The Price of Love and Other Stories (13 page)

“For my sins.”

“Are you here to make a movie?” It wasn’t as stupid a question as it might have sounded. The studios were just down the road, and Toronto had almost as big a reputation for being Hollywood North as Vancouver. Laura ought to know: Lloyd ran a post-production company, and he was always telling her so.

“No,” Ray said. “I’m resting, as we say in the business.”

“Oh.”

“I’ve got a couple of things lined up,” he went on. “Commercials, a small part in a new CBC legal drama. That sort of thing. And whatever comes my way by chance.”

“It sounds exciting.”

“Not really. It’s a living. To be honest, it’s mostly a matter of hanging around while the techies get the sound and light right. But what about you? What do you do?”

“Me?” She pointed her thumb at her chest. “Nothing. I mean, I’m just a housewife.” It was true, she supposed; “housewife” was about the only way she could describe herself. But she wasn’t even that. Phaedra did all of the housework and Paula handled the garden. Laura had even hired a company to come in and clear the snow from the steps and the driveway in winter. So what did she do with her time, apart from shop and walk Big Ears? Sometimes she made dinner, but more often than not she made reservations. There were so many good restaurants on her stretch of Queen Street East – anything you wanted, Japanese, Greek, Indian, Chinese, Italian – that it seemed a shame to waste them.

The hazy, bright sun beat down mercilessly and the water looked like a ruffled blue bedsheet beyond the wire fence. Laura was feeling embarrassed now that she had openly declared her uselessness.

“Would you like to go for a drink?” Ray asked. “I’m not coming on to you or anything, but it
is
a real scorcher.”

Laura felt her heart give a little flutter and, if she were honest with herself, a pleasurable warmth spread through her lower belly. “OK. Yes. I mean, sure,” she said. “Look, it’s a bit of a hassle going to a café or a pub with the dogs, right? Why don’t you come up to the house? It’s not far. Silver Birch. There’s cold beer in the fridge and I left the air conditioning on.”

Ray looked at her. He certainly had beautiful eyes, she thought, and they seemed especially steely blue in this kind of light. Blue eyes and black hair – a devastating combination.

“Sure,” he said. “If it’s OK. Lead on.”

They put Big Ears and Rain on leashes and walked up to Queen Street, which was crowded with tourists and locals pulling kids in bright-coloured carts, all OshKosh B’Gosh and Birkenstocks. People browsed in shop windows, sat outdoors at Starbucks in shorts drinking
their Frappuccinos and reading the
Globe and Mail
, and there was a queue outside the ice cream shop. The traffic was moving at a crawl, but you could smell the coconut sunblock over the gas fumes.

Laura’s large detached house stood at the top of a long flight of steps sheltered by overhanging shrubbery, and once they were off the street, nobody could see them. Not that it mattered, Laura told herself. It was all innocent enough.

It was a relief to get inside, and even the dogs seemed to collapse in a panting heap and enjoy the cool air.

“Nice place,” said Ray, looking around the modern kitchen, with its central island and pots and pans hanging from hooks overhead.

Laura opened the fridge. “Beer? Coke? Juice?”

“I’ll have a beer, if that’s OK,” said Ray.

“Beck’s all right?”

“Perfect.”

She opened Ray a Beck’s and poured herself a glass of orange juice, the kind with extra pulp. Her heart was beating fast. Perhaps it was the heat, the walk home? She watched Ray drink his beer from the bottle, his Adam’s apple bobbing. When she took a sip of juice, a little dribbled out of her mouth and down her chin. Before she could get a napkin and wipe it off, Ray had leaned forward just as far as it took, touched his tongue to the curve under her lower lip, and licked it off.

She felt his heat and shivered. “Ray, I’m not sure … I mean, I don’t think we should … I … ”

The first kiss nearly drew blood. The second one did. Laura fell back against the fridge and felt the Mickey Mouse fridge magnet that held the weekly to-do list digging into her shoulder. She experienced a moment of panic as Ray ripped open her Holt Renfrew blouse. What did she think she was doing, inviting a strange man into her home like this? He could be a serial killer or something. But fear quickly turned to pleasure when his mouth found her nipple. She moaned and pulled him against her and spread her legs apart. His
hand moved up under her long, loose skirt, caressing the bare flesh of her thighs and rubbing between her legs.

