Colin Harrison - Afterburn

"Did you ever have any other inclinations?"

"You mean artistic or musical or something? Tap-dancing?"

"I don't know."

"At the time I had to think of something to do to support my family. I had to pull a rabbit out of a hat."

She sipped at her glass, not sure what to say.

"I was in my early thirties and I needed a new start."

It seemed impossible that he'd never been able to do whatever he wanted. "Something happened?" she asked.

"Something always happens, Melissa. I'm sure a few things have happened to you."

"Why do you say that?" She felt the drink warming her cheeks. "You don't think I'm just some nice young woman who likes talking to you?"

"I think you are nice and young, and what I don't get is why you're not married already or with some great guy starting out."

If you only knew, she thought. "If you only knew," she said.

"It can't be that bad."

"No," she agreed. "It's not. But I wandered into this place last night and heard you eviscerate whoever it was on the phone, and then you glared at me like I was the problem and I thought, Well, here's a live one." She gave him a soft jab in the arm. "Okay?"

"Okay." He smiled. "You're something."

"I better be something," she teased. "How else am I going to get your attention?"

"You did all right in that department."

"I noticed before that your back looks like it hurts."

"I'm okay."

He was a little defensive. "You just walked stiffly, that's all."

He didn't say anything.

"You hurt it?"

He pulled the same piece of paper from his breast pocket, scanned it distractedly, refolded it, and put it back. "Long time ago."

Again a silence fell between them. He looked down with a troubled expression. She wanted to kiss his brow. He can't say it, she thought; he wants to, but he doesn't know how. She leaned closer to him. "Charlie?" she whispered.

"Yes?"

She kept her hand on his arm, rubbed the material of his suit ever so softly. "Get a room."

"Here?"

She nodded. "C'mon. You can lie down. I'll give you a back rub and make charming conversation that you won't appreciate because you like the back rub so much."

He studied her, with sadness it seemed, a yearning that pained him. "Melissa," he exhaled, "I'm an old guy. I-"

She touched her finger to his lips. "Trust me," she whispered next to his cheek. "We'll just talk if that's what you want."

He sighed heavily, as if unable not to comply, and pulled out his billfold. He slipped a credit card onto the bar, then found a napkin, unclicked his fountain pen, and wrote, as she watched the letters appear, "I need a nice room for two, now. Arrange this, please-and tip yourself $500." He beckoned the bartender and slid the card and napkin toward him.

The bartender inspected the napkin, blinked his quiet assent, did not look at Christina, then disappeared to the phone.

The room was too cold, and he turned down the air conditioning. They left the lights off, and the last edge of the day fell in through the windows. He sat in a padded armchair and faced her, and she said to herself, Look at his eyes, that's where you'll find him. The other things are not him, maybe even a disguise somehow, as you have disguised yourself for him. She lit a cigarette. "I shouldn't do this."

"I don't mind."

She took one puff, then stubbed it out. She wondered if she could seduce him. She wondered why she wanted to know. "When you were my age what were you doing?" she said.

"How old are you?"

"Twenty-seven."

He was silent. "I was flying airplanes."

She was surprised. "What kind of planes?"

"Fighter jets."

She examined him, trying to connect the statement to the man she saw. "How fast could you go?"

"I did Mach two lots of times. About sixteen hundred miles an hour."

All she could see was one half of his face. The light caught the wet curve of his eyeball. "Did you fly in the Vietnam War?"

He nodded.

"You dropped bombs?"

"Yes."

"Missiles and napalm and all that stuff?"

"All that stuff, yes."

"You saw Saigon during the war?"

"Absolutely."

"You ever cheat on your wife over there?"

"No."

"Never?"

"Never."

"Why?"

"It didn't interest me enough."

"What interested you?"

"Flying."

"Do you still fly?"

"Only business class."

"Not a little Cessna or something?"

"There'd be no point."

He wasn't giving her much to go on. I'm asking too many personal questions, she told herself. "You have a good marriage, I guess?"

"Good enough."

"What's that mean?"

"It means it's fine."

"Did she ever cheat?"

"She might have, yes."

"Did you mind?"

"No."

"Why?"

"I can't explain it. Not after… When I was much younger, I might have cared." He looked out the window. "I was away for some long periods, and there was a lot of uncertainty. It would have been understandable. Generally I'm not a patient or forgiving person, but this was sort of okay."

There was something he wasn't telling her or something she had not understood. "You ever ask?"

He shook his head, as if at the insubstantiality of her question.

"Why?"

"I didn't need to."

"How long were you gone?"

"Couple of times six, seven months."

"But this was a long time ago," said Christina, sitting on the edge of the bed.

"Very long ago. Ancient history."

"So you were in the Navy-"

"Air Force, please."

"Air Force, I mean, then you became a businessman?"

"That's about right."

"I'm young enough to be your daughter, which, I realize, I should probably not mention."

He shifted in the seat uncomfortably. "You are younger than my daughter, Melissa."

"You never told me about your back."

"I had some operations."

"How'd you hurt it?"

He closed his eyes and took a breath. When he opened his eyes, he was looking away. "This is not something I discuss much."

She thought, For all I know he has a terminal disease or something. "Charlie," she said in frustration, "is there some kind of problem? You don't want to talk?"

"I'm sorry, Melissa." He stood up and paced. "It's about me, not you. You're terrific. I can tell that, I really can. My mood is not your fault, at all." He loosened his tie. "I want to be here with you, but I'm worried about wanting to be here with you. I've always played by the rules. But I seem to be in some-" He stopped. "It's not just you, it's other things."

She moved over to him, could not help but take his hand and stroke the scar. Neither of them said anything. She found herself thinking he must have been a beautiful boy, and then studying him now, a businessman in a lovely suit, distinguished-looking, in fact, despite his limp. She could not explain it to herself, except that it felt right. She pulled at his coat. He was not helping her, but he was not resisting, either. She laid his jacket over the arm of the chair.

"Okay?" she whispered. He said nothing. She undid his tie. Silk. She laid that on the jacket and then unbuttoned his shirt. She heard him breathing through his nose, his lips pressed tight, his eyes troubled. She unbuttoned the shirt and understood that she really did have to help with one shoulder. He had on a T-shirt and she urged him to lift his arms, and when he did, she sensed the salty musk of him, the man-smell, which she liked. He turned to her in the near-dark and she moved her hands over him. A large C-shaped scar and smaller incisions arced across his left shoulder. His spine carried three scars, one nearly a foot long, at the base.

"Is that all?" she whispered.

He closed his eyes.

She knelt down and untied his shoes, pulling them off and setting them to one side, heel to heel. Then she stood and undid his belt matter-of-factly and unbuttoned his pants and let them fall. He stepped out of them slowly. She ran her hands along his leg and suddenly stopped, not believing what she was feeling. The smooth muscle of the thigh was cratered with an entry wound on one side and an exit wound on the other. A lot of it was just gone. She moved her hands down his calves to his socks. She slipped them off. His left foot was missing two small toes. She stood and faced him, laying her hands softly on his chest. She felt him breathe. His skin was warm. I want him, she thought, I do. She slipped her hands toward his underwear and pushed them down until they fell. His penis felt limp, normal. She put her hand underneath it. He had one testicle. Just one. She held it in her hand like an egg and looked at him. His eyes were closed, and he was shaking ever so slightly. She could feel scar tissue beneath the skin of his scrotum. She turned him. One of the surgical scars from his back continued down to his left buttock. Another scar traveled across both buttocks, cutting a groove in them.