The Beasts: A Winter's Tale

Lust

Continued

She was a slut. Jenean had no problem admitting this to herself. She wasn’t a slut every night. Being a slut was just an approach to life. Being a slut, Jenean thought, was to not be shy about what you wanted, to simply admit that you wanted a thing and then to go out and get it. Being a slut was when you felt like less than a wonderful woman, when you were feeling very much like a tired waitress, to realize a man was staring you down and stare right back at him. She knew that dark haired guy had wanted her, and while she was deciding if she liked him or not, if he was good looking or not, she was pretty sure she’d have him. She wasn’t quite sure where, but the more she talked to him, the more he made little jokes and she looked at his rumpled hair, the more she decided that she would definitely have sex with him.

It had happened rough and wild and desperate in the backseat of her car. She squeezed her thighs around him as he fucked her and she loved how a man, no matter how dignified he looked, gave up all his dignity in fucking. He had seemed very dignified. Not a business man, too rumbled, probably a college professor. He had been very together, But now he needed it the way she did. He needed to be in her as much as she needed him inside, and he had been so large and thrust so hard he’d bruised her.

Having sex in the backseat of her car in an I Hop parking lot didn’t bother her. She’d fucked and been fucked in far stranger places. Once, in Chicago, she had let her then boyfriend fuck her on the hood of a car, and she didn’t feel like less of a person. She felt a little more free than girls she knew, not stuck on her reputation.

She brought him home. Now, that was a little stranger. Not that she didn’t have sex in her home, but often she felt no need for a man after she’d finished with him. This one she had wanted to come home. Even though the sex had been rough, there was something else to it that she couldn’t explain. She wanted to be with him again. She wanted him in her shower and she loved the love they had made.

But in the very grey morning, while Jenean Morrison lay looking over Kris, tracing the fine hair up and down his slender naked body, a naked body curled like a little child, his mouth open against the pillow, his eyes closed while he smiled gently, she was seized by a strange feeling.

Jenean always followed her feelings. She knew if you thought too much about them you’d be embarrassed, and she didn’t have time to be embarrassed. She climbed out of bed, thinking about putting on her housecoat, and then shrugged that idea off. She went through Kris’s trousers and pulled out his wallet. There was the credit card. There was the driver’s license. An Amazon card. A Wallington college ID. Aha, this would do.

She took the ID and placed the wallet back in Kris’s trousers, and then she slipped the ID into her bureau and placed it under the Bible her father had given her when he had found Jesus, which she had never read and told herself she never planned to.

“Well, you’ve got to tell him,” she told herself as she stood outside of I-Hop, hugging her shoulders and smoking a cigarette. As she watched the cars drive down Southdale, she knew she wasn’t out here because she needed to smoke so badly. She needed to think.

“That’s the whole reason you took it. You’ve got to give it to him.”

Jenean took one last drag, and then tossed her cigarette out into the parking lot.

“Well, fuck it,” she said.

She took out her phone quickly and dialed the number on the card.

The phone rang for longer than she thought it should and she was about to hang up when a dense, sleepy voice said, “Hello?”

“Uh, hello… Ahhh... Is this Kris Strauss?”

“This is.”

Now she felt stupid.

“You wouldn’t know me. Not my voice. I mean. We met the other night. On Christmas. You stayed the night.”

“Oh,” Kris said.

Before she could read what that O meant or make him think she was crazy, she said, “Your ID fell out of your wallet, and I thought you should have it back. It says….” She pretended to squint over it, “Willmington College.”

“Oh, shit.”

“Uh… you do want it?”

“Yeah. Yes, Yes I do.”

Some men were so afraid of sex they ran away as soon as the condom came off. She’d wondered if he might be like that, not even care about the ID, hang up and block her number.

“I get off in about an hour. You could come tonight, or you could come tomorrow. Or,” she stated again, “you could come tonight.”

“I’ll come in about an hour and a half.”

“Do you remember where I live?”

“Yes,” Kris said, “I do.

“I really like having sex with you,” Joyce said.

Peter laughed out loud.

“No, I do,” Joyce said. “You’re… very good at this.”

“I feel like I should roll my hand and say, ‘Thank you m’lady’ in a British accent.”

Now Joyce laughed and she said, “I just… I’m a forthright person.”

