Lawrence Block - Getting Off

Brady was spinning a fantasy when Angelica put her arm around the girl, but it didn’t keep him from spotting his cue. The index finger, tapping three times.

He got to his feet, put a twenty on the tabletop, weighed it down with his wine glass. He’d scarcely touched his Chardonnay, and Angelica had taken no more than a sip of hers. Twenty dollars for two sips of so-so California wine, and worth every penny, because his woman had just connected with a sweet young thing who was going to make them both very happy.

He slipped out the door, found Angelica’s Honda squareback in the lot, and drove off in it, leaving his own Lexus for her. It was a much more luxurious car, and would make more of an impression on his wife’s new friend. While it hardly mattered what car got him back to their house.

They always took two cars. On the rare occasion when their connection was effected as a couple, they’d leave the Honda and come back for it in the morning.

Before the signal, tap tap tap on the bare shoulder, he’d imagined what might have been. Suppose, just suppose, that Angelica had headed not for the sweet little ingénue but for the swaggering butch. That one, with her short hair and her broad gym-muscled shoulders, would have thought she’d missed the brass ring only to get a solid gold one dropped in her lap. Angelica, supermodelbeautiful Angelica, picking her out and hitting on her? Butch would have thought she’d died and gone to heaven.

He didn’t know about heaven. But she’d have to die.

Because the only way he’d be able to have her was by force, and he couldn’t delude himself that he could make her learn to like it. It would have to be rape, and while that wasn’t altogether unappealing, it made for complications at the end. They couldn’t just drop her off on a street corner and expect her to be so ashamed of herself that all she wanted to do was forget the whole thing. If she didn’t go straight to the cops and the newspapers, then she’d come back with a couple of friends and a gun.

He couldn’t let that happen. So he’d have to kill her.

And he knew just how he’d do it. He’d read descriptions of the method, and he’d seen it demonstrated more than once in action films. You used your hands, you took the chin in one hand and gripped the back of the head with the other, and you twisted abruptly, forcing the chin up and to the left, yanking the head down and to the right, and if you did it properly you were rewarded with the sound of the neck snapping.

If it didn’t work the first time, well, she wouldn’t be going anywhere. You could keep trying until you got it right.

His hands tightened on the steering wheel. It was funny, he thought. Angelica had just connected successfully with the most attractive woman in the place — well, next to herself, anyway. The most ideal prospect for the evening, certainly, and she’d be bringing the girl home, and a wonderful time was virtually guaranteed— for the two of them, certainly, and very likely for the girl as well.

And here he was wishing she’d picked up the bull dyke instead. Whose face was handsome enough, perhaps, and who’d have a nice healthy body, but who was by no means his type, or Angelica’s either. Oh, he’d enjoy forcing her. He’d get pleasure from the sex. But the only thing that made the butch so irresistibly appealing was the fact that she’d have a broken neck by the time the evening was over.

Something, perhaps, for him to think about.

Once she’d signaled to Brady, all Angelica wanted to do was corral the girl and herd her out of there. But she forced herself to give him time to get home and get settled in, forced herself to listen, or at least pretend to listen, to some tedious story Missy was telling about a childhood pet. Forced herself to take a taste of the girl’s Orange Blossom and speculate as to what the mystery ingredient might be, along with the gin and orange juice. Missy thought it might be Grand Marnier, but wasn’t too clear on what Grand Marnier tasted like all by itself.

That sounded like a cue, and Angelica offered to buy her one, but Missy said she didn’t want any more to drink, and that one Orange Blossom was plenty. “Because, you know,” she said, “it dulls the senses. It picks you up at first, but then it sort of numbs you.”

“And you don’t want to be numb?”

The girl did whatever it was she did with her eyes. And her lips were just the least bit parted. “No,” she said. “No, I don’t want to be numb.”

“Would you like to come home with me, Missy?”

“I shouldn’t.”

“Oh, I think you should.”

“I’m a little afraid, to tell you the truth.”

“Afraid? Afraid of what?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’re not afraid of me, are you?”

“Maybe I’m afraid of myself. And of you, in a way.”

“Oh?”

The girl looked away, as if the words would be easier to say without eye contact. “I always hold back a little,” she said. “With you I think I might not.”

“You might let go.”

“Yes.”

“And find out who you really are.”

“Yes.”

“And would that be so bad?” She didn’t wait for an answer, but stood up and took Missy in tow, holding her upper arm with a grip that was gentle but firm. And led her, wordlessly, out of the bar.

The car was a Lexus, which suggested that Angelica was not living on food stamps. That was all to the good, but only confirmed what the woman’s dress and manner had already established.

And none of that mattered much, not to her, not now.

Angelica triggered the remote to unlock the doors, then held the passenger door open for her. Well, wasn’t that courtly? It was rare enough for a man to hold the door for you. Who would have guessed a woman would do it?

She started to get in, then stopped and straightened up. Angelica asked her if something was wrong. For answer, she turned toward Angelica, thinking Come on, what are you waiting for?

And Angelica kissed her. Oh, sweet, she thought, and held back at first, then yielded to the embrace and let herself melt utterly into it.

The kiss lasted a while, and when it ended she drew a breath and held onto the car roof as if for support. She was acting, but only in part, because the kiss had turned her on something fierce. She liked the way Angelica’s mouth tasted, liked the way she smelled, liked the way their bodies felt together.

She’d thought she would like it, but how could you know for sure until you actually tried it? What was that song, something about I kissed a girl and I liked it? Well, there you go. She did and she did. And now she knew.

She said, “You could do anything you want to me. You could do me right here, in the parking lot. And you could make me do anything, anything at all.”

Even as he triggered the remote to open the garage door, Brady had a moment of fear that he recognized as irrational — that the door would lift to reveal the Lexus, that Angelica and her new playmate would have beaten him home. That was impossible, he’d left while they were still getting acquainted, had driven straight home while they’d almost certainly dallied long enough for the first lingering kisses. And, if he knew his wife, a little preliminary fondling to set the stage and raise the temperature.

He, on the other hand, had driven directly home, and knew the garage would be empty, and of course it was. He tucked the Honda into its spot on the right, lowered the garage door, and let himself into the house.