motown 1991

We were hanging out on the patio of the Venture-N. Early evening just before twilight. Warm weather but not too warm. Sitting on the benches under the mulberry tree around the old rusty patio table. Passing joints and drinking draft beer out of real glass beer mugs. About five of us. Not talking much because we didn't really need to. Just toking and drinking and looking up every now and then into a sky that was handing it's blue over to red for a while.

Tad leaned in and started nibbling my beard, biting the ends off the coarse whiskers. Then he was nuzzling my neck, hand in my crotch, fondling.

I was pretty surprised, he had always been very aloof around me. He was one of the dreaded doyenne of the bitchy social set I occasionally orbited but never quite landed in.

But you know how that goes. I would watch those mean hateful queens out of the corner of my eyes all night just waiting for some signal that they might invite me into their warm, fragrant nidus. I only hate cliques because I've never been invited into one.

And here was Tad(!) nibbling my beard. We went into the bar and had more drinks and went back out to the patio and groped each other again, and kissed a lot and on and on. Back and forth at the Venture-N for a while and then over to Mary's for drinks and groping on their patio. Then off to the Ripcord for more of same. I wanted as many people as possible to see me with him. He was a short, hairy, wiry, balding man with a big red beard and one of those tough but thoroughly a bottom deportments.

As the hour grew late it was time to settle on where to go to have sex. His place had a lover and mine was a filthy mess. I didn't want him, or anybody else, to see it.

We settled on the baths at Westheimer and Fannin which, because of its location and clientele of late, was called the Motown Spa. He had a pass and we just wanted a place to fuck for a few hours.

As luck would have it the attendant knew us both.

"Oh, my! Look what the cat dragged in! Whatever are you girls up to tonight?"

"Nuthin."

"Nuthin?! Mmhm, how's your husband Tad?"

"He's fine Billy, I got a pass for a room. And I wanna buy Zack a locker for the night."

"Oh hello Zack, I didn't recognize you there honey" he lied. "Tad gonna buy you a locker?"

"Yeah."

"I'm gonna need to see your I.D. sweetie."

I handed it to him, Tad paid my entry fee, and in we went. Through the dirty anteroom with its old second hand second rate hotel lobby chairs. Over the dingy, dull vinyl tiles we walked to the stairs and climbed up to the warren of rooms.

The upstairs area was a long hallway with six or seven rooms on either side. The lighting was cave inspired. The carpet low pile and low grade, a bit tacky on your feet and dark in color. The ceiling was acoustic tile stained by years and years of cigarette smoke. The walls and doors were painted black. It was like a scary German movie.

If the tenants of the rooms weren't inside of them fucking a stranger, or getting fucked by one, they were standing in the doorways leering, or groping themselves, or with a pleading look in their eyes. Some of them attractive, those aloof and preening. Some of them trolls, and who knows what their faces said as no one ever made eye contact with them.

We went into our room and fucked for hours. Intense greasy, hot, sex that left bruises on our bodies and fragrance in our beards for days.

Later, near sunrise, we went to the second story terrace and sat in the hot tub. Stretching out nude under the hot, bubbling water, the strong smell of chlorine burning our noses and eyes.

Tad got out of the tub, stretched and sauntered off into the steam room. I lolled my head back and contemplated my own bed and the thought that I'd have to go soon and walk the dogs.

Suddenly Tad ran from the steam room and, rushing up to me said, "Dude, there's some guy laying on the floor of the steam room!"

"What, is he dead?" I asked, jokingly of course.

"I think he might be, you're a nurse, you should go look." He was totally serious and looked very scared.

I got out of the jacuzzi and walked naked into the steam room.

The steam was on so the room was cloudy and hot and wet. It had the smell of a middle school locker room. Like wet gym socks and sweaty tidie whities. The small, white floor tiles were sort of cool and slimy feeling. The same small white tiles with dingy grout covered the walls and benches.

There he was. Right between my feet. A middle aged, middle height, overweight hispanic male. Nude, a bottle of poppers in his left hand. His eyes were open but, because of the steam, they didn't have that dead look. They were still moist and seemed to be looking just past me. And he had a sort of relaxed smile on his face.

Remembering my CPR training I grabbed his shoulders and started to shake him, saying, "Hey, are you okay?" But I knew as soon as my fingers met his shoulders that he was dead. I still felt for a pulse.

I ran back out and told Tad the guy was indeed dead. He asked if I was sure. I thought about it a second and ran back into the steam room, grabbed the body firmly and shook the hell out of him yelling, "hey, hey, are you okay?" I felt for a pulse again, there was none. He was pretty stiff too.

I left the steam room and walked back to where Tad was again lounging in the hot tub, which I thought was kind of weird since he was the one who originally found the corpse. I told him the man was indeed dead. Then I went and told the attendant. He didn't believe me at first. I had to convince him.

The police were called. Tad and I got the hell out of there. I didn't want to have to answer a bunch of questions from a bunch of judgemental pigs. Plus, I was coming down pretty hard from a night of partying and fucking. And my dogs needed to be walked.

Tad dropped me off at home. I walked the dogs straight to Mary's and had a couple of screwdrivers. Tad was there. He was telling everybody about our adventure at the baths. They were all laughing.