The Stork Club

by Maureen Freely

  I was too swept up to notice how violently my emotions were shifting. It seemed like the most natural thing in the world to be embracing our family doctor, stripping off her clothes, and fucking her on her examination table. Not even the crackling of the paper cover reminded me where I was, or warned me how I would feel about this office next time I tried to enter it as an ordinary patient. I had this idea, as I bit her neck and her ear and rammed into her more violently than I had ever done with any woman in my life, that I was making her strong again, but when her knees buckled on our way out to the car, and she put her arms around me, and gasped, I felt almost proud that I had ended up making her even weaker.

  I went into her apartment with her – just to be sure she made it into bed.

  This was a mistake.

  43

  I was not up to much – I even had my clothes on – when we heard Kiki’s key in the lock. But my shoes were off, and I only had time to find one of them before I had to take cover under the bed.

  The first thing Kiki did when he got in was turn the overhead light on. The first thing Ophelia said to him was to turn it off. ‘Still working on that hangover, huh?’ he said as he obliged her. I couldn’t quite make out his tone of voice. Mocking? Familiar? Just a little bit affectionate? And I couldn’t make out hers. Cold for my benefit? Noncommittal to hide her fear? Triumphant because she had me where she wanted me? A tiny bit petulant?

  ‘I’m tired,’ she told him as he threw himself on to the bed. ‘Tired and hungry.’

  ‘Well, that makes two of us,’ he said.

  ‘Call up Mai’s,’ she said. ‘Let’s do take-out.’

  ‘Bad idea,’ he said. ‘I’m shot. I don’t want to move. Let’s do pizza. Some place that delivers.’

  ‘OK then. There’s that place we have the menu from in the kitchen.’

  ‘Bad idea,’ he said. ‘I told you. If it involves moving, I’m not doing it. What do I need a menu for? I’ll just ask them.’

  ‘I’m not having you eat pizza in bed,’ she said.

  ‘Then you know what, babes? You can take it into the kitchen and eat the whole damn thing yourself. Because me and my cooler have plans here.’

  I watched his hand pat his cooler, then grope for the channel changer. He turned on the TV. It was when I heard the noise of a basketball game that I knew I was in for a long wait.

  If I told you that this was where I first asked myself things like, what did I do to end up here? and, what has my life become? where did I go wrong? do not think that they were questions strong enough to qualify as pangs of conscience. I was preoccupied by my shoe, which I couldn’t reach without making my presence known. After Ophelia had kicked it under the bed for me, after the strangeness of the eavesdropping had worn off, after I stopped tensing myself for quick action every time Ophelia tried to spirit him out of the bedroom (‘I really want to eat this pizza with you at the table.’ ‘Didn’t you say you were on call tonight?’ ‘Couldn’t you drive out for ice-cream for me just this once?’), after I had run through all the other more desperate courses of action that were open to me (crawling out and running, crawling out and presenting myself, crawling out and getting shot), what I began to think about was my alibi.

  How was I going to explain this absence to you? To Charlotte? And – oh for God’s sake, by now she would be waiting for me at the movie house – Becky? I couldn’t see my watch. I could only guess what time it was. All I could do was count the commercial breaks and revise my story for each woman accordingly.

  It was only when it got to the point that I could not remember what my own cover story was that I began to ask harsher questions. Except that these were offset and interrupted by the bizarre turns that were taking place just above me. Because by now the hangup calls had begun. Or were they hangup calls? It was only when Ophelia was out of the room that Kiki would answer the caller. He would answer in a weird combination of Spanish and English, from which I gathered that he did not want to talk to this person, did not think there was anything to discuss, in fact, did not want to meet her anywhere else either, although, if she put it that way, he guessed he would have to.

  And so that’s how I got out. ‘Filly,’ he said. ‘You’re right. I’m on call. Catch you later.’

  Ophelia told me I didn’t have to rush now that he was gone because he wouldn’t be back for three hours at least. But I made my apologies. (I now realize, too abruptly.)

