by Denise Dietz
“Wylie ruined it for everybody. I wonder if that was Patty’s tusk.”
“What do you mean?”
“Patty was supposed to be crowned Queen of the Elephants.”
Rising, Ben walked across the room. Hitchcock followed. Ben stoked the fire. Hitchcock stroked Ben’s denim crotch with his tongue, then rolled over on his back and waved his paws.
“You’re right, Ingrid, that’s exactly why she was so upset.” Hunkering down, Ben scratched Hitchcock’s belly. “I wanted to sober her up, so I suggested we take a stroll outside. There’s a wooded area behind the house.”
“Yes, I know. That’s how I made my escape. From Tonto, the saw-toothed dog next door. The foliage grows wild for three full blocks, and Patty’s house isn’t fenced. Well, the neighbors have fenced it in on one side, but there’s a clear path to the trees and—”
I hesitated, aware that I was babbling. The bean curds suddenly looked unpalatable, so I grabbed a sweet and sour shrimp with my chopsticks, walked across the room, and glared down at Ben until he stood, facing me. Hitchcock felt my vibes, sensed a silent baddog, and slunk toward the fireplace tiles. “Patty seduced you, right?”
“Wrong!”
“You seduced her?”
“No. I don’t take advantage of drunk—”
“Baloney! You took advantage of my nebulous state during Stewie’s wake.”
“That’s different.”
“Why?”
“Because I love you!”
Those four words momentarily halted my verbal onslaught. Then, still seething, I said, “What happened between you and Patty?”
“Nothing happened.”
“Patty just stood there contemplating her navel? Or maybe she was contemplating yours.”
“My navel was hidden by my shirt, belt and jeans.”
“Aha! What about Patty’s navel?”
“She took her clothes off. But nothing happened.”
“She stripped in the middle of a deserted forest and you just watched?” I orchestrated my rage with the chopsticks, and the prawn rode dead air until it landed inside my blouse. “Women seem to do that a lot when they’re around you, Ben. I remember your comatose date at Stewie’s wake. She was naked as a jaybird.”
“Damn it, Beaumont, you’re fixated on Stewie’s wake!”
Ben’s anger was beginning to match mine, but I ignored his dark, blazing eyes. “I can’t believe you screwed Patty.”
“I can’t believe you screwed Wylie.”
“He screwed me!”
“That’s not what he said.”
“I thought you didn’t see him. I thought he was busy painting.”
“On the phone, Ingrid. Wylie insisted that you got drunk, weepy, very…shall we say aggressive?”
“Say anything you like. It’s a lie.”
“Okay. Sorry.”
“No, you’re not. Was Patty as good as she looks, Ben? Does a butterfly achieve more than one orgasm?”
“Nothing happened,” he said for the third time. “I gave her my jacket.”
“Oh, sure. You covered her beautiful body with your jacket and led her back inside.” Suddenly I realized that Ben’s sheepskin jacket had been missing since yesterday. It wasn’t in the bedroom or the kitchen or the front hall closet. “Where is your jacket, Ben?”
“At Patty’s house. She insisted on having it cleaned.”
“Why? Did you roll around in the dirt?”
“No. She threw up. I held her head. Then I did lead her back inside, and brewed some coffee.”
“That’s the truth?”
“I swear.”
“Where was Wylie all this time?”
“Working.”
“He didn’t emerge once? Out of curiosity? I mean, we’re talking about a puking wife. Or had she finished?”
“She finished at the kitchen sink. Christ, she’d downed five or six Bloody Marys. When I refused her, uh, generosity, she screamed bloody murder. It must have primed the pump. In the middle of a rather profane double-whammy, she erupted like a volcano.”
“Lava mixed with Tabasco sauce. No wonder she insisted on having your jacket dry-cleaned.”
“I thought she had finished, but when we reached the kitchen she started all over again. She was edgy, and it wasn’t me, or even the dance. I think she thought Wylie might continue his abuse from the night before.”
“Abuse? What abuse? He exposed our hypocrisy, that’s all. Okay, here’s the scenario,” I said slowly. “Patty nude beneath your jacket, puking into the kitchen sink. You holding her head. Again. May I assume there was no background music?”
