The Ex

by John Lutz

  No answer.

  “I don’t guess the rental agent’s here yet,” Deirdre said. She began to walk around slowly and hesitantly, like a wary trespasser, touching objects randomly and gently as if to reassure herself that they really did exist. “Look at all the light streaming through that window!” She exclaimed. “It’s beautiful! I love this room!”

  “It’s well furnished if you like modern,” David said. He didn’t like modern and thought the apartment looked like a futuristic art gallery.

  “Darlene said the man who lives here sells and demonstrates electronics. He needs to sublease because he travels all over the world and he’s going to make his home base in London for a while. He’s smart like you are, David.”

  “If I were smart, I wouldn’t be here.”

  “Don’t you believe it,” she said.

  He trailed behind her as she walked to a short hall and glanced into the kitchen gleaming with white cabinets and appliances. She gave the black and white tiled bathroom the same cursory examination. The open door at the end of the hall led to the bedroom. She entered and he paused in the doorway, then followed.

  The bedroom contianed only a king-sized bed, a dresser, a chair, and a small triangular table with a lamp and heavy glass ashtray on it. Beyond the foot of the bed was a wide window whose light was barely muted by gauzy white ceiling-to-floor curtains.

  “You did say a rental agent was supposed to meet you here, didn’t you?” David asked.

  “That’s what I thought someone said to me, but they might have been mistaken.”

  He knew that the odds on a rental agent showing up were slim.

  Deirdre walked to the wide window and located the pull cord. Rollers rasped in their traverse-rod track as she parted the curtains.

  “Just look at this view, David!”

  He dutifully walked across the bedroom’s plush rose carpet and stood at the window.

  The view was toward the river and Queens. Afternoon sun highlighted the tall buildings so they were deceptively beautiful. The ornate steel suspension of the Queensboro Bridge was visible. Far below in the shadowed and sun-hazed canyons, tiny cars and foreshortened pedestrians crawled along in symmetrical puzzle-patterns of activity.

  He heard, then felt, Deirdre move close behind him.

  “What do you see, David?” Her voice was soft.

  “New York. Too many people hurrying and not knowing where they’re going.”

  He felt her fingertips on his shoulder and he turned.

  “Now what do you see?”

  She was standing even closer than he’d thought and had unbuttoned her blouse almost all the way down. She wasn’t wearing a bra and her large, firm breasts parted the fabric. One erect nipple was visible.

  David opened his mouth, about to say her name, then her lips were closed over his, warm and writhing, soft and insistent. He felt the velvet wedge of her tongue.

  With an effort of will and physical strength, he broke away from the kiss.

  “Not a good idea, Deirdre.” He was breathing hard.

  Desire glowed like fever in her eyes. “It was once. It can be again. Besides, you want to.”

  “That doesn’t make it a good idea.”

  He started to walk away from her but she blocked him with the length of her body smiling up at him. She kissed him again. He resisted again, but not as determinedly.

  “Listen, Deirdre…” He hated the wavering note in his voice.

  He felt her hand work between their bodies, find its way inside the front of his pants. She began to manipulate him, gently, so that it seemed such a natural thing to do. They had been intimate in a way never forgotten.

  “At least once, anyway,” she breathed. “Don’t make me beg, David.”

  Under the warm pressure of her fingers he felt himself go from tumescent to rigid. He threw back his head and stared straight up at the ceiling. His body cried to do what his mind was rejecting. “Jesus!”

  “That sounds like a prayer, David. It can be answered.” Her hand continued its clever, expert work. She knew him; their bodies knew one another. Forever familiar. “We both want the same thing, the very same thing…”

  The tightness in his body grew taut, and something in him gave.

  He lifted her and carried her to the bed. Laid her down and bent over her, kissing her breasts as she pulled at his shirt. He raised his head then, and they virtually tore each other’s clothes off.

  Pale and nude, beautiful as memory, she lay before him, gazing up at him with amusement and lust. “Want to hurt me, David? Want to whip me with your belt?”

  He felt the mood shift.

