Magic Hour by Susan Isaacs (i want to read a book TXT) 📗

What a relief. Of course, she had the self-confidence of the young and the lovely: she knew she didn’t have to keep up a monologue to hold a guy’s attention. And she was quiet, also, because somewhere—maybe at Manhattanville College—she’d learned that nice young ladies do not shriek “Fuck me harder!” when in the arms of gentlemen.

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But that night, her quiet had some measure of the silent treatment. She was angry at me for ringing her doorbell at eleven-fifteen, saying, “Oh, shit, I’m sorry,” when I saw she’d given up hope of seeing me that night and had gotten undressed. Plus she was pissed at herself for letting me go to her closet, grab her raincoat, put it over her nightgown and lead her out her door with a tired line like “Please, I just want to be with you tonight.” She hadn’t said a word in the car.

But she wasn’t only getting back at me by being uncom-municative. As I unbelted her raincoat and eased it off, she reached over and turned out the bedroom light. She was denying me the pleasure of seeing her.

“You’re really mad,” I said. I took my gun off my belt and laid it down on my chest of drawers gently, so she wouldn’t be further put off by its offensive clunk. “Why don’t you say it?”

“All right. I’m angry.”

“Tell me why.”

“Because you just assume I’m always available to you, any hour, day or night. I understand that you work crazy hours.

But you don’t seem to understand that I have to make a life—a structure—for myself. No. You want sex, you want to talk, so you expect me to drop whatever I’m doing. That’s not fair.”

“I’m sorry.” I came up beside her and slid my hands under the feathery cotton of her nightgown, easing it up and off. I pulled her to me. She was softening, but she wasn’t yet at the point of offering assistance. I held her with one hand and took off my clothes with the other. “I love you.” I waited.

There was no “I love you too” response.

Okay, a romantic, sweep-her-off-her-feet gesture was called for. I was so goddamn tired. But I lifted her up, carried her to the bed and laid her down. A

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little risky in the dark, what with guys my age slipping disks, developing hernias. But Lynne was light, I was desperate and, hey, it worked. She didn’t say “All is forgiven.” She didn’t say anything. But she reached up from the bed, felt for me and pulled me down beside her.

So in the blackness we started making love. Lynne’s silent treatment wasn’t so bad, I thought. Better, in a way, than her usual quiet, where she might say a couple of words; it enhanced the pleasure. I could concentrate on everything—the sound of her body against the sheet as she started to squirm, her breathing as it grew deeper.

This had potential; it might be more than a routine roll.

But just as I was about to call out, “Lynne,” I lost all sense of her.

I was no longer making love with my fiancée. I was screwing the way I used to: It didn’t matter at all who it was beside me, on top of me, beneath me, just so long as it had all the stock parts. I just wanted to get it in and over with.

And then…

Big surprise. Well, it was to me.

The faceless female disappeared. Bonnie Spencer was in bed with me. She was wild. The soft, stroking hands may have been Lynne’s, but the Bonnie in my mind had her legs wrapped tight around me and was clawing at my back. Then she groaned with pleasure, letting out the same animal sounds I was making. Louder. Her dark hair was spread out all over the pillow; the flower scent was intoxicating. As I entered Bonnie, she let out a sob. Oh, God, I thought, this is the best. I called out, “I love you. Oh, God, how I love you!” and I heard Bonnie cry out, “Help me!” as she started to come, and then, “I love you so much.”

It was perfect.

It was over.

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Lynne finally spoke. “That was nice.”

“Yeah, it was.”

“Wake me at six. Okay? I want to get home early. I have a ton of reading I have to do.”

“Okay,” I said. Then I closed my eyes against the darkness.

I spent Sunday going over the lab and autopsy reports and doing my paperwork. Then, first thing Monday morning, I pushed open the heavy glass-and-brass door at five after nine and strolled right over to Rochelle Schnell, first vice president of South Fork Bank and Trust, Bridgehampton branch.

“I respect your mind,” I told her, and sat on the edge of her desk.

“You gave me that line about twenty-five years ago.”

“Did it work?”

“No. Of course not. But I liked it that you tried.”

Rochelle was forty years old. I knew that because we’d started Sagaponack Elementary School together, in kinder-garten, and since we’d been born two days apart, we’d had to share our class birthday party. (Her mother, Mrs. Maziejka, was supposed to bring the cupcakes and mine the Kool-Aid, but since my mother worked, Mrs. Maziejka had always brought both. She’d never bitched about it; in fact, she even wrote “Rochelle!” in pink icing on half the cupcakes and

“Steve!” on the other half in blue.) Rochelle sat behind her immense wood desk in a dark-gray dress-for-success suit. But then—as she strode over to kiss me and say “I haven’t seen you around in months. You look fantastic!”—I noticed her skirt was one of those stretchy, midthigh things that look like an overgrown support band-age.

“Yeah? Well, so do you, Ro-chelle, except you’ve got a real problem. No one is going to hand out their MAGIC HOUR / 149

life savings to a banker whose skirt’s so tight you can practically see her pudenda.”

“Don’t bet on it. Now, what can I do for you? Or did