by Kyra Davis
“I’m sorry,” I added, quickly. “I got distracted, but I should have picked up.”
There was a long silence on the other end of the line. “You’re apologizing,” he said, carefully.
“I am,” I confirmed. “I know I haven’t done that in a while, but if you think about it, we haven’t argued in a long time either.”
“That’s true.”
“Now, can we get back to the stalker?”
“London doesn’t have a stalker.” The edge crept back into his voice. “He’s obviously suffering from some untreated psychiatric condition and possibly from substance abuse.”
I chewed gently on my lower lip. I could tell Anatoly that I saw a Zipcar but he’d only point out that wasn’t exactly unusual in San Francisco. I could tell him about London’s wife and daughter but he would tell me his personal relationships weren’t any of my business and certainly didn’t support any suspicions that London’s health issues were brought on purposely by another. He’d be right about that too. Anatoly was being infuriatingly logical. “I may visit him in the hospital,” I said instead.
“Don’t. He might take your presence as validation of the merit of his convoluted story. The best case scenario would be for him to spend a few months in a psychiatric facility.”
Anatoly was right. That might be the best outcome.
But it didn’t feel right.
“I still think I might visit him,” I pushed.
“It’s a bad plan, Sophie,” Anatoly sighed. “But if you have to, it should only be to give him back his wedding ring.”
“Excuse me?”
“When he washed his hands it must have slipped off his finger. I just found it in the sink, halfway under the drain stopper. Since his wife is at the hospital maybe you can just give it to her and be done with it.”
I told the hospital I was his girlfriend and when his wife goes to his bedside he won’t be wearing his wedding ring. Fuck!
“Are you still at the office?” I asked, hopefully.
“Yes, but only for another hour. I have a potentially cheating husband I need to be tailing. I’m afraid I won’t be done until at least nine so you’ll have to get dinner without me.”
“No worries, I’m meeting Dena and Mary Ann for drinks tonight anyway. But I’m coming over right now for the ring, okay?”
“Fine. If you over do it on the drinks give me a call and I’ll pick you up.”
“Well, in that case, I’m doing shots,” I joked.
“Don’t get so drunk I’ll feel guilty about taking advantage of you later.”
I laughed and agreed to stay sober enough for consensual sex before ending the call and turning the car around. I had no idea how I was going to get that ring back to London, but I would figure out a way, a subtle way, so as not to make things worse for him. “I am going to help you, London,” I whispered as I drove down the narrow streets. “This time, for real.”
“You can reject Robert Frost’s advice and choose the road most traveled, but it’s still going to lead you to some unexpected and dangerously rugged detours. No one gets to stay on the paved road for the whole trip.”
-Dying To Laugh
It says something about my friendship with Dena that I was unsurprised to find her absently doing bicep curls with giant dildos at the end of a work day, one black, one pinkish. She was standing in the middle of her store, Guilty Pleasures, studying a collection of colorful ball-gags hanging from hooks in the wall, her thick, Sicilian eyebrows scrunched together adding drama to her otherwise kittenish features.
“Ready for dinner?” I asked as I maneuvered around two giggling twenty-somethings hunched over the edible panties display.
Dena looked up, my voice pulling her out of her thoughts and then glanced at her wind-up watch, a subtle form of rebellion against the technification of the city. “Since when do you arrive anywhere early? That’s Mary Ann’s thing.” She glanced back up at the wall. “I’m thinking about moving these further back and doing a vibrator display here instead.” She held out the giant mechanical penises for my inspection. “I have these in eight different skin-tones now. Diversity.”
I nodded and tapped the black one. “In February you should put the darker ones up front in honor of Black History Month.”
Dena blinked down at the vibrators. “That’s fucking brilliant.”
“Do you have any black, Jewish dildos?” I asked. “To celebrate both sides of my racial and cultural identity?”
Dena held up the phallic device so it was eye level with me. “It’s circumcised, isn’t it? But if you’re asking if I have any black dildos that will fuck you while playing Hava Nagila the answer is no.”
