She laughed.
"Course not. Got a room specially set up for it at the house. No charge either, not for you. You've been real nice. Fair exchange, seems to me, for a good evening on the town."
We stopped first at my motel, so I could pick up my car. I rather liked the idea of openly following her, without having to worry about being spotted. She fascinated me: a brassy balls-up dame tending an emotional wound. Had Kim played sultry "femme" to Grace's earthy diesel"? I couldn't imagine two women more opposite.
Even while Grace was unlocking the door of her house I could hear the dog yelping inside. When it saw me, it stood up on its hind legs and barked.
"Heidi! Stop that! Don't bark at the nice man!" Heidi lowered herself and sniffed suspiciously at my shoe.
"She's into feet." Grace smiled.
"Heavy crotch worship too."
Grace quickly attached a leash to Heidi's collar, and headed for the door.
"Be back in a minute. Make yourself at home. Bathroom's upstairs if you need it." Then she took the dog outside.
Heading up the stairs, I prayed Heidi had a very full bladder, full enough to allow me a good look around. As it happened, I hit pay dirt as soon as I entered Grace's bedroom. There was a collection of framed photos nicely arranged on the dresser. One of them, a color shot, showed Grace and Kim sitting together cross-legged on a boat, smiling and gleeful, arms buddy style across each other's shoulders.
I trembled a bit as I picked up the picture. It appeared to have been taken in Southern waters. There were palms on the shoreline and the kind of waterfront condos one finds all up and down the Florida coast.
But the most striking thing about the shot, the thing that made my heart beat fast, was the curious position of their hands. Not the hands they used to cup each other, but the hands that lay free in their laps. The forefinger of each was pointed directly at the other's ankle, which seemed to be the source of all their glee.
"Jim?" It was Grace, returned with Heidi, calling to me from downstairs. I set the photograph back down on the bureau.
"Up here."
"When you're ready, come down to the cellar," she yelled.
I picked up the picture again, squinted at a section of it, trying to make it out. Grace seemed to be pointing to the very spot on Kimberly's ankle where she had that curious tattoo. Kim had told me it had been done in Florida by an Oriental woman. Grace had told me she'd spent a year in Florida. The initials were right too: K for Kimberly, G for Grace.
I found her in the cellar in a kind of workout room. There were free weights, an exercise bicycle and a set of arm pulleys attached to the wall. She stood before a professional massage table, covered with dark brown vinyl. Heidi sat quietly panting by her feet.
"Strip down and get on," she said, giving the table a slap.
"Be with you in a sec. Going upstairs to change."
I must have known instinctively what I was going to do, because even as I undressed I started making friends with the dog.
"Nice Heidi! Good Heidi!" I patted the little monster on the head.
"Good little girl! We're going to be friends. Aren't we? Aren't we, girl? Yes we are. Oh, yes we are!" I could hear Grace moving around upstairs, so I still had a little time to check around. I took off everything but my shorts and shoes, and then explored the cellar. There was just one other room, a cavernous space that contained the furnace and the washer-dryer. There was a window in this room, a typical cellar window, narrow but big enough to crawl through. I found a stepladder, set it in front of the window, mounted it and undid the latch. I tried the window. It opened easily. I undid the latches on the exterior screen, then closed the window, leaving it unlocked.
I was back in the massage room in plenty of time. I could hear Grace beginning to descend the stairs. I quickly slipped out of my shoes, set them on the floor in front of Heidi, and then, while the dog began to sniff, hid my watch behind the barbells. When Grace walked in I was in my shorts playing with Heidi on my hands and knees.
"What's going on?" she asked.
I glanced up.
"Getting friendly."
Grace knelt to pat Heidi's head. She was barefoot, and had changed into a tank top and shorts. I could clearly see the tattoo on her ankle-entwined initials, K and G, identical with Kim's.
I think it really hit me then. Of course I'd known that they'd been lovers from the moment I'd seen the photographs upstairs, so seeing the actual tattoo was merely confirmation. But there's something about a shared tattoo, an irreversible engraving upon the flesh, that far transcends a brief affair. to have been tattooed together, to decide to go through life bearing each other's initials, was not some kind of casual choice. It was serious commitment.
Grace placed an Ella Fitzgerald record on the stereo, then motioned me onto the table. I mounted it, and when I was lying face down, she asked me how I liked to be massaged.
"What are my choices?"
"Light, medium or hard."
"What's best?"
"How about a taste of each?" she said. And then without nonsense she pulled down my shorts She was a talented masseuse; I doubt I've been in better hands. She began on my shoulders and neck, slowly worked her way down my back, kneading and chopping until she reached the soles of my feet, then turned me over and started up my legs.
All this was done in time to Ella Fitzgerald singing scat, just about the sexiest vocal music I know. By the time she reached my thighs I was pretty excited. She flicked my hardening cock with her finger, then hoisted herself upon me and wiggled against me so the material of her shorts caressed my groin.
"Hung, aren't we?" she asked, working me beneath her buttocks.
"Well, I do like to think so," I said, gasping.
"I like what you're doing… very much."
"That's'the idea. For a massage like this, I usually charge forty bucks. Manual release is fifteen extra. If that's what you want I'll give it to you for free."
That was not what I wanted. to get a hand job from Kim's old lover-the idea horrified me! But how to decline without hurting Grace's feelings?
Quickly I thought of a way.
"Tell you, Grace-I appreciate your offer, but that's really not what I want. The reason, if you're interested, is because I don't think it's what you want. So why don't we just keep it straight."
She nodded.
"Know something, Jim? You're a real nice guy." She lifted herself off me, then continued the massage. When she was finished, she motioned for me to pull on my shorts. Then, while I dressed, she lit a cigarette.
"You're a lot more considerate than most of them, I can tell you. If more men were like you I might just change my preference." She laughed.
"Well, I don't really mean that. I think I was born this way. I like girls far too much to ever want to switch to guys." Her eyes sparkled.
"But then, who knows? I mean, sex is such a weird thing, isn't it?
Yeah, I think it's just about the strangest weirdest thing there is.
The air conditioning was finally working at the Devora; my room was now excessively chilled. I lay in bed, huddled under my grungy blanket, trying to come to grips with the day's experience.
Following Grace, meeting her at the topless bar, seeing the picture of Kim-all that had been extraordinary. But the massage had been the strangest part of it, for a reason that was only clear to me in retrospect. Conscious that Grace's hands had also many times touched Kim, I felt that being massaged by her had somehow closed a circle. It was as if Kim and I were now linked through the medium of Grace, as if Kim herself had been with us in that cellar room.
First thing the next morning, I went to a five-and-ten and purchased a cheap quartz watch. Then I drove to Grace's neighborhood and parked on a cross street a block from her house.