Lawrence Block - The Girl With the Deep Blue Eyes

“So how long could he expect to live? Eighty years is a lot and seventy-five’s probably more like it, and when he’s seventy-five I’ll be forty-four, and I won’t get everything or even close to it, but the pre-nup that’s got me locked in, it locks him in, too. He can’t give it all to the kids. They get most of it, but I get the house, and I get the insurance money, and I get — well, I wind up okay.

“So I’m letting myself get used to it, this life I’m living, and he’s drinking more than usual. Which is a bad thing when he gets ugly drunk and talks mean to me but a good thing when he goes to bed right after he’s had his dinner.

“Then one night he brings a man home with him.

“A younger man, one of those Mexicans who queue up every morning at the turnoff in Perry, looking for day labor. ‘This is Nando,’ he says. ‘He’s gonna fuck you.’

“I told him he was drunk and crazy, and I told Nando to get the hell out of my house, but they didn’t pay any attention to me. I figured out later that he’d explained to Nando that I’d be playing a part, that I’d pretend to fight, and that what I really wanted was to be forced. And that’s what happened. Nando raped me.

“He hit me. I don’t think he wanted to, I don’t think violence toward women came naturally to him, but George was there urging him on. ‘Go ahead, slap her! That’s what the bitch wants, that’s what gets her motor running. Give her a good one!’

“I don’t know what would have happened if I fought back.

Maybe they would have stopped. But I just went numb.

“George made him wear a condom. If he couldn’t get me pregnant he didn’t want some Mexican doing it. It may have been Nando’s first time with his dick wrapped.

“So we’re in bed and Nando’s on top of me. And, you know, inside of me. And I’ve got my eyes closed and I’m just waiting for it to be over.

“And smelling him. Nando. I suppose personal hygiene is hard to prioritize when you’re a day laborer sharing a shack on the highway with eight or ten other men, sleeping in shifts on sheets that never get washed. And living on chili and garlic, stuff that comes out of your pores, and if you’re not able to bathe regularly, it builds up.

“And at one point I open my eyes, and George is on a chair pulled up next to the bed, and his pants are down and he’s got his dick in one hand and a gun in the other. He owns a lot of guns and he keeps one in the drawer of the bedside table and that’s the one he’s got now, a little pistol, blued steel with swirly green grips. Malachite, that’s what they were.

“And I know somebody’s gonna get killed, me or Nando or both of us. ‘Sheriff, I caught them together and I did what I had to do.’

“Well, nobody got shot. He never did put the gun down, it stayed in his left hand, but he gathered up a fistful of my long hair in his right hand and wrapped it around his cock. And he jerked himself off with my hair.

“Nando finished, he cried out and grunted and rolled off of me, and George let out a matching grunt and came in my hair. He kept right on pumping so that I wouldn’t miss a drop, and then he took my hair and rubbed it all over my face. Didn’t say a word, just walked out of the room.

“The first thing I did was douche, and then I must have spent two hours under the shower. I used a whole bottle of shampoo, I washed everything.

“You’d better hold me now. Yes, like that. That’s good.

“When I was through, when I was out of the shower and dried off, the bedroom was empty. At first I thought I was alone in the house. There’s a live-in maid, but her room’s on the third floor and she disappears into it as soon as she’s done with the after-dinner cleanup. You never hear a peep out of her.

“I went downstairs and found George passed out on the living room sofa. He was fully dressed except for his shoes. They were on the floor next to him.

“I guess he must have given Nando a ride somewhere. Or just handed him a fistful of twenties and shoved him out the door. I’m sure he paid him. ‘Here, fuck my wife, I’ll make it worth your while.’

“I patted his pockets, looking for the gun. I found it upstairs in the bedroom in the nightstand drawer where he kept it. I’d never actually touched it before, guns make me nervous, but I picked it up and held it in my hand. It’s a small gun, I don’t know the caliber, but it was the right size for my hand. And the malachite grips were cool to the touch, and perfectly smooth.

“I went back downstairs. He hadn’t moved, he was lying on his back with his mouth half-open.

“I held the gun to his temple, then to his forehead. I let the metal touch his skin, I pressed it so that it left an impression when I took it away, a little round O in the middle of his forehead.

“That was the size of the hole it would make if I pulled the trigger.

“I’d say I thought about it, but I don’t remember any thoughts.

“I went upstairs. I put the gun back in the drawer. I stripped the bed and made it up with fresh sheets and pillowcases.

“In the morning I went to my hairdresser and told him he had to fit me in. When I let him know what I wanted he kept asking me if I was sure. ‘Lisa, girlfriend, don’t you want to think this over?’ He was afraid to do it, but I told him if he didn’t cut it I’d cut it myself. Well, he couldn’t let that happen, so he cut it, and I kept saying, ‘No, shorter,’ and he cut it the way it is today. I’ve kept it like this ever since.

“I drove straight from the beauty parlor to the Cattle Baron, and when I left there I had my old job back. I lucked out, the hostess had given notice and he needed to find somebody to replace her, but I think I’d have gotten the job anyway, even if he had to fire somebody. He always liked me.

“I went home. The maid gaped when she saw my hair. George was out, and it was dark out by the time he came home. He’d been drinking but he wasn’t drunk. He looked at me and his face didn’t change expression.

“I told him I’d be going to work, that I had my old job back. He just nodded.

“We never said anything about the previous evening. He never brought anybody home again. And about a month later we were in bed, and he started touching me. I didn’t stop him. And then he got on top of me, and I went along with it.

“The little gun’s still in the nightstand drawer. Sometimes I open the drawer and look at it, but I never pick it up, or even touch it.”

He went out, drove around, bought pizza and brought it back to the room. They ate the pizza and drank Cokes from the machine and she apologized for ruining the mood. He told her not to be ridiculous.

She said, “Your stories get us hot. Then I tell a story and turn us off completely. I never told that story before. Maybe I should have taken it to the grave.”

“I’m glad you told me.”

“And I’m glad I told you, but look at the mood it’s put us in. Here we are in our love nest, and it’s wasted on us. You’re shaking your head.”

“Because it’s not wasted. What did you just call it?”

“Call what? This place? I called it our love nest, but that’s how you’ve been referring to it since you paid the rent.”

“Because that’s what it is.”

“I don’t—”

“Not our fuck nest,” he said. “Our love nest.”

“Oh.”

“And I love you.”

She was holding a slice of pizza, and now she looked at it as if couldn’t remember what she was supposed to do with it. She put it down and turned her blue eyes to him.

She said, “We’ve never said that, have we? I’ve been calling you darling, which is fairly extreme all by itself, but we’ve stayed away from the L word.”

“It’s been in my mind.”