“The limits of technology,” I sighed as my eyes wandered over to a shelf holding a smiling, silicon creature with antennas. Its packaging read, Flexi Felix for Anal Fun Days! “I think Leah might be dating someone,” I said, ideally. “She usually goes MIA when things are going really well for her and I haven’t heard a peep from her in weeks.”
Dena’s gaze followed mine. “What is it about Flexi that made you think of your sister? Oh, is it because she’s a tight-ass?”
“What? Okay, first off no and secondly ew! I was just thinking about how everything in my life has been so…I don’t know…quiet lately. Getting a respite from Leah is probably part of that. Or at least it was quiet until today--”
The chime of the front entrance interrupted my stream of thought and alerted us to Mary Ann’s arrival. She was half walking, half skipping in our direction, her chestnut curls bouncing enthusiastically around her shoulders giving her the look of a model from a shampoo commercial.
“Oh my God, I’m so glad you could come out tonight!” Mary Ann said, as she gave me an enthusiastic hug and then Dena a more tentative one as she carefully avoided contact with the dildos in her hands. “I have news!”
“Is it something I won’t believe?” Dena asked, giving me a sidelong glance.
“Seriously guys!” Mary Ann’s porcelain complexion flushed with excitement. “I’m going to have a baby!”
I froze in utter shock. Dena looked down at the black dildo as if it was somehow responsible.
“You’re going to be a mom,” I whispered. Then squealed, “You’re going to be a mom!” It was enough to attract the attention of the giggling girls who looked up from the flavored lubes in their hands.
“I didn’t even know this was something you were thinking about!” Dena said, the traces of suppressed emotion bringing her voice up an octave.
“Well, Monty and I have been talking about it for a while and we’ve decided it doesn’t make sense to wait any longer. Now’s the time!”
“We have to celebrate!” I stated firmly. “What should we do?”
“We can start by not going to happy hour,” Dena gave Mary Ann a stern look. “No way in hell are you drinking during your pregnancy.”
“Oh, I’m not pregnant,” Mary Ann said, blithely. “I can have at least one cocktail. We have to toast this!”
Dena scrutinized her cousin and then looked over at me to see if I was as lost as she was.
I cleared my throat and shifted my weight from foot to foot. “Sooo…are you adopting?”
“No, what makes you think that?” Mary Ann looked at me, then Dena. “Oh, I see where the confusion is!” she added with a laugh. “I’m not pregnant right this second but I’m going to be pregnant. Probably by tomorrow.”
The corners of Dena’s mouth twitched “So your news,” she said, gently putting the dildos down next to the anal beads, “is that you’re going to fuck your husband tonight.”
“That is so crude,” Mary Ann said, irritably. “I’m going to make a baby with my husband tonight. It will be the first time I’ve ever had sex without any contraceptives.”
“Ever?” Dena and I asked in unison.
“I’ve never had sex with anyone without a condom,” Mary Ann further clarified. “I’ve never wanted to be pregnant before.”
“My God,” I whispe
red. “I’ve been friends with you for almost two decades and I never realized you were the most responsible woman on earth. Dena,” I said, a little accusatorily, “you must have known. How could you not share that?”
“Because I didn’t know!” she snapped and then gave Mary Ann a not so gentle smack on the arm. “You have never bought a condom from me! I have latex, polyisoprene, vegan-friendly condoms, condoms with cock rings, glow in the dark, extra thin, everything! It’s like a fucking condomcopia in here and you never once hit me up!”
My phone started vibrating in my bag as Dena continued to rail against her cousin’s refusal to involve her in her sex life. I didn’t recognize the number but I was more than happy to use it as an excuse to step away. “Hello?”
“Is this Sophie Katz?” a girl asked. The young voice was familiar but she spoke so quietly it was difficult to make out her words.
I moved several more feet away to better hear and to get myself out of the line of fire just in case Dena started hurling cock rings. “This is Sophie, who is this please?”
“It’s Cat, Aaron London’s daughter.”
“Oh! I’m so glad you called! Look, it was a total misunderstanding back at the hospital. I’m not dating your dad. But I was with him when he…when it happened.” I moved aside to make room for two more customers who were headed towards lingerie. “How is your dad?”
