by Dan Lawton
With that thought, he cranked the engine and shifted the truck into gear, then used his mirrors to reverse his way out of the grid of painted white lines. And with Sheila on his mind—how he would finagle a way to see her again, whatever it took—he drove the long way around the parking lot, away from the lights and the crowd of uniforms that remained, and headed home.
CHAPTER THREE
Patricia was home when he arrived.
Patricia was his wife.
Their relationship was complicated. Though in some ways, it was not. Patricia no longer wanted to be married to him, and he knew that. For him, while the only feelings that remained were resentment and something that mirrored animosity but was not quite as vindictive, he was not ready for it yet—the split. It was not as easy as drawing a line down the middle and taking his half to start a new life. There was a history involved. Baggage. Other people to consider.
Luckily for him—though not luck, rather responsible planning—he held the cards. And Patricia knew it too. She was not going anywhere unless he wanted her to.
Her voice echoed through the foyer of their grand entryway as Randolph sliced through it. The excitement in her tone, the unreasonably high volume of her laughter, was how she acted these days. It felt like a performance, one that could easily fool those who did not know her as well as Randolph did. Though he had not kept track, it had gone on like this for multiple months. She had never been happier.
Did it hurt?
It did, at first. But then it got easier, then an afterthought. It had become Randolph’s life—living with the woman he once loved so deeply he would have done anything for her, to simply being strangers in their own house. Even still, he did not wish ill will upon her. Not happiness though, either. Somewhere in between those two extremes.
Her back was to him when he entered the kitchen. She switched the phone from hand to hand, moved it from ear to ear. A glass bowl filled with chunks of bright red licorice—one of her favorite snacks since forever—sat on the edge of the countertop. The countertop was a high-end quartz, and it was the most unnecessary expenditure Randolph had ever made. He agreed because she wanted it, and at the time, he wanted nothing more than to aid in her happiness any way he could. So quartz it was. If only he had a crystal ball.
He dropped the bananas on the counter next to the others and said, “Patricia.”
She shrieked as if she were being attacked by a piranha that lurked under the counter. The phone she held slipped from her grip and smashed against the tile under her feet. As she spun, her belt latched onto the bowl and tossed it across the kitchen. Glass scattered everywhere in thousands of tiny glittering shards, and all Randolph could think was how long it would take him to clean it. He would, undoubtedly, find glass for weeks, even in the smallest, most seemingly impossible to penetrate crevices of the floor.
He stepped back and surveyed the damage. That was when he saw the butcher knife in Patricia’s hand. Though he did not know why, he froze at the sight.
What had been a startle quickly morphed to something else. Patricia’s face turned white and her shoulders shrunk. It was as if she had seen a burglar or a ghost, and the knife slipped out of her hand.
“Jesus Christ, Patricia,” Randolph said. He was not afraid of her—she had never, nor would ever, inflict physical harm; she had caused enough emotional destruction to surpass any amount of damage she could impose physically. But the knife still alarmed him. “What are you doing?”
On the floor, a muffled voice hollered something inaudible.
“What am I doing?” she said. “What are you doing?”
“There was an incident at the supermarket earlier.”
“I mean, what are you doing here?”
Before Randolph could answer, she squatted and disappeared behind the quartz. She told whoever it was on the other end of the phone that she had to go. Just some glass, she said. Then she said again she had to go.
Randolph stood where he was and waited.
After Patricia reappeared and brushed herself off as if nothing happened, she grabbed the butcher’s handle and pulled it toward her, then slid it into the knife block. She did not look as happy as she had sounded on the phone just moments before.
“What are you doing home?” she said.
“Like I said, there was an incident at the supermarket.”
“Why were you at the supermarket?”
“What kind of question is that?”
“It’s the middle of the day on a Tuesday. Why aren’t you at work?”
“I quit,” he said, which he did. An hour before he went to the supermarket for the third time this week, he called his boss at the firm and resigned, effective immediately. He no longer had the desire to work, nor did he need the money, so he would no longer pretend he did.
Patricia did not react at first. She eventually folded her arms and disapprovingly eyed him as if he were a failure of a man. Though he saw right through her and her act—he knew this was her worst nightmare. And worse, for her, she did not have a countermove. It was their version of chess. Marriage roulette. A power move. Though for Randolph, it was not about that; he had truly had enough of the daily grind of a career he no longer loved. He was sure Patricia would see it differently, regardless of what he told her.
Her phone rang. She looked at it quickly, then pressed the screen to silence the ringer. She glared at Randolph. Her nose wriggled. “What’s that smell?” she said. “Is that smoke?”
“There was a fire at the supermarket.”
She nodded. “Tell me again why you were at the supermarket in the middle of the day.”
He did not.
“Why were you just holding a knife?” he said.
“I just finished cleaning up. Is that okay?”
