Chapter Twenty-Three
     After Vicky's announcement, the party quickly deteriorated. They tried to convince Vicky that she was making a mistake, but she would have no part of it. When they objected to her letting herself be pawed and groped by all these strangers, Vicky assured them that the bouncer didn't let that happen. Yes, Vicky mingled with the customers and some of them were touching her, but Vicky didn't feel that they were doing it on purpose.
     She did a little flirting after her dance, and some of the men shoved money in her little pants, but that's how she made her hundred dollars. Vicky didn't know what a lap dance was, and it didn't sound like she was doing that, but despite Simone's best efforts to get her to forget about it, Vicky was sure that she'd found a way to make her money.
     "I just did a little dance and talked with the customers," Vicky said. "And they all told me I was pretty."
     At one point Earl had stood up and walked to the rear window, looking over the Single Spire parking lot. His stomach was bothering him, and his heart was wrenching. He wished he could think of something to say that would let Vicky know how he felt about her dancing, something he hadn't already said a hundred times, but there were no words.
     He'd told her that he went there sometimes, he even told her he was there earlier that day, and that when he was there all he wanted to do was molest and harass the women. It wasn't true, but it didn't match Vicky's ideas and she refused to believe him. He told her about the cheap feels he got there, and Vicky laughed. Simone told her about a job she thought she could get for Vicky at the department store, and Vicky turned her down. Perris told her about how his fraternity would go to those places and how the girls were ripe for anything this side of fucking, and Vicky would hear none of it.
     Perris eventually grew tired and announced that he had to go. If he was expecting Simone to follow him downstairs, he would have been disappointed when she asked to be taken home. Although Vicky's bombshell had replaced visions and memories of Simone in Earl's mind, he smiled to himself when Simone turned Perris down. That boy, he thought, wouldn't be getting any for awhile, not judging from the way Simone was still walking.
     Earl didn't bring up any of Vicky's later claims, that he was her boyfriend and that he was living with her, but he now thought about it. He knew that yesterday he'd been acting that way and trying to make that real, but he thought that Vicky had turned him down flat. Last he remembered, she'd told him to leave instead of staying with her, and now she was telling everyone that he'd moved in.
     When Perris and Simone left, Earl again shook Perris's hand, but Simone no longer offered her cheek. Earl puzzled over that a moment, but decided it had something to do with what had happened earlier that day and didn't give it much though. When they were saying good bye, Vicky had curled up under Earl's arm.
     As soon as they were alone, Vicky spun away and hurried over to the bag that held her costume. Even though it was late and even Earl was beginning to tire, Vicky was full of energy. Earl wondered what she was on, and had a feeling that they'd been giving her coke or something at the Falcon.
     "Want to see me in my costume?" she asked, and before Earl could answer, Vicky ran into the bathroom. He went over to the kitchen, where the drinks were, and poured a few fingers of whiskey into a glass and downed them in a single gulp. He wiped his lips with the back of his hand, and lit a cigarette and settled down on the couch.
     A minute or so later, Vicky emerged. When she switched on the radio and began dancing, Earl closed his eyes in response to the horror. It wasn't that Vicky looked bad that disturbed him so, it was that she was Vicky.
     The tiny outfit covered even less of her than Earl had imagined. The pasties rarely covered her nipples and with every gyration slid across Vicky's breasts. The sequined shorts were cut low enough to expose pubic hair that Vicky hadn't bothered to trim, and when she turned her back he could see that it rode high and deep into her crack. She may as well have been completely naked, and by the time the song and dance was over, she was.
     "Did you get naked?" Earl asked. "Or was that something special, just for me?"
     "They all shouted for me to take it off," Vicky said, walking over to hug Earl. "So, I did."
     Earl shook his head in dismay.
     "But it was only for the end of the song."
     He wrapped his arms around her and held her close. "Oh, baby," he said,and just ran his hands up and down her back. They soon stumbled into bed, and Earl was instantly tired. The day's events had tuckered him out, and the speed had given it's last meager effort over an hour ago. He kicked off his boots and stripped off his shirt and pants and soon joined Vicky under the sheets.
     She snuggled up against him and stared at him with the wide and open eyes that he'd forgotten about when he was with Simone. That seemed like ages ago to Earl now, and as he kissed Vicky he could taste the mouths of hundreds of men and thousands of drinks. Earl made no effort to make love to her, and if Vicky objected, she said nothing. He held her as tight as he could, as close as he could, and as he felt her breath against his chest, steady and smooth, Earl began to weep.
     When Earl awoke the next morning, he was alone in the bed. It took him a moment to recall where he was and what had happened, but he quickly remembered Vicky and the dance club, Simone's wild passion, and his rooming problem, in that order.
