Butterflies in Heat (65 page)

A murmur rose from the audience.

Lola stood revealed in a red halter and red-spangled panties.

She began to move her belly like a dancer's. She was asking the audience to beg for more.

"Show your tits!" a man yelled.

At this point Leonora was truly ready to get up and leave. She'd just about had it, yet in some strange way she also found Lola's act compelling.

Still at the piano, BoJo was at his best, milking the song for its suggestiveness.

Spinning, Lola was moving incredibly fast. In a flash her halter was gone, and her boobs revealed.

The audience was screaming wildly.

Ruthie Elvina and her coterie at the back murmured about leaving, but remained in their seats.

Leonora looked away in disdain.

Yet the act wasn't over. Gyrating and contorting her body, Lola was sensuality itself--at fever pitch. Then the music became real lowdown.

Leonora was again paying attention. What could Lola
possibly do for a finish, she wondered.

Provocatively Lola slipped down her red-spangled panties half an inch at a time. Then in a wild stamping dance, her high heels hit the floor like a fandango dancer. Sweat was dripping from her face, her whole body was glistening like black-colored bronze. There was the look of a wild thing in her eyes. Those eyes were now concentrating with ferocity on Leonora.

It was a direct challenge. Opening her almond eyes all the wider, Leonora met Lola's stare.

It was as if all the other patrons at the gala didn't count. The number was nearing its finish. BoJo was beating the piano as if it were a drum.

With a snap, the panties came off. The pink spotlight went out. A cold, harsh white light was focused on only one spot.

Lola La Mour was indeed a woman!

The light was on just long· enough for everybody to get a good look, then it faded. Lola scampered from the stage.

Making her way through the crowd, Leonora was heading for her Lincoln. Opening the rear compartment by herself, she screamed at a drunken Sunshine. "Take me back to Sacre-Coeur!"

"Who would have ever thought it," Sunshine said, opening the glass panel to the back. He steered the car from the curb. "She's had it cut off all these years.·

"You're not going to get the commodore's money," Leonora said with fury. "In this state marriage to a transsexual woman is legal. Lola was right."

"Leonora," he cried out, "you mean .. ."

"Yes, I do mean what I say," Leonora said. "Lola's the legitimate heir."

"But, Leonora, that leaves me .. ." Sunshine nearly ran off the road.

"I'm considering giving Numie Ralph's job," Leonora said.
"I'll
be needing a chauffeur."

"But I was going to have my own yacht," Sunshine protested. "Not driving around as somebody's chauffeur."

"Take it or leave it!"

Sunshine sighed. "Okay, Leonora, I'll take it."

"From now on," she said firmly, closing her eyes, hoping to
blot
out what she'd seen at the bar, "you'll address me as Miss De la Mer." After a block, she called to him, "You're like Tangerine. You were always meant to be a servant."

Sunshine kept his eyes on the road ahead.

In her all-white apartment, Lola threw herself on her satin bed. "I hated to do what I did tonight," she screamed at Ned.

"Baby, you was great!" he said, caressing her bare back. "All these times I've been going to bed with you, I never knew you had a real pussy. Why did you always cover it up?"

"I can't stand the thing!" she said, turning over and sobbing. "I'm still a rear-door girl. I don't like it the front way at all. The commodore made me do it."

"Like it or not," he said, "you'd better get used to it that way, "cause that's what
I
like. How long ago did you become a woman?"

"Five years ago," she said, pressing her hand to her aching
head.

"Did you go to Copenhagen?" he asked.

"No, Johns Hopkins," she replied.

"Who's he?" Ned asked.

"That's a fucking hospital," she said, getting up from the bed. She was heading toward the bathroom to repair her makeup. "They even had psychiatrists talk to me about emotionally conditioning myself to becoming a real woman. Hell!" she called out, "I know more about being a real woman than anybody at that castrating hellhole. I could give them lessons."

"I bet you could, " Ned said, smiling to himself and slipping off his pants. "I bet you could at that. Now you get that cute little thing in here." A frown crossed his face.

"Honey, you don't have to take those pills like Dinah, do you?"

The next morning, Leonora's new secretary was calling over the intercom. "A colored girl's out front and wants to talk to you."

"Sorry," Leonora snapped, "I'm too busy. " She banged down her compact on the desk. Probably a job applicant. With Ralph gone, she was the only one in charge. Everybody in town thought she was a regular employment bureau.

"The girl is very insistent," the secretary went on. "Claims this business is half hers. Says she knows you
very well. "

"My God," Leonora exclaimed, jumping up. "That could only be Lola." Out from behind the desk, she carefully studied her appearance in the full-figure mirror.
If
Lola was here, Leonora knew her dress would be severely scrutinized. She smiled in approval at her figure, clad in an ecru jacket over a mauve print shirt and a gunmetal gray skirt. In her rosy pink high-heeled pumps, she paraded around the floor several times, a hammered gold medallion dangling from her neck. Satisfied with the way she looked, she barged into the outer reception lounge.

