Martin Misunderstood

She reached her hand into an open tub of lotion. 'Lie back on the table.'

Martin got on the table, trying to keep the hand towel over his intimate areas.

'You got kids?' she asked, rubbing the lotion into her hands.

Martin's mouth opened to answer just as her hand went under the towel and her fingers wrapped around his member. 'Good Lord!' he yelped.

'Sorry my hands are cold.' She was staring at the wall, a bored look in her eyes as her shoulder jerked back and forth with her hand. 'I tell you what, sometimes I wonder if the government's telling us the truth.'

'Huh-huh.' Martin was panting so hard he could barely speak.

'I mean, lookit this 'flu thing that's going around.' Jerk, jerk, jerk. 'Everybody I know who gets it, they're, like, laid up for a week, then they get a little better, but two months later, they're still feeling rundown.'

Martin gripped the sides of the table, trying not to fall off.

'Can you really trust the CDC? Aren't they supposed to be tracking this shit?'

'Huh-huh-huh…'

'And the FDA – one minute they're telling us drugs are safe, the next minute they're taking them off the shelves.'

'Oh-oh-oh…'

'It's like we can't trust a thing they tell us anymore.'

Martin closed his eyes, trying to block out the sight of the fat on the back of Madam Glitter's arm swaying as her hand moved. He squeezed his eyes shut even tighter, trying to think about Angelina Jolie, Rebecca Romijn… it wasn't until his mind conjured the image of Diane Sawyer in a lilac cashmere sweater that he felt himself starting to let go.

It was the dulcet tones of Diane he heard instead of Madam Glitter's harsh voice when she asked, 'You want me to squeeze your balls?'

'Gah! Gah! Gah!' He came like an oscillating lawn sprinkler with a kink in the hose.

Madam Glitter wiped her hands on the towel. 'Sorry to rush you, but I need to get back to my kid.'

Martin stared up at the ceiling, still panting. There was a brown water stain directly over the table. How had he not noticed that before?

She patted his thigh. 'Come on, sport. Up you go.'

Martin struggled to sit up. The vinyl squeaked as he moved. He was sweating. His chest was still heaving.

The last thing she had said to him as she rushed him out the door was, 'You really should have that mole looked at.'

And this was what Martin was supposed to tell Anther, that he had been getting his member massaged while Sandy was being killed? What kind of alibi was that? What kind of person paid for sex? He would rather be convicted as a murderer than have his mother find out what he had done. Did she have any inkling as to where Martin had really been? Evie was in bed when he returned from the massage parlor. Fortunately, Dancing With the Stars was on his TiVo season pass manager. He had watched Mr T doing the rumba with Joan Crawford and thought, Is this what my life has come to? I actually paid a mother of two for sex? Or was it really sex? Did a handjob count as intercourse? Martin assumed you had to enter someone – or was that a different 'inter' that they were talking about? Internal? He scowled. That didn't sound sexy at all.

Martin put the Cadillac into reverse and drove away from the scene of his real crime. The parking gate was up at Southern Toilet Supply, which was a direct violation of company rules. Of course, Martin didn't belong to the company anymore, so he shouldn't have given a fig. The problem was that he did give a fig. Anyone could break into this place. Maybe these new people who hadn't had to pick 2300 from the machinery didn't appreciate what mayhem vandals could bring to a place like this, but Martin knew first hand.

He pulled the Cadillac into its usual space, surprised to see that the only other car in the lot belonged to Unique. She certainly wasn't one to work extra hours, but maybe her conscience had won her over. Martin had every intention of completing his receivables from the workday he had missed. He may have been fired, but that was certainly no reason to shirk his responsibilities.

Martin took out his keys as he approached the entrance, but found that the door was already unlocked. He didn't bother to turn on the lights as he made his way to the office. There was no point, really. He knew everything from memory – the way the machinery was positioned, the way the shelving was stacked. For half of his life, this had been Martin's home, the place where he had felt valuable, needed. And now it was all gone – lost like a sock in the dryer, never to be seen again.

'Whatchu doin' here, Fool?' Unique's hands moved quickly as she shoved office supplies into her purse.

'I've been fired.'

'Uh-huh,' she mumbled, cramming her stapler into a side pocket. 'Norton said he was looking for a reason to get rid of you.'

'Get rid of me?' Martin echoed. That couldn't be right. Norton Shaw had given him an 'adequate' on his yearly review. You didn't call someone adequate if you were trying to get rid of them.

'Whatchu doin' outta jail anyway?' she asked. 'I thought you'd be in the electric chair by now.'

'It's lethal injection,' Martin corrected. 'Are you stealing office supplies?'

'Getting out while the getting's good,' she told him, trying to jam a ream of paper into her bag. 'Unique can read the writing on the wall.'

Martin cringed. She only ever spoke of herself in the third person when she felt threatened. He could still remember the first time he'd heard her do it. Martin had suggested that it was only fair that she clean the women's room as he was expected to clean up after the men. 'Unique don't clean toilets!' she had screeched.

He tried, 'Unique-'

'I don't need no trouble with the po-lice,' she told him. 'No way is Unique sticking around with the po-lice asking questions.'

'What kinds of questions?'

'I might have bought some clothes at the mall that one time that I didn't exactly pay for.'

Martin was outraged. 'You stole?'

She indicated her bright purple silk pantsuit. 'You think I can dress like this on what y'all pay me?'

Actually, he did.

'I got a look to uphold,' she told him, pushing Martin out of the way as she walked around to his desk. 'You don't go messing with a lady's wardrobe.'

Perhaps it was because of his own recent brush with the law, but Martin felt his outrage quickly turn into fascination. He had worked with this woman for three years without knowing that she was an actual thief. 'Did you get caught?'

'There might be a warrant out there somewhere. You know how it is.'

Had she winked at him? Martin thought she had. 'Yes,' he said. 'Having spent some time in jail myself, I understand.'

She looked at him, her lips pursed. Was that respect in her eyes?

'I fought the fishes,' he told her, trying out his jail-house lingo.

She turned skeptical. 'Fought them on what?'

'Well, you know, jail is very divisive. I had to hook up with the whites, you see. Immediately, you have to choose a posse.'

'Posse?'

He leaned on the edge of her empty desk. 'Peeps, you might have heard it called.'

She dumped a box full of invoices on the floor and started filling it with Post-it notes from Martin's desk. 'Did you really kill Sandy?'

'Well, I…' he fumbled for words. 'She teased me quite harshly.'

Unique stopped filling the box. 'You was mad after the dildo, huh? I saw it in your eyes when that rubber melted into your thumb.' She chuckled. 'I knew there was something more to you, Martin.'

Martin. She had called him Martin. Not Fool. Not Doughboy. Martin.

'She pissed you off, didn't she?'

The only thing he could think to say was, 'Live by the dildo, die by the dildo.'

Unique's eyes widened in shock. 'Did you rape her?'