The Real Mrs. Price

by J. D. Mason

  They were on the highway, headed south. Plato hadn’t said a word since they’d left.

  “Eddie wanted it to look like he was the one who was dead,” she said, drawing a natural conclusion. “That’s why he burned him in that car. Do you think he knew that you were after him?”

  “No,” he said simply.

  This whole ordeal was nearly over, and she hadn’t felt this good in a very long time. Marlowe was determined not to let Plato’s mood ruin this feeling for her. “It’s going to feel so good to have my life back,” she said, staring out the window.

  She’d taken little things for granted before all of this had happened, like being able to go to the grocery store or go to Belle’s for dinner. She missed dancing.

  “I’m going to have to burn so much sage in my house,” she said absently. “The place is filthy with foul energy. You can’t let it sit too long. You have to get rid of it before it settles.” They drove for another mile before she finally got sick of the silence. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  “Nothing. I’m listening to you talk about your sage and your life.”

  “I’d think you’d be happy for me.”

  Happy. A relative term.

  “You didn’t know me before,” she started to explain. “You’d dig the hell out of me if you knew me before all this mess happened.”

  “More than I dig you now?” He smirked.

  “I’m serious.” She smiled. “I’m fun when I’m not suspected of murdering my husband or being attacked by him in the middle of the night.”

  “I’ve seen you fun.”

  “No, you’ve seen me drunk, which doesn’t happen a lot. I don’t need to get drunk to be fun, unless I’m—”

  “Suspected of murdering your husband,” he finished the sentence for her.

  “Exactly. I like to dance and to laugh and eat. I like people, even though most folks around here are scared to death of me.”

  “You give them reason to be.”

  “No. They fear what they don’t understand. I get it. They appreciate the things I do for them, but we’ve got an understanding. I don’t flaunt those things for everybody else to see, and they pay good money for my services.”

  “So you are a fortune-teller.”

  “I read tarot and palms.”

  “And bones.”

  “Only on very rare occasions,” she explained. “And I make potions.”

  “Like?”

  “Love, herbal Viagra, remedies for skin conditions. But the bulk of my money comes from beauty products, lotions, and soaps and shampoos. People dig organic.” They passed a sign that said “Tyler.” She asked, “Where are we going?”

  “South.”

  “I know that. But where south?”

  “Austin,” he said simply.

  “Austin? What the hell’s in Austin?”

  “We will be.” He looked at her and smiled. “Soon.”

  “For what?”

  “Dinner.”

  * * *

  They stopped off at a department store, and he bought her red stilettos and a clinging black dress with a neckline so low that if she coughed you’d see her navel. For himself, Plato purchased a black sport coat, crisp white shirt, and dress shoes. He upped his game, too, and took her to a trendy sushi place.

  “You don’t strike me as a sushi lover,” she said, smiling across the table from him.

  “Man cannot live off burgers alone,” he said, using chopsticks like he’d been born with them in his hands and raising unagi to his mouth.

  Marlowe stared at him, fascinated. “How is it that you can be so Neanderthal worldly and wonderful one minute and turn into a total monster the next?”

  That smug look on his face was a prime example of the asshole in him. “I’m versatile.”

  She found herself staring affectionately at him. “That’s the least of what you are.”

  “You look lovely, by the way. Or did I tell you that already?”

  “No. You didn’t. But thank you.”

  The playfulness left his eyes, and his expression turned more serious. “What would you like to do after this?”

  “Since I’m celebrating my nearly newfound freedom,” she replied, smiling, “I think I’d like to dance.”

  “How’d I know that you were going to say that?” He smiled back.

  * * *

  She had no idea if he’d planned to come to this place or if the two of them had just gotten lucky. It was a hole-in-the-wall blues club with a live band. The place smelled of stale smoke, whiskey, and old furniture. The floors creaked, the liquor was cheap, and the dance floor small. He held her close the whole time. They didn’t even have to move. The music moved them, swaying their bodies slowly back and forth. They must’ve stayed like that for hours, and it was just fine that they did. This time, her drink of choice was Cherry Coke, because she wanted to be sober and remember every detail of this night and of him.

