The Parallel Apartments (2 page)

Bottom Bunk had been good to him. It had bestowed his safe-deposit with Krugerrands, his spirit with identity, his desires with pussy, and his apartment with gravid black furniture. Franklin loved his couch. Franklin loved his coffee table. Franklin loved himself.

“Ouch,” said Epitymbria, who had shifted her weight to one buttock and was massaging the other. “Mes fesses.”

Justine did not look at Epitymbria sitting on the black coffee table rubbing her bottom, but the latex squeak provided the soundtrack to a vivid
mental film. Justine loudly declared that since she was not interested in the second party, why would she be interested in a third?

“You don't even want to try?” Franklin said, obviously incredulous that someone would decline participation in one of the bedrock American dreams: the threesome.

“No, I do not.”

“But look how great Epitymbria is.”

“No.”

Quamp
, said the distorting latex.
Qut, quiwp.

“Will you spot, then?”

“No.”
Quub.

“So I'll spot,” said Franklin.

“No,” Justine said, though with a bit less arms-crossed obstinance. Removing latex might be like peeling dried Elmer's from one's palm, an unbeatably satisfying diversion.

“Justine. Jesus. Will you at least audit?”

“I am going to see
The Philadelphia Story
before it leaves.”

“Oh, I love Katharine, yes,” said Epitymbria. “‘I'm such an unholy mess of a girl.'”

Justine looked. Epitymbria looked back. Franklin seemed to vanish from the room. Epitymbria's chubby cheeks, dimpleless and perfectly smooth, were sirens for kisses. She wore a green latex trench coat and green latex mules and green latex kneepads. Shallow ligature marks, surely from a green latex rope, decorated her ankles. Her hair fell in a single thick dark wave, homogenous, a careless toss of black house paint, long enough that Justine could, if invited, hide beneath it and give herself up to the sirens.

“…oddamn movies, it's five o'clock in the a.m.,” said Franklin, rematerializing. “Any idea what you'll miss at home? Justine? Huh?”

Epitymbria, her praline Cypriote cheeks howling for rough snogging, said: “‘That's Miss Goddess to you.'”

“‘Okay, Miss Goddess To Me,'” said Justine. Both women giggled in pleasant harmony at their recital.

“What's going on?”

Justine and Epitymbria were smiling like gassy infants. Justine covered her mouth with her scissor-holding hand, ashamed of her teeth, which had been interrupted in their orthodontia and remained gappy, not to mention a shade
or two lighter where the braces had been, like dental tan lines. She noticed that Epitymbria's lower lashes brushed the tops of her cheeks, leaving rows of tiny mascara dots. Justine had never wanted to lick anything as much as she wanted to lick away those dotted lines. Maybe Justine
would
skip the movie.

But Franklin, possibly sensing the three's-a-crowd bazooka pointed at his head, quickly found a twenty, slapped it into Justine's hand, and led her to the door. “Have some Sour Patch Kids for all of us.”

“Please put my collage things in my collage nook,” said Justine, taking the twenty. If there was no one else in the theater, Justine would masturbate herself to stupefaction and sleep through the following showing.

“‘Only in bed, Mother, and not always there,'” said Epitymbria.

When Justine arrived home, Epitymbria was gone. Long black hairs and shreds of green latex tinseled the living room. Franklin was lying in his raggedy yukata on the black leather couch. On the floor was a forty-quart pot filled with ice, in which Franklin had submerged one foot.

“What happened? What happened to your foot? Is Epitymbria okay?”

“Nothing; nothing; yes,” said Franklin. “I had to give her your Hotel de Mallarde robe, though.”

“Is—”

“Yes, she is.”

The idea that Epitymbria had left naked but for Justine's white terry-cloth robe—complimentary raiment from a sexless and sleepless one-night stay at a boutique hotel some six months into Justine and Franklin's relationship—delighted Justine enough for Franklin to notice and misinterpret.

