“Let’s get out of here,” he shouted, mad with lust. She nodded and pulled away, going into a little solipsistic dance a few feet away. Alex watched, trying to pick and follow her rhythm until he gave up and captured her in his arms. He forced his tongue between her teeth, surprised by the pain of his recent wound. Fortunately she didn’t bite him this time; in fact she pulled away. Suddenly she was weaving her way back to the VIP area, where Frederic seemed to be having an argument with the bartender. When he saw Tasha he seized a bottle on the bar and threw it at the floor near her feet, where it shattered.
Frederic shouted something unintelligible before bolting up the stairs. Tasha started to follow.
“Don’t go,” Alex shouted, holding her arm.
“I’m sorry,” she shouted, removing his hand from her arm. She kissed him gently on the lips.
“Say good-bye,” Alex said.
“Good-bye.”
“Say my name.”
She looked at him quizzically, and then, as if she suddenly got the joke, she smiled and laughed mirthlessly, pointing at him as if to say-you almost got me.
He watched her disappear up the steps, her long legs seeming to become even longer as they receded.
Alex had another glass of the clear liquor but the scene now struck him as tawdry and flat. It was a little past three. As he was leaving the Japanese woman pressed several nightclub invitations into his hand.
Out on the sidewalk he tried to get his bearings. He started to walk toward St. Germain. His mood lifted with the thought that it was only ten o’clock in New York. He would call Lydia. Suddenly he believed he knew what to say to her. As he picked up his pace he noticed a beam of light moving slowly along the wall beside and above him; he turned to Frederic’s bashed-in Renault cruising the street behind him.
“Get in,” said Tasha.
He shrugged. Whatever happened, it was better than walking.
“Frederic wants to check out this after-hours place.”
“Maybe you could just drop me off at my hotel.”
“Don’t be a drag.”
The look she gave him awoke in him the mad lust of the dance floor; he was tired of being jerked around and yet his desire overwhelmed his pride. After all this he felt he deserved his reward, and he realized he was willing to do almost anything to get it. He climbed in the backseat. Frederic gunned the engine and popped the clutch. Tasha looked back at Alex, shaping her lips into a kiss, then turned to Frederic. Her tongue emerged from her lips and slowly disappeared in Frederic’s ear. When Frederic stopped for a light she moved around to kiss him full on the mouth. He realized that he was involved-that he was part of the transaction between them. And suddenly he thought of Lydia, how he had told her his betrayal had nothing to do with her, which was what you said. How could he explain to her that as he bucked atop another woman it was she, Lydia, who filled his heart.
Tasha suddenly climbed over the backseat and started kissing him. Thrusting her busy tongue into his mouth, she ran her hand down to his crotch. “Oh, yes, where did that come from?” She took his earlobe between her teeth as she unzipped his fly.
Alex moaned as she reached into his shorts. He looked at Frederic, who looked right back at him… who seemed to be driving faster as he adjusted the rearview mirror. Tasha slid down his chest, feathering the hair of his belly with her tongue. A vague intuition of danger faded away in the wash of vivid sensation. She was squeezing his cock in her hand and then it was in her mouth and he felt powerless to intervene. He didn’t care what happened, so long as she didn’t stop. At first he could barely feel the touch of her lips, the pleasure residing more in the anticipation of what was to follow. At last she raked him gently with her teeth. Alex moaned and squirmed lower in the seat as the car picked up speed.
The pressure of her lips became more authoritative.
“Who am I?” he whispered. And a minute later: “Tell me who you think I am.”
Her response, though unintelligible, forced a moan of pleasure from his own lips. Glancing at the rearview mirror, he saw that Frederic was watching, looking down into the backseat, even as the car picked up speed. When Frederic shifted abruptly into fourth, Alex inadvertently bit down on his own tongue as his head snapped forward, his teeth scissoring the fresh wound there.
On a sudden impulse he pulled out of Tasha’s mouth just as Frederic jammed on the brakes and sent them into a spin.
He had no idea how much time passed before he struggled out of the car. The crash had seemed almost leisurely, the car turning like a falling leaf until the illusion of weightlessness was shattered by the collision with the guardrail. He tried to remember it all as he sat, folded like a contortionist in the backseat, taking inventory of his extremities. A peaceful, Sunday silence prevailed. No one seemed to be moving. His cheek was sore and bleeding on the inside where he’d slammed it against the passenger seat headrest. Just when he was beginning to suspect his hearing was gone he heard Tasha moaning beside him. The serenity of survival was replaced by anger when he saw Frederic’s head moving on the dashboard and remembered what might have happened.
Hobbling around to the other side of the car, he yanked the door open and hauled Frederic roughly out to the pavement, where he lay blinking, a gash on his forehead.
“What was that about?” Alex said.
The Frenchman blinked and winced, inserting a finger in his mouth to check his teeth.
In a fury, he kicked Frederic in the ribs. “Who the hell do you think I am?”
Frederic smiled and looked up at him. “You’re just a guy,” he said. “You’re nobody.”
Walking back to his hotel, he found himself thinking of Lydia. His cheek was sore and bruised; when Frederic finally hit the guardrail he’d slammed it against the window. And the smoke from his cigarette made him all the more aware of the cuts on his tongue. But he was grateful to have escaped with these superficial wounds. The car had spun 180 degrees and popped a tire on the curb before coming to rest on the sidewalk. Alex had left them there, walking away without a word as Tasha called after him.
When he’d been caught, when his tryst with Tracey had become impossible to deny, he’d told Lydia it had nothing to do with her-what one always said-but that wasn’t true. It was all about her. Although he’d lied and tried to hide his transgression, in the end, he realized now, he needed her to know. It was all about betrayal, that most intimate of transactions between two people. She was part of the equation. How could he explain to her that as he bucked atop another woman it was she, Lydia, who filled his heart. That it was like racing one’s car at a tree. How the moment before impact would be vivid with love of the very thing you were about to lose.