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SHOULDERS HUNCHED AGAINST the bitter winds, Hunter approached the parked minivan. He climbed into the passenger seat and instantly gathered Kendra into his arms. “Don’t look,” he said. “She might see you.” Hiding her face with the back of his head, he pressed his lips over hers.
Wearing a leather coat, Juliana Santana appeared outside the bookstore on Wabash Avenue, gathered her bearings, and strolled in their direction. The tendrils of her long hair whipped around as she passed the minivan. Had she looked past the foggy windows, she would have seen a pair of lovers drowning in a sea of passion.
Looks deceived. The adulterous wife and her boy toy weren’t paramours in the classic sense. Even though the kiss lasted like an overlong page from a romance novel, infatuation had nothing to do with their clinch.
Kendra struggled inside the clutch, but he pressed his advantage and dug insistent fingers into her sides. Their blended breaths raced at breakneck speed. His mouth stuck to hers like freezer burn. His eyes were more inquisitive than his tongue. Theirs was a fierce competition between equals, to see who would outlast the other. The prize was as fleeting as a wink or a sigh, but the means and methods of winning were as tricky and devious as a high stakes poker game. She tore her lips away and swore, but he placed a silencing finger across her mouth. “I won’t be long,” he said, and scrambled out of the car.
She watched his performance in the rearview mirror. The dance he danced was a mastery of showmanship as he crowded Santana’s heels. The way he stalked women was as dirty as the way he kissed them.
Kendra lost sight of Hunter in the thick of the holiday throng. It was Christmas Eve Day, and the sidewalks overflowed with last-minute shoppers. Five minutes went by. Ten. Snow swirled like detergent and coated the windshield. She flipped on the wipers. Hunter emerged from a professional building two doors down and ambled back to the minivan. The vehicle was registered to him, but as before, he settled into the passenger seat. Using the sleeve of his jacket, he swiped off condensation from the side window. “She’s seeing a psychiatrist.”
“Freudian or Jungian?”
“There’s a difference?”
“For Freud, sexual orgasm is destructive to the human psyche. Whereas Jung celebrates it.”
“Freudian.” Using the edge of a finger, he followed the bouffant wave of her black hair. “I like.”
“The wig?”
“The woman.” Hunter released her seatbelt and discovered heat beneath her ski jacket and cable-knit sweater. He urged her to lower her head into his lap. When she nuzzled lips past his unzipped fly, he flew solo and moaned with pleasure.
The engine hummed. The windshield wipers scraped. A fake Santa Claus rang his bell with the pumping action of an oil derrick. Hunter repeated her name like a mantra. When she sat up, he stretched with reptilian satisfaction. They didn’t look at each other. They didn’t clasp hands. They didn’t speak. They didn’t have to. The connection between them was understood, and as defiled as it gets.
“Should I pay you?” he asked.
“I’m not a prostitute.”
A sunray peaked out from behind a cloud and licked a golden strand of hair falling over his brow. A second later, the luminosity shut off like a switch. His complexion reverted to a bluish haze of disquiet.
She asked, “What about you? Are you a prostitute? A hustler?”
He fidgeted with the zipper of his jacket. The ratcheting sounded vaguely erotic. Everything about Hunter Steele seemed vaguely erotic, craven, and illicit. He admitted, “You could call it that.”
“Women find you ... appealing?” she concluded. “Easy to be with?”
“Older women especially.”
“By older women, you mean ... what ... thirty?”
“Closer to forty or fifty. When the wrinkles start to show. When their husbands take them for granted. When men stop admiring them from across a crowded room. When they avoid looking at themselves in mirrors.” His words lacked emotion. He didn’t care about those women. Only himself. Yet another character flaw he and Joel shared.
“What you give them ...” She hesitated asking the question. She didn’t want to know the answer. She asked anyway. “Is it different from what you give me?”
“No different.”
“At least you’re honest.”
He favored her with a fleeting look of respect. It was scary how she understood him, and more importantly, how he understood her. “Like you, they’re grateful for the ...” He searched for the right word and settled on, “Fragility. That’s it. They’re grateful for the fragility of the moment. It’s like breaking a pane of glass. They can reach through the shards and never get scarred.”
“Is that what’s going on between us? Something fragile?”
“That’s what I am. Fragile.”
A seagull swooped over the city towers. On the lookout for refuse, she glided in circles and squawked a singled-voiced chorus.
“What about younger women?” Kendra asked.
“Except for you, I have no use for them.”
“And girls? Do you lead them astray as well?”
Outrage covered his face. “What do you think I am?”
