legs around them.’ The visual of Lacey with her legs wrapped around Clint, and him carrying her up the stairs to her bedroom, makes me smile; the one time I heard Lacey say this right in front of Clint, it made him hard. Instantly.
He moves like an athlete, dresses like a businessman. And, for whatever reason, is a retail store manager, of a Target-like big box store. And seems perfectly content with his lot in life. The work doesn’t go home with him, except in the form of an employee-discounted wardrobe. Lacey says that the guest bedroom in his two-bedroom condo is essentially a walk-in closet. ‘With beds for the boys in the middle.’
‘The boys’ are Lacey and Clint’s son Clayton, just a few months younger than my Cassandra, and Clint and Sofia’s five-year-old son Marcello. When Lacey’s happy with Clint, she calls Sofia ‘the other wife’. When she’s despairing of him, she calls her ‘that woman’. Clint has both boys every weekend, Friday night to Sunday evening, and the occasional weeknight as needed by the moms. He’s the most conscientious, involved part-time dad I know.
He’s also a star employee. His store has the lowest staff turnover in the chain, and consistently the highest sales, despite its less than stellar location in northeast Calgary. The low staff turnover is a no-brainer: all the adolescent girls, single moms and part-timer retired grandmothers stay to dream of being seduced by him; all the pubescent boys and plotting men stay to reap the benefits of working with so many horny females.
I don’t know that any of this is true. But that’s what Lacey says and it seems plausible.
‘Of course, he doesn’t sleep with any of the employees,’ Lacey tells me. With what I think is touching faith and innocence, given what she knows about and has gone through with Clint. Until she adds, ‘He just sleeps with the customers.’
Well. Yes.
That’s how Lacey and Clint met, at his store. Lacey was there with a girlfriend, sorting through dresses on the clearance rack, she says. ‘And then this incredible hottie, in the sexiest three-piece suit I’ve ever seen – and I’m allergic to suits, honey, never liked them before, not a bit – this hottie strolls by and looks at the dress I’m holding and says, “That would look absolutely wonderful on you.” And I press it against me, and I say, “Not too skimpy?” And he says, “No such thing as too skimpy for you.”’
The girlfriend considerately melts into the background. Jealous? Or resigned? Lacey doesn’t recall; the girlfriend disappears from her story the moment Clint enters. Lacey takes her haul, including the too skimpy dress, to the changing room. With the promise to show it to Clint. He suggests she use the wheelchair-accessible family changing room that’s just beside his office. He sees her in the dress. They disappear into the office.
Nine months later, Clayton is born.
‘You always get what you want,’ I tell her, the ring still in my face. Lacey smiles.
‘Eventually,’ she agrees. ‘I am a long-term player.’
‘Eventually.’ I smile. ‘But that’s all that matters, right? Endgame.’
‘Everything OK with you?’ she says. She looks at me carefully. ‘You’re losing weight,’ she pronounces. ‘But not in that “I work out with a hot trainer to melt the baby fat” way. In a sickly, peakish, “not eating enough” way.’
She stares at me some more. Disconcerts me.
‘Um, no, I don’t think so,’ I protest. ‘Probably just tired today. And not at my best.’
I drive away a little faster than necessary.
I will not cyberfuck on a Saturday afternoon during my kids’ piano lessons. Even though there will be nothing else to do in the waiting room but fiddle with my phone…
Fuck.
I have no self-control or will. Annie sucks on markers and colours, and Eddie fiddles with his Gameboy.
I take out the phone.
—Sleep was elusive.
what have you done today
—suffered
I am in withdrawal.
I tortured myself by rereading our missives.
—The extent of my desire for you is obscene.
I like that word
—Madness
I’m on a conference call. Because of the Friday disaster. Fuck. Can’t even concentrate on what I’m saying.
—I’m writing to you from my kids’ piano lesson…so fucking wrong
—I was with my trainer this morning. When he told me to lie down on the bench…
I wonder if he could sense your heightened state.
—I don’t know. I don’t think so. Possibly he just thought I was insane. I was not myself.
No. You were mine. Are mine.
Fuck. You bring out my dominant side to a nearly frightening degree.
—frightening
—appropriate word for this
my anger hasn’t abated. I thought it would by now.
—the build-up…
—so hard to let go
Especially when I don’t want to.
—I’m glad
—that you don’t want to.
I need to see you. Send me a photo.
Now.
—Now?
Of your face, Jane. Do it. Fucking now.
—sent
god you look good
—thank you
that mouth
will you keep your glasses on?
—do you want me to?
yes
brainy sexy hot
this isn’t helping my anger
—they might be hard to clean if you cover them with cum
—I guess that didn’t help either
I don’t care
—Tell
