Naked Heat: The Handyman, Episode II

by Vincent Zandri

  The time I stopped the car in the middle of the road, came to mind. I was being tailgated by some college kid. I threw open the door, grabbed the hammer I kept under the seat as an equalizer. Stella was seated in the passenger seat. She screamed for me to get back in the car while I made my way over to the kid’s car instead, smashed his windshield. The kid was so scared, he backed up, spun his car around, and peeled off in the opposite direction. A stunned passerby eyed me with fear while I got back in the car, my body filled with fire and fury, and took off. Stella didn’t speak to me for a full hour after that.

  Another instance, I’d had a few too many drinks that night, and a few too many rejections that week. Stella was talking on the phone. I overheard her talking about Mackey and his success. She was speaking under her breath. She didn’t want to me to hear what she was saying, but I overheard her words as plain as day.

  “Mackey is going to be famous,” she said. “He deserves it. Meanwhile, we’re struggling. I hope I made the right decision.”

  It was the first time I actually saw red. My vision was clear, but it was like I was seeing through a filter of blood red. I pulled the phone out of her hand then threw it against the wall. It exploded on contact.

  “You’re scaring me!” she’d screamed.

  “Go back to Mackey!” I’d barked.

  I made a fist, cocked back my arm. Her face went pale. I’d never touched a woman in anger in my life. I lowered my arm, unclenched my fist. She got up, grabbed her keys, left the house for the night. A good idea, in retrospect.

  I inhaled a deep breath, stared at the two words that seemed to be throbbing on the screen as though alive, as though possessing breath of their own.

  You there?

  Instead of acting rash and typing in a threat, I could do something else. I could pretend I was Stella. It wasn’t exactly the right or honest thing to do, but by playing it that way, I might get a better, more rational, idea of just what the hell was going on between the two exes.

  Positioning my hands over the keyboard, I typed, I’m here.

  There was a pause that seemed to last forever. I listened to my pulse pumping in my temples, and I wanted a strong drink in the worst way. But nothing was going to move me from that chair.

  Wasn’t sure you’d respond, he typed.

  That was a good sign. It meant Stella wasn’t always quick to answer his instant messages.

  What’s up?

  Working…lonely…lonely for you

  The lonely bit caused a spark in my heart. I decided to pry a little bit. Word on the street was that Mackey was having trouble with book three. Rumors were spreading through writer’s circles that he was blocked, and it was killing him.

  How’s the writing? I typed. How’s the new book coming along?

  There was a long pause, as though he didn’t want to talk about it. Until he typed: Pretty awful…can’t seem to find a story to follow up my last novel with. This is the first one I’m trying to write without you. I don’t find another story, I’m dead in the water. The publisher will can my ass. It’s been two years since I’ve put out a new book. Three years since you left me for Vic.

  There it was. A chance for me to have some fun with him. Or not fun. Just plain revenge.

  Vic is killing it. Just got a story taken by a big magazine, and he’s cranking away on a new novel. Says he’s going to be done in a couple of weeks. I’ve never seen him so excited. Finally, the breakthrough moment we’ve all been waiting for. I’m so, so happy for him.

  I was really pouring it on. Really trying my hardest to make the SOB sweat. It took a while, but then he wrote back.

  You always were the only muse for me, Stel.

  Stop it, I typed in. That’s just your imagination. You had a lot of muses on the side as I recall. Thus the breakup.

  No I mean it, he shot back. Can’t you take me back? I can’t write without you, Stel.

  Just then, the sound of the overhead garage door opening. I had to end this conversation and end it now.

  I’m sorry, Mackey. I really am. But I’m with Vic, and he needs me. You had your shot.

  I want you… Now.

  I know you do, I typed. Now for the coup de grace. Just promise me something.

  What is it?

  You won’t kill yourself if the story doesn’t come.

  The garage door stopped. I had to end this. End it now.

  I can’t promise anything to anyone anymore, he said. I love you. Need you. That’s all I know.

  I found the Delete Conversation icon, and I clicked on it. Then, I pressed the power button on the machine, and it turned off. Closing the lid, I shot up, made my way back into the dining room, and planted myself by the bar. By the time Stella walked through the back door, I was casually pouring a shot of whiskey.

  “A little bit early, even for you?” she said.

  It was still early in the afternoon, and Stella looked great. She wore tight black pants and matching pumps with a white satin button-down shirt that was hardly buttoned. Stella loved exposing skin and sexy lingerie. I pictured the men she worked with, how their eyes must be glued to her whenever she walked by.

  I drank down the shot, set the drinking glass on the bar.

  “I’m just home for a late lunch,” she said, brushing back her hair. “So, I have to make it quick. What’s new?”

  I wanted to tell her that I enjoyed two lovelies in bed this morning. That I was offered the opportunity to make another easy two hundred fifty K, that the material I would gather along with it would guarantee me not just one new novel, but two. I was on a roll. But of course, I couldn’t say a word about any of it.

  Instead, I said, “Have you heard from Mackey lately?”

  She turned to me quickly. “Why do you ask such a thing, Vic?”

