Collected Short Fiction, page 118
She sighed. ‘I’m sorry. When I woke up, I felt so icky and sweaty and awful, I just automatically went for a shower. I was really more asleep than awake and you were out and by the time I remembered, I had to rinse off anyway. I’m sorry. It’s just water, it’ll heat up again.’
‘Well, that’s true, Julie. I have noticed that.’
She started to say something and then thought better of it. ‘You never did tell me where you went last night.’
‘Yes, I did. All-night grocery. Schnuck’s. I’ll take you there sometime, it’s a pretty fabulous place. Open twenty-four hours and they’ve got everything except a golf course and a wet bar. And always so clean, I don’t know how they do it.’
Julie planted herself directly in front of me frowning. Big Sister was a head taller than I was as well as three years older, but annoyingly, she didn’t outweigh me. My only comfort was knowing that she always put on weight when she stayed with me.
‘Don’t bullshit me, B.J. Where were you?’
‘Why do I have to answer to you? This isn’t your house, I’m not staying with you, you’re staying with me.’
Now she looked hurt. ‘Hey, you don’t want to tell me, fine, but I don’t see what you have to hide. Or why. We’re sisters, for chrissake. I told you all my stuff, so it’s not like I’m being unfair. You could at least catch me up on what you’ve been doing since I saw you last.’
I smiled. ‘Oh, this and that.’
‘What?’
‘What I’ve been up to.’
‘Thanks, that’s very forthcoming.’ She sat down at the kitchen table and put her chin on her fist, the better to have the sulks with.
‘I keep busy,’ I told her wearily. ‘I’ve got some friends I hang out with and temp work never dries up so I can work when I want to, save up, and not work when I don’t want to. Like now.’
‘When do you think you’ll go back to work?’ she asked.
I shrugged. ‘When I get bored. And I’m sorry, but I don’t have any projected date for when I’ll be feeling bored enough to do that.’
My sister pressed her lips together just the way our mother used to do. ‘You’re really starting to worry me, B.J. You seem to have no ambition, no goals, and no interest in acquiring any.’
I shrugged. ‘Can you explain how you’re any different?’
‘I’ve been trying to build a life for myself. I want a family. A real family, with two parents. I don’t care to be a single parent, thanks all the same.’
‘Maybe you should concentrate on a career for a while,’ I said.
‘Oh, I am,’ she said quickly. ‘I didn’t tell you I’d gone into graphic design, did I?’
‘No,’ I said, ‘you didn’t.’
‘Well, I have. I took this course in desktop publishing and I discovered I have a knack for laying out pages of things—books, magazines, things like that, you know?’
I waited.
‘And I ended up getting some freelance assignments to design some newsletters for some local organizations.’
I kept waiting. Irritation pushed Julie’s forehead into furrows.
‘It was through the instructor, in case you want to know. He was so supportive, right from the very beginning.’
Bingo, I thought, feeling mean.
‘Richard just ignored me, he was all wrapped up in that tiresome programming garbage and it was like my interests had just stopped existing or something. He simply ignored the fact that I’d uncovered this incredible talent I’d never known I had. But my teacher was a real teacher. He brought me along, kept encouraging me to push myself, challenge myself.’
‘Well,’ I said. ‘I didn’t see any desktop publishing stuff in your luggage. Did you leave it behind with Richard?’
She actually blushed. ‘I don’t have any—I haven’t been able to afford to buy any yet. First I used one of the classroom computers, but now Stan’s been letting me use his system.’
‘Stan’s the teacher?’
‘Right.’ She dimpled to show me she was pleased with my powers of deduction. ‘He’s got all the state-of-the-art software and enough memory to handle an entire publishing company. Which is what he really wants to do—start this specialty press that publishes high-quality books for specialized markets, poetry, or travel books, other things. He’s trying to save enough money from teaching and he told me that when he’s ready to start up, he wants to hire me right off to do all the designing.’ She took a moment to be proud. ‘So you see, B.J., I may be on my third divorce, and I may be temporarily living with my sister, but I’ve still got my sights set on tomorrow. Bloody but unbowed. Life goes on.’
