'Stay with you and Felton?'
'Yes. Because it wasn't so much my need as yours.'
'My weakness, so to speak.'
'Un huh.'
She ate the rest of the olive and drank the rest of the martini. I poured a little more Laphroig over ice. Susan poured more martini.
'And it didn't bother you,' I said, 'the implication that you couldn't handle it alone?'
'No,' Susan said, looking hard at her martini.
'Because the implication was true. I couldn't. Not if he attempted to tie me up and shoot me.'
'You had a gun,' I said.
'If I got to it in time.' I smiled suddenly. 'For cris sake I said,
'you wanted me there.'
'Partly.'
'You wanted me to insist. You wanted me to win the argument.'
'Wanted is too simple,' Susan said. She had shifted her gaze from her martini to the ongoing afternoon outside her kitchen window. 'I wanted and didn't want. I needed both my autonomy and your protection. By acting the way I did, I managed to have both.'
I took the top off the fry pan and probed the chicken breasts with the tip of the paring knife. They appeared thawed. I swiped the carrots and onions off the cutting board and into the fry pan with the back of the knife. I added a clove of garlic and some dried tarragon and put the cover back on.
Susan drank the rest of her martini. Her pupils were very wide. She put the glass down and got off the stool and walked to me and leaned against me, with her arms around my waist. I put my arms around her and we stood like that for a time. Then Susan raised her face and I kissed her. She opened her mouth and tightened her arms and kissed me back for a long time. Then her body went nearly limp and she broke the kiss and hung her head back and looked up at me. Her pupils were now so big that her eyes seemed without iris.
'Bed,' she said.
With my arms still around her I detached my left arm and shut off the flame under the chicken. Then I slid my left arm down her backside and scooped her into my arms. She pushed her head against my shoulder and locked her arms around my neck. I carried her through the living room and down the hall to her bedroom.
It's not as easy as it looked in Gone With the Wind.
Susan's bed was made of dark wicker and covered with a brown paisley spread, which she made up with the spread turned back, exposing a cobalt sheet. There were maybe eight oversized pillows covered in the same paisley. I eased her down onto the bed and she lay back flat with her arms out and her legs flaccid against the bed. She looked up at me with her eyes wide open. I took my gun from its holster and put it on the matching wicker table by the bed. I took off my clothes. Susan lay without movement, watching me. Only her eyes moved. Her body was without tension and seemed to be blending into the bed. Then I was undressed and she was fully clothed.
'Undress me,' she said. Her voice was soft but it still had that odd clarity.
I nodded, feeling the little feeling I always did when I was undressed and my companion was not. I took Susan's shoes off. They were blue, with short heels. I put them carefully on the floor under the bed where neither of us would step on them. I got off her jacket. Susan made no move to help or hinder but lay loose and still, watching me with her huge unfocused eyes. The sweater had to come off over her head, and unless she helped it would present a problem. I started to raise her from the bed with my left hand under her shoulders.
'Leave the sweater,' she said.
'Sure,' I said. My voice sounded a little hoarse.
'Do the skirt,' she said.
'Sure,' I said. My voice was hoarser.
I've always been clever with my hands, and in a bit I had everything off but her sweater. Through it she lay as limp and passive as a teddy bear, her eyes wide open. I lay on my left side on the bed next to her and propped my head with my elbow.
'Now what?' I said.
She turned her head loosely on the pillow. Her unfocused eyes were looking through mine at something far away.
'Everything,' she said. . In the mirror the dark blank eye of the gun barrel was steady. He put it back in his belt and then practiced taking it out and bringing it to position. He did this over again. He experimented with the teacup grip, left hand cupping the handle, the two-hand hold where the left hand wrapped around the right after cocking the piece. He tried the target stance, turned sideways, one hand.
'You motherfucker,' he said into the mirror. 'How tough are you now?'
He put the gun back, tried it again, bending his knees. In her office, her boyfriend hadn't said a word during the whole scene. Just stood there against the wall with his arms folded. Fucking forearms like Popeye for cris sake He turned his back to the mirror and pulled the gun and spun toward the mirror, gun in his right hand, butt of the gun rested in the palm of his left. Knees were flexed, weak eye, the right one, squinted, sighting with his left. The boyfriend hadn't looked nervous. He'd looked, shit, what had he looked?
'He looked like he knew he could take me.'
He dropped the gun to his side and then brought it up slowly, smiling.
