by Edward Lee
Vera had her hand on the doorknob; again, she paused. I love you, he’d just said. How many other men had said that to her in her life, with any degree of genuineness? None, she knew.
Her pause at the door wavered…
Don’t fall for it, Vera, that other voice crept back into her head.
“I love you, Vera.”
Don’t be a sucker!
No, no, she wouldn’t be. She wouldn’t let him do this to her. Hadn’t he done enough already?
“Your love is like the rest of you, Paul. It’s fake. It’s a lie. It’s pure grade-A shit.”
Then she walked out and very quietly closed the door behind her.
««—»»
She cruised downtown in the Lamborghini, sorting her thoughts. At first she felt very confused; she ran two red lights on Church Circle and nearly drove the wrong way down Main Street. Get hold of yourself, you airhead! She doubted that Feldspar would be pleased were she to bring the ’ghini back to The Inn with a bashed-in front end. She parked at the City Dock, buttoned up her coat, and got out to walk in the cold.
Full winter made the city look flattened and drab. Most of the boat slips were vacant; the few that weren’t berthed tarp-covered bulks. Her heels ticked on the cement as she wandered about the city’s deserted nub. Frigid wind clawed at her like a molester’s frantic hands.
Was she having second thoughts? How could she, after what she’d seen that night? They put drugs in his beer, she remembered. He could at least manufacture a better lie than that! Suddenly it didn’t matter that he regretted what he’d done; it didn’t even matter that he claimed to still love her. She knew she could never see him again, never even consider him. Vera had always tried never to hold a person’s past against him (wasn’t Donna, a former alcoholic, a perfect example?), but this was sorely different. Drugs, bondage, group sex? She’d be out of her mind…
You did the right thing, Vera. You’d never be able to trust him again.
Yes, she felt sure of that, and all at once she felt a lot better. Donna had been right all along: once she confronted him, once she told him off for good, she’d feel like a new person. All her stresses and uncertainties fled from her, right there on the cold, cobblestoned incline of Main Street.
She felt cleansed, exorcised. The drab city seemed brighter now, and clean, as if she’d just stepped into a different, better world.
Now I can really get on with my life!
««—»»
Before she returned to the parking lot, she stepped into the Main Street Crown, to browse. She hadn’t read a book in months, save for that ludicrous tome about haunted mansions. A good romance would be nice, something hot. She picked several titles off the rack, and smiled when she turned and noticed the occult/new age section right behind her. The Complete Compendium of Demons, the title of the big glossy-black hardcover jumped out at her. By Richard Long! she noted, the same guy who wrote the haunted mansion book! Vera couldn’t resist. I simply must buy this for Donna, she decided. She’ll definitely get a kick out of it.
After she bought the books, she considered stopping into The Undercroft for lunch, but then thought better of it. No doubt she’d run into people she knew, who would all ask questions about where she’d gone, and why. That part of her life was over, so why bother? I live somewhere else now, she thought, and got back into the car. My life is somewhere else…
Goodbye, city.
She drove back up Main, to catch Route 50 off the Circle. She slowed but wasn’t quite sure why. The streets were relatively empty, rows of shops shunned by the cold. A thin woman rushed across the street at the light, dressed in old jeans and a shale-colored overcoat. A stiff wind disheveled her short blond hair. Then, at the opposing sidewalk, she turned, obviously taking note of Vera’s shiny Lamborghini.
Then she walked on.
Vera stared dumbly ahead; at first she couldn’t imagine why. But when her subconscious finally clicked, she stomped the gas.
The blond woman was just turning at the Circle. Vera idled past the Old Post Office, lowering the power passenger window.
Don’t make an idiot of yourself, she fretted. Are you sure it’s who you think it is?
She was definitely sure when the blond woman, no doubt noticing that she was being followed by a brand-new two hundred thousand dollar car, stopped at the next corner and leaned over to look.
It’s her!
However faint, Vera recognized the telltale tattoo: the creepy green southern cross needled into the hollow of the blond woman’s throat. This was one of the women Paul was with that night.
