by Len Levinson
“Who me?”
She laughed. “Why, I do believe that you are afraid of me.” She laughed again. “You’re so funny. You’re also the funniest of all my husbands. Did you know that?”
“No.”
She took him by the sleeve. “Come have a drink with me. Please?” She gazed into his eyes, and he was utterly defeated.
“Okay,” he said.
They walked across the plush odd lobby and entered the dark Albemarle Bar, a gathering place for diplomats, scientists, and old money. Selecting a table in a corner, they sat and a portly old waiter came hurrying over.
“A Martini, very dry,” said Brenda.
“A double shot of Canadian Club, no ice, with a water back,” Butler told the waiter.
The waiter floated off into the darkness with his order, and Brenda turned to Butler. “Still drinking your whisky straight, eh?”
“Yep.”
“Still a tough sonofabitch, huh, Butler?”
“You betcha.”
She touched her long fingers to his mighty shoulders. “You were okay, Butler.”
“So were you, Brenda.”
“Too bad it didn’t work out, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“We had fun together.”
“Yes,” Butler agreed, feeling melancholy. “We had fun together.”
“If you hadn’t been so old-fashioned and straight-laced, we would probably still be together today.”
He shrugged. “I guess so, but I didn’t believe in sharing my wife with half the diplomats and politicians in Buenos Aires.”
“You had a very narrow-minded view of marriage. You were so selfish. You wanted me all to yourself, and you should realize, Butler dear, that I can’t belong to any one man.”
“I know that now.”
“I need to be free as a bird,” she said with a wave of her hand.
“Promiscuous as an alley cat might be the more appropriate metaphor.”
“Did you really think I was promiscuous, Butler dear?”
“How could I possibly avoid that conclusion?”
“Am I a nymphomaniac?”
“I’m not a psychologist. All I know is that you fuck around too much. And people who trivialize sex tend to trivialize all human relationships.”
“I don’t trivialize sex at all. I think it’s very important.”
“When you do it all the time with all types of different people, you trivialize it. It becomes an ordinary human function, like taking a shit, instead of something exalted and fine.”
“You’re so old-fashioned.” She smiled tenderly. “I think that’s one of the things I liked about you. Beneath that rough exterior, there beats the heart of a gentleman.”
“Oh, come on.”
“It’s true. It’s getting warm in here. I think I’ll take off my coat.”
She stood and turned her back to him, waiting for him to help her take it off, and he did his duty, removing the black mouton fur from her remarkable shoulders. She sat again, her fur hat still on, and she looked like a kind of Cossack queen. She wore a silky emerald-colored dress with a bodice low enough to show just a bit of her scrumptious breasts. Butler did some quick mental arithmetic and figured that she was thirty-one years old, a good age for women because they’re usually less silly and more compassionate at that age.
The waiter came with the drinks, set them on the table with a series of little flourishes, and receded into the darkness of the cocktail lounge.
“Let’s drink a toast, Butler,” she said, picking up her martini in her elegant fingers.
He held his glass of whisky. “To what?”
“To love, what else?”
He laughed. “Okay. To love.”
“Why are you laughing?”
“Because you don’t know what love is.”
“I don’t know what love is?” she said, raising her eyebrows. “I think I know much more about love than you. I’ve had much more experience.”
“You think because you fuck around a lot, you are the high priestess of love, but really all you are is a woman who fucks around a lot.”
She held her glass bravely in the air. “To love?”
Butler touched her glass with his. “To love, that most precious and elusive thing.”
“How eloquent you can be, Butler,” she said.
“Only because you inspire me so, Madame.”
They each took a sip from their glasses, then placed them on the table and looked at each other. Butler thought how strange love could be, because he had lived with this woman and knew all her nasty habits, and had seen her many times sitting on toilet bowls, had seen her sick, feverish, and vomiting, had found her in bed with other men, had gone through a long, ugly divorce with her, and yet still, despite all that, he still could feel enchanted by her presence.
“What are you thinking?” she asked.
“I was thinking that in a certain part of my mind, I still love you despite everything.”
“Do you really?”
“I really do.”
“That’s beautiful, Butler. Maybe you’re the only man who ever really loved me.”
“Oh, I doubt that.”
“I mean it. It’s very possible. Other men—I’m not sure they even knew who I was. But you—you knew who I was. Yes, you really knew who I was.”
“To my regret.”
“Oh, I wasn’t that bad, Butler.”
“You broke my heart, Brenda. I was a romantic young man when I met you, and now I’m just a cynic. Ever since we parted I’ve been a cynic. I don’t think I ever could trust another woman.”
She laughed gaily. “That’s good. Because you never should trust women that much. Women and men are much different, and are always working at cross purposes. We want different things from each other, therefore no man should ever trust a woman, and no woman should ever trust a man. I have taught you something very valuable. You should thank me.”
“Thanks a lot.”
“Do you have a girlfriend now, Butler? Tell me about her.”