  She shuffled her way into the kitchen, opened the refrigerator door, pulled out some cold cuts, a loaf of bread, and the mustard; set it all on the counter. It wasn’t like her hands were suddenly shaking, but she seemed genuinely startled by my inquiry. Like she had something to hide. But I was the last one to point fingers when it came to that department.

  “You haven’t mentioned him in a while,” I said.

  She placed a couple slices of turkey on a slice of bread, squeezed out a dollop of mustard onto it, then set a second slice of bread on top. She stole a quick bite.

  “What’s to talk about?” she said. “I don’t communicate with him.”

  I thought about asking her if that included Facebook messaging but decided to let it go. I wasn’t looking for a fight. I was just looking for information.

  “How’s his writing going?” I pressed.

  She cocked her head and averted her eyes. I’d hit a nerve.

  “A couple of our old friends told me he wasn’t doing so well lately,” she revealed. “That’s he’s blocked or something like that.”

  Hearing that Mackey was having trouble from Stella, his former muse, made it seem all the more real. All the more true.

  Gently, I took the sandwich from her hand, took a bite, handed it back.

  “Yes, you may have some,” she said, a smirk on her face.

  “I’d be suicidal if I couldn’t write,” I said.

  “That’s what worries me,” she said. “Mackey used to have his dark moments. This will kill him if he can’t write. Not to mention his career.” She shook her head. “He worked so hard.”

  In my head, I pictured Mackey seated at his kitchen table, the business end of a semi-automatic stuffed in his mouth. It wasn’t an entirely bad thought.

  “Sounds like you still care, Stel.”

  “Don’t get your panties in a tussle, Vic. I don’t love him anymore. But then, I don’t want him to die either.”

  I felt a smile growing on my face. It wasn’t a happy smile. It was more like a crack that forms in a concrete sidewalk when the rain seeps in and freezes.

  “Speaking of work,” she changed the focus of the conversation. “How’s yours going? You fini
sh that novel yet?”

  She finished her sandwich, washed her hands in the sink.

  “Almost,” I said. “It’s gonna be a huge payday. You just wait and see, honey.”

  “Let’s hope so. Mortgage payment is coming up.”

  “The five hundred I’m getting for that story,” I said, taking hold of her, bringing my face into the nape of her neck. “It’s yours.”

  I started kissing her. She smelled like flowers. Her skin was smooth and warm, and I wanted only to eat her up.

  “Very generous of you, Vic,” she said, like that promised five hundred didn’t really amount to a hill of spoiled beans. She struggled to free herself. “I don’t have time, baby. I have to get back. We’ll pick this up later.”

  She slipped her way out of my grasp and entered the dining room, but then, she stopped and slowly turned. She made a gesture with her face like she smelled something that wasn’t quite right.

  “If I didn’t know any better, Vic,” she said, “I’d say you smell like pussy.”

  An electric start in my heart. Had I washed when I got home from Allison’s? No, I hadn’t. I’d immediately planted myself in Stella’s office to use her computer. Then Mackey chimed in, and I lost all sense of time.

  “You haven’t been with anyone else, have you, Vic?” She said it casually, as though asking if we had any chocolate chip cookies for dessert.

  The look on her face wasn’t anger or suspicion. It was half smile, half smirk. It told me she was playing with me. But at the same time, there was seriousness in the playing. Did she trust me? I’m not sure, but no matter what, she knew how much I desired her. Both as a lover and a muse.

  I cleared my throat.

  “That’s funny, Stel,” I said. “I thought we had an understanding.”

  She burst out laughing.

  “That’s right,” she said. “You get to fuck other women, and I don’t get to fuck other men. If we’ve established an understanding, I must have been high when it happened.”

  I bit down on my bottom lip.

  “You don’t have to worry about anything,” I said as if that would console her.

  She finger-combed her lush hair once more. The way it rested on her neck made me want to bend her over the table, pull her skirt up.

  “I’ll be seeing ya, Vic,” she said.

  “What time?”

  She started for the door.

  “Not sure,” she said, glancing at me over her shoulder. “I’m going out after work.”

  “Where?” I begged.

  “Does it matter?” she said, opening the door. “Thought we had an understanding?”

  She stepped out, closed the door behind her before I had the chance to respond.

  I went back into the kitchen, made a sandwich for myself. Something was going on between Stella and Mackey. At base, they were back in communication with one another. That much was obvious. She was also starting to suspect something about my affairs. That is, you consider my interludes with Tara and more recently with the Sex Club, as outright affairs. And they were.

  Stella had reason to be suspicious.

  Our relationship began with our having an affair. And you know what they say about affairs. They’re like murder. Once you commit the first one, the next one gets easier . . . and easier.

  I ate my sandwich at the counter and tried to clear my head. I tried to put the Mackey/ Stella subplot aside and refocus on Allison and her offer. I had more pressing matters to concentrate on. Like getting back to her house. Although, this time I was going to arrive unannounced and unseen. Meaning, I was about to do a little snooping, whether she liked it or not.

