After Life

by Andrew Neiderman

  “I don’t know. Right now I can’t think too straight. I want to go home and take those aspirins and lie down. I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be sorry. I’m glad you were able to come along. And just think—if you hadn’t, you wouldn’t have run into Dr. Beezly and arranged for him to see you tomorrow.”

  “Wait a minute,” Jessie said. “If Marjorie doesn’t remember her accident, why wouldn’t she wonder why Dr. Beezly has come by to see her?”

  “I don’t know,” Tracy said, and then laughed. “I guess he comes by so often, she just accepts it. What else could it be?”

  “I don’t know.” Jessie’s head continued to spin. “I don’t know anything right now,” she added, “except I want to go home.”

  9

  The intercom buzzed in Lee’s office just as he came in from his last morning class. It was Henry Young’s secretary.

  “Mr. Overstreet, Mr. Young wants to know if you can meet with him after your regular basketball-team practice instead of at the end of the day,” she said.

  “He’ll be here that late?” Lee responded.

  “He has a meeting with the board of education’s building committee at the end of the day and he anticipates it will last at least that long. Do you think it will be all right?” she asked.

  He thought about it a moment. He didn’t like the idea of coming home late, especially because of Jessie’s state of mind these days, but he didn’t want to postpone this meeting with Henry much longer either. That would make her even more upset, he thought.

  “Okay. Tell him I’ll step up as soon as I shower and change,” he said. “If there’s any earlier opening…”

  “I’ll call you,” she promised.

  As soon as he turned off the intercom, he went to his telephone and dialed home, but Jessie didn’t answer. He let it ring nearly ten times before he recalled she was going with Tracy to visit Marjorie Young. Still, he thought, gazing at the clock, he would have expected her to be back by now. Maybe Tracy and she went someplace for coffee, he thought, and put it out of his mind.

  He was preoccupied with his new strategies for basketball practice anyway. He had decided to concentrate on the team’s behavior on the court. After they went through their basic drills, he began the scrimmage by telling them he wanted to get them to change priorities for the next few games.

  “We don’t worry about preventing the opponents from scoring points as much as we worry about fouls,” he lectured. “Here’s the deal—you get a foul called on you, you come out and sit ten minutes, just like hockey players who get put into the penalty box, understand?”

  “Hey, Coach,” Gilmore said, smirking, “what happens if so many of us get fouls in ten minutes that you don’t have enough substitutes?” He started to laugh, the others joining in with smug smiles.

  “So we’ll play with four players,” Lee said, shrugging. It wiped the smirks off their faces.

  “You’re kiddin’, Coach. You wouldn’t do that,” Benson said.

  “Let’s just see if I don’t,” he promised, his eyes narrow and determined.

  Reluctantly they played more carefully, pulling back instead of intimidating their opponents with their bodies. Hodes didn’t jab anyone, and Lee had to call really slight fouls to call any at all.

  “See that,” he said, after blowing the final whistle. “You guys can do it. You can play gracefully, using your skills instead of your fists. The team that has the most points wins in this game, not the team who has the most fouls. If you want your opponents to fear you, beat them soundly on the scoreboard, not on the court. Understand?”

  They were silent and sullen, but they obeyed. Most, with their heads down, went off to shower and change to make the late bus.

  Lee smiled to himself and retreated to his office to shower and change for his meeting with Henry Young. As he stripped off his shirt he went to call Jessie to let her know he would be a little late. Once again he let it ring and ring, and still, she didn’t answer. Worried now, he called Tracy Baker.

  “Oh hi, Lee,” she sang.

  “I’ve been trying to reach Jessie, but she doesn’t answer. I knew she had gone with you to see Marjorie Young, so…”

  “Oh, dear,” Tracy said. “You’re making me tell tales out of school.”

  “What is it?” he asked quickly.

  “Jessie had a little too much of Marjorie’s homemade elderberry wine. I took her home a little while ago and saw that she went into the bedroom safely to lie down. I’m sure she’s sleeping it off.”

