The Ex (12 page)

“Deirdre!”

She slapped him. Hard. “Quiet, David! You don’t want someone to hear us and come in here, do you? Remember, I left the door unlocked.”

The grinding and thrusting of her hips became harder, violent. The handcuffs were clinking against the wall behind David. A stack of plastic foam cups next to the coffeemaker vibrated to the edge of the table then fell to the floor and rolled in a tight semicircle.

David looked away from the white cups, at the white ceiling, and was suddenly lost in everything but sensation. Deirdre’s hands clutched his upper arms as she lay her cheek against his, expelling short, hard and hot breaths, moaning.

He reached orgasm but she didn’t stop.

“Deirdre…”

“Quiet, quiet!”
she whispered, and rested her forefinger across his lips. Its sharp fingernail cut into the tip of his nose.

He felt himself go soft inside her, and finally she pulled away and stepped back, smoothing her dress. She glanced in an oval mirror hanging on a wall and cocked her head to the side, touched a hand to her hair. She might have been alone in the room.

“Deirdre,” David said breathlessly, “unlock the cuffs.” He was desperately afraid again that someone would walk in on them.

Maybe even Molly! Come looking for him!

“The cuffs!”

Deirdre smiled at him in the mirror, then turned around. “I didn’t bring a key, David.”

“Oh, my God!”

Then she came to him and kissed his cheek. “I’m only joking. Do you really think I’d leave you here like this?”

“Yes,” David said.

She frowned and shook a finger at him. “David?”

“All right, no, you wouldn’t leave me like this. Unlock these, Deirdre, please!”

She moved around behind him and he heard the key enter the handcuffs, felt the sudden release of pressure as they clicked open.

He pulled his arms around in front of him and stared at his hands. They were quivering. Guilt tore at him. In a way, he knew, he’d aided her in what had just happened. He didn’t want to do this to himself or to Molly, but he couldn’t help himself.

Deirdre was standing by the door. “Zip your pants, David. And clean yourself up. This is kind of a place of worship, and cleanliness is the next best thing to Godliness.”

Without looking back at him, she walked from the room, leaving the door standing open behind her.

He rushed to the door and closed it.

Then he zipped his fly, straightened his shirt and tie, and opened the door again, slowly.

Deirdre was gone. The entrance area outside the consolation rooms was still deserted.

He managed to make his way to the restroom and followed her advice.

At Glory and Resurrection Cemetery, the morning sun was beginning to make the mourners uncomfortable despite the fact that they were gathered in the shade of a temporary canopy. Molly felt a rivulet of perspiration trickle down her ribs beneath the same navy blue dress she’d worn the previous night to the visitation. She didn’t like the idea of wearing the same dress, but it was the only dark outfit she owned that wouldn’t have been stiflingly hot.

Only a few dozen mourners had made the journey from the mortuary to attend the funeral. A short, gray-haired woman with puffy eyes had introduced herself near the coffin the night before as Bernice’s mother. She seemed to be benefiting from physical as well as psychological support from a lean, dark man with sunglasses, standing next to her and supporting her. Bernice’s uncle, if Molly remembered correctly.

The pallbearers had rested Bernice’s burnished steel casket on a bier. The grave was dug but covered with sagging, impossibly green artificial turf to spare those gathered the trauma of seeing into the yawning cavity in the earth that was about to receive Bernice’s body and claim it for the rest of time.

Molly wiped her eyes and leaned on David as the minister, a young, prematurely bald man with acne, finished the service with a prayer: “…shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

She didn’t remember anything else about the prayer. “Forever,” was all she could think about.
Forever.

David hadn’t spoken at all during the drive to the cemetery and was standing motionless, as if lost in his own thoughts. Maybe Bernice’s death had affected him more than Molly had thought. Men were that way, keeping their feelings bottled and corked and then breaking down in private, as if grief and loneliness had to be synonymous. He’d missed the first part of the service in the mortuary chapel, and when he’d returned to sit beside her again in the pew, his face was pale and thoughtful.

