Choke On Your Lies Part 4

"That's what I have Jennings for. And you. And Pamela. Not going to f.u.c.k it up with f.u.c.king, am I?"

"You know, one time, I'd like to see someone leave here happy. I mean, filled with joy, feeling refreshed."

"Shut up, Mick. Shut up."

"Should've seen her face."

Kept going, cut me off by shouting, "Jennings! Jennings! Office!"

I got right on her heels. "Even a nice submissive. There are probably plenty of them who would love a night with you. Check CityPages."

At the entryway into her grand study/library/office, she spun and pounded a fist on my chest. It hurt.

"You know why, G.o.dd.a.m.n it. Don't try sending me on a guilt trip. Like, oh, Octavia, they only come home with you because they're drunk. That's not fair to either one of you. Well, f.u.c.k them. They hate me the next morning, f.u.c.k them, all right? They were plenty fine with me until then. Jennings!"

"Right here." He breezed past me. "Everything's ready."

"I need a magnifying gla.s.s."

"Fine." Jennings waited.

"What?"

"I couldn't help overhearing," he said, looking at the hardwood floor instead of meeting her eyes. "Perhaps you should listen to Mick, dearie. He's really looking out for you."

Octavia opened her mouth, then froze. Blinking, choosing carefully. Held up her finger, and then, "We weren't talking to you."

"I know, but still-"

"What did I ask for?"

"A magnifying gla.s.s."

"Right." Waved him off. "So swish your a.s.s on over there and find one."

Chastened like a puppy, he gave us thin lips and a quick retreat. I had often wondered if, when no one else was around, they were like brother and sister. But I'd never seen any evidence of it. Mutual loathing seemed more likely.

Octavia turned back to me. Her robe had opened more, and the wave of odors and warmth from last night's tryst overwhelmed me. Through her smudged eye make-up, severe hair bun, raw lips, I remembered those eyes. Looking into those eyes right before I had kissed them so many years before. How hurt they had been after the drummer left her, and again when he took his life. And now, how I felt as if I saw the fight going on in there-the demon versus the shy, vulnerable fat girl with the pretty face. She deserved better and knew it. But she was having too much fun getting even.

I said, "We'll talk about it later."

"Like f.u.c.k we will. You want my help or not?"

I shrugged. Her anger ebbed away, and the gla.s.sy confidence of the demon's mask...you know, poetry just can't capture it. Let's say that even the devil was afraid of Octavia's little grin.

"On first glance, you wouldn't see it. Maybe not the second or third either, because it really is your signature. But it wasn't your arm signing it, even if it was your brain."

I stood beside her as she lounged in her high-backed black leather executive chair, leaning over the deed, enlarged by a square magnifier with a built in light. What she had pointed out was that even though the signature was nearly perfectly straight, it wasn't exactly following the line.

She went on. "A barely noticeable angle, just a few degrees. Meaning that this wasn't a human being signing a contract. But a machine with the paper not quite in alignment with whatever was doing the writing."

"Like a printer when the paper doesn't go through precisely?"

"Kind of. But how would they pa.s.s it off as real to the clerk? Even if it was a tracing job, it would have a hint of human error, or someone would notice the mistake and adjust to keep it on the line. This one is mechanically perfect."

"Then...how?"

Octavia grinned again.

"Well?"

"Are you sure you don't want any coffee?"

I paced back around to the other side of her desk, arms crossed.

She moved the mouse around, activating her screen, then typed in a few search terms, clicked around here and there, finally rotating the screen so I could see.

On the screen was a contraption that looked something like a doc.u.ment camera, but with a thick pen strapped to an axis. The pen was moving of its own volition, writing as if human.

"The Long Pen," Octavia said. "I'd heard about it because an author who hated touring for her books still wanted to sign them, so she found a way to sit at home and sign copies with her real signature, even though the books were hundreds or thousands of miles away."

"You're s.h.i.+tting me."

"No, see, it's real. I had even looked into buying one so I could sign paperwork faster without having to leave home. But I decided against it."

"Why?"

"One, it feels safer to hold the paper I'm signing in my hand first, you know? And two, the possibility of exactly what happened to you."

