Carmen didn’t. “So are you Tuesday night regulars at this dive?”
“No, we’re Friday night regulars,” said Johnny.
“Oh, yeah?” said Carmen, smiling at Alexander. She was statuesque, dark-haired, put-together, coiffed, made-up, well-dressed, extremely large-breasted. “Where do you two live?”
“I live far,” said Alexander, putting down his empty glass on the bar. “And I’ve got to be going.”
Johnny pulled him aside. “You can’t leave yet!” he whispered. “I think I said something wrong, scared Emily off.”
“You think?” said Alexander. “Probably telling her you’re trawling for a wife was not the smartest thing you could’ve said. Oh, well, slick, better luck next time. Try the other one—she seems more friendly. After all, Cubert’s in Las Vegas.”
They laughed quietly. “Friendly to you, maybe,” Johnny said. “You’re indifferent and yet she is being flirty with you, why?”
“That’s why.”
Johnny convinced Alexander to stay for another drink.
They all went to sit at a darkened table in the corner. Carmen sat next to Alexander. Quickly he drank his beer, his fifth of the night. Carmen volunteered a lot of information about herself. She asked him questions about building a house, designing it, about stone or stucco, flat roofs or pitched. She heard flat roofs were more energy-efficient; was that true?
“That may be true,” said Alexander. “But there are only two kinds of flat roofs. Ones that leak and ones that don’t leak yet.”
Oh, how merrily Carmen laughed, jiggling her backcombed head, as if Alexander were Bob Hope! “You’re an architect, a home builder. You’re a jack of many trades, aren’t you?”
“And you don’t know the half of it, girls,” Johnny said, grinning. “Tell them about all the other things you were, man.”
Alexander got up. “I really have to go. Thanks for the drink, Johnny. Nice to meet you, ladies.”
Carmen got up, too. “So I’ll call you then, and we’ll arrange something?”
“Not me,” said Alexander. “Call Linda. She is my arranger.”
“Well, it was very nice to meet you, Alexander.” Nodding her breasts at him and smiling, she gave him her red-nailed hand.
Alexander drove home carefully. He’d had a little too much to drink.
At the house, the porch light shone for him. The door was locked. Tatiana didn’t like to lock the doors when he wasn’t home; she said it seemed like locking him out, but after Dudley, Alexander instilled in her the importance of dead bolt locking both doors at all times and drawing the shades while she was by herself in the middle of the desert wilderness.
When he came in, she was sitting at the kitchen table waiting for him, drumming her fingers. The house was dark, just the stove light was on. Alexander didn’t say anything as he shut and locked the door and took off his jacket. When he went to get some water from the fridge, she said, “Why are you going out drinking on a Tuesday night?”
“Why not?”
“What are you doing, Alexander?”
“What are you doing, Tatiana?” His voice was raised. It was the liquor.
She kept hers quieter. “Why are you fighting with me?”
“I’m not fighting with you. I walked in the door. I said nothing.”
“I know you’re upset. But you think the reasonable way to deal with it is for you to be away from me drinking at a bar?”
“Oh, is that what we’d be doing if I was home?” said Alexander. “Dealing with it?”
“Away from me drinking on a Tuesday!”
“And why not? You’re away from me sixty hours a week.”
“I work!” she yelled.
In two strides Alexander loomed over her. “First of all,” he said, “do I seem to you like I’m in the mood to be yelled at? How many times have I told you—don’t raise your fucking voice to me. And second of all—I don’t want to hear about your work ever again. Got that?”
Looking up at him from the chair, Tatiana pulled his hand away from her face. Her short silk robe was coming loose. “Soldier, what are you doing?” she said tremulously. “Stand down.”
“You don’t tell me to stand down,” Alexander said loudly. “I’ll stand down when I want. Since you do whatever the fuck you want.” He turned and walked into the bedroom.
Slowly Tatiana followed him. “Can we just talk about this reasonably—”
“We’re not going to talk about it at all.” He was at his closet. “Tell me—have you been so out of it, you haven’t noticed our days have been getting harder? Our minutes have been getting harder?”
