The Kit Tolliver Stories

Unfinished Business

“The Sumatra Blue Batak Tarbarita Peaberry,” the man said. “Could you describe that for me?”

It’s coffee, she thought. From Sumatra. What more do you need to know?

“Well, it’s a sort of medium roast,” she said. “And it has a good deal of body. I would say that it’s assertive without being overbearing.”

He nodded encouragement. He had a high forehead and an academic presence, the latter reinforced by his clothing — an olive-brown corduroy jacket with leather elbow patches, owlish glasses with heavy tortoiseshell frames, clean jeans, chukka boots. A strip of lighter skin on the appropriate finger showed he’d once worn a wedding ring. But the lighter skin was starting to blend in, so he’d stopped wearing it a while ago.

“As for the taste,” she went on, “that’s always hard for me to describe.”

“It’s so subjective. And yet I’ve a feeling you’ll get it right.”

Getting ready to hit on her. Well, she’d seen that coming.

“Hmmm. Well, how can I put it? I’d say it’s autumnal.”

“Autumnal.”

“And... dare I say plangent?”

She caught a glimpse of Will, the shop’s co-owner, rolling his eyes.

“Brilliant,” her customer said. “Let me have a pound, then. Who am I to pass up a beverage that’s at once plangent and autumnal? And that’ll be whole bean, please. It’s the sheer aroma of freshly ground beans that gets my heart started in the morning, even before I get the coffee brewing.”

As she was ringing up the sale he asked her name, and she provided one. He said he’d remember it, and that his was Alden.

When the door closed behind the man, Will said, “Cordelia, eh? When did your name become Cordelia?”

Will was tall and thin; his lover and business partner, Billy, was short, with the muscularity of a relentless weightlifter. They’d both gone by Bill when they met, but found it confusing, so one became Will and the other Billy.

Will — and Billy, for that matter — knew her as Lindsay. And she might have given that name to Alden, but there was an instant when she couldn’t think of it. Not Lynne, not Linda, now what the hell was it? And the result was Cordelia.

“I don’t know,” she said. “For some reason I didn’t want to give him my name. And what came out was Cordelia.”

“Better than Regan or Goneril, I suppose. This way you’re the good daughter.”

She didn’t know what he was talking about, but she often didn’t. Better than gonorrhea? What was that supposed to mean?

“Anyway,” she said, “I figured it had a nice autumnal sound to it.”

“Oh, that it does. Not to mention plangent. Where the hell did you come up with that one, sweetie?”

She shrugged, but she knew exactly where she’d gotten it from. A few years ago, a very brief stint in a seafood restaurant in Rehoboth Beach, Delaware. A customer had never had orange roughy before, and asked what it was like. A firm, white-fleshed fish, she’d told him, which was something you could say about almost everything but salmon and squid. And as for the taste, well, dare I say plangent? The line, she remembered, had gone over well enough. If it worked for a fish she’d never eaten, why wouldn’t it do for a beverage she’d never tasted?

“Plangent. Do you even know the meaning of the word?”

“It’s hard to define.”

“Oh, really? Try plaintive. Think of a sort of lingering sadness.”

“So? He’ll be having a cup of coffee on the porch, with his feet up on the railing, and he’ll find himself thinking about the woman he used to be married to, and wondering why he married her in the first place, and why the marriage failed, and why all his relationships seem to fail. But he won’t be heartbroken, because he’s got tenure at Willamette, and everybody says he looks good in corduroy, and he grinds his own coffee beans every morning, so it’s a good life, even if it is a sad one.”

He stared at her. “You did all that on the spur of the moment,” he said, “just to cover the fact that you’d been caught using a word you couldn’t define. There’s a short story of Saki’s that you remind me of. ‘Romance at short notice was her specialty.’ That’s the last line, and doesn’t it just fit you to a tee? Aren’t you the plangent queen of romance at short notice? Now don’t go rolling your eyes, sweetie. That’s my trick. I’ll tell you this, Cordelia, or Lindsay, or whoever you are this afternoon. You’re the tiniest bit scary.”

“Don’t worry,” she told him. “You’re safe.”

She was in Salem, the capital of Oregon, working afternoons at the Bean Bag, and living in a rooming house near the Willamette University campus. When she left Provo she’d planned on heading back east, but the first bus available took her north to Salt Lake City, and from there she continued north and west to Boise, and she’d kept gradually drifting north and west, and here she was in Salem, and Google Maps had already informed her that she was less than two hundred fifty miles from Kirkland, Washington.

Not hard to see a pattern here.

When her shift ended she picked up a small pizza and a fruit-flavored iced tea on her way home. She ate in her room, took a shower, and wrapped up in a towel. She picked up her phone, then decided she wanted to be dressed for this conversation. She put on clean underwear, jeans, a loose-fitting top, and was on her way to the mirror when she told herself she was being ridiculous. She sat down in the room’s one chair and made the call.

“Kimmie, two calls in what, three days?”

“I guess. Listen, if you don’t feel like talking—”

“You’re kidding, right? There’s never been a time when I haven’t felt like talking to you.”

It was the same for her. But she wasn’t ready to say it.

There were things, though, that you had to say whether you were ready or not. If you waited until you were ready they would never get said.

She said, “Rita, there’s a conversation we need to have.”

“Should I put on a nightgown? And get my toys ready?”

“Not this time.”

“Kimmie, this sounds serious.”

“Sort of, yeah. See, there’s things you don’t know about me. I was never a graduate student, I didn’t have a thesis to write.”

“Well, duh.”

“You figured that much, huh?”

“Kimmie, every time I hear from you you’re some place else and you’ve got a new phone number. It’s pretty obvious you’ve got a whole life that I don’t know anything about.”

