AREA 47

SECTION 89:

COURTNEY, Chapter 51

“All right,” Reed said, “they probably moved the piano down here.”

The five lane regulation-size bowling alley with all the Brunswick automatic ball-returning bullstuff.  Every lane in use.  The indoor, double tennis court.  Both courts in use.  The indoor larger-than-Olympic-sized swimming pool.  Every lane in use.

“Reed,” Courty laughed.  “We’re lost.  Admit it.”

“I admit nothing.”

The video arcade, mobbed with DITHERS (Died In The Eighties, Recalcitrant); no piano in sight.  The poolroom, packed with PODs (Peons On Dope); Eight Ball & Nine Ball, but no eighty-eight.  A second indoor swimming pool, reminiscent of Gilligan’s Island, multitudinous HELPS (Herpes Ecospecies, Loving Pleasure & Sex) frolicking in the glandular mode.  The people in the pool were not tickling the ivories.

“Reed,” Courty whispered, “some of those people in the water are . . . copulating.”

“I don’t give a swimming-fuck.”

“Reed!”  She giggled.  “I almost want to use that in my poem.  Except I’ve decided not to use that word.”

Reed was indignant & immigrant: “What’s da matta wi’ tha’ woid?  Lotsa peopo’ swim.  Peopo’ all ov’a da woirld swim.  I bet you swam once’r twice!”

“Yes, I admit it,” she whispered into his ear, “but I don’t call it that.  When I . . . DO IT . . . it’s natation.”

They stopped where they were and kissed each other on the mouth.  They were standing along the darkened edge of a garden area, beside the mini-waterfall.  “Hey, you’re fun,” Reed said.  “I’ve missed hell out of you.”  He moved close to her, and put his arms around her.

Courtney’s whole body went: Mumph!  Just weak with desire.  The FEEL of him!  She seemed to sag in his arms.  Tingles charged over the surface of her body, up and down her back, and she sharply inhaled, savoring the moment.

“I’m very glad you’re pregnant with our little boy.”  He gently touched her tummy, the waistline that had expanded two inches.  “I can see him in there.”

“Our little girl.”  Mumph . . . her nipples HURT they were so sensitive; the silk Spandex felt harsh and grating against her bosom, like rucksack.

“You know,” Reed said, “maybe I do give a swimming-fuck.”

Then Courty started to get dizzy with a new level of excitement, her sexual fluids drenching her pantyliners.  Maybe it was all the glasses of demi-sec champagne.

Both her hands dug into his buns, squeezed, and pulled him even closer to her.  Then, one of her hands snaked around and felt him up.  His erection was stone perfect.

Her eyes burned into his.

Courty fumbled with his zipper.

“Hey,” Reed said, and he started to say something else.

A house-photographer captured the moment.  A big bright flash, shattering the intimacy, ruining the good feelings.

Reed tore out of her arms, and had grabbed the camera out of the man’s hand before Courty quite realized that she was no longer touching him.

“Gimme that fucking thing!” Reed snarled, yanking the camera loose.  It was just a Polaroid; the picture was already popping out, half-developed.

“Hey man,” the guy objected, “cut it out!  You don’t want the picture, OK.  Chill on the violence!”

Reed tore the picture before it had a chance to develop.  He pulled at the camera, trying to open it.  He gave up.  He handed the camera back to the house-photog with a fierce shove and an order: “Open it!”

The photographer was a bigger, heavier guy than Byron Reed, but he was round and fat, and Reed was focused and in the destruct mode.

“You’ve got the film, man,” the photoguy said.  “That’s it.  You don’t want to buy it, solid!  I get the message.”

“Open it!”

“Hey, that’s it.  The positive is all there is.  The positive is the negative.”

“Open It NOW!”

“You got it.”

The photographer ejected the film pack and gave it to him.  Reed tossed the pack to an amused Courty, and paid the guy some bills.  The guy tried to explain that he was just——

But Reed was not in the mood for explanations.

“You can zip up now,” Courty wryly told him, since obviously neither of them were now in the mood for sexplay.

With a grimace, he did.  “We were looking for a piano!”

Courty couldn’t help but laugh.  She dropped the film pack into a large ashtray (keeping the one torn-in-half print as a memento), noticing for the first time that there were smoking and no-smoking sections in the mansion.

“Maybe it’s in the underwater bar.  Come on.”  He dragged her along through various expansive rooms of the mansion.

