Лоуренс Блок - Random Walk - A Novel for a New Age

Marilee Adlon was three years older than her husband, although they had decided, around the time they moved from Topeka to Overland Park, to reduce her official age by five years. People made certain assumptions about a couple when the wife was older, they had agreed, and simply by revising her age they could avoid these assumptions.

Certainly she had no trouble passing for the forty years she admitted to. In high heels she was almost exactly the same height as her husband. Her face was a long oval, her eyes somewhere between brown and green. Her hair, a rich brown with red highlights, was shorter than she usually wore it; she’d been to the beauty parlor during the past week, and had had a styling and a permanent.

She touched her hair now, patting it with the fingertips of both hands. “I think I’m getting used to this,” she said. “Do you like it?”

“It looks fine.”

“What about the color?”

“What about it? Isn’t it the same?”

“Good, that means the difference isn’t all that noticeable. Adrian wanted to lighten it by what he called a quarter of a shade, whatever that means. It looks much lighter to me, but if it doesn’t to you—”

“I’m not the most observant man in the world, but I didn’t notice any change. I don’t see it now, not even after you’ve called it to my attention.”

“Well, I’m glad to hear that. I don’t mind having it lighter so long as nobody notices. Now isn’t that ridiculous, what I just said? But you know what I mean.”

“Sure.”

She picked up her glass and took a long sip of lemonade, making a sound of appreciation. “That is good,” she said. “I’m glad you didn’t put vodka in it, it wouldn’t taste as good.” She put the glass down. “I’d probably be completely gray by now,” she said.

“You think so?”

“Oh, I do. When I’ve been a while between touch-ups, and I get a look at the roots, all I see is gray. I’ll tell you, I’m glad I never let it get started.”

Her hair had started to show some gray in her early thirties, and she had immediately responded by coloring it. Since then, her hair color had gradually grown lighter than its original shade — this was not the first time that Adrian or one of his predecessors had worked his subtle magic — and, while her hair never appeared lighter from one month to the next, you had only to look at an old photograph to see how much lighter it had indeed become.

“I wonder what it would look like gray.”

“You could let it grow out.”

She shook her head. “No thank you. You wouldn’t like it, Mark.”

“I’d like it just fine however you wore it.”

“That’s very loyal, but you wouldn’t like the look, believe me. For one thing, I’d look ten years older. Instantly, immediately.”

“That would still leave you looking a couple of years younger than the calendar says you are.”

“Aren’t you a sweetheart,” she said, putting her hand on his. “Or is there something you want?”

He laughed. “No, but there’s something I hate to have to tell you. I’m going to miss Jennifer’s graduation.”

“Oh, that’s a shame. Have you told her yet?”

“I thought I’d wait and tell her tomorrow. I wasn’t absolutely certain until I spoke to Koenig just now.”

“Well, you couldn’t tell her now. She’s out with Carole Keller and the Parkhill girl.” She sighed. “You know, I almost should have had that vodka. I’m a little jittery tonight.”

“Oh?”

“Just a lot of nervous energy. I feel fidgety, that’s why I can’t keep my hands off my hair.”

“I thought you were just getting used to it.”

“Yes, but I also can’t seem to keep my hands still.”

“Is that right,” he said. “You say Jennifer’s out for the evening?”

“Well, I don’t think she’ll be too late. School tomorrow, of course.”

“And Luke’s out, his car’s gone.”

“I think he said something about the baseball game.”

“Yes, that’s right, he told me he was going to watch the Royals. Well, I know why you’re so fidgety.”

“Oh, really?”

“Yes, really. And Dr. Adlon knows just the treatment you need.”

“Oh, my,” she said. “So early in the evening?”

“We’re all alone.”

“So we are. Of course the phone could ring.”

“Not if I took it off the hook.”

“What a clever man you are,” she said.

Upstairs they undressed quickly and in silence. She left the drapes undrawn — there were woods behind the house, and no one could see into any of the bedroom windows. She got into bed and he joined her, taking her in his arms. For a long moment he held her, feeling the length of her body against his.

Then she lay on her back and closed her eyes. His hand touched her cheek and swept slowly down over her body, cupping the roundness of her breast, brushing the flat plain of her stomach and the slight convexity of her abdomen. When his fingers reached her pubic mound she opened her thighs, and he moved to crouch between them.

He touched her, first with his breath alone, then with his mouth. This was what she liked, and as always he found himself wholly in sync with her inner rhythms, automatically varying the pace and intensity of his lovemaking, speeding up, slowing down, speeding up again, teasing a little, holding her off, and then, finally, taking her all the way.

Her climax was powerful, a long rolling wave of passion to which she utterly gave herself over, swinging her head from side to side, crying out, sobbing, her whole body bucking and twitching beneath him. It was men who were always seeking sex, he thought, but it was women who got so much more out of it, their comings a whole artillery barrage in contrast to the single staccato bark of a male orgasm. He continued his ministrations, coaxing the last little spasm of fulfillment out of her, then moved at last to lie down beside her with her taste dark and rich in his mouth and her scent filling the whole room.

“God,” she said.

“See? I knew what you needed.”

“You always do.” Then, “Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.”

He had gotten an erection shortly after he had placed his mouth upon her. This happened some of the time, but not always, and it did not seem to be in any way related to the pleasure either of them took in the act. He had remained erect throughout, and was so now, but he felt under no obligation to do anything about it. He lay there until it had softened and shrank. By then she was asleep. He covered her with the sheet, got dressed, and went downstairs.

For some years now their lovemaking had always taken this form.

It was the only way that gave her real pleasure, and she had once admitted that she had usually feigned her orgasms during coitus, something he had half known all along. His oral attentions to her, usually a prelude, now became their sole practice.

He sometimes wondered how she thought he found fulfillment. Perhaps she assumed he climaxed while performing upon her, either spontaneously or with manual assistance. Perhaps she suspected he masturbated afterward, or used prostitutes. Perhaps she didn’t think about it. Whatever her thoughts, she kept them to herself.

She certainly wouldn’t have wanted to know the truth. That his orgasms were very infrequent, and, in recent years, never accompanied by seminal ejaculation. And that he had not had intercourse in eight years.

Not since the first time he killed a woman.

It had not eluded Mark that there might be something noteworthy in the fact that his first act of murder had taken place within two months of his first real estate deal. He was reasonably self-analytical, and he thought he knew why the one development in his life had precipitated the other. It was not, to be sure, that purchasing that first duplex north of Gage Park had somehow corrupted him, that it had instilled a desire not previously present. On the contrary, the hunger to kill women, to find release and fulfillment in their death, seemed to him to have been part of his sexual makeup all his life.