by Jae
“Maureen and I were ‘just friends,’” Lou continued, as she marked the space with her fingers, “for a very long time. Maybe fifteen years. Figuring out that it was more than a friendship took most of that time.” She grinned. “But I’m pretty sure I figured it out when I preferred Maureen’s company to Walter’s—by far—and when I started daydreaming about her. Hell, I searched the paper for groups we could join, just because I couldn’t stand to be away from her.” Lou laughed. “Once, I even forced her to take a dog grooming class so I could spend Wednesday evenings with her. And we didn’t have any dogs!”
Cathy shifted in her seat. “Is it time for bourbon?” she joked.
“It’s only eleven o’clock!” Lou exclaimed. “Anyway, I forced Maureen to join my trivia team. That covered Thursday evenings.” Lou’s eyes teared up. “I just couldn’t live without her. But then, one evening—about a year ago—she was at my house, and we were reading one of the manuscripts. And we decided, for a laugh, to act out one of the scenes that seemed particularly hilarious.”
“And?”
“And I kissed her. She kissed me back, and we clumsily made love—it was the first time for both of us—and we had a fabulous six months after that. We had just started talking about living together when she was diagnosed with melanoma. She died about four months later. Not much pain, physically, but in the end, she didn’t know me. That was the worst part, watching her fade into the distance, just like New York when we left the harbor. It was excruciating to be forgotten.” Lou stretched her toes to touch Cathy’s.
Lou was right. Cathy found it terrifying to think about the decline of her cognitive function. And it had already started—misplacing things, unable to read for long periods, and more recently, unable to recall her dog’s name. Of course, it eventually came to her, standing in her kitchen with the smelly can of Alpo as she searched her brain for the word that would bring the wiry terrier mix to his bowl. But when I go, thought Cathy, no one will be standing at the rail.
“Sounds like you loved her very much,” said Cathy.
“People always say ‘move on’—so easy to say—but they never seem to have any suggestions about how to do that.”
“Well, it’s cliché, of course, but what about another relationship?”
Lou pursed her lips. “I’m not sure. Maureen’s death is so recent. But I admit, I hate to think of that part of my life as over. What about you?”
Cathy shook her head. “No intention of pursuing anyone.”
“You sound sure about that.”
“I have health problems myself,” she said quickly. “Early onset Alzheimer’s. Medication slows it down, so they say. I have two or three more years of clear thinking, but eventually I’ll lose my mental faculties.” She briefly gave her skull a lackluster tap with a finger. “So it hardly seems fair to put somebody in that position, although I agree—I hate to think that part of my life is over.”
“Oh, Cathy! I’m so sorry. What an awful burden,” Lou mused. “You know, it’s strange. You just said you have two or three years of clear thinking, and you connected that to fairness. And I was considering the same thing—only in reverse—just yesterday. I figure I have two or three years of muddled thinking—to get over Maureen, I mean. But we came to same conclusion. It wouldn’t be a decent thing to do, and yet, where does that leave us?”
The rain continued unabated throughout the early afternoon, and the movie could not be resurrected. Lou took advantage of a minor lull in their back-and-forth to begin her packing. They agreed that a room service pizza was preferable to standing in line at yet another buffet.
“You’ve got all tomorrow morning to pack,” Cathy reminded her.
“Ah, but you see, I have a plan!” Lou continued, untangling a couple of wire hangers. “If I pack now, then tomorrow morning I’ll be able to squeeze in a couple of hours in the casino. Did I tell you I won sixty-three dollars yesterday?” Lou paused, and scrutinized the lacy camisole in her hands, as if she were unsure if it were clean or not.
Cathy dialed the kitchen but was immediately placed on hold. She waited and restlessly dug her hand into her pocket. From the corner of her eye, she saw Lou quickly snatch the Infant of Prague from the dresser. Again, she kissed His porcelain face briefly, then wrapped Him in the camisole, and tucked Him safely into her suitcase.
