Deaths of Jocasta (6 page)

“Micky, dearest, darling, dyke cousin of mine,” Torbin greeted me as he deposited his load onto my bed. “You are a sight for sore eyes and your bed a boon for sore feet.” He flopped down on the one open spot left on my bed.

“Hi, Mick,” Andy said, giving me a hug and a kiss on the cheek.

“Good to see you,” I said to him.

“Not to be outdone,” Torbin said, getting to his feet and giving me a huge bear hug and a sloppy kiss. “I am, as you can see, shanghaiing your room to change in. I couldn’t see driving out here in the afternoon heat stifling under a wig.”

“Not to mention eight-inch falsies,” I added.

“Not to mention,” Torbin commanded.

“But there’s a price, dear cousin Tor.”

“Yes? But be warned, I don’t know that many good-looking women. Not who are really women, that is.”

“I have to waltz tonight.”

“Poor girl. You have my condolences.”

“Don’t sit back down,” I caught him as he was about to reposition himself on my bed. “First, a few trips of the light fantastic,” I said, pulling him into my arms.

“See, Andy, it’s true. Even women, women who are gay, can’t keep their hands off me,” Torbin bantered.

“One-two-three, one-two-three,” I began, ignoring his blather. “And don’t worry, I’m a lesbian, I can keep my hands off the places that really matter.”

Andy took up the count, allowing us to concentrate on the placement of our feet.

After twenty minutes or so, Torbin announced me fit for a place on his dance card. “Somewhere near the bottom, late at night, you know,” he added.

“Thanks, Torbin,” I said, feinting a kick to his balls. “You don’t need them for what you do, anyway,” I added as he jumped back. Then I left him to his makeup and wigs, with Andy’s able assistance.

I had never ceased to be amazed at the coupling of Torbin and Andy, a flaming queen (Torbin’s self-description) and a computer nerd (Andy’s). But they had been together for close to five years now. They still had nominal separate addresses, but that was more as a means to separate Andy’s computer equipment from Torbin’s makeup. They only lived a block away from each other.

I ambled slowly down the stairs. The evening guests would be arriving around eight or fashionably thereafter. It was about six thirty now. I was looking forward to the evening, glad that Torbin and Andy were here.

I wandered into the backyard. The sun was still visible, a broken golden circle through the trees, shooting intense amber rays between the branches.

I heard someone call my name and turned to see Danny waving to me. She, Elly, Alex, and Joanne were sitting on a blanket, still in their bathing suits. They had a picnic supper spread out before them.

“Join us,” Danny called, making room for me between her and Alex on the blanket.

“Thanks,” I said as I edged myself next to their almost naked bodies.

Only Joanne wore a one-piece suit. I looked surreptitiously around at the bathing beauties surrounding me. Of all of us, Danny was the most pulchritudinous. The red top of her suit barely contained her shapely breasts, nipples half-erect.

Uh-oh, I thought, are my hormones raging or what? Not wanting Elly to catch me staring at Danny’s tits (never stare at an ex-lover’s tits when her current lover is watching), I glanced over at Alex. Danny had her beat in the curve department, but not by much. It was time to start staring at the cheese. All these women were taken.

I glanced around, trying not to look at anything in particular, and happened to watch Elly brush a fallen leaf off her shoulder. She was slim, almost boyish, but her long black hair gave her an air of enticing androgyny. She and Alex were chatting, something about a pro-choice rally Alex had been at. Then Elly was talking about having to fight her way through right-to-lifers to get to work, her deep, almost black eyes flashing. No wonder Danny lusted after her, with eyes like that, I bet she was riveting when she… I stopped the thought by searching for the right cheese to go with my cracker. (Never try to imagine ex-lovers with their current lovers. Particularly when you’ve only got your hand for distraction.)

