by Chip Cheek
“This is Zeynep,” she said, nodding toward the woman holding the cards. “She’s from Turkey.”
“I’m from Cincinnati,” the woman said.
“She’s just shown us the most amazing card trick, and we’re going to try and figure out how she does it. Here,” she said, handing him a highball glass with two fingers of whiskey in it. “You need to help me with this. I’m getting tipsy.”
“Gladly,” he said, and took a swallow.
“Should I do it to him?” the woman asked.
Alma said yes, and laid her hand on Henry’s leg. “Now, watch her very closely.”
He would not be able to watch anything closely as long as she had her hand on his leg, as long as she was close enough that he could feel her warmth and smell her perfume, but he tried. The woman put the deck down on the table. She told him to cut it, and he took half the deck, set it down, and put the other half on top of it. She shuffled the cards again and held them up and made a fan, the faces in Henry’s direction, and told him to take a card, any card, but not to show it to her. He picked the two of hearts. The woman told him to put the card on the table, facedown, and he did so, and she put the whole deck on top of it and then shuffled it again—once, twice, three times. He watched closely. She asked him to cut the deck again, and he did so, and she took one of the halves, put it between her knuckles, and held it out to him. “Now, slap it,” she said.
“What?”
“Hit it—just slap the cards.”
The others around the table laughed. Alma smiled at him. “Go on,” she said.
It was some kind of joke, he thought, but what the hell: he got up on his knees, so he could reach the cards better, slapped them, and they all scattered and fluttered about the table—except for one, which was still wedged between the woman’s knuckles. “Is this your card?” she said, holding it up.
And it was: it was the two of hearts.
Everyone around the table clapped, except for Henry, who was astonished—really and truly astonished. “That’s incredible,” he said. “Really, how is that possible?”
“I think I caught it that time,” Alma said.
“I will not divulge my secrets,” the woman said.
But how had she done it—really? She’d given him the card, and he held it in his hand like a sacred object.
Alma was enjoying his reaction. “It’s impressive, isn’t it?”
“That hardly says it. You know how she did it?”
She laughed and took the glass from him. “If I tell you, I’m afraid she’ll kill me.” She took a swallow and handed the glass back.
He put the card in his jacket pocket. It would bring him good luck, he thought.
They watched Clara and the band play. Clara was no joke on the piano. She was doing “The Entertainer,” never looking at her hands, improvising little fills, turning half around to make eye contact with the trumpet player, who was playing a clarinet now. Soon the rest of the band had joined in—trombones, a kazoo, a chorus doing an a cappella bass line, and the drummer struck rhythmic accents on a ukulele. All the doors and windows were open, and breezes stole inside, disturbing the candles. Max and one of the cadets, Freddie, followed Maggie and Brenda outside, and the darkness swallowed them up. Henry finished the whiskey in his glass and poured some more. Now the trumpet player had wedged himself beside Clara at the piano, and together they played a rousing “It’s a Long, Long Way to Tipperary,” Clara laughing so hard she had trouble making the notes. The others followed along as best as they could. One of the old men, clearly very drunk, his shirt unbuttoned—a veteran of the Great War, maybe—stood and sang with feeling, swinging his fist in front of him.
The whiskey was going down easily. Henry thought of poor Effie across the street, in the dark, dead to the world and missing everything, and he felt for her. But he was happy to be on his own. He leaned back on his hands beside Alma, lightly swaying into her. Their fingers touched. She stole sips from his glass.
One of the other band members took over at the piano and played a ragtime tune. A small group by the staircase started dancing, including Clara and the trumpet player, who was running his hand up and down her side. Scandalous! Henry thought. Max was nowhere to be seen. Henry threw the rest of his drink back, got to his feet, and pulled Alma up with him, and they joined the group. Carl remained by the coffee table, looking darkly up at them.
The trumpet player was kissing the swells of Clara’s breasts and caressing her behind, and Henry was shocked at the boldness of it, the shamelessness of it. Shocked, and excited too, because through the fog in his head he felt that nothing would be forbidden here. “Dear Henry!” she cried, tilting her head back. “Is Effie here?”
