Now all was Katt. Friday it had been Marcus, posture somewhat similar to this woman’s now, but with thick riots of hair, his middle-aged angularity, and the hot stiffness that drove him across country and made him groan when part of her, any part, paid it attention. Marcus was good, his need for her pure and gratifyingly obsessive, though maybe because of that laser-beamed love, she felt even more gone and apart from him (though he hadn’t a clue) the closer he drew to her in nakedness and desire. Katt turned her over and softly attacked her arousal, and it felt right to urge her elusive friend’s hips about, easing them down, causing a diagonal reorientation above the blanket for more spread and length, no toes bumped against headboard. An obedient body, hers, spry and ardent and responsive to the slap and tickle of love. But she felt dead inside. The same death pervaded her at the head of the class, professor prized by students and colleagues alike, a nice little niche, expert in the ins and outs of Graphical User Interfaces, the ways of constructors and destructors in C++ code, and the whole panoply of software and hardware arcana—but inside, where she hid herself, it meant no more than a big fat NULL.
Sherry relaxed into rich orgasm, mouthing an increase of ardency upward but not at all frantic as her whole body responded like nightwind rising on ocean. She felt dreamy and whole here, tasted and loved, her hands on soft curves and indefinable good will. One could usually tell by this point if giving sensuality its head had been a good or bad idea, if durability or dread were in the air—and Sherry’s Mmmm detector had nothing but Oh Yes writ large across its face. They’d right themselves, snuggle, laugh, maybe dive right back into it; but there was no rush, just union deep and complete, and for now, she was content to hold and hug and feel the glow seep inward, attempting to reach her. -
“So how was it downtown?” Marcus was in the kitchen, spreading peanut butter on celery stalks, when Katt walked in on him.
“Peaceful,” she said, patching together a pastiche of downtown traipses, worrying as he kissed her whether she’d washed sufficient trace of Sherry from her mouth. Pulling away, no waver in his eyes; Katt felt relieved. “The same as always,” she said. “A lunchtime crowd outside at Pasta Jay’s and Coop-ersmith’s. Water splashing off the boulders they put up at the dedication of the square what maybe six years ago? A couple of raindrops through the sunshine.”
“Any kids creamed?”
“By skateboarders and rollerbladers? None I saw.”
Katt asked about his notetaking and pretended to hear his reply. She was scanning his face, his gestures, a hum of anxiety low but underlying in her, wanting and dreading a first sign. The word “headache” slipstreaming by caught her ears. Marcus brushed at his brow.
“Working too hard?”
“I guess,” he said. “I don’t suppose I could have an afternoon taste of your Magic Fingers?”
“Sure you could,” her words spilled out, “you give me enough money! Sit down.” Automatic response, but inside, a rise in anxiety. She didn’t want to touch him. But she was moving around behind him where he sat in the breakfast nook, a smile still fixed on her face. One hand slid over his left shoulder and its partner found his right, squeeze there and thumbs dug in to find her balance at his back.
“Mmmm,” he said, bending his neck forward and resting his arms on the fakewood tabletop like numb lobster claws, then pulling them back until he gripped the table edge and righted his head again. “Feels good.” Katt parenthesized his neck, fingers under jawline. Good solid man; fragile, she thought, as anyone. Her probes, taught by experience, spoke his health, skimming messages as she concentrated on massage. She rotated her fingers upward until they rested on his temples, thumbs under ears, the flat of her hand on hair and skin, warmth and faint throb there. For some odd reason, a vision of the beach came to the fore as she shut her eyes, the fresh Caribbean sands and surf smells of the last vacation she and Marcus had taken, could it have been five years ago? Conner off to her mom in Florida, private beachfront, a simple hut with just enough amenities, sweet lovemaking under moonlight and time simply gone away. How delightful it had been.
“That’s getting it,” he said.
“Is the mean and nasty going away?”
“Mmmm.”
