Four of a Kind (26 page)

“That kind of attitude,” said Chaundry to her, “is why you should be glad you have a job at all.”

As it turned out, the recession had hit gyms, including Punch, right in the solar plexus. Nonmandatory memberships were at the top of the list of household budget cuts. Punch was bargain hunting for new recruitment-drive ideas. Hence, Bartlebee was asked to prepare a presentation.

They arrived at Finn’s apartment at noon. Alicia had been in this building a few times before. She and Tim came to Finn’s Christmas party a few years ago. Earlier this year, a Brownstone mom with
way
too much time on her hands (she’d calligraphed the invitations herself) hosted the fourth-grade parents’ potluck dinner in her penthouse a dozen flights up. A lot of Brownstone families lived in Battery Park City. It was only a couple subway stops from Brooklyn Heights.

Finn had a modest low-floor studio. It was bachelor-y. Not a lot of food or furniture to distract them, so they got right to work. Within forty-five minutes, they sketched out three print ads and the story-boards for two fifteen-second TV ads. The first was a woman’s midsection—six-pack abs, tan and glistening—with two words of copy: “Core Values.” The next ad: the back and shoulders of a man while using the lateral press Nautilus machine, his muscles ripped and shining from sweat. The copy, “Strength of Character.” The last ad, featuring a pair of gorgeous, shapely female legs in motion on a treadmill with the copy underneath, “Personal Endurance.” Their concept
was to make staying in shape synonymous with individual integrity. To survive in the new Age of Responsibility, according to their ads, you needed a buff bod. It was simple and serious, which was the advertising zeitgeist of the moment.

After Finn finished the last computer stroke, he leaned toward Alicia and planted a juicy wet kiss right on her lips. It was their first kiss. Months of heavy flirting and back/limb stroking at the guys’ poker games had come to this.

She’d spent the last hour fiddling with words about value and character, yet Alicia didn’t, not once, hesitate to kiss Finn back. She had proven her values and character, working hard to support her family, making sacrifices for Joe, ignoring her own emotional and physical needs. Alicia’s character and values had been tested. She’d endured enough. Finn was offering himself to her. She accepted.

Finn’s tongue was soft, warm, and wonderfully alive in her mouth. She kissed him like a drowning woman gulps for air, her hands in his hair, pulling him into her as if her life depended on it. Finn’s beautiful long strong fingers—she loved to watch them wrapped around a pencil—were now under her blouse, under her bra. When he cupped her breast, catching her nipple between two fingers, she moaned. Ridiculously loud. It’d escaped from a place so deep in her body, the sound reverberated, nearly shook the apartment windows.

“I’ve struck gold,” he said, laughing.

“Do it again,” she gasped.

His glorious hands traveled down her back, across her bottom, pulling a leg up and around him. He pressed himself against her. Even through her skirt and his trousers, she felt the heat coming off his erection. She imagined it a glowing rod of heat and light, pulsing in his pants. Her parts started to pulse in a rhythm, too, getting hot, expanding. She felt slick as an eel, and desperately needed him to touch her and find out exactly how excited she was.

Finn lifted her against him with both hands on her ass. Full frontal contact. He pushed her hair off her shoulder with his nose, and then
bit her gently on her shoulder. Alicia had been holding on to his neck with both arms, afraid to let go and fall to the floor. She let one hand trail down his chest and sneak between two buttons of his shirt. Chest hair, dense, coarse, and dark. Finding a soft bump, she squeezed his nipple and he seemed to stiffen. Had she hurt him?

“Now you’ve done it,” he said, his voice hitched.

He unzipped his pants, pushed aside her soaked panties, positioned himself, and then slid into her, tip to nuts.

In those five seconds, Alicia thought she might’ve seen God. Blinking frantically from the tears that were suddenly streaming out of her eyes, she was overwhelmed by sensation. Finn’s hands on her butt, she clutched at his chest and shoulders as his heat drove into her.

Her clit felt big and hot as a lightbulb.

Finn bit her shoulder again, his hands gripping her ass tighter. He lifted her up, tilting her into a more comfortable position, and she let him take her weight. He carried her to his couch, still joined, lowered her onto the cushion, and kneeled in front of her. She could wrap both legs around him now, and lean back to watch his face.

