“Megan!” He looked at the doorway. “That rental agent could walk in any moment.”
“She won’t,” Megan said. She dug her hands under the waist band of his underwear and with one swift motion lowered it and his pants down to his knees.
“Megan!” he cried, laughing. “What are you doing?”
“You oughta know by now,” she said, looking up at him.
“This is crazy,” he said, looking toward the door. “And in a small town, too. We’ll be ruined before we even begin,” he warned.
But she wasn’t hesitating. He was aroused, the tip of her tongue toying with him. He felt himself weaken and sink slowly to the floor.
“It’s more fun when it’s impulsive, spontaneous, Aaron. I’ve been telling you that for years, and finally . . . finally, you’re hearing me,” she said.
They made love with such passion on that carpet that he had skin burns on his rear end. Her kisses werelong, demanding, making him feel he was being absorbed into her at times. The more she enjoyed him, the more he wanted to please her. She did make him feel like a wonderful lover, and that was good for his ego, especially now, especially after what he had suffered.
Afterward, he pulled himself back and sat against the wall catching his breath. She was still lying facedown.
“My heart’s pounding like a jackhammer,” he said. “I hope that’s all right.”
“It’s fine, Aaron. The doctor would have warned us about it if that was necessary,” she said. “Besides, she told you your heart was fine.”
She started to pull up her jeans when suddenly her hair changed right before his eyes. She was a light brunette, blonde, with hair down to her shoulders, and when she turned and looked up at him, her face was rounder, her eyes a hazel brown, and her chin was cleft.
“Megan?” he said.
Her hair returned, her face following. He shook his head.
“What is it now, Aaron?”
“I . . . you were different for a moment.”
“Different?”
“A whole different face, a different person.”
“Damn it, Aaron.” She looked furious enough to claw him like a wild cat.
“I can’t help it. I don’t want it to happen. It happens.”
“Ignore it,” she commanded. “See me. See only me.” She seized his wrist so quickly and so hard, itfrightened him. And then she looked him directly in the face, her eyes small, intense. “Megan, see only Megan. I love you. Do you hear me?”
“Yes,” he said. He tried to swallow, but he couldn’t for a moment. “Sorry,” he said. “I’m all right now. I’m okay. Wow.” He took a deep breath. “I guess an adulterous affair is out of the question,” he quipped to lighten the moment. She didn’t laugh, but before he could say another word, they both heard the sound of footsteps and rose quickly to their feet.
“Damn it, she’s here,” he said, pulling up his zipper just as Mrs. Bell entered, smiling.
“So?” the forty-five-year-old rental agent said. “How is it?”
“Aaron?” Megan said with a wry smile. “Tell her how it is.”
“What? Oh. It’s fine, Mrs. Bell, perfect,” he said, brushing his hair back with his hands. He looked at Megan, who widened her eyes in expectation. “We’ll take it,” he said.
“Of course you will. How nice,” Mrs. Bell replied. “I’ll have the lease ready for you to sign in the morning. Welcome to Driftwood, Mr. Clifford. I know you’ll do your best work here.”
“You want to go look for furniture, or are you tired?” Megan quickly asked him. “We have about an hour before Sophie comes home.”
“Fodder’s is having a sale on office furniture this week,” Mrs. Bell told them.
“Are they? How fortuitous,” Megan declared. She looked at Aaron.
Suddenly he was feeling like someone who hadfoolishly stepped out into a hurricane and was being carried off in the wind.
“Aaron?”
“No harm in taking a quick look,” he muttered.
“Thank you, Mrs. Bell,” Megan said and hooked her arm through his to lead him out.
She kissed him on the cheek as soon as they were on the sidewalk.
“I’m so happy,” she said.
They got into the car and she started the engine.
“I feel silly asking this,” he began, “but how are we fixed for money? I can’t even remember where we bank.”