“Excuse me,” Vera raised her voice. “I’d like to talk to you.”
The woman’s eyes thinned, and she smiled just as thinly. She got into the car, and seemed awed when the door lowered by itself.
“What a great ride,” she commented, then, oddly, she asked, “Are you a cop?”
Vera winced. “Of course not. I don’t know many cops who drive Lamborghinis.”
“Yeah, I guess you’re right,” the woman chuckled. She pushed her hair out of her eyes and briskly rubbed her hands together. “So, I guess you know the score. Guys, girls, it don’t matter to me as long as the money’s right.”
“What?” Vera asked before really thinking.
The blonde lit a cigarette, spewing smoke as she continued. “You want to get it on, right? Fifty bucks for a half-hour, a hundred for an hour and a half. And I’ll do anything you want. But you also gotta spring for the room, unless you want me to do you in the car.” She chuckled again. “I’ve never eaten pussy in a Lamborghini. That might be kinda neat.”
Oh my God, Vera finally realized. She thinks I want to…“No, no, you don’t understand. I just want to talk.”
The blonde shrugged. “I’ll talk as dirty as you want, I’ll make you soak right through to the seat, but I have to see some green first.”
Vera was mortified. “I just want to talk to you, you know, just talk. Don’t you remember me? A couple of months ago? Paul Foster? Westwind Apartments? You and some redhead—”
“Oooooh, yeah,” the blonde slowly acknowledged with a nod. “You’re the chick who walked in on us. What, you’re his girlfriend?”
I thought you were his girlfriend now, Vera thought, puzzled. “I was his fiancé, until you and your red-haired friend got hold of him.”
“Oh, now I get it. Well, don’t think about starting any shit with me. None of that was my doing.”
Vera’s scowl felt hot. “Whatever it was you weren’t doing, you sure as hell seemed to be enjoying it at the time.”
“Look, honey, a trick’s a trick. I don’t ask questions when the money’s on the table.”
This was even worse than what she’d always thought. “You mean Paul paid you for sex?” The idea crushed her, it made her feel suddenly more inadequate than she’d ever felt in her life. Was I that bad? Was I so lousy a lover that he had to go out and solicit prostitutes?
“Not the guy,” the blonde said. “The trannie.”
“The what?”
The blonde’s chuckle darkened. “The redhead. You know, the girl with the cock.”
The transexual. Vera began to understand less and less with this conversation; she pulled in front of the first available meter on West Street and parked, her sensibilities in knots. “I still don’t understand. You mean—”
“Hang on, all right?” insisted the blonde. She scratched absently at the cross tattoo. “A person like me, you know, whether I’m fucking or eating pussy or just talking, it’s all the same. It’s time. And you know what they say about time, don’t you?”
Yeah, time is money. What a bitch! Vera passed the woman a couple of twenties. “Now, explain to me. You’re saying it wasn’t Paul who paid you, but the redhead?”
“That’s right,” answered the blonde, who quickly slipped the cash into a pocket. “I was trying to hustle down off Clay Street and she walks up. She said she wanted me to help her with something, and right off the bat she
offers me a grand.”
“A thousand dollars!” Vera outraged. “For what?”
“She told me there was some newspaper writer named Paul she wanted to fuck with.”
“But why?”
The blonde shrugged. “I don’t know, and I didn’t ask. When someone drops a grand in your lap, you don’t ask questions.”
Vera’s mind swam in all this confusion. “Well let me ask you something. Is Paul still seeing this—” Vera gulped. “—this trannie?”
“I don’t know, but I doubt it. She didn’t seem interested in him at all once we were done. I figured it was just some guy she wanted to fuck over for some reason.”
But what was the reason? Vera wondered.
“This is how it went,” the blonde went on. “She gives me a grand to play along. Wants to put the make on this writer guy who’s gonna be at the bar that night. Just wants me to pretend I’ve heard of him and act interested. She also says there’ll be plenty of free blow.”
