Sarah Black
Stories
Infidelity
It was one of those strange, quiet moments in the usually noisy restaurant, when all conversations stopped at the same time. I had just picked up two orders of Sui Mai from the serving window and, as I turned, I heard him say, "He doesn't love you any more. If he did, he wouldn't be fucking my wife."
I slid the plate of dumplings in front of the woman. She was crying quietly into her hands, a handkerchief pressed over her eyes. Long, delicate, white fingers; neat manicure; big, sparkly diamond.
I put the other plate in front of him, and he looked up and met my eyes. His were cold and black, the fury in his words frozen into splinters of dark ice. He knew I had heard him. He sat back, and then reached up for his moustache and stroked it with a finger. His moustache was long and black, like his hair. Maybe it was okay, since I knew him. But maybe it wasn't okay. He was one of my professors.
I gestured to his empty beer bottle, and he handed it to me and nodded. When I brought the new one back, the woman was gone and he was working his way through his dumplings.
I gestured toward the woman's plate. "Want me to wrap that up?"
He shook his head. "She just went to the bathroom." He studied me, and his dark gaze gave me that little nudge in the pit of my stomach, like it always did-faint alarm, and more than a little lust. He was good-looking, but that wasn't it. He looked dangerous, like deadly sin in faded jeans, like there were no boundaries in his world. His fiction was like that, too-so fine and brutal it made you catch your breath, reading it. I had come to the university to study with him.
"Mary. How you doing, Mary?"
I was a little surprised he knew my name. I hadn't made much of an impression on him either as the person serving him beer and dumplings a couple of times a week, or with my short stories, which even to my own eye lacked passion and grit and tended to come unraveled and lose their thread at the end. That's what he had written on the last one he had handed back. 'No passion, no pain, no life. If you're trying to write like Jane Austen, you aren't there yet.'
Well, no. I wasn't trying to write like Jane Austen. I was trying to write like me, and maybe just a little more like him.
"I'm good," I said, turning away. He reached out and caught my wrist, then ran his thumb down inside my palm.
"Sorry about that, Mary. I don't want to shock you with my bad language. You're such a proper little lady." The sneer behind his words was faint. He was still holding my wrist, his thumb a steady pressure in the palm.
I nodded. "Um, Professor Santoras? Are you okay?" I felt like a fool before the words were out of my mouth. If he wasn't, I was hardly the person he would turn to for help.
He squeezed my wrist, then let go. "You can call me Eric. I think I've told you that before."
Yes, he had. I nodded and moved away from the table. There was a limit to how long I would stand around feeling like a fool.
***
Jessica Santoras looked like she'd been born on a pair of skis. I had seen her a couple of times with Eric. Her cool, blonde beauty made her husband look darker, more ferocious. Next to him, she was an ice goddess. They hadn't been married long — less than a year.
I couldn't imagine how anyone would have the guts to cheat on Eric Santoras. He looked like he had a knife in his boot and he knew how to use it. Was she trying to see how far she could push him before he killed her?
We were seated in class, our desks moved to approximate a circle. I was drawing little 3-D diamonds and cubes all over my notebook and thinking about the professor. Naomi was reading an excerpt from her fantasy novel-in-progress, which had a great deal of interspecies sex between elves and dwarves. Professor Santoras-Eric, I reminded myself-was walking around the classroom behind our chairs. I couldn't help but think of that children's game, Duck, Duck, Goose. He stopped next to me and put a hand on my shoulder, and I jumped.
"Let's stop there and have some comments, Naomi. Before we begin, however, remember we're concentrating on conflict." He looked around the room. "Where's the conflict?" He tapped a finger on the edge of the table next to me. He was wearing a white, button-down oxford with his jeans and boots. The sleeves were rolled up. I was staring at the curly black hair on his forearm. He tapped the table again with one hard finger. When I looked up he stared down into my eyes. "What's at stake?" He straightened up, and I started breathing again. "What's at stake?" he repeated. "If there's nothing at stake, there's no conflict. No conflict, no story. Okay, who wants to go first?"
An hour later we were writing a five-hundred-word scene to introduce a conflict. I wrote a passable house fire, but Eric read it and handed it back. He leaned forward over me until I had to look up at his face. "Nice description, but there aren't any people in your story, Mary. Put some people in your story. Put some people in danger." His dark eyes were simmering today, some heat deep inside his button-down oxford spilling out of his eyes. "Maybe a husband and wife. One of them has been unfaithful, and one of them has just found out." He was breathing hard now, his jaw flexing, then he stood and stroked his moustache and turned his back on me. "You have to be able to feel, Mary. Life has to burn inside you, burn through your nerves until it consumes you. You write like a scared little virgin."
***
I collected a pan full of dirty dishes and pushed through the double doors into the kitchen. Michael looked up from the pile of cabbage he was chopping and studied my face. "You need some help out there? Are we getting backed up?"
