“Maybe if you put it between your breasts, Heart—” I began.
“Don’t you dare, Heart. That’s an insult in my book. A man who can’t get a hard-on had better concentrate on pleasuring the woman using the tongue and the fingers God gave him, instead of dreaming up extra-special things he wants the woman to be doing for him. Fair is fair. Ricky, here’s how it’s going to be: you eat me while I eat Heart.”
“No fair,” I protested. “The mad doctors at the hospital have imprisoned my tongue behind my teeth like a caged bird.”
“Then improvise,” Diane said. “Meantime feel free to play with yourself if you have a hand free and you think there’s any hope you can get it up for us girls anytime soon.”
“You got a mouth on you, Diane.”
“So the ladies at the health club keep telling me.”
We lay on our sides forming an impromptu triangle and went to work. While I attempted tongueless cunnilingus with Diane, noodling around down there with my nose and lips, Heart nibbled earnestly at my cock. Diane for her part blocked my every attempt to reach for Heart’s breasts. Even with my rich store of sensual fantasies and Heart’s talented embouchure working overtime, Little Ricky remained distressingly incommunicado.
At one point Heart remarked, “I’m getting like, zero response down here, Boss. Am I doing something wrong?”
Diane snorted from between Heart’s legs.
Finally, hearing the squeal of brakes outside, Diane looked up, cocked her head and blurted, “Oh, shit: there’s the bus! Ow!” She cringed, then grabbed the back of her neck near the base of her skull.
“Haven’t had a pussy crick in how long,” she muttered. “This is all your fault, Ricky.”
“What? That you gave yourself a whiplash eating pussy? How is that my fault?”
“If you hadn’t insisted on horning in, none of this would have happened,” Diane snarled. “Owee, that hurts!”
“Why don’t I massage it for you?” Heart offered. “I feel responsible somehow.”
“Well, don’t. It’s numb nuts’s fault, not yours. I can’t believe I’m telling my numb nuts husband I’ve got a pussy crick. Ricky, get your ass up and dressed and get the hell out of here. Go take care of your kids, for God’s sake.”
It wasn’t exactly the treatment I’d envisioned an hour ago when extolling the virtues of open marriage. Nevertheless, I chose the course of least resistance and did as Diane had commanded. As I left to go downstairs and greet the children I heard Diane say, “Quick! Lock the door before somebody else barges in on us!”
Wolf already had a frozen bean burrito warming in the microwave by the time I walked into the kitchen. “Glad to see you’re keeping the advent fast,” I said
“Dad, what are you doing home so early? Where’s Mom?”
“Mom had a few chores for Dad’s new secretary,” I said.
“Then she’s not at the health club?”
“Not this time.”
“She must be the healthiest mom in Belleville, all the time she spends going there.”
“Just about.”
“What kinda chores?” Nick asked.
“What?”
“What kinda chores is she helping your secretary with?”
“Lady-type chores upstairs. Don’t bother them.”
“You got a new secretary, dad?” Wolf asked.
“What are lady-type chores?” Nick went on. “Hair and stuff?”
“Why don’t I let mom tell you? How was school?”
Nick spread peanut butter on a banana and started eating it. “Boring as ever. Like the fast.”
“You’ll find life becomes a lot less boring as you get older.”
“I sure hope so.” Nick took another bite of the banana. Wolf sprinkled a prodigal quantity of hot sauce over his burrito. I wondered how it might work on mine.
“Where are the girls?”
“Stacie’s got after-school dance troop practice and Tat’s in detention,” Nick said with his mouth full.
“Again,” Wolf added, a bit too eagerly. I knew both boys reveled in Tatiana’s misbehavior and consequent discipline.
“What did she do this time?” I asked them.
The boys looked at each other apprehensively. Finally it was Nick who answered. “Bad stuff in gym, is what I heard.”
A voice in my head said, Just like her mother.
“Make sure you do your homework,” I said absently, looking toward the staircase. Feeling drained, I sat on the bottom step and hugged my knees like a disconsolate child.
