Time's Hostage: The dangers of love, loss, and lus (Time Series Book 1)

by Brenda Kuchinsky

  Sophia felt as if she had been smacked even though she had just done the smacking. It was time to head for kinder and gentler company and escape into the Deuce’s laissez-faire surroundings. Her recent Nazi vision made her apprehensive about drinking, but her psychic pain took precedence. She needed alcoholic escape and Jack’s sturdy shoulder to cry on.

  Sophia decided to take an Uber to the Deuce to spare her feet in kitten heels. She arrived half an hour early.

  She strolled down to the beach for a shot of serenity. As she walked along lost in thought, oblivious to her surroundings, Dirk popped into her head unannounced. She had forgotten about him after the dream, but now he reared his lovely leonine head in her mind’s wandering eye. And once the image was there, she could not budge it.

  Why don’t I call Dirk and invite him over to view Barth’s work as promised but while that dirty dog is in Key West where he probably belongs? she thought, excited at her daring.

  Sophia, lost in licentious thought, had reached the beach unaware. She sat on a large rock, breathing in the bracing brackish air, listening to the waves swishing against the shore while the sea breezes ruffled her mahogany curls. Salty warmth embraced her. She imagined she heard the waves whispering “Dirk, Dirk, and Dirk” as their rhythm pounded the sand.

  She began fantasizing about the two of them alone in her big brass bed. He didn’t hesitate to take her in his arms as soon as she opened the door to receive him. He asked her where the bedroom was, and as she pointed upstairs, he pulled her close and began to kiss her. One endless wet panting kiss, and she was ready. They rushed up the stairs to the bedroom, and Dirk began to disrobe her quickly after he pushed her onto the bed. He tore off his shirt as she was unzipping and unbuckling him. She grabbed hold of his engorged member and inserted him inside of her. They coupled violently and came together. Completely sweaty and spent, they lay in each other’s arms. The next one would be slow and pretty. This one was rough and hot. Her hunger was immense. She had not realized she was starving until he fed her.

  Sophia is awakened from her sexcapade fantasy by a grimy bag lady, white hair greasy and stringy, teeth nearly gone, her face seamed with multiple wrinkles, a sixteen-ounce can of Foster’s beer in her shaky grip, banging her overflowing shopping cart against Sophia’s leg. She looked straight into Sophia’s aroused sparkling green eyes with her rheumy dull gray ones, proclaiming in a voice rasping on vocal cords that have been strafed by countless smokes, like a student reciting a rote grammar lesson, “You are in Hell. You are going to Hell. You will always be in Hell. Wake up to your sins.”

  Before the voice of doom could continue her recitation, Sophia stood up, rummaged for a five-dollar bill in her tiny red shoulder bag, threw the crumpled bill at the shabby prophetess, and took off for the Deuce, never looking back.

  The Deuce, a plain unassuming beige slab of a building that looked like a giant cinder block, was an unpretentious, inexpensive oasis amid the chic überpretentious South Beach glitz. Open from eight in the morning to five the next morning, happy hour was eleven hours long, ending at seven in the evening. Mac, the owner, was turning one hundred soon and attributed his longevity to his love affair with the Deuce.

  A drinking home to all sorts of grateful patrons, the Deuce embraced everyone. On Sunday, it was called “church.” Sophia loved the pink-neon nude lounging on her stomach in midair next to a kitschy neon-green vintage clock glowing on the wall, yellowed and browned by decades of rising cigarette plumes. She loved the giant pool table, retro jukebox, black-and-white tile floor, and large bars with wisecracking bartenders. The only problem was the bathrooms. You needed a few drinks to overlook the grime. True, grime was everywhere, but it reached its peak in the bathrooms.

  Jack, looking like a lumberjack in a plaid shirt and nondesigner jeans, was propping up the bar, drink in hand.

  Sophia snuck up from behind him and put her hands over his eyes. As he took her hands down from his face, he kissed a hand and held on for a moment.

  “Do you kiss all the people who sneak up on you?” Sophia asked, climbing onto the empty stool next to him.

  “Only the women,” Jack said.

  “What are you drinking?” Sophia asked.

  “Johnny Walker black.”

  “I’ll have that too. I can’t stomach the thought of the vinegar that passes for red wine here.”