I shook my head. "The lunch crowd has almost cleared out. I can handle it."
"What's wrong?"
I shook my head again. I had been alternating between fury and tears since class, and at the moment I was close to tears again. I didn't want to act like a fool in front of my boss.
Michael put down the knife and wiped his hands on his apron, then joined me at the sink. He studied the pile of dishes. "Now that's what I like to see. They practically licked the plates."
I rinsed a handful of silverware under the hot water. "I think you're providing half the daily calories for the entire student body at NAU."
"Who's doing the other half?"
"McDonald's."
He cringed. "Don't say that name in my restaurant! Bad luck!"
Michael was in his thirties, with a beautiful Thai face and long, black hair that he pulled back into a ponytail and stuck under the collar of his shirt at work. He had been raised down south, in the bayou country north of New Orleans. But, like a lot of American boys, he wanted to be a cowboy when he grew up. So he'd packed up and moved west. That was his story. He'd come to Flagstaff for college at NAU, and fallen in love with the mountains and snow and huge Ponderosa pines. His degree was in English. He'd never stopped working at the restaurant, though. He'd been there since he was an undergrad, and now he was the manager. I had asked him once what he had wanted to do when he was younger. He'd given me a funny look and said he was doing it. He wanted to work, read, and be happy. The restaurant kept him in books.
When the dishes were loaded into the dishwasher, he pulled me back into the restaurant and we sat at the bar. I scanned the dining room. My customers had all left. He poured two cups of ginger tea and gave me one.
"Now, tell Uncle Michael all about it. Boyfriend trouble? Want me to have someone killed?"
I shook my head. "He said I wrote like I was a scared little virgin! That shit! I feel like sticking a pocket-knife into one of his tires. What does he expect, Michael? I'm twenty-six. I'm not a virgin, but I've never been to jail, I've never ridden with a motorcycle gang, I've never been the target of a murderous vendetta, I've never been snow-bound while climbing a mountain. But so what? What the fuck is the matter with that guy? Hasn't he ever read Emily Dickinson?"
"Just don't poison his dumplings," Michael said. "He's one of our best customers." I gave him a look. "Listen, his fiction is really good and really powerful, Mary. But it's his style, you know? You have a different style. Besides, you don't want to write like him."
I took a sip of my ginger tea. "Oh, really? I don't?" I was feeling just a touch combative.
Michael leaned forward, and just for a moment I could smell lemon-grass and ginger and chilies from his clothes. I took a deep breath. "You want to live like one of his characters? Nothing wrong with having a little adventure, Mary, but it doesn't make for a peaceful life."
A peaceful life? I thought about it. A lot of great fiction came from living a peaceful life. But it felt like the difference between being warm, snuggled up into a fuzzy pink blanket, and taking a high dive into a volcano. The high dive would be short, but... I wanted to feel the volcano. Just once.
I suspected Michael could see all of this in my face. He drained his cup and stood up. "Just be careful, Mary."
The door to the restaurant opened, and Eric came in and looked around. He stared at me for a moment with a frown between his eyes like he had a headache. He exchanged nods with Michael. Eric came walking toward us, and Michael leaned over. "Just be careful," he repeated.
Michael pushed through the double doors into the kitchen, and Eric stood next to me, close enough I could feel the heat coming off him in waves.
"Come on," he said. "You got comfortable shoes on?"
I looked down at my feet, then up at him. Where was my apology? "Yes, I have comfortable shoes on. I'm a waitress. I could hardly be in high heels."
"You're a writer, Mary, working as a waitress. Come on. Let's get out of here. Let's walk. Walk and talk."
We headed up San Francisco Avenue, and I had a hard time keeping up with his furious, long-legged pace. This was a fitting metaphor, I thought, me running and falling further and further behind him. Finally he reached behind him and grabbed me around the wrist. "Come on," he said, tugging on my arm. "Keep up with me."
My breath and my patience were getting shorter and shorter. Finally I jerked my arm out of his hand and sat down on the sidewalk. He stood over me for a moment, legs spread and hands on his hips like he wanted to order me up. Then he sat down next to me on the curb.
"You need more exercise if a little jaunt like that makes you short of breath."
I couldn't speak yet, so I raised my middle finger weakly in his direction. Scared little virgin, my ass.
He laughed and put an arm around my shoulders. "Listen, Mary. I'm sorry about what I said. I shouldn't have said it in the middle of class like that."
"Who cares where you said it? You said it because you were thinking it." I could feel the tears, and blinked hard to keep them from spilling over. "Look, I've only got my own mind to work with, my own life, my own experience. I'm working hard to get better. And I'm going to keep working hard, no matter how useless you think I am. What do you want from me? Want me to wander into sleazy bars until I get gang-raped, so I have some conflict to write about?"
He watched me, his black eyes never leaving my face. I had never seen a man so gorgeous before. I dropped my head to my knees. "Shit!"
