Rift (6 page)

“Do you have any regrets?”

“No. I just wish Misty wasn't so hurt by this. It's something I really wanted, that I needed really, and yet she—”

Tom is grinning impishly at me.

“What?”

“This conversation is getting too deep for me,” he says.

“Every conversation is too deep for you.”

“Fuck you.”

“Where the hell are we going?”

“You need some beer,” he tells me. “I know the transmission is a big deal, and you're going to have plenty of time to worry about the return trip later. But right now you need to relax a little.”

“Okay, but maybe I should call Misty again and make sure she's okay. I talked to her earlier, before I saw you in the lobby, and she sounded pretty upset.”

“Call her from your cell phone.”

I reach for my back pocket but realize before my hand arrives that it's not there.

“Goddammit.”

“What?”

“I knew I'd forget something. I plugged my damn phone in last night to charge and never even thought about it today.”

He makes an abrupt right turn, and we pull into the parking lot of a small building that proclaims itself to be The Wildcat. About ten cars are parked here. The building doesn't have any windows.

“A strip club? You've got to be kidding me. I just risked my goddamn life for—”

“Come on, Cam. It's time you lived a little. Married life has made you soft.”

“Give me your cell phone. She was pretty upset at the station. I want to make sure she made it home okay.”

Tom reaches into his pocket and pulls out a slab of gray plastic that resembles a cigarette lighter.

“Is that a phone?”

“Just got it last week. Smallest one you can buy.”

“Of course it is.”

The buttons are so small that I'm forced to start over three times before finally keying the number correctly.

“Hi, this is Captain Kirk. Misty and I can't beam to the phone right now—”

Answering machine. I'm one of those geeks who thinks it's funny to make jokes on the outgoing announcement.

“She must not be home yet,” I tell Tom. “Let me try her cell.”

I key in her cell number and listen as the phone rings, but this time her voice mail answers. I leave a short message to let her know everything is okay, and that I'll call her later.

“Okay,” Tom says. “Can't say you didn't try. Now can we please go have a good time?”

         

Today I boldly stepped forward and became one of the first humans in history to be transmitted from one location to another via quantum teleportation. Such is the stuff of heroes, right? Scratch me into the history books right beside Columbus and Armstrong. And when they ask what Cameron Fisher did upon arriving safely at his destination, what will be the answer? Did he make a speech? Nope. Did he record on paper his memories of the trip for posterity? No way. What he preferred to do was drink alcohol and watch topless women shake their breasts in exchange for dollar bills.

At least The Wildcat is more upscale than I anticipated. The lights are dim, of course, but the fixtures shine, the carpet seems clean, and the air is ripe with a pleasant cinnamon fragrance. We find a table several feet away from the main stage and order a pitcher. I sip on my beer for ten minutes, watching the slow procession of women as they take turns dancing for the small audience. There are fifteen or so customers besides Tom and myself. Two are women at a table together. Several men are here alone.

Tom quickly guns down half the pitcher. He wants to go sit at “pervert row,” where the women will dance especially for you and put their barely concealed privates within inches of your eyes. I can stall him for only so long. Finally, when a stunning blonde takes the stage, he takes my arm and pushes me toward her.

The music is louder beside the stage. A layered orchestra of guitars and screaming, multitracked vocals melts my ears, imploring me to pour some sugar on someone. I place my beer on the table in front of me and reach for my wallet.

The present dancer is perhaps the most beautiful woman I've ever seen. Her eyes are bright blue and her tanned skin is velvety perfect. Contoured muscles and breasts the size of large melons are unmarked by discernible tan lines. She is probably twenty-five years old.

Tom pulls out a dollar bill, and the girl smiles as she dances, moving toward him, striking poses along the way that would make most women blush. He returns the smile and leans forward to improve his view. I watch as she throws herself toward him, then onto the stage, where she lies on her back and begins to thrust her pelvis up and down in a rhythmic motion that follows the music's simple beat. A few seconds later she scoots forward and pulls the G-string out a little, high on the hip, so Tom can insert his dollar. He clearly wishes she would dance for him a little longer, but the song has reached its closing chorus, and if she doesn't move on to me it means one less dollar this time around.

So now it's my turn. Unlike Tom, I don't just stare between her legs the entire time. A live dancer is not a two-dimensional picture, after all, but a human being with feelings and emotions who will observe my arousal. And I don't flash my money right away. I look into her eyes first, as if to establish personal contact, and then gradually gaze over her entire body, drinking in that flawless figure. She lies on the stage, never taking her eyes off me, and slides her hand over her skin, moving as my eyes move. I arrive at the G-string, red and tiny, and she glides her hand there, not touching herself but creating an effective illusion. Next she turns over, showing me her smooth backside, and then the song comes to its conclusion. The dance is over. My muscles relax.

She turns around, scoots toward me, and pushes her breasts together. I grab a five from my pocket and place it between them. Her teeth are gleaming white, perfectly capped.

“Thank you,” I say.

“You're welcome,” she says. “You're cute.”

“I bet you say that to all the men.”

“Not on your life,” she returns. “We get a lot of creeps in here.”

“How much for a table dance?”

“It's normally twenty dollars, but for you,” she pretends to think, “ten.”

“I'll tip you more than that.”

“I know.”

For each new song another woman comes out, and it's time for our dancer to leave. She gets to her feet and winks at me, then waves at Tom. We head back to our table.

“Look at the stud,” Tom says as we take our seats. “I think she likes you.”

“It helps if you're nice. And loose with the cash.”

“Say what you want, but I think she'd come back to the apartment with us if you asked her.”

I shake my head at that and gulp down the remaining beer in my glass. I may have seemed confident when she was dancing for me, but that was spontaneous, something I didn't have time to think about. Now that I know she's coming over here, I'll need a stronger buzz to relax. I order another pitcher. Tom is in heaven.

