by Elaine Fox
He stopped himself short, nearly biting his tongue in the process.
“I know judges can’t really be bought,” he amended swiftly.
Marcy let loose a hearty scoff. “Yeah, right. Tell me you’re not that naïve, Fleming.”
He smiled. “Just trying to respect your profession. We all know judges are just lawyers in dark robes.”
They finished the pitcher, along with three more games of pool, in which Marcy cleaned his clock. He had to admit, he was embarrassed the first game and wished he hadn’t talked so arrogantly before they started. But he was impressed and would bet the way she played, she’d beat anyone in the place.
“How ’bout one more pitcher?” Tru asked, holding up the empty plastic jug. “One last game and—”
“No, no.” Marcy waved a hand in front of her face. “No way. I’ve got to go. All I’ve had tonight are those damn wings and a pitcher of beer. I’ve got to get home and get some sleep.”
“Good idea,” Truman said. “I’ll come with you.”
He was glad to see she was relaxed enough to laugh at the joke.
He’d enjoyed watching her strut around the table after each shot, her fine black eyes studying the arrangement of balls like a general studying troop movements. She knew what she was doing, and she did it confidently. The best part was when she took her shot, however. Aside from the spectacular view of her backside this afforded, she would pull her thick hair around to one side and reveal a pale column of neck he happened to know was quite soft and fragrant.
Every finger remembered how she’d felt that night in her apartment. And every nerve in his body wanted to go back and do it again.
Unfortunately, common sense told him that not only would she reject it, but that trying it would ruin any small chance there was she might change her mind about him after all. And he really wanted her to change her mind about him. Try though he might, he couldn’t rid himself of the feeling that Marcy was someone he should hold on to.
She was unlike anyone he’d ever met.
“All right, we’ll go, then.” He flagged down the waitress and got out his wallet.
Marcy reached for her purse.
“No, no,” he said. “I owe you. I lost every damn game.”
She smiled with such childish satisfaction he had to laugh.
They walked toward the door.
“Where’d you park?” he asked.
She stepped out the door and gestured to her left. “I’m this way. Blocking an alley on Sixth.”
“Let’s hope you’re still blocking it. Come on, I’ll walk you.”
To his surprise, she didn’t protest this. Then again, she was a smart woman, and most smart women in this town didn’t turn down an escort after dark. It was just common sense.
They walked down city streets now quiet, and he heard Marcy inhale deeply of the fresh night air.
“Smells good, doesn’t it?” he asked.
“I love it. It’s my favorite time of year.” She laughed softly, a sound that made him smile. “I had the thought on the way over here that I should have told you I’d meet you at Sugarloaf. We could’ve hiked through the woods and discussed Arthur and the case and everything there.”
He smiled in the dark. “Well, the hike sounds good. We should do that sometime.”
They walked a few yards in silence.
“You know,” Truman mused, “I often think about moving to the country. Some small town somewhere. I’d like to live where you can get to know your neighbors. Where you greet the postman by name, run into friends in the grocery store. You know what I mean?”
Marcy was quiet so long he thought maybe she hadn’t heard him, which was ridiculous. He looked down at her, saw the look of concentration on her face.
“I’ve never lived anywhere but a city,” she said finally. “Or a suburb that was too much like the city. I wonder if a small town would feel claustrophobic.”
Truman shook his head. “Not to me. It’s the city that’s claustrophobic. All these millions of people, all trying so hard to ignore each other, or get ahead of each other in line, or shoot each other for having something the other doesn’t have. No, I think a small town would just feel…manageable. Personal.”
“Personal…” she repeated softly, then tripped on an uneven sidewalk square. He reached out to steady her and her hand clutched at his for a moment, then abruptly let go.
They reached her car and turned toward each other.
“This was fun, Truman,” she said, looking up into his face with a contented expression. “Thank you for inviting me here. And thank you for talking to Guido.”
“You’re welcome.” His hands itched to take her in his arms.
“You really think he’ll leave me alone now?”
He nodded. “Yeah, he wasn’t really up to much anyway, though I wouldn’t completely let my guard down, if I were you.”
She looked nervous, gazing down the street, her fingers pulling at a zipper tassel on her purse.
“He’s harmless, Marcy,” he said, touching her forearm.
She looked up at him again and he slid his hand to her wrist.
As if they’d agreed upon it earlier, they came together at the exact same moment. Truman’s hand drew her close and her arm slid up and around his neck. His lips caught hers, and with a wave a pleasure he felt her body meet his.
Gentle and pliant, she melded into him, sweeping over him like a disorienting cloud, spiraling his senses and dizzying his self-control.
He ran one hand up her back to tangle in the length of her hair. His other arm pulled at her lower back, fusing them closer at the hips. Together they moved so she was leaning against the car, his hips pressing into hers and hers pushing up to meet them.
His blood heated instantly to boiling as his hands felt the supple grace of her body through her clothes. He ran his palms up her sides, their mouths still searching, entangled, their breathing out of control.
Around them the block of rowhouses slumbered. A low breeze rustled through the crisp autumn leaves on the trees and ruffled their hair.
