The Serpent Club by Tom Coffey

Author:Tom Coffey
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pocket Books
Published: 1999-07-15T00:00:00+00:00

The salty air breezes into my face and makes me think of her. I picture us talking and then her taking off her clothes with the lights still on. We won’t wait for the bedroom, we can’t wait, we’ll make love on the floor or the couch or the table and everything will be all right.

Or I could just do what I want. No one will stop me. I know that now.

I ring the bell and feel an eye looking at me through a peephole. The door opens and she stands there in jeans and a tank top, her arms folded across her chest.

“Oh,” she says. “It’s you.”

“Can I come in?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

She steps away but leaves the door open. I tell her she should close it. You can never tell what might come in.

She says it already has.

“Are you mad at me?” I ask.

Her eyes widen and she’s seized by deep, convulsive, mocking laughter. I grab her shoulders and then take her chin in my left hand and force her to look at me.

“Stop it,” I say. “Stop it right now. You are not old enough, or smart enough, to treat me this way.”

My voice and my anger are rising. Perhaps I’ll just let them go.

“You just watch yourself,” she says.

She raises her right arm as if she’s about to slap me but I shove it down to her side. She tells me it hurts. She tells me to stop.

“I’ll stop if I feel like it,” I say.

“Do you know where I went today? Do you know why I called in sick?”

I don’t answer.

“I had an appointment. At a clinic. They took care of a problem I had.”

I put my hand behind her head and try to bring her toward me but she breaks free and backs up toward her room in a crouch. I’m reminded of the way the librarian left me up near Tahoe.

“There’s no way in hell I’d bring your baby into the world.”

I lunge for her but she sprints into the bedroom and closes and locks the door. I ram my shoulder against it and tell her to come out, to get out here right this minute goddammit and face whatever it is that I am going to do to her.

“You left without me,” she says. “You went up to Tahoe, you sonuvabitch, and you didn’t even tell me. I’ve been calling you for days and you never even bothered to call me back.”

“Get out here!”

“Where have you been? What are you doing at night?”

“Get out here and face me!”

“What are you doing? What do you want?”

I stop. Sweat pours down my face and chest and my breathing is hard and heavy and I’m sure my face is flushed. I back up, one foot behind the other as I move unsteadily across the room. Although I have to leave, I can’t pull my eyes from her door.

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