"I don't know you very well," he said slowly. "Maybe I misunderstood. I kind of thought this was a hobby for you, like something you were doing until you got married or started a more stable career. Teaching, maybe."
The truth burned in the back of my throat like acid. I lifted my head and stared at him. "No, you don't know me well. You never bothered, and you want to know why? Because I'm ordinary to look at. Brown hair, brown eyes. I'm not beautiful. I'm ordinary. Pleasant. Nice. And you are surrounded by women so beautiful they cause trouble everywhere they go." His face darkened at this, but he didn't argue. "You don't know me, and you never will. I'm not beautiful enough for you to bother with. So if you want to underestimate me as a person, fine. Go ahead, stand in line. But don't underestimate how much I want to write, and write well. I'll never give up, no matter what, no matter how many public insults you give me. So." I dropped my head to my knees again. "So that's what I wanted to say."
He sat there for a moment more. "You done?"
I raised my head and looked at him. "I believe so. Why?"
He stood up and reached a hand down for me, tugged me upright. "Then let's go. We're almost there."
"Where?" I was confused. Were we going somewhere?
"My house. We're going to my house." I was back to running to keep up with him.
"Why?"
"You don't know as much about me as you think you do, either, little girl." He tugged me by the wrist again, up a couple of stairs and into the shadowy front porch. "You stare at me with those big brown eyes, yearning, yearning, yearning. You want to live, Mary." He pushed me up against the wall, the gray stone cold against my back. His hands were moving all over me, his mouth moving over my throat. "You want to live. You want me to teach you how to live. You want me to teach you how to feel."
Right on the front porch, both hands up under my shirt. I was frozen with shock. He lifted my T-shirt up and tugged my bra down. Cold mountain air swirled over my skin, touching my nipples. As they tightened, he lowered his head and put his mouth over me. His lips were so hot, and I held his head against me, working my fingers through his hair. My mind filled with the sandalwood smell of his skin. I tried to concentrate on how it felt, so I could remember this later, but the pure sensation was too much, like a wave crashing over my head. He raised his mouth and moved to the other breast, and when the cold air hit my skin I moaned out loud. He took an erect nipple between thumb and forefinger and rubbed gently back and forth.
He pulled me down to the wooden plank floor of the porch. Autumn leaves and cold mountain air moved over us. We were visible from the street, if anyone cared to look. Maybe his porch was well known in the neighborhood for moans and rhythmic grunts and screams of passion.
He had my pants down now, and pulled my arms up over my head. "Keep your hands up here, Mary. Don't touch. Just feel."
I wasn't sure what he was talking about or what he wanted me to do or not do, and I couldn't hardly think with his hands moving on me, down from my waist to my hips, his tongue on my belly, then my jeans were around my ankles. My panties were around my ankles. The clothes restrained me from moving my feet. He pushed my knees apart and moved his hot mouth up the inside of my thigh, higher and higher until I could feel his moustache tickling me. His hands were around my waist, holding me still, and I kept my hands above my head like he told me to do.
The dull throb from between my legs was almost unbearable, and for the first time his touch lost its gentleness and became rough. He burrowed his way between my legs, his moustache harsh against my skin. He sucked my clitoris into his mouth, scraping it against his teeth. I felt myself explode, drenching his face. One hand moved up from my waist to clamp over my mouth and muffle my screams.
He was taking his time between my legs-long, nuzzling licks and kisses, just as if he loved doing this and loved the way I tasted. His fingers were in my mouth and my hands were in his hair, and I was busy wondering what the heck was going on because this was me, and this was him, and he was Eric Santoras... Oh, God, that was enough-just thinking his name, feeling again those long nights full of yearning, dreaming, he was right about me, of course, wondering what he would feel like, smelling his skin when he walked by me, oblivious. Oblivious. Of course he was oblivious. He sucked my clitoris into his soft mouth again, and I bit down involuntarily on his index finger. He chuckled against my skin, a sensation of utter bliss. "Easy, baby. You taste so sweet. You're summer wine and sunshine, like the first time, baby-like innocence." His tongue felt like it was about a foot long. That was a good metaphor, I thought. Did he just think that up, or had he used it before?
What in the world was he doing here, making love to me, saying sweet things to me with his moustache damp...? He looked up at me and I let him slip his fingers out of my mouth.
I pictured suddenly what I looked like, and I remembered in that instant every gorgeous woman I had ever seen him with, the perfect blonde beauty of his wife, and I studied his face, so passionate and beautiful and dark between the ivory skin of my thighs.
He was looking up above my head now, then his head whipped around and he stared out of the porch at the street. I leaned forward. There was a black Nissan with dark tinted windows across the street, the engine idling.
He stood and reached for me. "Come with me. Quick, get in the house..."
"...Mary," I reminded him. I could see he didn't remember my name. I pulled my jeans up. "My name's Mary.
