by David Wiltse
He tore himself away from her and fell on the floor, spurting onto his belly as he lay there, trembling from his demon and his orgasm. Tovah turned to look at him, astounded. He lay on his back, quivering, panting in deep gasps as spasm after spasm shook him, his eyes closed, tossing his head from side to side. She had never seen him like this, shuddering with passion, all restraint gone, completely vulnerable. She felt a sense of her desirability-and her power-that she had thought was gone forever, destroyed by the same man who had just restored it. She stood above him, her own body still shaken by the force of their passion, still tingling as though his hands were yet upon her. He could not be more exposed, he could not even see her. She could kick him, stand on him and jump up and down, smash his face with her foot, crush his testicles. It was a matter of a few inches, she had but to stretch her leg, shift her weight. She had him, after the years of betrayal and psychic torment, exactly where she wanted, a quivering, helpless victim of her sexual strength. She could hurt him any way she chose.
But she still throbbed from his presence, he was too much with her for such thoughts to last. As quickly as the urge to vengeance had welled up, it was gone, replaced by the realization that she indeed had him where she wanted, but not as her victim. As her lover. As a man reduced to jelly by his passion for her, but not to be punished. To be rewarded with her love. It was all she had ever wanted, to be wanted by the man she loved. To be loved by the man she wanted. Her cat rubbed against her leg, purring.
He smiled, his eyes still closed, then began to chuckle. He laughed harder, his soft belly shaking, his erection bobbing up and down. The room rocked with his laughter. Thinking he was laughing at the joy and release of their lovemaking, Tovah joined in. She looked at herself in the mirror and saw a tall, naked woman, still lean, not modelthin any longer, but spare and taut, with fin-n breasts and legs and buttocks that-in the dim light and from a distance-showed no trace of wrinkle or sag. But what surprised her was the face in the mirror, the happy face of a laughing, satisfied woman. She barely recognized herself.
Luv was delighted with himself Once again he had fought the mania and won. It had come upon him with titanic force, threatening to kill the one woman among all others who must not be harmed, the one on whose survival Luv's very existence depended. It had blind sighted him, sneaking up on him with a great virulence at the time when he was weakest, at a time when a lesser man would not have been able to stop.
The mania was cunning and it was strong, but Luv was stronger. He had used his demon as cleverly as a judo expert, playing its strength against his sexual passion and letting it lift him to a height he had never felt before; then Luv, by strength of will, had disengaged and won the battle. Nothing could beat him, not the enemies without or the demons within. His joy burst forth in laughter that filled the room.
Even before opening his eyes he reached out and touched Tovah's ankle.
"You are astounding," he said. "No, you are."
"We are. Together." He opened his eyes and looked up at her as she stood over him. "You make me feel like a giant." He slid his hand up the smooth flesh of her calf, pausing behind her knee to gently finger the delicate skin there. Their eyes met and the look on his face was unmistakable. Tovah had thought he had to be finished-that she had to be finished-but he was still erect, as if made from stone. His fingers crept up her thigh, smoothing their way between her legs, and she sucked in her breath as he touched her.
"Don't move," he whispered.
She was astounded by the strength of her response. He brought her off with just his fingers, still lying on the floor while she stood above him. She came standing, shuddering and crying out, gripping the footboard for support, her legs quivering and threatening to buckle, but when she tried to sit he kept her on her feet and was suddenly kneeling in front of her, his mouth pressed to her. She knew it was pointless but he knew better and she came again, thinking she might die from it.
At last he allowed her to sink to the floor, where she straddled him and rode him, whimpering with excitement, his mouth on her breast, her pelvis thrusting, until she came together with him in one final, huge simultaneous shudder.
Tovah could feel his hands still on her as she lay in bed and he took his shower. She felt them still moving across her skin when she heard him going to the kitchen, then reading in bed. As the pills escorted her to sleep, she felt his hands still there, heat and sensation, fluttering across her whole body. She thought she must feel it for days. Her last conscious thought was of him and how he had changed and how their new life together was just beginning.
When Tovah was asleep Kom dressed and climbed to his attic, where he walked across the beams interspersed with rolls of pink insulation until he reached the small ventilation window on the south side of the house.
Through the slatted vent he could just make out the shape of the Taurus parked in a position that was out of the line of sight from the windows below him. The agent in the Taurus could just make out the edge of his driveway from there, he reckoned. Last night's exploratory trip had confirmed that the agent could not see the back of his house. He had the freedom he needed.
Kom was quickly across his back lawn and into the woods beyond the tennis court. He paused once under the cover of the trees, listening.
He sensed something strange about the night, something different from all of the other times he had stood here like this, but he could not say why. There were the usual noises of the night, but nothing singular. He scanned the area around him, allowing his eyes to adjust to the darkness. It was a familiar spot, but not one he had memorized. The configurations seemed normal, nonthreatening, and nothing moved, but his eye was struck momentarily by a mound, just one more patch of gray on gray, but somehow different. He moved his head, trying to catch it from different angles. With imagination he could twist it into the shape of a man, but Luv had learned long ago not to trust his imaginings at night Congratulating himself on his good sense and ascribing any unease to his awareness of the agent in the car out front, he moved deeper into the woods. He passed close to the troubling shape, glanced at it and moved on, heading swiftly toward his destination.
