Midnight at the Voodoo Lounge

Prose, including snippets (mini-memoirs).
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goldenmyst
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Midnight at the Voodoo Lounge

Post by goldenmyst » January 16th, 2019, 12:15 am

Midnight at the Voodoo Lounge

When fall comes, it feels the time to make a cool change. Rosa’s ladder out of this tar pit is to get a bartending license. So instead of hooking up with men, she juices them up. Feeding this vice is much more to her taste.

Ruth tells Rosa, “Get your prissy self to serving drinks. You know the boss don’t like you popping Benzedrine on break time. Sure you look like a 40s starlet in that red dress with all the frills but if you get jazzed on those pills you might start spiking their cocktails with crazy medicine. We might have the men giving the women a pat down like in airport security when the camera isn’t looking. The ladies would stop patronizing us. Then the men would vanish like the wooly mammoths and Sweet Jesus it would just be us, waitresses, to drink up all the suds.”

While Rosa wipes his table, a man with salt and pepper hair says to her, “You look as sweet as honey straight from the hive.”

“You look as sly as a fox in the hen house.”

“Take a load off your feet. Let me buy you a drink.”

“Oh, you probably say that to all the girls.”

“Actually I’m shy. Had you not crossed into my personal space, I wouldn’t have said a word to you.”

“I love shy guys. You dudes are a challenge.”

“I am a man of many words. Most of them I write into stories.”

“So what do you do for a living?”

“I’m working on my Ph.D. in primatology.”

“So what are you writing your dissertation on?”

“The mating habits of bonobo Chimpanzees.”

“Sounds kinky, care to share some of your findings?”

“Well, the dominant males clasp the testicles of their rivals to express their dominance.”

“Really, I did that with a guy I dated but he always seemed to be the one in charge.”

The dragon lady, sprawled on the couch, summons Rosa with her husky voice like she is channeling Garbo in a séance, “Gimme me a whiskey, ginger ale on the side. And don’t be stingy, baby.”

“Your Anna Christie imitation made my heart skip a beat. You get a drink on the house for that.”

Rosa watches her sip her drink with the coyness of a virgin but her fiery mane cascades in waves of ecstasy and dangles on the edge of forever. Her bare midriff tells the tale of her dragon heart with a tattoo which rises like a harbinger of unearthly pleasures with the promise of what lies beneath where paradise beckons in luscious splendor.

A plump lady with short black hair sits at the bar. But what is most conspicuous about her is the huge green boa wrapped around her neck. The Boa sips brandy from a glass. The lady says, “Stop that Arthur. You know you can’t hold your liquor.” She tenderly strokes the snake whose head sways while gazing at the lava lamp on the wall. Arthur seems hypnotized by the corpuscular shapes as they evolve before his very eyes. The snake sips some more brandy and the lady brushes him away from the glass. Rosa looks surprised when the snake looks at her. Quickly it slips from the lady’s neck and slithers under Rosa only to climb under her dress and up her leg where the bulge in her panties makes her gasp. The lady tells Rosa, “Stay still, he is a constrictor and you don’t want to spook him because he might wrap around you and then who knows what.”

Rosa says, “My God, he’s licking me!” She looks creeped out at first but says, “He’s making me ticklish” and giggles. She says, “This isn’t what it looks like. I’m laughing to keep from screaming.” What started out as a shock turns into laughter to be put in such a position. Arthur pokes around down there where he seems to have found a burrow warmer and cozier than any hole in the ground. Arthur slides down her leg leaving a moist trail. Rosa tells Ruth, “Sorry but I didn’t want to provoke him. Please forgive me.” Ruth shakes her head. Rosa says, “When I was a kid my brother Joey stuffed a garter snake down the seat of my pants. That was icky. But this was a hoot like when Joey stuck a garden hose in my jeans.”
“Rosa lay off the bennies just for tonight.”

“The speed is the saccharin in my diet soda but there is no substitute for sugar in this soft drink called life.”