  “Wine? Jessie?” He smiled incredulously.

  “It sort of crept up on her. Don’t tell her I told you or she’ll hate me. I’m sure she’s embarrassed enough as it is,” Tracy said.

  “No, no, I won’t. I was just concerned.” He shook his head. “Can’t let you women go anywhere, it seems.”

  “At least we go right home,” Tracy responded, “when we know we’ve had enough.”

  “All right, all right, no battle of the sexes. Thanks, Tracy.”

  “You’re welcome.”

  He hung up and laughed to himself. Jessie with a hangover, he thought. She’s not going to be happy about that. He slipped off his pants and his underwear and went into the bathroom to turn on the shower. Just as the water began to feel warm enough he heard his name called and peeked around the door to look. It was Monica London.

  “Oh hi,” she said. “I didn’t mean to disturb you.”

  “No, no, that’s all right. One minute,” Lee said, and turned off the water. He wrapped the towel around himself and came out of the bathroom. Monica had come in and closed the door behind her.

  As usual, she was dressed in a skirt that was so snug it outlined her bikini panties. She wore a light, cable-knit sweater that did little to conceal the uplift bra. Its deep V-neck collar exposed the enticing shadow of her cleavage and the light raspberry tint of her nipple. Lee couldn’t help thinking that she had a waist so narrow he could probably touch his fingers spanning it.

  Most of the female teachers he knew usually looked a bit frayed by the end of a teaching day. Strands of hair broke loose from the firm settings, clothing looked wrinkled, shoes scuffed. And their faces, even the faces of ones who were heavily made up, looked drained, tired. Voices were strained from lecturing and reprimanding all day. Those who had boosted their energy levels with caffeine highs throughout the day were practically dragging their rear ends over the parking lot to their cars. Anyone who believed teachers had it easy should appear at the end of the day to see how stress and mental fatigue took its toll, Lee thought.

  But Monica was different. Despite the hour she looked as if she had just arrived, fresh and sparkling. Her eyes were bright, her hair perfect. Her lips, shaded with a wet pink, were enticing. Her complexion was rosy. It was as if a gust of cool, refreshing air had come into his office. She pulled her shoulders back, lifting her breasts, and smiled. How did she get her teeth so white? he wondered. And then he thought, What is this girl doing here? She was too beautiful to be buried in a little high school in upstate New York. She should be somewhere being discovered, movies, modeling.

  “I’m sorry to appear so late,” she said, “but you were the last name on my list.”

  “List? Hope it’s not a hit list,” he joked. It was kind of corny, but he couldn’t help it. She made him feel younger, threw him back to his teenage days when it was important to impress the girls with how cool you were.

  “Ooo,” she said, hugging herself like a Marilyn Monroe impersonator. It had the effect of pushing up those already spilling-over breasts. The raspberry tops rose to reveal a line of creamy whiteness. He couldn’t help but envision what it would be like to press his lips to that inviting bosom. The image flashed through his mind quickly, but it lingered enough to send a shock of warmth through his thighs. His penis began to grow erect. Like a mutinous crew member, it surged on until it was clearly outlined against the towel, something Monica London didn’t miss.

  He reddened a
nd turned his body so he could cloak the rebellious organ from sight.

  “No,” she said, “it’s not a hit list. It’s a list of teachers I was to see about the upcoming PTO dinner dance.” She stepped forward, her right hand sliding up from her waist and settling just under her bosom.

  “Dance?”

  “Yes. It’s so important,” she continued, elongating the “o” sound so that her lips remained opened a bit longer, “for us to have a good faculty turnout.”

  “Oh. Sure, sure. I’ll put it down on my calendar,” he said, and looked toward his desk. He wasn’t sure he could walk there. She was standing between him and the desk and to go past her seemed an impossibility.

  “It’s next Thursday night,” she said. “Seven P.M.”

  “Okay, I’ll remember,” he said. She didn’t move.

  “You’re so lucky to have your own personal shower,” she said, stepping closer. “You can just hop in and out and get refreshed anytime you want.”

