Clean Slate (Kit Tolliver #4) (The Kit Tolliver Stories) (2 page)

And then it was her turn.

“Well, Jen? How many?”

Would she ever see any of these people again? Probably not. Kansas City was all right, but she was about ready for a change of venue. So it really didn’t matter what she said.

And what she said was, “Well, it depends. How do you decide what counts?”

“What do you mean? Like blow jobs don’t count?”

“Isn’t that what Clinton said?”

“As far as I’m concerned, blow jobs count.”

“And hand jobs?”

“They don’t count,” one man said, and there seemed to be general agreement on that point. “Not that there’s anything wrong with them,” he added.

“So what’s your criterion here, exactly? Something has to be inside of something?”

“As far as the nature of the act,” one man said, “I think it has to be subjective. It counts if you think it counts. So, Jen? What’s your count?”

“Suppose you passed out, and you know something happened, but you don’t remember any of it?”

“Same answer. It counts if you think it counts.”

The conversation kept going, but she was detached from it now, thinking, remembering, working it out in her mind. How many men, if gathered around a table or a campfire, could compare notes and tell each other about her? That, she thought, was the real criterion, not what part of her anatomy had been in contact with what portion of his. Who could tell stories? Who could bear witness?

And, when the table quieted down again, she said, “Five.”

“Five? That’s all? Just five?”

“Five.”

She had arranged to meet Douglas Pratter at noon in the lobby of a downtown hotel not far from his office. She arrived early and sat where she could watch the entrance. He was five minutes early himself, and she saw him stop to remove his glasses, polishing their lenses with a breast-pocket handkerchief. Then he put them on again and stood there, his eyes scanning the room.

She got to her feet, and now he caught sight of her, and she saw him smile. He’d always had a winning smile, optimistic and confident. Years ago, it had been one of the things she liked most about him.

She walked to meet him. Yesterday she’d been wearing a dark gray pants suit; today she’d paired the jacket with a matching skirt. The effect was still business attire, but softer, more feminine. More accessible.

“I hope you don’t mind a ride,” he told her. “There are places we could walk to, but they’re crowded and noisy and no place to have a conversation. Plus they rush you, and I don’t want to be in a hurry. Unless you’ve got an early afternoon appointment?”

She shook her head. “I had a full morning,” she said, “and there’s a cocktail party this evening that I’m supposed to go to, but until then I’m free as the breeze.”

“Then we can take our time. We’ve probably got a lot to talk about.”

As they crossed the lobby, she took his arm.

The fellow’s name in Kansas City was Lucas. She’d taken note of him early on, and his eyes had shown a certain degree of interest in her, but his interest mounted when she told the group how many sexual partners she’d had. It was he who’d said, “Five? That’s all? Just five?” When she’d confirmed her count, his eyes grabbed hers and held on.

And now he’d taken her to another bar, the lounge of the Hotel Phillips, a nice quiet place where they could really get to know each other. Just the two of them.

The lighting was soft, the décor soothing. A pianist played show tunes unobtrusively, and a waitress with an indeterminate accent took their order and brought their drinks. They touched glasses, sipped, and he said, “Five.”

“That really did it for you,” she said. “What, is it your lucky number?”

“Actually,” he said, “my lucky number is six.”

“I see.”

“You were never married.”

“No.”

“Never lived with anybody.”

“Only my parents.”

“You don’t still live with them?”

“No.”

“You live alone?”

“I have a roommate.”

“A woman, you mean.”

“Right.”

“Uh, the two of you aren’t . . .”

“We have separate beds,” she said, “in separate rooms, and we live separate lives.”

“Right. Were you ever, uh, in a convent or anything?”

She gave him a look.

“Because you’re remarkably attractive, you walk into a room and you light it up, and I can imagine the number of guys who must hit on you on a daily basis. And you’re how old? Twenty-one, twenty-two?”

“Twenty-three.”

“And you’ve only been with five guys? What, were you a late bloomer?”

“I wouldn’t say so.”

“I’m sorry, I’m pressing and I shouldn’t. It’s just that, well, I can’t help being fascinated. But the last thing I want is to make you uncomfortable.”

The conversation wasn’t making her uncomfortable. It was merely boring her. Was there any reason to prolong it? Was there any reason not to cut to the chase?

She’d already slipped one foot out of its shoe, and now she raised it and rested it on his lap, massaging his groin with the ball of her foot. The expression on his face was reward enough all by itself.

