“No. I was distracted.”
A group of girls came outside and lingered around him. One of them approached him with a CD. “Would you mind signing this, Justin?”
“Not at all.” He was very gracious about it.
She squealed before scurrying away with her friends.
I chuckled. “So, you think I could bum a ride off a local celebrity?”
“I don’t know. Your house might be too far out of my way.” He nudged his head. “Come on. I’m parked in the lot across the street.”
I loved riding in Justin’s Range Rover because his intoxicating smell was tenfold inside of it. Leaning my head against the seat, I closed my eyes, so incredibly happy to be with him. It hit me that there were really only a matter of days left before he’d be gone back to New York. I’d be closing up the house, and I wouldn’t see him every day anymore.
When I opened my eyes, I realized that we were going over the Mount Hope Bridge. He was driving off the island.
“Where are we going?”
“We’re taking a little detour. That okay with you?”
Excitement filled me. “Yeah.”
Forty minutes later, we arrived in Providence, the city where I lived and where we grew up.
“I haven’t been back here in ages,” he said.
“You’re not missing much.”
“It’s more like I try not to think about what I’m missing.”
We drove through our old neighborhood and eventually made our way down the packed streets of the city’s East Side. When he turned onto a particular side street, it finally hit me where he was taking me. As if it were reserved for us, there was an open parking spot right in front of the little red theater. Justin parallel parked and turned off the ignition.
He sat there for a few seconds then turned to me. “It looks open. You think they still have a midnight show?”
“I haven’t been here in years. We could check it out.”
I never expected this trip down memory lane.
Justin walked up to the scruffy old man behind the counter. “You still showing indie films?”
“Whatever you want to call them.”
“When’s the next movie?”
“Ten minutes.”
“We’ll take two tickets.”
“Number one to your left.”
“Thanks,” Justin said before leading me into the dark theater.
Looking around, I said, “I’m so glad you thought of this.”
“Do you remember this actual room?” he asked.
“I do.” I pointed to the middle. “We used to sit right about there. It smells worse than I remember.”
“It does smell pretty raunchy.”
There was only one other person in the theater, a man sitting diagonally across from us.
The lights dimmed, and the feature presentation started. Within a few seconds, it became abundantly clear that while the little red theater looked physically the same, everything else had changed.
The opening sequence featured a musical montage of women sucking different men off. It seemed our little red movie house had completely lost its innocence in the years we’d abandoned it. It was now a porno theater.
When I looked over at Justin, he was laughing so hard he was practically crying.
I whispered, “Swear to me you didn’t know.”
He wiped his eyes. “I swear to God, Amelia. I had no clue. Did you even see a sign…anything?”
“No. But there never really were signs indicating what was playing, so I just assumed…”
“You know what they say about assuming things…”
“You make an ass out of you and me?”
“Close. Sometimes when you assume things, you accidentally end up in an adult movie theater watching anal.”
He pointed to the screen, which displayed nothing but a gigantic ass getting screwed. “Our little red theater has been corrupted, Patch.”
To make matters worse, the only other patron in the place seemed to be jerking his hand up and down under a blanket. We both stared over at the guy then erupted in laughter.
“Do you think that’s our cue to leave?” I asked.
“It might be.”
A new scene suddenly popped up on the screen. It wasn’t as hardcore as the other and seemed more cinematic, like an actual film as opposed to a cheap triple X video. The music was softer. The snippet featured two guys going to town on a girl slowly and sensually. She was giving oral sex to one while the other guy was going down on her. We were supposed to be leaving, but I felt frozen in my seat, unable to take my eyes off of it. I knew Justin was watching it too because he was quiet. The entire thing lasted about ten minutes.
When it was over, I looked over at Justin who was just staring at me. Had he been watching the movie, or was he watching me watching the movie? Did he know I was aroused by it? In any case, he didn’t make any snide remarks, and he certainly wasn’t laughing at me.