by Kyra Davis
But one well-placed kiss drove those thoughts straight out of my head. His hands were on the small of my back now, even as I arched to press myself against him even more tightly, to absorb him more deeply as he increased his pace, making me cry out, my nails scratching at his back.
Spontaneous, intense, explosive, everything we used to be and everything we were becoming again.
I felt him climax inside me at the exact same time I reach my peak. The orgasm rolled through my body, shaking me to my core.
The weight of him as he collapsed on top of me was deliciously satisfying, adding the final punctuation mark to our lovemaking. I ran my fingers over the broad, defined muscles along his back, feeling the beads of sweat, basking in the afterglow and feeling almost, almost, perfect.
“The fact that there are so many pornos featuring average looking pizza delivery boys proves that most pornos are for men. If they were for women the guy on the doorstep would be hotter and delivering a package from Sephora. ”
--Dying To Laugh
I parked my car half a block from London’s place at two fifty-six pm. I was feeling a little nauseous. Whether that nausea was due to fear (I was breaking into the apartment by myself this time, Marcus was working and I had disinvited Jason) or anticipation of the unique odious fragrance of London’s home, was hard to say. I looked over at my passenger seat. I had an impressive stack of empty paper bags that I could use to stuff the articles on the wall in and a small box of latex gloves that would prevent me from having to touch anything.
“I can do this, I can do this, I can do this,” I whispered as I made eye contact with myself via my rearview mirror. It was perfectly reasonable to assume there was a clue in that apartment, that at least one of the countless paragraphs London had printed out and hung up would point to something other than a deteriorating mind. If I was really going to see this thing through this was the logical next step.
“I can do this,” I said one more time before grabbing the bags and the gloves and getting out of the car. London’s keys were jingling in the pocket of my light wool jacket. They probably weighed a tenth of an ounce but they felt heavy there as if they had been mystically infused with the weight of their purpose.
When I had arrived at London’s apartment building with Dena and Mary Ann in tow, I had thought it had an air of mystery about it. I couldn’t fully picture what was inside its walls, what people, what secrets or even what dogs. Today it looked different to me. It looked like a challenge, its sharp Edwardian lines and rectangular shape resembling nothing more than a puzzle that needed to be taken apart and put back together in a way that made more sense.
I reached for the keys as soon as I got to the front entrance, nervous but ready. There was no one in the lobby when I opened the door. No one on the stairs as I crept up to the infamous apartment. I put my gloves on and unlocked London’s apartment door. Just as it had last time, the first thing that hit me was the smell. I flipped on the lights.
Light made everything so much worse. Now I could see the blobs of dried red sauce on the discarded paper plates littered across the floor, the mold spores floating on the surface of old, half-filled cups of coffee, the two flies perched on the edge of the dog bowl and so on and so on. In the far left corner was another door, this one cracked open to reveal a sliver of what I guessed to be a bedroom. Based on my limited view, it would seem that room was in a similar state of disarray. I tugged on the edges of my gloves, making sure they were covering as much skin as possible. Just looking at the place made me feel like I needed an extra dose of the Hepatitis C vaccine.
I skirted around a few dirty socks and stepped up to the Wall Of Words (as I had come to think of it). The first headline my eyes landed on read: Are Pesticides Causing Autism?? from some site called Live Organic Or Die. Not promising. But the next article was titled What Big Pharma Doesn’t Want You To Know About Clinical Trials. The source was Newsweek. It was about that NYU professor Jason had told me about. Funny how she kept coming up. Next to it was a printout from the BMJ Journals (whatever that was) that seemed to have her official analysis and conclusion of the study she had conducted. I pulled the article off the wall and folded it up neatly before putting it in my purse. I looked over at an end table placed by the window and noted a discarded apple core that was in the process of being devoured by a small swarm of ants. I curled in my lips and then started ripping articles off the wall with a lot less ceremony, tearing them from tacks and tape that had fastened them to the plaster and stuffing them into my paper bags. There were so many papers, so much stuff. And the stench! As the minutes dragged on and my bags filled up, my eyes began to water from exposure to the putrid haze. There could be a dead body rotting in the broom closet and I wouldn’t even be able to smell it under the stench of the dirty socks and moldy pizza boxes.
Eventually, I worked up the courage to check the bedroom. That wasn’t an easy task. A dog bed along with books and discarded clothes, all left on the floor, made it impossible to open the bedroom door more than halfway. The light switch was easy enough to find, revealing the layers of dirty laundry, crumpled papers and bits of trash that covered every inch of the wall-to-wall carpeting. The sheets on the bed were pulled back and dingy. The fitted sheet had come off one corner revealing a torn, stained mattress.
“Okay, I can do this,” I whispered to myself although honestly, I should have thought to invest in a gas mask. I grabbed some of the papers on the ground and put them in bags. Some of those papers appeared to hold hand-written notes but I didn’t take the time to read them. Fill up your bags and get out, was the mantra I was silently chanting as I held my nausea at bay.