Several times throughout the afternoon, the women reminded themselves that it was their last full day at sea and that they really should go above deck, yet neither of them moved toward the door. The persistent drizzle, they agreed, made the prospect unattractive. But when the sun peeked through the blinds and Lou reported, with some shock, that it was four o’clock, they each marveled at how the day had nearly disappeared.
Somewhere during the afternoon, the toes that touched had expanded to include ankles, and the room had become a lazy tangle of convivial laughter and eye-catching. The talk was smooth and even, resistant to the gutter of past pain or future plans.
Twice—maybe three times—Cathy felt that a kiss was in the making. Their cozy gabfest had been too close—too intimate—to simply leave behind without gesture. She wondered whether Lou would invite her to move to the love seat or contrive some equally awkward act. But she underestimated Lou’s capacity for forthright disclosure.
Lou dabbed at her mouth with a napkin, leaned forward, elbows on knees, and bit her lip. She seemed to be falter for the next thing to say. Cathy noticed that the pewter medallion was still safely at rest between Lou’s breasts.
“I’d like to make love with you,” Lou said. Straightforward and unapologetic, her statement momentarily stunned Cathy.
“We hardly know each other.” Cathy stumbled over her thoughts. “One conversation—even a great one—isn’t enough…” She searched for the right word.
“Context?” Lou suggested.
Cathy nodded.
“Maybe this is the context. I’m obviously not over Maureen, and I can’t ‘go on’ and create context with someone else out of thin air. For your own reasons, you don’t feel able to develop context with anyone, either.” Lou seemed pensive. “But we could remind each other that we’re alive right now. Just right now.”
Lou’s gaze was searching and charmingly, seductively authentic.
Their lovemaking was fierce and unceremonious.
Without prelude, they pushed aside the pizza box and cracked the balcony door. Lou swiveled the cord of the vertical blinds to allow splinters of sun to em-dash the wall, and Cathy double-locked the cabin door. In silence, they stripped to their underthings and dragged back the comforter from Cathy’s bed before slipping between the sheets. Each propped on an elbow, they stared at one another.
For the first time, perhaps, Cathy thought, she was able to take in her cabinmate’s features close up. Lou’s bright, round countenance consisted of an effervescent smile, made all the more fetching by an inconsequential crowding of her lower teeth and supple mouth framed by lips that pulled out at the corners. Her blue-gray eyes were unremarkable except for their large irises, flecked with miniscule black cinders, as if a tiny explosion had taken place behind her corneas.
Lou was not beautiful. But there was something strong and vulnerable in her hopeful face, something eager and still serene, something troubled yet tranquil.
They didn’t talk.
Lou, who had been so chatty all day, had placed a finger to her lips to insist on quiet, and then reached for Cathy’s jaw to draw their mouths together. The softness of her kiss was startling, and Cathy immediately opened her mouth and pulled Lou’s tongue inside. Lou placed her hand on Cathy’s sternum, her fingertips imprinting over her heart.
Cathy jostled herself closer, looped her arm across Lou’s ribs, and busied her hand at the task of unsnapping Lou’s bra. The garment flew away, swung aside to the floor, and Lou’s breasts spilled into the space between the
m. Cupped in her hand, Cathy fondled the swell and curve and sweep of flesh, and circled her over a hardening nipple; it wrinkled with arousal at her pinch. Then Cathy discarded her own bra, and pressed herself against Lou; her mouth and tongue focused on Lou’s eyelids and cheeks. Between the mash of their breasts, Cathy felt a fusion of heat and friction.
Lou pushed Cathy to her back and quickly straddled her, her hands on Cathy’s wrists, her breasts swaying above Cathy’s mouth. Cathy obliged her, drawing in first one breast, then the other, and Lou groaned and threw her head back, then dropped it forward, stuffing Cathy’s mouth. She released the wrists, and raked her fingers through Cathy’s hair, its tangles suffused with sweat.
They wrestled for nearly an hour, first one on top, then the other, their hands and legs a skein neither wanted to unravel, their mouths searching for yet another inch of unwet skin, their fingers reaching deep into the dark clefts of excitement, hips grinding, hearts pounding, thighs tested and wrapped and crushing.
