Bright, Precious Days

24

IT HAD ALMOST BEEN PERFECT, Washington thought, this thing with Casey. They were both happily married — or at least he was, and certainly she was conveniently married, with no desire to alter her domestic arrangements, or to abandon her rarefied social and economic spheres.

He had experienced less convenient situations — the single girls who started out seeming carefree but gradually started whining about spending Valentine’s Day on their own and eventually threatening to call his wife. The tears in restaurants, the tantrums on street corners, the unannounced appearances at the office. The eventual phone calls to his apartment, his home, where he lived with his family. Yes, Washington could honestly say he’d paid for his sins. He liked to believe he had pretty good radar for crazy, but the equipment sometimes malfunctioned due to libidinal interference. Generally speaking, the crazier the babe, the better the sex. Crazy was freaky. Crazy was hot. And it was hard to walk away from that, or to rule it out in advance.

Casey, though eminently sensible and conventional in many regards, was a fucking demon in the sack, a lioness of desire. Any prejudicial stereotypes he might have entertained about the frigidity of rich WASP women went right out the window the first time Casey hauled him into a bathroom stall at the Surf Club back in the eighties. He was drunk and high, but she was voracious, and wasn’t about to admit that failure was an option, and after a few minutes he had the illusion that he was going to be swallowed whole, which wouldn’t have been a bad way to go, really, crotch-first into eternity. They’d been on and off ever since, sometimes going years between intimate encounters, but the sexual chemistry remained so potent that they kept coming back, and over the last few months, after five years of abstinence, they were making up for lost time, fucking like teenagers; the illicit nature of their affair, the enforced separations, and the need for secrecy stoking their desire. There was nothing like strange, after all. He’d heard some men express a preference for home cooking, but Washington loved dining out.

And yet, lately, he’d found himself wondering if he wasn’t getting too old for this shit. The last time he found himself undressing in her presence, he’d actually felt a brief twinge of conscience, a kind of yearning to do the right thing, although Casey had quickly obliterated these thoughts with action. Her latest plan was positively freaky. When she found out that they were both attending the Nourish New York benefit at the Waldorf, she’d decided to take a room there. “We arrange a time, during cocktails. You excuse yourself, I excuse myself, we meet upstairs, fuck our brains out and return to our respective spouses,” she said a week before the benefit, when they were lying in a midday postcoital tangle of sheets at the Lowell, a small, expensive hotel they’d been using like a private club for a while now. He’d felt like a trespasser, a criminal, the first time he stopped at the front desk and said he was meeting Casey Reynes. He thought it was crazy for her to book under her own name, but she said Tom never looked at the Visa bill. He’d been lying in bed, wondering idly how much the room cost, when she launched her proposal to spice up Corrine’s benefit.

“Damn, you’re sick,” Washington said.

“And you love it,” she said, slapping his thigh beneath the sheets.

He knew her well enough to know that the idea of the spouses downstairs was part of the thrill. It was completely perverse if you thought about it, but he was not immune to the buzz; betrayal was an aphrodisiac unto itself and, as with all rushes, the dose of the drug had to be raised, continually, in order to maintain the high. The near presence of her husband and his wife, downstairs in the ballroom, oblivious, was the Spanish fly in this particular scenario.

“It is outrageous,” she said, “but at the same time it’s foolproof. I sometimes worry about private detectives — I mean, I don’t really have any reason to think Tom suspects anything, but practically everybody uses them sooner or later. The beauty of this is, there’s no chance of his having me followed when I’m actually with him.”

“Hold on a fucking minute,” Washington said. “Rewind. You suspect you’re being followed by detectives? And you’re just telling me now?” In the midst of his panic, he was hearing Elvis Costello’s “Watching the Detectives,” part of the sound track of his early days in Manhattan.

“It’s not that I suspect it so much as I want to be totally careful. Amanda Giles was carrying on with her yoga instructor—”

“ ‘Carrying on’? What kind of euphemism is that?” It amazed him that a girl who had been screaming “Fuck my hungry pussy” ten minutes before could suddenly resort to such a genteel locution.

“All right, she was fucking her yoga instructor. And the next thing she knows, her husband’s showing her pictures of herself and Swami Tommy in some supertantric positions that the authors of the Kama Sutra hadn’t even thought of.”