“Oh, you like that. Why didn't you just stay? Epitymbria knows a lot of tricks, lotta tricks.”

“Then why aren't you with her? Have a baby with her. Then you'd have your stupid baby.”

“Stupid baby.”

“Yeah, an ankle-biter.”

“Because I want one with you, Justine, damn you, you lezzy weirdo.”

“I'm not a lezzy,” said Justine, gently, recognizing in the hyper-Brooklynese way he pronounced
weirdo
the imminence of an ugly Franklin mood. “I'm just not sexual. Please let's not discuss the baby issue again.”

”You brought it up!”

Justine smiled a little. She began to withdraw, which to her always felt like a tiny black hole opening up near her liver, slowly sucking her body into it. Lately, she'd found herself withdrawing more and more. Perhaps one day Justine would simply vanish, causing a sonic boom as all the surrounding air rushed in to fill the sudden vacuum. A smell of ozone, scraps of collage materials floating on the whorls of a violently stirred atmosphere.

Franklin grinned back brightly, looking a bit like an eight-year-old who had been given permission to discharge a pellet gun.

“That's a sex smile, I know one when I see one, my little Justine! How's about a little?”

“Mm, oh no, I'd rather not.”

“I'll make it like it was, Justine. Like when we met. When I rescued you from your whoring debut—”

“I was not a whore,” she said, prodding at the black hole near her liver. “And I didn't need rescuing.”

She ducked into the bathroom to change into a nightgown so she could have a nap before work.

“—you and your outrageous green eyes and crazy bloody smile and third-world teeth. I made you love me then. I can do it again.”

Justine went into the kitchen to satisfy a craving for sardines packed in olive oil.

Franklin then announced that he had just canceled on his current client, Mr. Nafarvedian, a once-respected bottled-water magnate who had just received forty-four years to life for buying and selling Eastern European children.

Justine stood in the kitchen doorway, ate sardines with her fingers, and watched Marla Mitz report the financial news on TV.

“Justine, you call in, too. Let's spend the day having sex.”

She accidentally bit the inside of her lower lip.

“What?”

“I've got a new thing to try. Don't worry, Epitymbria didn't show me, and neither did Darling. I got it out of a
Cosmo
that was lying around the office. It's the shit. You'll like it—no straps or chants or shortening, I promise. And I'll do all the work.”

Justine investigated her bit lip with her tongue. “I gotta go in. I have to inventory Tampax. It takes all day.”

“I'll make you come.”

Justine reddened. This was their sex. Franklin's assays, her dodges. His gambits, her retreats. His guilt trips, her guilt.

“No, it's too busy there, lotsa stuff coming up.”

“Call Midgie,” he said. “She'll let you off. And I'll get you off. Hahaha!”

“No, Franklin.”

Franklin picked up the phone and dialed the number to Midgie's Pharmacy.

“Franklin, please don't do that.”

“Hey, Midgie,” said Franklin into the phone. “Look, Justine's sick. We're both sick. We're gonna feed each other pea soup and Nupe It and rest. No, she can't talk at the moment. She's on the commode. Yeah. No, that's Marla Mitz you hear. No, not here, on TV. Yeah. Really, Justine's laying cable. She'll be in tomorrow. She'll count cotton like a madwoman. Mm-hm. Bye, Midge.”

“Franklin. Dammit.”

He muted the TV. Carefully plucking his foot out of its ice bath, he limped up behind Justine, took her sardines away, then slid her ancient, gray cotton nightie up over her hips. He picked her up and laid her down on the black leather couch, which farted grandly. Franklin let his old robe fall. Naked, he stood next to her, closed his eyes, put his palms up out in front of him, and began to hum.

“You said no chanting.”

He ignored her. He clenched his face into a constipated grimace. His erection grew.

“Put on a condom.”

Franklin didn't protest. He reached into the pocket of his robe, pulled out a thirty-six-count family-pak of RootyRoot-brand lambskin condoms, tore one open, and rolled the stinky thing on.