Her fingers found their rhythm. She watched the tips move, black sweeps of hair thatched above them and back as they rotated and pressed. Again, shutting out the kitchen and Marcus’s murmurs of pleasure, Katt skulled and brained inward. Easier this time, terrain once traversed. Layers passed and there it was, that same tentative tissue, ready to dry up. Disappointed, relieved. She hadn’t done it at all, couldn’t do it apparently. Stuck. Then the vacancy, tiny as a pea, happened—so quick she blipped by it, found it again, thrilled, its edges drawn, dry, for the thinnest space. Warring tendencies, suddenly. The will to halt it and the will to urge it forward. She had no right to turn Marcus’s life which way she would; he’d been kind, loving, given her a child, loved them both, laughed and joked with them at the dinner table. Past, all past. Now he stifled her, drained her life drab, just by continuing to be. She turned away from her healing power and embraced the other, applying it precisely, like a salve, upon the surface and deep throughout. Inside she felt keyed up and torn. She marveled her husband didn’t notice.
Hand grab.
She opened her eyes. Marcus was turned to look up at her. Flat dead eyes. He knew. He knew. His moist hands gripped hers.
“Are you okay?” he said. “What is it?”
She felt sweat then at her brow and knew the moisture of his hands was really hers. “I’m okay ...” Her voice husky, a need to tack about; she felt exposed. “It’s just that”—I want a divorce—“I think I felt... a tremor in you. Or maybe I’m just imagining it, it could be nothing. You seem not quite as steady as usual.” Throat tightened. “Marcus I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have brought it up.”
“No it’s okay.” His understanding tone, the kindness of it, was breaking her heart. “I’m fine. Don’t cry now, Katt. Come on. There’s nothing wrong with me.”
Katt allowed his arms to embrace her, laying her head on his shoulder, accepting pats and solace until the grief and guilt abated. She took the pastel Kleenex he offered, dried her tears, blew her nose.
“Everything all right?”
Katt nodded. She felt embarrassed and frightened and just a tiny bit superior, pulling the wool undetected—and that deepened her fear about what she was becoming.
Conner came in then, back from a bike ride, cutting a swath of excitement through the moment, spilling news of a found friend, another biker, anonymous but Conner was sure they’d meet up again. Katt smiled as his father countered with pleased questions. When the recounting had worn down or nearly so, she excused herself to the bedroom, shutting the door so she could be alone.
Her tummy was tight. She blew her nose again, stared at herself in the mirror over the sink. The image shocked her, as always, with how familiar and how baffling it was. She leaned close, the pores, the lines framing those eyes, that mouth, the backdraw of skin toward her ears. “Katt,” she whispered. “What the fuck are you doing?” The puzzle hung eternally in her head. And yet its solution lay side by side, making it no less a puzzle but speaking its piece as well. “Never you mind about that,” she said, almost as if it made sense. “I’m doing what needs doing.” Her eyes became unbearable then and she turned away.
Undraping the PC, she switched it and the monitor on. As the memory check numbered by, she stewed in rage at her husband and at her son. Four months of freedom, of a mind open to whims in the wind—closed down in a day, the house shrunk about her, when they came to stay. Mom had phoned, delaying her visit to The Rainbow this morning, that voice a hypnotic hammer, a child-berater. Hovering at the edges had been Katt’s dark and crazy gramma, never mentioned but skirted near, killer of son and husband. How she’d craved that walk to The Rainbow, those moments with Love Bunny, a calm wholeness capped by an intriguing denouement.
On her monitor, the DOS prompt appea
red at last. She ran QuickLink and dialed one of three BBSs she frequented. Symposium. Three phone lines and a sysop who knew what he was doing. FI entered her alias, F2 her password, and she was in, keying past the opening screens. No messages were in her mailbox. Today’s Users listed their aliases, times of log in and out: Swizzler, Gourami, Hunk-fuck, a few new ones Katt didn’t recognize, and good old Darter, on off on off throughout the day. No Love Bunny. She tried CFRnet. The only new message entered since last night was a feeble flirt from The Geek addressed to The Goddess. Safe e-mail minisex. Poised to log off and modem into another BBS, on impulse she hotkeyed to Main and hit Who’s Active.
Newcummer on line one. On line two? Love Bunny!
Jeez, get into chat mode before she logged off. This was like a special gift, bumping fortuitously into someone like this. The adrenalin was high. She was probably just about to leave, or inaccessible. Katt found Chat Mode and entered it, typing a hasty fumble: “Hi, it’s me!”
Pause. Gone. Or Katt’s friend was exiting whatever, finding her way into the chat. Then **Love Bunny** sprang up and, under it, her reply: “Well hello there.”
