Irresistible Impulse by Robert K. Tanenbaum Read Free Book Online

a different patter than she had used with his brother), she was struck by how differently he had played out the same genetic cards Zak had been dealt. His eyes: the same lovely mahogany, completely different expression. Zak’s eyes said, “Yumm-yumm! Gimme!” Zik’s said, “What’s your story?” Zak was violent motion, quick moods; Zik was a gentle prober, and placid. Now he was touching her lower lip as she taped his Pamper. Zak never did that; punch and slap, yes, but not this delicate palpation.
    However, no time to dawdle in naughty maternal eroticism! One babe on each hip, she marched into the kitchen, punched up the lights and placed each boy in his own high chair. She could hear the roar of water from where her husband was up and taking his shower. Briefly, she considered slipping under the steaming spray with him, to renew the stolen passion of the night before, stolen, because the twins absolutely refused to allow them any sexual space. Since the evening they were brought home from the hospital, their subtle oedipal radar had detected even the most careful insinuation of moist organs, at which time both sirens would go off full blast, banishing romance and wakening Lucy. It was uncanny. On the other hand, on the occasions when they did manage a date, their sex had the furtive urgency of an illicit affair. Still reasonably good sex too, for a wonder, after nearly eleven years, Marlene thought, not like it was at first, when they and screwed themselves sore every night, but comfortable, pleasing, married, a checkpoint. (Is it still you ? Yes, it’s still me .)
    The water stopped; too late, Marlene. In any case, as she well understood, there was no time for anything that might upset the precise and scientific scheduling of the Karp & Ciampi Every Morning Railroad. Two bottles filled and warmed in the microwave (oh, blessed technology!), stuck into two little gobs, and then it was time for Lucy’s first wake-up kick.
    “I’m not going to school today,” said a faint voice from beneath the Italian-flag-colored quilt. “I’m sick.”
    “You are? Let me feel you.”
    “No, I’m too sick to have a fever. I’m past the fever part.”
    Marlene reached under the quilt and grabbed a skinny limb, which was warm but not abnormally so, and heaved.
    “Ow! Child abuse!”
    “It’ll be assault one unless I hear water running and dressing noises in two minutes.”
    Marlene left her daughter’s room and walked down the long main hallway of her loft, as always experiencing a thrill of satisfaction with her home. She’d lived here over a dozen years, starting back in the illegal days, and for most of that time the place had been a barely habitable former wire factory. Two years of the big bucks had changed that; Karp’s career with a firm of downtown tortmeisters and a couple of immense wins had sufficed to convert the vast space into a civilized apartment with real walls and doors, central heating and A/C, Swedish-finish oak floors, two bathrooms, and a kitchen out of Architectural Digest with a Vulcan stove and a stainless steel reefer. The building had gone condo in the great So-Hoization of lower Manhattan, and Marlene now owned the place outright. She intended never to leave.
    She passed the kitchen in time to see her husband, in his lawyer blue suit trousers, shirt, and boring dark tie, putting on a yellow rubberized apron with prop, bellevue morgue stenciled on the bib. Zak flung his bottle at her and yelled some happy gibberish. She fielded it neatly, wiped the nipple on her robe, and replaced it in its wet, pink hole. Karp extended one of his long arms and snagged the opening of her robe.
    “Excuse me,” he said, “but I wonder if you’ve seen the woman who gave me that really incredibly great piece of ass last night.”
    “Oh, Estelle? She’s with a customer,” said Marlene as a remarkably long finger whipped out to tickle her crotch. She giggled and pulled away. Zak’s bottle flew again, and this