Entry #8: Sad Sex
The tale of Two Pigeons continues. Start with Entry #1.
I’m in the restaurant now, waiting for the shuttle to drive me back to San Francisco. It’s 1pm. I’m hung over but feeling good. I have that satisfied inner warmth. A very primal feeling now that I think of it…a feeling of contentment, a sense that everything is right in the world, and that the future isn’t so bad. I have this feeling after I have sex with someone new…a primal squirt of serotonin. Funny how the feeling is still there even if the sex is depressing and barely sex at all. I guess in the end it’s about the intimate contact not the quality.
I took Boris up on his offer and stayed the extra night. Had nothing better to do, anyway, and there is no way I’d ever come out here again on my own. At some point I got used to the anti-rad concrete wall just beyond the pool and it’s nice, a reminder of how things used to be up here before the war. I got the on-the-house radfree mud bath treatment and sat in the Turkish sauna. But I spent most of my time by the pool…sunbathing and swimming and drinking moderately. I got nostalgic at one point, too. Even cried a little remembering my mother and the careless days we spent here when I was a teen.
On the second night I met Maria, a waitress working the evening shift by the pool. She saw the note from Boris on my account saying that he was comping my stay and asked me if Boris and I were friends. We got to talking and it turned out she was part of our little Soviet immigrant ghetto. She was Yana’s cousin. Yana was best friends with Veronica, a girl I dated in high school. Boris had dated Yana and they were even engaged for a while. The four of us hung out a lot when I was 18 and 19. “Boris is like family…like a distant cousin,” she said. “How come you’re here?”
I told her that I was supposed to meet him here. “A work thing for me,” I said, not wanting to get into the details. “But he ghosted me.”
She laughed. “Yeah he’s like that.”
She was mousy and pale and thin…like sickly thin and she had these two dimples that appeared when she smiled. I immediately liked her. There was an easy and comfortable way about her. We chatted for a bit, talked about the schools we went to, the people we knew in common. She asked me what I did for a living and I told her that I used to be a journalist when that was still something people did but that now I’ve transitioned into working as a private investigator. Made it seem like I had been doing it for a while…and that this wasn’t some random job that just fell into my lap.
“Really? That sounds exciting,” she said, visibly impressed.
I had never gotten that kind of reaction when I told people I was a reporter back in the day. “Yeah it’s interesting for sure. Have anyone you want followed?”
She laughed. “Actually, yes. A couple of people.” Then her belt started beeping. “Sorry, I have go work,” she said, looking up from the screen.”
“Ah too bad,” I said. “When do you get off your shift?”
“Nine.”
“If you’re not too tired come by the pool? Maybe we can hang out?”
She smiled, showing her dimples.
“I would but my manager doesn’t like it, especially when it’s packed like this. So…”
“I see,” I said. I had a bit to drink and was feeling confident, so I went for it. “Then come out to my bungalow. I got one with a garden, we can—”
“Yeah, sure. I’d like that,” she said.
She came over right after 9 pm. She had a bag with her and right away asked if she could take a shower. The ones they had for guests were much better than the ones in staff quarters, she said. “Our’s barely have any pressure.” While she was in the shower, I popped the last of the painkillers and mixed myself some vodka and soda from the mini-fridge. I sat out in the garden, thinking about what to tell Leah tomorrow. We had a call scheduled. I promised to fill her in on my status so far. I didn’t have much to tell her. Leads and ideas but nothing else concrete about Misha. I felt a little guilty just hanging out and not doing much and thinking about getting laid while basically on the clock. But also I was also feeling good for the first time in years.
Maria was in the shower for a long time. I thought about knocking on the door to make sure she’s alright at some point. But she emerged eventually, her hair wet, wearing the courtesy hotel bathrobe. “Feel free to raid the whatever’s in the fridge. It’s all on Boris anyway,” I yelled to her from the patio. “Thanks!” She disappeared for a bit and then came out, holding a beer and a small black pouch.
She sat down on a chair and I watched her break up the weed and roll a joint. Her hair was wet and the robe rode up her thighs, exposing extremely thin legs. They were like sticks, barely any muscle on them. I wondered about her age. She looked about 10 years younger than me. Maybe 15? So closer to 35? She shifted in her seat and the top of the collar of bathrobe slumped to the side, exposing the top of her chest. A small six-pointed star was hanging off a thin chain. It was tiny…gold and gleaming. No way. I had to steal a couple of glances at it to make sure it was what it was. And it was. Another one! Ever since I took this job all these believers have been coming out of the woodwork. I felt…and feel…like I’m being pulled back into a world that I have tried to forgot…and in fact have forgotten, tuned it out, convinced myself that it had ended with the war.
“This stuff is local. Grown out here, somewhere up in the hills,” she said, interrupting my train of thought.
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“People farm out here?”
“Yeah.”
“But what about the road goblins?”
She looked at me and squinted, smiling and showing her dimples. “Wait, you believed that?” She laughed.
“Believed what?”
“Well…the resort sets those roadblocks up to spice things up for the clients,” she said. “To give them, you know, what do you call it, the full experience.”
“No way?”
“Yeah,” she said, still laughing and now shaking her head.
“People are paying like five grand to hang out by a pool. You want them to think they’re getting their money’s worth.” She took a big drag off the joint. “And you’re supposed to be some hot shot private investigator,” she said, laughing and coughing at the same time, smoke billowing from her mouth. “Just don’t tell anyone I told you,”
I nodded. “The mystery of Indian Springs road goblin is safe with me.”
She offered me the joint. I declined.
We sat there in silence looking at the stars while she smoked. The Milky Way was glowing above us.
“One nice thing about working out here are the stars,” she said.
“Yeah it’s beautiful.”
“No civilization. No light pollution,” she said.
“True. Being in the middle of a depopulated radioactive zone has its upsides.”
We sat there looking at stars, not saying anything.
“That’s why me and Sasha moved out of San Francisco.” Sasha had been her husband. “We didn’t want to raise our son in the city with all the drugs and the homeless creeps and the stupid libs pushing their trans crap on everyone. I didn’t want him to grow up and then cut off his balls so he could fit in with his friends.” She paused, taking a hit. “The worst fucking decision we made. Should have stayed in the city. ” It was then I realized why Maria was so morbidly thin. Radiation poisoning. Chromic anemia, most likely. She was a refugee from the North Bay.