I felt like sending Richard a card.
I caught them together, of course. Now that Stan’s name had been mentioned, I knew it wouldn’t be long before the man himself appeared, but as I said, I was tired of the charade and I decided I’d just fix it so we all knew where we were and where everyone else was. So I told Julie I was going to a movie and then out to dinner afterwards with some friends, ran down to Schnuck’s for half an hour and made it back in time for her first orgasm.
Either Stan was some kind of high-powered and unstoppable sex machine or Julie had got better at enjoying herself. The thought that my sister might be faking it crossed my mind a few times in the past but I decided it was highly unlikely. Making Julie come was probably the entrance exam, if you’ll pardon the expression; anyone who couldn’t qualify in the Big O event didn’t advance to the serious relationship stage. As a standard, it wasn’t so bad, I guess, and maybe better than just judging them on the size of their bank accounts—more personal, anyway. And as Julie herself had said once, I hate to think of all those other women out there who put up with worse than I have and don’t even get to have an orgasm. In her own hinky way, she had a point.
Anyway, there I was in my own living room, listening to my sister and her latest victim going at it and feeling like that scene from The Stepford Wives, where the women go into their neighbour’s house and hear her telling her husband how great he is. Except Julie didn’t sound anywhere near so submissive. It was all give-it-to-me-show-me-right-there-go-go-do-it and so forth, right out of How To Be An Assertive Sex Partner.
And I had to admit, as hinky and perverted as it might sound, it was a turn-on. I’d have been better off in my own bedroom but there was no way I could get there without walking past Julie’s open door and alerting the lovers, so I just lay down on the couch.
The most fun was imagining what Stan looked like—skinny or muscular, or even a little plump, dark or fair, much younger or somewhat older. He sounded like the macho type in that he had a lot of requests of his own and tended to make them all in a sexy growl. I imagined his hands everywhere at once, urgent but very sensitive, as if he were searching for the exact location of the very best point . . . and then when he found it, pressing his mouth against it in a long, ornate kiss, while his hands and his fingers began to prepare for what was next. I imagined he was quite talented; he certainly sounded talented, Julie’s back-up singing aside.
Eventually, I just stopped hearing her. It was good; for awhile, I almost believed that old Stan and I were making a real connection. He and I finished together, anyway; Julie screamed on and off for another half an hour. It gave me time to pull myself together, more or less. I started counting and when I finally got to a hundred and twenty without hearing her give another howl of ecstasy, I opened the front door, slammed it hard, and yelled, ‘Julie, I’m home!’
I went straight to her room, blathering about how movies these days just really sucked and I’d suddenly got so tired of having my intelligence insulted that I’d just walked right the hell out and the hell with dinner, I decided I’d just come home and fix myself a—
‘Sandwich?’ I said, standing in the open doorway. My surprise was genuine, in that I was just finding out what Stan really looked like. ‘Uh, Julie? Did I, uh, show up at an inopportune moment?’
From where she was lying on Stan’s shoulder, my sister blew out a noisy breath. ‘You could say that, B.J., though I have to say your timing isn’t quite as bad as it could have been.’
‘Oh,’ I said. ‘Well, does this mean I should fix three sandwiches instead of just one?’
‘B.J.!’ Julie said, mortified.
‘What?’ I said. ‘We’ve got a guest, I’m just trying to be a good host. Ess.’
During this exchange, I hadn’t actually looked at Julie at all. It was hard to see anyone else with Stan in the room. He was a knockout. That’s the only way I can describe him—maybe breathtaking for a variation. He had thick black hair just a little long, pale green eyes and the kind of masculine features that would go a bit craggy with age but would never lose their sex appeal.
Then there was his body. The sheet was pulled up to hip level so I could see he’d been taking good care of himself; he wasn’t a bodybuilder but his muscles were firm and well-defined in a way that I personally have always found irresistibly touchable. Wait till I tell the gang about this, I thought.
‘B.J.!’ Julie yelled and I realized this was the third time she’d said it.
‘What?’ I said brightly.
‘Will you for chrissakes get the hell out of the doorway so we can get dressed? Then I’ll introduce you two.’
