1.
I got up, leaving her lying there on the bed. I went over to the closet, facing the new outfits she had bought. I stroked a sequined black evening dress, its price tag still attached.
“Honey?” she asked.
I twisted the material in my hand. I wondered how much it cost, but the tag dangled, just out of reach.
“The condom,” I said, “The one that was in your purse.”
“Yes?”
“What was it doing there?”
“I told you,” she said, “I got it from you.”
“But what was it doing in your purse?”
I heard her shifting in the bed. “We were going to use them. . .”
“But you’re not. . .”
“Michael, nobody uses them,” she said. Not for. . . that.”
“Not for that?”
“You know what I mean.” I did. She meant oral sex.
“Did he tell you that?” I turned. She’d pushed herself up against the headboard; she clutched the sheet to her chest.
She looked at me. “He’s safe, Michael. . . You know that. He’s married. . . He has three kids.”
The sex flush was fading on her shoulders, but the color was rising in her cheeks. Her naked feet showed from where she’d pulled up the sheet.
I wanted to look away. “The photographs. . .” I said, my voice catching. I realized it’d been a mistake.
“Yes?” she asked.
It had been a mistake to look at her when she looked like that.
“You looked like you enjoyed it.”
“He asked me to pose like that.”
“I know, but. . .”
She shook her head. “It was just for the camera,” she said.
“You were posing by the window.”
“Oh,” she said. “Yeah, that made me nervous.” She smiled.
Her grin faded quickly. “Michael,” she said, “We’re five stories up.”
“I know that.” I turned and faced the clothes. There was a set of louvered doors leaning against the wall that I’d been meaning to put up. I nudged them with my toe. That wasn’t what I really wanted to ask.
“Honey…?” she asked.
I interrupted. “Did you—do you—enjoy it?”
She said nothing, and I listened to the sounds of her shifting on the bed. She was sitting up.
“Michael,” she said. She approached me and I glanced back. She’d wrapped the sheet around herself. It trailed onto the floor. She clutched it at her breasts.
She touched my upper arm, just below my shoulder. “Whenever I talk to you about this…” She made a motion with her hand. “You get mad. But…” She searched my face. “You also. . .” She glanced down. “Get turned on.”
I turned. “It’s not because I like it!” I said. “I don’t! It’s just a. . .” I paused, searching for the words. “A reaction – a physical reaction!”
I followed her gaze, and found myself wishing I’d put on some clothes.
She touched me gently on my stomach. “It’s the same with me, honey,” she said. She lifted her eyes to mine. “Just a physical reaction.”
I refused to admit she had a point. I wanted to back up, but I was already practically standing in the closet. When she shifted, she brushed her sheet against me, making my situation worse.
I gathered myself and reached out with both hands. “Maria. Are you fucking him?”
I watched her closely as her eyes went a little round. “Michael,” she protested. But she quickly looked down. “No,” she said. “You have the right to ask. . .”
She gazed back up at me. “No,” she said, “I’m not.”
Her sheet was slipping off her breasts; she was starting to unravel. We gazed at each other another moment. “You know that, don’t you.” She pressed her hand to her belly, catching the sheet so it would not slip off of her waist. “Don’t you?”
I watched her wide, ocean-colored eyes, and sighed, giving up.
She put her arms around me. “You love me, don’t you?” she asked. She leaned herself against my chest. I could feel her smiling there. “I can feel it.”
I kept my silence, not saying what I felt.
After a moment I felt her hand slip down my back. She caressed my buttock. “Michael, can we put,” she asked, “your erection to good use?”
I laid her out across the bed. “They say,” she said, “this is what teenage boys are like.” She grinned. I couldn’t help but smile back.
“You’ll never know,” I said. She spread apart her thighs, opening the sheet for me.
She closed her eyes and sighed, as I entered her, easily.
“Only you,” she murmured, just before I came. “You’re the only one.”
The next day, since my car wouldn’t start, and we drove Maria’s Celica into town and she dropped me off at work.
