Lust and Letters: The Handyman, Episode I

by Vincent Zandri

  Mackey laughed like something was funny.

  “Tell you what,” he said. “Drop the manuscript off to my house if you want. I’m heading out of town tomorrow for a signing in the city. But Stella will be there.” He turned around to eye his girl. “Isn’t that right, Stella honey?”

  For the first time, I saw what she looked like when she smiled. It was like the gates of heaven opening up for me. It wasn’t a huge smile, but just enough to bare perfect teeth. How was it there were no flaws in this woman?

  “Yes, Mackey,” she said. “I’ll be there with my apron on.”

  And a killer sense of humor to boot. Suddenly I found myself wishing it were tomorrow morning. But what about the manuscript I’d just promised? It was more like thirty pages of shit. Hardly a full novel. But there was no going back now. No retracting my promise.

  “Thanks, Mackey. I’ll be happy to drop it off tomorrow.”

  “Jeeze man,” he said. “What’s the name again? Starts with a V, if I’m not mistaken. Vince, maybe?

  “Victor,” I told him. Then I told him the last name too.

  “Victor,” he repeated. “I knew that.”

  Like I said, he was full of shit. He’d known my name all along. I was convinced of it.

  He gave me his address. Wrote it down on a little slip of paper he tore from small writer’s notebook he stored in the interior pocket of his jacket. I took the paper in my hands, looked at it, shoved it in my pocket.

  Then, my focus once more on Stella, I said, “See you in the morning.”

  “I’ll have the coffee brewing.” She was joking of course. But I sensed some seriousness there too. I wondered if Mackey did also and if he gave a shit. Maybe he was so wrapped up in his newfound fame that he couldn’t see beyond his own starry eyes.

  I walked away from the table.

  “Hey, Vic,” Mackey said.

  I turned around quick.

  “Aren’t you forgetting something?”

  Stella looked at me without blinking. Mackey held up the book he’d just signed for me.

  I felt a sea of embarrassment wash over me.

  “Hell am I thinking?” I said.

  I went back to the table, grabbed hold of the book, grinned at Stella.

  “See you tomorrow, Mr. Victor,” she said.

  “Can’t wait,” I said.

  Mackey’s first novel tucked under my arm, I left the store wishing it were tomorrow already.

  The next morning, I was up early. I shaved, put on a decent shirt. A clean shirt. It was a strange sensation. But I found myself feeling lighter than air. I was traipsing around my small north Albany apartment like I’d dropped ten pounds overnight, and somehow shed ten years in the process. The day was sunny, bright, and warm and the promise of a long summer lie ahead. Optimism abounded.

  Pulling open my desk drawer, I pulled out the one printed copy of the new manuscript I was working on, and I shoved it inside a manila envelope. I wrote “Mackey” on the front of it in blue ballpoint.

  In truth, I had my doubts that he would actually read it. But I didn’t give a shit. I was just happy for the excuse to see Stella again. Happy that he wasn’t home. Happy that she would be home alone. That she would have coffee for me. Maybe even something stronger. Happy that she would no doubt look hot and stunning with her long hair, big brown eyes, firm chest and sweet heart-shaped ass.

  Grabbing my car keys, I took hold of the envelope and headed for the door. That’s when I caught sight of Mackey’s novel sitting on the coffee table. I picked it up, took it with me into the kitchen, tossed it into the trash.

  Her house was located on quiet neighborhood street called Orchard Grove, in what was considered the finest hamlet in North Albany. It wasn’t the biggest house in the neighborhood. In fact, it was humble. A post war ranch with a garage on the left and the main entrance on the right. In the middle was a big picture window to which the curtain was open. Meaning I could see inside just enough to make out a floor-to-ceiling bookshelf that would one day house all of Mackey’s books.

  But Mackey’s success was brand new, which told me that dollars to donuts, this house was bought, paid for, and deeded only to Stella. Maybe he’d scored some serious dough as of late, but the guy I knew back when we were studying together at the New York State Writer’s Institute was so broke he couldn’t afford his own car. I picked him up for workshop countless times.