“You sure in the fuck are.”

Peter turned over in bed and said, “You wanna cigarette or what?”

“I do,” Joyce said,

“I don’t smoke in front of other people, but I feel like…”

He stopped, shrugging, “I just feel like we know each other. Does that make sense?”

As he passed her a cigarette Joyce said, “Yes. Considering that we keep on getting into bed.”

“Say,” Peter said as he leaned forward and lit her cigarette, “Do you want to go on a date? Cause I feel like we’re seeing each other, and the whole third date sex thing is out of the way.”

“Do you know,” Joyce said, “if we do that, then we will actually reverse the order.”

Peter smiled stupidly and pushed his hair out of his eyes.

“I’m just not going to say anything right now.”

“Any why is that?”

“Because I’m turning into one of those guys who says the wrong thing. Starts talking about you meeting the kids and us going on vacations and… all that.”

Peter waved it off as he flicked his cigarette in the ashtray he’d put in the bed between them.

“Well, then let’s just forget you said anything about that.”

“I’m serious,” Peter said. “Let’s forget what I said and just enjoy each other. Mind if I get morose for a moment?”

“I feel like you’re ose enough.”

Peter frowned at her.

“That was a terrible joke.”

“What? Oh… more… ose. Wow, that was bad.”

“Don’t I know it? And sorry I interrupted you with an awful joke.”

“It’s just good to meet someone,” Peter said.

“You get divorced and suddenly you’re either undesirable or you’re thinking the next woman you meet has to be the mother of your children. But just… fuck all that… to meet someone. To meet you. Whatever the fuck this is, I like it.

“And now,” Peter said.

“And now what?”

“And now what are the thoughts in your head?” Peter said in his best German accent. “What are you trying not to say, trying to keep out of your mind?”

“That is… You’re an interesting man, Peter Keller.”

“I’m an alright guy,” Peter amended.

“No,” Joyce said. “No man ever laid next to me and asked me what was on my mind?”

“Well, you’ve been dating a bunch of assholes, then.” and Peter added, “M’lady.”

“I could tell you my bills are on my mind, and they are. I could tell you I wonder if I look fatter lying on my back, and that’s true too. There’s a lot of shit on my mind, but the reporter in me is curious.”

“About?”

“You?”

Peter grinned at her childishly and said, “I’m on your mind?”

“Well, Pamela Strauss is on my mind.”

“Oh,” Peter almost frowned. “I haven’t thought about her in years.”

“Or at least in a night.” Joyce turned over. “Marabeth got her journal.”

“Yes,” Peter said, his tone changing a little, though Joyce couldn’t quite say how.

“Aren’t you curious about it?”

“Not especially.”

And then Joyce said, “Marabeth had me read it. Well, some of it.”

“She did?”

Peter was saying small phrases, but he was changing with each phrase and Joyce wondered if she was afraid, but realized she wasn’t. She trusted him.

“She thinks she’s a werewolf,” Joyce said quickly. “She… I thought I shouldn’t say anything. Thought maybe I shouldn’t bring it up to you, but I’ve been thinking about that since you asked me to come walking with you. Since, really since I’ve met you.”

“Marabeth is your friend.”

“She’s my best friend.”

“Right,” Peter said, turning to lie on his back. “You wouldn’t just… tell your best friend’s crazy business. Not even to her cousin you’d just started sleeping with. Especially,” Peter amended, “not to her cousin you just started sleeping with. Not for the hell of it. Not unless you thought there was a possibility that it was true.”

Peter turned slowly to her, his blue eyes were tilted. He was looking, suddenly, wolfish, “not unless you were looking for confirmation.”

“Well,” Joyce said, “when you put it that way… I wish you’d stop looking at me that way.”

“Joyce,” Peter sighed, lying on his back again, “I’ve never gone to bed with a woman who asked me if I was a werewolf. This is kind of a first time discussion.”

“I get it,” Joyce said, “and I feel nuts discussing it, as nuts as I felt terrified a moment before and—”

“And I’ve never had to think about seriously answering,” Peter continued.

“Well, why would you? I mean—”

“And I hate liars, and I hate lying, so I’ll just tell you straight up, yes. Yes, I am.”

Joyce dropped the bed sheet before her breasts.

“What the fuck?”