  I caught Becky just as she was leaving the movie house. ‘Where were you?’ she said.

  I made the mistake of saying home.

  ‘I just called your home,’ she told me, reprovingly. ‘And so did Mitchell. Did you realize you’d agreed to see him at six?’

  ‘Fuck!’ I said. ‘I did?’

  ‘Well, it’s too late now, but you know what they say about a stitch in time! Now that you didn’t turn up, he’s really paranoid, so thanks a lot.’

  ‘God. I’m sorry. Things have been so crazy lately I don’t know when I’m supposed to be where, let alone where I was an hour ago.’

  ‘So where were you?’

  ‘Where was I when?’

  ‘Just now.’

  ‘I’m sorry but it’s a secret.’

  ‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

  ‘No, honestly. It’s too complicated.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Just because.’

  We went into a café. ‘Believe me,’ I said. ‘If I could tell you I would. In fact, I will tell you some day. If I can.’

  ‘What’s to stop you telling me now? Is it about Mitchell? Is it about my money? What is going on? Why am I the only one in the dark?’

  At that moment, as if on cue, Kiki walked by, with, I did a double take, Mom. Mom was crying. Kiki looked irritated. After they had passed, I could not help laughing, could not help saying this was too bizarre. I suppose it was the strain of not being able to share the joke with anyone, the longing for someone to share my bizarre day with, that made me relent and say to Becky, ‘OK, I’ll tell you what kind of day I’ve had. In fact, I’ll start with yesterday. I guarantee you: you will not believe it.’

  ‘Why aren’t you laughing?’ I asked when I had reached the end of my story.

  ‘Because it’s not very funny,’ she said.

  ‘You’ve got to admit it’s a good story.’

  ‘It is one of the most disturbing stories I have ever heard. If you think that running around seducing helpless and impressionable women under the guise of friendship is funny, then you are the biggest fucking asshole I have ever met.’

  ‘Oh come on,’ I said. ‘You can’t blame it all on me. They came more than half-way.’

  ‘They came more than half-way because you conned them, my dear. It was easy. They were desperate. I call that totally immoral. It offends me on every imaginable level.’

  ‘But Becky …’ I reached out.

  ‘Don’t you lay a fucking hand on me.’

  ‘But Becky. You wanted to know.’ She picked up her handbag, and left. I was still sitting there, too shocked even to notice who at the neighbouring tables was watching and who was not, when I looked up and saw her standing over me, short of breath and furious.

  ‘If you get to the school and I’m standing outside,’ she said, ‘I want you to wait until I’m gone. If I’m at Charlotte’s house when you get there, I want you to leave. The same goes for Ophelia’s and everywhere else. I don’t want to see you. I don’t want to hear from you. I don’t want your name mentioned in my presence.’

  ‘But Becky. How am I going to explain that to the others?’

  ‘I’m sure you’ll think of something, as alibis are all you care about.’

  On the way home, I stopped to sit on a bench. I couldn’t bear the thought of facing you: I knew I was going to have to make up some story, but after what Becky had just said to me I didn’t have the heart to lie to you.

  You may remember that I was worried unnecessarily: when I got home you were giving Jesse a sponge bath. He had come dow
n with a fever while I was out. And as soon as we got him settled, it was Maria up with her cough. I remember that I spent the night on the floor in their room. When I woke up the next morning, I felt as if I had been plunged down a tunnel with no light at the end of it. I had lost my only friend! How could I live without her?

  44

  I don’t know if you found out about this, but shortly after you left for work the next day, Mitchell turned up. He was, as you can imagine, the last person I wanted to see. The last thing I wanted to hear was his confession.

  Another day, part of me would have been disgusted to hear the risks he had taken. Part of me would have felt vindicated: I had been right to get our money out, right to predict that you would not, even with the best of intentions, be able to handle him.

