The Hinky Bearskin Rug

by Jennifer Stevenson

  She hadn’t thought about Clay having feelings. He was always so careful not to show any. Am I so selfish that I think he doesn’t feel anything? Why didn’t she feel anything herself? Besides bruised and ashamed and upset and doomed.

  At that moment, Randy came out of the Artistic Building with a tan briefcase, and her guts twisted into a tight knot up under her heart. He got in the back seat. Jewel started the car.

  “All okay?” Clay said.

  Randy slapped the roof of the car twice. “Let’s go.”

  She peeled away from the curb to the sound of exploding cherry bombs.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Clay watched her face as Randy walked up to the car. Waiting, she’d been tired, depressed, relaxed. Now, as Lord Almighty arrived, she came alive.

  She doesn’t do that for me.

  What do you do for her? came Wilma’s voice in his head.

  “Shut up,” he muttered quietly. He was still reeling from his visit to what Jewel called “demonspace” and a foursome with Randy and this oversexed teen Venus in his head. Body. Wherever.

  Have you tried slathering ice cream all over her?

  This isn’t an ice cream kind of problem, Clay thought back at her. It was hard to remember to keep his thoughts in his head and not just blurt them out. He could feel Wilma poking around inside his body like a puppy sniffing out its new house, and it made him tingle all over.

  And, scarily, it felt good.

  She seems like she’d respond well to bondage, Wilma said.

  “They resumed printing,” Randy said. “With half a crew.”

  The mere sound of Randy’s voice made Clay’s hackles rise. I don’t know why, but all of a sudden I hate this guy.

  Maybe it was watching him have sex with your girl.

  If you don’t have anything constructive to contribute—

  Wilma interrupted him. If you could share, you’d have it made. Or don’t you do guys?

  Never mind who I do, Clay snapped in his head.

  You’re too independent. How can I help you if you’re rude? Wilma said huffily.

  Clay leaned over and turned on the radio.

  Jewel turned it off.

  “You missed the turn for the Corncob Building,” he said as the car zipped across Dearborn.

  Jewel swore. “I’ll have to go to Michigan and double back.”

  “Where are we leaving you off, Randy?” Clay said, raising his voice.

  You could invite him back for a threesome, Wilma said.

  Will you shut up? Clay snarled silently. He felt his body going rigid with the effort of keeping his face neutral. Wilma-in-his-head unplugged all his training. He felt exposed, as if a con had gone horribly wrong. Maybe this was how Jewel felt in bed with Randy, having a sex demon in her head all night.

  Sex goddess, Wilma corrected.

  Clay noticed suddenly how the silence had stretched.

  Jewel turned left onto Michigan and then, in the strained silence, left again onto Wacker going west.

  “Wait,” Randy said. “Stop.”

  Jewel screeched the Tercel to a halt, bumping the left wheels up over the curb on the triangular plaza at Wacker and South Water Street, where a fountain played.

  Randy put a hand on her shoulder. “Jewel.”

  She stared straight ahead. “What.” Clay hated the hurting look on her face.

  Randy said to Clay, “May we speak privately a moment?”

  Clay figured he’d done his best. He got out.

  You haven’t even tried, Wilma scolded.

  You’re gonna make me a head case. He walked to the fountain, his back to the car, clenching his fists against his chest as if he could silence Wilma by force.

  Randy’s voice came, low but distinct, behind him. “I have to do this.”

  “I know,” Jewel’s voice said tightly. “I read your diary.”

  “They’re human beings,” Randy pleaded. “That was what Lady Juliana meant for me to learn. I think.”

  “I think she was just being a bitch.”

  “It took me so long to learn it. This is my chance to pay for my mistakes. They—they’re teaching me something.”

  “I’ll just bet,” Jewel said bitterly, and Clay gloated.

  Randy said, “What they teach me is not about having sex, but about — about being a sex demon.”

  Randy’s voice got faint, and Clay strained to hear. Hang on a second, Wilma said in his head, and then she did something.

  Suddenly Clay could hear Randy’s soft voice loud and clear, over the splashing fountain and the traffic on distant Lake Shore Drive.