“She had to go to bed. She wasn’t feeling well.”
“My poor peach.”
He was holding Alma’s hand. “I would’ve stayed with her, but she made me come over.” This was, in fact, true.
Clara reached out and put her hand on his chest. “I’m glad you did.”
Alma pulled him away and turned him. The beat was jaunty, but they weren’t following it. She put her arms around his neck, and he set his hands on her hips. He could feel her underwear through her dress. “This party’s going to get ugly,” she said, giving a glowering look over his shoulder, to Clara, presumably. “You can’t leave me.”
“I don’t intend to,” he said.
“Maybe we can escape,” she said. “We’ve got our pick of houses. We don’t have to stay here.” She was smiling at him, full of meaning, and Henry felt dizzy. The lights seemed to dim, the music to come from far away.
“That’s probably not a good idea,” he said. Slowly he caressed her hips. “I could get myself into a lot of trouble.”
She said nothing more. Something had turned. If the state of affairs between them wasn’t plain before, it was plain now. They danced. There was another ragtime tune, and then Clara returned to the piano for a jazz number, and the party babbled along. Henry and Alma were separate from it.
Until Carl appeared, swaying in his unbuttoned uniform and tank top. “All right,” he said to Alma, “why don’t you quit this act?”
She pressed herself to Henry. “What act?”
“This”—he waved the back of his hand at them—“this boyfriend nonsense. You were with me tonight.”
“I don’t recall promising myself to anyone.”
“Right,” he said, and pressed his finger to her shoulder. “Like I said, you’re a fucking tease.”
Henry moved Alma behind him and with a bolt of adrenaline said, “You ought to back off, son,” and Carl laughed joylessly, and squared himself. He must have been half a foot taller than Henry.
“Or what, little hillbilly?”
Before Henry could answer, Alma put herself between them. “Or I’ll gouge your eyes out,” she said. Her voice was even and calm, just loud enough for him to hear over the music. She took Henry’s hand and led him away. From the staircase she picked up a votive candle, and he followed her down the hall, past the bathroom, to a door near the end. They entered, and Henry closed the door behind him. “Is there a lock?” she asked, and he found the latch under the knob, and turned it.
The music came to them, muffled, from down the hallway. Henry expected Carl to bang on the door, but nothing happened.
“I think we’re safe,” Alma said. “God, what an asshole.”
“What was his problem?”
“Who knows.”
They were in a study. Bookcases lined one wall. A heavy desk and wingback chair stood on one side, and in the middle of the room stood a leather couch and armchair.
She sighed, and set the candle down on the desk. “Boys. They’re so much more fragile than girls. Everyone thinks it’s the other way around, but it almost never is. It’s a burden.”
He came over to her. He wanted to reach for her, but stopped short. “Sorry about that.”
“I’m the one who should be sorry. I attract idiots.” She took his hand.
“Thanks for sticking up for me,” she said.
“Any time.” He looked around the room, which dimly shuddered in the candlelight. “I’ve never been in here before.”
“It’s nice.” She moved her thumb in little circles over the back of his hand. “I hide away in here sometimes, when it’s just the two of them and I don’t want to hear them. There’s quite a library.”
She let his hand go and crossed over to the bookcases, and he followed her. They scanned the shelves, leaning against each other. He could just make out the titles. Admiralty and Maritime Law. Black’s Law Dictionary. A lot of history too, ancient Greek and Roman, including Gibbon, in six volumes, leather bound. “Ah, your favorite book,” she said, and from a shelf above them pulled down a copy of Boswell, the title in gilded letters. Henry laughed and told her to put it away, and as she did so, by instinct, as if to support her, he set his hand at the small of her back. She turned to him, his hand sliding around to her hip, and their faces were close. He could smell her breath—it was sweet, a faint note of whiskey. They were near a corner of the room, behind the desk. Her eyes shone.