He reached for something on the rock ledge of the porch. It was what he had been staring at over my head. Then he pushed me inside the front door and locked it. "Jesus, Mary, I know who you are." He was holding up a delicate silk cardigan sweater, a pale peach color with pearl buttons. He held it up to his face for a moment, as if to smell it. Then he looked at me. "We got some self-esteem issues?"
I stared at the sweater, then looked around the living room of his house. His wife's house. His wife's front porch, where he had just... "Where's your wife?"
He looked down at me, his face suddenly dark. "She split." He threw the sweater on the back of the couch. "I don't remember seeing this on the porch. I thought maybe she'd come back for something. She didn't take any of her clothes. Good excuse to go shopping for more, I guess." He walked through into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator door. "You want a beer, Mary?"
"I should go."
He came back through from the kitchen and leaned in the doorway, a brown glass bottle of beer in his hand. I felt a little shaky being so near him, like I wanted to touch him, maybe run my fingers under the waistband of his Levi's and feel his erection through the faded soft denim. I closed my eyes and covered my face with my hands to hide the tears. "What are you doing here? With me?"
"I live here, Mary. Alone, now. And what I'm doing here is tasting you." He faltered, his lower lip between his teeth. "You're so fresh and sweet, girl, so open. Almost transparent. Maybe I want to say I'm sorry for what I said to you in class. But I can see the way you look at me. So much hunger." He tipped the bottle up to his mouth. "Maybe I just want to be with someone who looks at me the way you do."
Jesus. He was doing it because he felt sorry for me. "Okay, I'll take the beer." I flopped down on the couch, and he brought me a bottle and sat down next to me. I felt a little awkward. Just because a man has had his head between your thighs doesn't mean you know him well enough to talk afterward. "What's with that car outside?"
He stroked his moustache, staring over at the locked front door. "One of my wife's lovers." He looked down at me. "She always has a pack of men around her, like the Queen's court. I don't really know if she tried to change when we got married, but the habits of a lifetime are hard to break. Too hard, as it turned out."
"I'm sorry." He was working a fingernail under the label of the beer bottle, peeling it off. "I mean, I'm sorry about your wife. That things didn't work out."
He ignored this. It sounded lame even to my ears. I gestured toward the street. "So was that guy the husband? You know, of the woman you were with in the restaurant?"
He shook his head. "No. That husband, he just likes to collect trophies. No, the one outside in the Nissan, he's... I don't know, he's crazy. Obsessed. He doesn't get Jessica at all. He doesn't get that, for her, it's a game. Like a hobby." He shrugged like he didn't care, but I could see the frost come back into his eyes, dangerous black ice.
***
I pushed through the double doors into the kitchen and went to the sink to wash up. Michael looked up from the prep table and studied me with narrowed eyes. "Are you okay? You've got a leaf in your hair."
"Really?" I ran my hands through my hair and pulled out the leaf. It must have been from the porch.
"So what did he want?"
I pulled a rubber band out of my pocket and put my hair up in an untidy knot. "He wanted to go down on me. Can you believe it?"
Michael thwacked the cleaver hard into the pile of green onions he was chopping, scattering them across the cutting board. He stared down at the vegetables. "And did you let him, Mary?"
I reached over and started scooping cut onions into the bowl. "Of course I did. I'm not an idiot. But I think he just felt sorry for me."
Michael looked at me then, his eyes hooded and a long muscle flexing in his jaw. He started to say something, then just pointed at the dining room with the knife. "Get to work, please."
I went into the dining room and started putting out place settings. Josh, the other evening waiter, was wrapping silverware in napkins at the bar. "What's with him?" I asked, nodding toward the kitchen.
Josh shrugged. "I don't know, but I think it's you, not me. At least, I hope so."
***
It was a couple of minutes until midnight. The restaurant was empty except for the three of us. Michael usually left Josh and me to close up, but tonight he stayed to help.
Eric pushed open the door and stood just inside, checking the time on his watch. He looked up at me. "I'll walk you home, Mary. You almost done?"
Michael walked up to him, and whatever he said was too quiet for me to hear. They both turned and went outside, and I could see them talking through the glass window in front of the restaurant. They were arguing the way men did who didn't know each other very well, both staring down at the ground, hands in pockets, or looking off down the dark street.
After a couple of minutes they came back inside. Eric stayed by the door. Michael hung his apron on a hook behind the bar. "Go ahead, Mary. Josh and I can finish up."
Eric held the front door open for me and we went outside. He smelled like soap, like he had just climbed out of the shower. His cheeks were smooth, and he had pulled his black hair back into a stubby ponytail.
"You look nice," I said. "You have a date?" He was too buffed and polished for a midnight stroll.
