An Accidental Affair (18 page)

Isabel looked at me and asked, “Varg, who are you really?”

And just like that, as Gladys Knight sang, Varg Veum no longer existed.

Without remorse or hesitation, I told her who I really was.

She said, “Your real name is James Thicke.”

“Mind if I turn your television on?”

I changed the channels and two movies that Regina Baptiste had been in were on. Images of her as an actress five and seven years ago were on HBO and Showtime. By then, ironically, in the background,
as my wife gave her stellar performance, Teddy Pendergrass sang from the record player, begged from the record player, and pleaded “I Miss You.”

I said, “That’s the woman I married, Sweet Isabel.”

“Oh, my. She’s definitely not a minger. She’s posh and as lovely as Bettie Page, as stunning as Linda Christian. A woman who looks this good can wangle anything.”

“It’s all smoke and mirrors. I’ve seen her without her makeup.”

“Oh, if she is your wife, you’ve seen her without more than just makeup.”

“I’ve seen her doubled over and cramping and begging for stronger Midol too.”

“And she went full monty on film and everything has gone pear shaped for her.”

“She went past full monty. She took an R-rated script and knocked it down six letters.”

“When I was growing up, they kissed and carried a woman to the bedroom door, then faded to black. You had to use your own imagination. And that we did. Now the camera follows them into the bedroom and stays there until the woman gets pregnant and has a baby.”

“Pretty much.”

She said, “Before becoming a schoolteacher, I used to work in the film industry. That’s where I met my husband. He did set designs. There were so many scandals back then. The alcohol. The drugs. So many men were marrying beards to keep their sexuality hidden from the public. So many lesbian or bisexual women were marrying men for the same reason. All the key and drug parties. It was the in thing. We were at a more than a few. And the murders. What they did to Marilyn Monroe was a shame. That business has always been scandalous.”

“It has and always will be.”

“Today, tomorrow, forever.”

I turned the television off.

Isabel knew who I wasn’t. And who I was. She had met James Thicke.

She said, “Well, when a woman shows you who she is, believe her.”

Isabel moved by me and changed records. Dean Martin sang “Besame Mucho.”

She said, “I love Dean Martin, but the Andrea Bocelli version of this song is much better.”

Then we went to the kitchen sink. I shampooed Isabel’s hair with a rosemary juniper scented shampoo, washed it twice as she asked me, massaged her scalp, slowly, and gently.

Dean Martin finished and I went to her record collection, an assortment that was as amazing as my rare books, and I gingerly took out a different record, Johnny Bristol’s “Hang on In There Baby.” Followed by The New Birth singing “Dream Merchant,” George McCrae’s “Rock Your Baby,” and Al Green first singing “Sha La La” followed by him crooning “Simply Beautiful.”

She said, “You’re really good at washing me hair.”

“Used to wash my wife’s hair from time to time.”

“Here’s my two cents. You do what you want to. Women blame much on men, but in the end, they are challenging each other, and men benefit from that sparring. You can take the filthy job, or leave with your dignity. No matter how many women are going fully monty in movies, you don’t have to do it. Who should follow the path walked by most idiots? Only other idiots do that.”

“In film, to be the star, it’s pretty much a prerequisite for a woman to do a love scene.”

“There is a difference between a love scene and hard-core porn.”

“What do you know about porn?”

“I’m not a bloody prude, you wanker. And not ashamed to say I’ve seen my share.”

“Have you?”

“Enough to know there is a difference between a true lady and two girls and a cup.”

I massaged her scalp for a while and she fell silent. While I ran my fingers across her scalp, I gazed at her wonderful, amazing build. A few times she moaned. I swallowed.

She said, “Well, I hope that she doesn’t end up like Linda Darnell.”

“Linda Darnell.
A Letter to Three Wives
.
Unfaithfully Yours
.
Angels of Darkness
.”

“Darnell was a wonderful American actress.”

“American actress.”

“British actresses are much better. But for America, Darnell was wonderful.”

I nodded. “She was. For her time, she was.”

“But notorious for her volatile personal life.”

“Hollywood did her in.”

“So they say. People never really know what burdens another might bear.”

