Chapter Fifty-Nine
That evening, Charles Bartoff and General Manager Claimant Mifkin strolled through the lobby, arm-in-arm—because they could. Reactions to this spectacle varied: Monsieur Lapin-Défunt found it aesthetically unappealing but existentially legitimate; Glen Stoupes felt sick to his stomach; Aloysius felt dismayed at his superior’s decision to, apparently, jettison the teeming masculinity which he’d always respected in him; Annette suffered a searing envy; Enid closed her eyes and imagined how their lovemaking must look, and felt instantly aroused; and Arthur Drig admired their courage, seeming indifference to convention and apparent absence of a guilty conscience.
The lovers sealed their display with a lick up Bartoff’s cheek from Mifkin’s tongue, then retired to their room.