“We bank here now, Aaron. All our funds have been moved to the Driftwood National. Our private banker is Teresa Krepski. In fact, you’ve got to go in with me and complete the signature cards for our checking account and stuff. We’re fixed fine. I told you about our profit on the old house, and despite old man Clovis’s penurious ways, you made a good salary working at his firm building our net worth close to a half million. It took a threat from you, urged on by me, I have to say, for him to give you the raise you deserved last year, and the bonus for the new clients you brought in with your work. Not appreciated enough,” she added, wagging her head. “This is the best move you could make.”
“I see,” he said.
“When we get home, I’ll show you all our account balances, our portfolio, everything, all right? I want you to feel secure, Aaron. I know how important that is for a man,” she said.
“For a man? For anyone,” he corrected.
“Of course,” she said, laughing. “For anyone.”
They crossed town and went about a half a mile out to Fodder’s furniture store. Mrs. Fodder, a woman in her early sixties with very vibrant gray hair and a pair of jeweled framed glasses on a gold chain, came out of her office to take care of them herself. The designer suit she wore complimented her trim figure.
“Hello. Welcome to Fodder’s. You’re one of the new young women working for Mrs. Masters, aren’t you?” she immediately asked Megan.
“Yes,” Megan said proudly.
“How did you know that?” Aaron asked her.
“Oh, just the gossip. This is a small town, Mr. . . . “ She made it sound as if she was testing him.
“Clifford.”
“Right, Clifford. Well, Mr. Clifford, we don’t have much to do all day but talk about each other. But,” she added, “it’s generally not malicious.”
Megan laughed.
Aaron saw a man behind the glass wall working at a desk. He glanced up at them and then back at his papers as if he was afraid he’d be caught doing it. He looked to be about Mrs. Fodder’s age.
“My husband has decided to set up shop here,” Megan said. “We’re taking the property on Corin Street.”
“Oh, yes. Very nice. Recently refurbished, as I recall.”
“Aaron is an architect,” Megan continued. “We’ll need everything . . . drafting tables, desks, chairs, lobby furnishings, lamps.”
“Of course. I have a beautiful office package over here,” Mrs. Fodder told them and indicated down left. Megan took Aaron’s hand and they followed her. Less than an hour later they had chosen most of what he would need. The feeling that he was caught in a whirlwind was much stronger.
“By this time next week,” Megan said, “you’ll be working for yourself in your own offices, Aaron,” she told him as they left the furniture store.
“Don’t you think we’re moving a little too quickly?” he asked her.
“Of course not, Aaron. We have a lot to do here. Why waste any time? If your medical problem should have taught you anything,” she continued, “it should have taught you how valuable every minute is, honey.”
He nodded.
Yes, that made sense, he thought.
“Let’s get home before Sophie,” she said. “You know something, Aaron,” she said, turning to him when they got into the car, “I think this is the first time ever that you’ll be there, too, when she returns from school. You just can’t describe what she looks like coming off that bus and running up the walk, so full of excitement and the need to tell us everything that happened and everything she did.”
He s
miled.
“I guess we never know how much we’ve missed until we get the chance to see it for ourselves,” he said.
“That’s exactly it, Aaron. You’re beginning to understand just how wonderful all this will be. See what I meant by enjoying you more now? I didn’t mean I wanted you to suffer or be sick. I meant Iwanted you to be yourself, be all you could be to us and to yourself.
“And that,” she concluded, “is what’s happening.”
She drove off, a smile set in her face like a sculpture in glass.
“I guess the next thing I’d better do is call Mr. Clovis to tell him my decision, huh?” he asked her.
She nodded.
“Funny,” he said, thinking aloud, “I can’t even remember the sound of his voice.”
“Oh, you will. When you tell him, you’ll recall that voice, I’m sure. He’ll be gagging on his own tongue,” she predicted and laughed, a cold, thin laugh, a laugh unlike any he had heard before, a laugh that would more properly be described as a laugh of revenge.
What had Clovis done to her? Aaron wondered.
When they arrived at the house, she immediately reminded him to take his pill. He hadn’t forgotten. He was about to do it.
“You don’t have to worry about my immediate memory,” he said.
