Hurts So Good by Alison Tyler

Author:Alison Tyler
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
Publisher: Cleis Press
Published: 2011-10-19T04:00:00+00:00

TURNAROUND

A. D. R. Forte

I tell Mrs. Bryce-Graham, known to her friends as just Anna, thank you. She shushes me, tells me she’s glad to help, and hangs up. I put a check next to her name on the donation list and smile gratefully at the promised amount.

I’ve known Anna for more than ten years now, but I’m still a little in awe of her. Her very important job, her very extensive knowledge of recipes for anything and everything, her very elegant clothes that go so well with her very stylish haircut. Her unfailing, unpretentious generosity. If princesses existed in the modern world and held poli-sci degrees and raised model children, that would be Anna.

Not like me sitting around in my sweats, grateful my kids are at their grandmother’s for a week so I can get caught up on the piles of tests I have yet to grade, on the overdue deadlines to the magazine I supposedly freelance for, on the Humane Society fundraising I promised to do, and maybe, just maybe, even clean this mess of a house. I shuffle some books and a plate of toast crumbs aside and wince at the thought of Anna’s always spotless kitchen. Why is spring break only one week?

The phone rings and, without looking, I pick it up and click the talk button, still contemplating the woefully short donation list. I put the receiver to my ear and forget to say hello in the shock of hearing Anna’s voice. Except… is that Anna?

Yes. Muffled as if the phone is in her purse, background driving noise like before, but still recognizable. Except… except…

“…swear to you, Sir. I haven’t.” The words make no sense, not from my friend, the Ladies Home Journal poster child. I hear rustling and then a thump as if phone and purse and all have fallen or been dropped on the floor.

Sounding distant, a male voice replies, one that I recognize with another jolt of shock as David Bryce-Graham’s—only like I’ve never heard it before, deep and dangerous and tinged with lazy amusement.

“I don’t believe you, Anna.”

I hear a stifled sound. A feminine moan through clamped lips. Like me, when Clint and I are fucking and trying not to be loud. I know what I’m hearing, but I refuse to comprehend.

More rustling.

Then: “These give you away,” David says, laughter in his voice. And even more dangerously: “You have been thinking about her, darling. You want to fuck her, don’t you?”

My brain is so busy reeling from the idea of hearing David Bryce-Graham using the f-word like that to his wife, to Anna, that I almost miss her very soft, “Yes, Sir.”

“Hmm. That’s what I thought.” A pause. “You know, I think I’m going to have to pull over.”

“No, Sir!”

“Oh yes.” He laughs.

My conscience screams at me to hang up, hang up now. I shouldn’t be hearing this, I don’t want to be hearing this! My cheeks are burning, I want to crawl under the table and hide, and already I know I’m never going to be able to look either of them in the eye again.

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