Ice Cream Man

by Charles Puccia

  Linda was sent back to Paris for a while, as she wasn’t needed here; under the circumstances, the transition of the Southwest territories to Dan had been postponed. It wasn’t until the third week of December that Dan’s new assistant was up to speed and Linda was recalled to New York.

  Linda arrived on Dan’s hospital visit day. Dan inevitably came back from the hospital feeling that the future was bleak—not only for Vinnie, but also for him. Ginny had become more distant, and sex had become a three-letter word for the Times crossword clue: “Precluded by monastic life.”

  The phone buzzed at Dan’s desk. It was Blanca. “Hi, Dan. Bill asked if you’re available to come to his office.” Her short communication accentuated their remoteness. Blanca had taken Vinnie’s mugging hard, and Dan sensed that she blamed herself.

  “Now? What’s it about?”

  “I don’t know. He just asked for you.”

  Yeah, nothing’s changed. Bill calls, no notice, I jump. Shithead. A smile quickly pressed Dan’s face. It just as quickly evaporated when he entered Bill’s office.

  “What’s up, Bill?”

  “It’s about the Southwest transition to you. Linda’s replacement doesn’t have enough knowledge to cope with both that and California.”

  Now I have to do Linda’s job, too! The old Dan would have objected—would have complained that Bill should have selected a replacement for Linda with some experience, instead of who Bill actually chose: a young bimbo with a second-rate degree.

  “It shouldn’t last beyond the March quarter,” Bill went on. “You’ll have January in Texas while we’re freezing our asses off here. Har har, har har.”

  “Yeah, great.” Like hell, Shithead. Dan pasted on a half smile.

  The sound of tapping heels caused Dan’s head to turn. The smile was wiped from his face as Linda entered Bill’s office.

  Dan held back the bile he wanted to spew on Linda’s power suit jacket as she removed it and placed it over the back of the chair, her blouse revealing too much cleavage. His chest tightened. He was enraged. He felt a combative feeling unlike anything he had experienced. This was what he should have felt in Paris with Ginny.

  His soft voice belied his emotional state. “Oh, hi, Linda. You’re looking well. Enjoying your time in New York? You must find Paris exciting.”

  He hated himself, the scared little boy. Ginny should despise me. I’m despicable.

  “Thanks, Dan. No hard feelings. Something big will come your way, I’m sure. These things take time. Sorry to hear about your assistant—er… Benny. Just terrible. Hate crime, too. We have those even in liberal San Francisco. I hope he recovers, although I understand the longer the time in a coma the less chance for recovery. Still, you’ll manage. There are lots of good assistants out there.”

  His name is Vinnie. And there are no assistants better than him, you cheating slut.

  “Thanks Linda, I appreciate your kind words for Vinnie.” Dan grabbed the chair’s arm to control his flapping left arm.

  The small talk came to an end. Bill said, “I’ve asked Linda to join us for her overview on the Texas staff—I mean former staff. Har har, har har. Linda’s evaluation will be a rundown of skill sets, that kind of stuff, you know, not in the financial charts. Of course you can contact Linda when she’s back in Paris, but only if it’s absolutely necessary. She needs to focus on Europe now.”

  “Sure.” Rub it in, Bill.

  Linda chimed in: “Good people, by and large. One or two airy-fairies, nothing to worry about.”

  “Airy-fairy. Good one, Linda. Har har, har har.”

  With only a handful of sentences, Dan’s venom had returned. Maybe this is good, he thought. These two have restored my emotions. Keep it up, Linda, and I’ll bust your lip. Bill’s too. Assholes.

  Dan held tighter to the chair.

  ****

  Blanca stood in the doorway, stunned. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing. She had come running when she’d heard screams; now the folder Bill had sent her to retrieve was pressed tightly against her chest.

  Linda lay on the floor, and Dan was on his knees beside her. Linda’s blouse was ripped and her bra was half off, exposing one breast. Bill arrived only seconds after Blanca, his lips hinting at a smile, but it was partially hidden by the hand at his face.

