Winners by Eric B. Martin

Author:Eric B. Martin [Martin, Eric B.]
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 978-1-59692-877-0
Publisher: M P Publishing Limited
Published: 2003-12-31T16:00:00+00:00

11

LOU RETURNS FROM New York unhappy. Her meetings have not gone well. Despite the market and the optimism, the bankers want to delay their IPO. Bankers are morons, Lou says, thriving on acronyms and incomplete sentences. She swears to Shane she’s sick of this shit even if she knows it’s all she does or talks about. She mentions a novel by Balzac.

“I missed you,” he says.

“You did?”

“Yep. Nothing good seems to happen when you’re not around.” He kisses the soft skin at the hinge of her jaw. He slides his hand across her stomach and slips it slowly down her pants.

“Well.”

They take the afternoon off and have sex on the floor of the living room, rolling around inside the red oval on their imitation Persian rug. They work hard to get her there. She does not come easily, but this time he feels her with him at the end. Afterwards they lounge on their bellies in a patch of sun, their pale butts seeming innocent in the blinding light. Lou looks happy, her eyes closed, lying there in silence while he rubs her legs.

“I needed that,” she says, finally. “Scary how much I needed that.” He closes his eyes, not wanting to speak, enjoying the physical calm. She drapes her body over his. “Can I just stay here for a while,” she says.

“Yes.”

She lingers for a few minutes. For a moment he thinks she’s fallen asleep. Then her body stiffens and she sits up. “I can’t. I gotta go.”

“Where? No,” he says, “I’m getting the handcuffs. I’m putting you under house arrest.” She makes her move and he grabs her with his legs, pins her firmly between scissored thighs. She struggles briefly.

“Okay.” She relaxes. “I’ll stay, but we have to do something.”

“Handcuffs isn’t something? How about ice skating?” A brand new rink has just opened downtown.

“Really?” She’s amused. They went skating together before, years ago at the Embarcadero, where Lou glided while Shane stumbled behind, providing comic relief.

“Not really. Or let’s go tonight.”

“What about now?”

“How ’bout a walk?”

“A walk?”

“A walk.”

They eat grape Popsicles and hike up the long serial-killer stairs near their house, climbing through a stand of eucalyptus to the very top of Diamond Heights. The warm weather is holding on miraculously into its second week. Shane asks Lou about the things she ate in Manhattan. She tells him about seeing some guys playing basketball in a chain-link cage. She checks her watch a few times, but she’s not wearing one. She shows him her purple tongue. On the bay in front of them, two enormous freighters arrive like floating cities, riding low in the water under the weight of treasures from Korea, Hong Kong, Japan.

“Where’s the first place you want to go?” she asks.

“I don’t know. Mexico?”

“Farther.”

“Brazil?”

“Not Brazil. I think rule number one is never let your husband see Brazil. How about Spain?”

“I haven’t thought much about Spain.”

“I’ve always wondered about it. Christians and Moors. Picasso, Gaudi, Goya, Cervantes—just seems like something wonderful and strange goes on there, you know? Maybe we could buy a place on the coast and live there.

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