I looked across the blanket at Joanne. She had taken off her glasses and closed her eyes, letting the last rays of the sun warm her face. She seemed relaxed, almost into tiredness, with her perpetually observing eyes stilled for an instant. The sun sketched in the faint lines at the corners of her eyes, the small tracings from nose to lips. Lines of experience, never to go away. Lines of wisdom, I thought, somehow making her more attractive than any full breast or well-muscled thigh ever could. Her shoulders were too broad, her breasts too small for perfection, but I was beginning to realize it wasn’t mere flesh that made someone desirable.

I have slept with a lot of women. Some out of boredom, others because I wanted sex or they did. Sometimes just because I could. But only once because of pounding, insistent desire, the kind that distracts and consumes you, pulling at all corners of your life. I wondered if she would be here.

“Want some wine?” Danny interrupted my thoughts. Fortunately.

“No, no thanks. Maybe some club soda,” I answered. Alex poured me some.

“Wasn’t Cordelia supposed to be here for this picnic?” Danny asked.

“I thought so,” Alex answered. “But I haven’t spoken to her since earlier in the week.”

“She wasn’t definite when I talked to her on Thursday,” Elly said. “Something about possibly having to sub for someone on call tonight.”

“Too bad. Particularly since it had to be her who got us the invite to the thing,” Danny commented. “Since it wasn’t you,” she added with a nod at Alex.

“Nor was it Cordelia,” Joanne said. “Have you talked to her lately?” she asked me, her eyes open and watching again.

“No…I haven’t. Not in a while.”

“She probably heard that El Micko was here and didn’t want to risk any more Knight adventures,” Danny kidded.

But it was probably true, I thought, taking a long sip of the club soda. She had found out I would be here and wasn’t about to spend a weekend in the country avoiding messy and awkward meetings with me.

“But if it wasn’t Cordelia, then who was it?” Danny inquired. She was an excellent lawyer because she never missed things like that.

“Ask our resident private eye,” Joanne answered.

“It’s obvious,” I stated. “You’ve become such a well-known and lusted after woman, that there was no choice but to invite you. There were any number of women, and not a few men, who swore on stacks of Sappho’s poetry that they wouldn’t come this year unless they got a chance to view Danny Clayton in a bright red bikini. As a matter of fact,” I continued, “at this very moment there is a hot sun dance going on. Everyone’s hoping that it will be so hot tomorrow that you will be forced to take it all off.”

“Congratulations,” Danny said. “My bullshit meter has never had a higher reading. I happen to know there are very few women who would bother to cross a street to see me, let alone come all the way out here.”

“Enough to keep me worried,” Elly said loyally.

“Danno? How could you doubt me?” I faked chagrin.

“I know. I’ve got it figured out,” she bantered. “You met and seduced Emma Auerbach in one of your many bar forays. And to keep it quiet, she allows you to invite any riff-raff out here that you want.”

I nearly choked on my club soda.

“Oh, dear,” Danny said, her tone changed. “Did I accidentally hit the nail on the head?”

“No, I have never slept with Miss Auerbach,” I protested.

“Miss Auerbach?” Joanne observed.

“Emma,” I corrected. “I’ve never slept with Emma.”

“Don’t worry,” Alex comforted. “I call her Miss Auerbach, too. She’s always struck me as fiercely scholastic.”

I saw Rhett loping in my direction. Work was calling, for once, conveniently. “Michele, ma’am,” he called, slowing as he arrived. “Emma wants you.”

“Emma wants you?” Danny quizzed.

“That’s right,” Rhett said, ever helpful.

I got up. I would answer Danny’s leading questions later.

“Are you going anywhere near a phone?” Joanne asked.

“Probably,” I answered.

“Maybe you should call Cordelia and see what’s going on with her,” she said.

That was the last thing I wanted to do. “Well…I might be busy. But I can take you to one, if you want.”

“We have to go change,” Joanne replied.

“Well…” I let it hang, not wanting to argue, but not willing to lie and say I’d call her.

“If you get a chance,” Joanne let me off.

“Let’s go, Rhett,” I said and we started walking across the lawn at a fast clip.