Twenty minutes later, Heart came down those stairs smoothing her hair. “What smells so good?” she asked. “Are we having Mexican?”
“Our youngest always treats himself to an after-school burrito.”
“Wolf’s got the right idea,” she said, standing over me.
“You already know their names? How long have you and Diane—”
She shushed me and said in a whisper, “Today was the first time. So you haven’t really missed out or anything.”
“Got in on the ground floor, so to speak?”
Patting me on the head, she said, “You really need to work on yourself, Boss. About getting perky, I mean. They have pills for that now, I hear.”
“Yeah; my neurologist tells me those pills have the same effect on me as a cyanide capsule.”
“Poor baby,” she said. Glancing toward the boys doing their homework at the kitchen table she said, “Got somewhere we can be alone for a few? Diane’s just started taking a long hot shower to get the kinks out.” She giggled.
My pulse raced. “The den’s right over there.”
“What are we waiting for? Lead the way, Boss.”
As soon as I locked the door, Heart impishly began rubbing herself against me like a cat. “You need to loosen up, Boss—you’ve been working too hard lately.”
“So have you.”
“Yeah, but I know how to relax. And I bet I can relax you, too. Wanna bet?”
“Didn’t know you were a betting woman.”
“I only bet on a sure thing.”
“How much?”
“Month’s salary I can get you off before Diane’s done upstairs. What do you say?”
“Sounds like a pretty safe bet, given my erstwhile disappointing bedroom performance.”
“That’s one of the things I love about you, Boss: your throwing around big words like erstwhile. A girl can learn things from you. It’s a bet, then?”
“It’s a bet. How do you want to do this?”
“I have to admit you didn’t stand up as well as I would have hoped to one of my blow jobs. Give a gal another chance, now that it’s just the two of us?”
“I felt like a total loser up there. I always fantasized about a three-way with Diane and another woman.”
“Fantasies are one thing, but in the real world I think you may have had a slight problem with your better half joining in. Care for a second try? Just you and me, away from Diane’s prying eyes? There’s time.”
“Yes,” I croaked, suddenly paralyzed by lust. Heart gave a lewd chuckle, both of us startled by the hoarseness of urgency in my voice. She slipped off the cardigan sweater she had worn in the hospital, then teasingly unbuttoned her white cotton blouse, shedding it and letting it fall to the floor. She reclined on Diane’s antique leather couch, bowed her neck backwards and struck a melodramatic pose, arms crossed against her forehead, modeling her cantilevered bra to maximum advantage for my eyes only.
“Take your pants off and stay a while, Boss. You’re making me nervous standing there fully dressed. You look like one of those guys on the lurid cover of some fifties pulp novel, hanging around fully-clothed in a suit and tie, hiding in the shadows while he ogles a half-naked broad.”
Her expression transformed from come-hither passionate to mischievous. “Unless that’s the game you wanna play. Is it?”
“You tell me.”
“I like that game. I like that game a whole lot.” She seeme
d to get into character, to transform into a film noir bad girl before my eyes. In a husky voice heavy with passion she breathed, “A doll like me don’t get many chances at a fella like you, Johnny.”
I played it her way. In black and white. “Good looking dame like you?”
“Aw, Johnny, it’s swell of you to say that. Life’s been handing this doll one tough break after another, that’s for sure. Guess I’m a pushover for every hard-luck story that comes along.”
“Your luck’s about to change, Toots. You just found yourself a lucky rabbit’s foot.”
“Gee whiz, Johnny—a lucky rabbit’s foot? Where?”
Trying to sound like Clark Gable I said, “Hanging between my legs, Toots.”
“Show it to me, Johnny? I wanna pet it.”
I unzipped and let it dangle. “Here you go, Toots.”
“It’s so cute, Johnny; why, it’s just about the cutest thing I ever seen. I wanna kiss it for good luck. Can I kiss it, Johnny?”
“Don’t let me stop you.”
“Think it might spit in my eye?”
“Only one way to find out. Unless you’re yellow, that is.”
“Say, who’s yellow?”
“You talk plenty tough for a frail, I’ll say that for you.”
