“She’s lucky she’s not in jail. Laura - the girl stabbed me in the back.”
“I just can’t stand to think of her stranded.”
“She isn’t stranded. Michael Flagg has a crush on her. Didn’t you pick up on that when he was over last night?”
Laura blinked in surprise.
“I have a feeling,” William said, starting the engine, “that Damaris is going to be Flagg’s headache from now on.”
William drove off down the lane as Laura remembered Flagg telling them that he was going to let Damaris dry out at his place for a couple of days.
She resolved to go and see her there at once. She would bring some money and help her friend in any way she could. William would not have to know. She even knew where Michael Flagg lived, as Marguerite had shown her one day.
Laura rode her bike into the village. Michael lived in an Edwardian triple-decker, just a few blocks from Marguerite Alexander’s bookshop on Shadow Lane. She locked her bike outside and went straight up to the second floor flat. Damaris answered her knock. “Who’s there?”
“Laura.”
Still in Marguerite’s cashmere robe, Damaris opened the door.
“Come in. What are you doing here? Do you have any cigarettes?”
“No.”
“Damn.”
“Are you all right?”
“I’m okay.”
“I was just wondering.”
“Is that why you came by?”
“Actually, I brought you some cash. I figured you’d be pretty strapped.” Laura handed Damaris two hundred dollars in fifties. Damaris took it, in a daze, then shook her head and thrust the bills back into her friend’s hand.
“No. I couldn’t. But thanks. You’re really sweet. You can’t believe how sorry I am about everything.”
“How long will you be here?” Laura asked, walking about Flagg’s sitting room.
“Permanently, I hope,” Damaris confided.
“You like Michael Flagg?” Laura was once more surprised by the concept of Flagg and Damaris.
“Don’t you like tall, handsome men with big dicks?”
“How big is it?” Laura could not resist asking. Damaris framed seven and a half to eight inches between her hands.
“That big,” she said. “Just like homeboy.”
The next moment, Damaris reeled at her own indiscretion. Being straight was a dangerous thing. “Homeboy” was a nickname Damaris had for William and well did Laura know it.
“What?” Laura stared at her.
“I mean, just like I’m sure Homey must be.” Damaris amended hastily.
“You’re sure all right!” Laura charged, understanding now why William had shown a minimum of compassion for his secretary. “You’ve been with William!”
Damaris didn’t answer, but could not look Laura in the eye.
“You were sleeping with him and you still sold him out? That’s unforgivable!”
Damaris agreed and hung her head.
“Not that he didn’t have it coming,” Laura said. “The treacherous reptile!”
Tears pricked the backs of Laura’s eyes. William had been having an affair and she had never suspected it. When she thought of the way she had worshipped him, of the way he ran her life, she felt dizzy with mortification.
“Well, good-bye,” said Laura. “And thank you for opening my eyes.” Then she left. She noticed she was trembling when she got back on her bike.
Laura peddled slowly up to Marguerite Alexander’s bookshop. It was a blustery, overcast afternoon. A melancholy autumn afternoon, Laura thought. For her brand new husband had broken her heart. “So he was going to let me play with Hugo on Halloween! How extraordinarily generous of him!”
Laura stopped to unburden herself to Marguerite. Her russet-haired friend, who was unpacking a carton of shiny new volumes, was not inclined to take William’s office affair seriously. But Laura felt betrayed.
“And I’ve been the perfect submissive!” she protested to Marguerite.
“Wrong,” Marguerite corrected. “If you were the perfect submissive you wouldn’t question your dominant’s motives in taking a mistress.”
“Is that the way it works?”
“That’s the way it works.”
“Well, I don’t care.”
“Then you’re not the perfect submissive.”
“I’m William’s wife. That entitles me to feel jealous, wounded and furious off when I find out he’s cheating on me,” Laura maintained.
“If I were you, I’d bite the bullet,” Marguerite advised. “You’ve got everything you want and you’re a spoiled brat. You don’t even have to work.”
“I don’t mind working,” Laura said. “It was William who decided to keep me in his dollhouse.”
“You’re really upset, aren’t you? Don’t worry, you aren’t going to lose your hunk to that little minx,” Marguerite assured her.
“I know. She’s shacked up with your hunk now,” said Laura, and reported what she knew about the budding romance between Damaris and Michael Flagg. It was as though somebody had pulled the world out from under Marguerite. To lose her lover to a woman half her size, was grossly humiliating.
“I think I’ll take a short vacation,” said Marguerite, immediately putting the closed sign in the window. She had to get out of town.
“Where were you thinking of going?”
“New York.”
“I’ll go with you.”
“Really?”
“Why not?”
“You’re not afraid of William?”
“Not anymore.”
“You just think you’re not.”
“Just let me know when you’re ready to leave,” Laura said. “I’m definitely going to New York with you.”
When William returned from Boston late that evening, he found