“If they’re getting harder it’s because you’re making them harder,” said Tatiana.
“Oh, I’m doing that, am I?” Alexander ripped off his tie.
Tatiana sat tensely on the edge of the bed. The sashes of her robe had come half-undone; he could see a glimpse of her breasts, her navel, her blonde mound, her white thighs. “Yes,” she said. “You going out drinking, coming home late and not sober, acting like this, that’s making it harder.”
He unhooked his cuff links, took off his white shirt, his white tank, and stood before her bare to the waist. “Well, you know something?” Alexander said. “I’m done being nice. Completely done.”
“It’s just for December,” Tatiana said. “One month, and then—”
“What did I say?” he yelled. “I don’t want to talk about it!”
“Stop yelling! God!”
“Are you angry? Want to take it out on me?” Alexander tapped his chest. “Come on, babe. You want a fight? You’ve come to the right place.”
She blinked. “I don’t want to fight with you, what are you talking about?”
He unbuckled his belt, pulled it out of the loops.
“You can’t be this upset with me, Shura,” said Tatiana, “for four hours at a children’s clinic. Is it something else—”
Not letting her finish, Alexander raised his hand and swung the belt down. She gasped as it whistled through the air and hit the bed in a thud next to her bare thigh. “Tania!” he said, bent over her. “I said I didn’t want to talk about it. Which part of that didn’t you understand?”
“Oh, what’s wrong with you?” Tatiana said in a frightened voice, nearly falling back on the bed, her hands barely supporting her.
“Did I say, don’t rattle me?” Her robe had come open.
“Yes.” Quietly.
“Did I say, don’t speak about your fucking work to me?”
“Yes.” Quieter and quieter. “Shh.”
“Don’t tell me to shh. You shh. Because the very next time you open your mouth,” he said through his teeth, “I’m going to lose my temper.” He was still standing enormous over her, half naked himself.
Tatiana edged her way off the bed. “Excuse me,” she said in a small voice. “I need to get past.”
As always, her tiny, naked vulnerability with her trembling erect nipples pointing up at him brought out the worst in him when his temper was this hot at his throat. Her surrender didn’t quell him; just the opposite, it incensed him; and incensed his concupiscence also. She was afraid? She had every right to be. Sometimes he was just plain not nice, and knew it, and didn’t care. Unable to restrain himself, Alexander did not let her go past.
Her robe flung off, his clothes off, blankets and pillows off the bed, he laid her on her back in front of him, straddling her, holding her wrists tight above her head. Squirming slightly, she said nothing, raising her face to him, raising her breasts to him. “Shura,” she whispered.
“Don’t Shura me.” He flipped her by her legs onto her stomach, pressing her into the bed, pressing her lower back, her hips, her upper thighs into the bed.
“Shura,” Tatiana repeated, muffled in the sheets.
Restraining her with one hand, Alexander unwrapped her braid with the other, fingers pulling through the strands, letting her hair spill out. “Are you too tired tonight, Tania? Barely awake? Would you l
ike to put on some pajamas? Are you not in the mood?” he whispered into her neck, slipping his fingers between her legs, and groaning.
After a few moments, she moaned in return. “Let me turn around.”
“No.” The flat palms that had been spanning her back were now spanning the backs of her thighs. “I want it my way, not your way.” He spread her legs and knelt between them, leaning over her prone body, gripping her hair, sliding inside her. It felt so good that he stayed a while, but then withdrew, opened her up a little more, and pressed himself between her buttocks.
Oh dear God . . . wait, Shura, wait . . . Tatiana whispered hoarsely. Let me touch you.
“No,” whispered Alexander as he guided himself into her, slowly, but not that slowly. “I’m going to touch you. Lie still.”
Her hands grasped the sheets, the edge of the mattress, the rattling brass rails of the headboard. He continued to push himself in.
Shura . . . wait . . . I’ll—let me turn around and you can—
“No.” He was fully inside. He took a breath, still so upset with her. His face was in her neck. She smelled of vanilla...of burnt caramel sugar...of cream...of rum.
