Big Easy Bonanza

couldn’t let him do it alone. “I’ll help.”
    “You take the bedroom.” (The kitchen, of course, was the real work.)
    As Steve swept up the glass in both kitchen and studio she began desultorily to pick at the piles of her meager possessions. “Good thing I’m poor,” she said, “or we’d have really had a mess.”
    “Now there,” said Steve, “is a cockeyed optimist.” He whistled as he wrestled her cheap flatware back into drawers, her canned soup back onto shelves.
    It was true what she had said—because of the paucity of things to ransack, they finished the job in a little more than an hour.
    “And now,” said Steve, “for the purification ritual. Put your hands up.” He pulled her sweater over her head.
    “Oh, Steve, I don’t think—” She didn’t want to make love, but didn’t want to say so.
    “Shhh. You have to do this part in utter silence.” He unsnapped her bra and took it off. “Sit down,” he said, and then produced a box of incense, removed a stick, and lit it. “Now stand up.”
    He unzipped her jeans and pulled them to the floor, along with her underpants. At a sign from him, she stepped out of them. He picked up the incense stick and dusted her body with smoke, chanting, “Oh-wa, ee-wa, ooo-wa—”
    “I thought you had to be quiet.”
    “Shhh. Except for the chant. Oh-wa, oo-oooh—waaaah—” It sounded as if he was making it up as he went along.
    When she was well dusted, he gave her the stick and placed her hands at her waist. Feeling like a caryatid, Skip looked far into the distance, letting expression fade from her eyes, getting into the ritual spirit. And getting very turned-on, standing there naked while Steve undressed, an action she could see from the corner of her unfocused eyes.
    He took the stick away from her and held her hand, not pulling her toward him as she expected. Instead he took her into the bathroom, turned on the water and stepped into the shower, bringing her in after him. Solemnly, still not saying a word, he washed her, even her hair, and so carefully that he didn’t hurt her head wound. Then he dried her and wrapped two towels around her, one like a sarong, the other around her head. “Now,” he said, “it will look different.”
    He led her back into her apartment, which was just now dark, and turned on the lamp. Skip gasped. It looked wonderful, cleaner than before.
    “Better?” said Steve.
    She threw her arms around him, but still didn’t respond sexually. He said softly, “Hungry?”
    “Uh-huh. Shall we order something?”
    “No. There’s another step in the healing process. Let me dry your hair.”
    “That’s it?”
    “No, dummy, but you can’t go out with your hair wet.”
    He made her remain naked, but tucked her in a quilt for warmth, while he ran the hair dryer.
    God knows what my hair will look like, but I don’t care if it comes out in dreadlocks. This is probably as close to paradise as I’m ever going to get.
    And then, of course, she thought of lighting a joint.
    Which was Jimmy Dee’s cue to bang on the door. “Margaret? Mar-griiit!”
    Steve turned off the hair dryer. “Another suitor?”
    “Just my neighbor. Let him in, will you?”
    “This,” said Jimmy Dee, “is a first.” He handed Steve a joint before introducing himself. “A straight man holding a hair dryer. You are straight, I presume?”
    “He is,” said Skip. “Steve Steinman, Jimmy Dee Scoggin.”
    “Officer Darlin’, you’re naked! I turn my back for one minute—”
    “Dee-Dee, shut up, there’s a lot to tell.”
    “So I see.” He minced over (the hair dryer having set the tone) and got the joint back from Steve. “Don’t let me interrupt anything.”
    “Okay,” said Steve, and went back to working on Skip’s mop.
    Jimmy Dee sat down at the opposite end of the couch and stared. “I think I’ve died and gone to heaven.” He found Skip’s foot under the quilt. “How about if I suck your toes while he’s doing that?”
    She kicked. “Shut up, Dee-Dee, and listen. I spent last evening in Charity.”
    “Oh, Gawd, you had a date last night. The One-Minute Pregnancy? Oprah for sure, Donahue maybe…”
    “I got slugged.”
    “Slugged?” His voice was a hiss.
    Almost yelling over the sound of the hair dryer, Skip told her story, with Dee-Dee wailing at appropriate moments, “Oh, my dainty darling! Why didn’t you call me?”
    Because I called Steve instead—God help me.
    They were all deliriously stoned by the