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  “And risk an arrest for drunken bicycling? No, I’m fine with coffee. SCA, huh? Are their meetings like AA? Do you tell each other all the things you used to do in the good old days?”

  “We tell our stories,” he said, “but it’s a little different, because we have to guard against getting off on what we tell, or what we hear. So the stories are intentionally vague. ‘I acted out with a partner, I acted out alone, I acted out with a group—’ ”

  “ ‘I acted out with two nuns and a sheep.’ I was thinking that the meetings might be fun, but you nipped that little fantasy in the bud. So you used to act out and now you don’t, and I gather you’re happily married, and did you say you’ve got a kid?”

  He nodded. “And speaking of bicycles, he’s learning to ride one.”

  It’s a tricycle, and he still hasn’t learned to put it in the garage. But of course she couldn’t say that.

  The food came, and he said he knew she’d offered to buy him lunch, but it was going to have to be on him. This, he said, would be a small way of making it up to her for the way he’d treated her in New York, back in the bad old days.

  “You treated me fine,” she said.

  “I was acting out sexually, and I exploited you.”

  “Acting out? Whatever it was you were doing, I was doing it, too. And I must have enjoyed it, and felt just fine about it, or I wouldn’t have hit on you yesterday.”

  “You weren’t hitting on me.”

  “Yes I was,” she said. “It’s what I’m doing now, too. In case you hadn’t noticed.”

  “Kim—”

  “I know you’re attracted to me. Aren’t you?”

  “You’re a very attractive woman.”

  “And you’re an extremely attractive man, and if there weren’t other people around I’d be under the table with your cock in my mouth. You used to like that, and I’ll bet you still do.”

  “We shouldn’t be having this conversation.”

  “Why not? Graham, I know you, I know what you like. Are you going to try pretending you don’t enjoy having your cock sucked?”

  He just looked at her. He was getting hard, she could tell. And something came back to her, some rush of memory from out of nowhere.

  “You wanted to fuck me in the ass! That’s what you promised me, when you went off to your meeting. We’d meet for dinner and come back to the room, and you’d have plenty of lube on hand, and you’d fuck me up my ass.” She looked at him levelly, licked her lips. “See? If you want to make it up to me, that’d be a good place to start. You owe me.”

  The son of a bitch was hopeless. He went to AA meetings and SCA meetings, so no wonder he didn’t have time to mow his lawn. SCA might have been fun if there was a decent amount of backsliding involved, but he took it seriously, the idiot, and he took his wedding vows seriously, especially the part about forsaking all others.

  It infuriated her, and she was on the verge of losing it when she caught hold of herself. No point in cursing the fish when it wouldn’t take the bait. More effective to reel in and try again.

  “I’m sorry, Graham,” she said. “I guess I’m not used to rejection. It’s not something I get a lot of.”

  “I’m not rejecting you, Kim. It’s just—”

  “I understand. You’d actually love to fuck me, but you won’t let yourself. Because it doesn’t fit with your new life.”

  “I might not have phrased it quite that way. But that’s close enough.”

  “So now we’ll go our separate ways,” she said. “Will you think about me when you masturbate?”

  He flushed deeply.

  “I get it,” she said. “You don’t do that anymore either, right?”

  “It’s a form of acting out,” he said, “that we don’t encourage.”

  “We meaning SCA?”

  He nodded.

  “I’m glad I’m not a member,” she said, “because I have to tell you, Graham, I’m gonna have my hands full tonight. I’ll put on some music and I’ll get out my sex toys and I’ll imagine all the things you and I aren’t gonna do to each other. Oh, is this conversation making you uncomfortable?”

  “I think you know it is.”

  “Well, if you get all worked up, you can go home and knock off a good one with Wifey. The two of you do have sex, don’t you?”

  “Of course we do.”

  “You’ll be thinking of me,” she said.

  “That’s not true.”

