Seven Women: An Erotic Private Investigation by Michael Hemmingson

Author:Michael Hemmingson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2008-11-11T21:00:00+00:00

Chapter 12…

“I am getting a little drunk,” Amelia adds, “but not too drunk.”

Tasha sees Slater, too. I don’t need to look at her to know this, I feel it from her body, a wave. I know her well enough to pick up on these things; I know her body, something I possessed, or wanted to possess, as much as I wanted to possess Veronica. Slater is at the far end of the bar, talking to a man in a three-piece Perry Ellis suit. Slater’s suit is a bit rumpled, his tie loosened, his silver hair neatly slicked back. I believe he’s in his mid-fifties, I don’t remember. I don’t think Tasha ever told me. They’d been lovers once, but from what I know, he’s been lovers with many young women in the publishing industry. I’d met him before at publishing parties I had gone to with Tasha, but I didn’t know they’d had sex until much later, when she had sex with him while we were married. It happened right after our night with Veronica. She said she didn’t know how it happened, it just did, probably much like the encounter Amelia had with David. An act without prologue.

The waitress comes to our table just as Slater and the man he’s with leave the bar. He doesn’t notice that Tasha is here, or the other women, and doesn’t see me, either. I’m glad. When I turn back and look at my ex-wife, I see she’s relieved too, judging from the change in her expression, ever so slight, on her face, but—I know her. There is a quick exchange between us. It’s in our eyes, we both recognize it: the secret history of something else.

It’s probably not something Tasha has disclosed to her friends, despite their apparent candor with one another. In fact, my ex-wife has been rather quiet all this time; I don’t know if this is usual for her, or if it’s my presence. She has always been a reserved person. She was that way when we first met. She can have her wild moments of grandiloquence and anger; I have seen her lose control on several occasions. Tasha is a woman who takes pride in control, in a world that runs logically; and when that falls apart, so does she. This is one of the reasons why we are no longer together.

The waitress comes by. Only some of us order more drinks. Amelia does, and so do I, and so does Sheila. Holly, Cara, Lisa, and Tasha aren’t ready for more. Some people drink, and some people don’t.

I’m getting drunk, too. I want to, especially after seeing Slater.

“Married men mean no obligations,” Sheila says. “It’s pretty cut and dried—it’s all about fucking. There’s nothing more to it. There isn’t a future to think of.”

“Not all the time,” Lisa says.

“But most of the time,” Sheila says. “Although I’ve told myself: ‘No more married men, it’s just not right.’ That isn’t a moral statement; I don’t feel any particular obligation to the wife, you understand.

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