Then she went across the hall to the bathroom with her bag.
Mooshum and I sat silently on the cot. I now remembered the two of them talking low at the party, and how they had annoyed me. My head started buzzing. I took another swig from Mooshum’s bottle. After a while, Sonja came back in, shut the door behind her and locked it, then turned around.
I suppose the two of us gaped at her.
Hit Play, Joe, she growled.
The music began, a low faraway series of wails and chants. Sonja’s hair was held straight up in a metallic cone that acted as a fountain, spilling tons of hair, more than she really had, down her shoulders and back. She wore heavy makeup—her eyebrows were black wings, her lips a cruel red. A formal gray sheath of silk hung from her neck to her legs and covered her arms. She drew a long wavy dagger from her sleeve. Then she lifted her arms like an ancient goddess about to sacrifice a goat, or a live man tied on a slab of rock. She held the dagger in both hands, then switched to one hand, staring at the dagger. She pushed an invisible switch. The dagger lit up and glowed. The music changed to guttural, grinding moans, then a sudden series of yips. Along with each yip she cut apart a piece of Velcro that held her robe together. She teased us for a while. The robe had slits in the sides. One armor-plated breast would appear. A leg in the sandal laced to her thigh. Finally, after a chorus of chants and howls, there was a sudden shriek. Then silence. She dropped her robes. I grabbed Mooshum’s arm. I didn’t want to waste a second looking at him but didn’t want him to fall over backward, either, and hit his head. I have never, ever, forgotten her in the dim glory of Evey’s bedroom. She was tall in those heeled sandals. With her hair in that cone she nearly touched the ceiling. Her legs went up forever and she wore a bikini bottom that looked like it was forged of iron, padlocked shut. Her stomach was pure and lithe, toned I don’t know how. I’d never seen her exercise. And my loves, her breasts, also cased in bits of plastic armor, pushed at the seams of the breastplate, which had been made with fake erect nipples. Skins and scarves flowed off her. She held the dagger in her teeth and then she began to rub and work the fur and fabric all over her body. She wore thin vinyl gauntlets. She took one off, lightly whipped herself and scoured her chastity belt with it, and then cracked me across the face. I almost fainted. I grabbed Mooshum again. He was panting with happiness. Sonja smacked me right in the eye with the other gauntlet. The drums began. Sonja’s belly and hips began to gyrate in a different tempo—so fast her movements blurred. Mooshum gave me the bottle. I choked. Sonja whirled. Kicked me in the knee. I bent over in pain but my eyes never left her. The drum fell silent. She played with the leather strips that held her armor bra together and then suddenly she let it drop. And there they were. Wearing only gold tassels that she twirled first one way, then the other, mesmerizing us. I was dizzy by the time the drum quit. Mooshum’s breath came ragged. I could hear the tape scratch. She pulled the ties on her sandals and stepped out of them, threw them at my head. She unsnapped the cone from her hair and it fell around her face in a wild waterfall. She threw the cone at me too. Barefoot, she stepped close and began to grind her hips to the howls of wolves, but when she reached down into her iron bikini and slowly pulled out a key on a silken string, Mooshum was ready. He snatched the key from her fingers and without a tremble in his ancient fist he opened the padlock, unhooked and threw it to the side, and there was a G-string made of soft, black, dense fur. Well, it was a rabbit pelt. But so what. She straddled Mooshum’s lap but carefully did not let down her weight. Cupped her tasseled breasts in her hands.
Happy birthday, old man, she said.
Mooshum’s smile glowed. Tears flowed down the grooves in his cheeks. He put his arms around her