They broke apart suddenly, Marcy gasping for air. But Tru didn’t want the moment to end. He trailed his lips down her neck, along the very place he’d been coveting all night. She tilted her head back.
He ran a hand around to her breast and she inhaled sharply. But the way her hands kneaded his back told him she didn’t want him to stop.
He wanted to take her right here and now and could barely contain himself.
He trailed his tongue along a place just behind her right ear and she gasped softly. “Oh God. We can’t do this again.”
But she didn’t push him away. His heart slammed against his ribcage. “Marcy, why don’t you turn off that brain of yours and start listening to your heart for once. Don’t you want…this?” He kissed her again below the ear and ran his hands down her sides.
He felt her pause, then nod.
“My place isn’t far.”
She nodded again. They parted, breathing as if they’d just run a race, and Marcy fumbled for her keys. Finally pulling them out of her purse, she hit the button, and the doorlocks released.
Truman opened the door but watched as Marcy walked around to her side. He prayed to God she wasn’t changing her mind. But if her blood was racing anything like his, changing her mind was virtually impossible.
She got in the car and so did he. They closed the doors simultaneously and fell into another kiss.
Finally, Marcy pulled back and started the car. Then, with what seemed to Truman like excruciating slowness, she drove to his apartment.
11
Saturday, October 26
WORD-A-DAY!
EISEGESIS: n., interpretation of a text based on reading into it one’s own predjudices; a technique that rarely yields accurate results
It was after midnight when they practically fell into Truman’s apartment. Hands grabbed at clothing, their own and each other’s, tearing it off and tossing it to the gr
ound. Folly leapt around them like a whirling dervish until Truman closed the bedroom door on her, this time with the dog on the outside of the room.
He didn’t turn on any lights, but once inside his bedroom, he lifted her into his arms and placed her gently on the bed.
“Truman,” she whispered. “What are we—”
“Shhhh,” he countered, lying beside her and pushing her hair from the side of her face. She was silky everywhere, a symphony of tactile pleasures. Velvety, satiny, luscious, and smooth, like a dessert so rich you want to take tiny bites, but you can’t stop from taking mouthfuls.
“But we can’t—”
He kissed her deeply, and her fingers plunged into his hair, holding his head as her mouth explored his. He would have stopped, he honestly would have stopped, if he’d thought her words were anything other than an obligatory utterance. But every fiber of his being felt her reaching out for him, and he knew as surely as he knew it was nighttime that she wanted him.
He reached down with one hand and lifted her sweater. They parted long enough for him to pull it over her head. Moving his mouth down to her breasts, he snaked a hand around her back and released her bra, pulled the straps down her arms, then tossed it aside. His mouth took her nipple and she arched beneath him.
“Oh,” she breathed. “Truman. I’ve never—never felt…”
He reached for the button of her jeans, but she stopped him with a hand. He rose up on one elbow, flushed and unsure, willing himself to stop if she’d changed her mind, but she undid the button herself.
Relief coursed through him. He hadn’t read her wrong. In fact, at this moment, he felt as if he couldn’t read her wrong. They were too connected. This was too meant to be.
Truman knelt above her and undid his own jeans. They came together skin-to-skin at last with a fervor Truman had never experienced before. He felt an urgency, an insatiable hunger, that would not be denied.
His fingers moved down her stomach and into her most private place, searching. She was more than ready for him, but when he found that one area she seemed to heat up in his hands. With a low moan she guided him to the exact place, and after that whatever reservations she might have harbored obviously disappeared. She arched into his caress and called out his name. He could feel her trembling beneath his touch and a wave of emotion threatened to overwhelm him. She was his, he thought then, with as much clarity as if she’d said the words. And he was hers. This was no ordinary passion. This was fate.
Just when he thought he would burst, he rose over her. She reached down and enveloped his hardness. Stroking him upward, she bit lightly at his bottom lip, her breath coursing between them as she came down from her climax. Truman knew he couldn’t last much longer.
“Let me inside you,” he whispered, kissing her again.
She smiled against his mouth. “Yes.”
He slid effortlessly into her, his skin exploding with chills of pleasure as he did. Though he would not have believed it possible, this time was even more powerful than the last. She met him pump for pump, her hand working magic around his manhood at the same time, while the other clutched his shoulder as if for dear life.
Truman’s blood pounded through his veins. He heard nothing but her breathing, her gasps of pleasure, her impassioned pleading with him to never stop, never let go, never leave her.
He took her roughly, deeply, and came with a visceral groan. He felt on fire, and yet sated on a level so deep he wondered briefly if he had died. When he rolled to one side, she curled into him, warming him again, in a way that their entire night of passion had not.
With a smile on his lips, Truman fell asleep.
This time, it was Marcy who left Truman before the sun had a chance to come up. But it wasn’t because she needed to get away from him and it wasn’t because she thought she’d made another mistake. Not necessarily. No, it was because she needed to get ahold of herself, needed to examine the powerful, intimidating feelings that arose every time she was with Truman.
She needed to figure out exactly how much trouble she was in, emotionally.
She drove slowly through the city streets, her thoughts swirling like the tornado in The Wizard of Oz. Only instead of pictures of Toto and the wicked witch on her bicycle appearing out of the torrent, it was Truman Fleming. Then Win Downey. Then herself, tearing her hair out in indecision.
