“… incredibly insulting?”
“Yeah. Okay. That’s a fair assessment. But yes. Even though.”
I was about to make a bumbling attempt to see if we could have another dinner sometime soon, but before I could say another word she asked if I wanted to come in for a drink. I hesitated and she shrugged her shoulders; apparently she couldn’t care less if I came in or not. She took a step toward the building door and then, much to my surprise, I went, “I’d love to come in.”
She turned back toward me and nodded, not at all surprised. If anything, perhaps, just a touch satisfied.
I followed her in. The apartment was a simple but well-appointed one-bedroom. The furniture was neutral, but there were some personal touches and surprisingly feminine decorations that had to be Cam’s and gave the place real charm. Considering how beautiful she was, I don’t know why I kept being surprised at how much “girl” was still in Cam. It seemed much more normal for her to be talking about rebels being blown up in Kivu than for her to coo over a perfect rose in a vase—she liked the idea of a single perfect flower more than a lush bouquet—or a photo of a sunset that she’d taken from her building’s rooftop. And yet she swerved back and forth between the two extremes, equally comfortable with both.
She poured each of us a glass of white wine. We didn’t speak at all—she seemed distracted and I couldn’t come up with anything to say. My mind was racing for a subject that would engage her. Her cat’s flatulence? No. (Although Rags did greet me like a long-lost friend when we walked in the door—I don’t think he got a lot of attention from his new sitter.) My various animals? Uh-uh. My dead wife? A definite pass. The relationship I’d been in for the last few years? Nope. Weather, politics, art? No, no, no. Panicking, I was just about to backtrack to the whole sushi conversation when she put her glass down, leaned forward, grabbed the back of my head, and kissed me. Not a soft, gentle kiss. This was passionate. Almost desperate. And I matched her desperation—more than matched it—when I returned the kiss.
In an instant she was clawing at me and I was clawing right back and we were both moaning and gasping, although hers were raw and animal-like and coming from an erotic place deep inside her, while I have a feeling mine sounded as if they were coming through the rusty throat of a long-dormant robot. She stood up to lead me to the bedroom and I stood up to follow, then she grabbed me and wrapped her legs around my waist. I carried her like that—something I’d always fantasized about but figured that because I wasn’t actually the young Jack Nicholson in Five Easy Pieces or Ryan Gosling in what I imagined to be his real life, I’d never get to do—into the bedroom, where we ripped our clothes off and fell onto the bed. We were kissing and grabbing as wildly as if we’d just survived a shipwreck, found ourselves on a desert island, and were making love to reassure ourselves that we were indeed alive.
I had never experienced anything remotely like it. On my part, it was a combination of overpowering lust and a sudden letting go after years of holding myself back. In a single great rush, I cast aside the overwhelming horror of Anna’s death, my ensuing grief, my slow recovery, and my gentle nurturing back to health by Elizabeth. There was nothing gentle about this, nothing sad. There were no thoughts running through my head, no guilt or tenderness; there was nothing but absolute desire. It was savage and almost violent in its intensity, and although I understood that the intensity had been initiated by her, I was thrilled to be overwhelmed by it. Before we were done making love I thought my heart might burst, literally and figuratively.