  “I’m not into that anymore, Deirdre.”

  She gave him the most lascivious grin he’d ever seen. “Honestly?”

  “Yeah, honestly. Straight sex is gonna have to be good enough.” He bent lower, kissed her.

  When their lips parted, she gripped his earlobe and twisted it playfully. “Want me to hurt you? You been a bad boy?” She gave his ear an extra twist.

  He gripped her hand and lowered it. “Straight sex, Deirdre.”

  She pulled him down to her, on her. He kissed her lips again, her breasts, her stomach, the dark, wet center of her. She spread her legs wide, guided him up to kiss him again, then wrapped her legs around his waist as he entered her.

  She made a deep, throaty sound and he began thrusting, slowly at first, spanning warm interior spaces, then faster and more violently as his passion took him. Her long, powerful legs clamped tightly around his waist like a trap. “Hurt me!” she moaned in his ear. “Hurt me, hurt me, hurt me, David! Please!”

  He gripped her wrists and bent her arms back behind her head, watching her grimace and narrow her eyes. Her lips tightened, baring her teeth. He felt the core of her throbbing, then her fingernails clawing, digging painfully into his back. Her body arched with a power that surprised him. He knew she was climaxing as she whispered hoarsely in his ear. “Mine, mine, mine, MINE!”

  She went limp beneath him and her legs fell to the sides as he thrust into her violently and emptied himself.

  She kissed his ear, the one she’d twisted, as he slowly disengaged himself from her and rolled gasping onto his back.

  Neither of them spoke.

  He tried to analyze what he felt but couldn’t; his mind was still floating somewhere above body and desire, connected by only tenuous neural threads.

  Finally, after he’d caught his breath, he stood up and went to the window, where he stood staring again at the teeming riddle of Manhattan. The scratches on his back felt like wounds from a lioness.

  From behind him on the bed, he heard Deirdre say, “That was lovely, David. Aren’t you going to thank me?”

  Twenty minutes later, as they were leaving the apartment, David knew how he felt: guilty and ashamed. Deirdre, he noticed with dread, looked smug. He couldn’t deny that he’d wanted her desperately, uncontrollably. Couldn’t deny it to her or to himself.

  He held the door open for her and she edged past him into the hall, brushing him with her hip, glancing briefly up at him with a sated kind of lust that slumbered.

  Behind them, and behind the louvered doors of the bedroom closet, a videocassette ran out of tape.

  There was a soft click, a whir, and in the dark closet a pinpoint of red light winked out.

  15

  Molly emerged from Small Business among a swarm of parents and children. She carried Michael with one arm and used her free hand to guide the stroller down the stone steps to the sun-washed sidewalk.

  When Michael was strapped into the stroller’s canvas seat, he and Molly both waved to Julie, who was standing in the shade of the canopy watching her charges depart with their regular guardians. The responsibility she’d carried all morning was now divided and dispersed; Molly wondered if Julia felt as suddenly free as she appeared.

  As Molly pushed the stroller along crowded West Eighty-fifth, she found herself glancing uneasily from time to time across the street
. Through the intermittent and glaring stream of noisy traffic, she half expected to see the woman in the blue baseball cap and mirror-lens glasses.

  But there was no sign of the woman.

  When they reached the apartment building, Molly entered the lobby then wheeled the stroller directly to the elevator. She pushed the button for the floor above hers, where Bernice Clark lived.

  Bernice was a thin, thirty-five-year-old woman with a huge mass of tightly sprung brown hair that made her seem even frailer than she was. She’d been out of work except for occasional jobs arranged by Modern Office Temps since Molly had met her. Bad luck had left her harried but cheerful. Irrepressible optimism ran in her blood; a firing squad would have to fire into her smile to erase it. Molly felt comfortable leaving Michael with her.

