That was half an hour ago.
Now it’s the woman talking.
“So tell me,” Jennifer says, “is Atlanta a nice place to live?”
Meaning, “So tell me about this goddamn wife of yours in Atlanta.”
“It’s okay, I guess,” he says.
“Did you ever live anyplace else?”
He almost tells her he spent a year and four months in Reidsville, Georgia, at the correctional facility there.
Instead, he says, “Born and raised there.”
“Your wife, too?”
Here it comes, he thinks.
“No, she’s originally from Peekskill. That’s upstate New York.”
“So how’d she end up in Atlanta?”
Meaning “So how did you meet this fucking wife of yours?”
“She was going to college in Athens. University of Georgia. That’s about sixty miles northeast of Atlanta.”
“So what’d you do? Meet at a prom or something?”
“No, my sister was going to school there, too.”
“Ah.”
“Yeah.”
She nods. She is sitting beside him on the bed, cross-legged, still naked. Her lips are only a trifle pursed. She is thinking this over. About to get pissed off that she went to bed with a married man. And enjoyed it. All of this is beginning to eat at her.
“You are so beautiful,” he says.
Rescue operation.
“Mmm,” she says, and nods again, and pulls a little face.
He is about to get kicked out of here in the middle of the night unless he says something very smart very soon. He knows she won’t believe him if he tells her he doesn’t love his wife, which isn’t true, anyway, or at least he doesn’t think it’s true. He has been to bed with a lot of different women since he met Carol, but never once has he ever stopped loving her, he supposes, although he has to admit that never once has he ever felt like this in bed with another woman. Just lying here beside Jennifer, he is beginning to get hard again. And this is without touching her again or anything, this is just remembering what happened half an hour ago, thirty-five minutes ago. He wonders if he should call her attention to the fact that he is getting hard again, give a wink in the direction of old Willie there, who has a mind of his own, and who certainly isn’t thinking about Carol in a motel someplace on I-495.
“Let me tell you something,” he says.
“Sure, tell me something,” she says.
Meaning, “But make it fast because you’re going to be out of here in ten minutes flat.”
“The minute I saw you…”
She is already rolling her eyes in disbelief.
“…I knew you were going to mean more to me than any woman I’d ever met in my life.”
Meaning what? he wonders.
She seems to be wondering the same thing. A moment ago she was turned slightly away from him, sitting there like a doubting Indian maiden with a black bush but incongruous blue eyes and blonde hair, legs crossed at the ankles, head erect and staring straight ahead, hands palm up in her lap, but now she turns her head to him and looks him directly in the eyes, wanting to know — though not asking — what he means by what he just said. Is this some bullshit line he gives to small-town girls all over the south and southwest? What exactly does he mean when he says she will mean more to him than any other woman he’s ever met, or words to that effect?
“That’s why I called you,” he says. “I couldn’t let you just walk out of my life,” he says. “I had to see you again, Jennifer. And as it turns out, I was right, wasn’t I?” he asks rhetorically. “I have never in my life felt this way with another woman.”
Meaning exactly what? her eyes are still asking.
“I mean about someone,” he says. “I’ve never felt this way about another woman,” he says. “The way I feel about you,” he says.
“And how exactly is it that you feel?” she asks.
She almost sounds prim. Almost sounds like a schoolteacher. He wonders if she’s a schoolteacher. He realizes that he knows hardly anything at all about her, and here he is telling her he’s never felt this way about another woman, whereas even he himself doesn’t know what the hell that means. But she’s waiting for an answer.
He is tempted merely to nod at old Willie down there, who is now standing erect after merely hearing Rafe’s feeble attempt at describing how he feels, present the evidence of a rock-hard cock to the court not forty minutes after he and Jennifer fucked for the second time, I mean what does that have to say about how a man feels about a woman, huh, Jennifer?
“Does anyone call you Jenny?” he asks, and places the tip of his forefinger on one rounded knee.
“No,” she says, and brushes his hand aside.
“Jenny,” he says, “I feel as if—”
“Don’t call me Jenny,” she says. “My name is Jennifer.”
“I’m sorry, Jennifer,” he says.
“Yes,” she says, and nods.
“What do you want me to say?” he asks.
“You’re the one doing the talking.”
“I’m married,” he says, “I’m sorry about that. I didn’t expect to meet you, I didn’t expect to fall in love with you, I’m sorry all to hell, but these things—”
“You what?” she says.
He blinks at her. What was it he just said?
She seems to notice his cock. At last. She glances at it slyly, but does not reach to touch it.
“Say it again,” she says.
“I’ve never felt this way before in my life,” he says.
“That’s not what you said.”
“What did I say?”
“You said you didn’t expect to fall in love with me.”
“That’s true, I didn’t.”
“Say it again.”
“I didn’t expect to fall in love with you.”
“Are you in love with me?”
“I think I’m in love with you, yes.”
“Think?” she says, and seizes his cock.
“I’m in love with you, yes,” he says.
“Say it.”
“I love you.”
“Say ‘I love you, Jennifer.’”
“I love you, Jennifer.”
“Say it again.”
“I love you, Jennifer.”
“Again.”
“I love you, Jennifer. I—”
“What about your wife?”
“Fuck her,” he says.
“Fuck me instead,” she says, and rolls onto him.
Afterward, he begins to learn a little bit about her. She’s been divorced for a year and a half, she tells him, used to be married to a lawyer who still practices in Sarasota. Was married for three years before she discovered he was playing around with this redhead in his office, another lawyer, who wore minis shorter than Ally McBeal ever did.
“Which is one of the reasons I didn’t want to start up with you,” she says.
“Because I’m a redhead?” he asks, which he isn’t. “Or because I wear minis?”
“Because you’re a married man who plays around,” she says.
“All married men play around.”
“You’d better not ever cheat on me,” she says.