He laughed under his breath and slid his hands into the pockets of his leather jacket. "Yeah, Mary, I do. Want to come back to my place? We can go to yours if it's closer." I felt my jaw drop open. "You, Mary. I have a date with you." He stopped and turned to face me. "I want another little taste." He reached out and tugged me closer, stared down into my face, then leaned in and kissed me.
His mouth was soft on mine, and he kept it there long enough that I wanted more, and kissed him back, opened my mouth and slid my tongue inside. I touched the tip of his tongue, and his arms went around me, pulled me hard against his chest. His hands slid through my hair, pulled the rubber band loose and let my hair fall around my shoulders.
His arms were hard, and I was pressed so tightly against him that I couldn't move, but his mouth stayed tender on mine. When he lifted his head he pushed the hair back off my forehead and looked down at me. Whatever he saw there must have been what he was looking for, because he smiled and lowered his head again and kissed me.
My knees were shaking and I was clinging to his jacket to stay upright.
"Where's your place, Mary?"
I looked around and pointed up the street. "Just a block up. I've got a studio. It's not much. It's pretty messy, too. And I need a shower."
"Afterwards," he said. He looked down at me, face shadowed. "You can take a shower after I fuck you."
I stumbled, and he reached out and grabbed my arm above the elbow. He held me like that, pressed tightly against his body, until we came to my apartment building. When we got inside I hung my keys on the hook and he reached behind me and locked the door.
Then he had me back against the wall. He shoved my legs apart with his foot and pressed in between my legs, my hands held at the wrist over my head. He pressed into me, pressed his erection between my legs, and I could feel his body trembling. I was shaking, too — so turned on it was all I could do not to take a bite out of his mouth. He leaned in and kissed me again, his body pressing mine into the wall, and I was thinking hurry, hurry, hurry. I was saying it against his mouth. Then my hands were free and he was pulling my jeans and underwear down, down and off one foot. He unzipped his jeans and pushed them down and his erect cock came bursting out, red and angry looking from a tangled nest of black hair. He was scrabbling in his pockets for a condom and I reached for him, spread the tiny drop of slippery clear fluid from the tip across the head of his cock with my thumb.
He pushed my hands out of the way and slid the condom up. Then he reached for me, lifted me with both hands and plunged inside. I was so wet already that I could feel the moisture sliding down the inside of my thigh. I wrapped a leg around him and held on to his shoulders and he pounded into me like the devil had claws in his throat.
It was no more than a minute or two when I felt him start to come inside of me, his entire body thrusting and hard, spasms moving through his muscles, through his back and hands and legs. His mouth was on mine, groans from deep in his chest in rhythm with his thrusts, and then he was still.
"Oh, that's sweet." He set me on the floor and pulled out, ran his hands down over my body from my throat over my breasts and down around my waist. He stopped there, smiling down into my face, then slid warm fingers over my skin, through my pubic hair, and down into the slick heat of my body.
"I was too fast for you, Mary? You didn't come?"
"I'm not really sure," I admitted, feeling the breath catch in my throat at what his hands were doing. I moved my legs a little further apart. "Something exploded, but it might have been my head."
He laughed and licked me off his fingers. Then he reached between his legs and rolled the condom off his cock. He was beautiful, thick and ruddy, with curly black hair extending up his belly. I reached for him, and he let me run my fingers through that thick black hair for a moment. Then he pulled away, laughing. "Slow down, baby. We got time."
"Eric?" He stopped and looked back at me. "What did Michael say to you?"
He studied my face for a moment, put one hand up to touch my cheek. "He asked me not to hurt you. And I said I would try."
***
The next day at work Michael pulled me aside. "Listen, Mary. I know you like him. I do, too, and I've admired his fiction for years. You look up to him, and he's your teacher. But something's not right. I don't know what, exactly, but something's not right about what he's doing with you. I'm worried about you."
I started to pull away. No one knew better than I did that Eric's interest in me was improbable to the point of being ludicrous.
"No, listen." Michael reached for my face and turned my head until I was looking up at him. "No one has seen Jessica Santoras. She's gone. She's been gone for a couple of weeks now. She's disappeared. I heard her family's going to hire someone to look for her. I don't want you to get caught up in whatever is happening. I think..." He hesitated. "I think something bad is going on."
"Michael. He didn't kill his wife. She split. He's just... I don't know, going through something. Infidelity-it must do something to men. I'm not really sure. But, if you were in trouble and you needed me, I wouldn't hesitate. If there's anything I can do for him, I'll do it. If there's anything he wants from me, he can have it."
***
I saw him in class on the next Tuesday. There were lines on his face I couldn't remember seeing before. Probably hadn't been sleeping. I remembered suddenly a weekend camping trip when I was in scouts. It was just a couple of days after the scout leader had separated from her husband. The girls discussed the rumors endlessly, mostly overheard from gossiping mothers. How she had walked in on them, how the girlfriend was wearing a see-through nightgown and how her nipples were quite plainly visible and how they were caught in the act.