“I wish I knew. I wish I understood. Why I feel the way I do. As if I’ve known you forever. As if you know everything about me without me having to tell you. As if you can read my thoughts.”
He was quiet before uttering, “I don’t know what you want me to say.”
“I want to be different from the other women.”
“You are.”
“But you just said ...”
“I can’t explain it. You are.”
A screech and a whoop, a flutter of pale white feathers, and a nosedive. The seagull purchased her quarry: a tossed French fry. She took off, but moments later, released the prize from her beak and let it drop to the street. It seemed too great an effort for something so transient.
“What about men?” she asked.
He flinched before saying, “What about them?”
“Do you swing both ways?”
His face paled. His jaw clenched. He didn’t look at her. Instead, he blinked and stared ahead. “I’ve never been with a man, except ...”
“Except they have been with you.” The pain she saw in his colorless eyes transfixed her. “Someone you knew?”
“Once. A long time ago. He was ... much older.” His fists opened and closed. He was fighting an illusionary fight. “Why all these fucking questions?”
“You’re a dangerous man to be with, Hunter Steele.”
“But here you are.” His eyes slid over to hers. She didn’t look away.
“You never said what you do when you’re not with me.”
When he spoke, it wasn’t to Kendra but to her misshapen reflection in the windshield. “Classes. I take classes. At Illinois. Audit them, but not for credit. I tried ... once ... several times ... for a degree. Something ... life ... always got in the way. Now I just audit. And pretend I’m working toward a doctorate. Probably earned three degrees by now, but nothing engraved on a certificate.”
“Don’t the professors mind?”
“They’re used to me. They call on me sometimes. I usually have the answers. Or better questions.”
“How do you live?”
“I’ll take you home now if you like.” Hunter had grown uncomfortable with the track of their conversation. Despite putting himself on public display in a way most men wouldn’t dare attempt, he was a very private person. Whenever Kendra got too close, he shut off.
“I want to stay,” she said. They sat side by side, not touching each other for a very long time, until she couldn’t stand it any longer and reached over. Clutching the hair at the back of his head, she attacked him with a violent kiss. Hunter kissed her back just as violently. When their burning kisses ended, they parted and stared out the windshield, strangers once more.
Eventually Mrs. Santana emerged from the building, pressed a cell phone to her ear, and hailed a taxi parked on the other side of the elevated tracks. The yellow cab made a U-turn and picked her up. Kendra put the minivan into gear.
The cab headed toward Jackson Boulevard, turned down LaSalle Street, and pulled in front of a familiar office building. Joel was waiting out front. He climbed into the back seat and delivered a friendly kiss to the other passenger before the taxi lurched forward.
Hunter asked, “Does your husband suspect?”
“That I’m spying on him?”
“That you’re seeing another man.”
“You’d have to ask him.”
Fifteen minutes later, the taxi cruised in front of a hotel. Joel slipped the cabbie a twenty-dollar bill and held the door open for Mrs. Santana. She stepped out, her shapely legs leading the way.
“Do you think she suspects?” Hunter asked.
“That we’re watching her?” Kendra shrugged. “Women always think someone is noticing them. Admiring them.”
“Even if no one is?”
She gave him a sidelong glance. “Exhibitionism comes in many forms.”
He had the presence of mind to blush.
Joel canvassed the street but paid little attention to the unfamiliar minivan. Tossing a domineering arm around the widow—the same kind of domineering arm he often tossed around Kendra—he guided his lover inside.
Hunter exchanged a glance with Kendra. “We can go now.”
She gestured toward the lobby entrance. “Make sure first.”
He got out of the car and entered the hotel.
Kendra let several minutes pass before stepping outside and lighting up. The wind swept through the clipped edges of her wig and flounced them like the skirt of a ball gown. She was numb to the biting cold. Nothing bothered her these days. Nothing except her own nagging thoughts.
Guests arrived and departed. Luggage was carried off or loaded into car trunks. Bellhops hustled for dollar bills. Hunter sneaked up from behind her and crooked an arm around her neck, tugging her against him the same way Joel had taken possession of Juliana Santana. He buried his face into her swirling hair and said, “I’ll drive.”
“We might miss them.”
“They’ll be awhile. They ordered room service.”
“How do you know?”
“I delivered it. Gave the porter a twenty spot. She’s shorter than you and not as pretty. She stiffed me on the tip. He didn’t like me much.”
“The porter?”
“Your husband.” He brandished his cell phone. “He’s going to give us a heads-up when they check out.”
“My husband?”
“The porter.”