“ ‘Swami Tommy’?”

“Are you going to nitpick my language or listen to my story?”

“Actually, I liked it; I was just curious if that was really his name or your clever coinage.”

“Who knows what his name is? He’s the fucking yoga instructor.”

“Okay, good one. Proceed.”

“Thank you. But that’s basically the story. Blah blah blah, photographic evidence, notice of marital discord, divorce court, activate prenup infidelity clause with only one year to go before the five-year escalator clause kicks in. I’m just saying it’s foolish not to be careful. To watch one’s back, as it were.”

“Do you think there’s even a chance that he’s having you followed?”

“I’m just saying you can’t be too careful.”

“And would you call what you’re proposing careful?”

“That’s exactly what I’m saying. It’s genius.”

“It’s utterly twisted.”

“I thought you liked twisted.” She lowered her head and inserted her tongue into his ear.

“There’s freaky. And then there’s crazy.”

But he had to admit crazy was hot; it was the hottest. But twisted was the perfect signal to stop. To end it for good. Not that he relished telling her that.

—

She called him twice at work that week to try to talk him into changing his mind, but up in his office on the thirty-first floor, under the sickish fluorescent light, the idea did not seem any more sensible than it had wrapped in Frette sheets at the Lowell.

The night of the benefit, he felt incredibly nervous, suddenly uncertain of his composure in the event of an encounter between Veronica and Casey. He was hoping she’d given up on her plan by now; at any rate, he had no intention of participating.

His son, Mingus, in whose face he inevitably saw the lineaments of his mother at her most beautiful, protested their departure: “This is the third night you’ve been out this week.”

His sister said, “Caroline Cartwright says her parents go out every night.” Zora was enamored of this new friend, whose father ran a hedge fund. Next week she was flying to Palm Beach on the Cartwrights’ G5 for a sleepover birthday party.

“I’ll bet Caroline’s mom has a new dress every night,” Veronica said.

“I expect so,” Zora said haughtily, basking in the reflected glory, even her diction elevated by this grand association.

When Veronica had confessed to feeling self-conscious about wearing a dress that she’d already worn earlier this month, Washington put his foot in it by saying that no one would notice, which prompted her to give him a dirty look. All he meant was that it wasn’t as if either one of them appeared all that often in the party pages among the socialites and celebrities. She was especially skittish, he figured, because her firm was being honored with the Corporate Leadership Award tonight, Veronica herself having had a hand in directing some of the corporate tax write-off largesse to Corrine’s charity, and her boss of bosses would be in the room.

“Don’t give Rosalita a hard time,” she told the kids.

“And don’t call to complain if she doesn’t let you play Halo,” he added.

“Wash, I can’t find my phone. Will you call it?”

“You don’t need it; I’ve got mine.”

“You know I hate not having my phone.”

It’s true, he thought as he pressed her number. She had that maternal fear of being unreachable to an excessive degree, at least it seemed excessive to him, though as far as he could tell, nobody — man, woman or child — felt secure going anywhere without a phone these days. As he heard the ring tone on his end, her phone chirped from the couch, where they’d been watching the news.

“We won’t be late,” she said after recovering her precious phone and wedging it into the tiny crystal-studded Judith Leiber clutch that she’d bought at a silent auction at an earlier charity benefit, a bibelot shaped like a butterfly and just big enough for the phone and a lipstick, though not long enough for her reading glasses, which she asked Washington to carry.

Surveying his kingdom, which he was fond of saying looked like heaven as designed by a feminine disciple of Le Corbusier — a vast hardwood plain with rounded outcroppings of beige, black, and white furniture, and two beautiful beige children — he wondered why he didn’t stay home more often. He was feeling particularly vulnerable and nostalgic tonight. The prospect of encountering Casey had him rattled and made him more susceptible to domestic sentimentality. He wanted to be a good guy, really he did. He was committed to future reform. He felt, much as Saint Augustine had in the years of debauchery and lechery before his conversion, theoretically willing but, practically, unready. Lord, save me, but not yet.

—

When they got to the Waldorf, he was in a quiet panic and immediately threw back two martinis, at which point his nerves started to settle. Veronica had just drifted off toward the auction tables to talk to a friend when he spotted Casey bearing down on him.