I remembered watching the woman through the weekend, how exhausted she looked. She looked a little like Eric did today, the way a person looks who lays awake at night and thinks about all the wrong turns that lead to where they were standing right now.
I jumped when his hard finger tapped the table next to me, and I looked up into his dark eyes. Wounded was very sexy.
"Where were you, Mary?" "Girl Scout camp. The year I was twelve."
He smiled and his eyes were a little more tender than I was used to. "Write it for me. All of it. Even the parts that hurt."
I nodded and he straightened out and addressed the class. "Let's talk for a minute about memory."
After class, as I was leaving, he asked, "The dumplings going to be good tonight?"
I nodded. "I think so."
"I might stop in and have some."
I nodded again. Maybe he would let me take him home. I could take care of him. Make sure he got some sleep.
***
He was lying naked across his bed-long legs, strong thighs, flat stomach and a dark patch of hair between his legs. His penis lay against his thigh, the tip dark pink. He was propped up against the headboard with a couple of pillows, bare chest covered with the same dark, curly hair as between his legs. He was watching me look at him.
I was wearing his robe and combing the tangles out of my hair. None of his wife's things were still in the bathroom.
"You don't need to start worrying, Mary, about what this is between you and me."
I turned and looked at him. "So what is this thing between you and me?"
"You take what you want from me, and I take what I want from you. The joy's in the giving, and in the taking."
"I don't understand." But from the sinking feeling in my stomach, this was his version of that old conversation, the "Don't fall in love with me 'cause I've got one foot out the door" conversation.
He shook his head, just like he had read my mind. "Don't judge me by the boys you've known before, girl. It makes you happy to feel my body, to feel me touch your skin. It makes me happy to taste your mouth, to taste the sweetness between your legs, to watch the feelings move across your pretty face. But what you want to give may not be what I need to take, Mary. Just let the joy be in the giving. Don't worry about the rest."
I put the comb down and sat on the end of his bed, where I could look at every gorgeous inch of him. "Eric, I don't understand. It doesn't make sense. You're telling me that if one person gives their heart, their fidelity, their marriage vows, and the other person doesn't offer the same, that's all okay? I don't think that's okay."
He leaned forward and put his big hand around my ankle, pulled it just a little until I stretched my leg out next to his body. He stroked my calf with his rough hands.
"Don't try and heal me, Mary. What happened with my wife, maybe it broke me. I don't know yet. But I do know that I'm walking a path that's not for you. You can't save me. Just for this little time, let's be together, and love each other, and then let it go."
***
He came in late the next night, about ten, ate his usual dumplings and beer. Then he leaned back in his chair with a book. He read a little, watched me a little, stared out the front window at the people walking by, made a few notes in the memo book he kept in his front pocket.
He was reading again when the man came in. The black Nissan was parked at the curb, and the man could have been Jessica Santoras's brother — tall and elegant, fair, with a face so beautiful people stopped talking to stare at him when he walked by. He stopped in front of Eric. "Where is she? What did you do?"
He had an accent, Scandinavian, maybe. Eric stared up at him, contempt and fury in his face. "What did I do? I did nothing. I might ask you the same thing. Last time I saw my wife she was driving away in your car."
"You killed her. I know you did. She told me she was afraid of you."
Eric leaned forward. "She should be afraid," he whispered. "You should be, too." He launched himself at the man, had his hands around the other man's throat and slammed his head to the floor again and again. He climbed off the man's body, reached for his chair, and smashed it down on his face. The chair splintered into pieces, and Eric reached for another one, but Michael was there pulling him off, speaking urgently into his ear.
I called 911, told the emergency operator we needed an ambulance, police, hurry, hurry, hurry.
Eric was nodding, hands held up as if to show he didn't have a weapon, and Michael backed off. Eric pulled out his cell phone and dialed.
***
A police detective was sitting at the bar taking statements from the few patrons left. I was kept busy bringing Thai food and sodas to the detectives and the officers and the crime scene people. Other than to thank me for the food and request refills, they ignored me. I kept seeing his face in my mind-blood-red fury, lips pulled back from his teeth in a snarl, as he looked around for a weapon, grabbed the chair and smashed it down on the obviously unconscious, possible dead, man at his feet. What did he see when he looked at the man's beautiful face? Betrayal?
What I felt was that he had the right. What he did was brutal, but he had the right to do it. Maybe my moral compass was skewed by desire, by passion. Maybe I was in love with him. Did it say something about me that I still wanted to protect him?
A very tall man in a beautiful cashmere overcoat came into the restaurant and spoke to the police detective. Then he looked around the room until he spotted me. I was carrying three plates of Thai noodles, and when I delivered them to the uniformed police doing crowd control outside, I walked up to the man and held out my hand. "I'm Mary Winchester."
