Definitely Against Policy, page 7
“Thanks,” she said. A single word and then a tense nothing.
Okay. She probably wasn’t resigning because she was drinking coffee with him, though her face and body were as stiff as a storefront mannequin.
“I’m sorry,” Eli ventured as he sat on the sofa.
She sat too, though, in the armchair. “Sorry for what?” Mary finally met his eyes.
“For acting like a jerk. For being a jerk last night.”
“In vino veritas,” she muttered.
Okay…spouting Latin. Was she trying to make him feel stupid?
“I don’t suppose you know what that means?” she needled.
He did—the phrase described alcohol as a truth serum—but he shrugged to feign ignorance. Let her feel superior. “Dominic’s game brought out the worst in us, especially me,” he replied.
“You’re blaming Dominic for you screwing your boss and blabbing?” Her voice was low yet dagger-sharp.
“No. Of course not. I’m responsible for my actions. I should never have been with Claudia. It was only once, but it was wrong.”
“You think this is about fornication? Adultery?” She chose the words to mock him. “It’s not. Not at all. It’s about betraying a secret, about hurting Claudia by fucking her when she was under a ton of stress and then bragging about it.”
Eli flinched. He didn’t fuck women. The word was vulgar and disrespectful. A whisp of a memory wafted through his consciousness. Air fumy with the boozy breath of multitudes, neon Guinness sign blinking behind the bar, Mary on his right, laughing over music…what she said…he did remember!
“You kissed and told,” said Eli. “A father and husband, wasn’t it? A married man—”
“I was a nerdy, bespectacled loner itching to lose my virginity. He taught me what I wanted to know, and I don’t regret it.”
“His wife might take a different view.”
“Yeah? Do you think so? Well, here’s the thing, Eli. She didn’t find out. And she didn’t find out because even at seventeen I knew enough not to tell anyone who knew them. Not to name names.”
She was right. His transgression was far worse than hers. He stared into his coffee mug. “I drank way too much last night, Mary, and I said things I shouldn’t have. You and Dominic are the only people who know and I’m relying on you to keep it that way.”
“You know we will.”
“Yeah. I do. I’m fully aware that what I did with Claudia and my betrayal of her last night were wrong and I’m very, very sorry about it.”
With an enigmatic expression, Mary drank her coffee and set her mug on the table.
“If I could take everything back, I would,” he added.
Mary sighed as if too tired to argue further. “I suppose everyone makes mistakes,” she said vaguely.
“Where does that leave us?”
“I’m not sure.” She was antsy. Shuffling her feet like a diner about to pull a runner. Before he could press her further, she said, “Look. I feel like crap. Okay if I take the day off to lie low and work on my proposal?”
There was only one answer to such a request. “Yeah. Go ahead. I can handle things here myself.”
Pointedly ignoring his pain, she left her half-empty mug on the table, grabbed her rucksack, and hurried away.
This soul-crushing abandonment felt far worse than a slap on the face. Eli got up, wrenched the table box open, dumped the contents onto the carpet, and found the instructions. He’d rebuilt engines with his father and brothers, but he couldn’t make sense of these simple line drawings. Nothing made sense.
His phone pinged with a text. Could it be? No. Claudia.
—Eli. Lots of buzz about In-Spire. Have you set a date for the grand opening?—
They—he—should’ve flung the doors open to all comers yesterday. He’d taken his eye off the ball and lost precious time, and she was calling him on it.
—Thanks for asking, Claudia. This Sat. 2 p.m. Drinks, food, bunting–the whole 9 yds—
—Good. Email details and I’ll send out invitations. If you need help, tell me.—
—OK. Sorry for delay. I’m sorted. How’s Stephen?—
—Better. Is Mary there?—
—No. She has the day off.—
A thumbs-up and —Stephen may drop by later. Make him feel useful, OK?—
Thumbs-up right back.
****
As Mary left the sales office, a cold drizzle claimed the street from all but the most stalwart exercisers and dog people. She was grateful to walk in solitude. On a Sunday morning, transit was infrequent, and she didn’t relish a return to the apartment and Dominic, who’d regale her from the depths of his lungs with songs of their misdeeds, spatula in hand.