The minister tossed a handful of earth onto the artificial turf, then nodded to the mourners as a signal that the funeral was over. With a sad smile, he moved toward Bernice’s mother to give final consolation.

David started to leave, but Molly gripped his arm and stopped him. He seemed startled for a second, which surprised her. Then he smiled down at her and looked all around him, as if coming out of a dream.

When the minister had walked away, she went to where Bernice’s mother was still standing with the slim, dark man.

“If you need any help,” Molly said to her. “I mean, with Bernice’s things. We live right downstairs from her apartment and we’ll be glad to do what we can.”

“That’s nice of you,” the mother—Iris, Molly remembered now—said. She might have had a slight accent, though Molly hadn’t noticed it the night before. Molly wrote their phone number on a slip of paper from her purse and gave it to her.

“She was on her swim team in high school,” Iris said. “Did you know that?”

“No,” Molly heard David say. He had joined them and now seemed himself again, free of his thoughts of death.

“We could have had an autopsy, but I couldn’t bear to think of that being done to her. She’s dead. She’ll stay dead forever, no matter why she died.”

“I understand,” Molly said. “I think you made the right decision.”

“In the water,” Iris Clark said, “she was a natural. Like a beautiful and graceful dolphin.”

“I’m sorry,” Molly said again, not knowing what else to say. The lean man might have been looking at her. She could see only her own twin reflections in his glasses.

He took Iris Clark’s arm, nodded to both Molly and David, then turned and led Iris to one of the waiting black limousines.

Molly felt David’s arm encircle her waist as they walked toward the last of the three limos.

“On her high school swim team,” Molly said.

“Freak things happen,” David said glumly.

Forever.

Molly began to cry.

After Deirdre described what had happened at the funeral home, Darlene looked horrified.

“That was a terrible thing to do!”

“Why?” Deirdre asked. “Just because angelic little you wouldn’t do it?”

They were walking along crowded Fifth Avenue. Darlene was wearing tight slacks that showed off her slender, shapely dancer’s legs, and a white pullover with a scoop neck that made her own neck look even thinner and more delicate. She and Deirdre had met in front of the public library, near a stone lion that guarded so much knowledge. Deirdre’s high heels were making regular clacking sounds on the concrete as she strode along the sidewalk. Beside her, Darlene walked quietly in soft soles.

“I certainly wouldn’t do it in a mortuary,” Darlene said. “And don’t tell me about all the Freudian relationships between sex and death. That’s no excuse.”

“I don’t need an excuse. Anyway, Freud was a fool.”

People glanced at them as the two women approached, then the crowds on the sidewalk parted to let them pass. Darlene had such a confident stride that folks automatically made way for her, sometimes even stepping wide to get out of her path. Deirdre was jealous. She couldn’t help but notice the deferential way people always treated Darlene, as if she were some kind of royalty.

“Why
did
you have sex there?” Darlene asked.

“Because I wanted to, and so did David.”

“You made him want to. I’ve been thinking a lot about your situation, Deirdre. What you wanted, what you still want, is to control David entirely. To possess him sexually and in every other way.”

“I never made a secret of that. Not with you, anyway. Propriety is the spice of life.”

“Don’t spring those cutesy puns and malapropisms on me, Deirdre.”

Deirdre didn’t like being talked to in such a manner, but an apology here might be the wisest choice. “Okay, I’m sorry. It’s an old habit.”

“I don’t like it. And I don’t approve of sex with a married man in a funeral home. It’s inexcusable.”

“But we both enjoyed the risk. This might be impossible for you to understand, but for some people sex is best when it’s dangerous. It’s much more of a thrill.”

“Does that explain why all those poor people died of AIDS?”

“It explains some of it, I bet. I didn’t realize you had such a social conscience.”

Darlene stopped walking. Deirdre continued for a few steps. then stopped and turned. They moved into a doorway so they wouldn’t be knocked down by the relentless mass of pedestrians.