"How do you do? I'm Henry Stokes." He handed me a business card, and I studied it for a moment, then stuck it into the back pocket of my jeans. Henry Stokes was an attorney. "I represent the family of Jessica Santoras. I've just been down to the police station with Professor Santoras. I'd like to confirm his information if I may."
"Sure," I said. "Listen, you represent Jessica's family? Who is representing Eric?"
"Professor Santoras is Jessica Santoras's family." He waited a beat to let that sink in. "Professor Santoras stated that you were sitting with him on his front porch last Tuesday. The man driving the black Nissan was parked in front of the house. Is this correct?"
I thought about it. "I saw the Nissan, but the windows were dark. I think it's the same car parked out front now. But I didn't see who was driving it."
"How did Professor Santoras react on that occasion?"
I thought about the sweater, but decided not to mention anything about it until I had talked to Eric. "He seemed worried. He pushed me into the house and locked the door. He said the man in the car was crazy and was one of his wife's lovers."
The man nodded, beaming at me, then took me by the elbow and led me over to the detective taking statements. I repeated everything for the detective and his tape recorder. He had world-weary eyes and a little moustache the color of tobacco. A tiny bit of red sauce was caught in the bristles. He asked the obvious question that Henry Stokes had not.
"What were you doing with Professor Santoras at his house?"
I gave him a blank look. "Homework." The lawyer behind me started clearing his throat.
The cop didn't buy it. "Do you have a personal relationship with Eric Santoras outside of the student-teacher relationship?"
Should I lie, tell the truth, what? Did I even know the answer? "Yes, I do."
"A sexual relationship?"
This was starting to make me mad. "Yes. Very sexual. Extremely so."
The detective grinned at me. "Is this a new relationship? Say just in the last week or so? Since he maybe needed an alibi or corroborating witness or something?"
I sat back. Was I so plain that even the cops didn't believe Eric had any legitimate interest in me? The man sitting in front of me was no beauty. He should talk.
"Yes. This is a new relationship, since the wife left."
"Since the wife left," he repeated slowly.
I stood up. "Want some more noodles? Soup? Dessert? You must be hungry."
He laughed out loud. "No thanks. The two platefuls you already gave me were enough. They were good, though."
I nodded, my hands on my hips, staring down at him. I was getting madder and madder and he was grinning at me, obviously enjoying it.
Michael was suddenly standing next to me. "She done, Detective? I need some help in the kitchen."
"Yeah, she's done. I'll find you if I need you, honey."
I banged through the doors into the kitchen. "That... that prick!"
"Would you shut up?" Michael pulled me further back into the kitchen. "Calm down or go home. You're going to make things worse for him."
I looked up into his face. Michael looked tired. His exotic, elegant face was drawn and pale. He was looking at me with an equal mixture of concern and exasperation.
"I wouldn't have guessed you'd care much if Eric had more trouble."
He reached for my shoulders and gave me a little shake. "Stop it. You're acting like an idiot, and I'm not going to let you pick a fight with me." He hesitated a moment. "When you first came here, you used to look at me the way you look at him now. I wouldn't hurt him for anything."
My face was an open book, apparently, if men knew how to read it. I'd had a big crush on Michael when I first moved here and went to work for him. He seemed so gentle, so at peace with himself. So good-looking. He was still all those things, but now we were friends.
"Let's get cleaned up, okay? It's late. We can talk tomorrow."
I nodded and started gathering up the pots and pans.
I came in early, about nine, to help get the restaurant ready for lunch. I hadn't slept much, but I figured I could take a nap between lunch and dinner. Michael was at the prep table, staring moodily at the piles of vegetables.
"Want some coffee?"
He looked up at me in surprise, then nodded. I poured two cups and joined him at the table.
"Hello, Michael."
"Hello, Mary. You want to chop, or you want to make dumplings?"
"You got the filling ready?" He nodded. "I'll make dumplings. Want to tell me the secret ingredient?" I pulled a stack of dumpling wrappers close and stirred the big bowl of filling.
"Use your nose."
"Ginger, green onions, lemon-grass, chili oil, pork."
"You're missing one thing."
I studied the bowl. Parsley? No. "Cilantro."
"Now you know all my secrets."
I finished my cup of coffee, studying his face. "Did you hear from the cops?"
He shook his head. "I called the hospital. They released that guy. Turns out it was just a concussion, some bruises and scrapes. Jesus, I thought he was dead. I thought Eric had killed him."
I nodded. "Yeah. Me, too. I saw the car was gone this morning." I pulled on a hairnet and a pair of polyvinyl gloves from the box by the sink. "I'm glad he didn't kill anyone."
Michael grunted his agreement. "Did you hear about Jessica?" I shook my head. "She's on a cruise to Panama. One of the cops told me last night. Eric knew where she was. The cops called the ship and checked that she was really there."
