“I WANT TO SHOW you something.”
“What?” I’m not paying attention, it’s late, Claudia and I were askew all weekend. I couldn’t let go of the case, my mind kept drifting at odd times and of course she picked up on it immediately, kids have radar stronger than SAC for shit like that, they call you on it in a minute. She’s older now, starting a new grade, more independent, the old rules aren’t working. No more easy, absolute compliance with what Daddy knows is best, no longer am I the supreme fount of earthly information. I’m having a bitch of a time letting go, it’s not enough that she’s my child, I want her to be a child, young, innocent, needy. I realized for the first time this weekend that my needs are greater than hers; it brought real physical pain, gut-pain. She’ll handle Seattle effortlessly; a month there and she’ll have a new life; and I won’t be part of it. Already she was talking about the new house they’re going to have, the new car, new everything. Same old daddy, she’ll visit me all the time, more than ever; she comforts me as best she can.
She comforts me.
It’s going to be brutal. She’s lying asleep in her bed thirty feet from me and I’m already missing her.
“I want to show you something,” Patricia says again.
I look up. She’s in her bedroom, framed in the doorway, the light low behind her.
“What is it? I’ve got to go, I’ve got work to do yet tonight.”
“It’ll just take a minute.”
I walk to the bedroom door. She’s by the window, her back to me. She’s wearing shorts, nothing else. I feel a tightening in my sphincter. She turns to face me.
“What do you think?”
My mouth goes completely dry. I haven’t been this nervous around a woman since junior high.
“They’re beautiful,” I tell her when I manage to find my voice.
She walks towards me until we’re a foot apart. “Do you really think so?”
I nod; I can’t trust myself to speak too much.
“They’re not too big?”
I wet my lips, fighting for saliva. “No. They’re just right. Perfect,” I croak.
They’re jutting out at me. When I was a kid we used to call tits like these Cadillac bumpers.
She smiles. “I was afraid of getting them too big, I didn’t want to feel trashy, you know?”
I nod dumbly.
“But I figured as long as I’m doing it I might as well go for it. Within the bounds of good taste,” she adds, schoolgirl-shy. “As if anything this insane could be in good taste.”
“They look fine. Very real.”
“They are real. I just helped them out a little.”
“Yeh. That’s what I mean.” She’s standing there with these extremely firm, large breasts pointing at me. I never knew she had such balls, not only for the operation but to stand there and let me, make me, look. She’s changing her life, everything about it. She’s doing it. I want to cheer.
I feel my erection. Get out of here right now. Get the fuck out of here.
“I was scared to show you,” she says.
“I can believe it, knowing you.”
“I thought about it all afternoon.”
I’m hard. I haven’t been hard around her in a long time. If she looks she’ll see. It’ll embarrass her; she’s not forward sexually. Boost her ego, though. Maybe. Or gross her out. I don’t know, not wanting an erection is a new and disquieting thought.
“But I finally thought, ‘I have to show someone, why go through something this difficult if no one knows?’ And you’re the only one.” She steps even closer. “Go ahead and touch them. I know you want to.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Just to see what they feel like? In the interest of medical science?”
Where did she get so bold? Give a woman a new set of knockers and she thinks she owns the world. Hell, maybe she does. I should applaud that in her, she’s always been such a wallflower about self-promotion.
They’re tight. My fingers touch them lightly underneath, a gentle and hopefully guileless caress.
No such luck. Her involuntary moan and my rabid tumescence overlap each other. My hand jerks away like it’s touched a hot iron.
“Will, I’m sorry.” She’s blushing furiously.
“It’s okay.” I’ve got to get out of here. Right fucking now.
I’m rooted to the spot.
“I shouldn’t have done this. I don’t know what came over me.”
You got these great new tits, you didn’t want to keep it a secret or what’s the point, you have to show them to someone and I’m harmless, the eunuch ex-husband. You want to show off, you want to know you can still turn a man on. All or some of the above.
“You’re proud of what you did and what you look like. I can understand that.” I’m breathing easier now, regaining some control, if not of the situation at least of myself. “Do me a favor, though, put on a T-shirt.”
She slips one on, holding her arms over her head longer than I think she needs to. I’m going to have the whole show, including the curtain call.
This is the best beer I’ve had in a long time, I really needed this beer, she went out and bought it this afternoon, knowing what was to or at least might come, if she could summon the courage. So if she was going to show me her new breasts, her new her, which she and I both know, despite her seeming ease, would be difficult for her, she was going to help me come down afterwards. It’s considerate; a gesture in some ways more meaningful to me than the unveiling.
“How’s the case going?” She reaches over, takes a sip of my beer.
“It’s going.”
“How’s your team?”
“They’re good. Busting their asses.”
“Mary Lou too?”
“Especially her.” I look up; there’s an edge in her voice.
“She’s a good lawyer?” A rhetorical question; she knows Mary Lou’s working reputation. She wants me to demur, to tell her Mary Lou’s not so great, she’s just lucky. I can’t. It’s a lie, she knows it’s a lie, and Mary Lou’s my partner, I stand up for my partners. At least until they fuck me. God forbid that with Mary Lou.