  What was that he’d said at the signing? “You look familiar to me?”

  Yeah, fuck you too, Mackey.

  The manuscript envelope in hand, I climbed the short set of concrete steps up onto the front landing. Rang the doorbell. There was that little nervous time in between the ringing of the bell and when I finally first made out the sound of a human being moving around inside the shell of a house. Ice water shot through my veins. In my mind, I pictured Mackey coming to the door. That would pretty much fuck up my plan entirely.

  I gazed through one of the little panes of glass embedded into the door, and I saw her then. Stella, coming toward the door, running both her hands through her hair, like she’d just gotten out of the shower.

  She unlocked the deadbolt, opened the door, smiled at me, slyly.

  “Well if isn’t another writer. Come on in before you catch cold.”

  It was about eighty degrees. A hot early summer’s morning. I was hoping the day would get hotter. A lot hotter.

  Stepping inside, I suddenly felt like I’d been transported back to high school. She was the way more mature, way more put together young woman, and I was the awkward pimply faced kid. I clumsily handed her the envelope, nearly dropping it to the floor in the process. She looked at it like I was handing her my living and breathing child. Which wasn’t too far from the truth.

  “This is it?” she said, her beautiful brow furrowed. “More like a short story than a novel, Mr. Victor.”

  I told her to call me Vic. She nodded. But in the time it took for her to nod, I soaked in everything about her. She was wearing a white tank top over a black bra. Her chest seemed to be busting out of the bra. Hanging from her neck were three or four silver necklaces that rested against her cleavage. Her shorts were cutoffs, and the rear of them rose up into her ass just enough to reveal the bottoms of her smooth, creamy cheeks. She was barefoot, and every time she moved her hands, the many bracelets on her wrists jangled, like they had a life of their own.

  “It’s a work in progress,” I pointed out.

  “A short work in progress, you mean.” Then, one eye open, the other partially closed, a sly grin painted on her face, “Makes me think you’re not really here to give Mackey a sneak peek at your new work.”

  I felt my throat close in on itself, my chest grew tight, my stomach twist.

  “Really, Stella? Why do you think I’m here?”

  She laughed.

  “Never mind,” she said with a giggle. “Coffee. Want some?”

  “I seem to recall that promise.”

  “Might have a little something stronger than two percent milk to put in it also,” she added.

  “Now you’re talking,” I said.

  She turned, started for the kitchen which I assumed was located at the far end of the short hallway.

  “When did you say Mackey was coming back?” I probed.

  “I didn’t.”

  It might have been wishful thinking, but I took that as, he won’t be home in forever.

  Making my way along the hallway, I glanced at some of the framed pictures that hung there. An intellectual looking Mackey in his old professor’s jacket, crazy thick black hair, and black framed eyeglasses giving a reading somewhere. Stella and Mackey sitting outside at a table under an umbrella at a lakeside or seaside bar, both of them smiling. Rather, Stella smiling, and Mackey looking smug and somehow more intellectually superior than everyone else. Finally, a photo of just Mackey, standing ankle deep in the surf.

  She noticed me noticing the photos.

  “That last one was taken in Northern Cali
fornia. We went there on vacation a couple years ago. I have friends there. Cost me a bundle I couldn’t afford.”

  I turned to her quick. “Mackey’s got a major deal. Money shouldn’t be a problem.”

  “It’s not now,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. “Don’t know how long that’s gonna last. From what I hear, publishers have a revolving door policy with their new, unestablished authors.”

  As she set out the coffee onto a tray that also contained a bottle of Sambuca, I got the sense she wasn’t all that proud of Mackey’s accomplishment. Or maybe, proud isn’t the right way to put it. It was more like she resented his recent success. She didn’t have to come right out and say it, but I could read it on her face, smell it radiating off her skin. Maybe she was wearing a perfume that gave off a rose petal scent. But she definitely smelled of resentment if not bitterness.

  “Let’s go out onto the deck,” she said.

  I followed, like a dog and his new master.

