Deadweight

by Robert Devereaux

  He slid back the bathroom door, stepped into the tiny room with its toilet and its few feet of carpeting and its throw rug and its shower stall, and rumbled the door shut behind him. The water was suddenly louder; mist danced in the air. He could see Nona’s flesh-pink opacity shifting behind the glass. “Jimmy, what the fuck are you doing in here?” she shouted, not angry, just making herself heard over the water. “Use the potty in the hall, for Christ’s sake. I don’t want your stink in here.”

  Here goes nothing, he thought, then rolled the shower door open on its runners and stepped inside.

  ***

  “Hey can’t a girl get any—?” privacy around here she was going to say, but faltered when she saw that his ski slope of a pot belly, so long unencumbered by obstacle, now sprouted, from below, the huge tree trunk she’d loved so well in the past.

  “A girl can get plenty,” said Jimmy, rumbling the shower door closed and resting his fists on his hips like George Reeves in Superman, “if she knows how to ask for it good and proper.”

  Nona was faced away from the detachable shower head, feeling the hot water needle against the back of her wet helmet of hair and stream down the curvature of her spine as she soaped breasts and belly. She reached up to the tiled window ledge and laid the soap in its dish. “You weren’t kidding about that operation, were you?”

  “Good as new,” he said proudly, a little boy showing off his trophy. “Better than new.”

  With both hands, Nona scooped a thick lather of suds off her breasts and brought it to Jimmy’s genitals. She kissed him as she soaped him, a long lingering kiss, then knelt to inspect her handiwork. The water drummed across the top of her scalp and hit Jimmy in the chest, rivulets zigzagging down his belly to wash the soap from his penis and depend soapy dribbles from his testicles. When Jimmy was erect, damned if he didn’t put John Holmes himself to shame. Popular wisdom had it that most women didn’t care what size a man was as long as he knew what to do with it. Yeah, well fuck that, thought Nona, I’m not most women and I like some heft, some length to my lovers, I like to wrap myself around someone who’s got the stuff to fill me right to the brim and then some.

  “This is more like it, Jimmy,” she said, brushing her cheek up against it, feeling its primitive heat. “This is why I married you, honey, and I’m damned glad you’re back to normal.”

  “Better than normal, sweets,” he said, hips slowly moving to her rhythm. “Doc says I can last just as long as you want me to.”

  “Mmmm, you’ve always done fine in that department.” She lazed her lips up his tentpole, drew back an inch to scrutinize it when she encountered softness at its head, softness that surprised her. It was true, she thought, running a thumb around it and cupping his balls in her other hand. Not as firm as before, kind of flat, almost floppy—odd, as if the head of his penis had decided to sit this one out. Oh well, the rest of him was good as new and the stubborn head—more beret than bowler—would, like a worn eraser on the end of a pencil, just go along for the ride. And Nona planned to make it a ride worth the effort, both for her and for Jimmy.

  She eased her lips up over it, gave him head. The shower deflected off Jimmy’s belly and spattered Nona’s forehead with warm water. As she moved, it danced from the bridge of her nose up her brow to the front of her scalp, then back down again. Her right hand clasped the base of him, thumb not touching her other fingers for the thickness of him there; her left gentled below his scrotum the way he liked, stroking and squeezing lightly. Jimmy’s hand closed on her left wrist, almost as if to stop her. And then she felt something weird under his skin, and he softened in her mouth, lost all his glorious thickness in seconds, went floppy and flat like a boned finger as the strain on her ringed lips eased and vanished altogether. Damned thing died right there in her mouth.