‘Oh. Sure.’ I smiled at Stan. ‘So, you want a sandwich?’
Stan’s smile broadened and I got the feeling that he did. ‘What have you got? he asked softly.
Julie opened her mouth to scream at one or both of us. ‘I’ll get it out and you can see for yourself,’ I said quickly and escaped to the kitchen.
I put out all the sandwich stuff, enjoying the jittery sound of Julie’s voice in the bedroom. I couldn’t hear what she was saying but I was pretty sure she was trying to explain to him why I wasn’t acting all shocked and scandalized after all, and when she got through ascribing mood swings and unpredictability to me, I was going to sound like Sybil on an especially bad day.
I put some Genoa salami and provolone on a kaiser roll, poured myself a beer and waited.
Julie came out in her bathrobe but Stan was fully dressed, shoes and all. ‘Gosh, I hope you’re not leaving just because I have a lousy sense of timing,’ I told him, gesturing at the food laid out on the counter next to the refrigerator.
‘No, he’s leaving because he has a lot to do,’ Julie said. ‘Don’t you?’ she added as he turned to her with a sweetcakes-don’t-answer-my-questions-for-me look.
‘Hey, anyone’s got time for a sandwich,’ I said innocently.
She did her best to look affectionately bothered while he fixed a comed beef on rye and raised his eyebrows at my beer.
‘Help yourself,’ I told him without moving from the stool by the breakfast bar (that was what the real estate agent called it when I bought the house). As he stuck his head into the refrigerator, Julie gave me a murderous glare. I just shrugged at her and tried not to laugh out loud.
That was the problem with going to bed with Julie—well, one of the problems, anyway: afterwards, you were supposed to lie there and talk about what a great lay she was and how she could get thousands of dollars a throw for this if she ever decided to turn pro. In return, she’d tell you how great you were for saying that. Food and drink didn’t enter into it, unless, half an hour later, you got the urge to take her out for an expensive meal before you did it again.
Well, I never cared much for guys who hopped out of bed a split-second after the grand finale and locked themselves in the bathroom for an hour myself, so maybe I couldn’t blame her there. I also couldn’t blame her for getting mad at me for intruding like that, though she’d have been a lot madder if she’d known the truth, and maybe a little bit scared besides. Because she wouldn’t understand, of course, that it wasn’t the fact that she was my sister that had turned me on.
And what she would understand wouldn’t make her any less angry, so all I could do was sit there stuffing my face and hoping that she had no idea right at that moment exactly how terribly and powerfully much I wanted her new boyfriend.
‘Oh, baby, oh, baby,’ said Fay as we watched Stan leaving my house and walking down to his car parked at the curb. Julie dragged along with him, hanging on his arm and adoring him. We all ignored her.
‘That’s the infamous Stan, huh?’ said Pilar. ‘Wow, you were right, B.J. I’m making pheromones this minute.’
‘Did you look him up in the city directory?’ Carol wanted to know.
‘Sure did. Stanhope Lloyd O’Brien,’ she read from a printout. ‘Address over on West 39th, registered Republican—’ she looked up from the paper, watching him kiss Julie good-bye ‘Stan-baby, boo hiss. Instructor in computer design and desktop publishing at the local community college. Unmarried. No divorces, just plain unmarried.’ She gave a short laugh. ‘Lives alone. Will someone explain to me how he can be more perfect?’
‘He could be rich as Croesus and take us all to the Bahamas,’ Fay offered.
‘Strike one,’ Pilar said. ‘But it takes three strikes for an out and remember, with enough balls, we can walk him.’
We all fell out for awhile over that one. Fay was alert and let him go only half a block before starting the car and going after him.
‘Stan? It is you, isn’t it?’ I stood next to him at the bar, smiling up at him. There was half a second when he didn’t recognize me out of context and then he was effusively glad to see me. No, Julie wasn’t with him, he’d come out to get some fresh air and a change of scene before going back to work grading some student assignments. Actually, Julie had got rid of him early so I couldn’t walk in on them again—I’d done it twice more since the first time and done my gracious any-lover-of-my-sister’s-is-OK-by-me act each time, and once he’d gone, Julie had chewed me out for being insensitive. This time, she’d no doubt sent him off with a promise that soon they could be together uninterrupted at his place, as her divorce from Richard was coming right along, though she didn’t want to jeopardize what little of Richard’s goodwill she had by going public before everything was final and blah-blah-blah.
