INT. BUNKHOUSE SALOON—WEDNESDAY, 10:30 P.M.
The place is populated by a handful of patrons. A sampled, hip-hop version of Sam Cooke’s “You Send Me” plays overhead, loudly.
Bunkhouse bartender JOHNNY ANDERSON, brown hair spilling over librarian glasses, wearing a blue vintage skirt-and-top ensemble, pauses from serving $1 PBRs below a television airing a closed-captioned Hannibal.
JOHNNY
I learned about it from YouTube. They’ve done it once or twice in Austin. Tonight was pretty spur-of-the-moment, no advertising. I had a whole group of girls who were going to do it, but they got too drunk and had to go home. We’d like to do it every week, depending ...
Johnny fetches the competition’s prizes. Decades of cultural exchange with Asia, a group of bored Japanese men without girlfriends, a tweaking of the air-guitar phenomenon and a March segment on the BBC have ultimately led to the placement on the bar of one Sweet & Sexy Candy G-String, one Candy Garter (both including nutrition facts and expiration dates on the back of their black cardboard packaging), one pink vibrator, one baby-blue vibrator, and one six-ounce can of Top It Off French Vanilla Body Dessert Topping.
A few minutes’ lull, then Johnny’s head appears over the top of the sound booth and the MUSIC CEASES.
JOHNNY
(on microphone)
Welcome to Vegas’ first Air Sex Competition. You may use props, but toys are not allowed. I am going to be the first person to go. Hopefully this will not hit the air, because I teach at CSN. This is an interpretive dance called “The Sally Jesse Raphael.”
Johnny skips to the stage, kicking her shoes off as she goes. Michael Jackson’s “Beat It” begins playing overhead, loudly. Johnny’s eyes narrow to slits and her chin juts as she dances suggestively on stage, then takes to her hands and knees before mimicking the girl-on-top sexual position with an imaginary partner under her, head lashing from side to side and one arm waving in the air. After stripping to undergarments, she approaches the squat, round coffee table on the floor a few feet from the stage, where she simulates fellatio and wipes her mouth as a finale. ENCOURAGING SHOUTS OF “YEAH!” AND “WHOOO!” come from the audience throughout.
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Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” plays overhead, loudly. MINGO, a clubby/techie-type, takes the stage.
MINGO
(laughing nervously)
Ha! Ha! (pauses, then again) Ha! Ha!
Grinning embarrassedly, Mingo removes his stylish brown jacket and drags it back and forth between his legs as his body undulates and gyrates his pelvis energetically. Before long he is stomach-down on the stage, thrusting himself into a faux-partner over and over, still grinning embarrassedly. His pageboy cap goes, as do his glasses, then he stands upright again and waves his jacket over his lead like a lasso. But he cannot remain far from his air-partner; for a second time he is stomach-down on the stage, thrusting himself into a faux-partner over and over. The embarrassed grin never leaves his face. It is quite hilarious, and also quite hot. The audience SHRIEKS WITH WILD DELIGHT throughout.
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Pat Benatar’s “Love is a Battlefield” plays overhead, loudly. Bartender MARRISA, wearing ’80s-inspired leg warmers and a Flashdance-approved off-the-shoulder top, takes the stage with JOJO, a grizzled, intoxicated, upper-middle-age regular wearing a ball cap over stringy hair. They don’t so much mimic sexual intercourse as dance with carefree abandon, including lots of turns, akimbo arms and ass slaps. She smiles more for the kitsch value; he is all beery, focused determination to remain upright. The audience collectively scrunches its face in perplexity, but is soon won over by the nonchalant duo. CHEERS go up upon the number’s completion.
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Bruce Springsteen’s “Dancing in the Dark” plays overhead, loudly. Johnny, once again fully clothed, stands onstage, as do the small handful of contestants. Once by one she repeats each contestant’s name and asks the audience to vocally show their support if they want that particular contestant to win. Moments before, Mingo was performing a remarkable
Bruce-and-Courteney-Cox-goofily-swinging-their-arms-about-onstage rendition, but now the shouts raised in support declare him the unanimous winner.
Post-show note: Bunkhouse bartender Johnny says she expects that they will host another air sex competition, but the date is yet to be determined.