  “He attacked me! He was trying to rape me! Get him away! You fucking bastard!” Linda spoke with stage-perfect diction.

  Blanca and Bill ran to Linda’s side. Blanca covered Linda’s breast while Bill placed a cushion under her head, whispering, “Oscar.”

  Standing behind them, Dan spoke: “I don’t know what she’s talking about. She attacked me. She grabbed my jacket, kissed me, then tripped me and we fell. That’s when she started to scream. This is absurd.”

  “Dan,” Bill said, “you should leave—now. Go to your office and stay there.” He turned back to Linda. “Linda, are you okay? Do you need medical attention?” His baritone seemed deeper to Dan, who did not move.

  Blanca bent over Linda and lightly touched the woman’s arm. “Stay still. I need to check if anything’s broken.”

  To Dan, this whole scene was a TV hospital drama.

  Bill’s baritone, louder now, broke the scene. “Dan, leave. Do as I’ve asked.”

  Dan exited in slow motion. He heard Blanca telling Bill that he, too, should leave: no man in the room, unless it was a physician. Blanca volunteered at a rape crisis center; Dan had learned this at some point from Vinnie, information that had at the time seemed extraneous.

  From the sound of Blanca’s voice, Dan knew this was bad—no matter the actual facts.

  Forty-five minutes later Maria and Bill entered Dan’s office with grim faces. “Dan, I don’t know what happened,” Maria said. “We’re not going to make presumptions or jump to conclusions until we’ve had a full investigation. But in the meantime, we’re going to ask you to leave the building. Take your personal items. This is DV&N’s sexual harassment accusation policy.” Marching orders, unequivocal.

  “I didn’t do anything,” Dan said. “It’s a goddamn lie.”

  “Don’t say another word. There’ll be an internal investigation. You must leave. Linda has also been asked to leave, which she did fifteen minutes ago. She can file a sexual assault charge here and with the police. Linda says there was no penetration, but that doesn’t preclude the police from asking her to take a rape test. Or she can file for rape assault.”

  There it was. That horrible word: rape. Once accused, true or not, the label would stick.

  Forever.

  As Dan returned home, he wished he could talk to Vinnie about all this. Instead he called Ginny, who left work. She listened, consoled, and embraced. Yet Dan found no comfort from her, which had never been true before.

  It was mid-afternoon and Dan lay in bed, unable to control the incoherent and illogical thoughts that colluded to form a single, horrid word. Blanca’s expression scraped his skull. He felt ashamed for even being falsely accused. Yes, he hated Linda—but he would never violate her, not like she said. And Maria’s admonishment made him expect that the Special Victims Unit would arrive at any moment, handcuff him, and charge him.

  Dan’s brain seized. Deep sleep followed, not too dissimilar from Vinnie’s current state.

  When Ginny rose at eight the next morning, Dan was already gone. After her third voice message, she panicked.

  Chapter 28

  The Counselors—Phase 1

  Good friends sometimes say what you don’t want to hear.

  Betsy wrapped her hands around her coffee mug and Sarah stirred honey in her herbal tea. Ginny had called them in a frantic state, which had immediately brought her good friends to her condo. But now, Ginny was calm. Minutes before they arrived, Dan had called, three hours after her first voice message. He had been sitting with Vinnie, and now he was on his way to an extended session with Ben; he’d be late for dinner.

  Now that her panic agenda was no longer relevant, Ginny decided this
was the time to broach another topic: the modified form of the proposal she had presented to Sarah and Betsy months before. The new version was that Ben would pose while she and Dan had sex. Ginny reasoned that Ben’s modeling would put her in the mood to provide Dan with the greatest sex he’d had in years. And now, unlike before, Dan knew and liked Ben, so the circumstances had changed.

  “Fucking stupid. That’s all I can say. It is the most fuck—” Sarah soprano’s voice began, but she was interrupted by Betsy.

  “I think what Sarah is saying—inelegantly, I might add, for an English major—is that your idea has too many ramifications.”

  Her mug shaking, Ginny bellowed: “That’s your response? Too many ramifications? I expected better from you. Both of you.”

