Free Bedbugs by Rick Hautala

bothered by the tenuous connection between “Voodoo” and “Egypt” when they saw a long, slender black arm reach out from behind the side curtain and begin to weave up and down like an entranced cobra in time with the music. The music rose louder as a shoulder and then a sleek, well-muscled back slithered into view.
    Sitting dead center in the front row, Dennis sat gape-mouthed and staring as LaBelle slinked onto the stage. He had mentally prepared himself for disappointment, but for once, the carnival sign hadn’t lied. If anything, it had underplayed the heated eroticism of this woman LaBelle. Dennis shifted uneasily in his seat as he felt himself stiffen.
    When she first came out, LaBelle danced with her back to the audience. The smooth muscles of her arms, legs, and back glided in sinuous curves beneath her oiled, ebony skin. Her ample hips shifted and pumped suggestively to the strains of the music. Over a thin bikini top and bottom made of shimmering purple silk, she wore a flimsy white veil that drifted like smoky mist in time with her swaying body. She moved like a river at night—lazy, curling ripples that flowed and eddied. The whole effect pulled Dennis into a silent, mind-numbed daze.
    The audience, meanwhile, was going wild, filling the tent with shrill whistles and hoots. Overweight, unshaven men, who probably had been drinking since early morning, whooped and hollered.
    “Come on! Turn around!”
    “Take it off, baby! Take it all off.”
    “Com’on! Let us see your titties!”
    Their shouts almost drowned out the music, no matter how loud it was turned up to compensate for the noise.
    Ignoring their requests, LaBelle continued her slow dance with her back to the audience, her hips thrusting and gyrating in seductive, sensuous circles as her arms coiled and twined like snakes. As he watched, Dennis found himself wondering what it would be like to feel those arms wrapped around him, to ride those hips, and to feel that body twisting and turning beneath his own thrusting pelvis. His mouth went desert dry when LaBelle reached up behind her back and teasingly pulled off the veil, letting it drift in shimmering slow-motion to the floor.
    The audience started shouting all the louder, yelling and whistling with delight, but Dennis just sat there, transfixed. He felt a stirring of disappointment when he began to wonder if this was how it would be for the entire show. LaBelle would maintain her air of mystery by doing her entire dance without once turning to face her audience. He could see the heavy swell of her breasts swaying from side to side as she moved in time with the music, seemingly creating the music with every twist and grind of her body.
    And then, as the music rose to a crescendo that rattled the cheap speakers, it happened.
    With a swirling flourish, LaBelle spun around on one foot.
    Dennis almost passed out the instant he saw her face.
    Framed in a cascade of frizzy black hair was—not the face of a woman—no, it looked more the face of a cat . . . or a snake! But her sleek forehead, her high, glossy cheekbones, her delicately pointed chin, and her thin, flaring nose and wide lips were nothing but a frame for her eyes.
    Her eyes!
    In the glare of the single spotlight, against the orange backdrop of sunlit canvas, her slitted eyes gleamed with a golden fire as she looked coldly out at her audience.
    Dennis couldn’t move. He had forgotten how to blink his eyes or take a breath as he gaped at the woman. The noisy audience and the blaring music all seemed to vanish in an instant, and LaBelle was staring at him, dancing for him . . . for him alone. She coiled and uncoiled her arms, her long, delicate fingers waving like slim branches in the wind, reaching . . . beckoning—to him!
    She’s looking right at me! Dennis’s mind screamed. She wants me!
    He could feel himself almost lifted from his seat as he was drawn into the twin golden pools of her eyes. He barely noticed as LaBelle reached behind