  “Well, we do work up quite a sweat down here,” he said.

  “I love to see a man break out in a sweat,” she murmured. “The sight of that wetness, that silvery, slippery wetness over his skin…it does something to me,” she added, and shook her body, her breasts jiggling. “Like the way your shoulders are shining now,” she continued, stepping closer.

  “Well, if you stepped into a men’s locker room after a ball game, you wouldn’t feel that way, believe me.”

  “Oh,” she assured him, “I think I would go mad. It would be like a sexual smorgasbord.”

  He had to laugh.

  “Sexual smorgasbord. That’s good.”

  “Yes.” She was standing right in front of him now. “Your arms are so muscular,” she said. “So few men here have muscular arms. Arms turn me on.” She touched his biceps and ran her fingers up to his shoulder.

  “Um, I think…”

  “It’s all right,” she said quickly. Then she winked. “No one’s here.”

  “Hey, wait a minute. I’m a married man,” he told her, but it was a weak protest, his voice already cracking.

  “When you’re with your wife.”

  “Pardon?”

  “You’re a married man when you’re with your wife. When you’re not, you’re not,” she recited, and jabbed her right forefinger in between his towel and his stomach. He flushed. She lifted her head and fixed her eyes on his, drawing him to her with their magnetic and hypnotic power. He felt as if he were falling into those enticing orbs filled with erotic promise. Her finger tugged gently and then more firmly on the towel until it unraveled and dropped to his feet. She didn’t drop her gaze; she continued to hold his eyes on hers. While she did so he began to feel her hands traveling down his hips, her palms sweeping over his thighs until her fingers found his erection and gently squeezed and lifted.

  He couldn’t keep his lips from hers, and when they kissed, he found it almost impossible to pull his lips away. He was gripped by the taste of her. She clutched his buttocks and backed up toward the desk, pulling him with her. When they reached it, she stepped back just enough to lift her sweater over her head. He stood there dazzled by the sight of her bosom when she flung off her bra. Her breasts remained firm, the nipples pointed up at him, calling to his mouth. In seconds she had unzipped and dropped her skirt. Her panties seemed made of air. With a quick gesture, they were gone and she was pulling him down onto her. Her legs were lifted and he settled over her, his mouth on hers.

  Vaguely, somewhere deep under the blanket of sexual pleasure, he heard a tiny voice crying out warnings and criticism, but it was as if he had been shrunk to an inch of himself and no longer mattered. All that mattered now was driving himself deeper into that pocket of ecstasy she had opened for his entry and gratification. On and on he went, unconcerned that he was making love on the top of his desk, that anyone could walk in on them at any moment, that he was committing adultery. None of those concerns seemed to be part of the world he had entered. This was a world of fantasy, of erotic dreams come true.

  She moaned and twisted herself beneath him as if nothing he did or could do would ever satisfy her. It made him feel challenged and he became more aggressive, lifting her legs higher and pushing himself deeper, driving, grunting, fueled by his male ego. I’ll show her, he thought. I’ll show her.

  Why this suddenly mattered he did not know. He was drunk on the act, inebriated from the scent of her perfume, the taste of her lips and soft skin. His body was enveloped in a pocket of warmth that caused him to imagine he had literally fallen into her vagina. She had absorbed him, but he loved every moment, every ecstatic second.

  Finally she cried out and he exploded in long, delightful bursts, now his body feeling attached to hers, as if they had turned into some mutation, a male-female creature that experienced both male and female orgasm simultaneously. He grunted and withdrew, turning over his papers, his pens, pencils, and calendar and knocking his telephone over the desk. It bounced with a ring, the receiver sliding off the cradle.

  She sat up and dropped her legs over the edge of the desk as she began to brush back her hair with her hands. Her recuperation was instantaneous, which was something that annoyed him. He was still breathing hard. What was going on here? He was supposed to be the athlete.

  She turned and smiled down at him.