  “No, you expected agreement, and we gave you our honest opinions.” Sarah was as vehement as Ginny. “Your wishful fantasy doesn’t alter the facts. Dan will not find the sex wonderful, because you’ll be getting off on Ben. As for lessening his depression… I don’t even know where to begin. And don’t believe for one minute that Ben will enjoy posing while you and Dan are going at it. Homosexuals do not get off watching straight couples have sex. And if he wants to participate, let’s be clear, it’ll be with Dan, not you.”

  “Sarah makes a good point.” Betsy’s voice seeped through her lips. “Dan and Ben will not react the way you want. And to be honest, I’ve not fully taken in what you want, or expect, to happen. My limited college psychology says you’re indulging in a personal fantasy—your excessive interest in musclemen. Have you done something with Ben?”

  Ginny’s eyebrows chain-linked to contort her face. She gave Betsy the finger.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to imply you’ve cheated. I mean, how far does your involvement with Ben go? Paris altered your relation with Dan, yet in a bizarre way the rape allegation has readjusted the balance. You could jeopardize your new bond.”

  Placing her mug on the coffee table, Ginny pulled at the buttons on her sweater. She explained that the new bond they had was based on loyalty, not sex or love. Dan had been trampled again, outmaneuvered; he remained a weakling compared to Linda and Bill. His loss made her stethy flare. She had no desire for a weak man. She sought transference from Ben’s masculinity to Dan, and she thought that might make it all better.

  “It’s illogical and wishing on stars. It’s bullshit.” Sarah’s head seesawed as she spoke.

  Betsy shook her head disapprovingly at Sarah and turned to Ginny. “I agree with her—wording aside. Can you… explain more?” Tears formed in the eyes of the hardened financial advisor.

  “What else do you want me to say? It’s a fantasy. It’s my fantasy. We talked about this. My sthenolagnia syndrome, or ‘stethy obsession,’ as my mother calls it,” Ginny said, using finger quotations. “My mother says I fit the medical definition for obsession. I don’t know, but I do know that I like strong men. I like seeing muscular men flex, that’s all. I enjoy it. And no one gets hurt, do they?”

  “Not yet.” Sarah rose to speak, thrusting her arm out. “But you want Ben to flex while Dan and you have sex. Someone will get hurt.” She pointed to the bedroom and continued: “No, two people will get hurt. Dan and Ben.”

  Betsy pulled Sarah back down into her seat. “Three people, Ginny: you, too. It’s one thing to admire men posing on stage, but in your bedroom with your husband… that’s a whole other ball game.”

  ****

  Closing the door after farewell hugs, Ginny returned to her living room and cleaned up the empty mugs. What the fuck do Sarah and Betsy know anyway? I’m going to make this happen. I’ll show them I’m right. And I’ll show them my mother’s wrong.

  Acrimony between mother and daughter had started on the day Anna asked her teenager daughter to explain her interest in bodybuilders. In Ginny’s view, Anna crossed the line when she suggested Ginny’s attraction might be sexual. Ginny did not mistake this friendly mother–daughter conversation for anything other than an interrogation, an intrusion into her teenage privacy. She had seen too many war movies to fall for Captain Anna Swinburne’s tricks.

  “None of your business and you have no right to snoop in my room!” Ginny said. Then she blared the teenage anthem: “I hate you. Leave me alone. I’m old enough to make my own decisions. Stay out of my room.”

  Anna ignored this treatise on rights and independence and instead focused on the psychology behind the fitness magazines she’d found under her daughter’s bed. “Do you want to start bodybuilding? Are you taking supplements, steroids, or doing anything to yourself? Ginny, do you fantasize about men’s body parts? Is it their muscles or their penises?”

  “Oh my god.” Mortified. Her mother had just said “penis,” so the teenager had no alternative but to run out of the room. She stomped downstairs and slammed the front door while her father rose from his living room chair, hesitated, then sat back down.

  Two hours later, when Ginny finally returned, her father called to her: “Want to join me for a glass of iced tea? Freshly made.” The kind tone in James Swinburne’s voice appealed to Ginny. Perhaps he was an ally against her mother.