  Another day, I probably would not have laughed when he told me that he had received an anonymous telephone call from someone who sounded like a field auditor. I would probably have tried to point out to him that the IRS only operated like that when they thought their targets were involved in the Mafia.

  ‘But I am involved in the Mafia.’

  Another day, I might have thrown something at him, screamed at him for his stupidity. But by then I didn’t care. He might as well have been telling me the plot of The Maltese Falcon. It was easy for me to tell him what his only option was – although I must make this clear: when I told him to destroy all incriminating records both at home and at the office, I had no idea how large a job this would be, or that this would mean your having to stay at the office all night.

  Laura, I don’t know if you have ever been in a situation like the one I am describing. But if you have, you’ll know what I mean about air pockets. To go from one part of your secret life to another, you need time to be alone, to be nobody. To sit as still as a statue and gaze blankly out the window and think about nothing. If you don’t have that time, then you lose control of your mind, and the people you are lying to start taking over your life. You become the lie you have been telling them. You forget everything about yourself that does not fit in with their idea of you.

  That is what happened to me on the night you stayed at the office. Because you were not there, I did not have the luxury of an airpocket. Ophelia was in the apartment, ostensibly to check Jesse and Maria’s temperatures, when you called to say you weren’t coming home. After that, I had no excuse to get her to leave. The children had not been asleep for two seconds before she had whipped her clothes off. I think I still had my earphones on when she sat on me.

  The only reason she left was because the doorbell rang. As she went down the service elevator, Charlotte came through the front door.

  I can’t say I wasn’t content to lie there on the couch while Charlotte tried to give me a blow-job. I knew it was a lost cause. Ophelia had worn me out. But I knew that my limpness would only make Charlotte more indulgent. And wasn’t I right. She wouldn’t even let me change the music. She wouldn’t let me pour my own wine. She refused to leave until I was ‘feeling myself again. I did feel fine as I kissed her goodbye. But then, after she had gone, the plunge again. Instant darkness. I looked at this couch where I had been serviced by two women in as many hours. Then I thought about the woman I loved.

  I reviewed my mistakes with her. How could I have expected Becky to think my treachery was funny? How could she have done anything else except reject me for ever? How was I going to live without her? Imagine my surprise when I opened the door not five minutes later to find Becky sobbing in the hallway. She threw herself into my arms. ‘I’m going to lose my house!’

  As I stood there holding her, I couldn’t believe it was happening. I thought she was a vision, come to save me. And that’s how it was for the rest of the night. It was the strangest sex I have ever had. I had to come inside her to make sure she was there.

  When I told her I loved her, I believed myself. When she said she knew, I believed her. As we looked at the dawn, it was clear that we were meant for each other, and that being together for ever and ever was simply a case of removing obstacles gracefully.

  I told her so. Far from disagreeing, she wrapped her arms around me and sighed. I asked her if she would give me time. In a voice so sweet that I could hardly believe it belonged to Becky, she said yes.

  It was only after she left that I began to feel unequal to the promise I had made to her.

  I got three calls within ten minutes of plugging the phone back in. The first was from Charlotte. The second was from Ophelia. The third was from you. Somehow I spoke to Charlotte in such a way as to solicit unconditional sympathy. I spoke to Ophelia in such a way as to provoke that edge in her voice. I spoke to you in such a way as to convince myself that I was just a family man, reporting back the facts to his wife who has been detained at the office.

  Then Becky called, just to make sure I was OK. Hearing her voice, all the pleasure of the night together came back to me. Even after I hung up, the mood lingered. Looking out the window at the city spread before me, I tried to keep it alive, but it faded. I knew I had to hear her voice again.

  I dialled her number. She picked it up on the first ring. ‘Telepathy,’ she said. ‘I was about to call you. I needed to hear your voice.’

  ‘Same here,’ I said. She laughed. That was when I realized with horror that I had finally made a life for myself. I had everything a man could want. But to keep my privileges I was going to have to live in hell.

