Fast Lane

Chapter 12

That night Marge called me. I told her I had a toothache and hung up on her. About an hour later the doorbell rang, and there she was.

“Look,” I growled at her. “I told you-”

“Shuddup,” she snapped, and she slipped under my arm and squeezed past me. In the middle of the room she undid the belt of her overcoat, letting it slip off. As it slid to the floor, I realized that was all she was wearing, unless you wanted to count her cowboy boots.

Her glistening eyes challenged me to say something. Then she stuck her tongue out at me and marched into the bedroom.

When we were finished, she climbed on top of me and asked which tooth was bothering me. I pointed to a corner of my mouth, and she reached down and gave me a hard peck where I pointed.

She beamed. “There. I kissed it and made it better.”

Even though we both knew I didn’t have a toothache it was still a dirty trick. I had to carry on as if I was in agony. I said, “I should put you on my knee and paddle your ass off.”

I wanted to do more than that. As she looked at me, her eyes widened in an exaggerated display of terror. She said, “Oh, you look like you want to kill your poor little Margo.” Then she giggled and moved down a little. “I bet you wouldn’t want to do that if I kissed you over here.” And then she moved down a little more. “Or here.” And after a while she was right.

When she was done, she propped herself up on her elbow and asked for a drink. I brought her the whole bottle. By the time she passed out, it was half empty. I took the bottle with me and went back downstairs. I knew I had no chance of getting her to go home but that didn’t mean I had to stay with her. I settled down on the sofa with the bottle and a glass in front of me. I had too much nervous energy to sleep, and neither the booze nor my tumble with Marge had helped any. I poured myself drinks until the bottle was empty. Then I found another bottle.

* * * * *

The next day started off bad and only got worse. It wasn’t that anything really terrible happened, it was just the way I was feeling.

Marge woke me early that morning and yelled at me for falling asleep downstairs. I was feeling too low to argue with her so I just sat there and took it. After a while she calmed down and tried pouring on the sweet stuff again. That was worse than the bawling out she gave me (as I said, things only got worse). Well, eventually she pulled herself together and headed home, but not without first putting me through the wringer.

Right before she left, she reached over and planted a big kiss on me. “There,” she said, pulling away, her eyes sparkling. “I’ve put my mark on you. You’re mine forever. And lover, you better not forget it.”

After she’d gone, I looked in the mirror and saw that the kiss had left a red blotch of lipstick on my forehead. I washed it off.

Not much else happened that day. Other than the fact my stomach was doing somersaults and my nerves were screaming bloody murder, the only thing worth writing about was that I talked with Mary a few times, hinting to her that I was close to a discovery. After the last call I went out shopping. When I returned home, I brought a couple of bottles of booze to the sofa and waited for the darkness.