     He got out of bed and found Vicky sitting on the couch, dressed in her bathrobe. Spread out on the floor in front of her were stacks of bills, mostly ones. The poor girl, he thought, hadn't even learned to cash in the singles for larger bills at the end of the night.
     "Oh, good, you're up," Vicky said and stood up to hug Earl.
     "Yeah, I'm sorry. I guess I slept a lot." He yawned and rubbed his eyes. "What time is it, anyway?"
     "A little after nine."
     "Oh, okay."
     Vicky gave Earl a quick kiss, and asked him to sit down on the couch next to her. He wasn't dressed and felt a bit strange sitting on the couch in front of an open window, but no one could see more than the top of his head.
     "Are you mad at me?" she asked.
     "What?"
     "Last night, you didn't make love to me. I wonder if you're mad." The look Vicky was giving Earl was tender and hurt, and would have melted a statue's heart.
     "Oh, baby, I'm sorry," he said and reached out and touched her leg. "I was just so tired, and we'd been drinking so much, I guess I just passed out."
     "You still think I'm pretty, don't you?" Vicky stood up and began to untie her robe, but Earl grabbed her hands.
     "I think you're the prettiest thing, ever," he said. "But you don't need to show yourself to everyone to know that." He smiled up at her and kissed her hands. "I think you're pretty just like this, in the robe and everything."
     Vicky looked as if she were about to cry, or smile. It was hard to determine which, but she ended up throwing herself on Earl's lap and kissing him all over his face. They soon moved to the bed, and Earl was happy that Simone hadn't broken his dick the day before.
     Their lovemaking was sweet and gentle, and filled with many little kisses and tender caresses. Earl took his time, and Vicky responded to all the attention he gave her. When they were done they fell back asleep and an hour later finally got up for the day.
     Earl offered to buy them some breakfast, and told Vicky that he could shower downstairs in his room while she took one up here. "Will you bring your clothes back up with you?" she asked.
     Earl realized that she was serious about his moving in here, and realized that it meant that he would be living in the Tower room. Last night he hadn't thought of that, had been busy with the whole dancing thing, but he started to imagine that this room was finally his.
     "I'll start bringing my things up when I come back," he said. "And will have the rest of them moved up here as soon as we come back."
     Earl went downstairs, showered, and slipped into a clean pair of pants and a yellow and gray striped shirt. As he was tossing his dirty clothes aside and removing the things from his pockets, he found Simone's panties. His heart leapt at the sight, and he quickly folded them up and put them in the nightstand drawer. He threw the rest of his clean pants and shirts into his suitcase and lugged it across the lot and up the stairs.
     He knocked at the door, and Vicky shouted for him to come in. "You don't need to knock, y'know. You live here," she said.
     Earl felt strange putting his pants in the closet next to hers, and when he found that they had to share a drawer for socks and underwear, even stranger. Vicky seemed happy enough with the arrangement, though, and Earl wondered why he didn't feel as good as he thought he would.
     They went out for breakfast and when they returned, Earl spent the next hour shuttling his things from downstairs up to the Tower Room. Before he left his room for the last time, he shot himself up in the bathroom, just for old time's sake, and sat and smoked a cigarette and studied Simone's underwear.
     On Earl's last trip, he had his cigar box, the underwear in his shirt pocket, and his cell phone. His old room was now empty, and everything that was Earl was up in the Tower. The only thing left was to figure out how to live with Vicky.
     It was easy to do that now, Earl thought, since she wasn't here. Vicky had taken off around noon to go visit her Org, and Earl had the tower room to himself. He packed the last of his things away, and went down to the manager's office to tell her about the change.
     Earl was able to transfer the balance on his rent from his old room to cover the additional cost of two people in the Tower Room.
     "You living up there now, with that Vicky woman?" the manager had asked, and Earl's chest swelled with pride as he told her yes.
     "Yep. I'm in the tower now," he said, and Earl loved the way it sounded.
     He climbed the stairs, his stairs, and looked around the room. There was the kitchen, but now it was his, and the couch and the two windows and everything looked different than it had when Scott lived here or when Vicky had shown it to him. He knew that he was sharing it, but Earl felt for a moment as if it was his alone.
     He checked again in the drawers and when he spotted Vicky's thin cotton dress, he began to cry. She really was sweet, she really was wonderful, and for the first time since last night, Earl let himself think of her. It had all happened so quickly, and after such a remarkable day, that it hadn't dawned on him that the Vicky he'd desired a couple days ago was his.
     Earl hadn't had a steady girlfriend for over a year, and the last one had moved in with him and had moved out with most of his stuff. Vicky, Earl felt, would be different, and he wanted to do everything he could think of to keep her happy and trusting and open.