“Can we hide here the rest of the night?” she asked softly.
“I mean, we can’t go back out there, can we?” he said. “As long as what’s-his-name is around.”
“No.”
Back in the den they were between songs. Someone shouted something, and there was a burst of laughter.
Alma moved her hand over his chest, over the contours of his muscles, up under his jacket to his shoulder. He could feel the warmth of it through his shirt. He was trembling. He was tipsy, maybe drunk, but he was intensely alert, every nerve ending alive. He pulled her by the hips against him, so she would know he was hard, and ran his hands over her behind, felt the soft flesh through the smooth fabric. She lifted her face so their noses touched, and breathed against him, waiting for him to go the last inch, which he did, and their lips met at last. The touch of her tongue against his. Her fingers running up the back of his head, the chills. He gripped her, and began gathering her dress up behind her.
Now she pressed her hand to the front of his trousers, gently squeezed him between her fingers, and the next moment she was pulling at his belt, tugging at it, finally drawing back to unbuckle it, using both hands, to unbutton and unzip his trousers, and as he drew her lips back to him, his trousers fell to his ankles and she slipped her hand into his boxers.
She smiled; he kissed her teeth. She stroked him slowly with her fist.
“Oh God,” he said.
Their lips were still touching, but they weren’t kissing, they were only breathing. “Do you want to fuck me?” she said.
“Yes,” he said. His heart was pounding. “Yes, I want to fuck you.”
“What are you waiting for?”
He kicked his shoes and trousers away, pulled his boxers off, turned her around, and brought them both to their knees—pushed her down and gathered her dress up over her waist, found the edge of her underwear and yanked them down her thighs, up under her knees, away from her ankles. The desk cast a dark shadow over them, and he could just see the pale mounds of her buttocks. He pressed his fingers between her legs, felt the wet of her cunt, the opening, and quickly, before it was all over for him, set his cock there, pierced and entered her—she let out a small cry—and for a few seconds fucked her savagely, holding his shirttails up with one hand, his groin slapping her buttocks and the backs of her thighs, until she reached her arm back and said, “Hey—easy, easy,” and he slowed down, steadied himself, found a rhythm. She looked back at him from the floor, over her shoulder. “Don’t come inside,” she said. He didn’t answer. All of him was focused on the dark cleft he was driving into. She closed her eyes. “That’s it,” she said. Her voice had turned airy. “That’s it. That’s it.” And for an indeterminate time their bodies clapped together, until the orgasm choked him and, pulling out, pressing his forehead into her back, he ejaculated onto the rug between her knees.
For a long moment they held still like that. He felt the rise and fall of her back. “Did you come?” she whispered, finally, and he nodded.
He sat up and leaned back against the bookcase. She turned over, away from him, and pulled her dress down. She reached her hand out and felt the rug where they’d been. “Oh, my,” she said, rubbing her fingers together. “Mr. Strauss will want this cleaned.” Her head and shoulders were in the light. She smiled placidly at him. “I tried to escape one beast and ended up with another. Some luck.”
All at once the magnitude of what he’d done came crashing down on him. “Oh God,” he said, and turned away from her. “God, I’m sorry.” He reached for his underwear. He didn’t want her to see him, and angled away from her while he pulled them on. “I’m sorry.”
“You’re sorry,” she said.
He pulled his trousers on, lifting his hips to pull them up to his waist, holding the buckle so it wouldn’t make a sound. He felt too weak, too embarrassed to stand.
She was glaring at him, waiting for him to go on. “What are you sorry about?”
“I wasn’t thinking,” he said, buttoning himself up. “I’m sorry. This was a mistake.”
She continued to glare at him for a long moment, until she looked away and seemed to come to some sort of conclusion. “Right,” she said. She got to her feet.
“Alma,” he said—but he didn’t know what he wanted to say. He felt consumed by fire. “I wasn’t thinking,” he said again.
“I know.” She turned her back to him and shimmied into her underwear.