“Don’t try to stop me from making sure you’re going to be all right, Aaron Clifford,” she retorted. “A wife has a right to be a nag when it comes to what’s best for her husband.” She looked braced for a fight over it.
“Okay, okay,” he said, laughing.
He went to his office to phone Clovis. One of his business cards was right on his desk, waiting for him. He wondered if he had left it there himself. Megan stood in the doorway, sipping from a glass of water, watching.
“You put this here?” he asked, holding up the card.
“No,” she said.
He knitted his eyebrows and then shrugged and tapped out the number. The receptionist answered and he identified himself.
“Oh, yes, Mr. Clifford,” she said. “This is Maggie. One moment.”
Megan shifted in the doorway and peered at him over her glass as she sipped some more.
“Aaron,” he heard Clovis say in a gruff, loud voice, “glad you called. Why the hell do you need a whole week out there? You don’t have to do it all at once. You should come back to work tomorrow.”
“Actually, Mr. Clovis, I’m calling because I’ve had some medical problems.”
“What? What the hell is this now? You’re in perfect health, Aaron.”
“Something snuck up on me, Mr. Clovis. I’ve been diagnosed as having had a CVA.”
“What? What the hell is that, some Yuppie disease?”
“Hardly . . . Anyway, it’s affected my memory. I’m afraid I’m not coming back to work.”
“Not coming back? For how long?”
“Forever, Mr. Clovis. I’m relocating completely out here. The illness has served as an alarm, a bell ringer, and . . .”
“You ungrateful son of a bitch. I know what you’re doing. You’re trying to get more money out of me.”
“No, that’s not so.”
“Fine,” Clovis said. “Stay out there.”
Aaron heard the click. He held the receiver for a moment, and then he set it down slowly.
“What?” Megan said.
“He hung up on me before I could do any explaining. He made me feel like I was lying to him.”
“Good,” she said. “Saved you the trouble of hanging up on him. See what I meant about him? You’ve made the right decision.”
“What about my things?” he asked. “I must have a lot there.”
“Don’t worry about it, Aaron. I’ll see to all that.”
“You?”
“Remember the doctor’s warning, honey. Please. Don’t stress out over it. I said I’ll take care of it,” she emphasized.
“I can’t put all the burden on your shoulders,” he moaned.
“I won’t be alone. I’ll have Mrs. Masters’s help. She has friends in New York. Okay?”
“Yes, I suppose,” he said.
He felt a bit dazed suddenly.
“Mommy!” they heard. “Daddy!”
“She’s home,” Megan said. “C’mon. Forget about everything else for now. Enjoy your family,” she said firmly.
He nodded and rose to greet Sophie.
Why is it? he wondered as he did so, that everything sounds like an order?
. . . eight
mrs. Masters’s estate has to be the most impressive property in Driftwood, Aaron thought when the spired black cast-iron gate opened before them. For a good half an acre on both the north and south sides, an eight-foot-high stone wall ran along the road, making the property look forbidden, private, and special. Spaced just behind the walls were twenty twenty-fivefeet-high Colorado Pine trees, the tops of which loomed against the full moon sky like dedicated sentinels at full attention guarding the property against any form of intrusion.As soon as Megan and he had approached the entrance, the gate had begun to move.
“How come you didn’t have to call in or something?” he asked her.
“There’s a laser light reader built into the corner there,” she said, nodding to her right. “It picks up this small patch in our windshield.” She pointed to a blue window sticker barely two inches wide pasted in the driver’s side upper-left corner of their windshield.
“Oh,” he said, even though he didn’t see it. “It’s something like those fast checks at tollbooths.”
“Exactly, Aaron. High tech has come to the hinterlands, too,” she kidded. “Actually, Mrs. Masters has a very sophisticated sentry system utilizing laser lights, heat sensors, even radar. You’ll be impressed.”
“I’m impressed already. But I thought you said this was a very low crime area. Why the need for such state-of-the-art security?”