“Cocaine,” Vera muttered to herself.
“Naw, this stuff wasn’t coke, but whatever it was it was really top. One line and I was flying, and the stuff made me hornier than all of the Kennedys wrapped up into one. I’m telling you, just one toot and I didn’t give a shit about anything except getting it on. I didn’t even know who I was while I was on the shit.”
Vera paused. Paul had said essentially the same thing.
“It was probably some new designer dope, wish I could get my hands on more,” the blonde said. “Anyway, back to the story. Me and the redhead go to the bar and sure enough, there’s this Paul guy sitting there by himself. So we start talking, drinking, and all that, and after a while we put the make on him.”
The knots of Vera’s confusion tightened maddeningly. All right, the girls put the make on him, she thought. But that was still no excuse, was it? “And he obviously went along with it.”
The blonde lit another cigarette, glancing at her watch. “No, actually he didn’t. I mean, me and the trannie were working this guy over pretty good, but he wasn’t biting. Said he was engaged, he just wanted to talk to people, wasn’t interested in any partying.”
This, too, made even less sense. It infuriated Vera. “Yeah, well he must’ve changed his mind real fast, because what I saw going on on the bed looked like one hell of a party.”
“You got that right. But let me tell you how it happened. It was the trannie. This guy Paul wasn’t going for it, says he wants to be faithful to his fiancé or some shit. So the guy gets up to take a piss, and the trannie says to me “After I hit him with some of this, he’ll forget all about his fucking fiancé.”
Vera felt numb. “I still don’t understand,” she croaked, but part of her thought she was beginning to.
“The trannie spiked his drink,” the blonde said.
“You mean—”
“That’s right. While he was taking a piss, she put some of that blow into his beer, and after that he did anything we told him to do.”
— | — | —
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
“Vera, you’re being ridiculous,” Donna attested.
Vera sat nervously on the edge of Donna’s bed; she was biting her nails. “It’s not ridiculous,” she insisted between bites. “My God, I think I’ve made a terrible mistake.”
Donna fussed with her hair in the mirror as she continued to tear Vera’s fears apart. “You’re too impressionable. It’s too far-fetched to even consider, and you know it.”
“Donna, everything Paul said was verified by the blonde. Every last detail! Sure, I thought it was bullshit too when Paul said it, but the blonde?”
Donna’s reflection frowned back. “Listen to what you’re saying, Vera. Just because Paul and some street junkie had the same story doesn’t mean it’s true. Look at the sources, for God’s sake. Paul obviously instructed the blonde to tell you the same shit he told you at the apartment.”
“Oh, that’s impossible. How could Paul have known I’d see the blonde on the street? He didn’t know I was going downtown after I left.”
“Vera, you’re being so naive I can’t believe it. Paul and the hooker probably followed you, then he dropped her off at a corner he knew you’d have to pass to leave town. He knew you’d see her, he knew you’d remember her, and he knew you’d stop and ask her about what happened that night. Then she took it from there. You’re letting these people make a fool of you. Christ, you were supposed to tell Paul off to get him out of your system, and now look what’s happened. You’re worse off than before you went.” Donna, next, began to change lace bras in the mirror, appraising each one. What she wore down below were scarlet panties of the edible variety. “Look, I know how things can be sometimes. When you’re with someone for two years, it’s hard to let go. But you’re believing what you want to believe, Vera. That’s not going to do you any good at all. Paul cheated on you with a couple of dope-addict whores.”
Vera meandered forward, as if to make an enfeebled plea. “But he wasn’t really himself,” she attempted without much conviction. “The blonde verified it—they coerced him. They put—”
Donna sighed heavily. “The big bad prostitutes put evil drugs in poor little innocent Paulie’s beer, and the drugs just made him so confused that he couldn’t be responsible for his actions.” Donna tapped her foot, a hand on her hip. “If you believe a load of crap like that, you’re the most gullible person to ever live.”
Vera sat back down, eyes locked to the floor. “Well, I guess it is a little far-fetched.”
