Mortal Fear

“She was a fantasy lover,” Lenz says softly.

“No. She was real.”

“I meant in the sense that the erotic activity was directed toward your satisfaction rather than hers.”

I consider this for a few moments. “I don’t think that’s true. She got her share of surprises as well.”

The car seat groans slightly as Lenz repositions himself. “What do you mean?”

“Sometimes-at the moment of orgasm-she passed out. I mean out. We weren’t drinking at all, but she would literally lose consciousness. It only happened three times, but the first time I was actually dialing nine-one-one when she woke up.”

Lenz chuckles softly. “Your reaction isn’t unique.”

“It happened to you?”

“Alas, no. I’ve never seen it personally. Le petite mort.”

“Does that mean ‘little death’?”

“Thelittle death. Yes. It’s a phrase from French poetry.”

“That’s what Erin said. She told me it had never happened to her before, but I didn’t believe her. I mean, how would she have known about it otherwise? She’s not the type to read French poetry.”

Lenz makes a noncommittal sound. “In her circle she might have heard it described. Did you enjoy le petite mort after that first time?”

“I’m not sure. But I saw how right the expression was. At the moment of greatest intensity, when her chest was mottled red and her face flushed, she just snapped right out of the world. The last time, when she came out of it, she told me that she’d felt pure peace, one of the only times she’d felt it in her life. As if she had just been spit out of the womb, whole and new. And-”

“Yes?”

“She said she thought being dead might not be a bad thing. She was serious. Later she even talked about her funeral, how she wanted it to be. There was this song of mine she’d heard on a tape I made for Drewe. She’d dubbed a copy for herself. It’s called ‘All I Want Is Everything.’ She said it was about her and that she wanted me to play it at her funeral.”

“What did you say?”

“I said sure and changed the subject.”

Lenz purses his lips and cuts across two lanes of traffic. The lights of suburbia are almost continuous now, so we must be getting somewhere.

“How long did this erotic interlude last?” he asks.

“Drewe called on the fourth night.”

“Ah.”

“Erin was lying beside me in the bed. In the time it took Drewe to explain that she was calling from the hospital and that a patient she was close to had just died, Erin became her sister again. Not some ethereal being- Drewe’s little sister.

“She’d risen up and was mouthing Is that Drewe? while Drewe said something about a pulmonary embolism. I don’t remember what I said to get off the phone, but I knew I had failed Drewe in a time of emotional crisis. What I do remember clearly is what Erin said the moment I hung up.”

“What?” Lenz asks.

“‘How are we going to tell her?’ I wasn’t sure I’d heard right, so I asked what she meant. She leaned back against the headboard, exposing those perfect breasts, but for once I wasn’t looking at her body. She said, ‘How are we going to tell Drewe about us?’

“I was in shock. I climbed out of bed and said something like, ‘Jesus, where did this come from?’ ‘Where?’ she asked me. ‘What have we been doing the last four days? Shaking hands?’

“Before I could answer, she said, ‘Fucking?’ Then she jerked up the covers and let me have it. ‘I thought you were different. I thought you understood some things. About women. About me. What do you think I came out to the frozen wastes of Chicago for? Sport sex? I can get all of that I want anywhere on the planet, thank you very much.’ And so on.

“I was more stunned by the pain in her voice than by her venom. I thought she’d come out because she was at a place in her life where she needed a friend. After hearing how dumb that sounded, I said, ‘What did you come out here for?’ She let the covers fall, stood up naked on my hardwood floor, and said, ‘To marry you, you asshole.’ ”

“How unfortunate,” says Lenz, as if commenting on some distant village destroyed by a typhoon. With a smooth motion he exits from the interstate and turns into a broad avenue. “So, you had an affair with your wife’s sister while you were engaged.”

“We weren’t engaged. Not technically.”

“You’re splitting hairs. You had committed yourself to Drewe.”

“Yes.”

“But she never learned of the affair?”

“No.”

Lenz shrugs. “I’m missing something. This betrayal weighs heavily upon you? On a daily basis?”

“Oh, you’re definitely missing something. That night, Erin left Chicago. Two months later I heard she had married a guy named Patrick Graham. He’s an oncologist now, but he went to high school with the rest of us. Everybody knew Patrick had been in love with Erin since we were kids. And by a seeming miracle, his dream girl had suddenly decided she loved him. Erin lost no time getting pregnant and plunging into a domesticity that would shame Martha Stewart. A few months later, I left Chicago and married Drewe. We weren’t sure where we wanted to settle, so we moved into my parents’ farmhouse in Rain. They were dead by then.”

“Quite a detail to omit.”

“Nothing Oedipal about it. Anyway, Drewe and I still live in Rain, while Erin and Patrick and Holly, their daughter, live in Jackson. That’s the state capital, seventy miles away. We see them a good bit, usually at Drewe and Erin’s folks’ place in Yazoo City.”

“Did you resume your affair with Erin?”

“God, no. I felt queasy from guilt whenever she was around. She seemed stable, but I knew she was capable of anything under stress. I thought she might even blurt out the truth one day in an argument with Drewe or Patrick, just for spite.”

“Did she?”

“No. But if I’d known the real truth, I wouldn’t have been afraid of that. You see, her child-Holly-is my daughter.”

For once Lenz has no comment. He rubs his chin for a few moments, takes a deep drag on his cigarette, and blows out the smoke. “That is a serious problem.”

“Try catastrophic.”

“How long have you known this?”

“Three months.”

“Does Patrick know the child is yours?”

“No.”

“Does he know the child is not his?”

“Yes. Erin told him she was pregnant before she agreed to marry him. But she made him promise never to ask who the father was. Patrick was so blinded by love that he agreed.”

Lenz makes another turn, this time onto a wooded two-lane road. “But as time passed, the question began to prey upon his mind.”

“That’s my guess. Who knows what their problems are? With Erin it could be anything.”

“And for the last three months, you’ve lived in terror that their imploding marriage will spit your dark secret up into the light.”

“You got it.”

He shakes his head. “I’m surprised you haven’t developed hives.”

“I’m having some pretty bad headaches. Drewe wants a baby, and she doesn’t understand why I don’t.”

“You don’t want a child by your wife?”

“Of course I do. But… I feel like taking that step while this other situation is unresolved would be the worst