“No, you may not assume. There was music. It came from Wylie’s studio. Very loud. That’s probably why he didn’t hear Patty.”
“Ray Charles, right?”
“No. Henry Mancini.”
“Wylie was playing Mancini? Moon River Mancini? Never mind. What happened next?”
“Patty showered and got dressed while I drank coffee. Then I drove her to the Dew Drop Inn.”
“And all the time Patty washed and primped, you never said boo to Wylie?”
“I guess I felt guilty.”
“But you’ve just sworn that Patty instigated the seduction. Nothing happened, you said.”
“I felt a certain remorse, regardless.”
Lifting the chopsticks to my lips, I realized that the shrimp rested between my cleavage and my waistline. Something smelled sour, and it wasn’t my saucy breasts.
“Ben, are you absolutely certain that Wylie was working inside his studio?”
“Well, I never actually saw him. Why do you ask?”
“The music and—wait a sec! Why did you drive Patty to the Dew Drop? Where was her car?”
“In the garage. I drove because I wanted to watch the football game, I knew the reunion crowd was planning to meet there, and Patty still looked a tad green around the gills. What’s your point?”
“A thief thought the house was vacant because Patty had the rental car.”
“She didn’t, Ingrid. I drove us. But if the car was in the garage, a thief might still believe it was gone.”
I tried focusing on a thought that wouldn’t stay put. “Did Patty say good-bye to Wylie?”
“Of course. I heard her. She even kissed him.”
“How do you know?”
“Her lipstick was smeared.”
With a shrug, I returned to the couch. “C’mere, Hitchcock, good dog.”
My ganglionic mutt wagged his tail, and every other portion of his body, as he bounded across the room, skidded to a halt, and snuffled my sweet and sour blouse.
“Sit, Hitchcock,” said Ben, joining us. “Stay! Leave Ingrid alone. You’re trespassing on my property.”
“I’m not your property, Cassidy. My breasts are not your property, either.”
“Who paid for the Chinese take-out, Beaumont?”
“You did.”
“Then I have proprietary rights, exclusive and absolute. For instance, that shrimp belongs to me.”
Sitting, Ben pulled my body across his lap, unbuttoned the rest of my blouse, and captured the prawn with his teeth. Then he tossed the prawn toward Hitchcock.
Hitchcock didn’t catch the shrimp, of course. Hitchcock couldn’t catch a rubber ball unless you wedged it between his jaw and muzzle. After sniffing the floor, he gulped it down in one swallow—the prawn, not the floor.
Ben swallowed slowly, leisurely licking sauce until his tongue reached my heart breast.
I pressed my breasts together so that Ben could suck both nipples at the same time. That left his hands free to unzip my jeans and roll them down. “Your crotch is soaked,” I gasped, as my bare butt encountered wet denim.
“Hitchcock has a very large, very wet tongue.” Ben shifted my body from his lap to couch cushions, and took off his own jeans. Kneeling, he spread my legs, lowered his face between my thighs, and began to caress.
“So do you, Cassidy. Oh!” I spasmed six or seven times. “Oh, God, I
’m sorry.”
I felt his grin spread across my belly-button. “Don’t ever apologize for multiple orgasms,” Ben said.
“But I came without you.”
“Not quite. I was definitely involved. It’s very satisfying, almost narcissistic for a man to evoke that kind of response. In fact, my ego’s swollen with pride.”
But, in fact, it wasn’t only his ego that was swollen.
Afterwards, he said, “You talk tough, Beaumont, but you’re soft, smart, talented, forgiving, independent, and consumed with guilt. My daughter would say you have the smart guilties. In other words, you have a conscience.”
“Except for politicians and serial killers, everybody is born with a sense of right and wrong,” I said. “Don’t you agree?”
“Nope.”
“You believe in that bad seed crap?”
“No, not really. But I do believe that brains are like a ruffled tuxedo shirt, and sometimes God forgets to iron one flounce.”
“Name somebody who lacks a moral sense.”
“That’s easy. Hitler, Manson, Bundy—”
“Somebody we know personally.”
“Alice Shaw Cooper.”
I blinked. “But Alice doesn’t have anything to be guilty about.”