  Bernice looked paler than usual this afternoon as she let them into the apartment. She unstrapped then scooped up Michael from the stroller and kissed him on the cheek. He grinned, and when she placed him on the hardwood floor, he swaggered directly to the TV, where Martin and Lewis’s Jumping Jacks was playing without sound. Jerry Lewis was mugging and twitching around while Dean Martin stood calmly and stared at him with that odd combination of amusement and disdain. Michael plopped down in front of the screen and became engrossed.

  The apartment’s floor plan was identical to Molly and David’s, but it was furnished more sparsely and cheaply. Near the old console TV was a cushionless chair that seemed ready to collapse. Its cushion was lying on the floor near the window, as if Bernice had been sitting on it staring outside. The place smelled slightly and pleasantly of pine-scented cleanser and wax. There was no sign of dust along the baseboards or on the scarred hardwood floor. Bookshelves fashioned from planks laid across stacks of bricks contained only knickknacks and dog-eared paperbacks, along with a few bound uncorrected proofs that Molly had given Bernice. An ornately framed round mirror hung on another wall, centered over a polished mahogany half-moon table, leftovers from more prosperous times.

  “I appreciate you watching Michael,” Molly told Bernice. “It wasn’t in my plans to work almost every afternoon, but suddenly the publisher needs the manuscript I’m editing by next week.”

  Bernice ran her fingers through her mass of hair. “Hey, no problem. We live in the same building, and I’m getting paid, aren’t I?”

  Molly grinned. “And worth every inflated dollar.” She looked more closely at Bernice’s pasty complexion and the tiredness in her eyes. “You look pale today. Are you feeling okay?”

  “Sure. I just need some sun.” She glanced over at Michael. “Maybe I’ll take our guy swimming at Koch Pool, if it’s okay with you.”

  “Sure, just keep a close eye on him. And make sure he doesn’t get too much sun.” Molly looked at Michael, still lost in Jumping Jacks. Lewis had parachuted from an airplane and was drifting toward the ground, clutching his chute’s lines, squirming around and looking terrified. “What about a real job?” she asked Bernice. “Having any luck with those resumes you sent out?”

  “Not much. But there’s always hope. And thanks for printing them on your computer for me. They make me seem so employable that even I might want to hire me.”

  A siren sounded close outside, then a fire engine’s loud, rude air horn blasted twice to help clear a path through traffic. The wail of the siren moved away, fading until it was absorbed in the usual muted turmoil of the city.

  “That reminds me,” Bernice said, “there was another false fire alarm while you were gone the other day. Third one in the last few months, if I’m counting right. It’s getting so half the tenants don’t pay much attention or bother to leave the building.”

  Molly could understand why. She and Michael had heeded the alarm once. Another time it had sounded in the middle of the night, and she and David had hurriedly gathered up Michael and obediently trudged downstairs to stand in the street until it was determined that there was no fire. Her fear was that if a fire did break out, too many tenants would ignore the erratic alarm that so far had meant nothing but inconvenience.

  “The management company ought to repair the wiring,” she said.

  Bernice grinned and shook her head. “They’d rather stall. They figure if there really is a fire someday, they can redecorate the apartments of all the dead tenants and charge more rent. Hey, there’s Muffin!” She pointed toward a spot near Molly’s feet.

  Molly wasn’t surprised. She stooped and picked up the cat, who purred and snuggled warmly against her side. “He leaves by way of the window we keep propped open a few inches for him, then gets back into the building when people enter and roams the corridors. I hope nobody thinks he’s a pest.”

  Bernice reached out and stroked Muffin. “In this city there could be lots worse things than cats roaming the corridors.”

  At Sterling Morganson, David looked away from his computer monitor and drew in his breath in surprise.

  Deirdre was standing in the corridor outside his open office door, watching him.

  16

  Deirdre walked into the office. She looked clean and fresh and was still wearing her tight jeans, but now she had on a gold blouse tucked in around her narrow waist, emphasizing her breasts. Open-toed, high-heeled sandals flashed red enamel that matched her fingernails.

  She smiled; there was something possessive in its white glitter. “I told that girl up front I was coming back here, David.”

  He tried not to show his annoyance, but he didn’t get up from his desk chair. “What do you want?”

