LITMIR.BIZ

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dust-balls the size of tumbleweeds scudding around underneath the bed. Paul had the condom on in three of the deftest seconds I’ve ever witnessed, and within another twenty seconds, it was all over and he was flopped to one side puffing on a Sobranie and flicking ash onto the floor. I extracted a complete anthology of Henry Miller from between my shoulder blades.

      Let’s face it. First times never live up to their promise. It would improve. It would have to. We just needed time to get used to each other.

      He fell asleep like that, with the burning cigarette dangling between his fingers. I removed it and stubbed it out. Paul was comatose. I could barely see his breathing.

      I grabbed the black robe, pulled it tight around me and stretched out on his bed. I sank into sleep and dreamt I was in a field of wildflowers: poppies, daisies, dandelions, blue cornflowers, borage and lavender, dog roses, nasturtium and burning bush, crocuses, tansy, marigolds. Every season of flower had been rolled into one and dazzled my eyes with their brilliance.

      I was aware that there were women standing in the field, each one with a different petal’s color and fragility. A bird like a crow or raven flew overhead, blocking the sun, and in its wake a huge black cloud stopped over the field. It began to rain soot. The petal women melted into the mucky dark ground. I started to run, trying to escape the black rain, but it was like moving in molasses. The rain was coming harder and faster and now there was such loud thunder that I started awake and wondered where the storm was.

      It was my stomach rumbling.

      Paul was still asleep on the floor and I was famished. I got up, dressed myself and went over to his fridges. There were five of them, and somewhere inside one of them, there had to be a tiny little snack. I grabbed the handle and was about to open the door when a voice barked, “Get away from there.” Paul was sitting up and looking mean.

      “Sorry, I didn’t realize you kept your victims’ bodies in the fridge.”

      He didn’t look amused. “You are never, ever to open any of those. Do you understand?”

      “I didn’t realize…”

      “Do? You? Understand?” he enunciated, as if I were a child.

      “I said I was sorry.”

      “Just as long as you understand.”

      My lower lip trembled and my eyes began to water.

      I know they say crying is healthy, cathartic, that it’s a bad idea to bottle it all up. But tell that to someone like me, a natural crier, whose tear ducts open up and produce whitewater rapids over the slightest provocation. Just once in my life, I longed to be less transparent.

      His evil expression softened. He came over and gave me a hug. “Lucy, Christ, I’m a wretched sod. No tears now. It’s where I keep the tools of my trade. Top secret. If you knew what was in there, you’d be susceptible. Some clever bugger of a journalist would find out you’ve been up here and make you spill the surprise. Surprise is a lot in my kind of art. So the less you know the better.”

      This was different from the other artists I’d known. The others were usually clubbing journalists over the head with their work, rough or finished.

      He coughed and looked at his watch. “You better hurry or you’ll be late for work.” As he hustled me out the door all I could think was, What, no breakfast? No white linen tablecloth? No croissants? No caffe latte?

      Chivalry was dead and buried.

      Before I started down the stairs, he pulled me back and gave me a proper kiss. “I’m only four blocks away from Rogues’ Gallery. Keep that in mind for your lunch break, won’t you? I’m usually here at that hour. Run along now.” He grinned and shut the door.

      I hurried down the street. It was a rotten windy day, candy wrappers, scrap paper and leaves gusting around me. I stopped at La Tazza and had Nelly the Grape make me my usual double caffe latte. I bought a huge fattening pastry as well. I deserved two pastries but I held back, thinking of all the nakedness that might still take place.

      The door to the gallery was unlocked which meant that Nadine was already there. Her office door was closed and I could hear her voice but not make out the words. I took off my coat, put my bag on my desk and sat down. The little brass urn full of Jeremy’s ashes was still sitting on my desk. It was comforting to have it there in front of me during my long boring gallery days.

      “Hi, Jeremy,” I said to it. “I had quite a night. I’ll tell you about it sometime when I figure it all out. I hope you’re okay, wherever you are. I hope you’re watching. I hope you’re going to find a way to help me from the other world, you know, look after me a little, put in a good word with the powers that be. I wish you would. I don’t need to tell you how much I miss you. I went to see Connie. I just don’t get you, Jeremy. I’m sorry but I just can’t see what you saw in her. She looks like a real mess. And I just don’t know how much help I can be in all of this…”

      A loud “Heh-hem” interrupted my murmuring. Nadine was standing in her office doorway looking superior. “If you’re finished communing with the dead, Lucy.”

      “Isn’t it in my contract that you have to respect my religious beliefs?”

      Nadine shook her head. “It’s in your contract that if you screw up, you’re out the door. In fine-print legalese.” She peered at me more closely. “Whatever have you been doing?”

      “What do you mean?”

      “Your face is all smutty. Go and look at yourself.”

      I went into the bathroom and stared into the mirror. I looked like a chimney sweep. Paul Bleeker’s charcoaly fingerprints were on my face. I probably had smudges all over the rest of my body as well. I scrubbed myself with wet paper towels, brushed my hair and put on a little lipstick. A nice dark shade.

      When I’d finished cleaning up and was back at my desk, Nadine said, “I’ve got an IT expert here. Jacques needs to examine your computer. He’s going to be putting in some new software.”

      “Jacques? Jacques who?” My heart skipped a beat. A computer whizz would be able to see where I’d been on the Net, see all the hours I’d frittered away checking out eBay, Big Brother sites and Lonely Hearts Web pages.

      “I’m upgrading,” said Nadine. “Jacques, this is my assistant, Lucy Madison.”

      Jacques came into view and I laughed.

      “Hey, Luce, how’re ya doing?”

      “Jacques. What are you doing here?”

      Jacques came over, picked me up and whirled me around. I only came up to his chest. Next to him I was a sylph.

      He put me down and glanced over at Nadine’s raised eyebrows. He said, “Miss Thorpe wants to buy the farm, add a few more gigabytes. And some fancy stuff for showing off artists’ work to full advantage. That right, Miss Thorpe?” I could tell by the way Nadine was looking at him that she wanted a few of Jacques’s private bits and bytes as well. It was understandable. Jacques was six feet four inches of broad-shouldered barrel-chested male sweetness. Because he didn’t have to impress anyone, he always wore the same uniform: jeans, lumberjack shirts and long straight black hair that went past his shoulders. He had a hint of local native blood and an easy smiling expression. Like Geronimo on tranquilizers.

      He was a computer genius. He’d been finishing his studies when I first met him. In university days, he’d been lost in love with Madeline from the art department. Madeline was his only defect. He would come looking for her, his dark eyes puppy-dogging along all the routes Madeline might have taken, checking out all the places where Madeline might be. We made friends during his long waits for her. What Jacques didn’t know back then was that Madeline was a very busy girl, very popular, with a lot of extra-curricular men, and she loved having Jacques as a personal six-foot-four doormat.

      “So what are you doing these days, Jacques?” I asked.

      “Working at the university,

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