“Darnell became an alcoholic. Read about bad marriage after bad marriage.”

Isabel said, “In the end, I guess that’s what most remember. The scandal.”

“Nothing is new. Even when it’s new, it’s not new. Scandals are like stories; all have been done before. All that changes are technology and faces. Sex. Affairs. Mixed-race babies. Actresses becoming criminals. It’s all been done before. And will be done again.”

When I finished with her hair, Isabel thanked me and pulled out her portable hair dryer.

She asked, “Would you like to stay and watch
Sonny Boy
while I dry me hair?”

“I’m going to go back upstairs for a while. I have to check on a few things.”

“That got to you, didn’t it? Seeing the missus on the telly just now got to you.”

“I’ll be okay after I die.”

“Hopefully I didn’t instigate too much.”

“Not at all. I want you to feel comfortable around your cheeky and lying neighbor.”

“Hopefully I didn’t offend you.”

“Of course you did. You outran me then beat me at bowling.”

“Girl power.”

She winked, then came to walk me to her front door, a yellow towel over hair colored the hue of the sun. With her hair covered, with it pulled up like that, she looked so much younger.

Without thinking, on impulse, I asked her if I could touch her defined arms.

She told me that I could. I just wanted to touch her magnificent frame.

She asked, “So should I call you James?”

I said, “No. Call me Varg. I’m Varg for now. James has too many problems.”

“I understand. I’m sorry that I pried the way I did. It’s the way I am.”

“You’re a Brit. All of you cheeky bastards are nosey buggers across the pond.”

As I put my fingers on her skin, Peabo Bryson finished his turn at the microphone, “Reaching for the Sky,” and New Birth took to the invisible stage and sang the sexy song of praise, “Wildflower.” I traced my fingers over her forearms, to her shoulders, then back down to her palms.

She closed her eyes and rocked like we were back in the seventies, slow dancing.

She had just as much appeal as a movie starlet, could easily define sexiness and a generation’s taste in fashion. I wondered how her marriage had been, if she had been loyal.

She held my hand and I held hers as Smokey Robinson sang “Baby Come Close.”

“Look at the dreadful and selfish way I’m behaving. Young enough to be my son.”

“You don’t look old enough to be my mother.”

Isabel whispered, “You best go before I’m tempted to carry you to the bedroom door.”

“What would happen on the other side of that bedroom door?”

“A bit of how’s your father.”

“A round of how’s your father would be interesting.”

“I’d embarrass you.”

“Blimey.”

I leaned toward her, touched her lips with mine. I put my mouth on hers for seconds, and she opened her mouth to receive my tongue. I kissed her and focused on the sensation of kissing, tasted her, felt her, inhaled her. I kissed her for a long time, for the thrill of kissing.

When the kiss ended, she touched the side of my face and first licked her lips, then chewed at the corner of her bottom lip. She headed toward her bedroom and I followed her.

She said, “You’re not a lazy lover are you?”

“I’m better in bed than I am bowling.”

“So am I.”

I stood in the doorframe, observing her, and she let her wet hair down, let it fall free, the first step to becoming this other person. She eased her firm bottom down on the edge of the bed, her hands at her side. I stood in the doorframe staring at her as if I were a mannish child staring through a peephole at a grown woman. Our eyes remained locked for a long moment.

She whispered, “Bring me your pain.”

I took a step toward her and she moved, held the bed and slid down in a slow and sexy way, moved in slow motion until her bottom touched the carpet at the foot of the bed, her eyes still on mine. I went down
on my knees in front of her and inhaled her. I sucked her earlobes, kissed her neck, touched her breasts, rubbed between her legs. She reached to me, pulled my tee over my head, laid it to the side, and then stared at my chest. Sweet Isabel rubbed my chest and her breath caught in her throat. She smiled. So feminine and so mature and still a lovely girl all at once. Her naughtiness had risen to the surface. I kissed her and her body moved, led me to the carpet and I followed, her legs opening for me, opening wide, the invitation clear.