  “We are alike, Velvita and I,” Randy was saying. “She is two people, a respectable secretary—”

  “For a pornographer.”

  “—And a woman without reputation. These two selves rub against one another. And the world is not kind to women like her, Jewel. Nor to men like me.”

  That was cool, Clay admitted grudgingly. What did you do?

  Just tuned up your ears a little, Wilma said.

  Randy said, “Velvita reconciles some of that by donning her paint like a mask. Yet with her reputation she has lost her mother, her old life and friends — as I have lost everything. Paint cannot cover that loss.”

  “Would you mind not telling me her sob story?” Jewel grated.

  Don’t like being on the receiving end, huh, Clay thought.

  “I apologize,” Randy said stiffly. “It is easier for me to describe her suffering than my own.”

  Now there’s an adventurous guy, Wilma said. You could stand to loosen up, you know.

  “Will you shut up?” Clay muttered. He stared blindly at the curve of the Seventeenth Church of Christ, Scientist across the street and flapped his suddenly super-sharpened ears.

  “Look.” Jewel lowered her voice, but Clay still heard her clearly. “I’m not trying to, like, nail you down here. I’m the last person to do that. It’s just, I guess I’m trying to figure out if I — I mean, for three months now we’ve been joined at the hip, trying to keep you on two feet. Are we done?” Her voice cracked. “Am I free to get back to my regularly scheduled slutting?”

  “Oh, Jewel, how can I criticize your lewdness when I—”

  “Argh!” The car door slammed. Clay turned to look. She stood beside the car, hands on hips, glaring in the rear passenger window at Randy.

  “You have done nothing but criticize my lewdness, as you call it, since we met. Now all of a sudden you’re taking money for it, screwing porn stars, and you’re Mr. Liberal! I’d like to paste you one, you hypocritical bastard!”

  She stomped to the edge of the plaza to glare across the river, possibly at her own apartment on the twenty-third floor of the Corncob Building.

  Randy got out of the car. Clay stood watching, leaning his hip against the edge of the fountain. Their eyes met, and it occurred to Clay that Randy had been screwing women at the Artistic. With a sex goddess on the premises. Plus, Wilma had materialized in demonspace tonight. Randy must have seen Wilma. Heck, Wilma had been doing Randy, doing Clay, even doing Jewel before Jewel had her orgasm and popped them all free.

  So he knows. About you. Clay froze, staring disaster in the face.

  Of course he knows, Wilma said.

  If Randy told Jewel about Wilma before Clay was ready, Clay was screwed. Jewel could dish it out, slutwise, but look how she was reacting to Randy’s job. She would not take Wilma well. It would take serious finessing on Clay’s part to reconcile her to sharing a bed with the ultimate porn star.

  And Randy knows all that.

  As if Randy had heard this thought, he gave Clay a tiny nod. He walked over to Jewel, who stood with her back to them, her arms wrapped tightly around herself.

  And in that moment Clay realized he was going to win. Randy might be a skilled sex demon, and he might be readier to make grand, stupid gestures to get Jewel’s attention, but he was no better than Clay at showing his feelings.

  All I have to do is sit
tight and let him blow it.

  In the back of his mind, Wilma tut-tutted. He ignored her.

  Randy was saying in a low voice, “I have great regard for you.”

  Jewel didn’t turn around. “Same here.”

  Boy, all you people have a serious spitting-it-out problem, Wilma said.

  Clay growled in his throat.

  “The thing is,” Jewel said, her voice lower and softer, “how do we know that what you feel isn’t just Stockholm syndrome? Stuck with your rescuer for three solid months, twenty-four-seven, you could hardly help feeling something about me. Admit it, you have no idea how you’re going to feel without the curse hanging over your head all the time.”

  Randy hesitated. “I thank you again for your unremitting care and hospitality.”

  “Oh, can it. The point is, is it just the spell talking? If it weren’t for the curse, you wouldn’t even want to know me. You’ve admitted that, in normal lord life, a lord like you would never even say howdy to a lowborn wench like me.”

  “I was a fool to say that. A fool and a boor. It doesn’t matter.”