His eyes were wide open, staring back at her. The look on his face, amazement, need, a slight strain from holding back, the O of his mouth as he panted and groaned with each thrust. It was too much, too beautiful and raw. Alicia felt the building pressure, like a balloon filling with liquid gold. Filling and filling, and then bursting, hot gold pumping in and out, up and down her spine. Alicia had never come with her eyes open before. She watched Finn watch her, and it was the biggest turn-on she’d ever experienced.

A second later, he came. His face twisted with relief and joy, his cheeks turned red, his nostrils widened and twitched, his mouth wide open. It was the face of truth and beauty. Absolute perfection.

She’d been wrong. Watching him come was the biggest turn-on she’d ever experienced.

And she wanted to do it again. ASAP.

Finn detached himself, flopped next to her on the couch. They arranged their clothes a bit awkwardly.

“Sorry so short,” he said, still breathing heavy.

“Five minutes that changed my life,” she said, her tone light.

He was respectfully silent, but then said, “I don’t think of you as a cougar or anything.”

“A cougar?” He meant much older women who seduced younger men. “I’m only seven years older than you! But thanks for the assurance.”

“I liked you from my first day at Bartlebee,” he said, turning his head to face her, make sure she knew he meant it.

“Liked me?”

“Thought you were cute,” he said. “I remember thinking I was surprised you were older, and had a family. If it weren’t for your husband and Joe, I would have gone for it. I had to turn off the switch. Think of you in only one way.”

“I did the same thing about you,” she said. “Turned off the switch.”

“But then you turned it back on,” he said, curious. “A few months ago when you joined the poker game.”

“You realize, if we’d slept together years ago, we never would have become friends or written all those ads together,” she said. “We would’ve flamed out. We still might. This could destroy a great partnership.”

“Partnership,” he said, nodding. “Like with your husband?”

She placed a hand on Finn’s cheek. “Nothing like that. Believe me. You don’t know how not-like-that this is.”

“Was it the poker game? Winning seemed to get you going,” he said, back to that.

“It was the poker game,” she said. But not the one he thought. “I also play with some women every few weeks.”

“You told them about me?” he asked, grinning.

“I told them about me,” she said. She’d opened up at the game, about her sexless marriage. That was the first step that brought her to this blissful moment on Finn’s couch.

Finn didn’t quite get her point. “Well, whatever you did, keep doing it,” he said.

“Let’s play now,” said Alicia, sitting up, smiling broadly. “Strip poker. It’ll be fun.”

They played five-card draw, which Alicia hadn’t tried before, but got the hang of quickly. Having her mind engaged, hands full, and clothes on—at first—eased the slight weirdness of having just made love to her office mate of five years, cheating on her husband, best friend, and father of her only child. It was a momentous day, for sure! Alicia was basking in the flood of happy hormones coursing through her brain, fully aware that those very chemicals obliterated less joyous thoughts that would surely surface later.

Alicia—no, Wild Heart—lost a hand, and removed her bra. Finn’s eyes drank in her small breasts, what Tim called “the fried eggs” (incredibly, it used to sound affectionate).

“You’re beautiful,” he said.

“You like women with starter boobs?” she asked, instantly regretting how insecure she sounded.

“Not usually,” he admitted. “You’ve seen my ex-girlfriends.”

Yes, she couldn’t help but notice the parade of curvy half-wits he’d ushered through their shared office. “I’m a departure, you’re saying?” she asked.

“More like a late arrival,” said Finn.

Too clever
, she thought.
Too cute
. What rabbit hole had she fallen into?
No one deserved this kind of happiness
, she thought.
Least of all me
.

“I do have one major complaint about you,” he said.

“Just one?”

“You don’t know when to stop talking,” said Finn.

He moved toward her, pushing her back on the bed, positioning
himself on top. In short order, they were completely, rapturously naked, once again fused together.

Afterward, when she returned to earth, Alicia realized that a bunch of cards were stuck to the dewy skin on her back. Finn peeled them off, and showed her each one. Hearts, diamonds. Lots of red.

“You’ve got a flush,” said Finn.

Of course, leaving was agony. Alicia felt like a teenager, her emotions heightened and intense, uncontrollable. She actually cried when Finn kissed her good-bye at his door. He wasn’t weirded out, or didn’t let on if he was.

