Chapter Twenty-Four
     Earl stayed upstairs long enough to take a couple swigs of whisky and to smoke a cigarette. He was still reeling from Simone's diatribe and was still trying to sort it out. She had everything wrong, upside-down and backwards, and Earl hoped that in time she would calm down.
     He decided to seek Perris out, and figured that the two of them must have been talking. Since neither one knew, really, what was going on, Earl decided that they must have spent the day feeding each other rumors and snippets and come up with all the wrong answers.
     He went downstairs and across the lot and knocked on Perris' door. There was no answer, and Earl tried again. There was still no answer, and Earl tried the door and found it unlocked.
     He gave a shout, opened the door, and just like the last time he'd been in this room, it was empty. Earl quickly checked the drawers and closet, and there was nothing to be found. He looked in the bathroom and made a point of checking the mirror. Simone, he thought, may have left Perris a message like she had for him, but the mirror was merely spattered with drops of toothpaste and spray from the sink. There was nothing in the shower, and Earl wondered what Simone had been doing in the empty room. She hadn't been carrying anything, and for that Earl was glad. If she had been, she would have hit him with it, he felt.
     On a chance, Earl checked his old room. He'd left the door open when he'd carried out the last of his possessions, and he was relieved to see that it was still unlocked. He opened it and saw that the manager had cleaned it, as well. There was a different cover on the bed and the drawers and closet stood open and naked. He checked the bathroom and ran his finger down the mirror, remembering the note that had been wiped away, and tracing out its memorized message.
     Earl went back to the tower and back to drinking. He had no idea where Perris had gone, no idea where to find him, and little hope of talking to Simone. He knew that she would never respond to another page from him, and had no other way of contacting her to set her straight. He couldn't believe that it ended like this, that it could stay like this, but the more he drank the more it seemed likely that the whole affair was over. There was no more Scott, no more Perris, no more Simone, and the wild excitement of the past few days had been spent.
     It started with a fight in the parking lot, and ended there, too.
     Earl glanced at the clock and saw that it was nearly midnight. Vicky had been gone for twelve hours, and Earl didn't know her well enough to know if that was typical or not. He knew that she usually came home late, but that was during the week, when she worked, and this was a Sunday night.
     He took the empties and threw them in the trash, then took the trash down to the dumpster. Earl trudged back up the stairs and felt chilled and cold. He smoked a small bowlfull, but his aches were beyond the salve of that familiar remedy, and he found himself hoping that Vicky would come home soon and that everything would be okay. Vicky, the pearl that he'd plucked from the detrius of the past week, would renew his spirits and return him to sanity.
     A few minutes later Earl heard footsteps coming up the stairs. He'd been sitting in the loveseat, almost dozing, and drinking beer and whisky. He stood up and found that he could barely stand, and when Vicky walked in, Earl rushed to greet her.
     "You're home!" he said, brightening. "I was getting worried."
     Vicky accepted his embrace gladly, and returned his hug with one of her own. Earl clung to her for support, not only against his unsteady legs and unreliable balance, but as reassurance that his whole life hadn't deserted him. As he kissed and welcomed her home, he realized how much he needed her, and how much she meant to him.
     "Did you have a good day?" she asked. "It was pretty awful at the org."
     Earl didn't feel like talking about his own day, not yet. "What happened at the org?"
     Vicky walked over to the loveseat and sat down. She patted the seat next to her, indicating that Earl should sit down, and he went to the refrigerator instead. "Want anything?" he asked.
     "Not right now."
     Earl dug out another beer and joined Vicky on the couch. "So, what happened at the org?"
     Vicky laid her head on Earl's shoulder a moment before answering. "It's really bad," she said. "With this danger thing, nobody's talking to me. Until I can get myself back up to a normal condition, they're all just being really hard on me."
     "They're what?" Earl asked. "Why are they doing that?"
     "It's the way it is. Until I can show them that I'm serious about bettering myself and working my way up, they're going to treat me this way." She sat quiet a moment before continuing. "It's the way it is."
     Earl sipped his beer and realized that there was much more to this Scientology business than he knew. "I may have some good news for you."
     "What's that?" Vicky asked. She wiggled on the seat to face him, and to fix on him her reptilian stare.
     "About that money you needed," he began.
     "You got it?" she shouted. She threw her arms around him and Earl wished that he had.
     "Part of it. A thousand dollars."
     Vicky sat up, and then got off the couch. "Only a thousand?"
     "It's the best I could do," Earl explained. "And you can start with that, right? Maybe I can get some more later."
     Vicky leaned over and kissed Earl on the top of his head. "It doesn't quite work like that, but I can make a down payment, anyway." She walked over to the closet and began taking off her clothes.
     Earl had never been in this position before, he realized. It was a wonderful, intimate moment and one that pleased him. It validated their relationship, he felt, for her to be acting normal around him and for him to be doing the same. Until now, he'd never really felt as if they were a couple, but as he watched her strip off her sweater and pants and slip into her bathrobe, Earl had the feeling that it was all real.
     "When can I get it?" she asked as she came back over to the couch.
     "Right now, if you want it," Earl said. "It's in your nightstand."
     Vicky changed directions and went over to the simple one drawer affair that served as the nightstand. She opened the door and pulled out the stack of bills that Earl had placed in there earlier. She sat on the bed and began counting them in her lap.
     Earl walked over to join her, sitting next to her on the bed. "Is it okay? Will it help?"
     Vicky got up and put the money in her bag. "It will help, that's for sure."