“And that doesn’t bother you?”

“It makes me wonder. And, you know, I can’t help having my own fantasies.”

“Oh?”

“Which I’m sure are miles from the truth.”

“For instance?”

“This is just crazy guessing, but—”

“Go ahead, Rita.”

“Well, what I decided is you’re sort of a spy. Like with some super-secret government agency? And you travel around on assignments, and when I don’t hear from you for a really long period of time, that’s because you’re out of the country.”

“Wow.”

“I told you it was crazy. And then I thought — now this is even crazier, and maybe I shouldn’t say it.”

“No, say it.”

“Well, I thought whatever it is that she does, you know, it’s for our government, so it’s okay. And next I thought, well, suppose it’s not our government. Suppose it’s some other government, suppose Kimmie’s on the other side. Though it’s sometimes hard to know what the different sides are, anyway.”

“I guess.”

“But what I realized was I don’t care. What side you’re on, I mean. I don’t care if you’re really an alien and you’re working for the Flying Saucer people. It doesn’t matter. You’re still my Kimmie, and I get tingly when I pick up the phone and it’s you, and I’d rather jill off to one of your stories than fuck Brad Pitt while I’m blowing George Clooney.”

“Although that does sound like fun.”

“Yeah, it sort of does, doesn’t it?”

“I don’t work for the government, Rita. Not ours or anybody else’s, either. I work in a pretentious coffee shop in Salem.”

“Where they burn the witches?”

“That was in Massachusetts, wasn’t it? Somewhere in New England, anyway. I’m in the one in Oregon, and all we burn is the French Roast coffee.”

“You’re in Oregon?”

“Uh-huh.”

“That’s not so far, is it?”

“It’d take a while on a bicycle,” she said. “Rita, it’s not far, not really, and anyway I wouldn’t have to take a bike. I know how to drive. But first there are things I have to tell you, and the only way this is going to work is if you just listen and don’t interrupt. And then when I’m through you can ask anything you want, or say anything you want. Or just tell me you don’t want to have anything to do with me, and hang up, and I’ll have to live with that.”

“My God, Kimmie.”

“So here goes.”

Long pause. “Kimmie?”

“Yeah, I’m here. I’m just having a little trouble getting started.”

It was very difficult to get started, and not much easier once she did. She couldn’t say anything without worrying about the way it would be received. But she forced herself to keep going, and there was a point where she stopped being concerned by Rita’s reaction.

She’d asked Rita not to interrupt, and she didn’t, not even with an occasional sharp intake of breath. She found herself entertaining the notion that Rita wasn’t listening at all, that she’d put down the phone and left the room, that her own carrier had dropped the call.

None of that mattered. She was speaking of things she had never confided to anyone, and it was as if all those words had been dammed up somewhere within her, and the effect of releasing them was surprisingly powerful.

All those years of being the good little soldier, and you couldn’t say they’d ended when she killed her parents. That just gave her another secret to keep.

She’d shared bits and pieces with some of the men she’d been with, just before or after she killed them. And she’d told a bit of her story to Angelica while she got the woman to tell her where the money was stashed, and while she slipped the Hermés scarf around her neck.

Maybe those brief confidences had been an attempt to break the dam, to let it all out and relieve the pressure. But this was vastly different, and somewhere along the way she slipped into an altered state, as if she were a trance medium channeling her own thoughts.

When she stopped, when the words ran out, she couldn’t have guessed how much time had passed. Nor would she have been able to say what incidents she’d recounted and what ones remained unreported. All she knew, really, was that she was done, that she’d said all she needed to say.

She was waiting for a response from Rita, but Rita was silent herself. She knew she was still on the line, though. Her breathing, while shallow, was audible.

When it was clear Rita wasn’t going to speak, she said, “That’s it. You can talk now. Or not, if you don’t want to.”

“I wasn’t sure you were done.”

“Oh, I’m done.”

“I never would have guessed any of that, Kimmie. Except—”

“What?”

“Well, you know. Thinking you were a secret agent. I wondered if you ever had to kill anybody.”

“And what did you decide?”

“That you probably had to, and that you were probably good at it.”

“Because I’m a heartless bitch.”

“Because you’re the strongest human being I’ve ever met in my life.”

“I guess you don’t get out much.”

“I mean it, Kimmie. Should I be calling you that? That can’t be the name you started out with.”

“I like it.”

“Really?”

“I like it when you say it.”

“What’s so funny?”

“Oh, I was just thinking. I like when you say Kimmie almost as much as you like it when I say cunt.”

“Kimmie, you’re awful!”

“I’ve killed more men than I can remember and saying a yummy word like cunt makes me awful?”

“It is a yummy word, isn’t it?”

“Delicious.”

“If you were here—”

“If I were there what?”

“If you were here, I’d grab you like a bowling ball with two fingers up your ass and my thumb up your cunt, and I’d suck on your clitty until your bones melt.”

“You didn’t just come up with that, Rita.”

“No, it’s one of a few hundred things I think about all the time. All. The. Time.”

“But now that you know what I am—”

“You’re my Kimmie, that’s all I need to know. I love you.”

“Oh God.”

“I do, I do. I love you and I’m in love with you. And I don’t have to be jealous of any of the guys you’ve been with because they’re all dead. Not that I was ever jealous anyway, because what do I care what you do with men? What has any of that got to do with us?”

“Nothing. I love you, too.”

“I know you do.”

“You want to know something awful about me? I love that you killed them. Kellen Kimball, I liked the idea that you were going to fuck him, that we’d have him in common.”

“You said it would be a threesome with an interval.”

“And I thought he was a pretty nice guy, even if he wouldn’t go down on me. Did he go down on you?”

