My wife often talked about buying another home somewhere—the Florida Keys, maybe, since we both loved it down there—to keep the tax man at bay. At this rate it would have to be sooner rather than later. According to her, we should have done it long ago.
But I didn’t give a damn about all that now, and I could hardly concentrate at all on the numbers in front of me.
I checked my watch a half dozen times in the space of a minute and a half. What if this Gretchen babe was setting me up for something—like rolling me for my wallet?
It was probably just my nerves acting up. She’d already taken care of the room, so what sense would robbing me make?
I got up and walked to the elevator, all the while repeating the number 505 to myself as if I might somehow forget it. On the way up to the fifth floor I kept thinking about Gretchen: not only was she beautiful, she was one of those women who, though young, seemed to be mature far beyond her years—which was no doubt why Leonard had married her. If he only knew what his little darling was up to in her spare time . . .
Suite 505 was located north of the elevators. I knocked softly on the door. Approaching from the opposite direction was a uniformed porter pushing a cart crammed with shiny metal eat-in food containers.
“Good afternoon,” he said.
Just then the door swung open. It was like there was a ghost behind it: no one was there.
At the far end of the room a window gave out onto a partial uptown view that included the Empire State Building. Off to the side was a neatly made queen-size bed in a dark cherrywood frame.
I hesitated, then stepped inside.
The door fell shut behind me. There stood Gretchen, naked.
“What took you so long?”
6.
“How was your day in the city, dear?”
“Nice. Fine. You know—the usual.”
Dinner that evening was, ironically, a Thai shrimp concoction that Monica had pulled out of one of her low-calorie, eat-healthy cookbooks. Often—three or four times a week on average, including both Saturday and Sunday—we skipped out to a restaurant for dinner, even when Diane was in school. But when Monica had a little extra time on her hands, she liked to breeze through the organic supermarket and pick up the ingredients for an exotic meal. Today she’d gotten back from her antique hunt in time to do just that.
“And how’d your interview go?”
“Hmm?”
Spending the afternoon making it with Gretchen in a luxury suite of the Soho Grand had made me forget all about my fabricated get-together with the people at Fessner, Vitoni, and Wambach—or damned near. Worse, I was still feeling the foggy aftereffects of those three martinis. I did remember not to kiss my wife when I came into the house—I didn’t want her smelling the alcohol on my breath or the flowery scent of another woman on my body—and I reminded myself all over again to be on my guard.
“Oh—you know. An interview’s an interview. Been through one, you’ve been through them all.” I shook my head. “I’m not sure I’m wild about the gig, though.”
“No? Why’s that?” Monica said as she scooped a dainty spoonful of steamed jasmine rice onto my plate.
“Just a gut feeling, is all. The head honcho kept asking me if I had any objections to working late into the evening. That set off all the warning bells and sirens. I had a hunch there were going to be quite a few late evenings.”
“Oh, you don’t need that,” agreed Monica, making a face.
I bit off half a crustacean and chewed. It was excellent, with just the right balance of salt, pepper, and garlic. My wife was a woman who had a real talent for cooking.
I wondered about Gretchen. Somehow I didn’t think she’d be in the same league as Monica.
“Did you like the money?”
“Ah—it was okay, but nothing to write home about. But I kept thinking I’d need a lot more than my usual rate to commute into the city every day for a few months.”
Even as I was saying it, I realized that a job, phantom or real, would have been the perfect cover for seeing Gretchen, especially since Monica didn’t keep tabs on my money. All I had to do was tell Monica that I’d be using my cell phone at the job location and she’d never know the difference. Too late now. I had a lot to learn. In the future I’d have to be craftier.
“So did you ask for it?”
The question was pure Monica—always looking out for my welfare, trying to make sure I got the best possible deal. She even believed in me as a budding author, when I’d never given her any reason whatsoever for that belief aside from a few chapters of an aborted novel here and there.
“It takes a long time to become a writer, dear. You can’t give up so easily. Stay with it. You can do it. I know you can . . .”
Those were her exact words. So why would I even dream of jeopardizing my perfect life? Because the perfection was a trap, too. Keeping me at home and shackled to the computer terminal was my wife’s subtle way of controlling me, wasn’t it?
“I mentioned something—that I’d prefer more than what they were offering. But you know how it is—they muttered about depressed consumer demand and how money was tight.”
“In pharmaceuticals?”
“Yeah, right? Can you believe that? But some of these little pashas try to make themselves look good by saving the company money.”
I was improvising as I went, so I had to be careful. Where I sometimes paid only half attention to her, Monica really listened to what I was saying all the time.
“So what happened?”
“They told me they’d think about it and get back to me, probably in a week or two. They’re looking at some other candidates, too. Whatever happens is okay by me.”
Then Diane asked: “What else did you do in New York, Daddy?”
The question seemed loaded. But that was ridiculous—how could it be?
I was shocked, because Diane was at the age when kids are completely absorbed in their own world to the exclusion of everything else. What a day she picked to show interest in my life.
