Bullets, Strippers and the Pillbox Hat

 

I dreamed that Sharon and I were holed up in a cheap motel in a no-name desert town. She was an invalid, although not completely bedridden. Our world consisted of TV shows and TV dinners, and the only time we ever opened the door was for food deliveries. Despite the stagnancy of our mundane routine, our life was generally pretty peaceful. Occasionally, Sharon would order something from Amazon or from a TV advertisement just to break the monotony. 

One day, Sharon saw a black guy on TV advertising for a local fundraiser. They were sending strippers out to people's homes to collect, in hopes of garnering higher donations. Sharon was all over it, and within minutes of her making the call on the big rotary dial hotel telephone, a knock came on the door.

"Special delivery," a voice came from outside.

I hadn't been aware of any recent orders, so I was a bit skeptical, but I opened the door anyway. The black guy from the TV ad was standing on the doorstep, dressed as a cheesy drag queen. The sequined mini dress didn't pair well with his overdeveloped musculature, and his face, though round and somewhat babyish, was quite incongruous with the shade of lavender lipstick he was wearing. His speech had an effeminate vocal quality, and he spoke with slight lisp.  

"I'm here to entertain you, sweetie," he said. 

I wasn't sure if he was speaking to me or to Sharon. I began to tell him that there must have been a mistake, that I hadn't ordered any adult entertainment, but Sharon popped up out of bed and grabbed her purse. I thought she was just going to give him a five spot to cover his gas, and to apologize for the mixup, but instead she pulled out a twenty and handed it to him. 

"Oh, thank you dear," he said demurely, "and the children thank you. Are you sure you don't want me to entertain you, just for a bit?"

Sharon declined, and I just shook my head. He left, and then Sharon gave me the scoop. She'd ordered the stripper, but apparently had failed to specify gender, so they must have just sent over whoever was available, assuming that since a female made the call, that a male would be the preferred choice. 

She put on a beaded and bedazzled pillbox hat, and looking as innocent and sweet as a church grannie from the '40s, said to me, "It's just as well. You couldn't handle a female stripper. You'd be creaming your jeans."

"You're right," I said. "I couldn't handle it. But I would most likely injaculate, so instead of creaming my jeans, my brain would just explode." (The Chinese practice of semen retention had long been a subject of debate between the two of us, and neither one of us was really a fan.)

We went back to watching TV, and I grabbed the remote from the dresser. Next to the remote was an assortment of bullets, mostly large caliber rifle rounds. I picked one up and showed it to Sharon. 

"Do you suppose that the stripper left these here?" I asked. "And what caliber do you think they are?" I knew nothing of calibers and grains, only that they looked intimidatingly large and very lethal. 

"I don't know, baby," Sharon said, and she flashed me a smile. "Do you like my new hat?"

I did like her hat very much. I smiled and put her back to bed, her and her pillbox hat, cute as a button and snug as a bug in a rug.