“I can’t wait anymore,” whispered Lou as a trickle of perspiration escaped her temple.
Cathy grasped her shoulders and pushed her up and away. “Then don’t,” she said, as she shifted her ass downward and spread her legs.
Lou tasted like the cool sweetness of a river.
Cathy awoke to the sound of the cabin door closing. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes, unwilling to rise. Lou was gone. Oh shit, what had she done? Exploited the grief and loneliness of an almost complete stranger to soothe her own self-pity? The encounter had been spontaneous and sober, and neither of them had offered the other any promises of undying love and commitment. It was just sex—raw and hot and affirming.
Still, Lou had exited the room without a word. Was she upset?
A shower, Cathy thought. I need a shower. She sat up and cast her eyes about the room. Her jeans and shirt remained in a compressed silo on the floor; somewhere—she extended her legs and poked around under the jumble of sheets—she knew, her panties had been nudged deep underneath the sheets.
The clatter of room service plates and silver came from the hallway; she glanced to the door and noticed two sheets of paper. Undoubtedly, the invoices for their outstanding charges, as well as a reminder to gather their belongings. The ship was due to return to New York by one in the afternoon.
A shower, a quick breakfast, Cathy resolved again, as she hauled her limbs across the mattress. Then she’d pack, stuff her trusty backpack with her dirty duds, and make her grateful good-byes to Lou. All in all, Lou had been a decent roommate, and the sex had been a bonus. No, more than a bonus, she admitted; it had been a precious, albeit unforeseen, gift.
She picked up her books—mostly untouched during the voyage—and selected a slim volume near the bottom of the stack, allowing the others to tumble to the bed. It was A Room of One’s Own—the very copy she had used for over twenty years—dog-eared and margin-noted and definitely the worse for wear. “Women and fiction,” the book’s ostensible theme, suddenly struck Cathy as entirely fitting for Lou—the lively, honest reader of fiction.
The theme worked as well, if more subtly, for their encounter, she thought; what was their lovemaking but an example of women and their many fictions? She glanced at Lou’s Samsonite next to the door. Why not? Being forgotten really must be a horrible thing. On her way out, she tucked the book into the bottom of Lou’s bag.
The breakfast of waffles and bacon, grapefruit juice and coffee was not spectacular, but it hit the spot. The dining room was filled with robust, delightful laughter, and one table of guests spontaneously broke into an Irish folksong. Although she had eaten alone, Cathy felt welcome and warm, especially after being asked to join a table of four fat ladies in pink-collared sweatshirts emblazoned with the ace of hearts and The Bettin’ Bitches scrawled across their ample chests. Declining the invitation had been pro forma, but the ladies’ chatter breezed across the space between their tables. Cathy nodded at them as she pushed her chair away from her table and headed for the exit.
On her way back to her stateroom, she ducked inside the large, windowless gift shop to peruse the mostly made-in-China offerings—seashell necklaces, nautical caps, Hawaiian shirts, flip-flops, towels, and tote bags. Somewhere, she hoped to snag a portfolio of postcards, which Violet, who collected the gaudy pictures, would appreciate. She spied Lou at a carousel of keychains.
“Hey,” Cathy said.
Lou fingered a row of tiny surfers encased in a slosh of suspicious, oily liquid in Lucite. “Maureen would like this one.” She prodded the chains into a cheerful jingle. “She loves kitschy crap like this.”
Present tense. She’s talking about Maureen as if she doesn’t even remember that Maureen is dead. “You were gone when I woke up.” Cathy sighed. “Are you all right?”
“I’m just trying to find something to take home,” said Lou. She moved her hand to another row of bobbing palm trees. “I’m good.”
“Should we talk?” Cathy asked, her voice low and hurried.
Lou’s smile was bemused. “I don’t think so. I’ve asked Ramon to get my bags, and I’m going to hit the slots until we land.” She tilted her head slyly. “It’s my last chance to gamble.”
