A Glittering Chaos Read online

  She smiled and took the money.

  “Check that your key card works,” he said, “these new-fangled ones often don’t and if it doesn’t, you’ll have to go back to the front desk and ask for a new one.”

  “Oh, Hans,” she said, running out of patience, “it will work just fine.”

  “Off you go then, and have fun.” He turned back to his suitcase. “Melusine…”

  “Yes?” she asked sharply.

  “Sunscreen,” he said, and he threw a small tube at her, which she caught and put in her handbag.

  “Drink lots of water,” she heard him call out as she left. “We are in the desert.”

  She laughed and set off at high speed; a jerky walk that was almost a run.

  She reached the Strip, stopped for a moment, and took a deep breath. A feeling of wild glee swelled in her chest like a balloon and she choked down a sob of joy.

  It was the first week of October and back home, the world was wearing a drab coat of brown and gray but before her lay a vibrant scene of explosive colour. Melusine looked at the blue-green MGM hotel with its enormous golden lion standing guard and then over at the New York, New York, with its giant Statue of Liberty and skyscraper skyline. A rollercoaster wove up and down and around the hotel, and she could hear the screams of the tiny people on the ride as they flipped over and hurtled this way and that, and she hurried in their direction.

  The Strip was much bigger than she had imagined and she had to walk a good few blocks to get from the street corner to inside the New York, New York hotel.

  The interior was buzzing with tourists, food joints, and trinket vendors. Melusine realized that she was as good as mute since no one would be able to understand a single thing she had to say and, with her silenced tongue she found a freedom to censor neither word nor thought.

  Deaf to all meaning, her ears had been liberated from their duties, and she made no effort to even try to understand the chatter around her or decipher the codes of words. The border of speech had become a tangible thing; she could not touch it but it stood between her and the rest of the world like a shield — she was a wordless conqueror.

  Ingeborg! I’m the living embodiment of that which fascinated you. Perhaps this wordless experiment will help name the ‘unspeakable’ truth that is both transient and real. Or perhaps, for once, I’m simply to be carefree — if I can manage that…

  She went down the escalator into the casino, gliding into the anonymous artificial night; outside it was only lunchtime. Everybody, it seemed, was carrying a drink and for a wild moment she wondered if she should get one too; get tipsy, get a buzz on.

  She laughed at herself. She didn’t use those kinds of words. She had never been drunk in Hans’s presence although he swore there was a night when she returned from her best friend Ana’s and he had to carry her up the stairs and undress her and put her to bed.

  “I was simply tired,” she argued. “I was just tired and you were kind.”

  The truth was that she and Ana had been drunk. They had been celebrating her fortieth birthday and she had wanted to get very, very drunk and Ana had obliged.

  And now, looking at the holidaymakers, with their drinks in hand, she wanted to be drunk too. Not just tipsy, drunk.

  But she cautioned herself. It was time to get back out into the daylight.

  Need to calm down a bit.

  She remembered something that her son had said to a friend on the phone; no need to blow his wad in the first five minutes. It came to mind now, that phrase that she had found so ugly; no need for her to blow her wad in the first five minutes.

  She wandered slowly down the Strip, looking around her. She was a miniature Gulliver in Brobdingnag; everything around her was huge—the hotels were cities; empires, each boasting a spaceship-sized façade, with limos and cabs circling the lobbies like birds of prey ready to snatch up carrion. Pedestrians were ferocious toddlers who ignored traffic signals and pushed forward in waves, and she wondered where everyone was going. She knew she was irritating those around her as she slowed down to look this way and that. She stared at the plethora of shopping bags; every pedestrian was laden. Should a tsunami inexplicably wash through the desert and rush down through the Strip, this lot would be buoyed to safety by the glossy bags. Perhaps she needed to get some too; balance Gucci with Yves Saint Laurent, throw credit card caution to the wind, wouldn’t that be nice?