I didn’t know what was causing the frenzy within Camilla. She seemed almost in a dreamlike state, part lioness and part kitten. She started out so aggressively, scratching my back, biting me, telling me to pull her hair, which I did and which felt insanely sexy—silken and rough at the same time—in my hands, then making me tell her over and over again how much I wanted to fuck her, which I did until I was screaming the words “I want to fuck you!” at the top of my lungs. Then as we thrashed around naked on her bed she became more and more passive, speaking quietly, almost in the voice of a small child, asking if I wanted to spank her, asking if I wanted to tie her up, demanding answers, insisting I tell her what I would do to her and what my fantasies were, then begging me to go inside her—but the way she said it, her voice was trembling and I didn’t know if this was a game or if she was suddenly afraid or if this was just another strange way of controlling the situation she was in. It didn’t really matter. Whatever she wanted, I did. She insisted on climbing on top of me, lunging up and down while I was inside her, and she came first, shaking as she did, shuddering, her entire body in spasm. I was desperate to explode but she wouldn’t let me; she wouldn’t (or couldn’t) move and she just stayed on top of me, squeezing me tightly, and whimpered, “No, no, stay still, don’t move.” She grabbed my face, holding me down, as if she were going to smother me with a pillow, but she just wanted peace after the violence of her orgasm. I lay as still as I could, my chest heaving, trying to control my breathing. I tried to speak but she shook her head crazily back and forth. She wanted silence to go with the peace. So I stayed silent until some form of life came back into her eyes. Then she rolled over to lie next to me, pulled me gently on top of her, put me inside her, and we rocked together very slowly at first, then faster, and faster still and then I was done. I collapsed on top of her, sweating profusely, sopping wet and spent.
She only let me stay there for a few seconds; then she pushed me off, not with any great force but making it clear that I wasn’t welcome. Our intimacy began to fracture immediately, but I wanted that closeness more than I’d wanted anything in a long time. So even as I toppled off beside her, still breathing heavily, I reached over to wrap my arm around her and hug her, to bring our bodies together, but she burst into tears and turned away from me. Startled, I asked her what was wrong, but she wouldn’t answer or look at me. I sat up, watching her for a long while. Her eyes were closed but she wasn’t sleeping. The tears were still coming. I tried stroking her beautiful bare back—her skin was achingly smooth—but she jerked away. Moments later I put my hand on her hair and ran my fingers gently along her dark blond strands. That seemed to please her. Although I got no reaction, when I stopped doing it she reached for my hand, still not looking at me, and placed it on the side of her head.
I combed through and stroked Camilla’s hair for what must have been half an hour. Before she fell asleep, I whispered into her ear, “That was amazing. I love making love to you.” I could see and feel her stiffen, and in a muffled, icily dismissive tone, the anger seeping out of her once again, she said, “We didn’t make love. We fucked.” I started to say something, but the harshness of her words left me speechless. I wondered if she was lying next to me, eyes closed, hating me. I wondered what she was going to say to me next. Tell me to get the hell out? Tell me I was an asshole to think this was anything but a one-night stand? And then I realized she wasn’t going to tell me anything: She’d fallen sound asleep.
I, on the other hand, was wide awake. Her words had stung and bewildered me. I didn’t have a clue what to do. I was fairly certain she would leap up and scream if she woke to find me next to her in bed in the morning, but the thought of leaving was unbearable. More than anything I wanted to touch her again, to feel her lovely smooth skin against mine, to kiss her gently and then passionately and taste her tongue in my mouth again, pressing her as close to me as our sweaty bodies could get.
Instead, I slid off the bed so as not to disturb her. Pulled my clothes on. Found a piece of paper and a pen, and left a note on her kitchen counter that was as far from doing justice to the few hours we’d just spent together as any note in the history of the written word. “I wanted to stay but wasn’t sure if you wanted me to,” I wrote. “I hope to see you soon. Thanks. P.S. I think Rags is doing better already.”
* * *
Then I walked the five or six blocks back to my apartment, careening dizzily between elation and despair. I wasn’t in bed more than a
few minutes when my phone rang. I jumped for it, thinking it might be Cam—but of course she didn’t even have my number. It was Elizabeth.
“I’ve been calling you all night,” she said. “You didn’t answer your cell.”
“I … I turned it off, I guess,” I told her. “I’m sorry. I was out to dinner.”
“I’m glad you’re home. I worry about you. You know, the crazy city and all that.”
“You shouldn’t worry,” I said quietly.
“I can’t help it. Who’d you have dinner with?”
“A new patient,” I said.
“Really? That’s so unlike you.”
“I know, but … he was a really nice guy and didn’t know anybody in town.”
“What’s his name?”
I felt myself getting in deeper and deeper. “Kevin.”
“I’m stunned. A new friend for Dr. Bob.”
“Maybe,” I said. “We’ll see.”
“But you had a good time?”
