"Honey?" Daphne asked through the open window. "Are you all right?"
Reality slammed back. "I'm sorry, honey," he said once he recomposed himself. "Forgot to change the air in my head today."
Daphne seemed concerned. "You looked like you were in a trance. Are you sure you're all right?"
"Fit as a fiddle, however fit that is," Dean tried to joke. "Seriously, how fit are fiddles? What's that you were saying?"
Her profuse lashes blinked at him. She looked depressed. "Mr. Thron called a work meeting tonight. Quarterly inventory."
"Bosses do that," Dean tossed it off.
"The meeting's now. Would you mind taking the bus home?"
"No biggie," Dean said. "I enjoy busses, actually. You might even call me a bus-loving man."
"I knew you'd understand." She batted her big eyes again. "Kiss-kiss."
"Ah, of course." Dean leaned over and kissed wife on the lips.
"Love you," Daphne whispered.
"I love you more... "
"Do not."
"Do too."
Dean grinned, stepping back. He could stand there and kiss her forever, and that would be fine with him. But then she'd miss her meeting!
"Oh, and I might be late," Daphne added, slipping the car into gear. "So don't wait up."
The love in Dean's eyes shone like hot embers as he watched Daphne drive off. He thought nothing of the fact her office was south yet she was driving north. It didn't even register.
Dean looked at the Metro bus stop, less than enthused about the hour-and-a-half ride back home. Hell, it's Friday night, he thought. A minute later, he was on the pay phone.
"Ajax, it's Dean. What say we have a few beers?"
««—»»
Ajax, like Dean, was not a true Seattlelite. He'd moved here from the east coast to pursue the more bountiful employment opportunities. He stuffed envelopes for a national survey corporation and was quite proud to make a living at it—not that many would call his existence a living.
Ajax looked like Rush Limbaugh with a beard, and possessed similar political sentiments. Well, make that Rush Limbaugh with a beard who dressed like a pan-handler. He and Dean had met quite by accident, at a Fremont tavern called THE DUBLINER during the last game of the World Series. They'd been the only two cheering when the Yankees had won. Since then, both never fitting into the Seattle grunge-goth-Left Coast-shaven-headed-everyone-has-a-fucking-knapsack scene, they became fast friends.
Ajax' surname was Jackson, and his parents had absurdly dubbed him with the first name Andrew. In his bent political persuasions, however, he regarded the seventh president of the United States as the nation's first "pinko," a closet separatist who boldly killed unarmed Indians while the rest of the Continental Army was fighting the well-trained British, and who "lucked out" at the Battle of New Orleans because his drinking habits forced subordinate officers to lead the battle. Hence, Ajax didn't like his name, so he insisted he be called Ajax.
Ajax was also a bit of a pervert.
"Man," he said, "I'd like to pee on her back."
Dean frowned at the table.
With this comment, Ajax had been referring to the zombie-shuffling waitress who'd just brought them their beers. She was rack-skinny, straight black hair like a mortician wig, with unbra'd tits pushing against her black PIERCE ME! T-shirt like a couple of under-ripe peaches. Tattoos of skeleton hands crawled up her neck to strangle her, and she had something in her lower lip that looked like a shower-curtain ring.
"Shit," Ajax appended, "that tramp's probably had more abortions than I've had beers. Bet she gargles biker piss like Listerine. Pops empty Jim Beam bottles out of her pussy for parlor tricks and has an asshole bigger than the drydock for a Nimitz-class carrier."
Dean blanched.
"Yeah, I'd yank that bitch's reins bigtime; she'd whinny like a horse, " Ajax went on, his eyes fogged in fantasy as he stared after the vapid barmaid. She moved like one of the cast of Cemetery Man. "I'd fist-fuck her entire large intestine, then piss on her so hard her Ozzy Osborne tattoos would wash off." Dean blocked out his friend's pornographic rant. God he's so sexist! No wonder women don't go out with him.
Full of reeking bums eating their own boogers, bovine-faced bald lesbians, and a man with a beard and large breast implants—God Bless Seattle!—the Rte. 25 bus had brought Dean here from downtown—here being a tavern called THE WHARF which sat one street away from beautiful Lake Union, or not so beautiful when one considered the lake's history. For a hundred years, a coal-oil processing plant had dumped its petro-chemical effluence into the lake's pristine depths. Swimming was strictly prohibited, and if you ate a fish caught in Union's waters, any sequent offspring would more than likely be born with flippers. As for THE WHARF itself, it was an actual murder site: A number of years ago, a local "businessman" was shot in the head with a small-caliber weapon, evidently for running up too lofty a marker with other local "businessmen." Ajax and Dean sat at the self-same table.
The tavern made a garbage pit look well-appointed. Some entrepreneur took a couple of double-wide trailers, smacked them together, and that was it. That was the bar. The clientele fit right in, West Coast rednecks to the max. Heavy metal blared from the juke, billiard balls clacked in the back. A giant projection TV in the corner sported Monster Truck races.
Ajax sipped his Redhook ESB and winced. "So the wife let you out of the cage tonight, huh? Let me guess. Work meeting?"
Dean squirted lemon juice into his Pyramid Hefeweizen. "How'd you know?"
"Duh. What is this, like the eighth Friday night in a row she's had a work meeting?"
Dean grinned triumph against the ceaseless implication. "No, it's the sixth, smart guy."
"Oh, that's right. The other two work meetings were on Saturday nights. And you don't think that's odd."
"Why should I?" Dean retorted. "She's in an odd business. Clothing distribution isn't like working at a bank, you know. Most of their invoices go out on weekends."
"Whatever you say... "
For as long as they'd been friends, Ajax had always intimated that Daphne might be cheating on Dean, the prospect of which Dean viewed as preposterous. We're in love! he thought. He doesn't understand true love.
"How often do you drop wax?" Ajax asked.
"What?"
Ajax rolled his eyes. "How often do you fuck her? Let me guess—once every two weeks?"
Dean was taken aback. "Well, not quite that often. Once a month or so." Actually, it was more like once every two months... but why quibble?
Ajax laughed. "Christ, my grandparents fuck more than that."
"Marriage isn't about sex," Dean explained. "It's about a spiritual bond, an everlasting one. It's about commitment and total faith. It's about sharing your life with someone else. It's about love, Ajax," and at that precise moment an uncharacteristic selection switched on over the juke: "All You Need Is Love," by The Beatles.
"See that!" Dean clapped at the coincidence.