At Last (3 page)

Liz stopped for a moment and uncharacteristically threw her arms around the aging doorman. “She’ll be fine. We’re taking care of her.” She pulled away to look deep into Lou’s eyes. “You know what to do about the locks...and if he shows up?”

Lou’s polite reserve returned as he smiled at Liz. “The locks will be changed before you arrive at the airport. I’ll have...
him
arrested for trespassing if he dares shows his face.”

“Knew I could count on you, Lou.” She pecked the old man on the cheek, wiping the light smudge of lipstick off before bolting out the door.

~*~

Kevin was surprised how few people bothered you when your carry-on luggage was another person. The usually brutal security screeners waved him through. The flight attendants showed him hastily to his seat, not daring to ask what was wrong with the pretty, though catatonic, woman in his arms. Kevin buckled her into her seat and spent the rest of the flight with his arm around her, not saying a word. Partly because he didn’t know what to say, and partly because he genuinely couldn’t let her go. He’d missed her so much.

When the flight landed in Cancun, the hotel picked them up in a simple yet spotless black sedan. No limo, no tacky
Congratulations
or
Just Married
signs in sight. Obviously, Kevin thought with gratitude, Liz had already contacted the resort.

“We’ve moved you to a luxury suite, sir,” the driver said as he pulled the car out into the gridlocked traffic. It seemed that half the United States had said, “Screw it!”and exited
en masse
to this sunnier, warmer destination. Kevin could feel himself start to sweat through his suit, even after he had already removed his tie.

At least they wouldn’t have to deal with the honeymoon suite or some heart-shaped bed. “I’ll need to have some more appropriate clothes sent up to the room.”

“Of course. Should I charge it to the room?” The driver’s expression was one of keen knowing.

“No. I’ll pay for my own clothes. But charge everything for the lady to the room.”

“Very good, sir. Would you like medium or large shirts, and your waist is probably a thirty-two?” The driver’s eyes were smiling in the rearview mirror as he peered back at Kevin and Susan.

“Large shirts, size eleven shoes, and my waist is a thirty.”

“Ah, big feet.” The driver wriggled his eyebrows. “Very good indeed.”

The driver’s smile was smug, and Kevin guessed he already knew his measurements the moment he looked at him. That first look at the airport was not only professionally friendly, but unabashedly appraising. At least someone would be flirting with him.

~*~

The luxury suite was exactly that. Some thousand square feet, two bedrooms, private and master baths, a living room and a fully functioning kitchen.

Kevin took Susan straight to one of the bedrooms and lay her down on the bed, covering her up and tucking her in protectively.

The bellman had left the bags by the door, but two maids had come in and were unpacking Susan’s before Kevin even noticed they were there. He would’ve told them he’d take care of it but as they transferred Susan’s underwear, and other unmentionables that had been packed for much more erotic adventures, he decided it best if they finished.

Amazingly, Kevin counted back the hours and only two and a half of them stood between where they were and Susan’s aborted marriage ceremony. Two and a half hours and he was already ready to jump out of his skin. He couldn’t stand seeing her like this. If she’d get up and start throwing things, start screaming all the nasty curses she knew how to use perfectly, maybe he’d get through this.

“Yeah, that Mark, what a fucking prick!” he’d say. Maybe he’d help her plan some mindless revenge. But with her lying there, helpless on the bed, all he wanted to do was lie next to her, holding her in his arms, protecting her from all those things that could hurt her.

But how could he do that? It’s what he should do. It was what a real friend would do, ignore their feelings and do what was needed for the good of their friend. But if he held her in his arms for one instant, he was sure he’d never be able to let go, never be able to just be her friend again, and the memory of it would haunt him for the rest of his life.

Susan groaned. A small gasp escaped her lips as her ribs expanded and contracted with the efforts of her silent sobs. Kevin didn’t give any of his misgivings or worries a second thought, he crawled onto the bed and lay down facing her, pulling her to him and holding her against him as she cried softly, her face pressed against his chest, soaking his shirt in tears without end.

~*~

Kevin did not sleep. For hours he simply held Susan, silently comforting her as she finally cried herself to sleep. Strangely, the sound of her breathing, and how her trembling, stress stiff body softened in his arms, gave him some relief. But for almost two hours he was afraid to even move, lest he wake her.

When Kevin finally slipped away, he found room service menus and three heaping bags of clothes waiting for him in the living room of the suite. He knew he should be hungry, but he didn’t feel the slightest desire to eat.

The bags made him pause. What if the driver had picked out nothing but tropical printed shirts and polyester pants? Or worse, what if everything was two sizes too small and ripped directly off the brawny backs of the cast of
Queer as Folk
?

Either way Kevin would not sport anything so cheesy or oversexed.

Well, he might try them on to cheer up Susan, but he certainly wouldn’t leave the room wearing any of it.

But when he pulled the neatly folded clothing from the shopping bags he was pleasantly surprised. A mixture of light weight pants, shorts, t-shirts, some tank tops and three different pairs of shoes--sandals, cross trainers and a moderately dressy pair of loafers. More surprisingly the driver had bought Kevin underwear--boxer briefs, thank God--socks and two boxer-style swimming trunks.

Though these choices were conservative, Kevin got the sense the driver probably knew his body better than any of his former girlfriends had--and without the advantage of seeing him naked.

It gave him a small shiver of distress. A tension headache started to form right between his eyes. Some days he wished he had a neon sign over his head blinking
Straight!
Maybe then he’d quit getting grief. He stripped out of his long-sleeved oxford shirt and the suit pants had been broiling him most of the day, and pulled on a pair of the shorts and one of the t-shirts. He would leave opening the packages of underwear until morning.