  “It’s not? Oh, I think it is. You’ll be inside your precious wife, in whatever position’s ordinary enough so that it doesn’t come under the heading of ‘acting out,’ but in your mind you’ll be doing me in the ass. You’ll be hotter than a forest fire and she’ll wonder what got into you, and in the morning you’ll be all racked with guilt and have to go to a meeting to confess your sins to your buddies. But you won’t dare be too specific about it, or they’d all get hot and the meeting would turn into one big circle jerk. Which, now that I think about it, would be a big improvement all around.”

  Well, gee, she’d lost it after all, hadn’t she?

  ELEVEN

  Rita was cooking something. The aroma, richly inviting, caught her up when she opened the door.

  She’d prowled around restlessly all afternoon. First a movie at a mall theater, where she kept changing her seat. That was easy enough, the theater was weekday-afternoon empty, but she couldn’t find a seat that wasn’t too near or too far from the screen, couldn’t let herself get into the story, and finally couldn’t remain in the theater for longer than forty minutes.

  She stalked out, then roamed the mall, walking in and out of stores and up and down aisles. She didn’t need anything, didn’t want to buy anything, but she tried on a pair of jeans in one boutique and flirted with a cell-phone salesman in the Radio Shack. It occurred to her to take him in back, to an office or rest room, and scratch the itch that Graham Weider had inflicted. Blow him, fuck him, whatever. And then kill him, but with what? There might be something in the back, a pair of heavy-duty scissors, a letter opener, a heavy glass ashtray to hit him with. No, not an ashtray, because smoking wouldn’t be allowed, but maybe a desk lamp, maybe a paperweight.

  Could you count on finding something? No, of course you couldn’t. And the guy was a doofus anyway, built full in the hips, and he waddled like a penguin, and she didn’t really want to do him in the first place. She wanted to do Graham Weider, and she couldn’t, the bastard had turned her down, and the way her luck was running today she’d get the same reception from the penguin, and she wasn’t sure she could take it.

  She got out of there. And found another store to walk into, and walk out of.

  And now she was back home, and Rita was telling her that she hoped Kim hadn’t eaten, because the only way the beef bourguignon recipe worked was if you cooked enough for four, so—

  “It smells terrific,” she said, “and no, I haven’t eaten. In fact I didn’t have much of a lunch. I’ll be back in fifteen minutes, how’s that?”

  She hopped on her bike and rode to a liquor store she’d noted earlier. What did you drink with beef bourguignon? The clerk, who couldn’t keep his eyes off her tits, recommended a Nuits-Saint-Georges or a Chateauneuf du Pape. The Nuits-Saint-Georges was two dollars cheaper, and that made the decision for her.

  Pull the clerk into the back room? The look on his face suggested he wouldn’t put up much of a struggle, and afterward the wine bottle would serve as a handy blunt instrument. He was all alone in the store, so she could go through the register on her way out, and very likely pocket a few hundred bucks for her trouble. And then she could take the murder weapon home and share its contents with her landlady, and that had a certain undeniable appeal. Oh, get over it, will you?She got on her bike and headed for home.

  The wine made quite an impression on Rita. “Oh, I bought wine,” she said, “but nothing anywhere near this good. I picked up a halfgallon of California red and used half of it in the stew, thinking we’d drink the rest with the mea
l. But we have to have yours, it’s a Burgundy, it should be perfect with beef bourguignon.”

  As indeed it was. The meal was simple, just the main course and a salad, and she hadn’t eaten since she stormed out of the Italian place in the middle of lunch, and Rita had prepared a superb meal. She had the radio tuned to an Easy Listening station, and the conversation stayed comfortably superficial until they were about halfway through the bottle of Nuits-Saint-Georges.

  Then, complimenting the meal again, she said that this was turning out to be an acceptable day after all.

  “You had a bad day, Kim?”

  Could she talk about it? She’d have to drop the central element, but maybe it wouldn’t hurt to talk around it a little.

  “I’ve been running around like a bitch in heat,” she said. “I’ve been so damned horny all day I could scream. I probably shouldn’t be talking like that—”

  “Oh, I’ve heard worse.” Rita raised her wine glass. “And had days like that myself. A lot of them, actually.”

