Blue Eyes by Jerome Charyn Page A

wig. Odile undid his collar and washed the signs of blood off his neck. She saw the tension in his ribs. She insisted on taking his temperature. The Chinaman mumbled with Odile’s thermometer in his mouth. He was lying on her mattress, propped against scatter pillows. “I have to be in Mexico, Odette.”
    She put more pillows on his knees. Being a farsighted girl, she couldn’t read the thermometer (Odile didn’t own a pair of eyeglasses). So she faked a reading. “A hundred. A hundred and a half. Jan must have given you the flu.”
    The Chinaman forgot about his burning ear. He couldn’t afford to disappoint Zorro; he had promised to be Blue-eyes’ chaperon. He snatched the thermometer away and investigated the markings. He frowned through the glass. “Odette, its a rundown tube. The mercury’s gone.”
    â€œLiar,” she said.
    He snapped the thermometer over Odile; no mercury balls fell into her hand. The Chinaman smiled at his victory. Odile was miffed.
    â€œChino, button your collar. I don’t like a naked man in my bed.”
    The Chinaman was less groggy; his ear had quieted down, and he didn’t intend to be bullied by a girl who worked for him but would take nothing more than his telephone calls, who sent him cash in perfumed envelopes from the customers he supplied but treated him with disregard. The Chinaman had his advantage now: he occupied a favorable position on her mattress. He didn’t claw. He didn’t ruffle her material. He used logic with the porno queen.
    â€œAnybody who goes down for Bummy shouldn’t be so choosy.” He huffed out his pigeon breast. “I’m better built than Bummy any day of the week.”
    Odile was tempted to take off his clothes. He had a delicious bump under his bodyshirt. But she didn’t care for his argument.
    â€œI never got down with Bummy Gilman,” she said. “He pays me to soap his hernia. A hundred—no, a hundred and a half for every single wash.”
    The Chinaman was relieved the bouncers hadn’t gone through his pockets; he drew a nest of fifties from his money clip. “I’ll pay. Call it a cash sale. What’s four hundred to me?”
    â€œChino, I can’t accept gelt from you,” she said, making him drop the money clip into his pocket. “You’re too close to Zorro. He’ll kill me if he ever finds out.”
    She pitied the Chinaman’s glum face, the palpitations of his chestbone, his cottony ear, the bend in his trigger-finger, and she was charmed by the display of his money clip; no man had offered her four hundred dollars yet for her simple tricks. She soothed him, put her hand over the palpitations. His chestbone beat against her touch. “We’ll play,” she said. “Only pants and shirts have to stay on.”
    The Chinaman didn’t know how many embargoes Odile would place on him; he couldn’t bring her down to her garterbelt. He should have been more humiliated, but he wanted her hand on his chest. He kissed her, felt the rub of her teeth, and his head was smoking all over again.
    â€œChino, are your feet cold? Why are you shivering?”
    â€œCaught a chill in my ear, Odette. It’s nothing.”
    And he had to restrict his hands, keep from brushing her skin too fast, or the pressure points behind his ears might swell and clog his adenoids; that’s how much Odile could bother him. The Chinaman was no crappy fetishist. He could have managed five more girls, cubanas and negritas with rounder bottoms and fatter thighs, or a Finnish beauty who needed Chino’s pistola against her navel to enjoy a proper climax. The Chinaman preferred Odette. It wasn’t a matter of height (the Chinaman would only allow himself to be ravished by a tall girl), or the loveliness of Odile’s long bony fingers, or the perfect span of her chest (he could have given up an hour following the line of Odile’s