns with the bottle of 7-UP. She holds her breath and takes a few swigs to make room so he can pour more soda into the glass. The drink is nice and cold, but she feels the alcohol immediately—her head feels lighter, a shimmering wave ripples through her body. She sets the drink aside and resumes her balloon twisting, making one that looks like a court jester’s hat, then, as the hat is a big hit, two more that resemble baseball caps. The guys wear the balloons on their heads as if they were normal, everyday baseball caps.
“How did you start working as a clown?” Brian asks.
“Does it pay a lot?” someone else says.
She answers their questions as vaguely as possible, not wanting to venture into the area of her marital problems. Though the thought stirs in her head: Is that what they are—marital problems? She never envisioned herself as the type of person that would actually have marital problems, and the awareness that, yes, that’s what they are, is a depressing one. But the vodka-Seven and the group of guys, who she finds she kind of enjoys the company of, help take her mind off Mark.
Their questions engender more questions until, finally, Caleb shouts out from the love seat, “How come you don’t work as a stripper?”
“Yeah,” Jesse says. “If I could get paid to take off my clothes, I would.”
“What a nasty thought,” Brian says.
“Well,” Erin says, “I guess the world needs all kinds—clowns and strippers. I just happen to be a clown.” She reaches for her drink and takes a small sip, then a larger one.
“A philosophical clown,” one of the guys at the card table says.
She’s not sure how philosophical a remark it was, though several beers probably lower the requirements.
“By that logic,” Matt says, “you could just as easily be a stripper.”
“You could,” Jesse says. “You very well could.”
“Have you ever worked as a stripper?” Matt asks.
“Ah, no,” she says definitively. Though there was that one time just after college when she was looking for work. A friend danced at a club and made good money doing it. She had gone to the club one evening to check it out, thought it seemed exciting. All those guys gawking at you, throwing money at you—it looked like a big ego boost anyway. But there was Mark. She was in love and decided not to test its limits.
The Red Sox start another rally, but this line of questioning proves more interesting to the guys.
“But would you?” one of the guys at the card table says.
She hesitates before answering. She isn’t really sure. She hasn’t thought about it in so long. It had seemed exciting back then, but that was a long time ago. Sure, her life isn’t brimming with thrills nowadays—but stripping?
“No…no, I don’t think so,” she says.
Her hesitation is all the encouragement they need.
“Oh, you totally have to do it.”
“A clown stripper—that would be so hot.”
“Way better than a French maid.”
“Come on…pleeeaasse do it.”
Erin laughs dismissively at the idea. “I don’t think so guys, really. Balloons I can do, but I’m afraid the costume stays on.”
Her insistence doesn’t deter them.
“How much do you make being a clown?” Matt pulls a wad of bills out of his pocket. “The stripper we hired was gonna charge two hundred, and we could probably get some more together.”
“It’s really not the money,” she says.
“Are you wearing anything under that costume?”
“Ah, yeah,” Erin says.
“What are you wearing?”
“Has anyone asked you to be a stripper before?”
“Are you hot?”
She rolls her eyes, somewhat exasperated, though also faintly amused. Their questions, though coarse, seem more naively innocuous than threatening. She knows she shouldn’t dignify the last one, but a sense of pride wells up inside her. Even if Mark has lost interest, she knows she is pretty damn hot.
“Yeah,” she says. “I’m not too bad.”
“Oh, man.”
“We gotta see.”
“Do you have big…ah, are you, ya know?”
Her laugh cuts off the stumbling question. Their eagerness over the possibility of one naked girl makes them seem more like adolescents than twenty-somethings, but she finds it oddly charming.
“I guess I’m…well-proportioned,” she says.
“You so gotta do it.”
She feels their eyes upon her, their attention enveloping her. Though she is leery, she hasn’t felt this kind of attention, this sexual desire, focused on her in some time. It’s just a group of drunken college guys, but it still feels good.
“It’s Brian’s birthday,” Caleb says. “He got his hopes up that he was gonna see a stripper just to have them come crashing down.”
“His birthday’s totally ruined.”
“Look at him. Look how sad he is.”
Erin looks at Brian, who flashes an exaggeratedly sad puppy-dog expression.
“And only you can fix it.”
“It’s all up to you.”
Erin smiles amusedly, not only because of the guys’ desperate attempts to convince her to take her clothes off, but because she can’t believe she’s actually considering the idea, or at least imagining what it would be like to do it.
“Look,” she says, trying to momentarily focus their attention on something else, “I think the Sox are winning.”
They’re not—it’s a tie ballgame. But a few guys do glance at the TV.
“How’s this,” Matt says. “If they hit a home run this inning, then you do it.”
What are the odds of that? she thinks, shaking her head.
“How about if Ortiz hits a home run?”
“Yeah, if Ortiz hits one out then you have to strip for us.”
She doesn’t know much about baseball, but she knows the odds of one person hitting a home run on one specific at-bat aren’t too good.
“And what do I get if he doesn’t hit one?”
Matt pauses and thinks. He holds up the pile of bills. “You get the money. You get paid to sit there and drink our vodka.”
