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Episode Three There is no such thing as real quiet in a large city, even at three in the morning. Someplace, somewhere, there is motion, sound, activity: a siren streaks past, a car motor rumbles down the block, someone shuts a window or flushes a toilet. Sometimes there is yelling and a sudden slammed door, or the urgent sounds of someone else's lust set loose into the theoretically empty night. But at three in the morning none of it is present enough, or real enough, to drown out the soft regularity of someone else's breathing when they lie just inches away from you, both of you thoughtful, inhaling the night like resinous smoke in the hopes that it will leave lingering traces of clarity within you. Theo rolled over slowly on the ratty blanket they kept to use on the rooftop, stretching his long body with a slow, tired wriggle before folding his arms behind his head. "So do you think you're going to go?" Kala kept looking up at the sky, at the thin strips of gauzy cloud that drifted across the face of the moon. It was darker above the streetlamps there on the roof above their fourth-floor walkup, but the city's ambient glow made more for an eternal twilight than true dark. She and Theo came up here a lot around this time of night, around the time when they both rolled in from work, both craving a bit of quiet in which to let themselves air out, to allow themselves to stop vibrating to the frequencies of the throngs for which they performed to make their living. Cigarette smoke smell sifted out of their clothes, out of their hair, into the night breeze, and Kala ran her hands repeatedly through her teased and Aqua-Netted mane, working out the inevitable snarls of a night of feigning wanton, head-tossing sexual euphoria as she lay beneath the sky, comforted by her awareness of Theo's warmth nearby. "Don't know, The. I think so." "It's a good deal. You could use a break. They've been busting your ass this semester, child." She nodded. "And I don't just mean school. And you know I'm right, so don't go trying to tell me otherwise." She nodded again, but more slowly. Frank, the manager of the club, had been on her ass again. She'd been fighting him, but she had the feeling her time was running out. Either she'd have to give in and start doing lap dances or Frank was going to start shutting her out in the scheduling, giving her the crappy early shifts, making her work the first half of the week when all the girls who were in the doghouse or past their prime got stuck trying to wheedle tips out of the glazed, jaded and permanently juiced. There was a really good reason that some of the better clubs didn't open until Thursday night, Kala knew, and the reason was precisely that: the kind of customer that was likely to spend his Monday and Tuesday evenings in a strip joint. When you ended up dancing for that crowd, with their bad comb-overs and cheap shoes, their oatmeal complexions and the hard, desperate sadness in their eyes, it was just no money and no good. Those were the guys who got obsessive, the ones who always ended up being the creepy ones, the weirdos, the stalkers. Kala hated doing lap dances, hated having to let the johns touch her even enough to slip money under her G-string. She'd started dancing at her current club because the manager told her she wouldn't have to lapdance if she didn't want to. She didn't mind dancing. She liked the attention, liked the power, liked being able to keep the eyes of a whole roomful of men exactly where she wanted them, liked being able to make them gasp and lean with her movements, playing them like an instrument. Being touched was where the job became objectionable: she could handle the brief brush of skin that went along with letting someone stick a tip between her breasts or under the waistband of her thong, but lapdancing was another thing altogether. Anonymous hands on her legs, her ass, her tits, assuming they had permission - because even when the management had a no-touch policy, they never missed a chance to try, and half of them would try to play it off as if they couldn't help themselves, as if their hands had a magical mind of their own -- made her mad. She'd tried to argue Frank out of the lapdance thing, but it seemed she was the last holdout. At least that was what Frank said. And he wasn't happy about it. He made that plenty clear. Stacey and Brandi had tried to make her feel better after Frank chewed her out earlier that night. It wasn't all that bad, Brandi insisted, but then Brandi wasn't exactly the best possible judge. She hadn't showed up sober for work in months. Kala had seen too many dancers end up crawling inside a bottle or a dime bag to