Crawlspace

by Lonni Lees

  She did a sensual shimmy, whispered “Salaam alaikum” as she leaned across their table. The wife ran her tongue along the margarita’s salty crystals, scooped a mound of baba ganoush onto her pita, shoved it into her mouth. Ahsin winked at Raúl, knowing he’d meet her at midnight.

  At home after the show, Ahsin showered and wrapped her naked body in a silken veil and answered the door. Raúl entered, unwrapped her, pressed his body against her flesh. Her nipples are dark as Hershey Kisses, he thought as he undressed. How perfectly it had started. The wife at home, this creature as his pleasure in the night until the next one came along. But she proved as addictive as heroin and twice as hard to kick. He needed his fix.

  “Take off your eye patch,” he said.

  “Never. You’re more evil than a thousand Bedouins and camel herders.”

  “How did it happen, mi amor?”

  “We’re all entitled to one flaw and one secret,” she said. “¿Mysterioso, sí?”

  She danced before him, removing the eye patch. His foreplay always focused on the empty eye socket. And the kinky tricks that drove him wild. What other woman could top that? It was her deal clincher and she played it. Then she pushed him inside her. Their rhythms synchronized. He climaxed. She slid from his perspiring flesh. Raúl was mediocre between the sheets, but his obsession and his money were definite turn-on’s.

  “We’re perfect for each other,” she said, twirling his chest hair with her finger, “but we can’t keep on like this. It’s killing me.”

  He sighed. “Me too.” What could he do? He wanted her 24/7 and didn’t know how far he was willing to go, how much he wanted to sacrifice. She was a sex machine, uninhibited, every man’s lurid fantasy. But the wife had something important too. He held Ahsin close. “You know I love you.”

  “Words are no longer enough,” she said, the luxuries his money could buy swimming in her head. She wanted it all, not just bits and pieces tossed her way like promises on the wind. She deserved the whole enchilada. She toyed with his penis as it hardened under her touch, bewitching him into compliance. Lesson number one: Touch a man’s dick and his brain ceases to function. “Leave her or we’re done.” Her words slapped him limp.

  His silence filled the room. The status quo was dandy, but could he bear losing her? Finally he spoke: “I’ll leave her. Friday night it’ll be over.”

  “And we’ll have just begun.”

  They made love again. She’d negotiated perfectly.

  “I never thought I’d want to live without her money,” he said. “But we’ll have each other and we’ll do fine.”

  His words spun her into a dark abyss. Fine? The bitch bought her own jewels? Bought HIM? Now it made sense. Suddenly Raúl was less handsome. She noticed the track of pock marks above his suave moustache, smelled the faint rancid aroma of his sweat, heard the annoying hint of weakness in his voice. Raúl wasn’t as debonair as he’d been just five minutes ago. And his fucking pockets were empty.

  “Until Friday,” she whispered.

  * * * *

  The Oasis was packed with the usual Friday night crowd. Shish-kebab flamed and sizzled, glasses clinked, conversation in Arabic, Spanish and English bounced off the deep ochre walls. As Ahsin walked dramatically through the curtain, drums and hearts pounded. The room fell silent as she raised her arms above her head, hands in delicate pose. She stood Venus de Milo still, then hips quivered, ground, to the escalating music, her midriff rolling to the beat. Lost in the music, her exquisite form floated, creating its magic. She danced as never before, with a wantonness and splendor worthy of the gods, the wealthiest of Sultans. And she knew it.

  That slick bastard Raúl smiled, tossed her a wink. The wife was bejeweled in the splendor of a sheik’s palace, as though Raúl had emptied the contents of a safe deposit box onto her bony chest, withered arms, drooping earlobes. Centered on her wrinkled neck sat one, perfectly colored, solitary emerald—the size of a quail’s egg.

  Ahsin danced to their table. The crowd ceased breathing as she arched her spine, bent backwards, locked eyes with the wife. Her hand stroked the woman’s face in slow, sensual whispers, her tongue slid up her neck letting the bitch feel her hot breath. Slowly Ahsin rose, thrust a hip forward, danced away. The crowd exhaled a communal sigh as she exited through the curtain, propelled by thunderous applause.