Rising to his feet, Ben stepped into his jeans. “I once had a patient,” he said, zipping his fly, “a Cocker Spaniel named Suzy Q. Her owners wanted to breed her. But every time a male Cocker Spaniel approached, Suzy snarled and sat on her rump. Then one day this brute of a Rottweiler leaped into Suzy’s yard. The only thing they had in common was a stubby tail. Suzy’s owners finally separated the two dogs with cold, gushing water from a garden hose.”
“And?”
“After Suzy’s litter arrived, they had her spayed.”
“I don’t understand. Are you suggesting that Alice would fool around with a Rottweiler?”
“No,” Ben said with a smile. “But she does assume this virtuous facade.”
“Alice can’t possibly have a wrinkled ruffle, Ben. If she did, she’d send her brain out to be pressed. Or,” I added thoughtfully, “she’d be the prime suspect in Wylie’s murder.”
“The police caught Wylie’s killer. It was on the news. So were you, honey. They showed highlights of the Broncos game, and there you were, hefting your sign. Thanks for—”
“Whoa. Didn’t you see it yesterday?”
“Sure.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Okay, I missed it. I heard all about it, though. Patty told me.”
I had a vision of Patty draping her lithe body across Ben’s broad shoulders and whispering: “Ing printed our names together, darling. How appropriate.”
Since the vision really bothered me, I blurted the very next thing that popped into my head. “Ben, how do you make a statue of an elephant?”
“Well, I guess you’d buy some clay and sculpt an elephant. If you really wanted to be creative, you’d add ivory tusks, although people with a conscience shun ivory.”
“Tusks. I wonder if Wylie’s riddle involved tusks.” Rising from the couch, donning Ben’s shirt, I rushed toward my bookcase. “Where’s the dictionary? Here it is. Tsetse fly, turnover, turtleneck, tusk.” I scanned Webster’s definition. “Basically, it’s a long protruding tooth. Do we know anyone with prominent canines?”
“Yup. Me.”
“Teeth, not dogs.”
“Okay. Theodora Mallard.”
“Who?”
“She was better known as Tad. Dwight’s—”
“Cheerleader girlfriend. Of course. At the reunion dance, she criticized Wylie’s Lone Ranger remark.” My mind conjured up a picture of Theodora Mallard. “She doesn’t have elongated teeth.”
“She did. Wylie nicknamed her ‘The Vampire.’ Inside the locker room we joked that she could pierce a certain organ with her teeth, like you’d pierce ears. We thought we were so funny. We didn’t know that one day kids would hang hoop earrings from every orifice. By the way, Tad now wears braces.”
“I didn’t notice braces.”
“That’s because you didn’t dance with her.”
“When did you dance with her?”
“After Wylie and Patty left, while you were calming Alice down.”
“Was Tad freaked out?”
“Define freaked out.”
“God, I sound like Alice. Disconcerted. Traumatized. You know, because of Wylie’s sermon. Everyone was upset, but Tad and Junior were really pissed, and Alice said Dwight was brooding. No. Sulking. Which, I suppose, is the same thing.”
“Dwight wasn’t sulking. He was thoughtful, nostalgic. And Tad wasn’t traumatized. She was, er, tipsy.”
“Don’t be such a gentleman, Ben. If she was drunk, say drunk.”
“Okay. Drunk. She danced like a pretzel, looping her body around mine. I had to dig my fingers into her shoulders to keep her at a discreet distance.”
“I’ll bet she enjoyed that.”
“Why?”
“She’s a tad masochistic.”
“Tad bragged about her braces because she got them through Workers’ Comp. She’s a waitress at the Olive Garden restaurant and another server smacked her in the mouth with a tray. She was injured on the job, you see, so the orthodontist didn’t cost her a cent.”
“What a bitch. She was always a bitch.”
“True, Ingrid, but she’s a bitch with sharp canines. Hey, that’s not a bad pun. I sound like Wylie.”
“I wish you thought like Wylie. I wish I thought like Wylie. I wish I could figure out the answer to his damn riddle.”
* * *
Soaking in my antique tub, with Ben’s butt between my legs and his thick wet hair resting against my breasts, I said, “Maybe the riddle has nothing to do with anything. Maybe I should focus on the painting.”