“Now, just think for a moment like a criminal, Aaron. If you came here to rob someone, who would you choose? What’s that story about the bank robber, Willie Sutton? He said he robbed banks because that’s where the money is. Well . . .” she said, holding her right hand out as they drove in and started up the drive that was lit with gas lamps, the flames flickering like torches, a good quarter of a mile up to the house. “Pretty easy to see this is where the money is.”
Along the way Aaron saw the elaborate statuary, replicating a variety of animals including lions and tigers, bears and wolves. Most of the pieces were kinetic, the animals depicted in the beginning or middle of some movement. As they drove on, Aaron thought the light played tricks with the shadows and the stone, giving him the illusion that the statues came to life for an instant and did indeed move and then freeze again.
The house, which Aaron thought was better called a mansion, was set at the top of the knoll. He recognized it immediately as a classic Greek revival.
“Wow, beautiful,” he remarked as they pulled into the parking area in front. “But this is so much more common in the South than here.”
“Mrs. Masters’s family is from the South. You’ll detect a slight Virginian accent,” Megan said. She turned off the engine and glanced once more at herself in the mirror on the sun visor, smoothing a strand of her hair and confirming her makeup.
“You look great,” he told her.
“Thank you, Aaron.”
She had chosen a form-fitting white nylon and Lycra dress accessed with a gold grape pendant necklace, and gold cuffs with Austrian crystals, which she claimed he had bought her for their last anniversary. He had no memory of it and none had been stimulated by the sight of the jewelry. The top of the dress was cut just at the crest of her shoulders. Her dark skin looked radiant and the lines of her neck were alluring. He had an urge to press his lips to that soft place where her shoulder turned into her neck. It made him feel like a vampire.
“What?” she said, seeing how he stared at her.
“You’re a very beautiful woman, Megan.”
“Why, thank you, Aar
on. That’s something you rarely did before.”
“What?
“Give me compliments. I was forever reminding you to tell me how I looked or even how much you loved me. You always came back with that stupid male rationalization.”
“Which was?”
“Why do I have to say it? It’s obvious. Nothing is ever obvious to a woman, Aaron. She needs constant reinforcement, reassurance. It’s our nature. We are really very fragile and delicate creatures.”
He laughed. “Right, delicate, and Grant’s not buried in Grant’s tomb. So, how do I look?”
“Very handsome, Aaron. When you dress up, you make me very proud.”
“Hmm,” he said. “That seems like something I should have said to you.”
“Another misnomer hits the dust. A woman, especially today’s woman, Aaron, is often proud of the way her man looks and is not afraid to say so. I helped you pick out that suit, you know.”
At her behest, he wore a dark blue three-piece suit she said he had worn only once when they had attended a charity function in Westport. It did seem brand new, as did his shoes.
They stepped out.
The great house had a central porch extending the full height of the mansion, but less than the full width. There were Doric columns.
“That’s interesting,” Aaron said, “the columns have no base.”
“So?”
“Distinguishes them as Greek revival as compared to Roman. Very authentic. Who designed this house for Mrs. Masters?”
“She did it herself. She loves architecture. That’s why she wanted to meet you and hopefully to talk you into working in Driftwood.”
“Beautiful, the trim, the cornices, elaborate attention to authentic detail,” he remarked, barely hearing what she had said.
Just like the gate, the front door opened as they stepped up before it. For a moment there was no onein the wide, beige breccia marble floor and entryway. They could hear the New Age music flowing from the room off right. They stepped in and Mrs. Masters appeared almost like an apparition in the hallway.
Aaron was shocked. He was expecting a woman at least in her sixties, elegant and classy. Mrs. Masters didn’t look all that much older than Megan and her friends. She was also far more beautiful and sexy than he had anticipated. Her eyes were green jade and electric. He felt seized in her gaze. Shoulder-length blazing red hair streamed down her neck and over her bare shoulders. She wore a clingy, black satin dress with folds in the bodice that fit snugly around her firm, full bosom. At the top of her cleavage rested an ovalshaped black sapphire on a gold chain. When she drew closer, he realized she was just an inch or so shorter than he was.
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