  The back deck was long. It ran the length of the entire house. There was an elevated piece of deck constructed on the far west end. A pricey gas cooker sat on top of it. The deck was an expensive addition to the house. Or so it seemed to me anyway . . . a poor guy on Medicare who survived in a New York Section 8 studio apartment in the middle of the city.

  “Brand new?” I asked. “The spoils of a new book deal.”

  “Bite your tongue, Vic. I paid for this deck. Every penny.”

  More resentment. That was a good thing. Good for me, I should say.

  We sat down across from one another at a wood table that looked like it came from an Ikea outdoor collection. She poured the coffees and added a significant amount of Sambuca to both.

  “Cheers,” she said, lifting her glass.

  “Congrats to your boyfriend,” I offered.

  She grinned.

  “Screw my boyfriend,” she said.

  The short of it.

  Mackey was a hard worker. He was single minded. Nothing was going to stop him from being the best writer he could be. The most successful around. The most well paid. Nothing was going to stop him from hitting the bestseller lists, from capturing the adulation and respect of big New York, of Hollywood, of the world.

  For five years she’d supported him. Bought him everything from food to manuscript paper to toilet paper. She was there for him through the rejections. Through the writer’s block. Through the humiliations. Through the long nights and even longer days. She’d built him up when he was down, took him down a notch when he got too over confident, and yes, she’d fucked his brains out whenever he asked for it. She had been his loyal, devoted servant. His muse. There was nothing she wouldn’t have done for him because one, she believed in him, and two, she loved him. At least, she thought she loved him.

  I drank my coffee, felt the warmth of the alcohol settling in.

  “So, what’s changed, Stella?”

  She did something then that took me by surprise. She tossed her coffee out onto the lawn, poured a generous shot of Sambuca into the cup, downed it in one swift pull.

  “After he got his book deal,” she said, “he started fucking anything and everything with a skirt on.”

  She poured a second shot, allow it to sit for a moment. Then she turned to me, a sly grin on her beautiful face.

  “And you, Vic,” she said. “You are going fuck me right now.”

  We didn’t even bother to go back inside and into her bedroom. I just shot up from the table, came around it, grabbed hold of her, pulled her to me. Our mouths locked together, she rose out of the chair, her hands exploring me, and mine hers. I had her top off and her bra undone in a matter of seconds. While I nibbled on her hard, tight nipples, she unbuttoned my shirt and unbuckled my belt with all the speed and grace of a pro. Next thing I knew, my pants were down around my knees and I had her jeans and panties down around her ankles. She merely stepped out of them before sitting herself onto the edge of the table.

  “Make me cum,” she said, her voice reduced to a kind of hoarse whisper in all her passion.

  She took hold of my cock and led me to her sweet spot. It was like I’d died and gone straight to heaven, she was so warm and wet and throbbing. She came in a matter not of minutes, but seconds. Like she hadn’t enjoyed this kind of physical attention—this sexual pleasure—in months, or even longer.

  I was as hard as I could possibly get. The table was just the right height for me, so I pushed into her while standing. Like her, it took me only a few seconds before I released. When it was finally over, I pulled her into me and held her for a little while. Held her hard. Sure, we’d just committed a crime-of-passion in terms of her significant other. We’d begun an illicit affair in the man’s own home. A man who apparently wanted to help me, even if he had been acting overly strange when it came to his not recognizing me from the New York State Writer’s Institute Workshop.

  But there was something else there between Stella and me than just naked lust. Maybe I’d only known her for a matter of hours, but I knew we shared a strong bond. We were like kindred spirits who’d only just found one another after a search that had taken many lifetimes. She was suffering from something, and so was I. Although our sufferings were entirely different, we’d become like two deer who hopelessly locked antlers in the span of one single morning. Things were happening so quickly that even the coffee hadn’t had the chance to get cold yet.

  We started seeing one another. On the side, at first. Or, if you will, on the sly. She couldn’t just kick Mackey out onto the street even if he was cash-rich at present. She needed time to think things over. To be fair to him. He’d struck it big, but that didn’t mean he didn’t need her emotionally right now. Even if he was cheating his ass off on her.