  She watched a woman throwing coins into a fountain and she tried to imagine what the woman could be wishing for with such intense hope. She asked herself what she would wish for but could think of nothing. Her gnawing restlessness was quiet for the moment, uncomplaining.

  She walked for five hours, zig-zagging, and she finally reached the Bellagio where she sank down onto a bench. It was close to six o’clock. She was starving and it was a long walk back to her hotel.

  She regretted not curtailing her desire to explore and she felt angry with herself. She muttered under her breath, scolding herself as she would a child, and she felt a headache building. She tried to recapture her earlier feeling of exhilaration but she simply felt lost and exhausted and she hated herself at that moment, hated her aching body, her unreliable moods, her tiredness and her age. She wished she’d never come on the trip; and now she was stuck here for a week. Hans had been right, what had she been thinking?

  She thought about hailing a cab; she could point to the hotel on the map that Hans had given her. She twisted around on the bench and turned to look back up the Strip in the direction of her hotel, trying to calculate how long it would take her if she walked straight back, with no detours into any of the shops or hotels.

  But when she turned, she was filled with wonder and her punishing thoughts fell away; the Strip was glowing and flashing with electric beauty and the sky was liquid gold and it seemed to Melusine that a light was shining down from heaven and pouring into every nook and cranny, polishing the buildings and facades with a sharp gleam. The world was surreal, and the light was calling out to her because she was the only one who mattered. And it was telling her that she was welcome and that she was wanted and that she was in Vegas for a reason.

  Melusine was not a religious woman. She had attended church to make her mother happy and she had followed the diocesan rules with diligence, but she’d never felt the strangely otherworldly comfort that she felt now.

  There are, indeed things that cannot be put into words. They make themselves manifest. They are what is mystical. Ach me, with my dead philosophers and poets. I’m not alone. I’ve never been alone.

  She felt her shoulders relax and she exhaled the tightness out of her chest. Her teeth had been clenched and her lips tightly pursed. She rubbed her jaw, not caring who saw her.

  She sat turned towards the light until darkness fell.

  And then suddenly, the night was filled with loud music and Frank Sinatra broke into song: Luck Be A Lady. Melusine recognized the tune, and she sat up in alarm. She hadn’t noticed the crowds that had gathered around her and she wondered what was wrong; why had all these people stopped here?

  Before she could question any further, the lake in front of her exploded into balletic fountains with jets of water shooting upwards with cannonball thrust, in time to the music.

  Melusine was enthralled. She sat for another half an hour, for two more showings. Then she got to her feet and decided it was time to make her way back to her hotel.

  She bought a bottle of water and a chocolate bar and ate as she walked, smiling at the costumed mimes that lined the way, waiting to be photographed with eager tourists.

  She dodged dozens of stubby ugly men and women, all of them wearing bright orange T-shirts and snapping business cards at her. She accepted a few of the cards before she noticed that they were of nearly-naked, provocatively posed women.

  Melusine studied the cards, not understanding the words but the message was clear. The young women hooked their lacy panties down with cheeky thumbs, or rubbed the taut nipples of full, round breasts,
jutting their smooth bellies forward. Some of the girls were kneeling, naked, with their backs to the camera, spines curved and flawless buttocks thrust upward. Censor stars covered nipples, anus and vagina but in some places the stars had slipped and were strangely lodged; drunken adornments of blameless flesh. A few of the girls had their hands posed provocatively over their vaginas, or, as looks would slyly intimate, with fingers slipped inside. There were girls in swimming pools, on bicycles and chairs; there were girls wearing sheer lace thongs with their hands cupped behind their heads, and on some of the cards, girls were entangled with other girls; their lipsticked cherry mouths open, ready to give and receive, doe-eyes gazing at the camera.

  Melusine threw the cards down in disgust.

  But she was aroused.

  When she and Ana were young and at school together, they’d tease each other, saying “was that a positively pant-wetting experience for you, my dear?”

  Melusine knew that while she’d never tell Ana what had just occurred, it was without doubt, pant-wetting.

