"Sure," he said, "but I'm going upstairs for a few minutes first."
"Don't you leave a milk-glass up there! It goes all sour and stinks and it never comes off in the dishwasher!"
"I'll bring it down, Ma."
"You better!"
Brian went upstairs and spent half an hour sitting at his desk, dreaming over his Sandy Koufax card. When Sean came in to ask if he wanted to go down to the corner store with him, Brian shut his baseball-card book with a snap and told Sean to get out of his room and not to come back until he learned how to knock on a door when it was shut. He heard Sean standing out in the hallway, crying, and felt no sympathy at all.
There was, after all, such a thing as manners.
Warden threw a party in the county jail, Prison band was there and they began to wail, The band was J'Umpin and the joint began to swing, Y'oughtta heard those knocked-out jailhirds sing!
The King stands wi'th his legs apart, his blue eyes blazing, the bell bottoms of his white JUmpsuit shaking. Rhinestones glitter andflash in the overhead spotlights. A sheaf of blue-black hair falls across his forehead. The mike is near his mouth, but not so near Myra cannot see the pouty curl of his upper lip.
She can see everything. She is i'n the first row.
And suddenly, as the rhythm section blasts off, he is holding a hand out, holding it out to HER, the way Bruce Springsteen (who will never be The King in a million years, no matter how hard he tries) holds his hand out to that girl i'n his "Dancing in the Dark" video.
For a moment she's too stunned to do anything, too stunned to move, and then hands from behind push her forward, and HIs hand has closed over her wrist, HIs hand is pulling her up on stage. She can SMELL him, a mixture of sweat, English Leather, and hot, clean flesh.
A bare moment later, Myra Evans is in Elvis Presley's arms.
The satin of his jumpsuit is slick under her hands. The arms around her are muscular. That face, HIS face, the face of The King, is inches from hers. He is dancing with her-they are a couple, Myra Josephine Evans from Castle Rock, Malone, and Elvis Aron Presley, from Memphis, Tennessee! They dirty-dance their way across a wide stage in front of four thousand screaming fans as the jordanaires chant that funky old fifties refrain: "Let's rock... everybody let's rock...
"His hips move in against hers; she can feel the coiled tension at the center of him nudging against her belly. Then he twirls her, her skirt flares out flat, showing her legs all the way to the lace of her Victoria's Secret panties, her hand spins inside his like an axle inside a huh, and then he is drawing her to him again, and his hand slides down the small of her hack to the swell of her bu**ocks, cupping her tightly to him.
For a moment she looks down and there, beyond and below the glare of the footlights, she sees Cora Rusk staring up. Cora's face is baleful with hate and witchy with envy.
Then Elvis turns her head toward him and speaks in that syrupy mid-South drawl.- "Ain't we supposed to be lookin at each othah, honeh?"
Before she can reply, his full lips are on hers; the smell of him and thefeel ofhimfill the world. Then, suddenly, his tongue is in her mouththe King of Rock and Roll is french-kissing her in front of Cora and the whole damned world! He draws her tight against him again and as the horns kick in with a syncopated shriek, she feels ecstatic heat begin to uncoil in her loins. Oh, it has never been like this, not even down at Castle Lake with Ace Merrill all those years ago. She wants to scream, but his tongue is hurled in her mouth and she can only claw "into his smooth satin back, pumping her hips as the horns thunder into "My Way."
Mr. Gaunt sat in one of the plush chairs, watching Myra Evans with clinical detachment as her orgasm ripped through her. She was shaking like a woman experiencing a total neural breakdown, the picture of Elvis clutched tightly in her hands, eyes closed, bosom heaving, legs tightening, loosening, tightening, loosening. Her hair had lost its beauty-shop curl and lay against her head in a not-toocharming helmet. Her double chins ran with sweat much as Elvis's own had done as he gyrated ponderously across the stage during his last few concerts.
"Ooohh!" Myra cried, shaking like a bowl of jelly on a plate.
"Ooooh! Oooooooh my God! Ooooooooooooh my Gahhhhhhhhd!
OOOOHHHHH-" Mr. Gaunt idly tweezed the crease of his dark slacks between his thumb and forefinger, shook it out to its former razor sharpness, then leaned forward and snatched the picture from Myra's hands.
Her eyes, full of dismay, flew open at once. She grabbed for the picture, but it was already out of her reach. She started to get up.
"Sit down," Mr. Gaunt said.
Myra remained where she was, as if she had been turned to stone during the act of rising.
"If you ever want to see this picture again, Myra, sit... down."