I didn’t have much trouble persuading him to join me and my friends in the dining room for a bite to eat and some harmless, undemanding companionship—the keyword there being, undemanding, something my sister was not. Then there was the fact that none of us are so terribly hard to look at, even me though I know I’m not as pretty as Julie. But the four of us together make a fairly good-looking party, and of course, we’re good company, too. Especially when we’re loaded with pheromones, the way we were then. I could tell old Stanhope liked us pretty well and wasn’t allergic to pheromones, like one unfortunate and too-memorable case we had.
He lingered over his empty plate talking movies with Fay, books with Carol and politics with Pilar, while I made wisecracks. Pretty soon it was two hours later and we were into after-dinner drinks and looking at the dessert menu. I thought about my sister alone in the house, having the post-traumatic post-coital-stress blues and phoning her beloved for a little emotional pumping-up, only to get his answering machine for hours and hours, even though he hadn’t said anything to her about having to be out.
We managed to make dessert and coffee last an hour and a half, and when we finally let him go, I’m not sure which one of us he was in love with. Maybe all of us; he was a man with a hearty appetite.
Julie was in a full-blown hissy-fit when I got home. I pretended not to notice and put The Beguiled on the VCR. For awhile, I thought that was going to push her right over the edge into total panic hysteria, and I suppose if you count eating a barrel of popcorn by yourself in a frantic, mechanical way, perhaps it did.
If she’d ever offered to pay me some rent to help with the mortgage, or taken on the housework, it all might have been different. But that wasn’t the way my sister worked, so I had to figure out other ways to make her pay. Her room had begun to smell like one I’d lived next door to in my first college dorm—the two guys had turned it into a frank and unapologetic sex pit they had christened The Hot Spot.
I started referring to her room by that name—the Hot Spot—and she got greatly offended, though the gang thought it was hilarious, if inaccurate.
‘If he thinks that’s a hot spot, he’s got some surprises coming when we take him to the real hot spot,’ Fay said.
‘All of us together?’ Carol pretended to be shocked. ‘Dykes.’
‘Lesbos,’ Pilar said.
‘Oh, you fags,’ Fay said, and nearly drove the car off the road. What wasn’t funny was that it seemed like the only times when we didn’t have some hockey puck making remarks at us was when we were with Stan.
We didn’t start bumping into him regularly right away. We let him go on by himself for awhile, let him hang out alone after a session in the Hot Spot, so he could feel the difference. Then the next time we ran into him, we were all loaded with pheromones again and boy, had he missed us.
If it had just been me by myself, I probably would have got impatient and rushed things. Though sometimes I think my purpose in life is to keep Fay, Carol, and Pilar from dragging stuff out until everyone involved is old and grey. Things do take time if you’re going to do them right, but if the others had just let me hurry things along a little more, Julie wouldn’t have caught us.
Of course, I have to recognize that it was probably due to us that three months went by and she still hadn’t moved out of the Hot Spot. These days, Stan would come over to the Hot Spot, get his ashes hauled, and then run down to the local bar and grill to meet us for dinner and drinks. And pheromones, of course. The pheromones were the big thing, though it certainly helped that Julie was all wrapped up in her troubles these days—neither her divorce nor her new career as a graphic artist were going well and she couldn’t figure out why. And she didn’t say so, but I suspected that old Stan had gone from passionate to perfunctory: here’s your orgasm, gosh, look at the time. Carol maintained that it would have gone this way even if we hadn’t intervened but Fay said we speeded it up some and made it all inevitable besides. I was inclined to agree with Fay, and to add that without chemical enhancement, we couldn’t have done it at all. This wasn’t just some guy we picked up, after all—this was some guy who was screwing my sister, and supposedly in love with her. Definitely a harder case than your typical meatball but, we were hoping, a much greater reward.
