The Adventures of Holly White and the Incredible Sex Machine (4 page)

A curtain was suddenly flung open. Holly jumped back, startled as the tiny window
became a stage. On it, a woman in a blue robe leaned forward and pushed aside the
tassels along with the rest of the window display. She was extraordinary, her eyes
dramatically made up with pale blue lashes curling, her neck unnaturally long, the
blue-black hair piled high on top of
a fine-boned face. Peacock feathers dangled
in the long drop from her ears to the straight plane of her shoulders, and when she
turned back to face the window, a glittering flash of blue peeked out from the slight
gape of the indigo robe.

Holly was transfixed by the swell of cleavage, the long stockinged leg, the blue
velvet shoes with their impossible heels. She reached up and secured a huge fan of
peacock feathers on the curling tumble of dark hair.

Holly stepped to one side as a shop assistant struggled out with a large A-frame
sign. She settled it on the footpath, smiled politely at Holly and disappeared back
into the shop.

Honey Birdette,
read the sign,
Valentine's Burlesque with Madame Glimmer. 1pm

Holly checked her watch. It was five minutes to one. Burlesque was something to do
with stripping, wasn't it? She felt nervous. She found herself turning her abstinence
ring distractedly on her finger. Other passers-by had stopped to watch, a group
of Asian schoolgirls hiding their excited grins behind their hands, a middle-aged
woman in a heavy cotton skirt, three women who might be burlesque dancers themselves,
tall and gorgeously adorned with a rattle of glittering bracelets and diamantes in
their hair, an old man with a stick and a slight hunch. Surely if an old man could
watch the show then it wouldn't be a problem for Holly to take a peek.

A brassy blare, a pause, another brazen blast of horns shouted out from a portable
stereo. The dancer leaned back onto a tall pillar that looked like a structural support
but was transformed, with her elegant body stretched against it, into the entry to
a temple. The practical suddenly become decorative, a simple shop window transformed
into a magical diorama, the
ordinary made extraordinary. The woman moved her hips.
A deep throbbing rhythm set up by one foot tapping, the movement displaced the blue
robe and Holly was treated to a glimpse of the sequined gown beneath. Her hips shimmered,
a bright blue waterfall of tassels swaying to the gentle rocking of her frame. Her
body twitched out of the robe, one rhythmic hip-bounce at a time, until her whole
body was finally, glitteringly, exposed. Holly heard the old man beside her draw
in his breath. The dancer began a gentle shimmy of the shoulders that slipped the
robe like a silky skin to show the heavy sequined train starting at the very base
of her spine and plunging, full as a waterfall, to the floor.

She danced. Holly was transfixed. The woman's hips were fluid. It seemed impossible
that she could sway so easily on such heels. Her spine became a snake. Holly could
see every nub of it flexing and curving with the movement of her thighs, responding
to each whim of her hips. In perfect timing with the music's crescendo she swung
around to face the growing crowd, and stilled. Her gloves were long, fastened with
a zip along their length. The music continued to sway but the dancer remained motionless.
Only her fingers moved as they pulled the long zip, tooth by tooth, down to the palm
of her hand. She peeled the glove from her flesh and it was almost pornographic,
that sudden white expanse of wrist, a sexual gesture. The soft inside of her forearm,
just as shocking as if she had lifted a breast out of her sequined dress and held
it up on her palm. When the fingers slipped out of their encasement she stretched
and flexed them and the gesture was a provocation. Holly imagined the perfectly manicured
blue nails of those long, thin fingers could caress or cut you, and that the dancer
would be just as happy either way.

The second glove came off. The dancer let it drop to the floor, swept her shoe in
a graceful glittering arc and both the gloves were behind her and out of sight. She
leaned forward then and Holly could see the lovely curve of her hanging breasts,
suspended in the precarious embrace of her neckline. It was like watching someone
swimming underwater, her motion slow and contained as if the air itself could hold
her in suspension. Indeed it seemed as if the air was thickened by the dancing. Holly
found she was having trouble with her breath. She concentrated on the rise and fall
of her chest as the dance continued. Then the dancer turned her back towards the
audience once more and lifted her arms and, as if by magic, her thin shoulder straps
snapped open and the dress plummeted. The audience saw only the elegant curve of
the dancer's back, the arms raised, the hint of one breast just visible and the pleasant
swell of it reflected in the shape of her buttocks. There was nothing but the thin
blue thread of a g-string left to outline the shape of her back and separating the
cheeks of her toned arse. The music blared a final chord and the dancer spun around.