“Focus on my back, babe.”
Ben squirmed to a sitting position, spreading my legs wider, and I felt shivery all the way down to my toes. Was there a lyric that rhymed with orgasm? Yup. Spasm. How about hump? Easy. Pump, bump, plump.
Swishing the washcloth across Ben’s bronzed shoulders, I thought: Plump. Plump cushions. No. Plump pillows. Doris Day’s head reclined on pillows. Hadn’t Wylie once—
“Ingrid, you’re scarring my spinal column with your fingernails.”
“I just thought of something, Ben.”
“Me, too. It’s been fifteen years since I had the urge to come twice. Well, maybe the urge, but not the stamina. Or if I had staying power, my wife lacked enthusiasm.”
“Always? Even in the beginning?”
“In the beginning I thought she lacked experience. Toward the end I realized she just wanted to get the dirty act over with. Sperm was so sticky. My wife would have loved a Teflon penis.”
“Then she would have loved my husband,” I muttered under my breath.
Later, toweling Ben’s body, I said, “Cassidy, you make me feel as if I’ve stared at the sun too long.”
“That’s because I’m sunshine. At first I resented Wylie for giving me that tag. I thought it was a dumb designation for a guy, until I read about Ra and Sol and Helios.”
“Ra was the Egyptian sun-god and chief deity. Crossword puzzles,” I added diffidently.
“The sun-gods were very macho. Sol was the Roman sun-god, Helios was Greek.”
“That makes you Egyptian, Roman, Greek, Irish and Cherokee, while I’m just a plain old rose.”
“A rose is a flower, Ingrid. Do you know what the word flower means?”
“I left my dictionary in the family room.”
“A flower means the best of anything. For example, the flower of our youth.”
“Please, Ben, I’m not used to compliments. Anyway, if I’m a flower, you’re the sunshine that makes me bloom.”
“You may not be used to compliments, Ingrid, but you sure know how to give them. Thank you.”
“Welcome,” I said, cheeks burning. Because I wasn’t used to giving compliments either. My wor
ld was tough, male-oriented, and I had to fight to get every good film I scored. I had to accept rejection with gruff grace and assume responsibility when things went askew. I had once overheard somebody describe me as “Mickey, Spillane not Mouse,” and at the time I thought it was the highest accolade I’d ever receive.
Until Ben uttered his flower remark.
So I kissed him. Then, breathlessly, I said, “Would you care to try for three?”
“Three what?”
I felt an unfamiliar blush spread across my face. “Three orgasms.”
“Three orgasms in a row?”
“Naturally.”
“That’s not natural, honey, not at my age. Still, I’d be willing to give it a shot if I could have some sustenance first.”
“I’m afraid our dinner is cold and—ohmigod! Hitchcock!”
Together, we raced toward the family room.
It smelled like soy sauce and looked like the Chinese Air Force had made a surprise attack on Colorado Springs, bombing the inside of my house with snow peas, cashews and water chestnuts.
Hitchcock knew a baddog was inevitable, but he had weighed the consequences and opted for instant gratification. Lo main noodles dangled from his snout like Christmas tree tinsel, pork fried rice dotted his paws, and he was joyously lapping from a container that contained the last of our egg drop soup.
“Bad dog,” I said mournfully. “Oh, such a bad, bad dog.”
Repentant, Hitchcock carefully jawed a container filled with broccoli in garlic sauce, toted it across the room, and offered it to Ben.
Hitchcock’s expression seemed to suggest that Ben counter with at least one gooddog. But Ben was too busy laughing.
“It’s not funny,” I wailed. “That food cost a fortune.”
“Have a fortune, Ingrid.” On his knees, Ben dug beneath the coffee table until he found and tossed me a cookie.
I pulled out the tiny strip of paper. Once upon a time, fortune cookies had real fortunes. Now they usually had dumb sayings. Only this one wasn’t dumb.
“No individual raindrop is responsible for the flood,” I read out loud. “No individual soldier is responsible for the mud. Those are the words from ‘Clowns,’ my song. How many cookies came with our order, Ben?”
“Four packages, four cookies.”
“Is there another cookie, or did Hitchcock get to it?”
“He got to the cookie, but spit out the paper. See?”