“Yeah. You know, nothing special. But yeah, it was fine.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re home. Sleep well and I’ll talk you to in the morning.”
Of course she would: We spoke on the phone nearly every morning. Even if we’d talked right before going to bed the night before. There was never any purpose; it was just a routine we’d fallen into. Did you sleep well?… What’s your day like?… Did you hear about the earthquake in Afghanistan?… Okay, we’ll talk later.
“Okay,” I said. “And you, too. Sleep well.”
“Bob,” she said, “are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” I told her. “Talk to you in the morning.”
We each hung up. I lay in my bed with the light on, staring up the ceiling, feeling Camilla on me. Tasting her.
Wave clambered onto the bed and slung her long, reddish-brown body next to mine. Rocky seemed a little distant, but eventually he hopped up, too, and curled into a ball on my chest, his paws stretched out to rest on the Irish setter’s head.
The other animals slept or played somewhere nearby. I heard the shuffling of some paper, probably Margo, finding a new toy-that-wasn’t-supposed-to-be-a-toy.
I could smell Camilla—she was in my pores, in my mouth, on my skin—as I closed my eyes. And for the first time in nearly fifteen years, I fell asleep without touching, thinking of, or crying about Anna.
* * *
From the New York Daily Examiner:
ASK DR. BOB
Dr. Robert Heller is one of New York’s leading veterinarians. He is the author of two books about taking care of pets, They Have Nothing but Their Kindness and More Than Human, and is a regular on the Today show with his weekly segment, “The Vetting Zoo.” Dr. Bob takes care of cats, dogs, horses, birds, snakes, turtles, frogs, fish, snails, small pigs, and many varieties of rodents. You can e-mail him at [email protected] and ask him any question about the animal you love. His column runs Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays in the tristate area’s most popular newspaper.
Dear Bob:
I’m twenty-two years old and have my first serious boyfriend. I have had cats my entire life, and although I live in a studio apartment in Williamsburg—the first time I’ve lived on my own—I still have three of them. I love having them, and I think of them as my children. My boyfriend, Fred, thinks that I have way too much of an emotional investment in my cats. He thinks that I don’t pay enough attention to him and he thinks it’s because I’m too afraid to make a commitment to a human being, as compared to a much less complicated entanglement with my feline babies. Being attached to another person is indeed much more complicated for me. More painful, more time-consuming, more dangerous. My question is: Is it worth it? I get a lot out of my relationships with Tater, Gabby, and Glory. Do we really get so much more love and satisfaction from human beings that it’s worth all the problems that come with those relationships? Thank you for your time and consideration.
—Tempted to Stick with Cats
Dear Tempted:
I don’t know. I think so. I hope—for your sake, my sake, and everyone’s sake—that we do. But I don’t know.
—Dr. Bob
* * *
CHAPTER 9
ROSY AND MIKE APPESIN
They often came in together with Strudel, their basset hound. Sometimes they even came with their grown children, Micheline and Audrey. For Rosy and Mike, a visit to the clinic was a family affair. They lived in a small Archie Bunker–type house in Queens, but the dog came to work in the Village every day with her doting owners, and that’s how they wound up at our clinic on Greenwich Avenue.
Even before I arrived, Rosy and Mike had been seeing Marjorie Paws for two decades. Prior to Strudel they’d had Glinda, also a basset hound, and Juliet, a cocker spaniel. When I first met Rosy and Mike, she was in her early sixties and he was five or so years older. He was Armenian and spoke with a growling accent; she was a typical Jewish mother and wife from Long Island. When we weren’t talking about Strudel’s health issues, we were talking about her hairdresser (who drove her crazy but whom she’d gone to for eleven years), or her favorite Chinese restaurant, or his obsession with the local laundromat and their tendency to put too much starch in his shirts. They owned a stationery store a block from the clinic; Anna and I were good customers, buying paper and pens and whatever else we needed, and Lucy bought all our office supplies there, too. Rosy and Mike always insisted on giving us a discount. We always insisted on paying full price. They won eighty percent of the battles because they were both so nice you couldn’t argue with them. For three months after Anna died, they refused to take my money for any personal stationery needs. Then they went back to giving me a discount.