She sat me down on the couch, unhooked and shrugged out of her bra, and knelt between my legs.
“You ain’t sore at me, are you, Johnny?” she said, smoky-voiced and suggestive. “I couldn’t take it if you was sore at me.”
“Well I should say not,” I said, spreading my legs wider. “Here; have one on me.”
“That’s about the biggest stogie I ever seen. I wanna smoke the whole thing. Want me to smoke it for you, Johnny?”
“And how. You know what the Sarge used to tell us fellas in the war: ‘smoke ‘em if you got ‘em, but smoke fast, the Japs’re comin.’”
“The war’s over, Johnny. Here’s one skirt who smokes slow. Real slow.”
Maybe fifteen minutes later I heard the shower shut off upstairs. Heart came up for air, shook her head and said, “I’ve heard of going soft for a dame but this is ridiculous.”
“I won’t hold you to that bet of ours, Heart. I feel like a total jackass.”
Patting me on both knees she said, “You’re a real challenge, Boss.” Still with the side-of-the-mouth patois. “But you’re lookin’ at one doll ain’t afraid to take a dare. Two bits says I can lick you in a fair fight.”
“Rain check?”
“I’ll tell the cock-eyed world.”
Role-playing so easily becomes role-taking. I didn’t realize at the time how thoroughly Heart would become absorbed into her gun moll persona. Heart morphed into Toots more and more easily as time went on, a la Jekyll and Hyde. In the days ahead, the hard-boiled speak became a kind of code between us at the office when no one else was around—which, given my moribund practice, was often. Hard-boiled speak meant Toots wanted to come out and play. And play she did, to my inevitable mortification. Heart as Toots seemed to enjoy each ensuing defeat on her Johnny’s part, each new demonstration of his abject sexual inadequacy. Perhaps it neutralized Johnny for her, made him harmless in her eyes, unlike any of the other men she had known.
“Johnny,” she’d say, “there’s somethin’ screwy goin’ on here: why, you’re as limp as a gin mill bar rag,” or, “What’s the gag, Johnny? Ain’t ya glad to see me?” or, in pretended horror, “What’d them doity Japs do to you over there, Johnny?”
My first day back at the office I found the Kuhn petition for dissolution on my desk festooned with arrow stickers for signatures. I reviewed it. It was letter perfect. But when Howard came in to sign, he seemed to waver.
“All she does is mope around the house day and night, sayin’ how much she wants me back,” he said.
Had Diane dumped Arlene? My first thought was how that unforeseen development might lead to a demand for a refund of a substantial portion of Howard’s five thousand dollar retainer. Too many of my clients were using me for a Christmas club already; one more refund would be a cash-flow disaster, especially given the fact that I hadn’t sent out a bill or done a lick of work since the Advent fast had started back on November 15th.
“Well, Howard, of course you don’t have to sign if you don’t want to,” I said, “but I can’t help remembering those videos you sent me. I have to tell you, they were pretty shocking. I don’t know if I can ever get those images out of my head, know what I mean?”
Howard nodded. “Now that I think about it, I can’t say as I strictly blame Arlene. That there girlfriend a hers is a cute little thing. Wouldn’t mind taking turns with her myself. Still and all, I don’t wanna go off half-cocked or nothin’ as far as this here divorce bidness is concerned.”
“Here’s my advice, Howard: as long as you’re here anyway, why don’t you go ahead and sign everything today. I’ll have Heart notarize your signature and we’ll hold the petition here at the office while you think things over. No sense rushing it. We can always file it in court later if things don’t work out between you and Arlene. How does that sound?”
“That sounds pretty damn good, I guess. Long’s you don’t do nothin’ as far as court and that less’n I tell you to.”
“You have my word on it, Howard. Heart? Would you come in here and bring your notary seal?”
After Heart had left us alone in my private office, taking the signed, notarized petition with her, Howard eyed me strangely, lowered his voice and said, “Got aholt a some videos”—he always pronounced it veedeos—“that’d make you bust a fucking gut. You interested?”
“You know me, Howard,” I said, trying to match his conspiratorial tone.