  “You were wonderful,” she said, “just as I expected you would be.” She brought the tip of her right forefinger to his chest and touched him. His skin seemed to sizzle under her and it actually stung.

  “Hey!” He sat up, thinking she had stuck him with her fingernail.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, and leaned over to kiss his chest. Then she stepped off the desk and gathered her clothes.

  Still a bit dazed, he shook his head and watched her dress. She moved quickly, and in seconds she was standing before him, looking as together as she had when she had first entered the office. He remained sitting on his desk, naked. She leaned over to place a quick kiss on his lips.

  “Don’t forget the PTO dinner,” she said, smiling. Then she added, “Now I can cross your name off my list.” She started out and stopped at the doorway. “Whenever you have any questions, don’t hesitate to call me,” she said, and smiled widely. “You know how to call me, don’t you, Lee? You just let your imagination run wild. I’ll be sure to hear it.” She laughed, opened the door, and was gone like a dream evaporated at the sound of an alarm clock.

  He felt like a man who had been unconscious and just returned to consciousness. Suddenly he realized how stupid he looked. He was still sitting naked on his desk. He had knocked everything about. The phone still lay on the floor. He jumped down quickly and put it back. Then he moved toward the shower, not quite sure that what had just happened wasn’t really just a dream. The sight of his towel on the floor in the bathroom reinforced the reality of the erotic episode and he could detect the scent of Monica’s perfume on his body, everywhere he had touched her and she had touched him.

  Monica had been here. He couldn’t deny what had just occurred.

  Who would have thought that in seconds he could be seduced into being unfaithful to his wife? he thought. A surge of panic swept over him. Jessie will know. This damned second sight of hers, this extraordinary power to sense and know things beyond what people with sight sensed and knew would tell her, would expose him. She would hear it in his voice, feel it in his hands. She would probably smell Monica.

  That thought drove him into the shower. He ran the water as hot as he could endure and scrubbed and scrubbed himself until his skin was red, especially around his prick. But it was the spot on his chest where she had touched him with her finger after they made love that still bothered him. He examined it in the mirror, but saw nothing. The pain was imaginary, he concluded, caused by his guilt. He practically bathed himself in cologne and powder to cover any lingering scent of Monica and the lovemaking. Even so, he didn’t feel very confident and that made him shake in anticipation of a horrible scene.

&nb
sp; How could he betray Jessie after all she had been through and all of it because of him? She had been so forgiving, so sensitive, so loving. No man could ask for a more dedicated and faithful wife. This new guilt piled onto the guilt he already carried because of the accident and her blindness was unbearable. He sat at his desk and shook his head. What was he going to do?

  The worst part of this was that he couldn’t shake off the ecstatic memories. Despite his regret and his remorse, he couldn’t deny that making love to Monica had been spectacular; and the promise of it happening again, her suggestions and willingness as she left, filled him with erotic excitement. He felt torn by two opposing feelings and thoughts.

  I’m a sinner; I’m no good, he thought.

  But oh, it was so good and it doesn’t mean anything. She wasn’t looking for any meaningful relationship. What had she said? When you’re with your wife, you’re married. When you’re not, you’re not.

  The evil part of him laughed. What eyes she had and those breasts…

  Jessie, he thought.

  Damn myself, damn.

  He stood up abruptly and then rushed from his office like a murderer fleeing the scene of his crime. It wasn’t until he was around a corner and heading toward the parking lot that he remembered his appointment with Henry Young. He wasn’t in the mood for this, but it had to be done.

  Henry’s secretary was gone, of course, and there was no one else around. Apparently Henry’s meeting with the board-of-education people had ended. Lee approached his office. The door was open. He peered in and saw the principal at his desk scribbling notes. He knocked and Henry looked up and smiled.

  “Come in, come in. Sorry it had to be this late, but I figured you had something serious on your mind or you wouldn’t want to meet today. Have a seat.” Henry pointed to a chair in front of his desk.

  “Thank you, Henry.” He settled himself quickly. Henry sat back and folded his hands over his stomach.