  Ginny swallowed four ounces of iced tea and scrunched up her face. “Mom’s crazy. She has no right to go into my room. She’s cruel and she hates me.”

  “Ginny, you know your mother loves you. And I love you. We support you in whatever you want.”

  Ginny retrieved the sugar basin from the counter to sweeten her drink.

  “Dad, I don’t want to talk about it. Mom’s mean and she shouldn’t be in my room. Okay?”

  This was an airtight defense, so Ginny assumed the discussion had been concluded, yet her father continued. He offered a rerun about her age of exploration, her body changes, and advice on not confusing physical with emotional discovery.

  Ginny interrupted when he started to talk about sex. “Not sex again! We’ve been through it.” Ginny looked away. She wasn’t into sex, and they needed to stop worrying about that.

  A long silence followed, until footsteps broke the quiet. Anna stood behind her husband.

  James placed his hand on Ginny’s arm. “Will you listen and not interrupt? We agree, this is not about sex. Could you at least give your mother a chance? Will you do that? I’ll make more iced tea.”

  When he got up and went to the refrigerator, Anna began in a soft voice: “Ginny, this is about a syndrome known as sthenolagnia. Let’s call it stethy, for short.”

  “What? I don’t care.”

  “You might, once you learn more. Maybe you don’t have stethy—I’m not sure yet. But knowledge will help you be in control. Control of any obsession is important, and it comes through knowledge. This is important for you and for those you love.”

  The knowledge argument worked. Ginny was a learner. She had always been curious, and she loved schoolwork, extra projects, and research.

  So, armed with articles provided by her mother and the Internet, Ginny researched sthenolagnia. She wasn’t sure whether she had “stethy” or not, but in either case she could control her obsession.

  And for decades Ginny had succeeded. She’d controlled her obsession with harmless activities. She had felt vindicated.

  Until Paris. Dan’s enfeeblement had repulsed her. And that had caused her to accept her full-on sthenolagnia syndrome. Her self-deception was over. So instead of denying it any longer, Ginny decided her obsession would guide her. Maybe at fifteen she hadn’t known what she’d wanted, other than that she liked to look at men with bulging muscles. And at twenty she had used the gym, online pictures, and bodybuilding contests. Now, in her late twenties, her addiction controlled her; and to take back control she had to immerse herself once and for all. This would prove her mother wrong. Her friends, too.

  Yet nagging concerns disturbed Ginny. Could a night with Ben and Dan destroy her marriage? Could she lose Ben, her trainer and friend? Could this increase her desire? Ginny weighed the risks against the potential benefits. Her doubts did not alter her resolu
tion to proceed.

  However, she did need to answer the prime question: How to proceed?

  A few days before Christmas, Ben provided the answer.

  Chapter 29

  UltraFit—Rescue 1

  White tiled walls, fresh towels stacked high, and hair blowers whirring. UltraFit’s women’s locker room was a scrum of New York’s most health-conscious females. Ginny threw two towels into the laundry bin on her way out. Her chassis glowed with a new car polish as her long legs rolled toward the front desk.

  Steve stood, and Ginny’s hundred-forty-horsepower XL slowed to a halt. “Ben asked if you’d mind stopping by his office before you left.”

  With a rear axle spin, Ginny returned down the hallway, knowing Steve was watching her tailgate and expecting that he might want a lube job later. She entered Ben’s office, complete with furniture that, next to him, looked like it belonged in a dollhouse.

  Without even a greeting, Ben started in. “Ginny, I’ve been rethinking what you asked a few months back. Now that I’ve gotten to know Dan, I’ve decided to accept your request for a private showing—that is, if you’re still interested. I could use the occasion to get both your opinions on my new competition routine. I’ve got a contest at the end of January, out west.”

  Ginny blinked rapidly. “What?”

  “I said I’ll pose for you and Dan. Are you still interested?”

  “Of course. You’ve caught me by surprise, is all. I’d given up. Actually, that’s not true. I was going to ask you again… but I didn’t have the nerve. I’m surprised, shocked, grateful, pleased… I’m at a loss for words.”