A year or so after Anna died, Lucy told me that Strudel was due for his checkup but that Mike and Rosy hadn’t responded to her usual notice. She had called them and left a voice mail message that morning, but she still hadn’t heard back. On my lunch break, I strolled over to the stationery store and saw that it wasn’t open. It didn’t seem to be permanently closed, but it was odd that the store would be shut tight on a sunny Tuesday afternoon.
The next morning, as soon as I walked in the door, Lucy, crying, showed me the front page of the New York Post. The headline read: “Brutal Ending Penned for Store Owner.” The photo on the front page showed Rosy and Mike’s stationery store, in front of which stood an EMR gurney carrying a body covered by a cloth. The body was Mike’s. He’d been murdered the evening before. As he was closing up the store, around seven p.m., someone had come in and bludgeoned him to death with some kind of mallet. I called Rosy immediately; she didn’t come to the phone, but I spoke to her younger daughter, Audrey. I didn’t press for details, just sent my love. The next morning, Lucy sent over a big food basket.
Two days later, the Post ran a second story about the murder. This time Lucy wasn’t crying when she unfolded it for me at her desk. Her eyes were wide with shock and disbelief. It turned out that gentle, charming, warmhearted Mike had been laundering money through his stationery store for a Mexican drug cartel. The NYPD suspected that Mike had been skimming money off the top and that the Mexican mob, none too pleased, decided to send him a rather definitive warning by bashing his brains in. The police also seemed to think that neither Rosy nor the two kids had anything to do with Mike’s scam or even suspected its existence.
I didn’t see Rosy for two months, but then one day she showed up with Strudel for his overdue appointment. It was a freezing February afternoon, and Rosie, who usually wore an inexpensive cloth winter coat with fake fur lining, strolled through the door wearing a full-length mink. I stared at her in astonishment but did my best to steer clear of any delicate questions. But Rosy was the type who didn’t need much prompting, so as I examined her delightfully friendly basset hound, Rosy gave me the lowdown on her life post-Mike.
She told me she’d had no idea what Mike had been up to—and had, apparently, been up to for fifteen years. At first, she didn’t believe a word of the story the polic
e told her. It seemed crazy and impossible. She said she didn’t even know any Mexicans except for a guy who’d once done some work on their kitchen in Queens. She only knew his first name, and the police were now doing their best to find him—to which she said, with a dismissive wave of her hand, “Good luck to them.” Then she fingered her coat. “Nice, huh?”
I had to agree with her. That’s when she lowered her voice and said, “The craziest thing happened. A few weeks ago, we had a leak in the bathroom. A plumber came over and had to break through the wall next to the toilet. And guess what? Inside the wall he found an envelope, a padded eleven-by-fourteen, manila, with the peel-off seal at the top—we sell a million of ’em. Anyway, after the plumber leaves, I open the envelope, and guess what’s in there?”
“I can’t imagine.”
“Fifty thousand dollars. Cash. Big bills.”
Poor Strudel squealed. At the words “fifty thousand dollars” I must have squeezed him harder than I should have.
“So it got me to thinking. For years, poor Mikey was always up in the middle of the night, fixing things and plastering things. All kinds of mishegoss. He said he couldn’t sleep and it relaxed him. I used to say, ‘Well, it doesn’t relax me, all that hammering and pounding.’ But you know, you get used to anything after a while, especially when you’re in love. Anyway, I went to a couple of places I remembered him fixing. I took a hammer and smashed through the wall and found nothin’ but cash. I’ve found six more envelopes. Three hundred and seventy-two thousand bucks so far.”
I stared at her in amazement. “I don’t think you should tell too many people about this, Rosy.”
“Oh, don’t worry, I’m not telling anyone except Audrey and Micheline. And you—I figure I can trust you. Isn’t there, like, a doctor-patient confidentiality thing or something?”
Ask Bob: A Novel Page 21