Choke On Your Lies Part 9

Maybe I could've pressed it more, threatened to tell his mother the whole story about how her son attacked me. But for some reason I believed him. Jesus, I was a soft touch.

"Not a word, then," I said. Didn't know if I meant him or me or about what, particularly, but that was all I had. I kept my hand gripped on my shoulder-it was fine, if a little achy-until I got to the door. Outside, I shook it off and hoped David hadn't seen. I was sweating and breathing hard. In the car, I looked in my rearview. He'd nicked me. My lip was swollen. My cheek was bruised. And it had all been a giant waste of time. I started up and left, just in time to see a small SUV driven by a woman in sungla.s.ses, his mom, I supposed, turn into his driveway. She didn't pay me any mind.

s.h.i.+t. I'd left my own sungla.s.ses inside. f.u.c.k. They'd cost me a hundred and fifty bucks. Well there you go, David. A nice parting gift.

TEN.

I sat in Octavia's office after Jennings had brought me a cold gel pack for my face. I told her everything. I capped it off with, "I can't believe I hit him."

"You should've hit him first."

"I can't believe I listened to you."

She ignored me for a moment while typing a response to an email, then said, "The thing with the shoulder, that was a good save though. Maybe you can use that more often, get beat up and then get them to talk through pity."

"Are you crazy? I'll never do that again!"

"If you want to keep your house, you will." She finally looked at me. "You believe he doesn't know?"

I mumbled, shrugged, winced. Maybe I'd believed him back at the house, but since then I wasn't so sure. I'd been lied to so much and had no idea, the answer could be that it was me. I had the look of a person who could be lied to. Even people who normally told the truth looked at me and decided I was low risk, extremely gullible, so what was the harm? In hindsight, I wondered if Stephanie had been telling the truth about Ashton after all.

Octavia kept typing, so I got lost in my head, thinking of a poem about my house: The wood soaks in each fight, each embrace, the smell of each meal. That last part wasn't working. I needed to list real meals, evoke real smells. How to do it without p.i.s.sing off vegetarians? f.u.c.k it. I didn't think meat-eating in poetry was a crime, at least not yet. If anyone asked, I would say, "Sorry, I'm a gourmet." That sometimes smoothes things over. Now, if it were a fish dish, that also helped-for some reasons the vegetarians I knew didn't feel as bad about eating seafood. But I couldn't use veal- "Mick! a.s.shole!"

I jumped. Octavia stared at me across the desk. I jumped again when I realized Harriet was standing beside me. "Sorry, sorry."

"She asked if you were staying for lunch."

Blinked. Blinked. "Uh, um...what's on the menu?"

Harriet sighed. "No menu. It's a grilled walleye sandwich and minestrone. Plus some garlic potato chips."

"Potato chips?"

Octavia said, "She's making them. Jesus, Thooft, pull yourself together."

I nodded. I had somehow sunk so low in the chair that my armpits were on the armrests. I pushed myself up. "Sure, okay, lunch is good. Sounds good."

Harriet clucked her tongue and winked at me, then spun on her heels, left the office. I watched her go. G.o.dd.a.m.n it. I couldn't help myself, and not just because of her a.s.s, but because I knew myself too well, always going after the ones who would most abuse me. Eager to jump right into another canyon of disappointment.

Octavia cleared her throat. I pretended I had been looking at the books instead. "Do you have an Aristophanes I can borrow?"

"Please. Number one: don't even think about it. I will cut you. Second, have you been home?"

"Not since yesterday."

"Okay, well, do you think Frannie's been by?"

"Where is this going?"

She rocked to and fro in her chair, gaining the momentum to brace herself on the desk and push up. "The proof...gah...could've been there...er...all along. What if she's already gotten....rid...of it when she realized you weren't coming home last night?"

"How would she know? What, is she driving by every hour checking on me?"

"You dumba.s.s. Her friend told her. You think she's not going to tell Frances you were on a date? I mean, it would p.i.s.s off Frances enough to keep up the vendetta, but also make her feel better that you're finally getting the message that it's over. And then she could go to the house and remove anything incriminating."

I shook my head. "Stephanie promised."

Octavia rounded the desk, still wearing the same silk robe she'd worn at breakfast but her skin was glowing, supple. I was starting to believe that Octavia spent most of her days naked except for that robe. She stood before me and said, "You'd never know. We b.i.t.c.hes decide what's a secret and what's your problem. "

I hadn't thought about it. I rearranged the gel pack.

"So go home, tear the place apart. See if Miss Chill is as smart as she thinks. Check to see if she's f.u.c.king someone on the computer science faculty, too."

"Hey, that's a bit much."

"No it's not."

"I mean, h.e.l.l, it seems you and Jennings would know something like that before I would."

"True. Which is why it's shameful."

I drooped. No energy left to fight. "All right."