“Put on another one.”

Franklin rolled another one on, and then one more.

Justine turned to look at the TV. Even though not quite as spry as she used to be, Marla Mitz was still terribly attractive. She had always reminded Justine a little of Gracie Yin. More than a little. Something about her faintly yellowed canines.

A fantastic memory of Gracie quietly flared. High school. They ran into each other in the hall between classes. That's to say, they collided coming round a corner across from Mr. Chest's chemistry classroom. They wound up in each other's arms.

Justine noticed with surprise that she was modestly turned on. The black leather couch beneath her, usually tacky and cold, began to feel cozy.

Franklin got down on his knees, and, with his eyes still closed, spent several minutes arranging Justine in a way that made her feel like an ikebana project. For an instant she imagined Dr. M'Nabb at the end of the couch pumping her fists and weeping and waving a felt pennant:
Jusss… tine! Jusss… tine! Jusss… tine!

Across the room Marla moved her mouth in silence. Justine watched. Marla's mouth formed lazy O's, gibbous moons, invitational puckers. Justine imagined kissing her, her tongue slipping through the tough curved glass of the television and between Marla-Gracie's lips.

Justine bit into her own cut lip. It tingled and bled. Franklin got on top of her and went to work in a complicated, bebop-like rhythm. He said he'd read about the present variant in
Cosmo,
but Justine was sure Darling had taught him this oddball syncopation. Justine didn't care. She began to buck back. Why had she been unconscious for so long? This was just fine. This was nice. Franklin had, after all, rescued her. She owed Franklin this at least once in a while. This was as good as love.

Justine held her breath as the first spinal chill of an orgasm sparkled and then dissipated. She stared unblinking at Marla, who had now fully transformed into Justine's old guidance counselor, her tie loose between her breasts and accidentally twisted a half turn so the label (Burberry) was visible, silently licking her lips and puckering in a silly, slatternly way.
Your PSATs are a little low at least you have an interest in art under my guidance-counselor-newscaster's desk I'm wearing brown suede kitten heels a half size too big come fuck me.

Franklin worked steadily, occasionally pushing a thumb under Justine's rib. Marla-Gracie winked into three dimensions. She thrust her hand out of the TV and offered it to Justine. But she couldn't reach.

“Come closer,” said Justine, without taking a breath.

Marla-Gracie came closer. Justine's eyes watered and her throat swelled and her lungs idled, waiting for the orgasm, waiting for the kiss. Justine
closed her eyes. She stuck out her tongue as far as she could, and Marla-Gracie sucked it in.

Justine's ears popped, her heart forced blood through the constricting arteries in her thighs, she opened her eyes to look in Marla-Gracie's beautiful black eyes while they both came together.

But she wasn't there.

Buildings instead, woolly smoke from one of them drifting blackly to the left.

Franklin stopped moving. Justine bucked against him furiously, holding her breath an instant longer than she thought she could, sucking in air with a hollow shudder that burned her throat and dried her teeth, but it was too late. She trembled and buzzed from the missed orgasm. Franklin thrust one last time, came, withdrew, and sat at the end of the couch.

They watched the smoke and agonies and news crawls for the rest of 2001 like everyone else.

In spite of the condoms, Justine became pregnant. The pregnancy ended with the birth of their daughter, Valeria. Valeria lived for thirty-nine hours and two minutes, every instant of which she spent in miniature critical-care agony, until the late afternoon of June 8, 2002, when she smiled, once, and died.

On April 14, 2004, Justine became pregnant again.

She and Franklin were standing at either end of the woodblock island in the middle of their kitchen, exchanging humid sighs, pinched looks, and half sentences. Justine was sawing away at the tough end of an asparagus spear with a dull knife. Franklin was laboring over their taxes, belching now and again, the residua from a Whole Foods breakfast of three shots of wheatgrass juice chased immediately with a triple dulce de leche macchiato. This had sent him to the men's room first, and then to the drugstore for Kaopectate.