John and Eric
had gone to New Orleans
to get drunk,
so when they saw the girl
hanging over the railing
of the balcony
pulling her shirt
up and down
up and down,
they hurled beads at her
aiming for the top of her head
so that they'd
circle the drain of her neck
in a circling, shimmering starlet
down
her shoulders.

"Come down here," John yelled.

The girl pulled down her halter-top
one more time,
exposing two
globes of bouncing flesh.

Thinking he had said,
"Pull them down."

It was so loud and everyone was whistling
and there wasn't just a single color of light;
the aura from the club
was a nebula of parti-colored flashing.

later that night
she did come down.

She bumped in between John and Eric
as they navigated her through the crowd
trying their hardest to keep her
from falling over and puking,
while trying to do the same
for themselves.

She hung to them like they were long singular beams of steel.
When she rolled her head around at them
she remembered that they looked
hard and unknown.
And while holding her
in the crooks of their arms,
they maneuvered the flesh in their jeans
with their free hands,
trying to subdue the worlds
rising out of their pants
like volcanoes.

They got her back to the hotel.

A small room
with a tiny old bed, with flower-print
comforters and
an antique dresser with swirling
sculptured wood at its corners.

John slipped off his black leather jacket
and shook his mop of
curly black hair.

Eric plopped onto the bed,
pulling her with him.

She felt him pull,
she felt the gravity of him;
the warp as she bumped against
the bed.

"You guys should come back next year."

"Maybe," Eric said.

She didn't know if she was here or not.
If she'd been here the whole night
or if she was dreaming.

But she felt something physical
on her body.

Eric sat in the corner--
beside the humming a/c
as it vacuumed out the room--
watching with lifeless eyes.

It moved across her stomach.
Slow and continuous.
It moved down to her
pelvis,
slow and continuous.
It reached inside of her
slow and continuous,
and she felt the vacuum of space.

John and Eric
tag-teamed her.

Eric
taking her mouth
and working it around his *****,
saying
"Come on baby,
****."

John pushing against her
his glowing body
making a slapping noise
as he struggled
with his hands under her stomach
making hard dimples of flesh
on her mid-section
as he tried to hold up
her limp body.

"She's out cold,"
he said.