“I know you can do this,” she said. “I need you to.”
She reached down between her legs, gripping his cock and working her thumb at the base of the glans, smiling like she would at a joke that wasn’t funny. She kissed him again, grinding her hips in punishing little circles and digging at his chest with her fingernails. When she checked again and his cock was still limp, she rolled off and lay staring at the ceiling. “That makes what?” she asked. “The last three times?”
“I don’t know what’s wrong with me.”
She got up on an elbow. “Really?”
“I probably ought to try something. Viagra, maybe.”
“Maybe you should.”
She got up and pulled a black T-shirt from under her pillow. Stenciled on the front, under a white horse head with an orange mane, was Denver Broncos. The shoulder seams reached almost to her elbows and the hem hung mid-thigh. She retrieved her glass from the sill and went back to the kitchen, and he heard her making another drink.
Then she was standing again in the doorway. “You know what pisses me off?”
“I guess not the whole list.” He folded his pillow behind his head.
She was leaning into the jamb with one leg bent up, pressing the sole of that foot against the opposite knee. It made for an odd silhouette, he thought, birdlike.
“You know what Viagra’s good for?” she asked.
“I think so.”
“Yeah, well I do too. It’s a real lifesaver for the assholes who are getting it someplace else. Every Tom, Dick and Crane can come trotting home with their limp dicks, whining about the heartache of ED. ED, my ass. Your only dysfunction is you’d rather fuck stray pussy more than me.”
“Funny, they don’t say anything about that in the ads.”
She sipped her drink. “I need to know something,” she said. “So I can keep everything in perspective.”
“All right.”
“I’d like to know when you think you might have the balls to tell me what’s going on.”
“That’s something we can talk about tomorrow.”
“You mean when I’m not drunk?”
“Yes.”
“Fuck you.”
She straightened her leg, leaning over into the opposite jamb, and he stood up and found where he’d dropped his clothes on the floor and stepped into the sweatpants and sat back down on the bed.
“You want to know the worst thing I ever did?” she asked.
“Tell me.”
“I really hate that tone of voice.”
“Go ahead. I want to know.”
She walked away, and he pulled the T-shirt on. She was sitting on the counter beside the sink when he came into the kitchen, the bottle of Jim Beam next to her. He sat at the table, and she leaned back against the cupboards.
“So, the worst thing I ever did?”
“I’m ready,” he said.
She parted her legs and, when he looked away, turned to spit in the sink, pulling the T-shirt down over her knees. She lit a cigarette from the pack by the bottle and dropped the paper match in the drain. “I wished you were dead. That’s the worst thing I ever did.”
He stared at her.
“I don’t mean fuck you, fuck me, I wish you were dead. I mean the whole nine yards, front to back. Smell the blood, watch the light go out of your eyes, appear appropriately heartbroken at the funeral, answer the condolence cards promptly and pack your shit off to the landfill.” She took a long drag from her cigarette, tilting her head back to exhale, staring at him down over her cheeks. “So how does that sit with you, Mr. Maybe-Viagra-Might-Let-Me-Fake-Fuck-My-Wife-Now-and-Then?”
His left arm and both calves were buzzing, and he tried to swallow and coughed. “Not great.” He cleared his throat, careful not to gag. That’s what frightened him most, the choking. He’d watched it happen to his grandfather.
“Good,” she said, “because I didn’t even get to the part about burning sage in every room of the house to run your fucking stink out.”
He wiped the spittle from the corners of his mouth. “Have you thought about me dying today?”
“Today’s not over with yet.” She drained her glass and poured it half full of whiskey, holding it under the tap for a splash of cold water.
“You’ve been drinking a lot, even for you.”
“Have I?”
“Yes, you have.”
She sipped the drink. “Why don’t you tell me what you expect me to do?”
“I guess I don’t know what to expect.”
“Jesus, you must fucking think I’m made out of iron or something.”
“I think you’re the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. I still think that.”
“You’ve got a twisted way of showing it.”
“I haven’t been feeling well.”
“But well enough to fuck your ex-wife. That’s something, isn’t it? I’m sorry you haven’t been up to handling us both.”
“That’s not what’s happening.”
“Bullshit.” She drank down half her drink.
“It’s not like that with Helen.”
“Give it the fuck up, Crane. Janice Obermueller already told me she saw you two having dinner at the Olive Garden in Billings.”
They heard a car pull into the drive, then a door slamming shut.
Jean slid off the counter, staggering sideways toward the refrigerator before catching herself. “You want to know something? I really do wish you were dead. It would’ve been easier for you.” She stubbed her cigarette out in the sink, looking at him over her shoulder. “Because right now you’ve got to hate yourself even more than I do.”
They could hear a light knock at the screen door, and Jean pushed away from the counter.
“I didn’t make love to her.”
“Couldn’t, or wouldn’t?”
“I just didn’t.”
The knock again, still light.
“Come on in and join the party,” Jean called.
She was gripping the backladder of a chair, bracing herself, when the girl stepped into the doorway, the kitchen light reflecting off her eyebrow stud and the ring in her lower lip.
“I need to see the sheriff,” she said, nearly whispering.
Jean stared at her, weaving, then shrugged and dropped her hands from the chair. “I’m going to bed.”
She turned and lurched toward the bedroom, holding a palm out against the wall to steady herself, and he heard a picture fall in the hallway.
“I’m Janey Schilling,” the girl said. “My sister said you wanted to talk to me.”
They walked out around her car and he held the door open to the cruiser and she ducked in.
“I’m sorry it’s so late,” she said. “I saw your lights on, so I thought it would be okay.”
“I’m glad you did.”
She turned in the seat and pressed a hand up against the wire mesh separating the front seat from the back, then looked at him.
“This your first ride in one of these?”
She nodded.
“Go on ahead and put your seatbelt on,” he said, backing them around and thinking about driving out north with the windows down, through the troughs of cool air holding tight against the sloughs along the roadway, thinking that might put her at ease. But he didn’t know if she was crazy, in which case it’d be better to have her in the office, even if it scared her a little.
“I almost didn’t come over tonight. I almost just went back to Denver.”
“You’re doing the right thing,” he said.
“Anyway, I don’t sleep hardly ever. I’m up all the time.”
“Yeah, that’s me too.”
When he crossed the bridge east of town, a night hatch came up out of the willows along the river and the insects pocked the windshield like puffs of ash.
“I guess the fish’ll be biting on those bugs tomorrow.” She tried to make it sound conversational, like they knew each other.
“I don’t know the first thing about fishing,” he said. “Sometimes I act like I do, but I don’t.”
“My stepdad took me.”
“I met him.”
“ Benton?” She turned to look at him in the dashlights. She was fingering the ring in her lip.
“Your mother too.”