The phone on the countertop rang again. Patricia looked down at the screen, sighed, and picked it up. “Now’s a bad time,” she said into it. Then: “Just glass...Everything’s fine...I know. I heard.” Then she hung up.
The perfume she wore struck Randolph’s nose when she walked past and left the room without another word. He did not recognize it, though why would he? Her walking past him was as close as they had been in months. Seconds later, the front door opened then closed, and she was gone. Again.
He sighed.
Patricia’s phone reminded him of his own, which he powered down after he resigned to avoid the barrage that would follow. He pulled the phone from his pocket and held his finger against the power button, waited. When it came to life, the photo of their son and grandson in the background forced a smile. Bruce was Randolph and Patricia’s only child, and Bruce now had a son of his own—Maxwell, though everyone called him Max. They lived in Utah. Randolph would occasionally receive updated photos in his email, and they would chat on the phone a few times a year—holidays and birthdays or if someone in the family was getting married or was pregnant or died. They were not as close as Randolph would have liked, but that was life; the distance made it difficult to maintain the bond.
Nine missed calls popped up on the screen, along with six voicemails. The firm would miss him dearly, more than they would know. His designs were incomplete, and though he kept detailed notes and diagrams, many of the other engineers on staff were juniors. Randolph had designed engines for heavy machinery for a quarter of a century, primarily for airplanes most recently. While he lost the passion for it long ago, it was what he was trained to do and it was what he was good at, so he was without regret. While it led to a predictable and secure lifestyle, it had been a solid and respectable career. It paid for the massive house he did not care much about, and the truck he did. The disposable income was plentiful, which kept Patricia happy for many years. But he was f
inished with the monotony of it, was ready for a new adventure. The profession had changed with the times, and he felt left behind in a world that used to exist—all his work was digitized and templated now. The freedom to design and explore new ideas was a thing of the past. It was time to move on.
Of the missed calls with corresponding voicemails, six were from the firm. To be expected. The others, though, were unexpected. They were spaced out ten minutes apart, the first of which registered shortly after the explosion.
All three, strangely, were from Patricia.
The missed calls themselves were not unusual. She did occasionally call when she needed something—reluctantly, they were still wed and shared certain responsibilities. And with an excuse to not return home immediately after work, Randolph usually obliged. Not to do something nice for her, though, but rather for himself—to limit the time he spent in the same house with her. The timing of the calls Randolph credited to coincidence. Though why she did not mention them just now was a mystery. But she was shrouded in mystery these days—the secretive phone calls at all hours of the day, the late nights, the weekends she spent out of town—so that was not out of character for her either. Randolph was not blind to her behavior; he just did not care to fight for it anymore, for her. His energy was depleted beyond repair. Plus, he was recently distracted by something else. Someone.
Sheila.
And he had to follow his heart and see where that led. After all, what did he have to lose?
CHAPTER FOUR
“I’m coming over,” she said, “and you better not be wearing pants.” Then she hung up.
She was Cheyenne, and she said things like that a lot. And she meant them. She was fierce.
Benji was a barista who lacked motivation for anything more and lived on the west side of town in a shoddy studio apartment. He used drugs recreationally and was not an addict. He had not considered himself to be a sexual deviant until he met Cheyenne, who turned his world—and his perspective—upside down. That was two months ago. She had introduced him to some taboo tricks since then, some things he would not have ever thought he would enjoy but did. Some of them he had never heard of. His highlight reel far exceeded any expectations he had for himself.
To him, Cheyenne was a sexual goddess.
She was at least twice his age and still had the energy of a firecracker. And with a tighter body than he expected from someone her age, she was a good lay. Phenomenal, even. The best. She left him raw on more than one occasion, yet she rarely seemed satisfied. It was a mid-twenties man’s dream.
Benji was home—a day off from the coffee shop—and Cheyenne would not be long. He stripped to his boxers and got ready for her. He lit a joint and took a hit to free his mind, then went to the sink and brushed his teeth afterward. He turned off the TV; he combed his hair; he left a couple of rubbers on the sofa side table.
No more than fifteen minutes passed before the intercom shouted and Benji buzzed her in. Two minutes after that, she straddled him on the sofa and tore off her blouse. A button burst and skidded across the floor, disappeared somewhere to be found and questioned by a future tenant. She bit down on Benji’s lower lip so hard it seemed she wanted to tear it off. But he loved it. She grabbed his head and pressed his face to her chest and forced him in between her. Her groans and moans and filthy mouth made him hard. It was as if she had been starved, though it had only been two days since the last time—in the back alley of the coffee shop while Benji was on his lunch break. But Cheyenne was a machine, and she was down for anything at any time. It was Benji who sometimes needed to be coaxed.
The thing was, Benji felt no emotional connection with Cheyenne—the age gap between them meant they had very little in common. She was old enough to be his mother, he her son, and while their bodies fit together perfectly, there would never be anything more between them.