Hands on her hips, Lola was standing, glaring at the secretary. "You must be new in town, if you haven't heard of Lola
La
Mour." Lola was attired in daytime pants under a belted jacket with two patch pockets. In the presence of Leonora, she began to doubt her choice of outfit, wishing she had worn something more elegant. She tossed her blonde curls haughtily.

"What are you doing here?" Leonora asked in feigned politeness. "You know I'm busy." She deliberately wanted to be insulting, but not obviously so.

"I'm here on business myself," Lola answered. At this moment it seemed a dozen movie cameras were focusing on her. Her voice quivered slightly, and this horrified her, as she wanted to present a portrait of total coolness.
It
was Leonora who had something to fear from her-not the other way around.

"Let's conduct this
brief
interview in my salon," Leonora said, her delicate hands directing the way. In the privacy of her office, Leonora lit another one of her interminable marijuana cigarettes. "What brings you out today, or did I ask that?"

"This is an
official
business call," Lola said, "and I demand to be treated like a lady."

Lola swallowed hard. Chalk up round one to Leonora. Gazing at Leonora brought an immediate dizziness.

Leonora returned the stare. To her, Lola seemed a glutinous mass of mascara and rouge, all tinted with turquoise. And that wig. Only a bird of prey deep in the desert would consider it enticing.

Lola grandly stalked the room, asserting her sense of proprietorship.

To Leonora, Lola was like an unwanted cloud blotting out the sun. "Please state your business."

Lola instinctively reached to touch Leonora's arm. Leonora withdrew. "Please don't touch me," she said. "I can't stand to be touched."

Lola backed off in anger. She tossed a manila envelope on Leonora's desk. "I understand you are the only designer employed by
our
fashion house."

"I
am
the fashion house."

"No more," she said defiantly, stretching her lips into something resembling a smile. "I've just retired from shaking my moneymaker, and I'm cruising for another profession. Just look in that folder."

At the window, Leonora raised it slightly, to let out some of the penetrating odor from Lola's perfume. She seemed to have doused herself with an entire bottle. I don't have to take your commands," she said finally.

"That's a matter of opinion," Lola said, standing her ground. When was this white bitch going to start showing her some respect? "I suggest you look inside that goddamn folder."

Curiosity drove Leonora to the desk. She opened the folder and brought out the sketches. She tossed the designs on her desk. "My God, what is this? Tribal rites south of Pago-Pago?"

"You racist!" Lola snapped. "It's the beginning of a new Afro collection." Every worm in her brain was moving from that insult. "You've always made women look like cheap drag versions of Dietrich."

Covering the sketches with paper, as
if
her eyes could no longer tolerate the sight of them, Leonora said softly, but pointedly, "You're the one to talk about cheap drag."

Lola huffed. "My designs will shake up this house. Get customers to open up their purses again." She snorted in front of one of Leonora's half-clothed mannikins. "Afro all the way, starting with Dahomey."

"What's that? Leonora asked, arranging her posture at the desk almost like one of her mannequins. "Something for women's hygiene?"

Without permission, Lola slid some panel doors open revealing an array of fabrics in all colors. "A country," she said loudly. "Didn't you go to school? On second thought, there probably wasn't a Dahomey when you was in school."

"What do you know about fashion in Dahomey?" Leonora asked. "Assuming there is such a place."

Rummaging through some hat boxes, Lola looked up. "I've seen pictures," she said. "Besides, I suspect my kin came from there."

"Those are the weirdest and most unsuccessful designs for women's clothing I've ever seen," Leonora said. The sound of boys scurrying by the side of the building drifted in. Leonora felt threatened. "I thought you liked frilly, feminine things. Most of the times I've seen you, you were dressed like Jean Harlow."

Closing the panel doors with contempt, Lola said, "You're speaking of the past. I've gone through many changes since finding out who I am." She sashayed over to the desk, holding up one of her sketches. "These are from the Fon people. They scar the bodies of boys-it's called cicatrization. Now ain't that a four-million-dollar word? They work colors into the wounds. I mean, like real primitive. Now, I'm not talking about making scars on no woman's body, but re-creating that same thing in fabric."

"Disgusting barbarism!" Leonora charged. She turned from the sight of this horrible creature and her hideous designs. Her very presence made Leonora feel she was suffocating.

"The concept of black fashion will one day take over this country," Lola predicted. She seemed to be losing out in this battle-not at all the way she'd fantasized when she'd rehearsed it in front of the mirror this morning. "What I'm offering is a chance to set fashion ahead instead of trailing
it."

"I beg your pardon!" Leonora said, through clenched teeth.

A deathly silence fell over the room.

Leonora eventually resumed smoking, furiously blowing out. "Me in black fashion? The idea is too absurd for comment."