  Ten minutes later Ahsin reappeared in haughty pose, rotated her shoulders as she stepped forward.

  “It’s missing. My emerald is gone.”

  Pandemonium filled the room. The inconsiderate bitch had blown her entrance, drawing attention to herself. The room belonged to HER, to Ahsin. The crazy woman ranted like she’d lost the only precious stone she owned. It was downhill from there. Customers were searched. It hit rock bottom when they had the nerve to search Ahsin. They found nothing. Raúl and spouse pushed through the crowd to the exit amid apologies from a stunned management. Raúl whispered “Give me one extra hour,” as he passed Ahsin. She nodded and smiled.

  * * * *

  In the car, Raúl comforted his wife. When they arrived home it was all clear. He should have thought of it sooner. The perfect solution. And it was far easier than he thought. The headline would read something like this: Drunken Heiress Falls to Death from Balcony. When he looked down she was nothing but a rumpled splat on a large stone in the cactus garden below. The moon’s reflection shimmered on the heated pool, the city lights laughed in the distance.

  He called 911. Then he called Ahsin to tell her he’d be late—that as soon as the insurance paid off they’d have it ALL...there was no answer.

  There was no answer at all.

  * * * *

  Ahsin crossed the border at Nogales and checked into a crumbling adobe motel. She tossed her purse onto the bed, sat in a cracked plastic lawn chair in the corner. A low voltage bulb was the room’s only light. She was a barely discernible shadow as she slipped the eye patch over her head and dropped it onto the table. It had served her well. Her right hand raised, she dug deep into the empty eye socket. Pay dirt. Slowly her fingers slid out of the hole, releasing the emerald from its hiding place. She walked back to the bed, removed the glass eye from her purse, popped it into the empty socket. In her head, Middle Eastern music was replaced by Mariachi as she danced joyously, floated across the room clutching the precious stone in her fisted hand. Drop, kick, thrust. Shimmy, shimmy turn.

  “This will go a long way south of the border”. She sang, never knowing her single stone could have been a thousand.

  * * * *

  By early morning light, Ahsin threw on a peasant blouse, stepped into worn cotton capris, shoved the emerald into her pocket. She threw her purse over her shoulder as she stepped into her sandals and out the door. Daylight was dusty, harsh, the town nothing but a faint memory best forgotten. Heading towards the jeweler her feet drew her like a siren’s song to the familiar alley that had been her home.

  Little whores with empty eyes were strewn in the shadows like yesterday’s garbage. Ahsin held her head high, knowing she’d always been better than them, always deserved more. She was Ahsin. Unnoticed, the emerald slipped through a hole in her worn pocket, landed in the dirt and grime along her path as she strutted by.

  A young girl, boney and gaunt, saw something shining through the dust at her feet, bent down, picked it up.

  “Joya esplendido,” she gasped, a faint glimmer of life returning to her weary eyes. Lying in her palm, sparkling with promise, was her ticket out of town.

  IRREFUTABLE EVIDENCE

  Marnie Jensen stood in front of the full length mirror in her bedroom and slowly undressed, shedding the costume she wore to the office. It was her uniform of respectability in the business world. She unbuttoned her proper wool suit jacket and tossed it onto the bed. The work day was behind her and it was time to relax, to be herself again. She pulled off the soft blue sweater that matched her eyes, then kicked off her shoes and wiggled her skirt onto the floor. Unsnapping her lacy bra, she pivoted in a circle,
then stepped out of the thong that hugged her Brazilian waxed mound, exposing the temporary vagi-tattoo; a tiny purple tulip, its petals pointing to her soft blonde landing strip.

  She stood as still as a marble statue in a museum, assessing her naked reflection, at the way the lights and shadows from the late afternoon sun and the autumn leaves from the neighbor’s towering oak played across her body like a thousand fingers softly caressing her skin. Removing the barrette that held her ash blonde hair, she ran her fingers through its strands as it cascaded to her shoulders. With a toss of her head she blew a kiss at her reflection, then turned and walked across the room.

