Getting Off: A Novel of Sex & Violence (Hard Case Crime)

by Lawrence Block

  “You’re kidding, right? There’s never been a time when I haven’t felt like talking to you.”

  It was the same for her. But she wasn’t ready to say it.

  There were things, though, that you had to say whether you were ready or not. If you waited until you were ready they would never get said.

  She said, “Rita, there’s a conversation we need to have.”

  “Should I put on a nightgown? And get my toys ready?”

  “Not this time.”

  “Kimmie, this sounds serious.”

  “Sort of, yeah. See, there’s things you don’t know about me. I was never a graduate student, I didn’t have a thesis to write.”

  “Well, duh.”

  “You figured that much, huh?”

  “Kimmie, every time I hear from you you’re someplace else and you’ve got a new phone number. It’s pretty obvious you’ve got a whole life that I don’t know anything about.”

  “And that doesn’t bother you?”

  “It makes me wonder. And, you know, I can’t help having my own fantasies.”

  “Oh?”

  “Which I’m sure are miles from the truth.”

  “For instance?”

  “This is just crazy guessing, but—”

  “Go ahead, Rita.”

  “Well, what I decided is you’re sort of a spy. Like with some super-secret government agency? And you travel around on assignments, and when I don’t hear from you for a really long period of time, that’s because you’re out of the country.”

  “Wow.”

  “I told you it was crazy. And then I thought—now this is even crazier, and maybe I shouldn’t say it.”

  “No, say it.”

  “Well, I thought whatever it is that she does, you know, it’s for our government, so it’s okay. And next I thought, well, suppose it’s not our government. Suppose it’s some other government, suppose Kimmie’s on the other side. Though it’s sometimes hard to know what the different sides are, anyway.”

  “I guess.”

  “But what I realized was I don’t care. What side you’re on, I mean. I don’t care if you’re really an alien and you’re working for the flying saucer people. It doesn’t matter. You’re still my Kimmie, and I get tingly when I pick up the phone and it’s you, and I’d rather jill off to one of your stories than fuck Brad Pitt while I’m blowing George Clooney.”

  “Although that does sound like fun.”

  “Yeah, it sort of does, doesn’t it?”

  “I don’t work for the government, Rita. Not ours or anybody else’s, either. I work in a pretentious coffee shop in Salem.”

  “Where they burn the witches?”

  “That was in Massachusetts, wasn’t it? Somewhere in New England, anyway. I’m in the one in Oregon, and all we burn is the French Roast coffee.”

  “You’re in Oregon?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “That’s not so far, is it?”

  “It’d take a while on a bicycle,” she said. “Rita, it’s not far, not really, and anyway I wouldn’t have to take a bike. I know how to drive. But first there are things I have to tell you, and the only way this is going to work is if you just listen and don’t interrupt. And then when I’m through you can ask anything you want, or say anything you want. Or just tell me you don’t want to have anything to do with me, and hang up, and I’ll have to live with that.”

  “My God, Kimmie.”

  “So here goes.”

  Long pause. “Kimmie?”

  “Yeah, I’m here. I’m just having a little trouble getting started.”

  It was very difficult to get started, and not much easier once she did. She couldn’t say anything without worrying about the way it would be received. But she forced herself to keep going, and there was a point where she stopped being concerned by Rita’s reaction.

  She’d asked Rita not to interrupt, and she didn’t, not even with an occasional sharp intake of breath. She found herself entertaining the notion that Rita wasn’t listening at all, that she’d put down the phone and left the room, that her own carrier had dropped the call.

  None of that mattered. She was speaking of things she had never confided to anyone, and it was as if all those words had been dammed up somewhere within her, and the effect of releasing them was surprisingly powerful.

  All those years of being the good little soldier, and you couldn’t say they’d ended when she killed her parents. That just gave her another secret to keep.

  She’d shared bits and pieces with some of the men she’d been with, just before or after she killed them. And she’d told a bit of her story to Angelica while she got the woman to tell her where the money was stashed, and while she slipped the Hermés scarf around her neck.

  Maybe those brief confidences had been an attempt to break the dam, to let it all out and relieve the pressure. But this was vastly different, and somewhere along the way she slipped into an altered state, as if she were a trance medium channeling her own thoughts.

  When she stopped, when the words ran out, she couldn’t have guessed how much time had passed. Nor would she have been able to say what incidents she’d recounted and what ones remained unreported. All she knew, really, was that she was done, that she’d said all she needed to say.

  She was waiting for a response from Rita, but Rita was silent herself. She knew she was still on the line, though. Her breathing, while shallow, was audible.

  When it was clear Rita wasn’t going to speak, she said, “That’s it. You can talk now. Or not, if you don’t want to.”

  “I wasn’t sure you were done.”

  “Oh, I’m done.”

  “I never would have guessed any of that, Kimmie. Except—”

  “What?”

  “Well, you know. Thinking you were a secret agent. I wondered if you ever had to kill anybody.”

  “And what did you decide?”

  “That you probably had to, and that you were probably good at it.”

  “Because I’m a heartless bitch.”

  “Because you’re the strongest human being I’ve ever met in my life.”

