the room with starfish and dried cod or something hanging from the nets. Lighting came from candles that must have been cheap because mine strobed. The place reeked of hand-holding and eye contact by candlelight.
Cool fingers touched the back of my neck. “I can’t get enough of your amativeness nodes,” Katrina said.
I tipped my head way back to look up at her. “Do you like Blue Nun?”
“Your hair is nice too.”
“Many people say my hair is my best trait.”
Katrina moved around the table to her chair. “Anyone who says that hasn’t felt your amativeness nodes.” She was wearing a dark green jacket over a white knit dress. I guess you’d call it a dress; when she sat down it covered her crotch and maybe an inch and a half of thigh. If Shannon wore that dress I would send her to her room.
“What’s this?” Katrina asked.
“Blue Nun. I thought you might like some wine.”
“I’d like some martinis.” She pulled off her jacket, revealing her shoulders and a quarter-moon slice of upper chest. Katrina was actually quite pretty, in a miniature sort of way. Her legs would have looked good on an aging movie star.
“Eat fast,” she said. “The orgy starts at eight.”
“We have to talk about this orgy,” I said.
Katrina smiled. “Later. Right now, I’m starved.” She ordered mussels and I had the Surf ‘N’ Swamp—lobster claws and frog legs. The waiter called me “sir” four times.
Katrina was in a good mood. She made fun of my jacket and told me about a fat girl in her aerobics class who’d blown a knee during the stretch-out.
She said, “I love it when women younger than me fall apart.”
I took a deep breath and prepared to take the plunge. When it’s time for the kiss-off, I’m much more comfortable with women dumping me than me dumping women. I’m real good at the former—never resorting to angry words or accusations, never making the woman feel guilty. Dumping me is easy. But when it comes to the other way around, I’m a coward.
“It’s all over, Katrina.”
She glanced up from her salad. “I know.”
“This is the last time we can see each other.”
“I said I know.” Her voice was a bit wistful, but far from heartbreak. “Cameron paid me a visit.”
I’d been braced for tears in a public place. I wasn’t prepared for Katrina being a good sport.
“What did you think of the pictures?” I asked.
“Did you see the cheerleading shot? My thighs were positively grotesque.”
“But what about Cameron?”
“Cameron is a pig.”
When the waiter brought our main courses my legs and claws were arranged in an artsy, nouvelle-type design on the plate. He went into that routine where they hover over your food with what looks like a walnut fence post.
“Fresh ground pepper, sir?”
A bare foot plopped in my lap. “No, thank you.” Katrina had amazing toe dexterity. Midway through the salad, I felt my Levi’s zipper slip.
“If you’ve seen the pictures, why are you so chipper?” I asked.
“I’m turned on just thinking about my birthday orgy.”
“There’s not going to be a birthday orgy. This is it. Right now.”
Her toes grazed up and down. “Don’t be silly. The last diddle before you lose a lover is always so poignant. I love it, better than the first time.”
“We’ve already had our last diddle.”
“
My first thought was this: Starting tomorrow, I was to begin a God-knows-how-long celibate period while I convinced Gilia I wasn’t a promiscuous male. That left tonight.
“Why is the orgy on a time schedule?”
“It’s that jerk, Skip.” Katrina did strange, probing motions in my boxer shorts. “His Highness ordered me home by eight to tape Monday Night Football.”
“Why not program the VCR to turn itself on?”
“You ever meet anybody knows how to work those machines? The directions say it can be done, but it’s a dirty, Japanese lie.”
She accepted another martini from the waiter. I suspected he knew about the footsie game under the tablecloth, but he was too cloying to comment. Whenever I see a waiter I think about the poor single mother somewhere who’s out of a job because this guy is too lazy to work construction.
“Skip said he’ll confiscate my car if I don’t get his precious ball game—every second—so I have to be there to change the tape after three hours. Football games last longer than videotapes.” She gave me the most Southern smile you can imagine. “And you know what we’re going to do for those three hours?”
“The Ramada Inn?”
The toe popped through. “Nope. We’re going to do it right in old Skippy-pooh’s king-size bed. This is the last time and I demand it all. Bondage. Fantasy. S and M. Anal. I’ll bet you know stuff I haven’t even heard of.”
Probably true. “How many times have I explained, sex should be affectionate, not revenge.”
“Revenge gives a better orgasm.”
Katrina eyed me while I looked down at my empty claw and thought of Gilia. Gilia was wholesome, Katrina was sick. Where did that leave me?
“What about the Saunders?” I asked.
“Mimi can get her own gigolo.”
“What if they see the lights?”
“So what if they see the lights?”
“How about Phadron?”
“She asked for a raise and Skip had her deported. I never told you about Phadron, how did you know her name?”
I shrugged and faked innocence. “Heard it somewhere, I guess.”
The waiter cleared our plates. I said no to dessert and yes to an after-dinner Grand Marnier. Katrina had another martini. Her foot grew increasingly aggressive.
“I’ll do it,” I said, “only at the Ramada. One last time, but this is absolutely it.”
She smiled. “You’ll do it at my house.”
“I think that’s a bad idea.”
She jabbed her toe. “I don’t care what you think. Can’t you understand that? I no longer care about you.”
“You have a warped attitude toward sex,” I said.
Now, she was mad. It always frightens me how quickly a woman can go from a perfectly pleasant mood to all-out fury.
“
Two tables over, a busboy dropped a glass.
“I need romanticism.”
Strong words for a man with a foot in his fly.
Katrina laughed—a harsh sound, not tinkle-like at all. “I’ll bet it doesn’t work. You lead with your tongue because your pee-pee can’t cut the mustard.”
“That’s right, Katrina. You hit the nail on the head.”
“Not yet, buster.”
“Skip won’t do it with me any way but him on top banging like a rabbit,” Katrina said as she drove through the slick streets. My car was back at Bonaparte’s because I’d drawn the line at parking in front of her house.
