Fluke (28 page)

“And you don’t think I’ll put my greedy little paws down there to get the money?”

“I’m sort of hoping you will,” she said seductively, leaning over and running the tip of her tongue along the outer edge of my ear.
 
The combination of her tongue and the scent of her perfume nearly made me dizzy, and I had to struggle to maintain control of the car.

“You’re
gonna
make me crash us,” I managed to whisper to her.
 
She sat back in her seat, smiling at me, giving me what she referred to as her “come hither” stare, which normally made its appearance when she was feeling frisky.

“Well, that’s no fun,” she said, mock hurtfully.
 
“What am I supposed to do over here? Just ride along, bored?”

“One of the many duties of the co-pilot,” I stated, in a business-like tone, “is to not create distractions that would cause a pilot error.” I looked at her, chuckling, wanting her very badly but a little preoccupied with driving.

“And the pilot,” she stated, equaling my business-like tone, “should be professional enough and focused enough to concentrate on the task at hand.”

“I can drive under any adversity!” I proclaimed, raising a finger in the air in an attempt to drive the point home.

She leaned back to my ear, and I felt her warm breath on my neck and ear as she whispered, “Okay, well, let’s prove it.”

I looked at her, momentarily confused, and then I felt her hand on my crotch, working the zipper on my shorts down.
 
My eyes widened with a flash of understanding, and I was suddenly and simultaneously singing praise to the gods and praying to the same gods that I wouldn’t crash the car as she lowered herself, adjusting her position so as not to knock the gearshift lever, and took me into her mouth.

“Wow,” I mumbled weakly, and I heard the blast of an eighteen-wheeler’s horn as it blew by us, honking its approval, I imagined.

****

The Hotel La Salle was small, one of those quaint, antique-style hotels, despite its location in a strip mall-like building, wedged in between a music store on the right and a drug store on its left.
 
It was easy to miss, and we made approximately four U-turns and slow trips back up and down Canal Street to find it.

The La Salle’s selling point for Sara and I had been its proximity to the French Quarter, which was one block away, just a hop, skip, and a jump across the perpetually busy Canal Street.
 
This saved us from having to do any sort of driving under the influence of any sort of influential substances.
 
The price had seemed a bit steep to me, but the extra dollars didn’t seem so bad compared to a potential taxi fare or a night in jail. Besides, we had just won a thousand bucks two hours earlier.
 
We were rich for a day!

I hunted for a parking spot near the hotel so that we could check in.  There was supposed to be parking provided by the hotel, but it was
nowhere to be found.
 
I ended up parking the VW along the nearest street, which was scattered with what appeared to be a mix of homeless folks and general loiterers, sitting on the ground with signs (Vietnam vet, one said), leaning against the walls, bottles in brown paper bags, looking dirty and rather thug-like.

And here we are, I thought, playing the well-dressed tourists, a little money in our pockets, and a pretty white convertible.
 
I think I saw this on an episode of
Unsolved Mysteries
once.

“Think the car’s safe here?” I mumbled to Sara as I killed the engine and pulled up the emergency brake.

“Umm,” she started, looking out her window, “well, it was safe when I parked it at your apartment.
 
This is about the same environment.”

“Ha, ha, very funny,” I said.
 
“You know…that Holiday Inn we saw had parking.
 
We could still go back.” I told her.

“It was 300 bucks a night, Adam!” she looked at me, “that would knock out quite a bit of our winnings?”

“Yeah…but, it had that little elegant restaurant across the street that was open all night…” I said to her, grinning.

“Elegant?
 
You’re referring to the all-night McDonalds?” she asked.

“Okay.
 
I just think it might have come in handy” I finished, unable to erase the dumb grin from my face.

We got out and she hastily grabbed my hand as we quickly walked down the street and hung a right.
 
I sensed a little nervousness on her part, and squeezed her hand, once again the reassuring man. She squeezed back and smiled at me.

It warmed my heart to know that she looked at me with a sense of safety, as though I would protect her, though I questioned myself, and I hoped it would never come to that situation.
 
Deep inside of me festered the uncomfortable idea that, upon any sort of physical confrontation, I’d drop to the ground in the fetal position and cry like a baby.
 
I couldn’t bear the thought of Sara, this beautiful woman who I loved beyond belief, witnessing my cowardice.

I let out a tiny sigh of relief as we opened the tinted glass door of the La Salle and stepped inside.

The tiny foyer was low-lit and instantly relaxing to me; large potted plants were spread around the room, the walls covered with soothing, peach-colored wallpaper.
 
A dark brown wooden staircase led up to what I assumed were the rooms.

We went to the counter and Sara said, “We have a room reserved.
 
The name is Fluke.”

The teenaged clerk glanced up and appeared to have misheard her.

“Fluke?” he repeated.

“You got it.
 
Fluke,” she said again.

I wandered the lobby, looking at the pictures on the wall, which were black and white prints of 19th century New Orleans, looking rather gothic and French.
 
The pictures, the history, and the decadence of the city intrigued me.

A minute or two later, the clerk tapped me on the shoulder and offered to guide me to the private parking area while Sara went up to the room.