  Inside my bedroom, I dug through my dresser drawers until I found an old pair of black jeans I used to wear on stage back when I was a drummer in a local punk rock band. We’re going back some years—hell, more like a couple of decades—so I hoped they still fit. I located a black t-shirt, and the black combat boots I wore almost every day would be perfect. I had a couple of black watch caps I wore in the winter and even a pair of black leather gloves. Now it was just a matter of finding some sort of black face paint to hide all the light reflecting white skin.

  I stood there in the bedroom, dressed in black, and I thought about it. Where could I find something to camouflage my face? That’s when Stella came to mind. She must have some mascara hanging around. Black mascara to match her black eyebrows and her rich black hair. I went into the master bathroom, and I opened the drawer on the vanity where she kept her makeup and other junk. There were all sorts of makeup bottles and containers stored there along with various tools for applying it. Plus, maybe a dozen varieties of lipstick along with some facial creams and powders. I guess it took a lot of work being a good-looking woman.

  It took some time to rummage through the stuff, but it didn’t take all that long to find a bottle of mascara. It came with its own little applicator brush. Soaking the brush in the black liquid, I applied a generous dollop on each cheek and my brow. I then used my fingers to rub it all in. Looking at my face in the mirror, I couldn’t help but smile. I hadn’t covered my face entirely with the stuff, but I’d done a decent enough job. The real test would come, however, when I shut off the lights and closed the blinds. I did exactly that. Once the room was dark, I looked in the mirror again.

  I blended in with the night. I was ready to snoop as soon as the sun went down.

  Turning the bathroom lights back on, I returned the mascara to Stella’s drawer. That’s when I happened to find something stored in the very back of the overly crowded drawer. Something not at all like all the glass, metal, and plastic containers. It was a cardboard box of some kind.

  A box of condoms.

  I stood there, my stomach tightening and my throat constricting. I had to be rational about this before I jumped to conclusions. Stupid, foolish conclusions that would make me go ballistic on somebody. Somebody like Mackey. I had to calm down and ask myself the right questions. The logical, sensible questions.

  Did Stella and I use condoms?

  The answer: No. Never in our relationship had we used them.

  Could this box be left over from a long time ago? Back when she was still with Mackey three years ago?

  I looked at the expiration date on the bottom of the package. The expiration date didn’t take me aback so much as it made me dizzy. The “use by” date still had five years. I’d used enough condoms in my life to know the average shelf life for one of those latex cock socks was five years. It didn’t take a moron to do the math. Stella had purchased these recently. Within the past few months.

  Opening the box, I looked inside, pulled them out. In a box of a dozen, four were missing. I did more math. Stella had fucked somebody four times. Fucked him behind my back.

  …If we established an understanding, I must have been high when it happened…

  The rage was back.

  “Motherfucker!” I shouted, slamming my fist against the vanity counter.

  I thought about calling her cell phone, but then I took a second or two to breathe, to calm myself down. Hadn’t I slept with not one, but two gorgeous women just that morning? Hadn’t I been sleeping with Tara for several weeks now? Who the hell was I to be so angry?

  The answer was Mackey.

  “Why does it have to be, Mackey?” I asked myself.

  “You don’t know it’s Mackey, Vic,” I answered. “Calm the hell down.”

  I exhaled, breathed in, exhaled once more. Returning the condoms to the box, I carefully stored it back in the exact place I’d found it in the depths of the makeup drawer. I also returned the mascara then slammed the drawer closed like I meant it.

  I found the reflection of my face in the mirror—a tight, wide-eyed, black painted face. There are forty-three muscles in the human face. Every one of them seemed tensed up, stretched to the breaking point. I was not exactly in the right state of mind to be sneaking around a stranger’s property. But it was exactly what I was about to do. Because if I remained inside
the house for even a minute more, I would inevitably make the decision to head out to Mackey’s new home in the suburbs. I would break down the door, and I would beat him until he could write no more. Then, when I was done with him, I would start on Stella.

  Turning out the light, I left the bathroom, the bedroom, and the house altogether. I got in my car, and in my brain, set a course for Allison’s house.

  It was fully dark by the time I arrived at her heavily wooded property. Her driveway was long, and it wrapped around the side of a hill, like the threads on a screw. I knew if I drove to the top of the driveway, I risked Allison and Andrew hearing the engine. Naturally, the headlights would be extinguished, but it was still too much of a risk. I thought it best to park the car along the road, down away from their property.

  From there, I would take it on foot.

  The driveway was flanked by thick brush and tall, second growth trees. Whoever decided to build a home on this hill back in the 1950s was looking for seclusion, even if he was still located in the suburbs. The driveway wasn’t paved, it was instead constructed of packed gravel. Must have been a bitch in the winter. But then, Andrew Craig seemed like a man who never had to lift a finger to do his own dirty work. Things like driveway plowing, lawn mowing, and tree cutting could always be subbed out to the lowest bidder.

  When I came to the top of the winding driveway, I noticed two cars parked on the circular drive. The first one I recognized as Allison’s—a burgundy BMW, two-door convertible. I pictured her driving it, the wind filling out her long black hair. Or maybe she’d be wearing a red silk scarf over it and a pair of aviator sunglasses. The second car was a black four-door Mercedes sedan. The windows were tinted, and the trim was chrome. It cost more than the house Stella and I lived in. Or so I would guess.