by Vremont, Ann
“I’ve got to go for a bit,” she said, stroking the edge of his mouth. “My paper, remember?”
His face turned into her touch, his mumble sounding something like “s’not Muhnday”.
“But it is Monday.” She didn’t want to shake him too hard. “I’ll call around seven—let you know how far along I am, okay?”
His “kay” was just as mumbled, and she gently slid from his embrace and tucked the covers around him. She slipped her top and skirt on, hugging the shoes and the rest of the clothing against her chest. At the door, she grabbed her keys and then debated whether she should take his to lock his deadbolt. It was after midnight, so the gated entry to the courtyard would be locked. She wouldn’t finish the paper before he woke—would be lucky to crank out the minimum six thousand words in time and proof it. No, she wouldn’t need them. Locking the bottom lock and pulling the door shut behind her, she left his keys on the hook.
Standing in front of her door, she saw light seeping underneath. She opened the door, expecting to see only Erato, but finding Percy with her as well. Percy pounced forward and pulled Bryce to the center of the room.
“You’re going back, yes?” she asked, her words even more rapid-fire than at the start of this whole adventure.
“Yes.” Bryce answered. She felt waspish—clothes wrinkled, her hair and makeup undoubtedly a mess; she looked nothing at all like the junior muse with all her haute couture splendor. Of course, Percy probably hadn’t spent the night being thoroughly loved, either. “Not that it’s any of your business, Percy.”
“But it is!” Percy clapped and spun to face Erato. “So?”
“Fine,” Erato sighed. “Your transfer is approved pending the results on the final paper.” She pointed at the monitor, and the computer and screen blipped to life.
“I don’t get this,” Bryce said. She looked to Erato for answers. They’d exchanged enough intimate moments over the weekend, so surely the woman would provide an explanation.
“I told you,” Erato said. “Percy wants to work for me—immediately after I learned she’d stuck you with an old sheet and a charm bracelet, I tracked her down.”
Bryce moved to the couch and sank into its overstuffed cushions. “Go on.”
“Since I wouldn’t give her a chance to prove herself, she created her own—you.”
“My short story?” Bryce asked. “It’s not even started yet.”
Erato shook her head. Percy bounced in the desk chair.
“Walt’s painting?”
Percy giggled. “Noooooooooo. You are so cold.” Another clap. “Try again!”
“Enough,” Erato told her new assistant. She looked back at Bryce. “A metadrama.”
“Drama within drama, drama about drama…words feeding images and so on?” Bryce asked.
“Ooooh, she’s got a brain,” Percy chirped, her bouncing only intensifying.
“Drop the sarcasm, Percy,” Erato warned.
More than just a little confused, Bryce tilted her head and studied Erato’s sincerity. “But then whose metadrama am I?”
“Yours, dear.”
“And the toga and bracelet?” Those had to have been real, right?
“Stage props,” Percy chimed in.
Bryce’s gut felt hollowed out and her mouth began to tremble. “And Walt?”
“Great improvisation!” Percy collapsed against the back of the office chair in a fake swoon. “Holy Zeus, he’s hot.”
Bryce looked at Erato, her expression demanding a better explanation.
“All yours, darling.” Erato answered. With her first three fingers splayed, pinkie and thumb joined in a circle, she placed her hand over her heart. “Muse’s honor, and all.”
“I still don’t get all of it—metadramas don’t really work like that,” Bryce said, most of the tension leaving her body at the realization that the only magic worked on Walt had originated solely with her.
Erato pointed to where Percy was sitting. “Plant your ass in that chair for the next twelve hours, honey. You’ll have it all figured out by then.”
With that, both muses were gone.
*****
Leaving the pumps and undergarments on the couch, Bryce sat down in the office chair. The screen was just as blank as she had left it on Friday. She flipped through her syllabus to the sample cover sheet and began typing in the class details and her student information. There was a sharp rap at the door.
Bryce turned her head and stared at the door for a second. It was nearing one, too late for real visitors and she wouldn’t expect Walt to knock like that. If Percy was back for another round, why the formality? Bryce went to the door and opened it, her expression neutral in case it was Walt and not the renegade muse.
