2004-11-11 - 8:29 p.m.
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VIVAAAAAA LAS VEGAAAAAAS
The glitter and lights of Nevada's crown jewel of sin were a waste to me. I stared out the window at them all blinking and glimmering, a sea full of trouble in a town built on greed. I could hear the sucking sound through my window, the faint sound of something being sucked from you at all times. Innocence? Purity? Money? Sure, all three, why not?
The whole scene was just an outline, the background. The sparkles of the Stardust dancing around, the looming Stratosphere in the background and the brokedown Wynn standing there like an oaf, an unfinished tower of moneylovin lust. The whole night exploded around her outline, I could see all of the greed central playing on her back.
The motion censor in the corner of the room barely turned on. We lay still on the bed, the quiet din of hotel silence puncuated by the gasping of water and air through vents and pipes. In rooms above us, people did things while people below us did things and the people on the other side of the odd double door doorway did...things. Who cared anyway, in all actuality. I could hear her heartbeat, feel it on my arm as I threw an arm around her. This was the closest you can get, after being so far away that even a plane couldn't get there before tomorrow.
I get up to go to the bathroom, some gaudy and enormous house of a room. I know people with smaller bedrooms. The jacuzzi jet bath is silent and empty now, but we had almost drown in bubbles hours before. The double sink is cluttered with makeup, cologne, toothbrushes, my razor and every single bottle they gave me is opened and half empty. I can hear drops behind the glass of the shower door. Oddly enough, the place you'd spend the most time - on the toilet - is in an area smaller than my closet but with a shelf and a phone for those "rare emergencies". There is also an ashtray and matches.
I come back and try to slip into bed without shaking her. The whole thing is in shambles - the bed shakes like a Jell-o mold the moment you walk near it and the covers are tattered and have cigarette burns from other people getting lazy. We've long since torn the sheets from cleanliness and have patches of matress poppoing up, ready to put red marks on your arm in the morning if you manage to roll over to that wrong side of the bed I keep hearing people talk about but could never find before.
It seems to me I can't sleep no matter which side of the bed I'm on so they're both bad.
I can see her shake a little and turn over towards me as I finish utterly destroying her sleep by attempting to return to bed comfortably. It's ok though - she throws her arms out and I climb into them. They wrap around me and sudden the hotel silence is taken over by the music of bodies together. I can hear her breath on my ear, feel air going in, leaving, returning, escaping. Her lips dance on my cheek and neck and my leghairs square dance in celebration.
I can't even see the lights, hear the clang of money fall into trays, smell the wafting stench of gambling capture me and draw me in. Instead, I'm numb. I can't feel pain, I can't feel cold. I can only feel loved and whole, only feel completed and secure. There is no sorrow that can penetrate the seal of our hearts beating right next to each other. There are no phones to our ears, there are no state lines between us. There aren't even any clothes between us - as close as you can get to becoming one.
Somewhere, there is a man walking on the street below us. It could be a woman. It could be children or dogs. There could a whole sea of people, in fact all of them in this stinking cesspool of a town. It very well could be every last one of these people - the cocktail waitress with 10 bags under her eyes in a suit propping her tits up as she brings the morbidly obese their drinks as they sink thousands of dollars they need into a machine they don't need while a lounge singer plays for a room full of people too drunk to listen while the cook in the back spits on the $3.99 steak that will probably be comped out by the little old lady who bought it using points she spent $2000 in slot dollars to get. All of these people are dying for that last piece, the fame they came for, the big win adrenaline orgasm they need to counter the infinite torture of losses they've suffered, the only reason they'd even leave the house...
I would pity them here, in her arms - whole - but they don't even know what they're missing anyway.
BMC
What did you just say? - What's he gonna say next?
