Being Eloise (An Erotic Romance Collection, Books 1-3) (26 page)

I did, and five minutes later was enjoying a feta cheese omelette with sun-dried tomatoes
à la Lorne
. He stood at the counter hand-squeezing a glass of orange juice for me. It takes an incredible number of them to fill a glass.

“You know all about
me
,” I said, meaning the parts of my life I’d told her (which is much less than what I’ve told
you,
reader. It was those brief conversations, and likely a sense of nostalgia on her part, that had led to her inviting my son and me here.) “What about you?” I asked.

“Oh, the usual. There was work, then there was money, then both of us quit working, then we bought this place. Am I leaving anything out Lorne?”

Lorne set the glass of juice next to me and stood there, waiter-like. “What would that be?” he said.

“Oh,
I
remember,” she said, her demeanor suddenly brighter. “Then Lorne went on a little fuck-spree with our real estate agent.”

Bright to dark in one sentence. It was like someone turned out the lights. My fork froze in front of my open mouth, the triangle of omelette toppling down to the plate. I placed the fork, slowly, intentionally, into my mouth, feeling the bare tines against my tongue.

“Oh that,”
Lorne said.

“Slipped your mind again, did it?” Petunia said. “I saved him from himself, didn’t I?”

“Absolutely,” Lorne said.

I tried to dissect his response for any irony or sarcasm, but he sounded genuine. I made another stab at the omelette. Even though these kind of freely confessional adults unnerve me even more than overly mature kids, I was too hungry. I hoped they were kidding. Maybe Lorne’s droll humor had done its damage on Petunia as well.

“Imagine,” Petunia said, clutching my arm again—I was beginning to not like this habit of hers—“she had a plan all along. Fuck him good, get him divorced, watch the alimony slide—along with him—into her lap.”

“She neve–“ Lorne began.

“I’m still talking Lorne. She
knew
I had it good, after the big sell. Had a big plan for the two of you. And Lorne here lapped her up, didn’t you? But the thing is, I love this man. I may not have that woman’s titties or whatever you found so attractive, but I had this: love.”

What I said before about my hunger winning out over listening to confessional adults? Well, by this point I wished, really wished, I’d settled for rolls and cereal. I wanted one of the musician friends to wake up and stumble in and for the conversation to be forced to another topic. And like a wish granted, the man who’d been hugging his viola entered the kitchen, the embrace of his instrument defined, still, in the wrinkles of his shirt. But to my dismay, this did nothing to change the course of the conversation, or, rather, Petunia’s monologue on her husband’s infidelity.

“Wouldn’t Lorne have ruined himself?” she asked the violist.

“From excessive masturbation?” the man said, and winked at me.

“No,” Petunia said. That woman—I don’t want to even use her name.”

“Oh
her
. I dunno. Before my time. Any coffee?”

“I got it,” Lorne said as the man sat down beside me.

“It was
not
before your time,” Petunia insisted, but the man was ignoring her.

“Morning,” he said to me. “Fresh blood?”

“Morning,” I said, though the comment made me feel even less comfortable. They were cliquish, these folks. “I’ve actually known Petunia since high school,” I said, stabbing my way in.

“I mean your juice,” he said. “Blood orange?” He took the mug offered by Lorne. “Any juice left, Lorne?”

“Yup.”

“Where was I?” Petunia said, not letting breakfast orders derail her morning tirade. “Lorne fucking the…oh, then me saving him.”

“
Finis
,” Lorne said.

“
Finis
,” I repeated, hoping I was speaking the truth.

“Not quite. Don’t you want to know
how
I saved Lorne from that woman and himself?”

I realized, with no small degree of horror, that this show was going to go on. At least I wasn’t the only member of the audience, though unlike them, I wasn’t numb to Petunia and Lorne’s free-for-all. This little drama was probably even something of a continuously playing theater piece within this group. I knew the type.

Though there was a trace of anger in her voice, Petunia was actually quite playful. She was enjoying this reveal, clearly, whether her audience had seen this production or not. I was so very, very glad that I’d only told Petunia about my affair with a younger man and his tongue, not what I’d done to my own ex-husband, bound in my bedroom, or what I’d been coerced into doing to my landlord by
his
wife. (All topics you, reader, are familiar with, having read the first volume of my confession.)