“Been on long?”
“Mwwwah. Mwwwah. Mwwwah.”
“Huh?”
“Oh come on,” Love Bunny typed, her spelling skills a scandal, backspace, retype, backspace, retype, like a slow thinker. “Them’s *kisses*!”
“Ah. Well, a mwwwah to you too!” Katt pictured fire on flesh, the rumpled sheets, fingerswirls and the moaning they’d prompted. How normal it had all been; not anything in the least naughty or perverse, as she’d hoped! Another stereotype blasted, woman-love unique and to be cherished.
“So what are you up to, Little Miss Hot Thighs??” An eon again of backspace and correction. The pedant in her. Typing in real time, the laggardliness of it all made each word monumentally important, even as it pressed impatience buttons inside Katt to hell and gone.
“Zip. Puttering,” she typed. “Hubby massage.”
“From one bed to another? You *are* a slut!” “No no no. Headache, soothed brow, working out kinks in his shoulders.”
“Kinks :“)?”
“You heard me!”
“Is he a handsome brute? Think he could handle two?”
That pained her. Deep sting. Sudden welling of rage toward them both. He’d had this woman, concealed it, used it to manipulate her and Conner. “So-so. I doubt he’s up to your exacting standards. He’s pretty straitlaced.”
“I almost had an ongoing threesome once.” “Somebody flinch?”
“Yeah, me. The guy took serious sick, she had to get a nurse, full time, nothing contagious. I bailed. Life’s too fucking short. I liked the man. Even loved him. But not enough to saddle myself. His problem, not mine. It’s like people trapped behind wheelchairs. Sacrificing their happiness. All I see is burden, years of waste, a pitiful time sink.”
Carriage return. Sherry was waiting. Katt disagreed with her, saw such love as ennobling and only proper, then realized her own acts spoke otherwise. “Luck of the draw, I guess. Doing what befalls. What feels right.”
Pauses in chat were often pregnant. She’d paused and now Love Bunny paused, wondering, Katt supposed, how or if to respond to Newcummer’s implied disapproval. What she’d typed didn’t exactly argue against Love Bunny, but it hung in the air, and her friend’s reply confirmed her defensive stance: “Hey maybe I’m selfish or something, but it ain’t for me, ya know?”
“This was in Fort Collins?” asked Katt.
“Nope. Years ago. Anyway, gotta be off now, sweets. Friggin’ prep for classes.”
“Ah. Think I’ll go garden or sumpin’.” Lie down for a nap, more likely.
“Sounds groovy. Hey, tell you what, whyncha leave me a steamy message, tell me what you liked, turn me on again with them seductivoracious—yow, do you like that? I just made it up!!!—words of yours?”
“ ’Kay. Maybe tonight. You do likewise?” In memory, she was fondling Sherry, hands at her pubis, finding there the bare beginnings of cervical oddities. She’d passed by that decision point, neither healing nor hurting. Instead she’d resumed her caress, Sherry’s warm body mirroring the ardency of the rhythm Katt took up. Then the monitor came back, its disk drive fan muffled below like the muted roar of jet engines.
“It’s a promise, love,” came Sherry’s message. “Good. I liked what we did.”
“Mwwwah, sweets. Smooch at you later.”
“Bye.”
“Bye.”
Chat Mode off.
Four days later. Thursday afternoon. Conner, having quickly learned to avoid College with his bike, sped along the tree-lined, far-less-traveled Remington Street, picked up the bikepath at Johnson Drive, and headed home. Jounce of wrapped gift in his back basket. A warm day. He hoped they wouldn’t melt.
Fort Collins was a neat place. Water fountained over boulders in Old Town Square, a bookstuffed Stone Lion just at its south edge, and refurbished brick buildings cozying it in. And that was just one block, but a block that kept calling him back. The chocolates had been waiting for him a few stores south of Walrus Ice Cream down College. Then he’d found his bike and sped off, Mom’s surprise prompting notions of secrecy as he rode. Sure Dad had bought a gift for both of them to give her, as usual; but other than his heartfelt amateurish kid-art, painted or penciled at Dad’s request, this was the first time he’d planned and bought a gift of his own without Dad’s help or conniving. A sweaty jogger, bare-chested, passed by with a perfunctory wave on the other side of the bikepath. Conner grinned at him but the grin was broader for sweet anticipation: He’d get off the bike early, prop it against the side of the garage, no kickstand, eggwalk to the sliding door into the den, glide through a minimal unscreened crack, close it, creep around like in the movies, find Mom and Dad together by the sound of their voices, and visit heart attacks of happiness upon them. It was past four. Mom would’ve just come home from work and Dad would be back from school by now.