Her first steps energized with fierce indignation, Mary’s moral certainty dissolved with each sodden block, and her pace slowed to an aimless stroll. She passed through the stone gates at the side of the small graveyard at St. Dunstan’s and sat on a wrought-iron bench, cold and wet with rain. Through the barred fence, she watched parishioners, mostly elderly, shuffling in for the service. In a decade or two, they’d be buried also, their bodies feeding larvae, selves extinguished forever, their names engraved on headstones fuzzy with moss. Death was real; Eli was real.
In contrast, her righteous outrage was self-serving, contrived, and rapidly disintegrating.
What had she done?
Used Eli as a mirror and disliked what she saw, that’s what. With a spurious claim to the lofty construct of a feminist sisterhood, she accused Eli of the same transgressions she herself had committed. Her fury had nothing to do with naming names and everything to do with jealousy and shame. They were primal emotions that she intellectualized as quaintly outdated, yet they walloped her in the gut with the force of a fast fist.
Here, sitting in this rain-soaked memento mori, she remembered a night alive with music and joy. Dominic was flirting with an old friend, so she’d asked Eli to dance to an up-tempo blues song—Stevie Ray Vaughan? And though Eli shook his head, she didn’t relent. She didn’t take no for an answer. Shrugging with uncharacteristic shyness, he’d accepted her hand and danced with her. He was an awful dancer, stiff-limbed and self-conscious, tilting and shaking this way and that like an unbalanced washer on spin, and he made himself do it to please her.
She owed him the apology.
Mary marched straight back to the sales office. The door was unlocked. Eli hadn’t turned the deadbolt after her, and that gave her hope.
She found him sitting on the carpet, his leg extended to brace a metal pole, left hand clutching a piece of paper, his right hand sifting through bolts. He looked up through a shock of brown hair that had fallen over his forehead. Her elaborate apology, rehearsed and refined during the return journey, escaped her when she saw him. He looked as innocent and wholesome as a boy building a rocket ship with Lego.
“I’m sorry,” Mary said. “I’m such a bitch.”
He nodded and rose to stand before her. “You’re wet.”
“No discussion?” she asked. “Don’t you want me to account for myself?”
“Is it necessary?”
She shook her head, kicked her boots into the closet, and turned to him.
Eli took her into his arms and held her. She rested her head against the heat of his collar bone, and he nuzzled her forehead. He smelled of Eli—soap and salty sweat and an indescribable man smell that made her feel safe and horny at the same time. He forgave her.
“Do you want help with whatever it is you’re building?”
“A table for that diorama.” He broke away and grinned. “Yeah, I could use some help. But you’re all wet.”
“I’ll towel off.” She pulled the elastic from her ponytail to shake her hair loose and shivered.
“Wet and freezing cold.” Eli went to the thermostat to adjust the temperature and the baseboard heaters hissed into action. “I keep a spare shirt for long days, in case I’ve got an evening appointment and I can’t get home.” He admitted to this minor vanity with bashful candor and Mary smiled. “What?” he asked.
“Nothing. Really. I’m charmed by your attention to detail. You’re like a Boy Scout. Prepared.”
He stood in front of the closet. “It’s long enough to cover you. Just slip off your wet clothes and we can dry them over a chair in front of the heater.” Holding a crisply pressed white shirt on a hanger, he turned to her.
“I accept your offer,” Mary replied. “Why don’t you help me undress.”
“Your vow?”
“That still stands.”
****
It was the tease of the century. So consuming, Eli forgot his headache, his work, and his throbbing toe that he’d stubbed on a component as he crossed the room. His singular focus rested on Mary, the goddess before him.
This time, he didn’t have to stop at a button or two, though he had to back off before they went too far.
“Umm…shouldn’t we lock the door?” she asked coyly as she received his shirt and draped it over a chair.
“Oh, right.” He was already hard, and when he turned to her again, he saw her eyes widen as her gaze fell to his tented fly.