“I don’t have a girlfriend. I just fuck around a lot, but unlike you, I don’t get married.”
“I’ve only been married four times.”
“And this one will be your fifth.”
“Yes, and you’ve been married once after you married me. She was a Mexican, somebody told me.”
“Venezuelan.”
“Rich or poor?”
“Very rich.”
“Those are the best kind.”
“On the contrary, I think those are the worst kind. She was spoiled, selfish, and crazy.”
“But you loved her?”
“Yes.”
“More than you loved me?”
“How could I possibly love anyone more than I loved you?”
She smiled. “You’re sweet, Butler. You don’t mean it, but it’s nice of you to say it anyway. I really did care for you, Butler. Really I did. And you were by far the most interesting of all my husbands.”
“That’s right too—you were going to tell me why. That’s why we came in here in the first place.”
She cocked an eye. “Do you really want to know?”
“Yes, I really want to know.”
“And what will you give me for the information? I know that you’re a spy, and that you’re accustomed to paying for information.”
“I’m not a spy anymore,” Butler said flatly.
“No?”
“No.”
“You mean you’ve left the Agency?”
“Correct.”
“What are you doing now?”
“General security work for a scientific organization.”
“Must be pretty dull for you.”
“It’s nice to take it easy for a change.”
“Sure it is.” She winked and dug her elbow into his ribs.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
She winked again. “Deep cover, huh?”
“What do you mean?”
>
“Oh come on, you know you’re still with the Agency. You don’t have to lie to me. I’m not the enemy, for crying out loud. I’m your first wife, Brenda, remember? I was with you in Argentina, remember? I know all about your tricky little life.”
“Okay, I’m still with the Agency.”
“Good. I’d be disappointed if I knew you had an ordinary life. I have this fantasy about you, you see. You are doing secret work, risking your life in strange foreign countries, and nobody knows who you are. I know it’s not true, but I like to think it anyway. And do you want to know what else I like to think? I like to think that no matter what you do and no matter where you go, deep in your heart you still are in love with me.”
Butler nodded and sipped his drink. “What a delusion all that is.”
“I know, but I like to think it. It gives me comfort and peace.”
“You still haven’t told me why I’m more interesting than your other twenty husbands.”
“Four, darling. Going on five. What makes you so interesting?” She looked at his face, as though searching for the answer there. “Because you’re brave, sensitive, and idealistic, and yet you appear to be nothing more than some sort of high class gangster.”
“That’s all a spy is, really. A high class gangster.”
“But it’s not all you are. You would die for something you believed in—yes, you would, don’t deny it.”
“Okay, I won’t deny it.”
“Most men wouldn’t, you know, because most men don’t believe in anything, not even themselves. You believe in yourself, Butler. You know your strengths and weaknesses. You know when to push and when to back off. You’re not a fool, although sometimes you like to act like one. Your life rests on a moral foundation, and that makes you very attractive to people like me who have no morals at all.”
Butler laughed. “You admit it!”
“Of course I admit it! Why shouldn’t I admit the truth?”
“If you feel that you must admit the truth, then you must have morals someplace.”
“I have no morals, only a sense of expediency. I do what seems right for me at the moment, because I believe that we only live once and don’t get a second chance to run around the track. Life is too short to deny oneself the little pleasures that are so rare and beautiful. I don’t believe in sin. Sin is bullshit.”
“I don’t believe in sin either, but I do believe in the consequences of actions. People who do bad things pay for it in the end. One way or another, they pay. And you, my dear, will pay one day too. And so will I, because in some matters I’m not as moral as you suppose.”
“You are referring no doubt to sexual matters.”
“Yes.”
“But you’re a free man. You can screw whomever you like. So why shouldn’t you have your fun?”
“Because as I told you before, when you trivialize sex, you trivialize everything.”
“Nonsense.”
“Is it? Think about it.”
“I don’t want to think about it. It’s depressing.”
“You can’t hide from your mind.”
“Oh, stop it,” she said crossly.
“You want me to leave?”
“No, don’t leave.” She shrugged away the encroaching bad mood. “Tell me something pretty.”
“You’re pretty.”
“I am? Still?”
“Yes, and you know it.”
“I don’t know it.” She frowned. “I’m growing old.”
“You’re such a little idiot.”
“I am growing old,”
“You’re not getting older. You’re getting better.”
She brightened. “Am I really?”
“Yes. I still could fall in love with you if I let myself.”
“Let yourself.”
“Never.”
“Why not?”
“Because I’m only one ordinary human being, not a tank.”
She looked at him in the candlelight flickering on the table. “You know, you’re not bad-looking at all.”
“You know, people tell me that from time to time. I think it means that I’m ugly, but not that ugly.”
“No, you’re really quite handsome, but in a masculine way, not a pretty-pretty boy way. Your hair is so thick and black and healthy. I’d love to run my fingers through it.”