“Are you crazy? That’s two hundred dollars,” Caleb says.
“So what?” Matt says. “We were gonna give it to the stripper anyway.”
“Let’s go for it.”
“Ortiz could jack one.”
“Whatta ya say?” Matt says.
She probably wouldn’t take all that money from them for one lop-sided bet anyway, but the excitement of putting so much on the line is starting to get her revved up. She doesn’t think there’s much of a chance that she’d lose the bet, but having the idea of her taking her clothes off lingering in everyone’s mind titillates her. Since the odds are so greatly in her favor…
“Okay,” she says. “Okay, if…what’s his name?”
“Ortiz, David Ortiz. If he hits a home run then you’ll do it?”
She feels the butterflies swirling in her stomach, dancing to her outer limbs. When’s the last time’s she’s felt this kind of anticipation. “Sure, yeah…why not? Is that him?” she asks, watching a large man step to the plate.
“That’s him.”
“That’s Big Papi.”
“Come on, Ortiz!”
“Hit one out, Big Papi!”
The guys sit on the edge of their seats, cheering and hollering for David Ortiz to hit a home run. Erin sits quietly, nervously. She isn’t sure what’s stronger—the nervousness she feels considering the possibility that he might hit a home run, or the excitement she feels imagining doing it, showing her naked body to the six guys that sit before her. She takes a sip of her drink to try to placate her nerves.
Ortiz swings at and misses the first pitch. He lets the next two go by for balls. Then he hits one high and long. The guys jump up, screaming, the camera following the ball against the dark night sky.
“This is it!”
“Stay in, come on. If it’s fair, it’s gone!”
Erin’s insides freeze. The ball sails into the upper decks, but too far to the right—foul ball. The guys sigh and groan. Erin is nearly panting with relief. Ortiz hits the next pitch, a soft ground ball, to the second baseman, who throws to first base for the out.
The guys again voice their disappointment. Erin’s not sure if she’s relieved or not. Was it the prospect of coming so close to standing here naked that excited her? Or did she actually want him to hit a home run? She can feel the guys’ desire for her, even sitting here with her clown costume on, and, though she knows she shouldn’t perform a striptease for six guys she’s just met, she doesn’t want it to end.
“One more time,” Jesse says.
“Yeah. If Manny hits one out, then you do it.”
“If not, we won’t bug you anymore.”
“Who’s this guy?” Erin says. She watches a disinterested-looking player with dreadlocks step to the plate. He swings hard at the first pitch, but misses. Strike one.
“Manny Ramirez,” Caleb says. “He’s not even that good.”
“Whatta ya say? One more chance.”
“Yeah—two hundred bucks, that’s gotta be worth at least two chances.”
“A hundred bucks a chance.”
Manny twists out of the way of the next pitch—a hanging curve ball—but it hooks at the last second and catches the inside corner. Strike two. The guys berate the umpire. Erin laughs at their zeal, quite sure the ump can’t hear them.
She knows he has two strikes already, and that puts the odds even greater against him. “Okay, fine. One more chance.”
“You’ll do it if Manny hits a home run?”
“Yes,” she says definitively, “I’ll take my clothes off if this guy hits a home run.” She likes saying it—take my clothes off. The verbalized thought makes the idea of it even more palpable.
“Everything?”
She thinks for a second. Everything? What are the chances that he’ll even hit a home run, anyway? “Fine, yes…everything.”
The pitcher fires the ball to the plate as she finishes talking. An inside fast ball. Probably meant to brush the batter back, to set him up for a slider, low and away. But it hangs a little too much over the plate. She doesn’t even have time to get nervous. Manny turns on the pitch, watches the ball soar through the air, then flips his bat and begins his home-run trot. The ball sails over the left field wall, out of the park, and onto Lansdowne Street.
The guys cheer uproariously, raising their arms over their heads, exchanging high-fives. Erin is stunned. Did she really just agree to this? Imagining taking her clothes off was one thing, but actually having to do it is something else entirely.
“Wait a minute,” she says.
“No way, you agreed.”
“You have to.”
She puts her hand to her forehead and shakes her head in disbelief. She can’t believe she’s found herself in this situation. A half-hour ago she was walking up to their house intending to perform a harmless clown act for a group of children, and now she’s lost a bet to take her clothes off in front of six guys she just met. It’s beyond absurd. Yet she’s not entirely opposed to the idea. She still feels titillated thinking about it. She sits silently, incredulously. A reluctance causes her to stall while an urge pulls her forward.
She finishes the last few gulps of her drink. “I think I need another one of these,” she says.
Matt jumps up, grabs her glass and goes into the kitchen. Brian leaps off the couch and runs to his room, runs back with a CD circling his index finger. He opens the CD player and drops it in. Matt walks into the room and hands her a drink. A few of the guys lean forward expectantly.
“You’ve really never done this before?” one of the guys at the card table asks.
“No,” she says, shaking her head.
“If you really don’t want to,” Brian says, “I don’t care—you don’t have to do it for me.”
“What!”
“Are you crazy?”
“Brian, I think you need to shut up and drink your beer.”