“He didn’t want to.”

“But he did, didn’t he?”

“Well, see, he did want to, really. He wanted to do you, too, but he had this fidelity issue. Once I got him to see that he was my proxy bridegroom Sidney, not some lucky girl’s fiancé, well, he got into the spirit of things.”

“That is so great. And he’s dead, and you killed him.”

“Yeah.”

“I guess I’m crazy, because on the one hand I liked him a little, and at the same time I’m really glad you killed him. That’s weird, isn’t it?”

“I think so,” she said. “But I’m not sure I’m the best person to say what’s weird and what isn’t.”

And, a little later:

“I know you can drive, but I bet you don’t have a car. What I could do, I could drive down and pick you up.”

“I’ll take the train.”

“Are you sure? I swear I don’t mind driving.”

“Amtrak takes a little over five hours and costs all of sixty-five dollars. I’ll get to watch the scenery, and I won’t have to worry about keeping my hands off the driver.”

“You already checked this out.”

“Yes.”

“You were planning on coming.”

“Or leaving you alone forever, depending on what you wanted.”

“Well, you know what I want.”

“It sounds like we both want the same thing.”

“Oh, God.”

“Tomorrow,” she said. “There are a couple of things I have to do. Pack my stuff, tell my boss to find someone else to sell plangent coffee.”

“Plangent?”

“Long story. There’s a train at two in the afternoon, gets to Seattle at a quarter after seven.”

“I’ll be there.”

“I could take a cab.”

“Yeah, right. Or maybe my bike’s still there where you left it. You never know.”

“It still bothers me about the bike. Just abandoning it like that.”

“Well, get over it,” Rita said. “I’ll be there when your train gets in. And Kimmie? I love you.”

Her morning appointment took longer than she’d thought. She’d packed first and stopped en route at the Bean Bag to pick up her pay and tell Will she was leaving, then found her way to the salon. She’d found their ad in the local alternative newspaper, and the operator wore spike heels and a lot of leather; if she wasn’t a dominatrix, she needed a new agent.

She had one more stop to make after the Leather Girl finished with her, but it didn’t take long. When she left her suitcase was heavier, but not too heavy, and she wound up catching her train with ten minutes to spare. She grabbed a window seat, plopped her bag onto the aisle seat beside her, and hoped no one would make her move it. A lot of people got on in Portland, but they all walked past her bag and found seats somewhere else, and the seat beside hers remained empty all the way to Seattle.

For five hours her mind kept offering up objections, telling her that she was crazy, that she and Rita were partners in a folie a deux. There was a rock album with that name, and it meant a shared delusion, and wasn’t that what was going on? A few hours together months and months ago, a whole bunch of deliberately erotic telephone conversations, and only one in which she’d actually let this great love of her life get a glimmer of who she really was.

She remembered a joke she’d overheard in the Daiquiri Dock:

Q: What does a lesbian bring on a second date?

A: A U-Haul.

She laid a hand on the bag next to her. Not a U-Haul, but it held everything she owned in the world, so it amounted to pretty much the same thing.

Half an hour north of Portland she started wishing she’d put her bag in the overhead rack. Someone might be sitting next to her now, some jabbering biddy with pictures of her drooling grandchildren, some gormless college boy who’d ask her a million questions, then dart off to abuse himself in the restroom. One way or another she’d be stuck with a companion who’d bore her to tears — and wouldn’t that be better than having to listen to her own wretched mind?

No way it was going to work out. Like, what were the odds?

Slim and slimmer, she thought. There was a fair chance they wouldn’t even go to bed, because Rita could turn out to be far more adventurous over the phone than she was prepared to be in person. And even if they did, and even if it was great, then what?

In a day or a week or not much more than that, she’d be getting on another train. Or a bus, or an airplane, but whatever it was it’d have Kirkland, Washington, in the rear-view mirror, and that’s where it would stay for the rest of her life.

And then, of course, there’d be no more phone calls. For so long now she’d lived for those calls, coming alive during those moments on the phone in a way she never did the rest of the time. Not when she was fucking, not when she was killing, and certainly not when she was marking time.

Sitting on the edge of her bed in some ill-furnished room. Talking, listening.

God, she thought, remembering. Riverdale, talking on the phone while she rode off to orgasm on the still-rigid penis of the late Peter Fuhrmann. It was incredibly hot, and it damn well had to be or it would have been disgusting. Yet what she’d focused throughout on was not so much the dick inside her as the woman on the other end of the phone.

Along with the phone calls, she’d be giving up the fantasy. Because that had sustained her even before she and Rita had begun speculating about the possibility of sharing sexual moments face to face. The idea that the two of them could, well, be a couple, that they could actually love each other, that together they could create, well, a life.

Hey, we tried, sweetie. And we’ll stay in touch, okay? You know, on the phone. And who knows, maybe we’ll get together again in person sometime. You never know, do you?

Except sometimes you knew. It would either work or it wouldn’t, and if it didn’t then it didn’t matter what lies they told each other, because they would both know it was over.

And then what? Where would she go, and what would she do, and why should she even bother?

She glared at her suitcase. Say something, she told it. Are you just going to fucking sit there in silence?

“Let me give you a hand with that.”

It wasn’t the suitcase that broke the silence, but the tall young man across the aisle. She’d noticed him once or twice since he’d boarded in Portland, and had noticed him noticing her. Briefly, she’d allowed herself to speculate on what might have happened if she weren’t on her way to Rita, but the fantasy never got anyplace because her mind had quickly gone back to spinning its wheels, telling her everything that was sure to go wrong in Kirkland.

Now they were slowing as they entered the Seattle station, and he’d taken hold of her suitcase before she could tell him thanks but no thanks.