  “Never mind. Is it right or honorable for me to be with someone who has no choice but to be with me?”

  “You’re angry because of my work at the Artistic,” he said, ducking the honorable question, Clay noted.

  “Well, who wouldn’t be?” she exploded.

  “Jewel, please,” Randy said, and Clay could tell it was killing him to say please. “I need this. In bed or standing on two feet, I am half a man. If Velvita can show me how to bring those halves together—”

  “I do not care who you screw,” she said flatly.

  “—then perhaps I can bring you a whole man someday.”

  Clay held his breath. He caught a glimpse of her face past Randy’s head. He wished he hadn’t. She looked hopeful and scared and angry and yearning all at the same time.

  She put up her chin. “Maybe I won’t be waiting. Maybe I’ll marry Clay.”

  Holy what-was-that? Clay’s heart stood still.

  Randy threw him a glance.

  Now was the moment. If Randy ever intended to tell her about Wilma and mess this up for Clay, he would do it now.

  Randy’s eyes, on Clay, were full of danger. He looked at Jewel. “Very well,” he snapped. “Commit yourself to a smooth liar.”

  Jewel reacted badly. “I should prefer your crude, rude stinginess with the truth?”

  “I?” Randy’s voice rose. “How can I lie to you? In bed — what you call demonspace — we are equals!”

  “Not like out of bed, where you’re a lord and I’m some serving-wench slut.” Jewel sounded like she was crying now. Clay’s chest squeezed.

  “I have never said you were a servant! Yeoman class land-owner, at worst!”

  She made a noise like a stepped-on rat. “And still a slut, right?”

  Randy put a hand out, palm up. “You call yourself a slut, but I am a whore. I beg you — beg you to grant me the opportunity to commune with other whores. I need to regain my self-regard. In whatever way they can teach me.”

  She drew back. “That’s not good enough.”

  “I don’t despise you! I—” he lowered his voice. “I despise myself. As you despise yourself. How can I heal the insults I have dealt you in my boorish ignorance if I cannot make peace with myself?”

  “Look, just give me a straight answer. Is this curse over? Because I can’t b-babysit you while you’re working there.”

  “I — don’t know.”

  She leaned forward, her voice full of rage. “Yes or no?”

  Randy stood still. Clay edged closer. Randy’s eyes were shut, or maybe he was looking down that long English nose of his, thinking.

  Then his gaze lifted and met Clay’s, and Clay froze in his tracks.

  He said, “Yes.”

  She took a step backward. “Well. All right, then.”

  “What seems to be the trouble?” said a new voice, and Clay spun around so fast he almost fell into the fountain.

  It was a cop. His squad car idled, two wheels up on the plaza curb, behind the Tercel.

  “Uh, just a little domestic squabble, officer,” Clay said. Should he let this guy break it up? Things were going so well. “They’ll be over it soon.”

  “Fine, but you can’t park here. If you move the vehicle now, I won’t write you a—oh, hey, is that Jewel Heiss?” The cop walked up to the domestic squabble, grinning. “Hey, babe, how are you? Haven’t seen you around the bowling alley lately.”

  Jewel seemed to recognize him. “Oh, hell.” She collapsed and sat on the curb.

  “Well, okay,” the cop said, his face falling. “I was just saying hi.”

  Randy got his briefcase out of the car and walked swiftly away across Wacker Drive.

  Jewel looked after him. To the cop she said, “I’m sorry, Ben, I didn’t mean—”

  “I’ll take her home now,” Clay said, coming up and getting hold of her hand. He pulled her to her feet. “You okay? We can’t leave the car here, you know.”

  “Yeah, whatever,” she said distractedly. She watched Randy stride away, passing the bridge leading to Jewel’s apartment, walking westward along the river.

  “We appreciate the warning,” Clay told the cop.

  “Bye, Jewel,” Officer Ben said sadly.

  Clay got Jewel in the passenger side and drove her home, his heart seething with terror and glee.

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  In her apartment, Jewel strode up and down, ranting and crying. Clay kept his temper. I’ll win this one, he chanted mentally, I’ll win, I’ll win.