  She let it fall out, watched it flop in shame above his balls. “Nice try, champ,” she said, rising to her feet, “but you’re going to have to do a whole hell of a lot better than that. Now get out of here, Mister Limp Dick, and let me finish my—”

  “No, wait, Nona, it’s all right. You hit the wrong button, that’s all. Here, I’ll just pump it back up and things’ll be as good as new.” Jimmy looked frantic. He had his hand cupped around himself and his fingers were feeling for something, almost as if he thought the fleshy pouch contained a lost coin if he could only feel it out. Then he relaxed a little—found it!—and his hand pulsed to some rhythm he seemed to know. His penis perked up, a hound dog sniffing something in the wind, and Jimmy began to spout nonsense. “See, Nona, I could have gone for the permanent boner, the Flexirod or the Small-Carrion, which I remember because it has such a bizarre name, but really it’s named after the two doctors who invented it—”

  “Wait, what—?” His penis was stirring, waving back and forth over his balls like an old blind snake. She’d had the pleasure of bringing on this sort of resurrection before, but there was something odd, almost zombie-like, about this priapic revival.

  “—but hell I couldn’t stand the idea of twisted wire covered with rubber and shoved into my dick, Jesus what if you and me bent it one time too many and the damned thing broke. Made me shiver.” His thing continued to fill out, angling up as if to hear him better, ultimate egotist, in love with talk about itself. “So we chose an inflatable. Reservoir here, pump down here—”

  “You mean you—?” Nona’s head felt hot. This whole monstrous thing was swirling in on her, snatches of babble falling together like woozy jigsaw puzzle pieces yammering over her objections into her mind.

  “Yes, twin inflatable balloon things on the right and left where the blood usually flows in and out.” His penis stood now fully at attention. “Here let me show you where the release valve is so you—”

  Jimmy took her hand but she yanked it back. “Get out of here, you fucking freak!” she screamed. “And take your fucking Frankendick with you!” He was suddenly loathsome to her, a pathetic old man looking beyond his forty years, his life one joke after another. And now, without telling her in advance, without giving her a say in the decision, he’d managed to turn his prick into a joke too, an insult to her and to their marriage.

  “But Nona, I—”

  She snatched a bottle of Vidal Sassoon UltraCare from the ledge and hurled it at him. It slapped at his chest, urped pink goop on his left shoulder, and clattered to the stippled floor. His bottle of cheap, vile-smelling, blue-green dandruff shampoo followed; Jimmy deflected it, tried to catch it as it fell, but sent it smashing instead into the shower doors, making them rattle violently in their runners. “Get out of here,” she said, “get out!” But still he stood there trying to calm her, trying to reason chaos away, his huge erection absurdly rigid, flapping this way and that as he dodged her missiles and blows.

  Anger throbbed in her head, made her strong in rage. The fucker was still here, still jabbering. She reached for the shower head, yanked it out of its holder, gripped its white plastic handle. Up the gushing thing rose, its shiny silver flexcord slapping at her arm. Down it came, hard, against Jimmy’s skull, a sudden slap of shower water froomp like a lawn sprinkler across his face. Again it rose and fell, connected once more, this time smack on his left ear. “Stop, that hurts,” he said, his arms up like a boxer on the defensive, him trying to backpedal but being stopped by the tiles. Her third blow hit him high on the shoulder blade as he turned to the door, the water sickling up his neck like splayed rake tines to slap at the back of his skull. Then in a flash, the door rumbled open and he was gone, his naked body flinging drops of water out into the bathroom, the door shuddering closed, then rebounding open an inch, in her face.

  Nona’s head was throbbing. Her throat was sore from the shouting she’d done. She leaned back against the cool tile of the outer wall and cried, one hand rubbing at her forehead, the other collapsed on her thigh, still holding the gushing shower head, which braided hot snaky rivulets down the smooth shaved skin of her right leg. She’d show him, she thought. She’d go on a sexual ram
page the likes of which he’d never seen, she’d flaunt it openly, force it on the world, humiliate the motherfucker but good.

  For a moment she was outside by the mailboxes, warm male hand clasped in hers, pressing it up into the crotch of her shorts, watching Mister Hot-Shot Attorney falter an instant before he walked away. Then she was back in the shower, slowly regaining control over her breathing—but Frank Tanner’s face, a conflict of doubts raging not all that far beneath the surface, stayed with her, teased her, tantalized her, turned her way the fuck on.

  FOUR

  IN THE GARDEN

  Ethan Bell’s sprightly rap startled Frank. His head poked in, gave a scattershot of sound: “Lookertoseeyou, Frank.”

