Edward Lee - The Chosen

Vera gulped as if swallowing a stone. Her bulged eyes strained against their sockets. The redhead, poised on her hands, paused a moment to grin at her. “Stick around, sweetheart. I’m gonna come up his ass so much it’s gonna squirt out his ears.”

Vera churned back, broke her paralysis, and tripped out of the room. Nearly mindless, she staggered down the dark hall, found the kitchen, and vomited into the sink.

Each eruption of vomit seemed to shake her heart loose from the seats of her soul. Yes, that’s what it felt like: emptying her soul as well as her stomach. Each spasm blinded her.

How long she remained bent over the sink she’d never know. The bedposts thumped the wall in the other room, squeals and chuckles fluttered behind stifled grunts. Vaguely she detected music—an organ work by Bach that she’d bought Paul for his birthday.

“Gimme more of that class A blow,” she heard the blonde hotly request. “I’m gettin’ ready to come again, and I wanna do a big toot while I’m gettin’ off.”

Vera walked numb out of the apartment. She let the front door close behind her. She walked down the stairs, out the lighted brick entrance, and into the cold night.

A single tear hitched down her cheek. She did not scream, she did not sob, she did not tirade.

All…gone.

She simply got into her car and drove away.

— | — | —

CHAPTER FOUR

Sunlight blared in her slitted eyes. Vera awoke shivering in the back of the parking lot at Mr. Donut. She’d slept in the car all night, in the bitter cold. Her lips felt like pieces of coral, her fingernails were blue. Frigid air circulated through the car: she’d left the motor running, to keep on the heat, but had run out of gas.

She stared into the sky.

No, she thought.

Several cars crawled by to the drive-in window. Faces peered at her. The sunlight felt like a mainline of memory, rekindling to her brain the disgusting scene she’d witnessed last night on her own bed.

No. No. No.

But it was no dream. It was all true, she knew it was. She could deny it forever and it would still be there. How many times had Paul promised his fidelity to her? How many times had he said I love you? None of that mattered now. Lies never mattered, did they? All his love, all that he’d said to her and promised her, was a lie. This truth terrified her: how you could love someone, live with someone that long, and then in a single, jagged moment realize that you never ever really knew that person at all?

Tears had dried to crust on her face. She leaned up.

How long had Paul been living this demented double life behind her back?

My God, she fully realized now. She brought her nearly frozen hands to her face, staring. How long had he been doing those things?

Drugs. Bondage. Transexuality.

He hadn’t even been using condoms, nor had that hideous redheaded she-male. Double life aside, how could Paul have been so thoughtless as to engage in such practices, with such people, and not even consider the risk to Vera’s health?

“Ma’am?”

Tap-tap-tap-tap.

“Ma’am?”

A face hovered in the glass—a city cop. It seemed to warp before her in the curved glass. He tapped his nightstick against the window incessantly as a bamboo drum.

“Are you all right?”

Vera got out of the car. She could imagine how she looked, nearly blue-lipped, shivering, and eyeliner streaked down her face. “I’m fine,” she said.

“Are you sure?”

“Yes!”

She began to stomp away, toward West Street, her heels rapidly clicking against asphalt.

“Wait up, miss. You sure you’re—”

“Yes!” she almost screamed at him. “Is it against the law to run out of gas in a fucking donut-store parking lot!”

She hurried off, leaving the cop to scowl. She didn’t even know where she was going. Where could she go? She couldn’t go home. I don’t have a home, she said to herself. She couldn’t even fathom returning to that apartment. A glance to her watch showed her the time: 10 a.m.

In an hour The Emerald Room would open for lunch.

Dan B., Donna. She’d make some arrangement to stay with them for a few days, until she could figure out what she wanted to do. The bank account was joint; after being caught, Paul was probably at the teller’s now, cleaning it out. She’d just have to scrape by until payday, get a place, restart her life.

Then she stopped.

Her mouth opened. The cold wind burned her eyes.

Feldspar.

Vera ran, suddenly a sleek maniac in a Burberry overcoat and high heels. Feldspar had told her he was staying at the Radisson. Checkout time was eleven!

On the off chance that you should change your mind, please contact me.

She ran on, stopped again, hopping, took off her shoes, and continued. Pedestrians gaped after her. A Yellow screeched to a halt when she dashed through a don’t walk crossing. Her feet pounded the stone-cold sidewalk, the air whipped against her face. Just as she turned into the hotel court, the gleaming red Lamborghini idled up to the light, which then turned green.

“Wait!” she screamed.

The car turned away, accelerated down West Street.

“Oh, no, oh, shit, wait!”

She scampered through pedestrians. The bottoms of her stockings wore out as she shouldered through clusters of business suits on their way to work. The Lamborghini had stopped before the red light at Cathedral Street. Vera’s lungs felt fit to explode:

“Wait!”

The light blinked green just as Vera trampled up. Feldspar’s goateed face looked astonished in the window. He leaned over.

The passenger door raised.

“Ms. Abbot—what’s wrong?”

“I—” Vera sunk into the plush leather seat. The door lowered closed automatically, sealing in the heat “I wanted to catch you before you left.”

Concern lined Feldspar’s broad face. “Something’s quite wrong, I can tell. What is it?”

Vera let the heat sink into her skin. How could she explain herself without sounding daft? The way she looked now, shivering, stocking-footed, must already have reduced her former credibility to the lowest ebb. So she would make no excuses.

“Mr. Feldspar, is that job still open?”

««—»»

He turned around and drove straight back to the Radisson, booked another room, and took her up. “What changed your mind?” he asked, and opened the door.

He’d rented a conference room. Vera took off her overcoat, for the first time since last night. Feldspar set an alligator-skin briefcase on the meeting table.

“Your fiancé turned out to be open to the idea?” he ventured when she didn’t answer.

He’s open to ideas, all right. “No. I never discussed it with him. We’re not together anymore.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” Feldspar sat down, lit a Sobraine. “I do hope that it wasn’t the job offer that caused your separation.”

“It wasn’t,” Vera said. “It had nothing to do with it.”

“Well, it’s none of my business—your private life is your own. It’s distressing to see you like this, though. You’re obviously repressing a trauma.”

Am I? Of course she was. How could he not sense that, how could anyone? “If it’s all the same to you, sir, I’d rather not talk about that right now. Let’s talk business instead.”

“Ah, yes.”

Vera felt ludicrous. She’d lost her shoes on a mad dash through rush hour. Her vermilion dress was so crumpled it looked slept in, which in fact it was. Her lips were parched, and she could feel her makeup flaking on her face. Yet here she was, with a stoic business man, accepting a job for nearly four times her current salary.