He did not turn back to see the shape rise and stand and move after him.
The car was waiting for him where he had thought it would be. He crossed the open playing field, his passage marked only by the stars and a peel of moon so thin he could barely believe it had ever been whole.
Within the border of the hedge he waited as a headlight came and went, then stepped into the black pool of asphalt and crossed to the car. With a final glance around he entered the car. The overhead light came on and off as the door opened and closed but he reached up to shut it off so that it would not happen again.
There was a pay phone designed for a driver to use from his car at another service station a twenty-minute drive to the north. He could not make the call from his home or his office because records were kept.
For the same reason, out of respectful caution, he did not make the call from the pay phone at Clamden Center. If the cops ever tracked it to the center-and they would probably trace every call she had made or received in a day or two-there was no point in bringing them so close to home.
He pulled onto Clamden Road, away from town, watched only by two eyes that peered out from the hedge where he had crouched only moments before.
Luv returned his car to the service station forty-five minutes later, delighted with his work. The plan was in place, and oh, it was brilliant, it was wonderful, it was in "in your face." Daring but so simple, so audacious no one would believe it. It would be just one more achievement that Luv would have to share only with himself. He parked the car where he had found it and stepped out, this time without the illumination of the interior light. After a glance around he trotted across the asphalt of Clamden Road once more and glided through the hole in the hedge. He was never aware of the eyes that followed him, as patient and murderous as a hawk's.
25
In t
he pre-electronic age Peter Stanhope would have been called a private investigator. Today he was a security specialist who spent more time devising alarm systems and computer safeguards than tracking missing persons or counseling jealous husbands, but for a price he was still willing to do what the customer required. It was unusual for a suspicious man to have another man tailed, but the world was changing and Stanhope saw no profit in prejudice. Passion was passion, regardless of the source.
Stanhope suspected that his client had not given his right name, but he had no problem with that, either. Clients had many reasons to wish to remain anonymous, some of them legitimate, and it was of no real concern to Stanhope what they were. He was paid to provide information and that is what he did, no questions asked-provided the cashier's check for his services was good.
"Dr. Kom is a busy man," Stanhope said now, tapping a folder on the desk in front of him. "Hyperactive, you might say."
"So I've heard," said the client.
"So busy, in fact, that the operatives assigned to him were unable to find out anything about two of the women he was meeting-they had to keep after the doctor when the women left. Since you wanted a twenty-four-hour-per day surveillance of Dr. Kom, you were already employing three operatives full-time. If you wish to assign another operative to the case-which will add to the bill, I'm afraid, there's no discount for more activity-the other operative could determine the identity of the women he's meeting."
"I'm more interested in what you know than what you don't know," the client said brusquely. "Of course," Stanhope said smoothly. He opened the folder and spoke in the semiformal way that clients found most assuring. "You requested a summary of his activities when he was not at home, in his office, or in the hospital. In the past seven days he has had liaisons with three women other than his wife. He rented rooms in two separate motels. He paid in cash in the first instance and did not sign the register, which the clerk said was common practice. The clerk also said he might have seen Dr. Kom before but he was not certain.
Commencing at eight thirty-seven P.m., he spent one hundred and ten minutes in room seventeen with a woman approximately thirty-five years old, shoulderlength blond hair five-foot-six or — seven, fair complexion.
Kom opened the motel door when the woman's car arrived and she went directly into the room. The operative describes her as slim of build and adds that she did not think the blonde was natural. The operative in this case is female and I think we can trust her assessment. There is a good deal of description of the woman's attire if you'd care to hear it…"
Stanhope elicited a response with an arched eyebrow. The client gave a minimal shake of his head. Stanhope continued.
"Different operatives have different strengths," he said. "The woman arrived in a 1994 black Acura sedan and remained in the room after the doctor left the motel. The Acura is registered in the name of Nathan Waxman of Eight seventy-three Summer Street in Darien. The following day Dr. Kom left his office in Norwalk at eleven-sixteen A.M. and drove to New York City via the Merritt Parkway. He had lunch at a restaurant called Enrico's on East Sixtyseventh Street between Lexington and Third.
The client shifted his position in his chair and Stanhope looked up at him expectantly, waiting to be interrupted. The client's expression had not changed, only his body language. Stanhope returned to his paraphrase of the information in the folder before him.
"Kom had lunch at Enrico's with a woman who was already present when he arrived. The woman remained seated throughout Kom's stay, so the operative has no estimate as to size or weight. He describes her as very attractive, brunette with shoulder-length hair, wearing a dark blue business suit. No eye color was noted, as the operative could not get close enough. At one point the pair held hands on top of the table.
When Dr. Kom left they exchanged a kiss. The operative was not yet in position when Kom entered the restaurant and thus says nothing about how they greeted one another. The lunch lasted an hour and five minutes.
Kom left the restaurant, returned to his parking garage, and drove straight back to his office in Norwalk.
