The Sopaths (4 page)

“Not your department,” she agreed. “But it is mine. If you will take me to the store, I’ll shop. I’m afraid I will have to use your money. My purse was lost, with my money and ID. It will take time to untangle that.”

Abner didn’t argue. He drove her to the store, and she circulated through it with authority, knowing what she wanted. He gave her money, and she used it efficiently. They returned with a grocery bag full.

Back at his house, she fixed him a nice lunch. This made him feel awkward. “This is—you really don’t need to—” he protested.

“This is something I need to do,” she said.

“I appreciate it.”

In the afternoon they talked. Bunty was alert and clever, evoking similar qualities in him. He liked her. Then she lay on the couch and slept, fitfully. They had, it seemed, settled in.

He gazed at her as she slept, admiring her form. It was simply an automatic male response to a woman who looked like her. She had mentioned along the way that she was thirty, his age, and in repose the lines of her face did hint at it. But she had by no means lost the bloom of youth. Her knees were drawn up, her skirt was bunched around her rear, and it was one fine example of its kind. He shouldn’t be looking.

Tomorrow they would go to Sylvia’s house, other arrangements would be made, and Bunty would be out of his life. Then he would be alone again.

He dreaded the prospect. At least today he had some distraction, of whatever nature. He needed that.

She woke after an hour. “Oh, I think the afternoon is gone,” she said, chagrined. “I shouldn’t have slept.”

“You needed it. You have had a terrible day.”

“A terrible morning. You have been kind, and I truly appreciate it.”

He spread his hands. “I appreciate the company. It makes the awfulness retreat.”

“Yes. Let me see about dinner.” She got up and went to the kitchen. He let her.

It was another nice meal. She did know her business. She even took care of the dishes, which had accumulated in the past day.

Then it was evening and time to retire. “I’ll fetch a blanket and pillow for the couch,” he said.

“Why?”

“So you can have the bedroom.”

“We will share the bedroom.”

“But it’s a double bed.”

“Room for both of us.”

He shook his head. “I’m not sure you understand. You’re a comely woman. If I share the bed with you, I will get ideas. I know we’re both in severe grief, but it’s a male thing. I react despite knowing better.”

“Exactly.”

“What?” he asked, confused.

“Abner, you are being kind to me. I mean to return the favor. We may never see each other again after tomorrow, but while we are together I will do my part. I am not a woman of many talents, but this is something I do know how to do. Please let me do it. I have seen you looking. I will not be a tease. It is not as if either of us can be unfaithful to our spouses, and we will not be, in our hearts.”

He was dumbfounded. “Are you saying?”

“I am.” She took his hand and led him to the bedroom.

He tried to demur. “This—this really isn’t necessary. I brought you here because I saw how desperately you needed help, and I knew you wouldn’t get it from your family or friends. I did not have sex in mind, and I think it would be wrong to ask it of you.”

“Exactly,” she repeated.

“I don’t understand.”

“You did a generous thing. You’re a nice man. I have known you only hours, but that’s long enough to take your measure in key respects. You’re decent, and you like sex. You will never clasp your wife again, nor I my husband. It is better for us both to be realistic, and fulfill each other’s needs.”

“Isn’t that like doing it for pay?”

She nodded. “Not for money, in this case, but for mutual advantage. It’s a fair analogy.”

“Not one I like.”

“There is nothing about this situation that either of us likes. If we could wave a wand and restore our families, we’d do it instantly. But we can’t. We are up against a new reality. The faster we adjust to it, the better off we will be. That’s simply common sense.”

“Common sense!”

“I’ll be a weak woman before long, as I mentioned. At the moment I am riding the hard rail of necessity. This is something I need to do for you.”

“You
don’t
need to do it!” he protested.

“My realism says I do. Please, further argument will simply make it more difficult.”

He realized that she was determined. She was certainly desirable. There were limits to his decency. “If that’s the way you want it.”

She grimaced. “I don’t
want
any part of it. But I have to do it. I don’t think I can kiss you; that’s too intimate. But I can do the rest.”