“Go ahead.”
“You’d like it, wouldn’t you.”
“You’re damn right I would.”
“You’re still in love with me, aren’t you?”
“Of course I am.”
She smiled mischievously. “Why don’t you do something about it?”
“Like what?”
“You tell me.”
He looked into her eyes. “Don’t tempt me.”
She showed him her tongue. “I’m tempting you.”
“If you don’t stop that, I’ll take you upstairs and screw your brains out.”
“Oh, Butler, dare we?”
“Dare? There wouldn’t be anything daring about it at all.”
She closed her eyes. “When I think of myself in bed with you, I get mushy all over. You were such a good lover, Butler. I loved it when you went down on me. You used to make me so crazy that I didn’t even know who I was.”
“You loved me so much that whenever I was out of sight you jumped into bed with the nearest available sonofabitch.”
“I really was just a child when I married you, Butler. I didn’t know anything about life and love, and you ignited such a wild passion in me that when you were gone for long periods of time, I had to quench it somehow. But it was all your fault. If you hadn’t been such a good lover, I still might be your little housewife to this day.”
“You never were my little housewife. You always were farting around someplace.”
“Well, you were supposed to be a member of the diplomatic corps. Therefore it was my duty, as your wife, to be sociable.”
“You were supposed to be sociable, but not sexual.”
She smiled and fluttered her eyelashes. “I admit I do get those two categories mixed up a little bit at times.”
He looked at her, and she was such a silly, beautiful creature, with her golden hair and her dashing hat. He knew every square inch of her body; it should have no mystery for him anymore, and yet it did. The thought of it filled his mind with eroticism.
“Let’s go upstairs,” he said.
A look of triumph came over her face. “Is that a proposition?”
“It certainly isn’t a proposal.”
“Do you really think we should?”
“A few moments ago you were wiggling your tongue at me, and now you’re asking if we should? Why are you so fucking crazy, Brenda?”
She bared her teeth at him. “Because I want to drive you mad with lust.”
“I am already mad with lust.”
“You don’t look it.”
“What am I supposed to do, foam at the mouth?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t foam at the mouth.”
“Then do something else. Make a scene. Kiss my feet. Punch somebody.”
Butler raised his hand, and the waiter materialized out of the darkness like a ghost from the spirit world.
“You called, sir?”
“My check, please.”
“Yes, sir.”
The waiter tallied up the check and gave it to Butler, who glanced at it, took a role of bills from his pocket, and threw the waiter a twenty. “Keep the change.”
“Thank you, sir.”
The waiter disappeared again, and Butler stood up, buttoning his suit jacket. “Let’s go.”
“Say please.”
“Please.”
“Say pretty please.”
He bent over and grabbed her tightly by the wrist. “I said let’s go.”
“You’re hurting me,” she whined.
“I’ll break your neck if you don’t get a move on.”
She looked around. “You’re making a scen
e.”
“You like that, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“You’re a little pervert, aren’t you, beneath that beautiful, icy exterior.”
“Yes, but all I am today, I owe to you.”
“Horseshit.”
She stood and smoothed the front of her dress. He draped her mouton coat over her shoulders, and hooked her arm in his. Then he led her out of the lounge and across the lobby to the elevator, where he pressed the button.
“Let me go,” she said in a low voice.
“No.”
“What if my fiancé shows up?”
“I’ll punch him right in the mouth.”
“Now I’m starting to get a little scared.”
“You opened this can of beans, not me.”
The elevator came and they got on with a number of people, all well-dressed and elegant. Butler was reminded of the St. Regis Hotel in New York as the elevator rose. It made various stops and finally came to the fourteenth floor, where Butler’s room was.
They got off the elevator and walked down the corridor to the room.
“I feel so wicked,” Brenda said with a shiver.
“Then you must be happy.”
“I am. And filled with anticipation of the sexual splendors that you shall visit upon me forthwith.” She rolled her eyes and licked her lips, then giggled at her silliness.
He opened the appropriate door and they entered the dark suite of rooms. He flicked on a light and saw a comfortable little drawing room with sofas, chairs, and a fireplace. Adjacent to the drawing room was the bedroom, where Butler pulled Brenda by her wrist.
“Let me go,” she pleaded, not very convincingly.
He spun her around, wrapped his arms around her slender waist, and pulled her toward him. She melted, moaned and raised her lips to his. They kissed, opened their mouths, touched tongues, and got dizzy. Butler reached behind her dress for her zipper, and pulled it down. He stepped away from her and saw the top of her dress fall away from her delicious, floppy breasts. He took one of them in his hand, bent over, and kissed its little point. Brenda closed her eyes and moaned. Butler picked her up and placed her in the middle of the bed, then pulled down her dress, slip, and underpants.
She lay naked on the bed except for her Cossack hat, which she reached towards with her hands. “I’ll take this off,” she said.
“No, leave it on.”
“You like it on?”
“Yes.”
