Mark Fishman - No. 22 Pleasure City

“This gets very interesting,” she said.

Pohl wiped his mouth, smiled amiably, aiming the smile at the very wet place between her legs, then bringing it up along her flat belly and crumpled skirt and sending the smile past the short-sleeved sweater, driving it farther on and finally parking it on her full lips. Her green eyes burnt a hole in his forehead and he started to sweat.

Fitch wasn’t used to going to 4 Nightingale Lane in daylight. He wasn’t used to doing much in daylight because he was either asleep or planning another job at the earliest in the late afternoon, and now he felt as if everyone was watching him as he drove past them on a busy street. But he shrugged it off, he was tired, and gave himself a smile and his eyes shimmered. He was almost through with trying to figure out and fend off Angela Mason. He switched on the radio.

The afternoon sun shone yellowish-orange across the hood of the car. He looked through the windshield at the passing shops, a nursery of plants and trees and a gas station on his left, went through the green light, and then suddenly the smile faded from his face as he rubbed a thumbnail lightly across his underlip.

What’ll I do when I’ve finished the thing I’ve been doing every night with Angela? But there were a lot of messages on his answering machine and he told himself that he had plenty of things to do with a dozen calls and more clients than that waiting for him to come around out of this job and make himself available for the next one. You get what I’m saying? There isn’t anything to worry about so quit worrying.

His eyes were on the road but he wasn’t concentrating and a truck with a tarp tied down over the bed cut in front of him and he swerved and leaned hard on the horn. The truck turned right at the next intersection.

“Fuck,” he said with his head inclined and his eyes narrowed. Without sound he said, You sure that’s what you figure on doing?

But he didn’t have an answer because he was busy looking for the turn onto Hartrey and when he found it he took the turn and continued to the end of Hartrey and made a left, following the drive a short distance until he got to Delaplaine Road, then turned right and went straight to Lavergne Terrace. He pulled over to the curb in front of the garden at the center of Lavergne Terrace, shut off the engine. Fitch was two blocks away from the small, four-room house at 4 Nightingale Lane in Pigsville.

The sun was going down slowly. He sat behind the wheel contemplating the change of light, then reached over to the glove compartment and removed a special sack that kept its contents cold. He took a narrow, rectangular box out of the sack that held his personal set of chloral hydrate suppositories, individually sealed in a foil jacket, shaped like bullets. He’d put them in the box with its padded cradles before he left his apartment. Each suppository of the brand Aquachloral was 650mg. The right dose would take effect in about half an hour, which meant giving her two of them, inducing sleep in less than an hour. Their melting point was 135°F. He snapped the case shut and reached into his shirt pocket for a cigarette.

He thought of the moment he would put them inside Angela and smiled because he was an ordinary man and it was a real pleasure to see himself spreading the cheeks of her ass. He knew the instructions by heart:

If the suppository is too soft to insert, chill it in the refrigerator for 30 minutes or run cold water over it before removing the foil wrapper.

To insert suppository — First remove the foil wrapper and moisten the suppository with cold water. Lie down on your left side and raise your right knee to your chest. (A left-handed person should lie on the right side and raise the left knee.) Using your finger, insert the suppository into the rectum, about ½ to 1 inch in infants and children and 1 inch in adults. Hold it in place for a few moments.

Stand up after about 15 minutes. Wash your hands thoroughly and resume your normal activities.

For rectal dosage form (suppositories):

For trouble in sleeping: Adults — 500 to 1000 mg at bedtime.

Fitch put the box in the side pocket of his jacket, got out of the car and locked the door. He walked toward Nightingale Lane without a hardcover notebook, smoking and avoiding garbage strewn along the sidewalk and listening to the birds singing in the overhanging branches of trees. He came to the four-room wooden house at 4 Nightingale Lane and went around to the back and let himself in.

Angela wasn’t expecting him. She didn’t know whether or not it was daylight but she had developed an internal clock that told her Fitch was a lot earlier than usual. He took off her blindfold and untied her arms and legs and she rubbed the irritated places where the rope had rubbed against her skin. She was barefoot and there were red marks around her ankles. Fitch tossed his cigarette in the toilet, flushed it down.

“We’re finished,” he said matter-of-factly.

“I knew that already.”

“I’m going to give you something to put you out,” he said. “Then I’ll take you home.”

“You’ll get paid. I’ll give you cash.”

“It’s not the money I’m worried about. I know you’re good for it. But I want to talk to you about life after therapy.” He emphasized the last words with a bit too much sarcasm to make her understand that he was worn out by the whole thing and had something else on his mind.

“What kind of crack is that?”

“Listen, I don’t want you to tell anybody about what we’ve been doing.” He was staring at her and feeling uneasy and not knowing why. “You got it?”

“What difference does it make?”

“It’s not good for my reputation.”

“Okay, I got it.”

Fitch took the box out of his jacket pocket, laid it on the back of the toilet, swung around and said: “Maybe you should use the toilet. It’s not going to be an injection.”

She understood him. “Maybe you should leave the room.”

“I’ll be right here.” He went out with the box in his hand, leaving the door ajar.

“Of course you’ll be right here. You wouldn’t miss this for the world.”

Fitch winced, leaned against the wall opposite the door, lit a cigarette.

She unbuttoned her jeans, sat on the toilet seat, her head down and hands at the side of her head with her fingers wound into her hair, then she fingered the diamond in her navel.

Fitch listened to her emptying her bowels to make way for the chloral hydrate suppositories. He had a lot of respect for her, and because it was Angela Mason doing it he didn’t think twice about what he was hearing hit the water in the toilet bowl. The toilet flushed. He knocked at the door and went in. He was finished with his cigarette.

“I’m done,” she said, buttoning her jeans.

“Don’t do that.”

He dropped his cigarette in the toilet, put the cover down but didn’t flush it.

“What?”

“We might as well get down to it right now.”

“Okay, what do you want me to do?”

“Pull your pants all the way down, your underwear, too, and lie here” — he pointed at the floor — “on your side, raise your leg and bring the knee up to your chest.”

“You’re a pro.”

“Cut it out.”

He opened the box, removed two suppositories and unwrapped one of them, threw the foil in the wastebasket, and put the suppository under the running faucet for a second before bending down on one knee and letting himself admire her narrow hips and small, rounded ass.

She turned her head to look at him. “Keep your mind on your work,” she said grimly.

“Don’t get excited.” Fitch put his index finger in his mouth, got it very wet and gently rubbed the saliva-soaked tip of his finger around her anus.