  45

  With the coming of the light, I began to notice what a mess the apartment was in. There were the remnants of three different parties – three sets of glasses and ashtrays, three sets of records recalling three different moods – and there were the mementos. Charlotte had forgotten her gradebook, Ophelia her stethoscope … I assumed that the pacifiers I kept finding every time I took two steps had arrived and neglected to leave with Becky. I put all these items on the filing cabinet in the entryway. Then I asked myself how I would explain them to you. Then I reminded myself that these women did not come to this house only in the capacity of lovers. There was nothing suspicious in a stethoscope per se or a pacifier or a gradebook. The problem was inside my head.

  I was the one who couldn’t bear to look at them sitting all together in a row. I was the one who understood what they said, as a group, about me. It was for my own peace of mind that I threw them all into the bottom of the laundry basket, which I then covered up with tell-tale sheets – along with the bra and the single lacy pink sock that flew up into the air as if out of a volcano when I stripped the bed. Along with …

  A purple stud. A purple stud with a spider’s web design on it. It caused me a moment of panic as I couldn’t remember to whom it belonged. Then I remembered I could always pretend I had never found it, or conveniently forget I had found it until the rightful owner asked me if I had happened to see a purple stud lying around. At which point I would pat my pocket and say, ‘Oh right, I was meaning to tell you … I’ve been carrying this around for days …’

  I put the purple stud into my pocket.

  I went in to check the children. Their foreheads were moist. Their fevers had broken.

  I went into the kitchen to pour myself a cup of coffee. As I did so, I noticed that my hands were shaking. What was making me nervous – the design on the stud? The fact that I couldn’t remember who it belonged to? The possibility of there being another stud lying around waiting to incriminate me? This last thought made my hands shake so much that I had to carry my coffee into the bedroom using both hands.

  I told myself that it was only a stud. If its twin were still in the bedroom, I would have seen it already on the white carpet. I still had plenty of time to search for it. And even if I didn’t find it, I had to remember I was the only one who knew why it was here – aside from the rightful owner, whoever she might be. Having managed to stop my hands shaking, I decided to take a nice long shower. It was while I was examining my torso in the mirror for love bites that I noticed a home pregnancy test nestled behind your perfume bottles.r />
  It was still in its box, but the cellophane was of a shape that indicated it had come as a twin pack. Where was the other one? Who had used it? If it was you – why? Who had you been sleeping with? When?

  It took only this one question to bring all my tormenting fantasies back. Because, even if you had only been sleeping with me, I had no idea when the last time was that we had had sex. I couldn’t even remember when the last time was I had checked out your diaphragm case. With a schedule like mine, there was no time to worry about contraception. Which reminded me – did I have any idea, had I taken any interest in, what kind of contraception the others had been using? I realized, as I stood under the shower, that they could all be pregnant.

  I remember that, at the exact same moment as I thought this thought, the water in the shower turned cold. I turned it off. I stepped out of the stall … to find my two children standing in the doorway beaming at me.

  Jesse was holding the test tube stand from the home pregnancy test. ‘Isn’t it wonderful?’ he said. ‘Maria’s going to have a baby.’

  ‘Cheers!’ said Maria, and she picked up the test tube and lifted it to her lips.

  I can’t tell you how fast I grabbed it from her.

  In so doing, I stepped on something sharp.

  It was a stud.

  A green stud.

  As I scream in pain and anger as well as fear, as I send the kids to the kitchen for paper towels, as I kneel down to pick up the test tube and examine the damp spot on the carpet, I imagine that…

  Mitchell is sitting at his desk, pretending to go through his drawers and looking up with a strained polite smile to watch you push the vacuum cleaner back and forth across the carpet in the foyer.

  ‘Anything I can do to help?’ he shouts.

  You don’t hear him, so you turn off the vacuum cleaner. ‘You were saying?’ Just looking at your pursed lips is like receiving electric shock therapy.