     "Will they start talking to you now?" he asked.
     "No. Not until I complete the course, and I still need fifteen hundred to sign up for it." She must have seen Earl's face fall, since she came back to him on the bed and added, "but it's a good start."
     "I just want you to be okay, to be happy," Earl said.
     "I am. I will be."
     Vicky gave Earl a kiss. "Thank you."
     Earl's mind flashed back to last night's conversation about Vicky dancing at the Screeching Falcon. Something in her thanks disturbed him, and he took it like the ones that the girls there gave him when he bought them a drink or something. It sounded sincere, sounded warm, when she gave it, but like the practiced ones of the girls there, it meant nothing to Earl as soon as it was done. There was a lack of substance to it, and Earl had never heard that from Vicky before.
     "That's it? Just a 'thank you?'" he asked. He tried to sound light about it, but wasn't sure himself how far he wanted to push this.
     Vicky paused, and it looked to Earl as if she was weighing options or trying to figure out if he was serious or not. She sprung from the bed and hurried over to the closet, dropping her bathrobe along the way. "I know," she said. "I'll give you a special dance."
     Earl wasn't sure if there were quotation marks around special dance, if it was something she'd learned last night or if it was merely an innocent expression. He watched as she pulled out the paper bag containing her red sequined outfit and began undoing her bra.
     "I was just kidding," Earl said. "C'mer."
     "No," Vicky said, a note of determination in her voice. "I want to do this. You didn't get to see me dance last night, not much."
     Earl watched as she fit herself into the extravagant, but mostly non-existant top. She quickly slipped off her panties and forced herself into the tight shorts and walked over and turned on their clock radio.
     Earl had to admit that it was provocative sight watching her play with the radio finding a station with a song she liked, but he was disturbed that this was a view he'd shared with a lot of other men. Vicky stopped when she found an oldies station, and began dancing to Cinnamon Girl.
     Earl watched her gyrate, twisting and leaning over, and in spite of himself he was getting aroused. He tried to keep the realization that this was a shared experience out of his mind when she came over to stand in front of him and lean over, displaying her breasts. When she turned around and bent over, smiling at Earl from between her legs, he grabbed her around the hips.
     "Okay," he said. "That's enough."
     Vicky looked at Earl with her large, bright eyes full of dismay and confusion. One of her breasts had worked its way from beneath the tiny pastie and to Earl it looked both pathetic and tempting. "But I just got started," Vicky protested, and stepped back and began revolving her hips. When Earl didn't respond to that, she began a series of little kicks.
     "Oh, c'mon, Vicky," he laughed. Earl was attempting to lighten the moment, but was growing increasingly upset with her flagrant display. He didn't want her to do any more of this dancing stuff, not if she was going to do it for others.
     "I need to practice," she said. "There's another contest next week and the guy at the Falcon told me that he wanted me to come back." She was now kicking higher, attempting to be a Rockette, but her motions looked jerky and awkward. "So I'm going to do this every night whether you watch me or not." She spun around, slapped her butt, and gave Earl a big smile over her shoulder.
     Earl was unhappy, but not shocked, about Vicky's intentions to go back to the Falcon and dance some more. It was the one thing he didn't want to hear, and was also the one thing he was afraid of. He didn't want to tell her what to do, but decided to try all this next week to talk her out of it gently.
     "You're going back there?"
     "Uh-huh." Vicky was concentrating now, and couldn't be bothered with conversation. Earl resigned himself to letting her dance, and tried his best to see no more in her dancing than he did in any of the other girls he'd seen flaunt themselves at the Falcon. The only difference he could see, and it was a big one, was that Vicky didn't look professional.
     She spent the next fifteen minutes practicing to a series of songs and becoming increasingly vulgar in her movements. Earl wasn't sure where she'd learned that, but guessed that she'd spent part of the last night watching the others perform and decided to outdo them. When she ran out of energy and was looking tired and sweaty, Vicky gave Earl one last shake and collapsed next to him on the bed.
     "What do you think?"
     Earl reached over and ran his hand up and down her back, trying to avoid getting it tangled in the assortment of wiry straps that held her pasties in place. "I think you're beautiful," he said. "And I want you all to myself."
     It must have been the right thing to say, since Vicky rolled over onto her back and looked at Earl with the most engaging, pleased smile he'd ever seen on her face. "Beautiful?"
     "Beautiful," he answered. "You're my little beauty, that's what you are." He started to lean over her, to kiss, when she rolled off the bed and onto her feet.
     "I hope everyone thinks so," she said. She leaned forward, shook her breasts, and kissed Earl on the forehead. "I'm gonna take a shower and then go to bed."
     Earl sighed and tossed his beer into the trash can. When he heard the water running, he went over to the kitchenette and took a long slug from the bottle of whiskey. It was a start, he hoped, asking her to be his, but it was obvious to Earl that he was losing the war.
     He stripped off his clothes and slid into bed. He wasn't wired any longer, not really, and he felt he could sleep. His body was tired, he realized, and Earl yawned. He knew he could sleep if he could get his mind to stop racing, and he was hoping to get some help with that when Vicky came back to bed.
     A few moments after he heard the water stop, Vicky walked naked into the room and slipped between the sheets and snuggled up to Earl. They shared a deep kiss, and Earl tried to put all the feelings he had for Vicky into it, and she responded with a passion he'd not seen before. Half an hour later, with Vicky at his side and filling the air with gentle, shallow breaths, Earl fell asleep.