"The third meeting took place at a motel in the town of Trumbull, a twenty-minute drive from Dr. Kom's office, again on the Merritt. This was Tuesday, four days ago. Kom went directly from his car to room thirty-six, where the door was partially ajar. Again, in order not to expose himself, the operative was not yet in a position to see who, if anyone, opened the door. One assumes that a woman had preceded him and rented the room herself. The clerk was not forthcoming about details but the operative did manage to get close enough to room thirty-six to hear a woman's voice. He describes it as 'moaning low." The operative assumes sexual congress took place. You can understand that he was not able to remain in that position very long, so he could hear none of the actual conversation-if there was any. Once again, Kom and the woman left separately, Kom tirst. The operative offers no description of either the woman or her car, assuming she arrived in one."
Stanhope closed the folder with a decisive gesture, as if pleased with the job he had done, and equally pleased to be finished. "For the last four days he has limited his activities to his office and his home. And that brings us up to date," he said.
"Was there any local activity?"
"Local activity?"
"You kept his house under surveillance when he was home, didn't you?"
"Yes, of course."
"Did he leave the house at night?"
"It would be mentioned," said Stanhope, temporarily flustered, opening the file again.
"Would it?"
"Certainly… Sir, I assure you, there is no suggestion that his car ever left his driveway-"
"Did I ask you to watch the man, or his car?"
"The man, of course. And I assure you we did just that. Our surveillance is quite thorough."
"Does your report mention that for two of the last four nights the good Dr. Kom left his house around ten P.m. through the back door while your 'operative' was in the street in front of the house? Does it mention that he entered the woods next to his tennis court and walked through the woods until he came around to a position behind your operative? Or that he wrote down the license number on your operative's car? That was Tuesday night, which means he had discovered your operative sometime in the afternoon. Probably at the motel when he was slipping around and listening at the window when the woman was 'moaning low,' don't you suppose? Or on the ride home, who knows?
The point is, Kom knew for certain by Tuesday night that he was being followed. Which would explain why he was so quiet the rest of the week.
What would be interesting to know is what he was doing the other nights, those next two nights while operatives one, two, or three were watching the front of the house. Would you be interested in knowing, Mr.
Stanhope? I was. The first night after he identified your operative he did nothing at all. He went home and stayed home and-I think we may assume-thought over his next move. The night after that, he slipped out the back again, went into the woods again and walked to the grounds of the elementary school, crossed the playing field, crossed Clamden Road and popped into public view at Clamden Center, assuming there was any public there at eleven at night to view, which there wasn't. His wife had brought her car in for servicing at March's gas station in the center and left it there that afternoon and someone from March's had driven her home. Kom used his own keys and drove north on Clamden Road.
He was gone for forty-four minutes before he returned the car to the service station an d walked home the way he had come. And that brings us up to date. "
"How do you know this?" Stanhope asked. "Because I watched him… from the woods."
Stanhope was quiet for a long time. He twisted the folder back and forth on the desk.
"This is most unorthodoxy Stanhope said finally. "You might have interfered with the work of one of our operatives."
"I only covered what you didn't."
Stanhope rose. "Well then, shall I assume that our relation
ship is at an end, or will you be requiring our services further?"
"Stay on him for another week. I have to sleep sometime-but I don't want him to be able to."
Stanhope offered the file folder. "Whatever you want us to do, Mr…
Metzger, is it?"
"Close enough."
Becker took the file and entered the first coffee shop he came to, and there he sat and read the operatives' reports in detail. He had enlisted a private investigator for two reasons. One, he could not tail either Karen or Kom on his own because he would be too easily identified. Two, he could not enlist the services of the Bureau in a surveillance that might turn up Karen's name. It was to protect her name and reputation that he had chosen Kom as the target in the first place. If the world knew him for a philanderer of heroic proportions, it was only what he deserved, if even a fraction of Tovah's stories were true. But if they knew that Karen Crist, Associate Deputy Director of the FBI, was having an affair… Even thinking of it made Becker feel ill. He felt like weeping as he sat in the coffee shop; the notion of losing Karen was too awful, insupportable. It was not pride-he would beg her, he would crawl to her if he needed to do that to keep her-it was the fear of loss and the accompanying insecurity that crippled him, that made him hire an investigator, that filled him with shame for himself, for his activities, even for Karen. Becker suffered the cuckold's curse of uncertainty. Where was she now? Who was she with?
Who did she want to be with? And when Becker took her in his arms, whose image was in her mind? If one affair was acknowledged, would there ever be peace of mind? Would he ever again think that she loved him as he loved her? He was a worldly and experienced man, he knew that adultery in the right circumstances-a night in a hotel room while on a business trip, a brief and unrepeatable passion far from home, an undiscoverable and reactive response to boredom or loneliness or alcoholmeant little or nothing beyond the moment. It need not threaten a marriage, it was often no more emotionally involving than masturbation. But a continuing liaison, an affair contemplated and perpetrated at home with all the attendant risks, all of the apparent disregard for discovery by the spouse-such a relationship was played for much higher stakes and had more meaning. It was not throwaway sex, it was a perilous involvement with another that endangered stability, marriage, everything.