“I still don’t know—”

She disrobed so efficiently that it was as if her clothing had dissolved. She stood splendidly nude before him. “Will you undress, or do you prefer me to do it for you?”

Something clicked into place. “If you really mean to do this, then you can prove it by undressing me. You can stop at any time and I will not pursue you.”

“A fair compromise,” she agreed. She approached him and started removing his clothing, beginning with his shirt.

“You’ve done this before,” he said, not really surprised.

“It was a game with my husband. He liked to be seduced.” She tackled his shoes, making him lift one foot and then the other. Then she addressed his trousers.

“My wife became passionate when upset,” he said. “It was her way of coping.”

“I like your wife.” The trousers dropped to his feet, and he stepped out of them.

She drew down his undershorts. His penis sprang out, fully erect. “The—she was on the pill.”

“So am I.” She stroked his member, encouraging it to further rigidity.

“Lubricant helped.”

“I have applied it.” She stooped to kiss the tip.

She really was prepared. “I am running out of excuses.”

“I noticed.” She drew him down on the bed. He found himself kissing her fine breasts, which had somehow come up against his face. Then she guided him to mount her, and her hands steered his eager member. Suddenly he was inside her, with volcanic urgency.

There followed a sequence such as he had hardly dared imagine. It seemed he would never stop pumping out fluid, encouraged by her rhythmic contractions. She was correct: she did know how to do it.

He subsided, gasping, but remained connected. She held him close against her, his head beside hers. He did not try to kiss her mouth, per her preference. He doubted she had climaxed with him; her action had been for him alone. That was about the only way the experience fell short of perfection.

They cleaned up after, and lay down on the bed again, she in Zelda’s pajamas. “Are you satisfied?” she asked.

“Oh, yes,” he agreed, amazed.

“Understand, this next has nothing to do with you or your performance. I am letting go.”

“Letting go?”

Then she burst into tears.

Oh. She had warned him. She had accomplished her duties as she saw them, then collapsed. All he could do was lie there beside her, letting her do what she had to do.

“Please, if you would,” she said. “Hold me.”

He put his arms around her as well as he could as she turned into him and sobbed into his shoulder. He was conscious of her soft breasts beneath the pajamas, pressing against his chest. Yet again he felt guilty for noticing, despite the recent sex, when what she needed was comforting. So did he, actually, but holding her like this was comforting him too. He could almost pretend she was Zelda.

Soon she slept, and he did too.

In the morning he woke to find their mouths together. They were kissing!

He drew his face back. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to do that.”

“It’s all right, Abner. You didn’t do it. I did.”

“You kissed me?”

“Last night I couldn’t. This morning my subconscious seems to have accepted you. Do you want more sex?”

He was taken aback. “I—no, thanks.”

Her hand felt down to touch his member through the pajamas. “You lie. Give me a moment.” She got up and went to the bathroom.

In moments she returned, nude, and surely prepared. She got down on him, found his member, brought it out from the pajamas, and slipped it into her. This time she kissed him as she brought him to climax. It had been only a few hours since the last time, but the novelty made it almost as explosive. He felt pulse after pulse of ejaculate forging into her. She wasn’t Zelda, but she was more than good enough.

She remained with him until the last ebb was out, still kissing him. Then she got up again and he heard her running the shower. She was nothing if not efficient.

She fixed breakfast while he showered and dressed. She had settled in amazingly quickly. He might have felt resentful, but instead was relieved. Alone, he would have been transfixed by grief. As it was, that was only one thing amidst competing interests.

“I need to be candid,” Bunty said when breakfast was done. “Yesterday morning I was wiped out. You extended a hand, gave me a place to stay the night, made me feel almost normal between bouts of self pity. I am deeply appreciative.”

“You’re welcome,” he said. “I thought I was doing you a favor, but having you here has eased my own wipe-out. I will be sorry to see you go.”

“Must I go?”

“No!” he said before thinking. “I mean, I have no right to hold on to you, but your company has done as much for me as anything I have done for you. As you said, neither of us would have chosen this path, but given that we were thrust into it, I am immensely grateful for your company.”