  “Okay.” After Jack had ordered for her, he surveyed her from head to toe and complimented her on her look. “White becomes you, but I never see you in white. What happened to the existential black?”

  “I’m feeling very different. Oh, what the hell. I never was good at small talk. Let me just plunge in with what is uppermost on my mind. The other day, I had unexpected time on my hands, and when I wandered out to the gazebo, I discovered Barth in flagrante delicto, getting oral sex from Amanda’s son right there and thoroughly enjoying himself,” Sophia confided.

  “What?” Jack asked, surprised. “I didn’t know Barth was gay, or I guess, bi considering he’s married to you.”

  “That’s what I said after I stopped gawking, and they noticed me. Barth has some cock-and-bull story about Keith’s relentless pressure and a one-time impulse thing. But what’s he going to say? Yeah, darling, you’re lovely, but I like men. Surprise!”

  “I am surprised. How are you handling it? You must be devastated.”

  “I’m thrown off course, think I don’t know Barth, and feel down. It’s done nothing for my self-esteem. To top it off, I had this vivid violent hallucination right after my discovery involving the Night of the Long Knives when Hitler had his former gay buddy killed along with tons of others. I have to stop reading that Nazi stuff. I was better off when I was avoidant like my parents, and I shunned anything about the Holocaust. I don’t know who I am any more, never mind who Barth is.”

  Sophia took a swig of her scotch and went on. “And there’s more. I don’t know if I should say anything to Amanda about Keith and,” she rushed on, thinking she might as well be hanged for a sheep as a lamb, “I met this man. Well, he was pursuing me, which made me suspicious, but I’m attracted to him, and I’ve been having sexual dreams and fantasies, and I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Barth is going to the Keys alone for a week—I bowed out—and you get my drift. I’m free for retaliation, and I have an excuse to give into my desires for a change. Plus I’m teetering on the brink with the Nazis.” Sophia stopped short, pulling furiously on her left ear.

  “You’re pulling your ear off,” Jack said, tugging her hand away from her face, holding onto it, offering his sympathy. “Sophia,” he said, stroking her hand, “you need to slow down and think. You are not treating yourself the way you would treat your patients. You are running headlong into oblivion. And you’re a late bloomer. Fifty-eight is the new forty for you. This all smacks of midlife crisis stuff,” he said, letting go of her hand.

  Amid swirling tobacco smoke, billiard-ball clicking and clacking, countless conversations, raucous camaraderie, and even some unsolicited singing, the tourists, locals, and hardcore regulars were boisterous, enjoying themselves, while Sophia and Jack were immersed in their private conversation as if in a sepulchral confessional where silence reigned.

  “What about Barth? He’s the one having a midlife crisis. Or maybe not. Maybe this behavior is par for the course. I don’t know. All I know is why shouldn’t I be treated to some strange sex? Haven’t I been devoted to Barth and work and exercise? I’m such a good girl I’m even boring myself,” Sophia shouted, oblivious to her surroundings. “I can’t even have a steamy fantasy while sitting on the beach without some homeless lady telling me that I’m going to Hell. Do I have a scarlet G for good, good to the last drop, sewn on my shirt? Can being good, always doing the right thing, consign you to purgatory? Because I sure as hell feel I’m in it.”

  “No wonder you’re in that white voodoo-priestess getup. You’re on a weird warpath. I’m worried about you and that stranger. How do you know what he’s after?”


  “Oh, so now he can’t be after my body? Just because Barth prefers boys between his legs doesn’t mean I’m unattractive to men.”

  “That’s not what I meant, and you know it. You said he came out of nowhere. I have a detective’s suspicious mind, and you, by the way, have a therapist’s suspicious mind. That’s one of the things we have in common,” he shot back.

  “Stop playing dad. He approached me at Van Dyke’s, gave me his card, and got my attention. Then I saw him at the gala, to which he was invited as an art dealer. He wants to see Barth’s latest, and I told him he could. I might just do that but without Barth there,” she said.