  People make promises to themselves all the time that they have every intention on keeping but usually break. Abstinence from him had been her promise to herself. Of course, she knew even before they’d finished dinner that she wouldn’t be able to keep it.

  “You think with yo’ heart, Marlowe. Not with yo’ head.” Shou Shou’s words came back to haunt her, but the old woman was right. The heart added flavor and aroma and colors to life. All the decisions made from the head were various shades of gray, sounding the same, feeling the same. Marlowe lived with too many mistakes to count, but while she was making them, she had loved them all with a passion unrivaled by anything resembling sound reasoning and common sense. She had no doubt that he was one of those mistakes, and for the time being, Marlowe had made up her mind to savor every inch of his big, beautiful self.

  * * *

  He sat on the sofa in their Austin hotel room, overlooking the river, still wearing his nice suit, and he was such a good-looking man. Marlowe peeled her dress off, slowly, and stood before him in the pink satin bra-and-panty set he’d bought for her earlier.

  He leaned back, studying every one of her curves.

  “This is the last time,” she told him with conviction.

  “Then let’s make it memorable.”

  Marlowe reached behind her back, unlatched her bra, and let it slide down her arms and fall to the floor. She slipped her fingers between her panties and her skin, slid them down over her hips, past her thighs, down to her ankles, and stepped out of them. Slowly, she strolled over to him, stood in front of him, and waited. He took off his jacket, unbuckled his belt, and unzipped his trousers, then reached for her, holding her by the waist, and pulled her down onto his lap, where she straddled him.

  A sensual kiss bonded them. His kisses were magical, slow and languid, his flavor rich and warm. His moans soothed her, reassured her, and entranced her. Plato traced his fingers down the center of her back to her hips and then cupped her behind and pulled her body closer to his, pressing his growing erection between her thighs. His lips were addictive. Marlowe talked a good game, but the truth was, she had no willpower against him, and he seemed to know it, even if she didn’t want to admit it. He was an intense lover, thorough and probing. Plato liked it deep, his kisses, his thrusts. He craved passion, a fact that he hid behind sarcasm and teasing.

  She missed the moment when he slipped into a condom, but Marlowe moaned with the satisfaction of being filled with this man. She felt safe in his strong arms. Marlowe wrapped both arms around his neck and held on to him as if he really did belong to her. He pushed so hard into her that it ached, but a good ache, a satisfying and complete ache. She was wide open for him.

  She pushed back to look into his eyes. Plato’s dark eyes bored into hers so intensely that it scared her, hypnotized her. He knew the power he held over her, and he relished it. But she didn’t care. If he was her fate, then so be it. If Marlowe had sacrificed her soul to him, then okay. As her orgasm began to build deep inside her, Marlowe’s breaths quickened. She grabbed hold of the back
of his neck, and he stiffened. Plato held her by her hips and let Marlowe have her way with him, use him, fuck him, and chase down that orgasm like it was the last one she’d ever have.

  “Aaaaaah!” Marlowe cried out when she came, pulled herself to him, and held on. Her body rocked. The warmth of her pooled between them, and in the frenzy of her orgasm her only recourse to staying conscious, staying present in this room with him, was to grab hold of his face and to kiss him until she could find her center again and reclaim her soul.

  “That’s it, lovely,” he whispered, holding her. “That’s how you take it, baby, all of it. Good … good.”

  He held her like that, bucking underneath her, panting, driving into her until he came, too, growling in the space between her neck and shoulder, wrapping those big arms around her so tight that she could hardly breathe, pushing her down onto his pulsing shaft as far as she could go, until finally, he was spent and exhausted and satisfied. The two of them sat there, clinging to each other like this really was the last time they’d be together.

  She was getting her life back. Plato likely wouldn’t be a part of it. He’d finish what he had to do here and move on. But moments like this were everything. She couldn’t deny who she was at the core. Passionate and impulsive, even reckless. She could love him with her whole heart, body, and soul if he let her. She could lay herself out on an altar at his feet and sacrifice herself to him if he asked. But he wouldn’t. And she was going to miss him.

