The Chameleon Fallacy (Big Bamboo Book 2) by Shane Norwood

moved as far away from him as she could, and the bed was huge and the space between lay white and cold. The woman abruptly stood. The bed moved but the man did not stir. The woman stood naked before the window. The breeze came from across the night water, carrying its damp breath, but it could not contest the heat of the night, and she was not cooled by it. The light and shade played upon her contours and curves, deep valleys and rolling hills, the topography of a mythic and beautiful landscape, where love and loneliness were the bitter queens of their own realms and the frontier between them could not be crossed. The jealous moon threw a veil of cloud across her face and another smaller night fell.
    The woman walked over to a cabinet, took up a bottle and poured something into a glass, and drank it down. It was a shadow play, platinum light playing in the bottle and glowing in the glass, but devoid of color. She reached down to the floor and took up a dress and slipped it over her head. She picked up a pair of shoes and carried them toward the door and opened it. The light from the corridor fell across the face of the man. He squinted his eyes. She looked down at him. He was handsome in a bland kind of way, but nondescript, an everyman. Or no man. Nothing to distinguish him from all the others. Nothing. That’s what she felt. Nothing. She began to cry again as she walked out of the door. The man’s sleepy voice stopped her. She turned. He was sitting up, rubbing his eyes.
    “ Hey. Where ya going, baby?” he said.
    “ Fuck off,” she said, closing the door behind her.
     
    ***
     
    Out of curiosity, and out of their trees, Asia and Crispin wandered through to the back parlor and the accommodations where the ladies plied their trade. Asia lollopped onto an ornate red plush settee while Crispin went to the bar. While Crispin was trying to order two Death in the Afternoons from a barman who seemed to be particularly incommunicative and appeared to be some sort of Red Indian, not realizing that he was actually trying to buy a round of drinks from a wooden statue, a handsome, elegantly dressed middle-aged gentleman sat down next to Asia.
    “ Good evening, my dear,” he said. “I must say, Lord Lundi has excelled himself this time. You are quite ravishing.”
    “ Aw, hon,” Asia said, “I’m sorry. Y’all making a mistake. I ain’t working.”
    “ If it is your day off I can always pay extra.”
    “ No, shitferbrains. It ain’t my day off. I don’t work here. I’m a customer.”
    “ Is that so? What a pity. So, that gentleman talking to the statue is your husband.”
    “ Hell no, doofus, he’s as queer as a fifteen-dollar bill. I don’t have a husband.”
    “ Hmn. Very interesting.”
    “ What is?”
    “ Well, a beautiful young lady and a homosexual in a house of prostitution.”
    “ We just come in for a drink, see?”
    “ Yes, quite. Well, how about I offer you both one. Your friend doesn’t seem to be having much success.”
    “ Sure.”
    “ Good. Oh, I’m being rude. I haven’t introduced myself. My name is Sir Wilfrid Uphill Gardener.”
    Asia held out her hand, and Sir Wilfrid kissed it before moving over to the bar. He came back with Crispin in tow, followed by a beautiful mulatto girl carrying a tray of drinks.
    “ This fine gentleman assisted us, Asia,” Crispin said. “That ignorant bastard wouldn’t serve me. Wouldn’t even speak to me, the savage. Must be fucking homophobic.”
    Sir Wilfrid took the drinks from the tray and handed them round, making sure that Asia could see the size of the tip he gave.
    “ So, my dear. You are unmarried.”
    “ Yeah. But I got a boyfriend.”
    “ Shit.”
    “ Come again?”
    “ I meant, do you?”
    “ I sure do, buster. An’ he is one serious piece of work. Yessiree.” Asia raised her glass. “To Baby Joe, goddamn it. To Baby Joe Young.”
    As they drank, a man with very pale skin who had been sitting at the next table stood up and came