  “Come again?”

  The younger man, making a show of exasperation and over-enunciating his words, leaned in, most of him still behind the door. “There’s a woman out here, dressed to the nines, asking for you.”

  Frank glanced at his desk clock: 6:50. “Why’d you let her in? You know I use seven to nine for catch-up. No meetings, no clients, no exceptions.”

  A shrug. “She blew me a kiss.”

  “Fine, then kiss her and get rid of her. Tell her to call for an appointment.”

  “Says she knows you. Nona something.”

  Frank looked up from his papers. “Nona Gallagher?”

  “Bingo, Mister Sabich.” Ethan fired a finger gun at him. “Now if we can just locate that missing glass, we’ll have enough evidence to send you away for life.”

  Frank laughed. “You should talk.”

  “I’ll show her in.”

  “No, that’s all right.” Frank pushed his chair back and got up. “We’ll use the El Dorado room.”

  Ethan stepped back to let Frank through. “Big table, plush chairs, picture window on beautiful downtown Sacra-tomato, and enough glass into the main office to make your meeting semi-private at best? Where’s the fun in that?”

  “Right where it belongs,” said Frank, “nowhere.” He caught Nona seated beside Jeannine’s vacant desk. “I do believe I’d prefer safe to fun in this case.”

  “Frank, my man, you are crazy.”

  “But magnanimous with my cabin keys.”

  “Magnanimous to a fault. For which I thank you once again, and for which I’m sure my Marcie—once she recovers from the workout I have in store for her—will also thank you most profusely.”

  “Hello, Frank,” she said, her cherry lips liquid with words. Rising, she offered her hand. Frank took it.

  “Nona.” Ethan was right. Her dress, a black number of frills and satin, hugged her in all the right places, played up her breasts and hips, and broke just above the knee. Patterned stockings took over, going straight down her amazing legs to a pair of three-inch heels. She had a black clutch purse in one hand and a thin choker of black velvet around her neck. Her platinum hair was swept to one side and caught up in a black-sequined barrette. On any other woman, the outfit would have been overdone; on Nona, it was staggering. That surprised Frank, who was usually turned off more than on by women who adopted the frou-frou of femininity.

  “I’m sorry I didn’t call first, Frank, but I—” She stopped to look over at Ethan, who was hiding a smile.

  “Well I’ll see you two later,” said Ethan, “I’ve got some work to do.” Frank introduced them, then Ethan took off, though not before glancing a split-second of manly significance Frank’s way.

  “I remembered you mentioning you weren’t busy before nine and—”

  “I’m very” he began, then regretted it. “Go on.” And then he regretted that. If only he could assert himself as boldly in real life as he did in the courtroom.

  “Pardon?”

  “Please continue.”

  “—and I needed to see you about something.”

  Frank nodded and showed her into the El Dorado room, her perfume not overdone, just enough to make him think of pheromones. He pulled out a chair for her and watched her pear-shaped bottom ease into it.

  “Mind if I smoke?” she asked.

  “I’d prefer you didn’t.”

  She looked at him.

  “Office policy.”

  She opened her clutch purse, tamped out a Camel on the ball of her thumb, put it between her lips—soft, red, in a generously wide mouth—and lit it. Inhaling, she blew a thick stream of smoke past his face, her O’d lips a Monroe pucker. Then she grinned like an impish girl who loves to break rules and Frank let free with laughter, in which she joined. She gave him a dark look, almost a leer, and rose to her feet.

  Frank watched her strut about the room, fingering the backs of plush swivel chairs, the goose-curved silver neck of the overhead projector, the perfect sheen of the top of the conference table. She peered out the window, one arm a shelf beneath her bosom, the other involved in cigarette maneuvers. Her back swayed up from her waist like a woman in a lingerie ad. One leg lazed behind the other.

  “So what can I do for you, Nona?”

  She smiled, not turning her head, still fixed perhaps on the capitol dome and the flowered park around it. She took another puff, then said, “Do you do divorce?”

  The question caught him up short.