One funny thing Courtney noticed was that as long as Reed was with her, no one bothered her; no one even approached her.  He seemed to intimidate everyone with just his manner.

“Reed!” She laughed, seeing a couple in a dark alcove; it was two men, snorting coke & mutually masturbating each other!  “Have you thought of the Roman bath?  Perhaps it’s in there.  Gawwd.  This must be a Mobius mansion.”

“They wouldn’t put it in the TV Room, would they?  I mean, all I’m asking for is a lousy piano.  I want to sing you my new love song.”

“What about the Rock-And-Roll Room?”

“There’s some band jamming in there now.”

Courty said, “Maybe we should just go straight to the Sidekick dormitories and find Lauren and Peach.”

“All right.  I’ll sing you my new song later.”

Courty smiled, seeing the public His ‘N’ Hers.  “Are we civilized, or what?  Mens rooms and ladies rooms.  Excuse me, but I want to check out the graffiti on the walls for inspiration.  Be right back.”

“OK.”

A girl who had been discreetly following Byron Reed immediately came up and started talking to him the instant Courty went into the ladies room.  She distracted him.  He didn’t see one of Courty’s ardent male admirers furtively sneak into the ladies room after her.

The most amazing high-heeled boots in the fashion universe, like a surreal Three Musketeers flashback, leather and intricate stitchwork and bangles hanging and flapping from them; they went all the way up to within an inch of the miniskirt.  At the top of the right boot, mid-way up the thigh, was clipped a beeper.  The girl pulled it off the top of her boot and shook the beeper in Reed’s face.  “It’s busted!” she told him with disgust.  “I ain’t been laid in five fucking weeks, ’n this stupid thing won’t let out a PEEP!  You ain’t four-F-in’ me, Byron!”

“Linda, get the hell out of here.”

She looked at him with exasperation.  “That’s just what Estelle told me!”

Reed groaned.  “Estelle’s here?”

Linda shrugged; she had the indolent, whorish look down.  “She was an hour ago.  She’s with some bald, krout asshole.”  Her voice taunted: “She asked me if I’d seen you . . .”

“Linda, get out of here.  Please!”

“I ain’t leavin’!  No way!  Griff and I are old friends.”

“That I believe.”

“Don’t get cute.”  She looked at him hard.  “I’m off until you beep me.  Off, get it?  Like I can do what I want.”  Linda lament: “Except fuck.  Don’ worry about that.”

“You’re off, all right: laid off.  Now split!  I got enough problems in my life without you guys.”

“Laid off?  A little punzie wunzie?”

A bizarre occurrence behind them made both Linda and Reed turn to look.  Three young women were angrily dragging a kicking and yelling male out of the ladies room.  They weren’t being very gentle, and enthusiastically slogged his head against the wall.  He was a terrified preppie.  When Courty came out a moment later, the three girls released him, and he escaped at a fast run, yelling obscenities.

Reed was already quickly walking over there.  Linda tagged along for the fun of it.

Courty began signing autographs for the three Courty wanna-bes.  “Oh please say, to my friend, Michelle!”  Courty started to write.  “To my good friend, Michelle!” the girl corrected.  Courty started again.  “Best friend!  Best friend, Michelle!  And confidant!”  Courty signed their pieces of paper per their specifications, grateful that three of her fans had saved her from her fourth fan.  All of them wore Courty-cuts.

As far as Courty could tell, all the guy wanted was to touch her.  The overheated male had scooched under the stall, gaping up at her, grabbing at her legs, catching a fistfull of Calvin Klein hose down by her right shin (she was amazed he hadn’t ripped it to shreds, but it seemed fine) . . . she had kicked at him, and then three shouting females had dragged him away, as he pleaded with her to let him touch her some more.  Amazing.

One of the wanna-bes was vibrating, she was so excited.  The other two were wide-eyed and awed to stone in the presence of their goddess.  Their ages seemed in the 15-17 range.  They were about to leave, when suddenly one of the girls decided that she wanted Byron Reed’s autograph too.  After a second of jealousy, the two other girls decided that they wanted Reed’s autograph as well.

“Shall I sign it, Courty’s boyfriend?” Reed asked.

“Please!” the three girls shouted.

Linda laughed softly, as she stood intimately close to Byron Reed.  Courtney wondered who she was.  The three wanna-bes wondered as well.

“Um, are you anybody?” one girl asked Linda.

“I’m working on it.”

The wanna-bes decided that that was a no, and they left Courty alone after that, looking at each other as if they couldn’t believe their fantastic luck, and then breaking out into contagious giggles.

