"That's what it will end up being. Something crazy you once did so you could learn better."
"Don't tell me I'm young."
"Neither of us would be here if you weren't young. We would hold far less fascination for each other."
Standing behind, I turn her to me and run my hands the full length of her torso. Physically, she is glorious, a power Anna enjoys and works hard to hold on to-manicures and pedicures, hair appointments, facials, 'routine maintenance,' as she calls it. Her breasts are perfect, large, beautifully belled, with a broad, dark aureole and long nipples.
And I am fascinated by her female parts, where her youth somehow seems centered. She's waxed there, 'a full Brazilian,' is her term. It's a first for me, and the smooth feel provokes my lust like a lightning bolt. I worship, drink, and take my time as she alternately moans and whispers directions.
In this state of amazement, life goes on. I do my job, write opinions, issue orders, meet with bar association groups and committees, settle the ongoing bureaucratic combat within the court, but Anna, in various sultry poses, is always warring for my attention. Koll's change of parties, which he made within a week of my birthday, has sucked the urgency out of my campaign for the moment, although Raymond continues to schedule fund-raising events.
Anna and I talk several times a day. I call only from work, wary of the detailed cell bills that are mailed to my house. Alone in my chambers, I will phone Anna's private line at the firm, or she will dial my inside number. They are hushed conversations, always too quick, an odd mix of banalities and proclamations of desire: "Guerner put me on this bitch of a document case. I'll have to work all weekend." "I miss you." "I need you."
One day on the phone, Anna asks me, "What happened with Harnason?" Anna's last official act as law clerk was to draft my dissent, and she is concerned about the case, as well as many others she worked on. I have largely forgotten about Harnason, like so much else in my life, but I summon Kumari once I put down the receiver. Responding to my dissent, George gallantly exercised the right of every judge of my court, circulating Marvina's feisty opinion and my draft to all chambers, asking if the case seemed appropriate for en banc review, in which all eighteen judges would decide the case. Several of my colleagues, reticent about offending the chief, have chosen the diplomatic alternative of not responding at all. I set a deadline of a week and end up thumped roundly, 13 to 5-counting Marvina, George, and me-in favor of affirming the conviction. This all but guarantees that the supreme court will also refuse to hear the case, on the theory that eighteen judges can't be wrong. Relishing victory, Marvina asks to rework the opinion one more time, but in no more than a month John Harnason will be returning to the penitentiary.
My mind is on Barbara almost as often as Anna. At home, I am entirely beyond suspicion. The nights before Anna and I are to meet next, I scrutinize my naked bulk in the full light of the bathroom. I am old, lumpy, bulging. I trim my pubic hair with a nose hair clipper, eliminating the long, unruly wires of gray. I should worry that Barbara might notice, but the truth is that she does not remark on my trips to the barber or serious razor burns. After thirty-six years, she is attached to my presence much more than my form.
When I had been with Carolyn, decades before, I was impossibly distracted. But Anna has made me more appreciative and patient with Barbara. Escaping to pleasure has emptied that bitter storehouse of resentments I keep. Which is not to say it is easy to carry on with the deception. It undermines every moment at home. Taking out the trash, or having sex, which I cannot entirely avoid, seems to be enacted by a second self. The falseness is not simply about where I was or the highlights of my day. The lie is about who, in my heart of hearts, I really am.
My impossible desire to be loyal to two women takes me repeatedly to the highest pinnacles of absurdity. For example, I insist on repaying Anna in cash for the hotel rooms. She laughs it off-her salary is higher than mine, and with a raise of 400 percent over her clerkship, she feels as if she is under a waterfall of money-but an old-fashioned chivalry, if you can call it that, is offended to think I can sleep with a woman twenty-six years my junior and have her pay for the privilege.
But raising the money is more daunting than I had first considered. Barbara is paymaster in our house and, as a PhD in mathematics, takes numbers as the principal relationship in life; she could tell you without so much as blinking the exact amount of last June's electric bill. While I can pass off a couple extra trips to the ATM as losses at the judges' poker game, raising several hundred dollars extra every week seems impossible, until almost by divine intervention a cost of living adjustment for all the judges in the state, long held up by litigation, suddenly comes through. I stop the direct deposit of my pay on April 17 and instead bring my check to the bank, where I deposit the same amount that used to appear electronically, while taking back the COLA in cash. That includes the two-and-a-half-year backlog, nearly four thousand dollars, that comes with the first check.
"I'm glad this is a secret," I tell Anna as we lie in bed one early afternoon. We meet now two or three times a week, at lunch or after work, when I can claim I am at a campaign event. "Because that way you won't hear from millions of people telling you you're crazy."
"Why am I crazy? Because of the age thing?"
"No," I say, "that's only normally crazy. Or abnormally. I'm referring to the fact that the last woman I had an affair with ended up dead."
I've caught her attention. The green eyes are still, and the cigarette has stopped midway to her lips.
"Should I be afraid you'll kill me?"
"Some people would point out the historical pattern." She still hasn't moved. "I didn't do it," I tell her. She probably has no clue, but this is the greatest intimacy I've allowed her. For more than two decades, as a matter of principle, I have never bothered with any reassurance even to the closest friends. If they harbor suspicions, despite knowing me well, those will never be allayed by my denials.
"You know," she says, "I remember a lot about that case. That was the first time I thought about becoming a lawyer. I read about the trial every day in the paper."
"And how old were you? Ten?"
"Thirteen."
"Thirteen," I say, heavy-hearted. I am beginning to realize I will never get used to my monumental stupidity. "So you have me to blame for the fact that you became a lawyer, too? Now people will really say I corrupted you."
She whacks me with the pillow. "So who do you think did it?" she asks.
I shake my head.
"You don't know?" she asks. "Or you won't answer? I have a theory. Do you want to hear it?"
"We're done with this subject."
"Even though you just told me I'm in mortal danger?"
"Let's get dressed," I say, making no effort to hide the fact I'm annoyed.
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to push buttons."
"I don't talk about it. Veterans don't talk about wars. They just get over them. It's the same thing. Not that you haven't made me wonder."
"Who did it?"
"Why you're here. Given my dangerous history."
She has put on her undergarments but now removes her bra with the flourish of a stripper, hurling it toward the walls.
"Love," she says, falling into my arms, "makes you do crazy things." We are both late, but this attitude of abandon parches me yet again with longing, and we fit together once more.
Afterward she says, "I don't believe it. I just don't."
"Thank you," I say quietly. "I'm glad it didn't stop you."
She shrugs. "Maybe the other way."
I peer curiously.
"I mean, you're still kind of a legend," she says. "Not just for lawyers. Why do you think nobody sane wants to run against you for the supreme court?"