  You Go Hard

  PLATO MADE LOVE TO HER again when the sun came up, and they spent the whole day in bed, doing what people do when they’re in love. But this wasn’t love. It was … something else. Marlowe slept naked on top of him. The fallacy of all of this was that she would never have her life back, not the way it was before. He was a firm believer that there was no going back, only forward. But he let her believe what she wanted, what she needed, because it made her happy. It gave her hope and filled those gorgeous eyes of hers with a light he’d guessed had been missing for a long time, even before this craziness with Price.

  Bullshit Ed Price. Bullshit O. P. Wells. Both of them were poison to her, but Marlowe had blinders on when it came to men. Obviously. For all her psychic beliefs, she either didn’t want to see the truth about the men in her life or she saw the truth and feigned ignorance.

  That soft woman stirred on top of him, sighed in her sleep, and pressed even deeper against him. If he could somehow strap her to him and wear her underneath his clothes like this, he would. The thought amused him. She hadn’t said it, but she believed him to be her hero on some level, but that’s not what he was. It’s not what he ever was. He didn’t come here for her.

  “Did I fall asleep again?” she asked groggily. Marlowe raised her beautiful lips to his and kissed him.

  She was far too generous with him, and he was far too undeserving and greedy.

  “You did,” he told her.

  She threatened to roll off him, but he held her in place. Marlowe relaxed and laid her head back down on his chest.

  “What time are we supposed to check out?” she asked.

  He laughed. “Two hours ago, I think.”

  Marlowe laughed, too. “We should go.”

  “No.” He kissed her again. “We shouldn’t.”

  After a long pause between them, she asked, “So where do you go after you leave Blink?” She’d done a pretty good job of pretending to accept the fact that this relationship was never destined to be anything more than what it was. Marlowe likely wasn’t doing this for his benefit, but for hers. “Do you just move on to the next assignment or whatever? Or do you have a regular job?”

  “Sometimes I teach,” he said matter-of-factly.

  Marlowe raised her head and stared at him, surprised. “Teach? What? Who?”

  “Adjunct professor at the University of Illinois. That was my last teaching gig.”

  Marlowe stared at him in disbelief. “What do you teach?”

  He grinned. “Calculus.”

  “Get the fuck out of here!” she exclaimed. “You teach calculus?”

  Surprisingly, he was a bit offended. “Well, somebody’s got to teach it. Might as well be me.”

  “Oh my goodness!” Marlowe laughed. “So you have a math degree?”

  “Engineering.”

  “Why the hell do you chase down the Ed Prices of the world if you have an engineering degree? Wouldn’t it be stabler and safer to work as an engineer?”

  “It would, but it wouldn’t be nearly as interesting.”

  “So you go back to teaching until someone calls you?”

  “Basically.”

  “You are absolutely fascinating,” she said, staring mesmerized into his eyes.

  Damn. If he knew that all he had to do to impress this woman was to tell her he was a math geek, he’d have said something back when they had first met.

  “Thank you,” he responded.

  “Too bad I couldn’t have met you first,” she said, raising up on her elbows and lying on him like he was a mattress. “Too bad you couldn’t be happy being a teacher.”

  “You think we’d have gotten together, settled down, and had a couple of kids?” he teased.

  She smiled. “I like the idea. You don’t?”

  For a second, he actually did. But he’d been there. Done that. And no, it wasn’t his idea of the perfect life.

  “You couldn’t see yourself married to me?”

  Now she was the one teasing him.

  “Actually,” he said, threatening to be honest, “you deserve so much better than me.”

  Marlowe chuckled. “That’s one of the few things that you have ever said to me that’s actually been nice.”

  He frowned. “Oh, come on. I’ve said a lot of nice things to you.”

  “No, you think I’m silly. You might even think I’m crazy.”

  “Not crazy.”