  She yelled, “Three months of day-in, day-out paranoia, and now this! What am I gonna tell Brit and Nina? My roommate left me for a porn star? Ugh, ugh, what was I thinking, I hate relationships, I don’t even want one, this is making me insane!”

  Clay went to the kitchen and silently nuked some cold pot stickers and a carton of leftover General Tso.

  She watched, hiccupping. “I hate him.”

  In the fridge were a few stray plastic cups of sweet and sour sauce and pot sticker sauce. Clay also found a white paper bag on the counter with one-and-a-half eaten cow plops in it. He nibbled his way through the half and gave the other to her.

  “He’s an arrogant pig of an aristo,” she said when she had wolfed down her cow plop.

  Sooner or later, she’ll notice I’m here.

  Oh, yeah? Wilma said in his head.

  He almost jumped out of his skin. He thought, You shut up! Don’t talk to me right now!

  The nuke dinged. Clay ladled Thai food onto Jewel’s plate.

  “I was sick of bullying him to doing his own laundry.” Standing, she shoveled chicken into her mouth with her fingers.

  Clay kept his gaze down.

  At length she looked up from her plate. “I like you. You’re easy.”

  He smiled. “I try to be.” His heart thumped. Maybe I’ll marry Clay. She’d only said that to yank on Lord Randypants, but it made him feel funny all over, in a good way. She looked up and took two steps toward him, putting her greasy hand on his chest and ruining his shirt.

  “Sorry I’m being such a psycho. This,” she breathed deeply, “will blow over.”

  He shook his head, smiling.

  “Really.” She stood so close, he smelled sex on her. The porn factory, oh yeah, the bed in the photo studio, right. Less than an hour ago. His short term memory seemed to be leaking away, the closer she came.

  She lifted her face and he realized she was going to kiss him and he wasn’t ready. Why wasn’t he thinking? Should he let her kiss him or not? What would let him hold onto the situation? There was no telling where it might go if he let her run things.

  While he was debating the point, she kissed his cheek.

  Consolation kiss. Not his favorite, but he took it for what it was worth. Her blue eyes had red rims. She looked like a she-Viking in mourning. Clay lost every thought in his head besides, Beautiful.

 
Now will you try the feathers and ice cubes? Wilma said in his head.

  Oh, right. His ace in the hole. Clay bit his lip. Looking in Jewel’s eyes, he thought, I’d rather try something hinky. Something to get her mind off the lord. Just her and me, he added. I don’t think she’s ready to meet you yet.

  He turned away and walked into the living room.

  Jewel followed. “I’m sorry,” she said, breaking in on the head chatter. “I forgot — I didn’t consider your feelings.”

  Oh, brother, he had been indiscreet.

  There’s a few things I think you should know, Wilma said. About being my avatar. Because sometimes, if someone needs me—

  I need you to shut up! he thought fiercely. Whenever I’m with Jewel. Darn, this was hard, talking to Jewel and thinking at Wilma and listening to them both. Should he be saying something to Jewel now? About considering his feelings, right.

  “It’s okay.” He put a bit of pathos into it, which wasn’t hard, considering his feelings. “I’m a good crying towel.”

  “You’re more than that,” she said warmly, and he tightened, thinking, Am I really, Jewel?

  She smiled shyly at him. He forgot completely to monitor what his face was doing.

  Okay, Wilma, do your stuff. What kind of fabulous sex hasn’t she had yet?

  Wait a minute. I’m going into her archives. Stall her.

  Mentally, Clay rolled his eyes. “I’d like to make you happy,” he murmured on autopilot. He cupped Jewel’s face with both hands and stroked her cheeks with his thumbs, trying to push aside a feeling that she could see right through him.

  “Really?” She blinked rapidly. “That’s nice.”

  She was here, and she’d said goodbye to the sex demon, and she was looking right at him.

  Terrifying.

  Can you hurry it up? he said in his head to Wilma.

  “I’m kind of confused right now,” Jewel said.

  “So kiss confused.” He kissed her forehead.

  I’m working on it, I’m working on it. I’m not lightning-fast, you know. My, she has been a busy girl. Are you sure you’re up to her?