  “Not as a general rule,” he said, suddenly eaten up with curiosity but stifling it. “Even if I did, I would, as a general rule, avoid divorce cases involving people I know outside of my professional life.”

  Almost as if she’d expected his answer, Nona veered off on another tangent. “Your wife’s first husband and I had an affair. Lasted a good year and a half. First time we laid eyes on each other, we knew.” She held Frank with a cool smoky gaze, then released him. “Queenie and I took our evening walk to Forty-Niner Park soon after they moved in. Danny was there, at a picnic table, watching Wolf run free. I unleashed Queenie and sat next to him. There was easy talk at first, new neighbor stuff, no one else in the park, we were a foot apart. And then the talk stopped and he took his hand and put it on my knee and ran it smoothly up to here, where my shorts began.”

  “I don’t see how this—”

  Nona reshelved her arm, but this time her hand curved beneath her right breast, the thumb idling back and forth at her nipple. “I looked out toward the swing set and the slides and saw them in the sand, right under a floodlight, Wolf and Queenie going at it. Wolf had his paws together on her back like he was praying. I laughed and Danny did too and then I guided his pinkie and ring finger, the ones he’d slid under the cuff of my shorts, farther along so he could feel how . . . how moist I was, and then he—”

  “That’s enough,” said Frank. He rose, feeling used by this woman, sickened by new evidence of Danny Daniels’ callousness toward Karin, and—he had to admit it—turned on by Nona’s seductive ways, despite the transparency of her wiles. “I have lots to do and I’m not interested in hearing anything more about Danny Daniels.”

  Nona stood by the window. Running a hand along her hip, she looked at Frank and said, “Queenie is lonely for Wolf and I’m lonely for the man next door.”

  “Nona, you’re a beautiful woman, but I’ve got to tell you you’re not acting beautiful at the moment.” He didn’t know whether to usher her out bodily or simply to open the conference room door in hopes she’d take the hint.

  “Jimmy’s been impotent for nearly a year and now some doctor’s gone and put a hard-on engine in his dick, turned him into a monster. I need you, Frank, I need to make the most beautiful love in the world with you.”

  “That’s enough, Nona.” He took a step toward her but halted when she held out her arms. He strode to the door. “This conference has gone on far too long. I’m sorry but I love my wife and I’m not in the market for an affair.” He gripped the handle and pulled the door open.

  Nona sighed, stubbed her cigarette out on the marble sill, then retrieved her clutch purse and sauntered toward the door. “You’re forceful. I like it. It’s not a side you show much, is it? Danny was that way all the time, no surprise I guess; but I turned him to putty in my house
, I got him to play along, made him beg for it.”

  “That’s enough, Nona.”

  “There’s lots of ways to a man’s heart, Frank.” She touched his cheek and he drew back. “I just haven’t found the way to yours yet. But I will.” The voice was playful but there was hurt as well. “See you soon, Frank.”

  Frank didn’t escort Nona past Jeannine’s desk to the door, but walked instead back to his office, catching the easy sway of her body out of the corner of one eye—that and the mimed wolf-whistle of Ethan, who peered out of his office door and gave the A-OK sign to Frank.

  Frank returned to his desk and tried to collect his thoughts. Ten to seven. Karin rose at six-thirty. If he was lucky, he’d catch her between shower and garden. He lifted the receiver, punched up the number.

  “Tanners,” she said.

  “I love you,” he said.

  “Frank?”

  “Who else?”

  “Anything wrong? Car conk out again?”

  “No, nothing’s wrong. I just wanted to call and tell you, you know, what I told you.”

  “That you love me?”

  “Yes.”

  “Oh, that’s nice. Well, good. Well, I . . . I love you too.”

  “Great!” Form’s sake. She didn’t really mean it.

  She said nothing.

  “Um, see you later, okay?”

  “Okay, Frank. Have a good day.”

  They hung up and Frank wished he hadn’t called. He’d stop someplace on the way home, maybe pick up a fruit and cheese basket. Quit early. Get home before she left for the graveyard. No, that would be too much, too pushy, an affront. Time enough for him to give it to her after dark when she got home.