"Well, I don't understand it. I've been coming in here for ten years, your uncle always gives me thirty-eight opera length and they always fit."

"Maybe you got taller," Stony offered cheerfully.

Butler struggled to keep a straight face. "Look, if you want I can give you forties or forty-twos."

She sniffed. "Or you can give me the thirty-eights that your uncle's been giving me."

"Look, dear, they all come out of the same box."

"Well, give me forty-twos."

Butler carefully folded the stockings. "Taupetone?"

"Taupetone."

Sucking his teeth Butler ran his thumb up and down the piled boxes behind him.

"All we have in a forty-two opera length is lollipop and peter pan. I got off-black in a forty."

"Off-black," she grimaced. "That's for tramps."

Stony laughed. She narrowed her eyes at him.

"How 'bout a peachpuff in forty-two?"

"Let me see."

Butler pulled out the box, dropped it on the counter, folded back the tissue, slipped his hand inside one stocking to show her the color against flesh.

"I dunno. Yeah, I'll take it." She shrugged.

Butler folded the new pair in its tissue and slid it into the wrinkled brown bag.

"Do you think you might be able to spare a new bag?" She smirked, drumming long nails on glass. Butler took out the stockings, crumpled the bag and tossed it behind him. He put the stockings in a new bag. She gave each of them one last hard stare before leaving the store. Butler ran in front of the counter, spread his legs, grabbed his crotch and shook his basket at her back.

"That fuckin' lady's been breakin' my uncle's balls for years."

"Peachpuff?" Stony gawked.

Butler returned the other stockings to their box. "I'd like to give her douchepuff."

"She had nice fuckin' legs, Butler. I bet you get laid in here before the end of July."

"I shoulda banged her on the Fourth. You see those legs? Very patriotic." Butler slapped the box into place. "Red, white an' blue."

"Hey, meanwhile, speakin' a Old Glory, guess who I racked with last night?"

"Martha Raye?"

"Close, Three-Finger Annette."

"Really?" Butler grinned, pulled up a chair facing Stony. The el train roared overhead, deafening everything within two miles. Stony waited for the train to pass.

"Yeah ... I was watchin' Mary Tyler Moore last night an' I got horny. I always get horny watchin'her ... anyways, I was a cunt hair away from callin' Cheri."

"Bad news."

"So I figured. Anyway, I'm going berserk and I don't know what to do. Suddenly the goddamn phone rings. It was the seventh cavalry." Stony pretended he held a phone to his head, his pinky in front of his mouth, his thumb in his ear.

" 'Hello, Stony? This is Annette Palladino.' 'Hey, Annette, howya doin'?' 'I got my own place last week. Stony, an' I was wonderin' if you wanna come over.'" Stony clasped his hands together and smiled beatifically at the ceiling. "Thank you, God! Butler, I was over there before she hung up. She got a nice crib on Dyer Avenue, one room, but nice. Anyways, I got over there and she lays this dynamite boo on me, I mean super shit. One jay between us an' we're flyin'. I just took her fuckin' face in my hands"—Stony closed his eyes, his hands in front of him—"an' I started kissin' her. This sounds nuts, Butler, but we were just kissin'. Her lips felt so fuckin' good, like warm and firm, an' I was goin' bananas. We weren't even tonguin', Butler." Stony puckered his lips and kissed the space between his hands. "It was fantastic. I felt really warm, you know?"