But not fast enough to avoid hearing Danny say, “What the hell has Micky gotten herself involved in now? Not sleeping with her, my ass.”

I turned back to them, that quartet in the fading sunlight.

“It’s not like that. It’s not like that at all,” I shouted to Danny. Then I turned away, following Rhett.

The outside lights wouldn’t come on. It took me a few minutes of scrounging around in the work shed to find the right fuse, then all was bright. At least where the lights shone.

I took a slow walk around the yard, eyeing the woods for any desperate water moccasins aiming to make a last-ditch attempt on the swimming pond. But no, no reptilian terrorists tonight. Even the lone frog had gone home.

The sun was below the horizon, leaving pink mare’s tails in the sky. I walked into the gloaming of the trees, their trunks and branches cutting and striping the last tendrils of light across the forest floor. I was on the path closest to the stream, following it downhill, until the shadowed woods engulfed me.

I stood still, watching the shadows lengthen and merge, hoping to catch sight of the first of the nocturnal animals. But all I saw was a squirrel hastening up an oak tree. I looked at my watch. It was a few minutes before eight. The woods were now bereft of all but diffuse gray light, the path only a lighter shadow among the dark patches cast by the trees.

There’s a party tonight, Micky, no sense wandering about in the twilight.
But I held still for a moment longer, feeling eyes watching me from somewhere in the darkening woods. Not a squirrel or a bird, but I didn’t know what it could be. I tried to pierce the deep gray to find the creature, but nothing moved, nothing stirred. I finally let it go.

I turned away from my unseeable creature, following the gray ribbon path back to the bright lights and bustle of the party. From the dim edge of the woods, the house looked shimmering and alive, light and warmth bursting from windows and doors. There’s definitely a party tonight, I told myself. I walked back across the lawn.

The dress code for this party was anything you wanted to wear, from tails to outlandish costumes to blue jeans. “Danny,” I called, seeing her and Elly. “I don’t believe it.”

“I couldn’t resist,” she said.

“And I couldn’t talk her out of it,” Elly added.

I walked over to them, looking Danny up and down. She had dressed herself as a plantation owner; three piece white suit, black string bow tie, very fake handlebar mustache, and a white straw gambler’s hat.

“It is, I must admit, mind-bendingly outrageous,” I commented.

“I thought about carrying a whip…” she started.

“But that was too much,” Elly finished for her. “Considering the likelihood of slave owners in my background,” she added.

I looked at Elly, her light beige skin a talisman of her ancestry. Some foremother of hers was raped; it was a horrifying certainty.

How many of us, I suddenly thought, remembering my own mother, pregnant at sixteen. How many of us are here through mischance, an unheard denial, force?

“The mustache was a bitch to put on,” Danny was saying, not noticing my distraction. “But so was getting that magnolia behind Elly’s ear.”

“I’ve always wanted to be a blues singer,” Elly explained. She was wearing an emerald green gown, her hair unadorned save for the magnolia and hanging long and full down below her shoulders. “Have you seen Alex and Joanne yet?” she asked me.

“No,” I replied.

“Just wait,” Danny said. Then she made a wiping-her-brow motion to indicate that they were hot.

“Come on,” Elly said, putting her arm through both mine and Danny’s. We strolled toward the house. A young woman, one of Melanie’s companions, was busy directing arriving cars to the parking area. The back porch was beginning to get crowded. For a moment I panicked, thinking of all the people who might be watching me dance with Emma. Just think of Emma and don’t worry about anyone else, I told myself.

Elly saw someone she had gone to high school with. She and Danny headed off in his direction and into a I-didn’t-know-you-were conversation. I roamed on, looking to see if Alex and Joanne were as hot as they were rumored to be.

A stunning blonde, in an evening gown that left nothing to the imagination and everything to chance, walked up to me. She eyed me boldly, looking first at my tits, then to my crotch.

“Later,” she said in a whiskey voice, then walked off.

Now, I thought, as she sauntered away. I wondered who she was. Probably someone I’d slept with a few years back. One of my many one-night stands.