for one of Rollins's biggest clients. It wasn't exactly like writing the Great American Novel, which I didn't especially want to do anyway, but it paid the bills. The majority of them, anyway.
I sipped some coffee, set it down, rested my fingertips on the keyboard. My mind searched for some brilliant phrase to describe the client's new sleeve bearings, but it proved elusive. Instead, my thoughts drifted to the night before. When I was making love to Sheila and Monica Patterson popped into my mind, saying «Hi» in the breathy way she did it at the office.
I felt guilty at first. There I was, dutifully pounding away on my wife Sheila (who isn't bad-looking, has always been faithful, has kept slim after bearing two children, and who can even cook without looking anxiously to the microwave), and I was imagining another woman. One who is definitely good-looking, slim only where it counts, has macho Larry-with-the-tattooed-eagle and no kids, and might or might not be faithful.
To my surprise, Sheila told me what I'd done was okay.
She didn't specifically say it was okay to picture Monica beneath me, but Sheila is a liberated woman and reads a lot about sex. Dr. Ruth, Graham Masterton, Masters and Johnson. Once she read that it was healthy to fantasize about someone else while making love to the spouse. The newer sex books even encouraged mental cheating, Sheila explained. She startled the hell out of me by admitting she sometimes thought of Tom Selleck when we were going at it; so she didn't really mind if I imagined Elvira or Kathleen Turner or Kim Basinger.
Trouble is that I'd
So I'd begun thinking of someone real (so to speak). Someone I knew.
Monica.
I guessed I'd sort of spoiled it by letting her know and getting slapped. I'd been stupid, ignorant. Monica had probably believed I was hitting on her, and I really, truly was not.
Of course, I'd
I bumped into Monica later at the front door when we were coming individually back from lunch. I blushed; she gave me a dirty look. I followed her to her cubicle anyway, needing to explain. She was secretary to the media guy, who buys the ads for the firm that makes the bearings I try to describe. Monica never exposes an inch of the flesh I'd imagined infinitely better than sleeve bearings, and her clothes aren't tight-fitting but they're far-out, unmatching blouses or sweaters with long skirts that sort of swing between her legs or jeans that are always worn at key spots and look as if just a tiny
She sat behind her desk, pretending I wasn't there. Trying to come up with something clever as an opening, I hovered around until I noticed a big jar of peppermint pinwheels rising from a stack of printed-out pages. 'Can I have a mint?'
She stared at me.
I took a mint, unwrapped and popped it into my mouth. I figured it might sweeten my pizza breath. 'I'm sorry,' I said. The pinwheel was rolling around on my tongue and making me mumble. Another stupid mistake, I realized. 'I wasn't coming on to you but I shouldn't have said that.' I turned to leave. 'I didn't mean to be insulting.' Abased, I grinned a little and took a step away.
'Wait,' Monica said.
I stood stock-still. She was glancing around as if she intended to say or do something and needed privacy. No one else was back from lunch yet, and we were alone. 'Do you want to slap my other cheek?' I asked her.
'No, I–I just wanted to say that
'Sure you should,' I disagreed. 'You've met Sheil, I've met your husband Larry at the Christmas party. We might've all been friends and I messed it up.'
Monica lit a Vantage Ultra Light, puffed it with an enigmatic expression. The puffs of smoke came my way like hot breath. 'Did you really mean it?' she asked.
'Did I mean what?' Hell, I could be mysterious, too.
She frowned. It made her prettier than ever. 'You only
'Sure,' I confessed. 'It was okay with Sheil. She's very liberal.'
'But,' Monica continued, 'why me? I'm married, too. It seemed kind of
'Nope. And why not you?' I asked. 'Sheila read a book about sexual fantasies and said that it's normal for a man or woman to think of somebody else during lovemaking. Because it enhances the relationship, not just the sex. Adds something extra.'
'Really?' A lot of smoke came my way then and from her flared nostrils, too.
'Really, according to my wife's book. Because it doesn't hurt anyone, and —»
Her eyebrows arched, her head lowered a fraction of an inch. Her twerp boss — which is what my boss calls him, too — was on a straight line toward Monica.
Under my voice, I muttered, 'We can rap later,' and then I stole another mint.
'Fine,' she replied. She got her body arranged in a businesslike posture. 'And, thanks. I think!'
At five-thirty I'd banged out three pages of decent copy concerning sleeve bearings. Also roller bearings and plain, old ball bearings. It should've been more like twenty pages but my thoughts kept meandering back to what Monica had said before we parted: 'Thanks.' Why 'thanks'?
I didn't know why, but it bothered the crap out of me.
It was very busy at the agency the next couple of days, and I didn't see or chat with Monica. We passed in the hall en route to the coffee makers or the copy machine, but that was it — a glance and a nod. Yet I detected something brewing in Ms. Patterson's mind and believed it was every bit as hot as coffee. An expert with women isn't required when they are onto something truly serious, important to them. And that's good, since I am definitely not an expert.
The phone on my desk buzzed on Friday morning. 'Ron Bowers.'
'Hi.' Monica, maybe smoking a Vantage again. 'Tell me, are you free for lunch?'
'Yeah. I guess so.' Mystery for mystery. My blood warmed up, churned a bit.
'Meet me at the front door,' Monica proposed. 'Eleven-thirty?'
'Okay. If you want.'
'I want,' she answered and rung off.
I got the goal of twenty pages within range at seventeen sheets of tribute to bearings of all kinds, but that was because I'd banged out twelve of them over the past two days. Maybe Monica had rethought our discussion and Larry would be there with the eagle on his fist spreading its wings, but I doubted it.
She was wearing a sweater and skirt that matched perfectly, clung to her body like wallpaper that had just been hung again at Monticello and advertised the exciting news that she'd abandoned brassieres — for lunch, at least. We walked together to a tavern around the corner from Rollins where they served decent sandwiches and a wide range of imported beers. Management didn't mind our mild imbibing if there were no afternoon meetings with clients. I listened to the brunette's unexpected high heels going
Point is, we gulped down two beers apiece along with most of our sandwiches while Monica discussed every subject under the sun except the one that had made her ask me to lunch. Then the cigarette case came out, I was taking her lighter to ignite it, and she was jumping on the topic at hand with both feet.
'Ron, you were
I sputtered, 'What?' and drooled imported beer down my chin to the collar.