Artemesia Diaz was sliding the antenna down on her cell phone and dropping it back into her purse. Taking advantage of Bryce’s shock, she pushed into the room, pivoted and locked the door. Bryce suppressed a growl, half irritated with herself for letting two much smaller women force their way into her apartment over the course of just a few days. Although Artemesia shouldn’t have made it past the gate securing the courtyard.
“We have business to discuss.” Artemesia’s words came out in a cut fashion, seeming to drip with the same precision with which she planned on excising Bryce from Walt’s life.
“The only thing we have to discuss is how you’re leaving my apartment,” Bryce replied evenly. “Nicely, on your own, or—”
“Don’t presume to threaten me, you oversized gold digger.” She pulled a pocket book from her purse, flicking it open as she walked toward the couch. “I’ve dealt with dozens of girls like you, believe me. And you’ll note, none of them are around anymore.” Seeing the garter and lingerie panties on the couch, she stopped cold.
Trying to keep the heat of her temper in check, Bryce walked slowly to her phone. She picked the handset up and held it in front of her. “The only thing I was threatening you with was a call to the police—you’re trespassing.”
Pinching one of the couch’s throw pillows by its corner, Artemesia used it to plow the shoes and clothing onto the floor. She sat down on the couch, stepping and twisting on the garter and underwear as she took her seat.
“You’re not going to call the cops, Miz Schoene,” Artemesia assured her. “What was it Mrs. Gretz said when I asked her to call me once you were done rutting and back in your apartment? Ah, I remember…she wanted to know what that ‘timid cow’ was doing with my beautiful boy.” Her eyes swept mercilessly over Bryce’s form. “It was difficult to even begin formulating an answer—you’re so much worse than anything he’s ever brought home before.”
Removing a silver pen from the spine of her pocket book, Artemesia started writing the date in slim, looping numbers. “Of course,” she started, and shot a glance at the wrecked garter, “even when I realized what the answer was, I still was at a loss to explain it to her in polite terms. He’s normally not the kind of man to find even a moment’s attraction for a woman so…” Artemesia gestured up and down Bryce’s body with her hand. “…a woman so physically base that she’s willing to do anything in bed to attract a man.”
Moving to the payee field of the check, she printed Bryce’s name in huge block letters. Big, shapeless letters. Bryce felt her grip on the handset tighten. The plastic creaked from the pressure on it and she placed it back on the cradle. She wouldn’t call the cops—unless she had a dead body to report. It wasn’t timidity that stayed her, but the desire to handle Artemesia on her own. She was going to have to learn how sooner or later if she planned on making a future with Walt.
Passing by the couch, she went to her desk and began shutting down her laptop so that she could put it in the case. She would play Artemesia’s game the same way Walt had, she’d leave the woman fuming in an empty room.
“That is why, isn’t it?” Artemesia asked, her tone sweetly mocking despite the obscene slurs. “I bet you like a man in your mouth, filling that little pig snout and greedy gut—you por
k it down, don’t you?”
Oh, she was good. Bryce would give her that. Had this conversation occurred Friday afternoon, Bryce might have fled her apartment instantly to avoid the confrontation. But a lot had happened since Friday. She’d fallen in love—and through some kind of weird, fucked up osmosis, she was now seeing herself through her lover’s eyes. Bryce the Beautiful.
Bryce turned, offering Artemesia a rounded smile that she threw her whole body into. “He’s got such a lovely cock,” she answered. She licked her lips, leaving them wet and shiny. “Your sense of aesthetics in leaving him uncut…” She stopped, licked her lips again, as if she were remembering the slide of him in her mouth. “…well, just perfect. The fit, the glide.”
Artemesia turned red, her face apoplectic from the taunts Bryce fed her. A perverse desire to goad the woman into a stroke surfaced, shimmering for an instant in Bryce’s mind before she pushed it back down. Shouldering the computer case strap, she walked toward her bedroom. She’d get a change of clothes. The night manager at the convenience store knew her well enough to let her change in the bathroom.