At home, I poured myself a gla.s.s of ice water and downed it in one long pull. Chilled my teeth, but I needed to rehydrate. Poured another. No booze for me. I needed a long break from the stuff. I went upstairs and showered for the second time that day. This one was to relax more than to cleanse. I ran it hot and hard, blasting against my back for a good twenty minutes before I climbed out to sit on the toilet. Just sitting, dripping, wondering what would happen next.

I tried to imagine packing up everything I owned and starting over somewhere else. There had been a time in my life when that was exciting, perhaps the thing I most looked forward to. But after all these years, coming to crave the comforts that only came with settling in-both at school and with Frannie-I couldn't imagine being comfortable anywhere but here. Especially considering that on my own, I wouldn't be able to afford a place anything like this. Most likely a small apartment. A nice one, sure, but not home. Not these trees, these rooms, and the amber light that travelled across the walls as the day faded.

I dried myself, dressed in my lightest khakis and thin silk s.h.i.+rt, and made my way downstairs to figure out where to start.

Easy enough: the messages. A quick glance had shown that the light wasn't flas.h.i.+ng, but when I went to check the caller ID, there were two messages. Right before I left, I erased them. Someone had been here after all.

I just hoped whoever called wasn't dumb enough to give away what I'd been doing behind Fran's back.

No luck.

The first message was from David: "I just wanted to say again, leave me out of this. I'll leave your sungla.s.ses in your box when cla.s.ses start. I'm changing my major to Marketing."

I had only seen him three hours ago. The time stamp on the call was from right after. So...today? Fran had been in my house that same day? Maybe she was in the bas.e.m.e.nt as I stood there. Or she could've escaped while I was in the shower. I was about to bolt for the stairs when I caught the second message.

Stephanie.

"Hi, Mick, um. Yeah, I really just wanted to see if you'd recovered from yesterday. You looked...not so good. I hope your date went well. If you feel like it, give me a call and let me know."

What? Not sure what to think. Especially if she was the one to tell Frances...

Anyway, later. First I had to check the bas.e.m.e.nt.

Yeah, someone had been there. She had left a cabinet drawer open. But nothing was scattered, nothing out of place. It would take a few hours to read through and see what was missing, and even then maybe I would miss it. She was a step ahead of me every time.

Footsteps. Fast, as if they were coming down the main stairs. Then the front door slammed.

Up the steps three at a time. A mad dash for the front door, already shouting, "Wait! G.o.dd.a.m.n it! Wait!"

A glimpse of her through the door, sprinting down the sidewalk. I hadn't even put shoes on yet, but I went running after.

She'd changed her hair color. And had lost about six inches in height. Okay, so it wasn't Frances. She looked over her shoulder, not running so well in her half-heeled shoes. I was pretty sure she was trying for the Honda CRV parked on the curb. But when she tried to reach down and take off one of the offending shoes, she tripped and fell into a neighbor's yard.

I slowed up and jogged the rest of the way, about twenty feet. She wasn't in a hurry to go anywhere. I'd seen her before, I realized once I was closer and less crazed. She was breathing hard, looking up at me like I'd just run over her puppy.

"Alice."

"Look what you made me do, Mick."

She was the Provost's secretary. Excuse me-executive a.s.sistant. I'd dealt with her plenty of times, setting up appointments, waiting for appointments. She had a long severe face that reminded me of the eagle from the Muppets. Thin, short, and she always sounded as if she'd had too much nicotine and caffeine and just watched a bunch of p.o.r.n. I swear, you'd sit in the office waiting for a meeting, and she'd say, "So, you and Frances plan on banging boots this weekend?" or "G.o.d, I'm so f.u.c.king h.o.r.n.y I might just use my cigarette break to go hump Professor Grace."

And sometimes: "I like those slacks. They must feel nice up against your sack."

I didn't know if she did that just with me or with everybody. I a.s.sumed she had to have a feel for you first. Or maybe it was just that she knew, being the Provost's a.s.sistant, she could get away with anything. I never considered it flirting. More like someone who poked beehives for fun.

I sat on the gra.s.s beside her. "Give it to me."

"Aren't you supposed to do that at knife point?"

"Whatever it is you took, give it to me. Otherwise, we wait for the police."

She pouted her lips, gripped her fists in mock fury, then reached into her jeans pocket for a folded piece of paper. She handed it over and I unfolded it.

A purchase order from our college. It was for services rendered, but to a guy I'd never heard of-Ron Moore? And it was in my name. The signature, though, wasn't so perfect this time. In fact, I would say it was Frannie's handwriting.

"This was here? In my house?"

"You didn't know?"

Behind us, an elderly woman opened the screen door. "Can I help you two with something?"

I waved behind me, climbed up from the ground. "Sorry. Just resting a moment." Then to Alice, "Let's go back to the house, sit down and have some water, and get to the bottom of this."