“Dead.”
Dead?
My mouth dropped open and my fingers tightened around my cell. Behind me the new customers were chuckling. In front of me Dena was still gesticulating and yet all the sound in the room was now clouded in a kind of ringing silence. I took a step forward as if movement would help. As if there was some corner of this adult toy store that would be appropriate for receiving this kind of news. “But…the surgery? Didn’t it work?” I asked, stupidly.
“I just thought you should know,” she said, opting not to humor me by stating the obvious answer.
Again, I found myself struggling to find words. London’s ring was in my purse, waiting for him to put it back on. I honestly hadn’t expected he wouldn’t be able to. I hadn’t really believed that I could be talking to a man one minute and then have him just…die. Not from a gunshot or some sudden violent act but from something much quieter. A silent killer slithering through his veins.
Look at me. Use your eyes and see me dying. You’re witnessing my murder.
“Is your mother with you?” I asked, urgently. “I need to talk to her. There are some things she should know.”
“My mother is never going to talk to you.” Catherine’s voice was almost steady. “Not in a million years.”
And then the line went dead. She was gone.
London was gone.
I watched mutely as Dena turned away from Mary Ann and started walking toward her office. Dena’s limp was less severe than it used to be but still detectable. Odd, seeing Dena, the petite, athletic woman I’ve known since high school, limp with each step. It was a bullet to the back that had done it, years ago. A physical manifestation of a twisted metaphor. The things that scar us are never the things we see coming.
I hadn’t seen this coming.
Mary Ann came bounding over, clearly unfazed by Dena’s rant, but when she saw my face her expression immediately changed. “What’s wrong?”
“Someone died today,” I whispered.
Mary Ann’s hands fluttered to her face. “Who? Who died?”
“No one you know. I didn’t really know him either. But…but he asked me to help him. I didn’t. And now…” my voice trailed off.
Mary Ann wordlessly pulled me into a hug. She was such a slender, small-boned woman you would think that a fierce hug might break her. And yet when her arms wrapped around me they felt reassuringly strong. I rested my chin on her shoulder and squeezed my eyes closed as I tried to just absorb the comfort she offered and block out the reason I needed it. It’s like I had made it happen. I had wanted an adventure. A mystery. And now a man was dead.
Dena came back out and when she saw us in an embrace she let out an audible sigh. “Seriously, she spent her entire adult life having sex with cheap ass condoms. It’s sad but it’s not a tragedy.” But then Dena too took a good look at my face. “Something happened.” A statement more than a question. “Come on.” She gently took my arm as Mary Ann released me. “Let’s walk and talk.”
“The smart choice is almost always the cautious one. I’m proud that I’m just stupid enough for bravery.”
--Dying To Laugh
“I’m the devil.” I gripped my third Cape Cod in my hands. Dena, Mary Ann and I had found a small table in the corner of the dimly lit bar. The place was vibrating with the grating laughter of the Silicon Valley infiltrators, all decked out in the cheapest looking expensive clothes they could find. A virtual sea of white faces peering out of Nordstrom-bought hoodies. I had made a point of feeling superior to these so-called innovators for years. They were completely screwing up the vibe of my city. But as I watched them I couldn’t help but think that their analytical brains would have found a much more effective way to handle the whole London thing than I had.
Mary Ann toyed with the leaves of sage sticking out of the artisan cocktail she had been working on for the last forty minutes. “You’re not the devil, Sophie.”
“Of course not,” Dena agreed. “For one thing, Satan would have a better sense of what the fuck is going on. You were an innocent, clueless bystander. That’s all.”
“Wrong. I’m a guilty bystander. A degenerate bystander! He asked me to get involved and I rejected the idea out of hand.” I slammed the rest of my drink.
“There was nothing to get involved in!” Dena insisted. “This London guy was sick and refused to get treatment from a doctor. You were in the wrong place at the wrong time. You’re not guilty or a degenerate. What you are is drunk.”