London had a dresser, the drawers too filled to fully close. On top of it was a bunch of old, plastic water bottles and two cases for his glasses along with more papers. Oh and there was a greeting card…wait…it was an anniversary card! The front featured the black silhouette of a couple in a loving embrace set against the background of a giant white heart. Happy Anniversary To The Love Of My Life was written in bold Hallmark font. I slipped it into my purse, vowing to read it first…after I got out of there.
There was another open door on the other side of the bedroom, this one leading to a bathroom. I tread over paper that crinkled under my feet. What was more disturbing was the dirty clothes that sort of crunched when you stepped on them. Clothes should never, ever crunch.
The bathroom was almost claustrophobic. On top of the toilet basin was a comb, a half empty box of Band-Aids, a box of Kleenex, a roll of toilet paper and a razor. It was the only shelf space in the whole room. On the floor were empty razor cartridges while crumpled up Kleenex were overflowing from the wastebasket. There was blood on some of the Kleenex. I gagged and looked away. “I can’t take this,” I muttered and started to leave. But then I stopped myself as I looked back at the mirrored medicine cabinet above the sink. What drugs would be in the bathroom of a former pharmaceutical executive who had turned against pharmaceuticals?
I reached forward and opened it, not knowing what to expect.
My lack of expectation did not mitigate the shock I felt when I saw what was actually in there:
Nothing.
Just one solitary, half empty tube of toothpaste. That was it.
My eyes darted back to all the things jammed on top of the toilet basin. Every inch of this place was filled with stuff, but he had kept his medicine cabinet empty.
Or someone had emptied it.
Little goose bumps formed over my arms. Had someone else been here? I walked back out, through the bedroom and into the living room. I glanced at the coffee table. London’s ring was right where I left it. There certainly wasn’t any evidence that someone had come in here and straightened up. I looked over at the pile of laundry on the couch…hadn’t there been a scarf on top of that pile? But perhaps not…there certainly wasn’t one there now.
“I think I’m done here,” I said aloud. I had a bag in both hands. I had seven more lined up on the floor, all fi
lled to the rim. I couldn’t carry them all down together. It would take two trips.
My phone started vibrating in my purse. When I checked the screen I groaned. Jason.
“Jason,” I said upon picking up, “if this is about the case--”
“I’m outside,” he interrupted.
I hesitated a moment. “Outside where?”
“The apartment building! I’m here!”
“But, but you’re not supposed to be here.” I started to sit down on the armrest of the sofa then quickly remembered where I was and stood back up again. “Go home.”
“Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that,” he said. “And the more I think the more I know, I have to be here. You need me.”
“Oh stop being such a guy about this,” I snapped. “I don’t need you. I’m perfectly capable of taking care of this on my own.”
“Do you know what you’re looking for?” He asked.
I glanced over at the bags on the floor filled with papers I had completely randomly selected. “I’m looking for clues,” I said, stupidly.
“Right. And those clues are going to be coded in the language of conspiracy theorists. You’ll have no idea what here is relevant and what’s not. But I will. I breathe this stuff. From what you’ve told me, your man London and I probably hit up the same news sources. I can tell you if there are patterns you need to follow up on just by reading the first paragraph of each article. I can find the connective string.”
“Jason,” I said, firmly, “I’m not going to break my word to Dena, period.”
“Dena’s not my keeper,” he said, stubbornly. He then paused before adding, “well, sexually, she is in a way but only--”
“This conversation is over,” I said, effectively cutting him off. “Go home.”
I hung up and grabbed as many bags as I could manage, four total. I’d come back for the rest. If Jason was out there I’d shove one of the crumpled up articles in his mouth and give him a swift kick in the ass.
My phone rang again and again it was Jason’s name on the screen.
“Wow,” I said upon picking up. “You are really not getting this, are you? I do not need your help. I will not take your help. You are not helping.”
“They’re heeeere,” he sang.
I looked over at the darkened television in the corner, half expecting to see it filled with staticky poltergeist. “Who’s here?”
“A woman with a blonde bob and a teenager a few inches shorter, with long, thick blonde hair.”
“Anita and Catherine,” I whispered. So much worse than poltergeist. Shit!
“They’re parked kitty-corner to the building,” Jason continued, “and they’re getting boxes out of their trunk.”
“Do you think I can slip out the front door without their noticing?”
“I’d say there’s less than a fifty percent chance of that.”
“Shit!” I said, aloud this time. I looked around the apartment. The thought of trying to hide in a closet or worse, under a bed in here literally made me gag. “What do I do?”
“They know you, they don’t know me. Grab as many bags as you can and bring them to the lobby, quickly Sophie. I’ll go to the front door. When you go out, I’ll go in and grab the bags and act like I’m going to one of the other apartments. I’ll wait…I don’t know, five or ten minutes and then head out with the bags. I’ll go through the articles at home and tell you what I’ve found.”
“I’m going to be the one who goes through these articles!”
“Do you want my help or not?” he asked.