“I can manage it,” she said. “Really I can.”

He smiled, showing good teeth. “Of course you can,” he said, “but why should you? This way you can allow me to feel manly and useful, and save your strength for the hug you’re going to give your husband.”

Interesting. He knew she wasn’t married, could not have failed to note the absence of a ring on her finger.

Well, she could hold up her end of the conversation. “No husband,” she said.

“Your boyfriend, then.”

She smiled, shook her head.

Well, why not? Rita wouldn’t be there, she would have come to her senses, and there’d be nobody at all to meet her, and where was it written that she had to be alone with her disappointment? He was a good-looking fellow, clean cut and well turned out, and he’d take her out for a decent dinner, and that was a good idea all by itself, because all she’d had to eat all day was the croissant with her morning coffee.

And then she could fuck him, and once she’d done that she could figure out a way to kill him, and then she’d have no choice but to get out of Seattle in a hurry. And she’d give it a few days and then call Rita from Omaha or Dayton or Lynchburg, and—

“Kimmie!”

And there was Rita.

Jesus, how had she forgotten how beautiful the woman was? Just stunning, and positively glowing, and with the most wonderful light shining in her eyes.

She took a step toward her, and before she knew it she was running. And then they were in each other’s arms.

Had she ever kissed anyone like this? Putting every atom of her being into the kiss, drawing all she could of the other person back into herself? Had she? Ever?

“Kimmie, I think that’s your suitcase.”

“How did it—”

“Unless it’s a bomb, but that guy didn’t look like your typical terrorist. He was actually kind of cute.”

“Kind of.”

“I guess at first he thought we were sisters, or best friends, you know? And then when we really got into it he got the message, and his expression changed. I guess he was disappointed.”

“I guess. Where’d he go?”

“He put the suitcase down,” Rita said, “and then I guess he went away, but by that time I was too busy kissing you to pay attention. I never kissed a woman like that.”

“I never kissed anybody like that.”

“No, neither did I. I always liked kissing guys, but it’s a completely different thing, isn’t it? God, you’re beautiful.”

“This is nothing. Wait ’til you see me naked.”

“Kimmie!”

“How did you find a parking spot so close?”

“The city reserved it for me,” Rita said, “by putting a fire hydrant there. I figured I’d get a ticket, and I figured I didn’t care, but I guess the meter maid was busy giving somebody a blowjob. Kimmie, I never talked like this before I met you.”

“I’m a terrible influence.”

“You are. I loved the way our tits pressed together when we kissed.”

“You may be disappointed, Ree. Mine are on the small side.”

“Ree.”

“Is it okay to call you that? Or do you hate it?”

“No, I like it. And speaking of tits—”

“That’s right. We were speaking of tits.”

“Mine are these big pillow tits. Maybe you won’t like them.”

“Yeah, I’m disgusted just thinking about them.”

“Really?”

“They’re much too large. Maybe I can whittle away at them with my tongue.”

“We’re gonna have fun, aren’t we, Kimmie?”

“Oh, yes.”

“I’ll do anything you want. You know that, don’t you?”

“Same for me.”

“God, this traffic! But there’s something nice about having to wait, you know?”

“I was thinking the same thing.”

“You know what I did? I cooked dinner, isn’t that nuts? It’s a casserole, it’s in the oven keeping warm.”

“I figured you would. I brought the wine.”

“Really? Is it that kind I can’t pronounce?”

“Nuits-Saint-Georges. No, but it’s like that. Another hearty red burgundy, according to the wine store guy in Salem, and I decided to take his word for it. This one’s a Pommard.”

“Poh-mahr.”

“Right.”

“I don’t know, Kimmie. I’m not sure how comfortable I feel with a wine I can actually pronounce.”

“There’s a D on the end, but it’s silent.”

“Well, that’s something. I feel better already.”

A cloth and candles on the table. Good food, good wine. As hungry as she was, all she wanted was to be in bed with Ree. But it was nice to postpone it for a little while. The anticipation was as savory as the meal, as tantalizing as the wine.

Dare I say plangent?

“Kimmie? You want to know a secret? I’m wearing the butt plug.”

“Really?”

“I’ve been wearing it all day. Sometimes I’ll do that. I like how it feels. The fullness, you know? And the idea that nobody knows. Of course there are times when I have to take it out.”

“No kidding.”

“And you gave it to me. That adds to it.”

“I brought you another present.”

“You did?”

“Well, sort of. I picked it up this morning, before I went to the wine store.”

“A sex toy?”

“No, I don’t even know if they sell sex toys in Salem. Well, they must, but I didn’t really go looking for them. And this isn’t a thing. It’s more of a surprise. But it’s for you. Ree, you look completely lost.”

“Well, what do you expect? You’re talking in riddles. Am I supposed to guess? Give me a hint.”

“I went to Brazil for it.”

“You went to Brazil?”

“In a manner of speaking. I got a Brazilian.” She got to her feet. “Come on,” she said. “I’ll show you.”

Lying on her back, with Ree’s head on her shoulder. The bedroom in shadows, with a table lamp in the hallway the only source of light. Ree’s taste in her mouth, Ree’s scent and her own scent permeating the room.

This was how it was supposed to be.

“Yes, Kimmie. It’s exactly the way it’s supposed to be.”

“Did I say it out loud? I thought I was just thinking it.”

“Maybe that’s all you did and I picked the thought out of the air.”

“Can you do that?”

“I never could before, but everything’s different, so who knows what I can do?”

“Isn’t that the truth? That bowling ball trick—”

“A guy did that to me once. Just one finger, plus the thumb. I thought two fingers would be better.”

“Definitely.”