  She felt excited, disturbed and ashamed; her groin was hot and tight and her lace panties rubbed roughly against the softness of her swollen flesh.

  She caught sight of the Excalibur hotel, modeled like a Disney castle and she pushed her way inside. She was nearly hallucinating with tiredness but she was aching with a sudden and fierce longing that the cards had woken in her.

  The interior of the Excalibur was shabby and Melusine wrinkled her nose at the casino aroma of powdered carpet freshener mixed with spilled alcohol, cigarette smoke, and cheap perfume.

  She walked in a daze, not sure what she was looking for, but searching. She stopped to watch the tabletop showgirls; some were sensual and engaged, dancing as if they actually meant it, while others were bored in their feathered bikinis and one girl was even snapping gum. Melusine could imagine the girl on a grassy lawn in a small American town, swinging a hula-hoop at a family barbecue, with all the uncles watching appreciatively.

  Melusine moved on and soon found herself transfixed by a poster for The Apollo Boys; a male revue group of muscle-bound young men who seemed to be looking directly at her and the hotness inside her grew and she could feel her tight nipples brushing against the lace of her bra. She did not care if the men were young enough to be her son; she imagined slipping her hand down into their tight underwear and feeling the hot solid hardness of smooth cock.

  Then she noticed a group of women in their forties, spilling out of their clothes every which way, and tottering on high heels, already drunk with lust and alcohol and she felt a terrible shame for her thoughts and her desire. She told herself that she was not like them but she was still on fire and she rushed back to her hotel with a raw ache in her belly.

  She was relieved to find a note from Hans; he was out with his colleagues and she wasn’t to wait up.

  Grateful that she didn’t have to worry about his return, she shed her clothes and stood under the shower, masturbating with a fury she had not known in a long time, with the water a river of tears running down her face and her mouth an open silent scream as she came.

  When she had finished, she leaned against the wall, wishing she had paid more attention to the sex toy novelty stores.

  Tomorrow. I’ll buy myself a treat tomorrow. Something to fuck me hard. I’m sorry, Ingeborg, to be so crass but this place has woken me from my coma and I feel as if I’m starving; I want to feast, rip flesh with my teeth and howl at the moon. I apologize, Ingeborg. You were the one with genius, I am merely a body.

  Momentarily satiated, she stood in front of the bathroom mirror and studied herself. Her breasts were as fine as any of the card girls, despite her being twice their age, and her legs were better than most and her waist was tight and her stomach flat.

  She caressed her body, knowing it would not be long before the all-consuming hunger returned, wanting more. She did not recognize her expression; she was angry, dark, fierce.

  She checked the time. It was well after midnight.

  She climbed into bed and took half a sleeping pill from the stash her doctor had given her for the plane ride. She knew she was too wound up to sleep without help and she lay awake with her hand between her legs, waiting for the pill to work.

  3.

  IN THE MORNING, it is too early to hit the Strip and Melusine heads for the pool, bumping into the man in the elevator on the way. She is half-hoping that the coolness of a swim will help her come to her senses while another part of her argues: let’s not come to our senses at all, let’s follow this path of awakened desire and see where it leads.

  She makes a note to ask Hans where she is supposed to get the towels for the swimming pool.

  She wades into the icy water. The pool area is crowded but she’s the only one swimming. The cold feels wonderful, exhilarating.

  She thinks about Hans who must have come back to the hotel while she was sleeping her drugged sleep. He was gone again before she woke, and he left her a note: Enjoy your day. Don’t wait up tonight.

  The sun feels glorious and she stretches out, wriggling her toes. When she looks up, she is startled to see a young man across the pool eying her with appreciation and she blushes. He’s in his early thirties, with thick wild blonde hair and a large tattoo on the side of his arm. He is not nearly as hot as he thinks he is. She puts on her sunglasses and pretends to hide behind the German magazine she’s brought but she watches the young man watching her. There is something sleazy about him; he is very clearly on the make, and she raises her magazine to block the view.