“Hello, lover.” She was looking pretty delicious in a very formfitting shiny turquoise satin gown. It was automatic, or perhaps autonomic, the stirring in the groin, the surge of warmth that suffused him at the sight of her. Damned if he wasn’t getting a hard-on.

“Good evening,” he said, trying to maintain his cool as he thrust his right hand into his pocket to cover the erection. “I like your dress.”

“Why, thank you,” she said. “Given the way it fits, there wasn’t any room for undergarments, I’m afraid.”

“Yes, I can see that.”

“Enjoying yourself?”

“It’s a wonderful cause,” he said, playing hard to get.

“What is?”

“Feeding the hungry. Isn’t that why we’re here?”

“I’m feeling a certain hunger myself.” She leaned forward, coming in close to his shoulder. “Actually, I’m here to fuck you. Room 308. I’ll be there in three minutes.”

She seemed confident of his complicity, which sort of bugged him, but she looked so fucking good, and she was so utterly, sluttishly shameless, that he realized at that moment he would follow her, even as he vowed that this would be the last time. It felt as if he had no choice in the matter. The die had been cast millions of years ago. Evolution. The instinctive drive to spread genes as widely as possible, no matter that reproduction was not part of his conscious program tonight. As Casey shimmied toward the elevators, he felt biologically programmed to follow. He clocked Veronica moving down the auction table with her friend Becky Fiers, admiring the wares, the donated handbags and jewelry and furs, before following his mistress.

Upstairs, the door was ajar; he tapped on it, and, getting no response, entered cautiously. Casey leapt on him from behind the door, scaring the shit out of him.

“Jesus!”

She shoved her tongue in his mouth before he could say more and groped his crotch, squeezing his cell phone in his pocket before moving on to her intended target. After what might have been seconds or minutes of mutual kneading, he carried her over to the bed and dropped her on it.

“Unzip my dress and put that big cock inside of me,” she demanded, rolling over on her side to facilitate the process and then sliding out of her dress; pushing up his cummerbund and unzipping his trousers, reaching in and finding the item in question, which emerged briefly before disappearing into her mouth.

Rising eventually from her knees, she pushed him down on the bed and jumped on top of him. “Fuck me deep and hard!”

He barely managed to fulfill her command before the whole thing was over, Casey shouting “Fuck me, fuck me, fuck me” as he exploded inside of her, his ardor heightened by fear. Quick as he’d been, he’d been worried even before he finished about the time, and whether his absence would be noticed.

Rolling off of her, he said, “Sorry, that was some kind of speed record.”

“Don’t apologize. I take it as a compliment that you were so excited.”

He waited a beat, two beats. “I hate to say it, but I think we should probably get back.”

“Wouldn’t you love just to stay here and see how long it takes for them to notice?”

“I think I’d rather live to fuck another day.”

He helped her with her dress and then tended to his own outfit. Although they hadn’t, in their haste, bothered to remove his shirt, he discovered that two of his studs had popped out.

“Shit,” he said, groping the bedspread. “We’ve got to find my studs. I can’t walk down there with my shirt open.”

“Relax, stud. They have to be here.”

Eventually they found both, though he was acutely conscious of the seconds and minutes ticking by, one having fallen to the floor during the struggle. Putting them in was a pain in the ass at the best of times, working one hand up under the shirt while the other poked them in from the other side, trying not to pop out the ones that were already in place, and tonight he was particularly maladroit. Standing in front of the full-length closet mirror, he finally succeeded in fastening one, but the second one fell to the carpet.

“Fuck fuck fuck. This is why the English had valets.”

“And why men on Park Avenue have wives,” she said. “Let me help.”

In fact, she was clearly experienced in the procedure, and finally he looked presentable, but when he looked down at his watch, he saw that despite his Quick Draw McGraw impersonation, almost twenty minutes had elapsed since he’d left the ballroom.

“We should definitely leave separately,” he said, adding reluctantly, “Ladies first.”

“I’ll be feeling you inside of me during the speeches,” she said, kissing him at the door.

“I like that idea,” he said, almost pushing her out the door. He was grateful that Casey and Tom had their own table, that he wouldn’t have to sit with her through dinner. He didn’t think he could handle that.