Both his hands moved up to grip her forearms. He pulled out and thrust back in.
The brass rails nearly came apart as she cried out.
He pulled out and thrust back in.
In out, in out, his every thrust punctuated by her jagged cries.
He didn’t stop moving, or whispering to her.
She was panting, perspiring, her neck, her face wet from the great tension.
Pressing her head into the sheets, sucking the rear slope of her shoulders, his body over her, don’t move, Tania, oh but he moved.
He had to stop. He couldn’t believe it, but he was about to come— unheard of this fast, especially after drinking. She was always too much for him like this, in such exquisite distress, on her stomach, face in sheets, blonde mane all over, gasping, grasping. Slowing down, taking shallow breaths, propping up, Alexander tried to get control of himself, but it was no use. He was done for.
Panting he lay collapsed on top of her afterward as she continued to heave underneath him in small whimpers. His face was in her hair.
The next morning when Alexander opened his eyes, Tatiana was already up and in uniform. They didn’t speak for a few minutes. She wasn’t smiling as she eyed him. “Do you ever intend to tell me where you were last night,” she finally asked, “or should I stop asking and draw my own conclusions?”
He stretched. “I had a drink with Johnny.”
“Ah. Your nice, ever-searching, ever single, bar-hopping, doll-hunting friend Johnny-boy. You’re teaching him a few things you know?”
Alexander rubbed his eyes. “Um—isn’t it a little early for this?”
“Last night you weren’t interested in talking.”
He got a hot leap in his stomach as he sense-remembered her last night. All his five senses remembered her. He didn’t feel just a beat of arousal, he felt a pounding.
Tatiana left the room and Alexander got up to go wash. She came back with a cup of coffee for him. “Don’t forget about the party tonight.”
“What party?” He took the coffee from her hands.
“The Christmas party at the hospital,” Tatiana said slowly, frowning.
“Oh. Yeah.” Now Alexander remembered. “I don’t want to go.”
“We have to.”
“Perhaps you haven’t noticed,” said Alexander, “but I’m not in a party mood.”
“I can’t help but notice.” Tatiana lowered her gaze. “Still, we have to go.”
“We don’t.”
“Alexander,” she said, staring up at him, “are you telling me that you don’t want to go to the Christmas party at my hospital, to which all the spouses come?”
“Finally I’m making myself clear.”
“Fine, suit yourself,” she said, grabbing her bag and walking away. “But I’m going.”
“Great, go,” Alexander said into her white-uniformed back. “You do all sorts of things I don’t want you to, why stop at a party?”
Tatiana stopped at the bedroom door. After watching him warily, with a great sigh she slowly came back to him. Alexander stood in front of her, angry and naked, and morning-and-Tatiana-inflamed. She put down her nurse’s bag.
“Shh,” she said softly, lifting her face to him, as her hands lowered and took hold of him. “Shh. Come on.” She stroked him. “Come on . . . out of the battle zone. Weapons down, soldier.”
He wanted her on her knees in front of him. His palm nearly went on top of her head. On the one hand, such gratification. But on the other hand—“It’s after six. You’re going to be late for work.” Alexander with inhuman effort forced himself to pull her hands off him. “Run along now.”
“You’re going to come, right?” She kissed his chest.
“Under protest.”
“Of course.”
As soon as Alexander walked into the common room on the third floor of the hospital and took one look at his wife, he knew the night was going to lead to no good. Tatiana had this uncanny ability: be exhausted and raw like twine when she came home, but when she was at a hospital party, surrounded by her friends, it was as if she had done nothing all day but soak in a hot bath. She was refreshed and flushed, and as Alexander walked in, she was standing with a group of people, one of them Dr. Bradley, and she was throwing her head back in delight.
He must be quite a joker, quite the wit, Alexander thought, making his way to her, something ugly twitching inside his heart. She just can’t stop the pealing when she’s around him.