  “Maybe it’s the bike,” she said. “All that low-grade stimulation in that general area.”

  “The vibration and all.”

  She reached for the wine bottle, filled Rita’s glass, then her own. “Here’s to vibration,” she said.

  “You said it.”

  “Speaking of which,” she said, “that’s what I should have bought. I kept walking in and out of mall stores, and never buying a thing. Maybe that’s what I was really looking for.”

  “A vibrator?”

  “Uh-huh. The one I had gave up the ghost after years of loyal service. God, will you listen to me? This wine must be having an effect.”

  “It’s the company,” Rita said. “I have the feeling you and I can say things to each other that neither of us could say to anybody else.”

  That had to be the wine talking, she thought. On the other hand, wasn’t there supposed to be truth in wine?

  “Not that I absolutely have to have a vibrator,” she found herself saying. She raised her hand, wiggled her fingers. “I come prepared. And, as far as that goes, I’m prepared to come.”

  “Kim, you’re a riot!”

  “Well, why pretend the evening’s going to end with prayer and meditation? When the wine’s gone I’m going to hole up in my bedroom and treat myself to an orgasm that’ll make the walls shake. And I might as well tell you about it, Rita, because you’ll probably hear me. I tend to make a little noise when I get off.”

  “Oh? Did you hear me the night before last?”

  “No.”

  “It’s probably just as well.”

  “Oh?”

  “Can I tell you? I probably shouldn’t. But—”

  “Oh, come on, Rita. Don’t be a tease.”

  “Maybe if I have another glass of wine. Oh, the bottle’s empty. Do you think we could switch to the jug wine? It’ll be a disappointment after the Nooee — I don’t know how to pronounce it.”

  “The French stuff.”

  “That’s it, the French stuff.”

  “And at this point it’ll taste fine, Rita. We’re past the point of being able to tell the difference.”

  “I think you’re right. Well, here’s to the French, and the wonderful things they come up with.”

  “God, I’ll drink to that.” She did, and said, “This tastes fine to me. And now you can tell me about the night before last.”

  “Oh God. Well, okay. I was on the phone.”

  “With—?”

  “Someone I met on the Internet, except I didn’t ever actually meet him. I got his number, and I call him, and we give each other phone sex.”

  “How does that work?”

  “Well, you know.”

  “Rita—”

  “We talk dirty.”

  “Like ‘I want to eat your pussy, I want to suck your cock’? Like that?”

  “Some of that. More like telling stories.”

  “Things you did.”

  “Except they’re partly made up. Mine are, anyway, and I’m pretty sure his are, too. Not over the top, like pornography, because it’s more exciting if it’s realistic enough so that you can believe it.”

  “And he’ll tell you a story while you—”

  “Pleasure myself. Pretty pathetic, huh?”

  “It sounds hot.”

  “You think?”

  “I’m getting hot thinking about it,” she said. “You’ve got his voice in your ear and your fingers in your pussy. You bet it’s hot.”

  Rita giggled. “One problem,” she said. “Can you guess?”

  “You can only use one hand.”

  “That’s right! Omigod, how did you guess it so fast?”

  “It just came to me. What’s the matter with speakerphone?”

  “I’ve only got it on the kitchen phone. Anyway, you wouldn’t want the whole room echoing with it, would you?”

  “I see what you mean.”

  “It’s nicer to have his voice right there in my ear.”

  “And your finger right there in your cunt. Oops, I said the C word, didn’t I?”

  “I love the C word! It’s supposed to be disgusting and demeaning to women, but I just don’t get that at all. Cunt, cunt, cunt! Could anybody ever come up with a hotter word than that? Just saying it is getting me hot.”

  “I may not be the only one who ends the evening jilling off.”

  “Jilling — oh, like jacking off but for girls! God, I never heard that before. No, you won’t be the only one, Kimmie.”

  Kimmie?

  “In fact, I was trying to think of a way to offer you the use of my vibrator.”

  “But you’re going to need it yourself.”

  “I’m going to need something.”