  “It’s okay, though. I know what you’re doing.”

  “What am I doing?”

  “You work real hard to keep women from falling in love with you. You’re an ass on purpose as a defense mechanism. I get it.”

  “Really, Dr. Phil? You think you’ve got me figured out?”

  “I do.”

  “A few days ago, I was the devil, and now I’m—what? A misunderstood devil?”

  “Basically. You pull me in when it suits you, then push me away when it doesn’t.”

  “It’s for your own good, Marlowe,” he said sincerely. “And mine.”

  Marlowe looked thoughtful for a second. “Sounds like you’ve given it some thought.”

  “I have. You’re tempting. I can admit that. But temptation is not reasonable in my life. I wouldn’t do that to you, and I especially wouldn’t do it to myself.”

  She looked disappointed. “So this is a hit-it-and-quit-it deal for you. Just like I thought.”

  “You shouldn’t even have to ask me that question. Of course that’s what it is.”

  Disappointment showed in her eyes, and he should’ve felt bad about what he’d said, but she knew what he was about. Hell, she’d called him on it. Now that he’d admitted it and said it out loud, she had the audacity to be hurt?

  “You asked, Marlowe,” he said, staring back at her.

  Tears rested on the insides of her eyelids. “I sure did. And I knew what you’d say. I was just hoping that I was wrong.”

  She rolled off him this time, onto the bed, and covered that lovely body of hers in the sheet.

  He felt obliged to sort of explain. “I need to be invisible in my line of work. My life is about anonymity, and I’m too big to go unnoticed in a town like Blink.”

  “Yes, you are,” she said lazily, turning over on her side, her back facing him. “No worries, Plato. We’re living in the moment. Right?”

  He reached over to her and rolled her onto her back, then spread his body on top of hers. “You don’t want me, remember? I’m evil personified. I’m a bad guy. I’m, uh…”

  “Lucif
er,” she said, filling in the blank.

  “Exactly. But I am happy to have known you, to have loved you, tasted you.” He smiled and kissed her. “And it’s my loss, sweetheart. Not yours.”

  He meant that.

  Marlowe smiled. “I agree wholeheartedly.”

  * * *

  Her phone had been vibrating like crazy for hours. Eventually, Marlowe picked it up to see who it was. Quentin Parker had been blowing up her phone all afternoon looking for her for a second round of questioning. She eventually called him back.

  “I wasn’t feeling well, Quentin,” she lied, staring accusingly at Plato. “No. No, I wasn’t home. I was at a friend’s. Just a friend’s. But I’ll be back in the morning. First thing.”

  Quentin obviously gave her the blues over the phone, based on Marlowe’s expressions, but he eventually accepted that she’d see him in the morning and hung up. Immediately after that, Marlowe dialed Lucy’s number but got no answer. Next she dialed Roman’s number.

  “Has Lucy made it in?” she asked and waited. “What do you mean she missed her flight? Well, when’s she coming?” Marlowe looked desperately at Plato. “Tomorrow? What time?” She waited. “Have her call me as soon as she gets in, Roman. I need her to go with me to the police station tomorrow. I have to be there at one. Yes. Thank you.”

  She hung up and stared down at her phone. Marlowe pursed her lips together and sighed. “How come I have this sinking feeling that this shit’s about to blow up in my face?”

  Plato knew the answer to that but decided to keep it to himself.

  Keeps Me Awake

  “THAT WAS MARLOWE?” Lucy asked Roman, sitting across from him at a local bar in Blink.

  “She’s meeting with the police tomorrow afternoon for more questioning,” he explained. “She really wants you there, Lucy. She needs you there.”

  Lucy had been in Blink for most of the day. Roman had lied to Marlowe because Lucy had asked him to. “I’m not ready to talk to the police, Roman. As long as Ed’s still out there, the threat is still too real for me.”

  “The police would start to look for a living Ed Price, Lucy, which would turn this whole thing around. Ed wouldn’t risk coming after you or Marlowe if he knew that they suspected he was on the run.”