  “He tells me I’m his muse,” she said, a worried look staining her face. “Like he can’t live without me.”

  In turn, I was patient with her, but falling head over boot heels with every passing day. Until I couldn’t stand it anymore, and I slapped her up with an ultimatum. It was either going to be Mackey or me. It was the kind of ultimatum that can only happen over the phone. In my case, a pay phone mounted to a wall inside a saloon I frequented in West Albany.

  “What’s it gonna be, Stella?” I demanded, my voice slightly slurred from far too many beers and whiskey chasers. “Him or me?”

  “He’s upset,” she said, somewhat under her breath. Like he was in the room with her, and she was cupping her hand over the phone, so he couldn’t hear her. “I told him. Told him everything. He keeps saying he’s a hit now. What sense does it make to reverse course? Go back to living with a loser. Someone who isn’t even published.”

  Her words cut right through me like a razor blade, right through skin, flesh, and bone. Sure, she was just relaying the message, but I wanted to strangle her. I wanted to strangle him. For a just a few overheated seconds, I wanted to strangle them both.

  But then, what the hell was I thinking? I wanted Stella to be by my side forever and ever. I wanted her as my muse. She was wasting her time and energy on an intellectual prick like Mackey. If she were with me, she would be appreciated and not just as means for my eventual success. She would be loved for who she is. Physically. Emotionally.

  My blood was on fire.

  “If I hang up this phone,” I said, “I will never contact you again.”

  What followed was a pause that was as long as it was weighted.

  “Pick me up in half an hour,” she said. “I’ll be out in the driveway.”

  I hung up the phone, paid my tab.

  Twenty minutes later, I pulled into her driveway. Only, it wasn’t Stella standing outside at the top of the drive. It was Mackey. Some men would run from situations like this one. One where confrontation was not only probable but inevitable. Verbal and even physical confrontation.

  I didn’t give a flying fuck.

  I hit the brakes, shoved the transmission into park, left the engine idling and threw the door open. I approached him like I owned
the joint. There was something rolled up in his hand. My story.

  He was wearing a pair of black corduroys and loafers with red socks. Naturally, he had his tan jacket on with the holes in the elbows, just to make him look professorial. To make him look better than me. It’s what he had instead of biceps. The eyes reflected under his thick eyeglasses were red and swelled, like he’d been crying.

  “This,” he said, running his free hand through his thick black hair. “This is a piece of shit. I think you’ve gotten worse since we were in that workshop together.”

  I took a step toward him, felt my hands turn into fists.

  “That make you feel better, Mackey? Way to ignore the white elephant.”

  He smiled. The son of a bitch actually smiled. When he shifted himself, I took notice of the small day pack that was set by his feet.

  “You know what, Vic?” he said. “You’re right. I’m beating around the bush, if you’ll excuse the cliché. You see, here’s the thing. This is Stella’s house, and it’s only right that I’m the one who should leave. My time with her is finished. So many books to sell, so many books to write, so many women to fuck. You see, pal, a man with my talents, my drive, I’m going places. A man with your limited abilities, you’re stuck in the mud with flat tires and, believe me, it ain’t gonna stop raining anytime soon.”

  He bent down, picked up his bag, wrapped the strap around his shoulder, pulled a set of keys from his jacket pocket. Stared down the short length of driveway toward his ride— a brown SUV.

  “Oh, and Vic,” he said, glancing over his shoulder. “Tell Stella I’ll be sending a truck out for my books. Everything else she can keep. Good luck with the muse. You’ll need it.” He winked at me. Assuming a faux hillbilly voice, he added, “Enjoy those sloppy seconds, ya hear?”

  He opened the door on the SUV, tossed in his day pack, got in. Closing the door, he started her up, backed out of the drive. When he put the transmission in drive, he burned rubber. That’s when I saw him holding my story out the open driver’s side window. He slowly released it page by page into the wind, the eight and a half by eleven pages fluttering in the sky like big white leaves descending onto the pavement.