We worked steadily for a while. The sounds of Michael's cleaver mixed with his tuneless whistling. The familiar sounds were helping me concentrate. I was thinking about the story, the scout camp story. The infidelity story. Even the parts that hurt, he had said. The parts that hurt were about him. By the time I had twenty dozen dumplings prepared, I was ready to write.
***
I had the story finished by the next class. It was good, strong and painful and real. I had tried something different. Instead of telling the story in the usual, linear fashion, from start to finish, I had written it in a series of vignettes, small looks at infidelity. I didn't know if it would be hard for him to read, but he would read it, tell me how to make it better, see what he had taught me.
When he came into class, I stared at him in shock. He looked terrible-exhausted, with deep lines between his eyes, furrows running from his nose to his mouth. He glanced at me briefly, stroked his moustache with one long finger, then went to the front of the room.
"Let me have your papers," he said, and we passed our work around the circle until he was able to collect them.
"We're not going to read today. I need to introduce you to the work of your new professor. Today is my last class." The students gave a collective gasp. "I'm sorry to leave in the middle of the semester like this, but things... happen." He was quiet a moment, hands on his hips, staring down at the floor. "I'll look at the stories you handed in today, and make comments. Then I'll pass them to Professor Amy Delacourt to return to you."
He came into the restaurant late, just before closing, and sat at the bar. I held up a beer and he nodded. "We may have a couple of dumplings left. Are you hungry?"
He shook his head. He looked so exhausted I thought I could push him off the stool with one finger. "Listen, is Michael here? I need to talk to him."
"Sure," I said. "I'll go get him. But don't leave here without me."
He raised his head and looked at me in surprise. "What?"
"I said 'Don't leave here without me.' Let me tell you 'Good-bye' in private, okay? You don't have to be anywhere tonight, do you?" He shook his head, a little smile on his face. "Okay, so come home with me." He nodded, and tipped the bottle up to his mouth.
I went into the kitchen and got Michael, and they talked quietly for a few minutes. When I saw them shaking hands, I hung my apron on a hook and joined them.
"Michael, I'm going now."
He nodded, his hands on his hips, and watched me walk out the door.
The wind was blowing down off the mountain, a swirl of leaves dancing in the street. I zipped up my jacket against the cold. Eric was just in shirtsleeves, but he didn't seem to notice the cold.
"Where are you going when you leave?"
"Canada, I think. I've got a friend with a cabin. I'm going to hole up and work on the new book."
I shivered again and wrapped my arms around myself. "It's the end of September. Winter's coming. Canada sounds cold."
He looked at me. "Yeah, it does. Maybe just cold enough."
Inside my apartment he pulled me close with both hands and kissed me slowly. Tasting me. Concentrating. Remembering. He was leaning back against the wall, holding me next to his body, and I could feel him begin to stir and become erect.
"I can smell Thai food when I kiss you." He pulled the band from my hair and buried his face in it. "Ginger and lemon. Something a little spicy. I'm going to get a hard-on every time I eat Thai food for the rest of my life, smelling those smells and remembering you. Remembering your soft mouth and your sweetness."
He moved down my throat slowly, his mouth heating up my skin. I touched him, touched his chest, and trailed my hands down his shirt until I came to the waistband of his jeans. He was smiling against my skin-I could feel it.
"Oh, go ahead," he said. "Leap right out there."
I undid the top button on his jeans, then slid the zipper down. He sighed against my neck, nuzzling into me, waiting.
I touched him. The skin on his belly was warm, the hair sharp against the softness underneath, and I slid my hand down into his jeans until I could touch his penis. It slid right into my hand with one tiny thrust of his hips and fitted beautifully there. My fingers wrapped around him. He had my jacket unzipped and his hands up under my shirt, straight up under my bra, and I gave an involuntary squeeze when his fingers stroked my nipples.
He caught his breath, laughing. "I loved your story, Mary."
I felt my eyes go wide. "Really?" Then I was smiling at him and he was laughing and he leaned over and kissed me, one hand behind my head, tongue moving over mine, and I knew he could taste my delight, my happiness at his compliment.
"Yeah. It was great. I liked the structure. Very powerful and real." He drew back and looked at me, and his eyes looked different, like he was really seeing me. "You're going to be a great writer." He laughed again at the tears welling up in my eyes. "Come on. Let's make love. We've got all night. And I can read about it all some day."
We made love the old-fashioned way, and he held my face and kissed me while he was thrusting inside of me. I wrapped my legs around his waist and held him tightly against me, and he fell asleep that way, head nestled against my neck, one hand full of my breast, body joined to mine.
I pressed my face to his hair, smelling him. I couldn't feel the loss yet, not with my every sense full of him, but I felt an echo of pain somewhere, a bittersweet taste, like the golden colors of autumn. That's what it felt like to make love to a man for the last time. An ache in your chest. Not quite sorrow, not quite joy-the last time. I closed my eyes and felt him, smelled him, tasted him, remembered him. And, in the morning, I watched him walk out the door.