A rollerblading couple went by, the woman tailing the man and neither one of them giving him any acknowledgment. On his right, a trio of ducks waddled nonchalantly down an embankment into the pond. Beyond it, his house went past, odd view of it from the back, Mom and Dad’s bedroom window above but he doubted they were watching. She was going to be so excited and he’d be too, but he wouldn’t show it cuz that was uncool; okay, a little and he’d endure her hug so she wouldn’t feel bad. Dad’d be proud. Up over the arced bridge, around the bend, and straight away along a trickle of creek—there was the path’s end, through a wide gate to Wallenberg Drive. No traffic or rare. Rich houses. Past them he coasted, ramping up onto the sidewalk, slowing and dismounting. There was Mom’s car in the driveway. A riot of flowerbeds edged the walkway to the front door. Conner felt like a thief, cutting a corner, taking the walk along the garage. He propped his bike along the side and worked the package loose, wrapping paper crinkling out his guilt. Skulking about was super fun.
Good, the screen was unlatched. He slid it, zvrig-gled it really, along a stubborn track, then backward once he’d got inside. Voices through the vent. They were upstairs. His tennies squeaked. He slipped them off, padded on soft socks across the kitchen floor, through the dining room to the vestibule, and up the stairs.
He was gonna make it undetected. Above, the straight edge of white wall was poised to yield up a parent or two, his surprise blown. Nope, nope; thick-carpeted stairs, no telltale creak to them, one hand angling on the bannister, the other clutching Mom’s chocolates. Voices again louder above. Bedroom, he guessed. Parent stuff. Who knew what they found to say after so many years?
Hallway now. He hung near the baseboard, stifling an almost irresistible urge to laugh. Door ajar. The voices came clearer. “I decided to keep it from you one more day what with your birthday and all. I thought—”
“C’mon, Marcus, forget that, my birthday is nothing.” Her voice was raw. Conner stopped feeling so impish.
“I’m sorry. I think it’s
really finally—”
“We’ll get it looked at first thing tomorrow morning. We can go now if you want, Poudre Valley’s emergency room. I can leave Conner a note, he—’’
“No, it’ll wait.” Dad too harsh. He lowered his tone and Conner felt thickness in his throat: “It’ll wait. We can set it aside for the evening, no sense in spoiling the festivities.”
“Shall I call the hospital?” Her voice was quavering, and on the hallway wall opposite their door, a pool of sun high up vibrated like disturbed water, reflections of some unknown something inside. The disease had hit at last and Conner fancied he felt a sleeping caterpillar curled tight in his own head, just now beginning to wake.
“Yes, better prep them so we see the right man, so he shows up and raises the right hoops.”
“C’mon, Marcus, it might be something else.” But her voice betrayed her.
“Sure,” Dad said, knowing better.
And Conner stood in the hallway, package tight to his chest, trying not to breathe as a nightstand drawer opened and phonebook pages flipped by and Mom lifted the receiver and punched in a number and, after a pause, spoke into it. Her words were low, lower than their conversation, but she said it, said what he knew she would—and when she did, he wanted nothing so much as to get away, to be by himself in the outdoors and let free whatever this churning, woozying stuff was inside him. But some of it spilled out, and his grip on the package loosened and made fumbles of noise, so that first Dad came out and Mom soon after and he couldn’t help it, he was weeping like a baby in their arms.
Marcus had had a weekend to absorb it. Sherry’d gone to Cheyenne on some vague last-minute thing, their planned Sunday afternoon tryst up in smoke. Wasn’t working out in any event, months of fantasy more intense, more reciprocal than the reality; and he much doubted he’d’ve been able to pretend to no problem if they had bedded down. So here he was, before his students—but his thoughts were on a quiet time spent alone by the overcast lake in City Park, Conner on his mind. And Katt. And a father and his effervescent daughter come down to feed the ducks and geese that honked such frenzied giggles out of the little girl.
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