James Hayman - The Cutting

‘Oh, I don’t think so, Hattie.’

‘But I’m your wife.’

‘Yes, I know — and a good upright New England girl you are. But, don’t you see? That’s what makes all of this so interesting. I get to share you with my dearest friend. I get to see you in a whole new light.’

A new light? Yes. Why not a new light? Then, as much from the pent-up anger she felt toward Philip as from the attraction she’d always felt for Lucas, Hattie pulled down the zipper on her jacket.

Both Philip and Lucas watched Hattie as she stripped. Eduardo or Carlos was merely bored. She didn’t try to make it sexy. She simply took off her clothes and folded them neatly, laying them on the floor in the corner. When she, too, was naked, she walked to the side of the bed, dropped to her knees, and took Lucas’s cock in her mouth. She licked it until it was hard again. She could hear Philip breathing heavily behind her.

She looked up at Lucas. ‘Do you have any condoms?’ she asked. ‘There’s no way this happens without a condom. Not with your history.’

Silently he pulled a condom from the same gunmetal box that held the pills. ‘Lucas’s magic box,’ she smiled.

She slipped the condom over him, and then he pulled her up onto the bed and put his head between her legs. His tongue flicked delicately in and out, like a snake’s. Her breathing quickened. ‘Lucas’s magic tongue,’ she moaned softly.

After that she took him deep inside. Even as she approached orgasm, she remained aware of Philip’s eyes, watching, probing, never looking away. His hips seemed to be rocking as if he, too, were on the receiving end of Lucas’s thrusts, he, too, rising and falling, then rising again toward orgasm.

After she came and Lucas came, Hattie lay there for a few minutes, thinking about what she had done and why she had done it. Finally she got up and walked over to where Philip sat, still watching. ‘Philip, I want you to know,’ she said in the same even voice she’d used to announce her decision to accept the presidency of the Junior League, ‘that that was, by far, the best fuck I ever had.’ Then Hattie put on her clothes and left. Alone.

She was long gone when Eduardo or Carlos or whatever his name was went into convulsions and had to be rushed to the ER. Lucas, high as a kite, somehow managed to carry the boy, still naked and thrashing, down four flights of stairs and into a taxi for the trip to Bellevue. To his credit, she supposed, he never said anything about her or Philip being in the apartment. Never said anything about what they had done. The boy hadn’t died, but it had been close. In the weeks that followed, there was a formal investigation. Hattie didn’t know the details, but she did know that, while criminal charges were never filed, Lucas lost his license to practice medicine. After that, he disappeared from their lives. Philip never spoke of him again or said anything about that night. Hattie, too, let the matter rest. She thought she’d never see Lucas again and was content with that. Then four years ago Philip told her Lucas was dead.

Hattie heard the front door open and close. Philip. The downstairs lights flicked on. She looked at her glass. The gin was gone. She wanted another, but she didn’t want to see Philip and knew she couldn’t avoid him if she went downstairs. Instead, she put the glass on the mantel of the bedroom fireplace, stripped off her gardening clothes, threw them in a pile in the corner of her closet, and locked herself in the bathroom. She turned on the shower. She looked at her naked body in the full-length mirror. Still slim. Still attractive. Or would be, were it not for the scar tissue where her left breast used to be. The other one seemed so small, so lonely, so orphaned by itself. The cancer had been cut out four years ago, a full mastectomy at Philip’s urging. She’d acquiesced in spite of her own doctor’s less radical advice. ‘Much the safest course,’ Philip had assured her. Philip the self-appointed oracle. Philip the concerned husband. Philip the slicer and dicer. ‘Much the best way to make sure we get it all.’

Afterward, angry with herself and with Philip, she decided against reconstructive surgery. After all, only Philip ever saw her naked, and it was important to her that he never again find pleasure looking at her body. That he never forget what he had done.

Hattie climbed into the tub and let the water from the shower, hot as she could stand it, course over her body. She scrubbed herself over and over again with the loofah until her skin felt raw. Then she dried and brushed her hair and dressed in clean jeans and a new sweatshirt.

She went downstairs. Philip sat in the den, reading. Ignoring him, Hattie crossed to the living room and poured herself another two inches of gin. Then she went to the kitchen for ice cubes and added them to the glass. ‘I’ll have a Scotch,’ she heard Philip call out. ‘The single malt. No ice.’ She poured the drink and brought it to him. She sat in the small leather club chair across from him sipping her gin. Philip continued reading. The loudest sound in the room was the ticking of the ancient burled walnut grandfather clock Hattie had inherited from her own grandfather. As she sipped, she felt the familiar easing of tension, the comforting signal the gin was finally kicking in, beginning to do its job. She picked up the half-completed Times crossword puzzle, then put it down again.

‘That detective was here today,’ she said. ‘McCabe?’

‘Really? What did he want?’

‘I was in the garden and found him peering into the garage. Then he came in and asked me some questions.’

‘What sorts of questions?’

‘Mostly about who drove what car. He asked me about Lucas.’

‘What did you tell him?’

‘That we knew Lucas years ago. That he was dead. That he’d been murdered.’

Philip was thoughtful for a moment. ‘Don’t worry,’ he said. ‘It’s alright.’

How long had she been there in the dark? Hours? Days? Weeks? Longer? Lucy had no idea, no way to measure the passage of time. Once or twice she tried by counting. ‘One-one-thousand. Two-one-thousand. Three-one-thousand.’ Each time, she’d get up to five- or six-hundred-one-thousand and forget why she was counting.

Her throat was parched. Her stomach hurt from hunger. She remembered reading that a human being could last for weeks without food but only three or four days without water. She was desperately thirsty. Her tongue felt like a big dry furry thing stuck in the middle of her mouth, although she didn’t think she could be totally dehydrated. Even now she could still make tears. More than once she’d felt the wetness sliding out from under her lids and rolling down her cheeks. She tried catching the drops with her tongue to moisten her mouth, but it never worked.

Monday. 8:00 A.M.

At this hour on a Monday morning, Middle Street was crowded with worker bees on the way to their various hives. McCabe angled past a trio of pin-striped attorneys spread three abreast across the sidewalk. Lawyers and stockbrokers. About the only people left in Maine still wearing suits to the office. A pretty blond in tight jeans, carrying a briefcase, smiled at him. A fat brown Labrador retriever waddled by her side, apparently on his way to the office, too.

McCabe entered 109 and took the stairs two at a time. The place was already buzzing. Tom Tasco flashed him a greeting. McCabe stopped. ‘How are you guys doing with the doctors?’ he asked.

‘Three teams working full-time. We’ve talked to sixty-two surgeons in the last twenty-four hours. More on tap for today.’

‘Anything interesting?’

‘No suspects yet, but if you ever need a quadruple bypass, let me know. I’ve got a lot of connections.’