“I had hoped you would feel that way. But I have to be honest. I knew I needed help and support, so I angled to get it whatever way I could. From the first. I was desperate.”

“From the first?” he asked blankly. “You were weeping by the husk of your house. All I did was extend a hand.”

“I was distraught, yes, but not unconscious. I saw you were a man. I flashed you with my legs.”

Abner felt his jaw fall. “I thought that was accidental.”

“Such things are seldom truly accidental. Then when you helped me up, I stepped into you and embraced you, pressing my torso against yours. Making you want me. That was an unfair ploy.”

“You wanted me to take you home!” he said.

“I was shameless. I used you. Once I was in your house, I did everything I could to make you want to keep me.”

“Because you had nowhere else to go,” he said.

“Yes. Today I am sure Pariah will have some sort of placement for me, and I am ready to go. But I would prefer to remain here with you. This is a function of my continuing desperation. I needed you to know, before making my pitch.”

“Your pitch?”

“So you understand just how cynical it is, at the root. Like selling a new product by amending it with bangles to evoke a desire despite its uselessness. I want to stay, and I believe I can make it worth your while, one way or another. But I can’t take it further without being sure you understand exactly how you are being manipulated. It wouldn’t be right.”

“Manipulated,” he repeated, bemused.

“Including the sex. I played you the way a woman plays a man. But fair is fair.”

“But I would have helped you without all that! You don’t need to vamp me.”

She nodded. “I think that is true. I didn’t know you well enough, so I couldn’t afford to gamble on your decency. I apologize.”

He considered her carefully. “Complete cynicism. Like that of a sopath.”

She rocked back as if struck. “Dear God, you’re right! I hate that. I don’t deserve any more of your courtesy. Let’s go see Sylvia. She should have advice for me, where to stay while my identity gets sorted out.”

He felt abruptly guilty. Was she still playing him? “No, wait. I haven’t heard your pitch.”

“You want to hear it now?”

“Yes. You strike me as a woman who knows what she wants and goes efficiently after it. What you have to say is bound to make sense.”

“Then bear with me a moment.” She got up and went to the downstairs bathroom. He heard her sobbing. Oh—another siege of grief. He knew exactly how that was.

Soon she emerged, her face repaired.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “It was an unkind analogy. I said it without thinking.”

“It was an accurate one. That’s what got me. I was acting like a sopath. I can’t blame you for being turned off.”

“The pitch,” he reminded her tersely.

“It is this: I need you, because I have no resources at the moment. I am ready to do what is required to make you satisfied to have me remain here.”

“Yes, you demonstrated that last night.”

She made a wan smile. “That, too. You are similarly devastated, and, as you admitted, ill-equipped to handle things like housekeeping, laundry, meals, and shopping. The thousand little things that keep a family going. But you will need to handle them, and keep your health up, because in a few days you will have to return to your job, and do it well. Otherwise you’ll lose it, and you’ll have one hell of a time getting another. Because of what happened.”

She was on target. “I guess I hadn’t thought that far ahead.”

“I can provide the support you need to function. So you can go to work and pretend that things are normal at home. Because they will be, to the extent I can make them.” She gave him a straight look. “I can’t offer you the reality, just the illusion. No love, of course. But you won’t have to struggle with anything at home. That’s worth something.”

“It is,” he agreed. “The illusion of family.”

“And the ordinary details of running the household. It isn’t much, but it’s all I can offer. It doesn’t have to be permanent. Just until we both get better organized. Mutual convenience. A practical matter.”

“Let’s do it,” he said.

“But I thought you--”

“I don’t think you’re a sopath. I regret saying what I did. Stay. If the sex is a turnoff for you, no need to do it. Your deal makes sense.”

“Sex is not a turnoff for me. It’s a tool. Part of my arsenal. I don’t have a lot of skills, but I’m good at what I do, and that is part of it. You know that it’s a service, like the housekeeping. I like doing it well. I feared my realism in this respect would repel you.”