* * *
In the years of his sequester, the world to the north had become something other than what Edward remembered. On his brief sojourns from the dirt roads of Aguilares to San Antonio and Corpus Christi for supplies, he had noticed the change, but he’d never felt it in the same way he felt it that evening as he slipped toward the Gulf. The lit placards, the shimmering of it all, reminded him of rinsed trout.
With the window rolled down, the air sucked and blew around his elbow sleeve. Somewhere just past Sweeny, Edward exited the highway. He parked his truck and blew out one long held breath, and then he opened his door. The heat pressed against his skin but then vanished once he pulled open the establishment’s glass door.
There was a stage on which a woman in only her flesh moved languidly in the floodlights. Darkness curtained everyone else. Edward walked toward a polar bear of a man behind the bar and asked for a whiskey, no soda, no ice. The bear nodded and exchanged a warm glass for the limp bill Edward had set on the counter.
He sat down by the stage, where the woman orbited her hips and bent over a man with no hair on his scalp, cheek, or chin. Her breasts hung like loose hides. Edward watched and sipped for a moment. The pounding sounds stopped and the woman stepped off the raised platform and sat next to him, and then another woman emerged from the curtained area at the far end of the stage.
The naked woman next to him pointed once at the glass that sat like an altar object on the table between their chairs. He nodded, and she sipped.
“You, I haven’t seen before,” she said.
“I’d say the same about you, but you remind me of my wife.”
“I do?”
“Nah,” he said.
“Where is your wife?”
“She’s passed.”
“How long?”
“Not so long.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I have money.”
She laughed once. “I’m not a whore.”
“Who said you were?”
Her apartment building was three blocks away. As she jammed the key into the outside lock, she reached with her other hand toward the heartbeat in his jeans. “I’m gonna make you wait,” she told him.
“You’re the one who’s hurrying.”
She led him up the stairs. “How much money do you have?”
“I have what I need.”
“I’d like to have what I need.” She opened the apartment door and turned on the light. He squinted.
“I don’t aim to be looking at you long,” he said and then pushed the switch down.
“You sure have a way.”
“I do have that.”
“What do you want?”
He put his hand on the soft meat of her shoulder. “I’m not particular.”
* * *
In the morning, oil smells woke him. He found her in the kitchen cooking eggs.
“Good morning,” she said as he stepped toward her. They were both without clothes.
“Morning.”
“Your mustache gave me a rash.”
He smiled thinly.
“I have to pick up my little girl from my mother’s house soon.”
He walked to the window and spread two slats of the blinds. His truck was where he’d remembered leaving it.
“I didn’t do that for the money.”
He looked back at her.
“Still,” she said. “Some might be nice.”
“I’ll be back,” he said, and then found his jeans and his shirt and put them on.
Outside, the morning was not yet hot. He opened the truck’s front door and reached under the passenger’s seat for the canteen, the two metal plates, and a tool set. He twisted off the canteen’s lid, stuck two fingers into the opening, and pulled out two bills. With the ratchet, he fastened his plates.
Back inside, he wrapped his arms around her waist. Her belly was slack with childbirth. In her ear, he whispered, “Once more.”
When that was done, he pulled the bills from his pocket and placed them on the counter.
“You take care.”
She nodded, her eyes locked on the counter.