“Did it hurt?”

“The two fingers? No, it felt nice.”

“The Brazilian, silly. What did they use, hot wax?

“Yeah, but it wasn’t so bad. And I thought it would be worth it. Do you like me without any pubic hair? It’s not unnatural, is it? Or just plain dopey?”

“It’s beautiful.”

“Or all little-girly? All pedophilia-creepy?”

“Daddy’s little soldier.”

“I swear I never even thought of that. Is it like that?”

“Kimmie, I love it. There’s no hair, everything’s all sweet and smooth and silky, I can just kiss and lick everything. I’m a whole forest down there. You must have been disgusted.”

“Yeah, right. I had to force myself to get anywhere near you.”

“But wouldn’t you want me to get it done?”

“For your sake, Ree. Everything’s more intense.”

“Really? I don’t know if I can stand that. But I have to get it done. God, yours is so smooth, I can’t keep my hands off it. Give me a kiss. You know what’s remarkable? Your mouth tastes like a pussy.”

“Here’s a coincidence — so does yours.”

“Kimmie, this is all so easy! I had no idea.”

“Me neither.”

“I think there’s some more wine left. You want some?”

“Not particularly.”

“Some Poh-mahr. It was nice, but I had enough. The only thing I haven’t had enough of is you.”

“Ah, baby. Let’s see what we can do about that.”

And, a little later:

“Kimmie? I guess we’re lesbians, huh?”

“I suppose so.”

“But we’re still us, right?”

“Well, we don’t have to learn the secret handshake. Or deepen our voices.”

“Do we have to wear those plaid shirts from L. L. Bean?”

“No way. We don’t have to get a cat, either.”

“That’s a relief.”

“Or adopt a Chinese baby.”

“Kimmie? You’ll move in, won’t you?”

“If you can stand it.”

“You can have your old room back. But we’ll sleep here. Unless we try your room occasionally as a change of pace.”

“To ward off boredom.”

“You think we’ll get bored?”

“No.”

“Me neither. I want us to do everything.”

“We will. And Ree? There’s no reason you can’t have a guy anytime you want.”

“Really? You wouldn’t be jealous?”

“Why should I? I’m not jealous of the ones you’ve been with. You’re not jealous of my lovers, are you?”

“Kimmie, they’re all dead.”

“That’s a point.”

“But if they weren’t? No, I wouldn’t be jealous.”

“Because it doesn’t subtract from what we’ve got.”

“No, it adds to it. Right now I don’t want anything but you and me in bed, but that doesn’t mean I don’t want us to tell each other stories. And sooner or later we might want to have new stories to tell each other.”

“Right.”

“And I’ve always liked fucking guys, Kimmie.”

“Me too.”

“And now I’m thinking about doing some new guy and then telling you about it, and I don’t know what’s getting me hotter, the idea of doing him or the idea of telling you.”

“Over the phone?”

“Silly. Lying in bed, and feeling your breasts against mine, and looking into your eyes—”

“Like you’re doing right now.”

‘Like I’m doing right now. And telling you all about it.”

“I suppose you realize that you’re sopping wet.”

“Like I’m the only one? And I am definitely getting a Brazilian.”

“But not right this minute.”

“No. Right this minute I’m busy.”

She spent the next several days settling in, and by Friday she had a working set of ID in the name of Kimberly Austin. She liked Austin for a last name, but she wasn’t crazy about the Kimberly part. Names had never mattered much to her, she rarely kept them any length of time, but maybe that was going to change, maybe she’d take a shot at being the same person with the same name for, well, as long as she could.

No problem. Kimberly could turn into Kim, and she’d fill out her kit with a library card and some generic Student ID cards as Kim Austin, and by the time she picked up a Washington State driver’s license, she’d be able to shrink Kimberly to Kim once and for all. And then maybe get a lawyer to have her name changed by court order? If she did that, she’d be able to get a passport. Not that she had any urge to leave the country, but suppose Ree wanted to see Paris?

Omigod, Kimmie, here we are in the country where they invented eating pussy.

Had to keep your options open, didn’t you?

It was all so easy.

Because she was usually the first one up, and because Ree always prepared the evening meal, she took over the role of making the morning coffee and putting breakfast on the table. Her first omelet was a failure, but all that cost her was a couple of eggs, and it didn’t take her long to get the hang of it.

“We’re getting so domestic,” Ree said. “I think we’re definitely lesbians. I think there’s no question about it.”

“I can see how upset that makes you.”

“Plaid flannel shirts and cats,” Ree said, “are just around the corner.”

“We’re lipstick lesbians.”

“No plaid shirts, huh?”

“Not even to sleep in. And no cats, either.”

“And no Chinese babies?”

“They’re cuter than cats,” she said, “and way cuter than plaid shirts, but not just yet, okay?”

“Okay.”

So easy.

Later that day she was sitting on the couch reading, and Ree was doing a crossword puzzle, and their eyes met. That was all it took, really, and half an hour later they were lying side by side in Ree’s bed in the shared afterglow.

And Ree said, “I guess I’m safe, huh?”

“Safe?”

“Well, nobody’s ever safe. Like earthquakes and tornadoes and, I don’t know, tsunamis? Not that I spend a lot of time worrying about tsunamis, but you never know, do you?”

Where was this going? “And there’s always sinkholes,” she said.

“That’s right! No warning, nothing, and the ground just opens up underneath you. Gone, no forwarding. Just like that.”

“But you guess you’re safe.”

Ree was looking off to the side. “What I figure,” she said, “is if you were going to kill me, you’d have done it by now.”

“Ree!”

