There was no steak.
The house had stood empty for a while, and there was no fresh food at all. But there was spaghetti and a jar of sauce and canned green beans. Emma had even produced a bottle of Chianti. They sat at the kitchen table, and Francis descended upon the meal like a starving castaway.
Emma refilled her wineglass. “Not really a wine girl, but I guess it goes better with pasta than Wild Turkey.”
“I like wine,” Francis said. “Seems more…” He groped for a word.
“Stuck up?” Emma suggested.
Francis laughed. “I was going to say civilized. I’ve been reading about it.”
“You’re a fancy lad, aren’t you, Frankie?”
“Francis. But in this shirt, yes, I feel quite fancy.” He refilled his glass too.
They ate. They drank.
Finally, she pushed her plate away and said, “I’m pulling out in the morning. I’ve already packed the trunk of the Pontiac. I can drop you at a train station or bus stop or whatever. Or if you wanted, you could come with me, but if you did that, I’d want to know why. Because if you thought there was some way you’d get something out of it, you’d probably be wrong.”
“I’m not trying to get anything from you,” Francis said.
“Then why?”
A half shrug as he sipped wine. “What I said before was true. Yes, I can go to the police and explain everything, and it would probably work out. But I’d rather you were there to tell them I had no idea what was going to happen when I found that suitcase and contacted you.”
“But there’s something else too.” The way she said it wasn’t a question.
Yes. There was something else too, and Francis tried to think of a way to explain it, knew that he’d be explaining to himself as much as to her.
Francis picked up the lighthouse saltshaker, turned it over in his hands. Along the bottom it read ST. AUGUSTINE, FLORIDA. He recalled the posters from Dwayne’s bedroom. “Did Dwayne like to travel?”
Emma shook her head. “My sister. Dwayne just went along with it. Dwayne preferred just hanging around the house, tinkering with an engine or watching baseball on TV. He was an asshole, but he did indulge my sister’s love of travel. I guess I at least need to give him credit for that.”
Francis took the magazine page from his back pocket, unfolded it, and set it on the table between them. Emma looked at it, then looked at him.
“I subscribe to Adventure Travel,” Francis said. “Every month I look at pictures of other people having some amazing good time, an African safari or whatever. I thought white-water rafting would be fun. I’ve been saving up to go.”
Emma’s face remained blank. Maybe Francis was boring her. He pressed on anyway.
“Listen to this one part of the article.” Francis flipped the page over and read, “Your Open Spaces Trek guide will take every precaution to make your wild river ride as safe and as comfortable as possible.”
Emma emptied the rest of the Chianti into her glass. “So?”
“I don’t think I really understood what the word adventure meant,” Francis said. “If it’s so safe and comfortable and prepackaged, does that even count? I’m not saying it wouldn’t be fun; I’m just saying that maybe it wasn’t ever offering what I thought I would be getting.”
Emma set her wineglass on the table without drinking, frowned. “And if you come with me, then what? That’s a real adventure?”
Francis was already shaking his head before she’d finished asking the question. “No. I’m not explaining myself right. I don’t think I ever really wanted an adventure at all. I certainly don’t want people trying to kill me. But I think I was trying to make my life mean something, or that something I did mattered. When those guys grabbed you and I followed in the taxi, I mean, look, I don’t know. I’m not sure what I’m really trying to say. If I’d thought about it for another second, I probably would have come to my senses, but I didn’t. I went after you, and now if something happened, and you got killed, then it would be like I never saved you at all.” Francis blew out a heavy sigh. “I guess I just don’t want to see the only good deed I’ve ever done get fucked up because I wasn’t there to help.”
She looked at him for a long moment. Francis himself hadn’t even known exactly what he was going to say until he started saying it. He was even less sure about how Emma would take it.
She picked up her wineglass, titled it back, and drained it in three long swallows. She stood, circled the table to Francis’s side, and pushed the little kitchen table out of the way.
Francis opened his mouth to say something.
She put two fingers on his lips. “Don’t.”
Right.
She swung one leg over, straddling him, and lowered herself into his lap. Francis thought his heart might beat straight out of his chest, but he made himself breathe steadily and let her do just exactly as she pleased. He didn’t touch. He assumed nothing. He let her take the lead and trusted it would be good.