  * * * *

  Jared was in his favorite place, his tree house up in the old oak tree, thumbing through the old issue of Playboy he’d found under his father’s mattress. It was easy to see why his father had saved the old thing, as well as why he kept it secreted from his mother. And his father couldn’t say a word if he ever discovered it missing from its hiding place. Now Jared could keep it hidden up here in his tree, in the beaten up foot locker he kept in the corner. It was the old May 1968 issue with Playmate of the Year, Angela Dorian, on the cover. Pages 134 through 139 were well-worn, the pages Jared looked at over and over. Angela sitting on the hood of her pink car. Angela lying in the grass, her generous breasts exposed to the sun. Angela pouting at the camera. Those girls his mother kept trying to fix him up with from Temple Emanu-El couldn’t compare to that hot Sicilian in Playboy.

  But his next door neighbor, Marnie, came damn close.

  She was in her late twenties and single. And her bedroom, with its wrought iron balcony and sliding glass door, faced the old oak tree. She never bothered to close the drapes, most likely because the room didn’t face the street. But it did face the branches of her neighbor’s oak, providing quite the peep show to the adolescent next door.

  Especially when she had male company, which was frequently.

  Jared’s father had built the tree house for him for his fifth birthday and it was the best damn present he’d ever received. It was better than those stupid action figures or model car kits that the other kids would bring to his birthday parties—or even the books his parents, Marty and Sarah, had deemed age appropriate for their little genius. Everything they gave him was geared to developing his intellect at an early age, even the music. They’d read somewhere that exposing young children to Bach exercised parts of their brain that would enhance their SAT scores later in life. Jared had every note of the Brandenburg Concertos etched in his brain before he was out of diapers. His mother had probably started playing it for him when he was still in the womb. One can’t start too early. And Jared was their prize. Surely he was the world’s next Albert Einstein and in their parental pride they knew he was the most brilliant child ever born. They treated him accordingly, pushing him, praising him, smothering him to distraction.

  But all Jared wanted was to be left alone.

  His tree house was his refuge.

  His secret life.

  His escape from people. He didn’t care much for what he referred to as the common herd, and preferred solitude over socializing. He didn’t like the kids in school and they didn’t like him much either. And most adults bored him as well. Especially teachers who tended to have knowledge merely one chapter ahead of the class. Jared never saw the point in small talk, something his mother considered a necessary social skill. And he saw no point in trying to fit in with a group of kids who couldn’t think any deeper than the latest celebrity gossip or reality show or dreaming of the day they’d get their learner’s permits. Their teasing didn’t touch him. He was confident that he’d have the last laugh. Right now he might be the geeky outsider, but while they were surely doomed to a life of pumping gas or making hamburgers, married to some painted Lady GaGa wannabe, he’d be the next Bill Gates. He’d live in a mansion, count his money, and have a hot chick on his arm. Or, better yet, several. All the girls back in school who never gave him a second glance would wish they had done so when they had the opportunity.

  He still remembered his fourth birthday party. They’d invited the usual relatives and neighborhood kids, as well as old man Friedman from across the street. He hadn’t liked Friedman from day one. And Friedman didn’t like him. The old man was nosy, opinionated and coarse. And his breath always reeked of garlic and sickeningly sweet Manischewitz wine. Jared had opened his stupid presents, ignored his guests and settled quietly and comfortably into a corner, far from the laughter and chattering.

  “Jared, sweetie,” his mother had said, “thank everyone for your presents.” Sarah tugged at her son’s arm and steered him across the room. He mumbled his thanks, eyes to the floor. And old man Friedman snorted an audible “Hrrrumph.”

  Jared heard Marty whisper to Sarah, “It’s only a phase, I’m sure he’ll outgrow it.”

  Sarah just sighed her well-practiced martyrs sigh, tilting her head towards her son, to indicate what she saw as a problem.

  But Jared saw no problem at all.

