cog:
I WANNA SEE WHAT YOU GOT. I BEEN DREAMIN’ ABOUT IT.
issued
upon a bleating and mewling the male counterpart of which was little more than
breath sounding as if dragged and passed back through gritted teeth.
cog:
FUCK ME! FUCK ME! YEAH! OH YEAH!
By
the time the nightporter was ascending in the service lift the pornography had
already passed all pretence at any meaningful verbal exchange between its
protagonists, the soundtrack now comprising those purely monotonous abstract
rhythms of actual intercourse, punctuated on occasion with words that at this
distance he could still discern,
cog:
YEAH! WORK THAT PUSSY! YEAH! YEAH! OH FUCK YEAH!
but
on his exit at the third floor such definition disintegrated, became simply
mere fluctuation in the earsplitting volume he felt himself to be stepping out
into.
The
carpet outside her room was crowded with guests each of whom appeared to have
dressed in haste, the pallor of their exhaustion coloured by a collective fury
at being thus woken at such an hour. Recognising the futility in competing with
the deafening crescendo of orgasm erupting through the wall they stood without
even attempting communication, achieving solidarity in simple physical
togetherness.
For
the approaching porter the situation was one in need of an extremely delicate
touch since most of these people would be unaware the room’s occupant was of no
legal age to be receiving such material, and the management would prefer that
remain the case. It was also true however, that the girl’s patron was a major
account and as such not one to be in any way compromised. On this occasion it
was his office to locate some diplomatic equilibrium between fear of reprisal
from either faction. In trying to communicate at least some of this the
nightporter made placatory gestures with his hands, attempting in such to
persuade the angered guests that the situation was indeed under control, and
would presently be resolved if he could just impress upon them the need to
disperse back to their rooms and allow him proceed.
Placing
a hand upon her shoulder he interrupted one woman’s repeated pounding upon the
door, this battering barely audible even out here and undoubtedly swallowed up
in the volume beyond, since the nightporter knew each of several telephone
calls to the room had remained unanswered.
He
tripped the lock with his passcard, giving the door a customary rapping as he
pushed it open and slipped through a gap of just width enough to permit him
entry.
Inside
the room itself the noise level was of such intensity to register as
temperature. Lit only by the wall-mounted television set from which this
deafening volume continued to issue in percussive bursts, on first glimpse it
appeared empty, which would certainly have explained the unanswered calls.
As his
eyes adapted to the lower light, he could make out the surface of the desk
littered with a currency of bottletops, and the wastebin beneath crowded with
empty bottles from off which each had been clumsily buckled. Her E.T. she had
sat to face the wall, as if to prevent him witness of this alien species’
fundamental activity, and then there she was, bent double upon the floor and
utterly oblivious to his entrance, the girl in her pyjamas, clutching tight to
her stomach a towel clearly marked with what he assumed from its shade in the
shifting luminescence to be wet blood.
He
crossed the room and clipped off the volume, the uproar so incessant it seemed
to remain audible from nothing more than its own simple momentum so that when
he finally spoke, he found himself redundantly compensating for the noise which
had in fact ceased.
cog:
DO YOU… Can I… Do you need any help? Do you need
In
the vibrating silence ache1 straightened up and with the towel still
tight to her abdomen flapped her other hand at him in mute communication.
cog
(shaking his head): Do you want me to leave? Are you are you…
floundering
at a depth he knew to be beyond him. With a quick glance at the television, its
frenetic rhythm of crashing bodies suggesting the scene’s imminent
consummation, he let himself back out into the corridor where the few curious
remaining, satisfied at the resolution manifest in the abiding silence,
disappeared behind their closing doors.
Pressing
his spine against her bedroom door he stood and sighed with relief, almost
relishing the sensation of his shirt absorbing the accumulant sweat cold
between his shoulder blades, before making his way back toward the elevators
questioning the degree her behaviour had been contrivance: whether she was the
spoilt little rich girl acting out to test the limits of immunity granted by
her patron’s indulgence, and attempting in her boredom to locate the boundaries
of what might be considered acceptable behaviour in such context; or whether
she might actually be distressed, and this being the case his own resultant
culpability.
The
illuminant numerals above the elevator doors resumed counting closer. Suddenly
he came aware of movement halfway back along the carpet, and turning watched as
still on all fours she crawled partway out into the silence. With the towel
still in her grip, its blood more clearly visible in the corridor’s relative
brightness, she cast wildly around to find him and having done so proceeded to
bellow at unsettling decibels
ache1:
THAR SHE BLOWS!