think that it was a good idea to keep working if she had to get fucked up to be able to stand it. And Stacey, little too-trusting dizzy blonde, was sweet as the day was long, but for her, dancing was a step up in the world. A lapdance wasn't giving fifty-dollar blowjobs in the back seats of cars, or mean tricks who tried to hurt you, or dealing with getting arrested. But that didn't actually make it good. Or even worth considering. "Yeah. I know." Kala knew better than to try to argue. Besides, Theo was right. "It's just that…" "Ain't nothin' wrong with letting a sugar daddy do you right for a little while, little miss I-don't-depend-on-anybody," he interrupted, rolling over to face her. "Or a sugar mama, either." Kala laughed out loud at the idea of Vivian Salton as a sugar daddy. Maybe if she hadn't been instrumental in founding the Women's Studies department at the university where she taught, or hadn't been writing oft-cited articles on the gender politics of the Victorian novel for the past twenty years, it would've been easier to imagine. "Er, not exactly. But it'd be a change of pace where summer jobs are concerned, anyway." Theo raised a perfect eyebrow and shifted into the archest, most surgically precise, queenly mode in his repertoire. "Kalangitan Lourdes Martin, precious being, if you need to think of it in some way that will leave your Midwestern work ethic feeling all clean and freshly-pressed, you go right ahead. But you're standing with your pretty little toes in the cool, clean flow of the effluence of affluence, gumdrop, and if you don't get over yourself and find a nice big bucket to dip into the stream with, I shall be forced to cancel my previous engagements in order to spend the summer kicking your voluptuous ass from here to P-town." Kala giggled, trying but failing to work up a dramatic sigh at being scolded. "Christ, Theo. You're such a faggot." He rolled his eyes and flopped back onto his back. "Flattery will get you nowhere, sugarcube." "Won't you miss me? Eight weeks is a long time." Kala propped herself on one elbow, watching Theo's face. Instead of answering, Theo rolled back toward her and stroked her face with long, gentle fingers. "Of course I'll miss you. I do love you. You know that." Of the many ways human beings can love, many - perhaps the majority - don't qualify for the coveted label "As Seen On TV." He was not her boyfriend, that much was clear. And she was not his girlfriend. But beyond and in between the men who had come and gone in both their lives - and on one memorably dysfunctional occasion, both their beds within the span of a weekend - Theo loved Kala, and she loved him. It wasn't something they'd ever really talked about, to one another or anyone else. There were no words for it, for one thing. He wasn't making an exception for her. She was the exception: the only woman who ever made him want to kiss her and fuck her like a man, and, as far as he was concerned, the only one who'd ever been able to take it like one. Kala cherished Theo's uncomplicated warmth, relished the fact that he never even thought of trying to snare her in any of the nets straight men seemed incapable of not stringing through a relationship. There was no bullshit, no expectations, none of the subtle distrust that so often soured things, no possessiveness, no virgin/whore doublethink fermenting into insecure resentment. And it had long since stopped bothering Kala that the sanest lover she'd ever had in her life was a gay man. It didn't pay to let that matter. Languid with fatigue, they finally broke their kiss and lay back on the itchy wool army blanket, Theo's arm still under Kala's neck. "I won't need to find a subletter, I don't think," she murmured to the night air, turning her head to watch the Citgo sign flashing through its permutations. "Vivian's offering me enough that I can make rent and still save enough to get me through." "That's my girl," Theo grinned, rolling over to plant a kiss on the side of Kala's neck. "Why's that?" "If you don't sublet, I have two glorious months in which I can bring tricks home with impunity." Kala shook her head and rolled her eyes. "Only," she reminded him, waggling her finger at him reprovingly, "if you promise not to let them use my towels." "Deal," he beamed, taking her hand and kissing her knuckles as he pulled Kala to her feet. "Come on, Hoke Coburn. Gotta get some sleep before you call Miss Daisy and tell her you'll be happy to spend your summer behind the wheel of that big black Rolls-Royce." "Yes'm," she nodded, picking up the blanket and dragging it behind her to the stairwell. "Play your cards right and I'll even send you a postcard."
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