But Cheyenne did not know that was how he felt.
The first time he slept with her was thirty minutes after they met. And half of that was spent in the car. That told him a lot about the type of person she was. She walked into the coffee shop with a tightly cropped blouse with one too many buttons undone, high waisted jeans, and brown boots with short heels. Her hair was straightened and swept to the side, and she wore too much makeup for an innocent trip to satisfy her caffeine craving. But she smelled like a queen, and she was on the prowl.
Benji was her prey.
She leaned over the counter and sweet-talked Benji while he made her a chilled macchiato with extra drizzle—not an accident, he was sure. And after a tip larger than his daily wages and a napkin with her name and number on it, Benji knew. He took an early lunch and drove them to his studio. He held her hand as they ascended the metal staircase in a hurry, and they got it on when they made it to the top—he stripped her, she him. First against the outside the door, then inside. Then the bed, the sofa, the floor. Everywhere.
For Benji, that was the game. He met women, sometimes slept with them, and they went home. Nothing further. It was a common practice among those in his generation. It was just sex, only physical. Nothing intimate. There was a woman who had his heart and his emotional devotion, and she was not Cheyenne. Shay was her name. Though he was not stupid—he kept the information about his sexual polygamy to himself out of fear Shay would not agree with the mentality; it was not something they had discussed, certainly, in case they had differing opinions.
Cheyenne slid off him and rested against the arm of the sofa. Heavy breaths slipped through her lips and she held a lengthy groan as if she were having another orgasm. Benji’s glutes convulsed as his body tried to recover from the madness that rocked his world. The indisputable smell of used latex overpowered the tiny apartment.
Still undressed, Cheyenne stood up and cracked a window, then grabbed the rolled joint from the end table and lit it. Benji cleaned himself up and pulled on a pair of jeans.
“Can you not, please?” he said as he zipped the front of his denim.
“Can I not what?” She blew a mouthful of smoke into the open air above the sexed-up sofa.
“Out the window, come on.”
She took another hit and blew the smoke out the open window this time.
“Listen, I have stuff to do this afternoon,” Benji said.
“Are you kicking me out?” One hand held the joint while the other fingered one of her hard nipples.
“I’ve got something going on.”
“I see what’s going on here.”—she stood and walked toward him—”You just want a fuck buddy, is that it?” Her hand launched at his crotch and found his manhood, and she squeezed.
Benji recoiled as the pain shot through him and stole his breath. He leaned forward and tried to squirm away, but the agony intensified as Cheyenne squeezed tighter.
“Fine,” she said, then she let go. “I’ll go. But don’t expect me to come running when you’re feeling frisky.”
Despite the sharpness of the pain that wreaked havoc on the inner workings of his midsection, Benji reached forward and plucked the joint from her lips.
“Though I might.” Cheyenne smiled promiscuously over her shoulder as she bent down to fetch her clothes. Her back was to him.
Benji had a clear view of everything. Worth repeating: Everything, as in more than he cared to see. If he could count the rings of a tree and learn the age of said tree . . .
He looked away after he saw the twinkle in her eye that told him she was ready for round two if he was. She was never satisfied, and he only had so much to give—his batteries required a recharge. After she piled her clothes in her arms and walked past him and went into the bathroom and closed the door, Benji stumbled toward the sofa and plopped himself down. He stubbed out the joint and tried to nurse his manhood,
which pulsated with pain that still stretched deep inside his gut. A wet spot on the cushion next to him served as a reminder to keep a towel nearby for next time—that part was something they failed to show in pornography, the aftermath.
His phone was nearby, which he grabbed. He had not heard from Shay since the morning, and he was concerned about her. Shay was the one person he had ever let himself go with, and he cared for her. A lot. Their relationship was still new, but he saw potential with her. A future. There was something special about her that he could not put his finger on—he just knew. He sent her a text.
“How are the marbles?”
Benji looked up and found Cheyenne there in front of him, fully clothed.
“Why do you have to do shit like that?”
“What, you can’t handle it? I thought you liked it rough?”
“That’s not rough. That’s cruel.”
Cheyenne took a step toward him with wide eyes. She bent her knees and leaned forward. “Want me to kiss them?”
Benji covered himself. “You’ve done enough for one day, I think.”
Cheyenne stopped, stood up straight, and shrugged. “Suit yourself.” Then she turned and clacked toward the door in her heels. Before she left, she looked over her shoulder and said, “Goodbye, lover.”
The door closed.
Benji exhaled, let himself relax. The pain in his groin lingered. Worsened, even. The pressure was remarkable. Deep. The smoke from the stubbed out joint wafted and remained prominent around him, which he was annoyed by—that was what the window was for. He leaned toward the window and tried to open it further, but it was out of his reach.