I sat on the edge of one of the guest chairs, expensive German antiques meant to put her visitors at unease-old, fragile, but immensely scary, like something one expects in a vampire film. For me, it was old hat. "What exactly has happened to me? Because I know I didn't sign it with a robot pen, either."

"Which means, probably, that someone has figured out how to scan a signature, tell the computer how it was written, stroke by stroke, and then let the pen have at it."

The flesh on my arms chilled as if the breath of Big Brother exhaled in my ear. "That's...my G.o.d...that's terrifying."

"You bet. We're all f.u.c.ked eventually if that's true."

"Then why stop at the deed? Why not fake a pre-nup, too?"

Octavia swung the screen towards her, typed some more, clicked some more. "Come on. One's enough. The wh.o.r.e thought she could fool you with one, but if she tried that on several things, you'd know d.a.m.n well it was all a fraud. Too much of a paper trail, too. So she chose wisely. Out of everything the two of you shared in your f.u.c.ked up union, the house means the most to her. And you, judging from how that's what got you off your pansy a.s.s and ready to fight. "

I shook my head. "It's just...not like her. I'm the one without a Plan B. Why would she take even that away from me when she's the one who left? I hoped it wouldn't turn nasty. She made the first move, not me. All I want is for her to know that I know."

Octavia picked up the phone. "Want me to tell her?"

She'd dialed a couple of numbers before I took the handset away and set it in the cradle. "Hold on. Not yet. It was a lot of other stuff, too. Not just her cheating. We were growing apart, but I thought we'd overcome-"

"Were you f.u.c.king that girl in your wallet? The Indian?"

So she had seen Nuha. One of my best poetry students from a few years ago. Just nineteen when she started in my cla.s.s, but we seemed to connect so easily, perfectly. A careless beauty and sensuality you couldn't ignore. I remember how she giggled when I read her Keats: Where be ye going, you Devon maid?

And what have ye there i' the basket?

Ye tight little fairy, just fresh from the dairy, Will ye give me some cream if I ask it?

Had to clear my throat. "No. I didn't. We didn't."

Dropped her chin. "No?"

"Never. I swear." When she didn't respond, of course I kept going. "Almost. I almost...we had talked about it, and...G.o.d...kissed, yes. Spent a lot of time in each others' arms, I admit. But I never slept with her. It never got that far."

"Oral?"

I was out of my chair pacing again. "G.o.dd.a.m.nit, Octavia!"

She rocked herself up and out of the chair, blocked my path. Her robe fully open by then, and she couldn't care less. Ticked them off on her fingers. "First, it doesn't matter what I feel. I didn't get this rich being sensitive. Man up! I'm fat, people treat me like s.h.i.+t, and I call them on it and make them pay. It's what the f.u.c.kers do that matters, not how they feel. Second, did she suck your c.o.c.k?"

I flinched. "No. She didn't."

"That's pathetic. She's gorgeous, like a f.u.c.king model or something, and you didn't do anything? What's wrong with you?"

Well, I loved my wife. But that was a lame thing to say to Octavia. She truly believed most love is a mental illness. If it wasn't the pa.s.sionate, soul-purging variety she so admired in her gothic fantasy land-and had experienced that one time in real life- then it was all a lie covering up our base s.e.xual instincts.

Also, I was ashamed of exactly when I realized I loved Frances too much to sleep with Nuha. I said, "I went down on her."

Octavia's face brightened, and she reached out, cupped my cheek. "Yes, there, let it out. Freedom."

"I went down on her at home one morning after Frances had left. It had been building up, and she came over, said she couldn't stay away...and just as she was about to come, I stopped. I couldn't do it."

"I understand."

"You do?"

"Even though you already suspected Frances, you felt like if you went any further with your Indian conquest, then no matter what happened to your marriage, you'd at least know you never sank to her level."

"But I loved Frannie. I couldn't imagine hurting her-"

"You didn't want to get caught because it would look much worse for you to be f.u.c.king a student when your wife was having a nice respectable affair with someone her own age, this time anyway. This was before you knew about her boy-toy, too. So who's the stereotype now?"

"Okay, I deserved that."

