“A nice top-boy, huh? All right. I’ll dig something up, but ... uh ... would you prefer any particular body type, any age, any quirks?”
“No,” Eric said simply. “Just that he be nice.”
“All right then,” Dan said. “I’ll get my people on it.”
Laura smiled. “Thanks, Dan.”
“No problem,” he said. “Part of the job.”
She turned to Eric. “Eric, don’t you want to thank Dan for doing this for you?”
Eric muttered something that might have been a thank you.
“You’re welcome,” Dan said.
They headed back to the spools to resume their seats. They were about halfway there when Laura suddenly stopped. Eric stopped with her and looked at her questioningly.
“Go ahead and sit back down, Eric,” she told him. “I just thought of something else I wanted to ask Danny.”
“Oh ... okay,” Eric said. He resumed his course.
Laura turned and walked back over to the security chief, her stride a little more hesitant now, but determined.
“Something else, Laura?” he asked when she got back over to him.
“Uh ... yeah,” she said softly. “One more request.”
“For whom? Eric?”
“Uh ... no,” she said. “It’ll be ... uh ... for me.”
“For you?” he said, his voice toneless, his eyes, once again, without a hint of judgement.
“That’s right,” she said. “What’s the situation at these selection points of yours with ... uh ... lesbians?”
He did not bat an eye. “We generally have a pretty good showing of the muff-munchers,” he told her. “Most are hoping that Celia swings that way, or if not Celia, maybe you or even Liz.”
“I see,” she said, feeling herself blush. Even though she had done this nine times on the Bobby Z tour, it was still always awkward. “Well ... the fact of the matter is ... uh ... that I have been known to swing that way on occasion.”
“Uh huh,” Dan said with a nod, as if this information did not surprise him a bit. He pulled out his notebook and pen again. “What are we talking here? Lipstick lesbian for you?”
“That’s right,” she said. “Age doesn’t really matter, as long as she’s ... uh ... not illegal or uh ... old enough to be my mother.”
Dan nodded and wrote that down. “Big boobs?” he asked.
“I prefer natural boobs, no matter what the size.”
“You got it,” he said. “Tattoos, piercings, weird dye jobs, excess body hair; any of that a deal breaker?
“Well...” she said, considering, “I wouldn’t want a full body sleeve or anything, and I would prefer no hairy legs or armpits or mustaches, but ... a few tattoos, some piercings, weird hair ... that might actually be interesting.”
He jotted down a few more notes. “I’ll handle this one personally,” he promised.
“Thanks, Danny,” she said shyly.
“Of course, you know that the no-kissing rule will still need to be followed, right?” he asked.
“I understand,” she said, her blush increasing.
“And be sure to remind Eric of the same thing,” Dan added. “Josh will be scoping out his companion for the night, and Josh enjoys accepting payment for letting the twinks back.”
She nodded. “I’ll let him know.”
When Laura returned to the performer lounge following her post-show shower, her request was there, as promised. She was a curvy young woman in her early-twenties, somewhat emo in appearance. Her hair, done up in short pigtails, was lavender in color, matching her sleeveless half-shirt exactly. She had pouty lips and a long, narrow nose. She had multiple piercings in both ears. She had several tattoos on her upper arms and one surrounding her belly button. Her breasts, which were precariously contained by her top, were moderately sized, obviously natural, and obviously without a brassiere encumbering their every jiggle and bounce. She wore a pair of loose-fitting black denim jeans, fastened about her waist by a studded leather belt. Her butt was a little larger than what was considered ideal in Hollywood circles, but quite attractive in Laura’s circles. All in all, she approved of Dan’s selection.
As was customary in such a situation, no one said a thing when Dan brought her over to Laura’s side and introduced her. Coop did raise his brows a bit, however. And Celia flashed a brief, knowing smile at her sax player before going back to her glass of wine and her plate of chicken wings.
Laura’s groupie’s name was Connie; Eric’s was Rich, although neither would remember these handles by tomorrow. Rich and Connie, as well as Lynda and Debbie, Coop and Charlie’s groupies respectively, accompanied the band back to the hotel. While Celia, Liz, and Little Stevie headed for the bar to have a few drinks before retiring, the band members who had groupies headed for the elevator.
There was a bit of a crowd waiting to board the lifts, so everyone was not able to get into the same car. This was fine with Laura, as being in too close of proximity to Coop and Charlie’s requests was kind of creeping her out. Not that Connie would ever be asked to solve any physics equations or anything, but Lynda and Debbie were so airheaded she was amazed they did not have to be reminded to breathe every few seconds.
Shortly after Coop, Charlie, and their ladies of the evening disappeared behind the conveyance doors, another elevator arrived with a ding and an arrow pointing up. Laura and Eric and their dates walked over to it and watched as the doors opened. And who should be inside but Njord, the copilot, undoubtedly heading to the hotel bar to sip on ginger ales with lime and try to pick up on any women who happened to be hanging out there. This was a nightly routine for Njord and, according to Suzie and Celia, he was absolutely shameless in this pursuit. He would play the “I’m Celia Valdez’s pilot” card as his primary opening line and then try to wow whatever woman was in his sights with tales from his time as a bush pilot in Alaska while buying her drink after drink to get her drunk. It was a strategy that actually worked more than it did not, as Njord was a good-looking guy and he could spread the bullshit with the best of them.
“Njord is married, isn’t he?” Laura asked Suzie one evening.
“Fuckin’ A,” she said. “He has two kids and a wife in Seattle. She’s older than him, a manager in a bank or something like that. I’m sure she has no idea what he’s up to when he’s doing his overnights. That’s why this is such a dream assignment for him. He gets to spend three months away from home.”
“He’s a pig,” Laura said, shaking her head.
“He is,” Suzie agreed. “And a pathological liar too. You know all that bullshit he spouts about doing time up in Alaska as a bush pilot?”
“He didn’t really do that?”
“He spent some time up there all right,” Suzie said. “About two months. He couldn’t pass his check-rides, so they let him go.”
This was more than a little alarming of a revelation to Laura. “He didn’t pass his check-rides? You mean ... he’s not a good pilot?”
“He’s actually a really good pilot,” Suzie said, “and I trust him in that regard. It’s just that being a bush pilot in Alaska is like being a Navy Seal or a Green Beret. Only the best can fly up there. You have to be able to routinely fly below the minimals in Alaska because of the height of the mountains and the weather. They get from place to place by going through passes and along river valleys with high terrain on every side and where one little mistake means you’re smeared on a mountainside somewhere and they might not even find your body until the next ice-out. It’s no shame for a pilot not to be able to cut it there, but Nordie is one of those guys who has to exaggerate everything, can’t admit he’s ever failed at anything. Therefore, he was a hardened bush pilot. I suspect that most of the stories he tells are tales that the real bush pilots he met up there told him.”
“Does he know that you know this?” Laura asked.
Suzie shrugged. “If he does, he doesn’t seem to care.”