Single white female

24

THAT night, Sam described Allie's visit at the Atherton. It seemed the only way he could stop thinking about it; share it so it was halved. He knew that, with Allie, the final corner had been turned.

All the while he was talking, Hedra lay beside him in his bed in the Atherton suite. They'd made love. The room was totally dark and still smelled from their coupling. Hedra was smoking a cigarette, invisible to Sam except for the glowing red ember that now and then brightened like a beacon aimed his way, a warning to ships on a dark sea.

Hedra said, "Allie's imagination must have been rolling in high gear. Actually, I did use her name, but it was no big deal. It came to mind when some guy was getting too friendly and I didn't wanna give him my own name. He caught me off guard or I'd have given him the name of my third-grade teacher or somebody like that. The drug stuff is pure imagination. Unless…" "Unless what?"

"I offered Allie some tranquilizers once. She was almost bonkers after losing her job. Maybe that put the idea of me and drugs in her mind." Hedra drew on the cigarette, making its ember flare angry red in the darkness. "'Nother thing. A couple of times I dissolved tranquilizers in her coffee or hot chocolate without her knowing it." "You what?"

"Nothing strong, Sam, just some old prescription medicine. Now, don't get so excited. I did it for her own good. And tell you the truth, so I could live with the crazy bi-no, I shouldn't say that. She's under a strain. She's got this hands-off thing about any kind of drug, and I just wanted to help her through the rough times, till she could feel better on her own." Sam heard Hedra shift her body so she was lying on her side, facing him. He felt the mattress depress. She was still perspiring; he could feel the heat emanating from her. "I did it because I'm her friend, Sam."

A tangle of thoughts spun through his mind. He couldn't help asking, "Is that why you're here with me? Because of Allie?"

She was silent for a moment. He saw her cigarette flare. Heard her exhale and smelled the smoke. "I don't think so. What about you? Is it Allie you're really sleeping with?"

He was silent. He couldn't see her in the darkness, but he knew she was wearing the wig. God! What kind of twisted creature have 1 become?

"Never mind," she said. "Some things it's better not to think about, and we don't have to think about them, do we?" "No," he said, "we don't. But it's eerie, what's happened. Sometimes the way you talk even when we're not in bed, the way you dress, or motion with your hand or tilt your head, it's… well, so damned strange."

"Face it, the real thing turned out not to be the real thing. You regret this, Sam? Me and you?"

"Not at all." Was that a lie? he wondered. Maybe so, but what was the point of regretting what you couldn't change or resist? What was the use of hating a weakness in yourself if you knew you couldn't overcome it? "Listen, I don't have to be here if you don't want me."

He thought about her not being with him and didn't like the idea. When he and Hedra were in the same room, it was as if each of them had swallowed half of a powerful magnet. He had to be near her, to touch her. Once he'd allowed their affair to start, he was caught up in a force ponderous and irresistible. Whatever he still felt for Allie was dwarfed and crushed before it. The real thing turned out not to be the real thing. "Believe it," he said, "I want you here."

He felt her hand glide down to his pubic hair and caress his penis. She did something quick and rhythmic with her fingers and immediately, almost against his will, he had an erection. He was struck again by the contrast between the Hedra he'd first met and this woman. In the dark, she was somebody else. Somebody else…

He heard a fizzing, sputtering sound, as with her other hand she dropped her cigarette in her glass with melted ice in it by the bed.

In an amused voice she said, "Another dead soldier," and climbed on top of him.

Allie almost lacked the willpower to climb out of bed in the morning. Sometimes she wondered what it would be like to "take to her bed and die" like the heart-stricken Victorian women in romantic novels. Self-pity, something she'd always despised in others, had attached to her like a parasite and wouldn't be dislodged by reason.

She had dreamed of Sam and Hedra, of them making love in her bed, where she and Sam had lain together. She heard their groans, the rocking and banging of the headboard. The keening of the bedsprings mingled with their own subdued moans. In the dream she tried to block it from her hearing, drifting to the window and staring out at the universe beyond the glass. She pretended what was going on in the bedroom wasn't happening. Couldn't be happening. But the relentless rhythm of their lovemaking was persistent, and she couldn't deny the extent to which Hedra had taken over her life, as the sounds coming from the bedroom crashed into her tortured mind. My bed! Bed! Bed! Bed!

When she awoke she thought she heard Sam singing in the shower, as he often did. Water gushed through the plumbing in the old walls, nearly drowning out his voice. "I'm takin' the A-Train," he was singing, giving it an exaggerated jazzy glide. For an instant there was nothing wrong in Allie's life and her dream had been a cruel fluke that had nothing to do with reality. For an instant. Before she was entirely awake.

Then her depression wrapped itself around her. She had to use all her will to struggle out of bed, even though she had to relieve herself so badly she couldn't lie still. She commanded each leg to move as she plodded into the bathroom.

She didn't bother eating breakfast, opting instead for a cup of instant coffee, and it was an effort to spoon the dark granules into a cup of water heated in the microwave.

As she settled into the sofa to hold her cup with both hands and sip at the hot coffee, she was surprised to hear a knock at the door.

Even more surprised when she'd trudged to the door, opened it, and found the hall empty.

Then she glanced down and saw on the mat a long-stemmed flower on a folded sheet of white tissue paper. She stooped and picked it up. It was a dark orchid with petals the consistency of flesh. A small white card was Scotch-taped to the paper. In black felt-tip pen it read, "Thanks, Sweet Buns. Until next time."

Allie touched the thick, fleshlike petals and revulsion welled up in her. She flung the orchid on the hall floor. Then she backed into the apartment and slammed and locked the door.