“So far. She really wants it, this case.”
“Who wouldn’t?” The jealousy’s out in the open. I choose to ignore it.
“You’d be surprised. A lot of lawyers wouldn’t touch a case like this. Even if you win, it can be political shit.”
“I’d give anything to get a case like this,” she says. “I’d give my left tit.” She laughs mirthlessly. “Even my new left tit.”
“It’s not what you do.” Finish your beer and make a graceful exit, this conversation is going nowhere but down.
“No shit Sherlock.”
“Come on babe. Don’t. Everybody else is already beating up on me.”
“I’m sorry. I’m jealous, I can’t help it.”
“Now what’s the point …”
“The point is that Mary Lou’s got the case and I don’t. That’s the point. The point is that she’s the hot female lawyer in town, she’s with the big firm, she’s almost ten years younger than me, she’s pretty, she’s got the world by the balls. And you know what? I’m a better lawyer but she’s on the fast track and I’m not and I’m never going to make it to the major leagues if I stay here in Santa Fe. That’s the point, Will. And don’t sit there so damn dense about it.”
“I can’t help any of that. And anyway she’s not prettier.”
“At least not her boobs. They’re not world-class like these new cantaloupes,” she says, thrusting them up at me across the table. She’s popped her own Heineken’s, takes a long pull. “Are they?”
I almost choke on my beer. “Got’s to go,” I recover.
“Answer my question first.”
“I don’t know.” Occasionally I can tell the truth. “I strongly doubt it.”
“You’re sleeping with her.”
“No. I’m not.”
“All right, not yet. You will. It’s a m
atter of time.”
“Who says she would even I wanted to?”
“Can’t hurt and it might help. You’re the senior, you’re the star, everyone likes a little star-fucking, they think it rubs off.”
“It’s unprofessional,” I say. I hear that old Jimmy Durante song buzzing in my head: ‘Did you ever have the feeling that you wanted to go, but then you had the feeling that you wanted to stay?’
“That’s never stopped you before.” She stands. “It’s okay, I’m not judging you. Be the best loving she’ll ever get.” She’s around the table, close to me, her nipples hard against my chest. “I know that of which I speak.”
Her fingers brush the side of my neck; so much more erotic than the feel of her breasts.
We fuck like the end of the world is upon us; it’s got to be a disaster, probably the stupidest, most reckless act I’ve ever done, so I play this jive scenario in my head: it’s acceptable because you aren’t going to live to regret it. What fatuous bullshit: I’m regretting it while we’re doing it, before even, while we’re undressing. All over each other quickly, not allowing time for thought, reflection; that would kill it, it has to be unconscious. We have to try to make it unconscious.
‘I’m going to fuck the shit out of her.’ ‘I’m going to fuck her brains out.’ ‘I’m going to punish her pussy.’ All that swaggering high school talk we used to verbally circle-jerk to in the men’s room while stealing a smoke, the rubber forming an indelible circle in your wallet. Not love but conquest. There’s no delicate foreplay, when I kiss her hard new breasts there’s a real hunger; her sensitivity magnified by my roughness and her acute self-conscious awareness of them, she cries out, louder than I remember her ever doing, biting into a pillow so the sounds won’t penetrate the walls into Claudia’s room.
I’m astonished at her sexual energy; the polar opposite of any love-making we ever did when we were married, as if the change wasn’t simply the new breasts but everything about her. She’s a gumby, she’s all over me. When I enter her she grabs the cheeks of my ass so hard I’m afraid she’s going to draw blood. ‘I’m going to bang the shit out of her.’ That’s a laugh; I’m fighting for survival here. We bang away at each other, the roughest ride I’ve ever had.
She bites my shoulder when she comes, pulling me to her with such force I could slip inside and be lost forever. Everything releases in her, orgasm, tears, sorrow, pent-up anger. Rivers of passion. It scares me.
“We can’t ever do that again.”
“I know that.” She’s naked, reclining against the headboard, her breasts sticking straight out. We drink our Heineken’s straight from the bottle.
“We shouldn’t have done it this time.”
“Why not?” she asks.
“Come on, Patricia, you know fucking well why not.”
She sits up into the lotus position. I can’t stop looking at her breasts. They don’t sag an inch.
“Because we’re not married?” she asks. “You’ve laid half the unmarried women in this town, Will, why should one more make a difference?”
“Because we were married.”
“It’s all right to bed down any common piece of trash that’ll have you,” she says, leaning forward, “but not your ex-wife? I’m lower than some pick-up in a bar?”
“I loved you,” I tell her. “That’s the difference.”
“You can sleep with somebody you don’t care about but you can’t sleep with someone you love. Loved,” she corrects herself.
“Something like that.” I’m weary, this has drained me, I should get dressed and bail out.
“That’s a sad set of principles. I’m feeling sorry for you when I hear you talk like that.”
“Join the party.”
She looks at me quizzically. “You can rest easy,” she informs me. “It won’t happen again.”
“No shit.”
“Because I won’t need it again.”
I look at her.