“My turn to ask questions,” she said. “Do you live with your parents?”

“You’re kidding, right? Of course not.”

“Do you have a roommate?”

“Not since college, and that was a while ago.”

“So” she said. “What are we waiting for?”

The restaurant Doug had chosen was on Detroit Avenue, just north of I-75. Walking across the parking lot, she noted a motel two doors down and another across the street.

Inside, it was dark and quiet, and the décor reminded her of the cocktail lounge where Lucas had taken her. She had a sudden memory of her foot in his lap, and the expression on his face. Further memories followed, but she let them glide on by. The present moment was a nice one, and she wanted to live in it while it was at hand.

She asked for a dry Rob Roy, and Doug hesitated, then ordered the same for himself. The cuisine on offer was Italian, and he started to order the scampi, then caught himself and selected a small steak instead. Scampi, she thought, was full of garlic, and he wanted to make sure he didn’t have it on his breath.

The conversation started in the present, but she quickly steered it back to the past, where it properly belonged. “You always wanted to be a lawyer,” she remembered.

“Right, I was going to be a criminal lawyer, a courtroom whiz. The defender of the innocent. So here I am doing corporate work, and if I ever see the inside of a courtroom, that means I’ve done something wrong.”

“I guess it’s hard to make a living with a criminal practice.”

“You can do okay,” he said, “but you spend your life with the scum of the earth, and you do everything you can to keep them from getting what they damn well deserve. Of course I didn’t know any of that when I was seventeen and starry-eyed over
To Kill a Mockingbird.
”

“You were my first boyfriend.”

“You were my first real girlfriend.”

She thought, Oh? And how many unreal ones were there? And what made her real by comparison? Because she’d slept with him?

Had he been a virgin the first time they had sex? She hadn’t given the matter much thought at the time, and had been too intent upon her own role in the proceedings to be aware of his experience or lack thereof. It hadn’t really mattered then, and she couldn’t see that it mattered now.

And, she’d just told him, he’d been her first boyfriend. No need to qualify that; he’d truly been her first boyfriend, real or otherwise.

But she hadn’t been a virgin. She’d crossed that barrier two years earlier, a month or so after her thirteenth birthday, and had had sex in one form or another perhaps a hundred times before she hooked up with Doug.

Not with a boyfriend, however. I mean, your father couldn’t be your boyfriend, could he?

Lucas lived alone in a large L-shaped studio apartment on the top floor of a new building. “I’m the first tenant the place has ever had,” he told her. “I’ve never lived in something brand spanking new before. It’s like I’ve taken the apartment’s virginity.”

“Now you can take mine.”

“Not quite. But this is better. Remember, I told you my lucky number.”

“Six.”

“There you go.”

And just when, she wondered, had six become his lucky number? When she’d acknowledged five partners? Probably, but never mind. It was a good enough line, and one he was no doubt feeling proud of right about now, because it had worked, hadn’t it?

As if he’d had any chance of failing . . .

He made drinks, and they kissed, and she was pleased but not surprised to note that the requisite chemistry was there. And, keeping it company, there was that delicious surge of anticipatory excitement that was always present on such occasions. It was at once sexual and non-sexual, and she felt it even when the chemistry was not present, even when the sexual act was destined to be perfunctory at best, and at worst distasteful. Even then she’d feel that rush, that urgent excitement, but it was greatly increased when she knew the sex was going to be good.

He excused himself and went to the bathroom, and she opened her purse and found the little unlabeled vial she kept in the change compartment. She looked at it and at the drink he’d left on the table, but in the end she left the vial in her purse, left his drink untouched.

As it turned out, it wouldn’t have mattered. When he emerged from the bathroom he reached not for his drink but for her instead, and it was as good as she’d known it would be, inventive and eager and passionate, and finally they fell away from each other, spent and sated.

“Wow,” he said.

“That’s the right word for it.”

“You think? It’s the best I can come up with, and yet it somehow seems inadequate. You’re—”

“What?”

“Amazing. I have to say this, I can’t help it. It’s almost impossible to believe you’ve had so little experience.”

“Because I’m clearly jaded?”

“No, just because you’re so good at it. And in a way that’s the complete opposite of jaded. I swear to God this is the last time I’ll ask you, but were you telling the truth? Have you really only been with five men?”

She nodded.

“Well,” he said, “now it’s six, isn’t it?”

“Your lucky number, right?”