Midnight at the Voodoo Lounge

When fall comes, it feels the time to make a cool change. Rosa's ladder out of this tar pit is to get a bartending license. So instead of hooking up with men, she juices them up. Feeding this vice is much more to her taste.

Ruth tells Rosa, "Get your prissy self to serving drinks. You know the boss don't like you popping Benzedrine on break time. Sure you look like a 40s starlet in that red dress with all the frills but if you get jazzed on those pills you might start spiking their cocktails with crazy medicine. We might have the men giving the women a pat down like in airport security when the camera isn't looking. The ladies would stop patronizing us. Then the men would vanish like the wooly mammoths and Sweet Jesus it would just be us, waitresses, to drink up all the suds."

The dragon lady, sprawled on the couch, summons that husky voice like she was channeling Garbo in a séance, "Gimme me a whiskey, ginger ale on the side. And don't be stingy, baby."

"Your Anna Christie imitation made my heart skip a beat. You get a drink on the house for that."

Rosa watches her sip her drink with the coyness of a virgin but her fiery mane cascades in waves of ecstasy and dangles on the edge of forever. Her bare midriff tells the tale of her dragon heart with a tattoo which rises like a harbinger of unearthly pleasures with the promise of what lies beneath where paradise beckons in luscious splendor.

A plump lady with short black hair sits at the bar. But what is most conspicuous about her is the huge green boa wrapped around her neck. The Boa sips brandy from a glass. The lady says, "Stop that Arthur. You know you can't hold your liquor." She tenderly strokes the snake whose head sways while gazing at the lava lamp on the wall. Arthur seems hypnotized by the hemoglobular shapes as they evolve before his very eyes. The snake sips some more brandy and the lady brushes him away from the glass. Rosa looks surprised when the snake looks at her. Quickly it slips from the lady's neck and slithers under Rosa only to climb under her dress and up her leg where the bulge in her panties makes her gasp. The lady tells Rosa, "Stay still, he is a constrictor and you don't want to spook him because he might wrap around you and then who knows what."

Rosa says, "My God, he's licking me!" She looks creeped out at first but says, "He's making me ticklish" and giggles. She says, "This isn't what it looks like. I'm laughing to keep from screaming." What started out as a shock turns into laughter to be put in such a position. Arthur pokes around down there where he seems to have found a burrow warmer and cozier than any hole in the ground. Arthur slides down her leg leaving a moist trail. Rosa tells Ruth, "Sorry but I didn't want to provoke him. Please forgive me." Ruth shakes her head. Rosa says, "When I was a kid my brother Joey stuffed a garter snake down the seat of my pants. That was icky. But this was a hoot like when Joey stuck a garden hose in my jeans."

"Rosa lay off the bennies just for tonight."

"The speed is the saccharin in my diet soda but there is no substitute for sugar in this soft drink called life."

Over on the sofa, the dragon lady slumps into a glassy-eyed angel hipster blitzed out on life where she lies like a Pre-Raphaelite vision whose jade eyes sparkle with sensual fury in midnight paroxysms of supernal delight. Rosa smiles at her and she winks back at her like she's had enough to drink and wants Rosa to take her to take her home to sober up, get her life together, and get a job. The long lines at the unemployment office will give them plenty of time to get to know each other. But when this girl hits the sauce and Rosa is hopping like a Mexican jumping bean from the amphetamines it could turn into a three ring circus fast.

At closing time Rosa asks the dragon lady to accompany her to the changing which is behind some bead curtains off to the side. Rosa's new friend sits on the bench watching her. Rosa slips out of her lingerie and sponge baths at the sink.

The lady asks, "Wouldn't taking a shower at home be preferable?"

Rosa says, "I like to feel fresh on the way home especially at the end of my witching hour shift. I need to wash the slime of that snake off me. He touched me where only a woman's lover should."

Rosa says, "I Would love to wash your beautiful hair in the sink. But you should take off your blouse first to keep it from getting wet."

She says, "I love getting my hair washed at the beauty parlor. There is something about having a stylist rub my scalp which is altogether wonderful."

Rosa says, "Would you feel uncomfortable about me seeing you in your bra?"

The girl replies, "Not at all, when I wear my jogging suit my top is a bra not to mention that when I wear my bikini at the pool my exposure is the same as when in my lingerie. Besides, it is just us girls."

Rosa says, "Women come and go in this room, but pay them no mind. This space is for ladies to feel comfortable in their own bodies, because women come in all shapes and sizes. I hope you will visit me here again because I am fond of you."

She replies, "I come here on Tuesday nights. Let's do this each time I visit."

"Did you see that Boa head straight up my dress like he knew what he was looking for? If so, do you think he has a crush on me?"

"Do snakes get crushes? If they do then it certainly appears you have attracted some unwanted affection. There is nothing worse than a drunk slobbering all over you of whatever species."