“You’re not walking out on me!” Artemesia got up from the couch, following after Bryce and furiously scribbling numbers and words on the amount lines of the check. “What, you think being a crass little cow is going to drive my offer price up? Believe me when I say I know the cost of a woman like you.”
Bryce turned in her doorway and stared down at the stick figure that was Walt’s mother. “Well, I know it’s a hundred thousand to kill a baby—if there actually was a baby. Is killing true love worth more or less?”
Artemesia’s skin purpled. The way the air left the older woman’s mouth reminded Bryce of a dying goldfish on the linoleum, the glass shards and turquoise stones of its world around it in ruins. Artemesia turned, ripped the check from her pocket book and slammed it down on the coffee table. The force knocked over a new bottle of perfume that Bryce hadn’t noticed before. Even with Artemesia winding her tighter by the second, Bryce smiled at Erato or Percy’s last bit of humor as she recognized the almost egg-shaped bottle of Joop! Muse.
“I guess true love isn’t worth anything more than a cheap perfume.” Artemesia snarled the words as she picked up the bottle. Like a pitcher on a mound, her small hand fisted around the glass and plastic.
Bryce stepped back, her shoulder hitting the doorframe and slowing her until it was too late to duck into the bedroom. Artemesia pulled her arm back and then fast-balled the bottle straight at Bryce’s head. Bryce pulled left. The bottle’s gold colored shell splintered against the wood door frame less than two inches from her ear. The sound was followed almost instantly by the shattering of the clear inner glass. She felt a thick slice cut into the skin of her neck and then the sharp sting of the perfume as it took the same path.
Bryce let the computer bag slide to the floor as she walked swiftly toward Artemesia. She didn’t care how Artemesia’s antics played with the staff or Walt’s earlier lovers, the woman was certifiably insane. As insane as she was, Artemesia still didn’t come close to Bryce’s own parents. What could she say that Bryce hadn’t already heard spilling from the mouth of her mother or stepfather? That she was a fat, lazy cunt? Stupid and utterly unlovable?
Been there, done that a dozen times a day.
“You’re leaving. Now.” Bryce snarled.
Artemesia was at the front door by the time Bryce rounded the couch. The woman fumbled to unlock it and appear unconcerned at the same time. Bryce gave a low warning growl, a guttural promise that she couldn’t be held responsible for what happened if Artemesia didn’t haul her skinny little ass across the threshold in time.
“Damn, she’s fast,” Bryce said, catching the door on its inward swing as Artemesia shot through it and out onto the sidewalk. Bryce slammed the door, securing each lock with as much of the force trembling through her as she dared to release.
Her neck stung and she put her hand up to the cut. She didn’t have to look at her hand to know she was bleeding—the liquid coating her fingers was too viscous to be perfume. She went straight to the bathroom, slamming that door shut, too.
Seeing the trail of red dangerously close to the edge of the blouse’s fabric, Bryce grabbed a wad of toilet paper and dabbed the blood from her skin. She pressed a second wad gently beneath the cut area while she ran cold water and found her tweezers. A piece of glass, about a quarter inch thick, stuck from her neck.
Bryce secured the exposed portion of glass between the tweezers’ ends and pulled slowly, afraid that some of it would break off if she jerked it out the way she wanted to. It was unnerving, feeling the sharp slice of glass exiting her skin, and she gave a jittery growl throughout the length of its journey.
There was more blood with the glass removed. She cleaned the wound and applied pressure until she was sure she could slip out of the blouse without staining it. She needed a shower. A spritz or two of the perfume, with its tantalizing mix of heliotrope and white musk was wonderful. A bottle’s worth of it on her skin was rank and eye watering. Briefly, she wondered if Erato was still observing; Artemesia’s psychosis was fodder enough to inspire a dozen books. Not that Bryce needed a word more than six thousand.