“A little far-fetched? Don’t make me laugh. It’s big-time primo garbage, Vera. Paul’s so full of shit he probably uses a toilet brush to clean his ears.”
Donna refaced the dressing mirror to effect some last-minute adjustments to her attire. The scarlet edible panties made for a unique clash with the black four-inch high heels and black garters, while the fishnet stockings matched perfectly with the fishnet brassiere she finally decided on. Then she pinned her hair tightly behind her head.
“Getting ready for Dan B., huh?” Vera presumed.
“Yes, and don’t change the subject. You need to get over him, Vera, and you need to do it soon. You’re letting him and his bullshit get under your skin; you’re playing right into his hands. You have to forget about him, you have to write him off. I mean, look at how he treated you. This guy’s got you so confused you’re actually thinking about forgiving him, aren’t you?”
Vera felt cornered. Was it true? “Well—”
“Well forget it,” Donna stated, misting herself with Red Door. “Is that the kind of guy you want? Someone you can never trust?”
“No,” Vera admitted.
“You deserve a lot better.”
Vera thought about that. Do I? she asked herself in remorse. Maybe I don’t deserve anything.
“All good things take time,” Donna tritely offered. “That’s cold comfort but it’s the truth. Give yourself a chance, girl; don’t mope over that dickbrain Paul. Be patient and eventually you’ll find the kind of man you really want.”
Everything Donna said, of course, made perfect sense. So what’s wrong? she wondered. Why am I so bent out of shape?
It was probably a combination of things: moving to a new place, working for a new boss, new responsibilities. Not to mention that I’m almost thirty and I haven’t had sex in months. Yes, that might have something to do with her shuffled conceptions. But had she really been thinking about giving Paul another chance? Was she that foolish to consider his story? It does sound ridiculous now, she agreed. Donna’s right. I was believing what I wanted to believe.
“And since we’re sort of on the topic of good things that take time, Dan B.’ll be off shift in a few minutes,” Donna politely urged the point. “So would you like, you know—”
“I’m leaving,” Vera said. “Have fun, but remember, don’t wear your husband out. We have twenty-five reservations tomorrow night.”
Donna grinned. “Well, in that case, I guess I can t
ake it easy on him.”
“See you tomorrow.”
“Good night. Oh, and Vera, anytime you want to talk, I’m here.”
“Thanks, Donna.”
It was past midnight. Vera headed toward her suite, so weary her head felt light. The Inn seemed draped in silence and cozy, muffled warmth. It isolated her…
In her room, she poured herself a drink, took a long bath, and hoped that relaxing would sort out her feelings. Then, in bed, she opened one of the romance novels, but just couldn’t get into it. I’m bored shitless, she glumly realized. She turned out the light. I’m over the hill, unfulfilled, insecure, confused. I’ve got nothing going on in my life, and I’m so bored I could scream!
It was an interesting outburst of self-disclosure. She curled up beneath the plush down comforter. She longed for sleep but she knew it wasn’t just her fatigue. When she was asleep, she dreamed, and lately it was beginning to seem that dreams were her only real excitement. When she dreamed, there were no confusions, no stress, no Paul, no contemplations. There was only her fantasy, and the heady bliss that always followed.
Minutes later she was asleep.
Dreaming.
««—»»
Dreaming, Donna assured herself.
She must be. She didn’t know where she was, but she knew what she was doing.
She was drinking.
Yes, it’s just a dream. There was no way she’d ever go back to the bottle; those days would always be the ugliest bruise on her spirit. The Scotch tasted exquisite. Just like the old days, she thought in the dream, because it was a dream.
She knew it was.
It had to be.
Yes. Just a dream…
Bladelike heat fluttered in her belly; the loveliest sensations rose gently to her head. She took another sip, carrying the bottle along with her. But where am I going? The dreams were always like this, as cryptic as they were dark. Equally, she never cared. She felt safe in the dreams. So she’d merely walk on, sipping the aromatic liquor, and let the dream take her away…