Spent, she makes her way to the bathroom on wobbly legs. She has a large bruise on her buttocks, but who will see it there? She doesn’t wash, not yet. He will probably want to go again, given how long it’s been since they’ve seen each other, how hard it is to find time since the election. She has let her secretary infer that she’s in therapy in D.C., which would require about three hours with travel time. She has confided something similar to Andi, although indicating she was seeing someone for ob-gyn issues of a vague-but-serious nature. Andi obligingly spread the gossip through the office, then blamed it on Della, who would never betray Lu that way. Thank God she never told Andi the real story, back when they were deputies together. Even then, before Lu had decided to own her real ambition, she understood that this must be a locked room inside her life, a place to which no one can ever be admitted. It scared her at first, the things she wanted to do with Bash, the things she let him do to her. But it thrills her more.
They do not consider what they do to have a name. Not quite an affair, yet more than sex, with a singular appetite for each other, although Lu assumes Bash sees other women. They are rough, but not particularly kinky, sexual soul mates who think it should be sweaty and athletic. Her other lovers, all five of them, were so damn careful with Lu, probably because of her size. Occasionally, she and Bash have sweet, tame sex, although that’s usually when one of them is a little under the weather. Last time, way back in November, a week before the general election, Bash had lain beneath her and said, “Fuck this cold right out of me, State’s Attorney Brant.” And she did.
She had not been drawn to Bash when he was part of her brother’s group. She’d had a crush on Noel, then Davey, never Bash. He was a bigger, brawnier version of her, which didn’t appeal at all. And she was a child, eight years his junior, precocious of mind, but not body, so he had certainly never noticed her. Their chance meeting in a Whole Foods six years ago had not seemed particularly portentous at the time, not to her. Bash says it was lust at first sight for him.
“Lu?” asked the man in the expensive cashmere coat, who a few minutes before had been staring morosely at the sausages and blocking her access to the good bacon.
She needed a beat to place him. “Bash. I’m sorry, you probably don’t go by that nickname anymore. AJ tells me you’re a lobbyist.”
“Is that what I am? Today I am a henpecked husband, trying to find sausages for my wife, who says they can’t have so much as a gram of sugar. But I can’t find a single sausage that meets her criterion.”
Lu flipped through the packages. They were in Baltimore’s Mount Washington neighborhood, only blocks from the home she shared with Gabe at the time, but certainly far afield for a Washington lobbyist. “What are you doing here?”
“Trying to buy sausages, obviously. And failing.”
“No, I mean in Mount Washington.”
“Oh, I have a client who lives in a huge spread not far from here. Claims the house belonged to Napoleon.”
“If you mean the house on Lake Avenue, it was Jérôme Bonaparte, and even his connection is tenuous at best. Isn’t it owned by some tech billionaire?”
“God, I hope he’s a billionaire or I have really wasted my afternoon. You’re married to one, too, right?”
“A billionaire? I don’t think so.”
“But a big tech guy. Gabriel-Schwartz?”
“Swartz. I still go by Brant.”
He snapped his fingers. “Right. He gets a lot of ink. You sure he’s not a billionaire?”
“Pretty sure.” She laughed, but it was to cover her embarrassment at her husband’s wealth. He was worth only $20 million. Only. “Look, here’s one that has less than one gram and it has pineapple, so that’s probably why it has any sugar at all. Will that do?”
“I don’t dare improvise. My wife gives very explicit instructions and expects them to be followed. I better call herr kommandant.”
“I think you mean frau,” Lu said icily.
She loathed men who portrayed their wives as nags and terrors. Eight months later, she was in bed with one. Although Lu and Bash don’t talk much-there is so much else to do-Bash’s wife often features in the conversations they do manage to have. Her special diets, her exacting workouts. She is Bash’s second wife, younger than Lu by at least five years. His first wife lives in Columbia with their two children, although in the western part, in the most desirable school district. That once provided cover for Bash to take the occasional room at the Columbia Inn, but it’s no longer possible for Lu to come and go there, convenient as it may be. It was risky enough when she was an assistant state’s attorney. So they use this corporate apartment he maintains in Bethesda, where he does absolutely no business, not that Lucinda-the non-Lu, the never-Lu, the not-you-Lu Bash calls her-has ever thought to wonder about this. Bash lives larger than Gabe ever dared, and Lu senses it’s more of a strain than he lets on. But that’s his problem. One of the great charms of Bash is that his problems are his. She’s not expected to solve them. She barely even listens to them.
Lu tells herself that she would never have started with Bash if he had children with Lucinda. She also tells herself that every time is the last time. And that their discretion means no one is harmed by what they do, the occasional bruise aside. She even congratulates herself on the concept of an affair as sensible time management for the busy widow with two children. Bash requires so much less attention than a husband or a boyfriend would. Three hours a month. Six, if she’s lucky.
“Come back here,” he calls. Demands. “I’m not finished.”
Ja, Herr Kommandant.
This time, it’s almost disappointingly normal at first, Bash on top of her, although his weight alone is enough to create a sensation of discomfort in this position. Then, toward the end, he grips her shoulders, hard.
“No marks,” she breathes. “Don’t leave marks that someone could see.”
He doesn’t listen, just continues to press on her shoulders. They don’t use safe words. Again, that would mean labeling what they do, when part of the thrill is not organizing it under any banner, belonging to a club with only two members. “Trust me,” he says, but his voice is guttural, harsh, not at all conducive to trust. But that’s the fun part, says the little piece of her mind that stands back.
Later, as they dress, he produces a distinctive orange box. There is an Hermès scarf inside, a pattern of leaves in muted browns and golds. Perfect for her, Lu thinks, and not at all flattering to Lucinda, who has Snow White coloring. So it can’t be a castoff. He really bought this for her.
“This will cover that one place where I gnawed on you a little,” he says sheepishly, his manner that of a little boy offering something to a girl he likes.
“So you planned-”
“I never plan anything beyond the time. But I wanted to give you something to commemorate your new job. Is that okay? And then I wanted to take you somewhere you’ve never gone. I did that, didn’t I? Didn’t I?”
She kisses him, and it’s only a matter of seconds before they begin clawing at each other. It has been three months, after all. But there have been longer gaps over the years they’ve been meeting each other, so that can’t be the sole reason. Something has changed. She is new again, her title excites him. Her clothes are off in seconds, except for the scarf, which he ties around her eyes. The headboard slaps rhythmically against the wall, the sound familiar. It reminds her of the tiny wavelets of Wilde Lake, lapping at the shoreline. “Don’t stop,” she murmurs. “Don’t stop.” A vague memory tugs, but the present is stronger than the past. She wants to stay here, in this room, as long as possible. This is the only place where she is allowed just to be-no kids, no employees, no pink message slips. It’s as if time stops in this room.