She clicked the bathroom fan on to clear the fumes at the same time she shut the sink’s faucet off. In the shower, she moved quickly through cleaning herself and the cut again, irritated at the loss of time in getting started on her story. Out of the shower, she tossed on a robe and turned the air conditioner to a cooler setting before she scooped up the computer case and headed back to her desk with it.
She pulled the laptop from the case, booting it up while she pulled out the power cord and mouse and plugged those in. She opened Word and checked over her cover page. She still needed a title. Well, that could wait for the end, right? A story didn’t have to have a title to start—at least she didn’t think it was a prerequisite.
Inserting a hard page break, Bryce faced a blank page once again. She didn’t have to start at the beginning. She knew that, too. But it seemed as good a place as any.
Chapter Eighteen
Bryce checked the time in the corner of her computer screen. Eleven thirty a.m. Erato had been close; Bryce had spent almost twelve hours with her ass planted in the chair. But, instead of producing the minimum six thousand words she’d needed, she’d had to go back and shave off five hundred words to avoid going over the seventy-five hundred word ceiling. And now she needed to get the sucker printed out, wake up Walt and beg him to drive her to class since she wouldn’t be dressed in time to catch the bus and make it there by two p.m.
Hitting the print button, she waited for the machine to make its little start up noises and then she dashed into the bedroom, careful to avoid the glass and perfume she hadn’t had time to clean up. The champagne-colored skirt outfit and the black georgette pants and blouse appeared to have been dry-cleaned. She took the black pants from the hanger and paired it with the blue linen blouse she always wore when trying to present a professional appearance. She grabbed the bulky black jacket she usually hid the blue linen blouse in, gave it a second look and then let it drop to the floor. She’d take it to a charity store later in the week, along with half her closet. Sifting through her dresser, she gave a displeased grunt. Her entire panty drawer, she told herself, was headed straight for the dumpster.
Under and outer garments in hand, she skirted the broken glass a second time and changed in the bathroom—adding just a hint of makeup and tying back her unruly hair. Stepping into a pair of black silk pumps with low heels, she heard the last printed page slide into the catch tray.
As she stepped into the front room, the small rectangle of paper on the coffee table caught her attention. Artemesia’s check! She scooped the bank draft up as she passed and tore it into little shreds without looking at it. Then she pulled the story from the printer and thumbed through it, checking the page numbering at the bottom and the first and last sentence of each page to make sure nothing was missing. Satis
fied, she grabbed her house keys from the hook, snatched up her purse and headed for Walt’s apartment.
He didn’t answer on the first set of knocks, or the second, even though she called out to him. On the third, she gave a little pound with the heel of her hand. She heard the locks turn and then the door drifted inward as Walt walked to the couch and sat down.
“What do you want, Bryce?”
There was a touch of Mama Diaz in his tone and it took Bryce a second to respond. “Why wouldn’t you open the door?”
The coffee table was back in front of the couch and a glass filled with ice sat alongside the bottle of Courvoisier. Bryce frowned. If he was an afternoon drinker, he wouldn’t have made it through this past weekend with just the two drinks. She looked at his face and saw a mix of Saturday’s hurt and the almost violent anger he had displayed around his mother last night.
She repeated the question. “Why didn’t you open the door—you heard me knocking.”
He was chewing on his lip—nothing sensual in the act as he apparently sought to control his anger. Reaching for the bottle, he filled the glass but didn’t touch it. “It’s Monday, right?”
He took the glass, rested it on the arm of the couch and stared through its dark amber filter. Whatever answer he was looking for, she was pretty sure it wasn’t at the bottom of the glass.
“What’s that got to do with it?” She had rolled her paper into a tube and was flicking it against her thigh.
Walt’s grip on the drink tightened, his whole face corkscrewing with an injured wrath. “Answer one of my questions, Bryce. Why weren’t you in my bed this morning?”
“I told you last night, at midnight—”
“Right, that it was Monday.” He met her gaze but only for an instant. “Didn’t sound like ‘so long, thanks for the sex but I still think you’re a shallow fuck, Walt’.” He brought the glass to his lips, hesitating a second before he put it back down untouched. “But I guess that’s what it was.”
