Wild Things (24 page)

Carmen hooted. "Accident or not, girlfriend, you've finally done the deed. I'm happy for you. Your life was getting a little too pure and righteous. It's nice to know you're human."

"Nice to know I have a weakness," Sydney muttered.

"Oh dry up," Carmen said. "You're full of yourself
sometimes. It's nice to know that you can want the same things the rest of us do."

"Thanks, Carmen," Sydney snapped, then her temper softened. "I mean it. No one tells me the truth anymore. So thanks."

"You're welcome. I'm off to my panel. Get some sleep before you fall down." Carmen disappeared into one of the meeting rooms.

Sydney walked slowly back to her hotel, where she hoped Faith had found the note she'd left saying when she'd return. She stopped for a moment to sit in the sun. She wanted with every inch of her body to go back to Faith. But an affair with Faith would end all her hopes for the senate seat that would let her do so much good.

The sun warmed her and she turned her face up to soak it in. She wanted to be warm. She wanted to feel all the time like she did when she was with Faith. She had thought these heady feelings of completion and joy could come from work. She knew many women who found their life's joy in their work. But Faith made her think she wasn't one of them.

What could she do about it? An affair was not what she wanted. And she had no idea what Faith wanted. Could she offer Faith more than an affair? She had never asked herself if she could have more or even deserved more. The things she'd done when she'd been drinking... if Faith only knew.

She let the sun heat her skin and pictured herself ten years, twenty, thirty years in the future. She couldn't really see herself clearly, but bright as day was Faith by her side.

* * * * *

Sometime in the night we had struggled back into the bedroom, and when I finally woke the next morning there was a note from Sydney on the pillow saying the Do Not Disturb sign was on the door. She could get away at eleven and could I please stay or leave her a note about where I would be.

It was already past eleven and I was late for my appointment at the museum. I pulled back a curtain to discover the fog completely gone. The sky was an overwhelming blue for November. Down on Market Street people were sunning themselves on the steps in front of the subway entrance.

I found my purse and the curator's phone number and, feeling a little foolish and guilty, explained that the weather had proved too tempting for me. The curator, a nice older man with an amazing handlebar mustache, urged me to enjoy the day and said he would see me tomorrow.

I definitely felt as if I were playing hooky as I stepped into the shower. I needed to clean up, get back into my clothes, and go to my own room to change.

I was shampooing my hair in the palatial shower — the one in my room was much more utilitarian — when I saw someone moving through the misted glass doors.

"Sydney, is that you?"

"Yes," came the answer. The door opened and she peered in. "Thank you for staying. I hope it wasn't inconvenient."

I shook my head, feeling shy and completely unsure what to do with my hands. I fought the urge to cover my breasts. We'd done incredibly intimate
things to each other the night before, but I felt naked for the first time.

"I'm free until three and then I'll be free after six. I'd like to spend the time with you," she said softly.

I rinsed soap off my face and gazed at her. "Are you sure? It could cause talk."

She kicked off her shoes and slipped out of her suit jacket. In another moment her skirt hit the floor. She stepped into the shower still wearing everything else. "Let's give them something to talk about," she said with a wicked smile.

"Sydney, you're getting all wet. Your lovely blouse —"

"I guess you'll have to take it off me," she said.

I struggled with the wet buttons and found she was ticklish. "This would be easier if you would stop your vellication, ma'am."

"I'll wiggle as much as I want," she answered, laughing.

I kissed her throat. "Jackleg. Logroller. Peanut."

"Are you trying to impugn my profession? That's rich coming from a philologaster like you."

"I am
not
a philologaster," I said indignantly. "I take things very seriously. Like this," I said, and I lowered my mouth to her breasts.

Her laughter faded as we discovered each other again. It was less intense than the night before, but all the more pleasurable to me because I knew that we could build a lifetime on these simple caresses and relaxed, shared intimacy. Expecting every time to be like last night was futile. I held her against me and savored the ease of her touch and the beauty of our similar passions.

It wasn t until we ran out of hot water that I remembered we didn't have a lifetime together ahead of us.

We quit the shower and Sydney ordered room service. I was ravenous by then. We devoured everything on the cart, including the crackers, and curled up together on the still unmade and thoroughly ravaged bed.

"I need to tell you something," Sydney said. "I... you know I haven't been with anyone in years."

"I didn't know. It doesn't show, darling," I said. My heart thumped painfully. I didn't want her to tell me that we couldn't see each other once we went back to Chicago.

"That's not what I meant," she said. "I've done things I'm not proud of."

"When you drank?"

She nodded.

"That's the past. You don't have to tell me anything." What I wanted to talk about was the future.

"If I don't, someone else will. If not here, then when we get home."

Her words gave me a glimmer of hope — she acted as if we would continue seeing each other.

"And I'll know that it doesn't matter. You had affairs. I saw Patrice. I know there were others."

She sighed. "I didn't sleep around a little, Faith. I'm... this is going to shock you." She said, all in a rush, "I slept with at least three hundred women in the space of three years. I was in and out of bed sometimes twice a day and never with the same woman twice. The more I did it, the more I drank. The more I drank, the more I did it. I slept with wives who wanted kicks, confused singles who wanted
to give sex with a woman a try, and a lot of women who hoped they would be the one I'd stay with. I was insatiable, and I can't go anywhere in Chicago without running into someone I slept with once upon a time."

My mouth was dry. "Was it just drinking that made you so . .."

"So much a slut?"

I flinched. "Don't, Syd."