  “Will you call your friend?”

  “My friend? Oh, Paul. If that’s his name, which I’m sure it isn’t, any more than mine is Justine. I wouldn’t dream of giving him my real name, so why should he give me his?”

  “And you call him?”

  “In other words, can’t he get my number and trace me that way? I bought one of those prepaid phones. Lots of luck tracing the number.”

  “You bought it just for phone sex?”

  “God, doesn’t that make me sound like a pervert.”

  “More like a femme fatale.”

  “A femme fatale! Much better. But no, I won’t call him tonight. You know what he wanted me to do? Call him on Skype. It’s like a phone call except you do it online, so you can see each other on your computers. No way I’m gonna do that.”

  “You don’t want to see him?”

  “On the phone,” Rita said, “he looks just the way I want him to look. And I look however he wants to picture me. But it’s more than that. I couldn’t possibly say the things I want to say if I’ve got him looking me in the eye. So I’ll stick to the phone, but not tonight, because I won’t need him. My cunt’s on fire already.”

  “I see what you mean about the C word.”

  “I know, isn’t it just the cuntiest word there is? I can’t believe it, we finished the wine.”

  “I don’t feel drunk or anything.”

  “No, neither do I. I just feel good.”

  “Me too.”

  “And hot.”

  “Well, I told you what I’ve been like all day long. But then it just felt frustrating, and now it feels kind of nice.”

  “I know what you mean, Kimmie.” A sigh. “So I guess we ought to go to our separate rooms and pretend we can’t hear each other moaning.”

  “Unless—”

  “Unless what?”

  “We could give each other phone sex,” she said, “but without the phone.”

  “How would that work?”

  “It’s not something I’ve ever done, Rita, and I can’t imagine ever doing it with anybody else—”

  “And?”

  “Suppose instead of going into separate rooms,” she said, “we both sat in the living room. And we could tell each other stories, but real ones,
you know? Things we did that were hot.”

  “And touched ourselves.”

  “Right.”

  “Played with our cunts. Our own cunts, I mean. ’Cause I don’t think—”

  “No, I wouldn’t be up for that myself.”

  “Good, because neither would I. Did you ever—?”

  “With another girl? No, never.”

  “Neither did I.”

  “Though I’ll admit there were times I thought about it.”

  “Oh, how could you help it? But thinking and doing—”

  “Two different things.”

  “Exactly. But telling stories and getting each other off that way— Kimmie, we’ve just got to try it.”

  “I know.”

  “I can almost come just from the idea of it, you know? Kimmie— God, I should have asked, is it all right if I call you Kimmie?”

  “Sure.”

  “Do lots of people call you that?”

  “You’re the first.”

  “Honestly? And you’re sure you don’t mind?”

  “I kind of like it.”

  “Rhymes with gimme.”

  “I was thinking that.”

  “ ‘Gimme, Kimmie.’ You know what let’s do? Let’s put on nightgowns, because I wouldn’t want us to be naked, but we ought to have—”

  “Access.”

  “Exactly!”

  “Except I don’t own a nightgown.”

  “You don’t? So you’ll wear one of mine. It’ll be a little big on you, but that shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “Not at all.”

  “And borrowing one of my nightgowns isn’t quite like using my vibrator.”

  “And sticking it up my cunt.”

  “Oh, God, stop it! You’re just saying that word because you know what it does to me.”

  “After working there for one hour, I knew two things for certain. One, I couldn’t stand the raw animal stink of that man. Every breath I took felt like I was putting something filthy in my lungs. And two, I was going to have sex with him. The smell might be making me sick to my stomach, but it was sending a message straight to my clit. Nothing on earth was going to keep me from fucking him.”

  They were in the living room, curled up in armchairs on opposite sides of the marble-topped coffee table. Their shortie nightgowns were identical except for color; Rita’s was shell-pink, hers apricot. They’d sat there for a few minutes, lamenting that the wine was finished, agreeing that they didn’t really need any more of it, and anticipating the rest of the evening with edgy excitement.