“Alma, I’m sorry.”
“If you say you’re sorry again, I’m going to scream.” She turned back around to face him, smoothing her dress. “I’m serious. Tell me you’re sorry one more time. I’ll scream. I’ll say you forced me.”
“No!” He stood up, his belt buckle ringing. “Please. You can’t. You can’t tell anyone.”
She laughed. “Look at you. You’re terrified.”
“It was a mistake, that’s all. I didn’t mean to do it.”
“Get the fuck away from me.”
She strode past him. He grabbed her arm, and she swung around and slapped him in the face. The shock blinded him. His ear rang. She made it to the door and was unlocking it when he cried, “Alma—please. Please don’t go. Please.” She paused, her hand on the doorknob, and he held his palms up to her. “I don’t know what I’m saying. Please. I feel crazy. I don’t know what I’m doing.”
She seemed to soften somewhat. Her eyes glistened in the light. He thought she might be on the verge of crying, but when she spoke, her voice was calm and clear. “Look, I’m not going to say anything. You can relax. It’s nothing—nothing to report here. This was just…” She waved her hand at him. “It’ll go down the memory hole.” She opened the door, said, “See you later,” without looking at him, and went out, closing the door behind her.
He was empty with shock. His face throbbed where she’d struck it. Finally he buckled his belt. He took his handkerchief—the nice blue silk one, which he’d bought especially for the suit—from his front pocket and knelt down where they’d been, to try to clean it up. It was hopeless. There’d be a spot. But there was nothing he could do. He stuffed the wet handkerchief in his trousers pocket, put his shoes on, blew the candle out, and stood in the dark, listening to the party down the hall. It had tamed down, but there was still a murmur of voices. The floorboards over his head creaked. He thought he heard a woman moaning. He had to get out—but not through the den. The study was at a corner of the house, facing the street, and through one of the windows he saw a space between the shrubs. He unlocked the window, lifted it open, stepped outside, closed it behind him, and escaped.
* * *
All was dark and quiet back at the cottage. He lit the kerosene lamp and brought it into the downstairs lavatory, where there was a shower stall they never used. But the water worked, and he made it hot. He pulled his suit off, left it crumpled on the floor, and stepped into the stall
. Alma’s scent was all over him. A desiccated cake lay in the soap tray, and he scrubbed himself with it. When he was finished he dried himself off, slowly, with the hand towel. He inspected his face in the mirror. It was bright red, and warm to the touch, but it didn’t seem to be swelling. He slipped his boxers on, blew out the lamp, and carrying his suit in a bundle, felt his way upstairs to the attic room.
The windows were open, as usual. It smelled clean and fresh. He could see the mound of Effie’s body under the covers. Quietly he deposited the ball of clothing in his suitcase and closed it, put on his pajamas, and slipped under the covers beside his wife. She whimpered, turned away from him, was still again. The wind whipped into the room and he stared up into the dark. He didn’t have the heart to pray.
He couldn’t believe he’d done what he’d done. And so he replayed it, moment by moment, as if in search of the proof, until in spite of himself he was erect again.
Nine
Never again. That was the refrain in his head all morning, while he straightened the den and mopped the kitchen floor: he would never be unfaithful to his wife again. It had been a horrible mistake, and that was all.
They were supposed to move over to Clara’s tomorrow. It didn’t seem possible now.
While he was mopping, Effie came down and stood at the edge of the linoleum. Her hair was wild. “Henry,” she said, surveying the floor. “You sweet thing.”
He stepped over to her, over the wet part he’d already done, and wrapped her in his arms. “How are you feeling?”
“Disgusting,” she said. She turned again to the floor, and laughed. “You didn’t sweep first, did you?”
He hadn’t. And he could see, very clearly now, the wet balls of dust and stray hairs affixed to the linoleum. He took it as a sign of his uselessness. She looked up at him, and laughed again. It was all right, she said. It was helpful. They’d just let it dry, and then she’d sweep and do another quick pass with the mop—later.