Over on the sofa, the dragon lady slumps into a glassy-eyed angel hipster blitzed out on life where she lies like a Pre-Raphaelite vision whose jade eyes sparkle with sensual fury in midnight paroxysms of supernal delight. Rosa smiles at her and she winks back at her like she’s had enough to drink and wants Rosa to take her home to sober up, get her life together, and get a job. The long lines at the unemployment office will give them plenty of time to get to know each other. But when this girl hits the sauce and Rosa is hopping like a Mexican jumping bean from the amphetamines it could turn into a three ring circus fast.

At closing time Rosa asks the dragon lady to accompany her to the changing area which is behind the bead curtains off to the side. Rosa’s new friend sits on the bench watching her. Rosa slips out of her lingerie and sponge baths at the sink.

The lady asks, “Wouldn’t taking a shower at home be preferable?”

Rosa says, “I like to feel fresh on the way home especially at the end of my witching hour shift. I need to wash the slime of that snake off me. He touched me where only a woman’s lover should.”

Rosa says, “I Would love to wash your beautiful hair in the sink. But you should take off your blouse first to keep it from getting wet.”

She says, “I love getting my hair washed at the beauty parlor. There is something about having a stylist rub my scalp which is altogether wonderful.”

Rosa says, “Would you feel uncomfortable about me seeing you in your bra?”

The girl replies, “Not at all, when I wear my jogging suit my top is a bra not to mention that when I wear my bikini at the pool my exposure is the same as when in my lingerie. Besides, it is just us girls.”

Rosa says, “Women come and go in this room, but pay them no mind. This space is for ladies to feel comfortable in their own bodies because women come in all shapes and sizes. I hope you will visit me here again because I am fond of you.”

She replies, “I come here on Tuesday nights. Let’s do this each time I visit.”

“Did you see that Boa head straight up my dress like he knew what he was looking for? If so, do you think he has a crush on me?”

“Do snakes get crushes? If they do then it certainly appears you have attracted some unwanted affection. There is nothing worse than a drunk slobbering all over you of whatever species.”

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sasha
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Re: Midnight at the Voodoo Lounge

Post by sasha » January 19th, 2019, 2:16 pm

This has almost a dream-like quality to it - the logical nonsequiturs (e.g. the guy, presumably you, at the bar who disappears from the narrative) - the snake sipping brandy - its erotic symbolism as it coils up Rosa's leg - all the surrealism of our nocturnal voyages within, and the plump lady's closing quip symbolizing perhaps a return to wakeful consciousness....?

BTW, my dad died over 30 years ago, but he and I changed the oil in my mom's car just a few nights ago - once we found it within that derelict building..... then we couldn't find our way out......
.
"Falsehood flies, the Truth comes limping after it." - Jonathan Swift, ca. 1710

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goldenmyst
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Re: Midnight at the Voodoo Lounge

Post by goldenmyst » January 19th, 2019, 8:08 pm

Sasha, love that my surreal prose resonated with your dream of your Dad. Your analysis of my story unveils the underlying structure beautifully. This is one of a series of dreamlike stories I've written during the past year. I didn't actually dream this but it was kind of a waking dream which I put into prose. Love that your Dad and you are still attentive to your Mom's car. I have faith that you two will find your way out of that building. That he found you here on earth after all those years so far apart is a sign that he is still a part of your life in your heart and soul.

John

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sasha
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Re: Midnight at the Voodoo Lounge

Post by sasha » January 20th, 2019, 10:19 am

Dad died in 1988, but he visits me often in dream - maybe every other week. And it's always as he was in Life - except for once, long ago, as The Thing In The Wheelchair, when I let it be known that that particular manifestation was NOT welcome in my sleep! He has acceded to my wishes, and only appears as his vital, sometimes irascible, self.
.
"Falsehood flies, the Truth comes limping after it." - Jonathan Swift, ca. 1710

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goldenmyst
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Re: Midnight at the Voodoo Lounge

Post by goldenmyst » January 20th, 2019, 1:24 pm

His love for you made him come to you in a form which was how you needed to remember him. My former wife visits me in the peak of health as she was during our travels. So do my grandparents. Though I never had them enter my dreams in a wheelchair. Glad you stood up to your father and he cooperated.

John

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