“Shit!” I pulled the phone away from my ear and pressed it to my chest. I had no time to negotiate or argue. I swore again under my breath and brought the phone back to my ear. “I’m coming down with the bags now. You better be at the door when I get there.” I hung up and stared at the bags that remained on the floor. I couldn’t just leave them sitting there. That would make it obvious someone had been here. I put down the four bags in my hand, grabbed the other bags and opened the hall closet with the intention of jamming them in there. Bad idea. It was all I could do to slam it closed fast enough to prevent the junk already piled up in there from tumbling out and burying me in an avalanche. “Maybe the kitchen,” I said to myself as I took the bags in that direction.
One look at the kitchen and there was bile in my throat. There was a tin of what looked like homemade cookies rotting on the counter and dead ants and roaches on the grimy floor. “Not going in the kitchen.” I took the bags and dumped their contents all over the living room carpet. Not surprisingly, the floor didn’t look that different than it had before. I scattered the bags around the room before grabbing the four I could carry and rushing out the door. I ran down the steps but when I neared the bottom, I slowed, pressing myself against the wall and peering into the lobby to see if the coast was clear. It was, and I could see Jason on the other side of the glass door. Thank God. I put the bags down by the step and went to him, opening the door. He acknowledged me with an impersonal nod, the kind you might give to a stranger who offered to hold the door for you and walked past me. I could hear him picking up the bags as the door closed behind me.
It was only when I was a few steps out that I saw them. They were just a little further down the block. They were walking toward the building, their heads turned toward each other as they conversed. They didn’t see me. Not yet.
I started to walk down the front steps, determined to make it to the sidewalk and just walk the opposite direction as quickly as possible.
And it was then that Anita looked over her shoulder and saw me.
“The most valuable thing you can give a person is trust. It’s also the gift most likely to be treated cheaply by those fortunate enough to receive it.”
--Dying To Laugh
My breath caught in my throat. Cat followed her mother’s gaze. She was wearing an outfit not unlike Jason’s, plaid flannel shirt worn over a T-shirt and jeans, a sharp contrast to her mother’s cream silk shirt tucked neatly into elegant black slacks. My heart ached for Catherine. She was here to get her father’s things, to try to make sense of the mess he had made out of his life and deal with her own grief and instead she was going to have to deal with me, her father’s supposed mistress, clearly exiting his place. I was an awful, awful person.
Unless of course, they were imposters.
Or, as Marcus suggested, Anita was a murderer and Catherine needed me whether she thought she did or not.
As I tried to think it all through Anita remained exactly where she was, stock still and glaring. You would have thought she had laid eyes on Medusa.
Well, here goes nothing. I straightened up and stretched my mouth into a smile as I walked up to the pair. When I was about five feet from them I stopped, stuck my hands in my pocket and shifted my weight back on my heels. “Hi,” I began but Anita immediately cut me off by turning toward her daughter.
“Go wait in the car.”
Catherine met my gaze. I thought I detected a moment of hesitation from the girl as Anita put her empty boxes down by her feet. But then Catherine simply nodded obligingly and slowly walked away.
Anita waited until she had gotten into a grey Mercedes before sharply turning her attention back to me. “I spoke to the landlord this morning. You had no right to be inside that apartment, let alone remove anything from it. I could have you arrested.”
“Do you have that right?” I asked, keeping my tone level, even friendly. “It’s not as if you and Aaron London were a couple by the time he died.”
Anita drew herself up, her shoulders rigid. She didn’t say a word for a few dozen, incredibly awkward seconds. The wind picked up her hair as if desperate to force some movement.
“Yeah, I know about your separation,” I finally said when she continued to silently stare. “I also know a few other things about what was going on with London, things that I’d really like to share with you if you’d just let me.”
Anita finally graced me with a response, a shor
t, humorless and somewhat chilling laugh. Why must every villain have an evil laugh? “Why are you here, again?” she asked.
“Um, do you want his dog back?” I replied, settling on deflection as a response. Although as soon as the question came out of my mouth I regretted it. I did not want to give Ms. Dogz to this woman.
“She’s not my dog.”
I feigned a cough and covered my mouth to better hide my smile.
“When did you figure out that Aaron and I were separated?” she asked. “Did you know when we met in the hospital?”
“Oh, no, not at all.” A car in desperate need of a new muffler groaned down the street giving us both a welcome but all too brief excuse to look away from one another. “You seemed so angry about my being there…I mean, not that you should have been under any circumstances. Like I said, Aaron London and I absolutely were not involved. Still, based on your reaction I had assumed you two were still a thing.”
“We were more than a thing,” she retorted. “He was my husband.”
“Yes, that’s what I meant,” I acknowledged. A seagull landed on the sidewalk a few steps behind Anita, snapped up a half-filled, discarded bag of Fritos and took off again. It was everything I could do to keep from calling out, take me too!
“We’re still married…I mean we were before…this.”
I nodded and allowed myself a quick glance at her left hand. No wedding ring, no tan line.
“I loved him,” she continued, quietly. “And then he lost his mind.”
“How…or when…I mean, tell me how he got the way he did? I know he used to hold a good job at Nolan-Volz. What happened to him?”
Anita let out another rough laugh. “Why should I tell you anything?”
“Because I’m really, really not his girlfriend.”
Anita wrapped her arms around herself as if trying to keep warm. “If you weren’t involved with my husband, why do you have the key to his apartment?”