  She reads and swims until noon, taking turns between the cold pool and the swirling hot tub but her yearning to be out on the Strip soon asserts its power. She goes back to the room, changes and heads out, making straight for the Excalibur. In spite of the language barrier, she manages to buy herself a ticket to the nine p.m. show of The Apollo Boys.

  Positively pant-wetting. She smiles and wishes Ana was with her. She’s certain that Ana would be game for some fun but nevertheless Ana would be astounded at Melusine’s interest in such things.

  She leaves the hotel, with her ticket a hot throbbing promise in her purse, and strolls down the Strip, taking a side street that leads her to a few high-end art galleries. She stops in at one featuring Richard MacDonald; sculptures based on the balletic, gymnastic and naked bodies of the Cirque du Soleil performers, with their musculature extreme and taut. The bodies are exquisite, with faces contorted in pain as they push themselves beyond their limits. The art pivots and turns on stands and the displays are huge, larger than life.

  Melusine wishes she could touch them; wishes they would come to life and dance with her. The gallery owner attempts to engage her in conversation but she shakes her head. German.

  She goes into the next gallery that is filled with glass sculptures by Dale Chihuly and the art is magnificent; glossy, lush and iridescent, but all she can see are gigantic penises and open vaginas, blood-red, engorged and pulsating with passion, ripe to explode.

  She leaves the gallery and walks further down the Strip, finding a novelty store filled with sex toys. She examines the erotic fortune cookies but their messages are lost on her. She picks up cookie cutters in the shape of penises and wonders what her fellow librarians would say if she whipped up a batch of sugar-frosted chocolate cocks.

  Delicious, nein? Ach, only joking…

  She looks at shot glasses adorned with crude genitals, as if a craft group had sculpted them in a hurry. She is only really interested in the dildos but she is too shy to approach that area of the store; when she notices that no one is paying her the slightest attention, she goes over to examine what is on offer.

  Half an hour later she settles for a giant black cock that promises to pleasure her with three speeds. She purchases it with Hans’s money and feels a confused sense of anger, triumph and nervous excitement.

  She rushes back to her hotel room, rips open the packaging and lies down on the bed, ready to explode like a Chihuly wildflower. Bu
t she finds the dildo no more erotic than the handle of her hairbrush and the shuddering speeds bring her electric toothbrush to mind. She licks it experimentally, then she slaps it against the palm of her hand.

  “I think I’ll call you Kurt,” she tells it. “Well, my friend, I guess I’m just not the right woman for you. Maybe we’ll get on better after I’ve seen my show tonight.”

  She pulls the gold satin comforter over her and thinks about her marital sex life. She asks herself if she’s the one to blame for the bland nature of their tepid physical forays. Perhaps she needs to be more take-charge and sexually aggressive but Hans has never seemed to encourage that kind of thing. She’s fairly positive that their routine lovemaking has been dictated by him, as are his regimented, although not unwelcome, foot rubs.

  Hans is a stickler for a foot rub. He insists on massaging her feet with unusual dedication.

  A woman has to shelter her real feelings in the ones she’s invented, just to stand the whole business with the feet, but above all to stand the greater part that’s missing, for someone who is so hung up on feet is bound to be greatly neglecting something else.

  No! Melusine had argued with Ingeborg. He’s not hung up on feet, he’s not. It’s his way of showing affection.

  “A long day standing?” Hans would say, which was their signal.

  “Yes,” she’d reply. She had learned early on that saying no was not an option; when she had said no, not realizing the importance of his request, he had given her the silent treatment until she acquiesced.

  “Wash your feet then,” he would say in response to her agreement, and she’d trot off to the bathroom, returning with a towel in hand and her feet clean and fragrant.

  Hans rubbed her feet two to three times a week for at least an hour each time.

  There had been one incident in the early years when Melusine had developed a hint of the callus on the third toe of her right foot. “You need to take care of that,” Hans had said with distaste, badgering her to completely remove the thick and hardened skin so that the foot rubs might resume and Melusine had obliged.