The young girl beside Holly gasped and Holly flinched, expecting to see the woman
in all her glorious nakedness. But although the breasts were heavy and taut and thrust
in their direction, the nipples were completely covered by the little sequined circles
with tassels that Holly had seen in the window earlier. The dancer shimmied one last
time, the breasts gyrated, making delightful heavy circles on her skinny chest, and
the tassels followed. Just a small delay but they came spinning after the heavy flesh,
hypnotising the audience with their slow, certain rhythm. Holly found herself leaning
forward, gazing at the movement of the sparkling circles. She wanted to reach out
and
touch them through the glass. They would be soft swishes on the palm of her hand,
like a horse shaking its mane.

The window snapped suddenly to blackness, the light extinguished. Holly regained
her balance. The group of schoolgirls giggled and skipped quickly into the shop,
perhaps to catch the dancer before she put her clothes back on or to look at the
nipple tassels, which were obviously for sale. The rest of the audience drifted off,
released from the dancer's spell, slightly dazed as they ambled back towards their
routine lives.

Holly caught her breath. What would Jack make of such a display? She thought back
to the way she'd kissed him as she stumbled out of his car last night. She remembered
his face, appalled by her wantonness. She hesitated. She could still see the little
glittering circles made by the spinning tassels over the dancer's breasts. Her credit
card was linked to her parents' account; this is how it was for all of them, the
privileged angels still nursing at the maternal teat. All she had to do was walk
into the shop and those wondrous minuscule garments would be hers. She watched as
a hand appeared in the window, settling the little blue sequined tassels on the glass
shelf there. Pasties, $120, the sign said. It was nothing. Her parents spent that
much on a Sunday breakfast. She stepped away from the window.

True love waits: it was Valentine's Day, Jack had planned something special and she
need only wait to see what it was. There was something predatory about the performance
she had just witnessed, she thought as she continued down the street. The fog of
desire had clouded her vision. The dancing was lewd and somehow almost…masculine.
The dancer was physically splendid, but wasn't she overly muscled? She stared directly
at her audience, she held their gaze as a man would do. There was
nothing sweet or
coy about her striptease. By the time Holly had reached the intersection of Queen
Street and Edward she knew that she had been temporarily seduced. Striding through
the mall, she saw all the sweet, childish hearts, the pink and red roses in the shop
windows, the schoolchildren still in uniform holding hands. She was glad she had
resisted the purchase. If she had bought the tassels she would surely have worn them
to her date that evening and what would Jack have thought of her if he happened to
graze her breasts with the palm of his hand?

Jack smelled of rum, maybe scotch. Holly rarely drank spirits and she was guessing
at the dark sweetness on his breath. Not just his breath; the smell seemed to rise
from his skin as she bent to sniff at his face. Sweet like molasses.

He lay with his body turned towards her, his cheeks unshaven, the edge of his beard,
usually neatly trimmed, creeping out to the rest of his face. His shoulder was bare
where the sheet rested on it. She could see the skin above, the honey of his tan,
the clearly defined muscles. She had admired his shoulders often when they swam but
essentially his body was a mystery. To be admired only from a distance as he dragged
himself, wet as a fish, out of the salty chlorine of the pool.

She saw now that his neck held secret hollows, a certain tension of the muscles with
the young skin stretched smooth across them, even now in this deep sleep. She noticed
a pulse in the hollow behind the raised muscle; he was alive then. He had not drunk
himself to death, only into unconsciousness.

She sat on the edge of the bed. The sheets were cool against the palms of her hands
as she smoothed them out at her side. There was a slight breeze from the window.
She could hear
Jack's mother washing the dishes. Marilyn had smiled at Holly so gently
when she opened the door.