“I wanted validation,” she says straight out. “The boob job was one step. To take it to completion I had to have a man and you’re the only one I could trust myself with.”
“Thanks, I guess,” I grouse. Jesus.
“What’s the matter?” she asks.
“I feel used, that’s the matter. What the fuck do you think?”
“You were. So what?”
“So I don’t like it. Especially from you.”
She shrugs. “Couldn’t be helped, Will. We all have to use each other sometimes.”
“You sound like me,” I tell her.
“Is that so bad?”
“Coming from your mouth it is. You used to rag me all the time when I talked like that.” I’m the mercy fuck, that’s what I’ve come down to.
“Too bad, Will. Now you know what it used to sound like to me.”
Touché. I tilt my bottle in salute, drink. She joins me, a healthy swallow.
“For some reason I thought you didn’t drink anymore,” I inquire.
“Occasionally. If I’m going to need emotional fortification. It wasn’t easy setting this in my mind,” she confesses, “I was on edge all day thinking about it.” She tilts the bottle. Her neck is still beautiful, long, ivory in the moonlight. She seems at ease, remarkably unself-conscious about her body; or she’s a better actress than I remember. Better at a lot of things than I remember.
“I heard you quit completely,” she adds, sighting me over the lip of her bottle.
“Not true,” I answer, trying to keep my voice casual. “Where’d you hear that?”
“Andy,” she replies. “He told me you’d decided to kick.”
I shrug. “I was overindulging there for awhile, I’ll admit to that. I’m cutting back, just beer and wine now, I’m off the hard stuff. Probably better.”
“I guess I misread him. It seemed to be of real concern to him.”
“He’s a mother hen. It’s his nature to worry.”
She nods. “Think about it,” she says.
“About what?”
“Quitting completely.”
“Why should I do that?”
“Because you’re an alcoholic or close enough that no one can tell the difference,” she answers. “It’s not a secret. Even Claudia knows.”
“That’s bullshit,” I defend myself.
“It’s your life.”
“That’s right,” I reply, too hotly.
“But it’s hers too,” she reminds me.
“I’m fine with her.” Why have I let myself get on the defensive like this?
“You’re great. But she sees it. It influences her.”
“If it’ll make you feel any better I won’t drink around her,” I say. “At least not hard stuff.”
“Thanks. It does.” She leans over, touches my hand. “You’re a wonderful father and don’t you ever forget it.”
I stand in her doorway. There’s a strong smell of jasmine and honeysuckle coming from the side of the porch. She’s leaning against the jamb, wearing a short robe.
“You’re still a great lover,” she tells me. “Sorry if I wasn’t completely straight with you.”
“It’s okay,” I nod. “You’re terrific yourself.”
“It’ll be a nice memory to take into my old age,” she says.
“You’ll forget it as soon as a better man comes along.” I’ve gotten over my anger at being used.
“I hope not.” She means it.
It’s comfortable here, standing on my old porch, looking at my former wife, the residue of sex still hovering around us.
“Will,” she says in parting, “good luck with the case.”
“Thanks. I’m going to need it.”
She pauses a moment; she wants to say something to me but doesn’t know if I want to hear it. I wait her out.
“You’ve got a good team,” she says. “Even with Mary Lou.”
“I think so.”
“And I’m only jealous of her professionally—not the other way.”
“You don’t have to be anymore. They’re calling you up to the bigs, kid, remember?”
She smiles a moment. Serious again: “Can I ask you a question? Professional?”
“Shoot.”
“How come the firm isn’t involved more?”
I feel the hair rising on the back of my neck. “What do you mean?” I ask cautiously.
“From what I can see, which admittedly isn’t at first hand, they don’t seem to be giving you much support. I realize you’re on a leave and this is a one-shot deal, but still and all it’s a sensational case, you’ll probably get national coverage. It’s like they’re invisible.”
A long, slow exhale. Fuck it, if you can’t tell your ex-wife, who can you tell?
“There’s an easy answer for that.”
A smile of relief crosses her face. Goddam, she really does care.
“My leave of absence isn’t voluntary.”
“Oh my God!” Her hands are at her mouth, then she’s smothering me, pulling me to her, against her breasts. They aren’t soft and comforting, I realize nothing is perfect.
“Those bastards,” she exclaims. “Those lousy shits. After all you’ve done for them. They’d be nowhere without you.”
“They figure they’re nowhere with me. And by their lights they’re right,” I say.
“Fuck their lights.”
My sentiments exactly.
“Let me help you.” She’s holding my arms in a gesture of solidarity.
“No.” I shake my head.
“Why?”
“Because it’s wrong, that’s why.”
“Who cares,” she answers, she’s so much more practical than I am. “You need all the help and support you can get, the rest is immaterial.”
I have to be as honest as I can. “From anyone else, Patricia, except from you.”
“That’s lousy.”
“I know,” I say, “but I can’t see you anymore. Nada. Nix. It’s got to be absolutely hands-off between us.”
“Because of tonight?”
“Yes.”
“Shit.” She’s angry. “Why didn’t you tell me this before?”
“There was no reason to. Why,” I ask, “would it have made a difference?”
Against the Wind Page 13