Laura had never been so wet in her life, had never wanted it so much, and she didn’t want to wait. Somehow, she manoeuvred them towards the dining room table and tugged at his belt and zip as they stumbled backwards. She felt the edge of the table bump against the backs of her thighs and eased herself up on it, sweeping a couple of Waterford crystal glasses to the floor as she did so. The dogs barked. Ray was good and hard, and he pulled her panties aside as she guided him smoothly inside her.

“Fuck me, Ray,” she breathed. “Fuck me.”

And he fucked her. He fucked her until she hammered with her fists on the table and a Royal Doulton cup and saucer joined the broken crystal on the floor. The dogs howled. Laura howled. When she sensed that Ray was about to come, she pulled him closer and said, “Bite me.”

And he bit her.

“I really think we should have that dog put down,” said Lloyd after dinner that evening. “For God’s sake, biting you like that. It could have given you rabies or something.”

“Don’t be silly. Big Ears isn’t in the least bit rabid. It was an accident, that’s all. I was just a bit too rough with him.”

“It’s the thin end of the wedge. Next time it’ll be the postman, or some kid in the street. Think what’ll happen then.”

“We are not having Big Ears put down, and that’s final. I’ll be more careful in future.”

“You just make sure you are.” Lloyd paused, then asked, “Have you thought anymore about that other matter I mentioned?”

Oh God, Laura thought, not again. Lloyd hated their house, hated the Beaches, hated Toronto. He wanted to sell up and move to Vancouver, live in Kitsilano or out on Point Grey. No matter that it
rained there 364 days out of every year and all you could get to eat was sushi and alfalfa sprouts. Laura didn’t want to live in Lotus Land. She was happy where she was. Even happier since that afternoon.

As Lloyd droned on and on, she drifted into pleasant reminiscences of Ray’s body on hers, the hard, sharp edges of his white teeth as they closed on the soft part of her neck. They had done it again, up in the bed this time, her and Lloyd’s bed. It was slower, less urgent, more gentle; but if anything, it was even better. He was a good kisser, and the tip of his tongue found a sensitive spot at the front between her upper lip and gum that connected directly with her loins. She could still remember the warm ripples and floods of pleasure, like breaking waves running up through her loins and belly, and she could feel a pleasant soreness between her legs even now, as she sat listening to Lloyd outline the advantages of moving the post-production company to Vancouver. Plenty of work there, he said. Hollywood connections. But if they moved, she would never see Ray again. It seemed more imperative than ever to put a stop to it. She had to do
something
.

“I really don’t want to talk about it right now, darling,” she said.

“You never do.”

“You know what I think of Vancouver.”

“It doesn’t rain that much.”

“It’s not just that. It’s … Oh, can’t we just leave it be?”

Lloyd put his hand up. “All right. All right. Subject closed for tonight.” He got up and walked over to the drinks cabinet. “I feel like a cognac.”

Laura had that sinking feeling. She knew what was coming.

“Where is it?” Lloyd asked.

“Where is what, darling?”

“My snifter, my favourite brandy snifter. The one my father bought me.”

“Oh, that,” said Laura, remembering the shattered glass she had
swept up from the hardwood floor. “I meant to tell you. I’m sorry, but there was an accident. The dishwasher.”

Lloyd turned to look at her in disbelief. “You put my favourite crystal snifter in the
dishwasher
?”

“I know. I’m sorry. I was in a hurry.”

Lloyd frowned. “A hurry? You? What do you ever have to be in a hurry about? Walking the bloody dog?”

Laura tried to laugh it off. “If only you knew half the things I had to do around the place, darling.”

Lloyd continued to look at her. His eyes narrowed. “Had quite a day, haven’t you?”

Laura sighed. “I suppose so. It’s just been one of those days.”

“This’ll have to do, then,” he said, pouring a generous helping of Rémy into a different crystal snifter.

It was just as good as the one she had broken, Laura thought. In fact, it was probably more expensive. But it wasn’t
his
. It wasn’t the one his bloody miserable old bastard of a father, God rot his soul, had bought him.

Lloyd sat down and sipped his cognac thoughtfully. The next time he spoke, Laura could see the way he was looking at her over the top of his glass.
That
look. “How about an early night?” he said.

Laura’s stomach lurched. She put her hand to her forehead. “Oh, not tonight, darling. I’m sorry, but I have a terrible headache.”