  “Okay. You’re a grown-up. But I think you’re going a little crazy. Please keep me posted on this guy. You know nothing about him. Let me know what you know. I might have to play the knight in shining armor. You sound reckless,” he said, frowning as he finished his drink. “Let’s have a couple more of these. You need to play catch up. Drink up,” he encouraged, signaling the bartender, a strapping, heavily tattooed brunette in a skimpy outfit complete with spider-web fishnets, making her look like a rogue Playboy bunny.

  The bartender, who was about to joke with them, noticed their serious huddle and decided to just plop the scotches down and depart for more lighthearted pastures.

  “Enough about me. I dropped a bombshell, and I’ve been going on like a selfish, self-absorbed fool. What’s going on with you?” Sophia asked, turning her somber green gaze full force on Jack while trying to keep up with him in the drinking department.

  “Evangeline left. Another one bites the dust. They just can’t handle my schedule. But somehow, I thought Angie was different. Who am I kidding? Don’t I always think the current woman will be different and put up with me?”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. I thought she would stick around too. It wasn’t just you being delusional, if that’s any consolation. She seemed so into you and from the same background and the same rebellion against it. I don’t know. You two seemed good. And those black Irish looks—black hair, blue eyes, and freckled milky-white skin. How long has it been?” she asked.

  “Only a week. I’m hurting. It’s tough sleeping alone after having a wonderful warm body for comfort and consolation.”

  “You’ll find someone else. Someone who will understand. Give it time.”

  “All I have now is Johnny Walker for company,” he said, sipping to demonstrate.

  “You have me,” Sophia protested.

  “I know, I know,” he said, enveloping her hand. “I’ve been thinking that I need a woman just like you. A clone, in fact. Someone so independent with important work and ideas of her own that I could be partners with her and have my own work and ideas.”

  “A clone who’s at least ten years younger,” Sophia said, snorting with self-derision, managing to finish her first drink while Jack was almost done with his second. Or second since she arrived, she realized. “How many of those have you had, Jack? I think it’s time for the sandwich shop before any more drinking,” she said, taking his hand and dragging him off the stool.

  “Okay. Let me finish this, then roast beef and Brie, here I come.” Jack laughed, telling the towering tattooed bunny to hold Sophia’s drink because they would be right back with food.

  As they lined up for the food, their arms draped over each other’s shoulders, they were both silent, absorbed by their own worries.

  Sophia was wondering if she would want a Jack clone. No. Right now, Dirk was calling to her. She wanted those seductive dark-blue eyes peering into hers, unmasking her. She wanted to muss up that hair. She wanted those arms, wiry strong, around her. And, most memorably, she wanted to thrust open those thick juicy lips with her tongue.

  “Wake up, Sophia.” Jack had let go of her shoulders and was shaking her. “Were you hallucinating?” Jack asked. “It’s your turn to order.”

  “I’m fine. Just daydreaming,” she said, ordering the goat cheese, arugula, and beet on whole-grain baguette.

  “I have a great idea. Let’s go back to my place with this bounty. We won’t be sucking up smoke while we eat, and we’ll be more comfortable. I have plenty to drink.”

  “The ambience doesn’t suit you anymore? Gritty grime coupled with alcohol and tobacco fumes lost its charms? Why, people come from all over to indulge.”

  Jack laughed as he nudged her to a cabstand. Before they knew it, they were climbing the stairs to Jack’s second-floor condo in a converted one-family house on the outskirts of the trendy part of midtown. Knowing Miami, Sophia thought, this place would soon be on the inskirts of the trendy part of midtown.

  CHAPTER 12

  They sat at Jack’s round maple-wood kitchen table, both alcohol-fueled greedy, biting into their overflowing sandwiches with mouths wide open, like hungry nestlings opening up to their regurgitating mother. While chewing away, Sophia asked Jack for some water.

  “Let’s have a short respite from alcohol. I could use some hydration. And you! I don’t know how many you had before I arrived, but you seem well lubricated,” Sophia said, taking another bite.

  “Who’s counting? I’m taking advantage of time off, and I’m sulking about losing Evangeline. And that, my dear, is how I sulk,” Jack said, fetching a glass of water for Sophia and pouring himself a generous slug of scotch.

  “No water for me. Fish swim in it, as the esteemed W. C. Fields used to remark.”