“Bring
Flukey
up with our bags,” she instructed me, giving me a small kiss on the cheek, even though I turned my lips to meet hers.

“No mouth, remember?” she said, winking at me.

Oh, yeah.

“No kisses on the mouth until I get to my toothbrush,” she had said in the car earlier, after she sat up, leaving me trembling in the driver’s seat, reaching for my cigarettes.

I followed the clerk out, and he showed me the
hidden
parking area, which was a small lot closed in by a chain link fence.
 
I parked the car
, grabbed
the bags and
Flukey
,
and went
back inside.

As I walked up the stairs, which let out some small creaks, exactly as I had imagined they would, I realized I had forgotten what room number Sara had told me.

Shit, was it 234 or 224?

I reached the second floor, hoping that she had left the door cracked.
 
I went to 224, which was closed, so I walked to 234, and it was locked as well.
 
Feeling lost and a little stupid, I wandered back down the hall.

I tried the handle on 224; it was unlocked, so I picked up the bags and walked inside.

“Sara?” I called out, poking my head forward.
 
To my left was a bathroom.
 
I couldn’t see the room itself from my position.

“Who’s that?” I heard a man’s voice yell.

Uh oh.
 
Wrong room.

“Uh, sorry,” I called back, working quickly to turn around.
 
I bumped the wall, and dropped
Flukey
on the floor.

Shit.

“Who the hell is it?” the voice called out again.
 
I heard squeaking, like springs.

In my frantic attempt to squat down and pick up
Flukey
and get the hell out of the room, the black duffel bag slipped off of my shoulder and on to the floor.

The basis of the Fluke
F
actor is that once something has gone wrong, all efforts to recover must go, at a minimum, doubly wrong.

I grabbed the strap of the duffel bag, and yanked it back up on my shoulder, shifting my weight in the opposite direction, which, according to physics, should have balanced me out and allowed me to stand up.

But, of course, I over compensated on the shifting of weight, lost my footing, and promptly fell down on Sara’s suitcase in my left hand, the duffel bag coming to rest on my crotch.
 
I saw
Flukey
, by
my feet, and used my toes to kick him to within arm’s reach.
 
I grabbed him and started the process of standing up when the man, wearing nothing but a sheen of sweat and his underpants, walked up to me.

Jesus, what the hell is wrong with me? Why can’t I just do things like normal people?

“What in the fuck is going on?” he asked, staring down at me.

Well, sir, I’m just some guy lying on your hotel room floor, holding a stuffed bear to my chest.

“I, uh, thought this was my room,” I managed to say.

“This
ain’t
your room, goddammit,” he said, sounding more pissed off.
 
Judging by his state of undress and his sweatiness, and the distinct sound of an unseen lighter flicking in the back, he had been involved with some company, and I suppose I would have been pretty pissed off, too.

“Sorry.
 
I’m getting out now,” I said.
 
I suddenly had the wise idea of standing up first, then picking up the bags and
Flukey
.

It worked, leaving me to wonder why I hadn’t been able to pull it off before.
 
Why did everything have to turn into an ordeal with me?

I gathered myself and walked back out into the hallway, feeling amazingly stupid and embarrassed.
 
Behind me, the man’s voice loudly echoed down the hallway, “You stay the fuck away from my room, asshole!” The door slammed shut.

Oh, well, at least that’s over.

I turned right, heading back toward 234, and I made the wise decision to knock on the door this time.
 
As I looked up, I saw Sara poking her head out of a door, looking at me, bewildered.

“Adam, what’s going on?” she asked.
 
“Did I hear someone yelling and cursing?”

“I, uh, had the wrong room,” I said, walking toward Sara, my smiling, beautiful beacon, and the correct room, which turned out to be 240.
 
I would have been wrong either way.

“You’re so silly,” she laughed, and grabbed
Flukey
from between my arm and my ribs.
 
“I told you room two-forty, and you repeated it back to me.”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” I sighed.
 
I dropped the bags on the giant, king-sized bed, considered telling Sara about the underwear
man, and decided to just keep my mouth shut.
 
I’d just have to make sure that we didn’t spend any sort of time in the hallway, other than walking in or out.
 
Rapidly.

I flopped down next to the bags and lit a cigarette as Sara dug her toothbrush and toothpaste from her suitcase.
 
She found the items, and walked into the bathroom.

To take care of those Sara teeth, I thought to myself, smiling.

“What do you want to do?” she called from the bathroom.

I grabbed the remote control from the nightstand and flipped on the TV.
 
“Whatever,” I called to her, flipping aimlessly through the channels.
 
“Think we could take a nap first?”

She poked her head out from the bathroom, her toothbrush in her right hand, white foamy toothpaste lining her lips, and said, “
Hy
oo
ahha
oo
ah?”

I used my inner toothpaste-speak translation guide and told her, “I
wanna
do that because I’m tired from that long, long drive.”

She disappeared in the bathroom, where I heard her spit and gargle a few times.
 
She came out of the bathroom smiling.

“Minty fresh for you again, dear,” she said, sliding onto the bed next to me, giving me a small kiss on the lips.
 
I moved over to make room for her, and she grabbed the remote from my hand.