She didn’t see Ray for nearly a week, and she was going crazy with fear that he’d left town, maybe gone to Hollywood to be a star, that he’d just used her and discarded her, the way men did. After all, they had only been together the once, and he hadn’t told her he loved her or anything. All they had done was fuck. They didn’t really
know
one another at all. They hadn’t even exchanged phone numbers. She just had this absurd feeling that they were meant for each other, that it
was
destiny
. A foolish fantasy, no doubt, but one that hurt like a knife jabbing into her heart every day she didn’t see him.

Then, one day, there he was at the beach again, as if he’d never been away. The dogs greeted each other like long-lost friends while Laura tried to play it cool as lust burned through her like a forest fire.

“Hello, stranger,” she said.

“I’m sorry,” Ray said. “A job came up. Shampoo commercial. On-the-spot decision. Yes or no. I had to work on location in Niagara Falls. You’re not mad at me, are you? It’s not as if I could phone you and let you know or anything.”

“Niagara Falls? How romantic.”

“The bride’s second great disappointment.”

“What?”

“Oscar Wilde. What he said.”

Laura giggled and put her hand to her mouth. “Oh, I see.”

“I’d love to have taken you with me. I know it wouldn’t have been a disappointment for us. I missed you.”

Laura blushed. “I missed you, too. Want a cold beer?”

“Look,” said Ray, “why don’t we go to my place? It’s only a top-floor flat, but it’s air-conditioned, and … ”

“And what?”

“Well, you know, the neighbours … ”

Laura couldn’t tell him this, but she had got such an incredible rush out of doing it with Ray
in her own bed
that she couldn’t stand the thought of going to his flat, no matter how nice and cool it was. Though she had changed and washed the sheets, she had fancied she could still smell him when she laid her head down for the night, and now she wanted her bed to absorb even more of him.

“Don’t worry about the neighbours,” she said. “They’re all out during the day anyway, and the nannies have to know how to be discreet if they want to stay in this country.”

“Are you sure?”

“Perfectly.”

And so it went on. Once, twice, sometimes three times a week, they went back to Laura’s big house on Silver Birch. Sometimes they couldn’t wait to get upstairs, so they did it on the dining room table like the first time, but mostly they did it in the king-size bed, becoming more and more adventurous and experimental as they got to know one another’s bodies and pleasure zones. Laura found a little pain quite stimulating sometimes, and Ray didn’t mind obliging. They sampled all the positions and all the orifices, and when they had exhausted them, they started all over again. They talked too, a lot, between bouts. Laura told Ray how unhappy she was with her marriage, and Ray told her how his ex-wife had ditched him for his accountant because his career wasn’t exactly going in the same direction as Russell Crowe’s, as his bank account made abundantly clear.

Then, one day when they had caught their breath after a particularly challenging position that wasn’t even in the Kama Sutra, Laura said, “Lloyd wants to sell up and move to Vancouver. He won’t stop going on about it. And he never gives up until he gets his way.”

Ray turned over and leaned on his elbow. “You can’t leave,” he said.

It was as simple as that.
You can’t leave.
She looked at him and beamed. “I know. You’re right. I can’t.”

“Divorce him. Live with me. I want us to have a normal life, go places together like everyone else, go out for dinner, go to the movies, take vacations to Florida every winter.”

It was everything she wanted too. “Do you mean it, Ray?”

“Of course I mean it.” He paused. “I love you, Laura.”

Tears came to her eyes. “Oh my God.” She kissed him and told him she loved him, too, and a few minutes later, they resumed the conversation. “I can’t divorce him,” Laura said.

“Why on earth not?”

“For one thing, he’s a Catholic. He’s not practising or anything, but he doesn’t believe in divorce.” Or, more importantly, Laura thought, his poor dead father, who
was
devout in a bugger-the-choirboys sort of way, didn’t believe in it.

“And … ?”

“Well, there’s the money.”

“What money?”

“It’s mine. I mean, I inherited it from my father. He was an inventor, and he came up with one of those simple little additives that keep things fresh for years. Anyway, he made a lot of money, and I was his only child, so I got it all. I’ve been financing Lloyd’s post-production career from the beginning, before it started doing as well as it is now. If we divorced, with these no-fault laws we’ve got today, he’d get half of everything. That’s not fair. It should be all mine by rights.”