Emma placed a hand on each side of his face and lowered her lips to his. At first, she just mashed hard, holding him like that as if making some bold statement that she’d decided to do this and it was happening. Then she pulled away slightly, his bottom lip between her teeth. She bit, not hard, just enough to send a sharp thrill through his entire body.
Then she began kissing in earnest, lips parting, tongue sliding into his mouth, her fingers going up into his hair. He kissed back, head spinning. His arms went around her and pulled her tight against him. He went stiff beneath her, and she began to grind.
They went on like that for a bit, Francis hoping she’d start whatever was supposed to happen next because he was too timid.
She pulled open his shirt, the snaps giving away with ease, and rubbed her hand across his chest. His hands slid down to her backside, gripping and pulling her down against him. A small moan from her, barely above a whisper, her head going back, eyes closed. Francis kissed a trail from her chin down her throat.
Emma stood abruptly. “Come on.”
She took his hand and led him down the hall to the bedroom.
Frantically, they pulled at each other’s clothing. Her fingers went to his zipper. He pulled her shirt up over her head, then reached around for the bra clasp, was pleasantly surprised to unclasp it on the first try. One of her slim hands went to the back of his head, grabbed a fistful of hair, and brought him down to a pert breast. He licked the nipple, then sucked it hard enough to make her gasp.
They kicked off their shoes and shucked their pants.
She pushed Francis back on the bed, then took him into her mouth, head bobbing until he was fully hard. Then she climbed on top, lowered herself slowly until he was completely inside, a ragged grunt coming out of her.
Francis thought he might pass out.
He noticed the tattoo of a stylized sun around her navel, heat waves blazing in all directions. He wondered what other tattoos she had, hoped he would find them all.
She rocked back and forth on top of him, throwing her head back, the grunts getting more and more urgent. He filled his hands with her behind, pulling her along with the rhythm she’d set. He didn’t think he could last too much longer.
“Do you have … I mean, do you take a pill or…”
“No,” she said. “You’ll have to pull out, but … not yet. Not … yet.”
She rode him wildly now, the bed threatening to rattle apart. Francis bit the inside of his own lip, hoping to distract himself. Her whole body shuddered, and she groaned and went stiff. She climbed off him, grabbed his length and stroked hard three times, and he cut loose.
Emma scooted up to curl next to him, panting, a lazy hand on his chest. Francis felt like his heart was going to break right through his chest. His whole body hummed, remembering the experience.
“I didn’t mean to go so fast,” she said. “It’s been a while. I think I was overdue.”
Francis hadn’t realized until now how perfunctory sex with Enid had become. He’d forgotten what it could be like when it was all new and exciting. “That was way better than white-water rafting.”
She laughed.
They lay tangled together awhile, not talking, just enjoying each other’s warmth. Then Emma reached under the covers and worked Francis ready again. This time they went slowly, exploring, a less urgent but more earnest effort. He found a tattoo of a dolphin on her ankle.
Another tattoo down at the bottom of her tailbone. A hovering Tinker Bell.
At last they finished, spent and satisfied, and dozed in the dark.
Sometime later, in a quiet voice, she said, “I did that because I wanted to. That’s the only reason. Not because I felt I owed you or that I could get you to do something or anything like that. This was what it was, and it’s not connected to anything else.”
“Okay,” Francis said.
“There’s a train station about an hour from here,” she said. “When we leave in the morning, I’m going to drop you there. You can go wherever you need to, but I’m heading on to California. Without you.”
Francis tried to object, but she hurried on with what she was saying, wanting to get it all out before Francis could derail her.
“I haven’t told you everything. You know that,” she said. “But what I’ve got to do is something very personal. It’s on me. Nobody else. Earlier, you said you didn’t want your good deed messed up. I get that. And it’s why you can’t come. This is my good deed. Keeping you out of the mess I’m about to get myself into. And if I seem like the kind of person that’s not going to let anyone change her mind once she’s made her decision, then you’re right. So really, anything you think you’re going to say, just don’t, because I’m not going to change my mind. I like you, Francis. Maybe another place and another time. But this isn’t another place or time.”
And then she turned over, her back to him, and scooted all the way to her side of the bed, and that was the end of the conversation.