I took a sip of French Gewürztraminer.
“Oh, I hit the Strand. Bleecker Street Records. And a couple other places.”
“Did you buy anything?”
“Not today, sweetie.”
“That’s weird. You always come home with something, don’t you? Like those weird bootlegs that sound like crap.”
Monica gave me an isn’t-our-little-girl-a-character roll of the eyes.
“Usually I do. But no, I didn’t spring for anything, because nothing caught my fancy. Just one of those days, I guess.”
She didn’t believe me, I could tell. Between nibbles of watercress, Gretchen wafted into my nostrils. Her scent was distinctive—Creed Fantasia de Fleurs, she said, top-of-the-line stuff.
Like an idiot, I’d forgotten to shower at the hotel, and didn’t want to risk raising eyebrows by jumping straight into the shower the minute I got home. What I did remember to do, however, before getting out of the car and coming into the house, was check my clothes for telltale signs of Gretchen—like stray black hairs or lipstick.
But neither my wife nor daughter said a thing about my appearance, condition, or smell. And they didn’t remark on the way I was acting, either.
As usual, Diane went up to her room the minute she was through eating to tackle her homework and talk on the phone. Monica disappeared into her study for the evening to take care of a few bills and check our portfolio before getting into bed and reading.
I poured myself another tall glass of the sweet golden wine, sat in my office, and thought about the day. Not only could I smell her, but I could still feel Gretchen all over me, like a warm blanket. And in my mind’s eye I could see her: going down on me, riding me like a horse, making cute whimpering sounds when she came.
We’d fitted together like a hand in the proper-
sized glove. And the very first time, no less. Lucky. Damned lucky. I’d used the condom that I brought with me (her idea, and I didn’t object), but maybe somewhere along the line we’d dispense with that precaution.
Her idea, again.
I had the sensation of floating and dipping, like an intoxicated butterfly. If I didn’t know better, I’d say I was in a mild state of shock. I was going to have to watch myself closely, make sure I didn’t veer out of control. After all, I hadn’t had a woman other than Monica in so long I could hardly remember. I didn’t realize until now how out of practice I was.
But at least I was alive again. That was the most important thing—I was alive.
I’d felt a third stab of guilt just before Gretchen and I tumbled onto the bed at the Soho Grand, but as soon as I was inside her, it was like I was somebody else altogether—not the very married Richard Marzten from the wealthy suburbs but the elusive, fearless “Jonathan Griffin.” And Jonathan Griffin wasn’t going to feel guilty about a damned thing.
I’d pulled it off, all right. With no strings attached.
7.
“Jonathan Griffin” and Gretchen became an irregular if judicious item. We’d do a Wednesday afternoon here, a Friday evening there, a Monday at ten in the morning. If we used the Soho Grand one week, it would be the Grand Hyatt the next, Sofitel New York two weeks later.
Since time was usually of the essence for both of us, Gretchen booked the rooms in advance, to make sure we always had a place to go. No slimy, fleabag, by-the-hour joints for her. When I asked her if her MO was too dangerous, she told me that Leonard had no way of knowing about the hotel reservations. Since he hadn’t caught us yet, I figured she knew what she was doing.
The point was to keep the pattern of our meetings as unpredictable as possible, for obvious reasons: Neither one of us had any interest in having our mates catch on. The way we saw it, if they couldn’t sniff out a routine, then they couldn’t catch us in the act. Since as far as I could make out Gretchen didn’t have a job, it was Leonard who was probably paying for our assignations. No doubt he wouldn’t have appreciated it.
Though I didn’t know that for a fact. For all I knew, Gretchen was secretly filming what we did in bed and showing it to her husband for his perverted sexual gratification. But she never said much about him one way or another.
Between get-togethers, the two of us would communicate with each other via various e-mail addresses only, changing usernames and passwords frequently. Beforehand we’d agree on using certain code words—PACIFIC COAST HIGHWAY or HUGE COMPUTER SALE, for example—in the subject box of the e-mail, so we’d know who was on the other end in the event one of us switched carriers, and secondarily to throw off anyone who might snoop around. To keep what we were up to even more obscured, we tried to use only Internet cafés, library computers, and in my case the office computers as well to keep in touch.
All of it worked like a charm.
Gretchen and I quickly developed an understanding that had us perfectly in tune with one another. What made it even better was that both of us appreciated the fact. “No strings attached” was our motto. Those three words—No strings attached—were how we ended each rendezvous, instead of saying good-bye.
“We’ll never fall in love, right?” I said to her after one of our earliest sessions between the sheets.
“Right.”
“And we’re not in love, right?”
“Right.”
“And what we’re doing is nothing. It’s just sex, right . . . sex between two adult strangers. It’s not anything else, is it? It couldn’t be mistaken for anything else, right?”
“Right.”
That exchange, or some variation of it, evolved into a drill we went through from time to time, and it gave me a sense of security to say the words and hear her responses. It was like we really did have it both ways, like it was happening and at the same time it really wasn’t. The point of the Q&A was to keep it all straight in our minds. In our own separate spheres we still cared for Leonard and Monica, and had entirely too much to lose in the event our relationship ever got out of hand.