But it
was
weird! How would they act tomorrow at the office? Would it happen again? “I will surely die if we don’t do this again,” she told him at his door.

“Then I guess we’d better!” he said. “I’m free now.”

But she had to go immediately or she might never leave Finn’s lair. At some point, soon, she and Finn would have to talk. Or maybe not, thought Alicia as she pushed the elevator button. She’d tried to talk to Tim about their marriage, many times—but not for a while, she realized, having given up. Of course, the way the world worked, now that she was moving away from the marriage, Tim would make a push to save it. She laughed to herself, imagining Tim’s attempt to romance her, or even (
gasp
) seduce her. The smell of another man on her skin might inflame his proprietary claim on her, if only subconsciously. Tim would never, not in a million years, believe her capable of cheating.

The elevator doors opened.

“Mommy!”

Alicia, standing frozen, registered the shape and face of her son in the elevator. Next to Joe stood her husband, Tim; his jaw dropped to the floor.
Did he look guilty?
she wondered.
Did I?
The doors started to close. A hand shot out between them, and the doors opened again.

“Are you coming in?” asked Tim. “This is a surprise.”

Alicia stepped inside the car. “I was at Finn’s apartment,” she said. “Working.”

“I figured,” said Tim.

She was about to ask Tim what they were doing there, when Joe grabbed her around the waist, buried his face into her shirt and started crying.

“Oh, my God,” she said, hugging him. “What’s wrong?”

Tim answered. “We had a playdate at Anita Turnbull’s—remember her from the potluck? Joe and Austin didn’t get along so well.”

“What happened?” she asked her son.

“I hate him,” said Joe.

“Why?” she asked.

But her son couldn’t or wouldn’t say. She looked to Tim for answers. He just shrugged.

“Can we please just go home?” asked Joe. “I never want to come here again.” The boy was glaring at his father now. “I
told
you before. I hate Austin. I hate coming here.”

“Okay, okay,” said Tim. “Message received.”

“You come here often?” asked Alicia.

Tim was in charge of after-school activities, including playdates. This was their division of labor. Alicia dropped off, and Tim picked up. The swirl at pick-up was when playdates were arranged. Alicia knew it was better for Joe that Tim served as social director. If that were left up to her, Joe wouldn’t have any playdates at all. Except for Bess, Robin, and Carla, Alicia hadn’t managed to bond with the other parents in Joe’s class, just as she’d predicted and feared.

But charming and available Tim had befriended the one or two other dads at pick-up (Alicia thought of them as “beta husbands”), as well as all the moms. That included, apparently, the pampered and comely Anita Turnbull, the type of woman Alicia found inhumanly intimidating with her polished pilates body with money and super-mom cred.

Tim said, “I thought the boys were doing well together.”

“I
told
you Austin’s a jerk,” wailed Joe. “What part of ‘I hate him and wish he was dead’ don’t you understand?”

Alicia laughed despite the tension. The kid was miserable, but he still managed to keep a (dark) sense of humor.
What doesn’t kill him would only make him funnier
, she thought. Alicia knew that humor was a defense mechanism. It was her shield of choice, too.

The elevator doors opened into the lobby. The three of them walked in silence toward the subway entrance a few blocks away. According to her watch, it was six o’clock. Tim and Joe had been at Anita’s since school ended three hours ago.

Alicia flashed back to that poker night at Bess’s, when she’d brought Joe along to hang with the other kids while she played with the moms. She’d been in the game room for two hours before Joe had his meltdown and insisted they leave. If she’d been paying the slightest bit of attention to her son, she would have plucked him out of the difficult situation way before he reached hysteria. Tim yelled at her later that night when she told him what happened, accusing her of not paying enough attention to Joe.

They squeezed into the crowded rush-hour train, bound for Brooklyn. The farther they got from Manhattan, the more Joe seemed to relax. Now that he’d recovered, Joe didn’t want her to touch him. She tried to stroke his hair, but he pushed her hand away.

Joe wasn’t a baby, true. At ten years old, he was up to her shoulder. In a few years, he’d be a teenager, with a host of complicated emotional, hormonal issues to contend with, on top of his social phobia. The kid was in for a rough ride. No more stalling and hoping the problem would just go away. Whether or not they could afford therapy and medication (if it came to that), Joe needed help now.