What was she doing?
She parked her car and walked heavily up the steps to the homeless shelter. The doors weren’t open, so she sat on the stoop, her head in her hands. Moments later she heard a voice.
“Marcy?”
She raised her head and turned to look behind her.
Calvin stood in the doorway of the shelter wearing a sweatshirt and pajama bottoms. His eyes squinted into the early morning sun. He bent to pick up the newspaper that was donated to the shelter by a retired journalist for the Post.
Marcy got slowly to her feet. “Hi, Calvin.” She mustered a smile.
“Well, hello. What’re you doing here at this hour?” He looked at his wrist, noticed he hadn’t put on his watch yet, and chuckled. “It’s early, I know that.”
“Yeah. It’s about six.” She sighed. “That’s why I was waiting out here. I didn’t want to wake anyone.”
That, and I was contemplating the demise of my career, my common sense, my spine…
“Well, come on in.” He waved her forward with an arm that he put around her shoulders as she reached the top of the steps. “I’ll make you a cup of coffee.”
“Coffee?” she whimpered. “Oh, thank God.”
Calvin laughed. “Now, call me crazy, but I get the feeling something is wrong.”
Marcy looked at him, fatigue making every limb weigh a thousand pounds, and thought there was no way on God’s green earth she would lay her problem at Calvin’s feet. For God’s sake, the man had buried his wife six months ago. He’d since lost his home and his business, and now was living in a homeless shelter.
All she’d done was sleep with the wrong guy at the wrong time. In the wrong place. For the wrong reasons. Twice.
“No, I’m just tired. But actually,” she said, forcibly brightening, “something is right. Really right. I’ve got some news for you.”
They walked down the shelter’s hallway. Above them Marcy could hear a crying child, toilets flushing, what might be an argument, or at least a loud conversation, between two men.
“News? Don’t tell me, you’ve finally found Mr. Right!”
She shot him a look and he grinned down at her. They got to the kitchen door and Calvin gestured for her to precede him. She walked in and dropped her purse on the stainless steel counter.
“Actually,” she said, “I’m afraid to say anything about that just yet.”
“Well! That sounds interesting.”
Marcy sat down on a chrome stool. Her sweater smelled like smoke from the pool hall and her hair felt heavy on her head. She needed to take a shower. She needed a lobotomy.
“Interesting, maybe. Understandable, no. No, my news is about you, Mr. Deeds.” She smiled at him, excitement about what she had to say penetrating her haze of confusion.
He looked at her with something less than enthusiasm. In fact, one could almost call the look wary.
“Okay,” she grinned, changing tacks. “Clearly my spin isn’t going to wash with you. The fact of the matter is the firm is kind of in a bind.”
“The firm? Your law firm?” he asked, obviously at a loss as to what he could have to do with that.
“Yes. You see, we’re having a pretty important party. A sort of attorney-client happy hour. It’s a real goodwill thing; we do it every year. But the firm has some very important contacts it invites, so the food has got to be top notch.” She took a deep breath. “Unfortunately, the caterer my assistant hired months ago canceled. Yesterday. And the party’s only ten days away.”
He looked at her skeptically. “And you want me…”
“You would be doing me a huge favor if you
’d consider catering the bash for us. It’s a hundred and fifty people, so cold-cut platters from the grocery store just won’t do. Neither will the pigs in blankets Jan and I briefly considered cooking.”
“Pigs in blankets,” Calvin scoffed vaguely.
Marcy smiled inwardly. Junk food had always offended his culinary sensibilities.
“Besides, anything less than the best would make us look very bad.” She looked at him pathetically.
“But Marcy…” He held a hand out helplessly, then let it fall to the counter in front of him. “I don’t have the resources. I’d need to get food—”
“Oh, there’s an enormous budget for the thing. You’d be well paid, especially since you’d be helping us out on such short notice.”
He shook his head as he looked out the window onto a scene of Dumpsters in the alley. “But I’d need assistants—”
“What about the assistant chefs, or whatever you call them, from your restaurant? The budget would easily allow you to hire a few people.”
“Servers—”
“Same budget. Calvin, it’s short notice, but if you can find people available, the firm will pay. They simply can’t go without food at this thing.”
Calvin turned, folding his arms across his chest, his expression considering. “Well, if you really need someone…”
“Oh God, need isn’t even the word. We’re desperate. Jan, my assistant, called dozens of caterers yesterday and none of them would do it.”
He nodded, his mind obviously calculating what such an event would take. “They like any sort of food in particular?”
“Hors d’oeuvres, finger food, shrimp, caviar, that sort of thing. How about I give you a card for the girl who’s setting the thing up? She can give you all the details.” Marcy fished her wallet out of her purse and grabbed one of her business cards. “It’s the same as the firm number but here’s her extension. Her name is Jan.” She scribbled a number at the bottom of the card. “And here’s what you’ll be paid. Tell her that’s what we agreed on.”
She handed the card to Calvin, who looked at it carefully, seeming to study the dollar amount at the bottom, probably calculating food and service costs automatically.