The Hinky Bearskin Rug by Jennifer Stevenson Page B

shouted the lucky paper-wavers.
    Clay didn’t
really expect to find anything hinky. So, when he saw the ancient men’s room
door with the brand new board nailed across it, he almost walked by. The
doorway was vaulted, as if this hadn’t always been a men’s room. It was hung
with neatly printed signs. keep out . out
of order. health department warning. do not enter.
    Huh.
That’s a lot of signage for one busted sewer pipe.
    He tugged at
the board. It came loose easily. The nail at the top end had been yanked loose
before, and then slipped back into its old hole. Many times, by the look of it.
Hm.
    With a swift
glance around, he yanked the board free, let it swing down, whisked inside, and
shut the door behind him.
    o0o
    “I want
children someday,” said the brunette beauty on the bearskin rug. “Does that
seem crazy to you?”
    “Yes,” Jewel
muttered. She wanted out.
    Onika appeared
at her elbow. “That’s Velvita Fromage, our contract girl. Isn’t she gorgeous?”
    “Gorgeous,”
Jewel said hollowly.
    Onika looked
at her watch. “Conference call time. I’ll be in my office,” she whispered.
    Jewel forced a
smile.
    Okay, okay,
she was getting the picture. These were movies about nice, good-hearted porn
queens who got slow, affectionate licking from their studs before they took all
ten inches in some orifice. He had to say “I love you” before he got to stick
it in. BFD. Get me out of here.
    She wondered
where Clay was. Randy stood in a corner, glowering. Jazus, was he mad at her
for being turned on? That was another first. She fidgeted silently until she
couldn’t take it any more. Then she went out of the sound booth in search of a
place where she could scream.
    Across the
hall she found another sound booth, this one looking out on an empty stage and
one bare lightbulb on a stick.
    She hugged herself,
grateful for the dark.
    But here came
her sex demon, looking as he so often did like a hanging judge. He flicked on
the light as he entered.
    “Jewel, I beg
you listen—”
    I am so not up for a fight. “No, you listen. I’ve had enough. I
thought I could take this. I thought I was so smart and sophisticated and big
city. Well, I’m not. There, are you happy? You broke me down. I’m just a small
town girl with small town morals, and I think it’s — it’s disgusting.” And disturbing. And it makes me feel weird
about myself. “I want to go home!”
    “Then go!”
Randy exploded. “I met with less hypocrisy from a nun than I have seen in you!”
    “Oh, really!”
she said, stung, her voice rising. “Where did you meet her? In bed, of course?”
    He jerked his
head back as if he’d been slapped. “Of course. That’s what I am. I’m good in
bed.”
    Oh, great, now
he was insulted. She tried to soothe him, but frankly she didn’t want to. She
wanted to slap him.
    “Yes, you are,
you’re terrific in bed. Can’t you see, it’s the difference between what I do
with you and that — that fake sex that bothers me?”
    “It’s not fake
sex.”
    Whoa. If Randy
said it was real, it was real.
    Double ick.
    “That’s even
worse. They’re having fun out there and people are watching, they’re taping it, they’re listening in. And then a million creepy old farts like O’Connor are
gonna mess up the upholstery on their couches, watching—”
    “Or perhaps a
million respectable women and their husbands,” he said with mystifying sarcasm.
    “What’s the
difference?” she yelled.
    “I don’t know,”
he said, tight-lipped. “What is the difference? How does all this differ from
your own behavior with me?”
    “Those people
are being paid to have sex!” she screamed. “I never did that!”
    She’d never
seen him so bleak. “But I do it every day.”
    She gasped. Now that was an insult. “I do not pay
you for sex!”
    “But you do.
You house me, feed me, clothe me—”
    Frantic at his
expression, she put out both hands. “Randy, you were in trouble. I couldn’t
turn you away.