Even bare of makeup, her cheeks and lips were red. He raked her thick, wavy hair off her shoulders, slid his hands under the denim fabric of her jacket, and eased it off. She lifted her chin, and he kissed her. As his lips made contact, she flicked her tongue over his mouth. The sensation was powerfully erotic, and he deepened the kiss, tasting toothpaste and coffee, caressing her softness with his lips. He slipped his hand over the hot, damp cotton of her T-shirt and cradled her breast, round and firm, nipple pressed against her clothing. He had to see, had to touch, and she understood this, for she raised her arms and allowed him to lift her shirt over her head and unclasp her bra.
Naked as Eve in the garden from the curve of her waist up, Mary gripped his shoulders and let him drink in her beauty. Her skin was smooth, her full breasts tipped like pink candy. He ran his finger around her areola, puckered from the cold, and bent to take her taut nipple into his mouth, sucking with such intensity that her breathing quickened. Left breast, then right. He was losing his mind in her flesh.
“We need some ground rules,” he said, voice husky and deep.
“You can’t enter me, but we can touch,” she panted.
He nodded once and lowered her zipper, and she wiggled out of her jeans and panties. She moved like a confidant woman, and he was glad of that. He twined a slick curl on his finger, then pressed the heel of his hand over her mound. “I’m not inside you.”
“No. But I’m at a disadvantage,” Mary whispered hoarsely. She unbuttoned his shirt and unzipped his fly. “There. Better.”
Eli’s erection, long and hard, emerged from his gaping pants, and he longed for her to grip him, but she shook her head and ran her fingers through the hair around his nipple and across his chest. She tasted the flesh over his heart.
He guided her to the sofa, and she laid back, thighs separated just enough to drive him wild with lust. He knelt before his goddess, eased her legs apart, and tasted her. Drawing his tongue between her folds, he licked her, from her button-hard clit to her slippery opening, slow at first, then ever faster, ever more urgently, never going in, never breaching the gate. She was hot and smooth on his tongue, and she moaned as he adjusted his pressure to the shift of her pelvis, matched his tempo to her breath. As their rhythm crested, she cried his name. “Eli, oh my God. Eli!” Her body shook with a feminine power that thrilled him to his core.
Mary’s eyes were on him as he moved over her and teased her nipple with his tongue. A final taste of ambrosia and he’d rest with her.
“Your turn,” she whispered.
“You don’t have to—”
She was already gripping his shaft, already lowering her face to him. Before she could take him into her mouth, he came, and she cupped her hand to receive his seed. She looked into his eyes and smiled, and he received her wordless message. Their communion was natural and beautiful and sacred.
Mary rolled to her side and reached for her underwear to clean her hand, and they rested, limbs entwined, breathing and being as one.
****
Yet again, Eli surprised her.
They shared the sofa, his warm, sleeping body enveloping hers, chest rising and falling against her back, a lightly muscled arm draped over her with his hand tucked between her breasts. For a man who claimed to eschew dating apps and casual sex, he was fantastically skilled in the art of giving pleasure, equal and greater in tenderness to the older men she usually dated.
Cocooned in Eli’s masculinity, Mary reveled in recollection of the previous hour. He was shy about his body, reluctant to reveal himself to her. She saw all right. He was lean and nicely muscled, sinewy, with a wildly unkempt chest and torso and an uncircumcised, eager cock. She wanted him and she wanted it. Every glorious inch of it. Deeply.
She had to write up that proposal and make damn sure it was good enough to pass muster. Perhaps an interrogation of theories of motivation…Socrates…Sartre? She’d read widely, indulged her wheel-spinning under the facade of intellectual exploration, and she could put together an extensive lit review on a range of topics. The sooner she could move ahead with her dissertation—and with Eli—the better.
A sudden knock on the door startled her. Knock? Hell no. A pounding.
“Eli. Someone’s here.”
“What?” he murmured.
“Wake up!”
Keys jangled on the other side of the door. Mary jolted free of Eli’s embrace and pulled on her wet jeans.