  “I guess you don’t get out much.”

  “I mean it, Kimmie. Should I be calling you that? That can’t be the name you started out with.”

  “I like it.”

  “Really?”

  “I like it when you say it.”

  “What’s so funny?”

  “Oh, I was just thinking. I like when you say Kimmie almost as much as you like it when I say cunt.”

  “Kimmie, you’re awful!”

  “I’ve killed more men than I can remember and saying a yummy word like cunt makes me awful?”

  “It is a yummy word, isn’t it?”

  “Delicious.”

  “If you were here—”

  “If I were there what?”

  “If you were here, I’d grab you like a bowling ball with two fingers up your ass and my thumb up your cunt, and I’d suck on your clitty until your bones melt.”

  “You didn’t just come up with that, Rita.”

  “No, it’s one of a few hundred things I think about all the time. All. The. Time.”

  “But now that you know what I am—”

  “You’re my Kimmie, that’s all I need to know. I love you.”

  “Oh God.”

  “I do, I do. I love you and I’m in love with you. And I don’t have to be jealous of any of the guys you’ve been with because they’re all dead. Not that I was ever jealous anyway, because what do I care what you do with men? What has any of that got to do with us?”

  “Nothing. I love you, too.”

  “I know you do.”

  “You want to know something awful about me? I love that you killed them. Kellen Kimball, I liked the idea that you were going to fuck him, that we’d have him in common.”

  “You said it would be a threesome with an interval.”

  “And I thought he was a pretty nice guy, even if he wouldn’t go down on
me. Did he go down on you?”

  “He didn’t want to.”

  “But he did, didn’t he?”

  “Well, see, he did want to, really. He wanted to do you, too, but he had this fidelity issue. Once I got him to see that he was my proxy bridegroom Sidney, not some lucky girl’s fiancé, well, he got into the spirit of things.”

  “That is so great. And he’s dead, and you killed him.”

  “Yeah.”

  “I guess I’m crazy, because on the one hand I liked him a little, and at the same time I’m really glad you killed him. That’s weird, isn’t it?”

  “I think so,” she said. “But I’m not sure I’m the best person to say what’s weird and what isn’t.”

  And, a little later:

  “I know you can drive, but I bet you don’t have a car. What I could do, I could drive down and pick you up.”

  “I’ll take the train.”

  “Are you sure? I swear I don’t mind driving.”

  “Amtrak takes a little over five hours and costs all of sixty-five dollars. I’ll get to watch the scenery, and I won’t have to worry about keeping my hands off the driver.”

  “You already checked this out.”

  “Yes.”

  “You were planning on coming.”

  “Or leaving you alone forever, depending on what you wanted.”

  “Well, you know what I want.”

  “It sounds like we both want the same thing.”

  “Oh, God.”

  “Tomorrow,” she said. “There are a couple of things I have to do. Pack my stuff, tell my boss to find someone else to sell plangent coffee.”

  “Plangent?”

  “Long story. There’s a train at two in the afternoon, gets to Seattle at a quarter after seven.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  “I could take a cab.”

  “Yeah, right. Or maybe my bike’s still there where you left it. You never know.”

  “It still bothers me about the bike. Just abandoning it like that.”

  “Well, get over it,” Rita said. “I’ll be there when your train gets in. And Kimmie? I love you.”

  Her morning appointment took longer than she’d thought. She’d packed first and stopped en route at the Bean Bag to pick up her pay and tell Will she was leaving, then found her way to the salon. She’d found their ad in the local alternative newspaper, and the operator wore spike heels and a lot of leather; if she wasn’t a dominatrix, she needed a new agent.

  She had one more stop to make after the Leather Girl finished with her, but it didn’t take long. When she left her suitcase was heavier, but not too heavy, and she wound up catching her train with ten minutes to spare. She grabbed a window seat, plopped her bag onto the aisle seat beside her, and hoped no one would make her move it. A lot of people got on in Portland, but they all walked past her bag and found seats somewhere else, and the seat beside hers remained empty all the way to Seattle.

  For five hours her mind kept offering up objections, telling her that she was crazy, that she and Rita were partners in a folie à deux. There was a rock album with that name, and it meant a shared delusion, and wasn’t that what was going on? A few hours together months and months ago, a whole bunch of deliberately erotic telephone conversations, and only one in which she’d actually let this great love of her life get a glimmer of who she really was.

  She remembered a joke she’d overheard in the Daiquiri Dock:

  Q: What does a lesbian bring on a second date?

  A: A U-Haul.

  She laid a hand on the bag next to her. Not a U-Haul, but it held everything she owned in the world, so it amounted to pretty much the same thing.

  Half an hour north of Portland she started wishing she’d put her bag in the overhead rack. Someone might be sitting next to her now, some jabbering biddy with pictures of her drooling grandchildren, some gormless college boy who’d ask her a million questions, then dart off to abuse himself in the restroom. One way or another she’d be stuck with a companion who’d bore her to tears—and wouldn’t that be better than having to listen to her own wretched mind?

  No way it was going to work out. Like, what were the odds?