Her hair was loosely braided, there was a long curled tuft at the back that bobbed when she laughed and the red velvet ribbons that barely held the braid together bobbed and shook, too. Gold hair strands fell around her face. She was wearing makeup and her mouth was glossy red. To match the mouth, she was wearing a show-stopping new dress in flaming Christmas red—Alexander guessed trying to get as far away as she could from nursing white. The dress had a fitted bodice stacked with breasts and taffeta, taffeta that zigzagged into a swing skirt full of gathered tulle and netting layers. Underneath she wore a starched crinoline petticoat he could hear crinkle every time she moved. He bet he wasn’t the only one who could hear it. The dress had puffed bolero sleeves—as though she were a flamenco dancer, about to dance the salsa and sing “La Bruja.” The boned corset made her waist even more tiny and her breasts even more prominent than usual. Her four-inch-high red slingbacks were satin and her legs, in seamed nylon stockings, were lovely.
She was lovely.
Alexander said nothing about the unbelievable dress, not a word. While he shook hands all around, Tatiana got him a drink and some food. He joined in the ongoing conversation regarding the future of the medical profession in the United States. There was heavy overcrowding at hospitals because of the baby boom. The hospitals couldn’t cope, the maternity clinics couldn’t cope. Somebody asked why, if the building industry could cope with the demand for more housing, couldn’t more hospitals be built with larger maternity wings? Alexander said that in the eight years they had lived in Arizona, a million new houses went up, while Phoenix still only had the one hospital.
“Well, perhaps you should design and build us a new hospital, Alexander,” said Carolyn. “To help with the baby overcrowding. And then your wife could run it.”
“A hospital just for Tania!” said Bradley with a laugh, looking at Tatiana. “What an idea!”
“Yes, but did you know,” said Carolyn, “that more and more women are choosing to have their babies at home with the help of a midwife? I decided to take a course and I’m now a registered midwife, thank you very much.” She smiled. “No more Tupperware for me. Tania,” she said, “you won’t believe how much money I make in my spare time. You should become a midwife. You’d be very good at it, you know.”
“Of course she would,” said Bradley. “Tania is good at everything.”
> Tatiana demurred from an answer; Alexander demurred from so much as glancing at her, curtly excusing himself out of the idiotic conversation and going to get another drink.
“Well, hello there, Alexander!”
He turned. It was the woman from yesterday—Carmen.
“Oh, hello,” he said coolly, stepping away and glancing across the room. Tatiana was otherwise engaged and hadn’t looked his way. “What are you doing here?”
“I told you, Cubert, my husband, is training to be an EMT here in his spare time.” She tutted. “Because he’s got so much of it. But more important, what are you doing here?”
“My wife works here.”
“Your wife works? Which one is she?”
“Which one’s Cubert?” he asked, not pointing out Tatiana.
“Right over there.” Cubert was a little skinny nervous thing, motioning for Carmen from the other side of the room. Tutting, she ignored him, taking out a cigarette. “Have you got a light?”
Flicking on his lighter, Alexander brought it to Carmen’s cigarette. She cupped his hand as she lit up, as if there were an Arizona super-cell tornado swirling through the common room at Phoenix Memorial Hospital.
Of course it was at this very moment that Alexander lifted his eyes and saw Tatiana across the floor, her darkening gaze on him.
“So I called your secretary,” Carmen said, puffing, smiling, “but she said you’re busy until after the New Year. Is there anything you can do about that?”
“If Linda says I’m booked, I’m booked.” Alexander stepped away. “I have to go. Excuse me—Carmen, right?”
Cubert was getting more insistent in calling for her, and an exasperated Carmen rushed off.
And then Tatiana wouldn’t speak to him. Alexander asked her if she wanted a drink. She said no. He asked her if she wanted some more food. She said no. He stopped asking and she moved away, going to stand next to Bradley, Carolyn, and Erin. She drank, ebbed, flowed, and then said something and they burst into laughter, and Bradley took Tatiana’s hand, bowed before her theatrically, and kissed it.
He did it as a joke, everyone smiled and went on talking as if it were nothing, everyone except Alexander, that is, who walked over to Tatiana, took her carefully by her arm, pulled her slightly away with an “excuse me” and said, “I’m leaving.”