‘Oh darling,' she had said with that sad smile touching her pretty dark eyes. ‘He
was going to take you out for Valentine's Day, wasn't he?'

Holly had nodded. She was wearing her best dress, deep blue. Her bra was pale blue
lace, not that he would ever see it, but it made her feel good to wear her best underwear
on a date. Her stockings had equally lacy tops snapped into a suspender belt. She
had decided not to wear any underpants. Perhaps his hand would graze her hip and
he would wonder. Even if he kept his usual, respectful distance it made her feel
bold to know she was completely bare—down there.

‘Sweetheart, he came home in a terrible state. You young people and your parties.
You can go up and see him if you like, but he only just got home a few hours ago.
He was rather a long way under the weather, I'm afraid. I couldn't even rouse him
for coffee. I'm sorry dear.'

Holly had climbed the stairs, her dress trailing, catching on the balustrade. He
had dropped her home. She was tipsy. He was still sober enough to drive. What had
happened after she left him? Had he gone back to the party? Had he gone on to a bar?
Arriving home so late in the afternoon?

She opened the door and the smell was distinctly masculine: the alcohol, his feral
breath, his skin. She had entered as if tiptoeing into the den of some wild animal,
only to find him sleeping so deeply that he might have been dead, bled out in the
quiet of his lair.

She reached out to touch his shoulder, pressed her palm against the muscles of his
arm. Solid, real, her Jack, only
transformed through sleep into someone vulnerable.

She touched the skin above his lip, felt the gentle outward breath drift across her
finger, the prickle irritation of the hair there brushing her skin. She checked behind
her to make sure the door was securely closed. She bent her head towards his face,
noticing how her hands had begun to tremble, and placed her lips where her finger
had been, hovering just above his. When he breathed out again she opened her mouth
and took his breath into her, holding it inside her till her temples throbbed. Then
she exhaled, aiming her breath at his lips, seeing his chest fill with her, lifting
the sheet slightly, spilling that earthy smell of his skin out into the evening.

Holly slipped her shoes off and lay down beside him, her head on the cold cotton
of the spare pillow. He shifted slightly, pulling his hand towards his chest, the
sheet shifting with it, off his shoulder, exposing the smooth expanse of his chest,
the small pink whorl of his nipple, the little hairs surrounding it.

She wondered if he was wearing jeans or just underpants under the sheet, or, like
her, nothing at all. It would be a simple thing to lift the sheet just an inch and
see. Now the thought was in her head it seemed impossible to forget how easy it would
be. Terribly wrong, of course, but he wouldn't know. No one would be the wiser. She
had a sudden urge to pull the sheet away and cup the fruit he had hidden there, bury
her head in that salty sweet man-smell, to taste it. Perhaps even like this, with
the sleep of the dead on him, she could arouse him with her fumbling explorations.

What would it be like to arouse a man? What would happen if that shimmying dance,
those slow tasselled circles, were performed for a naked man? She knew what a penis
looked like.
She had seen them on statues, in paintings. Once she had even thought
she saw her father's when his towel slipped. She felt a stirring in her own flesh,
but in reality she could not put the image of a flash of pink in her father's hairy
crotch together with the sleeping figure beside her. It would be so easy to lift
the sheet and see how he was made. Instead she pulled her knees up towards her stomach,
her hands fisted against her cheek.

She looked at his face, a lesser intrusion. His lashes, thick and dark as if mascaraed.
A small shimmer of moisture around his eyelids, perhaps the alcohol sweating out
of him. Holly could see every fine pore in his skin and the thick ruddy hair sprouting
from it. She imagined that if she looked without blinking for a long time she could
track the growth of his beard.

She did lift the sheet then, but did not look under it. Instead she settled in beside
him. He shifted a little and she thought he might wake but he stilled again, a smile
shifting suddenly onto his lips and then away. What was he thinking? Was he sensing
her flesh beside him? Dreaming of a time when they would share a bed as husband and
wife?