  He closed his Playboy and returned it to the footlocker, rusted hinges creaking as he lifted the lid. He removed his copy of Schrodinger’s Cat, on the quantum theory of superposition. Well, Jared had a few theories of his own on that subject. He lifted out The Complete Works of Shakespeare and placed it on top of the Schrodinger book on the floor. (His parents wanted his knowledge to be well-rounded.) Then he lifted out the false bottom of the footlocker and returned the Playboy to its hiding place atop his other hidden treasures, covered it with the false bottom, put back the books and slammed the lid shut. He heard a sound, like metal sliding along well oiled metal, and looked out the small tree house window. Towards the neighbors. Marnie stood there in all her glorious nakedness, sliding open the glass door that led from her bedroom to the small balcony, letting the evening breeze kiss every flawless inch of her. Damn, but he loved when she came home from work. And the weekends. He could watch her forever. She was like looking at a Renoir masterpiece, like Amelie Dieterie in a White Hat, its palette of soft pastels a myriad of subtle peach tones and muted creams and delicate whites. The girls he met at schul jangled the senses like the bold, harsh colors in an abstract by Alfred Gockel. Caustic. Like his mother.

  “Jared, Jared, baby, it’s time for dinner.” Sarah called from the back door. “Jaaaa-red.” Fifteen years in California hadn’t erased a note or a nuance. No matter how hard she tried to get rid of it, the Long (pronounced Lon-G, with a hard G) Island twang that remained in her voice was unmistakable. After a couple glasses of wine it returned full force, or when relatives would drop in from back east for a visit at which time she’d reabsorb the accent like a sponge. When they’d leave she’d start practicing all over again, to no avail. It annoyed him like an irritating scab that refused to heal. His mother’s voice was like brittle fingernails rubbing against sandpaper, harsh and abrasive and an assault upon the senses.

  He leapt onto the ladder and swiftly descended down the rungs that were nailed helter-skelter along the trunk of the tree. His tree. The sooner he got back into the house, the sooner she’d stop yelling out for him and the sooner he could return to his refuge.

  They sat at the dinner table, his mother giving him the third degree while his father sat there in his usual passive silence, slowly pushing his food around his plate with his fork, head down.

  “Did you finish your homework?”

  “At lunch.”

  “How did you do on the math test?”

  “A-plus.”

  “And science?”

  “A-plus.”

  His father took another mouthful of brisket and exhaled a soft sigh.

  “Are you preparing well for Bar Mitzvah? Have you been going over your haftorah? It’s less than two weeks away, Jared,” she said.

  “Yes, and have you got every pot and pan and dish rearranged so that when Aunt Sophie comes from Buffalo she’ll think you’re keeping a kosher kitchen?” There was a note of sarcasm in Jared’s voice.

  “Tsk, tsk, t
sk,” said his father. “You must treat your mother respectfully.”

  “Sophie’d have an aneurism if she knew she was eating unclean,” Jared said. Not that he really gave a shit, but it was fun throwing his mother’s inconsistencies in her face from time to time. The fact that she had a public persona that didn’t jive with the mother behind the four walls of their home didn’t go unnoticed. Not only did he see it as an inconsistency, but a downright fraud. It amazed him that she was unable to see it herself.

  Ignoring them both, Sarah continued her litany. “And the day after Bar-Mitzvah we’re holding a banquet that will impress everyone. You really need to brush up on your social skills, Jared. All the mishpachas will be there. And pretty girls, too.”

  “Mishpachas, mother? Sarah. They’re called relatives. With you it’s harder than trying to teach the English language to one of those wetbacks on Van Nuys Boulevard. You’re not in New York anymore. This is California and it’s the twenty-first century.”

  “Now, now,” said his father.

  “You sound more like a matchmaker from the old country than a mother.” He continued, “What do you want from me? I get perfect grades, I’ve already been pushed ahead two years, and you want I should be a social butterfly on top of it? You want I should be a football star, too? Give me a break, okay?” He relished in mocking her east coast phraseology, even if it flew over her head faster than a jet plane full of tourists heading for Hawaii.

  “I’m just saying—there’ll be presents for you. And money, lots of it. You’ll have a good nest egg towards your college education. Oif drei zakhen shtait di velt: oif gelt, oif gelt, oif gelt.”

  That was one of his mother’s favorite quotes: the world stands on three things: money, money, money.

  “If I were a rich man, ladedadedadeda.” Jared taunted.

  She chose to ignore him. “And there will be important guests, Jared. People that are important to us socially. Just show a little appreciation now and then, that’s all your poor mother asks.” She sighed her best long-suffering sigh.