Between fucks

One of my favorite pieces of writing advice is that a reader should be able to open a book at any page and be able to get a pretty good idea of what the story is about. Maybe you can see how I try to do this in the following passage, which is part of a first-draft scene I wrote this morning.

            I'm white down to my nails. Painted white feathers surround my lips and eyes. Real ones hang from the choker around my neck. The gown the maid brought me isn't one I picked out and charged to my new client's credit card in an Athens shop. It's a replica of the costume I wear for the Mercedes Lounge, only white. 

            The slits run higher, inches above my hip bone. The neckline dips far below my navel. The back doesn't start to exist until halfway down my ass. How the slinky material manages to hang on me is a mystery. I feel as if the slightest shrug could send it slithering around my feet. Every sway of my movements reveals parts of me that my underwear would cover if I had any on.

            I emerge from my cabin in a cloud of fresh perfume. Phil is leaning on the deck rail outside my door, face pensive, arms crossed, head shaded by the stripped awning, back warmed by the sun.

            He says, "He's ready."

            I say, "So am I."

            I'd figured on going no further than the master suite next to mine, but Phil leads me down a companionway. He doesn't offer his hand. This is tricky. In my white heels, taller than the ones I wear at Seattle Young, I can barely manage the steps. The maid follows behind me and catches the shoulder straps of my dress whenever they try to fall off my shoulders.

            We pass the crewman who carried my bags to my suite and one of his buddies. The look in their eyes tells me I'm a sight they'll never forget.

            Phil opens the door to a cabin on the deck below, stands aside, and says, "Good luck." His smile bends under the strain of whatever he's feeling. The maid stops beside him. I enter alone. The door closes behind me.

            I have three more steps to negotiate, curving glass ones with a brass rail like the ones at Seattle Young. They tell me I'm on display. I keep my eyes straight ahead, my shoulders back, and my smile wide. My feet find the steps. My hand wants to grab the rail. I make it slide lightly over the brass.

            Piano music comes from hidden speakers, the same show tunes Toussaint plays at the Mercedes Lounge. There's a real piano, a white one. No one sits at it, but the keys move as if unseen hands play. The short backlit bar beside it has rows of glass shelves arrayed with bottles and glasses. In the center of the tiny dance floor, a barstool waits for me. It's about the same height as the fender of the car where I sit at the beginning of a shift in my whorehouse. The top if it is slick-looking red leather. My gaze falls on it with relief. It's the first thing I've seen on this boat that isn't white.

            I take my place on the stool. The rungs where my feet find a hold are high enough to lift my knees and make my dress fall away from my legs. I lift my chin, shove out my boobs, and wait. The piano keeps playing. I wonder how long I can hold this pose without falling off the stool or getting a cramp.

            A curtain of white beads covers the entry to a short arched passageway. The space beyond is brightly lit. I know what's back there. A glass room. Just for me.

            "You are so lovely." The voice is weak and hoarse. I turn toward it. The movement makes a strap fall from my shoulder and exposes my lfft boob. There's not a man standing where I expect to see one. I look down. He's in a wheelchair.

            The smile he gives me looks as if it's all he can do. His withered neck leans to the side, leaving his head propped against a metal brace. One of his hands rests on the controls of the chair. He motors closer to me. His other hand trembles a he touches my leg. Many men's hands have done the same. This one seems to shake more from palsy than excitement.

            I catch it in my own, and guide it as far up my thigh as his arm will reach.

            He says, "Very nice." He sounds like a connoisseur appreciating a painting. But I'm real.