"I'm not going in there," Robby laughed, heroically, reeking from the mixture of beer and the cake girl's perfume. "Colleen would call off the wedding if she knew I'd been in a place like this." He tried to back away from the blackened door, but he encountered a mass of sweaty men behind him blocking withdrawal.
"See boys," his best friend Mark, chided. "Collar already firm around his scrawny neck. What's next? No beer night? Laundry every Friday night like a good little houseboy? Maybe she'll even get him a uniform to perform for her in." Guffaws ensued with percussive slapping of Robby's back.
"I'm not leashed, idiots," he scratched at his neck.
"Oh, yeah," Mark snickered, "then go inside. We ain't telling her what our little virgin did tonight." Mark cued the laughing gallery with a crotch grab and woofing sound.
"I'm not a virgin."
"Then nothing to fear inside, Rob-baby. You've seen it all. Done it all. Bet you will be out in no time with a bored look on your face then. Rob-baby."
"Don't call me that."
"But you do what Colleen says when she calls you that."
"Yeah, but she has a pussy and you don't."
"He's got you there, Mark," Tony admitted, guzzling down the rest of this fifth beer. He tottered, stumbling into Robby who braced himself by using the door's sweat-etched knob.
"Good one, Tony." Mark praised.
More laughs or jeers. With the blood alcohol level, it was hard to discern the difference.
"Please, Mark." Robby pleaded, sounding like he was back on the elementary school playground.
"Poor little cry baby, Rob. Scared of a Toy Store." Mark suckled the end of his beer bottle.
"Do you need more of mommy's milk to get your scared ass inside that door?"
"You're an asshole. I've seen the people who come out of this store."
"Rob, Rob, Rob," Mark recited, "if you ain't a virgin, then nothing to be scared of. Heck, you're wedding isn't for three days, so we have time to clean you up by then."
Rob turned the doorknob, just to get away from the laughter. Why had he asked Mark to be best man? If Mark was going to act like this, there would be no alcohol at the wedding. He'd save Colleen's
parents a mint on that alone with the amount his friends drank. Reminder past friends. After the wedding he was sending them friendship over cards, instead of thank you notes.
Fluorescent lights met his unprotected stare. Whatever he had expected, dark moldy grime and grizzly screams, it wasn't Beethoven music and a man whose rolls of flesh bubbled under his shirt as he moved between the stainless steel shelves polishing. Jim Bob, as his mesh shirt proclaimed, tugged his chin-length beard and with feigned
interest, eyed Robby with the precision of a body cavity search.
"Don't tell me," he sounded bored, "bachelor party, bet, and blasted. The three B's that say you are too chicken shit to be any fun. If you throw up, you clean it up. Just washed the floors from the last moron, and I'm not into babysitting again. Should I get the bucket now, or can you hold your liquor until you leave?"
"Not very friendly are you?" Robby let the alcohol go with whatever it wanted to say.
"Show me the money, and I'll squeeze your ass for free, but no free boners. Money or get out of here and take your lewd friends with you. They're cutting down on the real business if they keep blocking my door."
"How do you know they're blocking the door?"
Jim Bob picked up an electric cattle prod and waved it in Robby's direction.
"Okay, okay, okay. How much?" Robby yanked out the wad of bills Mark had stuffed down the front of his boxers.
"If that wad is wet you pay double. Let me get the gloves." Putting down the prod, Jim Bob shuffled over to the counter and extracted a pair of Latex gloves from the freebie box by the register. "Hand it over," he said, putting out his hand for Robby's deposit.
Robby put the crinkled mass into his rubber hand.
"Humph, boner or wetting yourself tonight?" Jim Bob uncreased the limp bills. Before Robby could respond, he answered himself. "By the looks of you, you need to be diapered and spanked. Throw in a mercy fuck discount because I do have a modicum of pity for your ass, and that gives you a full peep show in your very own control room. Jim Bob pressed no-sale on the register and tossed the bills in need of laundering inside for later sanitation.
"Control room?" Robby was back on the playground blubbering. Maybe the laughter outside wasn't so bad after all.
"If there is a God, it hates me. Why else would I have to handhold
your type every weekend?" He pulled back the black curtain behind
the counter. "First door on the left."
Robby shook his head 'no'.
"Door's behind you. No refunds." Jim Bob nodded to his drinking buddies, but left the curtain pulled so Robby could stagger through.
Hearing the door rattle, Robby squeezed between Jim Bob's stomach and the wall. The wall didn't give, but Jim Bob's stomach spread out around him in a mid-waist hug of physical suction.
"Remember, you puke, you and your boyfriends get cleaning duty." Jim Bob's mint breath hissed on the back of his neck. Slipping the curtain shut, Jim Bob filled the exit with his behind. "Door on the left, numb nuts. Your money doesn't last all night and Sheila needs to go home to her kids."