  “I’m serious. That’s how the Irish sulk. I once read some essays on Ireland by Günter Grass. You know that German writer, author of the venerable Tin Drum, who moved to Ireland like lots of artists because of tax breaks. He described in one of his remarkable Ireland essays how in certain Irish pubs, there are leather-curtain drinkers. Those drinkers who want to drink alone and wallow can simply draw a leather curtain across their drinking space and be left in peace to drink themselves silly. It’s probably not wallowing to them. Drinking is a serious business in Ireland.”

  “Get wasted, Jack, if that’s what you crave. You don’t need to draw a leather curtain between us. I accept you as you are. Green warts and all. And I’m sick of being Miss Goody-Two-Shoes. The one who always thinks of the other person first. There is such a thing as positive selfishness. It’s difficult to take care of others if you don’t care for yourself first. I’m always telling patients that. The good caretaker. But do I take my own counsel? ‘Physician, heal thyself’ is my advice to myself. I hope you can accept me as I am or as I become. I want us to be best of friends, no matter what. Now if we were ten, we could become blood brother and sister. Did you ever do that?” she asked.

  Jack shook his head no.

  “I became blood sisters with my best friend. I scraped the front of my hand with a wooden Popsicle stick until I drew blood. And I remember it hurt. She did the same, and we intermingled our blood. Blood sisters. I guess at that age it’s usually same-sex friends. I like to think we would have been blood sister and brother if we had known each other at that age. Defying convention, even as ten-year-olds,” she said, picking up her sandwich for a savory bite.

  “C’mon. Let’s move to the living room to finish our goodies. Let’s use plates. We were ravenous barbarians. We can settle down and relax now in a more civilized way,” he said, rummaging for plates in the kitchen cupboard.

  “Evangeline made some major improvements here,” Sophia said, glancing at the two orange fiesta ware plates Jack had produced.

  “She did. You’ll notice lots of tasteful feminine touches throughout the place,” Jack said, casting a sad-eyed look at Sophia.

  Sophia moved into the spacious living room, the only spacious room in Jack’s one-bedroom condo. He lived on one of those adorable narrow leafy streets, little green gems, remnants of a bygone era when this was a safe family neighborhood, not an outpost between dirty-dangerous threatening from the north side of town to glitzy-glamorous encroaching from the south side of town, off Northeast Second Avenue.

  Sophia glanced out the window at tropical treetops, pretty una
ssuming pastel-colored stucco houses crowned with clay-red roof tiles, and cars cramped together on both sides of the street making for a cozily crowded tableau. Looking at this domestic scene, one would never suspect drug deals, shootouts, and robberies to the left, or overpriced boutiques, five-star restaurants, and ultramodern glass architectural headquarters to the right as the innocent, silent street opened out to madness in either direction.

  Strange bedfellows indeed, Sophia thought, plopping down on Jack’s unpretentious beige-and-brown plaid couch, festooned with a brick-red oblong throw tossed over its back, anchored by two squishy red-and-brown throw pillows in each corner. She admired the two-layer curtains enhancing the two bay windows. A sheer white curtain covering the window was overlaid with a gold curtain covered with large red poppies and tied back with a gold sash. A red, green, and gold glass vase, elongated and twisted, on the coffee table looked like a Chihuly but probably wasn’t. This was most certainly also an Angie touch.

  “I see Evangeline’s touches here too. An improvement,” Sophia shouted into the kitchen.

  “Improvement, yes, but also a constant reminder that she’s gone,” Jack said, emerging from the kitchen with the two bright plates loaded with the remains of the mega sandwiches. “Let me go back for our drinks.”

  Jack returned with his drink, her water, and a Riedel wine glass with a bottle of Chilean Cabernet on a tray.

  “I have some great Chilean wines, thanks to your expert advice, and I even bought a set of your favorite wine glasses at Target.”

  Sophia, forgetting her resolve to stick to water, was delighted by Jack’s thoughtfulness. “Jack, you are the best. How could Angie even think of leaving you? Her loss. By the way, why didn’t she take some of this stuff with her?”

  “She left in a hurry. She was conflicted. She didn’t want to go, but she was fed up with the hours. She considered me a workaholic. She thought I needed her additions more than she did. Maybe I wouldn’t continue to be so blind to my surroundings. Part of me is hoping she’ll come back for them or come back, period.”