Lies You Wanted to Hear by James Whitfield Thomson Read Free Book Online Page A

we got back to my apartment, my cat Rory was waiting at the top of the stairs. She had a long white coat with a regal black tail and an intricate black patch on her back. I picked her up and stroked her under the chin, and Rory purred like an old refrigerator. Griffin said he loved cats; his family always had at least three or four of them. He told me a long, funny story about a blue point Siamese named Minx, which Griffin’s black sheep uncle Baxter claimed he had won in a poker game in Chicago. Minx supposedly had a cry that could hit high C and a knack for warning Baxter when bill collectors or angry women came to the door.
    We smoked another joint and made love again. The first two times he had been rough, oblivious to my cues and muffled yelps of pain, but I reveled in the thrill of it, the proximate danger; no man, it seemed, had ever wanted me more. Then he slowed down and began to explore my body, bringing me to the edge and pulling back, teasing me, making me beg.
    When I woke up Saturday morning, he was gone again. The note on the kitchen table said: Had to run. I’ll give you a call. No tender closing, no name, not even a G.
    ***
    I sat at my desk, drinking my third or fourth cup of coffee, wishing I hadn’t promised Jill I’d call her back. I didn’t want to talk about Matt, not with Jill and certainly not with Carla, my therapist, with whom I had my regular appointment later that afternoon.
    I started seeing Carla after I’d been dating Griffin for about four months. Being with him could be wonderful. He was well-read, loved opera and foreign films and avant-garde theater; he was a terrific skier and a patient instructor on the tennis court. We spent glorious afternoons sailing on the twenty-seven-foot sloop he kept at a dock down in Quincy. He liked to go shopping and buy me clothes and jewelry; he took me to Morocco, the Copper Canyon in Mexico, to Italy for my twenty-fifth birthday. We were from similar backgrounds, a world of money and privilege we sometimes scoffed at but never rejected. The first time we slow danced it felt like we’d been partners at the country club since we were eight years old.
    But for all the good times, I never felt secure. He slept over at my place three or four nights a week, but rarely wanted me to stay at his—his way, I guessed, of maintaining a retreat that held nothing of mine. He had no office, only an answering service, and when he traveled on business, he often went for days without calling me. I assumed that he was being unfaithful, but I didn’t ask, not in the beginning; I wanted to prove that I wasn’t some possessive, demanding bitch. We experimented with various drugs, though plain old cannabis worked best for me. In time our lovemaking grew bolder, grittier. We coaxed and dared each other into trying new things, including a ménage à trois (which was basically a bore, the girl dull and mechanical and completely uninterested in me). But no matter how good the sex was, I couldn’t shake the apprehension that something was missing. Oneness . The feeling after we made love that lying in bed next to me was the only place on earth he wanted to be. Maybe that was why I kept going back to him—or letting him back in—the hope that someday everything would be so perfect he’d never want to leave.
    I tried to explain this to Carla.
    She said, “What you’re missing is love .”
    I looked at the floor and nodded, grudgingly.
    Carla waited till my eyes met hers. “On both sides of the bed,” she said.
    ***
    Anita buzzed my line for another incoming call. I picked up the phone.
    “Lucy? This is Matt. I just wanted to tell you what a great time I had last night.”
    “Thank you. I had a good time too.”
    It was just like me to make that gratuitous qualification, great demoted to good . He stammered for a second, just enough for me to know he hadn’t missed it. If the man had any sense, he’d forget about our date for Saturday and get out while he