     He would have to get her out of that dancing business, and Earl looked down at his watch. He thought he had enough time, and hurried down the stairs and out to his car.
     Earl drove quickly onto the freeway, and got off at the next offramp. He turned the corner and was in a more commercial part of town, not the industrial area where the Single Spire was located. He pulled into a nearby parking lot and walked into his bank.
     After equal amounts of waiting around and signing papers, Earl had managed to get a small loan. It was only a thousand dollars, but he could give it to Vicky and help her with this whole danger thing. If he could keep her out of the Screeching Falcon and away from the hands of everyone who could lift a beer, Earl would feel that he was doing what he could to make her life better.
     When he got back to the Single Spire, he pulled into the parking lot and was able to get a spot. Now that Earl was living in the Tower, he felt that he should have a reserved spot, or something like that. He would mention it to the manager if Vicky agreed that they should have some special parking.
     He ascended the stairs, and Vicky was still out. He went over to her side of the bed and opened her nightstand drawer and laid the thousand dollars inside. He then went and opened a beer and stood in front of the front window and watched the world outside.
     In addition to the street and train track, the Single Spire motel overlooked a large aviation company. He had no idea what they did there, but guessed that it had something to do with building airplanes. There were huge warehouses and buildings, most of them dwarfing the Tower room, and each large enough to hold a football field. He could see bits and pieces of other buildings and other plants through some of the gaps, but nothing green or growing or soothing.
     Earl took a swig of beer and walked over to the other window. He looked down at the parking lot of the motel and could see about half the rooms. He could see his old room, and from up here it looked tiny and meager. He saw Perris' room, and could see his window fluttering. Either Perris was walking around, stirring up a breeze, or else there was a slight wind dancing through the parking lot.
     As he watched, he saw the door open and Simone walk out. She was wearing dark glasses and had a long billowing dress on. She was wearing a hat, one of those floppy ones, and if he didn't know who it was he could not have recognized her.
     He waited for Perris to come out and join her, but the frat brother didn't appear. Simone shut the door behind her and began walking across the lot.
     "Hey!" Earl shouted, and he could see Simone looking around. She didn't look up, so he shouted again, and she didn't see him that time, either.
     Earl hurried down the stairs and met up with her at the end of the lot, near the manager's office.
     "Hey, what's up?" he asked and gave her his best smile.
     "Excuse me," she said coldly, and stepped around him.
     Earl turned and grabbed her shoulder, hoping to turn her around. She did, but by her own choice and not by his hand. As she turned, she slapped Earl, hard, as hard as she could, and his face stung. "You bastard," she spat.
     Earl looked at her in amazement. "What do you mean? What's going on?"
     This time she literally did spit, and it hit Earl right above the left eyebrow. She slapped him again and looked happy to see that she opened the wound on his lip. "You fucking bastard."
     "What did I do?"
     "How could you do that to Vicky?" Simone said, her anger barely controlled. "She was a nice girl and here you are making her go out and dance. I thought you were sweet, but I see now that I was all wrong about you."
     "What are you talking about, Simone? I had nothing to do with Vicky."
     Simone slapped him again. "You lying sack of shit. You promise her twenty-five hundred dollars and lie to me about it, then you make her go out and flaunt herself so you can sit around and get high and fuck everything that wears a skirt."
     "Simone," Earl pleaded. He was trying to calm her down, to get her to listen. "It's not like that at all. I was as surprised as you were about that dancing thing. Don't you remember me trying to talk her out of it?"
     "I remember you not telling me anything about her and I remember her telling us that you told her to dance for you or something and letting her know how pretty you thought she was." She shifted her weight from one side to the other, and Earl wished he could see her eyes. "You know how she is, how much she wants to please you and everyone, and then you do this to her. I'm sorry I ever gave you the time of day, much less a blow job." She turned on her heel and began walking away, leaving Earl to chase after her.
     "You don't understand. It's all a mistake. I'm getting her the money she needs, but it wasn't my fault and I'm not responsible for this dancing shit. I love her and I'm trying to talk some sense into her."
     Simone stopped, and Earl felt that he was making some progress. What he couldn't see was that her face was getting flushed and that she was about to explode. She turned slowly, methodically and raised her glasses to look Earl in the eye. "If I ever so much as hear your name again I'll kill you."
     She lowered her glasses, turned and walked away down to the sidewalk. Earl slowly followed. He could see that now was not a good time to talk to her, and that things would only get worse. He saw her slip into a small Japanese car and drive off, and stood there watching the road down which she'd sped for a few minutes before returning up to the tower.