Courty looked quizzically at Reed.  No one was doing any introducing.

Giggling from the wanna-bes could still be heard as the three girls walked and giggled and shrieked their way down around the pool and beyond to a hallway.

Then Reed said, “Courty, this is Linda . . . I don’t know your last name.”

“Starr!  Linda Starr!  And you’re Courty.  Hi.”

“Who’s this?” Courty asked Reed as a joke.  “Your West Coast mistress?”

Byron Reed sighed.  “Far worse.  She’s one of the concubines in my harem.”

Linda exploded into rip-roaring, boot-kicking laughter!

Courty looked at the girl with astonishment, trying to figure out why it was so funny.  Reed didn’t think it was funny, he was watching the girl laugh, his face stone cold.

When Linda got a talking voice back, she said, “Excuse me, I’m going to go somewhere and listen for my beeper.”  And she giggled as she walked away from them.

“All the girls in my harem wear beepers,” Reed explained.  “That’s so that if I get horny, any time of the day or night, I just have to pick up the phone, and they all come running.”

“I see.”  Courtney cleared her throat.  “I believe we were looking for a piano.”

“Or was it a Peach and a Lauren?”

“Actually, I’m still a little frazzled.  I’d like to calm down a little before we go over to the dorms.”

“Are you OK?”

A fast nod.  A fast smile.  She grabbed his arm, and they were off.  “Piano, here we come.”

A quick trip through the awesome stereo room.

“Jealous?” Courty asked Reed, wondering if he wished he had a magnificent stereo like this one; goodness, there must be a hundred speakers.  Dials and lights, and meters everywhere.  The sound was off, but it certainly LOOKED like it would sound TERRIFIC.

“No, I don’t think so.” Reed smiled.  “It hurts my ears just to read the name brands on this equipment.”  Seven or eight couples were reclining on the listening area couches, in various stages of conversation & cuddling; letting the shack-up bargaining chips fall where they lay.  Sidekick mixologists at the corner bar were serving the belly-warming Sportsman cocktail: the Bonerbeaver.

Abruptly, Reed jerked to a stop.  “Son of a bitch.”

Courtney looked ahead and saw Tina Sherman with a man in a gray tuxedo; the two of them were walking into the stereo room from another double-door.  Tina Sherman was wearing a glittering long gown that covered every inch from ankles to upper neck, but that fit her as tightly as a body stocking.  Her jugs hung proudly like two California grapefruits, but her stomach was svelte.  Her eyes flared up when she spotted Byron Reed and Courty.

The two came over for some heavy-duty confrontation, Tina dragging the reluctant man; his eyes were hard, his face suddenly angry with tight-jawed intensity, but he didn’t want to come.  Courty could feel Reed stiffen; whoever the guy was, he and Reed obviously knew each other.  An instant later, Courty recognized the man: Krane!  She had seen him in the movies several times, but never in person.

Tina charged right up to Reed, holding her head high and proud.  She stopped, releasing her tow-line on her escort.  She loathed Courty with a toilet-look, and then turned her face to Reed.  She ran her hands along her newly flat tummy, with a challenging smile of pleasure.  She spoke with shocking venom: “I killed it!”

Reed looked hurt, then sad.  He looked at the two of them, and did not say anything.

The guy had some words for Byron too.  He glared and puffed himself up like a comic-book hero.  “I’m not finished with you, Reed!  Round 2 is coming up, you cocksucker!  If I didn’t have a damn clause in my contract, I’d bust your ass right now!”  He was shouting, spitting, inches from Reed’s face.

Reed shoved him away, hard.  His fists balled up, and he stared angrily at Reed.  Reed just looked at him with scorn, watching Tina put her arm around him.

Reed said, “Krane, aren’t you getting a little tired of my left-overs?  Or is it that you get off on sloppy-seconds?”  His voice was a sneer of acid contempt.

Like a gonadal Mad Max, the big guy YELLED and jumped Reed, his arms flailing, grabbing, hitting!

They fiercely scuffled, grabbing each other and punching, then they twisted together and tumbled down onto the edge of a chair, and then bounced onto the carpet, where they wrestled like Neanderthal gorillas!

Tina had a savage blood-thirsty look to her as she watched wide-eyed, showing her teeth.  She whacked her little closed fists together, whispering, “Get him!  Get him!”

COURTNEY, Chapter 52
 

Copyright 2005 Area 47