At Suburban the walls had eyes and ears. The next morning at 10 o’clock when they were sitting out in the hall, Bea looked at Bill and gave out one of her throaty chuckles.
“I heard that dishwasher tried to pimp you yesterday,” she said.
“Say what?”
“You heard what I said,” Bea said. She sat like always, up high and with her legs spread wide. Bill sat down low, smoking a cigarette. He had just popped a black beauty and was waiting for it to kick in.
“Oh that,” Bill said. “Wasn’t nothing.”
He had been stunned by the dishwasher’s words, totally taken by surprise. At first he hadn’t realized that the dishwasher was in fact trying to pimp him. But when he’d thought about it later, that surely was what was happening.
Luckily, and happily too, Bill’s being naive kind of saved him. The idea as presented was anathema to him so he’d just politely declined the offer. The dishwasher had told him that if he changed his mind to let him know.
That was something Bill would pass on but it was something he would wonder about every now and then, especially as he got older and tried all different kinds of women.
“They’re just a little fat,” the dishwasher said.
A little fat was probably really fat, Bill generally thought when he thought about it. Bea was fat and she was fun. Mary was plump. She was like a ripe plum, smooth and sweet and very juicy. Lorraine was kind of like Mary, equally juicy, just as sweet. Lexi was a tigress, ready to spring at any moment. Sooner or later, Bill would meet all kinds of women through the course of his career, from shameless witches whose intentions were to ruin his marriage to Marilyn Monroe wannabes. Really fat would not have been bad, he would eventually discover.
“Goddamn but that cool air feels good,” Bea said. She was flapping her dress up and down.
“Put that shit away,” Henry Lee said. He was standing next to where Bill was sitting. “I can see much more than I want to.”
“No one asked you to be looking.”
“You crazy, girl,” he said.
Mary, who had not sat down anywhere, laughed. She was standing next to where Bill sat, on the other side of him than where Henry Lee was. “I’m sweating up there too,” she said. “It’s different for a woman.”
Henry Lee didn’t say anything. He finished smoking the cigarette he held and shook his head scornfully.
“Want me to cool you down?” Bill asked. He reached to the hem of Mary’s dress and started fanning it like Bea was doing to hers. Then he reached under and up from behind and fondled Mary’s butt.
“Get the hell out of there, boy,” she said. ” What the hell is it with you?”
Henry Lee guffawed. He walked to the back door and flicked his cigarette butt outside. “We got to make hamburg,” he said. Then, to Mary, after he’d walked back to where she stood, he said, “Ain’t nothing wrong with the boy. He got him some good taste in women.”
Mary smacked Henry Lee on that he arm about the same time Bea stood up. “Love them white boys,” she said, licking her lips.
Bill stood up too. “I’ll kiss all over that beautiful ass,” he whispered in Mary’s ear. “And a lot more too,” he said.
“I’ll bet you will,” said Mary.
“Count on it,” he said. He winked at her.
“Fat girls, huh?” Mary said.
So, Still Coming Shortly