“I care about
you,
Deirdre,” Darlene said. “I don’t want you taking those kinds of risks, sinning that way. I care about your body and your immortal soul.”

Deirdre was astounded. “Are you some kind of religious freak?”

“No.”

“Then don’t be so judgmental.”

Darlene looked down at the cigarette butts and crumpled gum and candy wrappers littering the pavement. Then she looked up at Deirdre. “Okay,” she said seriously, “maybe you’re right. From now on I’ll try not to judge.”

Deirdre felt better. She reached out for Darlene, but Darlene moved away. Almost as if she were afraid.

“You’re not scared of me because I like wild sex, are you?” Deirdre asked.

“Of course not. And who says I
don’t
like wild sex?”

Deirdre laughed. “I can’t imagine you…actually doing it.”

“Well,” Darlene said, “I actually do. I have male friends.”

Deirdre glanced across the street at a corner coffee shop. “Let’s go over there and have something to drink.”

“I can’t and you shouldn’t,” Darlene said. “You’ve missed enough work today. Your boss might object.”

“Not Chumley. I’ve got him trapped around my finger.”

“Deirdre!”

“Oh. Sorry.”

“You’re so manipulative.”

“Aren’t you being judge—”

“Yes, I am. My turn to apologize. But you really should get to work.”

“Chumley truly won’t care if I’m another hour late. Because I took time off today, I plan on working very late tonight. It’s already arranged.”

“Be that as it may,” Darlene said earnestly, sounding old-fashioned the way she did sometimes, “I can’t go across the street and have a drink with you. It’s impossible.”

“Why?”

“It just is.” Deirdre thought she was going to glance at her watch again, but she didn’t. Instead she moved out of the doorway, into the throng of passing pedestrians. “Sorry, Deirdre.”

“Wait a—”

“Bye! Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do.”

And she was gone.

Maybe you’re sorry, and maybe you’re not, Deirdre thought.

She was hurt and disappointed. She had wanted to talk with Darlene, to find out exactly what she thought that Freud had said about sex and death. She wanted to set Darlene straight about Freud.

Then she glanced at her watch, the way Darlene so often did, and began striding briskly to work.

Sex and death indeed!

“You’re killing me!” Chumley moaned.

Behind him nighttime Manhattan glittered outside his office window. It was a large office with gray file cabinets along one wall. On another wall was a sales chart, a bulletin board plastered with memos and shipping schedules, a Minolta copy machine on a table with folding legs. Cardboard storage boxes were stacked in a corner. It was an office not for show, but where work was done.

Two gray steel desks, one larger than the other, matched the filing cabinets. On the large desk sat a black multilined phone, file folders, a wire Out basket, a fancy gold and black marble pen set, and framed photos of a smiling, middle-aged woman and two preteen girls wearing smaller but brighter versions of the same smile.

Chumley was seated in his desk chair rolled out from behind the larger desk. Deirdre, her skirt hiked to her waist, was straddling him, moving her hips with increasing speed and force. With each pump of her hips the chair squealed as if in pain. Sometimes it was Chumley who groaned, not in pain. After hours had never been so good for Chumley.

He had his head thrown back now and was moaning softly. Deirdre knew the moment. She grinned down at him, cupped his face in her hands, and kissed him violently on the lips. His body arched and trembled beneath her and she rode him as he reached orgasm.

“Jesus!” Chumley moaned, and his body relaxed. Went completely limp.

Deirdre lifted herself up from him just enough to work her hand down between their bodies. She kissed him again, hunching her shoulders, then used her hand to bring herself to climax. She’d been close, and it took her less than a minute.

Her breathing was only slightly hard and not at all ragged, but Chumley’s chest was still heaving as he sucked in oxygen. Laughing deep in her throat, she leaned forward and probed his ear with her tongue. He turned his head away.