“Well, you killed everybody else you ever slept with. Kimmie, I knew you weren’t planning to do it, but suppose you couldn’t help it? Suppose it got under your skin, and you couldn’t rest as long as I was alive?”

“That only happened with men.”

“You’ve killed women.”

“My mother, and I explained that to you. And I never had sex with her, anyway. It was just—”

“And what about Angela?”

“Angela.”

“She picked you up in the dyke bar, and her husband was hiding in the closet—”

“Oh, Angelica.”

“I was close.”

“And his name was Brady. He wasn’t in the closet, he was hiding behind a Japanese screen.”

“Thanks for clearing that up, Kimmie. The point is you slept with her and you killed her.”

“Yeah.”

“Strangled her with a scarf or something.”

“A silk scarf.”

“Herpes, I think you said.”

“Hermés.”

“I know, silly. Ehr-mehz. Poh-mahr.”

“Ree, they were going to murder me. He wanted to do me just for the thrill of it, and she loved the idea.”

“I know, you told me.”

“She was one vicious cunt. She brought me home so her husband could rape me, and when I turned out to be eager and willing, they decided the only way to keep it interesting was to kill me. She had it coming.”

“I know.”

“And how could I let her live once I’d killed him?” She frowned. “Okay, I have to admit I enjoyed it. Doing her with the scarf, feeling her squirming underneath me. But it’s the way I’m hard-wired, Ree. Killing gets me off. I can’t help it.”

“Kimmie, it’s one of the things about you that gets me hot.”

“I would never, ever, hurt you. Not for anything.”

“But how could you know you wouldn’t feel the need? The only woman you ever went to bed with wound up with a scarf around her neck and her eyes bulging.”

“That’s not true.”

“It’s not?”

“Boise.”

“Huh?”

She took a breath. “After Provo,” she said, “I went to Boise. That’s in Idaho.”

“And?”

“All I wanted,” she said, “was to come here. To you. But I couldn’t do that if it meant putting you in danger. So I had to find out.”

“How could you do that? What would — oh, you slept with a woman! In Boise? They have lesbian bars in Boise?”

“Well, they had at least one of them. They made it hard to find, I’ll give them that. But I went there and I found a woman to go home with.”

“And you had sex.”

“Uh-huh.”

“And she’s still got a pulse?”

“Unless she stepped in front of a bus.”

“You didn’t mention it.”

“No. I thought you might be jealous.”

“Seriously?”

“Well, yeah. Or that it might trivialize what we’ve got, or something. Stupid, huh?”

“So how was it?”

“A successful experiment, because I had absolutely no desire to hurt her. Not at the time and not afterward. I didn’t want to see her again, either, but I had, like, warm feelings toward her.”

“What was she like?”

“I don’t know. Late thirties, dark hair. A little dykey, I suppose.”

“Was she better than me?”

“Absolutely. That’s why I spent the rest of my life in Boise and never gave you another thought.”

“What was the sex like with her?”

‘Sort of vanilla. Kissing, touching. You really want to hear this?”

“Of course.”

“Let’s see. She went down on me and I came. Then I went down on her, and she couldn’t come.”

“With that magic mouth of yours? That’s hard to believe.”

“She said she’s pretty much non-orgasmic. Her big thing is getting her partner off. Which she managed twice, because I came again while I was eating her.”

“Just from doing it?”

“I was touching myself at the same time. And beside that—”

“What?”

“Well, I was thinking about you. That’s what I did while she was doing me, too. Thought about you, made believe it was you I was with. Jesus, Ree, you honestly thought I was going to kill you?”

A shrug. “I thought there was a chance. But I figured it was worth the risk.”

She reached out, took Ree’s hand in hers. She was at a loss for words, but that was all right. She didn’t need to say anything.

“So I’m Luke,” the fellow said, “and this is my buddy, Gordo. His folks named him Gordon, and he had the nickname for years before he found out it means fat in Spanish.”

“By then it was too late,” Gordo said. “So I’m at the gym five days a week, making sure the name never fits.”

“So why don’t the four of us take a booth? It’s hard to hear in the crush at the bar. Like, I didn’t manage to catch your names.”

“You guys get the table,” she said, “and we’ll join you in a minute. Right now Nature calls.”

“The only thing men can do and women can’t,” Gordo said, “is go to the bathroom alone.”

“It’s true,” Ree admitted. “We need company.”

And in the bathroom she said, “What do you think, Kimmie?”

“I think they’re morons.”

“But are they morons we want to fuck?”

“I don’t know. Which one would you want?”

“No, you pick.”

“I can’t. I don’t want either of them.”

“Then let’s get out of here, Kimmie. I know another place.”

Two nights before, after dinner at the Thai place and an hour of HBO, they’d gone to bed. And after an hour or so she’d said, “The strap-on’s nice.”

“I know! It doesn’t matter which of us is using it. It’s nice.”

“But so is a real cock.”

“You know, I tried to buy one online, but—”

“What I mean is we may be lesbians, but that doesn’t mean we don’t enjoy fucking guys.”

“I know. We talked about that. Do you want me to go out and get a guy? And then tell you about it?”

“I was thinking we could go out together.”

“And bring some guy home?”

“Or two guys.”

“Oh, wow. I’m just thinking of the possibilities.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Two guys, plus two girls with Brazilians. They’ll be amazed.”

“Why not? We’re pretty amazing.”

“But Kimmie? What about afterward?”

“Afterward,” she said, “you and I’ll go home together, and talk about all the fun we just had. Incidentally, I don’t think we should bring them here. We’ll go to their place, so we can leave when we want to.”

“And so that this place is just for you and me.”

“Exactly.”

“But Kimmie, what I meant about afterward. If you’re with a guy—”

“Yeah?”

“Well, won’t he be on your list?”