“Not yet,” I retorted signaling to our passing cocktail waitress that I wanted another.
“Perhaps if you wait a few weeks and then call the daughter back,” Mary Ann suggested, “maybe she’ll talk to you. When she’s, well, not less sad, but more calm.”
“And after she’s over the shock of finding out about your affair with her dad,” Dena added with a humorless smile.
“And when they find he wasn’t wearing his wedding ring they’ll think it’s more proof of that!” I moaned. “I have to straighten that out.”
“You can ponder that one out tomorrow,” Dena suggested, leaning back in her chair.
“Tomorrow!” I exclaimed. “Tomorrow? Who am I? Scarlett O’Hara? Annie? To hell with tomorrow!” Okay, so maybe I was a little tipsy. They were strong drinks. “I should have dealt with things today. I should have helped him somehow! I was so thrown by all the crazy conspiracy stuff…I just screwed up!”
“Jason always gravitates to the conspiracy theories out there,” Dena noted, referencing her boyfriend and primary lover. Dena usually had a secondary or two on hand. It was an arrangement Jason seemed almost grateful for. After all, Dena might be a bit much for any one man to handle. “But you know Jason,” Dena added. “He’s a little eccentric.”
I pressed my lips together and Mary Ann coughed softly as she stared pointedly into her cocktail. I had no problem with Jason. He was fun. But saying he was “a little eccentric,” was like saying Muammar el-Qaddafi had been a little erratic.
“London had all these weird theories about how hospitals were performing needless medical procedures on the homeless,” I began but was interrupted by the arrival of my drink, which required immediate drinking.
“Like Medicare pays out enough to be worth scamming,” Dena said with a scoff.
“Mm,” I put down my drink after downing a little over half of it. “London was also really concerned about a New World Order.”
“Jason’s always going on about that,” Dena noted as the waitress walked off. “Oligarchs creating a secret society and taking over the world or some such bullshit.”
“Wait,
” Mary Ann asked as she raised her martini glass for another sip, “What’s an oligarch? Are they, like, a kind of ogre? Like in The Hobbit and Shrek?”
Dena took in a sharp breath and I could see her fist clenching by her side. She never had a lot of patience for what we euphemistically referred to as Mary Ann’s unworldliness.
“Sort of,” I said, giving Dena a subtle kick under the table before she let loose with something biting. “But these kind have money, so more in line with the ogres in Shrek II.” A group of guys at the next table broke out in laughter. San Francisco had become one of the rare cities where even the straight guys traveled in packs. Dena called them PGP, Proud Geek Packs. I shifted in my seat and brought my attention back to my own table. “London also thought the government is trying to kill us.”
“Same with Jason,” Dena noted.
I stared down at my drink. “I like Jason,” I said slowly. “I mean he’s crazy but I don’t blow him off when he asks for my help.”
“Yeah, well that’s because he doesn’t ask for your help,” Dena said before taking a quick sip of her whiskey tonic.
“Okay, but I mean, I wouldn’t,” I explained. “And I don’t treat him like he’s a lunatic who needs professional help.”
“Well,” Mary Ann said, delicately, “I don’t know if Jason getting a little professional help would be the worst idea…”
“I treat Jason with respect,” I continued as Dena shot Mary Ann an icy glare. “I don’t think I treated London with respect,”
“If I remember correctly, the first time you met Jason you thought he was a joke and treated him accordingly,” Dena pointed out. “It wasn’t until you got to know him that you came to respect the man under the conspiracy theories.”
“Yeah, but I should have learned from that! We’re in San Francisco! Half the people here think our government is homicidal!” My words started picking up speed until they were practically bumping into one another. “Every time there’s a drone strike there’s a protest on some street corner rallying against government sanctioned killing! We can disagree with them but that doesn’t mean they’re irrational. Or even when they are it doesn’t mean we should act like their concerns are stupid or silly. And that’s what I did with this guy! I dismissed him! Why did I do that?” I fumbled around in my purse until I found the ring. I pulled it out and held it reverently in the palm of my hand. “I screwed up. I really, really, screwed up.”