She hmphed me. "You can keep your water. I'll take Scotch." Then she lifted her hand. "How about helping a lady up?"

ELEVEN.

Octavia's voice over the phone rattled the speaker and made me wince. "No f.u.c.king way!"

"Yeah, this is the one. I guess Fran didn't think I'd ever go through any of those files again, and if I ever did, I wouldn't think twice about it."

"But this is the guy."

"That's what Alice said. But...I guess it didn't have anything to do with me at first. Not until Fran was sure she wanted to leave me."

And I told Octavia everything Alice had told me. I could barely believe a word, as it seemed like one of Alice's x.x.x-rated fantasies.

She told me: "The provost, Carl, well, he's kinky. He and his ex-wife both, we're talking swingers here. I mean, you've seen them. They're, what, about fifty and still gorgeous, right? So after settling in here for a while, they start invited couples over, three or four at a time, and over the course of several weeks, they see where it goes. Subtle, they're pretty subtle, but you figure it out pretty quickly. Or in your case, your wife did. One of them makes a solo move, depending. It didn't get that far with you, though. Shame. But if you're not into it because it's cheating, the other one comes in to let you know it's okay.

"It's all the rage. Polyamory. Which is pretty much swinging, but more dignified, like spiritual, so they say. It's all about feelings and acceptance. There's love without jealousy. That's why they mostly recruit married couples.

"And don't take this the wrong way, Mick, but after meeting you a few times, they just weren't into your vibe. See, it's all about a few things-power, like what you can do to help them if they need it, and the vibe, meaning you'll fit in without blowing the gig somehow. And you, well, they thought you were a bit too sensitive.

"Not Frances, though. She caught on immediately. Her and the Provost hit it off the very first time. I think she's very free s.e.xually, and Carl's wife, she wanted Frances for herself. But Frances didn't care for women unless she was either really drunk or doing it to turn on a man.

"Me, I could never. I'm all about the c.o.c.k. But here's a secret: I fought for you. I wanted you in. It wasn't fair that Fran was keeping it a secret from you. Besides, I wanted to give you a try. Really. I can't believe you hadn't caught on to the hints.

"So when Carl's wife left and filed for a split, that's when Frances and Carl got even closer. It's been longer than four months. That's just when the divorce happened. I think Fran's been a part of this for over a year and a half.

"Are you feeling okay, Mick? You went pale there.

"Here's what happens, though. You get involved, you think everyone's playing fair. Anyone can be with anyone else. The women do the choosing, more often than not. The surprising thing is that no one gets left out. You'd think, but no. Then there are the splinter sessions, outside of the regular gatherings, people meeting up with lovers at lunch, or in their offices, or before they go home for the day.

"What they don't know, at first, is that Carl keeps track. I've been sent out to videotape couples who have met at the club once they start sneaking around at home, without their knowledge. Lots of very private stuff, and there I am, taping every second. I think that's why he hired me-he knew I was very erotic, you know? Very free with myself, like Fran, and also very much a voyeur. The interview was barely about my office skills at all. It was more about how much s.e.xual innuendo he could pour on me, and how much I could give it right back to him.

"So I make movies, and Carl stockpiles them, and at some point he brings them into the office and tells our lovers what he's done. He breaks it to them softly. And after that, he tells them they need to be more careful, and maybe only stray in the privacy of the group sessions. After he's got the hard evidence, he usually backs away from any physical contact with them anymore, always preferring to try new, tastier fruit. And believe me, he had never been filmed with anyone. Not until Fran.

"She got to him somehow. She turned on some pheromones or must've had a p.u.s.s.y that gripped him tight, because he couldn't stop seeing her. Alone, at group meetings. He began to be overprotective, allowing fewer men to spend time with her.

"Then, well, she messed up. I can tell that you already know, am I right? She slept with a student. We didn't invite students, G.o.d no. Lawsuits, lawsuits. That was personal, getting back at you for that exotic girl. Nuha, right? Yeah, we all saw it. Carl was going to fire her. Plus now we have video of her f.u.c.king one of our English majors. Wait, you even know which one, don't you?

"I'm so sorry. I really am. You know, if you'd like to get back at her by...okay, okay.

"Listen: she's brilliant. Smarter than I would have ever thought. I mean, you'll defend her, I bet, to save face. Not like you married a stupid woman, after all. But she had taped herself with Carl. She had taped him at his home during a session, double-teaming Professor Brawley from Economics. And if Carl wanted to fire her over f.u.c.king David, then she would just have to show the world what sort of stuff he'd been doing. Hypocritical, to say the least. And also, if his blackmail cover-up were ever to come to light...my dear Mick, I think you might've won your house.

"Me? No, forget it. You don't want to know what he's got me doing on tape, so I would never turn on him. He'd have to be dead, and I'd have to see the entire collection go up in flames before I would speak out against him. All this I'm telling you, I would never repeat.

"Yeah, you're on your own, hon."