“Honey, drop your pants,” Petunia said.

“What?” I said, shocked, another potential bite of omelette falling from my fork.

“Drop your pants, Lorne,” she repeated.

“Not this again,” the viola player said. “Let him make me some juice first, please.”

“Juice?” said an older woman now entering the kitchen. I recognized her as last night’s flautist. “You’re out of coffee?”

“There’s plenty,” Lorne said, taking down a mug.

“Please,” I said to Petunia. “How about some other time?”

She mulled it over and looked at the assembling crowd, the other somnambulant musician having stumbled in now, too. Petunia sighed. “Fine.” And then she started laughing and the faces broke into grins and we were all happy about something, though I wasn’t sure what that thing was.

I watched them go, one instrument at a time, until it was just Petunia and myself alone, Lorne down at the parking garage to see his musician friends to their cars.

With that episode behind me, I suddenly recalled an incident from high school. “Do you remember the story about the football team?”

“What team?”

“In high school,” I said.

“Go on.”

“Well, we were never that close, before, you know. You and I. And I never asked you then, but there was that rumor of how you got half the football team to strip naked and get on all fours, howling in front of what was her name…Mrs. Carpenter’s bedroom window. At midnight.”

She laughed at the image I’d conjured. “Sadly, no,” she said. “Where’d you hear that?”

“It was everywhere. C’mon, you have to remember.”

“It wasn’t midnight at all,” Petunia said. “It was at least 3 a.m.” She laughed at my expression. “Really, Eloise. Don’t you know how to use a fork?”

The elevator door opened and Lorne came back in and I wanted to be done with this omelette and be back on the floor below. If nothing else, this particularly strange brand of hospitality had me motivated to get on the job hunt with much more vigor than before—something I hadn’t thought possible.

“You want anything more?” Petunia asked. “Lorne, are there any scones left?”

“I sent Margaret home with the last one.”

“And they were chocolate, too,” Petunia said, pouting. She paused for a moment and stared off at the fog bank, now cresting the top of the hill. “Oh, I remember,” she said, and reached for me yet again, just as I was about to get up and deposit my dishes in one of their kitchen’s two identical sinks. “Lorne, drop you pants.”

“O-kay,” I said, tacking on a laugh. “This has all been educational, but…” The grip was harder.

“Two minutes,” Petunia said. “Just listen. One moment he’s Casanova with our Titty Menova or whatever her name was, and then, after
my
intervention, he calls it off, he even stops playing with himself. How can this be? How?”

I shrugged my most reluctant shrug ever. “You were going to divorce him?”

“But I
love
him!” Petunia said. She reached down her blouse and brought up a necklace with a key.
Another
woman with a key, I thought, astounded. And, immediately, the thought:
not again
. I wanted my life to be linear, moving forward, not what was looking increasingly like a spiral.

“Show Eloise,” Petunia said.

Unable to move, I watched as Lorne untucked his shirt, unbuttoned his pants and pulled down his underwear to his knees. There was a flash between his legs, but it was quickly covered.

“Lift up your shirt. She can’t even see it,” Petunia said. As the object of her fascination was revealed, she said “Voila!”

I remembered, suddenly, a show-and-tell in sixth grade. Petunia had brought in a large piece of pumice. She’d said the same thing.
Voila!

“What…what
is
that?” I asked, for I really didn’t know.

“A penis cage,” Petunia said. “A cock and ball story. Forgiveness. Chastity. Obedience. Relief. Contentment. Absolution. Love.” She smiled at me, then turned to her husband. “You cheated on me, didn’t you?”

“I did.”

“And it was a mistake.”

“It was.”

“And you love me very much.”

“I adore you,” he said.

“And I love you.”

“Very much,” he said.

“See,” Petunia said, as though there was nothing the least bit opaque about the inner workings of their relationship.

I was at some pre-verbal state of questioning, verbs and nouns battling it out for order. Finally, I said: “Does it hurt?”

“Not at all,” Lorne said and I was a little horrified (and a little
not
horrified, when he shuffled closer for my inspection. There, encased within a curved sheathe of plastic, hung his penis.

“Side view,” Petunia ordered.