“I knew you'd come out of that shell if I gave you a chance!” he yells over the beginning of the next song.

“Go to hell,” I laugh.

We drink for a few more minutes. When our dancer doesn't join us right away, Tom heads back to pervert row. I let him go alone this time. Don't want to stand up my new friend.

I don't know why I asked for a table dance. I don't visit strip bars very often, mostly because the whole idea seems like an incomplete transaction to me. When gorgeous women gyrate their nude bodies just inches from your eyes, there is no immediate way to relieve the tension. At home you can sneak a magazine into the guest bathroom or watch pornographic movies when your wife isn't around, but in a strip bar you are forced to keep a lid on your excitement. And it
is
exciting. No healthy heterosexual man can deny such a claim.

Her dress is black, almost elegant, with the obligatory low-cut neckline and short skirt that falls nine inches above her knee. She stops at my table and sits beside me. I know in my mind that attraction between men and women is more than physical, that without a chemistry of personality there can be no real relationship, but that doesn't stop me from imagining myself with her. In this setting all pretense to civility is gone anyway. And while many argue that bringing sex out of the bedroom and into a public place goes against what is considered “proper” or “civilized,” I disagree. People who try to hide their desire by speaking about sexuality in hushed tones, who feel guilty about this most basic human instinct, are the truly uncivilized.

“I'm Crystal,” she says.

“Sure you are. My name is Cameron. Nice to meet you.”

“It sounds like a stage name, I know, but it's not.”

“It's a beautiful name, then.”

“Thanks.”

For a moment we just sit there. She stares at me closely, and I wonder what she sees. Is there something on my face? A lump or bruise forming where I hit my head earlier? What she finally says startles me.

“Are you bi?”

“What?”

“Are you bisexual?”

“Of course not. Why do you ask?”

“Because that man over there is staring at you.” She nods over my shoulder.

“With all due respect, Crystal, if he's staring at anyone at this table, I'm sure it's you.”

“Thank you, but he was looking at you before I ever got here.”

“How do you know?”

“Because he never looked at me when I was onstage. He just kept staring at you.”

Despite her explanation, I find it difficult to believe that I am the object of this mystery man's fascination.

“I was joking about the bisexual thing, of course. But I wonder why he would be so interested in you?”

“I have no idea.”

“Are you wanted by the police? Hiding from your bookie?”

“Really, Crystal, do I strike you as—”

“No,” she says. “But that doesn't change the fact that he's still staring at you.”

I want to turn around and look at the guy, but I don't want him to see me do it. Instead, I change the subject.

“You're a very good dancer,” I say, my tongue looser now because of the beer.

“Thank you again,” she says.

“But maybe you'd rather just hang out for a while. Save the act for your next stage performance. Can I buy you a drink instead?”

“Sure. You seem like a nice enough guy. But it's expensive.”

“How much?”

“Nineteen dollars.”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. And I usually don't like to do it all that much. Most guys who just want to talk are lonely geeks. It gets creepy sometimes.”

“I don't want to make you uncomfortable.”

“No, it's fine. Like I said, you seem like a pretty cool guy.” She turns around and signals someone at the bar. “So where's your wife?”

“In Houston.”

“Oh. What kind of work do you do?”

“Financial. I work for a company called NeuroStor.”

“Ah. ‘Flash memory for the new millennium.' ”

“You know the company?”

“I know lots of things. Are you here on business? I know NeuroStor has an office in Phoenix.”

“Vacation, actually. My wife doesn't like to spend time with my buddy Tom, so I came alone. Just got in a few minutes ago. This is the first place he brought me.”

“I can see why she stayed home. How long a flight is it from Houston? Three hours?”

The beer, it's really working on me now. Must be the empty stomach. Before I can stop myself, my mouth utters something I wish it hadn't.

“I didn't fly.”

A waitress appears at our table, places a strawberry daiquiri in front of Crystal, and then is gone.

“It's my usual,” she explains. “But there's not much alcohol in it. Gotta be sharp to dance my best.”

“Hope it tastes good. For twenty dollars.”

“Nineteen,” she says. “You don't think I'm worth it?”

This woman is a genuine knockout and seems unexpectedly intelligent. Flirting with her makes me feel like a real man. A real
married
man, but a real man nonetheless.

“Of course you're worth it,” I admit. I try not to notice how full and long her blond hair is, how it falls over her shoulders like strands of goldenrod. Why did Tom have to bring me here?

“So you didn't fly. What was it, like a twenty-hour drive? Or did you transmit?”

I nearly choke on my beer.

“What did you say?”

“I asked if you drove or if you transmitted.”

Because of the confidentiality agreement, I want to ask
What does transmit mean?
, but why the hell say something stupid like that? Anyone who bothers to use the word in that context knows what it means.

“How in the hell do you know about transmission?”

“How do people know anything these days? The Internet, of course.”

“The
Internet
?”

“You know, a bunch of computers interconnected—”

“I know what the Internet
is.
I just don't understand how you would have learned anything about transmission by clicking around Web pages.”

“Well, the Internet isn't just Web pages. It's newsgroups and bulletin boards and e-mail and . . . what difference does it make? I was just joking. You guys are a couple of years away from announcing it anyway, right?”

I'm stunned.

“I worked at NeuroStor for six years monitoring expense accounts, and I didn't know anything about transmission until three weeks ago, when they asked me to help them test it. And you found out about it on the Internet.”

“Test it?”

“That's how I came to Phoenix. I transmitted.”

“No shit?” She chokes down a swallow of the red liquor and then says again, “No
shit
?”

“No shit.”

“I can't believe that. You went through the machine? What was it like?”