“I’ve had it, Deirdre,” he gasped. “Whew!…Sorry.”

She planted her feet on the floor and rose up off him, letting her skirt fall back into place then smoothing it down over her thighs. She leaned back with her hips against the edge of the desk. Chumley, fully dressed but with his pants and boxer shorts down around his ankles, remained sprawled in the chair, slowly winning the struggle to regain his breath.

“You are something,” he said between gasps.

She smiled at him, then picked up her panties from the floor and stuffed them in a pocket of her skirt. She was looking out the window behind them. The blinds were raised high and the drapes opened wide. Hundreds if not thousands of lighted windows faced them. And some that were not lighted. Those were the ones that interested her, people staring out at the world from darkness.

Chumley was breathing more evenly. The desk chair, tilted as far back as it would go, gave a final
eeeek!
as he dropped forward in it.

“We should do this at your place,” he said. “In a bed. We keep this up and you’re gonna kill me.”

“It’s possible.”

“Your place next time?”

She yanked her belt around so it was aligned with her skirt. “I kind of like this, with the window behind us and everybody in New York with a telescope watching.”

Chumley laughed. “You’re an exhibitionist.”

“Only sometimes.”

Chumley bent low, then pulled up his shorts and pants as he managed to climb out of the chair. It was an awkward maneuver. He rebuttoned his shirt, fastened his belt, and straightened his clothes. Then he stooped and picked up his tie from the floor. Also on the floor were a goose-necked desk lamp, a jumble of file folders and papers, and various other items brushed from the desk during their sometimes violent lovemaking. Chumley picked up the In basket, which had been lying near his tie, and set it on the desk next to the Out.

He looked around and shook his head. “We made a hell of a mess here.”

“Worth it?” Deirdre asked.

“Worth it.”

She picked up an ashtray and laid it on the desk. “Don’t worry about the mess. You go ahead home and I’ll straighten things up and put everything back where it belongs. There’s a place for everything, and I know where.”

“You live in a conveniently compartmented world,” Chumley remarked, smiling.

She tilted her head, thinking about that. “Sure. That’s how the world should be.”

“Well, since you came on the scene, this place is certainly getting more organized.”

She flashed him her wicked grin. “Not to mention more fun.” Then she put her hands on her hips and looked at the folders and papers scattered on the hardwood floor. “But now’s the time for organization rather than fun. Time to pay the pauper.”

“‘Piper,’ you mean.”

“Whoever.”

“You’re too good to me, you know that?”

“Uh-hm, part of my job.”

He tucked in his shirt, then rolled down and buttoned his sleeves and put on his tie, making sure the wide end overlapped the narrow. He knew his wife could be on the alert for any sign of irregular behavior in the city. When it came to that kind of thing, women had radar.

“Presentable?” he asked.

“At least.” She brushed off his suit coat and handed it to him.

He worked his arms into the coat. She stepped in close and buttoned it for him.

“You are something!” he told her again.

She smiled up at him. “You already said that.”

“Well, I think it’s worth repeating.”

She kissed him lightly on the lower lip, then nudged him toward the door. He hesitated, looking back at her.

“Don’t be late,” she said. “We don’t want questions.”

He nodded, then went out the door.

Deirdre picked up the still-glowing goose-neck lamp and placed it on the desk, then gathered some papers from the floor, rearranged them, and placed them in the In basket.

When she’d decided that Chumley was gone from the building and enough time had passed that it was unlikely he’d return, she went to the door and shot the deadbolt into its shaft. She rolled Chumley’s chair into the kneehole of his desk, then lowered the blinds. The office suddenly seemed smaller, quieter.

Still in her stockinged feet, Deirdre walked to the file cabinets and opened one of the bottom drawers. Squatting effortlessly so that her buttocks rested on her heels, she quickly found the hanging file folder she sought and lifted it from its steel tracks, then stood up and nudged the long drawer shut with the side of her foot.

She carried the folder to the copy machine and set to work, smiling.