Kevin flopped down on the overstuffed couch, planning on turning on the TV, but the moment he fell on those plush, ever-so-soft couch cushions, he passed right out.

~*~

The tropical sun radiated in through the enormous bay windows of the suite, not only warming Kevin to the point of discomfort, but slowly robbing him of the still shelter afforded by the dark. As he pushed himself up off the couch, he was surprised by how little his back and neck hurt. This was the most comfortable couch in the history of the world. Yet no sooner did he think that then he remembered who was in the other room, sleeping on the bed--alone.

Kevin bolted back toward the bedroom and into the darkened room where the drapes blessedly remained pulled shut. Susan lay there, tucked in as he had left her. He circled the bed and crouched down, trying to see if her eyes were open. They were, but she wasn’t exactly awake. She still looked catatonic, eyes blank, expression slack, her coloring that of someone in shock.

Wracked with guilt, Kevin wondered if Susan
was
in shock. What if she was teetering on the edge of a real nervous breakdown? What if she needed professional psychological care, or industrial grade pharmaceuticals?

Don’t freak out!
he told himself.

Kevin tried quelling the glut of thoughts bouncing around in his head. He needed to be steady if he was going to get through this. Unfortunately, as the whirlwind of panicked notions subsided, Kevin realized he had to pee in the worst way. It would have been a welcome distraction except “the worst way” included the mother of all pee hard-ons.

No, this can’t be happening.
Hot guilt flooded his veins, and he prayed to God that Susan hadn’t noticed him hopping through the room to the bathroom with the front of his shorts tented with a woody the size of…well, a tree.

All he’d wanted to do was let her go, to say goodbye so they both could move on. But instead he was stuck in this Fantasy Island, Oxiconton nightmare, trying to help his comatose, unrequited first love get over her asshole ex-fiancé. God had to be a woman, one who hated him with a perverse passion.

Maybe Liz was God? Kevin laughed at the thought.

Touching himself in that state felt so wrong. His best friend was in the next room, her life torn to shreds by her lying, cheating fiancé, and here was her horn-dog best friend in the bathroom trying to bend his incredibly inappropriate stiffy down enough so he could take a leak.

Guilty or not, Kevin couldn’t not sigh with great relief as he voided the contents of his near bursting bladder. And he couldn’t ignore how good it felt having his manhood engorged in his hand. But with admirable restraint, and another heavy load of guilt swelling on each shoulder like twin boulders growing in size until they crushed him, Kevin pulled up his shorts, tucking his flagging erection back where it belonged.

As he washed his hands with the sweet-smelling hotel soap, looking in the mirror at his sleep-mussed hair and unshaved mug, he thought of Susan, and her bladder. He bounded into the bedroom and stopped cold. Was he just going to carry her into the bathroom and set her down on the toilet? Sure he could pick her up, but one problem--he’d have to pull down her pants and panties. The thought was not only disturbingly geriatric, but perversely more prurient than Kevin could handle.

Seeing the hotel maids unpack Susan’s undies was one thing, but to have to touch them while they were still on her...

“Susan?” Kevin’s voice cracked under the weight of his frenzied paranoia. “Susan? Do you have to use the restroom?”

Her stare never wavered, her expression unchanging.

Kevin folded his arms over his heaving chest. He couldn’t do it, it was too much to ask, and too much to do, and he couldn’t stand feeling so useless. Squeezing his eyes shut until green clouds of light permeated the blank slate behind his eyelids, Kevin did the only thing he could think of doing. Keeping his eyes closed he said, “Go to the bathroom, Susan!” Affecting the best impersonation of his own father he’d ever achieved . Voice commanding yet placatingly smooth.

He didn’t look, just kept his eyes closed. And then he heard her stir, heard the sheets rustle as she pulled herself out of bed. He opened his eyes as she disappeared into the bedroom’s private lavoratory. Kevin blew out the stinging breath he’d been holding. “Thank God.”

Though Susan got up and used the restroom on command, Kevin was frustrated when she immediately returned to her fetal position on the bed. Worse, she refused to eat a bite of the food he ordered from room service and then had to throw away. She wouldn’t even drink a glass of water, so Kevin left it sitting on the nightstand by the bed, and silently prayed she would drink and eat something for him before she wasted away.

~*~

Liz answered on the third ring.

“We’ve got a problem,” Kevin said on the other end.

Liz stood in the middle of her gallery, staring at two of the famous artist’s paintings side by side. She knew they should be shown together. They had been painted back to back, they were in the same style and they even matched chromatically. The first painting, a real stunner, was gorgeous enough to take the breath from one of those rotund divas down at the soon-to-be replaced opera house. It was the second painting that had her stumped. It sucked. Even by contemporary standards, even with an artist’s God-given right to differentiate style and texture and all of that shit--this painting was killing her.

“Liz? Are you there?”

“You think you have problems?” she said, turning her head to the side just in case she’d hung the damn thing the wrong way and might see the brilliance of it from another angle. “I’ve got shit hanging on my walls.”

“She won’t eat or drink, and she’ll only go to the bathroom if I yell at her like I’m my father.”

Liz tilted her head, remembering the brief couple of times she’d met Kevin’s parents. “I liked your father, real sexy voice.” She almost lapsed into insulting him, maybe something about him finally growing a backbone or something like that, but she needed him clearheaded until she could steal away and take over the watch.

“Well, it creeps me the fuck out! I think maybe she needs professional help.”

Liz laughed bitterly. The Boy Scout finally saying the F-word--only the second time she’d heard it from him. “I’ve been under the care of ‘professional help’ since I was fifteen years old, does it seem to have helped me?”

Silence.