"It's true. It's what I was. For a while. I slept with all those women because I could. I was no better than Magic Johnson, but I never caught anything. When I was finally sober enough to realize the risks I'd run, it was the first time I genuinely thanked God for anything."

"Is that why you've been alone ever since?"

She nodded. "When I last ran for office the story of my endless peccadilloes was floated around in the papers. And the only thing that shut my opponents up was that I'd been pure as a virgin ever since I got sober."

I turned my head so she couldn't see my face. "And now that's been compromised."

"It doesn't have to be," she said. "Look at me."

I raised my gaze to hers, and the velvet brown engulfed me.

"I don't want to have an affair with you, Faith. I want more. I kept thinking that if I gave in to wanting you that I'd give in to all the other things I'd given in to. But it didn't happen. I didn't walk around this morning scheming how I'd get my next woman in bed. I didn't wish I had a little flask of
Glen in my breast pocket. All I could think about was coming back to you. About how I could possibly convince you to live with me."

My ears were ringing and I felt as if my heart would explode. "What about Eric?"

"I know," she said. "I hope you're right about how he felt. We'll have to see him together. That is, if you want me. Forever." Unbelievably, she didn't seem to know what I would say. The strong woman I held in my arms, who always seemed to me to know what she wanted and how she would get it, looked scared.

"Forever," I echoed. I leaned into her, raising my mouth to hers. "I want longer than forever."

* * * * *

Sydney looked at her watch, then at Alan Stevens. "Is he going to keep us waiting much longer?" She hadn't thought this interview was necessary and didn't intend to let Mark O'Leary make her feel like hired help by keeping her waiting.

Faith shifted in her chair, and Sydney keenly felt the nervousness Faith was trying to hide.

Alan shrugged. "We don't have to wait."

"Five minutes," Sydney said. "And then we'll leave."

After four minutes had elapsed the door of the inner office opened. "Alan," Mark boomed, "good to see you." He flicked a glance at Sydney and then Faith but didn't acknowledge their presence beyond a gesture that indicated they should all follow him inside.

Once they were settled in chairs and Mark behind his massive desk, Sydney said, "I asked for this meeting —

"I've got a bone to pick with you," Mark said, interrupting her. He pointed at Faith with his cigar. "That's the bone."

Sydney wanted to bridle, but she didn't. She felt a surge of pride as Faith lifted her chin and gave Mark a calm but intent stare. Eric had been so right when he'd compared Faith to Eleanor of Aquitaine. Faith still protested the comparison; she would never see how regal she became when the Mark O'Learys of the world were crude.

"I've never been referred to as a bone before," Faith said. "Certainly not by someone who doesn't know me." She stood up and leaned over Mark's desk with her hand out. "I'm Faith Fitzgerald, Mr. O'Leary. It's a pleasure to meet you."

For a long moment, Sydney thought Mark would refuse to shake Faith's hand. Then he put down the cigar and gravely shook it. Faith sat down again and looked serene as always.

"As you can see," Sydney said, "Ms. Fitzgerald is not a bone."

"I was speaking metaphorically, and you know it," Mark said sourly. "You promised me no sex scandals, and I have it on good authority that you and she holed up in a hotel for a couple of days in San Francisco. And that she's moved in with you."

Sydney pressed her lips together and took a deep breath. The old goat. "Does your good authority also report that Ms. Fitzgerald has been welcomed into my family, in fact was a part of the family Christmas
this year? That one of my uncles conducted a ceremony for us and that we've exchanged rings?"

"Did she sign a pre-nup?" Mark chewed on the end of his cigar and turned to Faith. "How much of the hundred million will you get when you break up?"

"We won't be breaking up, Mr. O'Leary." Faith's voice was so calm that Sydney felt steadied.

Mark grunted into his cigar and fixed his gaze on Sydney again. "And now all those voters are going to congratulate you on the nice little wifey? The times haven't changed that much."

^"
Maybe not," Sydney said. "But I still feel that my life can bear scrutiny, and so can Faith's."

"And voters are happier with married candidates," Alan said.

"They ain't really married," Mark said. 'It's not possible."

"All things are possible to those who believe," Faith said. "Why sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast."

"The New Testament and Lewis Carroll," Sydney said.

Mark glared at both of them. "I'm glad you think this is funny."

"What are we supposed to think?" Sydney straightened in her chair. "Mark, I can win this election. I don't think that because I now have an intelligent, charming, wonderful woman in my life, whom I do not intend to hide in any way, of whom I am very proud, and whose love has made me properly humble —"

"That'll be the day —" Mark muttered.

"I don't think I've broken any promise I made to you. I certainly haven't broken any promises I made to myself. I'm not a married man running around on a yacht called Monkey Business with some floozy. All I want to know is what you're going to do about supporting my candidacy."

Alan shifted uneasily. He had warned Sydney against giving Mark any opening to back out of his support.

"What am I supposed to do about it?" Mark examined the end of his cigar. "I'm not going to dance in the streets because the dyke I've been telling everyone could beat the pants off the other side is flaunting her sex life in everyone's face."

"That's simply not true —"

"You don't have to convince me of anything," Mark said. "I'm only one vote. You being a dyke is going to become the center of this campaign — instead of any issues you might have wanted to discuss."

"Maybe it will. And maybe it won't." Sydney stood up, and Faith rose to her feet as well. "I just want to know what you plan to do."

"I'm going to wait and see your poll numbers, that's what I'm going to do."

Alan Stevens got to his feet. "Don't wait too long, Mark. It'd be the first time in twenty years a Democratic senator won without you."