  “Oh, I’ve had what I want, David. I only came here to tell you I’m not sorry for what happened. I was weak. We both were. It’s the kind of thing that simply happens, and there shouldn’t be any recriminalizations or guilt.”

  He couldn’t believe he was hearing this. And he didn’t want anyone else to hear. “My God, keep your voice down!”

  Quickly he stood up and closed the door, then sat back down so Deirdre wouldn’t reach for him.

  He hadn’t seen Lisa standing in the hall only a few feet from the door.

  It chilled him to think what it might mean if Deirdre decided to make any kind of scene, what it might do to his life.

  “And why shouldn’t there be any guilt?” he asked.

  “Because love doesn’t take circumstances into account. Love makes us all go round, and we can’t help it.”

  He stared at her; she’d meant what she said. “I do feel guilty, Deirdre. I’m in love with Molly, and I feel responsible.”

  She shook her head as if in mild frustration at not being able to make him see some simple and obvious truth. “But you shouldn’t feel responsible, either. We think we’re in charge of our lives, but that’s a joke on us. We’re really all like pieces in a game, and destiny moves us when and where it wants. It’s not like we don’t have free will, but it’s up to us to make the most of our destiny, whatever situation it puts us in. Don’t you believe in destiny, David?” She seemed somewhat taken aback, as if she’d just discovered he might not believe in the Bill of Rights.

  “To an extent, I suppose. Or maybe it’s just a handy excuse for people to do what they want.” He leaned back in his desk chair, causing it to squeak surprisingly loud in the quiet office. He couldn’t read her eyes. “I take it you believe in destiny?”

  She moved toward him as if drawn. Her voice was fervent. “Oh, yes, David! I sincerely believe certain things were meant to be. I think this afternoon proves it.”

  “I think we’d better forget this afternoon.”

  “But we can’t, and you know it.”

  “What about Molly?”

  “Molly has her own destiny.”

  “It includes me, Deirdre.”

  She shrugged, as if resigned but tolerant. “I can accept that for now.”

  He wanted to leap up, grab her by the shoulders, and shake understanding into her. But he knew he wouldn’t. He shouldn’t.

  “I’m not talking about for now,” he said. “We’re going to have to avoid seeing eac
h other.”

  She laughed at him as if he were a bright child who would eventually see things her way “Are you afraid of losing control again? I’m not. I’m a Taurus-I know how to accept and control my destiny. That’s something everyone should learn, David. The world would be so much happier.”

  “I don’t like losing control.”

  “Of course you don’t. But the only thing we have to fear is being afraid, David.”

  “It isn’t fear,” he told her. “Or guilt. At least I don’t think so. What we started today can only lead to trouble.” He looked at his hands, gripping the edge of the table where his computer glowed. “No. I guess, to be honest, I am afraid. I’m afraid of loss. I don’t want to lose what I have.”

  She seemed amused. “You won’t lose me. I promise.”

  “You know that isn’t what I meant.”

  She walked over to the bookshelves and examined a stack of manuscripts. Then she moved near the desk and ran her fingertip lightly over the brass frame of the Molly-and-Michael photo. “What you’re really afraid of, David, is destiny. But maybe you’re right. Either way, surely we can remain friends. Molly shouldn’t object to that.”

  “Friends?”

  “That’s all I’m asking for now, David.”

  He didn’t answer her. He knew it was futile.

  She walked to the door, then turned around and smiled at him. “David the Virgo.”

  As she went out, she bumped into Lisa.

  David watched the two women exchange a look he didn’t understand, even though he could almost see the charged arc of emotion. Without a word, they walked away in different directions, as if nothing had happened.

  David wondered if Lisa had overheard any of his and Deirdre’s conversation. It was obvious that Deirdre thought so.

  He looked again at his hands gripping the edge of the computer stand, so hard now that his fingertips were white. It was as if he needed something solid to anchor him in the familiar and manageable world. Strong currents were running and he didn’t understand them. But he knew that an undertow was drawing him inexorably toward where he feared to go.