Cathy swayed for a moment on her feet. So, Lou had been serious after all. There wasn’t to be a tearful good-bye, any wrenching regret, or declarations of love. Briefly, she fixated on the word intimacy and all of the private, energetic, captivating excitement and magnetism it implied. Impulsively, she reached for Lou’s upper arm and turned her toward her. “I feel like we should say more,” she whispered.
Lou raised an eyebrow. “We talked about this last night, remember? It’s okay, really. What happened was wonderful and spontaneous and comforting.” Lou lowered her voice and grinned. “And terribly sexy.” She patted Cathy’s hand. “When I got on this ship, I wondered if my life was over. But now? I’m not so sure, after all. I’m grateful I got to spend the week with you. But you’re going back to Vermont, and I’m going back to Port Dickens.” She leaned into Cathy’s ear. “Thank you.”
“It’s just, it seems like—” Cathy sputtered.
“Don’t,” Lou insisted. “You’ll make your own cloth of it, no? What it meant to you, I mean. Even if you forget, it still happened, Cathy. It happened.”
Cathy released Lou’s arm and looked down at her boots. “I enjoyed feeling my mind,” she acknowledged and then glanced at Lou with a wink. “And other things.”
“See? It was important for both of us. A real moment. But solitary.”
“Right,” Cathy nodded. “It was real. Not fiction.”
“Not fiction.” Lou’s laugh was full of gentle light. “Let’s leave the romance to Heartwell.” Lou gave the carousel another languid spin; it stopped at the row of dangling surfers again. She plucked one off the rack. “This one,” she said again. “I think Maureen would like this one…”
Cathy stuffed her hands into her pockets and stared. The surfer bobbed in its little plastic world, alone on its slippery wave. “Yeah,” she said. “She probably would.”
SEX SELLS
BY JAE
Killing someone never got any easier. In fact, it got harder every time. Mara had thought about how to off Sue for days, but nothing she’d come up with sounded right.
Shoot her?
No, that was lame—and a bit too messy. Slitting her throat or stabbing her were out for the same reasons.
What about pushing her off a cliff? Mara gnawed on the end of her pen and considered it for a moment.
Tempting, but it had been done to death already—no pun intended.
Hire a hit man?
Not personal enough. Plus a professional killer would do it quickly and with a minimal amount of suffering, and that wasn’t what Mara wanted. Not for this particular victim. After cheating on her just when Mara had thought the relationship migh
t be going somewhere, Sue deserved a more gruesome death.
Mara leaned back in her seat and swirled her spoon through the foam left over at the bottom of her mug. Normally, the soothing background noise of clinking ceramic cups, the hiss of an espresso machine, and the murmur of conversations inspired her, but today even the familiar sounds did nothing for her.
She wanted to kill the noisy group of tourists who apparently presumed the other customers wanted to hear every word of their conversation. But then again, she’d have to find an effective murder method first. The loud hip-hop music blaring from the earbuds of the teenager slouched at the table next to hers didn’t exactly help either.
She sent him a glare. Maybe electrocution would work. Could you get zapped into the great beyond by your cell phone or MP3 player?
Probably not. Besides, she’d already killed someone off with electricity. No. She needed something else. Something unique.
Sighing, she dropped the spoon into her empty mug. She needed another caramel macchiato. Hey, could that be the perfect method she was looking for? Was there such a thing as caffeine poisoning?
Her cell phone rang before she could get herself another coffee. She fished her cell phone out of her backpack and flipped open the protective cover. Her mood instantly improved when she saw the name on the display—Hayley Wheeler.
“Can you die of a caffeine overdose?” Mara asked instead of a greeting.
A moment of silence filtered through the connection.
“Good morning to you too. I’m doing just fine, thanks for asking.” Despite the mild rebuke, Hayley’s sexy voice was laced with humor.
“Good morning,” Mara repeated dutifully. “How’s my favorite editor today?”
“I’d be flattered if I didn’t know for a fact that there’s not exactly a lot of competition in that category.”