Femme Fatale and other stories

tell him. And, also, I think, because she liked it, enjoyed ol’ Andy, who brought a lot more to the enterprise than Bruce ever could. I’m not slagging my friend, but I lived with the guy for four years. I know the hand he was dealt, physiologically.
    Behind my closed eyes, I thought about that week two years ago, how she had come to my room when she knew Bruce was at work, and locked the door behind her, and, without any preamble, just got down on her knees, and—
    “Are you stranded?”
    I sat up with a start, feeling as if I had been caught at something, but luckily I wasn’t too disarranged down there. There was a woman standing over me, older, somewhere between thirty and forty, in one of those no-nonsense suits and smoothed-back hairdos, toting a small rolling suitcase. From my low vantage point, I couldn’t help noticing she had nice legs, at least from ankle to knee. But the overall effect was prim, preternaturally old-ladyish.
    “Yeah. They overbooked my flight, and I can’t get another one until morning, but home’s too far.”
    “No one should have to sleep on a bench. A single night could throw your back out of alignment for life. Do you need money? You probably could get a room in one of the airport motels for as little as fifty dollars. The Sleep Inn is cheap.”
    She fished a wallet out of her bag, and while I’m not strong on these kinds of details, it looked like an expensive purse to me, and the billfold was thick with cash. Most of the time, I don’t angst over money—I’m just twenty-three, getting started in the world, I’ll make my bundle soon enough—but it was hard, looking at all those bills and thinking about the gap between us. Why shouldn’t I take fifty dollars? She clearly wouldn’t feel it.
    But for some reason I couldn’t. “Naw. Because I’d never repay you. I mean, I could, I’ve got a job. But I know myself. I’ll lose your address or something, never get it back to you.”
    She smiled, which transformed her features. Definitely between thirty and forty, but closer to the thirty end now that I studied her. Her eyes were gray, her mouth big and curvy, fuller on top than on the bottom, so her teeth poked out just a little. I go for that overbite thing. And the suit was a kind of camouflage, I realized, in a good way. Most women dress to hide their flaws, but a few use clothes to cover up their virtues. She was trying to hide her best qualities, but I could see the swells beneath her outfit—both on top and in the back, where her ass rose up almost in defiance of the tailored jacket and straight skirt. You can’t keep a good ass down.
    “Don’t be so gallant,” she said. “I’m not offering a loan. I’m doing a good deed. I like to do good deeds.”
    “It just doesn’t seem right.” I don’t know why I was so firm on this, but I think it was because she was basically sweet. I couldn’t help thinking we’d meet again, and I wouldn’t want to be remembered as the guy who took fifty dollars from her.
    “Well …” That smile again, bigger this time. “We have a stand-off.”
    “Guess so. But you better get down to that taxi stand if you want to get home tonight. The line’s twenty deep.” We glanced out the windows, down to the level below, which was just chaos. Up here, however, it was quiet and private, the man with the vacuum cleaner having finally moved on, the counters all closed.
    “I’m lucky. I have my own car.”
    “I think the lucky person is the man who’s waiting at home for you.”
    “Oh.” She was flustered, which just made her sexier. “There’s no one—I mean—well, I’m single.”
    “That’s hard to believe.” The automatic bullshit thing to say, yet I was sincere. How could someone like that ticket-clerk crone have a ring on her finger, while this woman was running around loose?
    “It’s a chicken-or-egg problem.”
    “Huh?”
    “Am I single because I’m a workaholic, or am I a workaholic because I’m single?”
    “Oh, that’s easy. It’s the first one. No contest.”
    Her faced seemed to light up and I swear I saw her eyes go filmy, as if she were about to cry. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me.”
    “You need to hang out with better people, then.”
    “Look—” She put her hand on mine, and it was cool and soft, the kind of hand that gets slathered in cream on a regular basis, the hand of a woman who’s taking care of every part of herself. I knew she’d be waxed to a fine