He looked again at his watch, waited thirty seconds, and poked his head out the door. Finding the hallway empty, he bounded out and waited at the elevators, pressing the button repeatedly, reflexively checking his pockets for wallet, cell phone and keys.

Withdrawing his phone from his pocket, he looked at the screen and saw Veronica’s name. It took him a moment to register the time code, to see that it was advancing, to realize that the line had been open fourteen minutes and counting.

Horrified, he punched the red button to disconnect and considered the options. There was certainly a chance that in the din of the party she might not have heard her phone, ensconced inside that ridiculous clutch. And even if she had answered, what were the chances she would have heard anything comprehensible, given that his phone was in his pocket, muffled by all that fabric? On the other hand, Casey had been even more vocal than usual.

The elevator finally arrived, though he was no longer quite so eager to get downstairs. He kept running through the possibilities as the car descended, and walked back through the lobby dreading his encounter with Veronica and trying to anticipate her reaction, wondering if he would be able to read her at first sight. She had a pretty good poker face and had lots of experience with being disappointed by her husband’s behavior. If she seemed to be ignorant of his transgression, he would find a way to get hold of her phone and erase those fourteen minutes.

The reception gallery was almost empty, the stragglers disappearing into the ballroom as the lights flashed on and off, signaling the start of dinner. Despite feeling that his knees might buckle beneath him, he somehow made his way through the tables, eventually discovering his own in the middle of the room. Veronica was already sitting next to Russell. At least she has a good seat, he thought, dreading the moment of eye contact, and indeed her expression was neither warm nor welcoming when she looked up at him, although it might have merely indicated her impatience with his prolonged absence, as opposed to knowledge of his activities. Then, with a sinking feeling, he saw her phone next to her place setting, though she might have removed it from her purse after he’d broken the connection.

A stranger took the chair beside her then and she was distracted by introductions as Washington moved around the other side of the table to his own seat and threw himself into conversation with Corrine, who seemed almost as skittish as he was. Having pretty much organized the event, she was telling him about all the last-minute glitches and about the competition among the gala committee women for time at the podium.

“They all want to speak,” she was saying. “Personally, I’d rather shoot myself than get up there, but every one of them seems to feel that her husband’s fifty grand entitles her to take the stage. And half of them haven’t even sent the check yet. Actually, the only exception is Karen Fontana, and her husband donated a million bucks! Only don’t say I told you that, because he genuinely wants to remain anonymous. If only the others could act like that.”

When Washington finally looked over at Veronica, she seemed to be engrossed with the stranger on her left, and he began to allow himself to believe he might have escaped, that he might have been given another chance — a chance to get his shit together and appreciate the life they had together, to stop taking her for granted and stop fucking around, to love his kids and come home early at night to the bosom of his family. He promised himself that if he were somehow spared exposure tonight, he would never stray again.

At first her failure to make eye contact was a welcome reprieve, but after the speeches started and she failed to so much as glance his way, it started to seem pointed and deliberate.

Washington’s attention was diverted by a short speech from a tiny woman in a purple dashiki and matching headdress, who said she was an immigrant from Ghana, ineligible for food stamps or welfare, and unable to feed her family until she’d learned about Nourish New York, and who concluded her speech with a shout-out to “Miss Corrine,” who had taken a special interest in her case. Mortified, the object of her approbation blushed as heads turned toward their table and the applause mounted.

As the speeches dragged on, he began to think he couldn’t bear the suspense any longer, and he texted her — testing the waters.

Hey you.

Across the table, she looked down, picked up her phone and glanced up at him inquisitively.

Boring, he texted.

She lowered the phone to her lap, typing a response. Haven’t had enough excitement for 1 nite?

He looked up from his phone, but she’d turned away and was watching the podium.

Hopelessly, he texted back: ????

Without looking over at him, she eventually picked up the phone and took it in her lap, biting her lip as she laboriously tapped out the answer on the keypad. He was almost afraid to check when his phone finally buzzed.

Wonder if she’s feeling you inside her during the speeches?

He glanced up, meeting her gaze, a look he was all too familiar with but had hoped never to see again in this life. And for the first time in a long career of attending benefits, he wished the speeches would never end.