“They ain’t them other kind,” Howard said. “These here are the livin’ shits.”
“Send ‘em along, then. I’m already looking forward to it.”
“Figgered you’re the kind of guy’d appreciate that sort a thing.”
We shook hands over my desk. I heard Heart singsong, “Bye, now,” as he pulled the front door shut behind him. After he had driven away in his truck Heart came and stood in my doorway.
“Your schedule is clear tomorrow,” she said.
“What did you have in mind?”
“Be a good time to go drop in on Beattie up at Dwight.”
Five hundred bucks didn’t buy much at my office. I hadn’t touched Beatrice Russell’s file since Ruth had retained me, and it showed. Like a silent reproach, the huge file still sat unmoved in the center of my conference table where I could stare at it any time I chose.
“Hope they let me through the metal detector with my jaw wired.”
“They’ll use the wand on you.”
“I don’t like the sound of that. Still, a visit might be a good idea. You can bake Beattie a cake with a pen and a bond assignment in it.”
“Might be a good idea to kinda know what’s in her files before we hit the road,” Heart added. “Wouldn’t it?”
“Maybe you could fill me in.”
“Thought you’d never ask,” she said, scooping up the stack of four red ropes and toting the whole works toward my desk. She took a seat in the chair Howard had recently vacated. The thick cushion whooshed from her weight. She made a yucky face. “Pee yew. Smells like farts,” she grimaced, and placed the file on the floor between her feet.
“Here’s the deal,” she began. “Beattie’s P.D. gave her what we southern Illinois gals like to call a three-hole screwing. First off, he didn’t move to sever her case from Russell’s. Second, he waived a jury. He’s trying to pass it off as a judgment call but the truth is, his office fucked up and forgot to file a jury demand or a speedy trial demand either. Third, he didn’t file a motion to suppress. There’s your appeal.”
“So incompetency of counsel?”
“You should have seen him fawning around in court—it was like he was trying to brownnose the judge so he could hang onto his job.”
“Small rural county. It happens.”
“Aw, Boss, let me tell you, Beattie’s P. D. was like the third leg of a three-legged stool: judge, prosecutor, public defender. Once the three of them put their little pin heads together, Beattie was as good as gone, on a DOC bus heading straight for Dwight penitentiary.”
“So you’re saying it was a political fix?”
“What do you think? The school district wanted her to disappear, the little kids’ parents were up in arms, you tell me. It’s ironic; Snug always used to say Mitchell County is the unofficial meth lab capital of the state, but here they are railroading my sister for nothing more than being married to a pervert. You’d think it was punishment enough just being a wife to Triple R—that’s what he insisted everybody call him, by the way.”
“I know.”
Heart eyed me warily. “How did you know that? I never told you.”
“You must have.”
“There’s no way you could have known, unless…” Heart’s expression changed to shock. “You dirty dog! You went on his website, didn’t you? You dick!”
I held up my hand as though to take an oath. “I swear, Heart. I never went on his website. Not even once.” Technically true, but intentionally misleading.
Heart shook her head with frustration, or rage. “You’d better not let my sister know you’ve been cruising Triple R’s website if you know what’s good for you. And my mother! I refuse to be held responsible for what happens if she finds out.”
“I’m being wrongfully accused here,” I protested. “Check my computer if you think I’m lying.” Reminding myself to save the Beattie video and all the others to a password-protected file.
Heart scrutinized my expression for any hint of prevarication. She must have missed it.
“Well, say, listen,” she drawled, an invisible cigar clamped in one corner of her mouth, “you want this gal riding shotgun with you tomorrow, you gotta level with me today, see? Yeah. I ain’t no Dumb Dora, Mister.”
CHAPTER ELEVEN - SPITWAD FROM THE TEACHER
Rather than ride shotgun, Heart drove my van with me riding beside her. Handling the wheel more than a few blocks was torture on my injured shoulder even after I had popped a couple of Vicodins. She drove like it was the Autobahn. My first clue was the radar detector she brought with her and plugged into the cigarette lighter.
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