"And you were stupid enough to do it in your own house. So you stopped, broke down, and had this long talk with Miss Bombay about-"

"Her name is Nuha."

"-I don't care. You had an emotional talk with her about how you couldn't go through with this, and how it was tearing you apart, and how any man would be stupid to turn down a chance with her, but that's how love was at times."

Nearly word for word. Except I'm sure I went on a lot longer about her beauty and the unwinnable spot I was in.

"Jesus." I stepped back from Octavia's touch. "You just don't know."

"I know people. I know you a lot more than you realize, looks like. Don't take this the wrong way, but we're close and I'm the only one who can say this to you. You're weak, mister. Your moral code consists of whatever makes you look good to your colleagues and students. Whatever helps you sleep at night. You think you have to play the saintly sinner role-one who knows because he's done it, and although sorely tempted, now sacrifices because he knows better. Like those f.u.c.king vegans. Worse, like all of you academic liberals. I swear most of you carry around a little checklist." She mimed holding a clipboard and pen. "Veggie? Check. Organic? Check. Bleeding heart? Check. No TV? Check. Scolding everyone who doesn't agree with you? Check."

I laughed, but I wasn't amused. "That's not fair. I eat meat."

"Yeah, but you pretend to feel bad about it."

We heard Jennings clear his throat. He was standing just inside the entry arch. "How much longer will you be with Mick? Remember, Harriet is coming by at noon."

Octavia screwed up her face. "Who?"

Jennings rolled his eyes. "The chef?"

"Right. Why couldn't you say 'the chef' instead of some name I haven't learned yet? Is that too f.u.c.king difficult?"

I got out of the way, pretended to scan the t.i.tles on her floor-to-ceiling shelves, all dark cherry, with an ornate wood fireplace as the centerpiece. Lots of rare books-law stretching back to the middle ages, through the 18th and 19th centuries, European and American, although she prized her Russian collection most of all. Medical texts, a couple from the 1600's. Religious books of all stripes plus the fringes, like Zoroastrianism, Satanism, Paganism, Snake Handlers, and various cult writings from UFO wors.h.i.+ppers to free s.e.x believers. Not to mention a ridiculous amount of modern true crime books and horror fiction. I picked up her first edition Clive Barker Books of Blood, Volume 1, and flipped through while waiting for them to finish. Not that I cared about the words on the page, mind you.

Jennings said, "Fine. The Chef is coming at noon, and you're not ready."

"I'm plenty ready."

"Please. You want her to see you like this?"

"She'll see me a lot worse, so why not?"

I snuck a peek. Jennings stroked his chin, pursed his lips. "Darling, even if you don't believe this, I think that the way you look at this interview will tell her a lot about the food she's expected to cook. Show her this right now, and I swear it'll be deep-fried walleye and burritos."

I expected a torrent from Octavia, a tongue-las.h.i.+ng of such withering proportions that Jennings would need to flagellate himself like Luther to ease the sting. But I was surprised. She flashed her Hollywood smile. Very unexpected. Maybe her dissection of me had taken the fight out of her.

"Okay, I can see that. Give me a few more minutes with Mick, but go ahead and start the shower and lay out an outfit. Not all black. Do I have a yellow scarf?"

After he left, I replaced the book on the shelf and shoved my hand in my pockets. I said, "What should I do?"

"I'd pray that she doesn't know about that Asian strange of yours. After that, you've got to find the pen. The pen will lead you to the signer, and if he confesses, you might have a chance."

"Are we sure it's a he?"

"Probably, and I doubt she paid him in money." She shrugged. "You know, I'm surprised she just didn't f.u.c.k them right in front of you. Like you would have done anything about it. Just sit in the corner and cry."

The air rushed out of me like a leaky balloon. "Look, I've had a rough week."

"Just go home for now and start thinking of where we can find the pen. I'll show the deed to Pamela. Maybe she'll have a different strategy, just in case." She reached out for a hug. "Don't worry. I'm not going to let her cut your b.a.l.l.s off or anything. You're safe with me."

We hugged, and I made my way out of the house. Safe in Octavia's care. What a concept. If that was so, then why did I still feel, as I stepped out into a sunny and warm morning in Minneapolis, so very very cold?