Eli straightened as if hit by lightning, sat bolt upright, and jumped up to put on his trousers. “That’ll be Stephen!” He fumbled with the buttons of his shirt. “Claudia mentioned he might drop by. I didn’t think she meant today.”
With a quick stride, Eli shielded Mary as she stuffed herself into her bra. The lock turned. She grabbed her T-shirt and ran to the washroom. As she shut the door, the office door swung open and Stephen Hill’s voice rang through the pressboard.
“Klassen. My God, man. Why didn’t you answer the door?”
****
“Why didn’t I answer the door?” Eli repeated. “Uh…because I was busy.” The smell of sex hung in the damp, warm air. He slid open a window. “Do you want to see the site?” Maybe if Stephen took his nostrils to the bare screen, he wouldn’t notice.
Stephen raised a bushy eyebrow at an offer better suited to a four-year-old obsessed with heavy machinery, but he indulged him. “Definitely a hole. Deep. And mucky.” He turned away from the window, took off his jacket, and threw it over the shirt Mary had hung from the office chair. “It’s hotter than the Devil’s asshole in here.”
“Uh…heat helps the plaster dry on the model. That’s what I’m working on. Putting together this table to display the model.” Eli waved his hand toward the metal flotsam strewn across the carpet. Stephen made no comment on the heady scent that refused to dissipate. Thank God for a nose made insensate by cocaine.
“I’ll turn down the heat.” Stephen squinted at the thermostat. “Eighty-five! Jeez, Klassen!” He poked buttons and the baseboard elements clicked off.
Eli’s headache returned with ferocity. He had to get Stephen to leave. Let him feel useful, Claudia said. If he took her advice, maybe Stephen would go without suspicion. “Do you want to help me?”
Stephen smirked. “Sure, Daddy. If you think I’m ready for big-boy tools.” He bent to pick up the instructions.
Eli sank onto the sofa to rest his head. Perhaps Stephen would assemble the table himself.
“Ikea?” Stephen stroked his semi-matted beard and frowned. “That’s a company you should’a bought stock in, but God help the bugger who can’t find the Allen key.”
“It’s there.”
Stephen knelt and dragged his sausage fingers through a pile of small parts. “Nope. Not here.”
“I’m pretty sure I had it.” As Eli scanned the carpet, he caught sight of Mary’s underwear, balled up and discarded by the very Allen key they sought. Unfortunately, Stephen’s bulk blocked his path and made kicking the item under the sofa impossible. For an instant, he froze in panic, and then he dove for the key. Alas, Stephen had seen the direction of his gaze and beat him to the underwear.
“Well, well. Isn’t this interesting,” said Stephen. “A key and something frilly. Yours?” He set the tool on the instruction sheet and stretched out Mary’s panties. “Ew. Gross. They’re sticky.”
Eli’s face burned like a torch. He tried to speak, but only managed to choke out guttural sounds. “Urr…Ugh…”
“They’re yours, aren’t they.” Stephen winked. “No worries. I get it. Some men enjoy that kind of thing. Ladies’ intimate apparel. Even wear it under their regular clothes and no one’s the wiser. They feel beautiful all day.”
Eli gawped.
“Your secret’s safe with me,” Stephen added, “though I’d be more inclined to discretion if you gave me a generous cut on your sales. I’m open-minded, but Claudia, you know, everything’s all about reputation with her. Optics.”
Blackmail. The crime of roaches and rats. Eli wouldn’t give Stephen a single red cent if hell froze over. “I’ll think about it,” he said coldly.
“You do that, Klassen, while I go wash my hands.” Stephen’s nostrils flared and his lip curled in an expression of disgust.
Mary. Oh no. If his betrayal of Claudia upset her, she’d be livid if he let Stephen discover the true owner of the cast-off underwear. “No!” Eli bobbed around him and blocked the bathroom door. “The plumbing doesn’t work properly.”
“Really? Jonquil told me you have all the comforts of home.”
“I plugged up the toilet. No plunger. It’s very embarrassing for me. My condition, that is. It’s in my bowels. Uh…colonitis fecosis.”
“Really? I’ve never heard of that. It sounds horrible.”