I called my brother, who’d left a message for me there. It didn’t take him long, to get to the point. He said he’d been talking to our sister, to Denise. “She told me what’s been going on,” he said, “Between you and Maria.”
I could sense what was coming, and I tried to warn him off, unsuccessfully. “A man who lets his wife cheat on him,” he told me, “is not a man at all.” Chase was my older brother, and sometimes he forgot we’re all grown up now.
“You’re one to talk,” I told him. “What are you, gearing up for number four?”
He already had a little girl and a boy; and could barely pay his child support. The rumor was he was about to divorce his current wife.
We got into a yelling fight. “If you had any balls at all,” he finally said, “you’d throw that bitch out!”
I told him to go fuck himself, and then I slammed down the phone. Chase was the last man I’d take advice from, especially about women; but still a part of me couldn’t’ help but wonder if he was right.
Maria called, after that, a little after one. She said she had some news, but told me it was a secret. “I’m going to take you out to dinner,” she said, “We’re going to celebrate.” She mentioned a notable restaurant in the tower of our city’s most expensive downtown hotel.
“How are you going to pay?” I asked. We hadn’t been there since I’d lost my job at CompSci Inc.
She laughed. “Meet me in the lobby,” she said, “At seven sharp. Ok?”
I said yes, and she hung up the phone.
I walked the dozen blocks or so from my office to the restaurant that she’d mentioned. It was in a hotel that overlooked the river.
She looked stunning, when I saw her. “You like?” she asked, grinning, and spinning for me. She clutched her purse, her going-out purse, in her hand. She came up and kissed my cheek. “I spent three hours at the salon today,” she said, “and then I went out and bought this.” She held out her arms for me.
“Maria-” I asked, but she put her finger to my lips.
“Don’t ask,” she said. “I’ll tell you in a minute.”
We rode the elevator together. I couldn’t keep my eyes off Maria’s form. Her dress sparked in the lights and reflected in the mirrors. She was glowing. She was putting on a little weight. If I’d ever had a complaint about Maria, it was that she was a little skinny. Now her skin was taut, with a thin extra layer of baby fat.
The elevator made a series of pleasant-sounding chimes as we passed through half a dozen floors. Maria wore a thin, diamond-studded choker; the one she’d gotten from her mother, in addition to her golden chain. The cross she always wore was hidden inside her dress. The outfit was off the shoulders; it would be obvious to anyone she did not have on a bra.
When the doors opened, I made an automatic move to get out, almost stepping on a small distinguished looking man. He wore an old fashioned fedora and held a cane. He brushed aside my apologies, and got on, stepping carefully around Maria. It was obvious he was getting pleasure just looking at her. Maria didn’t seem to mind; she hardly seemed to notice him.
As we continued riding up, I found myself wondering what this man would think if he knew what our marriage was really like. I stepped over to Maria and put my arm around her waist.
The restaurant was just as elegant as I remembered, though nearly empty on that night. A sleek, expensive looking hostess, a young Asian woman, took our reservations, and led us to our chairs. She wore a black, crushed velvet mini-skirt, and a large diamond on a silver chain glittered between her breasts.
A handsome, suited waiter held out Maria’s chair. He smiled down at her as I sat down. “Anything to drink tonight?” he asked, motioning to the wine list.
“Champagne,” Maria announced, smiling at me.
I nodded, and named a brand.
“No,” she said. She looked up at the waiter, and named another brand. He smiled, pleased at her selection.
I looked out the floor to ceiling windows. The sun had gone down. Its last rays illuminated an enormous cloudbank in the west. From where I sat, I could see the lights in Maria’s office, a few of them still burning on her floor.
Maria caught my eye. “Don’t be like that,” she smiled. She caught my hand. “Remember, we’re going to celebrate tonight.”
My own hand felt cold and clammy. “Celebrate what?” I asked.
She squeezed my hand. “You’ll see.” I looked back out the window. I could see people, in some of the towers, their silhouettes made visible by the lights inside.
She squeezed my hand again. “Michael-”
