Bleeding Edge

She makes a point of taking from her purse a dispenser of Handi Wipes and with housewifely thoroughness disinfecting the pole, slowly fondling it up and down while casting demure glances along the bar. Their skins in the spill from this fluorescent indigo lighting register the same pallid hue, as if permanently stained from too much cathode radiation.

Considerately, Stu Gotz, or somebody, has put on a MILF-night mix, which includes a lot of disco, plus tracks from U2, Guns N’ Roses, Journey. And pandering to this crowd, way too much Moby for Maxine’s taste, except possibly “That’s When I Reach for My Revolver.”

Maxine’s never had what you’d call Big Tits, although the co

In the course of a dance routine somewhere between vanilla and cherry ripple, including leg hangs, helical descents, upside-down humping of the pole and so forth, Maxine notices this one party out on a remote curve of the bar, drinking you’d say relentlessly what will prove to be Jägermeister and 151, through a Day-Glo straw out of a twenty-ounce convenience-store cup he has brought in with him, and showing no signs of alcohol poisoning, which could mean either u

About then on comes Jamiroquai’s “Ca

“I’m out of singles,” he begins.

“Honey, it’s them NASDAQ blues, we all took a bath, it sucks, but maybe you can do me a favor, I’m new in here and you look at least like a semiregular, maybe you can tell me where the Champagne Lounge is in this joint?”

“I’m out of twenties too.”

“No obligation.”

“Next you’re go

He leads her toward the back and down a flight of stairs. The lighting drifts more and more into the red end of the spectrum. From below ooze romantic string arrangements Maxine thought had been retired in the seventies, no more inviting tonight than they were then.

“I’ll be in here, in case you want to talk. No fees. Promise.”

The Champagne Lounge is cozy in scale, more like a Mad Dog Utility Room. Video screens, some showing only noise, others flickering porno tapes of a low-res Kodachrome vintage, are mounted here and there on wall brackets. Girls sit alone at tables taking smoke breaks. Others straddle clients in the stained velour shadows of “privacy booths” in back. There’s a miniature bar with a couple shelves of bottles whose labels are not immediately familiar to Maxine. “You’re new,” observes the fashion-doll-faced bartender, in a perky voice at some odds with the sullen set of enhanced lips it emerges from. “Welcome to geek heaven. You get one mojito on the house, then you’re on your own.”

“Full disclosure,” sez Maxine, “I’m a civilian, thought tonight was MILF night, guess I got it wrong.”

“You bring a customer?”

“Just my neighbor’s nephew, she asked me to keep an eye on him. Sweet kid, basically, too much time on the Internet maybe.”

At which point Eric puts his head through the bead curtains.

“Oh no not this guy, uh-uh, he’s been 86’d, hey creepazoid, you want me to call Porfirio down here again, show you where the sidewalk is?”

“It’s cool,” Maxine smiling, shrugging, sliding out the doorway. “All good.”

“Assholes,” Eric mutters, “can I help it if I like feet?”

“Where do you live? I’ll take you back.”

“Manhattan, downtown.”

“Come on, I’ll spring for a cab. Just let me run in and change.”

“I’ll wait outside.”

“What’s with Footboy,” Stu Gotz wants to know when she’s street legal again. “Nice company you keep.”

“Oh, it’s business.”

“Which reminds me—at this time we are delighted to offer you a one-month contract, provided only that you attend our Introductory Profiling Seminar, which will acquaint you with the many varieties of technoscum and psychosocial misfit all too sadly apt to be overrepresented among our clientele.”

She takes his card, which may come in handy someday though in ways neither can see right at the moment.

•   •   •

ERIC LIVES IN A FIFTH-FLOOR walk-up studio in Loisaida, a doorless bathroom wedged in one corner and in another a microwave, coffeemaker, and miniature sink. Liquor-store cartons full of personal effects are stacked around haphazardly, and most of the limited floor space is littered with unwashed laundry, Chinese take-out containers and pizza boxes, empty Smirnoff Ice bottles, old copies of Heavy Metal, Maxim, and Anal Teen Nymphos Quarterly, women’s shoe catalogs, SDK discs, game controllers and cartridges for Wolfenstein, DOOM, and others. Paint peels from selected ceiling areas, and window treatments are basically street grime. Eric finds a cigarette butt a little longer than the others in a ru

They light up a joint, Eric comfortable on the floor. “Now,” in a voice she hopes is firm enough, “about this foot situation.”

“Here, let’s just get your shoes off, don’t worry. You don’t have to deal with the floor, you can rest them on me.”

“My thought also.”

It has been a while, like forever, since her feet have received attention like this. She has a moment of panic, wondering, am I weird, allowing this? Eric, with an extrasensory grin, looks up and nods. “Yeah, you are.”

Her feet seem to have been resting in his lap for a while, and she can’t help noticing he has this, well, hardon. Out of his trousers and between her feet, actually, and sort of moving back and forth . . . Not that this happens to her a lot, which may account for why she begins tentatively now to explore, whatever the foot equivalent of handle is, maybe “footle” the aroused organ, her toes always having been prehensile enough to pick up socks, keys, and loose change, her soles, could it be the ca