Now I could see a ring of plastic encircle behind his testicles and meet the first piece at the top, a small brass lock holding the contraption together where the two pieces joined. It looked like a hard hat for his junk.

“See?” Petunia said, when my gaze broke and returned to her face. “Women are always interested once they see it.” She stood and took my empty plate to the sink.

I was free to go, but now, as Lorne pulled his pants back up and tucked in his shirt, I had a million questions.

“You
like
wearing that?”

“Lorne?” Petunia said, prompting him to answer.

“I love that’s it brought us closer,” he said.

“Closer, huh,” I said.

“He never strays,” Petunia says. “Think of all the time men spend thinking about women, or jacking off to their sick little fantasies, or cheating. He can’t do the latter two and the first, well, he’s free to do that but it’s mostly about me, right?”

“Always.”

“How long have you…worn that?”

“683 days,” Lorne answered.

“That sounds like a sentence,” I said.

“683 days he’s been faithful to me. 683 days of not wasting time. Did you hear him play his cello?”

I shook my head.

“You’ll have to come back then and hear him. He learned how to play in less than that time. Didn’t know a note before. It’s incredible what men can accomplish when the blood spends the majority of the time up in the brain. But now,” she said, checking her phone, “you need to skedaddle.”

“Oh,” I said, feeling awkward that, through no fault of my own, I’d somehow turned from unwilling audience member into an imposition.

“Lorne’s taking me to a noon concert in the park and we need to pack,” she said. “Pick out a wine, Lorne.”

Lorne walked to short glass-doored refrigerator at the far end of the kitchen.

“That sounds nice,” I said, then was horrified that my statement might be misconstrued as a plea to tag along. But thankfully that didn’t seem to register, or, more likely, was ignored.

“We have our little routines,” Petunia said. “Afterwards we’ll go for a nice stroll, maybe hit a museum, have dinner. And then tonight,” she thumbed the thin silver chain around her neck, “it comes off and we make…

“Mad, passionate love,” Lorne completed, a bottle in hand. He stood beside her and damn me if they didn’t look like a happy couple.

“Well,” I said. “I’m dumbfounded.”

They smiled at me for an unusually long moment during which I noticed their hands had clasped. Petunia cocked her head and raised an eyebrow. “Skedaddle?” she said.

“Sorry,” I said, then turned and headed for the elevator. “Thanks for breakfast.”

“Anytime,” Lorne said.

I could hear Petunia talk to her husband. “It’s only ten. How ‘bout I let him out for some morning play?” she asked, and then the sound of a kiss. “You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“Very much,” Lorne said.

I pressed the elevator button again.

“Come hear him play the cello soon,” Petunia called to me, as I entered, with enormous relief, the just-opening elevator.

I waved, then stared at my worn shoes as the doors closed. I laughed.
Jeez they were weird,
I thought. Only then did I look up at the mirror-bright surface of the closed doors, each side cutting my reflection in half, but both halves looking the same: quickly frowning my smile. I really, really needed that makeover. A thought also came over me then but I tucked it quickly back when the elevator doors opened and I heard, clear and unmistakeable, the nearly there gasps of Eli climaxing.
Chastity pledge, my ass.
What kind of family was this?

“Oh!” she called out. “Almost, oh, oh, careful, don’t, oh!”

I felt like there was no floor of this building for me. Above me, the cock-tease was letting out her pet, and here, my son was deflowering the cock-tease’s daughter. In a flash I could picture it: impregnation, our families now bound by a baby, my son the teenage father—I had to stop this. Could there be a more effective
coitus interruptus
than a mother bursting onto the scene?

“More!” Eli shouted, her voice coming from the kitchen. “Higher, higher!”
Higher?
I mouthed.

And I heard my son, too, now, a low humming squeal like the kind he gives off whenever he’s concentrating, but that was for things like math problems or when frustrated. Was he finding this difficult?

My voice rounded the corner into the kitchen before I did. “Stop!” I said. “Please!”

I saw it for a split second in its full glory: a three-foot high pyramid of colors spilling down to chaos and my son there at the top, standing on the counter beside the coffee maker, a tiny box of Lucky Charms in his hand, about to crown a cereal box pyramid. He looked like a giant and I, Mother Entropy, felt very small—despite my power—below him.