She considered this. “I can’t be positive,” she said, “but I have the feeling I’m done with that list. I crossed off the last name, remember.”

“With the proxy marriage in Provo.”

“Right. Something changed that day, Ree. Something shifted. You know it was all about my Daddy.”

“I know.”

“I kept fucking him and killing him, over and over. Not consciously, but let’s face it, that’s what I was doing. And I think he’s finally dead, you know? And I’m finally at peace with it. You know what else I think?”

“That you had to be done with all that in order for us to be together.”

“Yes! And we are, and I am.” She frowned. “At least that’s what I think. Ree? What do you think?”

Ree was silent for a moment. Then she said, “What I think is I’m picturing you on your back with your legs spread, and this guy’s on top of you, and while he’s pumping away at you, I’m doing him in the ass with a strap-on.”

“That’s what you’re thinking.”

“Yeah.”

“And if it’s two guys?”

“Oh, I didn’t even think of that. Where would the second guy fit in?”

“I suppose I could always blow him.”

“Sure,” Ree said. “That’d work.”

The Cascadilla Lounge was in downtown Seattle, tucked in between a pair of four-star hotels. The lighting was indirect and subdued, and a piano trio supplied soft jazz. The clientele ran to men in suits.

“Business travelers,” Ree said. “Some of them are here for the drinks and the music, but most of them are looking to get laid.”

“Just like us,” she said.

They found room at the bar, and got a thoughtful look from the barman who filled their order for two glasses of white wine. “He’s trying to figure out if we’re hookers,” Ree told her. “Like the redhead at the end of the bar. I’ve only been here two or three times, but she’s always here, and always on the same stool.”

“She’s cute.”

“You don’t want to—”

She shook her head. “The Blue-Plate Special tonight is dick,” she said. “Besides, you’re the only woman in my life.”

“I wonder if anybody’s gonna hit on us. Those guys before, Luke and Gordo—”

“They were assholes, Ree.”

“Yeah, I know. But they were ready to go, Kimmie.”

“Hot to trot.”

“You bet. By now we’d be switching partners for a second go-round, and in another hour we’d be back home doing each other and talking about what jerks they were.”

“Instead of drinking wine we paid for ourselves and waiting for someone to make a move. Unless we’re the ones who make the first move. You see anybody you like?”

“There was a guy who was sort of cute. I don’t know where he went.”

“Those two have been giving us the eye. At the table to the right of the piano player.”

“We could give them the eye right back. Except — Kimmie, you know who they remind me of?”

“Luke and Gordo.”

“Uh-huh. Luke and Gordo, plus twenty pounds and fifteen or twenty years.”

“So let’s not give them the eye.”

“No, let’s not.”

“Ree, are we being too fussy? We’re not gonna marry these guys. We’re just gonna fuck their brains out.”

“If we could even find their brains.”

“We could go home.”

“I was just about to say that. But, you know, we just got here.”

“I know.”

“Not that we couldn’t have a perfectly good time by ourselves, but—”

“I know.”

She picked up her glass, held it to her lips without sipping from it. The pianist was playing something she liked, something she’d heard a million times, but she couldn’t identify it. She frowned, concentrating.

“Gloria!”

The male voice boomed in her ear. She turned and saw its source, a tall man in his early forties, wearing a dark suit with a chalk stripe. Whoever Gloria might be, her name had triggered something in her own memory. “Laura,” she told the man. “Thanks, I was going mad trying to name that tune.”

“Ah, Laura. But she’s only a dream, right? But you’re Gloria, aren’t you? You’ve got to be, ’cause I never forget a face.”

Who was he? And when had she ever called herself Gloria?

“Especially a face as beautiful as yours,” he went on. “I guess you don’t remember me.”

“There’s something—”

“What?”

“Familiar about you.” And there was. The voice, for one thing, deep and resonant. The jaw line, the sculptured brow, the blue eyes. She tried to coax the memory out into the open, and her effort amused him enough to make him smile, and as she registered his smile, the door in her memory slammed shut.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t quite place you.”

“Don’t apologize, Gloria. We knew each other very briefly. Ran into each other in a bar in downtown Philly. I don’t even remember where it was, but—”

“Race Street.”

“Yeah, that sounds about right. By God, you do remember!”

“But your smile is different.”

He grinned, once again showing her two rows of perfect teeth. “Miracles of modern dentistry,” he said, and tapped his upper incisors with his forefinger. “Chipped a tooth, did a real job on it. My guy capped it and the one next to it, and while he was at it he got rid of the gap between them. Up until then I never knew it bothered me, but afterward I had a lot more self-confidence. Started going to the gym, keeping a year-round tan. Taking better care of myself generally.”

“That’s great, Sid.”

That brought the smile back. “That’s right, I was calling myself Sid a lot in those days.”

“Your name’s not Sid.”

“Well, no. It’s Kendall, actually, which was my mother’s maiden name. Ken’s what people call me.”

“And you’re not from Philadelphia.”

“No, did I say I was? I’m from Tulsa, I’ve lived there all my life. I was in Philly on business.”

“I guess I knew that.”

“And now I’m in Seattle on business. But I’m not working tonight. Gloria, we only had the one night together, and I’m not sure how much of it you remember, but I have to say I’ve thought about you often.”

“Really?”

“Absolutely. And they’ve been good thoughts. I had a great time with you.”

His hand was resting on the bar, and she laid hers on top of it. “Me too,” she said.

“And here we are, running into each other after all these years.”

“Quite a coincidence, Ken.”

“It is, isn’t it?”

“And an opportunity.”

“Just what I was thinking.”

She rubbed his hand with hers. “The only thing is,” she said, “I’m here with my girlfriend.”