  Slim and slimmer, she thought. There was a fair chance they wouldn’t even go to bed, because Rita could turn out to be far more adventurous over the phone than she was prepared to be in person. And even if they did, and even if it was great, then what?

  In a day or a week or not much more than that, she’d be getting on another train. Or a bus, or an airplane, but whatever it was it’d have the state of Washington in the rear-view mirror, and that’s where it would stay for the rest of her life.

  And then, of course, there’d be no more phone calls. For so long now she’d lived for those calls, coming alive during those moments on the phone in a way she never did the rest of the time. Not when she was fucking, not when she was killing, and certainly not when she was marking time.

  Sitting on the edge of her bed in some ill-furnished room. Talking, listening.

  God, she thought, remembering. Riverdale, talking on the phone while she rode off to orgasm on the still-rigid penis of the late Peter Fuhrmann. It was incredibly hot, and it damn well had to be or it would have been disgusting. Yet what she’d focused on throughout was not so much the dick inside her as the woman on the other end of the phone.

  Along with the phone calls, she’d be giving up the fantasy. Because that had sustained her even before she and Rita had begun speculating about the possibility of sharing sexual moments face to face. The idea that the two of them could, well, be a couple, that they could actually love each other, that together they could create, well, a life.

  Hey, we tried, sweetie. And we’ll stay in touch, okay? You know, on the phone. And who knows, maybe we’ll get together again in person sometime. You never know, do you?

  Except sometimes you knew. It would either work or it wouldn’t, and if it didn’t then it didn’t matter what lies they told each other, because they would both know it was over.

  And then what? Where would she go, and what would she do, and why should she even bother?

  She glared at her suitcase. Say something, she told it. Are you just going to fucking sit there in silence?

  “Let me give you a hand with that.”

  It wasn’t the suitcase that broke the silence, but the tall young man across the aisle. She’d noticed him once or twice since he’d boarded in Portland, and had noticed him noticing her. Briefly, she’d allowed herself to speculate on what might have happened if she weren’t on her way to Rita, but the fantasy never got anyplace because her mind had quickly gone back to spinning its wheels, telling her everything that was sure to go wrong in Kirkland.

  Now they were slowing as they entered the Seattle station, and he’d taken hold of her suitcase before she could tell him thanks but no thanks.

  “I can manage it,” she said. “Really I can.”

  He smiled, showing good teeth. “Of course you can,” he said, “but why should you? This way you can allow me to feel manly and useful, and save your strength for the hug you’re going to give your husband.”

  Interesting. He knew she wasn’t married, could not have failed to note the absence of a ring on her finger.

  Well, she could hold up her end of the conversation. “No husband,” she said.

  “Your boyfriend, then.”

  She smiled, shook her head.

  Well, why not? Rita wouldn’t be there, she would have come to her senses, and there’d be nobody at all to meet her, and where was it written that she had to be alone with her disappointment? He was a good-looking fellow, clean cut and well turned out, and he’d take her out for a decent dinner, and that was a good idea all by itself, because all she’d had to eat all day was the croissant with her morning coffee.

  And then she could fuck him, and once she’d done that she could figure out a way to kill him, and then she’d have no choice but to get out of Seattle in a hurry. And she’d give it
a few days and then call Rita from Omaha or Dayton or Lynchburg, and—

  “Kimmie!”

  And there was Rita.

  Jesus, how had she forgotten how beautiful the woman was? Just stunning, and positively glowing, and with the most wonderful light shining in her eyes.

  She took a step toward her, and before she knew it she was running. And then they were in each other’s arms.

  Had she ever kissed anyone like this? Putting every atom of her being into the kiss, drawing all she could of the other person back into herself? Had she? Ever?

  “Kimmie, I think that’s your suitcase.”

  “How did it—”

  “Unless it’s a bomb, but that guy didn’t look like your typical terrorist. He was actually kind of cute.”

  “Kind of.”

  “I guess at first he thought we were sisters, or best friends, you know? And then when we really got into it he got the message, and his expression changed. I guess he was disappointed.”

  “I guess. Where’d he go?”

  “He put the suitcase down,” Rita said, “and then I guess he went away, but by that time I was too busy kissing you to pay attention. I never kissed a woman like that.”

  “I never kissed anybody like that.”

  “No, neither did I. I always liked kissing guys, but it’s a completely different thing, isn’t it? God, you’re beautiful.”

  “This is nothing. Wait till you see me naked.”

  “Kimmie!”

  “How did you find a parking spot so close?”

  “The city reserved it for me,” Rita said, “by putting a fire hydrant there. I figured I’d get a ticket, and I figured I didn’t care, but I guess the meter maid was busy giving somebody a blow job. Kimmie, I never talked like this before I met you.”

  “I’m a terrible influence.”

  “You are. I loved the way our tits pressed together when we kissed.”

  “You may be disappointed, Ree. Mine are on the small side.”

  “Ree.”

  “Is it okay to call you that? Or do you hate it?”

  “No, I like it. And speaking of tits—”

  “That’s right. We were speaking of tits.”

  “I saw yours, remember? When we had phoneless sex.”

  “Oh, right.”

  “And I thought they were adorable. Mine are these big pillow tits. Maybe you won’t like them.”