Besides sex, what would Gretchen and I have gained by ending up with each other?
Maybe because it was secret, maybe because it was forbidden, it was the best sex, uninhibited and inventive and exciting, that I’d ever had, including when I was a young stud before meeting Monica. In the space of an hour I was able to get it up two, three, sometimes even four times. We worked The Joy of Sex, How to Make Great Love to a Woman (and . . . to a Man), and The Kama Sutra forward and backward. And since time was limited, we had to work fast.
The single thing that disturbed me was when Gretchen insisted on tying me up. This happened only once in a while, and as far as I could tell it was the only kink she had, but it made me damned nervous. What if she turned around, got dressed, walked out the door, and never came back, I thought whenever she opened her bag and took out the purple silk bindings. How in hell would I explain something like that to hotel management? Or my wife?
When it came right down to it, I didn’t know Gretchen. How could I? We had a relationship, for all practical purposes, in a perfectly controlled environment where the world was sealed out. Sure, we talked about our lives outside of the hotel room, but we only let each other know what we wanted the other to know.
But I prided myself on the certainty that I wasn’t about to lose my self-control over her, and it was even better that my wife and daughter went on obliviously, noticing nothing unusual whatsoever in my behavior. No, the way I saw it, I was covered in the best possible way. If it ever became necessary, I could deny even knowing anyone by the name of Gretchen Trecker, let alone having an illicit relationship with the woman. Stonewall it, like President Clinton, that’s what I’d do if it ever came down on me. Unless the camera was trained on you, nobody could ever prove a damned thing when it came to sex, or anything else, for that matter. To this day some people still believe that O.J. Simpson didn’t slash his wife and her boy toy to death. And, too, whenever I was the one paying for the hotel room (and it was only sporadically), it was with hard cash, so there was no permanent record of the transaction. Whenever I signed anything when I was with Gretchen, I did so as Jonathan Griffin. Where was Richard Marzten in all this? Wouldn’t it be my word against hers if it ever came down to that?
O.J. and Clinton had both beaten the rap. I would, too.
Unless, of course, Leonard was having his wife tailed. That was the chance I’d taken from the beginning, from the moment Gretchen and I hooked up at the Thai place on Spring Street. But months had gone by and we were still at it. No husband would ever wait that long to snap the trap shut.
Gretchen never did leave me tied to the bed.
8.
I was happier than ever at home. That was the best and most unexpected part of knowing Gretchen. What did it matter if the halcyon days of my sex life with Monica were ancient history? I was getting it elsewhere, and better than I ever had with her. My work was thriving. I was even going great guns on a new novel for the first time in a couple of years. In every area of my life I felt a sense of revival. I had an edge again.
Which was why it rocked me—to put it mildly—when three months later, just after we’d gotten through climaxing together in room 761 at the Helmsley Park Lane, Gretchen sat up, looked out the window, and sighed.
“Admit it, Jonathan. You don’t really want that old bag of yours. Why don’t you just get rid of her? Bump her off?”
Was I dreaming? Not a single pejorative word about Monica—or Leonard for that matter—had ever once passed our lips.
I was still under the covers, my arms folded against the scrunched-up pillow behind my head.
“What? What did you say?”
“You have to admit you love fucking me more than you like fucking her, don’t you? It’s a matter of pleasure versus duty, isn’t it?�
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I let out a noise, something between a laugh and a snort. “Sure, but—”
“But what, Jonathan?”
“Well, I mean—you’re joking, right? You’ve got to be putting me on here.”
“No, I’m not joking.”
I got up on my elbow and stared at Gretchen. Her lovely face was impassive, her unreal, icy-blue eyes focused on something—something evil—in the distance.
I couldn’t think of a thing to say.
What brought me back to reality was the blare of a siren coming up from the street below. The noise suddenly carried a sinister undertone.
“What . . . would you like me to do?”
“I don’t know. We could think of . . . something.”
We could think of something?
A chill ran straight down my spine. Visions of cheap, pulpy murder plots, stuff like what happened in The Postman Always Rings Twice and Double Indemnity, raced like a comet through my brain.
“Let me get this straight. You want me to just off my wife, is that it?” The way I said the words made the idea sound like a complete absurdity.
“Yes, something like that.” A pause. “Of course I’d help. It would be the both of us, you and me . . .”
I was staring into the future—beautiful or ugly—now, too.
There was dead silence in the room for several long seconds.
“And what are we going to do about Leonard? Does he get the same treatment?”
“Probably. We’ll think of something for him, too.”
I laughed a little. “Like we’re not going to get caught, pulling something crazy like that. Like we’re not going to get put away forever . . .”
“Not if we’re smart, we won’t.”
“Nobody’s ever smart enough.”
“No? What about Robert Blake? Or O.J. Simpson, or Claus von Bülow—remember him?”
No Strings Page 4