“That would be the lady standing next to you? The one who’s being very careful not to pay any attention to our conversation?”

“Her name’s Ree.”

“Rhea? That’s a pretty—”

“No, just Ree.”

“Even better. I think your friend is beautiful, and I bet it wouldn’t be hard for me to find a gentleman here who agrees with me.”

“You’re probably right.”

“And I’m staying right next door at the Alexis, and they went and upgraded me to a suite. Plenty of room for four, and a lot more comfortable than this joint.”

“I’ll tell you what,” she said. “Let me take Ree to the ladies, and we can freshen up and talk things through. You’ll be right here when we get back, won’t you?”

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“Because it took us long enough to find each other,” she said. Her hand dropped to his groin, and she watched its effect reflected in his blue eyes. “I wouldn’t want to let you get away again, Ken. Not after all these years.”

Ree said, “Sid from Philadelphia!”

“No wonder I couldn’t find him,” she said. “His name’s not Sid and he’s not from Philadelphia. And what I remembered was his pasty complexion and the gap between his teeth, and now his teeth are capped and he discovered tanning beds.”

“Isn’t he worried about skin cancer?”

“He won’t live long enough to get it.”

“Kimmie—”

“I did him once,” she said. “By proxy. Kellen Kimball died for his sins. Ree, if you want to split, just take the car and go home. I’ll catch a cab or something.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Oh, sweetie, I’ve got to fuck this guy. I mean I’ve just got to.”

“So? Why can’t we share? We both fucked Kellen. Why can’t we both fuck Ken?”

“Ken and Kellen.”

“I love how their names go together.”

“Except it’s actually Kendall, and that’s even better. Kellen and Kendall. As in Ken Doll, and isn’t that the perfect name for him?”

“And we can do him like Barbie never did.”

“Oh, yes. With the strap-on, and everything we talked about. Ree, I don’t want to leave you out of it.”

“That’s a good thing, because I wouldn’t let you.”

“And afterward you can slip out, and, I don’t know, wait for me somewhere. Because you know what I have to do.”

“You have to kill him.”

“I do, I really do. The bastard is still on my list. His name’s crossed out, but there’s an asterisk next to it in the record book. He’s unfinished business.”

“I know.”

“But just because I have to do it doesn’t mean you have to be there when it happens.”

“Maybe I want to.”

“You think?”

“Maybe. Maybe I want to see you do it. I’m wet just picturing you with the knife.”

“Shit, I didn’t bring a knife. Or anything, really. I didn’t think I was going to need anything. I guess I’ll think of something. Ree, you can always slip into the other room.”

“I know.”

“Or not. Whatever. Come here. Jesus, you really are wet, aren’t you?”

“Sopping.”

“Well, let’s go find our Ken Doll,” she said. “Let’s let him know just how lucky he is.”

“So what we were thinking,” she told Ken, “is Ree and I both think you’re awfully cute, and I know how much fun you are to party with, so what do we need with another guy?”

“Because as far as we’re concerned,” Ree said, “three is not a crowd. Unless you feel differently.”

“Not me,” he said. “I think three’s a terrific number. I mean, think about it. It’s the very number God picked when he was deciding how many people to be.”

“But there are a couple of things you ought to know. First of all, you know how you told me your name was Sid, but it’s not?”

“Hey, I’m sorry about that, but—”

“No, it’s cool, but the thing is my name’s not Gloria.”

“So Sid and Gloria are actually...”

“Ken and Kim.”

“Kim,” he said, and looked her over, and nodded. “Works for me. Ken, Kim, Ree — three people, three letters each. Keeps the typesetting costs down.”

“Except sometimes Ree calls me Kimmie.”

“Kimmie. Well, that works, too. If that’s all I need to know—”

“One other thing,” Ree said, “is neither of us has any pubic hair. See, Kimmie went and got herself a Brazilian, and I liked it so much I went and got one for myself.”

“And that leads into the third thing you should know,” she said, “which is that Ree and I are kind of into each other. So if that’s something that turns your stomach—”

“Turns me on, is what it does.”

“Then maybe we should all go inspect that suite you mentioned.”

The suite was luxurious, the bed king-sized. When he finally excused himself to go to the bathroom, Ree said, “You know what I almost forgot?”

“How much you love cock.”

“Yeah. He’s got a nice one, too.”

“You like him, don’t you?”

“Sure. He’s a nice guy. Oh, like maybe I don’t want to go through with it? Kimmie, he’s the guy. That means there’s only one way this can end.”

“I wish I’d brought a knife.”

“Tell him you’re hungry. They’ve got 24-hour room service, don’t they? Order a steak, they’ll give you a steak knife with it.”

“Maybe. You know what? I bet he’d let us tie him up. Once he’s tied up there’s a dozen different ways I could do it.”

“Tie him up with what?”

“The cord from the window shades. No, we’d need a knife anyway just to cut the cord. Oh, the tie-back sashes! Like to hold the drapes in place. That would work.”

“Are there enough?”

“Two pairs here, two in the living room. That’s eight, that’s more than enough. Once he’s tied up you can just wait in the other room, and—”

“No way. I want to see it.”

“Are you sure?”

“The whole idea is so hot. I might even want to help.”

“You think? Shhh, here he comes. Ken, Ree and I were beginning to think you fell in.”

“Oh, I figured I’d give the two of you a chance to do some more of that girl-girl stuff.”

“Without you watching and joining in? Where’s the fun in that?”

“God,” he said, “how’d I get so lucky?”

And Ree said, “Seriously, Ken, you were gone a long time. Do you feel okay?”

“You want to know how I feel? I feel like I died and went to heaven. What, did I say something funny?”