I pulled her pants and panties away from her, then unzipped my pants and rubbed my erection against her, felt her slickness, and I moved up and down until I found her opening, until she sighed and held on as I penetrated, as I eased inside her. A long sigh escaped her. She swallowed. For a moment, I didn’t move. Finally I was in a safe place. I inhaled and shuddered from the sensation of being connected to her, the sweetness of being inside her, one of the most deeply emotionally charged moments of my existence. We’d become a beast with two backs, but I didn’t move for a long moment. Even though she moved against me, even though my moans rose to my throat, I didn’t move. I held myself there and stared into her eyes until she sighed and then I eased them shut. She held me and became a masterpiece of unbridled passion.

I danced with her rhythm, moved in a deliberate motion, moved in and out of her, measured her, watched her react, watched her until what I felt grabbed me and pulled me toward its heat. I stopped and shuddered again, and then she opened her eyes and gazed at me, a small smile on her face, a smile of unexpected pleasure, a sweet smile, her mouth barely opened and exposing the whiteness of her teeth and the pinkness of her tongue, her eyes dreamy. She blinked a hundred times and one at a time her hands fell away from me, rested at her side. She moaned in surrender. Maybe it wasn’t submission, but that she knew I was married, she knew that the other me was married, that even if now I was Varg, the James part of me was married, and if she
didn’t touch me now, if she didn’t encourage me deeper inside her, she wouldn’t be complicit in this crime, only a spectator. I eased out of her body, made one become two, and backed away, the sound of desire living in each inhale and exhale, and written across my face.

In a heated whisper she asked, “Done so soon?”

“Take the rest of your clothes off.”

She removed her clothing. I removed all of mine. Her body was as beautiful as if it had been photoshopped. The weightlifting, the running, the yoga, the Pilates, the bowling, the dancing, her diet, her energy, it had kept her body powerful, lean, and youthful.

As I sat and held my erection, I hoped that I looked as good to her naked.

She moved her wet hair from her face and whispered, “You have a gorgeous cock.”

“You’re gorgeous. You’re a work of art, Sweet Isabel, physically and mentally.”

“I imagine that this is how Chet felt when he first saw Vera-Anne’s youth unadorned.”

“I imagine that she was tired of little boys and wanted someone mature for a change.”

“You at that age and me at this age. Now I have become quite the hypocrite.”

“We’re all hypocrites.”

“That we are.”

“But seeing you in your natural state, it’s a shame we have to wear clothes.”

I kissed her body, sucked her toes, rubbed her bottom, then tasted her, licked her provocatively, licked her like she was melting ice cream. Sweet Isabel was truly sweet.

Sweet Isabel sat up on my lap. It showed in her face, the pressure that was building up, the need for an extraordinary release. She abandoned her ladylike ways, her politeness, became sexual and primal,
moved faster, and without saying a word that I could comprehend, she demanded more. I turned her over, entered her, and met her every demand.

Sweet Isabel whispered, “Tea?”

“Sure.”

She pulled her wet hair back into a ponytail, wrapped a towel around her mane, then pulled on a housecoat that matched her hair. When she was done, she smiled at me.

“You’re a very skilled lover.”

“Why, thank you, Isabel.”

“My, my, my. You are much better at this than you are at bowling.”

Isabel headed for the kitchen.

She called back, “So, do you really know seventy ways to satisfy a woman?”

I laughed, then took a deep breath, felt the stress from James Thicke’s life overtaking Varg Veum’s peaceful world. Finally gave in and took out my cellular. I called Flaco to find out what had been happening at Club Mapona.

He said, “Since this thing between you and Bergs has happened, one of the Bergs has been at the club every night. Not the same one, but one of them. Last night they acted out.”

“Anyone get hurt?”

“Not yet. Police keep coming by asking for you too, but not often.”

“Heard that too.”

“Some hooker that he used to deal with was on CNN talking about him. These bitches. Man. She was telling about Bergs and drugs and said that he was on antidepressant pills, heroin, coke, and alcohol. She didn’t paint a pretty picture.”

“What’s the atmosphere at the club?”

“People show up to see the place now, since they said you were
part-owner in the press. The comedienne who’s skewing Bergs, Frances, she came one night. She’s loud and bad news.”

“If she left her info, call her. If she didn’t, look her up online. Let her and ten people in for free. Red sector. Three drinks each for free, but don’t tell them until the tab comes.”